Pets die to fast

[Spectre7878]

So I have tried really hard to play and love masterminds. I feel the pets just die to fast. Especially against longbow, malta etc. 

 

am I doing something wrong with masterminds? I am ok solos if I play 0x0. 
 

is it just inevitable or is there a way to keep the alive

 

i current have a 

necro/dark

beast/nature

thug/rad

[Nyghtmaire]

Those are all tanky secondaries with pretty beefy pets. What level are you? Are you applying debuffs first? For example and for dark, almost nothing should be hitting you or your pets after darkest night and fearsome stare have been applied. 
 

Early on, most players get smashed when in bodyguard mode and are hit (and the pets) with an AOE. The pets not only get the shared damage from bodyguard which is unresistable, but also the direct damage when they’re hit (which is subject to defense and resistance).
 

To be fair, Malta sucks for most ATs. Most high level mob spawns need target priority- arrest/kill the mob that you’re weakest to first. Or, cc them until the heat settles. 

[SeraphimKensai]

My points reference Necro/dark as I have a lot of experience with that combo (I have 2 lvl 50s of it that I'll often run together).

 

I agree: darkest night, fearsome stare, dark servant, and the lich paired with shadow fall. that's a pretty significant tohitdebuff on mobs right there, that you should be able to keep topped off with twilight grasp.

 

Between the horde, grave knights, lich, dark servant, shades, and soul extraction you should have a literal undead shadowy army.

 

So I leads me to believe that you're either not slotted or under slotted, and likely side kicked up trying to hit things that are set to +4. Your horde has a -2 level shift, and grave knights a -1, so that's like them trying to fight +6 and +5 enemies.

 

Once you get your alpha level shift that helps offset that, but you have to taken into account their negative level shifts and build in some tohit for them (taking tactics helps).

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by SeraphimKensai

[Spectre7878]

My beast nature is 50. Not IOed and my necro/dark is 45 ish

[SeraphimKensai]

Nature is a very strong. Between wild growth, wild bastion, overgrowth your pets should be reasonably solid especially when in your leadership range. You'll ideally play in melee using Entangling Aura to hold most mobs which should mitigate further damage from your pets, and if they do get hurt you have regrowth. Additionally spore cloud is very helpful. If you really need you can use fortify pack as well, although that will lower your damage output so whether or not it's better for you if questionable, based on how fast killing mobs will decrease incoming damage.

[Gobbledigook]

I have been trying a few MM's lately also. A Mercs/NatureA and the most recent a Bots/Time. The Mercs/NA i dumped because even with 90% resists they just died so fast to AoE even in aggresive that re summoning became tiresome. The Bots/time is much better as they rarely get hit and i can heal that back up quickly. 

 

The damage the pets put out is very bad in the AoE department and mediocre single target. I have not added procs yet though and did not level them with a full IO build, though i do have all the pets buffs Io's and a few other IO sets. Slotting the +def/resist IO's takes up much needed slot space in pets also.

Other AT's will at least AoE mobs down whilst these MM's seem to want to take each mob one by one as the AoE is near non existent.

 

If i join a team and get mentored i have to re summon the pets again at every new mission due to them dropping levels. I don't know if there is a way to avoid this?

 

Why do they even have all different levels? why can they not be the same as the players level and increase with incarnate shift to +1?

 

I have tried to get into them but they just seem too much work for very little reward.

 

I can do very well with other AT's but im quicly losing patience with the MM. Is this normal or i am getting it so badly wrong also lol?

 

The other big gripe i have with them is how slow they are at catching you up. It would be nice to have an instant summon to your side button or just increase their run speed.

 

They run low on endurance fast also even with slotting it up.

 

A 52 Praefectus Castorum takes an age to kill with Bots and the others in the mob just don't take hardly any AoE.  Yet the PC ran in and one shotted one of my minions lol.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Gobbledigook

[UltraAlt]

45 minutes ago, Spectre7878 said:

is it just inevitable or is there a way to keep the alive

 

Try ?/electric. 

