New Player Mastermind Questions

[Cripple X]

Hey all,

 

I'm a brand new player and I have a few questions as I create my first character.

 

1. Since it seems like the only thing you are stuck with is your choice of Primary and Secondary, it seems like you really want to get this right. I really like the idea of going with Robots as a primary. Empathy seemed like a good second choice based on my character concept. Will those work well together or is there a more effective choice?

 

2. Can you recolor your pets?

 

3. Any other need to know tips for a first time player?

 

Thanks for the help all.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, Cripple X said:

Hey all,

 

I'm a brand new player and I have a few questions as I create my first character.

 

1. Since it seems like the only thing you are stuck with is your choice of Primary and Secondary, it seems like you really want to get this right. I really like the idea of going with Robots as a primary. Empathy seemed like a good second choice based on my character concept. Will those work well together or is there a more effective choice?

 

2. Can you recolor your pets?

 

3. Any other need to know tips for a first time player?

 

Thanks for the help all.

Bots/empathy is going to be pretty weak. 

 

I you are a brand new player, here are the sets I recommend. 

 

Pick bots or thugs with /time, /traps, or /cold. 

 

Pick demons with /Electric, /Nature, or /Thermal

 

If you are set on Bots I highly recommend you try /time. As you are new to the game, /time is a set that is harder to screw up than most. Its solidly survivable, has an AOE heal, extra defenses for your bots, and decent debuffs for your enemies.  Bots/time/mu patron pool will be very survivable in most content. You take mu epic because of electric fences which has -knockback, bots knock things back and having an immob that stops knockback keeps enemies in one place for aoe damage.  There's a /time guide stickied so that'll also help you, go read it. 

 

Basic facts about bots. Lowest single target damage, high aoe damage on groups. This is because the assault bot has a single attack which it shoots a missile at an enemy and it drops a burn patch under each enemy within like 20 feet of the targeted enemy. In a tight, close together group this burn patch missile is capable of spawning enough damage to utterly melt minion and lt level enemies and do heavy damage to bosses fast.  Bots do -regen especially your Tier 3 pet the Assault bot, helps alot with AVs. 

 

Protector bots cast a shield on you and your pets. This is noteworthy because it actually takes a second for the protector bots to bubble you and all your pets. Has to be paid attention to because resummoning in combat is tricky, the protectors have to bubble the resummon for it to have full defenses. 

 

No you cannot at this time recolor your pets. 

 

Now basic tips. 

 

Here are some binds for you, type them into the chat bar and they'll stick

 

/bind q "petcom_all aggressive$$petcom_all goto"

/bind e "petcom_all defensive$$petcom_all goto"

/bind r "petcom_all defensive$$petcom_all follow"

/bind mbutton "petcom_all attack"

/bind shift+mbutton "petcom_all stay"

 

These five binds are pretty much all I use to control pets. The goto commands order the pets to go to a spot you mark and stay within about 40 feet of it. They tend to attack based on proximity to the spot you mark. Follow is follow. The attack command orders your pets to focus fire using the mouse wheel button, while shift+mouse wheel orders them to stay which is specifically useful for certain enemies which lay down damage patches and make your pets sprint like 80 feet away and come back, potentially aggroing groups and getting them or you or your team killed. Rikti monkeys and praetorian robots are specific offenders where you might want to put them on stay. Also useful in areas where enemies are jumping up and down and your bots might waste time jumping up and down after specific enemies instead of standing there blasting away at whatever they can see. 

 

Heard of bodyguard? If you are within supremacy range, 40 feet of a pet, that pet gets a boost to accuracy and damage. If that pet is in defensive stance and under goto, follow, or stay orders, you are in bodyguard mode. You get 2 parts damage, each living pet within 4 feet in defensive goto/stay/follow gets 1 part damage. So with 6 pets alive you get 75% damage reduction by splitting it with your pets. This gives sets with an AOE heal alot of survivability with masterminds. Also, your defense and resistance come into play if something attacks you in bodyguard. So if you have 75% resistance to smashing/lethal damage and get hit with a smashing attack, first it has to get past your personal defenses and hit you, then it gets reduced 75% by your resistance, then the damage gets split into 8 parts and you get 2 of them reducing it another 75%. A 1000 damage attack would get reduced to like 60-70 something damage to your masterminds HP. 

