2nd MM Sweep Wishlist & New Primary Idea

[weewoozesty]

21 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

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.

Yeah, it's why i often take Kinetics with my masterminds it doesn't offer much defense to the pets but in hard content I wont be using much pets anyways and at the very least, Speed Boost allows your pets to keep up with you.  Kinetics is always a massive contributor with the team due to Fulcrum Shift, Speed Boost etc.  Imo, Kinetics are always one of the most loved things to have in your group.  Mastermind, Defender or Controller or even Corruptor.

[WumpusRat]

On 10/31/2022 at 8:31 PM, 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.

 

If pets are nothing but damage-platforms, then using 4 enhancements in order to maximize their output along with having 2 auras per pet is fairly doable.

However, it becomes a major problem when you want to do anything ELSE.

 

For instance, do you want to slot the Achilles Heel proc in your mercs? Well, you're going to have to give up a bunch of effectiveness, then, since you're going to have to drop at least one damage mod (since you only have 4 slots) in order to do it, meaning they'll do less damage overall, which makes the proc work out to roughly the same amount of damage anyway.

Do you want to put the Sudden Accel KB to KD proc on your assault bot? Same problem.

Want to add some defensive bonuses to your protector bots? Yep, you lose out on damage with them as well. Or their ability to repair.

Etc.

 

The problem is that there are 3 mastermind sets that have a "mule power", and the rest don't. The ones that don't are far harder to maximize in order to get the same level of effectiveness out of them, and coupled with a lot of them doing smash or lethal damage (mercs, beasts, ninjas) they're already at something of a disadvantage to start with. The lack of a mule power just puts them further behind.

 

Personally, I'd like to see the aura IOs from the sets just gotten rid of entirely, and merged into Supremacy. Make it so that you're not REQUIRED to get those aura IOs, which would allow for far greater flexibility in building masterminds, and would create a great deal more parity between the primary sets.

 

You could have it something like this:

Level 6: +10 resists

Level 12: +5 defense

Level 18: +5 AoE defense

Level 24: +10 resists

Level 30: +5 defense

Level 36: +10 resists

Level 42: +5 AoE defense

Edited November 6, 2022 by WumpusRat

[Rudra]

46 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

 

If pets are nothing but damage-platforms, then using 4 enhancements in order to maximize their output along with having 2 auras per pet is fairly doable.

However, it becomes a major problem when you want to do anything ELSE.

 

For instance, do you want to slot the Achilles Heel proc in your mercs? Well, you're going to have to give up a bunch of effectiveness, then, since you're going to have to drop at least one damage mod (since you only have 4 slots) in order to do it, meaning they'll do less damage overall, which makes the proc work out to roughly the same amount of damage anyway.

Do you want to put the Sudden Accel KB to KD proc on your assault bot? Same problem.

Want to add some defensive bonuses to your protector bots? Yep, you lose out on damage with them as well. Or their ability to repair.

Etc.

 

The problem is that there are 3 mastermind sets that have a "mule power", and the rest don't. The ones that don't are far harder to maximize in order to get the same level of effectiveness out of them, and coupled with a lot of them doing smash or lethal damage (mercs, beasts, ninjas) they're already at something of a disadvantage to start with. The lack of a mule power just puts them further behind.

 

Personally, I'd like to see the aura IOs from the sets just gotten rid of entirely, and merged into Supremacy. Make it so that you're not REQUIRED to get those aura IOs, which would allow for far greater flexibility in building masterminds, and would create a great deal more parity between the primary sets.

 

You could have it something like this:

Level 6: +10 resists

Level 12: +5 defense

Level 18: +5 AoE defense

Level 24: +10 resists

Level 30: +5 defense

Level 36: +10 resists

Level 42: +5 AoE defense

I 6-slot all three pet powers. It gives me the most bonuses. My genin are 6-slotted with 2 Soulbound Allegiances (no proc), 2 Command of the Masterminds (with proc), Sovereign Right proc, and Edict of the Master proc. My jounin are slotted with 6 Mark of Supremacies. My oni is slotted with 4 Blood Mandates (it has no proc), Call to Arms proc, and Expedient Reinforcement proc. That's all 6 pet procs with my jounin slamming into ED (loss of 34% damage because of ED). And with the changes to MMs, Train Ninjas is now 4-slotted with Red Fortunes to further protect them. And soloing x8 content is easy. Like boringly easy in many cases. +4/x8? That's hard. Very, very annoyingly hard. And slow. (Edit: And I still manage to slot all 3 MM primary attacks with 4-5 slots each, plus manage 6-slot Shadowfall, 3-slot Maneuvers, 5-slot Dark Embrace and Tactics, and 6-slot my immob.)

