plainguy

All my builds are based around positional Defense cap. The last build is a most current build that I would probably use and just swap out DP for AR. The rest of these builds are for guidance. But they pretty much have the same theme. These are all toons I actually play and solo 4/8 settings with.

The sonic is a old build and probably needs to be updated to DP build settings. Haven't played him in a few weeks and my VM was corrupted so I had to revert to old snap shot and lost my current builds.

Traps AR Defender for idea purposes..

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=259994

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=187775

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=260205

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=260576

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=254517

Post a build.. Express a concept of what your trying to achieve..

Do you understand what defenses are ?

http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html

Primaries are pretty much the same in a sense.

Go range defense cap, take hover and skip Trip mine and Time bomb. Keep Gun drone for the buff it offers when it is out.

The retrofitting thread is good because it has tons of builds and you just download them and switch AR with Electric and fix what is missing.
Personally if you have or can get Cardiac Incarnate to T4 I would just simply go my build posted in the ar retro thread. I have ZERO complaints about it and it gave life to my old dusty AR Device. It really is that cool and fun.

Level shift makes a difference. Instead of everything conning purple it will just be the big bosses and you will have reds and orange.

The first part of the missions is clearing out groups of mobs. outside and inside the courtyard. Are you having issues with this ? On this part since it is so fast paced I just target the next group as soon as I can. So my pets are pretty much running from this group to the next group to get into range to attack.

Since a majority of your pets are melee your gonna have to make a choice when to move your pets out of the group as the dead do damage when they explode again.

The second part is the crates and cylinders. Not much here for you to do. You need personal high defenses for this stage. Darkest night on the crate or cylinder, howling twilight, Just summon the last pet. Then summon the others if the last one is not up. Again this stage is pretty much designed where you don't have the time or luxury to resummon and buff pets. You need to be personally self reliant.

The final part is fighting the AV and dealing with the adds that come along from the crate drops. First off the AV does aoe damage. Even with the warning you will be hard pressed to get the pets away fast enough. I don't think you have enough to floor the AV to hit so your pets are going to get crushed in melee range with the AV. On top any aggro your pets generate to the adds. So you need something to pull aggro off your pets from the adds.

End result the common sense issue is melee pets are not strong enough to deal with all the purple con aoe mobs. Your defenses for your pets are not strong enough.

You probably need to respec into something more tankermind and maybe pick up fireball or something to get the mobs attention off your pets.

As a range pet user I am afford a bit more luxury of having the pets out of melee range during the fights. But trust me I notice the difference if my pets get caught in melee range when the big bots explode after falling.

Inside during the crate phase since I am defense capped I can eat a purple and with super speed with stealth proc zip drop a poison trap, FFG, Last pet and then 2nd upgrade. You would need something like Twilight grasp, Darkest Night to give you some advantage. I expect my pet to die. I will just summon pets as I go along and use the 2nd upgrade if I can. But I am more relying on my defenses and staying alive then needing my pets in this phase.

During the AV fight well again it falls back to similar instances with the first part of the mission. Again the issue is the AV causes more aoe damage. This is a tough point to contend with as there is not really much you can do. If your pets have some sort of range attacks then I would keep them at range and spamming all pets stay and attack forcing them to maybe fire off their range attacks.

Again this is the issue of melee pets and relying on a -To Hit Debuff during an AV fight. Pets are not strong enough and debuff can be resisted and probably is.

What did you do for the Grenades and Acid ? Split up.. Go just for Grenades ?

Crab vs MM..

I will say go Crab because of the MM pet AI. MM pet AI is not horrendous but at times it can be tedious. I think having the pets go nuts on you solo adds insult to injury sometimes. Whereas with the Crab its you and only you.

I sort of read your mixed in IOs and SOs, so I am guess funding is an issue atm. So I would says level your crab and the first thing you should do each day is make sure you have done your TIP missions. Get a team rolling for TIP missions and bang them out.

As was mentioned I would go for the +3 to Def IO from steadfast and work to to get your Range Def capped and go for hover bot style for now. Until you can afford the IOs to slot up the rest.

From the incarnates you will need Cardiac because of endurance issues but once I slotted that I was okay.

