The Mastermind Wishlist: Completed, Uncut, and En Masse

[thunderforce]

I suspect this will be a bit of a Marmite idea, and it's certainly half-formed, but: the pet summon and upgrade powers could gain toggles (all the time? configurably? as a result of taking an autopower you have to squeeze in?) in addition to the manual cast power. Rather than locking you into a cast time, your time spent not moving and not using any other active power would accrue, with the pet power taking effect and charging you the endurance after enough time. (If more than one power is needed, what order do they happen in?)

 

For example, suppose I'm a Beast Mastery MM. One of my wolves dies. If I stand still and use no powers for 1.97 seconds - either all at once, or in dribs and drabs as I tap the movement keys for my own reasons - one of my wolves pops back into being and it eats some endurance (the full amount? Then these toggles can be horrible. 1/3 of the full amount, assuming I have 3 pets? Then we made MM easier, not just involve less busywork). 1.67 seconds of inactivity later and Train Beasts goes off.

 

I think my inclination would be to pro-rate endurance costs by the number of pets affected. This is, yes, a net buff to MM over and above taking away busywork, but I think the alternative could render this useless.

 

I don't think this renders MM brainless, just turn on all the toggles and stand around. It's still a lot of endurance going out uncontrolled, and I don't think you should be able to control the priority of operations other than by turning toggles on and off. The skilled MM would want to think about which to use as toggles and which to control manually.

[Naraka]

I'm not a veteran of the AT but I still have ideas from my limited experience as well as learning a bit of the drawbacks from reading the forums.

 

I think if you make the upgrades passives or toggles, you might remove some of the possible upward balancing you could roll into them. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing depends on the perspective you're looking at the AT from.  For example, if you feel the auras and ATOs are fine and you just want the AT smoother, making the upgrades passive like in those other servers seems like it wouldn't be hard but then if you think the slotting opportunities of IOs have issues with MMs (particularly the auras and how some pet primaries get preference in slotting while other pet primaries have to scrape by with mixed slotting for their auras) it might be unbalanced to roll those auras into passive abilities.

 

Personally speaking, I think needing to upgrade your pets upon summon is a limiting scheme so that it requires opportunity costs to get yourself back up to full power.  My preference would be to take those auras from IOs and roll some of them into Supremacy and some of them into one of the pet upgrades.  If the 2 pet upgrades were made slottable in some way, I'd like to see them divided into offensive and defensive.  The defensive pet upgrade would have some of the auras from IOs in them (remove the IO auras, of course) and have them be thematic and slottable (like Ninjas and Bots would get more defense, Demons more resist, etc)...this takes into account ideas presented about improving sets by adjusting the powers.  Requiring IOs and taxing a slot on a pet to get the aura is a kludge we're trying to improve upon.

 

For the other upgrade, the offensive one, you'd have opportunities to slot for secondary effects like +ToHit on your Thugs, -movement on your demons, holds/confuse on your ninjas, etc...ontop of being able to slot for them on the individual pet.

 

On top of all that, some of the replacements for the IO auras might be procs for pets to include damage and debuffs.  The ATO auras I'd like to remain as buff auras but to things like mez and debuffs.  Comparing Shock Therapy to Pain Domination on my 2 MMs, I can tell you it's night and day having KB protection for my pets.  I think that could be rolled into a mez/debuff resist aura on one.  The other would be a level shift aura if the pets remain 20ft from the MM.  If we set the pets up to only ever be -1 level, this level shift would make them equal level to the MM when in range.  I think that's a decent compromise without pushing MMs further with default even level pets which would really shift balance by quite a bit, IMO.

[Monos King]

41 minutes ago, Naraka said:

The ATO auras I'd like to remain as buff auras but to things like mez and debuffs.  Comparing Shock Therapy to Pain Domination on my 2 MMs, I can tell you it's night and day having KB protection for my pets.  I think that could be rolled into a mez/debuff resist aura on one.

Yes! I love the idea of mez protection auras. I don't think it would undermine support secondaries either (someone's gonna say it) and would definitely given the likes of /poison or nin something to covet. In fact, do you remember the taunt protection aura? That one should be made into a mez protection anyway. I don't think anyone uses it.

 

The +1 aura is also a really neat concept. That would be great for the underling pets.

[Emperor Cole]

I was thinking that it would be a good idea to make the aura's offer some damage procs or extra protection since the res/def will be changed. The Upgrade specific IOs would be a very welcome change too.

