R_M's I7 Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind Guide
By
Centinull,
Posted on: 2006-07-22 10:03 in Player Guides
TWO ACC, OR NOT TWO ACC?
Now it's time for a little lesson in just how buffs and SOs apply to our actual chance to hit things.
The equation used when you fire a power off at a foe is this:
(base to_hit + buffs - debuffs) * (1 + accuracy SOs)
base to_hit = your base percentage chance of hitting a foe of that particular level relative to you. Numbers recently given by _Castle_ are
+0 = 75
+1 = 68
+2 = 61
+3 = 55
+4 = 48
+5 = 41
+6 = 34
buffs = percentage buff from any powers that increase your accuracy, such as Supremacy, Tactics, Fortitude, Build Up, Aim, etc., and also yellow (Insight) Inspirations
debuffs = percentage debuff from any powers that decrease your accuracy, such as dark energy blasts; also any Defense value the enemy might have against your attacks
Let's say you're just starting out at level 1, with your first robot henchman at your beck and call.
Your single Battle Drone's chance to hit a yellow mob (+1 level over you), without slotting any Enhancements yet, is thus
68% base + 10% Supremacy = 78% * 1 = 78%
Slot a single Training Enhancement in it, and it becomes
68% base + 10% Supremacy = 78% * 1.08 = 85%
With two Trainings it becomes 90%, and with three 95%. By the time you have four Training Accuracies in your Battle Drones, you can do Ruthless missions with ease.
If you ever want to calculate your exact accuracy with a given power at any given time, simply plug the numbers into that equation. Since your Enhancement Management screen will now display your total percentage from slotted SOs, this becomes easier than ever: no more adding up enhancements and making allowance for how many levels yellow or green they are.
The explanation has taken a while, but this brings us to one of the more important questions a Mastermind can consider: how many Accuracies to slot into his henchmen? For Battle Drones, Protector Bots, and Assault Bots, I have recommended 3, 2, and 2 SOs respectively without Tactics; 2, 1, and 1 with. But how does this stack up against the enemies you're likely to be facing? Since we know how much of a bonus Supremacy gives (7.5%) and how much fully-slotted Tactics gives (12%) we can now find out. (Note that if it should come out that Tactics gives 10% base instead of 7.5%, you'll be doing 5-10% better depending on how many Acc SOs you have.)
Thanks to BlackestNight, we have these numbers for our henchmen when affected by Supremacy.
Note that these tables apply to robots at their final relative levels (Tier 1s at -2 levels to you, Tier 2s at -1 level to you) and with SO slotting. If you are concerned about calculating how to slot earlier on, you can use the formula to run your own numbers at a given level, or just use the appropriate numbers below for bots at earlier levels (i.e. for Battle Drones from level 1 to 5, use the Tier 3 figures) remembering that each SO is equivalent to two DOs or four Trainings.
The first number is how many levels the enemy cons higher than you; the difference in level to your robot is included in the calculation. The second number is the henchman's base chance To-Hit against that level of foe, taking into account the level difference between you and him, with Supremacy included. The next three numbers are your final percentage accuracy with 1, 2, or 3 Accuracy SOs respectively, assuming no Defense or To-Hit Debuffs on the part of the enemy. Note that any number higher than 95% is effectively 95%, since there is always a 1 in 20 chance to miss.
The numbers in parentheses represent your final accuracy if you also have Tactics with 3 SOs in Accuracy.
Tier 1: (-2)___1 Acc________2 Acc_______3 Acc
+0 – 71______94.43________118_________141
+1 – 65______86.45 (102)___108_________128.7
+2 – 58______77.4 (93)_____96 (116)_____115 (137)
+3 – 51_______68 (84)______85 (105)____101 (123)
+4 – 44_______58.5 (74)_____73 (93)_____87 (109)
Tier 2: (-1)___1 Acc________2 Acc_______3 Acc
+0 – 78_______104________129_________154
+1 – 71______94.43_______118_________141
+2 – 65______86.45 (102)__108_________128.7
+3 – 58______77.4 (93)____96 (116)_____115 (137)
+4 – 51______68 (84)______85 (105)_____101 (123)
Tier 3: (+0)___1 Acc_______2 Acc________3 Acc
+0 – 85_______113________141_________168
+1 – 78_______104________129_________154
+2 – 71______94.43_______118_________141
+3 – 65______86.45 (102)__108_________128.7
+4 – 58______77.4 (93)____96 (116)_____115 (137)
Assuming that the highest-level foes you will be facing most of the time will be +3s, the lowest number of slots needed to cap your accuracy (or at least come within 2% of the cap in the case of using Tactics) will be 3, 2, and 2 without maxed Tactics, or 2, 1, and 1 with.
Note that even the parenthetical numbers assume just one application of Tactics--your own. With two or more Tactics-users in a party, your accuracy becomes even better, and you will be potting +4s with ease.
IF YOU'LL BE MY BODYGUARD, I CAN BE YOUR LONG-LOST PAL
The biggest change in Issue 7 for Masterminds is the new Bodyguard system. This seemingly simple change provides Masterminds with an entirely new way to play--a way that will not necessarily be obvious (especially with the lack of documentation Cryptic habitually provides), and may take some getting used to.
Bodyguard mode divides the incoming damage you take into shares. The total number of shares varies depending on how many henchmen you have near you and in Bodyguard mode at the time. You take 2 shares of damage, and each henchman takes 1. Needless to say, the more henchmen you have, the lower percentage of that damage you will take.
No. Henchmen_____Total Shares_______Damage You Take Damage Each Henchman Takes
1________________3__________________66.7%_________ ___________33.3%
2________________4__________________50%___________ ___________25%
3________________5__________________40%___________ ___________20%
4________________6__________________33.3%_________ ___________16.7%
5________________7__________________28.6%_________ ___________14.3%
6________________8__________________25%___________ ___________12.5%
Note that you only get the benefit of henchmen who are in Bodyguard mode and near you at the time. If only one of your six Henchmen is bodyguarding you, you will take 66.7% of damage; if none are, you take the whole amount.
However, when you have all six henchmen bodyguarding you, you take only 1/4 of the damage from every attack, as long as you are in Bodyguard mode. This means you can tank better than you ever could before--certainly better than a Brute, and possibly even better than a Tank. And if you've taken a pounding and you and all your henchmen have lost health, a well-placed Twilight Grasp can restore you all at once. It's just sick how much more effective Bodyguard can make a Mastermind--especially one with Dark Miasma.
It's not all fun and games, however. For a henchman to act as your Bodyguard, he must be in Defensive Follow mode. This means that he will tag along with you and not attack anything unless it attacks and hits you first. In short, your henchmen can only take a bullet for you if they're not doing much of anything else. However, if you have binds set up that will let you attack without leaving Defensive mode, you can direct them to attack a target manually. They will not be guarding you while they execute your attack order, but they will resume guarding you immediately once the target is defeated. For maximum effectiveness, you may occasionally wish to consider keeping some of your Henchmen (for instance, your Minions) in Bodyguard mode while setting the others to Active.
This makes it more important than ever that you have a good system of binds set up (see the bind section immediately following this one); you can't rely on the macro buttons if you want to get the full benefit out of bodyguard mode. Clicking the green and yellow attack macro button will not only cause your pets to attack something--it will also put them in Active mode, meaning they won't Bodyguard you anymore even after the target is dead. (You can right click and edit the macro button to change "active" to "defensive," just as you can edit the "heel" button to change "passive" to "defensive," but these will only be a partial solution at best.)
I have little doubt that there are many different tricks and techniques that Bodyguard promotes that I have yet to discover; however, one of the first ones that I did discover is that it allows an entirely new method of pulling. Formerly, my preferred pull was to open with Fearsome Stare and hope that I could survive the alpha of the ones whom the fear did not affect. However, Bodyguard makes everything much simpler. Here's my new three-step Bodyguard pull technique:
1) Engage Bodyguard mode on all Henchmen. With the proper binds, that's as easy as punching a couple of numeric keypad buttons.
2) Approach to within Darkest Night range of the enemy spawn and drop it on a good target. Lieutenants are usually a good choice, or bosses.
3) Drop Tar Patch just in front of the enemy spawn. They'll run right into it and be slowed on their way to get you. You may then use Fearsome Stare or other effects if you choose.
Darkest Night will cause the enemies to alpha strike you, but its debuffs will prevent many of them from hitting or doing much damage, and Bodyguard will lessen the effect of those that do. And once someone does hit you, your henchmen will start attacking back. (In the event that the alpha misses entirely, you may need to issue a manual attack order to start things off.)
Bodyguard mode is also a blessing in PVP; as long as you keep your Henchmen with you while you travel, you can't be one-or-two-shotted by Assassin Strikes anymore. You might lose your Minion-class henchies, but you'll still be alive. The reduced recharge time on Minions makes them good Bodyguard cannon-fodder anyway.
Note that Bodyguard mode may become less effective at the higher levels where AoE attacks are more frequent. When you and your henchmen are hit by an AoE attack, they take the attack's full damage in addition to their share of your damage from it. This can result in your entire squad of robots being reduced to spare parts on the floor faster than you can blink. Don't think that Bodyguard mode makes you completely invincible, because it does not.
THESE ARE THE BINDS THAT TIE
So you've rolled up a Robots/Dark Mastermind and are sitting in the Zig, customizing the controls the way you like them and getting used to your robot. And that's good. But there are two things you need to do right away.
1) Name your henchman/men. Do this by right-clicking on the henchman's name in the pet display and selecting rename. You can rename your henchmen as often as you want, but it would be a good idea to settle on some that you will keep for the duration, because they will be an important part of your binds. If you can, name your pets so that the first few letters of each of the names are different, so you'll be able to use shorter binds. Note that if you are sidekicked to level 18 or higher, you will be able to summon all three of your Battle Drones--and after you reach level 12, if you are sidekicked to 24 or higher (or enter Bloody Bay) you can summon both of your Protector Bots, so you can rename them before they are usually accessible to you.
2) Set up binds. You can type up a memo or a letter with two fingers and hunt-and-pack, but to type the Great American Novel you're going to need to touch-type. Likewise, the macro buttons Masterminds get will work for the first few missions, but they lack the finesse that you're going to need to be the best Mastermind you can. A full set of binds will let you quickly give orders to your robots individually and in subgroups by type, sending them in different directions to perform different tasks as the need arises. Furthermore, if you plan to make extensive use of Bodyguard mode, the existing macros simply won't do. I cannot emphasize enough that you should configure a full set of Mastermind binds as quickly as possible.
The best place to start is with Sandolphan's bind guide, Khaiba's Mastermind Numeric Keypad Pet Controls. This guide and its followup thread tells you everything you need to know about configuring your numeric keypad to control your robots. It works so well that I always imagine that if you could see a closeup of your Mastermind's left arm, you'd see a little numeric keypad there, too. I'm not going to retread the same ground Sandolphan has so ably covered in that guide, but I'll summarize so you have a basis for following the rest of this section.
The binds Sandolphan advises make use of the keys in the following ways:
numpad / * - select your first, second, or third Battle Drones, respectively.
numpad + Enter select your first and second Protector Bot, respectively.
numpad 0 selects all robots.
numpad 1 selects all Battle Drones.
numpad 2 selects all Protector Bots.
numpad 3 selects your Assault Bot.
numpad 4 sets all currently-selected bots to Aggressive Mode.
numpad 5 sets all currently-selected bots to Defensive Mode.
numpad 6 sets all currently-selected bots to Passive Mode.
numpad 7 gives all currently-selected bots the Attack My Target command.
numpad 8 gives all currently-selected bots the Follow command.
numpad 9 gives all currently-selected bots the Goto command.
control+decimal dismisses all currently-selected bots.
The bind configuration is a bit complex, and involves bind files that bind keys to load other bind files, but does it ever pay off once you have it set up!
But in my opinion, the binds he gives make a good starting point. I have tweaked Khaiba's binds to be even more useful to me (and more complicated). The changes I have made include
<ul type="square">[*]adding a /tell mycharactername statement to confirm to me what pets I have just selected.[*]adding a shout-out "local All units, engage Battle Mode!" etc. to some of the functions. This is entirely up to people's individual tastes, of course.[*]configuring Alt and Control plus the henchman select keys (/ * - + Enter) to select each henchman and then apply the Equip or Upgrade power respectively. This saves a huge amount of time when it comes to cranking the pets out and slapping upgrades on them at the start of each mission. The only problem with this is when it comes to the Assault Bot, who is selected by hitting 3. I try to leave the Shift, Control, and Alt chords of 1 through 9 on the keypad free because I will use those for setting up party member heals and buffs for my characters that have them--such as my Robots/FF Mastermind. But then I noticed that the Alt and Control chords to zero (select all robots) weren't being used--so Alt and Control plus zero became the upgrades for my Assault Bot. If I were doing it over, I'd probably rebind 3 to select all and zero to select my Assault Bot to begin with so as not to have to split the key like that, but I've gotten into the habit of doing it this way.[/list](If you think even that is complicated, you ain't seen nothing yet. For my Robots/FF Mastermind, I use the decimal key as a toggle to load yet another bind file that turns Ctrl and Alt plus henchman-select key into bubble buffs. But that's outside the scope of this guide.)
Rather than make this guide even longer by pasting everything into place, I've zipped up the set of binds I use for my Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind and placed them here, to serve as an example. If you want to adopt these binds for yourself, you'll need to go through and change the names of all the henchmen, the target of the various /tells, and the file directory of each of the /bindloadfile commands.
There's another set of binds I made that aren't in those files. I happened to realize that just as there are three chord keys--Shift, Alt, and Control--there are three robot summoning powers. So I made the following binds...
/bind shift+mbutton "pow_exec_name Battle Drone"
/bind control+mbutton "pow_exec_name Protector Bots"
/bind alt+mbutton "pow_exec_name Assault Bot"
With these binds, summoning my bots is as simple as holding shift and clicking the middle button, then clicking the left button to position them where I want them--then repeating the procedure with the next chord. (I also use shift+lbutton to cast Tar Patch, ctrl+lbutton to summon the Dark Servant, and alt+lbutton for the Group Flight goto command.)
The above binds, or something like them, will take a lot of the frustration and a lot of the hunt and click nature of summoning and upgrading out of your inside-mission setup. You may not fully appreciate how simple this makes things until it comes time to summon three sets of robots and buff them twice.
FILLING A ROLE
Old City of Heroes hands just getting into CoV may be a little confused about what role the Mastermind is supposed to fill. The others have fairly obvious CoH counterparts, but the Mastermind is the odd man out. It seems kind of like the illegitimate progeny of a Controller and a Tanker, having the Controller's Defender secondaries and pets, but no mez powers in the primary and and the pets are like mini-Tankers themselves--even more so than the traditional Controller tank-pets, Illusion Army. And that's not even taking the new Bodyguard mode into account. But there's one thing that Controllers and Tankers have in common, and that makes them somewhat interchangeable in a CoH team: crowd control.
Statesman has said that Masterminds are intended to fill the "meat-shield" role that Tankers occupy in City of Heroes. However, they do it in a different way. Where a Tanker throws himself into the fray, counting on his toughness and superior hit points to see him through, the Mastermind throws his henchmen into the fray instead (now more than ever, thanks to Bodyguard mode). If they fall, he can simply resummon them. While they take enough time and Endurance to set up that they should perhaps not be treated as entirely disposable, it is nonetheless true that a robot doesn't run up debt if it is defeated but a living teammate does.
But like the Corruptor, the Mastermind is also half-Defender. And since City of Villains doesn't have any "true" Defenders, (or, for that matter, any "true" Tankers either), this can sometimes lead to confusion over what role to play within a group. Do you tank and fight, or do you heal and defend? Mastermind secondaries that involve applied buffs, like Force Field's bubbles or Poison's Alkaloid heal, have to worry about this the most, since they're always being pulled both ways: should they keep their henchmen protected and alive, since their henchmen represent their only fighting and defending strength--or keep their teammates protected and alive, since their henchmen don't get debt and their teammates do? Force Field Masterminds have the hardest time of this, with their own pets to bubble, plus up to 7 teammates, and optionally their teammates' pets--by the time they get done bubbling everything, it's almost time to start all over from the beginning again.
Happily, as a Dark Miasma Mastermind, you can largely bypass the whole dilemma. Your powers will be used in exactly the same ways whether you're teamed or soloing. You don't have to worry about whether to cast that buff on your friends or your pets, because the only real buff you have is a PBAoE aura that's always active as long as you have it toggled on. Everything else is just debuffing the enemy--except for your heal.
Twilight Grasp is a very powerful heal--the most powerful available to any Mastermind. But it also has a very short heal radius, so you're going to need to stick to your robots like glue if you want it to be effective on them--and your teammates are going to need to stick to you. Going running after a dying teammate in order to Twilight Grasp them is a recipe for trouble--especially with Twilight Grasp's fairly-long-for-a-heal casting animation. By the time it goes off, he may already be dead anyway. Remind your teammates that if they're low on HP they need to get close to you, and be sure to cast your heal fairly often--that's all you can really do.
TIPS AND TRICKS
There are many useful techniques you can develop with your Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind. Many of these, you will have to learn for yourself--I have no doubt that there are many of them that even I haven't learned about yet. But here is a useful place you can start.
Zen and the Art of the Corner-Pull
Pulling has historically been considered one of the more dangerous occupations on a team, unless you're a Tanker or maybe a Scrapper: if you make a mistake, then suddenly the alpha-strike aggro lands on your head. This is why it's good to be a Mastermind: you've got your own little robot army who will happily throw their lives away for you--and who don't get debt if something goes wrong.
Here's what you do.
1) Find a convenient corner. Warehouses and office buildings are good for this, futuristic laboratories so-so, caves pretty lousy, but you take what you can get. Make sure the corner is between you and the group of mobs you're trying to pull from.
2) Position all your bots on your side of the corner, and put them on Passive Mode. It's important that they be in Passive Mode, otherwise they'll all rush out to assist the puller when he takes fire.
3) Select one of your bots with the numpad key select bind. Early on, you'll probably want to use a Battle Drone, as they're fairly disposable--but when facing tougher mobs, you may want to use a Protector Bot or even your Assault Bot instead so they'll last longer. Once your bot is selected, step around the corner for just long enough to put a targeting bracket on one of those distant enemies. Then step back around (or if you've got Shadow Fall on, you can stay there and watch and he probably won't see you, but best to be safe) and issue the "Attack My Target" command.
