Madam_Enigma

No I haven't. A keld has MORE powers just in primary and secondary then they can take by level 50. So for every pool power you get, you have to decide which from the primary/secondary you don't want. And warshades get a lot of really nice powers. Plus if your tri-form you are short on enhancement slots too. So I find I have to look at power choices also in terms of "How many slots will this require?"

As such all but 1 Dwarf power has only the default slot. Many human form powers too only have the default slot as well.

Good goddess no! It's a horrid power. I've used it simply for messing around and setting up EB sleep traps (stack 6 or 7 in one spot then lead the Elite into it). Even then all it does is *maybe* negate one attack, and drain their endurance bar by 1/2. And the endurance is recovered in seconds.

My crab spider build has yet to slot more then 3 ACC enhancements total. And those are in Combat Training: Offensive. It alone gives me 1.22 acc, and combined with the Tactics toggle, I hit 95% tohit on +1 mobs, and still can hit pretty reliably vs up to +3 mobs. I prefer fighting on -1/x4 though for added mobs that drop faster.

Not exactly. Before I could buff up my pets without really losing too much endurance. And upgrading a single replacement pet was cheep. Now I have to pay the same huge amount no matter what. And mid fight, waiting around to be able to rebuff the pets due to no endurance can get you killed.

I have been. And you know, it's still not a moot point. Dark Regen use to cost 50 endurance unslotted. It still costs a lot. With 3 level 25 IO's for end redux dark regen still costs 19 endurance to use. With two level 35 end redux IO's slotted the pet upgrades are still 36 endurance to cast.

Is it costing 36 endurance WITH slotting really a moot point? Or is it expensive as heck? Especially when you need to upgrade only one or two minions? Or if you have to upgrade them during a protracted fight?

Actually, zoning doesn't matter. it's long been a problem. If the pets are actually different (thug vs arsonist) the name is pretty standard. However if the types are the same (3 genin for example) and one does, when you resummon it might be in the wrong spot position wise. Rather annoying when you use keybinds to target your pets.

HEY! It's actually a pretty nasty combo. Mix in Aid Self and Aid Other (along side stamina) and you got THE Archvillain killer you need.

I also have a very fun thug/ta. And am gonna make a couple demon summoners. My main love though is ninja/poison. Some tactics for masterminds in general and ninja/poison in particular.

Pet control: master it. Weather you just edit the initial 3 macros, create a macro for each stance and command, or use the very good numpad binds. No matter what you do however you need to learn how to control your henchmen. It's a matter of life and death (of the team).

Personal Attacks: Take them or leave them. For most sets you'll be better off without them though.

Stamina: By no means a requirement. It does help however. Especially in long fights.

And now for ninja/poison. This combo is heavily single target for debuffs and damage. It's also rather high damage. Your best when focusing fire on a single enemy at a time. Although they can do a decent job handling large groups of foes too, provided you can keep up with healing them. Either run on a setting with few enemies of higher level, or many enemies of lower level. Do not try running +4/x8. You'll regret it. Your two strengths as a ninja/poison are defeating single strong foes, and many weak foes. Your weakness is many strong foes.

And your /dark mastermind floors the ACC of pretty much everything except an AV. So not soft capping def doesn't matter. The pet alone gives -30% to their tohit. That's in and of it's self equal to a SR scrapper running Single Origin enhancements. And this is unslotted for to-hit debuff. Between Darkest Night, Shadow Fall, and Fearsome Stare enemies will be having extreme trouble hitting too. And that's assuming no slots devoted to tohit debuff and def buff. Slot them for it, and they will floor to-hit eather.

That is because you have never experienced pan-dimensional sensory art. Until you have seen the majesty of a sound sculpture or tasted the light tapestries of Tesseract Prime you haven't known true art.

Hot pink with pee green highlights.

Just kidding, I'll go with dark read and dark black or dark yellow. The Bright pallets looked odd.

Sure it can. The team could start thinking we're actually HELPING longbow.

Sadly, it happens. Fortunatly, the MM noobs will likely quit playing it rather fast. Might not even make it to 18. Unfortunately, they will damage the reputation of us skilled masterminds.

It doesn't help that half of what a skilled mastermind does isn't visible to the party. Pet controls are not flashy.

You might be confusing a huntsmen I think. By taking all the wolf spider attacks without any attacks from the other trees, your basically a wolf spider. To complete it, the mace master patron pool is all that's needed. Huntsmen are simply the boss versions of wolf spiders, and thus have all the various attacks.

And honestly, the wolf spider tree has plenty of attacks. Don't really need any mace attacks, I already have my attack tray pretty much filled.

Huntsman or Widow comes first. You can't go into crab spider, bane spider, or night widow/fortuneta until 24.

Well, to be fair by 40 even with stamina, there aren't enough Wolf Spider powers to cover everything. It's either dip into one of the other two trees, or get more power pools. And if you already have the crab legs, may as well replace the typical bane spider secondary powers with crab spider powers. Then get your mace via patron powers.

But I'm feeling rather meh about taking patron powers. Really, 4 powers is dipping into the tree. Might not get the pets though. Just don't know yet. Took the passive armor upgrade for more mez protection, and fortification for the damage resistance. Might get serum for a self heal. Or might get more leadership toggles instead. Haven't decided yet.

My 'huntsman' build is only dipping into the crab secondary tree because my primary build is Crab, thus I am forced into the pack anyway. Other then the defensive stuff and maybe pet power, everything else is pools and wolf spider. Sure, I could have gone bane/wolf for the build but I'd still have the backpack. As such, may as well get the added survivability.