Neiska

While I am rooting for you (I enjoy soloing big monsters too) just be aware that I believe since GMs don't have a level, they fall into the +0 which means your T1's will do 20% less damage and your T2's will do 10% less. Normally I would not be too concerned about that, but since GMS have mountains of hit points and regen, that can substantially extend the duration of the fight. But it should be easier to stand against their attacks now, but it's going to take longer to complete the fight.

Maelwys and I have always agreed and disagreed on some things, depends on the thing mostly. But it's always been mutually respectful, or at least I felt it was that way. Which is a big part of the reason why I really respect them where MM stuff is concerned.

I do appreciate all the time, math, support, and passion you show. Truely. But for now, I am at the "well, let's wait and see" stage. Mostly because going over all of HC history, most instances of "just wait guys, it will get better, we kiss-elbow promise" never came about. Or what they consider "better" is where we find ourselves now. Things aren't "better." Not for all of us. But forgive me if I am doubtful of what the end result will be. Which I expect will more or less be right where we are now, that is - -Some combinations are good, others are bad -MMs still in the bottom 50% of overall AT performance, bottom 80% in some cases -The weakest secondaries will remain there - Fewer build options/more obligatory/forced slotting if you want to be viable at +5 or higher - The major issues MMs face will remain there, at least for awhile -Accuracy - Am I the only one who doesn't seem to have great difficulty with pet accuracy? That has never been a complaint of mine. I always take tactics, so that might be a part of it. But I am genuinely perplexed by this sudden "but their accuracy" notion is coming from. Sure, pets miss at times. But that's to be expected. -Damage - Been discussed thoroughly. All I will say is that it still feels like a kick to the groin. People are free to like the changes. Just as people are free to dislike them. And regarding MMs specifically, I have generally disliked more changes than I have liked. About the only thing I liked was the new secondaries. That's really about it. But despite all the math and spreadsheets and whatnot (not just in this patch but previous patches) what is claimed and what I experience is not the same. "But its better now" does not hold true. At least for me. Quite the opposite. Things have gotten harder, and harder, and harder, and more tedious with each change. I duno, it could be because unless I 100% am forced to, I generally skip the personal MM attacks. And to this day I refuse to use them. We shouldn't "have" to. If I wanted to focus more on personal attacks, I would play my Crabbermind. So I remain skeptical. Who knows, maybe they will shock us with a new primary set for MMs or something, or address the major issues, or maybe even add pet customization options. I expect those would almost universally be received well. But I ever so tire of the "lateral" buffs with nerfs as part of the package, and people celebrating like it's this big massive boost or change to MMs. And if they gave the option to play the original HC pet sets, I would. Heck my old Robot/Time and Demons/Cold does better than most of my MMs now. These aren't buffs. These are tweaks. If changes suddenly make MMs in the top 50% or even top 30% of AT performance, then we can all agree to call it a buff. (I don't mean those figures literally, only example for context) They are free to surprise me. I hope that they do. But forgive me if I don't hold my breath.

The T3 missile burn patches were reduced in targets substantially, from 12 to 3 IIRC. The damage wasn't the initial hit, it was the fire puddle after that. The Drone is nice for secondaries that didn't have a heal, and the KB removal was nice. But the loss of the AOE was a bit impact, especially since Robots was the one primary that had good AoE in the first place. Now none of them really have good AoE. They have some but none of them excel at it. And personally, I dislike being forced/bribed/encouraged to take personal attacks especially since none of them do good damage to begin with, with an END penalty on top of that. So, in order to make personal attacks worth considering they added secondary effects, which is kind of lame in my opinion. Doubly so in robots case, due to us originally already having -regen in our toolkit in the first place. Other primaries got something new, we kept what we already had, but now it takes us more power slots to get it. And to this day I don't feel the "increased ST damage" a fair trade. Not even close. And far as my builds, my clear time with the map I test with went from 3 minutes to clear, all the way to 9 minutes. Same build, same enhancements, same everything. My demons actually clear the same map faster now, at 7 minutes. On top of that, things I used to solo such as GMs, are either no longer possible, or it takes so long or it's so cumbersome to do that it just isn't fun to do anymore. So, in a nutshell - if you take the personal attacks, then you might see some benefit. But if you don't and want to use those slots on other things, then you will do worse. I wouldn't call that a "win." And it's fine if we disagree. I consider the robot change old news by now, it was 2 years ago. But I did far better, did more activities, and did them faster with the old one than the new one. Make of that what you will.