 

I don't have any mule powers for my pets. Ninjas are my primary MM power set and they eat everything that doesn't waffle stomp them with AoEs. I don't understand the drive to remove the procs from the pet sets and make them inherent. You're not REQUIRED to get the pet procs any more than you are REQUIRED to take Leadership on a MM. They help, but are nowhere near required and aren't as helpful as some make them out to be. (Taken in conjunction with each other and MM secondary power set defenses? They are a lot more effective.)

 

You can build and slot your MMs however you want. Please stop asking for everything to go inherent. Character development is a choice so we aren't all using the same characters. You want to treat your pets as pure damage platforms? That's fine. You want to treat them as status infliction platforms (depending on pets)? That's fine. You want to make them defense platforms (protector bots)? That's fine. You want to make them general use platforms? That is also fine.

 

Min/maxing is a choice, not a requirement. And slotting procs as part of the set does not give up "a bunch of effectiveness". If all you want to do is slot the procs on a pet? That is your choice and yes, they will under-perform compared to other pets. Again, that is a choice.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Rudra

[WumpusRat]

51 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I 6-slot all three pet powers. It gives me the most bonuses. My genin are 6-slotted with 2 Soulbound Allegiances (no proc), 2 Command of the Masterminds (with proc), Sovereign Right proc, and Edict of the Master proc. My jounin are slotted with 6 Mark of Supremacies. My oni is slotted with 4 Blood Mandates (it has no proc), Call to Arms proc, and Expedient Reinforcement proc. That's all 6 pet procs with my jounin slamming into ED (loss of 34% damage because of ED). And with the changes to MMs, Train Ninjas is now 4-slotted with Red Fortunes to further protect them. And soloing x8 content is easy. Like boringly easy in many cases. +4/x8? That's hard. Very, very annoyingly hard. And slow. (Edit: And I still manage to slot all 3 MM primary attacks with 4-5 slots each, plus manage 6-slot Shadowfall, 3-slot Maneuvers, 5-slot Dark Embrace and Tactics, and 6-slot my immob.)

 

I don't have any mule powers for my pets. Ninjas are my primary MM power set and they eat everything that doesn't waffle stomp them with AoEs. I don't understand the drive to remove the procs from the pet sets and make them inherent. You're not REQUIRED to get the pet procs any more than you are REQUIRED to take Leadership on a MM. They help, but are nowhere near required and aren't as helpful as some make them out to be. (Taken in conjunction with each other and MM secondary power set defenses? They are a lot more effective.)

 

You can build and slot your MMs however you want. Please stop asking for everything to go inherent. Character development is a choice so we aren't all using the same characters. You want to treat your pets as pure damage platforms? That's fine. You want to treat them as status infliction platforms (depending on pets)? That's fine. You want to make them defense platforms (protector bots)? That's fine. You want to make them general use platforms? That is also fine.

 

Min/maxing is a choice, not a requirement. And slotting procs as part of the set does not give up "a bunch of effectiveness". If all you want to do is slot the procs on a pet? That is your choice and yes, they will under-perform compared to other pets. Again, that is a choice.

 

You're not really refuting anything I said, when you're only using ninjas as your example. Ninjas don't NEED any other bonuses beyond damage/accuracy/endurance reduction to make them effective, and you can accomplish that with 4 slots, leaving 2 in each power for auras. That's what I said about pets being "nothing beyond damage platforms". 

 

The problem comes when you have pets that have multiple functionality, such as the protector bots, assault bot, or you want to put in debuff procs like AH in pets like the mercs or wolves, etc. Then it becomes extremely difficult to slot those things in without a significant blow to their overall effectiveness. 

 

Requiring certain mastermind sets to drop down to 4 slots (effectively) per pet power if they want to have all 6 auras means that  those pets become one-trick ponies. You can't have the protector bots be good at providing defense AND dealing decent damage, for instance. They can only do one of the two. If you want to get rid of the knockback on your assault bot, so it doesn't just kick people out of the fire patches it creates (which is the majority of its damage) then you're going to only be able to 3-slot the pet, if you want 2 auras and the KB-to-KD proc as well. If you want the AH proc in your mecenaries, that drops them to 3 slots. Etc.

