Possible increase in animation speed for Mastermind summon/buffing

[WumpusRat]

With the changes to how pet resists work, being tied to the 6th level upgrade, it might be a nice QoL change to increase the animation speed of the summon/buffing powers a bit, since it can be a nightmare to try and resummon pets in combat due to the long animations and that base pets (at least for certain sets right now) have zero resists until they're buffed.

 

For instance, on my Merc MM, I was fighting a boss who was capable of nearly one-shotting my tier-1 and 2 pets (energy melee boss), so he was dropping them rapidly. Going through the animation of resummoning, rebuffing (since base pets are more or less just meatshields and nothing else), and getting them back into the fight was taking up so much time I could literally do nothing else. Just stand there summoning/buffing for about 20 seconds. And typically by the time they'd be ready to fight again, a couple of them had died. In situations where you're not running on low difficulty, this can quickly run into a cascade failure of the pets not living long enough to be rebuffed.

 

An example would be the Tactical Upgrade for Mercenaries. The power says it has a 2.03s activation time, but the animation is about 3.5 seconds, or nearly twice as long. 

 

Perhaps the animation can be shortened, but the power still takes the same amount of time to affect the pet. That way the mastermind can quickly rebuff and get back to trying to mitigate the incoming damage or use CC, rather than being locked into long animations and doing nothing. It would also help out on teams at the start of the mission if pets need to be summoned and buffed, so the mastermind doesn't end up falling far behind due to spending 15-20 seconds standing around summoning and buffing while the team runs ahead.

[Rudra]

I'm fine with the OP, but the option to retreat, re-summon/re-buff, and re-engage also exists.

[Luminara]

8 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

An example would be the Tactical Upgrade for Mercenaries. The power says it has a 2.03s activation time, but the animation is about 3.5 seconds, or nearly twice as long.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=mastermind_summon.mercenaries.tactical_upgrade&at=mastermind

 

The animation is 2.033 seconds.  The cast time is 2.244 seconds with Arcanatime, slightly longer than the animation time, but that's well short of 3.5 seconds.  If the power is actually locking you out of activating any other powers for an additional 1.256 seconds, then that's a bug.

[WumpusRat]

58 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=mastermind_summon.mercenaries.tactical_upgrade&at=mastermind

 

The animation is 2.033 seconds.  The cast time is 2.244 seconds with Arcanatime, slightly longer than the animation time, but that's well short of 3.5 seconds.  If the power is actually locking you out of activating any other powers for an additional 1.256 seconds, then that's a bug.

 

It might be a bug specific to Mercenaries, then. Because from the moment I press the button and the animation starts, I can't do anything else for about 3.5 seconds, not even move. 

 

<edit> Actually I just timed it with a stopwatch (I was timing it in my head before). From the moment the power starts until I can move (spamming a movement key to catch it the moment I can) is about 4.5 seconds.

 

<edit #2> In fact, ALL the Mercenary summons have that same 4.5 second animation, rather than the 2.03 it claims they have. I haven't checked the other sets yet, but I'll do that in a minute. But for Mercenaries, summoning and buffing takes 4.5 x 3 (summons), 1.5 (equip), 4.5 (tactical upgrade), or about 20 total seconds.
 

<edit #3> Yep, it's specific to Mercenaries. All the other sets take between 10-12 seconds to summon and fully buff. Mercs take around twice as long, due to the extremely long animations for summoning as well as tactical upgrade. So I suppose this topic should be "Please fix Mercenary summon/buffing times" rather than for all MMs. 🙂 

Edited November 9, 2022 by WumpusRat

[Player-1]

On 11/9/2022 at 4:37 PM, WumpusRat said:

With the changes to how pet resists work, being tied to the 6th level upgrade, it might be a nice QoL change to increase the animation speed of the summon/buffing powers a bit, since it can be a nightmare to try and resummon pets in combat due to the long animations and that base pets (at least for certain sets right now) have zero resists until they're buffed.

 

For instance, on my Merc MM, I was fighting a boss who was capable of nearly one-shotting my tier-1 and 2 pets (energy melee boss), so he was dropping them rapidly. Going through the animation of resummoning, rebuffing (since base pets are more or less just meatshields and nothing else), and getting them back into the fight was taking up so much time I could literally do nothing else. Just stand there summoning/buffing for about 20 seconds. And typically by the time they'd be ready to fight again, a couple of them had died. In situations where you're not running on low difficulty, this can quickly run into a cascade failure of the pets not living long enough to be rebuffed.

 

An example would be the Tactical Upgrade for Mercenaries. The power says it has a 2.03s activation time, but the animation is about 3.5 seconds, or nearly twice as long. 

 

Perhaps the animation can be shortened, but the power still takes the same amount of time to affect the pet. That way the mastermind can quickly rebuff and get back to trying to mitigate the incoming damage or use CC, rather than being locked into long animations and doing nothing. It would also help out on teams at the start of the mission if pets need to be summoned and buffed, so the mastermind doesn't end up falling far behind due to spending 15-20 seconds standing around summoning and buffing while the team runs ahead.

 

Hello WumpusRat,

 

Looking into this internally I can confirm that both summons and upgrades for Mercenaries are animating and allowing you to act within the correct time:

 

Each activation only took about 2 seconds of time before I could act against my target when queuing up Burst. Would you be able to replicate a test like this so we can see direct timing between actions?

 

[WumpusRat]

3 hours ago, Player-1 said:

 

Hello WumpusRat,

 

Looking into this internally I can confirm that both summons and upgrades for Mercenaries are animating and allowing you to act within the correct time:

 

Each activation only took about 2 seconds of time before I could act against my target when queuing up Burst. Would you be able to replicate a test like this so we can see direct timing between actions?

 

Sure. Here's a shot of me using each summon in sequence, back to back. Each one fires off a bit over 4 seconds after the first one does.

 

<edit> Just to make sure, I hopped onto a couple of my other mercenary MMs and they had the same results. About 4 seconds to cast each summon, and not being able to do anything until each one was done, so over 12 seconds of standing still to use all 3 powers.

 

<edit #2> Tried it on the test servers as well, with the same results. 4 seconds to cast each summon, and delaying any other power from activating for those 4 seconds.

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by WumpusRat

[plainguy]

On 11/11/2022 at 5:28 PM, WumpusRat said:

Sure. Here's a shot of me using each summon in sequence, back to back. Each one fires off a bit over 4 seconds after the first one does.

 

<edit> Just to make sure, I hopped onto a couple of my other mercenary MMs and they had the same results. About 4 seconds to cast each summon, and not being able to do anything until each one was done, so over 12 seconds of standing still to use all 3 powers.

 

<edit #2> Tried it on the test servers as well, with the same results. 4 seconds to cast each summon, and delaying any other power from activating for those 4 seconds.

 

I posted something similar to this a while back. 

I get the similar responses of retreating and resetting. But no on other ArchType needs to do this, but then I get Masterminds are powerful. Then the whole thread spun off into a different direction as is usual here on this forum. 

Let me add in the following.
Once you summon the pets they are free to be attacked but will NOT attack back. So basically your only option is retreat. 
upgrading has the same affect on them.. They can't fight back while the upgrade animation is going on. 

There should be an option to have pets auto upgraded if you want that.
I know some turn off upgrades on certain pets for their own reasons. 
Personally I am in the pets should be auto upgraded when summoned camp.

But good luck with this. 

[Rudra]

17 minutes ago, plainguy said:

I get the similar responses of retreating and resetting. But no on other ArchType needs to do this

Huh? All ATs have the option of retreating and resetting their combat with an enemy that pushes them into a bad situation. I can't speak for others, but my characters, at least at the lower levels, routinely have to retreat from enemies they were not prepared for. (Edit: Non-tanks/brutes at higher levels too.) Red/purple bosses because the boss spawns higher level than the mission. Rooms with multiple spawns in close proximity to each other. And so on. Retreating to recover/reset is not a bad thing.

