Consolidated Mastermind Issues and Problems thread

I used to play a merc-mastermind. I about loved that thing even up till the high 40's. Never could get him to 50. Here is my list of issues with the set, some personal others math, and rest may just be plain outdated.

Design "features"
Merc: Tier 1, pet 3, Medic a.k.a First one to die.
His everything has a shorter range than the rest of the tier 1 pets, meaning you ether have to set up special commands to try to keep him alive, or enjoy resuming him.

I thought this poor soul was hated before, after they broke the ai and all the ranged pets LOVE mele he has a death wish.

Merc Tier 2, both pets, Spec. Ops
Take one look at their control powers and then compare them to the defender bots control powers. And you will see the issue. The amazingly long cooldown, combined with acc probables and you have a real winner.

Not only do their controls under perform they also lack in any sort of usage for their stealth they sometimes deiced to have on.

Merc Tier 3, only pet, Commando

The commando is the only one to bring in a different type of damage to the table, that's right up in till this point it is nothing but lethal with very little smashing damage.

His features include running out of endurence, ussing his rocket on the runner, and running into mele to use fullauto.

Those are some of the most annoying things about the mercs, this is how I would fix them.

You know how the pratorion police have shiney energy rifles. Things that don't do pure lethal damage? The most commonly resistated and defenced against in the game? (by mob, and most(TM) players.) Lets begin.

Patchnotes that would make me happy:
Mastermind:
We truly fixed the ai issue this time, melee love melee, ranged love ranged.

Balance Changes:
We have replaced the merc masterminds pet's riffles with pratorion styled guns. They now do energy/smashing damage while providing the -def buffs on hit.

Medic: We have increased the potency of his stimulant by, making it a pet based aura.

His frag grenade has been replaced with a toxic concoction of poisons that can be fired from an underslung launcher. (the toxic grenade would be like the one S.O.A, can get, probably toned down.)

The medic ranges have all so been increased.

Spec. Ops: Flash bangs and tear gas have been rebalanced. The mag is now one and the cool down is the same as the duration.

The stealth is now a passive affect on the spec. ops.

Serum: The gig is up, as many of you have expected this was indeed a joke. Time to give you something worth a power. It has been reworked completely and now provides the following;

It can now only be used on a dead soldier. The serum will revive the recently dead allowing them to retain some memory of their past while giving them a new dark hunger for vengeance.

The serum now works like necromancy soul extraction, depending on who it is used on the revived zombie soldier will have those skills, as well as leach life, dark embrace and some other dark miasma things. It will not last forever and eventualy subcomb to it's wounds and hatred by leaving this phase of existence.

Commando: Due to his rugged nature, and shear prowess at B.F.G.s he now give the leadership bonus tactics/assault to the soldier below his command.

All of his attacks endurance cost have been reduced, as well as his cooldown on LRM rocket.

He allso has the ability to calldown a gundrone to help him out of a tight spot. (it's duration should be half of the cooldown, he also should only call it when actually in combat. Unless it's going to be like a shield drone and perm with a cooldown.)

That's my wishlist, and I think it would make the set able to handle endgame stuff.

Most Mercs problems are already on the list but thanks for the input! Mercs are so monumentally bad that fixing them would almost be as involved as making an entirely new powerset.

What is kinda making me angry is the fact that we haven't seen a red name in how long in this forum, let alone this thread won't be stickied for some time. I loved my mastermind even with it' flaws I just wish I wasn't being punished by the devs for playing it. If our pet ai was on the same level to be fixed as any of the other classes it would have been fixed by now. They talk about scheduling the game for the years to come in the latest dev diary, and having a time line. It saddens me to say this, I don't think MM's get much if any attention in that timeline.

The reason I say that is due to the fact that a MM primary can only be used by a MM, it can't be handed/tweaked slightly to 3-4 arch-types. We aren't even asking for squid riding cheetahs, just re-balances in our class so we don't have to play a tankermind to cheese end game.

(just got up o forgive me if I trailed off.)

I'm rather concerned that one of the reasons MasterMinds has been moved to "premium content" status post release of Freedom has very little to do with the fact that its considered an "expert class" AT. Instead, I wonder if this is just more validation to not focus as much dev effort on the AT as a whole. They never created a similar AT on the Hero side, which is somewhat odd considering that all other powersets (outside of EAT/VEATs) have been populated more or less.

Maybe they just want the MM population to continue shrinking?

I don't know what kind of new stuff the devs are working on, but as far as existing content is concerned the MM AT probably tops the list as far as something that needs serious dev attention.

Ancillary, Patron and Regular Power Pool Issues and Problems

Ancillary Pool -


Ancillary Pool Bugs and Glitches:

• 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.
• 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%)"

Thanks Grim. I added those to the original post.

Long time lurker here but heres something for Discussion. Storm secondary set, most secondaries that have a single target heal have said heal as the first power, in storm its the 2nd. Any chance of getting O2 boost moved to the first power slot and Gale to the 2nd? I would think that making this change would add to /Storm early lvl survivability and being group friendly.

Red id agree on Gale, but what lvl 10 is gonna have it 6 slotted? Im talking low lvl play here. OF the sets that have a heal in them Storm is the only one that has to wait past lvl 1 to get it. Dark,Fire, and Pain gets an AOE at lvl1, Poison has its single target heal at 1. For a set thats has a rep for being choatic moving the heal and gale around would help. I'll bow out of further right/wrong uses of gale as this isnt what this thread was for.

But a side note that I just had happen to me last night, had a mob targeted with Gang war, mob dies as I fire War off and nothing happens. Gang war goes on cooldown but no posse show up. Any one else have that happen and is working as intended?

02 boost is available at level 2. Assuming you took the first summon at level 1, other than a personal attack, there is nothing you can select other than 02 boost. Or to put it another way, you can have 02 boost the second you leave the tutorial. I really don't think moving it to T1 would make any difference whatsoever.

I just realized the chances of this actually getting read by a dev.

Anyone who has ever tried, played or knows someone that has a /traps MM knows of this bug.

This bug has been in the game for so long I'm starting to think it's just a feature, that bug being the Force Field Generator re-aplying your pet buffs( the 2 upgrades) to your pets every time it is summoned.

Does anyone know really just how long this bug has been in the game? Since that is a testimate to how much the Mastermind class it 'loved'.

I really wish they would fix the AI for ranged pets so they would stay as ranged. I hate the fact my Robotics mastermind was so fun to play before the AI got shot to heck and now...I cant play him to save my life. The Devs really are being lazy on this issue I think.

Archvillians are a pain I ran a Merc/Poision back in the day and I could handle one but it was an intense fight.

Hey guys I'm back in the game after an extended hiatus and I've not forgotten this thread. If there's anything that needs to be added, removed or changed just let me know and I'll try to get around to it.

This thread should light up shortly after uptime Tuesday with the release of the meh set BM.

I haven't played BM on beta but everyone who has seems to think it's a real BM.

I'll be here all night folks!