MM toss up?

G'day Everyone!

I've never played a mastermind before and was wondering what build to pursue?

Thugs/Dark

OR Demons/Thermal?

All help on how to play each MM would be appreciated or if I have my primary and scondaries completely wrong...

Thank you

I like both those combos.

Demons/thermal is all about the resistance. Demon pets have a bunch, thermal gives a bunch. It's not super hard to be walking around with your pets having all the resistance the game can make use of and then some. So they get hit, but they don't have to care.

Thugs/dark is all about the...well, everything, kind of. Dark is a very powerful and wide-ranging set. You've got a wonderful AOE heal and a zillion different kinds of debuffs, holds, you name it.

The play style isn't hugely different. Your pets spend a fair amount of time up close in melee, particularly the tier 3 pet in each case. (The thugs tier 1 and 2 minions are almost entirely ranged, idiocies of the arsonist aside.) You're in close yourself to use AOE heals and maybe a few other things, and can be at range the rest of the time. Thermal has shield buffs to renew - I bind those to keys I'm not otherwise using for quick casting. Dark has more stuff to cast during a typical fight.

The whip attacks that come with demon summoning are pretty useful. I generally take one or a couple of them, while I may or may not do that with the thugs' dual pistols.

Both are, in my experience, a heck of a lot of fun to play. The pets look cool, the secondaries look cool, and everything does a lot of good things.

So there's no drastic difference between the two sets?
And both more or less play the same?

Cheers mate x

Thugs/Dark gets some hefty debuffs earlier than Thermal would with the demons. On the other side, thermal gets resistance shields and forge to boost damage and survivability. Lowbie thermal users also enjoy heals that don't require an accuracy check.

I have both and play them very similarly. My mastermind stays in the general vicinity of the pets to maximize heals to the pets. Another difference is that Bruiser is more of a Brute and grabs a lot of melee range damage. The Demon Prince acts more like an ice/ice dominator in my estimation, but is also quite durable and when he get his ice sword out, he takes a back seat to no one in the melee damage department.

Gang war and Living Hellfire function about the same, but the Living Hellfire has an additional boost to the targeted pets effectiveness.

I have a Bots/Dark MM and I'll say that Dark has some really awesome tricks. firstly, you get an extra pet. You can't rename him, but the dark servant is really intimidating. Mine lasts 4 minutes but has a 4 minute 5 second cooldown, and my global recharge is improved such that I can keep the pet around as long as necessary. he does a LOT. he fears, he heals, he holds, he just flat out rocks. dark also gives you tar patch right off the bat which is an aoe that debuffs the enemy's damage. and darkest night must be bugged or something because when I hit enemies with it they just don't even bother trying to fight me, they just run away (which I make harder by slowing them down).

haven't tried thermal, but I have a demons/time mastermind, and it's pretty crazy. one thing though: those demons are annoying. they yell a LOT. be sure to name them something that makes you feel less bad about them when they die. Mine are: Politician, Lawyer, Lobbyist, Dictator, Big Time CEO, and Telemarketer. I get a good laugh from the group every time I send them in to die.

/bind {key} petsay_all <em drinkenriche> nom!

That should quiet them down. You can substitute any static emote for drinkenriche like jugglefire to keep them quiet and busy.

The one thing to note of is that no matter what, Thermal's resistances are never 'resisted' or otherwise made 'useless' in a given scenario.

Dark Miasma's ToHit debuffs take massive penalties against AV's, and things that are Purple Con to you. This means, Dark Miasma loses it's 'key' trait in trials, and has to rely on it's few other tricks.

This doesn't mean Dark Miasma is bad, it just loses some of it's AMAZEMENT. But, having an AoE Rez in MoM is beautiful.

Being your 1st MM, I'd go with Dark for sure.

Create a GoTo macro;
/macro goto, petcomall goto

This will let you have even more control over your minions. I found it a must on my Necro/Dark. Using it, I became an ambush predator. Luring huge mobs around corners into my waiting cadre of cannibals and tar patch.

Also, right click on the follow macro and change it to defensive. (Unless this is now default, haven't rolled a new one in ages)


I've played: Necro/Dark, Thugs/Traps, Demon/Thermal, Ninjas/Thermal, Bots/Storm
and for the majority of them I found it much more effective to avoid BG mode until level 40+ and just keep them in passive all the time, unless directly attacking something. This keeps them more in control and allows you to have more direction on the speed of encounters, either massing all pets on one target or spreading them out etc.

Roll a few and experiment with various playstyles. I'm sure you'll find something that works for you.