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.

Ok, ran through the Tankers I have rough analogues of on other ATs. All tests performed using Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator at +4/x8. All toons adjusted to have Musculature Radial Alpha, Reactive Core Interface, and Assault Hybrid. No active usage of Incarnates. I did use Blue Inspirations when I screwed up and ran myself out of Endurance a few times, but none aside from that. Character AT Time Ice/Stone Brute 7:52 Ice/Ice Scrapper 9:21 Ice/Ice Tanker 11:40 Shield/Kin Tanker 16:54 Kin/Willpower Scrapper 10:53 SR/MA Tanker 14:55 MA/SR Scrapper 9:24 First, I wasn't expecting that particular Brute to do so well. Guessing it's a combination of Brute Punchvoke keeping things grouped well, Stone Armor being better than Ice Armor for damage, and a just plain better build than the Scrapper or Tanker. Second, these runs just cemented my previous conclusion about melee cones: anything less than a 120° arc isn't going to get much value out of higher target caps without aggressive re-positioning for better angles once a fight starts. Ice Melee's Frost actually has a cap of 10 on Scrappers & Brutes, but I still wasn't getting more than 5 most of the time. It also has a radius of 10ft on all ATs, so increased radius doesn't help much there. On the other hand, cones are part of my single target rotation on several of my Tankers, so I appreciate that damage hasn't been decreased. Third, lack of ability to hold aggro definitely hurts Scrapper times. I felt that the most on MA/SR, though it was still pretty noticeable on Ice/Ice, with Kin/Will being the best. At least as far as having to chase runners goes. Fourth, the damage decrease for PBAoEs is very noticeable, especially with sets that don't have cones or damage auras to lean on. My SR Scrapper and Tanker in particular have builds about as close as can be between those ATs, with identical attack chains. Some of the difference in time is down to Scrappers being better at clearing hard targets like Bosses and EBs, but just mopping up the Minions and Lieutenants was notably slower on the Tanker, despite having to chase down runners on the Scrapper. Tanker Kinetic Melee's Burst does solidly more damage per target than Repulsing Torrent on Live but significantly less on Beta, as well. There's a point after which it is faster to do more damage to fewer targets than lower damage to more targets, and the proposed Tanker AoE changes are well past that. Lastly, since all of these are full builds from Live, there's a fair bit of variance just from set bonuses and differing power choices. There might be value in testing otherwise identical SO builds across multiple ATs just to reduce variables, though that would have to be run lower than +4/x8. Don't know if I'll be able to work up the energy to do it myself, unfortunately.

Have some extra time today, so I've been trying out my Tankers in Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator. Nothing valid as a comparative test yet, mostly just familiarizing myself with the mission (so I don't was time hunting for a missed group) and re-familiarizing myself with a few toons I haven't been playing lately. My major initial impression is the performance differences between cone radius and arc. In general, I find arc is more important than radius for consistently hitting more targets in the middle of combat. I had a decent selection of cone sizes between Ice Melee, Dark Melee, Kinetic Melee, and Titan Weapons: Ice Melee - 10ft 90° Dark Melee - 7ft 120° Kinetic Melee - 40ft 45° Titan Weapons - 10ft 120° Even with a shorter reach, it was easier to hit 5 or more targets with Dark than Ice in the middle of combat. The extra reach wasn't useless, especially on approach, but even with active repositioning I was more likely to hit fewer than 5 targets with Ice. Titan Weapons had the best of both worlds, but still required active positioning to consistently hit more than 5 targets once mobs started moving. Kinetic Melee is an outlier in multiple ways, and requires jumping entirely out of a group to leverage the cone; I was lucky to get more than 2-3 hits while surrounded. These were all run at x8 to be clear. I'll try to run some more controlled tests later, with comparisons to Scrappers and Brutes.

There's also Tear Gas from Arsenal Control. I've used all three, and as far as actual control goes, new GDF is about the same. Pretty solid at locking down large groups, though the slight delay before initial pulse can let mobs react before freezing. Bosses and other mez resistant mobs may need a few pulses to stack Mag before being Held, which means they need to be kept within the field. Absolutely excels at long fights and any time multiple groups can be funneled through a specific area (pulls, ambushes, etc.). In terms of direct damage, none are great (Shadow Field doesn't actually do any damage at all). With GDF qualifying targets for Impact damage from other Gravity powers however (Lift, Propel, Lift from Singularity) , I'd say it comes out ahead. Gravity also has a built-in method of moving mobs directly with Wormhole, which is not present in Arsenal or Earth. The changes to Black Hole will give Dark a similar option, though the mechanics are different enough I don't know how the utility of each will stack up against the other. Finally, Singularity is amazing at grouping mobs and keeping them in one spot...at least until it randomly decides to flee. The new pet controls will give Controllers an advantage over Dominators there, but Teleport Target works decently at getting Singularity where you want it.

