Show me your Mastermind tier list!

[plainguy]

On 8/23/2019 at 1:52 PM, William Valence said:

If you're looking for combos

 

Bots/Time -> Hits all the boxes for everything you could want. Sets complement each other well.

Thugs/Storm -> Quite possibly the most damage a MM combo can output.

DS/Therm -> Do you want henchmen with 90% resistance to everything, because that's how you get henchmen with 90% resistance to everything.

Necro/Dark -> Classic combo. Works. Can solo just about everything, but is just less consistent than the above three.

Ninja/Time -> Ninjas can live? Who'da thunk it?

Mercs/Trap -> About the only way I've been able to play mercs to a high level.

 

If you're looking for a breakdown on the secondaries and comparisons of them, I personally think that they're fairly well balanced. The above are more or less outliers due to combination rather than simply being better support sets.

ANY MM / TRAP - will get you defense cap tankermind. 

Just swap out my robot traps build with another Mastermind and you are pretty much done build wise. 

 

This isn't a plug for Traps, but a cheat sheet. 

I would consider Traps as a simple way of introducing someone into mastermind builds without feeling defeated.

 

 

 

 

 

[Maelwys]

On 8/27/2019 at 3:05 PM, Palladiamors said:

 I will say that Bots/Kinetics is weird.  Bots is knockback heavy and Kinetics heal focuses on the target,  which is usually flying across the room so that makes keeping them alive via those means ((In cases where something manages to damage them)) unreliable.  The damage increases are nice but Bot's low overall damage is still a bit of a factor.  Also,  personal note,  Bots being primarily energy damage is over-rated and heavily countered by their long cooldowns.

Bot/Kin can work pretty well, but getting it to that point requires a bit of an odd playstyle and power selection compared to other Bot/ MMs.

Firstly, Kinetic's Heal is centred around a targeted foe. This means that you really need to make use of "Goto" for healing - and your ridiculously squishy drones aren't likely to survive for very long until you can increase their survivability. Softcapping defence is the normal method of doing this, and it's perfectly possible (with a Support Incarnate slot) to softcap yourself, your Drones and your Assault Bot. However Kin's "Increase Density" is a brilliant Resistance buff (assuming you can be bothered to cast it every 60 seconds); and the damage types it gives resistance to are all different from your Robot's inherent resistances - when combined with the +35% you can get from IOs, your Bots can actually get rather tanky.

Secondly, Fulcrum Shift works best when the things you want to buff are in melee range of multiple foes; and it has a somewhat longish cast time. This means that you really need to keep a large number of foes in one spot with your Assault Bot in the middle of them, and you need to keep those foes from being knocked back with Swarm Missiles. The traditional method of stopping things from flying around is to take Mu Mastery and Electrifying Fences; but that's only a 10ft radius which is a bit small for Fulcrum Shift. Bonfire with a Knockback-to-Knockdown IO in it works much better, although you'll need to stick a Knockback-to-Knockdown IO in both Assault Bot and Protector Bots as well (Drones doesn't need one; they only inflict Knockback with the ability granted by Equip Robot, which you should never be using after level 32 on anything other than your Protector Bots) 

Optimum Pet Slotting is:
[Drones] HO Acc/Dam Lv50+3, HO Acc/Dam Lv50+3, Sovereign Right Acc/Dam Lv50+5, Sovereign Right Resistance Bonus, Expedient Reinforcement Resistance Bonus, Call to Arms Defensive Bonus
[Protector Bots] Blood Mandate Acc/Dam Lv50+5, Blood Mandate Acc/Dam/End Lv50+5, Sovereign Right Acc/Dam/End Lv50+5, Overwhelming Force Dam/Knockback-to-Knockdown, Common Defence Lv50+5, Common Defence Lv50+5.
[Assault Bot] Superior Mark of Supremacy Dam, Superior Mark of Supremacy Acc/Dam, Superior Mark of Supremacy Acc/Dam/End, Superior Mark of Supremacy Endurance +Resist/+Regen, Edict of the Master Defensive Bonus, Sudden Acceleration Knockback-to-Knockdown.

Solo Playstyle is:
1. Summon Protector Bots (or dismiss Drones and Assault Bot), use 'Equip Robot'.
2. Summon Drones and Assault Bot, use 'Upgrade Robot'. 
3. Defensive/Follow all except the Assault Bot - use Passive/Follow on the Assault Bot. Don't cast Speed Boost on any of them just yet.
4. Find a big mob of foes, run into the middle of them and cast Bonfire.
5. As soon as Bonfire lands; cast Fulcrum Shift. Then switch your Assault Bot from Passive to Aggressive mode.
6. 45 seconds later, swap your Assault Bot back to Passive/Follow mode and Bonfire + Fulcrum Shift on another Mob.

