First Time MasterMind

[CKent83]

I'm thinking of rolling a MasterMind when I get home, but I've always been leery of the ArchType. It seems odd to me. Like it's complicated in ways that other AT's don't need to worry about. Is that an accurate read on it? Do you have to play with bindings/macros? Is there a way around them?

 

Also, I'm planning on going with Demons. What's a good Secondary for them? I'm not really looking for a strong combo, just something that's easy to play them with. If there's a really easy MM combo that doesn't involve Demons I'd consider that too.

 

Thanks in advance!

[biostem]

Well, I find thugs to be pretty easy to play, since your tier 1 & 2 minions are mainly ranged.  You also get 'gang war', which is a great power that summons a whole bunch of temporary squishy pets to deal damage and distract the enemy.  As for secondaries, I really like nature affinity;  It's not too complex, and offers a wide variety of abilities.

 

Here are some simple commands that, I think, will make your life a lot easier:

 

/macro Att "petcomall attack defensive"

/macro Flw "petcomall follow defensive"

/bind lshift+lbutton "petcomall goto passive"

 

The first command will place a little icon labeled "Att" in your power bar.  That icon, when clicked or if you press the number associated with its place in the power bar, will command all your pets to attack your target.  The second command will create an icon labeled 'Flw' which tells your pets to break off their attack, (unless they are attacked by another enemy), and follow you instead.  The last command will make it so if you press shift then left-click somewhere, your pets will ignore everything else and attempt to move to where you clicked.

 

Happy hunting!

Edited March 14, 2020 by biostem

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, CKent83 said:

I'm thinking of rolling a MasterMind when I get home, but I've always been leery of the ArchType. It seems odd to me. Like it's complicated in ways that other AT's don't need to worry about. Is that an accurate read on it? Do you have to play with bindings/macros? Is there a way around them?

 

Also, I'm planning on going with Demons. What's a good Secondary for them? I'm not really looking for a strong combo, just something that's easy to play them with. If there's a really easy MM combo that doesn't involve Demons I'd consider that too.

 

Thanks in advance!

Masterminds built right are actually pretty easy to play. Pets are not complicated to manage overall once you figure out macros. Think of it like playing a support character with a pocket team to support. It is both alot of fun and pretty laid back imo. Managing pets is alot easier than like being a defender or corruptor going back and forth between attacking constantly and spamming support constantly, you don't need to take any personal attacks at all to be effective and they can be built to be dps, tank, and support all at once. 

 

Demons are an excellent primary to start with. Secondaries?

 

Dark is a solid secondary. Tons of heals and debuffs that will help keep you, pets, and your team alive. 

 

Nature is one of the best. Build it for recharge and endurance recovery and you can perma some great buffs and debuffs and it is bar none the best healing set in the game. 

 

Time is a solid set, mobile and good buff/debuff with a decent heal attached. 

 

Thermal is a good set to pair with demons. Demons have resistance based defenses and thermal enhances it along wtih dark and nature doing the same. Sonic is ok, resistance based but not as great a set. 

 

For other sets? Thugs/Time, Thugs/Cold, Thugs/Traps, Bots with all three of the above sets, are all great sets to start out with. 

 

For ease of play? I would say that time, dark, nature are all good starter secondaries. 

 

 

[Zeraphia]

I think there is a difference here between "easy" versus "best" especially where secondaries are concerned. This is your first time, so you may not way to pick the "best" combination (there is debate as to what the "best" is whether it is most damaging, soloing AV's, doing it "all", able to run +4x8, etc.) the "best" combinations are for the majority harder to play or have an advanced skill set that gets exponentially better when IO's are concerned. 

 

For "easy" you will really want to slot in healthy combinations of damage and accuracy into your minions when running SO's or basic IO's.  Accuracy is key, especially early on, sure an attack may deal 20-40% more damage (I'm ignoring ED cap for a second here) but it is more damage lost sometimes to give the powers the accuracy to hit the target (put it this way, you deal more damage doing less damage to a target that's hit very often than a target that has more enhanced damage but misses constantly) I want to especially stress this to you early on. 

