Pegs Guide to the Thugs/Dark Controller - Version 3
Peg made level 50 a few months back, and I forgot to come and update this guide. Let me start by saying that for the most part, the advice I gave originally worked beautifully, and I found the trip to 50 to be easy both solo and in a group. A Thug/Dark mastermind is in my opinion the most synergistic build in the game (and I have tried most of them at one time or another). Making it to 50 was actually sad, because I was going to miss playing Peg (Im still trying to unlock Warshades).
Section 1 The Concept
I call this the Thugs/Dark Controller, because it plays much more like a controller than a MM; albeit a controller with an insanely high alpha strike. There are several very useful sets of tactics to use with the build, which I detail in section 4. In general, however, you are going to ignore all the pistol powers in favor of the dark powers. You will then allow your thugs to deal all of the damage, while you control the flow of the fight.
This build is designed for soloing, especially soloing missions where the difficulty is set to 4 or 5. I play at level 5 in order to maximize the mission bonus and the reward for killing bosses. I got tired of trying to find groups, or standing around for 30 minutes waiting for someone to sell a couple enhancements and fly in from 3 zones away. This build doesnt need anyone to help, and I have no difficulty taking out purple bosses, including Family and Longbow bosses. I also have little difficulty with most AVs, with a couple exceptions. Most of the AVs can be taken down solo, although they may take some time. I did find that Ghostwidow, Valkerie and a few others were tough, requiring me to lower the difficulty. For the most part, the hard AVs have a combination of high hitpoints with mezz powers. This build has no mezz protection, and Psi defense is its biggest weakness.
Having said that, this build is also very good with a team. You are a primary damage dealer for the team, along with a healer and controller of the mobs. The only real downside is that teammates with lower end graphics cards might have difficulties with all the bodies moving around. This is especially true if you have a team with several masterminds.
Section 2 The Build
Peg is a level 50 Thug/Dark MM. Her epic powers are from the Ghostwidow pool (chosen to match the character concept, rather than power synergies). In my opinion, this build requires a respec to do it. When you respec, you will be not taking any of your personal pistol powers. I cant see getting to medium levels without those powers, so I wouldnt try to build this from scratch this way.
Primary Powers
Call Thugs 3 thugs 2 levels below you, one of which is an arsonist (sort of a fire blaster). They arent your main fire power, but they are a good chunk of your team. They are also good for taking fire, though the arsonist is a little fragile. He is the one you will have to bring back the most.
Slots 4 slots: 1 Accuracy, 3 Damage (The accuracy might be optional, given the use of tactics, but of all your thugs, these guys have the most trouble hitting)
Equip Thugs This is the first of your two equip powers. All thugs get one of these cast on them, except the Bruiser. They last until a thug dies. The reason to not cast this on the Bruiser is that it eliminates his tendency to use knock back powers, breaking up the nice tight groups that you have under control.
Slots 1 slot: 1 Endurance reduction
Call Enforcer 2 thugs, 1 level below you. These are ranged specialists carrying Uzis, and they deal a lot of damage with a quick recycle time. They also have powers from the leadership pool, which you will be stacking with your own leadership pool selections.
Slots 6 slots: 3 Damage, 3 Tohit Buff (With the stacking of tactics between the enforcers and yourself, accuracy shouldnt be needed)
Call Bruiser 1 Thug who looks like a brute, but plays more like a Troll Grovard. His alpha strike is a big rock that he throws that hits for about 150 points of damage, after all buffs and enhancements. He also does lots of knockbacks, stuns, and disorients.
Slots 3 slots: 3 Damage (Again, Tactics is the replacement for accuracy enhancements, you could also add hold, knockback distance or disorient duration enhancements, depending on the effect you want, if you are willing to sacrifice slots elsewhere)
Upgrade Equipment This is your second equip power, and is cast on all 6 thugs.
Slots 1 slot: 1 Attack rate reduction (This power is slow to cycle, and you need to use it 6 times when entering a mission. You might use an endurance here instead)
Gang War This brings in 10 additional thugs all wielding baseball bats. You cant control them the way you do the other thugs. They will target the victim (usually I choose a boss) that was selected when you activated the power, then after it is dead, will attack anything else in range. After everything is dead, they all run up to you and stand around waiting to follow you somewhere else. Sometimes I will run through other mobs just to give them something else to attack before they go away. I find that they last long enough to take on two separate bosses, if the bosses are in nearby rooms. These guys are particularly useful for dealing with the Hero on mayhem missions.
