City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Why do I dislike Masterminds more and more?

Arbegla

By Arbegla,
Posted on: 2010-12-19 13:12 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by WoefulKnight View Post
+ Cons were only better for inf and XPs. Drops are based on rank (Minion, LT, Boss, EB, AV) no matter what level they are. I don't think there ever was a time where greater Con meant greater drops.
Statesman's "Risk vs. Rewards" talk was probably before there were drops (other than enhancements and inspirations), and thus probably completely irrelevant to the modern game anyway.

 

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Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon View Post
Well, I would think the zombies are more survivable, since they have resistances, and after 32 they supposedly have a life drain power. Of course, if they are dying before they can get off the life drain, it can't really help. And genins have innate Defense. The question is, is the Defense stronger than the Resistance, which against the kind of damage zombies are designed to be strong against it really isn't.

Again, though, if you're trying to keep your Tier 1s out of melee because they are getting slaughtered, and they're the Tier 1s in a melee set, you're not getting anywhere. Bots and Thugs the Tier 1s are not melee. Necro and Ninjas they are. Maybe they throw a shuriken or two, but if you're holding your Genin out of melee range, you aren't making use of them except as cannon fodder anyway.
Genin's innate defense is utterly useless. It's only 7% something at lvl 50.

Zombie, while having some resistance, they lack the most important one, LETHAL! Longbows or any gun-related just melt through them like butter. Grave Knight actually has no Lethal and Smashing resistance. Their form of "resistance" is by debuffing with tohit debuff. It really only works against single target but if it's an AV, I rather have my pets stay far so they don't die instantly.

Genins range attack is not bad at all. They have 3 range attacks and 3 melee attacks. In a tough fight, they will contribute more by not dying so often at melee range.

The melee pets are not even good cannon fodders because cannon fodders actually take damage for the team. They die by aoe damage that wasn't even targeting them.

I just think melee pets in general need some serious AoE protection or else it's just too frustrating to play them at high level.

What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

 

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Originally Posted by Dispari View Post

As far as MMs in CoH go, to stay on topic... I feel that MMs start high but cap lower. They're fairly powerful early on, and at 50 compared to regular builds they're still pretty good. But once you factor in IOs they just become average, since IOs don't do as much for them. I haven't tried any of the new TFs with my MMs, and I'd hate to do the Battle Maiden fight, but for most content I seem to do fine just strolling along with my Necro. The pets die occasionally, but part of the fun of Necro is making ghosts out of your minions. Demons, Thugs, and Bots are even more durable than zombies, so they're even less of a hassle.

Mercs and Ninjas though I can't say many good things about.
Exactly. MMs start out very strong because the advantage of MM is:

1. Spend less endurance on your own (although Stamina is now available early on for other ATs)

2. Pets fight for you. They deal decent damage at lower level and they don't normally die in one hit.


At high level when other ATs start putting set defenses and now Alpha, the advantage of being MM seems to vanish and MMs still suffer from mobility issue (pets get stuck, pets are slower to react, pets aggro when the team tries to run/fly to different spots, etc).

Robot/Thug and maybe Demon have an easier time but Necro/Ninja are just lacking. Ninja is supposed to do the best damage but the Risk VS Reward ratio is way out of line. Being melee has way higher Risk and the Reward is only a tiny bit higher DPS. This Risk and Reward ratio isn't that bad at low levels because things can't just one-shot your pets unless you do it at +4 level and enemies are not as tough.

What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

 

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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper View Post
Though I must say, the Alpha slot has helped me so much with my pets' lifespans. I'm currently using Nerve Radial Boost for +20% def slotting. Between defense powers (such as Maneuvers, Steamy Mist, Shadow Fall, Force Field Generator, Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, Dispersion Bubble), the Pet and RIP set uniques, and the pets themselves (Enforcers and Protector Bots), and Nerve Radial Boost, henchmen can get pretty tough. After slotting NRB, my Thugs jumped up past the soft-cap to about 54% at rest. The AVs on the Tin/Apex TFs now have a 10.5% chance to hit my Bruiser, an 11.25% chance to hit my Enforcers, and a 13.5% chance to hit my Punks and Arsonist. The Minions on those TFs range from 9% chance to hit my T1 henchmen to a 7% chance for my T3.
The only Thug I've made is a lvl 37 Thug/Trap but he is stuck on Triumph server when I joined that Trapster Superteam. If I remember correctly, Thug/Trap was a beast (in regular content) and mainly because Enforcers are just so awesome. And it is much easier to babysit one boss melee pet than three super-squishy melee pets like Zombie/Genin.

