House of noobs presents: bodyguard mode question

Robots is the first power set I played, and one thing about it is that there's a clearcut choice for bodyguard mode: get the protectors doing it. It's not clear to me that this is true for any of the other sets that interest me - demons, ninjas, and necros. (Thugs and mercs aren't my aesthetic. Nothing wrong with them, just not my thing.)

However, I've missed the obvious before, and I have this nagging feeling I'm doing it again. For each of the above, are there henchmen better kept on defensive while others go aggressive? And if so, which?

Thanks again to the folks brimming over with info. I really very deeply appreciate it.

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I only use BG mode for one of my MM's.

I keep the Arsonist in defensive on my Thugs/Traps, keeps him from being as suicidal, he still is, just not as 'Gung Ho' about it.

I've never had a need for BG on my Necro/Dark, Ninja/Therm or my Bots/Storm...

Then again, I do keep my pets in passive and force them to all attack the same target most of the time, putting them back in passive afterwards.

I've tried using BG but always felt that it hurt more than it helped, at least in PvE, it could be of more benefit in PvP though.

I ran missions on each of my MM. first time through I'd use my normal passive/attack method. Second run through I'd try BG mode for all, 3rd run through I'd leave just the tier 1 on BG.

My conclusions were, BG slowed me down greatly, by having my pets stand and stare at mezzed individuals and such. The few times I was taking hits BG mode wouldn't have saved me anyways. I'd rather have the pets taking out targets as fast as possible, I'm a blaster at heart so I know when to retreat.

However, that testing night was when I discovered keeping Arsonist in BG actually kept him alive longer.

I personally haven't experimented with Protector Bots though, I can see the reasoning of course. I say give it a try!

That said, I don't Tankermind, so I'm sure those that use that style will come along and tell you their opinions.

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Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!

Thanks, that's helpful! Particularly where you describe the tests you made. I can try some of my own.

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No problem.

Also, check this thread out: PopMenu's and you

It sounds daunting at first but it really isn't. Not so much an issue at low levels with MM's but this is a godsend for high level MM's! I was able to free up 6 power slots in my trays thanks to this! Really cleaned up my screens. Kheldarn has made it even easier for MM's, once you have the popmenu.mnu created just download his menu's and there you go!

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Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!

I wouldn't advise putting any henchmen on Aggressive unless you are in a mayhem mission and just want to trash everything. You'll keep better control if you keep them all Defensive and make a macro that orders specific pets to attack your target... that way you can focus your best damage on a specific target but as soon as the actively hostile mobs are gone the pets will all follow you until ordered to attack again (or you get attacked). If you put some on Aggressive then they're liable to aggro other spawns before you are ready. (Of course in low threat environments you may want them to go wild, but in general you probably want to decide for yourself when a given spawn is aggroed.)

For Bots, I'd leave everything on Bodyguard except the Assault Bot. He is a large chunk of your total damage and you want him attacking the middle of a spawn since he has lots of AoEs. The Battle Drones and Protectors are about equal in damage (the drones are better for single targets, but the Protectors actually have decent AoE from their Photon Grenades) and neither come close to the Assault Bot.

With Demons, it gets a little trickier. The Hellfire Gargoyle is your main offensive pet, with the Demonlings and Ember Demon also packing decent damage and the Demon Prince having a mix of damage and debuffs. I'd actually consider leaving them all on Bodyguard most of the time since they do pretty well without micromanagement (probably the best of all MM pets) and maybe have separate macros for having the Gargoyle and Prince attack. You want the Gargoyle going after the biggest threat, and you kind of want the Prince aiming at the middle of the pack so his Chilling Embrace and Shiver hit lots of things. With the right secondary (like Thermal) Demons can also become extremely tough, in which case you may want to avoid personal aggro altogether and just direct them all to focus fire on one target at a time.

I don't know much about Ninjas or Necro, but I do know that Genin love running around at stupidly high speeds aggroing things before you realize where they went, so if you don't really need lots of Bodyguard fodder you may want to manually direct the Genin to all focus on one target. I also know the Lich is a low damage controller pet, so I'd have a separate macro for pointing him at things you'd like locked down or debuffed and leave him on Bodyguard the rest of the time. I think the Grave Knights are your main damage so they're who you'll mainly want to be manually directing, and you'll want a Goto macro for them so they go into melee and use their swords.

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Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name

[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636

Oh wow. Nifty. Thanks!

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Yes, keep all pets on "Defensive Follow"(Bodyguard Mode) and command specific ones to attack, or all of them to attack using a macro like "/macro Attack petcom_all attack"(creates an icon in your tray that says "Attack" and commands them to attack without breaking defensive stance so that they return to bodyguard once they stop attacking).

I have 3 macros on all my masterminds.
My two main ones are the first.

1) /macro Defend petcom_all defensive follow

2) /macro Attack petcom_all attack

3) /macro GoTo petcom_all GoTo

I then use the default passive+follow macro icon to keep them from stopping to defend themselves as they try to keep up with me traveling.


There are 2 advantages to my macros and play-style:

1) The pets are easily under absolute control without having too many macros due to separate commands for specific pets. They all do what I say at the same time.

2) The pets focus-fire everything down.
The best way to ensure as little damage as possible comes your way, and thus ensure survival better, is to focus the pets on the same target so that you remove an enemy from the game as fast as possible. That amount of focus is very strong.


