I'm a Mastermind and a Master Jerk!

So, I'v been playing with a Ninja/FF. I went for a Tankermind sort of build on the fly. I have a lot of fun with it. I bubble my pets and get them to near softcap with he help of my big bubble and maneuvers. What makes me a jerk though? A good portion of the time, I don't bother distributing bubble to the rest of the team. I give them as needed usually. If there is a Tank or Brute, I usually pass them some bubbles unless I'm doing my Tankermind thing. Got a blaster or Corr that gets in trouble a lot? Give them the range/aoe bubble. The point I'm making is, I don't feel the need to buff EVERYONE every 4 minutes.

In the time I've played like this, I've only had ONE bad apple... a few nights ago. They proceeded to berate me, piss, and moan... after they booted me several missions into the team (that was doing really well considering the tank was a newbie and the DS/Dark MM got into trouble from time to time). I could go on and on about how I was taking alpha and dishing out damage, but it didn't seem to matter.

Now, I come here tot he boards and see some saying that they avoid buffing sets because they don't want to do pets and players every 4 minutes. I say SCREW THEM! The effort put into min-maxing the team, in my opinion, is wasted for the most part. There is no sense in shielding a blaster or defender that's doing fine staying out of trouble, thanks to a well played tank or a great controller.

Should I have been shielding that MM? Maybe. Could that MM been played better? Perhaps. Am I mostly getting something off my chest to see if others feel like I feel? Absolutely.

From my own experience with masterminds, they are well-known for their solo ability, so on teams it's even easier. Yes the other MM could have been doing a better job keeping themselves off of the floor. He was even a demon summoner, geez....

Mostly what I do is the opposite of what you do lol. I buff the team and not my pets when teaming, regarding the teammates as my uncontrollable pets and the henchmen as extra disposable damage dealers, but that doesn't mean you were doing it wrong, no one made you sign any "only buff the team" contract after all. how you play is how you play, and some have trouble accepting that.

you're right, screw them

A few thoughts.

First: That's not how I run teams. My biggest rule is everyone has fun. The second is that (on anything not a Master run) you are responsible for yourself and no more. Anyone on my team complaining about how someone else plays gets booted. That's only happened once.

Second: Not everyone runs a team that way, and if you're going to join a team, expect to follow the leader's rules. He has the star, and he can boot you if he doesn't like how you play. Some people are intolerant jerks.

Third: If you constantly find this a problem, you should be forming your own teams.

EDIT TO ADD:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Candlestick This attitude would make me kick you from a team as well.

And your attitude is why I'm glad I'll never team with you. If the team isn't having problems and everyone's having a good time, don't be such a stickler. An MM supports himself: The endurance costs for his/her powers are increased compared to other ATs, and it's terribly stressful to bubble two full teams. Be a little more tolerant or a little less ignorant, please.

MM secondaries are pretty undemanding for team buffing, as a general rule.

No buffing whatsoever:
Dark
Traps
TA

Minimal buffing:
Poison (Antidote)
Storm (o2 boost)

Some buffing:
Pain Dom (Painbringer, Enforced Morale, World of Pain is PBAOE)
FF (Shields every 4 minutes)

Heavy buffing
Thermal


I'll ditto the "Play how you want" sentiment. Here's how I want to play - when I join a team, even as a MM, I'm wanting to get the team performing better. No doubt in my mind, buffs for the team are more important than buffs for my henchmen. Not that henchmen get left out. Every 4 minutes, all teammates and all my henchment (not other MM pets, I don't go that far) get bubbled. To be honest, a /FF MM doesn't have a heckuva lot more he needs to do on a team.

Similarly for Pain Dom, a teammate can make much better use of Painbringer than a pet. I never bother to de-mez pets on a team (rarely solo) but will proactively use Enforced Morale on the right team members.

Thermal... I think I teamed with my Thermal MM for 4 different SFs and have retired him from teaming. That's all the buffing from FF (shields) + the CM buffing from Pain Dom + Forge, a buff teammates really really like. So gods bless the Thermal MMs out there, I can't deal with that set for teams.

A lot of players don't see mm's as tankers they just assume we are buffers with pets.

To the OP - you are not a jerk. This is a game, and everyone has their own play style. I only team my MM with groups and individuals I already know. My PUG days for my MM's ended the day someone referred to me as "a Defender with controllable pets".

**Damien**

I dont see the problem, range based ATs shouldnt need def buffs if they play their role. I always buff the melee ATs I am teaming with though, but that's about it, I need to conserve my end for my own fun

Typically, the Def based melee were getting bubs, but once I started being in melee range with them, my big bub and maneuvers will typically be more than enough. The Def based Tank though... he gets bubs. In the case of my incident, the newbie shield tank (confirmed) wasn't getting buffs because he wasn't actually taking the alpha or agro for that matter. Come to think of it, he didn't die anyways. But, yes, I do bub the tank.

