MM Primary Comparison: Standard Environment Testing

[Galaxy Brain]

PET SUMMONING SET TESTING:

 

Hello Everyone,

 

Following up with what was done in the Scrapper Primary Testing, and Blaster Primary Testing, its time to take a look at the Mastermind Primaries!

 

The above links above will go into more details, but the premise of these tests are to isolate MM Primaries as much as possible to gauge their "realistic" base performance in a given mission environment. This is done through running a course 5 times per primary (more on that in a sec...), and then recording the times to formulate an average 

 

• Using a standardized Office Map, we can set a course that properly challenges the player with movement with corridors and different vertical spawn points that we see in normal missions. Pylon and Farm metrics are nice, but they do not really reflect normal game play. 

 

• 

 

• Broken up into 4 floors, this map contains custom-made enemies that appear at roughly the Red Dot locations shown above. Floors 1-3 have at least 2 guaranteed Boss encounters, and Floor 4 has a guaranteed Elite Boss encounter. Red Lines represent clickable doors with a gentleman's rule to finish the room before moving through the door, and circled areas are where some herding up can be attempted if possible. The enemies use a mix of powers with S/L damage to represent the common damage types we see.
• The Masterminds I used all have a near-identical SO build where I use /Pain only with the Regen Aura, and the AoE/ST heal to simply heal-bot the pets, slotted as such:
• 
• The special powers were either slotted as above with max Rech/Dam, or End cost/Heal/etc where applicable. 2 attacks per primary set were taken to simply help pull enemies and were not used much at all, and even so paled in comparison to Pet output as seen above. Leadership + the pain abilities seen above were enough to allow the pets to do their own thing. 
• Running at +0/x3 allowed for a variety of mob encounters that often would be spread in such a way to equally balance AoE and ST output. The mobs also carried KB/KD and Stuns, which could put my MM out of commission on occasion as well as knock pets a bit to cause some danger.
• Unlike the other tests with Scrappers and Blasters, the MM really was not in any threat thanks to Bodyguard and barely ever got a scratch worth noting. Instead, this time I tracked Pet Deaths with the following scores: 
  • 0.5 for Minion deaths
  • 1 for LT deaths
  • 2 for Boss deaths
• The scores were added up and then multiplied by 10s for the MM safety rating to better measure how tough the pets are in a realistic setting (aside from me being a healbot)

 

So, with these rules in place to emulate an "average" mission that tests ST, AoE, and Mitigation of just the primaries at a basic level, lets see what happened:

 

Sorted by AVG:

 

Remember what I said about 5 runs? Well, Mercenaries is the reason for that. With an average time of about 9 and a half minutes each time, I wasn't going to go for a whole 10 with them and to be fair I went for 5 runs each with the others, making sure to get different spawn configurations each time with quick re-runs if I got similar patterns.

 

Beasts leads the pack with the best avg clear time, with Demons, Thugs, then Ninjas right behind. Necro and Bots were both slower thanks to a lack of AoE and ST respectively causing enough parts of the mission to slow down significantly for them. Mercs came in dead last by a HUGE margin due to well... just raw slowness. There were times where they felt great as all their powers came off cooldown and they could perform as good as any other primary... but then the fight kept going or we moved to the next fight in the room over and it just wasn't a good time.

 

 

Sorted by SAFETY:

 

Mercs*: Despite having a score of 1.5 vs Demon's 1, and having the worst time still with this factored in.... in my play-throughs this was the safest set. The deaths of a Spec Op and the Medic only happened in the last fight vs the EB in the last run of the 5, and outside of that unfortunate event I only saw a bit of damage come in on the commando / a soldier every so often thanks to the Spec Op's controls, Frag Grenades, and Buckshots actually coming in clutch more often than not in order to keep foes at bay fight to fight. Their bonus range also helped to initiate fights a bit more safely. There was never a need to use Serum at all here (more on that later)

 

Demons: The Gargoyle takes on a lot of Aggro and scored 1 death for Demons in 5 runs of the mission. However, the pets did take a ton of hits through all the runs but luckily never went down thanks to the combo of their resists, healing from the Ember Demon, and their soft controls after the initial alphas. Hell on Earth when used helped spread aggro nicely and increase group safety too.

