Players who prefer Thermal over Pain Domination
By
AfroMagician,
Posted on: 2010-04-12 24:38 in Masterminds
Reasons to Pick Thermal over Pain:
Better +RES from Shields, access to +RES much sooner, shields are perma out of the box.
Better +DMG and +To Hit buff via Forge, which can be kept up on 2-3 pets.
Better AV/Boss Debuff in the form of Heat Exhaustion
Comparable -RES AoE Debuff
Reasons to Pick Pain over Thermal:
Suppress Pain is really good if you can keep your henchmen in it.
World of Pain makes it easier to buff. You get your +RES, your +DMG and your +To Hit all in one buff, but the values are all less than thermals.
Painbringer is pretty awesome on certain henchmen like Bruiser.
Slightly better AoE -RES debuff.
Pain does not really start to shine until 30s imo, the +RES from World of Pain is really crucial to giving henchmen survival.
I see Thermal as a better set overall, it gets good early on and gets better later. You should just ask yourself what do you want to be doing more of, buffing or healing. If buffing, go thermal, if healing go Pain.
Quote:
Pick Thermal if you don't mind slapping 2 buffs on everyone every 4.5 minutes or so (+ keeping Forge on as many people as possible). Pick /Pain if you don't mind having one less (admittedly powerful) debuff than /Thermal, I guess? |
Originally Posted by chriz2ferx
With demons available hopefully very soon, I have narrowed my secondary choice down to either Thermal or PainD. Initially I was all about Storm but decided I wanted to be more "buffy" and also have a guaranteed AOE heal. Generally I am seeing a lot of mastermind love going towards PainD, and not so much towards Thermal
Thematically Thermal wins hands-down for me. The fire shields and fire heal look would look awesome on the demons. But thematics aside, I am really not seeing where Thermal "shines" when compared to PainD Ideally I am looking for players who have tried both secondaries thoroughly and who decided they prefer Thermal over PainD, and why Thanks in advance |
The sets are quite similar, both having an AoE heal, a single target heal, target mez protection, a res, an AoE debuff, and a single target damage buff. The main difference in the sets are the damage res shields (Fire Shield + Plasma Shield) and the single target debuff (Heat Exhaustion) for Thermal, and the extra heal (Share Pain), the AoE toggle +regen (Suppress Pain), and the AoE damage buff (World of Pain) for /Pain. Beyond that it's just a numbers game (which I believe are generally in /Thermal's favor, but someone else more knowledgeable than I can go into detail).
P.S. The abilities I listed by name have more effects than what I mentioned (which I'm sure someone will point out); if I were you I would go into Mid's and compare the sets in more detail.
I have been playing a Necro/Thermal for a bit, mostly to try out the secondary on melee-based henchmen. Like FF, I find it to be a bit tedious to regularly refresh shields on everyone. Thermal sounds even more buff-busy than FF because of healing thrown into the mix
From initial findings, I think I would like PainD more overall because there is less obligation to regularly refresh single target buffs, and also gives me more tankerminding capability, at least from what I have read, if someone could confirm
More feedback welcome please
Quote:
If you find buffing tedious, you will *hate* /Thermal. Go with /Pain IMO.
|
Originally Posted by chriz2ferx
I have been playing a Necro/Thermal for a bit, mostly to try out the secondary on melee-based henchmen. Like FF, I find it to be a bit tedious to regularly refresh shields on everyone. Thermal sounds even more buff-busy than FF because of healing thrown into the mix
From initial findings, I think I would like PainD more overall because there is less obligation to regularly refresh single target buffs, and also gives me more tankerminding capability, at least from what I have read, if someone could confirm More feedback welcome please |
Quote:
Pain can end up being pretty passive, basically rock the aura's... if you are looking for a bit less active (probably only FF is less active) then it is great. And very powerful.|
Originally Posted by chriz2ferx
I have been playing a Necro/Thermal for a bit, mostly to try out the secondary on melee-based henchmen. Like FF, I find it to be a bit tedious to regularly refresh shields on everyone. Thermal sounds even more buff-busy than FF because of healing thrown into the mix
From initial findings, I think I would like PainD more overall because there is less obligation to regularly refresh single target buffs, and also gives me more tankerminding capability, at least from what I have read, if someone could confirm More feedback welcome please |
Thermal is far more active as a result you can create a higher output from your pets.
MM's aren't generally challenged by anything short of AV's and thermal is superior to pain there. So my vote is thermal, from a pure power perspective.
To answer your last question, yes pain is a better tankermind, WoP and Suppress Pain both affect you, whereas a thermal only has the heal aura (which pain has as well).
With demons available hopefully very soon, I have narrowed my secondary choice down to either Thermal or PainD. Initially I was all about Storm but decided I wanted to be more "buffy" and also have a guaranteed AOE heal. Generally I am seeing a lot of mastermind love going towards PainD, and not so much towards Thermal
Thematically Thermal wins hands-down for me. The fire shields and fire heal look would look awesome on the demons. But thematics aside, I am really not seeing where Thermal "shines" when compared to PainD
Ideally I am looking for players who have tried both secondaries thoroughly and who decided they prefer Thermal over PainD, and why
Thanks in advance