What are the most team-friendly Mastermind builds?

[biostem]

Heck, pick anything along with kinetics and most teams will love you!

[ScarlettStorm]

Thanks, folks! Caught some great tips from this thread. But also wasn't sure why the topic got people so incredibly heated! Uh, go masterminds?

 

 

[TheSpiritFox]

On 1/21/2024 at 10:42 PM, Infeareal said:

 

That is legit the one non OP thing holding MM's back. Having come back recently and started on HC again with a my partner that has always been on of the such a simple issue that holds them back from being equal with other AT's. Just make the summons stay at the same level. They do not have enough going on their own to be OP, but under leveled they are very questionable and have to be played around. The higher the level content the worse and more noticeable it becomes. 

New powers not needed, changes to damage, nope, just hit the pets with equal leveling the the player character. It is a very trivial change that increases the viability just enough to keep up with the other AT's.

You havent played MMs enough. 

 

Even with the level shifts between pets a number of our powersets can top DPS charts. My thugs/traps has a top pylon time of 0:55. There are not many powerset combos in the game that can kill a rikti pylon in under a damn minute. Depending on how you build your MM we can be powerhouses down to like level 10. My bots traps? Pops ffgen at 11 when exemplared, which means at that level and above I have protector bot shield and ffgen bubble and like 35% defense on my damn pets. I can take hits better than anything but a slotted exemplared tank and still put out more damage than anything except a blaster or stalker, while providing team support at the same time. 

 

MMs are OP. I'm grateful they have not been nerfed. I dont have many other AT combos that can kill 54 AVs solo, but several of my MMs can do it. 

Edited January 26 by TheSpiritFox

[Cheli]

On 1/26/2024 at 10:19 AM, TheSpiritFox said:

You havent played MMs enough. 

 

Even with the level shifts between pets a number of our powersets can top DPS charts. My thugs/traps has a top pylon time of 0:55. There are not many powerset combos in the game that can kill a rikti pylon in under a damn minute. Depending on how you build your MM we can be powerhouses down to like level 10. My bots traps? Pops ffgen at 11 when exemplared, which means at that level and above I have protector bot shield and ffgen bubble and like 35% defense on my damn pets. I can take hits better than anything but a slotted exemplared tank and still put out more damage than anything except a blaster or stalker, while providing team support at the same time. 

 

MMs are OP. I'm grateful they have not been nerfed. I dont have many other AT combos that can kill 54 AVs solo, but several of my MMs can do it. 

I'd love to see your thugs/traps build if you're willing to share it; I've been trying to branch out a bit and MMs seem like a lot of fun, and I have a character I've been wanting to get back into playing that thugs/traps fits perfect thematically.

 

Generally, though, I feel like any MM can fit in well with a team considering their support secondaries and the pets providing an incentive to take team-boosting powers like the leadership pool. The teensy bit I've played with necro/therm and necro/dark I've certainly always felt like I was contributing when teamed.

[TheSpiritFox]

On 1/27/2024 at 1:42 PM, Cheli said:

I'd love to see your thugs/traps build if you're willing to share it; I've been trying to branch out a bit and MMs seem like a lot of fun, and I have a character I've been wanting to get back into playing that thugs/traps fits perfect thematically.

 

Generally, though, I feel like any MM can fit in well with a team considering their support secondaries and the pets providing an incentive to take team-boosting powers like the leadership pool. The teensy bit I've played with necro/therm and necro/dark I've certainly always felt like I was contributing when teamed.

Unfortunately everything mids related I had was from 2020 and two computers ago.  It amounts to stacking as much recharge as I could fit into the build. Just with the pets I get 3 10% recharge bonuses from franken slotting the two superior pet sets while still hitting solid acc/dam numbers with enhancement and boosting leadership defense and even dropping a proc into enforcers for extra damage. I fit 4 LOT into the build without taking fighting pool, threw all the uniques I could fit otherwise into the build while proccing out caltrops and bonfire from fire mastery. 

