A Deeper Analysis and Reasoning why the Set Should be Changed
Introduction: After reading the concerns mentioned in the recent Improving Mercenaries topic, I had a question that I didnt want to get embedded in page 12. Developers of Mastermind pet sets, what was/is the your goal for the appeal of having Mercenaries in the grand scheme of pet choices from the beginning of CoV beta until now?
Personal Theory: The Devs intended the set to be primarily single target. But on that note, why give AoE controls to Spec-Ops?
Background: I just dinged level 50 on my Mercenaries/Pain Domination Mastermind about 6 minutes before the servers went down tonight and looking back, I just cant tell where the Devs were going with the Mercenary set and I am really confused.
Analysis of their Balancing
Overall: Looking back, it would seem that Mercenaries have been balanced by observing ideal conditions that would only occur in the rarest of circumstances that can only happen on paper.
Example of Ideal Conditions: A Freshly summoned level 50 mercenaries would open up with the Commando unleashing a rocket launcher at the centermost mob while the Spec-Ops begin launching mass-controls into the center of group causing group mezzes from their Flashbang Grenades and Tear Gas in succession and the Soldiers open up with their Full Auto mode and Frag Grenade. Afterwards, moving up slightly from the assumed knockback caused by the Commandos Rocket Launcher, he would then use Full Auto himself in a cone hitting most of the mobs causing their untimely death. The Soldiers could begin opening up fire on those left with their Heavy Bursts and Bursts while the Spec-Ops trapped any runners in a web grenade and the Commando use the rest of his cones and AoEs before focusing on targets.
Looks like a very rewarding first assault dealing massive damage, decent controls, slight tohit and -def debuffs, and continuous fire from the Mercenaries. Sadly, these circumstances are so rare in occurring that saying it is almost impossible doesnt describe how rare this would actually be. Id say the chance of me developing super powers in real life would be more likely than this.
Mercenaries are lacking in the ability to perform. Looking at the pets individually when comparing and contrasting to other Mastermind sets makes one question why their functionality is so low and where their balancing is justified. Also, their special abilities such as controlling and healing are outperformed or rendered useless by AI, recharge, and magnitude.
My main argument for their balancing or lack of is their AI. The sets ability to use Cones and AoEs properly is frustratingly difficult and will be discussed on an individual basis for each pet. Human Intelligence is a main factor in Cone and AoE power use. On my Assault Rifle blaster, I know that to fully utilize a Cone, I need to back up away from the mob and target the centermost enemy if I want to hit everybody with my flamethrower, pets cannot determine this and instead use their powers based on availability and chance. The way I generally overcome this shortcoming on my other Masterminds is by micromanaging my pets positions and placing the pets in appropriate positions to maximize any cone and AoE usage. This is easy on other pets due to predictability and speed of attacks. On Mercenaries, this is incredibly hard due to many animations bearing the same animation which has taken me a lot longer to guess which powers they use more frequently and their incredibly long recharge on powers which makes me guess when they are going to use a power. That, coupled with their power selection leaves much to be desired when it comes to a first volley on an unsuspecting group of enemies. This will be discussed in further detail on an individual basis later.
Soldiers
The first two pets you unlock in the set fit the bill for what you’d expect from a soldier, except maybe their choice of wardrobe (Grey?). They have four powers, Brawl, Burst, Heavy Burst, and Auto Fire. With this chain, the easiest to compare to Looking over their powers, they do a decent amount of damage, but their overall damage output is slightly lower when comparing the numbers of Battle Drones. Keep in mind that it is also lethal vs. energy damage and lethal is by far more resisted in the game than energy.
