page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Mastermind Archetype Adjustments

[The Curator]

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Archetype Adjustments

Masterminds

• Mastermind summon powers no longer ignore recharge buffs (they still don't accept recharge enhancements, Henchmen still ignore recharge buffs)

• All T7 powers now accept ATOs

  • Known Issue: ATO Icons have changed colors from red to blue

• 40% of your Set Bonuses now applies to henchmen that are within range of Supremacy
• Mastermind Henchmen now all spawn even level
• Henchmen modifiers and stat values have been adjusted in order of keeping them about as effective as before on +2 encounters.
• Henchmen proc damage modifiers have been adjusted in order of keeping them about as effective as before on +3 foes.
• Tier 1 and 2 henchmen should be expected to have lower DPS against even level and +1, about the same against +2 and perform much better against anything +3 and higher.
• Tier 1 and 2 henchmen should be somewhat more survivable as they will be hit less often and for less damage.
• Tier 1 henchmen max HP decreased from 574 to 448
• Tier 2 henchmen max HP decreased from 768 to 654
• Supremacy now grants a bonus to lower level T1 and T2 henchmen regardless of distance.
  • T1 between lvl 1 and 5: +17 ToHit
  • T1 between lvl 6 and 17: +9 ToHit
  • T2 between lvl 1 and 23: +8 ToHit
• Henchmen -res debuff modifiers have been adjusted
  • Bosses from 0.1250 to 0.075 at level 50
  • Lts from 0.1 to 0.609 at level 50
  • Minions from 0.075 to 0.045 at level 50
• Note many other modifiers and stats will have also changed due to the class level adjustments

[Maelwys]

(i) Hurrah! 😁
 

Thank you, sincerely, for the work you've put into this.
 

 

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(ii) For everyone seeing this for the first time... be aware that the "set bonus inheritance" only applies to actual "IO Set" Set Bonuses.

This means +MaxHP Set Bonuses from things like 3x Miracle and 3x Numina (+1.88% Hitpoints) work just fine... however effects from something like the Unbreakable Guard +7.5% MaxHP IO (which FUNCTIONS as a "Set Bonus" but isn't one of the Set Bonuses listed at the bottom of the IO Set whenever you hover over it) won't work.
 

In the same vein... "KB Protection" will inherit from 3x Gladiator's Armor IOs but won't from a Steadfast Protection, a Karma or a Blessing of the Zephyr IO etc.
 

(And yes, henchmen getting reliable knockback protection is one of the biggest winners from this patch, even if it's just -1.2mag per 3x Gladiators Armor!!)

 

 

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(iii) I would like to point out that "henchmen becoming even-level" isn't quite the buff that it might first seem.

Traditionally the #1 complaint of MM players is that their T1 and T2 pets find it difficult to hit a foe which is higher than +3 to the MM (e.g. +5 to the T1 and +4 to the T2).
THIS PATCH DOES NOTHING TO HELP WITH T1 AND T2 HENCHMEN HIT CHANCE beyond them gaining access to 40% of the MM's own Global Accuracy set bonuses (NOT Kismet!) because Mastermind T1 and T2 Henchmen currently have their Hit Rate artificially lowered by -8% (T2s) and  -17% (T1s).

T1:

T2:

T3:


This replicates their Hit Rate penalty on Live (where they're lower level) but it means getting them able to reliably hit higher level mobs is still a royal PITA. 
Anyways, as IMO this is the biggest headache facing MMs and the changes do not go far enough in addressing it; I'm going to restate my proposed solution(s) below:

...
...
...

T1 and T2 HENCHMEN HIT RATE:

Problem: Mastermind T1 and T2 Henchmen currently have their Hit Rate lowered by -8% (T2s) and  -17% (T1s).
Even with the +10% ToHit from Supremacy, T1 henchmen still require just under 200% Accuracy (more than twice the ED cap!) before they'll achieve 95% Hit Rate versus the new Level 55 mobs; before debuffs. Which is completely unfeasible. Taking Tactics can somewhat offset this; as can taking specific primaries (Ninjas can slot Kismet into their T1 upgrade; Thugs have Enforcer Tactics) however it's still extremely difficult to reach the required levels of accuracy slotting. (e.g. even with Supremacy and fully-slotted Tactics your T1 pets still still require ~26% above ED-Capped Accuracy!)

