Does Beast Suck?

[Chalkarts]

I'm scrolling through the MM posts looking for some info on Beast.

I'me not seeing much love for Beast, is it that bad?

[Zeraphia]

Beasts do not suck, they are a "trade off" MM primary...

 

Their T1 pets are verrrrrrrrry good. IMO, this is where the set actually shines the most.

 

Are they as high tier as Thugs? Obviously not but they are pretty good, it is an MM primary that actually can softcap itself regularly with Fortify Pack (you trade their crits for it, but IMO, can be well-worth it given how tanky they become).

[PhoenixV117]

Might be good with EA 

[TheSpiritFox]

They're a solid pet set. If you want them on the more tanky end, beasts with nature, thermal, dark and use fortify pack to softcap them themselves and you have defense, resistance, and great buffs or debuffs to help you out plus AoE heals to help all your beasts at once. 

 

If you want them on the high damage end, beasts with traps or time will let you softcap them with your secondary, time especially gives you an AOE heal and a -tohit aura which lets them be very safe without using fortify pack for defense which lets them crit and do alot more damage on the regular. 

 

They aren't the highest damaging set, but being melee only they're also not super hard to manage. Their biggest weakness imo is that they lack alot of the AOE that other sets offer in spades, thugs bots and demons all specifically do more aoe damage than beasts do and aoe is king in this game. 

[Coyote]

They're solid but not great, and have a nice option to flip between offensive and defensive stances by using Fortify Pack.

They have to attack in melee, so even though they are fast, they will be a lot more efficient if you can group the spawn for them. For EA specifically, this would keep them in the radius of the chains and Faraday Cage... so you may wish to consider using Provoke, or else a set with a toggle debuff that will draw aggro to you so that you can pull spawns to corners and such in order to group them.

I run them with Nature and that's an excellent pairing. With EA, I would prefer to use pets that are mostly ranged... Mercs, Bots, Demons, Thugs.

[Chalkarts]

I've been trying to decide what I want to pair radiation affinity to.

[Coyote]

Beasts should work fine with both Dark and Rad, since both have toggles ToHit debuffs and PBAoE heals that make you want to go into melee range and fight there. So you get into the fight along with the beasts, and draw the aggro inwards so there are fewer runners, and overall it should work fine. You will have an issue with mezzes directed at you, and with AoE mezzes thrown at both you and the pets, but frankly that's common for MMs with a lot of secondaries. Especially ones with melee-oriented henchmen.

[WumpusRat]

Beasts are, overall, pretty solid. The only real downside to them as that (unless it's been corrected in the last 6 months or so) there is a minor bug with their attack chain. Periodically they'll stop attacking and just stare at the target, despite having attacks that are ready to go. I don't know if it's a delay that's baked into their animations, or there's just something glitchy about that particular set. It was the last one that the original devs built, and didn't get nearly as much testing as other stuff did, so there may well be some lingering issues that need to be fixed.

[BGSacho]

1 hour ago, WumpusRat said:

Beasts are, overall, pretty solid. The only real downside to them as that (unless it's been corrected in the last 6 months or so) there is a minor bug with their attack chain. Periodically they'll stop attacking and just stare at the target, despite having attacks that are ready to go. I don't know if it's a delay that's baked into their animations, or there's just something glitchy about that particular set. It was the last one that the original devs built, and didn't get nearly as much testing as other stuff did, so there may well be some lingering issues that need to be fixed.

This isn't just an issue with beasts - all the pets do it. It's perhaps more obvious due to animations, or being melee, but from my testing on pylons even pets that essentially always have something off cd(genin, jounin) will have downtime between attacks.

[WumpusRat]

Just now, BGSacho said:

This isn't just an issue with beasts - all the pets do it. It's perhaps more obvious due to animations, or being melee, but from my testing on pylons even pets that essentially always have something off cd(genin, jounin) will have downtime between attacks.

I ran a bunch of tests with pets attacking the target dummies out in the vanguard base and logged it a long while back.

 

Genin average 33 attacks per minute against the target dummy.

Howler Wolves average 21 attacks per minute.

Zombies average 22 attacks per minute.

