New to MMs, would like some help

Well like the Title states, Im new to MMs, well sort of. Ive never really been able to get one past like 20. But I want to give one ago again. So I was thinking ether Mercs/Thermal, or like Bots/Thermal. Are these good combos? which would be better? Im just looking to do some solo and a TF every now and then. Any help would be awsome so thanks in advance.

Mercs I find the be one of the underperforming sets, however not the worst that there can be. Though I think general consensus Thugs/Demons/Bots are where the money is at in terms of best performing primaries, really any of them can work.

As far as thermal goes, its not, for the sake of synergy, the best power combo with bots. Protector bots dish out defence to you, and the rest of you're bots, so combining it with a defence based secondary, traps/FF would work better.

But then saying that you certainly wouldn't find a Bots/Thermal to be gimped or useless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

Thugs/Bots are the top tier pets.

Demons/Zombies are below them

Ninjas/Mercs sit at the end of the list.

The logic: Bots and Thugs are extremely self sufficient, put out high damage, and are primarily ranged.

Demons/Zombies deal primarily exotic damage, but have awkward positioning issues, endurance problems, or overall lack damage. Demons have a nice supportive niche for teams, but ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOUGH!!!! Zombies are a little stupid with their self-heal.

Ninjas/Mercs are hard to recommend. While Ninjas have high ST damage, they don't live long enough to utilize it, and have a lot of bugs with some of their AoEs. Mercs 'controls' are terrible terrible terrible and they don't make up for it anywhere else.

Bots/THugs come out on top, Demons and Zombies are right on their heels, Demons more so. Ninjas and Mercs aren't very good.

I would strongly suggest thugs/dark. It is easy to use and strong and they are about to increase the size of the heal radius.

Fair enough, Dechs. Still, the four other sets do what Masterminds do better. And Ninjas are rather annoying to deal with except with, generally, Force Fields to make them slightly less squishy.

Slightly.

As for Mercs... just not very good, even if I like them the most out of the pets.

Oh, ninjas are definitely of the highly expendable, slaughtered-in-swarms variety. But if you take and slot Maneuvers and stay with your little Narutards to keep them in Dispersion Bubble, your Genin will have ~35-39% defense (their minuscule baseline defense scales with level) and your Jounin will be positionally soft-capped. Toss in an +def pet proc and you can have them all basically softcapped.

Ninjas do need some babysitting--you need to yank their leashes from time to time to stop them from zerging the whole map--but really, if you can't keep 'em alive at that point, especially if you also take Provoke, it's time to start hunting for PEBKAC errors.

You really want a challenge, try keeping the little bastards alive with Poison, especially against anything with AoE

So would Thugs/Thermal have better synerge?? Than say Bots/Thermal??

I couldn't help but notice a trend on the boards... and for whatever reason, this particular instance brought me to say something about it:

Every time someone comes up and says "Hey guys, can I be different? Is this combo any good?" the mass response is "No, that sucks... go roll a Bots/Traps or a Thugs/Dark or you will suck."

It's all quite counter-productive to both learning experiences and the ability for someone to discover an unheard of combo that's surprising much better than what's currently top tier. (That, or I'm taking it personally because everyone downplays my main, ninja/storm )

Anyway, back to the OP:
Since you want to go /Thermal (it seems) I'll give my two cents:

Thermal gives resistance shields, so it would be an okay choice for both Bots and Mercs since it will stack with their natural resistances. It might be even better on Bots because the Protector Bots' bubbles will layer the defense with the resistance. I would be wary of going Thugs/Thermal: they have little to no natural resistance, and only about average defense (without an outside source from the MM). Either way, Primary/Therm will play pretty much the same no matter what for the first few levels.

Later on, however, Thermal becomes much more offensive, once you have access to Forge, Heat Exhaustion, and Melt Armor. Another problem with a late Ranged Primary/Thermal is that /Therm has nothing to keep the mobs from walking up and smacking your pets in the face. With thugs, bots, and mercs, you won't get as much mileage out of Forge as possible, because your T3 pets are the main damage dealers in each of the sets, but you can potentially get the recharge of Forge down to keep it on two pets (if you want your Arsonist to die faster, I guess you could put it on him for more damage...)

Of all the choices you offered, I'd say I'd rank them bots/therm > mercs/therm > thugs/therm, but to be honest you may find the Melee Primaries more sturdy (and more damaging!) with therm- I can't speak for Demon/Therm (though they'll have ridiculous Fire resistance), but I know for a fact that Jounin and Grave Knights become magical with Forge on them, and the Oni's Rain of Fire tears through a mob whose Armor has been Melted.

well I think Im going to go Bots. Thanks for everyones insite.

I'll put in a brief plug here for necro/dark.

The latest AI changes were very kind to the Grave Knights. They now rush in to use their powerful melee attacks instead of plinking from range until manually repositioned.

My necro/dark was stalled in the late 30s. I dusted him off after the AI changes and started playing him again, he's a lot of fun now.

Necro/dark is no bots/traps AoE juggernaut, but you'll stay safe long enough to kill everything in your path, and provide lots of survivability to your team.

Go Merc / Trick Arrow or petless mastermind, again go Merc Trick arrow for that too..