M3z

Jounin have highest base melee attacks (golden dragon fly/soaring dragon) out of any pets in the game(even more than grave knight headsplitter/disembowel). Also they go into hide and can crit as well. Very melee oriented set in general.

Mercenaries

How would dominators having illusion control be even 1/10000000th as broken as a tw/fire or kat/bio scrapper in pve. There are so many busted builds in pve right now, pve is incredibly unbalanced and broken. I don't even think ill/ would be broken, it would just be strong. People need to stop pretending like pve is this finely tuned, carefully balanced gaming experience.

@SmalltalkJava I made a beast/kin for zones a while back (did not work out as well as i'd hoped and actually did better in 8v8 arena than zones). But I did do quite a bit of research looking into how to slot the pets. They proc the best out of any MM pets, even moreso than thugs. You will need alpha intuition to hit ED cap on damage for the pets though. This slotting is also taking in account that you will have 30-40% bonus acc from IO sets. That much +acc is overkill for pve though. Chance for buildup goes off all the time, i dont know what the chance is for it to go off but it seems like 40-60% per attack. Also if you don't have intuition for +dam or extra +acc from set bonuses you can drop the +res IO/+AOE defense IO and put in an acc/dam pet IO and +5 it in there. Level 1: Summon Wolves (A) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up (3) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage (3) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (5) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Recharge/Pet +AoE Defense Aura (5) Explosive Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage (7) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage Level 12: Summon Lions (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage/Endurance (15) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Endurance (15) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Endurance/Pet +Resist +Regen (17) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Damage/Endurance (17) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (19) Superior Command of the Mastermind - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 26: Summon Dire Wolf (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (27) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Damage (27) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage (29) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing) (29) Expedient Reinforcement - Resist Bonus Aura for Pets (31) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage

ET animation change really gutted the set. They really need to have ET/TF do full crit and revert ET animation to old animation. Funny thing is this set probably still won't be better than psi melee in pvp even if they did those changes, but atleast you'd have another viable stalker set for pvp.

For pve, scrappers by far. It's not even close.

If that's psychic shockwave from dominators, it should stay that way because that set is ASS.

I agree this game does a bad job of not explaining anything.

Seems I forgot, I will get around to it. Sonic I'd say has a little more utility than force field. You can res shield your pets, they do not suffer from DR effects in PVP, meaning you can stack crazy amounts of resistance on them. This is sort of useful in pvp zones where people like to spam judgement (high damage ranged AOE incarnate power). You also get a cage which can be used to defend yourself from a gank briefly (cage duration is only 4 seconds I think, this value is too low right now). You get a targeted AOE -res which is a nice way to defend yourself from melee attackers, stack that with sonic siphon and you can do around -44% res. Not bad. Sonic repulsion and liquefy unfortunately will have limited utility in pvp due to most people building some form of KB protection in pvp. Overall I'd put it in D tier as viable(barely viable). Although if you want a set similar to this you may as well go thermal. The only reason to go this set for pvp is thematic reasons. To make this set more viable, there'd have to be a mechanics changes to make res shields actually do something in pvp.

Nice changes, thanks! And to all those zoners who rolled dark control. Time to go reroll 😉

Don't think anyone in the pvp community is interested in server wide pvp so you will be fine.

I think storm/cold are both crazy in pve and can work with any primary for the same reason. Sleet/freezing rain, a targeted AOE that does -res that has chance to KB enemies. Sure necro pets are squishy but if your enemies are just perma KB'd as well as -ranged and -tohit from hurricane, you should be safe in almost every engagement. Also remember you can slot 2 -res procs in freezing rain (annihilation and achilles -res) for like -60% -res which is pretty nutty. So yeah storm is just stupid good in pve, should be a good combo.

I've been wanting illusion control forever now. Don't really care that domination doesn't interact very much with it. I just think it's a fun set.

Yeaaah, your opinion doesn't= everyone elses as much as you like to think it does. And if you don't like my responses, don't type to me in a patronizing tone about my suggested changes, especially when I've been pvping on test ladder with MMs before you knew what CoH was. As much as you are trying to turn this into a pvper vs pver thing it isn't. But I suppose next time I make a pvp suggestion I'll make sure to put a little disclaimer at the bottom "WILL NOT AFFECT PVE" so the anti-pvp crowd (you)won't have an excuse to start screeching.

According to who? You? lol Hopefully it can be done without affecting pve so we never have to see this post again.

More directed towards pvp and yeah they do need a buff for pvp.

Yes, it has its own mez suppression duration as well (I think 15 seconds). KB is not a bad way to catch people, MMs just don't have very much access to good KB outside of force bolt from /bubble (which is a really bad set for pvp). Also most people build for 20-40 KB protection which would nullify any KB MMs have access to including force bolt.

