evetsleep

I have one of these and it's a ton of fun with capped defenses to just run in and out of close range blasting & burning everything in sight. Really it's a testament to super reflexes. It's such a great secondary for sentinels.

After seeing another thread recently on rad I was inspired to make Necro/red a few weeks ago. Necro, in it's current state, is in a really good place and can go with anything which makes this pairing attractive. The -ToHit from rad and necro meshes well and it really starts to feel powerful once choking cloud comes into play. My Necro/rad is still not done, but it's a solid pairing if you can look past a secondary which heavily uses anchor powers with relatively a small radius. I find it a fun pairing and would say they synergize well

One of my most common uses for Blazing Blast, beyond damage, is to punk Super Stunners into a corner and/or away from team mates before they croak. Everyone hates them and there real party poopers if you are standing near them when they die the first time (unless you're electric armor of course). It's actually quite useful as a positioning power.

Except in this case, sentinels don't have the stealth power (Energy Cloak), so like a number of sentinel secondaries (and in some cases primaries) they play very different than other versions of their power sets. Instead of Entropic Aura they get Entropy Shield (effectively the same except the +recharge is a flat 20%), Power Armor (+resistance to all and +HP), and repelling force (+defense to all), and instead of energy drain they get Power Drain (just does +end/-end, unlike the melee version where you get +def). I actually find that in later levels I don't really need Power Drain and often just pre-pop Energize to get the -End discount where as with a melee version I often would use Energy Drain to get the +def that it offers. So playstyle changes a bit. There is nothing wrong with playing a ranged sentinel btw (from my view), but there is a lot of damage to be found when you start to get ancillary powers (if that's your bag). For me, it often depends on the primary...if the T9 is a PBAoE, then I often dip into an ancillary pool which provides additional PBAoE's to chain them together. Since the recent buff to sentinels I feel like a perform a lot better this way (for my playstyle).

The only thing that really stinks (to me....so very much subjective) is the Ice Armor port to sentinels. I've tried a number of times and it just feels far too squishy to be worth it. Quite a few don't like Dark Armor, but if played in melee range can do quite well (my personal favorite is electric\dark sentinel). I have (quite literally) every sentinel combo and Ice Armor is the only one that truly isn't fun to me. I'm sure there are some who would enjoy it...to each his\her\their own. I do agree with the overall sentiment that defense based armors tend to perform better (they're just easier to drive).

One of my older sentinels is fire/sr (SR is just good on everything honestly). I LIVE in melee range with this particular toon. Even relatively early on it was at (or near) soft cap (thanks to defense amplifiers being dirt cheap at lvl1 and lasting for 8 hours). In my case I picked up spring attack early (and proc'ed it) and later on did Fire Sword Circle from the Fire Mastery ancillary pool. I basically jump into the middle of packs and start releasing AoEs and when the only the bosses\eb's are left I can start to unload the single target attacks. I tend to prefer AoE's on sentinels since they have a larger target cap compared to cones and this particular combo leans into it and it meshes well with a melee range approach. Most of my sentinels (with a few exceptions) tend to be in melee range since, once you start to have ancillary pool, it feels wrong to leave all that damage on the table. SR should be fairly safe to play this way and if you haven't given that a go I'd recommend it.

I actually went the Ice Mistral route the other day for Hot feet and I was shocked at how cheap getting those 5 IO's was. I think I got them for 1M each. Definitely a good idea for slotting up hot feet with some good set bonuses. Think this'll be my standard for Hot Feet going forward.

This, to me, is the biggest value they bring. Since they get puke (a cone) with the first upgrade, that pairs really nicely with the OF KD proc. Everyone slipping on vomit while the grave knight are picking targets off. Other than that they're a good distraction for baddies to eat up incoming damage (especially if you're in bodyguard mode).

