Maelwys

As the kids say, "skill issue". Possibly a knowledge thing too. Some new players just plain don't realise that slotting Single Origin Enhancements (especially Accuracy, Damage and EndRed) is a very good idea - at least before common IOs start drawing level with + outpacing them circa levels 25-30. Or insist on setting their difficulty sliders to maximum when it's blatantly obvious that they can't yet handle it.

Whilst I'd like this too... you can at least workaround the headache a bit by selecting a currently-alive pet which is close to the one that's locked in a "spawning" animation; and (RE)TRIGGER THE UPGRADES ON IT INSTEAD. The upgrades are AoEs; and as soon as the new henchmen appear in your pet list they are *buffable*; just not *targetable*.

In the main patch notes, there's a "General Adjustments" section right above the "Masterminds" section which has a clarification in the third bullet point Set Bonuses Standard Set Bonuses should now last for the full duration of most summoned pseudopets. 40% of your Standard Set Bonuses now applies to henchmen that are within range of Supremacy. Standard Set Bonuses are those granted by multiple enhancements of a set.

This is getting pretty deep into "Dev-team terminology" versus "player terminology"... however if we're getting technical-technical: Things like the LotG +7.5% Recharge IO are listed as a "Global" in lots of places; like https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Set_Enhancements_with_Special_Effects 'Global' Bonuses are (somewhat confusingly) displayed under the "set bonus" heading on your character info's "Powers" tab (and stored within "set_bonus.set_bonus.X") But they're not visible here --> Which is what matters for this patch. It's only these numbered "Set Bonuses" that are (currently) inheriting to henchmen. Global bonuses may well follow after the Devs are happy with the inheritance and have sufficient time to devote to poking at half a Smithsonian's worth of additional records.

"All the incarnates in the build are required." Are you running Ageless Destiny? If so, then you shouldn't be having any endurance issues since that gives you sky-high recovery and refills your blue bar every 120s. That said... Tankers were hit rather harshly in i28p2 (see here for details) and as AA noted the builds linked at the start of this thread may not be the best any longer. There're some decent alternative Active Farming melee options here and here and here.

Same TBH. I've never bothered with a travel power on my Crabbermind, their build is just too tight power-selection-wise. I do currently take a non-START travel power (Mighty Leap) on their alternate Bane Soldier build... but I'm planning to do away with even that shortly (the changes on Open Beta will soon see them fighting +4 'Level 55' mobs so I'll need to raise their ToHit a bit by swapping something for TT: Leadership... and the travel power is by far the least vital!)

Note Powerhouse's clarification in the OP: "A note about Incarnate content: while on Incarnate Trials or Dark Astoria, henchmen incarnate procs like Hybrid or Interface ones should behave the same as they do now live. If you do not see this, please report it as it's a bug."

I must be in the minority... rather than keep dozens of racks of old IOs in my SG base, I just keep 5 1/2 racks permanently full of boosters (one's half full of Catalysts) so that each new alt can go wild. IME it's easy enough to restock either via merits or the AH (as long as you're not using "buy it now" prices!)

Column A tend to find KB disruptive of their playstyle. Column B tend to find it immersive and fun, apparently. Personally I'm firmly in Column A... partly because there are too many "bad" KB users around... and partly because most of the large AoE effects that inflict knockback are a less-than-100% chance; so it inevitably causes some mob scatter and I find the inconsistencies annoying. Saying to melee toons "just tap the follow key" inevitably degrades into arguments about "lost DPS" and ultimately still involves another player having to make adjustments to their playstyle to accommodate the KB'er; so it's not a panacea unfortunately. I think its fair to say that whenever one person's playstyle or power choices starts causing issues for someone else on the same team- ultimately one of them will have to make a behavioural compromise or be kicked. And some people (on both sides of this very thorny issue) really hate compromising. Meh. The real headache for me is the "enhancement tax" that I personally have to make if I wish to convert more than one of my powers from KB>KD. Overwhelming Force at least also buffs damage aspect a little, but it's unique. So subsequent abilities effectively lose an entire slot per power to a Sudden Acceleration KB>KD IO.

