TheSpiritFox

I love the changes to masterminds. Demons are very glad for the cast time reduction, everyone is glad for the easier resummoning. One thing, cause I see it repeatedly pop up. Please do not make upgrades automatic. Upgrading resummons in combat is part of the mastermind experience and should not be changed.

No. I like these changes alot and I like buffing the way it is. With this change, resummoning pets is now simple as hell, making the buffs be auto removes an aspect of pet management that's actually meaningful in fights, and masterminds should not be able to just replace their pets like it's absolutely nothing. Masterminds need buffs, but making the pet upgrades auto isn't just quality of life, it's removing something fundamental about the feel of the AT that's been there since launch.

Nope. Achilles will only stack once on any given mob from what I understand. Like, only one person, pet, anything can drop an achilles buff, but different resistance procs stack on each other. However, slotting them in all of them highly increases the chances of proccing achilles on everything, and multiple applications continually refresh the debuff so it just doesn't go away. I would say slot one in the soldiers and save room in other pets for other things. Like you'd get way, way more mileage out of 1 proc in soldiers and then 2 pet defense auras in the other two, compared to 3 achilles.

Pets accept buffs for damage, accuracy, defense, resistance. I do not know if they take recovery buffs, but I have not ever seen pets actually seem to be affected by running out of endurance. It seems like they just oom and fight anyway, and I don't know that anyone has extensively tested like the effects of pets being denied endurance and how bad it has to be before they like stop attacking. I've never seen my pets drained to empty in a yin stop fighting even when I sat there unable to cast for a solid 10 seconds waiting for a debuff to fall off after multiple rezzes stacked to drain the entire team. Recharge does not affect pets at all, but that sword is double edged. You cannot buff their recharge, but neither can enemies debuff their recharge. And yeah, while radiation infection is a great single debuff, it cannot match stacking -tohit from dark with pretty much all of it's powers. Even the heal stacks tohit and regeneration debuff on a target. And the size difference is massive. 15 vs 25 feet is more than double the area covered. It makes a huge difference to pet survivability.

Alright necro rad breakdown. First, rad is pretty much entirely dependent on it's toggle debuffs. When those are up, spawns are neutered. When those are not up, you are neutered. Rad is I would say an average to below average MM set because it offers no direct buffs to pet survivability, no real controls to help mitigate damage, etc. If you wanted to upgrade it, do zombies/dark and color it something more plague colored than black tbh. But assuming you're carrying forward, lets see. First, you want to 6 slot your pets and soul extraction. The MM attacks you probably want to take a max of 1, they aren't very good overall. Your upgrades are fine at their default slot just throw end redux at it and forget about it. How would I slot them? If I'm going for like ideal what would be a finished build Zombies 2 superior mark of supremacy (10% recharge) 4 superior command of the mastermind (10% recharge) and both of the pet auras from those two sets also in zombies Grave knights, 3 hami acc/dam, 3 procs Soul extraction: The other 4 pet auras, 2 acc/dam hamis Lich 4 pieces superior mark of supremacy, clouded senses proc, probably a hami acc/dam to round it out, though if accuracy is good a damage/mez helps more. Playing this combo is going to be about a delicate balance of letting the pets tank for you so that you do not get mezzed and have your toggles drop, but also still casting your debuffs as soon as the fight starts so that the alpha is debuffed. You have no mez protection or native defenses of your own with this set combo so if stuff looks at you for an extended period of time you're probably gonna get mezzed, drop toggles, and die. The fire epic pool and bonfire + Rise of the Nix are your friend, expect to die sometimes when things go wrong. Commands? I have a simple set for you /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" So here's the basics. Pets have three stances. Aggressive, defensive, passive. In passive mode they are basically just there. They do not attack or defend, useful for running through things without them aggroing to things, though things will still aggro to them. In aggressive mode, they attack anything in aggro range. In defensive mode, they attack when you or they are attacked, and defensive mode enables bodyguard. Then there's the commands. Attack, goto, stay, follow. Pretty self explanatory, but lets talk about goto a second. Goto puts a pin where you click which pets run to and then attempt to stay within about 30 feet of that spot, attacking things with priority order of highest on aggro table, then proximity to the invisible goto pin you place wherever. Bodyguard mode is how you don't get one shot as an MM. If pets are in defensive mode and follow, stay, or goto orders, as well as close enough to you to be in supremacy range, they split damage with you. You get 2 parts, each living pet in bodyguard mode gets 1 part. 1 pet alive, 33% damage reduction to you. 6 pets alive, 75% damage reduction to you. Supremacy if you don't know is a buff masterminds give their pets by existing. All pets, of any kind. Damage and tohit buff, so that if you're an MM even like random pet powers, lore pets, all of them do more damage than for any other class, and are more accurate. Its like 40 foot range that pets have to be inside. Now how would say zombies/dark be better than zombies/rad here? Zombies dark gives group stealth, gives a bit of defense and resistance to your pets. Debuffs absolutely absurd amounts of tohit to the point of being able to softcap your pets with just -tohit once you have the dark servant and are slotted out. Its heal is much overall better than rads. It has solid debuffs, hitting accuracy, damage, and resistance of enemies. It has several powers that are decent but situational enough to skip, black hole being the primary example. Intangible will piss your teammates off to no end if used at the wrong time, but will absolutely save your ass when you watch your pets wipe and drop a black hole before it all turns on you and calmly resummon while mobs wait to be able to touch you again. Great solo power for emergencies. Still took bonfire and rise of the phoenix with my demons/dark though lol. Are you thrusting yourself into a world of hurt? I mean, not really. Its definitely not an MM powergaming combo. But rad is a solid ass support set and even if you're not like burning down groups, you can contribute. Zombies are a controllery primary and rad is absolutely a controllery secondary, so play like a controller. Support, mez things, send your zombies to all attack the boss attacking a blaster, stuff like that. I won't lie though, end game content is not going to be a picnic at times. Incarnate content in particular you're going to want to stick to a group and not wander off alone. Find a scrapper to follow around or something. Neuter his targets and give him buffs. People will like you.

