Thugs trio, what secondaries would work best?

My fiance, my brother and I want to set up a thugs trio for some tasty leadership stacking effects (9x if I count correctly). What we are unsure of is what sort of secondaries would be best for something like this.

Traps was my first thought, mostly because I'm very fond of the sort of "damage" traps can cause, but this group should be steamrolling anything so fast that it's not really worth the time to set them down before were off again.

Trick Arrow was a thought also since that is basically traps light, and a lot more mobile.

Poison is a possible one also, pretty much for the same reason as trick arrow.

Thermal and Force Shields are basically an auto-no, trying to buff 18 minions every couple minutes would make this no fun very, very quickly.

Dark Miasma is of course always an option.

Pain domination? Also tasty.

Storm Summoning is a maybe but none of the three of us are very fond of the set to be honest.

I'm not sure I see any great setups as far as which secondaries would be best out of them for the trio. I am somewhat leaning towards trick arrow for myself, especially with all the flames being launched with the oil arrow.

3x Pain Domination could always be interesting >.>

Anyway, any opinions?

I think two Dark and one Poison would be best. Poison for nasty debuffs on hard targets and Dark for all-around goodness. If you all wanted to be the same, three Darks sounds great to me.

You would be surprised at the strength, lethality, and overall safety of three storm secondaries. Three snowstorms? Use a calendar to time the incoming attacks. When you all hit 16, the foes will turn to mush before your eyes in the wake of three freezing rains. Triple thunderclap? Yes! please! Chaos will be your friend and you will ride the winds of success to victory.

I'd agree with Storm. I'm not sure on the actual numbers, but three snowstorms combined with three hurricanes means the very few attacks that even go off would almost always miss. Plus three hurricanes would make for great push control over groups.

Three Thunderstorms? Who even needs minions with those?

Even not being all that fond of storms that does sounds rather entertaining. I have no idea if we all plan on being the same exact spec or not, just that we all plan on using thugs. I'll have teo recommend giving triple storm a shot.

I wonder if tornado is still worth getting at that point. Without a good way to root the mobs in place, three of them might throw them off the edge of the world ^^;

I've played three (heck, I've played 6 at the same time) Thug/Storms and I generally recommend NOT playing them as many players frequently suggest. Freezing Rain is simply a game winner. There's no need to use powers like Hurricane frequently and blow the enemies out of Freezing Rain. Thugs can virtually always take out the enemies before the Freezing Rain(s) go away.

I recommend mixing and matching. For more than 1 person variety can be fun. I recommend one /Storm, one /Dark and one /Traps. You have all the Thugs stacking their +Defense plus Steamy Mist, Shadowfall and Force Field Generator. Take three Maneuvers on top of that and your squad, including the MMs will be extremely beefy. Tar Patch + Freezing Rain + Acid Mortar will give massive minus resistance. You have various ways of controlling packs as well.

At Patron levels (40+) MMs can pick up AoE Immobs. Then a Storm can truly go wild and not worry about the enemies being thrown everywhere. I used Hurricane only as an emergency escape and time to re-summon all the pets. Hurricane, to me, was more "you can't kill me and I can't kill you." With multiple experienced storm players you can frequently turn on Hurricane and make sandwiches. Have the MMs split up and pile all the enemies into a central location where you drop multiple Freezing Rains.

I think there are a few ways to go here.

As someone else pointed out Thugs/Storm is tasty, and Thugs/Storm x3 is disgusting. You can leave hurricane on all the time for giggles, tho you wouldn't even have to since the triple steamy mist helps with defenses, plus it lets you get in close before being seen, AND it gives nice resistances with 3 of them running. 3 lightning storms, 3 freezing rains, 3 snowstorms, and O2 boost to top off thugs. Tornado and Gale for lulz. Plus, if you all run Steamy Mist slotted for Defense, and if you all run Maneuvers, you'll generate 30% defense to all. Not too shabby, especially with the Thug Enforcers casting their own Maneuvers (which only affects all the thugs). You guys will have good defenses, and your thugs will have maxed defense. That doesn't even count Hurricane. Also, the triple steamy mist will give you 45% resistance to fire, cold and energy, which is nice for the pets. If you slot it for both resist and defense, you'll be floating at 69% on those resists.

The other way to go is to drive with Thugs/Traps and to have 2 Thugs/FF wingmen. That is the route I took. By level 22, with Dispersion Bubble x2, FF Generator x1, and Maneuvers x3, everyone will be running at 51% defense to all. Game over.

Another option would be to go Thugs/Traps + Thugs/FF + Thugs/Pain. With Dispersion Bubble x1, FF Generator x1, and Maneuvers x3, you'll "ONLY" have 39.6% defense to all, but hey. Not too shabby. You can trivially pick up the 5% or so with set bonuses on each mastermind. However, then you'll have AOE healing, regen, mez protection that covers (for the traps driver) the stuff Dispersion Bubble won't, and possibly a rez. Not to mention Damage resistance, accuracy buffs, and enemy debuffs from /Pain. Good times.

