2nd MM Sweep Wishlist & New Primary Idea

[illunic]

Firstly great job on the first pass of MM changes, a lot of the original  4 primaries feel much better.  There are a few things I would like to see happen unit wise, mechanics wise and power wise. Lets get started with probably one of the biggest ones.

 

Pet IO Auras

These need help, with how squishy pets are, especially melee,  these are considered by many a requirement which means if you do not have a 'aura mule' power you are going to sacrifice your limited pet slots for them.  There are a few suggestions to fix this, one of the more popular ones is make the MM Supremacy passive slot-able so you can use it as the mule power.  Another idea I have seen thrown around on the discord is just a removal of these aura IOs and just giving the resist/def bonuses as a default to the Supremacy passive.  Personally I would like to see the second one implemented remove the aura buffs from IOs and change the ATO into something more interesting, maybe some global damage or heal on hit proc.

 

Pet AoE Interaction

Pet suitability did get a decent boos with the first MM changes, being able slot the upgrades to improve resist/damage is a great idea and it did help a lot for non endgame stuff.  Endgame however is still kind of the same story, some EB or AV claps his thunder thighs together and one shots all your minions that are in range and if you are a melee based primary you are in range. I thought a bit on how to do this that wouldn't result in pets being over tuned and virtually immortal. A lot of other pet classes in other MMOs have their pets survive by being immune to non direct targeted attacks, basically AoE immunity.  With how CoX is though feel like that might be overdoing it, but instead a hefty resistance to all non targeted attacks (maybe like 90% res). This way things like AV AoE attacks and other pet melting attacks dont just instantly take the MM out of the fight damage-wise but instead give them time to react to their minions taking damage.  At the same time they will retain the squishiness in an event they they get targeted by a mob.  I know 90% much be high but it is probably going to be more after watching my t1's get OHKO'd by a thunderclap. Which leads me to the next point.

 

Pet Levels

Probably tied with or ahead of the Pet IO Aura's in terms of being asked for.  Running +4 content and having your t1s be 6 levels below the monsters you are fighting is terrible for damage and pet survival. I don't know if its so far into the spaghetti code that its unchangeable or what but I do not think it would be any game breaking change to bring t1s and t2s up to even con with the MM, hell take the t3 down a pet so its even con'd as well if you feel like that'll help balance out the damage.

 

Pet Collision

They have already made the change where MM pets cant body block teammates it is time to go the rest of the way and make it so MM pets cannot body block each other. This will help more so the melee based primaries such as Necro/Ninja/Beast with damage as the henchmen will not be pushing themselves around all the time trying to get an attack in. 

 

Individual Henchmen Changes

First off this is only going to be about the primaries that got changed with the first pass since I do not know what changes are in store for the rest of the sets. There are only two real changes that stick out at the moment:

 

          Medic: The Mercenary primary has probably had the biggest boost from the patch, going from the most under powered primary to actually being kinda not garbage.  One unit that seems to have been overlooked is the t1 Medic, he got combat changes but his 'medical' abilities seems to have remained the same.  His lackluster heal and the CC stimulant that he seems to cast on cooldown regardless of combat status.  Instead how about we give him a small and spam-able henchmen only heal over time, a big emergency heal on a long CD that can target the MM, and maybe a long duration henchmen only +regen / +recovery buff.

 

         Oni: Another one that doesn't seem to have changed much.  The biggest issue people seem to have with him is his AoE immobilize giving KB protection and removing survival tools that utilize KD/KB like bonfire or attacks from the t1s / t2s. Easiest thing would of course be to remove that KB protection but if that is not possible maybe replace the skill with a different AoE attack like Combustion or Fire Sword Circle

 

Some Secondary Changes

Some interaction changes I would like to see is letting you apply the enemy toggle-able AoEs on henchman as well.  Things like Snow Storm, Radiation Infection,  Darkest Night, it would allow for both a mobile AoE debuff zone but it would also help improve survive ability of melee henchmen by ensuring  that the mobs they are engaging are always in the debuff range

Edited November 1, 2022 by illunic

[illunic]

The Infection

This started off as an idea to rework of the necromancer primary but I figured it would be better just to make a new primary instead of getting replacing a current one.  So some of the attacks are going to be blatantly copy-pasta'd from zombies because I cannot think of a skill to replace it with at the moment.  Theme is pretty much going to be utilizing "The Infected" enemies as a replacement for zombies. The idea is instead of a standard MM pet tier tree this is going to use a more 'horde' style of play using only t1 pets.  The pet cap will start at 2 and increase by 1 every 10 levels and a bonus 1 at level cap leaving you with 8 total mobs at 50. Now how they work will be a little different so ill explain it in the skills below.  Not the best idea but I do like the idea of a more horde based gameplay.

