Petless Masterminds. Possible? Worth it?


Aggelakis

 

Posted

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!


 

Posted

Possible? Yes.

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



That will be all.


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Posted

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.


 

Posted

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.


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Posted

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


 

Posted

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.


 

Posted

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.


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Posted

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.


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Posted

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.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain-Electric View Post
And yeah, it's a not-so-terrible feeling when your tank is the only one standing after a good team wipe.
Unless the team did something really, really stupid (like multiple spawn aggro-magnet idiocy) then I'd probably be feeling quite ashamed that I built a tank that couldn't keep aggro off the team.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan View Post
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.
Exsqueeze me?


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasra View Post
Exsqueeze me?
I come from the future with tidings of joy.


 

Posted

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.


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Posted

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.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by redtornado View Post
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.
Oh hell yeah please post this (the costume piece) in suggestions.


 

Posted

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


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Posted

Just what I thought.
Thanks all for the comments!


 

Posted

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?


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Posted

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) .


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
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?
I'm pretty sure they're supposed to have .65 modifiers rather than the standard corruptor/controller mods, but it's hardly across the board. Most shields and such stay at the higher mods, and I think heals do too. So it's not very consistent.

As to petless masterminds: you can do it. You can also make a tanker without any toggles, or a dominator without control, a blaster without any range or AoE, you get the idea. It'll be a challenge, and it's outside the design of the archetype's function, but if it appeals to you, go for it. You are skipping the strength of the archetype, so it will be a struggle.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
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?
Some numbers are the same, some are lower (heals, to-hit and damage debuffs, to name a few). And MMs have higher endurance costs in their secondaries for the same powers, even if they were using powers that have the same effectiveness.


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Posted

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)


 

Posted

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.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Angelxman81 View Post
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!
generally you're screwing yourself over if you have a plan set that eliminates more than two or three of your primary power set

going petless eliminates about 5 or 6 of your primary power set

still, with whips only available through demon right now...I can understand the appeal...just do like someone said and build two versions using the dual build

this is like I have my KB-heavy solo version of Tender and my just base SS-KB as yet untried team version of Tender


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