My build is a full positional defense cap build which is pretty cool for me with no pets. I just could not fit them in and get the defense caps I wanted. Trust me if I could figure out how to get defense capped and have the pets I would have have.

I pretty much went aoe spec and when stamina and health went inherit I basically ended up with 3 new 1 slotted powers I added to the build. So nothing changed I just ended up with 3 new powers build wise.

On the flip side, long story short. Dark will help you get capped faster to many defenses and you have a good heal to keep pets and yourself alive IF you can keep your pets in one place. End result Dark and Traps for Masterminds are pretty much the 2 big sets.

I think this is a good thread to get you rolling with a bunch of ideas for an old set.

Long story short I do think the OP Nethergoat had the idea down right. It just took me a bit to see it. My last post is a current build and it really, really has made this toon really fun again and honestly a power house.

ar/dev retrofitting project

I have this build I am working on.. Its positional defense capped.

Both Kuji-In powers are perma. Without Hasten some of the powers do jump up about 3 seconds more. But you could swap out hasten for nimble slash if you want.

Doing DPS might be more important then Defense Cap, but I really only see Stalkers when they are the team lead or League leader. Granted there does come a time where you just have enough and you don't care what you get after that, but I do feel sometimes you need to be able to tote something when trying to get a team. I just don't feel just saying your a Stalker now a days is going to cut it.

Plus now you can at least do those 1-4/8 settings solo.

Not a bit deal, but just pointing out I noticed you drop from 2/1 to 2/0.

ION is pretty nice as well.

I never noticed the caltrops. I need to take a look and see as I have reactive as well.

If they tighten up the Pet AI one day, it will make Robot Traps that much better. Like having speakers on 11.

Who knows with this stuff.

I just got my crab on yesterday to do these missions for the first time and out of the 8 or 9 Lam / BAF missions I did I ended up picking up 3 rares in a row on Lam and then on the 4th mission with the same team I ended up with a common. I just don't get it. I understand the random part but getting 3 rares in a row itself is extremely rare, isn't it ? And then to get a common drop on the 4th run ? It was the same exact as the other 3 times, except probably much faster since we were in the groove and had a feel for the team by now.

We had these shard drops which were incorporated into every TF and then the option of picking up a notice of the well instead of merits. I never heard anyone complain about door sitting players and if there really was a dead beat player he was bounced before the end, so lesson learned on his or her part.

I just do not get all this policing all of a sudden. I get they needed to change the tokens for fear of hording. Heck make each incarnate a different token and limit the amount that can be changed over each day if necessary.

But I find it retarded and yes even slightly unfair that I join a team and in 8 missions get 3 rares and some player ran 15 or 20 missions and is trying to get his first or had to using Empyrean tokens to get his first and now trying to get a 2nd rare.

I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to sound like a braggart getting 3 rares in a row.

Didn't these guys ever hear of K.I.S.S.

Don't know if this is just robot related.

Robot Pets during Lam Incarnate will aggro from aerial aoe attacks and refuse to respond to passive and follow me commands. Only after the pets have charged into fight the mobs will they then come back. This is during the Marauder battle phase. Sadly they either end up half or more being destroyed and the rest bring aggro back. Basically timing the summoning of the bots can be an issue. I have had bots charge that were hit during the summoning.

Layman observation.

I am getting better drops and rares once I got the double level shift and everything cons red and orange to me on my robot traps.

I picked up 8 of those EMP merits and traded it in for a rare and picked up a level shift and then picked a rare and paid 30 million to unlock Destiny ( just tired waiting to get a Lam going ). Had tons of material to make and slot up to another level shift. And then picked up another 2 rares after that.

So luck or just better dps numbers, who knows. All I know is my other Non mastermind toons had the 2 level shifts much SOONER then my it took my Mastermind. And Lam really does seem much faster then BAF is. I have been doing it without killing the Turrets or trying to close all the portals and we have been successful just dealing with the AV. So your more limited to the timer before Marauder comes then anything else. After that its use the acid and pile on the AV and forget everything else.

After participating in the Retrofitting AR Device thread a while back that Nethergoat started. I went through several respecs until I ended up with my final build which is posted there. With all my Incarnates slotted it really has given me new life to my AR Device toon. I had to spec for Cardiac for the endurance, where many are probably slotted for Musculature. So I am still on the bottom end persay on the DPS pool compared to other blasters.

