stryve

A lot of really great changes, here. From minor under-the-hood adjustments (-Damage debuff scale and duration, KB Magnitude, damage type ratios) through small but noticeable changes (cast time reductions), to major departures (Focused Burst chaining, Concentrated Strike criting, Power Siphon) the set just flows better now. I have three Kinetic Melee toons (Kin/Will Scrapper, Shield/Kin Tanker, Kin/Nin Stalker) with fairly different builds and attack chains, but all three definitely feel improved by these changes. All Powers - A lot of small adjustments here. The damage type ratio adjustment is the only change that's immediately apparent in-play, but they all add together subtly. Power Siphon - Reducing the cast time of Power Siphon was at the top of my wish list for Kinetic Melee, so I'm very happy to see it happen. Granting a single stack on cast makes getting to 5-stacks faster (as well as making it more immediately rewarding to use), while increasing stack duration from 10 to 15 seconds makes it easier to stay at 5-stacks once you get there. Repulsing Torrent giving a stack, and Concentrated Strike two, also helps there. The changes to damage boost per stack are interesting, ending up in the same place for damage but also boosting other effects. One thing I haven't tested is whether the base stat boost affects powers outside of Kinetic Melee, could open up some possibilities. The recharge and duration reductions are a bit of a wash, though. It's nice having Power Siphon recharge faster, but 15 seconds duration just feels a little too short. Repulsing Torrent - Having one power in the set excluded from the Power Siphon mechanic always felt odd, so it's nice to see that added in. I'm ambivalent on the KB Scale change, as it's still high enough to I prefer to slot for KB/KD. The increase to damage scale is also nice, but unfortunately overshadowed by the range reduction. With a 45-degree arc, Repulsing Torrent has always had issues hitting more than a handful of targets when in in the middle of a mob, but the 40-foot range made it great for blasting an entire group on approach. Reducing the range to 30-feet makes it much more difficult to reach the entire depth of a group that isn't already tightly clustered while also significantly reducing the maximum width of the cone, which has the same effect across the breadth of a group. End result is my Scrapper has trouble hitting max targets, let alone my Tanker. Focused Burst - On Live Focused Burst is primarily a set mule, occasionally seeing use on a mostly dead runner. Changing it into a chain instantly makes it an integral part of my AoE rotation on all three toons. Total AoE damage may not be much, but it's still more than the set has on Live, and it hits decently hard on the first target. Mitigation from spreading even more KD around is a definite bonus as well. Plus, it's just plain satisfying to hear the bounce and see mobs faceplant, especially on a Tanker. Burst - The very long delay before effect doesn't bother me as much it does some others, but I agree seeing damage numbers during the windup feels better. The slight reduction in cast time contributes to the whole set flowing more smoothly as well. Concentrated Strike - I'll echo my comments on Burt here, especially the reduction of cast time. Granting two stacks of Power Siphon makes it feel less punishing to use before building five stacks, and actually incentivizes doing so. Increasing Stun chance to 100% is a nice bonus to mitigation. Enabling critical damage for Scrappers and Stalkers is very welcome (not having it was always a little odd when even Energy Transfer has at least some). The chance to Recharge Power Siphon just wasn't high enough to be worth it on a Scrapper, especially since I don't think it was affected by the ATOs. I'll admit I'll miss the constant Build Up on my Stalker, but that was always a little ridiculous and impractical; the trade off is definitely worth it. Taken as a whole, these changes have improved both the feel and effectiveness of Kinetic Melee. I would be happy to see them on Live with no further changes.

