Don't shield the lesser pets. Basically I'd allow for buffing the MM and 2/3 of his pets, usually the strongest 3. Otherwise its a nightmare.
If the MM sprints off thats their own problem. In fact thats generally my attitude with any AT runners. If you need healing don't run away from me. I have to focus on the main group so you're better off being in it. That said if the main group are Ok generally I'll try and save the runner. I'm usually Kinetics healer though so without enemies I can't heal you really.
Also I'd rarely worry about healing a MMs pets, focusing on the players rather than the pets. Of course I'm always trying to create the greatest benefit from the kinetics AOE heal and I'll try to include pets if possible.
Personally I think MMs have to be able to control and manage their pets properly (making sure they're in range for heals etc) rather than Corrupters or anyone else having to do the work for them.
Speaking as a mastermind, I don't bother to bubble my own pets unless I can tell the [censored] is really about to hit the fan.
So, don't really bother. You're thermal right? The heals should be enough.
IN MEMORIUM OF GAYBABY
CRUELY TAKEN FROM THIS WORLD WHILE SO YOUNG
My approach has always been, if I'm in a Duo with a single Mastermind I do my best to keep him and his pets fully buffed.
If I have to cope with more than one other player, I buff the players, but Masterminds pets get AoE buffs and nothing else. The exception to this is any downtime where I have a full end bar I use cycling through the Mastermind pets (using a key bound to target_friend_next) and speed boost as many as possible, since doing this doesnt actually reduce my End.
Post-26 - don't buff us, buff our big henchman (Lich, Oni, Commando, Assault Bot) as they'll get the most benefit from it.
We have a Buff/Support secondary ourselves so can generally take care of henchmen ourselves, but more survivability on our Tier Three will never go amiss.
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Post-26 - don't buff us, buff our big henchman (Lich, Oni, Commando, Assault Bot) as they'll get the most benefit from it.
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This definately applies to speed boosts. They always benefit from speed boosts as do teams if either there is little aggro grabbing capability or if you need the extra damage. The assult bot is a perfect example of this with incendary rockets that are basically an ignite attack per mob with in the attacks AOE range. Also most of the henchmen have low recharge rates so any recharge buffs are best applied to them instead of the person hiding behind them.
Most MM builds have ways to keep their own pets alive, whether heals or buffs. Prioritise the players and only buff/heal pets if you can without compromising the team - that's a judgement call you'll have to make depending on team/circumstance.
When playing my Corruptor I'm lucky that my desirable buff (Accelerate Metabolism) and my heal are PBAEs - with AM it is the MM's responsibility to get his pets in range after I announce "gather for AM".
When playing my MM I don't expect my pets will get buffs from Corruptors, though I am grateful when they do. My robots certainly aren't capable of tanking, no matter what buffs you stick on them - even necro pets struggle at extended tanking without lots of healing behind them.
When playing my Brute I expect to be prioritised for buffs/heals, because I should be taking most of the aggro/hits (especially as I'm a Fire/Fire, so getting AE aggro is no problem at all).
In my experience team-wipes usually happen after the Brutes faceplant - prioritise them. After them Corruptors & Dominators tend to get most aggro, depending on build/playstyle, then Stalkers (though inexperienced/impatient and/or scrapping Stalkers can attract more aggro than Corrs/Doms sometimes) - although stalkers do have tools to manage their aggro. So I'd put Masterminds at the bottom of the buffing list, just above their pets - yes MMs have the lowest hit points of any archetype in CoV, but in my experience they have to do something pretty serious to take aggro away from the other ATs - their pets do great damage cumulatively, but the aggro is spread around and not all on the MM.
As for tanking, in CoV beta and early CoV I insisted "brutes are not tankers!" but in retrospect I have tanked most of the AVs/Heroes in the game with my brute and it's the only villain archetype really suited to traditional tanking WHEN it's required. But CoV teams only need a dedicated tank against AVs/Heroes/GMs. Otherwise it's up to each individual in a team not to bite off more aggro than they can chew - otherwise the consequences are their own (it's the selfish villainous way!).
Though as a team leader I've sometimes asked an MM to send a pet in first against a big spawn as a sacrifice to take the alpha strike - especially if none of the Brutes could survive it (e.g. I know as a /Fire I struggle against the alpha of a spawn with more than 4 Nerva Spectrals in it) - not sure that counts as pet tanking though 
But if an MM loses his pets, doesn't have enough End for re-summons (or his summons aren't recharged), then you have to let him run (he's probably looking for a safe corner to Rest, re-summon and re-buff) - there's not much else he can do except die! If losing one team member is dooming your teams then you may need to look deeper for other problems - maybe tactics or difficulty level, or inexperienced teammates. You should always keep something in reserve for unexpected situations (teammate dying, ambushes, unexpected adds).
