Why do I dislike Masterminds more and more?

I used to be a very active poster in the MM forum. I've made lvl 50 Necro/Pain, lvl 50 Merc/Storm, 50 Merc/Poison, 47 Ninja/FF, 46 Necro/Storm and many other higher level MMs (like 37 Thug/Trap and 32 Demon/TA) except for Robot.

My idea of Mastermind is actually using my pets as my "weapons" rather than "meatshields". I really really really dislike Tanker-mind build because if I want to direct damage to myself, I would play something else. Yes, I've heard many awesome stories about Robot/Trap or Robot/Dark but most of them revolve around using provoke and let the pets run wild.

I played Guild War's Beast Master and I love how my pet IS my weapon. Mastermind used to give me that feeling until recently. When I say recently, I guess it's when I can start making mob size harder and bigger and when set bonuses start to really matter and turn squishies into "durable" (with lots of +defense).

I enjoy mastermind a lot at lower levels because that's when pets don't die in one aoe or one hit and when I feel my pets are good "weapons" rather than useless cannon fodders. I took my Necro/Pain to Barrcuda SF last night and I totally did not enjoy it and I cannot imagine bringing any of my MMs to the two new SFs (Apex and Tin Mage). Those mobs are +4 level to me so any hit pretty much kill my minions and I hate losing any of my pets and resummoning them again and again. I already put 4 pet uniques. I took maneuver and I even try to get melee with my pets so I can aoe heal them as soon as it's up.


Playing MMs at high level has become so frustrating (well, play as Necro, Ninja and to some degree Merc) when pets just die from aoe attacks left and right. Yes, I know I am supposed to resummon them but sometimes I just feel like why bother resummoning them when they just die. If I need to spend 6s or more seconds resummoning and upgrading, I might as well just support my teammates first but if I just want to support, I should just play a Corr/Defender.


And of course there are Robot and Thug users who swear MMs are overpowered. I truly don't feel that way at high level. I feel when the contents get harder, the pets get less useful unless you are Robots?


I really think pets should have some innate aoe resistance. The set bonuses don't support pets well unless you direct damage to yourself. I am hoping new Alpha slots can improve pets' survival or else I don't think I'll alpha any of my MMs. They become "fun" to "frustrating".

At this point, I just don't enjoy MMs at high level anymore because all the advantages of being a MM seems to vanish. At low level, you have more endurance because your pets are fighting for you. Well, with set bonuses and alpha, endurance is hardly an issue. Your pets are supposed to be the meatshields for the team. Well, they are pretty terrible cannon fodders if they just die in one or two hits and the common strategy is to taunt and direct damage to yourself. Why bother playing Mastermind then? MMs are supposed to have good damage. I deal pathetic damage when my pets just keep dying and I keep on resummoning/upgrading and why bother micro manage pets when they just die?


There some issues that could have made MMs better like getting rid of Brawl for range pets and how Oni is still taking knockback set when he has no knockback attacks. I just feel the dev thinks MMs are too awesome to receive any kind of attention (when is the last time dev posts anything meaningful in MM forum except for getting rid of pet's Recharge? ) but I really don't feel MM is that awesome. I feel Mastermind's pets should benefit from +recharge because they are his weapons.

I also don't know if it's just my "taste" in AT has changed or MMs are just too frustrating to play.

while i do love playing my mm, i do agree with most of your points though

on most other games, any pets you get are semi OP and even with 1-2 pets you could let them go at the baddies all day and they hardly wimper out

i could partially see why they made the pets weaker in this game because of pvp and using pets to farm with little risk to self, but as it stands right now, most of the pets are extremely weak anyway

i think the best thing they could do is just make ALL the summons work like the tier 3 summon and spawn at even level, at least tier 3s do a bit more dmg and take a few more hits, this would certainly not overpower them, but definitely help in the new incarnate tfs and other more difficult content

as to the point with the rech not affecting pets, that wasnt entirely intended to be a nerf, but the super high rech bonuses were messing with the pet AI, essentially making them more stupid

I play MMs in a weird way. I tend to leave my pets on aggressive, because I got used to playing MM before we had bodyguard. I don't like being a "tankermind," I like just having pets around to help out. I try whatever I can to make the pets take damage for me, instead of trying to get hit on my own. But I also try to make sure they stay alive and useful. Resummoning too often is a pain.

