Official Thread for Mastermind Feature: Bodyguards
By
Agent_Draven,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 13:04 in Developers' Corner
Well, after 40 levels of playing a MM I suddenly feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I used to have a method, now I hesitate before each fight. Do I attack first and draw agro so my pets defend me?
-OR-
If I tell them to attack first, then I have to hit the follow key? Another step in a long bunch of steps when trying to debuff/hold 3 or more mobs and swap targets back and forth. Great.
Jade_Dragon said:
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1) Select your target or targets and send your henchmen to attack it. Then, after combat is engaged, switch all henchmen back to follow defensive. Since they are already taking fire, defensive mode will not stop them from firing.
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Is them not stopping their attacks new with I7? Because I almost never played in anything but defensive mode. I know defensive mode doesn't stop them from attacking, but telling them to follow me does, always has. Unless I get hit again. I don't really want to play decoy, and I don't want to leave the choice of target up to them. I'm a mastermind, I want to tell them what to do.
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2) Place a subset of your henchmen in aggressive mode and direct them to attack while another subset remain behind in follow defensive. When the henchmen set to aggressive mode draw fire (because they are attacking) the henchmen in defensive mode will open fire to support them.
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On the few occasions I would play in aggressive mode, my henchman would sometimes run off to the next group of mobs if they were kind of close. I never split up their status because of that, though I did sometimes send them to different locations before I gave the attack command. However, aggressive mode was for an oh crap moment, not used often.
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The first suggestion will maximize your opening salvo as all henchmen will fire on the foe or foes. However, you are sacrificing Bodyguard for that, and will have no protection until you switch them back to follow defensive during the fight. Of course, since you are likely not going to attack first you should not draw aggro yourself until the battle is well underway.
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Ok, I don't know how other MM sets play, but I play merc/poison and it was always pretty fast and furious because I have single target debuffs/heal/hold, one cone. I always attacked first with a debuff and immediately ordered my mercs to attack, then I'd toss on the 2nd debuff. I'd swap to the next mob, debuff, the third, debuff. By then the first was usually down or close to. While my mercs took on the next, I swapped debuffs on the other targets. I always tried to get 2 on each, used cone as needed. Even though I'd open the attack my mercs quickly took agro because I wasn't doing damage. I don't really need bodyguard.
When my medic healed, which he isn't right now, I rarely had any health issues. After debuffing I healed my henchies or pulled out my gun and attacked too. We had a nice system going. Now, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I don't really need another pet command in my /debuff/heal/attack chain. Can I just continue to play as I have been? Will my MM play worse if I do that?
Also, I gave up tonight trying to test that MM. If I don't have a medic I'm not going to last long. The first red boss we fought nearly took us all out at once. That was not a usual occurance when I had heal help. Not to mention none of us had his buffs. Those don't work either. Without my mercs I'm easy pickings, so I'd rather do everything I can to keep them alive, not share my healthloss with them. And I wish they'd stop running right up to the mobs I sic them on. We're all ranged, they used to stand right by my side. Argh!
I rolled up a baby MM, I'll post about those issues later in the day.
wont deny that its just a work around at all, and I have to admit i havent actually done this on test because my school blocks the test server and i got a week left...
But on live if you make a attack my target bind, and a defensive follow bind, and basicly tap them in that order very fast (allowing just enough time inbetween for the pets to start an attack animation) you can get focus fire, and basicly be in defensive mode virtually non-stop. Just repeate that process a few times, and eventually they will be locked into combat enough that you can just leave them in defensive and they wil keep going.
Like i said, its pretty much just a work around, but it does have some other implications aswell...
[edit] there is also the fact that if you were doing fine before, its not like you have to use body gaurd 
I doubt Ill use it much in pve at all
My first impression of the bodyguard feature was so-so. Maybe it's because I don't play a MM all the time (my highest on live is level 8) I liked the damage transfer portion of it, but the punks in defensive mode just stand around. I would attack someone and that character would run by my punks and they did nothing. I would have expected that if a baddie (goodie?) entered some sort of range of the punks that the punks would start attacking. It almost felt like I had to turn my point of view to look directly at them before they would start attacking.
Is this a possible bug, or are they working as intended? To be honest with you if this is how it's itended to be, I probably won't use the bodyguard feature (and yes, I had them in defensive follow and they were very close to me).
Proud member of the LEGION, and Sisterhood
minions set to defensive will only attack if they are attacked themselves, I.E. to defend themselves. you can, however, order them to attack your target and keep them in a defensive (or even passive) stance, just by editing the pre-made macro, or setting up a series of keybinds...
so yeah, they won't react to a mob running by them if the mob is not directly aggroing them while set to defensive.