I never said HC was in a downward trajectory. Only that they are rather selective with their nerfs, aiming only at some and not others that I would consider over-performing. In a word - Bias.

Wouldn't be the first time. And this is why I kind of dislike the direction the games updates has taken. I mean, let's break it down - Fire Brutes nerfed, because they were too efficient at farming. Titan Weapons nerfed because Titan/Bio Scrappers were dominating (or were at least VERY popular) melee Rune of Protection nerfed because people were using it as a buff to bridge gapes in sustainability. Now its more of a break free with a RES buff on a timer, but you can't reduce the recharge. Tanker AOE damage was nerfed because it was "too good." This one was so bad that even players like Veracor quit because of it. Robot AOE damage was nerfed because it was stackable. (Which only mattered if more than 1 robot MM was present and their fire patches happened to be in the same spot, a rare occurrence unless you multiboxed robot MMS) Plant Control got a hardcore nerf to the point many people who played Plant Control mains shelved their character. etc. I am sure I am missing more, but I feel this is enough to make my point. I don't buy the "oh, but they will complain" for a moment. The rest of us had to swallow bitter pills for some time now. And if you ask me, some folks doing too much damage is the problem. Nukes SHOULD cause crashes, for both Blasters and Corruptors alike. The problem is, is that some ATs are apparently allowed to go absolute HAM with damage, but they stop things like Brutes and Titan Weapons? You can call it what you like, but I would consider that Favoritism. IMO if anyone should be doing more damage, it would be melee, because it's harder and riskier. But you can't nerf some damage because it was "too much" but allow others and call it fair or "balanced." IMO if anything in the game needs to be downgraded, it's the glass cannons because all reward and in most circumstances not even a risk unless you are soloing. If you are on teams "but they are squishy" is moot due to the team buffing them anyway. The "glass cannons" in this game are not "glass cannon" at all. Not for the damage that they do compared to others. And at this point I have little faith that they will reign those things in, because they have been the meta for so long and I suspect they have balanced everything around that, and I suspect they don't even want to in the first place. I am hard pressed to think of any single Glass Cannon nerf. I even browsed the patch notes going all the way back to 2022. Not a single one. Or if there were I didn't see any. (I actually hope its a case of me missing them, because if they didn't even get so much as a single re-tuning then its honestly kind of depressing.) Moral of the story - Want to be OP? Play a Corruptor I guess.

Sounds about right. "Your pets get 40% of your set bonus" sounds good at first, until you sit down and actually do the math. And if you do focus on pushing that 40% bonus as much as possible, your build is going to suffer elsewhere. I think the way MMs need to build for things like recharge and so on that doesn't affect pet kind of self-sabotages this 40% value buff.

