Dual Box MM's

I'm wanting to try to dual box 2 MM's but i have no idea of which combos. Any suggestions?

I'm considering 2 Bots/PD, or 1 Bot/PD and 1 Thug/PD or Therm or Poison. I'd like one heal and 1 debuff but not sure if two healing from PD would be better than a debuffer.

At this point im clueless on which 2ndary to go with. Pros, Cons.... Thanks for any ideas.

So, itd be harder to do that with MM's than running 3 trollers?

I can currently run a fire/kin with a fire/sonic and fire/rad on follow or the first 2 while sitting one at the door to PL.

Why would it be different with 2 MM's?

With the controllers, you don't have six pets who will go spastic on you. And you have fewer pets who are fairly sturdy and enjoy running across the map when there's a runner. Imps I notice tend to die if they try it. Ninjas, not always. Think of it like multiplying the chances of the pets doing something bad. The more pets, the more chances they'll do something stupid.

I have three boxed Thugs/dark to 50 with no problem at all. Thugs are great because enforcers leadership stacks with any other Thugs on the team, plus take shadow falls and maneuvers to maximize your thugs defense. Then just set your thugs to aggressive and you're good to go.

On low level characters, I have dual-boxed Masterminds. It depends on what the other character is, and what sets you have. I tend to pair them up with a non-MM that I actually control. This probably isn't the "best" setup, but it seems to work to some degree.

Enter the mission, summon MM pets.
Apply MM upgrades and long-lasting buffs.
Target the other character, set a long range attack on Auto. (If you hate the personal attacks, anything that can be set to auto and has range will work.) Also activate Follow.
Switch to the other character.

When I approach a group of enemies, I sweep the mouse across to find a suitable target. As soon as I click on them, the MM fires off their power, and the NPCs retaliate by attacking the MM. This gets the pets involved in the fight without having to leave them on Aggressive. I'm then free to do whatever it is that the "playable" character normally does, with a bit of extra help from the MM and the pets. This isn't an ideal method for maximum XP - the MM is pretty much just following me around, and isn't actively doing much other than taking the odd alpha strike. Since Follow includes no pathfinding AI, it also means I have to make sure they don't get stuck.

Generally though, I don't play this way as a standard method of leveling - I tend to use it to make sure that all my characters have all the Mayhem badges up through about level 25, since it's actually not that hard to skip them accidentally. (Between Patrol XP and the overall XP boost for everything below level 20.) I'll also do this if there's a particular badge/unlockable costume piece that I really want on a given character. (For example, I have a somewhat Grim Reaper looking Axe/Dark Armor brute, and the Soul Taker badge title seemed fitting. I have another Axe/Shield character for whom I would really like to get the Ralaruu weapons.)

As the above poster said, it is possible. However in the mid to late 20's and beyond it's less and less a good plan. Masterminds who put one power on auto and just follow the team in the late game tend to cause team wipes.

Im not asking if it's possible. Im not having any problems at all with how to do it. I dual and trip all the time. Its not hard for me.

Im asking what 2ndaries would be best for the situation because ive never played Pain, Thermal or Poison and thats the 3 im wanting to choose from. Sorry if my OP wasnt clear on that.

Atm, i have a thug/poison and a bot/pain but im only level 8 so i can start over if poison or pain isnt that good.

Also, i dont team while dualing (unless im PLing people), so im not worried about other people and team wipes. I only run with like 5 globals and i never PuG. Im looking to level them at a good rate and then farm them at 50 together.

I think Traps is a great 2nd box set. I'm not a sophisticated 2-boxer, meaning I don't use the tools some use. So I need simple. That's Traps. This is what the second box does

Summon FFG when you see your Def drop dramatically
Place Acid Mortar
Place Poison Gas Trap

Done!

I've actually used a /FF MM as a 2nd box a lot, but not with another MM, but rather any other AT. I would much more recommend Traps to 2nd box to another MM. Force Field's strength is in the bubbles and you'd have to bubble all 12 henchment to make it worthwhile. If you don't do that (and who would want to?) then FFG is actually better Def and then you get the other Traps goodies.

Speaking from the experience of playing two, and just two, non-thug MMs alone in a duo, they are very effective and very easy to play. The MM duo is far easier to play and less mentally and physically demanding than many other combos. Many other combos, which are more demanding, are more effective.

