Shin Magmus

Nah I have Intuition Radial alpha and I forgot to switch off the Global tab to the Combat tab.

Such a list on Controllers would be tricky because they have to build and slot *one way* to be able to have enough Recharge for their Opener to be up and ready every spawn, or else they die... but they have to build and slot *another way* to purely maximize their possible damage and speed up fights: which can speed up a fight too much and result in it being harder or impossible to get the Opener's Recharge low enough to be up in time for the next fight. Such a list on Dominators would also be fairly meaningless, since they can get 80-95% of their potential damage on many set-combos from just their Assault Set and their incredible assortment of Epic Pools. In a solo scenario, if your Opener(s) are on CD: you either wait or you die. In a team scenario, you can just click damaging buttons as soon as the meathead melees run in. So when Controllers are on teams, they can use squishier builds with higher damage potential and lower recharge, which can skew the results of which set clears fastest heavily. Alternatively, the best damaging Control sets deal disproportionately high damage via just a few powers such as HotFeet and Carrion Creepers: so it's easy to maximize the damage slotting of those powers without making compromises elsewhere in your build. That's why those sets keep pace in endgame and why they make Controller as an AT feel much less shitty.

My initial impression is that Arse/Storm will be one of the only good ways to get the Immob because they're tying it to Wet, not to immob powers. So unfortunately, it's one of the only ways to make Arse Control *feel good to play*. As for Dominators and their options... get fukt? Chilling Embrace in Icy Assault and Thorntrops in Thorny Assault at least give you an extra slow, and that might have to be enough. ...but I don't want to play Arse/Storm, so I am trying to make Arse/Traps work.

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.