Finally got a chance to hop onto Brainstorm again this evening. Decided to run around SW Kallisti Warf for a bit, trying out various patches on 50+ groups. Sleep Grenade, Liquid Nitrogen, and Tear Gas are all still showing the same 33% Containment proc rate, unfortunately. So is Tri-Cannon, but that was expected since it's explicitly called out in the Controller Pets section. I did pay a little more attention to Tear Gas, as it occurred to me I'm not entirely sure what " set stacking to replace" means. Bosses that stayed in the cloud were Held after a pulse or two, so it's still stacking Mag. After thinking about things for a few days, the changes to pet/pseudo-pet Containment proc rate are probably to bring Arsenal in line with what other Control sets are getting in this Page, which is... understandable. I'm not particularly enthused about it though, especially in regards to Sleep Grenade (since the damage portion is a single burst on impact, rather than a continuing pulse like Liquid Nitrogen or Tear Gas). I'd much rather a higher percentage was used for proc rate across the board. It's not like even 100% would be breaking any DPS records.

Testing between Live and beta, I did notice a slight improvement in mobs falling back asleep after waking up in Sleep Grenade. I also appreciate the duration/recharge changes to Tear Gas, even if it comes with decrease of potential damage (16 ticks of 12.2 vs. 12 ticks of 17.75 with the same slotting). However, the "significant impact when combined with the new 3s rules for Controller Containment triggers after sleep is broken" mentioned in the Design Notes is really not in evidence. The reason for this is simple: of the seven powers in Arsenal that can trigger Containment, four now only have a 33% chance to do so. The only powers left are Tranquilizer, Cryo Freeze Ray, and Flash Bang. Two single target powers and an AoE Stun with low enough damage it's only worth mentioning for completions sake. I have tested on Beta while tracking Pet Combat, and the other four powers that can trigger Containment (Sleep Grenade, Liquid Nitrogen, Tear Gas, Tri-Cannon) are doing so about 33% of the time. On Live, all four are triggering Containment 100% of the time. Unless I'm missing something, the significant impact here is the massive reduction in Arsenal's ability to leverage Containment at all. Additionally, there's something odd going on with the Power Details in the Enhancement screen on Beta. Tranquilizer including Containment in Average Damage never was fixed after Arsenal went live, possibly something similar is happening with Sleep Grenade, Tear Gas, and Tri-Cannon on Beta? Liquid Nitrogen has always been off just because of how the power works, but it's even worse on Beta now. Here's a comparison of Average Damage as shown in Power Details on Live and Beta: Average Damage Power Live Beta Sleep Grenade 96.79 128.63 Liquid Nitrogen 476.55 953.91 Tear Gas 195.26 243.47 Tri-Cannon 178.84 357.45 And here's a comparison of Listed Damage as shown in Power Details on Live and Beta: Listed Damage Power Live Beta Sleep Grenade 1x96.79 1x96.72 Liquid Nitrogen 5x119.14 5x119.12 Tear Gas 12x17.75 16x12.2 Tri-Cannon 4x14.9 4x14.89 4x14.9 4x14.89 4x14.9 4x14.89 As can be seen, despite Listed Damage displaying as very slightly lower on Beta, Average Damage displays as significantly higher. I'm sure these are just due to the quirks in how Power Details calculates things, as has happened many times before. Finally, Liquid Nitrogen and Tri-Cannon have no mention of the current 33% chance for Containment, even if both very definitely have it.

Tried out Rime and the new Icy Bastion on my Ice/Savage Tanker (I do not have Hibernate on Live), since it was a themed build I've never been happy with. Max HP is lot lower without Hoarfrost, but ~1200 Absorb from Rime makes up for that quite well. Rime and Hoarfrost require about the same amount of total Recharge to make perma, which I managed to maintain through the Respec. The faster cycle time could be annoying if you don't like having to interrupt your attack chain that often, but much like Energize I consider it worth the click. I even managed to make use of the untouchable regen from Icy Bastion. Admittedly by accident (I forgot to double click), but it worked out pretty well. Barring major changes, I plan to respec this Tanker once the update hits Live. I also have an Ice/Ice Tanker and Scrapper that will stick with Hoarfrost, since I like where they are and don't want to juggle things around too much. Finally, I'll have to see how Rime does on my Energy/Ice Sentinel. I managed to make the set work on Live, but it took a lot of effort and I tend to agree with Heatstroke about Moisture Absorption (not to mention Frigid Shield).

