Minion Comparison

[Zugzwangz]

How would you rate the "final" minion of each of the Mastermind specs: Oni, Dire Wolf, Bruiser, Lich, Demon Prince, Commando, and Assault Bot? Which deals the most damage? Which has the best survivability? Which has the best control? Which synergizes best with the other minions? Which is your favorite, thematically? Which needs the most help? Which has the most potential? Etc... 

 

I'm just curious what everyone's thoughts are... 

[Meknomancer]

Damage? Commando. With no buffs/secondary powers all the melee pets just died, Lich is running controls and Oni just scattered the mobs with RoF til they were out of its radius before turning and humping it. AB with 0 buffs, so feeble defensively/resists wise it doesn't even have time to open up with an attack. Commando just opened up with a big gun and killed....a minion. Which is more than the others managed.

 

Survivability and Controls and Synergy and Theme (possibly also no.1 for needing the most help, bit of a toss up between this and anything that came from beast mastery) ? Lich. It runs life drain, has more controls than all the others combined (in exchange for all its damage), keeps stuff in place for the rest of the necro set and its undead, not many things are more thematic than that.

 

Beast Mastery is a set that needs the most help so Dire Wolf in that department, page 5 really seemed to help out Lich and tbh it wasn't that bad before, necro has always been a good set. 

 

Potentially, Dire Wolf. But that is totally dependent on what the Dev's do for the remaining pet sets next time. Hard to see thugs/demons getting much better. Fortify pack is as good as serum, if the pet upgrades got heal/resistance they'd potentially be as survivable as the other pets. There's so much room for improvement in beast mastery they have by far the most potential to be better than the dead last bottom tier set it is right now.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Beast Mastery may not be S tier, but it's hardly dead last/bottom. Beasts are naturally fairly tanky. Their biggest issue, iirc, is needing their attack chain adjusted a smidgen, but they are nowhere near mercs pre-page 5 quality of bad and I'm not sure why people insist on perpetuating that myth.

[Meknomancer]

On 3/27/2023 at 2:27 AM, TygerDarkstorm said:

Beast Mastery may not be S tier, but it's hardly dead last/bottom. Beasts are naturally fairly tanky. Their biggest issue, iirc, is needing their attack chain adjusted a smidgen, but they are nowhere near mercs pre-page 5 quality of bad and I'm not sure why people insist on perpetuating that myth.

 

 

I remember playing them the day they came out and i still see them the same way, 3 beast mm's on HC hasn't changed my opinion especially since the page 5 changes. I tried them with /nature first and they took 2-3 times as long as anything else to clear mobs so i went /kin next and they were still significantly slower than all the other pet sets. Even prior to page 5 i enjoyed mercs and ninjas over beasts. Its great having a set thats so different from the others, the problem is those differences are telling. They are fun and tanky with fortify pack they just take forever to take down mobs compared to every other set, i am curious as to how you'd rate the pet sets since page 5. If beasts aren't dead last what is? 

 

 

[TygerDarkstorm]

I honestly don't have an answer for that. Beasts might be bottom tier after page 5, idk. I don't really do stuff like that. I go based off my experiences, and what I see around the forums. I remember someone doing a test for MM primaries and beasts were a lot higher than they were being given credit for, but that was also well before page 5. While I love the changes to necro, I'd be hard pressed to say my zombies kill any faster than my beasts.

[Astralock]

Beasts are technically at the bottom now if you want to be pedantic, but they’re still far ahead of the old Robotics and Mercenaries.

 

Right now, it’s Thugs > Demons > Robotics/Mercenaries/Ninjas/Necro > Beasts.  The Page 5 revamp was pretty thorough in making the revamped henchmen pretty equal.  I expect Thugs and Demons to be nerfed in the next Mastermind batch, and for Beasts to be slightly buffed.

 

In the end, play what you want.  Playing for the meta is boring as Hell, and they’re all playable.

[Meknomancer]

My list tends to be...mercs...mercs...mercs...necro....everything else but i have fun with all the pet sets i never played another game with anything like them.

 

Hard to imagine demons and thugs getting nerfed, they are pretty good but surely the dev's would bump their upgrades to match the other sets which would only make them better, what do they then do to keep them in line with the other sets? 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Meknomancer
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[Astralock]

8 minutes ago, Meknomancer said:

My list tends to be...mercs...mercs...mercs...necro....everything else but i have fun with all the pet sets i never played another game with anything like them.