 

TLDR: Masterminds have the highest effective HP in the game by far with bodyguard up. We can take an incredible amount of punishment built right. 

 

With bots/time you're basically going to send the bots in with defensive goto, and jump in yourself after the enemy's initial attack goes off. You're gonna use heals and debuffs to keep your bots and team alive, and fire off a few attacks if you want to take some. I do not recommend ever taking more than one of the attacks from the primary with MMs. I've heard rumors of revamps for MMs coming but right now our personal attacks get some of the lowest overall damage because of our pets doing damage essentially for free. High endurance cost, low damage, so you have to throw slots at them for them to be remotely useable and you still don't get a ton out of those slots. 

 

If things aren't attacking you and your bots are sitting there, a quick switch to aggressive goto and they start lighting up the surrounding area. Follow as soon as you move onto the next group. 

 

You can give pets orders any time you are not dead, mezzed, or in some form of "only affecting self" status. You can move your pets while you cast powers without interrupting either. 

 

Those tips will get you started. Last two tips, if nothing else you want the two unique pet IOs that give your pets 5% defense to all. There are 6 total pet uniques, bots are tight on slotting but you can easily fit the 2 5% to all defense uniques in your battle drones and still slot them for accuracy and damage. 

 

Leveling a mastermind isn't that hard, but it is slow solo. Our damage really blooms once we get all our pets and our level 32 upgrade. Before then, leveling is slow and I highly recommend you do it with teams where your anemic low level damage matters less. This is true for bots more than most, the level 32 upgrade gives your assault bot its burn patch missiles and those are the source of a large amount of your damage as bots. 

 

Use the help channel in game often. Lots of people with lots of information available to you in real time especially during server busy hours. 

 

Here too. MMs take time to figure out, no class in any other game is quite the same as them, but once you get used to them they are a shitload of fun and very powerful in the right combinations of sets. 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2021 by TheSpiritFox

[RudedawgCDN]

4 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Last two tips, if nothing else you want the two unique pet IOs that give your pets 5% defense to all. There are 6 total pet uniques, bots are tight on slotting but you can easily fit the 2 5% to all defense uniques in your battle drones and still slot them for accuracy and damage. 

 

Can you tell me what those sets are called please?

 

Thanks!

[TygerDarkstorm]

@TheSpiritFox covered all of the good stuff, but I'd just like to share this post in case you would rather use numpad binds for your MasterMind instead of some of the movement keys:

 

[TheSpiritFox]

43 minutes ago, RudedawgCDN said:

Can you tell me what those sets are called please?

 

Thanks!

I cant remember off the top of my head. Type /ah and go into enhancements. Attuned is where you want anything not purple to come from. Look at the mastermind, pet, and recharge intensive pet categories. Look at all the sets. You will see that certain ones one of enh names lists a benefit, read it. There are 2 +10% resist, 1 +15% resist, 2 +5% all defense, 1 +10% AoE Defense, and a build up proc in soulbound allegiance that gives your pets build up damage boosts. 

 

Its good to get to know the IO system and the simplest way is looking through it. Each set generally has one unique in it, a few pet damage sets do not. I think the 5% all defense ones are in Mastermind and recharge intensive pets areas? Call to arms and one of the MM sets maybe?

 

A note on pet auras. Rumor has it those auras are going to get changed and the effects they have now rolled into MMs in the future, no idea when. For now, Thugs Gang War, Zombies Soul Extraction, and Demons Hell on Earth can fit pet uniques. If using those sets, you have a power that can mule pet aura IOs freeing up slotting on your actual minions, bots beasts ninjas and mercs are all SOL with that unfortunately, making them all weaker overall sets. Not bad, but harder to slot effectively. 