Soldiers | Battle Drones
- Tier 1 - 8.61 | 8.72 Damage
- Tier 2 - 14.25 | 14.27 Damage
- Tier 3 - 17.90 | 17.90 Damage
- Tier 3 - 5 | 15 Degree Cone Arc
This difference is unjust. The balancing here cannot be validated by the rest of the set which I will discuss later. In all aspects, Mercenaries are worse than Robots in healing, damage, and controlling which I will discuss later. The only explanation I could think of for this discrepancy is that the Mercenaries set is supposed to be a single target set. If this is so, why is the damage of this attack the same as the Battle Drones? There are three Battle Drones as opposed to two Soldiers and they do far more damage to a single target than a Battle Drone. Is it because of the –defense component of Assault Rifle powers? This doesn’t validate their performance either because of Supremacy and the Rifle’s heightened accuracy of 1.10 as opposed to most powers of other pets of 1.00.
If Mercenaries set is supposed to be able deal damage to a large mob, increase their firing arc to be on par with Robots should be a no-brainer. If it is not, then significantly increase the damage done by the power itself and limit it to a single target. The way it is now, the power makes no sense to be as low as it is. Even if I do attack a target at the furthest range I can with soldiers, I can still only get 2 or 3 people if they are standing shoulder to shoulder if I am lucky. With sets like Thugs and Robots, I can easily get at least 5 people within a mob.
Medic
The medic is one of the sore thumbs that brings the entire set down. I sometimes dismiss him because he gets in the way more often than not. Before the upgrade to AoE upgrades, I left him at with only equip.
The medic is the reason I think that Soldiers are unjustifiably doing far less damage than other sets. In theory, the medic should be able to mitigate damage with his heals, but having two other sets with better heals and secondary Mastermind Power Sets bearing heals and power pool heals, his ability to help his allies out leaves much to be desired.
First off, his Med Kit power is lacking in overall effectiveness. Compared to other pets that heal, his heal is on par with the numbers, but he is outnumbered by Protector Bots and out-ranged and out-damaged by other support pets like the Ember Demon. Other healers can be attacking from afar and still heal a minion in peril for a distance with a 80 ft range and faster cast time. The medic has to get within 25 feet of the damaged pal and throw slowly cast heal on them which puts them in danger with their fellow soldier if they were being attacked by a large number of enemies. The Med Kit does more harm than good sometimes putting the medic in the line of fire with the person he is trying to heal winding up in both soldier’s untimely deaths.
Secondly, stimulant is useless the way it is used. Having a status protection randomly cast on people doesn’t help. Since he cycles through the list of potential targets, there is no benefit except from a miraculous save if a person is being controlled. Higher tiered pets have enough protection for most NPC mezzes that stimulant is wasted on them. If I need a pet to be unheld, I can easily use a secondary set or throw a break free on them. Stimulant is completely useless in its execution and only serves as a reminder that the medic can heal. Most likely, it would be too hard to code for the Medic to detect the presence of a mez so this power should be changed to something more worthwhile.
Lastly, Frag Grenade is a problem power. It does decent AoE damage on paper, but since the soldier is -2 to you, the damage is far less potent. Instead, it causes unwarranted chaos within a mob with a fluctuating chance for knockback. Now, I actually enjoy knockback on my characters. I use it to its fullest on my Kinetics/Energy defender, Archery/Energy Blaster, and Assault Rifle/Energy Blaster. But the really problem is the fact that it is a chance for knockback. This isn’t a problem when comparing this to any other Mastermind Primary set with Knockback, the rest of the set can utilize the enemies downtime with their own Cones and AoEs that don’t cause knockback. Assault Bot Missiles + Battle Drones Full Auto Lazer for instance is great because the Knockback allows for great positioning of the Full Auto Laser attack to hit more enemies than it might have without it. A Bruiser’s Handclap can spread a mob out, but more likely than not the enemies are going to be stunned for a time allowing the thugs to clean up the mess easily while the enemies that weren’t stunned may try to surrounding the bruiser again because of his massive damage generating more threat. This Medic’s frag grenade could only really assist the Commando, but since he is already doing so much knockback by himself, causing too much knockback makes this hard to perform. More on the Commando later.
All in all, the medic does more harm than good in-game. What looks good on paper doesn’t necessarily translate into the game well at all.