But what Gun Drone did was help me out with getting Range defense cap which really, really helped out tons. Further because I have hover in addition which also increases my defenses even further when I turn it on and now I have a weapon that can fly around with me.

The one cool thing is if you have enough recharge you can get up 2 gun drones. With my current build I can have up 2 gun drones for 20 or 30 seconds. Having a Speed Boost is really cool.

I would go over to the retro AR Device thread and look around. It might help you get some ideas to get this working a bit better for you.

I do find that Traps works much better then Device with DP because of DP inherit short range and Traps works much better with Trip mine since it has more tools that allow you to place a trip mine at a mobs feet without being harassed ( that being poison trap with lockdown proc and being fully positional defense cap of course ).

Overall as was stated Device is a old set and personally I have just given up on trying to complaining why Device was never updated. As time goes by I end up accepting this game for what it is and what it is not. It is 7 years old with a limited game engine. On top they have imposed build constraints when it comes to old sets. It seems to make it much easier for them to just make a new set then try to rework an old set. This keeps new and old players happy and preserves the "cottage rule". So if your looking to do what fire/fire does persay then you need to play a fire/fire toon and not try to have those same results with a DP Device as an example ( not that your saying that, just using it as an example ). I think that is one of the problems with these ATs. Everyone wants to have their set in the same AT do what the other person is doing and that is just not going to happen. As much as I agree it sucks, there is really not much we can do about it.

It would be nice if all blasters did the same damage and the only difference was the cosmetics. Or play around with the numbers to make attacks equivalent. EG quicker recharge less dps, more recharge more dps. End result a energy type blasters would be just that. You just pick what your want your effect to be. So you want that cosmic energy effect I want fire. But both are nukes are exactly the same. Just your does energy and looks like energy and my looks like fire and does fire damage.

So now that DP or AR toon can say I want a plasma gun or an energy rifle. So instead of doing that Lethal damage that is so much resisted he can do something that is less resisted like other toons of the same AT. But as you can see they were smart and allowed for a mechanism in DP to do exactly that. They seen the inherit issues with AR and fixed those with DP. They did the same with Device and Traps.

It is gonna take a bit more work with your DP Device to make it acceptable but it is possible with the assistance of Incarnates. Again without a doubt today my AR Device (which is comparable and in some situations less potent then DP because DP has the swap ammo ) can truly handle some (3/4)/8 settings and not go nuts trying to stay alive. Which was clearly an issue in the past for me. I'm not a dps king but I am sure if someone took the time to look at my toon in a team they would be impressed and agree he is a participating member of the team instead of lying on his back after every alpha strike. Again it took Incarnates though to help me out.

Go Traps

Or if your into it go dark and try a thematic look that you all can agree on.

I never said spam them. But sending a message once in a while when you see an issue is not wrong either.. They do have a report a bug button..

I'm pretty sure more people come here with an issue then lodge a complaint via the support option.

All I am saying is when you log in the next time regardless of what toon your on. Take a few moments to post a bug regarding your mastermind issues. Further I would not make it one big here are the bug issues. I would make one report per bug so they can be categorized appropriately.

Masterminds have been out since may 20th, 2008. In just about 3 years beyond bodyguard mode and the common sense of one buff for all pets for upgrades nothing has changed with masterminds for the better at least.

Depending on which secondary you had made a difference in some AV fights. But the new incarnates are really showing the weaknesses in melee pets. So even if you were ninja traps, no amount of provoking is going to save your pets from an AV aoe attack. I know when nightstar does that torrent attack and my pets are close I can loose just about all of them along with my FFG.

So it is apparent much more now that melee pets have the short end of the stick. Again it is not like the didn't have it in the past, but now it is really sticking out. Before certain SF or TF you never really needed 8 players to complete. 4 or 5 well slotted players could do it or complete. But today with the new incarnate stuff that is simply not the truth and it is understandable why.

But with that the Devs showed a lacking of understanding or appreciation for mastermind participation. They also failed to see that other players would notice this as well. Players are not as stupid as they might think and they will pick the AT that they feel will best suit the completion of the TF.. Trying to convince someone otherwise that a mastermind might be better suited for a task, especially a melee based mastermind is not an option.