In PVE mag system still functions the same. In PVP basically whatever the hold duration of your hold(which is 2 for every class except for doms/controllers which is supposed to be 4 seconds) minus the enemies hold protection/resistance is what your end hold duration will be. That said there are still many hold/stuns that have lower/higher values than they are supposed to (dark control for instance has 6 second base holds, very broken). After you mez an enemy that enemies will be in 12 seconds of complete mez immunity. Which means if your pet does a .25 second stun or something, you put the enemy in mez immunity which can really screw you. So to answer your question, stacking holds does absolutely nothing because after the initial hold duration wears off the enemy will be in mez immunity. There is no mag protection to break because your mezzes will always mez no matter what. In PVP KB still follows mag system (yeah I know this is confusing, the mez system in pvp is absolute trash) so it still functions similar to how it did pre i13.

The old mag based mez system no longer exists. The game now uses an auto mez system (meaning as long as you pass the acc check and your mez lands, it will always mez the target). So stacking mezzes no longer really matters and holds are now more viewed as sources of damage because their ability to be procced. As long as you have a single mez you are good. The new mez system doesn't really allow for any counterplay and needs to be reverted back to the old mag based system you were talking about. Also to specifically answer your question about /dark, slows/movement speed follow a DR curve meaning stacking high amounts of slows really don't have much effect and won't really slow a target. This means even if you hold someone and place tar patch below them, they can simply superspeed out now.

With defender powerboost+weaken you can get hold durations for 10-15 seconds I think. But yeah for sure the dark hold lasts longer than 4 seconds. Edit: also you have things like corruptor beam rifle that has lancer shot that has 4 second base stun (stuns are better in pvp than holds because there is less stun resistance in general) further nullifying any reason to play a dom or controller for mezzes.

There really shouldn't be any auto mez system in pvp to begin with because it's impossible to balance. Also there are other holds/stuns that exceed 4 seconds, but value is lowered by hold resistance like acrobatics or mez res toggles. The main issue with mez system is that there is no real counterplay to it like the old system (where breakfrees/mez protect toggles countered mezzes). You just get autoheld and hope you don't die from AS or blasters. Another issue with the current mez system is it completely guts the primary purpose of dominators/controllers which is to hold/lockdown enemies. Sure they can hold a target but only marginally longer than other classes (doms/controllers hold for 4 second base, everyone else holds for 2 second base). This difference in hold duration hardly makes a difference for these classes and makes these classes worse in zones/1v1s and broken in competitive team arena. Here is a common scenario in pvp for dominators. You run into a blaster, you trade holds (they char you, you fossilize them), your hold lasts around 2.5 seconds, there's last probably around 1.6-1.8 seconds or something like that(everyone runs acrobatics so hold durations are diminished). That tiny insignificant difference in mez duration is all mez classes have right now to defend themselves and to create set ups (controllers need to set up debuffs and allow pets to come in etc) or damage differentials(doms need to dish out enough damage before the blaster comes out of the hold, which is usually only 1 attack). Blaster comes out of hold duration with 12 seconds of complete cc immunity, pops BU and crushes you. Not saying this game should be balanced around 1v1 scenarios like that, but I feel these classes have no real purpose anymore and are merely blasters(controllers are only really viable as emps right now) with slightly longer holds. I won't even go into the other mezzes because they simply do not matter(they all have 2-4 second durations). Old mez system had problems before but at least there was counterplay. Pvp right now for dominators is a damage race that you will most likely lose against, corrs, blasters, defenders, sentinels etc. That said these much needed buffs definitely do help but do not fix the underlying mechanics issues in pvp right now.