 

The premise of the build is with sufficient recharge you can get up to 3 acid mortars out at the same time, 4 with properly timed burnout and gang war. You can perma poison trap to completely destroy the regen of anything it touches. And you can stack up proc damage and once the bruiser gets his rage up he seriously hits fucking hard like I've seen him knockout blow things for 400+ with just once acid mortar up. 

 

Get the acid mortars up asap, burnout gangwar, dump everything on a pylons head, and it will fold fast with severely debuffed resistance and flatlined regen. It also matters alot for teaming, traps with 45 second recharges at 50 feels useless, traps with 22 second recharged, you can lead groups and just poison trap -> acid mortar -> pets every single spawn and watch things melt noticeably faster than they would otherwise. Acid mortar does work. 

[Infeareal]

On 1/26/2024 at 9:19 AM, TheSpiritFox said:

You havent played MMs enough. 

 

Even with the level shifts between pets a number of our powersets can top DPS charts. My thugs/traps has a top pylon time of 0:55. There are not many powerset combos in the game that can kill a rikti pylon in under a damn minute. Depending on how you build your MM we can be powerhouses down to like level 10. My bots traps? Pops ffgen at 11 when exemplared, which means at that level and above I have protector bot shield and ffgen bubble and like 35% defense on my damn pets. I can take hits better than anything but a slotted exemplared tank and still put out more damage than anything except a blaster or stalker, while providing team support at the same time. 

 

MMs are OP. I'm grateful they have not been nerfed. I dont have many other AT combos that can kill 54 AVs solo, but several of my MMs can do it. 

You are talking about one very specific and targeted part of the game. Pylons are used as a way to judge single target DPS. 99% of the game is not destroying a pylon. Most builds are not designed in that method because that's not how the actual gameplay works. Thugs/Traps is a very specific instance of this. Traps is well known for being awful outside of anything but AV's and in this case Pylons. If you are playing solo, sure it works but it is not fun. In any upper tiered group content by the time you set your trap the group would be moving on to the next pack.

Don't get me wrong I love MM's but the higher the content (actual group content) the worse henchman get. Re-summoning tier 1 henchman every pack over and over is not fun gameplay. If you are at 50+4 or incarnate level content 35% defense on those Tier 1 Henchman is a one shot every few swings. Again we are talking average group content, not a solo AV that is only swinging at one thing that you can specifically setup and work around.

[Lunar Ronin]

1 hour ago, Infeareal said:

You are talking about one very specific and targeted part of the game. Pylons are used as a way to judge single target DPS. 99% of the game is not destroying a pylon. Most builds are not designed in that method because that's not how the actual gameplay works. Thugs/Traps is a very specific instance of this. Traps is well known for being awful outside of anything but AV's and in this case Pylons. If you are playing solo, sure it works but it is not fun. In any upper tiered group content by the time you set your trap the group would be moving on to the next pack.

Don't get me wrong I love MM's but the higher the content (actual group content) the worse henchman get. Re-summoning tier 1 henchman every pack over and over is not fun gameplay. If you are at 50+4 or incarnate level content 35% defense on those Tier 1 Henchman is a one shot every few swings. Again we are talking average group content, not a solo AV that is only swinging at one thing that you can specifically setup and work around.

 

It's a good thing that henchmen are level-shifted in Incarnate content then.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, Infeareal said:

You are talking about one very specific and targeted part of the game. Pylons are used as a way to judge single target DPS. 99% of the game is not destroying a pylon. Most builds are not designed in that method because that's not how the actual gameplay works. Thugs/Traps is a very specific instance of this. Traps is well known for being awful outside of anything but AV's and in this case Pylons. If you are playing solo, sure it works but it is not fun. In any upper tiered group content by the time you set your trap the group would be moving on to the next pack.

Don't get me wrong I love MM's but the higher the content (actual group content) the worse henchman get. Re-summoning tier 1 henchman every pack over and over is not fun gameplay. If you are at 50+4 or incarnate level content 35% defense on those Tier 1 Henchman is a one shot every few swings. Again we are talking average group content, not a solo AV that is only swinging at one thing that you can specifically setup and work around.

