I have just started a BM, currently mid 20s and i leveled up in Praetoria where the mobs are meant to be tougher and had no real issues, however i did have Time Manip as my secondary, which is very very good.
With BM you need a heal to keep the pets going, and to patch them up between fights, you need to be active helping them a lot. I found the BM attacks are needed and make the set work, unlike most Pet set attacks these didnt seem to cause end issues and do make a noticable difference.
My Nin MM hasnt been out in a long time so no comment.
/sonic and /FF have been give bad press due to incarnate content where they are a bit weak, for normal content they work fine. I use FF on my Necro MM and it does the job well.
Pick a third option: Demons!
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/time
The truth is if it's just for "casual", both should be fine. I don't find Beast particularly weak but it could be because I pair it with /time. I find /time really strong. lol
I've been grinding sig arc 1 for purple merits and I find Beast's damage pretty good against the last elite boss. I just used my Merc/Storm this morning and man, their damage is way less comparing to Beast's.
I know Beast/Time is great. I do think Beast/Sonic has good synergies but you will need healing. Ninja/FF definitely works well in casual situation. My Ninja/FF is Incarnate +3. I don't particularly do bad. The problem is that there are quite a bit auto damage that /FF can't deflect/avoid.
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.
Thanks for the answers 
I think I'll stick to my BM/Son for a while, I hope Aid Other can save my doggies! 
I think that's a good choice. A recent thread in the MM forums was about Beast/Sonic and the player seemed to have a positive experience with it. The top 2 tier pets have almost 30% resists to s/l/c, so with Sonic + res IO, those pets will get to 80% resist for those 3 damage types, 50% to all else. Combined with the +def the pets innately have + 5% Def IO + Fortify Pack's +def and +regen and that sounds like a surprisingly sturdy combo. The pets melee exclusively (except boss) so no micromanaging Sonic Disruption.
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BM is imho one of the better sets to pair with /sonic, due to the secondary it also shouldn't really do less damage then ninja/FF and personally i like to have someone provide + res i teams since there are already so many sources for def anyway.
I am very curious about Beast (10 PMs) VS Ninja in terms of damage. I feel Beast with 10 stacks of PM does very good ST damage but Ninja with both Jounins at melee is no joke either.
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.
I remember a comparison of the attack chains of the different pet sets, and if i remember correctly Beast had some trouble due to a lack of attacks. It literally would run out of attacks with the individual pets standing there waiting on attacks to recharge, which wasn't something ninja suffered from.
How much practical application this has outside of soloing AVs/GMs i don't know since the pets might very well burst an enemy down and spend the recharge time of their attacks running to the next, ranged attacks might delay the closing in to a new target or not.
Subjectively i have to say my beasts don't FEEL that much weaker than ninja dps wise. I also think that while the Jounins might be pretty awesome, the lions are also extremely good and i feel the dire wolf deals a bit quicker with the bosses i sic him on than the oni.
A little update if you're interested.
My BM/Son is now 30 and I have mixed feelings. Damage is decent while I solo but then again that's something expected :P Suprisingly groups noticed -res and shields from Sonic.
I got pet res aura and pet def aura enhancements, have manuevers, 2shields and big bubble. I don't summon pets while soloing, I almost regret taking aid other! In groups however they're still wet paperbags, getting one shotted. Damage is... OK but sometimes they "crit" for 3 damage .
My biggest problem is pets can't keep pack mentality on some fights, especially AV fights. I can't afford to use my damage attacks, I run so many toggles and Disruption Field SUCKS endurance. So they just stare at the baddie, poking him for 15-20 damage (wolves). Maybe the 2nd upgrade will help who knows...
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Originally Posted by Jeremia_Bane
I remember a comparison of the attack chains of the different pet sets, and if i remember correctly Beast had some trouble due to a lack of attacks. It literally would run out of attacks with the individual pets standing there waiting on attacks to recharge, which wasn't something ninja suffered from.
