Decision Help

[Toma85]

Hello,

 

After a long break, I’d like to get back into CoH, and for nostalgia’s sake I’d like to roll a Mastermind.

For the secondary I want to go with Marine.

For the primary, I can’t decide between Mercs / Bots / Thugs.

 

Which one is the most popular / least popular in endgame and in teams, and why?

 

Thanks for your help :D.

[tidge]

Marine is excellent no matter the henchmen. Marine improves Mercs and Thugs more than it improves Robots IMO. The reason is because Robots are ranged attackers, whereas melee attackers will benefit more from what Marine brings and melee henchmen generally require more effort to keep in any given fight. Marine provides coverage for melee.

 

Personally, I prefer Robots. As they are ranged, they are easier to control in all combat. In particular I find that they work very well in bodyguard mode solo... on teams they require a little more direct management.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

Marine improves Mercs and Thugs more than it improves Robots IMO. The reason is because Robots are ranged attackers, whereas melee attackers will benefit more from what Marine brings and melee henchmen generally require more effort to keep in any given fight. Marine provides coverage for melee.

Only the T3 Thugs henchman fights in melee. The T1 and T2 stay at range.

[tidge]

18 minutes ago, Uun said:

Only the T3 Thugs henchman fights in melee. The T1 and T2 stay at range.

 

Which is more melee engagement than the robots. Towards endgame, it's the T3 that is doing the big damage... and Marine makes the Bruiser more effective IMO.

[Toma85]

Why exactly does Marine work so well for melee henchmen compared to ranged ones? Which specific buffs or mechanics make a bigger difference for Mercs/Thugs than for Bots?

And if I were to go with Robots/Mercs instead, which secondary powersets would generally pair best with a ranged primary?

Edited Saturday at 03:23 PM by Toma85

[TygerDarkstorm]

5 minutes ago, Toma85 said:

Why exactly does Marine work so well for melee henchmen compared to ranged ones? Which specific buffs or mechanics make a bigger difference for Mercs/Thugs than for Bots?

And if I were to go with Robots/Mercs instead, which secondary powersets would generally pair best with a ranged primary?

If you look at the Marine powerset, you'll see why. Whitecap jumps you into melee in your tide pool. The amount of buffs and damage mitigation that Marine brings to the table allow melee henchmen to perform their job easier, as well as Marine's own playstyle benefiting directly from playing in melee. I have a Marine MM in pretty much every flavor--it pairs extremely well with Necro and so far seems to be good with Ninjas.

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Toma85 said:

Why exactly does Marine work so well for melee henchmen

 

It doesn't.

 

It works well for Henchmen that happen to be in melee range.

 

It's perfectly possible to use GOTO commands on your ranged henchmen so that they move to (and remain in for the duration of each fight) a melee location. My Bot/Kinetics does it all the time to leverage Fulcrum Shift. My Bot/Marine does it all the time to leverage Shifting Tide and Tide Pool. In fact, IMO ranged pets are actually better suited to /Marine because they tend to stay exactly where you put them rather than chasing off after runners.

[BZRKR]

Since there's good advice upthread, here's the obligatory "Roll All Three!!" comment.

 

Also, in my opinion /Marine on a Mastermind is a winner no matter what. Of your three choices, all you need to worry about is which Primary you like best. Then leverage your build from there.

[Toma85]

And among Mercs / Bots / Thugs, which one is generally the most (or least) welcome in endgame groups nowadays? I remember Bots used to be unpopular because of their knockback and large size – is that still the case?

[Maelwys]

The only thing that inflicts knockBACK these days is the Assault Bot's Swarm Missiles. Which can be converted to Knockdown easy enough via an Overwhelming Force IO.

Thier models are still pretty big and tend to block line of sight in some indoor maps, but you can usually shove them out of the way (unless the geometry gets very wonky)

 

Mercs is almost as well behaved as Bots. And Thugs only really has the Bruiser (and Arsonist) to watch out for. But neither of them can vastly improve their master's survivability like Protector Bot bubbles (plus Power Boost and/or Radial Clarion).

[Toma85]

Thanks for the insights! Which of the three primaries actually puts out the highest damage overall?

[Maelwys]

Of those three it'd be Bots for AoE, Mercs for ST (assuming you're sticking damage procs in the pets). Bots aren't as utterly horrible at Single Target damage as they used to be, but they still lag behind the other primaries. Necro and Demons are both higher ST damage than Mercs FWIW, but Mercs can leverage Serum very effectively with extreme levels of global recharge.

 

Thugs isn't half bad at damage either, but the bulk of its AoE damage output comes from the T1 Arsonist, which spawns at -2 to you and vs higher level foes will be hit very hard by the Purple Patch.

Thugs does have Gang War though, which makes a good dumping spot for the Pet Aura IOs.

[TooManyButtons]

Slightly off-topic question, but does putting an Achilles Heel proc in Mercs T1 minions stack? I heard conflicting information and a 60% debuff sounds better than another damage proc.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Personally I'd go Bots/Marine for two reasons.

 

1) MM primaries these days often want you to pick up a lot of powers from the set. The attacks tend to have powerful modifiers, you need your pets, and then there's the Tier 7 "burst mode" power like Serum or Gang War. But Marine is similar in that it wants you to usually pick up 8 of 9 of it's powers. This crowds out power pool option. 

 

But you can skip that Tier 7 power on Bots because it's really bad, and your Protectors already heal with the second upgrade, and because very likely you'll have your own heal with Marine. Skip that, and skip one or two beam rifle attacks and now you can fit in a new power pool.

 

2) Between Protectors' bubbles, Toroidol Bubble, and Barrier Reef? Your pets (and you) are pretty tanky. And that matters when you're fighting at +4/8 and your minions are -2. Dead DPS does no damage. Instead of summoning new minions you can be doing other offensive tasks with your action economy. 