Its not as bad as you make it, but the one point I will grant you is that MM pets, especially as homecoming pushes out buffs to enemies and content, are too fragile. They are in fact a bit of a liability in 4 star content, to the point that I think an across the board buff of 33-50% damage resistance to all types for all mm pets on top of all resistances that currently exist would not be amiss. Given their health scaling, even at 90% resistance there are things that will one to three shot them, so yeah we need a serious buff to mm pet survivability now. 

[tidge]

Some simple opinions on teaming as a Mastermind.

 

Secondary: I have nothing to say except that the secondary set from MM is supporting your henchmen (solo), so it should be able to support a team. I prefer MM's that debuff rather than those that focus more exclusively on team (and henchmen) survival, YMMV.

 

As for Primaries:

• Sometime the group needs the henchmen to take an alpha strike
• Sometimes the group needs the henchmen to "clean up" spawns (typically scattered mobiles which have run away)

The final piece of advice for teaming MMs: Try to keep most of your fodder on Bodyguard mode. It can be easy to want to put them on Aggressive mode, especially if there is a teammate grabbing aggro. Keep in mind that MMs have a a very small pool of HP without using the henchmen in Bodyguard mode, so try to avoid becoming Vengeance bait.

[Carnifax]

Just now, tidge said:

• Sometime the group needs the henchmen to take an alpha strike

Lots of masterminds don't seem to understand this I've noticed recently. Twas the way back when Redside went live, we were all non-IOed lowbies so Minions ate the alpha, Brute and Domis would then control the aggro. 

 

Usually you've someone happy to take the alpha and it's fine but I've been on teams where we're all squishy and we're all looking at each other thinking "So who is jumping in 1st", including a swarm of bots / thugs / zombies. Send in the clowns non-clown minions. Hell just send one (I had a specific ctrl-click bind to send one unlucky Zombie to a specific position for this purpose, then I'd raise a ghostie from him). 

[plainguy]

The only issues I ever  had were environment..
One TF ( don't recall the name) used to drag mobs as the mobs would run through the tunnels if you TP to the boss. 

The caves are an issue for bots and larger pets. I have had people look to leave a team I was on with my robots.. I left instead of breaking up the team. 
The sewers are much better for game play for Masterminds. 

 

Teams are fast moving, so nothing that requires setup such as Traps. 

Though not crazy about the animation of nature, the HOLD toggle in nature is very, very good.

 

[Maelwys]

On 2/27/2024 at 2:10 AM, TheSpiritFox said:

so yeah we need a serious buff to mm pet survivability now. 

The most straightforward solution here would seem to be to clamp the minimum Pet level at -5 (compared to what you're fighting) regardless of content.

That way regular gameplay doesn't get affected, but whenever you find yourself fighting much-higher-level foes on Regular or Hardmode +4/8 (non incarnate) content your T1 + T2 pets won't suddenly become crippled.
(This could likely reuse your team's current mission difficulty setting as an indicator. e.g. for any setting above "+2" [meaning "+3 foes can spawn"] the pet's level increases by 1, up to a maximum of whatever the MM's current level is)
And yes, apply it to everyone - Crabberminds, Fire Controllers, etc. not just MMs.

As an example: Currently if you're -5 to something then your T1 Pets will end up dealing only 8% of their regular damage, taking an extra 77% damage, and having the equivalent of a -10% Defence debuff. Clamping them to a minimum of -5 would raise this to 30% of their regular damage, taking an extra 55% damage, and no Defence debuff.
 

Edited March 7 by Maelwys

[TheSpiritFox]

10 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The most straightforward solution here would seem to be to clamp the minimum Pet level at -5 (compared to what you're fighting) regardless of content.

That way regular gameplay doesn't get affected, but whenever you find yourself fighting much-higher-level foes on Regular or Hardmode +4/8 (non incarnate) content your T1 + T2 pets won't suddenly become crippled.
(This could likely reuse your team's current mission difficulty setting as an indicator. e.g. for any setting above "+2" [meaning "+3 foes can spawn"] the pet's level increases by 1, up to a maximum of whatever the MM's current level is)
And yes, apply it to everyone - Crabberminds, Fire Controllers, etc. not just MMs.