Your pets will catch up to you whilst you're casting Bonfire; and should start firing by the time it lands and you've cast Fulcrum Shift.
Your Assault Bot is your main source of damage, and you want it to be standing in the middle of the group when you use Fulcrum and not start firing until Fulcrum is applied.

You can also use Bonfire/Fulcrum from range, but this requires ending your Robots into the middle of a mob using Passive/Goto; then switching them to Aggressive afterwards.
This is a bit faster with a slightly higher damage output; but requires more micromanaging and leaves you open to getting whacked/sniped since you never get the benefit of Bodyguard mode.

(in teams it's much easier: just let the Tank herd stuff; then Goto your Assault Bot after them and cast Fulcrum Shift. Although Points 1 and 2 still stand- your team will be much more effective if your pets never deal any Knockback and your Assault Bot doesn't waste its time using Flamethrower!)

Edited August 28, 2019 by Maelwys

[Shoulung]

On 8/23/2019 at 1:29 PM, kelly Rocket said:

Ninja/Storm is more damage against single targets. Thugs massively outpaces Ninjas for damage against large groups. We're talking exponential differences. Ninjas are just plain shit for AoE.

 

If you're doing a Pylon, or fighting an AV that doesn't continuously summon minions, Ninjas will do more damage, but Thugs will have vastly better clear times on regular missions, and even against AVs if the AV summons minions (The Arsonist's burn patch powers work like the Assault Bot's, where having multiple targets in a confined area multiplies the damage each target takes).

 

Additionally, Storm can soft-cap Thugs, where it can't come *close* to soft-capping Ninjas, so that's a consideration.

 

Bots/Time is sturdier than Bots/Cold, at least once you get Farsight, which comes at a reasonable level (28). And Time can heal (Quite well in fact) where Cold cannot. So Time wins there. Especially given it also packs -ToHit, -Damage, and utterly ludicrous levels of -recharge to further increase survivability.

 

Agree that Nature is actually quite good, but it seems to be a bit "love it or hate it" for people. It's undeniably strong, with -ToHit and -Damage debuffs, and a solid +Resist team buff, on top of being one of the absolute best healing power sets in the game. But some people have trouble aiming the cone because they're not used to powers you can actually aim instead of targeting on a mob or friendly, and some people really dislike Lifegiving Spores because of it's location-based nature. Also lots of people hate anchor toggle powers. And honestly I would like to see the radius of Spore Cloud increased.

 

All of the mob anchored debuff powers in the game have rather anemic radii, I'd quite like to see all of them get their radii increased to 20 or 25 to compensate for how difficult it is to keep the anchor target in a useful spot.

 

It seems unfair that PBAoE toggle debuffs which are MUCH easier to use and get the maximum number of enemies in since you control the positioning of the field, get much higher radii than the mob-anchored debuff fields, which you only really control the initial placement of, and then have to cross your fingers and pray. It was probably a decision made on a faulty assumption--that powers that don't require you to be up close to the melee were more desirable and should therefore be weaker than PBAoE powers that force you up close.

That may have been true once, but it doesn't really bear out in the current meta, so I'd like to see anchor toggles (Which are quite unpopular with most players, though some still like them due to their auto-hit nature... Which also isn't a significant advantage because PBAoE toggle debuffs also tend to be auto-hit.

I usually throw my Debuffs on elites/AVs, so I like the fact that they can’t run out of it.

[kelly Rocket]

8 minutes ago, Shoulung said:

I usually throw my Debuffs on elites/AVs, so I like the fact that they can’t run out of it.

Sure, but they also resist more of them 😄

[Frostweaver]

On 8/29/2019 at 1:07 AM, kelly Rocket said:

Sure, but they also resist more of them 😄

Yeah, we all know AV's resist debuffs. Romulus with a big friggin mushroom growing out of the side of his head is funny as hell, though.

another vote for thugs/nature. The Resist and healing layer nicely with Thug's innate defense, and with attention even that idiot pyro stays alive. It's much less of a healbot than emp, and that healing cone, while not providing the most hit points, seems to give phenomenally more control over catching your whole team than radius stuff.