MM best primary / secondary for soloing?

[lokiie1984]

Back when CoV first launched i played a necro/dark mm and then recently i've been doing a beast/nature and i enjoy it but i get a lot of dead pets and having to resummon. So i'm curious if there's something better. I'd like to be able to run missions on at least x8 if not +4. It's possible that i just suck at mastermind though.

 

I'm not 50 yet so that could be part of it also and have no idea how to do a build so i'm just using normal IOs plus a few basic sets. Right now my current mastermind is 46.

 

I've been trying to find that class that speaks to me the most. One that's fun in groups and solo but also ranged as while i enjoy melee while solo, i hate melee in groups. Plus i've always been a pet class person so mastermind has always seemed like the best fit.

 

Thanks

[Vinceq99]

If you want to be a steamroller then 2 primaries that are just a notch above others. Thugs and demons. Some say bots are good but honestly that's because the assault bot carries the set and the rest of the minions are underperforming. 

 

Of the secondaries time is also a notch above the others. Yes we can make arguments and builds for others but no other set has everything you need to solo and melt mobs. Capped defense -tohit -dmg heals recharge buffs +dmg and -res. Yeah it doesn't have alot of -regen for AVs but you can easily purchase envenomed daggers to stack with your own -regen. 

 

Demons are best with thermal. You get high resists to pets, aoe heals, and -res and debuffs to melt AVs. But from play testing dark performs amazingly with demons. Demons have innate high resists and dark just has so much debuffs that it's effective +def assuming you get your fearsome stare and darkest night on a majority of the mobs. That layered defense really keeps your pets safe as they stack -res on -res to melt mobs. 

 

So my 2 cents after making tons and tons of MMs thugs/times just feels so strong. My thugs/time has 240% global recharge with the Chrono shift buff. 45% def to melee and 45 to range. My pets are all def capped with extra and they all have the unique IOs so they have 35% resistance too. 

 

Now to the negatives of MMs. It's alot of babysitting. A patch or 2 ago they removed the behavior of your pets moving so when they are threatened or under a dmg patch they still stay put. Now it seems to be reverted and they run to the high hills still which can be really annoying. Another thing is that because the minions are under leveled they are subject to level penalties when fighting +4 enemies. You can circumvent this by fighting incarnate level content because then your supremacy buffs their levels to your max level as well. Just be aware of course that those mobs are generally tougher. 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Vinceq99

[lokiie1984]

I played a storm thug for a while and they did seem pretty strong but that could have just been storm. I'll have to give thug / time a try. Heard alot of good things about time.

[TheSpiritFox]

3 hours ago, Vinceq99 said:

If you want to be a steamroller then 2 primaries that are just a notch above others. Thugs and demons. Some say bots are good but honestly that's because the assault bot carries the set and the rest of the minions are underperforming. 

 

Of the secondaries time is also a notch above the others. Yes we can make arguments and builds for others but no other set has everything you need to solo and melt mobs. Capped defense -tohit -dmg heals recharge buffs +dmg and -res. Yeah it doesn't have alot of -regen for AVs but you can easily purchase envenomed daggers to stack with your own -regen. 

 

Demons are best with thermal. You get high resists to pets, aoe heals, and -res and debuffs to melt AVs. But from play testing dark performs amazingly with demons. Demons have innate high resists and dark just has so much debuffs that it's effective +def assuming you get your fearsome stare and darkest night on a majority of the mobs. That layered defense really keeps your pets safe as they stack -res on -res to melt mobs. 

 

So my 2 cents after making tons and tons of MMs thugs/times just feels so strong. My thugs/time has 240% global recharge with the Chrono shift buff. 45% def to melee and 45 to range. My pets are all def capped with extra and they all have the unique IOs so they have 35% resistance too. 

 

Now to the negatives of MMs. It's alot of babysitting. A patch or 2 ago they removed the behavior of your pets moving so when they are threatened or under a dmg patch they still stay put. Now it seems to be reverted and they run to the high hills still which can be really annoying. Another thing is that because the minions are under leveled they are subject to level penalties when fighting +4 enemies. You can circumvent this by fighting incarnate level content because then your supremacy buffs their levels to your max level as well. Just be aware of course that those mobs are generally tougher. 