Ideal Solution: Lose the Hit Rate debuffs completely; give the T1 and T2 pets the default (75%) Base Hit Rate.

Potential Compromise Solution: Swap the Hit Rate debuffs out for Accuracy debuffs.
This would mean that the T1 and T2 henchmen still have a significant penalty; but it's far more achievable to counteract that penalty against higher level foes via additional Accuracy slotting. Having "Base Accuracy" differences between different critter "Ranks" is also a well-established thing - see the "Rank-Based Accuracy Multipliers" table here.

As an example... if there was a -15% accuracy debuff on the T2s and -30% accuracy debuff on the T1s?

With Supremacy:
vs a +4 foe:  the T2s would require ~109% Accuracy (rather than ~142%) and the T1s would require ~124% Accuracy (rather than ~197%)
vs a +3 foe:  the T2s would require ~79% Accuracy (rather than ~90%) and the T1s would require ~94% Accuracy (rather than ~132%)

vs a +2 foe:  the T2s would require ~59% Accuracy (rather than ~64%) and the T1s would require ~74% Accuracy (rather than ~94%)

vs a +1 foe:  the T2s would require ~42% Accuracy (rather than ~42%) and the T1s would require ~57% Accuracy (rather than ~64%)

vs a +0 foe:  the T2s would require ~27% Accuracy (rather than ~24%) and the T1s would require ~42% Accuracy (rather than ~40%)

With Supremacy and ED-Capped ("+12% ToHit") Tactics:
vs a +4 foe:  the T2s would require ~71% Accuracy (rather than ~80%) and the T1s would require ~86% Accuracy (rather than ~116%)
vs a +3 foe:  the T2s would require ~51% Accuracy (rather than ~54%) and the T1s would require ~66% Accuracy (rather than ~80%)

vs a +2 foe:  the T2s would require ~37% Accuracy (rather than ~36%) and the T1s would require ~52% Accuracy (rather than ~56%)

vs a +1 foe:  the T2s would require ~25% Accuracy (rather than ~21%) and the T1s would require ~40% Accuracy (rather than ~36%)

vs a +0 foe:  the T2s would require ~13% Accuracy (rather than ~7%) and the T1s would require ~28% Accuracy (rather than ~19%)

So that works out better vs +1s and above (with no Tactics) and vs +2s and above (with fully-slotted Tactics). And the negative impact against low-level foes is very minor.
Also; personally I think taking Tactics and getting 86% Accuracy aspect in my T1 henchmen is an appropriate level of investment to reliably hit +4 mobs before debuffs.

Look at the far right column in the below spreadsheet snippet.
That's the Accuracy aspect slotting required for each of the Henchmen tiers to get them to cap their Hit Rate vs +3 or +4 mobs.
And yes, that's +197% Accuracy required in your T1s (e.g. the equivalent of "6x Accuracy SOs" before ED kicks in!) if you're not taking Tactics.
Even with a 6-slotted Tactics they still need ED-capped Accuracy plus another ~20% from set bonuses (which currently means their Master having +50% Global Accuracy)



 

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Also...

MASTERMIND ATO SLOTTING:

Problem: Mastermind ATOs can only currently be slotted into the Pet summon abilities and specific Tier 7 abilities.
On Live, specific Mastermind Primary powersets have more opportunity than the rest to slot ATOs - Thugs and Demons and Necromancy have Tier 7 powers (Gang War/Hell on Earth/Soul Extraction) which can take the ATOs. But Beasts, Mercs, Ninjas and Robotics do not.
On Test there has been an attempt to resolve this by giving the Tier 7 powers of those latter four powersets (Fortify Pack, Serum, Smoke Flash and Maintenance Drone) the ability to slot ATOs. However none of those abilities benefit from Damage aspect slotting; and many of them do not benefit from Accuracy aspect slotting. Therefore much of the benefit of these ATOs is getting wasted (and Serum has some other potential issues with how +Damage enhancement interacts with +DamageResistance enhancement under the hood!)