After playing around with the changes on my Elec/Elec Scrapper, overall I'm pretty happy with how they fall out. Jacob's Ladder - Does anyone remember what the Single Target changes are? I couldn't find them in a quick check through the old Patch Notes. That aside, the power seems to perform basically the same as it does on Live. Which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. I'm honestly not sure if it's possible to fit five targets in a 7-foot 50 degree cone, but even if it is it's not at all likely. Generally I'm lucky to hit two targets without aggressive repositioning. Decent damage for the animation time, but still disappointing as an AoE. Chain Induction - After comparing actual numbers on Live and Beta it looks like damage on initial hit is pretty much the same. Live's flat rate for additional targets may total more if all four are hit, but Beta's falling damage per target starts higher. Also, each jump has a chance to crit on Beta, which is nice. Only complaint here is changing the accepted Sets from Melee to Melee AoE: existing Melee Sets are not giving Set Bonuses on Beta. Lightning Clap - I was initially pretty skeptical of this change, but actually using it is great! Even without a respec (I already have it in both my builds for Absolute Amazement and often use it in conjunction with Thunder Strike for mitigation), adding Lightning Clap to my regular rotation boosted my survivability: the mitigation from regularly Stunning and/or Knocking most of a group is quite noticeable, and still stacks nicely with Thunder Strike's Stun/KD. Another fast-animating, high-damage single target attack helps a lot with hard targets as well. The only real problem I have is deciding whether I want to keep the fifth +10% Global Recharge Bonus from Absolute Amazement or slot for Damage Enhancement in what is now a great single target attack. Two notes on Lightning Clap: Knock Magnitude has been changed to 0.50 so KB/KD Enhancements are no longer necessary, which is not listed in the patch notes. Scrapper Lightning Clap is currently applying full critical damage to multiple targets, which took me a while to notice. I suspect this is not intended behavior. Lightning Rod - Being able to crit at all with Lightning Rod feels amazing. Otherwise I didn't notice any change in performance from Live, which is a ringing endorsement. Again, these changes feel great overall. Definitely helps Electric Melee's single target damage, but doesn't sacrifice mitigation or AoE damage to get there. I would love to see the delay between jumps in Chain Induction reduced, but that's an old complaint, and it's not too bad as is. As a general comment, there are a lot of references to Fiery Embrace in Power Details on both Live and Beta. Pretty sure most aren't actually dependent on Fiery Embrace being active.

Right, I should have been more clear that I was talking talking about the difficulty leveraging Shinobi-Iri with PBAoE nukes on Live there. Scrappers have similar issues with melee attacks. There are ways to increase effective Stealth and thus mitigate that, but most are buffs from other ATs. After a little more testing I've found that the proposed changes to Seishinteki Kyoyo actually make it easier to mitigate the crash from Kuji-In Retsu, or at least it's less dependent on perfect timing. Since SK now grants bonus End over time, you can click it when KiR is wearing off and avoid dropping all your toggles as long as the amount granted exceeds your Endurance Consumption. - how many drop is largely down to luck with where the server ticks land, though End Reduction powers such as Conserve Energy or Victory Rush may help as well. Though if you want to continue actively using powers during the 20 seconds crash window, you'll need some other source of +End (Blue Inspirations, Ageless, etc.).

First looking at these changes, the adjustment to Self Resist and Defense modifiers is very nice. In most cases it's not going to be a dramatic difference (it's been less than 5% difference in DEF/Resist totals on any of my Sentinels I've directly compared), but even that much might be enough to push things over various thresholds. Plus it's long been a minor annoyance that I get less for the same investment when enhancing a Sentinel armor set, so finally seeing that even out is pretty satisfying. I'll admit when I first read the changes to Opportunity/Vulnerability I was a little skeptical. After actually trying them out, I'll also admit that initial reaction was wrong. The +Perception isn't going to matter much most of the time, but it'll be nice when facing any mobs with high -Perception debuffs or stealth (looking at you, Arachnos...). Getting beat up by mobs you know are there but can't actually see or target is always frustrating. While not as dramatic as Criticals on other ATs, 40% is still enough to be impactful. It also is always satisfying to see "Critical" pop up over a target. Tying the chance to crit to how full the Opportunity meter is makes a good decision point for differing circumstances, as others have noted. Nukes not criting is disappointing, but I can understand the rational behind that decision as Nukes are quite effective without them. Restricting Opportunity gain to in-combat again is going to be an adjustment; we've all gotten used to the constant passive fill the last few years. However, this isn't completely going back to the way things were before Issue 27 Page 5. Instead of a set amount being given per attack, it seems that using any enemy affecting power (Primary, Secondary, or Pool) will trigger the bar to begin filling like it does on Live. Seems to last about 10 seconds per power activation. Takes around a minute of combat to go from 0-100, which is about the same as the passive fill on Live. Also, there doesn't seem to be any fall off outside of combat. I went AFK for a least 10 minutes once and still had the same amount of Opportunity afterwards. Vulnerability affecting up to 5 targets is great all around, though obviously will be more valuable with a group. The secondary targets getting a different color marker is a nice touch. As far as the ATO Chance for Opportunity proc goes putting it in an AoE will speed up building the bar, but it's inconsistent. Putting it in the Nuke makes some sense so as to build more Opportunity at the start of an encounter, but I saw more return overall with standard AoEs. Admittedly I wasn't slotted to maximize proc chance, so YMMV. I did notice what at first appeared to be glitches with criting on DoT powers such as Dark Blast Gloom: Criting on individual damage ticks but not all of them, two 'Critical" notifications poping up simultaneously. However after check combat logs I'm pretty sure that's just oddness in how crits are implemented for those powers. The Critical effects are themselves DoTs in at least some cases, and each tick is popping "Critical" individually. Combining that with multiple DoT attacks with different damage tick timing explains everything I was seeing. The only actual bug I found (at least I'm pretty sure this isn't intended behavior, and does not match Live) is how Vulnerability is interacting with Phasing targets such as Carnie Illusionists and Master Illusionists. On Live if you attempt to apply Vulnerability to a Phased target the "Unaffected" message pops over the target, but no Opportunity is consumed. On Beta f you attempt to apply Vulnerability to a Phased target the "Unaffected" message pops over the target, but Opportunity is consumed. In either case, Vulnerability is not applied to the target.

