Monos King

I would also think they should come with higher health but minor inherent resistances since they will get a few of your secondaries, and with masterminds being fragile.

Adding a chance for upgraded emulations to "switch" places with the player and vice versa would be cool. For instance, upon being struck, the perfect copy has a chance to take the debuff or control effect instead of the player, and upon upgrading the lesser clones they too would have a chance to exchange effects. It would be called Uncertainty.

I've never played a warshade seriously, more of just to collect 50s. Why don't warshades suck? I thought they sucked. Can someone offer an explanation or link to clear this one up? You guys seem pretty confident they don't suck, and I would also like to be confident they don't suck.

I am very fond of this idea, but in an altered state. I would like to see the red regions adopt this setting of each zone (I'm not giving up killing grays its fun). Otherwise, self-exemplar is a good idea. While you practically already can throuhh ouroboros, it would be convenient.

It isn't a matter of it's direct destructive impact on the game, it's a matter of its relevance and the precedent it would set. 1) It is not relevant. It isn't relevant to effective gameplay, it's unnecessary. I've really never heard of a controller coughing up complaints of fatigue that would warrant a change in mechanics. And when I've seen a noob break down, I'd give them advice and they'd get better. 2) Precedent. As I had unveiled earlier, this would beckon all kinds of other demands and wants that would circumvent experience, reduce player creativity, and reduce player consideration in the forums because much like this idea none will ever happen. You've been trying to posit why the 0 end t1 would be a good idea. I think you would have better success pitching this idea if you could provide evidence that endurance "issues" are NOT something that are passing, easily remedied, and inherent to progression.

@Haijinx @boggo2300 Let's not make jokes at the thread proposers expense, I'm sure it does little to enlighten anyone. This is however a bad idea. Would you suggest that we make nuke type abilities auto-hit because people don't like to miss the big pay-off? Would you suggest we make t2 abilities unresistable because bosses have resistance? Endurance management is something that is discovered early on, exactly because of struggles that are met during the initial phases. You also don't hit very hard, miss, and are weak. So are the enemies. The moment you have the ability to slot enhancements, I.E. Progress, these cease to be an issue. While fending for yourself with mediocre endurance, you launch diversion tactics or play tag or eat inspirations. But the point is if your complaining about having difficulties at lower levels, I think your forgetting the purpose of progression.

That's a really neat, but also huge idea. It would be the biggest reworking of an archetype ever (and would also clash with the current supremacy but that's another thing). I would definitely suggest posting that on the other thread I provided too; it could attract attention.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't see anyone being in favor of that. Part of the charm of rolling the mastermind is feeling like you command an army. This would be taking away the most vital fun factor of the MM class. At any rate, this thread is discussing issues, primarily to MM survivability aspects, and not fundamental changes to the entire class or how it affects QoL in other classes. The amount of pets summoned is not an issue. You should probably move to another thread with that suggestion.

It may have been, but it was likely just a thematic buff that is nice to have. If that were the case, the highest level pet would not benefit from supremacy. I wouldn't like to see that buff removed, as there are instances pet level increase doesn't account for the resulting loss in strength (against giant monsters, PvP, lower levels of MM, incarnate trials, etc). Other than that small note I'm not opposed; giving new procs is a cool idea. Although level 50 MMs aren't really the issue, and this could quickly make them too strong. Essentially just by hitting 50 pets would have current maxed out strength.

Could you explain how? My first MM was a thugs trap, and I played it over 6 years to incarnate; it was my first street killing 50. I had the full noob experience ( I got badly beaten a lot ) and the upper tier experience (good planning, live long) but I don't see how scaling the levels of the pets would be a ticket to godhood. Obvious strong MMs like anything therm won't be affected much and non-heals won't struggle as terribly early on. Every MM is probably going to be great when maxed out anyhow, like most ATs. It's getting there.

They are, but as someone reminded me it can be a miserable experience being an MM while leveling and with a moderate build as a result of it.

