Dechs Kaison

This is probably the best advice you'll get. MMs can be good in the arena, but zones will severely hamper your ability to catch up to your target. I use team TP and it still doesn't help.

Also, in PvP, defense does almost nothing for you. Aim, buildup, heaven forbid someone uses soul drain... they all grant +tohit, which is a perfect counter to defense.

Just to put it in perspective, I've seen a /SR scrapper get hit three or four times in a row with elude running.

The smart ones will drop your protector bots first, then the rest of the bots and kill you while you resummon. The not smart ones will run through a bunch of seeker drones, trying to put a dent in you while your bots eat them alive. If you want a game of rock/paper/scissors where you're always the paper? Go for it. Otherwise, PvP's a waste on an MM.

Many thanks! I understand the formula well enough to figure out what my "true" recharge times are.

Ah, I have heard of this bug. You could add an infinite number of slots to a power. Because it was pre-ED, you could infinitely enhance the damage of a power. He two-shotted the Hamidon.

That doesn't count!

I wish I could have seen this.

No... You must be joking... Pics or it didn't happen!

Gah!

Regardless, my point still stands. Have him solo the STF then. There must be something he cannot do.

Yes, I was very careful in my selection of the word delusions.

Immortality is not attainable. You just need to find a bigger opponent. Until someone manages to solo the Hamidon, there are no immortal characters.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that this build is comprised almost entirely common IOs. The few that are not common IOs are the important parts. They include various procs for effects and then enough set bonuses to hit the ranged/AoE softcap (surprisingly little is required for this). Using view totals will only show 33.8% defense, but keep in mind the protectors add just over 11% with their shields.

The second thing you'll notice is the lack of drones and the presence of all three personal attacks. This goes against everything I believe a mastermind is designed to be, but then again, so does a defender jumping head first into a x8 spawn. The number one complaint I hear is "your bots are blocking caves." My usual response is "GTFO my team" or "Fine, I'll go this way, you seven go that way. Catch up when you're done with your half." Taking out the tier one pets will drastically reduce damage, but remember, that's not what I'm going for with this build. Please take note that none of these attacks are slotted for damage. In fact, only the Assbot is slotted to do damage. Take a close look at the procs.

The two pulse rifle attacks are slotted for recharge and have the devastation chance for hold. Electric Shackles is in there as well, with lockdown's chance for +2 mag. This will grant the ability, although not perfectly reliable, to hold bosses. Even web grenade has the chance for hold purple proc.

Photon grenade is slotted for stun and I threw in the chance for tohit debuff purple proc. This, combined with protector grenades and seekers should keep large groups to include bosses stunned. Again, look to electric fences. I've thrown a chance for stun proc in there as well.

Finally, for a little more control, I've slotted the knockdown proc in caltrops as well as a little slow. I already use the knockdown proc as it is and find it incredibly effective at keeping enemies from firing back and in burn patches.

Ok, that takes care of the dominator half of DomFender. What about the defender?

Well, the defenders I value most are the debuffers. Traps is an excellent debuffing set, bringing -tohit, -damage, -def, -resist, and -regen. I also slotted chance for -recharge in two powers.

Traps isn't without its buffs and though I may have skipped triage beacon, I wouldn't dare skip FFG. Maneuvers is layered on top for a little extra. The few enemies that you don't have locked down will have trouble hitting your teammates.

What I don't know about this build is whether stamina is necessary. My first build has no need of it, but this looks to be a bit more active. I'll have to actually get this up and running before I know. What I'd like to put in its place is the medicine pool and hasten.

So... thoughts?

I agree, I do find that debuffs are more powerful than buffs. This is a balance issue because an offensive debuff can be resisted, usually costs more endurance or has an accuracy component, and draws aggro while passive buffs are simply there. Thermal makes up for it with better healing ability, but again, I'd rather prevent damage than repair it.

Thugs thermal will be very good though, especially with forge on the bruiser. That guy can dish out some serious damage when his fury is built up, and forge will make it even better.

Melt armor will make the tough targets fall quick. You'll be a powerhouse, but I'm pretty sure these sets will turn out to be a late bloomer.

