Power Pool/Epic Pool/Anything to Speed Up MM Minions.

[Zeraphia]

My single biggest gripe with masterminds, and while I acknowledge a huge section of this community will disagree with this, is that the minions are just simply too slow in a lot of content. It's not their survivability, their damage, their crowd control, etc. that make me feel the AT is lackluster, I'd just very much appreciate some form of "speed up" for the mastermind pets outside of taking Kinetics' speed boost buff. It does not have to include any of the +end +recovery secondary effects, I just want some way to speed them up.

 

I'd take them being in a secondary power pool, purchasable refillable temporary power, epic pool buff power, etc. literally any way to have this accessible to the AT.

 

It doesn't matter how good in combat they are if they cannot even make it to most fights and do significant damage in a lot of teams and are constantly stuck lagging behind.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Zeraphia

[srmalloy]

I'm not sure how complicated it would be to code -- my gut feeling is that it would be annoying to make work, and there are a number of situations where you wouldn't want to have it work that way, but having MM pets 'inherit' any movement effects that the MM has active would address most of the problem.

[Uun]

Are you referring to movement or recharge of their powers? All the minions have Super Leap as an auto power which provides +jumpheight, +jumpspeed and +runspeed.

[EmperorSteele]

Don't MM pets usually respawn near you if you get too far away?

[dreamdust]

47 minutes ago, Uun said:

Are you referring to movement or recharge of their powers? All the minions have Super Leap as an auto power which provides +jumpheight, +jumpspeed and +runspeed.

[Gobbledigook]

I find they run slow also. Some maybe more than others. 

 

I dislike running to the next mob to turn around and my pets are still running to catch up lol. Puts me off playing them a little.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

Don't MM pets usually respawn near you if you get too far away?

 

It seems really hit or miss. Sometimes I can go down the hall and they'll teleport, other times they'll just be strolling the length of Independence Port. Might depend on if anything attacks them or not, I'm not sure.  Putting that (pets only) teleport in the mastermind's control *would* be nice sometimes.

[Zeraphia]

3 hours ago, Uun said:

Are you referring to movement or recharge of their powers? All the minions have Super Leap as an auto power which provides +jumpheight, +jumpspeed and +runspeed.

Right, but the jumping usually only happens IF they are forced into elevation of any particular space, it's not automatic that they travel with it.

 

I'm looking for ANY way to increase the pets movement speed, NOT a recharge to their powers. I'm not searching for a strict combat buff in terms of damage, recharge rates, endurance, etc. I'm looking for ANY kind of solution to help the pets *actually* move faster to an objective besides speed boost from Kinetics. I do not care if this is an addition to the inherent with a new "super speed pet mode," a new APP that grants this ability, a new power pool, I'm literally asking for even crumbs of it at this point. They are slow as molasses. 

 

Right now as it stands the closest thing to this is Group Fly. I'm asking for anything that could grant a similar effect but for movement speed instead of Flight, because I personally dislike Flight powers (no offense to anybody that likes them) and for some characters it just outright makes no sense thematically for their minions to fly...

Edited November 11, 2022 by Zeraphia

[Rudra]

Two issues I have with MM pets:

 

1) As @Zeraphia said in the OP and has been commented on in other threads, including by me, is how slow pets are compared to the MM. Even with no powers active (not Sprint, Super Speed, Speed of Sound, Ninja Run, or any other powers to boost the MM's speed) and with no speed boosts from enhancement sets, enhancements, or buffing powers, MM pets just can't keep up with the MM. Yes, they do teleport to the MM if the distance becomes too great, but as @Greycat said, it doesn't always work and the pets will normally just stay running after the MM lagging further behind. When it does work? Is because the MM is using a travel power, so the pets teleport to catch up.

 

2) Pet delay before taking any action after using any door or portal. For what feels like forever, but is actually just a few seconds, MM pets will just stand there and do nothing after using any map transfers. I get this is so they can figure out where they are for pathfinding, but when the door/portal is hot and the pets just stand there while the MM is getting blasted? It's a bit of a nuisance.

