So.... masterminds may be over....


Agent White

 

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Is there any other game that has anything like masterminds? My usual crew hates teaming with them but I have one of every primary at lvl 32. Is there any other MMO game that comes CLOSE to the feeling of "I COMMAND AN ARMY!"?


 

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Bonedancers in DAoC can summon up to 4 pets - 1 commander and 3 minions.

Necromancers in AoC can summon up to 8 pets (8 available pet points, pets cost 1-4 points depending on abilities).


 

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The game is quite old now, but Diablo II had both the Necro and the Druid..

Necro could summon dozens of skeletons/revived corpses, and the Druid could summon 5-6 or so Pets, exact numbers depending on what you summoned..

Guild Wars 1 Also had a Necro that summoned stuff, but I don't recall much about it, thinkg GW2 has one as well, but best let someone else fill in the info there xD

Other than those 3.. well, most Pet classes cap out at 1, maybe 2 pets these days; sadly.


Edit - ^ Right, forgot about AoC necros.

Necro seems to be a key summoning class lol.


 

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Champions Online is the closest I've found so far, and thats a mish-mash of different summons. Its still very effective, and...at least...similar. Trust me, I've looked. Otherwise you get the staple "one summon". Necromancers in Guild Wars 2, thinking on it, can get a small army as well.


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paladiamors View Post
Champions Online is the closest I've found so far, and thats a mish-mash of different summons. Its still very effective, and...at least...similar. Trust me, I've looked. Otherwise you get the staple "one summon". Necromancers in Guild Wars 2, thinking on it, can get a small army as well.
I've been looking at the powers, and have yet to find anything similar to a "pet" class.


 

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no other game i have seen has anything mastermind related, its been my favorite class in the game as well (my 2nd favorite would be controllers)

from what i have seen most "pets" in other games are either vanity types, or they act like controller/dom pets and you have no direct control over them


 

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Alot of other games just have you use pets as an additive, nothing like having total control over them.

MM's are my favorite class all of COH. I was so hoping for the day when I would get full MM customization, using the costume creator for my pets. Now that dream is over.

At least I will have many screen shots and videos of my precious MM's.


NCSOFT may take away our servers and beloved dev team, but they can't break our spirit and community. with all your power, NCSOFT, your victory will be bitter-sweet. I, personally will be there to laugh at you when you face-plant into the ground.

 

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I made a Champions character once who worked mainly via pets, a few years ago.

I had a fire breathing demon, a very Tron-looking robot/golem, and I think another pet as well, plus some buff powers to help them out.

Checking the wiki...

Arcane Sorcery - Ritual of Arcane Summoning - this was the "Tron Golem"?

I think each magic tree had a Ritual of Blah Blah summoning power, and the "Unbound Ritual" advantage let you summon it even with other pets. By default they're mutually exclusive.

Tyrannon's Familiar did something too, was it an Earth Golem type creature?
Anyway, I had three pets most of the time. Halfway there. I explained it all as just telepathic illusions

Then there were Attack Toys (uggh!) and Support Drones for the techy pet controller.

There were some direct controls that popped up, like "Attack this target" but I never mastered them. And it was a while ago like I said.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Grim View Post
I've been looking at the powers, and have yet to find anything similar to a "pet" class.
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Summon

The upside is that if you are freeform then you can take ALL THE SUMMONS. The downside is that they don't have the theme's that the Mastermind has. Another upside is that the healing pets are REALLY good at what they do.

Otherwise, the Gadgeteer ((Or tinkerer?)) archetype is as close as you can get, and that gives you munitions bots/Attack Toys and Support Drones.

There is something to be said for having five robots, an angel, a demon, a golem, two wolves ((Or bears or raptors, you pick)) a lightning wolf ((Same as the regular wolves, changeable)) an angry shadow, and a djinn following you around blasting things to powder.


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Harmony View Post
I made a Champions character once who worked mainly via pets, a few years ago.

I had a fire breathing demon, a very Tron-looking robot/golem, and I think another pet as well, plus some buff powers to help them out.

Checking the wiki...

Arcane Sorcery - Ritual of Arcane Summoning - this was the "Tron Golem"?

I think each magic tree had a Ritual of Blah Blah summoning power, and the "Unbound Ritual" advantage let you summon it even with other pets. By default they're mutually exclusive.

Tyrannon's Familiar did something too, was it an Earth Golem type creature?
Anyway, I had three pets most of the time. Halfway there. I explained it all as just telepathic illusions

Then there were Attack Toys (uggh!) and Support Drones for the techy pet controller.

