MM's and incarnates content, lack of ballace in MM's, huge differences between old and new sets...

Speaking of, I did a Magi about half an hour ago. Had the misfortune of having my three small pets get killed at one point, could not for the life of me get them back up and fighting until the rush of destiny buffs right before the engagement with Tyrant.

They'd get killed with a sneeze.

As a few people here are saying..I think it is more the specific power sets than the AT..mostly. Someone upthread was asking what sets your scrapper and corr were, instead of just saying 'oh my scrappers rock for everything'.

I am quite sure things like a Traps MM could, and would be tough, needing to enter melee to use your secondary in the same manner as you would in normal content. Even MORE so until you get all the level shifts. But..it works the same for most ATs I find.

I have played a heap of toons through the trials, and while all feel very helpful, I have no problem adjusting my tactics a little for the new conditions. Of course..I also agree that 'some' of the conditions are very very unfair to MMs (lambda collection phase) but others are better in some ways (keyes pulse, even though its a joke now).

Not sure how things could be/should be fixed..again, I dont think it is an AT issue, aside from those certain times. I did like the idea of pets sharing your inspirations..thats a good one. And yes, even IO bonuses.

(Oh and YES, it is totally unfair that some sets and combos cant use all the uniques. Imagine the cry from min/maxers if for some reason..certain builds could not use the +def IOs, or the +res ones, hell, even not being able to slot panacea or other procs)

I would love to see that AoE hole removed (either by heightened, innate AoE defense or some method of reducing the damage they take form all AoE hits), but I'm worried that would be too much. That could bring some Masterminds up to Brute/Tanker abilities to sustain damage (though still not aggro), and that would be any damage, regardless of type.

If that's all Masterminds were, I'd see no problem. But exactly how much damage are Masterminds doing? How much are they healing/buffing/debuffing for? Would it be balanced to give Masterminds the potential to tank for real? Not just the tankermind-style tanking, but real main tanking, like a survivability-buffed scrapper with Provoke, minus the need to have that buff come from an ally.

Actually, a Mastermind can potentially hold more aggro than a tank, because each pet has an aggro cap of their own. Now, maintaining that aggro is another thing, and pets are terrible at it.

A high innate AoE defense (kinda like what Stalkers get in Hide) would be cool, if the AT was under-performing. But it isn't. The ATO proc does give quite a bit of AoE defense, for the IO level.

Outside of /Force and /Dark, Mastermind pets are not made to bodyguard and take aggro. Without sizable buffs/debuffs/mez, beyond what most secondaries can muster, they will die.

I'm not talking number of enemies because, you said it yourself, pets can't maintain aggro. I'm talking hits, I'm talking standing in front of Statesman, spitting on his shoes and not getting your melee pets Zues'd to Hell.

Yes, PBAoEs do kinda suck when fighting a single hard target. I don't notice it much due to all my pets being soft capped, but when they do hit my entire lower tier can get wiped out. Which is bad, because being ninjas that was most of my DPS.

But then I just summon them, and get on with killing whoever it was, lets say Statesman.

The secondaries that seem to struggle most are those lacking an AoE heal, because just like an AoE attack will be like 7 times damage on you, and AoE heal restores 7 times as much health. This is one reason /Time and /Dark are so popular, both have very powerful AoE heals. Both also have great debuffs and buffs. /Time gets Farsight and Time's Juncture, which together can nearly softcap a pet (barring tohit debuff resistance), a powerful control in Distortion Field, and a massive -def and -res debuff. Whereas /Dark gets Fearsome Stare, a fantastic crowd control, and enough -tohit to floor most enemies, as well as Tar Patch.

Both of these sets perform amazingly well because of a combination of buffs, debuffs, and AoE heals. Sets like Sonic and Force Field have amazing buffs, but lack in heals and debuffs. Trick Arrow has good debuffs, but no real way to keep your pets alive. /Traps, while great, also lacks in an AoE heal, and to lay something like Trip Mine you have to stop moving, exposing your pets to AoE damage. Pain has amazing heals, but the resistance buff in World of Pain just isn't enough in higher difficulties. Poison has amazing debuffs, but only a ST heal and no buffs.

Like all ATs there are combinations that are more than the sum of their parts, like Bots/Traps and Beast/Pain.

But, and this is the important part, even the least synergetic combinations are still powerful. A Merc/Poison is probably the least synergetic thing you can make and you can still kick the game's behind with it. When you go up to something like Demon/Time then most content becomes trivial.

Like I said earlier, the weaker sets do need to be brought in line with the others, but this is more for the sake of balance within the AT than balance compared to other ATs. Comparing MM performance to that of any other AT is difficult due the different weaknesses, but by general consensus Ninjas and Mercenaries ARE under-performing... for an MM set. Not necessarily for a set as compared to the rest of the game.

Agreed. 50% would be way to good.
But..even if it was 10% aoe def..do we LEAVE it at that? 10% aoe def, to say..robots to gonna be a big deal. 10% to robots with pet uniques and a secondary with some +def is even bigger! 10% to necros is jack, and still not that great unless the secondary was say..ff or maybe traps.
I remember my necro poison MM..and the pets just got stomped by basically any aoe whatsoever. In NORMAL play (not just incarnate). Goes back to what I said about this being more a power set and combo thing than the AT itself.

In the vein of making pets spawn at the Mastermind's level, would it be too much to give Masterminds a decent ranged damage mod? I ask because for every Mastermind out there aside, three out of his primary attacks are next to useless, and those are the personal attacks. Granted, for Beasts that's slightly less the case as personal attacks give Pack Mentality, but when the going gets tough, those are still the first three powers I stop using.

Masterminds have the game's lowest damage mod by quite a bit at 0.55, followed by Defenders at 0.65, but Defenders, at least, get a Vigilance damage buff when they're alone. A Mastermind, by contrast, has a pitiful damage mod making all of his attacks basically pointless... And those attacks cost an arm and a leg, especially the AoE one. It just makes the powers a bad choice to take, is what I'm saying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The -resist on the Demon Summoning whip gives them utility, but most support ATs do the same thing in a group. When things go south you stop attacking and start doing damage control. It's just that, on a Mastermind, you're never not in a group.

I do get where you're coming from, though. On AV/GM fights I get more mileage out of stacking -regen then real attacks.

I think a case could be made for giving MMs a damage buff when their pets aren't out.

If you run into a spawn with Bodyguard mode while the pets aren't there, that is your own fault. They already do teleport to you if you get too far ahead.

MMs, as an AT, are not under-performing at the level the game is balanced at. The only time they start to lag a little, and not even that much, is when IOs are take into account. And the game is not balanced around IOs. So just letting the pets all receive half of the set bonuses you have so long as they are in Supremacy range would solve them at the IO level without impacting the normal game.

... That said, a power that teleports them to you would be convenient. But I'd rather them actually listen to my commands than drag them to me forcefully.