Maelwys

Just swap the Flight Pool with the Teleport Pool? The LOTG in Hover isn't vitally important since the only thing it does is get Hasten and Amp Up a smidge closer to perma. Also if you really want your MM Softcapped (rather than half a percent under it) then you could also rejig the two Defence IO slots in Hover and/or swap one of the heals to a six-set of Numina... Ideally you'll want positional defences over 19.65% (since you'll get +20.35% from the Protector Bot and +5% from Barrier). So something like the below? zMastermind - Robots - Elec (TP).mbd (Ignore the late placement of Combat Teleport - can be swapped out or moved to wherever and the KB Protection IO in it isn't hugely important either) Also... getting IO'ed out is probably fastest if you've a toon or two that can farm, or like playing the market... but there are other options like spamming TFs or specific Ouroboros Arcs for merits etc.

Oh sure rechargewise it's possible to spam Faraday Cage fairly quickly, and you can work around the endurance drain. But I meant the "EVERYBODY GATHER UP AND STAND HERE... HELLO? WHY ARE YOU ALL THREE ROOMS AWAY ALREADY?" aspect. IO'ed-up teams tend to move fast, and other than specific boss fights generally sprint from one spawn to the next, AoEing as they go... henchmen are one thing, but good luck convincing an average PUG to do anything other than ninja run right through your protective bubble and out the other side; if they even read the chat and/or notice you casting it in the first place.

There are a few others too. The various "Clarion" Destiny Incarnate slot abilities. And Increase Density from Kinetics - it's very common to see a Kin on the team; although I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever had one that bothered taking/slotting ID and keeping it up on everyone, even after it was changed to AoE. Also whilst not useful for the OP, Peacebringer Light Form definitely has it too - I remember exploiting that a few times back on live. Glorious little practically-indestructible explodey screwball.

I'd a Bots/Traps on live for years (it was my second MM to reach 50, after Bots/Dark). Admittedly I've not really played it much since circa issue 13 or so (the PVP revamp - I primarilly levelled it as a PVP toon whenever Teleport-Foe into a deathzone of Caltrops/PoisonTrap/TripMine was a thing) but I can at least comment a bit from what it felt like in PVE. Back then you could certainly get by with just the Force Field Generator, Poison Trap, Acid Mortar and Caltrops - the FFG was rather squishy and tended to lag behind a bit if you moved too quickly, but it could be resummoned very quickly. Trip Mine was useful for something to do whilst the Bots pew-pew-pewed - being able to attain total Stealth (via a +Stealth IO in sprint and the Stealth Power) also let you sneak to a new group to toebomb them. "Pulling" foes to a sea of tripmines got old very quickly; but setting up killzones in things like the Terra Volta respec trial (where you knew in advance where an ambush would spawn) was fun. Web Grenade was useful at keeping the occasional difficult boss at range (and in pvp) Triage Beacon was completely skippable, as was Timebomb/Detonator (although it's since been reworked and may be more useful these days?) The Seeker Drones were occasionally useful for extra Crowd Control and -damage debuff; but I can't picture them being needed in the current meta. Honestly I imagine it's still one of those secondaries which is fine for soloing, but doesn't really lend itself much to endgame teaming. Most of its powers are slow to set up and kick in and these days teams tend to barrel as fast as possible from one spawn to the next.

It plays very similar to Thermal, but your damage resistance buffs and mez protection are tied to a set location (making you slower to move from place to place - on an AT that is already renowned for its slowness on team content!) and your "chain" abilities are only sometimes AoE. Perhaps most notably however, its capstone ability 'Amp Up' is practically worthless on pets (aside from perhaps the Necromancy's Lich ) because pets are unaffected by recharge time changes and unlike most 'Power Boosting' effects it only increases Defence/ToHit DEBUFFS not BUFFS. Although it's probably still better than /Sonic.

Don't forget you can always copy a toon onto Brainstorm to try new stuff out before you go saving up or respeccing 🙂 (you can craft Incarnates for free and claim free 'beta testing' stuff at the Merit Terminals and also give yourself all the set IOs there with /boostset commands) 💻 🐛 ⚡ 😎

Clarion Core Epiphany is a click power that applies AoE mez protection (on YOU as well as on any teammates/pets within 60 feet). The mez protection starts out very high and drops over time but a substantial amount of it lasts for the entire 120 second duration of the power. The power also recharges in 120 seconds; so (aside from the animation time) it's effectively perma as long as you cast it as soon as it expires, or leave it on autofire. I'll generally take either Clarion Core Epiphany or Barrier Core Epiphany on my Masterminds; and some of them (like my Bot/Kin) have both and slot whichever one works better for the situation.

