Yeah Bots seem to be the flavour of the month here. I think its because they are ranged and the AI acts a little funny. Whereas with my Necro / Dark its the same as you: use Master Zaps keyboard binds and move them directly into combat instead of just telling them to attack.
Normally it's aggressive move into combat, Darkest Night then focus them on a lieut or whatever (from my Command and Conquer days its generally better to focus-fire on the hardest hitters 1st), Tar Patch and maybe some heals if they need it.
Normally I'd play in a large group of possible. Just got Fearsome Stare which is great altogether. Gives me some extra control over mobs plus feared mobs have their accuracy reduced even further. And the animation where you give them a good hard glare is class.
I was wondering about fearsome stare. I avoided it because I have my housemate with his dominator with me anyway and have taken powers to facilite defense on the Ninja and TP friend to enable my mates who are just joining the game to be moved about while lackey'd easy.
Whats the exact effect on fearsome ? is it a sleep ? immbilise ?
it's fear... it sorta acts somewhere between a hold and sleep if it's not changed from back in the days I used it; if you hit them they should retaliate once then go back to cowering until you hit them again.
Mind you it's possible it's just a full blown hold type now though; wouldn't know as I've not seen it since the days they started playing with the effect fear had ^^;
I't a fear. It doesnt stop attacks altogeher, but enemies will attack much less, and dont tend to move around. Also, most AV's/Heroes don't have much fear protection, so it's very nice against them.
Well, i've played my Ninja/FF MM up to level 26 and I find that it's one of the most enjoyable experiences i've had with CoH/CoV.
The Ninja's are great all-rounders, especially when you get your Oni as it has some great ranged attacks. My usual tactics mean buffing each pet with Train, shields and invisibility, then adding my bubble and Assault + Tactics. While this does take me two full bars of End to do, it means my minions are pretty much undefeatable. I solo Ruthless missions, I just recently killed Sea Witch & Ballista-1 alone without dying and I pretty much kick a lot of [censored].
The feeling I get is that Masterminds work generally well. I have one question to all your non Dark Miasma though. I cant possibly imagine being able to sustain henchmen without Twiglight Grasp. I can bring a cluster of them back from almost zero hit points to full in one activation.
I know that Poisons has a single heal but how do you find keeping your guys alive without a big heal ? I probably only resummon ninja about one genin per mission if that though. Is it a case of simply calling forth more minions to replace lost ones as a non healing Mastermind ?
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I know that Poisons has a single heal but how do you find keeping your guys alive without a big heal ? I probably only resummon ninja about one genin per mission if that though. Is it a case of simply calling forth more minions to replace lost ones as a non healing Mastermind ?
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I dont have much problems healing all 6 with the single-heal "Alkaloid", sometimes i lose a minion here but i get it back in action fast. I'd say, sometimes they get defeated for the cause 
, so i just choose my assault bot and keep him going and protector bots too of course.
edit: After i've read about this, Ninja MM sounds interesting.
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I know that Poisons has a single heal but how do you find keeping your guys alive without a big heal ? I probably only resummon ninja about one genin per mission if that though. Is it a case of simply calling forth more minions to replace lost ones as a non healing Mastermind ?
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Robotics/Traps here, and I don't have any real trouble keeping my 'bots alive, since :
a) I stand off at range, web grenade the opposition into place and blow them to kingdom come with hot laser death.
b) With two Protector Bots that can heal my 'bots from half health to full in one shot, and my primary set single target heal (which will totally heal any damaged 'bot), healing is less of an issue.
c) Triage Beacon. I've not got it slotted much (if at all) but it's still enabling my 'bots to survive the occasional mobs that make it past my web grenades and into melee.
d) Anything that does run into melee is likely to trigger a poison trap as well as be further debuffed by an acid mortar.
So, when I *do* start to see my 'bots dropping, I know things are starting to go pretty heavily pear shaped, and I get ready to leave if necessary, in order to TP team mates out of trouble if possible.
As to resummoning, I don't tend to need to resummon my 'bots at all in general. If I do, then it may be the occasional member of the idiot trio who has decided to run into melee, and sometimes a protector bot that decided to follow <sigh>.
On an utter tangent, poison trap. Got to love a power which has in the quick description : PBAoE, Foe choke, Vomit, -regen, -recharge...
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
Necromantic / Poison here
I just hit 30 and going strong.
(This is without regard to what the type is I'm fighting, it differs from Council to the Lost, generaly
I can solo level 32 bosses with ease, oranges I take on 3 or 4 at a time with little loss, yellows prove no difficulty even in larger packs as 5 or 6, whites I pummel so easy that I can even take a nap while doing it.