 

Beasts: 2 lionesses died as well as a single wolf. Being in melee range, I was surprised by their durability with their combos of self buffs, soft / hard controls, and their innate res/def combo + Fortify pack. I blame the few deaths they had on just RNG.

 

Thugs: 1 Enforcer, 2 Arsonists, and 1 punk gave themselves to the cause here. The minions are a soft spot here for sure, especially the arsonist as we all know, but of interest was when the Enforcer went down it caused a bit of a panic mode as a good chunk of the whole group's defenses went out the window. With Gang War up, aggro was spread so much that survival for the group was a breeze.

 

Necro: Just a note here, I allowed 5 pets to die in order to spawn ghosts for each run which did make a big impact on clear times even with the weakest ghost, 4/5 were t1's with 1 Death knight contributing itself to the ghost army, the Lich never bit the dust even when I tried. Outside of the purposeful deaths, 1 Knight died along with 5 Zombies!!! It feels like they are rather squishy compared to other T1 pets which is odd given they do have a decent spread of resists (though mostly exotic), but I think their issue is a lack of CC from their attacks + melee range that put them in added danger. The ghost did help out in spreading aggro and -ToHit and vs 1 target they could pile effects on they were 100% safe. Something to note though is that summoning a ghost did leave you / pets vulnerable in a pinch as the animation takes a bit.

 

Robots: Fire and Knockback can keep enemies at bay, but slow animations leave them sitting ducks in between volleys. Bots saw 1 Protector Bot death and 5 Battle Drone deaths, likely in between shield applications + being stuck in their atrocious 6.33 sec Laser Full Auto animation caused unlucky hits to cascade in. Repair was essentially useless as the ST pain heal and protector bots more than made up for healing except for those "in a pinch" emergency moments where the T1's bit the dust. 

 

Ninjas: Oh boy, yeah I knew they were squishy but dang. While the Oni never died, a score of 12.5 is atrocious with the amount of Genin and Jounin that bit the dust. They just... really lack mitigation, what else can I say?

 

 

 

Sorted by BEST TIME:

 

Not much different from the Avg here

 

 

Sorted by WORST TIME:

 

Sorting by the worst time, we see Ninjas actually step up a bit!

 

 

Sorted by STANDARD DEVIATION:

 

Ninjas had the best consistency by far mob to mob with the ability to control criticals for key encounters + decent damage overall, even with the resummoning mid-fight. On the flip side, Robots had horrible consistency thanks to knocking enemies away from burn patches constantly, as well as the Protector Bots stopping every so often to slowly re-bubble or heal a fellow bot. When they were good, they were good outside of slowing down at the boss / elite boss encounters, but they had a nearly 2 minute swing between that and their worst time due to these factors. As a point of comparison, Thugs also relied a lot on Burn Patches but they were able to constantly apply offensive pressure without needing to stop for ST support abilities, as well as have AoE knockdowns and Stuns on deck quite often to allow the patches to do their thing. 

 

 

 

With these 5 metrics in mind, I was able to rank each primary based on the actual score per category + the gap between it and the next set, and then add up these values by weight. The lower the final score, the higher tiered the set is when looked at it alone:

 

FINAL RESULTS:

 

While I normally would have tiered these S-A-B-C-D, the gaps between each tier felt much more massive for Masterminds. Lets break this down per tier:

 

S TIER:

Overall, Demons is where it's at. This should really come as no surprise, but these guys have it all when it comes to ST output, solid AoE output, great survival and even crowd control / debuffs all in one. It's definitely a step above the others. Hell on Earth was used in the last room due to it's duration/recharge to help tackle the EB spawn and that power is a great boost overall as a combined actual buff to either the Prince or the Gargoyle, as well as added damage to a group. Really just checks all the boxes.

 

A TIER:

Beasts and Thugs are practically tied in this test to isolate the pets on a basic level. Both, like Demons, combine solid offenses and defenses but had a bit more struggle when it came to safety that knocked them out of the same tier. Their special powers were both solid with Fortify Pack being better than I expected when it came to actually fortifying the pets in a pinch, and Gang War used in the EB encounter made that fight a breeze.