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brutes bring their entire primary and secondary with them if they get tp'd
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They also have their entire primary follow them up elevators. Something we don't seem able to do in I7.
"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." Lord Vetinari, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
Er what?
Pets aren't following up elevators?
Gah. Have to test that at home after work.
Currently: 50s (5), 40s (3), 30s (5)
Red and blue side, mostly Infinity, Virtue, and Freedom.
Nope. I've had a variety of difficulties.
Pets coming up the elevators slowly (1 at a time, some dawdlers showing up 30 seconds later).
Pets not coming up at all.
Pets coming up and running back down.
Pets coming up and running through the wall to points unknown.
Issue also shows up with doors inside missions (the kind that don't force a loading screen, like in Mayhem Missions). Pets will stick around outside (or inside, as the case may be). And not follow. When I was running my Mayhem Mission the only thing I could do to get them to respond was fly up to the flight ceiling and make them warp to me (thereby losing the hostage).
"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." Lord Vetinari, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
Then again, on live, I sometimes get a "stuck" bot.
Always fun when it's the Assault Bot. They will respond in pet chat, but they don't move or do anything else - I generally need to dismiss and resummon.
Would be nice if that stopped happening.
Currently: 50s (5), 40s (3), 30s (5)
Red and blue side, mostly Infinity, Virtue, and Freedom.
Yeah, I'm used to him getting stuck. That's why I took teleport friend.
Oh, that's ANOTHER trick they've been doing.
I go up the elevator, the pet doesn't follow, I TP friend him to me and he runs back down the elevator.
"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides." Lord Vetinari, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
Could we get an icon for Bodyguard?
It's not really apparent when it's active. I know I need to be in Supremacy range, and pets need to be on defensive/follow, but it would really be nice to have the certanty that a Bodyguard icons gives. 
So my feedback for what I think might be Bodyguard...
I ran "Rob the Atlas Park Bank" which has expected ambush spawns that ignore pets; I survived. I didn't have any other indication that it was working other than I survived. I think I like it.
Why Bodyguard is a Miserable Failure
1. The main point of Bodyguard was to help MMs in PvP (we didn't need any help in PvE).
2. While Bodyguard does help in PvE (where we don't need it), Bodyguard is nearly useless in PvP. The following addresses the PvP situation...
3. Bodyguard needs two conditions for it to actually be on and providing the protection to the MM: A) Pets set to Defensive/Follow; and B) Pets under the influence of the Supremacy inherent MM power, which means these two conditions must also be met: a) The are close to the MM; and b) the MM is able to affect the pets, i.e., he is not phased, or in a PFF, or resting, or held, or stunned, or sleeping.
4. MMs generally don't have Mez protection (except FF). Bodyguard only mitigates damage, not Mezzes. And we weren't given any Mez protection in the PPP. So, when I'm mezzed, which is constantly happening in PvP, and Supremacy is off, then Bodyguard is off and I die in one shot.
5. The Defensive/Follow stance sounds like the pets will stick close to the MM, however, that is not the case. In Defensive/Follow, pets constantly go out of range of Supremacy, and thus, also out of range of Bodyguard This goes beyond the 'spaz out' problem where pet AI is /bugged. Even under normal operating conditions, when I, or any one of my pets, or any one of my teammates, or any one of my teammate's pets are attacked, my minions leave me to go attack the foe. This may not be so much a problem for the ranged pets, but the melee pets are very quick to run out of Supremacy and Bodyguard range. All it takes is for a teammate two buildings over to get hit. Or a blaster on top of a nearby building to hit me... and *zip* all my pets are gone and Bodyguard is worth less than defecation.
6. But, a dev might say, "Bodyguard isn't meant for constant protection, it's to stop an alpha attack from killing you." And I will say, "How is it possible that a dev doesn't have a clue about how MMs are played?" Again, if one teammate is attacked, my pets leave me, and I have no bodyguards. Do you know how often that happens? ALL THE TIME! That's what PvP is all about. You devs are on record that PvP isn't meant for one-on-one, we should be teaming. Well, in Defensive mode, my pets are just as defensive of teammates as they are of me. In Defensive mode, "Follow" is practically meaningless. The only way I can keep the pets near me while engaged in PvP is to issue GoTo or AttackMyTarget commands which takes them out of the ironically named 'Follow' state, and thus, no Bodyguarding. To get pets to come back to me to protect me, I have to take them out of Defensive/Follow!
