Neiska

@Snarky - I am surprised you don't type that up in case you misplace it, also easier to share if you decide to. But well done, I keep game logs too about my experiments, tests, ideas, and theorycrafting.

Hello fellow Masterminds, Time for another update. Apologies for the delay, I took a month break from the game for a bit. Now I am back and was doing some testing with Thugs, and the results are quite surprising. 3 Boxing with Thugs turned out to be quite different from both Robots and Demons, so much so that I had to go back and rethink and try new things, but in a good way. For those unaware, the Thugs come with their own leadership toggles. Maneuvers, Assault, and Tactics. Similar to Demons, the Thugs will buff each other, even other Thug MMs. This does not affect the Masterminds themselves, other players, or even other pet types. Only other Thugs. So, with 3 Thug Masterminds on the same team, your pets will get 2 free sets of leadership toggles. That’s right, not one, but two! This is because you have two enforcers, and each one of them comes with them. So with three Thug Masterminds, this means that all of your pets will pretty much be defense capped, without you even doing anything. Plus the damage and accuracy toggle. Now this made me pause and do some thinking. If they were defense capped, I could run something else besides /Time. I opted to go with /Electric, /Kinetic, and /Pain. I chose pain for the additional healing and resistance buffs. But in hindsight, I might also change /Electric for /Thermal, more on that later. Note: I am in no way saying you shouldn’t use a Defense Secondary set with Thugs when playing one of them. It’s just when playing 3 of them, it wouldn’t have been needed or felt it would be optimal. But I did manage to fit in a few noteworthy things – Fold Space + Bonfire - Kept these from the Robots and Demons, as it is a good CC and damage tool, and wonderful for procs. It is also very handy for yanking things back not just into your bonfire and AoE, but its great for pulling runners back to you too, making it a nice pet control tool as well. Gangwar – Chance for Knockdown – Aside from using it as a mule power and DPS cooldown, it is actually a really good place for the unique knockdown proc, as so many pets attacking so often can and will knock many things down each activation. It is especially funny when you go "all out" and seeing mobs everywhere getting knocked down. Gangwar + Burnout – Burnout resets your activated powers. So you can pop a Gangwar, use Burnout, then immediately use Gangwar again, making a great power even better. Plus on top of that, I had 3 Masterminds, all of them with this in their build. So for fun’s, let’s do the math – 1 (The Mastermind) + 3 (T1 pets) + 2 (T2 pets) + 1 (T3 pet) + 10 (Gangwar 1) + 10 (Gangwar 2) + 2 (Lore pets) = 29 total bodies in the fight. Now we times that by 3 for each Mastermind – 29x3= 87 Total bodies on the field! So needless to say, it’s quite chaotic. It’s just a sea of Band T shirts, Logos, and Bandannas shooting anything that twitches. The best part? They could always engage targets! They may bunch up around the same target, but they all raise their guns and fire, unlike demons who often have to be within claws reach. Lastly, I tried to time my /Kinetic’s Fulcrum with the total Gangwar. I am uncertain if the 60 pose were affected to be honest, because with so much going on it is hard to tell what damage is coming from where. I am also unsure if the Pose are affected by all those free leaderships, because you can’t actually check their stats. For those wondering, it is “extremely” effective, both in farms as well as AV’s and GM’s. Even without the Burnout, using 3 gangwars at the same time is quite the sight to see. However, there were some cons that I wanted to mention. The first, is so many bodies was actually a detriment to /Electric. If I were to do it again, I might say to /Thermal instead. Because your chain powers will bounce to pose and count as a “target”, meaning it is quite likely you will hit pose and not pets with your heals and absorbs. This didn’t always seem to be the case, but often seemed to be. Another /Thugs feature, is both a blessing and a curse. They are mixed, melee and ranged DPS. Some pets will stay close by and pewpew away, while others will run off and out of range of buffs and quickly splatter. They also have a good mix of single target and AoE attacks as well. Their AoE isn’t quite as good as robots is, but better than Demons, and their single target damage is also good, far better than Robots is. But I found them the most overall difficult to wrangle and control. Both Demons and Robots were predictable and easy to 3 box. Thugs on the other hand, even without the 60 bonus bodies running around, was more challenging. Another downside was END use. Thugs are definitely the most END hungry of the three, as usually /Electric alone was