The Worst Mastermind: A Ninja/Poison Story

Hello my fellow Mastermind players,

After reading much debate about how ninja and poison need a fix due to terrible AI, squishy pets, and poor endurance/debuff numbers, I want to make one. Just to see how awful it really it.

Problem being, my home server is full, and i want to document this characters progression up to level 50, and even into the incarnate trials. Just to see if its possible, and what kind of a ride it'll be.

Anyone have any ideas on what I should document here in this thread, what server i should play on, and any general tips for ninjas, and poison? I'd appreciate any advice/comments as I'm going to be creating this toon as soon as I get a server to play on (Liberty is my home server, and it's full, so i can't use that one)

Thanx

Either Virtue or Freedumb should be fine for this project. The populations on those servers are large enough that even a gimped build can coast along in teams that never see the inside of AE.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

OOOH.....I'm too busy these days with RL to game much anymore. But I'm going to follow this for sure.

My vote is for Freedom. You'll find lots of teams, most won't fuss over AT/Power Choice combos.

I played a Necro/Poison MM as one of my first CoV characters. I've never played a Ninja's toon. My guess is you'll find soloing a breeze. Poison is powerful solo set choice. As I recall I could take on most boss/EB/AV encounters without much trouble. Where I did have problems with poison was large team/large mob encounters. Upside, most teams found me useful when it came time to take out an AV.

But you're Arbegla, my guess is you'll be taking down Giant Monsters with your poison MM.

Looks like freedom it is I'll be going at it SG-less, just for the sake of a good test, and I won't join any known PL groups (basically, i'll be avoiding AE like the plague)

I already have a build planned out, which i'm generally happy with, and i'll post right now, so you guys are look it over. Gonna make a character today, and run it a little it, I'll post again once i get a feel for him.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.93
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Worst Mastermind: Level 50 Mutation Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Ninjas
Secondary Power Set: Poison
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Concealment
Ancillary Pool: Heat Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Call Genin -- BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(A), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), EdctM'r-Acc/Dmg(13), EdctM'r-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), EdctM'r-PetDef(15)
Level 1: Alkaloid -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(5), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal(7), Dct'dW-Rchg(9)
Level 2: Envenom -- Acc-I(A), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg(15), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg/EndRdx(17), LdyGrey-Rchg/EndRdx(17), Achilles-ResDeb%(19)
Level 4: Weaken -- Acc-I(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/Rchg(23), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(23), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(25), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(27)
Level 6: Train Ninjas -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Fistful of Arrows -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dam%(21), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39)
Level 10: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 12: Call Jounin -- BldM'dt-Acc(A), BldM'dt-Dmg(27), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(34), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Achilles-ResDeb%(34)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB(A), Winter-ResSlow(40)
Level 16: Elixir of Life -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(40), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(40), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(42), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(42)
Level 18: Smoke Flash -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(19)
Level 20: Antidote -- ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(21)
Level 22: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45), LkGmblr-Def(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(46)
Level 24: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(25)
Level 26: Oni -- BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(A), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(43), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), BldM'dt-Acc(43), BldM'dt-Dmg(45)
Level 28: Tactics -- AdjTgt-ToHit(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(29), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(29), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg(31), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(31)
Level 30: Aid Other -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(31), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(33), Dct'dW-Heal(33), Dct'dW-Rchg(33)
Level 32: Kuji In Zen -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Aid Self -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(36), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(36), Dct'dW-Heal(36), Dct'dW-Rchg(37)
Level 38: Noxious Gas -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Grant Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(42), LkGmblr-EndRdx/Rchg(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+(46)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(50), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 49: Rise of the Phoenix -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(5)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(3), P'Shift-EndMod(3)

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I don't know if Ninja/Poison is the worst mastermind combo. That would probably be Merc/Poison. As for your build, your are missing a couple power I would suggest with the combo:

Neurotoxic Breath: I think this is a must have for /Poison. It slows down a targets run speed but most important its attack rate.

Paralytic Poison: You can continue to skip this but I like it because it stacks with the Oni's char.

