Thugs and fire good end game?

[Fizzulin2]

I was making a mastermind to solo and group with I like it pretty good but I didn't know how well Thugs and fire or thermal radiation does. Didn't know if anyone had any good suggestions I'll be working on builds once I get 50.

[TheSpiritFox]

Thugs/thermal is a decent set combination. It absolutely needs all the pet uniques for the defense and resistance, as you're going to be short of the softcap no matter what you do. It's going to be a pretty active set as well, requiring you to keep up healing to keep your thugs alive. Expect to resummon T1s pretty frequently and to almost never lose your bruiser. It'll do good damage and contribute to the team very well, soloing +4x8 may be a bit difficult or annoying, but likely very possible. Needs alot of recharge so your heals are up constantly and your debuffs are perma. 

 

You can build it for tankerminding but I do not recommend that primarily because you cannot affect yourself with most of your buffs. Can't give yourself resistance or defense, can't forge yourself or give yourself status protection, but you can do all of that for your pets. 

 

Thermal is a heavy set. It's basically super empathy, the only power I would say you can skip without lowering your offense or defense is the rez. Warmth is a decent aoe heal but it's not fantastic, it'll leave you lacking if you don't also take cauterize in difficult content. All the buffs and debuffs are solid, but your debuffs come late as hell so they'll only be available in later game content, which can suck. 

 

Also, despite having mez protect the one it doesn't touch is knockback/down. Knock effects can be the bane of a mastermind, as pets have no native protection and absent certain buffs no way to give it to them, so things like earthquake from CoT can render you unable to do any damage for a bit until it stops or you can get pets out of the area of effect. 

 

Incarnate content might end up being a major pain in the ass. To the point that you might need an alpha that enhances defense or resistance, you ABSOLUTELY need barrier if at all possible, and anything that throws out heavy defense debuffs is going to chew up your thugs hard because you don't have the resistance to make them all tanky and you don't have the softcap to try to protect them from getting debuffed in the first place. One of the reasons masterminds tend to work best when you pair def with def and res with res is that without matching primary and secondary you often do not have the defense or resistance to keep pets alive in the hardest content. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by TheSpiritFox

[Fizzulin2]

Thanks for that information boss!  What combos do yall think work best for end content?

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by Fizzulin2

[TheSpiritFox]

For end game, the general wisdom is that Resistance matches best with resistance based sets and def with defense based sets. 

 

So bots and thugs are defense based, Zombies, mercs, and demons are resistance based, Beasts are a bit of a mix but can softcap themselves with Fortify Pack so they are a bit more open to synergy, and Ninjas pretty much need /time and /mace for power boosted farsight to hit the softcap and be survivable end game. 

 

Special cases: Secondaries that deserve some discourse

 

Electric affinity secondary is a special case. It is so defensively strong with it's absorb, heals, and mez protection resistance cage that it goes well with any primary because it's good at keeping literally anything alive. But it does not enhance damage or debuff enemies well at all, so you trade survivability and being an asset to a team as a support character for damage and other utility.  It does exactly what it is intended to do for any MM, and does it so well with a good build that you are an asset to a team and can do well solo with any /elec MM. 

 

Dark is also a special case. Dark does what it does primarily by debuffing enemies. It is very controllery and you survive by being able to neuter enemies damage and hit chance, which is like buffing both defense and resistance on your pets in a fight. But the enemy focused nature of /dark, it's strong aoe heal (that can unfortunately miss) and it's mixture of CC and even adding an extra pet for you adds well to all mastermind primaries. 

 

Storm is a special case. Storm brings damage, CC, and debuffing so like Dark it is a very controllery secondary. Storm is less about pairings and more about just giving you more shit to do. Storm is in my opinion better suited to taking provoke and tanking things yourself than any other secondary, because it only has one fairly weak buff for pets and one single target heal that's meh. It's better than taking aid other, but only just. Storm is one I would say "Take sorcery for rune of protection, travel, and spirit ward, then take presence pool and provoke, then consider tough and weave if you can fit them in" and a storm MM can do a pretty good job of tanking most things. Provoke + hurricane is potent even against AVs and if you build up ranged defense and use hurricane to keep things out of melee you can in a very chaotic way tank things pretty well. 

 

The last special case is Kinetics. Kinetics sucks overall for MMs in the end game unless you take Beasts, which can softcap themselves. Fortify pack cuts beasts damage in exchange for protection, and fulcrum shift gives the damage back again in spades, so Beasts/Kin is THE mastermind kinetics build in my opinion. 

 

For bots and thugs, I would say that I would rank things traps > time > dark > elec > cold > forcefield > everything else. 

For Zombies, mercs, and demons I would rank things Nature = Elec = Dark = Thermal > Time w/ power boost > sonic w/ aid pool > everything else 

For Beasts I would say Traps = Time = Dark = Nature = Elec = Thermal > kin > everything else

For ninjas its simple Time w/ Power boost > Elec > all

Edited May 17, 2021 by TheSpiritFox

[tidge]

I have a Thugs/Thermal/Heat at 50+ and I don't enjoy the combination. I find it to be too much effort to keep the Henchmen alive (especially when they are on offense), and the pet AI/behavior isn't as smooth for pure Bodyguard mode. YMMV. I can totally understand why a Thugs/Traps or Thugs/Time pairing could be recommended.

 

I've played Masterminds (including Ninjas!) and Crabberminds, so it isn't as if I'm a noobie.