 

B TIER:

An interesting set, Ninjas performed amazingly when they were on a roll but the terrible, terrible safety really held them back. Smoke Flash also felt a bit clumsier than I think it should be as it costs a lot of endurance, causes the pet to perform an animation where they could be rooted and taking some hits, and lasts only a short while per individual pet. I feel like if this were made an AoE for the whole group and set to a longer recharge it would make the set MUCH better for risk/reward as it could reliably outpace other primaries in terms of offensive output in exchange for safety... though, they should also be thrown a bone there too as it was *that* bad. 

 

D TIER: 

Necro and Robots have similar issues. Starting with Necro, the undead horde has problems when it comes to AoE output with narrow cones and low-damage control powers to lean on for area coverage which really slowed them down at the start of a fight. Their ST was fine especially when you had a Ghost on your side... but actually getting one was a clunky affair. Not only do you have to get a pet to die in combat, which requires you to specifically set that scenario up in a manner that doesn't start to cascade into more damage coming in / etc, but you then have to lock yourself into summoning the ghost and then re-summoning the lost pet + upgrading and its just a whole thing... This power in particular needs a revamp for usability badly on top of some AoE potency being given to the horde. 

 

On the other hand, Robots really struggled with Single Target damage, as well as consistent AoE damage by themselves. When everything was aligned, they could melt mobs like nobody's business but that required the bots to also not knock enemies out of the burn patches which they were all too happy to do between the Minion and LT ST blasts and the Swarm Missiles. The boss fights are what really slowed them down, as with an EB only and no secondary support their unique -Regen couldn't really shine that allows them to uniquely be a big-game hunter. Repair also was not necessary at all given the /Pain heals were simply wayyyy better on the whole (as are all other heals from secondaries to be honest). Ultimately, what this test showed was that Robots have some extreme specializations that cause it to make sacrifices in the sort of "day to day" setting.

 

F TIER: 

So, hot take but Mercs actually have a very nice skeleton, the meat on it is just rotten. When all the powers like the Rocket, the Spec Ops CCs, and cones aligned they work great! It's just that this alignment was super rare to happen with any consistency, and in between the actual animations were super slow and the damage output very lackluster with it being almost all slow DoT on top of the slow animations. Serum was straight up ignored due to how bad it is, and was never even needed for an emergency support tool as basic heals did the trick for the Commando (the only realistic target for Serum) and we all know the downsides. They really felt more like playing an MM in slow motion which was downright jarring playing all the primaries back to back and could really really use a revamp to tons of their stats to be competitive.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

These are my thoughts and observations on the primaries so far. Take it with a grain of salt though as these runs were designed to highlight just the pets with minimal support and no X factors like enemy debuffs or extra pet buffs / procs / etc. The latter of which will get it's fair shake later on as I revisit the primaries with "optimal slotting" + pet auras to see what kind of drastic differences we can achieve. 

 

Thank you,

@Galaxy Brain

 

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[TygerDarkstorm]

Man it's nice to see you do this for MM primaries! I read a lot about how terrible beasts are, but they don't *feel* terrible when you play them in game, even when you have to drop the crits to shield them with Fortify Pack. Thank you for this; I realize that it's just a sort of base look at pet performance w/ little imput from the MM and the other factors you mentioned, but it's still nice to see how just the pets compare to one another.

[Monos King]

Hey. This is awesome.

[Coyote]

Wow, that is a lot of work. Kudos to you.

[Force Redux]

As an MM enthusiast, I appreciate the work to get these valuations ty 👍🏻🙂

[Galaxy Brain]

I re-ran the same test, same difficulty, but this time crammed in the Pet Aura IO's + as many procs that would normally be slotted per pet:

 

 

Taking all factors together, we actually have a bit of a suprise:

 

 

First off, Ninjas made a MASSIVE leap up when they had the pet auras + procced out Jounin. They were still the least safe by a scootch, but really only the Genin ever got in trouble. Secondly, the list is a lot closer balanced compared to the "Raw" test in the OP in terms of progression from S - D tier, with no set comparatively bad enough to warrant an F tier. Granted, this re-run was still on +0/x3 to get a direct comparison, so higher difficulties would likely yield different results (like for Bots as the Assault Bot scales much better). 

