Kommon

/Cold is definitely a late bloomer, and so is Bots, but it really starts to pick up after you get the last upgrade and sleep at 32 and 35. I haven't played /EA yet, but I have seen it in action and know how the powers functions. Being a buff-heavy powerset, /EA shines when facing very tough situations, however, those are few and far between. Teams of eight people that know what they are doing will basically will trivialize all content they run into regardless of team makeup. If you expect to play on teams most of the time, I'd say stick with /Cold. The shields and debuffs will add a significant force multiplier to the steamroller and help the team mow things down that much faster while also avoiding a ton of damage.

I don't recall that I have taken the fighting pol on any of my several masterminds, and I have zero issues with survivability. I do have tough and weave on some of my melee characters, like my Rad/Fire brute and my Savage/Shield scrapper to help with not needing to slot sets for defense bonuses and instead to be able to chase more global recharge.

Sounds like it isn't working as intended. I don't have a /EA toon, but perhaps someone can take a few screenshots while testing this and make a thread in the bug report forum.

/Cold sync well with all the primaries if you include IOs into the mix. I was able to get my henchmen to ~37% defense to Smash/Lethal/Energy/Negative/Melee/Ranged, ~52% defense to AoE, and ~19% defense to Fire/Cold/Psi on my Demons/Cold, and they have high resistance to fall back on. /Cold is like a more active version of force field without mez protection, so, if you have an active playstyle, /Cold should work regardless of the type of henchmen being used.

I'm confident that the way Amp Up is displayed in Mid's is an error. Amp Up is a power boost type of effect that can be cast on allies, meaning that it will only boost defense-based abilities that the target executes after the Amp Up buff is applied. Defense toggles and auto powers will be boosted for the duration of Amp Up, and click powers will be boosted until the click power expires. Keep in mind, not all powers can be affected by power boost type affects... for a Bots MM that take this powers, they would want to only use it on their protector bots if not another player. For a Tier-9 power, it's quite underwhelming for a Mastermind.

I really need to give Ninja Summoning another try. I haven't played them since live, before some of the mastermind quality of life changes, and it was a Ninja/Poison to boot. It was so bad I deleted it once it hit 50. I do have three Demon Summoning Masterminds, two of them fully IO'ed. Demon/Nature (No IOs yet), Demon/Cold (IO'ed) and Demon/Rad (IO'ed). I made the /Rad MM mainly to say "I have a Rad debuffer!" and also to have a build where I can fit in Knockout Blow with a bunch of procs with which to do silly things. My /Cold MM was primarily more of an experiment with a few goals in mind: to see if layering defense with resistance on henchmen was worthwhile (it was, very much so), how well procs would work with some of my powers (very well), and if a debuff-heavy set with no heal was playable solo against strong targets (YES!). Demons, with all the Pet unique IOs and if you choose to buff the tier 2 henchmen with resistance IOs, are extremely sturdy on their own, and they have sources of -res baked into the Hellfire Demonling and Hellfire Demon as well as a occasional heal from the Ember Demon. Going with Demons gives you access to extra -res debuffs via personal attacks; I always take Corruption due to it's fast animation time and fast recharge with relatively low endurance cost, for the extra stacking -res debuff and easy an Apocalypse set. Three things I dislike about demons: the tier 2 henchmen's idle sounds are terrible, the demons all fall funny, causing them to get stuck more often than other henchmen, and they are huge, causing annoyances for teammates. Even though I haven't play with Ninjas in years, I feel that Demons would beat out Ninja when paired with Storm when factoring in all the things Demons bring to the table.

To add on to this: With the way detonator is currently coded in the game, anything slotted into the power itself doesn't really enhance anything. Once detonator is used on a henchmen, the henchmen's own enhancements will take over and enhance the damage/accuracy of the bomb. So, in case you would like to take detonator for fun/thematic reasons, do not not waste any slots on the power except for one recharge IO. If you feel that the power itself is a practical ability to have in your arsenal, give it a test run, but buy a respec before hand.... plainguy is 100% correct with his assessment.

Yes, you can use this command with any targeted location power, like pet summoning abilities or powers like Sleet and Tar Patch. I have a few keys bound my pet summoning and upgrade abilities to make summoning my pets easier. Keep in mind, if you summon henchmen a ways from yourself, they will run back to you after their summoning animation is complete, as henchmen's default stance is defensive follow.

