Decaying Rose

Mercs/Traps is just solid all around. Slow, though. Great for AVs and other set-piece battles. Mercs/TA lets you and the boys stay completely at range while still applying damage and debuffs, making you into excellent back-line fire-support. Commando's Flamethrower, SpecOps' Flashbang, and Medic's grenade all have fire or energy damage, and can light your oil slicks. If you put the Bombardment or Positron's Blast damage procs (fire and energy, respectively) into your M30 grenade (set it to no-redraw at the tailor!) you can light it too. TA's various -damage and -toHit debuffs mesh nicely with Mercs' built-in defenses. Pick up Intuition Radial for the alpha slot and you get bonuses to damage and your debuffs on top of all that. Just watch out for those status effects.

I'll cast a vote for Thugs/Forcefield/Mace Mastery if you're looking to get into "Main Tank" territory, because they can do it. And if you put Soulbound's unique in Bruiser and the Gaussian Build-Up proc in Enforcers, you won't be hurting for damage, either. Granted, not as directly exciting as the other combos mentioned above, but it works, works well, and works well even on SOs. ...although Arsonist scattering things to the four winds could count as exciting, too.

Assault Rifle/Tactical Arrow is, even on SOs, a really good "stand back and hose 'em down" combo. Throw in Hover and make liberal use of Glue Arrow and you've got a shooting gallery. That said.... Build for range! Throw in a couple of pieces of the Bombardment IO set anywhere they'll fit and you'll get a few +5% +range bonuses. If you get the ATOs, split up Blaster's Wrath into a couple of three-piece chunks for more +range bonuses. Take the Intuition Radial Alpha Slot power for +damage, +range, and various debuff effects like slow and -toHit that'll help your arrows. Lastly sprinkle around various whatever/range IO pieces or some regular range IOs until all your cone powers can reach out to 70-80 feet. Then hover waaaaaaay in the back and unload. Also use this macro for Oil Slick Arrow: /macro OSA "powexec_location target oil slick arrow" Now you don't have to fiddle with a location cursor when using it, just target and shoot. You can easily use Flamethrower to ignite the slick, along with placing a strong DoT on everything nearby. If there's any dangerous piece of this combo and +range build, it's that sometimes you can accidentally hit the next spawn down the hall.

I went and tested my "CDF Assassins" (Mercs/Nature) build. Even without taking Serum, they're much improved. There's two main reasons for that. First is the "minor" change from the Page 4 patch, the one that altered their redraw. Before, Mercs would usually redraw their weapons when they switched targets, especially when commanded to. This really bit into their damage. Now they almost never redraw, instead spinning and smoothly laying into the new target without a pause. Second is the changed behavior of Page 5's upgrades--not the defensive stuff, though that's pretty damn sweet, I gotta say. Previously, Tactical Upgrade replaced attacks for the Soldiers. Now it adds. Soldiers in particular benefit, as they go from having three attacks when fully upgraded to six. They fire pretty well non-stop now, going from "eh, it's okay DoTs" to "MOAR DOTS holy crap that's a lotta dots, what'd you do, open a bag-full?" Commando got a little more single-target in the form of a couple of added ST attacks, without losing any of his AoE. Spec-Ops got damage added to Flashbang, plus another ST attack from Equip (bringing them to 4 ST ranged attacks fully upgraded). Medic's still kinda meh, but still useful in his way. If I had a complaint, it's this: Assault Rifle Auto Fire for the Soldiers should be a little wider. How about 10 degrees instead of 5? 15 to match Robot Battle Drones would be nice--it'd certainly round out their AoE a bit better. That said, they are in general much improved. *edit* Having done a respec (which I'll certainly be tweaking later), I've got to say having both Serum and Overgrowth available really improves things. I can either use one to cover the gaps in the other's downtime, or use both together to really crank their damage output. The attacks also make for a fun little game of "who gets a little more damage?" as well as giving me more to do and making it so I don't have to stand around so much. They also make using Bodyguard much more viable.

An alternative take: I don't usually use BG mode myself--that stems from learning the MM trade without it back on Live, not because I'm a masochist. I'll certainly swap to it if the situation warrants it, like when I know ambushes are inbound or there's just huge AoEs flying all over the place. Most of the time I let the pets handle their own targeting, as I tend to run debuff secondaries. That is, I'll give the pets a GOTO order while they're in Aggressive stance, and I'll make sure to move them such that the first thing they're likely to attack is also a good aim-point for their various cone attacks. This frees up a lot of attention for my secondary powers, and it lets me land debuffs/controls right as the pet attacks are going off, which usually serves to break up the alpha nicely. If there's a drawback to doing it like this, it's that I need to remember to collect the pets after a battle. I usually do this by giving them explicit attack orders on the last critter in the group, so that when it dies they automatically revert to Follow status. Or I just give them a Follow order.

If your pets and/or your secondary do a lot of debuff and control, Intuition Radial is a good Alpha slot pick, as the higher tiers enhance debuffs as well as damage. Namely, hold, -tohit, -defense, slow, +range, and +damage. I've found it really useful for my Dark Miasma, Time Manipulation, and Trick Arrow MMs, and it works well for Necromancy and Demons (particularly the Prince). Musculature Core Alpha is, of course, the "go-to" Alpha for MMs, as it'll crank the pet damage up. If you aren't sure of an alpha to take, can't go wrong with Musculature Core. Interface is kind of weird. Mastermind Henchmen, since there are six of them and they all have multiple attacks, tend to apply the various Interface procs like crazy. I usually try to pick an Interface that meshes well with the primary and secondary. Some examples: Ninja/Storm: I went for Diamagnetic Core, as the T3 and T4 Core versions can be made so that every attack has as a 100% chance of applying a -toHit debuff, which can stack up to four times. Sure, I don't get extra damage, but dead ninja do no damage. Mercs/Nature: Degenerative Radial. I wanted to round out their damage type (Mercs do Lethal, so the Toxic was a nice switch-up) and the -MaxHP debuff amps up their DPS. Plus, this one isn't as commonly chosen by most, so it tends to stack well with whatever else Interfaces are getting applied by the team. Necromancy/Dark Miasma: Reactive Radial. The added Fire damage gives these guys something a little more conventional to apply (as Necro/Dark is heavily weighted for 'exotic' damage) and the -res proc stacks nicely with Tar Patch. These guys aren't damage kings, but this really helps their output. Thugs/Force Field: Spectral Core. This gives both an Immobilize proc and a Negative Energy damage proc. While my Thugs/FF has Mace Mastery to apply Web Envelope to keep things in place, having the Immobilize proc means I have to worry about it less, and I can stack Envelope with it on bosses. Negative Energy rounds out their damage type. I went with Core as it has a higher chance of applying the Immobilize proc, which is the main reason I picked this one. Thugs does enough damage (especially if you add in the various Build Up procs right) that the Negative Energy damage proc is really just gravy, even on Force Field. Destiny's a mixed bag. Clarion's a go-to choice because of its status protection, and Barrier's always grand. For my Ninja/Storm, I went Barrier Core--dead Ninja do no damage, and this one provides defense for the full 120s recharge time. Merc/Nature, I went Clarion Radial to give us all status protection and to amp up the +absorb shields in Nature. Thugs/Force Field, I went Rebirth Radial (for the +regen) to have both a panic-button heal and a pre-emptive buff for tough things. Necro/Dark I went Barrier Radial--this was a 'panic button' buy, as Barrier Radial also rezzes teammates, and I mainly use it for those rare times when there's too many things for the pets and I to debuff safely. --- Basically, call up the Incarnate window and right-click on the various powers to see what you get. Mixing and matching the various buffs, debuffs, and other effects so they mesh well with your powers and those of your pets (or fill holes that need filling) is usually the way to go.

