seebs

/macro Hmm "local Leave me be! $$ em buzzoff $$ petcom_all dismiss"

?

(No clue whether it's even plausible.)

You could probably just swap stamina and the demon prince without too much harm to the rest of the plan.

Was doing a mayhem mission on a team, had a stalker. Every pull, the PPD Equalizer died before we started fighting. It was pretty much effortless. No other AT could have done that, so far as I know.

So I think stalkers have substantial value to a team, it just has to be a team that isn't going to be facerolling the content, and can understand the advantage of letting the stalker, well, stalk.

I thought this was awesome, the slightly-off aspect ratios were bugging me.

No one's suggesting market manipulation. Just legit trading, mostly crafting. People will happily pay you 50M inf to combine a recipe and four items.

Introducing Charlene White, demons/dark mastermind. She's a hero. She's a resistance warden, completely skipping all the crusader arcs. She's forthright and honest and saves the innocent. She's going blue side, where she'll do heroic tips and heroic morality missions.

Because she is sick of the bad rap demons get. She is sick of superstition, fear, and bigotry, and wants people to know that demons can be reliable, trustworthy, allies.

The only possible reason for anyone to worry about this is this odd detail... Why is her background "natural"? Who can naturally summon demons, anyway?

Not comic book, but "Perfect Dork" (DP/dev) is very definitely an homage to the Perfect Dark games.

I've gotten demons to 12 and bots to 30. So far, demons strike me as doing better damage, and being comparable in squishiness. One of them melees more than the battle drones do, but lives longer while meleeing. On the other hand, I also have heals now. I'm doing bots/traps and ds/dark.

A few thoughts:

1. I would never, ever, put off a demon-summoning power. Ever. Not even for Stamina.
2. I'm currently loving teleport as a pool. TP Foe is very helpful for getting lone minions out of a mob -- and that can be a great way to heal the little pets. (TG's dependence on a target can impose some strange strategies.) It's also a good way to split larger groups up.
3. I would never put off Fearsome Stare if I could possibly take it; I'm pretty fond of it.

Here's my work-in-progress build, such as it is. I'm pretty torn on several parts; in particular, I'm not yet endurance-starved, but I'm guessing I will be soon enough. (I'm level 12.) In practice, I'm pretty sure Stamina isn't really essential until I get more toggles -- I can keep up DN and spam attacks without much hassle.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Charlene White: Level 46 Natural Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Demon Summoning
Secondary Power Set: Dark Miasma
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Presence
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Summon Demonlings

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Level 1: Twilight Grasp

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Level 2: Tar Patch

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Level 4: Darkest Night

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Level 6: Enchant Demon

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Level 8: Teleport Foe

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Level 10: Hurdle

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Level 12: Summon Demons

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Level 14: Health

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Level 16: Shadow Fall

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Level 18: Hell on Earth

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Level 20: Fearsome Stare

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Level 22: Teleport

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Level 24: Stamina

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Level 26: Summon Demon Prince

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Level 28: Provoke

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Level 30: Petrifying Gaze

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Level 32: Abyssal Empowerment

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Level 35: Maneuvers

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Level 38: Dark Servant

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Level 41: Howling Twilight

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Level 44: Night Fall

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Level 47: Soul Tentacles

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Level 49: [Empty]
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Level 1: Brawl

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Level 1: Sprint

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Level 2: Rest

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Level 1: Supremacy
Level 6: Ninja Run

Unfortunately, windowed mode also moves me from 50fps to 15. And no, I can't upgrade drivers -- the laptop in question is crashy with any new drivers from ATI, and ASUS hasn't released an update yet that I know of.

Yeah, good point -- preference makes up for a lot.

So, I'm doing demons/dark. I'm pretty unsure about the build. I know I need stamina, and I want a travel power (thinking tp, probably tp foe/teleport), and I want leadership... leaving me with Not Many Options. It was easier for bots/traps, where I could skip stamina.

I am really growing to hate the Stamina Tax -- with rare exceptions, three powers in every build must be the fitness pool, and you have to aim for stamina at 20 or die trying.

My big concern: Chain-ambushes.

On one of the missions I did recently, on my stalker, I got into the building, cleared maybe one or two mobs, and then...

Got ambushed by a lt and two minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.

