Simple Mastermind Doctrine & the Two Macros You Need (Beta - need comments!)

Hello, folks. I recently found myself writing a quick summary for a friend who hadn't progressed very far with Masterminds despite numerous attempts. I've taken a few MMs to level 50, so I shared what little wisdom I'd picked up along the way. The email explained a certain tactical mindset and a few macros that help you achieve that.

Then I look at the email I wrote him and realized it was 1/2 of a guide. I bashed at it a lot more.

So, this is an early draft. I'm not looking to create a guide on a specific build, or tactics overly-specialized for specific situations. The general tactics don't rely on a specific power combination or using IOs and three-billion influence. I don't want to rehash the list of every command. The basics are right there in the manuals and help. The advanced is already nicely covered by other guides available off the forums.

What I hope this gives is a focus to newer players for seeing what they can do to get quickly but effectively started as a Mastermind.

Bearing that in mind, I'd welcome feedback. I don't expect everyone to agree with everything I wrote here. But does the doctrine at least make sense the way I wrote it? Is there something that is so darn obvious it can be safely removed? I'd love to revise this as smaller and more concise!

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Introduction
There are already many excellent guides on getting the most out of individual Mastermind builds, optimal slotting and power choices, and complex macro schemes that involve twenty keybinds to accomplish complete control of your henchmen. They’re very nice, very thorough, but perhaps a bit too much.

There is the Pareto principle, and when applied to software design it is often expressed as the 20-80 rule: 20% of your features will be used 80% of the time by the user; 20% of your effort gets 80% of your usable results. The other 80% of the features and effort are nice, maybe even necessary, but will only be used 20% of the time.

I hope this to be the guide to the 20% that is the most useful tactical doctrine and macros. By creating two macros and by understanding some simple tactics, you will have combat techniques that will serve you most of the time for most builds.

Some of the advice will seem obvious, particularly if you have led several teams, but it is taken to a whole new level of importance when you play a Mastermind. Your individual henchmen are stupid and weak. Together, all of your henchmen are an army and should be treated as such.

This guide specifically addresses a doctrine that works well for solo play, small team play, and large team play when the team is not using some other specific set of tactics.

This guide is not to specifically address the Mastermind role in hyper-specialized teams, nor PvP, nor for special techniques for use against specific Arch Villains, nor to survive a speed run of your favorite Strike Force, nor to convince a closed-minded player of a Mastermind’s value.

Just as in real life, no tactical doctrine should be blindly followed. Understanding why this doctrine and these tactics work should give you an idea of how it applies to the situation you are facing, and perhaps when not to use it too.

This guide assumes you have read the help section on Mastermind commands. (Hint: RTFM!)

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Mastermind Doctrine

Effective Mastermind doctrine balances two opposed principles. Offense versus Defense is an overly simplistic way of thinking about it. For purposes of this doctrine, consider the more refined concepts of Force Concentration vs. Bodyguard Mode.

Force Concentration (Offense)
Force Concentration is a real world tactical doctrine that works well in City of Heroes/City of Villains combat.

Think of the point at the tip of a spearhead. All of the weight of the person behind it and the momentum of the spear throw concentrates at that one point. If a spear didn’t have the pointed spearhead, it would not have the penetrative power and would not put painful holes in the enemy. This is the essence of Force Concentration.

When you are in the role of the attacker, it is inefficient to send a thousand men against another thousand men, single-man on man. Instead, you send a few hundred of your men against one hundred of their men, and use the rest of your men to hold the rest of the battlefield in stalemate against the rest of their men. Your concentrated force overwhelms their first hundred men, and then moves on to their next hundred men, and so forth.

At lower levels and when soloing with Masterminds (and particularly when doing both at the same time!), your henchmen will not be unleashing enough damage to make entire mobs melt away at once. You will want to concentrate a good deal of damage on one target at a time. That first target goes down more quickly, and then you can move to the next target in the mob.

Think of it this way. Which is easier? You can fight 3 enemies who all die sixty seconds into combat, which means all three opponents are hurting you and your henchmen for all sixty seconds. Or, you can fight 3 enemies the first 20 seconds, then 2 enemies the next 20 seconds, then 1 enemy for the last 20 seconds.