I had to take a few of mine off the shelf and take them for a spin or two to remind myself, but for some in-your-face MM combinations which have the MM themselves running amok I would recommend necro\ninja\beasts + ff\time\marine. I have to say Marine feels a lot more flexible (and active) while running\jumping around in close range, but Time is a little safer with the debuffs, power boosted defense, and heals. Force field is .... well force field and feels far less active play. I have all the previously listed combinations and they're all super tanky and I feel pretty safe floating around close range. Marine feels the most active. I haven't played my necro/electric in a long time, but it was solid back then, but I prefer to layer on defense with necromancy for a more tankier feel. Honorable mention of necro/ice here since once of the weaker parts of the zombies is fire resistance and ice helps with that. I know that beasts is not seen as very strong compared to others after the recent MM pass, but they're pretty solid still and do respectable DPS. After running Wet Fur (my beasts/marine MM) I was reminded at how nuts they can be at just straight up tearing things apart. I went through a few door missions and rarely had to heal them at all thanks to Barrier Reef and the damage mitigation provided by Tide Pool. Most of my marine melee oriented MM's play the same as I dip into the teleportation pool for fold space. Getting everyone in the tide pool flopping around why the pets tear into them consistently works pretty good. Also marine has tools to deal with harder targets (brine). Overall that would be my recommendation for active melee oriented MM's.

One thing to consider.. while thugs leadership powers don't affect you or other pets/henchmen, there is one exception and that's other thugs. This makes multiple thug MM's a little ridiculous at times.

I like to use them to take alpha's... If the build can fit it. So it's less about a debuffs but more about starting the fight with them.

My favorite part about trick arrow and MM's is that I don't need to re-apply shields to pets I have to resummon. That gets really old for some tough battles. It's also nice that TA works really well with fast moving teams. This means that when I'm playing super aggressive with my thugs/ta I don't get too upset when the arsonist goes off to do arsonist things and pays the ultimate price. I can just quickly resummon, toss upgrades, and carry on. To the OP, there is some nuance to your question where the answer will greatly depend on the MM primary. I'm pretty sure I have just about every MM primary/secondary combonat this point and the only one I really had a hard time with was poison. So it is possible to take different strategies to keep your pets alive depending on what kind of pets you have. BUT importantly not too long ago Homecoming made the pet summons recharge super fast and cost far less than they used to. This made resummoning not being nearly as painful as it used to be. I stress out far less when my pets die because of this. You have to keep in mind that your pet's, other than the boss, are lower level than you (generally speaking), so when they get hit, it'll hurt. I think you should get comfortable with having to resummon every now and then, even if you max out defense. Even with my ninja/force field mm, whose pets have ridiculous defense, will die from time to time. It happens.

I always look at traps (for any AT) as a great soloing secondary, but if I'm going to be teaming I tend to take my trick arrow MM's off the shelf. Plays similar, but a lot more friendly to a fast moving team. I don't really have problems with traps and teaming honestly, but most teams move way too fast to make traps feel useful.

Every time I take one of my marine MM's off the shelf for a drive I'm reminded how well this set jives with masterminds (of any kind). I don't think there is actually a bad pairing between the MM primaries and marine. I honestly think (and I say this quietly) that marine is a little over tuned and will probably get tweaked later on. But I do hope not as it's an insanely fun set to play with masterminds and really performs so well overall.

If you are sticking with Pain Domination, then really (in my opinion) you want a pet to cast your buffs on (such as Painbringer). Mind doesn't really get a pet so I'd put that aside, unless you are teaming a lot. The buffs you get in Pain Domination that affect pets are World of Pain (+dmg, +tohit, +resistance) and Painbringer (+reg, +recovery, +dmg). For illusion these can only be cast on your phantasm as your other temporary pets won't really benefit from them. Dark on the otherhand will. Illusion, as a set, won't benefit greatly from pain domination because of this since the main anchor of the set is phantom army, which cannot be buffed. However you can debuff their targets which means Anguishing Cry is helpful. I have played illusion\pain and it's alright, but a bit slow to start off until you get enough recharge to bring up phantom army when you want it (which is all the time). Darkness control, of the 3, would in my view, pair nicely with pain. Everything does -tohit, which makes you far less squishy and the pets will benefit from your pain buffs and it starts off a little stronger (imho). I think you'd have a smoother ride with dark\pain. Illusion\pain can work, but just remember to use Anguishing Cry you have to get in the middle of things...so it could be a little risky. Mind\pain would good if you're teaming a lot since Mind doesn't have any pets which would benefit from your pain-based buffs. My 2 inf.