Beldath

By building like a horrible person who should be in no way near a group, I have managed to overtake a crabbermind who has a legitimate build.

Perhaps showing why is a better option. Here is a screenshot of my Demon/Cold MM's time. But notice there is something weird about my build? Where's my pets? Well that's simple! I don't have one! I'm a petless MM, and now I have better times than most people here. Mastermind Pylon (Demon Summoning - Cold Domination).mbd

I want to use this as an example for the other responses, I said most not all the builds here are just pylon burst builds. There are exceptions, but they aren't getting good times in comparison. Second, Koopak criticizes people's testing methods on almost a daily basis, and complains about there being a ton of bad data floating around. So he made this as a response, I feel it is fair to criticize this as well.

Yes, but you also made this entire thing solely because you hated the methods people were testing in this game, then you go off and make a far worse one. You don't see the hypocrisy of this, at all? I mean sure I can go off and possibly easily throw together an awful abomination that smokes the previous build out of the water, but it's utterly pointless to actually play and pilot. It's just teaching new players and casuals bad habits, and that is also one of the main reasons you made this in the first place is to stop that. But you do what you desire, just know the entire community takes potshots at this and jokes about it constantly, and those that don't are taking it to heart. These points of data are meaningless and pointless, therefore this entire thread is meaningless unless someone just wants a wad of Inf for a character or two, or just makes a build as a joke to prove a point. Meanwhile you are effectively throwing your inf away just for people to laugh at the results. Though there are some fun memes that came out of this, so far I am rather enjoying the Recluse/Bio Sentinel one that has been floating around lately.

It's decent, but there is an inherent randomness in the mobs, almost all videos I see have people struggle with the grates including myself, and any pets are borked on it which removes a lot of builds. Especially Masterminds.

I have been quiet about this for a long time. But I really need to say this, I never expected to see a worse testing system than Trapdoor. WTH are these builds and rules? Not only are most of them basically non-functional outside of a Pylon test, but they are built in completely idiotic ways in that no reasonable person would build, using temps no one will use, in completely unrealistic situations. Come on, Koopak, I know you are smarter than this, but I also know you can tunnel vision far too much. These have become the laughing stock of the community, no one takes it seriously, except maybe the new and casual people who don't know any better and are now just talking about how Sonic/Bio Sentinels are the strongest build in the game. We have people in here chasing for damage set bonus, and I don't mean like procs, but like flat out +4% damage set bonuses, some of the rotations, energy, and accuracy here are reliant on Geas which is a 10% uptime. Even worse is that these builds only work in casual situations, as it assumes you aren't in HM as not only is this assuming you have no kins in the group, but it is allowing temps. But in casual play you also have access to inspirations which costs peanuts so it isn't being built for casual play either. To add more fuel to this bonfire of awfulness is that it bans your lore, which you know, typically the thing you save to summon specifically to deal with massive threats. But then allow epic summons because reasons, which no one uses, ever. The only situation this is realistic is if you are not on a team because clearly you have no support, have unlimited inf to summon Recluse over and over, fighting for one minute out of ten, forgot lores and inspirations exist, and also have enemies not fight back because these builds have no survivability, no teammates, no lores, and no inspirations. So basically just this. These tests need a serious revamp, or it will continue to be a joke in the community.

Okay, I'll take the bite. No, it isn't even close, Arse control is failing at one of the more important aspects of a controller which is to keep the enemies close to each other so that the team's AoE can effectively hit them all. If you take a closer look, you can tell all his CC options are Soft CC, and he is breaking his own sleep by tick damage. Furthermore, in his Fire/FF video most of his damage is coming from the Fire/ control, where as in the Arse/Traps a vast majority is coming from /Traps and experimental pool. He does in fact have his pet out in the Arse control video as well named Bullet Bill, it's just that unimpactful. Furthermore, just to get containment, he had to slot the Controller IO to make the orbs, which is horribly inconsistent. Arse/Traps had far more going for it defensive, offensive, and CC wise due to having /traps instead of /ff, yet it still struggles to keep up taking over 20 more seconds to kill two groups, with a lot more mob spread. You could achieve what was done in the Arse/ video with any standard control set with /traps, but it would be slightly more effective. He was losing out about half of his damage due to his inability to proc containment, and Arse/ isn't doing enough damage to make up for it.

TW/Bio/Soul has a recorded DPS of 668 with Hybrid off which puts it at the top end of ST damage, it is also not a slouch in AoE either. However, I must warn that it is not an easy set to play, as most of it is timing-based and making use of your momentum window while extending it using your build-up. This window can be very tight and might take some practice to get used to. Furthermore, Bio has a strong taunt aura for a scrapper so things are less likely to run as well. While this is rewarding for players who are technical mechanics of the game, know how to build, and use proper rotations. If you just slap together a build and use attacks on CD you will come away with something rather disappointing.

After doing a few more missions, I do feel like the cooldown time of Storm Cell is good, easily gets down to 15 seconds, even less after a few FF procs. so it is almost always up. The enemy targeting issue however never became a problem as everything died too fast for Storm Cell to even really go anywhere. I tend to treat it more like a targeted AoE than a pet, as it is not really going anywhere. Even when I intentionally slowed down it never seemed to be a problem. Also let's get back on topic, fighting amongst ourselves about what is considered feedback is somewhat pointless. Unless they tell us to stop doing something in particular, this argument is just flooding the thread.

