Mastermind Pets need survivability buffs

[TheSpiritFox]

Given that we are balanced around having to resummon, and it takes time in a fight to do that, pets should not be getting one shot. 

 

Controller pets have gotten tons of buffs not just on Homecoming but on Live itself, and MM pets got ignored every single round of those buffs like we did not exist. 

 

MM pets should not be getting one shot by anything that looks at them funny, not when you're adding shit like the trigun with 90% resistance to all damage so that it has staying power. 

 

Options

1) 50% base resistance for T1s, 33% for T2s, and 25% for T3s to all damage types.

2) Remove level shifts from all MM pets and make all pets permanently the same level as the master as in incarnate content, where level shifts got removed because of this exact problem. 

3) Damage gating, no attack can do more than 1/3 or 1/2 of a pets health in one hit. 

 

Not optional

- Pet def and res uniques are hugely beneficial and yet not all pet sets have the ability to mule them. Modify Serum, Repair drone, fortify pack, and smoke flash need to be able to mule pet uniques. I dont care if it breaks the usual rules, dont care if you just code it so that ONLY the uniques from those sets can be slotted, all mm sets need to be able to mule uniques without having to attempt to shove up to 6 def/res uniques into actual pets slotting, compromising other slotting options that thugs, demons, and necro all get by comparison. 

[ThatGuyCDude]

Pets should also get the inherent fitness pool that all the player characters inherited [Swift, Hurdle, Health, Stamina].  Whether or not they share the enhancement slots with the character's own Fitness or if they are registered under Inherent powers [like a Kheldian] is up in the air, but they need the boosts to Regen, Endurance, Speed, and Jump to match the player boost.

Another thing that's really important is Inspirations: pets and Masterminds need to share their inspirations.  Players can still drag and use the Revive ones if they want, but the rest should be clear 'click this to heal all the henchment' or 'click this to boost my damage', like it is for every other archetype.  If it's too hard to code this way, Masterminds should get a secondary passive that boosts their pet's damage/regen/endurance/et cetera in range [like Leadership powers] when the Mastermind is subjected to an inspiration, to achieve the same effect.

Also, like you said, Masterminds should be able to slot pet-type sets into any of their primary powers, so that they have more flexibility with set bonuses.  It's come up before and they're the only archetype that doesn't get a full primary or secondary set of slots in which to use their archetype enhancements.

[Doc Hornet]

I would like to see the summoning process streamlined, specifically making the henchmen upgrade/booster powers like "Equip Mercenary" and "Tactical Upgrade" inherent rather than click powers. Once you select these upgrade powers, whenever you summon a henchmen it's already pre-upgraded/boosted. (Move the endurance costs for these into the summon powers if necessary.)  

 

But keep their slots. These inherent would be a great place to slot MM Pet IO sets like mentioned above.

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

MM pets should not be getting one shot by anything that looks at them funny...

You want your pets to survive? Take Force Fields or Sonic as your secondary. My Mercs/FF MM almost never has to resummon pets.

 

If you choose one of the more common secondaries: Poison, Time, Traps, etc., then just realize that your pets are going to die more often. That's the tradeoff for having a more offensive secondary.

 

Bottom line: the problem isn't with the pets or the AT, it's with your power choices.

[kelika2]

as much as i would like this i made so many sonic masterminds

then again i can unslot the aura IOs

yeah ok lets do this

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

You want your pets to survive? Take Force Fields or Sonic as your secondary. My Mercs/FF MM almost never has to resummon pets.

 

If you choose one of the more common secondaries: Poison, Time, Traps, etc., then just realize that your pets are going to die more often. That's the tradeoff for having a more offensive secondary.

 

Bottom line: the problem isn't with the pets or the AT, it's with your power choices.

 

Umm, no. 

 

Controller pets ability to survive does not depend upon the secondary choice, nor do dominator pets. The primaries of Masterminds should not be balanced 100% around what secondary you choose, which is what youre suggesting. More, Im literally just asking for them not to be one shot, and also yes lets be real for all secondaries to be at least somewhat viable in hard content without having to min max in order to just keep your damn pets alive. 

