Necro/Rad - Walking Plague

[KelvinKole]

Been away for awhile and coming back to try something I've never done; a mastermind. I got an idea in my head for a walking plague kind of character that does very little personal offense but decays and rots those around him, eventually turning them to undead.  Necro/rad just fits. 

 

I have plenty of miles on rad and can fill out that side of the build, but having never really played a mastermind I don't know what I'm doing with Necro. Any general slotting advice? Any proc potential? Any must have commands or macros to make these guys behave themselves? Am I thrusting myself into a world of hurt with this combo?

 

[DocMidknight]

Of all the MM pets I believe the necro gives you the best proc potential, while no expert with necro the grave knights and the lich can be slotted for multiple procs. As far as slotting advice goes, it's more of a personal preference as a......what are your goals kinda thing. I usually break the MM ATO's up to get multiple recharge bonuses in the powers or I aim for a set that gives me ranged defense bonuses if the secondary I'm using will let me hit the defense soft cap. A trick I've been using on my necro's is to place all special defense/resist procs into soul extraction that way my pets won't have to sacrifice a slot that could be used for a different IO.  

 

 

  With commands and macros there are several places you can find really good ones with Sandolphan's numbad binds being the most common, it's pinned on the forums.

[TheSpiritFox]

Alright necro rad breakdown. 

 

First, rad is pretty much entirely dependent on it's toggle debuffs. When those are up, spawns are neutered. When those are not up, you are neutered. Rad is I would say an average to below average MM set because it offers no direct buffs to pet survivability, no real controls to help mitigate damage, etc. If you wanted to upgrade it, do zombies/dark and color it something more plague colored than black tbh. 

 

But assuming you're carrying forward, lets see. 

 

First, you want to 6 slot your pets and soul extraction. The MM attacks you probably want to take a max of 1, they aren't very good overall. Your upgrades are fine at their default slot just throw end redux at it and forget about it. 

 

How would I slot them? If I'm going for like ideal what would be a finished build

 

Zombies 2 superior mark of supremacy (10% recharge) 4 superior command of the mastermind (10% recharge) and both of the pet auras from those two sets also in zombies

 

Grave knights, 3 hami acc/dam, 3 procs

 

Soul extraction: The other 4 pet auras, 2 acc/dam hamis

 

Lich 4 pieces superior mark of supremacy, clouded senses proc, probably a hami acc/dam to round it out, though if accuracy is good a damage/mez helps more. 

 

Playing this combo is going to be about a delicate balance of letting the pets tank for you so that you do not get mezzed and have your toggles drop, but also still casting your debuffs as soon as the fight starts so that the alpha is debuffed. You have no mez protection or native defenses of your own with this set combo so if stuff looks at you for an extended period of time you're probably gonna get mezzed, drop toggles, and die. The fire epic pool and bonfire + Rise of the Nix are your friend, expect to die sometimes when things go wrong. 

 

Commands? I have a simple set for you

/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"

 

So here's the basics. Pets have three stances. Aggressive, defensive, passive. In passive mode they are basically just there. They do not attack or defend, useful for running through things without them aggroing to things, though things will still aggro to them. In aggressive mode, they attack anything in aggro range. In defensive mode, they attack when you or they are attacked, and defensive mode enables bodyguard. 

 

Then there's the commands. Attack, goto, stay, follow. Pretty self explanatory, but lets talk about goto a second. Goto puts a pin where you click which pets run to and then attempt to stay within about 30 feet of that spot, attacking things with priority order of highest on aggro table, then proximity to the invisible goto pin you place wherever. 

 

Bodyguard mode is how you don't get one shot as an MM. If pets are in defensive mode and follow, stay, or goto orders, as well as close enough to you to be in supremacy range, they split damage with you. You get 2 parts, each living pet in bodyguard mode gets 1 part. 1 pet alive, 33% damage reduction to you. 6 pets alive, 75% damage reduction to you. Supremacy if you don't know is a buff masterminds give their pets by existing. All pets, of any kind. Damage and tohit buff, so that if you're an MM even like random pet powers, lore pets, all of them do more damage than for any other class, and are more accurate. Its like 40 foot range that pets have to be inside. 

 

Now how would say zombies/dark be better than zombies/rad here? 

 

Zombies dark gives group stealth, gives a bit of defense and resistance to your pets. Debuffs absolutely absurd amounts of tohit to the point of being able to softcap  your pets with just -tohit once you have the dark servant and are slotted out. Its heal is much overall better than rads. It has solid debuffs, hitting accuracy, damage, and resistance of enemies. It has several powers that are decent but situational enough to skip, black hole being the primary example. Intangible will piss your teammates off to no end if used at the wrong time, but will absolutely save your ass when you watch your pets wipe and drop a black hole before it all turns on you and calmly resummon while mobs wait to be able to touch you again. Great solo power for emergencies. 

 

Still took bonfire and rise of the phoenix with my demons/dark though lol. 

 

Are you thrusting yourself into a world of hurt? I mean, not really. Its definitely not an MM powergaming combo. But rad is a solid ass support set and even if you're not like burning down groups, you can contribute. Zombies are a controllery primary and rad is absolutely a controllery secondary, so play like a controller. Support, mez things, send your zombies to all attack the boss attacking a blaster, stuff like that. 

 

I won't lie though, end game content is not going to be a picnic at times. Incarnate content in particular you're going to want to stick to a group and not wander off alone.  Find a scrapper to follow around or something. Neuter his targets and give him buffs. People will like you. 

