And out of my 14 or so masterminds, all have the personal attacks while still getting pets to or around softcap def.
But, unless you are doing "pure emp" things like taking tactics, veng, victory rush and other filler stuff like fighting pool before level 20 or thinking you need EVERYTHING in medicine.. then we just plain flat out build differently and at the risk of starting this thread on fire, stop thinking like a pure emp. half the stuff you bought you probably dont even need.
Fight without Tactics on for example, your tier1s are more accurate than people make it out to be, and there is just only so much you can bounce back from the -5 zone.
But I am going to go back to whipping, shooting, throwing bees, dark balls and my boxing/kick/cross punch focused ninja/sonic named Street Ninja