Thanks for that Mindless. Sounds like you use a very diverse playing method by focusing on your own attacks and little control.
I would say some MM primaries would work better with this, Mercs and Bots I suppose due to their ranged nature. I personally am sat over the control buttons 24/7 with my ninja and I can keep em alive for multiple missions in a row.
The things I find are fatal to my henchmen aside of bad pulls or ambushes etc is Longbow Nullifiers and Spec Ops when they use grenade launcher, it doesnt kill em outright but ift forces me to try group my pets to heal em, which if one is slightly out of range of (frequently) and they get chance for another volley, then I tend to lose a single genin. Tank Smashers can one shot em too, so until their debuffed I usually lose at least one. AV's of course and boss encounters can often cause one to die, again usually an AE that I then dont manage to get the heal grouping right on.
I've currently got Aimed Shot and Fistfull of Arrows speceed. I DO use them though not as much as I did pre 20 and 2 SO damage and 1 Acc give them reasonable damage in my mind, when my oni does his fire breath I often follow it a arrow cone so my initial burst can be very heavy.
When I respec I have no idea if I will keep them.
[ QUOTE ]
Necros are possibly the fastest levelers. I really like this set. Lich doesnt add too much dmg to the set though..it will bring mostly control I think (??) and perhaps add survivability to my zombies which would be nice. And ghost...I guess it is useful too 
[/ QUOTE ]
The Spirit is a fantastic pet, toughness-wise. Plus it'll fight on after your death (and you can still command it). Happened to me yesterday with Scrapyarders (how I loathe thee) who killed me with their dynamite. Spirit fought on valiantly. Seemed to be taking a hell of a lot of damage too. Lasted ages. They were hurting it, but not much. That said its damage was rather underwhelming. But I don't really have it slotted.
Well here are my pennies.
My robo MM isnt really high at the moment, only lvl 19, but i love it. I love the fact that you dont have to summon them all the time and that the damage is pretty nice too. Cant really compare it to other classes, because i havent played them much. Did try necro MM, but i didnt really like it. Like every1 has already said, they die alot. And IMHO they are the dumbest of all pets.
Robots are in their element if the maps are large, they need alot of space, you really dont want them to face any1 in melee.
And i think the best secondary powerpool for robo MM is definetly traps. there are few powers that you really dont need, like web granade or healing beacon, but rest of them are pretty good.
[ QUOTE ]
there are few powers that you really dont need, like web granade or healing beacon, but rest of them are pretty good.
[/ QUOTE ]
Now I see a lot of people derive a power or say that you don't need it and I personally think that each power can have a place and be useful. My duo partner follows the Dominator forums and the ammount of times he sees people say that this or that power is useless and yet its one we use heavily is amazing.
We grenade is like entangling arrow if Im correct which I thought was absolutely bloody amazing. I could just hold a mob at range and let my ninja henchmen shoot it up and with robots or merc thats even easier as they STAY at range. I would use the arrow to pull a group by pinning one round a corner or door way or behind an object to limit their ability to join the combat and then just reapply soon as it repopped (whch entangling arrow does fast). Point being I found loads of applications where I thought it was well useful.
Triage Beacon, my duo partner took spirit tree and initially we thought it was not too usefull. It was great for speeding up downtime after fight, he slotted it up with 3 SO heals and now its excellent ! there is a real noticeable [censored] in health when it zings you. I find it has saved us many times in large fights just by virtue of its duration.
I really think those two powers and their counterparts from other sets are useful powers and very valid to take.
The Respec Trial ! Da Da !
So I was about to hit 34 and I thought, damn I need to do the respec trial. I read up about it and off the US boards all I see if this
'OMG 20 hours and we still failed' kinda stuff.
But I read a guide, figure out where the start guy is and get a few buddies together. Result ?
Whole thing done in less than an hour, no deaths. Admitedly we 'cheesed' the last mish by spawning only 24 vines. But anyway I got my respec.
As my previous posts have noted I run all the leadership powers and shadowfall so dont have much endurance to play with after I smokeflash and heal and darkest night. So i respec'd Aimed Shot and Fistfull of arrows out. I dropped super jump and took teleport friend, teleport foe and TEAM teleport. Picked up Tar Patch and Petryfying gaze.
Ok, Team Teleport first.
Its an end hog, I've had to slot it up with 4 SO's 3 end reducers and 1 range, its not doing too bad now. BUT ! and heres the stinker I obviously took it to teleport pets around and hopefully in PvP land on a target with a full group of mobs. It doesnt work right with pets. You teleport into the air as usual with the group around you and they immediately fall out of the sky whilst you hover and initiate your next teleport. Thus you end up with them chasing you like they would with normal teleport. I've bugged it...but Im mad that I took it and it doesn't do what it should.