Madam, do you speak from experience or do you just dislike dualing? Or just dislike dualing MM's?

Smurphy, i see what youre saying and i love /storm. But i wasnt sure how to dual /storm or /dark unless i was the one using it since those sets are alot more active sets unlike PD or Thermal.

I use 2 pcs beside each other with them windowed. I was thinking the same as you, with running in and having the others on follow. I have streeted so far and its very easy. The 4 pets that i do have kill really fast. I havent even put any enhancements on them yet because i was unsure if i was gonna keep that setup. I dont think im keeping Poison. Too many single target going on for what im wanting i think.

Anyways, thanks for the input.

You can play them as if they were "not active" sets. I played /Storm like the only power is had was Freezing Rain. I didn't see any reason to bother with any of the other powers (except Steamy Mist).

If you were doing 2 MMs you can have one be Storm or Dark and the other be a less active set. Simply play the Dark or Storm nearly fully and occasionally switch over to the other MM.

If you really want maximized xp, I would suggest running a single mastermind who has -regen debuffs and some sort of healing. That way you have the capability of taking down elite bosses. Thugs or bots for a dual boxing point of view might be best I suppose. Both get really high defense. Bots will kill slower till mid game though.

I've multi-boxed several different groups of MM's, in groups of 3:

Thugs/Pain
Robots/Traps
Zombie/Pain
Mercs/various
Ninjas/FF
several others who didn't get as high a level.

All of them have been fun and are not really that hard to run. I have some awefully advanced controls set up for them to make me even more effective that your run-of-the-mill dual-boxer, but even without those, the Thugs/Pain are amazing. The stacked defense from the enforcers, plus the +regen from Pain (right now at level 24 my pets and I are gaining like 20 HP per second) make us nearly invincible. I use grant invisibility on my MM's, then simply run into a large spawn, lets the thugs grab aggro (since they have +Defense, not the MM's) and then just level everything. I've done Mayhem missions where 4+ waves of longbow showed up at the same time I was already fighting several groups of cops and we wasted everything easily (only losses would be a suicidal arsonist or two who ran out of the buffing range).

With the Bots/Traps MM's I used some specialized binds so that I can stay back at maximum range and send all my MM's bots to attack specific targets. Then the MM's can hang just behind the firing line of bots and buff/heal or attack.

The only reason I can think of that multi-boxing MM's would be harder than any other class is on maps with small doorways, I have at one point tried 8-boxing a full team of masterminds...almost all indoor maps made me cry (of course it probably make you cry even if you were one single-boxing on a team of 8 MM's).

You should definately try 2 thug mm's sometime. Double GW is too funny.

Yea, im going Thugs/Storm on mine and Thugs/Pain on the follow. I thought about taking my 3rd but i wanted to try 2 first.

I dualbox most of my toons. This includes a number of different MMs.

As a primary. Thugs are by far the best for multiboxing, because as others have mentioned the leadership from the Enforcers stacks, so that at higher lvls your henchmen are easily Def soft capped. Triboxing at lower lvls would be beneficial since you would be Def Capped just from the Triple stacked Enforcer leadership buffs without needed anything other Def Buffs or Pet Def Procs.

In terms of best 2ndaries I think it really depends on your style of multiboxing. If you use some sort of system to broadcast keystroke accross your toons then you have lots of options. If you instead are mousing to each toon then I would suggest the following or 2ndary toons use less active 2ndaries such as
/pain. (FF on multiboxed thugs is somewhat of a waste since your henchmen will already be Def capped without the added Def from the Shield buffs. Although the stun and hold protection you get from /ff or /traps is amazing for a MM.)

If you broadcast keystrokes then /dark or /storm will rock. I dualboxxed the ITF with two thug/dark's. Storm has amazing debuff and dmg. But any location based powers are annoying to dualboxx because you have to mouse over to execute/place them. Hence Dark's Tar Patch, and many of the Storm powers are a pain to use on the auxiliary following toons. However, in the storm set you have Thunderclap which is a dualbox gem.

2 x Thunderclap = a perma mag4 aoe Stun.

Once you unlock your epic pools consider taking Soul Mastery since 2 x Oppressive gloom = a mag4 radias 12' stun toggle! Plus for Tankermind Styles pulls aggro of anything that isn't stunned to the MM, consider it a PBaoe Taunt toggle.