EDIT: And Gypsy, get out of our anarchist thread.

Have you tried this and this?

Also, this power reduces enemy damage.

Thugs and thermal will work just fine. Be sure to stack maneuvers and slot your enforcers for defense. You'll do fine, but levels 18-23 will suck. Don't worry, they do for any mastermind. Scrapyarders.

This post is full of so much truth.

Nine times out of ten, if I'm on a TF, I started it. I don't throw "ITF looking for tank, debuffs, and healer" all over the globals. I say "ITF with room for x." I know that any team of 8 should be able to accomplish anything in the game (provided at least 4 know what they're doing).

Sometimes I get tells asking what to bring to which I always reply "Whatever you feel like."

Every once in a while I get a "Do you need a healer?" tell. My reply is usually "Sorry, just filled up."

First off, welcome to the forums!

Bots/traps is my absolute favorite MM. I'll tell you now that with enough time and money, this kind of character can handle eight man missions and AVs on his own, even some GMs. I'll offer my suggestions as best I can.

Ugh, I already see what your problem is going to be. Please understand that I have no intentions of being degrading, but you're coming at this with the wrong mentality.

With a mastermind, very few set bonuses actually do anything for you. +Recovery and +Recharge are always nice, but the recharge bonuses come late enough in sets that they're sometimes not worth it. +HP and +Regen are great if you tankermind, but seeing as how you didn't take provoke, I doubt you do that. +Defense is great, and with bots/traps, you can softcap to all three positions. I have the defense softcap to ranged and AoE on mine, which I find enough. Outside of that, there aren't any bonuses that really help you because your pets are the ones doing all the work.

Masterminds benefit greatly from "frankenslotting." What you want to do is use IOs from multiple sets to get the most benefit crammed into your powers. This works because a double attribute IO gives more of a benefit to two things than half of a single attribute to each.

In my drones, I put the full Blood Mandate set. It caps their accuracy and damage and provides really nice defense bonuses. The Soulbound set is a very terrible idea for these bots, since the proc doesn't go off that often, and when it does, these guys are still recharging attacks and usually don't even get the benefit.

Webnade is a STAPLE in your ability to take down heavy targets. Bosses need to be immobilized so they don't get out of the burn patch your assbot drops. This should be at least four slots, I reccommend 1 acc, 1 immob, 1 end reduc, and one recharge. You can do much better than that by using frankenslotting.

Caltrops will never do enough damage slotted the way you have it. If you want caltrops to do damage, slot it with procs. It takes two damage set types, so you can actually cram six damage procs into this power if you wanted to. Personally, I slot the purple proc that does knockdown. It helps keep mobs inside burn patches in addition to my immobilize powers.

I slot triage beacon differently. I picked from three different sets and ED capped the recharge and heal, plus I had room for both the numina and miracle uniques. My triage is permanent, even without the use of hasten.

My only suggestion on equip robot would be to add another end reduction. If you keep stamina in your build, then you don't need it, but I got by without stamina. The extra end reduction helped with that.

GAH! No personal attacks! Bad! Especially if you don't plan on using it, as I can see from your slotting. These powers are endurance hogs and don't do a piddly of damage compared to the rest of your army. Speaking of hasten, you might want to take it in this slot. Two recharge reduction IOs will suffice.

Acid mortar needs a bit of accuracy because it can miss. This power is also a great place for the achilles heel proc, which will lower enemy resistance. That will cause much more damage than the Lady Grey proc ever will. Frankenslot to max the recharge as well.

I think I'm actually twitching after reading this. Ouch.

First: The third common IO in a power (if it's a level 50 IO) provides so little benefit that you are often better off not even using it. Have you heard of enhancement diversification?

Second, and more importantly, the protectors have a little wonky thing with their AI that I've noticed. If the value of their heal is greater than the current damage on a robot, they will not heal it. With the heal being very powerful, they won't use it until most robots are almost dead. If it's not powerful enough, though, they won't be able to heal effectively anyway. I suggest only one heal IO in these.

