That's damned good cause mercs root me. I never minded upgrading necro on the move so much but trying to upgrade mercs on the move is like trying to run in lead boots.
I guess you can just order someone to "goto" if you want them out the AoE
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
That's damned good cause mercs root me. I never minded upgrading necro on the move so much but trying to upgrade mercs on the move is like trying to run in lead boots.
I guess you can just order someone to "goto" if you want them out the AoE
[/ QUOTE ]
Or summon everything but him, cast the first upgrade and then summon him and cast the 2nd.
Although if we give out about how awkward it makes upgrading the bruiser maybe they'd make Handclap knockdown instead 
Ooo, that would be great! I know it would attract a lot more people into playing MM's, I know quite a few people that won't even bother playing MM's as the set-up is too tedious (i'd have to agree with them on that).
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@Jacko
My Ninjas/FF is such a end hog when equpping, this will certainly help!!! Yay!!! 
any chance of a link?
Mentioned at the end of this thread.. As I said in the OP its based on Test Power Descriptions in the Create Character screen as the NDA still holds on Closed Beta.
This is a horrible change. Not because of the change to PBAoE, but because of the Endurance Cost change. The second upgrade alone costs 45 Endurance. While this will be an improvement to set-up in the beginning of the mission... have fun re-summoning and re-upgrading in combat, especially if you play anything squishier than Robotics. Keeping fingers crossed that they use the code they used for [Repel] to make it scale up endurance costs based on how many pets actually benefit from the upgrade... if it's possible.
At the moment I have two slots in each upgrade, 1 rech and 1 end. If I changed them to both being en I suspect it would be cheaper with the new system compared to the old to fully upgrade all in combat
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Aye, the mid-mission cost could really put a dampener on my Staminaless Thugs/Traps & his suicidal Arsonist.
One End will drop that 45 to 34 End, which might just be alright.
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fully upgrade all in combat
[/ QUOTE ]I'm not talking about a full wipe (lol?), I'm talking about losing one or two pets, which was easier to replace with the old system.
Only one of the two upgrades is 45 end. The other one, I can't recall how much it costs at the moment. Re-summoning the pet itself costs 19.5 end. These are all unenhanced, yes (though I honestly can't spare an endred slot for the pet summon power...), but in an in-combat situation you won't have full end anyway, and this'll leave you gasping and wheezing from just replacing the suicidal arsonist.
Basically, this change would discourage me from replacing pets, because I'd have to carry around a full tray of blues (I'm /Dark Miasma, which means I'm active in combat, and my endurance is just about balanced on live at the moment). That, or take an endurance-rest break whenever I lose a pet, which would be much more annoying than the initial set-up phase ever was. (Which could either be done on the run, or you could just enter the mission first and do it while waiting for others anyway)
Again, just for emphasis - I'm not talking about the initial set-up, nor am I talking about a full wipe (how often does that happen anyway?). I'm talking about a lucky shot or two taking out one or two pets.
A pox upon whoever suggested this.
I normally lose all T1s about the same time on my Necro, the GKs and the Lich rarely die (infact for a while it was bugged and Lich completed a mission for me when I was dead)
But the time taken to upgrade all three T1s with both being cut to two activations suits me fine. Am also DM and normally carry a couple of blues for when I need to throw out a new fluffy during combat.
My mercs it will be the lack of rooting that pleases me, and I'll happoly spend an end cost to not be frozen in one spot forever trying to upgrade more than one minion.
Maybe it will change my style slightly, cause if I just lose one T1 I wouldn't bother upgrading it till after combat now
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I read about these changes on the US boards. I think it's really awesome, but demands more slotting.
If we lob three endurance IOs in both powers, it'l cost a hair under 50 end to use them both. This means you can't simply resummon a single henchman and upgrade him without wasting half your end bar, but there's a way around this.
In quite a lot of cases, if one of your tier one pets dies, the others are going to be damaged as well. So we can dismiss all tier one pets, and do the same thing that we were going to do - resummon, and double-equip one. We've spent more Endurance, but we've also refreshed the health of an entire tier of pets.
It isn't an ideal solution, and it will want a change in strategy. But it shows you how you can minimise the waste.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
IT will be faster to setup at the cost of being less flexible inside the mission. Not sure if I am happy or unhappy about this.
I'm sure this's changed already since they've several iterations into closed beta now... but it's possible they're scaled a-la repel. Or if they're TARGETTED rather than LOCATION AoE, they may only affect the tier of pet selected (eg, three casts needed to fully upgrade rather than six- one for minions, LTs and boss...)
Failing that, they could grant two powers with one power pick. One that's AoE, one Single Target.
If it's just changed to a bog-standard AoE upgrade power, my /Dark hates it but my /Traps likes it...
It appears to be pet targeted, with a 30' radius in the current build. Both upgrades End cost = 45.5.
It certainly doesn't appear to scale with number of pets affected. IMO that is a very good idea (however, it would probably still charge you for pets that where already upgraded).
I really should do something about this signature.
[ QUOTE ]
It appears to be pet targeted, with a 30' radius in the current build. .
[/ QUOTE ]
I assume it is your own pets only?
No way to tell. I would imagine so.
I really should do something about this signature.
It suddenly occured to me that this change will probably result in my MM being able to solo much fewer AVs/Heroes than I could before. Mynx kills a Bruiser in one hit with some of her attacks, not even worth mentioning the lower-tier pets. And ToHit debuffs with Defense buffs only do so much. ARCH-A getting a lucky hit roll with Fireball would pretty much destroy me in i13. And so on, these are just examples. Bleh.
Still wish they'd keep the old option somehow, either with some fancy code that makes them only affect non-upgraded pets in range and cost endurance accordingly (probably not possible) or giving us the old single-target versions as well, two powers for the price of one. Heck, Kheldians get five for the price of one with forms so it's not unheard of.
I just felt like whining about this again after defeating Mynx last night.
According to the Power Descriptions on the Character Creation screens it looks like the Upgrade powers are becoming AOE. That's based on reports from the US.
Which is sorta good. Until you consider powers like the Bruisers annoying Handclap, which I generally avoid giving him...