Mercenaries: Commando

[WumpusRat]

It's generally accepted that the Mercenaries set for Masterminds underperforms a bit, and I think I've found one of the main reasons why.

 

For all other sets, once you hit 32nd your pets' damage tends to spike, because they gain access to more abilities and, in particular, aoe powers. One of the problems with the commando is that several of his powers are simply direct copies of other abilities from various sets, with no changes other than to lower their damage to be at Mastermind levels.

 

Namely: Full Auto and LRM Rocket.

 

Full Auto has a 60s recharge.

LRM Rocket has a 240s recharge.

 

Given that Mastermind pets can't slot recharge into any of their powers, having cooldowns that long for simple damage abilities is ridiculous. None of the other Mastermind tier-3 pets have powers that take that long to recharge, unless they're buffs, debuffs, or crowd control (typically holds), and those typically only have 60-90s recharge.

 

My suggestion would be for the commando's Full Auto ability have its recharge reduced to 20s, and LRM Rocket reduced to 25s.

 

It would give the commando some much-needed "oomph", and give the Mercenaries set in general some needed damage output. Especially since the Mastermind has no control over what abilities the pets use, and the LRM Rocket has a 150ft range, the commando will often burn that on lone or fleeing enemies, wasting the 4m recharge.

 

Thoughts?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I think you're on the right track although your proposed numbers are a bit to low IMHO. I'd think a more reasonable number would be 30s for Full Auto and 60s for LRM.

[WumpusRat]

I'll have to double check the numbers for the other tier-3s when I get home, but the reason I set them at 20-25 is because the assault bot's missile swarm powers are on 16s cooldowns, and do more damage than the LRM rocket. If you have a way to keep the enemies in the burn patches, they do VASTLY more. The LRM has the advantage of range and 'burst' damage vs damage over time, but otherwise it's nothing special. A 60s cooldown would still be too long, imo. If it were damage + hold, or damage + immobilize or something, then sure I could see it having a fairly lengthy cooldown. But just damage and nothing else? Not really.

[WumpusRat]

Okay, so I'm home now and checked all the tier-3 pet powers. I'm not going to list their innate powers, since those are all generally quick attacks with low recharge. But here are the attacks that they get from the level-6 and level-32 upgrades. Powers with an * in front of them are the level-32 upgrade powers. These are all with no slotting, just base damage.

 

Dire Wolf

• Maiming Bite - 47 dmg, 6s cooldown, slow, -def
  
• Freezing Roar - 37 dmg, 14s cooldown, cone, slow
  
• *Terrible Howl - 75 dmg, 60s cooldown, 15s terrorize, cone
  
• *Will of the Wild - +192 max health, 385hp heal, +37% lethal/smash/fire/cold res for 45s, 120s cooldown
  

 

Demon Prince

• Chill Embrace - aoe slow, always on
  
• Ice Sword - 59 dmg, 8s cooldown, slow
  
• Block of Ice - 30 dmg, 8s cooldown, 22s hold
  
• *Ice Slash - 70 dmg, 10s cooldown, slow
  
• *Frozen Aura - 51 dmg, 20s cooldown, aoe sleep
  

 

Lich

• Tenebrous Tentacles - 24 dmg, 10s cooldown, 27s aoe immobilize, -to hit
  
• Life Drain - 30 dmg, 15s cooldown, self-heal, -to hit
  
• *Fearsome Stare - fear, 20s cooldown, aoe cone fear, -to hit
  
• *Petrifying Gaze - hold, 16s cooldown, 15s hold
  

 

Oni

• Ring of Fire - 33 dmg, 4s cooldown, 28s immobilize
  
• Breath of Fire - 53 dmg, 16s cooldown, aoe cone
  
• *Char - 33 dmg, 8s cooldown, 22s hold
  
• *Rain of Fire - 129 dmg (over time), 60s cooldown, slow, aoe
  

 