 

• Infection Dart - Standard T1 Blast, Lethal Damage,  will apply the Infection Debuff (30s duration, 10% slow, no damage, does not stack).  Animation kinda like the Crossbow that the Vahzilok use.  

 

 

• Call Infected - Toggle ability, will summon a maximum of 1/2/3 even con infected at levels 1/12/18 respectively.  In addition while this toggle is active any mod that dies with the Infection debuff on them will summon an additional even con infected up to the current pet cap is reached. Infected are Infected and as a result outside healing is only 25% effective.

                            Starting Attacks:

                                         Brawl - Standard melee smack

                                         Infected Bite - Smash damage with small Energy DoT, applies Infection.

 

 

• Toxic Dart - Generic T3 Blast, Lethal Damage, Moderate Toxic DoT will apply the Infection.

 

 

• Enhance Infection - Autopower, First Henchmen Upgrade, Resistance Enhanceable Grants:

                                 Resistances - Smashing Lethal and Energy resists

                                 Revolver - Ranged Lethal, The standard infected minion ranged attack

                                 Irradiated Vomit - Basically the zombie melee ranged AoE vomit, applies Infection.

 

 

• Splintering  Dart - Targeted AoE, Lethal Damage, does NOT infect.

 

 

• Expunge Infected - Detonates a targeted henchmen for considerable damage and a KB to enemies around it.

 

 

• Safety in Numbers - Short range PBAoE around Henchmen that buff other henchmen's Resistance and Regen. Stacks with itself.  Idea is that if they are all near  each other  and this is cast is should provide a massive survival boost for its duration. Long CD, not perma-able.

 

 

• Call from Below - Long Cooldown, summons Infected until the pet cap is reached. Used for times when you need to reach the max number of summons and there are not mobs around to infect, like long duration AV fights.

 

 

• Augment Infection - Autopower, Second Henchment Upgrade, Damage Enhanceable Grants:

                                   Infected Strike - Smash / Energy -Def

                                   Immunocompromisation - Passive, 20% Damage Increase to Infected Enemies (half enhanceable)

                                   Infectious Eruption  - PBAoE Toxic/Energy DoT. Long CD

 

 

So thats it, basically a slight twist on the normal MM idea. Let me know what you think if its a decent idea, or I am an idiot. Thanks for reading

Edited November 1, 2022 by illunic

[Rudra]

Pet IO Auras: You can slot them as part of the set and get the set bonuses too. There are 6 pet bonus procs and you get 3 pet powers. That's 2 different sets 3-slotted each on each pet power. No need for mules. Or build larger sets and leave 1 or 2 open slots on 2 of the pet powers to throw the procs in alone.

 

Pet AoE Interaction: AoEs are often the only way to take on MMs and have any chance against them. A MM in Bodyguard mode is very difficult to take down, unless the opponent has high damage AoEs to clear the pets and make the MM vulnerable. And with how quickly MMs can spam their summons these days, sometimes even that isn't enough.

 

Pet Levels: While I would like to see MM pets be more useful in high end content, the game is not designed around players being able to clear +4 content. Designing the ATs to be able to clear +4 content negates the whole point of the difficulty system.

 

Pet Collision: Yeah, not having the pets just knocking each other around would be nice. I would rather a different fix than no more pet collisions though. Like maybe better pet AI/pathfinding, which they really need. Otherwise we wind up with pets standing in each other. Pets still have collision with players too. They just can't impede players any more.

 

Oni: I like my onis. Hands off their abilities. They work very well for me.

 

 

[illunic]

58 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Pet IO Auras: You can slot them as part of the set and get the set bonuses too. There are 6 pet bonus procs and you get 3 pet powers. That's 2 different sets 3-slotted each on each pet power. No need for mules. Or build larger sets and leave 1 or 2 open slots on 2 of the pet powers to throw the procs in alone.

