The one phrase while grouping that really gets me:
By
Afulia,
Posted on: 2006-03-21 15:47 in Masterminds
Never got this, but if I did, I'd just point out the fact that masterminds have no pets, only henchmen 
I've had this (during my tenure) and it's only at the higher levels when you can afford t be this blase about sending in henchmen to take aggro - when you have more than 3 or 4 of them.
A loss of two T1 henches to a L32 MM is not a horrendous thing. A loss of even one to a L12 MM is crippling!
I pretty much always send pets (or a sacrificial pet) in first, if not laying acid mortar to take the alpha.
In fact, acid mortar is the perfect alpha taker, or if it's not ready then Decoy Dave gets it in the face.
Never heard it because I do it anyway is my verdict! In fact, often I have asked the team to let my pets go in first so my team stay alive longer.
I very rarely, if ever used my bots as cannon fodder. That's what the brute was there for.
I don't think the Corruptors/Brutes/Stalkers would like it if I turned round and said "OK, you're not allowed to use 1/3rd of your attacks for this next fight" because that's what anybody who asked me to tank with my henchmen would be asking me to do, sacrifice a major chunk of my Damage Output.
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
losing one low tier henchman is losing 1/3rd of your damage? I think you are exaggerating.
I had to use acid mortar and sacrificing one of my low tier soldiers on a +4 respec trial or the team would not have finished the trial, simple as. It's a perfectly valid tactic and one of the more honorable pursuits for a mastermind I feel.
I'd rather a replaceable chunk of AI dies than my teammates, guess I'm selfless like that.
If there's a brute then he can take the alpha if he wants it.
No, losing one tier 1 henchman is not losing 1/3 of my damage output, but one henchman is going to do nothing other than die instantly. I send them all in, and my PB's stop shooting, to repair the other damaged bots, and I'm likely to lose one or more drones to a team sized spawn, especially of Longbow. Once the drones drop, all the aggro goes onto the remaining bots, and unless the rest of the team is real quick at grabbing aggro, you can be looking at a big hole where several of your henchmen used to be.
But the general gist stands, why should I be expected to sacrifice my damage output? I don't ask other AT's to stop using their primary powersets.
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
Actually i understand both point of views, and i've been asked a lot of times to send my henchies in to take the alpha strike ( having ninja it's known that if they do get hit...it's usually a 1 shot kill ). Now, i'm quite attached to my henchies so i get quite annoyed by this, but if i realise the group of npcs we're about to attack is dangerous for the group i have no trouble sacrificing the henchies for them. Note : if the group you are about to attack is really really dangerous, tell your group to pull, because once your pets are dead and if they don't act quick you'll get killed as well ( unless you stay invisible or in pff while sending your henchies ). So this kinda of thing with send henchies first is a bit situational - i'm not gonna send my pets to get killed after i spent 4 minutes buffing them just because the corruptor in group is too lazy to pull.
Of course, Henchmen dont get debt when they die, so maybe you are juuuuuust a bit too attached to them? 
Seriously, I can understand both sides of the argument, having most of the ATs as toons, however, if the team is one made out of reasonable people and not johny-l33t and his pals, I have no problems sacrificing henchmen to create a distraction - hell, henchmen are there to be sacrified for my MasterMinds greater glory after all 
Heh - chuckled at the idea of a script for making the henchies walk away when presented with suicide-tasks - that would be pretty great fun.
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I very rarely, if ever used my bots as cannon fodder. That's what the brute was there for.
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Newsflash: your bots are cannon fodder, if it comes down to it.
Unless the Brute wants to charge in for Fury-building purposes, I always start the show when playing my MM. Hell, sometimes I've deliberately sent one decoy bot out wide to specifically take the alpha whilst the rest of my henchmen took up position to open fire. I've never had any problems with "losing a 1/3rd of my attacks" either - it's very rare that any of my bots die (Repair & Twilight Grasp ftw), and if they do it's only a quick resummon and back they come.
"Tanking" as an MM is hardly the great burden you make it out to be - if you don't take up the role of "tank" on teams when necessary, then you've not fully explored the depths of the AT.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
Agree with Syn on this one , sorry you are in a team , and your T1 henchmen are so easily resummonable , dont tell me you spent the first part of the mission buffing those things up to max .
There damage output is ridiculous low in team , sent one in to take it for the rest is true spirit of team ,
Now i rather lose all my pets then i lose a Brute tanker.
Eh well the Brute Scrapper hmmm .. i have to think about it
Nah seriously Syn said it all .
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I pretty much always send pets (or a sacrificial pet) in first, if not laying acid mortar to take the alpha.