Ideal Solution: Let all damaging Mastermind Primary Attacks have the ability to slot ATOs.
This would mean Personal Attacks from Mastermind Primary Powersets such as Call Swarm, Burst, Snap Shot and Pulse Rifle Blast would become able to take and benefit from the ATO sets and all of their various enhancement aspects - accuracy, damage, endurance and recharge. Having 3 extra powers per set which can potentially take ATOs would also open up a lot of build variety for Masterminds and drastically ease the pressure on sets like Mercs (which simply cannot cram every beneficial IO into its three summon abilities!)

Potential Compromise Solution: Let the T1 and/or T2 Mastermind Primary Personal Attacks have the ability to slot ATOs.
Similar to the above, but it'd limit the scope of MM ATO slotting to only one or two personal attacks; in case the Devs are concerned about opening it up too wide.

 

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And also...

T1 AND T2 HENCHMEN DAMAGE OUTPUT:

Problem: Due to them becoming "even-level", Mastermind T1 and T2 Henchmen will deal more raw damage than before vs regular enemies.

On Live, T1 Henchmen deal 80% damage versus a mob that is "even level" to their Master. T2 Henchmen deal 90% damage. And it gets worse as enemy level rises.
Because this uses the purple patch scaling it affects ALL DAMAGE; including procs.
On Test, they're now technically dealing 100% damage against an "even level" mob. But their regular damage modifiers and proc damage modifiers have been tweaked. These tweaks (particularly proc damage) changed from patch to patch on Closed Beta so have been difficult to pin down... but the stated intent is that regular damage should be "lower vs even level and +1, about the same against +2 and much better vs anything +3 and higher" and proc damage should be "about as effective as before vs +3 foes."


Ideal Solution: It'd be easy to say "just set T1/T2 henchmen base damage to 80%/90% of what it is on Live; including procs"... but due to how things scale as enemy level rises that would work out drastically better versus higher level foes.

Example damage ramp up versus higher-level foes with T1/T2 base damage of 80%/90% compared to Live
vs +0s: 100% damage (T1s) and 100% damage (T2s)
vs +1s: 111% damage (T1s) and 101% damage (T2s)
vs +2s: 133% damage (T1s) and 111% damage (T2s)
vs +3s: 173% damage (T1s) and 122% damage (T2s)
vs +4s: 256% damage (T1s) and 144% damage (T2s)

However to put this into perspective; there's a (rather persuasive to my mind) argument that the contribution to MM damage from T1 henchmen is relatively minor. Whilst dealing 73% more raw damage versus +3 foes looks like a pretty hefty jump; in practice that's only really going from 0.3 base damage to 0.52 base damage (e.g. a Battle Drone's "Heavy Laser Burst" would rise from 15.05 --> 26.08 damage per hit) and an increase in the order of ~11 damage per hit probably isn't worth worrying about in the grand scheme of things. Therefore if we pick +0 foes as the "break even" point and simply allow it to ramp up versus higher level foes then the sky is unlikely to fall in.

Potential Compromise Solution: My gut feeling is that regular T1/T2 attack damage output having a "break even" point against +2 foes is acceptable... but proc damage could still use a bit of work. As far as I'm aware the most recent Dev power pokings made it so that compared to Live, henchmen damage from Incarnate Procs (e.g. "Damage over Time" from various Interface slot abilities; and "Double Hits" from the Hybrid slot Assault Radial abilities) is now severely reduced (at least outside of "Incarnate Content") but their damage from Regular Set IO procs is less severely reduced. And IMO this is one thing that could really do with further testing by a wider audience on Open Beta.

To illustrate this; consider what happens whenever my henchmen fight a level 51 (e.g. even-level, not levelless!) Pylon in the RWZ


On Live, T1s/T2s/T3s:




On Test, T1s/T2s/T3s:




Notice in particular the "Doublehit" and "Reactive Interface" proc damage. Even on my T3 henchmen (which has NOT had its level adjusted!) it's 65% lower on Test.

 

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And I'll close on a positive note...

T1 AND T2 HENCHMEN SURVIVABILITY:

Rebalancing the now-even-level T1/T2 henchmen's "survivability" was a particularly problematic issue on Closed Beta.
Without mentioning any specifics, suffice to say that lowering the HP of the T1 and T2 pets was by far the best solution; and IMO the devs got this balance just right.

But it's worth pointing out that what the Devs call T1/T2 henchmen's "Max HP" in the patch notes is what players would generally refer to as their "Base HP".

