What have you tried? It might help us help you.
Ninja - 1. Pants all the way.
Robots - 4.5. I really like Robotics, and it's my only 50 MM. You can't quite solo AVs without some help (Traps,Dark) but they'll handle just about anything else. I recently duo'd Jurassic with a Tanker, so I was doing a hefty part of the damage, and things went just fine. I barely even lost a bot.
Don't forget Beast Mastery coming soon....
My View.
Demons 4.5
Bots 4.5
Thugs 3
Mercs 3
Beast 2 (at this time, may get better later on)
Ninjas 1
Going to miss the fun and nice people here at CoH. Feel free to add me on PS3/XBox360
PS3X360: OmniNogard
Currently playing: Mass Effect 3(PS3) Minecraft(X360) Skyrim(X360).
Bots and thugs- 5
Demons- 4
Necro- 3
Ninja- 1.5
Merc- 1
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
As bad off as Ninjas are ... Mercs definitely have it worse. 
And I say that as a Ninja Mastermind ...
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Heh! Thanks for the replies so far folks. I've puttered around with Necromancy mostly. I have tried a Mercs, but that character is like level 8, so does not really count. None of my MMs had gotten past 25 before I had taken a break from CoH and since I got back I've mostly worked the brute end of the street.
RP wise, I can come up with almost any excuse for a theme. The last Necromancer I made was a technomage who summoned hard light holograms of her favorite video game monsters from "Dead House". She did not care if they died, just programmed new ones.
For some reason I've had a hard time looking at bots. They seem "bulky" somehow. But I'm curious, do the Bots and Demons rate so high for most folks because of the primarily ranged attacks they seem to have? Or do they have better defenses and resists than other pets? And what is with Thugs? What makes them so strong?
Secondary wise, I plan to mostly tinker with Dark, Thermal, Pain, or Traps. I like the ideas of Sonic, but it lacks a heal for my pets.
Bots - Some resists, sizeable defense and decent heals through protector bots, fairly good aoe potential post 32. All ranged, -regen built into attacks. Feel a bit week damage wise pre 32
Demons - Good resists through lts, some healing, all ranged, variety of damage and some control. Mostly ranged....though with pet ai ranged is only kinda an advantage.
Thugs - Great aoe potential and damage potential, mostly ranged, sizable defense through lts.
Basically it comes down to what stacks well. I'm sure any of your pairings would work fine so take with grain
Traps/dark - Are classic bots/thugs pairing, the -to hit or ff gen stacked with the defense of the set gives you very sturdy pets
Thermal/pain - enhances the already good resist of demons up higher. That isn't to say you can't mix and match with layered defense only that you'll get more impressive numbers if you stick.
Demons/dark or traps would work just fine too, as both are great sets, I' probably vote dark of the two...either way all are fine, have fun.
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Never thought about it that way. I'm a new player and I made a Robotics/Time Manipulation Master Mind just because it worked well for the background of the character.|
Originally Posted by slythetic
Basically it comes down to what stacks well. I'm sure any of your pairings would work fine so take with grain
Traps/dark - Are classic bots/thugs pairing, the -to hit or ff gen stacked with the defense of the set gives you very sturdy pets Thermal/pain - enhances the already good resist of demons up higher. That isn't to say you can't mix and match with layered defense only that you'll get more impressive numbers if you stick. Demons/dark or traps would work just fine too, as both are great sets, I' probably vote dark of the two...either way all are fine, have fun. |
I understand that with Robotics I'm on the strong end of the MM spectrum, how does Time Manipulation fit into it?
I play a lot together with a friend who's got a Claws Brute and I find that the combination works quite well, He takes the strongest enemy, I do battle field control with the time manipulation and have the robots help the brute or do the minions depending on what is needed.
I just got the second protector bot and the assault bot and feel quite powerful now.
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Bots have insane levels of -regen, making AVs and GMs little more than targets, as well as strong defense buffs, and some natural resists. They have intermittant -damage and tohit in the form of probot seeker drones, and the A-bot has huge AoE.|
Originally Posted by Phaera
For some reason I've had a hard time looking at bots. They seem "bulky" somehow. But I'm curious, do the Bots and Demons rate so high for most folks because of the primarily ranged attacks they seem to have? Or do they have better defenses and resists than other pets? And what is with Thugs? What makes them so strong?
Secondary wise, I plan to mostly tinker with Dark, Thermal, Pain, or Traps. I like the ideas of Sonic, but it lacks a heal for my pets. |
Demons have strong AoE, and consistant survivibility. They posess some slows and heals, but they're resistance based really. They debuff resistance, increasing kill speed. They Don't rate quite as High as thugs and bots for me, because Enforcers and A-bots are Hax. Never the less, Demons are powerful and mesh together very well.
That being said, I'm still a Necro through and through.
