Mastermind Triple Threat team

[DocMidknight]

   I've got another mastermind itch that needs to be scratched......I'm building a team with 3 masterminds to run through villain side content and I'm struggling on which primaries to go with. Currently I'm deciding between demon, necro, bots and ninjas as the primaries I'm leaning towards as they're the ones I have the most familiarities. Of those 4 which does anyone think would be the most fun choice for the team or if you have one I may be leaving out that could be really interesting that I'm not as familiar with.....such as mercs, thugs and beast.

 

 

  Thanks for any assistance with my little dilemma.

 

Doc M

[TygerDarkstorm]

@Neiska 3 boxes MM's I believe, so I'm sure they'll have some good advice. 🙂

 

I haven't multiboxed before, but off the top of my head, I'm wondering if ElecAff is a doable secondary--I know it's considered busy, but the electro-dome would be a good way to keep the MM's and henchies from being mezzed and such. Paired with one of the MM's being Marine, you have a pretty solid source of mitigation, boosting end and recharge, as well as some debuffs--Tide Pool's frenzy will help keep enemies flopping which is extra mitigation. Shifting Tides gives you bonus damage, as well as Elec Aff's damage boosting power. 

If you do at least one Bots primary, the MM primary attacks provide -res.

[Maelwys]

I'd probably skip Ninjas TBH. Bots cover AoE, Necro covers ST and the Demons tick both boxes. The -Regen from Bots and the -ToHit from Necro are going to be useful for all the pets. Demons probably aren't quite as synergistic despite dealing pretty high damage... so swapping them out for Mercs might work better if you want better behaved henchmen (that way only the tankier Necro pets will end up in Melee range of things unless you use GOTO a lot!)

 

For Secondary? Ideally Marine and Kinetics for performance buffs. The third toon's powerset is up for debate - Cold would probably fill in the most blanks; but Thermal or Dark are pretty close in terms of additional debuffs and mitigation... and honestly even a FF or TA would work just fine.

[tidge]

Keep in mind that -Regen is (now) only from the MM primary attacks. Robotics (prior to this change, the henchmen did -Regen) made it relatively easy to AFK things like Giant Monsters... this is no longer the case. Robotics is perfectly capable of soloing giant monsters (without Lores... or Allies) but it is *busy*. It may be too busy to count on the -Regen for a triple-box.  Bots will be perfectly fine for the AoE of course.

[Maelwys]

Keeping maximum -Regen Debuffage up on a single target requires a Robotics MM to press three buttons every 30 seconds; so it really doesn't require very much in the way of Plate Spinning. And it's also a good bit more reliable these days (before the changes the -Regen was tied to the Assbot's Plasma Blasts, which had far lower uptime overlap and so could drop off on a miss... and which often hit the "wrong target" if you were staying in bodyguard mode!).

 

Once the /Marine gets access to Shifting Tides it's going to become unlikely that AVs will last for very long regardless of your -Regen debuffs, but IMO there's definitely something to be said for sticking a procbombed Photon Grenade on autofire.

 

Another way of approaching multiple MMs which hasn't been mentioned yet is to make them all Thugs/. Stacked Enforcer leadership buffs are hilarious.

[SeraphimKensai]

I triple box MMs from time to time. I originally got the concept from @Neiska back when she was using tribox robots on meteor maps. I have Bots (Time, Elec, and Kin), and Necro (Double Dark and a Marine).

 

I definitely recommend at higher levels having Incan on at least one of your mm's to have. Fold space on someone is also very helpful.

Edited Tuesday at 03:36 AM by SeraphimKensai

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

Keeping maximum -Regen Debuffage up on a single target requires a Robotics MM to press three buttons every 30 seconds; so it really doesn't require very much in the way of Plate Spinning.

