TheSpiritFox

Bots/nature is the weakest of the three pairings. Decent AOE damage, fairly weak single target, and weaker on higher level content due to the mishmash of defensive types that don't excel super well in any one area. Necro/Nature comes next. Sturdier than bots/nature overall it still has the weakness of being a melee set. Being able to slot all the pet uniques in the build helps alot, lifedrain from the pets helps alot, and soul extraction helps a good bit too. Good damage overall, strong contender, can handle +4 content but expect alot of pet resummons and for killing time to be slow. Patchy resistances mean patchy defensive performance against different enemy types. Demons/Nature is the best (alongside Mercs/Nature). Solid AOE and single target, natural resistances+ all pet uniques make this set combo tough as hell with all the nature buffs added on top of it. Have soloed the ITF at +2 with this build. It has the flexibility to be an absolute monster. All do decently well solo as noted above. All do well in groups with the exception that zombies definitely feel slow following teams even compared to the rest of MM pets and demons continue to be too goddamn fat.

Just make the power change its scaling based on level. Until 20 they scale like low tier. 20 to 35 they scale like mid tier, 35-50 they scale like high tier. You know make the aoes kinda mini nukes but account for how spammable they are so its like T 7 and 8, not T9 level scaling. I sincerely, however, think that the damage bonus limits need a look too. I dont have WS experience, I prefer the more independent paladin-y nature of the PB, but my PB regularly damage caps itself with just a little help from team bonuses. Thats absurd. In most 50 level content fulcrum shift is completely irrelevant to me. That's flat out unfair. Every other AT benefits from it but me. Almost every other power set besides mine loves fulcrum shift. I just cry because now the defender is out damaging me.

IMO Thugs. Ranged just generally does better than melee with MM pets. If you want to go melee, sure, its still very playable, its just baseline lower overall performance both offensively and defensively. Melee pets are much more likely to get targeted and focused down while running in and such. Six ranged pets opening up on a group provide shall we say a bit more "diffusion of responsibility" for the alpha lol. Maintain dps better too just by virtue of often not having to move or pause switching targets. So with the ranged you've got bots, thugs, and mercs. Neither bots nor mercs has a mule power for pet uniques, and mercs is weaker defensively providing no defensive buffs to the master besides bodyguard vs leadership and pbot bubble applying to the MM. You kinda want as many uniques as you can get because Marine is layers, not something that just like boosts your resistance a ton or lets you softcap your pet defenses. Thugs just work well with the design. They do better at mid range-melee, the bruiser is an ideal focus for shifting tides, thugs procs well while still being strong defensively, double leadership helps ease slotting burdens in the primary compared to other sets. You'll be tougher and do more damage than bots/marine and tougher than mercs/marine except for the first like 10 seconds of serum.

Its my experience that neither one tends to draw aggro unless youre running into groups stealthed in front of your pets. Its pretty rare for me to lose those to enemies, more common for them to just run out of duration and have to be resummoned. And the summons are instant cast, faster even than pet resummons, so like if your ffgen takes the alpha thats pretty close to just free HP you just gained. The problem with marine is its complete vulnerability to Mez. FFgen provides some good mez protection against the biggest ones and time just provides enough slow, -tohit, and defense to stop alot of mez from landing in the first place, and its big buffs being long duration click buffs also makes it generally less vulnerable to mez.

See, I like not resetting their aggro list so that if there's a runner they take off after him once the nearbys are dead

Switching to defensive seems to do the targeting reset. Like if you switch to defensive it takes 5 seconds before they will aquire targets even if you switch back to aggressive. However, if they've been in defensive for 10 seconds, you can then switch to aggressive and they will immediately aquire targets if targets are in range. So like, defensive follow after a group to reset, and then by the time you get to the next group you can aggressive or defensive goto to start that group depending on if youre taking an alpha or not. Theres almost no reason to ever use passive in a combat situation. Repeated defensive goto/follow commands will override other actions to recall pets and do so without breaking bodyguard.

