MC333

Damage Tested Tesla Coil, Vines, Gravity Distortion Field. I noticed variance in the damage done by the 3 new AoE hold patches, so I did some digging. Any innacuracies are mine. See reults below. Controllers need the damage boost, but Dominators get a lot more damage (73%, 73%, 91% more). Shouldn't that be reversed to address the lack of Controller damage? Damage varies greatly between the three Powers and AT's. ------------------------------------------------- Notes: Damage numbers are Base, unenhanced, versus a single Level 50 target (+0) Damage takes 60 seconds to be fully realized. No Incarnate Alpha & Interface, unslotted. The two tables are the same data, just sorted differently for viewing. Source "Info Screen" means not tested for actual numbers. I'll update if someone wants to confirm the Controller Vines and Dominator GDF numbers from combat logs. Damage versus (1) Target - SORTED BY ARCHETYPE Archetype Damage over 60s Dam/tick Interval # Ticks Source Vines Controller 91 3.06 2 sec 30 Info Screen Gravity Distortion Field Controller 176 12.62 4 sec 14 Tested Tesla Coil Controller 214 15.29 4 sec 14 Tested Vines Dominator 168 5.27 2 sec 30 Tested Gravity Distortion Field Dominator 305 21.79 4 sec 14 Info Screen Tesla Coil Dominator 408 29.20 4 sec 14 Tested Damage versus (1) Target - SORTED BY POWER Archetype Damage over 60s Dam/tick Interval # Ticks Source Vines Controller 91 3.06 2 sec 30 Info Screen Vines Dominator 168 5.27 2 sec 30 Tested Gravity Distortion Field Controller 176 12.62 4 sec 14 Tested Gravity Distortion Field Dominator 305 21.79 4 sec 14 Info Screen Tesla Coil Controller 214 15.29 4 sec 14 Tested Tesla Coil * Dominator 408 29.20 4 sec 14 Tested

RC1 Testing of the powers we currently have... Controller - Tesla Coil RC1 - 4 tests versus L50 -1 Lieutenants and Minions Tesla Coil continues to work well, as do Controller Vines and GDF. With 60% hold enhanced, all 3 powers hold Lt.&Minions for the full 60s and do damage over 60s. Tesla Coil does more damage than GDF and Vines. Dominator - Tesla Coil RC1 - 11 tests versus Level 50 (-1) Bosses, against pairs of Bosses Mag 3 Hold works well, Lieutenants and Minions are held for the 60s duration. Damage is more than GDF and Vines. Noticable damage on a Dominator w/ Musculature, Interface, and 12% Dam set bonus. Overall Dominator Tesla Coil is soft-ish control vs L50 (-1) Bosses - significantly less effective Domination compared to GDF and Vines. Not seeing upfront Domination (like was added to GDF and Vines). Question: Are Domination rolls missing more often than they should due to chain mechanic? (Accuracy is far above 95%.) Note: Domination doesn't show up in combat logs, making observation/investigation difficult.

Vines - Dominator DoT damage interval does not match Info. Dominator damage is ticking every 2 seconds (5.27 base damage x 30 ticks over 60s). Should ticks be every 4 seconds? Also, Info says both "over 5.20s" and "every 4 seconds". Is that a contradiction? Controller Info shows the same, but I have not tested Controller to confirm actual damage amount & tick interval. Vines - damage test result. VINES Base Damage 60s Dam/tick Interval # Ticks Source Dominator 168 5.27 2 sec. 30 Tested Controller 91 ? (If 2s x 30) 3.06 ? ? Info Screen Is Vines base damage inadvertantly set too low? Dominator - damage is significantly lower (5.27/2s, or equal to 10.54/4s) than Info for Dominator GDF (21.79/4s) and tested Dominator Tesla Coil (29.20/4s). Controller - untested, but appears to be similarly low (3.06/2s, or equal to 6.12/4s) compared to tested Controller GDF (12.62/4s) and tested Controller Tesla Coil (15.29/4s)

The addition of +regen is very welcome, and thank you for all the other improvements to improve Electric Armor. Suggestion: To keep the current utility of Power Sink for sustaining a Tanker during longer fights when only 1 hard target is available, is it possible to increase the +End per target back to 25? Electric Armor Tanker - Power Sink is 3 slotted for EndMod (107%) Live = 50 endurance recovered Brainstorm = 30 endurance recovered I don't see any balance issue with Power Sink having both the improved +regen and the original +end. Thanks for considering my input.

