Controller Pets need an update

[Spectre7878]

As a controller main I feel the pets should be looked at. Some are great and some are just plain terrible. I would love the developers to review the under performing pets and adjust them to be better. I also feel the controller pets need to be fixed as were mastermind pets with blocking doorways and paths. Team really hate when they are in the way. 
 

I would like to see pets be more durable and maybe a bit more damage and the one that need it are

 

Gremlins

Imps

Umbra Beast - please lessen the howling also

Phantasm

Fly trap

 

thank You devs for keeping the alive

 

 

 

 

 

[Arc-Mage]

More detail please.

[Uun]

The distinguishing characteristic of the pets you list vs. those you don't (Animate Stone, Jack Frost, Singularity, Tri-Cannon and Reverberant) is that they're squishier. If you don't have a secondary that allows you to buff/heal your pets, they die a lot.

 

Other than that, the change I'd like to see for Gremlins and Imps is to eliminate the -1 level shift.

[Spectre7878]

Singularity 

Tri cannon 

animated stone

and reverberant 

 

all feel a bit less squishy then the ones I mentioned in the op

 

that said. I feel that the pets in to op need a buff in their defense and resistance. I honestly feel that controller pets shouldn’t die as fast or at all. It’s the controllers t9 power and in such should be stronger then what they are. I probably stand alone on the topic, but always felt that the pet should be the controller damage dealer and tough to kill. 
 

I plan on everyone disagreeing with me and I am use to that. It’s a suggestion post and who knows. Maybe the devs will look over them. 
 

I love controllers and have many of them. I personally would just like the pets to be looked at. 
 

☺️

Edited September 19 by Spectre7878

[arcane]

In some cases I agree. I’m skeptical, however, that Fire Imps need to be durable in light of their potential DPS output. And I’m also skeptical that Phantasm is struggling in general. 
 

I skip most of these powers nowadays regardless. They don’t keep up in a fast team environment, or, at worst, they get in the way or cause problems. 

Edited September 20 by arcane

[tidge]

I play Controllers, MMs, and Crabberminds. I have some other ATs with pets as well, FWIW. I don't think Controller pets need any individual improvement in stats, as the summons are just one more power in the Controller's arsenal. They aren't supposed to be 'fire-and-forget' powers, or turn Controllers into Masterminds.

 

My gut is telling me that the request comes from a place of expectations not being met: I can imagine that a Controller that has been limping along without much DPS, and maybe not using enhancement sets, finally gets a pet summon power and could equate this as their "nuke"... or that maybe a Controller wants to dive into x8 content (solo, or on something like a TF) and discovers that these pets aren't quite as "fire-and-forget" as they had hoped.

[Doomguide2005]

     I've no idea if there's an issue, what the issue might be and how or if it could/should be fixed but my Animate Stone, a pet I've been using since i4, frequently matched to the same secondary (Storm).  Well I still cast it but if he dies it can be quite a while before I'll resummon even solo and it goes as far as forgetting to cast as the team moves from one mission to the next.  Wasn't too far back that wouldn't have happened or I would've rapidly noticed.  Something has definitely changed when I'm 'reluctant' to get one of the best pets back in action.  Probably has something to do with procs if I had to guess.  I can generate enough damage without my pet to not feel a strong need to provide both his damage and defenses via taunt to miss him as much these days.

[srmalloy]

13 hours ago, tidge said:

My gut is telling me that the request comes from a place of expectations not being met: I can imagine that a Controller that has been limping along without much DPS, and maybe not using enhancement sets, finally gets a pet summon power and could equate this as their "nuke"

Back before Containment, reaching 32 and getting your pet power was the point at which a Controller was able to viably solo again; from about level 12 to level 31, the damage output of a Controller lagged waaaaay behind that of other ATs; depending on the powerset, they could more or less run base-difficulty content solo, albeit at a very slow pace due to their limited damage output or long recharge on their more effective powers. With Containment and IO sets, that's less true, although there is still a significant jump in damage output when they get their T9 power, Uun is correct in that the squishier pets require more buff-and-heal support from the character's secondary powerset in order to keep the pet(s) alive to take advantage of that increased damage.

[tidge]

Bringing up the way the game used to be in the past isn't worthwhile IMO, as the game has IMO improved across-the-board for ALL ATs since Live. Let's face it: we aren't even in the same game where players must wait to take their primary T9s at level 32. 

