Mastermind changes in beta

[Arbegla]

While I approach masterminds differently then @TheSpiritFox, he has some pretty solid points.

 

if you're having issues playing masterminds at high levels, you're simply doing it wrong. Out of the box, without IOs, masterminds have 75% resistance via bodyguard mode. Once you get the auras, and literally JUST the auras, you have softcapped defenses for bots, thugs, and beasts. Without your secondary doing anything at all.

 

Zombies are also effectively softcapped due to their -tohit. And that's again, without using your secondary.

 

I play a tanker-mind, and I can tank better than any Tanker/Brute that lives simply because pets ignore the aggro cap, and pull aggro off the mastermind even with Provoke. I've face tanked the LRSF, and got all the way to the last mission Solo, without deaths. That's face tanking the Vindicators and the future freedom phalanx, all as AVs just cuz I could.

 

we don't need auto upgrades, and the Recharge/End changes help a lot already.

[Sovera]

I don't want to put too much of a fine point in it, but, considering the problems pets get mostly arrive in the form of the big level shift that steals damage and durability, bragging about a +1 solo ITF is a bit eh.

 

I have stopped playing MMs a long while back when softcapped defense only meant they survived longer but would suddenly be vaporized. If the poor things got agro they just disappeared.

 

Not ALL of them. But then there's what others in this thread have mentioned. Welp, the Arsonist is dead, welp. I'm not going to waste my summon +upgrade just for one. Keep playing, another one dies. Ok, I'll summon now. Summon, upgrade. Resume playing. Argh, now another one died.

 

The fact is, saying that the upgrade powers are a downgrade and better not used for some of the minions tier is NOT A SOLUTION! It is a PROBLEM that UPGRADING a minion makes it perform WORSE. Clever ruses like not upgrading are contrary to the way the game is intended to be played. The fact is that the team will have to give MMs a pass so that upgrades are indeed upgrades.

 

Now the fact the upgrades are not automatic also means the MMs get screwed in a myriad ways when exemplaring. They get fewer minions at certain cut points, and those pets don't get powers from the upgrades. It's a double whammy. Other ATs simply don't get access to their powers exemplaring, but MMs don't get access to their powers AND become objectively weaker on top of that.

[Bill Z Bubba]

16 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

- Pets not being your level affecting how they work esp vs purple patch

- MM powers cost too much endurance for what they do in a way that's not actually balanced and gives MMs endurance issues especially if they try to take attacks and have any attack chain

 

Those are my main issues. You can see the benefit of properly leveled pets if you solo a pylon since, as far as the pylon is concerned, everything is even level.

[The_Warpact]

Here is another instance of people wanting something of convenience rather than what is a challenge.

"It's annoying that I have buff them" or "its too hard make it easier" is what I'm seeing.

 

My mains on live were MMs and even now I have 5 more that run, badge, Master of, and everything else, including running content on +4×8 on teams.

The game especially at high levels lacks challenge and you want to make it easier. 

Nah I'll pass, if its too hard for you to play the AT to the point that you want it changed so its easier for you than you need to go play something else.

The new changes in Beta look nice and doing a pbaoe buff is nice, but, having them out of the box buffed for ya is lazy at this point. 

[tidge]

 

This is one of my least favorite aspect of the MM primaries:

 

21 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

At the VERY least, one of the main issues with using the upgrade powers is how you can't even affect the pet until they become actually target-table. At the absolute very least, the upgrades need to be pbaoe instead of a targeted buff so you can cast it without having to actually target a/the pet first.

 

If I could ask for ANY other change, I'd like the upgrade primary powers to be able to also accept the IOs which contribute to henchmen/pet auras: defense/resistance/et al.

 

I can make lemonade from the concept that there is practically nothing worth slotting in those powers, but I HATE having to sacrifice precious henchmen slots to cover the defensive issues that the henchmen have (especially the T1 and T2 henches).

 

EDIT: I am also annoyed of course about the MM Endurance penalties, but I put this in the (shrug) category.

Edited March 14, 2021 by tidge

[TheSpiritFox]

7 hours ago, Turric said:

I am in agreement with the OP. I think it is a broken mechanic, arguments to the contrary do not sway my opinion.

 

I mean, you're flat out wrong, but hey you're allowed to be if you want, it's not like it's gonna change MMs at this point. 

[TheSpiritFox]

4 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Here is another instance of people wanting something of convenience rather than what is a challenge.

"It's annoying that I have buff them" or "its too hard make it easier" is what I'm seeing.

