Shin Magmus

I understand that's how it has been and I understand that this situation is frustrating because I'm extremely frustrated right now. However, unlike the last few times, I thought I should at least try a little harder this time to try and get the new powerset to not be another dud set (that nobody plays).

No, Jack, the devs implemented it that way for a reason. By making the Tier1 and the Tier2 both Sleep powers, it made taking Sleep unavoidable. That was actually by design, so that the person on the team with the hard-on for Sleep could force anyone trying this set to try Sleep in a push to make the playerbase like the effect more. The inherent problem of allowing a noob to start with a 45s CD power, and the second inherent problem of NOT allowing a Controller to start with a Hold or Immob for some sort of guaranteed Containment attack chain... were both ignored (initially).

Please don't get into an argument about that Hard Mode math, I see it coming. I agree that it ends up taking 2 Doms + a 3rd *Controller or Dom* but the math is more than that and the number you need to hit is more than 10. It's 13 total mag protection on bosses so the number to hit is actually 14. It's so totally not the point of the thread though; The only note is that Smoke Canister will not help you hit these totals any more than Seeds of Confusion will... and in fact Smoke Canister will reliably do worse.

Here is proof that I'm testing and doing the real work at endgame that needs to be done. I'm still working out exactly how to build an Arse/Traps for this but focusing slots and effort on Arse Control itself to both determine its (lack of) power and to not let my secondary set carry the test. I'm also not going to run on [currently] easy Council or do redundant low-level testing that's already being done by other people... so I made a fully IO'd and Incarnate'd build and took it against some Carnies (I've tested a few harder groups like Arachnos as well) at solo +4/x8 but it's +3 cus of level shifts. This took considerable time by the way. Here are my thoughts yet again: Having to rely on stacking slows is just a clunkier, more click-intensive version of being able to keep the enemies all permanently immobilized. I've also decreased my peak damage potential to add some extra Slow enhancement into Sleep Grenade and Caltrops. Even with all of that said and a focus on baiting and pulling enemies into my patches and my kill-zones, then trying to keep them from leaving said kill-zones, this is a slog. It would be a bit better in a team context of course, but only because I kill slowly in my "role" as a Controller by CC'ing and dealing next-to-no damage while I rely on my team to deal the damage for me. The problem is the same as it's been this whole time... why would I click like 4-6 powers to sortof create the situation I want when I could pick other Controller primaries and get the same result in 2 clicks. Those sets (Plant Control, Fire Control, etc.) not only achieve the meta end-state I want as a Controller in fewer clicks, but they also provide more damage within their set inherently. So you start to click the "kill stuff" buttons sooner because you didn't have to spend as much time clicking the "please don't run away from me and out of my patches" buttons.

I AGREE WITH THIS FEEDBACK. Wet Arse Control is a-go: send it.

Out of genuine curiosity, how often would you say you log onto your Seismic Blast character. I get that they aren't your main. I have over 20 lv50s that "I like" but only 2 or 3 I'd ever call my mains, and some of them go for weeks or months without play because I play this game in surges and take breaks. But I've also permanently shelved lv50s that I don't really like, and stripped them of their IOs. Does your Seismic Blast character fall into the "shelved" category or do you still like it enough to dust off from time to time? This is just for anecdotal data.

Well yeah I can't change their goals. If their goal really is to specifically add mediocre sets in order to prevent power creep, and intentionally make new sets so weak that there's no desire for players to "upgrade" their existing characters to the new sets: then obviously they are nailing that. No argument here.

The only reason I would play this blighted set is also because it fits the concept: we are in agreement. But my concepts would be Natural characters using: > Arse/Arse or Arse/Martial Doms > Arse/Traps or Arse/Trick Arrow Controllers I don't believe any of those 4 builds are inherently very good at all, and I strongly feel that TA and Traps extra slow powers and sole sources of an Immob, even a single target one, would be *carrying* Arse Control. I don't have a concept for a "Smelly Wet Arse" Arse/Storm Controller to shoot a cloudburst grenade into the atmosphere, out of their gun? I genuinely do not want to play the Immob-less set we are getting, and I also genuinely *believe* that Arse Control will languish in relatively underplayed obscurity a mere 2 months after the set is released, as the 3rd dud in a row following Symphony Control and Seismic Blast.

Truth, which is why Storm Summoning as a set is commonly played on Controllers because they have AoE Immobs that make Storm work better. It's basically a circle right: to not give this set an Immob, but then sneak in a conditional Immob that works specifically with the powerset that needs it... like a roundabout way of admitting what the core problem is across Controllers, and the secondary problem is specifically with Storm Summoning, then adding a band-aid so it doesn't come up. A Band-aid solution is better than no solution... but why would my Natural Origin Gun Controller magically conjure a bout of Freezing Rain?

In response to that, simply answer one question for me. Why would you want to play the Arsenal Control that we are getting, over any other Control set? Just give me reasons why you'd play this set over Ice Control or Plant Control or Elec Control or Mind Control.

