Good for what?

So I was thinking about rolling a mastermind.... but checking on the foruns I only see 3-4 kinds of masterminds and all others looks... gimped..

Most people are thugs/bots with traps/dark/forcefield, with an ocasional necromancer.

I was checking on mids, Thugs/bots with traps or dark can softcap defs easily, making them great AV killers.



Where is the ninja love?!
And mercs?

So here is my question:
How good are ninjas and mercs and... for what?
I dont see ninja's soloing AVs, actually, everyone say that they die so easily and they are bad henchies, same goes for necro.

I'd like to see someone with a positive review of the ninja set >.< how good would be a ninja/thermal? would the pets survive an AV encounter? what about pvp?

Necro bad? Ninjas bad? Who's telling you this? All henchmen usually die easily as well. Necro will not die easily at all if you pair it up with /Dark, /Pain, /whatever. Thugs and Bots are waaay overrated. Roll what you what and what you feel like. Mercs are slightly gimped to be honest, but I'm hoping Mercs will get an update soon!

Ninjas: Ninjas do some serious single target damage. Ninjas CAN kill an AV IF the player knows what they are doing and have the appropriate secondary for doing this. Ninjas are not only heavy single hitters, but they can cause some extreme crowd chaos post 32. Raif of Fire, Caltrops, explosives, etc. Ninjas are great with Traps, Force Fields, Dark Miasma, and Storm Summoning. In fact, they're good with whatever you enjoy laying intelligently.

Necromancery is a powerful pet primary, do not EVER let someone tell you it's weak. Zombies hit hard, arguably harder than Ninjas themselves. While the Tier 3 Pet may do limited damage he's a BEAST of a debuffer. Slot him with ToHit, Control, and Accuracy for the absolutely best results. Almost anything works with Necromancery so long as it is used intelligently as your secondary. Trick Arrow may give you the occasional headache (but when doesn't it?).

The other primaries are just as good as Thugs and Robotics in their own ways (Except Mercenaries sadly but they're still a fun primary to play!).

In my experience Necro/Dark is COV on easy mode.

I've got a Thugs/Traps that doesn't feel anywhere near as powerful. Once I get my firebase setup he's on par, just doesn't have the same destroy as you go feel.

I played up to level 16 with a Ninja/TA. Just couldn't stand the wild AI with them. GoTo didn't even seem to help. This was 3 issues ago though so they may have been improved by now.

I played up to level 8 with a Merc/Poison. Really didn't like this combo though. Something just didn't sit right with me. Could have just been the concept I used though.

I've been avoiding playing Bots for the longest time. Now I know why. I plan on rolling a Bots/Storm on blueside once GR hits!

With proper usage of the Goto macro and BG mode nearly any combo can be deadly. I'd personally stick with Thugs/Dark OR Thugs/FF for AV soloing though. I find Necro to be hard hitting but AV's tend to spam PBAOE's which devastate the melee guys.

Just made a ninja/thermal and lets see how it goes, hehe, so far I am enjoying her more than my thugs/thermal at level 6, kill faster.

Tip for the melee pets:

Bind a goto command to a mouse button.

A few other binds are helpful for stances and such, but this one little tip will put even the spastic ninjas right where they should be.

Still not much with mercs. that's the Mm I want to roll and regardless, I am the type to play what I want but I am wondering what's "gimped" bout them? I am looking @ devices for my secondary or maybe even pain domination. I like the ninjas as well. Oh BTW, this will be my second villain along with my lvl 3 brute. Not very well experineced with villains.

I have a Merc/Dark MM and it's like my own personal shooting gallery. With Tar Patch and Fearsome stare to hold people in place, I can tear apart just about anything at range.
Shadow fall makes getting the Mercs into position almost too easy and, if you're looking for a healers badge, Twilight Grasp almost hands it to you.

Honestly, mercs is the set that feels the most "Mastermind-ish" of all of them other than bots. You know, the whole COBRAAAAAAA! feeling.

Heh... got to level 13 with her and didn't like Jounins much >.>, the graves are much more "ZOMGBIGHITS!"

xD might reroll necro/thermal

I have a ninja/stormy. It was fun, but I don't log it in much. Not much call for MMs to come do anything except maybe an occasional Barracuda TF.

That storm slow toggle and the freezing rain helps keep the packs from spreading out and causing the idiot ninja to run all over rooms like chickens with their heads cut off aggroing everything in sight. I always assumed ninja and zombehs were just terrible sets because whenever I'd group with one their pets would just be going hog wild charging all over the place--but they're not actually that bad if you bother to learn finer points of pet control. The Bots, Thugs and Mercs seem to just stand there and not require your input while they shoot away...which makes them kinda really boring ez-mode.

Guess Demon Summoning might be melee-centric too, even it out 3 melee 3 ranged pet types?

I think the problem here is the fact that NO mastermind combo is gimped in the sense that they are not playable or even in the sense that they are not better soloers than just about any other AT. However there are some primaries that take more WORK to use effectively than others and there are some primary/secondary combinations that do not synergize as well.

Because of the way the AI works the two melee primaries (ninja's and necromancy) are harder to work with than the ranged primaries (thugs, robots, mercs). The melee pets do have ranged attacks and the AI frequently can't decide whether it wants to stand back and spam the ranged attacks or attack at range, then close up and use melee attacks - worse, you will frequently have some pets close up and melee and others hang back and blast which means for those sets that need pets in close proximity for heals it may be harder to manage them. However if you CAN control the melee pets reasonably well they tend to be VERY hard hitting.

Also, within the group of ranged pets some are better than others. For example, while mostly sharing a damage type (lethal) thugs tend to do at least as good single target damage as mercs but have better AE and do some fire damage. Merc's get slightly better damage mitigation at low levels (good smashing/lethal resists) but by high levels the +def from thugs enforcers beats this out. So overall, thugs tend to be a little better than mercs. However, mercs are still a completely viable primary.

Then there are some secondaries that are very powerfull - dark for example with its nice mix of debuff, control and heal tends to make any primary easy to manage - the only problem dark faces is the small radius on its heal. Trick Arrow on the other hand has very little damage mitigation and so plays best with a primary that is highly defensive, like thugs or robots.

So while pretty much any mastermind will be at least 'powerfull' as other AT's within the MM AT some combinations don't compare as well as others or require more management. As folks have mentioned - mercs/traps or merc/dark is a nice combo that should be fun to play even if it doesn't have the pure damage output of thugs. If you want to go melee Ninja/dark will do well although you will have to work hard to group your ninja's together for the heal. Ninja/thermal might also work well - the wider area on the AE heal + the single target heal, combined with the res shields might work as well as dark but I haven't tried a thermal MM yet so I am not sure how well the combo will work.