... Nine ambushes total. Chaining. About 10 seconds between killing the last mob of one group and the next group spawning.

And every one of these groups had the Magical Ability To See You that utterly nerfs stalkers, because the ENTIRE POINT OF THE ARCHETYPE is not being seen. So of course, the most FUN thing to do would be to have NINE AMBUSHES IN A ROW, without long enough between them for Rest to start healing you, all of which can magically attack you even though you're Hidden, even if you move into another room after they spawn.

... No, wait. Not fun. Stupid.

Sure, I beat it. I even levelled from the extra XP. Heck, this is FARMABLE, because all I have to do is reset the mission and the XP come to me. When my MM gets to that level, you better believe I'm gonna reset that mission a couple of times to get extra free XP off it.

But it's stupid. It's not fun, at least on a stalker. It violates the basic premise of the archetype, and missions should not invalidate an archetype. (And yes, let's also mention the escorts who can't follow a hidden stalker. That, too, is not fun. Let's just assume I'm talking to them so they can follow me or something.)

A couple of ambushes now and then? Fun. Chain ambushes with no downtime? Not so much fun.

Yeah, I've had a TON of problems of the form:

* Typing stops doing anything.
* The next time I move the cursor and hit a key, suddenly the stuff I had previously typed shows up.

That's just crazy. And it applies to everything, including the chat window.

No, it's not for me, it's for a friend.

Count @Twoflower's story arcs. Note that he's full up. Note that he's won awards for this stuff. Note that he cannot ever publish more stories unless the devs go and flag all his stuff as Dev's Choice. Now, not saying they shouldn't -- his writing is comedy gold. But maybe they should allow more than 8 slots for people who are prolific writers?

Being able to buy items from yourself is probably a feature, albeit a funny one.

Yeah, I just got a freebird +stealth for 100k. I have a bunch of bids out on those still, I have a few characters who want one.

I'd love to have mouseovers say:

Tar Patch
(recharge in 8 seconds)

rather than trying to eyeball slowly-growing icons.

I've found that /traps can be AMAZING in teams -- if the team is able to get their head around the idea that the weak little mastermind with "low" hit points is running in and toe-bombing.

Seeker drones, poison gas trap... As someone commented, "seeker drones turn alphas into lolphas".

Went demons/dark, made it to 6th level thus far, having a blast. It really is very familiar to me to have the same basic dark abilities as my dark/dark defender.

What I've figured out so far:

* Unlike my bots/traps, I will actually need the Fitness pool for stamina.
* I think I may go with teleport, rather than fly, as a travel power, because teleport-foe plus a swarm of angry demons sounds hilarious.
* Remember that stamina thing? Especially if I want leadership pool stuff, which I'm betting I do, because those powers are amazing for masterminds.

I've heard people complain about spending too much time buffing on thermal. Or worse, forgetting to buff...

The notion of using Dark appeals to me, just because I've had so much fun with a dark/dark defender.

Currently leaning towards /dark.

Okay, what does "Hell on Earth" actually DO? It looks like it fills the slot that "Repair" does on bots/, so it's some sort of a minion buff? Good power, bad power? (I know people tend to regard repair as pretty skippable.)

Okay, so, a concept has struck me, and I think I'll give it a run.

Demon summoning MM, with the entire point being to become a hero. Why? Because he's an evangelical moral relativist, whose goal is to dispel the ludicrous notion that things can be objectively good or evil. He goes around saving innocents BECAUSE IT IS FUN TO HIM. That is all. Not because it's "right" or "wrong". Also, I expect he'll be a complete pacifist, who doesn't even use his origin attack power. (You claim it's "inconsistent" for him to be willing to summon demons but not willing to punch people? THAT IS THE POINT!!! He is persuasive, no?)

But for this to work, I need to make a demons/* MM. I've been loving bots/traps, and I could always do traps again, but I sorta want something thematically suited; something that just SCREAMS overt evil. So nothing wussy like force fields; I'm thinking poison or pain, probably.

Mostly concerned with soloing, but I'd like to be at least not a total embarassment to a team.

I love triage beacon, but the key is, you have to know which fights you want it on, and drop it first. It also becomes MUCH more useful in the 20s, when you can massively boost its heals. Mine's 5-slotted with a healing set and is amazing.