[Coyote]

In most ways Rad is solid enough, but suffers compared to Dark in two HUGE areas.

Actually, literally in areas.

 

Radiation Infection has a 15' radius, which is kind of small for your primary defensive measure against most spawns.

Meanwhile, Darkest Night has a 25' radius, and Fearsome Stare is large enough to cover the entire spawn. So your -ToHit debuffs from Dark Miasma cover a large spawn, while for Radiation, they do not.

 

For this reason, I really like /Dark on MMs... but not /Rad. /Rad works better on a Defender, Corruptor, or Controller, who draw attacks to them and therefore can pull back to a corner or use an obstacle to block LOS... this pulls enemy mobs to a small area to fight you soon as they get LOS on you, which bunches them for Radiation Infection. But as a MM with melee pets, it's a lot more awkward to have them retreat and pull back to a corner. But if you let them fight, they'll go and fight outside the 15' radius, and then aren't protected by RI even against melee opponents.

[Hedgefund]

My second to last most recent MM was Necro/Rad.   Grinded up old school from 1 to 50 and from 50 to all t4s.  I'm a MM aficionado and this was created to answer "what's Rad like for MMs?"  I chose Necro to get outside of my comfort zone of Demons/Thugs/Bots.  I had low expectations when I began but... now I'm a fan.  

 

It's 100% true that toggles have to be up, full stop.  So from 1-49 I HIGHLY recommend the defense amp from p2w then either Clarion at 50 or keep shelling out 2.5M/hour for Def Amp.  The Def Amp provides 4 points mag protection to any and everything.

 

Necros do provide interesting proc opportunities.  MM ATOs offer some great recharge and of course Rad wants/needs recharge for AM and LR.  Since zombies aren't the sturdiest pets, I included all 6 pet buff IOs.  That may have sacrificed some damage procs but I'm satisfied with the results.

 

One new "best practice" I have now for MMs is an Overwhelming Force proc in the T1 pets.  Certainly from lvl 7 up to your final build.  It gives 3 pets a chance to kd on every attack.  Good extra mitigation early on.

 

I took Gloom and skipped Dark Blast and Life Drain. 

 

Anyway, to the OP's final question - no, you're definitely not in a world of hurt.  You'll be bringing the world of hurt.

[JJDrakken]

20 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

Been away for awhile and coming back to try something I've never done; a mastermind. I got an idea in my head for a walking plague kind of character that does very little personal offense but decays and rots those around him, eventually turning them to undead.  Necro/rad just fits. 

 

I have plenty of miles on rad and can fill out that side of the build, but having never really played a mastermind I don't know what I'm doing with Necro. Any general slotting advice? Any proc potential? Any must have commands or macros to make these guys behave themselves? Am I thrusting myself into a world of hurt with this combo?

 

Mastermind - Necromancy - Radiation Emission.mxd

Here you go, I would HIGHLY SUGGEST: Alpha Slot be Cardiac.

[KelvinKole]

A lot of good feedback in this thread, and  seemingly a lot of reasons to go /dark over /rad. Thanks to @TheSpiritFox for the binds and presenting a good use case for Black Hole.

 

I really wanted to do /rad for this, but the damage and recharge buff from Accelerate Metabolism doesn't effect your pets? Is this true? The tohit debuff from radiation infection is stronger than darkest night, but @Coyote is right about the larger radius on darkest night. Fluffy and fearsome stare add a -tohir edge to /dark overall though. 

 

I wish em pulse would get reworked to something less situational and make this a bit more of a contest....

 

 

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, KelvinKole said:

A lot of good feedback in this thread, and  seemingly a lot of reasons to go /dark over /rad. Thanks to @TheSpiritFox for the binds and presenting a good use case for Black Hole.

 

I really wanted to do /rad for this, but the damage and recharge buff from Accelerate Metabolism doesn't effect your pets? Is this true? The tohit debuff from radiation infection is stronger than darkest night, but @Coyote is right about the larger radius on darkest night. Fluffy and fearsome stare add a -tohir edge to /dark overall though. 

 

I wish em pulse would get reworked to something less situational and make this a bit more of a contest....

 

 

Pets accept buffs for damage, accuracy, defense, resistance. I do not know if they take recovery buffs, but I have not ever seen pets actually seem to be affected by running out of endurance. It seems like they just oom and fight anyway, and I don't know that anyone has extensively tested like the effects of pets being denied endurance and how bad it has to be before they like stop attacking. I've never seen my pets drained to empty in a yin stop fighting even when I sat there unable to cast for a solid 10 seconds waiting for a debuff to fall off after multiple rezzes stacked to drain the entire team. 

 

Recharge does not affect pets at all, but that sword is double edged. You cannot buff their recharge, but neither can enemies debuff their recharge. 

 

And yeah, while radiation infection is a great single debuff, it cannot match stacking -tohit from dark with pretty much all of it's powers. Even the heal stacks tohit and regeneration debuff on a target. And the size difference is massive. 15 vs 25 feet is more than double the area covered. It makes a huge difference to pet survivability. 

[Coyote]

Pets do take recovery buffs, and do benefit from slotting Endurance Reduction. A lot of henchmen don't burn through Endurance, but some others do... I do see my Beasts running down (once I get Transference that'll no longer be an issue), and I think I recall some Demons also having Endurance problems. Robots and Mercs don't have Endurance problems, because their attacks take too long to animate so they can't burn through Endurance fast enough.