Patch Notes for December 6, 2019

The Curator · December 3, 2019

Pets & Henchmen Updates

Mastermind pets which have been commanded to Stay or to Go To a location will hold that position and will not chase after targets or move closer to use powers that are out of range. Be aware this also means they will not move out of damage patches on their own.
Mastermind pets in Follow mode will now always stay within a 100' radius of their owner, regardless if they are in Defensive or Aggressive stance. Pets that are primarily ranged attackers will try to stay in the Supremacy radius.
The pet AI now ignores the aggro cap. This should prevent pets from standing around twiddling their thumbs in Incarnate Trials and other situations where many pets are attacking the same target.
Pets now give a strong preference to selecting targets that are within 50' of the pet's owner. This helps melee-oriented Mastermind pets stay in Supremacy range more often, while still allowing them to move and effectively engage targets outside the range.
A number of pets have been classified as "Ranged Only" pets. The AI for these pets will no longer change position in order to use melee powers such as Brawl. They still possess these powers and will use them opportunistically if a target is in range, but will not move in order to do so.
The pets that no longer move in to use melee attacks are:
- Demons > Demonlings
- Demons > Ember Demon
- Mercenaries > Soldiers
- Mercenaries > Medic
- Mercenaries > Spec Ops
- Mercenaries > Commando
- Necromancy > Lich
- Robotics > Battle Drones
- Robotics > Protector Bots
- Robotics > Assault Bot
- Thugs > Thugs
- Thugs > Arsonist
- Thugs > Enforcers

Tank Updates [Experimental Changes]

Modifiers

Tanker: Ranged damage modifier increased from 0.5 to 0.8, Melee damage modifier increased from 0.8 to 0.95
Tanker Self Damage Modifier (Controls Build Up) lowered from 1.00 to 0.75 (they still should do more damage than before due to higher base damage modifiers.)
Bruise has been removed from T1 powers.
Brute : Ranged and Melee damage modifiers are now equal.
Epic Pools: All Brute and Tanker Epic pools now use ranged damage modifiers
Tanker damage cap increased to 500%
Brute damage cap lowered to 700%
Most Tanker Melee AoE powers have had their target caps increased.
- Most cones are now 10 target cap.
- Most PBAoE are now 16 target cap.
- Tanker now gets an inherent buff to the radius of AoE attacks and arc of cones.
  - +50% for sphere attacks.
  - +100% for cones
  - Some powers are unaffected by this buff. This is noted on the power description.

Brute Fury Generation

Hitting AVs no longer gives bonus Fury, but Fury generation for attacking has been increased in a variety of ways.
Brute Fury generation now takes into account the cast time of the attack for successful hits.
- Any attack slower than brawl will now generate bonus Fury if it lands a hit.
Brutes now get bonus fury generation in teams, the larger the team, the larger the bonus.
Fury now takes 10 seconds without attacking to start its accelerated decay, instead of 5 seconds.
The goal of these changes is to improve Fury generation in teams when the Brute is not the only brute, or is in the company of another tanking AT.
To help debug these changes, the combat spam now shows +Fury and -Fury numbers.
- Note that this is a temporary change and will be removed regardless if these changes remain or get rolled back.

Gauntlet

Is now applied via a global proc. Any single target power that takes accuracy enhancements will trigger an AoE taunt. Every AoE power that takes accuracy enhancements will taunt the enemies it hit.
Radius is now the same for all attacks (10ft, 5 targets max)
Taunt scale is now 10% higher than Brute's
Brute PunchVoke is now also applied via a global proc. Any power that either inflicts damage or takes accuracy enhancements will be able to punch-voke.)

Power Levels

To improve Tanker AoE capability during level up progression, the following powers had their acquisition levels changed:

Battle Axe > Whirling Axe = 20, Swoop = 28
Martial Arts > Dragon Tail = 20, Focus Chi = 28, Crippling Axe Kick = 34
Stone Melee> Tremor = 28, Hurl Boulder = 35
War Mace > Whirling Mace = 20, Clobber = 28

Taunt Auras

Brute and Tanker Ice Armor powers no longer have built-in Taunt, they are now instead covered by the inherent global proc.
The following Taunt Auras are now all scale 1 Taunt (approximately 13.6s at level 50):
- Invincibility
- Against All Odds
- Rise to the Challenge (Brute and Tank only)

Rage Experimental Change
This change has been temporarily rolled back. After a lot of discussions I have come to the conclusion the set simply needs more work. It will be revisited after Tanking AT changes are out of the way.

Misc Power Changes

Tanker > Kinetic Melee > Quick Strike: Should now actually be back at its rightful place.
Brute > Martial Arts > Taunt / Crane Kick: Fixed incorrect power order.
Pool > Teleportation > Long Range Teleport: This power now grants a popup tray power that allows a second chance at teleporting should you fail to teleport the first time. The Second Chance power will remain for 2 minutes or until you zone.
Lowered Weaken Resolve's -res debuff from scale -1.5 to scale -1.0.

Bug Fixes

Fix the team window showing "On mission map" when a teammate is in their Supergroup Base and vice versa.
Prevent immediate crash when passing a -patchdir parameter to a nonexistent directory. This seems to be happening on certain Macs.

Edited December 6, 2019 by The Curator