Blackfeather

Two words: Force Feedback. Delicious, delicious +Recharge. More slotting options = more Set IO opportunities in my mind. Earthquake, which is basically "Ice Patch but debuffs ToHit/Defence" has the ability to slot for Knockback and -ToHit. I'm just giving Ice Control the same parity as Earth.

Would definitely be interested in @oedipus_tex's thoughts on these proposed changes - I've seen you talk about this powerset a fair amount, so it's clear you've got a fair amount of experience with it. I think you've expressed a good deal of interest in this powerset in the past, in fact!

I’ve written up a proposal for improving Mind Control before, and this is done in the same vein, except with a cooler twist – there’s another Control Primary powerset out there that could do with some love (something that I’ve mentioned in my thread to allow Controllers to lock down AVs/GMs): Ice Control! As for why I decided to look at improvements to this powerset in particular, read on. Ice Control: The Competition Heats Up Unlike Mind Control, it’s a fairly standard Control set, with five of its powers following the regular pattern: one single target/AoE Hold and Immobilize, along with a pet power as its capstone. Additionally, its secondary effect can be quite potent. Its combined powers provide enough -Recharge/-Movement to slow most enemies to a crawl, and attack as much as four times slower. Given that, it’s what Ice Control’s other four powers do cumulatively that make it hold up somewhat less well compared to the other Control primaries. Generally, most of them have an early way of locking down groups of enemies for a prolonged period of time, even before their AoE Hold comes into play: Control Primary Power Name Effect Level Darkness Heart of Darkness PBAoE Stun 12 Earth Stalagmites AoE Stun 12 Electric Static Field Patch AoE Sleep 12 Fire Flashfire AoE Stun 12 Illusion Phantom Army Decoy Summon 18 Plant Seeds of Confusion Cone Confuse 8 The only exceptions to this are Mind and Gravity Control, which are both more damage focused than the other powersets – they get their other lockdown power at level 26 (Terrify and Wormhole respectively). Ice Control: Slow on the Uptake By level 12, most Control powersets have ways of immediately locking enemies down hard and for prolonged periods of times, preventing them from acting against players. In comparison, Ice Control at this level gets: Arctic Air (6), a solid PBAoE Confuse toggle: useful, but slow acting, giving enemies time to retaliate Shiver (8), a potent Recharge/Movement debuff: useful in prolonged fights, but does nothing against the initial wave of attacks Ice Slick (12), a location based knockdown patch: great at keeping enemies on the floor, but doesn’t immediately stop them from attacking the user The only power that bucks this trend is Flash Freeze, gained at level 18, which puts a group of enemies to sleep. Unfortunately, this does little in the way of locking down a group for a prolonged period of time, an issue it shares with other Sleep powers, given how the effect is broken via damage, or even being knocked down. A pattern comes into play here. Ice Control excels in long, drawn out fights, due to being able to slow down the amount of damage that comes their way over time via its recharge and movement debuffs. However, it also lacks an immediate way of persistently locking down enemies, resulting in more damage taken from the unmitigated initial attacks. This leads on to the meat of this proposal, mainly figuring out a way of locking down enemies at an early level while keeping Ice Control’s main strength of working well against prolonged fights. Every other aspect of this proposal is secondary to this. Powerset Revamp: Ice Control Ice Control has received a number of changes aimed at improving its ability to initially lock down the battlefield, something that almost all other Control powersets are capable of doing from a low level. In addition, there are now more avenues for it to deal damage, placing it more in line with other Control powersets. Power Changes Shiver: Ranged (Cone), Foe -Recharge, -SPD, Foe Knockdown, Moderate DMG(Cold) Inflicts knockdown on enemies Deals moderate Cold damage Half of the slow persists for 60 seconds (same as the changes to Blaster's version of this) Can now be slotted with Knockback and Targeted AoE enhancements Ice Slick: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Knockdown -SPD, -Jump Can now be slotted with Slow enhancements Can now be slotted with Knockback enhancements Flash Freeze: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe Sleep, Summon Ice Formations Each affected enemy now summons a fragile, short lived ice formation Summoned icicles apply -Recharge and -Movement in a small area Has a small aura of immobilisation and taunt that affects the targeted enemy Deals minor Cold/Lethal damage to targeted enemy if prematurely destroyed Can now be slotted with Taunt and Slow enhancements Glacier: PBAoE, Foe Hold, -Recharge, -SPD Duration of -SPD debuff increased to 24 seconds Alteration Justifications The main change of note here is Shiver, which is meant to act as a go-to opener for Ice Control in most cases, allowing it to cut down the amount of actual attackers in play from the start. I was initially quite inspired by Poison’s Neurotoxic Breath power, which is similar in nature to Shiver, except with a small chance to Hold an enemy (25%, Mag 2). Currently, it has more similarities with Force Field's Repulsion Bomb, a power that also knocks enemies down while inflicting some damage. This should help make Shiver a relatively reliable opener, while also being extremely short lasting. Combined with the other Recharge/Movement debuffs that Ice Control is capable of, any attacks after the initial burst should be fairly infrequent, or give time for Arctic Air’s confuse to kick in. Additionally, some damage to the power provides Controllers with a little more means of whittling down opponents somewhat faster, something of an issue for Control powersets in general, but especially the case for Ice. In that vein, Flash Freeze also received similar changes – Sleeps tend to be more effective when combined with other more lasting effects (Electric Control’s Static Field is a nice example of this). By creating fragile summons that apply slow debuffs and taunt, even enemies who prematurely wake up from being put to sleep will still end up being occupied for a little longer, attacking the constructs that trapped them in the first place. Other than that, the changes to Ice Slick are meant to provide Ice Control with more slotting options (Shiver and Flash Freeze included). Similarly, Glacier’s recharge/speed debuff duration is surprisingly low for its recharge and duration – only 10 seconds, which even Ice Control’s single target hold exceeds. Ice Control: Now Even Cooler And these are the changes that I’d make to Ice Control – modifications designed to fill in some gaps in its toolbox, as well as improve its existing abilities and strengths. In other words, it attempts to keep its previous feel while also improving its speed and effectiveness. With this all written up, I turn to the forums: what do you think? Is this something that you’d like done to Ice Control? Does it bring it in line with the other Control powersets, is it too much, not enough? Would you do something else entirely? Looking forward to everybody’s responses!

