Feeling Defeated

[Bonkleberry]

I am just coming here for the final say on whether I stick with my Mastermind or not. I have a Thugs/Poison that I have been working on. She is at level 50 with the Alpha slot unlocked and I have the four HP/End accolade powers. I have been having fun with her, so far, and things go well for solo play.

 

However, sometimes in group play I am finding that I am often too slow for what seems to be the current accepted rate of play. If I land on a team that wants to skip all the content and head straight for the goals only, I need to dismiss my pets. Then once we get there I spend most of the battle resummoning and buffing and I barely contribute. Of course things are different if I am in a party that has no problem doing things the normal way, but even then I am slightly slower because my pets are slow to travel unless there is a Kinetics user that buffs my pets.

 

I have not attempted incarnate trials yet, but I am afraid to join them. I have seen in general and help chat already that Masterminds are often too slow and they are regulated to a support role in parties. /Poison is not exactly stellar team support.

 

So, I am basically wondering if I should bother investing more time in this Mastermind? I would like to hear from other max level content Masterminds. Do Masterminds, specifically /Poison, have a solid role in good parties? Or is this just going be an ongoing problem and I need to switch to a different AT, like Controller?

[Seigmoraig]

Poison is a fairly narrow set, it does one thing and it does it well, debuffing. If you really like that type of gameplay, Dark and Rad will also offer very good debuffs while also bringing a lot more to the table when you are in a group scenario. Rad being the slower of the two that needs a bit more set up but has better buffs and a weaker but more reliable heal.
About those groups that skip straight to the end, there isn't much you can do here to help with that it's the mastermind life.

The only incarnate content I have done personally are Apex and Tin Mage and yeah, they skip a lot of content and everything goes by very fast but I never felt completely useless on my Thugs/EA MM when I was there.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Seigmoraig

[Bonkleberry]

I suppose I should specify that I do not feel completely useless. I just feel left behind because my pets are usually not present when we need to jump around so much and I waste so much time summoning them.

 

I know I am contributing as Poison. I always see team comments about how fast Bosses, AVs, and GMs fall when I am on a team. They think it is just an awesome team, but they do not realize it is because I am stacking more than -75% Res and -70% defense and effects on single targets by myself. Poison is not exactly an obviously-in-your-face-doing-something powerset.

 

It is just the Mastermind pets that are the problem. I love them and their DPS, but if they are not present, I feel like it looks like I am doing nothing during the battle. I am strongly considering swapping to some type of controller instead and maybe I will appear a lot more useful to parties and at least have more options to contribute when my pets are not immediately available.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Bonkleberry

[Leo_G]

This is my main criticism with regards to MM because there really is no way around it. Maybe taking Grant invis and putting them in passive, but it's a bandaid. MM just don't do well in non-straight forward objectives. Trying to navigate maps that have obstacles or enemies to avoid is the drawback of the AT. 

 

I once suggested giving MM a "stow pets" ability that unsummon pets when activated and resummon them with the same buffs they had before. Didn't get much traction. 

[Dixa]

I don't play my mm's in a team unless I have a transformative secondary that is a force multiplier for the team, like ea or force field or kinetics. offensively you aren't going to keep up with the brute or tankers or even controllers or doms on a fast moving team. 

 

and a cave map? ugh. 

 

there was a streamer/youtuber who played an mm...think it was thermal..and in group content they would just hover and use their secondary. their pets were always way out of supremacy range or dead. think they were beast. this game is not designed to have healbots, but if you are going to healbot then doing so as an mm is just silly. you pay more for abilities that are inherently less powerful than a defender. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Dixa

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Seigmoraig said:

About those groups that skip straight to the end, there isn't much you can do here to help with that it's the mastermind life.

QFT. Incarnate content is especially prone to 'rush to the end'.

 

For non-incarnate content (especially TFs), I have tried to get into the habit of asking 'how fast do we want to run?' because not every player actually wants to speed missions. Incarnate TFs (for a variety of reasons) are likely to be sped no matter what.

 

As a MM, we rarely have the chance to speed to the end of a mission and (re)spawn pets in order to defeat the boss/EB/AV before the rest of the team appears. It may be best just to remind the team that you and your pets will be marching through the map defeating the mobs in the way. Some teammates may be more than happy to stay close to you.