[JJDrakken]

As a new Player: Most forgiving combo will be Robots/FF. Simple, lets you get use to using your Pets. Allows you to use the MM attacks(Since FF doesn't require a lot of slots/powers to take)

 

/macro BG "petcom_all Follow Defensive"  Will be a Macro you'll love to use.

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, JJDrakken said:

As a new Player: Most forgiving combo will be Robots/FF. Simple, lets you get use to using your Pets. Allows you to use the MM attacks(Since FF doesn't require a lot of slots/powers to take)

 

/macro BG "petcom_all Follow Defensive"  Will be a Macro you'll love to use.

As an experienced player, Bots/FF is a good way to hate playing MMs and think they're boring as fuck. Its tanky enough, though nowhere near top tier. Bots/time is far tankier. So are bots/cold and bots/traps.

 

Don't go bots/ff. Its legit boring as hell. 

[JJDrakken]

9 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

As an experienced player, Bots/FF is a good way to hate playing MMs and think they're boring as fuck. Its tanky enough, though nowhere near top tier. Bots/time is far tankier. So are bots/cold and bots/traps.

 

Don't go bots/ff. Its legit boring as hell. 

Not really, with fact you don't use as many slots or powers. This allows you take MM attacks(Which 90% MMs don't need). or Power Pool attacks. You'll be very active. That's a set I would advise folks back on Virtue learning MMs. Was thanked a lot for that advice as they learned how MMs worked and Bodyguard system.

[tidge]

Check out this recent thread:

 

I have a Robots/Traps that I like very much. They are not the HIGHEST DPS, but they are not the worst.

 

I don't disagree with the /Time or /FF recommendations, except to write: if you are a new player, /Traps will serve as a good mechanism to understand the role of enemy Debuffs, the enemy AI,  and also will offer you some insight on different slotting approaches to the secondary powers.

 

I would NOT go /Empathy. I will type a small rant about my opinion about healing your MM henchmen:

 

Healing the henchmen has essentially only two places (I repeat: IMO) in the game's bigger picture:

1. At low levels, your henchmen is your only effective way to defeat opponents. You don't want your henchmen dying all the time.
2. Against many multiple enemies, or single hard targets (Elite Bosses, Arch Villains, Giant Monsters) the henchmen will take damage for you when in 'Bodyguard Mode'... you don't want them dying because they are a combination of your damage resistance and Health.

To address (1), you can always take Aid Other from the Medicine power pool. Note that you get a LOT of chances to "respec" your character (change power choices and enhancement slots, but you are 'stuck' with your Primary/Secondary choice. On my MM that played a lot of solo, I used Aid Other for quite some time up (mid 20s?) until I could provide better Defense and Resistance for the pets (through powers and enhancements). At that point I respecced out of the Medicine Pool.

 

To address (2), well... there are a LOT of options (besides Healing) to speak to this aside from healing. As far as healing: Some secondaries (e.g. Dark, Heat) will get PBAoE (point blank Area of effect) heals that you can toss... but generally Robotics/Traps will have solid defenses (from the FFG) and those Bots are pretty tough.

 

Also keep in mind that the earliest Henchmen will be at lower levels than you when they are summoned as multiples. It won't be as easy or as useful to try to keep all three of your T1 henchmen alive all the time.

 

I want to note that there is a difference between Regeneration and Healing (this comes up with Traps via Triage Beacon). Triage Beacon will shorten the "time between (normal) Health recovery ticks" (i.e. it increases Regeneration) for the henchmen/pets (and any players) as long as they are in its area of effect, but it won't increase how much health is recovered 'per tick', which is based on the total Health/HP of the henchmen/pet/player. Friendlies have to stay in the area of effect to get the Regeneration bonus. Just my opinion, but I find Triage Beacon more useful when facing large groups of enemies than small ones, since with large groups your team tends to stay in a smaller area.

 

[CirqueDuNoir]

Heh it would be cool to be able to change the color of MM pets, the way you can with Controller pets.  I'd love to be able to make bots or zombies in gray scale to go along with my gray scale character B-Movie Bette.

[Unknown Magi]

22 hours ago, Cripple X said:

Hey all,

 

I'm a brand new player and I have a few questions as I create my first character.

