Neiska

For me its Synthetic Sins, simply because she was my tabletop character that I brought to CoH. I also have a DnD character of mine, but Sins I have played a long time. She is based on shadow run and cyberpunk. I have made many versions of her, because nothing felt "right" as in order to recreate her as close as possible id really have to take cross-set powers. But, more after the roleplay, appearance, and vibes anyway. Shes simply the one i feel attached to the most. I do like her as a crabber, but her main build is a robotics/electric mastermind. Tabletop though she was a Street Sam with heavy cybernetics, and she made her own cyberware, with some rigging abilities.

Hello @Eoland, A few questions. First off, you haven't used all your slots, the build you posted says it has 13 slots to use still? Why team teleport? You are missing out on fighting pool so your personal defenses/resists will be lower. Is there any particular reason why you have teleport pool? You have both super speed, and fly pool. You could cut down on power choices with something else if you wanted to. You are also missing a few key enhancements, such as Gladiator and Preventative Medicine +absorb proc. You also have pulse rifle burst, something I really wouldn't recommend tanking. Photon Grenade is better in nearly every aspect especially if you load it for procs, if you really feel the need for a personal attack. But here is my Robot/Time that has served me well. It did go with mace mastery, but still performs well in any task I have used her in. Sins Robot-Time MM (mace).mxd

@killerdestiny @Drop Zone - I just ran some "Night at the movies" maps with a timer. With Elite Bosses - my 3 robot MM time was 68 minutes to clear. Without Elite Bosses - 46 minutes to clear. Those EBs take a bit of time for my robots to chew down. I suspect I could do better if I "juggled" my lore pets, have one MM pop one when the other one expired, so I could have a constant lore pet in the group to target those EBs down faster, but that's just me musing.

At the end of the day, I think any "balancing" really depends on what difficulty and activity we are talking about here. Personally, (in my own inexpert humble view) most activities on +2/8 difficulty to feel the best overall rounded. Anything beyond that, I see as a "hardmode" or new game plus sort of thing. Not all AT's will be able to do +4/8 etc, but that's not a bad thing either. Some ATs/Builds could likely do +5 or maybe even do a +6/9 difficulty, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing either. What does worry me, is it feels as if some people are pushing for nerfs in order to (achem) "encourage" people to team to do anything. I would urge caution against that point of view. As I expect the following would happen - 1. The fewer builds that can "push" difficulties, the more things become "meta". As an example, if everything sucked but a handful of builds, well, the minmaxers/power gamers would all play those hand full of builds. (This is not meant as an attack on minmaxers, I am a minmaxer myself. I am only visualizing what I expect would happen.) 2. "Forcing" or "Corralling" players to play a certain way, usually doesn't end well in an open game environment. Particularly in a game with such varied mechanics such as CoH can boast. I mean, if people are forced to team/play an AT in "X" manner, then why even bother having the other options at all? I mean, nobody wins in such a scenario. 3. "Balancing" is a very vague goal to achieve, because not everyone is going to agree where the "end" should be. Lets take DPS for an example, as people tend to compare Pylon damage as a sort of measuring stick to go by. Well, exactly how much content in the game do you fight pylons? (My guess? Less than .05% of the game content.) And yet that's often referenced as the measuring tool as to compare damage, and doesn't take into account things like AoE damage, Debuffs, Team Dynamics, or even your own defenses since Pylons don't fight back. To expand my example a bit, lets say Blaster #4510 has gawdlike dps, but has horrible defenses and resistances themselves, to the point they often go splat themselves when playing solo, which would render that deific dps moot. 4. And that is one mere aspect of Balancing. One should consider things like Team Size, Objectivity, things besides DPS. I mean, I consider some Controllers, Tankers, and Masterminds OP, despite their sub-par DPS numbers, simply because of what they can be built to do. It is a multifaceted issue to be sure, with no easy answer. But as I said before, in order to "balance" things, whomever is doing the balancing really should first decide on where the overall endpoint of the game is. +0 difficulty, I think pretty much any build properly slotted even with plain IOs could handle this. +2 difficulty would require some knowledge of the game with a bit of investment in enhancements. +4 difficulty is something people have to push for, and not something every AT will be able to do. Incarnate content is where things just begin to get wild where balance is concerned. So when people talk about Balance, I immediately wonder what difficulty/activity they are talking about.