@MJB I don't think anyone in this thread suggested buffing MM damage, and I'm certainly not advocating for it. Viability. And how can we make MMs into something that can -contribute- to the offensive effort. Alou brought a nice suggestion there; that is a change that will make no difference to something like a contained 1v1 or close quarters combat, and will permit more involvement by the MM to offense of the team without dying instantly for trying. Expanding the supremacy radius would also do this, increasing pet speed could do this, removing the interrupt on teleport for (terrible idea just an example) could do it. Aside from the obsolete buff the lower level pets would get from becoming caster level it isn't really a topic.

I see. Your suggestion gives the user time to get back to pets, versus giving pets time to catch up to the user in the effect of increasing the supremacy radius. You bring up good points, I like it.

That's neat but if I left to pursue an enemy with this change, I would also still have the issue of pets being incapable of keeping up with players; this now prominently including myself. There's no reason for my enemy to just come back once I've debuffed them.

Sigh. You don't get it. You also clearly don't play masterminds either, so I'm not really sure why you came here. Pet resistance is NOT a factor in damage sharing. The damage is pure, unresistable, unfettered. We're trying to figure out ways to improve the class, and you have surface level understanding of it if even that. It's a bit frustrating.

Absorption is the strong one. Resistance is pretty unimportant. That's why thugs aren't hyper disadvantaged always (in PvP) despite most of them having zero inherent resistances. Unless you are full on pet IO'd out and also a +def or +res power, pets will still die pretty easy when struck. And, even if you do get soft and hard caps for them with natural res/def buffs, the other 3 ways to murder an MM take place, one of which being just do a lot of damage to the master. Very few actually attack pets one by one; if 1/3rd of the masters health is chunked in quick succession, most of the pets are dead. We are in this thread discussing ways to make the MM more viable for PvP, without taking away obvious intended or thematic weaknesses. The leading few have been: -increase movement speed and range -increase pet health And that's kind of it right now. Granted, we could also make 'attack target' maintain the BG effect, but that would be ridiculous. Instead maybe the range of supremacy should be DRAMATICALLY increased.

And here's a specific changes thread for those interested.

Um no, people like PvP. Please don't peddle this opinion. It won't ever happen, but it's harmful nonetheless. You don't have to pay attention to them really, but it's a fun aspect of the game when casual.

@M3z@barrier @Epsilon Assassin If you lot want to continue discussing the PvP aspect of this I made a thread for it. The PvP side is, as noted by others, its own separate matter. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/13330-mastermind-qol-issues-and-improvments-pvp-specific/

This thread will focus on PvP related issues to the mastermind. Note that PvP specific simply means ONLY an issue in PvP, and not that the other listed are not able to improve PvP upon revisitation. 1) Squishiness a) Player Health Weakness* Prevents player from moving away from pets b) Pet Vulnerabilities Allows pets to die easily regardless of context (see 2a,2b) and thus kills the Player c) Pet Wandering after damage Causes Player to issue commands, resetting pet aggressiveness and permitting additional damage, or simply leaves Player open to damage 2) Pet Squishiness a) Inherent Resistances Leaves pets highly vulnerable to certain types of damage b) Pet Health Makes pets extremely prone to sudden death beyond Supremacy radius Leaves pets vulnerable to burst damage death c) Pet Level Leaves pets vulnerable to damage, low health, lower damage, causes various issues as expected of color cons d) Pet Threat Level* Leaves pet(s) prone to immediate death from stronger enemies 3) PvP Specific a) Summon Recharge Time* Leaves Player vulnerable to damage after quick pet death b) Supremacy Induced Slowness Prevents player from pursuing a moving target at all without risk of two shot, supporting traveling team; must be very near slow pets c) Pet Movement Speed Prevents pets from keeping up with Player attempting to pursue or travel, prevents pets from being able to do damage to moving targets. Starred (*) issues are from my perspective inherent to the balance and theme of the archetype, and were only listed for reference. I want to pitch a few possibilities to the bigger issues. Increasing Pet Level (Issues 2a,2b,2c) This addresses 3 issues by increasing pet combat attributes accordingly. Pets at lower levels especially will die very quickly when tossed into a hoard, and should be AT LEAST Player level. They do poorly versus higher ranked enemies. Related to that, Increasing Pet Rank (2a,2b,2c) Increasing the t8 henchmen or others to pet rank strength would probably solve these issues, but I don't feel too safe on this one. Increasing Pet Benefits To Buffs (2a,1b) What I had in mind for this was an effect similar to Support Hybrid Incarnate Power. We could raise the base resistances of pets, but that wouldnt be thematic and wouldnt help much anyhow. In PvP, this would be similar to a power like Tough, where protection from everything is added. For instance, in PvP giving your henchmen Thermal Radiations Plasma Shield would provide resistance to everything, or Cold Dominations Glacial Shield would offer Elusivity and/or defense to all. Thematically? Increase Pet Movement Speed (3b,3c) This one could be done just by doing exactly as the subtitle states, but I also think that it would be cool to see henchmen bust out a thematic travel power once the attack target or owner gets a certain distance away ( zombies emerge from ground closer to target, Mercs get out jetpack , robots fly, demons and thugs might just charge) to make up ground. I would like to hear how many of these seem like legitimate issues or solutions to everyone else, as well as other problems that are observed. It isn't often there are acknowledged PvP threads.