My highest and most successful MMs are Necro/Dark/Soul and Demons/Thermal. I also have a Thugs/Trap/Mace MM but you didn't sound like you liked Thugs.

One thing those characters all have in common is they can slot RIP (Recharge Intensive Pet) sets. I think in a way it's pretty stupid that not all MMs can. Regardless, I have all four pet uniques slotted on those three toons. Meaning all my pets have +20% RES and +10% DEF, shoring up their defenses fairly well.

The Thug/Trap has tons of DEF to go around. Forcefield Generator and Maneuvers stack with the thugs themselves, giving them lots of DEF to go by.

The Necro/Dark is fairly fun. They have upwards of 70% RES to things like dark and psi, and between all the -ToHit and healing they get along just fine. I rarely heal them myself due to the small area heal, but they all have their own heals and my Dark Servant goes well. I have about 6 holds between all the pets and powers, and lots of fear and immobilize. Truthfully I actually LIKE when my zombies die on this character, because she can resummon them as ghosts.

The Demon/Thermal has thermal shields to go around. Some of the pets between all the RES buffs have 90% RES going for them. Plus I still have heals, and my pets have their own heals. The demons are very durable, and only die when they do stupid things like chase something into another spawn. I frequently just float through missions on a team doing +2 or +3, with pets on aggressive, without losing them. Although this one is definitely the most work, with all the shields required.

I suppose it depends on what you're playing and what you like to do. You might have not played the "right" combination yet. Or maybe you just need the RIP sets to help out a little. Either way, I like my MMs. I played Guild Wars too; I quit when they nerfed necromancers to the point of not being any fun for minionmaster builds, and came over to play necromancer in CoV. And I never went back to GW. My necro has only gotten more fun to play as the times went on, especially now with incarnate and i19 extra powers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

The set nobody ever remembers is Poison. It's great enemy debuff and decent ally buff, which is a really good combination for Masterminds.

Envenom makes the enemy easier to hit and quicker to die. Always good for "Attack My Target"

Weaken makes the enemy less likely to hit, and hit for less when he does. Plug that on the boss. It's also a negative Power Boost, which means that enemy's mezzes or heals or endurance drains or whatever aren't very effective.

Neurotoxic Breath is one nasty -Recharge, which means less frequent incoming damage all around. Great for giving the Henchmen the advantage.

Paralytic Poison. Who doesn't love Paralytic Poison?

Noxious Gas is like a PBAoE combination of Envenom plus Weaken, and stacks with those two as well. Whole groups don't tend to last very long after that.

So the Henchmen get mezzed? Antidote. So they need a quick heal? Alkaloid.

Poison Trap sucks, though. I think what the devs did was remove all the suck from the other powers and had to put it some place so they picked Poison Trap instead. At least there's only one throw-away power!

The thing about poison is its all single targets, and sets like /traps, /thermal and /dark have AoE debuffs that are far more valuable. Yea, the -special from poison is nice, but its pretty situational.

I play like a tankermind on my bot/traps, and between my protector bots and my FFG basically everything is softcapped. (the protector bots themselves aren't but they can heal, and i have repair now with i19)

Also debuffs help out when i don't feel like hitting provoke. I sit in melee range a lot, for the /traps, so attacks just end up hitting me more often then they hit my pets. If i know the enemy has AoE attacks, i'll use provoke first.

on my demon/thermal (shes just level 22, but still) I play like a buff bot with 6 damaging beasts of doom. i keep them all buff'ed and healed and pretty much just let my pets do their thing. I'll focus fire on some of the bigger mobs, and usually send the pets in first, but with thermal shields and my heals, and the demons heals, i hardly ever lose a pet.

Your points are all very good. MMs tend to get stronger and stronger past 32 until level 50, where the system of IOs, set bonuses and Incarnate slotting starts to work for everyone but MMs.

