Effective Petless Mastermind
By
Ben_Arizona,
Posted on: 2010-02-22 16:18 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Wow, you must have the patience of a saint to level up a petless MM or, at the very least, more patience than me.
Was there any point during the experiment where you nearly deleted the character?
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What you're describing is probably due to the ragdoll-lockout time on Knockback/up. Whenever enemies ragdoll, they can't be affected by another KB/U power until they've completed their ragdoll and stand-up animations.|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
I'm talking about enemies that get knocked up by Air Superiority most of the time, then once in a great while they won't. Same deal with Knockout Blow. I have no idea why it happens (or, rather, doesn't happen).
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Before ragdolling was added to the game enemies played a fixed flying-back animation. It was possible to perpetually keep stuff down, since there was no lockout time, but foes would get up quicker, so multiple powers or a quick-recharging power was needed to do so.
The introduction of ragdolling effectively increased the amount of time enemies stayed down, making it far easier for them to be neutered by basically anyone with a KB power. The lockout time was added during the CoV beta in order to prevent this from occurring.The lockout time more or less ensures that enemies will get at least one shot off between KBs, which before ragdolling was not the case.
As an example, the power Gale actually applies two pulses of knockback, sending enemies much further back. Before ragdolling, this was easy to see and virtually always worked. Now, however, the second pulse comes too soon after the first, hence it's usually locked out and has no effect. If you hit enemies with a knockback power and then trigger Gale a bit afterwards, they'll often be immune to the *first* knockback pulse but not the second, and go flying as soon as they finish their standing-up animation, during which they may or may not ragdoll or be moved again, depending on the timing. I've seen plenty of enemies bounce back DURING their standup animation before, or while they're firing, so they're bouncing all over while standing upright. The lockout time in Gale's case had the end effect of nerfing the power, like it needed it.
Knockdown and lesser amounts of knockup don't trigger the lockout time, since they don't trigger ragdolling, but they ARE affected by the lockout. So that's probably what you're seeing.
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It's a little bit of both. Leveling various characters through the game gets its fair amount of inf to begin with, and playing with the market is where most of my funds come from. I've got my inf spread throughout all my characters so they can put up various items. Just last night I put up a new round of goods, and I've only sold about an eighth of them so far and have made over 30 million in profits overnight while I slept.|
Originally Posted by CBeet
It cost you 1 Billion then? How long did it take to accumilate that, or was it just a dip into your funds? If you had to really work to gather the inf to make that build, then hats off to you, but if it's just pocket money set aside for it then wow, wish I had such freedom with the ingame funds for the occasional fun build.
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Originally Posted by CBeet
Could you send me the build via PM? My main Mastermind, who just so happens to be Thugs/Poison/Mako actually, has a psuedo-Blastermind secondary build which just has the Enforcers (since I havn't enough inf to IO them out to be as effective as you've shown) and I'd be interested to see how you've got your character set up.
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Originally Posted by milehigh77
Me is from Mars, you is from Venus.
Ok since I took the first shot, you can take the follow up uncontested. |
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Originally Posted by Tokyo
congratulation, you spent a billion dollars and wasted many hours on a crap shot you took that could have just as easily been proven through mids and comparitive numbers.
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Originally Posted by Clouded
Was there any point during the experiment where you nearly deleted the character?
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Originally Posted by ViciousCabaret
What you're describing is probably due to the ragdoll-lockout time on Knockback/up. Whenever enemies ragdoll, they can't be affected by another KB/U power until they've completed their ragdoll and stand-up animations.
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This has happened with both my Mastermind and my Brute.
I'd also like to see your build, if you can PM it to me since I've been toying with the idea of doing a petless MM for a while.
It's impressive. Did you try soloing EBs? How did it went?
"It's a scrapper. If he can't handle it, no one can." -BrandX
Did you level it up petless, or respec into a petless build?
Proud member of the Cole-a-lition.
Fighting to make every reality, a better reality.
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Done.|
Originally Posted by FireWyvern
I'd also like to see your build, if you can PM it to me since I've been toying with the idea of doing a petless MM for a while.
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Originally Posted by FireWyvern
It's impressive. Did you try soloing EBs? How did it went?
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Originally Posted by Larcen3
Did you level it up petless, or respec into a petless build?
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To those who have received my build: please respond. I'm not in it to simply boost your library of builds.
EDIT:
I'm happy now. (-:
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Wow well done to that. The content in game is based around say 6 player teams, lets say specifically what people may call 6 effective builds, so there is room for 2 more characters that can be so-so. Why everyone needs to have an "effective" build I don't know. Lets say that you've helped people through the game with a few other really, really effective builds, then the way I see it is ya deserve to spoil yaself with what ya like. In anycase the one paying for the account is only one whose opinion matters and for all the people that won't team with ya, there will be ones that do, ones that pride individuality etc.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
1-50 petless. Much easier to get a feel of how the powers operate and what issues need to be addressed that way.
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He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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I'm not sure what makes it a billion-inf build, other than the purple procs (I'd be surprised if those were necessary for this) and Health/Stamina uniques (probably much more significant). I notice you're very heavy on procs to build up your offense, which makes sense, and health/regen bonuses as your main defensive set bonuses (btw, another Ghost Widow's Embrace piece in KO Blow would get you an easy health bonus you missed).|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
To those who have received my build: please respond. I'm not in it to simply boost your library of builds.
EDIT: I'm happy now. (-: |
I assume then that your survivability has less to do with the build and more to do with intelligent use of Poison's debuffs and mitigation? I don't have much Poison experience, but I know from rad and dark just how effective even a few solid offense debuffs can be at turning swarms of enemies into kittens.
