Mastermind Farming: Discussion/Guide

[Neiska]

Hello forums!

 

After a few discussions with people in-game and here on the forums, I wanted to post how I farm with Masterminds, as it seems to be something not many people do or who are aware of. Before we get to the details though, a few things of note -

 

1. I am by no means an expert in CoH mechanics. There are others far more knowledgeable than myself, who might in fact be able to point out ways to improve this even further.

2. There are possibly better setups or options, this is just listing what has worked well for me.

3. Unless stated otherwise, everything is on max difficulty - +4/8, with solo elite bosses enabled.

4. I am still doing ongoing tests and experiments, but I believe I have found enough at this point to start a discussion about it. Other people are certainly welcome to add to the conversation!

5. I "power farm" with 3 Masterminds, but it is possible to do with one or even two. I added the third MM as an afterthought, and I just find three the most exciting and efficient.

 

Apologies for the long post in advance, but I don't think this has been discussed in any great detail before, and may be a completely new concept to many people, so I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

 

With that in mind lets begin!

 

Mastermind Farming - How does it work?

 

Well, Brutes are regarded as the kings of farming. Either by being able to go AFK, or by simply being the most efficient. Well, I love Masterminds, but going spawn by spawn 8 or so mobs at a time was just too slow for me. So I tried to fight more than 1 spawn at a time. At first it was 2 spawns of 8, and then 3. But I noticed something.

 

I was aggro-ing more mobs than I should have normally been able to. Usually on tankers or brutes, if you are at your aggro cap, things can walk right through your AoE and not aggo. They may still take damage, but they won't fight back until there is "room" on the aggro list after killing some other mobs. However, on my Mastermind this was not the case. 

 

Even alone, things kept coming. And coming. And coming. I lost track of how many I was fighting at a time, even accidentally. At first I grew frustrated and wondered why it was happening. Why can masterminds get swarmed and overwhelmed, when it didn't happen to Tankers or Brutes? And then I realized, that pets have their own aggro caps as well. 

 

I have looked and looked, but I can find no hard data from old sources or new ones, on a breakdown on pet aggro. But as far as I can tell, they seem to be able to aggro anywhere between 6-12 mobs themselves, in addition to what the Mastermind themselves are able to aggro. What this means is that a Mastermind with their pets, can fight much much more than Any other AT can at a time. For calculations sake, lets assume the low end of 6 mobs per pet.

 

So that's 12 mobs (you the mastermind) + 3 T1 pets (18 mobs) + 2 T2 pets (another 12 mobs) + 1 T3 pet (6 more) = 48 mobs, assuming its the lowest. If it is indeed 12 mobs per pet, it can be as high as 84 mobs Engaged at a time. And this is PER Mastermind. That is one single mastermind by themselves.

 

Realistically though, there is only so much space and room available for so much at a time, as well as time required to move between spawns and distance. But I quite regularly fight 6-8 entire spawns at a time on some smaller maps.

 

(Note: This is just flat aggroing mobs. There is no taunt involved, no provoke, and so on. I have tried using provoke when Mastermind Farming, but it has a low target cap and simply wasn't worth attempting to use it. More on that later.)

 

So the TLDR behind this is, it's an entirely different style of farming. It does not focus on how much Damage you can do at once as a Brute might, nor does it focus on Total Survival as a Tanker might, but instead of being able to engage, and survive, many more mobs at once.

 

Mastermind - The Breakdown -

 

So with our "En Masse" style of farming, it should go without saying that AoE will be our friend. Now while our AoE and damage per mob isn't anywhere near a brutes, if you are fighting enough mobs at once, you can even it out, or even pull ahead when taking the "total net mob hitpoints" of the map as a whole. Here's an example off the top of my head-

 

Brute, fighting 12 mobs, at 100 dps, would would be doing a total of 1,200 "total" damage each and every second.

But the Mastermind, fighting even the low end of 48 mobs, at lets say even a lowball 30 dps, would be a 1,440 "total" damage.

 

So, small numbers, but so many MORE of them at a time. 

(Note: I cannot claim the expertise and knowledge to do a spreadsheet data comparison as some Big Brains on the forums often do, so apologies there. This is only an example for context of the Mastermind "style", or at least how I do it. But a comparison like that would certainly be an interesting read.)