4) Call it back. As soon as the bot fires its first shot, use either the "Follow" or the "Goto" command to bring it running back around the corner to safety. (Or, if you want to be fancy, you can use Recall Friend on it--if you're going to do this, you should have the power activated and the target marker on the ground when you send the bot in.) The aggroed foes should follow it right out to you. Be sure to set your pets back to Defensive or Active mode once the enemies approach.
5) Cast Tar Patch on the ground just behind the corner. If any of your teammates have Caltrops, Glue Arrow, Oil Slick Arrow, etc. have them put those here as well. You can actually do this at any time while setting up, but I like to wait until just before they run around the corner so it lasts longest. They'll run into the Tar Patch, slow down, bunch up, and be perfectly positioned for your team to whale on them.
You can also use this technique without a corner--just give one or all of your bots the attack command from far away, and once they've gotten close enough to fire off their lasers, pull them back to you. Using a corner is much safer, though.
Note on Single-Pulling: It's a common misconception that snipe is the best power for pulling. Actually, it's one of the worst powers you can use if you want just a single foe to come quietly. The rule of thumb is the lower the damage, the smaller the aggro radius--so if you want to try to single-pull with a bot, use a Battle Drone. Preferably one that hasn't been Equipped, definitely one that hasn't been upgraded--if your Drone decides to fire off his Full Auto Laser, you're going to get the whole spawn no matter what.
In actuality, a much better tool for single-pulling is Twilight Grasp, since it does no damage at all. This does entail putting yourself at risk to take the alpha rather than one of your bots, however.
Never Let Them See You...At All
As a Dark Miasma Mastermind, Shadow Fall is one of your best tools--not just for damage resistance, but for conferring stealth as well. Thus, you are well-suited for stealth-completing missions by sneaking to the end, then defeating the enemies or grabbing the glowing objects. The safest way of doing this for a Mastermind is not to summon until you reach the end of the mission; trying to sneak through with henchmen in tow, even on passive, is a recipe for trouble.
Completing missions, and thus arcs, rapidly is one of the fastest ways I've found to level a character up quickly. (For more information on this sort of thing, see R_M's Comprehensive XP Gain/Debt Loss Guide v6.0; the fellow who wrote it seems to be reasonably clever.) Although you do not get as much total XP per mission by leaving so many Minions undefeated, by completing missions and arcs faster, the big bonuses come closer together. Thus, your average XP per minute is higher and you level faster. As a fringe benefit, getting less XP per individual mission means you are less likely to outlevel your contacts before you finish all their missions.
Of course, speed-completing missions also means that later in the game you're likely to run out of contacts a level or two before the next ones open up. However, unlike in City of Heroes, you have newspaper missions and PVP zone missions to fill in the gap--and any paper mission that doesn't involve kidnapping someone can be speed-completed too. You should never be reduced to street-hunting in order to level up.
(Note that since I7 went live, stealth and phase powers will suppress for 10 seconds (if a toggle) or cancel out entirely (if a buff) when clicking a glowing item. This means that, when stealthing missions, you may have to take out enemies in the vicinity of the item before clicking it. However, many of these items are placed so that it is possible to retrieve them without entering the enemies' line of sight.)
Inspiration is Where You Find It
Knowing how to use your powers and minions isn't the only important part of being a Mastermind. The proper selection and use of Inspirations can make a major difference too. Let's look at the various colors and how and when to use them. Formerly, most of these Inspirations were thought to confer their benefits on a 25%/33%/50% scale, but research by Arcanaville and pohsyb has shown this to be incorrect in many cases. The values given below are those that are correct as of the beginning of I7; _Castle_ has said he will be examining Inspirations with an eye toward rebalancing them at some point.
It used to be that Inspiration stores were entirely unavailable to participants in a Task/Strike Force. However, the Arena stores and Pocket D bartenders will now sell to anybody, regardless of whether they are on a Task/Strike Force or not. The Arena sells everything except Awakens; the bartenders sell those too.
Rage (Red): Damage (25%/33%/50%). This is probably one of the most useless Inspirations to you. The problem is that where everyone else's total damage capability increases by 25% on taking one red, you have to use up to six reds to increase your total damage capability by that amount--one for each of your henchmen. It's generally not worth bothering. The exception is your Assault Bot, given that he's the largest single chunk of your overall damage. If you get reds from random drops, you might as well use them on him.
Insight (Yellow): Accuracy (7.5%/18.75%/37.5%). Well, technically "To-Hit" because they are applied to the left side of the to-hit equation in the same place as To-Hit buffs (see next section) rather than the right side with Accuracy Enhancements--which actually makes them a more powerful than if they just conferred Accuracy. In PVE, these will be most important to you early on, before you've been able to slot for Accuracy really well--but may also be handy against enemies such as the Circle of Thorns who debuff your accuracy any time in the game. Insights also have a secondary effect: they increase your Perception, counteracting enemy Stealth or Blindness powers. This will be most useful against Stalkers in PVP, and against mobs who use smoke grenades (such as certain Arachnos Bosses) in PVE. If you're going up against Thorns or Arachnos, or into a PVP zone, be sure and carry a few with you; otherwise, you shouldn't need them too much once you get DOs. Again, these suffer from needing six to cover all your bots--but you can at least get some benefit out of them for your own powers, especially for those times when you really need Twilight Grasp to hit.
Respite (Green) and Catch a Breath (Blue): Health & Endurance (25%/33%/50%). Because your Twilight Grasp is capable of missing, and summoning and buffing pets can use a huge amount of Endurance, these will be your Special Friend. You're going to want to devote at least half of your Inspiration tray to these early on--not just for yourself, but to drag onto the name bars of henchmen who need them in emergencies.
Luck (Purple): Defense (12.5%/25%/33%). Although the Defense boost in I7 makes these little buggers more useful than they ever were before for avoiding getting hit (remember, it only takes a total of 45% Defense, or a bit less than 4 small purples, to cap you against anything), sometimes you're not going to want to avoid getting hit. Remember that Bodyguard mode means your henchies won't attack back unless something hits you first. Purples may also be useful for your bots in some circumstances (especially when stacked with your Protectors' bubbles) but still suffer from needing 6 to cover all your bots, and a 7th for yourself.
Sturdy (Orange): Damage Resistance (10%/15%/20%). These may be more useful to you than they would be to some; they can stack on top of your Shadow Fall and your henchies' innate resistances to make you all a little tougher, so they mitigate overall damage taken even more than a Defense Inspiration might. They do still suffer from needing 6 to cover all your bots, and a 7th for yourself. But note that oranges could be extremely useful in PVP; one of the I7 changes is that even the smallest orange Inspiration will now confer 100% immunity to enemy teleportation effects (e.g. Teleport Foe, Starless Step, Wormhole). It may pay to carry some when adventuring in PVP zones.
Break Free: Anti-Mez (remove current mez state; protect for 30/60/90 sec). You won't generally need these in PVE if you let your bots draw most of the aggro. However, as stated above, it's worth carrying one around to pair with an Awaken if you happen to fall in the heat of battle. They will handily take care of the residual wakey-woozies. You may also wish to carry a few of them when going into PVP zones, or into battle against foes you know to have End draining or toggle-dropping powers, such as level 40+ Longbow, Carnival of Shadows, or especially Malta.
Awaken: Self-Rez (progressively more health/end and shorter disorient by size). Some people don't believe in carrying rez Inspirations, figuring it's better to use the space for something that will help keep you from dying. While there's a certain amount of sense to that, sooner or later you're going to end up dying anyway--it's unavoidable. You might as well have the ability to recover from it when it does happen. However, I generally advise just carrying one, maybe two at most, and restocking between missions--if you die more often than that, you should probably rethink what you're doing on that mission.
[Continued in next post]
ON THE LEVELS
Level 1-10
Get through the tutorial as fast as you can; don't forget to go upstairs for the Jail Bird badge. The tutorial shouldn't present you with any problems you can't handle; if you've done it enough already to be really sick of it, you can skip the first few errands and just run straight out to Saki, the ninja-masked orange-clad convict in the courtyard, and start from there. Make your choice of contact at the helicopter--I personally tend to prefer the mercenary contact, Matthew Burke, because his missions are a lot more fun (especially the snake hatchery--zap-zap-zap-SPLORTCH!). If you want to experience as much content as possible, keep your missions on Villainous and solo them; they'll complete faster and you won't get as much XP, meaning that you're less likely to outlevel contacts. Otherwise, feel free to join teams and do all your missions together; you'll be level 10 before you know it.
Much has been made of the fact that a Mastermind can make his first few levels just by standing on the wall of the fort and sending his henchman out to kill things while he waits in safety. Sure, you can do this--but where's the fun in that? Don't forget that if you make too many levels too quickly, you won't have time to do the missions for all of your 5-10 contacts on Port Oakes. Better by far to hook up with a bunch of other newly-created villains who are also just getting to Mercy Island, and run their missions together. You'll get them done faster and earn more XP that way. Don't forget that you can crank your difficulty up a notch or two for even more XP!
You should do all of your first contact's missions, at least until you get to level 5. If doing Kallenda and Mongoose, you should only do Mongoose's first job, the bank heist. You actually don't even have to do that one, but I recommend it anyway because bank heists are just so much fun. The rest of Mongoose's missions are more annoyingness with Snakes plus a timed Hellions job; they're all quite boring, not necessary to get your next contact, involve a lot of running all over the island, and if you do them you'll get enough XP out of them that you could have a hard time doing more than one of your 5-10 Port Oakes contacts when you get them.
Dr. Creed's missions seem a good deal more fun, but if you want to outlevel as few arcs as possible, either skip them or try to complete them for the least amount of XP possible, skipping to the end of non-defeat-all missions and defeating as few mobs as are necessary. This is the only way to make sure you don't outlevel, since below level 10 you can't get debt.
Go on to Port Oakes once you've hit level 5, and make your way to your first broker there. Do your paper missions and take the mayhem missions until all three contacts are available to you, and then do as many of your contacts as you can before you outlevel them. I'd advise doing Bocor first to get that nifty 5-shot zombie temp power, then Billie Heck for the imp temp.
Mercy Island and Port Oakes were formerly very frustrating to get around without travel powers when your contacts seem to delight in sending you to all corners of it; however, the annoyance has been lessened considerably with the jet pack and jump pack temp powers from the first couple of mayhem mission sets. However, you do have to be at least level 5 to take advantage of these.
There is also another workaround that is effective all the way from level 1, though it requires a bit more effort. If you can tag along with a higher-level character who has the Sharkhead Isle Sky Raider contact Lt. Chalmers's timed mission to save their base from Longbow, you will be able to get a 60-minute jet pack from one of the blinkie crates near the entrance. You will have to make your way in safety to Sharkshead Island in order to do this, but that one long journey will save you many other long journeys afterward.
(If you should get this mission on a higher-level character yourself, you can actually get any or all of your other characters this pack off of that mission. Just get them in position on the island before you accept the mission from Chalmers, and invite a friend to your team to go into the mission and hold it open for you while you switch characters and then have him reinvite you to the team. Repeat as necessary for all your characters until it runs out of blinkies, then relog to the original character to reset it. If you're soloing or duoing the mission, you should only need about 15 minutes to complete it anyway, so you can run down half of the hour-long timer doing this with no worries.)
If you use this jet pack sparingly, you should be able to get around with much less frustration all the way up to level 14. However, do be sure you have used it up entirely by the time you encounter Chalmers for yourself; if the jetpack still exists in your powers list, you probably will not be able to get a fresh one.
Level 11-20
From here on out, there are two paths you can go by for levelling.
If you're concerned for content, then be sure to do all of your missions on a fairly low difficulty setting. You may want to solo them, and may even want to be sure to die every now and then so you carry debt to slow you down. Do only as many newspaper missions as are necessary to get you to your next round of contacts. There are an immense number of contacts, even not counting the unlockable ones, so you may have a hard time fitting everything in.
Continue your arcs on Port Oakes, and thence to Cap au Diable. If you're concerned about missing content, then continue soloing missions on the Villainous difficulty setting. Do only as many newspaper missions as are necessary to get you to your next round of contacts. There are an immense number of contacts, even not counting the unlockable ones, so you may have a hard time fitting everything in. You may even want to make a habit of intentionally getting killed a few times to carry additional debt; this will also have the side-effect of earning more Infamy with which you can buy Enhancements and make progress toward the Bling badge.
If you have an aversion to debt even though you know it's good for you, another thing to try is finding someone at least 3 levels lower than you who is about to start a contact you also haven't started yet. Take the same missions (as much as you can), exemplar to the lowbie, and do the lowbie's instances of the missions. Make sure to click "yes" at the end when the dialogue box asks if you would like to clear your own instance of the mission at the same time. You will get only Infamy instead of XP (and what's more, you'll get Infamy as if you completed a mission 3 levels higher than you!), but will still clear the mission and see the content.
If you're just concerned with levelling speed, see if you can put together a big team averaging 2 to 4 levels higher than you are. If you can construct it in such a way that there is one lackey slot too few and you get left as the "odd man out," then so much the better for your XP. Even if you have to lackey up, do mainly "retrieve item" or "kidnap person" newspaper missions, and make sure the others let you unlackey one full minute before saving the hostage or clicking the glowie so you can scoop that bigger bonus. While not as lucrative as it once was, you can still get a good chunk of additional XP over what you ordinarily would have in this way. You might also want to read this guide to earning XP as fast as possible; the fellow who wrote it seems reasonably clever.
If you're into unlockable contacts, remember to go farm 100 ghosts at Fort Hades between levels 10 and 14 to get the badges and unlock Veluta Lunata; she has a couple of fun arcs and some useful anti-ghost temp powers. You'll probably need a team and/or higher-level helpers to do it safely, as ghosts will respawn as level 15 when the traps get full.
Once you hit 14 or 15, scoot off to Bloody Bay and do the meteor quest. With Shadow Fall and a travel power, you should be able to scoop the meteor samples relatively unmolested. (I suggest starting with the ones near the hero bases and working your way back to villain territory, so that if you do get ganked near the hero HQ, at least you'll only have lost one or two samples and not the whole thing.) For advice on how best to solo the meteor mission, see this mini-guide, which was also written by that clever R_M fellow. You might want to grab Hyper Stealth while you're at it. Even though Shadow Fall makes it redundant, it's still free, and can be used when exemplared lower.
You'll probably want to come back and do the meteors repeatedly; the 5-shot renewable Shivan pet makes a nice panic button or hero-killer in conjunction with your henchmen, and its Radiation powers will make it easier for you to overcome the Defense of tough enemies. Since I7, Shivans are no longer capped at level 25, and can thus help you with tight spots all the way up to level 50.
If you're not concerned about missing out on content and don't mind risking ganks on the way in or out, the PVP zone door missions are a great way to earn some levels. Longbow give 110% of "normal" mob XP, and the mission completion bonus is a good 25% bigger than normal, even if they tend to be a bit monotonous. The Listening Post missions are particularly recommended, as their warehouse-based layout is less annoying than the standard Longbow base map.
Whatever you do, be sure to do Marshall Brass's first 15-19 arc in order to get the Goldbrickers flight pack--especially if your travel power is Super Speed. I also recommend doing the Tarikoss Strike Force before you hit 20; it's got a fun storyline to it, especially if you do Marshall Brass's second arc as a sort of prelude.
Level 21-30
You'll be moving on to Sharkshead Island and the Nerva Archipelago now. Much of the general-purpose advice from 11-20 holds true for this section, and all of those further on in fact. But here are the high points.
The 20-25 Silver Mantis Strike Force is only available to villain groups with a mission computer. But if you're not in a villain group, don't worry. It only takes one person who is in such a villain group, and whose base is set to permit teammates to enter, to offer the SF to everyone. So if you're not in such a group, maybe you can find someone who is and do it that way. If you lose the final bad guy during the last mission of this Strike Force, don't despair! He's just flown off into the sky in some remote part of the map; get a flier to hunt for him.
Also during this time comes the first supervillain respec, which is in some ways easier and in some ways much harder than the City of Heroes version. Entire guides can be and have been written about this mission, so I will refer you to them; my advice is to take a party size of no more than four to five people, period.
If you're into unlockable contacts, remember to help take down Scrapyard for the Hammer Down badge to unlock Crimson Revenant. Also, if you are in a supergroup, you will also want to start playing outside of Supergroup Mode at level 25 (and perhaps also exemplaring a lot) until you get the Bling badge for earning Infamy in order to unlock the Doc Buzzsaw hidden contact. It took me until level 28 to earn Bling with no supergroup at all, and if you don't earn it by level 29 you may not get to do both the Doctor's arcs.
Be sure not to miss out on Lt. Chalmers on Sharkshead Island for his 60-minute Sky Raider flight pack! You'll have to do all of Captain Petrovich's missions to be introduced to him.
If you're still doing missions on Villainous, you may run out of contacts early for the first time before hitting 25--especially if you frequently solo and/or stealth them. Just make sure you've done all of the unlockable ones, and then do some newspaper or PVP jobs to get you the rest of the way.
Level 20 grants you entrance into Siren's Call--and if you're strapped for cash and enjoy (or at least tolerate) PVP, I advise spending some time there taking down heroes and earning bounty. Every 6,000 bounty points means a free +3 SO in your origin, so have a blast. It might be simplest for you to find a team of Stalkers who can use you as a stalking horse, and mooch off of the points they get from their kills to earn your rewards. But be careful; there are enough NPC mobs around, especially at the hotspots, that it's a good way to see just what the debt cap really looks like.
As with Bloody Bay, Siren's Call PVP-zone door missions are a great way to grind for XP. The Supply Depot mission, in an abandoned-office-building map, is one of the easier ones to do. Also, don't forget to do the patrol mission to grab the Hyper Invisibility temp power. Even though Shadow Fall makes it redundant, it's still free, and can be used when exemplared lower.
You may want to start adjusting your difficulty up a notch or two in the mid to late 20s, once you get your SOs on. This will give you a little more of a challenge, and will also narrow the gap between completing all your contacts and getting the next set.
Level 31-40
Congratulations, you're almost there! As you pass 32 and start getting the final powers from your sets, it's probably safe for you to crank the dial up to Relentless. You're going to be working both in St. Martial and Nerva for this phase of your career. Apart from the newspaper missions you do to unlock your contacts in St. Martial, you may find you prefer grinding with them in Nerva, as Nerva's paper and bank jobs are all spaced a lot closer together (with only the occasional job that requires a trip all the way north), unlike St. Martial which routinely sends you all over the map.