As an example: Currently if you're -5 to something then your T1 Pets will end up dealing only 8% of their regular damage, taking an extra 77% damage, and having the equivalent of a -10% Defence debuff. Clamping them to a minimum of -5 would raise this to 30% of their regular damage, taking an extra 55% damage, and no Defence debuff.
 

Honestly at that point, just do like incarnate stuff, make pets the same level as the mastermind whatever it is, and do a slight damage rebalance based on pets no longer being -1 or -2. Drop supremacy to 10% damage and 10% accuracy and call it a day

 

[Psiphon]

Play what you want and have fun.

This game is more about the person behind the keyboard than the alts that they play. 

No AT or combo is required for a mission, one of the reasons I love the game so much. 

[Maelwys]

8 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Honestly at that point, just do like incarnate stuff, make pets the same level as the mastermind whatever it is, and do a slight damage rebalance based on pets no longer being -1 or -2. Drop supremacy to 10% damage and 10% accuracy and call it a day

 

The pets already give MMs a ridiculous lead during the 1-50 process, so it'd be a really bad idea to buff their performance at all vs +0 -> +3 foes if you can help it.

The Purple Patch buffs/debuffs final damage (a multiplicative effect). Supremacy just adds 25% regular DamageStrength% (additive with damage buffs like Enhancements etc) plus 10% ToHit (versus critters it's generally more effective than "+Accuracy" at letting you actually hit them, as well as at overcoming any +Defence buffs they might have).
 

Hypothetically, if you made all the pets the same level as the MM and dropped Supremacy's damage buff entirely, then even if you weren't buffing your pets at all outside of simple SO damage enhancements (no secondary powers like Forge or Fulcrum Shift, etc); compared to before your T1s would end up dealing more than 10% additional damage vs just simple +0 foes. And it'd only get much worse from there - against +3 foes they'd be dealing double their original damage.

Spoiler

With 3x +3 SO Enhancements (+97.23% damage)

VS +0 Foes:
(1.00 + 0.9723) * 1.00 = 1.9723 [Pets at same level as MM]
(1.00 + 0.9723 + 0.25) * 0.80 = 1.77784 [Pets at -2 to MM, with Supremacy]
1.9723 / 1.77784 = 1.10937992170274
= 10.94% additional damage dealt to enemies
 

VS +3 Foes:
(1.00 + 0.9723) * 0.65 = 1.3115795 [Pets at same level as MM]
(1.00 + 0.9723 + 0.25) * 0.30 = 0.66669 [Pets at -2 to MM, with Supremacy]
1.3115795 / 0.66669 = 1.967300394486193
= +96.73% additional damage dealt to enemies

That drastic shift in performance is why this needs to be approached very carefully. Ideally any buff to pet levels in regular content has to be a very gradual thing that only applies against very higher level foes.

 

I haven't delved into the ins and outs of the purple patch code, but I imagine you could also put a clamp there (lock the performance drain from the purple patch at a maximum of -5 level disadvantage if the entity attacking/being attacked has the 'henchmen' flag - this is already done for stuff like Protector Bot Bubbles)

----------

To get vaguely back on track... IMO the most Team Friendly MM builds are those with primaries that tend to hang back a bit (Bots, Mercs, Thugs, etc) and secondaries that have AoE or PBAoE buffs/debuffs/heals that don't require a lot of micro-management to affect specific pets/teammates.
Empathy, for example, is generally regarded as a pretty decent set; however it tends to function more poorly on MMs (because Fortitude's defence vlaue is lower and you can't keep it up constantly on all your teammates plus all your pets regardless of how much +recharge% you stack; and the other big buff - Adrenaline Boost - is single-target and +Recharge has no impact on pet DPA). By comparison, Kinetics is ridiculously good on MMs; because despite their lower base buff values it still only takes you 1-2 applications of Fulcrum Shift to get everyone on your team AND your pets to the Damage Cap... and Speed Boost/Increase Density/Transference/Transfusion are all AoE.

However by far the single biggest thing a MM player can do is get a good set of keybinds. Even if you can simply reliably target an individual pet or teammate that's more than half the battle right there; and I'd happilly team with a Beasts/Pain MM that has a decent set of binds over a Bots/Kin MM that has just the regular mouse + power tray setup any day of the week.
 