Spec-Ops
Spec-Ops are arguably the most broken and useless part of the set. Their potential functionality is destroyed by long recharges making their use of controls unpredictable. I can see where the developers were going with the Spec-Ops. Singling out a target to pin down with web grenades and unloading single target attacks from a distance while using controlling powers to debuff and mez the surrounding targets. Problem is, this is far too hard to do with the amount of Knockback and the rate these powers recharge.
Firstly, The Spec-Ops are less effective than the Soldiers because of the uneven ranges of the powers. Their SCAR Heavy Burst is does less damage than the Assault Rifle Heavy Burst and their SCAR Snipe is on par with the Auto Fire of the Soldiers and this is understandable because the increased range and control powers they have. This benefit is rendered useless by their control power’s short ranges as well as having two melee powers which I find gets them to run into melee more often than not making their long range useless. This range is actually does more harm than good. Their AI prefers to use their single target long range attacks because they are available. You have to send them in closer to open up with their control powers first and this requires much more micromanagement and effort than it is worth.
Secondly, their control power’s recharge is not equal with their effectiveness. There are only two powers that I find useful as far as controls in their set, Rifle Butt and Web Grenade. Rifle butt is a great control because it has a high magnitude and has a decent recharge. It can actually stun things. Web Grenade is good because if you slot your Spec-Ops with immobilization duration, the immobilize actually lasts a decent time. The biggest problem though is that their Flashbang Grenade and Tear Gas are both so long in recharge that it becomes almost impossible to keep track of. These powers are great on a first barrage on a mob, but rarely are used at first because of their preference to Snipe. The powers within a fight are used randomly and can be wasted on a target that is running away and not be up for the next first barrage. The magnitudes of these two powers also make them useless within a fight. The powers must be used by both spec-ops together to even phase a Lt. or boss for the full duration of the power. Arguably, these powers are supposed to be used as debuffs. If that is the case, then make the recharges faster so the debuffs can be significant. You can’t slot a duration of a –Attack or –Tohit debuff and having to wait 2-3 minutes for a 20 second debuff that is only being applied to a small amount of targets isn’t worth having at all.
Thirdly, in relation to the previous paragraph, the durations of their powers are nullified when fighting higher level mobs. The full duration of these debuffs and mezzes is negated by their decreased effectiveness on high level enemies and are only worth having against even-leveled enemies. This is counter-intuitive because as one gains power, it should be easier for the Mastermind to take on tougher challenges, but increasing the level makes the spec-ops almost entirely useless because of the level difference. They are summoned at -1 added to fighting +2s or +3s effectively makes the duration of any controlling or debuffing aspect null and void in comparison to say the Leadership of Enforcers which provides a lasting benefit.
Lastly, what is the point of Stealth on Spec-Ops? There is none currently except for a run speed debuff and a defense boost that only comes into play when stacked with other outside defense buffs.
Spec-Ops need to have their entire power combination looked at. Having melee stuns and long recharging powers coupled with long range attacks completely ruins their desired effectiveness in battle as a supportive lieutenant pet. I currently have my Spec-Ops slotted with Damage+Mez Hamidon Origins and the only control power that is worth anything is their Web Grenade. Please look at the Spec-Ops power choices and make some changes to them.
Commando
The Commando is a great pet on paper. He has the effectiveness of an Assault Rifle blaster with the Ancillary power Rocket Launcher. But the Commando suffers from having too many options of attack, recharge times, and differing ranges.
Firstly, I would argue that the power choices available for the Commando are confusing to the AI due to the number. When comparing the Commando to all other Boss pets, the Commando has 8 attack powers he can choose from whereas the other sets bear only 6 or 7 active attack powers. The ones bearing 7 powers are the Bruiser and the Oni and that is because the Bruiser needed a ranged power (Hurl Boulder) and Ninjas being an intensive melee set, the Oni deserved to have a melee combo (Fire Sword Hack and Fire Sword Slash). The Commando has 8 powers to chose from, one of them being brawl, which makes it hard for the commando to use its powers effectively. I find the Commando uses Burst and Slug far more than any of his other powers and can sometimes get stuck in using them. The Cones and AoEs are used unpredictably causing attack patterns to be hard to learn.