 

Pet AoE Interaction: AoEs are often the only way to take on MMs and have any chance against them. A MM in Bodyguard mode is very difficult to take down, unless the opponent has high damage AoEs to clear the pets and make the MM vulnerable. And with how quickly MMs can spam their summons these days, sometimes even that isn't enough.

 

Pet Levels: While I would like to see MM pets be more useful in high end content, the game is not designed around players being able to clear +4 content. Designing the ATs to be able to clear +4 content negates the whole point of the difficulty system.

 

Pet Collision: Yeah, not having the pets just knocking each other around would be nice. I would rather a different fix than no more pet collisions though. Like maybe better pet AI/pathfinding, which they really need. Otherwise we wind up with pets standing in each other. Pets still have collision with players too. They just can't impede players any more.

 

Oni: I like my onis. Hands off their abilities. They work very well for me.

 

 

 

Pet AoE: I am strictly talking PvE stuff. I have absolutely zero experience with the PvP aspect of this game so I am not going to pretend that anything I recommended is for the PvP side of things.  Hopefully they could make some change where it either only applies in PvE or some middle ground where they arent immortal in PvP and I dont have to deal with spamming resummons during AV fights as my main method of -gameplay-

 

Pet Levels: This is more on the AoE damage again I suppose, and somewhat on the t1 minion damage. I am not looking to solo clear +4 stuff,  I am just looking to want to survive some of the pet one shot stuff that occurs when there is a 6 level difference between my t1 minions whatever I am slapping. Some of the things that come to mind are the Arachnos Psi AoE, Freakshow Self Res and Mobs that have an explosion on death feature. I am not looking to just shrug that off but at the same time I would like to have some kind of counterplay to it and yes I have tried recalling my minions before to avoid the AoE explosions from things like the Crystals in ITF but damn if that recall command feels more like a suggestion because they take their god damn time listening to it, then again that could be contributed to AI problems again.

 

Oni: Only problem I have with Oni is that -knockback on its AoE immobilize. Get rid of that mess, watching it not only negate the knockback from t1 and the 2 knock ups from the t2 as well as any KD I want to throw out is depressing.

Edited November 1, 2022 by illunic

[Rudra]

Pet AoE: I made no mention of PvP in my post. I don't PvP. In PvE, in Bodyguard mode, my MMs can safely solo basically anything in the game. Only when targets break out a high damage AoEs or CC AoEs to clear out my pets do I really have to start worrying about how I am going to tackle the target. Take away the AoE threat to MMs? And they basically have no threats to them any more. Unless the target specifically attacks each pet to clear them out, they can't threaten a MM in Bodyguard mode. And MMs have insanely fast recharge for their summons. So AoE threats is the only real way to challenge the MM.

 

Pet Levels: See the AoE bit about AoEs. The only damaging Freakshow self-rez is the Super Stunners that self-rez by draining health from targets around them. CoT bosses and Hordelings are the only mobs I know that go boom on defeat. And that can be prevented by killing them before they actually go boom or by having a DoT in the area to disrupt their going boom. Shadow Shards/Crystals can be avoided by monitoring their health and recalling your pets out of the explosion radius before they pop. Or by having a high enough defense that the explosion misses the pets.

 

Oni: We have vastly different takes on the Oni's abilities. I personally like having the immob. It doesn't faze me in the least if the immob also prevents KB. Especially since the only mobs I care about using knock against are largely immune to it anyway. If anything, the -KB of the Oni keeps my ninjas from knocking things away and drawing more aggro I am not ready for. So, no. Do not get rid of the -KB. It works for me. Very well.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, illunic said:

The Infection

This started off as an idea to rework of the necromancer primary but I figured it would be better just to make a new primary instead of getting replacing a current one.  So some of the attacks are going to be blatantly copy-pasta'd from zombies because I cannot think of a skill to replace it with at the moment.  Theme is pretty much going to be utilizing "The Infected" enemies as a replacement for zombies. The idea is instead of a standard MM pet tier tree this is going to use a more 'horde' style of play using only t1 pets.  The pet cap will start at 2 and increase by 1 every 10 levels and a bonus 1 at level cap leaving you with 8 total mobs at 50. Now how they work will be a little different so ill explain it in the skills below.  Not the best idea but I do like the idea of a more horde based gameplay.