Edited March 8 by Maelwys

[Marshal_General]

Team usefulness is more about the secondary than what type of MM you bring. My Ninja/Kin MM is useful because I am a Kinetic crack dealer.

[TheSpiritFox]

10 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

The pets already give MMs a ridiculous lead during the 1-50 process, so it'd be a really bad idea to buff their performance at all vs +0 -> +3 foes if you can help it.

The Purple Patch buffs/debuffs final damage (a multiplicative effect). Supremacy just adds 25% regular DamageStrength% (additive with damage buffs like Enhancements etc) plus 10% ToHit (versus critters it's generally more effective than "+Accuracy" at letting you actually hit them, as well as at overcoming any +Defence buffs they might have).
 

Hypothetically, if you made all the pets the same level as the MM and dropped Supremacy's damage buff entirely, then even if you weren't buffing your pets at all outside of simple SO damage enhancements (no secondary powers like Forge or Fulcrum Shift, etc); compared to before your T1s would end up dealing more than 10% additional damage vs just simple +0 foes. And it'd only get much worse from there - against +3 foes they'd be dealing double their original damage.

  Reveal hidden contents

With 3x +3 SO Enhancements (+97.23% damage)

VS +0 Foes:
(1.00 + 0.9723) * 1.00 = 1.9723 [Pets at same level as MM]
(1.00 + 0.9723 + 0.25) * 0.80 = 1.77784 [Pets at -2 to MM, with Supremacy]
1.9723 / 1.77784 = 1.10937992170274
= 10.94% additional damage dealt to enemies
 

VS +3 Foes:
(1.00 + 0.9723) * 0.65 = 1.3115795 [Pets at same level as MM]
(1.00 + 0.9723 + 0.25) * 0.30 = 0.66669 [Pets at -2 to MM, with Supremacy]
1.3115795 / 0.66669 = 1.967300394486193
= +96.73% additional damage dealt to enemies

That drastic shift in performance is why this needs to be approached very carefully. Ideally any buff to pet levels in regular content has to be a very gradual thing that only applies against very higher level foes.

 

I haven't delved into the ins and outs of the purple patch code, but I imagine you could also put a clamp there (lock the performance drain from the purple patch at a maximum of -5 level disadvantage if the entity attacking/being attacked has the 'henchmen' flag - this is already done for stuff like Protector Bot Bubbles)

----------

To get vaguely back on track... IMO the most Team Friendly MM builds are those with primaries that tend to hang back a bit (Bots, Mercs, Thugs, etc) and secondaries that have AoE or PBAoE buffs/debuffs/heals that don't require a lot of micro-management to affect specific pets/teammates.
Empathy, for example, is generally regarded as a pretty decent set; however it tends to function more poorly on MMs (because Fortitude's defence vlaue is lower and you can't keep it up constantly on all your teammates plus all your pets regardless of how much +recharge% you stack; and the other big buff - Adrenaline Boost - is single-target and +Recharge has no impact on pet DPA). By comparison, Kinetics is ridiculously good on MMs; because despite their lower base buff values it still only takes you 1-2 applications of Fulcrum Shift to get everyone on your team AND your pets to the Damage Cap... and Speed Boost/Increase Density/Transference/Transfusion are all AoE.

However by far the single biggest thing a MM player can do is get a good set of keybinds. Even if you can simply reliably target an individual pet or teammate that's more than half the battle right there; and I'd happilly team with a Beasts/Pain MM that has a decent set of binds over a Bots/Kin MM that has just the regular mouse + power tray setup any day of the week.
 

Very good points. Heres what Im thinking though. We lag behind other ATs severely in the DPS difference between same level and higher level due to these level differences. You can see it in the pylon times on old pylons which werent leveled, we could nuke the things in under a minute, putting out DPS that no other AT could match, and this is still true on alot of enemies which do not have levels from GMs to like war of the vale mobs. 