Bodyguard Mode and Defense
When a henchman is in a Defensive Stance and has been ordered to Follow Me (such as immediately after it was summoned), it is in Bodyguard mode. For most Masterminds, it is useful or even vital to keep some henchmen in Bodyguard mode. This mode allows henchmen, when they are close to your Mastermind, to soak up a large percentage of the damage that you would otherwise take from opponents. It also allows them to counter-attack your opponents and try to grab aggro away from you.

Luckily, henchman behavior works to your benefit here. Not only do henchmen in bodyguard mode respond to attacks on you, they respond to attacks on other henchmen. In practice, this means henchmen in Bodyguard mode don't sit there idly in combat. It just takes them another second or so to join the fray – and even when they are returning fire they are still protecting you.

Combat Balance, and the Primary/Secondary Groups
A good rule of thumb is to have half of your henchmen on offense as Concentrated Force and half on defense as Bodyguards. The moment you have two or more henchmen, you want to set your controls such that you have one half of the henchmen concentrating their firepower on one opponent, and the other half remain in bodyguard mode most of the time keeping the rest of the mob from killing you.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Name them, Group them, and Command them
Give the Henchmen individual names.
Group your Henchmen into two groups.
Create the Command macros that tell each group what to attack.

Name Them
Assigning the henchmen individual names will help you keep track of them much better, and allow you to issue orders in your macros with a lot more granularity. It will allow you to create macros that mix and match henchmen across your summonable types, instead of sending all of one class in to attack at once. The examples below will assume you have used individual names.

Group Them
The first group, which we will call Primary, will be our Offensive group. The second group, which we imaginatively call Secondary, will be our Defensive group.

In general, I prefer to keep each group balanced for damage and numbers when possible. Approximately half your damage should be concentrated on one opponent, and the other half will be spread out damage to defend you and grab the enemy’s attention. If you can't keep damage balanced between the two groups, skew it towards the Primary group to encourage the quicker kill. If you have particularly good defense set for your Secondary pool, you may consider shifting more henchmen into the Primary group as you will need less defense from the Secondary group.

The special abilities of the henchman may complicate this division a bit. If a henchman type has a debuff that makes it easier to kill an opponent, like a defense debuff, you'll want to make sure you have at least some of that henchman type in your Primary group to debuff the main Target. This enables a quicker kill of the main target.

If the henchmen have a debuff that makes it harder for the opponent to kill you, like a to Hit debuff, you probably want to have at least some of it in the Secondary group. They are more likely to spread the attacks and thus leave more debuffed enemies.

Command Them
Create two macros in the power tray: One to focus all of the Primary group’s attention on your current target:

/macro Primary “petcom_name Pet1 attack defensive$$petcom_name Pet2 attack defensive$$petcom_name Pet3 attack defensive”

And a second to focus all of the Secondary group’s attention on your current target:

/macro Secondary “petcom_name Pet4 attack defensive$$petcom_name Pet5 attack defensive$$petcom_name Pet6 attack defensive”

We’ll go into why we have an attack macro for our Secondary (defensive) group a little later. Substitute Pet1, Pet2, and so forth with the names you have given your pets. The important thing to realize is that these commands are essentially saying “attack this one target and then drop into Bodyguard mode after you’ve killed it.”



The most basic combat-chain will be:

1. Select the enemy target
2. Press your Primary button. Half your force will attack that one target.
3. Attack or debuff that target as appropriate (or debuff other targets those debuffs will keep your squad alive longer).
4. Your secondary force will remain in bodyguard mode. They will counter-attack once you or another of your henchmen are attacked.
5. At any time, select a new target and press the Primary button to redirect your offensive power to that new target. Usually this is after your first target is killed.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Examples

Example One: A Robotic Mastermind with all six henchmen.
Our first example is a Robotics Mastermind with all three henchmen summons. He has:
Assault Bot: A-Huron
Protector Bots: P-Delaware and P-Florida
Battle Drones: D-Atlanta, D-Boston, D-Chicago

The Protector Bots have some to-Hit debuffs, so it's useful to make sure at least some of that being sprayed on the targets that will be in combat longer. With the sheer firepower of the Assault Bot, it is useful to have it begin combat and decimate those tough targets. For the most part Drones are the weakest and you can use them to balance the two groups.