Before the /FA Burn change a long time ago, which also indirectly changed how much damage the burn patches can generate from the Assault Bot's incendiary swam missiles, Bots WERE one of the top tier masterminds for AoE damage, just from that one power. So now that the burn patches from incendiary swam missiles do a 1/4 of the damage they used to, Thugs easily beat them in the AoE department. I think Thugs even beat Demon in terms of AoE damage, but Demons are easier to keep alive regardless of secondary.

To figure out my pet's defense in Mid's, I add together all of my AoE buffs (Maneuvers, Farsight, whatever), pet IO uniques, and Protector Bot bubbles (or Enforcer maneuvers), making sure to calculate any extra defense enhancement in any of those powers or if I power boost any of the click powers, like Farsight. With their current build, assuming all bubbles from protector bots have been cast on everything: Assault Bot and Battle Drones - ~48.6% Defense to all but AoE, and ~63.6% to AoE Protector Bots - ~38.7% Defense to all but AoE, and ~53.7% to AoE The Protector Bots will give the player ~9.9% with one bubble. This build has all three unique +resistance pet IOs, giving all pets within 40 feet will have +35% resistance to all in addition to Bot's resistances. So this build would give all Bots: Smashing: 35% Lethal: ~61.15% Fire: 35% Cold: ~61.15% Energy: 35% Negative: 35% Psionic: ~61.15% Toxic: 35%

I think Bots/Traps should be able to do solo an ITF at +4x8, albeit slowly; the last fight will take careful planning to run through the it somewhat smoothly. During tough fights, leverage damage and resistance debuffs via seeker drones and acid mortar. Damage debuffs are like an active version of resistance that stacks with your own resistance, plus damage debuffs are resistance by damage resistance, so as a target's resistances goes below 0%, any damage debuff currently applied to that target is enhanced. On my Bots/Traps, by the time an AV hits me or my henchmen, they are usually at the damage floor and aren't a threat anymore. Spawn a set of seekers before engaging the AV, and as soon as the first set detonate, spawn another set and continue to do so as the cool down expires. With Acid mortar debuffing resistance, the damage debuff will be enhanced. By then, your Protector bots will have deployed their own seeker drones as well to, hopefully, neuter the target's damage. Don't be afraid to craft multiple Destiny/Interface/Lore/Hybrid Incarnate powers for different situations and fights during the TF. For Destiny, already have Tier 4 Barrier Core and Rebirth Radial. Try to have a healing Lore pet available, just in case. If you don't already have it, the Support Hybrid line could be useful, even at only a two minute duration, to overcome device debuffs. For Interface, think about having available at least the tier 3 Paralytic radial line for the 75% chance for damage buff, at 5% per stack/4 stacks max. Either save a few inspiration rows for the last fight or leave the map, use /ah to buy more to help with the last fight.

Intuition Radial Paragon is a nice one too. The damage boost is 33% compared to Musculature, but it will also give you enhancement to powers with hold duration, defense debuff, to hit debuff, slow movement, and it will increase range of all powers as well. Basically, every aspect of Intuition Radial Paragon helps Demons/Time.

Stealth does not work with Masterminds in the way you may think. Mobs will KNOW that you are the henchmen's guardian and come looking for you once all your henchmen die. Stealth is great for positioning, but any attacks used by you will drop the stealth component of Stealth and leave you vulnerable. Not just that, but standing close to your henchmen will leave you wide open to AoE attacks, even in Stealth, and if you are not in bodyguard mode, will deal a great deal of damage to you if hit by a mob that is rank Boss or above.

Thanks for this! The pet responses make it clear enough for mastermind veterans, and the video really helps to see what you are experiencing. After you use GoTo the first time, it looks like the pets start attacking right after reaching the GoTo location. After GoTo is used a second time, Follow is used right afterwards, so then the pets idle. Same thing happened the third time. The Follow idle has been in the game since BG mode was added on Live, but it only happens after a Follow command is issued in any stance. It's that last Follow command, not GoTo, is what is causing them to idle like that. Is there is a reason you used Follow right after using GoTo? I can see using Follow BEFORE using GoTo, to stop the henchmen from attacking and immediately moving to said location, like Dechs describes in the post you linked earlier: When engaging mobs, once you start using GoTo, it's better to keep your henchmen in that stance (or use GoTo again if you need to move them around the field at the current engagement) until you are ready to move on, at which point you can issue Follow without any idling issues, as all mobs should be dead and gone. Just a side note, if you try to tell your henchmen to GoTo a location that is relatively close to their current location, they won't move. If you want them to reposition ever so slightly, you may need to tell them to GoTo a father point and them pull them back via another GoTo to the spot you actually want them. The only problem with GoTo is, after the last round of MM changes, that melee henchmen, like the Bruiser, will not close into melee range if they have GoTo used on them, where as before, the Bruiser would GoTo a spot and then close in and start smacking people around. TheSpiritFox's thread about changing this will behavior is what I am talking about. Hopefully they can make it so melee pets can still run around after using GoTo, like before then change, but still be leashed to a certain distance from the mastermind while at the same time gluing range pets in place, like how it works right now post-change. As for Stay, that command should be able to glue all types of henchmen in place, both melee and range. That's just my opinion though. Hope that help.

