Maelwys

Looks promising, especially for any Beasts/ who have been struggling with their survivability. Thanks! 👍 [EDIT] - Here's an illustration of my Henchmen HP now on Live/Test: (was previously 480.99, so that's +27.0%) (was previously 678.34, so that's +18.5%) FWIW +MaxHP Set Bonuses seem particularly nice for supplementing the T1 pets survivability (Since Set Bonus inheritance use the master's base values; the same value ends up getting added to each of the pets... so the T1s with the lowest HP gain the most proportional benefit!)

🥳 Thanks! I know a lot of people will be very happy with the T1/T2 "HP nerfs" gone!

So I managed to get my Bot/Kin into RWZ this evening for a bunch of Pylon tests on both Live and Brainstorm. The results may seem a little unusual, however I am PURPOSELY trying to benchmark the effects of Incarnate Ability procs on an endgame Lv50+1 MM build here (since I know that the devs were particularly concerned about the potential effects of the stacking of those procs on even-level MM pets) Anyway, here's the setup and the various pylon times: Build: Mastermind - Robotics - Kinetics (Bonfire).mbd Setup: Level 50+1 Robotics/Kinetics Mastermind with ED-capped damage in all pets, and an Explosive Strike proc in Drones and Assault Bot. They are intentionally *NOT* using a Damage-buffing Alpha Slot ability (T4 Agility Core Paragon instead) or a Soulbound proc. Noteworthy Passive/Toggle Buffs: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface, Supremacy, Tactics (to cap Hit Rate vs +3s) +1.01% Damage Set Bonus (TEST only) PYLON TIMES: (Note: each time is the average of 3 runs; except for the >33minute one on Test #6 when I got very very bored ran out of testing time) Test #1: vs a Levelless Pylon (Vanguard Training Pylon "Blank level Dummy") + [LIVE=04:35] [TEST=08:54] - Pets (Baseline run - no active buffs other than +Recovery/+Endurance) + [LIVE=04:03] [TEST=05:25] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment repeatedly activated on cooldown. + [LIVE=02:41] [TEST=03:24] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment plus Pulse Rifle Burst set to Autofire for -200% Regen Debuff. Test #2: vs a -1 Pylon (Vanguard IDC "Level 50 Dummy") + [LIVE=03:36] [TEST=03:28] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment repeatedly activated on cooldown. + [LIVE=02:13] [TEST=02:05] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment plus Pulse Rifle Burst set to Autofire for -200% Regen Debuff. Test #3: vs a +0 Pylon (Vanguard IDC "Level 51 Dummy") + [LIVE=05:00] [TEST=07:36] - Pets (Baseline run - no active buffs other than +Recovery/+Endurance) + [LIVE=04:34] [TEST=04:29] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment repeatedly activated on cooldown. + [LIVE=02:44] [TEST=02:41] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment plus Pulse Rifle Burst set to Autofire for -200% Regen Debuff. Test #4: vs a +1 Pylon (Vanguard IDC "Level 52 Dummy") + [LIVE=06:24] [TEST=06:29] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment repeatedly activated on cooldown. + [LIVE=03:42] [TEST=03:29] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment plus Pulse Rifle Burst set to Autofire for -200% Regen Debuff. Test #5: vs a +2 Pylon (Vanguard IDC "Level 53 Dummy") + [LIVE=15:25] [TEST=09:42] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment repeatedly activated on cooldown. + [LIVE=05:58] [TEST=05:23] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment plus Pulse Rifle Burst set to Autofire for -200% Regen Debuff. Test #6: vs a +3 Pylon (Vanguard IDC "Level 54 Dummy") + [LIVE=N/A] [TEST=33:24] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment repeatedly activated on cooldown. + [LIVE=14:43] [TEST=08:55] - Pets with Hybrid Assault Radial Embodiment plus Pulse Rifle Burst set to Autofire for -200% Regen Debuff. (NOTE: Pet damage output was insufficient to overcome pylon regeneration on Live without any active -Regen debuffs) Observations: (i) The Live version of the toon wins comfortably on all of the "levelless" pylon runs (as expected since the T1 and T2 pets are "even-level" vs it and aren't suffering any nerfs!) (ii) The Live version of the toon is winning very comfortably on both the levelless and the even-level pylon "baseline" runs (whenever Hybrid isn't toggled on) (iii) Whenever the Hybrid is being used on cooldown; the Test and Live versions of the toon are extremely close in terms of performance (I had a few runs where their positions flipped!) until they start fighting Lv53+ pylons and the Live version of the toon apparently starts having trouble overcoming the Pylon's passive regeneration rate. This definitely suggests that if MMs are using a "75% chance of DOT" T4 interface ability there is a substantial drop in overall henchmen damage output on Test when fighting "levelless" foes like GMs; and a less-substantial-but-still-noticable drop in overall henchmen damage output when fighting even-level foes. However throwing Hybrid Ability procs into the mix seems to be able to make up some of the performance deficit vs levelless foes and effectively all of the performance deficit vs regular even-level foes... and versus higher-conning targets (somewhere between +2s and +3s) the Test version of the character will start pulling ahead of the Live version. (And since the devs are apparently intending the break-even point to be +2s for regular damage and +3s for proc damage... to my mind that all tracks rather nicely!)