Shortform Build Longform Build Key Points: Moderate positional defences (~25%) Hardcapped S/L resistances Dips into the Teleport pool to get Fold Space (combine with procced out Anguishing Cry for AoE damage/resistance debuff) Hasten should be perma via Force Feedback Lift/Propel Give it a whirl on beta, see how it treats you! Would be interested in seeing how it performs.

Hence the whole XCOM jokes about 99% chance to hit misses and so on, I imagine.

Whoops, misread Praetorian/non-Praetorian, my mistake.

...no? I've done it as a non-Praetorian, test it out on the beta shard after unlocking Incarnates, @CaptainLupis.

That makes sense - thanks for putting your thoughts forth! I've definitely had similar experiences against Elite Bosses with the Purple Triangles at the lower levels and so on with this Plant Control/Cold Domination character of mine...when the -Recharge debuffs from your secondary are doing more to improve your survivability than your actual controls, it definitely feels a little backwards. Sadly, I'm not exactly versed in power development, otherwise it'd be something I'd love to test out to see if it'd work well in practice, especially since it feels like there's a lot of variables to juggle all at once. Having a chance to lock down AVs/GMs kind of requires considering how that chance'll scale with the amount of Controllers on the team, something that @FoulVileTerror did bring up - being significant enough on a smaller team/solo vs. adding more Controllers to the group. I'm still in the process of figuring out how best to do this...but unfortunately, only testing it out'll really work, I suppose, even if I do napkin-math as best as I can, such as with the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower going off given a specific amount of status effect inducing powers. And then the variables increase from there if I end up introducing other mechanics such as the whole +Chance to Overpower thing, along with the different ways in which that might be implemented as a means of aiding with the reliability of this, without straying from the whole binary nature of status effects. It's a lot to factor in! At the moment, I'm thinking of some kind of hybrid mechanism that factors in: The different status effects currently applied on an enemy The magnitude of each of these separate status effects And using that to increase the chance of an Overpower occurring. Sadly, math really isn't my strong point here. I've heard some Earth Controllers do similarly to what you're describing with your use of a Shivan with their Animate Stone pet, due to how it draws aggro, and the fact that it's extremely durable. And of course, Illusion Control's Phantom Army takes that up to eleven, where maintaining aggro basically is their form of control. It does make one ask why some control powersets are better at handling stronger opponents, purely because of the kind of control that they favour. Which I suppose is what Overwhelming Overpower is attempting to rectify in the first place. And yeah, Overpowering Overkill might definitely be a little extra, hahah. I'm personally okay with the amount of damage my Controllers deal outside of some powerset picks...but that might be better resolved with improving them rather than outright changing their inherent. Ice Control could do with something more for instance - speaking of which, I probably need to do a writeup on that too. It was more for the people in this thread such as @BitCook and @Uun who've mentioned that status effects are less useful in teams where enemies are defeated faster; additional survivability is less important there. Plus, there are definitely some combinations that'll be much slower than others solo.

I quite liked it as a cone myself, and it looked very stylish in the process.

Yup, yup, had a feeling that was the case, was spitballing ideas. I figured that one big thing that teleporters can do in fiction and so on would be that obstacle traversal stuff, but that makes sense.

