Bots/ Traps, Time or FF? X4/x8 AV and GMs.

[Vindicate]

Hi All,

 

I’m looking for some guidance from players familiar with these sets and their capabilities. After recently returning to Homecoming, I’ve been on an alt-rolling spree—one of them being a Bots/…

 

My main goals are:

 

Mowing down +4/x8 content.

Being able to solo AVs and GMs.

Ideally able to handle +4/x8 by level 50 without relying on Incarnates.

Bots/Traps has always been a strong contender for this I'm aware, although I’ll admit I know very little about Traps in practice.

Bots/Time caught my interest simply because it sounds like a lot of fun to play. It's giving me skynet vibes. bit of time manipulation mixed with killer robots "Arresting Robots"

 

Bots/FF just feels like it was made for the Bots theme, but I’m guessing the kill speed might be a bit slower compared to the other two options.

 

I’m currently browsing the forums for build ideas, but I’d love to hear from people with hands-on experience.

I’m set on Bots as my primary, and ideally, I’d like to keep my secondary choice between these three options to fit the character theme I’m building.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[wRECk69]

While I can't experientially speak to the Bots/Time, I have both a Bots/FF and a Bots/Traps MM.  If you want to solo GMs, you'll need the -Regen that /Traps brings.  You will want multiple acid mortars helping, and putting down poison traps as often as they're available.  However, if you are willing to team up when taking down GMs, I would offer the Bots/Marine MM.  My Bots/Marine is a beast, and can take down most things solo with style.

[tidge]

If you want to solo GMs without using Lores, Bots/Traps is sure-fire.  For everything else, Bots/Marine. Other combinations aren't bad, but these will be the top performers. I think you will want almost all of the Marine powers, but with Traps it is easy to skip 4 (or 5, see note below on Seeker Drones)  of them. The Marine powers that I'd de-prioritize (for a MM) are Whitecap and Soothing Wave. Whitecap is fun, and the -Res is useful so it is hard to skip. Soothing Wave should be less necessary for Robotics (because Maintenance Drone is dope), but you may find it useful while leveling (and against some +4 solo content).

 

The Robots themselves are a little slow to dish damage, but they are steady... and as ranged attackers, they require slightly less concentration than other henchmen IMO.

 

2 hours ago, Vindicate said:

Bots/Traps has always been a strong contender for this I'm aware, although I’ll admit I know very little about Traps in practice.

 

I skip Web Grenade, although going solo against some enemies it can be useful... but in practice this is so rare that I'd just have a second build with powers to deal with runners if this was too much of a big deal.

 

I skip Triage Beacon, but if you really intend to face +4 content solo with no Incarnates and Robots, I suppose it can help. I skip Trip Mine and Detonator. You won't have the slots to make either of these work, or you will be compromising other powers... I find them to be far too situational to leverage. Seeker Drones simply holds a couple of global pieces for the henchmen.

 

The real key to Robotics/Traps IMO is to be debuffing enemies, and I make liberal use of the Annihilation set (and %-Res) in AoE %-Res is pretty much the only %proc I use in MM attacks. Some people swear by %damage in MMs but I'd much rather have set bonuses and be able to make attacks to grab/keep aggro.. My slotting for Robots allows for a %Smashing and %BuildUp in the T1 henchmen, each is an incredibly reliable %proc. Some folks prefer the %Buildup in the T3, but I like seeing all three of the T1s taking advantage of it.

 

With FFG, Maneuvers, the Protector Bots (slot at least one Defense/Endurance Reduction) , Supremacy, and the pet Globals, Robotics/Traps can achieve excellent Defenses... certainly to the point where I think the FF secondary isn't really necessary (MMV for +4 solo without Incarnates). Time as a secondary should be fine... I haven't used it with Robots, but it is more critter-focused instead of area-focused. You definitely want to be a force-multiplier for the henchmen. 

 

I find that I don't need Hasten to keep up a sustainable attack/traps chain. The T2 and T3 henchmen require more Endurance Reduction than the T1s.

[Hedgefund2]

I'm going to limit my points to the three secondaries mentioned in the OP, because that's what was requested.

 

All 3 will give you the tools to do what you're looking for.  FF lacks -regen but the Bot personal attacks all have -200 regen, taking into account debuff resists (85%) that's still -90% regen which is good 'nuff.

