I picked Dark Miasma as my secondary. It's got just as many nasty debuffs as thermal or any other secondary for that matter with the exception of Traps. Just like you, I don't like having to constantly rebuff my pets so having a toggled buff like Shadow Fall is a big plus for me. That and I get a 7th pet in Dark Servent is pretty nice also. Now Dark doesn't have as many healing options as Thermal but I personally think that's less of an issue for DS because ember demons already have heal powers to begin with.
As for your second question, DS pets have a mix of attcks available with tier 1s have mostly ranged attacks and tier 2/3s having more melee attacks. Demonlings for example *usually* prefer to stay at ranged but with the latest AI update, their behaviors have become more random and illogical. There seems to be always at least one crazy demonling that likes to charge into melee range. I guess the only real way to describe the current pet AI is.... organized chaos? Just make sure you always have the goto command ready for the times when your pets get too autonomous for their own good.
Thanks for the response. I'm very comfortable with Sandolphins numpad binds for pet control, so that isn't a huge issue. Ranged pets do seem to love to run into melee, just wanted to get a feel up front for what I was looking at.
Not sure I want to do dark. It has some nice control for sure, great debuffs and such but it's just not good synergy with demons I think. Demons are slightly resist focused with the T2 getting a resist buff it will toss around, while dark debuffs tend to generate -tohit which would synergize well with a +defense set like bots or maybe even thugs with stacked maneuvers or something.
Also trying to find something fun to run as a primary with a /storm MM. The -speed and -hit debuffs could just be a lot of fun I think. I just really like the /storm set thematically. I have a stormy in the teens on hero side that I play every now and again with my kiddo but we both started on red side and prefer to play on that side... so we don't end up on blue very much.
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Hmm, I tend of think of the -tohit from Dark Miasma actually synergizes quite well with the resistant based DS. One can have all the resistance in the world but the best defense is to not get hit in the first place. Here's how I prioritize the various defensive measures in terms of increasing survivability with 1 being the highest priority. |
Originally Posted by Humility
Not sure I want to do dark. It has some nice control for sure, great debuffs and such but it's just not good synergy with demons I think. Demons are slightly resist focused with the T2 getting a resist buff it will toss around, while dark debuffs tend to generate -tohit which would synergize well with a +defense set like bots or maybe even thugs with stacked maneuvers or something.
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1. Defense
2. -Tohit
3. Resistance
4. -Damage
5. Healing
Now since Dark Miasma only has one +def buff power, -tohit debuffs on enemies is the next best thing in my opinion. You can effectively stack on enough -tohit to mimic the same effect of having softcapped defense. It's the same logic behind why a lot of resistance based brutes/tankers opt to build up their positional/typed defenses as opposed to adding more resistance.
In terms of Thugs and Bots, I actually think of Traps and FF as having better synergy for those primaries. After all, those are the only MM secondaries that can actually softcap the defense of your pets as well as yourself. To me, it's always better to go softcapped defense because it is a more reliable option than -tohit. This is not to say that -tohit doesn't help or is irratic, it's just that it *could* be resisted, especially when you're fighting against AVs and such.
Anyways don't get me wrong, Thermal is a great MM secondary and works quite well with DS. I just personally rank Dark Miasma a tiny bit higher. You should go with what you're comfortable with in the end.
I've been happy with my demon/pain so far. Pretty effective overall, and I don't even have painbringer or anguishing cry yet. Probably won't for a while either, I decided to park her at 32 to try my hand at farming mid-level drops. I'm constantly tempted to turn xp back on though.
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A good post, and I appreciate the response.|
Originally Posted by baron_inferno
Hmm, I tend of think of the -tohit from Dark Miasma actually synergizes quite well with the resistant based DS. One can have all the resistance in the world but the best defense is to not get hit in the first place. Here's how I prioritize the various defensive measures in terms of increasing survivability with 1 being the highest priority.
1. Defense 2. -Tohit 3. Resistance 4. -Damage 5. Healing Now since Dark Miasma only has one +def buff power, -tohit debuffs on enemies is the next best thing in my opinion. You can effectively stack on enough -tohit to mimic the same effect of having softcapped defense. It's the same logic behind why a lot of resistance based brutes/tankers opt to build up their positional/typed defenses as opposed to adding more resistance. In terms of Thugs and Bots, I actually think of Traps and FF as having better synergy for those primaries. After all, those are the only MM secondaries that can actually softcap the defense of your pets as well as yourself. To me, it's always better to go softcapped defense because it is a more reliable option than -tohit. This is not to say that -tohit doesn't help or is irratic, it's just that it *could* be resisted, especially when you're fighting against AVs and such. Anyways don't get me wrong, Thermal is a great MM secondary and works quite well with DS. I just personally rank Dark Miasma a tiny bit higher. You should go with what you're comfortable with in the end. |
The point I was making was that -hit and defense synergize. They specifically complement each other. Soft capping defenses is powerful, but it is also very resource intensive in terms of what you need in your build to do it.