 

Anyway, my contention with that statement is likely to derail the thread, so apologies for that. However, the need of and vadlidity of retreat as a tactic is something I felt compelled to speak on.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Rudra

[plainguy]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Huh? All ATs have the option of retreating and resetting their combat with an enemy that pushes them into a bad situation. I can't speak for others, but my characters, at least at the lower levels, routinely have to retreat from enemies they were not prepared for. (Edit: Non-tanks/brutes at higher levels too.) Red/purple bosses because the boss spawns higher level than the mission. Rooms with multiple spawns in close proximity to each other. And so on. Retreating to recover/reset is not a bad thing.

 

Anyway, my contention with that statement is likely to derail the thread, so apologies for that. However, the need of and vadlidity of retreat as a tactic is something I felt compelled to speak on.

Masterminds MUST retreat on a partial pet wipe..  You loose a Tier 1 pet its not a big deal since they don't really do much at higher levels and are more there for the damage absorb. 

But when you start loosing a combination of Tier 1 and Tier 2 or Just the Tier 3 with some other additions. You must retreat just to re-summon because you will always be in constant pet wipe.   

You are retreating on your blaster because YOU are on low health, Not because your pet is gone. 
If I have a defense capped Mastermind I am sort of okay, regardless of lower hit points.. But even at full health I cannot re-summon my pets in the midst of a battle because of all the aggro they will take.. 

As I mention.. When you summon the pets they are defenseless and NOT UPGRADED.. With the current changes made now, they are even weaker because their buffs are now directly tied to the upgrade..  

I posted images on a similar post a long while back along with a timer count of how long pets are useless which was about 12 to 14 seconds I believe.. They just don't do anything.. 
As I expressed in that post. I will express it here. Go aggro mobs with a non defense capped toon that are purple to you and stand there for 10 seconds doing nothing, then you will see my point. 

Again Masterminds need to retreat not because they are dying.. It is to be able to use a total of 5 powers.. 3 summons and 2 upgrades.. Those things take time. They do cause a stall in the pets actions. 

When I summon in the heat of battle with Robots I have learned enough about the game mechanics that as soon as the Assault Bot is summoned I use upgrade 2 first to get swarm attack and then command it to attack, he usually fires that off immediately which causes a nice AOE and panic.. Then I resummon what died and then go through the process of upgrading. 
Again its a chance I take.. Sometimes it works, Sometimes I curse and have to run to an elevator bank or a lower level to resummon and go back up.

But personally my mindset is I am playing the game, not my pets.. So I need to be defense capped in some way. Because if I die my pets die and its useless. But if I am defense capped I can sometimes just handle my own and kill off a bunch of mobs to give me some room to resummon. I usually do this with Traps because o Trip Mine.

 

Masterminds can do some amazing things when the cards all line up.. But one hiccup and they fall like a deck of cards. I try to mitigate that via defense cap. I would rather do less dps and survive and take longer in a mission, then die and run back.  

The changes to masterminds to some degree were nice.. But It was just rearranging the shelves. Then they forced in some form of attack from the Primary or loose out on some benefit. Mind you, this has been for YEARS like this.. Now you are forced to respec every Robot Mastermind to incorporate an attack to get a debuff what was inherit in an upgrade.. 
The spectres are very nice but you must have all 3 necro attacks to get 3 out.  

Mastermind builds are much more tighter than other archtype builds. Assuming you want to do amazing things.. Blasters/Corruptor/Sentinel/Insert any range attack build, you get range defense cap, a jetpack and your golden. You are king/Queen doing 3/8 4/8 content. So this gives you a lot of wiggle room for other powers. 
Masterminds not so much.  Maneuvers and Tactics is pretty much a must because you want defenses for your pets and yourself and your level 48 pets( the 3 Tier 1 pets) need all the hit bonuses they can get.

Again there are requirements for Masterminds plain and simple and there are even more now with the changes.

 

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, plainguy said:

Masterminds MUST retreat on a partial pet wipe..  You loose a Tier 1 pet its not a big deal since they don't really do much at higher levels and are more there for the damage absorb. 

But when you start loosing a combination of Tier 1 and Tier 2 or Just the Tier 3 with some other additions. You must retreat just to re-summon because you will always be in constant pet wipe.   

Again, we disagree. I don't retreat when I suffer a partial pet wipe. I've lost my T2s and T3? I still have my T1s to protect me while I re-summon. I've lost 4-6 of my pets and don't have the space or health I need to more or less safely re-summon? Time to bug out and hide while I re-summon and rebuff pets. My health has gone red and my heal hasn't recharged or I took a secondary with no heal? (Triage Beacon isn't a heal.) Time to bug out even if I have all of my pets still. Basically, I take the time to evaluate my situation to see if I can press on or if I need to retreat.

 

As for pets pausing while re-summoning and re-buffing? I've never noticed that. Lost a pet? Summon and buff a replacement. The other 5 keep protecting my health bar and inflicting damage. If the ones I did not have to re-summon stopped inflicting damage? I've never noticed them doing so.

 

9 minutes ago, plainguy said:

The changes to masterminds to some degree were nice.. But It was just rearranging the shelves. Then they forced in some form of attack from the Primary or loose out on some benefit. Mind you, this has been for YEARS like this.. Now you are forced to respec every Robot Mastermind to incorporate an attack to get a debuff what was inherit in an upgrade.. 

As someone who always took the MM inherent attacks? I don't understand the hatred of MM inherent attacks. And now, they are apparently better.

 

11 minutes ago, plainguy said:

Again there are requirements for Masterminds plain and simple and there are even more now with the changes.

The devs incorporated requests for Mm upgrades you and... I can't remember his/her name. Starts with an "e" I think. And after getting a buff to MMs, your claim is they are worse off?!

[WumpusRat]

44 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Huh? All ATs have the option of retreating and resetting their combat with an enemy that pushes them into a bad situation. I can't speak for others, but my characters, at least at the lower levels, routinely have to retreat from enemies they were not prepared for. (Edit: Non-tanks/brutes at higher levels too.) Red/purple bosses because the boss spawns higher level than the mission. Rooms with multiple spawns in close proximity to each other. And so on. Retreating to recover/reset is not a bad thing.

 

Anyway, my contention with that statement is likely to derail the thread, so apologies for that. However, the need of and vadlidity of retreat as a tactic is something I felt compelled to speak on.

 

Retreating and resummoning is always an option, yes. However, I think part of the problem with mastermind pets is that the pets can be attacked and killed before they're able to actually do anything. While in the process of "appearing" during the summon animation, the pets can be targeted and killed by mobs, while the pets are literally unable to do anything in response, and before they can even be targeted by the mastermind to buff/heal them. It's similar to how rezzing Freakshow can be killed by mastermind pets before they finish their rez animation, if the pets are set to aggressive. They'll be targeted and sometimes killed mid-animation, even before a player can target them.

 

But this thread was mostly in response to the fact that the Mercenaries set seems to be, at least on my end, bugged, due to the excessively long animation I'm seeing for Mercenary pets and upgrades. 4 seconds per summon, and 4 seconds for tactical upgrade, meaning if you're trying to resummon and rebuff even a single pet mid-fight as a Merc MM, it's about 10 seconds of you doing nothing else.

 

As you can see in the screenshots Player-1 posted, his (her? I don't know) pets were summoning in 2 seconds, and afterwards other powers could activate.

Whereas all my Merc masterminds require 4 seconds before another power can be used. I tried this on 3 different Merc MMs on the live server, 2 on the test server, and even went so far as to create a brand new account and created one on the test server, and ended up with the same issue.

 

I'd love to have other people test this and see if it's happening for them, as well. Because it puzzles me that Player-1 seems to not be having the issue that I am.

[Rudra]

Loaded up my Merc MM. I couldn't act after summoning my T1s, but the wait was short. My combat log doesn't show time and haven't bothered looking it up. It wasn't anywhere near a 4 second wait though. My guess? You're bugged.

