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Originally Posted by dmurray
Okay, firstly, I'm very new to the game (as per my other topic) but I do understand the terms and basic mechanics so don't worry about throwing terms around and I know I gave a bunch of primary/secondary powersets but they're just all the ones I like most. I am really sorry for the long winded post, just pick whatever you can and answer it, thanks.
Basically I hate that a few guides make it so you'll be the one doing the tanking (with defense mode). That isn't what I really want to do when I'm fighting; I'd rather my minions get beat up and do the damage and me supporting.
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-You can have your minions tank just fine, in fact with many secondaries I would recommend it. Poison, FF, Pain... any set with lots of "you cannot target yourself with this power" abilities really benefits from having your minions tank, and even EB's can be safely tanked by your higher tier henchmen just fine. You will lose more of them this way, of course, but you can always summon another one that looks just like him.
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I absolutely love the idea of necro/dark but from what I've gather bots/traps are really best at soloing things later on. I have no problem with this but I'd rather play a powerset that isn't relient on me having to tank the damage all the time. GMs/AVs are understandable since they're much rarer than standard bosses but like I said in the last paragraph, I don't want to be the tank; I want to be supportive and helpful.
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-Understand, you could solo everything in this game with Merc/Force Field just fine. Masterminds are the gods of soloing, play whatever you want and you will still be better off than any Blaster in solo content. So don't worry about if Bots/Traps is the best for soloing (incidentally, while it's a great set, I still think that /Dark and /Time both outshine it in some areas).
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Anyway a few questions about specific primaries:
Guides are saying the Bruiser is bad since his hand clap has KB; that's been changed on the wiki and it does KD. But his ranged move does KB; how badly would it be if I had something that relied mostly on AoEs (like traps, for example)
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-The bruiser's knockback isn't the biggest issue with him, it's that he really, really loves his ranged attacks and getting him into melee where he belongs is a pain. It's not really that big a deal though, any enemy vulnerable to knockback will be taken out by him in one or two swings anyways.
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Speaking of traps with thugs, we only get one healing power. Is that enough? I get that thugs and arsionists will die a lot but call on a 60 second CD, do I just slot in some recharge enhancements to call thugs and that'll fix it?
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-Traps is a lackluster healing secondary. The Triage beacon gives 150% regen, not a healing buff, so you can't use it in reactive healing, and your pets will be taking a LOT of damage even with all your buffs and debuffs up. Don't worry about it too much, they're cheap. As for your question about slotting for recharge, the only sets with any recharge you can put in your pets are the Mastermind Archtype sets. So if you want to reduce the cooldown on your summon ability, you will have to reduce your global cooldown via set bonuses and Hasten. Dont worry about it too much, youll get by just fine without the Arsonist every time he dies.
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With demons, I have zero understanding, it seems like it's a giant cluster of "here, have random abilities, a little bit of a different types of damage, buffs, debuffs, good luck". Or does all of that actually work well together? I mean at low levels they seem to be tougher than bots and even with the demonlings get into melee they don't see to be losing much DPS from what I can see.
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-I'm a little confused by your question about Demons being a grab bag of abilities. The demons attack types all work well together, it's actually better than if they were all of the same type since enemies with high resistances to certain damage types are still vulnerable to other demonlings. You want to take one or two of the whip attacks for the -res, and all the other attacks make sense on their own (summons henchmen, empowers henchmen, spawns imps, etc). It actually synergizes very well together, Demons are tied with Bots for the best MM primary in the game.
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With bots since they're all ranged and they have melee attacks, isn't this a bit awkward with mobs that run into melee? (or is this where the perma tanking MM works)
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-If youre expecting your bots to behave like Blasters, youll be in for a very disappointing surprise. They love nothing more than running into melee to use their single melee ability and then firing their laser at point blank range. Even if you tell them to stand still, they have a tendency to completely ignore that and run into melee, then run all the way back to where you told them to stand before firing their laser again. Its kind of annoying, but theyre cheap anyways.
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But dark looks like it'd work well (if not just for fluffy) since the demons do seem to get a massive amount of debuffs (or so it seems) so are demons/dark as good as bots/ff or bots/traps?
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-Avoid /FF like the plague, it's very boring. Very, very boring. Demons/Dark would work extremely well together, though. Demons get a lot of +res, which goes well with -tohit, and the -res from the whip attacks would stack with Tar Patch. Demons/Dark would be an excellent MM.
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With necromancy normally the third teir minion is the big guns (so to speak) but the lich seems a bit... anti-climatic? He gets most of your abilities which is fun but I dunno if it'll be as exciting as finally getting my bruiser or assault bot or demon prince. Oh and would storm be decent enough that I could still hold my own while soloing or does Fluffy make dark worth it? Since most of the necro minions can heal themselves, I figured that the AoE heal from dark might make dark not needed as much and the cold theme would fit in well with the necromancy theme. Though I am also partial to poison with undead.
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-The Lich... anticlimactic?! The Lich is the perfect henchman, he stands back further than you do and slings holds, debuffs, immobilizes, fears, and damage from a safe distance. It's like getting a pocket Dark/Nothing defender. Admittedly, his damage is lackluster, but his obscene amounts of finely tuned control more than makes up for it. He will literally decimate the incoming damage (literally reduce it by 90% in many cases). Damage is overrated, controls and debuffs are the kings of CoH.
As for /Storm, I don't like it as much because the best debuff power Hurricane likes to throw enemies out of its radius. As for whether your minions can keep themselves alive with their self heal... no, theyre pretty terrible at it actually. Since its a drain rather than a direct heal, they use it in their damage rotation, and it recharges too slowly to make them self sufficient. You should be fine with the single target heal though if you just absolutely love /Storm.
Poison would be a great secondary if Envenom and Weaken had a larger radius. 8 feet is way too small, it really should be 15 feet to be on par with equivalent powers from the other sets. As is, hitting more than one or two targets with them is almost impossible unless you wait for your enemies to converge on you, which makes them useless for soaking the alpha. Its not a bad set by any means, but for dealing with large numbers of enemies /Time, /Dark, or /Traps would all be better suited.
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As for secondaries, I don't really have questions. I just want something that can take down stuff solo and actually fits a theme. Hellspawned demons with me using traps doesn't really fit; neither do thugs and me summoning Fluffy.
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-As for Primary/Secondary sets that fit a theme and can take down tough stuff, a few work very well. Bots/Traps, Bots/Time, Bots/Thermal, Necro/Dark, Necro/Traps (go with a Frankenstein theme), Necro/Time, Demons/Dark, Demons/Thermal all fit thematically and would be great for taking down anything up to EB with ease. Taking down an AV or GM solo will usually require a very solid (and expensive) build, they're a special case. Literally any combination can solo basic content at +0/x1 though, Masterminds are the gods of solo content.
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I know I'm probably asking for a miracle with what I want but I have no problem with how long it takes to learn (so long as it's reliant on actual skill/abilities and not luck)
Anyhow, thanks for any help.
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Masterminds arent hard to play, but keeping your roudy minions in check can be a hassle. I recommend you get a good set of
keybinds to keep them reasonably under control. Beyond that, you should be fine. It's hard to mess up a Mastermind, they're a very well designed class.
Oh, one more thing. You can use inspirations on your henchmen by dragging them over them in the henchmen list. Very useful if your T3 henchman is tanking and he needs a bit more defense.