Galaxy Brain

I mean, if we are throwing away the cottage rule... replace it with Gun Drone?

+1

IIRC: demons, thugs, and necro can all slot the extra pet IOs easily. How much does this push these sets above the rest?

I agree that maybe a higher diff slider may be in order lol Anywho, I feel FF could use +absorb on its powers. It seems thematic that the ff gives both defense and something attacks have to actually get through to damage you. Could make it a bit more active to reapply the buffs to refresh absorb too! Mercenary serum is booty Beasts need a look Ninja also need a look Regen could use a bunch of debuff resistance specifically and maybe some absorb. Its main weakness atm is that it just eats everything that hits you and thus debuffs (esp rech) hurt a lot. Thematically, a regenerative character would be affected for less time! Various mez attacks in attack sets: boost the damage on these pls. Sentinel mez attacks often deal decent damage on top of mez, and several sets like dark or ice also get this, why not make bean bag or Tesla cage follow suite across all versions?

Serum sucks as-is, but that doesn't mean it cant be adjusted to be worthwhile. The concept of making super soldiers is very integral to the whole merc theme in like... all comics lol. Having it boost merc damage would be really nice on top of making them tankier.

We have a loose theme, but any Beam Rifle types are welcome! :D

Options are fun to think up, but working with what we got (both with this power and with limited dev time) is what we need to do. That said, the core is still fun. What other mm set has a straight up 3rd pet buff? This is a whole other topic, but my 2 cents here is that MMs are a unique case for IO balance given how incredibly impactful these particular IOs are for them as an archetype vs how impactful an IO is for say, a power or powerset.

The early pets add way more dps and self-survival through bodyguard tho

Thanks everyone!

I suggested making it into a 0 endurance toggle with a 1 minute recharge rate. What part of that doesn't deal with the short duration and enormous recharge time and the uselessness of a pet? The uselessness would only happen when the toggle gets taken off... but that's only liable to happen when the pet is killed or between missions as team composition changes so... *shrug* While that deals with the root problem, it also adds onto the original power. While it's a really cool idea, the power as is was in a good spot in terms of what it did to the pets and just allowing it to be up far more frequently with altered values would be more feasible to implement. The question is what values and how often...

I still favor a solution that behaves almost like the old school mastermind upgrade that was single target. Just allow the player to build up super soldiers (and/or give the power a passive effect on your troops just for taking it too would be nice!)

Most slippery slopes never slip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope. I post this not to demean your argument, because I believe it's well intentioned. But they always assume that there can't be a middle ground between one example and everything... But regardless, I'm with Steampunkette, who, like me, has suggested that the story need NOT be changed. I'd be fine with a warning if the storyline does trigger people in a bad way, as long as they are provided an out (their gameplay shouldn't be stopped if they need to skip it). I'd also be OK with someone (from the community) rewriting it and suggesting that to the community. Who know's, we might like it better... Just to be clear, I'm behind the change here to make the mission more appropriate for today's audience. Bringing up slippery slope was a bit extreme sure, but I dont think it is unwarranted! The arc in question is a specifically villainous mission, where the player character is assumed to be an evil-doer. Whether this is just a silly moustache twirler, simple thief, or the next great evil incarnate, their moral compass is supposed to be pointed way south. I think the suggestion made earlier to just warn about content would be best given that yeah, there are dark topics when your character is supposed to be doing messed up stuff!

Thatd be really cool! Though it would need to be good for each of the 4 pet types as a toggle, so maybe each pet gets a different aoe boost as long as you keep it on them + stats.

... not only has it been commented on, it's also not a pervasive cultural issue in the modern world..? Like... you get that's why this is being brought up, right? Not "It's a bad thing to do!" but "It's a bad thing to do that is frighteningly common in the world today and based entirely on the sort of sexist/misogynistic violence which is so pervasive to western culture that you can hardly play a video game, read a comic, or see a movie/tv-show without it being placed front and center" If people poisoned Orphanages on the regular it'd make sense to compare the two... but they don't. So it doesn't. That is fair, and that is what I get for only having a moment to look and respond. That said, isnt this potentially a slippery slope if this is changed on the reasoning of having a real world analogue? Like, instances where you are using violence by a Male player character to defeat female npcs... as ludicrous an example that is, isnt that worse since you are actually doing it especially if you're a Male villain beating up female protagonists?

Unfortunately pets cannot receive recharge rate changes at all (both good and bad). It's a cool idea to make each pet a useful target, but I think just treating serum like a unique 3rd upgrade to pets may be the best route!

Isnt there an arc where you poison an orphanage? Just making sure that one is cool too

We dont need a new power to replace serum, just making it work well would be enough :) That said, serum only works on your merc pets. They are all 90% ranged so making them into actual aggro tanks isnt the most effective boost imo.

