The MM is a Damocles sword...

1 thing i would just like to add in the refernces to pvp....as a necro/poison MM i have found pvp not too bad, sure i get group ganked and 2 shotted by blasters sometimes...however i have taken down my share of heroes including lvl 50 ones.....i have beaten pretty much every AT in 1v1, not even a stone tank lasted as long as i thought it should have...and the look on those heroes faces when they realise my minions cant be slowed...and oh crap hes got a hold too hehehehe a good MM should be able to hold his own in pvp....and in group pvp they are also very good. Not sure if its just me or my nerco/poison combo but i rock in pvp yay!

I agree

I've only resonatly taken up PvP again At level 38, I thought I'd try it in Sirens

And man! Does it work! I was suprised to see people getting DOWNED! from flying, by Paralytic poison, as it doesn't do that in PvE

PvP is great as a Nec/Poi lol

I can kill 1 purple boss alone (even 2 if I'm lucky).
I have killed archvillains (post I6) with the help of only one person.
I can kill 8 yellows minions attacking in the same time.
Do I deserve a nerf for that ?
Btw, I'm not a mastermind, I'm only a Broadsword/Invulnerable Scrapper and I can solo a mission ways faster than a mastermind .

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I can kill 1 purple boss alone (even 2 if I'm lucky).
I have killed archvillains (post I6) with the help of only one person.
I can kill 8 yellows minions attacking in the same time.
Do I deserve a nerf for that ?
Btw, I'm not a mastermind, I'm only a Broadsword/Invulnerable Scrapper and I can solo a mission ways faster than a mastermind .

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No, you do not deserve a nerf for that...

As far as I'm concerned masterminds are strong in PVE but by no means overpowered. Depending on the sets they have some tricks up their sleeves, but nothing like corruptors or dominators. They can do damage, but nothing like brutes, stalkers, corruptors and even some properly executed dominators (especially with domination).

Hell, the main thing MMs seem to do is tank. Not quite tanking, but from teaming with Eressos' MM she seems to "diffuse aggro". By no means are MMs tanks, though they certainly make things easier. MMs can't hold aggro from PCs though most of the time, and MMs have a tendency for sudden faceplant syndrome in cases.

I'd say an MM needn't be all that much better than other ATs in PVE. They're different, but if you see a well built plants dominator doing their thing or a rad/dark corruptor: I certainly can't say any of these are inherently more powerful than the other.

I'll give you that MMs have a much easier time soloing than some other ATs.

EDIT: But hey, maybe everyone I regularly team with takes their jobs so very seriously and has honed their skills so much that we can actually compete with the fabled MM. And while I would like to flatter myself and my friends like that, I hardly think we're THAT godly uber.

Hell, I'll go one better: I regularly team with TWO MMs. I'm a level 33 grav/enr dominator. I feel in no way shape or form outmoded even when both are doing their thing. I can tell neither do our corruptors. We rarely team with stalkers and brutes, and perhaps they'd feel less useful, but in my eyes brutes are very team unfriendly to start with (and the fury mechanism is antithesis to what brute conceptually are if you ask me) and stalkers... well, let's just say I've never seen an MM down a boss in 2 seconds flat.

EDIT2: I don't know where people are getting the fact from that MMs are easy and safe to play either. Especially in teams things can and will sneak up and hammer the MM, they can be unexpectedly one shotted and BOOM, it's all over. A good MM will be doing lots of things, as well as the difficult task of micromanaging their minions.

If an MM is standing back in a team doing nothing, then they're a bad MM and probably will cause their team to faceplant. Sure it's easy for them and they're relatively safe, but if I stay in the back with my dominator and only use power blast and power bolt I'm safe too, I'm far less effective same as the MM that does this. Same goes for any AT. If you think an MM who stands back and lazes about is even nearly as effective as an active MM, you're dead wrong.

The main thing I can see MMs being easier in is that you have to give little to no real thought about your build, what sets go best together, and what powers to pick in conjunction to get the most out of your AT. Other ATs tend to have to think more about this, if you ask me. But anyone who plays their AT smartly will be just as useful as a smart MM.

Those are my five cents. I don't want to see MMs nerfed, because I enjoy playing with them as equals. Not dragging them along as gutted fish because other ATs couldn't bother to put their back into keeping up with MMs that put their back into what they do.

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If an MM is standing back in a team doing nothing

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Don't forget that when you see a MM standing back doing nothing, he can be in fact playing with his pets to manage them.. and when you have 6 robots who love nothing more than to jump in the closest pool of mobs (especially when there is 2-3 bosses and 4-5 lieutenants in the pool), it can be really far from "doing nothing"

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I don't know where people are getting the fact from that MMs are easy and safe to play either. Especially in teams things can and will sneak up and hammer the MM, they can be unexpectedly one shotted and BOOM, it's all over.

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/agree.. play a MM in team.. select a mission with Freakshows.. be unlucky... be aggroed by a Freak tank.. rethink about the "MM is easy and safe" (same thing with scrapyarders bosses... I still remember a mission with a red boss.. he was oneshotting my drones in AE... one strike from him, 3 drones destroyed...quite surprising when you see that for the first time )
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The main thing I can see MMs being easier in is that you have to give little to no real thought about your build, what sets go best together, and what powers to pick in conjunction to get the most out of your AT.

