Mastermind QoL: Issues and Improvments (PvP Specific)

[Monos King]

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.

Edited December 16, 2019 by monos1

[macskull]

Masterminds do not need a buff in PvP. Pets already ignore DR and an MM in bodyguard is extremely hard to kill without a concentrated, extended effort.

[M3z]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

Masterminds do not need a buff in PvP. Pets already ignore DR and an MM in bodyguard is extremely hard to kill without a concentrated, extended effort.

First off they do die in BG mode pretty easily, especially if pets get LOS'd by a wall or something(which is all the time). Even then you can just get killed through BG mode pretty easily unless you get emp AOE heals.

 

So we just forget about all the weaknesses/issues MMs have and say "don't buff MMs" because they are difficult to kill in BG mode? Tanks are hard to kill and don't suffer from the same weaknesses as MMs (damage/survivability tied to slow moving pets), guess we nerf those too? I'm not sure what pets ignoring DR has to do with anything? You generally don't utilize that anyways and does it really have any effect outside of MMs using barrier in zones? Even then, just walk away from them for 15 seconds til their res/defense degens lol.

 

MMs are absolute trash in zones, and only playable in arena under very specific cirumstances(basically with kins). Yeah you survive spikes in BG mode but most of the time you die in hold duration before you get back to your pets to get in BG mode lol. I feel like people only remember the times I survive in BG mode and not all the other times I die during hold durations. I'm not gonna go over everything I said in the other threads but yeah if you think "MMs dont need buffs" bring a MM to KB or scrims and try playing one and getting on the scoreboard and see how hard it is against a team that knows how to fight it.

Edited December 14, 2019 by M3z

[Alouu]

On 12/14/2019 at 4:22 AM, M3z said:

I'm not sure what pets ignoring DR has to do with anything? You generally don't utilize that anyways and does it really have any effect outside of MMs using barrier in zones?

 

When pets do have resistances they seem to tend to have ~26%, (I am aware that they only have Res to certain types and also that there are pets without resistances at all), stack that with Sovereign Right (10%), Expedient Reinforcement (10%), and Mark of Supremacy (15%), and you've got them with 60%+ Res to the types they get natural Res to. Then if you happen to be something like Pain, Therm or Nature Affinity you can add another 17% minimum to all with significant or permanent uptime and that gets them to 75%

 

If they were affected by DR they'd diminish to about 40%*, saying it doesnt have an effect is quite an understatement.

*Assuming they got the Squishy curve, if they inherited the MM curve then 30%

 

Edited December 15, 2019 by Alouu

[M3z]

6 hours ago, Alouu said:

 

When pets do have resistances they seem to tend to have ~26%, (I am aware that they only have Res to certain types and also that there are pets without resistances at all), stack that with Sovereign Right (10%), Expedient Reinforcement (10%), and Mark of Supremacy (15%), and you've got them with 60%+ Res to the types they get natural Res to. Then if you happen to be something like Pain, Therm or Nature Affinity you can add another 17% minimum to all with significant or permanent uptime and that gets them to 75%

 

If they were affected by DR they'd diminish to about 40%*, saying it doesnt have an effect is quite an understatement.

*Assuming they got the Squishy curve, if they inherited the MM curve then 30%

 

I feel like there needs to be full disclosure on posts like this and macskulls about how they have never played MM in any meaningful way in pvp (alouu is a blaster, macskull plays defender/corr primarily).

 

That said yes I know how pet resistance works, I know they are not affected by DR curves. So because pet res is 75% on very specific (and non pvp viable) builds instead of 40% this matters why? Pets take the pure damage from a MM player, their resistance doesn't matter, it could be 1 billion % res and they would still take the same damage from a MM player being attacked in BG mode. I guess you are disappointed because your judgement doesn't one shot these specific builds? Also it should go without saying standing in BG mode means for the most part not contributing anything. This is a fast paced game with rapid movement, 99% of the time things are happening outside of your BG mode range. When you do decide to leave BG mode(if you actually want to play the game) you are subject to getting 2-3 shotted. If you played MM I wouldn't have to explain this.

 

I just find it odd everyone is so fixated on BG mode, you guys do know you still die in BG mode all the time right? You can get kited without any real way to respond because of pet slow movement/not having slows/mezzes etc. Again this is obvious if you play MM. I guess people expect MMs to just stand in BG mode the entire time?

