Jeagan

You may be able to get around this issue by having something akin to Hellfire, which summons temp pets over time, but change the trigger from a timer to the target dying. Then the things that are summoned are from the Mastermind, rather than the pet itself.

So I think you mean a Speedster powerset, not Archetype. I can see it as a powerset, basically an expansion on the Speed power pool. But an Archetype is like Blaster, Mastermind, Brute, Defender, etc, and I don't think Speedster would really fit into that category. As far as the power pools go, Teleportation is faster but WAY less accurate, flight is significantly slower but bypasses blockage, and super speed is kinda in the middle. It's slower and more accurate than teleportation, while being faster and harder to control than flight. I think it fits just fine as a travel power.

I don't have an answer for that. I don't know if the stuff that follows you around on maps count as henchman, despite having different classifications, and as there are no henchmen that summon other pets I don't know if it applies the same way. The closest I am aware is the Demon Summoning power Hell on Earth, which gets applied to a pet and summons additional temporary pets, but I assume those are still connected to the MM rather than the pet. I would figure you could set up the split spawning of slimes to work similarly, but I just don't know.

The temporary pets wouldn't prevent the summoning of your base henchmen, I'm not really sure how that's being interpreted in what I wrote 😕 It's a power effect of your pets, not a direct power of the Mastermind. I really wish we would get a new MM powerset, they are extremely stagnant and that makes me sad.

I think people are overthinking this a lot, if the damage of the base powers is balanced against having the temps out it shouldn't be all that big of a deal. Have the basic powers of the henchman, meaning the powers they start with, be weaker than the ones other henchmen types start with, and have the upgrade powers which the temp pets don't get access to be slightly stronger. Then the temps deal less damage, while the henchmen are still on the average damage curve. There are a bunch of ways to adjust for the additional damage, especially considering the temporary pets cannot be enhanced in any way.

The posse is about equivalent to what I'm thinking for my pawns, honestly. They have one attack, compared to the two that Punks start with, but the damage ends up being very comparable. Posse Brawl 28.80 average damage 2 second cooldown Punk Pistol 29.68 average damage 2 second cooldown Punk Brawl 32.06 average damage 16 second cooldown

I was operating under the same assumptions you were. Three knights, fully recharged power. Knights die the instant they spawn in, and the pawns are all invulnerable. Knights die, so 6 pawns. Summon, knights die again, so 6+6 pawns. Nine seconds later, summon knights, which instantly die. Now you have 12 pawns that have 6 seconds left (9 second cooldown) and 6 freshly summoned pawns, so 12+6. That's 18 pawns. Six seconds later you lose 12 pawns, so you have 6 left. Three seconds after that you summon and instantly lose your knights, bringing in another 6 pawns, for a total of 12.

I missed this the first read-through, and I'd like to directly address it. Applying -rech to your pet means they won't have the extra damage and accuracy, and would essentially be equivalent to the pawns, so your overall damage would drop. Assuming your kinghts are all summoned and you have summon ready to go, all three knights die, you have 6 temps. Activate power, nine seconds to go. All the knights die instantly, so you have 12 temps with a full 15 second lifespan. Assuming none of the temps die to damage, you can summon all three knights a third time after nine seconds, having a total of 18. 12 of those will already have been out for 9 seconds, so 3 seconds before you can summon any more knights, you're back down to 6 temps. I don't see this as an issue. If you want to focus more on having a bunch of temps out, it will weaken the henchman themselves, so instead of doing about the same amount of damage, they are doing half. I don't see how this is preferable.

It seems like the easiest solution for your concern is to just make the initial pet powers, meaning the ones they have without any upgrades, be a bit weaker than the average. Having the temp pets would balance out the henchmen being weaker early game (basically until you get Viscosity) and the numbers would keep them viable through the endgame. If Slam does 50 base damage and Pseudopod does 100, then that 50% damage bonus will affect the weight of the henchman slimes even more.