The 30-38 PVP zone is Warburg, which is different from the earlier zones in that it is a free-for-all: if you're not teamed with someone, they're the enemy even if they're a villain just like you! This can make adventuring there "interesting" in the Chinese sense--and yet it's lucrative nonetheless. Rescuing the scientists from the underground labs can provide you with some nicely potent one-shot super-nukes that make great Archvillain/Monster/Hero-killers; you can carry one of each of the three kinds. And once you hit 32 and get that super-firepower upgrade, you'll be fully capable of owning the spiders in the underground labs. (And a nice side benefit if your origin is Technology is that those spiders drop mostly tech SOs, and drop them more frequently than just about any other mob I've ever seen.)
Some Warburg regulars (Warburgers?) hold to a kind of code of honor that says they don't mess with people doing scientist saves. Others, however, do not, so don't take your safety for granted; each time you get ganked, you'll lose one of your three codes, not to mention any scientist who might have been following you at the time. Try to do Warburg during "dead" periods, like early mornings or afternoons when there's nobody else around to interfere with you. Learn the ins and outs of the underground corridors so that you can navigate with your scientist to whichever tunnel exit is closest to his bunker of choice. (Vidiotmaps now has these passages marked on its map, which is a great help.) Since Warburg scientists don't lose track of you if you're stealthed, stay under Shadow Fall to get him there; turn off Superspeed and Sprint (if you have them) so you're less likely to outdistance him. Bear in mind that you don't actually have to take him up the ramp to the bunker door most of the time; his "thanks for saving me, here's the code" will trigger if you can get within about 25 feet under the door with him on the ground level. Once he's saved, hie yourself back to the nearest tunnel entrance at all possible speed to get the next one.
As always, the PVP zone door missions continue to be a great way to grind for XP--but after you hit 37-40 they become a good deal harder thanks to the Longbow Flamethrowers' and Special Ops' upgraded powers (see the next section). Note that the Recluse's Victory PVP zone does not have door missions, so the Warburg contacts will give you door missions all the way up to level 50. Favorite Warburg missions include the Supply Depot (which has no Bosses in it, so you can run through it quickly and with minimal risk) and the Kidnap Longbow Agent mission (as the agent is apparently bugged, and will fight at your side with radiation attacks after you "kidnap" her, grumbling about it all the while). The Patrol mission will give you a "Hyper Phase Shift" temp power, which makes a great panic button and, given that it can be used when malefactored to any level, is probably better than having the real thing for as often as you're likely to need it.
If you haven't yet gotten your Gangbuster badge (for taking down 200 Marcone Capo Bosses) to unlock the Slot Machine (one of the more fun contacts in the late game), you should go to Port Oakes and do it before you hit 34. The best time to do it is when the zone is really busy; the more people are in the zone, the more Capos are spawned. Ideally, you should get a team of high-level characters together who are also looking to earn their Capo-hunting badges, split up, and hunt the zone individually--you will each get credit for everyone else's Capo defeats in addition to your own even if you're not in "XP-getting" range. You will most often find them in the streets or on top of buildings in Marconeville or the Docks, or on top of the warehouses in the west part of town. Sometimes they will step out of doors along the street, and if you don't get them fast they'll go back inside. The Capos are easy to spot because they are always either wearing dark suits with white fedoras, or wearing white suits and completely bald. In Port Oakes, you don't generally need to worry about cleaning up the rest of a spawn after you cherry-pick the Capos; the others will usually run to a nearby door and go inside, thus cleaning up after themselves.
Level 41-50
As I have not played very far into the 40s, I can offer only limited advice. You will be doing missions in Grandville, where you will meet some nastier adversaries than in any of the other zones. Watch out for Bane Spiders, who have stealth and Assassin Strike abilities.
Recluse's Victory offers a unique way to earn XP, if you can go there during "dead" hours when no one else is around. Go check out a "Heavy"--one of three robots you can "check out" if no one else is using it--and hunt the PVE Longbow enemies in the zone. The Heavy's additional damage and mez capabilities will let you cut through those enemy Longbow like a hot knife through butter. Watch out for enemy players, though.
CAN-OPENERS
It seems like every class has foes who are specially designed to pose a specific danger to that class--"can-openers" who can open up your defenses as easily as your power can-opener opens a can--and Masterminds are no exception. Luckily, there are only three major foes who cause hair-tearing levels of frustration. One of those is quickly outlevelled; the other two are usually found together.
"Don't mess around with the Demolition Man"
Perhaps the most infuriating mob in the entire game to us Masterminds, the Scrapyarder Demolitionist has packs of dynamite that he chucks about with wild abandon--and each one sprouts a burn patch when it hits. If you go up against a Demolitionist unprepared, you will be amazed at how quickly your pets' health bars go from green to red and then fizzle. Even if you're on the ball enough to Goto-command your pets out of the flames, the Demolitionist will just chuck more.
Possible solutions include mezzing the Demolitionist first (if you have a Dominator along who can Confuse the Demolitionist, you'll have a grand old time watching him take out his teammates) or having someone with a long-range Snipe take him out from a distance. Group Fly might be another interesting possibility--you'll have that 20% Accuracy penalty, but ground-based burn patches won't be able to touch you in the air so you'll have the leeway to miss a few more times.
Luckily, you won't see another Demolitionist once you've outlevelled Sharkhead Island. However, you'll still have to deal with...
"The Longbow of the Law"
All through the first half of your career, you may sneer at the Longbow agents--somewhat-ineffectual red and white do-gooders who are fairly easy to take down, even if some of them can cloak. But at levels 30 and 40, some things change. At 30, the Longbow Flamethrowers get Ignite; at 40, the Longbow Special Ops get EMP Grenade.
Ignite is a Burn-patch attack that you may not even notice at first (due to Burn's special effect having gotten a lot harder to see in recent patches), until you smell Mohican burning. It's the Longbow version of a silent-but-deadly; it will either melt your robots right down to scrap or cause them to run screaming and not attack. This, in turn, can lead to faceplant. EMP Grenade is an annoying area-of-effect sapper attack, which can stop you dead in your tracks with just a few shots. It's not fun when you're chugging merrily along and suddenly all your toggles are dropping and all you can do is stand there and look dumb (and frantically pop blues and purples if you have any)
About the only solution is to try to mez or take out the worst ones first--but since both the Flamethrower and the Special Ops are minions, you can have more than one of them, and even more than one of each of them, per spawn. In a case like that, all you can do is try to mez the worst ones (usually a Flamethrower) and take them all out as quickly as you can. Fearsome Stare will at least help cut their attacks and accuracy down, though not by as much as you might hope given that all your attacks will be AoE after you hit 32.
"Don't boss me around!"
Bosses and Elite Bosses can be pretty tough in general, but special mention should be made of certain Longbow bosses, such as the spines-equipped Longbow Officers, and the elite Ballistas. These guys are tricky, particularly once you get past 30. If you get too close to the spine scrapper Officers, you may find yourself lacking a few 'bots thanks to pesky spine bursts. Ballistas are similarly nasty and tough, and a bit tricky to solo. This is where all those dark debuffs you've got really earn their keep, but it doesn't hurt to pop Inspirations like candy either.
SAMPLE BUILD
The following is a build that is very similar to the build I currently have on my own level 40 Robots/Dark Mastermind. I include it not as a prescription as to what kind of build you should make, but more as an illustration of what a build that has been reasonably successful for me looks like.
The build is not completely identical to my own, as I did not keep track of exactly what levels I got what--don't take the slotting levels as gospel. Also, I'm pretty sure that in my original build I took Vengeance at 28 and Petrifying Gaze at 35, rather than the other way around.
Some parts of the build I'm not entirely happy with; I'd like Shadow Fall to be slotted more for Damage Resistance instead of just Endurance Reduction; I may steal a slot from Group Flight to put there if I ever respec. I'm also pretty sure there's an End Reduction in Equip Robot and another To-Hit Buff in Tactics that isn't shown in the build. But it's close.
Exported from version 1.5C of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh
Archetype: Mastermind
Primary Powers - Ranged : Robotics
Secondary Powers - Support : Dark Miasma
Level 01 : Twilight Grasp
Accuracy ( 01 )
Accuracy ( 3 )
Healing ( 9 )
Healing ( 11 )
Healing ( 21 )
Endurance Reduction ( 27 )
Level 01 : Battle Drones
Accuracy ( 01 )
Accuracy ( 3 )
Damage ( 5 )
Damage ( 5 )
Damage ( 11 )
Knockback Distance ( 23 )
Level 02 : Tar Patch
Recharge Reduction ( 02 )
Recharge Reduction ( 7 )
Recharge Reduction ( 19 )
Level 04 : Darkest Night
To Hit DeBuff ( 04 )
To Hit DeBuff ( 7 )
To Hit DeBuff ( 40 )
Level 06 : Recall Friend
Interrupt Time ( 06 )
Level 08 : Equip Robot
Recharge Reduction ( 08 )
Recharge Reduction ( 9 )
Level 10 : Hover
Defense Buff ( 10 )
Level 12 : Protector Bots
Accuracy ( 12 )
Damage ( 13 )
Damage ( 13 )
Damage ( 15 )
Endurance Reduction ( 25 )
Disorient Duration ( 37 )
Level 14 : Fly
Flight Speed ( 14 )
Flight Speed ( 15 )
Flight Speed ( 17 )
Level 16 : Shadow Fall
Endurance Reduction ( 16 )
Endurance Reduction ( 17 )
Endurance Reduction ( 19 )
Level 18 : Howling Twilight
Disorient Duration ( 18 )
Level 20 : Group Fly
Endurance Reduction ( 20 )
Endurance Reduction ( 21 )
Endurance Reduction ( 23 )
Level 22 : Fearsome Stare
Accuracy ( 22 )
Recharge Reduction ( 25 )
Recharge Reduction ( 31 )
Fear Duration ( 33 )
Fear Duration ( 33 )
Fear Duration ( 33 )
Level 24 : Assault
Endurance Reduction ( 24 )
Level 26 : Assault Bot
Accuracy ( 26 )
Damage ( 27 )
Damage ( 29 )
Damage ( 29 )
Knockback Distance ( 31 )
Knockback Distance ( 31 )
Level 28 : Petrifying Gaze
Accuracy ( 28 )
Recharge Reduction ( 34 )
Recharge Reduction ( 34 )
Hold Duration ( 34 )
Hold Duration ( 36 )
Hold Duration ( 36 )
Level 30 : Tactics
To Hit Buff ( 30 )
Endurance Reduction ( 36 )
Level 32 : Upgrade Robot
Recharge Reduction ( 32 )
Recharge Reduction ( 37 )
Recharge Reduction ( 37 )
Level 35 : Vengeance
To Hit Buff ( 35 )
Level 38 : Dark Servant
Accuracy ( 38 )
Recharge Reduction ( 39 )
Recharge Reduction ( 39 )
Recharge Reduction ( 39 )
Immobilize Duration ( 40 )
Immobilize Duration ( 40 )
Here's a new, post-I7 sample build that I put together as an exercise in figuring out how to respec to add Stamina to the powers I already had. It goes up through level 48; at level 49 I would probably take one of the Patron Pool powers, or perhaps Black Hole if nothing else. (Actually, I would probably take the Patron at 47 and leave Vengeance for 49, since it does not require much slotting.)
One interesting thing I found as I put this sample build together was that, thanks to taking a bunch of no-slotting-needed powers in the 30s, I had considerably more Enhancement slots by my 40s than I had places needing slotting. I found myself slotting things I would normally never bother with--putting Slows in Tar Patch, Defenses in Shadow Fall, Disorients in Howling Twilight, and so on--just because I didn't know what else to do with them. I probably will end up respecing into this build, or one like it, sooner or later.
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.5.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name:
Level: 49
Archetype: Mastermind
Primary: Robotics
Secondary: Dark Miasma
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Battle Drones
- Accuracy(1)
- Accuracy(3)
- Damage(7)
- Damage(7)
- Damage(9)
- Knockback Distance(23)
- Accuracy(1)
- Accuracy(3)
- Healing(9)
- Healing(11)
- Healing(19)
- Recharge Reduction(33)
- Recharge Reduction(2)
- Recharge Reduction(5)
- Recharge Reduction(11)
- Slow(34)
- Slow(37)
- Slow(40)
- To Hit DeBuff(4)
- To Hit DeBuff(5)
- To Hit DeBuff(25)
- Interrupt Reduction(6)
- Recharge Reduction(8)
- Recharge Reduction(19)
- Defense Buff(10)
- Accuracy(12)
- Damage(13)
- Damage(13)
- Damage(17)
- Disorient Duration(17)
- End Reduction(31)
- Flight Speed(14)
- Flight Speed(15)
- Flight Speed(15)
- Run Speed(16)
- Healing(18)
- Healing(43)
- Healing(46)
- Endurance Modification(20)
- Endurance Modification(21)
- Endurance Modification(21)
- Damage Resist(22)
- Damage Resist(23)
- Damage Resist(25)
- Defense Buff(27)
- Defense Buff(34)
- Defense Buff(34)
- Flight Speed(24)
- Accuracy(26)
- Damage(27)
- Damage(29)
- Damage(29)
- Knockback Distance(48)
- Knockback Distance(48)
- End Reduction(28)
- To Hit Buff(30)
- To Hit Buff(31)
- To Hit Buff(31)
- Recharge Reduction(32)
- Recharge Reduction(33)
- Recharge Reduction(33)
- Accuracy(35)
- Accuracy(36)
- Fear Duration(36)
- Fear Duration(36)
- Fear Duration(37)
- Recharge Reduction(37)
- Accuracy(38)
- Recharge Reduction(39)
- Recharge Reduction(39)
- Recharge Reduction(39)
- Immobilize Duration(40)
- Immobilize Duration(40)
- Accuracy(41)
- Accuracy(42)
- Hold Duration(42)
- Hold Duration(42)
- Hold Duration(43)
- Recharge Reduction(43)
- Recharge Reduction(44)
- Recharge Reduction(45)
- Recharge Reduction(45)
- Disorient Duration(45)
- Disorient Duration(46)
- Disorient Duration(46)
- Defense Buff(47)
- To Hit Buff(48)
01) --> Sprint
- Run Speed(1)
- Accuracy(1)
- Empty Enhancement(1)
- Recharge Reduction(2)
PARTING THOUGHTS
I hope you've enjoyed my guide, and that I haven't put you to sleep too badly. Hopefully you haven't found too much to disagree with--and if you think I'm wrong about something, you'll (politely) let me know why. I'm always looking to improve the guides I write, so I'll at least listen to what you have to say.
Playing City of Villains is a constant learning process--you'll never know everything there is to know about it. (This is even more true with the way the updates often force us to redesign our characters entirely, but oh well.) With that in mind, you shouldn't stop with just my guide. Check out other guides, too, to see if they have information I might have missed. Not just other Robots/Dark guides, but other Robots/* (particularly BlackestNight's Ultimate Robots/FF Guide--though some of the information is dated, he catches some things I missed or has different opinions on the Robotics and Power Pool sides) and */Dark guides too--and even check Dark Miasma Defender and Corruptor guides; we share some of the same powers after all and they might have more ideas for useful ways in which to use them.
Welcome to the world of the Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind. May your mastery bring you much merriment.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to the fine folks on the Mastermind forum who helped me catch little glitches in the preview posting I ran for them, especially BlackestNight for coming up with the Accuracy table, and also to _Castle_ for coming through with the Supremacy Accuracy buff value and hinting toward the correct Leadership Tactics value for Masterminds.
PRIOR VERSIONS
<ul type="square">[*]R_M's Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind Guide, v1.0[/list]
(I don't know why this got cut off. I swear I checked it and it was fine! Here's the missing part of the first section, starting with Shadow Fall. I'll repost the whole thing at some point I guess.)
Power: Shadow Fall
Description: Envelops you and your nearby teammates in a shroud of darkness. Shadow Fall does not grant Invisibility, but it does make you harder to detect. Even if you are discovered, Shadow Fall grants a bonus to Defense while reducing Energy, Negative Energy, and Psionic Damage. Shadow Fall reduces your movement speed, but not your allies'.
Effects: Toggle: PBAoE
Team Stealth (35' vs critters, 389' vs players), +DEF, +Res(Energy, Negative, Psionics)
Activation Time: 2.03
Endurance: 0.3 per activation (.6/sec?)
Recharge Time: 15
Defense: 3.75%
3-Slotted Defense: (x1.55) 5.81%
Resistance: 129% status resist vs Fear; 15% vs Energy, Negative Energy, Psionic damage
3-Slotted Resistance: (x1.55) 23.25% vs Energy, Negative Energy, Psionic damage
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Defense Buff,Damage Resistance
Available: Level 16
Viewpoint: Another excellent power for the well-dressed Mastermind--stealth not just for you, but for all your henchmen and teammates as well, provided they stay close to you. This has a few beneficial uses, such as moving your henchmen around a PVE or PVP zone in relative safety, getting in good close cone range of a spawn of mobs before attacking, or stealthing through a mission to the last room before summoning your bots and going to town. The fact that it provides decent damage resistance versus energy, negative energy, and psionic damage to you and those around you is just the icing on the cake (though the resistance to psionic damage does stack nicely with your robots' inherent psionic resistance, making you one of the few people who are actually glad to see Carnival of Shadows).
Don't expect Shadow Fall to make you totally safe in PVP zones. As invisibility powers go, it's the lowest of the lot; it doesn't take much, just a yellow or two, to see through it. It will help, but you're nowhere near the Stalker's ability to hang out without fear of getting ganked. It does really shine in PVE, though--if you can keep a leash on your robots (i.e. Defensive or Passive mode) until you get really close, your enemies will never see you coming. It's easy to get used to this...perhaps too easy, as I frequently find myself scooting up right next to enemies on non-stealthy characters and being surprised when they put the smack down on me. But bear in mind even so that Stealth does not make you completely invisible to the enemy--it just narrows his detection range down. If you get right next to him for longer than a split second as you pass by, he will see you.
Also, Shadow Fall really does slurp down the End. It's not so bad by itself, but when you're running toggle and travel powers you really start to notice. End Reductions are the order of the day if you don't take Stamina.
You will notice that Shadow Fall also provides a small Defense bonus. This is nice, and it will stack with your bots' bubbles, but at 3.75% it's not really worth slotting for. Go with Damage Resistance all the way. (Ironically, on my own build I never had the slots to spare to slot for Defense or Damage Resistance; I have 3 End Reductions in the power and that's it. The stealth has been much more important to my playstyle than the resistance. I hope to change that once I get into the 40s.)