 

You quoted a near 100% damage increase from the lower level pets, but arguing percentage does not make a good argument because the raw DPS from T1 and T2 pets on +3 purples and above is abysmal. Even after the changes it takes my bots traps, with two acid mortars up, over 2x longer to chew through a single boss than it takes a scrapper, sent, or 75% rage brute, to say nothing of blasters and stalkers. But against unleveled enemies, we can nuke the whole group in seconds faster than any of those ATs due to things being balanced around level differences which disappear against unleveled enemies. 

 

Supremacy cant be removed, its part of bodyguard. But it could have its damage and tohit nerfed significantly, and the pets could all have their damage adjusted downward to adjust for the level changes, and while yes it would have to be done delicately the change to the AT would make *future* balance changes just that much easier. It would help immensely with survivability as pets wont be taking tons of extra damage from the extra downward level shifts, and with pets being permanently the same level as the master you wouldnt have to accommodate for level shifts in future changes ever again, which would be a benefit to the AT and the Dev team.  The math for same level pets is *easier* from a programming perspective, it just would have to be recalculated. 

 

It would be much easier to DPS balance pets based on no level shifts. They could just throw up some numbers and throw them up on test and see how it turns out, let MMs test ourselves against the pylons new and old, let us run some trapdoor tests (which we are shit at compared to other ATs due to the level shift issue)  and suddenly we would compare reasonably with other ATs in mechanical function which would allow a quick and easy set of adjustments until the performance of MMs hits the DPS point they want for the class, and at the same time the survivability adjustments we need for MMs would be halfway baked into the class and easy to adjust from there as well. 

 

I totally understand your caution, but minions doing twice the damage against +3s is not a crisis situation and saying theyd do better agaiinst white con enemies is like, thats why you'd just adjust their DPS down a bit to compensate.  Once the change was made, I bet that like 3-5 rounds of adjustments on test and it could be ready to roll, its not like theyd have to just make the change and throw it up on live, definitely not like there arent people who would gladly go test the shit out of the changes to get MMs to a spot of solid balance where we work as well against whites as we do now, but work much better against higher level enemies which is exactly where we currently need a *buff*

Edited March 8 by TheSpiritFox

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

We lag behind other ATs severely in the DPS difference between same level and higher level due to these level differences. You can see it in the pylon times on old pylons which werent leveled, we could nuke the things in under a minute, putting out DPS that no other AT could match, and this is still true on alot of enemies which do not have levels from GMs to like war of the vale mobs. 

I wouldn't say that all MMs lag behind other ATs in terms of damage, even against +4s/+5s.  I regularly run a S/L farm on my Bot/Kin; and whilst it's *safer* to clear it at +2/8, he still clears it at +4/8 faster than any of my melee toons. And that's the crux here - IMO the main problem facing MMs at higher difficulty levels is the survivability of your pets - because against anything over +3 your T1 henchmen effectively get a defence penalty and become very prone to being one-shot. Admittedly, dead pets *DO* eat into your DPA; but they're annoying to constantly resummon and re-buff.
A close secondary problem is also the mobility of your pets (or lack thereof) on teams. Whilst MMs can deal respectible damage output, they need to get "set up" first; they're unable to just barrel from spawn to spawn as quickly as a Brute or Tanker can; and MMs also can't micromanage their henchmen to always Alpha Strike every spawn with a well-procced AoE attack.

Basically MMs excel when Solo; because they can set their own pace. But they suffer on high end teams and TFs because of limited mobility and the aforementioned pet survivablity issues when fighting versus anything over +3. Their mobility problems are also particularly evident in PVP (not that it matters to the majority of the playerbase!)

Also, Pylons can be hammered in circa 30 seconds by Scrappers and Dominators. As far as I'm aware MMs are definitely not king of the hill there, and (just like Farming!) I don't think Pylons are a particularly good metric to be using for balance purposes.
 

Quote

It would be much easier to DPS balance pets based on no level shifts. 

I'm certainly not arguing that removing the pet level differences is impossible - the devs literally did just that with Incarnate content, after all. However the pet level differences have been baked into the balance equations of CoH for years (Your T1s start out equal-level, then whenever you gain the ability to spawn TWO of them, they begin spawning at -1; and whenever you start being able to spawn THREE of them, they spawn at -2. See Also: Fire Control Imps, Electric Control Gremlins, VEAT Spiderlings and Disruptors).