Bots/Traps is super thematic, and gets you some toys to mess around with. Note that Bots don't get any AoE damage until L26, when you get Assault Bot and apply the first upgrade to him so he can use Flamethrower and Dual Plasma Blast. This is more than made up for with the L32 upgrade, which gives every bot AoE damage of some kind. With Bots, it's not a bad idea to pick up Pulse Rifle Burst (the second personal attack in the primary) and Photon Grenade (the third personal attack, and AoE) for use while you're leveling up. You might choose to respec out of them later, though once you have influence to throw around the market, you can load both of them up with damage procs to make them quite a bit more powerful. Mercs/Traps is also pretty thematic, but Mercs is the very lowest-end of the MM primaries. There are just a bunch of mechanical oddities that make them sub-par. Mind, they work, but they'll pale in comparison to other MM primaries. Thugs/Traps is, depending on how you build it and how much money you throw at it, either a perfectly great combo on Single Origin enhancements or a god-tier AV-killin' machine when you unload the entire market on it. Hard to go wrong with Thugs, really. Traps, no matter what primary you pair it with, is a real force-multiplier. Its only drawback is that since you have to drop your traps, fast-moving speed-run teams can be hard to work with, as your traps can get left behind. Settle in for a set-piece fight, however...

I took my Grav/Dark troller to Test to try out the new singularity. I like that Grav now has access to a "pull things closer" mechanic. It works well. I don't like that it's attached to an non-command-able pet. It should really be a location drop power of some kind, or attached to some other power, as others have suggested here. Not sure Crushing Field would be a good fit, as that it would make it quite an overpowered AoE immob. I'm 50/50 on attaching the effect to Dimension Shift. It would make DimShift quite a bit more powerful in that it could do an even better job of halting nasty things, but I think it would also make the power even more reviled than it is. Attaching it to Wormhole would be interesting--have it land on the selected exit point. Things spit out by the Wormhole would then be pulled in to the exit point. This could potentially free up a slot often used for a KB converter. Attaching it to Lift could fulfill Gravity's "gotta be weird" design--Lift a guy, do damage, the effect lingers and pulls things in. Would probably have to move Lift higher in the power selection, though. Maybe cut the duration of the attraction down a bunch, dunno.

I just went and checked and you're right. My bad. The animation just feels way too long to me, but actually isn't.

Would it be possible to also cut down on the animation times for the summon powers in Mercenaries? That radio really takes a long time.

Oh, I like this one.

I ran a Ninja/Storm for years on Live, and recreated them here on HC. Cram in all the uniques, layer on the +defense toggles, and keep spewing a steady stream of tornadoes and storms and they work very well.

Edits made to the original post to add in the above. While I've been applying the lessons learned here to a Thugs/Nature (doing a full Growth/Bastion/Overgrowth cycle on Gang War really turns those dudes into a raving pack of terrors, I must say), I keep coming back to Mercs/Nature for my "fun time Mastermind" these days. Part of it is the sheer loudness--you cannot possibly ignore the mercs when they start firing from the back line due to their volume, so teams always know I'm there and doing something. Stuff just steadily melts, even in +4x8 content. Part of it is the mix of damage and controls and buffs--these guys are great for destroying or delaying ambushes, and I've had more than a few times where I'm soloing one or more ambushes while the team moves on, then they come back when they realize things got quiet up front, only to find mountains of brass and a battle raging on they didn't even know about. Part of it is indeed those glorious WTF LOL moments--there's a huge burst of intense rifle fire and mace beams and grenades and then everything goes quiet. And part of it is just the smoothness this combo enables for a team--Overgrowth is some seriously good buffage, as are the rest, and things just work out.

I divide into groups by name. Like so: Group One are named: Kaff, Kevyn, Karl Group Two are named: Charles, Darcy, Maurice Then I have attack and goto macros: One Attack is: /petcomname K attack Two Attack is: /petcomname C attack One GOTO is: /petcomname K goto Two GOTO is: /petcomname C goto Usually I put the attack macros in the 1 and 2 slots of the first tray, then the GOTO macros right above them, in the Alt-1 an Alt-2 slots. Quick and easy to move 'em around or issue attack orders. Since MM commands take no animation time, I can issue these orders while other powers are animating. I'll often start my buff cycle (Growth, Bastion, Overgrowth) and give the GOTO commands in the middle of the last buff, so they're starting to move right as the effect lands on them. I use Sandolphan's to set stances, and I've got a dedicated "all pets stay/aggressive" button for when I want to set up a killbox after having moved them into position with GOTO. --- ADDENDUM: Now that we have an +absorb monitor on the Test server, I went and checked the effects of the +absorb shields on the pets. Sadly, you can only apply as much +absorb as the pet has base maximum HP. Tier 1 @ 50: 574 HP, can get 574 HP +absorb shield. Tier 2 @ 50: 768 HP, can get 768 HP +absorb shield. Tier 3 @ 50: 963 HP, can get 963 HP +absorb shield. Power Boost will easily let you hit the 574 HP cap for Tier 1s, and if you've got enough +HP boosts and use other +special buffs, you can also cap out the Tier 2s at 768. I haven't yet been able to hit 963 for the Tier 3, but I can land 800+ with Power Boost, Clarion, and the various HP accolades. So Power Boost isn't strictly necessary for the build, as 450-ish +absorb shields is still a whole lot of survival boost for your pets, but stronger +absorb shields work just fine on your teammates. I'm still gonna keep it as it's nice to throw out some really big +absorb numbers with PB/Clarion, and they really help out the teammates. I also tried using Rebirth Core Epiphany (T4) to up the pets' +MaxHP, after which I immediately applied Power Boosted Wild Bastion. They got about one second's worth of the increased maximum shields, after which the combat monitor said it went back down to their base MaxHP value.

arkieboy72472 speaks the truth when it comes to making Assault Rifle work. Slot for range and range bonuses. Hami-Os, Bombardment sets, Intuition Radial, Blaster ATOs, even the kitchen sink. If you get enough of it, Buckshot and Flamethrower will handily reach out to 75-80', at which point they are huuuuuuuge cones. Suddenly, you don't have to dash back and forth to apply damage to the whole spawn. You can just park and nail everything, and while Assault Rifle's AoEs are not as individually strong as the AoEs in other sets, Assault Rifle gets four of them. If your secondary gives you Build-Up, it's entirely possible to fit all four into the window, and four AoEs in quick succession will really do the job. I like finishing up with Full Auto just for the "camspin" fun. I've also got to second the Rambo-build idea linked above. AR/TacArrow is a lot of fun to play. There's always some useful power ready to go, and most of them are AoE. It's a wonderful "mow down everything from the back lines" kind of set-combo, with plenty of utility and a nice mix of hard and soft controls that let you be useful no matter what's going on.