Note: The old number for Shadow Fall's Defense, from the previous edition of this guide, is 2.8% unslotted. It is possible that the statistical tests run to obtain this figure--or else the patch notes, if it was obtained from these--were wrong. It is also possible that the figures in the current guide are wrong, or at least overstated. The numbers in the guide do assume Level 50 characters, and Defense may increase with additional levels. Either way, the difference between 2.8% and 3.75% is not a terribly large one.
Suggested Slotting:
16-23 (DOs): EndReduc x3-6
24+ (SOs): DmgRes x3/EndRed x1-3
Power: Fearsome Stare
Description: This power instills tremendous Fear within a cone area in front of you, causing all affected targets to tremble in Terror uncontrollably.
Effects: Foe Fear, -ACC
17.88-second Fear of strength 3 versus critters only;
20% chance of 11.92-second Fear of strength 1 versus critters only;
17.88-second Fear of strength 3 versus players only ( this will suppress for 15 seconds on affected targets);
Debuff: 11.25% decrease in To Hit chance to enemies for 20 seconds.
3-Slotted Debuff: (x1.55) 16.88% decrease in To Hit chance to enemies for 20 seconds.
Activation Time: 2.03
Endurance: 8.5
Duration: 17.88 sec (fear); 20 sec. (debuff)
Recharge Time: 40
Range: 70 (Cone)
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Cone Range Increase,To Hit DeBuff,Fear Duration,Accuracy
Available: Level 20
Fearsome Stare is still very useful to Masterminds, especially in the early 20s; you may wish to consider taking it as soon after it becomes available as possible. However, given that Bodyguard mode has made its primary I6 use--alpha-strike breaking--largely obsolete, you may wish to put it off for later, especially if you are taking Stamina early and want to take only the most vital powers first. Fearsome Stare is a cone that causes every foe it hits to become afraid and unable to attack unless attacked first, and to have a slight debuff to their Accuracy when they do attack. If they are attacked, they will retaliate once, then go back to cowering.
The perfect use should immediately suggest itself: cast fear on a large crowd of foes, then direct your robots to attack only one of them at a time (starting with any foes the fear attack missed). Using Fear precludes feared enemies from attacking, so it makes a great alpha-strike defuser. For as long as your robots have only single-target attacks, this works wonderfully as an aid to soloing. However, when your Assault Bot shows up, with its cone-effect flamethrower, this slightly loses its effectiveness--and at level 32, when everyone gets AoE attacks, Fearsome Stare's main use is relegated to alpha-strike absorber and To-Hit Debuff. (Although everyone--myself included--tends to forget about the debuff effect of Fearsome Stare in preference to its more obvious Fear effect, even the unslotted 11.25% debuff is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you stack it with Darkest Night's debuff and Shadow Fall's Defense.)
A potential non-combat use for Fearsome Stare is as a sort of "ghetto stealth" power, or stealth-enhancer. If there is a group of foes blocking your passage and you can't just stealth past them because they're too close together, cast Fearsome Stare and sidle past them while they're unable to attack you. Problem solved.
As with other needs-to-hit powers from the secondary, remember your Supremacy bonus will not be in effect. Note also that, as with most group-mez powers, this power has a -20% inherent To-Hit penalty, which can only partly be overcome by Tactics, so you will need to slot well for Accuracy and/or pop a yellow or two before firing it off.
Suggested Slotting:
20-23 (DOs): Acc x2/Fear x3
24+ (SOs): Acc x1-2/Fear x3/Rech x1-2
Power: Petrifying Gaze
Description: Petrifies a single targeted foe with a terrifying gaze. The victim is Held and defenseless.
Effects: Ranged Hold
Activation Time: 1.67
Endurance: 7.8
Hold Strength: 3
Duration: 9.53 sec vs critters; 7.15 sec vs players
Recharge Time: 16
Range: 70
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range,Hold Duration,Accuracy
Available: Level 28
Viewpoint: Petrifying Gaze, a single-target hold that holds anything up to a Lt. in one application, bosses in two, is another useful power to the solo Mastermind. It won't stack until it's slotted up, but the value in it is not necessarily in in long-duration holding. The value is that it lets you neutralize the most annoying foes in a spawn--Lieutenants or Minions with particularly annoying attacks--for long enough to take them out. Your Dark Servant will also have this hold, and you will find you can sometimes stack yours on its to lock down bosses quickly. Again, remember Supremacy does not affect this power.
Suggested Slotting: Acc x1-2/Hold x3/Rech x1-2
Power: Black Hole
Description: This power opens up a Black Hole to the Netherworld that temporarily pulls in all foes within its grasp. The victims become phase shifted and are completely intangible. They are hard to see, and cannot affect or be affected by those in normal space.
Effects: Ranged (Targeted AoE) Foe Intangible/Immobilize
Activation Time: 1.03
Endurance: 13
Duration: 30 vs critters; 10 vs players
Recharge Time: 120
Range: 50
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range,Intangibility,Accuracy
Available: Level 35
Viewpoint: I have never actually used Black Hole, only seen it used and read discussions of it, so take this for what it is worth.
Black Hole is the power from the Dark Miasma set most often described as "situational." Since practically every power is more useful in some situations than others, "situational" in this context is usually a polite way of saying "There are some people who like it, but I think they're doodieheads." There are certain situations where Black Hole might be useful--but often other powers such as Fearsome Stare could stand in almost as well, and Black Hole might be seen to cause more problems than it solves.
The idea is that Black Hole will cause your target and some of the surrounding enemies to become involuntarily phase shifted--they can neither hurt nor be hurt by you. In theory, this can be handy for splitting a large spawn into two "subspawns" that can be defeated in detail, and as a panic button for when you find you've bitten off a few more mobs than you can chew (and in fact I have been saved a time or two in that very circumstance by a teammate who had taken it). In practice, there is a very large problem with the implementation that can lead to teammate friction.
Much as with the Darkest Night anchor, it can be hard to tell when one or more mobs have been Black Holed into intangibility--especially in some of the darker indoor maps. To make matters worse, the game will not prevent someone from attacking someone who is phase shifted, even if the attack will have no effect. So if someone Black Holes in the middle of a battle, his teammates may select what they think is a perfectly good target and expend the Endurance and recharge time to fire off an attack--only to receive a big, insulting "UNAFFECTED" after it goes off. This does not tend to lead to group harmony and feelings of joyous good fellowship toward the Black Holer. It might be best to concentrate on some of the other mez powers and leave this one aside.
Some clever people have suggested a few other potential uses for Black Hole, such as putting a mob or two "on ice" for when your Howling Twilight is almost but not quite up and you want to be sure to be able to rez after the battle is mostly done. Whether these other uses are enough to make taking the power worthwhile is something you will have to decide for yourself. I left it out of my own build.
Suggested Slotting: Acc x1-2/Intang x3/Rech x1-2
Power: Dark Servant
Description: Summons a Dark Servant to your aid. The Dark Servant possesses an assortment of dark powers to weaken your foes. The summoned entity is not a willing servant, and it is only your power that binds it in this realm. The Dark Servant can be buffed and healed.
Effects: Summon Dark Servant: Ranged Debuff Special
Activation Time: 3.17
Endurance: 26
Duration: 240
Recharge Time: 480
Range: 60
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Taunt Duration,Hold Duration,Immobilize Duration,To Hit DeBuff,Healing,Accuracy
Available: Level 38
Viewpoint: The Dark Servant, aka "Dark Fluffy," is the penultimate power of the Dark Miasma set. It may not be as powerful as the Dark Defender's version even now, let alone in days of old, but it still makes a very handy addition to the Robots/Dark Mastermind's bag of tricks. Once you've gotten it fully slotted, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.
The Dark Servant is like a miniature Dark Defender that you keep in your pocket. It casts Tenebrous Tentacles to immobilize, has a debuff aura and its own version of Darkest Night (that may be even stronger than your version) that it applies randomly, fires off Petrifying Gaze, and casts Twilight Grasp. Interestingly enough, since the Dark Servant's attacks and debuffs are primarily cast at range, this makes it even more compatible with Robotics than with the primary that would appear to be the best thematic fit, Necromancy. Although the Servant is not under your direct control, it will often choose to stand near your henchmen anyway, because they attack from about the same distance. This is handy when the Servant's attack cycle pops up the Twilight Grasp heal--suddenly your robots stay healthier than ever before, even when you can't intervene. The Dark Servant is not a solid entity, so you can stand right up inside it if you want to.
The gripe that many Masterminds have with the Dark Servant is that they have to blow half of its slots on Recharge Rates if they want to have it around nearly all the time, where as Dark Defenders and Corruptors can slot it however they want because they can already recast it as soon as it goes away. This does seem a bit unfair, but on the other hand, we don't have to rely on our Dark Servant nearly as much as they do. Dark Servant is the mainstay of the Dark Defender and Corruptor's Miasma set, whereas for us it's merely a handy adjunct to the main event.
When you first get the Dark Servant at level 38, you will want to slot it with an Accuracy and bring it out only when you especially need the extra healing power--large spawns, boss fights, and so on. At 39, you should put all three of the slots you get into Recharge Rates, so you can have the Dark Servant around perpetually (with only about a 10- to 15- second gap due to ED). Then the last two slots come at 40.
The question of what to put into those slots is an interesting one. Every primary will probably have a different answer, depending on that primary's effective strengths and weaknesses. If you don't have Tactics, of course, you might want to stick another Accuracy in, to help with hitting higher-level foes--though since the Dark Servant is your own effective level, just as your Assault Bot is, it will probably be all right without.
Some people might favor slotting for Heal, so the Fluffy heals more on a Twilight Grasp. But the thing is, you don't really need more healing power than it already has. You've already got your own slotted Twilight Grasp, and your Prot-bots' Repair, and they've been enough to see you through all the way up to now. And the Dark Servant heals for over 200 points in an AoE without any healing slots in it at all--which is already about 33% more than your own Twilight Grasp would do unslotted. Fluffy makes a very good backup healer without needing slotting, and will allow you to conserve End by spamming TG less often.
Hold Duration and To-Hit Debuff are also less than necessary for a Robots Mastermind. Most of the time your bots are going to take your foes down before the Servant's default hold has expired anyway, and over that length of time the debuff isn't likely to make much difference either. There's something a lot more useful you can do with those slots.
What I favor for Robots/Dark is slotting with Immobilize Duration Enhancements. The reason for this is simple. You can't control when your Dark Servant fires off its Tenebrous Tentacles, or when your Assault Bot fires off its Incendiary Missiles. By increasing the duration of the Immobilization effect, you make it more likely that they will coincide--i.e., that those tentacles will still be in effect over a good portion of the spawn in front of you at the same time as your Assault Bot lets loose with those multiple burn patches, so the enemies can't run out of the flames. That's a synergy you really want to promote.
And yes, you can choose to leave off one or more of the Recharge Reductions and slot with something else instead, trading faster recharge for more effective powers while you have it out. But all in all, why would you really want to? The Dark Servant is good enough with 3 in Recharge, and it seems to me that it's better to have "good enough" perpetually than to have to wait longer for "better."
Note: The Prima Guide claims the recharge time for Dark Servant is 240 seconds. It is lying through its teeth.
Suggested Slotting: 1x Acc/3x Rech/2x Immob
POOL POWERS
Assuming that you've skipped the powers I indicated above were skippable--Pulse Rifle Blast & Burst, Photon Grenade, Repair, and Black Hole--you will have 7 powers left over, prior to 40, for Pool Powers and such. Some of the pools are more appealing to Robots/Dark Masterminds than others.
Several of the pools, such as Flight, Super Speed, Fitness, and so on contain attacks, which I don't go over in detail either here or in the Travel Powers section that follows. The reason for this is that, as I explained under the Pulse Rifle Blast section above, extra attacks are the last thing that a Mastermind needs.
Concealment: Redundant and/or unnecessary. You already have a group stealth power; you have very little need for single-person stealth, invisibility, or grant invisibility. Phase Shift might be useful as an emergency "oh-censored" button, except that Black Hole would be an almost-as-useful panic button and would not require taking two generally useless powers to get.
Fighting: Unncessary. This pool gives you one or two additional attacks (which you don't need; see the Viewpoint on Pulse Rifle Blast) and additional Defense and Toughness toggles. Not only do you not need to the end drain running more toggles, you also don't need to be putting yourself in the kind of situation where those toggles would be necessary. You're a lover (of bots), not a fighter. Besides, the new Bodyguard system is far more effective at mitigating damage to you than any of these toggles could ever be.
Fitness: Ah, the most controversial of the Mastermind power pools. Practically every day there is a new thread on the Masterminds board where someone asks whether such-and-such Mastermind "needs" Fitness. Sometimes they even try to claim it is a "poll," as if the needs of any one individual character can somehow be decided by majority vote.
The answer is a definite "maybe," contingent upon build and playstyle. Some Masterminds do need Fitness, some don't. One suggested rule of thumb is that if the Mastermind takes his attacks as well as his henchmen, he does; if not he doesn't. However, this is only part of the equation. The other part is not so much the MM's primary as it is his secondary. Some secondaries--and by "some" I mostly mean Force Fields--are much higher in End expenditure than others. These secondaries probably will need that additional boost. Others may not. I would be inclined to say that, unless he takes attacks, the average Bots/Dark MM does not need Fitness, for the following two reasons:
Firstly, it used to be that almost everyone "needed" Fitness, simply because there was no incentive not to take it. If you didn't take it, you'd be slotting End Reductions into powers that would be better off six-slotted. It was seen as a better bargain to blow three powers and five Enhancement slots on Stamina than to weaken otherwise-six-slottable powers by putting End Reducs in them. However, that changed with Enhancement Diversification, which effectively capped Enhancement effectiveness at 3 SOs. Suddenly all sorts of powers that could only take one useful kind of Enhancements besides End Reduction had all these Enhancement slots to spare. (And the 13% reduction in End usage of all powers didn't hurt matters either. It was as if everyone had been given a weak version of the "old" Stamina for free!)
Back in the "good old days," the only exception to "needing" Stamina (aside from form-specialist Kheldians, who are weird) was generally support-oriented Defenders, who do not blast and consequently do not use End as quickly as those who do. Which brings up the second point: Masterminds don't (necessarily) blast either. They summon robots, Equip and Upgrade, and then let them do all the work. They don't need to blast, nor do they need to spam bubbles or other buffs periodically. They can hang around doing nothing but running toggles and casting the occasional mez while their robots blast all before them to smithereens.
In the end, whether to take Fitness is, as is all power decisions, strictly up to the individual. However, it is worth noting that taking it will use up 3 out of the 7 pre-40 pool power slots otherwise available, so the enFitnessed Mastermind will need to give something else up for the sake of those powers.
My own Level 40 Bots/Dark Mastermind, who uses a similar-but-not-identical build to the one I will include toward the end of this guide, did not take Stamina. I have been able to get by without it, but lately I have started to consider re-thinking my build to include it. It is true that as long as she keeps her use of powers to a minimum, she does not tend to run out of Endurance in mid-battle even while running Shadow Fall, Assault, and Tactics. However, Stamina would provide a good deal of additional battlefield flexibility. Given the lackluster nature of the Patron Power Pools available to Masterminds, taking Stamina early and pushing other powers back to the 41-50 range might well be a better use of those 4 extra slots--especially since Patron Power Pools failed to include the Endurance recovery power for which I had hoped.
Flight: See section on travel powers, below.
Leadership: Probably the second most controversial power pool for Masterminds, this one also sees a number of posts every day asking whether it's necessary or really all that great. And the answer again is...maybe!
One thing to note first is that many people consider a Mastermind plus his henchmen, taken together, to have roughly the same damage potential as a single hero or villain of another archetype. This means that a buff, such as Tactics or Assault, applied to all of those henchmen, would have the same overall effect as a single other hero or villain using it on himself would. In short, being a Mastermind doesn't make Leadership magically more effective just because your damage potential is split across multiple bodies. (And if you think about it, it makes buff Inspirations less effective than they are for normal heroes or villains, since you have to use six of them to equal someone else's use of one.)
That being said, Leadership is a reasonable pool choice for the aspiring Mastermind, especially if he teams, and even more especially if he teams with other Masterminds who have it. The endurance drain is not prohibitive if each toggle is slotted with an End Reduction or two.
Here are brief suggestions for the individual powers.
Manuevers: 2.75% Defense Buff; .4026 End/Sec
Skip it. A 3% Defense buff is generally not worth having or slotting even under Issue 7. If you do take it anyway, you'll probably want to slot it with Def x3/EndReduc x1-2.
Assault: 12% Damage Buff, resistance vs Taunt/Placate; .4026 End/Sec
Take it as a necessary prerequisite to the other useful powers in the set. (The resistance to Taunt and Placate will come in handy in PVP as well, but should not be a major consideration.) This isn't one you need to slot much at all, since there's no way to enhance a damage buff; put an Endurance Reduction in it and leave it alone.
Ironically, before Issue 5's Defense reductions and Issue 6's Enhancement Diversification, Assault was considered the Leadership power to skip and Maneuvers the one to take. Since then, however, Defense values have been slashed, Assault's damage buff was increased, and ED has made any additional buff to damage a worthwhile investment.
Tactics: 7.5% Accuracy Buff, Perception bonus; .4026 End/Sec
(Note: There is some uncertainty over whether Tactics is 7.5% or 10% base; it seems most likely for a number of reasons to be 7.5%, so that is what I will assume for the purposes of this guide until proven otherwise)
Even unslotted beyond the default, adding Tactics considerably surpasses the effectiveness of Supremacy alone, and makes it less necessary to slot overwhelmingly for Accuracy. Fully-slotted, Tactics plus Supremacy is almost the equivalent of having a yellow Insight inspiration permanently popped. Tactics is also good to use when sidekicking lowbies up while doing high-difficulty missions; the extra 7.5-12% To-Hit buff will mean they can hit even purple mobs more easily. (See the section further down on figuring Accuracy.)
The Perception bonus is handy in PVP zones, and against Arachnos and other foes who throw smoke grenades, but not enough by itself to spot the very well-hidden; popping a yellow or two (or having more than one Tactics-user on a team) is still necessary to spot a Stalker. Slot this with To-Hit Buff x3/End Reduc x1-2 if you can spare the slots.