Slots 5 slots: 3 Attack rate, 2 Accuracy (This power is useful to have around, especially with teams (if they can stand the frame rate hit), the accuracy enhancements are because they miss pretty often and are often not within range of your tactics power)
Note that I have selected none of the pistol powers. You wont need them; your thugs will do the work for you, while you sit back and watch.
Secondary Powers
This is your job. They are the firepower, you are controlling the battle. You can put that shiny pistol up on the mantle now; you wont need it any longer.
Twilight Grasp This is your heal power, and the heal power for your thugs. It also has a debuff component for your victim. Generally, you will watch the health bars, select something that happens to still be alive, run to the thugs that need healing and cast this power. Hopefully, you will get the power off before the victim dies (danged efficient thuggies). With SO enhancements, this power will hit everything in your range for about 350 points of healing. Since the enemy alpha strike is usually no more than 100 or so, you can teleport in a minion to be your heal source. You target, teleport, hit the TG power then watch all the health bars jump to full while your victim keels over filled with 50 bullet holes.
Slots 6 slots: 2 Accuracy, 3 Heal, 1 Attack Rate
Tar Patch I used to be ambivalent toward tar patch, but now I am a big fan. For me the best part of this power is its ability to reduce the defense and damage resistance of everything in it. If there is something that is hard to hit, like an AV, tar patch will let your minions hit it and hit is harder. Often it can be the difference between being able to kill something, and having it regen health faster than you can deal damage.
Slots 6 slots: 3 Attack Rate increase, 3 Slow (With the attack rate enhancements, you can keep tar patch active almost continuously)
Darkest Night This is one of your 4 primary powers that you will use all the time. This will seriously debuff the attack ability of one enemy and all of the ones around him. You get to point and laugh at the silly boss as his bolts and rocks sail harmlessly over your head. The worst problem with this power is the target will die so fast that unless you put the insults on a macro, you will be still typing while he is lying on the ground as a corpse.
Slots 3 slots: 3 Tohit Debuff (Note that Darkest Night does use a lot of endurance while active. If you read the section on endurance management you will see that this isnt a problem, but you might want to let your thugs do the work while you have this power turned on)
Shadow Fall After you buff your thugs, you are going to turn this power on and leave it on until the end of the mission. It is going to give you and your thugs three important benefits. You will be partially invisible, allowing you to get well within range to use your fear cone without being attacked. It will give you defensive buffs and it will give you damage reduction. Between Shadow Fall and the Supremacy MM power, you will see red hits of 150 barely move your green health bar. That is if they can hit you at all. One very important point on the damage reduction, this power is the only one you have that can mitigate Psi damage.
Slots 4 slots:1 Defense buff, 3 Damage reduction (Ive been told that use of damage reduction here is a bad idea, but I disagree with that statement. First of all, defense is also provided by Maneuvers and your Enforcers. Second, Psi is the biggest weakness of this character, so maximizing the one mitigation you have against Psi is prudent)
Fearsome Stare This is your primary controller power. Use Shadow Fall to get close, then hit the mob with this fear cone. They will stand there as long as you need to put any additional debuffs on them you want. The only downside is that when your arsonist hits them with a fireball, they are all going to wake up and try to shoot back before going back into the fear stance. I find that I am usually casting this or Twilight Grasp during the battle to heal thugs or keep enemies under control. Also note that Fearsome Stare is particularly effective in PVP. It will almost always land, and your opponents will have to spam break frees to escape.
Slots 6 slots: 1 Accuracy, 2 Fear duration, 3 Attack rate
Dark Servant The DS gives you a 7th pet, but it isnt permanent the way the thugs are. However, with three attack rate enhancements, you will be able to keep the DS up 95% of the time. This power is really great, and you will find that the DS is always augmenting your actions. You will do a heal, and he will to. You will go to put a hold on a boss and it will work, because the DS did it also. The powers available to the DS are numerous and all of them useful.
Slots 6 slots: 3 Attack Rate, 3 To Hit debuffs (The DS has an aura power, Chill of the Night, which lowers the accuracy of everything around it, similar to Darkest Night. Slotting to maximize its effectiveness is your best option, though hold duration, immobilization duration and heal are also available to you)
Pool Powers
Maneuvers (Leadership) This power will provide defense buffs for you and your thugs, while they stay within range.
Slots 5 slots: 2 Endurance Reduction, 3 Defense Buff
Assault (Leadership) This power increases the damage done by you and your thugs.
Slots 2 slots: 2 Endurance Reduction (Unfortunately, damage enhancements are not an available option)
Tactics (Leadership) This power will increase the accuracy of you and your thugs. Note that this power stacks with the same power cast by your Enforcers.