 

The "easiest" starting set in my opinion despite how the pets run into melee is Demon Summoning, they start off with a base of 25% S/L res or more (minus the Prince who has extra S/L defense), they provide -res for a team and yourself, they also give even more res to 10% S/L/T 6% /C 13% /F because of the Ember Demon casting Ember Shield to all of your minions (so really it becomes 35% S/L). This makes them very tough starting straight out the gate and makes them much more manageable to be healed.

 

With the above set, the best "easy" pairing is either going to be Nature or Thermal (because both give resistance). Thermal will actually be easier, as you do not need IO's to make its shields permanent and the cast is 4 minute duration (much less active than Nature's minute and a half duration), to be fair, Nature gives resistances like Psi that Thermal doesn't offer, Nature also gives absorbs (its main advantage), however Thermal gives mez protection (this is not a "small" thing to pass up). They both give -regen, but Thermal's is stronger once you make it permanent however Nature's is a toggle (no IOing required). For your **FIRST TIME** I'd recommend Demons/Thermal, it is an extremely strong synergy, can indeed do endgame content just as well as most builds, very thematic choice, and it really doesn't need too much IOing at all to make it "work."

Edited March 14, 2020 by Zeraphia

[BGSacho]

On 3/14/2020 at 1:52 AM, CKent83 said:

I'm thinking of rolling a MasterMind when I get home, but I've always been leery of the ArchType. It seems odd to me. Like it's complicated in ways that other AT's don't need to worry about. Is that an accurate read on it? Do you have to play with bindings/macros? Is there a way around them?

Yes and no. It's entirely possible to play the AT with 4 extra keybinds(that you will unfortunately have to set, since the ones provided by the game are useless) - those are commands to set all your pets to these stances: defensive/follow(your normal stance), defensive/goto(you want to regroup your pets in one location), defensive/attack(focus fire a target), passive/follow(stop your pets from aggroing stuff). I personally use a control scheme that allows me to issue these commands via shift + a/s/d/f/g keybinds, and this is what I use 90% of the time as MM.

You can put a lot of extra work besides this when mastering how to play. It's also true that most other ATs aren't babysitting a bunch of fairly braindead and squishy AI-controlled NPCs. I sometimes compare MMs to a house of cards - you stack a bunch of things together and it looks really impressive, but you have to keep concentrated or the whole thing falls apart. While I think it's possible to play MM with practically no bindings(just have defensive/follow), I don't think it's *worth it* - why not play a controller or corruptor instead? To me, MM is all about micromanaging the hell out of your minions, living the annoying boss fantasy. 🤪

 

 

On 3/14/2020 at 1:52 AM, CKent83 said:

Also, I'm planning on going with Demons. What's a good Secondary for them? I'm not really looking for a strong combo, just something that's easy to play them with. If there's a really easy MM combo that doesn't involve Demons I'd consider that too.

I have a certain fondness for Demons/Dark. Personally I think it's one of the best combos to start with as an MM, as the powerset is very frontloaded and forgiving, and demons are fairly sturdy.

Edited March 16, 2020 by BGSacho

[Force Redux]

Easiest? Robots/FF with Medicine pool for Aid Other. Really good build for learning the AT, and they are all ranged, so park them with a GoTo command and let them do their thing. Bubble and spot healing as needed. Safer, but slower kill speed than demons.

 

Most fun?

Demons/Dark. Lots more to do, speedier kill speed, and super effective debuffs, no knockback to fix, smoother ride to 32 than bots, since the pets are less back loaded than Bots, and damage ability is spread out more evenly. Need better situational awareness than FF since your survivability is tied to your debuffs. 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Force Redux

[Force Redux]

To OP, if you prefer something other than /Dark, my next recommendation would be/Time.  Has a bit of everything. 

[PartyKake]

My namesake is a Bots/Dark Miasma mastermind, that one's fun.

 

I also have a demons/time manipulation, and that one's cool too.

 

One of my most fond memories was when I tried to get the Army of Me badge on that character. Requires starting a mission against 8 duplicates of yourself. I realized very quickly I needed help.

That was a ludicrous fight, and I made a few friends in the process.

 

8 demon summoning masterminds stacking debuffs and buffs and heal over time, yeah, that's wild.