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Pet Passive, Form, and Active Offense Idea
championshewolf
Posts: 4,375 Arc User
Pet Masters are desired, there is no ands ifs or buts about it, but beyond the niche aspect of the game, are pretty useless for any major content beyond just a leveling character. Even the specialization does little to alleviate the problem pets have as far as the content is concerned. So, my suggestion is to offer up three new abilities aimed directly towards pet masters.
(addition)
The Pet Conundrum - The major problem with pets, currently, in CO is that you can have an unlimited number of them out which creates havoc for resources especially in intense encounters. My proposal is to categorize pets and set them up similar to PA toggles, in that you can only have one of each of those types active. In this case they would go as follows;
+ Scrapper - Scrapper pets would be mostly about dealing damage and that's about all they do. An example of this would be munitions bots and command animals.
+ Support - Support pets would primarily be aimed at supporting the player and/or the pets. A prime example of this would be support drones and ritual of radiant summoning.
+ Bruiser - A bruiser would be aimed at providing some form of CC, a heavy hitter and maybe some threat control to pull mobs away from the pet controller. An example of this would be attack toys and arctic beast.
Setting up this way would alleviate some of that. To further stipulate, other summonable pets should be limited to one, and perhaps have a shared cooldown, or at the very least if you try to summon another form of it while some already exist, the new summon replaces the old one. As far as devices, like sidekicks are concerned, limit to only one sidekick at a time, and pet devices like pheromones and the like. These pets should remain unaffected by these toggles as presented in the note down under this addendum.
(further addition)
On the point of blocking, I think this just needs to be nipped directly. If the player engages a block then the pets enter a block state and stop attacking. This should also help alleviate some issues with players just sitting back and blocking while pets do all the work that tends to be the common complaint with pet/minion builds.
Note - Controllable pet refers to pets that can actually be controlled with commands. Pets that are a byproduct of an effect or temporarily summoned, such as shadow pets, Teleiosaurus Pheromones, psionic manifestations, etc., would not be effected by these new passives.
Tactician - Hybrid Passive
You know how to lead your team into battle. Any controllable pet under your control gains a damage boost and damage absorb, which scales with super stats. In addition, 10% of the incoming damage the pet master takes is divided equally between all controllable pets. Rank 2 and 3 increase the damage boost and damage absorb to the pets, and adds an additional 5% to the damage division for a total of 20% at rank 3.
2 point advantage - Tactical Maneuvers - Any controllable pet under your control gains 40% resistance to Area of Effect damage. (This stacks with the similar effect in the Commander Specialization Tree).
3 point advantage - Bodyguard - The damage division with controllable pets is increased to 60%.
1 point advantage - Mastermind - 25% of the damage boost and damage absorb is now shared with allies on the team. This becomes 50% in Support role.
Controlled Chaos - Toggle - Form
When this form is activated, all controllable pets that are owned gain increased damage per stack of this form, and a small amount of healing strength. This scales based on presence. You gain one stack of Controlled Chaos every time your pet crits an attack. Energy gain scales to Intelligence.
Victory Surge - Active Offense
When this is activated, all controllable pets that are owned gain a damage boost. This also applies a break free to the user and pets.
2 point advantage - Vengeance - Both the controller and pets gain a surge of healing that also gives a mild HoT for 6 seconds.
(addition)
The Pet Conundrum - The major problem with pets, currently, in CO is that you can have an unlimited number of them out which creates havoc for resources especially in intense encounters. My proposal is to categorize pets and set them up similar to PA toggles, in that you can only have one of each of those types active. In this case they would go as follows;
+ Scrapper - Scrapper pets would be mostly about dealing damage and that's about all they do. An example of this would be munitions bots and command animals.
+ Support - Support pets would primarily be aimed at supporting the player and/or the pets. A prime example of this would be support drones and ritual of radiant summoning.
+ Bruiser - A bruiser would be aimed at providing some form of CC, a heavy hitter and maybe some threat control to pull mobs away from the pet controller. An example of this would be attack toys and arctic beast.