Opinion: I strongly prefer the Adaptive AOE Hold treatment be applied to the old Plant, Gravity, and Electric AOE Holds. Adaptive AOE Holds are a clever solution, flexible for use in a wide vareity of playstyles, team sizes, and difficulty settings. Pseudopet AOE holds don't seem to be a good fit for the game, are overly complicated for Devs, and player feedback has been negative. Full opinion posted in Gravity Control Feedback -------------------------------------------------------- Tested: RC1 Vines on a L50+1 Plant Dominator. Very brief tests done to capture some details about the current version of power. Admittedly small data set. Conclusions: Vines was effective vs. L50 (-1) Lieutenants and minions. (Ya, I know, -1's...) Domination upfront was relatively short (7s and 10s) on 2 out of 3 L50 Bosses (-1). Small sample, RNG may have been unkind (Dom rolls not in combat logs). Domination overall was fairly effective (vs. -1 level 50 Bosses), with tiny sample size of 3 Bosses. Overall, have concerns about how Vines Domination holds up against +level enemies. Damage adds up in longer fights of 45-60s, or in solo/small team play. Note this testing did not address the four new foe caps 16/5/5/16 listed above. Test Details: All Enemies Level 50 (-1) Vines hold enhanced by 60% All Damage is BASE See spoiler for test details Note: "Alpha" return fire experienced from 3 out of 10 enemies in 4 tests. I have seen return fire in all builds of Vines. Based on eyeballs guesstimate in all builds, on average 2 of a group of 8 will return fire even when when the entire group is successfully held.

Opinion: I would strongly prefer the Adaptive AOE Hold treatment be applied to the old Gravity, Plant, and Electric AOE Holds. I have been intentionally open minded about the 3 new pseudopet patch AOE Holds, testing in all of the builds. I really do appreciate the thought/effort that went toward creating a new type of hold with damage. However, I don't think the 60s pseudopet holds are a fit for the game. Player feedback shows the Adaptive AOE's are popular and the pseudopet patches are not. Adaptive AOE Holds are a clever solution, flexible for use in a wide vareity of playstyles, team sizes, and difficulty settings. Pseudopet patches on the other hand are clearly very complicated to code/implement, have issues scaling up versus +level enemies, and will be more difficult and time consuming to fix and balance in the future. It's not too late to pivot to the simpler flexible Adaptive solution which will please players and reduce Dev headaches now and in the future. 🙂 ------------------------------------------------------- Tested: Gravity Distortion Field (GDF) in RC1 on a L50 Gravity Controller. Intentionally tested vs. only 1 foe to allow quick parsing of combat log. Results: GDF was effective vs. a single level 50 enemy. Note this testing obviously did not address the four new foe caps 16/5/5/16 listed above. Test Results: Versus 1 Level 50 Lieutenant (Nemesis & Crey) In Both Tests: - Hold (unenhanced) effect was in place for entire 57s (power analyzer) - Damage ticks 12.61 rolled every 4s for 58s - Recharge is back to 240s - Slow debuff was not observed due to enemy was Held for entire duration Test 1: Total Damage (unenhanced) = 189. 11 ticks + 4 containment. Over first 30s Damage (unenhanced) = 100 Test 2: Total Damage (unenhanced) = 239. 15 ticks + 4 containment. Over first 30s Damage (unenhanced) = 126 Note: Enemy Hit me 1 time despite being held. Log shows Hit 2 seconds after Held. I have seen return fire in all builds of GDF. Based on eyeballs guesstimate in all builds, on average 2 of a group of 8 will return fire once even when entire group is successfully held. Power Discrepancy: As pointed out earlier in thread the power description says Location AOE, but Info - Power Type says Click. Power currently works as a Targeted AOE / Click.

