Power Pools for MMs

[rlux]

I'm running a Demon/Rad MM, currently at lvl 45, and am overall happy with her. I'm a little uncertain about power pools though.

I took Speed, Sorcery, Leadership, and went heavy into the Dark MM Epic set, but I'm seriously wondering if maybe I should respec and either dump Leadership entirely, or dial back the number of Dark powers so I can work in Fighting. 

 

Maneuvers is such a small buff it doesn't seem worthwhile. Tactics is a good tohit buff, but as /Rad I have Radiation Infection, so it might also be redundant?

Thoughts?

[tidge]

MMV, but I'd dump the Speed pool before Leadership. Tactics also provides +Perception... I feel like it helps my MMs, but others may not notice. The Leadership pool has offers places to put Defense IOs.

[DocMidknight]

 I would keep leadership pool, the benefits to your team which includes your pets can be very helpful with maneuvers and tactics. I would drop speed, never felt it was really needed on any of my MM's and would swap dark epic for either soul(dark embrace, oppressive gloom and soul storm) or mace mastery (scorpion shield and power boost)

[Crysis]

Leadership is pretty useful for MM’s because it applies to your henchmen.  With level shifts going against +4’s, your henchmen are whiffing without the boost in accuracy you can give them. 

 

Personally, I tend to build my MM’s for high +Recharge because I tend to take most of my personal attacks, thus Hasten is helpful from the Speed Pool.  I proc out those attacks more for debuffs than actual damage where possible, especially on a Demon MM.  And c’mon….Whip it Good!

 

Mace Mastery is super popular amongst many MM builds you’ll see posted here because Web Envelope can give you the Immobilize you’ve been missing for your debuffs and to otherwise keep the mobs at distance while you play, er….mastermind…and your Demons gang up on the immobilized prey and land their AOE’s and stuff.  Scorpion Shield is likely one of the best single power +DEF powers you can get out of any of the pools.  Whether or not you need more +DEF depends mainly on your playstyle of course, but it’s really too good to ignore.  And if you’ve got the slots, Power Boost -may- give you some extra oomph for the secondary effect of all your powers.  I skip Mace Volley unless I’ve got slots enough to proc it out, however.

 

Dark Mastery is fine, especially if you are going for thematic reasons, but with Bodyguard mode and a high personal defense (from Scorpion Shield/Mace Mastery pool instead of Dark Mastery) you effectively have great +RES given how BG mode distributes all that damage across you and your henchmen.  True, Demons are more +RES than +DEF but they are pretty sturdy if slotted out properly and of course you keep Maneuvers up from Leadership.  

 

Just my opinions.  I’ve several Demon MM’s….Demon/Dark, Demon/Marine, Demon/Time, Demon//Cold and Demon/Storm.  I quit playing Radiation a long time ago, have never played it on a MM since so many of those powers are pale imitators of their more powerful cousins in the Controller or Defender AT.  Since you are already at 45, I’d say finish it off and try another pairing to see for yourself.  Demons are just plain fun to play regardless of secondary.

[rlux]

Thanks all! Sounds like I'll be keeping Leadership. 
I'm already starting to think about what my next MM will be -- probably either necro or bots.

@Crysis This is my first toon on Homecoming so I went with /rad because my old main on Live was an ill/rad controller and it was a bit of a comfort zone decision.  This also factored into why I went with Dark -- Confuse is hella fun even if it's objectively not all that useful.
 

[Crysis]

Ill/Rad is still a great combo, but on MM’s Rad just isn’t nearly as effective.  But I love MM’s as a class, Demons are among the sturdiest out of the box, really cannot go wrong regardless of the pairing there.

[Riverdusk]

Another reason to not drop tactics.  It provides confusion protection to you and your pets.  It might be rare, but last thing you want is to have all your pets suddenly turn on you (I've seen it happen).

[Psyonico]

21 hours ago, DocMidknight said:

or mace mastery (scorpion shield and power boost)

I feel like Power Boost is kind of wasted on a /Rad.  Yeah it will increase the strength of your debuffs, but only for its duration since they’re toggles.  I guess it helps with the heal.

[WumpusRat]

On 6/24/2025 at 9:57 AM, Riverdusk said:

Another reason to not drop tactics.  It provides confusion protection to you and your pets.  It might be rare, but last thing you want is to have all your pets suddenly turn on you (I've seen it happen).