 

The Details -

 

So with all this in mind, I decided to put together a way to take advantage of this increased target capacity. Thinking long term, I opted for Robotic Primary, as the Assault Bot's fire patches is the best AoE a Mastermind has access too, and as it turns out, is stackable. I am currently working on testing Demons as well, as well as possibly Thugs and even Undead at a later time. But for now, I have only done this with Robots.

 

As I did further experiments, I began to 2 box Masterminds, playing 2 at a time. Now, I can manage 3 at once, for a grand total of 3 Masterminds, with 18 pets in total. For secondary, I took Electric Affinity, as making my pets as survivable as I could was utmost concern when fighting to many at a time, as I doubt few other sets would be able to stand against the number of mobs I would be engaging. For my second Mastermind, I decided to go with Time, as it is quite easy to softcap defense with Time and Robots. My EA and Time MMs were quite successful, and you can farm with those two alone. But I wanted to push it further. After some discussions in Discord, I was urged by an acquaintance to make my third Mastermind Kinetics, for more damage.

 

So, together, here is what the 3 MMs contribute -

Electric - +Absorb, Healing, Status Immunity to You and to Pets, a -10% damage AoE Debuff.

Time - Defense Softcap, Healing, AoE Debuff and Toggle Debuff, with an emergency button.

Kinetics - Healing, Damage Cap for all pets (including lore pets)

 

Again, I want to stress Electric and Time were enough to speedfarm with Masterminds, Kinetics was just the icing on the cake.

 

Some may want to use debuffs, which is fine. I just personally perfer to focus on buffs and healing for this style of play, that and I question about the target cap of powers when fighting so many enemies at a time. There is also the question if a debuff set could even survive this, as there are times I have had difficulty even when focused on survival. But I will leave that to people with more experience with debuff sets than me.

 

Incarnates - All 3 MMs use Muscled Alpha, for increased pet damage. All 3 also use Ion Judgement, and Support Hybrid. Where it Varies is when it comes to Destiny and Interface slots. 2 of them Use Barrier, as Clarion is not needed (due to Faraday's Cage from EA). The final MM uses Ageless, as a sort of emergency END tool in the rare case Energizing Circuit proves to be not enough. For Interface, One Mastermind uses Degenerative, one uses Reactive, and one uses Spectral. (If any are wondering, I chose that in order to trap more things in my main source of damage output - the Assault Bots fire patches.) For lore pets, all 3 MMs use Longbow.

 

How it plays -(For reference, I usually farm on the Asteroid map, the Terminator Map, or the City Map. Damage type doesn't matter. You can farm any kind of damage types with this setup. The Moon/Asteroid map is the fastest, but the Terminator Map is easiest.)

 

1.) First you zone in with all Masterminds, and wait the few moments it takes for pets to be placed. If you try to buff as soon as you zone in, your pets may not be affected. 

 

2.) I keep my own Assualt Bots as my target with all 3 MMs, for defensive autocast power targeting. If you activate an offensive power, it will automatically target the last mob who attacked your pet. I just find this an easier way to manage 3 MMs. All pets are on Bodyguard mode, (defensive and follow) for almost the entire duration. The powers I have autocasted are - Insulating Circuit with the EA, Temporal Mending with the Time, and Fulcrum Shift with Kinetics.

 

3.) As soon as all pets are spawned, I pop Barrier, and pre-apply absorb with Insulating Circuit, and I use Power Boost and Crono shift with the Time MM. This is because even with Barrier and an Absorb applied, your pets are going to take a lot of hits before you settle into your spot. Its not uncommon I loose 1 or 2 pets before picking my killing zone.

 

4.) With both my Time and Kenitics autofollowing my EA, (with their t3 pets targeted) I fly into the middle of the map, aggro-ing as many mobs as I can. During this time it is very IMPORTANT to spam the follow button, or else your pets will stop in place, and shoot, and end up out of range of heals and buffs, and won't last long.

 

5.) Once I aggro between 6-8 groups, I stop and drop a Faraday's Cage, and group up all MMs and Pets into a "Death Ball." this is where the fun begins. All 3 T3 pets will fire their missles, leaving fire patches. This is why following is also important - the tighter/closer your pets and MMs are, the better, as you can stand in your own fire and force enemies to stand in 2-3 patches at a time in order to fight you.

