Neiska

"My very limited personal experience serves as such evidence as to be irrefutable and undeniable and is thus beyond contest."

I have seen both good and bad KB players. Good ones use it strategically, pushing the big threats off squishies, pushing things into corners, pushing things into aoe and so on. Being able to move an enemy can be a fantastic tool if used right. I think the best use was during a team, it was almost a full wipe, down to just me the Robo MM and the (I think he was a) Defender. The Tank went one way, the squishy DPS went another, both aggroed their own packs and both faceplanted. Then aaalll the mobs from both packs came running right to me and the Defender. I thought I was about to follow shortly after, but the Defender just swooped right beside me and toggled his Repelling Aura on. Stuff was running at us, but it just bounced off. And I was able to heal the ranged attacks that did get through. Honestly it was kind of shooting fish in a barrel for my robos. It took a little bit, but the defender and I took out what splattered our tank and blaster which was a pretty awesome moment. I didn't even know the defender had that, he hadn't used it until that moment. When it was over he just toggled it off and we pressed on. Bad ones just spam it and hit spawns of enemies like a bowling ball, scattering things all over, often away from the Tank/Brute and melee dps, or pushing things out of AoEs and so on, often being as much a hinderance as much as a help. I have been tinkering with a robo/ff build myself. I have only dabbled with one before, never had one at 50 or fully kited out before. It will likely be my next project. Personally when I have knockback powers, I try to have a bit of awareness. Just because I "can" blow a mob across the room doesn't mean I "should," and often enough saving it for a few moments proved to be a very nice counter to something a mob was going to do. Anyway, back to Knockback - like many other tools, it depends on the user. I have seen good and bad tankers. Good and bad Controllers. Good and bad Corruptors and so on. If you are just zooming around blasting things than yea, I can see it upsetting people. But even that style of play has its place, either on speed teams where people just rushing to finish as fast as possible, or an all ranged team which I do see time to time. PS - I do kind of wish we had a reverse knockback powerset or ability, the only one being fold space. But a support or ranged set with some "get over here" abilities might actually be quite awesome to see.

I don't think it really benefits melee over ranged, as they can still benefit from the damage boosts and the tide pool, barrier, etc. Enemies are just automatically slowed when they run in, so you can play it at range if you wanted to. Sometimes if I am just mowing them down, I will Whitecap into the group and the robots will just all follow, and when they snap to defend me when attacked they are already in close range. Thats when I drop tidepool and yada yada. I think it benefits both really. Which is a good thing. Combat options are always nice to have, you can play this one at a distance or close up. The set doesn't really like Group Fly though as all the important powers seem to be ground-focused, which you can't really make use of when flying about.

Fun Fact I just learned about robots myself - Clarion Radial Destiny ALSO boots the protector bot bubbles, for its entire duration. To use it, you just pop Clarion, then click off the buff, and the t2 will bubble you again immediately with the boosted effect. Something around 25% all DEF in total. Which honestly is a fantastic boost for robos with secondaries that don't have +DEF.

Robots/Traps is definitely a big game build, and Marine is certainly a powerhouse. I just made one, but she's only 44 at the moment but man she's defiantly my strongest pre-incarnate MM so far to date. I think a Robot/Marine "might" be able to take down big stuff, but you would have to use personal attacks for -regen. IMO /Marines weakness is lack of any CC or Debuff protection. Top Shelf everything else though. But I have also heard that of all things, /Nature is capable of taking down bit things too. I mean it does have -dam, -res, and -regen in it and certainly has +damage and plenty of sustain. I've never done it with /Nature though, I have only just started playing /Nature myself. So far she's only 30 as a Necro/Nature but so far she's solid. I don't know what /Nature build could, I imagine maybe Robo/Nature as it would have plenty of -regen, damage, and healing? But I read chatter in the Masterminds Discord that Demons/Marine is ridiculous ST damage, it might not even need -regen at all? No idea on that one though, that's just me musing. The only kiss-your-elbow MM build I know for certain can take down the biggest things is robo/traps.

Uh, you are missing some of the Pet Aura IOs there hon, they are in the recharge pet section. (Yes they work on pets!) You can also add some damage procs to your t1 and t3 robo pets, the smashing one. It doesn't look like much but they add up!