Always run in defensive mode (blue shield) and focus through one of  your minions once combat begins so your can primarily focus on buffing and healing them.

Electric will give you easily usable buffs, heal, and a shield. Electric powers branch out and hit more than one target, so if you stay with your pets, keep your pets together, and target through one of them then you are going to buff and heal yourself. The shield is static, so drop it as soon as you are at a fixed combat point.

 

I engage combat in a couple of ways.

I walk close enough to a group of enemies to provoke them into attacking. Set up the shield. Target of of my pets. Pets are in defensive mode and the enemy will attack, the pets will respond.

Set up the shield. Teleport an enemy into your kill box and then target one of my pets. Pets are in defensive mode and the enemy will attack, the pets will respond.

Set up the shield. I range attack an enemy (preferably with a debuff) and then target one of my pets. Pets are in defensive mode and the enemy will attack, the pets will respond.

 

With a pet targeted, I can buffand heal most of the pets and myself. I'm also focusing fire with that pet (I usually target the pet that can do the most damage).

 

It seems to work well in my experience, but I'm not playing at level 50 trying to chase a bulldozer team around.

[StrikerFox]

It gets easier with IOs. Almost all the pet uniques are slottable at lower levels. Edict at level 12, CtA at 7, Sovereign at 22, Expedient at 27. MoS and CotMM are level 10? Only Soulbound is 50. Overwhelming is also really useful and I think we can slot that at 10.

 

If you can get your hands on them early, it will make the ride a lot smoother.

[Gobbledigook]

2 minutes ago, StrikerFox said:

It gets easier with IOs. Almost all the pet uniques are slottable at lower levels. Edict at level 12, CtA at 7, Sovereign at 22, Expedient at 27. MoS and CotMM are level 10? Only Soulbound is 50. Overwhelming is also really useful and I think we can slot that at 10.

 

If you can get your hands on them early, it will make the ride a lot smoother.

I have all them but minions are one shotted quite often with little chance to respond with a heal. It's the time it takes the pets to kill just a +2 mob is really bad.

 

I think the MM still needs a ton of work to get more players to use them. I know some players say they do really well with them and i tip my hat to them but for me they are just not good at all.

[TygerDarkstorm]

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

If i join a team and get mentored i have to re summon the pets again at every new mission due to them dropping levels. I don't know if there is a way to avoid this?

There is! Go to Menu -> Options, on that first panel, slide the auto-accept sidekick slider to 50 and the auto-accept exemplar (or w/e the exact phrasing is) to 1.

This will now allow henchmen to stay at their currently summoned level until you exit the team (I can't remember if the leader shifting levels affects it since I'm usually running a lower level MM with like a level 50 PI group for something like this). 🙂

[Gobbledigook]

1 minute ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

There is! Go to Menu -> Options, on that first panel, slide the auto-accept sidekick slider to 50 and the auto-accept exemplar (or w/e the exact phrasing is) to 1.

This will now allow henchmen to stay at their currently summoned level until you exit the team (I can't remember if the leader shifting levels affects it since I'm usually running a lower level MM with like a level 50 PI group for something like this). 🙂

Ty Tyger that will make a big difference for leveling a new MM 🙂

[Captain Fabulous]

I gotta agree, MMs seem to spend all of their time debuffing critters or buffing/healing pets to keep them alive because they're just really squishy. The level shift only makes it that much worse. And while like all ATs IO sets help immensely, that shouldn't be the baseline that's necessary for an enjoyable play experience. I want to enjoy playing my MMs but find it doesn't take long before I'm over it.

[TygerDarkstorm]

1 hour ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I gotta agree, MMs seem to spend all of their time debuffing critters or buffing/healing pets to keep them alive

I mean... that sort of is the entire AT.... Like, that's what we do as MM's. The henchmen (because pets are technically different) ARE an MM's source of damage--a blaster blasts and an MM sends their henchmen in. Everything else MM's do is generally in support of that goal, so some of these complaints are simply a matter of the AT not being right for the player, and that's okay! No AT is going to be for everyone.