 

Disagree with demons being best with thermal. Thermals heal is single target, it leaves you struggling in harder content to heal enough. Nature is a better pairing. Give you the resist you need, but also gives you all the heals you need to keep them alive in content while bringing solid debuffs to the table and the toggle hold aura is solid as fuck. 

 

I love bots, I do, but they really aren't the soloing beasts they need to be. 

 

For pure solo action I recommend demons/nature and thugs/time. I have one of each and even before incarnates both are tanky as fuck while doing great damage. Demons/nature is easier to solo, your shit will die less. I think thugs/time solos faster though especially after incarnates. 

Edited March 25, 2020 by TheSpiritFox

[Vinceq99]

33 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Disagree with demons being best with thermal. Thermals heal is single target, it leaves you struggling in harder content to heal enough. Nature is a better pairing. Give you the resist you need, but also gives you all the heals you need to keep them alive in content while bringing solid debuffs to the table and the toggle hold aura is solid as fuck. 

 

I love bots, I do, but they really aren't the soloing beasts they need to be. 

 

For pure solo action I recommend demons/nature and thugs/time. I have one of each and even before incarnates both are tanky as fuck while doing great damage. Demons/nature is easier to solo, your shit will die less. I think thugs/time solos faster though especially after incarnates. 

Umm thermal has an aoe heal too. But like I said I've played lots of MMs and also have an incarnate demons/nature. Nature is just as overbloated as time since it's one of the newer sets. However if you utilize the aoe hold it leaves you in the center of a pack of mobs and because demons are bulkier pets that also have alot of aoe cone attacks they tend to disperse in a surrounding manner around you. So at times when you need to heal alot of them you can miss one because of having to aim the heal. That's irksome to me since resists doesn't stop dmg it just mitigates it. So if you want to slow down your mobs dmg you gotta be in the thick of things with your aoe hold waiting for it to hold them. Then as I said your demons start "crowding" around you and the mobs and because they are some fat ass hefers they tend to social distance and spread out more than the other pets. 

 

Thus I still think dark is the best pairing for demons. Adding all those -tohit debuffs and the fear means very little damage comes through to your pets. Then on top of that with all the resists they have the dmg they receive is low so it's not stressful to heal them right there and then. Tar patch keeps mobs "lock down" and with intuition alpha tier 4 you get a very respectable stacking of slows with the tar patch and your demons prince. Mobs just stay put and melt while trying to hit you and your pets effectively blind. 

[TheSpiritFox]

7 hours ago, Vinceq99 said:

Umm thermal has an aoe heal too. But like I said I've played lots of MMs and also have an incarnate demons/nature. Nature is just as overbloated as time since it's one of the newer sets. However if you utilize the aoe hold it leaves you in the center of a pack of mobs and because demons are bulkier pets that also have alot of aoe cone attacks they tend to disperse in a surrounding manner around you. So at times when you need to heal alot of them you can miss one because of having to aim the heal. That's irksome to me since resists doesn't stop dmg it just mitigates it. So if you want to slow down your mobs dmg you gotta be in the thick of things with your aoe hold waiting for it to hold them. Then as I said your demons start "crowding" around you and the mobs and because they are some fat ass hefers they tend to social distance and spread out more than the other pets. 

 

Thus I still think dark is the best pairing for demons. Adding all those -tohit debuffs and the fear means very little damage comes through to your pets. Then on top of that with all the resists they have the dmg they receive is low so it's not stressful to heal them right there and then. Tar patch keeps mobs "lock down" and with intuition alpha tier 4 you get a very respectable stacking of slows with the tar patch and your demons prince. Mobs just stay put and melt while trying to hit you and your pets effectively blind. 

Huh which set is the one with the ST heal besides Storm? I thought thermal was that one. Might have to give it a try then, that's the main reason I haven't gone thermal in a set yet. 

