Renew(b) my MM

I've only played one MM since I started playing CoH, and is thinking about renew(b) another. Before that I'd like to rid myself of all the confusion I had when I first started MM.

1) First of all, I've always been quite confused about how enhancement works with pets. Some told me that straight +damage/accuracy would give my pets a better edge since set IO bonuses do not apply to them, but I checked out forums and saw many people uses set IO for their pets, such as Blood Mandate.

2) My previous MM was Bot/Poison and I find killing quite easy, albeit not as engaging. I saw people utilizing Traps a lot, what is its pros? My first villain was a energy/traps corruptor and the experience was rather dull, mainly due to almost all abilities have long CD.

3) I saw many builds without Leadership powers. I though they are essential for MM since Leadership applies to all pets (and self)?

4) As a bots user, do I pick any of rifle powers or should I skip them and go for other stuff?

5) What are some of the 'styles' of a MM? I saw Tankermind, assuming it's a MM build that focus on tanking things for me. Are there other variations?

Thx for the help!

Thanks for all the advices. Currently the gameplay is running smoothly. Question though: I am not sure how to keep my bots at permanent range position. I tried "All Stay" and "Go To" commands but once they start attacking they'd still run to the enemy and whack them. What should I do to keep them away?

It's a situation all masterminds deal with. Melee set masterminds like demons, necros and ninjas don't notice it as much. They 'adjusted' the AI with the introduction of demon summoning. Basically it comes down to which power is available, pets attack rate cannot be buffed. The real clinker is that protector bots don't have a melee attack, but they still run in.

This happened even before the Demon introduction, Psy.

There were occasions before demon summoning when pets would rush into melee, but pets AI was changed when demons came out. The specific example is now that dark servants rushes into melee when before it rarely did.

@ the OP

You must, must, must read the info in the link and fully understand it. If you don't understand either post back in this thread or start a new thread in Archtype & powers general discussion asking about defense cap.

Here is the link I am talking about: http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html

If you don't read that you will find it very difficult to understand what the defenses are and the importance behind them. Nutshell when your using mids above pool 1 is a button called view totals. A new box will open up in mids. It will have 3 tabs/buttons in itself. Survival is the tab we want as it will show your defenses and regeneration and recovery. It is usually the one that it opens up into.

Once you understand that it will travel across to any archtype you create. It will also help you understand IOs because as your open up builds you will start to see how they combined IO sets to go for a specific type of defense or regeneration or recharge. Which is sometimes a common theme with other archtypes.

The bonuses from IO's do NOT effect your pets, only you..

The simple point behind tankermind builds is this: You get defense cap and Provoke ( the power from presence pool ) NPC to attack you instead of your pets. Traps is used because it has many buffs and debuffs to keep you alive while your convincing mobs to attack you. Between being defense soft capped and bodyguard mode you don't get hit that much and you have enough time between hits to regen your health back.

Tankermind is usually Robot Traps. Robots are used because 1 the type of damage they do is less resisted and they are all ranged pets. But you can do Tankermind with Thugs and Mercs as well. You can Tankermind with other pets but there are limitations. You can also Tankermind with dark instead of traps, again with some issues.

I will say that you need to have IO's in place to effectively Tankermind. But without a doubt you can do it with SO's to a lesser extent. You can get your defenses close to half way with SO's which is nothing to complain about.

Pet AI is screwy hopefully one day this decade they will fix it. Pets will not stay and attack as I wish they would too. It would make my tankermind much easier if they were like gun turrets just attacking mobs in range I commanded them to attack without moving.

I would suggest learning to use the numkey pad design for commanding your pets. It is up in the sticky on top. Further it pretty much is cut and paste so it is not like you have to figure out much yourself. I modified/added mine to have the period (.) in the numkey pad be an all stay command for the pets. I spam this in an attempt to keep my pets in one place. I say attempt because they keep creeping up if I do not hit that key repeatedly. Its annoying, but it works.

I don't know what your picking but I will say Robot Traps or Robot Dark is a good starter set for masterminds, basically you will have no complaints or issues leveling this up. Once you get the last pet it becomes much easier.