Techbot Alpha

I'm psyched about the new Lore pets, myself. The reaction was thus;



However, my reaction to level 50 locked costume pieces is still;

Seriously? MMs have had issues for some time now. Ever since Demons my Bots have progressively got more and more stupid. They insist on running into melee range to punc hstuff en masse, which never happened to all the pets before Demons came out. Sure, you'd get one drone or P-Bot that decided it was Sparkticus and went off on a Rambo, but that was at least liveable with. And it wasn't all the time.

And then theres the fact I ordered my pets to stand still and shoot stuff on the Additionals team on a BAF, and half of them suddenly took off towards Siege's porch. No, I'm not kidding. And yes, I do know how to control them. Believe me, I was mashing every macro for passive and follow that I have, and I ended up having to destroy them myself to summon some more. And then the OTHER half ran off!

So, yeah. Cutting MMs some slack right about now would be really appreciated.

Everything Ian said, x2 basically. I approve.

I think the comparison is valid. The majority of an MMs damage ouput, personal health and shielding all comes their primary set and pets. The resummon and upgrade powers cost the same huge ammount wether you are summoning all your pets or three or just one. While some might argue various reasons ("Oh, you don't need all your pets out at all times!") I will counter that by saying that, to be most effective, an MM works best when all pets are out, doing damage and deflecting damge via bodyguard/shields/etc.

On ITrials especially, where MM pets come off a lot worse against high accuracy, high damage, AoE spamming Praetorians, reducing the rediculously high end cost would be a massive buff. Given the AoE Buff changes are cited as being QoL and aimed at Trials, I fail to see any reason to not give the same treatment to MMs so that;
1) inevitable pet death and loss of usefullness is viably counterable
2) They can fight with full damage output and Hp like other ATs
3) They don't have to pick between Primary OR Secondary and can instead use both, making it more likely they can be of use and get better chances at the participation table (which evidence suggests is biased versus MMs)

TL;DR
Either MMs should get reduced costs or Fenders/Corrs/Trollers should have to deal with increased end costs two. There is absolutely no difference between AoE buffs that make the player/team more effective.

^ Everything Sam said

Still seen Lambda's failed a fair few times because, despite the whole Lab team still being online and in-mission, someone isn't using their Acids.

When three doors stay open for too long, Marauder has his own little army of LTs and Bosses that will laugh in your face and shat missile all over you.

I wouldn't give a damn if the bloody drop table wasn't random and arbitrary.

That and if MMs didn't get shafted by Praetorians anyway. But oh, theres a cure for that isnt there? I can just get the +2 level boosts! Of course! Durr!

But oh, to do that I need Rares. Hmm. How do I get them again? By grinding Raids until I'm lucky enough to get them?
...................

Having run a lot of Raids before I twigged I wasn't going to get a Rare drop anytime soon and instead went for the 8 Emp merit option on Alpha, I am very much in favour of making the shifts available a little earlier, just so the Praetorian AoE spam doesn't obliterate my scrap-brained entourage quite so quickly

So, AoE shield buffs and such are now being converted from ST to AoE with no change in endurance cost.

This means I can have my old MM upgrade end cost back, right? After all, they are the two powers that actually let my Primary function at a decent level, buff the pets that make up the majority of my othewise pitiful healthbar and provide nearly the entirity of my firepower.

There is no case for turning the Shield buffs into AoE with no endurance penalty and leaving MM upgrade languishing where they are, draining 80% of your end even if you only need to buff twore-summoned pets mid fight.