 

Saying "you can build them however you want" is true to a limited extent. Sure, I could also build a defender who doesn't take any of my primary powers beyond the ones I'm absolutely forced to take, too. Or I could build a mastermind who only takes the attack powers and ignores the pets entirely. Can I do it? Sure. Is it effective? No.

 

The issue is that there are certain mastermind sets that have a significant bonus over the other sets, due to the "mule power" allowing for the auras to be put into them. Ninjas (the only one you seem to be arguing for) can get away with putting all 6 auras in and just building nothing but A/D/E on the pets, and they'll still be effective, as all they do is damage. Mercs can do it too if you just ignore the AH proc, but but that proc is incredibly useful for them, so with the current setup you have to decide if you want to just tank your tier-1 pets' damage and slot it, or tank your other pets' damage and shove 3 auras onto one of them instead.

 

If you're adamantly opposed to "making everything inherent", then the sets that suffer from slotting drawbacks need to be tweaked a bit. Primarily robotics, beast mastery, and mercenaries. 

 

An easy fix for robotics would be allowing the repair drone to have pet sets slotted into it, since it's an actual pet now. Sure, they wouldn't really DO anything for it, since it's just a repair platform, but it would give the robotics set a place to toss in some auras, which it desperately needs considering the multi-role nature of all the other pets. 

 

That leaves beast mastery and mercenaries, which still need some tweaking. The changes to mercenaries was an improvement, but they could still use a bit more fine-tuning. Beast mastery and mercenaries don't really have a logical spot to allow for the pet sets to be dumped in, unfortunately. I still wish that they'd just swap out serum and the medic from the tier-1 in mercs and make the 18th level power the medic, and add another soldier to tier-1. Give the serum ability to the medic, along with aid other, stimulant, and a sidearm for some moderate damage, with the serum ability being triggerable by the mastermind, rather than going off the AI. But since that's not likely, allowing the 'recharge-focused pet' sets to be placed in serum would work, even if they don't do anything for the power beyond the recharge. It would at least allow for 2 of the auras to be slotted in there, freeing up space on the pets themselves.

 

I suppose I just don't understand why you seem so adamantly opposed to making all the mastermind primaries equally appealing. Right now some of them simply aren't that great, and are eclipsed by other sets. Robotics in particular has always suffered from low damage that the tier-2's were too much of a multi-role pet to do much more than become one-trick ponies, due to the aura slotting drawbacks of the set, and the fact that you pretty much NEED to slot the KB-to-KD onto the assault bot to keep it from nerfing its own damage due to knockback. I haven't fully explored robotics with the new patch yet, but it's on my list of things to do. 

 

Masterminds have always been my favorite class, even back on live. Back then I had around 20 50th level masterminds of various flavors, and on Homecoming I've got about 40 of them, though only a few are 50th level yet, as I keep jumping around between various characters.

 

But certain sets ARE weaker than others, for various reasons. And one of the big ones is the aura slotting.

[Rudra]

Fine. Let's talk Mercenaries. My Mercenaries/Traps MM has 5-slot Burst, 6-slot Soldiers, 6-slot Spec Ops, 4-slot Slug, and 6-slot Commando. Will also have 5-slot M30 Grenade and even a 4-slot Kick planned for when I get to 50. And that MM despite not being 50 yet, eats everything with absolutely no problems. And that was before the devs went and buffed MMs. On a set everyone keeps telling me is garbage, the worst performing power set the AT has. Want to check all MM primary sets? I have one for all of them. The ones I deleted? Were because they bored me, not because they had any problems in the game.

 

The reason I used my ninja/dark MM as my example? Was because of:

19 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

The ones that don't are far harder to maximize in order to get the same level of effectiveness out of them, and coupled with a lot of them doing smash or lethal damage (mercs, beasts, ninjas) they're already at something of a disadvantage to start with. The lack of a mule power just puts them further behind.

 

There are no bad MM primaries. There is nothing wrong with the AT. This is like the thread that said that MM inherent attacks are worthless. Even comparing them to temp powers. Which was a bogus argument since the statement was that enhanced MM inherent attacks are as good as even temp powers. This call for the procs to be inherents is the same line of thinking, except it doesn't even have the justification of powers that are designed to be more expensive and less powerful to use than other AT attacks.