 

Hard to imagine demons and thugs getting nerfed, they are pretty good but surely the dev's would bump their upgrades to match the other sets which would only make them better, what do they then do to keep them in line with the other sets? 

 

Gang War on Thugs is pretty ridiculous, and Demons do a wee bit too much -res.

[Nyghtmaire]

I wish I liked demons. I mean, I *should* but just can’t get into them. Tried too many times. Fee the same about Thugs. Both sets are just too unruly; makes me feel like I have a hangover and I’m babysitting a blackout drunk girlfriend who just wants to fight. Just let me hang out with the crew that eats brains and let me be, dammit!

 

As to the topic, I appreciate the redesign of mercs/ninjas/bots immensely, but always have treasured Necro. Whether the light show of bots, the piles of merc bullets, the mist of blood left behind by ninjas, or the elegance of the Necro playstyle, I’m down with that. And beasts? I pretend they don’t exist.

[tidge]

I took a Thugs MM to 50 (and BEYOND!) and I have to agree that it feels 'too unruly' for my taste. I can see why folks like it as a primary; for me I felt as if I had to micro-managing the henchmen and pets. I certainly could play this character better, but it simply felt like too much work.

 

The trivial complaint I have about my experience with Thugs is this: (Because of the melee focus?) even while on Bodyguard mode, the henchmen were picking fights with more than one spawn, especially when playing x8 content....even without Gang War in play. There were plenty of maps (you know the ones) where I'd find myself fighting 3 (or more!) spawns... and for my build, the secondary wasn't particularly well-suited for dealing with all that crazy.

[Meknomancer]

15 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

Gang War on Thugs is pretty ridiculous, and Demons do a wee bit too much -res.

 

 

With burnout as an option its hard to see what can be done with gang war after such a long time, how long would they have to change the recharge on it to 'nerf' it.....and how many would complain, or do they limit the number of the spawn. How much - res do demons do in comparison to something like a mercs/bubbles when you toss in the mm's personal attacks on top of the bubbles attacks that do - res?

[High_Beam]

The following reflects my current MM Inventory:

 

Munitions Mistress (50) Mercs/Traps

Archduchess Glasya (50) Demons/Dark

Hatshepsut Eternal (50) Necro/Time

Fatal Fragrance (35) Thugs/Rad

 

I have played others but deleted them or never recreated them from live (Beast/Nature, Ninja/Storm, Bots/Force Field, Bots/Sonic, Mercs/Pain, Thugs/Poison, Thugs/Pain).  However this is about trying to provide a response to the OP about them so the four have all their pets and both tiers of upgrades.

 

Commando - He's a pretty heavy hitter, tended to last some time in a fight even prior to the recent Homecoming changes.  He was the one I had to pay the least attention to with regards to keeping alive.  He tended to stay in his lane.  When Serum got buffed and Mercs as a whole got the Resistance and Defense buff from the Upgrades added on HC update, he got better.  He has enough attacks in his chain with both upgrades to where he no longer seems to want to brawl (awesome).  Now, since Medic isn't as stupid as he used to be I think these guys synergize the best with each other.  Spec Ops need to stop trying to rifle butt people but overall they now stay at range without me constantly having to call them back to me in order to reset the close-in AI.  Alone, he is still rock solid.

 

Bruiser - Yeah he's a tank and when you get the Set IOs slotted in he's a good tank.  Hell I often wade in alongside him to give love taps to the enemies because I feel kind of awesome.  He's totally melee so you fully know what you are getting.  Furthermore once you get him, the constant death of the arsonist is diminished significantly as Bruiser had their attention.  Still happens of course but with Bruiser I don't have to micromanage the rest of the thugs.  Otherwise they function similarly to Mercs with regards to range.  They synergize in a weird way to me because enforcers and thugs (including Torchy McBurnsalot) stay back allowing a clear delineation and allowing me to step slightly forward to buff the Bruiser or slightly back to buff them.  And I am not even adding the chaos killing when you call a gang war.  By himself he is pretty freaking awesome.

 

Demon Prince - Other than the sounds (ugh) he is tough but he is part of the overall Demon package.  They synergize very well with so much slow and -Rech laid down they can render mobs useless.  their mix of melee and range in generally equal amounts lets you have great range strike lead then close in melee coupled with crazy panic fun.  To be honest, they are insane fun because of the manic pace you can set, its like a wrecking crew at times, kind of like a Freakshow melee furball.  Solo he isn't the best though his control aspects keep him from being kicked out of bed, but he is a beast (see what I did with words) when he is with his fellow hellspawn.