[plainguy]

16 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Again, we disagree. I don't retreat when I suffer a partial pet wipe. I've lost my T2s and T3? I still have my T1s to protect me while I re-summon. I've lost 4-6 of my pets and don't have the space or health I need to more or less safely re-summon? Time to bug out and hide while I re-summon and rebuff pets. My health has gone red and my heal hasn't recharged or I took a secondary with no heal? (Triage Beacon isn't a heal.) Time to bug out even if I have all of my pets still. Basically, I take the time to evaluate my situation to see if I can press on or if I need to retreat.

 

As for pets pausing while re-summoning and re-buffing? I've never noticed that. Lost a pet? Summon and buff a replacement. The other 5 keep protecting my health bar and inflicting damage. If the ones I did not have to re-summon stopped inflicting damage? I've never noticed them doing so.

 

As someone who always took the MM inherent attacks? I don't understand the hatred of MM inherent attacks. And now, they are apparently better.

 

The devs incorporated requests for Mm upgrades you and... I can't remember his/her name. Starts with an "e" I think. And after getting a buff to MMs, your claim is they are worse off?!

All depends on your play style. 

I play at 3/8 setting.. Every toon I make must handle the Alpha incarnate at a 3/8 setting or it is a failure. 

This is my play style... So in MY play style on a 3/8 setting I can't summon my pets with 3 groups are aggroed against them and me. They just get wiped a lot of times. 
On a 1/1 setting its really is a moot point. 

But if anyone is going to mention retreat as an option then we need to define what a retreat means and what is its purpose.. It will mean different things based your build and which primary and  secondary you picked up. 
For example Electric Affinity without pets will get you killed fast.. No pets and you fighting 3/8, you are dead fast. 
I can tell you Entangling Aura (EA)  on Nature Affinity  is massive.. Again Petless mastermind whips/NA and Entangling Aura shuts down TONS of mobs. But I also have Oppressive Gloom (OG) on standby and I turn it on if some mezz or stun turns off EA. Because the reactivation delay for EA is a bit long when fighting on a 3/8 setting for my taste. So I turn on OG and then I reactivate EA and then turn off OG again and have it ready as backup. 

Regarding the pets.. 
It is very simple test.
3/8 setting.. No pets..
Go in to a room where several groups of mobs are close to each other.. YOU will be at Aggro cap.. 
Now summon your pets and simply spam attack and look at your pets as they are being summoned and how long after they are summoned that you are requesting them to attack they they attack. You will see there is a delay between the summoning and the pets able to take action.  

Or just summon the pets into a mob and watch as the mobs attack the pets and the pets do nothing for several seconds. 
Then redo the same test and immediately upgrade them and see what happens. Have them attack and upgrade them at the same time and see. 

I didn't suggest the spectre in the attack. Mine was the Soul Extractions vs pets. 

The Mastermind attacks are or to some degree useless  because of the high endurance cost and lack luster compared to similar attacks from other ATs..  Masterminds cannot go on a full attack as other ATs.. They are forced to really just control the pets and toss out an attack here and there.. It is not like they are side by side with the pets in a full on battle. Its more of slower steady pace.  

The Spectres in the necro attacks ARE NICE... I have a Necro Trick Arrow Petless build and then I have a Necro Trick Arrow full pet build on same toon. I was able to incorporate the 3 attacks but I had to loose some defenses in the full pet build. It would have been nice to just get 3 pets max regardless of number of primary attacks you pick and it would be nice that they were just the same and not be based on the how you have the primary attack slotted. As I posted in the mastermind forums, the accuracy and resistance for EACH Spectre is based around the the accuracy slotted in the attack and based around the set bonuses slotting in the attack. So you need to max out your attacks if you want max Spectres. 


The simple fact of this is you cannot level a mastermind without pets because you will run out of endurance ALL the time.. At around level 23 or 25 you will be running out of endurance several times on EVERY mission running a 1/1 setting, this is 6 slotting endurance. I know because I tested it out. 

All AT have the same endurance pool, but the cost are different.. Masterminds more severely punished on endurance COST..  
So that is my overall my gripe about the attacks. 

There are of course some Primary's and Secondary's that just gel well together.. Like Robot Traps.. Yes Triage Beacon is not a heal.. Its a regen. But due to my high recharge I have 2 triage beacons out for 23 seconds without incarnates on and 30 seconds with Agility running. So for 30 seconds my Regen is at 732.. My pets is at 400+whatever they have. that is not bad for 30 seconds. I notice the difference at least.

Here is the issue.. 

Either I am full of BS and talking out of my backside regarding the pet delay during summoning and upgrade or it is happening. 
I made a post about it a while back.  I  am sure I took screenshots as well. 

Again we can agree to disagree. 
Masterminds are cool. But they are not super powered.. They are clunky.. No one is posting a million times on the Mastermind forums about soloing a Taskforce as they do on MANY of the other forums. 

They require a lot of maintenance and I would say it is a bit more advanced play style to some degree. 
I can accept that 3 powers go towards pets so that is 3 attacks or things you cannot personally because of the pets, they are doing something for you..
I am NOT crazy about pet upgrade slots.. I think that is a bit of punishment. I am not crazy about the pets being lower levels as well. 

Do your attack powers on any other AT do less damage as you level OR the same damage from the day you picked them up? No, they do the full potential of what they do and increase in damage as you level. There is no point where your Tier 1 or 2 power stops increasing damage at level 48 for example..
Do they come full and complete from the day you picked it up? Yea.. 

But with Masterminds you have to upgrade your pets?  I am not trying to get into realism here..
But any AT has full command of all the attacks from the day they are picked up.. So fireball is the same at level 2 as it is at 50..
But a Mastermind has no clue how to just upgrade his pets and keep the upgraded at level 50?
Imagine you had to use an upgrade every time you wanted to use fireball to its full potential.   
I have 35 inch Mud terrain tires on my Jeep 24x7x365.. I don't change to street tires when I am in the street and then swap to off road tires when I want to off road. I surely do not drive around with 2 or 3 sets of tires to upgrade based on the performance I need. I upgraded the tires and that is what I keep on my jeep from the day I did the UPGRADE..  

You want me to waste a power slot on pet upgrades to get what everyone else gets out of the box? Not crazy about it, but I will
But can we make it an option in Null the Gull if I want them auto or not? The reason for that is again some players turn off upgrades for certain pets because of what it does to them. I do not do that.. But again it is because those playing Masterminds have found work arounds for inherit issues ( for features as some would say) in the archtype. I think a common turn off  of an upgrade is for the Arsonist in Thugs. I forgot the reason. 

Why do I ask for this option? Well, that gets us back to the post.
Because at least when you summon the pets in the midst of battle you are dealing with at least the summoning delay ONLY and not compounding insult with injury with 2 pet upgrades. Which extends the delay for pet attacks.

It is this lag ( its not real lag) or delay that causes an immediate wipe out. Again for something like Traps where you can be almost defense capped at 42 with just IOs and no need for set bonuses it is not a life and death issue. But for something like Electric Affinity? Yea, you are screwed.. 

Again 1/1 setting all of this is moot and useless. But it matters as you go up in difficulty. It matters on a team as well. On many Teams Masterminds can be useless on fast paced teams. How many pets get wiped running to you on a map? Tons.. I have seen pets drag aggro to the team as they are running and pulling mobs from other rooms in the path to get to us. 

So make me feel a bit useful during a wipe that I can at least summon pets that are ready to go. 
It's like calling time out in a fight.. Wait! I am calling TIME Lord Recluse, I need to upgrade my pets ! 

I think if players knew or seen the delay they would realize it is a bit unfair and would have no issue at least with the auto upgrade as compensation for the inability to act. 

OR
Add some immunity timer to pet summoning. Summoning and upgrading makes them immune to damage until completed and 2 seconds after


 

[WumpusRat]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Loaded up my Merc MM. I couldn't act after summoning my T1s, but the wait was short. My combat log doesn't show time and haven't bothered looking it up. It wasn't anywhere near a 4 second wait though. My guess? You're bugged.