Vengeance: Minor heal, 28% Acc/Dmg Buff; 20% Def Buff (All Forms); mez, taunt, knockback resistance; 120-sec duration; 300 sec. recharge
The power that is the bane of your existence in the hands of Nemesis becomes a very helpful little boost for you. Sad to say it can't be used when one of your henchmen dies--but if you use it on a fallen teammate when your henchmen (not to mention still-living teammates) are around, you become even more of a damage machine than usual. The one caveat is that you will need to make sure everyone on the team knows that you have Vengeance and will be using it beforehand, lest you find your fallen teammate rezzed or self-rezzed before you have the chance to cast. Also, multiple castings of Vengeance no longer stack.
Some Masterminds don't feel inclined to take this power, since it is fundamentally useless for soloing. Still, one "useless" power out of twenty is not bad compared to some Defenders' and Corruptors' power sets, and when it is useful it is very useful.
Since you can't slot it for Recharge Reduction, you might as well just stick a Defense or To-Hit Buff SO in the default slot and leave it at that; no point spending further slots on something that's good as-is and won't help you in soloing.
Note: The Prima Guide says Vengeance has a 35% Acc/Dmg Buff and 25% Def Buff; however, the Prima Guide does not include class-based modifiers that give the power pool different effectiveness for different classes. Even my reduced figures may be slightly high.
Leaping: See section on travel powers, below.
Medicine: Largely redundant. You already have one of the best self-and-other heals in the game, and one of the best rezzes; adding Medicine to this is definitely gilding the lily. The one possible exception is Stimulant. For Dark Miasma Defenders--and Corruptors who emphasize their secondary--Stimulant is sometimes taken to cover the Dark Miasma set's status-protection gap. However, your job is not so much to be a dimestore Defender as it is to look after your henchmen, and your henchmen won't often get mezzed.
Presence: Two taunts, two fears. Prior to issue 7, drawing aggro onto yourself and away from your pets or teammates was something that Masterminds specifically did not want to do. However, I7's bodyguard mode changes that. Since your pets can now mitigate up to 75% of your incoming damage, this means that you can take on the part of a Tanker more than you ever could before--and to play a Tanker, having a Taunt or two in your arsenal could be helpful. It all depends on how much you want to tank, and how tight your build is. Regardless of whether you wish to taunt or not, the fear powers are generally redundant to your Fearsome Stare, however.
Speed: The one Speed power that merits special mention here is the non-travel power that everybody used to take and many still do: Hasten. No longer perma'ble, Hasten has now become a sort of emergency adrenalin button, enabling you to speed up for short periods of time at a stretch.
However, a Mastermind's primary attacks--his henchmen--can't be affected by Hasten. Sure, the summons and Equip/Upgrades could be speeded up--but once the bots are out there, nothing you do to yourself is going to make them fire any faster. Thus, Masterminds lose a lot of the benefit of it right there.
Some Masterminds advocate taking Hasten expressly for use during the summon/equip phase, to get it over with faster so you can get into the mission faster--and that is a viable decision to make. Likewise, it will still help with cycling powers from the Dark Miasma set--though with the possible exception of the rez and Dark Servant, they all cycle pretty much fast enough already--and long-recharge powers such as those from Accolades.
The biggest problem with Hasten is that it makes your End-usage-per-second balloon--because more powers are firing off faster, and because it takes a bite out of your End bar when it crashes. My summon-and-equip cycle already requires the use of Rest partway through it; Hasten would just make me run out of End faster and have to rest sooner, so in the end I wouldn't gain that much time overall. If you want to take Hasten, I would advise taking the Fitness pool along with it; that extra end usage is probably going to require Stamina.
As for the other powers, Flurry is an attack, which you don't need, and Whirlwind on anyone squishier than a Brute, Scrapper, or Tanker is a good recipe for faceplant.
For Super Speed, see the section on travel powers, below.
Teleportation: See section on travel powers, below.
TRAVEL POWERS
One of the big questions any Mastermind needs to decide, and fairly early on, too, is what travel pool(s) to dip into. Of course, every player has his favorite pools to take, and generally speaking any travel power will work well enough for a Mastermind. Most of the time a MM is travelling across normal zones, he won't have his henchmen out--and when he does have them out, all he needs to do is get far enough away fast enough for the henchmen to teleport themselves to his present location.
However, there are some travel pools which have particular benefits to a Robots/Dark Mastermind. Let's look at what each travel power has to offer in turn.
Flight: Flight was my own primary travel power of preference. It's the slowest of the travel power sets, but also the most versatile--good horizontal and vertical movement, without teleport's minimum travel distance restriction. It lets you hang in the air out of range of melee attacks while still lending Supremacy to your henchmen and even picking up a couple of percentage points of Defense from Hover.
Some people have recommended, in the past, foregoing Fly and just six-slotting Hover, since Hover's flight speed when sixed was equivalent to unslotted Flight and did not have Flight's Suppression--the temporary decrease to unslotted-Hoveresque flight speed when you fire off an attack. However, this is no longer as feasible since Enhancement Diversification capped the effectiveness of SOs to three and cut Hover's maximum speed by 1/3. If Hover is your only Flight power, you might as well resign yourself to moving very slowly. My personal recommendation is to take Hover and Flight, and then the power for which they are a prerequisite: Group Fly.
Group Fly is a very useful power to a Robotic Mastermind. It is not necessarily a must-take power, as its overall effectiveness depends on the individual Mastermind's playstyle, but it is definitely up there. Group Fly has several things going for it: it allows enhanced mobility, letting you take your robots from the bottom of a cave or office to the top, without having to navigate the stairs or annoying twisty/hard-to-see passages in caves. It lets you send your bots after flying targets that might otherwise be out of reach, or keep them safely out of lava in which they might otherwise be inclined to bathe. It lets you travel safely en masse in PVP zones when you have some reason to want to keep your robots out with you instead of resummoning and rebuffing inside a mission. (For example, moving from hot zone to hot zone in Siren's Call, or returning from scientist rescues in Warburg.) It may even occasionally be useful for transporting teammates (such as lowbie sidekicks who have no travel powers of their own yet). And last but not least, Group Fly makes your robots use the trez cool foot-rocket animation from when you dismiss them or when the Assault Bot arrives.
When Group Fly is toggled on, it grants the power of flight to every member of your team, and every pet or henchman of those members, within a 60-foot radius. You are able to move slowly around, and all your teammates and henchmen can fly about, as long as they stay within 60 feet of you. Group Fly lasts for about ten seconds after you turn it off, or after getting out of range, on everyone it affects except you (as you will stop flying the moment you drop it).
There are some caveats to this power, however. First of all, for as long as it remains active, anyone who is affected by it suffers a -25% To Hit penalty. For your robots, this is not necessarily the end of the world, since they have that 10% Supremacy bonus and possibly a 7.5% Tactics bonus to help make up for it--but teammates, who cannot choose not to be affected the way they can with teleport, may become justifiably annoyed. Second, while it is engaged, people who are affected lose access to powers that require being on the ground, such as Rooted or Burn--another annoyance to teammates. Third, it is End-intensive (with a base cost of 2 End/sec), and more End-intensive the more people are in it with you. If you run out of End in the middle of it, you drop like a stone, and your teammates join you ten seconds later. Finally, your bots fly slower than you do, and you will find yourself having to pause frequently to let them catch up--unless you use the following bind.
/bind ctrl+lbutton "petcom_all Goto"
You can also choose to bind it to alt+lbutton instead if you prefer. (Shift+lbutton is the default fast bind for Teleport; see the section on Teleport below.)
Click on one of your pets and hit the "Follow" button ("F" by default) and then hold down control (or alt if you bound it to alt) and left-click. Your robots will go flying off to the point you chose, and you will follow right along behind them. If you hold down control and keep left-clicking continuously, you will fly right across the zone for as far as you want.
If you take the Flight powers, Hover should be slotted with 1 Defense SO, Flight should be slotted with three Flight Speeds and optionally one or two End Reduction SOs, and Group Flight should take either two or three Endurance Reductions (though of course you can go fewer EndReducs on both Flight and Group Fly if you have Stamina). I also strongly recommend finding a good run-walk/hover-fly bindkit (such as CityBinder; see the later section on binds) to automate switching between Hover and Flight; it will save a good deal of Endurance and frustration. I do not recommend slotting Group Fly with Flight Speed, because there is a bug with this power at the present time that makes Flight Speed Enhancements only affect the speed of the person who has Group Flight. In effect, this means you would only outdistance the rest of your party even faster.
Leaping: At first glance, this pool seems like a natural fit for the Mastermind, since Battle Drones have Super Jump inherently. However, they are the only ones of your henchmen to have an inherent travel power--and it's not as fast as your own Super Jump would be--which means you will frequently leave them all behind if you use it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course; when they get far enough away they'll automatically catch up to you by henchman-teleport. But if you don't go quite far enough away to have them catch up with you by teleporting, they will attempt to run directly to you--either dying or bringing every mob they encounter with them on the way. And by and large, the only times that you'll have your pets out in city zones, as opposed to travelling without them, will be in places like instanced outdoor missions or PVP zones where you need the safety of having them with you the most.
Even though I love it to pieces on my Tankers and Scrappers, Super Jump may not be the best travel power a Mastermind could choose. But I should point out that the travel with henchmen problem may be balanced out by another factor: the mez protection from Combat Jumping and Acrobatics. The only mez protection inherent in the Dark Melee set is called "not getting hit"; if staying mez-free is important to you, taking the Leaping set to get Acrobatics might be a good idea. If you do get Acrobatics, putting at least two End Reductions in it if you do not take Stamina would probably be wise.
Speed: Although Super Speed does share the same "henchman-outdistancing" problem as Super Jump, it should be noted that Super Speed's pseudo-stealth effect does have very good synergy with Shadow Fall. Super Speed is about the only type of stealth effect that will stack with another, so if you're running SS and SF together, you're the next best thing to invisible. This can be very beneficial for "stealthing" to the end of missions in order to grab a blinky, summon bots and clear a boss room, or teleport teammates in. And the lack of verticality in Super Speed can be overcome through judiciously limited use of the three jet pack and one jump pack temp powers available through the game.
Teleport: All four Teleport powers may have a good deal of usefulness for the Robots/Dark Miasma Mastermind, though some more so than others.
Recall Friend is one of the first powers in the pool that you are able to take, and I would advise taking it right as soon as it becomes available, at level 6, even if you don't intend to take any other powers in the Teleport pool. It's simply too useful to pass up. Recall Friend is a versatile power with multiple uses, and teleporting teammates to the entrance or end of a mission is only the most obvious. Let's not forget arranging fallen teammates close together so a single Howling Twilight can get them all up.
However, this is not one of those powers that can only benefit you when you're teaming. Recall Friend can also be used for retrieving robotic henchmen that are too close for the auto-teleport but otherwise unable to reach you, or that get stuck somehow. Recalling a 'bot is a lot less time and End-intensive than dismissing, resummoning, and re-Equipping it.
For most purposes, you'll want to slot Recall Friend with just the default slot; a Reduce Interrupt Time is a good use for it. It is possible that in larger zones you would want to slot a Range instead, to increase the 10,000 foot default range so as to 'port teammates two miles or more away.
Teleport Foe is a power I do not have much personal experience with using, but I have seen it used. If it hits, it can summon a single foe to a spot you designate. It can be useful for single-pulling to thin out crowds of foes in PVE, or for grabbing a single subject to use as Twilight Grasp or Howling Twilight fodder, but where it really shines is PVP. Teleport Foe allows the Mastermind to set up a trap, with Tar Patch laid down and robots standing ready, just waiting for their new special friend to arrive--and once it is ready, the Mastermind simply teleports a hapless foe into it. Although it has become slightly less useful in I7 with the increased defensive abilities against it, if you are planning to do more PVP than PVE this is likely to be a power you will want. It would probably best be slotted with two to three Accuracies and perhaps one to three Ranges as well.
Teleport is an interesting travel power. Unlike most other travel powers, where you can pick a direction, hit "run," and then take an AFK secure in the knowledge that by the time you get back you'll have either reached your target or else have overshot it and be nuzzling a War Wall, Teleport requires concentration: you hit the teleport power, click the location, and you go. And then you do it again. And again. And keep doing it, or else you'll fall out of the sky. Of course, if you're smart then you've bound shift+lbutton (or control+, or alt+) to pow_exec_name Teleport so that all you have to do is hold the shift button down and click, click, click.
Teleport has several drawbacks and a couple of benefits. One drawback is the aforementioned necessity of continuing to port or falling out of the sky; another is that due to the way the target selection mechanism works, you have to teleport the maximum range with each hop unless you can find a convenient wall or other object to fetch up against. Teleport is also very Endurance-intensive, requiring a base of 13 End per hop. As you have only 100 End, unless you slot for reduction that means you can make about 8 or 9 hops (allowing for End regeneration as you hop), or about a half mile at the base 300' range (a little less than a mile if you 3-slot for range) before gasping exhaustedly for breath.
But in return for this, you get one of the fastest long-distance travel powers in the game. At a continuously-teleporting sprint, with range slotted to max, you can cover a a mile in about 20 seconds--definitely faster than Flight. Whether it is currently faster than Super Speed over a straight line distance, I do not know (it was before ED, when it could be 5- or 6-slotted for Range). But taking into account the potential for vertical movement, avoiding ground-level obstacles 'speeders have to detour around, it is almost certainly faster at actually getting from place to place most of the time. And it is worth noting that it is fast enough that your bots, if they're out, typically won't have time to get in trouble by trying to follow you before their auto-teleport kicks in and drags them right along with you.
Most of the problems are, if not solvable, at least manageable. Falling out of the sky can be avoided easily enough by taking Hover or Flight (or a temp power jet pack) also and keeping that active while porting. End usage can be brought down to reasonable levels by slotting for it. The only solution for the maximum-range-hop thing is to learn to live with it, of course (or to take Flight as a secondary travel power and use it for short distance travel after your last hop), but two out of three ain't bad. Suggested slotting: Range x3/End x2-3 (or less if you have Stamina).
Finally we come to the second group travel power, Team Teleport. Much like Group Fly, this power affects everyone on your team within a certain radius--and like Group Fly, your teammates don't get the choice to opt out. As long as they're located reasonably close to you, they get ported right along with you.
For most non-Mastermind archetypes, this power is basically a non-starter. Firstly, by the time you can take Team Teleport, just about every other hero or villain who isn't either rabidly in-character or else mentally impaired has already gotten and slotted up a travel power of their own. Secondly, Team Teleport has all the same problems Teleport does, only more so, only has 3/4 the Range (and hence speed), and is much harder to use effectively.
Nonetheless, there are some Masterminds out there who absolutely swear by it, saying that it's easier to keep all your bots bunched up together while moving than it is with Group Fly, and you can pick your destination more precisely. They talk about how much fun it is to port your entire group of henchmen right into the middle of an unsuspecting mob spawn and take them completely by surprise, how you don't have to worry about pausing for your henchmen to catch up to you in flight, and how much faster it is than Group Flight.
That certainly does sound like fun--if you can manage it. The problem is that Team Teleport has the same problems as Teleport--the falling out of the sky, the End usage (20 end base rather than 13), the no-shorter-than-maximum-range hops. And while End usage can again be helped via slotting, and the max-range thing can be lived with, the falling-out-of-the-sky problem is a big one--because if you're not fast enough to port, not only will you fall out of the sky, but so will everyone else on your team. What's more, if you have Hover but the rest of your team does not, and you're a little slow to port, you could leave the rest of your group behind on your next jump. (Though, to be fair, the port works based on who's close to you at the start of the animation; if they fall out of range only after you've executed the power, they'll be right up next to you again at the next jump.) Taking Group Flight in order to be able to carry everyone with you while you Team Teleport isn't really a tenable solution, as you'll have just spent six of your twenty power slots on travel powers. (Though if someone else you frequently team with took Group Flight, there's nothing to say they couldn't run it at the same time you ran Group TP to make things easier for everyone.)
EXPECTO PATRONUM: PATRON POWERS AND YOU
I have not had the chance to experience Patron Powers yet, as I have not yet levelled my Mastermind past 40. However, much of what I said about them in the first edition of this guide still holds true.
As Issue 7 was being worked on during the first half of 2006, preview information about the I7 patron powers was released. More recently, hard numbers for these powers were made available--marking the first time ever the developers have ever committed to give the complete information about what powers do. The numbers are in the downloadable Prima Guide, and will be available on plaques in the lobby of the Grandville Arachnos building. They should be perused before final selections are made.
I will probably rewrite this section further once I have actually played through the patron powers; alternately, I might just point at someone else's guide to them when it becomes available. Since the Patron power pools can't all be taken on the same character, it could take a great deal of time to test them all for myself.
Unlike CoH's Ancillary Pools, which can have different types of powers depending on what pool is chosen, all four of the CoV Patron Pools are largely identical except for damage types and secondary effects. Available at 41, 44, 47, and 49, the powers include:
<ul type="square">[*]a cone or AoE blast[*]an armor toggle[*]a cone or AoE Immobilize[*]a single-target hold[/list]Ghost Widow and Scirocco have the Blast as the first power and the Immobilize as the third; Black Scorpion and Mako reverse the two. For descriptions of each Patron pool, click the above link; no need to make a long guide even longer by copying and pasting them all in.
Given that the powers are all so similar, the choice of which Patron to pick will probably be decided by the secondary effects. It could also come down to a matter of roleplaying and character concept--if your character is most sympathetic to Ghost Widow, for instance, then becoming her pupil would grant much the same general abilities as any of the other Patrons. Nonetheless, since a Patron, once chosen, is permanent, your choice of Patron is something that should be given serious consideration--including viewing the numbers for each power when they become available. And it could be a tough decision, as the secondary effects of each of the Patrons' pools has something to offer the discerning Dark/Dark Mastermind.
Ghost Widow's powers' secondary effects are the traditional Negative Energy Accuracy Debuff (on some powers, anyway), and may stack well with the Dark effects you already have. The FX are a ghostly white rather than the traditional Dark black, however, which may put some people off.
Black Scorpion's Mace Mastery blasts are Energy damage. These blasts do Knockdown, and his Immobilize, while doing no damage, does slow enemies' attack rate and prevent flying and jumping--a potentially useful adjunct to Tar Patch. This could help keep you from getting in over your head.
Captain Mako's shark attacks, while somewhat silly in concept, nonetheless do a variety of different damage types--Lethal, Negative Energy, and the infrequently defended or resisted Toxic. If you're just interested in dealing raw damage and don't care as much about secondary effects, this could be the pool for you.
