For you I would suggest /Pain and /Storm. You can go traps, but putting it with /Pain is slightly less effective than with /storm.
Mercs, in truth, don't have the best DPS output, but when you combine two merc MMs you'll get a surprisingly wonderful increase in AoE and DPS that is, quite frankly, several times better than you'd expect.
Your duo will dominate PvP and PvE with /storm and /pain, or even /traps and /pain. It's up to you on the secondaries.
Serum sucks actually. The recharge is not worth the buff the power deals out.
That is disappointing, serum looks like it has good resistance numbers in Mids. Should I just skip it if I go Mercs? It is also sort of a let down that Mercs have bad DPS, they are trained soldiers after all. 
Mercs don't really have "bad" dps. The main problem with the mercs is that they're just not the best at anything. They do good damage, are fairly tough (and when backed up by /pain, are VERY tough), and have some decent controls in the spec-ops.
The downsides being that they're almost exclusively lethal damage (except for a couple of the commando's attacks), and the spec-ops' controls have VERY long recharges for pets (2m, and can't be made any faster).
But overall, I find them to be pretty solid. They kill quickly when they're supported properly, and due to the -def debuffs in the rifle attacks, you can slot some nice procs into them (Achilles Heel's -resist, Lady Grey's dark damage proc, etc).
Serum does suck, though, yes. It's one of the worst of the 18th level powers for MMs.
The Mastermind Project
Leveling every primary/secondary to 50!
50: Bot/FF, Bot/Dark, Ninja/Trap, Merc/Pain, Necro/Dark, Thug/Dark
Works in Progress: Thug/TA, Merc/Poison, Thug/Pain, Ninja/Pain, Thug/Storm
Mercs may have iffy single target DPS, but are tough and very survivable.
A piece of advice: watch your Spec Ops, they like to lag behind and snipe.
My best advice regardless of your secondary is grab the -res procs and slot them on your pets. Granted they don't stack but you'll be able to keep the effect perma np.
Personal experience with my merc/pain, I skipped serum in favor of painbringer. I went with soul for PPP, the AoE Immb is extremely helpful.
Any questions on the mix, just ask
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My best advice regardless of your secondary is grab the -res procs and slot them on your pets. Granted they don't stack but you'll be able to keep the effect perma np.
Personal experience with my merc/pain, I skipped serum in favor of painbringer. I went with soul for PPP, the AoE Immb is extremely helpful.
Any questions on the mix, just ask
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As a returning player from 2 years ago, I have to say I have no idea what a "proc" is... haha. I also do not know what PPP is. Maybe I should, but either way I am terrible with acronyms and an old fogey trying to make a comeback. SO if you could enlighten me I would appreciate it... 
Yea I was thinking of going for /pain. Too bad I wont have any use for the more corrupter friendly share pain.
I gotta say traps is sounding pretty cool to me but is the stationary aspect of them gonna prevent me from PvPing?
A "proc" is an extra effect that has a chance to go off when the primary power is initiated. Things like "Chance of Negative Damage", "Chance of -Recovery", etc.
The -resist proc from the Achilles Heel sets is alright, but I actually got more mileage out of the negative energy damage proc (lady grey's set) in my mercs. The lowered resists bumped up the damage by a point or two per shot, but the lady grey proc is a nice chunk of 70 damage whenever it goes off. My mercs tear people down pretty fast.
PPP is short for Patron Power Pool. At 40+ you can pick a patron from one of Recluse's four lapdogs...er, lieutenants (Ghost Widow, Mako, Black Scorpion, or Scirocco), and once you do their initial arc (it's 5-6 missions long), it unlocks your ability to choose one of the PPP sets (akin to the epic/ancillary hero sets at 41+, except villains have to do a story arc to get them).
I can't speak to PvP all that much, I never engaged in it a lot with any of my MMs, though the one I did (my ninja/traps, as it happens) was pretty solid against other people. The stationary nature of the traps didn't hinder her much at all. Just have to be aggressive with them. And if you have teleport foe, yanking someone into the midst of your little fortress is funny as heck.
The Mastermind Project
Leveling every primary/secondary to 50!
50: Bot/FF, Bot/Dark, Ninja/Trap, Merc/Pain, Necro/Dark, Thug/Dark
Works in Progress: Thug/TA, Merc/Poison, Thug/Pain, Ninja/Pain, Thug/Storm
Well me and he rolled a merc/traps each and leveled till we got special ops guys and I have to say Mercs is really fun. But I am not so sure I am crazy about the traps. The mortars range kind of sucks and it does not last very long at all. And I at more tan a few tiems wish i had something to heal my pets with. Granted I did not take triage beacon but yea...
Does Pain Domination eclipse traps or is it worth it to pursue traps? Like pain, traps does nto seem to have much damage mitigation either. Would me and my pets be more survivable and deadly with buffs and heals from /pain?
