Alouu

This change is safe to mirror to PvP.

This change is safe to mirror to PvP.

I was speculating about a formulaic approach to the timer: Something like Suppression time = Animation Time + Base Recharge / 2.5 Here's some examples of times that would give for a few powers: Enervating Field: 4.70s Darkest Night: 7.17s Rise to the Challenge 7.00s Blazing Aura: 3.63s Snow Storm: 6.03s Snow Storm (Epic Version): 10.03s One advantage of this would be that by tuning a power's base recharge and animation time characteristics, the suppression time of the power can also be tuned. At the same time the ability to tune how generous or harsh the suppression timer works across the board is retained, by editing the "2.5" value. A disadvantage is that some powers may require tuning.

Blaster secondary Earth Manipulation's self sustain toggle Mud Bath cannot trigger (at least some) procs. These are the ones I tested: (Numina's Convalescence +Regen/Recovery unique, Regenerative Tissue +Regen unique, Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self). I did not test any other procs such as Ice Mistral's Torment etc.

I'm sure most of you have seen this poll already, I was asked by Bopper to post it here as well to make sure it reaches the widest audience possible. The votes concern various changes to the arena settings menu, here is a mockup of what the new menu could look like: If you have any questions about what exactly the vote choices are about, feel free to post them below.

I will be updating this post with additional info later but this is the first round of feedback that myself and the others I PvP with have: Arcane Bolt: Does not yet deal double damage on a Crit, still deals +50% damage Crits, will test again when its fixed. Super Reflexes: From the testing myself and @Purblind did so far, 25% elusivity makes SR ideally balanced for fightclub. It has niches that make it attractive to pick when compared to EA or Ninjitsu, but does not outperform those sets, it also compares decently to top fightclub sets like rad armor and regen. Singularity: As noted before this is a great change. Dimension Shift: This change did its job of shutting down the abuse that was previously possible. Speaking for the small arena (1v1, 2v2, 3v3) community, we are happy with it at 3 seconds but would also be okay with it at 4 or 5 seconds (though I don't know if 8v8 players are okay with 4 or 5 seconds). We will be testing the power more in the future, it will take some time to get used to using it in a new way as the playstyle changes a bit. In terms of Gravity Control as a whole, I think it will still be a top tier control set after these two changes. Since it gets banned right now for the ways it can be abused, in small matches it will also see more use thanks to these changes. Elec Blast: The changes to elec have very nuanced connotations for PvP. Currently (on live), Elec Blast is a top tier 1v1 set when used on Defenders or Sentinels. In 2v2, it is a mid tier set which has very strong strengths but also very punishable weaknesses. In terms of 1v1, the changes to Elec Blast will be a buff to the attacks but at the same time nerf the Voltaic Sentinel. This is because detoggling happens on a constant basis in pvp and the Sentinel takes 3 seconds to turn on. Overall I expect that the buff to the attacks and the nerf to the Voltaic Sentinel will cancel out in 1v1 and thus the set will remain top tier but not become any better. This is probably for the best. In terms of 2v2, things are different because there are powers such as Clear Mind, Thaw and Antidote, which all provide Mez Protection. These powers can prevent offensive toggles (such as the new Voltaic Sentinel) from being detoggled by Mez. This will mean that both Elec Blast's attacking powers and its pet will be buffed in 2v2, with the right team compositions. Although Elec Blast is only mid tier in 2v2 right now, any push could make it very strong. We will be doing more testing regarding this at the same time as we test the Electrical Affinity changes. Electrical Affinity: This will be the subject of our upcoming arena tests. Edit: We finally got this done yesterday, it took a long time because for the testing we wanted to use the ideal sapping comps for 2v2, which meant creating some of the needed characters on brainstorm. We can say that: Defibrillate is now in a good spot. Aside from that, our testing was in relation to how elec affinity characters and elec blast characters pair up in 2v2, after the buffs to the latter. We were concerned about two things being too strong going into the tests: 1. We were worried that when amp-up is used on the newly buffed electric blast attacks, the sapping might be too strong. 2. We were worried that when mez protection is granted to an elec-blast character, voltaic sentinel might be too strong. After our testing, it appears that both of our concerns were valid (in 2v2). However from what we could tell, neither was so problematic that they warrant any action to be taken. To put it another way; after these changes elec-blast sap comps are now very strong in 2v2, but it remains to be seen whether it beats out other top tier team compositions. As a result, we can not say if there is any need for pvp specific nerfs to either elec-affinity or elec-blast at this time. Seismic Blast: This set is great in pvp, especially 2v2 and 3v3, while not being too strong. In testing some of us felt that the ability of the attacks to deactivate Double Jump might be oppressive, but personally I see that as an acceptable niche for the set to have. Earth Manipulation: We have not yet tested this set, on paper it looks to be balanced and has a mixture of passive effects that we have seen before on other manipulation sets. Hypersonic +Fly Proc: Right now it is sufficient in combination with Fly, Hover and Evasive Maneuvrers to stay airborne after being hit by a -jump power, but is not sufficient to protect against a -jump power together with another -fly power. I cannot say whether this is going to be problematic or not at this stage, it takes a while for people to learn to use/abuse things like this to their full potential. My initial thought is that it will be okay, but I cant say for certain. Movement Speed Cap Increases: These are universally liked. Travel DR Changes: Among the people I do small scale Arenas with regularly, the majority of us would like to see the DR on travels drop further, allowing us to reach speeds closer to PvE. However this sentiment is not shared with everyone among the 8v8 community (although some people who 8v8 do also agree). I have been directing people to vote on this specific issue, to show that there is a good deal of popular support for lowering the DR values further. As a separate issue, Flight powers still outspeed Leaping Powers in pvp with the DR curves in use on Test now (0.45/0.6/0.45). While I do not have any concrete proof that this will disrupt balance, I strongly feel that this should not be the case. It would be a very bad thing for PvP if flight was used as the main method of travel as it would take the skill away from traversing terrain with precision and conserving momentum while attacking. It also contradicts the speed cap orders set up in PvE, as well as the historic achievable speed orders that have always been in pvp, which is Running > Leaping > Flying. As mentioned earlier, many of us would like to see the DR on Leaping and Running travels reduced, and this would resolve this, but if that is not possible then increasing the DR on flight powers would also work.