No worries. To be fair, endurance usage isn't really a factor after you get IOed out; and any MM can get "Permanent mez protection" for them and their pets at Lv50 via a Clarion Core Epiphany Destiny slot. However theme 100% matters! Always play a toon you enjoy over one that might technically perform a bit better!! 🙂 (far too many mechanically superior toons end up as a glowy noisy mess that has to pause every few seconds to pull out some kind of quantum elephantgun...) 🙈

The Soulbound Allegiance Proc has 5.25 seconds duration, which kicks in after the activating power's [Animation Time Before Effect + 0.5 seconds] If you look at the various pet damaging powers, you'll notice that some of them have rather short ATBEs, others have quite long ones. So "how many attacks will get affected by the Build Up buff" will differ drastically depending on what attack the proc decides to kick in on and what powers are queued up next. (e.g. If it's in Drones and it fires off in "Full Auto Laser" then 1.144 seconds of that [5.25 + 0.5] buff period will get wasted waiting for the activating power to finish animating... but if it fires off in "Overcharged Burst" or "Heavy Laser Burst" then only 0.209 seconds gets wasted...) The Drones get 4 abilities that are usable at range, 3 of which have arcanatime >2 seconds. So it's more likely to only get 1-2 abilities firing off in the Buff Window. The AssBot gets 7 abilities that are usable at range, only 1 of which has an arcanatime >2 seconds. So it's more likely to only get 2-3 abilities firing off in the Buff Window. However you get THREE drones to ONE AssBot; and 3-6 abilities is better than 2-3. The biggest source of AssBot damage also comes fromthe Burn Missiles, which best case will only inherit the buff for a tick or two; not the entire duration. So in a vacuum (and in Incarnate Content where all pets are the same level) Drones are better. However in regular content the Drones spawn at -2 to you. The AssBot spawns at +0. And you deal substantially lower damage than normal whenever you're fighting higher level enemies. e.g. versus +3 foes in regular (non incarnate) content, your AssBot will deal 65% of their regular damage but the Drones only 30%; making the question "Which is better: (30% of 3-6 abilities) or (65% of 2-3 abilities)?" Personal Experience? It's pretty much a wash; with the AssBot being a smidge better at higher difficulties and the Drones a smidge better at lower ones.

Sure, here's one. zMastermind - Robots - Elec.mbd Two personal attacks, optimised henchmen slotting, S/L/E hardcapped and nearly Perma-Hasten. Will need to keep both Hover and Barrier Destiny up to reach the Defence Softcap; but otherwise should be decent. (I skipped the rez, but you could swap SuperSpeed out for either it or Group Fly etc. if you rate either of them over Stealthing missions) Elec is fine as a secondary. It's not quite top-tier (unlike /Time, for example) due to no +Defence plus the fact that some of the powers simply don't apply to pets and/or can require more micromanagement to affect multiple allied targets... but it's still perfectly usable. Unfortunately you're slower than most MMs (and that's saying something!) to move from place to place and fully "set yourself up", which can prove annoying on fast-moving teams. And yes, you can take down most AVs (MM personal attacks plus Shock and/or Discharge will still drastically affect AV regeneration rate) although it can help to have specific Lore Pets; and certain foes inflict lots of patch damage and/or refuse to stay still.

Yup no worries. I've been flicking between two: Mastermind - Robotics - Kinetics (Bonfire).mbd Mastermind - Robotics - Kinetics (Elec Fences).mbd The Elec Fences build is quite a bit tougher (due to the Damage Resistance Shield) and Repel+ElecFences is very nice mitigation in most content; and keeps foes nicely bunched up for the Assbot's Burn Missiles. Repel, however, suffers from Endurance Issues whenever you find yourself surrounded by well-beyond-the-aggro-cap foes in a farming run (which is pretty common for me - unlike most farming builds, Bots/ are excellent against Psionic Melee foes in AE, especially with Barrier and Increase Density running... their resistances are tailor-made for it, and all MM Pets are immune to -recharge debuffs!) - it's doable, but I found I needed to keep spamming Transference on cooldown; which got annoying rather quickly. So personally on Homecoming I'm currently still sticking it out with Bonfire. Luckily they've reverted the duration nerf so that it's now perma again (albeit with a smaller radius than before and *very slightly* lower KD chance). Occasionally I'll bite off more than I can chew + faceplant... but, well, that's what Rise of the Phoenix is for. If I alternate between my Barrier Destiny (at least +9% Def for the first 60s, then +6% for the last 60s) and Support Hybrid (+14.4% for 120s, then nothing for 120s) my pets can stay Softcapped most of the time. Any extra from Lore Pet buffs etc. is just Gravy. EDIT: You'll notice that (aside from the epic pools) both builds have largely the same slotting, with the notable exception of the set IOs in the Assault Bot and Protector Bot powers which are reversed. Testing has proven that I can stick the four SMoS Set IOs in either of those pet powers; it really just depends on what unique IOs you want available whilst exemplaring. The Protector Bots probably gain the most benefit from the additional Endurance Reduction; but both them and the Assbot will eventually run dry of endurance if you're constantly fighting (even with Speedboost up) so it doesn't really matter which you pick - you'll still need to occasionally use Transference to top them up!

Any APP/PPP can work, because you don't need Power Boost and with FFG plus Protector Bots you'll easilly be sitting at the softcap without Scorpion Shield. Flame Mastery (No Resistance Shield, but Bonfire slotted with KB>KD is still very useful even after the recent nerf; and it'll work great with Caltrops) or Soul Mastery (Dark Embrace + Oppressive Gloom) or Mu Mastery (Charged Armor and Electric Fences) or Dark Mastery (Murky Cloud and Possess) are standouts though. On my own Bots/Traps, between Trip Mine and the Assbot's Burn Missile Swarm I found groups tended to die very quickly; but tougher bosses could sometimes be tricky... so I'd probably rate "Possess" (useful for Perma-Confusing Bosses) a bit higher than "Bonfire" or "Electric Fences" (useful for locking a large mob in place). Five slotted with the Coercive Persuasion Purple set (which tends to be one of the less expensive ones) it should be pretty decent. Power Boost will do squat for the Protector Bot's Bubbles, PB is not an AoE and they won't inherit it off you. Realistically the only thing that will buff their shields other than direct Enhancement slotting is your Alpha Slot - and honestly, it's not worth swapping out of Musculature unless you're a /Kin. Throw an extra slot or two into Equip Robot. You want it ED-capped for Damage Resistance (so 2x level 50+5 Damage Resistance IOs will do it, but it's also a decent place for the Gladiator's Armor and/or Steadfast Protection Uniques) Upgrade Robot isn't worth slotting, throw the Preventative Medicine unique into it and call it a day. This story arc. You can run it repeatedly (even if you don't have the original contact unlocked) via the Ouroboros Flashback system for 57 Merits each time. It's better merits-per-hour than most other things you can find because it has a mere 8 missions, and only one of them is a "Defeat All". However since it's a level 25-29 arc, you won't be seeing many expensive recipe drops + the only useful thing it gives is the merits. So just set your difficulty at the minimum (-1/1) and blitz through it. If you're just converting the merits to influence (by buying Enhancement Boosters/Converters at the Merit Vendor and selling them in WW) then it won't beat the return of a decent "farming" character spamming +4/8 AE missions... but it has the advantage that it's rather quick and very easy to complete for almost any character. So it's decent money for anyone who is still levelling up and/or isn't fully min/maxed yet.

Yeah it's roughly on par with Thermal as long as you have enough +recharge% to get World of Pain and Anguishing Cry perma. Works out at a bit more more +healing and +regeneration; and a bit less +damage IIRC. Melt Armor and Anguishing Cry perform very similarly, although one needs you to be in Melee Range and the other doesn't. Painbringer's uptime is a bit of a killer though - a well-built Thermal can keep Forge up on all their henchmen simultaneously. Poison is the real black sheep. Think I played a /Poison MM once back in Issue 6, then I discovered /Dark and never looked back... ---------- Personally I'm still very fond of /Kin for a +Resistance/+Damage/+Healing secondary; although it probably pairs better with Bots/ than anything else at the moment due to the way the gaps in their inherent resistances and mez protection get filled in by Increase Density. Can just about hit the Defence Softcap with the right Lore and/or Hybrid slot too.

Oh I'm sure you can make a fun character with it, like most power combinations in the game. It's just that (i) layering two different types of mitigation (Defence and Resistance) to a medicore level tends to perform worse than pushing one single type to its effective cap (and Defence is generally preferred here due to the aforementioned "mez" issue) and (ii) Thermal tends to outperform Sonic on Masterminds. I mained a Sonic/Elec Defender for years so I know /Sonic can be a strong set; however it has a number of shortcomings on Masterminds which Thermal does not. Thermal gets Resistance Shields and -Resistance Debuffs (Melt Armor) as well; plus reliable healing (Warmth/Cauterise), a Damage Buff (Forge) and it can floor an AV's regen with Heat Exhaustion. About the only thing Sonic really holds over it is Sonic Dispersion's self-mez protection, and picking up the Clarion Destiny Slot nullifies that advantage. Disruption Field can also be rather problematic to utilise effectively on MMs with pets that prefer ranged attacks.

You'll find a lot of sample builds scattered around the forums; and they should open grand as long as you have a recent copy of Mids Reborn. MMs are a bit of an oddball compared to most characters when planning a build; because their primary powerset doesn't really benefit from things like Global +Recharge or +Damage set bonuses; and there are only a few useful Procs that Henchmen can use. However the OLD rule of thumb always applies (try to get the important aspects of your powers at the Enhancement Diversification softcap - Mids changes the colour to RED so it's easy to spot) so make sure your Pets themselves have about ~95% Damage and at least ~40% Accuracy, and your +Defence powers have about~55% Defence Buff in them. Certain Secondaries (like Time and Cold) benefit more from +Recharge than others. It's normally a good idea to Grab the Leadership pool and all the Uniques; including the SMoS (do a few Freaklympics arc runs via Ouroboros if you're stuck for Cash and/or Merits - it's trivial on a MM).

Just to be clear - are you activating Power Boost right before your long-duration +Defence buffs (Farsight for /Time, Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield for /FF) so that they gain the benefit of it? /FF Bubbles should go from ~17.7% Defence standard to ~25.1% when Power Boosted... so alongside your regular Dispersion Bubble (~11.8%) you'll be buffing all of your pets by around 37% Defence total. Throw in the Edict of the Master and Call to Arms +Defence unique IOs (both add another 5% each) and that's them sitting at the Softcap without even the need for Manuevers let alone any +Defence Alpha Slot or Barrier Destiny Slot shenanighans. Combined with the Robotics Primary it gets ridiculous. 2-slotted Protector Bot bubbles will add roughly 22% Defence on top of that; so you could drop both +Defence unique IOs and still be sitting at the 59% *Incarnate Content* defence softcap, let alone the 45% regular content one. Bots also get about +49% L/C/P Resistance whenever their T1 upgrade is slotted; so adding the three +Res uniques (Sovereign Right +10%, Expedient Reinforcement +10%, Superior Mark of Supremacy +15%) will get them to +84% total. /Time Farsight goes from ~14.7% Defence standard to ~20.8% when Power Boosted. Adding in Maneuvers (~4.1%) and both +Defence unique IOs (+10%) can bring that up to around 35% Defence total. A good 10% shy of the regular 45% softcap... however; Primary matters here. For Thugs, each copy of Thug Enforcer Maneuvers even unslotted adds +8.5% Defence (which you can buff via slotting). For Ninjas, they all get +Defence to everything of at least 13.5% (again, enhanceable via slotting) via their T1 upgrade. So it should be trivially easy to close that gap and ensure all your pets are softcapped all the time. Neither Thugs nor Ninjas T1 and T2 pets gain much in the way of Damage Resistance; but the T3s each have +26% S/L resistance; so the +Res uniques will bring them up to +61% total. Unfortunately Power Boost won't be doing much for the /Traps build; since the ForceField Generator is a Pet rather than a long-duration clicky so best case it'll inherit the buff for a few scant seconds. However, you're Bots/ so it doesn't really matter... the ~15.7% Defence standard from the FFG plus ~22% from the Protector Bots plus Maneuvers (~4.1%) gets you to just under 42% total. Less than a single +Defence unique IO away from the Softcap. Musculature all the way for a MM; unless you're a /Kin (Because Fulcrum Shift will cap your pet damage output regardless of your Alpha, so you may as well go for Agility Core or Resilient Core instead).

Boosting Survivability is certainly the main idea, however adding "damage resistance" might prove a bit problematic because it would be additive with the existing inherent henchmen resistances from the "equip" powers, as well as those from other sources. It could well benefit certain secondary powersets more than others (because going from 0% to 10% damage resistance is vastly different than going from 80% to 90%) You're correct that "locking pets at a minimum of -5" would only kick in whenever the MM is fighting foes that are +4 or higher for T1 MM henchmen, and +5 foes or higher for T2s. However "minimum of -5" could quite easily instead be "minimum of -4" (or even -3) and/or not factor in level-shifts depending on where you want to draw the actual line in the sand. The real benefit of approaching things this way is that your pets would only start seeing any benefit gradually at higher difficulty settings with the weakest pets being buffed first; instead of all of your pets getting buffed all the time regardless of content or the level of foes they're fighting. I'm definitely open to other solutions, I just really feel that it'd be a very bad idea to adjust MMs in such a way that their performance versus regular enemies at lower difficulty levels gets increased. That's tricky to accomplish without doing some kind of automated check against difficulty setting or enemy level... and the former (a buff based on difficulty setting) would potentially benefit all pets, rather than just the weaker ones that actually need some extra help at the time. A variant of that might work - perhaps buff Pet base HP a bit (say by X% for every teammate, similar to the Peacebringer/Warshade inherents). So not dependent on difficulty setting; but in general enough to stop them being immediately one-shot whilst you're not soloing?

I wouldn't say that all MMs lag behind other ATs in terms of damage, even against +4s/+5s. I regularly run a S/L farm on my Bot/Kin; and whilst it's *safer* to clear it at +2/8, he still clears it at +4/8 faster than any of my melee toons. And that's the crux here - IMO the main problem facing MMs at higher difficulty levels is the survivability of your pets - because against anything over +3 your T1 henchmen effectively get a defence penalty and become very prone to being one-shot. Admittedly, dead pets *DO* eat into your DPA; but they're annoying to constantly resummon and re-buff. A close secondary problem is also the mobility of your pets (or lack thereof) on teams. Whilst MMs can deal respectible damage output, they need to get "set up" first; they're unable to just barrel from spawn to spawn as quickly as a Brute or Tanker can; and MMs also can't micromanage their henchmen to always Alpha Strike every spawn with a well-procced AoE attack. Basically MMs excel when Solo; because they can set their own pace. But they suffer on high end teams and TFs because of limited mobility and the aforementioned pet survivablity issues when fighting versus anything over +3. Their mobility problems are also particularly evident in PVP (not that it matters to the majority of the playerbase!) Also, Pylons can be hammered in circa 30 seconds by Scrappers and Dominators. As far as I'm aware MMs are definitely not king of the hill there, and (just like Farming!) I don't think Pylons are a particularly good metric to be using for balance purposes. I'm certainly not arguing that removing the pet level differences is impossible - the devs literally did just that with Incarnate content, after all. However the pet level differences have been baked into the balance equations of CoH for years (Your T1s start out equal-level, then whenever you gain the ability to spawn TWO of them, they begin spawning at -1; and whenever you start being able to spawn THREE of them, they spawn at -2. See Also: Fire Control Imps, Electric Control Gremlins, VEAT Spiderlings and Disruptors). If you just made all pets even-level then to keep their damage output on an even keel you'd need to nerf the T1 pets' damage by at least 25% across the board and the T2 pets by 11%. Adjusting Supremacy would be largely pointless for this; as it's a multiplicative damage increase that you're trying to cancel out (Purple Patch), not an additive one (Supremacy) so you'd need to do a balance pass on their BASE damage. And there's another problem - doing this would negatively impact new MMs that are levelling up before they actually get access to all the T1 and T2 pets and they all finish "levelling down". I'm not saying there'd be a "crisis situation", but I am saying that this sort of adjustment would need to be approached very carefully. Conversely, locking the pets so that they never get treated as anything lower than "-5" to foes would be comparatively quick + easy and would have no negative impact on levelling up or requirement for a balance pass on pet attacks. That said, IMO there's been a trend for years to steer away from footery micromanagement; and if it was up to me I'd rework Supremacy entirely so that Bodyguard mode applies regardless of stance; and any pets OUTSIDE of a certain radius gain a substantial amount of +RunSpeed. And perhaps also replace the existing +Damage/ToHit with a scaling boost depending on how many pets you have summoned and/or teammates you have; mechanically similar to Vigilance (e.g. increase +MaxHP/+DamageResistance with more, versus increase +Damage/+ToHit with fewer)

On my very first toon on Live, a Kat/Regen Scrapper, I discovered that poking robotic enemies with my little pointy stick didn't deal very much damage. Council Mekmen; Sky Raider Forcefield Generators, Malta Titans, etc. And so I decided that I needed an alternative attack chain that did NOT deal lethal damage; for use on those sorts of enemies. Good In Theory? Perhaps. In Practice? I took Air Superiority, Laser Beam Eyes and Energy Torrent. Yeah. OK, so Air Superiority was actually semi-useful as damage mitigation since it dealt reliable knockdown; but the number of funny looks I got whenever a 'bot critter popped up and I suddenly sheathed my sword and broke out the kirk headslap and pew pew glowy hands. And it honestly took me quite some time to realise that I was actually dealing WORSE damage over time than I would have with my Katana. To make matters worse, Weapon Redraw delay was a real thing back then, and even tapping "Build Up" triggered it... 🙃

The pets already give MMs a ridiculous lead during the 1-50 process, so it'd be a really bad idea to buff their performance at all vs +0 -> +3 foes if you can help it. The Purple Patch buffs/debuffs final damage (a multiplicative effect). Supremacy just adds 25% regular DamageStrength% (additive with damage buffs like Enhancements etc) plus 10% ToHit (versus critters it's generally more effective than "+Accuracy" at letting you actually hit them, as well as at overcoming any +Defence buffs they might have). Hypothetically, if you made all the pets the same level as the MM and dropped Supremacy's damage buff entirely, then even if you weren't buffing your pets at all outside of simple SO damage enhancements (no secondary powers like Forge or Fulcrum Shift, etc); compared to before your T1s would end up dealing more than 10% additional damage vs just simple +0 foes. And it'd only get much worse from there - against +3 foes they'd be dealing double their original damage. That drastic shift in performance is why this needs to be approached very carefully. Ideally any buff to pet levels in regular content has to be a very gradual thing that only applies against very higher level foes. I haven't delved into the ins and outs of the purple patch code, but I imagine you could also put a clamp there (lock the performance drain from the purple patch at a maximum of -5 level disadvantage if the entity attacking/being attacked has the 'henchmen' flag - this is already done for stuff like Protector Bot Bubbles) ---------- To get vaguely back on track... IMO the most Team Friendly MM builds are those with primaries that tend to hang back a bit (Bots, Mercs, Thugs, etc) and secondaries that have AoE or PBAoE buffs/debuffs/heals that don't require a lot of micro-management to affect specific pets/teammates. Empathy, for example, is generally regarded as a pretty decent set; however it tends to function more poorly on MMs (because Fortitude's defence vlaue is lower and you can't keep it up constantly on all your teammates plus all your pets regardless of how much +recharge% you stack; and the other big buff - Adrenaline Boost - is single-target and +Recharge has no impact on pet DPA). By comparison, Kinetics is ridiculously good on MMs; because despite their lower base buff values it still only takes you 1-2 applications of Fulcrum Shift to get everyone on your team AND your pets to the Damage Cap... and Speed Boost/Increase Density/Transference/Transfusion are all AoE. However by far the single biggest thing a MM player can do is get a good set of keybinds. Even if you can simply reliably target an individual pet or teammate that's more than half the battle right there; and I'd happilly team with a Beasts/Pain MM that has a decent set of binds over a Bots/Kin MM that has just the regular mouse + power tray setup any day of the week.

Typically just Footstomp, Haymaker, KO Blow. Normally in Teams, the main idea is to recast Footstomp ASAP (or at least as fast as your procs will allow); and any other attacks you can fit in whilst it's recharging are just gravy. KO Blow and Haymaker are obvious standouts and good places for your ATOs; and Cross Punch is a very decent filler even though its Area of Effect isn't buffed by gauntlet - it can be Proced up pretty decently and you're likely already taking the fighting pool anyway. Then to round the chain out, things like Punch or Kick or Boxing or an Epic Pool Power (Gloom is by far the best Single Target DPA; and Ball Lightning or Fireball clinch it for AoE).

Yep, and that's actually where the real problem comes in. Things stay manageable as long as you aren't fighting mobs that are more than about 4 levels above you. Compared to fighting even-level enemies, vs +4s you'll deal just under half of your "normal" damage to them, whilst taking nearly half as much extra damage from their attacks. That's TOUGH; but it's still perfectly doable for a well-built character. However then things start to ramp up rather drastically. When fighting +5s, you'll deal a bit over a third less damage than you would deal to +4s (and take about 8% more damage). When fighting +6s, you'll deal just half as much damage as you were against the +5s (and taking about 7% more damage). When fighting +7s, your damage output gets halved yet again (and again, you'll take about 7% more damage). So your damage output rapidly drops off a cliff. And to make matters worse, as soon as you start fighting +6s or higher the enemy starts getting ToHit buffs, not just accuracy buffs. And ToHit buffs blow directly through your +Defence. Which means if you're aiming to Softcap your pets, you'll actually need to ensure that your T1 henchmen are sitting at 5% higher defence than the regular 45% softcap if you're ever planning on fighting +4s; and 10% higher if you're planning on fighting +5s. The pet level scaling works OK until your difficulty slider is about +2/+3; but after that it gets wonky pretty fast. This is one of the reasons why the MM sets that deal the bulk of their damage via their T3 pet (such as Bots) tend to perform better at +4/+8 difficulty settings; and why you see so many Masterminds having to continually resummon their T1/T2 henchmen during non-incarnate endgame content.

/FF and /Cold can get your henchmen to the Defense Softcap regardless of your Primary. Bots, Thugs and Ninjas can manage that with a secondary like /Time or /Dark, let alone /Traps. So... easy combinations? Demons or Necro or Beast plus /FF or /Cold. Alternatively; Bots or Ninja or Thugs plus /Time, /Dark or /Traps. But be sure to TAKE and USE Power Boost from the Mace Mastery pool if you're FF, Cold or Time. /Empathy is a bit tricky, since a lot of its mitigation comes from Fortitude rather than from the actual Heals and Auras (if your henchies get one-shot then healing them is superfluous) and you can only keep that up on a few targets at a time. /Kinetics is all-in on damage output; and I'd not recommend it for the faint of heart. It *can* be made to work on the likes of Bots or Thugs; but it takes considerable effort and exploiting a lot of high-end IOs and T4 Incarnate Abilities. /Sonic on MMs is basically a worse version of /Thermal. And resistance-buffing only works well on pets that have decent resistances to start with, like Mercs or Demons, and even then you end up mezzed and debuffed a lot.

Actually, they deal very respectable damage these days (Changed in Issue 27 Page 5 IIRC?) It used to be that each Protector Bot had to pause every few seconds to double-bubble on each of your other pets... but these days it's a single 4-minute-duration autofiring AoE; and they've gained a fair amount of DPA on their regular attacks. The downside is that they chew through Endurance like an Staminaless Fire Blaster on crack. But if you ED-Cap them for Endurance reduction or have something like Transference to fall back on, they're pretty decent. Drones only pull ahead with the Explosive Strike Proc. The Assbot is still the uncontested king of AoE damage though.

Your T1 Zombies are -2 to the mob you're fighting, so they'll take 22% higher damage from all of that critter's attacks and the critter will be getting +20% accuracy. Your T2 Grave Knights are -1 to the mob you're fighting, so they'll take 11% higher damage from all of that critter's attacks and the critter will be getting +10% accuracy. Your Lich and the Tri-Cannon will be even-stevens. Also be careful of thinking that Defence debuffs don't matter if you're on "0% Defense". Everything attacking you or your pets in PVE will have an 50% innate basehitchance, which can effectively be increased up to 95% by debuffing your defence even if your starting Defence is listed as zero (Critters max out at a 95% chance to hit you). Your Defence can be debuffed to a minimum of -100%, rather than to a minimum of zero.