 

Here are the +def each provides for the MM (pets get this too):

 

	Time (Farsight)	FF (Dispersion)	Traps (FFG)
	9.375	7.5	10
1.55	14.53125	11.625	15.5

 

The second row shows defense with ED level slotting.

 

Time, with Power Boost (21ish) and Clarion Radial (26ish), can dramatically increase that number and for the full duration of Farsight.  PB will boost Dispersion for FF only for the length of the PB effect (15 seconds).  It does boost FF shields for the full duration (240 seconds) of the shields but that's not a thing Bots need to worry about.

 

Time - no native mez protection

Traps - mez protection but wonky, FFG has to catch up to you and can get hung up on geometry, notably in caves

FF - no muss no fuss mez protection, always with you.

 

Debuff wise no doubt Traps is the big winner, especially for stationary fights.  Neither of the other 2 can compete with double or even triple (which requires Hasten, a must have for Traps) Acid Mortar but Slowed Response has its merits, easy to perma, it procs VERY well, including Achilles.

 

Time is the only one that can give you a burst heal, it even has 2 (including Chrono Shift).

 

So, I dunno, whatever satisfies your "rule of cool" will work.

[Neiska]

Robots/Traps is definitely a big game build, and Marine is certainly a powerhouse. I just made one, but she's only 44 at the moment but man she's defiantly my strongest pre-incarnate MM so far to date. I think a Robot/Marine "might" be able to take down big stuff, but you would have to use personal attacks for -regen. IMO /Marines weakness is lack of any CC or Debuff protection. Top Shelf everything else though.

 

But I have also heard that of all things, /Nature is capable of taking down bit things too. I mean it does have -dam, -res, and -regen in it and certainly has +damage and plenty of sustain. I've never done it with /Nature though, I have only just started playing /Nature myself. So far she's only 30 as a Necro/Nature but so far she's solid.

 

I don't know what /Nature build could, I imagine maybe Robo/Nature as it would have plenty of -regen, damage, and healing? 

 

But I read chatter in the Masterminds Discord that Demons/Marine is ridiculous ST damage, it might not even need -regen at all? No idea on that one though, that's just me musing. The only kiss-your-elbow MM build I know for certain can take down the biggest things is robo/traps. 

[Neiska]

6 minutes ago, Hedgefund2 said:

I'm going to limit my points to the three secondaries mentioned in the OP, because that's what was requested.

 

All 3 will give you the tools to do what you're looking for.  FF lacks -regen but the Bot personal attacks all have -200 regen, taking into account debuff resists (85%) that's still -90% regen which is good 'nuff.

 

Here are the +def each provides for the MM (pets get this too):

 

 

	Time (Farsight)	FF (Dispersion)	Traps (FFG)
	9.375	7.5	10
1.55	14.53125	11.625	15.5

 

The second row shows defense with ED level slotting.

 

Time, with Power Boost (21ish) and Clarion Radial (26ish), can dramatically increase that number and for the full duration of Farsight.  PB will boost Dispersion for FF only for the length of the PB effect (15 seconds).  It does boost FF shields for the full duration (240 seconds) of the shields but that's not a thing Bots need to worry about.

 

Time - no native mez protection

Traps - mez protection but wonky, FFG has to catch up to you and can get hung up on geometry, notably in caves

FF - no muss no fuss mez protection, always with you.

 

Debuff wise no doubt Traps is the big winner, especially for stationary fights.  Neither of the other 2 can compete with double or even triple (which requires Hasten, a must have for Traps) Acid Mortar but Slowed Response has its merits, easy to perma, it procs VERY well, including Achilles.

 

Time is the only one that can give you a burst heal, it even has 2 (including Chrono Shift).

 

So, I dunno, whatever satisfies your "rule of cool" will work.

 

Fun Fact I just learned about robots myself - Clarion Radial Destiny ALSO boots the protector bot bubbles, for its entire duration. To use it, you just pop Clarion, then click off the buff, and the t2 will bubble you again immediately with the boosted effect. Something around 25% all DEF in total. Which honestly is a fantastic boost for robos with secondaries that don't have +DEF.