Will be adding more feedback later but for now: "All travel power speed cap increases from Issue 27, Page 2 now also apply in PvP" - This does not seem to be working, neither in zone nor arena. Edit 1: Testing the duration of the Fortunata Hypnosis proc in the Psychic Blast power Will Domination: The results were as follows: Live Test Point Blank Range, Assault OFF 7.25 seconds 7.25 seconds Point Blank Range, Assault ON 5.76 seconds 6.21 seconds ~40 Yards Range, Assault OFF 9.73 seconds 9.71 seconds ~40 Yards Range, Assault ON 8.25 seconds 8.25 seconds Even with Will Domination causing the proc to fire off twice, I would have expected the duration reduction from 5.336s to 4s to have some effect. However on the contrary, the results show that the durations on live and test are largely identical. (Ignoring the ~0.5s variance in the "Point Blank Range, Assault ON" test which I assume is just my human error.) Edit 2: @Sessa @Whoogiewatsit and @Emotional Wreck and myself got some 2v2s in on brainstorm and tested out the changes to Gravity Control and Electric Affinity. In regards to Gravity Control our thoughts were that although thanks to Dimension Shift it is still by a long way the best Control set, and is quite likely still necessary to ban in 2v2 tournaments and events for that reason alone, it is at least much less frustrating to play against now thanks to no longer occasionally getting trapped inside singularity's gravitational pull. We consider the singularity change to be a great step in the right direction in regards to making Gravity Control balanced on the whole. In regards to Electric Affinity, we discovered that the nerf to defribrillate was too heavy handed. The intent of the change was to force players who take the power to enhance it for endurance modification in order to get the effect of "1-shotting" a opponent's endurance when at maximum static. A certain value in the power was changed from 30 to 15 in order to attempt to effect that change. However in practise for whatever reason this does not seem to happen, instead it only drains about 75% of the target's endurance under such conditions. I recommend changing the value which was changed, from 15 back up to 20. As 20 is 33% more than 15, this should in theory just about bring the 75% endurance drain up to 100%. Edit 3: @Madvillain and myself did a whole bunch of fightclub matches to test the new SR. First we tested several characters against a SR brute, all but one of which the SR brute won. Following that we tested a few characters against a SR scrapper all of which SR scrapper won. It seems that the new elusivity value of 30% has too much synergy with additional sources of defence such as unleash potential and demonic aura, this makes the downtime in between Eludes much more manageable for the SR to survive in, which in turn gives it more time to kill the enemy. Our thoughts are that the 30% elusivity value is a slight over-tuning, and that 25% would be better. Edit 4: Tested Toxic Web Grenade with @Sessa, we can confirm it doesnt stack -recharge as intended. Edit 5: After some solo testing with Arcane Bolt, I do not think there is any reason to have the power function differently in pvp than it does in pve. To explain why, here is an example of Arcane Bolt "critting" in pvp: Total: 300.97 And here is an example of me using a power from my attack chain: Total: 432.97 And here is an example of me using a power that is not in my attack chain (because it isnt good enough): Total: 256.81 The examples are just for easy demonstration though rather than apples to apples comparisons, because Strangler has 4 procs in, Ice Blast has 1, and Arcane Bolt has 0. But since the proc rate of the powers is known, here is an actual comparison: Arcane Bolt Base Ice Blast Arcane Bolt +50% Crit Strangler Arcane Bolt +100% Crit Freeze Ray Damage 181.75 181.57 272.62 204.18 363.49 133.42 3.5 PPM Proc Chance 50.93% 34.30% 50.93% 90.00% 50.93% 64.17% Average Proc Damage 52.83 21.31 52.83 186.72 52.83 184.37 Total 234.57 202.88 325.44 390.90 416.32 317.79 Total DPA 118.47 109.78 164.37 174.20 210.26 267.50 Arcane Bolt: 129% Dmg enhance, 0% Rech enhance, 1 gladiator's javelin proc, 1 explosive strike proc. Ice Blast: 129% Dmg enhance, 90% Rech enhance, 1 gladiator's javelin proc. Strangler: 78.13% Dmg enhance, 0% Rech enhance, 1 gladiator's javelin proc, 1 gladiator's net proc. 1 ghost widow's embrace proc, 1 neuronic shutdown proc Freeze Ray: 78.13% Dmg enhance, 0% Rech enhance, 1 gladiator's javelin proc, 1 unbreakable constraint proc, 1 gladiator's net proc. 1 ghost widow's embrace proc, 1 neuronic shutdown proc Taking the "Total DPA" as the important row here you can see that as it stands now, Arcane Bolt barely edges out Strangler for DPA when it crits. However since it is unreliable to get the crit, it would not be worth putting the 2 procs in it, which would in turn make it do less damage and therefore be not worth using. If the damage was increased to the +100% Crit, then it would stand squarely in between Strangler and Freeze Ray in terms of DPA when critting. This would make it much stronger but again due to the unreliability of the crit it would still most likely not be worth proccing. So in conclusion it is perfectly safe for Arcane Bolt to have the same +100% crit damage it has in pve.