Finally, protector bots do damage. They're good at it too. The way I have them slotted is with the purple damage enhancer, blood mandate for acc/damage and acc/endurance (I find that these guys run out of endurance without it), one common heal IO, and two common defense IOs.

Set bonuses aren't worth wasting slots. With three slots in each of these, you can reduce the endurance a little and max the defense attribute. Just don't be afraid to frankenslot. Maneuvers really should have defense slotted.

I wouldn't pick any of these powers. Vengeance can't be used on your bots, but if it could, you're better slotting it for defense. Stealth is just wrong for what I feel a mastermind should be doing. In my opinion, a mastermind should be taunting and letting bodyguard mode be his protection.

This is where you want the purple proc for build up. It has a chance to fire off of every target the bot hits, so it happens extremely frequent in this power. In three slots, I capped the damage and crammed in some accuracy. The other two slots, I put the unique +defense and +resistance IOs for pets.

Ugh, again with the set bonuses. All those enhancements in health that aren't for heal are wasted! If you take this power, the only thing worth slotting in it is the miracle or the numina unique. Similar with stamina. Put two slots of end mod if you really need the endurance. Your slots are put to much better use elsewhere.

You should never need upgrade robot to recharge any faster than it does. I'd put another end reduc in its place.

What I don't get is that you slot combat jumping for defense but not maneuvers... Maneuvers provides the greater benefit, which means the enhancements are doing more, and it helps your bots.

Charged armor... meh. I have it, and I only have the +defense unique in it. I don't even have to turn the power on for this benefit. Bodyguard mode brings me to effective 75% resist all on its own.

Same thing with electrifying fences as with webnade. This power is extremely useful in letting your assbot really fill his potential.

Poison trap is better off with recharge reductions. The -regen in this power is what allows you to take down AVs and GMs, so you want it recharging faster to keep that -regen on them.

Superjump. Well I guess you need a travel power. I would suggest looking into slotting the Blessing of the Zephyr set. It gives you knockback protection and some very nice defense bonuses.

Well, I hope I've helped.

Emphasis mine. I'd like to note that I'm not saying "any warshade is squishy in human form." I was saying that my warshade, at that level, without toggle shields, without eclipse, dropping out of dwarf just to do a mire, has the bullet stopping power of a blueberry pie.

Please don't snip out the details so you feel validated in showing off your +4/x8 soloing with an all human warshade. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that you can do that. I just feel like you were putting words in my mouth.

/joke

I love being able to walk. Awesome job!

*walks off*

Not that I consider myself a "regular Kheldian heavy hitter," especially because I've only played a warshade, but I have one big thing to say about your suggestion, Bill.

First, I want to present a fact: The devs stated that giving human form mez protection makes dwarf completely unnecessary to the point that no one would use it.

I'd like to expand on that just a bit. To me, that statement says that they want the forms to offer something specialized that the human form cannot accomplish. The forms were designed to be better at one thing that the human form cannot do. Even though a warshade can perma his eclipse, he will have to rely on break frees.

Where this all relates to your suggestion is that increasing the damage modifiers for human form might make nova useless as the "ranged DPS" role that it is supposed to play. I would put forth the suggestion that the human melee modifier be increased greatly and the ranged modifier only slightly, if at all, so that the nova still surpasses it in ranged damage.

Snipping this out because I love to throw out my idea of the perfect team for task forces.

Blueside:
My warshade
0-7 SG friends
7-0 People with a pulse, debuffs appreciated, no healers*.

Redside:
My mastermind (bots/traps)
0-7 SG friends
7-0 People with a pulse, no healers*.

I find that I am so insanely versatile with these two characters that it doesn't really matter who comes along for the ride. I like to have friends with me, since I know they're competent already. In the case of the warshade, I like to have debuffs along since he doesn't have any on his own. The /traps can put out -damage, -tohit, -def, and heaps of -res and -regen all by his lonesome.

But on topic, I don't think blurring the lines is going to make ATs disappear. People will play what they like to play, and anything is playable. As long as this holds true, every AT will exist in plenty, and I will continue to have fun.

*You can bring an empathy or pain dom, but do not call yourself a healer. You are either a buffing controller, defender, corruptor, or weapons platform.