 

A triple-box MM *is* going to have a LOT of plates spinning to be worrying about choosing appropriate targets for robotic's laser attacks. I've talked with duo-boxers (2xMMs), they tell me trying to focus with the Robotics is too much trouble. I know one who tried it, and went back to mostly playing 2xNecro. The triple-box MMs I watch (who are too busy to talk!) are pretty much just zerging whichever giant monsters they see. My solo Robotics can do that... it takes more time, but it goes faster with (most) allies.(*1)

 

One of the three MMs should be /Marine... because /Marine is a huge force multiplier. Which primaries somewhat depends on the content. If the plan is x8 all the time, I'd go with Robotics for one or two of them, because AoE, resistances and self-heals (with the Maintenance Drone). If difficulty gets turned up (+3), it will be slower going modulo AoE debuffs. /Marine will help, as would /Time. The other one (or two) should probably just be something that can swarm in melee. I have no real preference but Necro is good at zerging.

 

(*1) Robotics is, by itself, something of a 'triple threat': It has debuffs (player controlled, via attacks), resistances and healing (relatively automatically). The secondary can boost each of these... but again, it will be busy.

 

The advantage of 'bots for a multi-boxer (as I see it) is that the Robotic Henchmen are almost 100% ranged attackers, so they are very good at being positioned and providing areas control and/or focusing fire. If the player can handle that while multi-boxing 3 MMs... maybe one of the other three should be a Blaster or Corruptor!

 

The issue I see multi-box MMs having (open world, although this would apply to some instanced content too) is when something like a Giant Monster can make multiple AoE attacks, semi rapid-fire that triggers a cascade of henchmen defeats... this is almost certainly why I see MMulti-boxers avoid solo Eochai and Lusca. Eochai's Pumpkin Patch will tear through a group of henchmen PDQ; Lusca, even with just the ink attacks and cones from a single tentacle can be a problem... multiple tentacles will make life harder for a MMulti-boxer than something like a solo Jack in Irons or Jurassik. The only other GM I've observed MMulti-boxers have trouble with is the Arachnos Flier, but that's more because they can prevent it from landing and allow it to regenerate to 100% with the shields up, not because there is anything inherently tough about the flier.

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

A triple-box MM *is* going to have a LOT of plates spinning to be worrying about choosing appropriate targets for robotic's laser attacks. I've talked with duo-boxers (2xMMs), they tell me trying to focus with the Robotics is too much trouble. I know one who tried it, and went back to mostly playing 2xNecro. The triple-box MMs I watch (who are too busy to talk!) are pretty much just zerging whichever giant monsters they see. My solo Robotics can do that... it takes more time, but it goes faster with (most) allies.(*1)

 

The trick to leveraging Master powers when duo or triple boxing MMs on regular content is to focus on one busy toon then use assisted targeting and autofire for the others.

 

When doing with my own Bot/Kin/Flame alongside a different AT on my second account (for example) I'll often just leave most henchmen in Follow/Defensive and the T3 in Aggressive, stick Fulcrum Shift on autofire and (map dependant) enable Group Fly. Then I'll target the other toon and pilot them, only Alt-Tabbing to my MM in order to press a button once every 5-10 seconds or so (attack, buff, goto/follow, stop). Versus AVs/GMs the Bot/Kin stays back or up in the air with Transfusion on auto; and via Alt-Tabbing cycles their three attacks plus the Siphons and keeps Speed Boost and Increase Density on everyone. Duo boxing is not difficult, it just takes a smidge of practice.

 

Triple Boxing requires more plate spinning than Duo boxing, and I don't enjoy it as much unless the "following" toons need less poking (eg one button push every 10-20 seconds instead of every 5-10 seconds). However some MM combos like Mercs/FF are practically passive and make ideal third account followers, especially if the whole squad is Ranged and running Group Fly.

[Neiska]

3 boxing robots is still possible, but not as good as before. Besides having to more focus on personal attacks, the fire patch doesn’t seem to do as much damage as before. My robot AE clear times take almost 4 minutes longer than it took before the revamp.

 

Nowdays if I 3 box MMs, I box 3 demon MMs. It takes almost the same amount of time, and it’s far easier with far tougher pets. I can go full AFK in some cases. So long as my pets stay in heal and buff range, I’m golden.