FYI, I don't know when it was changed, but all six of those pet IOs have a 40' radius on their buffs, regardless of what the description says. I wish it was equal to supremacy range, though.

I have played my MMs on Incarnate trials and TFs recently, and I haven't experienced any "idling" unless I or my henchmen were not under attack or I specifically wanted them to idle by rapidly hitting the Follow command. Switching between Aggressive/Defensive and Attack My Target/GoTo/Stay doesn't produce any extra idling for me either. What type of Masterminds do you play? Ranged or Melee henchmen? I am very curious as so what is happening, and it would help to see it while playing. What server do you play on?

Now I know what you mean.... You know that feeling nostalgia that overcomes you for a moment when you suddenly remember something from long ago that you 99% forgot about? Yeah... your post dredged up memories of the the same tactic I used on my masterminds a long time ago when the AI was unforgivable dumb. Back then, I made extensive use of Follow, GoTo, and also Stay. I would do exactly as Dechs posted, except I would also use Stay sometimes. If I wanted my pets to stop whatever they were currently doing and follow my next command without question, I would always issue Follow first, as that seem to reset them. I would then tell them to Stay if I simply didn't want them chasing down random mobs and fire at whatever is near me, or I would issue GoTo to reposition them before re-engaging the enemy. I did play my Bots/Traps mastermind today, but I didn't notice the bots pausing at all when I issued any command other than if the very last command I used was Follow. They eere in Defensive the whole time.

I tested my Bots/Traps just now using the same steps, and I get the same behavior as my with Thugs/Time. None of the auto-summoned henchmen seem to inherit the interface nor hybrid assault procs on zoning, only freshly summon pets get procs from them, such as acid mortar and incendiary swam missiles burn patches. Both masterminds don't have personal attacks, but hybrid assault and degenerative radial works fantastically on these two masterminds, as long as I freshly summon them on a mission map while its active. I am leveling up a couple of demon masterminds, so I'll keep this in mind when it's incarnate time for them. On another note, with the interface proc fixes from last patch, the radial branch seems like the way to go for most masterminds. Edit: I tried a few more times with my Bots/Traps, and both interface and hybrid assault worked right after after I zoned in a new mission... I don't know anymore!

I know that issuing follow order with any combat stance will make the pets not attack anything for around 5 seconds. Are you issuing a follow command right after issuing a GoTo command? I often use the idle time after issuing the follow command to keep my pets in check when trying doing specifics tasks, for example, during the camera portion of TPN trial. As long as I keep issuing the follow command every few seconds and their combat stance is in Defensive, BG mode stays active, but the pets won't attack anything.

Thank you for the video! This is very weird.... I follow the same steps as you did in your video on my Thugs/Time, and I didn't see a single doublehit nor degen proc in the pet damage combat logs. Well, actually I saw a few doublehits, but only from the Burn pet that the Arsonist summoned. I restarted a few times to try again, but I never saw procs from my henchmen unless I resummoned while already in the mission. I'll hop on the test server to test some other stuff tomorrow, probably with the same mastermind you had in the video.

I have adopted a habit of releasing and resummoning my pets when I enter a new instance. My interface procs do not work on the pets that are auto-summoned upon mission entry (someone else please verify this, as I want to know if I am doing something wrong). So what I do now is: Before zoning, toggle hybrid assault In the new zone, release all pets if not done so before zoning Summon all pets again These steps usually allows interface to work properly on my pets and allows the summoned pets to utilize Assault Radial (unless they die and I resummon while assault radial is not activated).