[tidge]

20 hours ago, Neiska said:

Robots/Traps is definitely a big game build, and Marine is certainly a powerhouse. I just made one, but she's only 44 at the moment but man she's defiantly my strongest pre-incarnate MM so far to date. I think a Robot/Marine "might" be able to take down big stuff, but you would have to use personal attacks for -regen. IMO /Marines weakness is lack of any CC or Debuff protection. Top Shelf everything else though.

 

I haven't played a /Marine mastermind, but I did play a Plant/Marine Controller that I felt really over-performed (this was pre-i28p2). Marine secondary strikes me as being excellent for MM primaries that rely on henchmen melee attacks. Robots are mostly ranged, so they should still be able to leverage all the stuff Marine brings, I just think that as a secondary it is a bigger performance improvement for certain types of henchmen over others. 

 

Put another way: to me, the Marine secondary looks like a secondary that was designed specifically for Masterminds, as it ticks all the boxes for what most MMs would ask for. The only thing about it that looks like it could be problematic is solo against things that have a good chance to hit the henchmen/player. Robots get the Maintenance Drone and can be positioned at range, which I mention to disclose my (conflicting) thoughts on which powers to skip and/or how to slot the ones I take.

 

Finally: I definitely feel that Marine Affinity is a better choice of secondary for team play. I think you could speed run through Incarnate content on a League keeping the henchmen on Green (to avoid OHKOs) and spam the Marine powers to success.

[Vindicate]

I appreciate all the advice and guidance above from everyone, I feel like a deer in the headlights coming back after a few years. I do have a very old Bots/FF although probably needs and upgrade now...

 

I've heard great things about /Marine and know it's a top-tier set. However, for this specific character, I'm aiming for a build that aligns with the thematic concept I have in mind. For me, the combination of bots and water doesn't quite fit my personal character's story arc, which is why I've been focusing on the other three powersets.

 

I think I will probably end up going Bots/Traps just because it's tried and tested throughout the years and I know this will fit what I'm looking for in the long term. 

 

Next step is finding a stating point for a decent high end bots/trap set up. I've been soaking in as much information as i can about slotting Bots just need to do a bit of research on traps.

Edited Monday at 04:02 PM by Vindicate

[Vindicate]

On 8/10/2025 at 1:11 PM, tidge said:

If you want to solo GMs without using Lores, Bots/Traps is sure-fire.  For everything else, Bots/Marine. Other combinations aren't bad, but these will be the top performers. I think you will want almost all of the Marine powers, but with Traps it is easy to skip 4 (or 5, see note below on Seeker Drones)  of them. The Marine powers that I'd de-prioritize (for a MM) are Whitecap and Soothing Wave. Whitecap is fun, and the -Res is useful so it is hard to skip. Soothing Wave should be less necessary for Robotics (because Maintenance Drone is dope), but you may find it useful while leveling (and against some +4 solo content).

 

The Robots themselves are a little slow to dish damage, but they are steady... and as ranged attackers, they require slightly less concentration than other henchmen IMO.

 

 

I skip Web Grenade, although going solo against some enemies it can be useful... but in practice this is so rare that I'd just have a second build with powers to deal with runners if this was too much of a big deal.

 

I skip Triage Beacon, but if you really intend to face +4 content solo with no Incarnates and Robots, I suppose it can help. I skip Trip Mine and Detonator. You won't have the slots to make either of these work, or you will be compromising other powers... I find them to be far too situational to leverage. Seeker Drones simply holds a couple of global pieces for the henchmen.

 

The real key to Robotics/Traps IMO is to be debuffing enemies, and I make liberal use of the Annihilation set (and %-Res) in AoE %-Res is pretty much the only %proc I use in MM attacks. Some people swear by %damage in MMs but I'd much rather have set bonuses and be able to make attacks to grab/keep aggro.. My slotting for Robots allows for a %Smashing and %BuildUp in the T1 henchmen, each is an incredibly reliable %proc. Some folks prefer the %Buildup in the T3, but I like seeing all three of the T1s taking advantage of it.

 

With FFG, Maneuvers, the Protector Bots (slot at least one Defense/Endurance Reduction) , Supremacy, and the pet Globals, Robotics/Traps can achieve excellent Defenses... certainly to the point where I think the FF secondary isn't really necessary (MMV for +4 solo without Incarnates). Time as a secondary should be fine... I haven't used it with Robots, but it is more critter-focused instead of area-focused. You definitely want to be a force-multiplier for the henchmen. 