Maelwys, I really respect you and you are likely far more involved in this than I am, but I am skeptical at best that "major buffs beyond these are coming." Case in point - you consider this patch a buff. I consider it a lateral nerf. We never receive "buffs." We get "shuffles" or "trade-offs." I don't consider giving up 18% damage for 15% durability an even trade on this particular AT. For builds that build accordingly for things like pet durability, lets say, robots/time, they are already got strong defenses, so have minimal gain. But give up 18% damage for essentially nothing? About the "but pets get 40% bonus" is really moot, due to how we HAVE to currently slot with the pet unique IOs. They would REALLY have to buff some of them to make them worth slotting as a full set. I will add in a pic of my Robot/Marine as an example - So, here are the sets I have, with their values - 3-piece Expedient - 1.5% Energy/Negative resist, 2.5% Mez resist 6 piece Preventative Medicine - 2.25% Smashing/Lethal resist, 15 hitpoints, 3% Fire/Cold resist, 3.75% Endurance Discount, 8.75% Recharge 4 piece Gladiators armor - 2.5% Recovery, 3 Knockback Protection, 3.75% Toxic/Psionic resist 2 pieces Unbreakable - 2.5% Endurance 2 pieces Superior Mark of Supremacy - 10% Recharge Time 6 pieces Reactive Defenses - 1.5% Smashing/Lethal resist, 15 hitpoints, 3% Fire/Cold resist, 3.75% Endurance Discount, 8.75% Recharge 4 pieces Superior Mark of Supremacy - 10% Recharge Time, 15% Accuracy, 5% Defense Melee, 2.5% Defense Smashing/Lethal 5 pieces of Ragnarok - 4% Recovery, 6% Fire/Cold Resist, 15% Accuracy, 10% Recharge 4 pieces of Shield Wall - 10% Regeneration, 18 Hitpoints, 4.5% Energy/Negative resist 5 pieces of Panaca - 2.5% Recovery, 10% Regeneration, 12 Hitpoints, 7.5% Recharge 3 pieces of Adjusted Targeting - 2% Damage, 3% Energy/Negative Resist 5 pieces of Gravitational Anchor - 4% Recovery, 6% Fire/Cold Resist, 10% Accuracy, 10% Recharge 2 pieces of Unbreakable - 2.5% Endurance 4 pieces of Unbreakable - 2.5% Endurance, 2.25% Energy/Negative Resist, 3.13% Defense Melee, 1.56% Defense Smashing/Lethal 2 pieces of Performance Shifter - 7.5% Movement Speed Now that's all my set bonuses. Now not even all of them apply to pets, like Recharge. I don't know things like Accuracy or Movement Speed would. But here is what I would get with this fairly optimized setup (with all values added together) - 2.15% Energy/Negative Resist -7.2% Fire/Cold Resist -3% Endurance -3.2 Melee Def -etc. Honestly? Nothing to write home about. Now, if I re-slotted my entire build to make that 40% set impactful, my overall build would suffer. Substantially. The irony is that one of the most important things that MMs slot for is Recharge, nearly "all" MMs require that (except possibly Forcefields?). Which doesn't affect pets. Which means all this is at odds with one another - you can slot for pets getting set bonuses in mind, bbuutt your overall build is going to be much weaker if you do. Or, if you optimize a build like this, the bonuses your pets get won't be hardly anything at all, single digits in fact. Its a nice little boost, but hardly anything game changing, much less breaking your build over. Especially when considering the set bonuses for like... Call to Arms? And all MMs essentially have a 6 slot tax to begin with, for our unique pet IOs which is more or less required for everyone. (A few can likely get away with skipping 1 or two, IMO but that's semantics really and not something worth breaking an AT over.) Anyway, point being aside from niche things like the Knockback protection, which is nice for sets that don't have any, the rest really is "meh" at best. And this isn't taking into account things like KB to KD, Guissans Buildup unique, etc. Basically there are too many things we have to Frankenslot to make it GOOD, especially without crippling our build just in order to give our pets another .3% Defense or whatever. In closing I do not believe this is a buff. It's at best, a trade. And a trade that focuses on some secondaries but is essentially a kick in the wedding tackle to others. And for me personally, "But it's better doing this harder difficulty" is not a selling point. And this is coming from someone who PREFERS harder difficulties like +4/8. So, yes, this patch does seem to hyper focus on MMs on Harder Difficulties and pet scaling, IMO the tradeoff isn't worth it. And I am doubtful that they will actually make it a net positive for any secondary that already focuses on things like durability or has KB protection in it. Say for Kinetic? "This is Great!" But for Electric Affinity? "Yippe. I am just as durable as before but I do less damage now. YAY." Marine might go "Oh, KB protection. Awesome" But Time is going to go "....horray?" Again, I respect you Maelwys, and you and I have compared notes and things before. But I do not consider this patch a "buff" at all. Nor do I have faith that the powers that be will actually "buff" MMs to the point where they are comparable with other ATs, at least where Damage is concerned. Because until they look at the real issues, like pet movement, pet re-summoning and re-buffing mid combat (especially during a cascading failure situation), all of this is very wishful thinking at best. It won't matter what your pets max values are, if they SPLAT while resummoning them before you can even buff or heal them. It doesn't matter how they perform in +5 on teams, if it takes pets 30 seconds to move from pack to pack (being out of supremacy range the entire time until they catch up) and the pack is nearly dead by the time they get there. The pets may as not even be there for all the DPS they might contribute. Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate them at least thinking about MMs in higher difficulties. But IMO this is the wrong way to go about it. Especially if most of the secondaries struggle on +3, why are they focusing on +5 and beyond? Shouldn't they, oh, I don't know, lift up the ones that are struggling, and THEN make a baseline for all of them? Instead of making a new baseline for the "best of all possible builds" situation?

