MirrorDarkly

I'm gong to skip ahead to talk about Power of the Deep. It's an ability that I suspect will be most apricated by high level "meta" characters that already have their defense and/or resist in place but barring a few sets likely won't have max HP or Regen as well as Master Minds for obvious reasons. On my test lv 50 Defender I can give out +615 max hp plus about +460% regen on a near* perma bases plus that amount again that decays over 30 seconds (and some max end and range). Now that won't turn a glass cannon into a tank but it will increase the sustain and survivability of most characters that already have strong defenses. However it feels very odd to have this huge impressive animation for a buff, especially one that's not incredibly likely to turn an eminent defeat into a victory. And if you're running with a team that hasn't got their defenses sorted it not going to be nearly as helpful. I know it is unlikely at this stage but what I'd love to see is the decaying 30 second buffs removed and replaced with a more immediate, and dramatic, effect that would then allow the regen some time to work. Say it knocks down enemies in the area and applies a very strong 10-15 second -Recharge, -Speed, and -Damage effect (auto hit & unenhanceable to prevent it from becoming a proc bomb but also keep it relevant against high level foes). All of that is keeping with the theme of the set, and imo much more dramatic, interesting and likely to create satisfying "I just changed the tide of battle" moments. *With an unplanned build, so I likely would get perma or just a few seconds off in an actual character. Edit: Also I am not sure if this in intended, but Power Boost from the Epic Soul PP is not affecting either the +Max HP or the Reg the power grants even though it has +healing. It does boost +Max End and I'm not sure about the range component.

Letting Wellspring/Barrier Reef (crosses fingers for name change) not de-spawn would be a huge quality of life improvement for the set.

I've noticed that the END costs are inconstant across ATs in a non-standard way. Normally MMs pay an endurance tax, where as currently they are mostly the same with only Toroidal Bubble costing MMs more and Shifting Tides actually costing them less. Marine Affinity end costs (taken from character creation screens) Shoal Rush MM: 10.40 Cor: 10.40 Def: 10.40 Soothing Wave MM: 13.52 Cor: 13.52 Def: 13.52 Toroidal Bubble MM: 10.00 Cor: 8.00 Def: 8.00 Whitecap MM: 26.10 Cor: 26.10 Def: 26.10 Tide Pool MM: 13.00 Cor: 13.00 Def: 13.00 Brine MM: 7.00 Cor: 7.00 Def: 7.00 Shifting Tides MM: 0.60/sec Cor: 0.78/sec Def: 0.78/sec Wellspring MM: 25.00 Cor: 25.00 Def: 25.00 Power of the Deep MM: 26.00 Cor: 26.00 Def: 26.00

Did some playing around with Brine and the power analyzer. The -HP is an interesting feature but it doesn't seem like it will be very significant against an AV or GM unless you have a lot of characters stacking the power. It may be more noticeable vs bosses and EB which have much lower hp pools. Given the high recharge and single target nature of the power I'll probably take it but just keep the base slot and use it mainly for the 30 sec, decaying -Res buff. All values are defender at lv 50. -267.72 hp base with a 1 minute duration and recharge time. It is affected by the purple patch/level differences, but not by AV resistance. The -hp effect does stack with itself. So against a lv +3 AV you can expect to see -174 hp per hit, which, I think, will reduce their regeneration by roughly 0.5%. You can get that up to around 1% per cast if you slot it for +100% healing and likely stack it 2-4 times depending on your recharge and miss chance. One thing I'm really noticing about this set is that it is very hard to increase its effectiveness in significant ways through slotting. The things it's best at you can't enhance and the things you can enhance have low enough values that you don't get great return on slotting them.

Whitecap seems to be fairly weak compared to other AoE resistance debuffs. It gives the "standard" -30% (defender values) but half of that is over a smaller area and drops off after about 20 seconds. Also, I used a power analyzer to confirm that it cannot stack with itself and while leaping in is awesome it makes the power significantly more dangerous to use in many situations. Consider perhaps allowing the half that lasts the full 40 seconds to stack and/or giving it a short but powerful (resistance + mez resistance) or defense self buff to make it less suicidal to use.

So on a defender you can consistently apply -60%* damage across a fairly large area, between Soothing Wave (-15%), Tide Pool (-30%) and Tide Pool: Frenzied/Rough Waters (-15%). And you can give out close to +20% resistance to all damage types by enhancing Toroidal Bubble. All together that is fairly significant protection but it also requires stacking a number of effects and having enemies defeated in your Tide Pool. I wonder if allowing Shoal Rush to proc Frenzied/Rough Waters if used on an enemy in the Tide Pool would make the set feel more reliable and impactful? *On even con enemies. The purple patch reduces that significantly on higher level foes which might also be a reason the set feels less impactful, especially since unlike -to hit there is no slotting you can do to pull the numbers back up.

Took a short break from leveling to test out some other ATs. Two notes about Tide Pool. 1. Could it please not spam the combat log with "makes enemy wet" messages? 2. Tide Pool: Rough Waters (which I assume is the knockdown part of the frenzied mechanic?) misses constantly against higher level foes but the power doesn't take Acc enhancements. Something should probably change there.

Finished the King's Row Skull arc, upping my difficulty to +0/x3 starting with the mission where you first fight the Family's goons. Morana stalemated me as an AV at level 16, every time I'd get her down to around half health she'd use Dark Regen to go back to full health. Went back and redid the mission with her as an EB and it was an easy win. I have been able to solo her as an AV with other MM support sets (Dark, Cold, Rad) so it's keeping with the theme of "good but not as powerful as some other sets" at these levels. Went back to AVs for the Veles fight. Started the mission at lv 17, leveled up part way through and beat him the first time without leaving to train. Took a while and a fair amount of resummoning defeated thugs, but Toroidal Bubbles was enough to keep my end manageable which is a huge plus for the set. Tide Pool: Is a really fun power. It looks good, the sound effect is nice, it's easy to use and the Frenzy effect is entertaining. I do notice the difference fighting in it but It doesn't feel game changing and I'm not sure if there is any fight I where it made the difference between victory and defeat. Which seems to be how I'm feeling about almost every power so far besides maybe the heal and bubbles (having some help with END early really lets me keep going where other sets might need to rest or be addicted to blues). Also I'd love to know the debuff values, I assume the +/- damage are mirrors of each other but that's just a guess and the slow is ?? (but significantly better than Shoal). Speaking of.... Shoal Rush: Now that I have Tide's, Shoal seems like much more of a skip power unless I want to slot it full of procs. It would be nice if it did a little something more to justify taking it for it's own sake. It kind of feels like two secondary effects of say Rad and Ice blast AoE's combined with none of the damage. Now on to the Faultline arc!

Agreed. Barrier Reef is a MUCH better name and the power should be called the same thing as the buff icon.

I've been running a Thugs/Marine MM, leveling up solo through missions. I went AP 1-8 and just finished the first Skull arc in King's Row, taking down Chernobog at level 12. My settings are yes to bosses and AVs, +0/x2. So far the set has been fun but middle of the road in power (certainly no cold, dark or rad at this stage). The powers tend to do a lot of things but none of them exceptionally well which I feel is the intent at this level and I can see how they whole package is likely to be extraordinarily effective, but I'm not there yet. Thoughts on the powers I have tried: Shoal Rush: Takes procs well, but as noted above is not accepting slow sets or enhancements. The thing about this power is that it slows movement but not recharge so it doesn't help keep me alive nearly as well as say Snow Storm would, but for its cost and recharge seems okay. Soothing Wave: Basic cone heal, not great healing output but still much better than nothing. Being a cone kind of conflicts with what the rest of the set wants me to be doing but it has been manageable. The damage debuff is small enough that I don't notice it. Toroidal Bubble: On paper this looks great but the one minute recharge/duration is kind of a pain when I don't have any global recharge or slots to spare bringing it down. The base values are not high enough that it makes a huge difference by itself but I'll never say no to 10% damage reduction plus some help with endurance. I imagine at higher levels I'll really appreciate the end resistance too. Also, having increased jump height but not speed is surprisingly effective at making it feel like I'm floating at times. Whitecap: This just feels awesome and the set became 10x more enjoyable when I unlocked it. Again at this level Tar Patch is probably more practical but jumping in and knocking everything prone is bad ass. Also seems to take procs very well and I could see it eventually becoming a powerhouse. Given how much trouble I had with the two bosses at the end of the ambush mission was surprised that I was able to solo Chernobog as an AV so I certainly can't say it is underpowered in the early game. But I've also done that with quite a few MM (and a few other characters) and it had a rougher time than with ones that uses Dark, Cold or Rad. As of now I'd give it a B- for effectiveness and a C for fun pre Whitecap rising to an A after I got that power.

