Signitaure Henchman Travel Powers& MM weapons re-vamp

Basically this is an attempt to put more style and uniqueness( and no "henchman ARE unique" please) in our Masterminds
First suggestion

Weapons:

With Dual Pistols coming up, Thugs Masterminds just lost all their shine. Not only are several ATs getting what was once their own bit of cool, but they're going to be doing it cooler as well. Merc, Ninja, And Necro Henchies never had any style of their own as far as weapons go, using weapons and powers everybody already had.

Soon the only MMS with cool exclusive weapons will be Robotics(Laser Pulse Rifles) and Demon Summoning(whips) My suggestion is to re-vamp the weapons and range powers used by Masterminds. To make them more unique. So heeeeeere we go!

Thugs: This suggestion is kinda odd, but hear me out.
Take away one of their guns. And Leave them with a single side-arm. All three Current MM attacks are fully feasable with one gun as much as two.

The iconagraphy here is actually pretty cool when you think about it..
Compare the current set-up. Your Thugs MM fights exactly on the level of the rest of your henchman, using two guns at once, and being in the midst of things.

With one gun, he seems more of a leader, more of a Criminal Mastermind. Giving orders and putting one in the eyes of any stragglers he sees.Furthermore, he does'nt feel at risk, so he comes in lightly armed.

Necromancy: Take away the regular Darkness Blasts and replace them with blast fired from a wand, scepter, or staff.. We all want wands for controll or blast sets, and it may or may not happen in the future. But For NOW( and probably the forseeable future) it would be fantastic if necro MMS weilded wands roughly the length of your forearm.

The Imagery here is obvious. When I see a swarm of zombies coming towards me, I'm looking in the back for the guy with the magic staff/wand, cause I know he's the guy in charge.

It's possible(read: extremely likely) that we'd loose color customization of the blasts (but not the other powers) but it'd be trading one form of customization for another one that makes your MM look like less of a Dark Defender.

Ninja: I've made this claim before.
Ninja MMs should get the wrist-mounted dart launcher that upgraded jounin get.
I used to think that shuriken would be ideal, but, think about your ninja henchman for a minute. Who uses shuriken? Genin, the new guys, silly gray cotumes, youthful faces. They're the expendables, the one's who you don't even trust with swords or ninja tricks. no, the Nobodies get the plain old shuriken. The Elite, they get caltrops, swords, Smokebombs, and, the more dangerous and effective Poison Dart guns(even if we nja MMS sometimes hate when they use it improperly) It identifies you with your elite, and not just any old ninja. It also still shares some visual elements with the bow currently being used.

Mercenaries: Mercs... ahhh Mercs. what are we lacking right now in terms of heavy guns? Muskets. Rifles. Classic war rifles. Revolver Chambered Rifles. Shotguns. more exaggerated sniper-type rifles. Why? they can't do all of the things the AR sets can do, granted MOST of the weapons in those sets can't either, but they possibly could. The idea behind this being. You're the brains of the operation. You don't go in with guns blazing. You hang back, and let your well paid soldiers do what they do. Your weapon is one of precision. and Power. the weapon of a thinking villain.

and those are my suggestions for changing the weaponry of Masterminds

on to my second idea.

Henchman Travel Powers.
Currently, all henchman come with superjump equipped to keep up with their Mastermind no matter where they go. Would'nt it be much cooler if they all had their own way of getting around? you know it would
The idea here, is If Your henchman are a certain dsitance away from their target destination,( or you as your mastermind is the target Destination when the henchman are set to follow) Their AI would toggle on a travel power unique to each of them, until they made it close enough to their target location, at which point they would untoggle it and walk normally.
and here's how

Ninja: no brainer, let them use ninja-run, possibly maxed out. The oni should still appear and dissapear in a flash fo fire, as he currently does.

Zombie: Super Jump is the only way I could see them actually gettig around, possibly with a unique jumping and landing animation cycle. With the exception of the Lich who should teleport in a dark portal similar to his summoning animation

Robots: Robots would fly using their already existing Rocket boots.