Almost every psuedopet does have a significantly increased base acc beyond x1.0, up to x1.4 in some cases. Gonna have to agree that powers like Smoke Canister need this in order to be of any value vs high level enemies and on Hard Mode. People testing this set fighting +0 enemies at lv10 are not noticing this weakness.

No, I'm not 100% sure. Well, I think it scales up in a pattern like bosses at 2 star, bosses and luits at 3 star, and all enemies at 4 star, but I was specifically musing about how Controllers are "supposed" to be useful on 4 star Hard Mode. 4 star is the most difficult and therefore the most worth discussing and being concerned about, and 1 Controller or Dom with 1 Confuse power can't do anything with it on 4 star ITF: and I have tested and verified that. There are specific Confuse-Weak enemies on Hard Mode ASF but they are best handled with Single Target Confuse powers on a low CD (like Deceive) and not by a 90s CD Confuse power like Smoke Canister (until the devs nerf Smoke Canister even more prior to release). Here's an image for reference.

They don't let dissenting opinions into the Closed Beta BTW, so that's not even real advice. The idea that there's an Open Beta but even on the first day of the time period, our feedback is worthless because the devs have already decided against making any "big" changes is worthless. That statement (both from at least one dev on the Arsenal Control Focused Feedback thread and another commenter here) translates to "your feedback here has no power so just keep your mouth shut and take what you get."

I just wanted a Natural Origin powerset that had the standard tools to function well in all scenarios, and simultaneously that worked well with Traps. Stacking an assortment of debuffs to go with Traps' grab bag of debuffs would make a character who was a sort of budget "omni debuffer" even though though they didn't explicitly pick Rad Emission or Poison, and would give the character impact when the mezzes are resisted. Good sets like Ice Control and Dark Control have debuffs strong enough to create this impact. Ice Control's -speed and -recharge are legendary, and Dark Control's -tohit is right behind it. I think about these other sets that I have played, and could be playing, when I look at what the devs are offering us with Arse Control. I look, and I see a series of increasingly worse sets that are rooted in a stubborn refusal to alter 3 powers in the set from being: Single Target damaging Sleep, AoE damaging Sleep, and Cloaking Device. I see the stubbornness and total refusal to listen to overwhelming player feedback as the driving force behind why Arsenal Control basically cant, and won't, be fixed. That's how I feel, that's how other people I talk to feel, and that's why I made my original comment that started this thread. *I didn't make this thread.* My comment was moved by an admin to become the start of this thread, partially because it was derailing the conversation about the feedback to the set... and partially because I was damn right about what Arsenal Control needed to become in order to make good Arse/Arse and Arse/Traps characters.

A Confuse hole is pretty common in old armorsets, of which many old enemy groups take powers such as Integration and Unyielding. These powers have Confuse holes on players as well, but both Leadership and VEAT versions of Tactics provide actual Confuse protection for the entire team: which means even now several people simply assume that they have it. It's a funny phenomenon, but it means that Confuse is better than average at CCing lots of enemy groups. Except Confuse doesn't proc Containment... and the Hard Mode difficulty modifiers add Mag 10 Confuse protection to all the enemies...

Well I like the idea of TRI-GUN TRIPLE-BARREL TRIPLE-PET having 3 versions of a good attack that simulate Pyro, Cryo, and Chemical Rounds. If it can rapid fire a barrage of 3 above average attacks then it will do good damage, and it will match Dual Pistols thematically. This assortment of debuffs will also help it stack debuffs with Traps, which is a plus for me because... not to belabor a point... but Arsenal Control should be planned from the ground up around working well with Traps since that's what so many people want to do with it.

As long as one person says "I like the pet, it's good", then we won't see any meaningful changes to it. We're sorta getting Arse'd here.

I think the pet is pigeon-holed now, because if it's tanky and can Taunt, then it de-facto must also not be too strong offensively. This is a classic case of sliding scale balance giving up offense for defense, or else it's just the best pet in both offense and defense. But that's not feedback, that's just why I think they won't buff its damage much. On that note: I highly doubt the set gets any significant changes now (not just the pet) because nobody is listening to feedback in this thread unless it's 100% positive. We're getting Arse Control with both anti-synergy with Traps, and now with this new "Wet" mechanic that makes you want to pair it with Freezing Rain etc. just to have an Immobilize. There's nothing else to be said, it's hopeless.

Just don't respond to Arcane, it's a waste of time that could be used on feedback. I agree with Maxzero that it's "possible" to play a Controller without any reliable Containment, but it makes your character less effective and makes the game less fun. You become even more dead weight on many teams because any strategy you try to use to deal damage (like an Epic AoE attack) hits for literally 50% of the damage it could hit for, if you had picked a different primary. When a team doesn't need your defensive support, the only thing you provide is offensive support: typically via direct damage; Not having Containment active decreases your ability to help by too much.

What if instead of adjusting Arse Control to better facilitate Containment -or- buffing Controller base damage and nerfing the crit multiplier from Containment to fix these system-level changes that you pointed out... we do neither? Let's just push a mediocre set to the non-Blasters and sneak in another Blaster buff.