Spent some time comparing Ninjutsu on Live and Beta. I have three Ninjutsu toons: Psi/Nin Sentinel, War Mace/Nin Scrapper, and Kinetic Melee/Nin Stalker. All three have decently dissimilar builds, once you get past the base high DEF/Recharge incentivized by Ninjitsu in general. Blinding Powder/Smoke Flash: I've tried Blinding Power on all three ATs, and ended up repeced out of it on all three as well. a very short and narrow cone Confuse/Sleep really wasn't worth the effort to use effectively. Smoke Flash just didn't appeal on the Stalker; the Ranged Placate in your Primary is smoother to use than a slower animating PBAoE, even with increased Radius and Target Cap. The proposed changes definitely make the versions on Beta more appealing, even with the increased cast time. Seishinteki Kyoyo: The proposed changes have a lot going on here. First, it was pretty difficult to figure out what was actually happening when this power is clicked. The icon appeared in the Active Powers section under my Health Bar, and a single line showed up under Base-Current Endurance in Combat Attributes, but that was it. Pretty sure that the first time I've ever seen any modifiers show up under Current Endurance, so I wasn't at all sure what that +2% meant. The one other indication something was happening is that my Psi/Nin Sent's Blue Bar started trending up instead of down while spamming attacks. Eventually I thought to open the Combat Log before clicking Seishinteki Kyoyo, and saw that it was granting a flat amount of Endurance at roughly one tick every second. I'm pretty sure the amount per second is a percentage of your Max Endurance (The math works out for that anyway: Max End 115.85, 2.17% listed in Power Details, 2.25 End gained per tick. 115.85*0.0217=2.514). If so that works out to be right around the total granted on Live, spread out across 30 seconds (2.514*30=75.42 vs. 75.47 on Live). In actual practice, it does seem to work, more or less. Even against +2x8 Carnies, the only time my Sent ran out of End on Beta was a result of getting distracted and not noticing I was low. Obviously that would have the same result on Live. When I was paying attention, the -End seemed to be helping compared to Live (as noted by others, there doesn't seem to be any listing for -End Protection in Combat Attributes). Of course, the increased Defense modifiers on Sents means he gets hit a little less often on Beta, which might be skewing things some. I tried to test with my Scrapper, but it turns out I built in too much +Recovery for even +3x8 Carnies to overcome consistently. Overall, this change means Seishinteki Kyoyo needs to be played a little more proactively: if you're one click away from dropping all your toggles, +2 End/sec isn't going to solve that immediately. On the other hand, +2 End/second is pretty likely to keep you from getting to that point if activated a little earlier. The -End Protection is valuable against draining enemies (Caries, Malta, Mu, etc.), and pairs well with high DEF. Additionally, the flat +End/sec bonus kind of sidesteps -Recovery debuffs. It is much less visually dramatic in effect than Live, and can seem like you aren't getting as much +End out of it while spamming powers (since you are spending End as you get it, rather than after you get it). However, the one major negative is the increase to base Recharge time. My Sent has a recharge of 24 seconds on Live, the Scrapper 17 seconds. On Beta the Sent is 35 seconds, the Scrapper 26 seconds. About the best you can manage with SOs is around 45 second recharge though, compared to around 30 seconds on Live. Shinobi-Iri [Sentinels]: This is obviously taken from the Scrapper version, to pair with Sentinels getting Critical Hits now. As noted by others, this is an overall negative change from Live. It only ever applied to the first hit in a fight, and is completely negated if mobs notice you before getting that attack off (more of a problem with PBAoE nukes like Psychic Wail), but still annoying to have an at best 70% chance of any benefit when combined with full Opportunity. Bo Ryaku: Very nice to have this power available to Stalkers. I will certainly be switching out of Tough when this change hits Live.