I likely will not respec my Psi/Regen Scrapper for that reason. Pretty happy with how it is now, and testing with Ailment Resistance and Reactive Regeneration showed about the same performance. On the other hand, I do remember leveling him up, and Dull Pain's long recharge was very painful before I started getting things properly slotted. Finally finished comparative testing on my Rad/Regen Sentinel, as I was a little more methodical than with the Scrapper. This is an old toon, with a build that predates the major Sentinel rework, but he still does pretty well. Full T4 Incarnates, all four +End/Max HP Accolades, etc. Between power enhancement, Accolades, and set bonuses, Max HP is at the cap for the AT; Second Wind is slotted with a single Recharge Red and mostly used for Rez when I get overwhelmed. I was very worried about loosing the Absorb shield from Instant Regeneration (95.17 every 3 seconds, capping at 475.86), since it's great for soaking alpha and then giving some breathing room for general regen to work during a fight. Porting the toon over to Brainstorm with no build changes, the differences in Regen Rate and Debuff Resist are very apparent: Losing the Absorb hurt, but nearly doubling the resting Regen Rate makes up for a lot. To ensure an equivalent test on both sides, I ran the Welcome to Vanguard arc from Levantera in RWZ on both live and beta, escalating difficulty from +1/x6 to +4/x6 at the end. That arc has enough spawn density to easily get well over the agro cap shooting you, so x6 just means a few less bosses than x8. Overall, performance seemed pretty even between the two. Getting the attention of multiple groups at +4/x6 pushed me to the edge and kicked me over if I wasn't right on the ball, but that's what Second Wind is for. I was honestly expecting an experience closer to what Taoquex reported earlier in this thread, but it's just not what I saw. Now, a lot of that is probably down to build choices, as I have a fair bit of DEF and Resist from Pool Powers and set bonuses which with capped Max HP likely let me eat the alpha long enough for Reactive Regeneration to kick in. Pretty sure I saw my Regen Rate hit ~150 hp/sec at least once during the worst of it, though I unfortunately didn't think to grab another screenshot. Adding in Reconstruction and the occasional MoG was usually enough to keep me up long enough to reduce incoming fire. Overall impressions of the changes for a Sentinel: Trading Absorb for greatly increased Regen Rate works out about even. Decreased cast time for MoG is greatly appreciated; feels much smoother to activate, especially reactively. Adding +20% Debuff Resist to all categories may not seem like much, but it has a noticeable effect in practice and gives a better base to build from.

My two Regen toons are a Psi/Regen Scrapper and a Rad/Regen Sentinel. Dove into trying out the Scrapper right off, running PI radio missions. This toon has Dull pain perma on live and kept that with Second Wind on beta, but gets there with Ageless Radial (T4). He also has T4 Musculature Radial, but no other Incarnates yet. First batch of missions were all Carnies, so I decided it was fate and all testing was done with Carnies. Breezed through +1x6 and +2x6 with no issues. Increased to +3x8 and was just having to be a little careful... until I ran face first into a series of merged groups with 4-6 bosses between them, evenly split between Master Illusionist and Dark Mistress. That many debuffs dropped me real fast, plus all the Phantasms started overwhelming my KB Protection. Faceplanted a bunch (Second Wind's auto-rez was working just fine) before I started retreating to recover and string them out. Instant Healing and Reconstruction just weren't enough to keep me up otherwise. After the first group I respeced into Reactive Regeneration to see if it would make a difference, but the end result was about the same. Which is really an improvement for consistency, since I was seeing about the same performance with a toggle as with a long-recharge self-buff click. Then I decided to compare performance with live. Turns out I can still mostly manage +3x8 Carnies, but just 2 bosses in a regular sized group are likely to take me out. Overall, the increases to Debuff Resistance was very noticeable between beta and Live. The Carnie defeat power barely moved my blue bar on beta, but I still had to keep an eye on it on live. Ageless Radial caries a lot of weight there for both, but even then the higher floor made a big difference on beta.

As I said, not a huge issue. But it is an issue I've had with Temporal Bomb from Traps, and I really like Temporal Bomb. Additionally, being Rooted/Immobilized until you cancel the toggle is annoying. Back to the Tanker/Brute side of things, I have an Ice/Savage I've never been entirely happy with. I'll be trying out Rime and Icy Bastion eventually, but it's not at the top of the list yet.

From the other side (Scrappers and Sentinels), the double click is a minor annoyance. I do worry about failing to double click in the middle of combat. Could happen due to player forgetting, clicking another power too soon, or the system just not registering the second click.