Mastermind Pets need end game survivability buff

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

Henchmen take individual Insps, they don't share, so thats 6 Ultimates to temporarily buff the whole team, or ~6 million Inf for every 3mins of buffs. On top of that, they have to be dragged out of combat because henchman interrupt their ability to accept insps with their auto-queued attacks.  You see this especially bad with Bots. Good luck even feeding them a heal Insp let alone an Ultimate most of the time.

On top of that, they're still wafer thin in Incarnate content where they get appropriate level shifts, so you'd be dumping ~6m inf into a bin and lighting it on fire as they get either evaporated by the alpha, or a lucky KB turns them into fancy, gold plated dust.

Surely the solution to this isn't "Spend several ATOs worth of Inf every mission on Inspirations." If summoning and buffing replacements was less time consuming, I don't think any of us would mind their current state, but as of now I have to not only cast all three of my summons, then wait for them to actually animate in and appear, then cast both my upgrades, then cast any specific buffs (i.e. shields), and THEN get back into the fight.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps adding additional global set bonuses on the Superior Mark of Supremacy ATO. At 3/6 it summons your pets with the L6 upgrade equipped, and at 6/6 it summons all your pets with the L26 upgrade equipped. Does it pigeonhole MMs into taking it? Yes, it's creating one problem to solve another, but I think similar to Stalker's Guile: + Chance for Hide, that's a tradeoff we'd take as a compromise.

Depending on how frantic the fighting gets or how powerful the enemies' AoEs are? You can forego the upgrades until things calm down a bit.

[Lockely]

Just now, Rudra said:

Depending on how frantic the fighting gets or how powerful the enemies' AoEs are? You can forego the upgrades until things calm down a bit.

 

Against a group? My bots, for example, are all complete single target until I get them their upgrades. You're not bringing your T3 Henchman for its ability to punch a single guy and occasionally shoot him with a KD chance, you're doing it for the burning patch combined with all the cone lasers and missiles to mop up a group.

ESPECIALLY if playing in Hard Mode content where every little bit counts. At that point the MM exists purely as a support drone, and there are other ATs way better at that with more team contribution.

[TheSpiritFox]

7 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

Henchmen take individual Insps, they don't share, so thats 6 Ultimates to temporarily buff the whole team, or ~6 million Inf for every 3mins of buffs. On top of that, they have to be dragged out of combat because henchman interrupt their ability to accept insps with their auto-queued attacks.  You see this especially bad with Bots. Good luck even feeding them a heal Insp let alone an Ultimate most of the time.

On top of that, they're still wafer thin in Incarnate content where they get appropriate level shifts, so you'd be dumping ~6m inf into a bin and lighting it on fire as they get either evaporated by the alpha, or a lucky KB turns them into fancy, gold plated dust.

Surely the solution to this isn't "Spend several ATOs worth of Inf every mission on Inspirations." If summoning and buffing replacements was less time consuming, I don't think any of us would mind their current state, but as of now I have to not only cast all three of my summons, then wait for them to actually animate in and appear, then cast both my upgrades, then cast any specific buffs (i.e. shields), and THEN get back into the fight.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps adding additional global set bonuses on the Superior Mark of Supremacy ATO. At 3/6 it summons your pets with the L6 upgrade equipped, and at 6/6 it summons all your pets with the L26 upgrade equipped. Does it pigeonhole MMs into taking it? Yes, it's creating one problem to solve another, but I think similar to Stalker's Guile: + Chance for Hide, that's a tradeoff we'd take as a compromise.

The devs have stated from HC's perspective that they have no intention of removing the summon time and upgrade cost and that they believe its part of the class's intended design in a way that deserves to be preserved, and I fully agree. 

