TheOriginalLee

My first Mastermind was The Great Green Hat on Victory - a mutant wrestler who got a knee all messed up and was permanently out of the sport. Became a trainer for up and comers. Discovered there was a 'side gig' for his stable of rookies outside the ring. Which stopped be a side. I took the Superleap pool and loved it when they added the Spring Attack. That had a wonderful vibe of mixing it up, and some playful banter from the boys to cheer me on. But that was a 'the old man still got a few moves' feel, not an 'Alpha dog ruling the pack'. And actually, since I was Force Fields, I did need to get in there and push targets where I wanted them to manage my battles. As others have said, you're a Mastermind, not a Brute. I would suggest waiting for Controllers & Dominators to get their pet management windows. Sure, you'd be pocket Mastermind with just a couple of pets (possibly hoping they proliferate MM primaries to your AT as well), but you would have better and more melee options than a classic Mastermind.

I'm slightly puzzled by the need for this. Back in the day I played both of the sleep powersets - an elec/elec brute and a MC/sonic controller. I found both characters great for team play including task/strike force - but nearly useless in raids or against GMs. The Brute was able to use the sleeps and stuns of that set to just take jabs and switch target in a mob - building fury while keeping the minions quite as she focused on the harder targets. The MC controller was more powerful at locking mobs down entirely. A Rikti mosh pit was pointless - just tossing meager damage out there hoping to score back a share of the XP on anything. But regular teammates learned how to work with it, slice out their targets, point their cone attacks outward, etc. Maybe I'll remake Volt Tess on the test server, see if I remember enough to see any differences. I do get that those sets with just a single sleep power makes it really hard to want. For those powers, this might make them interesting to play. Gives me hope that cage powers will see some thoughtful developer luv in the future.