 

• Infection Dart - Standard T1 Blast, Lethal Damage,  will apply the Infection Debuff (30s duration, 10% slow, no damage, does not stack).  Animation kinda like the Crossbow that the Vahzilok use.  

 

 

• Call Infected - Toggle ability, will summon a maximum of 1/2/3 infected at levels 1/12/18 respectively.  In addition while this toggle is active any mod that dies with the Infection debuff on them will summon an additional infected up to the current pet cap is reached.

                            Starting Attacks:

                                         Brawl - Standard melee smack

                                         Infected Bite - Smash damage with small Energy DoT, applies Infection.

 

 

• Toxic Dart - Generic T3 Blast, Lethal Damage, Moderate Toxic DoT will apply the Infection.

 

 

• Enhance Infection - Autopower, First Henchmen Upgrade, Resistance Enhanceable Grants:

                                 Resistances - Smashing Lethal and Energy resists

                                 Revolver - Ranged Lethal, The standard infected minion ranged attack

                                 Irradiated Vomit - Basically the zombie melee ranged AoE vomit, applies Infection.

 

 

• Splintering  Dart - Targeted AoE, Lethal Damage, does NOT infect.

 

 

• Expunge Infected - Detonates a targeted henchmen for considerable damage and a KB to enemies around it.

 

 

• Safety in Numbers - Short range PBAoE around Henchmen that buff other henchmen's Resistance and Regen. Stacks with itself.  Idea is that if they are all near  each other  and this is cast is should provide a massive survival boost for its duration. Long CD, not perma-able.

 

 

• Call from Below - Long Cooldown, summons Infected until the pet cap is reached. Used for times when you need to reach the max number of summons and there are not mobs around to infect, like long duration AV fights.

 

 

• Augment Infection - Autopower, Second Henchment Upgrade, Damage Enhanceable Grants:

                                   Siphon Infection - Basically Radiation Siphon, will also heal the henchment if the target is Infected

                                   Immunocompromisation - Passive, 20% Damage Increase to Infected Enemies (half enhanceable)

                                   Infectious Eruption  - PBAoE Toxic/Energy DoT

 

 

So thats it, basically a slight twist on the normal MM idea. Let me know what you think if its a decent idea, or I am an idiot. Thanks for reading

If you don't like the -2 levels T1 pets get when you have all 3 summoned, you are really going to hate the -7 levels of having 8 of them with no T2 or T3 pets.

 

Edit: Especially since anything that levels down your pets kills them, requiring you to re-summon them. If instead it works like a confuse effect, you will lose them when you zone such as by leaving the mission. (And would also require a timer for duration.)

Edit again: Then again, since the calculations are from how many you can have, you would not need to worry about the pets being unsummoned from level loss. They would just be summoned at -7 levels for being able to have 8 at a time. And your converted mobs would then be "killed" (for 0 xp/inf') and summoned as another -7 level pet.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to change -9 to -7and 10 to 8.

[illunic]

17 minutes ago, Rudra said:

If you don't like the -2 levels T1 pets get when you have all 3 summoned, you are really going to hate the -9 levels of having 10 of them with no T2 or T3 pets.

Good point edited.

 

With AoE stuff, I am not looking for make MMs immortal or anything by any means like I mentioned.  I just want an opportunity to react to my pets taking damage that something other than re-summoning them.  I think the summoning CD changes were sped up as a result of how fast henchmen were dying in endgame content and I am hoping to steer away from that in favor of a bit more durable henchmen that can survive a hit or two from high level stuff so i can react.

[weewoozesty]

12 hours ago, Rudra said:

Pet Levels: While I would like to see MM pets be more useful in high end content, the game is not designed around players being able to clear +4 content. Designing the ATs to be able to clear +4 content negates the whole point of the difficulty system.

This here is one of the few things you mention that I disagree with.  Sure they shouldn't be designed to be able to clear +4 content.  But they should at the very least have a fighting chance.  In +4 content your Tier 1 pets are absolutely worthless.  They serve no purpose.  They just die instantly.  And because the enemies are 6 levels above them, rarely land their attacks.