 

My mains on live were MMs and even now I have 5 more that run, badge, Master of, and everything else, including running content on +4×8 on teams.

The game especially at high levels lacks challenge and you want to make it easier. 

Nah I'll pass, if its too hard for you to play the AT to the point that you want it changed so its easier for you than you need to go play something else.

The new changes in Beta look nice and doing a pbaoe buff is nice, but, having them out of the box buffed for ya is lazy at this point. 

 

I agree. Like, It honestly mystifies me how people want to lower the complexity of pet interactions on a mastermind. This is the essence of the AT, it's what it was originally designed around, and people wanna turn Masterminds into Crabberminds with pet commands it seems. Just go man a soldier. Have a character with it's own softcapped defenses, attack chain, and a bunch of pets that ignore you but do decent damage. 

 

[Coyote]

I can run Bots/EA at +4/x8, so I don't know how badly MMs are hurt at the top levels... granted, it may take a strong defensive build to not have to constantly re-summon minions (I don't know if I could think of a Ninja build that I'd run at +4/x8), but +4/x8 is not a really reasonable benchmark for an AT, where you say "if every combination can't do it, the AT is broken at the high end". I think most every MM build should be able to run at +2/x8 at the high end (which means being able to handle spawns that are +3 in absolute level and +2 after the level shift), so I feel it's not a great problem. I'm not saying that the pet level vs level 54 mobs isn't an issue, but I don't know that it's such a major issue. Especially for sets that don't depend that much on their Tier 1 pets.

 

However, while it could be argued that MMs DO have some issues vs Level 54s... these aren't really a matter of "but I have to re-buff the minions after summoning them". Remember that the changes we're discussing lowered the Endurance costs a lot, and also the Recharge of the summons... if you're in a situation where you have to keep summoning pets into the grinder, you can now do it. And having to choose "do I upgrade or do I use the secondary to help defend better" is still a reasonable choice to have to make. MMs aren't going to be "saved" by auto-upgrade if you think they're broken. Frankly, if this is a major issue that you would like to argue about, seeing that the GMs have already considered this thorougly and made a pretty concrete decision, I would suggest this:

 

Ask to see if it's possible to speed up the buffing animations. Endurance costs are already lowered, some of the summons were sped up, if you want to summon/buff fast, 2-slot the powers with End Red so you can handle the burn... and if the Dev team can manage to speed up the animations, you'll be pretty fine. I mean, looking at my Demons... I can summon/buff them all now faster than I could summon them all and NOT buff them before. Animation changes can be used to get you partway to what you want: having them quickly summoned and fully ready for fighting.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Coyote

[Coyote]

Just now, Coyote said:

I feel it's a great problem

I feel it's NOT a great problem, is what I meant to say. Have we lost the ability to Edit our posts in the new message board format? 😞

[The_Warpact]

48 minutes ago, Coyote said:

I feel it's NOT a great problem, is what I meant to say. Have we lost the ability to Edit our posts in the new message board format? 😞

The 3 dots on your name bar on the right.

Took me a minute.

[TheSpiritFox]

57 minutes ago, Coyote said:

I can run Bots/EA at +4/x8, so I don't know how badly MMs are hurt at the top levels... granted, it may take a strong defensive build to not have to constantly re-summon minions (I don't know if I could think of a Ninja build that I'd run at +4/x8), but +4/x8 is not a really reasonable benchmark for an AT, where you say "if every combination can't do it, the AT is broken at the high end". I think most every MM build should be able to run at +2/x8 at the high end (which means being able to handle spawns that are +3 in absolute level and +2 after the level shift), so I feel it's a great problem. I'm not saying that the pet level vs level 54 mobs isn't an issue, but I don't know that it's such a major issue. Especially for sets that don't depend that much on their Tier 1 pets.

 

However, while it could be argued that MMs DO have some issues vs Level 54s... these aren't really a matter of "but I have to re-buff the minions after summoning them". Remember that the changes we're discussing lowered the Endurance costs a lot, and also the Recharge of the summons... if you're in a situation where you have to keep summoning pets into the grinder, you can now do it. And having to choose "do I upgrade or do I use the secondary to help defend better" is still a reasonable choice to have to make. MMs aren't going to be "saved" by auto-upgrade if you think they're broken. Frankly, if this is a major issue that you would like to argue about, seeing that the GMs have already considered this thorougly and made a pretty concrete decision, I would suggest this:

 

Ask to see if it's possible to speed up the buffing animations. Endurance costs are already lowered, some of the summons were sped up, if you want to summon/buff fast, 2-slot the powers with End Red so you can handle the burn... and if the Dev team can manage to speed up the animations, you'll be pretty fine. I mean, looking at my Demons... I can summon/buff them all now faster than I could summon them all and NOT buff them before. Animation changes can be used to get you partway to what you want: having them quickly summoned and fully ready for fighting.