As for secondaries, Traps is powerful and in my opinion fits the MM pace very well. A Bots/Traps will put out more -Regen than any other powerset combination out there. The FFG will stack with the Probot bubbles, and the acid mortar is love however it makes things run almost the moment you drop it.
Dark is a dirty, dirty little girl that you will never get tired of loving all night long. It has tohit debuffs, damage debuffs, mez, -resist, heals, and regen debuffs. The only thing that could be considered a minus to dark, is that the Pet (Dark Servant AkA Fluffy) Doesn't have the same 100% uptime at base that the defender version has. However, the pet can be made permanant with enough recharge.
Sonic is a fun set, but definitly worse than other options in performance.
And I don't know too much about Pain or thermal, but I don't believe they're at the Traps or dark level of ZOMG!
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
ive played all mm sets so far ive found few combinations that ive liked
mercs- ill give this a 1-1.5, the set has potential but is severely limited in a lot of areas
demons-this is definite 4-5, demons have a huge variety of dmg, debuff, and buff, it works very well with almost any secondary
ninjas-ill give ninjas a 3, i personally like the ninjas (and ive used them since i started playing on my main), however i think their unique power the smoke bomb is quite worthless and nothing but a massive end hog
bots-definitely 4-5, they have good buffs and heals as well as some regen debuffs and they are almost completely ranged and actually have semi-working AI
thugs-ill give thugs a 3, they are ok, but they suffer a lot of weakness mostly in the fact they die extremely easy (damn arsonist)
zombie-ill give them a 2-3, they seem heavy on debuffs but they also prefer melee range which means they also die a lot more, they are also pitifully slow compared to other pets
beast-i havent really played it much on beta but from what ive seen i would give it a 2-3, it looks kind of meh right now and almost 0 ranged dmg
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My bots/time is only level 12, so I can only speak from the theory point of view, but Time Manipulation should be a strong secondary for Robotics. Instead of having three key powers (Acid Mortar, Poison Trap, and Seeker Drones) each on a 45-second recharge, you have a number of powers on fairly quick recharges, so you'll be more active. It gives up Traps' massive regen debuffs, but gains a variety of crowd-control and buff powers.
|
Originally Posted by RogerWilco
Never thought about it that way. I'm a new player and I made a Robotics/Time Manipulation Master Mind just because it worked well for the background of the character.
I understand that with Robotics I'm on the strong end of the MM spectrum, how does Time Manipulation fit into it? |
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Please check my guide out, it's the green link in my signature. It was just written this past month.
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Originally Posted by Phaera
I've been doing some reading on the Mastermind AT again, and have noticed most of the guides and things are very out of date!
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Ah great! Thanks for all the replies and help so far (and the guide)! Definitely been useful in catching me up on things!
These are my opinions,
I have a Necro/FF and Thug/Poison, both at 50, as well as a Necro/Poison at 32, and a Merc/Traps at 28.
I really enjoy my Necro/FF, and play this toon the most. With all the various bubbles up, my minions are able to survive things my other MM minons die to in one hit. It is also great having 5/6 melee pets, as they stop and hold the mobs (with me telling them of course). They also heal themselves, with is fantastic since my only heal for them is the slow one from the Medicine pool. The zombies can usually survive 3ish hits (with all the bubbles), and in that time, usually heal themselves back up. The knights need a little more direction, as they often times want to pretend to be ranged. They too heal themselves, and I usually don't have to worry about them. The Lich pretty much cares for itself. It rarely is missing health, as it is always healing itself, and mez'ing mobs. I just solo'd all the "Who will die?" missions, and only really had problems with the first, where I was too low to give my minions the ability to heal themselves. After that, we steamrolled through them. As an added note, the personal FF has saved my *** countless times. It basically makes you invulnerable, allowing you to either flee, or heal yourself. More powerful mobs may get one or two hits in, but with Personal FF up, i'll say chances are 9/10 you are going to live and get away.
I did enjoy my thug/poison, but would advise anyone away from Poison as a secondary. Poison just rips through all of a (single) mobs defenses, and turns AV's and GM's into nothing. Unfortunately ALL of poison is debuff, it has no real damage, and is fairly endurance hungry. All Thug minions are range, except the final brute. Sadly, the ranged will often times run into melee, and inevitably be killed easily. Forget you have an arsonist, as he will be the first to die in one hit every time. The brute is just too cool for words. As long as you keep him in melee, for some reason he wants to throw the sidewalk at mobs, he will do a good job of keeping mobs on their aft ends. He is also epic with Noxious gas cast upon him. Gang war is also great... nothing like 10 thugs coming out of the woodwork with tire irons and baseball bats. This combo is not for the solo type, Alkaloid is a horrid heal, and even with the medicine heal, I had a hard time keeping my minions up at +1/0.