Secondly, I would argue that it is easier for the AI to select which powers it wants to use and are far more effective when selecting which powers to use because the distances at which these powers can be used are rather uniform. Most pets have ranged or melee combinations that can be used effectively, but the Commando has Cones and AoEs that are all over the board in terms of ranges.
- Brawl – Melee
- Burst – 75 Ft
- Slug – 75 Ft
- Buckshot – 40 Ft
- M30 Grenade – 70 Ft
- Flamethrower – 40 Ft
- Full Auto – 75 Ft
- LRM Rocket – 150 Ft
Only a player can properly use these attacks to their fullest by constantly changing their distance between the enemy and monitoring power recharges. Streamlining the Commando’s powers to work at a more uniform distance would greatly ease the burden on the AI and the player’s need to micromanage. Brawl also makes it harder for the Commando to use cones. Brawl is the enabling tool that lets the Commando use Buckshot and Flamethrower point-blank on a single target ruining his chances to use cones. Other pets combat this with their high damaging powers being AoEs like the Assault Bot’s Swarm Missiles. All the Commando has for an AoE is the M30 Grenade which with his tendency to run into melee, has a handclap effect and blasts targets in multiple directions causing more harm than good. It is the same with medic in this sense with his grenade. The surprising thing is that the grenade itself doesn’t do much damage at all for both pets and only spreads enemies around rather than doing significant damage.
Conclusion
The Mercenaries set suffers unnecessarily from powers that could be reworked and updated to boost effectiveness. I am personally surprised that they haven’t had much work done with them except for a few minor improvements here and there that helped slightly, but never addressed a problem. Please consider reworking the powers developers and establish an apparent direction you want to go with them. Boost their damage to a Single Target or widen their damage potential to multiple targets. The set is lacking in effectiveness when compared to most sets for the reasons listed above. Even in the ideal world of everything working perfectly with Mercenaries, there is far too much of a need to micromanage positioning of pets to utilize their available powers to their fullest extent to match other sets when compared to other sets which require little or no management to significantly outperform.
That is a very detailed analysis. I agree with your conclution as well.
However the devs are quite resistant to looking at any MM set. Even so PM this to as many as you can find, maybe they will even respond this time.
You skipped over Serum when you were comparing sets. Look at the usefullness of Serum compared to things like Hell On Earth and Gang War and ask "What do those sets sacrifice to get that power?" And those powers take the recharge intensive pet uinques which gives those sets even more defense and Res to all their pets all the time.
Captain Den'Rath 53* Merk/Traps MM, Rivona 50Energy Blast/Time Cor,Victoria Von Heilwig 53* Dual Pistols/Traps Cor, Crab Spider Webguard 53* SOA, Accela 53* Bot/FF MM,Valkyrie's Executor 53* Broadsword/Shield Def Scrap. On FREEDOM! @Knight Of Bronze
"Hypocrisy, the human inherent." "Let not this work be wasted, apply yourself always."
Arguably, Brawl should either be removed, or disabled, on every single MM Pet of any variety, without exception. That alone would go a long way to fixing all kinds of AI problems.
Medic should have the full suite of Medicine Pool powers (Aid Other, Stimulant, Aid Self, Resucitate (Merc pets only)) ... or none at all. Nemesis Surgeons do an Aid Other+Stimulant in a single click. Why can't Merc Medics?
Medic's Frag Grenade should be changed to an AoE Web Grenade. Supplement this with additional "grenades" such as Flash Bang (port over Trick Arrow: Flash Arrow) and Tear Gas (port over Trick Arrow: Poison Gas Arrow) and simply use the Grenade animation for them.
Agree that Soldiers should have a 15 (not 5!) degree arc on their Tier 3 attack.