 

I think @Doomguide2005 hit on what is different about the game now, in the Homecoming era: If a Controller wants a faster pace of play, via DPS, it is straightforward (and relatively easy IMO) to make choices leveraging %damage. My Controllers can clear +0x8 maps in not much more time than my other ATs. My Controller time was faster on a speed run of Penny Yin's TF than my Warshade, and up until the AV fight it was running the same as Stalker/Blaster/Tanker. I know there is a feeling that occasionally surfaces that somehow the current %damage is bad for the game, but an honest assessment of all the ATs will show that that the current %damage implementation is pretty much the primary reason all the ATs can solo complete 95%+ of the game's content on the same order of magnitude time investment (for the same rewards).

 

I understand that the "power sets are balanced around IOs", but without %damage map clear times, even with pets, are going to match any other ATs. There are some Controller primaries (ehem Phantom Army) that IMO give the wrong impression of how all pets should be able to be summoned to sweep through enemy critters without any further consideration.

 

 

[Jacke]

All the Pet attacks need to have a 1.2 Base Accuracy.  That way the Pets can still be useful on +4 Content (which is +4 to the Pets) if they're slotted with ED-capped Accuracy).  Otherwise, their chance-ToHit is well below 95% and Tactics is needed.

[tidge]

14 hours ago, Jacke said:

All the Pet attacks need to have a 1.2 Base Accuracy.  That way the Pets can still be useful on +4 Content (which is +4 to the Pets) if they're slotted with ED-capped Accuracy).  Otherwise, their chance-ToHit is well below 95% and Tactics is needed.

 

I like the cut of your jib, but this still feels to me that this is an ask to get more DPS out of the pets, especially in default, non-incarnate, non-hard-mode content. The bump in base accuracy would greatly improve many of the control aspects of the pets, as well as %proc chances. +4 critters can be a grind for a LOT of ATs, it may not seem like this affects DPS-oriented characters, but this is almost certainly due to the very standard approach of slotting attacks with pieces from sets that boost Accuracy.

 

I'm not ignorant that there is an undercurrent of "but ____ (insert whatever AT) is useless in +4 content", and while I agree that certain ATs perform differently between +0 and +4 in my experience what is actually different for the _____ (fill in the blank with whatever AT) is that strategy needs to change, and possibly an alternate (second) build ought to be used to leverage different power and/or slotting picks for certain types of content.

 

Would it be "fair" to ask that a Controller to have a second build specifically for certain types of content? Maybe ...because that isn't the only AT for which this is true. Many Tankers can certainly have performance improvements across different content by using multiple builds; Writing only for myself: For example if I get a Tanker that can survive hard mode content I'm usually not that concerned if its clear times are sub-optimal on exemplar content, even if they clearly are. I don't think it is unreasonable for players that choose to play a more nuanced AT like Controller, to take a more nuanced approach to the game.

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

I like the cut of your jib, but this still feels to me that this is an ask to get more DPS out of the pets, especially in default, non-incarnate, non-hard-mode content. The bump in base accuracy would greatly improve many of the control aspects of the pets, as well as %proc chances. +4 critters can be a grind for a LOT of ATs, it may not seem like this affects DPS-oriented characters, but this is almost certainly due to the very standard approach of slotting attacks with pieces from sets that boost Accuracy.

 

I did look at this in detail.  There are already Pets with 1,2 Base Accuracy (Fire Imps, Gun Drone, etc.) but also those with just 1.0 (Jack Frost, etc.).  Right now with such variety, some Pets are favoured and easier to build for (Fire Control really just needs to slot the Fire Imps Summon Power with ED-capped Accuracy to get about a final 92% chance-ToHit against +4 targets).  Making them all 1.2 Base Accuracy just levels the playing field.

 

As for the effect at lower Notoriety with a lot of Procs, well, the solution for that is coming:  The APROCALYPSE.

 

 

2 hours ago, tidge said:

Would it be "fair" to ask that a Controller to have a second build specifically for certain types of content? Maybe ...because that isn't the only AT for which this is true. Many Tankers can certainly have performance improvements across different content by using multiple builds.

 

While we can do multiple builds (2 before L50, 3 at L50), I would strongly advise against it.  I tried to do so while levelling and it was such a pain I rerolled the Toon to clean up the mess.

 

The only multiple build I have is my main, AR/Devices Blaster, with a build each with Arsenal Mastery, Force Mastery, and Mu Mastery.  The 3 builds only differ in 3 Powers involving the Epic Pool.  But it's an administrative burden, especially as I have a copy on both CB and HC.  I change something about the main part of the build, I have to do 6 Respecs.

 

While this administrative burden may be lesser if the builds were for radically different reasons, I would really try to avoid it.  My Spines/Fiery Aura Brutes for AFK Farming have a universal build I can use for regular play just to keep to a single build

[tidge]

3 minutes ago, Jacke said:

As for the effect at lower Notoriety with a lot of Procs, well, the solution for that is coming:  The APROCALYPSE.

 

If that ever happens, Controllers will be relegated to the basement of clear times such that folks will be crying for a return to the days of many multiple (DPS-dealing) pet summons just to try to get map clear times close to an order of magnitude of Blasters. %damage is, perhaps unintentionally, the great equalizer when it comes to different ATs being able to complete almost all of the game's content in roughly similar amounts of time. Never forget that almost all of the game's rewards are directly tied to defeating critters.

 

There is legitimately no reason to change procs, unless the legitimate reason is to stratify almost all the rewards in the game among ATs unequally.

[Jacke]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

If [the Aprocalypse] ever happens, Controllers will be relegated to the basement of clear times....

 

There have been many changes I didn't like (eg. most of Tactical Arrow's Arrows not getting 80ft range).  But I think the Devs do work to try to make all the changes close to the best they can be.  (There were a lot of Closed Alpha changes that weren't ready for Issue 28 Page 1 that were dropped to not slow down the release and to get them better when they do come out.)

 

The Aprocalypse has been coming for years, as the current Proc PBM system has serious issues.  But such a big change needs to be done right.  Which includes addressing whatever good the previous Proc system has been doing.

 

I will be there for the Aprocalypse endeavouring to make sure issues like balancing between ATs is addressed at the same time.

 

The Aprocalypse will come.

[tidge]

9 minutes ago, Jacke said:

While we can do multiple builds (2 before L50, 3 at L50), I would strongly advise against it.  I tried to do so while levelling and it was such a pain I rerolled the Toon to clean up the mess.

 

The only multiple build I have is my main, AR/Devices Blaster, with a build each with Arsenal Mastery, Force Mastery, and Mu Mastery.  The 3 builds only differ in 3 Powers involving the Epic Pool.  But it's an administrative burden, especially as I have a copy on both CB and HC.  I change something about the main part of the build, I have to do 6 Respecs.

 

While this administrative burden may be lesser if the builds were for radically different reasons, I would really try to avoid it.  My Spines/Fiery Aura Brutes for AFK Farming have a universal build I can use for regular play just to keep to a single build

 

I don't think we have the same perspective on the use of multiple builds. Personally, the only time I ever used multiple builds while leveling was for my Widow (because I explicitly had two different "forms") and eventually for my Soldier (once it got to the point where I could "Crabbermind")... but I have often done post-50 builds. It isn't until I have slots to dedicate that I can see performance differences. I suppose picking different Epics/Patrons is a choice (damage typing perhaps) but that isn't where my mind goes when thinking about multiple builds. I think more in terms of one build leveraging Hasten, adding Slow resistances, more healing, higher defenses... basically specializing for specific content.

 

Specifically why I suggested maybe using different builds for Controllers above, was because the suggestion was made in light of:

 

18 hours ago, Jacke said:

All the Pet attacks need to have a 1.2 Base Accuracy.  That way the Pets can still be useful on +4 Content (which is +4 to the Pets) if they're slotted with ED-capped Accuracy).  Otherwise, their chance-ToHit is well below 95% and Tactics is needed.

 

Personally, I don't think that there are many Controllers taking on +4 content solo... and if they are, any DPS from pets (if the Controller even has pets) is way down on the list of things the Controller needs to be concerned with, behind Defenses, Control duration slotting, ToHit, etc. A second build could be used to address all those things that wouldn't be needed by a Controller running solo +0x8 content.  It could be as simple as one build leveraging %procs and another leveraging set bonuses.

 

As I noted above, there are other builds (like Blasters) where for a LOT of content the only adjustment a full-kit 50 might have to make between +4 and +0 content is in terms of strategy. 

[tidge]

3 minutes ago, Jacke said:

The Aprocalypse has been coming for years, as the current Proc PBM system has serious issues.

 

[citation need]

[Jacke]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

Personally, I don't think that there are many Controllers taking on +4 content solo....