 

You might as well have said "I dont play MMs much so I dont care, its fine"

 

You also flat out ignored most of my post to just interject your own opinion, so youre not here to discuss, you're here to hear yourself talk. 

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, Doc Hornet said:

I would like to see the summoning process streamlined, specifically making the henchmen upgrade/booster powers like "Equip Mercenary" and "Tactical Upgrade" inherent rather than click powers. Once you select these upgrade powers, whenever you summon a henchmen it's already pre-upgraded/boosted. (Move the endurance costs for these into the summon powers if necessary.)  

 

But keep their slots. These inherent would be a great place to slot MM Pet IO sets like mentioned above.

This the Devs have flat out said they will never do. That Masterminds are intended by them to be balanced around resummon times and upgrade times and the costs for both mid battle. They are cottage ruling that and its a done deal. 

What Masterminds need is not the ability to become a truly endless pet factory with almost 0 downtime when pets die. What they need is for pets to not be made of paper, the way controller pets are not made of paper. I'm not even asking for them to be given controller pet resistances, I'm just asking that the devs actually for once in the entire life cycle of this game including live actually balance the MM AT around the intention that pets are not just completely expendable, and around the fact that we are the ONLY AT who can take a big hit and suddenly lose a shitload of our DPS. No other AT has to deal with the *DPS* loss that comes with taking big hits. Blasters do not suddenly lose powers when their health drops. Brutes do not suddenly detoggle when they drop below 50% health. 

 

Pets are designed, as the devs have said themselves for homecoming, to not just be expendable and instantly replaceable. It follows then that the primaries need survivability buffs so that they do not die as if they are completely expendable. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

3 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

You might as well have said "I dont play MMs much so I dont care, its fine"

I had multiple max level MMs on the retail servers and I have many MMs on the Homecoming servers. I do play MMs, I just disagree with you.

 

4 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

You also flat out ignored most of my post to just interject your own opinion, so youre not here to discuss, you're here to hear yourself talk. 

No, I didn't ignore your post, I just didn't feel the need to quote your entire post. And no, I'm not here to "hear myself talk", I just disagree with you.

 

5 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Controller pets ability to survive does not depend upon the secondary choice, nor do dominator pets. The primaries of Masterminds should not be balanced 100% around what secondary you choose, which is what youre suggesting.

That's your opinion, mine is that the survival of MM pets should be balanced around which secondary power set you choose. I'm not just suggesting it, I'm flat out saying it.

 

I don't care about Controller or Dominator pets, they are not Masterminds.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, ThatGuyCDude said:

Pets should also get the inherent fitness pool that all the player characters inherited [Swift, Hurdle, Health, Stamina].  Whether or not they share the enhancement slots with the character's own Fitness or if they are registered under Inherent powers [like a Kheldian] is up in the air, but they need the boosts to Regen, Endurance, Speed, and Jump to match the player boost.

Another thing that's really important is Inspirations: pets and Masterminds need to share their inspirations.  Players can still drag and use the Revive ones if they want, but the rest should be clear 'click this to heal all the henchment' or 'click this to boost my damage', like it is for every other archetype.  If it's too hard to code this way, Masterminds should get a secondary passive that boosts their pet's damage/regen/endurance/et cetera in range [like Leadership powers] when the Mastermind is subjected to an inspiration, to achieve the same effect.

Also, like you said, Masterminds should be able to slot pet-type sets into any of their primary powers, so that they have more flexibility with set bonuses.  It's come up before and they're the only archetype that doesn't get a full primary or secondary set of slots in which to use their archetype enhancements.

I dont know at all if this is true, but I have heard in discussions had about this in game that just making pets share essence of earth puts some kinda actual strain on how the game runs, and that making masterminds share inspirations with pets across the board would make it worse. 

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Not optional

- Pet def and res uniques are hugely beneficial and yet not all pet sets have the ability to mule them. Modify Serum, Repair drone, fortify pack, and smoke flash need to be able to mule pet uniques. I dont care if it breaks the usual rules, dont care if you just code it so that ONLY the uniques from those sets can be slotted, all mm sets need to be able to mule uniques without having to attempt to shove up to 6 def/res uniques into actual pets slotting, compromising other slotting options that thugs, demons, and necro all get by comparison. 