Agreed. And the more data we can produce that proves "pet survivability has decreased compared to Live" to the devs, the more likely they are to lessen the currently-proposed HP reductions (or buff henchmen survivability later!).

And yet as @Bionic_Flea and @tidge have shown... whilst the damage dealt by your T1 and T2 henchmen to those GMs has dropped, it's not actually having a noticeable difference in cleartimes (at least without mixing in extreme levels of optimization and specific Incarnate Abilities). And it's a net gain vs anything that cons +3 or above. The changes ARE having a noteworthy difference on pet survivability against GMs; and on your "effective HP" in bodyguard mode (which is something I hope will be addressed sooner rather than later) but both of those are irrelevant against a Training Pylon that doesn't shoot back.

Personally when levelling up pre-IOs I always preferred Masterminds. And even nowadays they're still my goto ATs for GM soloing. And there are definitely Edge Cases.

Because players hate nerfs. Giving two apples + then taking away one of them later on gets people far more riled up than if you'd simply given them one apple to begin with. Just look here --> (and I'm going to stop looking any further back in the search results for "unfair tanker nerf" before I start facepalming so hard I knock myself unconscious. Again.)

Agreed. Given that there's a lengthy period between the start of the summoning animation and the newly-summoned pet being able to actually start shoot at anything; let alone them being fully upgraded; I think a short duration of immunity to damage (rather than untouchability) and possibly a +stealth effect is a very fair request.

