Please buff Bots, Mercs, Zombies, Ninjas, and Beasts

[TheSpiritFox]

Beasts need more AOE. Simple, add or replace attacks to add to aoe damage. Needs a mule for pet uniques. 

 

Ninjas need survivability. Give them some kinda inherent defense, an aura from the lts like other sets, something that will help them stay alive. Needs a mule for pet uniques. 

 

Zombies need damage. Speed up their running and reaction pace, give them some more single target and aoe damage. 

 

Mercs need everything. Rework the entire goddamn set from the ground up. Needs a mule for pet sets

 

Bots need survivability. Make protector bot bubbles apply in an AOE including to the casting protector bot like it works with other buff sets to reduce downtime on resummons, make repair apply in an AOE and heal your entire team of pets and make it take pet uniques. 

[Razor Cure]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Bots need survivability

Not really..bots would 'like' some more survivablity. But they are already good, with 2 bubbles each and a heal. Sure, the bubbles, as you say, could be aoe, but on the list of MM Pet buffs, bots have to be one of the lowest priorities.

[Monos King]

18 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Bots need survivability. Make protector bot bubbles apply in an AOE including to the casting protector bot like it works with other buff sets to reduce downtime on resummons, make repair apply in an AOE and heal your entire team of pets and make it take pet uniques. 

Can agree with everything but the phrasing on this since it's mostly a qol change with the AoE application. Repair definitely needs reworking.

 

I do disagree with the "sets need a pet IO mule" idea. It needs to go a step further. MMs shouldn't need to devote 6 slots to those IOs to begin with. We need those buffs integrated into all MMs naturally either via supremacy or another means, and scaled in strength to your level.

[TheSpiritFox]

58 minutes ago, Monos King said:

Can agree with everything but the phrasing on this since it's mostly a qol change with the AoE application. Repair definitely needs reworking.

 

I do disagree with the "sets need a pet IO mule" idea. It needs to go a step further. MMs shouldn't need to devote 6 slots to those IOs to begin with. We need those buffs integrated into all MMs naturally either via supremacy or another means, and scaled in strength to your level.

Yeah I can agree with that. No other powerset in the game besides mm primaries has like 6 default IOs it needs for the build to be solid and missing them is a compromise and a felt loss every time. The fact that my thugs MMs are infinitely tankier than my bots MM is ridiculous. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by TheSpiritFox

[Razor Cure]

16 hours ago, Monos King said:

I do disagree with the "sets need a pet IO mule" idea. It needs to go a step further. MMs shouldn't need to devote 6 slots to those IOs to begin with. We need those buffs integrated into all MMs naturally either via supremacy or another means, and scaled in strength to your level.

I don't wanna start this argument again but..this is 100% rubbish.

Nevermind the game is NOT balanced to IOs, so there is literally zero 'need' to spend 6 slots on said IOs. And if you choose to..well, you make your entire primary much tougher...how many other ATs can do that?

Speaking of other ATs, each has 2 'needed' IOs, going by your logic.

And we can increase that..Miracle unique, numi, panacea, preventmed, kismet, KB ios. WHat about how a good portion of builds 'have' to fit in 5 slots, for those gambler rech IOs? Especially for Doms.

 

You are asking for all those amazing ATO/IO effects just..rolled into the AT, because you dont wanna spend 6 slots to get a huge boost? Yeah, ok. Let's just roll all those IOs i just listed, into every single archtype.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Razor Cure

[Haijinx]

Buff pet levels by 1 on the test server.

 

Test it.  

 

[Razor Cure]

10 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Buff pet levels by 1 on the test server.

 

Test it.  

Exactly! That is all that is needed! Well, besides tweaking sets on a case by case basis (but literally every set in teh game COULD use tweaks).

[Monos King]

7 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

I don't wanna start this argument again but..this is 100% rubbish.

Then don't. Carry on.

[Myrmidon]

Presumably, they are testing Page 6. If there are no Mastermind updates there, for the love of imaginary deity of your choice, at least try to wait patiently to see if Page 7 has some.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Myrmidon

[macskull]

7 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Speaking of other ATs, each has 2 'needed' IOs, going by your logic.

Masterminds benefit far less from IOs than any other AT simply because the pets are unaffected by any of the bonuses (oh, and because pets can't have their recharge modified but that's a different story). Even if you're going to argue that, the only other ATs that see huge performance changes with ATO procs are Scrappers and Stalkers, and those ATO procs can be slotted at will without any real sacrifice anywhere else in the build. If you're a Mastermind and aren't Thugs or Necro you absolutely give up something to fit the 6 pet survivability procs in. Additionally, unlike Scrappers and Stalkers the MM pet survivability procs don't actually boost your damage, they just bring pet survivability up from "awful" to "okay."

[ScarySai]

On 9/4/2020 at 6:42 PM, TheSpiritFox said:

Zombies need damage. Speed up their running and reaction pace, give them some more single target and aoe damage. 

 

I would personally like if instead of buffing the AoE/st damage directly, necro got something like what Tspy did and could just summon more zombies from the corpses of defeated enemies, maybe be able to use the t7 on enemies as well.

 

Have a proper undead army going on.

[Monos King]

@TheSpiritFox That is also a good point by Myr. MMs are definitely on the dev radar now, so there isn't much need to erect entire new threads, as much as I support the concern. It would be best just to give suggestions on existing threads.

[Razor Cure]

6 hours ago, macskull said:

"awful"

Ha. Yeah. You mean SOME pets are squishy. SOME. And most are definitely not awful.