 

Posts like this muddy the waters and confuse readers to what actually matters towards rebalancing MMs for pvp.

 

The discussions should be focused on dealing with pet A.I./lack of movement and rebalancing an AT that had at one time relied on slows/mezzes to get kills which it no longer has access to anymore.

[Publicenemy]

7 hours ago, Alouu said:

 

When pets do have resistances they seem to tend to have ~26%, (I am aware that they only have Res to certain types and also that there are pets without resistances at all), stack that with Sovereign Right (10%), Expedient Reinforcement (10%), and Mark of Supremacy (15%), and you've got them with 60%+ Res to the types they get natural Res to. Then if you happen to be something like Pain, Therm or Nature Affinity you can add another 17% minimum to all with significant or permanent uptime and that gets them to 75%

 

If they were affected by DR they'd diminish to about 40%*, saying it doesnt have an effect is quite an understatement.

*Assuming they got the Squishy curve, if they inherited the MM curve then 30%

 

So what's your point? Who is actually going to target the pets rather than the MM if you're doing organized PVP? Pet resistance is irrelevant if you're directly attacking the MM.  I'd love to see more MMs in RV or arena. Wonder why noone rolls them...😏

[Monos King]

13 hours ago, Alouu said:

 

When pets do have resistances they seem to tend to have ~26%, (I am aware that they only have Res to certain types and also that there are pets without resistances at all), stack that with Sovereign Right (10%), Expedient Reinforcement (10%), and Mark of Supremacy (15%), and you've got them with 60%+ Res to the types they get natural Res to. Then if you happen to be something like Pain, Therm or Nature Affinity you can add another 17% minimum to all with significant or permanent uptime and that gets them to 75%

 

If they were affected by DR they'd diminish to about 40%*, saying it doesnt have an effect is quite an understatement.

*Assuming they got the Squishy curve, if they inherited the MM curve then 30%

 

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.

Edited December 16, 2019 by monos1

[Alouu]

4 hours ago, monos1 said:

Resistance is pretty unimportant.

Going from DR'd 40% res to non DR'd 75% is a multiplier of ~2.4x to EHP, seems pretty important to me.

1/0.6=1.66, 1/0.25=4, 4/1.43=2.41

 

10 hours ago, Publicenemy said:

So what's your point?

To show Macskull was in the right pointing out that being unaffected by DR is a big asset in terms of survivability. Though I don't agree MM doesn't need a buff, I do think that the quality of life buffs that increase the measure of control over pet behaviour that we are already set to receive will do a lot, and that in light of those we shouldn't be pushing for stat buffs on top right now.

 

10 hours ago, Publicenemy said:

Pet resistance is irrelevant if you're directly attacking the MM.

Assuming the damage share each takes is reduced accordingly by their own resistance, then that's not true. Are you claiming that if the MM is hit then the damage is reduced by his resistance and then shared as unresistable damage to the pets? If so that'll change my mind.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Alouu

[Monos King]

7 minutes ago, Alouu said:

Going from DR'd 40% res to non DR'd 75% is a multiplier of ~2.4x to EHP, seems pretty important to me.

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.

[barrier]

28 minutes ago, Alouu said:

Are you claiming that if the MM is hit then the damage is reduced by his resistance and then shared as unresistable damage to the pets? If so that'll change my mind.

That is exactly what happens.

Pet choice is pretty irrelevant when it comes to getting DPS'd through bodyguard. Absorb is the only thing that helps.

[Alouu]

1 minute ago, barrier said:

That is exactly what happens.

Then my mind is changed. Perhaps changing this is just the buff we should be asking for then?

[M3z]

14 minutes ago, Alouu said:

Then my mind is changed. Perhaps changing this is just the buff we should be asking for then?

No they don't need buffs to BG mode, their survivability in BG mode is not a problem, it's applying offensive pressure in the wake of not having access to slows/mezzes.

[Alouu]

Then what do you think of BG remaining in effect X seconds after leaving the radius, so the emergent strategy would be to leave your pets behind, dump your chain or debuffs then retreat back into radius, rinse and repeat. Without the fear of getting bopped.

[Monos King]

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.