[Kinvesu]

I just thought of something else. I am sure this is an unpopular wish and probably never happen or if it did, take years but, can we please get rid of the ninja primary arrow attacks and replace them with 3 of the martial arts punches and kicks(or give us the option too)? It makes absolutely no sense that we have arrow attacks, while our pets are martial artists, ninjas and a fire demon. You can't tell me its because of trick arrow because none of the primaries are made to absolutely go with secondaries. I just hate controlling ninjas knowing I shoot arrows and not, like how the head of all martial arts gangs are, a bad ass martial artist.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Kinvesu

[LaAbeja]

give Smoke Bomb a small AOE so it can apply to multiple minions at once.

[TheSpiritFox]

I just want robots 1) To be able to mule pet auras and 2) for the protector bot bubble to be an aoe cast with a 25 foot radius so that protector bots don't spend like 30 seconds out of every  minute bubbling your pets, and so that resummoned bots get up to speed faster. 

[Monos King]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

I just want robots 1) To be able to mule pet auras and 2) for the protector bot bubble to be an aoe cast with a 25 foot radius so that protector bots don't spend like 30 seconds out of every  minute bubbling your pets, and so that resummoned bots get up to speed faster. 

Good idea to post that here, just think you'll like those changes.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Monos King

[Maxzero]

 

A speed boost to pets won't do much since players are in general so much faster now. Though I wouldn't complain if it were to happen.

 

What they need to do is shorten the distance between they pop in next to you.

 

I have zoomed through a level expecting my pets to pop up behind me only to wait 20+ seconds for them to catch up. In addition do they really need a summoning animation when they pop back? Many times after they have popped back in behind you you still have to wait several seconds for them to go through the summoning animations. Demons are in particular very bad at this with their slow summoning time.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Maxzero

[Emperor Cole]

I would like to see Beast Mastery's Henchmen buffs apply to other peoples Beast Henchmen, like how thugs leadership applies to all thugs in the group.

[gameboy1234]

Since this is a wish list, I'll add that I don't like how level scaling kills my pets every time I change level due to joining a group or having the leader change or the mission level (like on a TF with a max level) change.  It's a PITA to constantly resummon my  pets, and I object to it too for role play reasons.

 

1. Have pets use the auto scaling code that some enemies have so they automatically adjust their attacks and other abilities to what ever level they should be playing at.  I realize this may be more complicated for pets than regular enemies, but that's my wish.

 

2. Pets should keep buffs like T1 and T2 upgrades, they just don't get any of those abilities when they're leveled too low to use them. (Need to discuss whether the +5 level thing should apply to pets too.)  When they level back up, the buffs are already there and they just start using those powers again.

 

[gameboy1234]

On 5/21/2020 at 9:31 AM, Maxzero said:

A speed boost to pets won't do much since players are in general so much faster now. Though I wouldn't complain if it were to happen.

I've been noticing this on my current MM and it's a pain.  By default my run speed is tons faster now, and it's very easy to leave the pets behind (where pets == pretty much all my powers).  I'd suggest either the pets get a permanent speed boost, or some new AI code that says any time they're trying to catch up to the MM (as opposed to fighting enemies or just standing around), they get a speed boost equal to Swift plus Ninja Run or so.

 

Ninjas, of course, should actually get and use Ninja Run when they're trying to catch up.  I mean, what else?

 

P.S. Other pets should probably get speed boosts too.  My Force Field generator for example is too slow also.  Sorry to be a pain but it kinda needs to happen.

 

Edited July 3, 2020 by gameboy1234

[Redlynne]

Hmm ... the thought occurs ...

 

Pets are granted a movement speed INCREASE which is conditional upon NOT being within Supremacy range.

That way, when they're "too far away" and not being affected by Supremacy, instead of getting damage buffs and so on, they instead get movement buffs.  That way they "switch modes" from being in Catch Up mode when too far away, to being in Combat mode when close by, and the two states are mutually exclusive with the "boundary layer" between the two modes being the Supremacy radius around the Mastermind.

 

That sounds like something that ought to be relatively easy enough to implement to all Mastermind summons (Pets summoned by other Archetypes would not gain similar benefits since they do not have a Mastermind Supremacy PBAoE).

[WindDemon21]

Yeah that's easy enough, give them base higher movement, and make supremecy actually debuff their movement speed to normal.

