Squishy demons

I'm playing a demon/dark mastermind. I've played bots/dark and thugs/dark both in the past, and I'm a bit disappointed in how squishy my demons are in comparison. I'm hoping things will improve when I get the resist and defense aura procs for them, and when I get fluffy at 38, but does anyone have any other suggestions on how to keep the little buggers alive?

Ok. I had a bit of the same issue in the beginning. Mind you Nyte-Terror is only 22, but her Demons were dead, alot!

So, When I got Muffin...Summon Demon power, I have slotted him for 1 damage, 1 heal and 3 Resist damages, and I took Manuevers for some extra defense.

Im using poison as well which allows me to debuff enemies chance to hit, as well as lower their defenses so the demons become more DPS.

But I do notice a huge difference now with his resists being higher.

I also have a Demon/Dark MM at lvl 50 and to be honest..my demons can still be rather squishy at times. My toon isn't fully IO'd out yet though, so maybe that has something to do with it. I /have/ seen a fully IO'd out DS though and again.. demons still squishy. The upside to this was he would kill any PC/NPC quick enough that it the squishy demons weren't a concern.

The +Res and +Def auras will make a noticeable difference, especially if you get the recharge intensive ones as well.

Fluffy will also increase survivability considerably. Slot him heavily for +ToHitDebuff and I would recommend Recall Friend, if you can fit it into your build, so that you can position him exactly where you want him. In the same vein, get Fearsome Stare, slot it for +ToHitDebuff and +RechRed with a little +Acc, and use it often. Use Petrifying Gaze to disable hard targets. Your radius for Twilight Grasp is small, so get good at maneuvering to get your demons in it's range. A good opening sequence is FS -> TP -> DN (PG on the anchor to keep him put). Howling Twilight is also a great opener.

Put a couple +Res IO's in Summon Demons, but DO NOT place any Heal IO's in it. This will cause your Ember Demon to heal for more, but less frequently. Conventional wisdom dictates that you want his heal to go off as often as possible.

Like every other set, it gets better with the tier 3 henchman and the final upgrade at 32.

Heal IO's are fine. Ember fires his team heal no matter what.

I have a Demons/Dark and I really enjoy it... it's one of my toughest Masterminds (aside from the Bots/Traps). Some things that help a lot:

• Slot Fearsome Stare for to-hit debuff instead of just fear, and make sure you get enough recharge to use it every spawn. Also slot Darkest Night for to-hit debuff. Between the two of them you reduce incoming damage a lot.
• Once you get Fluffy and make him permanent it makes a world of difference. Even more so when you slot him for to-hit debuff.
• Slot the resist and defense auras. Both sets can go in Hell on Earth.
• Slot plenty of generic endurance reduction in Summon Demons and Summon Demon Prince. They run out of endurance fast once you get the second upgrade, and they have multiple types of powers so you need generic (or Hamidon) enhancements since sets only apply to powers that can use them. No heals and no slows or holds due to empty endurance bars will make you lose pets a lot more often.
• Watch your spawn sizes. You are essentially "softcapping" your pets by flooring your enemies' chance to hit them. Against very large spawns you may not be able to hit everything with your debuffs and a lot of enemies will be outside Fluffy's range, so your pets will start taking a whole lot more hits.

I completely agree with Stryker. I would add: it seems to me when the endurance on the ember demon gets down toward 33% or so, it seems the heals taper off first. Feed your ember demon blues if you have to in order to keep him fully functional.