Questions about starting a new MM

I want to start a new mastermind, I honestly have my eyes set on a Demon/Therm or Demon/Dark. Would like to know how both these combos work and if they pair well. I would like this toon to be able to be a good teaming toon as well as being able to solo AVs/GMs. I have never rolled a MM and have no idea what to build for. With either of these MMs be able to what I want when built correctly? I am not asking for someone to give me a build, just would like for someone to tell me what to build for in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish. I am just focusing on an end game build atm. Many thanks in advance for the help.

Either build could and would be able to solo Av/Gms, but the /dark will be much much easier. Demons have very little defence and the extra from shadow fall, and the dark debuffs, helps a huge amount. Of course, it wont be huge amounts vs an av, but still be a lot more than therm can ever get. Also, the therm debuffs, unless you have uber rech, are not perma..the dark ones are.
As for being a tankermind with provoke..you dont need to do that either. A well built /dark wont have many problems keeping themselves and the pets alive. Whenever I have gone in BG mode vs an av.....either the av has a break in its attack chain, causing the pets to just STOP attacking...or the av will hit you with a big single attack, doing a big chuck of damage to all the pets, then an AoE will come along and kill them all at once.
Not sure where the idea that a dark MM must be expensive in order to solo AVs is coming from. I know people who used to do it on SO's. My demons dark build wouldnt have even cost me 200 million, and I can pretty much solo anything. Building well beats expensive shinies.

So demon/dark it is. And I am still slotting for softcap and high rech for the soloing?

Its mainly because you'll need to perma Howling Twilight, which i thought had a much higher base recharge vs duration then it really does. Granted, -500% regen isn't enough to floor all AV/GMs, and you'll have to keep using your heal as well to stack enough -regen to overcome most AV/GMs regen rate, but a /dark would have it easier then a /therm.

My Necro/Dark never uses BG mode. It's a death sentence, as the pets inevitable stop attacking and just stand there. /Dark gives me enough utitlity to not have to bother. I play /Dark as an ambusher.
Putting my cadre of cannibals in a corner and then pulling with darkest, when they round the corner I lay down tar and direct my pets to focus on one individual at a time so they go down quicker.

I managed to solo Numina during the Ghost Widow arc, on mainly SO's and basic IO's. Though I do have the +def and +res IO's for the pets.
Took a few tries, various tactics, and respeccing into Blackhole for the adds before I did though. I haven't tried soloing any since her.

To the OP. If you have never played a mastermind you'll soon find they play much differently than the other AT's. You will want macros and various other binds to make life tolerable. The numerous guides on here go into great detail though, so I'll just let you find the ones that work for you.

Only thing I'll say is; As soon as you roll the toon, right click on the follow macro and edit the end to say defensive. This will be BGmode if you choose to use it. After that type this.
/macro Go, petcom_all GoTo

That will give you much more control over the pets.

Oh yeah by the way....


Welcome to the club! (MM's are beasts when played right.)

Why do you need perma Howling Twilight to solo an AV?? Lets look at what powers in the demon dark sets actually benefit from stupid amounts of Rech..
Hell on Earth. Yeah, ok, so it does help, but since the main point of HoE is as a mule for the rech pet uniques, it isnt a big deal.
No other power in Demons needs crazy levels of recharge.
Onto dark...Tar patch is easily stackable (assuming it does stack) with moderate rech. The fear is stackable also, Dark servant is perma with basic slotting. The heal is fast enough as is.
really strugglnig to see the point of getting huge recharge, and making HT perma..when it just isnt needed.

Yeah let me add the caveat that I don't have that much recharge so I found I was unable to build up enough -reg with just one use of Howling and spamming my heal. So in one of the reattempts I crafted me one of them nifty envenomed daggers and that did the trick, well that and being able to isolate the adds with Blackhole. (a power I never planned on taking as I saw no point before that fight)

Dark miasma has -dmg, -resist, -tohit, -regen. The -regen has 3 sources: Twilight grasp (which is also -dmg and -tohit), howling twilight, which also has a good chunk of s l o w and don't forget Dark Servant's twilight grasp which is also -regen.

Thermal has heat exhaust and melt armor on long recharge. Heat exhaust is -damage, -end, -recovery, -regen. On my thermal mastermind I have to wait 16 seconds after the duration for it to fire again, but I did put a some extra recharge in my thermal build (no purps) 40% recharge bonus + hasten on top.

Melt armor is -resistance, -defense. Dark has NO -defense. -Defense is quite useful against AV and hard targets. However, it isn't stacked and my wait is 30 seconds w/o hasten.

What has not been touched on is Thermal's heal, forge, fireshields, and Thaw. Thermal's heals do not require a hit check, good for you and your pets. Forge is a buff, ~23% tohit, and 30% damage buff. Your mastermind can easily have forge on 3 pets, preferably the Big 3. Fireshields increase the resistance of pets and allies in two little clicks. Also with some resistance IO bonus slotting (Aegis and Impervium armor) with other IO bonuses my status resistance is ~30% to hold, stun, sleep, immobilize, confuse and fear -- another perk in AV fights. Thaw is generally overlooked, but a quick click can bring a pet or an ally back into the fight that is mezzed. Dark doesn't have anything like that.

If you want to softcap defense and resistance, you are NOT locked into the scorpion shield. Chill mastery has defense to smashing and lethal in Frozen Armor. I still am not a big fan of hibernate, but my appreciation for Flash Freeze has grown leaps and bounds the more that I implement it.

DS Thermal or Dark a good builds. You will probably be able to solo 3/8 setting once properly slotted with IOs.

Thermal for sure will not help you with AV/GM killing so your stuck with Dark.

Dark deals with -ToHit debuff to obtain your defense which can be resisted. Your pets are a mix of melee and range and rely on you for defenses. End result they will die from a mix of PBAOE or AOE attacks and bodyguard mode and then you will die.

Of course there are other factors that I am not gonna bother with and wasting your time with.

DS Thermal or Dark are nice combos but if your looking for AV/GM killing solely then your gonna have to go for the tried and tested Robot Traps.