Rudra

Here, have a demorecording. I kept it short because waiting for henchmen to heal up for the next fight makes for a very long video. neko.cohdemo

MMs never leave their HP anywhere unless it is from taking damage. Pets aren't more HP. They are extra damage mitigation, but only while in Bodyguard Mode with the pets in Supremacy range. You aren't losing any HP when you set pets to Aggressive or Passive, just changing what you are having those pets do. All MM secondaries can prevent having to re-summon and re-upgrade. Some are easier to do that with than others. What you are calling a flaw in the AT is intentional game design to keep MMs balanced in relation to other ATs. The only "flaw" MMs have is when you get into the Advanced Modes of play or specific TFs/SFs or missions where you face EBs or AVs with multiple high damage AoEs or run up against groups on higher difficulty settings where you get inundated with lots of high damage AoEs and protecting the pets becomes less a task or even a challenge, and more of how quickly can you spam those summon clicks. In which case forget about the upgrades and just focus on drowning the target(s) in a sea of followers. Welcome to playing MMs. That micromanaging is part of the AT design. So is on the fly healing, buffing, and even upgrading. Feel free to join me any time. Bring a Stalker, stay Hidden, don't attack or even sneeze in the enemies' direction, and stay out of enemy attack radius. Enjoy the show as I slowly walk through the mission. Then learn how to better leverage those secondaries. Or continue not using those secondaries. There are MM secondaries I simply won't use. Like Poison which one of my friends swears is the best MM secondary and uses prolifically on her MMs. They already do. They just don't have game play loops you prefer, If you summon your pets and then turn on Walk and don't click any other powers? Guess what you don't get access to? Dark Servant. Because even if you summon the servant before starting to Walk? It times out after four minutes and goes away, so you would then have to drop Walk and click the power to summon a new Dark Servant. And the whole point of taking a lazy day and just Walking through missions is to not have to do anything other than move and click glowies. Yes, if the map is unfavorable and I wind up being attacked by multiple spawns at once. I drop Walk and use my powers to support my pets. And if it is bad enough, that also means summoning the Dark Servant. Otherwise? No, you don't need the Dark Servant any more than you need any other power.

There is an inherent flaw in this. If you attempt to strip out emotion and be polite, people think you're being rude because of the lack of emotion. (Claim is lack of social skill.) And if you leave the emotion in, people think you're being rude because of the emotion. (Edit: And if you try to be nice, people think you're being rude anyway. Typically with claims of condescension, talking down, or being insincere.) (Please bear in mind that "you" in this case is not "you" specifically, but just in general.) I agree that people should be polite, but sometimes people just insist on reading posts as being rude.

Tangent, so apologies in advance. I've been in parties where that wiped us out. It was hilarious some of the time, frustrating as hell others. Like in a Cyberpunk game where heavy weapons came out and only two of our team survived. One of which was unconscious and had to be carried by the other. No Trauma Team memberships, so the conscious one threw the unconscious one across the back of his bike, got on, rode to the hospital to try to save them both, failed a consciousness check for blood loss, and smeared both of them across the street. Tangent complete. Apologies for having made it, but it immediately sprang to mind when I saw this post.

While I agree with most of your post, I disagree with this part. That would actually be gatekeeping. Let new people post. We can always refer them to the previous threads about their posts.

Or vent some of the blast exhaust up to counter the recoil?

You mean like the Blaster's Device's and the Malta Ops Engineer's auto turrets also do?

When you look at the alignment from the grand walkway from the docks, Recluse's statue is slightly to the right of the grand walkway and the tower is slightly to the right of the statue. The shift right is consistent between all three. (Edit: By which I mean the amount they are shifted from each other looks to be the same.) Edit again: So if the statue is to be moved to line up with the tower, the grand walkway also needs to be shifted to maintain the design flow. Which will also require the docks to be shifted. Edit yet again: And as best I can recall, per the Live devs when the misalignment was brought up to them, it was quite intentional.