A nice looking build, but of course several filler powers so you can keep with the petless 'theme', making it relatively easy to change to be an average Mastermind (which looks pretty darn effective to boot), but that's not what it's there for. Nice use of franken-slotting in the higher up powers, but of course a few more set bonuses could be achieved here and there, like using Smashing Haymaker in Knockout Blow for additional bonuses and the extra damage slotting, or changing some of the ones in Boxing/Air Sup. to Smashing Haymaker instead so you can continue with Ghost Widow's Embrace to keep the super hold you have.
It's given some food for thought on how to use sets on a Mastermind. I'm a big fan of +hp, so it's fun to see a good build which incorporates it as wholly as this does, whilst keeping within a set limit power-wise.
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc
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Most of the Enhancements were obtained with the first 100M, but the Numina's Convalescence and +Regen and +Recov Enhancements were a big hit. I don't remember where the rest of the inf went, but they were things that people didn't seem too willing to part with.|
Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
I'm not sure what makes it a billion-inf build, other than the purple procs (I'd be surprised if those were necessary for this) and Health/Stamina uniques (probably much more significant).
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Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
I notice you're very heavy on procs to build up your offense, which makes sense, and health/regen bonuses as your main defensive set bonuses (btw, another Ghost Widow's Embrace piece in KO Blow would get you an easy health bonus you missed).
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Likewise, there were a few damage procs I couldn't use since doing so would render their powers crippled. There are three more Hold procs I could have put in Paralytic Poison and Knockout Blow, but I needed those powers for things other than a chance for damage.
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Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
I assume then that your survivability has less to do with the build and more to do with intelligent use of Poison's debuffs and mitigation? I don't have much Poison experience, but I know from rad and dark just how effective even a few solid offense debuffs can be at turning swarms of enemies into kittens.
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Originally Posted by CBeet
Nice use of franken-slotting in the higher up powers, but of course a few more set bonuses could be achieved here and there [...]
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Originally Posted by CBeet
It's given some food for thought on how to use sets on a Mastermind. I'm a big fan of +hp, so it's fun to see a good build which incorporates it as wholly as this does, whilst keeping within a set limit power-wise.
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Really? I would think you could replace the KC Rech/End with GWE Acc/Rech without losing too much - you already have three other enhancements in it that give end redux aspects, so unless I'm missing something you should be pretty well discounted even with that.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
I don't think "missed" is the right word. The original plan had a good +30% HP from set bonuses, which, with accolades, meant +50% HP and the character had more HP than a Blaster. However, for the sake of making the powers more effective, I opted for frankenslotting in many of the powers. In Knockout Blow particularly, adding another Ghost Widow's Embrace would have granted next to nothing boost-wise, but would have severely cut into its damage output.
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Yeah it only took a minute and a half to kill six +0 Council...
The very EPITOME of "effective" 
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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This one's my fault, I'll admit. When I frankenslotted the power while planning the build, I had the fifth +1.88% HP bonus in Alkaloid before I found that the +Regen and +Recovery Enhancements need to be slotted in Health for a persistent buff. Now that the bonus is freed up, I can stick it in Knockout Blow using the change you suggested and only losing 1.74 endurance more per activation.|
Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
Really? I would think you could replace the KC Rech/End with GWE Acc/Rech without losing too much - you already have three other enhancements in it that give end redux aspects, so unless I'm missing something you should be pretty well discounted even with that.
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Originally Posted by Smurch
Yeah it only took a minute and a half to kill six +0 Council...
The very EPITOME of "effective" |
Ended up with a guy that wanted help with the Valentine's mission who made one of these builds. He expected a human-form Warshade to do all the tanking and fighting for him, and then insulted me when I wasn't able to. Wish I'd had Dwarf form available, but for some odd reason I was in my other build. Mighta worked out better, a human form can carry it's weight on a team, but it can't carry the weight of two.
Fun times. Made more fun when he decided to start insulting me over Broadcast in the D because of it. Made even more fun when the "Everyone can play how they like" kids started piling on me for defending myself. Awesome. Reminded me why I don't usually hang around the D right after school lets out.
I don't mind people using a petless build, but it's insane to insult me because I can't carry their share of the fight on my back and would rather not get tons of debt over the choice.. which the MM didn't even feel the need to inform me of so I could switch to their other build first to try to deal with it.
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Seeing the OP's video clip and following this thread did get me to re-visit my dark/poison petless MM, after a long break from playing her. It had been too long, as it was fun to play her again. I'm guessing at least a few others did the same, after reading this thread. |
Originally Posted by NobleFox
Ended up with a guy that wanted help with the Valentine's mission who made one of these builds. He expected a human-form Warshade to do all the tanking and fighting for him, and then insulted me when I wasn't able to. Wish I'd had Dwarf form available, but for some odd reason I was in my other build. Mighta worked out better, a human form can carry it's weight on a team, but it can't carry the weight of two.
Fun times. Made more fun when he decided to start insulting me over Broadcast in the D because of it. Made even more fun when the "Everyone can play how they like" kids started piling on me for defending myself. Awesome. Reminded me why I don't usually hang around the D right after school lets out. I don't mind people using a petless build, but it's insane to insult me because I can't carry their share of the fight on my back and would rather not get tons of debt over the choice.. which the MM didn't even feel the need to inform me of so I could switch to their other build first to try to deal with it. |
Sorry that you didn't have a good experience.
I've taken a hypothesis and proven it through experimentation. Anyone who says that teams reject petless Masterminds is just spewing out hot air.
Besides....... it was only one billion. (-:
I took the time out of my day to defend your "experiment" and you're in blind **** flinging mode.
Get off the defensive.