Two suggested paths for demons/dark 1) Take fire epic for bonfire and rise of the phoenix. Stack recharge and endurance reduction in set bonuses like there is no tomorrow. This is because demons/dark depends on its debuffs and it's heals to survive. The heal has to target an enemy and has a 5% miss chance that cannot be erased, so once in a while a clutch heal simply will not go off and you will die. Same way, sometimes your debuff anchor just goes running, suddenly all the undebuffed mobs eat you for lunch. Being able to rez yourself once every 2 minutes means even in the hardest content, who cares. Death is a speed bump. 2) Build your sets around your personal defenses, particularly around ranged and melee defense, consider taking provoke, do whatever else you want. Demons/dark is actually one of what I consider the few "good" tankerminds. The debuffs you throw out help add to your defenses, letting you potentially softcap yourself without actually softcapping yourself. Provoke is for bosses on up, you stand there with pets in bodyguard mode, taunt hard targets, take sorcery pool for the mez protection button, and use your heals and dark powers to stay alive and significantly lower the incoming damage on your pets and yourself. If you wanted to try any others, thugs/time, thugs/traps, thugs/cold, demons/elec, demons/nature, zombies elec, dark, or nature. All of them are powerhouses in their own way. If you want an MM that's a smooth ride to 50, those are the sets I would start looking at if you decide you're not a fan of how active demons dark is (toggle management is and always has been something of a pain)

I generally open up in defensive mode and switch to offensive as soon as everything is attacking the pets instead of me, especially in groups where other players can also be aggroing enemies. Solo I stay in defensive more, stuff tends to keep attacking. I would say don't focus on the hard targets until the end most of the time. I don't tend to like burn down bosses until most or all of the other mobs are dead. Early in the fight, with more enemies up, giving up bodyguard can easily get you killed with random aoe attacks and such.

Musculature is the best alpha. Limited ways to increase pet damage and you can easily build demons/nature to not need endurance especially at high levels. Just put a shitload of recharge in the build and perma your T9 power and you have a permanent 50% endurance discount. Increasing like resistance can help a bit, increasing healing can help a bit, but really if you want the best bang for your buck with an alpha, get musc core and just boost your demons damage as high as you possibly can. Nature slotted correctly can take care of the rest. Support hybrid is the default, but nature actually can get a little mileage out of control hybrid. If you use the aoe hold power, control hybrid can give it the ability to hold bosses sometimes. Melee hybrid, well as a nature you don't want to be tanking personally you want the demons to do it anyway so no. Assault is just a pain in the ass to use, you have to summon pets with it on for it to work on them, losing some of the timer on your incarnate to summons and having to basically be ready to summon and fight asap which isn't really ideal.

I just bound goto commands to q and e so i hit one of those then click where I want them and pets move. Its pretty simple.