Zombies and Grave Knights are explicitly immune to Slow effects, so when they step on some Caltrops, they get the 50 Magnitude Fear/Run Away effects like normal, but since they ignore the slow, they take off at full speed.

While I'm not sure about the first modifications you've proposed (those look like a lot of work, but for some really cool benefits), I'm all for the last one--being able to slot the aura buff IOs into the equip powers. That would put a little more slot pressure on the MM's non-primary powers (you'd want to add at least one slot to each equip power, maybe two if you put all six def/res auras in) and free up some room for effects in the pets. Mercs could go all-in on damage/debuff procs on the pets. (Serum's still junk currently, save as a mule) Thugs could fully slot Gang War for effect. Necromancy could also fully slot Soul Extraction for effect--that thing's got some serious range and pretty good damage. Demons could fully slot Hell on Earth for effect. Bots get a little more room to slot in defense/heal in the ProBots, and the other bots get some room for other effects. (Repair's also pretty junky currently.) Beasts would get some proc/defense room in the T1/T2 pets. Ninjas would definitely benefit, they really need those auras and it's hell to try and cram them in without putting some in Tornado if you're Storm.

One use case against auto-upgrade I can think of from the top of my head: Sometimes as a Thugs/* MM, you don't want the Arsonist chucking dynamite. If I'm on a team without much in the way of controls and I don't have access to my APP immobilize, the Arsonist will scatter things all over with his Dynamite burn patches. I can dismiss+resummon him after fully upgrading everyone else, then just do the first upgrade, then he's not such a terror. Or I can just dismiss the guy entirely and let the Enforcers pick up the slack, if I was having to use auto-upgrade. An alternative mechanic could be something like the Practiced Brawler/Master Brawler mutually-exclusive pick Sentinels get. You can pick the regular manual upgrade power OR you can pick the auto-upgrade version of the power, but not both.

I'm of the firm opinion that Necromancy/Dark Miasma is still the smoothest 1-50 ride for MMs, especially those that want to solo and team, with or without IOs. It works great on SOs and only gets better as you add the various IO defense/resist auras (which it has a mule power for, Soul Extraction). So long as you make sure to take Fearsome Stare the instant it's available (L20), the low-20s Hell Levels are much easier to deal with. It's a great set combo that has a lot to offer (stacked Fearsome Stares from you and the Lich, for one example) and because of the way its defenses require very active participation on your part it's also very educational on how to run as a Mastermind. This isn't a "buff up, rofflestomp" kind of deal, it's a "debuff this to protect the pets, now defeat that before it get loose, heal this bunch, etc" juggling of your powers and tactics. Very hands-on. Play it well and you can lead-tank for high-end teams. --- Other combo sets for all primaries, either cheap to build, easy to use, or both: Beasts/Nature: Beasts are melee chompers with great built-in defenses and plenty of damage, plus those lovely crit-hits. Nature's a comprehensive buff-and-some-debuff set that'll keep them on their feet and let you easily support a team in the process. All those layers mesh well together, and you can easily get by with a single all-pets-attack macro, no fancy aiming of your pets required. Plenty good on SOs, thrives with a lot of global +recharge if you want to throw in IOs. Thugs/Force Field/Mace: This one's fantastic on SOs and get stupidly good the more IOs you add. Thugs are more than a little chaotic due to the way the Arsonist scatters things (turns out, critters run and flail about when on fire. Weird.) but quite frankly, this combo has more than enough +defense to outlast the chaos. This one is very much a "buff and stomp" kind of deal. Thugs' high damage offsets the lack of damage buffs and lack of debuffs from Force Field. Ninjas/Time: Ninjas can be a hard row to hoe since they're so bloody fragile, but Time's heals, debuffs, and buffs make this a MUCH smoother ride. Frankly, /Time is great with everything, but it seems to suit Ninjas particularly well. Another combo that doesn't require complex controls, as Ninjas are perfectly fine with a general attack order, which gives you plenty of free attention to lay out Time's other powers. Pick up Clarion Radial or Mace Mastery's Power Boost to really crank up the +defense on Farsight, makes this combo way tougher. Demons: A great set, though sometimes it can be hard to see what's going on due to their size, and there's pathing issues for the same reason. That said, I really liked how well they meshed with Nature--you could stand back and buff/heal/attack while they waded in. If you want status protection for yourself, go with Sonic to amplify their defenses and debuffs, then maybe pick up Aid Other to top 'em off. If you want a themed combo that plays to their strengths, Thermal's a good one, though watch out for mezzes. Robotics: I'd stay away from the classic Robots/Force Field, if only because it's boring as all get out with the Bots. Bots don't get exciting until they pick up their AoE, starting at L26 with the Assault Bot. Robots/Traps gets you plenty of +defense to stack with the Protector Bots and plenty of tools that keep things from being stale, plus it's powerful. Robot/Traps does have a bit of a hard time on speed-run teams due to the placed nature of its tools, but it's a great soloer and a powerful force-multiplier for regular teaming. Time, as noted before, goes great with everything, Bots included. Mercs: Ah, mercs. The mechanical outcast. Widely regarded as the worst MM primary, and with good reason--they have a lot of holdovers from the game's very early design, plus a few mechanical issues that cut into their damage output. If you're dead-set on Mercs, though, you can pick a secondary that mitigates their problems. Nature's late-game powers crank up their damage and tankiness by quite a lot, so you end up playing support for them. Works surprisingly well. (See my "CDF Assassins" guide for the details) Storm Summoning neatly solves three problems for Mercs: their damage output, by way of Storm's -res debuffing and extra pets, the trouble they get into once things hit melee range and break up their cones (blow things away from them with Gale and Hurricane), and their lack of a place to put the pet aura IOs (put 'em in Tornado). Time is, of course, the do-everything secondary and really helps 'em out, too.