If you just made all pets even-level then to keep their damage output on an even keel you'd need to nerf the T1 pets' damage by at least 25% across the board and the T2 pets by 11%. Adjusting Supremacy would be largely pointless for this; as it's a multiplicative damage increase that you're trying to cancel out (Purple Patch), not an additive one (Supremacy) so you'd need to do a balance pass on their BASE damage. And there's another problem - doing this would negatively impact new MMs that are levelling up before they actually get access to all the T1 and T2 pets and they all finish "levelling down". I'm not saying there'd be a "crisis situation", but I am saying that this sort of adjustment would need to be approached very carefully.
Conversely, locking the pets so that they never get treated as anything lower than "-5" to foes would be comparatively quick + easy and would have no negative impact on levelling up or requirement for a balance pass on pet attacks.

That said, IMO there's been a trend for years to steer away from footery micromanagement; and if it was up to me I'd rework Supremacy entirely so that Bodyguard mode applies regardless of stance; and any pets OUTSIDE of a certain radius gain a substantial amount of +RunSpeed. And perhaps also replace the existing +Damage/ToHit with a scaling boost depending on how many pets you have summoned and/or teammates you have; mechanically similar to Vigilance (e.g. increase +MaxHP/+DamageResistance with more, versus increase +Damage/+ToHit with fewer)
 

Edited March 8 by Maelwys

[TheSpiritFox]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

I wouldn't say that all MMs lag behind other ATs in terms of damage, even against +4s/+5s.  I regularly run a S/L farm on my Bot/Kin; and whilst it's *safer* to clear it at +2/8, he still clears it at +4/8 faster than any of my melee toons. And that's the crux here - IMO the main problem facing MMs at higher difficulty levels is the survivability of your pets - because against anything over +3 your T1 henchmen effectively get a defence penalty and become very prone to being one-shot. Admittedly, dead pets *DO* eat into your DPA; but they're annoying to constantly resummon and re-buff.
A close secondary problem is also the mobility of your pets (or lack thereof) on teams. Whilst MMs can deal respectible damage output, they need to get "set up" first; they're unable to just barrel from spawn to spawn as quickly as a Brute or Tanker can; and MMs also can't micromanage their henchmen to always Alpha Strike every spawn with a well-procced AoE attack.

Basically MMs excel when Solo; because they can set their own pace. But they suffer on high end teams and TFs because of limited mobility and the aforementioned pet survivablity issues when fighting versus anything over +3. Their mobility problems are also particularly evident in PVP (not that it matters to the majority of the playerbase!)

Also, Pylons can be hammered in circa 30 seconds by Scrappers and Dominators. As far as I'm aware MMs are definitely not king of the hill there, and (just like Farming!) I don't think Pylons are a particularly good metric to be using for balance purposes.
 

I'm certainly not arguing that removing the pet level differences is impossible - the devs literally did just that with Incarnate content, after all. However the pet level differences have been baked into the balance equations of CoH for years (Your T1s start out equal-level, then whenever you gain the ability to spawn TWO of them, they begin spawning at -1; and whenever you start being able to spawn THREE of them, they spawn at -2. See Also: Fire Control Imps, Electric Control Gremlins, VEAT Spiderlings and Disruptors).

If you just made all pets even-level then to keep their damage output on an even keel you'd need to nerf the T1 pets' damage by at least 25% across the board and the T2 pets by 11%. Adjusting Supremacy would be largely pointless for this; as it's a multiplicative damage increase that you're trying to cancel out (Purple Patch), not an additive one (Supremacy) so you'd need to do a balance pass on their BASE damage. And there's another problem - doing this would negatively impact new MMs that are levelling up before they actually get access to all the T1 and T2 pets and they all finish "levelling down". I'm not saying there'd be a "crisis situation", but I am saying that this sort of adjustment would need to be approached very carefully.
Conversely, locking the pets so that they never get treated as anything lower than "-5" to foes would be comparatively quick + easy and would have no negative impact on levelling up or requirement for a balance pass on pet attacks.