 

Lich - This is a weird one to me.  I found the Grave Knights to be better than the Lich and they tend to outlive the Lich in a big protracted fight (Soul Extraction anyone).  A minor damage knockback cone?  Five minions who are melee centric and the Lich is knocking enemies around.  That gets the lesser dead scampering everywhere.  Oh and while the Fear is nice its a cone and the pet AI isn't exactly patiently steering into position to maximize the cone, it would be better as an AoE.  His synergies aren't great and by himself, less than great.

 

Obviously secondary powers make a massive difference in each of these (and all of the others).  I my case I selected all of the secondaries based on two criteria; story/creation theme and suck factor.  Radiation isn't radiation but pheromones.  Dark is with demons because duh!  Demons!  Time with Necro because the MM is the eternally undead Pharaoh Hatshepsut who defied death by mastering time itself.  Mercs/Traps, it was a theme though I wish so badly that they would create a grenades Secondary that would so better fit.  Traps is tricky.  Anyway that's what I got based on what I have played.

[High_Beam]

14 hours ago, Nyghtmaire said:

makes me feel like I have a hangover and I’m babysitting a blackout drunk girlfriend who just wants to fight.

Ahh my second marriage 🙂

[AlwaysGoofingOff]

Played a Demons/Dark MM to 50+ recently and starting a Thugs/Time one now. (only level 12) I've read that both those combos are strong so I expect the difficulty for the Thugs/Time to be about the same as my Demons/Dark was. But I'm curious what things I should expect to be different?

 

For those with more experience - have any thoughts on this? What are the big differences that I should expect to notice? 

 

[Crysis]

I can't imagine buffing Demons or Thugs any further.

 

I -can- expect them to not be nerfed, but rather, watch powers that turn them into OP get nerfed instead.

 

Gang War, Hell on Earth....yeah, gonna get their timers 'addressed' I'm betting.  Or the number of pseudo-pets they spawn diminished.

 

But honestly, I suspect Farsight's +DEF won't last beyond PowerBoosts' duration.  /Time has always been really good with just about any henchmen sets.  But PB+Farsight, with both being perma'd (or near it) pretty much is just asking for a nerf bat.  Take that away and you'll effectively nerf a bunch of henchmen +DEF.

[Sareph]

I'm not sure MM minions are too tough is a common complain. I'm a bit hopeful that nerfing pet defense isn't the biggest MM priority unless there is a lot more happening to the AT.

[Crysis]

On 4/2/2023 at 2:22 AM, AlwaysGoofingOff said:

Played a Demons/Dark MM to 50+ recently and starting a Thugs/Time one now. (only level 12) I've read that both those combos are strong so I expect the difficulty for the Thugs/Time to be about the same as my Demons/Dark was. But I'm curious what things I should expect to be different?

 

For those with more experience - have any thoughts on this? What are the big differences that I should expect to notice? 

 

 

You can somewhat expect Demons/Dark and Thugs/Time to play similarly in that both /Dark and /Time offer heals and -TOHIT.  Beyond that, Demons are definitely more about +RES whereas Thugs are +DEF thanks to stacked leadership buffs.  For Thugs, you add on Farsight (particularly Powerboosted Farsight) and you’ll find it really easy to softcap +DEF yourself and your henchmen too with Thugs.

 

I find Demon attacks to be more effective at higher levels than Thugs, particularly with the -RES to provide effectively higher damage, plus less resisted damage types from Demons.

 

But honestly, by 50 and after, especially with Incarnates, they don’t play that much differently.  Playstyle, it’s a bit easier to MM the Demons from range, whereas with Thugs/Time, you may as well jump into the spawn with the Brute because your Times Juncture is your -TOHIT debuffer.  I take Cross Punch from fighting pool for all my Thugs MM’s specifically for this reason.

[Dixa]

On 3/28/2023 at 7:49 AM, Astralock said:

Beasts are technically at the bottom now if you want to be pedantic, but they’re still far ahead of the old Robotics and Mercenaries.

 

Right now, it’s Thugs > Demons > Robotics/Mercenaries/Ninjas/Necro > Beasts.  The Page 5 revamp was pretty thorough in making the revamped henchmen pretty equal.  I expect Thugs and Demons to be nerfed in the next Mastermind batch, and for Beasts to be slightly buffed.

 

In the end, play what you want.  Playing for the meta is boring as Hell, and they’re all playable.

there is zero reason to nerf anything in the mastermind toolkits. it's the most punished AT in end game content with all of the auto hit aoe's out there.