I am sad to see the changes to Static Field. Please hear me out. 🙂 New Static Field Now a Boss aggro magnet - lost most of its usefulness as a power for putting side groups "on ice" / out of the fight. Controller version does not Sleep Bosses - Realistically only useful to control minions and lieutenants in solo/small team situations, and only when players show restraint to not wake them while fighting Bosses. Dominator version is not Dominating Bosses upfront - With sleep enhancements at 90%, often takes 5-10s for Level 50 bosses to be Dominated. In total, Level 50 Bosses were asleep for around 2/3 to 3/4 of the total time (and Field would perform considerably worse vs +level enemies). SUGGESTION: Please adjust new Static Field to perform at Mag 6 from start to end to regain unique usefulness for putting enemies on ice. At a bare minimum the Dominator version should apply Domination from start to finish. Following is my "justification" for improving the new Static Field. Please give it a quick read - I know I am not the only player who loves Static Field and doesn't want to see it become a "skip". Old Static Field is unique! One of the most unique powers in the game, enabling both Controllers and Dominators to put a side group to sleep including the Bosses, and is able to re-sleep waken enemies within the patch. (Sleep ticks occur every 4 seconds and stack with themselves, and both versions sleep Bosses on the second tick.) Admittedly the power is "broken" in that the Controller version reliably applies Mag 6 Sleep after 4 seconds… but so what? It's unique niche fun, and we're here to have fun. Old Static Field is not overpowered / imbalancing: - Notifies enemies - they attack when sleep ends. - Relatively short duration 25s - requires effort to continue to keep enemies on ice. - Medium size patch - 20' radius, majority of time Field cannot not cover an entire group. - Self-policing - Attacked Minions and Lieutenants get to return fire, then re-slept after one tick - Attacked Bosses get to return fire at least twice, then re-slept after two ticks. - It's been like this forever and yet the power is a very rare sight in the game. - Old Static Fields performance/behavior fits with the effort to make Sleeps more useful (such as Deep Sleep). Devs, thank you for taking the time to read and consider my feedback, and for all you do for the game we all love.

Devs, thank you very much for all the work done to improve Electric Control. I've been looking forward to improvements in Electric Control for a long time. THUMBS UP Tesla Cage - shorter animation time is a small but welcome boost to control. Chain Fences - 3 additional damage ticks (doubling the damage) are a nice small boost. Conductive Aura - small boost is nice for fans of sapping. Synaptic Overload - appears to be working as stated. Gremlins - modest damage/level boost and small resistance boosts are very welcome. Like Fire Imps, these pets are offensive and effective with buff/CC support. Based on my testing it is clear Gremlins will continue to die more quickly than most pets (melee range fighters with low resistances). My hope is for the Dev team to keep an eye on player feedback, and further boost resistances in the future if warranted. ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT Tesla Coil - not a fan of this change toward soft control. Prefer the hard control Paralyzing Blast with Adaptive AOE treatment. Dominator Tesla Coil: - NO upfront Domination resulting in return fire from Bosses. Very un-Dominator like. - Domination rolls are occurring as shown by overhead text and effect working on Bosses, however Dominate does not appear in logs. - Can take 5-10+ seconds for Bosses to be Dominated (inconsistent, often takes 5-10+ seconds, sometimes <5 seconds). - After initial period, most bosses are dominated, most of the time, for the remaining duration of the patch. Note: my hold is enhanced 60%, testing was vs. Level 50 Bosses, not tested on +level Bosses who resist hold duration. SUGGESTION: add upfront Domination, add Domination to combat logs. Controller Tesla Coil: - No Overpower logged/observed, but containment is working. - Otherwise the power appears to be ok for Controllers. After a couple seconds, Mag3 hold is in place for the duration (my hold is enhanced by 80%), DOT is working. SUGGESTION: add/fix Overpower, condense DoT to occur in first 30s. IN PROGRESS / UPDATED PATCH NOTES? Jolting Chain - I welcome improving this powers chaining and damage… but it's tough to know where the power is at any given day with all the recent tweaks/fixes (keeps changing right after I test it). - Did this power change today in RC1 vs Build 6? I saw inconsistent knockdown a handful of times across a dozen groups (KD was consistent in Build 6). Would like to see updated patch notes re: number of jumps, damage, etc., before testing again.

