Beast Mastery Revisited

[StrikerFox]

So I have some time off between Xmas to New Years and started to replay Beast/TA. Just realized the radius of Pack Mentality isn't the same distance as Supremacy, 60'. It's about half that, 25-30'. If further away than that, pets doesn't seem to accumulate PM stacks unless the MM uses personal MM attacks.

 

All those times playing, hanging back, shooting arrows. Or pylon testing and Hover/Provoke off to the side. I couldn't figure out why PM stacks were so slow/minimal. I sort of want to remake a Scrappermind so that I'm always close to beast pets. Maybe try pairing TA with Ninjas.

 

Here's a vid of testing the Pack Mentality distance:

 

 

 

Here's a pylon test video. 2m31s, 151s, 382dps. T4 Musculature Core, T4 Degenerative Radial, T4 Hybrid Assualt (Off). A T1 pet died close to the end:

 

T1 - Achilles 33 activations
T1 - Lady Grey 23 activations
T1 - Shield Breaker 42 activations
T3 - Lady Grey 7 activations
T3 - Impeded Swiftness 12 activations
T3 - Ice Mistral 10 activations
39 crits

 

 

 

 

[tidge]

I don't play Beast Mastery, but I'm not terribly surprised about Pack Mentality's radius... to me, it looks like a lot of "radius effects" for henchmen are treated as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . The element that bothers me the most is "passing an Inspiration to a Henchmen", but I don't know how this could be addressed for Henchmen/Pets without changing how it works for Player-to-Player passing.

 

The most interesting results of the test (to me, anyway) are the many applications of the Achilles' Heel %debuff. I'm assuming that it was roughly 10 applications in 2.5 minutes for each of the three T1 Wolves... but 30+ hits (a single application has 10 sec duration each application) are helping boost net damage (modulo Damage Resistance Resisting of Resistance debuffs).

 

Personally: I wouldn't put %damage in a T3 Henchman because:

• There are good set bonuses (from Pet/ATO sets) to be had,
• The sets that give good bonuses to henchmen enhance the T3 in favorable ways (accuracy, damage, endurance)
• There is only one T3, so relying on %damage is something I see as relying too much on RNG

Even with the rates observed on the T1 %procs, I wouldn't lean into the other %damage pieces. Instead, I would give the T1s the Soulbound Allegiance %BuildUp piece and possibly the Universal Damage Overwhelming Force Knockdown piece (for regular play, not for pylon tests).

[StrikerFox]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

I don't play Beast Mastery, but I'm not terribly surprised about Pack Mentality's radius... to me, it looks like a lot of "radius effects" for henchmen are treated as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . The element that bothers me the most is "passing an Inspiration to a Henchmen", but I don't know how this could be addressed for Henchmen/Pets without changing how it works for Player-to-Player passing.

 

I only run with team inspira on MMs for this exact reason. Their radius is about 15' around the MM. Toss in multiple bids on /ah, they're usually all purchased by next login. Though they're so seldom used that winning 10-20 of each type will last forever.

 

5 hours ago, tidge said:

Personally: I wouldn't put %damage in a T3 Henchman because:

 

I hear ya. I have a tendency to min/max most builds. 22 slow proc activations on the T3 may not seem like a lot but they're all against a single pylon. All Dire Wolf's slow attacks are AoE, couple cones and a PBAoE. The slow procs has more impact vs groups of enemies. I didn't post the log but in the 151sec duration, the Dire Wolf used Chilling Howl 7 times, Freezing Roar 7 times and Terrible Howl 2 times. 22 proc activations off 16 attacks on a single target. In that same time frame, the Dire Wolf used Vicious Bite 16 times and Maiming Bite 14 times, 30 attacks for 7 Lady Grey proc activations. 

I probably build MMs different than others. Pick powers, slot up and add IOs, while omitting the pets until last. Try to get the MM to a point I'm happy, then slot pets freely, without needing the set bonuses that pet IOs provide. Below build for example, MM will be softcap with the Protector Bot shield buff active. Capped S/L res. Good amount of +recharge, decent amount of endurance. Overall, I'm satisfied with the MM's power picks/survivability/sustainability. To me, there's little reason to slot full pet IO sets. Sure, a full SMoS set or a SCotMM set could be added to gain some more endurance and +6% res to some damage types, but in doing so I'm taking away 10% res to all damage types to 6 pets and/or 5% def to all positions/damage types to all pets. I like making the pets the highlight of the build. And I'm not saying the way I build is the best way. Someone posted a video of his Bots/Traps soloing Arachnos +4x8. I definitely can't do that.