Hey folks, I've decided to go ahead and put my training program in writing and provide it to you guys and whomever else online. This is my Elite Mastermind Training Guide and its purpose is to provide the necessary tools for the Mastermind to operate his or her archetype to its fullest potential. Although this training guide will certainly benefit the more experienced Mastermind, it is mainly intended for a younger target audience and those that are unfamiliar with Masterminds in general. The key focus behind this guide is to train those up and comers with the skills to operate their pets with precision control. While Mastermind builds and pet types (robots, ninjas, etc.) can generate a difference in control, those will not be addressed exhaustively with the exception of small snippets in certain pet control sections. It is my hope that any newly-built or seasoned Mastermind will find this guide helpful.
In my opinion, the Mastermind is the most difficult archetype in City of Villains to play. But, on that same token, given a mastery of this archetype, it can also be exceptionally powerful not only from the standpoint of soloing but also as a grouped character. Masterminds, if properly built, can be the center of a group, giving support all the way from hold, confuse, and placate resistance to group heals and rez's. The power of the Mastermind ultimately rests with its pets and the full control of those pets. The bane of the Mastermind, on the other hand, is the lack of control of those pets especially in a group situation. As I have found in my experience of being a Mastermind, the problem that many people run into and complain about is with Masterminds that have uncontrolled pets in their groups. Many Masterminds fail to keep the proper leashes on their pets. This can lead to multiple deaths and all-out group wipes when pets "go wild" and aggro multiple mobs or groups of mobs. The solution to this is precision control as I've eluded to earlier. Now, my focus will go to the individual Mastermind that is currently in-game. Please read this guide straight through and do not skip ahead if this is your first time. Let's get started!
[u]Preliminary[u]
The first thing we need to do is take a look at the three already-provided pet control buttons. Under Powers on the Powertray, in the section 'Basic Pet Commands', we've got three buttons: Attack, Follow, and Heel. These three buttons may work for the first couple of levels of play, but they amount to a world of trouble. They need to be removed from the Powertray by right-clicking on them and choosing the option Remove from Tray. While they may have been intended to be a help to the budding Mastermind, consider these worthless.
Secondly, we need to get the Pet window up and set to Advanced mode if it is not already there. On your chat window, click Team on the top left and then click Pets once the Team window pops up. If your Pets window was not up already, it will be now. On the pet window, click Options and then choose Switch to Advanced Mode. This will allow the ability to choose individual stances and actions of each pet. Also, on that same window, click the two arrows until the pet toggles (to the left of their respective health/endurance bars) appears.
[u]Part II - Creating Macros[u]
Now that we've got the prelims out of the way, let's focus on replacing those three Basic Pet Controls with eight... yes, eight. For this, we'll need to have a spare powertray opened with 8 empty slots, if not all 10. I use powertray 3 since 1 and 2 are used for primary and secondary powers respectively as well as pool powers. Use whatever powertray you feel comfortable with.
With the available, empty powertray open, let's make our first macro. It will be a test macro to get you familiar with macros in general. In your chat window, type the following:
/macro Hi local Hi!
Once this macro is created, it will place the button for that macro named Hi in the first available slot in your powertrays. Click it. It should make your character say "Hi!" in local chat, visible to everyone nearby. Now, let's add something to it. Right-click this macro and go to Edit. In the Edit window, go to the end of the macro text and add this: $$ emote wave
The $$ in City of Heroes/Villains is used as a command separator. With these two dollar signs, you can stack multiple commands in a single macro to perform multiple actions. In this case, the Hi macro performs two commands: Displays 'Hi!' in local chat and should also make your character wave. For more practice, let's make another:
/macro Dance emote dance
Now, edit this macro and add the following: $$ local Shake it baby!
Lastly, edit this macro again and add this at the tail-end: $$ petsay_all <em dance>
This macro should now make not only yourself dance but all of your pets as well.
Now that we've gotten the bare-bones of macro creation down, let's focus on the pet control macros that will replace the Basic Pet Controls provided in the game. Our first macro will be called AtkP. Here's the format:
/macro AtkP petcom_all attack passive
This macro tells all of your pets to perform two things: One, attack your current target no matter where they're standing as well as ignore all others. Once that target is dead, your pets will return to you, hence the passivity. Move AtkP into Slot 1 of your new, (empty) pet control powertray. To practice, find an enemy mob nearby and give AtkP a try. The tactic behind this approach of using attack passive is to focus all pets on one mob at a time instead of having pets run out of control at multiple threats.