I guess I am just frustrated because I like Necro/Ninja and Merc. The melee pets just don't have enough defense/resistance to stay at melee. The Risk of going in is way higher than the Reward. My DPS is way less when I have to resummon and upgrade and eventually run out of endurance.

Merc has less of survival issue but they have damage issue. I have two procs (AH and Lady) in both Soldier and Spec-Ops but the damage is still kinda low and Merc in general have less resistance than Robot, less AoE (because Merc's aoe are mostly narrow cones and Spec-Ops have no AoE at all), less Defense (no Force Field Shields) and pathetic heal from Medic (VS Protector Robot). The only thing Spec-Ops have is two very-long-recharge control powers and one melee stun which they rarely use and a Stealth power that servers Zero purpose except for Theme.


Let's just say that Merc with Procs deal "decent" damage. Merc without Procs deal very "below-average" damage and quite frankly, I don't think Primary performances should be balanced with sets in mind. Merc should deal "decent" damage without procs.

What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

 

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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
Oh, incidentally: Poison sucks. Poison is a horrible set, and there's no excuse for its existence. None whatsoever.

Look at Poison. Look closely at its powers. Poison is Radiation Emission changed to single target. It has slightly higher numbers in some places and a few unique effects to "compensate", but Masterminds would be much better off just having Radiation Emission to start with than being saddled with the poor cousin substitute that is Poison.

They also should have a proper heal radius on Twilight's Grasp, but i19 is really starting to show me that the Devs really don't care one whit about making Masterminds an actual viable AT for team or high-level play. They just don't care enough to bother.

Sets added to Masterminds after their initial launch have been added more-or-less intact straight as other ATs get them. There was a fear in their initial design that Masterminds would be too powerful, thus the reduced effects built in with the Poisons powerset and in Dark Miasma (Masterminds are also the only Dark Miasma set that don't get a permanent Fluffy.) I don't think these fears came to be justified, however, but we're still stuck with the gimped versions of powers we got out of the box, likely largely due to the short-sighted "Cottage Rule" that seems to be Bible around here.

I think the number of MM players who would really mind that their Poison powerset was changed to Radiation Emission would be countable on one hand.
On poison:

I agree for the most part, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it sucks. There is certainly room for improvement. Some people to this day tout it as "a single-target monster". Guess what, other sets are almost as good, if not as good, at single targets and infinitely better against groups. And people seem to ignore the fact that AVs resists debuffs by 85%. Sure, I can de-buff the heck out of bosses, but in this day and age of IOs, who has trouble with bosses?

What I'd like to see added to poison is a second unresistable de-buff value in weaken and envenom. Then maybe it could live up to it's ostensible reputation as a single-target specialist.

Oh, and I'd also like poison trap to not be a steaming pile.

On dark:

I agree that the heal radius on Twilight Grasp is ridiculous. It already heals for significantly less than the other ATs' versions, and due to the pseudo-pet implementation of the heal, it can be incredibly hard to use effectively with melee oriented pets which tend to be on the move a lot.

 

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Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
I quit about the time they put a cap on how many pets you could have and changed the heal powers.

You used to be able to upkeep around 15-20 pets if you were good, but it took constant work and a steady supply of bodies. It was also only do-able thanks to the minion heal powers. One patch put a cap on pets at 10, and reduced the heal powers to about 1/4 effectiveness (literally speaking; one had its duration halved and recharge doubled). Suddenly I was working several times as hard to keep around half as many pets, and it had gone from fun to a chore.
Technically, the maximum number of minions is based on your Death Magic, but yeah, it's kinda hard to get above 16 (which caps you at 10 minions) and even if you reach 20 Death Magic, you're still capped at 12. They're still useful as body blockers and for energy from Soul Reaping, though. Also, using Jagged Bones on a minion doubles its lifespan (when the minion dies, it turns into a Jagged Horror minion), or using Animate Shambling Horror in the first place (when the Shambling Horror minion dies, it turns into a Jagged Horror minion).