1. Pets are no longer affected by recharge, plus or minus. This was a big whack against MMs, could be because they've been toying with some way to get kinetics ported over to MMs via powerset proliferation? It also means that a huge portion of the enhancement system is lost to MMs. The attack chain starts to flatten out because the attack rate of the pets are capped.

Note that this isn't exactly a bad thing since the AI is so screwy that having too much recharge might just make all of your pets run into brawl range. Not that they don't do that now...

I'd suggest allowing pets to be affected by +/- recharge again. Put a lower cap (for MM henchmen only) on it if you are concerned about MM /kin being OP.

2. Pets are not governed by the 1 shot code. This means the lowest tiers of henchmen will get 1 shotted easily. Over and over in the end game, because level 50 MMs are spawning level 48 and 49 henchmen against level 54 minions and bosses. Only the last pet spawns at the combat level of the caster. That cannot end well, especially given the number of AoEs. When Bobcat can do 5,000 damage to a player character, obviously the henchmen aren't going to be around for long since they can suffer instadeath.

Adding 1-shot code for henchmen shouldn't be a big deal. It would give MMs a chance to heal or retreat their pets.

Add the inherent to level shift MM pets as the MM crafts higher level incarnate gear as part of the normal routine. For example, the first MM level shift would be the -2 (tertiary) henchman being turned to -1 henchmen at the end game, the second level shift for the -1 (secondary) henchman to be even combat level to caster, the third level shift would be for the -2 (tertiary) henchman to be even combat level to the caster, and the fourth level shift would be for the big henchman to be +1 to the caster. That would mean that the eventual incarnate MM would have a single level 51 primary pet and the secondary and tertiary pets would be even level to the caster. Each stage could be added as the capping point to 1 of the 10 phases of incarnate progression (ie. the finish of Alpha would only net the MM the shift of the -2 pets to -1).

Alternatively, the level shift could be from the point of the attacker, so that the level shift happens so the level 54 minion sees the 48 henchman as a 49 henchman, but the tech could make it work that the level shift only affects level 52 and higher bad guys. This would prevent the MM being too overpowering against standard level 50 mobs.

If the tech exists, tie the supremacy distance of the caster to the level shift of the pets.

3. Set bonuses do not apply to pets. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. No bonuses to defense, damage or accuracy. The only ones that apply are the direct pet sets, and they don't give a heck of a lot.

The +def and +res aura bonuses for the pets are only within supremacy distance, so for melee pet MMs it also means getting dangerously close to AoE happy bad guys to give any benefit. That means the pets get dropped really fast and the MM usually gets dropped quickly after that. Bots MMs suffer less from this.

Get rid of the supremacy distance requirement for the pet bonus procs. They should apply all the time, regardless of the distance from the caster. There is already a penalty for losing supremacy buffs on the henchman as well as the MM.

Allow set bonuses (the ones that weren't developed directly for pets) to be applied to pets, but divide the buff amount by the number of pets that can be cast. Procs should affect pets similarly.

4. Speed runs. A lot of TFs now have a lot of mob skipping. Dragging pets along usually means they get stripped off the MM pretty fast due to aggro.

MMs should have the ability to stay their pets to a spot regardless of distance (no rubberbanding), but the pets should not be able to attack or respond to new commands when far away (Instant perma-sleep). MMs should also get the ability to recall all of their pets like a team teleport command on a decently fast recharging basis.

Plus if you out distance your pets by i think 150yds (or something similiar) they automatically teleport to your owner of the pets. So on speed runs, you can be teleported by a player, and your pets come to.

Or you can SS ahead, and the pets catch up.

Oddly Pum I think I disagree with almost everything you said.

The recharge thing is kind of a necessary evil. It causes bad AI issues. What would you rather have, pets that can't improve their attack chain, or pets that for some reason only use one power in their attack chain because their recharge is too high and they get confused? Randomly activating various attacks with some delay is better than only using Head Splitter and nothing else.

I don't think MM pets should be allowed the one-shot code. That would arguably allow an MM to get by the one-shot code 7 times or more. Pets dying can be annoying but... it happens.

