TheSpiritFox

There is no MM that would make a good afk farmer. Pets go too far away, dead. Pets not being supported by support set? Dead. Most MM sets won't survive in a farm unless the farm is a normal like 1 group at a time outdoor map or you're not running at max (and why farm at all if you're not running at max?)

The best merc build is post a suggestions thread a day until they buff mercs I'll get back to you after that.

Bonfire can make a ton of survivability difference for your pets. Sometimes it hits every single person in the spawn, sometimes only half, but that's a solid 3 seconds usually of no damage incoming from everyone flipping on their back. Sudden acceleration turns it into a reliable if unpredictable hard control for groups. It always hits some of them, and enemies not attacking are just enemies not attacking. Char is actually a great mule for damage procs. 1 acc 5 damage procs and with a high recharge build the procs often have a 90% proc rate, letting you do like upwards of 600 damage with char potentially. My demons/dark took the fire pool up to rise of the nix for moments where I cascade and char is loaded with procs as a random extra damage attack that like can finish off a boss pretty well sometimes.

This seems to mostly happen to thugs, but I've seen it happen on Demons. Most common offender is summoning pets before entering the Time Gladiator part of SBB, sometimes your pets run up through the walls and don't come back for a few minutes or until death. I've literally started taking self destruct on all my MMs because its the one way to clean slate yourself if your pets run off and refuse to be resummoned. But yeah elevators still fuck with Pet AI if you go too fast for them to keep up. Weird shit starts happening.

Bonfire from the fire pool, an immob of which there are many that would work. Those are the main ones. I would say given your set and that bonfire matches you can't really get much better than a power that you can literally leave at the default slot, drop in a sudden acceleration, and its already awesome.

My tier list of what I'd enjoy playing with a zombies is probably thermal=nature>Dark>elec>everything else

If you use goto commands its pretty easy to keep demons in the cage, and with a decent bit of recharge you can move the cage around all over the place. Demons will be a much, much happier overall set.

Musculature core is the overall best choice for MMs, with the only exceptions being if you need to fix a hole in your build. Degenerative or Reactive interface are both solid for all ATs. The thing about MMs is they are the ONE class I would say it is worth taking radial interfaces. Why? Because of the number of attacks. Normally, you want core for most classes so you can actually stack the debuffs on things, a 25% chance to cast debuff is low for like a blaster firing one attack at a time. With pets, that 25% chance gets multiplied by 6 pets plus any personal damage powers you use, including on some sets a bunch of aoe. That adds up to alot of extra damage from the extra damage on interfaces, while still being easily able to stack the debuffs especially on a single target. Judgement, Ion is just the best, use something else if you wanna, its not that big a deal. Destiny, use what you want, but generally speaking either ageless for endurance issues if you have them, or barrier which gives your pets even more survivability. Lore, again, pick what you want. Lore pets got buffs. Banished Pantheon are solid aoe pets, Longbow gives you a solid amount of -regen for AVs, other than that all lores are pretty solid. Hybrid, support core is the only one that's really that solid. Control doesn't benefit much, we aren't a control heavy class. Assault only works with pets if you activate it THEN summon your pets, which means it sucks for upkeep and you lose part of its benefit while you summon and buff. Melee works just fine, but the chances of you significantly holding aggro enough to NEED melee hybrid are low to none, even with provoke from the presence pool, you're not going to hold the aggro of the entire group and you don't need melee core to just tank bosses.

1) Here's all the binds you actually need functionally speaking /bind q "petcom_all aggressive$$petcom_all goto" /bind e "petcom_all defensive$$petcom_all goto" /bind r "petcom_all defensive$$petcom_all follow /bind mbutton "petcom_all attack" /bind shift+mbutton "petcom_all stay" That's literally it. Those are my binds for all my MMs and it works like gang busters. If the pets are in defensive, you input stay goto or follow orders, and you are in supremacy range, you're in bodyguard. Aggressive or passive stances or attack target orders remove bodyguard for all pets under those orders. Goto is awesome. Use it. Its behavior got modified by the homecoming devs to be functionally perfect. Pets stay within 30 feet of your goto pin and attack targets by priority of threat level > distance the enemy is from the goto pin. You can give orders while casting powers, pet commands are separate from power executions. Only mez, dead, or "only affecting self" stops you from ordering pets around. 2) Thugs/traps, Thugs/Time, Thugs/Cold, Demons/Elec, Demons/Nature, Demons/Thermal are your best overall followups to thugs/ff. Similar survivability, more offensive or even stronger defensive depending on the set. 3) Kin sucks for MMs with one sole exception. Kin buffs mostly do not benefit mm pets much, but Beast/Kin is an outlier because kin provides little defenses to your pets, but beasts can softcap themselves. In order to softcap themselves beasts have to sacrifice a damage buff and crits. Fulcrum shift from /kin more than compensates for the loss of damage and crits with a good build and so you can have your pets be both strong defensively and offensively. 4) No idea. 5) Dual box farming works better with 2 farmers than anything else. When I dual box I have a rad fire I play and a spines fire with burn on autocast following me around. Doubles up aggro I can maintain helping clear times, adds damage which helps clear times.