(edits: spacing and color formatting) (edit: ADDENDUM in the Mace Mastery section with info about +absorb limitations on pets) (edit: ADDENDUM in the Breaking Up the Band (of Brothers) section about grouping by name) I’m @Decaying Rose, formerly that crazy “Mastermind guy” from Virtue back on Live, and now that crazy “Mastermind guy” on Torchbearer. Feel free to look me up on Torchbearer! I’m a dab hand at training Masterminds as well and don’t mind helping folks out. Today’s subject? Mercs. MERCS: CDF ASSASSINS Ah, Mercenaries, the most terrible-ist of all Mastermind primaries. In any rigorous analysis of MM sets, this one always comes out the worst as far as mechanics go. Heavily-resisted damage type, not enough AoE, controls that take forever to recharge, wonky animations that cut into DPS, redraw issues, the most sucktacular pet-buff power in the game, earsplitting noises, pretty crappy built-in defenses, and oh yeah, terrible DPS. Literally every other MM primary is better than Mercs--the math’s been done and the charts have been drawn, right here on the forums. We all know it, we’ve all seen it. ….but, dangit, Mercs are just cool. When one hears the word “mastermind”, the idea of a cadre of loyal soldiers is one of the first images that comes to mind. It’s a crying shame the set isn’t better. We can’t make the set better (ahem, devs, and more on that at the end) but what we CAN do is apply all the tricks of the Mastermind trade to make them a valuable contributor to any team. So, What IS Mercs/Nature, Exactly? Well-rounded is I suppose the best term for it. All of the other MM primaries tend to have a specialization, (ST, AoE, exotic damage, crits, etc) but Mercs is the odd man out. They’ve got a little bit of everything--AoE, single-target, heals, buffs, controls, debuffs, the works. I suppose that stems from how, as I’ve heard it, they were the very first set designed for Masterminds. Nature’s the same way. It’s packed full of layers. There’s direct heals, a rez/heal, comprehensive resist shields, +absorb shields, long-term +damage/+toHit buffs, endurance discounts, lots of +regen, some -toHit/-dam/-regen debuffing, and even some -def/-res debuffing. None of them are devastatingly strong examples of those things, taken singly, but meshed together they work incredibly well. Combine the two and you get layers and layers of, well, stuff. This is unlike a lot of other MM combos, where the primary and secondary combine to spike one or two particular aspects of each set through the roof. Thugs/Force Field, for example, really leverages that +defense, while Beast/Kin is a high-damage critical-spewing machine. Mercs/Nature is just kinda “there”. You can park ‘em somewhere, buff ‘em, and what you get is an entirely reasonable fire-support backstop for any team. They aren’t going to prompt a lot of “wtf lol” moments from your team (unless you arrange things juuuuuust right) but what they are going to do is be there, pretty much continually, blasting the crap out of things, debuffing the snot out of stuff, and forming a bulwark of buffs, bullets, and hot brass your team can rely on. This sounds kinda bleh, Rose. What’s it really GOOD at? Providing a challenge, firstly. There’s dozens of other MM combos that can outstrip entire teams just on the strength of their built-in powers, and Mercs/Nature isn’t that combo. Pick something with Storm Summoning if you want some flash. Mercs/Nature requires some really tight slotting and some sacrifice in service to that slotting, along with a firm grasp of the MM controls and a full understanding of just how all the bits and pieces intermesh. Even with all that, you’ll have to be fast and think ahead of the team and the tactical situation in order to make these guys work. That said… CDF Assassins: Mercs/Nature gets to exploit a long-hated game mechanic that’s often used by high-end critters against players. That mechanic is known as “Cascading Defense Failure”, or CDF. If you’ve fought the Underground Resistance as a +defense character and gotten shredded once they started landing hits, then you know just how painful CDF can be. It’ll turn super-expensive IO builds into cheap crunchies at the drop of a hat. Now you get to turn the tables on ‘em. Five out of six of your mercs have -defense attached to all of or almost all of their single-target attacks. The sixth, Commando, has it in one. You have it in the form of Corrosive Enzymes. Once your boys land a good hit or two, they’ll KEEP hitting, and between all of you there is enough -defense to either totally negate or take vast chunks out of even T9 powers like Elude or Moment of Glory. This means you and your guys are just about custom-built for quickly destroying really annoying enemies, like Fortunata Mistresses, Night Widows, Ruin Mages, Sky Raider FFGs, and so on. If there’s a downside to this ability, it’s that you’ll draw aggro from those same annoying enemies since you have higher threat than almost all other ATs and you will have been hitting them first and hardest before the team gets to join in thanks to your debuffs. I’ve peeled more than my share of MoG’ing Paragon Protectors off of tanks like this. Long-Term Damage: Mercs don’t have high spike damage. They’re all about Damage over Time (moar dots!), and therefore switching targets or having to move with a fast speed-running team really cuts into their potential. But, with this build, what they ARE good at is providing steady damage on the long-term. You’re made for chewing through lots of long, defeat-all missions and making them go smoothly. You’re made for parking somewhere near an AV and unloading a consistent stream of DoTs that’ll make that health bar go down. Yeah, it ain’t flashy. This is a game full of fire-blastin’, foot-stompin’ demigods and you’re just a bunch of dudes with guns. But it works, and well. It’s just subtle. Hot Doors: On a lot of teams, zoning into a mission with a hot door (enemies fighting you the moment you come in) is pure hell. The team isn’t ready, the buffs aren’t out, and chaos ensues. Mercs’ Spec Ops go a long way toward making hot doors a non-issue. Fully upgraded, each of them gets access to long-recharge AoE holds and stuns, the Mag 3 Tear Gas and the Mag 2 Flashbang. When you zone into a mission, all the pet powers are recharged and they’re in bodyguard mode. Spec Ops will reliably unload those two controls into the first available enemy that attacks, making a hot-door ambush into a pack of reeling, coughing targets. You’ll have access to chunks of this from L12 on, with your first Spec Ops and the Equip that gives them Flashbang. Yeah, it’ll just be one guy and one AoE Mag 2 stun, but that’s all the minions sent reeling in one shot, and that’s a big help. As you get the other Spec Ops and then get Tactical Upgrade, this gets way more effective. Discipline: The recent AI changes to MM henchies turned Mercs from a wild pack of suicidal brawlers into a disciplined cadre of soldiers. Park ‘em somewhere with GOTO and then nail ‘em in place with a Stay/Aggressive order and they’ll hold their ground. This means that you can set up a killbox with these guys and expect it to work reliably. Solo, that lets you herd rooms with Spore Cloud, and on a team with a Brute or Tank that’s willing to work with you, they can bring critters to you for easy disposal. In a long AV fight, this lets you safely park them on the back side of an AV so they can shoot without getting hit. That frees you to roam around and use your Nature powers for the team. WTF LOL: Surprisingly, this combo can, in fact, dish out some pretty painful AoE. You just gotta work for it, and hard. It’ll take practice. But when you do it right, it’s glorious. You’ll have to keep half a mind on your henchies’ power recharges, and the other half on the perfect start point for their cones, and a third half on giving the attack order on just the right guy in the spawn to aim them well. Do it right, and you’ll unleash: a Corruptor-strength Full Auto, two mini Full Auto clones, the Medic’s dinky little M30 clone, your copy of M30, the Power and Glory that is Mace Beam Volley, and...oh, hang on, everything but the bosses just dropped. This won’t happen all the time. Combat in Homecoming is just too fast, which