Do you not know a shitpost when you see one? Nah the honest answer is I am so used to the rhythm of playing through areas with lots of PPs and how it affects groups that it's something familiar and nostalgic about the game and I don't want it changed for the sake of efficiency and some people's boredom. See also Also I have characters that can effectively burst down PPs and prevent mog and not everyone can do that and it's fun to be special. Its a thing I can like consider when building a character.

I've been suffering this for as long as it's existed you can all suffer alongside me as i have long since stopped caring. Pay your dues, wait out MOG :Edit: But I am really enjoying how thoroughly some of you rationalize never having to Wait For Things.

/Dark is strong without being "tanky" and that's due, similarly to /rad, the unreliability of toggle debuffs and requiring anchors. Dark when it goes off perfect is very tanky, but it can cascade super easily if your anchor dies or just runs away from the group leaving lots undebuffed. Its a much more active and "controller-y" set as opposed to a tanky set like /elec which you stand in one place and mindlessly cycle 3 powers and are an immortal god.

I went with leaping, speed, tp for TP friend, leadership, and fire mastery for bonfire. Thugs/time works better as a pet tank than a tankermind due to the complete lack of any form of mez resist or protection, if stuffs attacking you times juncture is getting detoggled.

The overall 3 tankiest MMs you can make are probably Demons/elec, demons/nature, and demons/thermal in that order. Thugs/time is a contender for tankiest. If you wanna avoid healing your pets you're walking away from tanky. Cold, sonic, etc are good sets, but they aren't as pet tanky as sets with solid aoe heals.

Nope. The location command is powexec_location, a specific command with a location component. The pet comand is just petcom, there is no petcom_location, so there's no pet command that accepts a location as part of the string.

Traps is better off built for high recharge. Two acid mortars out for -40% resistance adds more damage than damage procs on one acid mortar considering that traps procs will never come close to outpacing your pet damage. Most of the powers are average or worse for procs. Caltrops isn't terrible but isn't great, acid mortar is meh, poison trap is decent, web grenade is terrible. And yea the panacea proc is personal. Its like your own little emergency absorb, it triggers when your health is low. Saved my ass quite a few times and its completely independent of triage beacon, just that's a great spot to put it.

Oh yeah bots/forcefields were an absolute nightmare at lauch. It was one of the sets motivating them to change how buffing worked, because bot/ff was supposed to be a flagship like these sets were made for each other power combo and it was functionally one of the most nightmarish masterminds to play. Endless bubble spam. Just permanent never sure whats wearing off of who too many buff targets to track with no indicators for anything so you just spam bubbles all day every day and bots FF had major end problems because of it. You had to summon your bots upon entering every mission. Bots/ff could not get fully set up without a solid minute and at least one blue inspiration. Stamina was not inherent.

Farming for drops is just kinda a waste of time. The lost influence difference doesn't make up for the difference in clear time and thus drop rate. You won't get so many drops per hour that you won't miss like 15m an hour in income from farming and there is kinda an effort breakpoint of like if you're farming lvl 50s for drops and having to blaze through a level as fast as humanly possible that's higher effort farming than just clearing a max level map at a good clear time and having influence accrue while you do it. AFK farming is kinda the rage which also tends towards highest level possible because then each individual enemy you afk through is worth more. But then I figured out converter crafting a while ago and I haven't logged into my farmer in like 3 months either lol