Setting up this way would alleviate some of that. To further stipulate, other summonable pets should be limited to one, and perhaps have a shared cooldown, or at the very least if you try to summon another form of it while some already exist, the new summon replaces the old one. As far as devices, like sidekicks are concerned, limit to only one sidekick at a time, and pet devices like pheromones and the like. These pets should remain unaffected by these toggles as presented in the note down under this addendum.
(further addition)
On the point of blocking, I think this just needs to be nipped directly. If the player engages a block then the pets enter a block state and stop attacking. This should also help alleviate some issues with players just sitting back and blocking while pets do all the work that tends to be the common complaint with pet/minion builds.
Note - Controllable pet refers to pets that can actually be controlled with commands. Pets that are a byproduct of an effect or temporarily summoned, such as shadow pets, Teleiosaurus Pheromones, psionic manifestations, etc., would not be effected by these new passives.
Tactician - Hybrid Passive
You know how to lead your team into battle. Any controllable pet under your control gains a damage boost and damage absorb, which scales with super stats. In addition, 10% of the incoming damage the pet master takes is divided equally between all controllable pets. Rank 2 and 3 increase the damage boost and damage absorb to the pets, and adds an additional 5% to the damage division for a total of 20% at rank 3.
2 point advantage - Tactical Maneuvers - Any controllable pet under your control gains 40% resistance to Area of Effect damage. (This stacks with the similar effect in the Commander Specialization Tree).
3 point advantage - Bodyguard - The damage division with controllable pets is increased to 60%.
1 point advantage - Mastermind - 25% of the damage boost and damage absorb is now shared with allies on the team. This becomes 50% in Support role.
Controlled Chaos - Toggle - Form
When this form is activated, all controllable pets that are owned gain increased damage per stack of this form, and a small amount of healing strength. This scales based on presence. You gain one stack of Controlled Chaos every time your pet crits an attack. Energy gain scales to Intelligence.
Victory Surge - Active Offense
When this is activated, all controllable pets that are owned gain a damage boost. This also applies a break free to the user and pets.
2 point advantage - Vengeance - Both the controller and pets gain a surge of healing that also gives a mild HoT for 6 seconds.
Champions Online player since September of 2008, forumite since February of 2008.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Post edited by championshewolf on
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Sanctuary: 1p advantage on specific blocks (probably sorcery to start with)
When activated, continuously applies Sanctuary to up to 3 pets you own within 50'. Sanctuary incapacitates the pet (cannot use powers), flags it as blocking, and gives it block type damage resistance.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
This would basically make the pets like the PA toggles at this point which I wouldn't be against but we would definitely need more to fill in certain areas. Or some would have to be changed completely. And then you have to look at the sidekicks and how to handle them to. Definitely would like to see more pet types added to the list and have an official "mastermind" character. It's just kind of ridiculous an entire play style is garbage right now and invalid in anything beyond niche, low level solo play.
Actually let me add that as an addendum to the above post.
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The Pet Conundrum - The major problem with pets, currently, in CO is that you can have an unlimited number of them out which creates havoc for resources especially in intense encounters. My proposal is to categorize pets and set them up similar to PA toggles, in that you can only have one of each of those types active. In this case they would go as follows;
+ Scrapper - Scrapper pets would be mostly about dealing damage and that's about all they do. An example of this would be munitions bots and command animals.
+ Support - Support pets would primarily be aimed at supporting the player and/or the pets. A prime example of this would be support drones and ritual of radiant summoning.
+ Bruiser - A bruiser would be aimed at providing some form of CC, a heavy hitter and maybe some threat control to pull mobs away from the pet controller. An example of this would be attack toys and arctic beast.
Setting up this way would alleviate some of that. To further stipulate, other summonable pets should be limited to one, and perhaps have a shared cooldown, or at the very least if you try to summon another form of it while some already exist, the new summon replaces the old one. As far as devices, like sidekicks are concerned, limit to only one sidekick at a time, and pet devices like pheromones and the like. These pets should remain unaffected by these toggles as presented in the note down under this addendum.
