page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Mastermind Archetype Adjustments

[Chrome]

16 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

FWIW, there are specific MM combos that are very, VERY good.

Robotics/Kinetics.

Various /Time and /Dark and /Cold.

Anything /Marine.

 

 My point though is that The same can be said for Corrupters and they are FAR FAR FAR better than there MM counterparts, and much easier to get said effective damage, and a /Dark controller???? do not get me started.  what MMs really need is a moment to shine. 

 

to bring it back to the focused feed back, any nerf to current live HP makes any buffs virtually useless , even if they start to do solid damage at +4 and higher one Council rocket at those levels is going to decimate your t1 pets and that makes your remaining pets squishier and less survivable for the next rocket.  I imagine the damage will scale higher with each level above +4 as it does from +1 and up so LOWERING max hp makes whatever increases they get moot. since the same rocket at +5 will probably now kill all t1 and a t2 pet, if not more.

 

 

[Dispari]

36 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

Can I also ask how the 40% of set bonuses carrying over was decided on?  Like really? Would it really break the game to make it an easy even 50% so that I don't have to break out my calculator to figure it out?  Thanks.

 

It was 25% for a while which was basically nothing. 40% I feel is still not very good and 50% would be nicer just to be a predictable and easy to grok number for doing builds with. And still wouldn't be very strong. But they may be keeping track of values and being cautious with it so they don't accidentally hit a number that needs to be reduced later. Which would probably make people mad even if it's still in beta. I do hope they just make it 50% though even if just for the QoL of being able to understand what pets are actually getting when slotting anything. I like math but I couldn't tell you off the top of my head how much of 3% my pets are going to get right now.

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

I imagine part of the reason Neiska is so salty here is that Robotics used to be EXTREMELY good at AoE damage; then the rework in i27p5 resulted in a moderate damage gain for their Single Target damage plus an incredibly severe reduction to their AoE damage ceiling. I really miss killing mapfuls of mobs with multiple overlapping Incendiary Swarm Missiles; even if I can objectively-speaking recognise that all of that runaway damage stacking was definitely overpowered and unintentional. Other pet sets like Necro have gotten straight buffs. The result is that Beasts is the only standout underperforming Primary on Live at present; so that's probably a good thing, nostalgia notwithstanding... 🤷‍♂️

 

That's part of it. The other part being some ATs/Powersets are overperforming, have been overperforming quite some time now, and not so much as a glance at them. Which tells me that apparently it's okay for some things to overperform, while others are swept under the carpet. (Looking at you Corruptors, Blasters, etc.)

 

Awfully funny how some ATs that are good get fixed, multiple passes in fact, namely Tankers and MMs. But at this point I doubt they will ever nerf the actual top end performers. And I think it says a lot when the meta for hardmodes are like, 1 tanker and 7 corruptors. For years now. And not so much as a peep about that. They rather hyper focus on things that are popular (even if they aren't top performers, the popular stuff is what gets attention/nerfed). 

[Neiska]

52 minutes ago, Chrome said:

 My point though is that The same can be said for Corrupters and they are FAR FAR FAR better than there MM counterparts, and much easier to get said effective damage, and a /Dark controller???? do not get me started.  what MMs really need is a moment to shine. 

 

to bring it back to the focused feed back, any nerf to current live HP makes any buffs virtually useless , even if they start to do solid damage at +4 and higher one Council rocket at those levels is going to decimate your t1 pets and that makes your remaining pets squishier and less survivable for the next rocket.  I imagine the damage will scale higher with each level above +4 as it does from +1 and up so LOWERING max hp makes whatever increases they get moot. since the same rocket at +5 will probably now kill all t1 and a t2 pet, if not more.

 

 

 

Some of us have been waiting 4+ years for them to nerf the glass cannons/hyper DPS setups. At this point I expect them to add a new AT like the Primalist than so much as touch them.

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Chrome said:

to bring it back to the focused feed back, any nerf to current live HP makes any buffs virtually useless , even if they start to do solid damage at +4 and higher one Council rocket at those levels is going to decimate your t1 pets and that makes your remaining pets squishier and less survivable for the next rocket.  I imagine the damage will scale higher with each level above +4 as it does from +1 and up so LOWERING max hp makes whatever increases they get moot. since the same rocket at +5 will probably now kill all t1 and a t2 pet, if not more.