 

There is no restriction on how a player can build their MMs. There is no right or wrong way to build them. There are different play styles to be sure, and slotting to match those play styles can be tricky. And slotting those procs and taking Leadership are very helpful in making a MM sustainable against difficult foes. They are not required though. All those same foes can be defeated just as easily without the procs or Leadership. It just takes a little bit longer or requires the MM to summon a little more frequently. And with the negligible recharge we have on MM pets and their buffs, unless you are being overwhelmed for some reason, re-summoning and buffing is not a problem.

 

MMs are already a very solid AT. I am against making the procs inherent to Supremacy. If you want Supremacy buffed? Okay, ask for it. If you think the changes made to MMs still somehow aren't enough? Ask for more power creep, I mean buffing of the AT. If you want to take existing enhancements and fold them into the AT as inherents? No. I was against this kind of thing when players were asking for KB-KD to be an inherent for power sets like Energy Blast. You don't have to have those procs. Doesn't matter how much or little they affect your pets in the grand scheme of game combat. So I am definitely against any attempts to make them inherent.

 

Edit: And the MM primaries that lack mule powers don't need mule powers either. For the same reasons given above. The Maintenance Drone is not a pet. Not like the other pets Robotics has. It is an easy way to make the Repair power more useful for the player. It is a self-actualizing pet heal power, not an actual pet. You can't command it. It won't go to a spot you designate for your pets to go to. It can't attack. It can't defend. It doesn't affect Bodyguard Mode. It can't buff or debuff. it is a heal. So no, it should not be able to slot pet enhancement sets.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to remove unnecessary "can't" and redundant "have to".

[Rudra]

I apologize for my angry tone in the preceding post. I don't take back any of what I said in it, but I do apologize for the tone.

[golstat2003]

I don’t agree at all that MMS are a fairly solid AT in high level content. I’d bet most folks who have tried them in the HASF or HITf would agree.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

I don’t agree at all that MMS are a fairly solid AT in high level content. I’d bet most folks who have tried them in the HASF or HITf would agree.

The Hard Mode TFs/SFs are specifically to challenge characters above and beyond what the base game does, even with their incarnate powers. So in those cases, MMs are at a possibly heavy disadvantage. I don't know how disadvantaged because I have not done any Hard Mode TFs/SFs. However, the OP is not about MMs being able to compete in Hard Mode TFs/SFs, which I admit they likely need help with (since again, I haven't tried any yet). It's about MMs in general game play.

 

Edit: And in any non-Hard Mode content? I have never had a MM struggle to keep up with the team or be a benefit to the team while on a trial, TF, or SF. Though I do have to be very careful about how I play my MM depending on the trial, TF, or SF. And solo during any and all endgame content? I somehow still manage to do just fine despite the seeming plethora of faults MMs have in the forums.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Rudra

[WumpusRat]

20 hours ago, Rudra said:

Fine. Let's talk Mercenaries. My Mercenaries/Traps MM has 5-slot Burst, 6-slot Soldiers, 6-slot Spec Ops, 4-slot Slug, and 6-slot Commando. Will also have 5-slot M30 Grenade and even a 4-slot Kick planned for when I get to 50. And that MM despite not being 50 yet, eats everything with absolutely no problems. And that was before the devs went and buffed MMs. On a set everyone keeps telling me is garbage, the worst performing power set the AT has. Want to check all MM primary sets? I have one for all of them. The ones I deleted? Were because they bored me, not because they had any problems in the game.

 

The reason I used my ninja/dark MM as my example? Was because of:

 

There are no bad MM primaries. There is nothing wrong with the AT. This is like the thread that said that MM inherent attacks are worthless. Even comparing them to temp powers. Which was a bogus argument since the statement was that enhanced MM inherent attacks are as good as even temp powers. This call for the procs to be inherents is the same line of thinking, except it doesn't even have the justification of powers that are designed to be more expensive and less powerful to use than other AT attacks.

 

There is no restriction on how a player can build their MMs. There is no right or wrong way to build them. There are different play styles to be sure, and slotting to match those play styles can be tricky. And slotting those procs and taking Leadership are very helpful in making a MM sustainable against difficult foes. They are not required though. All those same foes can be defeated just as easily without the procs or Leadership. It just takes a little bit longer or requires the MM to summon a little more frequently. And with the negligible recharge we have on MM pets and their buffs, unless you are being overwhelmed for some reason, re-summoning and buffing is not a problem.