I had no responses in the scrapper forum when asking if anyone else experiences this, so I am posting his here. My savage melee / shield defense scrapper is experiencing an odd bug where every time I execute rending flurry on a target, I will lose all set bonuses from Scrapper's Strike or Critical Strikes including the global IO bonus; both sets seem to exhibit the same behavior. The bonuses disappear from the powers tab under personal info and from combat attributes. The set bonuses also disappear upon reaching five stacks of blood frenzy, even before executing rending flurry. With my limited testing on the beta server, it seems that purple sets, regular sets, winter sets do not have the same behavior in rending flurry, only the scrapper ATOs. The only way to recover the set bonuses is to either wait several minutes (haven't timed it) or zone, at which point getting five stacks of blood frenzy or using RF on a target will make them disappear again. More weirdness: on the beta server there seems to be something odd going on with slotting IOs into rending flurry if the power was recently executed in the same zone. If I were to use RF on a target, use unslotters to swap out enhancements with another set, and then zone, all the changes I had made would be undone. Can anyone else with savage melee on a scrapper and with ATOs slotted in Rending Flurry confirm this behavior? Thanks!

I like Bots for the toughness versatility of the set, but I prefer Thugs for their sheer damage potential while still have adequate suitability. I never really liked Necromancy nor Ninjas, as I felt like trying to control melee pets was like trying to herd cats on a catnip farm. Mercs were okay for a pet class, but the Spec Ops ruined it for me; there's only so many times I can watch them waste all their hard controls on a half dead minions while trying to run up to a boss rank target to attemp to rifle butt them, just to end up dead. Demons have decent damage and suitability, similar to Thugs, but I couldn't stand their huge, slow moving models nor their extremely annoying sounds. I yet to play Beast to a high level, but I will probably have the same issue with them that I had with Ninjas and Necromancy. In my personal ranking, Bots used to be better than all the other sets easily, before the burn change. Bots are one of the easiest sets to manage and they survive quite well by themselves. While their damage potential is quite backloaded, meaning that they have super slow kill speed with large groups until level 32, they make up for it with surviving much better than the other mastermind summing sets. On Live, I had a Bots/TA which I rerolled into a Bots/Dark, which became my main character. Though /TA has little in the way to help my pets survive, the Bots held themselves to together quite well. Since then, changes in damage mechanics, pet AI, and IOs have made Thugs usurp Bot's place at the top of my ranking.(**See note for more detail) Right at the start, Thug's fast attacks and decent damage simply work out of the box; no random, uncontrollable knockback, no roaring noises, no melee pets running around randomly dying, just bang bang, dakka dakka, pow pow, boom, and done. You can tell Thugs were released after the original summoning sets from the improvements Thugs brought over the others; the leveling experiencing is much smoother than the original sets. **I'm still a bit irked from when the old Devs they changed how how much damage burn patches dealt. When /FA's Burn power was changed to front load more damage on initial activation of Burn and lower the number damage ticks from the burn pseudo pet, they also indirectly lowered the Assault Bot's damage potential, since Incendiary Swam Missiles use the same pseudo pet for its burn patches as /FA Burn power. Before the Burn change, the burn pseudo pet had a damage tick every .2 seconds and a max targets of 5 within an 8 foot AoE. After the change, the burn pseudo pet went to a damage tick every .8 seconds. Luckily, the old Devs made a separate pseudo pet for the Thug's Arsonist when the set was originally created so that the Arsonist's Fire Bomb damage would be on par with a minion level pet (about 50% damage per tick compared to burn), so it avoided the damage tick rate change. While the Arsonist's burn pseudo pet does half the tick damage of the regular burn pseudo pet, its damage ticks every .2 seconds. Now, Incendiary Swam Missiles still do a ton of damage when mobs are packed together, but having experienced how much damage it dealt before the change leaves me a bit disheartened when I play my current Bots masterminds. Now, if I were to compare the Assault Bots's Incendiary Swam Missiles and the Arsonist's Fire Bomb, the Arsonist's Fire bomb actually does all of it's damage faster than the Assault bot does (ISM burn patches have ~26 ticks over 20 seconds while FB has ~50 ticks over 10 seconds). So.... that plus the other Thug henchmen's support and damage is why it is easily my #1 pick for best summoning class right now and Bots are my runner up for the still-great damage and great support it the set brings.**

I wasn't arguing. I was piggybacking off of what was said by nzer. I probably should have quoted Noyjitat and posted an actual screenshot of the enhancement text but... I'm suffering from chronic laziness.

Direct copy and paste from the game. It has had this text since the day the IO was introduced into the game, and it had functioned like the description says it should. I agree that this enhancement obviously bugged now....