I would have preferred if Vines received the Adaptive AOE treatment. I'll acknowledge some advantages/use cases for this longer lasting patch with damage (at least on a Controller, not so much on a Dominator). Regardless, I'm providing feedback for the power as it currently stands. TESTING: Level 50 Dominator vs various Level 50 enemies on Peregrine Island. Tested Vines 16 times with hold enhanced 80%, against groups with 1-4 Bosses. CONCLUSION: VINES is awful on a Dominator, due to lacking in upfront Domination. All Bosses able to return fire for 4s and majority for 8-12s. After the very long ramp up period, Domination was effective against Level 50 Bosses. SUGGESTION: - Increase Domination upfront (0-12s) so Dominators can Dominate. OBSERVATIONS ABOUT DOMINATION: - Domination not seen in combat logs. - Domination appears to roll every 4s (guessing 25% chance), and appears to do initial roll at 4s. - Bosses are typically Dominated/held at the 8s-12s mark, an eternity in CoX. Occasionally Bosses were Dominated/held at 4s mark. - After the ramp up period (>12s) Domination was quite effective. I'd say roughly most Bosses were Dominated, most of the time, for the remaining duration of the patch. However, it is worth noting I did not test against +level Bosses where hold duration would be significantly decreased. NOTES: Aside from Domination the rest of Vines seemed to work as stated (M3 hold, DoT, recharge, etc.) If I tested on a Controller I'd probably say Vines is ok (as long as overpower and containment are actually working).

Has anyone figured out the details behind how Gravity Distotion Field (GDF) is actually working? Gravity Dominator: Is GDF Domination working? (I only tested a Controller) Personally, I think I would have preferred if GDF received the Adaptive AOE treatment... but I do see there are some advantages/use cases for this longer lasting patch. Tested GDF on Peregrine Island versus various outdoor groups. Controller level 50 Observations (have not yet attempted a deep dive into logs, etc.) Slightly soft as opener - can take 1-2s to hold, seeing occasional return fire. Hold - long duration holds. Containment damage - appears to be working Overpower - rolls and hits are occuring, Bosses are held. DoT over 60s - damage is nice addition for solo or small team play, but DoT over 60s is too slow for the majority of team play. Recharge adjustment to 180s - seems fair, given GDF is long duration hold 60s patch which recharges in ~60s vs. the other new Adaptive Recharge AOE's with short duration holds. Suggestion: frontload/condense the DoT damage to occur in the first 30s.

With you observing a bit longer duration, I re-tested on Tanker and Brute. Result was Knockback Protection usually lasted less than 1 second after leaving the ground by any method. Occasionally it lasted 2-3 seconds but it seemed random and I was not able to duplicate the longer duration (tried longer/shorter time on ground before jumping, and different kinds of jumps). Regardless of the slight differences in timing, neither of us is seeing a working improvement to Grounded. I noticed a discrepancy in Combat Attributes. It shows the KB protection total is "0" shortly after leaving the ground. Interestingly, the Grounded line item always showed 15.6 protection, on or off the ground. On ground (Brainstorm and Live) 1 second after leaving ground (Brainstorm and Live) Note: the Grounded line item did not change when I tested by flying high in the air for 2 minutes. All of the above is identical in my testing on Live server, where we know KB does not work when off the ground (as opposed to "0" being only a display error). Suggestion: Please pivot and simply add standard KB protection to Grounded or one of the Armors. Reliable KB protection is not imbalancing in 2025 and I'd prefer not to see valuable developer time spent on a finicky and outdated grounded mechanism. Thanks for considering my input.

Thank you for addressing Water Blast's below par ST damage. Testing on Brainstorm vs Live server, level 50 Corruptors, against level 50 target dummy. DEHYDRATE - activated on target recently hit by other water-based attacks Result: +17% damage, 169.24 vs. 144.58 (Brainstorm vs. Live) Conclusions: GOOD - Damage increase of 17% is modest but likely appropriate, given the secondary heal effect. BAD - Damage increase occurs in ticks 6 and 7 SECONDS AFTER ACTIVATION (6-7s is an eternity in CoX, and much will be lost to corpses). SUGGESTION: Please add the damage increase to upfront damage, or at worst add increase within the original 5 seconds of DoT ticks. ENHANCED WATER JET - including 2nd Jet bonus activation Result: +33% damage, 449.10 vs. 335.34 (Brainstorm vs. Live) Conclusions: GOOD - Damage increase of 33% is significant, but not enough to be imbalancing given the 3 Tidal mechanic required. BAD - Total Damage is 53% DoT on Brainstorm & DoT finishes 3 seconds AFTER the 2nd Water Jet. (vs. both Jets are all-upfront damage / 0% DoT on Live) SUGGESTION: Instead of 4 ticks Cold over 6 seconds, change the damage increase to upfront damage to match the behavior on Live. (Or at worst change it to 4 ticks over 3 seconds or less, so the 1st Jet's DoT finishes before or at the 2nd Jet hit.) "ST leaves a lot to be desired for" Changing the damage increases from DoT to direct damage will better address the Water Blast ST issue by denting HP bars faster.

