Bots goes with pretty much everything, and it is a testament to how good they are/were that even with 2 accidental nerfs (AI bug and burn patch change) they are still considered the best primary by many.
Due to Protector Bots having defence based shields I think they have the best synergy with /FF and /Traps and both sets allow you to softcap your pets which makes for great survivability.
/FF is a wonderful set for keeping the team alive, but does nothing to increase your kill speed - though once you get your Assault Bot upgraded at 32 you kill fast enough anyway.
/Traps is imho THE best secondary for MM's and combines the +def goodness found in /FF with some wicked debuffs and controls. Bots/Traps have soloed pretty much everything out there and are some of the most powerful toons you will find.
/Dark is another set I really like the sound of (There is another thread near the top of this section about it too) and works really well because you have lots of debuff and control and a heal. The heal is especially good because your ranged pets should all be standing near you (The recent AI change prevents this somewhat however).
All the other secondaries can be powerful, but I feel the above 3 work best.
Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"
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Hey Shay!
Darkstar's advice is bang on but if you want I'll email you the build I used to use. You just have to update it since it's a little old.
Well now, welcome to Masterminding! For bots, I would go with Dark or Traps. They are both all-round awesome and only have one stinker each (Black Hole and Detonator). Force field is safe as houses, but it will bore you to tears and things just die faster when they are Tar Patched or Acid Mortared 
Force Field is always a classic. I always thought it looked dumb but it can be helpful. In fact the bots/FF I did turned into my strongest toon when he was only suppose to be a test, go figure.
A bots/ff was my first 50.
I haven't touched that toon since I started leveling a bots/traps. /traps provides as much safety as FF for a bots MM, plus some of the best debuffs in the game.
To relieve the boredom of /FF I learned to herd crowds with the FF knockback powers. If that's your thing roll a stormy, they're knockbackalicious with actual attacks and debuffs.
Dark miasma is awesome, never a bad choice.
There are some good guides on the forum and lots of helpful advice to be had. Have fun!
/FF is a excellent buff set, but its also, to me, one of the most boring sets out there, especially on a mm
on a defender or troller its not too bad cause you have other powers to use, but with a mm, its a LOT of recasting buffs, ect, which can turn you into a buff put for your pets pretty fast
i would also agree with the above that /traps does basically the same thing as /FF, but with a lot more to it which is a variety of debuffs
Bots/Traps is one of the strongest PvE sets, if not THE most powerful and versatile - as others have stated.
/Dark offers one of the most powerful heals in the game (when it hits) along with a measure of debuffs and control that are nice to have.
/Storm is nice, and goes well with anything that is primarily ranged.
Thanks for the advice, everyone!
Made my first MM and slogged through to the 20s range--bots/traps. Amazing...I found the dynamic of multiple pet control rough at first but once I popped in a set of keybinds (Sandalphon's) it became a snap. The entire game has a very different vibe now. Amazing!
I think I've got a favorite red side AT now...
It's been repeated to the point of cliche, but nothing plays like a mastermind.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
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Just to give a counterexample, bots/ff nearly turned me off MMs all together. If you like to be particularly active, this tends not to be the set to do it in. Sticking with bots, /traps is fun (have 2-3 of those >.> ) and while I haven't paired it with bots, /storm works with my ranged Mercs pretty well.
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Originally Posted by Vexen777
Force Field is always a classic. I always thought it looked dumb but it can be helpful. In fact the bots/FF I did turned into my strongest toon when he was only suppose to be a test, go figure.
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Traps and Dark, but without a doubt Traps will make you godly without the use of any purple sets. Further Traps has fire and forget powers. Dark though comparably good can be an issue when your Darkest Night Anchor runs off.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
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That's where the hold comes in handy.
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Originally Posted by plainguy
Dark though comparably good can be an issue when your Darkest Night Anchor runs off.
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- The laws of science were, first, God's laws. We didn't make them, we just gave them a name...likely not the name their creator gave them.
- No, no. Humans made them. The same way we made gravity, the atomic bomb, Cheetos, babies, and water.
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Agreed, but I tend to have be reapplying it often. Dark is good, but to me Traps is much better. The one thing that Traps has that Dark does not have is Trip mine. If built for Defense cap you can solo mobs with no pets and just Traps if needed. |
Originally Posted by Offda_Handel
That's where the hold comes in handy.
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There are times teams may ask you not to summon pets or a bad moment might kill off your pets and resummoning will just insta-kill them. So you forgo the summon to keep your endurance and drop a Trip Mine or two.