 

It seems odd that it's only for mercenaries, and also had the same delay when I created a brand new account and made another one.

You can turn times on in options-windows, it's under chat options I believe, to have 'show timestamps on messages'. 12h, 24h, and 24h with seconds. 

Easiest way to check is to turn on timestamp with seconds, start one of the summons, and queue up another one. If it goes off 4 seconds after the first one started, that's what I'm seeing on mine. If not, then there's something really odd going on. Maybe my entire download of the game is bugged, and I need to reinstall.

 

<edit> Actually, it can't be my install now that I think about it, because I made the second account using one of my other computers, so that was a fresh install of the game. Hrm.

Edited November 13, 2022 by WumpusRat

[Rudra]

53 minutes ago, plainguy said:

The Mastermind attacks are or to some degree useless  because of the high endurance cost and lack luster compared to similar attacks from other ATs..

We're just always going to disagree on that....

 

54 minutes ago, plainguy said:

Masterminds cannot go on a full attack as other ATs..

Like you said, that is a matter of playstyle. My MMs are spamming their three inherent attacks constantly. With their heal (if thay have one) firing off when my pets or character get too hurt.

 

56 minutes ago, plainguy said:

It is not like they are side by side with the pets in a full on battle.

Again, a matter of playstyle.

 

57 minutes ago, plainguy said:

At around level 23 or 25 you will be running out of endurance several times on EVERY mission running a 1/1 setting, this is 6 slotting endurance. I know because I tested it out. 

Which is weird, because I don't seem to have that problem.

 

59 minutes ago, plainguy said:

They require a lot of maintenance and I would say it is a bit more advanced play style to some degree. 

Hey! We agree on something! I know I had a bottle of specialty eggnog to celebrate around here somewhere.... 😜

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

Do your attack powers on any other AT do less damage as you level OR the same damage from the day you picked them up? No, they do the full potential of what they do and increase in damage as you level.

They actually degrade as you level, becoming less effective even as their damage increases. Which is why enhancements are pointed out in I think 3 different arcs to players.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

But with Masterminds you have to upgrade your pets?  I am not trying to get into realism here..
But any AT has full command of all the attacks from the day they are picked up.. So fireball is the same at level 2 as it is at 50..
But a Mastermind has no clue how to just upgrade his pets and keep the upgraded at level 50?
Imagine you had to use an upgrade every time you wanted to use fireball to its full potential.  

The difference here as I see it, are that pets are almost fire and forget. They are powers that keep doing damage to your enemies without you having to do anything. So that's 6 different sources of damage that the MM doesn't have to click. And the upgrades add more fire and forget capability to those. As opposed to the Blaster's Fireball that the character has to click to use every time.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

The reason for that is again some players turn off upgrades for certain pets because of what it does to them. I do not do that.. But again it is because those playing Masterminds have found work arounds for inherit issues ( for features as some would say) in the archtype. I think a common turn off  of an upgrade is for the Arsonist in Thugs. I forgot the reason. 

Okay, I gotta know... how do you turn off a specific pet's upgrades? Because I would REALLY love not equipping my Assault Bot with that flamethrower. "No, seriosuly! Stay at RANGE you stupid robot!!!!!"

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

Again 1/1 setting all of this is moot and useless.

Yeah... probably the primary-secondary pairings in play here... but I was running a +2/x8 TF with a single friend and we had split up. I didn't even realize we were clearing different sections of the TF at that difficulty. My pets just ate everything. Only realized when it dawned me all the bosses had been purple.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

How many pets get wiped running to you on a map?

Not in an instance. Only when running across the zone to the mission.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

Masterminds can be useless on fast paced teams.

*grumble* *grumble* Okay... yeah... depending on team and task, that is true.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

I have seen pets drag aggro to the team as they are running and pulling mobs from other rooms in the path to get to us. 

Sorry to say, but that boils down to poor pet control. Though on large, fast moving teams, that can become rather inevitable.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

Add some immunity timer to pet summoning.

I could agree to this. For the summoning. Not the buffing. As I've said, I've never noticed my pets pausing while one of their number gets upgraded.

[WumpusRat]

35 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Okay, I gotta know... how do you turn off a specific pet's upgrades? Because I would REALLY love not equipping my Assault Bot with that flamethrower. "No, seriosuly! Stay at RANGE you stupid robot!!!!!"

Just to answer this bit, the Equip Robot power is the thing that gives the assault bot his flamethrower, so if you summon your tier-1's and tier-2's and then equip them, then summon the tier-3 and then give them all the second upgrade, the AB won't have the flamethrower.

 

However, it'll also have zero resists (since they've been tied into the Equip power) and no heavy plasma burst.

[Rudra]

12 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

Just to answer this bit, the Equip Robot power is the thing that gives the assault bot his flamethrower, so if you summon your tier-1's and tier-2's and then equip them, then summon the tier-3 and then give them all the second upgrade, the AB won't have the flamethrower.

 

However, it'll also have zero resists (since they've been tied into the Equip power) and no heavy plasma burst.

Thanks.

[plainguy]

On 11/13/2022 at 2:41 AM, Rudra said:

We're just always going to disagree on that....

 

Like you said, that is a matter of playstyle. My MMs are spamming their three inherent attacks constantly. With their heal (if thay have one) firing off when my pets or character get too hurt.

 

Again, a matter of playstyle.

 

Which is weird, because I don't seem to have that problem.

 

Hey! We agree on something! I know I had a bottle of specialty eggnog to celebrate around here somewhere.... 😜

 

They actually degrade as you level, becoming less effective even as their damage increases. Which is why enhancements are pointed out in I think 3 different arcs to players.

 

The difference here as I see it, are that pets are almost fire and forget. They are powers that keep doing damage to your enemies without you having to do anything. So that's 6 different sources of damage that the MM doesn't have to click. And the upgrades add more fire and forget capability to those. As opposed to the Blaster's Fireball that the character has to click to use every time.

 

Okay, I gotta know... how do you turn off a specific pet's upgrades? Because I would REALLY love not equipping my Assault Bot with that flamethrower. "No, seriosuly! Stay at RANGE you stupid robot!!!!!"

 

Yeah... probably the primary-secondary pairings in play here... but I was running a +2/x8 TF with a single friend and we had split up. I didn't even realize we were clearing different sections of the TF at that difficulty. My pets just ate everything. Only realized when it dawned me all the bosses had been purple.

 

Not in an instance. Only when running across the zone to the mission.

 

*grumble* *grumble* Okay... yeah... depending on team and task, that is true.

 

Sorry to say, but that boils down to poor pet control. Though on large, fast moving teams, that can become rather inevitable.

 

I could agree to this. For the summoning. Not the buffing. As I've said, I've never noticed my pets pausing while one of their number gets upgraded.

You broke down some of these comments where they belong together.

Lets just discuss the pet upgrade against fire an forget..  

First off they are not fire and forget.. You need to control your pets and direct them it is not like they will follow your attack target. You could have several mobs attacking several different pets..  You CANNOT just stand there and say, they got this, because they don't without your direction..  This is clearly how you start loosing pets.
Your Tier 1 pets are way below level look at my signature for mechanics and you will see why the Tier 1 pets are barely hitting bosses.  
Further this has been a complaint since the game was live, so nothing new here.. 

But to just say they are fire and forget, have a nice day is sort of BS blanket statement. 

My other point is does ANY ArchType need ANOTHER POWER to upgrade their Tier 1 power.. EG as I used in my previous post Fireball? 
Is FireBall doing lvl 48 worth of damage at level 50? Or has the DPS increased as you leveled AUTOMATICALLY..  The simple answer is the numbers have increased on their own. 

So why can't all my pets be level 50, then? I am literally required to take an upgrade and even more today because they added inherit buffs into the upgrade that where strictly on the pets in the first place..  