My demons/elec took heat mastery because without demons doing KB its godly as hell. I would really like bots to not do KB at all. Like I get that KB is a thing and thats the intended design, but needing to use a sudden acceleration in at least your minions and your assault bot, or needing to take mu for -kb in the immob honestly sucks. But with bots/elec unless you slot sudden accelerations bonfire is going to be a sub optimal choice and so will scorp, as you genuinely need the immob and mus got the only one that keeps things from being knocked around.

Not using Hell on Earth as a mule generally is a bad idea. You don't get much out of slotting it with like damage sets. And you can lose alot of good bonuses frankenslotting your pets. Recharge is important to mastermind builds. Your secondary keeps your pets alive, and the faster your secondary recharges the more benefit you can get from it. Thermal has some long recharging debuffs and you ideally want to be able to spam your AOE heal when needed, as a resistance based set is going to take more small chunks of damage vs a defense set where your pets get missed a ton then taken nearly to dead when they do take a hit. I would say this build is overall bad. Demon prince at 75% damage, 45% accuracy is bad. Only the T1 minions are damage capped in exchange for putting more damage into hell on earth. That's a bad slotting choice. Looking at this build, they made some choices that are utterly nonsensical. 2 slots of Mark of Sup for 4% damage boost? Thats utterly useless. The thing about Masterminds is the two most important values you enhance directly are pet accuracy and pet damage. Only your T3 is the same level as you, so the rest absolutely need the accuracy if you intend to fight more than even level enemies ever. Even then, only 45% accuracy for the demon prince is not great at all. Purples will be missed alot, melt armor has a decently long recharge and isn't going to be something you can spam to make sure all enemies are always defense debuffed, this build is far from ideal. You would overall be much better off using hell on earth to mule pet auras and making sure your minions are as close to 99% enhancement for acc and damage as you can possibly get. There aren't that many ways for you to increase your pets damage without teammate buffs. Same reason musculature is the default alpha for masterminds, because you overall get more mileage out of a damage boost than you get out of anything else when you can use IOs to take care of most of those other issues that aren't increasing your pet's damage. Hell on earth is good, but its not amazing. The mini imps can die pretty easily and are not a reliable source of damage as you have zero control over them. All together they do add some significant DPS to a single target, but not as much as reliably maximizing your main pets damage gets you, and hell on earth needs a pretty insane amount of recharge (more than this build has, more than most have) to be perma and because the little pets die and don't even show up on your pet window, you have no way to actively monitor how many of the imps have spawned or are currently up and doing damage. Not worth it really to heavily invest in enhancing the damage for Hell on Earth, it also does not enhance the damage boost given to the minion you use it on.

Also not taking cutting beam it really does suck ass.

Damn thats really solid. I might just have to second spec it and make this the second spec (because honestly doing a respec and sorting out my enhancements sounds like more effort than just buying a whole second spec for a blaster for no particular reason when I've got a few billion laying around useless)