@arcane - I am not familiar with "Garry's Mod", when I said sandboxes, I meant everyone is in the same game enjoying the same offered activities in their own way. I don't think that is what you were thinking when you said "Don't corrupt this server" so can I ask for some elaboration? I am genuinely curious because I think you are referring to a point I am unfamiliar with.

Kind of the statement that I wanted to highlight @arcane. For people who seem to want to help a community grow, I don't think this would be particularly encouraging. But lets expand a bit shall we? Who uses p2w toys? Well, people who level fast certainly. But also people who like to powerbuild, as well as people who INF farm. And not just INF farm for themselves either. If I had to guess, I personally have donated around 4-5 billion to various events/contests/new players. And a part of that involves p2w and the AE. And it's not just myself either, there is an entire discord of people who farm for ingame events and causes. The prize money for some of that stuff has to come from somewhere, and it helps keeps things active and lively. So your "don't let the door hit you on the way out" would really target the "charity farmers" too, people who donate to verious rp contests/games/sgs who host public things, often for prizes. You personally may not care, but I assure you a great many more do. And this is in no way meant to be a personal attack or insult arcane. I do respect your opinions as a fellow player. I'm just trying to show my point about other people that use tools for good reasons who would also be affected by changes too.

At this point I wonder if some of these suggested ideas/changes would do more harm than good. Things such as the defense cap change, removal of p2w vendors, etc. Personally if we lost things we already have access too (moreso), I would feel less inclined to keep playing than to play something else. It just very much feels as if some out there want everyone to "play their way", and those that do not, are "wrong". I mean, I truly do wonder at the thought process of removing tools and options, and call it "progress." I mean, if the P2W and AE were removed, I would likely uninstall, simply because I spend more time leveling up builds to test things out. Often enough, I get a concept build to level cap before I go "ick.. not liking this." because some powersets change so drastically once they are fully leveled/slotted etc. And the argument I have seen before about people leveling too fast really is a hook in the carrot argument. If your point to make people remain is to give them artificial "timegates" to level up before they decide if they want to keep playing or not, well, then I would question calling that "content." From where I sit, its as if people are sharing a sandbox, but want everyone to build the same castles as they make. Well don't be too surprised if people go "you know what, think I will find something else" when personal mere opinions for sweeping changes and playstyles are pushed as "policy." And do it enough, don't be too shocked or shaken when you find yourself alone in the sandbox wondering where everyone went. I've seen it happen before, many times in fact. One infamous player on a server went out of their way to coerced/harass some of the RP event's they didn't like, and then suddenly found their own things not being so widely supported. Just, be careful what changes you push for. That tool you may not personally like might be the thing keeping many people still around, and when that tool gone, the other players themselves might be gone shortly after. Just some food for thought.

I am not sure how to post videos, its not something I have ever done before. But if you are on everlasting you can tag along and see for yourself sometime.

@Drop Zone - the "Night at the Movies" terminator farm map I have never really timed myself or rushed it, i consider that my "chill" map. But if I had to guess, it would be 30-35 mins or so? But thats not me popping incarnate powers, speedballing it, etc. Mostly I run that map when I want to step away and do some house chores like laundry and such. But I can try a speedrun of it sometime if you want to know.

Fair! I try to see things from an overall perspective, both starting out, the leveling and gearing process, as well as what it can do at endgame with a "money is no object" sort of build. I didn't mean to imply you were wrong or anything if that's how my reply came off as, so sorry if this was the case. I was trying to more describe a power sets niche features and play style. Traps as example regardless of how much recharge I was packing it always had that "plant the flag" feel to it that I never could shake. Even with max inf invested, it still felt slow. Potent to be sure as you describe, but still slow. Not to say there's nothing wrong with traps though! Some like peaches, some like apples and so on. Each to their own, its still a fine secondary with robots, hence why its a classic build. But not everyone will enjoy the feel of it, regardless of how potent the powerset is. 😄

@TheSpiritFox - A fair advanced breakdown on traps, but not everyone has 600m or more to drop on a build to get to that point. Generally speaking, during the level up process I would call it painfully slow on recharge. And I wouldn't call measuring a power set by the top 5% of builds a fair "measuring stick" to gauge a powerset on. I still say Traps is more for solo than Teams, simply because not everyone is going to build their trapper with super high amounts of recharge. I would call it far from the end all be all though, but that's just my opinion. TLDR - Don't really think its fair to grade a powerset only after reaching max level, max incarnates, and decking yourself out with purples, to "only" then be able to be played as you describe.