IIRC that's pretty much how it works currently for regular +Knockback enhancements. They're incredibly unpopular; but they're one of the few ways to increase the magnitude of an effect rather than its duration. (if you enhance a Knockdown power enough that its Magnitude rises above 1.0-ish it'll turn into Knockback...)

This was the last one I think? Or at least the last one that reached critical mass. (I had to buy a new cape after all the flames ruined it...) 🧯

Raising it to 50% would also help with Knockdown protection. Currently one instance of 3x Gladiators Armor translates to henchmen getting 0.4*3 = Mag 1.2 protection vs KB. so vs +4s your pets would be protected against 1.2/1.44 = Mag 0.83333 KB and below. so vs +3s your pets would be protected against 1.2/1.33 = Mag 0.90226 KB and below. so vs +2s your pets would be protected against 1.2/1.22 = Mag 0.98361 KB and below. so vs +1s your pets would be protected against 1.2/1.11 = Mag 1.08108 KB and below. If the set bonus inheritance rate was raised to 50%, that'd mean henchmen would instead be getting 0.5*3= Mag 1.5 protection vs KB per set of Gladiator's Armor. so vs +4s your pets would be protected against 1.5/1.44 = Mag 1.04167 KB and below. so vs +3s your pets would be protected against 1.5/1.33 = Mag 1.12782 KB and below. so vs +2s your pets would be protected against 1.5/1.22 = Mag 1.22951 KB and below. so vs +1s your pets would be protected against 1.5/1.11 = Mag 1.35135 KB and below. There are rather a lot lot of additional powers that clock in at mag 0.9 and Mag 1; such as Frag Grenade and Foot Stomp and Force Blast and Hand Clap etc. etc. Also the next major KB protection performance breakpoint is at Mag2; so 2x sets of Gladiator's Armor would cover that nicely. (the more KB protection the better, obviously... but the big breakpoints are Mag 0.67, Mag 0.75, Mag1, Mag 2; Mag 3 and 4... with considerably smaller ones at Mag 5, 6 and 8!) ((and of course if the devs can tweak things so that henchmen gain the benefit of Blessing of the Zephyr, Steadfast Protection and Karma KB protection IOs that'd help too!)) 🥺

Honestly the Set bonuses my MMs normally tend to push are +Recharge and +MaxHP, and as the former has no benefit to pets it's a write off. MaxHP benefits the T1 henchmen pretty drastically though. And having at least a few points of Knockback Protection is a major QOL change for all henchmen. Accuracy Set bonuses might be situationally useful too, but the 40% return rate combined with the tendency for MMs to frankenslot or procbomb their attacks means it's unlikely to end up as a core pillar of your build. Same for defense and damage resistance (other than *perhaps* Fire Resistance set bonuses given how easy they are to gain from purple/winter sets). Other properties that henchmen might want to boost (such as damage? regeneration? recovery? maximum endurance? endurance discount? movement speed?) all have very small raw numbers in their set bonus effects even before the -60% inheritance tax.

I mean, they get that NOW if you have at least one set of 3x Gladiators Armor; and since they're PVP IOs the set bonus functions when exemplared even if they're not attuned. And many MMs can slot Resistance Set IOs into their T1 upgrade; so they're available from very low level. Even a single instance of this grants the pets "Mag 1.2" KB protection; which is enough to stop most Knockdown powers dead until you're fighting higher than +3s. Same goes for 3x Fury of the Gladiator (meh). ((I'd really like to see Blessing of the Zephyr, Steadfast Protection and Karma -KB IOs be made to function with them SOONTM...))

I'm pretty sure they could theoretically give MMs a toggle with an only-affecting-henchmen Mag 100+ "reverse repel" effect; so that we can choose to vacuum all the little unruly smeggers up and then deposit them somewhere else after moving... (Perhaps even with a few animation tweaks? Robotics = Voltron Combine!)

Looks like the "Fixed a bug where Recovery Set Bonuses were not included in the henchmen set bonus sharing." point didn't make it into the build. My pets are still showing no inherited Recovery bonuses on Brainstorm.

It's supposedly meant to be working as of this morning's patch... but the in-game info still says nope. [MM] [PET]

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.