Alright. I built this out as best I could. I ended up nearly 8 defense shy of the softcap for ranged, which is well shy of where I hoped to be pre-incarnates. I'd like someone who knows the enhancement system to look this over and tell me what I'm missing, what I might consider sacrificing or how I might alter this to get it to the ranged defense cap sacrificing as little else about the build as possible. It does pretty well overall, its highly single target nature except for the nuke and like toe bombing lends it to not drawing super serious aggro most of the time, and I don't solo with blasters except for like Burden of the Past for incarnate mats. Talk to me about Beam/devices. I built this before I had much experience with the build, so I don't honestly know where I could pull slots from or how I could remake this so that it's at the ranged softcap without sacrificing much to do it, or if that's possible and if really I just made a solid build that's more damage than defense focused. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.1.25 https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Natural Blaster Primary Power Set: Beam Rifle Secondary Power Set: Devices Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Sorcery Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leaping Ancillary Pool: Flame Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Charged Shot -- SprWntBit-Rchg/SlowProc(A), SprWntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(7), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg(7), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34) Level 1: Toxic Web Grenade -- Acc-I(A) Level 2: Caltrops -- Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(A), OvrFrc-Dam/KB(9) Level 4: Super Speed -- Clr-Stlth(A), Clr-RunSpd(31) Level 6: Disintegrate -- SprBlsWrt-Rchg/Dmg%(A), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg(11), SprBlsWrt-Dmg/Rchg(13), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15) Level 8: Mystic Flight -- BlsoftheZ-Travel(A), BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(11), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(17) Level 10: Targeting Drone -- GssSynFr--Build%(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(19) Level 12: Lancer Shot -- Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Thn-Acc/Dmg(19), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx(21), Thn-Dmg/Rchg(21), Thn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23) Level 14: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 16: Smoke Grenade -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(A), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb(17), DarWtcDsp-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(25), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/Rchg(46) Level 18: Penetrating Ray -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Apc-Dmg(27), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Apc-Acc/Rchg(29) Level 20: Field Operative -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(45), Ksm-ToHit+(46), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(50) Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25) Level 24: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 26: Piercing Beam -- Artl-End/Rech/Rng(A), Artl-Acc/Dam(36), Artl-Dam/End(37), Artl-Dam/Rech(37), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(37), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(40) Level 28: Trip Mine -- Arm-Dam%(A), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Arm-Acc/Rchg(43), Arm-Dmg(45), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(45) Level 30: Tough -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A), UnbGrd-ResDam(31), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(31), GldArm-3defTpProc(46), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(50) Level 32: Overcharge -- SprDfnBrr-Rchg/+Status Protect(A), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg(33), SprDfnBrr-Dmg/Rchg(33), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34) Level 35: Bonfire -- SuddAcc--KB/+KD(A), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(36), EndRdx-I(36) Level 38: Gun Drone -- CaltoArm-Acc/Dmg(A), CaltoArm-Dmg/EndRdx(39), CaltoArm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), CaltoArm-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(39), GldJvl-Dam%(40), GldJvl-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech(40) Level 41: Fire Shield -- UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(A), UnbGrd-ResDam(42), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(42), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(42) Level 44: Rise of the Phoenix -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 47: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(48), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(48), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(48) Level 49: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Defiance Level 1: Quick Form Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Mrc-Rcvry+(5) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(3), PrfShf-EndMod(3), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(5) ------------

0/10 Fire blaster with no inferno.

I've been told that debuffs can stack from different sources. Like, if two people have acid mortars out, double the debuff. And the same way, if YOU have two acid mortars out, the debuffs stack. That a single acid mortar refreshes the debuff, but if you have the recharge to have two mortars out each one counts as it's own source of debuff and so you can stack acid mortar debuffs from yourself if you can stack acid mortars. Same way that if both your seekers detonate on a target, they get a double debuff because each seeker counts as it's own source. Incarnates are an exception, where you can only have a certain amount of incarnate debuffs from say interface on a target no matter how many sources, but that like the entire reason AVs have massive debuff resistance is to account for a team debuffing them. :Edit: Yep. Went and tested it on PI DE monsters. Two acid mortars down and power analyzer shows 2x -26% resistance debuffs on it. So recharge with traps is SUUUUUPER worth it because there is literally nothing else in the game that can stack -resistance like a /traps properly built can. It not only enhances all your pet damage, it's a force multiplier for anyone on the team. Besides poison trap, this is one of the reasons /traps absolutely melts AVs, if you get lucky with both your achilles and annihilation procs (both of which you can fit into a traps build) you can stack more than -80% resistance on a single target, which is insane. The max debuffs you can stack on a single target with traps should be something like -90% resistance -50% defense -10% tohit -40% damage -1000% regen With the right build all of those debuffs would be close to perma on like an AV. Recharge benefits traps insanely.

The pets are the one area I disagree. Investing a ton into pet powers should have returns in all content and the pets squish absurdly easily. I personally think the defenses as they work are fine, but I think that crab pets need upwards of 50% resistance to all damage like the gun drone for blaster devices got 80 goddamn percent resistance to all damage. Granted, blasters can't defense buff their gun drone, but hey what's why innate 50% resistance instead of 80%. Crabs themselves I agree. I would like to see maybe like a 10% bump in damage on suppression just to make it a bit better DPA, but even that's just a "it would be nice" The pets though? It really sucks to take them into an i-trial and realize that there's pretty much zero point in summoning them at all. Give the pets an innate 50% resistance, remove all melee attacks and make them all ranged only, and crab pets will suddenly be awesome without I think being in any way actually unbalanced. Keep the DPS the same, just make it ranged and give them resistance.

I took suppression on my crabbermind. No regrets. No it's not a great DPA attack, but that's mostly because of the cast time, it does halfway decent damage, hits a ton of targets, and is the largest cone attack in the game which can have it's range extended. Suppression for me is there to add on damage while my grenades are recharging. Venom grenade, frag grenade, suppression makes for almost a seamless aoe chain with recharge. At low levels, I fill in with the single target crab attacks, at high levels I have gloom which is awesome damage on it's own. And honestly, I love the animation and the range. Sure, it's not the highest damage attack you've got, but it is an attack that can hit every single thing in the spawn, which is really useful in it's own way. Suppression is there to finish off minions, once most of the mobs are dead, I switch to just grenades and single target attacks. Suppression for me is satisfying to use, because I like seeing 16 sets of orange numbers rising all at the same time.