Mhm. Recently made my first /Marine, a Robo/Marine. And yea, its stronk. Compared to some secondaries it might be "too" strong honestly. Been chill-mode leveling her, no exp boosters, no power leveling, mostly doing story/contact missions and doing ouros stuff when I hit a dry spell. Need to practice and learn the set and all that. But ya, its... very strong.

Mhm, kind of the same for everyone. I just really like being able to solo +4/8 difficulty once I am all incarnated up at 50. Not all builds can, even then. I am hoping Robots/FF is one of them. I have a few that can but its a bit of a slog because it takes so long to chew down the EBs. But I am tinkering with a demons/marine that looks promising damage-wise.

Not saying the data is wrong but I find it surprising. Energy is middle of the pack? And my Savage Melee is one of my best brutes. One of my best tankers is Fire Melee though. But am surprised to see that Martial Arts and Titan Weapons are on top for brutes. Much as I love the themes of Dark Melee and Spines, seeing them at the bottom makes me a sad Neiners. = (

Beast/Radiation MM? Both pretty low as far as MMs go. I've heard Wind Control is pretty blah too but never played that one.

Oh, well many well built builds can do that. Brutes are likely great for that, Tankers too. You could make almost any of the top performing pairings work. Personally my best pairing was Savage/Bio, but its a bit of a late bloomer.

If by large mobs you mean giant monsters/AVs, only some ATs and powers can, its mostly a case of bringing the right toolkit. You need some form of sustain, debuffs, but most importantly either a lot of damage or a good bit of -regen. AVs and GMs both regenerate a lot. I am not familiar enough with brutes to offer a specific setup, but I imagine Energy Melee might be great at it, its the strong single target set. But keep in mind, the builds that are good at soloing the big targets often arent the best at other things, like speedy/fast teams or AoE stuff. To my mind its a kind of balance. A Robot/Traps MM can solo the big stuff, so can an illusion/radiation Controller, but those aren't really speedy or fast. Fantastic soloers though if you like big game hunting! There really isn't a single AT or power combo that can "do everything." But some come close!

I have a question - How far have you managed to push these? Are they +4/8 soloable and so on? I have one but only got to mid 20s i think, never pushed higher content or tried to solo harder things with /FF setup. Are they viable?

Well ya, I meant new and/or reworked.

Sure, not everything new is strong. But often is. Energy Melee is one of the strongest ST out there, Electric Affinity is one of the best for mms, I only just started a /marine and honestly it feels too good compared to some of its lower sets like /radiation or /pain. Not all of the updates were BAD, most weren't. I just wish they would fix the weak stuff first, before trying to curb the top performing things. A lot of the stuff thats at the bottom has been at the bottom for a long time now.

Oh, i dont mean running around with it constantly on because ya, you loose a lot - maneuvers, tactics, supremacy, repulsion, etc etc. But it certainly has its uses. Hence why i said you could play it a few ways. Personally my favorite is group fly but not everyone likes that.

Its not just you, theres a current problem on the forums with uploading files, both mids and screenies. Theres a topic about it elsewhere on the forums.

See, heres the thing - I wouldn't be opposed to them changing things, if they fixed the stuff that relied on them. We have sets that are clearly strong (mostly new stuff) while the old stuff like spines sits there forever and remains untouched. And anything we players do within our own ability to make things good gets hammered. Its like they want there to be useless sets? But what confuses me more than that, is that lets not pretend that when they have an option (like procs) that everyone has the same access to it - the good builds as well as the bad ones. And all too often changes like this hits the bad builds HARDER than the good ones. You don't base balance around the top-end of things, you do it from the middle and go from there. But a lot of these changes make the good stuff even better, and the bad stuff even worse. An example would be the mastermind primary shake-up - the one that needed it most (beasts) remains entirely untouched. And it was dead last before, now its REALLY in last place. And I disagree that the balance is better. Only changed so other things are stronger. Some things are stronger than they were before. Many things are weaker. That's not "balance." And personally, I think chasing "balance" is kind of a fools errand in the first place in a game such as this. Because it's impossible to be balanced against every enemy in every situation in every AT with every enhancement and every build. I'm not saying they shouldn't try, but to me they are focusing on entirely the wrong things. Especially when we take things like Incarnates into the equation. For all this discussion of "balance" the meta for the top-end content has remain largely unchanged and affects pretty much all the middle-ground stuff, like the fresh-50s. Another example is that not every AT can solo +4/8, and changes like this doesn't enable more builds to do that, it actually takes away from the ones that can. Which to my mind isn't balancing the game at all, its taking things we had before and taking them away, much like the several changes to the AE. It doesn't make the game more challenging, or unique, or special. All it does is add a bit more to the hamster wheel. Make players have to work harder for the same things they had before and call it "progress." When to me that isnt progress at all, that's going backward.