 

In my opinion the robot change was all around bad if you multibox, and I don’t really think they shine as a stand alone anymore either, but let’s not get into all that.

 

As far as secondaries go, well you really can make any 3 work. I recommend Time, Electric, Forcefield for ease of play, Kinetics for big damage boost etc.

 

Cant speak about Marine, have yet to try it.

[tidge]

6 hours ago, Neiska said:

In my opinion the robot change was all around bad if you multibox, and I don’t really think they shine as a stand alone anymore either, but let’s not get into all that.

 

I can believe this. Even though the individual damage of the Robotic Henchmen was worse and included KB, the stacking -Regen that required almost no effort by the player was pretty useful for mindless activities like farming, or even AFKing on giant monsters (although the GM revamp had a bigger effect on that). The niche area that got obviously better for Robotics (in terms of clear times) was soloing with only the Assault Bot. I make no excuses for just how niche this is, but I did try it before and after the revamp. It isn't great now, but it was PAINFUL before the revamp.

 

The other Robotics changes were IMO a net plus, with the change to slotting the first upgrade and the Maintenance Drone... those cover a lot of ground that makes it less critical (solo) than before about choice of secondaries. Obviously multi-boxing can cover all sorts of ground (heals, buffs) better than any solo build.

[SeraphimKensai]

9 hours ago, Neiska said:

Cant speak about Marine, have yet to try it.

It's great. Try it out with a melee centric set, since whitecap brings you into melee anyways. I really like it with Necro. Otherwise I made a fire controller that uses it to great effect as well.

[evetsleep]

One thing to consider.. while thugs leadership powers don't affect you or other pets/henchmen, there is one exception and that's other thugs.  This makes multiple thug MM's a little ridiculous at times.

[biostem]

26 minutes ago, evetsleep said:

One thing to consider.. while thugs leadership powers don't affect you or other pets/henchmen, there is one exception and that's other thugs.  This makes multiple thug MM's a little ridiculous at times.

Or just roll a "Crabbermind"...

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, evetsleep said:

One thing to consider.. while thugs leadership powers don't affect you or other pets/henchmen, there is one exception and that's other thugs.  This makes multiple thug MM's a little ridiculous at times.

 

Also works for multiple Demon MMs as well, their resist buffs all stack with each other. But the Thug toggles doesn't affect the MM themselves, only other thug MM pets. I do believe it's the same with Demons resist buffs.

[Neiska]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

 

I can believe this. Even though the individual damage of the Robotic Henchmen was worse and included KB, the stacking -Regen that required almost no effort by the player was pretty useful for mindless activities like farming, or even AFKing on giant monsters (although the GM revamp had a bigger effect on that). The niche area that got obviously better for Robotics (in terms of clear times) was soloing with only the Assault Bot. I make no excuses for just how niche this is, but I did try it before and after the revamp. It isn't great now, but it was PAINFUL before the revamp.

 

The other Robotics changes were IMO a net plus, with the change to slotting the first upgrade and the Maintenance Drone... those cover a lot of ground that makes it less critical (solo) than before about choice of secondaries. Obviously multi-boxing can cover all sorts of ground (heals, buffs) better than any solo build.

 

Respectfully agree to disagree. The Drone is nice, but I don't care much for the rest. The Assault bot doesn't as good as it was before, but the T1 and T2's were better. But my main complaint isn't the damage. People do a lot with less. And I get why they moved the -regen, they wanted to make Robot MMs both "smoother" in damage spread out among pets so it wasn't all in the T3, and to try and encourage MM personal attacks with added effects, be it buffs or debuffs. But having all your damage in your T3 wasn't entirely bad either, it made the other pets less mandatory to use. You could just use your T3 on teams and it wouldn't affect your damage as much. But now? You kind of have to use all the pets in every situation.

