MM Pet Controls for Dominators and VEATs

[TheLastDefense]

With one of the latest patches, we received MM pet controls for controller pets. I am suggesting that both Dominators and VEATs receive this change as well.

 

Dominators and controllers have a lot of overlap - I am not really sure why they were excluded. Today on a team, it created confusion because a teammate thought I could control my Catherine Wheel more than I could (me playing a dominator). As for VEATs (crabbermind comes to mind specifically), from a lore-sense there seems to be at least some reasoning as to why we could command these pets to go to, stay, follow, etc.  Again - not looking for full MM functionality (ex. /petsay & the damage spread), but just the option to have em stay or get out of the way lol. 

 

(Before posting I tried looking for clarification as to why these weren't updated to have Pet controls, but did not have any luck finding an explanation - so forgive me if this has already been covered elsewhere)

[LightMaster]

I’ll give my two cents regarding Controller vs Dominator.

 

The thing with Dominator not having access to Pet Control is the fact that it doesn’t need it, as it already got plenty of advantages over the Controller to the point of being more desirable in most endgame content, even with the Dominator’s own downsides in mind. (Like longer than average recharge, higher than average end cost)

• Domination, while requiring damaging your foes, is more consistent than Controller’s Overpower, and have other benefits such as mez protection, can get you out of a mez on activation, and fully fill up your Endurance. Perma-Dom in particular essentially serves as an auto Inherent as long as you set it to Autoclick or just not forgetting to click it.
• Higher damage scalar and access to Assault secondaries mean the Dominator can deal a lot more damage than a Controller can even hope off; the only way for Controller to get close is with Illusion Control.
• With those in mind, the Dominator have a duality that must be taken advantage off depending on the situation. Against mez-resistant foes such as AVs, the Domination can simply use one Control power then dish the pain with their Assault powers. They can also use their Control power to hard mez an ambush or any other seperate group of foes, allowing their team some breathing room.

These three factors alone makes it difficult to justify a Controller over a Dominator. Not that the Controller is bad, in fact their access to Buff / Debuff give them a very good niche over the latter and makes them very useful for early game content such as Posi 1 + 2, but being a low DPS Archetype for the most part means they need to rely on damage procs, their Pet and, optionally, Arcane Bolt, which means lot of cost to get the right set bonuses and proc enhancements. Even the Defender don’t have an issue thay big because they have far stronger buff/debuff multiplier and access to a nuke (or Blizzard) to make up for low DPS.

 

Thusly, the Controller having their T9 Pets buffed to be semi-commandable and the Primary’s Pets having 33% chance to inflict Containment allows the Controller to bridge the gap by using the T9 pet to focus on a more important target, i.e. a Sapper, and makes it less grueling for soloing. The Dominator’s pets are more of an optional thing as, though useful if such Pets can taunt and can tank damages (i.e. Tri-Cannon), it’s not strictly essential for a Dominator’s success; the Dominator capable of giving some commands to their T9 Pet will end up undermining the Controller’s buff.

 

That said, I have no problem with the Arachnos Soldiers (and also Arachnos Widows if possible) being able to control their exclusive pets.

Edited 9 hours ago by LightMaster

[battlewraith]

Every class that has some sort of intelligent pet summons should have that sort of control. The idea of excluding doms from this as some sort of balance tactic is ridiculous. Do something more to help controllers if necessary, but don't consign doms to having stupid pets as if this is somehow helping. It's especially irritating in light of everyone having powerful incarnate pets available that have this control scheme, but doms still can't direct imps or whatever.

Edited 8 hours ago by battlewraith

[LightMaster]

2 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Every class that has some sort of intelligent pet summons should have that sort of control. The idea of excluding doms from this as some sort of balance tactic is ridiculous. Do something more to help controllers if necessary, but don't consign doms to having stupid pets as if this is somehow helping. It's especially irritating in light of everyone having powerful incarnate pets available that have this control scheme, but doms still can't direct imps or whatever.

I wanna make it clear; I’m not against Dominators having sort of control on their T9 pets, but the arguments on my post are part of why Controller got it first, and not Dominator so far, as a way to buff the Controller. If Dominator have some sort of control without any Domination bonus affected, and the Controller gain an additional buff (i.e. Overpower affecting AVs but only once every minute, or Pets having better survivability vs Dom’s versions, akin to only Controller’s Phantom Army having Taunt and not Dominator’s) to compensate, that’s pretty fine by me.

 

What I am worried however is that the devs might overdo it and makes Dom’s Domination also buffing their controlled pets to an extent, with all the strong points the Dominator can already do in mind.

[macskull]

There’s no legitimate reason why any character with summonable pets shouldn’t be able to control them. There just isn’t.

[TheLastDefense]

4 hours ago, macskull said:

There’s no legitimate reason why any character with summonable pets shouldn’t be able to control them. There just isn’t.

 

This is where I was coming from as I wrote the post last night. I just don't see how/why any character w/ summonable pets doesn't have control. If the excuse is balance, then find another way to balance things - whether it be inherents, numbers in the powersets, etc. But when everyone is running around with controllable lore pets, I have a hard time seeing why other pet-ATs, such as VEATs and Doms, can't have controllable pets.