BRADICAL

When you look at it in broad terms, it's because of the way the purple patch works: bringing the T1/T2 pets up to even level without any adjustments to the base damage would result in an oppressively high DPS increase. Many Pylon times have already demonstrated that MMs would be dominating the proverbial charts if the changes to their even con damage output weren't made. The trick, of course, is to make sure it impacts the leveling experience as little as possible, but I don't think we're in a situation where things are ever going to be a struggle against even con enemies, even if it is technically a nerf—MMs weren't suffering in that content and they still aren't (especially when considering the survivability buffs are still in effect at all levels), and now that we've reached a point where Pylon DPS is comfortably high the tradeoffs are worth it for the overall performance increase in situations where MMs have an exponentially worse time (in particular, accounting for the +5 spawns that can show up as part of this update, which is an important reason why the foundational changes to MMs had to go through). Things will only get better when we start seeing more QoL updates on the table that dramatically improve the AT, like the universal accessibility to KB prot we have now that all pets can benefit from very early on; that simple change will be a significant advantage for MMs who slot it while leveling, and even a theoretical DPS improvement in a wide variety of situations given how prevalent KB is while leveling (and how difficult it used to be to account for that in a meaningful way outside of Clarion or team break frees). Totally just my opinion, but even if people used to playing at +0 will take a noticeable hit in their performance, that performance was already so high that the worst thing these changes are really doing is bringing MMs more in line with the other ATs while still being very much on the high end of the scale. Powerset combos and playstyle depending, of course, but the logic is sound and the numbers seem to be lining up with expectations.

Yeah—MMs are played so differently by so many people, and are very subjective in terms of powerset combos, builds, and individual playstyles more than any other AT, where you can absolutely perform magnitudes worse than someone who's going for the maximum sweaty gamer performance using full proc bomb builds, non-stop attack chains and a stash full of team insps to cover up any flaws (I'm one of those people, but I understand how the AT caters to more than just that one specific thing and in an ideal world, it should be able to perform anywhere without having to rely on so many crutches to make it work). ST DPS has always been high though, even against +4 on Live, and there have been ways to solve both pet survivability and AoE damage for quite a while now to allow that ST DPS to shine, with Demons/Marine being viable just about everywhere (albeit very clunky at times), including HM. The poor community perception the AT has is going to take a while of iterating on their QoL issues to really pick them up from here, but at least things are on the right track to move forward even if it had to come at the cost of even con DPS taking a dive. What my current Pylon times show at least is that the DPS is now much closer in line with other pet-based DPS benchmarks, and that's far from the worst position to be in.

With the pet powers fixed, the post-update testing results are showing at least a modest improvement compared to Live now, although not as big as the improvements the other primaries are seeing (with the -res and whip nerfs being the most likely causes). This is at least a good foundational point since it isn't a sidegrade for DPS, Demons remain on top in MM terms and survivability is improved the same way as all the other MMs. New times clocked: Pylon: 40s +4 dummy: 79s +4x8 clear: 315s The petty little devil on my shoulder is still whispering that I wish these initiatives to balance out the status quo were more consistent across the various iterations of all the other ATs (in other words, that the top performing MM was tuned downwards with simple number tweaks, but things like Fire and Ice Blast have gone untouched for ages in spite of being the literal meta). But I recognize that bringing Demons down a little makes sense for the balance of the AT as a whole—I just wish it didn't come at the cost of the whips.

Just another point to illustrate something that isn't in the patch notes, aside from the whip nerfs: left image is Live, right is Beta. The numbers tuning definitely hit Demons harder than the other sets (cuts by as much as 50% even on the T2s, and a lot of % chance DoTs being lowered or even added like here), which helps to explain why my +4 clear times aren't any better—I'm pretty sure the goal was to bring the set closer in line with the other primaries, but it's worth mentioning that the tuning on Demons was a definitive nerf across the board for people who might go into it with expectations that they'll be seeing performance improvements at +3 and higher. And the hit to even con is pretty enormous compared to Live, obviously.

