Shin Magmus

I have nothing to add, this is the correct take. Sorry to the players who feel that *one* of their sets should have kept breaking established formula, but -22.5% Res is what you get from AoE debuffs on Corr/MM/Controller. The sole exceptions to this are both HC reworks but they math out to similar totals: which are Trick Arrow having the -Res in the AoE power biased up (and the -Res in net arrow biased down), and Force Field... which has lower values split across its 2 powers because that set is strong enough now and would be pretty insane with higher debuffs. Now Sleet isn't still just inexplicably much better than Tar Patch, Enervating Field, Slowed Response, Anguishing Cry, Melt Armor, etc. Instead, Sleet is the same as them. Welcome down to the level you should have been at.

More options is always better I guess, and players may prefer to navigate via keyboard rather than mouse clicks.

FINALLY, The Glorious Windows 95 Resurrection!

I also thought that the massive damage potential would be better if it was mostly only relevant on high HP Targets: the type of enemy where being a "weak" set becomes most apparent. By contrast, Broadsword probably won't have the ability to attack anything below Boss rank enough times to get to a forced 100% Sever chance, but I felt that was fine. Yeah it will "lose" the stacks, but with DPA adjustments throughout the set it isn't reliant on them. This also makes it feel different from Tidal Power / Combo Points.

"Guys, we want you to farm Giant Monsters and engage with a new system." Okay. Shin respecs his Ill/Traps into being a GM Hunter and begins joining the playerbase farming all the GMs. "What the fuck are you doing? Stop farming GMs!" Devs immediately nerf Adamastor twice, Deathsurge, and I'm sure more to come. ...What do you actually want from us? Every nerf to how people can get Monstrous Aether is just an indirect buff to AE Farming by direct comparison; back to the grind okay? Here I go.

A foreword from the author... Hi there, I'm the Mr. Shin who likes it when bad and underperforming sets get buffed. We've seen some incredible reworks of underperforming sets so far on HC: with the most recent one applicable to this topic being Battle Axe. On top of bringing the numbers up in a generic way, this rework added some utility to the set via Axe Cyclone, and gave it an identity to differentiate it from other sets via the new Targeted AoE vector on some of the attacks. I see these changes and I agree that sets need something unique to give them an identity and make them feel different from other sets. Now it's time for a bit of history... Did you know that at one point: Katana was literally just an identical clone of Broadsword? It's true, and the live devs added entirely new animations to differentiate the sets. They went with a faster/lighter theme for the set but accidentally made it have UNIVERSALLY BETTER DPA ON EVERY POWER EXCEPT THE T1, and simultaneously gave most of the Katana powers lower CDs than the Broadsword ones. This resulted in near-universal advantages to playing Katana over Broadsword. Examine this color-coded table (Brute dmg was used for reference): At this point Broadsword was bad, but still barely tolerable because Broadsword hit for uniquely huge numbers on Scrappers... but history has long since changed that. Scrappers now have access to Stone Melee, Energy Melee, War Mace, Battle Axe, and Titan Weapons: quite the pick of sets with a super-hard-hitting attack to really Clobber an enemy. At the same time, non-Scrappers have gained access to Broadsword through powerset proliferation. Broadsword is currently mockinglingly referred to as "Badsword" by many players😔. Read on below to see how I would fix Broadsword. Fixed Broadsword By: Shin_Rekkoha (Shin Magmus) New Mechanics: Laceration & Sever The logic behind this design change is really very simple: give Broadsword another BIG NUMBER to chonk with, enabling players to enjoy seeing a massive spike of damage in one hit. Unlike something purely random, it is possible to manipulate the chance of this bonus damage or even guarantee it, if the user so-chooses. It fulfills a twin purpose by adding incentive to use the Broadsword T2 attack and other faster-but-weaker attacks. Parry also benefits from these changes. "Laceration": Every damaging Broadsword attack (even Parry) applies 1 stack of Laceration to the target hit, instantly. AoE Broadsword attacks apply 1 stack to every target hit. Assassin's Slash for Stalkers uniquely applies 2 stacks of Laceration. This debuff is automatic, instant, and deals no damage on its own. Think of this as a largely invisible mechanic that operates on the same rules as "Assassin's Focus". Laceration caps at 4 stacks, and attacks that can proc Sever will instead proc a Laceration stack if they fail their Sever roll. "Sever": Disembowel and Head Splitter now have a %chance to inflict a large spike of bonus damage. Whenever these attacks Sever, the bonus damage appears accompanied by floating text above the enemy. This effect consumes all Lacerations on the target and resets the stack to 0. This damage is affected by enhancements and damage buffs, and functions like a damage proc, increasing the damage dealt by 66%. On Scrappers and Stalkers, Sever damage will also Critical Hit if the attack rolled a Critical Hit, for a potential total multiplier of x3.32 over the original base damage: Now That's a Lotta Damage! Sever Chance scales linearly: 0 Lacerations: 0% chance of Sever 1 Lacerations: 25% chance of Sever 2 Lacerations: 50% chance of Sever 3 Lacerations: 75% chance of Sever 4 Lacerations: 100% chance of Sever T1 - Hack No stat changes. *applies Laceration x1* T2 - Slash Animation time reduced from 1.584s -> 1.32s, resulting in DPA increase of 20%. *applies Laceration x1* T3 - Slice Animation time reduced from 2.244s -> 1.98s, resulting in a DPA increase of 13%. *applies Laceration x1* T4 - Build Up Standard Power. *No Changes* T5 - Parry No stat changes: This power is numerically identical to Katana's Divine Avalanche, and would be unfair to change without adjusting both powers. *applies Laceration x1* T6 - Confront Standard Power. *No Changes* T7 - Whirling Sword Initial damage increased by 25%, Bleed DoT unchanged, resulting in a net damage & DPA increase of 19%. *applies Laceration x1* T8 - Disembowel Damage and DPA increased by 8%. *Attempts to inflict Sever for bonus damage. If Sever fails, applies Laceration x1* T9 - Head splitter Animation time reduced from 2.508s -> 2.244s, resulting in a DPA increase of 12%. *Attempts to inflict Sever for bonus damage. If Sever fails, applies Laceration x1* STALKER ONLY - T4 - Assassin's Slash No stat changes. *applies Laceration x2* Feel free to let me know what you think of these changes. I know everyone wants the bonus damage to be called "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!" but the devs have rights to that term for other uses.

