Bots are easily the most common MM type. Loads of them around. Since they're ranged they tend to last a bit longer than necros zombies. They make really annoying noises when running about too.
Necros are mostly melee based. They tend to die more often than the bots but make a great alpha-strike absorber (since you can heal or recast them if they die). Also Necro gets an extra pet in the Spirit which is nice. With Necro you're better off mapping commands so you can point-and-click move them about as the Knights have great melee attacks but hang back and use the Dark Blasts a bit too much
As for secondaries Force Fields tends to be less hands on than Dark. You bubble everyone up beforehand but in battle you use it very little. Given that a MMs primary means you're doing few direct attacks yourself usually you tend to have time on your hands in battle where you are doing very little.
Dark however has no buffs really (Shadow Fall is all), it is a debuff and control set mainly. In combat its great fun as you're healing, dropping Tar Patchs to slow, Darkest Night to debuff accuracy and you've a great Cone Fear power in Fearsome Gaze. Plus you get a superb pet (not henchman, you can't order him about) at level 38 who heals and floors accuracy.
Personally I went with Necro / Dark but I think Mercs/Dark could be a lot of fun too, especially since the heal is probably a bit better for them.
I picked necro/dark too and having a great time. With dark you also get a rez power with some great debuffs on it, so much so i sometimes use it even if there is no one around to rez. You cant rez henchman though, but there is a sort of zombie rez in the necro set which summons a ghost. Dark is a very hands on set and i find myself helping out my team with heals just as much as my pets. So if you pick dark as your 2nd you can play almost like a defender in coh. I havent used the other sets so i dont know how they work out.
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
I picked Ninja/Dark, so far he is level 11, so I'm just going to talk about the Dark set. The first 3 powers are all worth picking.
Twilight Grasp, The heal is centred around you, but it is very small AoE, so it is probably better for a ranged MM like bots or Mercs. With my Ninjas I find I have to get real close and personal to guarantee a heal. I ended up getting Aid Other from the medicine pool to back this up as I don't think it is reliable enough.
Tar Patch , get this, it is awesome, it is a resistance Buff ( 30%ish ) as well as a slow, so this really help the minions make quick work of a spawn.
Darkest Night, debuff the enemies ACC and Damage so it works well with defence based sets ( Ninja and the FF from Bots ).
I also tried a Mercs/FF build and didn't like it. I felt I wasn't doing enough and click buffs ( like the force fields ) really started to annoy me.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
With Dark I'd say the first 7 powers are worth picking.
It's that good a set.
I dont like Bots that much because of the annoying sounds. And yes, I noticed there are loads of bot/ff MMs. Usually I like to pick the less common set. My corruptor, for example, is a Sonic/Sonic. You don't see many around and it kicks-[censored]. But then again, just like robots, they really need to change the sound of it.
Back to the topic, I'm pretty sure I'll pick dark as secondary. Just can't make a decision about picking Mercs or Necro. Comment at will, evil soldiers.
@False Fiction - Virtue / Defiant
Current projects - [Glaciologist - Ill/Cold Troller] [Cloudshaper - Storm/Dark Def] [Harald Wartooth - Elec/Psi Domi]
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With Dark I'd say the first 7 powers are worth picking.
It's that good a set.
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I didn't fancy Howling Twilight or whatever the Res is called. Not until later anyway, there were too many other powers I felt would be more use.
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Just can't make a decision about picking Mercs or Necro. Comment at will, evil soldiers.
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I can only say about Mercs, they seemed really naff until the level 6 training power gave them Heavy Burst. They seem to be able to fire almost constantly and don't charge in to fight stupidly either, I think becasue they don't have a melee attack. I didn't get to the second tier henchman, but apparently that's where the set gets fun.
I imagine Nerco are much like ninja in behaviour, one of the 2 ninja always insists on staying back and ranged fighting so you have to move him into combat. Once in melee he will happily stay there.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Howling Twilight I use more often to disorientate a mob. Assuming I've another resser in the team. But i waited until level 16 to get it (I don't bother with Stamina).
One zombie of the two can be a bit useless getting into combat alright. I've Master Zs numeric keybinds set up, with the addition of lcrtl+lbutton also mapping to the goto command. The Grave Knights suffer from this as well so I used to move them in manually at the start of fights to absorb alpha strikes (Darkest Night + Fearsome Stare firing off as the zombies get noticed).