Of course, any Minion Master in GW worth their salt will have higher than 8 Death Magic (6 minions), which is the most you really get in CoH, not counting Gang War's Posse or Hell on Earth's Living Hellfire. Soul Extraction can get you up to 8 henchmen, too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
As far as MMs in CoH go, to stay on topic... I feel that MMs start high but cap lower. They're fairly powerful early on, and at 50 compared to regular builds they're still pretty good. But once you factor in IOs they just become average, since IOs don't do as much for them. I haven't tried any of the new TFs with my MMs, and I'd hate to do the Battle Maiden fight, but for most content I seem to do fine just strolling along with my Necro. The pets die occasionally, but part of the fun of Necro is making ghosts out of your minions. Demons, Thugs, and Bots are even more durable than zombies, so they're even less of a hassle.

Mercs and Ninjas though I can't say many good things about.
As mentioned earlier, I think it really is a matter of the primary. Mercenaries, Necromancy, and Ninjas are underperforming when compared to Thugs, Robotics, and Demon Summoning. My Thugs/Dark didn't have any special problem with the Battle Maiden fight, or any of the lv50 TFs. Stealthing a TF with a MM is frustrating since I need to release my pets to do any stealth work, but the actual fighting isn't so bad. The last LRSF I ran, I barely even lost a pet against the Freedom Phalanx, much less anyone dying on the team (unfortunately, though we were trying for a Master run, someone had previously died against the Vindicators).

Outside TFs, I normally run x8 difficulty while solo. While I attribute that partially to my secondary (two AoE control powers, plenty of -tohit and -dmg, and a pet with more of the same) and the AoE immob from my PPP, having a powerful MM primary certainly doesn't hurt.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

 

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Not directed at anyone in particular. Outside of theme, why play Poison when you can play Traps? Serious question.

 

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Originally Posted by Emberly View Post
Not directed at anyone in particular. Outside of theme, why play Poison when you can play Traps? Serious question.
Envenom's -Heal, and Weaken's -Special.


Edit: Also, making your teammates puke with Elixir of Life.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

 

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Originally Posted by Emberly View Post
Not directed at anyone in particular. Outside of theme, why play Poison when you can play Traps? Serious question.
There really isn't much of a reason outside of theme. The -heal and -special that Whisper mentions really don't amount to much in any fight that it might matter in, thanks to the 85% resistance of AV/Heros. I've personally never come up with a character concept that included /traps that could keep me interested, and concept is important to me. For anybody that doesn't care about concept, I would never in a million years recommend /poison over /traps. There really is no comparison.

Edit:

I did think of one thing aside from concept:

Seeing Statesman (full hero) bent over, clutching his stomach, and spewing pea soup thanks to noxious gas. And before anybody says "Wait a minute, that sounds pretty damned powerful to me!", it is short lived, and doesn't happen often enough to make a big difference. Plus NG is impossible to make permanent.

 

Posted

The -heal I can see being useful in the ITF if you had a weak team, but the -special, I dunno? The puking teammates things holds a lotta weight

I am sure I have made States puke in the LRSF with poison trap from Traps.

The traps concept thing is totally valid, and I am guilty of shoving square pegs into round holes to take powersets that otherwise don't fit the concept. I think I will roll up a poison MM again, see how it goes. I've tried bots/poison and mercs/poison and deleted both before 20.

 

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Does PvP count as a reason?

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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU View Post
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

 

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Originally Posted by Emberly View Post
I am sure I have made States puke in the LRSF with poison trap from Traps.
Well, there you go. Poison doesn't even have that much going for it.

Don't get me wrong, Thugzilla is probably my favorite and most played toon, but it is purely because thugs are incredibly fun (and effective), and he is one of my better creations concept-wise. /poison is an under-performer, despite the few delusional people that continue to espouse it as the single-target king.

 

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Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
Does PvP count as a reason?
lolpvp

j/k

I'm sure it counts for people that care about PvP, but for those like me that have spent maybe 30 minutes in PvP zones since the implementation of it, no.

 

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Originally Posted by Dispari View Post
Does PvP count as a reason?
That depends. What is this "PVP" of which you speak? I have never encountered it before. :P

 

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Although I have more MM's I mostly play my main Necro/Dark/Soul.

After over 4.5 years she is incredible IO-ed out. Still I noticed, especially in the Apex, that tactic and strategy is needed to do real damage.

Send in T1 pets and they will be killed... but not before the DoT effect has started.
Use the time to hold/debuff the enemy with your secondary
Drag a ghost from one of the bodies
Resummon all and kill off

Since she is incarnate END is no problem anymore (Cardiac END/RESS). Although the new tf's are capable of still draining me of END due to using so much. I have and use personal attacks too... and I run fitness: Tough too. But with enough END resummoning is no problem at all.

Some pointers...
- The resummon time of Grave Knights is really really fast. And at times like with Battle Maiden I only summon them.
- Stay close to your pets if you can. Supremacy is a powerful tool. That is also the reason I upped my HP, my REGEN and my RESS so much. Even though I am not a real Tankermind.
- Don't underestimate your secondary. At times I play more like a Corr with some added help then like a MM. And I hardly use Bodyguard mode at all.

Still... Every MM plays a bit different. And none are mindless hacking. Playing an MM holds some feeling with it, and I would never recommend one for a starting player.

- The Italian Job: The Godfather Returns #1151
Beginner - Encounter a renewed age for the Mook and the Family when Emile Marcone escapes from the Zig!
- Along Came a... Bug!? #528482
Average - A new race of aliens arrives on Earth. And Vanguard has you investigate them!
- The Court of the Blood Countess: The Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
Advanced - Go back in time and witness the birth of a vampire. Follow her to key moments in her life in order to stop her! A story of intrigue, drama and horror! Blood & Violence... not recommend to solo!

 

Posted

Haven't read through the comments, but the OP makes a good point. MMs definitely need a big overhaul. The problems they present are many, but they badly need it. Some things that stand out as being off about MMs:

Completely unpredictable and inconsistent "AI"

IOs do almost nothing for a MMs entire primary

Weird power choices. Assault bot lays down a burn patch and then immediately follows it up with a massive AoE KB power (as do the drones). This knocks your targets right out of the flames. Mercs do this a lot also. It seems very counter intuitive. Spec Ops control powers take so long to recharge you might see them once or twice per mission and their mag and duration are pathetic.

Removing recharge enhancement did nothing appreciable to "fix" the AI as claimed and only resulted in a massive nerf not only to MMs, but every pet in the game.

Wildly varying degrees of power between powersets. Thugs/Traps. Walking ball of awesomesauce. Mercs/FF. ...yeah. Some can effortlessly solo anything. Some can't even get out the front door.

Level variation between MM and Henchmen makes Henchmen useless on the new Incarnate content. Minions are facing off against +6 EBs and AVs. Even normal mobs 1-shot them. Special battles like Battle Maiden require precise control in an open battlefield. MMs are a burden to a team running this content. Their debuffs are resisted to the point of being useless against the major targets and their minions can't do any damage or take any damage to/from anything. The purple patch makes Henchmen utterly useless in the new TFs.

Other than a complete overhaul of the pet AI, a one-by-one analysis of every MM primary and the powers the henchmen all use, and bringing back the ability to give them recharge I can really only think of two things to really give MMs the edge they apparently need to be useful in this new end-game stuff.

Let henchmen inherent IO set bonuses from the Mastermind and make it so the henchmen all spawn at the same level as the MM.

 

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Originally Posted by Dark_Impact View Post
There really isn't much of a reason outside of theme. The -heal and -special that Whisper mentions really don't amount to much in any fight that it might matter in, thanks to the 85% resistance of AV/Heros. I've personally never come up with a character concept that included /traps that could keep me interested, and concept is important to me. For anybody that doesn't care about concept, I would never in a million years recommend /poison over /traps. There really is no comparison.

Edit:

I did think of one thing aside from concept:

Seeing Statesman (full hero) bent over, clutching his stomach, and spewing pea soup thanks to noxious gas. And before anybody says "Wait a minute, that sounds pretty damned powerful to me!", it is short lived, and doesn't happen often enough to make a big difference. Plus NG is impossible to make permanent.
Poison trap from /traps does the same thing to poor statesmen, and its actually permable.

 

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I was away for a few days on vacation and I've been thinking...


Many patron/epic powers are for Master's own attacks. While using own attacks is nice, I believe most MMs users would rather have powers that benefit their pets.

Knockout Blow from Mako set is interesting but wouldn't it be better if MM gets a power that only buffs the pet(s) for a duration to make pets even stronger? We already have powers that can only be put on pets like Detonation from Trap. I would love it if epic/patron or even alpha powers in the future can buff Pet's AoE defense for a while. There can be different versions of this pet buffs depending on which tree you choose like AoE defense, more pet damage (even adding proc damage to pets), and more resistance.

My Merc/Storm took Thunderstrike thinking it's cool but I honestly rarely use it. The damage is not that good and if I really want damage, I think the attack powers from Primary set is good enough.

I just think MMs should have more powers buffing their pets than having more personal attacks. I can see the benefit of having more personal attacks (in case your tier 1 and 2 pets just die so often) but if I choose to play MM, I want to turn my pets into my serious weapons/meatshield. I feel the harder the content, the more I need to attack on my own because genins/zombies just can't take any hit from +6.

What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

 

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Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon View Post
Maybe they throw a shuriken or two, but if you're holding your Genin out of melee range, you aren't making use of them except as cannon fodder anyway.
The shurikens are actually quite good. In fact, it can be more important to keep the genin out of melee for added AOE, than to allow them into melee. There isn't that much difference in their attacks anymore, the way there used to be.

The problem, of course, is they now want to run into melee like everything else. I know a lot of people complain about that with the ranged pets, but for me, it made playing melee pets even more problematic. I had no problem using goto commands to put them into melee. I didn't gain anything (as some melee pets users surmise), I just lost more control.

That's most of the issue here: control. Even with a good set of binds, the best we can do is kinda nudge them in a certain fashion. Most of the pets have capabilities already, they just don't know how to use them. A set like Ninjas has quite a few control options, but you can never be certain when they will be used (and in some cases, they're just buggy). That's a real problem for a set like Ninjas, and often overlooked. Their defense isn't made to be the be all, end all......it's made to complement their soft controls. The problem is that the AI is very poor at doing that. The user has some ability, but not enough, and most users forfeit what control they do have.

 

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Originally Posted by brophog02 View Post

That's most of the issue here: control. Even with a good set of binds, the best we can do is kinda nudge them in a certain fashion. Most of the pets have capabilities already, they just don't know how to use them. A set like Ninjas has quite a few control options, but you can never be certain when they will be used (and in some cases, they're just buggy). That's a real problem for a set like Ninjas, and often overlooked. Their defense isn't made to be the be all, end all......it's made to complement their soft controls. The problem is that the AI is very poor at doing that. The user has some ability, but not enough, and most users forfeit what control they do have.

This is the exact issue with Merc VS Robot. Merc's advantage is having more controls and Robot's advantage is having more resistance and defense and better healing. The problem with Merc's controls is that it is hard to "control" when they use them. Two aoe controls are on very long recharge (which you can't reduce through sets) and there are times when you try to kill the last boss and BANG, Spec-ops use two aoe controls right before the boss dies and guess what? Your spec-ops have no aoe controls for the next spawn! At least with defense, it's always there. Spec-Ops also no longer cycle Riflebutt much (the melee stun). I don't know what they've done to their AI. They seldom use riflebutt when the mobs get closer. They should have just changed it to Bean Bag stun.

I think it's just a Design Flaw but since the dev and most people think Masterminds are "overpowered", MM primaries are rarely being looked at. Robot and Thug design are great but other primaries have some serious flaws. Demon is pretty good too. I mean every since they introduced sets, the game shows Oni can only take Knockback set but he has zero knockback powers!!! That's the amount of attention MM pets are getting, which is little. Pets are MM's main weapons and if Oni is not getting correct sets, that means the master is not getting the correct sets.

What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

 

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Originally Posted by brophog02 View Post
The shurikens are actually quite good. In fact, it can be more important to keep the genin out of melee for added AOE, than to allow them into melee.
Exploding Shuriken has activation priority for Genin. This means that even if they are in Melee range, they will use their AoE attack whenever it is available.

You can test this on the targeting dummies in RWZ and see that they will chain melee attacks then toss an exploding Shuriken every 18 sedonds or so.