7. The continued lack of travel powers for pets make Bodyguard nearly useless. You still haven't fixed problems with Group Fly or Group Teleport. You still haven't given pets anything more than the ironically named 'auto-teleport', which means that as I travel, the pets are only in range sporadically. The pets are still out of Supremacy and Bodyguard range when I travel. When they run away from me because they're chasing after a ranged attacker or protecting my teammates instead of me, it takes them a long time to return to me to protect me when I'm being attacked.
8. The continued lack of control over melee v. ranged attacks makes Bodyguard nearly useless for melee pets. We've been asking for this for a long time, the ability to tell pets whether to use their melee or ranged attacks. But since we don't have it, my melee pets run off after a foe while in Defensive/Follow mode, making Bodyguard pointless.
Possible fixes:
1. A new, extra command that leashes pets by telling them "Stay in Supremacy range" would be an ideal.
2. Fix Group TP; fix Group Fly; fix Auto-teleport by having the MM enable it on command; give pets real travel powers.
3. Make Bodyguard not dependent on Follow mode. Simply Defensive mode. This way we can issue "Attack/Defensive" and "GoTo/Defensive" commands so that we can keep the pets near us while they're protecting us.
4. Scrap Bodyguard altogether. Many of us suggested long ago an inherent ability in pets to Taunt (maybe a 5% chance per attack, or 1% range Taunt aura per tick), you can even limit this Taunt to when they are in Supremacy range, because, Supremacy range isn't a problem if we can use any other mode but Defensive/Follow, which does not keep minions in Supremacy range.
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I'm cautiously optimistic about bodyguard now.
The effective damage resistance does indeed work as advertised. In arena testing, I was able to stand up to a 50 BS/regen for 2 or 3 full attack chains (in one test) and then just over one (he got luckier with his crits.) I fought the same guy's 28-ish fire/em blapper in Siren's 1-on-1 and we mutually killed each other twice, I killed him once (when I managed my attack/defense better) and he killed me once when I ordered the pets to attack (taking them off bodyguard) at the wrong time; just as he did his aim+BU + big attack.
With respect to fireball and AoE - if I stand still, a fully slotted fireball is going to mess up a number of the pets and 2 would probably take most of them out. However, if I kite around in the air above my pets out of AoE range but in supremecy range that is much harder to do. If the target goes after me, they can't get the pets in the AoE. If they go after the pets, I'll switch to attacking and get them held/caltrop'd/debuffed/immobed/etc. and I can instantly switch back to bodyguard at any time.
I'm seriously considering spec'ing into SS+CJ+hurdle for movement, since bodyguard is going to tether me pretty close to the ground in combat. I'm going to try that with my thugs/TA.
I'm not that worried about TP foe. I rarely get caught on trip mines (or the like) as it is because it's to easy to just jump out of them as soon as you see the TP foe animation start. If the opposing side has enough force to nail you the instant you show up, then they probably would have been able to do that to any squishy anyway. The usefulness of TP foe is (and always has been) way overstated, IMHO.
Movement was very slow, as I had to keep pets fairly close. I wouldn't have been able to kill with my nin/poison had the target decided to run, but my */traps or */TA would be able to keep the target held while I beat on them. It does appear that bodyguard takes affect instantly when the Defensive/Follow is issued, so good reflexes and careful stance management will let you switch to and from attacking between the target's heavy hitting attacks.
I did not seem to have problems with keeping pets in supremacy range when doing a solo straight up fight. Haven't tried running on a significant sized team yet, nor fighting against someone who was specifically trying to break bodyguard.
I wanted to do a 1-on-1 with a stalker, but didn't get the chance last night - all of my guildies were in RV.
A modification I would like to see is an increase in supremacy range in PvP, at least for melee masterminds (zombies and ninjas). It's signficantly easier to keep the ranged pets in supremacy range.
In PvE, bodyguard seemed much less useful except for surviving hot doors as I buff pets and travelling through the zone at low level. The pets don't attack the mob that's attacking me anywhere near as reliably and the loss of control is not worth it IMHO.
Just my $.02.
I wonder how well bodyguard, shadowfall, tough and eventually scorpion shield from PPP will hold up.
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After testing: Bodyguard is infinitely helpful in PvE.
But, as I predicted, it's easily bypassed by players in PvP.
TP foe easily removes the MM from Supremacy (and therefore Bodyguard) range into mines/stalkers/blappers, etc for an easy kill.
This will become a critical issue in PvP.
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Yes, but that happens to everybody. A BRUTE teleported away from his team stands a good chance of getting slaughtered by the teleporter's team if caught by surprise. Better to say that Bodyguard doesn't insulate a Mastermind any better than everyone else.
Echoing what everyone else is saying here: pet AI needs to be adjusted so that they attack when the MM is attacked, hit or miss, not just when the MM takes damage.
