Recommend a new MM

[Ekimmak]

So, after recreating my good old Bots/Traps/Mu mastermind from live, I've decided that I want to try another mastermind. I want to try something new for the AT, because this is the only archetype I only have one of.

 

My two caveats:

I don't want to take any MM Primary attacks. They just feel like a waste of time to even train up, so Beast Summoning is right off the table.

 

I'd like the two powers to make some thematic sense together. I'm sure storm summoning is very good on MM, but I already have a SS defender, and I'd like to avoid repeats.

 

Any recommendations? Or better yet, comparisons that could make it easier to determine which to pick?

[Psylenz0511]

Demons Thermal is a thematic and powerful combination. Despite you saying you don't want any MM attacks. Crack the whip is fairly decent on Demon MM for AoE get aggro.  The mastermind gets shields, heals, and debuffs, quite a bit to like here.

 

Necro/Cold is another good pairing. The lil zombies really benefit from the cold shields and the fire protection. The cold shields have positional defense, too. 

 

 

[pblue]

Necro/Cold sounds like a great combination and thematically it's echoes Game of Thrones.  I have a Necro/FF that is great. With the auras they end up with both really solid Defences and Resistances. With Cold you give up some Defence but gain a lot of other tools. 

 

Zombies make great pets. Demon might be stronger, but they block out the entire screen, run all over the place and I find them hard to control. The  zombies are very well behaved pets as they methodically munch through your enemies. They even add their own control to the battle field so you don't have to stress about things.  I could also talk about how much fun my Necro/Storm was, but you already excluded Storm.

 

[DocMidknight]

My 3 favorite combinations are demon/dark, demon/thermal and necro/cold. All mesh together perfectly and fits for theme

[SmalltalkJava]

Fyi.  You can still do beasts without taking the attacks.  . Beasts pets are pure melee range so any thing works well with them.   Especially your heals that go off enemy mobs like dark.     Nature works well with them because it's a cone heal.   So petcom all attack and cone heal em.  

 

zombies dark is an old school classic  cant go wrong with it 

[TygerDarkstorm]

Just now, SmalltalkJava said:

Fyi.  You can still do beasts without taking the attacks. 

You can, sure, but if you want to help them do the most damage, you're going to want to take those attacks.

 

Taking MM attacks isn't all that bad, either. Helps with kill speed while leveling and many of them can be procced out to actually deal decent damage.

 

If you really don't want to have your MM attacks, then I'd probably avoid beasts or demons since they both benefit from the MM taking at least 1 attack. (I'm not saying you *can't* play these primaries without taking a personal attack, just that they're a fair amount more effective if you do).

 

Necro/Sonic is fun, effective, and thematic (think banshee or wraith). I have a Necro/ElecAff that could easily be made thematic by saying she "Frankensteins" her zombies to life. Necro/Nature can be made to work as a sort of, from death comes life theme.

/ElecAff is great with pretty much every MM primary as it makes pretty much all the henchmen pretty tanky and can even keep the squishier guys healed up.

 

You can make pretty much any combo work conceptually if you put enough effort into it. My Bots/Nature is a team of robots led by a bot named Environmentabot whose sole purpose is to try to protect the environment and replant trees and such. Sometimes her duties include taking out bad guys. My Demons/Cold MM is a play on Sarah Palin who went a bit crazy losing the election and not being taken seriously in the political world, so she turned to demon summoning and harnessing the powers of Alaska to show America what she's made of.

[CFIndustries]

Demons/Pain is very thematic, though the attacks on the build I use are fully intended to be used.

[Two Dollar Bill]

I have a Demon/Thermal Mastermind. Very thematic and armed with a great assortment of tools for solo and team play. The whip attacks don't inflict epic damage, but it's something to do, and a lot more damage than not having attacks.

I did try Zombies/Dark for a while. Also a good option, though I found I was somewhat too squishy to jump into melee with the tankers and use the AoE heal. I prefer Thermal's ability to buff and heal from a discrete distance.

[balor]

I just started a Necro / Cold because Zombie ice cubes are funny and a Ninja / Electric.  

[Sovera]

Anything with group fly so your henchies can keep up.