 

This makes Masterminds among their grocery list of issues even less desirable than say another Controller/Dom/Corr etc who brings viable utility and actual good pets into combat.  

 

The mastermind's pets need to have their level scaled up if for any reason so that they have even a remote chance of surviving.  Because as it stands, if a t1 pet so much as gets hit by a bead of sweat off of a +4 enemy.  They just die pretty much instantly.  Specially when it is pets that depend on melee like beasts/zombies/genin.

 

Something needs to  be done so that the pets aren't completely worthless against anything above oranges and reds.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, weewoozesty said:

This here is one of the few things you mention that I disagree with.  Sure they shouldn't be designed to be able to clear +4 content.  But they should at the very least have a fighting chance.  In +4 content your Tier 1 pets are absolutely worthless.  They serve no purpose.  They just die instantly.  And because the enemies are 6 levels above them, rarely land their attacks.

 

This makes Masterminds among their grocery list of issues even less desirable than say another Controller/Dom/Corr etc who brings viable utility and actual good pets into combat.  

 

The mastermind's pets need to have their level scaled up if for any reason so that they have even a remote chance of surviving.  Because as it stands, if a t1 pet so much as gets hit by a bead of sweat off of a +4 enemy.  They just die pretty much instantly.  Specially when it is pets that depend on melee like beasts/zombies/genin.

 

Something needs to  be done so that the pets aren't completely worthless against anything above oranges and reds.

Making MMs welcome on +4 teams is fine with me. However, you cannot design an AT to be good at +4 difficulty. ATs are designed around +0 difficulty, and all the power creep in the game made it so that players think the game is meant to be played at +4. Also, on the times I take my MMs on +4 TFs/SFs? They don't have any problems. I'm not the one to charge in and start the fight, because that is a guaranteed way to get my pets killed off. However, if I play with the understanding that as a MM, my primary role is support, I don't lose my pets even to the +4 crystals on ITFs. They survive just fine when they join the fight after the team Tankers or Brutes start the fight.

 

Making the pets able to keep up with the higher difficulty content is a challenge the MM himself/herself needs to figure out. Would I complain if pets became more survivable? No, not unless it made the MM effectively unkillable. I'm not complaining right now about their improved survivability from the last patch. It was a nice change. You just can't ask for the AT to be changed to deal with +4 content.

[weewoozesty]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Making MMs welcome on +4 teams is fine with me. However, you cannot design an AT to be good at +4 difficulty.

I'm not saying to make them good at +4 difficulty, so much as I am saying to make them a competent member of a team and not a liability.  Sure you can play them as a support.  But by that point you're effectively just a handicapped Defender/Controller/Corruptor who has to babysit their pets to make sure they don't run rampant and aggro an entire room or instantly die.  And then by that time they are instantly dead before you can even heal them.

 

Look at it this way.  A Mastermind's pet is their lifeblood.  Literally.  Since Bodyguard Mode is their bread and butter.  Imagine if as a tank every time something attacked you that your toggles turned off.  It's the same with a mastermind who has to keep resummoning their minions every single fight only for them to instantly die again anyways.

 

There's a very good reason most people flock to certain mastermind primaries.  Because they are the only ones that have some self preservation.  Robots got the protector drones and that repair droid or what ever it's called to bolster defenses to some degree.

Then you have the newly no longer useless Mercenaries who are somewhat competent now, but at the very least had Serum when your pets needed a defensive boost.

 

The others don't fully get that benefit.

Yes. Necromancy gets dark attacks that can lower enemy +tohit. but that's neglected by the fact that the pets them selves tend to fall over like a house of cards.

 

 

The masterminds need help.  As fun as they are to play.  They are usually just seen as a liability in high end content and get glossed over for other support classes.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, weewoozesty said:

Sure you can play them as a support.  But by that point you're effectively just a handicapped Defender/Controller/Corruptor who has to babysit their pets to make sure they don't run rampant and aggro an entire room or instantly die.

When you're playing an MM, pet control is imperative. Solo or on a team, but especially on teams.