That said, IMO there's been a trend for years to steer away from footery micromanagement; and if it was up to me I'd rework Supremacy entirely so that Bodyguard mode applies regardless of stance; and any pets OUTSIDE of a certain radius gain a substantial amount of +RunSpeed. And perhaps also replace the existing +Damage/ToHit with a scaling boost depending on how many pets you have summoned and/or teammates you have; mechanically similar to Vigilance (e.g. increase +MaxHP/+DamageResistance with more, versus increase +Damage/+ToHit with fewer)
 

Then what do you think about boosting survivability directly? Because locking them at -5 to current enemies would seem to affect the pets strangely as like your T1s will be the only ones affected, it wont do anything for the T2s, and those are also still made of paper without serious buffs, particularly on defense sets they still get one shot. 

 

What about just a scaling resistance? 10% at level 1, 33% at level 50 or something? Added on top of their current resists so they would actually be somewhat tanky vs the resistances they specialize in but have a solid base that could be enough to keep the T1s and T2s from getting one shot, even just being two shot would give you a second to potentially save them, and it would also make the resist bonus uniques more worth slotting on non resist base pet/secondary combos. 

 

I feel like maybe modifying their base level defenses, maybe even making the T1s scale higher up to 50% resistance at 50, T2s up to 33%, T1 up to 25% would be reasonable?

Edited March 9 by TheSpiritFox

[Maelwys]

7 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Then what do you think about boosting survivability directly? Because locking them at -5 to current enemies would seem to affect the pets strangely as like your T1s will be the only ones affected, it wont do anything for the T2s, and those are also still made of paper without serious buffs, particularly on defense sets they still get one shot. 

 

What about just a scaling resistance? 

 

Boosting Survivability is certainly the main idea, however adding "damage resistance" might prove a bit problematic because it would be additive with the existing inherent henchmen resistances from the "equip" powers, as well as those from other sources. It could well benefit certain secondary powersets more than others (because going from 0% to 10% damage resistance is vastly different than going from 80% to 90%)

 

You're correct that "locking pets at a minimum of -5" would only kick in whenever the MM is fighting foes that are +4 or higher for T1 MM henchmen, and +5 foes or higher for T2s.

Spoiler

If your difficulty slider is set to +4/x; then at endgame you'll be fighting level 54s. No level 55 enemies exist in the original code, but there are level-shifted 54+1 foes in hard mode/challenge TFs. Therefore when maxed out with your level shift from a high tier Alpha slot, a MM will typically find themselves fighting up to +3s but can occasionally (hardmode TFs) fight things that are +4 to them.

 

Newly-minted level 50 Mastermind joining a TF won't have their Incarnate powers yet, so they'll be level 50, not level 50+1. If they're not quite level 50 yet but sidekicked then it can get even worse. That means a MM can initially expect to be fighting enemies that are indeed +4 to them, if not +5 or higher.

 

However "minimum of -5" could quite easily instead be "minimum of -4" (or even -3) and/or not factor in level-shifts depending on where you want to draw the actual line in the sand. The real benefit of approaching things this way is that your pets would only start seeing any benefit gradually at higher difficulty settings with the weakest pets being buffed first; instead of all of your pets getting buffed all the time regardless of content or the level of foes they're fighting.

 

I'm definitely open to other solutions, I just really feel that it'd be a very bad idea to adjust MMs in such a way that their performance versus regular enemies at lower difficulty levels gets increased. That's tricky to accomplish without doing some kind of automated check against difficulty setting or enemy level... and the former (a buff based on difficulty setting) would potentially benefit all pets, rather than just the weaker ones that actually need some extra help at the time.

 

Quote

Maybe modifying their base level defenses, maybe even making the T1s scale higher up to 50% resistance at 50, T2s up to 33%, T1 up to 25% would be reasonable?

 

A variant of that might work - perhaps buff Pet base HP a bit (say by X% for every teammate, similar to the Peacebringer/Warshade inherents). So not dependent on difficulty setting; but in general enough to stop them being immediately one-shot whilst you're not soloing?