[Ekimmak]

It is true that you can make any concept work if you put enough effort into it. I've seen a good explanation for magic Robots/Traps mastermind. But it does make it easier for me to get behind a character with a simple, easy to grasp concept. Heck, two of my live Mutant defenders got shifted over to Magic on homecoming, because I decided to alter their origins a bit.

 

I'm seeing recommendations for Demons or Necromancy. I can understand why Demons would do well with a primary attack, since it has -res on its whips. I just prefer to focus purely on keeping Henchman buffed (either by spamming defensive powers, or quickly assigning them inspirations) than having my own attacks to watch.

 

I'm basically looking for powersets I've never tried before, which is why I think it's going to be Demon/Thermal. I've tried Cold Resonance with a controller, and Sonic Resonance with a Defender. I also briefly (as in, 4 levels) tried Pain Domination with a Thugs mastermind, but after trying a Mind/Empathy controller... probably not going to be interested in that again.

 

Thank you for the varied and informative responses.

 

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, Zombies/NatureAffinity could also be interesting. Could call it a plant-parasite type zombie.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Ekimmak

[DocMidknight]

  Just a note on demon/thermal.....take the sorcery pool for enflame, it's really fun to buff one of your demons with it ro have a damage aura and takes the theme up a notch

[Crysis]

I don’t fully understand the whole “don’t take attacks” mentality.  Proc those suckers out and take ‘em.   What else you doing while your henchmen attack and waiting on your secondaries to Cooldown?  Scratching your butt?

 

Take your primary attacks, they are there for a reason!

Edited May 23, 2021 by Crysis

[SeraphimKensai]

I have an incarnate/Io'd Demon/ElecA MM that is an absolute beast. When I use it, I am tanking, taking alphas, able to keep my demons/myself and even teammates if i have those up with EA buffs. It works really well,

[SmalltalkJava]

13 hours ago, Crysis said:

I don’t fully understand the whole “don’t take attacks” mentality.  Proc those suckers out and take ‘em.   What else you doing while your henchmen attack and waiting on your secondaries to Cooldown?  Scratching your butt?

 

Take your primary attacks, they are there for a reason!

I agree. While some people may not like to play with them. And that is ok!  It's all about having fun! It does leave about 10-15% overall DPS off the board if you don't use any personal attacks.  At least from my past testing.

 

  Heck I'm leveling up some MM that use power pool melee attacks instead of their primary main attacks.  

[kelika2]

On 5/19/2021 at 7:02 AM, Ekimmak said:

I don't want to take any MM Primary attacks. They just feel like a waste of time to even train up

I will never understand this train of thought.  the personal attacks are in addition to total damage, not instead of.

This is "pure emp" train of thinking right there

[Crysis]

25 minutes ago, SmalltalkJava said:

I agree. While some people may not like to play with them. And that is ok!  It's all about having fun! It does leave about 10-15% overall DPS off the board if you don't use any personal attacks.  At least from my past testing.

 

  Heck I'm leveling up some MM that use power pool melee attacks instead of their primary main attacks.  

I have a few MM’s who wade right into the middle of the spawn (I often build for S/L softcapped +Def) and spam Cross Punch.  Procc’d put it does decent damage and some soft control.  Besides it looks cool when you are shoulder to shoulder with your lead henchman (especially the Bruiser on Thugs) and laying the smack down right with him.

[brasilgringo]

On 5/19/2021 at 8:02 AM, Ekimmak said:

So, after recreating my good old Bots/Traps/Mu mastermind from live, I've decided that I want to try another mastermind. I want to try something new for the AT, because this is the only archetype I only have one of.

 

My two caveats:

I don't want to take any MM Primary attacks. They just feel like a waste of time to even train up, so Beast Summoning is right off the table.

 

I'd like the two powers to make some thematic sense together. I'm sure storm summoning is very good on MM, but I already have a SS defender, and I'd like to avoid repeats.

 

Any recommendations? Or better yet, comparisons that could make it easier to determine which to pick?

Honestly I really enjoy the whip attacks in Demons, and they're pretty good proc'd out. 

