DocMidknight

I've got another mastermind itch that needs to be scratched......I'm building a team with 3 masterminds to run through villain side content and I'm struggling on which primaries to go with. Currently I'm deciding between demon, necro, bots and ninjas as the primaries I'm leaning towards as they're the ones I have the most familiarities. Of those 4 which does anyone think would be the most fun choice for the team or if you have one I may be leaving out that could be really interesting that I'm not as familiar with.....such as mercs, thugs and beast. Thanks for any assistance with my little dilemma. Doc M

A few things to remember that the pet unique IO's go long way in helping your pets resist/defenses numbers as well as running them in defensive or BG state to mitigate some of the damage they take. Have yet to try FF but I can speak very highly of dark with regards to masterminds.

........I like tanky MM builds, they be fun

I'm loving all the proc'd out slotting of powers, I went a little different approach in my build......more because I suffer from scrapperlock on my little dark one. Built for resist and defense without the need of the shields from the demon and can handle most things without an issue when I'm focused. I really wanted to add more of the soul powers to her but I had certain things that I had to have for her build, mostly due to my insane playstyle and her desire to hover/fly instead of walking. My usual tactic is send in the boys, hit howling twilight and then my heal to replenish my end bar followed by a little fear and whip attacks.......strangely she still manners to survive even with my best attempts to get her hospitalled DoD.mbd

I don't believe the heat/fire epic offers fire shield on MM's, unless there was an update I'm not aware of.

While I have no real experience with mercs or forcefield, I do play MM's primarily......so here we go 1. Heals.......meh, if my secondary has it great and if it doesn't....still great. I tend to build up the pets and mix in some good controls and then resummon as needed, usually they survive pretty well unless I running against much stronger mobs due to grouping or settings. Using the pet uniques with a good mix of defense/resists and some controls will work wonders in keeping your pets moving right along with little deaths. 2. Group fly, I truly only like this on my bots and that's just because they get those little jets from their feet.....and then again, I think I only really have it on my bots/storm because it's bot/storm and it's raining hell down on everything. As far as travel powers go in general for my MM's, I tend to grab hover and fly, keeping them active and moving around in that state entirely. 3. Leadership and maneuvers.........Leadership is really good for the MM, especially with regards of your tier 1 and tier 2 against harder bosses. Assault, yes please....more damage and as far as maneuvers, I take it because I'm usually building for my own survivability and getting as much defense as I can, I kinda embrace scrapperlock on my MM's. 4. My focus.......having as much fun as possible. If I'm on my bots or demon storm then it's raining down hell as my pets wreck everything, if I'm on my demon/dark.....well that's a whole different story, think of a scrapper in the middle of a mob shredding things. I build my MM's kinda like I build my scrappers, self sufficient killing machines and while they can't do the same damage alone......their pets can make up for what the MM can't. In general I tend to see what I crazy stuff I can get away with and laughing about it......both the goods and those what was I thinking moments. Yes, I rambled and I may or may not have answered anything......been up for way too long and drank way too many redbulls today but as a friend in the game once told me......if it sounds like fun build it and if it ends up being fun....keep it, if it doesn't just remember that you have a 1000 slots to make stuff with

@Meknomancer, taking some of your comments into form and put this together...better pet damage and putting barrier into play at the sacrifice of the end refill but with theft of essence proc in my heal I should be fine. I also added the performance shifter proc in stamina DoD plan.mbd

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback and I'll look into increasing the pet damage as well as the stamina slotting

So after a few months of working way too much and with the most recent update to our beloved game, I thought I would jump back into the fun with my favorite hero/villain......the demon/dark mastermind. A few changes have happened and the newly created mobs have really sparked my interest but with that being said I didn't feel that my original build would suffice and went about remaking her, I did keep her moderately intact but modified a few things to help my children and to add to my defense for survivability and such but would love others to look her over to give me a second, third or tenth opinion of her. Thanks to any and all who can provide whatever feedback they can....both the positive and the negative can bring about a learning moment for one such as I.......too many headshots in my line of work. DoD.mbd

I can see that with the rad/fire farmer build, I run 2 rad/fire brutes also then I made my dark/rad tank and well.......he farms fire, s/l.....arachnos, thorns, carnies, malta, BP. I'm no tank expert but I know what I like and I really like the dark/rad pairing for content and more

If I might suggest a dark armor/rad tank, it's insanely strong and probably my favorite build currently

Alright...let me think about this for a moment, I'm thinking that the demons out damage the necro purely based on the pets and this is mainly due to the Lich being more a debuff/control type pet as opposed to the Demon Prince before the secondary comes into play. With kin I think I would have to give the edge to necro and this is mainly due to the Grave Knight and the damage they can bring along with the recent changes to the necro set. As far as keeping them alive, run in BG mode and don't forget if you do go necro the dark empowerment buff can take healing IO's now with enchant undead able to take resist IO's to help in their survivability. I do have a demon/kin who was made for a succubus theme........draining her victims of their life force kinda thing is an interesting combo and does survive pretty well, I'm not quite sold on her yet but that could be do to her build needing to be fine tuned. .........So yeah.....go necro/kin

I have a demon/dark build that stays primarily in melee with them boys.......she suffers from a permanent case of scrapperlock. After a while you've either learned to completely tune out their battle cry or found the volume control and turned that way down when dealing with demons

My all time favorite dark/dark pairing is troller and my namesake toon. I've run dark/dark scrapper, dark/dark stalker and a dark/dark dom all to 50.....the dom and scapper are insanely fun with the stalker feeling a bit underwhelming with damage he did manage to tank Rommy while doing an all stalker TF though. I would probably say after the troller would be the dom for fun and crazy stuff as I rediscovered this combo after watching some videos that @Voltak had put on the dominator forums

That's fine, figure I'd pop in with the demons and FFG up and then lay down the mortar and triage as needed.........again it's a concept build and the TTP feature of poof in the middle of a mob sounds fun for the build