 

Every single person I have seen argue against upgrading is talking about being annoyed and wasting time.  Like the hyperbole inherent in "this is a stepping stone to fixing Masterminds" is something that these people don't even wanna examine, they aren't talking in numbers they're mostly making emotional statements and broad generalizations pretending that MMs are like broken and that quality of life fixes are somehow important to making the AT playable at all. 

 

 

[Coyote]

6 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

 

Every single person I have seen argue against upgrading is talking about being annoyed and wasting time.  Like the hyperbole inherent in "this is a stepping stone to fixing Masterminds" is something that these people don't even wanna examine, they aren't talking in numbers they're mostly making emotional statements and broad generalizations pretending that MMs are like broken and that quality of life fixes are somehow important to making the AT playable at all. 

 

 

 

Agreed. I can totally understand their viewpoints and desires, even if I don't agree. I like the complexity, but simplifying the summoning procedure wouldn't solve the MM high-level issues (and I don't think they have issues before max level).

And I can understand the argument for "MMs USED to be balanced at high levels when fighting 54s was NOT the new normal, but now that it is, the level drops of their pets really makes them suffer". And I actually agree with THAT argument.

They're different arguments, though.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Coyote

[TheSpiritFox]

4 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Agreed. I can totally understand their viewpoints and desires, even if I don't agree. I like the complexity, but simplifying the summoning procedure wouldn't solve the MM high-level issues (and I don't think they have issues before max level).

And I can understand the argument for "MMs USED to be balanced at high levels when fighting 54s was NOT the new normal, but now that it is, the level drops of their pets really makes them suffer". And I actually agree with THAT argument.

They're different arguments, though.

 

Yeah I kinda feel like making the minions have a level difference was almost more cosmetic than anything else to emphasize the differences between T1, T2, and T3 pets to players. Its not like they couldn't have made them all the same level as the caster and still tuned it to have the exact same DPS with all your pets being your level, that always felt to me like some dude in design just got the idea and was like "yeah this makes it really unique" without thinking the balance repercussions down the road over very hard. 

[kelika2]

17 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

an entire page

i am not reading this, but i seen your stick with master of itf somewhere.  while i am not going to research it, even a solo defender did this.

 

auto upgrades are still on my wishlist as it still makes sense to summon the best from the getgo.  taking the time to be constantly summoning and animating and upgrading should not be a "mastermind tax"

[kelika2]

8 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

 

Yeah it should be, and anyone who has any notion of what game balance

whats engaging or balancing about rebuffing every dead pet?  all your arguments so far have just been "just cuz"

[Arbegla]

2 hours ago, kelika2 said:

whats engaging or balancing about rebuffing every dead pet?  all your arguments so far have just been "just cuz"

Followup questions, why aren't brutes at max fury right off the bat? Why do defenders lose damage in groups? Why can't blasters use their AoEs while mezzed? Why are scrappers resistance cap the same as a controller? Why do controllers only get containment on certain mezzed mobs? Why can't corruptors scourge until the mob is at half health? Why hasn't Regen been nerfed more?

 

Seriously, you simply don't know enough, or are too lazy to ask the real questions.

[TygerDarkstorm]

3 hours ago, kelika2 said:

i am not reading this, but i seen your stick with master of itf somewhere.  while i am not going to research it, even a solo defender did this.

 

auto upgrades are still on my wishlist as it still makes sense to summon the best from the getgo.  taking the time to be constantly summoning and animating and upgrading should not be a "mastermind tax"

Luckily for those of us who love this AT and main or near main it, the devs themselves have already come out and said that they will not be making the upgrades auto. It may be on your wishlist, but that does not make it a good idea, nor a needed idea, and now, one the devs have actively said they will not be implementing on this server.

 

People requesting this without good arguments to back up why other than their personal feelings seem to forget that MM's pets ARE their source of damage, and they are (at a supremely basic level) almost a hands-off form of damage in comparison to other AT's. If MM's did not face certain taxes for their ability to have their pets deal their damage entirely for them (thus not having to expend their own endurance/health if we're going super basic here and not counting the secondary), they would be like the most OP AT in the game. 