 

1. Since it seems like the only thing you are stuck with is your choice of Primary and Secondary, it seems like you really want to get this right. I really like the idea of going with Robots as a primary. Empathy seemed like a good second choice based on my character concept. Will those work well together or is there a more effective choice?

 

2. Can you recolor your pets?

 

3. Any other need to know tips for a first time player?

 

Thanks for the help all.

So, just to weigh in here with my own 2c...

 

Bots is fun, but it starts slow.  You may feel like your damage is a bit low till you hit level 26 or 32.  On the upside, the bots are quite survivable, especially once you have your protector bots bubbling and healing your other bots for you.  So, if the early levels feel a bit rough in terms of speed, I really suggest sticking with it until those levels to get a fair appraisal of the set, and just work on joining teams to get leveled to those points faster.

 

Empathy is a much maligned set, and while I do like the set itself I don't like it on masterminds.  The biggest thing it has going for it is several powerful single-target buffs; unfortunately, as a mastermind, you are going to be buffing 6 pets and potentially up to 7 teammates, which makes it hard to get the most mileage out of your empathy powers.  I highly suggest seeing if your concept could fit a set with more multi-target oriented buffs and healing.  As has been suggested above, /Time is quite good for this; /Nature is also a good pick for a buffing and healing in a multi-target manner.  Overall, without considering concept, I would say there's a pretty strong consensus that /Time and /Dark are top picks for secondary in terms of raw power, variety, and ease of use.  Nature, while less popular, I would still consider to be high tier.  

 

Also, a couple of important things to note that might not immediately apparent:

1. +Recharge buffs don't help your pets.  So something like Adrenaline Boost from empathy isn't going to do as much for you when cast on a pet. 

2. Defense gets more valuable the more of it you have, up to the soft cap of 45%.  Because your protector bots already put +defense shields on all your bots (and you, and each other), that means a secondary which can offer some defense and/or tohit debuffs is going to work very nicely with bots.  There are quite a few sets that offer this.

3. Because your protector bots can do some healing for you, and if you really need it you have access to Repair in your primary, sets which are heavy on heals are likely to give you less mileage overall than something with a bigger variety of tricks.  I would suggest avoiding empathy and pain for this reason, since they spend several power picks entirely on heals.

4. Until later in the game with things like level shifts, pet accuracy and damage is likely to be a bit of a sore spot for you, so sets that can give extra to-hit or accuracy to your pets, boost damage, and/or reduce enemy defense/resistance are going to help you have more impact.  

 

If you want some help sorting out IOs, builds, or general questions and need a faster response than the forum I'm on the discord under this name, and my ingame global is also @Unknown Magi and I'm happy to help out whenever I have time, feel free to hit me up.

[Neiska]

@Cripple X

 

Hello OP! Welcome to Masterminding.

 

Robots are my favorite pet set too, so here are a few things I can offer as advice.

1. Don't forget to pick up the Pet Damage and Recharge pet defensive IOs, these give you auras that make your pets tougher. You only need one of each for the defensive auras.

2. An IO of special mention later on after you get the big robot, is Soulbound Allegiance :chance to power up. What this will do is give your assualt bot a chance to do more damage with its attacks.

3. I didn't see it mentioned anywhere yet, but you can use Inspirations on your pets. Its as easy as drag and dropping it on their hitbox. You have to be semi close to the pet, but it will work just fine. So you can use reds, yellows, and whatnot on your pets, even green ones to heal.

4. (much) later on, there are a few key incarnate powers to keep in mind. For Alpha, I believe nearly every MM picks muscleature, becuase its one of the few ways to boost pet damage. For Hyrbrid, you cant go wrong with Support, there is even a path that gives double +hit/damage bonuses for pets. Only MM pets benifit from this, making it more or less a MM only feature.

 

Specific to Robot pets -

1. You will want some sudden acceleration Knockback to Knockdown IOs, as your pets will push things around quite often. Which is bad, because of #2 -

2. As a robot Mastermind, the majority of your damage will come from your Assualt Bot, so stick to him like glue. His main damage is his missles leaving a big patch of fire. If you can force the fights where your robot leaves them, you will do much better. You can stand in it and /provoke, or immobilize. The easiest way for me was using group fly, and shooting straight down, because enemies naturally want to run right under you, which is the perfect place for the fire patches.