 

This is why I suggested a short period on summon, that begins when they become buffable, where the pets are more or less invulnerable and able to be immediately buffed. I think that 5 seconds, but extended if another pet is summoned immediately after or a buff power is used on a pet would be reasonable. That way you can get all of your minions up, get them all upgraded, and have enough time left to say cast both therma/ff/whatever shields on them is reasonable before they become vulnerable. I dont think say a grand total of 20 seconds of nigh invulnerability while being summoned would be game breaking in any aspect of the game except PvP and you could simply make the window turn off in PVP zones so that MM pets behave as they behave now when being resummoned in a PVP fight. 

Similarly, I think that because MMs are designed around our damage coming from our pets, our pets should specifically be designed to survive fights more than they die. MMs need to be changed with the idea that pets are *not* disposable. Not that they can't die, but just that they shouldnt be so flimsy as like to be endlessly one shot by every lucky attack that gets through from any enemy at level 50+4, in incarnate content, or in hardmode TFs. 

 

But specific to summoning pets upgraded, thats already been stated as a "never ever ever happen" by the HC devs, so solutions have to work around resummoning pets and rebuffing them and that costing time and endurance being built into the class. 

[Rudra]

48 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

Against a group? My bots, for example, are all complete single target until I get them their upgrades. You're not bringing your T3 Henchman for its ability to punch a single guy and occasionally shoot him with a KD chance, you're doing it for the burning patch combined with all the cone lasers and missiles to mop up a group.

ESPECIALLY if playing in Hard Mode content where every little bit counts. At that point the MM exists purely as a support drone, and there are other ATs way better at that with more team contribution.

I've taken my Ninja/Dark MM into Hard Mode ITF and when things got frantic, did not upgrade the pets on re-summons until I had time to worry about the upgrades. I'm not saying you can't upgrade them, I'm just saying that it isn't necessary when things are running a bit out of control.

[ThatGuyCDude]

10 hours ago, Lockely said:

Henchmen take individual Insps, they don't share, so thats 6 Ultimates to temporarily buff the whole team, or ~6 million Inf for every 3mins of buffs. On top of that, they have to be dragged out of combat because henchman interrupt their ability to accept insps with their auto-queued attacks.  You see this especially bad with Bots. Good luck even feeding them a heal Insp let alone an Ultimate most of the time.

I wonder if this is part of the issue (or could be part of the solution)?  Henchmen are THE key mechanic of the MasterMind, so maybe inspirations need to apply across the board with them?  When you think about it, the MasterMind's health, endurance, and damage pools are divided among their team of mooks--it's one character spread across several bodies.  To that end, inspirations being spread across the lot makes sense.  The MasterMind uses an inspiration, buffing or healing themself and all of their currently active summons simultaneously... that seems like a change worth making, yeah?

[Lunar Ronin]

10 hours ago, Lockely said:

 

Henchmen take individual Insps, they don't share, so thats 6 Ultimates to temporarily buff the whole team, or ~6 million Inf for every 3mins of buffs.

 

That's mostly true, but not entirely.  A couple of years ago, it was changed so that if a Mastermind eats an Ambrosia or Essence of the Earth, it applies to all of the henchmen as well.  It was a serious quality of life buff for Masterminds on the Eden Trial and Hamidon raids.  However, from what I understand it's also a bit taxing on the map servers.  It would be nice to see this applied to all inspirations, but I doubt it.

[PeregrineFalcon]

14 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

So, I've been trying out council at +4x8 and theyre absolutely shredding through pets. Like killing them as fast as I can resummon and buff them. 

First, not all ATs can solo +4x8. x8 literally means "this content is for eight players." Just because your Mastermind cannot solo this content does not mean there's a problem with the AT. Second, try the Sonic or Force Field secondary. My Mercs/FF MM can solo +4x8 just fine. Third, there's an Incarnate power (I forget what it's called and I'm at work right now) that gives a huge defense buff to the player and the pets.

 

So the problem isn't the AT, it's with your power selection.

 

13 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

You know, I have you blocked on here, and I unblocked to see what you said, and this reductive response confirms exactly why I had you blocked.