 

6.) Things will start to die, fast. Once their numbers thin out a bit, you can move around a bit and keep the death ball rolling, and aggro more groups. Keep clicking follow to avoid any left behind pets, to drag along the entire swarm of enemies behind you until you get to your next kill spot. At this point, it is rinse-repeat.

 

Using this method, it actually takes me longer to hunt down stray spawns or straggler bosses/elite bosses, than it does to bulldoze the map.

With the Asteroid/Moon map as a referance, it takes me roughly 4-5 minutes to clear. However, if I use my Lore pets, I can get this down to 3 minutes, as damage capped Longbow lore pets are quite deadly to isolated bosses/elite bosses, which is usually what gives Robot Masterminds time to chew through.

 

Tools/Powers of note - 

 

Bonfire - I have bonfire on 2 MMs, as they are fantastic proc powers, and add a bit of CC as well, helping to keep things penned up in all that fire.

 

Web Grenade - I took Mace mastery mainly for the boost to Time, but Web Grenade is also useful for locking things down in fire patches as well.

 

Group Fly - Group fly is a fantastic addition, for robots in particular, as if you so chose to do so on some maps you can go entirely AFK with a robots mastermind, provided there is no roof and you are fighting mobs with no -fly powers (such as most fire enemies.) Your heal on autocast will be enough to heal what little ranged powers they do have. It is also worth noting that group fly makes it very easy to stack fire patches, as enemies naturally want to run right under you, which is where all 3 assualt bots tend to aim. For the most part, all you need to do is hover in place and out of reach.

 

Fold Space - A new tool I have been experimenting with, it does work quite well to yank things back to where you want them to be. It is also quite fun to use it and drop things from the sky when combined with Group Fly, letting you drop them precisely where you need them to be.

 

In closing - Masterminding is indeed not only possible, its can be quite fast and efficent. And turns a normally boring task of farming into something on edge and exciting, at least for me. I will post my builds when I can, but I can't right this exact moment. (posting from work) But I certainly will do so when I get home.

 

Additional comments/feedback/questions/critiques are always welcome. As stated before I have only done this on Robots to date, but I am in the process of leveling up 3 Demon Masterminds now.

 

Thank you for your time. Again, apologies for the long post, I just wanted to be as descriptive and informative as possible.

 

Hope this inspires some more masterminds!

 

Sins Robot-Electric MM (fold space).mxd Sins Robot-Time MM (mace).mxd Sins Robot-Kin MM (fold space).mxd

Edited April 29, 2021 by Neiska
Added builds!

[blaythesteuer]

this is insane!! i love it 

[Neiska]

Update: builds added!

[Monos King]

Hahaha using group fly with bots is a fantastic idea, I'll have to try that out.

[TheSpiritFox]

I was going to say farming with a mastermind is sub optimal but then you fucked the whole thing up being an insane fucker triple boxing masterminds. 

 

Hats off to you dude, this is ambitious as fuck. 

[Neiska]

@TheSpiritFox - hehe, thank you. I love masterminds, but always felt kinda bummed when grinding incarnates and stuff. Came on this by accident, so, figured out a way to take advantage of their increased target capacity!

 

Anyway, I found your points on thugs interesting. I recently did a test with 3 demon MMs that didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, working on a post for the results of that now. Do you think thugs would perform decently in such a playstyle? They were the next set I was curious about, I don't see any of the other pet sets really viable sadly.

[Arbegla]

48 minutes ago, Neiska said:

@TheSpiritFox - hehe, thank you. I love masterminds, but always felt kinda bummed when grinding incarnates and stuff. Came on this by accident, so, figured out a way to take advantage of their increased target capacity!

 

Anyway, I found your points on thugs interesting. I recently did a test with 3 demon MMs that didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, working on a post for the results of that now. Do you think thugs would perform decently in such a playstyle? They were the next set I was curious about, I don't see any of the other pet sets really viable sadly.

 

The big difference between Thugs and Bots is that Thugs has a healthy mix of Range/Melee, and bots are pure Ranged. The Bruiser/Gang War will be hard to control with group fly, where with Bots you can just hover and afk blast your way through it all.