Scirocco's powers are the Mu Mystics' red lightning. Some of them claim to drain End and pass it back to you, but they only have a fairly low percentage chance to do that and would never return very much to you anyway. Best not to consider this a determining factor.
Whether these powers are useful to a Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind depends on your playstyle. The AoE blast power could provide a little bit of extra damage and debuff help; however, what was said about the Robotics blast powers applies here as well: it costs Endurance and your robots will still do more damage than you ever could even with this blast. The armor toggle could be useful, especially if used in conjunction with Bodyguard to cut your damage taken even farther. The AoE Immobilize will provide a good backup to your Dark Servant's in terms of locking down enemies preparatory to your robot firing off its burn-patch missiles (Black Scorpion's in particular also looks like it might be useful in PVP), and the hold might stack with your own and your Dark Servant's Petrifying Gazes for easier locking down of the occasional boss. But whether these benefits are worth the expenditure is an open question.
As with City of Heroes's Ancillary Power Pools, the Patron Pools can be looked at in two ways. They could be seen as a chance to round out your character, by giving him access to abilities that he would not normally have. However, they could also divert you from the main focus of your character--trying to be a budget Blaster or Controller does not necessarily make you a better Mastermind. It may be that your particular build could get more benefit out of taking more Primary, Secondary, and Pool powers in the 40s (especially if you choose to spend power slots on Stamina) than taking Patron powers.
Note that you can choose a Patron, and experience that Patron's story arcs, without ever taking a single one of his powers. However, once you choose a Patron, you're stuck with him whether or not you take his powers.
Hey there!
First off, gratz on a memorable guide. It's been most useful.
Now, I've been trying to set up my keypad binds, and I've tried both Sandolphan's guide and the CityBinder app, getting shot down in flames on both atempts... I will give it a shot at your files as soon as I can log back in (not that often, though) and just wanna clarify a stupid noob question: do I have to /bindloadfile all of them?
Thanks in advance. Cya around.
BTW, what happened on my prior trials was that, though I have followed every presented instrucion to the end, I got nothing in return. Nothing.
/bind key bind_load_file C:\directory\file.txt
You should only have to load the first one manually and all the others load while you use them.
I put all my bind files in c:\binds so I can find them easily and won't have much to type. The Khaiba/Sandalphin binds are fantastic and they make MMing soo much easier. I can't imagine playing a MM without them now that I'm used to them.
Centinull
Great guide, Robo! Informative with funny category names. 
R_M'S I7 ROBOTICS/DARK MIASMA MASTERMIND GUIDE
CHANGES FROM PRIOR VERSION
<ul type="square">[*]Added sections on Patron Powers, Bodyguard, stealthing missions, and Inspirations.[*]Added a second example character build.[*]Made other necessary updates relating to Mayhem Missions and other I7 changes.[/list]Whether you've got a Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind already, are thinking of making one, or just wandered in off the street because it's raining out there, welcome to my Robotics/Dark Miasma Mastermind guide. I hope you've got an hour or two to spare, 'cuz I'm gonna go way in-depth here.
I'll start by going over the overall reasons to choose Robotics, Dark Miasma, and Robotics plus Dark Miasma. Then I'll go one by one through each power in the set with my commentary and viewpoints on what they do and how to use them most effectively. After that I'll discuss Power Pools and Travel Powers, and say a few words about Patron Pools. Then I'll talk about how Accuracy is figured, make some suggestions concerning binds, discuss the new Bodyguard ability, and address use of Inspirations. After that I will discuss a blueprint for how to advance level by level, and talk about some particularly pesky foes you need to watch out for. I'll close out with a build blueprint I tend to favor.
Bear in mind, this is all my opinion, even if it sounds like I'm making Pronouncements From On High in the body of the guide--it just looks too wishy-washy to preface every statement with "I believe" or "I think" or "In my opinion." I'm writing what I've found in my 40+ levels of Robo/Dark experience, and it's possible my experiences don't match yours. I'm committed to making this the best guide that it's possible to be, though, so if you think I'm wrong on some point, or left something out, don't just call me a doodiehead--write an explanation of why you differ with me, and if it makes sense I'll incorporate it into the guide so people can make up their own minds.
Furthermore, when writing this guide, I drew information from a number of sources, including version 1.6.9.0 of the Hero Builder program (which is known to have some inaccuracies; if that particular version conflicts with something written here, what's written here is probably the accurate version) and the new downloadable Prima Guide (which is also known to have some inaccuracies). I'm not completely positive of all my numbers; if you have information from a reputable source (including Herostats hit testing and so forth) that contradicts what I say in here, please let me know.
WHY ROBOTICS/DARK MIASMA?
This is a valid question, but when you think about it it actually breaks down into three valid questions: why Robotics, why Dark Miasma, and why both together.
Both Robotics and Dark Miasma seem to be very popular choices for Masterminds--what some posters are inclined to call "flavor-of-the-month," or "FOTM" for short. FOTM is usually a derogatory term, and refers to power sets or character builds that are popular because they offer, or seem to offer, some sort of marked advantage over other sets and builds. You see this on the boards all the time, with thread titles like "If you are Robotics/Dark - welcome to Powergameing" (sic) or, my personal favorite, "If your MM and dont have Dark Miasma, your a donut" (sic). Some people feel that, given that Robotics is technological and Dark Miasma is usually magical, taking the two together is hard to justify in-character and is usually done solely for the purpose of powergaming.
To be fair, there is something to the powergaming accusation. Both Robotics and Dark Miasma have some very powerful options in them, and they work surprisingly well together. I would not be at all surprised to see their power levels trimmed back sooner or later--although it did not happen with I7. In fact, we received a couple of highly-effective boosts.
Why Robotics?
Aside from in-character/roleplaying reasons, which exist for every set out there, there are a number of attractions that robots have ranging from in-game to out-of-game. A not-necessarily-complete list (gathered from a recent thread asking this very question) could include...
<ul type="square">[*]Their attacks are predominantly ranged, and feature Knockback, keeping the enemies at arm's reach from the Mastermind.[*]Due to AI issues, ranged henchmen (Robots, Mercs, Thugs) are easier to control than melee henchmen (Ninjas, Necromancy).[*]Robots attack with Energy (and, later, Fire) damage, which is less-frequently resisted than the Mercenaries' and Thugs' primarily Lethal damage.[*]Robots have decent to good inherent damage resistance to Lethal, Cold, and Psi damage--the latter two of which are known to be among the game's worst "can-openers" to normal heroes. Though this Resistance can't be slotted, it can be stacked with other Resist-conferring powers (such as Sonic/Thermal Corruptors' pseudo-bubbles, or Dark Miasma's Shadow Fall).[*]Robots have two Lieutenant-class "medics," as opposed to Mercenaries' one Minion-class Medic and Thugs' lack of a medic altogether; Bots also get their first "medic" at level 12, whereas Mercs must wait until 18.[*]At level 32, Robotics's Upgrade power includes the ability to fire remote Burn patches, one of the most lethal forms of AoE in the game (although, until this upgrade is received, they are arguably the least damaging Mastermind primary set).[*]Robots are very different-looking from all the other sets. Whereas Ninjas, Mercs, Thugs, and Necro all make use of body parts from the existing character designer, Robots are completely different and new. (Well, they may borrow a couple of body parts, sound effects, and animations from Malta Titans, but what the hell, Titans are cool anyway.) Furthermore, robots get a variety of cool new animations and geegaws--crates or upgrade platforms for arriving in, rocket boots to fly or dismiss with, and if you watch closely you can see how they change when they're upgraded. (If it recharged faster, I could dismiss and re-summon my Assault Bot all day, just to watch him hover in on his thrusters and then feel the ground shake when he landed.) And the sound-and-light-show of a team of post-level-32-Upgraded bots firing everything at once is a spectacle of which many never tire.[/list]Why Dark Miasma?
Dark Miasma is the Mastermind secondary that makes other Mastermind secondaries turn green with envy (and turns their wielders into "donuts"). Benefits of the set include:
<ul type="square">[*]It offers Twilight Grasp, the only AoE heal available to Masterminds--a 24.2% aura heal that is over twice as powerful percentage-wise as a Thermal or Radiation Corruptor's 11% aura heal (in relation to one's own hit points, anyway; considering the higher number of hit points Corruptors have it probably balances out)--and it offers it at level one. Twilight Grasp does still have to hit a target successfully in order to heal, but ED means it can be fully-slotted for healing and still have ample slots left over for Accuracy. This aura heal means that you can heal your entire group of henchmen at one time--a feat which no other Mastermind secondary can duplicate.[*]Another early power, Tar Patch, makes it harder for enemies to move and easier to damage them.[*]It includes several mez, debuff, and other such powers that can effectively make enemies attack less, hit less, and do less damage--a definite bonus for a class as thoroughly squishy as Masterminds and their early pets.[*]One of these powers, Shadow Fall, is a form of group stealth, making teaming safer and removing the need to take the Stealth pool in order to stealth missions.[*]It comes with Dark Servant, one of the most effective non-Mastermind pets in the game. Thus, the Mastermind gains a 7th helper (or 8th if the MM's primary is Necro or Thugs), which has some very powerful abilities of its own--including a cone-effect Immobilize and its own Twilight Grasp aura heal.[/list]Why Robotics and Dark Miasma?
Like chocolate and peanut butter (mmmm), Robotics and Dark Miasma are two great tastes that taste great together. As good as the powers may be on their own, they're even better together thanks to some great synergies that exist between the two sets. For example:
<ul type="square">[*]Since the robots have primarily ranged attacks, the Mastermind (and Dark Servant when he gets it) can sit in the middle of the group of robots in relative safety, firing off his aura heal to aid the robots when they need it and firing his ranged debuffs and mezzes--rather than having to swoop in amidst a bunch of meleers and putting himself at greater risk. (Though to be fair, this benefit is shared by Mercs/Dark and Thugs/Dark, too.)[*]When Shadow Fall is fully slotted with 3 Damage Resistance SOs, all three robots have an unbelievable 44-50% (depending on level) damage resistance vs. Psi (as well as 23% vs Energy/Dark Energy), as long as they stay within the Shadow Fall--not to mention their inherent 21-27% vs Lethal and Cold. Even unslotted, the total resistance to Psi is a still-quite-respectable 36-43%. This makes Robotics/Dark Miasma a great choice to tank a psi-AV/hero, not to mention the Carnival of Thorns.[*]The Dark Servant's cone immobilize can most satisfyingly root entire spawns of enemies in place, unable to flee, just in time for the Assault Bot's burn-patch missiles to roast them all.[/list]In short, two sets that are both quite effective on their own can become even more effective when put together.
POWERS TO THE PEOPLE
A Mastermind is only as good as his powers--and with a Robots/Dark Mastermind, that can be very very good indeed. Here's the rundown.
Note about Recommended Slotting: For my recommended slotting under each power, I have given the slotting you would use it if you decided that one power was one of the most important powers in your build--i.e., if you were going to six-slot a particular power (save for powers that don't gain any worthwhile benefit out of being six-slotted), what you would put into it. I did this even for powers I recommend skipping, just so if you feel you need them you'll know what I think the optimal slotting would be. In practice, if you tried to slot out everything with the number of slots I list you would quickly run out of slots. My goal here is to give you information about each power, not to lock you into any one particular build.
Note about Power Values: Some of the values given in the following guide sections may actually start out at lower than the value given. These values were often taken from the Prima Guide, which gives values as what they will be at Level 50--with no indication which of those values are constant and which scale up over time (as do robotic damage resistances and speeds of travel powers for instance). So if you find through testing that you are getting slightly less than the values listed here, that is probably the reason.
INHERENT
Power: Supremacy
Description: A good Mastermind knows how to manage his Henchmen. The Mastermind imparts a bonus to his Henchmen's Accuracy and Damage only if he is nearby.
Effects: PBAoE, Henchman +10% ACC, +25% DMG
Available: Inherent
Viewpoint: This inherent ability is the power that separates Masterminds from other classes right at the outset. You can't slot it, it doesn't give you any kind of a bar, and the only indications that it's working are the little grey icons under your health bar and on your pet window--but make no mistake, this power is one of the Mastermind's biggest advantages right at the outset. From the moment your character first appears in Ziggursky Prison, your primary attack abilities--your Henchmen--have a power that's better than Leadership Tactics effective on them, and the equivalent of 3 Damage Training Enhancements slotted in them, as long as they stay close and in line of sight of you. That's the equivalent of 3/4 of an SO of damage, and more than a Training in Accuracy. While every other starting villain class is struggling to hit whites and yellows, you'll be set to hit them easily without slotting anything more than the default slot. This is a big benefit for the beginning and mature Mastermind, and it stacks nicely with Leadership, down the road.
The upshot is that as long as you're handy with Twilight Grasp, you can easily raise your difficulty a couple of notches (or hang out with villains 1-2 levels higher than you) as soon as you hit Mercy Island with few problems, and rake in the faster XP gain. (But bear in mind that this applies mainly to soloing or teaming with other Masterminds--if the other non-MM villains on your team are the same level as you or lower, they'll have trouble with higher difficulty settings and not be able to pull as much of their weight, which could mean more deaths and frustration for all of you.)
Note that Supremacy works much like the Leadership auras: it has a PBAoE effect, and if henchmen are blocked from line of sight of you, they are also blocked from Supremacy. Get in the habit of keeping an eye on your pet window for the presence of that grey icon; if you see it vanish from one or more of your pets, you may need to issue some movement commands or change your position to give it back to them.
For more details on how Supremacy affects your Accuracy, see the section on Accuracy calculation further on in this guide.
ROBOTICS
Power: Pulse Rifle Blast
Description: This Pulse Rifle can fire a long-range laser pulse. Deals moderate Smashing and Energy damage.
Activation Time: 1.87
Endurance Cost: 6.5
Recharge Time: 4
Range: 80
Brawl Index: .694 Smashing Damage, 2.7778 Energy Damage
Enhancements: Accuracy,Damage,Recharge Reduction,Endurance Reduction,Range,Knockback Distance
Available: Level 1
Viewpoint: The Mastermind's attack powers are a matter of some discussion on the boards. Are they really necessary? The answer, as with most yes or no answers concerning Masterminds, is a resounding "maybe" in general, shading toward a "no" for Robots/Dark. Other Robots Masterminds might find it useful--for instance, a Robots/FF Mastermind might find that the the Knockback of the pulse rifle blasts or bursts has good synergy with Force Bolt. But Robots/Dark Masterminds will probably need to emphasize other areas.
It is possible that a beginning Robots/Dark Mastermind might think he should take at least the rifle burst to help out his robots in the early levels of the game when they do less damage, and then respec out of it in the 20s. But by and large, the damage the blasts do is a pittance compared to what the robots will do over time (especially after the upgrades), unnecessarily draws aggro away from your robots and to your squishy little self (though this is less of a problem in I7, with Bodyguard), and requires attention and Endurance to use, both of which can be better spent on your secondary--particularly on keeping your robots healed up.
Furthermore, it does not gain the benefit of the Supremacy bonus that amps up your robots' accuracy and damage as long as they're near you. And even if those didn't matter, it's always better to build your character right the first time so you can save the respecs for in case power changes down the road require a respec but don't come with a free one. Skip it.
If you do have your heart set on the pulse rifle, bear in mind that blasting takes a lot of Endurance--so you'd better go ahead and take Stamina, too.
Note: On page 86 of the downloadable Prima Guide, the Pulse Rifle Blast's help text and attack types column claim it does Smashing & Energy. The damage listing claims it does Lethal & Energy. I'm going to assume that it meant Smashing. The Smashing damage here is an estimate, given that the Prima Guide gives damage in "amount done by an unslotted Level 50" rather than Brawl Index.
Suggested Slotting:
1-11 (TOs): Acc x6
12-23 (DOs): Acc x2/Dmg x4, or Acc x3/Dmg x3
24+ (SOs): Acc x1/Dmg x3/Rech x2, or Acc x2/Dmg x3/Rech x1
Power: Battle Drones
Description: Constructs 1-3 Battle Drones (depending on your level) to do your bidding. Drones start out with only basic weaponry, but can be upgraded with heavier energy weapons. Drones can Super Leap. You may only have 3 Drones under your control at any given time. If you attempt to construct more Drones, you can only replace the ones you have lost in battle. If you already have 3, the power will fail.
Effects: (LvL 6--2 Drones)(LvL 18--3 Drones), Inherent (Laser Burst, Super Leap), Res (21% (at L1) through 26.67% (at L50) Cold/Lethal/Psi; 1-point Disorient protection; 4-point Sleep protection; 50% Sleep Resistance; 4-point Fear protection; 50% Fear Resistance)
Activation Time: 2.03
Endurance Cost: 19.5
Recharge Time: 60
Range: 60
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Damage,Accuracy,Knockback Distance
Available: Level 1
Viewpoint: This is the first of the five bread-and-butter powers from your primary. Some people have made "petless Mastermind" builds as a joke, but if you're serious about Masterminding, there's no question: you'll take this little fella at Level 1.
A few things need to be said about the suggested slotting given below.
From level 1 to level 5, you will have one of these Drones; it will be the same effective level as you, and receive the benefit of the 10% Supremacy To-Hit bonus. With that in mind, you don't need to worry too much about slotting--you're good "right out of the box" as it were (watch the summoning animation if you don't get it).
But at level 6, you get your second Drone--which means they both bump a level down, and are at one level below you. This is the point where slotting a couple of Accuracies starts to pay off. To what extent you slot accuracies and what extent damages depends on your intentions. If you plan to stay at Villainous or Malicious, you will need fewer Accuracies, and can slot a few damages to increase the effectiveness of your Drones' weapons. If you plan to go higher, a couple more Accuracies will make sure that you frequently hit your target. I would recommend at least four Accuracy trainings as soon as you can get them. (See the section on Accuracy later in this guide for more details.)
At level 18 your third Battle Drone shows up, and your drones are now two full levels below you, meaning that the enemies they face will usually be anywhere from 2 to 6 levels higher than they are. This means they will need a good deal of accuracy. It's all right to slot just 2 or 3 Accuracy DOs up to that point, but when you hit 18 you're going to want to have 4 Accuracy DOs to make sure you're hitting what you need to hit. You can scale back to 2 SOs and pump up the damage when you hit 24. (This does assume, by the way, that you're taking the Tactics power from Leadership; if you're skipping it you may want to go to 3 Acc SOs if you plan to be fighting many higher-level foes.)