I understand this is a "warm-up." But given to the changes in the past 5 years, I have little faith that MMs will be actually made better. Most of their changes to MMs over the years I have disliked. The new sets are fun. Generally, dislike the primary shake-up they did 2ish years ago. (Robots in particular.) It hasn't "all" been bad. But I have low expectations that MMs will be made superior or "better" than they are currently, even less that they will nerf the things like ATS or powersets that are already OP.

@Maelwys was correct, I missed the revision pet HPs is not something I regularly/frequently even look at. And you can't claim "most people" without, actually conducting a poll and such. Because the circles I run with are pretty much the opposite, most people I personally know, talk to, and play with, pretty much universally dislike it. But that doesn't mean most people who test do. And I think you missed my points - 1. MMs get several passes that make them better in some instances, worse in others. While other ATs that are regarded as best or meta get a pass. In some cases, for years. 2. This isn't a buff. It's a lateral demotion. If I had to guess, they want to make MMs "viable" for harder difficulties, but are afraid of making them OP outside of those increased difficulties. 3. I have found the stuff I used to do, is objectively worse or more difficult. Not from just this one patch, but as well as previous ones. 4. This change does not affect all primaries/secondaries equally. It makes the good ones even better and the bad ones worse, increasing the "gap" between them. Which is bad for build options and diversity. And things given what they are, at this point I have pretty low expectations of the weak secondaries getting actual buffs to make them better.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I will summarize - 1. MM's are not the top performers, even only with specific builds are they even comparable to other ATs. Most builds/power combinations are actually sub-par. And yet despite the multiple changes over the years, MM's have remained there. These (as well as past) changes don't make MMs "better," except in certain situations or contexts, namely End-game activities when teaming. But for nearly every other activity such as soloing or leveling, MMs are actually worse. That's not an upgrade. That doesn't make MM's "better." 2. Some ATs get multiple shake-ups (specifically MMs and Tankers have gotten the most). While other ATs, even OP or the Top things that are Meta (Corruptors, Blasters, etc) aren't even looked at. Which tells me that some things that are OP the powers that be are fine with, but they feel obligated to nerf/laterally buff something that isn't even at the top? I mean, what exactly is the goal, here? To make MMs more desirable in the endgame? Okay, but if so why does that require them being nerfed? 3. Compared to when I started HC 5 years ago, going all the way up to today, the changes have made my times doing my own activities worse, not better. Either I can no longer solo the things that I once did, or I still can but it's much more cumbersome to do so. That isn't an upgrade by any metric people want to compare to. 4. These changes do not affect all Secondaries equally. The strong secondaries such as EA, Time, Dark, Marine, are not as affected as the weaker secondaries like Radiation or Poison. If we want to use soloing +4/8 as an example, only a few of the strongest primary and secondary pairings will perform, while the others will cap out earlier than that. And these updates will not suddenly make the poorer performing secondaries viable but certainly affects how well the strong ones can perform. To me this does not further build diversity or creativity, quite the opposite in fact. I am hard pressed to think of another game where a class/character has given so many passes but has remained essentially in the same place compared to others. Despite all the changes, time, and attention MMs remain in the bottom 50%. Which makes me wonder what the point is. I am not asking or even expecting them to be suddenly OP, but right now other ATs can do far more with far less with half as much effort, and somehow MMs are the ones that need to be weaker? I cannot help but wonder what exactly is the logic or train of thought here? When I first started, debuffs and building for survival was king if you wanted to solo the hardest difficulties. But as things changed, it seems that building for DPS and "just enough" survival is king, while using tools such as the team taking turns using barrier and clarion to make up for holes or gaps. This has made some secondaries moot entirely, such as Shield and FF with their built in DDP, or even status protection. And if that is the "meta" then why is the philosophy - "we are reducing damage because we are making things slightly more durable" even required? Taking just the HP reduction alone, split across all 6 pets impacts the MM quite a bit where bodyguard mode is concerned. I guess I am just perplexed in the direction here. If the goal is to make MMs desirable for teams doing endgame activities, I don't think this will suddenly make them important where endgame team composition is concerned. But I am supposed to accept nerfs to my solo play and activities to make that possible. All while the top performing meta teams like 1 tanker/7 corruptors are absolutely thrashing the endgame, "this" is what needs rebalancing/reduced?