Oh man. Mercs.
I'm currently writing a mercs guide but I'll give you the short answer: Mercs sucks pretty bad. The damage is anemic compared to any other set (single target just above bots, worse than everyone else; AoE better than necro, worse than everyone else) and they take a ton more skill and knowledge to play. You have to have a very solid knowledge of how pet binds work in order to finely control your pets and keep your medic from getting out of harm's way. You also benefit a lot from heavily microing your spec ops in order to get faster than 2 minute recharges on their control powers. Lastly, mercs benefit a lot from IO slotting compared to most sets so knowing how to slot is very important.
For secondary choices, I have 2 suggestions for a newbie MM:
Don't pick TA, and don't pick Poison. Both of them are underpowered compared to the other secondary sets, and more importantly they are very micro intensive which takes away from your ability to control your pets which is very key in mercs.
If one of you is set on pain, almost any other set will do nicely. A second pain is probably a bad idea. Traps is great - the defense is awesome and acid mortar has resistance debuffs, buffing up your damage. Poison trap is also a ton of mitigation - it does a great job of stopping lots of incoming damage. Seeker drones are good at taking the edge off an initial alpha strike (you can also use FFG to do the same thing but it is harder, stealth is advised).
Dark is also a beast although the heal won't be as useful with a pain MM. The tar patch is a great resist debuff and fearsome stare completely locks down spawns. Opening with tar patch, followed by darkest night/fearsome (make sure you're in bodyguard mode) and let the bullets fly - most of the incoming attacks will miss if you've got good slotting in /dark, and the pain will just shrug off incoming damage. It gets even crazier when dark servant joins the team.
Now you're confusing mitigation with def/res - the end goal is survivability and pain adds a ton of it to your team. If you have even a little bit of extra protection or control, you'll be fine. The main issue with mercs is offense, not defense, so my vote would be a dark and either a traps or pain. I personally hate FF so I can't recommend it, but other people like it. I dunno.
In PvP, I'd recommend not doing it with mercenaries. They're okay I guess (I pvp on my mercs/psn, but poison is sex in pvp) but necro/ninjas/thugs pretty much totally eclipse mercs there.
If you're both running Mercs then one running Pain Dom and the other running Dark will rock the house.
You'll both have an AoE heal in case one goes down or you get seperated.
Tar Patch keeps the targets where you want them for a good while (while you shoot them)
Darkest Night is a great debuff against Bosses and higher. Anything else will die fast.
If you both take Leadership the stacking of that alome will make you much more brawny. Add in the Nightfall cloaking Dark Power and you'll be harder to hit. Stacked Assault makes up for any damage defecits and Tactics ensures that more shots will be hits.
At the lower levels some powers shine more than others so try a duo to lvl 12 or so, get DOs and see if yu like them. If not try another mix (or an alternate Build). 1-12 in a MM due is a lazy afternoon of play so no big loss of time.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
Eek. Yall are scaring me away from mercs... sad. I really can not stand how the other sets pets look (especially teh ridiculous looking and thematically ridiculous thugs) aside from zombies (and I am jsut not a zombie kinda fella)
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Eek. Yall are scaring me away from mercs... sad. I really can not stand how the other sets pets look (especially teh ridiculous looking and thematically ridiculous thugs) aside from zombies (and I am jsut not a zombie kinda fella)
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thugs is the highest dmg primary we have, and it's not squishy at all with 4 uniques in gang war. with an achille's resistance debuff in enforcer their dmg really skyrockets especially ify ou ahve a secondary that can further reduce resistances.
necro is fine - and although you can put a resistance debuff unique in the grave knights their attack chain is so slow and full of gaps it's not nearly perma as it is on enforcers. but it works and can be handy when combined with tar patch.
If you're set on playing mercs, play mercs. They aren't very good, but if you're into BUDA BUDA BUDA I mean there's no other set.
JM, I think you've forgotten how to play a mastermind with SOs. I have like half a billion inf in the bank too, but I don't expect most people to have that kind of change. Thugs aren't squishy, even without uniques. 2-3 SOs worth of defense in enforcers pretty much makes thugs unstoppable even without auras, heh.
Anyway, mercs/pain is pretty rockin. The advice of one pain, one dark is pretty good, although you could replace the pain with a traps or a FF or storm and it would be just fine too. I recommend your friend pick out a primary they like though, as pretty much all the primaries are superior to mercs.
Last bit of advice: Someone go /Storm, and when you get level 38 keep dropping Painbringer on your friend/your friend dropping it on you.
Good times
Gooooood times...
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If you're set on playing mercs, play mercs. They aren't very good, but if you're into BUDA BUDA BUDA I mean there's no other set.
