Pairing beasts

/Time proved more fiddly than I feel up to at the moment, but I've run Beast Mastery/Force Field through the first few task forces and found it very satisfactory.

Update on Beast/Sonic...

22 now. The Sonic Dispersion pushes the Lionesses up to 67% res to s/l/cold, with 41% to everything else. Wolves are at 57%, with the same 41% to everything else. I also put in the res aura, but aside from that all SOs. All very tough, and make things dead very fast. Gonna compare to ninjas, as that is what I have the most experience with...

Damage is not as high, but then, nothing does damage quite like the suicidal razor blades. However, the beasts are MUCH more survivable. But then, nothing dies quite like the suicidal razor blades. The main trouble I see from beast is the buffs... long recharge, short duration, crappy AI. Not a good combination, they just use them as soon as they recharge. You can see this by letting them just stand still for a while, they will continue to buff themselves. You can't rely on them, at all. Hard to think of them as nice bonuses either, sue to them taking spots that could have been attacks.

Oh, and Wild Charge... er.. Don't know what they were going for with this. Yay, damage buff. But, a run speed buff with a run speed debuff resistance? This just means that they run off and aggro half the map before you can react. Oh, and Caltrops will make them go absolutely insane. They will go away and you won't see them again for a good ten seconds, which is plenty time to get murdered.

Despite this, I like the set. Looks great, and it being a MM set automatically makes it powerful. /Sonic certainly helps a lot, and I've picked up Aid Other to fill the healing gap. I did at one point team with another Beast/Sonic, and we may as well have been invincible for all the +res flying around. Also, all the enemies melted.

I went with Time since I had not yet tried that set out.
So far, Time seems to work very well with Beasts. The all melee nature of the pets synergizes perfectly with Time wanting to be in melee.

I got up to level 10 with my dark/time/traps trio last night in Praetoria. No complaints yet.

When I said you could use the fact they they use the buffs whenever they were up, I was not inferring that you should dismiss and resummon them to make the recharge perma. I meant exactly what I said- you know what to expect. Just like with them having no ranged. You know they will run into melee, because they have nothing at all to keep them at range throwing dinky little shuriken. Frankly, comparing this set in any way to bots/thugs/demons is horrible. It is not that Mercs and Ninjas are underperforming, it is that the AT as a whole overperforms. Thugs/bots/demons are just overperforming in an AT that is inherently overperforming, so you wind up with the 'weaker' sets as still being strong. Beast is survivable, it is stable, and it CAN do good damage if you keep up the pack mentality.

As for what you said about the pets running off ahead and going crazy, that is what they do. If you've ever played Ninjas you should expect this of pets with extremely high run speeds. They will run off, they will draw aggro, it is something you live with. You learn to reign them in. I find it hard to believe that the pets ran off to the other side of the map with no provocation or targeting. They can not react to the mission directive directly... if that were the case a bots/FF MM could just do funny emotes at the beginning of the mission while his invincible pets do it themselves with no commands.

As for me apparently using that as my baseline, I was not. I was saying that that should NOT be the baseline. That is just an example of certain sets overperforming... and you should not compare it to the overperforming sets. If every set acts like the top sets, you wind up with a game that is more trivial than it already is. This is an easy game, it does not need to be easier.

I do agree with you that the baseline should not be solo everything ever, but you seem to have misunderstood me there. I also agree that putting long recharge short duration buffs on pets is stupid.

I do not agree that this is a horrible set.

As for the TPN thing, of course it is hard to keep them from ganking Maelstrom. He is constantly attacking. If you put them on defensive, they will attack him. If you put them on aggressive, they will attack him. Try targetting them to something else or putting them on passive. In my experience passive mode makes them stop whatever they are doing immediately. TPN has always been trouble for MMs, and that is well known. Yes, I have seen the thread about them doing an all MM TPN, and that is awesome, but it doesn't change that TPN is hard for MMs.

You did not understand anything. There is a legitimate bug right now where Defensive and Passive pets, once you zone into a mission, have been noted to randomly charge off. AND. PASSIVE.

As for Maelstrom, it's been reported pets have charged out of buildings, 'used' the doors, and charged Maelstrom with out any aggro notice on the Mastermind.

I made it as clear to you as possible. Pets AI is flipping out in reported cases. Confirm it for yourself, or maybe you're 'lucky' and your pets aren't Full Retard.

Additionally, I disagree with you on 'overperformance'. That suggests THREE Primaries are overperforming, one is perfectly balanced (Necro does poor damage as a note), two are underpowered by the devs, and Beast Mastery is apparently 'balanced', ignoring their lack of attack chain, their lack of AoE, their lack of protection, and their lack of ranged? Granted the last one is ho hum but whatever.