You are also taking Aid Other and Aid Self. Are you just using Aid Other as a gateway to Aid self and a mule for the IO set? In practice, I doubt you'll use Aid Other much. You already have Alkaloid and if you are using both to try and keep your pets alive, you won't have much time to be using your debuffs. When playing this Ninja/Poison, I found Smoke Flash to help more than the additional heal when things got rough. While Smoke Flash is great at adding damage, it also immediately stops attacks against your the pet you cast it on.

Nin/Poison a bad build? Son, it used to wreck in PvP before a team of damn dirty apes decided to mess things up. I've got one at level 36 and I eat bosses alive. Single Target damage on this thing is incredible.

The point was vague, sorry I missed it.

I agree with Zarthos on the power recommendations:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarthos Neurotoxic Breath: I think this is a must have for /Poison. It slows down a targets run speed but most important its attack rate. Paralytic Poison: You can continue to skip this but I like it because it stacks with the Oni's char. You are also taking Aid Other and Aid Self. Are you just using Aid Other as a gateway to Aid self and a mule for the IO set? In practice, I doubt you'll use Aid Other much. You already have Alkaloid and if you are using both to try and keep your pets alive, you won't have much time to be using your debuffs.

In fact, given your recharge (even when Hasten isn't up), Alkaloid will have time to animate and completely recharge in the time it would take Aid Other to animate. If you want to keep Aid Self, you could drop the slots from Aid Other and add another to Fireball (the recharge bonus from Posi's Blast more than makes up for what you'd lose in Doctored Wounds) and add slots to Call Genin and Call Jounin. The Genin and Jounin put out significant damage--there's no real reason not to push those damage enhancements to as close to 100% as ED will allow.

Neurotoxic Breath is important for an additional reason. It's your only always-available AoE mitigation. As RiverOcean and Bookkeeper_Jay said, your problem with Ninja/Poison won't be single hard targets. If you don't excel against those, you're doing something wrong. Ninja has great single target damage and Poison has strong single target debuffs. What will present more of a challenge will be swarms of enemies that can't all be debuffed and damage your pets faster than you can heal. You can avoid swarms by making sure you set your difficulty at something like +3/x1 or x2 or such. But when facing a double-spawn or a large ambush, you'll be glad to have the powerful recharge debuff that will slow down the second attack after the alpha. And Neurotoxic Breath is useful against single targets as well.

With Maneuvers running and the Edict of the Master unique, your Genin and Oni will have about 16% defense to all positions, the Jounin about 23%. I think this is better mitigation than you'd see with Mercs' mediocre S/L resists. Ninjas are going to be a bit more survivable than Mercs, I think.

But as you say, Ninjas aren't bad unless you look at the other mastermind primaries. Thugs, for example, has enhanceable Maneuvers from the Enforcers and can slot all four +defense/+resist uniques. If the mastermind takes Maneuvers and enhances everything to the ED cap, that gives all the thugs at least 40% defenses against all positions and types and at least 20% resists against all types (and the Bruiser has more resists). All without really losing out much compared to Ninjas.

Well, after looking it over, and take the advise here, this is what i've come up with

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.93
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Worst Mastermind: Level 50 Mutation Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Ninjas
Secondary Power Set: Poison
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Concealment
Ancillary Pool: Heat Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Call Genin -- BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(A), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), EdctM'r-Acc/Dmg(13), EdctM'r-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), EdctM'r-PetDef(15)
Level 1: Alkaloid -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(5), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal(7), Dct'dW-Rchg(9)
Level 2: Envenom -- Acc-I(A), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg(15), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg/EndRdx(17), LdyGrey-Rchg/EndRdx(17), Achilles-ResDeb%(19)
Level 4: Weaken -- Acc-I(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/Rchg(23), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(23), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(25), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(27)
Level 6: Train Ninjas -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Fistful of Arrows -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dam%(21), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39)
Level 10: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11), RechRdx-I(11)
Level 12: Call Jounin -- BldM'dt-Acc(A), BldM'dt-Dmg(27), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(33), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(34), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(34), Achilles-ResDeb%(34)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB(A), Winter-ResSlow(40)
Level 16: Neurotoxic Breath -- TmpRdns-Acc/Slow(A), TmpRdns-Acc/EndRdx(40), TmpRdns-Rng/Slow(40), TmpRdns-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(42), TmpRdns-Acc/Dmg/Slow(42)
Level 18: Smoke Flash -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(19)
Level 20: Antidote -- ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(21)
Level 22: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(33), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(33), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 24: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(25)
Level 26: Oni -- BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(A), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(43), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), BldM'dt-Acc(43), BldM'dt-Dmg(45)
Level 28: Tactics -- AdjTgt-ToHit(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(29), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(29), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg(31), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(31)
Level 30: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(31)
Level 32: Kuji In Zen -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Elixir of Life -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod(36), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(37), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(45)
Level 38: Noxious Gas -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Grant Invisibility -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(42), LkGmblr-EndRdx/Rchg(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+(46)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dam%(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(50), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 49: Rise of the Phoenix -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(5)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(3), P'Shift-EndMod(3)

