Faster MM pet upgrade

I havent seen this suggested yet, so here goes.

I'm enjoying my mastermind, it's a novel change from being a martail artist scrapper, but i do have 1 pet peve (pun unintended)
I've just got my 6th pet, and it's now taking me a good while to upgrade them all, and i dont even have the second upgrade yet! I find that groups won't wait for me to summon all my pets and upgrade them and are often halfway through the level before i'm done, so i humbly request a change to the upgrade pet powers, here's my suggestion:

have the power upgrade all pets at once, increase the endurance cost by the number of pets to match with the current cost.

I'm sure it's possible on a programing side as there are powers that have a endurance cost based on the number of near by targets.

Yours humbley, a bogged down master mind.

/signed

Can be tedious, I agree totally

And welcome to the forums! ^^

It's been argued in the past that annoyingly long setup periods are an intended weakness in the Mastermind AT, so this is rather unlikely to happen no matter how happy it'd make Masterminds. Sorry.

What I -would- like to see is standardized pet summon/upgrade animation times for all sets and tiers, though... Some of them feel horribly long compared to others.

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I find that groups won't wait for me to summon all my pets and upgrade them and are often halfway through the level before i'm done

[/ QUOTE ]You're doing it wrong. Unless you're preparing for a really tough fight, you can just summon and buff on the move.

Yep. Would love to see some sort of cone or aoe upgrade.

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You're doing it wrong. Unless you're preparing for a really tough fight, you can just summon and buff on the move.

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Max has it right... again... Do it on the fly.... bigguns first. My zombies fall over so often I don't see much point in upgrading them at all.

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Yep. Would love to see some sort of cone or aoe upgrade.

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AoE upgrade sounds good

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You're doing it wrong. Unless you're preparing for a really tough fight, you can just summon and buff on the move.

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Max has it right... again... Do it on the fly.... bigguns first. My zombies fall over so often I don't see much point in upgrading them at all.

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Then you're doing it wrong.

Masterminds are the CoV equivalent of CoH's tanks, yes?

Yet you wouldn't expect a tank to set off with half his toggles missing would you?

I'm expected to do a good job as soon as I enter a mission even though with no pets I'm terminally squishy, have no damage and while I am dark my usefulness to the team in that state is minimal.

So /signed.

i'm often forced to upgrade on the run, problem is i stop every 5 seconds to throw an upgrade and the group gets further and further ahead

So the group gets ahead.. send you re pets ahead too.

A good combo of keys can help make the setup faster...

I have placed first upgrade on 2nd bar - place 1 and second upgrade on 3rd bar - place 1. So I select the pet on the menu... press Alt+1... followed by Ctrl+1. If you tweak the recharge on the powers you should be able to select... upgrade... upgrade... select... upgrade... upgrade... select etc.

Will not take that long this way. And ofcourse if you're in really dire need of time send in the seconds first.. then thrown in lowest unbuffed.. and highest with buffing as by then you have the time for that upgrade. You need to get used to setup on the run anyway, as there will be maps with enemies directly at the door in the mission. An mm's nightmare but possible to get through.

As an avid MM player I know this problem quite well. It takes time to setup your MM properly and going unbuffed is not a good idea with every pet. So I always try to upgrade them a bit if not always completely.

Thus for fast moving groups that can handle the mobs I upgrade them further in the lull of fighting.

It happens that some players run ahead like silly fools and charge into the enemy before people are ready to go. Quite often this results in casualties. But then I appear, waste the mobs, raise a few villains on the go and be the hero.

Sometimes it is good to understand why you are the Mastermind and they are well something else.

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Masterminds are the CoV equivalent of CoH's tanks, yes?

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That was the original design intention, but very few players actually play MMs like that.

However, MMs do superior damage to tankers, and, under certain circumstances, have superior suvivability. The penalty for this is the set up time. Reducing the set up time would be a major buff that would lead to the MMs being nerfed in other areas (most likely a reduction in pet damage).

Your pets don't need to be upgraded in order to tank, you just need to summon them and use Bodyguard mode. You can start tanking from the moment you summon your first tier pets.

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Masterminds are the CoV equivalent of CoH's tanks, yes?

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That was the original design intention, but very few players actually play MMs like that.

[...]

Your pets don't need to be upgraded in order to tank, you just need to summon them and use Bodyguard mode. You can start tanking from the moment you summon your first tier pets.

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Although tanking in Bodyguard mode wouldn't have been part of the original design intention, as Bodyguard mode was only introduced post-CoV release, mainly to make MM's more playable in PvP.

The original intention, I think, was for pets to go in and take the alpha; perhaps they survive, perhaps they don't, but sacrificing minions to keep the PCs' butts safe sounds like a valid villainous strategy.

Problem with that strategy is that it tends to shift the agro to the summoner after the minions are mowed down. That is quite unhealthy for the mastermind.