There were some direct controls that popped up, like "Attack this target" but I never mastered them. And it was a while ago like I said.
Attack toys win for having rocket launchers, and for cloning themselves FOUR TIMES. SO you get five little attack toys running around.


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paladiamors View Post
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Summon

The upside is that if you are freeform then you can take ALL THE SUMMONS. The downside is that they don't have the theme's that the Mastermind has. Another upside is that the healing pets are REALLY good at what they do.

Otherwise, the Gadgeteer ((Or tinkerer?)) archetype is as close as you can get, and that gives you munitions bots/Attack Toys and Support Drones.

There is something to be said for having five robots, an angel, a demon, a golem, two wolves ((Or bears or raptors, you pick)) a lightning wolf ((Same as the regular wolves, changeable)) an angry shadow, and a djinn following you around blasting things to powder.
... So if I went freeform I could just take all of the summon powers possible?

Hmmmm.


 

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What about the Transformers MMO? Doesn't it have something that can "build an army" too (looks askance at Soundwave, Laserbeak, Ravage, Rumble and Frenzy)?


It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Grim View Post
... So if I went freeform I could just take all of the summon powers possible?

Hmmmm.
Heheheheh. Uh, not that I do that..or...anything....


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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Originally Posted by Gallifrey View Post
Bonedancers in DAoC can summon up to 4 pets - 1 commander and 3 minions.

Necromancers in AoC can summon up to 8 pets (8 available pet points, pets cost 1-4 points depending on abilities).
Funny, I've tried both of those, looking for a mastermind fix (although I admit I played DAOC from launch, before masterminds...I just didn't know that I was looking for masterminds then . With a graphics overhaul, Bonedancers would be pretty fun, but I can't look at the dated graphics anymore.

Conan had a terribly ugly UI. There were some neat things about their necromancers and the mass pets... I forget with my issues with them were, but I stopped playing out of boredom around level 20 or so.

[edit:

I had an "all summons" user in CO when it launched. It was really, really weak compared to most other options. Pets just sucked (some, like the turrets, were OK AFAIR).

I tried to recreate that with the free-to-play experience and couldn't. I couldn't even figure out how to buy exactly what I needed to unlock my old character. Then again, I wasn't willing to invest that much into figuring it out - CoH's costume creator spoiled me with the simple dollar signs on the individual missing pieces, last I checked (it's been a while) CO did not have something similar for finding the powersets you need to pay for to properly unlock old alts.


D2 had some of the original mastermind types with Necromancers able to get very large pet counts and Druids having a handful as well. Both were incredibly fun to play. Still are if you can deal with 800x600. Hell, you can play it offline! You could even play it with my mod (which has EVEN MOAR PETS), if you were so inclined.

D3 has the Witchdoctor, which is OK. Mine is currently 60+1 and finally playable in inferno (pet centric builds were pretty terrible in Inferno (the final difficulty level) pre 1.04 - aka a couple weeks ago).

GW2 has a necromancer, and it looks like they can have 5 pet skills on the bar, one of which summons 2 pets.

In GW1 you could mix classes, so of course I made a necro/ranger for max necro pets + ranger pet. That was kind of fun, but eventually the playstyle and difficulty curve of the game just bored me out.
]


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobster View Post
Funny, I've tried both of those, looking for a mastermind fix (although I admit I played DAOC from launch, before masterminds...I just didn't know that I was looking for masterminds then . With a graphics overhaul, Bonedancers would be pretty fun, but I can't look at the dated graphics anymore.

Conan had a terribly ugly UI. There were some neat things about their necromancers and the mass pets... I forget with my issues with them were, but I stopped playing out of boredom around level 20 or so.

[edit:

I had an "all summons" user in CO when it launched. It was really, really weak compared to most other options. Pets just sucked (some, like the turrets, were OK AFAIR).

I tried to recreate that with the free-to-play experience and couldn't. I couldn't even figure out how to buy exactly what I needed to unlock my old character. Then again, I wasn't willing to invest that much into figuring it out - CoH's costume creator spoiled me with the simple dollar signs on the individual missing pieces, last I checked (it's been a while) CO did not have something similar for finding the powersets you need to pay for to properly unlock old alts.


D2 had some of the original mastermind types with Necromancers able to get very large pet counts and Druids having a handful as well. Both were incredibly fun to play. Still are if you can deal with 800x600. Hell, you can play it offline! You could even play it with my mod (which has EVEN MOAR PETS), if you were so inclined.