 

Demon/Dark is great and classic.  I think I posted my build in the main thread about it here.

 

Thugs/Storm I've heard is amazing chaos but you have to be up for that.  Thugs/Time would likely be my safer choice if neither of those work for you.  I'd also be sure to take Burnout on a Thugs/* to stack Gang War for lols.

 

 

 

[Tacheyon]

I am actually thinking about Mercs/Storm.  /Storm makes everything great, why not see if it can elevate those guys.

[JStacy337]

Tried a Ninja/Elec last night and didn't really care for it. I think the disconnect between the idea in my head and her costume didn't add up =/

[JJDrakken]

Zombies/Thermal, nothing says good ol action horror hero/villian movie...then Flaming Undead.

[Senbonbanana]

Thugs/time or Thugs/traps are both fun combinations.  Mercs/storm could be interesting just to scatter all the spent brass the mercs leave laying around (hurricane full of bullet shells sounds like something out of a nightmare).  

 

On MM personal attacks:  Some of them look cool (demon whips), so to me that's reason enough to take them.

[Ry]

*Cracks knuckles* This'll be a fun post.

 

Demon Summoning/Dark Miasma is a top tier combo, very deadly. Heavy damage and debuff and crowd control.

 

Thugs/Storm Summoning is a combo that is very underrated. Gang War + Lightning Storm +Tornado can really wreck mobs.

 

Mercenaries/Electrical Affinity is pretty good now with the recent buff, Electrical Affinity is pretty damn good with any primary set but I find it especially helps juice up Mercenaries on account of they need the boost the most (arguably). Plus if you throw Amp Up and Serum on your Commando he's gonna be throwing a lot of damage for a bit before the crash.

 

Demon Summoning/Traps is a very good combination I played back on live, though to be honest I haven't done it since then (mainly cus I don't have a RP concept)

 

Beast Mastery/Poison is a very rare one I find, but it's pretty good. Not going to be breaking the game any time soon with it but since all your pets are melee it pairs well with Noxious Gas

 

Robotics/Cold Domination or Sonic Resonance would be good if you wanted to make the robots even sturdier. If I recall correct they're the most tanky Mastermind pets and can take a lot of punishment before going down, pair their natural resistances with either one of these sets that ups their defense/resistance and you've got some good bodyguards.

 

And that's all, folks. I got no idea about Zombies or Ninjas stat wise. One day I'll play them, maybe, if we ever get Pet Customization. 🙂

Edited May 25, 2021 by Ry

[TheMoncrief]

On 5/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, kelika2 said:

I will never understand this train of thought.  the personal attacks are in addition to total damage, not instead of.

This is "pure emp" train of thinking right there

Power picks and enhancement slots are in strictly limited supply. Masterminds have such a low damage scale that spending them on direct attacks is easy to consider a waste of resources, unless you are playing a primary where the attacks have more utility than just doing damage.

 

Most Masterminds have plenty of things to use power picks and enhancement slots on that contribute considerably more to their arsenal than their direct attacks. At least until they need to mule a good set, but by then you're usually done or nearly done leveling, and depending on the secondary they still may not find a chance to use them. Some secondaries are very busy, others are very endurance hungry. Either can interfere with your chances to actually use those attacks even if you take them to hold a nice set.

[kelika2]

46 minutes ago, TheMoncrief said:

Most Masterminds have plenty of things to use power picks and enhancement slots on that contribute considerably more to their arsenal than their direct attacks.

And out of my 14 or so masterminds, all have the personal attacks while still getting pets to or around softcap def.

But, unless you are doing "pure emp" things like taking tactics, veng, victory rush and other filler stuff like fighting pool before level 20 or thinking you need EVERYTHING in medicine.. then we just plain flat out build differently and at the risk of starting this thread on fire, stop thinking like a pure emp.  half the stuff you bought you probably dont even need.

 

Fight without Tactics on for example, your tier1s are more accurate than people make it out to be, and there is just only so much you can bounce back from the -5 zone.

 

But I am going to go back to whipping, shooting, throwing bees, dark balls and my boxing/kick/cross punch focused ninja/sonic named Street Ninja