So you blocked and reported someone simply because they disagree with you. I find this hilarious. You're so overly sensitive that you can't handle it when someone disagrees with you. How do you even have conversations with ordinary people IRL? Well, you might as well go ahead and block and report me too. Don't worry, I'm used to it.

 

Pro tip: if you don't want people to respond to your ideas then don't post them in a public forum. Try private messages instead.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

I am trying not to moderate and let people have discussions and even arguments.  But if folks make it personal, that makes it hard for me to ignore.

 

Please be excellent to each other.

[biostem]

I think there's a bit of confusion as to what the achievable baseline should be;  It's +0/X1.  If you can complete those missions, from a broad perspective, everything is WAI.  That being said, I would love to give MMs a better way to summon & upgrade pets mid-combat, as well as some aggro management tools to help keep enemies off of them.

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

I am trying not to moderate and let people have discussions and even arguments.  But if folks make it personal, that makes it hard for me to ignore.

 

Please be excellent to each other.

Personally I would appreciate alot more moderation. People engaging in bad faith should be stopped, not allowed. So thanks for not helping. 

[TheSpiritFox]

59 minutes ago, biostem said:

I think there's a bit of confusion as to what the achievable baseline should be;  It's +0/X1.  If you can complete those missions, from a broad perspective, everything is WAI.  That being said, I would love to give MMs a better way to summon & upgrade pets mid-combat, as well as some aggro management tools to help keep enemies off of them.

No, this is how things were balanced mid live, around Issue 6 long before incarnates or IOs. 

 

That should not be the baseline. The baseline should be able to perform its essential functions in ALL content. No other class has its entire damage dependent entirely upon pets, and controller pets get much higher base resistances to allow them to survive and continue to provide their functions compared to mastermind pets.  Have you seen the damage the tri gun from Arsenal assault can take unenhanced and unbuffed? My T3 pets are twice as fragile. There's a real, manifest, needs to be addressed problem there. When 5/6 of your pets can be one shot by ANY enemy that lands a hit in high level content there is a problem. 

[Lockely]

12 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Second, we're intended to be tanky. Having minions not even able to survive groups, being unable to do damage because of that, that's not just "I can't solo +4x8" that's "changes made to the game disproportionately affected my mastermind compared to brutes, scrappers, stalkers, and controllers who all handle the same content better by comparison to masterminds.

 

I know that was the initial intention for MMs way back in the day, that our pets would serve as the tanks redside because Brutes were supposed to be our flavor of melee damage dealers, but I don't know if you can even argue cottage rule for that nearly 20 issues later into the game. But I do agree that our pets either need to survive a bit better, OR it needs to be easier to get them back into the fight.

The current meta of both disposable AND cumbersome to replace isn't cohesive to the gameplay experience, nor the expectation that is set when it takes nearly a full minute to set them up only to watch them evaporate moments later.

Meanwhile my unbuffed Tri-Gun on my Arsenal Controller sits there and eats EB hits for breakfast.

Edited February 27 by Lockely

[TheSpiritFox]

1 minute ago, Lockely said:

 

I know that was the initial intention for MMs way back in the day, that our pets would serve as the tanks redside because Brutes were supposed to be our flavor of melee damage dealers, but I don't know if you can even argue cottage rule for that nearly 20 issues later into the game. But I do agree that our pets either need to survive a bit better, OR it needs to be easier to get them back into the fight.

The current meta of both disposable AND cumbersome to replace isn't cohesive to the gameplay experience, nor the expectation that is set when it takes nearly a full minute to set them up only to watch them evaporate moments later.

 

Cumbersome to replace already DID get cottage ruled, though. 

 

If you keep that pets need staying power, its that simple. Masterminds as a class are more complex to balance, and need adjustments other classes do not. Saying we should be tanky is simply staying that we should have minions with the staying power to perform our essential class functions. We're not going to get auto upgraded minions, and even auto upgraded minions would not solve the problem of unbuffed pets in high level content simply melt, giving them their upgrades on resummon would not address the problem of them then needing to be rebuffed by the entire team as soon as they are summoned in order to not then immediately die again, nor address the general ability of most enemies to one shot them at high level. 

