I have to be honest with you, a melee heavy MM primary coupled with a set that relies on knockback for a lot of its mitigation is not something I would recommend.
[Edit]: Though as your choices and concept are up to you, I'll try to help.
But first: where are you getting Ice Patch from with Storm Summoning?
I wasn't referring to the Ice Patch power, just an ice patch in general using Freezing Rain.
So, bad choice of powersets then? If im not mistaken, every single pet is melee intensive with the exception of robotics (largely ranged), so does that make Storm Summoning a weak choice for masterminds in general?
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)
Nah, Mercenaries, Bots and Thugs are all ranged-heavy, except for the Bruiser (the level 26 pet from Thugs). Storm Summoning has great synergy with those as it keeps you and your pets alive and in your optimum atmosphere: At range.
Anything can be made to work though. I have some experience with Storm Summoning... On outdoor maps it might be tricky, but knockback can work pretty well in indoor maps - just push the enemies into a corner with Gale and/or Hurricane and keep them on their [censored] while your zombies puke on them/GKs cut out their entrails.
Your heal is single-target, which can make it a little uncomfortable to use as you get more and more pets to keep alive (a common complaint from /Poisons Masterminds as well), but at least it's quick and therefore spammable as long as your endurance can handle it.
Snow Storm is helpful with all primaries as it makes stuff kill you/your pets slower, but I take it this is pretty obvious.
Steamy Mist helps your Zombies' Fire Resist hole at least a little. The Defense is fairly negligible, sadly - though it would work slightly with Bots by stacking with Protector Bot force fields I guess?
If I recall correctly, Freezing Rain causes "old Fear", as in it makes stuff run around like crazy trying to get out of it. Of course, being smacked by zombies still results in them turning around to shoot them in the face every so often, but it offers at least some mitigation, as well as adding more slows to Snow Storm and making things die faster.
Hurricane, as mentioned, should mostly be used with Gale to pin stuff in a corner and keep it down. It also reduces accuracy, which makes your zombies die a bit less.
Thunder Clap, again, knocks back, which is the overall theme of Storm Summoning. It also stuns, providing another source of mitigation, but you don't have this yet at your level.
As for Tornado, I honestly don't know if this would be a good power choice with Melee pets... It's a great source of mitigation/chaos, but it also throws things around like crazy. However, if you go for Mu Mastery, you can get Electrifying Shackles, the AoE Immobilize. It makes foes immune to knockback (note that this will prevent use of Gale and reduce the effectiveness of Hurricane) and allows the Tornado to simply smash and stun them, providing another version of a "ghetto hold" as they stand there being killed.
Lightning Storm is another pseudo-summon that does great damage, and - if I recall correctly - knocks stuff back when it zaps them. However, it'll increase your killing power greatly.
To sum up, Storm is actually pretty good for active mitigation, but on outdoor maps this can simply annoy you by spreading foes around. On indoor maps you can simply use careful aiming and keep foes pinned in a tight cluster in a corner, however, which works pretty well if you keep them on their [censored], and it allows your zombies' puke to hit them all (it's a Melee AoE). Best you can do is avoid outdoor maps (if possible) and factions that you know will have a lot of Lethal damage (Council, etc.).
Sorry about my first comment, it's just not a set combination I would personally use. However, I always respect peoples' concepts.
my zombie storm is almost lvl 49 and i have no probs killin anythin that gets in my way.. im on relentless and still manange to destroy ebs and even the odd hero.
my tactic is drop ice rain.. then run into the mob and pop thunderclap to sleep the minions.. then my zombies go to town on em.. sure youll lose 1 or 2.
my fav power by far tho is lightning storm.. once you have that its over for any bads your fightin.
my advice keep at it.. your not at full strenth yet.
Kin Hell Fire
Barline
Bibbi.
Slushy Kins
Nuria Dark
[ QUOTE ]
my tactic is drop ice rain.. then run into the mob and pop thunderclap to sleep the minions.. then my zombies go to town on em.. sure youll lose 1 or 2.
[/ QUOTE ]I guess im too used to playing Robotics / Forcefields. I rarely lose my bots unless there's a tough boss or archvillain in their midst, and even then there's usually a heavy miss-spree before my minion drops.
Slowly getting more used to playing the AT though, but Storm is heavily endurance draining. O2 Boost gives a very poor cure and is only really useful for the bonus to disorient protection or perception (For players), so it seems I'll be heavily reliant on Aid Other for my pet cures.
As an afterthought, isn't running into a mob rather suicidal for a mastermind with no personal defense save for his (rather brittle) zombies?
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)
i use body guard mode for the alpha ..wen there all fallin on there bums ..i pick my targets..
Kin Hell Fire
Barline
Bibbi.
Slushy Kins
Nuria Dark
I've seen it countless times before. The undead hordes charge into battle screaming for brains and the only eating they get to do is feast off their brethren as they eat machine gun.
Hi, Zombie mastermind here and my pets are constantly dead at the best of times, yet I seem to have trouble keeping them reanimated. With my storm secondary I have no real means of protecting them from damage save for Steamy Mist, which is incredibly weak in terms of defense (3%) and only offers resistance against Fire, Cold and Energy damage. Nice if you're battling Circle of Thorns, but not so great against machine gun toting Longbow or Arachnos.
I can toss down an ice patch, but a good number of enemies have resistance to knockdown and still manage to shotgun my zombies quite happily. And as anyone will tell you, zombies have a weakness to shotguns.
So, survival tips are basically what im looking for. Storm Summoning is greatly reduced in effectiveness from the Defender and Controller versions in terms of duration, slows, and damage so slotting tips or power choice recommendations would be nice too.
My Mastermind is level 21, for those who need that info.
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)