Whoever just got 200 mil for 20 enh boosters, you're welcome lol If you see this don't worry about it I have tens of billions more than I need

Bind breaks it but just typing it into chat to enter it immediately works. Macros you have to enter perfectly the first time, they cannot be corrected without breaking for some reason, so if you get a macro wrong you gotta fix it and try to remake it.

I use the following, binds rather than macros because they're the exact same across all masterminds. /bind Q "Petcom_all aggressive goto" /bind E "Petcom_all defensive goto" /bind R "petcom_all defensive follow" /bind lshift+R "petcom_all aggressive follow" /bind mbutton "petcom_all attack" /bind lshift+mbutton "petcom_all stay" Thats everything I need to control pretty much any MM. I've got both aggressive and defensive goto so I can bodyguard or blast away as needed, defensive follow is my reset button after a fight to go to the next group, aggressive follow is for specific situations (like mastermind monday when you really just need to let the pets do their thing) Middle mouse lets me focus fire on a single target and shift middle mouse makes them stay which lets me control damage patch reactions and keep them from scattering. I also keep my pet window set on advanced controls. If I need to flip them into passive, I use that.

I would love an explanation of how Time w/ clarion outperforms traps with Bots because absent a generic IO build without perma hasten I dont see how that's remotely possible on standard enemy groups much less hard targets like AVs/GMs.

This imo is the ideal slotting. Basic thugs get 2 sets that provide 2 10% recharge bonuses, has both of the uniques from the sets, and hits close to 95% acc/dam enh. Enforcers I need to get the hamis to 53 (just havent spent the money yet) but those provide just base like 95% acc/dam. Then, enforcers have 4 -def attacks that can proc both of those procs, then a little defense enhancement and a LOTG slot filled. Gang war is just recharge to get it up and 4 uniques slotted. Gang war doesn't add all that much, its mostly just chaos and extra HP and targets. Its honestly imo more of a flavor power than something you take because its effective. You take it cause it mules stuff and because its funny to run around with 16-26 pets following you. And then bruiser gets 4 pieces of pet set, an acc/dam to round out the stats, and soulbound because it procs constantly and considering the damage the bruiser can do it can add some nice punch to some of his attacks But an overwhelming force would also be a good choice, adding chance to knockdown to everything he does. Explosive strike can add damage to a fair few of his attacks that already have knockdown.

So my build basically swap assault and photon grenade, then go aid pool for your 3 slots. 5 slot aid other, the rest just need the one slot, put some slots into photon grenade. I used pulse rifle blast and photon grenade to get 2 purple set 10% recharge bonuses in, my primary gave me my max of 5 with frankenslotting the other. This gives you an idea.

Yeah that the epic hold set for the recharge. My brain isnt great at names

You dont need triage beacon, caltrops procs probably better elsewhere, there is literally zero reason to take fighting pool on bots/traps you should be close to the softcap with proper slotting just from FFgen, maneuvers, hover/CJ, and pbot bubble. Dont take maneuvers that early, take poison trap as soon as its available and 5 slot it with gravitational anchor, Consider replacing fighting pool and triage beacon with aid pool for heal other and field medic (you will get way more mileage out of healbot+aid pool) and take photon grenade. You need to understand,..,poison trap is -1000% Regen. Base. Just like no enhancements involved. With two bots attacks you can drop AVs and Giant Monsters down to 0% regen. And solo them. Seekers to take alpha, poison trap to hold mobs, acid mortar, caltrops, and the bots should have opened up in defensive mode by then. You can wreck some pretty high level content if you build it right

Nature has 3 longer term buffs all of which benefit alot from power boost. Even more resistance, even more absorb, I'm not sure if power boost affects the damage bonus from the nature T9, but it would definitely boost the endurance reduction, with two powers you can pretty much eliminate everyone on a team/leagues endurance use lol. With a perma hasten build power boost would be up every single time your big buffs are, and would be a solid power pick particularly for an MM who uses support powers more than anyone else besides defenders, generally.