Again I feel Traps just has a bit more utility. It gives the feeling of being a more polished set. It is as if they recognized some of the mistakes with previous sets and made up by creating a solid set like Traps. I think they can articulate the goodness of it by placing all those timers on it.
I'm biased to Traps and Defense Cap builds as they really allow me to solo or be in a team, but no rely on any particular AT type.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
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It's awesome. My Bot/DM can solo on +1/x8 at 50 smoothly.|
Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
/Dark is another set I really like the sound of
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I like it more than traps because there's less setting up to do, and more of the moves can be applied on the fly without having to get too close.
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I have to disagree that Traps requires setting up. Dark is very dependent on Darkest Night and Shadow Fall working in conjunction with each other to have your defense cap. You then require Petrifying Gaze to keep the anchor in place otherwise you will almost immediately notice the hits getting through. Fight a bunch of werewolves and your pretty much screwed if the anchor runs off.|
Originally Posted by beyeajus
It's awesome. My Bot/DM can solo on +1/x8 at 50 smoothly.
I like it more than traps because there's less setting up to do, and more of the moves can be applied on the fly without having to get too close. |
Whereas Traps your at defense cap with FFG out it is the one power you have to keep your mind on. Its duration is 240 seconds ( 4 Minutes ).
I find it much easier to keep on top of one power which has a clear indication that it is active with a giant glowing bubble. Whereas in a large group of mobs it can be tough sometimes to make sure your Darkest Night anchor is still around. I purposely make my Darkest Night bright red to make it obvious to me and keep track of. Let alone keeping Petrifying Gaze going as well. I am not saying OMG its too much. It's obvious it isn't as I have a 50 Dark Electric Defender. But when I loose sight of that Anchor or I end up killing him off, there are times I cannot get Twilight Grasp off fast enough or I just drop the anchor on the first mob available just to get my defenses back up.
With Traps I have no fear of pulling 2 or 3 groups where again with Dark your only debuffing those mobs near the Darkest Night target. So any other mobs that are at range will only be dealing with possibly half of your defense value. Further Darkest Night has a 16 mob max I think ? Getting that from Red Tomax. FFG has no limit.
Where you might fear having mobs come into range a Traps player has really no issues. One drop of caltrops causes enough scatter to safely place a trip mine.
Further FFG does more then just give you defense value it also blocks if placed properly.
If you look at the base recharge values you will see that FFG is pretty quick recharge when compared to some Dark powers. I never ran into an issue where I lost a FFG and had to wait for it to recharge to resummon.
Further regardless of how long some say it take to place Trip mine it really does allow you to do some major damage without the pets. That is clearly something you cannot do with many other secondaries especially Dark.
End result your mob dependent with Dark, whereas Traps you are not. You are own island. You walk up to a bunch of mobs announce you are there with a Trip mine or a Poison Trap, then trip mine followed by Provoke.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
Just dinged 39 today. It's been a long, hard few days. But I'm loving this bots/traps more and more with every mish.
I certainly see what's meant by 'set up time'...I've found it works well when I fire up a mini-base (triage, acid mortar, etc) and lay out caltrops (which I bet is even more win when loaded with procs).
Honestly though, with properly geared up bots I don't worry about the mini-base unless I'm fighting bosses, AVs or something similar. I've heard its possible to solo some GMs with a bots/traps...that's the next big challenge.
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On a trapper, you can easily set up the mini-base between this group and the next one beyond so you get full use out of the triage and acid mortar. With the bots, they tend to knock that first group right into your killing field.
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Originally Posted by Shaytanah
Just dinged 39 today. It's been a long, hard few days. But I'm loving this bots/traps more and more with every mish.
I certainly see what's meant by 'set up time'...I've found it works well when I fire up a mini-base (triage, acid mortar, etc) and lay out caltrops (which I bet is even more win when loaded with procs). Honestly though, with properly geared up bots I don't worry about the mini-base unless I'm fighting bosses, AVs or something similar. I've heard its possible to solo some GMs with a bots/traps...that's the next big challenge. |
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
Nice tip Psy, thanks! Any other MM strategies you know of, feel free to share!
I did pick up stealth however....makes it easier to drop poison traps and such right where I want 'em.
Hi all,
With the arrival of GR there's suddenly a lot more red-side action on my home server, so I've decided to dive into MMs. I've tried out a friend's MM and, learning curve aside, found to be a blast.
I've decided to make my first MM bots/* because I'm most used to blasters and would prefer the ranged dynamic. The main thing I need now is a proper secondary.
/FF looks pretty good for the buffs and such but I don't want to discount /dark either due to the tar patch / flame potential.
What would you folks suggest as a great secondary for a bots MM, and why?
Thanks everyone.