If it helps, I have a breakdown of Zombie using this same type of math. Zombie Brawl is the only attack they have without an upgrade. It deals 50 damage and has a cooldown of 4 seconds. This means it can be used 15 times in one minute. With a 50% hit rate, this averages out to a total of 375 (60*15*0.5) damage over a full minute, and if there are three it is a total of 1125 damage. We'll use this as our "Pawn" scale. Our "Knight" zombies have +50% damage, +10% accuracy to their powers. Zombie Brawl: 50 damage (upping to 75 for the enhancement bonus), 4 second cooldown. 75 damage * 15 uses * 0.6 accuracy gives us 562.5 damage. Projectile Vomit: 40 damage (upping to 60 for the enhancement bonus), 12 second cooldown. 60 damage * 5 uses * 0.6 accuracy gives us 180 damage. Vomit: 50 damage (upping to 75), 12 second cooldown. 75 * 5 * 0.6 = 225 Siphon Life: 25 damage (37.5), 10 second cooldown. 37.5 * 6 * 0.6 = 135 Grand total damage over a full minute is 562.5+180+225+135, or 1102.5. Zombie's summon power has a 5 second cooldown, so at most you will get maybe three "pawns" per "knight" on the field at once. I don't see this as an issue, it's kind of the intent behind the power set, and it doesn't seem broken. Just have the base slime powers (as in the ones they have without any upgrades apply) not as powerful as the standard henchman powers, and that problem is entirely removed.

None of that is taking into account that those fast hits do not deal as much damage as the later attacks. You proved my point that one non-upgraded knight and two pawns are about equal. Upgraded knights have stronger hitting attacks that allow a more constant steam of attacks (1 per second vs 1 per 3 seconds) that also hit AoEs (Spikes) and other effects. Let's compare just adding in that second cycle of Slam to the mix. Same time frame assume 3 second cooldown, 50 damage base, 50% to hit base. Knight gets +10% acc and +50% dam. Pawn: Over 30 seconds, gets 10 attacks. Half of them hit, so 5. 50 damage each, so 250 damage. We'll say 3 slimes are out, so 750 damage. Knight: Over 30 seconds, gets 20 attacks (double cycle of the same attack). 60% hit, so 12. 12*75 = 900 damage. Just adding in that one additional attack still has the single knight outpacing three pawns on damage. To tie back to the Gang War MM, if you really want to sacrifice you Punk for three Posse, go for it, I guess. I doubt 18 posse are as effective as 3 punks, and I really doubt you'll be cycling that often, seeing how the summon pet powers have a cooldown that's about as long as the temp pets last.

I'm not sure why you think the temp pets would lock you out of re-summoning replacements of the main pets, that's a non-sequitur that powers activated by my pets would make my pet summon power unusable. If my pyromaniac henchman lights a dude on fire, can I not summon him until that DoT fades? As far as needing more of the temporary versions of the pets to equal a single one of the original, just look at the pawn slime vs the knight slime. Pawn Slime attacks Slimeball Slam Knight Slime attacks (fully upgraded) Slimeball 2 copies of Slam, so it literally cycles twice as often Pseudopod Slam Spikes Engulf If I just have the Knight Slime enhanced to hit 10% more often, and have 50% increased damage with the same moves, that is a heck of a lot more output than the Pawn Slime. It hits more, and deals more damage per hit. If the Pawn hits 50% of the time, and deals 50 damage on a hit, while the Knight hits 60% of the time and deals 75 damage, over the course of 10 attacks (assuming both have the same powersets and recharge rates) the pawn deals 250 damage (5 of the 10 attacks at 50 damage each) while the Knight deals 450 damage (6 of the 10 attacks at 75 damage each). That's almost double. Now toss in all of the additional attacks on top of that, it's pretty obvious that yes, you would need three of the lesser to equal one of the major. You're also assuming there is no limit to how many pets can be summoned per henchman. I would assume there will be, but I don't know how that would need to be balanced. I don't have specific numbers for damage, accuracy, or anything like that because that would require a ton of playtesting to balance out.

It only colors the pets, not the other powers. None of the other MM pet sets have customization to the pets, but you can color personal attacks. This wouldn't be any different.

Maybe I should have posted my Mastermind Slime pet suggestion here xD I've got a list of suggested animations/FX that exist in the game for the entire thing, but some of the ideas may be harder to implement, like having an elemental infusion for the pets similar to Swap Ammunition from Dual Pistols.

Elemental Infusion affects your pets, AFAIK this would be the only MM powerset that lets you customize your pets at all.