Mastermind primary: Shades

[Luminara]

Since this Praetor Duncan mission is sooooooooooooooooooo tedious, and Duncan has the AI of a turnip (bitch can't follow an un-Stealthed character moving without Sprint, and some genius decided to use the Founder's Falls safeguard map?  i'm one ramp away from smacking someone), my brain started strolling down some odd paths.  I don't know exactly what I was thinking at that moment, but it occurred to me that mastermind henches which slowly "faded away", needing combat in order to remain "alive", could be an interesting concept for the game.  And I realized we can already do this.

 

Crey Geneticists have that Reanimate power which resurrects fallen spawn members, but also slowly ticks away their HP.

 

Sentinels have that lol-heal in Opportunity.

 

Throw those two into a blender and stick a little umbrella on it.  Now we have henches which, from the moment they're summoned, begin to "die", but as long as they're attacking enemies, they're healing themselves, omnomnoming on life force or kidneys or sex hormones or however you want to imagine it, keeping themselves alive.

 

We take the Haunts from Darkness Control, give them these two mechanics and slap that down as the first hench summon (with a third hench, obviously, and minus the Self Destruct entry).  Either the lieutenant Ghosts from Necromancy or the essences from Warshade Dark Extraction would fit thematically for the second henches (also minus Self Destruct), and a succubus would work for the third.  All of them tick down their HP, like Reanimated Crey, but also "steal" HP with the Opportunity mechanic (WITHOUT needing to fill up a bar, just attach the heal to their attacks).

 

I think both of the hench improvement powers should add -ToHit to their attacks, or include some other means of increasing their survivability so they're not in need of constant healing.  Nothing extravagant, just a bit to balance out the constant HP depletion in concert with the mini-heals so they aren't one-shot fodder.

 

Now we toss in three crappy attacks for the Mastermind and a thematically appropriate T7 and we have a new mastermind primary with an interesting twist, using nothing that isn't already in the game (mechanics, models, animations, powers).

 

Okay, back to the ramp torture.

[The_Warpact]

That...is a interesting concept. /kin would be a fantastic secondary. 

[Luminara]

Thinking about it some more, this would also work with Freakshow, as there are known complications, including degradation of health over time, resulting from implants and drug use.  A Freakstermind would be relatively easy to implement.  The KB and Stuns in Freakshow attacks would supplement the mini-heal instead of an attached -ToHit.

 

Another applicable possibility would be diseased henches.  The illness eats away at them, and they transmit it through different vectors (touch, air (Cone of Whatever)), trading the -ToHit for DoTs and -End/-Recovery/-Regen/Rchg to represent the illness, while feeding off of their victims' health to stave off death (and this illness could fit any of the origins).  The Coralax models would work well for this, as would the Vahzilok models.

 

A lot of ways this could work without being supernatural.

[Rudra]

This is an amusing suggestion. Could be lots of fun to play. Any ideas what the MM's personal attacks would be? Or the T7?

[TygerDarkstorm]

I think the idea of this is super fascinating. Would healing the henchmen from the MM's secondary help keep them alive? Or is it strictly from their lifestealing nature? If we can't heal them to help keep them up, I can see that being a potential issue once they start level shifting.

[Rudra]

I would figure that heals would affect them normally. Otherwise... not gonna be so good to play....

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

Any ideas what the MM's personal attacks would be? Or the T7?

 

Entirely dependent on the henches.  We wouldn't want direct copies of Necromancy if we went with shades, for instance, but I'm sure we could come up with something interesting if we put our heads together.  A cone power could be animated with the bats from the aura, but given the attributes from Tenebrous Tentacles, and named Summon Colony, and there we go, we have our T5 for shades.

 

The henches are the bread and butter of every mastermind set.  Let's nail those down, then fill out the primary.

[Rudra]

Why not just run with the idea? I really like the bat burst cone attack for the 3rd MM personal attack. Could also just make the 2nd personal attack a short-lived, as in instant duration, shadow that rises next to the target and strikes before dissipating. Like an incomplete henchman. Maybe make the 1st personal attack a single bat made of shadow that flies at and impacts the target.

 

Rather fond of the henches as you've already described though.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I think the idea of this is super fascinating. Would healing the henchmen from the MM's secondary help keep them alive? Or is it strictly from their lifestealing nature? If we can't heal them to help keep them up, I can see that being a potential issue once they start level shifting.

 

Of course they could be healed.  The whole concept would be a dead end if they couldn't.  The Opportunity mechanic would only be capable of keeping them from dying from the built-in damage over time, they're still going to be taking damage from combat and need buffs/debuffs/heals.

[Rudra]

Oh! Since you're undecided on the lieutenant forms, what about using the Unseelie models for the lieutenants?

 

Edit: ... they are all lieutenants... I meant use the Unseelie for the T2 pets....

Edited May 1, 2022 by Rudra

[TygerDarkstorm]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

Of course they could be healed.  The whole concept would be a dead end if they couldn't.  The Opportunity mechanic would only be capable of keeping them from dying from the built-in damage over time, they're still going to be taking damage from combat and need buffs/debuffs/heals.

