Is there a reason to be anything other than thugs?

Well, I for one have a heck of a lot of fun with my Necro/Poison MM.


Just saying...

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Well, I for one have a heck of a lot of fun with my Necro/Poison MM.


Just saying...

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To be honest you can pretty much do fine with anything in CoH. The game is just so easy.

I come from a more min maxer sort of view.

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Well, I for one have a heck of a lot of fun with my Necro/Poison MM.


Just saying...

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To be honest you can pretty much do fine with anything in CoH. The game is just so easy.

I come from a more min maxer sort of view.

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A min maxer can overpower any mix

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Or you could learn to play your bots and utilize the KB effectively instead of feeling like you have to fight against it.

but you know...to each his own

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I even hear some people take Scorpions cone for even more knockback!

or use the knockup/-back powers from FF to... control

And in the end, they use force wall to pin the mobs against walls, so all that knockback is basically knockdown, and the whole gang is nicely stacked on on the burn patches and the other AoE goodness.

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And what about my other points? Or do you just pick the points you think you have an answer and ignore the rest hoping no one will notice?

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Yes, of course... why would I give you a response regarding something I have no response about?

Yeah, gang war can take the new uniques, cool, so what?

Seriously, arguing about the effectiveness of Mastermind primaries is like arguing about which Nuclear Missile is best for squishing ants. They're all fine, and some are a bit better than others at some things. There are no "gimped" materminds (assuming intelligent power and slotting choices), only average masterminds and godly masterminds.

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Thugs were a top set before, now they are better then ever. Basically all the problems the set had have been reduced or eliminated.

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That whole "2/3rds Lethal" thing isn't going anywhere anytime soon, though.

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Thugs were a top set before, now they are better then ever. Basically all the problems the set had have been reduced or eliminated.

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That whole "2/3rds Lethal" thing isn't going anywhere anytime soon, though.

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Lethal is an issue but with Enforcers keeping -Res proc up pretty much permanently its much less so.

I manged to pick up the 2nd pet +res aura today for 10 mil just need the 2nd pet +def (does not seem to exist on the BM).

You really notice the difference. 50% Lethal and Smashing resist on the Bruiser is nice. 30% to cold and Fire is nice as well.

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Thugs were a top set before, now they are better then ever. Basically all the problems the set had have been reduced or eliminated.

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That whole "2/3rds Lethal" thing isn't going anywhere anytime soon, though.

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Lethal is an issue but with Enforcers keeping -Res proc up pretty much permanently its much less so.

I manged to pick up the 2nd pet +res aura today for 10 mil just need the 2nd pet +def (does not seem to exist on the BM).

You really notice the difference. 50% Lethal and Smashing resist on the Bruiser is nice. 30% to cold and Fire is nice as well.

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Resistance for the most part is pitiful when it comes down to how much HP the Henchmen have, especially with some Minions and Lts doing as much as one hitting the Henchmen. Even with 20%, 30% or 50% Resistance, if 2 or 3 Traitors zero out the Bruiser, it's pretty much going to end badly without defense. As for the -Res Proc, I personally don't have it in my Enforcers with my current slotting, but for the most part the foes that truly punish you for using Lethal aren't as easy to fix by slotting that Proc, not to mention scaling.

Ahh but 50% resist PLUS Def softcap. Only doable with /Traps or FF though.

As for Lethal resistance its not really that bad. Overall its only 5% less damage then energy according to the stats I saw in another post.

For every Malta Titan there is a Malta Sapper by an large.

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The best reason is that some of us aren't number crunching bean counters when it comes to the game and like to play it, not over analyze it. Of course, one man's over analysis is another's play, but do know that not everyone here plays that way.

Also, once you've been there done that with thugs, why do it again? Try another powerset for the variety.

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I am me, and I fully approve of this post.

That said, yeah, I have a Thugs/Dark MM, and she is fun to play with decent damage and mitigation. However, I have been having a blast with my Mercs/Pain MM on Protector, and he is already sitting nicely at 37 after less than a month of casual play (whereas my Thugs/Dark, after 2 years is only at 23.) I like my Mercs/Pain MM just because he is fun to play, and he has a cool factor about him (trained with the Sky Raiders and has access to personnel and equipment needed to protect his home and his fellow Rogue Isles citizens.)

And here, in all their butt kicking glory, I present Never-Moore and Team Blackbird.

I am still surprised that Gang War can take Pet Recharge set to give Thug primary even more +defense and +resistance. Was the Thug set underperforming??!!

I can understand Pet Recharge set in Soul Extraction as zombies really need some defense/resistance. Undead pets have no lethal and fire resistance which makes fighting Longbow really PAIN in the butt.


I posted in the other merc thread about buffing Merc that does not revolve around "proc damage".

For Merc:
1. Improve Serum: Make serum a good 120s-180s single buff with +max. health, some resistance and 15-20% +damage. God-Mode on a pet that doesn't generate Taunt is pretty pathetic. It's only good for taking alpha but we already have bodyguard mode and inspirations.


For Ninja:
1. I know Smoke Flash is already a good power and many people ask for more defense/resistance buffs on Genins. Instead of focusing on buffing/fixing ninja pets, why don't we improve Smoke Flash even more?? Yes, with +recharge, you can almost perma-smoke flash (there is a brief 1-2s that ninja won't critical right before he throws the smoke bomb), but throwing it every 10s is really kinda annoying.