 

I love nature. I do use the hold but mostly at the start. I took fly on my demons/nature so I could swoop up and back without having pathing issues to lay down a heal, then swoop back in and hold dudes. For me it makes for fun gameplay lol, everyones got tastes. I've found between the heal patch, having permaed my three main buffs and having absorb up constantly, etc, I don't need to use the heal on my demons that often. Also as nature has zero mez protection I tend to hang back a bit from melee and not use the hold nearly as much when solo because the second you get mezzed your toggles drop anyway. Depends on the enemy group, harder ones like arachnos and carnies tend to have aoe mezzes that will fuck your day up unless you hang back somewhere where you can hit a good cone heal. 

 

I haven't made a /dark MM yet. I'm in the middle of getting a thugs/traps incarnated. I'm kinda addicted to traps. The playstyle is the most mellow thing in the world. Drop all your stuff and then just watch the magic happen, drop an aid other on something if you really need it. 

Edited March 26, 2020 by TheSpiritFox

[ZorkNemesis]

37 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Huh which set is the one with the ST heal besides Storm? I thought thermal was that one. Might have to give it a try then, that's the main reason I haven't gone thermal in a set yet. 

Thermal has Warmth as it's T1 power which functions exacly like the heal auras from Empathy, Pain, and Radiation.  Thermal was kind of the villain stand-in for Empathy before Pain Domination was added since it gets both an AoE and ST heal, plus resistance shields to reduce the amount of healing you'll need to do in the long run.

 

Sets with ST heals are Storm and Poison (which is an absolute trash heal that doesn't even have a good bonus with it's Toxic resist), if Homecoming added Cold to the mix, Cold also sort of has a ST heal in the form of Frostwork, which is actually just a Max HP Boost that can be used as a heal in a pinch.

[lokiie1984]

8 hours ago, Vinceq99 said:

...

I like demons on paper. But man i hate demons in game. So big and so much noise. That's one of the reasons i like beast. The dire wolf is semi large but the rest are pretty small and they dont seem to howl as often as the second tier demons do.

With thugs, would you say, aiming at soloing higher difficulty, would it be better to go with dark or time? Seems like it would be similar, time has the defense but dark has the to hit debuffing. The other one i was thinking about is rad but that's a lot of toggles on mobs. All the set up time might get annoying.

[Dixa]

the single toughest combo I ever made - and I made a ton when they made the Justin test server - was demons/thermal.

 

there are too many mobs at endgame with +tohit buffs, which destroy any attempt to defcap your pets. too many. I don't want my characters to only be decent against some mob types, I want them good against ALL mob types.

 

demons/thermal can cap most resists, you can auto fire warmth and keep them alive. they are mostly melee so no problem keeping them together and you have great -resists and -regen. what you don't have is cc protection for you and your pets but you can bandaid that with incarnates

 

but no joke there are just a lot of enemies - especially villain side - with autohit powers and high +tohit buffs that just destroy attempts to make powerful /ff, /traps or /time builds. yes you will see people post how theirs is godly and it likely is against many enemy types. but against all? no, no mm build is but demons/thermal gave me the least stress (once I got them capped) against all enemy types. 

[Tahliah]

I'll chime in here for demons, too.  I like /kin or /dark with them.  If the noise of demons is your only qualm, just create macros to silence them.  I like to get mine to eat (they bring out this giant bone and just keep eating on it) or to salute (they just stand at attention, saluting).  Sometimes I have them play magic tricks or read books.  You only need to use this on T2 demons (the ones that howl), so it's not a big deal.  Back on live I would have my three demonlets do the drum dance while the second tier ones banged the big drum.  It was cute, and it was quiet.  Bottom line: if you have them doing some emote, they are silent.

[Neiska]

The strongest MM I have personally had is my Robots/Time. Its a defense/res focused setup that I personalized for a bit of Utility as well. Shes good on both solo and on teams. Now she can solo a +4/8 AE map with just my times heal on autocast. I just go in, make sure my bots are up and buffed, make sure my toggles are good, then set my heal on autorecast and go do dishes or laundry, and return to a cleared map in a bit.