 

My issue with the current bots is no matter what AT, build, or powers taken, is that each build has the same amount of powers, and the same amount of slots. And some of the MM sets, like Robots, Necro, etc already are pretty slot-starved with all the pet aura IOs and the like, plus the pet slots, plus the buff slots, plus whatever else you want to fit in from Epic pools yadda yadda. IMO either all pet sets should have mule powers, like Gang War/Hell On Earth, or none of them should and force them all to squeeze it in somewhere. Even now with the changes, I never see Thug or Demon MMs use their personal attacks very much. The effects are just too small for the slots required to make it worth using. And, depending on secondary, you often have much better options. The other irony is the primaries that could use the slots the most, are the ones without mule powers.

 

In short - its a further slot tax, as if MMs weren't already kind of playing at a handicap as it was, as far as damage/end cost for powers are concerned. It just feels like their only concern was damage, and nothing else. And I think we all would agree that is only one small part of the puzzle. So IMO, damage is "smoother", but not "better", and everything else such as moving inherent debuffs around and making someone have to spend slots/power picks to use them "worse."

 

Some people like it. And that's fine. Personally, I hate it, and have pretty much shelved all my Robot MMs, not just the mutibox ones. Still have other MM tricks I keep entirely to myself, one of those "if you know you know" things because I expect if I shared those tidbits they would be on the chopping block next.

[biostem]

10 minutes ago, Neiska said:

its a further slot tax

You slot 1 pet power and that benefits all pets in that tier, not to mention the multiple attacks they get.  The upgrade powers, similarly - only require you slot them once, yet ALL your pets benefit from them.  Imagine if you had to slot each and every separate attack your pets get, like you have to for a VEAT's Nova or Dwarf powers...

[tidge]

I only solo, no multi-boxing. No judgement, just me wanting to be upfront.

 

On my solo Robotics, I used the MM attacks to draw/keep aggro... with some tricks... so I didn't notice a big change except that I couldn't rely on the henches to nearly-AFK solo things like GMs any more.

 

I'm a 100% aligned with being sour about the lack of a non-hench power in the primaries for some of the MMs to casually slot with the global pieces. At least 'bots got the KB (mostly) removed, which saved a further precious slot on each tier. I was hoping that one or both of the reworked upgrade powers would be allowed to slot those pieces, even if such a thing makes no sense otherwise.

 

1 minute ago, biostem said:

You slot 1 pet power and that benefits all pets in that tier, not to mention the multiple attacks they get. 

 

I think the "slot tax" was referring to a primary like Robotics, and  the globals (e.g. +Def Aura) which only can slot into the actual henches, which means sacrificing a potential other enhancement... could be just an attribute (Accuracy, Damage, Endurance reduction), could be a piece like the %Build Up, could be a %proc, could be for a set bonus. Other sets (like Demons, Thugs) have another non-hench power that can mule those globals with only limited impact to what those powers ultimately bring... so the henches can be "better enhanced" in those sets (because they don't 'burn slots' on global pieces).

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, tidge said:

I think the "slot tax" was referring to a primary like Robotics, and  the globals (e.g. +Def Aura) which only can slot into the actual henches

Then any AT which you'd want to slot such a specific IO would have to be included, thereby diluting the complaint - want to slot that chance to recharge buildup IO on your stalker?  Slot tax!  Heck, if you consider those LotG global recharge IOs as "needed", then not only are you paying a slot tax for those, but many builds have to scramble for powers that grant defense, so they can slot those IOs in the first place... so "power tax"?

[Neiska]

8 hours ago, biostem said:

Then any AT which you'd want to slot such a specific IO would have to be included, thereby diluting the complaint - want to slot that chance to recharge buildup IO on your stalker?  Slot tax!  Heck, if you consider those LotG global recharge IOs as "needed", then not only are you paying a slot tax for those, but many builds have to scramble for powers that grant defense, so they can slot those IOs in the first place... so "power tax"?