Slots 5 slots: 2 Endurance reduction, 3 To Hit buff
Teleport Foe (Teleport) Target a single target and teleport it to a location of you choosing. This power will work on minions and white lieutenants. See Section 4 for an explanation of the tactics used with this power.
Slots 4 slots: 3 Attack Rate, 1 Accuracy (The attack rate enhancements are crucial in order to keep your rhythm going. You will almost always be ready to teleport the next foe after your thugs finish doing their thing.)
Teleport (Teleport) Select a location in the distance and teleport yourself to it. When you arrive you will hover for 2 seconds before falling. Base range for teleport is 100 yards. Using the bind included in Section 6, you can travel very quickly across the map, as long as your endurance holds out.
Slots 1 slot: 1 Endurance Reduction (Range enhancements are also good for this power, but I personally dont feel like using the slots. You could reduce the slots for swift and hurdle to give this power extra range.)
Recall Friend (Teleport) Obviously useful power for teams. Good for getting those teammates to the mission door or getting their bodies out of harms way. In my current build, this power was selected as my level 49 power, because it doesnt need many slots. You would probably want to take it earlier, then move it up the list during a respec. I use it last because I want to be able to fully slot Soul Storm.
Slots 1 slot: 1 Attack Rate (Endurance reduction is another possibility)
Swift (Fitness) Increases your run and fly speed, costing no endurance. I find that I rarely use travel powers while in a mission, so being able to run faster is good for getting through it quicker.
Slots 3 slots: 3 Run Speed (These slots are obvious ones to use elsewhere if moving faster isnt a priority)
Hurdle (Fitness) Increases your jumping ability, costing no endurance. You thugs all have excellent jumping ability, so this power lets you get up onto balconies and ledges that they have no trouble reaching.
Slots 3 slots: 3 Jump (These slots are also obvious ones to use elsewhere if jumping isnt that important to you)
Stamina (Fitness) What is there to say about the best power in the game? I dont need to explain to you that this is a must have, you knew it already. See Section 3 for a discussion of endurance management in this build.
Slots 3 slots: 3 Endurance Gain
Night Fall (Ghostwidow) A cone attack power that does nice damage. I use this power as a damage dealer, since I dont have pistol powers. It can help finish something off if I am outside without any thugs summoned. I originally took Dark Embrace, but never found that the additional damage reduction was all that useful for me. You have to take either this power or Dark Embrace to get to the rest of the pool.
Slots 1 slot: 1 Accuracy (If I had extra slots, I would probably want to put 3 damage in this power too)
Soul Tentacles (Ghostwidow) A very nice cone immobilize that does damage as well. You will find that you and your Dark Servant will both be immobilizing the mobs often, and between you will be able to keep everything locked down while your thugs kill them.
Slots 6 slots: 1 Accurance, 3 Damage, 2 Immobilize Duration
Soul Storm (Ghostwidow) I used petrifying gaze instead of this power through level 50. Gaze is a very good hold power with a faster activation time. It wasnt until I was doing a safeguard mission with a group as a hero that I decided to put this back in my build. The villain we had to defeat was Ghostwidow, and she was using Soul Storm constantly. She would hit us with the hold, and each tick of damage was 200 points. The group shared 20 deaths on that mission, and only the fact that we had 2 healers with us allowed us to win. Now obviously, you will be doing more like 10 to 15 damage per tick, but there are a lot of uses for this power. It also has a very cool animation.
Slots 6 slots: 1 Accuracy, 3 Damage, 2 Hold Duration
Using the three Ghostwidow powers along with tar patch, will bring you back into the picture as a damage dealer, after giving up your pistols. Keeping the mobs under control, and being damaged, will end large fights much faster.
Powers not taken:
A few notes on the powers I didnt take, and why.
Howling Twilight A lot of people love HT, and if you mostly play in teams it is probably worth finding room in your build for it. HT will not rez your thugs, so it is only helpful on a team. Since I mostly solo, this power never made it on the priority list for me. So many good powers, so few selections.
Petrifying Gaze I love PG. In fact I didnt drop PG until after I made it to 50. I dont use it, because it is redundant with Soul Storm from the Ghost Widow pool. It has a shorter animation time over SS, so it is marginally better from that respect, but SS also does damage to your victim and has a cooler animation. Because your Dark Servant is also using PG, you will find yourself holding bosses all the time due to the stacking effect overcoming the bosses resistances.
Black Hole Ive never taken this power, because all of the guides said not to. On my hero, I phase shift as an emergency escape power. It never made sense to me why I would want to give my victims a chance to escape using a similar power. Maybe you can find a use for it, but I never could.
Health Note that I didnt take this power from the Fitness pool. This is because I have a very effective heal power. Waiting for my health bar to regenerate has never been a problem.
