Too weak?

[Macshlong]

I've recently taken 2 different characters through the lvl 47 Preator missions (with the giant war mechs)

A Bots/Pain MM and a elec/dark brute, now I know brutes are designed to hit harder but there are 2 missions where there's a soft timer and if you get to the boss in time the fight is 1000% easier.

On the brute I practically walked there without stopping, punch move punch move, lovely.

The MM took almost twice the timer to get there and died 2-3 times on every boss fight.

both chars are lvl 50 IO slotted, I have the +Res pbaoe on perma and the -pbaoe used on cooldown any ideas why i suck?

[wildifire1]

How many Pet IOs do you have and which ones?

 

You can add up to 10% to defense (20% to aoe) and 30% resistance to your bots with IOs alone.  World of Pain has a resistance buff that will go well with that 30% resistance (from IOs) and bots shield themselves for like what 20% defense?  The protector bots will have lower defense since their own bubble cannot be put on themselves.  They can bubble each other though.

 

With maneuvers and the IOs you can get to around 30-31% defense.  Resists wise, bots have 26% to lethal, cold, and psi + 30% from IOs  +20% from World of Pain = ~76% to those 3 resists and 56% to the rest.  I personally don't think pain is the best for bots because it doesn't take of advantage of their bubbles, but it is still viable.

 

CC?  Maybe try and getting an aoe immobilize from Mu mastery or Mace mastery or bonfire from Heat Mastery since the bots are primarily ranged from the epic power pools.  Not 100% sure about my numbers, but if not it will be pretty close.

Edited April 3, 2020 by wildifire1

[Coyote]

This might also depend on the bosses you're fighting and your positioning. Usually as /Pain you want to be WITH your henchmen, to provide the +Regen aura for them and for easy heals... but with the War Walkers throwing out an AoE Orbital Lance regularly that will hammer your henchmen, you might want to separate yourself frmo them. Then keep an eye for it.. if it's targeted on you, just move. If it's targeted on the pets, immediately call them all to you so that they get out of the blast. Another option is to use Move To to separate them a bit so that the Orbital Lance doesn't get to attack all of them at once. Brutes don't really have to worry about it too much since, being a single target, they just treat it like a single-target attack that does good damage but also has a long activation time, so it's not especially dangerous.

 

Edit: as a Mastermind, whenever you're having problems with any particular mob or type of mobs, try to figure out two things:

1: do they do a lot of AoE? If so, try to kill/debuff the ones with AoE first, or step away from your henchmen and taunt the AoEs harmlessly (mostly harmlessly 😛 ) to your single-target body. Bots and Pain don't have mezzing options, so pulling AoEs away is your main tactic against AoE mobs.

2: do they have a lot of +ToHit? Any MM that relies on heavy Defense may get shredded by mobs that have +ToHit (even more than mobs that debuff Defense, because the Defense debuffers have to hit first). Awakened, Vanguard, and Rularuu are probably the nastiest examples, though Nemesis use Vengeance (but only from dying Lieutenants, so you can at least clear all the minions first before they get a 95% chance to hit your henchmen). Robots/Pain isn't a top-Defense combination, but between pet Defense IOs and Protector Bots, they do usually have 30% Defense, so losing that is a major weakness. Be aware who provides +ToHit, and try to kill them first.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Coyote

[Macshlong]

Tanks for both of your replies.

 

Survivability isn't really the problem here, its the time to kill, as I mentioned, just getting to the boss in the first place took twice a long as it did with a brute, and now my Corr too.

 

I can learn to better move the bots with binds etc, that's childs-play, my issue is Damage.

 

Expedient reinforcements in all bot slots, and i feel like its a total waste.

[Coyote]

Oh. Well, then, all I can say is that Bots are the lowest damage primary for MMs in most scenarios, except against AVs/GMs (and only because they have -500% Regen, which stacks only to a limited point with other sources of -Regen from the secondary). Or maybe against mobs that aren't max level but with large spawns, to take advantage of the Incendiary Swarm Missiles. But, in general, the time to clear a spawn will probably be worst for Robots than other MMs because they have terrible single-target damage. Pain doesn't really bring the pain (heh), especially to a single target... it has a fine AoE -Res power, but that's about all that it has against Bosses, so if you're fighting spawns at higher difficulties with Robots/Pain it will absolutely take longer to finish the spawn off since the Bosses will take longer than with many other MM powersets... or with Brutes, who generally do more damage.

 

You can add a bit of damage with the Knockdown damage IO, but since not all of their attacks do Knockdown, it will only help a bit... and take up slots from other things you might want to slot, like the Defense/Resist IOs.

 

You can help against single-targets by taking the Force of Will pool and hitting Bosses with Weaken Resolve (with an Achilles Heel in it) to stack a lot of -Resist on the Boss and help finish it off faster. And using single-target attacks from it, or Sorcery, or Experimentation, on the Bosses... sadly, they're probably better than the terrible pulse rifle attacks.

 

You can take the Heat Mastery pool and slot up Char as a decent attack to help on Bosses. Leviathan Mastery has Knockout Blow, which can be slotted with a mix of damage and procs to break 500 damage, which is great for a MM personal attack and again will help with the single-target damage. A similar option is Thunder Strike, which can do about 400 damage and is slower, BUT takes PBAoE sets so you can stick another -Res IO in there. Between that, Anguishing Cry, and Weaken Resolve you have two -Res IOs and two -Res powers... add another -Res IO in either Static Discharge or Electrifying Fences, and you can get a lot of -Res debuffing on a single target.

 

It's all trying to push a low-damage combination to higher damage, but there are methods to squeeze out more damage (though it will cost in power sacrifices and enhancement slots).

 

[wildifire1]

What he said basically...bots are pretty low damage even with their aoe except on AVs.  If you want mission clearing aoe, go thugs or demons. 

[Macshlong]

Ooh, I Picked bots because I believed they were the highest damage Pets lol.

Ok, thanks guys, I'll power the bots down and start again.

[Kommon]

Before the /FA Burn change a long time ago, which also indirectly changed how much damage the burn patches can generate from the Assault Bot's incendiary swam missiles, Bots WERE one of the top tier masterminds for AoE damage, just from that one power.  So now that the burn patches from incendiary swam missiles do a 1/4 of the damage they used to, Thugs easily beat them in the AoE department.  I think Thugs even beat Demon in terms of AoE damage, but Demons are easier to keep alive regardless of secondary.

[Dixa]

mm's are slow killers. even if you go demons or thugs you still won't approach the kill speed of that brute and what you do get, you will have to work harder for.