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So, right now on live our robots are actually more powerful non-upgraded than upgraded?
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no
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So, right now on live our robots are actually more powerful non-upgraded than upgraded?
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Before you upgrade, your battle drone has one ranged weapon. Upgrading adds a more powerful but slower weapon. The first weapon is enhanced (regardless of whether you upgrade), but the second weapon currently does not take advantage of enhancements. If you upgrade, the first weapon will do the same damage as it did without the upgrade (and will take into account any applicable enhancements). Upgrading still adds the second weapon -- it's just not as powerful as it should be.
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So, right now on live our robots are actually more powerful non-upgraded than upgraded?
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no
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I dont have my notes from beta but techinally that is true. In the 30s, fully slotted with SOs the drones most powerful attack was its stock [censored] slap. Followed by its stock laser. The heavey laser did LESS damage than the stock. And the upgraded pulse did even less.
SO yes, you were actully doing less damage by having it cycle throughn less powerful attacks. The most effective use was to put them in melee range and just have them beat targets.
I stopped equiping and upgrading drones all together.
I still think we need MORE damage overall.
Another bug is that pets status icons aren't always updating/showing up. But that could just be one of the random memory overwrites I've been getting.
I just moved my lvl 21 Robotics/Traps Mastermind to test. The bug fix to me is just fine. Better damage output without being too powerful.
I'd say you should put this into effect ASAP. If there are things to smooth out, it could be done later (although, yes, I'd rather it be perfect in one fell swoop). At least MMs can enjoy overall better damage out while the kinks are worked out.
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[ QUOTE ]
So, right now on live our robots are actually more powerful non-upgraded than upgraded?
[/ QUOTE ]
no
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I dont have my notes from beta but techinally that is true. In the 30s, fully slotted with SOs the drones most powerful attack was its stock [censored] slap. Followed by its stock laser. The heavey laser did LESS damage than the stock. And the upgraded pulse did even less.
SO yes, you were actully doing less damage by having it cycle throughn less powerful attacks. The most effective use was to put them in melee range and just have them beat targets.
I stopped equiping and upgrading drones all together.
I still think we need MORE damage overall.
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It really depends on the recharge times of their default attacks. If they can chain the defaults in less than the time it takes to activate the upgraded attacks, then they'll do less damage. If the recharge of the default attack is longer than the activation of the upgraded attack, then they'll do more if they are upgraded.
Sgt Liberty - 50 Martial Arts / Super Reflexes
Verdigris Eagle - 50 Archery / Energy Manipulation
Stormeye - 50 Storm Summoning / Electric Blast
any note on whether the upgrade boosting with enahncers is in effect?
Does assault effect upgrade powers?
Ok I copied my level 17 robots/traps MM to test and got some numbers.
On Live:
Drones are slotted 2acc/4dam level 15 DOs (yellow)
on even level (white) arachnos minions (wolf spider enforcers) the drones basic blast hits for 3 ticks of 6 and the upgrade blast hits for 8/13 damage
my protector bot who is slotted 1acc/2dam/2defense buff level 15 DOs
he hits the same mobs for 3 ticks of 7 damage on his burst attack.
With assault turned on the drones hit for 3 ticks of 6 and 9/14 on the upgrade attack.
the protector hits for 3 ticks of 7 still ( I forgot to note his secondary attack damage on live)
On Test server:
same mission against level 17 white con aracnos minion (wolf spider enforcer)
the drones hit for 3 ticks of 6 damage on the regular attack the upgrade snipe does 12/18 damage and noticably hits more often.
the protector bot hits for 3 ticks of 7 and 3 ticks of 4/7 on his upgrade blast.
with assault turned on the drones hit for 3 ticks of 7 and 13/20
the protector hits for 3 ticks of 7 and 3 ticks of 5/7
Overall it now takes an average of 6-7 successful hits from all three pets in order to take down a single even level minion. On live it took an average of 8 hits. I'd say if anything we are still a little underpowered but this is definately better than is currently on live. Hopefully someone who is higer level can test with SOs and more pets.
Hope this helps.
So, any word on when this will be pushed to the live servers?