Spec Ops ought to be given a Snipe attack which does extra damage from Stealth.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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Well, I really just didn't want to focus much on Serum considering how many topics have centered around this. The focus on the analysis was more on the pets themselves, not so much the mastermind. I will agree that in the big picture, Serum is lacking, but I have found that Serum is a good choice for a Mastermind with healing powers. I have had my Commando tank for me before with Serum as I pumped him full of pain domination, but I do think that there are far better, what I call "Unique 18's" than this one here, not to say it doesn't have its uses.
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Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
That is a very detailed analysis. I agree with your conclution as well.
However the devs are quite resistant to looking at any MM set. Even so PM this to as many as you can find, maybe they will even respond this time. You skipped over Serum when you were comparing sets. Look at the usefullness of Serum compared to things like Hell On Earth and Gang War and ask "What do those sets sacrifice to get that power?" And those powers take the recharge intensive pet uinques which gives those sets even more defense and Res to all their pets all the time. |
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I don't think removing Brawl would help at all. Phantasm from Illusion Control doesn't even have Brawl and he still keeps going into melee range after a blast or two. This is more currently an overall pet AI problem rather than just Brawl.|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
Arguably, Brawl should either be removed, or disabled, on every single MM Pet of any variety, without exception. That alone would go a long way to fixing all kinds of AI problems.
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Originally Posted by Redlynne
Spec Ops ought to be given a Snipe attack which does extra damage from Stealth.
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Member of Paragon/Rogue Knights
Arc: 60092 - Supa Rumble in the Park
"Keep living the dream, and never let any jerk tell you what to do."
-- High-Roller
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Originally Posted by Redlynne
Arguably, Brawl should either be removed, or disabled, on every single MM Pet of any variety, without exception. That alone would go a long way to fixing all kinds of AI problems.
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Originally Posted by Ideon
I don't think removing Brawl would help at all. Phantasm from Illusion Control doesn't even have Brawl and he still keeps going into melee range after a blast or two. This is more currently an overall pet AI problem rather than just Brawl.
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Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
Look at the usefullness of Serum compared to things like Hell On Earth and Gang War and ask "What do those sets sacrifice to get that power?"
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Just an FYI, that Speed debuff for the Spec Ops has been removed for sometime now, if you are still experiencing it, you need to bug or petition it. They also no longer toggle and detoggle it, that was a pretty annoying thing between them and the Jounin that was going on, once you enhance them with the Stealth they keep it on and it doesn't come with any debuffs.
As much as things get looked at in the game that are Overpowered (i.e. The old PSW for doms, Blessing of the Zyphers set bonuses, Shield Charge, Fury, etc) I wish they would look at some of the underperforming sets, Mercs has been underperforming for a while compared to other sets and it dissapoints me too because they have some great potential.
But to say Devs don't look at MMs would be a lie, they did change stealth for Mercs and Ninjas, They took away the Bow and Arrows for the Ninjas, and they tryed to make AI changes with the Medic, I hope that love is soon to be shown to the Spec Ops, I mean even at a minimum working on their controls, as far as better duration and lower recharge times would make the whole set a lot better.
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-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
Hopefully the time invested into this post will draw some dev attention but...these days the dev tracker is vacant of all but publicity announcements and farewells so. Bleh.
Did you PM this to the two new powers guys? Synapse & Black Scorpion I think...
As far as your analysis goes, I think you're on the right track with the whole "vision" of the original set vs. how it actually plays out. It "plays out" very poorly compared to the other sets, but I can definitely see some neat scenarios as to how well it "could have" worked in a world where we actually got to pick the individual powers the pets were using. HAH.
I wonder if the angle on full auto was just the case of someone forgetting a digit (it has happened here before....) and no one caring enough about MMs to compare the two sets and fix it?
I won't post suggestions here, because the devs haven't even acknowledged it as a problem and, when they do, they'll probably do their own thing... but I think i've posted some in the main thread. Anyhow, best of luck & thanks for taking the time to post this!
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Call me overly cynical, but I really don't think they are gonna devote a lot of time into something that can't be put into a press release from now on...
Rebalancing the MM pet AI and the Mercs powersets, as much as I want that, is a huge project and probably isn't something they consider a good ROI.