Edited December 16, 2019 by monos1

[Alouu]

The way I see it, pets being able to keep up with you or not is a binary thing. Either they can follow your every move and thus provide you with BG mode constantly, or they fall behind for whatever reason be it derping out getting stuck on terrain or insufficient movement capability, and in that instant provide you with no BG mode whatsoever.

 

Following on from that logic if pets were made able to keep up, the MM would be able to attack at will for as sustained a period as they desired, chasing as much as they wished whilst maintaining BG mode the whole time, at the same time the current dynamic they have where they must stay in their petball rather than flee would no longer be in effect, allowing them to run away whilst in BG mode. I think both aspects would be far too empowering as well as homogenizing the playstyle.

 

For the solution I posted previously, both chasing and fleeing in BG mode is still off the table providing X is a small value say 3-5s. So a distinctive playstyle is still kept intact. However it would enable the MM to get in on spiking action.

 

 

[Monos King]

13 minutes ago, Alouu said:

However it would enable the MM to get in on spiking action.

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.

[MJB]

All of this is from the perspective of arena pvp, as I don't have enough experience in zone to have a valid opinion.

 

IMO masterminds bring too much passive disruption to a game to justify being a legitimate offensive threat. Purely by the mastermind existing, metaphorically being afk in the middle of outbreak, the other teams offence has to slow down significantly, this is currently balanced by the MM not being able to contribute a lot to a spike. This sounds like a fair trade off to me. And please don't say "just tilt your camera up", just because some people seem to have their space bar taped down doesn't mean this is a legitimate way to "counter" the disruption that MMs bring.

 

Essentially when there is an MM in the game, the entire strategy of the game revolves around either dealing with, or playing around the MM. You target people who play away from the pack, you try (and usually fail) to catch the MM off guard to get a kill and hopefully 30 seconds of peace before they respawn, you position yourselves such that people have to leave the safety of the MM ball of doom, you try to find ways to pressure the limited offence (this is a big one that I really don't want to lose).

 

I don't want to name drop because I don't know if they want to be forced into this discussion, but when I hear from someone that I think most everyone would agree is a top player, on a team filled with people generally known to instantly lock: 

Quote

When we did it, we literally waited for 4 [locks] as that is generally the sweet spot for a spike.

I can't help but feel like MMs are doing their job just fine, hell I actually think its a good thing that they can slow the game down. 8v8s at the moment are a bit of a mess in that for standard jump teams, you can't really pressure an offence. The fact that things like MMs exist that can slow this down and make a game more strategic is a good thing imo (I also think that 6v6s should be the standard format for exactly this reason, but thats a topic for another day)

 

Buffing MM damage would be like saying a grav/ta controller needs to do more damage. Their role is de/buffing and disruption, if you want to do offence and de/buffing, play a corr/def. Imagine we buffed MM capabilities to match that of a defender, why would anyone play defenders? You get the same (reduced) buffs/debuffs, the same damage, but you also make your entire team harder to kill simply through your existence. I hear you saying "well it would be less than a defender obviously", but how much less is that in reality? Defenders are already on the cusp of being too low damage IMO.

 

I keep seeing this rhetoric of "MM's are only viable with a kin and this is a bad thing" and I just can't agree with it. Firstly IMO MMs are perfectly viable without a kin, they are just far less fun as you can't move around as much and yes, teams can abuse this lack of mobility, however I can't help but remember certain turtle strategies that seemed to work perfectly fine (but again weren't fun)... I also don't think this is a bad thing, I feel like bringing a buffer to cover for another characters weaknesses is perfectly fine.

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that playing the afk "I exist" playstyle is fun, but fun and balanced aren't the same thing. I would like to see any changes to MM offence be counteracted with nerfs to their disruption/defence, but that would also have us lose out on what makes MMs unique at the moment.

 

I feel like I should also point out that there is more to arena than just 8v8s, and I seem to remember a rather handsome MM players team winning a 2v2 tournament by being basically unkillable while afk with healing aura on auto, does that sort of playstyle also need to be a damage dealer? I don't think it does.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you want to play a high mobility offensive threat, maybe don't play the AT that is slow and low damage

 

sorry for the rant

Edited December 16, 2019 by MJB

[Monos King]

@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.