Alpha_X

I'm not sure what the other minions are like, but my bots drop like sacks of spuds vs fire. One enemy flame thrower from a mob of even con to me will drop them to half health - from an orange will kill them all in one go; and thats a minion enemy too.

I realise they don't have inherant resistance against fire, but anyone else noticed this being a little er under balanced?

Or is it our achillies heel?

Actually guys, he's talking about just making the pet the current selection, not using a pet command. This would then be used to cast a normal buff or upgrade on the pet.

I don't think you can Thunder. It would be a nice addition, even if it does mean 6 key presses (since macro commands execute immediately, we can't have one macro for bubbling / upgrades - which WOULD be tremendously useful).

It does sounds alittle the wrong way around. I've seen it the correct way around - ie loosing higher level pets when your out of lackey range.

Zaprobo old buddy you've made my day. I'm still staring at the screen with the cheshire cat smile.

Muhahahahaaahahahaha!

Yo Jemma. I got this info from the IGN Hero Builder;

De-Buff : -Acc, -Dmg (Severe) ( Foe )
De-Buff : -Heal,-DefBuf,-End Drain,-Disorient,-Hold,-Immob,-Knockback ( Foe )

And it looks like only Accuracy and Defense Debuff are really enhanceable. Don't underestimate def debuffs for MM's - our minions will be dropping in level post lvl 17 so every bit of luck they get hitting stuff is good news. Try 3 slotting it with Def debuff and hit mobs with it before your pets engage em - you should see they hit far more often. Especially useful against lietenants and bosses, who obviously have higher defenses.

I just wanted to rant about how good this power is - and how its odd I don't see it in use very often.

I've got it 6 slotted; 2 recharge, 3 def debuff and 1 acc. It's absolutely awesome - it makes it a breeze for my pets to hit mobs and thanks to the resistance reduction they do more dmg. Whats more, it has heaps of hit points - so much so it can tank for me.

By placing it down first (putting myself at risk) its first splash aggros the group, allowing me to focus my pets on taking down each target in turn - it usually lasts to the end of the fight quite nicely (and with Repair it lasts even longer).

The downside is it does have a limited range, so it has to be placed with care. I find my tank experience is usueful to herd in new groups of mobs back to the mortar should I clear up a group too quickly.

If you have traps, make sure you get it!

Actually we only got patched today, and I'm definately seeing a dmg output increase. Marginal with DO's mind you, but its a welcome change.

Well, acid mortar is frickin ace. My pets hit everytime, and do more dmg. As long as the shield generator can stack with the protector bot shields, that'll be good too. I haven't tried it, but I also think poison trap sounds good - a crowd control like function.

Now there's a time and a place, you dirty boy.

(ok, my bots aren't IN this post, but it was their handy work!)

I think Ninja's are a little melee and a little ranged - but i'm probably wrong.

Re: pathing, I've had that problem too - it makes sense now you mention it. On follow they just need to follow the path YOU took, so can navigate complex areas - when attacking they just have a straight line to the target, without any references. Thats when real pathfinding code would be needed, which as you summise they may be lacking.

Yeah, I was wondering this myself. The squishy nature of MM's will mean we're useless in PVP - unless somehow we engage without being visible (hide behind a chimney pot perhaps ).

I have a bind set based on the number pad which seems to be very versatile. The best way to imagine it is a heirachical root setup. The root keypad is configured like this.

Numbers 1 - 9 : Little rp taunts I can punch out.
Numpad0 - Move to the all minions menu. (Focus = All Minions)
Decimal - Move to the all bots menu. (Focus = all bots)
Enter - Move to the boss / lieutenant menu. (not sure if I can bind keypad enter, I haven't got that far!).

Before moving down into one of the control menu's, its worth noting the standard keys which work within all of them on the current focus;

Divide, Multiply, Subtract : set the current focus bots to Agg, Def, or Passive respectively.
NumPad0, Decimal, Enter : Move to the selected bot focus. If the same as the current focus, move back "up" to the parent level.

Moving down into the "Minions" menu it has the following standard layout.

Current Focus : Minions
NumPad1 : Load the "Battlebot 1" menu.
NumPad2 : Load the "Battlebot 2" menu.
NumPad3 : Load the "Battlebot 3" menu.
NumPad4 : Att target (current focus, all minions).
NumPad5 : Follow me. (current focus, all minions).
NumPad6 : Stay. (current focus, all minions).
NumPad7,8,9 : Silly emotes for the current focus bots.
Ctrl+lMouse : Goto. (current focus, all minions).

All the other bot control menus mirror this, simply changing the "Focus" of the commands.

Its a complex setup, but means I can control my pets from every possible aspect without having to target them (which annoys me, especially in combat).

If anyones interested, I can post up the files.

OMG Zaprobo, the bots look frickin ace! They've really done a good job there!