After the previous thread asking to be able to slot MM ATOs into all MM primary powers, I'm fine with that. However, the other sets are Pet Damage sets and Recharge Intensive Pet sets. So it makes no sense to be able to slot those into non-pet powers. So for those sets, I oppose your "not optional" proposition.

 

3 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Remove level shifts from all MM pets and make all pets permanently the same level as the master as in incarnate content, where level shifts got removed because of this exact problem. 

First, even in incarnate content, MM pets still get their negative level shifts. It is just that in incarnate content, they get added combat levels to bring them back up to the MM's incarnate level. Second, I'm fairly certain that this will never see the light of day outside of incarnate content to keep MMs from getting too powerful.

 

3 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

3) Damage gating, no attack can do more than 1/3 or 1/2 of a pets health in one hit. 

To an extent, this has been looked at. At least as far as some GMs go to keep all player character pets from simply disintegrating in combat against said GMs. Something to bear in mind is that if the MM is in Bodyguard Mode and the MM and the MM's pets take a hit from the enemy, that's two hits on each pet from that one attack. One hit from the attack on the pets and another hit from the damage the pets absorb for the MM. While I would be glad to see MM pets not suffer as much damage from enemy attacks, I'm not sure how much mileage you will see on this.

[TheSpiritFox]

1 minute ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

That's your opinion, mine is that the survival of MM pets should be balanced around which secondary power set you choose. I'm not just suggesting it, I'm flat out saying it.

 

I don't care about Controller or Dominator pets, they are not Masterminds.

Your opinion flat ignores factual information like the MANY rounds of buffs controller pets have gotten and the way new controller pets are designed with new control sets which have been released on homecoming. You are asking for MMs to be balanced in a very general sense differently, and worse, than controllers and dominators. Your opinion is based on nothing but personal perspective. You've offered nothing else. Which is the point at which I say yeah you're not here to discuss, you are ignoring factual data about how pets are handled in other ATs and specifically *why* they're handled that way, you're just putting up a personal opinion without the slightest backing besides "I like it that way"

 

Which is a terrible way to balance games. So yes, youre just here to hear yourself talk. Lots of people agree that there are objective problems with MM pet survivability and the fact that you see nothing wrong with saying "Pick one of two secondaries to be survivable" is like...do you understand what balance is?

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Your opinion flat ignores factual information like the MANY rounds of buffs controller pets have gotten and the way new controller pets are designed with new control sets which have been released on homecoming.

Your opinion flat out ignores factual information like MM pets have already received 2 survival buffs. 1) Damage Resistance being added to the Upgrade powers and 2) pet levels being equalized in Incarnate content.

 

4 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Which is a terrible way to balance games. So yes, youre just here to hear yourself talk. Lots of people agree that there are objective problems with MM pet survivability and the fact that you see nothing wrong with saying "Pick one of two secondaries to be survivable" is like...do you understand what balance is?

Once again no, I'm not here "just to hear myself talk." You're not psychic, you cannot read my mind, and your thoughts do not create reality. You can keep saying it all you want, but it doesn't make it true. Your opinion is not reality. I'm here because I want to discuss this subject because I've played MMs for many hundreds of hours, I really like this AT, and I disagree with your opinion.

 

Unless "you're just here to hear yourself talk" is a colloquial expression for "disagrees with me and that makes me want to cry" then ok, I guess you're right.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

After the previous thread asking to be able to slot MM ATOs into all MM primary powers, I'm fine with that. However, the other sets are Pet Damage sets and Recharge Intensive Pet sets. So it makes no sense to be able to slot those into non-pet powers. So for those sets, I oppose your "not optional" proposition.

 

First, even in incarnate content, MM pets still get their negative level shifts. It is just that in incarnate content, they get added combat levels to bring them back up to the MM's incarnate level. Second, I'm fairly certain that this will never see the light of day outside of incarnate content to keep MMs from getting too powerful.

 

To an extent, this has been looked at. At least as far as some GMs go to keep all player character pets from simply disintegrating in combat against said GMs. Something to bear in mind is that if the MM is in Bodyguard Mode and the MM and the MM's pets take a hit from the enemy, that's two hits on each pet from that one attack. One hit from the attack on the pets and another hit from the damage the pets absorb for the MM. While I would be glad to see MM pets not suffer as much damage from enemy attacks, I'm not sure how much mileage you will see on this.

For the first point, I want to see all MM primaries have the exact same *opportunities* for slotting when it comes to like pet centric unique IOs. I dont particularly care how its done. I just think having only 3 primaries having places to mule uniques which are important for survivability particularly in hard content is a bad design choice and should be fixed, somehow. 

 

Second point, I think you're right. We'll never see the elimination of level shifts, which would solve alot of the issue due to the massive increase in damage you take past +4 level differences. I offered that up to demonstrate where the problem comes from, but if we're being honest the solution I *actually* want here is the 50% T1 33% T2 and 25% T3 base resistance to all buff. The numbers are not so high that mm pets will be default durable the way controller pets are, but they are not so low that you would see no difference in how pets survive. 

 

Third point, Health gating is imo the worst of the three choices. Rather than just a buff, its just an artificial limit on damage that depending on the situation would make MMs honestly more survivable than they should be. While some MM secondaries would not benefit much from the change, others would likely be overpowered, /elec in particular occurs to me against hard targets where if it takes a GM 3 hits to kill a pet no matter what, it becomes too easy to keep pets alive against a hard target compared to a base resistance buff or a level shift remove. 

 

But it likely would be the easiest to code. 

[TheSpiritFox]

Just now, PeregrineFalcon said:

Your opinion flat out ignores factual information like MM pets have already received 2 survival buffs. 1) Damage Resistance being added to the Upgrade powers and 2) pet levels being equalized in Incarnate content.

 

Once again no, I'm not here "just to hear myself talk." You're not psychic, you cannot read my mind, and your thoughts do not create reality. You can keep saying it all you want, but it doesn't make it true. Your opinion is not reality. I'm here because I want to discuss this subject because I've played MMs for many hundreds of hours, I really like this AT, and I disagree with your opinion.

 

Unless "you're just here to hear yourself talk" is a colloquial expression for "disagrees with me and that makes me want to cry" then ok, I guess you're right.

So you dont know what youre talking about really. 

 

Damage resistance was not added to upgrade powers, it was moved. And while its enhanceable, it doesn't provide much base or enhanced, especially again in comparison to the survivability standards set for controller and dominator pets. Calling an extra 5% resistance to select damage types a survivability buff is like calling tough a tanking power. 

 

The pet levels in incarnate content happened on live and happened after BEGGING (I dont know if you were actually around for that, I was. We had to beg. Massive forums threads until it was changed with tons of evidence while they ignored us for months on it) and all it did was make us viable in incarnate content when we were an actual liability before. 

 

I'm not reading your mind, I'm reading the lack of thoughtful effort, engagement, and factual discourse in your actual posting. I dont have to read your mind. I can see what you respond with, the lack of actual knowledge and information about the topic, where someone with less of an ego would just stay quiet and not involve themselves in the converation, because they're not educated enough to have a solid fact based opinion on the matter. 

 

But that's not you. You were in here very fast after I posted this with a reductive answer that didnt address any point I made up and just inserted your opinion of "its fine, choose 2 secondaries and ignore the rest if you wanna keep your pets alive" 

So no I dont have to read minds to be able to tell only from the posting in this thread that you are participating in this conversation to stroke your own ego and for no other reason. 

[ThatGuyCDude]

11 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

I dont know at all if this is true, but I have heard in discussions had about this in game that just making pets share essence of earth puts some kinda actual strain on how the game runs, and that making masterminds share inspirations with pets across the board would make it worse. 

I heard this in another thread, yeah.  I imagine it has to do with how inspirations interrupt and animate their targets.  Handling it as a rider power tied to the Mastermind Archetype instead might help.  For instance...

Enrage (Pets) [Passive Automatic]
Duration 60 Seconds
Activates when the Mastermind uses an Enrage inspiration.  Pets within 60' of the Mastermind gain +25% Pet damage.  Max three stacks.  [Use the same icon as the regular Enrage]

So it'd work like Leadership or a rider to Supremacy, triggered as a reaction when the Mastermind uses an inspiration [or is subjected to a team-wide one].

[TheSpiritFox]

1 minute ago, ThatGuyCDude said:

I heard this in another thread, yeah.  I imagine it has to do with how inspirations interrupt and animate their targets.  Handling it as a rider power tied to the Mastermind Archetype instead might help.  For instance...

Enrage (Pets) [Passive Automatic]
Duration 60 Seconds
Activates when the Mastermind uses an Enrage inspiration.  Pets within 60' of the Mastermind gain +25% Pet damage.  Max three stacks.  [Use the same icon as the regular Enrage]

So it'd work like Leadership or a rider to Supremacy, triggered as a reaction when the Mastermind uses an inspiration [or is subjected to a team-wide one].

I can also throw in that dropping enhancements on pets often seems not to work because of how pet powers are queued, mid battle often you simply cannot use inspirations the way that players do because pets queue attacks constantly in combat and you have to catch them when they do not have a next attack queued in order to give them their own inspiration, meanwhile Essence of Earth as I understand it works by broadcasting the buff from the MM to the Pets not unlike supremacy, so shared inspirations handled like essence of earth would involve the master constantly broadcasting a buff rather than the pets simply like eating an inspiration. 

[ThatGuyCDude]

Does the leadership broadcasting have a similar drag on the servers?  That pool seems to work well on pets and henchmen: rather than modifying their stats directly they're just tacked on as a buff.  I wonder why inspiration broadcasting in the same fashion would be such a problem... the trigger mechanism?

[Rudra]

When it comes to MMs and inspirations, if you want to affect your pets with inspirations, your best option is to use the team inspirations. The personal inspirations can be used on pets, but they can also be a pain to use as pets run off or queue up an attack.

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

So you dont know what youre talking about really. 

Well, except that everything I said was factually accurate. Yeah, I guess that I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

5 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Damage resistance was not added to upgrade powers, it was moved.

Yes. It was removed from the pet powers and added to the upgrade powers. Thank you for proving that what I said was correct.

 

6 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

The pet levels in incarnate content happened on live and happened after BEGGING (I dont know if you were actually around for that, I was. We had to beg. Massive forums threads until it was changed with tons of evidence while they ignored us for months on it)

I bought City of Villains when it first came out and bought City of Heroes later. This was back when you had to purchase them separately. I then played off and on until the game shut down. The background picture on my profile page is a screenshot that I took when the retail servers shut down for good. So yes, I was there. Your psychic powers have failed you once again.

 

10 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

I'm not reading your mind, I'm reading the lack of thoughtful effort, engagement, and factual discourse in your actual posting. I dont have to read your mind. I can see what you respond with, the lack of actual knowledge and information about the topic, where someone with less of an ego would just stay quiet and not involve themselves in the converation, because they're not educated enough to have a solid fact based opinion on the matter. 

I've put thought and effort into my responses and, as I showed above, everything I've written is factually accurate. I've also shown that I am, in fact, quite educated in this matter, having played MMs for hundreds of hours and I have dozens of keybind files that I wrote myself in order fine tune my control of my pets since I chose not to use Sandolphan's numpad keybind scheme.

 

Your claims about my ego seem to be intense projection on your part. It appears to me that your ego is incredibly large and shaped like a balloon animal. Like a giant purple hound or something. I'll have to think about it and consult my psychic abilities, as you apparently have done.

[ThatGuyCDude]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

When it comes to MMs and inspirations, if you want to affect your pets with inspirations, your best option is to use the team inspirations. The personal inspirations can be used on pets, but they can also be a pain to use as pets run off or queue up an attack.

This is a really good tip, thank you.  I'll try it; it could be a good stop-gap to my Mastermind consumable problem.  Maybe I'll use the START vendor to turn off everything but team inspirations on my MM, too.

[TheSpiritFox]

30 minutes ago, ThatGuyCDude said:

Does the leadership broadcasting have a similar drag on the servers?  That pool seems to work well on pets and henchmen: rather than modifying their stats directly they're just tacked on as a buff.  I wonder why inspiration broadcasting in the same fashion would be such a problem... the trigger mechanism?