Go ahead and bring up incarnate content too (and yes, pets should be even levels in that), but a lot of toons suddenly get squishy vs lvl 54 IDF and DE.

Pre incarnate, MM's and their pets are not awful at all.

 

 

6 hours ago, Monos King said:

Then don't. Carry on.

Same to you. Since you were the one who bought those reasons into a thread about SOME pet sets.

[Haijinx]

12 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Exactly! That is all that is needed! Well, besides tweaking sets on a case by case basis (but literally every set in teh game COULD use tweaks).

I was thinking that we know even the best sets seem to need the level bump.   Then after that they can see about the other problems.  

 

Plus its a small, simple change that isn't asking for a lot. 

[macskull]

22 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Ha. Yeah. You mean SOME pets are squishy. SOME.

The simple fact that purple patch exists means at least your tier 1 pets are pretty squishy when you start going into higher-level content. I'm not even arguing incarnate-level content here, just anything that's +2 or higher. Fighting at +2 means your t1 pets are effectively fighting against +4s which means even if you're able to buff them to the point of being more survivable, fully half your normal damage output is significantly less effective than it should be (to the tune of 0.48 multipliers for all their effects). Again, this is something that no other AT has to deal with.

 

That being said, it's a careful balancing act - raising pet survivability without directly raising their damage output seems to be the best way to approach the problem and OP's suggestions mostly do that. Yes, I'm aware that in the right circumstances, with the right powersets a Mastermind can put out pretty good single-target damage but that is not representative of the AT as a whole.

[Seravajan]

The MM pets are working much better in a group with lots of buffs than solo. The primary issue I see is the low defense/resistances some pet set have. 

The level increase will help especially to the T1 pets. 

 

The beasts set is melee only but these pets seems to have the lowest defense and resistance of all pets. Sometime even an orange lieutenant can oneshot a T1 beast pet. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Seravajan

[Monos King]

11 hours ago, Seravajan said:

The MM pets are working much better in a group with lots of buffs than solo. The primary issue I see is the low defense/resistances some pet set have. 

The level increase will help especially to the T1 pets. 

 

The beasts set is melee only but these pets seems to have the lowest defense and resistance of all pets. Sometime even an orange lieutenant can oneshot a T1 beast pet. 

Beasts are actually one of the most well-off of the mastermind pets in terms of survivability and protection. They have significantly better resistance and defenses than the likes of mercenaries and ninja, and even zombies before the -to hit is factored in. There are a plethora of threads outside of this one that compare the attributes of the henchmen and have already had all of these conversations hosted on them. I would suggest visiting some of them for more information; two are linked in my signature. 

[Dragon Crush]

So, an idea I had for freeing up some slots for MMs, but what if there was a free inherent power, comes with 1 slot but can't add more, that lets you put in a single enhancement that affects all pets. For example, throw an accuracy in there, that's less accuracy you need to slot in your tier 1, 2 and 3 pets, or maybe a damage. And I'd say this proposed freebie slot shouldn't take any sets, so no adding a proc to all attacks or freebie spot for the ATOs.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just for some context, the MM pets inherently get whacked with the following:

 

Tier 1 Minion pets vs an even lvl enemy (even lvl to the MM)

• Damage = 0.8x (100 damage becomes 80 damage before any other stats)
• Hit Chance = 0.56 (compared to the normal 0.75 base)
• Damage Taken = 1.22x (100 damage sent their way becomes 122 damage before other stats)
• Chance to be hit = 0.6 (compared to 0.5 base)

 

Tier 2 Lieutenant pets vs an even lvl enemy (even lvl to the MM)

• Damage = 0.9x (100 damage becomes 90 damage before any other stats)
• Hit Chance = 0.65 (compared to the normal 0.75 base)
• Damage Taken = 1.11x (100 damage sent their way becomes 111 damage before other stats)
• Chance to be hit = 0.55 (compared to 0.5 base)

 

Tier 3 Boss pets vs an even lvl enemy (even lvl to the MM)

• Damage = 1.0x 
• Hit Chance = 0.75 
• Damage Taken = 1.0x 
• Chance to be hit = 0.5
• Essentially, the boss = a Player in terms of scaling

 

Out of the gate, the non-boss MM pets not only have less HP but just straight up take more damage + are easier to hit to varying degrees even against even-lvl enemies. This makes it an up-hill battle to keep them alive in certain content just by nature of them being lower level. This also affects their offense to a degree, and it's why we see Bots as the top AoE primary thanks to the big guns being on the Boss pet and thus not being diminished by level scaling like we see on the Thugs Arsonist. Though, MM damage can be kinda silly overall so that is lesser concern. This gets way way worse as you go up in level:

 

 

Tier 3 Boss pets vs a +4 enemy ( +4  to the MM)

• Damage = 0.48x (100 damage becomes 48 damage) 
• Hit Chance = 0.39 
• Damage Taken = 1.44x  (100 damage becomes 144 damage)
• Chance to be hit = 0.7

 

Tier 1 Minion pets vs a +4 enemy ( +4  to the MM)

• Damage = 0.15x (100 damage becomes 15 damage)
• Hit Chance = 0.2 
• Damage Taken = 1.66x (100 damage becomes 166 damage)
• Chance to be hit = 0.825 

 

Tier 2 Lieutenant pets vs a +4 enemy ( +4  to the MM)

• Damage = 0.3x (100 damage becomes 30 damage)
• Hit Chance = 0.3 
• Damage Taken = 1.55x (100 damage becomes 155 damage)
• Chance to be hit = 0.75

 

They get *astronomically* worse as you increase the threat level you're facing.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Galaxy Brain