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. I feel this aptly sum's up my feelings about these changes.

So far my take is - "Last big MM update we didn't break them enough, so we have made MMs 40% more convoluted, 20% more difficult to level, but to compensate we made them 10% better at this very small and niche part of the game that the majority of players don't do." Nerf pet damage in order to give them the level shift. Reduced hit points. Seems to me they want to prop up secondaries that don't buff/heal the pets. Those of us who like to build/play defensively with the tankiest pets and mm possible to solo awesome things, this feels like a big middle finger. And at this point I have absolutely no faith in them making MMs "better," because from where I sit essentially the last 2 years of MM changes have made them weaker. TLDR - "The Nerfs shall continue until you play the way we want with the power combinations we want. Want to do something else or do a different activity? F you. Double nerf for you in particular."

Continue to exploit the loopholes they missed and keep them to myself.

I loved the 3 stooges. 🥰Charlie Chaplin too!

....You ever see the title of a post and go... "Let the memes begin" Yea. This is one of those.

And people wonder why I prefer to solo or team with friends or people that I know. I'll do open world stuff, but it certainly isn't my first choice. And often game mechanics has nothing to do with why.

@Vinceq98 - I'm glad to hear that beasts aren't squishy! But the scuttlebutt I heard was that they suffer from gaps in their attack chains? (Meaning they oddly stand there awkwardly at times?) @tidge - I wasn't trying to suggest that people need to change their playstyles and so on. Mostly it was a "here's what worked for me if I'm soloing +4 stuff." I do agree that it would be better if certain playstyles/tricks were not needed for various difficulties. Some say MMs are underpowered, I consider them strong if you plan accordingly. Here's an example - Elite Bosses have mag resist, taking several applications of immobilize to affect them. While some people consider that a bad thing, I turned it into a strength. When soloing, my usual opener isn't to send the pets in, I hit the pack with the immobilize. (Web Envelope, Electric Fences, or Soul Tentacles work with any primary/secondary) That locks almost all of them down, except for the EB and maybe a Lt might come running from the pack. That's when I order the pets to get the EB first. It's pretty easy to keep the rest of the pack locked down pretty much indefinitely, and to keep all my pets out of range of what ranged attacks they might have. (The simplest answer is to just back up if there's room.) The swarm isn't really much of a threat at that point, it's the EB. And in 30-60 seconds with all the pets on him, he goes down, and the rest of them are easy to deal with. A lot of the time I don't even take any damage. IMO the best way to play MM isn't to brute force things or just dive into the pack. You have to play strategically. It's the thinking players AT! And you can build them so many different ways, which is why I love MMs so much. Well, that and because I love pet classes in games. But yes, I am all for more options for both builds and playstyles for MMs across all difficulties.

I quite regularly solo at +4 on some of my MMs. So "neigh unplayable" is a bit of a stretch. But I do agree with the idea that it takes a certain build/style to do, not all pets and secondaries are capable of it. But I also think that would be fair to say about any AT. So tough? Sure. Have to plan ahead. Mainly the EA, Time, and Marine secondaries, but my Robot/Dark can also perform at that difficulty solo. But unplayable? Not quite. Here are some of my builds that I do +4/8 with frequently - Robots/EA Robots/Time Robots/Marine Robots/Dark Demons/EA Demons/Marine Necromancer/Time My next MM I was going to try was a Necro/Marine, but that was before the changes were announced and I put a pause on all my MM stuff. I suspect Mercs could also do well, but I have not done any testing with them yet. But I am pretty sure that Ninjas and Beasts are too squishy. I don't have a ton of experience with those two primaries, so that's just a guess on my part. But yes, the majority of secondaries and a few primaries I don't think can solo at that difficulty. Or if they can, it would be such a slog that it wouldn't be worth the effort. Better to turn it down to +3 and be more efficient. And personally with my playstyle damage was never the main issue. The main obstacle was pets surviving. If your pets can survive without relying on inspirations/temp buffs and so on, that's the first big step. Once your pets are durable enough, its really only a matter of time before you win. More damage only makes the fights faster.

