A few simple, yet major aid to MMs

[aelgus]

1) Make inspirations used by an MM effect all of his minions. 

 

Currently, inspirations are nearly useless to MMs.  Giving them individually to a minion generally isn't enough to make a difference in a fight, not to mention very slow in application as you must drag and drop (hopefully) on the minion you wanted it to go to, and not another.

 

2) Minion hitbox / size greatly reduced, and add combat teleport when within range.

 

I've found ranged minions to really be the only viable ones, as the melee minions always run back and forth, getting stuck all the time typically far away from the fray.  Giving them less collision and granting them an ability to get into the fight is grossly needed.

 

3) Allow changes to the MMs run speed / jump speed to effect minions, and at a higher rate.

 

They always fall behind, not only due to bad pathing, but also because of how slow they are.  Having them be impacted by this at a higher rate increases their ability to "catchup" on their own to the MM while also being able to respond to the MMs commands more effectively.  I would recommend disabling the "higher rate" aspect only during PvP.  When pairing kinetics with melee minions, I notice they actually make it to the fight before its over in a team.

 

4) Automatic pet resurrection

 

They explode in 1 hit a lot on 50+4 missions, requiring you to spend a bit of time to just get back to 100%.  If they resurrect fully (all buffs/upgrades/etc.) after every time you "exit combat" would be a huge quality of life boon to MMs.

 

Thank you for considering them, and I love what you're doing with the game!

Edited April 23, 2021 by aelgus

[arcane]

About #1, I think it could be a good change, but inspirations are extremely powerful, so I think you might have to compromise a tad bit on effectively applying 7 inspirations at once for the cost of one. I would suggest beta testing where the pets receive 50% of the inspiration value and tweaking from there.

[Monos King]

11 hours ago, aelgus said:

1) Make inspirations used by an MM effect all of his minions. 

This is nice, but would actually be exceedingly OP. The subject has come up before though, and as arcane said, their potency would have to be divided when shared in this manner.

[Leogunner]

They could create a mechanic with MM's specifically where you can "craft" inspirations that don't affect the user but affect all your minions at once.  Like 1 of each level of the same type of inspiration gives a character-limited inspiration (so you can't sell it) specifically for your minions so you'd still need to dedicate effort to bolstering your minions and bolstering yourself.  Having only one version of this type of inspirations means you're not looking at the ridiculous numbers of the highest type inspiration but you can get multiples to closer simulate the effect over time.  

[MTeague]

#4 is probably not going to happen. 

I can't find the thread, but I think they pretty much explicitly said you should need to rebuff your pets after you resummon them.

Although.... You do have a bit of a twist on it by saying after every time you "exit combat". Maybe after the fights over, they'd see that as a "sure, fine"?

 

#2+#3 I'm agnostic on. I haven't seen it be an issue for me personally, but I *do* use some of the faster moving pet types (Ninjas and Beasts) and their AI has seemed pretty good for getting into melee.  I don't see any harm in it, certainly. 

 

#1 .... I get what you're saying.... I mean, I do claim any Team Inspirations I get from Superpacks on my MM's.  I'm not sure the devs want to go there, but I could see an argument for it in that the pets basically ARE your damage powers, you popping a red and having it buff your pets is "kinda" like a blaster popping a red and then having stronger blasts.

[srmalloy]

40 minutes ago, Monos King said:

This is nice, but would actually be exceedingly OP. The subject has come up before though, and as arcane said, their potency would have to be divided when shared in this manner.

Okay, let's turn it around the other way, and change all -- let's say just yellows and reds -- so that when you use the inspiration, you have to pick the one power that the inspiration will be applied to, and none of your other powers are affected. Because that's what MMs have to do when they use inspirations on their pets.

[Monos King]

35 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Okay, let's turn it around the other way, and change all -- let's say just yellows and reds -- so that when you use the inspiration, you have to pick the one power that the inspiration will be applied to, and none of your other powers are affected. Because that's what MMs have to do when they use inspirations on their pets.

Yes, I play masterminds. It's similar but ultimately a false equivalence. Each of a masterminds pets has a whole slew of abilities, assets, proc potentials, that distinguish it from being "one power", and contribute to MMs having near unrivaled Single target damage potential. Not to mention pets are not just damage vehicles. MMs are balanced (poorly) around the survivability of these potentially meat grinding pets. If everytime you used any inspiration it applied to pets, they would quickly become completely invulnerable. Pets have tank and brute res/def ceilings. 

 

While the survivability of some pets needs to be intensely revised, being able to augment all of them along with the summoner is just fast track to overperformance. However, it is true that it is currently highly inconvenient to give insps one at a time. If clicking on an insp gave the full effect to the caster, and smaller effects to the pets, it would be an overall performance increase as the buffs would become more immediate and accessible.