Looking for advice on new mastermind: demon/ (cold/thermal/sonic/forcefield) ?

[tellania]

looking to make a new mastermind, I'm settled on demon primary (gotta love them whips!).   (have a /time)

 

I want to play something strong for a secondary, and have it narrowed to: cold domination, thermal radiation, force field, or sonic.

I was leaning to force field (easy to softcap defense to SLE), sonic (to make the demons tougher), but cold and thermal seem to be a compromise between buffs and debuffs ...

 

Any suggestions?

[Hopestar]

Cold synergizes best in my opinion, as it's a straight upgrade from FF and can provide them the much needed endurance Demons like to run out of. It's also thematic.

[Psylenz0511]

I had a demons/thermal and a demons/sonic on Live. Thermal gives you heals for you and your pets the other sets don't have.  The thermal shields stack with your pets +resistance abilities. The debuffs in heat loss and melt armor are both very good. Thermal does have a mezz 'hole'.

 

Sonic performed better than I had hoped for. I made it mostly for theme (dead rockstars). The set has no heals; however, sonic disruption is a top tier debuff that synergizes very well with the melee minded hellfire demon and demon prince. The shields do make your pets tougher. Sonic dispersion covers most of the mezz protection except for sleep.

 

Cold I paired with a necro MM on Homecoming. Cold has no heals, but does have a 'dull pain' type of buff that you can cast on a single ally. The defensive ice shields are very good. There is no compromise in Cold's debuffs; infrigidate, benumb, sleet, and heat loss are a powerhouse of debuffing. Cold offers no mezz protection.

 

Forcefields I have not paired with anything besides Robots (although I am certain it would work well with necro and ninjas). Forcefields has no heals. The forcefield bubbles allow you to plan for soft cap defense. Forcefields has no debuffs. Dispersion bubble does provide PbAoE defense and mezz protection excluding sleep.

 

Personally I would go with thermal for the heals, stacking shields, and very good debuffs, but a good case can be made for sonic and cold, too.

[tellania]

Thanks, I'm definitely leaning towards thermal.   I appreciate the review on the strengths/weaknesses of those choices.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Go demons/storm and bring forth the apocalypse!

[TheSpiritFox]

Demons/thermal is the best combination of the ones you mentioned, cold being next, but thermal has heals which you really need and cold is a defense set where demons are a resistance primary so mixing your mitigation isn't going to work well in a set with no heals, Cold absolutely needs to softcap the pets to really be solid. 

[tellania]

2 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Go demons/storm and bring forth the apocalypse!

Actually, my other demon/ mastermind is demon/storm!

 

Was looking for a different secondary, something I dont typically use.

[Force Redux]

Of the two I'd lean Thermal ever so slightly. Demons really are the best set to pair with it, because of their already high resists, which is what you need. However, Cold is also thematic, and you can rely on the demons to heal themselves periodically, while taking more infrequent damage. You'll get some extra elemental resists through Mist, but it won't compare to Thermal's buffs. You'll be running about 19 to 20% Defense (35% vs AoE) with Thermal. Enough to take a bite out of incoming damage, but you will defintely be leveraging heals more than Cold will, since Cold will be reaching toward Def Cap. 

 

If I went Cold, I'd pick up Aid Other/Self for some extra healing. Cold is very strong. It works well with my Robots, too. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Force Redux

[Tacheyon]

I know you are looking at /cold /thermal /sonic or /ff.

 

But I would like to throw /EA into the mix.  With it your Demons will almost never die.  Between the Bubble that grants resist and mez protection, to the fast heals and later Absorb shield makes them super tough.  Plus you have a great way to recharge their Endurance so they fight a lot longer then possible.  I made one and it is one of my top 5 enjoyable MM's (I have played a lot since they first debuted).

 

But if you are sticking to those 4 I would go /Cold.  Great debuffs, good Def shields.   Just pick up Aid Other for Top offs every now and again.

[TygerDarkstorm]

2 hours ago, tellania said:

Actually, my other demon/ mastermind is demon/storm!

 

Was looking for a different secondary, something I dont typically use.

Gotcha!

 

@nihilii was working on a demons/cold build of some sort not too long ago. Dunno if he's gotten anywhere with it to comment in here.

[kelika2]

Demon/Thermal.

[Hedgefund]

I'm giving an enthusiastic vote for Cold here.  Demons aren't just resist base, they have def to stack with Cold, at least the Demon Prince does.  Cold, contrary to popular belief, is not just a defense set, it offers strong f/c resists in the shields + Fog, which coincidentally are the Demon's best resists.

 

All numbers referred to below include the 6 pet unique IOs for def or res.

 

I wish combat attributes could show just a summary and not the details of what comprises end values because I'd provide a screenshot of defense and resist values for the 6 pets.  Each of the 6 are so distinct that I can't really group any together so I'll just say every one of the 6 has one of the f/c resists a low value of at least 80 and the other one capped at 90.  

 

All have AOE def of 54%.  For s/l def the high is 55 (Prince) low is 40.

 

Throw in some Frostworks, which unslotted (I just use the absorb proc) takes a minion to their HP cap and you have significant layered mitigation.  Significant enough so that the sporadic healing they do is sufficient.

 

Your other choices in the OP don't have a power comparable to Sleet which offers some mitigation (via slows, -recharge, attempted scatter and sometimes a little kd) and packs an offensive punch via resist debuffs.  Certainly nothing with a comparable cooldown timer (easily up to begin every fight).

 

I've always found Demons to be the minions that struggle the most with endurance among the MM pets.  With debuff toggles and aoes, I see their blue bar on the low end frequently during extended fights.  As an added bonus for Cold, Heat Loss will take care of that.  You'll need very high global recharge to get that even close to perma, but while it's active it solves end for your pets, for you and adds another significant -res debuff.

 

I imagine since this response is a week after the OP you already made your decision and Thermal would definitely not be "wrong" but having played both demon/therm (live) and demon/cold (HC), the latter has the greater upside.

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Hedgefund