I think that's the point. The devs are actively trying to make the performance differences from T1/T2-henchmen-becoming-even-level "moot" on this patch. Taking your "Council Rocket" example... typical worst-case will be weathering a missile attack from a Boss. As per https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=council.warcry.missile_launch&at=boss_grunt that's: 245.6772 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) 235.8501 points of Lethal damage (all affected targets) = 481.5273 damage total at Lv54. At +4; even-level pets would take 481.5273*1.44=693.4 damage; -2 pets would take 481.5273*1.66=799.3 damage; and -1 pets would take 481.5273*1.55=746.4 damage. At +5; even-level pets would take 481.5273*1.55=746.4 damage; -2 pets would take 481.5273*1.77=852.3 damage; and -1 pets would take 481.5273*1.66=799.3 damage. On Test... T1 pets currently have 448 HP (Base) and T2 pets currently have 645 HP (Base) So neither of them are going to survive a hit even from the +4 without buffs. However, most MMs will try and get the Aura IOs into the builds, which add +35% resistance to everything; and many pets have inherent resistances on top of that. With just the basic 35% resistance and zero HP buffs (from set bonuses etc); the T1s need >689 damage to kill them and the T2s need >992 damage to kill them. Meaning with very minor +HP or +Res buffs from set bonuses etc. even the T1s could survive 1 hit from a +4. And at Lv50 you won't be fighting +5s if you have a T3+ Alpha. On Live... T1 pets currently have 574 HP (Base) and T2 pets currently have 768 HP (Base) So the T2 could *just about* survive a hit from the +4 without buffs. Factoring in the basic 35% resistance from Aura IOs; the T1 henchmen would need >883 damage to kill them and the T2 henchmen >1181 damage to kill them. So greater raw survivability; however the pets would also be facing additional LevelDifferenceAcc and ToHit increases (see here) so they'll be getting hit more often. @Dispari had a nice post on the Closed Beta feedback thread that showed the breakdown of the differences in Damage Taken compared to the new HP figures... but effectively the reduction in damage taken ranges from ~18% (vs +0s) to ~12% (vs +5s) for T1 henchmen; and ~9% to 7% for T2 henchmen. However T1 Henchmen HP has been reduced by 22% and T2 by 16%. So currently it doesn't fully balance out unless you also include the +HP from Set Bonuses and the reduced likelihood of getting hit. Yeah, I'm definitely getting the vibe that Devs are currently comparatively open to future MM survivability buffs but very cautious about damage buffs. We really don't want a repeat of the whole "Tankers Need Buffed, WHOA THAT'S TOO MUCH!" thing... 🙈

FWIW, there are specific MM combos that are very, VERY good. Robotics/Kinetics. Various /Time and /Dark and /Cold. Anything /Marine. The bulk of a MM's primary powerset damage is effectively "passive" (whilst you need to issue orders in order to keep the henchmen on-target and alive; dealing damage with them doesn't require you to spend ANY animation time) which means that you can concentrate almost all of your active button pressing animation-time-consuming efforts on your Secondary powerset. So powersets that require a lot of clicking to play optimally (like Dark and Marine and Kinetics) benefit. You also don't really need to bother much with careful positioning of your own character - you just need to stay within 60ft of your henchmen (Supremacy Range)... which means powersets that require careful positioning (like Dark and Marine and Kinetics) benefit. Certain primaries (like Bots and Demons) also provide the player with rather nice survivability buffs (Protector Bot +Def Bubbles, and Ember Demon's +Res Shield). In combination with Bodyguard mode, any Secondary powersets that are traditionally rather frail (like Cold and Kinetics) benefit. A lot of secondary powersets also have fast-recharging, long-duration allied defensive buffs (like Kinetics) or allied offensive buffs (like Kinetics) or allied heals (like Kinetics) and a few of them don't particularly care about MM's lower base buff/debuff scalars (like Kinetics) or benefit more from some of the rider effects on MM Primary powerset attacks such as Demons' -Res or Robotics' -Regen (like Kinetics). Playing MMs efficiently may well require a lot of micromanagement, practice and build tweaking, and up until now offensively they've definitely been much less effective than other ATs against +3/+4/+5 foes (and it's often difficult for non-speed-boosted henchmen to reliably "keep pace"!). However there are definitely a few standout powerset combinations/builds out there... did I mention Robotics/Kinetics yet? ...actually, Forget all that. All MMs are total rubbish. Especially Robotics/Kinetics. More buffs please! More seriously, whilst I'm indeed rather fond of my own Bots/Kin; most MM players seem to find /Kinetics a royal PITA on Primaries with non-melee-AI Pets because it takes a lot of effort and practice to constantly issue all the GOTO commands to reliably get the pets into position for Fulcrum Shift/Transfusion/etc. All that micromanagement definitely isn't for everyone; and IMO it balances out because the more "cruise control" MM powerset combinations simply don't have as high a potential performance ceiling. And they've been nerfed already anyway. I imagine part of the reason Neiska is so salty here is that Robotics used to be EXTREMELY good at AoE damage; then the rework in i27p5 resulted in a moderate damage gain for their Single Target damage plus an incredibly severe reduction to their AoE damage ceiling. I really miss killing mapfuls of mobs with multiple overlapping Incendiary Swarm Missiles; even if I can objectively-speaking recognise that all of that runaway damage stacking was definitely overpowered and unintentional. Other pet sets like Necro have gotten straight buffs. The result is that Beasts is the only standout underperforming Primary on Live at present; so that's probably a good thing, nostalgia notwithstanding... 🤷‍♂️