Yeah, getting hit by confusion and suddenly you a) no longer have bodyguard mode and b) now all your pets are pissed at you can be a quick trip to the hospital.

 

[normalperson]

Assault makes more sense than Maneuvers.   The +def is just too small, but the faster you kill your enemies, the less def you need! 

 

Fighting would make a little bit of sense, but not enough.    I can see why you might want to, considering the shield power for Dark doesn't give you any lethal/smashing resistance, but with decent set bonuses,  and taking Rune of Protection from sorcery pool,  you're going to hit the 75% soft cap anyway I think.   At least you'll come close. 

 

Two powers, just for +11% smash/lethal seems kind of costly. 

 

Strangely, my recommendation for a 4th pool is TELEPORTATION!!!!             If you're going to do Vengeance, and Fallout, you might as well add in the ability to bring your fallen comrade to right where you want them, so you can fire those off and turn the course of the battle!

[tidge]

I tried the Sorcery pool with one MM 9for flavor), I found it to be extremely meh:

• The Travel power is nothing special for MMs
• Spirit Ward seems like a good fit for the henchmen, but in practice I found it to not make much of a difference except at the lowest levels with few slots
• Arcane Bolt isn't really needed, unless the MM attacks themselves are a poor fit
• Enflame also seemed like a good fit for Henchmen, but I was underwhelmed.
• Rune of Protection is a panic button, with a spot for a couple of mule IOs... and requires two other prior picks!

[Maelwys]

+ Spirit Ward becomes very good if the pet you're layering it on already possesses considerable amounts of Defence and Resistance. It can also take (and make good use out of) a Panacea Proc; so on powersets like /FF and /Cold it can work wonders... however if you have decent spot healing capability then it becomes much less useful.

+ Arcane Bolt is a reasonably useful filler attack; especially with its additional damage mechanic (as you can choose to do other things and wait until the buff activates before firing it) but most MMs don't bother blasting unless it's to keep buff/debuff stacks up. It's a nice place for a FF proc though and doesn't suffer from the MM Endurance tax.

+ Enflame IMO is only really useful (i) when fighting a bit sack of Hit Points like a Pylon (ii) if the pet you're anchoring it on has "Prefer Melee" AI; like a Thugs Bruiser. I personally don't enjoy juggling it otherwise. Be prepared for scatter unless you're layering down Immobilises and/or slows.

+ Rune of Protection is powerful; but typically unnecessary with Bodyguard mode to fall back on. I've only taken it on my Mercs/Marine MM (since it stacks so well with Toroidal Bubble allowing me to situationally hardcap myself to Smashing and Fire; and the on-demand mez protection lets me swap out Clarion for Barrier).

+ Agreed that the Mystic Flight's inherent Teleport is excellent for Melee toons (via teleport to target binds) but meh for MMs - I'm much more of a fan of Group Fly!! 😁

My MMs typically run [Leaping], [Leadership] and [Speed] plus either [Flight] or [Sorcery]. Occasionally I'll pick up Medicine or Teleportation instead of Speed/Flight/Sorcery. I've never felt the need to take the Fighting pool, not even on my original Bot/Traps "Tankermind" back in issue 7.
 

Edited July 7 by Maelwys

[Neiska]

Agree with most of the points have others have made, have a few gems to mention -

 

Depending on the Primary, Group Fly may want to be considered, mostly with Mercs and Robots since they are ranged. 

 

Bonfire "used" to be a great pic. I recall reading elsewhere it's not worth taking anymore, but I have no firsthand knowledge of it either way. It "used" to be a fantastic duration lockdown ability that was a huge boon to some setups.

 

Enflame I have had both good and bad results with. Think it depends on pet type, and its difficult to tell for sure what its damage or proc rates are.

 

Depending on the Primary and Secondary, Burnout can be a powerful tool. It can let you get double-gangwar or hell on earth, but is also useful for sets like Nature that have a powerful buff.

 

Fold Space might be situationally useful, but I've had good results with it.

 

Hoarfrost and Hibernate are also situationally useful.

 

Soul Consumption is also nice to have if you dislike relying on inspirations and don't want to take Ageless.

