buff MM!! Seriously!!

the main problem is not dmg or pets its end cost they use too much end. 45 per buff. Maybe they should make it give 2 powers 1 for all pets at 45 end and 1 for single buff so you dont have to waste soo much end. all powers MM are like 20-30% [not shure the numbers but its close to] more end costing then other AT version sets. I would rather resummon and not here my end drained sound then have a buff to pets or dmg [ninja really do need buff though super reflexes LOL bots have more def then them and punks more then them with leadership skills]Cause as you sit there wait for end to come back summon the team has gone threw 2-3 mobs. So thats my ideal on how MM should get buffed.

EDIT. fyi long time ago MM had same end costs as other AT yes single buffs made starting MM up long but thats why they also added group buff but zoning pets made it just a huge waste of end.

Coming to this thread a little late. I haven't read it. Sorry if I'm repeating anything that's been said elsewhere.

MMs were quite good at the release of COV. They became extremely good with the inclusion of bodyguard mode. However, since then it's largely been all downhill for them.

Most ATs gain significantly from IO set slotting; MMs gain moderately to little, depending on their powersets. Only a handful of individual proc IOs actually affect pet states, while set bonuses to the MM do not, and the pet damage sets themselves are relatively lackluster compared to melee or ranged damage sets, both in terms of slotting value and in terms of set bonuses. But since the pets are the major portion of an MM's offensive power as well as critical to his survivability, the fact that they don't inherit set bonuses means that MMs derive that much less of a power increase from a build.

The change that stopped recharge from affecting pets was a cop-out in lieu of fixing the attack selection AI, and was caused by a problem with a few pets - not most, or even many. I think the major offenders weren't even MM pets, but rather fire imps and animated stone. At a point in the game where other ATs are able to reach much-improved performance through recharge bonuses and buffing, the major source of MM damage can't, even if it pets were changed to inherit set bonuses from their summoner.

Finally, the game's content has changed. Endgame play now includes numerous enemies capable of one-shotting most players without at least 2,000 hitpoints or high degrees of damage resists. Naturally, this level of damage completely obliterates pets who happen to draw stray aggro or a moderate amount of AOE splash.

This doesn't even count the fact that pet contributions to trials didn't count towards their master's participation rating, dooming MMs to terrible trial rewards under that 'broken as intended' system.

So yeah. MMs have fallen pretty far from where they were, in my opinion. You can still make some reasonably powerful ones, but those combos almost universally are benefitting from certain highly-effective secondary powers.

after looking back through this post, i've seen that a lot of people are using the same arguments (or, those same arguments are being said over an over by the same people) so i thought i'd address a few of the most common ones.

if i say "my bots aren't having any trouble" people respond with "well, bots are just better then ninjas, ninjas need to be fixed," and while i agree that ninjas aren't perfect, consider this, is fire the same as ice? no, it's not, fire does more damage, ice slows things down, they'll still kill an enemy, just in different ways. ninjas are designed for single target, melee damage while bots are designed for AoE, ranged damage. is ranged better then melee? yes and no, ranged is safer, while melee does more damage. bots aren't better then ninjas, they're just further from harm, so adjust your strategy to accommodate that.

the next major argument is that pet AI is dumber then players are (which may or may not always be true) but then, so are the enemies, and they don't have a player controlling them. if your pets are doing something you don't like, make them stop. it's true that the in-game controls are a little clumsy for that, so look at some of the excellent MM bind threads to learn how to control your pets easier. after all, it's not the grunts but the officers who are expected to lead.

the next two arguments come hand in hand, and they are "my pets are my damage, and they aren't very good at it" and "my secondary uses too much end". see, as MMs we are blessed in that we never have to choose when to attack and when to support. as a defender, you always have to ask yourself "should i be supporting here, or would attacking be more beneficial?" MMs get to attack WHILE they are supporting, and since our damage comes from our pets, we don't need to waste any endurance attacking and can focus only on our support powers. every other AT has to take turns and both their support AND their attacks cost endurance, but for MMs, only the support uses end, the attack is handled by the end of 6 other guys (bots, demons, whatever).

so, are MMs harder to use then some other ATs? yes. and do they do less damage in some places then other ATs? yes, but then, the same could be said for stalkers, or dominators, or even tanks. the ATs aren't supposed to all be the same, that's the point. but here's my point, if you don't like playing MMs because they are more challenging then the other ATs, don't play MMs, and don't cry for help just because they don't act exactly they way you think they should. learn to love them, or play something else.,

[QUOTE=Skorpian_NA;3615477]You have a serious problem with blatant assumptions and seeing what you want to see. Stop responding to me and i will stop responding to you cause as it stands now all you do is see what you want put words in my mouth then respond offa that. Nothing you say has any credibility as far as i am concerned yet. All you do is say its your fault about everything be it right or wrong. I know how to play my class. And if you had actually read the post i made you wouldnt be asking question i already answered. Plus+ stop asking a question and then turning around and answering it yourself.