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Hmm.. not sure to agree totally with that.. I have to think a bit about how I'm going to use my traps in teamplay if I don't want to see the mobs in a corner and my traps in another

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Hmm.. not sure to agree totally with that.. I have to think a bit about how I'm going to use my traps in teamplay if I don't want to see the mobs in a corner and my traps in another

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I think she means is that there's a greater margin of error for Masterminds than other ATs. I mean, me for example; my original build was pretty much ignoring the secondary powerset - Traps - in favour of skills like Slug, Burst...etc.

While I didn't kill anything particuarly fast, I was still killing things quite well and my faceplant rate was relatively low.

By comparion, a Dominator or Brute who ignored their secondary would likely drop dead in seconds if they made a mistake.

While I wouldn't exactly drop dead in seconds without my secondary a single fight would last forever. xD Depending on holds to kill stuff isn't all that great.

What I meant was that while most ATs have different sets of powersets that work in different ways, MMs have a lot of very stapleish powers. I mean, is any MM really going to mess up their build by skipping their summon powers? Stuff like that. I had to think very hard on my grav/enr dominator because I had far fewer staple powers that I knew I HAD to get or I was being a silly, silly person. It can get worse still when you're playing things like heavily tricked out plants dominators built purely for control, or optimum builds for stalkers and corruptors to get the most out of anything.

Not to say that MMs don't require any thought, but it's relatively sure you're not gonna miss the core essence powers that drives your AT.

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What I meant was that while most ATs have different sets of powersets that work in different ways, MMs have a lot of very stapleish powers. I mean, is any MM really going to mess up their build by skipping their summon powers? Stuff like that. I had to think very hard on my grav/enr dominator because I had far fewer staple powers that I knew I HAD to get or I was being a silly, silly person. It can get worse still when you're playing things like heavily tricked out plants dominators built purely for control, or optimum builds for stalkers and corruptors to get the most out of anything.

Not to say that MMs don't require any thought, but it's relatively sure you're not gonna miss the core essence powers that drives your AT.

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Carefull what you say

MM's do take thought, and the 4 Pools (both main and second) are very different from eachother!

And yes, it can get messed up! Easy... I've seen some people do it :P

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I already know many Brutes and Stalkers who just don't like teaming with them for any reason.

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Maybe its because I can use my pets to draw aggro off the fleeing stalker following his AS, that must really be annoying. Or keep all the mobs busy with my pets while he AS's the boss. Or draw aggro off any AT thats going down. Then after sacrificing all my pets to keep the team alive, i can still use my 2nd set to heal, rez, debuff, and generally keep the team alive.

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I already know many Brutes and Stalkers who just don't like teaming with them for any reason.

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Maybe its because I can use my pets to draw aggro off the fleeing stalker following his AS, that must really be annoying. Or keep all the mobs busy with my pets while he AS's the boss. Or draw aggro off any AT thats going down. Then after sacrificing all my pets to keep the team alive, i can still use my 2nd set to heal, rez, debuff, and generally keep the team alive.

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Well that's the good stuff...

However there is also the bad stuff, Pets getting in the way so I can't get to the enemy. Pets pushing me about so I can't Assassin's Strike. The Stalker problem of aggressive pets finishing off your target so you waste an AS. Brutes have it better than Stalkers I think, however Fury does seem to be harder to get in MM heavy team.

In a team with a single Mastermind, these are rarely a problem, it starts to happen when there are 3 or more.

Had a first proper session fighting alongside a MM-heavy team (3 Masterminds) while I was a Brute and found strategies that worked - running on to the next group along was a good one.

It allowed me to build Fury, and the MM's soon caught up to me to deal with any excess aggro I'd gathered. Soon as the henchmen started, I moved on to the next group along.

It's workable, even if you are with Masterminds who exhibit less than optimal henchmen control.

I'm sorry you had bad experiences with MM's, it sounds like the strategy used was a bit rough around the edges. Apart from the obvious difference, I play my necro/dark MM pretty much the same way I play my defender.

only mm chage i could concievably like would be to make pets walk-throughable.. my mercs really have a fetish for standing in narrow tunnels and doorways before i get through them.

i think they're perfect.. it's like being a defender all over again except i don't have a potentially fatal pickup team ^_^

I'm quite enjoying playing my MM. It's not like a fire and forget missile though. I spend just as much time controlling my minions as I spend controlling my Stalker or Dominator. It's just a different type of control. In my experience, if you send your troops in and stand and watch, like some people seem to be suggesting, you very quickly lose the lot. Zombies are not the brightest bulb in the tree and if you let your attention wander for a second they can be halfway across the map aggroing everything in sight.

I hope they don't get hit with the nerf bat, I'm really getting tired of learning how to play a particular AT only to have it changed to such an extent that it's necessary to relearn it all again. The only CoH characters I have that have escaped such wide ranging changes so far have been the Kheldians.

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only mm chage i could concievably like would be to make pets walk-throughable.. my mercs really have a fetish for standing in narrow tunnels and doorways before i get through them.

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I get mine to stand still, walk a bit, follow, stand still....

Unless i want to send them ahead as scouts, pullers, cannon fodder.