 

Not all of these will shine on all MM primary+secondary pairings, a tool thats fantastic for one may not be fantastic for another. IMO MMs more than most other ATs can vary widely in playstyle depending on primary and secondary. A scrapper is always going to scrap. A tanker is always going to tank. But you can build MMs to be super buffers, super debuffer, solo GM hunter, tankermind, a hover team, etc etc.

[Maelwys]

15 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Bonfire "used" to be a great pic. I recall reading elsewhere it's not worth taking anymore, but I have no firsthand knowledge of it either way. It "used" to be a fantastic duration lockdown ability that was a huge boon to some setups.

Epic pool Bonfire is still kinda sorta OK for damage purposes, assuming that you can keep foes from fleeing out of it via Slows/Immobilizes/Taunts/etc...
...but the Knockdown simply isn't reliable any more; and foes tend to run out of the (reduced) radius before they start flopping.
Technically it will reduce incoming damage a bit; but that's more from causing mob scatter than from knocking things on their rears.

(Caveat: if you can also immobilize a target via /Traps Web Grenade or /TA's Entangling Arrow etc. then Bonfire will have a 100% knockdown rate on them instead of 20%)

[Neiska]

1 minute ago, Maelwys said:

Epic pool Bonfire is still kinda sorta OK for damage purposes, assuming that you can keep foes from fleeing out of it via Slows/Immobilizes/Taunts/etc...
...but the Knockdown simply isn't reliable any more; and foes tend to run out of the (reduced) radius before they start flopping.
Technically it will reduce incoming damage a bit; but that's more from causing mob scatter than from knocking things on their rears.

(Caveat: if you can also immobilize a target via /Traps Web Grenade or /TA's Entangling Arrow etc. then Bonfire will have a 100% knockdown rate on them instead of 20%)

 

How I used it was I would just stand in my own Bonfire, so they would have to come to me. The AI is kind of dumb that way. Most enemies don't fly or have a full cycle of ranged attacks. 

 

Works for more than just Bonfire too. Instead of trying to make an enemy stay in place, sometimes its so much easier if you just stand where you want them yourself. Bummer to hear about the flopping nerf, I took it more for that than the "meh" damage. I was actually pondering trying a multi-stack of such "pool" effects, like Bonfire + Corrosive Vial + Enflame + Tar Patch/Sleet/Secondary of choice etc. Pretty much just stacking multiple "Ranged Area of Effect" powers and then just standing near or by it. 

 

I doubt such would be a top performer, but it might be fun to try. That kind of "plant the flag" playstyle would go well with /Traps and Trick Arrow, come to think about it. 

 

[normalperson]

15 hours ago, tidge said:

I tried the Sorcery pool with one MM 9for flavor), I found it to be extremely meh:

• The Travel power is nothing special for MMs
• Spirit Ward seems like a good fit for the henchmen, but in practice I found it to not make much of a difference except at the lowest levels with few slots
• Arcane Bolt isn't really needed, unless the MM attacks themselves are a poor fit
• Enflame also seemed like a good fit for Henchmen, but I was underwhelmed.
• Rune of Protection is a panic button, with a spot for a couple of mule IOs... and requires two other prior picks!

 

Rune of Protection + /Rad is a special case.   Being able to not drop your toggles during a fight covers /Rad's greatest weakness. 

 

Also since Demon Summoning gives you the Ember Shield Owner resistance boost in 5 areas, the resistance from Rune of Protection brings you closer to that 75% soft cap.     I personally put two +Resistance IO's on Ember Daemon just to boost my own shielding.   

[Psyonico]

Gah! I need to get back to my Demons/Rad!

[WumpusRat]

23 hours ago, normalperson said:

Assault makes more sense than Maneuvers.   The +def is just too small, but the faster you kill your enemies, the less def you need! 

3-slotted with def, def/end and def/global, maneuvers can give around 4% def. It's not a ton on its own, but when you stack it with the two auras (5% each) and any innate def your pets might have, combined with powers that boost def within the pets themselves (like the enforcers maneuvers, or the protector bots' force fields), and any buffs your secondary has, it can add up quickly. 

 

I have a number of MMs where my pets have softcapped defense vs everything, and maneuvers is a part of that.

Edited July 8 by WumpusRat