Mastermids will become living gods, Blueside :O

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THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
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MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
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8 man team of Thugs MM with Gang warfare taking on Lusca please!

And people wonder why the Devs have been reluctant to give the kinetics secondary to MMs.
At least heroic MMs will have to team up with at least one other person to get that going.

MMs can get an AoE Immob in their epics so they only really need one corr for Fulcrum. I'm pretty much taking alpha strike with my MM anyway so protecting my pets really isn't that big of an issue. All the more so when they are Bots anyway.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

So what you're saying is... nothing will change, they'll just be blueside?

Duh.

He does raise a good point. Some of the only things that give masterminds pause are uncommon or nonexistent on the hero side of the fence. Makes me wonder if the devs might purposefully add autohit AoE damage to some blue stuff just for the masterminds...

Maybe MMs deserve their own equivalent of Kheldian Quants/Voids.

I feel sorry for the server hamsters already 0_0 But I would want to see that!

Those are call demolitionists, and any mobs with a large amount of AoE damage

Roguespear checking in!

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

You know, I should have thought about this before I said anything.

In fact, I mentioned this weakness myself, not too long ago.

Nemesis? Quite common in the late game too.

That would be quite... entertaining.

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

Nah. the nemesis/council/malta/etc AoE's can whiff. And if they can whiff, trust me, they will.
*Pats forcefielded pets contentedly*

Many of the 'strongest' mastermind sets have high -tohit or +defense, which with some maneuvers and pet +def/+res IO's make the pets able to shrug off a lot of the AoE's you'll encounter. But the autohit burn patches? It's all a matter of time. You will be having BBQ'd minions.

Question: What's special about Legacy Chain & Wyvern regarding masterminds? I usually sweep right through these guys. yeah, there's a few cone and AOE attacks, but they're so infrequent I never would have thought them very special, particularly at the low-mid level ranges you're saying are particularly juicy targets heroside. I must be missing something because I'd put them with the others you casually discount (freakshow, council, and sky raiders)...

At first glance, the low level heroside does have the Vaz. It also has more lost- with anathema mezzes appearing before most sets would have their mezz protection out there. Of course, the very low levels aren't that relevant, as we're essentially talking about a time when the mm has a mere 1-2 pets....

You're right that heroside doesn't use many area attacks like the demolitionist's, but masterminds might find other foes a challenge.

1) You don't have to fight a WHOLE lot of Council villainside while leveling up, compared to hero-side. In the mid-level range you mention, you'll be visiting Striga Isle. The "mix" of spawns is different there, and foes like the "War Wolves" -- appearing in large packs, with very heavy burst damage (mm pets fall faster to high burst dmg) and a tendency to run all over creation can make a MM's task harder. Add in the sonic-powered council members in later arcs there, and the fact that the low-burst-damage of MM pets almost guarantees that they'll trigger the Ascendants' Shield protection... dragging out fights.

2) You have Croatoa in that mid-range.
- Fir Bolg have some aoe's that might not rival demolitionists' in potency, but may exceed them in frequency. Fighting them in small halloween spawns is different than fighting them in notable numbers, so they might offer some tactical rethinking.

- Tuatha have pbaoe knockback, quicksand, AOE's and Fault... all the kinds of AOE movement-sensitive attacks that can reduce an AI-controlled pet's performance. Granted, the villains have been able to experience them (to some degree) during the winter event.

- The coven-- well, there's knockback pets in there that can do a number on your team... and they do tend to run (fly) a lot, so pet awareness will be critical lest you gather multiple spawns.

- Red Caps- I've seen many a mastermind let his pets go out of control in that winter cave's main room, to dire consequences. It isn't just the map. Red cap's high burst damage can bring a MM pet down fast, their tendency to move- and move fast- can make situational awareness challenging- and the MM Pets' tendency to do frequent bursts of light damage instead of fewer solid heavy hits almost guarantees that some of the red caps will get a chance to transform into their bigger cousin.

Again, none of those are anything a competent mastermind couldn't deal with, but many other archetypes could manage them BETTER and more effectively. Being just competent doesn't make you a god.

3) After that... well, you're mid-30's now. You'll be facing the vast amount of AOE attacks from Nemesis pretty soon (and ordering your men clear of the AOE self-destructs) along with the aoe-drain of the carnival. Again, both manageable, but again, you're more vulnerable than most other AT's to those things, so again. A good MM might be able to manage them, but a good non-MM could manage them BETTER.

That's a big difference.

Good point. Just don't forget that Nemesis can also rapidly stack +tohit and +defense on nearby spawns for every lt. defeated, so your -2 and -1 pets can start seeming quite delicate against large groups of Nemesis.

i for one cannot wait to run the Sewers Trial with Masterminds on the team. To me that will be awesomely fun.

No, no, no... just imagine an MM team...

... doing the Statesman's Task Force!



For that matter, any of the Phalanx TFs... no more announcements of "Babbage about to spawn in Skyway". Nope, the MMs zone with the pets and WHAM, down goes Babbage.

And the Citadel Task Force? Now becomes "Go. Hunt. Let minions kill Council."

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

I don't know. There are very few foes that have things like autohit burn patches and the like- masterminds can practically pick their missions to avoid them most of the time. The omission of that hero-side hardly turns them godlike.

And just because you can mitigate the issues of a weakness, that's still a vulnerability you have to address tactically- a vulnerability that other Archetypes don't share.

I think MM's will do nicely heroside, I just don't see them doing significantly better than any of the other archetypes that are doing nicely heroside... particularly not enough to call them gods.

*shudders at 8 mastermind's worth of pets trying to cram through a council cave maps' tunnels*