Twintania

What? Henchmen do *not* get anything from plus or minus recharge, so I'm not sure what you are going on about with your statement.

Not...Really? First Upgrade is level 6. You are squishier in the early levels, and at a glance it likely makes resummoning mid-fight more risky, but it's not likely to be too nasty, but I haven't tested myself to know for sure.

Way back when I first started my "campaign" on the Auras that was the simpler option. The main issue was that people didn't want to feel like they were forced to take an attack for the auras, and it'd still be a lot tax. Most of the ideas worked out from those issues.

I'm sorry, but what nonsense is this? In what world would having all characters (In your Overwatch comment) or all ATs (for CoH specifically) be equally viable at all levels of play be a bad thing? How is it a bad thing? Being good or bad at different tasks is one thing, but saying "MMs are just inherently not great at high levels" and saying that is okay is just, to be blunt, stupid. Absolutely stupid. So...Because MMs are bad, they shouldn't be fixed?

I need to learn how to multiquote, but... I want useful primary attacks. The conversation at the time wanted to not make them required (via aura slotting). I get it's conflicting, I'm just going by the timeline I have for the conversations. Sorry if this were confusing. I like this idea. Might need to do something about the Endurance Costs, but this would be a viable and valuable use for otherwise seldom used powers. I'd be perfectly fine with the Ninja idea here, though I feel Mercs need the damage type changes more, since Ninja at least have the Oni for damage variety. Agreed, Mercs should have Leadership, and I like the idea of theirs buffing everything rather than just the Mercs (Or just Thugs, like Enforcers). My original thought was giving the Commando the full suite of them, but your idea works as well.

That's why I said "Support" rather than attack. Beasts already do have attacks that support them via giving stacks. It's useful in lower levels before you get the full suite of pet attacks to get your stacks up, but it falls off later, as far as I know. If I had a wishlist for pet attacks. Hmm. Ninja would "mark" a target, giving a short term effect where your Ninja have a (higher) chance to crit the target. Probably not doable, but feels like something Ninja should be able to do. Sort of like a "Kill this guy faster" option that isn't just -resistance. Demons can keep the -Resists on their whips. Beasts, in my opinion, are fine as is, but I would like it if the attacks would be allowed to stack Pack Mentality even after using Fortify Pack. Unlikely again. Bots, frankly, I want Disintegrate built into the set. Other things could be fun, I just think it'd fit here. Necro, I like the -to hit from the attacks. I think the main issue here is that it's not all that much. I wonder if we could make these lower, unstackable, but unresistable? Thugs and Mercs I frankly have no idea what to do with.

In terms of NIN personal attacks, I've been thinking of a (Probably impossible) idea of having the MM personal attacks put a Mark of sorts on a target, where for a certain small duration all your Ninja have a chance to Crit on that target. I don't think there is anything in-game that supports this, but it's a fun idea anyways.