One of the problems you run into multiboxing MMs is that the target through teammate function only works 1 tier. Meaning that a following auxiliary MM can target through the primary MM, but that auxiliaries MM's pets will not be able to target through their MM owner and also through the primary MM (when you command your pets to attack your target they are already targeting through you...) There are numerous workarounds to this issue though. You can as others have suggest leave the Auxiliary's pets on Aggressive. I personally don't like doing that because it leaves your 2ndary MMs out of BG mode which can cause death. Much preferred to all aggressive is leaving only a couple of the 2ndary's pets on Aggressive like the Bruiser, this way when the Bruiser draws aggro and is attacked the other henchmen get into the fight but the MM gets to stay in BG mode.

However, my favorite solution is actually to use Provoke on the Auxiliary MM targeted through the Primary. This causes critters to attack the Auxiliary MM getting his pets into the fight, while I am free to control the Primary pets the way I normally would on any regular team. Sometimes on the Primary I take Challenge. Then I hotkey the attacks to the same key. This way the critter that was targeted by my Primary MM attacks him, and all the critters around him are taunted by the 2ndary MM's provoke. But the real reason for Challenge is that it has a very fast recharge and I find that all the debuffs from 2 x /dark or 2 x /storm cause many AVs and GMs to run. So you either need to keep them taunted or have a good immobilize. Provoke is simply not enough Taunt to keep for instance Romulus from running away when he is fully debuffed and dying. And as any PVPer knows MMs don't chase well so a running AV is a MMs nightmare and dualboxxing MMs against a running target is even worse...

2 x thugs/pain would be nearly indestructable but will struggle taking on AVs since pain doesn't have much in the way of debuffs, with no -Regen, and limited -Res, and not extra dmg.

2 x thugs/storm will be much tougher to micromanage, require much more active mousing play on both toons, you will end up resummoning a lot of tier one pets on the Auxiliary toon in tough fights since you don't have an AOE heal, BUT you will do very well versus AVs.

Thugs/ Pain Aux and Thugs / Storm will probably be the best if you decided on using different 2ndaries.

Dark, Poison, Thermal, Traps and even Trick Arrow will all work well enough as Primaries when paired with Pain.

I'm trying to figure out why Madam_Enigma decided to go all anti-dual box here, especially when it sounds like she doesn't have any experience dual boxing on CoH, let alone dual boxing mms? Bad experience on a team with one maybe?

I've been dual boxing here since launch. It's not hard. Dual boxing MMs are VERY *not* hard. Some combos are a lot of work (2 melees, the more active sets, etc.) and wouldn't even be worth my time. I usually go with the standard 1 active + 1 buff type.

Sure, some teams might be annoyed by your dual boxing - then don't team (or get better at boxing - I've been on teams where no one noticed).

Back to the subject... I'm currently running a DS/pois and DS/therm, just hit 30 last night. Currently I'm alternating running missions at +3/2 & +1/5, depending on whether I feel like chasing a bunch of minions or killing purple bosses.

Not the most optimal combination, but I haven't done a /therm yet and haven't done a /pois since Cov launch so that kind of forced the issue (in my wacky mind). It works really well. Just shield up on the therm (I usually only shield my primary, and occasionally hellfires & princes), turn on assault & tactics and put pbaoe heal on auto. I'll switch his pets from aggressive to defensive as needed to. I just respecced out of corruption and into the 1t heal, but I haven't bothered to use it yet, I wish I could sort out a build where I trade it for Thaw.

I micro target on the 1st as needed.

2 /pois mms would be the most difficult combo imho... 2 nin/pois to make it really annoying. I wouldn't play a /pois duo. Anything else is fair game.

For survivability + some offense /traps + /ff works quite well.
For raw power, that's /dark + /dark of course, or even /pois + /dark specifically for EB/AV killing.

If you have a set you really want to play, but can't think of what to run on the second account, I usually do an /ff buffbot with the leadership toggles - although /pain works as well (and is more fun to solo imho if you feel the need to actively play that character).

My next project is ds/pain + ds/pain, which suspect will work out quite nicely.

I suggest using the /maxinactivefps 5-10 option & running in windowed mode if you're dual boxing on one machine (as I do these days).