Merc/Trap was a theme build, and though it was fun to play, all minions are basically AR... and of one of the most resisted damage types. It always underperformed compared to others. I also noticed the Combat medic had the same problem as the arsonist... died on each pull.
It sounds like you already have a main picked out, and are looking for a secondary. Of the ones I have played, I would suggest FF, as it GREATLY improves survivability of both you, and your minions. It does lack a heal, so you are stuck with the Medicine version, which is a good heal... just slow to recharge.
Bots is definitely the best. Not so much in power, but they have a well synergized set of abilities - the drones are both good at range and melee, the second tier have an amazing suite of support abilities and decent firepower, and the third tier is a freaking tank. Combined with free knockback, they're durable and fairly powerful.
Demons are probably the second best. They basically attack with every single type of damage, which means you won't be shut down by an enemy with high resist/def to their attacks, and their lieutenants have good support. They're also noteworthy for having MM attacks worth taking for the -res. A very close second to bots, almost a tie.
Thugs are a close third. Nothing particularly great about them, but nothing bad either. They're exactly what you would expect from thugs. They hit things or shoot them until they're dead, and they're pretty good at it. Fairly durable, fairly powerful, overall a good run of the mill set.
Ninjas are the stalkers of MM. High damage, but fragile and some of the mechanics don't work like you'd want them to. The crits are nice, and the set is very thematic, but they have the hitpoints of a paper bag. Nothing particularly special. They're still MM's though, powerful, but not as good as the other sets.
I haven't played Necro or Mercs yet. I've heard Necro is decent and Mercs are underwhelming. Ultimately though you should go with what you enjoy.
My opinions, just rating them in order from worst to best, having played all but Beasts:
1 - Mercs, they really are bottom of the barrel. They work out to be about as fragile as ninjas, without the damage. Supposedly they're intended to be control heavy, but their control powers are on such ridiculous unenhancable cooldowns that you can't rely on them.
2 - Ninjas, I really like Ninjas but to be honest they don't have a lot to recommend them. Reasonably high ST damage but will rarely live long enough to make use of it against anything that matters. AoE is so-so.
3 - Necro, basically identical to ninjas, but with one major advantage, that being the ability to slot the second set of uniques from recharge intensive IOs in Soul Extraction. For SO builds I would probably place them below Ninjas, they're slightly tougher but not enough to matter, and their damage is noticably worse. Lich is more of a troll who likes to faff about than be of any real help.
4 - Bots, I suspect this could go higher depending on how much you like knockback, their primary advantage in my eyes is that they synergise well with just about any secondary, but otherwise they are simply above average at everything. This is fine, and bots do well, I'm just saying you can't really give the bots credit for the work done by your secondary.
5 - Demons, very solid all-rounders, slightly end heavy but that's about all you can say against them.
6 - Thugs, overall the strongest in terms of damage, and damage tends to be the most important thing in this game. Enforcers + Gang War also means they tend to stack well with other Thugs MMs, where the rest of the MM primaries merely tolerate another of their kind.
As far as Beasts go, I haven't heard much good about them, but I will refrain from commenting further since I haven't played them, and they're still in beta.
A circle forms, everybody comes round
Just to hear the incredible sound
Of a genius smashing expectations
- Jonathan Coulton
Robot - 5 stars (less raw damage but Assault Robot has -500% regen to make up for it)
Thug - 4.5 stars (Enforcer is the true best MM pets IMO. Great ST and AoE damage and defense and all range. Bruiser's AI has improved)
Demon - 4 stars (a bit too melee-oriented but ovreall, a very strong set. The demon body size is a bit too big. They block each other a lot)
Merc - 3 stars (they don't excel at anything but they are mostly range)
Necro - 3 stars (zombies is the worst minion IMO but Grave Knights are good and Lich needs a bit more damage)
Ninja - 2 to 2.5 stars (or 4 stars if you combo it with Force Field)
Beast - 2.5 stars or higher
My experience with Beast/FF is only at level 17. However, I looked through all the details and I see plenty of "cons" about this set. One, it's 99% melee set. Being 99% melee in itself is a huge disadvantage because there are some bosses and fights that have nasty aoe and your pets will melt. The new addition of S/L resistance is good but some of the nastiest aoe is Psionic and Fire which they can't resist.
I didn't rate 1 Star because all sets are very playable. 1 Star sounds like it's unplayable to me.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Thugs are not all ranged.
When something good happens to me, I can never enjoy it....
I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...
BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!
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i think they were mostly commenting on the enforcers, the tier 2 pets, which are fully ranged|
Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Thugs are not all ranged.
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IMO aside from the enforcers the thugs are prolly one of the worse mm sets cause the tier 1 pets are ridiculously weak and the tier 3 pet is entirely melee with exception of 1 attack
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Sorry I was talking about how awesome Enforcers are. They are mostly all range except sometimes they run in to smash. |
Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Thugs are not all ranged.