Here's my Bots/Traps build. Its a spare no expense build, fair warning. But bots/traps honestly needs it. If you want to invest, this is a good starting point for you to look at. Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.1.25 https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Science Mastermind Primary Power Set: Robotics Secondary Power Set: Traps Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Medicine Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Leaping Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Battle Drones -- SprCmmoft-Acc/Dmg(A), SprCmmoft-Dmg/EndRdx(3), SprCmmoft-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), SprCmmoft-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), EdcoftheM-PetDef(5), CaltoArm-+Def(Pets)(7) Level 1: Web Grenade -- Acc-I(A), Immob-I(50), Immob-I(50) Level 2: Caltrops -- Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(A), PstBls-Dam%(7), Ann-ResDeb%(9), ImpSwf-Dam%(9), JvlVll-Dam%(11), EndRdx-I(11) Level 4: Triage Beacon -- Pnc-Heal(A), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux(13), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg(13), Pnc-Heal/Rchg(15), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(15), Prv-Absorb%(17) Level 6: Equip Robot -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 8: Super Speed -- Clr-EndRdx(A), Clr-RunSpd(17), Clr-Stlth(19) Level 10: Acid Mortar -- Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Rgn-Dmg(19), Rgn-Acc/Rchg(21), Rgn-Dmg/Rchg(21), Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(23) Level 12: Protector Bots -- SprMarofS-EndRdx/+Resist/+Regen(A), SprMarofS-Acc/Dmg(25), HO:Nucle(25), HO:Nucle(27), DefBuff-I(27), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(29) Level 14: Aid Other -- Pnc-Heal(A), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux(33), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg(33), Pnc-Heal/Rchg(34), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(34) Level 16: Force Field Generator -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), DefBuff-I(34), DefBuff-I(36), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(36), Rct-ResDam%(43) Level 18: Aid Self -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(48) Level 20: Poison Trap -- UnbCns-Dam%(A), UnbCns-Hold(36), UnbCns-Hold/Rchg(37), UnbCns-Acc/Hold/Rchg(37), UnbCns-EndRdx/Hold(37), GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(39) Level 22: Field Medic -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 24: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(48) Level 26: Assault Bot -- SprMarofS-Dmg(A), SprMarofS-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(29), SprMarofS-Acc/EndRdx(31), SlbAll-Build%(31), SuddAcc--KB/+KD(31), HO:Nucle(33) Level 28: Seeker Drones -- CldSns-%Dam(A), CldSns-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(46), CldSns-Acc/Rchg(46), CldSns-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(46) Level 30: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(39) Level 32: Upgrade Robot -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 35: Charged Armor -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(39), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(40), GldArm-3defTpProc(40) Level 38: Tactics -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(40) Level 41: Electrifying Fences -- GrvAnc-Immob(A), GrvAnc-Immob/Rchg(42), GrvAnc-Acc/Immob/Rchg(42), GrvAnc-Acc/Rchg(42), GrvAnc-Immob/EndRdx(43) Level 44: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(48) Level 47: Vengeance -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 49: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 1: Supremacy Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(43) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(45), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(45), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(45) Level 1: Battle Drone Level 12: Protector Bot Level 26: Assault Bot ------------

My favorite blaster rn is DP/Mental Between drain psyche, psychic scream, the PBAOE nuke and other AOEs of DP, i made a hover blaster with bonfire designed to bonfire a group, hit the pbaoes, and then hover up to shoot down then hover back down to drop more PBAOEs. Like, it is a blaster designed to play in melee a good bit. I got it as close to the ranged softcap as possible for hover blasting and use CC to protect myself in melee, but I do my best damage either in melee or close ranged but not actually in melee to use my cone attack.

This is me. I don't care about this topic in the slightest personally because I am still however many years later thankful I do not have to individually buff 6 pets twice.

So whats going on with this? I heard some rumors about mastermind changes in the works. Really want the pet IOs to stop being necessary so I can make more Bots and Beasts, really want ninjas and mercs to not suck.

Raise the damn damage cap. It is absolute fucking absurd that my PB can damage cap ITSELF almost PERMANENTLY just with perma inner light. It is absurd that on any high level team I cannot begin to benefit from shit like fulcrum shift. Also, photon seekers are dogshit, just straight up replace the power with something else.

lol Yeah that

Enforcers are actually one of the good spots to slot gaussians because it has a chance to proc based on everything affected by maneuvers. Even with just pets and you, that's alot of proc chances and alot of uptime.