(Purely for example, these numbers are made up) Lets say to reach the soft cap you need to devote 80% of your build resources to that goal (by build resources I mean power selections, slotting and IO set bonuses). This leaves you 20% of your build to do other things for fun or utility.
Now, if you instead choose power sets which have good synergy, they can cover gaps in the other set. Reaching 30% defense is much easier than soft capping, and covering that gap with -tohit is likely much less resource intensive. For instance it might take 50% of your build resources to reach 30% defenses, then another 20% to cover the gaps with -tohit. This leaves you 30% of your build for fun or utility, more than soft capping.
Because of the way defense works (As laid out in this thread) it is exponentially more powerful as you gain more of it (Not technically exponential, but close enough). The more you have, the more valuable it becomes.
Combining resistance and defense is not a bad option per se, but it is not as powerful as a strictly defense based build because of the way defense scales.
Please note I'm not trying to say you're wrong or doing something wrong or anything of the sort, I'm not even saying that combining the two is a bad idea. Just trying to lay out my own train of thought as much for my own clarification as anything else.
I'd think long and hard about /Thermal as an option.
Especially later on, toward the end-game content where things become really tricky you want to be stacking somekind of survival trait. Thats why Bots or Thugs with /Traps are so popular, they stack up DEF.. with DS and Thermal you can really ramp up the RES. Its a lot of bubbling though!
Going for DEF is a waste of time if you can't softcap it when you get to the end-game, same goes for -Tohit or anything, unless your maxing things out your not getting anywhere. Level 54 mobs have really high accuracy 
I hear Demon/Thermal is a beast.
My demon is /poison on live, haven't gotten past level 10 yet though in very casual play with it. On test I was /pain and enjoyed it quite a bit.
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I have a level 45 Demon Summons/Thermal. He is a beast. It's one thing to compare a resistance build to a traps or forcefield defense build, but it's quite another thing if you take into account that a thermal mastermind has a superior AoE heal, which traps and forcefield don't have, and twilight grasp is so much smaller. The ember demon also heals, which stacks mitigation with the resistances. Burst damage trumps heals, but it takes numerous hits on resistance buffed pets to bring them down.
There is also another critical aspect to a Demon Summoner that can be brought to near soft cap, and that is the Demon Prince's slow. I have seen my Demon Prince do some amazing things when the fit hits the shan and I am re-summoning minions. The Demon Prince's hold is very nice, too. He usually opens up on the first thing that attacks my mastermind, so of course, I tap the meanest boss, nastiest lieutenant or peskiest minion first.
I went chill mastery on my mastermind, and I am not looking back. My first thought was Flash Freeze would be kind of a 'fill' power to get to the good stuff, but it's far better than that. Flash Freeze, then Heat Exhaust, and Melt Armor, and I might be getting hit just by the boss, which again plays right into my Demon Prince's AI. The demonlings take their ranged attacks, the hell on earth streams in with the Demon Prince, and it is truly a kill zone.
Don't overlook forge and thaw. Thaw can keep your demonlings in the fight. Demon Prince with hell on earth, ember demon with forge, and the gargoyle with forge is a terrific trio.
Of course the achilles heal has been identified in the Demon Summoning/Thermal build as endurance usage. Clearly, the cardiac alpha slotting is indicated.
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i went /thermal myself, and if i did my math correctly, all my demons will be rocking about 90% (or rather, capped) resistance to just about everything except psionic damage. 2 pet auras giving 20%, the ember demon giving about another 25- 30%, plus my thermal shields topping everyone off.
between the high resistance values, and the double healing from me, and the ember demon, im pretty certain the demons will be pretty durable. Being able to perma forge, and have hell on earth up about every 4 or so minutes just makes things even more awesome. Lots of damaging, durable pets, and plenty for me to do while the demons wreck things.
It'll play about the opposite of my bot/traps, which is a tankermind, but so far, hitting about level 23 its pretty awesome.
Thanks to everyone for popping into the thread, and thanks to those of you who have played the combo for chiming in. I think this will probably be my next character to work on. I also want to work on a def capped melee character, but I'm not 100% sure what I want to use yet.
you do realize dark also caries -damage, which stacks with resistance too, right? <.<
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Originally Posted by Player99
you do realize dark also caries -damage, which stacks with resistance too, right? <.<
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Yeah, but -damage can be resisted, +res can't. (there's a formula somewhere that pretty much states that -damage is resisted like -resistance is, but I'm not sure exactly the numbers on it, but basically buffs > debuffs vs hard targets like EBs, Avs, and even some bosses)
I have a DS/storm and there is some good synergy there as well. O2 boost is a nice heal/mez power. Freezing Rain debuffs and slows everything. Steamy Mist adds some element and nrg resistance and a small def buff. Hurricane allows you to herd and stack mobs in a corner, plus it kills acc. Later on (I'm not there yet), you get Tornado and Lightning Storm (is that right?). Basically, 2 more pets who dish out the dmg. The big problem I see is /storm tends to be end heavy. Since we have an Incarnate power to help with that, I'm thinking it won't be too bad.