 

 

S TIER:

Thugs and Ninjas both climbed the ranks thanks to their LT's making excellent work of the Achilles Heel, Lady Grey, and Shield Breaker Procs. While they had similar safety ratings, the Ninjas had an very noticeable increase here where they could actually avoid some hits / take a hit or two instead of instantly dying. Thugs pulled out ahead ultimately though thanks to Gang War being able to mule the Aura IO's + enforcers with Gaussian's + Bruiser/Punks with Explosive Strike proccing off multiple attacks + Arsonist not being *as* squishy lead to their kit out-speeding the Ninjas which only had the Jounin pulling weight with constant smoke-flashes.

 

A TIER:

Demons actually did not have many options for procs, outside of a Ghost Widow for the Prince's hold + Impeded Swiftness allowing smash damage on all it's slow powers, and then an Explosive Strike for the Gargoyle and its few heavy hitting ST attacks that can proc it. Overall they had improved performance in ST especially, and a bit better AoE.

 

B TIER:

B is for Beasts I suppose! They dropped only in relation to other sets becoming better with the new slotting, wolves (both normal and dire) could take a lot of procs which let them DECIMATE a single target, but spreading out the hurt was not really improved with no real AoE improvements. 

 

C TIER: 

Mercs gained a MASSIVE boost in performance with the soldiers/medic able to lay on Shield Breaker / Lady Grey / Achilles, the Spec Ops using Lady Grey/Shield Breaker, and the Commando using Explosive Strike. The myriad of procs went off constantly with nearly all their offensive powers using each... but they're still mercs at the end of the day. They definitely need QoL as they shouldn't need to rely on a ton of procs going off per attack to "work".

 

Necro likewise was able to get a lot of usage from the -Def sword attacks on Knights with the trio of procs, and the Lich was able to make good use out of Cloud Senses/Trap of the Hunter/Explosive Strike/The fear one (name escapes me lol) in a plethora of it's AoEs to shore up that department, as well as use the Ghost to help mule some of the auras. However, the base damage of the Lich is still low and while they proc often, the procs on it's AoEs weren't really enough. As mentioned in the notes, adding survival to the zombies was actually kinda awkward as they would not die unless I really let them, and even then only 1 Grave Knight got unlucky and was able to summon a Ghost... but the avg time from that run didn't change much at all even when summoning everything mid-fight with no pauses. I feel like this demonstrates better how weird Soul Extraction is in practice, as the "better" you get with adding survival to your pets to maximize output, the less you can actually use the signature ability of the set.

 

D TIER: 

Bots is in an odd spot here that is due in part to this being a re-run on 0/3 and not taking advantage of the missile-swarm potential. That said, Explosive Strike on the Battle Drones/Prot Bots only helped ST damage every so often... it helped a lot with the Assault Bot though, as did Overwhelming Force in it but lacking the Dual Plasma blast as I skipped that upgrade to focus more on missile spam (it's Flamethrower is that bad) was noticeable. I'm sure it will fare better and better as the mission scales up, but for this test it ended up on the low-end.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Riverdusk]

Very nice write-up.

 

On 9/13/2020 at 7:42 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

Their ST was fine especially when you had a Ghost on your side... but actually getting one was a clunky affair. Not only do you have to get a pet to die in combat, which requires you to specifically set that scenario up in a manner that doesn't start to cascade into more damage coming in / etc, but you then have to lock yourself into summoning the ghost and then re-summoning the lost pet + upgrading and its just a whole thing... This power in particular needs a revamp for usability badly on top of some AoE potency being given to the horde. 

 

This isn't quite true.  Necro pets don't have to die in combat in order to get a ghost.  You can get a dead pet anytime you want to use soul extraction on, you just need to use /release_pets instead of dismiss.  Then it leaves a body.  Of course that ends up releasing ALL of your pets, so it really is something only to do at the start of a mission or in between battles and then as mentioned you have to resummon and upgrade everything again.  I tend to just use it at the beginning of missions (and get a guaranteed lich ghost) as the ghost does hang around for quite a while.  Even with that it is definitely clunky and I do agree I wish they'd revamp it.

[Riverdusk]

On 9/13/2020 at 8:14 PM, TygerDarkstorm said:

Man it's nice to see you do this for MM primaries! I read a lot about how terrible beasts are, but they don't *feel* terrible when you play them in game, even when you have to drop the crits to shield them with Fortify Pack. Thank you for this; I realize that it's just a sort of base look at pet performance w/ little imput from the MM and the other factors you mentioned, but it's still nice to see how just the pets compare to one another.