The brute makes a far better 'tank' then my minions do any day. Plus fully buffed minions can do healthy damage to the opponents especially when they get an aoe attack.

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Problem with that strategy is that it tends to shift the agro to the summoner after the minions are mowed down. That is quite unhealthy for the mastermind.

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Thats why the MM himself, not his pets, should aim to take the aggro if using BB mode in this way. the pets will suvive as long as he does. If they fall, it is more important to resummon them than upgrade them.

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The brute makes a far better 'tank' then my minions do any day.

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The brute makes a better tank than your minions, not always the MM. It is certainly easier for brutes to tank, which is why CoV ended up being played this way, rather than as originally designed.

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Plus fully buffed minions can do healthy damage to the opponents especially when they get an aoe attack.

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Which is exactly why MMs don't have an "upgrade all pets instantly" power.

But but, I am a mastermind. My job is to send my minions forth to do the dirty work while cackling evily and twirling my moustache!

Besides the bodygaurd option is not so easy to get them into. Someone had to explain to me what macro I had to use to activate those (and i think i lost that piece of paper since). Would be much easier if there was a button to make them do this since the cease to attack button is not the same thing.

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But but, I am a mastermind. My job is to send my minions forth to do the dirty work while cackling evily and twirling my moustache!

Besides the bodygaurd option is not so easy to get them into. Someone had to explain to me what macro I had to use to activate those (and i think i lost that piece of paper since). Would be much easier if there was a button to make them do this since the cease to attack button is not the same thing.

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Its not hard to get them into it, its hard to make them do anything while in it.

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But but, I am a mastermind. My job is to send my minions forth to do the dirty work while cackling evily and twirling my moustache!

Besides the bodygaurd option is not so easy to get them into. Someone had to explain to me what macro I had to use to activate those (and i think i lost that piece of paper since). Would be much easier if there was a button to make them do this since the cease to attack button is not the same thing.

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I use the follow button for this.. I edited to follow defensive...

An mm can have his pets tank... And once in a while I tend to play as an mm is supposed to be...

mm corruptor/defender
- pets go in, and you are close by. Use defensive if you need. Making use of youre inherent ability... buffing you're pets or debuffing the enemy

mm tanker
- You are far far behind (like a real general). Often invisible or under the protection from a shield or hover high up. And you send pets in wave after wave. The pets take all aggro and none will come to you as youre too far away or not visible to get any.

mm dominator
- Use holds from you're powersets often and you're pets devided over several groups. Keeping those enemies busy and under aggro long enough for the team to wipe them out.

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I'm expected to do a good job as soon as I enter a mission even though with no pets I'm terminally squishy, have no damage and while I am dark my usefulness to the team in that state is minimal.

[/ QUOTE ]You can't expect an AT to have no inherent intended weakness to it. That's like expecting a Blaster to take hits as well as a Scrapper because you're not as useful when you faceplant.

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Its not hard to get them into it, its hard to make them do anything while in it.

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Not so. Put your pets into Defensive Follow (which activates BG mode). Use a single target attack on a mob. The mob attacks you, which causes all your pets to attack that mob.

(This works best if you have some defense yourself, e.g. Robots or Traps, or hit your target with a debuff instead of an attack).

On my Thugs/Dark I took the pistol attacks to keep myself from getting horribly bored in early levels, intending to spec them out later. I open with Dual Wield, often knocking the mob down, the mob and the other mobs in the group I attacked shoot me, I take virtually no damage due to BG mode, my pets start destroying them as I casually spam Twilight Grasp.

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But but, I am a mastermind. My job is to send my minions forth to do the dirty work while cackling evily and twirling my moustache!

Besides the bodygaurd option is not so easy to get them into. Someone had to explain to me what macro I had to use to activate those (and i think i lost that piece of paper since). Would be much easier if there was a button to make them do this since the cease to attack button is not the same thing.

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Its not hard to get them into it, its hard to make them do anything while in it.

[/ QUOTE ]Not when you have Provoke.

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I'm expected to do a good job as soon as I enter a mission even though with no pets I'm terminally squishy, have no damage and while I am dark my usefulness to the team in that state is minimal.

[/ QUOTE ]You can't expect an AT to have no inherent intended weakness to it. That's like expecting a Blaster to take hits as well as a Scrapper because you're not as useful when you faceplant.

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But surely my weakness' is the fact that without pets I have no damage or resilience (as in I die easily). A tank gets a nice amount of hit points so that without its toggles it might be much weaker but it still is able. A blaster does have much lower HP than a tank or scrapper but gets much better damage (not to mention defiance)... A MM gets pets, low damage, low HP... And even then I have to summon and buff before I get anywhere, that to me is more of hindrance than any of the others get.

But anyway I hate my MM so much now even if they did this I wouldn't start liking her again.