@seihyup kim - Hello! I love robot masterminds too, and I have leveled several of them now, so hopefully I can help you out some. But the question of what's "good" sort of depends on what you want your niche or strong points to be, but I'll go over the highlights. 1. Electric Affinity - Pros - My personal favorite, as it makes pets not only super durable, but also aoe resist and status immune buff, has both an aoe heal and absorb. It also has a single target -20% damage debuff and an aoe -10% damage debuff, (which stack on the single target for -30%). On top of those, it has effectively endless END for you, your pets, and your team mates. Long term, since it has both Status Immunity and END, you are free to take Barrier as your Incarnate destiny slot, for even tougher pets and teams. Not many builds get all 3 in one package - Status immunity, Endless END, and Barrier. But Electrical Affinity is one that does. Cons - The downside to EA is it doesn't really have any special offensive tools or debuffs on its own. It very much is a survival minded set. Some people prefer something more offensive in nature. Aside from the 2 -damage debuffs, it has nothing else to really aid with Archvillians, Giant Monsters, Elite Bosses and the like. This isn't a handicap to robots as much as some sets though, as robots come with -regen to begin with, which most people agree is one of the most important tools for big target hunting. Summary - EA is good for both teams and solo, for both story mode, farming, and incarnate content. Your pets will be among the toughest ones possible, and everyone will love having you around for your status immunity and endless end features alone. But don't expect to win any DPS races or be all that flashy. 2. Time - Pros - Time is another natural compliment to robots, being a defensive set. It is easy to softcap defenses with /time, particularly when you combine Power Boost from Mace Mastery with Farsight. The set has a good balance of both buffs and debuffs, with its noteworthy features being Crono for a big emergency button, a zone of slowing which is helpful, and another aura of slowing toggle. Time is just a good all around balanced set. The set plays well both as ranged if you want to out-gun your enemies (with your slow zone, aura, and even web grenade from mace mastery to keep everything locked down), or as a melee mastermind. It is also a very easy set to play, which is good for players new to masterminds. Cons - The downside to Time is it has no END tools, no status tools, and no resistance buffs. You really are betting it all on having a high defense with time, coupled with healing. (which isn't bad, its just as above with EA, its not everyone's cup of tea.) And while the set is itself balanced well, it has nothing that particularly stands out as super impressive either. Aside from a few slows and Crono, thats all it really has going for it. Summary - Time is also good both for teams and solo, for about any activity you could want. You have healing and defenses covered, with a few status-like debuffs and some quasi CC abilities through slows. It is also easy to play as well. 3. Traps - Pros - Robots/Traps is a classic combination, and for good reason. It marks about every box you could ask for - Defenses, Heals, Buffs, Debuffs. Together Robots/Traps boasts the highest -regen debuffs possible, which is one reason why it is regarded as the Soloist Mastermind, who can solo just about anything possible. Your traps are quite potent, and has a few powers that beg to be used as Proc Powers. Cons - While Traps packs a punch, it is just so SLOW. The playstyle is more or less building a semi-killing box, or a "plant the flag" style of play. You run in, drop your traps, and start throwing caltrops. The issue is, is your best traps have long cooldowns, which means on fast moving teams mobs might not last long enough to really use the traps, or the team can be too moving, pulling 4 or 5 spawns before your traps are ready to be used again. Summary - It is hard to beat Robots/Traps for the king of soloing mastermind. But in trade for that Crown, you can be slow or feel lackluster in teams. Aside from your defense buff, nothing else you can really offer to fast moving teams with any consistency. But many people consider robots/traps to still be one of the strongest solo builds in this game, even in present day. 4. Forcefields - Pros - Robots/FF is also a classic Mastermind, similar to time it focuses on defense buffs. But the set is largely hand free. Some people like that, some find it boring. It also has some repel abilities which is nice, with Robots being an entirely ranged set. Cons - The downside about Forcefields is that its also hands free, since some people hate that. All of the toggles are expensive on the END though, so I doubt you will be able to have them all up constantly. There is also no healing in the set, so you will have to take medicine pool, rely on your t2 robot heals, or take repair powers. Some Forcefield Masterminds ignore heals entirely and just make a new pet when they die, which might be far more easier now with the latest mastermind pet cooldown change. Summary - If you don't care about pushing to the hardest difficulty or content, with a "chill mode" of playing with no muss and no fuss, Forcefields may suit you well. Those would be my top picks - EA if you want super defense and utility, Time if you want something more balanced, or Traps if you want to solo things that most ATs couldn't dream of. There are other strong powersets like Dark, Nature, or Cold but I have not tried them myself yet. But there really is no "bestest" powerset. It really matters on solo vs teams, the difficulty and activities you intend to be doing, and most importantly your personal preferance of playstyle. Hope this helps! Happy Masterminding!

