csr

The latest version of Obscure Sustenance has the heal at about 1/3rd previous versions, the +Reg at around 70% and the +Rec at around 2.4 times (enhanced, so it costs you slots to make it significantly better) on a high recharge build. Compared to Live on that same high recharge build the heal is the same 1/3rd (which is maybe 2/3rds in effectiveness since the heal is often at least partially wasted), the +Rec is about the same as Live and the +Reg has been cut in about half. I think this is a bit of an overcorrection on the previous nerfing of the +Rec at the cost of now going too far in cutting the Heal/+Reg (by roughly half) to get the +Rec back to Live levels. That level of +Rec is so strong that being able to enhance it seems to be of little value to me.

That 78% Recovery is with approximately 200% Recharge. Unslotted the +Rec is (10% x 30s + 38% x 20s + 60% x 10s) / (60s + 1.93s) = 26.8%. The hit is that you can no longer improve the Rec with slotting.

Yeah, they've done that more than once. Force of Nature is 120s (and Strength of Will and One with the Shield). The older T9s are all 180s. The only change I'd class as "slight" is Meltdown, which lost about 20% uptime.

Unstoppable went from 180s duration with 1000s recharge to 40s with 400s recharge. Or from about 18% uptime to 10%. Due to the cast time it also reduced the value of recharge a lit bit. So my highest recharge build goes from 62% uptime 34%. That's not a slight reduction in uptime, it's a 45% reduction.

Malaise spawned at 55+2 in MoM with leader set at 0 and at +7. The NMs also spawned at 55 I believe, pics from leader to come in Focused Feedback I believe.

That was my 1st thought, but he wasn't sure what his settings were. He thought just +1. Unfortunately he had to run after we finished DD and I didn't get that info.

Maelstrom spawned at 55+3 in TPN as did the Sentinel and Diabolique in DD. I think all the Heroes we rescued did as well, but I'm not sure. I believe many mobs in DD spawned at 55 as well, but I didn't take much notice. I didn't really start paying attention until the Sentinel. I'll take notes tonight.

The Patch Notes say that Incarnate Trials are not affected by the new difficulty settings, but tonight we were seeing AVs spawn at 55+3 where they were 54+2 before.

Thugs did get buffed, with Resistance being added to both T1 and T2 pets. Edit: Also, having Gang War recharge faster may add effective up time when you're in tough fights where the Posse members (Posse is not a term for an individual) may be dying fast.

It might require using a state flag like Dimension Shift, so that only the MM could affect them. Which would make it more work to implement. Edit: Obviously just giving them a "MoG for minions" short duration mitigation buff when summoned is an easier to implement alternative.

Perhaps just make newly summoned pets invulnerable for a brief period (3s?). Sort of like a self-rez. It's very frustrating to summon them, then be unable to target them right away to upgrade/buff, and have them die before the upgrade animation even finishes.

I think a side-grade is what they're going for right now. With the idea that it will put MMs in a place where they can then evaluate and buff in a patch after Page 3 release. I also believe they are being conservative because nerfs, even small ones, are highly unpopular. My guess is that they are trying to avoid having to nerf MMs and believe that if they just bumped T1/T2 to even level (which they did before on Beta) then a set of those unpopular nerfs would be inevitable. Personally, from the limited testing I've done so far I think to get this to side-grade level I want some of those lost HP back. Because there are places where the new level shifts are NOT changing enemy hit chances (e.g. Bodyguard mode, Incarnate content, autohit effects). I also think they should consider ways to make resummoning pets in the middle of a fight more viable. Right now when I have a pet die in a serious fight the new replacement is often dead before I can even upgrade them due to the lack of buffs/upgrades. Lastly, I believe the significantly lesser value MMs get from Inspirations deserves at least a cursory look.

In short... it's to make them scale up better for harder content. The Purple Patch level difference adjustments aren't linear, so in the +3 to +6 foe level range the level boosts to the T1/T2 henchmen up ends being more of a buff than the base ability nerf.

I did the same test with my L50 all T4 Necro/Rad. He went from 41s on Live to 49s on Brainstorm, which equates to a 15% reduction in DPS. (This was using any intrinsic power including all Incarnates but no inspirations, no temps, no CoP buffs, no Accolade powers or the like.) My break even point for DPS in testing him versus RWZ dummies was +3.

Due to Beasts being largely melee it can be hard to keep them in a pack; they are very quick to chase runners and flee patches. Because of this I think Fortify Pack should have its radius increased to match Supremacy; 60' instead of 30'. It would be nice if the buff was front-loaded a bit more as well. So that using it with low stacks isn't quite as wasteful.