LBD's Moderate Mastermind Makeover

[Little Big Demon]

  When Homecoming brought this game back one of the first things I promised myself to do was play masterminds. On live I never got around to them, always kicked myself for it when the game was gone. Those that know me in game see I've taken quite a liking to them but a lot of players (myself included) can agree that the archtype needs a bit of tuning up, especially for late game content. Of course masterminds are still perfectly viable and if built right very powerful, but the newer four-star content and now the labyrinth show one glaring issue being that pets EVAPORATE and you either become a weaker defender or spend 80% of the time trying to resummon your dps and there are a few quirks of the pets themselves that can be felt by anyone who regularly plays masterminds. All that is to say, I've come up with a few ideas of varying difficulty to implement in game from possible solutions for the lategame dropoff  to quality of life changes that would just make the archtype flow better. 

 

First I want to identify the biggest issues I believe Masterminds face:

 

• Late game, most specifically fourstar relentless content, the pets die too quickly. To be specific, in exactly one hit by AoE from bosses and above. Incarnate Trials help by level shifting the pets but as enemies hit harder pets quickly become irrelevant, which as the core identity of the archtype it does not feel fun to play that content. 

 

• The pets are dumb. I totally get that the in game AI and pathfinding is most likely not going to receive a total overhaul any time soon, if ever. The changes awhile ago to make ranged pets prefer their range attacks was a beautiful change, but they are still idiots.

 

• The pace of gameplay moves faster than your pets do on teams. Unless you are a kin or rocking group fly while everyone who forgot null can turn off group travel powers yells at you for it and demands it be turned off, the pets are always lagging behind or worse grabbing aggro from all the groups the rest of your team decided weren't worth the effort. This means you either have to constantly dismiss and resummon (Which by the time all six are up and you use the two buffs everything is defeated), once again relegate yourself to be a weaker defender, or convince the rest of your team to slow down how they play because you're playing a mastermind. 

 

 

The possible changes I think can help address issues for masterminds or provide quality of life:

 

 

• Buff both base and max HP values at higher levels/50+, possible for all pets but especially for the 3 minions. 💗

 

  On relentless content as long as they survive a hit and can be healed like other players can then they can be kept alive. Pets already get a 90% resistance cap and with barrier spamming can consistently stay tanky as far as that goes, but on relentless even at 90% resist many, if not most attacks do forwards of 700 damage. On players this is fine you can reposition quickly and have personal tools to keep yourself alive but even with the best reaction time possible telling pets to back away from aoe attacks is a gamble whether they will turn around and shuffle off fast enough. Giving them the hp pool to survive the more common attacks is simple, straightforward, and effective enough without busting their gameplay. 

 

 

• Fast summoning, fast enhancement, improved buffing. 🕘

 

  The summon animation takes forever when you are in combat. You can't even target your pets while they milk their entrance more than the queens on rupaul's dragrace, but they sure as heck can die before they are up. Then, after they are up and ready you still gotta give them their school lunch and backpacks just so they are useful. Speed everything up. Make them able to take action/interrupt the summon animation sooner, make them targetable by friendlies sooner, make the empowerments quicker.

 

  It would be great if the empowerments were just a permanent passive you didn't have to reapply every time (Mayhaps make them an autopower on the mastermind that then applies to their pets, much like the alpha slot incarnate does) but presuming the code of the game doesn't make that easy  just speeding up this whole process means masterminds are not punished for their own gameplay. It also softens issues where the pets die too quickly, resummoning doesn't take you out of the battle nearly as much and can become a part of the gameplay loop.

 

  Summon All feature would be neat, one click and all available sets of pets come in at the same time (Overlapping summon animation to reduce how long it takes) 

 

  Currently applied buffs (Limited Selection) to the mastermind transfer to freshly summoned pets, retaining the remaining time from the mastermind. Kind of a radical change but often people will buff before the mastermind has summoned their pets or while the pets are out of range and then theres nothing you can do. Most single target buffs should probably be exempt from this, would be a little broken to put stuff like Amp Up on a Mastermind and have it apply to 6 pets at once. I say most because the single target grant stealth I think would be fair to apply to the pets. Most AoE buffs like speedboost, barriers, or aoe absorb shields (Matching the % remaining from the Mastermind) would make a lot of sense and save some headache.

 

  A small aside, I would also consider a brief period of invulnerability for the pets while being summoned but before they can take action. At the moment they can't be targeted directly by players but enemy aoe and in some cases targeted attacks can certainly hit them and often I could keep the pets alive if only they lived long enough to be buffed in the first place. 

 

 

• There is power in death, let us use it.💀

 

  Revive powers with buffs. Fallout. A much weaker vengeance. Let us use the defeated bodies. Even if its only the Mastermind who can use these powers on their own defeated pets, something like Fallout alone would be so much fun, very useful, and give a moment of agency with defeated pets. Maybe adjust the numbers when used on pets but for the most part powers used on defeated allies are already so rare and often come with long cooldowns I don't think they need to be nerfed (Aside from vengeance that would be broken).

 

  For powers like fallout a kind of workaround if they just can't be coded to work on pet bodies would be making it a buff that triggers effect on death when applied to pets. Kind of like the remote bomb from traps.