Your opinion is your own, but I don't see why you think this set is 'fine'. It is not. Three primaries perform exceptionally and should be the baseline. THIS is why Ninjas and Mercenaries are being 'looked at'.

Unless you really want me to believe Thugs, Bots, and Demons are overperforming, Necromancy should be as powerful as sets get, and Ninjas and Mercenaries are 'balanced'?

No. Absolutely not. 800 points for a BASIC LEVELS flawed set? Justify your purchase however you wish, the set is poor.

People need to quit 'accepting' flaws like Beast Mastery. There is no reason why it can't perform at least as well as Necromancy, but more like Robotics as one of the 'original primaries'. Thugs being released an issue later and Demons with GR. And since Demons are on the same 'tier' as Thugs and Robotics, why the heck can't we have Necromancy, Ninjas, Mercenaries, and Beasts on that same level of performance?

Right now; tell me Beast Mastery performs equal to or above the Big Three, and why the other sets can't be as good as the Big Three.

If it does not, tell me how Beast Mastery ISN'T underperforming compared to Ninjas and Mercenaries, or at least Necromancy. Show me the math. Show me the data. Show me the PROOF.

Because I've done the opposite, IE: proving it's underperformance, on TWO threads. You're up to bat!

Ok, I didn't understand that first part. If you had posted what you did now, I would have. That is weird. It is probably from putting in Beast, but that should in no way reflect on your judgement of the set.

I can solo anything the game can throw out on my Ninja MM and you wish me to think it is underperforming. I really find that hard to believe. Wanting just buffs buffs buffs is not good. You shouldn't base performance around top sets. The average set should not be the best set, that sort of kills the entire point of average. Don't base a set around the top performing sets, all sets should be equal to a middle line. Sure, putting all sets to the power of the highest WOULD make them all equal. But why stop there? Lets just buff up the enemies too, since now they're falling behind. But, oh, now you don't feel powerful enough. More buffs! It just becomes trivial. Buffing everything up is certainly a way to make it all equal, but not so good as balancing them around a middle average. However, no one likes to see sets get nerfed, so this is never suggested.

It does NOT perform equal to or better than the 'Big Three', but it shouldn't have to. Not all sets should be able to do 4x8 solo all the time, and in my (unpopular) opinion, none of them should. Games should in some way challenge you, and (again in my opinion)without challenge it isn't really fun. And that last opinion must be somewhat popular due to seeing more than one or two builds around.

I'm sorry, I can't show you the math. I'm still far too new to this game, I don't know all the mechanics. Plus, I just lain don't like math. I don't have the paper proof, but I do have experience, which is just better than paper. What I've experienced is that it is a good set. What you find on paper is never exactly reliable. It should be, certainly, but in the middle of it all I'm more concerned with having fun than with maximum DPS or anything such as that.

And that is all I have to say on it. I could continue arguing but I don't have anything more to add, I've exhausted my opinions on the matter, and my proof of said opinions.

It's fine. And, ugh. +4/x8 is not the baseline. In fact that's horrible inefficient but we won't get into that.

It's simply this: Why pay money for something underperforming to three 'free' things? Because of concept? Why settle for concept? Why not get your cake and eat it to?

Accepting Beast Mastery as it is is wrong. It IS underperforming to three current sets, and ignoring their greater soloing potential (This is due to their AoE. Even if you fixed Beast Mastery's attack disparity, it can't do squat because it has no AoE), there's NO reason a Single Target Melee Focused primary does LESS Single Target damage than the PRIMARILY RANGED PRIMARIES.

This is NOT suggesting to me Thugs/Demons/Bots are overpowered. This is suggesting Beast Mastery is UNDERPOWERED because if you factor that in PLUS it's lack of AoE, it can't even compete!

Even Mercenaries, despite the Spec Ops sucking badly, are at LEAST capable of constantly attacking and have sweeping AoEs, and Paragon has agreed they're far too low beneath the benchmark.

Necromancy has an attack chain and does decent AoE and good ST!

Ninjas have bad survivability and need to be more like Beast Mastery in that SINGLE department. The only damage flaw this set has is Jounin's Poison Dart needs to be buffed or go RIGHT into the garbage bin.

And considering BM Survivability is only fractionally superior to Thugs/Bots/Demons, and I mean maybe 1-2% higher or so going by the math of the comparison thread? They don't even do remotely the same amount of Single Target damage (unless you get lucky and they crit like mad during their damage steroid and I'd argue even then that's not only unlikely due to their random buff application but relying on crits for balance is RETARDED), and can't even come close to their AoE.

But, whatever I guess. I cannot accept the logic of No AoE in a game where swarms of mobs are not 'uncommon'. What good are you in a team? Single Target Damage with a Support set? Take a Defender or Corruptor or Controller, who WILL out damage Beast Mastery AND provide the same support (better in Defenders case), ontop of AoE!