In fact, acid mortar is the perfect alpha taker, or if it's not ready then Decoy Dave gets it in the face.
Never heard it because I do it anyway is my verdict! In fact, often I have asked the team to let my pets go in first so my team stay alive longer.
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me too!!
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losing one low tier henchman is losing 1/3rd of your damage? I think you are exaggerating.
I had to use acid mortar and sacrificing one of my low tier soldiers on a +4 respec trial or the team would not have finished the trial, simple as. It's a perfectly valid tactic and one of the more honorable pursuits for a mastermind I feel.
I'd rather a replaceable chunk of AI dies than my teammates, guess I'm selfless like that.
If there's a brute then he can take the alpha if he wants it.
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What dont i love about cuddles?
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Fair enough when someone is suggesting sending a lone low mook ahead to absorb an alpha strike. It's the people who think that the purpose of a Mastermind is to send all his pets into the middle of the fight and use them to pull and tank.
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Getting back to the OP, I notice you don't have a problem with sending a minion in to soak up the alpha. I think part of the problem is that stateman (I think) said in a post somewhere that he thought masterminds were the tankers of CoV ... I can see what he's getting at (I played an illusionist for 50 levels after all ) but also see your point of view - you are not saying you won't send a lowbie summon in, just not all of them to play tanker (which is perfectly reasonable).
I am stealing that dialogue (monologue?).
And (to a different poster, I know you didn't say it) by not "sacrificing 1/3 of your damage output" it is entirely possible you will get someone else to sacrifice 100% of theirs...
Synaesthetix:if your mum wasn't already dead I would go kill her for bringing
you into the world
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Newsflash: your bots are cannon fodder, if it comes down to it.
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Newsflash: MY bots are not cannon fodder. Yours may be, but mine are fire support.
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Unless the Brute wants to charge in for Fury-building purposes, I always start the show when playing my MM. Hell, sometimes I've deliberately sent one decoy bot out wide to specifically take the alpha whilst the rest of my henchmen took up position to open fire. I've never had any problems with "losing a 1/3rd of my attacks" either - it's very rare that any of my bots die (Repair & Twilight Grasp ftw), and if they do it's only a quick resummon and back they come.
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Hmm, Repair, which work once every couple of minutes, and twilight grasp, which strangely enough, as a /traps MM, I don't have. Yep, that'll keep my bots ticking over real well...
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
well as traps, why not use your acid mortar to take the alpha? Unless you are anal about your acid mortar dying too :P
Honestly, sometimes you just have to tank with acid mortar or a low tier henchman. See my example of a +4 respec trial above. There's no way a -4 brute would have survived that alpha.
Do you run away as soon as one of your pets dies? Would you not rather see a little robot die than a team mate?
I think the original comment in the thread is more about when people expect you to do it all the time. That's like being told to "heal" when playing empathy or thermal I guess.
I think its not realy the fact IF you want to let your pets die for the team, its more the way how your team 'orders' you to do so. Thats the thing the TS seems to have probs with.
Some teams i send my pets in first, nonstop healing my assault bot who also got some nice corrupter (or is it dominator?) buffs. Straight after the first shot, brute already running in together with a stalker going for AS. In those teams, yes i will 'sacrifice' my pets for the good of the team. Specialy if they give you some purples to make 1 pet survive a complete aplha attack, even better
But in a team where they all wait and hang around untill all my pets are dead (no single support) and the mobs decide to hit the MM, no.. i let my pets sit around or just send in 1 little pet.
Even though my pets are replacable fast (hasten), i still feel kinda sad when 1 of my pets is going down.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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I very rarely, if ever used my bots as cannon fodder. That's what the brute was there for.
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Sorry, but you are completly wrong there. The design of CoV intends for MM pets to be used as tanks. Brutes are intended as boss killers (the Scrapper role in CoH) NOT TANKS.
If someone says "PETS IN FIRST" they are simply playing the game as it was designed to be played. It the reluctance to commit pets (and if nessasary sacrifice them) that makes me prefer not to team with MMs.
I really should do something about this signature.
I hate feeling like I'm not fighting at full strength and doing everything I can for the team. That said, I don't mind sacrificing one minion for an alpha, as long as the team is quick to follow up with their own attacks so it's not just me and my boys taking the heat.
Ultimately, I'm most effective when I have all my pets up and fighting, and downtime (between death and resummoning/retraining) should be reduced as much as possible. Not to mention that I have better things to do mid-battle than replacing dead pets, like debuffing enemies and making them cower like little girls. So I try to keep my boys alive as much as possible, despite naming them after ways to commit suicide (so they know what they're good for). PC teammates come first, obviously.