Frequently. My main is a Ninja/Dark MM. And every pet gets the upgrade if you apply the upgrade to any other pet as long as that pet is in range. Every time I have to summon replacements, I don't spend any time trying to target the replacement henchmen, I simply target any pet in view, including combat NPCs, and apply the upgrades to them, and all my pets get the upgrade if they lack it. Every time. Edit: My dark servant is usually right by my side during most fights, so I apply my pet upgrades through him most of the time. Otherwise, I just click an already out pet in the pet window and apply the upgrades to my replacement pets through him. Edit again: And yes, you can't target a newly summoned pet until after the summon is complete. However, you can still upgrade that pet through other pets. As long as the name is green, that is, the pet's name is there, even if the animation for the summon is not yet done, you can upgrade that pet through any other pet. Edit yet again: Hells, you can upgrade your pets through your enemies. If the enemy you have targeted has a pet as its target, the pet upgrade applies to the enemy's target and through that target, to your other pets. I just did that by accident in the game just now. Yet another edit: That's the thing about MM pets. They have to exist to be upgraded, but they don't have to be active. As long as the summon has progressed enough for the pet to finish spawning, even if the pet cannot yet be targeted by you, the pet can be upgraded. Try to upgrade before the pet actually exists? And it won't work. You don't have to wait to be able to target them to upgrade them though. Not since the upgrades became AoEs. You can't target them until they go active as pets at the end of the summon animation, but they are available to be upgraded before then.

And yet yesterday, I spent a good portion of the day on my Ninja/Dark MM doing the Organ Grinders Flashback doing exactly that at +0/x3. I entered the missions, turned on Walk, and walked through the missions. Only on 1 mission did I have to turn off Walk and support my pets because I got jumped by 3 groups of Rikti on a sewer map. If your team stays together in the crates/containers part of the mission? You most definitely can keep your pets alive. If they scatter? Then let them. Do what you can or just go prepare for Marauder's arrival.

Yes and no. Assuming firing at a human target, unless the arrow misses the target or it just grazes the target, the arrow imbeds itself in the target as the body absorbs the kinetic force. I have only ever been warned to make sure I hit my target when firing a bow or crossbow, that if I miss I will hit something else near or past the target. With guns, I have been warned repeatedly to check what is past the target because even if I hit the intended target, depending on the target and weapon I am firing, the round can over-penetrate and hit something past the intended target. This has nothing to do with anything. Yes, our AoEs magically only hurt our enemies in this game, but that has nothing to do with the spray the OP read as asking about to me or the over-penetration the author said it was actually about. If the devs want to add this to the game, they would need to add it to every multi-shot gun attack in the game for fairness. And I don't think this is what the author is after, for a chance for the attack to not hit the intended target but instead hit something else. And if that is not the intent of this comment, but rather to have all misses from multi-shot guns check for hits against unintended targets in the area, that would layers of complexity to an already infamously questionable code. Per the OP, as best I understand it, the question is why the hits don't hit more targets. As clarified by the author, as over-penetration.

Maybe instead of Summon Elementals calling Gremlins, the power could be Summon Raiju? Use the wolf model but reskin it with a glowing blue-yellow spectrum effect and add a lightning aura to make the ubiquitous lightning wolf of Japanese fame. It would retain Shock as an initial power, but replace Electric Brawl with either Shocking Swipe or Electric Bite. Shocking Swipe would be the Claw Rake of the lionesses except as energy damage whereas Electric Bite would be the Vicious Bite of the wolves except as energy damage. They only get one of these though. And the Overcharge power could grant them either the other melee attack or a weak Short Circuit.

Thanks. For the life of me, I couldn't remember.

So you're talking about the over-shoot shoot through problem in firearms. Yeah, that is possible with all firearms, but your OP does not make that clear or even imply it. The only thing I see in the OP the way it is written is spray.