Same.  Beasts seem to get a wider variety of opinions about them more than most other primaries, including some saying their dps is terrible because their attack chain is buggy.  Nice to see them tested like this.  From playing them I also got the sense they were actually pretty good.

[StrikerFox]

Mercs really does needs a secondary that allows pet IOs, which unfortunately is only Storm. There's just not enough slots to get all the damage procs, pet uniques and still maintain a decent amount of acc, dam and end redux.

 

Mercs benefit with the Alpha Incarnate pick, moreso than other MM primaries. Slotting such a large quantity of damage procs, on top of the pet uniques, they really need the Alpha pick to get their stats into the green, yellow or red. While pets like Genin, Zombies, Thugs etc, with little to no damage procs, can focus more on slotting IOs for stats.

 

I think if Alpha, and maybe Interface, was added in, the order would still be the same but the totals would be closer. Except for Bots. They would probably be even further behind. Thank you for all the testing. That's amazing work! 

[Riverdusk]

4 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

Mercs really does needs a secondary that allows pet IOs, which unfortunately is only Storm. There's just not enough slots to get all the damage procs, pet uniques and still maintain a decent amount of acc, dam and end redux.

 

Mercs benefit with the Alpha Incarnate pick, moreso than other MM primaries. Slotting such a large quantity of damage procs, on top of the pet uniques, they really need the Alpha pick to get their stats into the green, yellow or red. While pets like Genin, Zombies, Thugs etc, with little to no damage procs, can focus more on slotting IOs for stats.

 

I think if Alpha, and maybe Interface, was added in, the order would still be the same but the totals would be closer. Except for Bots. They would probably be even further behind. Thank you for all the testing. That's amazing work! 

Storm I think is actually a good match for them.  Adds extra control, extra damage, and since the pets are all ranged hurricane works well to help keep them safe.

 

Regardless if they wanted to do a quick and super easy improvement to mercs they could literally just swap out serum for gun drone.  Thematically fitting and at least a place to put the pet IO's.  Not that it is the greatest power in the world, but the bar is set pretty low with serum as the alternative.   I'm also all for a more in depth rework though of course if they want to commit the resources.

[Galaxy Brain]

16 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Very nice write-up.

 

 

This isn't quite true.  Necro pets don't have to die in combat in order to get a ghost.  You can get a dead pet anytime you want to use soul extraction on, you just need to use /release_pets instead of dismiss.  Then it leaves a body.  Of course that ends up releasing ALL of your pets, so it really is something only to do at the start of a mission or in between battles and then as mentioned you have to resummon and upgrade everything again.  I tend to just use it at the beginning of missions (and get a guaranteed lich ghost) as the ghost does hang around for quite a while.  Even with that it is definitely clunky and I do agree I wish they'd revamp it.

I didn't actually know this! But still, that is cumbersome at best as the ghost would require you to re-do this process over and over every X minutes. There's gotta be a better / smoother way to produce this unique asset. 

 

4 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Regardless if they wanted to do a quick and super easy improvement to mercs they could literally just swap out serum for gun drone.  Thematically fitting and at least a place to put the pet IO's.  Not that it is the greatest power in the world, but the bar is set pretty low with serum as the alternative.   I'm also all for a more in depth rework though of course if they want to commit the resources.

 

To keep the "spirit" of the power, it could even be relabeled "Support Drone" and be a gun drone that also has a PBAoE aura with watered down effects from Serum.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[UpandAtom]

Ha, now I want Serum to be replaced with something like a medical waste barrel prop that pulses an Assault +DMG aura to everyone in range.

[Shazbotacus]

Demons have better resistance, healing, and crowd control than Mercenaries. How in the world did Mercenaries rate safer than them? Let alone safest of them all? That makes no sense to me. I don't get it.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Shazbotacus

[Galaxy Brain]

On 10/7/2020 at 8:51 PM, Shazbotacus said:

Demons have better resistance, healing, and crowd control than Mercenaries. How in the world did Mercenaries rate safer than them? Let alone safest of them all? That makes no sense to me. I don't get it.

AoE knockback

[Force Redux]

20 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

AoE knockback

This is why I love Clarion Destiny. Love it and hug it and call it George. 