is why sets like Thugs and Bots, with their wide and quick-recharging AoEs, are the preferred delivery vehicles for Mastermind AoE. But Mercs/Nature does have it in them, and as an added bonus, when it goes off right, it sounds AWESOME. It’s loud and crunchy and attention-getting, especially for any melee characters that are in the thick of it with the bullets whizzing all around them. If you’ve ever taken an Electric Blaster to the high end and mystified a team when you let Thunderous Blast off the chain and everything shakes for a while and then drops dead, that’s pretty much the same feeling when you get a Mercs/Nature WTF LOL moment. Well-Rounded Support: Again, Mercs/Nature doesn’t have interesting spikes in control, damage, debuff, or buffs. It’s just got a bit of everything, and because of that, it’s a good hole-filler for any team. There’s hardly a thing in the game this combo can’t make easier. All right, that sounds at least interesting. How’s this work? There’s a lot of moving parts to go over, each in their own sections below. The Slowest Clown Car In The World If there’s one thing Mercs really, really suffers from, it’s their totally average runspeed. These guys hoof it everywhere, and they aren’t quick like Beasts or Ninjas. If you play reactively and follow a team, especially with Homecoming’s fast-paced combat, your guys are going to show up late to the party every time. That’ll only reinforce Mercs’ crappy reputation, and by God, we are doing this for personal challenge reasons and we are going to show everyone how good this set can be. So you gotta get proactive. On a team setting, figure out who’s taking the alpha strike and shadow them. Get their rhythm down, and once you have done so, give GOTO orders such that your boys arrive right as that alpha-soak lands his first shot, or shortly thereafter. Once you’ve got that down to a science, fold in GOTO orders that put your guys in good positions for their AoEs. And then, realize that sometimes YOU are gonna be that alpha-soak. Now, you can certainly do that with the typical bodyguard setup--everyone in def/follow and you open up with MBV or M30 or Spore Cloud or something. It’ll work, but it’s not ideal. The real fun comes when you survey a spawn, slap down a couple of GOTO orders for your fireteams, and then you and they arrive and all fire something at the same time. Most of the time that’ll throw out enough knockback to keep all of you safe. If chance and your recharge timers favor you, it can even be a full-on WTF-LOL moment where you drop 70% of the spawn in one go. And yeah, you can actually do this. Nature’s shields are good enough to keep you and your guys alive. Once you pick up Clarion Incarnate, this gets a LOT easier, too. You And Your Two Teams When you play as a Mercs/Nature on a team, you aren’t on one team, you’re on TWO teams. One team is the other players, and the other team is your mercs. Your mercs are a fire-support crew for the player team, and you are the support guy for those mercs. Two of your powers make this playstyle work--M30 Grenade and Regrowth, Nature’s cone heal. M30 can serve to knock things away from your guys or to add in a little AoE when it’s needed by the player team. Regrowth works best if you’re behind everyone, so you can see the whole battle and aim it properly. When you’re leveling and don’t have all your slots, it’s even a good idea to slap a little range enhancement into Regrowth so you can cover more area with it. Once you get a fair amount of global +recharge and all your buff powers and experience using them, though, you can swap to the full set of Preventive Medicine. By that time, your Wild Growth and Wild Bastion will be doing most of the work of keeping your soldiers and the other players on their feet, and Regrowth will usually be delegated to “spot heal” territory. Mind you, it’s a really great heal and has all kinds of use, but Nature buffs are so comprehensive you usually don’t have to rely on it. What Do You Mean, “Be The AoE?” Look, I’ve talked up Mercs’ AoE potential here, and it does exist, but only in ideal circumstances. That’s why I filed it under the WTF-LOL section. Most of the time you just aren’t going to be able to arrange for clean AoE given Homecoming’s fast combat pace. Get yourself on a team that does a little herding and you get to show off, but most of the time? Nah. So in order to help out with your mercs’ damage potential, you need to supply some AoE. You get two powers to do that with, M30 Grenade and Mace Beam Volley. (Make sure you select “No Redraw” for M30 in the power customization when you make your costume, btw) M30’s kind of unusual for MM primary AoE attacks in that it’s a full-range (80’) targeted-AoE type. The only other set that gets a long-ranged AoE is Robotics--everyone else gets a short-range cone or a utility power for their third attack. That range is M30’s saving grace, because you can fire it off from waaaaay in back and still catch an entire spawn with it. (And you don’t have to move out of optimal Regrowth positioning to do it, another subtle little bonus) Proc it out as this build does and you’ve got a good-sized AoE you can fire off every 6-8 seconds, and that does pretty respectable damage. Not Blaster-level, of course, but combined with your soldiers’ attacks? Yeah, it totally works, and you can keep using it all the way down to level 3. It really makes those early levels and low-level exemplar sessions way less painful. Now, as for Mace Beam Volley...wait, do you hear angelic singing? ‘Cause I do. Man, those guys are loud. Anyway… MBV is your personal shotgun. Get it, six slot it, proc it out. Point it at problems that need solving and brother, they’ll get solved. MBV’s long animation and redraw also mean that it all-but-guarantees that procs will go off. You can slap four damage procs in it, and I fully recommend dropping the cash for all of them, even the expensive PVP one. You will NOT be disappointed. MBV has crunch, because it sounds and looks great when it goes off, and with all those procs, it IS Blaster-level damage. Not like a BU+Aim Nova, but a hard-hitting AoE. It’s super easy to fire off MBV and then immediately follow up with a no-redraw M30 Grenade for a one-two punch that’ll take great whacking chunks out of a spawn. Kind of a choom-boom sound for that combo, very distinctive. Man, "Choom-Boom" is just kinda fun to say. With the kind of global +recharge that Nature demands as a secondary, you’ll have these available often, which is good. There will be plenty of times where you need to defend yourself when your mercs haven’t caught up with you yet (buff runspeed!), and a couple of easily-chained high-knockback AoEs are perfect for keeping things busy until they do show up. These two are also part of the chain for a WTF-LOL moment. I’m not kidding, when you do pull one of those off, it’s stupidly impressive and all the more so because it’s Mercs doing it. Procs and Other Weird Slotting Tricks As noted at the beginning, Mercs is a sub-par set. That means that in order to make it par, you gotta slot carefully. This isn’t a set where you can slap in three full copies of Blood Mandate and call it good--all that will get you is a pack of guys with water pistols. No, you’ve got to get a little weird. While the full build in the spoiler tags has all the slotting, I’m going to go over each primary slotting here in detail, with reasoning. SOLDIERS: (A) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff: Level 20 (3) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage: Level 50 (3) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown: Level 50 (5) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage: Level 50 (5) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (7) Sovereign Right - Resistance Bonus: Level 50 So what you get here is the ability for your guys to up their damage and your team’s via Achilles’ -res debuff. They’ll get that juicy negative damage proc to help with lethal-resistant enemies. Overwhelming Force turns these guys into little knockdown artists--the constant pelting of fast-recharging KD impulses does a great job of keeping dangerous things on their butts. Superior Marks top off their damage and accuracy and gives ‘em