Thank you very much for all the work done to bring us a new power set. Tested: Controller and Dominator, solo play, majority at level 50, across a wide variety of zones/maps and against a wide variety of enemies. While I really like the set overall, I have found 2 powers to be underwhelming. Sparkling Chain - frustratingly ineffective due to short 15' radius of chain hops. Majority of enemy spawn groups in the game include enemies spaced more than 15' apart. Sparkling Chain is usually only able to hit a fraction (often a small fraction) of an enemy group, while other AOE Immobilizes are able to routinely hit a lot more enemies. How to improve? - Increase the chain jump radius to 20' or 25' to improve the potential coverage area. (At 20' or 25' radius the coverage would still be significantly less than all the targeted AOE immobilizes which have 30' radius.) Incindiary Aura - overall feels lackluster, Blast Off occurs infrequently. Pyro is hard on endurance and Incindiary Aura could use a little more incentive to justify the added end cost of the toggle. How to improve? - Maybe increase Blast Off chance and allow multiple Blast Off to occur simultaneously to add mitigation and theme flavor. - Or maybe add some -RES to the Aura itself ("combustible properties")

Good idea to simply change the name to Insulated and remove the grounded requirement for KB protection. The current Grounded KB protection fails too often while on the ground, apparently due to glitches with terrain/maps. My previous post neglected to address the flakiness, focusing only on the patch note which does not appear to be working. Grounded is not providing 5 seconds of KB protection on Brainstorm, instead resulting in 0 KB protection a fraction of a second after leaving the ground. Same behavior as on live server.

I really like the Adaptive AoE Holds change and the flexibility they add to the game. I tested 3 of the holds by copying characters to Brainstorm and found the holds to be working as intended. Suggestion: Please reduce the animation time of Flash to 2 seconds. The 3 second rooting animation time has no place in CoX in 2025, given it is a short duration hold power with no secondary effects and PBAOE range. Animation times are 2 seconds or less for all but one of the other Adaptive AoE Holds. The 3 second animation has been a popular complaint for many years, and is requested multiple times in this thread. If left unchanged at 3 seconds, Flash will almost certainly continue to be one of the most frequently skipped powers.

Can you shed some light on the goals regarding the changes to: AI modes Pet_Base and Pet_Ranged Bite (I am assuming "Smash" above is a typo for "Bite") For example: Should Fly Trap charge into melee range less often? At all? Should Fly Trap be using Bite frequently when it is already within melee range? Fly Trap testing observations - Open Beta 5 (Level 50 Controller and Dominator, solo testing) Fly Trap behavior seems somewhat inconsistent, in limited testing time. At Range, Fly Trap on average appears to be using more ranged attacks according to observation and combat logs. However, Fly Trap still frequently charges into melee range to use Bite. In Melee range, Fly Trap does use Bite at times (when already in melee range). However, Fly Trap often does not use Bite at all when in melee range (instead logs show it using 3-5 ranged attacks from melee range to finish off enemy). Total number of Bite attacks as % of overall attacks appears to be noticably lower than on Live server in combat logs for a handful of fights on each server. (Caveat: limited sample, various different enemy groups) The damage resistance improvements seem generally appropriate for a mostly ranged pet (or a bit on the low side if the pet will continue to charge into melee range). Controller pet controls are a very nice addition - controlling Fly Trap worked well in limited testing. If possible I'd like to see Fly Trap using Bite (consistently) only when it finds itself in melee range (versus charging in to use Bite). Eliminating the charging into melee, along with the moderate increase in damage resistances, would likely result in a more survivable and competitive Fly Trap compared to other pets.

Grounded - knockback protection in combat attributes is not lasting for 5 seconds after touching ground. Copied existing Tanker and Brute to Brainstorm server. Combat attributes show "0" knockback protection less than a second after leaving the ground by jump, Combat Jump, Super Jump, or Flight Pack. Behavior appears to be identical on Live and Brainstorm servers. (I'm assuming the fraction of a second delay before seeing "0" is due to a polling interval in combat attributes.) This is an important quality of life improvement and I consider 5 seconds to be the minimum duration necessary for this change to be effective. I suggest 10 seconds. Alternatively, I would actually prefer knockback protection was added to one of the armor powers, as I consider the lack of knocback protection in an armor set to be an outdated concept in 2025 gameplay.