 

So yeah, I would really like at least the pet movement speed to be improved. Jumping isn't their problem. They can jump pretty much anywhere the MM can go. Super Jumping does nothing to help them keep up with the MM until they have to vault something though. (Just watch the pets. They don't jump to speed up, and they would look silly if they did.)

[Greycat]

Just taking a quick peek in game -

Walk speed - they'll keep up (I do mean the power walk.)

Walking, non sprint speed (not the walk power) - they'll sort of keep up.

Sprint - they get left behind. Running down the road in Atlas from the wall behind the tram (that drops down) until that road's turn (stopping at the wall at the end,) they took several seconds to catch up just with that.

 

Part of the problem that's slowing them down at *that* speed - no travel power other than sprint - is that, if you watch, they'll run a bit, stop, run a bit, stop, run a bit and stop. 

 

But... yeah, honestly, henchmen should be able to keep up with *sprint* at the very least. It's built in. I can see not auto-granting them fly or superspeed or what have you, but this is *sprint.*

[TheZag]

Would be nice if you toggle sprint that the henchmen would as well.  I can understand having henchmen inherit the MMs movement could be problematic or possibly overpowered but henchmen sprinting when their boss does seems perfectly reasonable.

 

[biostem]

We need to be able to set a "tether-distance" for our pets - if they get further than a certain value, they are literally dragged along to keep up with the MM or otherwise respawn.

[Major_Decoy]

Okay, let's do this.

 

Forced March: Targeted ally PBAoE 4 minute duration, can be turned off at Null the Gull, boost run speed

Sentry: Passive, increase perception, perception resistance (with the resistance improvable with accuracy slotting. Takes no sets)

Combat Jogging: It's Infiltration without the stealth

Aura of Command: A Taunt aura toggle. You seem in charge, so people are more likely to attack you.

Takes A Punch: Either a resist all toggle or a +maximum health passive.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

Combat Jogging: It's Infiltration without the stealth

 

... when I first read this, I read the name as "Combat Juggling."

 

I want that as a set now. Or at least a pool. :)

[weewoozesty]

This would be very easily remedied by giving them a run speed boost.  No difficult fix.  As I've noticed that the pets keep up perfectly fine when kinetic speed boost is stuck on them.

 

If that is not a gigantic clue into what they need than I don't know what is.

 

Give them their own built in run speed boost.  I shouldn't have to bog my mastermind down with kinetics just because im tired of my pets not being able to keep up.

 

 

[Major_Decoy]

7 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

... when I first read this, I read the name as "Combat Juggling."

 

I want that as a set now. Or at least a pool. 🙂

There are existing animations for juggling. That'd be interesting

[Rudra]

26 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

... when I first read this, I read the name as "Combat Juggling."

 

I want that as a set now. Or at least a pool. 🙂

COMBAT JUGGLING

 

Arcing Shot: The character starts as if going to juggle, but lobs a ball at the target. Minor damage short range attack, fast recharge. Has chance to Stun.

Juggling: The character juggles a few balls. Has a chance to mesmerize. Stopped by using any other ability. PBAoE Mag 2 Sleep, toggle effect. (Edit: Roots or slows using character.)

Rapid Juggling: The character juggles balls, launching them in rapid-fire sequence at foes. Light or Moderate damage cone attack.

Whoops!: The character "drops" the juggled balls, filling an area with them. PBAoE slow effect with recurring high chance of KD.

 

Something like that, @Greycat?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to change "Hold" to "Sleep".

[Greycat]

23 minutes ago, Rudra said:

COMBAT JUGGLING

Something like that, @Greycat?

 

Heh. I'd *absolutely* take that on a few characters.

[PoptartsNinja]

I think the biggest issue is that mob Super Jump isn't the same as player Super Jump. Super Jump was given to pets to help them "keep up" but that's not how they use it.