/macro FlwP petcom_all follow passive
This is the Follow Passive macro. This macro instructs your pets to follow you and ignore all attackers as well as any nearby mobs. They remain passive to everything and will not defend you or attack any others no matter what they are doing. This is the ultimate in controlling pets as it keeps them on an exceptionally-tight leash. It does have its drawbacks as we will get into further. This macro needs to be placed in your 2nd slot of your pet control powertray. Both AtkP and FlwP will be your most commonly-used macros, hence their positions in slots 1 and 2.
/macro Stay petcom_all stay passive
This is the Stay macro. It instructs your pets to stay parked in their current position passively ignoring all other threats and targets. This can be a useful control to have if you want to split yourself off from your pets temporarily for reasons of pulling or checking around corners, etc. This belongs in the 3rd slot of your powertray.
/macro Def petcom_all follow defensive
This is the mother of all macros for Masterminds -- Guardian Mode. Since Issue 7, the Mastermind can morph from that of a flimsy "squishy" character into that of a tanker with unbelievable robustness, challenging even the best of attackers. Strangely enough, it's not provided in the game, yet it's the difference between life and death of a Mastermind in tough situations, especially in PvP. An explanation of Guardian Mode: what this defensive posture does is evenly split off the damage that you receive from attackers onto your pets that are in PBAoE range. This won't apply to pets that are a good distance off. This macro will go into your 4th powertray slot. When activated, you will see a white shield on a blue background next to each pet name. Give it a try by targetting a mob and aggroing it yourself, waiting for it to attack you back. When you take damage, notice how it is evenly divided up amongst your pets. They should also respond and attack the attacker in response. Guardian Mode will not be used as much in PvE as it will be in PvP. Since attacks in PvP can come randomly and without warning, it is advisable to leave this up as much as possible. In PvE, it can be handy to use when you are fighting a very powerful mob and want some added defense.
/macro Goto petcom_all goto passive
This is one of my favourite control macros. This macro will send all of your pets to a given location similar to how AoE powers are done. They'll travel to that location and then remain there in passive mode, unresponsive to any threats. This control is highly useful if you have melee-based pets and want to send them in directly to surround a target for melee-range attacking. This goes in your 5th powertray slot. Practice it by sending your pets to a mob and then initiating the AtkP macro.
/macro FlwA petcom_all follow aggressive
This is Follow Aggressive. It isn't used very often but can be handy in PvP situations where invisible targets (such as stalkers) are a threat. With a good build that includes Tactics for +Perception, this macro might come in handy. Otherwise, it won't be used often. This goes in the 6th slot of your powertray
/macro Blitz petcom_all goto aggressive
The Blitz macro -- I like this one. It's situational, however, in that it's not used often except in conditions where you're fighting much lower mobs, fighting with a large group of people against a very large group of mobs, or if you are looking for a way to retreat to Rest (by blocking a door, etc.). Blitz is like Goto except Blitz will set your pets on aggressive to attack any nearby target and search for other targets actively. They will respond to any targets until dead and will return to that spot. This macro belongs in
[u]Part III: Keybinds[u]
In this section of the guide, we'll cover the use of keybinds in City of Heroes/Villains as well as taking the next step from clicking macros on a powertray to moving at lightspeed with incredible pet control. Keybinds, with respect to what we're trying to accomplish here, is the use of keys to activate powers and macros in specific powertray slots. Keybinds serve many other functions within the game and if you're interested in learning further I recommend checking out the game's user manual. There's some fairly detailed functions and such that can be called by the use of keybinds.
Our goal here is to be able to use these macros we've just made to control our pets with quick reflexes and precision that some situations in-game may call for. Part of our job as Masterminds is to be aware of all of our surroundings, especially when it comes to assessing the threats we're facing, as well as keeping track of what each pet or group of pets is doing. With our keybinds, we can do this very quickly and without incident if we're careful. With mastery, keybinds provides us the ability to even control individual pets to perform specific tasks, thereby allowing us to engage multiple mobs at once, or split some pets off to perform ranged attacks while others engage in melee combat. The sky is the limit here.
We'll practice our keybinding with one simple exercise. We will take an otherwise "inert" key such as 'v' and use it to activate the AtkP (attack passive) macro in our 1st slot of our powertray. I will be using powertray 3 as the tray in our keybinds since this is what I and several other Masterminds use. In your command line:
/bind v powexec_tray 1 3
Powexec_tray is the function that is called to activate a power or macro within a specific slot # then tray #. As you may've noticed, the arguments needed for the function powexec_tray to operate are backwards. This initially threw me off as I expected it to ask for tray # and then slot #, but it's swapped and is asking for the slot # first and then the tray # thereafter. Keep this in mind when making other keybinds that use this function.