Here is the updated bracket, showing which characters are going to be facing which: @Loopy has dropped out of the event, @Rednefed has taken his place in the bracket, @Rednefed is bringing an Elec/Dark Defender @hax0r has dropped out of the event, @Ganker Hornet has taken his place in the bracket, @Ganker Hornet is bringing a Fire/Devices Blaster @Madvillain has dropped out of the event, @Void has taken his place in the bracket, @Void is bringing a Psi/Plant Blaster

Global: @Alouu Character 1: Nature/Elec Defender Character 2: Ice/Plant Blaster Character 3: Dark/Time Blaster

Travel DR Feedback Due to DR, it is not possible to reach the newly ported over run speed or jump speed caps in pvp without external assistance (eg. speed boost, internal reduction). The plot below shows how various travel powers function at various levels of enhancement on brainstorm: The orange line is super speed (or speed of sound) + sprint + swift. (However, sprint and swift are always 53% enhanced at every point on the line). The blue line is fly + evasive maneuvers + swift. (However, evasive maneuvers and swift are always 0% enhanced at every point on the line). The red line is super jump (or mighty leap) + hurdle. (However, hurdle is always 53% enhanced at every point on the line). The points show how fast in mph the travel powers go in pvp at 0%, 38%, 53%, 76% and 103.85% enhancement (after ED) in pvp. The plot shows that run speed reaches around 94 mph in pvp when using a 103.85% enhanced super speed/speed of sound (and a 53% enhanced sprint & swift), a long way off the new run speed cap of 120.25 mph. The plot also shows that jump speed reaches around 82 mph in pvp when using a 103.85% enhanced super jump/mighty leap (and a 53% enhanced hurdle), also a long way off the new jump speed cap of 105.57 mph. In addition to this, the most problematic aspect of all for pvp balance is the fact that fly can reach the new flight speed cap of 87.95 mph, and can even almost do so without slotting evasive maneuvers or swift for any +flyspeed enhancement. Since I27P2 improved the -fly protection that a player can stack while maintaining full fly speed from magnitude 1.0 to magnitude 9.0, and because the movement speed a player can reach without external help with fly is greater than that they can reach in SJ, it seems possible that this could result in fly becoming the new travel power of choice. This is something I believe should be avoided since leaping-style travels demand more skill to utilize well. With all that in mind, I have suggestions for how travel speed DR should be changed to remedy these issues. I will get to the numbers shortly but before that here is a plot of what my suggestions would look like, which can provide a point of comparison to the previous one: This plot shows that run speed reaches around 120 mph when using a 103.85% enhanced super speed/speed of sound (and a 53% enhanced sprint & swift), I designed it this way so that it takes a full 3 slots of +5 IOs to reach capped run speed. The reason for that is so that the power “speed boost” can still have a benefit by allowing teammates to spare slotting from their travel powers, as well as not have to use sprint. The plot also shows that jump speed reaches around 105 mph in pvp when using a 103.85% enhanced super jump/mighty leap (and a 53% enhanced hurdle), again I designed it this way so that it takes a full 3 slots of +5 IOs to reach capped jump speed. Similarly the reason for that is so that