Unlike your Protector and Assault bots, your Battle Drones have no slot-requiring special abilities outside of Damage and Knockback. Equip Robot bestows upon them a weak sniper attack; Upgrade Robot gives them a full-auto laser (cone-effect minor damage attack that doubles as a pretty lightshow). Some folks advise spending no more than 5 slots total on them--for 2 Accuracy and 3 Damage SOs. If you're going to go this route, then you'll want to put no more than 5 slots in the Drones as you level up, to prevent having to burn a respec to drop a slot once you get SOs. However, I tend to favor sticking that sixth slot in to eke out every little bit of benefit during the Training and DO periods and then putting a Knockback SO in it when the time comes. Since your robots are primarily ranged and not terribly sturdy against smashing damage, it makes sense to leverage your bots' knockback power to try to keep enemies as far away from you as possible.
After getting both Protectors and the Assault Bot, some Masterminds favor not summoning the Battle Drones when on a large team--they note that it cuts down on the lag, and allows their Protectors to concentrate their heals on each other and the Assault Bot. Other people favor not bothering to buff the Battle Drones because "they'll just get killed anyway." I am mildly inclined to disagree with these strategies: while it is true that Drones are the most fragile of your army, they are three additional sources of damage--especially with the Equip and Upgrade attacks to fill out their cycle--as well as three more damage sinks for Bodyguard mode. You will have to experiment for yourself to see what technique works for you.
In Issue 7, the base recharge time of Drones was shortened from 90 seconds to 60 seconds, in light of their more disposable nature.
Note: Resistance numbers have been changed to what is given in the Prima Guide; they were formerly 28/28/42 for Lethal/Cold/Psi. After testing, I have determined that these numbers are apparently correct--within limits. The numbers the Prima Guide gives are what you will have at Level 50, and Damage Resistance scales up from 21% at Level 1 to 26.67% at Level 50. I tested this at L1 and at L40; at L40 the resistance is approximately 25.08%.
Suggested Slotting:
1-11 (TOs): Acc x2-4/Dmg x2-4
12-23 (DOs): Acc x2-4/Dmg x2-4
24+ (SOs): Acc x2-3/Dmg x3/(Optional: KB x1)
Power: Pulse Rifle Burst
Description: This high powered laser pulse from your Pulse Rifle takes more energy to fire, but causes much more damage than a standard pulse and has a very good chance to send your foes flying.
Effects: Ranged High DoT, 40% chance of 12' Foe Knockback (suppresses for 10 seconds in PVP)
Activation Time: 1.87
Endurance Cost: 10.66
Recharge Time: 8
Range: 80
Brawl Index: 4.2223 Energy Damage
Enhancements: Accuracy,Damage,Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Knockback Distance,Range
Available: Level 2
Viewpoint: See under Pulse Rifle Blast, above.
Note: The Prima Guide claims the burst does Smashing and Energy Damage, but only gives a figure for Energy.
Suggested Slotting:
2-11 (TOs): Acc x6
12-23 (DOs): Acc x2/Dmg x4, or Acc x3/Dmg x3
24+ (SOs): Acc x1/Dmg x3/Rech x2, or Acc x2/Dmg x3/Rech x1
Power: Equip Robot
Description: Equip your Robots with the latest gear and weaponry. This power permanently bestows new powers and abilities to your Robot Henchman. The powers gained are unique and dependant upon the target Robot Henchman that is Equipped. This power only works on your Robot Henchman and you can only Equip any given Robot Henchman once.
Effects: Drones (Snipe/Knockback), Protectors (Snipe/Knockback, Repair), Assault (Blast/Knockback, Flamethrower)
Endurance Cost: 16.25
Activation Time: 2.03
Recharge Time: 6
Range: 50
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range
Available: Level 6
Viewpoint: Your second must-take power--though you have a little wiggle room as to when you "must" take it. It becomes available at level 6--but you may wish to wait for level 8 so as to take Recall Friend at level 6 instead; the levels fly by quickly when you're that low, and Recall Friend could be more useful to you if you're doing much teaming at that point. (See the entry on Recall Friend in the pool powers section below.)
Equip Robots provides a useful upgrade to each of your classes of robot. Your Battle Drones gain a weak (compared to a Blasting class's) sniper attack; your Protector Bots gain that attack and the ability to repair any of your own or your teammates' bots besides themselves, and your Assault Bot gains a cone-effect flamethrower and a nifty double-barrelled blast attack. Naturally, when you have them, you will want to upgrade your bigger robots first and then your smaller ones.
The power description may be a little misleading to first-time Masterminds. The description seems to imply that it is an inherent power that, once purchased, is always in effect. However, the way the power actually works is that every time you summon a henchman, you have to use this power to upgrade it, and the upgrade is permanent until the henchman is defeated or dismissed.
This power marks the earliest appearance of your start-of-mission downtime: no longer can you simply summon and go; you now have to summon and then equip what you summon. Unslotted, the recharge time of Equip is about six seconds, which means it will now take you about fifteen seconds to get your two bots up and fully equipped. This will increase as you get more robots and more upgrade powers, until you may find yourself waiting for a minute or so before you're ready to get started.
For as long as you are slotting Trainings and DOs, the base slot with one recharge in it should be sufficient to your needs. But over time, the number of robots you're going to have to work with will increase: three at level 12, four at level 18, five at level 24, and six at level 26. By the time you start getting SOs, you'll find that both the amount of time it takes to equip everything and the amount of Endurance you're burning to equip everything at once at the start of the mission may start being a little overwhelming, especially if you skip Stamina. For my own personal build, I have two Recharge Reductions and one Endurance Reduction slotted.
Some people may consider slotting a third Recharge Reduction, but I see this as overkill. Due to the diminishing-return nature of Reduction SOs, the E.D. cap that kicks in partway through the third SO, and the already-short recharge timer on this power, the most you'd gain would be a second or two per casting. Best save it for another power instead.
Suggested Slotting: Rech x1-2/EndRed x1 (in mid-20s)
Power: Photon Grenade
Description: This launches an Energy Grenade at long range from your Pulse Rifle. The energy from this explosion can Disorient some targets in the affected area.
Effects: Ranged AoE Foe Disorient (40% chance 4.7-second strength 2 Disorient vs PVE; 40% chance 3.5-second strength 2 Disorient vs PVP)
Endurance Cost: 18.98
Activation Time: 1.87
Recharge Time: 16
Range: 80
Brawl Index: Energy(1.2223),Smashing(0.5556)
Enhancements: Recharge Reduction,Endurance Reduction,Damage,Accuracy,Disorient Duration
Available: Level 8
Viewpoint: What I said about Pulse Rifle Blast goes double for this power: avoid it at all costs (at least in the pre-30 game; see below). It might seem desirable to have an AoE disorient, especially to stack with Howling Twilight's effect on your Dark side, but the base disorient for Photon Grenade is really quite short (about 4.7 seconds) and the 40% disorient chance is not all that great. To make matters worse, it brings with it the traditional "alpha strike" syndrome of aggroing entire groups away from everybody else--including your own robots--and onto your squishy little self (though this is made significantly less chancy with the new Bodyguard ability). By and large, this is something you do not want to happen.
However, after level 32, this power might become more desirable. Your Protector Bots will eventually get a more powerful, longer-lasting version of this attack with their level 32 upgrade. As your other robots will by then be doing enough damage to lessen the aggro magnetism, there will not be as much danger for you in using it--and having that extra disorient to stack onto your bots' might result in more disorients for longer. On the whole, though, I would be inclined to suggest using Howling Twilight for that must-have disorient stacking, and leave this one to the MMs without a disorienting power in their secondary.
If you do get it, best forget about slotting it for damage; you will want to make the miniscule disorient last as long as you possibly can.
Suggested Slotting:
8-11 (TOs): 5x Acc
12-23 (DOs): 2x Acc/4x Disor
24+ (SOs): 2x Acc/3x Disor/1x Rech
Power: Protector Bots
Description: Constructs 1-2 powerful Protectors (depending on your level). They can defend your army by placing Force Fields on you and your allies. They can even be equipped to repair your other Robot Henchmen. Protector Bots are well equipped with energy weapons. You may only have 2 Protector Bots under your control at any given time. If you attempt to summon more Protector Bots, you can only replace the ones you have lost in battle. If you already have 2, the power will fail.
Effects: LvL 24 -- 2 Protector Bots, Inherent (Force Shield, Laser Burst), Res (21% (at L1) through 26.67% (at L50) Cold/Lethal/Psi; 1-point Disorient protection; 4-point Sleep protection; 50% Sleep Resistance; 4-point Fear protection; 50% Fear Resistance)
Activation Time: 2
Endurance Cost: 19.5
Recharge Time: 90
Range: 60
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Damage,Accuracy,Disorient,Knockback Distance,Heal,Defense,To-Hit Debuff
Available: Level 12
Viewpoint: Protector Bots are the third of the five "take it or people will point and laugh at you" powers for the Robotic Mastermind set. Aside from being a bit tougher than the minions due to their lieutenant status, Protectors have some unique special abilities. From the outset, each Prot-bot will cast protective force bubbles on all your (and your teammates') robots other than itself. When upgraded with Equip Robot, they can fire off a heal to other 'bots once every two minutes as well. Down the road at level 32, Upgrade Robot gives them versions of Photon Grenade and the Traps set's Seeker Drones to further help defend their fellow 'bots from the enemy.
There seems to be a perception among some people that Protectors are the Defenders of the Robot set, and should be slotted heavily for Defense and Healing like a cross between a bubbler and an empie. Now to some extent the comparison to a Defender is an apt one, as Prot-bots do get a FF bubble and a robot-only heal. However, the comparison only goes so far. Unlike Defenders, who gain strong damage-mitigation abilities at the cost of relatively weak attacks, Protector Bots have relatively weak damage-mitigation abilities, while firing off the exact same laser burst and snipe attacks as your Battle Drones (not to mention getting a couple of very handy weapon upgrades down the road). Furthermore, they will always be at least 1 level higher than your Drones (2 levels higher from 18 to 24), so will do that much more damage and hit that much better. In fact, when fully slotted, your two Protectors are quite capable of outdamaging all three of your Drones taken together. Thus, it might be more valid to think of the Protector Bot as your very own pocket Corruptor instead.
The Protector's bubbles protect against everything including Psychic attacks, meaning they cover a slightly broader spectrum than both of a Force Field bubbler's small bubbles combined. This is well and good, but tests have shown their effective value to be approximately 3.5% at most. (The Prima Guide writeup claims 7.5%, but either it increases over time and only reaches 7.5% at level 50, or else they copied and pasted the Force Field text from elsewhere without adjusting the actual value of the powers. In that light, I'm sticking with the 3.5% figure, which was arrived at via actual statistical testing.) If you 3-slotted Protectors with Defense SOs, you'd get 5.6% Defense per bubble--assuming the most optimistic projection--out of each bubble. Adding insult to injury, due to some glitch in the AI, you will only ever be bubbled by one of them at a time, even if your henchmen get two. You can make up your own minds, of course, but trading half of your total Enhancement capacity for a mere ~4% of extra defense on your robots (and 2% on yourself) does not strike me as an equitable tradeoff. The new Defense upgrade with Issue 7 does make more Defense a bit more desirable--but not that much more.
As to the Protector bots' heal, it is a nice bonus effect, and has saved some of my robots' lives more times than I can remember, but it's not something to count on exclusively. It will only heal about 1/4 of your Battle Drone's health bar at base effectiveness, and is on a two-minute timer; furthermore, the bot will not heal a damaged robot unless the robot is damaged enough to get the full benefit out of the heal. All in all, it pales beside the effectiveness of your Twilight Grasp. Slotting it up will heal more damage at a time (and, ironically, cause it to wait longer before healing since the bot will now have to be more damaged to get the full benefit), but there is no way to decrease its cycle time short of keeping a Kinetic or Radiation Corruptor in your pocket--and for lengthy battles, two heals every two minutes might almost as well be no heals at all. You can judge for yourself whether spending slots to increase the benefit from an infrequent heal (that you can already top several times over with just one Twilight Grasp) is a good deal, but I would advise against it unless you've already got all the damage and accuracy you need.
An interesting side-effect of the Protector powers is that when you're in a group with more than one Robot Mastermind, all Protectors will heal and bubble all robots, regardless of whose they are. This means that everyone's robots will be better-protected than they are alone; there really is safety in numbers. Also, do not forget that Protectors will neither bubble nor heal when in Passive mode; put them in Defensive if you want them to keep doing their non-combat jobs.
Now that I have demolished slotting Protectors up with Defense or Healing, how should they be slotted? Well, from the time you obtain your first Protect or at level 12, up to the time you switch to SOs, your Protector will be at the same level you are. This means they will be able to hit things about as well as you can--or even better considering that 10% Supremacy bonus. So, you don't need to worry about slotting them too much for Accuracy beyond 1 SO-equivalent, two DOs. Put the rest into damage; your Enhancements are too weak right now to think about dividing them further.
You get your second Protector, and their demotion to 1 level lower than you, at the same time as you get to start slotting SOs. At this time, you are able to slot your maximum useful Damage capacity--3 SOs under Enhancement Diversity--and then either 1 or 2 Accuracy SOs. (If you take and slot Tactics, slot 1; if not, slot 2. See the Accuracy section later in the guide for more explanation.) And that's all you really need until level 32--either 4 or 5 slots.
At level 32 you get your Upgrade Robots power, which brings with it Photon Grenades and Seeker Drones...and a problem. Once they're upgraded, Protector Bots get so enthusiastic about spamming those grenades and drones that they run out of Endurance halfway through the battle and can no longer fire off their attacks--or heals, or bubbles. Happily, this problem is easily solved: just add a slot for an Endurance Reduction SO. Since SOs within a henchman power apply only to the henchman's own attacks, not to the summoning power itself, an Endurance Reduction will lower the cost of a Protector's attacks enough that they don't find themselves gasping for breath anymore.
(It has been suggested that if you regularly fight mobs nearer your own level, or wait between battles to let your 'bots catch their breath, this out-of-breathness won't happen as often and the End Reduction won't be needed as much--but where's the fun in that? My own playstyle benefited immensely from an End Reduction slot; your mileage may vary.)
So what should you do with the sixth slot? Up to you. I personally slot a Disorient Duration in mine, to lengthen the effectiveness of the level 32 Photon Grenades' 25% chance 9.24-second Disorient, but this is strictly optional; some people might prefer to slot a Heal, Defense, or other Enhancement, or even leave it off so they can spend the slot elsewhere. You could also slot a To-Hit Debuff, for the benefit of the 5% debuff on the Seeker Drones, but given the sometimes-erratic firing of the drones, you might get a bigger benefit going with Disorient.
In any event, since you don't need the 5th (assuming you 1-slot Accuracy) or 6th slots until 32, you may choose either to leave the Protectors at 4 or 5 slots until level 31 so you can slot other powers faster, or to 6-slot them early and just put Heals, Knockbacks, Defenses, etc. in as placeholders until you hit 32.
Suggested Slotting:
12-23 (DOs): Acc x2/Dmg x2-4
24-30 (SOs): Acc x1-2/Dmg x3/(Optional: Def, KB, or Heal x1-2)
31+ (SOs): Acc x1-2/Dmg x3/EndReduc x1/(Optional: Disor, HitDeb, Def, KB, or Heal x1)
Power: Repair
Description: Repairs one Robot Henchmen for full health and restores some of its Endurance. This power only works on your Robot Henchmen.
Effects: Heal; restores 25 Endurance
Endurance Cost: 10.25
Activation Time: 2.03
Recharge Time: 120
Range: 80
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Range,Recharge Reduction,Endurance Modification
Available: Level 18
Viewpoint: Repair is more necessary to some Masterminds than others. Masterminds with Force Field, Traps, or Trick Arrow--who lack a meaningful healing power in their secondaries--may need this power to help them keep their robots on their feet. Even Poison MMs may want it as a backup to their single-target Alkaloid heal. (Though some suggest taking Aid Other from the Medicine Pool instead; it won't heal as much or restore End the way Repair does, and it's interruptible--but it can be used on one's teammates as well as one's robots, refreshes much more quickly, and if a Mastermind is doing his job properly, he shouldn't be likely to be interrupted anyway.) You, however, have Twilight Grasp, which is the greatest healing power available to any Mastermind--and at 38 you will get a Dark Servant, which has a Twilight Grasp of its own. Between these powers and your Protector Bots' 2-minute minor heals, you should have all your healing needs covered and can thus use the power slot on something more useful.
The one aspect of this power that might be particularly helpful in the late game is that it restores some Endurance to a robot as well as healing it. In the late game, Longbow Special Ops soldiers (most often seen in PVP zone buff/debuff missions) gain access to EMP Grenade--a short-circuit-like sapper attack which can drain all of the endurance from as many robots (or villains) as it catches in its AoE. However, at only 25% base restoration, with a base recharge of 120 seconds, you would be better off to carry blues instead.
Suggested Slotting:
18-23 (DOs): Rech x5
24+ (SOs): Rech x3/EndMod x1-3
Power: Assault Bot
Description: You can build one massive Assault Bot. Simply put, the Assault Bot is a killing machine. There is nothing subtle about its weaponry. You may only have 1 Assault Bot under your control at any given time. If you attempt to summon another Assault Bot, the power will fail.
Effects: Inherent (Plasma Blast), Res (21% (at L1) through 26.67% (at L50) Cold/Lethal/Psi; 1-point Disorient protection; 4-point Sleep protection; 50% Sleep Resistance; 4-point Fear protection; 50% Fear Resistance)
Activation Time: 2.03
Endurance Cost: 19.5
Recharge Time: 120
Range: 60
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Damage,Accuracy,Disorient,Knockback Distance
Available: Level 26
Viewpoint: Assault Bots are the last step in your unholy trinity of raw bot power, and are the one gotta-have-it power that every robot mastermind aspires toward--at least until they find out what Upgrade Robot will do for them in a few more levels. The Assault Robot is your Big Gun--the one you pull out first and upgrade as quickly as possible, and Inspire for damage before any of your others. It may or may not be responsible for the majority of your damage overall, but it certainly does the most at one time. It will certainly do more damage than you would, even if you took all the attack powers.
One CoH forum poster has a signature to the effect of, "Don't buff me, buff the frigging Assault Bot!" While this is merely amusing at first glance, it brings to light an important truth about the way Masterminds work. Since it will not be you who is doing the most damage, and putting your body in the line of fire, it would be a good idea to ask any buff-casters in your party to cast any buffs they would otherwise have cast on you on the Assault Bot instead (or better yet, also)--they will be more beneficial that way.