Section 3 Endurance Management
If you read other guides regarding the leadership pool, they will often recommend using 3 slots for endurance reduction on each of the leadership powers. I am not making that recommendation, because those slots are needed elsewhere. You have a lot of important tools at your disposal, and getting the slotting right is critical to maximizing your effectiveness.
To prove this to the remaining doubters, lets look at the math. You will be running 5 toggles constantly, Sprint, Shadow Fall, Maneuvers, Tactics and Assault. Upon occasion you will also be running Darkest Night. The following is the endurance use for each toggle, expressed in endurance points per second (EPS)
Sprint = -.32
Shadow Fall = - .48
Maneuvers = -.40
Tactics = -.40
Assault = -.40
Darkest Night = -.48
We then modify the costs of the leadership with 2 single origin endurance reduction enhancements, reducing the cost of each 66% to -.143 EPS. Adding up the results, you will burn -1.2 EPS under most circumstances and -1.68 with Darkest Night active.
From a recovery standpoint, you have your base recovery of 1.67 EPS. Stamina adds an extra base of .51 EPS. With 3 SOs that is increased 95.7% to 1.00 EPS. This means your base recovery will be 2.67 EPS.
The end result is that you will have a recovery of 1.47 EPS while running your toggles, and .99 EPS with Darkest Night active. You should find it pretty easy to keep your endurance up under normal circumstances. At worst, you might need to watch your thugs operate a little more when Darkest Night is in use.
Section 4 Tactics, PVE
Preparation
The most annoying thing about playing a mastermind is calling your minions up. When you enter the mission you first turn off all your toggles to keep from running out of endurance. Then you need to use 3 powers to call thugs. You then need to use Equip Thugs 5 times (skipping your Bruiser) and Upgrade Equipment 6 times. You are going to turn on 4 toggles powers (Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics and Shadow Fall) plus your run power. Finally you will summon your Dark Servant. If you have an impatient team, you will either be catching up to them on the 2nd or 3rd mob, or coming in to clear the room so they can use their awakens.
Tactic 1 The Teleport
This tactic is useful for clearing out minions. You want to use it to clear out a room that is tactically difficult, or to clear things out in preparation for taking on a boss or AV. This tactic can be used all the time if you want, since the recover time for teleport foe is very short if slotted correctly.
Once you see a mob, you select a minion from the mob and teleport it right in front of you. Your thugs will alpha strike the minion and kill it in about 2 seconds. At about the same time your TP Foe power will be back up and you teleport the next minion in to be killed. Keep in mind that TP Foe will not cause agro if it misses and has a low probability of causing neighbor agro if it hits. This is a very safe tactic.
An augmentation to this strategy is to drop your tar patch in front of you first, which makes it hard for fast moving minions (like wailers) to get away before your thugs kill it.
Tactic 2 The Heal
A variation on Tactic 1 can be used for healing your team. Target the minion and summon it directly in front of you. Once you see the teleport animation start off in the distance, hit your Twilight Grasp power. You will heal your entire mob, as they kill the minion.
Tactic 3 The Boss/AV Assault
One of your biggest strengths is your ability to take out bosses, especially lone ones. Gang war is your primary tool for dealing with a boss, since the additional 10 minions will surround the boss and keep it occupied. The best way to attack a boss is to get close to it using Shadow Fall, then activate Gang War. After Gang War, while the thugs are running up, activate Darkest Night. Finally, hit your All Attack command to get your 6 main thugs attacking the Boss. Finally, if the boss is being kept relatively stationary by your gang, drop a tar patch under him to allow higher damage on him. You can finish the fight by playing support. You can either heal your minions, or use your immobilize or hold powers on the Boss. Since you Dark Servant has also been using these powers, you will often get them to take effect on the Boss. You will find that purple bosses die very quickly.
Tactic 4 Fear Control
Using your fear cone is a very effective way of dealing with larger groups, especially if they are well grouped. Again, Shadow Fall lets you get relatively close without triggering aggro. The easiest way to do this is target something in the center back of the group. Hit the Fearsome Stare power, then run toward the group. When you get within range, the power will activate and hit the whole group with the cone. At this point, you can either turn your thugs loose on the group, or try to have them take things out one by one using the All Attack command. Tar Patch and Darkest Night are both very effective additional powers to use. You will typically be standing in the middle of the group looking for targets to attack. Sometimes your thugs will switch targets before something is killed, you will occasionally have to order them to finish something off. Also some of them might be getting beat up badly and will need healing.
