Arbegla

What if the dev's realized a story arc that had you go back and repair everything? or build robots that can repair things in an instance, or some such other 'explained in game' explanation for the fact that things get fixed faster then they get blown up?

Would that make you happy?

I mean seriously, this is a SUPERHERO MMO. We have gods/immortals/magicians and such that can destroy entire worlds.. why can't we have a city full of super heroes repair itself in record time?

6% -tohit can help out against some -defense, especially if its just enough to throw you back over the softcap on defense

I did take some ideas from your build, and i took some ideas from the other builds that were posted here, and i tried to meet a middle ground on them, and i'm pretty happy with the results. I have about on par damage (with musculature) about on par endurance management (due to different slotting, and musculature adding more recovery) and i kept my general slotting (i hate 6 slotted health or stamina just to meet a set bonus) I also have about on par recharge, and can run a 5 - 6 power attack chain seamlessly (or about close enough)

I've taken ideas from a lot of the posts here, and I'm very happy to be getting feedback on things

You do realize there was a time when MMs didn't have bodyguard mode right?

And the Archetype worked just fine back then. How can over 75% of the enhancements (we're talking actual enhancements right? not set bonuses) not affect the MM, when they affect the secondary of the AT, as well as benefits the slotting of the primary? There is nothing to fix, no other AT has BUILT IN 75% resistance to EVERTYHING. We're talking even Hamidon's damage, things that are flagged to be unresistable, and a MM can take as much as 75% less damage from them.

Pets are expendable. yes, they are the MM's main source of damage, but a MM still has their secondary, which has the same debuff values as corruptors and controllers. yes, it costs more endurance for a mastermind, but thats because they have the ability to focus entirely on their secondary while their primary is handled via binds of macros, which don't require any recharge, or waiting to work.

Aside from the lower hitpoints of the pets (which are still just as high, if not higher then the Masterminds hitpoints) the level difference of the pets is made up by the fact that each of the lower level pets have multiple pets. the t1 pets have 3, so while they are -2 level to the MM, there are 3 of them, which more then makes up for the purple patch. the t2 pets are in the same boat, there are 2 of them, so being at -1 is more then made up. The t3 pet is even level to the mastermind, and usually does the most damage and has the best survival (higher resistance/defense in addition to the highest hitpoints)

If you are having problems with masterminds then its your own issue, its not an issue of the masterminds themselves. while we would LOVE a buff, its just not needed as masterminds can steamroll both AV/GMs and missions set for 8 players with ease. Heck, most MMs can enable rest, set their pets to aggressive, and go afk, and when they come back the entire room is cleared.

There is 0 reason for MM buff, outside of fixing the AI so ranged pets stay ranged, and melee pets stay melee. While i personally feel Ninjas may need to be looked over, as they have no inherent healing, and limited inherent resistance/defense, they still have the highest single target damage of all the primaries, assuming you can keep them alive long enough to deal their damage. The name of the game is also AoEs, so single target MMs really aren't all that useful. Its not the fault of the MM, its just how the game has been made to be played.

Again, just because YOU can't play MMs, doesn't mean they need a buff. Just means you need to learn to play better.

I'm not sure i want to...

http://www.google.com/search?q=weepi...w=1432&bih=705

/Willpower has built in psi resistance, very high energy defense, and enough +regen to make a /regen blush, and rikti have zero -regen abilities, so the more rikti you pile on your /willpower, the less likely he is to die. So your point is pretty invalid. I've solo'ed about half of the pylons before they respawned, back in like i16 (i got bored, and wanted to see how far i could go before i saw them reappearing on the map) on my bot/traps and i think i lost 2 pets..

Just because you can't play MMs correctly doesn't mean they need to a buff, cuz if they did get a buff, then people like me and Dechs will be stream rolling iTrials with our eyes closed and one hand behind our back limiting our bind usages.

It takes time, and effort and research to be good at some classes, and if you don't want to do the work, don't expect to know the class right away. Masterminds are not 'toggle and go' classes. They aren't even 'debuff and go' classes. Its a hybrid class that can carry many different roles.
Are you using your debuff from /pain correctly? Do you have provoke? Are you keeping aggro off your mercs to allow them to build up their damage? Do you have damage procs Are you buffing them as best as you can with /pain? Do you run your PBAoE +regen /pain power?

