page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Mastermind Archetype Adjustments

[Maelwys]

21 minutes ago, VPrime said:

Is the intention to "nerf" or "buff" the MM AT?

In a word: "No".

From what I can gather, the overall intention for all the MM AT tweaks this patch is to simply make MM pets even level whilst causing minimal performance changes.
Proper buffs/nerfs/whatever will likely happen later on; after these changes bed in and the Devs have amassed enough data to justify those buffs/nerfs/whatever.

However the T1s/T2s will at least be dealing more damage than before whenever they're fighting level 55 mobs from the new increased difficulty settings...

(Perfectly happy to be proven wrong here though if a dev wants to weigh in! 🙂)
 

Edited 23 hours ago by Maelwys

[ScarySai]

15 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Have you read the patch notes yet, Sai?

 

Yeah, and I actually play masterminds, having tested demons, thugs and necro.

 

In their current state, these changes are an embarrassing joke. A nerf to one of the weakest archetypes in practice.

 

If they dial down the offset nerfs, there's potential. Current tuning is horrible.

Edited 22 hours ago by ScarySai

[Dispari]

As Maelwys said, the intent doesn't seem to be to nerf MMs. It would be nonsensical, as they're right now just not a very good AT (even if some might argue they excel in some niche scenarios). We had a lot of back and forth in beta trying to narrow down the math so that they aren't coming out worse than they currently are on live, since that would defeat the purpose of making changes.

The reality of the purple patch is it makes things too tricky to balance. Pets of all kinds (not just MM pets, but ALL pets for ALL sets and ALL ATs) need to be the owner's level. Back in the day the highest difficulty you could set was +2, but beyond that the system starts to break down. At +0 your minions are a reliable 20% worse than you and that can be baked into the stats. But at +3 the pets are 55% worse than you. And at +4 they're 70% worse than you. There's no linear way to adjust pets so that they have consistent results. Making them the owner's level is step one in making them perform reliably across all content.

We probably won't see those changes until after the holiday though.

[Arbegla]

I need to copy over my bot/traps MM to test and see how it performs, but based on everything in this forum post and knowing just how BAD the purple patch affected pets (especially the T1s) I'm moving to a slight 'buff' overall, especially in higher end content (+4s, EBs/AVs/GMs and anything that the purple patch boosted)

Even with the nerf to hit points, which is an overall nerf to bodyguard mode (its a direct effective hit point (EHP) reduction) I think the extra survivability that simply being even con will amount to an overall 'buff' to the AT. 

 

Also, I'm sure its stickied somewhere, but how does one copy over to the test server again? It's been years since I've done it, and they refactored the test structure since then.

[ScarySai]

@Dispari They should delay it and release it when it's fully finished, and not a half baked solution then.

 

They got the feedback from this iteration, and it's largely negative. That can be fixed.

 

I don't think powerhouse set out to nerf mms here, but that's ultimately what they did, so it's a problem to be addressed. Can it be fixed before the 20th? Easily. Will it be fixed? That's the question.

Edited 22 hours ago by ScarySai

[Dispari]

I don't necessarily disagree. We were pretty much told changes will be done in two parts. I believe the intent right now is to release this half in a state where people can play with and enjoy having set bonuses for a few months. And any further changes from here should only be upward. The alternatives are to not release anything, or release the set bonus changes without the level adjustments, which might result in a nerf later on.

[tidge]

Some more testing (on Beta), solo MM v. GMs:

 

Kraken (Perez Park) - no noticeable changes, but I did lose henches (not uncommon, but rare)

 

(3x) Paladin (Kings Row) - I split them up first to get a better feel - Significantly longer times (usually a Paladin only gets one pulse off against me... so increases of more than 90 seconds on top of times that are more like 3m30s to 4 min). Based on fighting three of them (one after the other), I say this was due to both losing T1/T2 more frequently and less damage sticking (when I didn't lose them). The MM also took significantly more damage than I expected in each of these three fights.