Okay, let me rephrase that, no player wants that. Please don't beanbag Storm Blast. It's a bad idea. A pull will solve most problems, having mobs fly around in circles will not and cause further problems such as melee characters having to constantly chase targets. Also, you forgot to add this type of vector to Axe Cyclone, is it too unrealistic?

You really don't want that, getting something realistic is neat, but I don't want to have to reload my Dual Pistols or my Assault Rifle every few shots, or have realistic drawing times for my Bow and Arrow skills. Nor do I think the game could balance or animate an axe moving several times faster than the sound barrier to create a whirlwind, or near light speed to heat the air enough to make a plasma wave. Don't even get me started on the science behind the elemental blast sets and how impossible each one is. Hurricane does not make enemies revolve around you, Axe Cyclone does not make moves revolve around you. Tornado, Psi Tornado, and Waterspout do not make things revolve around them. Not only is it hard to program, but it would also be annoying to have them spiral around, especially for melee players. There is a willing suspense of disbelief for things like this, and no one will really mind if it works like a reverse hurricane or like axe cyclone with a straight-line vector.

I mean, if we are going to make that type of argument, we might as well delete half the sets, as many of them aren't really all that realistic when it comes to physics.

Okay, I think I have done enough testing on the set to give some decent feedback on this. This is from a perspective of a Storm/Storm/Darkness Corruptor, so keep this in mind. The set is okay, it has middling damage, however, this is slightly crippled by the fact that a lot of its damage is slowly set up and builds over time than burst, this means the initial DPS is very poor, and cannot burst as most other blast sets can. But when used on a boss, in this case, a Pylon, its DPS becomes average with a wild DPS range, ranging from 318dps (202 seconds) with awful luck, to 520dps (98 seconds) with great luck, but usually settles at around 423dps (130 seconds). This would be somewhat okay if the DPS was consistent, but a good portion of this is backloaded in the set. This means it cannot realistically compete with higher-end sets such as Fire, Ice, or even Beam Rifle. The setup for the two main powers, C5 and Storm Cell take a very long time for what is supposed to be an AoE set, as they want to have very fast animation attacks to decimate as quickly as possible, but C5 Starts off weak and gets stronger rather than starting out strong and petering out, which hurts it a lot as well. And despite requiring a ramping period, it is not rewarded with more damage than the other top-end options. Furthermore, to get the most out of Storm Blast, at least for Storm/Storm, you are absolutely required to have Force Feedback on both C5 and Storm Cell but they do not benefit from Set bonuses meaning you have to rely on D-Syncs and Hami-Os to get the most out of them which is also bad because it also really wants high recharge to make C5 Permanent as it is a significant DPS loss if it does not stay up constantly. The CC is fine but slows and knocks are heavily overrated, they make a nice cherry, but for an AoE set you want to kill the trash yesterday, not just flop them onto their butts, as killing mobs is a much better form of CC than knocks and slows. So to summarize the major problems: -Storm Cell and Category Five are too slow to cast and require very horrid slotting to use. This also makes it a VERY expensive build to make. -The damage starts off poor, and becomes upper middling damage over time as most of it is back-ended, and still lower than bursting dps options. -It's an AoE set with no AoE burst. -Endurance drain does nothing, you can't even really slot for it, it might as well not exist. Some solutions I have: I have seen some suggestions that would give it a nice niche as a puller, a set that focuses on grouping things up to AoE could function well even if the DPS is somewhat poor. -Jet Stream does a reverse repel, drawing enemies to you rather than away. -C5 will attempt to pull enemies toward its AoE. Also to make the set quicker and more responsive I suggest the following changes. -The damage on C5 changed so it starts with the high damage and then slowly peters out. -Change the cast time of C5 to 1.67 as it isn't really a nuke. -One of these options in order of preference: (1) Cast time for Storm Cell is reduced to 1.07 seconds. (2) The movement speed for Storm Cell is significantly increased to at least the speed of MM pets. (3) It is changed to a PBAoE aura toggle. And some miscellaneous suggestions: -Make the damage/accuracy of Storm Cell and C5 scale with set mods. -Make the damage less RNG dependent, and preferably slightly higher. -Let either Jet Stream or Chain Lightning have a sort of 'Assassin strike', if out of combat and the enemies are in Storm Cell, have it have a chance to proc lightning/high winds on every mob hit inside the AoE so it has a burst, Final thoughts: I really, really like the set, theme, and visuals. So I want it to be comparable in strength with the other high-end blast sets. I am not doing this because I hate it, but because I love it and I see a ton of potential in it if it just gets nudged a bit in the right direction. You guys are doing great, and I am sure you can make this from a good set to an amazing set with just a few tweaks.

No, I meant this being the only way to slot it is rather unfortunate, as even if it did accept sets, it would be nowhere near the strength of fire blast or ice blast, even beam rifle.

This is a very poor and unfortunate design choice, especially on a middling damage set.