Whilst a HP decrease of 22% [T1s] and 16% [T2s] might seem a bit harsh; given that at most they're only taking ~18% [T1] and ~10% [T2] less damage compared to Live; they're now getting the benefit of +MaxHP set bonuses (which are based on the MASTER'S HP not the Henchmen's!) so it's not quite as harmful in practice.
 
(With set bonuses my Bot/Kin's T1s are sitting on 480.99 HP and their T2s on 678.34 HP, which is effectively a reduction of -16.20% [T1s] and -11.67% [T2s] compared to Live)


There is ALSO a corresponding reduction of 22.00% (T1) and 16.00% (T2) in what players would generally refer to as their T1/T2 henchmen's "Maximum HP limit".

LIVE:



TEST:



However in practice this will likely only affect Cold Domination (Frostwork!) and Marine (Power of the Depths) MMs.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Maelwys

[Vinceq98]

Don't want to quote the big guy doing all the work but the above guy masterminds like no mastermind. If his tests are true, which I believe from the data, then please devs listen to his feedback. He has very reasonable and balanced fixes to the new problems introduced with this balance patch.

[legendaryjman]

I understand the idea of making the upgrade powers have no cool down. Makes upgrading all the pets less tedious.

 

Why not just make the upgrade an AoE that upgrades all pets with one activation? 

 

I assume its because of something built into the code, but i figure if MMs are getting looked at now is the time to ask the question.

[Dispari]

We did a lot of testing for MMs already but I largely agree with Maelwys. Pet durability hasn't really changed overall. Their HP has been reduced but they take a lot less damage by being higher level. The math works out so that the two factors cancel each other out. It should be something we don't need to worry about.

Personally I would like to see the focus on things like accuracy and damage. We definitely want to see those things improve. Otherwise, if their stats are all going to be adjusted so they perform like they did when they were lower level, there's no point in making them even level in the first place.

[Thezanman]

2 hours ago, legendaryjman said:

I understand the idea of making the upgrade powers have no cool down. Makes upgrading all the pets less tedious.

 

Why not just make the upgrade an AoE that upgrades all pets with one activation? 

 

I assume its because of something built into the code, but i figure if MMs are getting looked at now is the time to ask the question.

They are AoE, and have been for ages. They upgrade all henchmen in a 30 ft. radius.

[mechahamham]

Testing on a 28 Necro/Cold mastermind. The patch notes and power description both say that the spectre pets now last 30s. I can't get mine to stay around that long. They seem to reliably poof after 25 seconds, even if not being attacked.

 

Is this maybe being level-scaled, and higher level MMs have longer-lasting spectres?

 

Subjectively speaking, 30s seems too short a duration for these summons. 90 is too long on Live IMO, but 30 is not quite long enough to finish an even-con fight, especially for MMs who have to watch end usage by rationing their attacks. My suggestion is that a flat 45s, regardless of MM level, is more along the lines of what is appropriate.

 

-- Edit --

 

I thought to boost my MM's level to 50, and sure enough the pets do last at least 29s at 50.

Edited 13 hours ago by mechahamham
Further info

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, Dispari said:

Personally I would like to see the focus on things like accuracy and damage. We definitely want to see those things improve. Otherwise, if their stats are all going to be adjusted so they perform like they did when they were lower level, there's no point in making them even level in the first place.

 

The Devs definitely (rightly IMO) seem to be taking a "start off less powerful and tweak upwards" approach here.

 

They've listened to feedback and made a few very positive changes on Closed Beta, but if we want to get them to budge further then we need to show them why. So please show some test results here folks 🙂

 

Currently the accuracy issues are my biggest concern given that we were just about coping before versus +3s (Lv50+1 MM fighting Lv54 mobs)... but now there are +4s (Lv55 mobs!) to consider.

 

Damage output balance is trickier since it varies wildly compared to before for the T1s and T2s vs different foe level ranges. We're almost certainly better off now hit for hit against +4 foes... but those are the ones we have the most difficulty actually hitting in the first place. I'll try to do some testing against different levels of foes later to pin down some baselines.