 

28 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

IIRC you tend to not slot damage procs into Single Target abilities... but since Reactive (or Degenerative) Radial Flawless Interface plus Assault Radial Embodiment Hybrid typically add a very decent chunk of damage versus a single target for the duration of the Hybrid buff window; I figured a "GM Hunter" build might be making use of them... My bad! 😉

 

I run with Degenerative (radial), but that's something of an afterthought. For Hybrid, I run support. Lining up the conditions to get the Assault to work was something I played with long ago, but it didn't make my round-the-world sweeps of GMs any faster.

 

The one possible change I've been kicking around... I currently run Tactics but I might swap to Assault. My GM hunter does rely on pseudopets, and I hate ToHit/Accuracy debuffs, which was my original reason to run Tactics... but it has been easy to toggle off and not see much change, so perhaps this page might convince me to experiment again.

[Maelwys]

7 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

Also, I'm sure its stickied somewhere, but how does one copy over to the test server again?

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/beta/

(hit "Copy Character" and pick which one; then wait 2-3 mins and it should be there)

[Gobbledigook]

I like the addition of 40% set bonus, it should have been done long ago imo.

 

Even level minions is also a good thing.

 

A nerf to T1 and T2 minion health is not good. I never thought minions were too tough, in fact i always thought they were a little to squishy, even with a buffing secondary. A MM is far weaker with each minion he loses and next to useless with none.

 

The damage MM's can do can be extremely good on hard targets, especially with a debuf secondary. A nerf to single target damage would not upset me. Aoe is fine as they don't have that much anyway compared to some other AT's.

 

But i still won't play one unless they get a run speed buff or a summon to the MM's side as they are too slow and clunky in team play, for me anyway. When a minion leaves supremacy range a countdown should start and they will be teleported back to the MM if not called back. May need to increase supremacy range.

 

I don't play MM's for reasons above and have limited experience with them, but i would if these issues were addressed.

 

 

[Maelwys]

  New Patch out!
 

19 hours ago, The Curator said:

Masterminds

• Fixed a bug where T3 henchmen incarnate procs were doing less damage than intended

 

🥳

[tidge]

11 minutes ago, Gobbledigook said:

When a minion leaves supremacy range a countdown should start and they will be teleported back to the MM if not called back. May need to increase supremacy range.

 

I don't think the countdown idea is practical, because of server-client lag/ping/malarkey. 

 

The range increase might be something that makes sense: Even when a MM isn't "outrunning" henchmen, it isn't hard to see examples where the two are "just far enough" out of range (of each other) for things like full damage to MM (i.e. no Bodyguard mode in play) or hits against henchmen doing "too much damage".

 

This is the kind of issue I basically just shrug off, but I understand why "one more thing" can de-interest folks in playing MMs.

[BasiliskXVIII]

8 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Agreed, which is why i said "Personally I'd prefer they'd set the break even point lower".

With the currently proposed setup (once the proc fix makes it onto the servers) the damage output of the T3 pet in theory shouldn't be getting changed at all; and the damage output of the T1 and T2 pets should "break even" at +2 mobs (raw damage) and +3 mobs (procs).
This means the T1/T2 henchmen will be dealing about 25.0%/9.7% (T1/T2) less damage versus +0s; and 16.9%/8.6% less versus +1s.
But they'll be the same as before vs +2s... and they'll be dealing 30.1%/10.0% more damage vs +3s; 92.2%/30.0% more vs +4s and 125.1%/62.4% more vs +5s.
So whilst it's small comfort to anyone that never fights more than +1s... that's a major ramp up in proportional damage (albeit perhaps not in absolute damage) at the higher end.
Factoring in Proc damage muddies the waters a bit; especially if you're packing 3 procs per henchmen and have a "DoT" Radial Interface and Assault Radial Hybrid active. But at most it should be shifting things less than one tier to the right (so MMs might end up a little worse off vs +2s but they should still be noticeably better off vs +3s).

I strongly suspect that if non-optimized MMs end up struggling then there may be an upwards tweak to damage output; at least at lower levels. However my own experience is that MMs are extremely strong soloists whilst levelling up compared to the other ATs - second only to Brutes in fact. Therefore having a minor damage decrease versus +0s/+1s until level 26 might not be a hugely impactful for anyone who isn't a /Poison. And they'll benefit once they start teaming up and/or turning up the difficulty slider.