How much practical application this has outside of soloing AVs/GMs i don't know since the pets might very well burst an enemy down and spend the recharge time of their attacks running to the next, ranged attacks might delay the closing in to a new target or not. Subjectively i have to say my beasts don't FEEL that much weaker than ninja dps wise. I also think that while the Jounins might be pretty awesome, the lions are also extremely good and i feel the dire wolf deals a bit quicker with the bosses i sic him on than the oni. |
Having less attacks doesn't mean they deal less damage in general. It just means they don't use "weaker" attacks when they are recharged. I've tested Genins before and while they do very good damage for tier 1, they tend to cycle too many throwing stars when they could have done a bit more dps with the kicking.
I know Dire Wolf does more damage than Oni.
It will be interesting to find out for sure. It's very hard to look at the raw damage numbers because Beast has a lot of +damage buffs and we need to figure out the up/down 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.
I just hit 32 on my beast/ MM, and yes the second upgrade helps alot. Maybe not as much as robots, but its very very noticeable. Judging by feeling ST damage is about Thugs or Robots level, durability is much much higher though.
Then again im running /Time, hitting farsight and pack mentality at once just saved my behind when i accidently pulled 2 arachnos groups with 2 bosses each. Its pretty much godmode for all your pets. Suffice to say without the second upgrade i wouldn't have killed much by the time pack mentality ran out ...
Edit: I have a beast/time, ninja/dark and a bots/traps all around level 35. Ninja really, really stands out. Its not just the dps, but the amount of knockdowns/stuns etc. Once you got them in melee they can burn a Boss down so fast its unreal. Faster than either of the other sets can kill a LT and im not exagerating, sometimes the boss doesn't even get to fight back ...
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Yes, mine is also Beast/Time and it is hard to tell if Beast is performing well or not because I simply find /Time extremely strong. I can't imagine any primary with /time can do horribly.. ok, Merc will do less damage but Time offers more controls. |
Originally Posted by Jeremia_Bane
I just hit 32 on my beast/ MM, and yes the second upgrade helps alot. Maybe not as much as robots, but its very very noticeable. Judging by feeling ST damage is about Thugs or Robots level, durability is much much higher though.
Then again im running /Time, hitting farsight and pack mentality at once just saved my behind when i accidently pulled 2 arachnos groups with 2 bosses each. Its pretty much godmode for all your pets. Suffice to say without the second upgrade i wouldn't have killed much by the time pack mentality ran out ... Edit: I have a beast/time, ninja/dark and a bots/traps all around level 35. Ninja really, really stands out. Its not just the dps, but the amount of knockdowns/stuns etc. Once you got them in melee they can burn a Boss down so fast its unreal. Faster than either of the other sets can kill a LT and im not exagerating, sometimes the boss doesn't even get to fight back ... |
Yes, Ninja can burn a boss fast and they can also get burned faster than any primary. :P Two blasts from most bosses = dead Genins.
Robot does not have great ST damage. They have very good aoe damage. What makes them good at soloing AVs (besides their survival) is that Assault Robot has -500% regen which translate into more dps for Robot. In normal boss fight, Robot's -regen doesn't affect as much and it's natural to feel their ST damage is lower and they should be lower! When you have a 100% range set that does more ST and AoE damage and survive the best... it calls into questions!
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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I didn't say bots have great ST damage, i said i feel my beasts are on their level as far as ST damage goes. My thugs does a bit more, but i have achilles heel proc in the enforcers so that muddies it a bit.
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
Yes, mine is also Beast/Time and it is hard to tell if Beast is performing well or not because I simply find /Time extremely strong. I can't imagine any primary with /time can do horribly.. ok, Merc will do less damage but Time offers more controls.
Yes, Ninja can burn a boss fast and they can also get burned faster than any primary. :P Two blasts from most bosses = dead Genins. Robot does not have great ST damage. They have very good aoe damage. What makes them good at soloing AVs (besides their survival) is that Assault Robot has -500% regen which translate into more dps for Robot. In normal boss fight, Robot's -regen doesn't affect as much and it's natural to feel their ST damage is lower and they should be lower! When you have a 100% range set that does more ST and AoE damage and survive the best... it calls into questions! |
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But if Beast's ST damage level is on par with Robot, then there is something wrong.. don't you think? Robot is 100% range (even though they may run in).