Extending the Recovery boost for the full 60 seconds is pretty nice, and changing the fall-off to a flat rate for the full period at least simplifies figuring out how much you need at any given moment. Allowing Endurance Enhancement is also greatly appreciated. Obviously the flat rate is going to be lower than the maximum currently on live, and getting Recovery for the full period undoubtedly returns more total Endurance over that time at base recharge. The same is probably true of Regen, or at least it averages out pretty close. These changes definitely lower the incentives to push high recharge in the power, which is probably good overall. The stated intent is to tone down the synergy of burst heal and high Regen, which fair enough. The combination is quite potent, even if it doesn't instantly fill your entire health bar with a single click. Regen takes a pretty big hit at high recharge on Beta, but getting the burst heal more often is a decent reward by itself. However, if you already have Obscure Sustenance recharging in 30 seconds or even just slightly more, which is achievable using only SOs, you see significantly less Recovery on Beta. Even with Musculature Alpha increasing the Recovery boost from 25% to 33%, my Dark/Dark Sentinel went from 4.83%/3.83%/3.2% per second on Live to 3.59% per second on Beta. That was pretty hard on my Blue Bar in extended fights.

I had been curious how exactly the changes to Perception worked out, so I ported my Dark/Dark to Beta and compared the numbers with Live. On Live, he has 1146.42 ft. total perception with +550 ft. base. On Beta, with 0 Opportunity he has 1146.42 ft. total perception with +55 ft. base. With 100 Opportunity he actually maxes out at 1268.3 ft. total with an additional 137.5 ft. from Opportunity. So in conclusion, your standing Perception will be completely unchanged on Beta, with a relatively minor increase in combat (he's getting 266.42 and 330 ft. from Tactics and Cloak of Darkness respectively.).

I accidentally posted in the Sentinel Focused Feedback thread instead of this one yesterday, but Master Brawler (on Sentinels at least) may be de-toggling when mezed. I've had difficulty deliberately testing that due to the difficulty of getting hit with enough mez to overwhelm Master Brawler's protection without dying first. Any suggestions there are welcome. Spent some time today comparing what you get from Practiced and Master between Archetypes on live and Beta. Scrapper and Tanker copied from Live with no changes to build, Sentinel copied to Beta and then switched to Practiced Brawler with the same slotting (6-slot Preventative Medicine). All three have high Global Recharge, though only the Sentinel uses Hasten. Absorb numbers were taken just standing around with toggles running, and will vary depending on exact ratio of Endurance/Health at time of click. Recharge and Duration listed in seconds. Archetype Absorb Recharge Duration MAG Protection Scrapper ~150 73 30 10.4 Tanker ~210 76 30 13 Sentinel (Beta) ~280 52 30 8.3 Sentinel (Live) ~460 16 30 8.3 First, the absorb from all versions has a duration of 30 seconds. I'm a little shaky on the math, but I don't think it's possible to get Practiced Brawler down to a 30 second recharge from it's base of 200. Maybe at the recharge cap. Perma-hasten is a more realistic, and leaves a roughly 20 second gap after the absorb expires. Additionally, the longer recharge means Practiced Brawler is a lot less likely to be available when you get into trouble and need the absorb shield. Especially if you're taking enough hits to burn through the shield before it expires (DE Emanators, Nemesis Vengeance, etc.). Which brings up the second point. With the same slotting and the same ration of End/HP, Practice Brawler on Beta is giving around half the absorb of Master Brawler on Live. I have not confirmed that this holds true all the way through to low HP/high End, but I expect it does. Overall, if this change goes live, it will amount to a minor gimmick on my existing Melee SR toons. It's not worth changing up their builds to enhance the absorb. The Sentinels on the other hand will switch from Master to Practiced, because they are already built to enhance the absorb. There's no possibility of ever taking Master Brawler on any toon as it currently is on Beta.

Was just testing out some SR Sentinels. I'll try to get a full write up of my thought on the changes to SR tomorrow, but for now I just wanted to mention that Master Brawler seems to be de-toggling when Mezed (at least on Sentinels).