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Though as a team leader I've sometimes asked an MM to send a pet in first against a big spawn as a sacrifice to take the alpha strike - especially if none of the Brutes could survive it (e.g. I know as a /Fire I struggle against the alpha of a spawn with more than 4 Nerva Spectrals in it) - not sure that counts as pet tanking though
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As long as there is no hero/AV/Gm in a spawn I will quite happily take the alpha strike in any team I am in(unless facing a lot of reds/purples). As a /FF MM I can quite happily TP into the centre of a big group with PFF running to take all the nasty aggro and then let the pets and other team members thin it out so it is managable. If there is no brute on the team and we need tanking I will always volenteer to do it. As a result of this I am considering getting provoke and 6 slotting it just to pull aggro when required - ie fire off provoke and then hit PFF.
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As long as there is no hero/AV/Gm in a spawn I will quite happily take the alpha strike in any team I am in(unless facing a lot of reds/purples). As a /FF MM I can quite happily TP into the centre of a big group with PFF running to take all the nasty aggro and then let the pets and other team members thin it out so it is managable. If there is no brute on the team and we need tanking I will always volenteer to do it. As a result of this I am considering getting provoke and 6 slotting it just to pull aggro when required - ie fire off provoke and then hit PFF.
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Yeah PFF is good for that, as is Phase Shift - but I'm hardly ever in teams with one of those powers available.
With my Fire/Fire Brute I'm always up for taking an alpha (great way to build Fury in a team), especially when I have Corruptor shield buffs, unless the spawn contains things that I know will kill me before heals (my own, or from a Corruptor/MM) can save me. Fortunately most of my teams have multiple brutes, so they all charge in together and pray one of them isn't unlucky enough to get the entire alpha.
The problem with buffing masterminds pets is that we havent got the tools to do it.
We dont have a graphical list showing them, that we can click on to select them or that we can look at to see which Buffs are in place.
There are no slash commands to quickly select teammates pets. /team_select can be used for teammates, but the nearest we have for pets is target_friend_next which would allow youto quickly cycle through everyone if they all remained the same distance from you. Also the only way of knowing if a pet is buffed is to look at it for the buff effects, which is impossible in the heat of combat.
The end result is that trying to keep a single henchman's big pet buffed takes almost as much effort as buffing an entire team of eight. To show what I mean, to buff a team mate I hit the appropriate key on the Numeric pad (eg Numpad 2 for the second team member), and then the appropriate key for the buff (eg 9 for Boost Speed. In order to buff a pet I either have to pick it out in the mess of combat or repeatedly hammer the key bound to target_friend_next until I select it. If it doesnt come up I have to assume I'm facing the wrong way, turn and try again. When I do manage to select it I have to figure out if it actually needs to be buffed (which is almost impossible) or just assume it does (a waste of Endurance) and then buff it.
I've found that having a key bound to pull the camera back to extreme istance helps with selecting pets because you get a wider field of view and have more chance of actually having the pet in that field of view. The truth is, its not worth it. I know for a fact I'm better of investing my time in more effectively supporting those I can more easily help.
First of all - please forgive me for not using 10 arcane acronyms per sentence. I abhore the netspeak.
Allow me to explain:
I am now running a second char. My first one is 20+lvl Mercenary Mastermind. I am now running an 11lvl Radiation/Thermal corruptor. And the biggest problem I've found is... well, managing the Masterminds
From my experience I see the Masterminds as the closest thing to a tank that the villains have. Their pets are not nearly as tough as a Brute, but there's a lot of them, they can be respawned and nobody really cares if they go down. This being said if they DO go down and the Mastermind cannot respawn them quickly, bad things happen. The Mastermind is quite squishy and if he gets the aggro from the baddies that ate his pets, he will go from green to red in seconds. His basic instinct by then is to run like hell, bump into another mob and die. More than once I've found myself in the situation when a Mastermind has done a runner, died somewhere and the team was severely weakened with me trying desperately to balance the heals and damage output (if a team, and that does not happen rarely, consists of Masterminds and me I have the biggest capacity for powerful single shots). I am now considering getting into the teleport pool, just to prevent the Masterminds from sprinting away and dying in some dark corner when they pets buy it.
But my main problem with this archetype is the huge endurance drain it puts on me. If I am in a team with 3 Masterminds I have to keep about 9-12 friendlies shielded and healed. I've found you get more value for money keeping the pets health stable than caring for their masters - they usualy have sense enough to stay away from aggro, but go absolutely nuts if their pets go down. So this means dealing out something like 18-24 shields and still having endurance for healing and support fire. Has anyone run into such scenarios? How do you deal with the endurance problems?