At LEAST Ninjas have absurd ST Damage, and the Big Three had great ST damage and great AoE damage.

And yes, I am willing to bet a Controller will win in ST Damage. They obviously win in AoE by merit of having it in the first place.

Well I think that Beast Mastery is a fun set to play. Thats all I look for in a set is that its fun, doesnt bore me and fits my concept.

I think its a real shame that people dismiss sets because they cant soft cap or the damage is poor or whatever reason they give. When did the game become so much about being so amazing I can solo everything and less about teaming with other people to fill the gaps where you are weak. I remember the days when doing a TF you had to chose characters wisely to complement to ensure you could finish. Now all people want is a character they can solo it on.

As for Beasts wrecking the AI ... I was doing itrials long before beast where the pets were doing their own thing ... beasts didnt do that!

I can agree that the Howler Wolves, Alpha Wolf, and Lionesses could probably use 1 or 2 more damaging attacks each (the Alpha Wolf only has 2 once fully upgraded!). But the damage on what attacks they do have isn't disproportionate to other Mastermind pets (by that I mean they're not doing less damage than other MMs using powers on the same recharge timers or using the same amount of endurance).

Eventually, they have a lot of stacking damage buffs, but again... not many oppurtunities to use them. They can have up to 20% +Damage at all times from Pack Mentality, as well as up to a 20% chance to half-crit all attacks from Pack Mentality, once you have Fortify Pack. Then, they all start out with Wild Charge, which gives 33% - 41.25% +Damage for 20 seconds every 90 seconds. And then the tier 1 Wolves can grant another 24.75% +Damage for 15s every 60s once they get the second Upgrade.

I would suggest they give the pets a second version of some of their attacks, perhaps with those second versions not granting Pack Mentality. I would also suggest they give the Alpha Wolf some sort of AoE Attack, or add damage to Growl. And then I'd also suggest they widen both the Dire Wolf's cones a bit.

As far as the +Resist(Recharge) they have in their inherent resistances and in Wild Charge... pets themselves aren't individually flagged as immune to recharge buffs and debuffs. A flag must be set on each individual power that the pet has to make it immune to effects of recharge. It appears, just from City of Data (haven't checked anywhere else yet), that their attacks are not flagged immune to recharge effects. Whether that's intentional (as a feature of the set) or an oversight, I don't know.

City of Data correctly lists most* other Mastermind pet attacks with the +/-Recharge immunity, which makes me think they might be correct in showing that the Beast Mastery pet attacks don't have that flag set.

*Most sets before Demon Summoning all correctly have the flags sets. Demon Summoning, though... is missing a lot of the "ignore +/-Recharge" flags according to City of Data. If that's true, their overall performance right now might be much higher than intended.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

That is very interesting. If they accept recharge buffs, and it is on purpose, then it should be entirely possible to make some of their buffs permanent. Like, say, Lion's Roar, so you'd wind up with a permanent 15% or so (adding in both) def bonus. Following this, from Fortify you can get another 15%, and their base is around 10%. Add in Maneuvers and you have them nearly soft capped without the secondary or pet uniques. Then a set such as thermal or sonic and their resist goes through the roof, making them nigh-invulnerable tankerpets.

Then their damage skyrockets due to Wild Charge being up all the goddamned time, as well as their buff at 32. Then factor in their heals are up all the goddamned time and you have an extremely powerful set.

This is assuming that what City of Data lists is true, and that it is working as intended. Both big ifs, but if so... :] Hello invincible beasts.

Even further, they now no longer have to gaps in attack timing that Reppu was speaking of.

Bah. Well, still, it gets rid of the attack gaps and raises their damage. As I understand their attacks do just fine damage, so with no gap the only complaint is little AoE... the Dire Wolf has two (before the 32, don't know what he gets there), but one of them is max 3 targets, which is simply terrible.

I was hoping that Cold Domination was going to be proliferated over to Master Minds because I thought a Beast/Cold would be cool. However I'm probably going to go Beast/Traps, and hope it's not too rough of a ride. My BFF will be playing a Dark/Dark Dom so hopefully we will mesh well.

I've decided to go with Trick Arrow. I know, TA is probably the worst MM secondary. It has no tools for buffing my pets or healing them. I'm going to probably have to invest in the Medicine pool, and that's always annoying.

However, here are some nice synergies between TA and Beast. TA offers several tools for slowing down or stopping enemies from fleeing or scattering. In particular, Entangling Arrow and Glue Arrow are really nice for melee pets. I know the Oil Slick Arrow bug is still around (the pets-fleeing bug, not the OSA-not-lighting bug), but I'm going to try it anyway.

Also, my concept really drove me to TA, and concept trumps all other considerations. He'll be primarily solo, and even if TA isn't the most uber, he's still a mastermind and that's a kind of uber all to itself.