 

  Revives working on pets I would guess just doesn't work because of how revives and pets are coded so I don't put too much stock in the idea. But if they could, reviving pets with their mastermind enchantments still applied would be another avenue to making masterminds more viable in situations where the pets die quickly without just making the pets absolute tanks. Howling Twilight comes to mind.

 

• A recall command. 🔙

 

  If you tell your pets to stay in place they will... Until they don't. Pets will always teleport back to masterminds after a certain distance. There is a funny way to abuse this currently, if you absolutely SPAM the stay command pets will stay regardless of distance until you stop spamming, then they will attempt to teleport to you as normal. I think this should be a feature. Stay should mean stay, as long as you are in the same zone they stay put. In fact they shouldn't even move to attack, exclusively using ranged powers from their location. Masterminds should also get a new command where it immediately teleports all pets back to their location regardless of distance just like the current tether port. In long range this means masterminds can join a team in 'stealthing' through missions to important mobs. Command pets to stay, run through, and recall them when you are ready. In short range this means if pets are getting squirrely and running off a bit too much you can immediately reset control on them or reposition to avoid an aoe that pets don't take reduced damage from. 

 

  Aggro is the funny detail making this odd. Masterminds could abuse the recall to use the pets for unique pulling mechanics... But to me that sounds more like a new form of skill expression than exploiting. Also means a mastermind can snap back the pets for bodyguard mode and use it more actively instead of set and forgetting. 

 

 

• Group Travel Powers and Stealth. 🚕

 

  Alright a few ideas here. First, make group teleport work on pets regardless of distance just like group fly does now. Porting pets into or out of a fight would be a great tactic and tons of fun. Group fly and teleport are already a huge power investment to take (and should maybe be automatically granted once you have enough powers from the set, different conversation) and giving them any bit of unique utility would be appreciated by the very small playerbase that uses them. 

 

  Second, have a way to transfer some of the masterminds movement buffs into pets, or just make pets faster. They are so slow and the previous recall suggestion would completely eliminate that issue but presuming that doesn't make it in at least give pets something to help them move around. A radical change would be applying travel powers to them, superspeed applying a weaker version to all pets, fly making all pets fly with the user, pets jump with the mastermind if they are using superjump. But even just giving a generic speed buff while a mastermind has a movement power active would be a big change.

 

  Stealth on pets is kind of meh. Their pathing means unless they have perfect stealth they are still probably going to walk in aggro range while running around. Stealth effects transferring from the mastermind to them (Just stealth, not the defence component most have) or making grant invisibility work as an aoe for pets would be a small change and help masterminds use stealth mechanics a little bit more. 

 

 

• This one is very specific, but the K'ong fight is just a stupid nightmare for ONE reason alone. 🐒

 

  The fear gas the rikti monkeys leave behind just means mastermind pets run around like chickens with their heads cut off, get out of the MM's passive aura ranges losing a lot of their buffs and definitely too far for AoE heals or bodyguard mode, throw half an attack, and die. Its entirely from the 50 mag fear effect. I've kept pets alive and spammed repositions enough to get some pitiful dps out of them during Omega but like it would be cool if the little monkey gas could be reworked to not do that just in that fight alone. The whole point of a mastermind is that you control these pets and one of the most interesting fights in the game tells you "Screw that, your pets are useless even if you keep them alive, you're a defender now shut up and like it." At least give us a tool to use like a temporary power that can stop the fear spam. 

  

 

• Consider an additional level shift for the minions. 🔼

 

  Because the 3 minions are technically a level down from the player at relentless 54+ enemies start becoming arbitrarily tougher not because of stats or unique powers, but because there is a level gap becoming too wide. Incarnate Trials hotfixes this by granting more level shifts to them bringing them more even but we only get the single level shift in relentless, and damn do you feel it sometimes. In perfect scenarios where I keep the pets alive I still have respectable dps, I don't think Masterminds need a world of changes to keep up in that regard, but where a blaster or tanker is comparably as effective from standard content the mastermind pets are clearly falling behind as more difficult challenges are being thrown at us.

 

  I don't know how to balance this for the harder content without it busting open regular level 50 content where Masterminds can already shine with a good player. An internal flag that triggers minion shift just on hardmode taskforces or manually tuning individual stats I have no idea what is possible and knowing nothing about coding a videogame this already sounds like a bug riddled mess waiting to happen. But the core issue is the level gap matters and relentless enemies have buffs that really amplify that. The addition of level shifts is a change I am the most unsure about but its also one of the most direct fixes for hardmode issues. 

 

 

• More than just Bodyguard Mode.

 

  Bodyguard mode is pretty cool. It could be expanded on with other similar modes. Passive+Stay=Turtle mode, pets receive reduced damage, damage reduction modifier separate from resistance stats. Aggressive+Attack this=Swarm Mode. pets gain bonus movement speed and increased threat level enough to pull aggro away from a solo mastermind. Honestly spitballing ideas for different kinds of modes because I have no idea what is possible but the idea is more nebulous buffs that aren't straight numbers like bodyguard mode could give really interesting and new avenues for balance changing Masterminds. 

 

 

 

 

  I love masterminds, the concept was ahead of its time when CoV released and they are still a lot of fun to play from level 1 to 50+. It does feel like as we powercreep into more intense content they are slipping through the cracks and I already see (very rarely) some of the snobbier teams explicitly saying not to bring masterminds because its almost seen like a handicap. We have the overhauls of specific MM sets and I really hope we see that TLC brought to every MM primary eventually, but I also believe that the archtype as a whole deserves a soft overhaul or adjustment to keep pace. 

