New Guy Questions!

[Koven]

Hi there! Just started playing yesterday and I'm loving it. I had a look through some of the posts, and wanted to see if there was anything that maybe I missed or if anyone had any new or different opinions. If it's okay, I wanted to just ask a few questions about playing this AT.

 

Let me start by saying that I like the idea of a "pet class". I tried to make a Demon Summoning Empathy character, but it just felt so weak. I'm sure they all feel that way early on, though. It got me thinking that maybe I should come pick the brains of the experts here before I kept going with that one.

 

1. Is there a general consensus or agreement that one henchman/pet type is superior at end game? I really want some Ninjas, but I feel like maybe they would be weak later on. Maybe I'm wrong, though.
2. Is there a superior secondary power to take? I thought Empathy so I could heal my pets. The first heal feels a little lackluster, though. Again, I'm sure it's better later on, though. I mostly solo (which is why I want a pet class), but I don't want to be useless or annoying in a group.
3. As a new player, I obviously don't have the resources to put together something truly outstanding for whatever the "meta OP" build is. Is there a "poor man's" combination that is still solid and fun?
4. Any tips and tricks you would suggest for playing this AT?
5. Anything you would recommend I definitely not bother taking or using?

 

Thanks so much, and I hope these questions aren't annoying.

[pblue]

Have a look at these two sticky thread to get a great overview of all the different Mastermind Primaries and detailed account to two of the most powerful Secondaries (Time and Dark).

The guide for Dark even gives you guidelines for enhancing the powers when you are on a budget ("Basic Slotting"), the principle of which will apply to other powersets.

 

 

 

Personally, for a first timer, I'd look at Robots or Necro. They are well balanced, well behaved pets. Robots are nice in that they help protect you with their forcefields, whereas zombies help you control the battle (particularly handy if you solo). Thugs and Demon might be stronger but I find they require a little micro-management. Ninja, you may find, are a little fragile. But in the end all the pets are pretty awesome, there is just a little bit of a learning curve.

 

In terms of secondaries, other than that two mentioned above, you may also what to consider Cold.  It's pretty simple, works well even with a small budget and it has tools to deal with hard targets. It lacks healing but both Robots and Zombies (eventually) can heal themselves a bit and you can always fall back of the Aid pool power.

 

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by pblue
typo

[Koven]

1 hour ago, pblue said:

Have a look at these too sticky thread to get a great overview of all the different Mastermind Primaries and detailed account to two of the most powerful Secondaries (Time and Dark).

The guide for Dark even gives you guidelines for enhancing the powers when you are on a budget ("Basic Slotting"), the principle of which will apply to other powersets.

 

 

 

Personally, for a first timer, I'd look at Robots or Necro. They are well balanced, well behaved pets. Robots are nice in that they help protect you with their forcefields, whereas zombies help you control the battle (particularly handy if you solo). Thugs and Demon might be stronger but I find they require a little micro-management. Ninja, you may find, are a little fragile. But in the end all the pets are pretty awesome, there is just a little bit of a learning curve.

 

In terms of secondaries, other than that two mentioned above, you may also what to consider Cold.  It's pretty simple, works well even with a small budget and it has tools to deal with hard targets. It lacks healing but both Robots and Zombies (eventually) can heal themselves a bit and you can always fall back of the Aid pool power.

 

 

Awesome! Thanks so much!

[Xandyr]

Hi and welcome to the City!

I've played every MM primary (and I think each secondary also). Here's my

.02 influence worth:

 

Mercs

 Generally considered the "weakest".

Mostly ranged damage, but have a few tricks up their sleeves. Have so-so resists.

 

Beasts

 Mostly Melee. Can "crit" and have inherent defense.  Can also heal themselves.

 

Necro

 Zombies have inherent resists,  and can dish out a lot of -to hit debuffs. Grave Knights can crit. Lich can help control and do -to hit. Pets can self heal. 

 

Bots

 Considered one of the strongest. Protector bot bubbles the other pets and you. Have inherent defense. Assault bot pumps out -regen which comes in handy against big game/tough opponents.