I think that's the point. The devs are actively trying to make the performance differences from T1/T2-henchmen-becoming-even-level "moot" on this patch.

Taking your "Council Rocket" example... typical worst-case will be weathering a missile attack from a Boss.
As per https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=council.warcry.missile_launch&at=boss_grunt that's:
 

245.6772 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

235.8501 points of Lethal damage (all affected targets)
= 481.5273 damage total at Lv54.

At +4; even-level pets would take 481.5273*1.44=693.4 damage; -2 pets would take 481.5273*1.66=799.3 damage; and -1 pets would take 481.5273*1.55=746.4 damage.
At +5; even-level pets would take 481.5273*1.55=746.4 damage; -2 pets would take 481.5273*1.77=852.3 damage; and -1 pets would take 481.5273*1.66=799.3 damage.

On Test... T1 pets currently have 448 HP (Base) and T2 pets currently have 645 HP (Base)
So neither of them are going to survive a hit even from the +4 without buffs.
However, most MMs will try and get the Aura IOs into the builds, which add +35% resistance to everything; and many pets have inherent resistances on top of that.
With just the basic 35% resistance and zero HP buffs (from set bonuses etc); the T1s need >689 damage to kill them and the T2s need >992 damage to kill them.
Meaning with very minor +HP or +Res buffs from set bonuses etc. even the T1s could survive 1 hit from a +4. And at Lv50 you won't be fighting +5s if you have a T3+ Alpha.

On Live... T1 pets currently have 574 HP (Base) and T2 pets currently have 768 HP (Base)
So the T2 could *just about* survive a hit from the +4 without buffs.
Factoring in the basic 35% resistance from Aura IOs; the T1 henchmen would need >883 damage to kill them and the T2 henchmen >1181 damage to kill them.
So greater raw survivability; however the pets would also be facing additional LevelDifferenceAcc and ToHit increases (see here) so they'll be getting hit more often.

@Dispari had a nice post on the Closed Beta feedback thread that showed the breakdown of the differences in Damage Taken compared to the new HP figures... but effectively the reduction in damage taken ranges from ~18% (vs +0s) to ~12% (vs +5s) for T1 henchmen; and ~9% to 7% for T2 henchmen. However T1 Henchmen HP has been reduced by 22% and T2 by 16%. So currently it doesn't fully balance out unless you also include the +HP from Set Bonuses and the reduced likelihood of getting hit.

 

  

1 hour ago, Dispari said:

But they may be keeping track of values and being cautious with it so they don't accidentally hit a number that needs to be reduced later. 

 

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the vibe that Devs are currently comparatively open to future MM survivability buffs but very cautious about damage buffs.
We really don't want a repeat of the whole "Tankers Need Buffed, WHOA THAT'S TOO MUCH!" thing... 🙈
 

Edited 5 hours ago by Maelwys

[csr]

14 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

For one, the way these upgrades are implemented (especially when you zone) is a hard-coded mess (not unlike many other things in the game). Like, the game remembers you summoned your pets but it applies the pet buffs literally by executing these powers on all your henchmen every time you zone, because the pet upgrades are not really saved to the server alongside the bits that tell the server your pets are summoned.

 

There has also been resistance from multiple dev team members that keeping your henchmen alive should be one of the responsibilities of the MM. If they simply get summoned with all the upgrades, the cost of resummoning them becomes too trivial. This is not any one person's opinion, but unless multiple people in the dev team can be sold on a concession/middle ground, it's not likely to change anytime soon. Even if a pitch was agreed upon today, it would not be part of this page. I am middle of the road on this stance, personally.

 

Perhaps just make newly summoned pets invulnerable for a brief period (3s?).  Sort of like a self-rez.  It's very frustrating to summon them, then be unable to target them right away to upgrade/buff, and have them die before the upgrade animation even finishes.

Edited 5 hours ago by csr

[Bionic_Flea]

9 minutes ago, csr said:

Perhaps just make newly summoned pets invulnerable for a brief period (3s?).  Sort of like a self-rez.  It's very frustrating to summon them, then be unable to target them right away to upgrade/buff, and have them die before the upgrade animation even finishes.

 

OMG!  This is so true.  I started my recent MM testing on a live fire Pylon and had exactly that happen a few times.  That's when I gave up and went to the "passive" ones instead.

 

Making the pets have a few seconds to finish the summon animation and get buffed would be great.  But I don't think you could buff them if they were "untouchable" as I know I frequently get frustrated when I try to protect a teammate with a shield or mez protection and see the word "unaffected" float by.

[Maelwys]

10 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

OMG!  This is so true.  I started my recent MM testing on a live fire Pylon and had exactly that happen a few times.  That's when I gave up and went to the "passive" ones instead.

 

Making the pets have a few seconds to finish the summon animation and get buffed would be great.  But I don't think you could buff them if they were "untouchable" as I know I frequently get frustrated when I try to protect a teammate with a shield or mez protection and see the word "unaffected" float by.

Agreed. Given that there's a lengthy period between the start of the summoning animation and the newly-summoned pet being able to actually start shoot at anything; let alone them being fully upgraded; I think a short duration of immunity to damage (rather than untouchability) and possibly a +stealth effect is a very fair request.
 

Edited 5 hours ago by Maelwys

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

I'm more concerned with Henchmen survivability.

The -HP debuffs on the T1 and T2 henchmen are almost exactly cancelling out the fact they're taking less damage and being hit less often as a result of becoming even-level.
So if MMs were only ever fighting regular foes and taking damage that way, then there'd be no problem.
However; that's not the entire picture.

@tidge noted earlier in this thread that some of the GMs they were fighting on Test took about the same amount of time as they did on Live... but others took much longer; mainly because their pets died more often (more resummonings required).
Whilst the fact that some of these GM fights took the same time to defeat is good news (alongside the pylon testing it helps prove that pet damage output hasn't been lowered too much), the fact that pets were dying more often here is a bit concerning... even if it's not exactly unexpected. GMs are effectively "levelless" - they treat everything that they're fighting as even-level. This means that on both Live and Test, a GM should be hitting all of your henchmen for exactly the same amount of damage; however T1/T2 henchmen on Test have lower HP so it will take less damage to kill them.

"Levelless" GM encounters should be the only time this happens (a non-levelless foe on Live would have had its damage multiplied by 1.22 against T1 henchmen and by 1.11 against T2 henchmen - which is offset by the HP differences!) but they're quite tough fights and a favourite pastime of many players.

And then there's Bodyguard mode. A lot of soloing MMs place themselves in Bodyguard mode for survivability... however if the share of bodyguard damage absorbed by T1/T2 pets remains the same as before but those pets have lower HP pools (on Test) then the MM's survivability becomes lower.

 

^this^ is actually my primary concern.

 

TL;DR: I valued Masterminds' ability to survive in Bodyguard mode more than I valued "raw DPS" from the henchmen. This is especially true (for me) in "hard content" Put another way.... I never tried to play my MMs in "hard content" as sources of DPS, I always treated them more like team buff/debuff with a side of grab aggro and survive.

 

My approach isn't how everybody wanted their MMs to play... and I kinda get it... but I also think that expectations for ATs need to be different. The level shift is a PITA for some content, but bodyguard mode/HP pool is a factor in ALL content.

 

 

[csr]

34 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

OMG!  This is so true.  I started my recent MM testing on a live fire Pylon and had exactly that happen a few times.  That's when I gave up and went to the "passive" ones instead.

 

Making the pets have a few seconds to finish the summon animation and get buffed would be great.  But I don't think you could buff them if they were "untouchable" as I know I frequently get frustrated when I try to protect a teammate with a shield or mez protection and see the word "unaffected" float by.

 

It might require using a state flag like Dimension Shift, so that only the MM could affect them.  Which would make it more work to implement.

 

Edit:

Obviously just giving them a "MoG for minions" short duration mitigation buff when summoned is an easier to implement alternative.

Edited 4 hours ago by csr

[Chrome]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

 

 

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the vibe that Devs are currently comparatively open to future MM survivability buffs but very cautious about damage buffs.
We really don't want a repeat of the whole "Tankers Need Buffed, WHOA THAT'S TOO MUCH!" thing... 🙈
 

 

And my point is why not?  MMs have never been good let alone strong outside very rare outliers (which were nerfed).  If i can successfully navigate the pet control system as it is currently, then I feel MMs should be a strong class and if they over buff GREAT!  i would rather MMs get a chance in all group content from mothership raids to i trials to +7 missions.  and if they over buff then tune them slowly down after, this to me is the preferred cycle as opposed to this "Making MMs mediocre again" mentality.

[Maelwys]

Just now, Chrome said:

And my point is why not? MMs have never been good let alone strong outside very rare outliers (which were nerfed).  If i can successfully navigate the pet control system as it is currently, then I feel MMs should be a strong class and if they over buff GREAT! 

Because players hate nerfs.
Giving two apples + then taking away one of them later on gets people far more riled up than if you'd simply given them one apple to begin with.

Just look here --> 

(and I'm going to stop looking any further back in the search results for "unfair tanker nerf" before I start facepalming so hard I knock myself unconscious. Again.)
 

[BRADICAL]

11 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

All that said... I'm getting the vibe that Devs are currently comparatively open to future MM survivability buffs but very cautious about damage buffs.
We really don't want a repeat of the whole "Tankers Need Buffed, WHOA THAT'S TOO MUCH!" thing... 🙈

That part. 👍 Starting off with a foundation this way and building on it from there is still going to cause discontent, but at least there's an offramp where you can correct things as you go and hit the brakes before it goes too far. Starting from the other end and just seeing what happens is going to create an unwinnable situation where everyone is unhappy, and that's the kind of discontent that'll stick.

 

There's also a lot of misinformation on MMs that's getting wound up in their famously bad community perception, and I was worried that would happen going down this route. 🥲

 

Even con MMs do the highest DPS against a stationary target in the game—that's an objective fact that you can prove just by attacking a pylon on Live and seeing how much faster you take it down compared to something like a scrapper. A straight buff like that, along with any of the QoL adjustments we've heard are on the radar, would be oppressively strong.

 

This is weighted against the fact that targets are rarely stationary or completely non-threatening to your pets, and that's where half of the poor community perception comes from: at any given time, you can just lose half or more of your damage output in a way the other ATs don't have to deal with and spend significant time resummoning, equipping, and buffing your losses as you go. You also risk drawing more aggro than other ATs, especially if DoT patches or very close spawns are in play and you're getting full-force attacked from multiple angles.

 

Those are key parts of the complicated balancing adjustments that make up the whole package here, and I agree that things aren't perfect and could be shifted upwards from where we're at, especially considering all of the benchmarks I've run on high performance controllers and corruptors showing that their numbers are a little too close, if not outright better, without accounting for all of the downsides that come with your damage profile being so heavily sourced from low HP destructible pets. And in the case of controllers, the distinction of them having control and stronger support sets.

 

My opinion is that pet DPS should outperform against stationary targets by design, but by how much is variable based on where pet survivability lands. And I'm still opposed to the adjustment levers being pulled on procs on a selective basis here, because it feels inconsistent and premature when controllers don't have those same levers being pulled: even Illusion got a DPS buff recently without any adjustments to its "abusive" proc damage.

 

The other perception issue is that MMs have famously awful mobility, but that's partly a QoL issue tied up in performance flaws—if you're playing on teams that stomp through +4s, it's likely your contribution was already superfluous. But in the scenarios where you need to actively move from point to point, pet DPS continues to be the worst possible damage profile in CoH.

 

Also gonna reiterate here that the whip nerfs are unnecessary and awkwardly inconsistent with the design of all the other primaries. Demons/Marine went from being better than Illusion/Marine (26s vs 33s) to worse (my best pylon time is currently 42s) and that difference will be felt when dealing with things like GMs most noticeably, especially the ones that are super unfriendly to pets. Against the +4 dummy on Beta (which is an absolute pain to test against using pets), I've got a best time with Demons of 82s vs 71s on Illusion.

 

I've got more testing to do still, especially comparing Demons to the other primaries since -res can be hard to pin down on the even con pylon, but I'm pretty confident that MMs are a little undertuned going by the current data I do have (and the assumption that they should be doing more stationary DPS than controllers and corruptors).

[Chrome]

1 minute ago, Maelwys said:

Because players hate nerfs.
Giving two apples + then taking away one of them later on gets people far more riled up than if you'd simply given them one apple to begin with.

 

(and I'm going to stop looking any further back in the search results for "unfair tanker nerf" before I start facepalming so hard I knock myself unconscious. Again.)
 

Sure, yes i agree with this people hate nerfs, but  people will complain regardless no matter what, even me, even you,  i am sure.   The point still stands that objectively Masterminds have never been good.  there has never been a time when i was like man i wish i had a master mind for this <insert content here>.  Maybe i am wrong, maybe Mastermind mains out there LIKE being at the bottom, with kinetic melee and other sets out there, but maybe the devs can get MMs to like an Electric melee on Stalkers level of good.

[tidge]

I've written this before (and I still believe it): More than any other AT, Masterminds benefit more by changing strategies and builds depending on their level and the content they are playing.

 

I suppose this could be reduced to "it's the player behind the MM", but I recognize a personal spectrum of performance for different MM primary/secondaries. Writing only for myself... it can take helluvalotta effort to find the right combination of powers and playstyle for a MM that pretty much doesn't happen with other ATs ...maybe Kheldians come close, but they have far fewer options than MMs. I mention this only because the proposed changes aren't really going to make me to want to play new MMs, because what is changing wasn't holding me back.

[Maelwys]

9 minutes ago, Chrome said:

objectively Masterminds have never been good.  there has never been a time when i was like man i wish i had a master mind for this <insert content here>. 

Personally when levelling up pre-IOs I always preferred Masterminds.
And even nowadays they're still my goto ATs for GM soloing.

And there are definitely Edge Cases.

 

[Chrome]

1 minute ago, Maelwys said:

Personally when levelling up pre-IOs I always preferred Masterminds.
And even nowadays they're still my goto ATs for GM soloing.

And there are definitely Edge Cases.

And this is also a thing i agree with, although GM hunting is not my cup of tea so i dont have anything to say about this for or against.  I also think that leveling with any AT is fun and engaging including MMs, but i guess i am specifically talking about TFs, I trials, and max diff radios/tips/contact missions.  these are what i end up spending most of my time doing in game.  

 

And not to ignore the other guy talking about pylon times/stationary targets: i dont find that relatively helpful outside baseline number comparisons.  because in the content i play and i would say a lot of others do as well, those numbers do not stay the same as a scrapper or corrupter would.  not to take anything away form your testing as it is useful but MMs cannot use this as say a brute or tanker can, because no group of mobs is going to kill two thirds of your Shield charge in one  or two AOE attacks.

 

 

[Unknown Magi]

25 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Personally when levelling up pre-IOs I always preferred Masterminds.
And even nowadays they're still my goto ATs for GM soloing.

And there are definitely Edge Cases.

 

The irony being that because GMs are even level, that edge case seems to be one of the biggest negative impacts of this change.  Feels like "Hold on, MMs are still good at something, better nerf that."

[Maelwys]

1 minute ago, Unknown Magi said:

The irony being that because GMs are even level, that edge case seems to be one of the biggest negative impacts of this change.  Feels like "Hold on, MMs are still good at something, better nerf that."

And yet as @Bionic_Flea and @tidge have shown... whilst the damage dealt by your T1 and T2 henchmen to those GMs has dropped, it's not actually having a noticeable difference in cleartimes (at least without mixing in extreme levels of optimization and specific Incarnate Abilities). And it's a net gain vs anything that cons +3 or above.

The changes ARE having a noteworthy difference on pet survivability against GMs; and on your "effective HP" in bodyguard mode (which is something I hope will be addressed sooner rather than later) but both of those are irrelevant against a Training Pylon that doesn't shoot back.

 

[Unknown Magi]

3 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

And yet as @Bionic_Flea and @tidge have shown... whilst the damage dealt by your T1 and T2 henchmen to those GMs has dropped, it's not actually having a noticeable difference in cleartimes (at least without mixing in extreme levels of optimization and specific Incarnate Abilities). And it's a net gain vs anything that cons +3 or above.

The changes ARE having a noteworthy difference on pet survivability against GMs; and on your "effective HP" in bodyguard mode (which is something I hope will be addressed sooner rather than later) but both of those are irrelevant against a Training Pylon that doesn't shoot back.

 

A difference in pet survivability is a difference in clear times and effective DPS, though.  Even if pets are dying just 10% more often (a napkin math number, not a specific value from extensive testing, mind you), the potential impact to DPS is much larger than 10% because not only are you losing that much more pet DPS more frequently, the MM's ability to support or deal their own pittance of damage stops while they're moving to a safe place to do resummons, then resummoning and rebuffing.  Even in ideal test circumstances where you're already IO'd to the gills to say "I can match prior clear times on a pylon that doesn't fight back, with set bonuses" (which doesn't at all account for the portion of the MM's career that is pre set bonuses), that is still spreadsheet performance, not practical performance.

[Troo]

7 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

and now a considerable amount of time is needed to understand the impact, which is probably a net 0% gain or net nerf for the average player that doesn’t spend their life playing on +4/x8

 

This matches the track record of changes to existing sets. Tradeoffs won't benefit everyone, and there are almost always tradeoffs.

 

"about as effective as before" "should be expected to have lower DPS against even level" "should be somewhat more survivable" 

-vs-

"perform much better against anything +3 and higher." If a player plays as intended.

 

Getting a brief excerpt with the intention of changes up front could help focus the beta process. Maybe even a directive on what specific testing is needed.

[Maelwys]

Just now, Unknown Magi said:

A difference in pet survivability is a difference in clear times and effective DPS, though.  Even if pets are dying just 10% more often (a napkin math number, not a specific value from extensive testing, mind you), the potential impact to DPS is much larger than 10% 

Agreed.

And the more data we can produce that proves "pet survivability has decreased compared to Live" to the devs, the more likely they are to lessen the currently-proposed HP reductions (or buff henchmen survivability later!).

[tidge]

28 minutes ago, Unknown Magi said:

The irony being that because GMs are even level, that edge case seems to be one of the biggest negative impacts of this change.  Feels like "Hold on, MMs are still good at something, better nerf that."

 

Re: "solo v. Giant Monsters". It definitely feels like HC has been moving (over the long years) to make such a thing harder (for everybody). It used to be much easier for (my) non-MMs to solo Giant Monsters (often relying on Lores) but for quite some time it's been pretty much only MMs that can still reliably solo GMs (without Lores). I've seen Illusion trying to solo GMs, but I never had enough patience to see if they could actually take down a modern zone Giant Monster solo. I'm certain many can still take out old-school holiday zone GMs with no help. In other words: I see the GM hunting as less of a niche for MMs but instead more of MMs being the last ones in that niche.

 

I'm not thrilled with most of the "make GMs harder" changes (e.g. "let's raise resistances!"), mostly because they driven more players to multibox against GMs (almost always with at least one MM) more frequently.... so it isn't like the task is harder for individual players (who want to multi-box, and given the rewards... why would they not?). For those of us who enjoy the challenge of solo v. GMs it definitely looks more like the bar keeps getting raised. The Health changes to T1/T2 might make it harder for a multibox of multiple MMs, but I'm more frequently seeing multiboxers where only one of the characters being used is a MM.

 

By now (and not because of this round of Beta changes) I'm basically living the shrug emoji when I read about many of the changes and what the possible rationales for the changes. Are we focused on x8? (sometimes yes, sometimes no). Are we focused on Level 1-49? (sometimes yes, sometimes no), Are we focused on ITF with incarnates? Farms? etc. etc. This round of MM changes appears entirely focused on new +++++ content, with some back-rationale about what to do about MMs for all the other (non-Incarnate) content. *shrug*

[gameboy1234]

3 hours ago, Dispari said:

It was 25% for a while which was basically nothing. 40% I feel is still not very good

 

 

Maybe add inspirations to that?  Keep it at 40%, but let me pop inspirations and the henchmen get 40% of that (each!).  Basically inspirations on a MM work like team inspirations, just only for the henchmen.  (Which I don't think makes using inspirations on a MM overpowered.) Would make inspirations easier to use on a MM and also more intuitive for newer players.

 

[tidge]

22 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Agreed.

And the more data we can produce that proves "pet survivability has decreased compared to Live" to the devs, the more likely they are to lessen the currently-proposed HP reductions (or buff henchmen survivability later!).

 

I feel like I can see the difference in GM fights but hard numbers for this will be really hard to come by. There is probably a farm that is well suited for this, or perhaps Nemesis radio missions at level 50?