 

 

[Dixa]

2 minutes ago, tidge said:

QFT. Incarnate content is especially prone to 'rush to the end'.

 

For non-incarnate content (especially TFs), I have tried to get into the habit of asking 'how fast do we want to run?' because not every player actually wants to speed missions. Incarnate TFs (for a variety of reasons) are likely to be sped no matter what.

 

As a MM, we rarely have the chance to speed to the end of a mission and (re)spawn pets in order to defeat the boss/EB/AV before the rest of the team appears. It may be best just to remind the team that you and your pets will be marching through the map defeating the mobs in the way. Some teammates may be more than happy to stay close to you.

 

 

this is why all of my mm's take team teleport. you can actually rush to the end with it and have all of your pets (and reluctant team mates) with you.

[Bonkleberry]

2 hours ago, Dixa said:

this is why all of my mm's take team teleport. you can actually rush to the end with it and have all of your pets (and reluctant team mates) with you.

Or maybe some higher up who is paying attention can alter Recall Friend to bring all pets if one is teleported.

 

Or even better, make the pet emhamcement abilities an auto power or sonething that all we need to do is summon the pets and not need to worry about them being bunched up for buffing.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Bonkleberry

[Riverdusk]

They could also make it so that pets in passive get some sort of big defense/res bonus and/or stealth? With enough of a delay before it kicks in to prevent abuse of it mid combat. 

[Riverdusk]

8 hours ago, Bonkleberry said:

 

I have not attempted incarnate trials yet, but I am afraid to join them. I have seen in general and help chat already that Masterminds are often too slow and they are regulated to a support role in parties. /Poison is not exactly stellar team support.

 

 

BAF is pretty good for MM's to join in my experience and I wouldn't feel afraid to join up on that one.  Having all the pets is actually good at catching the runners.  The rest of it you are sitting in place at the tennis courts just beating on things.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I honestly wish I could offer some ahHA! workaround but the truth is I had four masterminds in the 30s/40s and now they have all been deleted. The OP's issue being just one of the many reasons that I can't play them.

[Dixa]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I honestly wish I could offer some ahHA! workaround but the truth is I had four masterminds in the 30s/40s and now they have all been deleted. The OP's issue being just one of the many reasons that I can't play them.

while melee characters are for sure easier to play and some can bring great dps, every single melee secondary has one or more enemy types that just destroy it except dark but dark is annoyingly end hungry even fully kitted out. 

 

 

[Force Redux]

The ability to stow pets was present in EverQuest 2. Very handy. Would solve a lot of problems here.

[TheSpiritFox]

On 6/18/2020 at 8:02 AM, Bonkleberry said:

 

However, sometimes in group play I am finding that I am often too slow for what seems to be the current accepted rate of play. If I land on a team that wants to skip all the content and head straight for the goals only, I need to dismiss my pets. Then once we get there I spend most of the battle resummoning and buffing and I barely contribute. Of course things are different if I am in a party that has no problem doing things the normal way, but even then I am slightly slower because my pets are slow to travel unless there is a Kinetics user that buffs my pets.

 

I have not attempted incarnate trials yet, but I am afraid to join them. I have seen in general and help chat already that Masterminds are often too slow and they are regulated to a support role in parties. /Poison is not exactly stellar team support.

 

So, I am basically wondering if I should bother investing more time in this Mastermind? I would like to hear from other max level content Masterminds. Do Masterminds, specifically /Poison, have a solid role in good parties? Or is this just going be an ongoing problem and I need to switch to a different AT, like Controller?

Take super speed on MMs. Do it. Take it, put celerity stealth in it, use it. If you move fast enough you outpace your pets significantly and if you outpace your pets significantly they warp closer to you. The key to being an MM on speed runs it to go faster, not slower, so that pets have an illogically easier time catching up with you. 

 

That said, expect to be useless on a speed lambda and expect to be annoyed as fuck on TPN campus as an MM. 

[Mr. Vee]

2 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Take super speed on MMs. Do it. Take it, put celerity stealth in it, use it.

better to put celerity or unbounded + stealth in sprint or whatever prestige sprint you use. Leaves the base slot in superspeed for BotZ -kb or winter's gift slow resist.