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I do hope someone besides us players is reading this.
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Also like that it only effects controllable pets, so that uncontrolled pets retain the "attack stuff while you block" utility. I can see making a toon that mixes controlled and uncontrolled pets to great effect with this stuff.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
As far as the sitting there passively while pets do the work, it seems like a lot of problems could be solved by just making pets not be passive dps.
For example, one way of doing this is to add a tap effect. For example:
The way a standard pet looks now is:
Ritual of Ebon Summoning
25 energy cost
1.5 sec charge (1.5 min)
0.67s activate time
Creates a Ritual Circle and summons a Daemon to fight for you. Leaving the circle for too long will cause it to fail, and the Incarnation will disappear.
The daemon will attack foes at range, using Fire Strike to do 51 Fire Damage (Base). It will also periodically attack with Fireball, dealing 253 Fire Damage (Base)....
Real dps on a reasonably geared level 40 support with aura of ebon destruction and rank 2 with unbound ritual was about 250 against a powerhouse dummy, of which 50 was dark lightning. A petmaster form that counts as a weak bonus (12%/stack, like the dps bonus from compassion, but applies to pets as well as its owner) would push that to around 350.
Now, here's a version with a tap effect (extra effects in italics)
Ritual of Ebon Summoning
25 energy cost
1.5 sec charge (1.5 min)
0.87s activate time
On tap, if you have a Daemon, applies Infused to it for 3-6s (depending on charge time), and if you are targeting a foe, gives it an Attack command. On full charge, creates a Ritual Circle, summons a Daemon to fight for you, then applies the tap effect. Leaving the circle for too long will cause it to fail, and the Incarnation will disappear.
Infused is an Enchantment that applies a 400% base damage bonus to your Daemon, and allows it to use special attacks.
The daemon will attack foes at range, using Fire Strike to do 51 Fire Damage (Base). If Infused, it will also periodically attack with Fireball, dealing 253 Fire Damage (Base)....
A 400% damage bonus for 3s on a base dps of 350 is +4200 damage, and it would be possible to rotate 3 pets keeping them all infused (you can't actually use 0.83s powers every 0.83s, because of latency), each of them doing 1750 dps for a total of 5250 dps. That's a ... plausible number for a build that's about this invested in pets.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
A lot of assumptions in that statement.
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I'm sure there's a logical fallacy in there somewhere... false cause maybe? hmmm...could be anecdotal... Nope I've got it! The Texas Sharpshooter! Saying that because this small group of cherry picked things haven't happened means this couldn't be done. Especially fallacious when you consider all the complex things you didn't mention. Nailed it!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Again your assumptions are impressive.
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Only part that looks complicated to me might be the classification of the pets. Then again, we already have systems in place that will unsummon pets of a given category if you summon another one in the same category, so maybe not even that. Otherwise it's all basically just doing stuff that the Commander specs do, other than the damage division, and that's really just resisting more damage on the player and then applying that resisted damage to the pets. Overall this doesn't look any more complicated than any other task in CO - which is to say, it's all complicated.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I think the current way pets work or don't perform is a complex disaster.
There has to be some way to control the horde of pets and I very much like the limiting of pets in this proposal and the pet classification.
I don't even need to say much more, since I really do like this proposal, especially the bit about blocking.
I also liked Pantagruel's suggestion about incantations.
I have always wanted the "Defensive Towers" that the old gadgeteering spoke about in the flavour text, and I think if there was some Dev time to invest into making pets a viable option, I'd really support that.
I do think and hope that Sigils in particular are considered Enchantments or Curses as a category of Summon. So "Summoned AoE Enchantment" or "Summoned AoE Curse" and don't count towards pets.