It varies wildly depending on what you're fighting, and that's kinda the problem. Because of the Purple Patch scaling; the damage does not drop off linearly, but exponentially as you start fighting foes that are vastly higher level than you. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch - note the uneven progression there whenever you are BELOW the target. Whenever you're fighting "higher level" targets you don't just lose 10% damage per level difference; instead it goes 100%->90%->80%->65%->48%->30%->15%->8% etc. This severe dropoff in damage matters the most for balancing whenever you're up against +3s or over... at that point the damage inflicted by a MM's T1 Henchmen will be less than half of the damage inflicted by their T3 Henchmen, even if their attacks are completely identical (x0.3 damage modifier compared to x0.65). - - - - - - - - - - As a very straightforward example... ...let's say all your pets just each have a single attack (Heavy Brawl!) that does 100 damage. How different would the damage output be if you just made the T1 and T2 pets even-level? (i) If you're fighting an even-level foe... currently the T1s would each inflict 0.8*100=80 damage; and the T2s 0.9*100=90 damage; and the T3 100 damage. For 3x80+2x90+1x100=520 damage total... whereas if your pets were even-level they'd all inflict 100; for 6x100=600 total. 600/520=1.153846; so making pets even-level in that case would it'd result in 15.4% additional damage. (ii) If you're fighting a +1 foe... currently the T1s would each inflict 0.65*100=65 damage; and the T2s 0.8*100=80 damage; and the T3 0.9*100=90 damage. For 3x65+2x80+1x90=445 damage total... whereas if your pets were even-level they'd all inflict 90; for 6x90=540 total. 540/445=1.213483; so making pets even-level in that case would it'd result in 21.3% additional damage. ...fighting +2s; it'd be 3x48+2x65+1x80=354 damage versus 6*80=480; 480/354=1.35593 for 35.6% additional damage. ...fighting +3s; it'd be 3x30+2x48+1x65=251 damage versus 6*65=390; 390/251=1.55378 for 55.4% additional damage. ...fighting +4s; it'd be 3x15+2x30+1x48=153 damage versus 6*48=288; 288/153=1.88235 for 88.2% additional damage. ...fighting +5s; it'd be 3x8+2x15+1x30=84 damage versus 6*30=180; 180/84=2.14286 for 114.3% additional damage. So you really have to pick a single point to balance around. The difficulty scale in CoH allows you to choose to fight -1s through to +4s (now +5s!) That's seven possible "mob levels": [-1], [+0], [+1], [+2], [+3], [+4], [+5] so balancing around [+2] is slap bang in the middle. On a regular mid-to-late-game team, it's rare that you're fighting anything less than +1s/+2s. Most higher tier players when soloing will also be setting their difficulty sliders higher (+3/+4) which will result in them fighting +2s and above. At level 50 with the T3 Alpha +1 level shift... you'll end up fighting at most +4s (the new level 55 mobs) outside of Incarnate content. Sure; many toons will start out fighting even-level foes. But that tends to be a short-term thing; and even looooooooong before IOs were available; all the ATs were capable of aiming higher. Even "pre-IO, pre-sustain, old defiance" Blasters of mine were fighting +1s by level 32. All of my Masterminds (I had several, but my favourites were Bot/Traps, Bots/Dark and Demons/FF) were fighting +2 or higher by the time they were able to slot SOs. There are certainly some powerset combinations which struggle more (see /Poison MMs) but by and large MMs were always one of the easiest ATs to solo with. So whilst they might be dealing a little less damage[1] versus +0s and +1s now; the fact that they're dealing more damage versus +3s, +4s and +5s is most welcome IMO. [1] And it is only a little less in practice; because the T1 henchmen are the worst affected (inflicting at most ~25% lower damage than before vs +0s) however they typically contribute much less damage than your other pets anyway. As you can see from the pylon times already posted; the difference in overall damage output is almost negligible. (and please don't get me wrong here - I'd also PREFER it if the break-even point was set lower than +2s; but I can at least UNDERSTAND why they've done it this way!) 