Pet scaling

[Sarn]

Is there any hope that we can get pets that are -1 and -2 our level to scale with us as we adjust our level to say +4? It's almost useless to take them into such combats and, by extension, if you play at that level most of the time, useless to select the powers. 

[Rudra]

None of our powers are supposed to scale up as we increase mission difficulty. That goes against the whole reason for us to increase mission difficulty. And MM pets are just another power in an AT. So if you can't boost your pets to handle +4 difficulty, it really isn't up to the game to make the highest allowed difficulty more feasible for players.

 

(Edit: And yes, MMs can solo +4 content. In my experience, it is an absolute slog and isn't worth it, but it can be done. It takes near constant re-summoning, a very careful advance to attract as little attention as possible at a time, and lots of running away to recover/reset from the fight.)

 

Edited Thursday at 05:28 PM by Rudra

[Jacke]

I've written up important advice for the builds of all Toons who depend on the vast majority of Pets and Pseudopets here.

 

 

 

[biostem]

The problem is that your T1s are -2 to you, so they'd be -6 to +4 enemies, and AFAIK, that puts them firmly into "purple patch" territory...

[Psyonico]

I suspect we're more likely to just see mm pet levels remove the relative level shift entirely.  I'm also kind of surprised we haven't seen that happen yet.

 

Having pets scale according to difficulty would defeat the purpose of upping the difficulty.

[Uun]

It doesn't solve the issue for all content, but the MM henchmen level shifts are removed in Incarnate content. They also share any Incarnate level shifts you have. 

[tidge]

18 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I suspect we're more likely to just see mm pet levels remove the relative level shift entirely.  I'm also kind of surprised we haven't seen that happen yet.

 

Having pets scale according to difficulty would defeat the purpose of upping the difficulty.

 

One the one hand: Since Homecoming has embraced (or chosen, or reinforced, you pick the word) "top tier" powers and performance of ATs across a much wider (and earlier levels of) content... I'm also surprised that MM henchmen scaling hasn't been eliminated outside of Incarnate content.

 

OTOH: Because of how much easier the game is across wider (and lower levels of) content (for example: higher tier primary/secondary powers being selectable earlier than on Live), and the improvements made to MM henchmen summoning times and power effects... my personal opinion is I don't think we need to eliminate henchmen scaling outside of Incarnate content.

 

Incarnate content is IMO a different matter, mostly because the Incarnate content felt like there would have been an extra gate for MMs to cross. On HC, I'd go so far as to say that a LOT of Incarnate content wouldn't even be gated if the level shift was still a thing.

[DrRocket]

I believe the issue OP is talking about, really has little or nothing to do with mission difficulty, but instead of the natural level of the Pets with regards to the MM, such as -1 and -2 of the MM, which often makes pets at times of questionable value, I figure the combined damage of al pets focused on a single target to be equivalent of medium damage, which any other class can easily deliver in a normal attack. As aa result of the pet truly mediocre damage, I typically place them in defensive mode to serve as a pool of additional hit points and use whatever offensive attacks the MM set offers and specially the power pool choices if I want any decent DPS.

 

But frankly this is a topic many MMs have complained about...

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

I believe the issue OP is talking about, really has little or nothing to do with mission difficulty, but instead of the natural level of the Pets with regards to the MM, such as -1 and -2 of the MM, which often makes pets at times of questionable value, I figure the combined damage of al pets focused on a single target to be equivalent of medium damage, which any other class can easily deliver in a normal attack. As aa result of the pet truly mediocre damage, I typically place them in defensive mode to serve as a pool of additional hit points and use whatever offensive attacks the MM set offers and specially the power pool choices if I want any decent DPS.

 

But frankly this is a topic many MMs have complained about...

The issue, as stated in the OP specifically, is pet scaling on higher difficulty missions.

 

On 9/4/2025 at 9:49 AM, Sarn said:

Is there any hope that we can get pets that are -1 and -2 our level to scale with us as we adjust our level to say +4? It's almost useless to take them into such combats and, by extension, if you play at that level most of the time, useless to select the powers. 

I added emphasis to that part of the OP.

 

Edit: If a player is going to play at +4 difficulty, that player is confident his/her/their character is properly developed/built to engage that difficulty. If the player's character is not properly developed/built to engage that difficulty, his/her/their character is not going to be able to do it. MMs can solo +4 difficulty. I've done it multiple times. (I just don't think it is worth the slog/effort.) @Jacke linked instructions on how to build MMs to be able to solo +4 difficulty. No AT gets their powers buffed when the player chooses to tackle higher difficulty settings. Because the higher difficulty settings are supposed to increase the challenge for players whose characters are having too easy a time dealing with normal difficulty enemies and scaling up the ATs' powers like MM pets for higher difficulties negates that reason for having the higher difficulties in the first place. MM pet level adjustments are a completely different topic.

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Rudra

[tidge]

The T2 and T3 act as a pool of HP for the MM, no matter the scaling. Obviously they have a harder time staying alive if they are taking fire directly. This is just one more piece of the puzzle for playing MMs well.

 

After VEATs, I personally rank MMs as the AT most likely to benefit from multiple builds. If taking on +4 content, there has to be some effort put into keeping the henches alive and keeping aggro on the MM. This is a good strategy for all content, but I've seen some MM builds that fall short on those scores... part of what the player brings is making good decisions for the content they want to play.

 

Like @Rudra, I find solo +4 to be a real slog for MMs... more so than the typical +4xMany slog I feel when playing all the other solo ATs.