 

MMs are already a very solid AT. I am against making the procs inherent to Supremacy. If you want Supremacy buffed? Okay, ask for it. If you think the changes made to MMs still somehow aren't enough? Ask for more power creep, I mean buffing of the AT. If you want to take existing enhancements and fold them into the AT as inherents? No. I was against this kind of thing when players were asking for KB-KD to be an inherent for power sets like Energy Blast. You don't have to have those procs. Doesn't matter how much or little they affect your pets in the grand scheme of game combat. So I am definitely against any attempts to make them inherent.

 

Edit: And the MM primaries that lack mule powers don't need mule powers either. For the same reasons given above. The Maintenance Drone is not a pet. Not like the other pets Robotics has. It is an easy way to make the Repair power more useful for the player. It is a self-actualizing pet heal power, not an actual pet. You can't command it. It won't go to a spot you designate for your pets to go to. It can't attack. It can't defend. It doesn't affect Bodyguard Mode. It can't buff or debuff. it is a heal. So no, it should not be able to slot pet enhancement sets.

 

I'm not saying "these primaries are garbage and totally useless". Trying to claim I am is wildly hyperbolic. There's a difference between "useless" and "has a disadvantage". 

For instance, lethal is the single most resisted damage type in the game. Nobody argues that. So the sets (for any AT) that deal purely lethal damage are generally given some advantages in other ways. Be it higher base damage, faster recharging times, etc. 

 

I'm also not arguing that all MM primaries can perform well when you're solo. I used to solo stuff on my ninja/trick arrow back on live, when ninjas had basically zero defenses. Was it effective? Not really. It was a massive challenge. But it was still DOABLE, as long as I didn't crank the difficulty up too much. Yes, masterminds are a solid AT. But that doesn't mean one should just wipe their hands and walk away figuring "good enough". Sets, ATs, individual powers, they constantly get tweaked. I'm not asking for MMs to become godmode, because that would be dull. I simply want some parity between the various sets, so it doesn't feel like taking one over another is automatically an advantage.

 

Allowing the various MM sets other than necro, thugs and demons some way to slot in the auras without having to crowbar them into their very limited pet slots isn't asking for that much, IMO. It seems fairly reasonable to me. And it doesn't "make them all the same". It would simply allow the other sets to have some more freedom in slotting without feeling like they're being forced to eat into the effectiveness of their pets to get it, which those other sets are capable of doing.

 

Also, as for the repair bot? It's a pet. It may only have a single function, but it's still a pet. PBs can slot pet sets into their photon seekers, which are also a single-function power. The Storm set can put pet sets into the tornado power, which is just a fire-and-forget roaming dot. Are those fundamentally different? And if so, why? 

 

 

[Rudra]

I never said that you, @WumpusRat, said that. I said that I was being told by everyone that Mercs was a garbage set. Those were in game comments being made to me about Mercenaries. There are also lots of comments here on the forums about Mercenaries being worthless compared to every other primary for the AT.

 

Some of the MM primaries may exclusively only do very commonly resisted damage, but with the sheer number of attacks the MM gets without ever clicking an actual attack, that resisted damage doesn't seem to matter. Back on my ninja MM, because it is my favorite and except for the oni, it does all smashing or lethal damage, which are both heavily resisted damage types. And my level 50 ninja/dark MM is often killing entire spawns faster than my friend's equally capable, level 50 bots MM. Neither of us see any real difference between our damage outputs.

 

Also, for all that lethal and smashing are commonly resisted damage types, I don't hear anyone complaining about the thugs set.

 

As for the difference between Tornado and Photon Seekers, those do damage. The Maintenance Drone does not. The pet enhancement sets bolster damage and accuracy, neither of which can affect the maintenance drone. Here's something for you to consider: The Dark Servant power summons a timed duration pet that debuffs enemies and heals player(s) and pets. And yet, it can't slot pet enhancement sets either. Because it doesn't do any damage on its own. Just like the Maintenance Drone.

 

Building a character is a matter of give and take. MMs can no more slot their pets for maximum efficiency and power any more than any other AT. Neither are they reduced to slotting for less than the other ATs. You want to limit your pets to 4 enhancements each? Be my guest. Build your MM how you want. If you want to slot the Achilles' Heel enhancements into a defense debuffing pet? Go right ahead. You just want the proc? Then you are choosing to give up the set bonuses just like you would with any other AT's attack powers. Build for damage with your pets. Build for defense. Build for whatever you want. You have to pick and choose how to build though. That is part of the game. For MMs and every other AT.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to add missing commas and "it".