 

The ATO thing is a personal bugbear of mine. Yes, allowing the T7 abilities to slot them is technically a buff. But at least three of those T7s gain no benefit from damage aspect slotting... and yet the personal attacks are right there, practically SCREAMING for it... 🤷‍♂️

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Maelwys

[BRADICAL]

I respect the slower approach to balancing this whale of a project, and some things are definitely on the right track, but there are also some things I personally disagree with especially when looking at the balance across the rest of the game.

• The lower hit chances don't make any sense if we're really trying to bring the T1/T2 pets up to even level, because it should have solved the issues inherent in them being lower level but instead they've been artificially brought down to the same level they were before for some reason? It cancels out what should be one of the key benefits of being made even level.
• Whether it's more important for MMs to be balanced against each other or the rest of the game is an important consideration, because we're living in a world where things like Fire and Ice Blast have dominated almost every AT they exist on with zero downwards tuning for ages, but Demons for some reason got the whole rulebook thrown at it. The support sets being hugely different in terms of performance make it even more difficult to pin down accurate numbers, as well as the nature of how MMs do their DPS (which is subject to things like disagreeable pet AI, enemies that just explode your pets for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or ground patches that make them run away screaming). Demons even struggle to get into melee with smaller targets and make things a pain for all the other melee DPS characters on a team. It's far from perfect out there in the real world, compared to something like a corruptor or a scrapper, who can just slide in and do their thing without all of these asterisks that might make MM performance seem more inflated than it actually is.
• With that said... the majority of controllers I've run benchmarks for using similar high performance builds are solidly better than Demons/Marine (formerly the top performing MM), sometimes even commandingly so, with generally more survivable pets that aren't kneecapped in the variety of ways MMs are and they have a whole other suite of powers on top of that. I enjoy those controllers a lot, of course, but it's a pointedly strange situation to be in for my MM to feel like a worse pet class overall than a controller.

I'm not a fan of the proc nerfs (Interface and Assault Radial included) in particular, since they're a big reason for the disparity here and aren't being applied equally in places where they otherwise logically should. But here's the thing—no one is saying controllers are overpowered or creeping their way into the meta with their even level pets, and I have plenty of benchmarks showing that they can do very well in ideal (and even less than ideal, given the extra CC) scenarios, so where exactly does that leave MMs?

[nyttyn]

I'll try the beta later, but before I do: Why are only the 2-6 equipped set bonuses being factored in for MM pets, and not the unique equipped global bonuses? On top of the 40% of set bonuses being inherited, it feels incredibly arbitrary. 

 

Live never balanced anything around IOs anyway and we're working off over a decade of balance towards that, why not just make MM pets actually durable and mez resistant and reasonably accurate as a baseline rather than all of these convoluted, "yeah X applies but Y doesn't even though they're all listed as set bonuses on the character sheet" song and dances? It's not like masterminds have ever come even close to being on the top, so I don't know why all these roundabout workarounds are being made when you could just make pets baseline tankier, more acccurate, more damaging, and less prone to mez. 

[Neiska]

Demons -

"Hey it seems like people like certain primaries more?"

"We can fix that. We will just make what's popular worse. Problem solved!"

 

Not a fan how in order to make the pets all the same level as the MM, they are overall about the same or in some cases weaker. That's like pointing forward and walking backward.

 

The 40% set bonus? What about people who frankenslot or what about primaries that don't have a mule power? So now one of the most slot-hungry ATS has even less wiggle room? For what, 40% of 6% of a resistance value? 2.4%? Personally, I would rather have the slots back.

 

Not lighting my pitchfork yet, but if I had to choose between this and how MMs were on live, I would pick the live. This feels like a boost but only in certain scenarios or situations, and a nerf to anything that isn't that. "We want to make them better for incarnate content, but in order to do that we have to make them worse at everything else. It's balance."

[Maxzero]

 

Also I am a bit surprised about how cautious you are about how you buff MMs so as to not make them OP.

 

Unless you plan on implementing some truly insane buffs you will never make MMs OP outside some niche scenarios (pylon bashing mainly).

 

Mechanically MMs have so many issues:

 

AI reliance

Minion durability

Minion micromanaging

AoE vulnerability (especially CC)

Pathing

Visual clutter

Minion movement speed

Collision detection

 

That they will never become mainstream meta.

 

You could double the baseline DPS and the majority will still play City of AoE.