Same here. Can't share mids builds or attach screenshots either to the forums or personal messages.

When I made a vampire I took inspiration from Stokers - "I give you life eternal. Everlasting Love. The power of the Storm. And the Beasts of the Earth." So my vampire was a Beast/Storm MM. I didn't get very far with it, and I don't think there was much synergy to speak of. It was when I first started playing on homecoming, so I know a lot more now than I did back then. But I wanted a classical vampire vibe to it.

My main concern if they fiddle with proc stuff, is some builds or setups really lean on procs to make them work. I just made a pet-less crabby build with lots of damage procs, one of my first ones that can solo 4/8 with EBs without having to bend over backwards to do it. Then there's stuff like Super Strength builds that rely on procs to do damage during their crash periods, and so on. A friend of mine runs a widow that uses a lot of procs as well. If they over-correct, it might really hurt some builds that really need them to do harder content.

Here is a quick Robot/FF MIDs I cobbled together. Not sure if this is optimized but should be a great "ballpark" look, tying to focus on your "standback" and "hands free" style. So first off, this build has very high defenses. (In this screenie Weave is toggled off) this is because as @Maelwys recently shown me, the Clarion Radial DOES affect the protector Bot's Shield Bubble. As its slotted, the protector bot should provide 25.47% DEF on top of other things, so Weave isn't needed. I did include group fly (largely out of habit) but you can certainly replace it with something else, like maybe medicine for a self heal possibly? The build also has Dark Embrace for Resists (fills in the RES holes very nicely!) and the Soul Tendrils immobilize - I consider some form of Immobilize near mandatory for Robot MMs due to the fire patches, but then again the fire patches did get hit hard and isnt as good as it once was, so you can likely change this out. But I still keep it because I really hate having runners. The way I see it, playing this build has 3 "modes" - 1. Group Fly to hover-mind with your pets. 2. On the ground with Repulsion field on, using knockback attacks to push things away from your pets. 3. Personal Force Field mode - with this toggled, you are incredibly durable, but you can only use self-affecting powers. So no group fly, no maneuvers, no tactics, etc. But here is another snip for the values with PFF mode ON - So when in super-turtle mode, you are DEF capped, RES capped to most things, in Bodyguard Mode, etc etc. Plus keep in mind, Damping Bubble gives a lot of protection from Debuffs too, and the Clarion gives lots of Status protection. Pretty much the only things you really have to worry about is END and Recovery debuffs. Which altogether passes many Tanker builds in how fantastically tough it can be. Anyway, just wanted to provide a mock-up for you to look at. I have seen other builds that favors Force-Bomb procs and the like. Another thought I had was I noticed with /FF you can actually take Dark Mastery and see how well the Disorient/Stun works from stacking Force Bomb and Dark Pit, both of which are ranged AoE Mag 2 Stuns which should stack. Which, if they do, (and I think they will) could make your super-tank MM even tankier if you are stunning things regularly. But I don't have a build for that made, but its a thought. But yea, Robot/FF looks like it can be ridiculously durable and has options for hands-free playstyle too. Hope this helps!