... and since this set will never get a reliable way to set up Containment, it will also never be good unless its individual powers are as broken as Illusion Control. This means that Arsenal Control will fundamentally suck and be literally always outclassed on Controllers because of the lack of Containment and lack of truly good powers. As for the reason it lacks both of those things? One stubborn person in a position of power.

Phantasm is pain without KBtoKD, it's rough.

For Doms, a Control set not dealing damage is a complete non-issue. However, for Controllers... I'm not sure how much you play them but I play them a lot. It's pretty common for a Controller to take a pool attack as their 3rd single target attack in the chain if they aren't using an Epic attack like Fire Blast: and please note that the vast majority of Control sets only have 2 single target "attacks" as a standard. So a Controller who wants an attack chain will just take Arcane Bolt at lv4, or maybe lv6, and then you have your 3 attacks; in Arsenal Control this would look like Cryo -> Tranq -> Arcane. As for dealing damage beyond that, you'd be able to slot 4 damage procs into Flash Bang (or 5 if you also use the ATO proc and cut back on Mez slotting), and can also deal moderate AoE dmg during some fights with Tear Gas Canister but not every fight. Those both come way before lv35, with the pet at lv26 as the last main source of damage. This is all very standard for Controllers by the way. The ability for them to deal more damage hardly ever comes from their primaries, and instead comes from their secondary and epics. So if I make an Arsenal / Traps Controller I'll probably take Toxic Dart instead for theme, try to fit in Corrosive Vial as well for the procs it can slot, and add in good ole Caltrops as my AoE damage. I can have all of that before lv35 as well.

Yeah but a system-level change like that would probably only be accomplished via manually editing every Sleep power 1 at a time, because of how this game is coded.

Fixed Arsenal Control By: Shin_Rekkoha (Shin_Magmus) *The powerset is now given an identity and a niche: not just having several ground-targetted patch powers, but being the best (and only) Control set at stacking -dmg debuffs.* *Power naming consistency pass conducted: all power names which contain "Canister" are ground-targetted and can be used preemtively.* *Power order adjusted.* T1 - Tranquilizer Round Ranged, Dmg(Toxic), Foe Sleep, -dmg/-rech *Add Debuff Effects Above average DPA attack for a Controller, fills the attack chain position usually occupied by an ST Immobilize, stacks additional -dmg effects for when Sleep fails. T2 - Cryo Freeze Ray Ranged, Dmg(Cold), Foe Hold, -speed/-rech *Add Debuff effects / Power given correct parity with Block of Ice* Standard Single Target Hold, no arbitrary weaknesses. T3 - Liquid Nitrogen Ranged, Targeted Enemy AoE, Foe Immobilize/-Fly/-KB%/-KU%, strong -speed/-rech, *Changed targeting method, add Slow Debuff effects, removed damage, CD reduced to 8s, changed core power, Wet status completely removed from the game* Derivative version of Chillblain, deals no damage and can't slot damage IO sets but applies a more powerful movement slow in exchange, effect even if the Immobilize fails. Since this power deals no damage, it also does not break Sleep, allowing it to be used to set up Containment without waking up foes. T4 - Sophorific Canister Ranged, Ground Targeted Location, Foe Pulsing Sleep, -dmg/-rech *Add Debuff effects, changed targeting method, damage removed* A more usable Sleep Grenade that can be placed preemptively without an enemy target, stacks additional -dmg effects for when Sleep fails. T5 - Cloaking Device Self, Toggle Stealth, +Def(All) *No changes* Power must have retain parity with Superior Invisibility to be justified, people who don't want it can skip it or just mule a LotG 7.5%. T6 - Flash Bang Grenade Ranged, Targeted Enemy AoE, Minor Dmg(Smashing), Foe Stun/-ToHit *Damage added* A standard 90s CD AoE Stun is a default Opener for most Control sets and a fine power, given minor Smashing damage because getting Flash-Banged hurts. T7 - Smoke Canister Ranged, Ground Targeted Location, Foe Pulsing -Perception/-ToHit, Foe Confuse on dmg *Debuff effects increased, Added correct 100% consistent Domination values* The idea of this power is fine as long as we also have an AoE Immobilize that prevents KB. 2 different Openers both on 90s CDs is unique for a Control set, as long as they're both good powers individually. T8 - Tear Gas Canister Ranged, Ground Targeted Location, Moderate DoT(Toxic), Foe Pulsing Hold, -dmg *Changed targeting method, changed core power, now a clone of Volcanic Gasses with adjusted numbers, retain 240s CD* Tear Gas Canister has been given a new identity to be a strong AoE attack that deals significant Toxic Damage over time and stacks additional -dmg, with a small chance to periodically Hold them. Directly compared against Volcanic Gasses: this power will have more DPS and a debuff, but significantly lower Hold frequency/duration. T9 - Tri-Cannon *No changes* The pet works fine and fits the theme well enough. I would be interested to hear the opinions of others in this thread on this set instead of the Arsenal Control that we're getting.