Allow me to say that the Flame and Cold Melee powers (whether as Brute or Tank) are unutterably goofy to behold almost entirely because of the crazy-ass swords. “Flame Sword!” “Ice Sword!” Looks and feels like bad 70s cartoons.
They may be faboo power sets, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to take them.
And on a related note, one of the other duos Margie and I were looking at was Mastermind/Mastermind, which sounds really fun — except that I really dislike all of the MM Secondaries. Granted, the non-minion Primaries are often kind of cool, but …
I actually deleted my very first Villain, a Mercs/Poison MM, a couple of weeks ago. Part of the problem is the “well-known” (among people who read the boards a lot, anyway, a group among which I don’t number) fact that Mercs damage doesn’t perform at the higher levels when critters start resisting smashing/lethal quite a bit. The bigger problem is Poison. The single-target heal is weak and end-heavy, the single-target debuffs are decent, and… that’s it. Half the powerset doesn’t appeal to me, and the other half is just kind of “meh.”
My Ninja/Traps MM has enjoyed several respecs in an ongoing attempt to make that combination both effective and entertaining. I hate Traps’ so-called heal power, but the rest of the powers I’m currently using are fairly decent. Hell, FFG alone is worth the price of admission.
Then there’s /Dark, which is what I see on a great many MMs. My girlfriend won’t use anything else, and I have to admit that my Thugs/Dark is probably the most fun and effective MM I’ve run to date, at least as a teen-level toon.
As for the primaries… what is this “non-minion” you speak of? Trust me, the attacks are useless (you can’t take the aggro, therefore you don’t want to draw the aggro) and some of the other powers are of what I’ll call “questionable” utility. You tend to get three attacks (two single-target plinks and a modest AoE, usually) in addition to your five minion-related powers, so what’s left is whatever random thing the devs could come up with to fill.
On the MM’s:
If one of you takes Traps(?) and the other Poisons, all should be well since those two I have been fairly happy with as Secondaries.
Ah. So much for my dreams of being a MM/Pistol Scrapper …
I hate Dark. Hate. It. I have had two characters that I’ve gotten, with great pain, to 15-20 with Dark (MM and Def) and ended up deleting one and simply not playing the other. Tar Patch rocks, but the rest of the set is so … slow … and … gah.
I’ve done Poison (with Maitre d’Mon), and it’s not bad.
I dunno. We’ll see.
Indeed, Poison’s not bad. Not great, but not bad. If you hate Dark, though, then Traps is pretty much your best remaining choice. FFG and Acid Mortar are getting some use on my Ninja herder, so I can recommend it with a clear conscience.
Nice of Cryptic to only give us the handful of options… and you’ll notice nobody really talks about the remaining one.
Margie has told me that Force Field for MMs is a lot more enjoyable than it is for Defenders.