This is what I find:
Lich - Great croud control and damage
Grave Knight - Awesome melee capabilities, limited range
Zombies - Bit of both, and good at getting into melee by them selves, basicaly a meat shield :P (no pun intended)
I don't use advanced controls, don't think I have room for so many controls in my bars, and I DO find it annoying to have my Grave Knights stand around for ages fireing gloom and dark blast at the enemy, when they can go into melee and deal over 100 damage in 2 hits... but then I simply press their command button, quickly press G and send them into the fray
I've heard many say that having pets on Aggressive is stupid, but I find it VERY usefull... When pets kill a target, they immediatly target a new one, the time spent for looking for a new target (or even lagging around) without having one, will be wasted. So I say AGGRESSIVE all the way
Mastermind might just be the most fun and powerful PvE character I have ever played... PvP...well... that is another thing :P
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I don't use advanced controls, don't think I have room for so many controls in my bars, and I DO find it annoying to have my Grave Knights stand around for ages fireing gloom and dark blast at the enemy, when they can go into melee and deal over 100 damage in 2 hits... but then I simply press their command button, quickly press G and send them into the fray
I've heard many say that having pets on Aggressive is stupid, but I find it VERY usefull... When pets kill a target, they immediatly target a new one, the time spent for looking for a new target (or even lagging around) without having one, will be wasted. So I say AGGRESSIVE all the way
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Get the Numeric Keypad control binds for your pets. Makes it really easy to switch and target. Also forces your Knights into melee which is great. And you don't need extra toolbar button then either. Just Num-2, Num-9 and pick a spot. Once they close num-7 makes them attack a specific target with the swords.
Aggressive all the way is harkening back to Controller pets. Usually there's no problem but it can be a huge pain sometimes in big 8 man groups when they decide to run after a fleeing Mook or the like.
But again the numeric controls make it really easy to flip the minions of a type into aggressive so they choose targets and then back to passive if they need to chill.
The main beauty of henchies rather than pets is the control you have over them. It always annoys me when I switch back to my Illusion/Storm controller and the Phantoms go beserk or decide to attack minions instead of the purple boss standing beside them. With henchies you never have this problem.
Wouldn't make it easier for me I play on a laptop!
Using my two controls attack target / aggressive and follow / passive is enough for me I can quickly (as fast as they react anyways) out of combat.
LOL.
Yeah wouldn't be much use in that case alright
I love my undead. I named them Denise Richards, Jessica Alba and Elisha Cuthbert. There's nothing cooler than being on the losing end of a boss fight and suddenly having the guy flat on his back from a disembowel. I tend to use aggressive when positioning my horde (alt+W for handiness) but when explicitly ordering an attack I changed the macro to put them in defensive so I can tab onto the next target and focus all my attacks. If left to their own devices I find my girls tend to pick different targets. The only problem I have with them is when I order them to a location to put them in melee sometimes my grave knight (Denise!) will get stuck behind the zombies and just go back into ranged attack mode despite only being a couple of feet out of melee range.
With regards to poison I find that Alkaloid can keep up with most healing needs but in boss fights with lots of minions I tend to re-summon more. Weaken and Neurotoxic Breath turn mobs into [censored] cats too and Envenom is just lovely for lts and bosses.
Im Working on my Ninja MM and i must admit i am rather enjoying the lazy MM lie back and send others to there deaths then run like the wind because you now have all the aggro play style.
Also enjoy sending my lads off to attack high up enemies the funny aspect is the strange ways the choose to get up there
tree-> telegrapgh pole -> another tree -> window ledge ->Roof top!
I know there ninjas but whats wrong with the stairs?
The only thing that anoys me is my Jouin standing there watching the genin work there butts off and throwing what i can only guess are pencils at the enemy
but hey you cant get the staff these days 
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The only thing that anoys me is my Jouin standing there watching the genin work there butts off and throwing what i can only guess are pencils at the enemy
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This is the one area where I feel their may well actually be a bug with the Henchman AI. The Jounin act very strange, sometimes standing there almost mezzed, even if you move them to a favourable position off the genins attack path they will just stand there looking....never seen it with genin, they are up for it nutters, only the jounin.
The Oni......
So I made 26 and got the Oni and have spent a longweekend of heavy play messing about with it.
It's fantastic. I personally like the looks though I know not everyone does. In the power info it is described as a Powerful Demon of Wind and Fire. Well I'm not entirely sure where the wind is but it sure has a lot of fire.