If you really just wanted a Stormie on the team, Thugs/Traps, Thugs/FF, and Thugs/Storm is great. With Dispersion Bubble x1, FF Generator x1, and Maneuvers x3, and Steamy Mist x1 slotted for defense, you'll have 45.5% to all. Even if you don't slot Steamy Mist for defense, you'd be at 43.3% defense. Not too shabby. You'd lose all the Pain stuff, but you'd have stealth as you approach, and you'd still have the Chaos of the Storm powers for when you want them.

Traps + FF + Dark Miasma would also be spiffy. You'd hit the same numbers for defense as the combo with the Stormie, but you'd have a lot more control options, not to mention Fluffy.

Man! Good times!

Lewis

On my storms, I play for the little rooms. Grab aggro with hurricane and run in a conference room, dive in a corner. The foes pile in, then you block the door, with hurricane and fire off every chaotic power you want. They can't get out, and if one does? No matter. Mutliple stormies can have one guy drag them in, and one to block the door. Even outside, or inside, the third can wreak havoc with the chaos powers. Tornado in a conference room is an amazing buzzsaw.

I would also emphasize again that 3 freezing rains are so potent. If the stormies gale them, herdicane them to corners or small rooms, the good stormies don't knock foes out of the cleansing freezing rain.

I don't know how active you want all 3 MMs to be. Storm sounds pretty darn active, since Freezing Rain is a targeted location power.

Now, FF may be a popular suggestion due to how it can be played completely passively. However, unless you actively bubble (and you won't want to for 3 MMs and pets), then FFG from Traps is better, with higher +Def values than Dispersion. The only downside is having to periodically resummon, and that it may lag behind. When you run into the "big bad" though, Traps will benefit you far more with minimal effort.

I've actually intended to do a triple-box Traps squad, but haven't gotten around to doing it. Soft-capped Def to all at level 22 with SOs, pretty sweet.

I'm not even sure actively bubbling will be needed come 20. Simply souble-slotting Maneuvers and Dispersion Bubble with basic Defense IO's gives 15% defense. Three people doing that is 45%, which I believe is cap and we wouldn't have to worry about the FFG following us around. That doesn't even count the thugs own maneuvers so that would put them well above cap. Even without any ability to debuff an AV I think the pure damage alone would burn them down.

I don't think Force Field is required to reach the effective soft-cap. Dark has plenty of accuracy debuffs and there are plenty of other +defense powers. I think a set with more debuff and damage potential would be more effective than a FFer.

On the off-chance my brother doesn't stick around (he does have a habit of dropping out of the trio half way though) my fiance is considering going /Dark. I would just need something to complement it, and /Dark isn't my favorite one. /Dark with /TA could be amusing.

Since I don't really think ending up with only 2 /FF is such a good idea >.>;

If he does stick around though, the idea of just turning on passives, pointing at what we want to die, and hitting attack is kind of appealing. I don't think any AV would have the regen or resistances to withstand that kind of punishment for a long period of time if we did hit soft-cap. Not that I've done a lot of AV hunting to know.

Well ultimately, any 2 or 3 masterminds in a team are likely to crush just about any foes they face. So everybody could just pick their favorite secondary and roll with it. The crushing of the opposition will still be sweet!

Lewis

By the way when I mentioned upthread that I'd seen multiple Thug/Storms in action and that they were incredible, it was Smurphy who did the demo for me. IIRC, he set the mission to +4 and still demolished everything. I'd listen to his advice, the man knows his stuff.

My fiance is still looking at either /poison or /dark. I'm strongly tempted to go with /Trick Arrow, despite people saying it's horrible. Doesn't really look all that horrible to me. Sorta like a weaker, portable traps, which might be nice considering how fast we should be clearing things. Brother is considering /Storm still.

Flash Arrow looks pretty sad though

Trick Arrow can be quite great and is especially nice when paired with a Storm. A Trick Arrows Immob on the heavy enemies can let the /Stormer go all crazy and not worry too much about KB.

Trick Arrow can be quite effective. All of those secondaries you mentioned can work great together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sardan By the way when I mentioned upthread that I'd seen multiple Thug/Storms in action and that they were incredible, it was Smurphy who did the demo for me. IIRC, he set the mission to +4 and still demolished everything. I'd listen to his advice, the man knows his stuff.

I believe what occurred is you asked me why I chose /Storm for my all /Storm MM team. I said it would be easier to show than describe. I went into AE and picked a hard enemy group: Malta. I set a mission to +4/x8 full of Malta. I had 5 Thug/Storms. Two were 50, three were sub-50, none had IOs, three had SOs, and two had absolutely nothing slotted. I summoned all my pets and Team Teleported into the first pack. I dropped 3 Freezing Rains on their head. All the Malta died. I lost 1 Thug.

Looks like were doing dark/storm/TA

Is Flash Arrow even worth a power slot however?