need help choosing a good solo build

i want to try a MM but am not sure what is a good build for primary and secondary. i want something that is good on damage and good on defense. any help would be nice

thanx

DT

I hate to answer an honest question like this, but considering you're thinking about making a MM at all, any combination will be a solo beast on only SOs, especially at +0/x1. Just think of MMs as being part of a full team where your teammates actually listen to you and fight at your pace.

If I had to rank the MM primaries on damage (based on fighting small mobs):
Ninjas
Zombies
Bots
Thugs(?)
Demon(?)
Merc

If I had to rank the secondaries on defense (that is, damage mitigation):
Dark Miasma
Traps
Storm Summoning
Thermal Radiation
Force Field(?)
Pain Domination(?)
Poison
Trick Arrow

Obviously, this list is biased towards active sets (FF is only as high as it is so I'll avoid getting flamed, I personally hate the set). (?)s indicate that even within my own logic I find the order possibly questionable.

You may read this and think, "Wow, so if ninjas are best at offense and DM is best at defense, I should roll a Ninja/Dark!" This would be a perfectly soloable combo, but it might not be the best combination for you, since Ninja are mostly single target until lvl32. Maybe you'll find Merc/Storm a better match for you.

Long story short, all combinations are great, but some require more work/skill/slotting than others. You can be lazy when it comes to updating your slots on Traps, but Poison or Trick Arrow will suffer seriously unless you keep your enhancements green.

I have no clue if zen list is worse to best or best to worse.

But I am sure regular posters will tell you Robots and Thugs are gonna be tops DPS wise. Traps and Dark are equal for defenses debuffs. I am more partial to Traps, to me Traps offers more bells and whistles then Dark does.

The reasoning behind Robots and Thugs is
1. The damage type they do.
2. Melee pets tend to get killed by AVs fast.

Traps offers Defense soft cap via FFG and with Dark you must have Darkest Night active on a mob. Any mob not near your anchor will not be effected by the ToHit Debuff. If your Anchor dies so does your Defense Cap. Traps does not have that issue.

My suggestion for your first Mastermind would be not Robotics or Thugs, and not Dark Miasma. This may seem like a silly thing to say, considering the high praise all three of those come at, but my personal opinion is that you'll become either incredibly bored with Masterminds after playing one of those combos, or highly frustrated by all the other Mastermind sets, as my experience with people who typically start off with one of those powersets.

Demons have a lot of varied mitigation (Res, Heals, Holds, Slows) and to my mind slightly outpace Robotics (Def, Heals, Knockback) in terms of design. Thugs only has defense, and Mercs only have Heals.

For good defense via Secondaries, you'd immediately go for Traps or Forcefields, however others have pointed out for you that Dark Miasma and I'd add (to a lesser extent) Pain Domination as being able to heal itself (and add regen, and some other great buffs for extra damage).

At the end of the day it's your choice - while some Mastermind sets are held in lower esteem than others at the end of the day you will be a Mastermind and hence have decent damage and support powers no matter your selection.

Bots/traps. So good it's boring.

You get your FFG early, you can make its field invisible if it annoys you, it drains no endurance. Your pets heal and FF themselves. You can debuff everything in the game but 'special'. You have tool for eating alphas. You can remote mine and poison trap the christ out of anyone who gave you trouble. The AssBot shoots flaming rockets at everything and the group as a whole on its final upgrade becomes an AoE god of alpha death fun times.

Thing is, traps fire at enemies themselves. Bots fire at enemies without you needing to direct movement. FFG and bots support themselves. The person who is needed least? You. It's as close to watching TV as the game gets.

Thugs/Traps is a beast but when rolling toons on a new server, I started a Mercs/Thermal and it has served surprisingly well. Until we get sonic resonance as a secondary, the buffs and debuffs that thermal gives you access to will always be useful.

If you're looking to solo AVs, you may want to look at Bots/Poison. Pets that stay out of melee and can look after themselves mixed with some incredibly powerful single target debuffs will make the big fights easy.

Yeah. Anything/Traps and you're good.

Mercs and Ninjas are the most complained about sets. They take some skill to master. Thugs and Robots are the most highly praised. They're pretty easy to keep alive. But some people are reluctant to team with you if you do Robots.

thugs/traps and dont look back...

Personally I find Thugs/Dark the most powerful combo as I regularly run missions +1/x8 on my lvl 50 with very problem.

I would begin to question the DPS comments on Bots as several of the henchmen have power that 6.33 in activation and none have attacks lower than 2 second activation.

That being said, you are still likely to wet your pants the first time you get Assault bot, and wet them again at lvl 32 the first time you see incendiary missiles fire off.

All in all, I would suggest Robots because the of pets +def and healing they do to each other and something like traps. Focus on the secondary you want to support yourself and your team then it would be easier to pick a primary.

There have been a number of good suggestions. I would suggest some less obvious combos.

Demons/thermal - what gets this going is the stacking thermal shields and ember demon shields. The heals are more obvious. At upper levels, you want to crank up the recharge for heat exhaustion and melt armor. Having thaw can be pretty important, too.

Necro/Storm - This combo seems oxymoronic, but you don't have to totally frustrate your pets, just debuff with hurricane and gale to keep them upright. Two of the biggest debuffs are in storm: hurricane and freezing rain.

Bots/Storm - all kb all the time, the pets don't complain, so they must not mind. The whole goal of the storm repel, knockback, and debuff is to pile as many foes on a wall or in a corner for the maximum use of burn patches from the Assault bots incendiary missiles. You will be the center of attention since gale, hurricane and freezing rain get a lot of attention. A stealth proc to stack with steamy mist's stealth is very key to success.