My most two commonly said things, usually between maps or missions - "Quick afk, I'm thirsty and need a coco." and - "Quick afk for ladies room!"

Just my mere thoughts about it, but I think when people focus on DPS, its kind of a trap, for a few reasons. 1.) The best DPS "When"? Are we talking Single Target? AoE? On a team? Or are they Solo? What about the kinds of enemies? Are we talking AE farms, Story mode, GMs, AVs, etc? What about enemy types? Undead? Robots? etc etc. 2.) Are we talking consistent smooth DPS, or are we talking when the stars align and you pop a red/aim/procs happen, and the RNG gods favor you with the best of all possible outcomes? 3.) There is a lot more to the game than just DPS numbers. There's Buffs, Debuffs, Heals, Debuff Resists, CC, Support and more. If everyone only focused on DPS to the exclusion of all else, well many classes would rarely be played. 4.) There is so much variance in the game, that I would argue that DPS shouldn't be the end-all be-all when comparing different ATs. I mean, lets take SoA's. On a full team, A single SoA with their toggles on, would be contributing more "effective" DPS to the entire team than another DPS AT would I should think. 5.) Lastly we have what I would call "special circumstances." I mean, no one would argue that MM's are OP or DPS kings, and yet I farm with my MMs regularly, in a way that makes them faster than my Brutes, Tankers, and so on. On top of that, I can take that same MM onto teams doing other activities, and still perform other roles, such as healing, support, status immunity, endless END for everyone. I can do all that, and "still" farm with her quite quickly and effectively. So, I think focusing entirely on DPS alone is "missing the forest for the trees." In the end, play what is fun, what you like, and what you are comfortable with on the difficulty you choose. Personally I tried blasters and scrappers, and I wasn't a fan. Sure, they had dps, but thats "all" they had. Which to me was kind of boring, spamming the same 4 or 5 buttons endlessly. That and the blasters I've tried were all super squishys, and I usually loathe "glass cannons" in games. But to each their own! My two cents for what its worth.

Personally I wish there was a way to see enemy stats as they are debuffed. I tend to prefer buffs over debuffs simply because I have no way to gauge how effective or good I am doing, or what all stacks or doesn't. It all just seems like guesswork to me. If we cant see enemy values some debuff icons would be nice, just so we can see what stuck and what didn't or got resisted. Another thing is the whole mag mechanic seems needlessly complicated to me, with it being "all or none" in some instances. If you want to be a debuffer, then you more or less have to build for it. While with buffs you don't have to focus on those specifically, and can still heal/buff/etc and still put out decent damage, without having to fret over mag's, resists, if something landed or not, and so on. TLDR: I am no expert by any means, but I have no way to tell how effective my debuffing really is. While with buffs I can look at my own/my pets sheets and see where I am sitting with defense/resists/damage/yadda yadda. No such option to view debuffed npcs, or at least I am unaware of one.