As a Ninja/FF MM, I do have other things I could be doing besides buffing teammates. Things like, attacking come to mind. Did I mention that my pets bodyguard me most of the time and get near capped def? They die a lot less bubed. Lets me spend more time attacking and less re-summoning.

Both, Nalrok_AthZim. My pet hop to the butt kicking as soon as I'm attacked (whether I take damage or or not a different story). That's how bodyguard mode works. If there are a few targets left, I'm not getting attacked much, or there is something that needs to die fast, I'll command my pets to take it out.

I also run a Nin/FF Mastermind, and here's the deal: you are never doing something 100% of the time.

There are times between fights where you can bubble. There are times during fights where you can bubble. You don't have to make all of your team buffing one gigantic block activity, and you don't even have to put both bubbles on players all of the time-- particularly if you are fighting an enemy group that is primarily Smashing/Lethal.

It sounds to me like you are refusing to bubble team mates out of some misguided principle, because I doubt that you are so busy that you couldn't find the time to toss bubbles around. Sure, it might not be on every player 100% of the time, and it might just be on the Alpha sink full time, but you are actually making an effort not to bubble team mates which you deem as not needing more protection.

Have you ever played a Blaster or any squishy that can ramp up their offense simply by having more protection? While you might feel that the Fire/Fire blaster is not needing more protection because he's not diening, the fact is that he can switch it to overdrive and jump into melee to use multiple PBAoEs and TAoEs if he had more protection. There are many ATs like this, and you are basically being short sited by not realizing that players can really turn it up a notch with defensive buffs.

That's just my opinion. I know it's tough to provide constant buffs to a full team of 8 and your pets. However, I also know that if you have even just 2 seconds of downtime that it's pretty easy to throw a bubble on a team mate that currently lacks it.

Given that I play a Ninja/FF myself, I can see where the conflict is. Ninjas are fragile, and if you're using the Tankermind strategy to manage them, you NEED to shield them. If you lose Bodyguard, you're going to lose both yourself and your henchmen quickly, and then you're not going to be bubbling anyone. So under the circumstances, I would do the same thing; my henchmen take top priority, and anyone else will be bubbled if I feel the need and can fit it into my rotation as I am refreshing the bubbles on my henchmen.

Personally, I look at the Secondary powers as a sort of Defense power that I can apply to my henchmen. That my teammates can be buffed by them too is a bonus, but to me it's like a Tanker having powers that can buff his team, like Shield Defense. To me, it makes no more sense for an MM to buff his team and not his henchmen than for a Tanker to have Defenses that don't effect himself. (Besides, isn't that what a Corruptor is for?)

I also make it a hard and fast rule that anybody who cannot wait for me to buff them in their turn does not want to be buffed. I am not going to chase you down because you got impatient waiting for me and ran into that spawn. And I'm not going to put you on some sort of priority list above someone else because you feel you're more important. If you run ahead without waiting for me, I take that as a sign that you feel confident that you can handle the spawn on your own.

That being said, if someone complained about my not bubbling them on my Nin/FF (and in all honestly, she has not yet been on a team yet, so I haven't had the opportunity to test this) I would explain, and give the team the choice. "I have been drawing aggro with my Taunt and my attacks, in order to tank for my henchmen and my pets, using Bodyguard. If I take the time to bubble all members of the team, and protect the team as a Defender would, then I will have to take a more support role, in which I and my henchmen stand back and do not take the point. This will mean a greater risk for the team, and more damage being taken by teammates other than me. Given that you feel that the team can take this greater risk, I will do this is you ask me to."

If, after we have tried it the other way, the team is dying constantly, and the tank is unable to handle the aggro, I will just point out that when I was using the Tankermind strategy, the team was doing better, and if they would like me to return to it, I will. After all, if I am build for using that strategy, and my henchmen do better in melee anyway, it would be best for me to play to my strengths.

I will say that on the other side of the coin, if I am playing a Corruptor or an MM, I will buff another MMs's pets if he asks for it, but they don't have priority. Again, if you are playing an MM, I expect you to give first priority to your own pets, and you won't be relying on me to do it.

Making an effort to not bubble others? No. The goal is to be able to enjoy playing my MM without having to divert my attention to something a defender, corrupter, or controller can do. Someone did say that MM secondaries have a higher end cost, so that end spent bubbling takes away from the other things I enjoy doing. Yes I have played other squishes. In fact, I play all ATs and can play each one of them pretty well. Do bubbles make me do more damage? No.

I have played many buffers over the years, Masterminds included.

When the team is steamrolling, and taking no damage, and everything is fine, do I bubble? No. Waste of time. They don't need it if nobody is taking damage.

But when the **** hits the fan, teammates start dropping, and the team is having difficulty? You best be buffing.

So again, with an attitude of "Screw them", I have an attitude of /kick.