Leadership is specifically designed that way, I would imagine that inspiration sharing would be like creating an entirely new power execution for pet inspirations. Leadership is also not selective, it just hits everyone. Pet insps would have to hit just your pets and only your pets. I dont know much about the engine and how that creates strain but I can guess that its just alot of extra stuff to check on, things that in large groups could cause problems, but again I've only seen players talk about this so not sure at all. 

[TheSpiritFox]

28 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Well, except that everything I said was factually accurate. Yeah, I guess that I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

Yes. It was removed from the pet powers and added to the upgrade powers. Thank you for proving that what I said was correct.

 

I bought City of Villains when it first came out and bought City of Heroes later. This was back when you had to purchase them separately. I then played off and on until the game shut down. The background picture on my profile page is a screenshot that I took when the retail servers shut down for good. So yes, I was there. Your psychic powers have failed you once again.

 

I've put thought and effort into my responses and, as I showed above, everything I've written is factually accurate. I've also shown that I am, in fact, quite educated in this matter, having played MMs for hundreds of hours and I have dozens of keybind files that I wrote myself in order fine tune my control of my pets since I chose not to use Sandolphan's numpad keybind scheme.

 

Your claims about my ego seem to be intense projection on your part. It appears to me that your ego is incredibly large and shaped like a balloon animal. Like a giant purple hound or something. I'll have to think about it and consult my psychic abilities, as you apparently have done.

Uhh, you called moving resistance from one power to another a buff. 

 

And no, your initial response quoted one line of my post to offer a general disagreement with a shitty "use two secondaries if you want your pets to survive" opinion and nothing else. It was low effort self backpatting. "I do it this way do it like me no changes are needed"

 

You only started responding when I challenged you, and if we're gonna talk about projection lets talk about your signature where you quite apparently go shove your uninformed opinions places and then blanket call anyone who doesn't like how you act a narcissist. I'm not the one projecting here. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

20 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

You only started responding when I challenged you, and if we're gonna talk about projection lets talk about your signature where you quite apparently go shove your uninformed opinions places and then blanket call anyone who doesn't like how you act a narcissist. I'm not the one projecting here. 

My signature doesn't say what you think it says. Try reading it again.

 

Giant purple balloon animal.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Uhh, you called moving resistance from one power to another a buff. 

Except the reason why defense and damage resist was moved from the pets themselves to their T1 upgrades was specifically to buff their survival by letting us finally enhance the pets' defense and damage resist. So it is a buff.

[TheSpiritFox]

27 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Except the reason why defense and damage resist was moved from the pets themselves to their T1 upgrades was specifically to buff their survival by letting us finally enhance the pets' defense and damage resist. So it is a buff.

 

Using bots as an example, we got an extra 10% (total 30%) to 3/8 damage types and 0% resistance to others. 

 

Do I need to list the controller pets? Singularity with 50% resistance to everything. Tri cannon with 80%. Jack Frost with 25% defense to all base? Phantasm has gotten the fewest buffs from controller pets from what I have seen, because with phantom army taunting everything its less likely to take hits. Fly trap 30% to all but lethal and fire, plus psi defense. Animate stone, lowest resistance is 40%, highest is 100, most are 60%. 

 

Oh and almost all of them have mez protection that no mastermind pet has without it being provided by the secondary. Just base mez resist. 

 

By comparison, a "buff" from 20% to 30% to 3 damage categories and no base resistance, defense, or mez resistance is terrible. 

 

City of heroes has long suffered from "If it works somehow, dont fix it" which is why fire imps are still made of paper, because what does it matter if a fire kin neuters an entire spawn with CC and Fulcrum Shift. I'd like to see imps buffed too. 

 

But saying that the moving a resistance to the upgrades is like, making a huge difference in survivability? That its a buff in anything but name?

 

That's not a thought out buff to pet survivability. That's a cookie. So if you want to make the semantic argument that "pets have been buffed" and validate Peregrine's ego, sure. 

 

It does not change the fact that a single unlucky roll from a boss aoe wipes out entire tiers of pets for materminds, cratering our damage AND our survivability at the same time, and that's not balanced, not fun or engaging to play with, and there is absolutely no reason NOT to increase pet survivability for the one class that does actually depend on its pets for almost all of its ability to survive and do damage.