Protector bots - slot for defence or damage?

[RitualisedDisco]

Hi all,

 

First time poster here, I was very excited to find out CoH was back - such nostalgia! The first thing I did was recreate one of my old characters from live (a bots mastermind) and I've been having a blast.

 

My question for the forum - should I be slotting my protector bots for defence or damage? Or both? For context, I'm playing bots/dark, mainly solo, not intending to do anything crazy like soloing +4/8, but just want to be 'good' enough for most content.

 

On the one hand, bots/dark has so much defence and -tohit that I imagine you don't really need to slot the protector bots for defence to reach the softcap, once you add in maneuvers, shadow fall, unique IO auras and the dark -tohit debuffs.

 

On the other, in reality you're never going to have all your pets perfectly buffed and enemies perfectly debuffed, so slotting for defence would give you more contingency for those situations.

 

I imagine there's no 'right' answer, but would be interested in knowing what the conventional wisdom is.

 

Thanks in advance!

[tidge]

A few things:

• Almost all of a MM's offense comes from the henchmen, so each tier should be slotted for both Accuracy and Damage.
• Endurance reduction slotting does affect the henchmen attacks.
• Robotics doesn't offer a slot to mule the Global Resistance/Defense pet enhancements from various sets, so I end up sprinkling those among the different tiers of henchmen.
• Slotting 2x Superior Mark of Supremacy three times (once in each henchmen tier) is something I find valuable.
• The Protector Bots' Force Shield is something like +13% Defense for all positionals, and most damage types

For me, this left me with one "free" slot in the Protector Bots (once I did not have to slot KB->KD after page 5), I now slot T2 as:

 

Level 12:              Protector Bots  

 (A) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Damage/Endurance: Level 50

 (*) Superior Mark of Supremacy - Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50

 (*) Hami-O  Defense/Endurance (53 or alternatively a 50+5 piece) <- This is the "Free slot" in my build

 (*) Edict of the Master: Defense Bonus

 (*) Call to Arms: Defense Aura for Pets

 (*) Call to Arms: Accuracy/Damage

 

Improving Defenses (when cast by the Protector Bots) by single digits does IMO survivability across all content. I couldn't think of any other use for the slot that would pay bigger dividends on average.

 

In the slotting shown, I have the 2x ATO set bonus, I felt I wanted more Accuracy and Damage so I added the Call to Arms piece. That piece maxes out at level 30, but since MMs can burn Endurance at a heavy clip, I opted to add the slight Recovery bonus from having two pieces of that set attuned.

 

I started with a Luck of the Gambler Defense/Global Recharge piece in place of the Hami-O, but I found that the extra Global recharge wasn't doing anything noticeable for my build. The Global Recharge only applies to the Mastermind, not the henchmen. For a long time I was running just a simple Defense IO (50+5), but after the page 5 revamp (Robotics overhaul, including the addition of the Maintenance Drone as well as the elimination of almost all of the Knockback from Robotic Henchmen) I felt that the Protector Bots were making more attacks and burning down their Endurance bars faster than the other henchmen, so by adding slightly more Endurance reduction to them, their Endurance burn rate is now closer to the other tiers.

 

Personally, I think there is only one %proc worth slotting in any of the Robotic Henchmen: Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up; I put it in the T1. The Overwhelming Force %Knockdown is good, especially in the T1 henchmen, but I don't think it is as important as either the %Build Up or having all the Resistance/Defense global pieces.

 

EDIT: I'd keep this slotting, even with /Dark. I don't always position my Robotic Henchmen near enough to the Mastermind to get all the Aura Bonuses.

Edited May 8 by tidge

[Maelwys]

> Protector bots - slot for defence or damage?

Both.

    

In each of the Pet Powers you can easily ED-cap damage and get substantial Accuracy and Endurance Reduction using just three slots, which leaves three slots free for other things like Aura IOs, Damage Procs and (in the case of the Protector Bots) +Defence IOs. The only other "unusual" slot you need to consider in Robotics is sticking a KB>KD IO in the Assbot - since by default its regular Swarm Missiles still inflict KB rather than KD.

How much Accuracy is "good enough" depends on what you're fighting and your secondary and pool powers etc, but generally Masterminds will want enough Accuracy in their pets to have 95% chance of hitting regular enemies that are "+3 to you" (so +5 to your T1s and +4 to your T2s). Assuming you're taking Tactics and leveraging Supremacy; that means ED-capping Accuracy in your T1s, ~60% on your T2s and ~40% on your T3.
How much Endurance is "good enough" varies wildly; but in Robotics at present the Protector Bots guzzle TRUCKLOADS of endurance, the Assbot technically consumes almost as much but has the benefit of 50% uptime on Conserve Power so in practice it can make do with a bit less outside assistance; and the Drones can almost keep going all day long even unslotted.
The amount of allied +Damage and +Defence buffs you have from your secondary powerset will affect what Aura IOs or Damage Procs you want... but as a rule of thumb it's usually a good idea to aim for 5-6 aura IOs (never bother with the 'Commanding Presence' one; some people like the SCoM one but personally I tend to build to hit the softcap without it) which means that after "regular" slotting you'll likely have 1-2 slots free for damage procs and/or the Soulbound Allegiance "Chance for Build Up" IO.


Below is a functional example from my Bot/Kin (which skips the SCoM and CP Aura IOs; Fulcrum Shift means that Soulbound is superfluous; so it just uses regular Damage Procs in the Drones and Assbot). I've subtly different setups for my other Robotics MMs (currently /Thermal, /Elec, /Time, /Empathy, /Dark and /Traps) but the concept remains the same.
 
 

Edited May 8 by Maelwys

[RitualisedDisco]

Thank you both very much for the detailed advice, really appreciate it!

 

I'm definitely feeling the struggle of trying to fit 6 auras + KB>KD into 3 powers and still slotting for everything else you want 😅

 

Sounds like going for acc/dam first and defence second is the way to go like you suggest tidge, but it's interesting to know that with the budget for top-level enhancements you can do both...!

 

The detail on accuracy slotting is v useful as well Maelwys, thanks!

[brasilgringo]

Mastermind (Robotics - Cold Domination) v5.mbd