 

Also part of being an MM is knowing when to just let the henchmen die and when to spend time keeping them up. I took my level 37 beast/rad MM to an ITF. It ended up being something of a mistake as the character simply wasn't ready for that sort of encounter and I overestimated it, however, simple adjustments to my playstyle allowed me to at least be useful to my team. I still had a whole secondary capable of helping the team kill things like Minotaurs/Cyclops faster and boosting their recharge/recovery. And it was a case of, if I was going to summon the beasts, it would often be without buffing them unless it looked like they would stay alive long enough to be worth it.

 

This is to say that playing an MM is sometimes more of a series of micro-adjustments than anything. But yes, a lot of your time is going to be spent debuffing mobs or keeping henchmen alive because, what else would you be doing? Why is debuffing mobs a bad thing? They die faster/kill you less hard. And if you're playing within your means, you should also be throwing out personal attacks, pool powers/patron powers. Truly playing an MM is actually quite a busy task.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Clearly if your pets die to fast, you need to feed them.

[Captain Fabulous]

13 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Why is debuffing mobs a bad thing? They die faster/kill you less hard. 

Many times (but not always, it depends upon the team) teams steamroll thru mobs so quickly you don't really have to debuff things other than tough bosses or AVs. The problem is your pets aren't nearly as hardy as other players, so I find I'm tossing out debuffs solely to keep my pets alive, not because it's meaningfully beneficial to the team.

And I freely admit it's a playstyle that doesn't necessarily appeal to me all that much. And that's OK, not everything has to. I'm only speaking of my own personal experiences. It's a lot of micromanagement, and resummoning and re-enhancing feels like a chore to me. I just feel like them being a bit more resilient out of the box would greatly improve the play experience. Eliminating the level shift would also go a long way, since at -1 and -2 your T2 and T1 pets are that much more squishy and likely to miss. If I'm on a 50+4 team I sometimes don't even bother with the T1/2 pets because they just die so quickly and don't contribute much against critters that are +6/7. And that means I only have to worry about 1 pet instead of 6.

[tidge]

@TygerDarkstorm made several very good points, especially about knowing when to just let the henchmen go.

 

The only other thing I can think of is to pay attention to the stance of the henchmen. If they are on bodyguard, they ought to be close to you and retaliating only against what strikes you (or each other). It could be that your MM is taking a LOT of damage (especially AoE) and is sloughing much of it off onto the henchmen.

 

If you are dispatching the henchmen willy-nilly, they probably will get split up and get picked off like the minions they are. Robots are slightly less susceptible to this because they are nearly 100% ranged attackers.

[TygerDarkstorm]

19 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Many times (but not always, it depends upon the team) teams steamroll thru mobs so quickly you don't really have to debuff things other than tough bosses or AVs. The problem is your pets aren't nearly as hardy as other players, so I find I'm tossing out debuffs solely to keep my pets alive, not because it's meaningfully beneficial to the team.

And I freely admit it's a playstyle that doesn't necessarily appeal to me all that much. And that's OK, not everything has to. I'm only speaking of my own personal experiences. It's a lot of micromanagement, and resummoning and re-enhancing feels like a chore to me. I just feel like them being a bit more resilient out of the box would greatly improve the play experience. Eliminating the level shift would also go a long way, since at -1 and -2 your T2 and T1 pets are that much more squishy and likely to miss. If I'm on a 50+4 team I sometimes don't even bother with the T1/2 pets because they just die so quickly and don't contribute much against critters that are +6/7. And that means I only have to worry about 1 pet instead of 6.

I mean, again, a lot of this comes down to picking your battles. My level 50+1 Demons/Storm MM doesn't have too many issues with T1 henchmen levels because she has a level shift. But yes, if you're trying to sidekick up, you're going to have issues, or trying to play at +4 while not being equipped for it.