Additionally, the default 'Follow' macro needs to be switched to Follow + Defensive. The Follow + Aggressive was a stupid macro to begin with, and newbies who don't want to fumble with building new macros should have a one-touch Bodyguard button at their disposal.
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My reply is to your last comment Monkey_King. You can easily "edit" that key in game from Follow + Aggressive to Follow + Defensive via the "edit" key when you right click the macro.
I haven't had a chance to test this change in PvP so I won't comment on it yet. I'm off to test .
I tested it yesterday with my 40 mm and I like it, but...
let's face it, it's overpowered in PvE, not only that, it makes */dark masterminds even far more overpowered than they already were. Just sit and spam the AoE heal around your mobs. My /poison MM was almost godlike yesterday, and I only had a single target heal, can only infer what it's like with a /dark
Eh, my bots/traps MM was pretty "godlike" before.
If by "godlike" you mean "can do Invincible missions with ease".
Currently: 50s (5), 40s (3), 30s (5)
Red and blue side, mostly Infinity, Virtue, and Freedom.
with heroes outnumbering villians in recluses victory..i fail to wonder how bodygurad wil actually do anything but make you last one more shot...big deal in my eyes
3 shotted instead of 2??
dev's dont pvp much i take it 
MMs are extremely tough in 1v1 battles against squishies right now. Over many test bouts in the arena last night (defenders, blasters, corruptors, stalkers, warshades and doms) the only time they managed to kill me was once or twice by going 2-on-1 when I was playing "AFK". I fought a fire/em to a draw the day before yesterday (2 mutual kills, 1 win, 1 loss).
Bodyguard makes you extremely resistant to single target damage. OTOH, heavy AoE can mess you up, so you'll want to keep moving around; in supremacy range but not standing in the middle of your pets. It's so fast to switch between attack and defense that you can effectively initiate attacks and immediately switch back to def/follow as the pets do their attack animation.
The squishy that game me the most trouble was a dark/elec defender, because he could keep my end (and my pets) nearly perma-drained if I stood still for it.
I really wish I had a medium to high level */dark MM to see how well TG can keep your minions healed. It seems, offhand, like you would be nearly impossible for a squishy to kill 1v1.
A good high damage scrapper would probably still waste me. A 50 BS/regen took me out when I was doing my "AFK" imitation in 15-20 seconds in one test and 30-45 in another. I don't really have any hope of killing him solo even if he just stood there and took it, so from one shot kill to 15-20 seconds with lucky crits is a huge improvement.
Some more observations:
1) Mezzing does not drop bodyguard. As long as you're in the stance and the pets are in range you're protected - supremacy does not actually have to be active on the pet buff bar.
2) The pets (at least my ninjas) seem to be tethered to supremacy range. Even when I was mezzed, the pets would tend to stay in bodyguard range when the dom ran away.
3) At least with ninjas (which are pretty fast), if I got TP'ed and mezzed at the same time (ala wormhole from the grav dom) the opponent had maybe a second or two to do something before the pets got right back into supremacy range.)
4) A stalker's BU+AS took out just over 1/4 of my life, didn't kill any of the pets (although it was wierd to see ASSASSIN STRIKE show up 7 times ) and the pets immediately turned and caltroped him. Against both a claws and an EM they simply could not kill me 1v1 (if they stayed to try to scrap, the ninjas would mess them up - if they kited, i would heal through natural regen (yay health!) before they got back to try again.
I'm thinking now that it may actually be as fast (or maybe faster) to attack and kill the individual pets first and run the MM out of resummons. Even in that case, MMs become a major PITA to kill in a static fight.
The more I try it, the more I like it. YMMV.
if mezzing doesnt drop bodyguard, i wonder if PFF/invis/phase does...
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if mezzing doesnt drop bodyguard, i wonder if PFF/invis/phase does...
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PFF drops supremacy, which will drop bodyguard.
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I tested it yesterday with my 40 mm and I like it, but...
let's face it, it's overpowered in PvE, not only that, it makes */dark masterminds even far more overpowered than they already were. Just sit and spam the AoE heal around your mobs. My /poison MM was almost godlike yesterday, and I only had a single target heal, can only infer what it's like with a /dark
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Personally, I did not find bodyguard to be anywhere near as effective in PvE; at least not if you just "sit and spam heals." It has to be used much more selectively and reactively. Even in PvP, the best effect seems to come from switching back and forth between attack and bodyguard selectively.