  

 

  
 

 

Edited July 26 by Little Big Demon

[Rudra]

41 minutes ago, Little Big Demon said:

It would be great if the empowerments were just a permanent passive you didn't have to reapply every time

The devs have already said this will never happen.

 

41 minutes ago, Little Big Demon said:

A radical change would be applying travel powers to them, superspeed applying a weaker version to all pets, fly making all pets fly with the user, pets jump with the mastermind if they are using superjump.

This would take away probably the last remaining reason players have for taking Group Fly and Team Teleport.

 

41 minutes ago, Little Big Demon said:

 

  The fear gas the rikti monkeys leave behind just means mastermind pets run around like chickens with their heads cut off, get out of the MM's passive aura ranges losing a lot of their buffs and definitely too far for AoE heals or bodyguard mode, throw half an attack, and die. Its entirely from the 50 mag fear effect. I've kept pets alive and spammed repositions enough to get some pitiful dps out of them during Omega but like it would be cool if the little monkey gas could be reworked to not do that just in that fight alone. The whole point of a mastermind is that you control these pets and one of the most interesting fights in the game tells you "Screw that, your pets are useless even if you keep them alive, you're a defender now shut up and like it." At least give us a tool to use like a temporary power that can stop the fear spam. 

MM pets used to not run out of the monkey gas. This was changed because MM pets would just keep standing in damage patches and get wiped out. (Though honestly, I preferred that. I could just order the pets out of the damage patches.) Probably the biggest problem is less the running and more just how far they run away. As long as a patch effect lingers on the pets, they just keep on running away even when they've left all the patches ridiculously far behind.

 

(Edit: I actually remember the request for our pets to flee damage patches back on Live. Those against said that as MMs, we could just order our pets out of the patches like some of us already were at the time. Those in favor insisted the pets should get themselves out of the patches. I think some Controller and Dominator players joined in too since their pets could not be commanded out of the patches. The devs said sure, the request got implemented, and MM players including those that made the request have been screaming ever since. Good example of be careful what you wish for.)

 

 

41 minutes ago, Little Big Demon said:

  Bodyguard mode is pretty cool. It could be expanded on with other similar modes. Passive+Stay=Turtle mode, pets receive reduced damage, damage reduction modifier separate from resistance stats. Aggressive+Attack this=Swarm Mode. pets gain bonus movement speed and increased threat level enough to pull aggro away from a solo mastermind. Honestly spitballing ideas for different kinds of modes because I have no idea what is possible but the idea is more nebulous buffs that aren't straight numbers like bodyguard mode could give really interesting and new avenues for balance changing Masterminds. 

I don't see a need or purpose for added modes. Bodyguard Mode was added simply because pets could not hold aggro off the MM so mobs always ignored the pets and murdered the MM. And since MMs were pitched as a "tank" AT because their pets spread out the aggro, this meant the MMs were not living up to what the original devs had intended. To compensate for that, Bodyguard Mode was added so that the pets were in fact helping to protect the MM as advertised/promised. The point of setting pets to Passive is to keep them from engaging anything, even if you are on a team and just running through the mission to the end. Set pets to Passive and they follow along ignoring everything. Aggressive lets your pets run wild. They have an enemy in aggro range? They attack said enemy. Unlike in Defensive where they do nothing until your MM or one of your pets is affected by an enemy's attack.

 

Setting those aside, this has been brought up ad nauseum. The devs are rumored to currently be looking at MM changes to help them. So some of us are waiting to see what happens.

Edited July 26 by Rudra

[PeregrineFalcon]

I've got multiple level 50 MMs. I had multiple level 50 MMs on the retail servers. I feel the need to mention this because if I don't someone will respond and claim that I don't know anything about MMs, or that I hate them, or something else equally ridiculous.

 

You clearly put a lot of thought and effort into your post and I like your post even though I disagree with most of it. I do agree with Recall command, Group travel powers and stealth, and a level shift for the pets. I see those as really more QoL improvements rather than straight up buffs.

 

I do not believe that Hard Mode, or Challenge Mode, or whatever it's being called now days, is justification to buff any class or class pets. Same with Incarnate Trials. These specific bits of content are supposed to be really difficult, they're difficult for other ATs and they should be difficult for MMs as well.

 

EDIT: Also, I've see a TON of suggestions this year about making MM pets tougher. The problem that I have with this is that if the devs do this it makes Force Fields and Sonic secondaries worthless. The entire point behind those secondaries is to make the pets much tougher at the expense of the offensive powers that are in other secondaries. Bottom line: if you want your pets to be tougher take /FF or /Sonic.

.

Edited July 26 by PeregrineFalcon
Added another thought.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Little Big Demon said:

 Fast summoning, fast enhancement, improved buffing. 

 

 

  The summon animation takes forever when you are in combat. You can't even target your pets while they milk their entrance more than the queens on rupaul's dragrace, but they sure as heck can die before they are up. Then, after they are up and ready you still gotta give them their school lunch and backpacks just so they are useful. Speed everything up. Make them able to take action/interrupt the summon animation sooner, make them targetable by friendlies sooner, make the empowerments quicker.

 

  It would be great if the empowerments were just a permanent passive you didn't have to reapply every time (Mayhaps make them an autopower on the mastermind that then applies to their pets, much like the alpha slot incarnate does) but presuming the code of the game doesn't make that easy  just speeding up this whole process means masterminds are not punished for their own gameplay. It also softens issues where the pets die too quickly, resummoning doesn't take you out of the battle nearly as much and can become a part of the gameplay loop.

 

  Summon All feature would be neat, one click and all available sets of pets come in at the same time (Overlapping summon animation to reduce how long it takes) 

 

  Currently applied buffs (Limited Selection) to the mastermind transfer to freshly summoned pets, retaining the remaining time from the mastermind. Kind of a radical change but often people will buff before the mastermind has summoned their pets or while the pets are out of range and then theres nothing you can do. Most single target buffs should probably be exempt from this, would be a little broken to put stuff like Amp Up on a Mastermind and have it apply to 6 pets at once. I say most because the single target grant stealth I think would be fair to apply to the pets. Most AoE buffs like speedboost, barriers, or aoe absorb shields (Matching the % remaining from the Mastermind) would make a lot of sense and save some headache.

 

  A small aside, I would also consider a brief period of invulnerability for the pets while being summoned but before they can take action. At the moment they can't be targeted directly by players but enemy aoe and in some cases targeted attacks can certainly hit them and often I could keep the pets alive if only they lived long enough to be buffed in the first place.

 

Henchmen, not pets.

 

Homecoming already has implemented much faster re-summon timers.

 

While it is true that a MM cannot immediately target a newly summoned henchmen, it is possible to target an already existing henchmen or pet (at least I haven't found anything in the pet window I couldn't target) and cast the empowerment buff and it will be applied to a newly summoned henchmen. I mention this workaround, because not being able to immediately target a newly summoned creature, but still be able to affect it with AoE, is a feature of the game engine. It isn't specific to MM henchmen. See Rezzing enemies, or newly summoned enemy pets/minions/whatever. I try to summon henchmen outside of obvious AoE, depending on what I am fightining.

 

The only empowerment buff that makes sense to me to "bake in" to the actual summons is the first empowerement... my argument has long been that it makes no sense that the first empowerment comes before both the T2 and T3 summons. However... recent changes to what can be slotted in those powers is a useful improvement over what we had before.

[srmalloy]

On 7/26/2024 at 2:18 PM, Little Big Demon said:

Alright a few ideas here. First, make group teleport work on pets regardless of distance just like group fly does now.

 

The Incandescence Destiny incarnate powers already do this -- with two caveats: First, if you have a tier-4 Radial active, the untouchable Lore pet is unaffected by the power. I've watched the Lore pets get teleported back and forth in the Hami raids in the Abyss with, generally, two to four Incandescence usages before the Hamikaze charge (with its own Incandescence to pull everyone into the fight). Second, the teleport from Incandescence is automatic for your pets -- it doesn't matter what your personal teleport settings are, your pets will be teleported. I personally have had quite a few instances when my Mastermind has been left standing, all alone, in the middle of a group of hostile mobs because some yahoo on the team decided that it was appropriate to fire off Incandescence unannounced, and in the time it took me to find my mouse pointer in the special effects on the screen and move it to click 'accept' on the teleport prompt (and don't get me started on the 'accept all teleports, without having any idea of where it's going to take you' issue -- I played on Live when people thought it was funny to teleport lowbies just away from a tall roof just to watch them fall) my MM would faceplant from being the focus of all the damage.

 

On 7/26/2024 at 2:18 PM, Little Big Demon said:

Because the 3 minions are technically a level down from the player at relentless 54+ enemies start becoming arbitrarily tougher not because of stats or unique powers, but because there is a level gap becoming too wide.

A minor correction -- when you get two of a henchman (whether tier 1 or tier 2), they summon a level below you; when you get three of a henchman (for the tier-1), they summon at -2. So if you're running at 50+4, your tier-1 henchmen are -6 to the hostiles, effectively rendering them useless except as Bodyguard fodder to soak up damage if you can keep them healed and standing.

[Little Big Demon]

24 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

 

The Incandescence Destiny incarnate powers already do this -- with two caveats: First, if you have a tier-4 Radial active, the untouchable Lore pet is unaffected by the power. I've watched the Lore pets get teleported back and forth in the Hami raids in the Abyss with, generally, two to four Incandescence usages before the Hamikaze charge (with its own Incandescence to pull everyone into the fight). Second, the teleport from Incandescence is automatic for your pets -- it doesn't matter what your personal teleport settings are, your pets will be teleported. I personally have had quite a few instances when my Mastermind has been left standing, all alone, in the middle of a group of hostile mobs because some yahoo on the team decided that it was appropriate to fire off Incandescence unannounced, and in the time it took me to find my mouse pointer in the special effects on the screen and move it to click 'accept' on the teleport prompt (and don't get me started on the 'accept all teleports, without having any idea of where it's going to take you' issue -- I played on Live when people thought it was funny to teleport lowbies just away from a tall roof just to watch them fall) my MM would faceplant from being the focus of all the damage.

 

But that means you have to wait a 2 minute cooldown, along with teleporting your entire league, every time you want to teleport your henchmen. I don't think that is remotely comparable to teleport team being usable every 5 seconds to reposition just yourself and the pets. My idea is if group teleport worked like incan does exclusively for personal pets/henchmen it would be a much more interesting tool and might get more use. As is I can not conceive of the last time I saw anyone with the power in their kit.

27 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

A minor correction -- when you get two of a henchman (whether tier 1 or tier 2), they summon a level below you; when you get three of a henchman (for the tier-1), they summon at -2. So if you're running at 50+4, your tier-1 henchmen are -6 to the hostiles, effectively rendering them useless except as Bodyguard fodder to soak up damage if you can keep them healed and standing.

Yeah I goofed and forgot it was -2 for them, but that also just leans into my point more that while other archtypes just have a bit more challenge MMs are straight up losing core parts of their powerset.

[srmalloy]

9 minutes ago, Little Big Demon said:

Yeah I goofed and forgot it was -2 for them, but that also just leans into my point more that while other archtypes just have a bit more challenge MMs are straight up losing core parts of their powerset.

MMs are the only AT that inherently gets jerked over for more difficult content; at any point in the game where an MM has more than one of any tier of henchmen, bumping the difficulty automatically gimps the MM for that content to a degree depending on the difficulty increase.

 

I don't know how it could be made to work dynamically with changing content (i.e., being on a team where one team member has missions at +0, another at +2, etc., so the difficulty varies with whose mission is being run), but some of the issues could be resolved by tweaking MM henchmen so that, at +2 or higher difficulty, it erases one level of disparity (so three tier-1 henchmen would be -1 instead of -2, and two would be even-level instead of -1), and at +4 difficulty, it erases two levels of disparity (making all your henchmen even-level to you). Or make the 'erasure' happen at +1 and +3 if you wanted to buff the MMs a little more, but I think shifts at +2 and +4 will work adequately.

[Little Big Demon]

On 7/26/2024 at 5:44 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

I do not believe that Hard Mode, or Challenge Mode, or whatever it's being called now days, is justification to buff any class or class pets. Same with Incarnate Trials. These specific bits of content are supposed to be really difficult, they're difficult for other ATs and they should be difficult for MMs as well.

 

EDIT: Also, I've see a TON of suggestions this year about making MM pets tougher. The problem that I have with this is that if the devs do this it makes Force Fields and Sonic secondaries worthless. The entire point behind those secondaries is to make the pets much tougher at the expense of the offensive powers that are in other secondaries. Bottom line: if you want your pets to be tougher take /FF or /Sonic.

.

Yes they should be difficult, but where a tanker might need a bit more support to stay alive and a blaster might need to be finer tuned to deal their dps, Mastermind pets are just wiped out of existence. At 90% resists/100% defences maintained by barrier spammed from a whole team the pets can still die from single hits, often aoe attacks so tankers taunting don't matter, entirely from their low hp pool and being shifted down levels. I don't want the pets to be invulnerable and the real big hits should take them out, but when every single mob can glance their way and they crumple instantly then it isn't 'more difficult' the game is outright denying your entire primary pool. 

 

Masterminds do not need buffs outside of this harder content. My quality of life ideas like recall would be nice in general gameplay but actual buffs are only needed in Relentless because again it isn't just more difficult, its erasing the primary part of your kit and forcing you to be a defender with worse base numbers on your powers because at max tank stats the pets die instantly. That's why when it comes to actual numbers I just want to see their max hp go up and less so a level shift up, even if they are still two shotted giving a chance to keep them alive would make the world of difference and survivability sets are just as effective.  

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 7/27/2024 at 4:15 PM, Little Big Demon said:

My quality of life ideas like recall would be nice in general gameplay but actual buffs are only needed in Relentless because again it isn't just more difficult, its erasing the primary part of your kit and forcing you to be a defender with worse base numbers on your powers because at max tank stats the pets die instantly.

They need buffs in Relentless? Isn't that the entire point behind Relentless? To see if you can survive? Giving any AT a buff at certain difficulty levels literally defeats the entire purpose of that difficulty level.

 

Once again, try playing an MM with the Force Field or Sonic secondaries. Those secondaries make MM henchmen much tougher. But no, you all want to take the more offensive secondaries but you still want your henchmen to be tough. The buff that you want for MMs will make FF & Sonic completely worthless. Why do you want to completely invalidate those powersets?

[Little Big Demon]

5 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

They need buffs in Relentless? Isn't that the entire point behind Relentless? To see if you can survive? Giving any AT a buff at certain difficulty levels literally defeats the entire purpose of that difficulty level.

 

Once again, try playing an MM with the Force Field or Sonic secondaries. Those secondaries make MM henchmen much tougher. But no, you all want to take the more offensive secondaries but you still want your henchmen to be tough. The buff that you want for MMs will make FF & Sonic completely worthless. Why do you want to completely invalidate those powersets?

Please explain in detail how pets ALREADY AT 90% resist and 100% defence are made any more durable by sonic or FF? You can not raise resists past 90% for henchmen and 100% defence has long since left the softcap behind. I do not understand how you think those sets even begin to make a difference at that point. 

 

So if we just made enemies automatically disable any and all toggles with absolutely no way to stop it would that just be 'more difficult' for all tankers and brutes or would that completely break the game for them? Or every single enemy from minions to AVs having mag 100 protection to all controls, all the time as an auto inherent power, I'm sure controllers and dominators would see that as just a funny challenge for their primary sets. Thats whats happening to masterminds their pets are just removed from gameplay. It isn't more difficult, its removing your gameplay entirely. I don't see that as a challenge I see that as bullshit that makes playing the archtype a punishment. I want it to be a challenge I have to focus on to keep them up and my dps present, but once again, 90% resist. 100% defence. There isn't any more survivability I can give them aside from +max HP or Absorb and last I checked FF and Sonic does not give that maybe I missed a very recent rework of both sets, I'll check the patch notes. And its equally shitty to say "Well then you exclusively have to play Marine or Nature if you play MM in this content".    

 

I also don't see how an extra 200-350 hp for the minion tier henchmen and 50-100 for lieutenants would invalidate sonic or forcefields. Level shifting would have to be exclusive to the task forces because it would just make the pets too powerful in 50+0 but a max hp boost would just mean a couple extra hits in normal gameplay, the chance of surviving more than 1 hit in hard mode. I don't want their resists or defences touched at all.   

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Little Big Demon said:

an extra 200-350 hp for the minion tier henchmen and 50-100 for lieutenants

Just for clarification purposes, all MM Henchman tier pets are lieutenants. The T1s, the T2s, and the T3 are all lieutenants. Though I do acknowledge that the specific tiers themselves are listed as Minion, Lieutenant, and Boss in things like City of Data.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Little Big Demon said:

Please explain in detail how pets ALREADY AT 90% resist and 100% defence are made any more durable by sonic or FF? You can not raise resists past 90% for henchmen and 100% defence has long since left the softcap behind. I do not understand how you think those sets even begin to make a difference at that point.

I already addressed this.

 

I do not believe that MMs, or any AT, should receive any buffs specifically for Hard Mode content as I believe that it defeats the entire purpose of Hard Mode. Outside of Hard Mode content MM Henchmen with 100% Defense and/or 90% Resist aren't being killed instantly the way you described in your previous post. You, and other posters who've talked about MM Henchmen in Hard Mode content, are essentially trying to set up a situation where MM Henchmen seldom, or never, die. Doing that would be a huge buff for MMs even if only in Hard Mode content, and if it applies in all content then it would make FF and Sonic nearly worthless.

 

There are many things an MM player can do to increase how long their henchmen survive. From power picks to placement of henchmen on the battlefield to waiting until the tank has aggro before ordering henchmen to attack. And I think that discussions about henchmen survival should focus on that instead of trying to convince the developers to buff MM henchmen.

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I already addressed this.

 

I do not believe that MMs, or any AT, should receive any buffs specifically for Hard Mode content as I believe that it defeats the entire purpose of Hard Mode. Outside of Hard Mode content MM Henchmen with 100% Defense and/or 90% Resist aren't being killed instantly the way you described in your previous post. You, and other posters who've talked about MM Henchmen in Hard Mode content, are essentially trying to set up a situation where MM Henchmen seldom, or never, die. Doing that would be a huge buff for MMs even if only in Hard Mode content, and if it applies in all content then it would make FF and Sonic nearly worthless.

 

There are many things an MM player can do to increase how long their henchmen survive. From power picks to placement of henchmen on the battlefield to waiting until the tank has aggro before ordering henchmen to attack. And I think that discussions about henchmen survival should focus on that instead of trying to convince the developers to buff MM henchmen.

I do feel the need to point out that even if a Tanker or other characters gets the aggro before sending pets in, melee preferred pets can still be cut down by AoEs pretty easily depending on the enemy. Though I do very much agree with your post.

 

2 hours ago, Little Big Demon said:

Please explain in detail how pets ALREADY AT 90% resist and 100% defence are made any more durable by sonic or FF? You can not raise resists past 90% for henchmen and 100% defence has long since left the softcap behind.

If you managed to get your pets to 100% defense and 90% damage resist, then they should have very little difficulty avoiding hits and should be able to survive those hits they fail to avoid long enough for you to heal them if you have heals with ease. And if you are doing that without Force Field or Sonic Resonance, I would very much like to see your build so I can see if I can apply your approach to my own builds.

[tidge]

I find a lot to agree with in the statements of my colleague Senator @PeregrineFalcon, I have things to say about one comment...

14 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

There are many things an MM player can do to increase how long their henchmen survive. From power picks to placement of henchmen on the battlefield to waiting until the tank has aggro before ordering henchmen to attack. And I think that discussions about henchmen survival should focus on that instead of trying to convince the developers to buff MM henchmen.

 

As I have written before (elsewhere): A Mastermind has to adjust playstyle, tactics, and expectations more than any other AT depending on content, teammates, and difficulty. Different folks can have different opinions about whether this is "fair", my personal attitude is that this is just one more thing that makes the MMs so unique to CoX and I find it worth embracing.

 

Tankers, RNGesus bless them, screw up *my* MM play more than any other AT. As soon as I'm teaming with a Tanker that has half-of-a-clue how to play the AT I have to make adjustments. I don't think it is wrong that I have to make adjustments to play with others.

[shortguy on indom]

• @LBD... ITS A DRAG SOME ATs LIKE URs AND MINE CAN BARELY HANG WITH THE PROGRAM ON DIFF CONTENT.  PLAYED W/YA W/A COMMON 4* FRIEND, SO KNOW THAT U CAN PLAY, SO ITS NOT THE PLAYSTYLE @ISSUE.
• SOMETIMES IT IS THE AT THAT IS THE PROB.
• PEACE.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Suggestions and ideas sub forum, folks; where suggestions and ideas are shouted down and told the posters have skill issues and need to build more optimally!

[srmalloy]

6 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

and told the posters have skill issues and need to build more optimally!

Or that they have to throw their character concept out the window and play with a specific restricted group of powersets to be comparable to other ATs that don't have the same sort of restrictions on their powerset choices.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Just now, srmalloy said:

Or that they have to throw their character concept out the window and play with a specific restricted group of powersets to be comparable to other ATs that don't have the same sort of restrictions on their powerset choices.

 

Sort of thought that’s what I had said, but, yes, basically.

[tidge]

11 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

Suggestions and ideas sub forum, folks; where suggestions and ideas are shouted down and told the posters have skill issues and need to build more optimally!

 

Are the posters being shouted down, or are they being given suggestions?

[Rudra]

21 minutes ago, tidge said:

34 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

Suggestions and ideas sub forum, folks; where suggestions and ideas are shouted down and told the posters have skill issues and need to build more optimally!

 

Are the posters being shouted down, or are they being given suggestions?

Like @tidge said, no one is being shouted out. There are tips being given though. And MMs always were a complicated AT that required active monitoring and manipulation of their assets, so it isn't like anything being said about ways to deal with various situations are wrong.

[Lunar Ronin]

1 hour ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

Suggestions and ideas sub forum, folks; where suggestions and ideas are shouted down and told the posters have skill issues and need to build more optimally!

 

By people who obviously have little to no experience with advanced modes.  Or they would realize that that defense and resistance is coming from stacked Barrier Destinies.

[Rudra]

So stacking Barriers counts as part of a build now? MM pets can't survive even with stacked Barriers? I admit I haven't done many Hard Mode/Advanced Mode TFs, but that is more from time constraints than anything else. The times I've done them though? While I haven't done any 4-stars, my Ninja/Dark's henchmen survive. It gets difficult in some fights, and in other fights I wind up re-summoning off and on, but I've never found my MM relegated to poor version of Defender though. And we didn't even have Barriers running.

 

(Edit: Sometimes you just need to shift the pets over to passive and order them out of the fight for a little bit. Then send them back in after you've had a chance to heal them or get more debuffs layered on the opposition.)

 

Edited July 30 by Rudra

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 7/29/2024 at 6:36 PM, tidge said:

Are the posters being shouted down, or are they being given suggestions?

No, no. They're being shouted down. How dare you think otherwise.

 

Remember, whenever anyone makes a suggestion, no matter how ridiculous or mathematically incorrect, we're supposed to support their suggestion and agree that it's just fabulous! Anything less is gatekeepingism and tryhardphobia and something something their feelings.

 

On 7/29/2024 at 6:23 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

Suggestions and ideas sub forum, folks; where suggestions and ideas are shouted down and told the posters have skill issues and need to build more optimally!

Look, bottom line is that we're not required to agree with a suggestion. There's even a stickied post by a moderator that specifically says we're not required to agree with a suggestion. Disagreeing with a suggestion isn't "shouting down" or "gatekeeping" or anything else but disagreeing. Welcome to Earth, not everyone is going to agree with you. Your life is going to be a lot easier if you just get used to that little fact.

[shortguy on indom]

• SO, I AM NOT A MM EXPERT.  NOT MY CUP OF TEA.
• WAS THINKING IF THERE WAS A WAY TO SEE HOW MMs HANG IN SURVIVING COMPARED TO OTHER ATs?...WAS ABOUT TO SEE ABOUT MAKING A SIMPLE TOOL, BUT DID A FORUM SEARCH AND FOUND THIS POST/GUIDE: The Survivability Tool - Guides - Homecoming BY BOPPER
• LINK DIRECTLY TO TOOL WOULD NOT WORK FOR ME... BUT WORKAROUND IS THIS DIRECT LINK TO THE TOOL ITSELF: Survivability v3.0 - Google Sheets 
• HAVE NOT PERSONALLY TRIED/VALIDATED THE TOOL AND AM NOT AFFILIATED W/IT.
• WILL BE DOING SOME CONTROLLED TESTING W/IT IN A CONTROLLED SETTING TO SEE IF IT WORKS FOR ME.  tYPICAL IMMORTAL BADGE KINDA STUFF TO SEE MY MAX DPS TAKEN LINE UP W/THE TOOL.
• CURIOUS WHAT OTHER ATs HAVE WITH SURVIVABILITY AS WELL.
• I HATE REWARD-CREEP; POWER-CREEP; AND GENERAL MIS-INFO BASED ON OPINION W/OUT ACTUAL "A MILE IN MY SHOES" FLUIDITY.
• PEACE.