So I need to take the pet AND the TWO UPGRADES.. And I still with a pet doing level 48 hit and damage against a level 52 mob for example.  Why ? Again the game mechanics clearly tells you they will miss A LOT.. Its there in black and white just follow my signature links..  

So at level 50 I am saddled with 3 attacks, 1 at level 48, 1 at 49 and 1 at 50.. BUT ALL 3 required 2 UPGRADE powers to be at their full potential. OTHERWISE they are NOT and also missing special affects which they had inherently before these changes.

Can you imagine if Blasters or Tanks had 2 attack that were level 48 and 49 in power maximum.. Forget upgrades..  Just attacking at that level.. There would be an uproar.. A riot.

Back in the day this was okay, but we still complained eventually because it just didn't seem right.. But NOW the game has changed drastically and even more so with this new heroic content increase.. I mean have you read the thread where players are practically running petless because the pets are not surviving. They are just that useless. 

Regarding my comment about the attacks being useless and you mentioning putting IOs into them.. 
Since I have tested this out.. I can tell you a Mastermind without pets cannot survive by his attacks alone, while leveling up. They do less damage and they cost more endurance.. You would have to drastically slot every power with end redux IO and do even less damage or have even less accuracy. Again there is a chart in my links that points out the max numbers for damage and such for each archtype.. Masterminds are the lowest. 

That being said NOTHING CHANGES when you level. What is occurring is since you are micro managing the pets, you are just attacking lets.. Telling pets to move here or stay or come back, healing a pet with an inspiration, directing pets to attack a mob. All of these actions being done, though they are many are NOT attacks, but equate to an action of an attack or I should say take the place of an attack. EG.. I want to attack right now but instead I need to call my pets back here and wait for them to get back and then command them to stay. THEN I can attack.. You can't tell the pets to attack a target and at the same time tell them to move here, as an example.. So the time wasted to have them move where you want and then stay is time spent where you could have had 2 attacks. 

This in turn is what is reducing your endurance cost.. 
But today if I didn't have an attack.. NOW I MUST if you want that -200 debuff my pets had inherently. 
Spectres are nice.. You can have up to 3 out.. BUT if you want 3.. You MUST take all 3 attacks. Why can't it be 3 max.. Spam any primary attack power you want and the max will just be 3.. 

Sentinels had that 2 attack requirement if you wanted the buff or debuff.  What did they do? They removed it completely..

Masterminds? They gave you something cool but you are now required to pick up your extra high endurance primary attack powers. Just looked at Thugs pistol attacks for a comparison. 

I am going to record my screen and simply show you pets do not attack when summoned.. They finish the animation as they are getting clobbered. 
Then I will reset.. I will then summon and then spam to upgrade while they are getting clobbered and you will see they will not attack while summoning and then being upgraded..
If I summon all 3, the pets out of the spawn animation will start to attack while the 3rd summon is going off but of course will stop the moment a pet upgrade is applied. 

You can only apply the pet upgrade after the last pet animation is done..
Get a watch out and count the seconds.. 

Now of course we can then play the semantics of well you summoned the Tiers 1 first in a group of mobs, of course they are going to die.. You should have summoned the Tier 3 first and then ETC.. Which then goes to you are doing it wrong to some phantom rule on how to play.. Which now falls into playstyle and LRN2PLY realm.

For what it is worth, it is much more noticeable with Robots because of the animation. 

This is what they should do.
Add more buttons / commands that do the following.. 
Summon ALL Complete- This summons all your pets you can have for the level you are at. The pets come upgraded with whatever you have available for your level. 
Summon ALL - Summons all your pets you can have for the level you are at. They are NOT upgraded.. You upgrade them as you want. 
Summoned pets have some sort of immunity timer. Nothing crazy, 1 to 3 seconds.

At the end of the day.. I just cannot see you or anyone trying to justify or make it justifiable that its okay at level 50 to have to summon 3 pets and use 2 upgrades on these pets in the midst of a fight is okay Or the LRN2PLY requirement is to run off to a quiet spot on the map to summon pets and go back to fight. 

Again the ONLY TIME another ArchType has to runaway is because they are low on health and don't have the inspirations to heal. 
A Mastermind could be a full health, but lost all his pets to a massive bodyguard mode AOE attack. Which now requires him to run off because he cannot summon pets as he knows the group aggro will be too much for the pets spawning in. Or he knows he cannot survive the current aggro set on him as his pets are gone. 
So a full health Mastermind could potentially have 2 scenarios that would require him to run off even though he is at full health.. 
Again no other AT in the same situation would do that, because there is no reason for them to do that.. 

This is broken and instead of saying it is broken you are justifying the break and accepting it is broken and dealing with the workaround. 


 

[Rudra]

Every pet starts with 2 powers. The upgrades give them more powers. So a fully upgraded T1 pet has up to 3 to 5 powers. That they are using unless they are set in passive. And you have 3 of them. So that's 9-15 powers firing without you needing to tell anyone or anything to use them. Then you add in the T2s and the T3. That is where I am getting "fire and forget" from. You summon them, buff them, and they attack on their own. They don't need to be attacking your selected target everytime to do so. That Blaster however? Can only throw 1 attack at a time. And if that Blaster needs to heal? Has to pause their attacks to eat a green. MM needs to heal? Eat that green or use that heal, your pets are still dishing out damage. Low END? Blaster pauses to eat a blue while the MM still has 1-6 pets doing damage while the MM eats a blue. That is why I call them "fire and forget". It is not a question of pet control, it is that the pets will keep fighting until something stops them.

 

As a MM player, I've lost all my pets in a fight. And did not need to run away. My health was high enough for me to summon replacement pets and renew Bodyguard Mode. I've watched other MM players do the same thing. MMs do not have to retreat just because they lose all their pets, let alone some of them. Just like the Blaster hanging in the fight throwing attacks despite his/her/its health being low, it is a question of risk. Is the risk so high that I need to run away or is the risk manageable still? Do I have time to fire off another summons to buy me more time to replenish my forces, or is it time to run for it? Even against AVs, a MM has options for buying time to re-summon while petless. Is it worth the risk? That is up to the MM player to decide. Sometimes it turns out to be worth the risk, other times, not so much.

 

As for the inherent buffs being moved into the upgrades? Why is that a problem? You can improve those effects now. Bot resistances? Slot some damage resist enhancements into the upgrade. Voila! Higher damage resistance on the bots now even before you think about any of the pet procs. Ninja defense? Slot some defense enhancements into the upgrade and boost their defense before you factor in the procs. How is that a bad thing?!

 

The changes to the MM inherent attacks? You and the other guy I can't remember said you wanted better MM attacks. Well, now they do more than they did before. And you say that makes them worse. You have to take all 3 MM inherent attacks to get all 3 specters? How many specters did you get before? The Mercenaries MM has to take all 3 powers to stack to whatever their effect is? Okay, what effect did they do before? (While I don't know the answer to the specters, I know this one. Nothing. They did nothing before and now they do.)

 

6 hours ago, plainguy said:

That being said NOTHING CHANGES when you level. What is occurring is since you are micro managing the pets, you are just attacking lets.. Telling pets to move here or stay or come back, healing a pet with an inspiration, directing pets to attack a mob. All of these actions being done, though they are many are NOT attacks, but equate to an action of an attack or I should say take the place of an attack. EG.. I want to attack right now but instead I need to call my pets back here and wait for them to get back and then command them to stay. THEN I can attack.. You can't tell the pets to attack a target and at the same time tell them to move here, as an example.. So the time wasted to have them move where you want and then stay is time spent where you could have had 2 attacks. 

When pets level, they improve. Just like a Blaster's attack. There are 2 points where the MMs T1 pets don't level. And that is where you get the next T1 pet. There is 1 point where the T2 pets don't level. That is where you get the 2nd pet. The pets don't level mid-mission, requiring you to zone or re-summon to level them, but they do still improve as they level just like every other attack in the game. And unlike any other AT's attacks, you can add to your pets repertoire  by using the upgrade powers, giving them more powers to use in increasing their attack chains so they can kill things faster for you. Yes, giving pets commands is not an attack. However, they have a set of attacks they can and will use without you having to click them to use their attacks. (My question is why are you calling your pets back, telling them to stay, and then ordering them to attack? You are intentionally handicapping yourself. Call them back, or order them to attack a target near you, or whatever. You are adding entirely too many commands into your command chain.)

