The overall best combo for a Tankermind is usually said to be Bots/FF. This makes for a good combination of personal defenses, Dispersion Bubble stacked with a shield from the Bots, along with good aggro from all the knockback powers. PFF can also be very important in handling emergencies, although of course you can't maintain aggro with it up. You can certainly grab aggro and then use PFF to counter the alpha strike, though.
/Dark supposedly is also a good choice, although the lack of a good mez protection would cause problems, I think. /Traps is also good for much the same reason as FF. There aren't many other Primaries other than Bots that offer you protection along with the other henchmen, although I would guess Demons is now a good additional choice here.
I am actually using a Tankermind strategy with my Ninjas/FF MM, not because Ninjas are good for Tankerminding, but because Tankerminding is a good strategy to keep Ninjas alive. It's working pretty well so far, but I don't know if it would protect a whole team to the same extent as Bots.
I can't really offer any build advice, as I don't work with Mids and don't have a lot of experience in that kind of min/maxing. Hopefully someone else can.
I assume that you don't need an explanation of how the Tankermind strategy works? To me, Pain and Poison are more suited to letting the henchmen take the meatshield role.
just to note, it is entirely possible to get good mez resists from a /dark tankermind if slotted correctly - in fact, due to my TM being a badger, I had to respec out of my mez uniques to actually speed up the mez badges because they were taking so long to get 
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Well tell me if i'm right on what i understand to be tankermind. You go into bg mode and use provoke to keep agro on your self wile the pets burn down the mobs? I don't know the strat on using it for like av if tankerminds can stand aginst av's.
So with force fields just use provoke/the knock back to keep the agro? Is there a build that tankerminds use? Like when to get provoke? Leadership what to get ect?
As far as I know one of the best tankermind builds is a Bots/Traps one with Provoke and soft-capped (Or near enough) defences.
Bots gives ~11 defence to you and the protector bots and ~22 defence the others add in ~15 defence from the Force Field Generator and all the debuffs (Including Photon Seekers to take the Alpha) aswell as Trip Mines and whatnot causing aggro from Traps and your a few IO's away from being able to take out AV's without too much effort.
To take out AV's the number 1 rule is to position your pets so that they are in range of Supremecy (And therefore Bodyguard mode) but out of the range of any AoE's you take. Keep in mind that Ninja's and Necromancers cannot tankermind AV's well as they need their pets in PBAoE range to deal damage.
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Yep, that's it. Provoke is pretty important, I took it at 10, I think. Leadership might be nice to stack Manuevers with Dispersion Bubble, but probably not until later levels. Also, you want to slot Provoke pretty well to hold the aggro, you're want to slot some Taunt it in so you have enough duration. In the teens I was holding aggro for like a second or two, and then the foe would turn back on my Genin. |
Originally Posted by Mastermind01
Well tell me if i'm right on what i understand to be tankermind. You go into bg mode and use provoke to keep agro on your self wile the pets burn down the mobs? I don't know the strat on using it for like av if tankerminds can stand aginst av's.
So with force fields just use provoke/the knock back to keep the agro? Is there a build that tankerminds use? Like when to get provoke? Leadership what to get ect? |
The basic idea is that you want to hold all the aggro, so you are essentially a Tanker. You'll either make the first attack, or get in range to get attacked. Your pets will fire as soon as you're attacked. Keep in mind if you are teaming, if neither you nor your pets take any damage, your henchmen WILL NOT attack. This can be a problem if your team is taking fire, your henchmen will ignore it because you're not the one being attacks. Too much Defense can be a problem too, because if you are never hit, your henchmen will never attack. (Although I think if you attack a target, your henchmen tend towards attacking that target too)
Provoke stacked with some damage stacked with some knockback should hold aggro pretty well. Just like a Tanker, you want to layer your aggro management tools for best effect. Just spamming Provoke isn't going to do as much, if you attack (no matter how little damage you do) it'll multiply the Taunt effect. The same with doing knockback or debuffing.
Also, Kiwi's advice about having your henchmen stand back and out of the AoEs that hit you is very important as well. This is another reason Bots is a better choice than meleers like Ninjas. While you can charge in first to take the alpha, or take on one foe while your Ninjas attack someone else a distance away, that takes some micromanagement and timing.
My Tankermind that tanked the LRSF should be evidence that Tankerminds can Tank AVs.
So question now. Do i want to keep up my personal bubbles on the bots? Does it matter if i'm the one getting hit wile they are burning down?
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A large part of what makes a Tankermind viable is Bodyguard mode and sharing their health (and the effective resistance bonus this confers). If your henchmen die, you lose that. Ideally, a Tankermind is going to want an AoE heal as well as debuffs/buffs to keep their henchmen alive. Barring all, having at least one of those is a lot more effective than having none of those. |
Originally Posted by Mastermind01
So question now. Do i want to keep up my personal bubbles on the bots? Does it matter if i'm the one getting hit wile they are burning down?
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A Tankermind without henchmen might still be able to Tankermind, but they're going to be a lot more squishy.
(To illustrate: A Mastermind at 50 has 800 health (approximation). With 2 Henchmen, the same Mastermind can, for most purposes, be viewed as having 1600 health. 4 Henchmen makes that 2400, and all 6 makes it 3200. You can see the difference there.)
In an ideal world, your henchmen would never be shot at, if all aggro was concentrated on you. However, the bubbles can still be helpful for keeping the henchmen alive if you lose aggro for whatever reason, and to protect them from AoEs.
The latter is probably the main reason you would want to keep them bubbled.
My newest tankermind is a Demon / Pain.
It relies heavily on resists and healing to get the job done. And it works perfectly. I do however suggest to get both RES pet auras for an additional +20% to all resists for your pets. But dont be suprised when you see your pets resist hit the 60%+ mark ^^
The toggle regen aura is very important to get as well. So far Im going strong and having no problems what so ever. Thanks to high healing from my regen aura and my heal aura I can easily survive.
I got the Provoke power at lvl 8. Best part of this build is that I hardly ever need to resummon any pets even at high difficulty. To minimize your three weaknesses you have to act appropiately. They are AoE attacks, Psi damage and mez. Thats why I run around with 1 rez and rest is Breakfrees in my inspiration tray. But you dont use the BFs as much as you think. AoE and Psi damage is taken care of by having high heals and the highest possible Resist you can get. For both you and your pets. Thats why I slotted resist in Summon Demon since that Resist aura from Ember demon really helps when it is enhanced.
Ive Tanked several TFs already as the only tank in a team and it works perfectly, just make sure to keep the pets close to you. And you will do just fine.
I actually run a thugs/pain tankermind and it does pretty well even though thugs is probably the squishiest set there is.
The trick is proper slotting of Pain's AoE Heal, I went for 3heal/2rech/1end. Haven't even gotten around to set slotting yet other than a KB protection in toughness. With that nullify pain slotting, you've got a recharge running fast enough that it's actually worth putting on auto, as it'll fire every other power and it gets tiresome hitting the button over and over.
Toss some leadership in there, grab toughness, and slot the mess out of world of pain, and you'd be suprised how much you can suck up by just letting BG mode distribute the damage, and then using Nullify to keep them all up, and spot healing/shooting stuff as necessary
Extra bonus: Take kick with the pistol attack or attacks of your choice for extra lulz. BLAM BLAM - *boot*
Hello everyone. I just started playing again after a few years. I'm a huge fan of masterminds and i heard the tankermind and thought i'd make a post asking about it. What is a good build for one ? And how are they leveling ect. I currently have a 27 necro/posion and my newest one is 22 Demon/pain. Can a tankermind be any build? I don't mind starting a new char gives me a chance to see the petoria.