IMO if subsequent updates increase T1/T2 henchmen survivability (which is a distinct possibility - although as a disclaimer I'm not currently aware of any specific future MM changes beyond the above bugfix!) and help alleviate the T1/T2 Accuracy slotting requirement issues then all the better... and IMO that might be a wiser way to start going about retuning them rather than Blanket buffing their damage.

(and FWIW my other wishlist items would include increasing the henchmen damage limit from 400% to 500%; and allowing ATOs to be slotted within all the MM's personal attacks; and finally tweaking the Aggressive/Defensive/Passive AI stances to give some kind of minor useful buff; at least on teams...)

I mean, please don't take this as a clap back to your points, because I think we're in agreement. I just think it needs to be reinforced with as many voices as possible that setting the expectation of optimal performance at +2 is deeply unfair to people who are more interested in the 1-50 side of the game than the 50+ part of the game. Particularly since on some of the smaller servers it's very difficult to get enough interest to actually fire the large team content.

 

This feels very much like the dev team is getting away from the philosophy of "the game is not balanced around IO builds" if, in order to maintain parity with the current state, you're expected to have a bunch of +MaxHP bonuses to share. I don't know if my experience with the game is different than most, but I don't typically invest into basic IOs until level 35, and IO sets until I'm able to slot the max level for the sets. So even if it is better for a level 50 running at +4/x8, it feels like the expectation becomes "Please don't play the game. Powerlevel your MMs to 50 in a fire farm and get yourself kitted out there, and then you can be useful." Because the 1-50 gameplay is already kind of a slog on MMs, and they want to make this worse. 

 

Devs, put this change back in the oven; it ain't done baking yet.

[Caadium]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

(Even if the percentage of MMs using Assault Hybrid over Support Hybrid is very likely tiny; especially given that it only kicks in on pets [like Henchmen and Phantom Army etc etc] if you summon them AFTER activating it...)

 

Honestly, fixing how Assault Radial works with pets is something I hope to see "Soon". 

[Nathic69]

Even level pets. Great ! its a start

 

Make all pets have same HP as T3 and give them 10 knockback protection and give them all high resists and defenses, no more missing resistance or defense. increase their overall damage, decrease the pets AoE cooldown. give them a perma speedboost buff but only for movement speed. Add a new power that allows you to teleport your pets to you.

 

Add a new power that allows you to store summoned pets and when activacted again it respawns them ( or a power that spawns all T1-3 pets fully upgraded ) 

 

Give Masterminds the same HP pool as corruptor 

 

Remove the high end cost for support sets on MM and remove the nerfed MM support sets rates

 

Make Supremacy radius huge or make it baseline active at all times and make the pet res/def IOs on constantly

 

This fixes 90% of MM problems

 

MMs need to focus on survivability otherwise its just depressing to play but even when min max'd with survivability in mind your pets still feel weak outside of incarnate buffs

 

I don't see why they can't just be straight up somewhat overpowered, every other archtype feels like a hero but MMs feel lacking and the nerfs from CoV release has not been removed (max hp reduce and support sets weaker)

 

Its sad I see a defender kill a boss faster than me debuffing and having all 5 pets on focus. my pets should melt targets and be near immortal thats what we want. You made controllers damage better now lets make Masterminds top tier

 

This patch feels more like a nerf than a buff

Edited 21 hours ago by Nathic69

[WindDemon21]

On 8/14/2025 at 7:24 AM, The Curator said:

Mastermind Henchmen now all spawn even level

FINALLY, but don't forget this needs to be the same for ALL pets for the same reason, not just MM pets! There is also no need to nerf them at least for their to hit/accuracy, as that was part of the big problem they had in the first place with the level issue. Also, kinda a big AT issue thing that not just team inspirations, but using any inspiration should transfer over to your pets. And can we PLEASE make the upgrades pbaoe at least so you don't have to target a pet first! I know you said something about not making them auto, but at LEAST make them pbaoe! Also, can we get MM atos working in the attacks too, not just the tier 7 power? I assume the issue is a coding one since it's technically a pet set, but since it can be used in a power like fortify pack, that shouldn't matter, let us slot them into the attacks too.