 

Do MM's have issues? Of course. Will making upgrades auto fix them? No, not really. Not to mention the other potential havoc it would wreak on the game and other AT's. 

 

I am not a hardcore gamer, a min/maxer, or whatever, but I sure do not want to keep seeing people actively trying to make this game even easier than it already is. Even worse is requests coming from people looking to actively degress an AT simply because they do not like nor understand it. If the whole upgrade thing is a mountain you want to die on, then please, MM's are not the AT for you and you should go play a crabbermind or controller or something.

 

I have always loved pet classes--they're usually my default in any game I play that offers them--however, MM's always sort of eluded me back on live because of their complexity. Upon my return, they are probably my most played AT. But I am by no means a master of them; I'm still pretty novice compared to people like @TheSpiritFox who live, breathe, and eat MM's. Are his posts a bit abrasive? Sure, but that doesn't mean that they aren't super knowledgeable and seem to actively know what they are talking about. 

 

But please, to you and everyone like you who keeps making these absurd and rather baseless requests, please stop trying to advocate changes for an AT that you do not understand. Building a character and playing this game should require some level of thought. If you do not want to put the time in to really get how to play an MM, then please go play some other AT. I don't go around the boards to the other AT's that I can't figure out asking for changes that would seem like a good QoL but actually be detrimental. I just cannot seem to figure out HEAT's--I figure that just means they're not the AT for me and call it a day. I may fiddle with them on occasion, but I try not to complain and try to seek out info on what I am doing wrong and could improve.

 

In other MM news, has anyone else fiddled with Mercs on the beta to see if the new changes to Full Auto have helped them? On a whim I created a Mercs/Thermal MM, bumped her to 40 and threw some IO's in her. Currently running missions at 0/x3, went up against CoT and managed nicely. But then I realized, I don't play mercs all that heavily on live to properly be able to try and compare how the damage output feels now. >_<

[DreadShinobi]

Lol damn the hostility is hot here. Don't ever disagree with @TheSpiritFox . Like does proving that a certain archetype in a game is your life purpose really need to be so emotionally charged and do you even read what you type?

 

Btw whether you're right or the other guy is right about the direction of the game really gets lost when you shove it down their throat. Just because you spend more time playing this archetype than anyone else doesnt mean others who do not play MMs or tend to not like the archetype dont have valid reasons either or might enjoy populating the class if they were different.

[Arbegla]

39 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

Lol damn the hostility is hot here.

 

I mean, it basically boils down to "L2p MMs kthxbye" which is a very fair assessment. Masterminds in City of Heroes is a very unique class, built around pet management in a way that literally no other MMO, and even very few single player games have done.

 

Masterminds not just get Supremacy, which is a pretty nice +tohit/+Dam buff to their pets at all times, but they also get Bodyguard mode, which is a damage split mechanic that allows a Mastermind to have a substantially larger effective hit point pool than any other AT. With the right IOs, and recharge, you can tank anything that does resistible damage, and interestingly enough, bodyguard mode still protects you from un-resistible damage types as well, like Hamidon (though that's kinda a bad example, due to all of Hamidon's attacks being AoEs, but you get the idea). It also applies any defense/resistance you have before the split, so you double dip in ways that make most DoTs just tickle.

 

With layered mitigation, and the fact that bodyguard mode activates before the pets are even target-able, you can 'refresh' your bodyguard mode on the fly. Upgrading the pets just allows your meat shields to actually deal decent damage, and have a true attack chain.

[Coyote]

10 hours ago, kelika2 said:

whats engaging or balancing about rebuffing every dead pet?  all your arguments so far have just been "just cuz"

 

I don't want to speak about "engaging" because that's a player preference thing. But for balance, here is the reason:

 

A MM who doesn't take or use attacks does about 66% of their max damage via their pets. Pets take no animation time on the part of the MM in order for them to do their damage. If an MM gets stuck in having to spam heals or debuffs, they are still doing a good portion of their max damage (and even 100% of it, if they didn't take personal attacks).

 

Other ATs who switch to a full-defensive mode using their secondaries generally stop doing damage, or only what they are doing with their secondary. This means that the animation-time pressure on MMs is lower than every other AT in the game... they can switch to spending 0% of their time doing damage, and STILL do most of their damage.

 

Now, a MM loses a henchman here and there, and has to re-summon... the % of their time that they use in summoning and buffing is still lower than every other AT unless somehow they're spending 50% of their time resummoning (basically, a full resummons every 20 seconds or so). So even with time taken to summon and buff, they still have by far the lowest animation pressure from their damage primary.

