Pets Dying and Teams

I've played the Mastermind AT off and on since CoV launched. There was a time when it was the only AT I would play. Usually, I solo my masterminds. The AT positively steamrolls when solo. It feels like nothing can stop you.

Occasionally, and usually against my better judgment, I'll try teaming on an MM. This never goes well. I spend the majority of every mission with my pets dead or dying. Eventually I drop group or (if it's an SG team) switch to a different AT.

My latest experiment was my Demon/Dark MM. I love the character. His bio, costume, and powersets all just came together so perfectly that I get a great deal of fun out of playing him. But nearly every spawn it's the same story: my Brute buddy runs in, starts doing his thing, and I start throwing down /dark's debuffs while directing the pets. Then all my pets basically just fall over dead. Devouring Earth are the worst, but it happens with other enemy groups too.

So what am I doing wrong? How is it that I can have zero issues when solo (even with the difficulty cranked way up) and get absolutely slaughtered when teaming, even when someone else is there that is making an active attempt to tank the mobs?

I really want to love the MM AT. But I'm having a hard time with liking an AT that almost requires me to solo to do well. This really got on my nerves tonight as I wanted to run my demon/dark MM so I could get him a few levels for Double XP weekend. I wound up running a Dom instead because I just couldn't deal with being reduced to a petless state constantly. I'd appreciate any advice you guys can offer.

1. What level is your Demon/dark?
2. I assume you still do your best at dark debuff with fearsome stare, darkest night, and howling twilight.
3. Are you in bodyguard mode? Bodyguard helps pets as much as it helps you.
4. DE usually don't like fire. It's odd in that your demons have a lot of fire.
5. Does your brute buddy try to tackle more groups than you can reasonably expect to be successful with?

Are you always keeping your pets in defensive mode. I repeat Always. Change your attack my target macro and remove the aggressive. Bodyguard mode is when your pets are in defensive and there is never a reason to put them on aggressive.

The issue is if you have them aggressive even if there is someone tanking they will find some new mobs that the tank hasn't been able to grab. Second is not to send your pets in till the tank has got his group, of mobs, ready for you. Cause MMs can dump alot of damage fast, my thug/pain, I have to make sure the tank has all the mobs cause any mob that he doesn't have is going to go on my pets. Oh and yes my arsonist draws alot of aggro. The only reason I don't have to keep recasting him is my heals. Well that and he is now in a all Thug MM SG. If we get a full team all our pets are soft capted.

Oh heavens no, I never use Aggressive. I learned a looong time ago to only put pets on Aggressive if I want to earn some debt.

K. Yeah I know alot of people that use it. Some of them Veterans I was like how have you been able to play MMs for so long.

Well hey on the bright side I bet your pets last longer then my ninja/ta MM. Ugg they are a huge pain in the butt. But I did it on purpose to myself. Made a bot/ff and a ninja/ta hehe.

My comment about Devouring Earth and hating fire wasn't about level of threat. I meant they are usually more susceptible to fire damage - trees and mushrooms. I am not so sure about the rocky guys though.

Aside from the obvious fact that larger teams = larger spawns and higher level mobs, one thing to consider is that you have a lot less control over the action on a team. Solo, a MM tends to set up fights to their own advantage... using debuffs, slows, KB, or whatever to at least somewhat control the pace of the fight. It can be harder to do that on teams, with people scattering spawns before you can debuff them, killing your Darkest Night anchor, or starting a new fight five seconds before Fearsome Stare is back up. Plus MM pets have a fairly high threat rating, so they're likely to pick up aggro from stray mobs that aren't fighting the tank or Brute... and those mobs are probably not as well debuffed as they would be while solo and higher level than you normally face so they'll take out the pets pretty fast if you aren't careful.

Dark in particular can have a bit of trouble on teams because you rely on defense debuffs to protect the pets. But aside from the fact that your Darkest Night anchor will probably be killed 2 seconds into the fight enemy level goes up as team size increases, and higher level enemies resist debuffs. So you end up with mobs that hit harder and more often being debuffed less... unless you have a good tank or a lot of control / other debuffs in the group any stray fire your pets catch is going to do a number on them.

On teams I often prefer to hang back a bit and direct my pets to focus fire rather than letting them spread out and aggro too many mobs (unless I'm tanking for the group). Undirected pets just seem to get into trouble too fast to save them. (Assuming you are fighting things tougher than you normally solo, of course. If you solo +3/x8 you probably won't have to worry in groups... )

Can't really answer why your pets are dying so much but I will say this:


Leaving your pets on Defensive all the time is a great way to not contribute to a team.

Most teams I play have either so much defense, so much control, or so many debuffs that Defensive MM pets are just going to stand around not doing anything.

Um. You need to look at your pet area.. Sorry but defensive has nothing to do if they attack or not. You have 3 modes Aggressive, Defensive, Follow. You have also several commands to. Attack my target, Follow, Go To, Stay. Putting your pets on defensive has nothing to do with if they attack or not. And if your pets arn't on defensive you are in fact causing trouble for the team. One it is harder to control your pets, two the healer is going to have to heal your sorry butt all the dang time.

Being a defensive MM is one thing. But pets should always be on defensive in a fight. Then I tell my pets who to attack and where to go. But that doesn't matter for any mode. You have to control your pets period. You can't just stand around and expect the AI to do everything for you. My thug/pain I keep my pets in defensive then after the tank grabs aggro I tell them to attack his target. And I then switch to different targets when needed. And while doing this I am sitting with the main group healing people, only charging in to use anguishing cry and only after the tank has full control of the mobs.

And by the way a MMs pets can contribute more damage then most toons, if done right. But you have to control them. There is a reason while a full team of MMs can just steam roll about anything in the game.

The problem with masterminds is that even with the command system we have currently, the commands are still riddled with bugs, especially stay. The key to teaming with masterminds is to keep your pets out of the AoE patch as best as possible. or at least repeatedly spam the follow macro until such a time that all your debuffs are in place, then attack, only letting your pets go once your debuffs are down. you only need one foe to just attempt to attack you or your pets before your pets begin retaliating, hopefully by doing that they would have avoided the first big batch of AoE attacks.

Also remember that having your pets in bg mode and getting most of the damage to go through you is far better than letting your pets handle the damage directly. all my masterminds take the prescence pool and when i can eventually afford the money, i will slot them to get good solid defense.

If you have the money lying around at the moment you should consider purchasing some of the pet resist and defense aura IOs, they will help immensely especially in teams.

Yes I know how defensive works. But I always tell my pets who to attack. I remember back in the day you couldn't trust the AI to attack the right thing anyways. Having to control your pets is part of being a MM. And it isn't that hard. Hey at least you don't have to tell your pets to go into melee for each mob so that they melee, grr stupid ninjas. Microing your pets isn't all that hard. And if your going to be controlling your pets there is no reason why not to use BG mode. You do realize that MMs are actually supposed to be the Tanks redside, well was supposed to be it but yeah most people don't do that.

If you are directing your pets to attack then they aren't in BG anyway.

MMs aren't really the tanks of redside. Brutes are the tanks of redside. MMs are defenders that come with their own team.

Wrong MM were developed to be the Tank for redside. That is what they were intended to be. Now that isn't how they were being used and as such the devs decided to abandon that idea.

Pets... or at least the melee pets... draw a huge amound of aggro. I think that at least the zombie melee attacks have a taunt part in it. When my zombies are attacking nothing hits me!