just enough endredux, and Sovereign Right gives ‘em a resistance bonus that’ll stack nicely with your shields. Superior Marks, of course, have that lovely 2-slot recharge bonus, which is the main reason I split the set up. Now, on something like a Mercs/Storm (which I’ve run to 50 as well), you’d be able to move the Sovereign Right elsewhere and have another slot to put in the Shield Breaker Lethal damage proc. But Mercs/Nature doesn’t have that room, so you have to compromise. The first big compromise is that until you get to 50 and can use the Superior Marks, your soldiers will be lacking full damage enhancement, provided you use this slotting while leveling. However, Achilles and Lady Grey will make up for that, so when you DO get to 50 and can catalyze your ATOs, you get a nice little damage bump as a bonus. Frankly, I didn’t really notice any big lack while leveling with this slotting. The less-than optimal accuracy slotting really isn’t that big of a deal when leveling, thanks to Mercs “CDF Assassins” status. You’ll have Leadership and Supremacy to round that off anyway. I did try swapping out the Achilles’ for the Shield Breaker proc. That does improve these guys’ raw damage, but it turns out I liked being able to reliably spread around that -res a little more, especially with the way I have the mercs divided into fireteams. More on that in the Breaking Up the Band section. SPEC OPS: (A) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage: Level 50 (13) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage: Level 30 (13) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage: Level 50 (15) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Endurance/Pet +Resist +Regen: Level 50 (15) Blood Mandate - Accuracy/Damage: Level 50 (17) Blood Mandate - Accuracy: Level 50 With these guys, I went double-procs for damage; with the way I have the fireteams laid out I can already spread Achilles’ Heel around to these guys’ target, so I wanted some extra kick. Superior Marks for the damage and endredux and +resist/+regen aura, then Blood Mandate to round out the accuracy and damage and provide a wee bit of recovery for myself. Nature can be surprisingly greedy on the blue bar, and you’ll also be passing out personal attacks. Like with the Soldiers, you won’t have full damage enhancement until catalyzed, but again, you won’t notice it much. This slotting turns Spec Ops into handy little damage machines. Turn ‘em loose on a secondary target and forget about it--they’ll handle it. I miss the days when we could slot in exotic sets and cut the recharge on their controls, but we’ve got what we’ve got and have to work with it. COMMANDO: (A) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage: Level 50 (27) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge: Level 50 (27) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge: Level 50 (29) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Recharge/Pet +AoE Defense Aura: Level 50 (29) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up: Level 50 (31) Expedient Reinforcement - Resist Bonus Aura for Pets: Level 50 This is a little more conventional. I didn’t go with the left-overs from Superior Marks because I could get the same benefit (the +recharge) from the four-slot arrangement here, get Commando the acc/damage/endredux he needs, and I’d pick up that lovely AoE +defense aura. Combined with a slotted Maneuvers, that’s roughly 19-20% Def(AoE), and 20% is enough to be blunt the worst of it so the Nature shields don’t have so much to soak up. Soulbound is here to crank Commando’s damage--I wasn’t kidding about “Corruptor-strength Full Auto”. He’ll land FA’s with 13-17 damage per tick pretty reliably. And we have the last part of the trio of resist aura IOs here. Note that Commando is NOT slotted for Knockback-to-Knockdown. You’ll actually need it. M30 GRENADE: (A) Detonation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (9) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance: Level 50 (9) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy): Level 50 (11) Javelin Volley - Chance of Damage(Lethal): Level 50 (11) Bombardment - Chance for Fire Damage: Level 50 (17) Explosive Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage: Level 20 M30’s not strictly a pet, but it’ll get a lot of use. It’s proc’ed to the gills and slotted for acc/dam/endredux so your endurance doesn’t go poof when using this. Since it recharges decently fast on its own, the procs aren’t quite as reliable as MBV, but you still tend to get at least two of them going off per activation, which isn’t shabby at all. Like Commando, it’s not knockback-to-knockdown converted. Embrace The Knockback On a lot of Mastermind sets, Robotics in particular, there’s a lot of call to slot in a Knockback-to-Knockdown IO in the pets to keep them from throwing things every which way. And, truth be told, I’ve done that on other Mercs/* MMs. The Commando can really throw ‘em around, since he’s got Buckshot, Slug, and M30 grenade on pretty quick cooldowns. Don’t do it, not for this setup. You don’t have enough controls to keep things from getting into melee range of your soldiers. Sure, Web Envelope will help with that, but the AoE’s kinda small and the draw and animation time means it’ll often web ‘em in place after they got to punching distance. So embrace the knockback. Use M30 to clear things away from your guys, or to keep them from getting there in the first place. Place Commando so he can be useful with that knockback, usually by throwing things back into the fray by your team’s tank. Frankly, these guys are all ranged, so a little scatter isn’t going to hurt their output much. You generally only need a tight pack of critters when you know a WTF-LOL moment is coming up. Mercs doesn’t do the insane amount of knockback that Robotics does, and I’ve found that most teams really don’t notice Commando’s handiwork all that much. Breaking Up The Band (of Brothers) When it comes to making Mercs/Nature work, you gotta break ‘em up. That is, you don’t want to command all six of them as one group. Even with Mercs’ small size compared to other pets, if you give all six a GOTO order to the same spot, they’ll spread out enough to make aiming their cones a real chore. I went with two groups, divided like so: Group One is Commando and both of the Soldiers. Group Two is both Spec Ops and the Medic. Group One is your damage team--all they do is damage, and all of their AoE except for Commando’s M30 Grenade are cones. Granted, the Soldiers only have one AoE, their super-narrow Assault Rifle Auto Fire cone, but you want to aim them like you do Commando, so here they go. Group Two is your secondary damage and control team. Spec Ops have the controls and the ST damage, while the Medic backs them up. Medic also gets better -defense numbers on his attacks, so he’s useful in helping the Spec Ops land hits. Plus, these guys are range-matched. While the Spec Ops main attacks all reach out to 100-150’, their controls all have a range limit of 70’, which is the same range as the Medic’s attacks. That means that anything that gets within the Medic’s attack range is also within the Spec Ops control range--this does a lot to keep your Medic on his feet. With just three guys in each group they tend to stick to your GOTO targets much more reliably. This is important for Group One, as they all have cones for you to aim. You’ll want to practice aiming those cones, both the short-range ones from Commando (Buckshot, Flamethrower) and the long range ones they all have (Full Auto and Assault Rifle Auto Fire). With enough practice, you’ll know how close to get them to a spawn for Commando lay out his short-range stuff...and how FAR to put them from a spawn so that the Soldier’s Assault Rifle Auto Fire will actually hit more than one guy. ...and it’s further away than you think it is. Seriously, back it up. Take your guys to Perez Park or Boomtown and line ‘em up against those hazard spawns. Do it with just the Soldiers at first, so you can get a proper feel for how far away to move them so that narrow-ass cone (seriously, 5 degrees?) hits a few guys. Generally speaking, once you get good at aiming their Assault Rifle Auto Fire, you’ve gotten good at aiming