 

So beasts are actually slower than even the zombies, despite having shorter cooldowns. The genin have 6 attacks, two of them on 3 and 4s cooldowns, so it's not surprising that they'd attack a lot. But the wolves have their vicious bite on a 3s cooldown, and the other two attacks on 6 and 8s. Zombies are 4, 12, 12, 30, and STILL manage to attack more often than the wolves. Which makes me think there's something specifically wrong with the wolves' attack chain/animations.

[BGSacho]

I don't think so. The zombies have roughly a 55% total fill rate(I define fill rate as the percentage time it takes to use a skill if you use it perfectly off CD - e.g. a 1s cast, 3s CD skill is a 25% fill rate), the beasts have about 75%.  If you sum up the theoretical maximum APM(actions per minute) for beasts, you get 27.6. For zombies, it's 22.5. I think the difference is easier to explain with poor attack scheduling - e.g. zombies only have one short CD attack, brawl, vs the 2 for wolves, and vicious bite is practically never going to be used properly on CD.

The shorter cooldowns are a bit misleading - vicious bite is only marginally better than zombie brawl(1.452 cast time + 3s recharge vs 0.924 cast time + 4s recharge). Similarly, maiming bite's extremely long cast time - 2.64 - means the maximum APM you can get out of it is similar to feral charge, even though it's 6s CD vs 8s CD.

It's no surprise Genin have 50% more attacks, not only is their fill rate 120%(meaning they could never use all their attacks), but all their attacks animate for 1s, except for Crane Kick at 2. If you sum up their APM, it comes out to 51. In your example, the 31 APM for genin means they are achieving roughly 70% fill rate - you can see that this affects ninjas worse than beasts, which are achieving roughly ~58% fill rate with a maximum of 75%, and the zombies are basically achieving their 55% maximum fill rate, which matches what I've seen happen in pylon tests.

(Source for APM, Fill% values - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_yMtB-68XEcXEdmUmxf7p0RBd5KYLhbE2dsQXk0CMek/edit#gid=1398626015)

My point is that this isn't a beasts issue, but a general pet issue. From my(and another user's, unfortunately I forgot their nick) testing on pylons, none of the mobs reach even close to optimal fill rate. Most of the mobs seemed to reach between 55-70% fill rate - including both mobs that have a low fill rate (zombies, arsonist) and a really high one(all ninjas, bruiser, gargoyle). This is so prevalent that I've factored it in my "theoretical DPS" calculation - for every pet I assume that the maximum theoretical skill usage it's going to get is 70% - you can see that in my Demons/Thugs/Ninjas calculations.

Edited April 14, 2020 by BGSacho

[Dixa]

20 hours ago, BGSacho said:

I don't think so. The zombies have roughly a 55% total fill rate(I define fill rate as the percentage time it takes to use a skill if you use it perfectly off CD - e.g. a 1s cast, 3s CD skill is a 25% fill rate), the beasts have about 75%.  If you sum up the theoretical maximum APM(actions per minute) for beasts, you get 27.6. For zombies, it's 22.5. I think the difference is easier to explain with poor attack scheduling - e.g. zombies only have one short CD attack, brawl, vs the 2 for wolves, and vicious bite is practically never going to be used properly on CD.

The shorter cooldowns are a bit misleading - vicious bite is only marginally better than zombie brawl(1.452 cast time + 3s recharge vs 0.924 cast time + 4s recharge). Similarly, maiming bite's extremely long cast time - 2.64 - means the maximum APM you can get out of it is similar to feral charge, even though it's 6s CD vs 8s CD.

It's no surprise Genin have 50% more attacks, not only is their fill rate 120%(meaning they could never use all their attacks), but all their attacks animate for 1s, except for Crane Kick at 2. If you sum up their APM, it comes out to 51. In your example, the 31 APM for genin means they are achieving roughly 70% fill rate - you can see that this affects ninjas worse than beasts, which are achieving roughly ~58% fill rate with a maximum of 75%, and the zombies are basically achieving their 55% maximum fill rate, which matches what I've seen happen in pylon tests.

(Source for APM, Fill% values - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_yMtB-68XEcXEdmUmxf7p0RBd5KYLhbE2dsQXk0CMek/edit#gid=1398626015)

My point is that this isn't a beasts issue, but a general pet issue. From my(and another user's, unfortunately I forgot their nick) testing on pylons, none of the mobs reach even close to optimal fill rate. Most of the mobs seemed to reach between 55-70% fill rate - including both mobs that have a low fill rate (zombies, arsonist) and a really high one(all ninjas, bruiser, gargoyle). This is so prevalent that I've factored it in my "theoretical DPS" calculation - for every pet I assume that the maximum theoretical skill usage it's going to get is 70% - you can see that in my Demons/Thugs/Ninjas calculations.