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Originally Posted by Jeremia_Bane
I didn't say bots have great ST damage, i said i feel my beasts are on their level as far as ST damage goes. My thugs does a bit more, but i have achilles heel proc in the enforcers so that muddies it a bit.
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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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Ehrm ... if you only notice now that SOMETHING is wrong as far as the balance of MM primaries and secondaries is concerned ...|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
But if Beast's ST damage level is on par with Robot, then there is something wrong.. don't you think? Robot is 100% range (even though they may run in).
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Sets like Thugs, demons and bots are so glaringly and obviously more powerful in almost any regard that its not even funny. Likewise secondaries like Time, traps or dark are also a far, far cry above the others and amplify the imbalances of the primaries even more.
The very fact alone that bots deal primarily energy/fire damage vs mercs primary lethal damage ensures bots would have superior actual dps(as in after mobs resistances) vs 90% of the enemy mobs even IF the damage values themselves would be balanced. As it is though the assault bot alone will probably do more damage on his own in a multimob situation than an entire team of mercs, and the massive -regen against tough single targets(and im sure we all agree that the ST damage vs WEAK single targets doesn't factor into anything worth discussing) again ensures bots superiority even if mercs had some small or medium advantage in theoretical ST dps.
After seeing some /Time in action, /Sonic feels lacking. Even with resists pets get pwned in big groups, wolves usually die in 1 hit and lions take 2 maybe 3 hits at most and if its AoE BOOM! they're all dead :P. (maybe that happens to all the pets I don't have many high lvl MMs). So +Def is way to go but I'm too lazy to start over, I'll make it 50 sooner or later :P
At 50 on my Beast/Sonic, with the pet defense IOs and fleshed out resists, Sonic's survivability combined with Beast Mastery's innate toughness is more often than not plenty enough to make it through a fight. When it's not, Rebirth or Fortify Pack saves me. Being able to control your own Disruption Field anchor means you get a lot of mileage out of your debuffs, which just makes Beast more potent (along with Pack Mentality).
Obviously /Sonic is no /Time. But with Beast, it's at least something. Before I played this character, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to attempt Sonic Resonance again until it got some buffs or something. The performance of this Mastermind, however, made it very easy to forget my past experiences with /Sonic on other ATs. It really and legitimately is just fun.
Wild Streak - Lv. 50(+3) Beast Mastery/Sonic Resonance Mastermind, Amnesty - Lv. 50 Staff Fighting/Dark Armor Stalker
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It does most definitely not happen to all the pets. Defense or -tohit based MM usually are at the very least soft capped to AoE attacks, and more often than not melee and ranged as well.|
Originally Posted by Wildpath
After seeing some /Time in action, /Sonic feels lacking. Even with resists pets get pwned in big groups, wolves usually die in 1 hit and lions take 2 maybe 3 hits at most and if its AoE BOOM! they're all dead :P. (maybe that happens to all the pets I don't have many high lvl MMs). So +Def is way to go but I'm too lazy to start over, I'll make it 50 sooner or later :P
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That being said it doesn't sound like you have your defense and resistance auras yet, ill imagine they will help quite a lot. Definitely slot pack mentality for recharge and defense, your 38 power liquify should also raise your survivability a lot.
The obvious weakness of this set however will prevail, any resistance based set without means to regain health will fail sooner rather than later.
Hello I just returned to the game and want a new MM. I can't decide between Nin/FF and BM/Sonic. I don't expect any AV soloing or easy/fast farming, I just want to feel useful in a team enviroment. Any MM can solo missions anyway, right?
, I can only keep t1 pets as bodyguards and use t2 for attacking, etc. so far.
My initial plan was a BM/Son because /Son is kinda rare (at least the last time I played they were) and -res sounds valuable on the paper. But a lot of people say BM is terrible (almost Merc-terrible) and Sonic is not great as well. So I keep a Nin/FF as my plan B, I heard Nin can seriously hurt people IF they're alive and Def from FF does that job pretty good.
Keep in mind I'm not a gaming prodigy and I can't issue 20 different orders every second
So what you suggest? Keep BM/Son or make a Nin/FF? All tips, suggestions are welcome