Between world of pain, pain bringer, and your 2 single target heals, and your PBAoE heal and PBAoE +regen, your merc/pain should be pretty nice. Especially with the added damage from /pain in the form of +damage (from pain bringer and world of pain) and -res (from anguishing cry). You'll have to basically live in melee to do it, but as the mercs already run into melee anyways due to crappy AI, you may as well adapt to it, and take advantage of your buff/debuffs/heals to keep them alive.
AoEs actually do about 75% less damage to a MM then they do to a brute or tank (or really any other class) due to bodyguard mode. See, the range on bodyguard mode is about 60ft, and the largest AoE is about 45ft (void i think) so if you abuse the range limitations of bodyguard mode you can take less damage from AoEs, and keep your pets alive all at the same time. And, if you want to play tankermind, get some personal resistance, as that lowers the damage your pets take from bodyguard mode.

Take for example, fireball, its a decent AoE that a lot of mobs have, and does about 100 damage. Well, about 80 of that is fire, 20 of that is smashing. If you have 33% smashing resistance, and 10% fire resistance, then you would've only taken 72 fire damage, 16.4 smashing damage, then bodyguard mode kicks in, and you actually only take about 18 fire damage, and 4.1 smashing damage. Your pets *assuming they are in range of said fireball) each take the original 100 damage (unless they have resistance of their own) then they take about 9 fire damage, and 2 smashing damage for a total of 11 damage, instead of the 12.5 damage they would've taken if you didn't have any resistance.

And, any form of AoE +regen, or +healing will allow you to basically soak damage via bodyguard mode for as long as you have endurance.

You need 3 basic things to solo AVs. 1) -regen 2) survival 3) damage

And, if you have enough damage, you actually don't need -regen, you just need a ton of damage, and a way to survive the damage the AVs do to you.

Out of all the mastermind secondary, /dark, /poison, /traps, /TA, /thermal, /storm, and /pain all offer forms of +survival (be them heals, or massive -dam, -tohit debuff, or +def) and either straight up -regen (/dark, /traps, /thermal, /poison) or +damage/-resist which basically do the same things.

Now, while the primaries do different damage types (thugs/mercs/ninjas are mostly lethal damage, zombies is toxic/negative, demons is fire/cold/toxic, and robots are energy/smashing/fire) if you build to their strengths and work as a mobile team, then you can keep just about any of the pets alive. You have to play to the strengths and weaknesses of the primary AND secondary you picked. If you don't, then you'll run into problems.

See, while the AI is a fickle thing, if you learn to handle it differently, then it won't matter what your pets do, as you can adjust on the fly and deal with it. I use very few binds, and basically only rotate between my bodyguard mode bind, and my 'attack my target' bind when i need it. I don't use goto, and i don't use stay, and i basically let the pets and their fickle AI run wild.

I also solo GMs, and jump head first into marauder, and i'm generally the first one to any of the chambers/weapon caches. The tether on the MM pets is about 115 yds, which is easy enough to get to with super jump, super speed, and teleport. Fly is slow enough that the pets can keep up with it, so if thats your travel power of choice, then the pet teleport option may not work best for you.
See, that's your problem. Your being very narrow in your thought process on what is overpowered. Dechs wasn't saying that running +4/8 content solo is overpowered, he wasn't even saying that being able to solo GMs and AVs is overpowered, he said that doing BOTH of them on 1 character with EASE is what makes bot/traps overpowered.

bot/traps can solo AVs once they get poison trap, so around level 20, especially with inherent fitness. The -regen and forced animation from the vomitting of poison traps allows you do solo AVs pretty safely, even without provoke (web nade to keep them still, acid mortar to debuff them, toe bombed poison trap to debuff regen, and FFG to provide defense)


While mercs, ninjas and zombies 'under perform' in your eyes, its only when you compare them to thugs/demons/bots, and only in specific cases. Zombies have a LOT of -tohit, and all of the pets have a self heal of some kind, which makes them very durable, especially with an active or even semi-active secondary *like /dark, /ff, /thermal, /traps, /pain*

You have to understand that some secondaries will do things better then others, and synergy between primary/secondary powersets really helps them shine. Pairing merc and poison together doesn't have a whole lot of synergy due to /poisons lack of AoE debuff, and AOE heal, and merc/ being full of buggy AI.