🙂 - - - - - - - - - - I'm more concerned with Henchmen survivability. The -HP debuffs on the T1 and T2 henchmen are almost exactly cancelling out the fact they're taking less damage and being hit less often as a result of becoming even-level. So if MMs were only ever fighting regular foes and taking damage that way, then there'd be no problem. However; that's not the entire picture. @tidge noted earlier in this thread that some of the GMs they were fighting on Test took about the same amount of time as they did on Live... but others took much longer; mainly because their pets died more often (more resummonings required). Whilst the fact that some of these GM fights took the same time to defeat is good news (alongside the pylon testing it helps prove that pet damage output hasn't been lowered too much), the fact that pets were dying more often here is a bit concerning... even if it's not exactly unexpected. GMs are effectively "levelless" - they treat everything that they're fighting as even-level. This means that on both Live and Test, a GM should be hitting all of your henchmen for exactly the same amount of damage; however T1/T2 henchmen on Test have lower HP so it will take less damage to kill them. "Levelless" GM encounters should be the only time this happens (a non-levelless foe on Live would have had its damage multiplied by 1.22 against T1 henchmen and by 1.11 against T2 henchmen - which is offset by the HP differences!) but they're quite tough fights and a favourite pastime of many players. And then there's Bodyguard mode. A lot of soloing MMs place themselves in Bodyguard mode for survivability... however if the share of bodyguard damage absorbed by T1/T2 pets remains the same as before but those pets have lower HP pools (on Test) then the MM's survivability becomes lower. Which is why I think THIS ROUND OF CHANGES IS PROBABLY OK; if it's purely to establish a new performance baseline... but why I also think that SURVIVABILITY BUFFS ARE NEEDED IN THE NEAR FUTURE (ideally raising henchmen base HP across the board) alongside Hit Rate buffs to T1/T2 pets; and ideally also a higher potential damage ceiling for henchmen (so that MM become more attractive damage-dealers to teams and can draw a little closer to the 500%-damage-cap ATs). There are certainly other things on my MM wishlist - ATOs being slottable into their personal attacks; higher base damage scalars on all the pets (I still think their damage output is a little low in general unless you have a secondary powerset that can stack noteworthy -res debuffs or +damage buffs); Inspiration inheritance (so single-target inspirations consumed by the MM at least partially affect the henchmen), various other AI tweaks and QOL changes (like mid-air upgrades/summonings) etc. etc... but those are all "wants" rather than "needs". The biggest QOL change would probably be finding a way for all pets (but MM henchmen in particular) to reliably keep up with fast-paced teams ...however as mentioned previously, I know the Devs are keenly aware of that issue, so it's likely to be a question of how and when rather than if. /essay