Edited 9 hours ago by Maxzero

[Maelwys]

8 hours ago, Neiska said:

Not lighting my pitchfork yet, but if I had to choose between this and how MMs were on live, I would pick the live. This feels like a boost but only in certain scenarios or situations, and a nerf to anything that isn't that. "We want to make them better for incarnate content, but in order to do that we have to make them worse at everything else. It's balance."

I was hoping you were going to weigh in @Neiska! 😉

IMO if we leave Demons aside and look at the overall tweaks to the AT (and T1/T2 henchmen in particular)... then pets becoming even-level is a slight benefit for survivability purposes (they have less HP... but against higher-level foes will take roughly the same proportional damage; and they gain more proportional benefit from allied healing and will be getting hit considerably less often) and a slight nerf for damage output (they're dealing a little higher raw damage versus +3 and +4 foes; but also dealing less raw damage against lower-conning foes. And anyone leveraging Interface Procs or Assault Radial Hybrid Procs is likely going to be very disappointed) and they (unfortunately) have exactly the same base hit rates as before so accuracy is a wash.

If I get time I'd like to do some proper tests later on this week - such as some different level Pylon kills and AE Farming runs (Live vs Test) to try to pin down just what the damage output changes actually look like in real-world scenarios; especially versus +4x8 content. I know you personally (@Neiska) probably have a large number of Live "farming run times" to hand (at least for Bots!) so if you get the opportunity it might be worth doing a run or two on Test for comparison. Personally I expect that non-Demon /Kin MMs versus level 54 mobs should be seeing the biggest improvement (since the effective base damage of T1/T2s versus +5/+4 mobs has increased considerably, so if you can damage cap them then you should see a good bit of improvement) as long as you're not leaning big into Assault Radial Hybrid all the time. If we can get a few "best case" metrics shown here then that will hopefully highlight to the devs that the sky isn't going to fall in if/when they tweak things upwards a bit! 😛

[EDIT: Removed an inaccurate paragraph about Demon Powerset rebalancing]
 

Edited 1 hour ago by Maelwys

[Riverdusk]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

 

 

The ATO thing is a personal bugbear of mine. Yes, allowing the T7 abilities to slot them is technically a buff. But at least three of those T7s gain no benefit from damage aspect slotting... and yet the personal attacks are right there, practically SCREAMING for it... 🤷‍♂️

 

 

Yep, probably one of the most suggested changes by players I've seen is to just allow us to slot the ATO's into one or more of the MM personal attacks.  The enhancement values would also then actually make sense and be useful.

 

Instead we go this convoluted route of allowing us to just stick them in the tier 7 where it doesn't even make any sense for a lot of them.

 

I guess they thought it'd be more 'fair' if every set ended up with 1 extra ato slottable power.  Personally once every set gets an extra one or two I think the 'advantage' of that has diminishing returns so I don't think it is such a big deal.  I'd rather have the ato set enhancement values actually be useful and have it in an attack or two.

[Neiska]

24 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

IMO if we leave Demons aside and look at the overall tweaks to the AT (and T1/T2 henchmen in particular)... then pets becoming even-level is a slight benefit for survivability purposes (they have less HP... but against higher-level foes will take roughly the same proportional damage; and they gain more proportional benefit from allied healing and will be getting hit considerably less often) and a slight nerf for damage output (they're dealing a little higher raw damage versus +3 and +4 foes; but also dealing less raw damage against lower-conning foes. And anyone leveraging Interface Procs or Assault Radial Hybrid Procs is likely going to be very disappointed) and they (unfortunately) have exactly the same base hit rates as before so accuracy is a wash.

If I get time I'd like to do some proper tests later on this week - such as some different level Pylon kills and AE Farming runs (Live vs Test) to try to pin down just what the damage output changes actually look like in real-world scenarios; especially versus +4x8 content. I know you personally (@Neiska) probably have a large number of Live "farming run times" to hand (at least for Bots!) so if you get the opportunity it might be worth doing a run or two on Test for comparison. Personally I expect that non-Demon /Kin MMs versus level 54 mobs should be seeing the biggest improvement (since the effective base damage of T1/T2s versus +5/+4 mobs has increased considerably, so if you can damage cap them then you should see a good bit of improvement) as long as you're not leaning big into Assault Radial Hybrid all the time. If we can get a few "best case" metrics shown here then that will hopefully highlight to the devs that the sky isn't going to fall in if/when they tweak things upwards a bit! 😛

 

 

But that's my point. Where was it written that MMs of all ATs, were doing of all things, "too much damage?" This feels like they nerfed their damage because they boosted their level, making the entire thing kind of moot? MMs are far from the top DPS, they are a support and are kind of middle of the pack for damage. But now I think they might be in the bottom 50%.