 

• Tier 1 henchmen max HP decreased from 574 to 448
• Tier 2 henchmen max HP decreased from 768 to 654

This also kinda defeats the purpose of WHY the level issue needed to be addressed. Please don't nerf their hp.

 

Can we also get globals to transfer over to the pets like the 3% defense uniques and kismet not just set bonuses?

 

 

On 8/14/2025 at 7:24 AM, The Curator said:

Train Beasts

Please don't forget to allow us to enhance the beasts defense and resistances in the upgrade powers!

 

Also as a whole, can we please get the ai fixed on pets for fear so they don't run 200ft away if they step over a burn patch for .001seconds, they should really have fear immunity since we can't do anything with the pet ai for that, but at the very least fix it so they only run out of the patch, not 200ft away. Given how crucial some pet positioning is as well, they should have some inherent kb protection (yes some of the kb bonuses may transfer but that's also only bonuses, not the globals right? so 40% isn't a ton, it helps for sure, but they really need more as the ai can't account for positioning). Especially for beasts at least, since they're melee pets only, should have high knockback potection/resists.

 

Can we also get an ai fix, so that when you use the "goto" command on a pet, they STOP attacking, and do not use another power until they go to the location FIRST. So annoying having to spam the location for goto in battle because the pet just WON'T listen to you and go there because it keeps attacking instead.

 

On necro soul extraction as well, can we please get a fix so that at the very least, the extracted pets don't die if the original pet does, but also it should just cast all 6 each time IMO as well, but at least make it so the extracted pet doesn't die if the base pet does.

 

Edit: Also DO NOT forget to fix the endurance scalars for MM powers, as well as fixing the debuffs to be the same level as that of controller/corruptors!

Edited 20 hours ago by WindDemon21

[CaffieneNirvana]

6 hours ago, Dispari said:

My understanding from closed beta was that the MM changes are not complete and will be revisited again later. What we have right now are things they could get out before they all go on holiday break. They can however deliver the level tweak and set bonuses before then for us to play with. Hopefully that means overall damage and accuracy will be addressed at some point. Otherwise, like ScarySai said, there's really no point in adjusting their level if they're just going to perform the same.

I do hope this is the case. And, at risk of being a bit crabby, I hope it doesn't take nearly as long as the fix to Defenders' Power of the Phoenix did. :P

Although, to be fair, even if it did, at least in that case there would be justification, re: letting people on the main server organically field test things and hopefully see how the average of players overall would interact with it. As Maelwys said, if this is establishing a new baseline to build off of for Masterminds (and I pray build is the key word, not Jenga), that at least gives me a little hope, though it will still be rough until those come into play.

Edited 19 hours ago by CaffieneNirvana
oh gods THAT'S their name; I am a terrible person with a goldfish memory

[Maelwys]

14 minutes ago, CaffieneNirvana said:

As Maelwys said, if this is establishing a new baseline to build off of for Masterminds (and I pray build is the key word, not Jenga), that at least gives me a little hope, though it will still be rough until those come into play.

 

@Captain Powerhouse said as much earlier in the thread.

 

"as a baseline, we are trying to handle this conversion without high buffs. We will likely adjust things further during the beta window, but major buffs beyond these are likely to come in a follow-up Panel release."

 

 

 

Also note the wording there: future Panel release,  not future Issue or even future Page. A "panel" is the CoH term for an incremental followup "same-page" patch, so it's going to be soon rather than SOON^TM  😉

 

My advice is to do tests and post some performance metrics times/parses/logs/etc showing clearly what state MMs are now in as a result of these changes. The more useful performance data there is, the better the Devs can tailor these future tweaks.

[CaffieneNirvana]

Okay. Admittedly I had no idea what a panel was, my apologies. XD I deeply appreciate you clarifying that for me, and thank you for your patience.

Edited 19 hours ago by CaffieneNirvana
haet phone keyboard

[...]

1 hour ago, WindDemon21 said:

Can we also get an ai fix, so that when you use the "goto" command on a pet, they STOP attacking, and do not use another power until they go to the location FIRST. So annoying having to spam the location for goto in battle because the pet just WON'T listen to you and go there because it keeps attacking instead.