That part. 👍 Starting off with a foundation this way and building on it from there is still going to cause discontent, but at least there's an offramp where you can correct things as you go and hit the brakes before it goes too far. Starting from the other end and just seeing what happens is going to create an unwinnable situation where everyone is unhappy, and that's the kind of discontent that'll stick. There's also a lot of misinformation on MMs that's getting wound up in their famously bad community perception, and I was worried that would happen going down this route. 🥲 Even con MMs do the highest DPS against a stationary target in the game—that's an objective fact that you can prove just by attacking a pylon on Live and seeing how much faster you take it down compared to something like a scrapper. A straight buff like that, along with any of the QoL adjustments we've heard are on the radar, would be oppressively strong. This is weighted against the fact that targets are rarely stationary or completely non-threatening to your pets, and that's where half of the poor community perception comes from: at any given time, you can just lose half or more of your damage output in a way the other ATs don't have to deal with and spend significant time resummoning, equipping, and buffing your losses as you go. You also risk drawing more aggro than other ATs, especially if DoT patches or very close spawns are in play and you're getting full-force attacked from multiple angles. Those are key parts of the complicated balancing adjustments that make up the whole package here, and I agree that things aren't perfect and could be shifted upwards from where we're at, especially considering all of the benchmarks I've run on high performance controllers and corruptors showing that their numbers are a little too close, if not outright better, without accounting for all of the downsides that come with your damage profile being so heavily sourced from low HP destructible pets. And in the case of controllers, the distinction of them having control and stronger support sets. My opinion is that pet DPS should outperform against stationary targets by design, but by how much is variable based on where pet survivability lands. And I'm still opposed to the adjustment levers being pulled on procs on a selective basis here, because it feels inconsistent and premature when controllers don't have those same levers being pulled: even Illusion got a DPS buff recently without any adjustments to its "abusive" proc damage. The other perception issue is that MMs have famously awful mobility, but that's partly a QoL issue tied up in performance flaws—if you're playing on teams that stomp through +4s, it's likely your contribution was already superfluous. But in the scenarios where you need to actively move from point to point, pet DPS continues to be the worst possible damage profile in CoH. Also gonna reiterate here that the whip nerfs are unnecessary and awkwardly inconsistent with the design of all the other primaries. Demons/Marine went from being better than Illusion/Marine (26s vs 33s) to worse (my best pylon time is currently 42s) and that difference will be felt when dealing with things like GMs most noticeably, especially the ones that are super unfriendly to pets. Against the +4 dummy on Beta (which is an absolute pain to test against using pets), I've got a best time with Demons of 82s vs 71s on Illusion. I've got more testing to do still, especially comparing Demons to the other primaries since -res can be hard to pin down on the even con pylon, but I'm pretty confident that MMs are a little undertuned going by the current data I do have (and the assumption that they should be doing more stationary DPS than controllers and corruptors).

Something important to remember is that this patch also includes the possibility of +5 spawns showing up in +4 difficulty content, which is a big reason why the initial set of MM changes had to go through to prevent the AT from becoming actually sidelined by the game more than it already was in some areas. And because it's such a big project, iteration from the ground up makes sense to get as much data as possible, so there is logic to the way this is being handled at least. The actual implementation when looking at things on a broader level, unnecessary nerfs and inconsistent design philosophy in the powers are where I disagree, but those are all part of the iterative process too, more or less.

If you were already slotting them for sets, these changes are even less likely to affect you in any meaningful way, since slotted endurance reduction and recharge are superfluous with how easy it is to solve both of those issues on a global scale and have a viable attack chain using global recharge alone. It's not like MMs can't just go for a better power like Cross Punch or any number of things from the epic pools to make up for the loss, but intentionally dialing back the whips from being the strong part of an attack chain doesn't feel good at all. Procs still exist and are an important part of MMs staying competitive with other ATs, so this has a noticeable impact on performance with zero positive gain for any finished build. And in the end, it still looks weird that Demons isn't following the same design logic of all the other MM primaries, when there's an easy solution for that right here.