 

Are there many Toons outside of Farmers, those doing the Apex and Tin Mage II Task Forces (locked to +4), and 4* Advance Mode aficionados doing content at +4 ?

 

I know there are Players who will try their Toons against +4 content to see how tough they are.  But I suspect they don't run at that Notoriety that often.

 

Also, good point bringing up those other uses for multiple builds.  I would still try to have a single build for all (like I do with my Spines/Fiery Aura Brute), but I can see the benefit being greater for others that I've not yet done.

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

[ The Aprocalypse ]

[citation need]

 

There's been a lot of side comments by the Devs in various places.  More for those in testing.

 

The Aprocalypse is coming.  It will be a rebalance.  There will be change.

[tidge]

13 minutes ago, tidge said:

Personally, I don't think that there are many Controllers taking on +4 content solo...

 

2 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Are there many Toons outside of Farmers, those doing the Apex and Tin Mage II Task Forces (locked to +4), and 4* Advance Mode aficionados doing content at +4 ?

 

I know there are Players who will try their Toons against +4 content to see how tough they are.  But I suspect they don't run at that Notoriety that often.

 

If there are many Controllers soloing hard mode (or +4 content), I suspect that those players have figured out how to do it without requiring changes to the sturdiness of pets. I realize that this argument wouldn't mean that non-sturdy pets are gatekeepers preventing Controllers from tackling hard mode solo, but Controllers can certainly try to tackle a solo +4 using Lore pets to see how that goes (while the Lores are up).

 

The greater point I am trying to make is that I believe among all the possible ATs, there are some that have to adjust their playstyle more than other ATs depending on the content. Personally? I think Masterminds have to do the most adjusting... and it isn't because Masterminds (generally) henchmen that are less sturdy than Controller pets.

 

Crabberminds would probably like to be able to not have to resummon their pets, as well as wish that their pets did more for the brief amounts of time they are likely to stick around in +4 content. My Crabbermind is almost certainly going to swap to the non-Crabbermind build in order to leverage more effective powers. I don't see this as radically different than suggesting that a Controller who has sunk a lot into making stronger pets perhaps have a build that focuses more on control than pet DPS (for some content).

[Jacke]

1 minute ago, tidge said:

If there are many Controllers soloing hard mode (or +4 content), I suspect that those players have figured out how to do it without requiring changes to the sturdiness of pets. I realize that this argument wouldn't mean that non-sturdy pets are gatekeepers preventing Controllers from tackling hard mode solo, but Controllers can certainly try to tackle a solo +4 using Lore pets to see how that goes (while the Lores are up).

 

Doing both:

• Slotting the Pet Summons Power with ED-capped Accuracy.
• Taking Tactics (even just the base slot) or having a reliable -Def on the targets the Pets are attacking.

will get virtually all Pet Powers to that final 95% chance-to-hit in +4 content, even with some padding to allow for not-quite ED-capped Accuracy or debuffs.  It's mostly needing to adjust the Power Slotting (as few IO sets will provide that much Accuracy) that I think a lot of Players of Controllers aren't commonly doing.

[Mr_Enigma]

I will say that I like the idea of upping the pets' base accuracy to be consistent.  Perhaps also raising their base HP 10-15% so they are a little less squishy..  Neither of those seem particularly game-breaking, even in combination..

 

One change i would suggest that I don't think anyone could disagree with (although I'm sure someone probably will - it is the CoH forums, after all) would be to give Singularity's logic/AI to Phantasm  There is absolutely no reason for a pet with no melee attacks AT ALL to be running in to melee range to get his ass pulverized by some boss/EB/AV/GM.

 

Make the change if for no other reason than to keep me from blowing an o-ring and stroking out when I watch Sparkly the Moron run up to the Kronos Titan just to fire off his wimpy energy torrent from 3 feet away and get his s*** summarily wrecked.

 

Singy (aka the Noisiest Pet in the History of Ever) just chills at range with its perma-repel/gravity power running, throwing powerful controls and doing damage. All while having 50% resists to everything.  Well, everything except psi and toxic, that is.  Singy only has 100% resists to those damage types. 

 

That disparity seems...excessive.  I ain't askin' for all that for Phantasm, just the "chilling at range" part.  That seems reasonable to me, even when considered in conjunction with the elephant in the set: Phantom Army.

 

Have mercy on the cardio- and cerebrovascular systems of at least one of your donors, gracious devs!  Port Singy logic to Phanty!