 

As I am reading this, overall MMs traded in a bit of damage for pet durability. IMO Pet durability was fine, IF you built for it. You had to plan it that way. And it's easier to boost pet durability than pet damage. Theres lots of ways to heal or buff your pet's toughness, but only a couple to boost their damage.

 

I can't shake the feeling that these changes were aimed at certain builds or secondaries. Just the entire changes in MMs, not just this one but all of the AT changes over the years kind of leave me confused as to what the thought process is. "Lets make them decent at some stuff, terrible at others, and reduce the number of viable build options?"

[Jacktar]

Hi, as some of these changes do make being in Supemacy range more important I wonder if it could be possible to get an improved visual indication of its range?

ATM we get the small buff icon if in range on each pet but in the chaos of combat I find it really difficult to watch that specific buff. Perhaps a range disc centered on the Mm or a bubble or anything to see if the pets are in or out of range?

It can be hard to judge 60 feet when they are all jumping about (mad pets 🙂 )

Was discussing this on live and most of the Mm players responses were for an easier way to see the range. A few said their visual clue was "Pets dead - must be at 61feet!" Funny but sad really.

Would be perfect if the graphic effect was a toggle or option so the better seeing of our players could switch it off and others could have it on for combat times.

Cheers

[Twintania]

30 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Yep, probably one of the most suggested changes by players I've seen is to just allow us to slot the ATO's into one or more of the MM personal attacks.  The enhancement values would also then actually make sense and be useful.

 

Instead we go this convoluted route of allowing us to just stick them in the tier 7 where it doesn't even make any sense for a lot of them.

 

I guess they thought it'd be more 'fair' if every set ended up with 1 extra ato slottable power.  Personally once every set gets an extra one or two I think the 'advantage' of that has diminishing returns so I don't think it is such a big deal.  I'd rather have the ato set enhancement values actually be useful and have it in an attack or two.

The part that's baffling me is that they've put all this work into making the MM attacks useful and to try and coax people to take them...But aren't putting the ATO sets (Let alone the Pet/RechargePet sets) into the attacks.

 

Hell, Demons, Thugs, and Necro still have an advantage over the other 4, just because they can slot the other pet sets, and therefore the auras, in them if needed for some purpose or another.

[Maelwys]

50 minutes ago, Neiska said:

This feels like they nerfed their damage because they boosted their level, making the entire thing kind of moot? MMs are far from the top DPS, they are a support and are kind of middle of the pack for damage. But now I think they might be in the bottom 50%.

Quote

I can't shake the feeling that these changes were aimed at certain builds or secondaries. Just the entire changes in MMs, not just this one but all of the AT changes over the years kind of leave me confused as to what the thought process is. 

As I understand it... in the process of raising the T1s and T2s to "even level" the whole aspect of MM damage balance got shaken up.
Because if they just made Pets even level and left everything else as-is... then our T1 and T2 pets would be more survivable, more accurate, and deal more damage.

There was an easy way to eliminate all the accuracy differences (which they did by applying artificial -ToHit debuffs once those pets get over a certain level).
However there wasn't an easy way to address the damage or survivability differences. They did however attempt to hack at both on Closed Beta.

