|
|
 
Official Description: "As a Mastermind, you excel at using others to do your dirty work. Perhaps you build killer robots, command deadly Ninjas, order hardened soldiers or summon the undead to do your bidding. Whatever your choice, you have an army of minions at your beck and call. You can summon them when needed, order them to work your will, and even use your own powers to enhance them and weaken your foes. The Mastermind is a difficult class to play, often demanding constant attention to control your minions and stave off the retribution of your enemies."
Primary: Summon
Secondary: Buff/Debuff
Hit Points: Low
Damage: Medium
Icon: Henchmen - The Mastermind's henchmen make him unique among the Archetypes, and give him a very different feel.
Inherent:
Supremacy - A good Mastermind knows how to manage his henchmen. A Mastermind imparts a bonus to his Henchmen's Accuracy and Damage only if he is nearby. PBAoE, Henchmen +ACC, +DMG
The Mastermind has the following Power Sets to choose from:
The Mastermind is the most unique archetype in City of Villains, totally unlike any Hero archetype. There are similarities to Controllers, once they get their pets at level 32. However, the Mastermind has access to considerably more pets, and a LOT more control over them, as well as a few minor ranged attacks. This makes the Mastermind a sort of combination of Defender, and pet-user, giving him capabilities unlike those of pet classes in other MMORPGs.
The Mastermind also, as you might guess from the name, makes an excellent leader and team-oriented player. Since so many of his Secondary powers can be used to buff allies as well as his pets, this is a well-rounded class. Check out this link for Mastermind ideas and "subarchetypes".
Tips for playing the Mastermind:
When solo:
Although it is possible to play a Mastermind with just the Basic pet controls, it becomes MUCH easier to control your Henchmen in Advanced mode. This gives you precise control over where a Henchman positions himself, how he reacts to threats and what powers he will use. Although it can be daunting to control your Henchmen with so many choices, there is a good keybinds guide, Mastermind Numeric Keypad Controls, in the Player Guides forum of the official boards. If you do nothing else, edit your "Follow" command and make it "petcom_all follow defensive" instead of "petcom_all follow aggressive". This will return your Henchmen to Bodyguard mode, as described below.
The most important command you can use with your Henchmen is "goto". Although it is more complicated than the other commands, requiring an extra click to specify a location, normally your Henchmen follow behind you, while in combat you want them in front of you. Although foes typically attack the enemy that most recently aggroed them, standing in front of your Henchmen is asking for trouble, especially if you plan to use your debuffs or healing powers. It can be really annoying to constantly be telling your Henchmen where to go ahead of you, though, so typically you will take the lead as you explore a map or location, with your pets following you. At times you may even want them to "stay", while you scout ahead on your own. Stealth can help a lot with this tactic.
When you locate a target, you want to either use the Attack command, or switch your pets to Aggressive mode and place them where they will start to attack. Or at least, you want some of them to attack. Most Masterminds have defensive Henchmen that should stay closer to the back ranks to provide healing and protection. It may help to divide your team into "offense" and "defense", and set your keybinds so you can tell the "strike force" to goto a location while the other team stays in follow mode behind you.
The main reason for this division of forces is that Masterminds have an ability called Bodyguard, which enabes them to divide any damage taken by the Mastermind himself amongst his Henchmen. If you have few Henchmen, or they are low on hit points, this may not provide much protection, but in effect this increases your pool of hit points, making you much less likely to be defeated before your Henchmen. Bodyguard only applies to Henchmen that are in "follow defensive", or even "goto" or "stay defensive". Either "attack" or the "aggressive" stance will override Bodyguard, so in order to be protected, you must either give up the initiative, or divide your forces, reducing the amount of protection of Bodyguard.
Once the battle begins, typically you will want to use your attacks and buffs to back up your Henchmen. If a foe is drawn off towards you, you can either engage him on your own, or have an emergency keybind set up to have a Henchman defend you. Either way you want to make sure that your pets remain in an organized group and don't get too far apart chasing after runners. Have a "come back to me" keybind set up, and even the "Heel" command defined by the Basic interface (which is basically petcom_all follow passive) can be useful enough to be kept in your tray. ("Passive" also overrides Bodyguard, though, so don't forget that if you use this command)
Understanding the difference between ranged Henchmen (Robots, Mercenaries, Thugs) and melee Henchmen (Ninjas, Necromancy, and the Thugs Bruiser) is also important to successfully controlling your Henchmen. Ranged Henchmen should be sent with "goto" to a suitable position from which they can lay down fire on a number of foes, drawing them together. Melee Henchmen may need to be split up using the "attack" command, and then directed to move closer together with "goto aggressive". You should be able to easily direct one henchman, and then just as easily switch to control of several of them. This takes practice, but should be possible if your keybind is well constructed.
If you choose to develop your own personal attacks, you can contribute to the battle as well, but with only three attacks to choose from, you cannot really muster the same damage as a Defender, or even a Controller. You do have your Secondary to protect yourself and your allies, and you should spend most of your time using those powers. You can play a Mastermind as a Defender, however, viewing your pets as your "heavy attacks", while still using your weaker attacks as a Defender would.