 

Thugs

 Considered one of the strongest. Arsonist can crit. Enforcers have Leadership, making your pets more accurate, do more damage, and gives them a small boost to defense. Mostly ranged, except for the Bruiser. He's a mini Brute...builds Fury so over time he does more damage. He typically stays in melee, which is where he needs to be.

 

Demons

 Again, another top tier. Can apply resist shields to pets, and heal pets. Their attacks lower enemy resists. The top tier pet has controls and slows.

 

Ninjas

 Fragile, but can pump out some damage. Have inherent defense,  and can crit. The Oni is like a mini fire blaster. 

 

 There are some enhancements that can give your pets a bonus to defense and others that give a bonus to resistance for your pets. Typically, the "best/easiest" pets to slot these in are Thugs,Necro, and Demons. These pets have what some players call a "mule" power selection. 

Thugs have Gang War, Demons have Hell On Earth,  and Necro has Souk Extraction.  These powers can accept these enhancements,  leaving you to slot your actually pets with Accuracy, Damage, End Reduction,  etc. 

 Beasts,Mercs, Bots, Ninjas can slot the +pet defense/+pet resistance enhancements,  but you will have to slot them in your actual pet powers, so your pets will lose some Accuracy, damage, end Reduction.  (Hopefully that made sense).

 

 Unless I am going strictly for a concept, I try to pick a secondary that compliments my primary. For example,  Thugs have inherent defense (plus Enforcers give defense), so I made a Thugs/Cold. Cold let's you give your pets and teams defense based shields. My Thugs all have soft capped defense (45% defense). 

 

Typically, Time and Dark are the "best" secondaries.

 Time has controls, heals, -regen,defense.

Dark has heals, controls, -regen, -resistance,  and you get Dark Servant...which heals, controls, and pumps out more -to hit.

 

Cold...defense based heals, -to hit, -regen, +end recovery,  -defense.

 

Thermal.. resistance based shields, heals, -resistance,  -defense.

 

Empathy..Heals.

 

Pain.. Heals, +regen, + resist

 

Force Field...defense based shields 

 

Electrical Affinity...+ resist, + end, + absorb,  heals

 

Trick Arrow....lots of debuffs. Oil Slick also does good damage as long as you can ignite it

 

Storm...lots of damage. One single target heal. +resist, +defense

 

Kinetics... heal, + end, speed boost teammates and pets, adds a ton of damage with Fulcrum Shift. Teams will love you for speed boost and Fulcrum. 

 

Poison...no experience. Can't comment 

 

Nature...very very little experience with Nature. Can't comment

 

 

I highly suggest reading towards the top of this forum about Number keybinds.  Having macros/keybinds will help control your pets.

 

I'm on Excelsior ( global name Scarlett Angel . My other global is Will Killum). Feel free to message and I'll team up with you, help earn influence,  or offer more advice or whatever.

 

 

 Last but not least, play whatever you think is fun or play what you have as a concept. One of my most favorite MMs is my Mercs/Pain. It's considered the weakest, but I have fun with it. My Beast/Time is a POWERHOUSE,  and my Demon/Electric is extremely sturdy.

 Welcome to the City!

 

X

[Neiska]

@Koven

 

Hello and welcome to CoH!

 

All good advice from above posters, but one thing I wanted to highlight is that especially with Masterminds, your power pairings will play very very differently compared to other ATs. A tanker is always going to tank, a blaster is always going to blast, but Masterminds can be made in all sorts of ways. With that in mind, even if your first MM might be iffy or you don't like the flow, if you are super attached to a pet type I would recommend try paring it with a different secondary. A /Time mastermind, will play and feel very differently from a /Forcefield or a /Electric mastermind for example. So there is nothing wrong with trying a few different versions out before settling on something you like.

 

Ninjas are considered to be a bit fragile to be sure, but decent damage. So you will have to protect them somehow.