[Rudra]

22 minutes ago, shortguy on indom said:

• SO, I AM NOT A MM EXPERT.  NOT MY CUP OF TEA.
• WAS THINKING IF THERE WAS A WAY TO SEE HOW MMs HANG IN SURVIVING COMPARED TO OTHER ATs?...WAS ABOUT TO SEE ABOUT MAKING A SIMPLE TOOL, BUT DID A FORUM SEARCH AND FOUND THIS POST/GUIDE: The Survivability Tool - Guides - Homecoming BY BOPPER
• LINK DIRECTLY TO TOOL WOULD NOT WORK FOR ME... BUT WORKAROUND IS THIS DIRECT LINK TO THE TOOL ITSELF: Survivability v3.0 - Google Sheets 
• HAVE NOT PERSONALLY TRIED/VALIDATED THE TOOL AND AM NOT AFFILIATED W/IT.
• WILL BE DOING SOME CONTROLLED TESTING W/IT IN A CONTROLLED SETTING TO SEE IF IT WORKS FOR ME.  tYPICAL IMMORTAL BADGE KINDA STUFF TO SEE MY MAX DPS TAKEN LINE UP W/THE TOOL.
• CURIOUS WHAT OTHER ATs HAVE WITH SURVIVABILITY AS WELL.
• I HATE REWARD-CREEP; POWER-CREEP; AND GENERAL MIS-INFO BASED ON OPINION W/OUT ACTUAL "A MILE IN MY SHOES" FLUIDITY.
• PEACE.

Okay, all this may sound condescending, but I do not intend it that way. This is a basic overview of MMs and most likely includes information you already possess.

 

When it comes to MM survivability, there are added factors other ATs don't have to consider. Looking past the shared factors, where MMs suffer a bit behind other ATs, you have all the MMs pets. Both from the primary and from some secondaries. (Though I think only Dark Miasma and Storm Summoning have any actual pets as a secondaries.) MM pets amplify the MM's ability to fight by being able to add 6 separate attacks the MM does not personally have to use, 7 or 8 in the case of Storm Summoning for brief periods of time, so the MM can be doing other things such as using support powers and still be doing damage. This obviously does not stop the MM from using his/her/their/its own attacks, so if the MM chooses to go all out on offense, that is 7 sources of damage not counting things like Gang War or Tornado to afflict targets with. So while MMs themselves do less damage than other ATs, they wind up doing a lot of damage if they focus their efforts on a single target.

 

When it comes to the pets themselves, MM henchman class pets are pretty universally weaker than regular pet class pets such as Controllers use. Fortunately for the pets, the MM has ample tools available to protect them, recover them, and/or facilitate their ability to be effective in combat. So long as the MM's pets are alive, depending on what mode or stance you have them in, they do different things as the MM needs. The most recommended for the MM's survival, as in the ability to survive being attacked/hit, is using Defensive/Follow to have the pets in Bodyguard Mode. While the MM's pets are in Bodyguard Mode, all damage the MM takes is divided by the number of pets in Bodyguard Mode + 2. The reason for this is that the MM will always take 2 shares of the applied damage and each pet will take 1 share of the applied damage while in Bodyguard Mode. This has the benefit of shielding the MM character from harm so the MM character can fight for longer, but it also means that if that attack was an AoE that caught the MM character and his/her/their/its pets, then each of those pets are actually being hit twice by that attack. Once for the attack hitting the pet and again for the share of the damage the pet is shielding the MM character from. This is how a lot of MM pets die, from the sheer accrual of damage to themselves and their summoning character. Outside of Defensive/Follow, which is the only way to be in Bodyguard Mode despite what the wiki says, the MM has access to additional stances and commands for their pets so the MM can tailor how his/her/their/its pets are deployed to deal with the given situation. If your character can take the hits? Aggressive ensures your pets are always attacking any hostile within their aggro radius. If you don't want them fighting? Passive keeps them from doing any fighting at all. Positional commands like GoTo and Stay lets the MM place pets where they can be more effective. For instance, having pets in Aggressive/Stay while on an ITF from outside a Shadow Cyst's explosion radius means those pets will keep attacking the Cyst with their ranged attacks and not suffer defeat when the Cyst explodes upon its defeat. Preplacing pets with the GoTo command also does the same thing. This is less effective for Beast Mastery since only the Dire Wolf has ranged attacks.

 

Managing his/her/their/its' pet aggro is tantamount to MM survival. Even in Defensive they can and will wind up fighting mobs not in the group you are fighting. The fastest way to stop your pets from drawing additional aggro, provided you are paying attention to where they are and what they are doing, is to quickly flip them over to Passive. As long as they are in Follow or GoTo, they will immediately return to your side or to the spot you assigned.

 

On large teams, minding what the team is doing and what the enemy is capable of is tantamount to both MM and his/her/their/its' pets' survival. Ordering pets to get out of combat to recover or reduce aggro is a constant consideration. Changing from Aggressive or Defensive to Passive to pull pets back and then returning them to Aggressive or Defensive also helps keep the pets out of trouble. Letting any damage sponges on the team take the lead before letting the pets loose and yanking the pets back when the damage sponges look to be losing control of the situation is routine on high difficulty missions. Basically, a Mastermind player has to be extremely involved in the minutiae of everything that is going on or the MM will lose control of his/her/their/its pets and find the pets need constant re-summoning. This can get very overwhelming. And I personally think this is a major reason why MM pet power recharge times were reduced so much.

 

Further, if the fight gets so crazy that keeping pets alive and upgraded becomes a problem, the MM can elect to not upgrade pets during the battle. Yes, this means the pets lack their better attacks or other abilities, but if the fight is that frantic, just keeping up a steady damage stream from pets is often enough to help turn the tide even if they lack their upgrade attacks or other abilities.

 

Sorry for WALL OF TEXT, but hopefully that helps clarify some things.