 

My only imput for MM's in general is even at 50, they seem lackluster... until you get that T3 Alpha. That one slot makes a world of difference, more than any other single IO or single slot to my mind. It only gets better from there. Right now im sitting pretty good on my robo/time with all T4's, she can tank, heal, buff, and debuff all in one. For damage I have to catch as many things in the assualt bots fire patch as much as possible, using distortion field or web grenade, but that suprisingly works well. Failing that I just group them all on me.

 

I did just start a Robot/Electrical yesterday to try out the new powerset. Still figuring that one out.

[Destlin]

thugs/nature seems incredibly strong ill post the build i'm running if you +5 your enhancements for CD in haste then you have perma haste and are less than 3 seconds off Overgrowth which is a huge damage boost. So far I am finding it a very impressive combo.

Mastermind - Thugs - Nature Affinity.mxd

[Redlynne]

I'm biased.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Redlynne
updated link

[lokiie1984]

2 hours ago, Destlin said:

thugs/nature seems incredibly strong ill post the build i'm running if you +5 your enhancements for CD in haste then you have perma haste and are less than 3 seconds off Overgrowth which is a huge damage boost. So far I am finding it a very impressive combo.

Mastermind - Thugs - Nature Affinity.mxd 5.49 kB · 0 downloads

I ran a beast / nature for a while to 46, cant remember why i stopped playing it. Probably just got distracted but i do recall really liking nature. Have you tried any other sets with nature? Curious if any of the others besides thugs, bots, and demons would do well with it. In the mean time i think i'll roll up a thugs nature to give it a try.

[Yomo Kimyata]

My rankings on enjoyability/ease of play for the MMsI’ve played (all over 25, all under 50)

1. Demons/Dark 10

2. Beasts/Traps 7

3. Mercs/Time 5

4. Necro/Traps 2

5. Necro/Kinetics 1

 

My demons is the most recent, and damn they are incredibly overpowered versus the rest.  I just started a Thugs/Poison.

 

 

[Crysis]

On 3/25/2020 at 1:47 PM, Vinceq99 said:

If you want to be a steamroller then 2 primaries that are just a notch above others. Thugs and demons. Some say bots are good but honestly that's because the assault bot carries the set and the rest of the minions are underperforming. 

 

Of the secondaries time is also a notch above the others. Yes we can make arguments and builds for others but no other set has everything you need to solo and melt mobs. Capped defense -tohit -dmg heals recharge buffs +dmg and -res. Yeah it doesn't have alot of -regen for AVs but you can easily purchase envenomed daggers to stack with your own -regen. 

 

Demons are best with thermal. You get high resists to pets, aoe heals, and -res and debuffs to melt AVs. But from play testing dark performs amazingly with demons. Demons have innate high resists and dark just has so much debuffs that it's effective +def assuming you get your fearsome stare and darkest night on a majority of the mobs. That layered defense really keeps your pets safe as they stack -res on -res to melt mobs. 

 

So my 2 cents after making tons and tons of MMs thugs/times just feels so strong. My thugs/time has 240% global recharge with the Chrono shift buff. 45% def to melee and 45 to range. My pets are all def capped with extra and they all have the unique IOs so they have 35% resistance too. 

 

Bots/Time, Demons/Time, Thugs/Time....it’s actually not so much that the primary carries the sets its the secondary.  /Time allows you to soft cap your defenses and get very high recharge, allowing you to use your time powers even more.  And Times Juncture will floor spawn -TOHIT which is effectively adding even more defense.  People say Bots/Time is so good when I actually have found Thugs/Time to be just as good, albeit because of the ability to get double Gang War via Burnout, or Gang War just very frequently without it.

 

But with /Time you aren’t going to be corralled into taking Agility or Ageless for your iPowers.  You can instead focus on more damage via Musculature, etc.  

 

I’ve been able to solo +4/x8 on Bots, Demons and Thugs/Time by lvl 45 with a more or less full IO build, less the lvl 50 Purples and Superior ATO’s.  I can solo most (not all) AV’s on +3, a few on +4 as well.  But your T1 pets are in general not going to be very useful there as they just won’t survive when level shifts start stacking against them, even with capped Defenses.  