Alright. So details. With thugs? I would put the secondaries as follows. Traps = Time > Cold > Everything else. Traps is your offense set. It can softcap the pets and massively enhance the damage you and your team do. Time is the defensive set. Simple to use, easy to slot, and your thugs can eventually become pretty close to unkillable, but you do less damage and have less control than traps. Cold is like a mixture of the two sets. Time without a heal, traps but less offensive. Dark, nature, thermal, and storm can all go well with thugs but none of them are going to keep your thugs alive as well as traps, time, or cold in high level content. If you're slotting, its simple tbh. There are 6 pet unique auras. Thugs can fit them all and needs them all. You need a final powerset secondary choice to really talk too much about slotting but bottom line yeah slot for recharge and endurance recovery. Now specific questions - I never take the MM primary attacks. They add a small bit of damage but outside of using like empty clips to proc FF +recharge procs, I consider the MM attacks useless. Waste of slotting that can be better used for your support sets. You do not have enough slots to slot an attack chain, your pets, and your secondary anyway. - Lemme go pull my damn build. Hold on. 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! Jim Bob Duggar: Level 50 Natural Mastermind Primary Power Set: Thugs Secondary Power Set: Time Manipulation Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Teleportation Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Heat Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Call Thugs -- SprCmmoft-Acc/Dmg(A), SprCmmoft-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50), SprCmmoft-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(50), SprCmmoft-Rchg/PetAoEDef(50), SprMarofS-Acc/EndRdx(50), SprMarofS-EndRdx/+Resist/+Regen(50) Level 1: Time Crawl -- Acc-I(A) Level 2: Temporal Mending -- Pnc-Heal/EndRedux(A), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg(50), Pnc-Heal/Rchg(50), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(50), Pnc-Heal/+End(50) Level 4: Time's Juncture -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb(A), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/Rchg(50), DarWtcDsp-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(50), DarWtcDsp-Rchg/EndRdx(50), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(50), DarWtcDsp-Slow%(50) Level 6: Equip Thugs -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 8: Super Speed -- Clr-EndRdx(A), Clr-RunSpd(50), Clr-Stlth(50) Level 10: Temporal Selection -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 12: Call Enforcer -- HY:NeutP(A), HY:NeutP(50), HY:NeutP(50), ShlBrk-%Dam(50), TchofLadG-%Dam(50), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(50) Level 14: Recall Friend -- IntRdx-I(A) Level 16: Distortion Field -- GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(A), ImpSwf-Dam%(50), NrnSht-Dam%(50), Lck-%Hold(50), EndRdx-I(50), EndRdx-I(50) Level 18: Gang War -- CaltoArm-+Def(Pets)(A), ExpRnf-+Res(Pets)(50), EdcoftheM-PetDef(50), SvrRgh-PetResDam(50), RechRdx-I(50), RechRdx-I(50) Level 20: Super Jump -- BlsoftheZ-Travel(A), BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(50), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(50) Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50) Level 24: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(50), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50), LucoftheG-Def(50) Level 26: Call Bruiser -- SprMarofS-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), SprMarofS-Dmg/EndRdx(50), SprMarofS-Dmg(50), SprMarofS-Acc/Dmg(50), OvrFrc-Dam/KB(50), SlbAll-Build%(50) Level 28: Farsight -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(50), LucoftheG-EndRdx/Rchg(50), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50), LucoftheG-Def(50), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(50) Level 30: Burnout -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 32: Upgrade Equipment -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 35: Bonfire -- EndRdx-I(A), PstBls-Dam%(50), ExpStr-Dam%(50), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(50), Ann-ResDeb%(50), SuddAcc--KB/+KD(50) Level 38: Chrono Shift -- EffAdp-EndMod(A), EffAdp-EndMod/Rchg(50), EffAdp-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(50), EffAdp-Acc/Rchg(50), EffAdp-EndMod/Acc(50), EffAdp-EndMod/EndRdx(50) Level 41: Slowed Response -- AchHee-ResDeb%(A), ShlBrk-%Dam(50), ShlBrk-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(50), ShlBrk-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(50), ShlBrk-Acc/Rchg(50) Level 44: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(50) Level 47: Vengeance -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(50) Level 49: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 1: Punk Level 1: Arsonist 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 -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(50) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(50), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(50), PrfShf-End%(50) Level 12: Enforcer Level 26: Bruiser ------------ Here's a thugs/time for you to check out. This is about as solid a build as you can make out of this set, it pretty well chills in any content thats not a hami raid. I slotteed my pets in this about as best you possibly can for thugs. Minions - 2 pieces of one set 4 of another for 2 10% recharge Enforcers - 3 hamis, 2 damage procs, 1 lotg Bruiser - 4 pieces of the 2pc 10% bonus, OF kb->kd, soulbound buildup. - Depends on the sets you're using. Bottom line, with thugs you want softcapped defenses and heals more than anything else. Those plus the pet uniques you can keep them alive well. - Playstyle kinda depends a bit on secondary. Like, if you're playing thugs dark? You pull with your toggle debuff and send the thugs in at the same time. Time you send the thugs in and cast distortion field, then jump into melee once the thugs are being attacked and enemies won't focus you. Thugs/traps, you pull with seekers, send thugs in, start dropping traps starting with poison to hold everyone and lower incoming damage. Make a final choice on what exactly you're making and can break that specific mastermind down. - Bodyguard - If pets are in goto, stay, or follow orders and defensive mode, and those pets are also within supremacy range, 40' or closer to you, you are in bodyguard. Master gets 2 parts damage every active pet gets 1 part. 6 pets active, 75% damage reduction through splitting. 