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, TooManyButtons said:

Slightly off-topic question, but does putting an Achilles Heel proc in Mercs T1 minions stack?

Nope.

The three -res procs (Achilles, Fury of the Gladiator and Annihilation) Stack with each other; but multiple copies of each proc won't stack with itself from any source.
What it will do is make it more likely that you have a copy of the Achilles Heel -res proc active on your target at any one time.
 

Edited yesterday at 12:00 AM by Maelwys

[tidge]

Marine Affinity is absolutely a pick 8 or 9 power set. Ironically, a power close to the "go ahead and skip" in Marine is Whitecap. This is an excellent power, good for %procs and it can be an important source of -Resistance... but it is going to commit the MM to being in melee... not normally an issue, but sometimes it absolutely is. It will depend on how survivable you can make the MM. 

 

18 hours ago, TooManyButtons said:

Slightly off-topic question, but does putting an Achilles Heel proc in Mercs T1 minions stack? I heard conflicting information and a 60% debuff sounds better than another damage proc.

 

I'd put a (single) %damage piece in the T1s before the %-Res piece... because damage always stacks, %-Res from the same source does not (although stacking it resets/extends duration)

 

16 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

But you can skip that Tier 7 power on Bots because it's really bad, and your Protectors already heal with the second upgrade, and because very likely you'll have your own heal with Marine. Skip that, and skip one or two beam rifle attacks and now you can fit in a new power pool.

 

The T7 robotics power pick is now Maintenance Drone, which is an excellent power. It's a great use of 6-slots for Preventive Maintenance. It's the most no-brainer heal power in the game IMO. It is much more reliable than the T2's heals. The drone also happens to be one more thing you can cast upgrades on after summoning a replacement henchmen (during the untargetable phase). It should pretty much minimize the need for Soothing Wave (on robots). Soothing Wave is a good pick-up for Thugs (and Mercs) ... less so than for the Robots.

 

Soothing Wave is IMO good for the melee henchmen because the MM is likely to be focused on the enemy being engaged with, so the debuff and heal happen at once.

 

For Robots, I try to have both Pulse Rifle Burst and Photon Grenade for -Regen, and the effects help keep aggro on the MM. Soothing Wave should also help grab/keep aggro (max 10 enemy targets to hit) With Maintenance Drone I'd probably minimize slotting on Soothing Wave. Soothing Wave will work on all allies, the Drone only heals (your) Robotic henchmen.

 

[Uun]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

Ironically, a power close to the "go ahead and skip" in Marine is Whitecap.

I've never heard anyone suggest skipping Whitecap. Shoal Rush is most frequently suggested.

[tidge]

7 minutes ago, Uun said:

I've never heard anyone suggest skipping Whitecap. Shoal Rush is most frequently suggested.

 

On other ATs, I'd never skip Whitecap. On MMs specifically... even though I play something like /Traps in near-constant base contact with enemies... I don't know that the rest of what would come from /Marine benefits that much from going into melee combat (as the MM). For me, it would 100% depend on how the playstyle develops. So much of Marine requires being close to the henchmen or picking targets from range, so Whitecap (again, on MMs) feels like the odd power out to me.

 

On my other ATs with Marine, Whitecap ends up as a 6-slot power... and slots are especially precious for MMs in my experience. This is why I'd deprioritize it without establishing my playstyle for the MM (and henchmen).

 

EDIT: Shoal Rush is an AoE debuff, which I find important for MMs. Less so for other ATs. It should work with minimal slotting, and should be a good %proc power (on cast) similar to Caltrops (on a Traps Masterminds) if there is a desire to invest some slots in it.

Edited 23 hours ago by tidge

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

The T7 robotics power pick is now Maintenance Drone, which is an excellent power. It's a great use of 6-slots for Preventive Maintenance. It's the most no-brainer heal power in the game IMO. It is much more reliable than the T2's heals.

Agree that it's much more reliable that Protector Bot Healing.

But it depends if I've got a secondary powerset that has an allied heal.
On FF? It's fantastic. On Dark/Kin/Marine? Meh, hard skip. Traps? It depends.

But I'd far sooner skip it than skip Whitecap. (Just Defensive Goto the pets to the same location and you Teleport into the mob in full Bodyguard mode...)

[Toma85]

I’ve decided to go with Bots as my primary. Wouldn’t Time be a better fit as a secondary than Marine in that case?

[tidge]

Time is powerful. It probably requires less attention than Marine.

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Toma85 said:

Wouldn’t Time be a better fit as a secondary than Marine in that case?

 

Requires less attention but far lower performance ceiling.

[Maelwys]

Here's an example:

Mastermind - Bots - Marine.mbd


 

25.4722% (Radial Clarion'ed PB Bubbles)
+10 (Aura IOs)
+6.19% (Barrier Reef)
+4.19% (Maneuvers)
= 45.8522% Defense to henchmen
 

25.4722% + 19.61% = 45.0822% Defense to self

The three personal Robotics attacks each inflict -200% Regen for 30s; which is about the only thing Marine actually lacks (even if Tides shreds things just fine without it!)
Pulse Rifle Burst can take another FF +Rech if you feel the need (spoiler: it won't overly matter).
 
Swap the Travel Power to whatever.

[Toma85]

Thanks a lot to everyone who took the time to give me advice!
I’ve decided to go with Bots/Marine, and I’m really looking forward to diving back into the game again.

 

One last question: where do you set the difficulty for missions again?

Edited 17 hours ago by Toma85

[Maelwys]

40 minutes ago, Toma85 said:

One last question: where do you set the difficulty for missions again?

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Notoriety#Notoriety_Contact_Locations