So what does it do ? Well if I just command to attack without consideration of range it tends to fire blast and mixes that with circle of fire to immobilse and Cone of fire if its close enough. I have not noticed a preference for it to go to melee or stay at range, it just blasts away.
The other Ninja have fairly week ranged attacks compared to their melee. The oni doesnt seem to suffer this really, its ranged attack is fairly good too. All in all If i want I can ignore it and it just does its thing.
With a little control however you can get it to do some amazing things. At medium to close range it almost 100% of the time opens up with a Cone of Fire, which is a 3 tick cone DOT which between lvl 26 and 28 (what I am right now) varies between about 19-24 damage per tick on everything it hits. So good placement using passive goto and then a well targeted attack results in a lovely burst of cone damage just about everytime. With a little juggling however this can be further enhanced.
If your quick, you can smokebomb the Oni, passive goto your assault point, target the primary mob and order attack within the smokebomb timer resulting in an amazing critical cone of fire which burns for double its damage on every tick. If your quick enough the Oni will pull a further crit out too.
What can I say, with the right control this henchman is devastating. I find that using smokebomb on the Oni is the best thing to do as no matter what range its at it does fairly even damage and with my Jounin placating and criting my damage is excellent.
At 28 I was a little lost as to what to take powerwise so I took Fearsome stare. Despite reading a few bad things about it I have found it really good. It offers me some mez control that is rarely resisted and puts yet another layer of -ACC on groups in conjunction with Darkest Night which along with the reams of DEF i buff for my minions seems to be working a treat.
I will post again as I head into the 30's and let you know my experiences.
Shu'Fang the Spider
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which along with the reams of DEF i buff for my minions seems to be working a treat.
[/ QUOTE ]Is that a reference to shadow fall? Just FYI, it gives only 2,5% DEF boost.
I run shadowfall of course but I also run manouvers which I know is also only a small boost but my partner also runs it too both are SO slotted for DEF and +RES on shadowfall.
In terms of buffs on my minions I have all the leadership powers as does my partner so they are typically doubled up. I then run shadowfall also.
To assist their defence against anything more than about 3 mobs I run Darkest Night which is SO slotted for -ACC and now I have it, Fearsome stare which is also SO slotted for -ACC.
My genin are obviously the weakest and a red Tank Smasher boss can kill one in a single hit which they almost always do to at least one unless I debuff as he is coming in. Once the debuffs are on they tend to miss for the most part and allow my partner to get his holds on and then its game over for them.
With the Tanks I tend to passive goto my minions to one side, then pull the Tank with a debuff and take the AE grenade they always launch then call my Ninja in with either a straight up attack my target or a goto then attack to ensure melee.
Either way, we found that running manouvers and shadowfall made a significant difference to my Ninja's lifespan.
Shu'Fang The Spider
Am enjoying playing with my bots... and slightly "anxious" that I'm on 9 bubs to the magic ding at 32...
I run Assault, Tactics and FF Generator (from Traps - 3 slotted SO Def). Battle Drones can withstand one direct hit from red Tank before yelling for help. But the magic buttons from Traps are Poison Trap and Acid Mortar - fantastic pieces of kit, although you will frequently have to duck out of the way of barfing Longbow...yeuch. Messy.
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
I knew that with the Ninja as they have little resists but high defence it would be a matter of pushing that element to the best possible level rather than trying to build resists from the ground up.
My idea was the superior healing of Dark to compensate for the greater damage taken when they actually do get hit. Perhaps I will be able to push their resists up enough so that a single hit wont kill in one but allow me to get a heal off. Thats basically what happens on Orange bosses at the moment, one hit and its down to red HP on the genin and I can heal if quick.
I have to say in larger groups all the clever A*s tactics to maximise damage etc go to pot. I find that as a melee mastermind I have to section off one part of the battle for my own as all the ranged ones with bots and mercs just form firing lines and *BLAM*BLAM*BLAM till everything is laying on the floor.
Anyone playing trick arrow wanna comment ? I imagine it suits Ninja theme wise but the lack of healing in Ninja primary I think would make it very hard.
Shu'Fang the Spider
So I hit 32, obviously took Kuji In Rin. Well, the reharge is quite long on it but if you use it as quick as you can by the time you've summoned all your minions and used basic training on them you have got your Oni and usually the two Jounin Enlightened. I have taken to training the Genin on the fly as they are at risk of getting dead more than my other Henchmen anyway. So over all its not really slowing me down much.