That's not how machineguns work? They don't inherently spray an area unless the shooter sprays the area. They fire a stream of bullets yes, but unless you spray it across multiple targets, you're going to put all your rounds into the target you are shooting at. Unless you have a machinegun with poor accuracy so it spreads like how some SMGs often do. (The description also states "into the target", so that also means a single target.)

Round 2. (Sorry.) Continuation of the electric MM idea, just for fire this time. Flame Herald: Flares Lesser Elementals Fire Blast Fuel Elemental Fire Ball Summon Elementals Cinders Flame Cages Summon Molten Lord Emblaze Lesser Elementals would summon three Fire Imp model pets. Not the Fire Imps, just using the models. They are normal built MM henchmen. They would have above average smashing, lethal, and fire resist while also having below average negative energy and cold resist. Most likely powers would be Flares. That's it. Sorry. Not a great start, but can't find anything that works for them without being over the top, so I'm saving those for the empowerments. Elementals would summon two Fireball model pets. These are not the Animus Arcana, just using the models. Still regular MM henchment for stats, except with the same changes for resists as the Lesser Elementals. Most likely powers are Flares and Fire Blast. Summon Molten Lord would summon a Magmite model pet which would still use normal MM henchmen stats, so no Minions of Igneous coming to your rescue, sorry. The Molten Lord would alter the standard resists for pets the same way the Lesser Elementals do. Most likely powers would be Lava Blast and Fiery Aura. Fuel Elemental would grant Lesser Elementals Fiery Aura, Elementals Fiery Aura, and Molten Lord Ryolite. (Yep, recycling Magmite powers here.) Emblaze would grant Lesser Elementals Fire Blast, Elementals Warmth, and Molten Lords Rain of Fire and a lava version of Fire Ball. Flame Cages would use the fire cages object we can find in our bases for visuals. It would otherwise function as Cinders, but would have a ridiculously long recharge to keep from stepping on Controllers and Dominators. Unless someone has a better idea to replace it with. In which case I'm all ears. Hopefully this isn't over the top. Thoughts? Edit again: Ooh! Maybe instead of Lesser Elementals, it can be Firecats! Though that would take more work. Use the panther/lioness model except reskin it with a glowing red spectrum effect and add a permanent fire aura. And its base power would be Burning Swipe, which would be Claw Rake except as fire damage. Fuel Elemental would still give it Fiery Aura. And Emblaze would give it Fire Breath. Or would that be too much work and power?

I'm mostly using the Gremlins for ease of implementation. Recycling existing assets may hopefully make this more likely to happen. Otherwise I'd have used something else and maintained a ranged theme for pets like the other two pet powers.

So I was goofing off with my main MM when I wondered how I could get an electric MM. And seeing as how this has come up before and with @biostem's recent thread in mind, I have some proposals: Storm Caller: Charged Bolts Summon Wisps Lightning Bolt Charge Elemental Ball Lightning Summon Elementals Cascading Thunder Summon Storm Overcharge Summon Wisps calls up two Lightning Storm model pets and one Voltaic Sentinel model pet. These are just for visuals, you are not calling up the Animus Arcana or a Voltaic Sentinel. They would be normal lieutenant strength. Would have higher than normal smash, lethal, and energy damage resist, lower than normal negative energy and psionic resist, and would have good defense. Most likely powers across all three would be Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt. Summon Elementals calls up two Gremlin model pets. Again, these are just for visuals and these pets would be normal for MMs. They would have the same resists and defense arrangements as the Wisps. Most likely powers would be Electric Brawl and Shock just like the Controller's Gremlins, but weaker as per henchmen tier pets. Summon Storm calls up Tempest Elemental model. Again, just for the visual. This is a normal built MM henchman except with the resist and defense alterations. Most likely powers would be Lightning Bolt and either Ion Field or Lightning Field. Charge Elemental grants Wisps Electrical Field, Elementals Lightning Bolt, and Storm Ball Lightning. Overcharge grants the Lightning Storm model Wisps a Mag 2 electric stun attack (no damage?), the Voltaic Sentinel model Wisp Rejuvenating Circuit, the Elementals Thunder Strike, and the Storm Short Circuit. Cascading Thunder is a location AoE power that can only be triggered where the MM currently is. It does not move even if the MM runs off. What it does is creates a localized storm cloud like Storm Cell that constantly rains lightning down. Purely a visual effect. The mechanics of it are it is a short duration damage field that does constant tics of light energy damage with a chance for KD to foes in its radius. I was going to also include earth, water, and fire themed sets, but this post is rather long, so I'll just do those later in other posts. Thoughts?