the power “internal reduction” can still have a benefit by allowing teammates to spare slotting. As you can see in this new plot the ranking of flight and jumping travels has also been flipped. This should ensure that jumping travels remain the optimal form of movement in pvp. Only 3 values need to be changed to achieve these results, the “DimCurB” values for SpeedFlying, SpeedJumping and SpeedRunning. Here is a table of what those are now and what they would need to be changed to in order to achieve the above results: Travel Type Current “DimCurB” Suggested "DimCurB" SpeedFlying 0.55 0.75 SpeedJumping 0.55 0.05 SpeedRunning 0.55 0.20

Assuming the main balancing point for RoP is uptime and the dev intended value for that is 33% I would like to request: Duration: 40s -> 60s Recharge: 120s -> 180s Reasoning: The 33% uptime balance-point will be maintained. The power wont need to be animated as frequently. The increased flat up & downtime will synergize better with t9s. The increased flat up & downtime will synergize better with melee hybrid.

@Alouu Character: Laenc

Bugs: In pvp, Speed of Sound alternates between giving 1 copy and 2 copies of its run-speed bonus. This causes my run-speed to fluctuate. Additionally, Toggling Speed of Sound and Infiltration at the same time in pvp causes the two powers to contest over which of them defines my run speed. This added in to the previous bug causes my run speed to fluctuate between multiple different speeds. Patch notes list jaunt has having both 30s and 20s recharge in pvp. I don't know which of these is intended, but the former is true. Balance: Testing the root times = to 75% of animation times some more yesterday, the results compared to live are a mixed bag with some powers coming off better than live and some worse. On average I think it evens out but it seems some power-sets do benefit across the board, however I do not yet know if this is problematic. Regarding epic snipes: On Live, Scrapper Slow Snipe damage is in an acceptable range. ✓ On Live, Scrapper Fast Snipe damage is in an acceptable range. ✓ On Live, Stalker Slow Snipe damage from hide is too high. ✕ On Live, Stalker Fast Snipe damage from hide is too high. ✕ On Live, Stalker Slow Snipe damage when not hidden is in an acceptable range. ✓ On Live, Stalker Fast Snipe damage when not hidden is in an acceptable range. ✓ On Brainstorm, Scrapper Slow Snipe damage is too low. ✕ On Brainstorm, Scrapper Fast Snipe damage is too low. ✕ On Brainstorm, Stalker Slow Snipe damage from hide is too low. ✕ On Brainstorm, Stalker Fast Snipe damage from hide is in an acceptable range. ✓ On Brainstorm, Stalker Slow Snipe damage when not hidden is too low. ✕ On Brainstorm, Stalker Fast Snipe damage when not hidden is too low. ✕ As you can see on Live only Stalker snipe damages from hide are considered too high, Scrapper snipe damage is in a good spot on live, and so is Stalker damage on live when unhidden. The reason these brainstorm changes go too far and create more problems than they solve is the internal recharge and base damage changes were not necessary. I propose the following: Keep the internal recharge and base damage of Live values. The change to critical damage (from 100% to 50%) should then be applied to fast snipe as well as slow snipe. This will cause all the criteria I list above to be satisfied.

@Alouu @Whoogiewatsit @MJB @Madvillain @Madden1 @Majestrix (substitute)

@Alouu - Ice/Plant Blaster @Whoogiewatsit - Ice/Nature Corruptor