 

6 hours ago, plainguy said:

Now of course we can then play the semantics of well you summoned the Tiers 1 first in a group of mobs, of course they are going to die.. You should have summoned the Tier 3 first and then ETC.. Which then goes to you are doing it wrong to some phantom rule on how to play.. Which now falls into playstyle and LRN2PLY realm.

What are you talking about? I summon based on which ones I noticed needed to be summoned first. You summon in whatever order you want. I don't care.

 

If you check my response to the thread, specifically the OP, you would see I am fine with it. It is the claims you are making about how bad MMs are that is prompting me to argue. You can want and ask for improvements without trying to cast MMs as inexcusably broken, unplayable, or just no fun.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to correct spelling and grammar.

[blue4333]

Rudra, is it possible that you've emotionally attached the Mastermind AT to your entire identity? You can't really deny the points that Plainguy brings up.

 

Masterminds are clearly lacking as compared to other ATs and further compounded by the skill-ceiling micromanaging handicapped pets require. Pet AI (on their DPS rotation, pathing and damage patches) as well as the level tax on T1/T2 are out of the mastermind player's control. Adding on to the mandatory power choices (3 pet summon powers, 2 upgrades) and essential picks (Leadership, and now the attack powers), it makes the mastermind AT feel taxed.

 

10 hours ago, Rudra said:

When pets level, they improve.

Yeah sure, but when the baseline is -1/2 levels below the +0 mob you're fighting, it's still a handicap

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, blue4333 said:

is it possible that you've emotionally attached the Mastermind AT to your entire identity? You can't really deny the points that Plainguy brings up.

Masterminds are no more emotionally attached to my identity than any other AT. I enjoy and play almost all the ATs. I wouldn't have any issues with @plainguy's comments if he made a reasoned presentation without trying to cast the MM as garbage. And while that may not be his intent, the way his posts about MMs reads to me, that is exactly what he is saying. (Edit: Especially when he makes comments about them being broken. They aren't broken. They may not be ideal, but they aren't broken.) Address the concerns without trying to make them look worse than they are.

 

5 hours ago, blue4333 said:

Masterminds are clearly lacking as compared to other ATs

That is a matter of opinion. I find it far easier to get by with a MM than I do with anything short of a brute.

 

5 hours ago, blue4333 said:

and further compounded by the skill-ceiling micromanaging handicapped pets require.

That is a matter of perception to me. However, I am willing to grant that pet management can be difficult. I have no problems with people asking for MM pets to not lose levels as their numbers increase. I disagree with that request outside of incarnate content (and possibly Hard Mode content, but wouldn't know since I haven't done any), but I have no problems with the ask. My concern is how much more powerful that would make the MM without doing much of anything to improve pet survivability in the cited circumstances. It's not the lower levels that I see getting pets killed. It is their lower robustness compared to player character development. Which was addressed by moving their defenses and resists into the 1st upgrade so they could be improved with enhancements.

 

5 hours ago, blue4333 said:

Yeah sure, but when the baseline is -1/2 levels below the +0 mob you're fighting, it's still a handicap

That is not the point as @plainguy was presenting it. (And if it was his intent, he needs a better way of presenting it.) @plainguy said that a Blaster's attacks improve as the Blaster levels, but that the MM's pets need the upgrades to improve. And that is blatantly not true. MM pets improve as the MM levels too. The upgrades aren't improving the pets' damage. The upgrades aren't improving the pets' accuracy. The T1 upgrade does improve their survivability now since now we can slot them for resist or defense, but prior to the change did not improve the pets' survivability. The upgrades give them more powers and utility. The pets improved by leveling up just like every other AT's attacks. And if you don't believe me, take your MM and exemplar down to as low as you can and check what your pets are doing for damage. Then un-exemplar and see what they do as a level 50 MM. And don't use any upgrade powers for the check. You will see that the pets are improving as the MM goes up in levels.

 

Some players aren't happy with MMs. I get that. There are tweaks that would make the MM more enjoyable for them. I get that. That argument is severely undercut in my opinion when the one(s) requesting the change ignore the facts about what MMs can do and how well they can do it in order to make what they can't do or have difficulty with look more severe. Present your requests fairly is all I am asking for.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Rudra

[Arbegla]

Instead of arguing for or against a reduction in time for the upgrades to affect the mobs, I think we should push to have the resistance split out, so you get half resistance on summoning the pets, and the other half (being enhance-able) when you upgrade them.

This should give the pets some more durability, without changing too much in the ways of the pets working. With the fact that the upgrades are AOEs now, the setup time for a MM is MUCH shorter than it used to be, though I do definitely see and notice a different in survivability  when not having the resistance equip on the bots.

 

With the reduction in the flamethrower recharge time, I dont want to skip the equip power on the assault bot anymore, as its much faster and deals a decent amount of damage now.

[plainguy]

On 11/15/2022 at 1:32 PM, Rudra said:

Masterminds are no more emotionally attached to my identity than any other AT. I enjoy and play almost all the ATs. I wouldn't have any issues with @plainguy's comments if he made a reasoned presentation without trying to cast the MM as garbage. And while that may not be his intent, the way his posts about MMs reads to me, that is exactly what he is saying. (Edit: Especially when he makes comments about them being broken. They aren't broken. They may not be ideal, but they aren't broken.) Address the concerns without trying to make them look worse than they are.

 

That is a matter of opinion. I find it far easier to get by with a MM than I do with anything short of a brute.

 

That is a matter of perception to me. However, I am willing to grant that pet management can be difficult. I have no problems with people asking for MM pets to not lose levels as their numbers increase. I disagree with that request outside of incarnate content (and possibly Hard Mode content, but wouldn't know since I haven't done any), but I have no problems with the ask. My concern is how much more powerful that would make the MM without doing much of anything to improve pet survivability in the cited circumstances. It's not the lower levels that I see getting pets killed. It is their lower robustness compared to player character development. Which was addressed by moving their defenses and resists into the 1st upgrade so they could be improved with enhancements.

 

That is not the point as @plainguy was presenting it. (And if it was his intent, he needs a better way of presenting it.) @plainguy said that a Blaster's attacks improve as the Blaster levels, but that the MM's pets need the upgrades to improve. And that is blatantly not true. MM pets improve as the MM levels too. The upgrades aren't improving the pets' damage. The upgrades aren't improving the pets' accuracy. The T1 upgrade does improve their survivability now since now we can slot them for resist or defense, but prior to the change did not improve the pets' survivability. The upgrades give them more powers and utility. The pets improved by leveling up just like every other AT's attacks. And if you don't believe me, take your MM and exemplar down to as low as you can and check what your pets are doing for damage. Then un-exemplar and see what they do as a level 50 MM. And don't use any upgrade powers for the check. You will see that the pets are improving as the MM goes up in levels.

 

Some players aren't happy with MMs. I get that. There are tweaks that would make the MM more enjoyable for them. I get that. That argument is severely undercut in my opinion when the one(s) requesting the change ignore the facts about what MMs can do and how well they can do it in order to make what they can't do or have difficulty with look more severe. Present your requests fairly is all I am asking for.

 

Have you ever looked in my signature? 
If you would have you would see I created over a DOZEN petless masterminds.. I wouldn't create them if I hated Masterminds.. Lowest Hit point and highest endurance cost for any archtype.  I solo 3/8 setting on these petless masterminds, based on the mob type.
So I don't think they are garbage or useless. But there are things that are broken with them. 

