Longer Buffs

I've played Force Field (not to 50), Thermal Radiation (to 50), Cold Domination (not to 50), and Sonic Resonance (not to 50), and Kinetics (not to 50).

I'll tell you now, out of all those buffs sets, the only one I think needs to have it's duration increase is Kinetic's Speed Boost, to a 4 minute duration. As I just don't care for buffing the team every 2 mins. Every 4 mins and I'm golden!

In all those times I've played those sets, the only time I feel the need to buff other peoples pets is 1) When I feel like it OR 2) Right before we pounce on an AV.

If you want to buff every single pet on the team all the time, that's not the sets problem, that's yours. And personally, I've never been on a team with any toon with pets that looked at me and said "Hey! Shield my pets!"

That said, out of all those shielders, only the Thermal did more pet buffing than anything else, as Elec/'s damage just felt so weak, I felt like I was doing more keeping the pets shielded than going about blasting.

On the one hand, I'd like to see these buffs go up ever so slightly. Call it five minutes instead of four. I'd also like to see very short-duration buffs last longer, as well. I more or less gave up on ever using Thaw because I WILL NOT recast a buff every 90 seconds. Bring that up to four or five minutes and then we'll talk.

On the other hand, these buffs have a cost, and recasting is part of that cost. I run them double-slotted for endurance and I still tax myself significantly when I recast them. It also takes a not insignificant amount of time, especially if you have to do it in battle. Rebuffing seven people with two two-second buffs runs up to 28 seconds, probably around 30 with ping time and finger slips. That's a lot of time to do nothing in the middle of combat.

Finally, you DO NOT NEED to buff other people's pets, especially Masterminds. Looking after henchmen is the Mastermind's job. If you choose to buff them, then you DO NOT get to complain about it. You chose to buff, you live with the consequences. As an owner of both a Forcefield and a Thermal Mastermind over the level of 30, I can tell you that not only do I not need you to buff my henchmen, I, myself, will not buff them when I am on a team. Team-mates tend to have a much higher contribution than any one henchman.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Hmn...only mobs I can think of with Cold are CoT and Crey...oo, and Coralax? But yeah, fair enough

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Well, that and the Winter Horde, who are almost never around, and Ice Mistral is much easier if you're protected from Cold. My Stone/Stone Brute basically walked through her Blizzard with impunity

In general, I just don't like buffs that last that short a time. Even for its status protection, all you have to do is fight Rikti or Carnival or Malta and the non-melee will need status protection almost constantly.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well I've been playing a DS/Therm MM in a few 8 man teams and have found:

1) Lots of buffing is boring

2) On a team only the melee AT's need shields (Screw other MM's pets, I'll just AoE heal them later)

Personally I would like to see the short term buffs to be 5 minute buffs with a small AoE with a increased END cost. I started wanting this when I noticed the small ring of fire produced by the first application of therm buffs and when I got all 6 of my pets...

I might not "need" to buff others pets much like I might not "need" to buff that blaster or scrapper who shouldn't be tanking. Spread the buffs around to everyone and when things go wrong it's less likely to screw things up. Pets die and can be recast, but people die and can be rezed, debt is mostly meaningless so what's the difference?

As to the comment about defenders not being needed after casting their buffs and leaving, that's ridiculous. The main point of a defender is to heal or debuff, that's why you bring them and that's where their attention should be while playing. Not on watching everyone's buffs and constantly reapplying them.

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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha Yes, really. Your saying you need to buff all your pets, all the time, or they'll die. Im saying, by dint of having played an MM with NO self/pet buffs or shields, that that theory is hogwash. Simple.

Except traps is more a debuff set. You buff all your pets every time you debuff an enemy.

if i were you i wouldn't poke the bear. there is no need for buffs to last 20-30 mins. if they did they would do significantly less then what they do now. in fact they probably wouldn't even be worth it. deal with it. change your play style or don't play toons that buff.

You don't get that YES, the buffs would be seriously decreased in some fashion if changed the way you want. It's called 'balance.' Sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la I can't heeeeeeeeeeear you" doesn't change that fact.

Sets and powers that are underperforming get buffed. They need good reason to do so. (Example, Stalkers AS no longer breaking hide if they miss, and providing a chance for AOE Fear if they do, plus Hidden status taking less time to come back. Or /Energy Aura getting a heal added to their END drain. Or Dominators losing the damage bonus from Domination, getting it transferred to an overall damage buff while having individual powers rebalanced and END costs overall looked at.)

"I don't like doing this" is not a problem with the powerset. And that is your "strongest" argument, no matter how you try to dress it up. You've been given suggestions on how to modify your playstyle to make it less of a "chore" for you. You are choosing to ignore them. That is on YOUR head. Not the fault of the powerset, not a problem for the devs.

You don't like the buffing playstyle, don't play a buffer. End of story.

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The difficulty that I have with this suggestion is that many buffs are stupidly powerful as-is.

It takes maybe two buffers, without a single debuff or healing ability between them, at most, to trivialize 95 percent of the game. A third to trivialize 99%.

30-minute durations on these ridiculously powerful buffs would result either in the crippling of these buffs, or buffbotting being a viable strategy. I can tell you now that I wouldn't hesitate to swap to a buffbot to hand out a couple 30-minute buffs that would make the missions a breeze with our various teams' native defenses. If I, who is lazy, would do this, then think of what the real min-maxers could and would do.

Needing moderately frequent reapplication on these powerful buffs is how the game ensures three things - one, the player is awake and at the keyboard, two, that the player is still with the team when these buffs are being deployed, and three, that the buffs come with a cost commensurate with their power.

Just like to add, I'm okay with SB giving out a bit less ENDREC and +RCH for a 4minute duration!