 

Survivability IS the only solution here. Because you're right. Being stuck in a loop of resummoning where the only pet you can reliably keep alive is your T3 is not at all a cohesive gameplay experience. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

37 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Personally I would appreciate alot more moderation. People engaging in bad faith should be stopped, not allowed. So thanks for not helping. 

I am not arguing in bad faith. I just don't agree with you.

 

I had several level 50 MMs on the retail servers and I have many MMs on Homecoming servers as well, so I have a lot of experience with MMs. I read the entire thread, including every word you wrote. I chose to respond only to those things that I wished to respond to.

 

By the way, you should know that a moderator specifically posted that people are allowed to disagree with suggestions. Disagreeing with you isn't arguing in bad faith and it's specifically allowed by the rules of this forum.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Personally I would appreciate alot more moderation. 

 

Your wish is granted.  Please stop insulting each other.  Argue the points, not the personalities.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

No other class has its entire damage dependent entirely upon pets,

Including MMs. The bulk of the MM's damage comes from pets, yes, but not all their damage unless you choose to not take attack powers for your MM. Every one of my MMs has at least 3 attacks they can use even if they have no pets out. (I think 1 has 4 attacks because I grabbed the attack from the Sorcery pool as well.) (And even with my attacks, I can still run my full suite of secondary powers and re-summon/re-upgrade as needed. So it is doable.)

 

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

When 5/6 of your pets can be one shot by ANY enemy that lands a hit in high level content there is a problem. 

And this is an exaggeration. While there are bosses and higher that have AoEs that can one-shot my henchmen/pets, it isn't all of them. At +0, there aren't many even EBs that can one-shot 5/6 of my pets. (They can one-shot 1/6 of my pets, but their AoEs are a little more manageable.) As I increase the difficulty though? Yeah, things get tougher. However, my pets and my MM-preferring friend online's pets have been able to survive even level 54 EB attacks without the benefit of incarnate shifts such as when we were hunting minotaurs and cyclopes in Cimmerora. (Though it isn't consistent when they use their big attack.) I definitely agree that I think the MM pets are too fragile and would like to see them made a bit more robust. However, I also have to acknowledge that unlike Controllers/Dominators who only get 1 or 2 pets with long recharges, MMs get 6 with fast recharges. (Even the T3 pet starts at 50 seconds of recharge before any enhancements or set bonuses, compared to 240 seconds for VEATs, Controllers, and Dominators.) And in Hard Mode content? I let my Scrapper, Tanker, or Brute friends/allies take the aggro while my pets provide me a means of doing at least some damage even if I don't have time to re-upgrade them while I focus more on the support role and replacing pets as I lose them. (And when I can, I throw an upgrade or two into the mix to bolster my pets again.) I guess I just take the view that the rest of the team are my henchmen/pets as well, so even if my actual pets aren't at 100% effectiveness, they are still working with the rest of my... uhm... pets... to clear out the threats to me. I mean the team....

[biostem]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

No, this is how things were balanced mid live, around Issue 6 long before incarnates or IOs. 

 

That should not be the baseline. The baseline should be able to perform its essential functions in ALL content. No other class has its entire damage dependent entirely upon pets, and controller pets get much higher base resistances to allow them to survive and continue to provide their functions compared to mastermind pets.  Have you seen the damage the tri gun from Arsenal assault can take unenhanced and unbuffed? My T3 pets are twice as fragile. There's a real, manifest, needs to be addressed problem there. When 5/6 of your pets can be one shot by ANY enemy that lands a hit in high level content there is a problem. 

Go solo an empathy defender on +4/X8.  No, not every AT or powerset combo can nor should function equally in all environments.  I've already stated in various ways and places that MMs do need some love, but expecting that the baseline/test case should be "ALL content" is simply delusional...

[GM Crumpet]

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