Also, the bulk of Thugs AoE is Lethal damage, followed by Fire (arsonist) and the arsonist is an aggro magnet, so he can get killed pretty easily. The bulk of Bots AoE is in the Assault Bot, and he can take quite a bit more of a beating than the arsonist can. Also Bots is Energy/Fire, instead of Lethal/Fire. Energy is slightly less resisted if I remember correctly, but I could be mistaken.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, Neiska said:

@TheSpiritFox - hehe, thank you. I love masterminds, but always felt kinda bummed when grinding incarnates and stuff. Came on this by accident, so, figured out a way to take advantage of their increased target capacity!

 

Anyway, I found your points on thugs interesting. I recently did a test with 3 demon MMs that didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, working on a post for the results of that now. Do you think thugs would perform decently in such a playstyle? They were the next set I was curious about, I don't see any of the other pet sets really viable sadly.

 

Hmm. I'm honestly not sure. Your multibox thing changes the dynamic alot, and target saturation via multiple spawns being pulled at once changes things.  Bots are going to be solid aoe in a target rich environment like that because every single time it fires burn patch missiles it spawns 16 burn patches due to saturating multiple aggro caps and making a giant swimming pool of enemies to wade around in basically. Thugs are great in normal content, but a multibox farm with multiple MMs and 40+ targets aggroed simultaneously is it's entire own gameplay scenario I have no experience with to give you a nuanced comparison between thugs with it's more distributed aoe and bots with its "Assault bot melts everything" aoe. 

[Crysis]

While I’m all for “I CAN do this thing and so I went and DID it,” I’m actually surprised that if 3 multi boxed MM’s can totally destroy the aggro limits of the AE farming maps and you basically have maxed out damage, resistance debuffs, etc etc.....it still takes THREE MM’s with all the crazy game-breaking mechanics to match (or possibly even beat) the kill speed of a SINGLE Spines/Fire Brute.

 

3:1 tells me Brutes were/are game breaking.

 

 

[Neiska]

@Crysis - oh, i wasn't trying to compare brutes to MMs and such hon. More or less was a "oh this is neat," and its something new and fresh. Personally i hate tanker and brute farming. its just so boring. But with this its actually entertaining and exciting, doesn't feel like farming at all.

[Neiska]

UPDATE

 

Hello again forums. I am pleased to say that I have completed my tests with 3 boxing/power farming 3 Demon MMs., with surprising and mixed results.

 

For secondary's, I kept  the same one's as my Robots - Electric, Time, and Kinetics. There may have been other/better pairings, but I wanted something to use as a comparison and I knew how well those 3 would perform together. But here are the results!

 

The Pro's -

 

Surprisingly, the demons were tougher than the robots were. It might be an oversight, but unlike the robots, the different demon MMs will buff one another, instead of the robos and how they only buff the same pets of the same MM. (Basically MM 1's demons, will buff MM 2 and 3, etc.) This means that pretty much everything was resistance capped, with no effort on my part at all. And defense wasn't far behind! Running 3 maneuver toggles, all I really had to do was pop farsight on cooldown and all pets from all 3 MMs were def/res capped. After many tests, I rarely lost pets at all! It really did feel like a perma-barrier, as far as the pets were concerned. The Robots were tough in themselves, but could get overwhelmed. By comparison with my demons I never felt pressured or under duress to have to spam heals, not even during the alpha strikes. Simply using Farsight and Crono was plenty.

 

The Con's - 

 

Sadly, even though Demons have some AoE, it turned out to be lackluster compared to the robot madness. They have cones and aura's, but the main problem seemed to be that only so many could get within melee range at a time. Often they would be clustered around a target, with only so many able to get into range at a time. Often some would jump to try and get within range and get stuck in the mid-air, whereas the robos could always engage targets en masse, as they are ranged.

 

So to try to combat this, I had the demon MMs more spread out, instead of all bunched up. Each MM fighting 2-3 groups next to one another, instead of a giant ball of 8+ like the robots. Again the results were mixed. Together they were definitely solid, but I would personally call it "safe mode".  My rough estimates that for fighting a mass of mobs at once, the Demons were roughly 1/2 of the damage that Robots were.

 

(Note: I hasten to add this is not meant to be a 1 vs 1 comparison, but a 3 vs 3. 1 on 1 the demons would be superior in nearly every instance I suspect.)