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The latest build looks pretty good to me. You may find that you need to add an end reducer or two to Smoke Flash. You can burn through quite a bit of end on ninja/poison. I think some people may be a little surprised by how well this build will perform. Ninja/poison has some decent synergy.

- Ninjas are best at single targets. So is poison. Few other mm's can chew through bosses like this combo

- The caltrops from the Jounin stack with the Neurotoxic Breath to cause MOBs to very slowly try and run away. Most will be cut down without a chance to ever get out of them.

- Noxious Gas works well with this combo since all the pets are melee.

- Smoke Flash is one of the most under appreciated powers. It can be used for defensive purposes but the ability to double the damage of any pet makes the damage from ninja/ really shine.

People tend to dislike ninjas because they are a little squishy and are very single target oriented. Being melee and squishy, they really suffer in the end game combat and on some large teams. They do at least offer a different type of style of game play from the other melee centric primary. I would actually encourage people to try playing a ninja/.

Quick update. I hit level 6 yesterday, got my second ninja, and i'm using the above build, so rocking Envemon, Weaken, and 2 trigger happy ninja's is just pretty much fun right now.

I turned bosses on as quickly as i could, and i'm thinking of upping the difficulty to +0/2 or /3 just to get bigger groups. With the focus on single target damage, i'm pretty sure even with /2 giving more bosses then expected, i should be able to chew through them pretty easily.

Ran into the ninja's refusing to go into melee range, but it was agaisnt a Vault door, and for some reason, most pets have problems with those things.

I uped my difficulty to +0/2 with bosses, and so far is a blast. Got to level 8, and grabbed Fistful of Arrows. Its not very useful, but in larger groups gives a little bit of a head start on the mobs for the ninja's to chew up easier.

The poison heal seems to be able to be a good pick, can't wait to slot it up so it will be pretty useful. I'm going to go the TO/DO/SO route to conserve money, and i'm just going to buy things off my drops, so i'll be selling basically everything i get. Once this character hits 47, if i get to that point, i'll transfer money over and get his build done.

You also can't tab-target vault doors. Mastermind pets would never attack them, either, if they didn't have their ranged attacks.They just don't approach. It's a magical, placating set of vault doors, apparently.
Continue!

One of my favorite things about doing mayhem missions on my Ninjas/FF is watching the Jounin placate and then attack cardboard boxes and fire hydrants!

Sorry but I gotta say ninja/poison is probably the weakest combo. I have done this mastermind to 50. I dont know where people are getting this thing that the mercs are bad. At least with mercs they stay alive long enough to do damage where as ninjas get 1 shotted before they even get to melee. Personally I will raise all kinds of hell if the mercs set is buffed before the ninja set gets a buff. And as for secondaries go poison severely falls apart once the spawn numbers go up. Its difficult on teams especially against stuff like long bow. What I want to see is the ninjas given soft capped aoe defense at least so they dont die to aoes, then they can at least make it to melee without being 1 shotted. Hell even that might not be enough as I have done ninja/ff and they still die like flies. I would say they need some resistance to help the squishness. But overall what needs to happen if they are going to stay squishie is to lower the end costs of the summon by like 90% and the upgrades too. And lower the recharge to like 10 seconds on all of the summons and upgrades. That way ninjas can be just like how it is in the movies where the big bad guy has an unlimited supply of ninjas guarding him.

10 seconds? You're really underestimating how fast ninjas can die.

Well, I'll see how it plays out as my ninja/poison gets higher in levels.

Thats kinda the point of this thread, to document the success, or failure, of a ninja/poison