MriBruce

*laugh* Okay, sounds like a thing for me to dabble with. Thanks.

There's a part of my brain that has this real fascination with stealthing. I prefer ranged to melee action, so stalkers are low on my priority list. But I'm intermittently tallying my other options, and would appreciate y'all pointing out all the ones I'm missing.

- Illusion controllers. I'm given to understand superior invisibility is about the best in breed, too. I just have trouble finding a secondary I'm really happy with.

- Fortunatas.

- Devices blasters. I seem to recall reading that the cloaking device is neither all that nor a bag of chips when it comes to stealth, but I can't seem to find that info now. (I freely admit to not really understanding what this feet thing is in stealth ratings.)

- Dark miasma whatevers. See above about stealth ratings, though.

- Anything with stealth IOs, of course.

What am I missing in the way of power sets? And how do they compare in terms of just how stealthy they are

Outstanding. Thanks! *off for reading and thinking*

I've got one mastermind at 50, and one coming along, hitting it tonight or tomorrow. The second in particular, my necro/dark Persephone Ash, is just a thorough delight to play, and I've already dabbled some in doing Ouroboros arcs to see sights I've missed while leveling my various characters, and have helped out some friends with task forces as well as getting my own Task Force Commander accolade.

Since it seems like I'm going to want to do more playing her at lower levels, I've become curious about tips and concerns folks may want to offer about slotting and enhancements for lower-level play. Any un-obvious pitfalls? Un-obvious niftiness? I've been thinking mostly in terms of the stock IOs, but I have a couple hundred million I could throw at neat procs or whatever.

Advise me, please.

Well, the thread got me to try it out, and wow. I keep cackling like a fiend while playing - my cat's given me the "what NOW, silly human" look twice. Even at 16, Sierra Jane is already an immense delight to play.

Oh, I remember the other part of my question. Apart from the procs...some healing sets give a bonus to all healing powers. I'm guessing that just means the character, and not the pets. Correct?

Thanks! Yeah, slotting the proc in a pet slot seemed silly right off the bat.

I've slotted some Theft of Essence in Twilight Grasp, on my necro/dark mastermind. Do the benefits from that apply to the zombies' self-heal?

I had an odd experience the other day, and wonder if anyone else has run into this:

Someone in a BAF run went on this moderately extended rant about how masterminds and their pets are just no damn good on iTrials, and how his super-group won't even let them join when they're forming leagues. He blamed my pets for any positioning problem the league had with arch-villains, even when it was quite clear my pets weren't responsible. (When my pets are in passive and gathered around me, and there's a blaster standing right next to the arch-villain firing away and taking the AV's attention, there is a problem, but it's not one of my making.)

The other mastermind on that run sighed and said something that suggests it wasn't the first time they'd run into that kind tirade.

It hasn't come up again, and it didn't really make any problems then (not least because an SG-mate of mine was running the league that time), but...it was odd.

My experience is about the same as others. I wish I'd thought to use just some of my pets until the character gets a level shift - thank you, Crysys, I'll do that with my second mastermind to do iTrials. During those early trials (which really didn't take that long to do), the protector and assault bots were certainly more useful than the battle drones. Once I got the first level shift, no particular problems overall, just the kind of strength and weakness others have already discussed.

I'd love to see this kind of thing too - and definitely in the spirit of the original, with female counterparts that share a suitable level of competence and clothing with the original models.

Yes, you're crazy, but that doesn't mean it might not work out really well.

If you do, write it up?

I wonder how much of the success of any all-Whatever group is the attitude of the participants. Sort of by definition, it calls for players open to experimentation, interested in pushing the limits of their characters' abilities, interested in success but prepared to deal with complications and failure. Good sports, that is to say, with a touch of gonzo and probably a fair grasp on the nuances of their characters.

I've done all illusion controller task forces a couple of times. They were very profoundly silly.

All-blaster Positron went remarkably well. We didn't actually die a lot, and wow did things go down.

I've certainly wished, more than once, for an alternate appearance set for robots that would all be lil' drones - the battle drones are fine, but protectors and assault bots that were small fliers would be awesome.

The robots/force field mastermind is actually very playable on minimal core powers. Mine has, let's see, five from the primary and seven from the secondary, and actually does really well. And I could, if I wanted, cut one or two off from force field that I barely ever use without messing up the process of play at all.

I skipped Repair on my bots/ff character, too. Aid Other does what I need it to do

I'm Mids-illiterate, so no help there. I just wanted to say how much I like the concept.

I ran ninja/time up to 23 or so and enjoyed it a lot. It was sometimes fiddlier the I really care or, but fun - fast, and full of useful stuff when grouping as well as soloing. And I enjoyed the ninja as minions for being so fleet on their feet.

People seem to go one of two ways about Force Field:

#1. It's great - I can give my pets fantastic protection, and I have something reliable and not hard to manage to contribute when grouping, and it lets me fiddle with my own attacks, pet coordination, or just sight-seeing without any worries.

#2. It's a bore! I renew the buffs a bit more than every 4 minutes and then hardly have anything to do. I could be directing my pets over the phone for all that I'm involved.

Both of these are very sensible reactions. I'm usually in camp #1 myself, but I have alts for when #2 comes to visit me.

I haven't played with mercs myself, but the upshot of discussion here about them seems to boil down to:

#1. They under-perform compared to other mastermind pet sets.

#2. This means they are merely excellent to awesome compared to anyone else.

And the folks who've had the most reliable help in exchanges I've followed seem to share the sense that a player who's happy with the character's pets will get more out of them than someone who's not. Which should be a big "duh", but often gets overlooked by people who treat one kind of data as paramount to all other considerations.

As far as play goes, like others that, mercenaries are really focused on attacking from a distance. The demons have ranged attacks, but also melee ones, and in play tend to dart in and out. Robots and thugs most operate at range, zombies and ninjas favor getting close up. And each set of pets has some different strengths and weaknesses as far as what damage they're vulnerable to, and like that.

As witness various threads of mine in this forum , I've tried a whole lot of things in the last month. Robots/force field is the combo that's brought me greatest happiness - least fuss to level, a buff I'm comfortable handing out when grouping, and just a riotous good time as the pet team fills out.

But really, the overwhelming majority of the considerations tipping me against this or that combo were purely personal. I don't like relatively long casting animations, for instance. But it's not like there's anything wrong with dark. I like my pets to have the same appearance each time. But who'd be stupid enough to say thugs is broken? And so forth and so on. I had a good time every time, and only had to choose the best times for me right now, with a waiting list of future contenders for when I have some more free attention.