Shoal Rush is listed as taking Slow Movement sets in the Manage Enhancements screen but does not take them or basic slow enchantments.

Gun drone might be very nice for Storm helping to tank while you get out your ground targets. But my big hang-up with Storm/Devices is how badly Targeting Drone performs with Storm. If you look at the CoD info you'll see targeting drone is a +18.5% to hit and a +20% damage buff that is reapplied every .6/.75 seconds so neither Storm Cell or Cat5 will see an meaningful benefit from that part of the power. What's worse (in my mind) is that the separate +60% damage buff only lasts for .75 seconds and stops applying once you enter combat. Meaning you'll have to use another attack to open up combat other than Cat5 (or any other sudo pet) if you ever want to to make use of that bonus.

Of those I would personally go with Temporal. The extra recharge should help in getting out Cat5 significantly and for me Storm Blast is all about that power. That being said, if you like controlled chaos you might want to consider Storm/Fire/Fire. The DoT aura's add extra passive damage leaving you free to call down lightning and thunder. I made one on the test server when the set was in beta and it was a lot of fun.

Very exciting and honestly not something I ever expected to have happen! Looking forward to what the new year brings. 😄

More like a billion+ of years of relative time (assuming the punch took a fraction of a second). Approximently as many attoseconds pass in one second as seconds have passed since the big bang. Even for comics I've always had a hard time buying that one...

You are missing that they get an Assasin Stike for a hard hitting single target as well (giving up the second cone I think). Also they also get Forn of the Body for free, they just can't switch to the other two.

You raise many good point which I'd like to think my idea took into account. I'm going to highlight some and give my thoughts on why I think this is a reasonable proposal. I'm using pylon and trapdoor times as evidence for adjusting the set but they are not the reason. The main thing that stands out to me as problems is that for two ATs the optimal ST rotation ignores both the core mechanics of the set and any of the set's attacks you'd pick up after level two. The other two ATs are Stalker where the set ranks in the low middle and would not be changed with this proposal and Scrapper where it is dead last in the ranking so I feel safe that raising it up a little would not harm the game or lead to power creep. Nothing in my proposal changes Guarded Spin, which as you note builds stacks. And again I don't see why it would need to be changed.? The defense bonus is not out of line with the ones other sets offer that do better ST damage and have better trapdoor clear times. People think if Staff as a defensive and AoE focused set but there are actually several sets that outshine it in both of those areas. Again just using the brute numbers MA, TW and Katana all have attacks that buff your defense and beat it in both pylon and trapdoor times with MA and TW being at or near the top of both rankings. As for people who already use Form of the Mind I'm not advocating they lose much and perhaps they wouldn't need to lose anything honestly. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most likely people in FotM are doing so for the recharge bonus the stacks give you before they are spent, which I'm not saying should change. The reason I'm advocating for buffing FotM specifically is for the tradeoff you already make using it. Being in FotM already locks you out of the resist bonus and -resist debuff FotB generates and the sustain FotS grants.