In PvE, defensive/follow does not seem to work as well in that the pets will often just stand there next to me doing nothing as the ambush beats on me. Bodguard also doesn't work quite as well from an offensive standpoint when multiple targets are beating on you (it's more difficult to encourage the pets to attack a single target.)
What I have found it useful for is summoning and buffing in hot doors (the pets take the damage coming in on me immediately on summoning until I get them buffed and the mobs debuffed. Then I switch them to attack.)
It's also very useful when you get hit by some major DoT, like a mook boss full auto, or a bone daddy gloom. You can actually switch to bodyguard in the middle of the DoT and immediately reduce the damage of the remaining ticks.
Furthermore, if you watch your buff bar closely, you can actually instantly switch to bodyguard as soon as you see the attack icon show up and you will still get the benefit of bodyguard. I was practicing it with my 10 thugs/TA on test last night and I could do it pretty consistantly. I used this a lot in the mayhems to survive ambushes (which, as we all know, ignore your pets and come straight at you) by switching to bodyguard when I was under attack and staying in "attack my target" between attacks.
Another thought; PvE tends to have a lot more AoE flying around. Stuff that killed your pets quickly before will still kill your pets quickly; dark or not.
Dark's dominance in PvE is another issue entirely. I don't think bodyguard really affects that one way or the other.
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In PvE, defensive/follow does not seem to work as well in that the pets will often just stand there next to me doing nothing as the ambush beats on me. Bodguard also doesn't work quite as well from an offensive standpoint when multiple targets are beating on you (it's more difficult to encourage the pets to attack a single target.)
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So true. Last night while playing a new character with one thug, I took notice. In every fight, the second I put my pet on follow he stopped fighting. But that's been the case pre-I7. I expected them with this bodygaurd change to continue to fight. At least until I was far enough away from them that they'd have no choice but to follow, or until I swapped them to passive.
I tried different versions of editing the pet commands. Attack defensive works, he stays in defensive. It's the darned follow command that messes everything up. There has to be a separate command to allow for defensive attacking with bodyguard on without having to issue a follow command, or it will be pretty much useless in PvE. For me, anyway.
Why is it that some players are saying how great this is and it works fine for them, but others can't seem to get it to work?
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In PvE, defensive/follow does not seem to work as well in that the pets will often just stand there next to me doing nothing as the ambush beats on me. Bodguard also doesn't work quite as well from an offensive standpoint when multiple targets are beating on you (it's more difficult to encourage the pets to attack a single target.)
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So true. Last night while playing a new character with one thug, I took notice. In every fight, the second I put my pet on follow he stopped fighting. But that's been the case pre-I7. I expected them with this bodygaurd change to continue to fight. At least until I was far enough away from them that they'd have no choice but to follow, or until I swapped them to passive.
I tried different versions of editing the pet commands. Attack defensive works, he stays in defensive. It's the darned follow command that messes everything up. There has to be a separate command to allow for defensive attacking with bodyguard on without having to issue a follow command, or it will be pretty much useless in PvE. For me, anyway.
Why is it that some players are saying how great this is and it works fine for them, but others can't seem to get it to work?
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Dunno. Personally, I've never seen this work right in PvE, on test or on live. In PvP, however, both on test and on live it works great (i.e. just leaving them in defensive follow)
The trick in PvE on test, as it stands now, is to put them into bodyguard right when and only when you're taking a direct attack. With some practice, you can keep them in attack most of the time, recall to bodyguard for a second or so to absorb an incoming attack, then resume beating on your target.
Remember - there's absolutely no delay in when bodyguard becomes effective. Unless you're mezzed or somehow unable to issue commands to your pets you can switch in and out immediately on demand.
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if mezzing doesnt drop bodyguard, i wonder if PFF/invis/phase does...
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PFF drops supremacy, which will drop bodyguard.
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I have not tested this personally (still at work) but I've been told by someone whose opinion I trust that none of the "affect only self" powers (including invis, PFF, phase) seem to remove bodyguard. Bodyguard does not seem to be tied directly to supremacy at all. It merely seems to have the same range as supremacy.
A red name confirmation on that would be nice.
I foolishly assumed that along with this feature came an improvement to AI. But no, pets are still ridiculously slow to fight back when in defensive mode.
When an enemy attacks you, even though the pets are taking damage, it still does not register in their pea brains. I was attacked 4 times --hit by 3 of them-- before my Punk decided to react. I was then attacked 3 more times before my pets bothered to attack again. I know they are faster than that in aggressive mode or given an attack order.
And even when attacked themselves, it's a crapshoot whether or not they will retaliate.
Bottom line: Defensive Mode is still broken. I can't use this feature in tough situations when I need them attacking. If they aren't fighting back, they are worthless to me.
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