 

/Time has solid defenses, healing, an emergency button with Chrono Shift, and a few debuffs. The downside about time is while it is overall balanced, it doesn't really stand out either. But overall it is quite strong. There are a few tricks you can do with /Time as well, such as power boost and farsight to boost your defense even further, or focus on the slows and immobilize to out range/out shoot your enemies. (This requires ranged pets though, such as Robots or Mercs.)

 

/Electric is my favorite powerset. It is all out survivability though, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. It offers Absorb shields, Heals, Status Immunity to you and your pets, Resistance buffs, and a small damage buff. The only offense it has is a single target -20% damage and an AoE -10% damage debuffs, but they do stack, so you can do a -30% damage to a boss and so on. It also offers effective infinite endurance later on, and since you already have status immunity with Farday's Cage, you are free to take Barrier Incarnate power, making your team even tougher overall. Out of all of the powersets, only /Electric offers Status Immunity, Infinite Endurance, and Barrier. Usually people have to pick 2 of the three - either ageless, clarion, and so on. But you won't have to pick, having effectively all 3.

 

/Traps is also a strong contender, especially for solo. It is more or less the king solo powerset for MMs. You can kill AVs, GMs, pretty much anything you want to with /Traps. But the playstyle is a bit different. More or less its a "plant the flag" style of play. You pick a spot, drop your traps, making a zone with multiple effects and kill things there. If you want to "Tankermind" its hard to go wrong with /Traps.

 

/Forcefield is the "chill mode" powerset. It offers a few things but it is mostly toggles, which means its a very hands off playstyle. It has a defensive aura for you, for allies, as well as some repulsion field toggles. Running all of them is very END heavy though, but can be very effective with ranged pets. The downside to /Forcefield is it has no built in healing as a power set, so you will rely on pets self heals or have to take medicine pool, or stock up on green inspirations to drop on pets. Some people love it, some people hate it. Your milage may vary.

 

/Nature is similar to Electric in that it offers absorbs, but also has debuffs as well. It has very strong healing/regeneration too, but many of its powers are "cones" or Targeted AOEs, which again, some people love or hate. Meaning you have to aim with some powers, unlike some powers like /time where heal is an AoE that doesnt require facing. Not all of Natures powers are, but there are some. It also has an interesting bloom mechanic that allows stacking bonus to healing, 4% for up to 5 times for a total of 20% bonus heals. This isn't just your healing either, its all healing, such as other team mates or even pets self-heals, which can be quite powerful on pets that can self-heal. Nature also has good debuffs as well, such as -damage, -resistance, -hit, and -regen.

 

/Dark is the king of CC and Debuffs for Masterminds. Personally I am not a fan of it due to its playstyle, but there is no denying it is Strong. Dark pairs particularly well with Demons or Necromancy, as those two pet sets have debuffs as well. It also boasts one of the strongest heals available to MMs, but the downside is that it can miss. One highlight about /dark is that it has 3 -tohit debuffs, making it also pair well with a pet set like Robots that is strong on defense, because its sort of like double dipping the chip - Your defenses are effectively greater, because your enemies have an even lower chance to hit you. 

 

One thing to highlight is that what is "good" strongly relies on several things -

1. What kinds of activities are you doing? - Story missions, AE's, Random Radio Missions, Farming, Boss/GM hunting, ITFs, etc.

2. Will you be playing more solo, or will you be looking to team up most of the time? Or a balance of both?

3. What difficulty will you be playing on? - Not all pets/powers/ATs can play on hardest difficulty at max level. Not that this means they are unbalanced or anything, I would recommend trying to see as +3 and +4 as a sort of new game plus or extra difficulty, where only some ATs/builds/combos will excell. But just about everyone does fine on +0-2 difficulty, on just about every activity.

4. Lastly, and most importantly, personal preferance. What you like and dislike is something that only you can decide on. What do you want to focus on? Theme/Style? Minmaxing? Having certain characters be the best at certain activites? Or do you want a more well-rounded character? 

 

So when you ask "what is best/good" and so on, is largely subjective here. There are some things where numbers don't lie, but I've seen people do amazing things with powersets that some people tend to think are subpar.

