Which pet group is better for fighting AV's?

My thinking only takes me into what damage the AV will resist.

Bots do smashing, energy and the big guy does fire as well. Their shields help with the defense.

Demons do all sorts of damage. Fire, frost and "hellfire" which I think is a mixture of fire and frost.

Any ideas?

Thugs, Mercs, and Ninja are probably last since they deal mainly all lethal, although the ninja teir 3 does some fire IIRC. That leaves Bots, Zombies, and Demons. In my (limited) ex perience, zombies are too squishy to reliably take down AVs. So between Demons and Bots, I would give it to the bots, primarily because they are easier to soft cap. I don't know how well demons would do, but I'd imagine their damage would do fine, especially with the varied types. And to answer that last part, hellfire is a fire attack with toxic DoT.

Bots is the best, only because the tier 3 pet has huge amounts of -Regeneration in some of its plasma blasts. Damage type is mostly irrelevant when compared to -regeneration against an AV.

Bot Traps without a doubt. Even if you went Demon traps one nice AOE hit from a AV will kill your pets. With Bot I can put myself out in front of the Triage Beacon with the pets behind the Triage Beacon but still be effected by it. Demons tend to run into melee

Well how about if I happened to have a bots/dark. With all the debuffs I just learned about on my other thermal vs dark post, you think I can learn to do it on him?

Hmm, just in time for i19's post 50 update -- my bots/dark is already there -- just have to learn how to play dark to its full potential.


You say I can soft cap a bots/dark... how?

With Bots/Dark you can softcap S/L without even taking Mace Mastery. Even my Thugs/Dark took Mu Mastery and still softcapped S/L def. And it's not even that expensive. A Steadfast Prot, a few Siphon Insights, Maneuvers, CJ, Hover, pet Bubble and a few more common IO sets and you'll be S/L capped.

Bots/Dark is one of the best, if not THE best AV soloers for Master Minds.

• Howling Twilight has -500% regeneration.
• The entire set has lots of -damage, which is extremely powerful against AVs. They don't resist this debuff at 80% like other debuffs.
• Tar Patch can stack, and has large -ressitance values because it's a pseudo pet, but it's sometimes hard to keep an AV on it.
• Twilight Grasp has -regeneration and -damage, both of which are great against AVs while providing a good AoE heal for the pets.
• Repair is a great spot-heal in AV fights.
• Assault Bot has up to -1000% regenration.
• Fluffy has huge -ToHit and -Damage as well.

Bots/Dark is decent for Bots/Traps is much better

Cause it looks soo cool man!

I love my bots/traps. pew pew pew

My bots/Dark can solo AV's. Working on GMs next. Little tweaking going on.

Best for fighting AVs? Well, definitely not the melee-oriented Ninja or Zombie because any serious aoe will wipe them out too quick for you to heal. And I am not a tanker-minded person. I am a traditional mastermind, which means I direct my pets to attack rather than drawing aggro to myself during bodyguard mode.


Robot is probably the best during AV fight because Assault Robot has some -regen and they are all ranged. Range does less damage but hey, you are still doing damage right? A dead pet = dealing no damage at all.


Merc is actually decent during AV fights. I have not tried Demon against AV yet. They are pretty melee-oriented.

I recently duo'd Jurassic with a Tanker on my Bots/FF mastermind, for whatever that's worth. He was Super Strength with I think Willpower. I summoned an Arachnos Crab Soldier (Backup Radio temp power) and we went to town.

Was kind slow but not bad at all, Jurassic fell just as the temp power wore off. So yeah, even without other debuffs the -Regen in the Assault Bot seemed to help. Dark or Traps should make it much easier.

I was under the impression that the -regen on the Assault Bot had been fixed in a patch not too long ago?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

My bots/thermal started soloing AV's and Heroes at 35. While soloing a mission I saw an AV at the end. Started to look for others to help, but as my bots were still on aggressive they went after the AV. Soon noticed that their health was still full, so I ran over to debuff the AV (had just trained Heat Exhaustion). During the fight I had to heal the little guys sometimes. A few times they died and had to re-summon. When the AV was down to about half health she started to run away. We kept at her and reapplied the debuff on as soon as it was up. It took about 6 minutes of very nervous game-play, but we finally got her.

That bot/thermal mm is 42 now and both Heat Exhaustion and Melt Armor are all slotted up with regular IO's. Have defeated Positron both times and about 25 others. Valkyrie was the hardest to kill by far. She wiped all the bots once (I was able to run out the exit and back in to set up my bots again).

I would say it is the combination of a high Resistance and the 15% Defense, the debuffs, buffs (Forge) and the straight heals (not a slow +Regen with traps), that helped me to accomplish soloing AV's and Heroes.

I was thinking that with Demons doing a lot of unresisted damage that they may be better suited, but that was before I read about the -Regen from Bots on this thread. Of course I am also reading that it is bugged and is not working. Which means that they would be the same as any other pet that doesn't have -Regen, correct?

Now as I have read, Dark has a better set of debuffs so this might help to kill the AV faster. I will have to see as again my bots/dark is 50 (villain that unlocked my bane).

By the way, you say you can soft-cap the mm, but are you talking about me or the bots? I do not need soft-capping as I am not standing toe to toe with the AV. If you can't soft-cap the bots there is no reason to even talk about it.

Bodyguard Mode and Provoke: Tried it and hated it. Some of the bots would attack, but not always all of them. Sometimes I would see two of them just standing there (like some mm players that think that once they tell the pets to attack, they can just stand there and do nothing -- Automatic AT). I don't use BG Mode even while soloing AV's and I have never died.

You know I was thinking.. how come Robot gets to have -regen?? They already survive very well and deal very good aoe damage.


Shouldn't Merc or Ninja have -regen? I mean Tear Gas from Spec-Ops is a perfect power to have some -regen IMO.


Poor soldiers. They get over shadowed by everything Robot does. Soldier's damage type is mostly Lethal, more narrow cones, don't have as many resistance types, and relying on very infrequent controls from spec-ops.

I once thought of making a mercenary mm. Then I saw a thing on you tube showing a level 50 using the soldiers to break through one of the jail doors in a mayhem mission. Was wishing I could fast forward the video. Must have taken 10 minutes.

Wasn't interested in making a Mercenary mm after that.

If you ask for anything, ask for more damage.