Tested: the new Group Fly

I was indeed very excited to learn about the change to Group Fly. I always wanted it but the -tohit part was (so I thought) keeping me not choosing it after all these years. I had to try the new Group Fly mainly for my MMs. I tested the old Group Fly on Live and the new one on Test for my lv50 Zombies/Dark. All pets are out and upgraded. They would be moving around and attacking as normal like every MM would under just about any circumstances. And here is what I have found: in short, still not worth it. Don't take it. If you do, make sure everyone around you has Nulled it first.

1) The end cost is too high. It requires a few end reds in order to make it on most of the time. Too much investment.

2) Originally I thought the passengers (i.e. my pets) will be slower than the caster. I was wrong. With one lv50 fly IO in Group Fly, and with another lv50 fly IO in Swift, the caster can go at about 49mph. The pets will be fly at above top speed: 58mph. So the pets do move quite fast. BUT the major problem with pets is that they don't keep flying: they have this stop-and-go movement AI in them. Flying in a strange line, the pets will fly a bit, stop, think, fly a bit more, stop again, think a bit more, fly a bit, then ALL fall off the fly aura. I have tested this on a number zones: GV, from LR building straight head non-stop to the ferry; BM in Cap straight ahead to as far into the sea as possible; Cap again, on Aeon City in circle non-stop. The pets never fail to fall off the aura.

Another interesting issue I have noticed is that if you Group Fly in midair way above the ground, and when the pets fall off, they will stay on the spot they land. They will not follow at all (whether they are under Def-Follow or Pass-Follow). Then auto summon kicks in and they then stay on the auto summon spot. If you Group Fly on the ground level, they might catch up on foot - like they used to. In fact, they spend most of the time on foot instead of flying. I have tested this in open area with little or no obstacles and in Cap near the hospital area with mobs and obstacles here and there. If you Group Fly just above 8ft to 10ft off the ground, the pets will still follow close enough, but they are having so much trouble negotiating small objects - they are stuck far too often than on foot. They lose the ability to jump over an obstacle and they just do not always know how to fly over it instead: they ended up hovering up and down on the same spot.

3) Fighting in midair within Group Fly is another problematic issue. I tested this on Aeon City and in Shark near the trainer. I issue the attack-my-target command to my zombies while flying with them inside Group Fly (about 20ft to 30ft above ground). They fly off and attack. The problem occurs when they return to me after the attack: most often they do not return to me at all! After the attack, they will 'Super Speed' themselves off the Group Fly aura towards ANY random directions and stay solidly there ignoring ALL commands. After may be a minute or so, they will run back to the MM. This happens most often with the tier 1 pets. They will 'Super Speed' themselves to any different directions nearly 7 to 8 times out of 10 attacks. The higher tier ones also do that but less often, say, half of the time.

This causes a major problem for MM; in fact, it creates more problem to them as the pets scatter around uncontrollably often out of sight and out of supremacy radius (which makes the new change to supremacy useless under the circumstances).

4) The faint blue coloured aura is very distracting; and may I say not very good looking either. It is surely another way to stop people from using it all the time. It needs a min FX option.


I have not test Group Fly with Lore pets and other non-MM pets. But I have a strong feeling that they will behave the same. In essence, Group Fly will not help the pet owners to ferry their pets with them in a single fighting unit; on the contrary it helps to scatter the pets - and worst, other people's as well.

Shame. I do want to have Group Fly permanently on my MMs. But I know full well that it will cause great deal of problems to myself AND my teammates' pets. So unfortunately I have to say that I will respec Group Fly out of and Null Group Fly on ALL my characters, especially those with pets. I would suggest those who are thinking of having new Group Fly respec'ed in, try it out on Test first. And please do tell people you have it and will use it so they can Null it accordingly.

So, not much of a QoL change to Group Fly after all. Back to waiting-my-pets-to-catch-up-with-me.

My Robotics MM enjoys this change.

If you have the time you should set yourself to follow on a pet and then use the GOTO command on that pet for midair movement to see if you can avoid the stop and go AI wonkyness.

Always a good idea to check out a major power selection in advance of course. I've been a fan of Group Fly on my MMs for years. But yeah, it's NOT as fire and forget as you might expect. The technique I use to keep them together is quite simple. I simply pause about every 4 seconds. If a pet falls out for some reason, I use Recall Friend to get them back in the field.

As an aside, I use the same technique on mothership raids to get dead teammates back into the fray quickly. Just loiter above the fracas at a safe distance, petless, and TP them back.

Other than that, I wouldn't expect Group Fly to be used everyday. I've kept it, indeed respecced into it, on my Merc/Dark for years and gone many stretches of several months without using it. I've kept it for use in PvP and the odd GM that tries to run away from being my team's next shiney badge. (Ok yeah, PvP's reduced base accuracy along with the to-hit debuff of Group Fly? Mercs toss out -Def like candy at Halloween and it cascades to where hitting is a non-issue.)

I always want MMs to be able to travel with their pets in close proximity - that is in fact the major reason behind the testing. I have been living in hope for years. When I heard about the update to Group Fly, I was rather happy. Although, as soon as I tested it, I know it was not what I have expected.

Yes, I know the keybinds. It was on top of the MM section long before the EU-US forums merge. When I said it felt 'fiddly', I meant it was much like the point-click-travel sequence of TP. It is a solution but methinks not a very efficient nor elegent one. I use GOTO alot in trials and tfs, but use it for regrouping them or just moving them in position before a fight.

Yes indeed, it is not a fight-and-forget everyday movement power. It needs a whole different mindset to make it work. It seems that you are putting up too much just in order to keep Group Fly in your powertray. Admirable, although I prefer otherwise. Or to put it this way, Group Fly is a movement power. The -tohit change does not in anyway improve the movement portion of it. It gives the impression that it is fine to use it now but in reality it is causing a fair bit of problems to pets. That sadden me... (and again, I really do not like the blue aura. It looks funny against a the night sky.)

There was a change to Group Fly?

I found out the same thing testing it a long time ago.

Glad they removed the unnecessary penalty to further deter it's use, but for masterminds, it still remains a not very useful power. For a themed Thinkerbell character, I suspect teammates will still usually complain that the power user 'turn it off!' The only place I can see it finding use is in a small regular teammate environment where the group enjoys and uses it for 'fun'.

Still, Robotics mastermind with Group Fly and their robots using jetpacks provides at least a few minutes of unbridled enjoyment.