D3 has the Witchdoctor, which is OK. Mine is currently 60+1 and finally playable in inferno (pet centric builds were pretty terrible in Inferno (the final difficulty level) pre 1.04 - aka a couple weeks ago).

GW2 has a necromancer, and it looks like they can have 5 pet skills on the bar, one of which summons 2 pets.

In GW1 you could mix classes, so of course I made a necro/ranger for max necro pets + ranger pet. That was kind of fun, but eventually the playstyle and difficulty curve of the game just bored me out.
]
The strength in summons in CO is more longevity then anything else. You give the enemy a lot more targets then just you to shoot at. En masse you can leverage some decent firepower, and the UnBound rituals summons are nothing to sneeze at. You also get some REAL healing power in them, so you can rely on your pets to actually take care of you and anyone else who happens to need healing.

That being said, you won't find anything on par with boss level minions damage in CoH. The CO pets just don't have that kind of firepower, and you pay for having them in endurance costs, both sustained and in an increase for your powers. While you can ostensibly still manage even with a mainly-pet build, you do have the option to take better attack powers yourself. Me, I took Orbital Cannon with the Hammer of Dawn boost, but that was mainly for cool factor as opposed to any actual need.

BUT...they lack theme. On the one hand, I appreciate being able to run around with a rag tag bunch of minions, I also intensely miss my mercenaries, or demons, or robots, or thugs, what have you when I play my minion-master in CO. It isn't the same, and I'm not gonna lie and try to say it is. It is similar, but that won't be good enough for everyone, which I totally get.


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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I haven't tried a lot of the classes in Everquest 2, but I've got a Conjuror and while they only have the 1 pet rule (and multiple types of pets) they do have a mastermind like interface where you can choose to have them attack, or follow you defensively, or go total passive, so you can have control over them.

But yeah sadly, it seems like the mastermind is fairly unique among MMO pet classes for how many minions you get.


 

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Just for the sake of completeness...

In World of Warcraft, as of the current patch (5.0.4), Demonology-specced warlocks can get a lot of pet action going. Unfortunately you only have real control over one, as usual; it's just that you can bring in some additional ones and have others triggered by procs, and it's possible to have quite the crowd in big fights.

I'm enjoying it, though it's no true substitute for the glory that is the mastermind.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by MriBruce View Post
Just for the sake of completeness...

In World of Warcraft, as of the current patch (5.0.4), Demonology-specced warlocks can get a lot of pet action going. Unfortunately you only have real control over one, as usual; it's just that you can bring in some additional ones and have others triggered by procs, and it's possible to have quite the crowd in big fights.

I'm enjoying it, though it's no true substitute for the glory that is the mastermind.
And hunters are also getting Stampede, which lets you bring out EVERY pet in your stables for a brief period of time.


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by MriBruce View Post
Just for the sake of completeness...

In World of Warcraft, as of the current patch (5.0.4), Demonology-specced warlocks can get a lot of pet action going. Unfortunately you only have real control over one, as usual; it's just that you can bring in some additional ones and have others triggered by procs, and it's possible to have quite the crowd in big fights.

I'm enjoying it, though it's no true substitute for the glory that is the mastermind.

I used to play a warlock and hunter years ago...
I just did quick check on their website. I see a high end talent for summoning an extra pet for 20s, and see evidence of a second ability that summons a bunch of imps for a brief period? What else do they have? I know I have some friends going back for the Pandas, maybe I'll check it out again.


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I think Guild Wars 2 would be your best bet, my Necromancer is only level 22 and I have a Bone Fiend, 2 Bone Skeletons, the glowy shadowy ball pet aswell as your default lvl 1 pet whose attacks also heal you, that's as many as Masterminds get.

Also on GW2, Mesmers attacks summon clones, which you can have 3 active at a time, them they can also summon various types of "phantasms", mage, defender, soldier, depending on your weapon you're wielding.

Hope this info helps


 

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There's also always Dofus. There's several Pet-specific classes (including one that specializes in it, with 16 out of 20 spells either summoning a monster or buffing summons); twelve out of fifteen classes get at least one Pet before level 100 (only the swordsman, the archer, and the shielder don't), all classes get a summon that mimics their class attacks at level 200 (the level cap), and every character can gain two special Pet-summoning spells via quests and/or drops. So at max level characters can have anywhere between three and ten summon spells available to them, depending on class.

