Peacemoon

Hey there, I usually duo with my partner so in a similar situation. Generally I find it best to pair up 2 different AT's that will support each other well. As you considering a Mastermind (MM) let me give you some thoughts in that direction:

We are currently running a Controller/Mastermind duo. Controllers (and to a lesser extent Dominators) are very good at 'proactive defence' with their holds, immobilizes and stuns. They also bring a good deal of buffing and debuffing to a team so when paired with a MM can both control the enemies as well as make those henchmen even more powerful, especially when combined with a similar controller set.

Masterminds although squishy, have their army of pets at their disposal which can effectively tank for the team. With the Controllers controls minimizing incoming damage you can really soak up a huge onslaught of enemies. We have survived lots of multiple ambushes with this. Masterminds also come with a buffing and debuffing set of their own, so this just multiplies the duos effectiveness even more.

Another reason I like this combo is both Controllers and Masterminds are late bloomers. As you level up, you are constantly gaining more and more power, much more then the standard AT. They peak very late. The Mastermind's small pack of grunts because an army to be reckoned with, the Controllers adequate control powers eventually allow them to completely lockdown a whole spawn. Their buff/debuff secondary also mature later on. So if you like to have something to strive for, these AT's are great for that.

So yeah, I fully reccomend a Controller+Mastermind duet. The sets are so good that I think any combo would work well, but let me give you a few pointers of advice just to make sure you pick a set you would enjoy:

1) Sonic Resonance, Thermal Radiation, Cold Domination and Force Fields - The shielding powers of these sets can be a "lot of hard work" when playing as or duoing with a Mastermind. You feel it necessary to keep everything shielded to perform at optimum, and this can cause a lot of downtime and buffing time. It isn't too bad to begin with, but when the MM has 4+ pets it will start to drag. I personally would avoid them for this reason, but if one of you loves buffing, they can increase the survivability of your pets by a nice amount, especially Cold and Force Fields. It just isn't the most efficient way. Force Fields is also a very passive set and while it is one of my favourites, I would definitly not reccomend it for a MM. Its effective, but very boring for that AT.

2) Avoid Empathy on the Controller. It is a good set, I have 2 Empaths myself, but in this duo you will want to keep everything healed and with no UI to manage the MM's pets it will be difficult and require a keen eye. More difficult then its worth, in my opinion. Pain Domination on the MM is a better alternative if you want one of the duo to be a super healer, as the MM has an interface that shows the pet's health, plus the MM should generally be more focused on their pets anyway.

3) Radiation, Kinetics, Storm and Trick Arrow are all good sets for the controller. Rad and Kin have area effect buffs like Accelerate Metabolim or Siphon Power which will keep buffing simple and easy, plus they have AoE heals. Rad as you know has one centered on the user, Kin has it centered on an enemy so a bit tricker to work with. However the Kin heal does heal for more and if the MM has melee pets, might actually work better. Kinetics infamous buff "Speed Boost", which increases the recharge of powers and improves endurance recovery, wont do much for the henchmen because they cannot have their powers buffed to recharge faster. This means buffing isn't tedious - although if you team it could be.

Storm and Trick arrow both add extra control and a lot of debuffing. They are also available to the Mastermind so if you wanted to double up and make a duo who have similar powers, I could see a xxx/Storm Controller and xxx/Storm Mastermind team being quite fun. Any of these 4 would be ideal with a MM though, in my opinion.

4) Traps is a very powerful secondary for a MM, so that is also worth considering. Unfortunately not available to a Controller. It starts off a bit slow with web grenade, caltrops and triage beacon, but comes into its own after with the morter, force field generator (will keep all your pets bubbled and doesn't require management) and also poison trap.

5) With secondaries out the way, you'll be pleased to know that all the primiaries for both AT's are decent. There is some variation, but you can't really go wrong. Of the control sets, Mind, Gravity and Illusion offer the controller the most damage early on. The other sets however trade that damage for more control. Fire is an outlier and is great at AoE damage with its power called "Hot Feet", but be warned its a big endurance hog early on. All of the control sets would be a viable choice though.

6) In terms of MM primaries its whatever takes your fancy. Necromancy and Ninjas are more melee focused, the others being more ranged. (Not sure about Demons sorry). Necro Zombies & Ninja need extra protection because of how they like to get up close and personal, so that is something to consider. Robots are probably the most self sufficient, with their level 12 pet being a shielder and a healer. We've had good experiences with Bots.