The Primary Group will be the Assault Bot, one Protector bot, one Battle Drone. The Secondary group will be one Protector Bot and two Battle Drones. This will be a little damage heavy on the Primary group, make sure the to-Hit debuffs are spread around, but still leave the Secondary group enough manpower and firepower to do their job.

(button named 'Primary')

/macro Primary “petcom_name A-Huron attack defensive$$petcom_name D-Atlanta attack defensive$$petcom_name P-Deleware attack defensive”

(button named 'Secondary')

/macro Secondary “petcom_name D-Boston attack defensive$$petcom_name D-Chicago attack defensive$$petcom_name P-Florida attack defensive”

Usually, start combat by:

1. Selecting a target.
2. Press Primary.
3. Add your own attacks against the first target.

The Primary squad will attack, the Secondary squad will counter-attack when applicable in bodyguard mode. By adding your own attacks to the Primary squad’s attacks, you lessen the odds that the opponent will latch on to you for aggro and it dies quicker.

Example: Thugs Mastermind and 2 henchmen
As long as you have more than 1 henchman, the same principles apply. A level six Thugs MM, who only has two low-level thugs Thugs, would use:

(button named 'Primary')

/macro Primary “petcom_name Reynaldo attack defensive”

(button named 'Secondary')

/macro Secondary “petcom_name Roger attack defensive”

Use the same tactics to select one target, have the Primary henchman attack, add your attack, and let the Secondary henchman stay in bodyguard mode. It is worth it even at low levels to maintain this discipline – you wont have many hitpoints and you will need all of the help you can get from the Secondary henchman to keep you alive.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Two-Target Temptation

How to Avoid the Two-Target Temptation
It begins to look very tempting, either to begin the fight with a bang, or when you are down to only two targets, or when you are being ambushed by two targets, to just dedicate the Primary group to one target and Secondary group to another.

Resist this temptation. Over half the time you are tempted to do this, it is the wrong thing to do. You’re not a scrapper or a brute anymore. You have to think to survive.

When you tell your henchmen to attack, they are not in bodyguard mode. And until henchmen are very high level, they are not guaranteed to soak up lots of aggro. It is safer to let them share the damage you may take than it is to hope you never take that damage.

Second, because the henchmen in Bodyguard mode attack any target that has attacked you or the other henchmen, when you are down to 2 targets:

• The first Target gets 100% of the damage from the Primary henchmen and 50% of the damage from the Secondary henchmen, for approximately 75% of all henchmen’s damage potential.
• The second Target gets 50% of the damage from the Secondary henchmen, for approximately 25% of all henchmen's damage potential.

That retains concentration of force. Your first Target will go down more quickly. Your last target doesn't have a chance.

When to Yield to Two-Target Temptation
There are occasions you should send the Secondary unit (your defensive unit) to attack. Sometimes, usually not until level 20 and beyond, you are going to find a situation where it is absolutely vital to take down one particular enemy in a particular mob as quickly as possible. Malta Sappers, Raider Engineers, and Rikti Communications Officers make life much more difficult if they are given even a few uninterrupted seconds, and it's usually worth it to abandon the bodyguard protection for those few seconds so you can kill them more quickly. That's what that Secondary macro is for. If you have a mob with one very high priority target:

1. Select the Target.
2. Press Primary.
3. Press Secondary.
4. Add your own attack against the Target.

All Mastermind henchmen will work to take down the high priority target as quickly as possible, and then lapse to bodyguard mode. Again, at that point you can select a new target and get your Primary group concentrating firepower on that, and leave your Secondary group staying in Bodyguard mode to defend you and counter-attack in response to enemy attacks.

There are some ugly mobs with two high priority targets (say, two Raider engineers or two Rikti Communications Officers). In these mobs, it is useful to keep both of the high priority enemies tied up and taking damage so they cannot summon force field generators or portals.