Hmm...perhaps Teleport could allow for traversing through obstacles/structures? I'm not sure how that'd be implemented though - visualising it as making things temporarily transparent, allowing you to target something on the other side, or something like that.

As mentioned here, Eagles Claw had an animation change when it became a cone attack, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. Now that it's back to a single target attack, that dust cloud remains, but should also be reverted back to what it originally looked like (compare the default customisation to the colour tinted version).

Out of curiosity, might it ever be accessible inside supergroup bases? I've heard there's some technical difficulties that need overcoming first though.

Eagle's Claw still has the dust cloud animation attached to it - could that be reverted to the original animation now that it's no longer a cone?

There's a few reasons that I went the way I did with Overpowering Overkill: Damage focused Controllers don't really benefit from this addition - they can bring down enemies quickly enough for it not to matter Low damaging, but lockdown heavy Controllers will be aided the most, as most of their damage comes from repeated use of their primary powers I.e. spamming Holds and Immobilises It has potential synergies with +Chance to Overpower, depending on how it's implemented, thus enhancing the prior two points further E.g. higher chances to occur based on the amount of magnitude stacked on an enemy It was purposefully focused on helping to take down lower ranking enemies, thus speeding up Controllers when alone/in low damage groups @Uun pointed out that status effects/buffs/debuffs don't really matter if enemies are defeated too quickly I didn't want to exacerbate this against tougher foes, hence why it doesn't really affect bosses and above Kinda curious as to how this'd affect Mind Control as well, since it does have a lot of powers that benefit from Overpower, so pinging @MTeague for thoughts on this additional proposal. To quickly recap - I made an addition to the original suggestion, as can be seen below: Would definitely be interested in hearing what people think of it!

Also will ping @krj12 for their thoughts - hello there! I've seen you around the Controller sub-forum, and it looks like you've a fair amount of experience with the archetype. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your opinion on these proposed additions to the Controller's inherent, which I'm calling Overwhelming Overpower. Mainly, it's meant to provide the archetype with a way to use status effects against AVs/GMs (when by default they generally don't have an effect, Purple Triangles notwithstanding), but I've also attempted to recently address the speed at which Controllers clear out the battlefield in normal play as well. Thoughts/feedback/critique welcome! 🙂

I was looking forward to the change to Eagles Claw myself, but discussion about the change was definitely a bit split. Powerhouse also said this was one of the changes that wasn't really set in stone - I imagine they'll look into Martial Arts another time.

Out of curiosity, where does Martial Arts stand now, given that the change to Eagles Claw has been rolled back? Bit of a shame that, I did like the cone there.

Hello @Oneirohero! I'm sending you a ping because it looks like you're similarly interested in tweaking Controllers, from a previous post of yours. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on Overwhelming Overpower, which seeks to improve the Controller's ability to lock down AVs/GMs - how it stacks up to other inherents, whether or not it steps on the toes of Dominators, if it goes too far/is too little, and so on. I'm also especially interested in hearing further thoughts about one of my newer secondary suggestions attached alongside the main proposal, Overpowering Overkill. It's designed to address another issue that's cropped up here and there with Controllers: that of the speed with which they clear things at. Many thanks in advance if you decide to respond! 🙂

Created a new additional proposal to Overwhelming Overpower. Thoughts/feedback welcome as always!

Definitely like this change, gives a bit of extra AoE damage (quite a bit, actually) - and the dust cloud/shockwave it kicks up is really neat! Thank you for this, devs. 🙂

While this video is more about microtransaction-locked cosmetics in games, I do like it for how it touches on the significance of character customisation for players, especially for multiplayer games with a high amount of social interaction involved in them.

Going to ping @Naraka about this new addition to this proposal, since it's a bit of a deviation from just pure control: Basically, it'd provide Controllers with the ability to instantly defeat enemies if they're sufficiently overpowered (i.e. +50 mag controls on minions/lieutenants) - a way to use their "crits" of sorts. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on it!

Hey there, thanks for your response! Basically, Overwhelming Overpower'll work mostly the same in normal play - it's really only against tougher targets that it'll begin to make itself known (or at least, that's the intent). Here's some comparative numbers about the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower going off during the Purple Triangles Up period, given some factors that I drafted up. Hope it helps to visualise it a bit more! It gives the Controller the chance to flat out lock down an AV/GM with a single application of their power - I bank on the low-ish chance to stop it from being more potent than Domination, but it's definitely a hard balance to pull. I do like your idea of having a way of taking down those Purple Triangles early as well! I think @DougGraves mentioned the use of break bars and the like, which does sound pretty close to it. Though how to implement that sort of thing, I'm not sure of.

Oh! Almost forgot to ping @EmperorSteele about this new proposal too - I recall you wishing to add damage to Controllers, so I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on the addition to Overwhelming Overpower I made above. Got any ideas for alternative effects, etc.? Is it too powerful? Something else entirely?