The survivability differences have more-or-less been sorted out. Before the Devs settled on HP reductions; they tried reducing other things instead. Repeatedly. And specific primary and secondary powersets were being DRASTICALLY negatively impacted. We kicked up stink about it; and to be fair the Devs abandoned that very imbalanced approach. HP reductions are by far the most even-handed way to reduce survivability of the now-even-level pets to roughly match what they are on Live (and IMO they've gotten the balance just about right. Although I'd still prefer a 50% inheritance of Set Bonuses rather than 40%)

The damage differences are still in flux. I know what the devs are apparently aiming for (+2s being the "break even" point for when damage output roughly equals what we're used to seeing... +3s and above taking more damage; +1s and below taking less damage). And I think that is probably a reasonable compromise since MMs tended to not overly struggle versus lower-conning foes in the first place. But I'm not convinced that we've actually REACHED that aim yet currently.
Admittedly most of my issues are with Interface/Hybrid damage Procs - these were VERY SPECIFICALLY targeted by the devs (to the point where incarnate damage procs are now being treated differently than other regular damage procs) because they were apparently extremely concerned about runaway damage increases versus higher-conning foes.

So I genuinely think that we need to provide a lot of empirical testing here to show the Devs what the average (no incarnate procs) and peak (with incarnate damage procs) MM damage output currently looks like... and try to get them to be comfortable to adjust their new performance upwards (assuming of course that the data shows it's a good idea!).

And of course, also argue the case for T1/T2 henchmen hit rate being adjusted upwards... 😜
 

Edited 8 hours ago by Maelwys

[legendaryjman]

7 hours ago, Thezanman said:

They are AoE, and have been for ages. They upgrade all henchmen in a 30 ft. radius.

Oh, I had no idea. That's great. The last time I played MM it was not like that (in the before times).

 

I figured with them removing the recharge timer it was to make equipping all of them faster. If it is already an AoE then removing that seem redundant. But hey, it doesn't hurt anything so im all for it.

[Dispari]

3 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Yep, probably one of the most suggested changes by players I've seen is to just allow us to slot the ATO's into one or more of the MM personal attacks.  The enhancement values would also then actually make sense and be useful.

 

Instead we go this convoluted route of allowing us to just stick them in the tier 7 where it doesn't even make any sense for a lot of them.

 

I guess they thought it'd be more 'fair' if every set ended up with 1 extra ato slottable power.  Personally once every set gets an extra one or two I think the 'advantage' of that has diminishing returns so I don't think it is such a big deal.  I'd rather have the ato set enhancement values actually be useful and have it in an attack or two.

 

This is a good idea, though I also think the T7s could be made to benefit from the ATOs and it would be a relatively low-hanging fruit. That's not to say slotting the attacks couldn't also happen too, but,

 

Currently, Demons, Necro, and Thugs already summon pets and can slot the ATOs and don't need to be changed.

Mercs and Robotics all have some sort of component that improves damage or is a pet already, so it should be a minor change to make the ATO make sense in it. Robotics summons a support pet, but that support pet could easily be given a small little attack laser, or explode when its job is done. Mercenaries is a buff for your pets that gives +DMG and +ToHit, so we could just cut those base values by 25% and then allow the ATO to slot them back up to higher values. 

Beast and Ninja are the ones that are slightly more tricky because they offer more abstract bonuses like crit rate. But if the tech is there, we could make it so slotting the power for damage improves the crit rate of the pets.

Mostly, I'm all for more slotting opportunities as well as parity between sets, but it should make sense to actually slot the ATOs too.

[Bionic_Flea]

The top is a Bots/Rad on test.  The second is Bots/Rad on live.

 

 

 

That's a pretty significant difference.  There's a few slotting differences but nothing that should change the outcome by that much.  I'll make them identical and try again.

 

[Dispari]

Do you think you could get details on how much of that would come down to set bonuses? Mostly through things like +DMG and +ACC. 

[Bionic_Flea]

7 minutes ago, Dispari said:

Do you think you could get details on how much of that would come down to set bonuses? Mostly through things like +DMG and +ACC. 

 

I can, but I think I should copy my live copy over first.

 

[Maelwys]

13 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I can, but I think I should copy my live copy over first.

 

 

Is that vs a "levelless" Pylon (three freestanding pylons, out the portal of the base in RWZ and turn left) or versus one of the level specific ones (out the same portal and turn right, several different conning pylons lined up in a row inside the little "shooting gallery")

 

I'd advise testing against the latter, as the former treats everything attacking it as "even level" so the T1s and T2s have inflated DPS against it on live.

[Bionic_Flea]

OK.  Here is the identical version from live now copied to test:

 

 

That's better and closer, but still a significant reduction from live damage.  I know that I could get a better time with a respec and using other powers, but I think this is a fair test.

 

For Dispari: