Consolidated Mastermind Issues and Problems thread

This is going to require the help of the Mastermind players who post here. I haven't played every MM combo out there nor am I aware of every issue that plagues this beleaguered yet still awesome AT.

So this first post is going to be a call to the community.

Please post any issues that fit the categories that I will outline below. Feel free to suggest more categories as well.

• I will update the main post periodically to add as much as I can to the list.
• Feel free to make formatting suggestions for my post. This is my first time doing this, so I'm open to suggestions.


I'd like to keep the arguing and debate to a minimum. While I don't want to discourage discussion, I also don't want the thread to go down in a flame war or get mired down in BS.

So without further ado...

Mastermind Consolidated Issues and Problems

**Issues that have been changed to red text have been solved or otherwise fixed.**

General Archetype Issues


General Archetype Balance Issues:


• An also overall issue is with Melee Pets having the same, if not arguably less, survivability as Ranged Pets. This makes it extremely difficult for Mastermind's to contribute in increasingly difficult "Incarnate" content, where your pets are -3(4), -4(5), or -5(6) levels to the enemy, and getting instant-killed when an AoE is fired off. -Reppu *This issue has been solved. MM Henchmen now accept the level shifts of the owner.

• Even when level shifted, Mastermind Henchmen are obliterated by the level 54+ incarnate content. This severely reduces the effectiveness of the Mastermind primary in any Incarnate level situation. -Neogumbercules *See above

• The removal of allowing recharge to affect henchmen in any way severely reduced their effectiveness in all situations and has not seemingly solved any of the AI problems it was supposed to fix. It has also had the effect of making the entire Spiritual Alpha tree almost useless for a Mastermind -Neogumbercules

General Archetype Bugs and Glitches:

• Damage resist values in the Henchmen's "real numbers" window are incorrectly displayed due to a bug that counts damage resist and damage bonus as the same value -Multiple users

• Summoning any pet like Dark Servant or FFG after re-summoning a defeated and upgraded henchmen will automatically apply both pet upgrades to the fresh Henchmen. -Multiple users.

• On zoning, there remains a chance that your henchmen will not respond to /pet commands (e.g. this includes /petcomall dismiss) and the only solution is to rezone, or use /releasepets and resummon -Master Zaprobo

• I've read that one reason ranged pets will close into melee is because they run out of ranged attacks, so the AI tells them to run into melee. Since some ranged pets don't have access to melee attacks, recharge values should be adjusted accordingly so that ranged based pets will always have something ready to use to help prevent this AI bug. -Neogumbercules

• Some proc effects are listed incorrectly as Pet Healing Channel output, rather than as a more general Pet Channel. Please resolve. -Master Zaprobo

• Some sets can slot the recharge intensive auras and some can't. -ChaosExMachina

• Currently, any "petsay <emote x>" issued in a bind will fail to parse correctly, and just output as speech by the henchmen. Macros are currently fine. -Master Zaprobo

General Archetype Henchmen AI Issues:

• There's a pretty severe AI issue that's cropped up recently. It was reported in This Thread but basically MM pets will charge some of the AVs in incarnate trials and some missions. Specifically they will run back and forth as if they can't decide if they want to charge the AV, then eventually they will charge. It's confirmed for Lambda, BAF, and the final mission of the Tin Mage Task Force. In my experience setting them to passive will keep them in line, but others have reported that even that didn't work. -Zaloopa

• I'm unsure if this is Necromancy-specific, but the first and second pets (Zombies, Grave Knights) are primarily Melee, and there are several enemies in the game which seem to glitch their behavior. Pop-up turrets, vault doors, the computer in the ITF.. just off the top of my head. They can't figure out how to get close enough to it to melee, so they just stand there when ordered to attack it and use what attacks they can. -Virusman


• Henchmen will often run into melee range for no reason. Even if no melee attack is present, or the henchmen is considered a ranged critter, such as the Protector Bot. -Neogumbercules

• Certain static AoE damage patches will cause henchman AI to go crazy and run randomly across the map. When this happens they will fail to respond to any command for a short period (except /petcomall passive stay). This is most apparent with the damage patch left by dying Rikti Monkeys. Master Zaprobo

• Henchmen flee in terror from a friendly burning Oil Slick Arrow. -Neogumbercules

• Pet AI has rendered ranged pets completely pants-on-head retarded. -Nalrok Athzim

• Masterminds will cause the Avoid flag to permanently hit enemies. Multiple videos have proven this. The best example was described by Techbot Alpha; a situation where he attacked a melee EB once and waited for 20 minutes as it ran around the map in fear. -Nalrok Athzim

• If you take damage equal or greater than your current health, and you're not at full health, the damage doesn't have the chance to be split between your minions before you die. -Virusman
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Primary Specific Issues and Problems

Beast Mastery -

Beast Mastery Balance Issues:

• Tier 1 Wolves + Alpha Wolf: Need an additional low-cooldown attack so they do not have a 33% 'idle period' time.
Tier 2 Lionesses: Need an additional low-cooldown attack so they do not have a 33% 'idle period' time.
Tier 3 Dire Wolf: Needs an additional low-cooldown attack (or two) so it does not have a 33% 'idle period' time. -Reppu

• Fortify Pack: Change the +Regen to +Max HP, perhaps 10% base +1% per stack, to a maximum of un-enhanced +20% Max HP for it's duration. A superior metric than +Regen on low-HP pets. -Reppu

Beast Mastery Bugs and Glitches:

• Lioness's Lion's Roar don't stack with each other. -Everfree_Fire (Not sure if this was for balance or a bug, so I'll put it here for now.

Beast Mastery Henchmen AI Issues:

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Demon Summoning -


Demon Summoning Balance Issues:


• Demon endurance issues are absurd. -Nalrok Athzim

• None of Demon Prince's power have a recharge lower than 8 seconds, leaving him idling for a more than a few seconds even with both power upgrades. Reducing recharge time of at least Ice Blast will help him to have a smoother attack chain. -AzureHaze

Demon Summoning Bugs and Glitches:

• Demon Prince - Frozen Aura. This power is a PBAoE damaging attack with a sleep side effect. It does not accept Pet Damage sets despite the fact that it is a pet damage power. It should accept Pet Damage sets as well as Sleep sets. -StratoNexus

Demon Summoning Henchmen AI Issues:

• Sometimes the second tier pets will delay responding to commands such as follow/passive -Mega Jaime

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Mercenaries -


Mercenaries Balance Issues:

• Spec Ops control abilities are on extremely long timers. Recent recharge changes make them extremely unpredictable, uncontrollable, and they are often used at the least opportune time. - Neogumbercules

• Spec Ops Stealth provides little to no benefit for them. -Neogumbercules

• Serum has a far too high recharge than it justifies. It's effects are far too small to be worth the power pick, especially compared against the other "special abilities" that the other primaries get, such as Gang War or Repair. -Neogumbercules

• The Commando does entirely too much knockback, detrimental to the already-thin cones of the rest of your henchmen. -Nalrok Athzim

• The summoning animation for Mercs is the longest summon animation in the game. -Nakrok Athzim

Mercenaries Bugs and Glitches:

•

Mercenaries Henchmen AI Issues:

• The Medic prefers melee range 100% of the time. He is the first to run in and the first to die. -Nalrok Athzim
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Necromancy -


Necromancy Balance Issues:

•

Necromancy Bugs and Glitches:

• In situations where there are lots, and lots of enemies around (Very noticeable in ITF), Soul Extraction will sometimes just flat out not work. -Dageoffant

• I've had situations where the Spirit raised with Soul Extraction will totally ignore orders for the first 30 seconds or so of being summoned. No idea what causes it. Seems to be random. -Dageoffant

• Soul Extraction: It can go off non-necromancy entities with absolutely no effect but still prompting its cooldown. Case in point; Oil Slick. I had set it on fire, and by misclicking (well mouse has been funky lately, the click on me targetting a Grave Knight did not go through) and firing off Soul Extraction while still having the (now dead) Oil Slick targeted. It's a minor bug no doubt (in 50 levels I just encountered it today through user error), but it shows a lack of polish. Thankfully the pets from Traps don't stick around after expiring. -Rikis

Necromancy Henchmen AI Issues:

• Grave Knights will occasionally go into phases where they will just stand in the back and spam Dark Blast/Gloom, and never use any of thier sword attacks. This seems to happen most often when they have Enchant Undead, but not Dark Empowerment. -Dageoffant

• Zombies will do the same, but with Projectile Vomit. Doesn't happen as often, though. -Dageoffant

• All pets seem to treat Life Drain as an attack, not as a heal. Meaning they often use it at full HP, making their self-heal all but irrelevant, and severely hurting their survivability, which is supposed to be one of Necro's strong points. -Dageoffant


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Ninjas -


Ninjas Balance Issues:

• Ninja Genin and Jounin are melee oriented pets with exceptionally worthless Defense values (7.5% and 12.5%, respectively) which CANNOT be improved by slotting of their respective powers. This makes them excessively squishy in melee combat, especially since they cannot partake of any of the Global Set Bonuses of their Mastermind. -Redlynne

Ninjas Bugs and Glitches:

• Oni accepts Knockback IO sets despite not having any Knockback abilities. He does not accept Hold sets or Immobilize sets, despite having both Hold and Immobilize abilities - Jibakao

• Caltrops and Rain of Fire should be able to last the entire length of the power duration as long as the pet survives, not just when an enemy dies.These powers can be wasted on a minion mob within a few seconds and causes a player to exit bodyguard mode to direct pets to attack the an enemy that will last the longest. -AzureHaze

Ninjas Henchmen AI Issues:

• All I can say is that ninjas are incredibly stupid, even for the current AI. -Nalrok Athzim
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Robotics -


Robotics Balance Issues:

• The animation times for Robotics are the longest of all pets. Full Auto Laser for Battle Bots takes a total of 6.33 seconds as well as flamethrower for Assault Bot which is also 6.33 seconds. Heavy Laser Burst is listed as 2 second activation time for Protector Bots, but 3.33 seconds for Battle Bots, especially in the early levels, matching the Battle Bot animation time with protector bots will help early level DPS. AzureHaze

• Robotics, balance issue: Protector Bots potentially stack up to mag 14 AoE stun: 2x photon grenade, 8x photon seekers. That's on top of having two single-target heals and granting extremely high +def(all) to every pet and to the mastermind. -InfamousBrad

Robotics Bugs and Glitches:

• A recent change to Burn inadvertently altered the Assault Bot Incendiary Swarm Missile burn patch. It now deals less damage and ticks much slower. -Neogumbercules

• sometimes summoning Dark Servant animation will get replaced with Robotic upgrade animation - EDIT: this actually may be a result of the upgrade bug -Scene EU

Robotics Henchmen AI Issues:

•
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Thugs -


Thugs Balance Issues:

•

Thugs Bugs and Glitches:

• Animations for the Enforcer's Uzi's are bugged like crazy. Almost every animation is broken. When the Enforcer lifts his left uzi and fires, the one he's not using shows muzzle flash. When he fires both at the same time, only one of them shows muzzle flash. When he raises one sideways, it only flashes twice. The animation team needs to check in to that. -Nalrok Athzim

Thugs Henchmen AI Issues:

• The Thugs Bruiser still favors Hurl over any other attack. He is so much more effective as a melee pet, and has much more effective attacks that he should use first. In fact he really doesn't need a ranged attack. -Dromio

• The Arsonist tends to run to point blank range to use his spit fire. I can't find any stats on this power, but if it was given a longer range and/or the Arsonist was set to use it at the edge of its range rather than at point blank it would do a lot for keeping the Arsonist alive. -Dromio


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Secondary Specific Issues and Problems

Dark Miasma -


Dark Miasma Balance Issues:

• Dark Servant has double the recharge of the Defender and Corrupter version of this power. This was due in part to the original designers seemingly being afraid of overpowering MMs (balance decisions to this point were made all over the place for MMs). With the upcoming change to Twilight Grasp to bring it in line with the other versions of this power, Dark Servant should get it's original recharge value for Masterminds. I think at this point it's exceedingly clear that Masterminds are far from being overpowered (especially in the end-game incarnate content) compared to what many other ATs/builds can accomplish, and should no longer be unfairly penalized with the long recharge on Dark Servant. -Neogumbercules

• Dark Servant should be able to accept Recharge Intensive set IOs. That is especially true for MMs because of the above issue. -Neogumbercules

Dark Miasma Bugs and Glitches:

• Casting Howling Twilight when having Seconadry Mutation running will often fire off the sound effect to Secondary Mutation. -Scene EU

• Dark Miasma (may be others but not sure): Summoning DS after a pet has died and is resummoned can fully upgrade all pets with both tier upgrades -Scene EU
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Force Field -

Force Field Balance Issues:

•

Force Field Bugs and Glitches:

•
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Pain Domination -

Pain Domination Balance Issues:

•

Pain Domination Bugs and Glitches:

•
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Poison -

Poison Balance Issues:

• -Poison trap for /Poison Masterminds has been voted the most useless power in the entire game. It takes five seconds to place and is interrupt able for four of those seconds. When it fires off it puts foes to sleep and drain's their endurance and holds them. Except the endurance drain is only a percentage chance and does not always hit and the drain itself is small. Likewise the hold chance is almost non-existent and in a packed group of sixteen on average no more than two mobs will be held. -CptAdder **This power is being buffed in I21. It will now be a much more reliable control power.

• The single-target debuffs have similar values to aoe debuffs in other sets, despite being far more limited in application. -Seldom* This is being addressed in I21. The ST debuffs in Poison are being made AoEs. The initial target will be debuffed fully. The foes affected by the AoE portion will also be debuffed, but only by half as much as the initial target.

• Noxious gas has a very long recharge and short duration, despite being a close-range pet-dependent aura at level 38. -Seldom

Poison Bugs and Glitches:

• Poison, bug: Noxious Gas doesn't display the Real Numbers values for the pseudo-pet it creates, making the Real Numbers info display for the power completely useless. -InfamousBrad

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Storm Summoning -

Storm Summoning Balance Issues:

•

Storm Summoning Bugs and Glitches:

•
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Thermal Radiation -

Thermal Radiation Balance Issues:

•

Thermal Radiation Bugs and Glitches:

•
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Traps -

Traps Balance Issues:

• (Detonator) Where to start? Ok, first off damage and accuracy enhancements in it do absolutely nothing. Secondly it behaves inconsistently between different sets. Near as I can tell (based on testing by myself and another forum poster) the power counts as being cast from your pet if you have non-human henchmen (meaning it uses their damage scale and level for damage) but is a fixed damage pseudo-pet if cast from a human-pet set (it might also be summoned at your level for human pets but I'd like more evidence on that before I could say and I don't have a human pet MM to test with). - Adeon Hawkwood

• Detonator: This power needs to be rebalanced with consideration given to the amount of endurance now needed to cast it. The Upgrade powers now cost a lot more endurance. This is in addition to its other issues. -Bronze Knight

Traps Bugs and Glitches:

• Acid Mortar has an undocumented "Avoid" effect that it applies to enemies. Whether this is a morale breaking event, or an actual avoid is unknown to me. In either case, enemies hit by the Acid Mortar will often flee all over the map. -Neogumbercules

• Mastermind Acid Mortar takes Targeted AoE Damage sets while the Defender/Corruptor version takes Ranged Damage sets (no clue which is considered "correct" but it's definitely an inconsistency) -Adeon Hawkwood

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Trick Arrow -

Trick Arrow Balance Issues:

•

Trick Arrow Bugs and Glitches:

• Pets treat your Oil Slick fire as an enemy effect, sending them fleeing in terror. -Rikis

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Ancillary, Patron and Regular Power Pool Issues and Problems

Power Pool -

Power Pool Balance Issues:

• Masterminds get extremely poor value from the Leadership Pool, when arguably they ought to be among the best. -Redlynne

Power Pool Bugs and Glitches:

•
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Patron Pool -

Patron Pool Balance Issues:

•

Patron Pool Bugs and Glitches:

•
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Ancillary Pool -

Ancillary Pool Balance Issues:

•

Ancillary Pool Bugs and Glitches:

• Field Mastery - Temporary Invulnerability
Description and right clicking the icon in the power bar correctly states that it only provides smashing and lethal resistance. Detailed info and the Enhancement screen say it provides resistance to ALL damage
"46.52% (30.00%) resistance to all damage on self"
"All damage resistance: BV: 30.00% V: 46.52%(55.1%)" -The Grim Heaper

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Enhancement and Invented Enhancement Issues and Problems


Enhancement and Invented Enhancement Balance Issues:

•

Enhancement and Invented Enhancement Bugs and Glitches:


• Despite many henchmen only taking Pet Sets, these enhancements will not always apply to all the powers an individual henchman has. This is most apparent with endurance issues - like with Protector Bots (post-32 upgrade) -Master Zaprobo

• Field Mastery - Energy Torrent (Allowed Enhancements Set Categories)
Energy torrent does not list any Endurance modification abilities, but takes end mod sets.
Energy torrent does, however, have a chance of knockdown (low mag knockback) in the power, but takes no knockback sets. -The Grim Heaper


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User Submitted Suggestions and Ideas

• The devs should re-evaluate the decision, and balance implications of, Mastermind Secondary powers requiring 50% more endurance than other ATs using the same powers. -Neogumbercules

• Ninja Jounin need to have their ranged attacks (Poison Dart and Caltrops) "disabled" while they are in Hidden status. As matters stand, without direct player intervention to position them exactly where they NEED to be, Jounin will ALWAYS attack from Hidden status using their Poison Dart ... the most pathetically worthless damaging power they have, WASTING their automatic Critical Hit from Hidden status. -Redlynne

• Masterminds ought to be at least on par with Controllers in terms of buff multipliers for Leadership Powers ... if not on par with Defenders. -Redlynne

• The Devs should consider making it possible for ALL Mastermind Pet powers to accept Recharge Intensive Pet Sets. -Redlynne

• Allow Ninja Genin to cast Grant Invisibility to Ninja Pets (and their Mastermind?) when upgraded with Kuji-in Zen (level 32 power). Even suppressed, this would add to their (pitiful) baseline Defense ... which they desperately need. -Redlynne

• Masterminds should also, for similar reasons, be THE "go to" archetype for Presence Pool effectiveness. Conceptually speaking, Masterminds ought to have increased effectiveness/strength with all Presence Pool powers. That means increased Duration on Taunt powers ... and reduced Recharge plus increased Duration on Fear powers, making it (more) possible for Masterminds to chain Fear attacks using the Presence Pool. -Redlynne

• Allowing Henchmen to benefit from the Mastermind's set bonuses in some capacity should be considered. -Reppu

• Recharge effects should be unblocked from Henchmen, and then the devs should go through each MM primary and re-evaluate the recharge of each individual power to adjust them accordingly to maintain balance. -Neogumbercules

• Some more detailed pet commands wolud be nice. Something along the lines of "Assist <team member>", wherein pets would attack whatever said team member attacked wolud be nice. -Dageoffant

• The (Spec Ops) Flashbang Grenade once caused my best friend to have a mild seizure. The graphical effect of that power needs to be seriously toned down; for each enemy it hits it emits an explosion of light similar to activating Domination. In a full x8 spawn, this can be literally blinding. -Nalrok Athzim

• (Demons) Shut up shut up SHUT UP! PLEASE reduce the freaking noise. All I ever hear is "snort snort snort snurff snargle ROAAAWWWRD GLUUUURRRAAAAAAHH grumble rorgh snurgt". It's too much, and has been complained about since they were implemented. -Nalrok Athzim

• Demon attacks need to be less flashy (see the Merc Flashbang issue). Every attack makes a large, bright 'pop' of light when it lands, save for the Demon Prince. -Nalrok Athzim

• The Arsonist's burn patches need to be changed to not cause fear, especially with the current mob AI. The moment one of those things spawns every enemy hit by it will run. For ten minutes at a time. -Nalrok Athzim

• All IO enhancement aspects should apply to all aspects of every power. Example: An IO with endurance reduction should apply that reduction to ALL of that henchman's powers regardless of what kind of set it is. The best example is how slotting a Slow set into Summon Demons will only enhance the Cold Demonling. That, regardless of how sets work, is extremely inconvenient and can almost be considered broken. -Nalrok Athzim

• Give us /Sonic, and /Cold. There's no reason not to. -Nalrok Athzim

• All Ninjas should have the SR passives Agile, Dodge, and Lucky and some form of either status protection or status resistance. -Zamuel

• Give Jounin and/or Oni with the Kuji In Zen upgrade some variant of Maneuvers then allow it to be slottable for Defense. -Zamuel

• In a contrasting idea, instead of granting Maneuvers for survivability, give them Nemesis style Vengeance so they can take advantage of each other's deaths. -Zamuel

• Replace the secondary Shuriken that the Genin gain from Train Ninjas with Crippling Axe Kick. Not only should this help their AI for preferring melee, the immob + flight and speed debuffs should act as a soft control to keep enemies from running away. -Zamuel

• Genin and Jounin can accept normal run speed enhancements but not Run speed IO sets. They should be allowed to slot Run and/or Universal Travel sets. -Zamuel

•Genin do not have a visual change when Train Ninjas is applied. Some form of visual indication should be added, even if it's just one of the two added with the Kuji In Zen upgrade (headband or face mask). -Zamuel

• Increase the range of the Medic's Medkit and Stimulant powers so he does not need to approach melee range. -Zamuel

•Replace the Medic's Brawl with Beanbag. Not only should this help keep him out of melee range, the stun should synergize with the Spec Ops' controls. -Zamuel

• On the topic of commands: As was mentioned before Stay should mean STAY. -Comicsluvr

• The pet's response to virtually any form of location damage like Caltrops or Burn is insane. I believe tha degree of Fear caused by such attacks should be proportional to their damage. A maxed-out Burn patch can kill a pet so they SHOULD run but one layer of Caltrops should not cause them to try to flee despite being attacked. -Comicsluvr

• In the ITF pets running around outside might run far outside of Supremacy range and then promptly die. Pets should NEVER leave Supremacy range unless told to do so by the MM or told to Stay and the MM moves away. -Comicsluvr

• Give us some form of Radiation even if it means removing AM. -Comicsluvr

• Re-applying defenses from Force Field or Thermal can be very tedious. An MM with 6 pets might not want to buff the team he's on after buffing 6 Pets. Perhaps a mechanic like what is used on the Pet Empowerment powers could be used. What I mean is, buffing the team would have to be done individually as always but buffing the pets could be done once. Maybe with an AoE so stray pets are left out. -Comicsluvr

• How about give the poison debuffs a Chance for Infection? Similar to the contagious confusion proc. Each time it hits someone, it casts an aoe, possibly effecting mobs close by with the debuff, maybe in a slightly weakened way. This would go a huge distance to correcting the main issue I found when playing my poison MM...the lack of aoe debuffing and control. -MisterD

• Making repair capable of a rez would further distinguish robotics as a defensive set - ChaosExMachina

• Serum not only adds a buff but equips a henchman with a gun drone -ChaosExMachina

• Letting weak recruit ninjas use the stealth of the ninja smoke bomb to spawn and assist their master -ChaosExMachina

• Give tier 1 henchmen for high level MM's an abnormally high HP for their level, and perhaps balance it by giving them less damage. It gets tiresome resummoning all the the time if every boss AOE is going to wipe out your entire first tier of pets. -Berzerker NA

• MM's Should get Munitions mastery. -Bronze Knight

• Mercs Spec-Ops should lose their stealth and get Leadership: Assault. -Bronze Knight

• Give MM's a power or slash command that places an immobilize effect on their own pets. Maybe the AI can't be fixed easily, but it doesn't matter what the AI wants to do if the AI is powerless to do it anyway. -Berzerker NA

• Make pets non collision type for team members only or make collision between pets and PCs favor PC instead of pet -Raw NRG

• Give MMs the option to use ST versions of the upgrades if needed. -MisterD

• I would like to see Bodyguard extended to defensive stay, so that if the MM wants to grab aggro and not get their pets blasted by an aoe, they can do so. I would also like to see bodyguard extended to defensive attack, allowing us to concentrate our pets firepower on 1 target without risking death. -AzureHaze

It may be noteworthy to note, in Invention Enhancements, that Mastermind pets (from what I've read) do not benefit from set bonuses at all.

Although I am not sure how this could be fixed, it's still something to note that other AT's can benefit from stacking an insane amount of +% Damage, and of course obviously +% Recharge.

An also overall issue is with Melee Pets having the same, if not arguably less, survivability as Ranged Pets. This makes it extremely difficult for Mastermind's to contribute in increasingly difficult "Incarnate" content, where your pets are -3(4), -4(5), or -5(6) levels to the enemy, and getting instant-killed when an AoE is fired off.

I am not saying in the least Ranged pets need to be scaled back. Melee pets need to either be a bit bulkier in terms of HP, or have specific Resistance/Defense bonuses to AoE damage. Although a lot of that damage is Melee flagged, isn't it?

Troublesome.

Excellent initiative (done a similar thing myself back on the old EU forums, when they existed)

General Archetype Bugs and Glitches

• On zoning, there remains a chance that your henchmen will not respond to /pet commands (e.g. this includes /petcomall dismiss) and the only solution is to rezone, or use /releasepets and resummon

• Certain static AoE damage patches will cause henchman AI to go crazy and run randomly across the map. When this happens they will fail to respond to any command for a short period (except /petcomall passive stay). This is most apparent with the damage patch left by dying Rikti Monkeys.

• Despite many henchmen only taking Pet Sets, these enhancements will not always apply to all the powers an individual henchman has. This is most apparent with endurance issues - like with Protector Bots (post-32 upgrade)
• The Gaussians Chance for Buildup can be slotted into Thugs' Enforcers, but will not proc on their own Leadership powers (merely on initial summon)

Primary Specific Issues and Problems
Ninjas -

Ninjas Balance Issues:
• Ninja Genin and Jounin are melee oriented pets with exceptionally worthless Defense values (7.5% and 12.5%, respectively) which CANNOT be improved by slotting of their respective powers. This makes them excessively squishy in melee combat, especially since they cannot partake of any of the Global Set Bonuses of their Mastermind. In fact, just about the only way to boost Ninja Pet Defenses in any seriously meaningful way is through the Force Field secondary, or (to a lesser extent) the Force Field Drone of the Traps secondary. Without either of those two choices, just about the only remaining viable build strategy left which allows the Ninja Pets to LIVE for any length of time in actual MELEE combat is the Tankermind strategy, which requires the Presence Pool so as to drag aggro away from the Ninjas themselves.

Ninjas Henchmen AI Issues:
• Ninja Jounin need to have their ranged attacks (Poison Dart and Caltrops) "disabled" while they are in Hidden status. As matters stand, without direct player intervention to position them exactly where they NEED to be, Jounin will ALWAYS attack from Hidden status using their Poison Dart ... the most pathetically worthless damaging power they have, WASTING their automatic Critical Hit from Hidden status. Jounin should be "limited" to (melee) sword attacks only while in Hidden status, with a preference for the most damaging per attack power while Hidden.

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Ancillary, Patron and Regular Power Pool Issues and Problems
Power Pool - Leadership
• Masterminds get extremely poor value from the Leadership Pool, when arguably they ought to be among the best. Masterminds ought to be at least on par with Controllers in terms of buff multipliers for Leadership Powers ... if not on par with Defenders. Conceptually speaking, it makes very little sense as to why Masterminds make such bad sources for Leadership.

Power Pool - Presence
• Masterminds should also, for similar reasons, be THE "go to" archetype for Presence Pool effectiveness. Conceptually speaking, Masterminds ought to have increased effectiveness/strength with all Presence Pool powers. That means increased Duration on Taunt powers ... and reduced Recharge plus increased Duration on Fear powers, making it (more) possible for Masterminds to chain Fear attacks using the Presence Pool.

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User Submitted Suggestions and Ideas

• The Devs should consider making it possible for ALL Mastermind Pet powers to accept Recharge Intensive Pet Sets.

• Allow Ninja Genin to cast Grant Invisibility to Ninja Pets (and their Mastermind?) when upgraded with Kuji-in Zen (level 32 power). Even suppressed, this would add to their (pitiful) baseline Defense ... which they desperately need.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Just a quick programming note:

I may move things around. For example, Redlynne stated the Jounin crit issue under Henchmen AI issues. I'm not so sure that's an AI problem. Technically the crappy power critting from Hide is working right. It's just a sucky, undesirable effect. Therefore I put it in the suggestions section. If I get enough people telling me otherwise, I'd be happy to move things from one section to another.

Also, I may miss things. That's not because I'm a big mean jerk. If you post something and I don't see it, don't assume I don't love you. Feel free to remind me if I miss something, especially if you're updating an old post rather than posting a new one.

"Working as intended" doesn't automatically mean "Smart Design Choice" =P!

Some contributions to the Necromancery section:


Necromancy Bugs and Glitches:
-In situations where there are lots, and lots of enemies around (Very noticible in ITF), Soul Extraction will sometimes just flat out not work.
-I've had situations where the Spirit raised with Soul Extraction will totally ignore orders for the first 30 seconds or so of being summoned. No idea what causes it. Seems to be random.

Necromancy Henchmen AI Issues:
-Grave Knights will ocasionally go into phases where they will just stand in the back and spam Dark Blast/Gloom, and never use any of thier sword attacks. This seems to happen most often when they have Enchant Undead, but not Dark Empowerment.
-Zombies will do the same, but with Projectile Vomit. Doesn't happen as often, though.
-All pets seem to treat Life Drain as an attack, not as a heal. Meaning they often use it at full HP, making thier self-heal all but irrelevent, and severly hurting thier survivability, which is supposed to be one of Necro's strong points.

I completely agree about MM Leadership having higher base values. The entire class is based around commanding minions. You'd think said class wolud be skilled at Leadership.

Some more detailed pet commands wolud be nice. Something along the lines of "Assist <team member>", wherein pets wolud attack whatever said team member attacked wolud be nice.

The Thugs Bruiser still favors Hurl over any other attack. He is so much more effective as a melee pet, and has much more effective attacks that he should use first. In fact he really doesn't need a ranged attack.

The Arsonist tends to run to point blank range to use his spit fire. I can't find any stats on this power, but if it was given a longer range and/or the Arsonist was set to use it at the edge of its range rather than at point blank it would do a lot for keeping the Arsonist alive.

Demon Summoning; Pet AI

Sometimes the second tier pets will delay responding to commands such as follow/passive

This is especally obvious during ITF, on the second mission when destorying the crystals I stand at range, and alternate between Follow/Passive and Attack/Aggressive so pets dont get blown up.

Initially as I move back I notice the that Ember Demon and the gargoyle are still fighting a few seconds after I recall them, while the other guys are much more responsive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

Trick Arrow:

Pets treat your Oil Slick fire as an enemy effect, sending them fleeing in terror. This is most noticeable with melee pets (zombies, ninjas). Very annoying, and at times very dangerous since they'll flee to high heaven and back, drawing aggro from surrounding groups.

Some of my characters

Shame on you for forgetting

Poison
-Poison trap for /Poison Master minds is the most useless power in the entire game. (We took a vote, and it barely beat Propel and intangibility powers for those powers occasionally being useful /at least fun to grief people with)

It takes five seconds to place and is interrupt able for four of those seconds. When it fires off it puts foes to sleep and drain's their endurance and holds them. Except the endurance drain is only a percentage chance and does not always hit and the drain itself is small. Likewise the hold chance is almost non-existent and in a packed group of sixteen on average no more than two mobs will be held.

It's further noted that Poison Trap in the Traps power set has has a 2.77 cast time and provides a very useful -regen, -recharge and it's hold will net 16 out of 16 in a packed spawn when it goes off and it costs less endurance.

Thanks for the input so far everybody! Keep it rolling.

Dark Miasma Bugs & Glitches - Casting Howling Twilight when having Seconadry Mutation running will often fire off the sound effect to Secondary Mutation

Robotics/DM - sometimes summoning Dark Servant animation will get replaced with Robotic upgrade animation - EDIT: this actually may be a result of the upgrade bug

Upgrade Bug - Dark Miasma (may be others but not sure): Summoning DS after a pet has died and is resummoned can fully upgrade all pets with both tier upgrades

Pet Command "Stay" - should mean "Stay" - Maybe apply a form of rooting effect until setting another command

Bug - Demons - Demon Prince - Frozen Aura. This power is a PBAoE damaging attack with a sleep side effect. It does not accept Pet Damage sets despite the fact that it is a pet damage power. It should accept Pet Damage sets as well as Sleep sets.

Off the top of my head:

Mercs:

The Medic prefers melee range 100% of the time. He is the first to run in and the first to die.

The Commando does entirely too much knockback, detrimental to the already-thin cones of the rest of your henchmen.

The summoning animation for Mercs is the longest summon animation in the game. I watched a Merc MM fruitlessly try to resummon his pets in the Apex TF during the Battle Maiden fight. If a blue patch spawned on him just after he began to summon ONE tier of pets, he was guaranteed to be hit by the falling sword 100% of the time.

The Flashbang Grenade once caused my best friend to have a mild seizure. The graphical effect of that power needs to be seriously toned down; for each enemy it hits it emits an explosion of light similar to activating Domination. In a full x8 spawn, this can be literally blinding.

Demons:

Shut up shut up SHUT UP! PLEASE reduce the freaking noise. All I ever hear is "snort snort snort snurff snargle ROAAAWWWRD GLUUUURRRAAAAAAHH grumble rorgh snurgt". It's too much, and has been complained about since they were implemented.

Demon attacks need to be less flashy (see the Merc Flashbang issue). Every attack makes a large, bright 'pop' of light when it lands, save for the Demon Prince.

Demon endurance issues are absurd.

Ninjas

All I can say is that ninjas are incredibly stupid, even for the current AI.

Thugs

Animations for the Enforcer's Uzi's are bugged like crazy. Almost every animation is broken. When the Enforcer lifts his left uzi and fires, the one he's not using shows muzzle flash. When he fires both at the same time, only one of them shows muzzle flash. When he raises one sideways, it only flashes twice. The animation team needs to check in to that.

The Arsonist's burn patches need to be changed to not cause fear, especially with the current mob AI. The moment one of those things spawns every enemy hit by it will run. For ten minutes at a time.

Mastermind General Issues

All IO enhancement aspects should apply to all aspects of every power.

Example: An IO with endurance reduction should apply that reduction to ALL of that henchman's powers regardless of what kind of set it is. The best example is how slotting a Slow set into Summon Demons will only enhance the Cold Demonling. That, regardless of how sets work, is extremely inconvenient and can almost be considered broken.

Pet AI has rendered ranged pets completely pants-on-head retarded. Dear Protector Bot: You do not have melee attacks. Get the @#$% back here.

Masterminds will cause the Avoid flag to permanently hit enemies. Multiple videos have proven this. The best example was described by Techbot Alpha; a situation where he attacked a melee EB once and waited for 20 minutes as it ran around the map in fear.

Aside from Demon Summoning, Mastermind primary attacks are worthless and have no reason to be taken other than set-muling or proccing. If they DO have secondary effects, they are too low to rely on save for M30 Grenade's knockback.

Secondaries

Give us /Sonic, and /Cold. There's no reason not to.

Pain Domination's self-buff effects are almost worthless to a Mastermind unless they have taken their Primary attacks and/or their APP/PPP powers. The damage bonus from Share Pain isn't going to help you if you only have Brawl and vet attacks.

O2 Boost, Alkaloid, Cauterize, and all other single-target heals currently cost 16 endurance to use, unenhanced. Every version of these powers (across all AT's) could use an end reduction, considering how much they heal for.

mastermind secondaries- poison

The single-target debuffs have similar values to aoe debuffs in other sets, despite being far more limited in application.

The poison trap requires an enemy to be in close range, despite the rest of the set being ranged.

The poison trap gas' sleep does not re-apply, making the natural pet aoe attacks render this mitigation far less helpful.

The poison trap has a confusing name, making it confusing with the /traps version, which is very different.

The poison trap's endurance drain does not supply mitigation, as foes can easily attack through it due to mobs' endurance use/recovery.

Noxious gas has a very long recharge and short duration, despite being a close-range pet-dependent aura at level 38.

I honestly don't see the synergy between Poison "Crap" and the rest of /Poison Set. It's a trap that has 4s casting time (and I believe it has interruption) and it does aoe sleep and drain endurance (but not good enough to drain it dry and I don't think any of MM Pets drain endurance).

They re-name Dominator's Greater Ice Sword to Ice Slash because it's a bit different. They should do the same for Poison Trap under Poison. It should be renamed to Poison Crap.

A few Traps issues I know of:

Acid Mortar

Mastermind Acid Mortar takes Targeted AoE Damage sets while the Defender/Corruptor version takes Ranged Damage sets (no clue which is considered "correct" but it's definitely an inconsistency)

Force Field Generator

Has the same free upgrade bug as Dark Servant.

Detonator

Where to start? Ok, first off damage and accuracy enhancements in it do absolutely nothing. Secondly it behaves inconsistently between different sets. Near as I can tell (based on testing by myself and another forum poster) the power counts as being cast from your pet if you have non-human henchmen (meaning it uses their damage scale and level for damage) but is a fixed damage pseudo-pet if cast from a human-pet set (it might also be summoned at your level for human pets but I'd like more evidence on that before I could say and I don't have a human pet MM to test with).

Further suggestions:

• All Ninjas should have the SR passives Agile, Dodge, and Lucky and some form of either status protection or status resistance.
• Give Jounin and/or Oni with the Kuji In Zen upgrade some variant of Maneuvers then allow it to be slottable for Defense.
• In a contrasting idea, instead of granting Maneuvers for survivability, give them Nemesis style Vengeance so they can take advantage of each other's deaths.
• Replace the secondary Shuriken that the Genin gain from Train Ninjas with Crippling Axe Kick. Not only should this help their AI for preferring melee, the immob + flight and speed debuffs should act as a soft control to keep enemies from running away.
• Genin and Jounin can accept normal run speed enhancements but not Run speed IO sets. They should be allowed to slot Run and/or Universal Travel sets.
• Genin do not have a visual change when Train Ninjas is applied. Some form of visual indication should be added, even if it's just one of the two added with the Kuji In Zen upgrade (headband or face mask).

• Increase the range of the Medic's Medkit and Stimulant powers so he does not need to approach melee range.
• Replace the Medic's Brawl with Beanbag. Not only should this help keep him out of melee range, the stun should synergize with the Spec Ops' controls.