 

Honestly, I would focus on just having fun and learning the game and the class. After you got some time and levels under your belt, and learn the game, that's when you can start to think/plan long-term.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Again, welcome to CoH and to Masterminding! 

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Neiska

[plainguy]

7 hours ago, Neiska said:

@Koven

 

Hello and welcome to CoH!

 

All good advice from above posters, but one thing I wanted to highlight is that especially with Masterminds, your power pairings will play very very differently compared to other ATs. A tanker is always going to tank, a blaster is always going to blast, but Masterminds can be made in all sorts of ways. With that in mind, even if your first MM might be iffy or you don't like the flow, if you are super attached to a pet type I would recommend try paring it with a different secondary. A /Time mastermind, will play and feel very differently from a /Forcefield or a /Electric mastermind for example. So there is nothing wrong with trying a few different versions out before settling on something you like.

 

Ninjas are considered to be a bit fragile to be sure, but decent damage. So you will have to protect them somehow.

 

/Time has solid defenses, healing, an emergency button with Chrono Shift, and a few debuffs. The downside about time is while it is overall balanced, it doesn't really stand out either. But overall it is quite strong. There are a few tricks you can do with /Time as well, such as power boost and farsight to boost your defense even further, or focus on the slows and immobilize to out range/out shoot your enemies. (This requires ranged pets though, such as Robots or Mercs.)

 

/Electric is my favorite powerset. It is all out survivability though, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. It offers Absorb shields, Heals, Status Immunity to you and your pets, Resistance buffs, and a small damage buff. The only offense it has is a single target -20% damage and an AoE -10% damage debuffs, but they do stack, so you can do a -30% damage to a boss and so on. It also offers effective infinite endurance later on, and since you already have status immunity with Farday's Cage, you are free to take Barrier Incarnate power, making your team even tougher overall. Out of all of the powersets, only /Electric offers Status Immunity, Infinite Endurance, and Barrier. Usually people have to pick 2 of the three - either ageless, clarion, and so on. But you won't have to pick, having effectively all 3.

 

/Traps is also a strong contender, especially for solo. It is more or less the king solo powerset for MMs. You can kill AVs, GMs, pretty much anything you want to with /Traps. But the playstyle is a bit different. More or less its a "plant the flag" style of play. You pick a spot, drop your traps, making a zone with multiple effects and kill things there. If you want to "Tankermind" its hard to go wrong with /Traps.

 

/Forcefield is the "chill mode" powerset. It offers a few things but it is mostly toggles, which means its a very hands off playstyle. It has a defensive aura for you, for allies, as well as some repulsion field toggles. Running all of them is very END heavy though, but can be very effective with ranged pets. The downside to /Forcefield is it has no built in healing as a power set, so you will rely on pets self heals or have to take medicine pool, or stock up on green inspirations to drop on pets. Some people love it, some people hate it. Your milage may vary.

 

/Nature is similar to Electric in that it offers absorbs, but also has debuffs as well. It has very strong healing/regeneration too, but many of its powers are "cones" or Targeted AOEs, which again, some people love or hate. Meaning you have to aim with some powers, unlike some powers like /time where heal is an AoE that doesnt require facing. Not all of Natures powers are, but there are some. It also has an interesting bloom mechanic that allows stacking bonus to healing, 4% for up to 5 times for a total of 20% bonus heals. This isn't just your healing either, its all healing, such as other team mates or even pets self-heals, which can be quite powerful on pets that can self-heal. Nature also has good debuffs as well, such as -damage, -resistance, -hit, and -regen.

 

/Dark is the king of CC and Debuffs for Masterminds. Personally I am not a fan of it due to its playstyle, but there is no denying it is Strong. Dark pairs particularly well with Demons or Necromancy, as those two pet sets have debuffs as well. It also boasts one of the strongest heals available to MMs, but the downside is that it can miss. One highlight about /dark is that it has 3 -tohit debuffs, making it also pair well with a pet set like Robots that is strong on defense, because its sort of like double dipping the chip - Your defenses are effectively greater, because your enemies have an even lower chance to hit you. 