UPDATE Hello again forums. I am pleased to say that I have completed my tests with 3 boxing/power farming 3 Demon MMs., with surprising and mixed results. For secondary's, I kept the same one's as my Robots - Electric, Time, and Kinetics. There may have been other/better pairings, but I wanted something to use as a comparison and I knew how well those 3 would perform together. But here are the results! The Pro's - Surprisingly, the demons were tougher than the robots were. It might be an oversight, but unlike the robots, the different demon MMs will buff one another, instead of the robos and how they only buff the same pets of the same MM. (Basically MM 1's demons, will buff MM 2 and 3, etc.) This means that pretty much everything was resistance capped, with no effort on my part at all. And defense wasn't far behind! Running 3 maneuver toggles, all I really had to do was pop farsight on cooldown and all pets from all 3 MMs were def/res capped. After many tests, I rarely lost pets at all! It really did feel like a perma-barrier, as far as the pets were concerned. The Robots were tough in themselves, but could get overwhelmed. By comparison with my demons I never felt pressured or under duress to have to spam heals, not even during the alpha strikes. Simply using Farsight and Crono was plenty. The Con's - Sadly, even though Demons have some AoE, it turned out to be lackluster compared to the robot madness. They have cones and aura's, but the main problem seemed to be that only so many could get within melee range at a time. Often they would be clustered around a target, with only so many able to get into range at a time. Often some would jump to try and get within range and get stuck in the mid-air, whereas the robos could always engage targets en masse, as they are ranged. So to try to combat this, I had the demon MMs more spread out, instead of all bunched up. Each MM fighting 2-3 groups next to one another, instead of a giant ball of 8+ like the robots. Again the results were mixed. Together they were definitely solid, but I would personally call it "safe mode". My rough estimates that for fighting a mass of mobs at once, the Demons were roughly 1/2 of the damage that Robots were. (Note: I hasten to add this is not meant to be a 1 vs 1 comparison, but a 3 vs 3. 1 on 1 the demons would be superior in nearly every instance I suspect.) After several days of tests, my average times for the Moon maps are - Robots - 3 minutes with Lore pets, 4:35 without Demons - 6 minutes with Lore pets, 8:52 without This isn't to say Multiboxing Demon MMs are bad by any means though. I would actually recommend Demons over Robots for a first timer, as having tougher, more durable pets that rarely die I would rate higher than clear times to someone new to multiboxing. And a 9 minute farm isn't terrible by any stretch either, just slower than robots. I am still debating if I want to try this with Thugs or even Undead, but I suspect that Robots will remain superior in multibox situations. Though I do want to try a "mixed team" of say, 2 robots/1 demon or 2 demons/1 robot, or maybe even 1 robot/1demon/1 thug, which might be an overall superior "balanced" angle. But testing is still ongoing. I have included my Demon Builds for those wondering. Just please keep in mind these are made to be played as a team, not as individuals. I also included a screenshot of my pets resistances as well as their resistance stacking. Demons-Electric MM.mxd Demons-Time MM.mxd Demons-Kin MM.mxd

I still think the game more or less already offers a variety of difficulty for different activities. I mean what's the difference between - A) - +4 difficulty has been rebalanced entirely around IOs. B) - +3 and +4 difficulty has been removed, +2 is now the max difficulty. I think people may be loosing sight of the forest for all the trees here. I mean, not every AT/Power combination/build will be able to play on the hardest difficulty, and nor do I think they were meant to. Personally I tend to consider 2/8 as "the end" for the majority of builds out there, and going beyond that is a bonus/hardmode/newgame+ kind of feature. Now, I know 2/8 is laughable by most min/maxers, myself included. I also enjoy challenging myself with a billion inf build and redlining the engine and seeing what its capable of. But that doesn't mean that I think the hardest difficulty can/should be used as the goalpost/measuring stick to balance things around either. And I still believe that trying to balance all ATs/Powers/IOs/Time invested/Inf invested/Incarnates around all kinds of difficulties and activities, is something of a logistical impossibility. That doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to balance things by any means, only that finding a tried and true balance among all character possibilities, difficulties, activities is a fools errand. Also I would like to remind people that game balance is very much an ongoing continuing thing. I mean powers are still being changed today. I don't think it will ever be finished or completed, there will always be updates/changes/tweaks and so on, so long as there are staff members willing to work on them. Just my thoughts about it.

@Crysis - oh, i wasn't trying to compare brutes to MMs and such hon. More or less was a "oh this is neat," and its something new and fresh. Personally i hate tanker and brute farming. its just so boring. But with this its actually entertaining and exciting, doesn't feel like farming at all.

holy necrothread batman! 9 month old necro!

@TheSpiritFox - hehe, thank you. I love masterminds, but always felt kinda bummed when grinding incarnates and stuff. Came on this by accident, so, figured out a way to take advantage of their increased target capacity! Anyway, I found your points on thugs interesting. I recently did a test with 3 demon MMs that didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, working on a post for the results of that now. Do you think thugs would perform decently in such a playstyle? They were the next set I was curious about, I don't see any of the other pet sets really viable sadly.