The fill rate you talk about here is basically just another dps measurement that so many ignore when it comes to this game and have ever since the very beginning. In a game where abilities are fully independent and there is no global cooldown, damage per second calculations must take animation time into consideration along with recast and actual damage done. 

 

Thugs does mostly smashing and lethal so their dps really should be poor like mercs. The damage of their abilities isn't significantly higher or lower than the other sets

 

But like ninja, every damned ability has a stupidly short animation time. This is why I always laughed at people who said bots/yaddayadda was the best at dropping av's or packs. That was only true BEFORE we got thugs and has not been true after, no matter your secondary. 

[Vinceq98]

17 hours ago, Dixa said:

The fill rate you talk about here is basically just another dps measurement that so many ignore when it comes to this game and have ever since the very beginning. In a game where abilities are fully independent and there is no global cooldown, damage per second calculations must take animation time into consideration along with recast and actual damage done. 

 

Thugs does mostly smashing and lethal so their dps really should be poor like mercs. The damage of their abilities isn't significantly higher or lower than the other sets

 

But like ninja, every damned ability has a stupidly short animation time. This is why I always laughed at people who said bots/yaddayadda was the best at dropping av's or packs. That was only true BEFORE we got thugs and has not been true after, no matter your secondary. 

Could you elaborate please and tell us dumbos a TLDR perhaps? I really enjoy masterminds. No other game comes close to the gameplay that MMs can offer, however I do prefer to min max as much as I can and I know certain specs are bottom of the barrel. I already have a Thugs and Demons what would next to them in terms of DPS. I had a Ninja back on live but they performed poorly due to dying so many times. Would Ninjas be great DPS if kept alive?>?? How about Necro or Mercs with PROCS???

[Ironscarlet]

All MM primarys are good what I believe make a greater difference is the secondary choice in combination to the primary.

 

Beast/nature and beast/kin are great combos. 

 

Ninja if kept alive are great so Ninja/Dark and Ninja/time  great combos.

 

Merc after updates are great  proc monsters  that stay out of melee now.

 

Zombies are a mix but work better in tankier builds.

1 hour ago, Vinceq98 said:

Could you elaborate please and tell us dumbos a TLDR perhaps? I really enjoy masterminds. No other game comes close to the gameplay that MMs can offer, however I do prefer to min max as much as I can and I know certain specs are bottom of the barrel. I already have a Thugs and Demons what would next to them in terms of DPS. I had a Ninja back on live but they performed poorly due to dying so many times. Would Ninjas be great DPS if kept alive?>?? How about Necro or Mercs with PROCS???

 

So after Thugs and Demons focusing on dps, I would recomend go Beast/Kin or Ninja/Dark the difficulty  in play would be higher but the out comes can be similar.

 

Remember Thugs are just in another league because of gang war. It's like TW on a scrapper is just in another league. 

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Ironscarlet

[Dixa]

2 hours ago, Vinceq98 said:

Could you elaborate please and tell us dumbos a TLDR perhaps? I really enjoy masterminds. No other game comes close to the gameplay that MMs can offer, however I do prefer to min max as much as I can and I know certain specs are bottom of the barrel. I already have a Thugs and Demons what would next to them in terms of DPS. I had a Ninja back on live but they performed poorly due to dying so many times. Would Ninjas be great DPS if kept alive?>?? How about Necro or Mercs with PROCS???

none of the other primaries can touch thugs and demons - at least on HC - because of gang war and hell on earth. these two abilities give you a place to park the pet io auras without sacrificing anything in your pets damage or proc wise.

 

on the other server, mercs have a place for those aura's now and traps was modified so a power in it can take the pet recharge intensive sets which makes life a little better for nearly all of the mm primaries. 

 

my first mm when cov launched was necro/dark, but once thugs came out I never looked back. the bruiser is the most damaging t3 especially as the fight drags on and it builds fury, and the enforcers are second only to grave knights but aren't melee.