Said by others here already, /FF is effectively MM Hands-free mode. All you really do is refresh your buffs. Thats about it. You can take other powers to fill things out but that's optional. Robots is the traditional pairing, and the two together can have quite a bit of knockback. But it is very passive. Some like that, some find it boring. If you ever played the diablo 2 druid summoner where you just summon things and watch them to everything, its a lot like that. /Traps is very much "plant the flag" or "fortress defender" style. You basically make a kill box and anything that enters that killing zone is at a big disadvantage. So it isn't very "stand off" if you want to play at range. /Time can be built to play at ranged as well. It has lots of +DEF, two different ways to slow things way down, some buffs, and a heal. But one thing I have not seen mentioned yet is Group Fly. If you pick an all ranged set like Mercs or Robos, once you get group fly that massively cuts down on how many things can attack you in many circumstances. Not all but most. Some maps have low ceilings like caves or office maps. Some enemies like Arachnos have a lot of ranged attacks. But in many situations just hovering just out of range means everything you are fighting might get 1 or 2 ranged attacks and then they are stuck waiting. If you are willing to use a flying MM setup, that really opens up a lot for secondary options. I'm not sure if group fly falls into your definition of "stand off" But, if it does, probably the king of "stand off" MM setups would be a flying Robot/FF build. Lots of DEF, protection from debuffs, drone to heal robots, and you kind of just sit back and watch the robots pewpew things down. Mercs/Time could be another strong group fly contender. /Storm has a lot of knockback, and good damage. But I don't have much experience with /Storm myself. I played one and didn't much care for it personally. But you could make something like a robots/storm and specialize in knockback attacks. As far as more pools for "stay away from me" - Field Mastery has quite a bit of knockback as well with Power Blast, Energy Torrent, and Explosive Blast. Just me musing here, but I think the most "standback" MM setup would be - Robots/FF, with Whirlwind from Speed pool (another knockback toggle), with field mastery goodies. Between you and your robots you would stack a lot of Knockback very quickly, and it would be far safer than /Storm. Another option with /FF is taking the stealth pool. I mean, you aren't doing much anyway? So once you throw out your buffs you can just watch everything progress while you just hang back and watch. I'm not 100% positive on this one as I have never really tested much with stealth on a Mastermind, mostly just the Celerity + Stealth enhancement. But as I understand it, once pets and buffs are out, you could just hide. Giving commands or doing anything causes stealth to drop, but you could in theory just hover above and let the robots do their thing if you were feeling particularly lazy. It might not be a terrible idea to have both Group Fly and Stealth on a Robot/FF, just so you have options for different situations. Hope this helps!

Call it a wild crazy hunch that it takes skill to multibox 3 Masterminds effectively. The pet AI does much of the heavy lifting, but not all. You still have to manage pet commands, buffs, debuffs, so on and so forth, at least if you want to maximize your power and efficiency. Personally, I consider multiboxing a solo activity. And I find it to be quite fun. No one is asking you to accept it or even play it yourself, but "cheap and lazy?" I think not. Not all setups are 3 spines/fire brutes with 1 power on auto-use. Besides, experimenting with different team makeups, primary/secondary parings and so on is quite fun. "Take the time to level like other players?" You speak as if these things are mutually exclusive of one another. If I am making another /time MM, then I know quite well what I am doing and if I want to speed level them to 50 in an evening that's my business. But by the same token, I have only just started playing the /marine secondary. And since it is new to me, I am leveling almost entirely solo and primarily through Ouros, doing all the contact/story missions that I missed. I'm not even using EXP boosters either. I am trucking along at level 24 now and still learning the set. I do this explicitly because I am un-experienced with /marine, and I don't want to power level myself and not have a clue how to play it at high level play. People are allowed to do both things. And neither one is wrong. If someone rushes a set or build they are unfamiliar with, dumps the time and inf in gearing it up, but have absolutely no idea what they are doing with it, then I say that's their problem. And to be blunt, not anyone else's business. "But then we are stuck with them on a team" some like to say. To that I would point out that I have been stuck on teams with unskilled people who most likely DONT multibox. If anything, there are MORE of them. And more people who were not power leveled either. Just because someone "played the game" in a manner you approve of, does not magically make them a high skilled (or low skilled) player. Not everyone plays at the same skill level. And that's okay. I would even say, that is the normal state of things and to be expected. Want to know what I think is even cheaper/lazier? Wanting to do all these team activities, but not being willing to start or lead them, and then complain about it. Want to enforce rules and hold people to standards? Start your own team. And do everyone (including yourself) a favor and announce the terms if there are any. So people who don't meet them (as well as don't care for them) can avoid joining, in which case everyone will likely enjoy the game more.