 

If you're on that kind of team, your henchmen not being resummoned isn't going to hurt you anyway; shit's being steamrolled. I feel like you didn't read everything I read since I already addressed cases where your henchmen are dying too fast. And yes, taking low level MM's on higher level steamrolling teams is not always fun, so if that's what you're doing, you are going to experience these issues and yeah, it will probably lessen enjoyment. I know I kicked myself over choosing my lower level MM for running the ITF (at lvl 50 +4 even)--she just wasn't ready for it.

 

It's okay to say that MM's aren't your thing. I'm not a huge fan of most of the melee AT's myself. I mean, the things you don't like about the MM AT are what make the AT what it is. It's a support AT whose primary is using henchmen for damage instead of blast/melee attacks. It has a different learning curve. You have to like understanding the nuances to the AT, like knowing bodyguard mode, micromanaging henchies, when to let them die and when to resummon, or even when to dismiss them outright so they don't bring extra aggro/you can stealth, etc. etc.

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, Gobbledigook said:

I have all them but minions are one shotted quite often with little chance to respond with a heal. It's the time it takes the pets to kill just a +2 mob is really bad.

 

I'm not seeing this issue.

I see you say +2, bit x? how many?

 

9 hours ago, Gobbledigook said:

I think the MM still needs a ton of work to get more players to use them. I know some players say they do really well with them and i tip my hat to them but for me they are just not good at all.

 

Unfortunately, simply because you aren't good with them doesn't mean that they aren't already a powerful archetype.

I'm assuming you already know that you can't play all archetypes the same way.

It is kind of like fighting a new villain group. You have to figure out which ones are likely to be the biggest threat and taking them out first (be that the boss, healer, shielder, buffer, etc.)

 

Perhaps you simply need more minions. Specifically, those with human-intelligence behind them. /LFG for some to join your team.

Pretty much regardless of what server you are on, there are people looking to team up that don't want to lead a team.

 

 

[Gobbledigook]

6 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I'm not seeing this issue.

I see you say +2, bit x? how many?

 

 

Unfortunately, simply because you aren't good with them doesn't mean that they aren't already a powerful archetype.

I'm assuming you already know that you can't play all archetypes the same way.

It is kind of like fighting a new villain group. You have to figure out which ones are likely to be the biggest threat and taking them out first (be that the boss, healer, shielder, buffer, etc.)

 

Perhaps you simply need more minions. Specifically, those with human-intelligence behind them. /LFG for some to join your team.

Pretty much regardless of what server you are on, there are people looking to team up that don't want to lead a team.

 

 

A +2 mob is singular. What i am saying is the single target dps of the pets on a +2 mob i tested was not very impressive compared to other similarly built AT's. The AoE damage is near non existent from what i am seeing. I am not saying the pet damage is bad on a single target, i just feel the AoE is pretty bad.

 

I find that the many drawbacks of being a MM is not actually worth playing them yet, for me anyway. I feel they need more work, irrelevant of what other players feel about them. The most effective part of the MM is the secondary.

 

I think i will just stick with a defender or Corruptor for support as the MM is just not for me. They do more AoE damage, can have better buffs/debuffs and take far less work/maintenance. A controller is also a good support in buffing/debuffing and locking whole groups down. I just don't get what the MM brings.

 

Thanks for the lesson on how to play though. Awesome advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Gobbledigook

[Nyghtmaire]

Overall I don’t disagree with a lot said above re the drawbacks. At this stage of the game, I can’t say I would ever try to convince someone to play the AT. Certainly would not dissuade but never actively advocate. Subjectively, I adore MMs. But the only time I’ve deleted a character over 22 (slotting level) has been a mastermind. I guess I love and hate them equally. Like my kids! 
 