The the T1 pets are a power.. Just like any other power for any archtype.. Masterminds can get a pet at level 1 or 2 just like any archtype can pick whatever their powers are for level 1 or two. The difference is the MINUTE your T1 pet is a level below you. You just lost power. That specific attack is being calculated One or Two levels below your current level based on where you are with Mastermind level wise.. 

I have ZERO clue why you keep ignoring that. 
On top of this you have to use an upgrade on the pets. Again the pets are a power just like any other archtype.. No one has to use an upgrade power to improve their level 2 power.. And yes there are improvements.. Photon Grenade, Seeker Drones, Heavy laser, Laser burst, Heal.. 

So lets do this again, So imagine you have fireball, BUT if you want it to do an AOE you have to use your upgrade on Fireball. But wait, you want your fireball to also cause a lingering dot on other mobs ? Then that is the 2nd upgrade you need to use on Fireball.  

Now imagine you needed to do this for a total of 3 powers all the time for your blaster or any archtype..  

Your constant rebuttal is they are fire and forget.. 
They are not.. 
You have to control them, you already conceded there is a management involved in controlling them. 
That is the price you pay as a player for having these fire and forget pets.. You have to control them CAREFULLY..  Its not like you summon them and they just follow you around and just target whatever you target and they don't pull aggro accidentally or attack mobs on their own or return  fire on mobs when not wanted.. 
There is a management cost.

The problem arises not simply on that.. The issue with mastermind is compounded. 

Summoning the pets while in combat for whatever the reason, makes them vulnerable to other NPC mob attacks.. But the pets DO NOT attack back.. It is like the NPC mobs are allowed to get a few free shots in.. 

If it was just one, two or three mobs. No big deal. But when several groups can aggro on them. They get wiped out. 
Again to be clear.. We are talking about just SUMMONING.. NOT upgrading.. 

Now the next compounded issue is the UPGRADE causes another delay in attack. 
So if you Summon and then Upgrade TWICE, the pets will be out of commission for like 10 seconds.. Again I posted this a while back and spoke about the timing and my observations.

To me that is unfair.. To me that is broken.. 
I am not asking for a power creep..
What I am asking is the OPTION to have my pets come out already upgraded if I have picked up the upgrade if that is what I want.. Again instead of  saying screw the crazy player that doesn't want certain upgrades for certain pets.. I am being fair and asking for the option to summon pets fully upgraded.  

At least give me a fighting chance in the heat of battle.. At least let me have my pets ready to rock and roll and kick ass out of the gate.. 

As I mentioned as you play masterminds enough you start to learn the work arounds.. But to be clear there should NOT be WORK AROUNDS..
But for example with Robots I use the 2nd upgrade first and then tell the pets to attack, that usually ( I would say 100% of the time ) makes the Assault bot first off swarm which causes enough damage and mobs to move out of the patch to get me to use the 1st upgrade. 

I have other things that I can express but I just want to keep it to these simple facts.. 

Again the mere fact that we have to control these pets to stop chasing mobs, to move them behind you, to stop attack. to dismiss them because they pull aggro. To dismiss them when they are block the way on cave missions or in tight areas. 
All this micromanagement and active decisions you have to make is the price you pay for having "fire and forget" mobs.. But again it is only ONE PET that is usually not below level which is the T3.. 

Look I am sure if I got my lvl 50 blaster and just fired my level 2 power unslotted at a level 50 mob I would kill it much faster and do more DPS then sending my level 48 upgraded Battle drones unslotted against the same lvl 50 mob. 

Removed incarnates from both builds.

I used one of my builds and placed no IOs in my AR Device.. 
Fought a yellow con Behemoth Overlord LT

 

[23:43] You activated the Slug power.
[23:44] You activated the Slug power.
[23:44] You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Slug for 138.96 points of Lethal damage.
[23:44] You gain 3,933 experience and 3,147 influence.
[23:44] Slug is recharged.

 

Removed IOs from my Robot Traps Battle Drones 
[00:24] Battle Drone: HIT Behemoth Overlord! Your Heavy Laser Burst power had a 56.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 44.44.
[00:24] Battle Drone: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Heavy Laser Burst for 25.38 points of Energy damage.
[00:24] Battle Drone: MISSED Behemoth Overlord!! Your Overcharged Burst power had a 56.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 85.77.
[00:24] Battle Drone: HIT Behemoth Overlord! Your Overcharged Burst power had a 56.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 10.32.
[00:24] Battle Drone: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Overcharged Burst for 40.25 points of Energy damage.
[00:25] Battle Drone: HIT Behemoth Overlord! Your Heavy Laser Burst power had a 56.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 23.09.
[00:25] Battle Drone: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Heavy Laser Burst for 25.38 points of Energy damage.
[00:25] Behemoth Overlord has defeated Battle Drone
[00:25] Behemoth Overlord has defeated Battle Drone
[00:25] Behemoth Overlord has defeated Battle Drone

I will say for a moment the Battle Drones were knocking down the Behemoth Overlord preventing him to attack, but his fireball and melee attacks eventually did them in.

You want to do 100 test and get the average, be my guest.. One was enough for me to make my point.  

For added measure.
Assault Bot same treatment.
Trust me when I tell you it went tons faster and the Assault Bot was fighting 2 mobs, I summoned the Assault Bot and upgraded him while he was getting attacked so the Assault Bot went down to 3/4 health before he could fight back. But the Assault Bot recovered and took out both mobs, Yellow con LT and white con.  
But he was low on health around 1/4 at the end of the fight.
I am sure if he just came out upgraded ready to fight it would have been much faster..

 

[00:38] Assault Bot: Behemoth Overlord hits you with their Swipe for 5.17 points of Fire damage over time.
[00:38] Assault Bot: Behemoth Overlord hits you with their Swipe for 5.17 points of Fire damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: HIT Behemoth Overlord! Your Plasma Blast power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 37.49.
[00:39] Assault Bot: Possessed Scientist HITS you! Fire Ball power had a 30.00% chance to hit and rolled a 4.36.
[00:39] Assault Bot: Possessed Scientist hits you with their Fire Ball for 13 points of Smashing damage.
[00:39] Assault Bot: Possessed Scientist hits you with their Fire Ball for 45.53 points of Fire damage.
[00:39] Assault Bot: Possessed Scientist hits you with their Fire Ball for 6.5 points of Fire damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: Possessed Scientist hits you with their Fire Ball for 6.5 points of Fire damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Smash for 113.49 points of Smashing damage.
[00:39] Assault Bot: HIT Behemoth Overlord! Your Incendiary Swarm Missiles power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 76.45.
[00:39] Assault Bot: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Incendiary Swarm Missiles for 13.33 points of Lethal damage over time.
[00:39] Incendiary Swarm Missile: HIT Behemoth Overlord! Your Flames power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 51.53.
[00:39] Incendiary Swarm Missile: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Flames for 5.03 points of Fire damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Incendiary Swarm Missiles for 13.33 points of Lethal damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Incendiary Swarm Missiles for 13.33 points of Lethal damage over time.
[00:39] Incendiary Swarm Missile: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Flames for 4.63 points of Fire damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Incendiary Swarm Missiles for 13.33 points of Lethal damage over time.
[00:39] Assault Bot: You hit Behemoth Overlord with your Incendiary Swarm Missiles for 13.33 points of Lethal damage over time.
[00:39] Behemoth Overlord MISSES! Fire Blast power had a 12.51% chance to hit, but rolled a 68.66.
[00:39] You gain 4,168 experience and 1,945 influence.
[00:39] Behemoth Overlord MISSES! Fire Blast power had a 12.51% chance to hit, but rolled a 96.07.
[00:39] You gain 8,337 experience and 6,669 influence.

 

So the 2 levels matter.
Upgrading matters. 

These compounded issues is like death by 1000 cuts. 

Without a doubt the Battle Drones would not have survived being summoned during a fight like this. They would have went down much faster.

 

[Rudra]

The issue I have with your comments in thsi thread, which I have stated multiple times, is the fallacy of your comparison.