 

One thing to highlight is that what is "good" strongly relies on several things -

1. What kinds of activities are you doing? - Story missions, AE's, Random Radio Missions, Farming, Boss/GM hunting, ITFs, etc.

2. Will you be playing more solo, or will you be looking to team up most of the time? Or a balance of both?

3. What difficulty will you be playing on? - Not all pets/powers/ATs can play on hardest difficulty at max level. Not that this means they are unbalanced or anything, I would recommend trying to see as +3 and +4 as a sort of new game plus or extra difficulty, where only some ATs/builds/combos will excell. But just about everyone does fine on +0-2 difficulty, on just about every activity.

4. Lastly, and most importantly, personal preferance. What you like and dislike is something that only you can decide on. What do you want to focus on? Theme/Style? Minmaxing? Having certain characters be the best at certain activites? Or do you want a more well-rounded character? 

 

So when you ask "what is best/good" and so on, is largely subjective here. There are some things where numbers don't lie, but I've seen people do amazing things with powersets that some people tend to think are subpar.

 

Honestly, I would focus on just having fun and learning the game and the class. After you got some time and levels under your belt, and learn the game, that's when you can start to think/plan long-term.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Again, welcome to CoH and to Masterminding! 

 

Quoted this because not worth repeating..

 

I can add this Robot Traps is an extremely good combo.. You can get to almost defense cap with Robot Traps on Single Origin Enhancers.. So one purple inspiration and Taunt will be pretty much Tankermind'ing..  

I would not go with Dark because you are relying on Darkest Night to get you defense capped..  Again as you learn you will understand why this might not be the best. But Dark is cool. Just everything relies on a hitting a mob.. It is very annoying when you miss a mob especially when you needed a good hit.. 

You do not need a farming toon, But I will tell you if you take the time to create one, the world in this game is your oyster.. Unless you take the time to learn how to play the Auction House Market..  I don't have the Patience for that so I just farm. Yes boring but at the end I can make the toon and the build I want.. 

[Koven]

18 hours ago, Xandyr said:

Hi and welcome to the City!

I've played every MM primary (and I think each secondary also). Here's my

.02 influence worth:

 

Mercs

 Generally considered the "weakest".

Mostly ranged damage, but have a few tricks up their sleeves. Have so-so resists.

 

Beasts

 Mostly Melee. Can "crit" and have inherent defense.  Can also heal themselves.

 

Necro

 Zombies have inherent resists,  and can dish out a lot of -to hit debuffs. Grave Knights can crit. Lich can help control and do -to hit. Pets can self heal. 

 

Bots

 Considered one of the strongest. Protector bot bubbles the other pets and you. Have inherent defense. Assault bot pumps out -regen which comes in handy against big game/tough opponents.

 

Thugs

 Considered one of the strongest. Arsonist can crit. Enforcers have Leadership, making your pets more accurate, do more damage, and gives them a small boost to defense. Mostly ranged, except for the Bruiser. He's a mini Brute...builds Fury so over time he does more damage. He typically stays in melee, which is where he needs to be.

 

Demons

 Again, another top tier. Can apply resist shields to pets, and heal pets. Their attacks lower enemy resists. The top tier pet has controls and slows.

 

Ninjas

 Fragile, but can pump out some damage. Have inherent defense,  and can crit. The Oni is like a mini fire blaster. 

 

 There are some enhancements that can give your pets a bonus to defense and others that give a bonus to resistance for your pets. Typically, the "best/easiest" pets to slot these in are Thugs,Necro, and Demons. These pets have what some players call a "mule" power selection. 

Thugs have Gang War, Demons have Hell On Earth,  and Necro has Souk Extraction.  These powers can accept these enhancements,  leaving you to slot your actually pets with Accuracy, Damage, End Reduction,  etc. 

 Beasts,Mercs, Bots, Ninjas can slot the +pet defense/+pet resistance enhancements,  but you will have to slot them in your actual pet powers, so your pets will lose some Accuracy, damage, end Reduction.  (Hopefully that made sense).