3. Your robots are all "ranged", which is one of two sets that are. They will never run into melee, only your assualt bot may move closer to spray the flamethrower attack. This means you can use abilities like Web Grenade or Electric Fences to immobilize them, or you can also take group fly from flight pool, and have a whole team of ranged combatants. (the robots even get little rocketboots.)

4. Robots are a "Defensive" set as well, as your protector bots will "bubble" everything, even you. But don't think this forces you to play a defensive based secondary, I have had quite a bit of results with others. 

 

As far as specific paring, well, there are several options. I would ask what you want your "strengths" to be, because thats what you are more or less asking - 

Forcefield - Ease of play, but can be boring. Time - Overall balanced, but doesn't have anything it does exceptionally well either. Traps - King of solo, but is slow to get there, as well as move your traps in combat And Electric Affinity - Top teir survieability set, for you, your pets, and your team. Downside, not much offense to offer aside from -damage and -regen debuffs.

 

1. Forcefield - Forcefield is very defensive, but is also very hands off. Some people enjoy that gameplay, others hate it. If you are fine just turning on a few toggles and buffs, and watching your pets do everything, you may enjoy it. So if you like simple, this might suit you. Others find it so simple they are bored by it.

 

2. Time - Time is a top teir set, with just about everything. Its mobile, offers buffs, healing, a few debuffs. Its just an all around good balanced set. But this also means it doesn't really stand out at doing anything either. The only thing I would say with a robo/time is, its fairly easy to defense cap you and the pets with it. As a set, it is consistant and relialable, but no real "oh wow" features.

 

3. Traps - Robots/Traps MM is one of the most potient solo builds possible. It can kill GMs/AVs solo, and is very strong. However, it is also not the quickest or moble. Think of it as a "plant the flag" style of play. You drop all your traps in your "kill zone" and make enemies come to you, getting hit by multiple persistant effects, where you stand there and use caltrops or provoke, trying to keep things within your zone of death. Robots/Traps can be an issue on some fast moving teams though, as everyone keeps moving out of your "kill box", and the powers are on long cooldowns. But for solo, it can be quite fun and powerful.

 

4. Electric Affinity - Personally, I rate this one as the king of MM defensive sets, and despite it being resistance, it pairs very well with robots. You can put down a zone of status immunity which affects your pets, this stops them from being knocked out of range of your buffs. You also have limitless END later, with a very nice heal and +absorb power. It also has  -10% and -20% damage debuff which stacks, which makes your already durable setup even more durable. EA has a few downsides though, a few buggy powers such as the T9 power not really affecting pets, and is almost dead last for damage, offering only a group +damage buff.

 

I have also heard of people having good results with Storm, Radiation, and oddly, Nature.

 

I have done many MMs, and my personal favorite is Robot/EA, just because of a few reasons - Different ways to play on one character - Footslog it as normal, Fly and enjoy some aireal combat, or immobilize things and just pewpew it out. My Robot/EA is also my best MM for farming, even on the highest content. But this is all just personal taste.

 

Hope this helps a bit. I am a pet class lover in video games too. Robots are a fantastic choice and go with quite a number of secondaries. 

 

Happy Masterminding!

[KC4800]

My Bots/ElecAffinity pets are slotted with these special procs:

 

Battle Drones: SoulBound Alleg Chance for BU; Sudden Accel KB to KD; Superior Mark of MM Endurance&Pet +Resist +Regen Aura

Protector Bots: LotG Defense + Global Rech; Sudden Accel KB to KD; Sov. Right +Resist; Superior Comm of the MM Pet +AoE Def Aura

Assault Bot: Sudden Accel KB to KD; 5 slots remaining with Expedient Reinforcement Set which includes Pet + Resist Aura

 

Elec Affinity Secondary is a Resistance and Healing set. Deploy Faraday Cage all the time. It makes all the difference.