Ninja/poison on the other hand, with its focus on melee damage allows you to leverage Noxious Gas, and the debuff allows you to kill down single targets very quickly (if you can keep the ninja's alive, they actually perform the HIGHEST single target damage of ALL the pets)
As was already mentioned, the bodyguard range is 60ft, and you can move a lot easier then your pets, so if you reposition yourself relative to your pets you can stay in bodyguard mode, and allow the AoEs to miss your pets, without killing your pets.

I personally have had very little problems with my MM in trials, and i don't have have 'stay' or 'goto' set up on any bind or macro. Its all 'follow' and 'attack my target' but i position myself in a way that leverages my buffs/debuffs and prevents my pets from being eaten alive from AOEs. (that and all my pets rock at least 48% def to everything but psi, so they don't get hit very often to begin with)

its all a matter of playstyle, but saying an ENTIRE AT needs a buff OR nerf due to a personal opinion that its just 'too much of a learning curve' is just a horrible idea no matter how you spin it.

I'm actually not sure. I checked out smoke grenade for /Devices, and it doesn't say non-resistable, so it may actually be un-resistable -tohit. I just took it as a throw away power to get an extra 2% damage (from the set bonus) and to have another form of extra defense (-tohit affects the equation the same way +def does) plus, it i remember correctly, between smoke grenade and masked presences, i can sneak past things, and it'll make getting the weapon caches, and containment chambers in Lambda a lot easier (as the mobs won't even notice me beating up the caches)

I know evis as a pretty long animation time, but its DPA (damage per activation) is still higher then swipe, so even with the longer animation time it'll do more damage over time.

The only downer is that followup won't double stack on the entire attack chain if i'm right, it'll double stack up to the second lunge (So, FU-slash-lunge-evis-strike-fu-slash-lunge(first FU drops here)-evis-strike)

but thats without hasten, the hasten chain of FU-slash-lunge-strike-swipe should have perma-double stacked followup throughout, and that may make up the lower DPA of swipe.

Demon/thermal is awesome too.. Wanna know another awesome mastermind sets?

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You really have no idea what a bot/traps can do do you? Or heck, any MM combination for that matter. Ill/rad is good for single targets. 3 targets max. Anything more, then the decoys can't hold aggro on it, and the player dies. A bot/traps, really has no limits.

Here, let me know you. The first video was done on SOs. No IOs at all.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...7923834396178#

Quality isn't the best, but hey, there you have it.

Lets see, there is this -> http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...7941000579334# a bot/traps MM, and a grav/nrg dominator duo-ing the ITF back in i12 (or was it 13).. (shortly after it hit live)

Mind/fire has all its power in confuse, without form of 'control' it really can't solo a single thing. And it doesn't get any experience for its 'solo-ing' as it uses confused mobs to do all the heavy lifting.

DM/Shield is just laughable at best. While it packs a decent amount of SINGLE TARGET damage, it can't keep up on pure AoE damage that a bot/traps (or again, any MM combo) can deal. Look over those scrapper threads again, my bot/traps can out damage any DM/shield (at least in i19)

Now, ill/cold is in the same boat ill/rad is, awesome single target DPS, but as this game is based on AoE carnage, single target doesn't do you a whole lot of good.

its because of how the badges actually award. Per support these are the actual requirements:

"Lambda Looter" - get both kinds of temporary powers, 10 of each, but don't use them.
"Well Stocked" - get 10 Pacification Grenades, but no Molecular Acids, and don't use them.
"Antiacid" - get 10 Molecular Acids, but no Pacification Grenades, and don't use them.

So, if you get ANY molecular acids, you can't get well stocked, and if you get ANY pacification grenades, you can't get Antiacid.

How are MMs taking extra damage from AoEs? If they are in bodyguard mode, they are actually taking LESS damage then other ATs, as their pets are renewable resources. While th pets take (and deal) extra damage, they also draw attention away from teammates, which means that 1 MM can basically play meat shield for an entire team.

While AoEs do hurt, in most leagues, you have stacked leadership powers, AoE +def, and massive healing going on (in addition to destiny powers) so if your losing pets half as often as you say you are, then YOUR doing it wrong, and its not a fault of the AT itself.