My impressions - 1. I would suggest considering Mace Mastery for Time, because power boost does indeed affect both Farsight for more Defense, and Chrono Shift for its regen value (i believe, not 100% sure on that one.) I know you are at cap now, but taking Mace would save both on defense, as well as extra slots on the mostly unimpressive levi mastery powers. But if you want to stay true to theme then by all means keep the shark powers. 2. Even if you go in first, and aggro first, you aren't likely to keep it very long from any dedicated threat. I would think tankers, brutes, scrappers, blasters, and possibly corruptors would all rip aggro from you easily. So unless you are teamed with defenders, sentinels, and the like, you aren't likely to keep aggro overly long. Even if you take provoke (which i don't recommend) you would loose it fairly fast. Provoke has a low target cap and doesn't last overly long, so you more or less have to use it on cooldown for it to have any noticeable effect, and is still the weakest aggro tool available. So it looks fine on paper perhaps, but in theory and practice, my question would be who would you be tanking for? But don't take this as me saying its a bad build by any means. With a few changes you could be a strong melee debuff presence with the added benefit of healing and buffs. But with a few edits and changes you could focus more on the debuffing abilities, which people always seem happy to have around, especially one that is tough and doesn't need rescuing every other pull. TLDR - concept is good, but without a real taunt/aggro tool, you will struggle to tank any real threats off most other people. But this should work fine for solo play, but for teams you could be more of a melee debuffer, buffer/healer, some CC, and bog things down with your undead.

Horse is OP. Nerf pony, buff Puppy. But in all seriousness @seihyup kim, "best" is largely subjective. By best do you mean the fastest, the strongest, or a farmer you can do other things with, or one that you can afk farm on, or one that is fun to play? Some examples - Brutes can be cheap to get going, and are generally regarded as the strongest. Fire brutes are pretty cheap to softcap resistances for, which is why they are most peoples beginner farmer. Some can afk farm. some can not. Far as if they are fun, well, that's subjective. Tankers have the advantage of being useful outside of farming. I have tanked ITFs as well as Farmed with my Bio Armor/Rad Melee Tanker. Plus it is pretty easy to afk farm with a tanker, as most of them can be pretty immortal. Personally. I farm with Masterminds. Because I find it much more fun and interesting to fight many more mobs at once, instead of 12-16 at a time as farmers and brutes can. Instead of fighting 2 packs at a time, its fighting multiple spawns "en masse" at a time. Lower damage per mob, but many more targets. Plus some MM setups can be surprisingly good. I currently run a 3 box MM team, that can clear maps in 4 minutes. So, there really is no "best". It really depends on what you want and what you are going for. What is best for "me", may not be the best for "you", and so on. Honestly, I would urge you to focus more on a playstyle/at you enjoy, and then try to make a farmer from that. Hope this helps!

Update: builds added!