Lets look at actual attack chains, which of course are highly sensitive to recharge. I am going to use the ones posted by Ston since I have no reason to suspect they are not honest attempts to make the best possible single target attack chains for each set with all other variables being as equal as possible. Also I'm using brute numbers which was the second best overall showing. Stalkers (#1) are outliers with several unique things about the set and that would not be affected by my purposed change. The Staff attack chain as an unenhanced damage of about 39.5 DPS. (60.9 + 73.4 + 55.0 + 35.0)/(1.848 + 1.32 + 1.32 + 1.188*) War Mace's attack chain produces about 51.2 DPS. (121.7 + 73.4 + 95 + 81.7)/(1.452 + 1.32 + 2.508 + 1.98) So War Mace second per second will put out almost 30% more damage before any other factors such as procs, secondary effects etc. Now again I am not saying there are not advantages to Staff. I'm only suggesting that the least (I believe) used stance be adjusted so there is less of a difference in the DPS at the cost of sacrificing some of the set's utility if you choose to be in that stance. If you remain in Body or Soul you would see no changes at all. *I used arcanatime since that is what you experience in the game.

Yes of course recharge matters some but activation time is by far the most significant "time cost" after you have enough attacks to make a gapless rotation. Also recharge can be reduced significantly which heavily favors powers with low animation time but long recharge times. There is a reason War Mace takes nearly 60% longer to take down a plyon in the test data I linked earlier.

I don't understand what you're doing for the DPS of each attack, it seems like damage/(cast time + recharge) but unless you're standing around waiting for attacks to recharge its the damage/cast time that determines each attacks value to your overall DPS. So using your numbers, Clobber has a base damage per activation of 148.52 (182.6796/1.23) where as Serpent's Reach has a dpa of 63.62 (112.6107/1.77).

That is exactly my point, most of the powers in the set are underperforming to the point that pool powers are better from a damage perspective. So I'm floating the idea of making one stance where using the core mechanic increases damage enough that it outperforms using mostly pool attacks and just using a few quick attacks to build FotB stacks and never spend them (trading the utility in that form only for more damage in that form only). As you said the three form do buff the damage of EotS and SS, along with providing other benefits, but its such a small buff that it is more single target damage just to skip the majority of the set (as well as being average to below average AoE damage despite having a large number of AoE attacks). I see that as undesirable. As for Guarded Spin why would that need to be adjusted? Other sets such as Katana have very similar powers and overall put out more damage. However if it was for some reason to much to allow Guarded Spin to keep the +11.25% bonus to Melee and Lethal defense then the obvious fix would be to remove or lower it only when you're in Perfection of the Mind. But again I don't see why that would be needed since the Katana version gives +15% to those same defenses (comparing Brute numbers here).

Look it's another staff idea..... So it's no secret that outside of the Stalker staff does poor damage, being at or near the bottom in both single target and trapdoor clear times, and that at least for Tanks and Brute you're better off shoving as many pool attacks in your single target chain as you can (seriously it's use both your level 1 attacks and pool picks) than using the later attacks. Now in theory this was probably intended to be balanced by the defensive and utility bonuses the set provides but given how easy it is to get those in IOs that is often not worth the trade off. So I was wondering how people would feel about changing Perfection for the Mind to a stance that actually increases the damage of Sky Splitter and Guardian Spin (maybe add strong Psi DoT's to each at 3 stacks) to the point that they would be competitive for their very long animation times? That would leave you with the choice of Body which is currently the most used stance still offering a modest overall damage increase plus survival bonus, Soul which some people use for the sustain and Mind which would be more damage/finishing move focused in exchange for losing much of the sets utility. Since Stalkers don't get to change stances you wouldn't have to worry about this making the version of the set which currently does the best damage too powerful by accident. It would also reward people who use the build stacks and spend them mechanic which was clearly the intent of the set as opposed to the current situation where you actually do the most damage by building three stacks of body and then *not using it* while still allowing for that playstyle if you enjoy it.

Storm Blast is what finally broke my alt-itis. I find it immensely satisfying when Cat5 drops and lightning starts flying everywhere.

I would be fine with that. But if that is the case and if it's even seen as a reasonable project by the devs it should be added as new aura so that people who are using the existing one still can.

I would not be surprised if that is true and if it is time consuming to change I don't think it should be a priority. But if it's not difficult it would make that aura in particular many times more useful.