 

Now if you really want a fun, very potent damaging build for soloing....go Demons/Storm, Bots/Storm or my personal favorite...Thugs/Storm.  You won’t get a lot of fancy buffing, but the sheer, raw DPS you can put out with these builds is jaw dropping.  It’s a little harder to produce the same results teamed though since your LS is stationary.  But even teamed, with obscene +RECHARGE, I could routinely get out two LS per boss fight, and reliably one per spawn.  Be aware though that /Storm is a serious END hog.  I had to use all kinds of temp powers, SG base temp powers, etc to just stay in the fight until I got Ageless slotted out on that build.

[tjknight]

Top Tier: Thugs, Demons, or Bots with Dark or Time.  Any combination of these should be smooth sailing from the first level onward. 

 

Also of note in my opinion because they are rarer combos but very effective: 

• Nature, Thermal, and Sonic work great with resist based pets (Demons or Necromancy).
• Cold syncs well with defense based pets (Bots or Thugs). 

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by tjknight

[Kommon]

2 hours ago, tjknight said:

Top Tier: Thugs, Demons, or Bots with Dark or Time.  Any combination of these should be smooth sailing from the first level onward. 

 

Also of note in my opinion because they are rarer combos but very effective: 

• Nature, Thermal, and Sonic work great with resist based pets (Demons or Necromancy).
• Cold syncs well with defense based pets (Bots or Thugs). 

 

/Cold sync well with all the primaries if you include IOs into the mix.  I was able to get my henchmen to ~37% defense to Smash/Lethal/Energy/Negative/Melee/Ranged, ~52% defense to AoE, and ~19% defense to Fire/Cold/Psi on my Demons/Cold, and they have high resistance to fall back on.  /Cold is like a more active version of force field without mez protection, so, if you have an active playstyle, /Cold should work regardless of the type of henchmen being used.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Kommon

[Dixa]

On 3/25/2020 at 2:38 PM, TheSpiritFox said:

Disagree with demons being best with thermal. Thermals heal is single target, it leaves you struggling in harder content to heal enough. Nature is a better pairing. Give you the resist you need, but also gives you all the heals you need to keep them alive in content while bringing solid debuffs to the table and the toggle hold aura is solid as fuck. 

 

I love bots, I do, but they really aren't the soloing beasts they need to be. 

 

For pure solo action I recommend demons/nature and thugs/time. I have one of each and even before incarnates both are tanky as fuck while doing great damage. Demons/nature is easier to solo, your shit will die less. I think thugs/time solos faster though especially after incarnates. 

this is way off. a demons/thermal can resist cap their pets to many but most importantly to s/l. the level 1 heal in thermal is an aoe that can just be set to auto fire

 

when Justin was first opened, I made many many MANY mm combos and ran them all through the maria Jenkins av arc at 4/8. the only combo that NEVER died was demons/thermal. fights with a lot of knockback are annoying as all hell and because of this the other server with their mm quality of life changes makes an even better demons/thermal 

 

however, you have no cc resists until incarnates. for solo, the best secondary is and continues to be traps. thre are many av's that will chew up /time because of cc and moderate to good regen even with daggers. but really it boils down to what you are wiling to deal with when solo. I hate losing pets - ever - and I hate being cc'd especially when you start to deal with malta and their 20s long stuns. 

 

the top primaries are thugs and demons, then mercs with tons of procs. bots is pretty far behind the dps department because it's abilities are not only lower in damage than thugs but animate slower and recharge slower. demons can have issues getting all on smaller targets as their best attacks are melee but they have massive models. thugs are mostly ranged except the bruiser, and no mm pet can dish out the single target damage like the bruiser especially on longer fights when it can build up fury. 

 

incarnate abilities fix a lot of issues with mm's, but you have to make it that far. still quite a lot of game to play before you get enough incarnate stuff to plug the holes and even THEN mm's fall far behind nearly every other AT when it comes to soloing. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Dixa