Anyway hope that helps! Me and my partner have almost finished Praetoria content. We rolled a Gravity/Radiation Controller, and a Robot/Traps Mastermind. The sets have been great, but they also fit their concept, which is a married couple who are scientists. I love to mix performance, with theme. :-)

Wish we could get the EU crowd on the U.S servers :/

Bolded for emphasis and yes I agree with the general principle you make. If anything this has shown me how people have forgotten how to play skillfully, and blaming the game not themselves for failure. If 90% of people were having huge difficulties their might be some merit in the complaint, but at least to me it seems like most people are finding the game more difficult, but uping their game and coping.

I know the mission you are talking about Fury and actually yes I do agree with you on this specific issue. I duod that with my partner the other day and it took all of our combined focus and might to stay alive. Ambushes happening every minute. It was "Take a spawn, then wait for ambush and deal with that. Then repeat." The 5 minute timer is far too short considering the map is fully spawned from the get go. Either that or just have 1 or 2 ambushes, not a constant flow.

This post really makes me smirk because you are seemingly insinuating that you should be able to walk up to 3 minions, activate your powers randomly by smashing your face on the keyboard and still expect to come out victorious - otherwise it is a design flaw of the game.

I'm sorry DarkGob but why do you think success should be guarenteed? Without more information in your example it is difficult to reach any conclusion other then you need to improve your game. The enemies are slightly more difficult I will admit, but if you are dying 4 times in the first room of a mission, just by fighting normal spawns and without ambushes, then you are doing something wrong. No matter what your AT or power combo is.

I agree with this. As far as I am concerned there is no inherent "super difficulty" with Praetorian mobs. There are however a few instances where ambushes are used a little too...liberally.

I will echo the above, it is worth noting however that your imps and any other Controller pet will leash if you get far enough away. At that point they will stop attacking things and attempt to follow you until they catch up. I routinely play an Ill/Emp with my partners Fire/Therm. I use group invisibility on the imps as it keeps their aggro in check. However I noticed that if we fly to the end of the map, the Imps will quite happily follow without attacking anything because of the leash. :-)

Not sure I really agree with you LocalMan. I agree that Mind is great at soloing right from level 2, but I disagree that it doesn't get good AoE damage.

Where other sets get a Pet, Mind gets Terrify at 26 which is borderline overpowered. It does the same damage per target as Dominate and has a huge cone. It really is a massive AoE damage attack (if slotted) as well as a fear, and of course its damage is doubled with containment. Once you couple it with an APP AoE attack, you will see that Mind has 2 great AoE powers. The only negative with Terrify is its 45s recharge, but with decent recharge bonuses you can get it to a very respectable number.

So I would say Mind's damage just isn't that clear cut. People see the lack of pet as a huge thing, but really my experience with Controller pets is that they are unreliable and not as effective as people imagine them to be. In teams I would argue Mind does more damage with its 2 AoE's then most other control sets, where pets are largely sidelined. I know I routinely solo on x8 difficulty because it seems a waste to fight small spawns. Granted Mind/ is not as powerful as Fire for AoE damage, but its no where near as weak as people think.

Of course one thing I will concede is that Mind does lack reliable ways of setting up containment, which is the main drawbacks of the set.

As for the original question, my main is a Mind/Storm and it works very well. However it is not the easiest combo to play and while it has a lot of synergy, you need to be quite knowledgable about your powers to get the most out of it. This is because unlike some combos, you can't just throw out everything at your disposal all the time, you have to pick and choose what you use carefully, especially when solo. Mass Hypnosis + Freezing Rain is not the ideal combo for instance.

However some synergy Mind/Storm has is Steamy Mist + Aggroless powers, it lets you get much closer without being detected and also lets you be the "psychic stealther" as you can easily slip past enemies with a well targeted confuse or sleep. Thunderclap is a good source of containment damage on minions as well. Freezing Rain + Terrfiy make a great soft control combination. Lightning Storm and Tornado (where applicable due to lack of -knockback) are good pets for when you need more firepower, which if you like pets can make up for the lack of pet from Mind/. Now if only you could shove enemies around with Hurricane without waking them up, unfortunately you can't. :-)

I feel so bad!

If you open that harscore raiding door door, you open the game up to a lot of negative things. Elitism, tiered content, big baddies only the few will face. This game is not like that, heck CoH could be considered a whole different genre to that. I hate to say it, but if it's big raids and fancy rewards that you want then you are better off returning back there. In my eyes, it is hardly the pinnacle of what games should strive for. It is too much like work and not enough fun, especially as a guild leader like I was.

New content is on its way with every issue. Unlike other games, CoX adds content regularly and not just in paid expansions. Would we want no issues for expansions 3 times the size? It has pros and cons. Personally I'm happy with my issues. ;-)