1. Select the first Target
2. Press Primary
3. Select the second Target
4. Press Secondary
5. Add your own attack against the Secondary (or Primary) Target

This leaves significant damage focused on two different targets, two which will not be able to concentrate long enough to do their summons. Again, allow the Secondary group to lapse into Bodyguard mode after they have taken out their high-priority target.

In either of those cases, it is important to get the Secondary group back to protecting you as quickly as possible.

It is usually not worth giving in to Two-Target Temptation for enemy healers and enemy buffers. The difference between their healers being active one second versus eight seconds is not great enough to justify the risk. Instead, just treat the offending healer as the Primary target and let your Primary group concentrate its damage on it.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Learn the Advanced Controls for the Other 80%
With these two buttons in your tray, you can ditch the 'follow me' 'attack my target' and 'stay' buttons the game placed into your tray at character creation.

Use the Advanced Controls in the Pets window for those occasions where you need to have them all stay, or send only one henchman in to attack something and then immediately recall him so he pulls enemies towards you, put them in passive mode, have one henchman attacking per target, or so forth. Those are the other 80% of the pet commands that you will use less than 20% of the time, and usually you will not have to use those in the heat of battle.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Advanced Topics and Recommended Reading:

Force concentration article on Wikipedia, to explain why it usually works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_concentration

Pareto principle article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Mastermind strategy page on Paragon Wiki, which is really more of a Mastermind mechanics page:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mastermind_Strategy

Threat page on Paragon Wiki, to get a better feel for how much force is really needed to grab aggro:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Threat

And all of the other Mastermind guides that will help you wring every last drop of performance out of your particular Mastermind.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

That's it. Comments, critiques, etc. would be appreciated. Please don't throw rotten fruit at me, and if you throw fresh fruit I'd appreciated pears, oranges and peaches.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

I only managed to skim though since I am at work, but the advice about 2 groups is something I am definately going to adopt with my latest MM.

I love how I have got my main MM to 50 and am still learning!

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This right here is awesome. Makes so much sense, and it's something I'm going to adopt with my MMs. Thank you so much!

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Currently playing:
The Domestic: Broom/WP
Shadowhex: Dark Control/Dark Affinity
Defenestration Lass: Grav/Kin

"See, this is what happens when you have to shove all this stuff into your pockets: it's easy to misplace a suborbital warhead." -Arcanaville, on how crowded our power trays are getting lately

It's nice other than the fact I see no page on the tactical and strategic understanding and use of your secondary powers. Pets alone do not make the Mastermind, the advantages both the Primary and Secondary pools bring is what makes you a truly formidable force (so long as you aren't playing Mercs ).

Other than that it's a nice guide albeit a little out-of-the-ordinary with the two target "temptation".

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

Weird thing here. Running Ninjas. Ichi and Nii are my genin, and I just picked up the Jounin, Shi.

/macro PRI “petcom_name Ichi attack defensive$$petcom_name Shi attack defensive”

Target... hit the macro, and Ichi heads for the mob. However... Shi attacks ANOTHER mob before moving on to attack the targeted mob.

I look at my macro, and half of the macro command line is gone. Only the commands for Ichi are still there.

Am I missing something here about writing this?

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Currently playing:
The Domestic: Broom/WP
Shadowhex: Dark Control/Dark Affinity
Defenestration Lass: Grav/Kin

"See, this is what happens when you have to shove all this stuff into your pockets: it's easy to misplace a suborbital warhead." -Arcanaville, on how crowded our power trays are getting lately

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Nah, I think there's another issue. Just edited to add that when I look at the macro command line half the macro's gone.

Oh, wait, I think I have it now. Working swimmingly now. Dunno why it was doing that.

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Currently playing:
The Domestic: Broom/WP
Shadowhex: Dark Control/Dark Affinity
Defenestration Lass: Grav/Kin

"See, this is what happens when you have to shove all this stuff into your pockets: it's easy to misplace a suborbital warhead." -Arcanaville, on how crowded our power trays are getting lately

Rather than two groups, I prefer to use the numpad binds so I can be even more granular. I can selectively add any one pet, any class of pets, or all pets to a particular stance quickly and easily. I like having granular control over my pets. It's especially helpful when you have one go running amok and you want to recall them, but you don't want to interrupt the others. Just throw a "heel" command to that one pet with the keypad and he's back in line.