I've multiple times made my stances on MM issues clear, but for now I want to go through the topic as a whole and add my thoughts to it. Aggressive Stance: I feel like the End Discount alone would be valuable enough, especially if we can make the personal attacks actually useful. Passive Stance: Yes please, make it easier for non-heal based sets to recover to full hp when out of combat. As a side note, is there any way we can make Henchmen Rest when the player does? Pet Level: -1 is acceptable if balance is a major issue. I would like them to all be +0 in terms of to hit and defense without messing with the damage, but I am unsure if this would even be possible. Pet Movement: I like the idea of a Run Speed boost out of combat. I'm wary about allowing it in-combat, because even with the changes I suspect there'd still be a risk of henchmen flailing out to random places at a moment's loss of control. A "Come to Me" command would be helpful with or without the removal of the auto-teleport. Pet IO tax: This is my main point of commentary pretty much everywhere. How the Pet IOs are set up right now is, quite frankly, stupid. Let's take a moment to ignore MM specific issues and look at them as a whole. There are five Pet and Recharge Intensive Pet IOs that can be used by many ATs (Controllers and Dominators naturally, a whole lot of ATs, maybe even all others, via the Villain Power Pools) where the Proc is completely useless. What AT besides a MM would even bother slotted +5% defense to henchmen into their pets? Even if we keep the MM ATOs as they are (we shouldn't), the other 5 are objectively bad from a standpoint of every single other pet in the game. Changing the Pet IO and Recharge Pet IO procs to something useful for every AT should be something everyone would want. For the people who actually used them, we could bake the stats into every pet in the game if we felt it was required, but the procs have to change. The proposed changes would remove the slot tax issue while also giving every Pet user more options to work with. MM ATOs: Who designed these? What was the logic behind how they are set up? Why would they have put Recharge Reduction into enhancements when the enhancement is basically completely useless to 4 of the 7 MM Primaries? You actually gain less power slotting in Command of the MM over Mark of Supremacy just because of the Recharge. Now, if we allowed these to be slotted into the MMs' primary attacks, it's less of an issue; the recharge makes sense. My opinion of the procs are the same as above, but what they are allowed on do need to be looked at. Continuing on with responses: @Redlynne I'm not sure what you are thinking of here. Alternative implemations of invention sets...How? What changes mentioned above are any different than how IOs work now? I'll admit, the first iteration of the slot tax idea was to allow them in the primary attacks (and I would find that minimally acceptable if no other changes were possible, but not ideal), but the idea changed because people didn't want to be "required" to take the attacks. @tidge There's actually a lesser bothered with fifth Non-ATO proc that gives Taunt and Placate Resistance, which is so bad that no one remembers it exists. Also, changing how the procs are done with the defenses from the procs build in elsewhere would allow more choices in builds naturally, just by clearing up those as "required" The Upgrade powers are inherently weird, and allowing slotting of the auras into them was idea number...2? 3? when I first recall this coming up in the Discord channel. I would like to have at least both the MM ATOs give EndRed instead of one giving Recharge if this was done, but that's a personal taste. There's a reason I've advocated that any change to the Pet Auras get put into Supremacy. There's nothing new there. Adding +defense and +Resistance hopefully wouldn't be that difficult. The hard part is finding a good balance of how much, since right now the aura give 30% Resistance, 10% defense to all but AoE, and 25% (total) AoE defense. As fun as it would be, you don't want that sort of thing on a level 1 MM. Among other things, you keep trying to take the most convoluted path to achieving the outcome you desire, making everything extremely complex (and thus much more likely to fail, perhaps even spectacularly). What you need to be looking at are SIMPLE solutions that require only minor tweaks to the existing codebase structure (which is NOT inherently stable to start with!), rather than urban renewals that will slash and burn entire swaths of legacy codebase. In other words, try to work with WHAT YOU HAVE rather than with what you WISH YOU HAD. Quoting directly, but this just feels particularly demeaning to the idea that these changes are and could be viable. How much of what is listed is that far out of the range of what is already in the game? The stances changes are the only major thing that come to mind, depending on how the auras are handled. I would love to have actual support-based attacks. There's a reason Demons is the most commonly recommended one for taking the attacks. It has -Resistance, and that's actually valuable. I would, however, prefer each set to have support that is in sync with the set itself. Just giving blanket debuffs is boring. Nope, change them all. As I said above, if need be, buff the non-MM pets to compensate, but I cannot imagine too many people complaining that their pets are now slightly less survivable but get more damage and/or utility. "I'd also point out that if a MM has a recharge-instensive pet, those pet IOs (including the /Recharge ones... presumably the least 'wasteful' choices) offer a Global Recharge bonus with 4 slots." I would counter that 4-slot Command of the MM serves as a Recharge Intensive set better than the actual Recharge ones for MMs. It too has a 4-slot Recharge boost, and a better one on top of it. The Auras in no way affect Bodyguard mode. No pet Resistances or Defense is counted in the damage they take from it. Only the MM's Resistances are taken into account. Yeah, let's not claim that the Henchmen were made to be mules, because that is verifiably not true just by when things were released, but this was discussed below. Claiming they should be used as mules just takes power away from the henchmen, which is kinda what we are trying to avoid. I had thought about making the upgrades more or less automatic when you claimed them, but having them be automatic at specific levels while changing the powers hadn't crossed my mind. Hmm. Food for thought. Once again, would love useful, viable personal attacks, preferably unique to each MM primary. Oh look, it's my post! I think I covered most everything here. I may add more as my thoughts are more collected to clarify some things, but I wanted to get this out as I was going through all this.

Wait, are there arcs, like, full complete arcs...That do this? Also, Ouroboros is a thing, so...

And here is where the comparisons fly over your head. I was specifically comparing ATOs to ATOs, since you sat there and compared the SIX aura IOs to TWO ATOs. Tell me of any other AT that practically *needs* to burn 4 slots just to keep their base damage going. Maybe if you are just sitting at +1 it's not as much of an issue, but minions as a whole do tend to go squish, especially if you do not have something that protects them naturally. These 4 IOs are a tax NO OTHER AT HAS. You cannot sit there and tell me the other ATs require anything like them to run at anything remotely considered an optimal level. Remember, every pet dead is less damage the MM does, and without any MMs aren't much more than a poorly tuned defender. MMs need their minions to work properly, and basically locking 6 slots into IOs that, with one full exception and one partially exception (Recharge Reduction is minimally useful on the main MM minions, since they shouldn't be dying so fast you need it. Only the 3 true Recharge Pets would find it useful), do nothing to change the stats on the powers listed in. THAT IS A TAX ON YOUR SLOTS.