 

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

So lets do this again, So imagine you have fireball, BUT if you want it to do an AOE you have to use your upgrade on Fireball. But wait, you want your fireball to also cause a lingering dot on other mobs ? Then that is the 2nd upgrade you need to use on Fireball.  

So let's look at your comparison again. Say you have a Blaster and you take Flares. Now you want your flares to be an AoE. It can't be. You have to take a completely separate power to do that. And you can only fire either Flares or that other power (most likely Fire Ball). You can't fire both at the same time.

 

Okay, what about the MM? Just looking at the T1 Soldier pets. You summon the T1 Soldier. He starts with Super Jump, Brawl, and Quick Burst. He has a single ranged attack and a single melee attack. Then you use your 1st upgrade on him and he picks up ASMG Heavy Burst. Then you use your 2nd upgrade on him and he swaps the ASMG Heavy Burst for Heavy Burst and picks up Auto Fire. He now has 3 ranged attacks and a melee attack, and he will stand there and fire his three assault rifle attacks as quickly as he can at a random target within his aggro range after he is triggered into attacking. While the other 2 soldiers do the same, except for the Medic who may heal you, the player, or one of your pets as needed.

 

There is no comparison between the MM AT and the Blaster AT for power progression/utilization. The pet powers don't work even remotely the same as the other AT's attack powers. The T1 pets suffer a 2 level penalty because they are putting out 3x as many attacks. The T2 pets suffer a 1 level penalty because they are putting out twice as many attacks. The T3 suffers no level penalty because it is putting out the normal number of pet attacks for being the only one of its tier. (I know you know this, but I need to state this for my point.) Combined, the T1 and T2 pets are more powerful than a lone version of the T1 or T2. The down side is that they have less HP than if they were the only one, and individually they do less damage than if they were the only one. Slot up their accuracy? They hit more often and maintain their damage better. Slot up their damage? They hit harder when they hit. Just like any regular PC slotting enhancements (except you get to dictate to your pets what enhancements they get to have slotted).

 

They are not comparable to any single power from any other AT other than the Controller's/Dominator's pets. So if you want to compare MM pets to another AT? That is what you should be comparing. And from my experience? MM pets stomp all over Controller/Dominator pets even when uncommanded. Sure the Controller/Dominator pets probably outperform any 1 pet the MM has, but the MM has 6 of them, and unlike the Controller/Dominator, can determine when and what those pets are going to attack.

 

The only pet delay I notice is entering new areas. Every time they transition a door/portal, they stop and do nothing for several seconds as they figure out where they are. If you order them to attack after they get through the door/portal though? That delay goes away and they immediately attack the designated target. I have not noticed my pets pausing for their upgrades mid-battle other than the 1 pet I have targeted for the upgrade as he goes through the upgrade animation. If they are pausing? It is thankfully for nowhere near as long as the door/portal pause because I don't notice it. If it happens? Okay, it happens. If the devs fix that? Great. One less thing to deal with.

 

The argument between you and me isn't even about the OP. It is about how you insist on portraying and comparing MMs in the threads. I don't care if you have 0 MMs or 1,000,000,000 MMs. Every pet under the sun or none. I don't care if you are a novice MM player or an Ultra Uber Elite MM player. Ask for your desired changes without trying to portray the MM as being worse than it is. You take hyperbole to whole new levels for the sake of trying to motivate the devs to implement what you want.

 

I am fine with the OP. I've said that multiple times. I am fine with what issues the MM AT has being addressed. I am not fine with reading a thread and seeing any AT being portrayed as harshly as you portray them. The MMs powers work the way they do for a reason. You don't have to like that reason. You can try to get them changed. Just stop bashing MMs as being as bad as you have been protraying them because so far? I haven't found any of your claims to be particularly credible about the MM AT because of how far you exaggerate the claims.

 

(Side note: I have a hard time believing you dropped a yellow lieutenant con Behemoth Overlord with a single hit from the Assault Rifle's T2 Slug power. Which just adds to my perception of you using excessive hyperbole for your claims.)

[plainguy]

11 hours ago, Rudra said:

The issue I have with your comments in thsi thread, which I have stated multiple times, is the fallacy of your comparison.

 

So let's look at your comparison again. Say you have a Blaster and you take Flares. Now you want your flares to be an AoE. It can't be. You have to take a completely separate power to do that. And you can only fire either Flares or that other power (most likely Fire Ball). You can't fire both at the same time.

 

Okay, what about the MM? Just looking at the T1 Soldier pets. You summon the T1 Soldier. He starts with Super Jump, Brawl, and Quick Burst. He has a single ranged attack and a single melee attack. Then you use your 1st upgrade on him and he picks up ASMG Heavy Burst. Then you use your 2nd upgrade on him and he swaps the ASMG Heavy Burst for Heavy Burst and picks up Auto Fire. He now has 3 ranged attacks and a melee attack, and he will stand there and fire his three assault rifle attacks as quickly as he can at a random target within his aggro range after he is triggered into attacking. While the other 2 soldiers do the same, except for the Medic who may heal you, the player, or one of your pets as needed.

 

There is no comparison between the MM AT and the Blaster AT for power progression/utilization. The pet powers don't work even remotely the same as the other AT's attack powers. The T1 pets suffer a 2 level penalty because they are putting out 3x as many attacks. The T2 pets suffer a 1 level penalty because they are putting out twice as many attacks. The T3 suffers no level penalty because it is putting out the normal number of pet attacks for being the only one of its tier. (I know you know this, but I need to state this for my point.) Combined, the T1 and T2 pets are more powerful than a lone version of the T1 or T2. The down side is that they have less HP than if they were the only one, and individually they do less damage than if they were the only one. Slot up their accuracy? They hit more often and maintain their damage better. Slot up their damage? They hit harder when they hit. Just like any regular PC slotting enhancements (except you get to dictate to your pets what enhancements they get to have slotted).

 

They are not comparable to any single power from any other AT other than the Controller's/Dominator's pets. So if you want to compare MM pets to another AT? That is what you should be comparing. And from my experience? MM pets stomp all over Controller/Dominator pets even when uncommanded. Sure the Controller/Dominator pets probably outperform any 1 pet the MM has, but the MM has 6 of them, and unlike the Controller/Dominator, can determine when and what those pets are going to attack.

 

The only pet delay I notice is entering new areas. Every time they transition a door/portal, they stop and do nothing for several seconds as they figure out where they are. If you order them to attack after they get through the door/portal though? That delay goes away and they immediately attack the designated target. I have not noticed my pets pausing for their upgrades mid-battle other than the 1 pet I have targeted for the upgrade as he goes through the upgrade animation. If they are pausing? It is thankfully for nowhere near as long as the door/portal pause because I don't notice it. If it happens? Okay, it happens. If the devs fix that? Great. One less thing to deal with.

 

The argument between you and me isn't even about the OP. It is about how you insist on portraying and comparing MMs in the threads. I don't care if you have 0 MMs or 1,000,000,000 MMs. Every pet under the sun or none. I don't care if you are a novice MM player or an Ultra Uber Elite MM player. Ask for your desired changes without trying to portray the MM as being worse than it is. You take hyperbole to whole new levels for the sake of trying to motivate the devs to implement what you want.

 

I am fine with the OP. I've said that multiple times. I am fine with what issues the MM AT has being addressed. I am not fine with reading a thread and seeing any AT being portrayed as harshly as you portray them. The MMs powers work the way they do for a reason. You don't have to like that reason. You can try to get them changed. Just stop bashing MMs as being as bad as you have been protraying them because so far? I haven't found any of your claims to be particularly credible about the MM AT because of how far you exaggerate the claims.

 

(Side note: I have a hard time believing you dropped a yellow lieutenant con Behemoth Overlord with a single hit from the Assault Rifle's T2 Slug power. Which just adds to my perception of you using excessive hyperbole for your claims.)

No..

The combat log is truncated.. I took a bit from the start and some from the end.. Why would I post this LONG combat log..