Psylenz

I have 75 months experience and am no beginner to masterminds. I rolled a Robots/FF for supporting some global friends. It was a huge boost when my mastermind hit level 12. Hang in there friends, it gets better. At level 18, you get a third battle drone with the option of 'Repair' which is a great heal for your robots.

edit: I often take it to the enemy to start the fight at the maximum range of the upgraded robots. They have superior range, can dogpile a target, and will finish problematic spawns before their spawnmates react.

I like playing masterminds. I don't have any more trouble than anyone else getting groups, but I will say, even playing a mastermind, I don't like to have more than 3 masterminds on the team. Certain sewer and tunnel maps get too clogged.

Most mastermind pairings that are good solo are pretty good on teams, too. I think any well-played mastermind primary is welcome. The favored secondaries are /dark, /thermal, and /pain for the group heals. I wouldn't say the other secondaries are bad, just not as popular with teams.

I would contend that a Robots/Storm mastermind is very poweful.

In my experience, crack the whip is all the taunt/provoke I need for my Demon/Thermal. Another tactic I use, outside of big boss/AV/hero fights, is to split my stance. I put my top two tiers, the three big flaming cows on Attack my Target/follow, and the three little guys on defensive/follow. It really seems to help keep the little guys from wandering too much, especially the cold demonling. I like when the Demon Prince gets the jump on a group and does his cold/slow magic.

My favorite feature is when I 'tankermind' and aggro the biggest baddest dude first, and the demon prince promptly encases him in ice. Aw yeah.

I have a Kin/DP. Swap ammo is very good for kinetics to stack the -damage debuff of the pistols secondary effects with the -dmg of siphon power and fulcrum shift.

Leadership is good on kinetics. Anything to boost your accuracy is a plus. Once you get to level 26, you might find you don't need the extra endurance boost from stamina. It can be a long road there.

The hasten/superspeed combo is good for kinetics since you get some stealthiness with superspeed. If it were me, I would try to fit in inertial reduction for vertical bouncing movement.

There are a lot of great /dark powers to cram in trying to get through the stamina crunch at level 20. I like all the powers you have taken, but if I were leveling up, I would take them in a different order. In my opinion for myself, you can be pretty endurance starved before stamina. It might seem counterintuitive, but I took my /dark 'click' powers before stamina and the 'toggle/aura' powers after. With the temporary mayhem travel powers, if you are going through the Rogues, you can put off true travel until after stamina. If you are going through Praetoria... I would probably go the route you went . I do think Howling Twilight needs some priority loving.

I like my Demon summoning/Thermal mastermind a lot. Thermal is somewhere between dark and poison on the group/solo debuff scale. The direct heals are nice. Demon Prince and the two demons have buff/debuff auras that support the little guys, which are more pure damage. I think you would cut off a lot of minion nose to spite mastermind face by not keeping the lowest tier out doing damage. Sometimes I shield every minion, for boss fights. Sometimes, I don't bother at all. Other times, I start a buff cycle on the shields starting with the minion that takes the most damage, which oddly can be my ember demon.

I haven't played pain domination high enough to compare the big game skills, but I can attest at level 38 with the heat exhaust, melt armor combo, thermal is very potent indeed.

My first suggestion for a recovering corruptor: Cold/ice defender. You get plenty of support. You can recolor the shields to make them less obtrusive now. Your rain powers are still gauged with blaster scale damage. You get access to sleet which is one of the beefiest debuff powers (along with freezing rain). It has no heals, but it's a sweet, sweet combination of ally buffs and foe debuffs.

Controllers are like dominators with the control powers as a primary, and defender primaries as secondaries. They are very strong support, too. If I were rolling my first controller, I would probably make a fire/thermal for nice control and very good support. It's by no means a "one trick pony".

I have seen new ones, too, in the days leading up to Going Rogue also. I am excited by all the returnees.

1. I like the demon whip attacks. There is more than the usual crush for taking great powers in a mastermind set with dark miasma. In such instances, I would prioritize crack the whip. Stealthing in with shadowfall, crack the whip can get a lot of attention to your mastermind since it is a fairly wide cone. I didn't respec out of the whip powers on my demon summoning masterminds.

2. Having Dark Miasma for a secondary, I would definitely build towards recharge and recovery.

3. Living Hellfire is definitely a keeper. I cast it only on the 2nd and highest tier demons. In general I like it on my demon prince, but if there is a situation where my 2nd tier demon is having a rough time, I cast on him to help cushion his aggro. The little imps do a great distraction job for your buffed pet.

4. If your mastermind draws aggro at range, the minions will all deliver a volley of ranged attacks and then move into melee in general. The fire demonling almost always stays at range, he has more ranged attacks. Your cold demonling almost always moves to melee quickly; he cycles through his few range attacks quickly, being ice blasts, and then moves into scrapper mode. Being in melee with a demon with a heal aura and shield aura, with a second demon with a damage aura, along with the demon prince with a slow aura isn't a bad thing at all when you are packing an AoE twilight grasp, tar patch, darkest night, etc. Adding the dark servant to the mix, just makes sick for your opponents.

Try this build out for size. I skipped short circuit. Although I don't run hurricane 24/7 myself, you would have to shut it down too often for using short circuit. I didn't pick up Aim because you have freezing rain for the defense and resistance debuff. I don't usually take the snipe on defenders. I like to have both gale and O2; you could easily switch which one take first though. I like Thunderclap as a quick follow up to freezing rain, to help it hit, and then if/when I cast tornado, the stuns will stack.