 

7 minutes ago, weewoozesty said:

There's a very good reason most people flock to certain mastermind primaries.  Because they are the only ones that have some self preservation.  Robots got the protector drones and that repair droid or what ever it's called to bolster defenses to some degree.

Then you have the newly no longer useless Mercenaries who are somewhat competent now, but at the very least had Serum when your pets needed a defensive boost.

 

The others don't fully get that benefit.

You're missing some of the other changes. Like how ninjas can have their pet defenses enhanced now by slotting Train Ninjas with defense enhancements/sets. Also, the MMs secondaries come into play. Powers like Shadow Fall from dark which impose a -ToHit debuff in its radius or Darkest Night for the bosses/AVs. And Dark Servant from the same pool that also uses Darkest Night. Or Force Field Generator from Traps, Arctic Fog from Cold Domination, and so forth. Pet survivability has been added to the primaries, but was already available in the secondaries.

 

11 minutes ago, weewoozesty said:

The masterminds need help.

I seem to be in the minority on this, but I disagree. MMs do exceedingly well for themselves. MMs can even solo +4 content, but it is difficult and very slow. At least to me.

 

12 minutes ago, weewoozesty said:

They are usually just seen as a liability in high end content and get glossed over for other support classes.

I would really like to see this perception changed. MMs are a solid class that works very well solo and benefits teams. They are just an AT that requires a lot of work on the player's part. The reason I see MMs not being welcome on teams is because the team leader or members don't want to deal with the pets getting in their way. Which has not been an issue since Live when the pets were changed so that they would get pushed out of the way by any character, including each other. MMs are the only AT that can focus on supporting the team and be doing damage at the same time because of the plethora of pets they get. And with the near instantaneous recharge of the pet summon powers, even getting pets wiped out while on a team is less than traumatic because the MM just summons more pets.

[weewoozesty]

They can resummon pets.  But without taking the time to also rebuff them.  Those resummoned pets are pretty much useless.

 

The problem with the pet survival as you mentioned above isn't so much that the mastermind can buff them it's that the pet levels are so low compared to stuff you'll be fighting in high end content that the enemies usually just blow straight through the defenses.  While the pets them  selves struggle to land attacks.  Even in low end content to some degree they can struggle.  

 

Controlling the pets is imperative yes.  And it should be on the forefront.  But the issue comes up when you are trying to juggle your self as a support and babysit them.  Specially against enemies that run fast that's not as detrimental though as the other stuff.  It's a bit of a complicated problem to fix entirely, but a simple and effective solution would be simply increasing the level of the tier 1 pets so that they atleast get a fighting chance and better balance a mastermind across the board.  The tier 2 pets arent that bad and the tier 3 pets are usually alright where they are.  But tier 1 pets beyond all else are outright useless in some cases.

 

[Rudra]

You make good points, but I am still against increasing the T1 pets' levels. Aside from incarnate content. I really love having all my pets as lieutenants of my level in incarnate content, but that is because incarnate content is decidedly more difficult than regular content at +0 difficulty. I would be more interested in almost any other approach to making the T1s more useful in high end content than increasing their levels. Like a passive boost to their defense maybe. Or even granting MM pets the same 1-hit kill immunity players get.

[Lyrium]

14 hours ago, weewoozesty said:

They can resummon pets.  But without taking the time to also rebuff them.  Those resummoned pets are pretty much useless.

 

This is the biggest issue. I agree, resummoning is something that should happen. But rebuffing is a pain. You have to wait until the pet is targeteable, you have to pray all your new summoned pets are together... the buff powers should be passives and applied automatically to all henchmen

[Rudra]

8 hours ago, Lyrium said:

the buff powers should be passives and applied automatically to all henchmen

I could actually get behind this. Edit: Or make the two buff powers toggles that automatically apply to summoned pets.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Rudra

[blue4333]

Make mastermind pets immune to -afraid status effects like caltrops, bonfire etc. Going against Chimera Ninjas or similar groups is not fun when your mobs suddenly turn on superspeed and run when caltrops are used.

[srmalloy]

The problem is that this reverses a previous change that was made back on Live by players complaining that their minions were standing in damage patches and getting wiped out from it.

[TheZag]

You can hope for the upgrades to apply automatically but the devs said thats not gonna happen.  And that has been further cemented by moving the defense and resists into the upgrade powers and making them enhanceable.  There has to be some sort of detriment to your henchmen getting killed or MMs would become invincible.