Most of my characters are Masterminds, followed by Tankers, then Brutes, and then SoA's (specifically crabbers, I have 4.) I have played a couple controllers, corruptors, and scrappers, 1-2 stalkers and widows, and one Warshade. The ATs I have never played - Sentinel Defender Peacebringer As far as what kind of classes/ATs I like in games, generally Pet classes (Necromancers, Summoners, etc) are my favorite. If a game doesn't have a pet class, then I generally go Tank. If I had to choose one for my favorite, it would likely be Crabber because they are kind of a mix of both, pet class and can be very Tanky. And they don't get complete overhauls/changes/nerfs every few pages which is a big plus for me.

Some of us have been waiting 4+ years for them to nerf the glass cannons/hyper DPS setups. At this point I expect them to add a new AT like the Primalist than so much as touch them.

That's part of it. The other part being some ATs/Powersets are overperforming, have been overperforming quite some time now, and not so much as a glance at them. Which tells me that apparently it's okay for some things to overperform, while others are swept under the carpet. (Looking at you Corruptors, Blasters, etc.) Awfully funny how some ATs that are good get fixed, multiple passes in fact, namely Tankers and MMs. But at this point I doubt they will ever nerf the actual top end performers. And I think it says a lot when the meta for hardmodes are like, 1 tanker and 7 corruptors. For years now. And not so much as a peep about that. They rather hyper focus on things that are popular (even if they aren't top performers, the popular stuff is what gets attention/nerfed).

Want to know what my biggest takeaway from not just this change, but all the other changes over the years? Don't share things. Don't share builds. Don't share strategies. Keep any super cheesy things to yourself. The moment you discover something that's Good, or you figure out a way to do something that isn't intended, and share it, they will "correct" it, but over-correct and you will find yourself weaker than you were before. Almost like you are being punished for thinking outside the box, not following a blind meta, or being innovative or creative. Some builds I have right now performed better, did better, did more, faster, when I first joined HC 5 years ago, vs now. And with each wave of changes/overhauls, it gets just a wee bit worse. Not by a lot, but it's there. The thing is, I keep my own data going all the way back then. And for me personally, it is definitely a slope in the wrong direction. They call them updates, improvements, etc. But how is it an improvement when it performs worse than before when doing the same activities? Sure, a handful of changes might be an improvement when doing certain activities, like hard modes, or raids etc. But for those of us who do our own thing, 90% of my activities are measurably worse. Some things I used to be able to solo before, now either I can't, or I can but its much more of a struggle. With absolutely no benefit or upside to it at all. Think any super cheesy/loop holes/sneaky strategies/etc that I know of will stay that way. Each time I've shared some of them with people, about 2-3 months later they are suddenly nerfed. Like magic.

Do have a random thought - Since Supremacy is so much more important now than before, how difficult would it be to get some kind of visual representation? Nothing too drastic, just something like a dull white aura or something? A way to tell at a glance if pets are in range or not?

But that's my point. Where was it written that MMs of all ATs, were doing of all things, "too much damage?" This feels like they nerfed their damage because they boosted their level, making the entire thing kind of moot? MMs are far from the top DPS, they are a support and are kind of middle of the pack for damage. But now I think they might be in the bottom 50%. As I am reading this, overall MMs traded in a bit of damage for pet durability. IMO Pet durability was fine, IF you built for it. You had to plan it that way. And it's easier to boost pet durability than pet damage. Theres lots of ways to heal or buff your pet's toughness, but only a couple to boost their damage. I can't shake the feeling that these changes were aimed at certain builds or secondaries. Just the entire changes in MMs, not just this one but all of the AT changes over the years kind of leave me confused as to what the thought process is. "Lets make them decent at some stuff, terrible at others, and reduce the number of viable build options?"