Remember that old saying? Its not that MMs sucked, its that the players that play MMs suck, as the learning curve is VERY steep, and unless you play, and build correctly, you can actually hurt your team a lot more then you help.

Ya know what, i can respect that. I used to be the same way (until i started playing masterminds, and i could 'tank and spank' better then most tankers could, but that's a different story) so i can completely understand the familiarity aspect of tank and spank encounters. Hopefully the devs can add a level of 'casual' game, which will allow you to progress the 'high end' systems, without having to deal with the other mechanics that come with them.

The only 'instant death' mechanic i can think if is Marauder's Nova Fist. Which, due to the one shot code, will just put you at 1hp, and its actually pretty easy to heal up from it. The towers in Baf, while unresistable damage, does it in scaling DoTs, so if you can break line of sight, or heal yourself faster then then incoming damage, you can actually survive the towers. Plus they are be turned off via glowies (granted, that will ruin a badge requirement, and cut everyone an astral merit, so most people just ignore them)

Plus, speaking of the towers, they also target pets (renewable) and masterminds (which can soak the damage all day long due to bodyguard mode) If your going for an achievement, having a mastermind in the line of sight of a tower pretty much doubles the possible targets the towers can hit, and allows a lot of its damage to be wasted on renewable targets.
Lambda as a minimal requirement of 8 players. A maximum of 16 players. So you can queue up as a normal 8 person team, and run, and complete Lambda pretty easily. Granted the LFG system will probably give you a few extra people, but if you can handle 8, you can handle 10 - 12 pretty easily.

BAF as a minimal requirement of 12 players, and a maximum of 24. This is where the league UI comes in handy, and if you really want you can just turn league chat on, and keep your team window open (as most AOE buffs are team wide) and just listen to the league leader.

While the lag can be an issue, i find Lambda and BAF to have much less lag then a Hami raid, or even a mothership raid, so if you can run either one of those without lag you can handle the Lambda and Baf.
This there really isn't much of a counter point to, so i'll have to concede on it for now. Though the dev's have told us they are designing at least 2 more trials, who knows if they can be used to unlock the 4 slots we are opening up right now.
Yes, and no. Like i already mentioned, the 'tricks' the AV are much easy to avoid (Nova fist warns you on the screen when its about to happen, giving you close to a 10 second window to avoid it) and the Sequestration abilities in BAF need to hit you 3 times in order to hold you, and while it is a mag 5,000 hold, it only lasts about 15 seconds, and more often then not you will also be hit with a 'Ignore' power that prevents the AVs (or even mobs around them) to target you while you are held. The artillery in Lambda, is really just a mass AoE debuff tool, that does some pretty nasty -dmg, and -rech, but it does very little actual damage. Now, if you ignore the sequestration, and ignore nova fist (or just don't avoid it) you can see yourself being held a lot, (if your tanking, or have large amounts of aggro) and having your hp yo-yo up and down due to AoE healing keeping you alive after nova fits hits.
The AOE damage spikes aren't nearly as bad now, as they were on day 1. With the fact that most people have +3 level shifts (which make your pets also +3) and t1 or higher Destiny powers, a lot of the AoE damage is negated. If i'm not careful, i lose about 1 - 3 pets every couple of minutes in a Marauder fight, but thats mostly due to lack of controlling them, I don't use macros, and i mostly just let them to their thing, which against level 54 mobs (even at +3) can mean certain death.

Doms, controllers and warshades, while they do have pets, have a much easier time controlling them due to the pets usually focusing on the target the player is working on as well, and most of the dom and controller pets have some pretty nice resistance/def base, which stack with the destiny buffs making them survive the entire fight.

Another thing you want to consider is that most of the AoEs being thrown around at cones. Almost all the IDF (Imperial Defense Force) is single target, with a few AOE debuffs thrown in. Vickys, the warworks bosses are PURE single target, with the minions and LTs have AOE debuffs, and cone attacks. Also, with most everyone having a t1 judgement power, the additional mobs that spawn usually don't last very long past the alpha, so your pets end up surviving the entire fight.

Again, i can understand where you are coming from, i just wanted to add some insight into the way the fights are actually set up. Paragonwiki and the guides make things out to be much harder then they really are sometimes.