JM, I think you've forgotten how to play a mastermind with SOs. I have like half a billion inf in the bank too, but I don't expect most people to have that kind of change. Thugs aren't squishy, even without uniques. 2-3 SOs worth of defense in enforcers pretty much makes thugs unstoppable even without auras, heh.
Anyway, mercs/pain is pretty rockin. The advice of one pain, one dark is pretty good, although you could replace the pain with a traps or a FF or storm and it would be just fine too. I recommend your friend pick out a primary they like though, as pretty much all the primaries are superior to mercs.
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nah i hvaent forgotten. but my posts on the subject are two years old.
when i first rolled the thugs/traps in summer 07 i kept reading here how bots were better and hardier. but...bots bored me. so imade a thugs.
the second i had that second enforcer i knew - i KNEW - they were full of it. 22% defense right there with just so's. aid other took care of the rest. me being traps pushed that up to 37% before i slotted a single IO or pet unique. a thugs/ff can cap them without a single IO
but the gangwar uniques also add resist, add another slotting option for the enforcers and quite frankly are absurdly cheap red side since not everyone and their mother is after the pet recharge io's here - we arent all fire/kin controllers
It depends on your definition of cheap, since they're 5-9 mil last I checked (which is a pretty big drop in the bucket for some people). But really, thugs aren't squishy at all, you're absolutely right. Even with SO +def slotting, you can go like 2 dam 1 acc 3 def and have super tough pets. I think so many people neglect slotting for defense on enforcers that they think thugs are squishy. My thugs/pain almost never has pet casualties, and it isn't because of my crappy common-IOed secondary. If my pets aren't squishy, then a thugs/traps with def slotting for FFG should be far less squishy, and a thugs/dark or FF should be nigh indestructible.
my only pet casualty as a soft capped thugs/traps is the arsonist.
whatever they did to make the bruiser go into melee more has made the arsonist ai even more suicidal. he runs into melee range - to toss fire bomb. /facepalm
but once you hit 50, 5 million is not much. maybe an hour on a farm mission or even soloing ae missions for tickets can net you that pretty quick (getting bronze/silver rolls and selling the recipes. i can do nearly 30m an hour right now unless the rng spits on me and gives me nothing but confuse sets). but until 50 2 acc 2 dam 2 defense ftw. the third really doesnt add enough to their manuevers to be worth it imo. or 2 acc 1 dam 1 end 2 defense. enforcers have end problems if you are fighting nonstop.
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Eek. Yall are scaring me away from mercs... sad. I really can not stand how the other sets pets look (especially teh ridiculous looking and thematically ridiculous thugs) aside from zombies (and I am jsut not a zombie kinda fella)
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I have a Mercs/Pain and a Mercs/Poison and they both do just fine so have no fear. Some players have their faves for sure and some have had bad instances with some (I can't seem to keep Ninjas alive for instance).
But unlike many other types of characters where you can just Tab-shoot-Tab-shoot MMs require some thought which for me is part of the fun. Do you want to slot for Acc/Dmg all the time or would the occasional -Def be a good idea? Do you like the idea of massive FF defenses (which are simple to play and effective but can be somewhat boring) or do you want your damage mitigation to be more aggressive like /Dark? All things to consider.
Like I said above, made the duo with anything that strikes your fancy and play it to DOs. If you don't like it by then you may not like the rest of the trip so try another mix to see if you like it better.
For me MMs are all about the fun more than any other AT. Sure Blasters and Tanks and the rest are good at what they do but for style of play and versatility the MM is all that and chips for me. So play what you have fun with and forget all the hype.
Only you can determine what you like to play.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
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Only you can determine what you like to play.
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Very true.
As soon as my brother gets his account woes settled we are planning on rolling masterminds and leveling them together. We have both pretty much decided to go with Mercs since we cant re-skin thugs to look like mobsters :P
Are Mercs a good set? Serum sounds like it would be a hoot. What secondaries would be the best compliment to two Mercs Masterminds? We would like to be able to do some pvp with our duo as well. Neither of us has done a lot of pvp but when we have, it was zone PvP. I am not sure whether that will temper the advice we receive or not, I would imagine so. I am unsure of just what secondaries lend themselves nicely to PvP for the mercs. Or which compliment mercs well in PvE.
We are mostly mastermind noobz
Traps seem interesting and varied. Seems pretty fitting of a bunch of 'natural' sorts like mercenaries. Are traps too stationary to use in pvp? Is detonator useful? I was thinking serum + pain domination's painbringer would equate to some seriously 'roid-raging commandos coupled with world of pain. Are all the heals and buffs in pain domination as useful to the pvp mastermind as some of the more debuff oriented sets? (I know that poison is supposed to be pretty good but honestly it doesn't really appeal to me much having a mercenary commander spitting bile all over the place)