Generally and in very broad strokes, it’s a slower style. Pet speed is a cap on how fast you can go through a mission. And yes - generally - AOE is less powerful. Positioning tends to be more important to survival than most other ATs. Build goals are different from other ATs. There is also somewhat less flexibility in effective pet slotting due to the IO pet unique tax. There are outliers (like /storm) but that’s an exception that proves the rule. 
 

Full builds can make the AT a ridiculously safe fortress until the level of the mobs is increased to an extent  tier 1 can no longer reliably hit. So there tends (again, generally) to be a ceiling outside of incarnates where the pets are boosted. That said, the recent changes (Necro, bots, ninjas, mercs(!!!)) have been pretty lush. My Necro/dark is *much* faster for mission completion and noticeably safer as well. But +4/8 radios (excepting Council) can take up to twice as long as +3. Bots, once in the 30s (more slots all around) and with an AOE immobilize (that’s the key) have astounding AOE. So, that’s a long-winded way of saying “I agree”. 

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

A +2 mob is singular.

 

A +2 Mob can be set at x1 to x8.

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

What i am saying is the single target dps of the pets on a +2 mob i tested was not very impressive compared to other similarly built AT's.

 

I am not trying to disagree with your opinion.

Obviously, we have experience different results. It took me a while to get where I am tactically with masterminds. I tried to use them in ways that other people were using them and that generally did not work for me.

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

The AoE damage is near non existent from what i am seeing. I am not saying the pet damage is bad on a single target, i just feel the AoE is pretty bad.

 

I would agree that is correct.

The mastermind AT seems to be built to fight more like a scrapper or stalker than an AoE controller or blaster.

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

I find that the many drawbacks of being a MM is not actually worth playing them yet, for me anyway. I feel they need more work, irrelevant of what other players feel about them. The most effective part of the MM is the secondary.

 

I don't disagree with your view of the AT if you are having issues with it.

I have worked with the archetype long enough that I am getting a handle on the tactics of it, and, with increased knowledge of the pet behaviors of each type of pet (except for Demons. I only make Demon masterminds to be able to  use the whips) the longer I can keep them alive and realise how to deal with their limitations and that of the masterminds abilities as well.

I no longer feel them to be the hassle that they were to play at one point, and this change in my mindset and tactics came before that recent mastermind buffs/changes.

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

I think i will just stick with a defender or Corruptor for support as the MM is just not for me.

 

The mastermind works best with more of a tank mentality. masterminds are definitely not support characters unless you mean by support "treating the entire team as your minions", which is what I do. I learned to utilize this tactic this especially after/by using whip-only demon masterminds (aka petless demon masterminds).

 

The other players generally don't know that it is going on until the say:

"Are you a petless mastermind?"

"No."

"Why aren't you spawning your minions?"

"My seven minions are already out. Can't  you see them in the team window?"

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

They do more AoE damage, can have better buffs/debuffs and take far less work/maintenance. A controller is also a good support in buffing/debuffing and locking whole groups down.

 

Yes. The masterminds take a good bit of clicking and paying attention to what is going on with the pets and the team around you.

Yes. That is because a controller is a support character class like defenders and corruptors and arguably dominators.

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

I just don't get what the MM brings.

 

Damage soaking with the pets.

And most efficient when using a secondary with buffs and heals (at least). This is why I suggested electric as a secondary. It seems to me to be the best secondary to couple with the masterminds. I have ?/dark, ?/forcefield, ?/traps, and, I think, a ?/empathy ... maybe more. Electric seems to be the most fun and effective to me. I have about 4-5 ?/electric masterminds at this point.

My focus is not attacking with my mastermind, but letting my pets and team mates do the damage. I'm trying to get my pets into the fight and keep them buffed and healed. I let them do all the work - they are my minions.

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledigook said:

Thanks for the lesson on how to play though. Awesome advice.

 

I think you are taking the correct action.

If they don't seem fun to play, then play something that is fun to play.

 

That's why I have so many characters. If one character isn't fun to play, then I play another one for a while.

Each character plays differently. I've given them their own characteristics, and I try to play them based on those characteristics.