While on a team:
On a team, the Mastermind's primary role is to serve as a distraction, and keep aggro off of his teammates by gathering it on his pets. In a sense, then, the role of the Mastermind is to tank for the team. Henchmen however, like Brutes, are not really built for long term tanking, although the final tier pets, properly buffed, can come close. While it's true that it is better to have one of your Henchmen die than one of your teammates die, however, it is also true that, as with tanks, losing a Henchman usually means that all of that aggro is immediately transferred somewhere else. If you can keep your teammate alive AND your Henchman alive, well, obviously that's much better.
As with playing solo, a lot of this depends on knowing how much your Henchmen can take, and not allowing them to be overwhelmed. You have an advantage the other Archetypes do not have, and that's that you can direct your attacks against multiple opponents at the same time. (Or at least, even if other Archetypes can do that, it is not as easy) You should already have an "offensive" and a "defensive" team, if you can split your offensive forces into two more teams on top of that, you can split up the return fire, and make it harder for the enemy to take out all your forces in an alpha strike.
Likewise, your player allies can also form a "team", to draw off even more of the fire. While your Henchmen keep the majority of the Minions busy, your teammates can be taking out the Bosses, who without allies to protect them, will be easy pickings. As with a Tanker, it is really the role of the Mastermind to keep lower ranking foes busy, although a Mastermind can't hold onto aggro like a Tanker can.
Another point to keep in mind is that while Henchmen will react quickly enough to attack foes that deal damage to your or another of your Henchmen, they will not gain any aggro if it is an ally that is attacked. In "defensive" mode, particularly if you have really high Defense and no attacks have hit you for a long time, your Henchmen may just stop attacking. In this case, you may need to set some or all of them to "aggressive", or order them to "attack". If you have already split your forces, to give yourself at least partial Bodyguard, you may have to sacrifice the rest of it to ensure your Henchmen stay in the fight.
Being able to react quickly to a Henchman wipe, re-buffing only as needed and getting the replacement into the fight as fast as possible, is a very valuable skill. If you see you are about to lose one Henchman, be ready to summon his replacement so you can send him in right away, and not lose another. It may actually be helpful not to summon all of your Henchmen, if the team is made up mostly of Masterminds, or you or a teammate has a graphic system that cannot handle the load of so many targets on the screen at once. This is not as big an issue as it once was (Henchmen now zone with their Masterminds, so summoning doesn't take as much time, and Henchmen don't block players trying to walk through them) but be ready to adapt if the situation calls for it.
If necessary, and if you have enough time to react, pull a Henchman who is about to die out of the fight so he can rest or be healed. This is also useful when solo, but in a team situation, with so many individuals fighting at one time, one Henchman can usually rest without seriously effecting the conflict. Again, being able to control individual Henchmen, and knowing how to use "defensive" and "passive" mode to control the amount of aggro he generates, can be a very useful skill. And if nothing else, it gives you something to do. :)
Pet commands:
See my Commands page for the Mastermind pet commands. Essentially, "aggressive" directs the Henchman to attack any foe that comes in range and follow for a short distance if it runs, "defensive" directs the Henchman not to fire unless either it or the Mastermind is fired on first, and "passive" halts all fire. Defensive henchmen will not use their heals or buffs when in "passive" mode, but they will use them when "defensive". "Attack" directs the Henchman to immediately attack the selected target, "follow" tells it to return to the Mastermind and stand near him, "goto" tells it to go to a location and guard it, and "stay" is basically a "goto" targetted on the current location.
It is the combination of the commands and stances that make for precise control of your Henchmen. For instance, if a Henchman is fighting a foe, "follow aggressive" will make him return to you, but only as opportunity allows and while still fighting the foe. "Follow defensive" will make him return faster, still attacking (as he is being fired on) but choosing to return to you rather than give chase if the foe runs. And "follow passive" will cause him to make a beeline for you, ignoring all attacks. Note "attack passive" is a valid command, and will cause the Henchman to immediately drop what he is doing and attack the target, stopping and going passive the moment it is dead.
Much confusion on the part of many Mastermind players is not knowing how the commands interact. Many Masterminds think that as soon as they say "follow", their henchman should return right to them. Again, as stated above, if in "follow aggressive" the henchmen will NOT return to you if they can attack their target. And they are likely to run after their target if it tries to leave melee range. You should set to "follow defensive" to make your allies return to you, or even "follow passive" and then set them back to defensive once they are near you.
One important factor to keep in mind is that if you issue the "follow" command, to call your Henchmen back to you, they will stop firing for 10 seconds. This is intended to make it more likely they will actually come to you, as otherwise in "defensive" mode they would continue to fight until no longer in "danger". Even with the pause, they can still hesitate before returning to you, which is why "follow passive" tends to work better. This is one reason why having keybinds that control stance and command individually, like the one mentioned above, is a good idea. You can set stance from "aggressive" to "defensive", to activate Bodyguard, and it will not interrupt your Henchmen's attacks unless you give the "follow" command as well.
I mentioned several times above editing the default commands, which appear in your Power tray for any Mastermind. This can be done simply by right clicking on the icon, and selecting "Edit Macro" from the menu that appears. However, it is possible to create new macros (or even restore the default ones if you deleted them) by dragging the command icon from the Pet Window into your Power Tray. These macros can then be edited as well, so this is a good way to set up commands for "offensive" and "defensive" teams.
|