Let Henchmen Bodyguard while in Passive stance

[Weylin]

Currently they have to be in Defensive + Follow/GoTo + Supremacy range to provide protection.

 

I propose they always provide the body guard effect, as long as they are in range of Supremacy, with no consideration for their current orders.

Often times it is pertinent that they remain passive and only fire when ordered to do so, so as to avoid letting them run free and shoot whatever the hell they feel like shooting.

Controlling the henchmen in such a manner is often suicidal, as you lose their protection the moment you set them to passive, and are prone to instant death.

 

After some feedback, I suggest instead that Passive + Follow/GoTo are included in the bodyguard parameters, but otherwise is deactivated when pets are aggressive or ordered to attack

Edited August 31, 2019 by Weylin

[William Valence]

BG mode would have to be gutted in a way I don't think MM players would want to do something like this.

 

Would rather it stay the way it is.

[PaxArcana]

4 hours ago, Weylin said:

I propose they always provide the body guard effect,

/JRanger

 

And I say that as a player who considers Mastermind to be THE Archetype to play - it's my favorite, it's the first 50 I ever got back on Live, and I have three of them now (out of eight alts who've survived "the Great Purge" of sub-20 characters I've lost interest in).

Bodyguard works out to being 75% resistance to everything, while all six pets are in play.  Not even Tanks get that.  And what's worse, any actual resistance they get (set bonusses, buffs, Incarnate powers, PPPs, whatever) is multiplicative with that 75% ... not additive-and-capped, like it is for every other Archetype.

 

22 minutes ago, William Valence said:

BG mode would have to be gutted in a way I don't think MM players would want to do something like this.

Exactly so.

 

BG mode was made, because MM players - myself included - were having nigh-insurmountable problems against scripted ambushes (where the enemy starts off already strongly aggro'd against a character, and beelines for them).  We didn't have any tools to use, to survive those, except eating half a tray of inspirations and praying.  So, Bodyguard was conceived of, to give us an option to spend our henchmen's HP to keep our own selves un-faceplanted, at least until those henchmen could pull the aggro off of our character.

 

That very loss of fine control theOP bemoans, is part of the cost of having such an astoundingly-good survival mechanism.

[Chance Jackson]

I think at the very least Henchmen should change such that when you go from defensive "go to" to defensive "follow" they don't lose aggro.

[Weylin]

Thanks for giving some background on why Bodyguard was implemented and why it's done the way it is.

 

With that in consideration now, it would still be greatly appreciated if they could bodyguard while on Passive + Follow/GoTo.

Reason being is that I often times want them to purely bodyguard without moving to retaliate or fire back, in which they break their ordered positions to go chase targets.

For example, I would set the T1 henchmen to passively bodyguard since their damage is pitiful anyways, and prone to instant deletion on fighting bosses, so I'd rather they just stayed out of the fight and gave damage reduction while the T2 and T3 do their thing.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Weylin

[Chance Jackson]

24 minutes ago, Weylin said:

Thanks for giving some background on why Bodyguard was implemented and why it's done the way it is.

 

With that in consideration now, it would still be greatly appreciated if they could bodyguard while on Passive + Follow/GoTo.

Reason being is that I often times want them to purely bodyguard without moving to retaliate or fire back, in which they break their ordered positions to go chase targets.

For example, I would set the T1 henchmen to passively bodyguard since their damage is pitiful anyways, and prone to instant deletion on fighting bosses, so I'd rather they just stayed out of the fight and gave damage reduction while the T2 and T3 do their thing.

I like the suggestion 

[Jeuraud]

4 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

Bodyguard works out to being 75% resistance to everything, while all six pets are in play. 

I thought Bodyguard was a 50% damage absorb as long as you had 2 or more pets.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Weylin said:

Reason being is that I often times want them to purely bodyguard without moving to retaliate or fire back,

If you use this Pet Command

Quote

/petcom_pow power_name commands     Sends commands to pets summoned by named power.

like this

Quote

1 "powexec_slot 1$$petcom_pow Summon Wolves Defend"

it should keep resetting your T1s into Defense each time 1 is pressed, stopping their current action. If needed you could $$ to more power slots.

 

As for the suggestion, I vote No.

[William Valence]

4 minutes ago, Jeuraud said:

I thought Bodyguard was a 50% damage absorb as long as you had 2 or more pets.

BG mode splits the damage between you and any henchmen in supremacy range that are Defensive + Follow/Goto/Stay

 

BG mode splits the damage into shares. The MM effectively counts as two. If you have 6 henchmen then there are 8 shares of damage to be taken. The mastermind takes 2/8 and each henchman takes 1/8 meaning the mastermind takes 1/4 damage.

 

1/4 damage is 25% damage taken, or 75% damage resisted. In this case the "Resistance" is damage taken by henchmen instead of the Mastermind.

[PaxArcana]

39 minutes ago, Jeuraud said:

I thought Bodyguard was a 50% damage absorb as long as you had 2 or more pets.

When you have pets in Bodyguard, you share out damage with them.

 

Each pet takes 1 share; the MM takes 2 shares.

• A single pet takes 1 out of 3 shares, for an effective 33% damage resistance
• Two pets take 2 out of 4 shares, for an effective 50% damage resistance
• Three pets take 3 out of 5 shares, for an effective 60% damage resistance
• Four pets take 4 out of 6 shares, for an effective 67% damage resistance
• Five pets take 5 out of 7 shares, for an effective 71% damage resistance
• Six pets take 6 out of 8 shares, for an effective 75% damage resistance

 

... so, like I said, with all six pets out, that's essentially 75% damage resistance.

[gameboy1234]

You can specify Defensive with any other command and BG mode still works.  Follow Def or Goto Def works fine, and you keep bodyguard mode.  If this stuff were any stronger it would have to be nerfed into the ground.  Use some key binds and macros and your life will be a lot better.