Mercenaries: Mercs would teleport, but their animation would be them repelling back into the(invisible, assumed) chopper they were dropped from when summoned. So it looks like they are being airlifted/dropped everywhere

Thugs: Thugs would activate a power with similar specs to ninja run, but instead of running they'd hop on the motorcycles Bruisers use to be summoned and cruise to the location.

ideas? yes? no? absolutely impossible?
Discuss.

It's a big difference. Super Leap doesn't increase their speed.

The difference between Super Leap and Super Jump was my point. They're two different powers, that do two different things.

Absolutely, positively DISagree with almost all of your attack power suggestions. Dual Wield is part of my Thugs MMs. It fits them, it's part of what makes them fun to me. No, they don't do spectacular damage, but that's not the point.

Similarly, Necro - I have a Nec/Poison who got her powers thanks to a possession attempt by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian priest. She never has had, never needed, and wouldn't have a wand, staff, etc. The power comes from HER. A wand or staff would frankly ruin that feel.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Good ideas, but rather than having the changes FORCED upon your character, they should be an OPTION! However, I'm not 100% sure if that level of customization is possible at the moment.

hmm, now, see, this is counter to my consistent stands on matters.

Basically, I'd be for putting whips into the hands of scrappers, stalkers, brutes and tankers and the laser plasma rifle in the hands of blasters, defenders and corruptors.

I don't like power sources being ONLY available to one AT.

There's no reason that a person with a sword can't fight in a tankerish manner, for example.

to me, the uniqueness should be HOW the item/power is used, not the power/item itself.

In Masterminds case, the fact that they have henchman is what makes them unique

I'll never be for an AT only weapon with the possible exception of the Arachnos Maces, since it does make sense only Arachnos minions would have it

I don't WANT to be playing completely different sets whenever I roll out an MM.

I LIKE Dark Blast being similar to Necromancy, I LIKE Assault Rifle to be similar to Mercenaries, and I LIKE Archery going with Ninjas. You're asking the devs to do unnecessary work that would radically change character concepts.

I've always wanted to like masterminds, but have never really been able to get into one. I think I figured out why after I made a ninja/dark MM. The attacks that masterminds get aren't very interesting. For instance the attack skills ninja MMs get are snap shot, aimed shot, and fistful of arrows. I think it would be better if they had aimed shot, fistful of arrows, and blazing arrow. Or maybe even aimed shot, blazing arrow, and explosive arrow. I plan on not getting any of the attack skills and just getting night fall and soul tenticles because they're at least somewhat interesting.

Yes I understand that masterminds are supposed to be mainly about the pets. But I don't really want to feel like I'm sitting around picking my nose while they're fighting. Sure I can use my supportive powers but I find that just being completely supportive is boring. I never play my bots/pain MM anymore.

I remember how Castle said that Doms needed to be more damage oriented. I think MMs do too. When I play a mastermind I want to be like Brutal Legends where my character can kick *** too.

I'd like to say that I'm saying all of this as a guy who put two of the bow attacks, All of fighting, stealth, and , Manuevers on my Nin/Traps MM and go hunting with no pets out just to be a bad-***. And can do pretty decent in melee(sorta, still an MM though, BUFF THOSE RANGED ATTACK DEVS!) I'm not saying anyone HAS to play a certain way, it's just the iconography of the MMs as defined by the fact that they have other people to handle the brunt of their problems for them.

And none of these ideas lessen that at all, it just gives them a different look, and most of the time only slightly different. As for the "we all want wands" thing, that was less specifically at masterminds, and more generally as "I think we can all agree the option to fire ranged/buff/control sets from varying items(i.e. wands) would be hella awesome" I'll do something more detailed later, as I'm on a library computer and have limited time, but I'll throw up some alternative suggestions. As for the movement powers, I think I have a fix for the need to have super jump in combat.