[Monos King]

The addition of a "Come to me" command I suggested in the mastermind proposal thread should solve all of the movement issues. I'll recap it.

 

-Automatic out of range henchmen teleport is removed

-Pets can now stay in position no matter how far the MM goes away (including the end of a mission map)

- Come to me added to advanced MM commands list

-Clicking activates what the current automatic pets-out-of- range teleport automatically does, instantly teleports pets to your current location.

 

Should work out for all instances where we see henchmen speed being problematic, and give the added bonus of stay/go to gaining greater utility.

[Monos King]

However, some henchmen should thematically be running faster, much like how beasts does now.

7 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

Ninjas, of course, should actually get and use Ninja Run when they're trying to catch up.  I mean, what else?

100%. 

6 hours ago, Redlynne said:

That way they "switch modes" from being in Catch Up mode when too far away, to being in Combat mode when close by, and the two states are mutually exclusive with the "boundary layer" between the two modes being the Supremacy radius around the Mastermind.

This is a good idea I think should be implemented anyway, if for any reason because it gives all the pets the options for thematic runs when appropriate. Beasts will end up being literal speedsters with it, which is already fun to see.

 

Might have to be more careful in damage patches though. I have a beast/kin and giving pets that much speed is not beneficial when you meet caltrops. Even with the go-to command they'll scatter 100 yards away with intense speed and leave you defenseless in quick successions.

[Galaxy Brain]

@Monos King and I were talking and came up with a radical idea:

 

1)  Remove the upgrade powers completely.

 

2)  Increase the recharge time of the T2 attack to 30 seconds, and the T3 to 60 seconds, and buff the hell out of their damage, secondary effects, cc, etc. T1 attack remains a spammy option. Talking it out, the MM attacks are often not worth using (generally) due to end cost and such, and more importantly taking up time you could have spent on a more valuable secondary power at that moment. Shifting these to "big" item attacks that are not used as often but with more bang for the buck could make them much more attractive. 

 

3)  When you take these attacks, you automatically unlock the upgrade abilities on pets. This could be done similar to other powers where buying it gives you multiple abilities, such as stance powers and such. Simply buy the attack and you get an auto power that upgrades pets.

 

4)  In place of the upgrade slots, each primary now has 2 open power options. Most all sets would greatly benefit from changing up their structure and allowing some more thematic powers! Mercs get 3 soldiers and a medic summon power. Robots get some sort of "Locked On" ST debuff to help with ST. Ninja can get a defensive tool, etc.

 

 

Thoughts on this line of thinking?

[Patti]

I don't want to take the attacks just to get the upgrades.

[Galaxy Brain]

15 minutes ago, Patti said:

I don't want to take the attacks just to get the upgrades.

On that same note tho, you take the upgrades just to get the upgrades. 

 

If you take the attacks just for that and never use them (like most mms), what is different?

Edited July 25, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[kiramon]

They should just be rolling the +auras into the pets natural defense -- pets need to be tankier and not die so often. I get the idea of them being able to be killed, but theyre too squishy for something with such a tax on resummoning in combat... 😛

[WindDemon21]

23 minutes ago, kiramon said:

They should just be rolling the +auras into the pets natural defense -- pets need to be tankier and not die so often. I get the idea of them being able to be killed, but theyre too squishy for something with such a tax on resummoning in combat... 😛

Or as stated a million times over, make the upgrade powers auto aura procs in supremacy, move the special skill to 26, big pet to 32, and 2nd upgrade to 18.

 

The upgrade powers shouldn't exist altogether really having the attacks always on the pets, and then give some other power in their place with this new power redistribution.

 

Even just more attacks honestly would be nice you could skip them if you wanted then. Another aoe attack at 18 and another ST attack earlier.

[Galaxy Brain]

Another thing, is you get the 1st upgrade at lvl 6, which is like 30m to 1hr of time? You essentially have it from the start, making at least that auto cast would be nice and I really really doubt those 1st 5 levels with an upgraded t1 pet would be broken as you get 2 upgraded pets at 6.

 

Flip side, the last power you get is a true game changer for most every MM set, but until you get there most feel really really anemic (such as bots) and it sucks. 

 

If I were being more conservative with this idea, I would have the 1st upgrade just become an automatic thing in Supremacy when you summon a pet in range. This would open up just 1 new power per set.