That is exactly a tax, and no other AT is required to do so to keep their damage going. You say that's a lot of boost for just six slots, but no other AT needs 6 slots to get any sort of boost like this. You mentioned Scrappers and Stalkers, to lets look at their ATOs (Two sets, two procs) Scrapper: Recharge/Critical Hit Bonus. I believe this gives a flat boost to their critical hit chance. One slot for a damage boost. Recharge/+50% Crit Proc. I believe this gives a short duration crit boost when proc'd. Two slots, both of which still give stats (Not a tax by your logic) and give a boost to personal DPS. Stalker: Recharge/Chance to Hide, probably one of the best ATO procs in the game in my opinion. Chance to re-enter hide, which guarantees next hit crits. Recharge/Recharge Build Up, I assume this gives a chance to Recharge Build Up. I've never used it, but more chances for Build Up is easily more damage. Once again, Two slots, not tax by your logic, boost to personal DPS. Now let's look at MM ATOs (I am currently ignoring the FOUR other aura ATOs): Recharge/Pet +AoE Defense Aura. This one, is granted, INCREDIBLY useful for keeping your pets alive, shackled with a stat only 3 of the MMs would find valuable. EndRed/Pet +Regen/+Resist. More useful stat (Sort of?), 15% resistance, and Regen. Useful for some added pet survival, Neither of these actually do anything even close to what the two ATs you mentioned do. They keep your damage going a little longer, but other ATs don't even *need* that in such a manner. Actually, now I am curious... Blaster: Recharge/Chance for Fire, Recharge/Status Protection. More damage, and better ability to keep pumping out damage, Blaster's main point. Controller: Recharge/Chance for Psionic, Recharge/Energy Font. I believe both just add damage in a sense. I've never been clear on what Energy Font *does* Defender: Recharge/Chance for AoE Heal, Recharge/Chance for AoE Absorb. Using damage to boost party survival. I actually really like these two. Tanker: Recharge/Chance for Resist, Recharge/Absorb. They are personal survival boosts, though I feel like these could be more interesting. Peacebringer/Warshade: Recharge/Form Empowerment, Recharge/Global Heal. I admit...I don't know what these do. Sentinel: Recharge/Chance for Absorb, Recharge/Chance for Opportunity. I mean, the absorb is kinda boring, but the opportunity is a boost to their passive, which generally means more damage for the whole group. I'm unsure the proc rate/Opportunity Boost, but if it gets the passive up more, useful. Brute: Recharge/Fury Bonus, Recharge/+End/+Regen. Gain passive damage faster, stay punching longer. Boring, but fairly practical. Corruptor: Recharge/Chance for Negative, Recharge/PbAoE +End. More damage procs, ability to keep party shooting longer. Probably less useful on a team, depending on set-up. Dominator: Recharge/Chance for +Dam, Recharge/Fiery Orb. Again, unsure what the summon proc does, but this is more damage at minimum. Surprised there was nothing for Domination, actually. A chance for Domination Recharge would have been cool. Arachnos Soldier/Widow: Recharge/Chance for -Dam/Terrorize, Recharge/Global Toxic. Does that give all of their skills a Toxic damage proc? Either way, support based on fits what they do.

Because it makes basic survival a slot tax. And saying they are "really really good" just enforces that. You are ending up in a situation where you lose stats (or just flat out more interesting options) for defenses, and that's not really fair to MMs, especially those without the extra pet to slot them into.

Wait, really? That would have been funny to keep. I get why it was removed, but the idea of an ally buff that kd's them is funny.

At a glance, though this may be a matter of taste: You have no way to keep enemies from being knocked back by your assault bot. The kb-kd IO would be the simplest one, but I'm not sure how much you want to keep the slotting you have on your bots. This is less "required" but if you had the ability I would take and 6-slot one of the two bots you don't plan on using. Not for the bots themselves, since you didn't plan on using them, but to slot the six pet defense IOs into. It's getting just under 20% def from your skills, the IOs would bump that to 30%, with bonus resists added in. Unfortunately, since your build seems to be mostly focused on defense set bonuses, I'm not sure what you could take out to add one of them back and slot it up. Also, the hover board works just like flight, but you cannot use any skills while on it.

It's rather mindboggling to me that people would pay real world money for anything in CoH.