~From Pets & Henchmen Thread~ But as end tier material should be observed separately, let's look at the mastermind shortcomings with clarity. 1) Squishiness a) Player Health Weakness* Prevents player from moving away from pets b) Pet Vulnerabilities Allows pets to die easily regardless of context (see 2a,2b) and thus kills the Player c) Pet Wandering after damage Causes Player to issue commands, resetting pet aggressiveness and permitting additional damage, or simply leaves Player open to damage 2) Pet Squishiness a) Inherent Resistances Leaves pets highly vulnerable to certain types of damage b) Pet Health Makes pets extremely prone to sudden death beyond Supremacy radius Leaves pets vulnerable to burst damage death c) Pet Level Leaves pets vulnerable to damage, low health, lower damage, causes various issues as expected of color cons d) Pet Threat Level* Leaves pet(s) prone to immediate death from stronger enemies 3) PvP Specific a) Summon Recharge Time* Leaves Player vulnerable to damage after quick pet death b) Supremacy Induced Slowness Prevents player from pursuing a moving target at all without risk of two shot, supporting traveling team; must be very near slow pets c) Pet Movement Speed Prevents pets from keeping up with Player attempting to pursue or travel, prevents pets from being able to do damage to moving targets. Starred (*) issues are from my perspective inherent to the balance and theme of the archetype, and were only listed for reference. I want to pitch a few possibilities to the bigger issues. Increasing Pet Level (Issues 2a,2b,2c) This addresses 3 issues by increasing pet combat attributes accordingly. Pets at lower levels especially will die very quickly when tossed into a hoard, and should be AT LEAST Player level. They do poorly versus higher ranked enemies. Related to that, Increasing Pet Rank (2a,2b,2c) Increasing the t8 henchmen or others to pet rank strength would probably solve these issues, but I don't feel too safe on this one. Increasing Pet Benefits To Buffs (2a,1b) What I had in mind for this was an effect similar to Support Hybrid Incarnate Power. We could raise the base resistances of pets, but that wouldnt be thematic and would probably cause problems anyhow. In PvP, this would be similar to a power like Tough, where protection from everything is added. For instance, in PvP giving your henchmen Thermal Radiations Plasma Shield would provide resistance to everything, or Cold Dominations Glacial Shield would offer Elusivity and/or defense to all. Thematically? Increase Pet Movement Speed (3b,3c) This one could be done just by doing exactly as the subtitle states, but I also think that it would be cool to see henchmen bust out a thematic travel power once the attack target or owner gets a certain distance away ( zombies emerge from ground closer to target, Mercs get out jetpack , robots fly, demons and thugs might just charge) to make up ground. I would like to hear how many of these seem like legitimate issues or solutions to everyone else.