[Neiska]

@KC4800 - May i ask why the BU on the battle drones, and not the assualt bot? Wouldnt you get more effectiveness from the assualt bot, it being the main source of damage with robos? Just curious, because I always put it on the assualt bot with the flame patches and whatnot.

[tidge]

I also put the %Build Up on the T1 henchmen. My theory is: as long as they have enough cycling attacks, the Build Up will help counter the level shift. I see it firing almost constantly on one or more of the T1 robots.

[KC4800]

My thought as well, with 3 battle drones vs. 1 assault bot, I would think it would fire more therefore seems like a no brainer. I always boost the Assault Bot with Empowering Circuit, which has a Gaussians Chance for BU in it.

[TheSpiritFox]

5 minutes ago, KC4800 said:

My thought as well, with 3 battle drones vs. 1 assault bot, I would think it would fire more therefore seems like a no brainer. I always boost the Assault Bot with Empowering Circuit, which has a Gaussians Chance for BU in it.

Does gaussians proc on the assault bot? I would think it would proc on you. 

[KC4800]

I never really paid attention that closely. But because Empowering Circuit is a buff power from the secondary, meant to buff the robots, I just assumed the Gaussians would give them a BU when it fires.

 

EDIT: No you're right, it gives me the BU. I just checked.

Edited January 15, 2021 by KC4800

[Neiska]

Well, each to their own! Personally I always grin when the assualt bots BU procs with the fire patch and stuff just melts. But I do think @TheSpiritFox is right, even with a buffing power, the BU would apply to you, not the recipent of the buff, its an "onuse" effect, not a "ontarget" effect, I guess is the term. That would be like wanting BU on tactics to proc on pets too isn't it, and it doesn't work that way?

[tidge]

On the topic of where the Gaussian's %BuildUp proc does fire: I've been playing with it slotted in my Thugs MM's T2 Enforcers. I also have those guys slotted with a %-Res and two %damage procs, so I like to think that when I see their %BuildUp firing (and it is often) that it is making up for me skimping on slotting more actual enhancements on them.

[KC4800]

2 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Well, each to their own! Personally I always grin when the assualt bots BU procs with the fire patch and stuff just melts. But I do think @TheSpiritFox is right, even with a buffing power, the BU would apply to you, not the recipent of the buff, its an "onuse" effect, not a "ontarget" effect, I guess is the term. That would be like wanting BU on tactics to proc on pets too isn't it, and it doesn't work that way?

That's fine with me, I still use my pew-pew gun. It needs all the help it can get.

[TheSpiritFox]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

On the topic of where the Gaussian's %BuildUp proc does fire: I've been playing with it slotted in my Thugs MM's T2 Enforcers. I also have those guys slotted with a %-Res and two %damage procs, so I like to think that when I see their %BuildUp firing (and it is often) that it is making up for me skimping on slotting more actual enhancements on them.

Enforcers are actually one of the good spots to slot gaussians because it has a chance to proc based on everything affected by maneuvers. Even with just pets and you, that's alot of proc chances and alot of uptime. 

[tidge]

1 minute ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Enforcers are actually one of the good spots to slot gaussians because it has a chance to proc based on everything affected by maneuvers. Even with just pets and you, that's alot of proc chances and alot of uptime. 

And that's exactly why I slotted it with them! (pendantry alert: except I think it is their Tactics, not Maneuvers).

[TheSpiritFox]

20 minutes ago, tidge said:

And that's exactly why I slotted it with them! (pendantry alert: except I think it is their Tactics, not Maneuvers).

lol Yeah that

[Cripple X]

I wanted to thank everyone for the wonderful responses. I ended up settling on a Robots/Traps MM as it fit my character concept a little better than Robots/Time. It feels a little slow next to some other ATs I tried up to level 5, but I'm hoping it picks up speed as I go. I am using the numpad hotkeys posted by @TygerDarkstorm. I'm happy to play along with any of you on the Everlasting shard. My global name is @Cripple X and my MM is named Dr. Deviceful. I couldn't resist the pun. 😜