Demons, /Dark vs /Thermal

Hi!

About a week ago, I decided to make a Demon Summoning Mastermind. "Now what secondaries would go with that?", I thought to myself. I'm more of a concept playing guy - I don't usually make any toons unless I have some kind of concept, that at least makes the powers fit together (ironically, my main makes no sense ). So I ended up with two choices: Dark Miasma and Thermal Radiation, out of which I chose Dark.

Now, at level 14, I'm wondering if that was a good choice. I find both my Demons and I are terribly squishy. I don't expect us to be tankers of any kind, but I find it a bit ridiculous that we're all pretty much three-shotted by mobs than con red.

I also seem to spend an awful lot of time waiting for powers to come back up, and I'm wondering if I'm going to be spending my whole MM career like this, or if it'll get better.

Was Dark a good choice for Demons, or would Thermal have been a better choice?

First, I will go on record that deciding between /dark and /thermal for a demon summoner is like deciding between cake and pie. It's a delicious dilemna. Both can be played to great success. I have a few demon summoner alts. One is a DS/poison level-pact with a DS/dark. We really rock the Rogue Isles. My main Demon Summoning mastermind is a DS/thermal. It does bloom a little later than dark even, but it is very sturdy and successful. I do have a lot of other masterminds */dark.

Your demon summoning/dark is still young. I don't know which /dark powers you have, but I am sure you don't have all you want so far. There are a lot of powers to take before level 20 even with fitness powers becoming inherent. Having a lot of recharge with slotting, hasten, and invention origin bonuses is key. Much later on, many many of my */dark villain sets take spiritual alpha slotting for even more -recharge (and extra stun in howling twilight).

Level 24 is definitely where you will find your mastermind takes off. You get your second lieutenant pet. You should have howling twilight and fearsome stare. Your endurance concerns should be addressed. Your pets have SO equivalent (or better) slotting.

Prior to your maturation levels, spam the heck out of twilight grasp for DEBUFF on red con targets as much as the heal to your pets. You can use darkest night and howling twilight to get a jump on spawns as you encounter them. Tar patch is a big deal; make sure you have it available as much as possible. Stay in bodyguard mode. If your tools to take aggro are only a whip attack or twilight grasp, use them so that your mastermind takes the first strike in bodyguard mode. DO take hell on earth when you get to level 18. If nothing else, the little hellfire imps will keep the damage off you and your pets.

My experience with the two sets is that Dark provides a fair bit more damage mitigation/prevention, while Thermal has easier to use heals (esp. vs MM Dark's reduced radius) and a bit more offense. So my /Thermal's pets take damage more often, but when they do I'm not fighting their AI so much to ensure they catch my heal. In any case, I don't think switching to Thermal would really improve your pets survivability, though you may find you prefer the playstyle.

If you stick with Dark, early on I'd make sure and pick up Darkest Night, Tar Patch and Fearsome Stare as priorities, though everything save Black Hole is worth getting in the end.

You can also opt for Provoke or Intimidate, to draw aggro away from your pets and onto you (while in Bodyguard mode of course).

Currently, this is what my build looks like. I haven't done any planning with regards to slotting, figuring I should find out how to build it with powers first. Any thoughts?

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1,91
http://www.cohplanner.com/

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Kuroijin: Level 48 Magic Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Demon Summoning
Secondary Power Set: Dark Miasma
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Chill Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Summon Demonlings -- (A)
Level 1: Twilight Grasp -- (A)
Level 2: Tar Patch -- (A)
Level 4: Lash -- (A)
Level 6: Enchant Demon -- (A)
Level 8: Hover -- (A)
Level 10: Howling Twilight -- (A)
Level 12: Summon Demons -- (A)
Level 14: Fly -- (A)
Level 16: Shadow Fall -- (A)
Level 18: Hell on Earth -- (A)
Level 20: Fearsome Stare -- (A)
Level 22: Crack Whip -- (A)
Level 24: Darkest Night -- (A)
Level 26: Summon Demon Prince -- (A)
Level 28: Assault -- (A)
Level 30: Tactics -- (A)
Level 32: Abyssal Empowerment -- (A)
Level 35: Maneuvers -- (A)
Level 38: Dark Servant -- (A)
Level 41: Flash Freeze -- (A)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- (A)
Level 47: Hibernate -- (A)
Level 49: Petrifying Gaze -- (A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- (A)
Level 1: Sprint -- (A)
Level 2: Rest -- (A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- (A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- (A)
Level 2: Health -- (A)
Level 2: Stamina -- (A)

You may want to make room for hasten in there somewhere. The more recharge you can get the better dark becomes.

I don't have much DEF besides Maneuvers, so I guess I'm not going to benefit all that much from it. Should I drop it for Hasten, then, or would Petrifying Gaze be a better choice to drop?

I might suggest corruption over lash; the range is really useful, and the extra damage of the short-range one isn't as important.

I am quite happy with my ds/dark. Yeah, the utterly gimped area for twilight grasp is annoying, but on the whole, the set's plenty powerful. You don't have that much defense, but if you have shadow fall plus both of the defense uniques, it gets to be noticeable. Similarly, the two resistance uniques pay off hugely. (Remember that you can slot the "recharge-intensive pets" uniques in Hell on Earth.)

Low +def values like MM Maneuvers aren't useful on their own, but stacked on top of lots of others and it becomes more valuable. But it's worth noting that it stacks just as happily with -tohit, which /Dark has lots of.

That said, /Dark has so much -tohit that e.g. Maneuvers is arguably overkill and not worth the extra endurance (/Dark can already be a bit of an endurance hog at times). On the other hand it can help pick up the slack when the purple patch reduces the effectiveness of the -tohit. It's not always a simple choice.

I'd agree with the hold usually being a better choice though - it's always worth having the ability to immediately take problematic enemies out of the picture.

The thought behind Lash over Corruption was that I was probably going to be in close range because of Crack Whip anyway, and that the KD of Lash, along with the higher damage, would probably be more useful then. Still, I swapped it out for Corruption in the build below, and changed Maneuvers at 35 to Hasten. Also swapped Darkest Night and Crack Whip to 22 and 24 respectively. How does this look now?

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