I'd be happier if it was possible to just trigger the upgrades on a henchmen that was not on the ground. Whenever I have to resummon one pet on a MM that has Group Fly running... they have to fly down far enough to target a patch of ground to summon that pet, then also direct a second pet to fly to the ground in order to trigger both upgrades on that second pet (so that the resummoned pet ends up having the upgrades by the time it finishes spawning and becomes targetable)... 🍝 😵‍💫

FWIW the patch that landed this afternoon apparently also fixed a bug with Direwolf "Will of the Wild" damage resistances being unboostable, in case you tried that Beasts/Traps run beforehand and/or haven't adjusted your Tame Beasts slotting yet.

Actually... Sept 22 2021. 10 positive responses, no negatives. Disclaimer: I already knew it existed and still had to spend nearly 20mins squelching through the muck looking for it. But still.

Robotics was revamped in Issue 27 Page 5. Which landed in October 2022, a good two years before this thread was made.

On Live it's unchanged. On Beta the T1 henchmen are currently dealing more damage than before against enemies that con +3 or higher. So if you're regularly fighting +3s or higher, I'd stick it in the Drones.

I actually have a variant of my RadM/Stone Brute build ready to go. Although holding off on finalizing it until the changes hit Live. IMO the additional regeneration requirements aren't too bad, but the additional Accuracy requirements definitely need you to put in a little more effort. 2x Acc/Dam HOs + 4x Procs is likely going to be the basic guideline now rather than 1x Acc/Dam + 5x Procs etc. unless you're double stacking Rage.

@Captain Powerhouse said as much earlier in the thread. "as a baseline, we are trying to handle this conversion without high buffs. We will likely adjust things further during the beta window, but major buffs beyond these are likely to come in a follow-up Panel release." Also note the wording there: future Panel release, not future Issue or even future Page. A "panel" is the CoH term for an incremental followup "same-page" patch, so it's going to be soon rather than SOONTM 😉 My advice is to do tests and post some performance metrics times/parses/logs/etc showing clearly what state MMs are now in as a result of these changes. The more useful performance data there is, the better the Devs can tailor these future tweaks.

New Patch out! 🥳

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/beta/ (hit "Copy Character" and pick which one; then wait 2-3 mins and it should be there)

In a word: "No". From what I can gather, the overall intention for all the MM AT tweaks this patch is to simply make MM pets even level whilst causing minimal performance changes. Proper buffs/nerfs/whatever will likely happen later on; after these changes bed in and the Devs have amassed enough data to justify those buffs/nerfs/whatever. However the T1s/T2s will at least be dealing more damage than before whenever they're fighting level 55 mobs from the new increased difficulty settings... (Perfectly happy to be proven wrong here though if a dev wants to weigh in! 🙂)

Fair enough. IIRC you tend to not slot damage procs into Single Target abilities... but since Reactive (or Degenerative) Radial Flawless Interface plus Assault Radial Embodiment Hybrid typically add a very decent chunk of damage versus a single target for the duration of the Hybrid buff window; I figured a "GM Hunter" build might be making use of them... My bad! 😉 I'll try and put something halfway sensible together as an illustration after I do my own tests; as IIRC Incarnate proc damage being buffed too much by making the T1s/T2s even-level was one of the big concerns on the Dev's radar + I'm sure they'd appreciate some more data points on it. (Even if the percentage of MMs using Assault Hybrid over Support Hybrid is very likely tiny; especially given that it only kicks in on pets [like Henchmen and Phantom Army etc etc] if you summon them AFTER activating it...)

Yeah... essentially damage from Incarnate Interface DoTs and Assault Radial Hybrid "Doublehit" procs is only about 35% of what it should be. TEST: LIVE: Note that the basic hit damage is roughly the same, as is the damage from regular IO Set damage procs kicking in (the Explosive Strike)... however the DoubleHit and Reactive Interface damage figures are both being greatly reduced. Powerhouse confirmed it was indeed broken here. (the screenshots are taken from my first reply in this very thread, which also covered the issue!) IMO the only real benefit is to use 'em as somewhere to mule the Aura IOs. The 6 slots for each regular henchmen are often well "overbooked".

FWIW the next minor patch should hopefully be fixing the T3's proc damage issue; and Faultline mentioned they were going to try to push it to Brainstorm later on today... so it might be worth doing another test after that lands (especially if you're running DoT-heavy Interfaces and/or Assault Radial Hybrid). I'm planning on trying to do some comparative Pylon Times and AE runs once I can free up a few hours of solid playtime; which will likely be the weekend at this rate!

I can see them taking a little longer. But it'll hopefully not be HUGELY different after the T3 proc damage fix is in place. Honestly the difference in my T3's damage on Beta right now is bigger than the difference in the damage of all my T1s combined... and in theory it shouldn't be budging. Definitely worth testing again once the dust settles though!