Automatic Upgrades for Mastermind Pets

[Tubalcain]

MY biggest problem with Masterminds is how long it takes to replace pets. You summon, then you gotta cast both upgrades on them. All rooting you in place either while the party is fighting or while they're running off to the next group. This makes the Secondaries best at keeping pets alive an almost must unless you wanna be standing there re-summoning and re-upgrading constantly.

 

Make Upgrades automaticly apply to the pets and suddenly they've gone from weak mobs you gotta buff and protect to throw away mooks you can replace on the fly or summon drop right into groups of enemies ready for battle.

 

 

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, Tubalcain said:

This makes the Secondaries best at keeping pets alive an almost must

Keeping your pets, your key (practically only) source of offensive firepower, alive is the core skill for the Mastermind.  That's why all MM secondaries are defensive and/or healing powersets in the first place. 

And it's much less a matter of which set than it is learning how to use your chosen set.
 

 

6 hours ago, Tubalcain said:

You summon, then you gotta cast both upgrades on them. All rooting you in place either while the party is fighting or while they're running off to the next group.

Knowing when to summon (and upgrade) your pets is a skill all Masterminds must master.  You don't necessarily need them all out all the time.  (I often skip calling out my T3's when playing on teams.  That allows me to concentrate on keeping my T2's and T3 alive and in the fight.)

[tidge]

While I certainly agree that the henchmen should get the initial upgrade "for free", I can't agree that the second one should be automatic. Imma hide my reasoning in spoilers, because I've written it MANY times.

 

Please note: The powers that be are NOT going to change this. The compromise we players got was that many of the upgrade powers were changed to be able to hold enhancement sets whose bonuses can benefit the Mastermind. There are some adjacent changes in how quickly Masterminds can resummon henchmen, and how the primary henchmen buffs are AoE which should not be ignored.

 

Spoiler

My reasoning is that the first upgrade comes before the T2 and T3 henchmen powers, so setting aside "skipping" the first upgrade, no Mastermind will EVER summon T2 or T3 henchmen and NOT have the first upgrade available. The level range between the T1 henchmen and the first upgrade is so short that it isn't even accessible via Ouroboros.

 

Folks can certainly argue "skill better as a Mastermind", but I see that as a rationalization more than a reason. After all, there have been many other MM changes that made using henchmen easier.

 

[macskull]

OP probably did not play back when your pets needed to be resummoned every time you zoned (and the recharge times of the pet summon powers were 60/90/120 seconds instead of 5/10/15 seconds) and the upgrades needed to be applied to each pet individually.

Edited February 8 by macskull

[Starhammer]

57 minutes ago, macskull said:

OP probably did not play back when your pets needed to be resummoned every time you zoned (and the recharge times of the pet summon powers were 60/90/120 seconds instead of 5/10/15 seconds) and the upgrades needed to be applied to each pet individually.

I did. MMs are certainly less annoying to play now, but they still too often feel like an inventory management minigame.

[macskull]

25 minutes ago, Starhammer said:

I did. MMs are certainly less annoying to play now, but they still too often feel like an inventory management minigame.

That just ends up being due to their relative lack of mobility and having to constantly micromanage pets to prevent them from dragging extra mobs in. I don't know how you can improve on the mobility portion short of either reducing the "leash" distance for your pets to teleport back to you, or making your pets inherit your travel powers.

[Starhammer]

9 minutes ago, macskull said:

That just ends up being due to their relative lack of mobility and having to constantly micromanage pets to prevent them from dragging extra mobs in. I don't know how you can improve on the mobility portion short of either reducing the "leash" distance for your pets to teleport back to you, or making your pets inherit your travel powers.

Having a /petcom* Leash [value] command would be a nice addition. Not only keeping them close during travel (having them also inherit your travel powers would be nice), but setting a range beyond which they will not stray even if set to attack aggressive.

[Doc_Scorpion]

17 hours ago, Starhammer said:

but setting a range beyond which they will not stray even if set to attack aggressive.

If you use the "stay" command, then there is a leash that prevents them from moving more than (IIRC) 20 feet from that spot.  I regularly use goto/stay to reposition my bots.

Not quite what you're asking for, but very useful for pets with ranged attacks.

[arcane]

Considering I’m at a point where I’m literally including “No Masterminds” in my LFG broadcasts, I’m not currently in the mood to downvote any modest “Buff Masterminds” suggestions. Go right ahead.