I see no one mentioned poison. Having got one to level 12 I can see why.
Re-roll my demon mm with a better secondary then?
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/poison is serviceable, but on average does not perform as well as most secondaries. Demons have a lot of AoE, and /poison is not a strong AoE performer. At the end of the day, you're still a MM, and still adept at bringing the carnage, so if you like the concept stick with it and you won't be disappointed. If you're more of a power-gamer, you might want to look elsewhere.
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Originally Posted by Kron
I see no one mentioned poison. Having got one to level 12 I can see why.
Re-roll my demon mm with a better secondary then? |
I resent your suggestion that I am a power gamer
*hides Fire/Kin*
Still very very new to MM
(warning the rest is subjective, me thinking aloud)
Like thugs so far, think I took storm.
Robots actually feel too uber somehow -almost like they don't need me.
Demons seem to behave the best and do what I ask them to (yeah, I know)
Zombies don't do it for me and ninjas see very squishy.
I'm getting more into defenders, so I think I'd like a secondary that was buffing/debuffing more, but probably a bit more passive, ie PBAOE style. I look at poison in its later levels and cannot see where it clicks. I took it for theme mostly, so I'll have a look at its powers again but might try pain because it sounds nice.
Now I said that Traps is something that I cannot see me trying on any other AT.
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I have a Merc/Poison in the low 30s and it's not a bad set but not great either. My tactics are usually something like this:|
Originally Posted by Dark_Impact
/poison is serviceable, but on average does not perform as well as most secondaries. Demons have a lot of AoE, and /poison is not a strong AoE performer. At the end of the day, you're still a MM, and still adept at bringing the carnage, so if you like the concept stick with it and you won't be disappointed. If you're more of a power-gamer, you might want to look elsewhere.
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Solo: Most spawns will have 1 Boss so he's ground zero. Hit him with Envenom (mine is slotted to -35% Def), Weaken (now he hits less often and does less damage), Neurotoxin (so he attacks less often) and go to town. I plan on taking the Mace so I can stack the Hold with Paralytic Poison later on.
Team: Dump all of that on the SECOND Boss in the mob since everyone will be targeting the nearest one. It'll make him MUCH less effective until the team gets to him.
As others have said it's not a strong AoE performer but as a ST debuffer it's a solid set IMHO.
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From what I red Poison is considered a boss killer. So if you focus it and you're demons on one target and this move to the next you should do fine.
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Originally Posted by Kron
I see no one mentioned poison. Having got one to level 12 I can see why.
Re-roll my demon mm with a better secondary then? |
My Demon/poison is 50, and it does fine. The weakness isn't so much lack of AoE debuff, it's lack of AoE heal (even though they can be the same). Even with ED capped resist in the T2 and all the pet procs, demons feel kinda squishy.
But, really, for all their AoE goodness, demons do best when they are all pounding on one guy to stack the -res so everyone can take advantage of it.
Poison is no weaker with demons than it is with any other set - it's just that it's a lackluster set for anyone.
What it does do is make things like the Honoree fight in the alpha thread easy, because you really can shut down one EB while the demons wipe out the other guy. And, really, the demons don't need that much help taking out anything smaller - the prince with HoE and the cloud will kill a spawn on his own.
So I'm coming back to the game after a break and probably going to check out demon summoning.
I have a number of other masterminds (42 bots/traps 37 thugs/FF 32 Merc/Dark 22 Necro/Poison 20 Thugs/TA).
First off, a secondary. I was thinking thermal would be a solid choice here with both an aoe and single heal, nasty debuffs at higher levels and synergy with pet resist shield stacking with castable resist shield. My only qualm there is the tedium of constantly refreshing shields on pets. Been there done that on my thugs/FF and it gets old. If its a good solid choice though I may do it anyways, thermal looks very solid and has a nice toolbox.
Secondly, how squishy are these things? My bots have always been fairly durable but thugs and necro especially seem squishy as hell. If I don't babysit them pretty much constantly they die exceedingly fast.
Tying into that, are they ranged or melee preferred? I've looked over their list of powers and it seems that they have a basic melee and ranged attack, but upgrade powers give them a number of ranged options. Ranged seems to be much better over all for MM than the melee sets. They are just too squishy and have trouble chasing and such sometimes.
Thanks all for any answers!