1 pet alive, 33% damage reduction. Attack orders, aggressive or passive stance those will cancel bodyguard mode. - The only IO bonuses that affect pets are the pet uniques. All of the rest only go to the master. Means defensive based set bonuses are very limited in use, your pets will have aggro over you unless you build entirely around tanking with like attacks and presence pool. Tankerminding sucks ass don't do it. - All you need to know about incarnates in one paragraph. Musculature is the only alpha unless you badly need to fill some hole in your build. Pet damage has limited ways to increase, just take musc alpha. Judgement - Pick whatever Ions still best. Interface - Same as literally any other toon with one consideration. You can just pick reactive or degen for resistance or -max hp. But unlike every single other AT in the game who picks the core version to stack debuffs, radial is a solid choice for you. Why? MMs throw out so goddamn many individual attacks, so many aoes and random shots at whatever, that it can easily be worth taking radial because every attack has a chance of proccing the debuff and the radial version will not only still stack debuffs on a single target but absolutely deluge enemies in little interface DoTs. Other classes can't stack the debuff with radial, MMs have enough attacks that it's still easy. Barrier core destiny, support hybrid, whatever lore you choose. You should be able to slot well enough to not need ageless for endurance. - Stealth is useful for the master. Keeps aggro on the pets. Lets you run past content and resummon dead minons for speeding. Commands! People link the num pad commands I think they suck mostly. Too many buttons for me. Here are mine. I use this on all MMs, it works on all of them well. /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 it. That's all you really need. Q moves thugs to a spot and they open up on everything. E moves thugs to a spot and you are in bodyguard if you are near them. R makes them follow you to wherever. Middle mouse focuses pets on an enemy to burn it down, losing you bodyguard. Shift middle mouse makes pets stand there and not run all over god's creation in response to damage patches laid down by certain enemies which still fuck up pet AI. A note about pet commands. Pet commands are essentially UI commands, not power executions. This means that pet commands and power executions do not cross over or interact in any way. You can cast a power and order your pets around all you want. When you switch stances there seems to be a 5 second delay before they'll start targeting things themselves. Using an attack command to get them started if you're safe to leave bodyguard can be a good idea. The only things which inhibit you from sending commands to your pets are mez, death, and "only affecting self" status that comes with like being made intangible or running afterburner or personal forcefield. If you are using the same command for example like they're in defensive, being attacked and attacking back, you can move them 15 feet with the defensive goto again and they'll just run and fight to the new location. You can pretty much just spam q and e to move pets where you want them to and either be in bodyguard or have them blasting everything nearby. In groups I often use aggressive goto and you can just move the marker you plant around and they'll follow it, attacking everything in range along the way. When you have a specific MM combo picked and are sure thats what you choose, I can give you more details about that specific combo. I build my MMs towards being able to survive in any content and around the idea that my pets are damage and tanking and I am a support character who keeps them alive. I max pet damage and survivability and focus on decreasing personal aggro such that bodyguard is often not needed and its mostly something I have them in when I go like drop a trap to aggro a mob and take an alpha afterwards before the pets open up and get aggro from me. There are different build philosophies but I've found that building for personal defenses limits what you can do with your secondary and building for personal attacks really weakens what you can do with your secondary. I build to be able to utterly spam my support powers and with the right sets put together like my demons/nature has soloed the ITF at +1, my thugs/traps can solo pretty close to anything, my thugs time is slow on AVs but can solo pretty close to anything, and with the emphasis on support powers I'm a serious team benefit because they're getting a support character with perma hasten and enough recovery to spam support powers endlessly. My demons/elec is pretty much unkillable in all content. Took it into a fire farm yesterday and tanked like 6 spawns at the same time successfully. Middling damage for an mm traded for immortality. But I have to spend the literal entire time keeping my demons carefully in the cage buff and spam the heal and absorb as fast as humanly possible to keep them alive. Masterminds are an interesting class. High performance potential if you build them right, average to crap if you build them wrong. If you're looking to clear faster than a fire blaster, nah. At the same time, I can hit higher sustained DPS than a fire blaster can against like an AV. My thugs/traps's fastest pylon time has been 55 seconds no lore. They have their strengths and at the same time can be a really chill playstyle. Demons/elec? Target your T3 pet, spam buffs. Move around and put up your cage wherever you are. Thats it. So you can sit back and like watch everyone killing everything and laugh because you get through a mission without changing your target from your T3 pet the whole time unless you need to rez someone. Thugs/traps, I drop my traps and then when they're all down I have like 3-5 seconds where I could fill in with a personal attack or I can just sit back a moment and watch the magic happen before a new round of traps comes up. I'm a fan of sitting back and watching the magic happen.

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