Tactic 5 Alpha Strike Attraction
Another popular tactic is to purposely run into the middle of a group to receive the mobs alpha strike. You will need your thugs in Follow mode in order for supremacy to work and distribute the damage among the group. You thugs will attack anything that attacked you, and will quickly thin out the mob. Tar Patch, Twilight Grasp, Darkest Night and your immobilize power are all useful in this situation.
Tactic 6 Free for All
For those times you are just feeling lazy, there is the free for all. Target something up ahead and tell your thugs to All Attack. Once they finish the target off, they are in aggressive mode and will attack anything nearby. You can sit back and watch the fun, but plan to have to resummon your arsonist. He tends to die often when you do this.
Tactic 7 Sacrifice
Finally, there will be times that you are in a situation that you cant handle. Your best method of escaping is to tell your thugs to attack, then run away. You can watch their health bars drop as they get killed, until they are all gone. Often they will kill a few others before they are killed. Now you can resummon and enter the fray slowly, usually using something like TP Foe to thin out the mob.
Section 5 Tactics, PVP
If your main purpose in COV is to PVP, then you probably want to look elsewhere. A mastermind is not the best archetype for PVP. The thug/dark MM in particular is problematic. As I mentioned before, you have no Mezz protection, and little Psi protection. Most of your mobs augmentations are on toggles, which are going to drop as soon as a brute of controller lands a stun on you. Finally, your best damage protection is Supremacy, which becomes inactive the moment you put your thugs in aggressive mode to attack an opponent. Having given all the warnings, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances, and a few situation where you will do quite well.
First of all, when you enter the PVP map, you first priority is to summon your pets. Get them all active as fast as possible and get them in a defensive stance near you. This allows the damage you take to be spread among all of you thugs instead of just taken by you. Remember, if you die, all your thugs die and all the time you spent getting them buffed is wasted.
Always, always, always carry at least 12 break frees. You are going to get stunned a lot. If you want to escape, you are going to need a break free.
Once you have the thugs up, you can try to get them buffed, if you have time. Put your tar patch down at your feet and try put upgrade equipment on your bruiser and enforcers first. You probably wont have time for more than that.
Keeping your level 1 minions near you in defensive mode is your best defense. Let the bruiser and enforcers to the work, while the others keep your supremacy active.
Fearsome Stare is your best attack. It will hit a lot, and dont let the fact that people arent cowering in fear bother you. They are spamming break frees to escape you, you need to keep attacking with it, until they run out.
Twilight Grasp is a great power to use, especially when enhanced with accuracy. It will bring you back from the brink of death many times.
In a team situation, especially a base raid, you will be very effective. Keeping near the rest of your team will allow you to use your dark powers to greatest effect. Once you land Darkest Night on their top damage dealer, you can keep spamming Twilight Grasp to heal your team, while letting your thugs attack targets of opportunity.
If you can manage to get your entire mob up and fully buffed with all toggles active, then you will be a PVP force to be reckoned with. The best tactic for your foes to use at that point is to summon you away from your mob. If that happens, use a break free and run back to your mob as fast as possible. If you can manage to land a fear before you run, then back at your mob you can drop a tar patch and summon them to you, returning the favor.
Section 6 Macros and Binds
There are a number of binds that I find to be critical to making this build work. All of these are from the available bind guides. Here are the ones that I think make a difference:
RBUTTON "+forward$$+mouse_look"
This allows me to move using the mouse only. Hold down the right mouse button to run forward, while steering by moving the mouse left and right.
ALT+RBUTTON "-mouse_look"
If I need to look at something on the user interface that requires a right click, this lets me hold down the Alt key and get there.
CTRL+LBUTTON "powexec_name Teleport"
Point your mouse way out into the distance and hold down the control key. Then you keep hitting the left mouse button to do a maximum distance teleport. With range enhancement I travel 150 feet with each click and can get there faster than the other travel powers, usually.
SHIFT+LBUTTON "local Summoning $target $$powexec_name Teleport Foe"
Target an enemy. Hold down the shift key and hit the left mouse button. Your selected target will teleport right in front of you and your thugs will alpha strike it. Watch for the white aura in the distance to know you succeeded, then you can either hit your key for All Attack or your key for Twilight Grasp, depending on if you want to use if for a group heal or not.
Q "target_custom_next mypet"
This allows the Q key to be used to target the thugs in order. I use this mostly when summoning and equipping them. Hit Q, hit the keys for the 2 equip powers, rinse and repeat 5 times.
Section 7 Conclusion
So there you have it. My humble opinion on the best way to build and play a thug/dark mastermind. Im not going to pretend that it is the only way to do it, but if you try it, you will find the build to be very satisfying and effective.