Commando’s Full Auto, and moving all three to that spot will get you some nice results. (If you’re feeling an intense bout of jealousy regarding the Battle Drone’s Full Auto Laser Fire power and it’s big-ass cone, well, that’s perfectly normal!) As for Group Two, well, you can use them in various ways. Primarily, you’ll have them fighting the same target as Group One, especially in your “CDF Assassin” role. A great secondary use is parking them near your team’s Defenders and Controllers--they have enough damage to hurt or kill whatever breaks through to the back lines, and the Spec Ops will generally lay out some kind of control in the process, making it safer still. (It’s great when they can stack controls with Controllers, too.) Since the Spec Ops have extended range on their ST attacks, they can still reach out into the battle and contribute damage when parked back there...and if you get the distance right, the Medic can’t, which will prevent him from drawing so much aggro. On the subject of Spec Ops controls, you want them both in the same group for one very important reason--they tend to fire off their controls at the same time if you do that. This isn’t so important for their Web Grenade ST immobilize, and it’s not quite that important for Tear Gas, since it’s long-recharge and Mag 3, which means it’ll handle everything from Lieutenants on down. But it’s vitally important for their Flashbang power, which is Mag2. One copy of Flashbang will stun all the minions in a group and nothing else...but two copies of it fired at the same time combine into Mag4, and that’s enough to goober the whole spawn, bosses included. Flashbang comes back just rapidly enough (two minutes) that you want it to be effective when it does go off. You can micromanage Spec Ops controls. Generally this is done by keeping them out of control range during fights--Spec Ops gun attacks reach out to 100’ at a minimum, so they can still damage stuff. When you want them to fire a control, give ‘em a GOTO that puts them a little less than 70’ from the thing you want controlled, then give ‘em an attack order. Most of the time that’ll result in a Flashbang or Tear Gas getting thrown, often both. Last but not least, dividing them like this means that the Achilles Heel in the Soldiers power is copied over to both groups. The Soldiers bring it to Group One and the Medic brings it to Group Two. The two soldiers in One can spread it around, and the Medic makes sure it gets applied when you send Two after something nasty. (This also applies to Overwhelming Force’s knockdown, adding a little safety to both groups) ADDENDUM 21 MAR 2021: I divide into groups by name. Like so: Group One are named: Kaff, Kevyn, Karl Group Two are named: Charles, Darcy, Maurice Then I have attack and goto macros: One Attack is: /petcomname K attack Two Attack is: /petcomname C attack One GOTO is: /petcomname K goto Two GOTO is: /petcomname C goto Usually I put the attack macros in the 1 and 2 slots of the first tray, then the GOTO macros right above them, in the Alt-1 an Alt-2 slots. Quick and easy to move 'em around or issue attack orders. Since MM commands take no animation time, I can issue these orders while other powers are animating. I'll often start my buff cycle (Growth, Bastion, Overgrowth) and give the GOTO commands in the middle of the last buff, so they're starting to move right as the effect lands on them. I use Sandolphan's to set stances, and I've got a dedicated "all pets stay/aggressive" button for when I want to set up a killbox after having moved them into position with GOTO. Go Aggressive With Homecoming’s fast combat, you can’t always assign targets for your guys with attack orders. I mean, you can, but tabbing through to that perfect aim-point target isn’t something you always have time to do. (Though one of those target-anything target binds is a big, big help in this.) And that’s fine! Mercs work plenty fine on that Old Reliable, GOTO>Aggressive. Just put ‘em in Aggressive mode and slap down a couple of GOTO orders for your groups that place them near the spawn, preferably in WTF-LOL range like you practiced, just in case the stars align. They’ll pick targets on their own, leaving you plenty of time for your own decision-making. In fact, on a fast team, this is a good way to do things at the start of each battle. Move ‘em in and they’ll spread their damage around. While they do that, you tab through the spawn and find something that merits their CDF Assassin mode. Once you do, issue both groups attacks orders on that thing and they’ll work it over. Once they’re done, they tend to work over the next nearest target, and with the time it takes to kill their Assassination target, that generally means whatever’s left is more clumped up, making their AoEs more effective. Mace Mastery Ain’t Just About Shields Oh Wait It Is I covered the Power and Glory that is Mace Beam Volley earlier, and I’m going to reiterate: get it, slot it, love it. It hits stupidly hard once proc’ed out, and it and M30 Grenade will make Mercs’ AoE that much less of a poor showing. Embrace the Choom-Boom. Love the Choom-Boom. ...there’s other powers in Mace Mastery, too. Scorpion Shield’s the usual suspect, of course. It’s a great shield! Smash/Lethal/Energy defense, just the thing you need for a late-game filled to overflowing with Smash/Lethal/Energy attacks. Get it, slot it, use it. The build also uses it to hold some damage-resist IOs, which you really want. You could put those in Maneuvers, if you wanted, no biggie. But you’ve got your Nature powerset to think of, and if there’s one epic power that Nature just loves, it’s Power Boost. Power Boost really cranks up Wild Bastion’s +absorb, and having really big +absorb shields combined with comprehensive damage resists and +regen from the auras and Wild Growth makes you and the mercs way, WAY more durable. I mean, there’s a reason Bio Armor works so well, and Nature gets to replicate a big chunk of it. Combine Power Boost and Clarion Radial with Wild Bastion and things get even sillier. Now add in all the +HP accolades. Doing that gets you +absorb shields with about 850 HP. Your Soldiers at 50 will have 574 HP, so that more than doubles their life. Spec Ops have 790-ish, so you’ve doubled it there. Commando runs around 960, so you not-quite double it. It’s really, really effective at keeping those guys alive, and man does it work a treat on your player teammates, too. And then there’s Web Envelope. I wish it animated faster, but you can keep the mace out before the start of a battle to make the animation shorter. Be proactive and use it before you think you need to. The build also uses it to six-slot Enfeebled Operation to stack on some more (4%) Smash/Lethal defense to go with Scorpion Shield. Slotting it like that also solves its recharge pretty neatly, so you can apply it liberally. You could forgo the six-slot bonus and slap in the various Immobilize IO procs, but I found the +defense a better match. ADDENDUM 21 MAR 2021: Now that we have an +absorb monitor on the Test server, I went and checked the effects of the +absorb shields on the pets. Sadly, you can only apply as much +absorb as the pet has base maximum HP. Tier 1 @ 50: 574 HP, can get 574 HP +absorb shield. Tier 2 @ 50: 768 HP, can get 768 HP +absorb shield. Tier 3 @ 50: 963 HP, can get 963 HP +absorb shield. Power Boost will easily let you hit the 574 HP cap for Tier 1s, and if you've got enough +HP boosts and use other +special buffs, you can also cap out the Tier 2s at 768. I haven't yet been able to hit 963 for the Tier 3, but I can land 800+ with Power Boost, Clarion, and the various HP accolades. So Power Boost isn't strictly necessary for the build, as 450-ish +absorb shields is still a whole lot of survival boost for your pets, but stronger +absorb shields work just fine on your teammates. I'm still gonna keep it as it's nice to throw out some really big +absorb numbers with PB/Clarion, and they really help out the teammates. I also tried using Rebirth Core Epiphany (T4) to up the pets' +MaxHP, after which I immediately applied Power Boosted Wild Bastion. They got about one second's worth of the increased maximum shields, after which the combat monitor said it went back down to their base MaxHP value. RECHARGE RECHARGE RECHARGE You want global +recharge. I didn’t go completely crazy with it, but this build has enough to get Wild Bastion, Wild Growth, and Overgrowth into the minute-and-change range while Hasten is up. Without Hasten, they’ll recharge in about a minute and thirty. That means you’ll have their effects going more often that you don’t, and it’s these three powers that make the pets durable and powerful enough to work properly. You can bolt on enough +recharge to make those powers permanent, but frankly, you’ve got a lot of other things to worry about as a Mercs/Nature, and slavishly rebuffing every minute or less will get old, real quick. Having some gaps in the coverage adds to the excitement and challenge. If a minute-and-thirty sounds good enough for you, by all means strip out the Speed pool and slap in your travel of choice. You’ll still be pretty effective, especially for Mercs. General Notes Your personal defenses, once fully buffed out, are going to fall in the “respectable” range. 