Build: Level 18 Robotics/Force Field Mastermind. No offensive powers but Force Bolt. Combat Drones 6 slotted, all DOs: 2 ACC, 4 DMG. Protector Bot 4 slotted: 2 ACC, 1 DEF, 1 HEAL. Upgrade, of course, slotted with enough RECRED and ENDRED that I can upgrade and shield all four droids without interruption and without a CAB (but it's a near thing). Both standard force fields 3 slotted, 2 DEF DOs and a TO in both. PFF single slotted, DO DEF, but I didn't use it; too busy shielding everything in sight and using Force Bolt to break up dangerous clumps. Stealth, Hover, Flight, and Recall Friend; the latter used occasionally to quickly solve pathfinding AI screwups, Flight to get around, and the rest not at all in this test.
Live: Almost completely unplayable. I've seen more accurate blaster fire out of original Star Wars stormtroopers. The Protector Bot hardly ever heals, and yes, I know how to use it. As a result, even on Villainous, solo, even being careful with my pulls, I go through an entire tray of Inspirations in the course of a single mission and still I lose at least one robot roughly every 3 or 4 fights, and go through at least 4 of them in the course of a boss fight. I don't even want to talk about what it was like fighting an Elite Boss with that setup, the memory is too unpleasant.
Test: Transferred character to Training Room and ran the last 3 Breakout at the Zig missions. Accuracy returned to normal, that is to say, to what I should expect from having 2 DOs slotted. Oddly enough, the Protector Bot AI seems to have also been biased slightly more towards healing over combat; it was doing a better job of keeping up with the 3 Drones. (Not perfect, but better. I still went through about half a tray of inspirations dealing with ambushes from both directions in the actual breakout. Probably just about right.) Didn't lose a single Combat Drone in 3 missions, but it took fast thinking and careful micro-management to pull off narrow escapes two times.
Analysis: This returns the Robot/FF build to almost exactly the same difficulty it was at, say, around level 12 to 15, which felt about right. If you don't think that MMs were over-powered in the low levels before, you won't think that they're over-powered now, I'm pretty sure. I am strongly tempted to put my MM on hold at level 18 until this patch hits; please let it be soon.
I did not get a chance to test them in PvP.
Yea, My MM is on ICE at level 19. They need to fix this before my free month runs out because I proabbly will not resub since the MM class is what brought me back to CoV/CoH.
Well, I've just run some numbers between live and test.
They're exactly the same. If it HAS been patched to test (Which I doubt), then it isn't affecting damage at all. This fix isn't in test patch notes, so I'm assuming it isn't there yet, until I hear otherwise.
Level 27 Robot Traps
Battle Drone (Slotted 3x25 damage SO)
Laser Burst: 3 ticks of 7
Heavy Laser: 10+20
Protector Bot (Slotted 3x25 damage SO)
Laser Burst: 3 ticks of 10
Heavy Laser: 3 ticks of 5+10
Assault Bot (Slotted 2x30 damage SO)
Plasma: 41
Flamethrower: 8 ticks of 8
Duel Plasma: 20 + 7 ticks of 9
Exactly the same on both live and test, fighting even-con longbow eagles, rifles, and button gunners in Nerva.
Well well well... I'll have to eat my hat.
On a hunch, I went back to test, removed my 2 lvl 30 SOs from Assault bot, and revisited the longbows...
Result?
Duel Plasma: 13 and 7 ticks of 5.
Compared to live: 20 and 7 ticks of 9.
Looks like this is not just on test - it's been patched to live (hence noticing no difference).
Yay us 
Edit: Ok, so I'm playing a solo mission now... All I can say is Oh My God. What a difference - I no longer have to be afraid of minions, and Lts aren't the chore that they used to be. I have a feeling I'm actually going to be contributing damage-wise in groups now. Woot!
I don't think this overpowers us - we're still squishy in the center, being a MM with few personal defenses, and we're the only AT that actually loses effectives as we 'take damage' (our pets die) - but we do have a much bigger stick to wield.
Booya! I thought I recognized that 9 mb download...
Sgt Liberty - 50 Martial Arts / Super Reflexes
Verdigris Eagle - 50 Archery / Energy Manipulation
Stormeye - 50 Storm Summoning / Electric Blast
I've seen my protector bot bubble me and my pets, and then bubble other people's pets, but never other characters. Pretty weird.