I strongly advocate using keypad binds from the beginning and learning to use them early. They put all the power of the advanced commands right at your fingertips without the same learning curve as using macros and figuring them out situationally later.

Start with the full set of tools from the beginning in an easy to learn format and it will serve you well.

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I ended up removing the quotation marks and added a space before and after the $$ and it works great.

/macro Prim petcom_name pet1 attack defensive $$ petcom_name pet2 attack defensive

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Glad to see some people are getting some use out of it.

Sorry if some of you feel it's simplistic. That's a simultaneous design feature and a design flaw.

I personally don't use the multi-bind files, but that's because the amount of time I want to control per-henchman or per-henchman class is pretty limited. I like my mixed groups.

Next edition whenever I get around to it... not for another month at least. I'll probably trim it that time to make it smaller.

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Current MA Arcs:
38375: "S-Lite" Comes to Kings Row (Heroic 5-14)
119583: Cease and D-CiST (Neutral 30-54)
211441: Desecration (Villainous 14-33)

All ,I can say is "THANK YOU cfischer999 !!!"

I have only had two masterminds in my 4 years of coh/cov. I have found them to be frustrating especially at the higher levels...32 +...

I had a poison/undead...and a TA/ninjas.

I have moved from victory to Freedom because of the lack of population. I hated to move after all this time...but after moving...and finding team..after team..after team...Im glad I did...

And thanks to your guide,,,Ill try MMs again. Im trying a traps/ninja MM....Thank you again..

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Oh..and I have a quick question...

Its about thugs/dark..

I keep reading that i DONT want to equip my bruiser (brute) because he will handclap people out of the tar patches ect....

If I "upgrade " my pets I upgrade them all...So I would avoid upgrading the bruiser by summoning everyone BUT the bruiser...upgrade my pets...then summon the bruiser?

Is this right or is there another way to have my bruiser avoid the "upgrade" pets power.?

Thank you in advance...Im real new to MMs...sorry for the basic question.

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You got it spot on.

The only other way is to use the GOTO command and send him out of range.

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Thank you....

My bots/traps is at 18...and having a lot of fun. Range is fun .. after leveling my "ninja squad of blood and guts" for a while, the change was welcome.

My ninja/traps is at 14....its fun but everyone is right about the ninjas and thier "pajama" armor....wow..talk about squishy.....But man...do they look cool.

My thug/dark is 10....and for the fun factor its running neck and neck with bots/traps.

Its hard for me to play MMs because Im used to being the one doing the killing....BUT....I have to say...thugs/dark is keeping my interest so far....

I feel like "in" the action....and contributing a lot. I just got my upgrade...and Im sorry..i took dual wield. I need to shoot at something!... Ill respec out of it later...but ill get the cone attack (unload clips?)..just so I can look the thugs in the eyes after the mission and say "man...did u see me nail that Troll?....Kerpow!! head shot!"

Thanks for the help everyone.....

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I was thinking...

I hear people have trouble keeping their arsonist alive. If I use this macro...on my arsonist (Roscoe)..and I notice him getting pummled he should stop attacking and run to my side..so I can heal him.

/macro Flwp "petcom_Roscoe follow passive"

I have two macros already...Ive broken up my minions in two groups...the first (primary) group attacks while the second (secondary) sits back in BG mode..and attacks only after I or my minions are attacked.

Works great for me..KISS.."keep it simple stupid"..

Was just wanting to plan ahead for the spazzmatic/suicidal arsonist...

If the above macro wont work...could you suggest another?..

Thank you in advance.

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I don't have a thugs MM myself but that is the exact thing I have seen others talking about, he should return to you without shooting back so unless you catch him mid animation or under heavy fire he should get back to you safely.

As for the dual wield choice that is an ok choice for a low level MM, I have the pulse rifle on my bots/traps (level 14) because otherwise I would run out of things to do. I will respec it out around 22 (When I respec for stamina), and that is probably a good time for you to do so too. Though dual pistols does look cool all the way to 50!

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