New to MM and I have some questions

[Tanked King Leo]

First of all I have never played an MM past about lvl 25. I am currently running a Demons/pain and so far its quite entertaining. So now I am looking to the endgame and wondering how the heck to build an MM. I have done some reading and put together a build that seems to follow most of the accepted rules for this combo. However I am wondering if this has enough durability at end game? I went sorcery for Rune of protection and Hybrid support. Also grabbed Clarion for even more mez protection and power boost out of Mace mastery for more "OH SHIT" buttons. After that I prioritized recharge to get world of pain perma. Running provoke to "tank" for my pets, but what if I swapped that for hasten? could I keep the pets up well enough with /Pain and Spirit ward on the prince? Any input and/or tweaks are welcome. Thanks in advance. 

Mastermind (Demon Summoning - Pain Domination) IDK.mbd

[Tanked King Leo]

I'm not sure if the silence is good or bad... 

[tidge]

I can't speak to either the primary or the secondary. My blunt recommendations would be:

 

• slot Hell on Earth with the global henchmen/pet defense pieces, to free up slots in the henchmen
• Don't put %damage piece in the henchmen, try to leverage set bonuses and Acc/End/Damage instead
• The %BuildUp Very Rare and Overwhelming Force Knockdown should probably go in the T1, since each hench can use them and the level shift hurts them

I was disappointed with Sorcery on a Thugs MM. I want to say that I tried everything I could think of to leverage that pool and I found it to be a poor choice, except for mule powers. If the intent is to be active-ish with a pool... Experimentation offers a good (IMO, YMMV) travel power, an ally buff, a self buff, and the awesome Corrosive Vial (which should help henchmen).

 

Pain is probably tricky... I generally regard MM secondaries to be the best when they are debuffing enemies. Keeping Henchmen "alive" is far less important to me than whittling down enemies faster. At low and mid-levels, it is important to keep the henchmen alive (so no judgement from me on that score), but in a more-complete build this is not what I focus on.

 

EDIT: I also don't think Provoke is a good choice for MMs. I like the Presence pool... but Provoke requires a ToHit check and the max targets is only 5. Better IMO is to use an AoE attack to get aggro. from the same pool, Invoke Panic has a target cap two times larger!

Edited November 28, 2023 by tidge

[Riverdusk]

Agreed on provoke and I would go ahead and try that switch.  I was never a fan of that playstyle, but I think it has fallen out of favor for MM's generally.  I'm sure some people still do it, but I don't hear it talked about nearly as much as it used to be.  Demons are one of the tankier sets from my experience anyway.  Once you have all the resistance from the pet special IO's and the resistance that pain gives along with their own resistance, and combined with some healing, they should be pretty sturdy.

 

I was going to suggest diamagnetic interface as my usual goto for even more tanky-ness (pets can give everything -20% tohit with it pretty quick, which means still about -10% even against +4's), but I see you went paralytic.  It's damage debuff might work out to be just as good.  Might want to eventually try both and see if one works out better than the other.

 

 

[StrikerFox]

I recommend swapping the Suppress Pain and Painbringer slotting. The Panacea +heal/end proc has a chance to trigger on allies within range. Teammates, pets and MM. Screenshot of a test below. Numina, Miracle, Regenerative and Preventive uniques were tested and only worked on the MM.

 

 

I like frankenslotting pets to try to make them more survivable and deal more damage. I wouldn't worry about their accuracy too much. Between Tactics + perma World of Pain + Supremacy, they will have a +25% tohit buff.

I would swap the Tough and Rune of Protection slotting. S/L res can easily be capped at +75% even with fewer slots in Tough. Though more slots in RoP will help other damage types too. Rearranged some slotting around to help explain what I mean.

 

Mastermind (Demon Summoning - Pain Domination) IDK2.mbd

21 points of KB protection is a lot. Especially if you plan on flying around often. KB isn't bad while flying. Just sort of spin around, head over feet in the air, recovering quickly. Example in video below. I don't believe there's any KB protection slotted on this test build (Possibly +4). The hit will happen a second in, at the 6m12s mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xlnF1dSXS0&t=6m11s

Few other things:

I like powers like Enforced Morale as it provides quite of bit of mez protection that pets often need.

I like getting Anguishing Cry as close to perma as possible. So that it's up for each fight and perma during long fights.

Rune of Protection is nice but 3 power picks feels like a lot to get it. 

Four slotting Shield Wall will provide +4.5% res to E/N which the build is weaker to.

Don't be ashamed to take some mule powers. Just to get that extra LotG.

Power Transfer in Stamina probably isn't needed. Higher regen thanks to Supress Pain, constant heals from Nullify Pain, should do the trick.

For the Alpha slot, Musculature over Vigor would be ideal.

 

Even with no changes, I think your build would play very well. Teamed and solo.

 

 

 

[tidge]

9 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

Don't be ashamed to take some mule powers. Just to get that extra LotG.

 

Disclaimer: I don't use MIDS so my comments are more general than specific.

 

I recommend Mules for LotG +Global recharge long before recommending Hasten... unless there is a specific, very long recharge power in the build that is intended to be always used. My thinking:

• MMs have a deep Endurance tax on their powers. Hasten will result in more casts of all powers for more -Endurance... even without considering the -Endurance hit at the end of Hasten.
• Chasing perma-Hasten is a little bit of a mental trap for some builds... I mean to say that slots and enhancement picks are directed more towards perma-Hasten instead of towards more survivability, offense, or simply Quality-of-Life.
• The henchmen resummons are now (on Homecoming) super-speedy with no concern for Recharge.

Another side effect of Homecoming that really benefits MMs is the ability to pick higher tier powers sooner in a build. There are fewer obvious 'empty' power picks at low levels, so there are fewer opportunities to fill up a build with pool powers(*1)... unless of course the player delays her primary/secondary power picks. Hasten is nearly worthless (IMO, YMMV) as a low-level (pre-20) power pick since almost all powers available before this point have reasonably fast recharge times anyway. Even in final (50+) builds I find the relative ease of affording Very Rare sets to deeply affect the utility of Hasten on most builds.

 

(*1) This is another reason why Provoke isn't so valuable in this era; all ATs can get have AoE attack by level 20, either from their primary, secondary, or pool.

[Xandyr]

If  I were to run a Demon/Pain, I might build it like this.

 

 

Mastermind 1(Demon Summoning - Pain Domination).mbd