The way I play is pretty safe as I let the pets take the aggro and distribute it amongst them where their defenses can work against the damage instead of my mastermind's weaker defenses and spreading damage.
A different play-style would need a different setup.




Edit:
FYI, I play Demons/Force Field and Robots/Force Field. This play-style and strategy works extremely well for Force Field, especially with those tougher pets.
Demons are my new favorite pets. They may not have defensive synergy with Force Field, but they make up for it with a lot better/more debuffs than Robots, more varied damage and a lot more resistance than Robots.

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Short and sweet, I keep robots on defensive. With tactics, you can roll the front foes back with kb to stack up the burn patches.

Demons, I like to put both the lieutenants on aggressive. They both do melee attacks. The ember demon uses an AoE heal which I want to be on the gargoyle. The Demon Prince I want on defensive because his first reaction to the mastermind grabbing aggro is usually the ice block. My mastermind aggro's the foe I want to be held.

Zombies work best by having the first tier at range for an initial toxic attack, so I leave first tier and Lich in defensive and follow in a swarming fashion with the grave knights on aggressive.

Thugs, especially /poison, I leave the bruiser on aggressive. He is an aggro absorbing/debuffing machine. Gang war is great in that mix.

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Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.

Thanks, everyone! I particularly appreciate the converging advice on simple macro setups. Will try that out today.

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Also, a quirck of bodyguard mode...
Follow Defensive takes a few moments for BG mode to kick in.
Goto Defensive activates BG mode isntantly.

I tend to charge in with a petcom_all Goto Defensive macro, and once ive absorbed the alpha, and negated any mez risks, commence with the tactical killings.

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I keep my pets in bodyguard mode almost full time. I rewrote the macros so I have an attack key that sets them to passive to keep them focused on what I want to kill if I have need of it. Target goes passive for whatever reason, slap it like you would a ranged attack and it melts. Then hit the bodyguard macro key and put them back in.

The main benefit of defensive isn't to keep the pets in line, it's that each pet increases your effective damage resistance to all types by a significant amount. With 6 pets in bodyguard mode, you're only taking 25% of incoming damage before any defense or damage resistance in your build. If you drop that down to two pets in bodyguard, you're taking 50%

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On my Demon/Traps, I usually keep in BG mode and try to get as much aggro go through me on account of my pets still being prone to death on my romps through max difficulty. I think the difference of using BG mode or not really depends on your playstyle and build. Some powerset combinations also tend to work better in BG mode and other work better when pets are aggressive so it's whatever works for you. Having a few semi-bg macros also helps and I have all my commands bound to keys as opposed to numbers along with having single-unit commands on Alt+key, it just maks things so much easier and drastically frees up your power trays.

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Also if you use attack/defensive once all foes in the mob have been defeated the pets will automatically switch into bg mode.

For any lazy MMs like me who only like to solo radios and tips on normal diff the only macros you will ever need are attack/defensive (also will put pets in bg mode if no target), follow/passive, follow/aggressive (for mayhems) and releasepets.

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Thanks, Klaw! I'd been wondering about the attack/defensive part.

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I would like to chime in a little bit about this. I believe there is a big big misconception when it comes to running Masterminds. Most people fail to see their pets as anything more than a bunch of cheap meatshields. If that is all they are to you, then you should go play a Controller or Dominator where their pets are less important (except Illusion).

Masterminds are all about the pets. That is why they are given their own army of little henchmen who are your main source of damage. And, you need to learn to work WITH them. You need to treat them as if they are your own little "team" and build/play to support them. This means that you learn to move with them at their speed. Now, sure, there are times when you need to maintain more control over them. But, in general, you should do your best to let them unleash and bring the pain.

On my own Ninja/Time mastermind, I run almost exclusively with the ninjas in aggressive mode unless there is a good reason to keep them more passive. With all of my Time buffs (and debuffs) there isn't a whole lot for me to worry about. If my guys wander too far out of my "area of influence" I just command them back into range. Otherwise, there is no reason why I shouldn't allow my ninjas to do what they are supposed to do: kill the mobs for me. I would say that this strategy works 99% of the time. The other 1% are those times when restraint is called for.

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@ Dr Gemini

Oh, absolutely. It's just that I'm sort of innately tankermind-inclined, or something like it - the strategy of pets mostly in defensive, waiting for me to go get something riled up so they can stomp it and all its friends flat, works well for me. (Of course, I always have the option of telling them, "Don't wait for me, go have fun and I'll catch up.")

That is, of course, by no means the only way to play. Or even the way I always like to play myself! But as a set of starting assumptions, it works out well and happily for me most of the time.

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Tankermind is especially important to debuff sets such as ?/TA, no heal, no triage, no tree. Tankermind is the only way to fight AVs. Tankermind definitely is the default for the massive situations like TF endings or ambushes or trials.

I split my stance a lot, some guys are free to attack, others protect the mastermind from burst damage. Attack Drones make good 'swarming fighters' to decimate anything at range. I waffle on the Assault Bot, but only because he like to melee, too. Protector bots are made to be in defensive mode. On demons and necros, I put the ember demon and hellfire gargoyle on aggressive and let them have at it. They don't get too wild and they complement each other well. Grave Knights don't roam too much, and it's fun to follow them in support mode as we assault maps. On thugs, I leave just the bruiser on aggressive. On good days, he smacks the individual in a group and keeps the aggro off the other minions. I do tend to prod him in direction more often from time to time, but Thugs is a beast to play like this.

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Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.