Mastermind Personal Attacks

I'm curious how people rate them, which they take, and how you slot them!

Me personally, I rate in the following order, descending from best to worst

Demons
Beast
Necro
Mercs
Thugs
Bots
Ninjas

Ninjas is undoubtedly the worst of the personal attacks since it doesn't take hardly any procs and doesn't have -any- secondary effects. Demons being the best is pretty darn obvious.

I rate Beast higher than Necro because Beast not only has good secondary effects, it helps with the set's own mechanic.

As far as taking them goes...usually I skip the 1st personal attack unless it's Demons or Mercs.

Usually Personal Attack 2 and the AoE Personal Attack are all I need.

Slotting...mostly with procs. Depending on the secondary, Decimation or Entropic Chaos

I think I may have taken one or two of the personal attacks a long time ago, but haven't touched them on anything I've played recently (past 3-4 years). They're just pretty bad IMO, low damage, high end cost and generally they waste time that could be devoted to my secondary. The -res from demons is pretty nice I suppose and might be worth taking another look at, but generally I find them to be a waste of time.

In my opinion, only beast and demon attacks are worth taking. All the others are basically inefficient uses of endurance. More info in my guide.

I would rate beast above demon for your stated reasons + cause of its superior range and the latter two attacks in beast having -fly. Which is hilarious, besides cone AoEs with -fly are kinda rare AND awesome.

1. Ninja has the worst personal attack but it also has a spammable smoke flash.

2. Beast, you need either Hawk or Raven for the -fly effect, especially at lower level when you don't have access to patron Mace.

3. Necro, I actually like the attacks. Yes, they cost more but Dark Blast and Gloom are two very good DPA attacks and the new Life Drain is so much better even if you are only using it for self healing. I would at least take Life Drain. And tohit debuff stacks so the more the merrier.

4. Merc, Burst is pretty good if you want AH and Negative procs. I took M3 Grenade because Merc's aoe damage is pretty poor (mostly narrow cones) and I put Energy and Smashing procs. It's nice to add 50% knock back control to the set that already has many knock backs. Chaos!

5. Robot, I would take the aoe attack because it has aoe stun in it which can stack with your Protector's.

6. Thug, not really sure. Maybe the one that has knock down if I really need it.

7. Demon has good options but I won't take all 3 of them.


As my personal rule, I usually take at least one attack early and then I respec.

I'm of the mind it's Beast/Demons and then everybody else. Except Ninja is certainly in last place.

On one hand, it's tempting to say Demons are #1 due to -res always, ALWAYS being helpful. However I'm coming to like the variety of the effects for the Beast attacks. The Hawk's kd is very nice for runners and the Crows allow a -res proc too. I didn't take bees but whenever I fight my evil twin in tip missions, it's certainly an annoyance to have on you.

I always take at least one personal attack, for the costume option.

Ninjas

- I take snap shot because I hate Genin. It has limited proc options, but is ideal for the procs it can take because of fast recharge and high accuracy (only Devastation -hold, entropic chaos - heal, or Apocalypse Damage.)

- Can't comment on the other bow powers. It's too bad they have no side effects.

Thugs

- Usually take dual wield. Good damage and small chance of KB, good for finishing off enemies.

- Don't bother with Empty clips because it's a cone, which means you have to stand back in order to catch very many enemies in the AOE, and your proximity to your pets matters a lot if you're using all the pet procs.

Mercs

- All mercs options are fun. Grenade will probably annoy your team due to the KB, but it's nice if you put Force Feedback +Rech proc on it.

Bots

- Photon Grenade is great because it accepts Stun IO procs, which are awesome.

- I skip the 1st laser blast, but usually take the second

Necro

- Life Drain is great. The others are OK

There's nothing bad to be said about Demons and BM attacks. They're the only sets where you'd really cry if you couldn't fit them.

The only ones I'd EVER bother with are the cone in Demon Summoning for the -Res AoE, or MAYBE Life Drain on a character with no self healing capacity.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

Life Drain or Gloom have their uses. For a necro/dark it adds another set of -acc, which is great for taking down bosses (presuming you can keep most of your team up during the alpha, they can floor the tohit of an EB). Definitely inferior to demons or beast attacks but probably worth taking one. Generally speaking though, I would only advise taking personal attacks from demons, beasts, or necromancy, and then only for the rider effects. Everything else isn't really worth the time.

Mercs: Take M30. Slap 3x Centrioles in it, accuracy and proc to taste. You now have a pulling power that'll up your recharge, grab an entire spawn from 100'+ away, and has TRAVEL TIME. Makes pulling things into your traps a cakewalk.

Whether I take the personal attacks or not has as much to do with my secondary and set bonus hunting as anything else. For instance, I actually took all three on my Ninja/Traps MM, because otherwise once I've got all relevant traps on cooldown I'd just be sitting around waiting for stuff to recharge. Plus it's nice to help mop up the remnants of a spawn.

As a counter example, Thugs/Poison has so much going on that I never have downtime, there's always something else to debuff (or Alkaloid on the Arsonist) so I didn't end up taking any attacks.

And as for the "inefficient use of endurance" comment above, I tend to believe that the only inefficient use of endurance is to not use it at all. Something > nothing, regardless of what the something is. They're not going to make a blaster envious of your phat numbers but it beats standing around and waiting for something to happen.

Demons - Yeah. At least the cone.
Thugs - Dual Wield.
Necro - Life drain typically fits the character I play. Plus Gloom is a DOT - which I tend to like for interrupting things like Comm officers and Raider Engineers (say, second group aggroing and the pets are busy.)
Beast - Plenty of -fly. Which, unless you're taking Group Fly...

See my Guides and Tutorials

Play style matters a lot. It's good to have at least one single target personal attack, because your henchmen have a tendency to leave enemies standing around with like 5% of their hp left, and move on to attack the next one instead of finishing that guy off. It's nice to be able to help them along.

I usually don't recommend the AOE personal attacks because they're end hogs. Especially the cones are a hassle, because they're narrow arcs, so you have to stand really far back or you'll be spending all that end just to hit one target anyway.

Masterminds suck!

Oh, not THAT kind of personal attack? Never mind.