The powers for the Oni are very nice. I thought the rain of fire would be detrimental but I'm not finding it so, in fact as hencmen effects are linked to the mob they are cast on staying alive I find that I have to shift targets as soon as he casts rain to get some mileage out of it. The char seems to be a nice upgrade on fireblast too.
The Jounin just kick [censored] now. They not only look great in their Ninja Armour but the additional attack does sweet damage. They also apparently gained Blinding Powder and Hide, but Im not seeing them use it at all at the moment I dont know if its bugged or I'm just missing it. I will have to test.
The Genin, its a nice upgrade too. They get superleap which allows them to follow the Jounin when stuff flies away and as they are the most aggressive they stop runners quicker now. The additional Kick is excellent. Plus they now look like real Ninja ! with their cool facemasks and little bag.
All in all, a very nice upgrade. Even when I lose a Genin, Kuji is usually ready to just cast instantly and losing one henchmen tends to be the normal fayre of a mission. I dont wipe lots of minions that often so the recharge isnt that much of an issue.
I'm loving my newly Upgraded bots - whereas before they were only devastating to one target at a time, they can now tackle big mobs as effectively as a small player team.
The Assault Bot's rockets are simply awe-inspiring - and the burn patches are quite useful, but given that every other bot attack carries KB you really need to have someone cornered before it's deadly.
Prot Bot stun grenades are also hugely useful, although the little whirly drones don't do much except give mobs another target to shoot at - and very occasionally blind a minion.
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
This talk about ninjas and robots is all well and good. I have two MM's, one Necro / dark miasma and one Soldiers / traps. Fairly stereotypical in that regard. I play solo a lot, there doesn't seem to be that many around when I play and besides, I don't mind that, I can pick my own pace.
I find that the play experience for the two is very different, which might be surprising for two of the same class. Both are mid-teens, so my experience isn't that extensive, but here goes.
Red Guard - Soldier/traps. I use the attack powers a great deal, since everything else is used in preparation. Before larger battles I tend to drop triage beacon, caltrops in front, then me and the goon squad opens fire. Triage isn't impressive, in fact rather depressive, but it seems juust good enough to keep the soldiers in good health in a long battle. Unlike the zombies, the soldiers all use ranged by preference, so this setup works fine - the caltrops delay the melee hitters a little bit, and they are pretty good at taking down people, but constantly need to be told new targets since their attack range is much greater than their aggro range. The soldiers seem to be able to soak up a bit of damage, but oddly enough they do not seem to gain a new attack by equipping them. The specforce guy is a godsend. FLashbangs with area disorient is his one great power, otherwise better range, more damaging bursts and the occassional grenade doesn't hurt (me) either. Very methodical advance through the missions. I am not too impressed with caltrops, it seems like a weak version of tar patch, and the web grenade is also kind of useless. Triage seems to work, but it is slow and leads to very 'set piece' fights.
Soulcatcher - Necro/dark miasma. The zombies are very superior to the soldiers in damage dealing - part of why I wonder if soldiers lack an extra attack. They use a sort of cone barf acid attack thing before each combat, with area damage, The grave knight is also damn nice. In an undead sort of way. WHich is to say not nice at all. This is not at all as methodical and passive as with Red Guard. I hardly ever use the attack power, I don't plan to get one beyond gloom. Not because gloom is good, but because I hardly use that, I don't need another I won't use. I spend my time healing, tar patch, darkest night, and otherwise pop the guys back up because the zombies die a lot compared to the soldiers, but lieutenants go down in seconds to the undead horde. Soulcatcher is by far the most team friendly of the two - all her powers are generally useful ones that benefit any team, including teleport / recall friend.
Red Guard on the other hand has nothing to contribute to a team except firepower, at least until the FF drone.
Mastermind is a very fun class to play, that's the one thing I'm sure I won't regret.. I wouldn't care to try my hand at PvP though, it's bound to be a frustrating experience.
If you expand the buff visuals on your pet bar so you can see what buff icons your pets currently have you are able to right click and info to get your basic pet info...which tells you what your pet comes with as standard its resistances etc. You will also see an icon for the first training upgrade...which tells you what attacks and effects it adds to that tier henchmen and also your final henchie upgrade lists as enlightenment which again shows what attacks are added.
If i recall though basic soliders get a second type of bullet fire, so you may not notice, my genin get a bow so its fairly obvious when they use it in preference to shuriken and also a spining jump kick.