Serum has a 1.3 second cast time. Make the Grant Power to Medic version use this 1.3 second animation and give the Grant Power to Medic version an 8.7 second recharge ... which means that the Medic can cast Serum 6 times within 60 seconds (1.3+8.7=10*6=60) which is enough to "perma" Serum on 6 teammates EXCEPT the Medic (because the Grant Power does not allow casting on self, only on others), which would then be all of the Mercs plus the Mastermind while soloing. However, when in team/league situations, who gets the Serum buff would tend to get "spread around" the group, rather than just confined to the Mastermind+Pets only, but it would still be no more than 6 individuals per minute who are getting buffed ... and because the Merc AI is doing the targeting, the Mastermind wouldn't be in a position to pick WHO gets buffed at any particular instant. The result remains a Click power (sort of) that requires a Medic to maintain it and which is a power "authorized" by the Mastermind but not directly controlled by the Mastermind commanding the Mercs. It will also cost the Medic 18 endurance per minute to keep 6 allies per minute buffed with Serum. Reset the recharge on the Serum power used by the Mastermind to be 600 seconds ... such that if the Medic faceplants your Mastermind can't necessarily have a fresh supply of Serum to dispense to the Medic "instantly" for the Grant Power handoff ... and call it a day. This then yields a motivation/desire on the part of the Mastermind to "protect the Medic" in order to keep the Grant Power of Serum from the Medic "rolling over" for the Mastermind (and friends). How's that grab ya? Feel free to tinker with the stats in the framework I've provided if it sounds overpowered. I like this! But why not just give that version to the MM so they can spread the serum around too?

They feel weak enough that combining into just one opportunity could even work

Honestly I think the existence of the Aura IOs pretty much creates a need to change all the MM primaries that don't have an "extra pet" in this power slot. Otherwise Thugs, Demons, and Necro overshadow all the others. If we *must* keep to the Cottage Rule (And frankly I really don't think we need to with powers this bad--and yes, Serum is AWFUL in it's current state) then you just make it a choose-a-power, which the game already supports. Leave Serum for the few people who might actually want it, and put in a proper pet power for the sane people. Whether it be an artillery strike or something else, as long as it takes Pet Sets. Power sets are not balanced around IO sets. And really, Serum is not that bad. It sucks because it has atrocious uptime and a painful crash, and those issues can be easily fixed. Theyre not.... but after *so many years* it is a valid critique. Especially for the MM uniques. But besides that can of worms, I agree that the recharge, uptime and crash make it horrendous. That said I feel that it should be able to be used on multiple mercs and not just the commando, as if it were on just 1 target at a time then why wouldn't it always be him?

Making it have an auto portion would certainly be cool! Still though, the frequency that you can use it would still be nutty unless you made one of your mercs into an actual super soldier lol.

So, this is technically a thread asking for a buff to a Mastermind Set of all things but hear me out! Serum is the signature power of the Mercenaries/ primary for Masterminds, much like how Thugs get Gang War and Necro gets Soul Extraction. Serum gives just 1 of your pets a 52.5% damage reduction, mez protection, 100% recovery rate, and 7.5% damage and tohit boost for 1 minute, before crashing the pet's endurance and recovery for 20 sec. This then has a 16 minute recharge. As is, it is essentially just a power to be used on the Commando only and even then it is kind of weird. Your commando gets very tough and does not run out of endurance as much for a minute... before becoming useless for 20 sec... like once a mission. While nice, the frequency and duration just kill the power. Keeping with the theme of a "super soldier serum", and noting that Mercs are on the lower end of MM primaries, how about just shifting the stats around to make this like a 3rd pet upgrade with the old school style? Reduce the recharge to say 4 minutes and increase the duration to either make it perma, or maybe even something super long like 10 minutes. Keep it single target but allow you to over time juice up your whole squad. It could be faster recharge but a hefty endurance cost as well to keep it something that you dont just toss out to all the mercs all the time, but still allow you to have a fully evil super-squad. Reduce the damage resist from >50% to all but psy down to say 15% to all, including psy, and similarly reduce the mez protections. Decrease the recovery boost to something like 25%. Increase the damage and tohit to 15% as well. Maybe add in +movement speed. In essence, treat serum like a great big stat boost to your minion as if it is a special ST pet upgrade that is worth speccing into and using often. Itd be much better than the currently questionable, essentially commando-only power they have now! Thoughts?

Kind of an odd question, but I remember my claws/nin stalker being a blast since it had 2 cones you could crit with. What other stalker builds have good AoE?

Issue with redaide is that you unfortunately dont have agency that real... well real as in "existing in media"... villains have. You cant be the big bad You cant have an effect on the world You cant mess with heroes directly It's all sort of a ruse, where on blueside it is easier to play reactively as a hero.

Itd be nice if we could choose between the fists and swords per attack