Accept that Masterminds are the way they are and it will make it much easier for you to decide if you want to play them or not. But other then that you will NOT get buffed.

There are enough good working sets in the Mastermind Arch Type that you can pick from even if they are screwy regardless. Meaning you can pick the less screwy of the lot and still do some amazing things.

So don't pick a melee based mastermind and your will be okay. If your so inclined to pick a melee based mastermind at a minimum pick a secondary like traps that will at least help you out a bit to Tankermind.

But if none of that is good, then accept what you got. Understand it sucks.. Understand that the Devs will do nothing for you and be happy.

This is how I see this whole issue. Your trying to wrack your brains about 1 set from several sets in one AT that has issues. Every Arch Type has a crappy set or a set that is lacking. In 7 years have you ever, ever seen the Devs make any sweeping changes in a Arch Type set ?.. No they haven't.

Any big changes were made in the beginning. They normalized AOEs, Cones, ETC.. Pretty much when people complained why does this set have a AOE that effects 20 people and my AOE only hits 16..

This type of issue really is a moot point. Especially when you have threads saying that Ninja poison is good contradicting what others are saying here.

Again they have yet to fix the Pet AI issues which is a game wide issue. But you think that some Dev is gonna come here and say "wow we need to help those poor poison set players out." it's not gonna happen.

I think you guys are fighting and debating each other for no reason whatsoever. At the end you shouldn't get mad at each other, you should be mad at the Devs for putting you in a position to even debate this.

I say flood the Devs with complaints every time you play your mastermind. This way there is a logged complaint somewhere. Make someone work enough and you will see they jump on it. Because eventually someone will say, hey can someone at least look into these complaints because we are getting flooded with reports of this and it is taking us away from other stuff we need to be doing.

But posting here really does not do much. Because its one or two people maybe looking. But 15 or 20 people place a in game report or bug every day about the same thing for a week and someone will take notice. Trust me no one wants to do someone else work. So get in game and make those complaints.. Pet AI.. Poison Issues...

Again another player cannot fix these issues, the Devs only can. Make them hear you. You posting forces them do nothing. Especially since your fighting each other.

But in game someone has to read those request and then they have to send you an email saying they got your request and what to do. This all takes time and effort. Trust me when I say I am POSITIVE if you send them enough in game complaints or issues they will send you a more personal email telling you they are aware of and looking into the issue and not please not send in so many complaints. Then at the end give them a crappy survey. Let them know your a bit angry. Don't be nice to them regardless of what position they are in. Trust me when someone on the inside says look my guys in customer support are dealing with some nasty angry players because you guys are not looking into this. They will come around.

Well, i was going to back up plainguy, until he went the 'spam support for a dev issue' route.

Customer Support has NOTHING to do with game balance. So spamming them with petitions and such over what you FEEL is a problem, when in reality, its not, is the WORST thing you can do, and could even get your account flagged to ignore petitions, thus when you have a REAL problem, they will blow you off.

Trust me on this, if you harass support enough, its so much easier to just ignore you, especially when they have NOTHING to do with game balance, then it is for them to pass along your word. Spamming support over something that is obviously a player error is not the way to go.

Sucking it up, while not entirely a good option either, is much better then spamming support, and learning how to play correctly is the best option.

If i can do it, so can you. There is no reason why you need your hand held in order to play an AT correctly, when every other person who plays MMs is doing just fine.

I never said spam them. But sending a message once in a while when you see an issue is not wrong either.. They do have a report a bug button..

I'm pretty sure more people come here with an issue then lodge a complaint via the support option.

All I am saying is when you log in the next time regardless of what toon your on. Take a few moments to post a bug regarding your mastermind issues. Further I would not make it one big here are the bug issues. I would make one report per bug so they can be categorized appropriately.

Masterminds have been out since may 20th, 2008. In just about 3 years beyond bodyguard mode and the common sense of one buff for all pets for upgrades nothing has changed with masterminds for the better at least.

Depending on which secondary you had made a difference in some AV fights. But the new incarnates are really showing the weaknesses in melee pets. So even if you were ninja traps, no amount of provoking is going to save your pets from an AV aoe attack. I know when nightstar does that torrent attack and my pets are close I can loose just about all of them along with my FFG.

So it is apparent much more now that melee pets have the short end of the stick. Again it is not like the didn't have it in the past, but now it is really sticking out. Before certain SF or TF you never really needed 8 players to complete. 4 or 5 well slotted players could do it or complete. But today with the new incarnate stuff that is simply not the truth and it is understandable why.