[Shazbotacus]

Oh I guess that makes sense. Sort of. I find it hard to believe Commando's knockback amounts to that much.

[Force Redux]

36 minutes ago, Shazbotacus said:

Oh I guess that makes sense. Sort of. I find it hard to believe Commando's knockback amounts to that much.

Having played Mercs/Traps MM as my main back in Live, I have a hard time also. Not because I don't trust the numbers/testing, but because of how poorly Commando performed vs. Assault Bot, Demon Prince and Bruiser. 

[Dixa]

so when completed with io sets, thugs for raw clear times, demons for survivability, bots are not actually as good as the old forums would anecdotally suggest?

 

sounds about right and what some of us have been saying for a bit now. 

 

thanks for your hard work and time invested in this. 

[Destruye Arepas YV]

I know this might be a bit old, but wow, what an amazing deep look into masterminds!

 

Sadly I am the guy that loves to play mercs and I am saddened to see them being so bad compared to others in terms of sheer power.

 

Now all we need is for devs to launch new mm sets, like rikti handler (Energy,Psi Damage) , Insane Killer Klowns (Toxic, Smashing) and a new Vampire Possé mm (Dark, Lethal)

 

Great Job!

[StrikerFox]

23 hours ago, Destruye Arepas YV said:

Sadly I am the guy that loves to play mercs and I am saddened to see them being so bad compared to others in terms of sheer power.

 

You and me both! Mercs/Storm is my favorite to play and that's comparing it to Thugs/Time, Necro/Dark, Demons/Thermal and other ATs.

 

I think Demons improved a bit with the i27 patch. Ice Mistral's Torment proc IO in the T1 and T3 pet helps. I did a short 95 second test run around Atlas with it and the Impeded Swiftness proc slotted. IMT proc'd 13 times, IS proc'd 11 times and had 9 OF knockdowns on the T1 Cold Demonling alone. Haven't tried it in the Demon Prince yet.

 

Edit: Amazing on the Demon Prince too. 3min 11sec test with 85 procs, 38 IS and 47 IMT.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by StrikerFox

[Xandyr]

Great testing and thanks!

 

 I love my Mercs/Pain and my  Beast/Time. I also have a Thugs/Cold. I do wish every primary had a "mule" like Thugs and Demons have. It would help out so much.

  Lately I've been curious on what sets would have the best debuffing potential,  and I'm leaning towards Necro/Dark.

  Still, I'll continue to play my Mercs.

[Force Redux]

Mercs could use some love, but it was my first MM back with CoV and I have a desire to roll one over again. I think Mercs / Nature or my original /Traps would work well. 

[Xandyr]

@Force Redux, I have mercs/storm, mercs/ff,  and mercs/pain. All 3 are good. FF is safe, but it's just so boring at times. ust rolled mercs/Electric so we'll see how it goes. 

Never really did anything /Nature.

[SableShrike]

I had a similar experience with /Sonic, @Xandyr.  I really wanted to like my Beast/Sonic, but I just got so bored when half of my secondary is arguably bad/unusable except in extreme edge cases.  Rerolled as Beast/Pain and it’s far more enjoyable.  Half the resists of /Sonic, but with tons of area regen/healing.  I built for softcap Ranged Defense and high AoE Defense so I don’t often notice the loss of a mez shield from /Sonic.

 

The Cage intangibility powers need to go.  They’re straight garbage compared to a Mag3 Hold or Disorient.

Edited December 25, 2021 by SableShrike

[Xandyr]

On 12/25/2021 at 2:26 AM, SableShrike said:

I had a similar experience with /Sonic, @Xandyr.  I really wanted to like my Beast/Sonic, but I just got so bored when half of my secondary is arguably bad/unusable except in extreme edge cases.  Rerolled as Beast/Pain and it’s far more enjoyable.  Half the resists of /Sonic, but with tons of area regen/healing.  I built for softcap Ranged Defense and high AoE Defense so I don’t often notice the loss of a mez shield from /Sonic.

 

The Cage intangibility powers need to go.  They’re straight garbage compared to a Mag3 Hold or Disorient.

 In case you didn't know, you can slot the Panacea:Chance for HP/End in Suppress Pain, and it will affect everyone in its radius. I bet it's INSANE if a few /Pain MMs did this and teamed.