Pretty sure level shift already works with MM pets. In the first mission of the incarnate arc you're shifted to +10. Your pets still con at the correct colors. If they didn't, they'd all be gray.

I don't think sets should apply to pets (they already get super powerful pet set uniques; can players get +20% RES vs all?). But I do think RIP sets should be available for all MMs. Right now they're only available to half. If the idea is that MMs shouldn't get those particular sets then why were Thugs and Demons designed to be able to slot them? It's not like those sets have survival issues and need them. If that was the case, Ninjas and Mercs would have them. If anything there should be more pet-applicable bonuses, not give everything to pets.

I also don't know about the speedrunning thing. Who speedruns TFs anymore with shards to get?

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Just to pick a nit (though I hate to do so) MM pets con like LTs, so even though the T1 pets are lvl48, they act like lvl49s, which is why they con blue. The T3 pets actually spawn a level higher than you.

Back to the OP: I know this won't make you feel any better, but the devs were kinda hoping that MMs would be the tanks of CoV. That *really* didn't work out at first, but after adding Bodyguard, it's now feasible (well, besides our lack of ability to hold aggro).

I main Ninja/Storm, but I've also done mercs/TA to 50, and have a few more on the way to 50 (necro/thermal, merc/storm, thugs/ff, etc). With Tough/Shark Skin/SM running, I've got around 60% s/l/cold resist, and of that amount, I only take 2/7th damage. For that reason, I mostly play my MM as a really tough corrupter.

I'll heal my pets only if my teammates aren't dying, but otherwise I'm a debuff bot, and the pets are there to soak damage and kill things that accidently AoE me. It's a good team strategy that's worked for me even in all the new end-game content (except with speed runs I desummon all pets except the Jounin to stealth to objectives). YMMV

I did the BSF last night with my Defense Capped, Alpha Slotted to tier 2 damage and def debuff Robot Traps and it was a disaster for me because it was a speed run. Solo I'm running 0/8 or 1/8 with no issues. I can run 2/8 paying attention.

I have the stealth proc but its in Super Jump. I don't have hasten so no super speed. I might have to rethink the build a bit and change it up.

Even at the end it was difficult because the aoe was wiping out all my bots and half killing the last one. At one point there was no where I could summon the pets.. When I tried they instantly died from all the attacks.

What they should do is maybe allow you the ability to summon your bots and leveled / Upgraded in one cast. Make it cost 1/2 and endurance bar or something. You still need to pick the powers, but have the option to drag a button to your bar to do this all in one cast for higher end cost.

I have 4 masterminds myself. 1 Robot FF, 1 Robot Traps, 1 DS Pain, 1 DS Traps.

I think they are a burden if your doing a speed run or with higher end players.. Those who are defense capped or purple IO sets. When your with a average team where it might be you and a few 2 others who are capped out and the rest are just standard players it's a good run. Because the speed isn't that fast.

Add onto all of this the crazy and broken AI mastermind pets have now.. The only working build is a Tankermind build. Sadly you do not have enough endurance to constantly resummoning your pets when they get wiped.

Any down time from when the pets are summoned and get into combat spell nothing but quick and merciless death for them. You need to be able to summon them and have them warp in ( for a lack of better words ) and have them ready to attack.

They need to have a more granular control for the AI on top of what is now.. For those looking to have a more finite control over there pets. Personally myself I wouldn't mind if my pets just stood in one spot and attacked without running after anything. I just want them next to me acting as gun turrets.

Or go completely the other way and make them as disposable pets that you can summon with an upgrade similar to how you respec with VEATS. Your upgrade power replaces the old power. And flesh out the MM attacks a bit more.. Make some changes to increase hit points and such for the MM.

And finally maybe allow just for one SUPER PET. EG Frankenstein Monster. The Iron Giant. Each upgrade adds additional powers that you can decide to use. Those are the new powers you get.

Sadly as much as the devs would like to get this stuff working right. It just does not work well. The pet AI has been messed up for about 6 months if not more and there has been no word or attempt to say they are even considering fixing it. Your pretty much left in the dark.

Further today with IO builds you can do whatever you can with Robot Traps tankermind without the issue of worrying about pets.