Funny thing about powers and their endurance costs. We have the tools to reduce it. From endurance reduction enhancements we can slot in our powers to global endurance reduction set bonuses, we have the ability to make our characters endurance neutral in combat. (Outside of say Sappers sapping that precious blue bar.) The basic rule of thumb is to get your endurance consumption down and your recovery rate up to a 2:1 ratio. Having at least twice as much recovery as endurance consumption. Three times is an absolutely safe space to be in, but at two times you are in a very good place. And building characters to reach that isn't hard. There are even guides available for how to build characters to achieve that.

Like I said in the OP, there aren't any pale colors even for the regular costume palette. Light, yes, but not pale/washed out. So the available colors, even for the costumes, not just for skin, are too vibrant or dark.

Bald-faced lie. Unless you're only going into missions you've out-leveled so far that everything is gray. Or you have a whole team carrying you. Don't call me a liar. I run my MMs at +0-+2/x3 and just walk through missions. It's not difficult. At all. No team necessary. And you can't get inf' from grey mobs. An MM with sufficiently built pets can take on anything in the game unless you max the difficult and tank it. I ran my MMs through Lambda routinely before I stopped bothering with the iTrials. And never had a problem keeping my character or my pets alive. Can't Walk through them, you have to practice active pet management and keep an eye on everything going on, but it was never a difficult task. Even Marauder's nuke wasn't a problem. You just watch for the trigger, pull your pets out of the radius, and then send them back to beat on him some more after the nuke. There is no other AT in the game except maybe Controllers/Dominators that can just walk through missions without bothering to do anything at all and be perfectly safe. I have never in my life playing this game after the pet upgrades went AoE had that problem of my upgrades missing my pets unless the pet somehow ran to the far end of room/map outside of Supremacy range. And if the pet did? I select that pet, set it to passive, upgrade it, and then it's all good.

Holy hells. Way to misinterpret what is being said. The point is that I can very much with any of my MMs regardless of primary-secondary combination just turn on Walk on the character and be perfectly safe as my henchmen annihilate everything on the map trying to threaten me. What I am not saying is that I don't use my secondaries, because when I'm on teams or running through +4/x8 on my MMs, I do. Damn, how can you misread my post that badly?! You can select any pet in the pet window and that pet will be selected. If you are trying to upgrade a pet you just summoned and you have other pets? Select one of the other pets and apply the upgrade through them. It's that simple. Or are you intentionally misreading my posts?

So I was trying to make a very light purple character in the game, but my best options are like 8 shades too dark. Was hoping to make a character that was very light in shade purple skin. Like a heavily washed out purple. So can we get some added skin palette colors? Preferably pale/washed out colors? I'm not asking for them to be the same colors as the regular color palette. (Which also doesn't have a pale enough purple for this otherwise I would have experimented with using a completely enshrouded character to try to replicate the skin color.) Would be appreciated, thanks.

I may be wrong, but I believe the reduced recharge times and the AoE upgrade effects were implemented on Live. So that would make you wrong about the game play loop as described not being relevant. And it isn't tedium since it does affect all pets and the MMs secondaries can keep the pets alive so as to not need to be re-summoned and re-upgraded that often.

Also, as a heads up in case anyone is unaware, if you are having problems targeting one of your pets for anything? Whether an upgrade or a heal or any other reason? Simply click them in the pet window and it selects them.