 

And people still ask to lower this because there is too much time spent on buffing? How don't you realize that it's not reasonable compared to how other ATs have to choose between animating heals or attacks?

[kelika2]

11 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

 You didn't read my arguments. At all. You didn't respond to anything I actually said.

 

I read a few of them, but they were invalid because they were not engaging enough.  And the ones that i skimmed were borderline anecdotal at best.  and yeah that one really long post was totally ignored.

 

I still stand by that rebuffing pets all the time adds no flavor or fun to the game.  Auto buffing of pets, or even something new to the thread:

 

Take a page from Fortify Pack to where just buying the ability unlocks a power and spread other pet abilities out over personal attacks and change current buff powers into other personal attacks.

 

1.)  This will add a unique flavor that the other servers dont have

2.)  Will add some new life to the archetype

3.)  Force people to build and respec differently

[kelika2]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

And people still ask to lower this because there is too much time spent on buffing? How don't you realize that it's not reasonable compared to how other ATs have to choose between animating heals or attacks?

Because the gigantic thing people tend to forget is that pets are not effected by + or - rech effects and pets tend to have some "dead" time where their powers are recharging

 

As for the players choice to decide between attack or defend, its like the corruptor, defender, controller and sometimes dominator (sets where its available anyways) and nothing can be done about it unless its level 30+ content and there is more than one melee on the team with softcapped everything laying waste in which case, attacking most of the time for you.

 

And for the poor unfortunate newer masterminds who do not or cannot softcap their pets in end game and the incoming summoning timer changes will be spending all their time summoning, and, buffing.

"Oh but if you cant accept that summoning and buffing is just slang for attacking or defending like other ATs, why not play other ATs?", is what you might say.

 

And I do.  I do not play my masterminds outside of leveling content or a kill through ITF due to the many many drawbacks of being a mastermind.  Auto buffing of pets would help tremendously for my ability to help speed targets/final rooms.  But I stick to brutes/blasters/corrs for the most part due to the severe imbalance of power.  11 masterminds just shelved waiting.

Edited March 15, 2021 by kelika2

[kelika2]

9 hours ago, Arbegla said:

Followup questions, why aren't brutes at max fury right off the bat? Why do defenders lose damage in groups? Why can't blasters use their AoEs while mezzed? Why are scrappers resistance cap the same as a controller? Why do controllers only get containment on certain mezzed mobs? Why can't corruptors scourge until the mob is at half health? Why hasn't Regen been nerfed more?

 

Seriously, you simply don't know enough, or are too lazy to ask the real questions.

Brutes do since the patch, one alpha strike from a large group gets you damn near 80% fury

In the case of defender that 30% is smaller than you think due to their base damage being low as it is

breakfrees/rune, early level blastering trays are mostly BFs

controller has a harder time getting to caps

some enemies are mechanically rooted

the corruptor thing doesnt really click as an arguement

regen gets nerfed everytime something else gets a buff or a new set comes out, you know this to be true.  Yes the Rooted change on beta is a nerf to regen secondaries.  With Rooted providing Regen, and Stone armor having dull pain, all it needs is to have the s/l auto turned into Rock Polish to mimic Reconstruction.

 

And lightly enough calling me dumb to be slightly outside the grasp of a personal attack is just silly.

Edited March 15, 2021 by kelika2
root

[The_Warpact]

33 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

I read a few of them, but they were invalid because they were not engaging enough.  And the ones that i skimmed were borderline anecdotal at best.  and yeah that one really long post was totally ignored.

 

This right here is why no one will ever respect or give your reasoning any serious thought or consideration. 

Besides the devs said it wasn't going to happen so put that on your wishlist of shit your never going to get.

[VV]

On 3/13/2021 at 1:18 PM, WindDemon21 said:

Having to waste any time upgrading especially in battle is just a huge annoyance, especially when you have to sit there and wait for them to even be targettable before you can buff them.

I mean, this is true of any power, though. Why not just make all powers auto and we can just go make a sandwich while the computers fight it out? Like with Blasters, I cannot stand having to pop two BUs before and during each fight. On most good, fast-moving teams, by the time I pop them, the mob is mostly gone. I could go in without them, of course, but then I am not doing Blaster level damage, so what's the point? All the ATs have these little annoyances, that is part of the game. Which annoyances do you tolerate for which benefits?