 

After several days of tests, my average times for the Moon maps are -

Robots - 3 minutes with Lore pets, 4:35 without

Demons - 6 minutes with Lore pets, 8:52 without

 

This isn't to say Multiboxing Demon MMs are bad by any means though. I would actually recommend Demons over Robots for a first timer, as having tougher, more durable pets that rarely die I would rate higher than clear times to someone new to multiboxing. And a 9 minute farm isn't terrible by any stretch either, just slower than robots.

 

I am still debating if I want to try this with Thugs or even Undead, but I suspect that Robots will remain superior in multibox situations. Though I do want to try a "mixed team" of say, 2 robots/1 demon or 2 demons/1 robot, or maybe even 1 robot/1demon/1 thug, which might be an overall superior "balanced" angle.

 

But testing is still ongoing. I have included my Demon Builds for those wondering. Just please keep in mind these are made to be played as a team, not as individuals. I also included a screenshot of my pets resistances as well as their resistance stacking.

 

 

Demons-Electric MM.mxd Demons-Time MM.mxd Demons-Kin MM.mxd

[Drop Zone]

What’s the clear time on the Terminator map look like for the robotics MM group?

[Neiska]

@Drop Zone - the "Night at the Movies" terminator farm map I have never really timed myself or rushed it, i consider that my "chill" map. But if I had to guess, it would be 30-35 mins or so? But thats not me popping incarnate powers, speedballing it, etc. Mostly I run that map when I want to step away and do some house chores like laundry and such. 

 

But I can try a speedrun of it sometime if you want to know.

[killerdestiny]

2 hours ago, Neiska said:

@Drop Zone - the "Night at the Movies" terminator farm map I have never really timed myself or rushed it, i consider that my "chill" map. But if I had to guess, it would be 30-35 mins or so? But thats not me popping incarnate powers, speedballing it, etc. Mostly I run that map when I want to step away and do some house chores like laundry and such. 

 

But I can try a speedrun of it sometime if you want to know.

Can you please run it and post a video since that’s allowed now? I usually multi box with brutes for that map. I’d love to see what yours looks like for damage and what not. I might roll all 3 MMs you have. 

[JayboH]

Would love to see how Thugs turns out, and yes, videos would be cool

[Drop Zone]

10 hours ago, Neiska said:

@Drop Zone - the "Night at the Movies" terminator farm map I have never really timed myself or rushed it, i consider that my "chill" map. But if I had to guess, it would be 30-35 mins or so? But thats not me popping incarnate powers, speedballing it, etc. Mostly I run that map when I want to step away and do some house chores like laundry and such. 

 

But I can try a speedrun of it sometime if you want to know.

I really do want to know, but don't bother yourself over it. If it's something you get around to, maybe ping me with the numbers? In the meantime, I'm strongly considering your trio as well.

[Neiska]

8 hours ago, killerdestiny said:

Can you please run it and post a video since that’s allowed now? I usually multi box with brutes for that map. I’d love to see what yours looks like for damage and what not. I might roll all 3 MMs you have. 

 

I am not sure how to post videos, its not something I have ever done before. But if you are on everlasting you can tag along and see for yourself sometime.

[smooney]

Has anyone tried bot / cold dom for farming?

 

[killerdestiny]

11 hours ago, Neiska said:

 

I am not sure how to post videos, its not something I have ever done before. But if you are on everlasting you can tag along and see for yourself sometime.

I might create a quick character on everlasting. Add killerdestiny. I’m on right now. 
 

also supplying number would work

Edited May 20, 2021 by killerdestiny

[Neiska]

@killerdestiny @Drop Zone - I just ran some "Night at the movies" maps with a timer.

 

With Elite Bosses - my 3 robot MM time was 68 minutes to clear.

Without Elite Bosses - 46 minutes to clear.

 

Those EBs take a bit of time for my robots to chew down. I suspect I could do better if I "juggled" my lore pets, have one MM pop one when the other one expired, so I could have a constant lore pet in the group to target those EBs down faster, but that's just me musing.

[Neiska]

Hello fellow Masterminds,

 

Time for another update. Apologies for the delay, I took a month break from the game for a bit. Now I am back and was doing some testing with Thugs, and the results are quite surprising. 3 Boxing with Thugs turned out to be quite different from both Robots and Demons, so much so that I had to go back and rethink and try new things, but in a good way.