But with that the Devs showed a lacking of understanding or appreciation for mastermind participation. They also failed to see that other players would notice this as well. Players are not as stupid as they might think and they will pick the AT that they feel will best suit the completion of the TF.. Trying to convince someone otherwise that a mastermind might be better suited for a task, especially a melee based mastermind is not an option.

The only thing masterminds have going for them right now is Robot Traps. Anyone worth their salt knows a properly played and properly slotted mastermind can do just about anything other tanks or brutes can. So either a less informed players will think that every mastermind set is similar to Robot Traps or at a minimum know enough if they see a player broadcast "Alpha Incarnate slotted Tier 4 ( which gives a level boost ) Defense Cap Robot Traps mastermind LFT" that they have a very well rounded player and knowledgeable player available for invite.

I mean really regardless of AT I will invite someone who says they are incarnate slotted before I invite a player who says they are a Tank or a Brute, ETC. Because to me the incarnate player is showing me a bit more initiative and effort at attempting to improve his toon over someone who has yet to get their alpha unlocked.

So in the end masterminds in general regardless of set are lacking. Melee masterminds are lacking more so then others. But if you have been playing masterminds for several years you already knew that so its a moot point.

And honestly they will not ban or ignore you for posting too many bugs or I'm stuck or something is wrong reports. It is similar to when other forum posters said they will ban everyone doing a particular farm or take away their levels or tickets or whatever ingenious ideas for punishments they could think of. In the end they removed that AE farm many were using and nothing happen to those who used those farms to level.

End result the Devs have the data, they know who plays what and when. They know when you log in they know what IP your logging from. So it is up to them to fix these issues. I report an issue as requested through the means they offer. If they do not like how many reports I send in then fix the issues or ban me, I really don't care to be honest. I will move on to something else or back to something else, either way it does not matter to me.

having a MM that seems underpowered compared to other MM sets or other ATs is not a bug and should not be mentioned in a bug report. entering a new zone and having your pets stuck at the entrance, that's a bug. bug reports are for technical problems, not game balance issues.

if you think your toon is underpowered, for any reason, the best place to mention it is here on the forums. that way, you can get advice from more experienced/better players and perhaps fix your problems without the devs needing to get involved.

if there is a real problem, that lots of people agree on, then the devs will read about it here and decide what to do about it. sending in a bunch of bug reports for things that aren't bugs is only going to annoy people who aren't in a position to do anything about it.

I'm just gonna touch on your points for a second plainguy, you haven't been around as long as other people, so i'm pretty sure you just don't get it.

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Originally Posted by plainguy 1. Traps is king regardless of what arch type you use it in.

While traps is nice, its a jack of all traps set, that requires a lot of recharge to be very effective. Without large amounts of +recharge, its not much better then any of the other hybrid powersets (thermal, pain, dark, cold) and its really not as good as the main debuff powersets (poison, rad, sonic, trick arrow, storm) on pure numbers.

Once you can perma double stack acid mortar though, it starts to really shine, but without that, its just as good as the other hybrid sets, and can match the pure debuff sets. But the pure buff sets (ff, empathy, kinetics) still out perform it when it comes to solid numbers.

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2. Defense Cap make a difference when it is done appropriately and not at the expenses of the whole build. I have a Earth Rad troller that just will not benefit from being defense capped no matter how I try to build it.

Defense cap helps out any build, so saying MMs benefit from it more is not entirely accurate. Plus, MMs actually benefit from layers mitigation more-so then just going for 1 form of mitigation. Due to bodyguard mode, which i know you are aware of, MMs benefit from AoE buffs a lot more then singular (as in just benefiting the MM) buffs. Things like AoE +regen (available in /traps, and /pain) have exponential benefits. AoE +defense benefits the MM much more then being self soft capped, as soft capped pets can get 95% mitigation (before any other benefits from the MM) allowing them to basically ignore AoE affects, and +resistance on the MM allows 'splash' damage from bodyguard mode to affect the pets for even less.

In short, the softcap isn't some magical thing just only benefits MMs, and going for pure softcap on a MM build is actually one of the worst forms of mitigation, as your pets will suffer from stray hits, thus lowering your effective resistance 'pool' that bodyguard mode provides.

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3. Melee based masterminds suck.

You really have to redefine melee based MMs. Especially when each powerset (aside from robots and mercs) have a melee based pet in them. Demons has the Hellfire Gargoyle (complete with damage aura) Thugs has the bruiser (which has built in fury) Ninja T1 and T2 pets at all melee, as well as Zombies T1 and T2 pets. The oni has a mix of ranged and melee attacks, and the lich is pure ranged.