I don't really understand why it's a bad direction or why my buffs don't "do anything". It feels like your looking at things from a circumstantial perspective instead of a mechanical one when it comes to MMs, because they really aren't anything like melee classes. At least, I don't get the comparison fully. MMs will die when you separate pets from them, or kill the pets quickly enough. You can also just brute damage them down, or burst the pets. I thought we were addressing why MMs needed to be buffed in some regard, but in PvP you seem convinced nothing will work. I'm receptive but I think I need more info. That's kind of expected for everything though, right? If you were to say insert needs a survivability nerf, it would still die from the same thing but it would take less of that thing. If you were to say "tanks don't take enough damage" and then you lowered their resistance, now they still die from damage but now its easier to do. If you were to say "stalker stealth is too high" perception is already what would have done them in, but with the nerf now less is needed. The goal isn't to make anything unkillable. Am I missing something? Edit: Nevermind I understand. I just disagree. And besides the PvP specific section, these are mostly PvE improvements I'm proposing.

I agree with @ErydanusOn how using high end statistics as a gauge is debilitating for everyone else, I shouldve noted it right after I realized it. However @M3z, judgement isnt really an issue to an MM that has destiny (although it recharges slower than judgement) and since we're assuming judgement is an availability I'll reciprocate with destiny too. One barrier nullifies pet damage entirely and if the mastermind is therm, sonic, or in some cases dark, the pets will be completely fine without even the need for destiny to begin with; the damage will be quick to heal. But as end tier material should be observed separately, let's look at the mastermind shortcomings with clarity. 1) Squishiness a) Player Health Weakness* Prevents player from moving away from pets b) Pet Vulnerabilities Allows pets to die easily regardless of context (see 2a,2b) and thus kills the Player c) Pet Wandering after damage Causes Player to issue commands, resetting pet aggressiveness and permitting additional damage, or simply leaves Player open to damage 2) Pet Squishiness a) Inherent Resistances Leaves pets highly vulnerable to certain types of damage b) Pet Health Makes pets extremely prone to sudden death beyond Supremacy radius Leaves pets vulnerable to burst damage death c) Pet Level Leaves pets vulnerable to damage, low health, lower damage, causes various issues as expected of color cons d) Pet Threat Level* Leaves pet(s) prone to immediate death from stronger enemies 3) PvP Specific a) Summon Recharge Time* Leaves Player vulnerable to damage after quick pet death b) Supremacy Induced Slowness Prevents player from pursuing a moving target at all without risk of two shot, supporting traveling team; must be very near slow pets c) Pet Movement Speed Prevents pets from keeping up with Player attempting to pursue or travel, prevents pets from being able to do damage to moving targets. Starred (*) issues are from my perspective inherent to the balance and theme of the archetype, and were only listed for reference. I want to pitch a few possibilities to the bigger issues. Increasing Pet Level (Issues 2a,2b,2c) This addresses 3 issues by increasing pet combat attributes accordingly. Pets at lower levels especially will die very quickly when tossed into a hoard, and should be AT LEAST Player level. They do poorly versus higher ranked enemies. Related to that, Increasing Pet Rank (2a,2b,2c) Increasing the t8 henchmen or others to pet rank strength would probably solve these issues, but I don't feel too safe on this one. Increasing Pet Benefits To Buffs (2a,1b) What I had in mind for this was an effect similar to Support Hybrid Incarnate Power. We could raise the base resistances of pets, but that wouldnt be thematic and would probably cause problems anyhow. In PvP, this would be similar to a power like Tough, where protection from everything is added. For instance, in PvP giving your henchmen Thermal Radiations Plasma Shield would provide resistance to everything, or Cold Dominations Glacial Shield would offer Elusivity and/or defense to all. Thematically? Increase Pet Movement Speed (3b,3c) This one could be done just by doing exactly as the subtitle states, but I also think that it would be cool to see henchmen bust out a thematic travel power once the attack target or owner gets a certain distance away ( zombies emerge from ground closer to target, Mercs get out jetpack , robots fly, demons and thugs might just charge) to make up ground. I would like to hear how many of these seem like legitimate issues or solutions to everyone else.

Hahaha yeah you're right, I realized it after I said it.

I don't know... I practically exclusively play masterminds and I can farm and solo AVs once I'm IO'd out and such. And in PvP certain builds of MM are nigh unstoppable too. If you could give some considerable suggestions I could probably see more your way, as the pets are pretty squishy generally; I'm definitely in favor of them being at least the same level as the summoner. But other improvements seem like they might quickly make MMs unmanageably powerful.