[rioty]

Elusive mercs/poison main here, I am not a terribly experienced player but if nothing else I can probably share some of my habits as a /poison MM. It's definitely a weird powerset to objectively rank the team contribution of, so I'm mostly basing this on the most common refrain of parties I join, "wow, that went unusually fast", sometimes followed by "yeah, we have big debuffs". Mind you, I have built as a -def and -res machine first and foremost, with even my mercs helping in that role. This is naturally more useful against tough enemies that last longer than five seconds to begin with, so don't sweat it if you're not adding much to a +0 speedrun. The combination of fickle MM pets and debuff-based support naturally struggles to keep up in easy content but becomes exponentially more useful when it actually matters, so how much mileage and enjoyment you get out of it depends on what kind of content you plan to run.

 

I find that I end up having two somewhat different roles in a good group, depending on the difficulty of the content and power level of the party.

 

If it's anything resembling a speedrun and other people are steamrolling the mobs, I go all in on support and just stack debuffs, prioritizing -def and -res. You can be deceptively useful to speedruns because of your ability to make enemies melt even faster, so lean on it, hard. If your pets catch up and get some hits in, that's great, but if people are doing that much damage then your envenom is also doing proportionally more for the team, and with poison trap and neurotoxic breath loaded with procs I can still contribute a bit of personal DPS on big packs. Don't be self-conscious about your pets being a drag in speedruns, it's just an MM thing and people know that, focus on support. They'll be there for the big bosses. Your job is primarily to be among the first at the next enemy pack and hitting them with the envenom > weaken combo ASAP.

 

If it's more difficult content going at a moderate pace so your pets can keep up, stack debuffs as soon as the tank has pulled and sic your pets on the highest rank enemy available. You want to burst down bosses, lieutenants and priority targets so focus fire, leave the random minions to the AoE fiends who will be clearing them out pretty quick with envenom up on a nearby boss. Alternatively if all your debuffs end up drawing aggro, don't be shy about leaving your pets on defensive and just wading into the fray so you can help soak some damage. This is the kind of content where you really get to shine as a well-rounded debuffer that can neuter enemy packs into oblivion while helping your team keep up the pace.

 

I really encourage upping the difficulty a bit as /poison for this reason, not because it's that good of a set in the grand scheme of things but because your ability to be a force multiplier hinges on fighting enemies worth debuffing, and you'll feel that much more impactful.

Edited June 20, 2020 by rioty

[Bonkleberry]

I am just popping in for an update. I am not giving up on my Mastermind over one gripe with the pets on speed teams.

 

Thinking about it, I do not even like speed runs anyway. They are the whole reason I do not play Illusion Control anymore... Not only that, but I recently learned that Incarnate trials are not even required.

 

Being a returning player, I just had this idea made up in my head that the endgame is nothing but people skipping content and leaving me behind. While it certainly can be, there are still people that are okay with doing this the normal way. I will join their ranks and not encourage skipping.

 

Solo is too fun with my Mastermind. Missions are a cake walk and I do not need to fear Elite Bosses like I would on the Controller, Sentinel, or Arachnos Soldier I tried leveling up before this character. I do not need to fear GMs or AVs either, but I cannot debuff their regen enough on my own to take them down (I tried). My pets and I are pretty much unkillable (if I play smart) and I am not even fully slotted for the defenses I am planning and I am missing all of my incarnate slots except for Alpha.

 

I spent some time thinking of new characters builds that I could put together to assist better with team content, but it always ended the same before I hit that create new button: none of the concepts I was coming up with would be as safe for solo content as I would prefer. I even considered some different Mastermind secondaries, but none of the builds could support enough slotting and power choices as my current one could.