Hello forums! After a few discussions with people in-game and here on the forums, I wanted to post how I farm with Masterminds, as it seems to be something not many people do or who are aware of. Before we get to the details though, a few things of note - 1. I am by no means an expert in CoH mechanics. There are others far more knowledgeable than myself, who might in fact be able to point out ways to improve this even further. 2. There are possibly better setups or options, this is just listing what has worked well for me. 3. Unless stated otherwise, everything is on max difficulty - +4/8, with solo elite bosses enabled. 4. I am still doing ongoing tests and experiments, but I believe I have found enough at this point to start a discussion about it. Other people are certainly welcome to add to the conversation! 5. I "power farm" with 3 Masterminds, but it is possible to do with one or even two. I added the third MM as an afterthought, and I just find three the most exciting and efficient. Apologies for the long post in advance, but I don't think this has been discussed in any great detail before, and may be a completely new concept to many people, so I wanted to be as detailed as possible. With that in mind lets begin! Mastermind Farming - How does it work? Well, Brutes are regarded as the kings of farming. Either by being able to go AFK, or by simply being the most efficient. Well, I love Masterminds, but going spawn by spawn 8 or so mobs at a time was just too slow for me. So I tried to fight more than 1 spawn at a time. At first it was 2 spawns of 8, and then 3. But I noticed something. I was aggro-ing more mobs than I should have normally been able to. Usually on tankers or brutes, if you are at your aggro cap, things can walk right through your AoE and not aggo. They may still take damage, but they won't fight back until there is "room" on the aggro list after killing some other mobs. However, on my Mastermind this was not the case. Even alone, things kept coming. And coming. And coming. I lost track of how many I was fighting at a time, even accidentally. At first I grew frustrated and wondered why it was happening. Why can masterminds get swarmed and overwhelmed, when it didn't happen to Tankers or Brutes? And then I realized, that pets have their own aggro caps as well. I have looked and looked, but I can find no hard data from old sources or new ones, on a breakdown on pet aggro. But as far as I can tell, they seem to be able to aggro anywhere between 6-12 mobs themselves, in addition to what the Mastermind themselves are able to aggro. What this means is that a Mastermind with their pets, can fight much much more than Any other AT can at a time. For calculations sake, lets assume the low end of 6 mobs per pet. So that's 12 mobs (you the mastermind) + 3 T1 pets (18 mobs) + 2 T2 pets (another 12 mobs) + 1 T3 pet (6 more) = 48 mobs, assuming its the lowest. If it is indeed 12 mobs per pet, it can be as high as 84 mobs Engaged at a time. And this is PER Mastermind. That is one single mastermind by themselves. Realistically though, there is only so much space and room available for so much at a time, as well as time required to move between spawns and distance. But I quite regularly fight 6-8 entire spawns at a time on some smaller maps. (Note: This is just flat aggroing mobs. There is no taunt involved, no provoke, and so on. I have tried using provoke when Mastermind Farming, but it has a low target cap and simply wasn't worth attempting to use it. More on that later.) So the TLDR behind this is, it's an entirely different style of farming. It does not focus on how much Damage you can do at once as a Brute might, nor does it focus on Total Survival as a Tanker might, but instead of being able to engage, and survive, many more mobs at once. Mastermind - The Breakdown - So with our "En Masse" style of farming, it should go without saying that AoE will be our friend. Now while our AoE and damage per mob isn't anywhere near a brutes, if you are fighting enough mobs at once, you can even it out, or even pull ahead when taking the "total net mob hitpoints" of the map as a whole. Here's an example off the top of my head- Brute, fighting 12 mobs, at 100 dps, would would be doing a total of 1,200 "total" damage each and every second. But the Mastermind, fighting even the low end of 48 mobs, at lets say even a lowball 30 dps, would be a 1,440 "total" damage. So, small numbers, but so many MORE of them at a time. (Note: I cannot claim the expertise and knowledge to do a spreadsheet data comparison as some Big Brains on the forums often do, so apologies there. This is only an example for context of the Mastermind "style", or at least how I do it. But a comparison like that would certainly be an interesting read.) The Details - So with all this in mind, I decided to put together a way to take advantage of this increased target capacity. Thinking long term, I opted for Robotic Primary, as the Assault Bot's fire patches is the best AoE a Mastermind has access too, and as it turns out, is stackable. I am currently working on testing Demons as well, as well as possibly Thugs and even Undead at a later time. But for now, I have only done this with Robots. As I did further experiments, I began to 2 box Masterminds, playing 2 at a time. Now, I can manage 3 at once, for a grand total of 3 Masterminds, with 18 pets in total. For secondary, I took Electric Affinity, as making my pets as survivable as I could was utmost concern when fighting to many at a time, as I doubt few other sets would be able to stand against the number of mobs I would be engaging. For my second Mastermind, I decided to go with Time, as it is quite easy to softcap defense with Time and Robots. My EA and Time MMs were quite successful, and you can farm with those two alone. But I wanted to push it further. After some discussions in Discord, I was urged by an acquaintance to make my third Mastermind Kinetics, for more damage. So, together, here is what the 3 MMs contribute - Electric - +Absorb, Healing, Status Immunity to You and to Pets, a -10% damage AoE Debuff. Time - Defense Softcap, Healing, AoE Debuff and Toggle Debuff, with an emergency button. Kinetics - Healing, Damage Cap for all pets (including lore pets) Again, I want to stress Electric and Time were enough to speedfarm with Masterminds, Kinetics was just the icing on the cake. Some may want to use debuffs, which is fine. I just personally perfer to focus on buffs and healing for this style of play, that and I question about the target cap of powers when fighting so many enemies at a time. There is also the question if a debuff set could even survive this, as there are times I have had difficulty even when focused on survival. But I will leave that to people with more experience with debuff sets than me. Incarnates - All 3 MMs use Muscled Alpha, for increased pet damage. All 3 also use Ion Judgement, and Support Hybrid. Where it Varies is when it comes to Destiny and Interface slots. 