Let's test this macro out. With your pets and a (hopefully not dangerous) mob nearby, hit your v key and watch your pets respond. They should perform the AtkP function: killing the mob, ignoring everything else, then returning to you.
Now on to the fun part. What we will do here is create four keybinds based on the pet control macros AtkP, FlwP, Def, and Goto. The other four (Stay, FlwA, Blitz, and AtkA), since they are more exceptionally used, don't require a keybind unless you prefer to have one. I'd just as soon save the keys and use them for other, more useful macros in the future. For my pet control macros, since I use the four arrow keys to control my character's movement, I find it easy to use the numeric keypad. I use 1, 2, 4, and 5 for my four commonly-used pet control macros. Here's how I set them up:
/bind numpad1 powexec_tray 1 3 (this will attach numeric key 1 to Attack Passive)
/bind numpad2 powexec_tray 2 3 (binding numeric key 2 to Follow Passive)
/bind numpad4 powexec_tray 4 3 (binding Guardian Mode to numeric key 4)
/bind numpad5 powexec_tray 5 3 (binding Goto passive to numeric key 5)
I initially used 8 of the numeric keypad keys for all 8 pet macros but found myself using some of those slots for things like individual pet control (in the case of my Thug Mastermind I control Hydrosmash, my bruiser pet, with one of those keys), recall friend and teleport foe macros, and the like. Depending your tastes, however, you can bind whatever keys you'd like to your pet control macros. When in doubt, test the key first to see if it has an inherent game function. And, if in the event that keybind gets loused up, you can go into Options/Keymapping and repair it. In the next and final portion of this guide, I will get into pet specific commands, pet emotes, and reveal how I control my bruiser pet, Hydrosmash, like a real brute with a mind of his own both in combat and in social settings.
Other keybinds can be made by going to Menu/Options/Keymapping.
Part IV: Extras, to continue, will conclude this training guide.
[u]Part IV: Extras[u]
In this section, I'll go over all of the finer details concerning specific pet controls like making them speak, perform emotes, and doing individual pet commands. This will be in no particular order.
We'll start with pet emotes. They are very simple. All pets, with perhaps the exception of the Robotics Mastermind, can perform all of the emotes that the player character can. They can dance, cheer, roar, and the like. For our test, let's make a macro that will make our pets dance:
/macro Dance petsay_all <em dance>
Notice the one difference between this macro and the other pet control macros -- the function petsay is being called. In this game, there are two major pet functions: petcom and petsay. Petsay can be used a variety of ways:
Petsay_all - All pets will speak the given text or perform the following emote
Petsay_name (pet name) - Specific pet name will perform the action (note: pet name must be one word and cannot contain any spaces
Petsay_pow (class type) - Pets of this class (such as thugs, bruiser, enforcer, oni, jounin, etc.) will perform this action
The same holds true for the petcom functions: petcom_all, petcom_name, and petcom_pow. If you are creative, you can use these to create keybound macros to control groups of pets to perform specific functions, such as sending your two Jounin ninja to attack one target, the Oni pet to attack a 2nd, and all of your Genin ninja to attack a 3rd.
For those of you Masterminds, such as myself, that use the Teleportation pool power line heavily, check these out:
[i]/macro TPFoe say Bringing $target to the beat down! Incoming Teleport Foe!
[i]/macro TPFr say
The use of 'say' instead of 'local' will yield text that is being displayed in your currently-selected chat channel, whether it be local, global, broadcast, say, etc. So, before executing these, make sure the rest of the world doesn't see them by mistake.
How do I make Hydrosmash, my Thug Mastermind's Bruiser pet, talk, perform actions, and act in combat like a brute with a mind of his own? Easily. It's all in the macros and the keybinds. I have a few specific combat macros for him to help control the use of his ranged and melee attacks. The bruiser pet, in this specific case, is a Super Strength brute, possessing nearly all of the SS attack primary power line with the exception of Taunt. At level 32 with the Tier 9 Upgrade Equipment power, he has the ability to hurl a rock (ranged attack) and that particular attack sometimes tends to take prescedence over his melee attacks. At range, he will prefer to Hurl instead of run up to the mob and perform Jab, Haymaker, Knockout Blow, etc. So, what I do with Smash is capitalize on his damage potential and aggro-keeping ability by having his own commands:
/macro HSGto
I hope you guys enjoyed this guide and found it of use. If so, please respond and let me know! Also, any criticism or questions are welcome. Let me know where I can improve on this guy or append it in anyway. Thanks again and have fun playing the Mastermind!
I17 includes a reworking/updating/tweaking of the graphics engine. Did you try my suggestions above to disable any overrides in the ATI Catalyst Control Center?