Plus the entire tanker mind play style works best when the mastermind is in melee range, as the taunt equation factors range into it, and melee powers cause more threat then ranged powers (as well as the location between the enemy and the player, which is why a higher damaging blaster will never pull aggro off a low damaging tanker, due to the tanker being in melee range, and the blaster usually attacking from a far)

And if the mastermind is in melee range, then the pets are also in melee range, even if you have 'range' pets, like thugs, mercs, or robots.

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4. Pet AI has been screwed up since masterminds came out in 2008. Has there been a time they might have been working well and as expected. I cannot recall. We always seem to give up one AI glitch for another.

Masterminds have been out since issue 6 which came out in 2005. There have been a number of AI changes since then, and most of which have benefited the mastermind all around. Some still cause bugs, but for the most part the pets are far more responsive then they were at release, and the powers of said pets have been rebalanced a few things over since then.

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5. I have yet to see the Devs come in and make sweeping changes to one set in a arch type.

Invulnerability comes to mind which was changed quite a bit back in issue 13, there were also similar changes to regeneration and many other armor sets. Also there were massive changes to weapon sets and animation times that allowed basically all the melee sets to attack faster.

You also can't forget the dominator changes that affected an ENTIRE AT, and the blaster changes that reworked the inherent for blasters.

While it isn't very common for the Dev team to rework powersets, or ATs, its not unheard of, and saying it'll never happen could just lead to you being proved wrong.

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6. Devs care enough to keep the game going. But not that much to keep every arch type going..

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, but what i quoted and linked above pretty much proves this statement false, as the Dev's have changed things around that have been stated by the player base to not working correctly, or could use a change for the better.

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7. Every Arch type has its own sore eye.

While this is true, all of the ATs have to meet a middle ground when used with SOs. Thats how the powersets are balanced around each other. For example, while the robot pets have +def, and 2 'support' pets, it cuts into their damage, and the bulk of their heavy lifting is in the form of the assault bot's fire patch missiles. Meaning pre level 32, robot MMs have very limited AoE, and 2 of their 6 pets have to balance between attacking and playing support.

Thugs on the other hand have the bulk of their damage in the Arsonist's fire patches, the bruiser has a hard time building fury up, but their 'support' is all passive, meaning they don't take a DPS lose to have really nice support. Lack of heal is the downside here.

Mercs are mostly range, with the Commando even having a LRM rocket. Their 'support' is in the form of control (spec Ops) and healing/mez protection (medic) Now, AI issues and long recharge timers cause the mercs to 'under perform' when compared to other primaries, but it still has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, with the stealth ability of the spec ops (added after release mind you) and the fact they have stealth automatically now.

Demons are a mixed group of range/melee with +resistance and 1 'support' pet. Its heavier melee focus in the hellfire gargoyle, and dominator like Demon prince means its damage is lower, but it has enough hard and soft control to tackle just about anything. Its also mainly 'exotic' damage so its less resisted.

Zombies, while mostly melee as already been mentioned, can stack an absurd amount of -tohit (from the lich and other dark attacks) all the pets have a self heal, and the skeleton knights can stack pretty high amounts of -def, from their sword attacks. This allows the zombies to be pretty durable both in melee and range, without the aid of any of the masterminds secondary helping out. Its a pretty well rounded set in its own right.

Ninjas seem to be the red-headed stepchild of the group, but with a focus on solid single target damage, there are very few things that can survive a ninja's onslaught for very long, assuming the ninjas can stay alive. With their defensive nature it takes some getting used to in keeping them alive, but once you manage it, there is no other primary that can come close to the single target damage a well played ninja MM can dish out. The lack of support pet is a down side, but the Oni's ability to play 'dominator' allows the MM to have some form of control over the chaotic nature of ninjas, and with the ability for ninja's to placate themselves, and smoke flash from the primary taking ninja's completely out of harms way, their burst damage is hard to match.

Each primary has strengths and weaknesses in their own right, but they all perform pretty well for normal playing (i/e on SOs, running at 0x1) While some primaries scale with IOs better then others, this game is not balanced around them, so taking them into consideration when trying to compare the different powersets together just doesn't work out.

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8, 9, 10 melee based mastermind pets suck.

I've already addressed this above, and as the mastermind themselves can decide if their ranged pets go into melee or if their melee pets go range due to different commands, its really just a matter of play style. If you can adjust your play style to match what your pets do, instead of trying to adjust your pets to match the play style you want then you will have far greater success at playing MMs in general.


All in all there may be issues that need to be addressed on MMs, and the dev's are aware of them. Its just a matter of time and manpower before they get fixed, and as the AI issue is with all pets (look at animate stone, or jack frost for good example of screwy AI) it may take a while for that to be fixed. Either you adjust to deal with it, or you don't play MMs.