The only thing masterminds have going for them right now is Robot Traps. Anyone worth their salt knows a properly played and properly slotted mastermind can do just about anything other tanks or brutes can. So either a less informed players will think that every mastermind set is similar to Robot Traps or at a minimum know enough if they see a player broadcast "Alpha Incarnate slotted Tier 4 ( which gives a level boost ) Defense Cap Robot Traps mastermind LFT" that they have a very well rounded player and knowledgeable player available for invite.

I mean really regardless of AT I will invite someone who says they are incarnate slotted before I invite a player who says they are a Tank or a Brute, ETC. Because to me the incarnate player is showing me a bit more initiative and effort at attempting to improve his toon over someone who has yet to get their alpha unlocked.

So in the end masterminds in general regardless of set are lacking. Melee masterminds are lacking more so then others. But if you have been playing masterminds for several years you already knew that so its a moot point.

And honestly they will not ban or ignore you for posting too many bugs or I'm stuck or something is wrong reports. It is similar to when other forum posters said they will ban everyone doing a particular farm or take away their levels or tickets or whatever ingenious ideas for punishments they could think of. In the end they removed that AE farm many were using and nothing happen to those who used those farms to level.

End result the Devs have the data, they know who plays what and when. They know when you log in they know what IP your logging from. So it is up to them to fix these issues. I report an issue as requested through the means they offer. If they do not like how many reports I send in then fix the issues or ban me, I really don't care to be honest. I will move on to something else or back to something else, either way it does not matter to me.

Accept that Masterminds are the way they are and it will make it much easier for you to decide if you want to play them or not. But other then that you will NOT get buffed.

There are enough good working sets in the Mastermind Arch Type that you can pick from even if they are screwy regardless. Meaning you can pick the less screwy of the lot and still do some amazing things.

So don't pick a melee based mastermind and your will be okay. If your so inclined to pick a melee based mastermind at a minimum pick a secondary like traps that will at least help you out a bit to Tankermind.

But if none of that is good, then accept what you got. Understand it sucks.. Understand that the Devs will do nothing for you and be happy.

This is how I see this whole issue. Your trying to wrack your brains about 1 set from several sets in one AT that has issues. Every Arch Type has a crappy set or a set that is lacking. In 7 years have you ever, ever seen the Devs make any sweeping changes in a Arch Type set ?.. No they haven't.

Any big changes were made in the beginning. They normalized AOEs, Cones, ETC.. Pretty much when people complained why does this set have a AOE that effects 20 people and my AOE only hits 16..

This type of issue really is a moot point. Especially when you have threads saying that Ninja poison is good contradicting what others are saying here.

Again they have yet to fix the Pet AI issues which is a game wide issue. But you think that some Dev is gonna come here and say "wow we need to help those poor poison set players out." it's not gonna happen.

I think you guys are fighting and debating each other for no reason whatsoever. At the end you shouldn't get mad at each other, you should be mad at the Devs for putting you in a position to even debate this.

I say flood the Devs with complaints every time you play your mastermind. This way there is a logged complaint somewhere. Make someone work enough and you will see they jump on it. Because eventually someone will say, hey can someone at least look into these complaints because we are getting flooded with reports of this and it is taking us away from other stuff we need to be doing.

But posting here really does not do much. Because its one or two people maybe looking. But 15 or 20 people place a in game report or bug every day about the same thing for a week and someone will take notice. Trust me no one wants to do someone else work. So get in game and make those complaints.. Pet AI.. Poison Issues...

Again another player cannot fix these issues, the Devs only can. Make them hear you. You posting forces them do nothing. Especially since your fighting each other.

But in game someone has to read those request and then they have to send you an email saying they got your request and what to do. This all takes time and effort. Trust me when I say I am POSITIVE if you send them enough in game complaints or issues they will send you a more personal email telling you they are aware of and looking into the issue and not please not send in so many complaints. Then at the end give them a crappy survey. Let them know your a bit angry. Don't be nice to them regardless of what position they are in. Trust me when someone on the inside says look my guys in customer support are dealing with some nasty angry players because you guys are not looking into this. They will come around.