 

goto passive

[Uun]

I was primarily testing the changes to Beasts and Thugs (and will post my comments about those in the appropriate threads), but will offer more generic feedback on the MM changes.

 

First run was on my Thugs/Elec doing Sister Airlia's first 2 missions set to +4/x6. These missions don't seem to have been adjusted for the increase in mob levels and everything was lvl 54 (no lvl 55s) and I and my henchmen had a +1 shift. Henchmen seemed sturdier, although I still had to resummon the T1s and T2s numerous times, particularly against the Longbow. No issues in the first mission against the Cimerorans. Second mission against the Longbow went fine until I freed Ghost Widow and the ambush spawned. Got hit with Detention Field and sat there "Only Affecting Self" while GW was pummeled into mush and the mission failed. (This issue isn't unique to MMs and happens quite frequently with this mission. There should be a way to exclude Longbow Wardens with phase shift powers from being included in the ambush.)

 

Second run was on my Beast/Traps doing a Council paper mission set to +4/x6 (with a +1 shift). Ran into lvl 55 mobs almost immediately, and they proved to be too much for my henchmen. I reset the mission to +3 and it ran much more smoothly. In contrast to the Thugs, the Beasts seemed less sturdy than they do on live and I feel like I was resummoning much more often.

[Maelwys]

4 minutes ago, Uun said:

In contrast to the Thugs, the Beasts seemed less sturdy than they do on live and I feel like I was resummoning much more often.

 

FWIW the patch that landed this afternoon apparently also fixed a bug with Direwolf "Will of the Wild" damage resistances being unboostable, in case you tried that Beasts/Traps run beforehand and/or haven't adjusted your Tame Beasts slotting yet.

 

Quote

• Tame Beasts
  • Now Accepts Healing and Resistance enhancements and sets
    • Fixed an issue where players could not slot resistance enhancements on Tame Beasts to boost Dire Wolf's Will of the Wild's Resistances.

 

[Uun]

9 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

FWIW the patch that landed this afternoon apparently also fixed a bug with Direwolf "Will of the Wild" damage resistances being unboostable, in case you tried that Beasts/Traps run beforehand and/or haven't adjusted your Tame Beasts slotting yet.

I reported the issue yesterday, but I haven't been on since today's patch. In any case, it was the T1 and T2 henchmen I was resummoning more often.

[JAMMan0000]

Tested my Thugs/Time again today on +4/8 mishes and main thing I noticed is T1s & T2s going down more often. That results in more resummoning which is just annoying, makes bodyguard less effective and MM more squishy. Other than that it played fairly even to my live version. 

[mechahamham]

I re-tested Necromancy specters spawn and despawn time with a stopwatch on that same 28 mastermind, and they last just right at 30s now as of Build 2.

[Catalyze]

So far, I am reading:

 

1. Mobs below a +2 level are worse to engage due to Damage Reduction, Hit Reduction, and Damage Taken Increase.

 

2. Mobs +3 and higher begin to equal what we currently have on Live as far as Pet Life and Pet Damage.

 

3. Incarnates really help alleviate these new "changes for equality in playstyle experience" that are on Beta.

 

4. Leveling, for the reasons above, is going to be much less pleasant due to pet deaths, lower pet damage, and less team contribution from pets...dead or alive.

40% of enhancement sets will add to pets stats, except that leveling we use SO's which won't do anything to help. Now around the mid 30's with IO use we should

experience an additional 2% to 4% of some added stats placed on our pets. Thinking 40% of 4% damage, 40% of 16 additional health, and other such stats which won't do 

anything to help leveling.

 

5. The game is resembling other games like World of Warcraft where so much is "balanced" around the End Game. With +7 mobs it is like running Mythic Keystone 

Dungeons which is great fun for those wanting that harder end game challenge. Pets will be fine with full Incarnates, and full IO sets as long as you are running +3 

and higher. Loving the thought of a Posi 1 on +3 (actually did one of those for 2 1/2 hours last year). I do see all the above driving folks back from the great changes

made to MM's last buff patch. Remember all those players leveling them and then all the BAFs with them? That was glorious. This Patch will not produce any new 

wave of MM's like your revamp patch did. I sure hope my 7 MM's don't end up sitting with my 3 Plant Controllers.