enough to keep all three MM’s going at full throttle. This should be resolved with a single one of them taking Ageless as a Destiny power, but it was troublesome enough to mention as it was the first time I found myself popping blue inspirations in a while. Next, it is also important to note that with 3 resistance/buff secondaries, your own defenses will be low. I compensated for this with the usual maneuvers/combat jump and so on, but all of my MMs personal defenses were lower than I would have liked. But it would have felt like a waste of potential to take a defense secondary for this test. Lastly, despite the Thugs buffstacking, being capped at both Def and Res, I found myself having to replace them more than any other pet I have multiboxed so far. The Demons were pretty much immortal, as I rarely if ever lost one. (Even the cinders from Hell on Earth didn’t “die”, they seemed to last until they expired every time.) The Robots I may loose one now and then if I bite off more than I can chew or get too eager, but it rarely poses trouble replacing them. With the thugs however, in particular the Arsonist and the Enforcers, I would often loose some. I would have to replace some every map, which is something I only occasionally have to do with Robots, and never had to with Demons. I suspect this might have something to do with the Gangwar and Chain mechanic from /Electric, but I even had Kinetic and Pain’s healing on Auto, the /Electric was actually applying absorb shields. I still wouldn’t call triple boxing thugs “fragile”, only the most fragile 3 boxing so far. Now for the comparison to Robots and Demons. The “fresh 50” thugs were strong enough on their own to do +3/8 without even having their Alpha incarnates unlocked. I have gotten them all their first level shift (huge power boost for masterminds) and now they are doing +4/8 just fine, with times quite comparable to /Robots, despite not having any Judgements, Lore pets, Destiny, or Interface slots to help. I ran several farms with them, and their average time on the AE map was 6 minutes. So not quite as fast as my Robots were, but not as slow as Demons were either. Also keep in mind, My robot MMs all have their T4’s while my Thugs only have their T3 Alphas, which I am sure would improve their time. So, to compare 3 boxing Thugs, Demons, and Robots, all with similar builds and inf invested, here is how I would rank them – Durability – Demons > Robots > Thugs. Demons win here, hands down. I rarely lost any of them. I’ll loose a robot now and then, and I saw myself replacing thugs pretty much every map. But as mentioned, I suspect that /Electric mechanic might have something to do with that, but I never experienced that with Demons and their Hell on Earth either, so it could be something else. Damage/Map Clear Speed – Robots > Thugs > Demons. Robots win here, but not by a terrible margin. I suspect Thugs would be close with similar incarnate levels. Demons are far behind, being almost twice the time required as Robots to clear the same maps due to a lack of AoE and available space to engage targets, being almost all melee. Average Thug Times - Moon Map: 5:52 Night at the Movies (large city map): 52 minutes. Ease of Play/Boxing – Demons > Robots > Thugs. I would say Demons win this one. I never felt panicked or pressured, even when completely surrounded by 8+ spawns of mobs. They were reliable as a stone wall in every circumstance I put them in, and very easy to control. With robots you at least had to keep everything balled up in your fire patches, and with Thugs its sheer chaos. So if you are new to multiboxing MMs, I would recommend Demons for a first try. Honestly with 3 Demon MMs, you could likely go AFK on some maps or scenarios. So long as pets stayed in autoheal range, you would be fine. GM/AVs – Thugs. It’s not even close. Thugs bring so much to bear that it almost laps Robots and Demons, even with the Robots heavy –regen debuffs and higher incarnate levels. Against a lone target, dropping all 6 Gangwars makes them almost vanish in a cloud of smoke as everything, the entire army you have, all focus on one single target. Again, this is not in any way meant to compare 1 on 1 MMs, but 3 on 3 multiboxing. I think we all know 1 on 1 rankings would rank differently. But having more than 1 MM present, as well as “En masse” farming/fighting style of engaging as many targets at a time completely changes the dynamic. I am tempted to try 3 boxing Necro MMs, even though I suspect they wouldn’t perform as well as the “big 3” pet types. Or I might even see what 3 boxing Mercenary MMs is like, because who knows, this has been quite surprising. Anyway, Pics included to show the +defense stacking and resistance levels, and the builds I used are included. And yes, I am aware the builds are not optimized for solo play, but they are meant to be played as a box team. Thugs-Electric.mxd Thugs-Kin.mxd Thugs-Pain.mxd

Personally I consider Omega Maneuver one of the worst T9's in the entire game. It has a very long cooldown, a laughable taunt effect, and only does Superior Damage. I am curious as to how it is intended to be used? On teams, the "fuse" on it is too long, between the cooldown, and the delay in its activation, it is unwieldly to use on fast moving teams. The damage on it is pitiful, you are better off sticking with your Venom Grenade > Suppression > X attack chain. The taunt on it has such a low cap, that it won't be saving your fragile spider pets. And even if that were the case, it lasts mere moments before disappearing, freeing all those mobs to go right back to your pets, and you have to wait over a minute to use it again. It is a power with multiple effects that is good at neither. Its terrible at damage, and terrible at taunting, so I am genuinely curious as to the thoughts that went into it. If it had a more realistic cooldown, or it was a taunt dummy that actually stayed up a bit of time, or even did actual meaningful damage, then it might be worth using. But the last time I checked most crabbers don't take it.

Decided to give Dominators a try myself, usually I play Masterminds though. Have my heart set on a Plant Dom, secondary I am still musing about. Would like something to be both good and thematic if possible, so this thread has been a good read.

Thank you for the input everyone. I was more or less wondering what other noteworthy uses there were for it, outside of /Time. There was a brief discussion about it in Discord last night, but overall it seems Buildup is the much better option for the classes with it available, at least offensively speaking. This was mostly me musing what other builds/powers might make use of it outside of /Time. IIRC in the discord last night people did point out it affected CC, but not its "Mag" effect, but its duration. I don't often play CC focused characters so I can't personally say how valuable that would be. It is nice to know it affects +absorb though, which makes me wonder about /Nature, /Electric, and even the new /Sorcery pool if you could apply it to give "bigger bubbles". I love finding little "gems" in games, or power combinations, especially if they are outside the box so to speak. I was thinking something like Power Boost, then activating a power, then hitting burnout, and using that power again all within the Power Boost Window sort of thing, but even if Power Boost isn't that grand outside of /Time, that makes me wonder about Buildup/Aim/Focus and Burnout. I am still reading conflicting thoughts though, some say outside of /Time and Farsight, Power Boost isn't really worth taking in a build. Other's say its good, but don't provide many examples or list specific powers aside from @Mezmera above. Still, fun to think about.

Not needed, but it is the only aggro tool available to MMs. Personally I dislike its low target cap and brief duration. I think its the weakest of all taunt effects in the game if I am not mistaken. You could take it to give it a try perhaps, and can always remove it later if you find you don't use it. If there was a way to increase its area or target capability, it might be more worthwhile but I was never impressed with it. And I am usually the sort to take tools like group fly and fold space just to have them available, and I am hard pressed to validate taking provoke.

Sorry @Kazyone but i have never played Beasts and have only limited experience with /Cold, but if you post your build I can take a look and give you my best guess! I have quite MM's quite a bit so maybe you are just missing some things?

Hello Forums, I was in a conversation with a friend regarding Masterminds, regarding the Power Boost + Farsight combo, for increased defense buff. But we got to talking about what else it might be used for. The power itself seems a bit vague, with its "increased special" effect. They asked what else it might be used for, and I have to confess, I couldn't give them any for sure answers. I do suspect that it increases some effects, such as web grenade, but I'm not 100% kiss elbow for certain on that. Just what it "seems" to be doing, if I pop a grenade right after my Farsight, it seems to affect more than it usually does. A few things I do know however - 1. The Power Boost lasts long enough to get off 2 powers, if you are fast. 2. The don't affect toggles, only activated powers, and last for the duration. And that's it. So, are there other uses for this power? Would it help CC powers? Maybe powers like Nature Affinity or Dark? I am unsure what all would fall under "special" category, so I am curious to see what else it would affect. Thanks bunches!

@Koven Hello and welcome to CoH! All good advice from above posters, but one thing I wanted to highlight is that especially with Masterminds, your power pairings will play very very differently compared to other ATs. A tanker is always going to tank, a blaster is always going to blast, but Masterminds can be made in all sorts of ways. With that in mind, even if your first MM might be iffy or you don't like the flow, if you are super attached to a pet type I would recommend try paring it with a different secondary. A /Time mastermind, will play and feel very differently from a /Forcefield or a /Electric mastermind for example. So there is nothing wrong with trying a few different versions out before settling on something you like. Ninjas are considered to be a bit fragile to be sure, but decent damage. So you will have to protect them somehow. /Time has solid defenses, healing, an emergency button with Chrono Shift, and a few debuffs. The downside about time is while it is overall balanced, it doesn't really stand out either. But overall it is quite strong. There are a few tricks you can do with /Time as well, such as power boost and farsight to boost your defense even further, or focus on the slows and immobilize to out range/out shoot your enemies. (This requires ranged pets though, such as Robots or Mercs.) /Electric is my favorite powerset. It is all out survivability though, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. It offers Absorb shields, Heals, Status Immunity to you and your pets, Resistance buffs, and a small damage buff. The only offense it has is a single target -20% damage and an AoE -10% damage debuffs, but they do stack, so you can do a -30% damage to a boss and so on. It also offers effective infinite endurance later on, and since you already have status immunity with Farday's Cage, you are free to take Barrier Incarnate power, making your team even tougher overall. Out of all of the powersets, only /Electric offers Status Immunity, Infinite Endurance, and Barrier. Usually people have to pick 2 of the three - either ageless, clarion, and so on. But you won't have to pick, having effectively all 3. /Traps is also a strong contender, especially for solo. It is more or less the king solo powerset for MMs. You can kill AVs, GMs, pretty much anything you want to with /Traps. But the playstyle is a bit different. More or less its a "plant the flag" style of play. You pick a spot, drop your traps, making a zone with multiple effects and kill things there. If you want to "Tankermind" its hard to go wrong with /Traps. /Forcefield is the "chill mode" powerset. It offers a few things but it is mostly toggles, which means its a very hands off playstyle. It has a defensive aura for you, for allies, as well as some repulsion field toggles. Running all of them is very END heavy though, but can be very effective with ranged pets. The downside to /Forcefield is it has no built in healing as a power set, so you will rely on pets self heals or have to take medicine pool, or stock up on green inspirations to drop on pets. Some people love it, some people hate it. Your milage may vary. /Nature is similar to Electric in that it offers absorbs, but also has debuffs as well. It has very strong healing/regeneration too, but many of its powers are "cones" or Targeted AOEs, which again, some people love or hate. Meaning you have to aim with some powers, unlike some powers like /time where heal is an AoE that doesnt require facing. Not all of Natures powers are, but there are some. It also has an interesting bloom mechanic that allows stacking bonus to healing, 4% for up to 5 times for a total of 20% bonus heals. This isn't just your healing either, its all healing, such as other team mates or even pets self-heals, which can be quite powerful on pets that can self-heal. Nature also has good debuffs as well, such as -damage, -resistance, -hit, and -regen. /Dark is the king of CC and Debuffs for Masterminds. Personally I am not a fan of it due to its playstyle, but there is no denying it is Strong. Dark pairs particularly well with Demons or Necromancy, as those two pet sets have debuffs as well. It also boasts one of the strongest heals available to MMs, but the downside is that it can miss. One highlight about /dark is that it has 3 -tohit debuffs, making it also pair well with a pet set like Robots that is strong on defense, because its sort of like double dipping the chip - Your defenses are effectively greater, because your enemies have an even lower chance to hit you. One thing to highlight is that what is "good" strongly relies on several things - 1. What kinds of activities are you doing? - Story missions, AE's, Random Radio Missions, Farming, Boss/GM hunting, ITFs, etc. 2. Will you be playing more solo, or will you be looking to team up most of the time? Or a balance of both? 3. What difficulty will you be playing on? - Not all pets/powers/ATs can play on hardest difficulty at max level. Not that this means they are unbalanced or anything, I would recommend trying to see as +3 and +4 as a sort of new game plus or extra difficulty, where only some ATs/builds/combos will excell. But just about everyone does fine on +0-2 difficulty, on just about every activity. 4. Lastly, and most importantly, personal preferance. What you like and dislike is something that only you can decide on. What do you want to focus on? Theme/Style? Minmaxing? Having certain characters be the best at certain activites? Or do you want a more well-rounded character? So when you ask "what is best/good" and so on, is largely subjective here. There are some things where numbers don't lie, but I've seen people do amazing things with powersets that some people tend to think are subpar. Honestly, I would focus on just having fun and learning the game and the class. After you got some time and levels under your belt, and learn the game, that's when you can start to think/plan long-term. Hope this helps! Again, welcome to CoH and to Masterminding!

I would still go for Musclature personally, as you might not be able to keep fulcrum up all the time, but Agility is also an attractive option for more of an overall boost. So really depends on what you want. Nothing wrong with getting a t3 in each and trying them out either, as you can swap them anytime you arent in combat. Different incarnates for different situations - solo vs team, radio missions vs raids, etc.

I have a Robots/Kin, but shes meant to play on a team with 2 other masterminds. But here it is, might give ideas/suggestions - Sins Robot-Kin MM (fold space).mxd

Well this doesn't work with all pet sets, but its a mixed blessing that most of your damage as a robot mastermind comes from the t3 bot. While it can feel slow to level up a robot MM, the silver lining is that its easier to increase your total net damage. That's why I prefer to slot buildup in my t3, instead of my t1's, as well as only having 1 target to pop reds on to boost his damage if I need to, on top of being able to pop Support hybrid. So the base toolkit lacks big +damage buffs to be sure, but I never had issues dropping red inspirations on my big boy either. Plus there are other things such as leadership damage toggle and energizing circuit. It's no Thermal's Forge numbers, but it's not a "zero" either. But each to their own! I found storm too fragile and and too indirectly supporting for my taste. I am not saying it is bad or anything, far from it. It's still a solid power pick, just wonky gameplay for my personal preferences.

MM personal attacks are considered some of the worst in the game - they have damage and endurance penalties. Honestly? It isn't really worth it. The demon whip attacks are okay but even they are nothing to write home about. My chain is mostly dropping cage, applying absorb, dropping a bonfire, healing if necessary, using fold space to move things into my assault bots fire, etc. You will still have plenty to do. You will get more mileage out of trying to control the fight and support your pets than trying to pewpew alongside them. But if that's what you want to do, don't let anyone stop you!

Sure thing hon, here you go - PS - added pics to help with slotting and such. This Villain build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.4.7 https://github.com/Reborn-Team/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Technology Mastermind Primary Power Set: Robotics Secondary Power Set: Electrical Affinity Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Teleportation Power Pool: Flight Ancillary Pool: Heat Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Battle Drones (A) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown (45) Call to Arms - Accuracy/Recharge (45) Call to Arms - Accuracy/Damage (45) Call to Arms - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (46) Call to Arms - Defense Bonus Aura for Pets (46) Sovereign Right - Resistance Bonus Level 1: Shock (A) Recharge Reduction IO Level 2: Rejuvenating Circuit (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal (3) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance (3) Preventive Medicine - Endurance/RechargeTime (9) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime (40) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance (43) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb Level 4: Maneuvers (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (5) Shield Wall - Defense/Endurance (5) Shield Wall - Defense/Recharge (7) Shield Wall - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (7) Shield Wall - Defense (9) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) Level 6: Equip Robot (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 8: Assault (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 10: Energizing Circuit (A) Preemptive Optimization - EndMod/Endurance (11) Preemptive Optimization - EndMod/Recharge (11) Preemptive Optimization - EndMod/Accuracy/Endurance (40) Preemptive Optimization - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge (40) Preemptive Optimization - EndMod/Endurance/Recharge Level 12: Protector Bots (A) Edict of the Master - Defense Bonus (13) Sudden Acceleration - Knockback to Knockdown (13) Expedient Reinforcement - Resist Bonus Aura for Pets (37) Shield Wall - Defense (39) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage (39) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Recharge/Pet +AoE Defense Aura Level 14: Tactics (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff (15) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge (15) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance (34) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance (34) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up (50) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance Level 16: Faraday Cage (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (17) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (17) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime (19) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (19) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime (34) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP Level 18: Kick (A) Empty Level 20: Empowering Circuit (A) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff (21) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Endurance/Recharge (21) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Endurance Level 22: Tough (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% (23) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (23) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (33) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (33) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) (48) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 24: Weave (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (25) Reactive Defenses - Defense (25) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance (31) Reactive Defenses - Defense/RechargeTime (31) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime (33) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage Level 26: Assault Bot (A) Sudden Acceleration - Knockback to Knockdown (27) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up (27) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage (29) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage (29) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (31) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Endurance/Pet +Resist +Regen Level 28: Teleport Target (A) Interrupt Reduction IO Level 30: Combat Teleport (A) Range IO Level 32: Upgrade Robot (A) Endurance Reduction IO Level 35: Insulating Circuit (A) Panacea - Heal/Endurance (36) Panacea - Endurance/Recharge (36) Panacea - Heal/Recharge (36) Panacea - Heal/Endurance/Recharge (37) Panacea - Heal (37) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance Level 38: Fold Space (A) Recharge Reduction IO (39) Recharge Reduction IO Level 41: Bonfire (A) Sudden Acceleration - Knockback to Knockdown (42) Explosive Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage (42) Range IO (42) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff (43) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy) (43) Javelin Volley - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 44: Hover (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (50) Luck of the Gambler - Defense Level 47: Fly (A) Flight Speed IO Level 49: Group Fly (A) Soaring - Endurance (50) Soaring - Endurance/FlySpeed Level 1: Supremacy Level 1: Brawl

Here are some thoughts - 1. You might be better off combining -damage/hit powers and holds/immobilize to keep things at range and reduce the damage your robots take. Like Entangling, Flash, and Poison Gas, and EMP arrows. You might fare better if you didn't focus on your own personal attacks and instead slotted those powers to be stronger. I do see multiple ways to help your pets out if you moved some slots around. 2. I would definitely keep Oil Slick arrow too. 3. The big issue I see is that you have no way to heal your pets, aside from the repair bots. Your pets are going to take hits, no way around that. And even if you reduce it as much as possible, they are still going to get dents. You have options to take Repair, or Medicine Pool. 4. You might also have better luck if you had a different epic pool. Fire has bonfire which is a good dot/CC (fantastic for proc slotting), Mace has Web Grenade too. 5. The BIGGEST hole I see is you have next to none of the Pet Aura IOs. You only have the one from your AT, but you can slot the Recharge pet ones as well. 6. You can put a damage proc in your pets, and they can proc it with their attacks. It is a noticeable bump in damage. 7. You are missing quite a few of the important IOs yourself - Reactive Defenses Scaling Resist, Shield Wall 3% Defense. Remember the more you are hit, the more damage your pets take through bodyguard. So shoring up your own defenses as well indirectly helps your pets too. Also, you can put +defense on your protector bots do make their buffs even stronger. 8. Lastly, if you are playing the "outshoot them" angle, you might do much better if you slot some +range IOs into your arrow powers too. The more space between you and them, the better. You could do something like - First hit them with a hold/immobilize, then a Slow, then while your bots are engaging, hit them with that -hit power to soften up any return blows. By this point you might need to help your bots repair the big bot, then rinse repeat as necessary. Far as playstyle goes, I would say it looks like you would use knockbacks, holds, -damage and -hit, more than damage powers. Hope this helps!

A few thoughts from me - 1. You are missing Shield Wall, thats 3% defense you are missing out on. You could put it into your Prot bots if you are short on slotting. 2. Repair seems like a bit of a waste of a power pick, as your Prot bots can already heal, and you have Radiant Aura as well, so Repair just seems like it might be a waste. 3. As others pointed out, you might do better with a different epic pool. I perfer Heat Mastery for Bonfire personally, but Mace would be a good pick too. You could stack higher defense and still get web grenade, and power boost if you so choose. Specifically with a few -hit powers it might be better to try to get a higher Defense to get more mileage out of your secondary set. 4. One thing that sticks out is you have Intuition as your Alpha Incarnate. I would really really recommend Musculature, as it fully affects henchmen. They also benifit from Interface as well. Hope this helps!

@00Troy00 - sorry, i seem to have missed your post. But I have EA and Time robots, both are quite strong. But it really depends what you want to do, there are lots of good options. Electric is my favorite, but Forcefield, Time, and Traps are popular choices. I have heard good things about thermal, nature, and dark as well, but I have never played those. My favorite setup is 3 boxing 3 robot MMs - 1 Electric, 1 Time, and 1 Kinetic. Sins Robot-Electric MM (fold space).mxd Sins Robot-Time MM (mace).mxd

A little off topic, but the mention of power boost sparked a question. We all know it boosts Farsight +defense, but is there any other powers that benifit in a similar fashion? (IIRC, power boost is a +special, which is tricky to measure or quantify isn't it?) Is there a list somewhere of what is/is not affected? I mean, could you pop it, then use Farsight, but then sneak in a shot with a web grenade too and get a stronger hold effect? Power boost lasts long enough to use 2 powers with it, so that has me wondering what MM seconaries or pool powers might also benefit. So are is there anything else of note? It would seem odd to have an epic pool power that a lot of people take turn out to be a single trick pony.

Personally pet classes in not just CoH but games in general is what I usually lean toward, that or tankers. But I love Masterminds and Crabbers, (just wish crabbys had more oomph.) I've tried a few different Controllers, but I wasn't a fan. From what I have seen in video games, pet classes are a mixed bag. Some people love them, others hate them. But I think thats fair to say about any archtype. I know I loathe playing a clerics/priest/healer sorts. Some MMs can heal quite well, but I wouldn't call that their forte. You can build MMs any way you like, depending on secondary. Which to me is sort of a hidden feature. A scrapper is always gonna scrap. A tanker is always gonna tank. But a MM playstyle can change on pet and secondary parings. A /Dark MM plays very differently from a/Forcefield or /Kinetic MM. Which to me, is a fantastic thing.

I have fun when I learn something new and get to use it in action. I have fun breaking the mold, or breaking what people assume to be true. I also have fun sharing that with other people, as well as just helping people in general. I also enjoy number crunching and sharing my results with the big brains out there, who often correct my misunderstandings and mistakes, or help me think of something entirely new and often altogether entirely different and often enough better than I intended. I also have fun running 3 MMs all around and hearing peoples reactions when 18 robots/demons/thugs go by them in one large mob. I also have fun doing things like popping Gangwar 3 times, then Burnout 3 times, then Gangwar 3 more times after that. Or doing something silly like have all 3 robot MMs with group fly and specialize in knock back attacks. Or power farming with 3 MMs and watch people still go "WTF??" To me, all that is fun. YMMV though.

I am not seeing multiple threads that you speak of, but I have not checked other sites either. Demons/Time is actually quite good, balancing demons damage with times defenses, heals, debuffs, and chrono shift. Plus the Mace epic pool feature that you mentioned. Honestly, it comes down to this - either you can "double dip" both a resistance pet with a resistance secondary, or even a defensive pet with defensive secondary, or you can mix and match. Or you could even go with something like /dark or /storm for even more options. Neither pick will be particularly strong or weak, only have different strong points and weak points. And as with everything in this game, a lot of it us subject to personal taste so YMMV. Personally I rank time as a 4/5 secondary that can pair well with nearly anything, because as you pointed out it is strong enough to compensate for any shortcomings a pet set might have. This is just me musing but, I suspect such discussions or claims you have heard about X/X pairing being "bad" might be down to personal taste. Some people love debuff sets. Some people love support. Some love Defense. Others love tools and outside the box thinking. None of them are "bad", and all of them with equal inf invested should be able to complete all base game content. Not all of them will be soloing +4/8, or be hunting down GMs or AVs, but I think that's fair to say about any powerset and AT. I mean, one of the strongest solo pairings remains robot/traps, when at base value if you look strictly at their defense/resists, its not impressive. At the end of the day, what people say is strong or weak, really comes down to - 1. What activity you plan to do. 2. At what difficulty you plan to do it. 3. How much INF you have invested. 4. How far you grind your incarnates. (some sets only blossom at the very end.) 5. If you are solo, or if you are teamed. 6. Personal Taste. And not everyone is going to agree on these things, because not everyone plays the game the same way, which I would argue, is completely normal in an MMO.

Demons are definitely tougher when multiboxing. I think its an oversight but different demons will buff other MM's pets, where robotics will not. I am sort of on hiatus from CoH right now, and I have only experimented with dark and other debuff sets. Usually in games I favor heals/buffs over offense/debuffs. Things like "mag" and so on seem a bot convoluted to my inexperienced eye, and I don't want to find myself in a situation where I cant debuff bosses/elite bosses/AVs/GMs either because they are too resistant, immune, or I lack the perfect IOs/setup to be able to make debuffs effective. Also there are things like target saturation to consider as well. This is not to downplay debuff sets or those that enjoy them by any means. I just found buffing and focusing more on my own as well as my pets buffs/etc to work better for me. Debuff sets are fun to just have fun on for sure though. It's just not what I would choose when pushing content. I have heard some very good things about storm as well, but when I tried it, it was pretty chaotic and difficult to grasp how it was supposed to be played. I was sort of thinking about a robots/storm build that used and all ranged damage set with group fly that also had multiple sources of knockback or knockdown. It was just a concept on paper that I never got around to doing. Plus builds like that are difficult to build and plan in mids, as I would expect such a build to have lower stats. But mids doesn't show things like how much knockback/CC you have and how strong it is (far as I know anyway, could be wrong there.) Though have you considered an alternate - using a dark MM as your "main" MM, and using other sets that would directly or indirectly support or offers what it lacked or needed? When I multibox MMs, I don't plan them 1 by 1 and just team them together, I compare them side by side and see what interactions or combinations they can do together. But either way, I wouldn't encourage you to give up on your Dark MM. Even if its just for fun and its something you want to do and will enjoy, then what does it matter how far it can go or push, or if it isnt as good as other setups. I mean, 3 MMs might be awesome together, but for speed and such I would wager 3 brutes would be miles ahead. If you want to min/max, at least as far as damage and speed are concerned, MMs perhaps aren't the optimal choice. But as far as fun, enjoyment, activity, playstyle, and the "oh wow" factor, MMs win hands down for me over any brute. I mean, I've gotten a ton of comments when running around the world or even in the AE with my 18 robots following me. Even got invited to a private coh discord for the big brains over my MM farming guide, simply because it was something new and fresh and it sparked a ton of discussions and theorycrafting, which lots of people were excited to see, because like me they were sick of thorns/fire farming, or just brute or similar gameplay in general and the idea of "my army vs the map" was an entirely new gameplay style. So don't give up, keep experimenting! Who knows maybe you will come up with something entirely brand new. What about a "dark" triad or similar? Where you don't play 3 MMs for example, but something like a Dark Tanker, Dark Controller, and a Dark MM together? Something that was multiboxable/autopower capable. (just an idea off the top of my head.) Could even give them a name or theme, Team Shades taking Shadows or something. And I am curious to see if overlapping Dark powers would support one another with the mag mechanic, and so on. Best wishes!