I can't think of a situation that would require sending in more than one pet to absorb an alpha. Maybe I just haven't come across it yet. But that's the way I approach the situation.
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Sorry, but you are completly wrong there. The design of CoV intends for MM pets to be used as tanks. Brutes are intended as boss killers (the Scrapper role in CoH) NOT TANKS.
If someone says "PETS IN FIRST" they are simply playing the game as it was designed to be played. It the reluctance to commit pets (and if nessasary sacrifice them) that makes me prefer not to team with MMs.
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If so, can you state EXACTLY in a document/help that MM are designed that way? You are totaly free to play your character however you wont (scranker, blapper, defaster anyone?), imho kinda wrong correcting people that play their own style. Besides that.. a pet cannot 'tank', they die nearly instant when they get hit. So you are already wrong in the line that they are supposed to play as 'tanks'.
Where is the good old 'pull one' tactics?
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
I have to agree with the OP on this one, my MM is not a tanker He is fire support (though he is also a RP char), though I will tank if needed, I will allways be a below par tanker in comparison to a Brute.
All my powers are based on "support".
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well as traps, why not use your acid mortar to take the alpha? Unless you are anal about your acid mortar dying too :P
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Nope, I'm kind of anal about me dying... Since I don't have any sort of stealth ability to let me get in close without drawing the alpha myself.
And a MM drawing the alpha on himself is a MM lying face down on the floor in 50% of cases, and when the MM drops, so do all the henchmen...
The point I'm trying to make has been made elsewhere. There is no 'Right Way' to play any class in CoV. I don't recall ever seeing a dev post saying 'MM's are the tanks of CoV'.
Brutes can be pseudo-tanks, or single target killers. Corruptors can be blasters or buffers, Dominators can be controllers or squishy scrappers, Stalkers can be single target killers, or melee scrappers, and MM's can be played however the hell they want to.
Having someone else tell you to sacrifice your henchmen is just rude. Unless they pay me 10k infamy per destroyed henchman in panel beating costs and protection money
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
It's not tanking as such, it's letting a low tier pet that does hardly any damage soak up the alpha strike that could kill a brute.
As I said, acid mortar is the best alpha taker imho, followed by decoy dave, my low tier soldier who does about 20 damage per attack. OH NOES ONE THIRD OF MY DAMAGE.
No one's forcing you to play that way, although it does seem to me that caring too much about your pets can make you a less effective mastermind, especially if you'd rather a team mate dies instead of one of your henchmen.
I have stealth for when laying the mortar but even when I didnt have it, you can lay it so it is just in range of the enemy, then leg it.
If you take fly with traps, you can lay everything except trip mine without the animation.
Using fly to zip around the battlefield laying traps out of your feet like little [censored] of death is great fun.
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Where is the good old 'pull one' tactics?
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This is where I love TP Foe.
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As I said, acid mortar is the best alpha taker imho, followed by decoy dave, my low tier soldier who does about 20 damage per attack. OH NOES ONE THIRD OF MY DAMAGE.
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Please get past the 1/3rd comment. It was a single exaggeration made in an attempt to stress the point that in that sort of situation I'd be getting asked to sacrrifice a big chunk of damage output. And I don't know about mercs, but I don know that a significant portion of my damage over time output comes from my Drones, and they are NOT expendable in my little world of masterminding.
I'll leave the whole lot of my henchemn behind as I run for a safer location to TP teammates out of trouble if I have to, but I don't send them in first as sacrificial lambs. (note stress, I'm not saying that other people do things my way, but I object to other people expecting me to play by their expectations.)
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
"Pets in first!"
Fair enough when someone is suggesting sending a loan low mook ahead to absorb an alpha strike. It's the people who think that the purpose of a Mastermind is to send all his pets into the middle of the fight and use them to pull and tank. Or that the MM will be able to hold his own in a fight even though you've just gotten him to paste all his pets across the pavement.
My solution is to use /petsay and make the pets themselves refuse to do it:
MR DeAth0292: Petz in first!!!
(pet)Ecconomy 8 (Ecconomy 6): Er...boss, did he just say 'pets in first?'
(pet)Ecconomy 9 (Ecconomy 6): Damn, that's wack dude.
(pet)Ecconomy 10 (Ecconomy 6): I don't get paid enough for this [censored]. Come on let's go get a burgar and show the ladies our laser vision.
(pet)Ecconomy 8 (Ecconomy 6): Word.
Then use /goto to send them wandering off where it's safe.
It's a bind everyone should have.