Duoing with a Robots/FF MM... What to pick?

[HBGooch]

Title says it all.  My friend is starting a Robots/FF MM and I'm going to duo another MM with him.  What would be great synergy?  I'm leaning towards Thugs/Time or Demons/Dark but if someone knows of a better combo I'd love to hear it!

[BGSacho]

Both Thugs/Time and Demons/Dark would be excellent choices. While /Time would double-up on defense, it would allow you to cap early and easily, and give you some leeway vs defense debuffs. Both /Dark and /Time provide a nice AoE heal to round off your defensive capabilities. These combinations are already some of the strongest on their own, so they'd be fine choices for a duo as well.

You could also try the following combinations - these are usually more difficult to pull off on their own, but they might do better in a duo:

Ninja/Time - With FF bubbles + Farsight the Ninjas will be easily capped on def, without having to rely on the MM defense auras, freeing up their slots. The Ninjas deliver a lot of single target DPS, which combines well with the Bots' AoE(although you need to wait to 32 to really get going with Bots).

Beasts/Nature - Layer resistances on top of the defense from FF. Overgrowth allows both of you to take personal attacks and spam them to your hearts' content. Both sets rely on buffs rather than auras, so it's easier to manage the mix of ranged and melee pets. This is my favourite pairing in terms of how much synergy the two combos provide to each other(but keep in mind, that doesn't mean it's necessarily stronger than power picks like demons/thugs).

[tremor3258]

Those are pretty solid - one with a heal. especially an area heal, will make the masterminding faster at medium levels.  There comes a point where the tier 1 goes from major damage component to 'cannon fodder'.  Getting something with a -regen capability will help against archvillains later in your careers.  Having FF to go with covers a lot extra defense and helps save on break frees so there's a lot to build on. 

 

Thugs and Demons are both pretty strong - I've been hearing good things from Mercs players after the AI changes; they're much less suicidal then they used to be.  Demons get the added feature the Hellfire-powered ones will use the summoning colors for the hellfire; so it's a more flexible set display-wise.

[TheSpiritFox]

My vote goes to demons/nature. You've got debuffs, heals, and buffs that will synergize with the defense from /ff. Between resistance buffs and damage debuffs everything takes less damage when it does get hit. Bots/ff and demons/nature should be able to pretty easily duo most content in the game. 

[Dr Causality]

Your 2ndary should include an aoe Heal, because /FF lacks one, but will provide you and your pets +Def and some Mezz resistance.    If you pick pets that have their own +Def like Thugs, Bots, or Beasts, then just your duo's /FF bubbles, plus both of you taking Maneuvers, and  Unique pet bonus IO's should able to get your pets to softcap.  In that case your duo will be stronger with a set that buffs Resistance rather than stacking even more +Def.   /Dark would do some of all of the above.   /Time is great but does not buff +Res.    /Nature suggested by The SpiritFox would give  several heals, and both MM's pets+Res, and Absorb.

 

As for choosing the pets.  Think about the playstyle you two want.    With the recent patch your duo's Bot's will finally stay at range.   So you could choose another mostly ranged pet set, then the two MM's could focus on keeping enemies away from your pets.    /FF has some built-in powers for that.   (For all ranged pets you have either /Bot or /Mercs).  

 

Or you could choose melee pets and play the damage sponge while the Bots shoot enemies in safety.    You'll need big heals for this style like /Dark, /Nature to keep the melee pets alive.      Beasts would be this style because they have basically no ranged attacks.  /Necro too are mostly melee.     / Thugs would be a blend because their Bruiser T3 is melee while the other henchman after the recent patch stay at range. (Except Arsonist still closes in to enemies for some short range cones....)  Demon's have ranged attacks but will run in to use claw attacks.

 

There's also Tankerminding where you try to get all aggro onto your MM while in Bodyguard mode spreading it across all the henchmen and which you then heal with aoe heals.    /Nature would be great for this combined with all Ranged pets.  Since you can run forward to take aggro, but use the heal cone to direct heals back to the pets, but it still heals your MM.  **Edit** /Thugs could also be great for this since the Bruiser would go into Melee with your MM, while the other pets stayed at range.    The /Nature cone gets massively wide with some Range Enhancement.    /Dark's heal is massive but is an aoe around the MM so requires positioning your MM near the target that needs healing...

 

Something else cheesy to mention is if you can convince your duo to re-roll as Thugs, the Thug's leadership bonuses stack across all the Thugs.   This doubles their defense bonuses since all the Enforcers Maneuvers stack to all pets.  That's a base of 8% Def, so x4 is 32% Def for pets without even slotting for Def Enhancement.   With IO slotting easily up to 11% each x 4 can hit softcap on it's own.  

Edited February 7, 2020 by Dr Causality