if you just want to make money/farm, i would suggest 3 boxing robo masterminds. with kin, your pets will have all damage cap anyway. with much more aoe. assuming you are farming en masse with multiple groups at a time, it will be faster. but if you are going 1-2 groups at a time, thugs or demons will edge out ya. but your def/res will be high enough to do much more than that at once if you choose to.

I would like to explore that a bit, shall we? 1. If Ultron was Tony's biological flesh and blood child, and still committed the great crimes that he did, would you still hold Tony morally and criminally responsible? 2. I think the majority of parents out there would do the same for the sake of their child. That's instinct at work. There is a very large difference between accepting things, and being the offending person who made them. You are making it out to be Tony was the one who did the snap, when it wasn't. While he didn't magically erase what Thanos did either, do we even know that is an option? It might be possible in the comics, but not possible in the film version MCU. A great many lesser things were changed or omitted. You aren't holding Tony accountable for something that he "did", you are holding him responsible for something that he "didn't" do, which are not the same things. 3. With #2 in mind, it is a very small step from holding people accountable for what they "might" have done, to what they "might" do. I know some comics explored this sort of narrative, but to my mind it comes down to the Batman vs Superman argument - he "could" become the most challenging evil threat. He isn't now, but he "could" one day be. Is that enough to justify treating him as such? I would argue no. It isn't. Just as its not acceptable to hold people accountable for passive inaction either. An example: You see a charity on Television. You then decide not to donate to whichever cause. By your passiveness, you "allowed" people to suffer. You didn't cause it. You had no part in it. But you didn't help either. Are you now complicit? I would argue not. We both agree Tony isn't "Lawful Good" by any stretch. But not all heroes are "Lawful Good" either. Tony is a Chaotic Neutral to my mind. And that doesn't make him Lawful Evil, which what I believe Thanos was. TLDR: Making the best of bad situations, or accepting things that have occurred, are not evil acts. Particularly when you had nothing to do with the original root cause. And protecting your child by any means possible, isn't evil either. Even if by protecting your child, other people might suffer. You aren't responsible for them. No one is responsible for the entire world. Just my thoughts on it.

A bit off topic, but I find this line of thought quite disturbing. First off, you should clarify if you are going by the movie, or by the source material, as they are not the same. Secondly, if you want to split hairs, Ultron was an AI, able to make its own thoughts and decisions. Where it gets murky is the law as well as its enforcement to such beings, as you are applying real world context and morals to a work of fiction. If such things were true in the real world, I imagine there would be laws created to deal with such instances. But broadly painting it with the brush of "Tony made it, his fault, he's responsible", could also be applied to the real world bill gates and say "this man is responsible for all cybercrime, so punish him accordingly." Even though I personally think that is ridiculous, akin to holding every weapon and gun manufacturer responsible for how their products are used. And I would ask if you have given thought to whom would be enforcing such rules? And who would then be governing and enforcing them in turn, and so on. I suppose my point here is, such leapfrogging in thought has led to some very terrible things in the real world, and any such discussions of those would hardly be suitable for these forums. Just my two cents on it. TLDR - It is a fallacy to apply real world morals, standards, and laws to a fictional setting where that setting could have beings, situations, and exceptions that the real world does not.