 

 Unless I am going strictly for a concept, I try to pick a secondary that compliments my primary. For example,  Thugs have inherent defense (plus Enforcers give defense), so I made a Thugs/Cold. Cold let's you give your pets and teams defense based shields. My Thugs all have soft capped defense (45% defense). 

 

Typically, Time and Dark are the "best" secondaries.

 Time has controls, heals, -regen,defense.

Dark has heals, controls, -regen, -resistance,  and you get Dark Servant...which heals, controls, and pumps out more -to hit.

 

Cold...defense based heals, -to hit, -regen, +end recovery,  -defense.

 

Thermal.. resistance based shields, heals, -resistance,  -defense.

 

Empathy..Heals.

 

Pain.. Heals, +regen, + resist

 

Force Field...defense based shields 

 

Electrical Affinity...+ resist, + end, + absorb,  heals

 

Trick Arrow....lots of debuffs. Oil Slick also does good damage as long as you can ignite it

 

Storm...lots of damage. One single target heal. +resist, +defense

 

Kinetics... heal, + end, speed boost teammates and pets, adds a ton of damage with Fulcrum Shift. Teams will love you for speed boost and Fulcrum. 

 

Poison...no experience. Can't comment 

 

Nature...very very little experience with Nature. Can't comment

 

 

I highly suggest reading towards the top of this forum about Number keybinds.  Having macros/keybinds will help control your pets.

 

I'm on Excelsior ( global name Scarlett Angel . My other global is Will Killum). Feel free to message and I'll team up with you, help earn influence,  or offer more advice or whatever.

 

 

 Last but not least, play whatever you think is fun or play what you have as a concept. One of my most favorite MMs is my Mercs/Pain. It's considered the weakest, but I have fun with it. My Beast/Time is a POWERHOUSE,  and my Demon/Electric is extremely sturdy.

 Welcome to the City!

 

X

Wow, thanks so much for taking the time to give me this info! It's very, very helpful, and much appreciated!

[Koven]

8 hours ago, Neiska said:

@Koven

 

Hello and welcome to CoH!

 

All good advice from above posters, but one thing I wanted to highlight is that especially with Masterminds, your power pairings will play very very differently compared to other ATs. A tanker is always going to tank, a blaster is always going to blast, but Masterminds can be made in all sorts of ways. With that in mind, even if your first MM might be iffy or you don't like the flow, if you are super attached to a pet type I would recommend try paring it with a different secondary. A /Time mastermind, will play and feel very differently from a /Forcefield or a /Electric mastermind for example. So there is nothing wrong with trying a few different versions out before settling on something you like.

 

Ninjas are considered to be a bit fragile to be sure, but decent damage. So you will have to protect them somehow.

 

/Time has solid defenses, healing, an emergency button with Chrono Shift, and a few debuffs. The downside about time is while it is overall balanced, it doesn't really stand out either. But overall it is quite strong. There are a few tricks you can do with /Time as well, such as power boost and farsight to boost your defense even further, or focus on the slows and immobilize to out range/out shoot your enemies. (This requires ranged pets though, such as Robots or Mercs.)

 

/Electric is my favorite powerset. It is all out survivability though, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. It offers Absorb shields, Heals, Status Immunity to you and your pets, Resistance buffs, and a small damage buff. The only offense it has is a single target -20% damage and an AoE -10% damage debuffs, but they do stack, so you can do a -30% damage to a boss and so on. It also offers effective infinite endurance later on, and since you already have status immunity with Farday's Cage, you are free to take Barrier Incarnate power, making your team even tougher overall. Out of all of the powersets, only /Electric offers Status Immunity, Infinite Endurance, and Barrier. Usually people have to pick 2 of the three - either ageless, clarion, and so on. But you won't have to pick, having effectively all 3.

 

/Traps is also a strong contender, especially for solo. It is more or less the king solo powerset for MMs. You can kill AVs, GMs, pretty much anything you want to with /Traps. But the playstyle is a bit different. More or less its a "plant the flag" style of play. You pick a spot, drop your traps, making a zone with multiple effects and kill things there. If you want to "Tankermind" its hard to go wrong with /Traps.

 

/Forcefield is the "chill mode" powerset. It offers a few things but it is mostly toggles, which means its a very hands off playstyle. It has a defensive aura for you, for allies, as well as some repulsion field toggles. Running all of them is very END heavy though, but can be very effective with ranged pets. The downside to /Forcefield is it has no built in healing as a power set, so you will rely on pets self heals or have to take medicine pool, or stock up on green inspirations to drop on pets. Some people love it, some people hate it. Your milage may vary.

 

/Nature is similar to Electric in that it offers absorbs, but also has debuffs as well. It has very strong healing/regeneration too, but many of its powers are "cones" or Targeted AOEs, which again, some people love or hate. Meaning you have to aim with some powers, unlike some powers like /time where heal is an AoE that doesnt require facing. Not all of Natures powers are, but there are some. It also has an interesting bloom mechanic that allows stacking bonus to healing, 4% for up to 5 times for a total of 20% bonus heals. This isn't just your healing either, its all healing, such as other team mates or even pets self-heals, which can be quite powerful on pets that can self-heal. Nature also has good debuffs as well, such as -damage, -resistance, -hit, and -regen.

 

/Dark is the king of CC and Debuffs for Masterminds. Personally I am not a fan of it due to its playstyle, but there is no denying it is Strong. Dark pairs particularly well with Demons or Necromancy, as those two pet sets have debuffs as well. It also boasts one of the strongest heals available to MMs, but the downside is that it can miss. One highlight about /dark is that it has 3 -tohit debuffs, making it also pair well with a pet set like Robots that is strong on defense, because its sort of like double dipping the chip - Your defenses are effectively greater, because your enemies have an even lower chance to hit you. 

 

One thing to highlight is that what is "good" strongly relies on several things -

1. What kinds of activities are you doing? - Story missions, AE's, Random Radio Missions, Farming, Boss/GM hunting, ITFs, etc.

2. Will you be playing more solo, or will you be looking to team up most of the time? Or a balance of both?

3. What difficulty will you be playing on? - Not all pets/powers/ATs can play on hardest difficulty at max level. Not that this means they are unbalanced or anything, I would recommend trying to see as +3 and +4 as a sort of new game plus or extra difficulty, where only some ATs/builds/combos will excell. But just about everyone does fine on +0-2 difficulty, on just about every activity.

4. Lastly, and most importantly, personal preferance. What you like and dislike is something that only you can decide on. What do you want to focus on? Theme/Style? Minmaxing? Having certain characters be the best at certain activites? Or do you want a more well-rounded character? 

 

So when you ask "what is best/good" and so on, is largely subjective here. There are some things where numbers don't lie, but I've seen people do amazing things with powersets that some people tend to think are subpar.

 

Honestly, I would focus on just having fun and learning the game and the class. After you got some time and levels under your belt, and learn the game, that's when you can start to think/plan long-term.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Again, welcome to CoH and to Masterminding! 

 

Awesome and very helpful information to have. I so very much appreciate the time and effort you gave to post this! Thank you!

[Koven]

40 minutes ago, plainguy said:

Quoted this because not worth repeating..

 

I can add this Robot Traps is an extremely good combo.. You can get to almost defense cap with Robot Traps on Single Origin Enhancers.. So one purple inspiration and Taunt will be pretty much Tankermind'ing..  

I would not go with Dark because you are relying on Darkest Night to get you defense capped..  Again as you learn you will understand why this might not be the best. But Dark is cool. Just everything relies on a hitting a mob.. It is very annoying when you miss a mob especially when you needed a good hit.. 

You do not need a farming toon, But I will tell you if you take the time to create one, the world in this game is your oyster.. Unless you take the time to learn how to play the Auction House Market..  I don't have the Patience for that so I just farm. Yes boring but at the end I can make the toon and the build I want.. 

Very good to know, thanks!!!