I respect the slower approach to balancing this whale of a project, and some things are definitely on the right track, but there are also some things I personally disagree with especially when looking at the balance across the rest of the game. The lower hit chances don't make any sense if we're really trying to bring the T1/T2 pets up to even level, because it should have solved the issues inherent in them being lower level but instead they've been artificially brought down to the same level they were before for some reason? It cancels out what should be one of the key benefits of being made even level. Whether it's more important for MMs to be balanced against each other or the rest of the game is an important consideration, because we're living in a world where things like Fire and Ice Blast have dominated almost every AT they exist on with zero downwards tuning for ages, but Demons for some reason got the whole rulebook thrown at it. The support sets being hugely different in terms of performance make it even more difficult to pin down accurate numbers, as well as the nature of how MMs do their DPS (which is subject to things like disagreeable pet AI, enemies that just explode your pets for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or ground patches that make them run away screaming). Demons even struggle to get into melee with smaller targets and make things a pain for all the other melee DPS characters on a team. It's far from perfect out there in the real world, compared to something like a corruptor or a scrapper, who can just slide in and do their thing without all of these asterisks that might make MM performance seem more inflated than it actually is. With that said... the majority of controllers I've run benchmarks for using similar high performance builds are solidly better than Demons/Marine (formerly the top performing MM), sometimes even commandingly so, with generally more survivable pets that aren't kneecapped in the variety of ways MMs are and they have a whole other suite of powers on top of that. I enjoy those controllers a lot, of course, but it's a pointedly strange situation to be in for my MM to feel like a worse pet class overall than a controller. I'm not a fan of the proc nerfs (Interface and Assault Radial included) in particular, since they're a big reason for the disparity here and aren't being applied equally in places where they otherwise logically should. But here's the thing—no one is saying controllers are overpowered or creeping their way into the meta with their even level pets, and I have plenty of benchmarks showing that they can do very well in ideal (and even less than ideal, given the extra CC) scenarios, so where exactly does that leave MMs?

I've been saying it a lot in Discord already, but these are straight nerfs to the whip attacks. I get that the changes were made to ensure they respect the damage formula since the DoT ignores it, but as it stands these are only going to impact proc chances and divorce Demons from the design logic that all of the other MM primary attacks use. The lower recharge values will otherwise have zero real impact on a finished build with enough global recharge to have a proper attack chain. The easy solution is to just do the following: Restore the recharge numbers and end costs back to what they were, increase the base damage to match the damage formula, and remove the % chance toxic DoT from the attacks. Move the -res, potentially at a lower value like -7.5%, to the 30 second logic that all the other MM attacks use, and have each whip attack apply a unique non-stacking version up to a maximum of -22.5%. The ceiling comes down from -28.14%, but the higher overall uptime should balance out without affecting overall DPS too much since maintaining a third stack 100% of the time wasn't always happening with all the other higher priority attacks in a rotation. Shuffle in a minor, mostly for flavor 30 second toxic DoT onto the -res effects. Whips are unnerfed, the core design functionality of all MM attacks is maintained without adversely affecting any one type of player, and pretty much everyone is happy. Even though I'm not a fan of Crack Whip and skip it on my current build, I'd take it over Elec Fences with anything resembling the changes outlined above, since making the -res application overall less spammy is a gameplay improvement. There's a discussion to be had over all of the MM primary attacks following similar design logic of 4/8/16s recharge values since there are a handful that are outright terrible (Ninjas, Thugs) and could see improvements to be used in an actual attack rotation instead of outsourcing damage to pool powers. The whips were already a very desirable attack chain, though, and should be brought back and given the same coat of polish all the other MM attacks have gotten as far as their design logic goes, for consistency reasons if nothing else.

Stacking -res is silly strong, especially on pylons when factoring in patron pets 😄 I also took a peek at the MM build you posted and you should be able to push a higher time by sliding in procced Weaken Resolve in place of Maneuvers (swapping out Achilles for the Shield Breaker proc on the Grave Knights), since it gives you more control over where your -res is focused and pushes the Grave Knights higher on a parse, but it's a little more subject to RNG since the 90% chance can whiff sometimes. I'd probably drop Dark Blast for procced Thunder Strike to speed up clear times too, but you'd have to shuffle some slots around to make it work. Noticeable DPS gains especially when solo, though! Also recommend slapping the Gaussians proc in Shifting Tides since it buffs its own damage which is a decent bump for the cost of one slot.

Nope, that's all of it! 😁 Pylon times are subject to a lot of RNG between the -res procs firing, pet AI being cooperative, containment crits, and overall timing—in this case it's just stacking a ton of -res to push the pet DPS as far as it can go, and only Demons can really keep up in that regard (I have a 36s pylon time on Demons/Marine without Hybrid toggled on).

Thanks! 😄 And you're absolutely right! I hadn't gotten around to testing everything as extensively when I made that post as I have now, but Pyro and Elec are definitely at the top of the pack. Illusion is still the best for ST and the safest overall, but now that things have been optimized with my Pyro clears and there's a broader spectrum of data with all the other sets, it's much clearer where things stand. I'd say Pyro is currently the best in general gameplay because it can compete even in speedrun situations with all the proc bombs and the pet is very survivable. Elec is a little more reliant on Marine and some gimmicks like Jolting Chain FFB procs to get the clear time that it does, but the Gremlins absolutely CHEW with their high ST DPS and that's very noticeable on bosses. Shoutout to Plant though, which still rocks the fastest clear time even without Seeds, and proves that the Creepers are still great.