 

[Rudra]

Agreed. Pets need to get out of damage patches rather than just stand there and die. That said? Last night, my bots just stood in a bonfire patch uncaring as they burned. Rather problematic since I didn't notice it until I got turned around to attack an enemy and saw my bots just frying in place.

 

(As to why didn't I check when I noticed their health dropping so fast? I thought the sheer number of enemies attacking were shredding them, not that they were dumb enough to stay in the fire.)

[Zeraphia]

The only issue I have with pets honestly is that there really needs to be some sort of power outside of kinetics +ally speed boost power for them to quickly travel over areas. 

 

I really really hope there's some form of this added as an incarnate power, power pool power, specific APP for MM's, honestly ANYTHING I can get to quickly speed up my minions and get them to where I actually want them to be and not just unable to keep up with the pace in group play would be such a massive and welcome addition to MM's that it would make this class come online much better than where it is. 

 

I just really want some way to improve pet mobility. I'll take build sacrifices or power losses in my pool to do so. 

[blue4333]

Pets standing in damage patches can be avoided with awareness but with the state of the AI right now, pets running away on superspeed is counter-intuitive and takes control out of the mastermind's hands. It's a skillissue.

 

At least back then I can manually command the pets to move out of damage patches but now its like once the patches drop, the pets flee and move out of bodyguard range and supremacy/buff range. It's frustrating.

[Rudra]

That doesn't work when you have level 15+ hellions filling the combat area with molotovs, KoA filling the area with caltrops, or they get jostled into lava that was nowhere near them and they can't figure out how to get out of the lava to go where you tell them to go to get out of the lava. (Hello, Bat'Zul lava map.) Pets having some semblance of self-preservation is desired. The degree to which pets currently run to get out of a damage patch is the ridiculous part. Running out of damage patches and running out of damage patches to the next nearest country are two entirely different things. And pets currently either stand in damage patches and die, or more often run out of the damage patches and just keep running. Even mobs don't do that. They run out of the damage patch, get clear, and resume fighting.

[Disruptor]

Small suggestion for MM /Traps would be allow Detonator to work on FFG, Acid Mortar and/or Seeker Drones. That way you don't have to sacrifice a henchman (kind of a big downside to a power that has long cooldown and big end cost) and it also allows Detonator to be used within its own powerset instead requiring a specific power from the users primary set.

 

Kind of a bandaid fix w/o reworking the entire power, gives the player options.

[Lyrium]

17 hours ago, TheZag said:

You can hope for the upgrades to apply automatically but the devs said thats not gonna happen.  And that has been further cemented by moving the defense and resists into the upgrade powers and making them enhanceable.  There has to be some sort of detriment to your henchmen getting killed or MMs would become invincible.

 

I think having to resummon them (which takes time between the animation of the power and the animation of the pets themselves appearing) is enough detriment, keep in mind you are also losing bodies for the bodyguard in the meantime. But yeah, if devs said this is a no go, I guess I can only dream

[gameboy1234]

On 11/1/2022 at 10:42 AM, weewoozesty said:

Look at it this way.  A Mastermind's pet is their lifeblood. 

 

A lot of times on hard content I just don't summon the pets.  They're too hard to control, to hard to move around (especially their movement abilities are lacking, Group Fly doesn't fix this, they need speed), and the damage usually isn't quite enough to justify the difficulty dealing with them (the rest of your team will be doing far more damage).  The pets get left behind, get stuck on small objects and in corners, they fall off ledges and aggro the wrong groups, etc.  On a fast moving team you don't have time to manage that.  It's easier (and better overall) to just not summon and follow the team around yourself.

 

So basically on hard content I use my secondary only.  I think the goal of MMs at high levels on hard content should be to make sure the secondaries bring enough to the team that it's worth it.  Most of the secondaries are worth it, I think, a few may be questionable.  Traps is hard to use on a fast moving team, FF can be nice for squishes but probably doesn't contribute much overall to a strong team.  Some thought on those sets by the devs might help out.

 

There's always special cases where you can summon during a relatively long static fight, but much of a time the pets will just kind of be a hindrance.