Tankermind Questions

The pets resistance\defense only affects if they were the target of the attack, not if you were attacked and the damage they took was due to body guard.

That being said, most tankerminds pick up provoke to keep the attention off the pets\team members since the pets tend to be pretty flimsy on their own.

As others have said, if the attack hits you, then it is applied to all of your henchmen. So their Defense does not apply. Your Defense in effect applies to them.

Resistance I am not sure about. I believe that Castle explained it as the Mastermind's Resistance is applied only AFTER the damage has been calculated and divided up. So your resistance applies to the damage you take, but not your henchmen. However, I no longer have a copy of the post Castle sent to me, and am not sure I'm remembering it correctly. It's even possible this has changed. I DO know that the henchmen resistances do NOT apply to Bodyguard.

Provoke from the Presence Pool is the only sure way to keep aggro. It's pretty much required for any Tankermind build.

Using your own attacks and Vet Reward attacks can help build aggro. So can using knockback or control powers, such as AoE Immobilizes.

Your henchmen do have a higher threat modifier than you, however. So an inconsistent way to draw aggro is for your henchmen to do it. They do seem to draw more aggro when in melee. Also, individual henchmen have Taunt built into their attacks. Gang War for Thugs will Taunt, and the Necromancy Grave Knights have a Taunt built in to their Siphon Life. This can help you hold aggro, since anything that resists your Provoke would be drawn off to the henchmen.

The damage distribution of the Bodyguard mechanic follows these rules:

• For a Henchman to qualify for Bodyguard status, he must be in Defensive and Follow Me stances, as well as be within range of and affected by the Mastermind's Inherent power, Supremacy. Note that this requires line-of-sight between the Mastermind and the Henchman.
• Any damage dealt to the Mastermind himself will be divided into a number of "shares," depending on how many Henchmen meet the Bodyguard conditions. The number of shares is equal to the number of Bodyguard Henchmen + 2, and the amount of damage is divided evenly by the number of shares.
• Each Bodyguard Henchman will receive 1 share of the damage, and the Mastermind will receive 2.

For example, let's say that a standard-issue level 50 Mastermind has all six Henchmen meeting the Bodyguard conditions. This Mastermind is hit with an attack that deals 800 damage. Without Bodyguard, this would leave the Mastermind with only 3.2 HP. With Bodyguard, the damage is divided into 8 shares (one for each of the six Henchmen; two for the Mastermind). This means there's 100 damage per share, making each Henchman take that much and the Mastermind only receives 200.

Bodyguard applies specifically to damage dealt to the Mastermind himself, and will always affect any Bodyguard Henchmen, regardless of any Defense or Damage Resistance they may have.


These are conflicting accounts, and I'm not sure which is true. We should probably ask about it, since it makes a huge difference.

In the example above:

• 800 damage, 6 Bodyguard Henchmen
• No resistance: 100 damage to all Henchmen, 200 damage to the Mastermind
• 50% Resistance BEFORE Bodyguard: 50 damage to all Henchmen, 100 damage to the Mastermind
• 50% Resistance AFTER Bodyguard: 100 damage to all Henchmen, 100 damage to the Mastermind