Petless Masterminds. Possible? Worth it?

I mostly play melee characers, and some ranged/support too, but always DPS based.
I mean, scrappers, brutes, blasters, dominators and corruptors.
I have this crazy thing in my mind, about petless masterminds.
How would they work?
Soloing possible with a, lets say demon (Whip) Storm, Heat mastery?
Anyone got any experience with this weird thing?
Are they worth it to try and level?
Thank you!

Possible? Yes.

Worth it? NO. NO NO NO, AND FOR THE LOVE OF PANCAKE NOOOOOO.



That will be all.

Possible, yes. People did it before we had Dual Pistols corruptors, and I *believe* a few people do it for whips.

Worth it is up to you. You'll get complaints from teams because - well, you don't have many attacks, you won't have your pets, your support's not as good as a corruptor and you'll probably win an award for being "most dead." But if you're having fun trying it, well, then it's worth it to you.

If you want to try it out, do it as a dual build. Play with the petless side while solo, and use the pets build for teaming.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I doubt I would do this, but I'm curious also. I'd like to hear something from someone who has both done this, and had fun with it. Either from a gameplay perspective, or a conceptual perspective.

I have 23 characters. Many of them are truly effective in combat. Some of them aren't. Some nights, all I want to do is play one who isn't. Why? Different reasons. Sometimes for the challenge, other times the concept is entertainment enough.

A couple of examples: I have a pure archer defender who isn't powerful at all, but is fun to imagine as a "non-super" natural origin while playing. I also have an Earth/Kin controller who I purposely gimped. No AoE slowdowns. Why? Because combat is more frenetic, challenging and tactical (i.e. fun). He is often forced to react quickly to all incoming opponents. Gimped is a strong word actually, because he's very playable, and it's great button-mashing fun. I actually discovered this fact after I took Quicksand. Soon after, I spent a respec to get rid of it, because I realized the power had resulted in an easy--and boring--character to play. Now he's one of my funnest characters to play, and I never hear complaints while teamed. (I use Repel when he gets in a bind.)

On the flip-side, a few of my characters are well-planned and well-IO'd, and rarely go down. And yeah, it's a not-so-terrible feeling when your tank is the only one standing after a good team wipe. It's a really nice feeling when you finish the fight for the whole team, and then start passing out wakies (that you knew you'd brought for them, not you). But if this were the only type of character I could play, I would have quit long ago.

One last thing. Surprisingly enough, one of my rarely-defeated characters is the weakling pure archer mentioned above. It's true. After much practice, I play him well. Granted, I usually solo him or team with friends who are okay with him. But you know what? Every time he's the last man standing in a nice, long, bloody conflict, it's ten times more satisfying than when one of my tanks accomplishes the same in a fraction of the time.

As a comparison..try playing one of your scrappers using only the vet attacks..see how fun it is.

One of the most frustration experiences I have ever had in game was on a speed ITF with my Bots/traps. The real salt on the wounds moment was being told my pets were only needed during a couple of times. I couldn't wait to get off the TF and anything would have been more fun to play. I can't image playing a petless MM unless for sadomasochistic reasons. The build would be more worthless than a pure healer who only has one attack. At least the numbers for a Emp def are good.

Aside from Demon Summoning, the attacks in every Mastermind Primary can be replicated by Corruptors with much greater potency and variety. Thugs -> Dual Pistols, Nina -> Archery, Mercs -> Assault Rifle, Necro -> Dark Blast and now Bots -> Beam Rifle. There's no reason to hurt yourself.

"Worth" may be in the eye of the beholder, but there are cases where "your dime, your time" comes with a warning - what you intend to do is a very bad idea. Proceed at your own risk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Possible? Yes. Worth it? No. I have one. He's rather terrible.

I made a petless MM just to have a petless MM, and I picked Necromancy/Force Field. His name's Zombob. Think of a Defender that is terrible at soloing, and how slow it is going through a mission like that. Multiple that by ten. I've never experienced playing this game more slowly than with Zombob.

However, I can say from that experience that it's definitely possible to solo. I only play him very rarely, when I'm particularly bored with... doing well... and he's level 16. A couple levels ago, I did manage to solo an Elite Boss (mostly by spamming Force Bolt to keep him from murdering my face.) During one of the Incarnate tests on Beta when there was a level bump to 50, I tried out my build for him at 50, with a silly number of strange pools, and terrible ideas like five-slotted Air Superiority for extra damage. It went moderately faster than at 16, but stil... about the slowest level 50 I've ever seen.

The few times I've been on a team with Zombob, I weakly blast away and make extra sure to keep people shielded. My search comment is a warning about my petlessness, which actually brought curious people to ask me to team on two occasions. Also, a friend of mine felt sorry for Zombob and made him another petless Mastermind to have as a friend. That team was... um.... something special. Not in a positive sense.

Considering that whip domination and whip assault are the sixth and seventh Paragon Store pay-in powersets, the notion of petless MM's is rapidly approaching obsolescence.

Please, only make one after the Art Dept. creates the Head-Pants costume piece. Then that costume piece will be mandatory for all petless MM's.

I tried it once on my 2nd build. I lasted 10 mins on a team then switched back.

I am a bit biased though I've played lots of MM's to 50 and I feel naked without them.

Sure, its possible....just don't expect to be nearly as useful as others on a team though.

Just what I thought.
Thanks all for the comments!

Petless Necro/Trick Arrow... before the TA buffs.

No Vet Power attacks.

No IOs... only TOs, DOs, and SOs.

Solo... no teaming.

I got to level 27. Then became distracted by other stuff.

So, if anyone says the game is too hard...

While I wouldn't encourage, and only see the reason to do it with Demon MMs, as all the other combos can be replicated with Defenders/Corrs, I have one question...

I thought MMs had the same buff/debuff numbers as Corrs/Trollers?

OP: If you like DPS then you probably won't like a petless mastermind. Personally I'm not a fan. It's like the "pure healer" empath. It's half a character (or maybe 5/8) .

I'd only recommend doing it if you're a hardcore player.

Some have done it, and one posted a picture of her soloing Statesman in Recluse's Victory using the RV Heavy (before i13 buggered everything)

Yeah a petless MM is one of those "concept project" ideas like the people who like to play their characters "hardcore" (i.e. delete them after one death). I don't bother with playing too extreme like that myself but I have nothing against the idea. The closest I think I've ever come to something like that is playing a "human form only" Kheldian.