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I don't really expect any AI changes. I think the AI is just fine personally, its just that since the AI is the way it is, it can't be judicial with usage of powers which makes the set more complicated to perform well with than it needs to be.|
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
Call me overly cynical, but I really don't think they are gonna devote a lot of time into something that can't be put into a press release from now on...
Rebalancing the MM pet AI and the Mercs powersets, as much as I want that, is a huge project and probably isn't something they consider a good ROI. |
For instance, look at any of the other pets with Mezzes (excluding the Lich because I've never played [nor want to play] a Necromancy Mastermind). Pets with controls have them back up on a decent basis. I have seen my Demon Prince use his AoE sleep and his ST Hold far more effectively because of decent recharge and the way his AI is set up. It is far easier to use AoE control powers when he is a melee oriented pet.
I am not arguing for a change of AI, but I do think that AI limitations should be considered when making a power selection decision. With a power like X that has a recharge of Y and a range of Z, how often will the AI actually be able to use this power effectively and how much effort will it take for the player to be able to micromanage its proper usage?
I think people get mad at Merks because they really want to play the soldiers theme out, but the set doesn't deliver on their power and effectiveness expectations. However, the set has some advantages that the others really don't offer.
1) - The def debuffs on your soldiers's attacks cause enemies to aggro to them overwhelmingly. It's very rare for a mob to spend anytime at all attacking my character, even if she joins in and attacks. (My ninja MM on the other hand, almost always has a stray minion or two attacking her.)
2) - Your opponent is massively def debuffed, so you hardly ever miss.
edit:add:
Personally I really hate hosping, so #1 is a huge plus, because if the battle starts to go badly I can just retreat and leave my poor minions to die while I casually walk back to the elevators.
3) - About half the time, the def debuffs trigger an AV's retreat instinct, obviating the need to pop purples or even heal my soldiers during the battle because the AV won't fight back anyway.
Dear Developers, What is Your Vision of Mercenaries?
Summary: Devs, what do/did you intend the Mercenaries sets unique appeal to be? Mass controls, heals, and mez protection balanced by loads of continuous lethal damage looks good on paper, but they are Out-gunned, out-controlled, and out-healed by every other set. The only unique thing about them is the fact they are soldiers-of-fortune.
Argument: Soldiers need to be re-examined for balancing issues on the basis that the AI is not intuitive enough to use the powers they have available to their full potential. Even though most ATs have a powerset lacking in power so to speak, they do not share the same problem that mercenaries do, player intelligence VS. AI.
Personal Recommendations:
Soldiers
Rebalance Auto Fire
Medic
Improve, Change, or Remove Stimulant: AI limitations make it to where as of now, its only purpose is to reinforce the idea that he has a Healing Scanner. It is not viable to incorporate it into balancing because of the very simplistic implementation of the power itself.
Change Medics Frag Grenade
The medic does not to significant damage with his frag grenade. It is more like a soft-control power than anything.
Spec-Ops
Improve a Spec-Ops Overall Control and Debuff Effectiveness
Spec-Ops are severely lacking in their function due to AI limitations and long recharges. To fully utilize their control functions, you literally have to constantly micromanage them to make sure they are using their controls on targets and monitor recharges. While possible, compared to other pet types, who would want to do this?
Make Stealth Have a Point or Remove it
There is no point for Spec-Ops to have stealth aside from the fact that they are stealthy.
Commando
Modify Power Choices
Mastermind Powers
These arent nearly as important as the pets powers, but I believe these should be looked over as well in regards to M30 Grenade and Serum.
M30 Grenade is a good AoE to have and the Mastermind can use it judicially to boost combat effectiveness. But there already are several grenades being tossed around already which would lead me to think that a Heavy Burst power like the Arachnos Soldiers have would be more beneficial to doing damage. I believe many Masterminds would share the same sentiments.
Serum is also a good power in my opinion, but the duration is far too short for its recharge. Boost the duration to two minutes or reduce the recharge considerably. But since Serum isnt very popular, I am sure people will suggest changing the power to something different altogether.