@tidgeis correct about what I meant. Not all mm primaries have powers you can put the pet uni’s into. It would have been great if you could do it for Maintenance Drone, as an example. Would go a long way to put all the MMs on equal footing, not in respect to other ATs but in respect to each other. Most of the updates were great, I only disliked the robot one for reasons previously mentioned, and I feel bad for Beasts entirely. They just flat out got left in the dust.

[tidge]

9 hours ago, biostem said:

Then any AT which you'd want to slot such a specific IO would have to be included, thereby diluting the complaint - want to slot that chance to recharge buildup IO on your stalker?  Slot tax!  Heck, if you consider those LotG global recharge IOs as "needed", then not only are you paying a slot tax for those, but many builds have to scramble for powers that grant defense, so they can slot those IOs in the first place... so "power tax"?

 

I feel like you are making a specious argument about slotting choices. There are (by my reckoning) six important "pet" globals that contribute significantly to henchmen surviving, making them better at bodyguard and better at sustaining DPS,

 

From Recharge Intensive Pet damage:

• Call to Arms, Defense Aura
• Expedient Reinforcement, Resistance Aura

From Pet damage:

• Edict of the Master, Defense Aura
• Sovereign Right, Resistance Aura

From the Mastermind ATO:

• (Superior) Command of the Mastermind, Defense Aura (and Recharge time)
• (Superior) Mark of Supremacy, Resistance (also some Regen, and Endurance Reduction)

There is one other "pet global" from Commanding Presence, but I tend to ignore it. There is a Pet-specific %Build Up, but that isn't a global, it is tier-specific.

 

A Robotics Mastermind primary has only 18 potential slots (divided between 3 tiers of henchmen) to slot those six pieces. This is one-third of the potential slots! A Thugs MM has 24. If a MM has a power in a secondary, they might be able to slot a couple of the aura pieces in it... but this is quite rare. Storm has it best I think with Tornado (IIRC it can slot all three categories I listed for MMs), and Traps with Seeker Drones as mentioned earlier. AFAIK there aren't any pool powers for MMs to slot those pieces.

 

A Stalker that wants to slot a global piece from one of its ATO typically has 7 different powers (with up to 6 slots each) from its primary to drop one of its ATO globals in (I know the stalkers ATOs aren't globals, but this is an argument about globals, not procs)

[Maelwys]

17 hours ago, tidge said:

Even though the individual damage of the Robotic Henchmen was worse and included KB, the stacking -Regen that required almost no effort by the player was pretty useful for mindless activities like farming, or even AFKing on giant monsters (although the GM revamp had a bigger effect on that). The niche area that got obviously better for Robotics (in terms of clear times) was soloing with only the Assault Bot. I make no excuses for just how niche this is, but I did try it before and after the revamp. It isn't great now, but it was PAINFUL before the revamp.

For me; it was a significant net damage loss even when soloing.

The best thing the changes made was the greatly reduced setup time. Click two upgrades and let the Protector Bots cast one bubble and you're good to go. Previously you needed to resummon and/or apply upgrades in a particular order (as having the first upgrade on the Assault Bot was a net DPS loss due to Flamethrower) and the Protector Bots hardly even got to blast because they were spending most of their time recasting bubbles.
The second best thing was the Maintenance Drone changes: Robotics can now function adequately without any additional sources of healing.
And I'm actually also a fan of moving the -Regen away from the Assault Bot onto the Personal Attacks. Because it was much less reliable before (you couldn't dictate exactly when the Big Bot would fire off its Plasma Blasts) and even with best-case activations still it couldn't be kept up on multiple enemies simultaneously.

Unfortunately that all came at the cost of utterly gutting the Assault Bot's Burn patches. Previously Incendiary Swarm Missiles were a 20ft radius AoE with a target cap of 16; then a separate 'Burn' patch Pseudopet spawned underneath each target affected which continually applied tick damage in an 8ft radius with a target cap of 5. After the change the Missiles were reduced to a 10ft radius AoE with a target cap of 10, and the Burn Patches were reduced to a target cap of 3.
Whilst the Battle Drones and Protector Bot damage did increase to compensate for this change... unfortunately these pets spawn at -2 and -1 to you in most content. So in practice the earlier setup of having the Assault Bot do more damage as an even-level pet was better. And it also meant you only needed to maximise damage slotting (ED-capped plus Soulbound and Explosive Strike procs) on a single pet - the T1 and T2 pets could be loaded up with Global IOs and +Def.

So Robotics in general has gotten better at applying -Regen debuffs (choosing when + who to hit with them and affecting multiple targets); and better at Single Target damage (going from "rubbish" to "passable" with multiple explosive strike procs); and much better at Self-Healing.
But their AoE damage capability has dropped considerably (which is by far the biggest annoyance for me - as it's neutered their "farming" capability) and the Protector Bots "bubbles" no longer affect other allies (which is both a curse in terms of mitigation and a blessing in terms of setup time).

 
Defense Softcapping the Assault Bot and Drones indefinitely (40.02% before Barrier) was also possible prior to the changes regardless of your secondary powerset; as shown in my below post from 2021. Nowadays that same character's Protector Bots; Assault Bot and Drones are all sitting at 36.53%. However in practice gaining the ability to buff the inherent pet resistances via slotting the T1 upgrade for +DmgRes aspect has made up for this. Henchmen surviving an AE farming session on +4x8 isn't a problem.
_{(and we don't talk about Radial Clarion and/or Power Boost effect buff inheritance, OK? OK...) 😉}

 

13 hours ago, Neiska said:

Also works for multiple Demon MMs as well, their resist buffs all stack with each other. But the Thug toggles doesn't affect the MM themselves, only other thug MM pets. I do believe it's the same with Demons resist buffs.

The Demon buffs at least have one subcomponent that affects the Player - "Ember Shield Owner".
But multiple copies don't buff Multiple Masters.
 

2 hours ago, tidge said:

A Robotics Mastermind primary has only 18 potential slots (divided between 3 tiers of henchmen) to slot those six pieces. This is one-third of the potential slots! A Thugs MM has 24. If a MM has a power in a secondary, they might be able to slot a couple of the aura pieces in it... but this is quite rare. Storm has it best I think with Tornado (IIRC it can slot all three categories I listed for MMs), and Traps with Seeker Drones as mentioned earlier. AFAIK there aren't any pool powers for MMs to slot those pieces.

This.

Also a factor is that one of the Henchmen powers (The Protector Bot) also really wants ED-Capped Defense slotted in it; and two of the Henchmen powers (The Protector Bot and the Assault Bot) really want decent levels of Endurance Reduction slotted in them. So it's not even just about Maximizing Damage and Accuracy whilst fitting in the Aura IOs.

IIRC only Mercs has it as bad (same deal with three henchmen powers; and whilst they don't need +Def or as much +Endred, they do want lots of damage procs from the Defense Debuff and Accurate Defense Debuff sets)
 

Edited Thursday at 04:05 PM by Maelwys

[tidge]

Slotting the Robotic Henchmen does feel like a calculus assignment! Supremacy only goes so far in helping the (especially lower-tier) henches in non-Incarnate content, and as noted if Endurance slotting is ignored, the henches will end up standing around not fighting. I know the game offers some ways to mitigate inferior Endurance Reduction slotting, but the henches perform best when they don't require micro-management and TLC.

 

I also feel that MMs got a little bit of a raw deal with the ATOs, since they can only be slotted in the Henchmen powers (and for primaries with a pet summons, plus the extremely limited number of secondaries that offer a single power). I don't think any other AT ends up being so severely limited in terms of choice of where to possibly slot their ATOs. I understand that aside from "Universal Damage" there aren't really that many choices of sets for henchmen that can boost Accuracy, Damage, and Endurance Reduction... yet I feel like if I could slot some of the MM ATO pieces in primary attacks, or even pseudo pets I could not just improve the performance of the MMs but have some more variety in my builds too.