anonymoose

What MM are you duoing with, the various sets have different strengths/weaknesses.

And just to make the choice harder, I suggest a /storm mastermind. Pets never complain about knockback.

update - Now at level 29. I did some teaming this week, ran the new Mortimer Kal SF and did some GM hunting.

I knew there would be ninja-hostile parts of the SF. The Assault Bots' burn patches were devastating, I was resummoning nonstop.

I think a big part of enjoying this toon is having the right expectations. I had good teammates to carry me thru some parts, but Mortimer Kal has enough AV fights that I still felt I was pulling my weight. I got good XP, a handful of merits, and there's always more ninjas waiting to be summoned to certain death.

I also joined a Scrapyard team, we had my ninja/poison, a trapper, a rad, and a sonic/sonic defender. I've never seen Scrapyard go down in 30 seconds before, it was ridiculous.

Random thoughts - running at +2x1 the ST hold is amazingly useful. I usually tackle 3 or 4 red/purple critters at a time, if I my hold hits I've just reduced incoming damage 25-33%. Will be slotting up Paralytic for sure.

I created a ninja/poison during a recent alt-itis attack. So far I'm not hating it.

Pros - The pet animations are fantastic, those low-level paper mishes against the Tsoo were low-budget kung-fu action flick heaven.

Cons - Too numerous to list. Ninja/poison has SEVERE limitations. In fact it's only decent at one element of the game, assassinating very small groups of hard targets.

To keep this toon fun I only play certain content. I rarely team, and never big teams. I'm just running paper mishes and tips at +1, with occasional street-sweeping.

I've already got powerful team-oriented toons, so I don't feel bad that this guy will always suck on TFs, incarnate trials etc. If he's still fun at 50 I'll keep him just to run tips. For me tip mishes are a good mix of fun and reward when I don't feel like teaming or there's nothing interesting going on. I mostly leveled my crab that way from 20-50 and random A-merit rolls earned me hundred of millions, tips seem a viable niche for solo-only toons.

Preliminary verdict - a fun concept toon if and only if you play within it's strict limitations.

Any trapper is great. Def, Corr or MM, I'm glad to see them join my team.

The small differences in numbers are quickly forgotten in actual play. They've all got the best regen debuff in the game, the same grade-A alpha soaker , the same un-interuptable PGT and Acid mortar laid on the toes of the enemy.

Oh and whatever AT you choose, if you set up traps and pull into them... you're doing it wrong.

You definitely want hasten, with enough recharge you can have 2 or even 3 acid mortars out at once, and the effects stack.

I've never played mercs but here's some general advice.

Check out the Dark Miasma guides on the MM, Def and Corr forums, tons of good advice there and it all applies to you.

Do a search on "pet unique IOs", they make a difference.

Make sure your bottom tier pets have enough accuracy, remember they're 2 levels below you.

Tips mishes have been good to me, especially for toons I haven't completely IO'd out yet. Presumably you're earning inf to get stuff for your toons, but it can be faster to just buy your own LotGs etc. with alignment merits.

Whether you go with AE, TFs or tips, do yourself a favour when selling recipes and check the price of the recipe and the crafted IO. Sometimes there's a good inf to be made by crafting our drops before selling.

I already said this in the defender forum but I'll say it again.

A halfway competent trapper, whether corr or def or MM, is a powerhouse solo or teamed.

If you're using the powers properly, the small differences in numbers between ATs are overshadowed beneath the overall awesomeness of traps.

I imagine there are dp/traps and traps/dp toons soloing at +4x8, that should be awesome enough for most people.

If you're succesful solo, run tip mishes and buy the Perf Shifter, Numi, and Miracle procs with alignment merits. That will help your endurance a lot.

You can try running partial bodyguard mode, i.e. put some pets on agressive and leave the rest on defensive so you still get some of the BG mode benefits.

I'll put in a brief plug here for necro/dark.

The latest AI changes were very kind to the Grave Knights. They now rush in to use their powerful melee attacks instead of plinking from range until manually repositioned.

My necro/dark was stalled in the late 30s. I dusted him off after the AI changes and started playing him again, he's a lot of fun now.

Necro/dark is no bots/traps AoE juggernaut, but you'll stay safe long enough to kill everything in your path, and provide lots of survivability to your team.