So, before Issue 27 Page 5, Sentinels actually had two Inherent features. The first is the earlier version of what today is called Vulnerability (what was then Offensive/Defensive Opportunity), which was not nearly as straightforward to use as what we have today, but did not ever stack. The second was a proc added to most attacks (I believe all the Primary Pool single target attacks, but it's been long enough I'm not certain anymore) that applied a 5% -Resist debuff. This 5% debuff could stack up to 5 times from different Sentinels, and I believe was called Vulnerability (again, it's been long enough I don't entirely trust my memory on the name). Personally I always regretted that the 5% -Resist proc was removed, as it was a cool little benefit brought to the team. Sure it was fully susceptible to DeBuff Resistance and the Purple Patch, but it was still noticeable with multiple Sentinels in a league focusing single hard targets like Rikti Pylons or Giant Monsters.

That tripped me up Respecing my Psi/Regen Scrapper as well. Dull Pain was converted to Second Wind, and moved the T8 position. Revive was converted to Ailment Resistance, and moved to the T4 position. Second Wind functions mostly the same as Dull Pain, except it also is a Rez and gives slightly less MaxHP. It also will auto-rez if you go down while it is active. Ailment Resistance is an Auto power that provides MaxHP, various DeBuff Resistance, and decreases your resistance to Healing (making Healing more effective). After I respecced, Ailment Resistance was enough to get me to the Scrapper HP when combined with the +MaxHP Accolades. This let me one-slot Second Wind as a Rez/Emergency Unresistable Heal.

Don't forget Ailment Resistance and Second Wind will swap places as to available level.

I am somewhat confused as to what this section means. Especially the fourth bullet point with Psionic Armor.

Ran another set of tests with purpose-created toons. All using War Mace/Stone Armor, slotted with standard level 50 IOs (no set IOs), with no Incarnates and no Inspirations. War mace because it has a wide cone, a narrow cone, and a PBAoE. Stone Armor for the damage/debuff aura, general effectiveness, and similarities across all three ATs (disregarding the T9, which I did not take). Only differences in power choice or slotting were Scrapper Confront (Taunt on Brute & Tanker) and Brute Superior Conditioning from Energy Mastery (Conserve Power on Scrapper & Tanker). All tests run at -1/x8 to ensure maximum enemy group size without overwhelming non-set defensive values (the Scrapper in particular could not reliably survive +0/x8 groups). Three runs with each AT using Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator. Average Times AT Time Scrapper 10:53 Brute 8:12 Tanker 9:24 The Scrappers lower toughness hurt it more than runners here. The Immobilize and Slow field from Mud Pots helped mitigate against runners, but even without I think the four defeats over three runs would have totaled more time taken. Also may have just been bad RNG with spawns, as both the Brute and Tanker saw multiple spawns with no Bosses each run, while I can't remember any without at least two Bosses for the Scrapper. The Brute went down once, while the Tanker was rarely threatened. Better builds and/or players may see different results. In retrospect, War Mace may not have been the best choice, since Crowd Control has a 10 target cap on Brutes and Scrappers, while Shatter has a cap of 5 on all ATs. Also, the End usage was pretty harsh across all ATs.

Personally, I like patch holds, at least as they are currently implemented on Live (Dark, Earth, Arsenal). I even prefer Location AoE over Targeted AoE for such patches, though I am aware this is a contentious opinion. I also feel that Gravity in particular is well suited to leveraging the advantages of a patch Hold. Really, I only have a few complaints about the new patch holds as presented in RC1, and the last isn't actually about the new patches at all. Something about the transition to "True Pseudo-Pets" is causing issues not seen with existing patch Holds on Live, which is definitely problematic. If this can't be resolved, I would support shifting to Adaptive Recharge for the new patches and leaving existing patches as they are on Live. I prefer the flexibility offered by Location AoEs over the convenience of Targeted AoEs, at least for Mez patches. Given the choice, I would take a 180 second base recharge over the initial 16 target Hold. But then, I've long thought 240 seconds base (or max, with Adaptive Recharge) is excessive for AoE Holds. What do they offer that warrants such a massive increase compared to a Blast Set T9 with almost the same Mez plus massive damage on a 125, 145, or 170 second base recharge? I am annoyed that 4 of the seven Arsenal powers that interact with Containment are being reduced from 100% to 33% chance of triggering Containment. I understand that this is probably to bring all pets and pseudo-pets into alignment with the changes this Page, but it's still aggravating.