Have all the variety and option is what makes City of Heroes fun for me.

[Gobbledigook]

I wasn't trying to be funny or overly negative with the MM AT i was just trying to give my honest opinion of my experience with them getting to 50+1. I was hoping i would have had a better experience though as i did quite fancy playing a pet class, maybe a Crab may work.

 

They just aren't for me at the moment and my personal view is they still need some work to improve them. Changing the levels of the pets, increasing run speed so they can keep up better, increasing pet recovery a little, increasing AoE damage a little would in my opinion make them so much better.

[StrikerFox]

MMs have some crazy pylon times that's been posted over the past 3 years. Their ST damage is pretty amazing. As for AoE, I think all pets have at least one cone (Except Beasts?). Most small, either short range and/or arc. Their AoE comes more from having multiple pets. 6+ pets hitting separate targets at the same time is AoE for one MM. I see MMs as being a "jack of all trades, but a master of none" archetype. They can tank, deal good damage and provide support.

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

MMs have some crazy pylon times that's been posted over the past 3 years. Their ST damage is pretty amazing. As for AoE, I think all pets have at least one cone (Except Beasts?). Most small, either short range and/or arc. Their AoE comes more from having multiple pets. 6+ pets hitting separate targets at the same time is AoE for one MM. I see MMs as being a "jack of all trades, but a master of none" archetype. They can tank, deal good damage and provide support.

Those pylon times are probably with Debuffs from the likes of /Cold or from extra damage with /Storm etc. This is also stationary target. The secondary is making the difference i believe on a single large stationary target.  With those debuffs/extra damage any AT could probably run a decent time against this target and i am sure they have.

 

Spreading the pets out to individual targets would be really low dps on each target. Even a Defender would AoE that mob down well before the MM pets finish the job. That is if the MM pets can survive the encounter as they are not as robust as a playing AT.

 

They can tank a little but so can a Blaster nowadays. A large AoE could end that though. How are the pets in the harder content?

 

I am sure the pets can do respectable single target damage built well, so can a lot of AT's, but the AoE is not good at all from what i have seen. I have not seen MM's dominating the Trapdoor test. One posted that it took over 20 minutes to clear with a MM  when others are doing it 4minutes or less, including Controllers.

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Gobbledigook

[StrikerFox]

39 minutes ago, Gobbledigook said:

Those pylon times are probably with Debuffs from the likes of /Cold or from extra damage with /Storm etc. This is also stationary target. The secondary is making the difference i believe on a single large stationary target.  With those debuffs/extra damage any AT could probably run a decent time against this target and i am sure they have.

 

Spreading the pets out to individual targets would be really low dps on each target. Even a Defender would AoE that mob down well before the MM pets finish the job. That is if the MM pets can survive the encounter as they are not as robust as a playing AT.

 

They can tank a little but so can a Blaster nowadays. A large AoE could end that though. How are the pets in the harder content?

 

I am sure the pets can do respectable single target damage built well, so can a lot of AT's, but the AoE is not good at all from what i have seen. I have not seen MM's dominating the Trapdoor test. One posted that it took over 20 minutes to clear with a MM  when others are doing it 4minutes or less, including Controllers.

 

 

Post i27.5, Merc pets defeated a pylon in 106s for 490 dps without the secondary. Serum wasn't used either (74s/645 dps with Serum and Tar Patch). Pre-i27.5, Ninjas defeated a pylon in 119 for 450 dps without use of the secondary or Smoke Flash (84s/584 dps with Tar patch and Smoke Flash). They would likely do better now with added crit chance.

 

Imo, secondaries shouldn't be included when trying to figure out what individual primaries are capable of. A secondary should be included when testing an overall build.

 

Like I said MM's are a jack of all trades; master of none. They technically have AoE damage. It's not the best but it's not that bad. Pets constantly attacking multiple targets VS Dragon's Tail with a small radius or Shield Charge with a 25s cooldown for example. They all have pros and cons.