 

So, in conclusion, I have one gripe with Masterminds that I hope gets fixed someday. For now, I feel fine in all other categories, so I can compromise. I am happily soloing the Incarnate Story arcs and whatever other arcs I feel like doing. I have already soloed the Carnival, both Preatorian AV arcs, the Malta, and the Nemesis Rex.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Bonkleberry

[killigraphy]

To be fair, even when they were first released, MM"s were never about running through enemies. We have Blasters/Corr's for that. My job is to debuff/heal, At those levels, trash mobs should be dealt with swiftly, your target(s) are LT's, Bosses, and of course AV's. Idk about anyone else, but even when CoX was released, I still found teams and enjoyed myself. ...then again, I also read what the class entailed carefully. I knew I would be healing/buffing and debuffing....I was NOT a wrecking ball, that was for Brutes , Scrappers, Blasters and Corrs. I got on teams because I was far more flexible with how I dealt dmg and how I helped out the team in general.

 

 

My only problem with MM's has been how short lived the weaker sets are (Ninjas I'm looking at you), and how more pets needed aoe. Making a Demons /Thermal has been way more fun than my previous Ninja/Dark build. But again, I was never delusional about what my role was/is.

Edited June 21, 2020 by killigraphy

[Peacemoon]

I think I would just highlight a lot of support-type ATs can feel a bit defeated on speed runs. MMs do have a problem bypassing mobs with their pets active, but if you’re with a few melee or ranged that can run to the end and brute force the mission, then half the team can often feel like a third wheel. It’s probably the weakest part of the game.

 

My advice would be to not feel too defeated on your MM, as this effects other ATs too, and if you are in this position focus more on your secondary. It’s what a lot of my controllers do when they’re in this position.

[Coyote]

Exactly. Speed runs usually are done when the team can steamroll missions, and in steamrolling situations defensive powers like controls and defensive buffs are largely irrelevant, while damage (and especially burst damage) is the most important ability. So on speed runs, if you're not a burst damage AT, you won't be able to have as much impact as you would in situations where the fights are tougher and take longer, and defensive abilities, controls, and constant DoT (which the henchmen effectively are) are far more useful.

[MTeague]

I only join "Kill Most" (or "Kill All") teams.  It means I pass on most teams, or decide to organize the team myself.

But I'm happier with how the missions go, even if sometimes I only end up with 4-6 people on the team instead of 8.

 

I also much prefer missions vs harder enemies.... Rularuu, Malta, Carnies, Night Ward, First Ward, etc.

Edited July 5, 2020 by MTeague

[kiramon]

I initially avoided mAsterminds in favor of other ats but since I started full attack chains a while ago on my MMs they’re much more fun and much more efficient in a team setting. That being said, it’s definitely different than when I play my stalkers - who steam roll everything. But I also only play necro (right now I’m at 4 necros and a ready to go demon without enhancements) 

[Herotu]

On 6/20/2020 at 8:30 PM, Bonkleberry said:

So, in conclusion, I have one gripe with Masterminds that I hope gets fixed someday. For now, I feel fine in all other categories, so I can compromise. I am happily soloing the Incarnate Story arcs and whatever other arcs I feel like doing. I have already soloed the Carnival, both Preatorian AV arcs, the Malta, and the Nemesis Rex.

Don't feel like you HAVE to solo either. Now that Optimal is easier than it was on live, [Suboptimal but FUN] is where it's at! I'd love to find a nice slow team that just wants to meander through stuff - 

 

Sometimes I want the old days of pulling mobs around a corner and sending a scout ahead to make sure there's nothing behind the next doorway. I loved that sense of danger.
Sometimes I don't care and just want to blast everything to high heaven and feel mega-powerful, though. 
 

How do we LFG a group that's not trying to annihilate the map in 5 seconds flat? How do we ask for ppl who have that mentality?

[Bonkleberry]

I see some chatter than you can use phrases like "kill all", "speed", and "steamroll" to indicate stuff like that. However, my experience tells me it does not work. I joined a "kill all" ITF last week and people were skipping stuff. Ho hum.

[Hjarki]

3 hours ago, Herotu said:

How do we LFG a group that's not trying to annihilate the map in 5 seconds flat? How do we ask for ppl who have that mentality?

Anything that involves completing final objectives - task forces, incarnate trials, patron arcs, etc. - going to have that 'skip stuff' mentality because the entire point is to get to the end.

 

If you're just joining a PI paper mission group, you'll rarely find people rushing to the end because the goal is to grind through the mission rather that to satisfy whatever trivial objective ends the mission.