Decided to make a pvp tier list for masterminds. I'm one of the few people left that plays masterminds at a competitive level and have been fielding masterminds on test ladder teams since i10. This list applies to zones/arena (casual/PuG). Primaries: Explanation: Because there is no real lockdown in the game right now (outside of -jump which is nullified by super speed) a primary with pets that have solid ranged damage is mandatory. S Tier: Demon Summoning, Thugs A Tier: Robotics B Tier: Necromancy F Tier: Ninjas The Dumpster: Mercenaries, Beast Mastery Explanation: (Viable)Demon Summoning - Demons are just crazy, they don't have the strongest ranged attack chain but they are still very capable of dishing out decent ranged damage because the pets use tier 2 blasts (fire blast/ice blast) and the demon prince uses holds(which can also be procced out). Demons can do upwards of -60-80% resistance just on their own (this value gets DR'd so it never turns out to be that high) especially if the enemy roots next to them long enough for them to begin meleeing(they can wreck almost anything in melee). Hell on Earth->burnout->Hell on Earth also allows you to not only greatly buff the damage of two pets, but also spawns a billion little imps that help disrupt enemy targeting and deal additional damage. The demon prince can be efficiently slotted with damage procs as well. Overall this set has great versatility between the -res from hellfire and the extremely strong melee capabilities, decent ranged capabilities and hell on earth. (Viable)Thugs - Thugs has always be insanely good since release. Everything about this set is good. The tier 1 pets are strong and get an arsonist that deals good damage with his fire bomb ability and can scourge. Thugs also get the best pets in the game, enforcers, who can be heavily procced out for huge damage and have access to assault/tactics which buffs all of your pet damage as well as your own. The thugs tier 3 pet, bruiser is also an extremely strong melee pet (think of him as a ss/invul brute, he builds fury!) and has access to KO blow, which can easily do around 250-300 damage(this is the highest damage attack any pet can do). Thugs also get the best summon/buff power out of all MM sets, gang war, which can be casted twice with burnout allowing you to run around with 26 pets in total. Overall this set has the strongest dps out of any MM set and is the go to set if you are looking for raw damage output. (Viable)Robotics - Simply put robots have the best ranged damage burst output of any MM pet set. Most of their attacks can be procced with explosive strike. The tier 3 robot has the strongest ranged attacks of any MM pet and can deal significant damage to anyone silly enough to stand in front of you. Even though this set has slightly stronger ranged damage than thugs, I would not say it out DPS's thugs and is why I put this in A tier rather than S. Choose this set if you want solid, reliable and consistent ranged damage. (Viable)Necromancy - Necromancy was actually A or S tier in pre i13 days. Back when you could actually lockdown targets allowing the pets to get their melee in. These days necro is still decent because their ranged attacks can be procced but they are a mere shadow of what they used to be and what this set is actually capable of. The tier 1 pets, zombies, are cannon fodder and don't do much, they have decent ranged attacks with vomit (toxic damage, very unresisted) and life drain (can be procced and does decent damage). The tier 3 pet lich does various mezzes like fear and holds which don't mean much in pvp but can be procced out to increase its hold damage and any other dark attack it has. The tier 2 pets, grave knights, is what really used to make this set shine. Think of it as having 2 broadsword scrappers. These pets are the second strongest melee DPS pets next to jounin. These pets can bang, with access to headsplitter and disembowel, even with the melee pet modifiers they can still chunk HP bars with attacks that can do anywhere for 200-250. I'd say if lockdown were ever reintroduced back into the game this set would jump up the tier list dramatically. Also give graveknights the ability to crit in pvp. It's not like MMs are overpowered to begin with.. (Not Viable)Ninjas - I wish ninjas were good, I'd roll one immediately. Their problem is their trash ranged damage (understandable, ninjas are not known for ranged damage are they?) which normally wouldn't be a problem because they more than make up for it in their melee damage. With some of the best melee damage numbers for pets in the game, ninjas can slam if given the opportunity. Unfortunately they will never ever be given that opportunity against living breathing opponents(no lockdown means no one is gonna get meleed by your pets :) ). Which is sad because jounin have higher base melee attacks than even grave knights (and they actually crit in pvp!). This set really really relies on having actual lockdown or slows(are you seeing a pattern yet? lol). (Not Viable)Mercenaries - Bad base numbers, serum is trash, most of the pets have 3 second animations that do lower damage than say thugs/robotic ranged attacks that might be 1 second casts. Spec ops look cool but just end up throwing stun grenades (just puts people in mez suppression in pvp which is bad). Commando's damage is not great and is the only pet with an attack (LRM rocket) that has like a 4 minute cooldown, which doesn't really make sense given its damage is pretty awful. This set belongs in the dumpster for the time being until it gets reworked. My suggestion is to rework spec ops to be a sniping/critting pet, and make serum a 2 min cooldown buff that can buff pets for 100% damage or something like that. (Not Viable)Beast Mastery - Has the best melee dps (not burst, that goes to ninjas) out of all MM pets. This set would be viable if lockdown actually existed. The pets do actually dish out massive amounts of damage, they'll just never have that opportunity unfortunately. I really tried to make a beast/kin work in zones but it's more trouble than it's worth. Secondaries: Explanation: Because movement speed and slows follow a DR (diminishing returns) curve, slows do not work under 99% of circumstances (unless an enemy happens to be powerboost+weakened or benumbed). Masterminds were designed to rely on lockdown to apply pressure and secure kills, with this gone many sets that rely on slows to set up kills are extremely weak. Sets that apply buffs or have AOE healing are often times the best secondaries. S Tier: Poison, Nature Affinity A Tier: Empathy, Thermal, Pain Domination B Tier: Trick Arrow, Cold Domination C Tier: Kinetics D Tier: Radiation Emission F Tier: Time Manipulation The Dumpster: Traps, Force Field, Dark Miasma, Storm Summoning, Explanation: (Viable)Poison - Best debuff set in the game, has been MMs best set since upon release. Weaken is -special which has huge utility including debuffing a healer's ability to heal, debuffing an enemies ability to debuff (lol), think of it as a reverse powerboost. Also you can powerboost weaken and strengthen its anti-powerboost effects even more so. Powerboost+weaken+neurotoxic breath actually slows people! One of the few ways MMs have to actually lock an enemy down. Envenom is also strong with a very short cooldown and -def (-achilles proc). Noxious gas is insanely powerful against melee opponents as well and debuffs almost every stat imaginable. If the enemy is not in mez suppression it forces a puke animation as well which can spell death for squishies. The only weakness of this set is no self heal(if you are attacked while in BG mode you need to heal your pets with the single target heal, not optimal). (Viable)Nature Affinity - Strongest buff set in the game. Big AOE damage buff for you and all your pets and big AOE absorb shield for you and your pets AND a single target -res debuff. Need I say more? (Viable)Empathy - Having a PBAOE heal on MM is actually OP in combination with BG mode. You really should never die with this set unless you are chasing friends out of BG mode to heal them which is kind of the big weakness of running emp on a MM, you will be out of BG mode much of the time. I don't really recommend this set if you are planning on just buffing your pets, just go nature if you wanna do that. (Viable)Thermal - AOE heal+BG mode= you tanking 8 man teams by yourself (not really but you should never die). Heat exhaust is nice but because there is no lockdown you may never be able to capitalize off of it. Melt armor is okay, but the recharge is absolute ass, also, suffers from the same problem as heat exhaust, you have no slows, you cannot capitalize off this debuff. Res shields are useless because of DR curves unless you are buffing melees. Forge is okay but MMs have the weakest buffs/debuffs in the game so the values are gonna be bad. (Viable)Pain Domination - Decent healing set if you are man/woman enough to run around out of BG mode all the time and risking getting facerolled by a blaster. Has a PBAOE dmg buff which is nice, but if you are running this for damage buffs for pets just go nature. (Viable)Trick Arrow - This set boils down to two powers, entangling arrow (for the -jump) and acid arrow (can be annihilation/achilles -res procced for around -60% res). This set was designed to lockdown enemies, but because of movement speed DR curves cannot do so. Glue arrow will not do shit, no, not even with powerboost. So this is more of a set to set up kills for your more mobile teammates. All the other powers literally don't matter because no one is gonna be ever going to be slowed by you. (Viable)Cold Domination - Normally, because of the movement DR curves i'd tell you this set is garbage. But because it has access to benumb (-special debuff, think of a reverse powerboost) you may actually be able to slow something with this set(just maybe). The weakness of this set is your lockdown/ability to apply an effective offense is tied to two 40 second cooldown (more on a non min/max build) powers (powerboost+benumb) to be able to actually slow an opponent down enough to attack them. If you aren't able to powerboost->infrigidate->webnade->benumb->sleet->heat loss a target chances are you will not slow them down enough to get them a kill. Not only that if the opponent has teleport this setup also does nothing. That said this is a great team arena set though. (Viable)Kinetics - You can speedboost pets, removing one of the weaknesses MMs have (they are slow because of pet speed and the need to stay in BG mode). Intertial reduction is really nice too, caps your horizontal jump speed. Powerboost+transference+transfusion can mess up people's end bar too. All the other powers don't really matter because (no lockdown). (Not Viable)Radiation Emission - AOE heal is nice. AM is nice. EF/RI require you to be in range for them to be toggled which wouldn't be a problem but nothing can be slowed in the game really so. Only reason I didn't put this set into the dumpster is because it has an AOE heal. Also I have no idea why but they stealth nerfed the -res values of EF (this was done on private server, not on live). Not really a great decision given what poison can do without a need for you to be in constant range of the enemy. All they need to do to fix this set is to reintroduce slows and increase EF -res back to its original values. (Not Viable)Time Manipulation - The only saving grace of this set is you can hold people just a tiny bit longer than other holds with time crawl+time stop. Other than that unfortunately this set is garbage. All of the things this set was designed to do DR too hard in pvp to matter much. Also pets aren't effected by recharge buffs so the utility of this set is extremely limited. (Not Viable)Storm Summoning - Can't slow anything so you can't get sleet off. Thunder clouds don't detoggle anymore. Mastermind hurricane does not -range. Absolute trash. (Not Viable)Traps - Traps is actually a hilarious zone set. You used to be able to set up mines, acid mortar and poison traps and tp foes into them and insta kill them. But, because no fun allowed, tp foe was nerfed and now applies a .75 second unaffected status to enemies that you TP foe, just long enough for them to casually walk out of all your traps(while setting all of them off too, of course). I really don't understand these changes. So yeah this set is absolute trash. (Not Viable)Force Field - Defense DRs hard for MMs, meaning even if you are at 300% defense, in pvp DR will put you at 20-25% defense. Forcebolt is also very weak for MMs because their buff/debuff numbers are low. So yeah this set has almost no utility. You can give your pets defense shields I guess but no one is going to ever shoot your pets. They're going to shoot you. (Not Viable)Dark Miasma - No lockdown, can't fear into tar patch. Also because damage is so extreme you will get 0 utility out of the -acc, people will just roll their faces on their keyboards and explode you before that will matter. They really need to revert the mez system to make these sets actually playable again. APP/PPP: Explanation: Mastermind APP/PPPs give MMs access to extreme damage attacks, shields, holds and strong ranged damage. S Tier: Leviathan Mastery, Mace Mastery A Tier: Chill Mastery B Tier: Mu Mastery C Tier: Charge Mastery The Dumpster: Heat Mastery, Soul Mastery, Field Mastery Explanation: (Viable)Leviathan Mastery - How do sharks know how to KO blow? I dont know but it owns. This is the best MM PPP for pvp. Res shield means +hp IO from unbreakable guard (mandatory for MMs because their HP is so low). KO blow can be 2 acc/dam 4 damage procced and does hefty damage, in fact, this is the hardest hitting move MMs have access to period. Spirit shark jaws is the hardest hitting ranged damage attack MMs have access to as well! This set works very well in the current meta. (Viable)Mace Mastery - Mace mastery gives you access to powerboost (MMs have needed this for so long..) and webnades (gives you limited lockdown, not to reliable though). This is good to pair with sets that can slow like cold or poison. The only weakness of this set is you get a defense shield which is useless in pvp. (Viable)Chill Mastery - Chill mastery is actually quite viable for MMs. Ice blast can be procced and does decent damage, hoarfrost caps MMs HP (they get more utility out of this power than any other AT because even with a min/max build you are only going to get around 1200-1300 HP on MM), and hibernate isn't too bad on MMs either (you are protected from getting AS'd when you come out if you are in BG mode). Frozen armor is defense based so that makes it kind of worthless, but it can still be slotted with unbreakable guard +hp. (Viable)Mu Mastery - The last of the viable APP/PPPs. You get a res shield and thunderstrike. Pretty nice. You may as well go leviathan though if you are looking for a res shield and a heavy hitting attack though. (Not Viable)Charge Mastery - Very similar to Mu Mastery but instead of a res shield you get surge of power, a tier 9 resistance power. Not all that great in pvp because DR curve means that resistance is soft capping well below what you expect it to. (Not Viable)Heat Mastery - You get char/fire blast to round out your ranged attack chain (if you have a ranged attack chain on a pvp MM you're doing it wrong). No res shield though makes this set trash. (Not Viable)Soul Mastery - Bunch of AOE stuff, probably not bad in PVE but useless in PVP. Soul Storm is actually decent though, but still i'd just go leviathan if I wanted a strong damaging hold. (Not Viable)Field Mastery - Powerblast is decent, temp invuln is nice. Everything else is AOE and for PVE. Balancing MMs for PvP Notes: MMs do need a lot of help. If there is not going to be a reversion of the mez system to the old pre-i13 mez system(if that happens that solves almost all problems MMs experience) then I have some suggestions to make to help make MMs more viable. Buff Mercenaries - Very bad set, obviously it was designed very early on and was never really altered. I think spec ops just need to be completely reworked to be a single target damage DPS pet with emphasis on snipes and melee knife crits or something. Serum needs to be buffed to be a damage buff or something, the +res is so useless on a pet I feel. Also it's a 10 min cooldown for god knows what reason lol. Give Grave Knights crits - It's not like MMs are OP in pvp by any means. Grave knights are quite literally the only real damage you get out of necromancy. Increase Pet movement speed, melee pets by 40%, ranged by 25%, perhaps even more so because pets are REALLY slow and in todays super speed/super jump environment this is really a hinderance ESPECIALLY in zone pvp where because you have no lockdown you are just endlessly kited while you fight off zone NPCs, stalker AS and blasters with fly sniping you. Yeah it;s a pretty awful and miserable experience right now if you are trying to do anything but sit around and camp in a MM in zones (even that doesn't work). If some of the best MM players (Volund, Public Enemy etc) in the game struggle hard to pvp in zones that really says something about where the AT is. Allow pets to be slotted with range or increase pet base range - Like I was saying playing MMs in zones is one of the most miserable things you can do in this game, if you just had higher range for pets or allowed them to be slotted with range this would make a huge difference. You could also just add +range components to pet IO sets. Thing is MMs are trying to compete with ranged damage that is procced out (MMs ability to damage proc is limited) so adding additional range to pets I feel is not asking for too much. Increase pet damage - If there is no lockdown and pets are easily kitable, I feel they need their damage increased. Pets don't have very much access to proc damage which is the MAIN source of damage in pvp right now (I think it's something like 60/40 damage between procs/base damage). I think a 25-30% increase in pet damage would make up for their lack of proc damage and a MMs lack of reliable lockdown (which used to be how MMs managed to kill things) Increase supremacy/Bodyguard mode range - This will help a bit with survivability. I don't think it needs to be increased much, I think right now the range is 25 ft., if the range were increased to 37.5ft I think that would be reasonable without going overboard. Increase Base HP from 803 to 903 - This is such a small buff but the problem is you get caught out of BG mode you don't even get a chance to pop phase or greens, you just insta die, I don't want MMs to become unkillable tanks but some HP to buy just a fraction of a second to make a decision would be so huge. If we went back to the old mez system I would never ask for a buff like this, but there are too many times where you get auto held out of BG mode and 0-100'd killed because your HP is only 1200(this is with accolades and a min/max build). Blasters can easily do 1500-2500 in a single attack chain, a little bit of HP would go a long way for MMs especially when blasters had their HP buffed for god knows what reason (not to mention the defense/absorb shields they now get). I still think the easiest way to buff MMs though would not even be to buff them directly(they would still need some buffs), but just remove DR curve on movement speed, which would allow slows to actually work in pvp. It would also help mitigate the endless ranged DPS facerolling because people would actually have to THINK before they commit to a fight. "Am I going to get slowed by this guy if I just run up to him?".

Just going off the top of my head based on the testing I've done. Give them overall much longer range. In fact, allow to slot MM pets for range in general, or add it to pet sets. These guys also have much lower base damage compared to many other MM sets (based on my research). Also serum needs to boost damage by 200% or something to make that extremely long cooldown worth it. Either that or make it 100% damage increase but put the serum on a 2-3 min CD or something. It's a single target buff so it should not be such a long cooldown lol. Mercs - Give the medic some type of AOE heal and ability to buff damage of other soldiers. Make their long cast animation attacks actually do extreme amounts of damage, they have some 3 second animations that do really low damage.. Spec Op - Give them better/higher damage attack chains, add -def to their snipe so it can be procced. Give them knife melee attacks that do bleed damage or crit or something. They are very underwhelming overall. These guys are spec ops like 90% of their attack chain is throwing grenades lol. Give them ability to have ranged crits(can say in description it's their ability to accurately kill or get headshots or something), especially with snipes. In fact they should have multiple snipes with much higher base damage than they have currently. Commando - For how long the animation of full auto is, it really needs to be doing like 2-3x more damage. LRM rocket's cooldown needs to be severely reduced, and their actually needs to be a proper animation for this where the commando pulls a rocket launcher out or something. If the cooldown is to remain this long the damage needs to be increased 3-4x to make it even remotely viable. I feel commando should be the strongest t3 ranged pet among all MM pets but it feels like by far the weakest. These are just basic observations I make regarding mercs for pvp. But even just base numbers wise for pve they are the weakest I feel by a long shot, feels like they were designed very early on and way undertuned and overdue for severe buffs.

In light of the new changes I made a new dom pvp tier list, this list applies to zones/arena (PuGs/casual): Primaries: Broken Tier: Dark control S Tier: Earth, Mind, Grav A Tier: Plant, Ice, Elec B Tier: Fire Explanation: Given current mez mechanics, the only thing that really matters about a primary is the hold. Hold duration, cast time and damage. Most of the secondary effects don't make much of a difference other than grav which can actually effect jump height significantly. I'd say all control sets are viable, it just has to do with your preference of what type of hold do you want, do you want a long cast time high damage hold? Or do you want a faster hold with lower procing ability? (Viable)Dark control has 6 second base duration hold, longer than all the other hold durations which are at 4. This is bugged and I would expect it to be fixed so I wouldn't make dark control for the broken hold duration. Also if you pick this set you are a cornball. (Viable)Earth gives doms 2 strong ranged attacks in fossilize and stone prison with decent ability to proc because of the cast times. Probably best primary right now for pvp(outside of dark). (Viable)Mind has dominate which although does not have great procing ability has the fastest cast time, is hitscan (meaning it hits the target the instant you cast) and ignores positional defense. As a dom in pvp you are very squishy so having fast cast times is important so you can leave combat when needed. Rest of the set is great for using as set mule. TK can also set up free kills on teams. (Viable)Grav has access to many utility powers that are useful in pvp including wormhole and dimensional shift. The secondary effect actually inhibits movements somewhat because it's -jump (most slows don't do anything). Dimensional shift means you have a phase shift every 16 seconds that does not put you in phase suppression. (Viable)Plant - Strangler is a great hold with good damage and fast projectile speed. (Viable)Ice - Block of ice has good damage and good proc ability due to its cast time. (Viable)Elec - Good range hold damage although the animation is a bit on the long side this will mean this set is easier to proc. Everything else in the set is mostly AOE and negligible. Gremlins are nothing more than a set mule for bonuses because you will never lock anyone down long enough for them to attack. (Viable)Fire - Char's fast animation and low cooldown means poor proc ability. Char also has a slow projectile speed but this can sometimes be used to your advantage by throwing char first and using another attack to have char+the additional attack hit at the same time for more burst damage. Imps are useless given current mez system (no real lockdown) so one of fire's greatest strengths are gone. Secondaries: Explanation: There is one thing and one thing only that matters in pvp right now. Damage. S Tier: Energy Assault, Fiery Assault A Tier: Ice Assault, Elec Assault, Earth Assault B Tier: Rad Assault C Tier: Thorny Assault D Tier: Dark Assault F Tier: Martial Assault Dumpster Tier 😞: Psi Assault, Savage Assault Explanation: (Viable)Fiery Assault is the best dom assault set for pvp in the game. Blaze and blazing bolt are lightning fast and do massive amounts of damage. Embrace of fire is up roughly 40-50% of the time and last 30 seconds. It's easy to do 800-1000+ between hold->blaze->blazing bolt. Overall its the speed and damage of the attack chain, the low cooldown of your attack chain and embrace of fire essentially being a 30 second build up that puts this set far and beyond the others. (Viable)Energy Assault - After having its animation times reduced, being granted "power up" and the damage buff energy assault is in a good spot now. With a strong attack chain in total focus->power burst->sniper blast you'll have no problem doing massive amounts of damage with this set and you'll be a capable threat against blasters. (Viable)Ice Assault - Very strong ranged attack chain in bitter ice blast->ice blast->ice bolt and with power up can now be a capable threat. The melee attacks are very strong as well with the new buffs. This set is possibly S tier but i'll have to see more ice assault doms to get a better picture of what this set can do. (Viable)Electric Assault - Build up is always great and is the best "boost" power to have in the current meta. Thunderstrike, which has always done pretty massive damage has had not only its animation buffed but its damage buffed as well (to what degree I have no idea it's not listed in the notes). Very fast ranged attack chain with decent damage and a very strong melee attack chain. The only thing holding this set back is damage raw numbers (ranged attack chain is on the lower side but it's offset by having build up) and the short cooldowns this sets ability to proc as effectively as other sets. Normal you'd think short cooldowns is a good thing but lower base cooldowns often just means the attacks won't be able to proc effectively in the PPM system. If overall damage ever gets lowered in this game this set's viability will jump up dramatically as draining end will become more of an option with higher times to kill giving this set the utility it was designed to have. (Viable)Earth Assault - Earth's two biggest weaknesses to me before the buff were its ranged attack chain (slow cast and requires ground contact) and a lack of build up (power boost does not mesh with earth really in any way). Now both of those weaknesses have been addressed with a faster ranged attack chain (cast time almost cut in half between stone spears->hurl boulder) and power boost becoming power up means earth should be able to apply enough pressure to be viable. Earth has the strongest and fastest melee attack chain of all dom sets. Melee isn't necessarily bad on doms, the idea is you hold and during the hold duration you get off your high risk attacks off then finish with your ranged attack chain (stone spears->hurl boulder). With earth's extremely fast and high damage melee attack chain (stone mallet->heavy mallet->seismic smash) and now decent follow up ranged attack chain makes this set among one of the best assault sets. (Viable)Rad Assault - Build up->devastating blow is the hardest hitting move doms have access to. Rad has had its damage buffed and snipe animation speed increased but overall the long cast times and lack of smooth attack chains leaves too many opportunities for enemies to escape, evade or heal when trying to secure a kill. If siphon strike or devastating blow had an animation speed increase this set could become more viable. (Please give devastating blow the old energy transfer animation. (Viable)Thorn Assault - This set seems to have it all with build up, great base damage and strong ranged attack chain with strong melee attacks. The recent changes to the cooldown of its attacks also means better procability for attacks. But this set suffers from the same problem as rad, long cast times. Without any real lockdown in the game(because of the current mez system), it's hard to use sets that have long cast times. Thorny darts->impale->thorn barrage is around 5 seconds to cast (not even including your hold cast time) which not only leaves you very vulnerable as you root but often times means an opponent that will simply get away from you. Very close to being a top tier set if it weren't for the long animations. (Not Viable)Dark Assault - Might not be a bad 1v1 build with its -acc and self heal. In all other scenarios though the high damage environment of todays current pvp meta means you won't have time to wear down enemies with with DoTs and -acc. The current pvp system does not really lend itself well to attrition style sets like /dark. If dark had an increase on base damage or if overall damage in the game is lowered this set would become more viable. (Not Viable)Martial Assault - I really want this set to be good, but unfortunately this set does not have access to any good melee attacks (for pvp) as all the strong melee attacks are AOE (which suffers from AOE damage formula making them essentially useless). It's ranged attack base damage is also very very low. If this set had access to a stronger single target melee attack say eagles claw and higher base damage on its ranged attack chain this set would become more viable. That said this set IS good for PvE though. (Not Viable)Psi Assault - Back in the day (before i13) psi assault used to whoop ass because of its unresisted damage type and the strength of psychic shockwave. Now with damage type mattering less, no build up or power up and an incomplete melee attack chain (no greater psi blade or any extreme/superior damage attack)and a weak ranged attack chain (no will dom or power up/build up to boost dmg) and nerfed psychic shockwave this set is one of the worst for pvp. This set would either need higher base damage or to be reworked to include higher damage attacks such as greater psi blade or will dom to be viable. (Not Viable)Savage Assault - Extremely low base damage across the board. But you do get to throw bees on people, so doesn't that really make you the winner at the end of the day? APP/PPP: Explanation: Dom APP/PPPs are used for survivability, utility, or as slot mules to grant further bonuses. S Tier: Leviathan A Tier: Mace Mastery B Tier: Primal Forces Mastery, Fire Mastery C Tier: Mu Mastery, Psionic Mastery D Tier: Ice Mastery Dumpster Tier 😞: Soul Mastery Explanation: (Viable)Leviathan Mastery - Offers the best slotting among all sets and a res shield. Res shields are extremely important because often times they are the only way for doms to get access to the unbreakable guard 7.5% HP IO. It is a must to be close to capped HP (1606) on doms to survive making this IO mandatory. Water spout is slotted for 2 lady greys for HP bonus meaning even the tier 1 powers for this power set still have utility for set bonuses. The pet while pretty useless in pvp is also great for slotting for further HP. If you don't have phase you can take hibernate, but hibernate more often than not gets you killed, I don't recommend it at all. (Viable)Mace Mastery - Mace is decent in 1v1 arena and 1v1 scenarios in zones primarily because of PFF. Dominator PFF grants the highest elusivity of any PFF shield with 60% elusivity meaning you're really not gonna get hit by anything outside of a BU+aim blaster. You also get access to poisonous ray which can be slotted for achilles -res proc which makes the -res value around 38.75% (this value gets DR'd) which can be very effective in helping you kill more quickly or set up kills for teammates. The weaknesses of this set is its lack of a resistance shield (no unbreakable guard proc unless you go tough (don't do that)) and poisonous ray's long animation cast time (2 seconds). (Viable)Primal Forces Mastery - You get energy transfer which just owns. You get conserve power which surprisingly helps a lot because dominators do tend to have endurance problems in pvp if you are attacking non stop. Temp invuln is a res shield so you get the unbreakable guard IO. Energy torrent and explosive blast are not really good though and should be ignored. (Viable)Fire Mastery - This set is not good because of the powers themselves but because they can be used as set mules. Fire ball, rain of fire can be slotted with jav volleys if you're looking to get more range in your build. Melt armor is also decent even though the recharge is really trash. You also get a res shield which as you know means +HP io. (Viable)Mu Mastery - Mu is only good in certain scenarios, mainly in end drain builds. Powerboost powersink can actually wreck someone's end bar and the guardian pet can continue to wreak havoc on someone's end bar. Although surge of power might seem great, because of DR it'll probably end up being much more useless than it looks because ranged characters are already often times soft DR capped on res so at most you'll get 5-10% more res from surge of power. May as well take it though right? (Viable)Psionic Mastery - Psionic mastery actually used to be pretty good in the old patch because you needed tohit to autocast snipes. But now that that's all over with the only real utility this build gets is having higher than normal res to psi (still a very common damage type in pvp). (Viable)Ice Mastery - Ice mastery might look really good and survivable but it really isn't. Luckily frozen armor can be slotted with unbreakable guard +HP but you're still stuck with a defense shield which drastically brings down your survivability. Hibernate is useless, if you hibernate in zones, you will be assassin striked the second you come out. If you hibernate in arena during a spike, chances are you will die in hibernate animation. Hibernate is actually not bad in 1v1s though so if you plan on doing strictly a 1v1 build it might not be a bad choice. You should already be close to HP cap so hoarfrost is really just equivalent to a 2 green insp pop every 3 mins (not worth it). Sleet is actually the best part of this set because it can be double slotted with -res procs (annihilation and achilles) bringing its non-DR'd -res to around -60% which is pretty strong. Overall though this set is not very survivable and if you're set on going hibernate go with leviathan instead for the res shield and pet. (Not Viable)Soul Mastery - This set is chalk full of PBAOE buffs that require acc checks, if you're spending your precious hold duration time walking up to your opponent to soul drain them for that 6.8% damage buff you're asking to get smacked around. Everything in this set is trash except for the pet (actually got the best pet of all dom APPs/PPPs) and the fact that you get a res shield. Now if people stop moving and group up together in groups of 8 then just maybe this set might become viable.

I'd be be fine with 20% dmg bonus on pets or or 25% movement increase on pets or both for being in aggressive. But this is just buffs i'd like to see for MMs in pvp in general because being out of BG mode is such a huge risk and it's tough to keep up with other ATs movement otherwise because there is no real lockdown.