A little of both! Pet damage output was the main thing I was interested in parsing, and Marine is the obvious first choice for minmaxing DPS—Storm can compete, but the ramp time makes it slower to peak and it's not as good for clearing. The data does show that Shifting Tides benefits some sets noticeably more than other ones, specifically the ones that have extra allies to trigger procs... or the Gremlins on clear, for mysterious reasons. 🤔

After all the updates to Controllers and the new set, I decided to take on a fun (and sometimes very not fun) little project using personal criteria to parse and benchmark all of the controller primaries except Mind, because without a pet it'd be so far behind the rest there just isn't a point. I started with Marine first because it's the most well-rounded damage-oriented secondary, pretty much guaranteed to have the fastest times for Controllers, and it's my favorite support set to play. I'll slowly add the other options to this over time and/or by request. 😄 ⭐ Controller Benchmarks (Google Sheets) ⭐ A few notes: Every attempt is the best of a minimum of 10, but some sets like Symphony took a lot more effort to optimize due to the pet. I might also revisit some of these if there are better ideas out there. No insps, and the only temp power used is Recovery Serum in all the runs. The builds should be functional in general content. Mace is used in every build for the -res and Tarantula, which Marine has no issues keeping alive. Personal clear times might be slightly higher with Earth on some primaries, but I think the utility of Poisonous Ray is the better choice outside of a solo benchmark environment.

Sure thing! I keep revising it but I'm pretty happy with this version so far. And Pyro/Marine is fairly active but I consider that a good thing! There's always something to do and it all slaps 😄 Controller (Pyrotechnic Control - Marine Affinity).mbd

Literally Just Magic™️ which worked out better after I modded all the sounds and animations! 😆

Pyro/Marine is the best it's gonna get in terms of DPS, and is a very desirable secondary across the board while also keeping things fast paced on both sides. Procced-out with the right build, it handily dispels the myth that trollers do low DPS—I've clocked a 38 second average pylon time, and cleared a benchmark +4/x8 mission with an average time that's neck and neck with my Demons/Marine MM, and the blasters and tankers on the same list. Other secondaries have their own utility, some of them more niche than others (like doubling down on the -tohit auras with Poison or Time might seem synergistic, but it's unnecessary in my opinion).

Proc (almost) everything and Pyro/Marine does a lot of work! I'll drop the build I'm using as an idea for how to slot stuff. 😄 Controller (Pyrotechnic Control - Marine Affinity).mbd

After a lot of testing things out, it looks like Pyro and Illusion are neck and neck for fastest clear times and ST DPS, with Pyro probably taking the lead in any real world and/or team situation since Phantom Army is almost never as smart as you want it to be and the proc bomb AoEs in Pyro are great. My pylon windows have them both around 33-38 seconds (w/ Hybrid, but no cheese) subject to the usual RNG. I'll drop the builds I've been using so far either way! Controller (Illusion Control - Marine Affinity).mbd Controller (Pyrotechnic Control - Marine Affinity).mbd

LR summons his henchman as soon as he spawns, so that part has never been an issue! The HoE situation is also kind of funny because as soon as you summon LR, you're on a 60 second timer before the Bane Spider despawns, so you can only give HoE about 50 seconds to cook before engaging or else you lose a ton of DPS. There's not really a viable way to wait any longer than that. Also, I think all of those other summon options aren't valid for Div 1 since they're mission rewards, but they would almost certainly have an impact otherwise!

As a Demons/Marine enjoyer I figured I'd throw an entry in here as well! It's been my favorite thing to play since Marine came out and really does a lot to make MMs shine. I'll probably keep trying just to see if I can't get it any lower, but getting the stars to align with all the procs is so time consuming. Notably, I haven't tried with Enflame or procs in Shifting Tides, but I'm not sure it would shave things down by another second honestly. The proc lottery is silly when times are this low and it's mostly just hoping all the -res fires off on a run for Recluse and his pal to hard carry most of it. I'll give it a few (dozen) tries just to see! The build is Pylon-themed but functional just by using a few unslotters, and is very close to the one I actually run which I've also posted. I respec every other day probably but STILL. Musculature Core Reactive Radial Assault Radial (toggled on) Run Type: Vanguard Training Pylon Archetype: Mastermind Primary Powerset: Demon Summoning Secondary Powerset: Marine Time in seconds: 0:10 Hybrid: Yes (toggled on) Number of Runs: I lost count! Version: i28pg1 Beta Sustainable: Not exactly! Burnout + HoE being what it is and the Bane Spider only lasts 1 min. Temps: Signature Summon (Tank), Recovery Serum, Envenomed Dagger (threw it at the very last second so I'm not sure it actually counts) Mastermind - Devilheart (Demon Summoning - Marine Affinity) Pylon.mbd Mastermind - Devilheart (Demon Summoning - Marine Affinity).mbd