For those unaware, the Thugs come with their own leadership toggles. Maneuvers, Assault, and Tactics. Similar to Demons, the Thugs will buff each other, even other Thug MMs. This does not affect the Masterminds themselves, other players, or even other pet types. Only other Thugs. So, with 3 Thug Masterminds on the same team, your pets will get 2 free sets of leadership toggles. That’s right, not one, but two! This is because you have two enforcers, and each one of them comes with them. So with three Thug Masterminds, this means that all of your pets will pretty much be defense capped, without you even doing anything. Plus the damage and accuracy toggle.

 

Now this made me pause and do some thinking. If they were defense capped, I could run something else besides /Time. I opted to go with /Electric, /Kinetic, and /Pain. I chose pain for the additional healing and resistance buffs. But in hindsight, I might also change /Electric for /Thermal, more on that later.

 

Note: I am in no way saying you shouldn’t use a Defense Secondary set with Thugs when playing one of them. It’s just when playing 3 of them, it wouldn’t have been needed or felt it would be optimal.

 

But I did manage to fit in a few noteworthy things –

 

Fold Space + Bonfire - Kept these from the Robots and Demons, as it is a good CC and damage tool, and wonderful for procs. It is also very handy for yanking things back not just into your bonfire and AoE, but its great for pulling runners back to you too, making it a nice pet control tool as well.

 

Gangwar – Chance for Knockdown – Aside from using it as a mule power and DPS cooldown, it is actually a really good place for the unique knockdown proc, as so many pets attacking so often can and will knock many things down each activation. It is especially funny when you go "all out" and seeing mobs everywhere getting knocked down.

 

Gangwar + Burnout – Burnout resets your activated powers. So you can pop a Gangwar, use Burnout, then immediately use Gangwar again, making a great power even better. Plus on top of that, I had 3 Masterminds, all of them with this in their build. So for fun’s, let’s do the math –

 

1 (The Mastermind) + 3 (T1 pets) + 2 (T2 pets) + 1 (T3 pet) + 10 (Gangwar 1) + 10 (Gangwar 2) + 2 (Lore pets) = 29 total bodies in the fight. Now we times that by 3 for each Mastermind – 29x3= 87 Total bodies on the field!

 

So needless to say, it’s quite chaotic. It’s just a sea of Band T shirts, Logos, and Bandannas shooting anything that twitches. The best part? They could always engage targets! They may bunch up around the same target, but they all raise their guns and fire, unlike demons who often have to be within claws reach. Lastly, I tried to time my /Kinetic’s Fulcrum with the total Gangwar. I am uncertain if the 60 pose were affected to be honest, because with so much going on it is hard to tell what damage is coming from where. I am also unsure if the Pose are affected by all those free leaderships, because you can’t actually check their stats.

 

For those wondering, it is “extremely” effective, both in farms as well as AV’s and GM’s. Even without the Burnout, using 3 gangwars at the same time is quite the sight to see.

However, there were some cons that I wanted to mention.

 

The first, is so many bodies was actually a detriment to /Electric. If I were to do it again, I might say to /Thermal instead. Because your chain powers will bounce to pose and count as a “target”, meaning it is quite likely you will hit pose and not pets with your heals and absorbs. This didn’t always seem to be the case, but often seemed to be.

 

Another /Thugs feature, is both a blessing and a curse. They are mixed, melee and ranged DPS. Some pets will stay close by and pewpew away, while others will run off and out of range of buffs and quickly splatter. They also have a good mix of single target and AoE attacks as well. Their AoE isn’t quite as good as robots is, but better than Demons, and their single target damage is also good, far better than Robots is. But I found them the most overall difficult to wrangle and control. Both Demons and Robots were predictable and easy to 3 box. Thugs on the other hand, even without the 60 bonus bodies running around, was more challenging.

 

Another downside was END use. Thugs are definitely the most END hungry of the three, as usually /Electric alone was enough to keep all three MM’s going at full throttle. This should be resolved with a single one of them taking Ageless as a Destiny power, but it was troublesome enough to mention as it was the first time I found myself popping blue inspirations in a while.

 

Next, it is also important to note that with 3 resistance/buff secondaries, your own defenses will be low. I compensated for this with the usual maneuvers/combat jump and so on, but all of my MMs personal defenses were lower than I would have liked. But it would have felt like a waste of potential to take a defense secondary for this test.