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I did 2-minute mark testings against dummies on most of the MM pets a while back and Enforcers are the most amazing pets in the game because their damage is way ahead of Spec-Ops and majority of it is cone attack.
I basically count how many attacks were used during that 2-minute mark.
Genins cycle a lot of attacks during 2-minute mark. They just can't survive...
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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What people "think" and how they actually perform are separate and mostly non related.
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Originally Posted by Phaera
I'm mostly curious to see what folks think of the primaries///
and get a feel for how they are performing in the current game |
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
By the way, Oni has AI issue which prevents him from using all of his attacks at melee range. If Oni truly cycles all the attacks, he will do the most damage of all!!!
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
How do Ninja/FF work out during the higher levels? I got one at level 22 right now that I'm enjoying and it's pretty cool, the ninjas are very survivable with all the DEF i provide for them 
but reading the comments here on the board I'm a bit concerned I might get dissapointed in it later on?
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The key is Power Boost. You have to take it to push /FF value way over soft-cap because your ninjas are lower level than you and they have no resistance to defense debuff. |
Originally Posted by Broken_Wings
How do Ninja/FF work out during the higher levels? I got one at level 22 right now that I'm enjoying and it's pretty cool, the ninjas are very survivable with all the DEF i provide for them
but reading the comments here on the board I'm a bit concerned I might get dissapointed in it later on? |
With Power Boost, I would rate Ninja/FF as 4 stars. Without it, I would only rate 3 stars. With incarnate powers, I've soloed Pylon (no lore pets) and soloed a giant mushroom in Monster Island with lore pets. Without lore pets, my Genins ran out of endurance after a long while and lore pets help me finish off. The funny thing is during that test, none of my pets died! That's how high my defense is. Only I got hit!
In typical gameplay, Ninja/FF at higher level is very good. Take Musculature to boost their damage even higher and Reactive Interface because when they critical, the damage is double. (By the way, Beast's critical is only 50%!!! Not sure how many of you know that but Beast pets themselves should critical more often on their own).
Now, there are counters. If you mean "high level" game play as in itrials, then there are situations where your Ninjas just melt. Defense is less effective in itrials and I am sure Super Reflex users will tell you that. Other high level contents like LRSF or other SFs are ok. I will not bring my Ninja/FF to Apex ever! ITF is alright except for the last fight where auto damage soul drain will own your pets. You may need to wait out until the first phase is gone or ask somebody to taunt away that soul drain. LRSF should be alright. You are providing the team excellent defense. Barracuda should be easy since councils don't have much -defense debuff. Tin Mage is alright. Those trip mines may hurt too much. I have not tried it with my Ninja/FF in Tin Mage.
By the way, Synapse said he knows Ninja and Merc are under-performing and Necro may need some help. :P I will keep pushing the issues until they are being looked at again. LOL
I love Ninja/FF because it's more of a cast and forget set. I like to keep throwing smoke flash and I find trap's FFG hard to keep all the ninjas inside as they run too fast. I have not tried Ninja/Time.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Necro mostly needs upgrades to the AI. Compared to bots, they seem to do better damage but have a suicidal tendency to run after groups of enemies unprovoked. If you keep an eye on them though, they're fairly solid: they all have self heals and tohit debuffs making them great for going after bosses, do good single target and AoE damage, and the lich is like having your own pet controller. If you balance the difficulty settings, they chew through content like it's nothing.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
By the way, Synapse said he knows Ninja and Merc are under-performing and Necro may need some help. :P I will keep pushing the issues until they are being looked at again. LOL
I love Ninja/FF because it's more of a cast and forget set. I like to keep throwing smoke flash and I find trap's FFG hard to keep all the ninjas inside as they run too fast. I have not tried Ninja/Time. |
Ninja/Time sucked when I tried it. Time has very few survivability buffs, and ninjas are incredibly squishy - look down for three seconds and all your Genin are dead. If you could keep them alive they did impressive damage, but they have the durability of wet tissue paper. Not surprised that Ninja/FF is good though, FF is great for keeping minions alive.
Been a while since I've looked at an MM, though I have a couple OLD, very low level MMs floating around. Been kinda thinking of getting back to trying the AT again. I solo a lot (SGs seem to be really really hard to find for some reason), and have mostly been running at the Brute/Scrapper end of the pool, but kinda wanted to try something a bit new.
I've been doing some reading on the Mastermind AT again, and have noticed most of the guides and things are very out of date!
So my question for folks is, how would you rate the current MM primaries (I do have Demon Summoning), and why? Say a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being "Wow, this is just pants" to 5 being "You can solo GMs while napping". I'm mostly curious to see what folks think of the primaries and get a feel for how they are performing in the current game, to help me decide what to putter around with!