I suggest Smoke Flash:
- +5% positional defense on the ninja
- Critical duration is 17s
- Recharge increase from 20s to 30s.
- Endurance cost increase from 30 to 35-38.


I know several times Jounin would use Golden Dragonfly/Dragon Soar right before he throws the smoke bomb and then for the whole 10s, he can't cycle that in time and you have to time the whole cycle again and waste criticals on weaker attacks.

I think the original purpose of Smoke Flash is not just for "critical" but for pet to "escape" but sadly a lot of times your genin just dies in seconds that the "escape" aspect of it is pretty un-practical. I say give the ninja 5% more defense so he doesn't die as easily.


What do you guys think?

Other ideas I have:

Lich: Give him the ability to take Accurate Tohit Debuff so he can provide extra damage with proc damage. (why does he have -Defense debuff set listed??)

Grave Knight: Give them Accurate Tohit Debuff

Oni: Give him Immb and Hold sets (why does he have knockback set listed??)

Thugs are nice and all, but each set has its advantages and synergies with secondaries.

Bots Lead AoE Damage

Mercs suck unfortunately (but with an overhaul and faster recharging control powers they could be much hardier)

Zombies are just plain awesome and do amazing Single Target damage, Good AoE, and have an amazing debuffer (aka the Lich).

Ninjas are Single Target beasts with low survivability but mind boggling damage. Good for PvP or heavy targets.

Poor Mercs.

Well there is no really almost about it.

Thugs auras scale with level, don't need to be recast and apply twice to each pet.

With 2 50 Def IOs each Enforcer gives 12.5% at 50. So thats 25% +Def all. Throw in the 2 uniques and your at 35% +Def all.

No other primary gets close to that. With Leadership, Storm or Dark can softcap pet +Def which is huge.

20% resist all gives helps a lot resistance wise too.

I really think thugs in this thread get a little overrated, especially compared to bots. Thugs basicly have three things going for them:

1. Arsonists Flame Bomb(15 feet)
2. Lts Tactics(30feet)
3. Bruisers Footstomp(15feet)

I purposely ignore plain single target attacks, cause obviously every set does that, and does it well. Yet as strange as it sounds, all of these things i listed are actually done better by bots.

1. Incendiary Missiles is plain better. It has the same recharge, 5 feet bigger area and the burn it leaves behind is just way stronger and stays longer too.

2. Prots bubbles are better, now hear me out, im obviously not talking about pure defense. The problem is the thug version forces you to lump you pets together, which is just plain bad because it forces you to either keep your bruiser on a leash or have your other pets follow him around. Both leads to a significant dps loss in my experience(not to mention you get more vulnurable to AOE).

3. Ah yes the footstomp. Its kinda awesome, pity it has to compete with half a dozen other attacks(bruiser has 7 attacks, 4 with under 10 sec recharge) and usually gets fired either way to late or not at all. And anyway, swarm missiles does more damage, mostly due to greater radius.

Also lets not say the bruiser is a tank, thats more than a little bit misleading. He has 5.25% Fire, Cold and Toxic resistance more than the Assault Bot, and 21% psionic resistence less and no taunt effects at all.

Oh and lets not forget the Arsonist, my is named kenny. You remember kenny? Its that kid from southpark that dies EVERY episode. Cause thats what my kenny does too. By the time you see him sprinting into that 16+ spawn AFTER he got their attention with his flame bomb its pretty much to late to call him back anyway. But its not just that he likes to melee, and die alot, no whats really annoying is that your actually dependend on that crazy 500 hp bruce lee wannabe monkey for his AOE damage so you end up having to resummon him every time he dies, which he does, alot.

Another way to look at it is that thugs are bottom end heavy and tend to failure cascade rapidly, they depend on a tier 1 pet for alot of their AOE damage, and if a tier 2 pet dies or gets out of range ALL pets imediatly loose a big chunk of defense which usually leads to more dead pets.

Bots on the other hand are top end heavy, pretty much everything you need to devastate a group of minions and LTs is in your tier 3. You have no single essential tier 1 pet, and the defense buffs of your tier 2 persist after their death, giving you a greater chance to regroup midfight.

P.S.: Im not saying thugs are worse than bots, i actually enjoy both sets immensly. They play rather differently with the bots requirering less micromanagement and having far superior AOE damage(honestly, i feel dirty just comparing them) and the thugs having still very solid AOE damage yet significantly more single target damage.

Imho bots make sense for a busy secondary where you dont have the time to micromanage your pets, while thugs might be more fun for the more passive secondarys, i assure you the arsonist and bruiser will keep you busy.

This thread was dead before someone resurrected it.

I have a Ninja/Storm, but I don't have any illusions of being all super-awesome like the the dudes with AOE-happy pets who can sit back lazily rocking the aura and rolling x8 spawns on e-z mode. I picked that combination just because it wasn't easy, the other MMs were just tooooo boring to play.

I wish third ninja minion had a "thing" going for him instead of just being another guy who runs around kicking things. He could've at least had Cobra Strike, or something.

I think thugs is the super strength of masterminds. You can't really go wrong with it since it covers most of your bases. Which is why I find both sets rather boring.