 

Lastly, despite the Thugs buffstacking, being capped at both Def and Res, I found myself having to replace them more than any other pet I have multiboxed so far. The Demons were pretty much immortal, as I rarely if ever lost one. (Even the cinders from Hell on Earth didn’t “die”, they seemed to last until they expired every time.) The Robots I may loose one now and then if I bite off more than I can chew or get too eager, but it rarely poses trouble replacing them. With the thugs however, in particular the Arsonist and the Enforcers, I would often loose some. I would have to replace some every map, which is something I only occasionally have to do with Robots, and never had to with Demons. I suspect this might have something to do with the Gangwar and Chain mechanic from /Electric, but I even had Kinetic and Pain’s healing on Auto, the /Electric was actually applying absorb shields. I still wouldn’t call triple boxing thugs “fragile”, only the most fragile 3 boxing so far.

 

Now for the comparison to Robots and Demons. The “fresh 50” thugs were strong enough on their own to do +3/8 without even having their Alpha incarnates unlocked. I have gotten them all their first level shift (huge power boost for masterminds) and now they are doing +4/8 just fine, with times quite comparable to /Robots, despite not having any Judgements, Lore pets, Destiny, or Interface slots to help.

 

I ran several farms with them, and their average time on the AE map was 6 minutes. So not quite as fast as my Robots were, but not as slow as Demons were either. Also keep in mind, My robot MMs all have their T4’s while my Thugs only have their T3 Alphas, which I am sure would improve their time.

 

So, to compare 3 boxing Thugs, Demons, and Robots, all with similar builds and inf invested, here is how I would rank them –

 

Durability – Demons > Robots > Thugs. Demons win here, hands down. I rarely lost any of them. I’ll loose a robot now and then, and I saw myself replacing thugs pretty much every map. But as mentioned, I suspect that /Electric mechanic might have something to do with that, but I never experienced that with Demons and their Hell on Earth either, so it could be something else.

 

Damage/Map Clear Speed – Robots > Thugs > Demons. Robots win here, but not by a terrible margin. I suspect Thugs would be close with similar incarnate levels. Demons are far behind, being almost twice the time required as Robots to clear the same maps due to a lack of AoE and available space to engage targets, being almost all melee.

 

Average Thug Times - 
Moon Map: 5:52
Night at the Movies (large city map): 52 minutes.

Ease of Play/Boxing – Demons > Robots > Thugs. I would say Demons win this one. I never felt panicked or pressured, even when completely surrounded by 8+ spawns of mobs. They were reliable as a stone wall in every circumstance I put them in, and very easy to control. With robots you at least had to keep everything balled up in your fire patches, and with Thugs its sheer chaos. So if you are new to multiboxing MMs, I would recommend Demons for a first try. Honestly with 3 Demon MMs, you could likely go AFK on some maps or scenarios. So long as pets stayed in autoheal range, you would be fine.

 

GM/AVs – Thugs. It’s not even close. Thugs bring so much to bear that it almost laps Robots and Demons, even with the Robots heavy –regen debuffs and higher incarnate levels. Against a lone target, dropping all 6 Gangwars makes them almost vanish in a cloud of smoke as everything, the entire army you have, all focus on one single target.

Again, this is not in any way meant to compare 1 on 1 MMs, but 3 on 3 multiboxing. I think we all know 1 on 1 rankings would rank differently. But having more than 1 MM present, as well as “En masse” farming/fighting style of engaging as many targets at a time completely changes the dynamic.

 

I am tempted to try 3 boxing Necro MMs, even though I suspect they wouldn’t perform as well as the “big 3” pet types. Or I might even see what 3 boxing Mercenary MMs is like, because who knows, this has been quite surprising.

 

Anyway, Pics included to show the +defense stacking and resistance levels, and the builds I used are included. And yes, I am aware the builds are not optimized for solo play, but they are meant to be played as a box team.

 

Thugs-Electric.mxd Thugs-Kin.mxd Thugs-Pain.mxd

[RonJ73]

The HD version is currently processing, but should be ready shortly.  The SD version is fuzzy as heck. 🙂

[Neiska]

@RonJ73 - Thank you very much!

[RonJ73]

10 minutes ago, Neiska said:

@RonJ73 - Thank you very much!

Happy to help!  It was way easier than I thought.

[nonzero]

Been in this farm.   It's crazy how fast it goes.   Neiska helped me build my MM while still killing everything in it!