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.703
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Storm Electric: Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Secondary Power Set: Electrical Blast
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Electricity Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Gale -- Empty(A), Empty(46)
Level 1: Charged Bolts -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(23), Empty(25), Empty(43)
Level 2: Lightning Bolt -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(5), Empty(23), Empty(40)
Level 4: Snow Storm -- Empty(A), Empty(5)
Level 6: Ball Lightning -- Empty(A), Empty(7), Empty(7), Empty(25), Empty(43)
Level 8: Freezing Rain -- Empty(A), Empty(9), Empty(9), Empty(11), Empty(15), Empty(37)
Level 10: Steamy Mist -- Empty(A), Empty(11), Empty(17), Empty(17), Empty(19)
Level 12: Hurricane -- Empty(A), Empty(13), Empty(13), Empty(15), Empty(19), Empty(46)
Level 14: Hover -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(21)
Level 22: Fly -- Empty(A)
Level 24: O2 Boost -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(34)
Level 26: Tornado -- Empty(A), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(29), Empty(37)
Level 28: Tesla Cage -- Empty(A), Empty(29), Empty(31), Empty(37), Empty(43)
Level 30: Thunder Clap -- Empty(A), Empty(31)
Level 32: Lightning Storm -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(34), Empty(34)
Level 35: Voltaic Sentinel -- Empty(A), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(36)
Level 38: Thunderous Blast -- Empty(A), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(40), Empty(40)
Level 41: Electric Fence -- Empty(A), Empty(42), Empty(42), Empty(42)
Level 44: Charged Armor -- Empty(A), Empty(45), Empty(45), Empty(45), Empty(46)
Level 47: Power Sink -- Empty(A), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(48)
Level 49: Shocking Bolt -- Empty(A), Empty(50), Empty(50), Empty(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 6: Ninja Run

They are still tweaking Fly speed in Going Rogue/Issue 18, so I didn't enhance extra there until it gets sorted out.

It still makes some sense since the buff shields, rings, bubbles are slotted with TOs and not SOs.

Don't underestimate your blasters

I have thought about this, too. When my demons/thermal starts strolling through the streets of Founders Falls, it should really shake things up. For healing, not much touches the green number output from the thermal secondary and a pet that thinks he's a fire/thermal corruptor. The extra thermal shields and auras will rock the hero world.

I will try to make this brief.

Basic rundown on the Demon Summoning:

The three first tier demonlings do three types of damage. That's a plus when you get all three at level 18. They have a variety of ranged and melee attacks. They are fairly sturdy for first tier pets. The cold demonling likes to run into melee, but I theorize it's because his ranged attacks are ice blast and animate quickly so he runs in for the next available attack which is melee.

The second tier lieutenant rank gives you two very different critters. The ember demonling is based on a thermal healer and also does good fire damage. All allies, masterminds, pets, teammates get a thermal shield from the ember demonling. Before level 32 the pets and even the mastermind at times will get a single target heal from the ember demon. At level 32, the ember demon picks up additional attacks and an PbAoE heal that would make lolhealzors jealous. This guy is basically a fire/thermal corruptor with certain limitations.

The Hellfire Gargoyle is a beast. He does fire and toxic damage. He also does resistance debuffing. The hellfire gargoyle gets a PbAoE damage aura around him at level 32 upgrade and does even more resistance debuffing.

The Demon Prince has no equal on the villainside. He is basically an Ice Brute. He has PbAoE attacks, cone ice attacks, and at level 32 upgrade he gets the PbAoE cold/slow aura. Coming from background of playing defenders, I would urge you not to underestimate the effectiveness of a slotted slow aura on your Demon Prince. Stacking this with another Demon Mastermind, the slow effects from Storm's snow storm and/or freezing rain, glue arrow from the TA set, tar patch from Dark Miasma will cause foes movements to grind down so slow you need a calendar to time their advance.

I have played and become frustrated with Ninjas in the past. If you like Ninjas, thats fine, but in my opinion, the Demon set is head and shoulders above Ninjas.

Traps/Rad and Traps/Sonic would both do well IMHO. I thought of Rad blast first for the PbAoE defense debuffing early on in the career while getting in place for dropping traps.

I do NOT play my trapper conservatively. He gets in the grill, drops some big bad debuffs and goes to town. The forcefield generator and poison gas trap really make this possible with little damage. When you get seeker drones, you have your own pseudotanks to absorb alpha strikes while you run in to drop the traps.

If things are going well on a team, I even place the acid mortar in a place where it can strike two groups, lasting longer than the spawns, eventually even stacking mortars. Hasten and Superspeed are your friends.

It would be interesting for a traps guide. There are of course the overlapping powers in defenders and corruptors, but I am sure the leveling is different since defenders get the goodies sooner, planning for stamina/recovery, and when to grab the pool powers if any.
My current if a bit neglected traps project is a Traps/dark defender, and I feel he is VERY powerful.

Ahhh, the fluffy, when the warwolves are rampaging, when steel strongman are looking to pound your head, when swarms of CoT are all around, remember to HUG your fluffy! The base -30% PbAoE tohit debuff around your fluffy is golden, or green, or pink, or whatever color you decide. And as a corollary, I always say, slot out your dark servant with tohit debuff enhancers, you will be glad you did.

I like the powers, I like the order. I like that you eventually if a little later took ice storm.

The only quibble is that Freeze Ray has a base recharge of 10 seconds while Bitter Freeze Ray has a base recharge of 20 seconds Base duration on freeze ray is 11.9; 18 seconds on Bitter Freeze Ray. I would take Freeze Ray first and over Bitter Freeze Ray in an either/or situation.

An evil killer clown set inspired by:

Pennywise for the boss
Bozo/circus clown for the lieutenants
Mimes for the cannon fodder. Everybody hates mimes.