And while there's limits on the number of summons you can have on the field at once (1 by default, but there's plenty of common gear - and for two of the classes, self-buffs - to increase that number), there's no limits on the number of each summon you can have. So you're not restricted to certain combinations of summons.

In fact, the summon system (and the sheer number of such spells available to players) has always been one of my favorite things about the game.

And Dofus runs on Mac and takes up only about 4.6 GB of drive space (around the same as CoH), so there's also that.

The downside is that players tend to hate summons in teams and prefer the summoner class just use their buffs and attacks, so... that part will be exactly like playing a Mastermind.

If you check it out, note that none of the names I used are the actual class names (which tend to be puns, backwards words, backwards puns, or backwards puns in French), but if I started throwing around the real class names, nobody would know what I was talking about. ("Osamodas? Sadida? What are you smoking there, Thunder?")


 

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There are the Carrier ships in Star Trek Online. Can have one or two hangars depending on ship and depending on hangar can have one to three ships. So you could have a total of 6 ships. There are some items that can summon a combat pet for a short time. Also, you can have a bunch of space pets follow you, but vanish when combat starts. On ground, can only have one summoned pet at a time. The Secret World can summon a bunch of pets, but they are stationary and last for a few seconds.

Was watching Wakfu a few months ago and thought Dofus is connected to it in some way. The Wakfu MMO is the sequel to Dofus.


The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by starphoenix View Post
There are the Carrier ships in Star Trek Online. Can have one or two hangars depending on ship and depending on hangar can have one to three ships. So you could have a total of 6 ships. There are some items that can summon a combat pet for a short time. Also, you can have a bunch of space pets follow you, but vanish when combat starts. On ground, can only have one summoned pet at a time. The Secret World can summon a bunch of pets, but they are stationary and last for a few seconds.

Was watching Wakfu a few months ago and thought Dofus is connected to it in some way. The Wakfu MMO is the sequel to Dofus.
Actually just started diving into Star Trek because I learned of the carriers. I THINK ((Not at that point yet)) it works that each hanger bay can field two wings, and each type has a different number of units in its wing. 3 for most fighters and stealth wings, two for most specialized roles ((Debuffing, buffing and healing)), and one for the frigates. So you can have up to four wings of three, or twelve units. Course I wager most people would take a combination and end up with less, but still, even at two of three and two of two, you end up with ten units and thats not bad.

Course, please correct me if I am wrong. I may have looked at the numbers funny, and lord knows I am not at that experience level yet.

Secondly though, you also customize your away crew, and they function in much the same way as a masterminds pets. You equip them with your castoff gear or gear you don't use, and let them do their thang. Each one also comes with a unique ability depending on their role: Science, tactical, or engineer.

Star Trek Online is also free to play, so its worth giving it a whirl.


"I have something to say! It's better to burn out then to fade away!"

 

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For Feds, the earliest you can get a Carrier is at level 40. It is the Tholian Recluse Carrier and costs anywhere between 40 to 150 million EC on the exchange. The earliest a KDF can get a carrier is at the start with the Dacoit Flight Deck Cruiser. It only has one hanger and costs $10. The only free Carrier is at level 40 and is called the Vo'quv Carrier.


The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.

 

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Just a side note:

It is possible to create something very close to a CoX Mastermind in Champions, complete with pet controls.

It's not intuitive, and you have to be a paying member so you can go 'Freeform'. But it can be done. Right now I'm playing a toon with 4 "Dinosaur" pets and two support drones. Oh those support drones, they work how I always wished "Triage Beacon" did. They follow you and spam a cone heal, that actually heals for a lot!

You can also command pets to use certain "special abilities". The pets I've tested so far have good serviceability and resistance! I'm not good at guides and such, but here's some helpful info from the Wiki page:

Quote:
Controllable Combat Pets are pets that are either controllable inherently (Tyrannon's Familiar, Wolves from "Command Animals", etc.) or pets that can be controlled through an upgrade (Upgrading Ritual Summons with "Meek Inheritance" allows them to be controlled).

Controlled Combat Pets are generally permanent until either killed or dismissed.

Damage scales with Intelligence
Health scales with Presence

If you have more than one controllable pet out, they all share the same pet command bar:

Pet Commands
Attack - Commands your pet(s) to attack your target
Dismiss - Unsummons your pets
Stay - Commands your pet(s) to stay where they are (they will still attack anything in range)
Passive - Commands your pets to follow you but ignore any enemies
Assist - Commands your pets to follow you and attack anything you attack


My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi