Henchmen suck! (Advice needed thread with a hyped title)

[Solarverse]

I am not the best MM player. If I was, I would not be here, heh.

 

So, I have tried every secondary I could think of in terms of survival for several different types of MM's. Out of all the MM's I enjoy Mercs and Ninjas the most. I sat and did the math, and Mercs benefit from Sonic Resonance due to Mercs having a natural resistance to Smashing and Lethal. Stack Sonic shields on them and it makes them even more resistant. Yet, Bosses will still one shot them pre 50, post level 32. Constantly calling my Mercs to battle gets frustrating. Ninjas seem to do "okay" with bubbles, since it stacks with their natural defense which with SO's, grants them 31% Defense to Ranged, Melee and AoEs. However, NPC's have mad accuracy and seem to hit them constantly, thus again constantly one shotting my minions. So I tried Kinetics, and wow, amazing the DPS of Ninjas under SB, and the heal works nicely since the minions are melee anyway. However, I am left with the same issue of my minions being one shotted by bosses and those bosses just rip through them like paper.

 

So after doing the math, I did what should have given both Mercs and Ninjas the best chance at survival, yet miserably failed. I was shocked that Mercs went down so easily since they were buffed pretty good with resists, but it's simply not enough, their hit point are just way too low. Not to mention, they are fighting at -2 to me, which means they are going to have a tough time against pretty much anything I fight at +1 or higher. Even with the Medicine pool power, they still go down like a nun in church.

 

So tell me, at level 50, after you have all the MM IOs and a decent build, do you still struggle to keep them alive? Is playing an MM pretty much a never ending battle to keep your pets alive long enough for the Call Minions button to recharge? I really hope playing an MM gets better than this. It's hard for me to have fun playing an MM if all I am doing is struggling to keep them alive more than I am actually playing the game.

 

And nevermind about my playstyle. Whether I am a good MM player or a bad one is not the point, what I am trying to do is focus on keeping my pets alive beyond a one shot from a boss here. I even tried using taunt from the presence pool but sadly, that doesn't last long at all. I can taunt and within just a few short seconds, the Boss will one shot my minions again, and this was with taunt having 2 recharge and 2 taunt SO's.

 

Please tell me it gets a hell of a lot better after IO's and I am not just wasting my time?

[Carnifax]

Well yes but then no.

 

At 50 your pets kitted out with the IOs will be tougher. Unfortunately you'll also find yourself on +3/+4 teams. So +5/6 against your tier ones. 

 

That's what splats them so easily. They run into the purple patch since they are -2 to your level and you're fighting +4s.

 

Mercs and ninja are also the two most fragile sets overall which doesnt help.

 

What can help are debuffs. Dark is good for this since you can lower a bosses tohit and damage a lot between darkest night, fearsome stare and the servant.

 

Also the forthcoming ai changes should help. On my warshade the biggest cause of Fluffy death is charging into melee range and getting caught in aoes. Its really annoying. The boss isnt even attacking them, they just get caught in the blasts.

[Force Redux]

Ninjas/Time is what you are looking for. Redlynne has a guide around this forum. Time with IOs will get your ninjas Defense capped and your heal will keep them topped off from the bleedthrough.  

 

Plus the debuffs, slows and other Timey Wimey goodness

 

Time plays best in melee range. Ninjas are mostly melee. It's a great pairing.

🙂

Edited January 17, 2020 by Force Redux

[tremor3258]

6 hours ago, Force Redux said:

Time plays best in melee range. Ninjas are mostly ranged. It's a great pairing.

🙂

 

Just to check you did mean melee for the ninjas too here?  They've some wonderful up-close attacks. 

 

I wish the genin's disorient was a little more frequent - if it could stack enough it would help with the Boss Problem. 

[Force Redux]

6 minutes ago, tremor3258 said:

 

Just to check you did mean melee for the ninjas too here?  They've some wonderful up-close attacks. 

 

I wish the genin's disorient was a little more frequent - if it could stack enough it would help with the Boss Problem. 

Ugh yes. I meant ninjas play best melee too

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, tremor3258 said:

 

Just to check you did mean melee for the ninjas too here?  They've some wonderful up-close attacks. 

 

I wish the genin's disorient was a little more frequent - if it could stack enough it would help with the Boss Problem. 

Heh, yeah, I seen that too, but I knew what he meant.  😄

[Xandyr]

I feel ya Solarverse. I've done some of the math like you, but decided to go Mercs/Thermal. My thought process, like yours, was the Mercs have inherent resistances, so Thermal will increase those resistances, plus have heals to back them up. Throw in the +Pet Resistance IOs, and they should be sturdy. 

 I'm still a few levels away from being able to slot level 50 IOs, so I'm going to wait until then to go haywire with my slotting.

 

 I also agree with /Time. I have a Beast/Time and it is a really fun set, and the buffs/heals/controls really help. I think my next MM project will be Ninja,  probably paired with Time (although I hate repeating powersets). 

 On another note, if you wanna dabble with Thugs, I can attest that /Cold pairs extremely well. 

[Force Redux]

+1 Beasts/Time as awesome. 

[Redlynne]

20 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Out of all the MM's I enjoy Mercs and Ninjas the most.

I like playing Ninja/Time (as mentioned above), in part because the general consensus is that Ninjas simply fold easier than pre-creased origami rice paper (and rightly so) ... so it then becomes a challenge to figure out how to keep Ninjas alive long enough to be effective, and Time Manipulation delivers on that (in spades).

 

For Mercs, I'd honestly recommend going with Mercs/Nature because of the combination of buff/debuff, heal and absorb being a remarkably good fit for Mercs (on top of being good thematically for guys in camo fatigues).

Edited January 18, 2020 by Redlynne

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Redlynne said:

I like playing Ninja/Time (as mentioned above), in part because the general consensus is that Ninjas are simply fold easier than pre-creased origami rice paper (and rightly so) ... so it then becomes a challenge to figure out how to keep Ninjas alive long enough to be effective, and Time Manipulation delivers on that (in spades).

 

For Mercs, I'd honestly recommend going with Mercs/Nature because of the combination of buff/debuff, heal and absorb being a remarkably good fit for Mercs (on top of being good thematically for guys in camo fatigues).

I have checked out your build that you have posted and adjusted it to fit my Mercs. So far, Mercs/Time is working pretty good for me. Better than everything else I have tried. I'm rerolling Ninjas/Time next. Looking forward to it and very appreciative of your input.

[Redlynne]

2 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

I have checked out your build that you have posted and adjusted it to fit my Mercs. So far, Mercs/Time is working pretty good for me. Better than everything else I have tried. I'm rerolling Ninjas/Time next. Looking forward to it and very appreciative of your input.

And there it is ... I'm a Bad INF on you people ... as if there was ever any doubt ... 

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Solarverse said:

So far, Mercs/Time is working pretty good for me. Better than everything else I have tried. I'm rerolling Ninjas/Time next.

On a slightly more serious note (but only slightly...) I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with the combinations and the things you discover along the way while playing.  A lot of the time, there are things you learn through actual gameplay that wouldn't have been obvious to you while looking at a build in the hero planner of your choice and which aren't the kinds of things that yield easily to (overly?) simplified spreadsheet analysis of stats and repeating attack chains.

 

Still, if anything I've posted winds up inspiring you to enjoy playing the game more than you'd expected/anticipated, then I consider my efforts to post those walls of text to be well rewarded.

 

Pass it on.

[Ry]

Demons/Dark is an amazing combo for keeping your pets alive. Twilight Grasp alone is an outstanding AoE heal. Demons themselves are also quite well spread out between damage and resistances with a little crowd control thrown in on the Demon Prince, combine that with a Dark Servant and you have yourself a winning team. Other Mastermind sets work great in unison, such as Robots/Traps, Thugs/Storm (if you've got the build for it, multiple Lightning Storms and Gang Wars is hilarious). Honestly, IO's make Masterminds a lot better but in terms of keeping your pets alive, its a fine balance between finding a set that can suitably buff/heal them, or a set so heavy on the debuff that the enemy dies faster - if you find a combination that has both mixed in that's always good, but yes, IO' do make the class far more powerful so you aren't wasting your time. 🙂

[tremor3258]

I just got to IO sets on a demon/pain (any mitigation from powers is after the first combat exchange, basically) and there is a significant change to the resilience of pets with those resist and defense auras in place.

[Clave Dark 5]

On 1/17/2020 at 8:58 PM, Redlynne said:

And there it is ... I'm a Bad INF on you people ... as if there was ever any doubt ... 

I too could use some bad influence in my life, as I have 50 Merc/Nature but I'm unhappy with the build and could use some pointers about what directions to take him in.  Where might I find this corrupting build?

[Crysis]

Biggest complaint I have about all the primaries is the T1 pets.  From 40-50, once you’ve got all your henchman IO kitted, they really come into their own and the MM class can shine.  WIth yesterday’s patch changes, its even better.  But in Incarnate content, even with the level shifts, your T1’s are going up against the purple patch and it’s just hard for them to contribute much even if they can survive.  Especially on densely packed maps where it’s really hard to keep them focused on the current spawn while taking aggro fire from the one next to them.  

[Redlynne]

5 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I too could use some bad influence in my life, as I have 50 Merc/Nature but I'm unhappy with the build and could use some pointers about what directions to take him in.  Where might I find this corrupting build?

Ninja/Time/Mace ... "It's a BOW Time ..."

Mind/Nature/Primal ... Mind Over Vegetable(s)

Beast/Nature (made better) by @SmalltalkJava

 

Between the Ninja and Beast Mastermind builds you ought to be able to figure out what you'd want to be doing with your Pet slotting.

Between the Mind Controller and Beast Mastermind builds you ought to pick up a LOT of pointers on how to slot Nature Affinity for fun and profit.  There are some well hidden tricks in there that will be quite game changing for you once you take advantage of them.

 

Have fun!

Oh and there's going to be a test on all of this in the morning, so ... do your homework ...

[Carnifax]

1 hour ago, Crysis said:

Biggest complaint I have about all the primaries is the T1 pets.  From 40-50, once you’ve got all your henchman IO kitted, they really come into their own and the MM class can shine.  WIth yesterday’s patch changes, its even better.  But in Incarnate content, even with the level shifts, your T1’s are going up against the purple patch and it’s just hard for them to contribute much even if they can survive.  Especially on densely packed maps where it’s really hard to keep them focused on the current spawn while taking aggro fire from the one next to them.  

I wonder if there was some way to boost Supremacy when your Tier ones aren't out. 

 

IE when you forfeit your Tier 1s the other Tiers are a bit stronger to compensate (with maybe also a Res & Def buff to you to compensate for no Bodyguard)

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

I wonder if there was some way to boost Supremacy when your Tier ones aren't out. 

 

IE when you forfeit your Tier 1s the other Tiers are a bit stronger to compensate (with maybe also a Res & Def buff to you to compensate for no Bodyguard)

Really good idea.  Seconded.

[Solarverse]

6 hours ago, RialVestro said:

Another possibility that occurs to me... Are you trying to resummon every single time a SINGE pet dies? You have three Henchmen... if two are still alive it's pointless to even resummon them yet. I learned that pretty early on... like City of Villains was still in Beta Testing Early on. If you resummon every single time a pet dies you're going to be summoning CONSTANTLY and having a horrible time and there's really no need to. If you wait till ALL your pets are dead then you can just resummon them all at once, use a lot less endurance on summoning and the power will actually be recharged by the next time you need to use it.

This right here. You nailed it. Thanks.

 

You learned this early on, however, I was trying to find a way to make my pets more survivable to where I would rarely need to summon.

 

Keep in mind though, this thread is pretty old and I have learned much since this thread started. You kind of raised this one from the dead. So I am not having the same issues now that I was before posting this. /Time has worked wonders for my minions. They still die, but nowhere near as much.

 

And no, I don't run +1 solo. I typically run +2 or +3 depending on mob type. I appreciate your response, even though it was a bit on the snarky side, but very useful information for anyone else who is struggling with their MM's. So I appreciate that.

[Solarverse]

On 1/24/2020 at 10:00 AM, Carnifax said:

I wonder if there was some way to boost Supremacy when your Tier ones aren't out. 

 

IE when you forfeit your Tier 1s the other Tiers are a bit stronger to compensate (with maybe also a Res & Def buff to you to compensate for no Bodyguard)

Sure, it's called Vengeance.  😄

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, RialVestro said:

Maybe this has changed but last I checked Vengeance can't be activated off of a dead pet. It can still be worth getting for teams if you have room in your build for it but you shouldn't rely on that.

Was just kidding.  🙂 If they could change it to where it works with MM pets, that would be a complete game changer though. It would be nice.

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, RialVestro said:

Yeah but I don't think they ever would because it would give Masterminds an unfair advantage being the only class that could actually do it...

 

At least until Lore Pets are unlocked for other Archetypes.

Masterminds are also the only ones that can command their pets. Not saying it should be done, just saying I wouldn't complain if MM's could use vengeance on their pets. It would sure help with the constant summoning of pets because it would increase their defense. It's a pipe dream though, so I digress. 

[Haijinx]

Does the incarnate level shift help here? 

[Solarverse]

40 minutes ago, RialVestro said:

That's different though. Vengeance isn't a Mastermind specific power. It's a pool power that ANYONE can pick up from the Leadership pool and no other pool powers work differently depending on which Archetypes you're playing so Masterminds would be the only ones with an obvious advantage over anyone else who has the same power pool.

Not entirely true. For an example, Scrappers picking up the Fighting pool will hit harder than a Tank who picks the same powers, so the pool powers adjust per AT. Of course it's also fair to say that Defenders wont get a bigger heal from the Med pools than the other AT's either.  So it's a bit biased in the DPS department.