The Assault Bot comes with a single-barrel Plasma Blast similar to the one Malta Titans fire. When Equipped, it gains a double-barrelled plasma blast, a flamethrower cone-effect weapon, and a melee Smash attack that has a chance of Disorient. When Upgraded, it gets a big horking shoulder missile launcher that fires Swarm (AoE Damage/40% chance of 32' Knockback) and Incendiary (multiple-burn-patch) Missiles.
Since it has the most hit points, highest relative level, and greatest firepower of any of your bots, the Assault Bot should probably be your choice to serve as "Tanker" for absorbing the aggro of large groups of enemies. Do be ready to step in and Twilight Grasp or drag some green Inspirations onto it, however; for a big guy its hit points can still drop surprisingly quickly.
As it will always be at the same level as you, all the slotting the Assault Bot needs to be an effective fighter is 1 Accuracy SO (if you have a fully-slotted Tactics; 2 if not)and 3 Damage SOs. As you will see, this leaves one or two slots to spare. Some choose to spend those slots on other powers, but you could also slot for Disorient (to lengthen the effect of the melee Smash) or Knockback (to increase the Swarm Missiles' effectiveness). I formerly recommended Disorient, believing that the missiles did Disorient as well as Knockback, but have since learned I was mistaken. If you're going to put anything in those last two slots, it might as well be Knockback.
In Issue 7, the recharge time of the Assault Bot was lengthened from 90 seconds to 120 seconds, in keeping with the heavy firepower and toughness of this robot. Which is just as well; if you need your Assault Bot again sooner than 120 seconds after casting it, you are probably doing something wrong anyway.
Note: Resistance numbers have been changed to what is given in the Prima Guide; they were formerly 42/42/42 for Lethal/Cold/Psi. I mention the old numbers here because I do not entirely trust the Prima Guide's figures; it has been wrong on other things before.
Suggested Slotting: Acc x1-2/Dmg x3/(Optional: Knockback x2)
Power: Upgrade Robot
Description: Upgrade Robot will permanently bestow the most powerful and high-tech gear and weaponry to your Robot Henchman. The Upgraded Robot will gain new abilities, powers and weapons. The powers gained are unique and dependant upon the target Robot Henchman that is Upgraded. This power only works on your Robot Henchman and you can only Empower any given Robot Henchman once.
Effects: Drones (Full Assault Laser); Prot (Photon Grenade, Seeker Drones); Assault (Incendiary Missiles, Swarm Missiles)
Endurance Cost: 22.75
Activation Time: 2.03
Recharge Time: 10
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range
Available: Level 32
Viewpoint: This is it. The greatest power to which a Robotics Mastermind can aspire. This is the power that changes your robots from cheerful zappy-zappy wear-'em-down-over-time fighters into Hell's Threshing Machine. This is the power that changes what you see overhead from a few scattered orange numbers here and there into literal clouds of orange and grey numbers. The first time you manage to get all six of your 'bots Upgraded at once, you will stand there slack-jawed, all but forgetting to cast your secondaries, as you take in the sound and light show. As I am fond of saying, when every fully-upgraded bot fires off at once, it's like being inside some kind of evil disco. You're still not going to do quite as much damage overall as a Brute or Corruptor--but on the other hand, you are doing several different types of damage at once, meaning they probably aren't going to resist all of it.
Of course, all this glorious mayhem comes at a price, and that price is spending a minute or so at the beginning of every mission upgrading your robots into effectiveness. Since I7 reduced this power's recharge time from 60 seconds to 10 seconds, that period is substantially shorter, but it does still take a whole minute to upgrade all six of your robots. There is an element of strategy and resource-management involved--choosing how to allocate your limited resources (time/endurance) by choosing which bots to upgrade first. If you don't like this kind of challenge (and let me tell you, compared to other team-command resource-management strategy games like X-Com or Starcraft, this is really kindergarten stuff), you'd probably be better off playing some other class.
Some people don't hold with "wasting the time" to Equip and Upgrade Battle Drones, since "they're just gonna get killed anyway." I disagree. They don't have to be upgraded super-quickly, but every new attack power they get helps your overall damage per second, and it's not like you're going to do anything else with that power. Furthermore, taking a little care with your Drones and not just throwing them away needlessly will keep your damage per second higher and your Endurance and time-usage lower.
And of course, you don't have to spend even that much time upgrading at the mission start; you can simply throw in what upgrades you can and attack away, waiting for your End to recover on its own enough to make more upgrades as they come. If you should faceplant in mid-mission and lose all your robots, that's pretty much what you'll have to do when you get back up anyway. Still, spending a couple of minutes getting everything in order can make for a smoother experience through the rest of the mission.
Since I7's recharge time reduction, you don't need to put quite so many recharge rates into this power anymore--though the truly impatient may still wish to do so.
Suggested Slotting: Rech x1-3
DARK MIASMA
Power: Twilight Grasp
Description: You channel Negative Energy from the Netherworld through yourself to a targeted foe. Twilight Grasp drains the power from that target and slowly transfers it to you and all neary allies. The targeted foe's Accuracy and damage are reduced, while you and your nearby allies are healed.
Effects: Ranged Foe -Acc -Dam; Team Heal
Unslotted: 20-second 3.75% To-Hit Debuff; 20-second 7.5% Damage debuff; 50% regen decrease vs critters; 90% regen decrease vs players; heals value equal to 24.2% of caster's HP.
3-slotted: (x1.55) 5.8% To-Hit Debuff; (x1.95) 47.19% heal
Activation Time: 2.37
Endurance: 7.75
Recharge Time: 8
Range: 80
Heal Radius: 10
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range,To Hit DeBuff,Healing,Accuracy
Available: Level 1
Viewpoint: Due to the way the power selection system is set up, you are forced to take this power starting out. Luckily, it's not at all a bad power to be forced to take.
Twilight Grasp is one of the greatest set-defining powers of the Dark Miasma Mastermind. It's the power that makes every other Mastermind secondary set turn green with envy. Of all the other available sets, only Poison and Traps get anything that could even remotely be considered a healing power--but Poison's Alkaloid is a fairly weak single-target heal, and Traps's Triage Beacon is really just a buff to regeneration and not an actual "heal" at all. Only Dark Miasma gets a strong aura heal that can bring every henchman at once (and any nearby teammates as well) back from the brink of forced obsolescence. And son of a gun, you get this amazing power at level one!
And not only that. This power also decreases the accuracy, damage, and regeneration rate of whatever target it is cast upon--assuming it hits. Many Dark Defenders (and Corruptors) find it worthwhile to use it as a little extra incentive-to-miss against whomever they've dropped their Darkest Night--especially now that ED has lessened DN's overall effectiveness and I7 has cut the effectiveness of Debuff Enhancements. The -regen aspect is particularly helpful against archvillains and monsters--especially considering the regeneration buff that was granted to them in Issue 7. Also, as a zero-damage attack power, it is one of the more useful powers in your arsenal for single-target pulling.
A couple of caveats should be noted, however: First of all, the heal relies on being able to hit a target in combat, so it will need to be slotted for Accuracy and will be pretty useless if there isn't a hittable enemy around on whom to cast it. Also, bear in mind that you're not going to have the advantage of that 10% Supremacy Accuracy bonus that your bots have, so you will need to slot more Accs than in your bots.
Secondly, the heal-effect radius on Twilight Grasp is substantially smaller than the Defender's version; in fact, it's downright tiny. The Defender version would essentially heal anyone close enough to be protected by Shadow Fall, but you're going to need henchmen and teammates to be practically rubbing shoulders with you to get a heal off on them.
Apart from the 3 Heal SOs that should go without saying, by the time you're using SOs, you should be slotting at least 1 Accuracy and perhaps 2, depending on whether or not you have Tactics and what color conn of enemies are your usual targets. Remember that if it doesn't hit, it doesn't heal, and missing a heal could sometimes be the difference between life and team-wipe.
What to do with the 1-2 slots left over? A Recharge Reduction could shave a couple of seconds off of the cycling time; a To-Hit Debuff would help lower the accuracy of whatever you're fighting; an Endurance Reduction will lessen the wear and tear of spamming heals repeatedly--if you don't have Stamina, this is practically a must. Or you could save the slot and use it on other things.
Suggested Slotting:
1-11 (TOs): Acc x4/Heal x2
12-23 (DOs): Acc x2-4/Heal x2-4/(Optional: EndRed x1-2)
24+ (SOs): Acc x1-2/Heal x3/(Optional: Rech x1-2, HitDeb x1-2, EndRed x1)
Power: Tar Patch
Description: This power drops a large patch of viscous Negative Energy which dramatically slows down enemies that run through it and reduces their damage resistance. Affected targets stuck in the Tar Patch cannot jump or fly.
Effects: Ranged (Location AoE) Debuff -- 90% run speed decrease, anti-jumping/flight, 22.5% decrease to enemy damage resistance (irresistable in PVP) while in area of effect
Activation Time: 3
Endurance: 7.75
Duration: 45
Recharge Time: 90
Range: 120
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range,Slow
Available: Level 2
Viewpoint: Another set-defining power, and this one is available to you the moment you step out of that helicopter onto Mercy Island.
Back before I4, Tar Patch wasn't considered all that great: sure, it slowed the enemies down, but the power could be better spent on something that actually helped you kill faster. But then, lo and behold, Tar Patch suddenly gained anti-flight properties and a fairly significant damage resistance debuff as well. And now this power is going to be one of your bestest friends when it comes to taking down tough foes--especially when it comes to keeping your enemies too far away to pound on your fragile robots while they get slowly laser-fried.
Tar Patch has many good uses to a Mastermind; I like to use it in corner or doorway pulling to slow the enemies down just as they come into range of the waiting guns. The fact that it makes them also take more damage from my bots' weapons is not exactly undesirable, either. It's also good to drop to slow pursuit if you're fleeing for your life with just a sliver of health, if you can spare a couple of seconds to cast it.
Personally, I've never seen too much point to slotting Tar Patch for slow. Sure, it would keep the enemies in the patch a little longer, but they've almost always stayed in there long enough for me to dispose of them as it is, and there are always other powers that could use the slots. I would suggest not to put more than three slots in Tar Patch from the outset unless you do intend to add a Slow SO or two down the road.
Suggested Slotting:
2-11 (TOs): Rech x3-6
12-23 (DOs): Rech x3-6
24+ (SOs): Rech x3/(Optional: Slow x3)
Power: Darkest Night
Description: While this is active, you channel Negative Energy onto a targeted foe. Darkest Night decreases the damage potential and Accuracy of the target, and all foes nearby, as long as you keep the power active.
Effects: Toggle: Ranged (Targeted AoE)
Unslotted: 22.5% decrease to enemy damage, 11.25% decrease to enemy Accuracy within radius of target while maintained
3-Slotted: (x1.55) 17.44% Accuracy debuff
Activation Time: 3
Endurance: 1.25/s
Recharge Time: 10
Range: 70
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range,To Hit DeBuff
Available: Level 4
Viewpoint: Golly, Dark Miasma sure does have a lot of set-defining powers, doesn't it? Darkest Night has long been both blessing and curse to Dark Miasma users everywhere. The blessing is that it provides a substantial accuracy and damage debuff, even capped by ED. Although the pre-I7 Debuff schedule change reduced its effectiveness even further, the change to the way enemy accuracy is calculated in I7 brought its effectiveness back up again, so it all balances out. The curse is that one's teammates can make it hard to use.
Darkest Night works by placing a power on an "anchor"--a single foe who will then radiate the debuffing effect to all the other foes around him. Ideally, the rest of the team should then not defeat that anchor until all the others are down. The problem is that it's often very hard to tell exactly who the anchor is. The only visible sign that a foe is Darkest Night's anchor is a blob of darkness around his ankles--but if the group of foes is standing in the middle of a Tar Patch, they all have blobs of darkness around their ankles. And even if they don't, the blob can be hard to make out, especially in darker maps.
One solution to this is to create a power casting bind advising the rest of your team what target you've selected: for instance
/bind u "local Leave the $target I'm targeting alone--he's my Darkest Night anchor!$$pow_exec_name Darkest Night"
The problem with this is, there may be more than one of that particular type of mob in front of you, and your teammates are not likely to take the time to click onto you to see which one your targetting bracket is around. Still, it is better than nothing.
After a good deal of experience playing a Dark Defender and a Dark Mastermind, I have come to the conclusion that there really isn't any good way to prevent your teammates from taking out your anchor along with the rest. From time to time, you may luck into a supportive and understanding team who take care to determine which mob your anchor is and leave it alone--but on the whole this will be rare. The best way to get the most out of Darkest Night is to be careful when picking your anchors.
The first rule of thumb in picking an anchor is to pick Lieutenants--minions fall too quickly to AoEs, and Bosses are usually the first enemy in a spawn that the rest of your team will concentrate on taking out. Lieutenants will usually stay around at least long enough for the boss to be taken out. The only exception to this is if the Lieutenants have some particularly annoying special ability, such as being able to rez other enemies, in which case they'll often be taken out before the bosses.
The second rule of thumb is to try to pick an anchor far away from your Brutes and other melee damagers, so they'll be effective for at least as long as it takes for the meleers to work their way to him.
Even so, most of your benefit from Darkest Night will come early in the game. When you get into the late 20s and 30s, everyone has so many and so well-slotted attack powers that all the anchor-choosing care in the world won't help them last much longer than a few seconds, because everybody goes through the enemies so darned quickly. By level 30 or so, Darkest Night will see the most use on Elite Bosses, Heroes/Archvillains, and Monsters.
On the whole, one of the best parts of being a Dark Mastermind is that you're blessed with a "team" who will always listen to you when you tell them not to attack a particular target. All you need to do is direct them to attack some other target than your anchor.
When you have SOs, you may want to slot an additional Endurance Reduction or two into this power--especially if you run a lot of other toggles (such as Leadership) continuously, and especially especially if you didn't take Stamina. Conversely, you may want to just cap debuffs and leave it at that, if you don't think you're going to be using it all that often. Regardless, it would be a good idea not to place more slots into it during the Training and DO phases than you'll need once you've got SOs, to keep from having to respec.
Suggested Slotting:
4-11 (TOs): HitDeb x3-5
12-23 (DOs): HitDeb x3-5
24+ (SOs): HitDeb x3/(Optional: EndRed x1-2)
Power: Howling Twilight
Description: Activating this power channels the power of the Netherworld to weaken your foes, in an attempt to revive all nearby fallen allies. You must stand near your defeated allies to revive them, then select a foe. The selected foe and all nearby foes will be Slowed, Disoriented, and drained of some life. Revived allies suffer no ill effects.
Effects: Ranged (AoE); 50% decrease to Movement Speed for 30 seconds; 50% decrease to Attack Speed for 30 seconds; 7. 64 Negative Energy damage; 15- second Disorient of 2 strength versus critters only; 10- second Disorient of 3 strength versus players only (this will suppress for 15 seconds on affected targets); 50% decrease in regeneration rate versus critters only; 90% decrease in regeneration rate versus players only; 15-second Fear of strength 3 versus critters only; resurrects allies within the area of effect with full Health and Endurance.
Activation Time: 3.17
Endurance: 26
Duration: 30
Recharge Time: 180
Range: 80
Brawl Index: Negative Energy(0.8333)
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Range,Healing,Endurance Recovery,Disorient Duration,Slow,Damage
Available: Level 10
Viewpoint: Howling Twilight is arguably the best rez in the game. It's the only mass simultaneous rez, and thus the only rez that can bring an entire team back from a wipeout all at once. (Recall Friend is particularly useful with Howling Twilight, for arranging fallen teammates in a handy little stack so they all get rezzed at once.) Regardless of what the power description might say, it does restore all Health and Endurance to those it rezzes. It requires an enemy target but it hits automatically, and it even has an AoE slow, -regen, and low-magnitude Disorient effect on those enemies. As the icing on the cake, it also has a brief period of double-dip-debt protection, so resurrectees won't be any worse off if they accept it only to die again a moment later. This rez power will make you the Special Friend of anyone who wants to run a Strike Force. (Oh, and sorry, guys: it won't work on henchmen. You'll just have to resummon.)
The question is, when to take it? There are so many good powers available in the 1-10 range that you simply may not be able to fit it in the moment it opens up. In the end, it's up to you; my own build waited until the 20s to take it, simply because that is the time where enemies really start getting tougher and it will be needed a great deal more. Until that time, I judged it better to concentrate on keeping my teammates alive than on raising them once they'd fallen.
Howling Twilight is more than just a rez, of course; it can be used as a slow/-regen/disorient attack even if nobody is dead (although some find that 1/3 of their Endurance is a bit too much to pay for such an attack). However, this generally works better for Dark Defenders and Corruptors with the Dark Blast set because they have the Dark Pit disorient power that can stack with it for more disorientation magnitude. Your bots will have the Photon Grenades and Swarm Missiles, of course, and you can take Photon Grenade yourself, but these all have relatively short disorient times and are mostly not under your control, so you can't rely on them coming at the same time and being able to stack.
With that in mind, there's really not much point in slotting it beyond the base. You could put a Recharge Rate or two in there, but you're not going to get much good out of it as an attack and if you're dying frequently enough to need it up more often than it already is, your team's doing something wrong.
Suggested Slotting: Rech x1-3 and/or Disor x1-3
Power: Shadow Fall
Description: Envelops you and your nearby teammates in a shroud of darkness. Shadow Fall does not grant Invisibility, but it does make you harder to detect. Even if you are discovered, Shadow Fall grants a bonus to Defense while reducing Energy, Negative Energy, and Psionic Damage. Shadow Fall reduces your movement speed, but not your allies'.
Effects: Toggle: PBAoE
Team Stealth (35' vs critters, 389' vs players), +DEF, +Res(Energy, Negative, Psionics)
Activation Time: 2.03
Endurance: 0.3 per activation (.6/sec?)
Recharge Time: 15
Defense: 3.75%
3-Slotted Defense: (x1.55) 5.81%
Resistance: 129% status resist vs Fear; 15% vs Energy, Negative Energy, Psionic damage
3-Slotted Resistance: (x1.55) 23.25% vs Energy, Negative Energy, Psionic damage
Enhancements: Endurance Reduction,Recharge Reduction,Defense Buff,Damage Resistance
Available: Level 16
Viewpoint: Another excellent power for the well-dressed Mastermind--stealth not just for you, but for all your henchmen and te