There has to be some reward for hassling with the pets.. Currently there is not.

They screwed up masterminds when Demon Summoning came out. Stick to a melee predominant set of pets.

WoW eventually made changes to hunter pets to allow them to avoid most AoE attacks so they could be useful in raids. Perhaps CoH pets need something similar.

As a Bots/FF I don't actually run a Tankermind build, and instead on EB's+ buff my robots with the individual shields. I've found them to be reasonably protected that way.

Now, the problem comes that not all MM's are Thermal/FF and those people on the team who buff usually ignore the pets. Perhaps an arrangement where all temporary buffs placed on the player are inherited by the henchmen could be sorted out.

I'm not sure what the solution is though - because if the devs go thwe wrong way with them, they'll (MM's) be overpowered.

MMs are already pretty overpowered in the right hands. the problem is, there aren't that many people that know how to correctly use masterminds.

I wouldn't mind a global 15% AoE def inherent added to all mastermind pets. That way its not overly bad, and make it unenhanceable, so you can buff it. That'll basically knock out 1/3 of the AoE attacks as base, and with things like /traps or /FF you can really boost that defense to high rates.

MMs are amazing. If you're having a lot of issues with them, I think you're doing it wrong.

You have a resist aura IO and a defense aura IO ontop of Leadership pools that are pretty standard for MM's. All of these help when stacked together for pet survivability. Aside from that, you can resummon fairly easily.

MM is a tough AT to fall in love with. It requires a solid secondary to keep you entertained, mastery of binds and situational awareness, and knowledge of which mobs spray aoe around and how to get around it. Be sure to pick something with a heal and some additional buffage. It's not terribly hard to get your minions to stand up to typical NPCs.

Ive seen both sides of the coin, ive seen pets getting splattered every 2 seconds, then I've seen the more dedicated MM's putting more effort into controling them, a few seconds of lost dps is better than the end cost and time of resummining and upgrading them.

That being said, 2 of the 3 sets you mentioned are pretty darn squishy (ninja and merc) - If you wanted to give it a serious run, id probably recommend just about any but those 2.

if i see my pets start getting constantly 1 shot, i wont even bother training them, since now the training powers are extremely end heavy

on tfs like tin mage, i usually dont bother training the pets the entire tf, as they are usually all killed by the end of 1 mob

a buff to aoe def which is sort of inherent would be pretty awesome and definitly help survivability in a few cases

I have two MM's, a nerco/poison and a bots/storm. Of the two, the bots storm is far and away the better combo. I find necros to be very squishy, even with all teh to hit debuffs, teh zombies usually die before they can take effect. I agree with some of your points Jib, but saying MMs are less useful at 50 just doesnt make sense to me. How about a /dark with the end to run all his toggles and debuffs, which odds are, he cant do at 32? I Know my storm cant run all his goodies that easy mid-lvl.
And the fact aoes can wipe out pets at 50? Um hello..aoes do more damage to everyone at 50. Ever seen how quick a few longbow aoes can take out a corr? Oddly enough..as lvl increases, so does the baddies damage. So of course they are going to take a higher amount.
Just curious also...how does listing the powers from poison relate to Jib's dislike of MMs? Since he said he had one..Im sure he knows. I find my poison odd too play..any mob over a few, and I can lose a few pets, whereas my storm just eats anyhing.
Onto Pum's point.....No one shot code? So explain why, soloing av's with my bots storm, I have seen pets get hit for upwards of 2000 damage, in one whack, and not die? Also..quote...Set bonuses do not apply to pets. And yes, I am aware you go on to mention the uniques, but quite obviously, they DO apply to pets. Considering 4 IOs can give +20 and 10% res and def..they hardly lose out from having no other IOs apply. Imagine a bots MM with the def bonus from IOs applying to the pets...it would be insane.

The biggest issue I see with MMs and the new TFs is, as someone mention, everything is +4, at minimum. Pets die way to fast. Especially unfair on the tin mage malta av, or BM mission. It pretty much makes the entire primary useless. And I didnt bother resummoning.
However, thats more due to the silly mission design than anything else