The only reason that the talk has all been about Ninja and Robots is because, Im giving my experiences as a Ninja mastermind and the other people who have chosen to respond are mainly Robot masterminds. My intention for this thread was for everyone whos playing a MM archetype could post their own experiences and agree/disagree or just pick up a new bit of info on what they might be able to expect to do when they get a particular power/upgrade.
Although Im very much looking forward to the new MM primaries, Thugs and Carnival sound excellent. Big cheers to cryptic.
Having read the forums here and the US ones for about the last 2+ weeks one thing I am noticing is the lack of general chit chat about the Ninja Mastermind. In fact to be fair, I dont see that much undead talk either its usually all about the Bots and the forcefields or cha cha about which secondary is best. I'm playing a Ninja Mastermind with Dark Miasma as a secondary, I hit 24 so am now dealing with the pet leveling issue and am just missing my Oni now to be sorta complete. I thought I would share my own personal experience on how I have found them. Oh, I duo mainly with a Plants/Thorns Dominator too almost exclusively.
When I first summoned a Genin I was so so about the looks, I wanted a ninja....but as soon as I saw the Jounin I was fairly pleased with how they differentiated them and in terms of the Oni I thought that drawing on the mystic angle of Ninja myth was superb and am looking forward to learning how to control it. The pets for me performed well, I started out just using the out of the box commands but found that one genin would go for melee (usually the closest) and the rest would use medium range shuriken. That worked fairly well as they chuck the shuriken pretty fast but if there were multiple opponents I had to be in there healing the single Genin too much.
I spotted a thread about advanced keyboard binds (bows to writer of em) and my ability to control the Ninja has become absolute. By using goto and then attack I could ensure a high percentage of melee from all my Ninja although occasionally the Jounin kinda mez themselves and even moving them to a new position and then ordering attack again doesn't work but its rare. Either way the pet controls are essential to getting your Ninja to perform well. By using the training power my ninja all of course gained an extra attack and the Genin got bows. This allowed a further level of control where I could force them to send salvos of arrow fire by ordering attack from the relevant distance.
I initially supported my Ninja with Twilight Grasp to heal which I found superb with a little slotting I can heal most of my pets from almost nothing to full in a single activation and using the advanced pet commands I am mostly able to group them to compensate for the heal area, I also took Darkest Night to assist the defensive nature of the Ninja which I was able to anchor onto a mob and then using the pet commands kill last. I also used aimed shot and fistfull of arrows which I actually found pretty good at mopping up stuff my pets had roughed up as they went through the combat and also to bag flying enemies. Though now I am post 20 I and using a lot of other support powers I am finding I use them a little less.
As I progressed into the teens I started taking the leadership powers and found that they greatly helped. My partner had assault I maintain Tactics and Manouvers which slotted with a def buff and endurance reducers and I then took Shadowfall to add some damage resistance, lower agro range for zone in's and also extra defense to build on the multifronted defense buffing my Ninja enjoy. That seemed to work a treat, we hunt on Ruthless and I can easily keep my pets alive rarely losing them.
Smokebomb added a great and fun new element to my Ninja tactics as with a little timing I can get my Jounin to pull 3 crits on a straight up use of it and 4 crits if I time it after he has placated. At the least they will get 2 good crits in melee which I can usually force them into using good commands. Ive slotted for the moment mainly damage, accuracy on the Jounin and damage, accuracy and a disorient duration on the genin. I found I have not needed to take tar patch yet because of my partners holds and controls.
All in all what I am trying to say is that with a little control I've found no AI problems. The pets seem robust and I can keep them alive whilst getting great damage out of them and as a duo we hunt on Ruthless and find it challenging without suffering overt deaths. The ninja are stylish and seem to have a good range of capability and the support powers like smokebomb are good fun and also appear to have a good impact on my killing. I have had to slot a fair ammount of endurance reducers to cope with the buffs I run but it has seemed to work a treat and leaves me with enough endurance to toss smokebombs about and fire the odd arrow.
I won't comment on PvP yet as I suspected that the imbalance in hero's who are all SO and Hammy slotted to the hilt would make it a bind and low and behold when I went into BB I had about 3 flying blasters all trying to gank me, got TP'd into a group of [censored] on respawn at the Villain base and then pretty much one shotted by a rooting blaster who just ignored my pets. But I have faith that it will get better or I will just avoid it. I didnt buy CoH/CoV to PvP there are far better competitive games out there for that.
I would love to hear how other masterminds have found their weave of powers working out and the play styles they have enjoyed because of friends etc.