Assault Bot

• Dual Plasma - 57 dmg, 25s cooldown, -500% regen
  
• Flame Thrower - 50 dmg, 10s cooldown, aoe cone
  
• *Swarm Missiles - 58 dmg, 16s cooldown, aoe
  
• *Incendiary Swarm Missiles - 86 dmg (over time), 16s cooldown, aoe burn patches, +30 dmg over time after being lit on fire
  

 

Bruiser

• Haymaker - 59 dmg, 8s cooldown
  
• Hand Clap - stun, 30s cooldown, aoe
  
• *Knockout Blow - 128 dmg, 25s cooldown, knockup, 18s hold
  
• *Hurl - 59 dmg, 8s cooldown
  
• *Foot Stomp - 51 dmg, 20s cooldown, aoe, knockup
  

 

Commando

• Buckshot - 28 dmg, 8s cooldown, aoe cone
  
• Full Auto - 84 dmg, 60s cooldown, aoe cone
  
• *m30 Grenade - 27 dmg, 16s cooldown, aoe
  
• *Flamethrower - 59 dmg, 20s cooldown, aoe cone
  
• *LRM Rocket - 76 dmg, 240s cooldown, aoe
  

 

If you really compare, you'll notice that the commando does significantly less damage with his abilities (save for Full Auto) than all the other tier-3 pets, and has longer cooldowns on top of it. Both the commando and the assault bot have Flame Thrower, for instance, but the assault bot's is on a 10s cooldown while the commando's is 20s, and does a little bit more damage, but not enough to justify double the cooldown). Full Auto is ONLY damage, no hold, fear, slow, or anything else, and has a 60s cooldown. Compare that to the dire wolf's Terrible Howl, which also has a 60s cooldown, does a bit less damage, but also includes a terrorize.

 

And then you get to the LRM Rocket, which is frankly just a joke. It's a small (15ft) aoe with average damage. If it were to stay on a 240s cooldown, the damage should likely be increased by (literally) about a factor of five or more. But realistically, it should be dropped down to about a 20-25s cooldown. Full Auto (since it's a larger cone) could be shifted to a 25-30s cooldown.

[Galaxy Brain]

Hard agree. Itd be nice if commando also had Ignite, but alas.

 

I also think Serum needs a look as the power is atrocious, and could help mercs along with this!

[PSLAnimal]

Huh.  I thought this was going in an entirely different direction.

 

[Redlynne]

Commando

• Full Auto - 84 dmg, 60s cooldown, aoe cone

 

If you really compare, you'll notice that-

 

Full Auto in the Blaster, Corruptor, and Defender versions of the Assault Rifle powerset are all 60s recharge times ... which is "fine" when you can slot for (and gain the benefit of) Recharge Reduction enhancement.

 

Pets are completely unaffected by Recharge enhancement.

AT ALL.

 

So a recharge number that makes a lot of sense on a PC makes little to no sense on an NPC that cannot be affected by Recharge modification (positive or negative).  The net result is a gimped (granted) power that is used so infrequently as to be only slightly better than nothing.  I mean, we're talking a base damage production of 1.4 DPS per second of recharge once per minute with no opportunity or means to have that improved by recharge reduction.

 

 

 

I'd say that reducing the recharge time of Full Auto to 24 seconds (a 2.5x reduction) and LRM down to 24 seconds also (a 10x reduction) would go a LONG WAY towards correcting this ... injustice ... to Mercenaries.

[WumpusRat]

Hard agree. Itd be nice if commando also had Ignite, but alas.

 

I also think Serum needs a look as the power is atrocious, and could help mercs along with this!

 

Serum definitely needs to be reworked. Of course, so do several of the mastermind 18th level powers, to bring them more in line with the sets that perform well.

 

But lowering the cooldown of the commando's Full Auto and LRM Rocket would go a long way towards balancing Mercenary damage, and give the commando a better attack cycle. As it is right now, he basically drops his two 'big attacks' and then turns into a tier-1 pet with more health.

[Vanden]

This sounds good to me.

[kelly Rocket]

Definitely agreed. Mercs damage is just so bad.