Also, the whole point of the pylons is to measure your DPS since they have a set amount of res and HP. That's how you get the data, but the mission runs help to round it out across the board. It's actually been pretty fun and very useful for informing build choices. In all the runs I've done so far I've learned a few things from parses and made a lot of smart build decisions because of them, and can see the direct comparison in performance between something like Storm vs. Fire on a broad spectrum. I think the biggest point of variance here is going to be between different pilots/builders, but the data is still there to point out what's possible with a given set combo regardless. Maybe with some caveats that I'll try to mention in my posts going forward, like how the MM has issues once things show up with KB magnitudes over 3 on the tail end of Clarion. THAT'S a bad time, and for the most part it's nonexistent in the AE mission compared to something like a Council radio.

After all that other stuff, I made some adjustments to Devilheart (Demons/Marine MM) and did another set of runs because I'm obsessed with pushing this thing as far as it can go like the silly MM Enthusiast™️ that I am! AT: Mastermind Powers: Demons/Marine/Mu Pylon Time: 36 seconds 0x8 Time: 183 seconds 4x8 Time: 319 seconds Comments: Shuffling incarnates and some slots around helped a LOT and I picked up Thunder Strike to go with Fences, procced them both out and I'm never looking back. I'm also probably at the point where I've run that map so many times I could do it blindfolded! 😅

Two more! AT: Corruptor Powers: Storm/Marine/Elec Pylon Time: 158s 0x8 Time: 321s 4x8 Time: 455s Character Name: Dreaming Tide Comments: Storm isn't so great. Slow-paced and DoT-oriented damage profiles should at least have good DPS in long encounters, but its performance is still sub-par and that's on top of all the logistical issues that come with the set. AT: Corruptor Powers: Ice/Marine/Elec Pylon Time: 112s 0x8 Time: 239s 4x8 Time: 418s Character Name: Frostfound Comments: Even with Thunder Strike and Fold Space, Ice doesn't deal with the +4 chaff quite as easily as Fire does and the pylon time was surprisingly similar considering the difference in proc slotting, but that might just come down to Fire having higher scourge damage. Burnout Blizzard would probably push that down a fair bit more, but I don't think it's coming for Ice/Cold at any rate.

Got a bunch more entries in, and more are probably coming because this is fun for me! Global is @BRADICAL in all cases. AT: Corruptor Powers: Fire/Marine/Elec Pylon Time: 111s 0x8 Time: 219s 4x8 Time: 312s Character Name: Sun in Ruin Comments: This is GOOD but I think I've learned that I like playing Marine demonstrably less on corrs than MMs or trollers. I'll try a procced-out Ice/Marine/Elec next just to compare things. AT: Controller Powers: Illusion/Marine/Earth Pylon Time: 64s 0x8 Time: 256s 4x8 Time: 459s Character Name: Dreamsurge Comments: As expected, Illusion is great on ST and very safe, but even with Whitecap and Fissure the +4 chaff takes a long time to chew through and slows things down a lot. AT: Controller Powers: Fire/Dark/Psi Pylon Time: 131s 0x8 Time: 336s 4x8 Time: 504s Character Name: Uncrowned Comments: Worse performance than Illusion/Marine in almost every way, but I have a feeling Fire/Marine would see a LOT of improvements across the board in terms of clear speed, and without sacrificing much if anything as far as safety goes. If anything, /Dark and the build I'm running on it leans a little too hard into defense, but Howling Twilight is good for pylon times at least. I might try building a Fire/Marine on test just to see how things go. AT: Tanker Powers: Rad/SS/Soul Pylon Time: 309s 0x8 Time: 277s 4x8 Time: 358s Character Name: Lifetap Comments: Full tank build, surprised the pylon went down at all but SS is SS!