 

Mobs only ever jump when they absolutely have to (blocked by other mobs) or to reach a platform they couldn't via ground pathing. It's why War Wolves can jump all the way up onto the rim of the War Walls in some of those burned out city maps but can't leap higher than the nearest lamp post if you're hovering 15 feet in the air and blasting them. The AI needs an impetus to jump and something to land on or they'll just never jump at all. It won't jump if it can path to its destination without jumping. The only form of movement the AI really seems to understand is flying (ground movement is just flying on a 2-dimensional plane).

 

It doesn't matter how much speed pet Super Jump technically imparts if the pets never use it to keep up with the player. Pets were also never really designed to take inherent swift into account.

 

 

Since I don't imagine it'd be easy to program mastermind pets to "jump after player if more than X distance away" boosting their base movement to keep up with a player with Swift + Sprint seems like a nice compromise. They will still get in each others way and fall behind, but if they can keep up with a sprinting player they'd be less likely to fall behind someone moving at the speed of an average mission team. It'd be a nice QoL improvement, I think.

[biostem]

I wonder if it would be too exploitative to simply give MMs a power to force-recall their minions to their location...

[blue4333]

19 minutes ago, biostem said:

I wonder if it would be too exploitative to simply give MMs a power to force-recall their minions to their location...

 

Only in PVP I imagine. In PVE, Pets are still burdened with the -levelshift tax and also whatever damage patches mobs have.

[Luminara]

 

That's without AM.  The T3 bot is still 0.01 mph below Group Fly's speed cap (58.64).  The T1 bots are capped at 57.77, they're restricted to level 49 outside of content without Incarnate shifts.

 

The base speeds are identical to player character base speeds, but the level reductions on the T1 and T2 henches means they'll always be slower (movement speed cap increases with level).  Their speed caps need to be raised, or no amount of tinkering will ever allow them to keep up with the player character.  

 

The movement powers are also part of the problem.  They're the same movement powers we use as players, but those powers were designed with the expectation that we'd be using other powers to supplement them, powers without which we couldn't hit our speed caps.  Swift, Hurdle, Sprint.  Henches don't have those.  Take those Super Leap stats, for instance.  49.97 mph?  With Hurdle, it would be over 67 mph, even for the T1s.

 

Those are the problems.  Inherently lower speed caps and movement powers which aren't balanced around the absence of Fitness/Sprint.  Adding a pool to buff pet speed wouldn't help without increasing the caps, and increasing the caps wouldn't help in a vacuum, either.

[Zeraphia]

4 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

That's without AM.  The T3 bot is still 0.01 mph below Group Fly's speed cap (58.64).  The T1 bots are capped at 57.77, they're restricted to level 49 outside of content without Incarnate shifts.

 

The base speeds are identical to player character base speeds, but the level reductions on the T1 and T2 henches means they'll always be slower (movement speed cap increases with level).  Their speed caps need to be raised, or no amount of tinkering will ever allow them to keep up with the player character.  

 

The movement powers are also part of the problem.  They're the same movement powers we use as players, but those powers were designed with the expectation that we'd be using other powers to supplement them, powers without which we couldn't hit our speed caps.  Swift, Hurdle, Sprint.  Henches don't have those.  Take those Super Leap stats, for instance.  49.97 mph?  With Hurdle, it would be over 67 mph, even for the T1s.

 

Those are the problems.  Inherently lower speed caps and movement powers which aren't balanced around the absence of Fitness/Sprint.  Adding a pool to buff pet speed wouldn't help without increasing the caps, and increasing the caps wouldn't help in a vacuum, either.

That's why you need both. I'd recommend increasing both the movement speed cap AND allowing for a specific power pool choice to boost the movement of henchmen. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

19 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

I think the biggest issue is that mob Super Jump isn't the same as player Super Jump. Super Jump was given to pets to help them "keep up" but that's not how they use it.

My understanding is that pets have Super Leap (a purely vertical travel ability with zero horizontal speed) rather than Super Jump (which inherits the player's horizontal speed).

[Greycat]

So... give pets Flying Leap?  >.>