Equally...I'd love to see tech variants of sigils:
Sigils of Ebon Weakness - Enervating Pulse Generators
Sigils of Arcane Runes - Proximity Mines
Sigils of Destruction - Electric Pulse Generators
Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary - Stealth Field Generators
My only 'issue' with the proposal (or perhaps a lack of understanding):
"Tactician - Hybrid Passive
You know how to lead your team into battle. Any controllable pet under your control gains a damage boost and damage absorb, which scales with super stats. In addition, 10% of the incoming damage the pet master takes is divided equally between all controllable pets. Rank 2 and 3 increase the damage boost and damage absorb to the pets, and adds an additional 5% to the damage division for a total of 20% at rank 3."
Questions:
1) Does this mean that you as a pet master gain nothing in terms of self defense or damage boosting? Because I've always personally envisioned a pet master passive which grants some damage boosting and combines elements of: IDF, Medical Nanites & AoRP (Absorb/AoE self and other Healing/Resistance boosting) and you could have advantages which boost aspects of it at the cost of other elements within the passive for self and other.
2) When you think of this passive existing in game, how much damage do you think a build using "Munibots, Artic Beast & Ritual of Radiant Summoning" should be putting out? In DPS terms (ideally).
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My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Pet masters are relying on their pet to do the damage and save them the pet master should be supporting their pets in the process. It creates a feedback loop, in essence. This is why the special buff can increase the damage division, but why it is a 3 point advantage to, because it is quite powerful.
And of course the further buff of area of effect resistance, assuming it's a flat resistance and not the wonky resistance numbers presented by CO, would give 90% using the commander specialty. I do think area of effect resistance should be core to a passive like this, however, but a case for abuse can be made so it was something I just came up with.
Ideally, if a pet master is using all three pets with a damage power themselves the total should come out to equal a similar player in that particular role. If I had my way there would be a specific role for pet master, just like a specific role for CC, because throwing it all in support just does not do it justice.
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I mean just recently, they have released a new archetype that is definitely not a "pet master", but one can hope for them to get the message, sooner than later.
Definitely sooner.
Edit: I mean, i had bought the lifetime subscription for this game years ago, just so i could play as a pet master, but the lack of a robust, working system really breaks it for me. So they should really look into this.
But back to the suggestion. Most of what's been proposed could probably be worked out, with already existing assets, including art/FX/animations.
You won't, cause people would go nuts.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
It unlikely will get a response. I don't expect devs to directly reply either. It's just a bad habit of gamers in general, this forum in particular, to take anything talked about or commented on as some sort of admission to things being exactly as the players think will happen or some evidence of a grand conspiracy. Even if the dev says "I like this idea" there will be a lot of people that would just interpret it as them saying "this is a sure fire thing and it will be worked on immediately."
I won't pretend what I am suggesting would be easy to implement if even possible at all in CO's current code matrix without some dedicated engineer to do the programming. It's mostly a suggestion to bring pets up to par, since there are a few major issues with them keeping them from being upgraded and being viable in content that just obliterates them on purpose.
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This looks clean as heck. Hopefully a dev looks at this when they have some down time.
Thanks. However there is the work involved. There would undoubtedly have to be some re-categorizing of the pets as they are, on top of that some extra work on just summonable pets so that they override existing ones if changed to what I am suggesting above.
Then of course there would undoubtedly have to be other changes to get them in line with the codification set forth, such as giving those pets new powers, or just filling out other power set rosters to fill in the gaps. For instance, Gadgeteer is currently the only power set that can field all three pet roles as I codify above, with the other possible exception, if changes are made, being sorcery. It won't be so smooth or streamline and I am sure there are many other issues to tackle over even if this were something the devs thought they could do.
And then there are those who will want stylized pet types or other options entirely. I mean as interesting as it is, I am sure many would prefer another bot in line with the munitions bot for a bruiser instead of attack toys. And there are still others who would want minions/thugs instead of any of the options currently presented now. Or some who would prefer elemental style or demon pets, etc. There's a lot of work ahead than just simple definition changes. And probably, like most other power reviews, this would require new powers to be added which means new art to.
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Also... I don't see it as a bad thing if your pets can fight for you. I mean, summoning them is using a power...
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