 

I find that I don't need Hasten to keep up a sustainable attack/traps chain. The T2 and T3 henchmen require more Endurance Reduction than the T1s.

 

Some Great advice here, as I said above..I think I will go down the Bots/Traps route so this is giving me a great starting point to attempt to cobble something together with mids.

 

Just want to clarify, I will obviously use incarnates at some stage. I'm not fully on the route of never use incarnates, I'd just like to be able to do X4/x8 as soon as possible ideally as I work my way towards incarnates 

Edited Monday at 04:12 PM by Vindicate

[Vindicate]

On 8/10/2025 at 4:35 PM, Hedgefund2 said:

I'm going to limit my points to the three secondaries mentioned in the OP, because that's what was requested.

 

All 3 will give you the tools to do what you're looking for.  FF lacks -regen but the Bot personal attacks all have -200 regen, taking into account debuff resists (85%) that's still -90% regen which is good 'nuff.

 

Here are the +def each provides for the MM (pets get this too):

 

 

	Time (Farsight)	FF (Dispersion)	Traps (FFG)
	9.375	7.5	10
1.55	14.53125	11.625	15.5

 

The second row shows defense with ED level slotting.

 

Time, with Power Boost (21ish) and Clarion Radial (26ish), can dramatically increase that number and for the full duration of Farsight.  PB will boost Dispersion for FF only for the length of the PB effect (15 seconds).  It does boost FF shields for the full duration (240 seconds) of the shields but that's not a thing Bots need to worry about.

 

Time - no native mez protection

Traps - mez protection but wonky, FFG has to catch up to you and can get hung up on geometry, notably in caves

FF - no muss no fuss mez protection, always with you.

 

Debuff wise no doubt Traps is the big winner, especially for stationary fights.  Neither of the other 2 can compete with double or even triple (which requires Hasten, a must have for Traps) Acid Mortar but Slowed Response has its merits, easy to perma, it procs VERY well, including Achilles.

 

Time is the only one that can give you a burst heal, it even has 2 (including Chrono Shift).

 

So, I dunno, whatever satisfies your "rule of cool" will work.

 

Thanks for this, definitely and interesting read. 👍

[Neiska]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

 

I haven't played a /Marine mastermind, but I did play a Plant/Marine Controller that I felt really over-performed (this was pre-i28p2). Marine secondary strikes me as being excellent for MM primaries that rely on henchmen melee attacks. Robots are mostly ranged, so they should still be able to leverage all the stuff Marine brings, I just think that as a secondary it is a bigger performance improvement for certain types of henchmen over others. 

 

Put another way: to me, the Marine secondary looks like a secondary that was designed specifically for Masterminds, as it ticks all the boxes for what most MMs would ask for. The only thing about it that looks like it could be problematic is solo against things that have a good chance to hit the henchmen/player. Robots get the Maintenance Drone and can be positioned at range, which I mention to disclose my (conflicting) thoughts on which powers to skip and/or how to slot the ones I take.

 

Finally: I definitely feel that Marine Affinity is a better choice of secondary for team play. I think you could speed run through Incarnate content on a League keeping the henchmen on Green (to avoid OHKOs) and spam the Marine powers to success.

 

I don't think it really benefits melee over ranged, as they can still benefit from the damage boosts and the tide pool, barrier, etc. Enemies are just automatically slowed when they run in, so you can play it at range if you wanted to. Sometimes if I am just mowing them down, I will Whitecap into the group and the robots will just all follow, and when they snap to defend me when attacked they are already in close range. Thats when I drop tidepool and yada yada.

 

I think it benefits both really. Which is a good thing. Combat options are always nice to have, you can play this one at a distance or close up. The set doesn't really like Group Fly though as all the important powers seem to be ground-focused, which you can't really make use of when flying about.

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, Vindicate said:

Next step is finding a stating point for a decent high end bots/trap set up. I've been soaking in as much information as i can about slotting Bots just need to do a bit of research on traps.

 

Last time I poked at one this is what the result was:

zMastermind - Robots - Traps.mbd

 

(It's still a powerful combo, even if I personally prefer Time and Marine!)