37%-ish Smash/Lethal defense, 26% Energy defense are the notables, with 25-30% resistance to everything and mid to late 30s for Energy, Negative, and Toxic. 350% +regen when Wild Growth is active, plus your big +absorb shields and Clarion if you can use it. The build also uses Celerity’s Stealth and Super Speed’s stealth to keep you from drawing aggro until you lay out a Choom-Boom. Your mercs’ defenses will generally be 60 Smash/Lethal Resist with about 30 percent to everything else, plus the 20-ish Def(AoE) from the auras. They’ll get back around 17 HP/sec from your Wild Growth, too. Don’t discount your debuffs in Nature. Corrosive Enzymes is what lets you stack -res with your guys’ copies of Achilles’ Heel, and while it ain’t Rad Defender levels of debuff, it’s more than enough to make bosses go down quick. Same deal with Spore Cloud--it’s your hard-target de-fanger and your primary source of -regen against AVs. I recommend using a powexec_location bind for Lifegiving Spores. I fiddled around with having it go to a target, under my feet, or to a specific range, and settled on that last one. I use /bind g “powexec_location forward:40 lifegiving spores” to easily place it a fair bit ahead of myself. This lets me get near a battle and drop it under the melee guys without having to get in range of hostile AoEs, but it’s close enough I don’t have to drop back a huge distance to set it under the feet of my mercs, either. I also spent the moolah to drop the Panacea HP/End proc in Lifegiving Spores, which lets it actually DO stuff for your teams other than that “top off” heal. I also recommend binding Regrowth to a key or mouse button combo. This makes it far, far easier to fire off in battle. You’re going to love Overgrowth. It’s this power, combined with Assault and Supremacy, that really brings Mercs up a level. While it’s up, they’re all sitting at ~80% damage boost over their slotted enhancement values and that is nothing to sneeze at. Commando’s Soulbound Allegiance stacks with that, and that stack is where “Corruptor-Strength Full Auto” comes from. Soulbound Allegiance is often slotted in Tier 1 pets (like Soldiers or Battle Drones) in order to make them reliably hit and damage in late-game content, but Merc’s CDF Assassin status makes hitting just about a non-issue, and let’s face it, Soldiers’ damage isn’t much to write home about. Commando, on the other hand, is your main pet-based AoE source, and he’s got so, so many attacks that Soulbound is on more often than it’s not. It just works better in him, and having it slotted there frees up your Soldiers to be knockdown artists with Overwhelming Force. Mercs/Nature also really benefits from Incarnate powers. Interface goes off a LOT, mainly because all your guys have some really fast-charging attacks. I went with Degenerative to round out their damage types (it’s got Toxic) and because a -MaxHP debuff multiplies their damage. Lore, I went with Vanguard Core for theme, and arranged it so the Magician went with Group One (for AoE) and the Sergeant with Group Two (to buff their ST damage). Destiny is Clarion Radial to amplify +absorb effects and to provide some much-needed status protection. Hybrid’s a mixed bag. The safe and easy choice is Support Core Hybrid, which is basically a super-charged Leadership pool for you and the pets. More defense, more damage, a nice endurance discount. You really can’t go wrong, and it’s easy to use and works every time without any fiddling around. However, I also recommend picking up the later tiers of Assault Core Hybrid. When you go into what you know will be a long, long mission, swap that one in beforehand. Dismiss your guys before you enter. After you enter, toggle on Assault Core and resummon/upgrade while it’s active. So long as the pets don’t die, every time you toggle on Assault Core for the rest of the mission, they will benefit from its effects. If they do die, resummon the next time Assault Core is active. Assault Core Hybrid give each attack of theirs a chance to apply a +damage buff...and since you’ve got Overgrowth and Assault and Supremacy going already, this stacks amazingly well. I ran some tests and Commando basically runs around at the pet damage cap (300%) about half the time when this is up. The rest of the time he’s sitting pretty at 200-230%-ish. It’s super-effective. I also checked out Assault Radial as well, and it does provide DoubleHit, even on the Soldier’s dinky little attacks. Works out to about 30-40 damage per DoubleHit for those guys. If you want to diversify damage types (DoubleHit does smashing or energy, depending on the tier) then Assault Radial will work. If you want to go all-in on raw damage, go Assault Core. I hang my hat on Core, though, at least for Mercs/Nature. One cool bind trick you can do is make a rotating set of “inspexec_pet_target” bind files. You’ll need six, one for each pet. Set each up to chow down on a red inspiration of any size and to rebind the key for the next file in the loop. When you’ve got a bunch of red candy to spare (and you will, you’re a Mastermind), tap the bound key in a slow rhythm (about once a second) to distribute reds to your entire pet lineup. If you jam the key quickly, it won’t cycle through everyone properly and some of the inspirations will get lost in the void. Having this around basically lets you clone Overgrowth, or have its effects when you’re too low a level to use it. I wouldn’t skip out on the Leadership pool. You definitely want Assault for +damage stacking, and Tactics makes CDF Assassin mode that much more effective. Maneuvers is small, but stacks with any other sources of Defense and helps the whole team. Build is in the spoiler-block below. Oh Yeah, What About Fixing Mercs? There are a LOT of great suggestions on the forums for doing that. I particularly like the ideas of getting a third Soldier and replacing Serum with a dedicated Medic, and the one about replacing Serum with a “everyone throws a grenade” power. Super thematic. But, development time is precious. My proposals are all about just altering some numbers without changing the powers or animations out. They are: 1: Buff runspeed. This should really apply to all pets, but Mercs super needs it. Maybe not quite Ninja-fast, but just below. That’d solve a bunch of problems. 2: Widen and lengthen cones. If nothing else, the Soldiers’ Assault Rifle Auto Fire should at LEAST be as wide as the cone Battle Drones get. Commando’s Buckshot, Flamethrower, and Full Auto should be wider, and the first two could stand another 20’ of range or so. It would be one thing to do this to the player versions of the power, but since we have to aim these pet powers from at least one level removed, making them easier to aim would be nice. 3: Cut the recharge on Spec Ops controls. In half. If you gotta cut down the duration to do it, fine--they’re more about slapping a momentary pause-button on a battle or detoggling an annoying power than locking down a spawn. Just those three would go a long, long way to making Mercs a whole lot better without cutting into their style. I wouldn’t say no to some raw damage buffs for the Soldiers and Spec Ops either, especially if changing the animations wasn’t an option.