Thats the best bit of advice I can offer. Get Master Zs binds and use them, regardless of what you choose in the end. Always be issuing orders to your pets. Mine are always on Passive attacks or defensive attacks. Rarely do I allow they to be in Aggressive. Sometimes at the opening of combat I use Aggressive Move so they choose different targets to hold aggro on but once they're in combat they are switched to passive attacks.
I've got Mercs and what fun they are. So far I've got 2 soldiers and a spec-ops dude. I'm really having a riot with them and they do loads of damage which is cool.
My biggest problem is my secondary. I chose Trick Arrow for some reason and I can't say I'm too impressed. I think I was looking for a power that is more aggressive than some of the others. But so far I've only selected 'entangling arrow' the others hold no appeal for me at all.
I'd heartily reccomend Mercenaries to any first timer.
They've very much "point and shoot", especially at higher levels when they're all toting Full Auto; it's just utterly ridiculous how much lead they spew out.
Gets a bit dull at times - and after a while the gun noises kind blot out everything else - but they're fun, and simple to manage.
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Ahoy! Since CoV's release I've allways said to myself I would never play a MM. It seems far too easy and uber boring to buff them everytime they die.
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In which case, I don't recommend FF to you as a secondary - it's more buffing 
I'd go for a Robotics/Dark Miasma combo - exceedingly powerful toolset. Slows, debuffs, heals, and an extra pet. Robotics does energy and fire damage which are not as resisted as the Mercs lethal and fire damage.
I wouldn't recommend the Necro set though as it gets you into melee far too often for my liking. Some enjoy it though (and you may, coming from two melee AT's).
Just to add a few cents more:
1) Highly recommend not using FF with Ninjas or Necro. It's OKish early on, but at 38 you get force bubble which is absolutely awesome provided your henchies are ranged...it would be a waste with melee troops as they would be fighting miles away from you Also with the pretty low bonuses to defense, FF only starts making an appreciable difference when you get SO's. Even red bosses occasionally miss your -2 henchies! (But when they do hit...it's pretty much goodnight :P)
2) Robots and Mercs are the easiest to control by far; as mercs don't have a melee option, i suspect they are the easiest of all (occasionally a bot will decide to run off into melee for no reason at all and needs to be brought back).
Necros are 3rd, as they need some encouragement to get into melee using the Goto command (see keybind comment below), and also need close control to stop them running into new spawns before you are ready.
Ninjas are the hardest...not only do they have the same issue as necros, but the ninjas run twice as fast, so you can agro 3 spawns before you can blink :P
3) Get a decent bind setup for keys. Master_Zaprobo is the king here, see his excellent sticky on setting up a set of bind files...takes about 15-20 mins to create all the files (and a few mins in game to clear the typos :P), but will save literally hours in game during chars lifetime, and a few group wipes too!
I used to use Khaiba's numpad controls, but Master Zap posted a similar setup using alt+asdf etc. which is much better, so now I use a slightly modified version of that to include controlling single minions (for the annoying bot that runs off into melee).
4) Depending on playstyle, go easy on the attacks from the primary, I didn't take any, but know a few people that play like a blaster with support and seem to enjoy it 
Umm that's about it really! Pick a set that feels good to you, and definately try and sort some keybinds...the initial pain of setup is repayed later in spades..trust me!
(Twice as important on ninjas and necro to get those troops in melee)
A couple of clarifications for anyone reading this post (damn the edit expiry..)
1) The typos I referred to in the post above were mine converting from another system to Zaps controls, so anyone using those won't have to worry about that!
2) Zaps new keybind have had the single henchies in for ages now, so contain everything you need (I must have caught it in a transitional period around beta/release hehe)
There is no excuse for not having a good keybind setup as a MM now! It will save you and your team many times!
- Kal
Ahoy! Since CoV's release I've allways said to myself I would never play a MM. It seems far too easy and uber boring to buff them everytime they die. Anyway, I got 2 lvl40's, a brute and a stalker, now I'm trying the other ATs. I'm thinking of picking one of the builds:
Mercs/FF
Mercs/Dark
Necro/Dark
Bots/FF
I don't like Ninjas that much (no offense for those who play it and own with it). So I would appreciate if you could tell me the pros and cons of each build.
Thx in advance.
@False Fiction - Virtue / Defiant
Current projects - [Glaciologist - Ill/Cold Troller] [Cloudshaper - Storm/Dark Def] [Harald Wartooth - Elec/Psi Domi]