[WumpusRat]

11 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I never said that you, @WumpusRat, said that. I said that I was being told by everyone that Mercs was a garbage set. Those were in game comments being made to me about Mercenaries. There are also lots of comments here on the forums about Mercenaries being worthless compared to every other primary for the AT.

 

Some of the MM primaries may exclusively only do very commonly resisted damage, but with the sheer number of attacks the MM gets without ever clicking an actual attack, that resisted damage doesn't seem to matter. Back on my ninja MM because it is my favorite and except for the oni, does all smashing or lethal damage which are both heavily resisted damage types. And my level 50 ninja/dark MM is often killing entire spawns faster than my friend's equally capable, level 50 bots MM. Neither of us see any real difference between our damage outputs.

 

Also, for all that lethal and smashing are commonly resisted damage types, I don't hear anyone complaining about the thugs set.

 

As for the difference between Tornado and Photon Seekers, those do damage. The Maintenance Drone does not. The pet enhancement sets bolster damage and accuracy, neither of which can affect the maintenance drone. Here's something for you to consider: The Dark Servant power summons a timed duration pet that debuffs enemies and heals player(s) and pets. And yet, it can't slot pet enhancement sets either. Because it doesn't do any damage on its own. Just like the Maintenance Drone.

 

Building a character is a matter of give and take. MMs can no more slot their pets for maximum efficiency and power any more than any other AT. Neither are they reduced to slotting for less than the other ATs. You want to limit your pets to 4 enhancements each? Be my guest. Build your MM how you want. If you want to slot the Achilles' Heel enhancements into a defense debuffing pet? Go right ahead. You just want the proc? Then you are choosing to give up the set bonuses just like you would with any other AT's attack powers. Build for damage with your pets. Build for defense. Build for whatever you want. You have to pick and choose how to build though. That is part of the game. For MMs and every other AT.

Before the update, the mercs set WAS arguably the worst mastermind primary. Largely because the cooldowns were ridiculous, serum was worthless (1000s cooldown, only affected a single pet), and the commando only really had 3 attacks, with the others being on excessively long cooldowns (4m for the rocket launcher, on a pet that can't benefit from recharge reduction, and no way for the MM to control when he uses it). So yes, it was pretty weak in comparison to the other sets. It could still work, but "being workable" and "being good" are two vastly different things. And the reason people don't complain about the thugs set is because while they do a lot of lethal damage, the smashing damage they do is on the bruiser, who is extremely tanky and deals a huge amount of damage. Plus the pyro, for lots of fire damage as well.

 

As for killing things quickly with ninjas? Yes, that's what they do. They churn out an enormous amount of damage, and with /dark debuffing enemies, they can crush things extremely quickly. Their disadvantage was that they had no resists, and very low defense. Which has now been buffed. Ninjas have the most attacks of any pet, with very short cooldowns, and very little animation delay between them (unlike the beast mastery wolves, who suffer from huge animation delays between their attacks, despite low cooldowns). 

 

And yes, the repair drone does no damage. However, both the Storm set as well as the PB's photon seekers gain zero benefit from the pet set auras, yet they can still slot them. The repair drone would gain no benefit from attack or damage, but WOULD gain benefits (via assisting the other pets) through the auras. 

 

I honestly have no idea why you seem so adamantly opposed to making the various mastermind primary sets have a better level of parity between them. It really feels like you're simply arguing for the sake of arguing at this point. Especially considering the changes that sets have already received. I wonder if you were so opposed to them receiving buffs as well.

[Rudra]

I don't use my /dark powers except for Shadowfall until a fight goes bad or looks to be difficult. As for their low defense prior to the buff? My ninjas had a high survival rate compared to other MMs I played with. It's a question of how you build and play.

 

The Tornado power and Photon Seekers can slot the procs because they can slot the sets. They can slot the sets because they do damage. Maintenance Drone (and Dark Servant) don't do damage. That negates the benefit of 4-5 of the enhancements in each pet set. As opposed to a single proc in each set that I don't see any PB or controller slotting into their Tornado or Photon Seekers. So there is no justification for allowing Maintenance Drone (or Dark Servant for that matter) to be able to slot pet sets that don't do anything for them. That is like asking to be able to slot heals into your attacks.

 

The MM primaries each have their little tricks. They don't all need to be able to slot the same way, and they should not slot the same way. (Edit: Parity does not require them to all have a proc mule. Parity requires they be able to perform more or less equally using their own tricks.)

Edited November 7, 2022 by Rudra