 

[tidge]

54 minutes ago, Neiska said:

I don't think it really benefits melee over ranged, as they can still benefit from the damage boosts and the tide pool, barrier, etc. 

 Re: Marine Affinity

 

I agree, it's more that melee-based henchmen tend to need a little more TLC than ranged henchmen, so the area-based Marine Affinity powers help those MM primaries that had to deal with critter scatter and hecnhmen scrambling in ways that Robotics doesn't typically have to worry about.

[tidge]

19 hours ago, Vindicate said:

Just want to clarify, I will obviously use incarnates at some stage. I'm not fully on the route of never use incarnates, I'd just like to be able to do X4/x8 as soon as possible ideally as I work my way towards incarnates 

 

I'll add some clarifying comments of my own, w.r.t to Incarnates and MMs. 99% of the time when I write "without incarnates" I am referring specifically to "no Lore pets". I don't go around unslotting Musculature or Interface, and I don't avoid using Destiny Judgement or Hybrid... but for many characters Lore pets are the only way for a character to solo a GM, whereas a well built MM can solo GMs without Lore pets. There are a few further things I'll add about my own experiences, especially in the current (i28p2) era.

 

Since the launch of HC, there have been four major (maybe 3 major, 1 minor) updates to GMs that have impacted the ability of solo MMs to take them down.

 

1) There was a pass to increase some resistances for several GMs. I didn't find this to be a big effect, but it did slow down defeat times.

2) There were several passes to increase the MaxHP of GMs. One of these came with a round of resistance increases, one came later.

 

In my experience: Those two changes pretty much made it so that against most (non-MM) solo ATs, many of the GM fights would last longer than 5 minutes with Lores... but a well-built MM doesn't need Lores, so the only thing working against the MMs from those changes was the amount of Health being regenerated by a GM. Fights take longer, but they really weren't harder. The two other changes I consider was one big and one small:

 

3) The base accuracy of GMs was increased. <-This is the big change, and the one that IMO should have been done first. I think it should have been done first because it was obvious to me that the reason GMs were such a pushover for teams (never mind solo) was that the 'defense cap' turned the offense of a GM into the near-equivalent of a con-grey enemy. It taking six years for this to be figured out I think offers some perspective on how the dev team is highly reluctant to approach the ToHit/Defense mechanics of the game when it comes to certain challenges for players. This is a complicated discussion, but in the case of GMs I feel like changes (1) and (2) were the lazy changes to simply add grind without challenge.

 

The HC devs made one other change that was intended to bring more 'challenge' (and mostly succeeded, but it is the one ultimately I consider to be minor):

 

4) Some GMs got some new attacks. I consider this to be a 'minor' change because pretty much each of the new attacks isn't doing much more than targeting a player that is standing in melee range beating on the GM. This had a big effect on some MMs, especially ones where all-of-a-sudden all the henchmen and pets were eliminated by a single attack. For the most part, I think the new GM attacks are clever. It didn't take long for me to figure out a couple of different ways to deal with most of them, but that was about the level of 'puzzle'  I appreciate in a game like CoX.

 

Ultimately, I think the Giant Monsters are currently  in a pretty good place in terms of challenge, as many 2-character combinations of AT can take down most of them, provided the 2-player team has both damage and survivability *and* both players use brains. A solo MM can be constructed to do both damage and survivability, plus bring necessary debuffs to overcome the grind aspect (mitigating the need for MOAR DAMAGE+++). I often see far less well-constructed MMs multi-boxing against GMs because none of the individual MMs can solo the GMs... and the second and third MMs can pretty much be put on auto (at least against the GMs that don't have 'clever', new attacks.

 

 

[Vindicate]

Thanks Tidge! Definitely an interesting read through.

 

A well built MM is capable of all the things I've listed is my goal, how we get there is a different story. But some great information has been shared above. 

 

I think I've made the right choice with Bots/Traps although obviously there's more than one viable choice for what I want just feel like in the long term this will work for me.

[Vindicate]

20 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Last time I poked at one this is what the result was:

zMastermind - Robots - Traps.mbd 44.08 kB · 2 downloads

 

(It's still a powerful combo, even if I personally prefer Time and Marine!)

 

Thanks Maelwys, as always the help and guidance is appreciated. Will jump on mids later and have a play around.