2 of them Use Barrier, as Clarion is not needed (due to Faraday's Cage from EA). The final MM uses Ageless, as a sort of emergency END tool in the rare case Energizing Circuit proves to be not enough. For Interface, One Mastermind uses Degenerative, one uses Reactive, and one uses Spectral. (If any are wondering, I chose that in order to trap more things in my main source of damage output - the Assault Bots fire patches.) For lore pets, all 3 MMs use Longbow. How it plays -(For reference, I usually farm on the Asteroid map, the Terminator Map, or the City Map. Damage type doesn't matter. You can farm any kind of damage types with this setup. The Moon/Asteroid map is the fastest, but the Terminator Map is easiest.) 1.) First you zone in with all Masterminds, and wait the few moments it takes for pets to be placed. If you try to buff as soon as you zone in, your pets may not be affected. 2.) I keep my own Assualt Bots as my target with all 3 MMs, for defensive autocast power targeting. If you activate an offensive power, it will automatically target the last mob who attacked your pet. I just find this an easier way to manage 3 MMs. All pets are on Bodyguard mode, (defensive and follow) for almost the entire duration. The powers I have autocasted are - Insulating Circuit with the EA, Temporal Mending with the Time, and Fulcrum Shift with Kinetics. 3.) As soon as all pets are spawned, I pop Barrier, and pre-apply absorb with Insulating Circuit, and I use Power Boost and Crono shift with the Time MM. This is because even with Barrier and an Absorb applied, your pets are going to take a lot of hits before you settle into your spot. Its not uncommon I loose 1 or 2 pets before picking my killing zone. 4.) With both my Time and Kenitics autofollowing my EA, (with their t3 pets targeted) I fly into the middle of the map, aggro-ing as many mobs as I can. During this time it is very IMPORTANT to spam the follow button, or else your pets will stop in place, and shoot, and end up out of range of heals and buffs, and won't last long. 5.) Once I aggro between 6-8 groups, I stop and drop a Faraday's Cage, and group up all MMs and Pets into a "Death Ball." this is where the fun begins. All 3 T3 pets will fire their missles, leaving fire patches. This is why following is also important - the tighter/closer your pets and MMs are, the better, as you can stand in your own fire and force enemies to stand in 2-3 patches at a time in order to fight you. 6.) Things will start to die, fast. Once their numbers thin out a bit, you can move around a bit and keep the death ball rolling, and aggro more groups. Keep clicking follow to avoid any left behind pets, to drag along the entire swarm of enemies behind you until you get to your next kill spot. At this point, it is rinse-repeat. Using this method, it actually takes me longer to hunt down stray spawns or straggler bosses/elite bosses, than it does to bulldoze the map. With the Asteroid/Moon map as a referance, it takes me roughly 4-5 minutes to clear. However, if I use my Lore pets, I can get this down to 3 minutes, as damage capped Longbow lore pets are quite deadly to isolated bosses/elite bosses, which is usually what gives Robot Masterminds time to chew through. Tools/Powers of note - Bonfire - I have bonfire on 2 MMs, as they are fantastic proc powers, and add a bit of CC as well, helping to keep things penned up in all that fire. Web Grenade - I took Mace mastery mainly for the boost to Time, but Web Grenade is also useful for locking things down in fire patches as well. Group Fly - Group fly is a fantastic addition, for robots in particular, as if you so chose to do so on some maps you can go entirely AFK with a robots mastermind, provided there is no roof and you are fighting mobs with no -fly powers (such as most fire enemies.) Your heal on autocast will be enough to heal what little ranged powers they do have. It is also worth noting that group fly makes it very easy to stack fire patches, as enemies naturally want to run right under you, which is where all 3 assualt bots tend to aim. For the most part, all you need to do is hover in place and out of reach. Fold Space - A new tool I have been experimenting with, it does work quite well to yank things back to where you want them to be. It is also quite fun to use it and drop things from the sky when combined with Group Fly, letting you drop them precisely where you need them to be. In closing - Masterminding is indeed not only possible, its can be quite fast and efficent. And turns a normally boring task of farming into something on edge and exciting, at least for me. I will post my builds when I can, but I can't right this exact moment. (posting from work) But I certainly will do so when I get home. Additional comments/feedback/questions/critiques are always welcome. As stated before I have only done this on Robots to date, but I am in the process of leveling up 3 Demon Masterminds now. Thank you for your time. Again, apologies for the long post, I just wanted to be as descriptive and informative as possible. Hope this inspires some more masterminds! Sins Robot-Electric MM (fold space).mxd Sins Robot-Time MM (mace).mxd Sins Robot-Kin MM (fold space).mxd

Here is a link to a post with a ton of different varied builds, courtesy of Infinitum. Hope it helps! Infinitum Tanker (and other types too!) Build Collection - Tanker - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com)