Tar Patch, lovely power, what can you say its standard fayre for most darks I only didnt take it first time round because of my dominator bud having a thorn version.
Petrifying Gaze, A great power and if your in a duo with another person with a hold its fantastic. We now open bad boss fights with a double hold which pins the boss instantly. Also good for hitting those pesky nullifiers or spec'ops that will stand at the back and AE your chaps to death.
Teleport Foe...I initially thought I wasn't gonna use this much as I pull spawns with fearsome stare and then AE them but I'm finding that more and more I can thin down the wanderers around a group that would normally evade our initial crowd controls. So yeah its usefull.
Oh a word of warning when you hit 34. Most of you will know this but you don't get a new power ! just slots. next power is at 35.
So i'm now heading to 35 with only a couple of powers left to choose and wondering if I did the right thing with teleport. I'll post more experiences as I change in any significant way.
I have now played all MM primaries to around level 20. Highest is 22. I use a certain template for them all which uses FF as secondary. I play with an aggressive style where I use my attacks all the time and rarely micromanage the pets. Below comments may not fully apply to MMs who purely support their pets as it is a very different style of play.
) So you believe them or not but I have no intention to show any calculations or anything to back this up 
) After level 26 and 32 your damage output and relative leveling speed probably jump more than in any other set. If you slot some range to your attacks you can shoot enemies from a really long distance (fun in PVP :P)
Jounin is really nice and the first tier pets do nice acrobatics too. Im not sure what Oni will bring to the table...hopefully some more survivability and cool effects 
Fun set anyways.
Before level 12 they dont level too fast. Protector Bot is good addition and after this Bots and Necros compete with the fastest leveler title. I will run a hero stats test later to find out who can get most xp/hour by hunting 
But the sound of my first attack is a real killer..I often turn the sound completely off..playing Bots always makes be yearn for the sweet silence of the Ninjas
All things I write are pure opinions sometimes supported by hero stats data (which I dont report
My experiences so far...
MMs can be divided to 2 groups where Robots and Mercs form the "Mostly Ranged" and Necros and Ninjas form the "Mostly Melee" group.
Playing Mercs and Robots is a lazy job since they mostly shoot from distance and they both have great survivability so they go on like a train and you rarely see the enemy face to face. In merc set your own attacks have longer range too.
Playing Necros and Ninjas is more intense since they often go melee and (surprise surprise) die often. Gaming is really quite arcade compared to previous group since you have to kill fast or be killed fast.
At level 20 I would rank the primaries by (burst) dmg
1. Ninjas
2. Necros
3. Bots
4. Mercs
By survivability
1. Mercs
2. Bots
3. Necros
4. Ninjas
Problem with Mercs is subpar dmg and leveling speed. Because of survivability you can still kill everything but it sometimes takes loooooooong time. Commando and Serum may totally change this since Commando and especially Serum pumped Commando is possibly the best killing machine in the pet sets (might be better than Assault Bot...sue me if Im wrong
Problem with Ninjas is subpar survivability (and endurance management problems). Ninjas can produce great burst damage
and wipe one group of enemies super fast but they cant keep it up because they have to be healed and resummoned all the time. You also have to rest endurance all the time. Sort of like the "stalker" of the pet sets. A tactical set.
Ninjas are most fun to watch in action though
Necros have survivability problems too (Zombies die easily) but it seems not to be as serious as with Ninjas. And the MMs own attacks are probably best in this set. With all the primary attacks and with hasten I can actually produce pretty awesome one target dmg. So what if the Zombies die in the middle of the battle...me and Grave Knight can still kill supa fast :P
Necros are possibly the fastest levelers. I really like this set. Lich doesnt add too much dmg to the set though..it will bring mostly control I think (??) and perhaps add survivability to my zombies which would be nice. And ghost...I guess it is useful too
And Bots...yes they are good but not supa hypa good
Even though Bots damage imho is not that supa so far they dont die often and can sustain the damage nicely. I often dont have to summon new bots at all in short/normal missions. Bots are great at hunting and in missions where you dont have too complex maps or narrow tunnels. Assault Bot seems to be great and after this Bots might outdmg all other sets and level even faster than Necros.
My biggest problem with Bots is the sometimes annoying sounds and the fact that everything seems(??) to happen in slow motion. Summoning is slow. They shoot hard but not too often. The bots even move quite slow. Maybe it is just my imagination...Effective and easy to play but fun??? I guess it is fun to get good xp and not have to summon all the time
I report more experiences when I get them all to 32...which might take a while