 

Then, I would move the last upgrade earlier in the set and give it some sort of thematic use to all the pets when you use it. For example, on Robots it will give them a +50% Energy Damage boost for ~20 sec or something when you use it, on Ninja it gives them all Stealth/Defense, etc, as well as permanently upgrade them while they are alive. It becomes a longer recharge "buff" power to the pets with an active and somewhat passive use.

 

Have that power be at 26 and the final pet be at 32, as the fully upgraded t1 and t2 squad should be fine to fill the gap between.

[gameboy1234]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Talking it out, the MM attacks are often not worth using (generally) due to end cost and such, and more importantly taking up time you could have spent on a more valuable secondary power at that moment.

I'd dispute this somewhat.  While true of some MM secondaries, many MM secondaries are "fire and forget."  You use a long lasting buff on your minions and then you have nothing to do for 2.5 minutes.  Force Field is like this.  I spent my time on Bots/FF micro managing my minions, but it was still "worth it" to use the personal attacks, esp. with bodyguard mode to pull aggro.   Obviously some secondaries will work differently, and FF really needs to be a bit more active, but the MM attacks really aren't that bad.  (They certainly could be a bit better though.)

 

1 hour ago, kiramon said:

pets need to be tankier and not die so often. I get the idea of them being able to be killed, but theyre too squishy for something with such a tax on resummoning in combat...

The original game play for MMs depended more on managing your pets, and them not being too tanky.  With much longer times between summons, you had to pay close attention to how they engaged and what they were fighting, or you'd risk losing too many pets and have to wait for them to be resummoned.  Same with the upgrades.  Getting your pets summoned and upgraded in the middle of battle was a risky proposition.  There was a high chance the pet would be dead before you got all its buffs on it.

 

Given all the other character buffs across all ATs, the current buffs for MMs aren't out of the question, just pointing out that the intended play style was different back on live.  The changes listed in the last few posts above would be a large change to the AT, enough that the whole AT might need to be rethought.

 

If I had to pick a set of changes.  I think I personally might go with longer recharge on the summoning powers, something like live or a little longer, but add the buffs to supremacy as suggested.  Then there's a bit of danger with over-extending your pets during a fight, but the tedium of re-summoning and then buffing is eliminated.  I also might add a delay to the AoE "proc" so that pets aren't buffed right away, there's a delay of 4 or 5 seconds before they're fully up to power.

 

Otherwise, if the pets get too tanky, and resummoning is quick, then there's no real danger or challenge at all.  There are other changes I might try first, like making all pets equal to the level of the MM (and not one or two levels less, which is pretty bogus really.)

Edited July 25, 2020 by gameboy1234

[gameboy1234]

14 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

and the final pet be at 32

Ugh, don't like this myself.  Too long to wait to get a complete set of pets.  I'd much rather have at the current level or even earlier.

 

Perhaps the "Supremacy Proc" could be made variable based on level, so that it doesn't grant the full T2 upgrade immediately, but grants some lesser version of it, until the MM is at level 32.  For example, longer recharge times on the T2 powers, or reduced damage and control on the T2 powers.  Just to give the MM something to look forward too as level increases.

 

[WindDemon21]

18 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Another thing, is you get the 1st upgrade at lvl 6, which is like 30m to 1hr of time? You essentially have it from the start, making at least that auto cast would be nice and I really really doubt those 1st 5 levels with an upgraded t1 pet would be broken as you get 2 upgraded pets at 6.

 

Flip side, the last power you get is a true game changer for most every MM set, but until you get there most feel really really anemic (such as bots) and it sucks. 

 

If I were being more conservative with this idea, I would have the 1st upgrade just become an automatic thing in Supremacy when you summon a pet in range. This would open up just 1 new power per set.

 

Then, I would move the last upgrade earlier in the set and give it some sort of thematic use to all the pets when you use it. For example, on Robots it will give them a +50% Energy Damage boost for ~20 sec or something when you use it, on Ninja it gives them all Stealth/Defense, etc, as well as permanently upgrade them while they are alive. It becomes a longer recharge "buff" power to the pets with an active and somewhat passive use.

 

Have that power be at 26 and the final pet be at 32, as the fully upgraded t1 and t2 squad should be fine to fill the gap between.

Even 26 is still usually an annoying wait to have any effectiveness. Would be best (if not eliminating the upgrade powers altogether in lieu of more attacks) to have it at 18, and then the special skill at 26.

 

Having them be auto powers as well is really non-negotiable IMO though, there is nothing worse and its the #1 reason that keeps me from making any more MMs at the moment.