Right, I suppose it does seem an obvious thing, which does answer part of my question. What I should have worded better was does the MM's secondary (if they took one with a heal), allow them to directly affect the built-in damage over time effect. e.g., If say, I want to stand in AP with my pets out from this primary, could I say, leave the heal aura from empathy on auto cast as a means of keeping them from dying because I'm not in combat?

 

I was just curious to the full extent that the built-in damage over time effect can be combated by the MM themself. As described, these are almost like henchmen you would summon right as you go into combat, which for MM's, is a bit tough. By the time we summon all three tiers and buff them, much of the combat is over (if you're teaming).

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Right, I suppose it does seem an obvious thing, which does answer part of my question. What I should have worded better was does the MM's secondary (if they took one with a heal), allow them to directly affect the built-in damage over time effect. e.g., If say, I want to stand in AP with my pets out from this primary, could I say, leave the heal aura from empathy on auto cast as a means of keeping them from dying because I'm not in combat?

 

I wouldn't set the damage over time to be so fast or strong that they'd die quickly, because that would make buff/debuff secondaries with no heal next to impossible to play with the set.  That's not the way I envisioned this when it popped into my head.  If I were the one fiddling with the power definitions, I'd set the DoT to give the henches a lifespan of at least four minutes without healing before they reached 0 HP, and I'd make the Opportunity mechanic equal the DoT.  So, using 1017 HP as a reference number, if they lost 4.23 HP/s, they'd recover 4.23 HP/s under normal combat conditions (17 HP heal attached to a 4s recharge attack), giving them potentially infinite lifespan during combat (presuming the mastermind's ability to mitigate combat damage), and outside of combat, they'd have a lifespan of 4 minutes before they'd expire without mastermind intervention.

 

It's just a flavorful way to utilize two complementary mechanics for the creation of a new and unique mastermind primary, not pressure to race into every spawn before the henches die.  Or a punishment for not being in combat (RPing in AP, for example).

[TygerDarkstorm]

4 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

I wouldn't set the damage over time to be so fast or strong that they'd die quickly, because that would make buff/debuff secondaries with no heal next to impossible to play with the set.  That's not the way I envisioned this when it popped into my head.  If I were the one fiddling with the power definitions, I'd set the DoT to give the henches a lifespan of at least four minutes without healing before they reached 0 HP, and I'd make the Opportunity mechanic equal the DoT.  So, using 1017 HP as a reference number, if they lost 4.23 HP/s, they'd recover 4.23 HP/s under normal combat conditions (17 HP heal attached to a 4s recharge attack), giving them potentially infinite lifespan during combat (presuming the mastermind's ability to mitigate combat damage), and outside of combat, they'd have a lifespan of 4 minutes before they'd expire without mastermind intervention.

 

It's just a flavorful way to utilize two complementary mechanics for the creation of a new and unique mastermind primary, not pressure to race into every spawn before the henches die.  Or a punishment for not being in combat (RPing in AP, for example).

Like I said, I really like the idea. I think it's a cool and unique approach to MM henchmen. This was just something I was curious about, so thank you for the detailed answers.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Oh! Since you're undecided on the lieutenant forms, what about using the Unseelie models for the lieutenants?

 

Edit: ... they are all lieutenants... I meant use the Unseelie for the T2 pets....

 

Whatever the majority would be happy with.  I'm not digging a moat around this idea to prevent anyone else from touching it, I think it would be best to let everyone interested make their own suggestions and the group come to unified conclusions.  It was the mechanics that caught my eye and made me think of it, the rest is up to you and everyone else.  Shades, Freakshow, Zombie Crey Tanks from Outer Space, Unseelie Court, it's all good.

[Rudra]

Ooh! If the MM personal attacks were bats, bat-like shadow forms that fly at and impact the target, and they could be colored bright, I could finally make that character correctly! Please, devs! Give this suggestion some thought!

[TheZag]

I wouldnt go with hp drain all the time.  But i would go with the t7 adding that effect.  It could be a click or a toggle but the values would be slightly different depending on which made the cut.

 

Click - duration 60 seconds,  cooldown 120 seconds.  Henchmen -1% hp/sec,  +0.5% hp on hit,  +to-hit,  +damage, +defense

 

Toggle - cooldown 30 seconds.  Henchmen -1% hp/sec for 20 seconds and increasing by 1% for each 20 seconds the toggle is left on,  +1% hp on hit(unresistable), +to-hit,  +damage,  +defense.  20% resistance to healing that increases by 20% for each 20 seconds the power is left on.

 

The click version is meant for henchmen to only slowly lose hp but not die since many secondaries dont heal and soloing would be awful.

 

The toggle version would have values for to-hit, damage and defense increase the longer the power is left on but drain the henchmen faster over time as well.  Eventually you would need to turn it off or the henchmen will die.  Their lifesteal attack will still heal but outside healing will slowly become less effective and they will drain hp faster and faster.  Its meant to make the toggle a choice and not something that is just mindlessly left on all the time.

 

I think it would fit with the theme and give a way for the henchmen to not die in periods of no combat.

Edit: Im also not a number cruncher,  so the numbers above are just to give a feel for how the power could work and would need actual balance adjusting.

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by TheZag