Genius suggestion by a metaphysical God of this realm. Let's make this happen, devs.

Yeah you've got it right, none of the Clear Mind powers apply their mez protection in an AoE. Applying the good part of ID to everyone is still tedious.

Thanks for checking all of this, because it was (and is) genuinely insane that Fire Control was nerfed at all this patch. Imagine nerfing Fire Control of all things but not touching a single number on Plant Control: what a farce! I understand why some of the devs might not want non-Control ATs to get such a powerful safety net in their epics, but 0% of that decision should have ever affected Controllers and Doms.

Well, Advanced Mode LGTF is great and I really appreciate the work on the new map. Arse Control is still mid but it's certainly better than being trash. My VEATs now reign Supreme over the game which is fun.

Just tested ON LIVE after a respec and my Dominator "missed" the ground and caused the Tar Patch power to completely fail. This is *almost certainly the exact same root cause* as the glitch with Sleep Grenade when the devs changed it from an enemy-targeted power to a ground-targeted power. I recommend checking the carrier power of Tar Patch and making sure it is both flagged as autohit, and targets self. I also recommend checking Tar Patch on every other AT that got it, such as Tankers and Brutes, as they might have the same bug. Please fix this quickly.

Probably refers to the Shadow Simalcrum in Posi1.

There's a 0% chance, no chance in hell, that this dev team gives a Control Set free access to -Res (not via procs). Do you remember Sonic Blast?

You should probably listen to the community this time and revert this to make Storm Blast feel anywhere near decent. It's pretty sad that the intent is to "bugfix" another Homecoming new powerset into such a sad state that multiple players here just drop their characters with it. Not even adding Beanbag to Storm Blast would make me want to play it now.

Yeah I feel like this set is workable enough for happiness now. It's more annoying and click-heavy to play than a set with an AoE Immob, but you still get a similar result after clicking 3-4 times. Like any of the Sleep sets, it can become stronger in calculated solo gameplay than it will be on teams: only because you have the option (mostly as a Dom) of nuking down the hardest targets one at a time while everyone else is perma-slept. That's not fast, but it is safe.

If I understand this game's spaghetti code power execution like I think I do, then they just need to add an autohit flag to the "carrier" power that plants Sleep Grenade's psuedopets onto the ground. For a lot of patch (psuedopet) powers, if you check City of Data, the power that comes up first is just a carrier. It creates an entity and that entity has to be clicked on and looked at independently to see all the real power effects. Hopefully the devs making sure all of the carriers are flagged as autohit is a simple fix.

We're also all still trying to test it solo, near universally... which is fine (and it highlights the issues with the Confuse that you're mentioning), but I think the Confuse might perform very differently in full team scenarios. With 7 other players all attacking the enemies... and imagine if one of them is a Mastermind, it might swing the other direction and be insane. The main thing I don't know about the Confuse mechanics is the "lockout" period between rolls for Confuse, when an enemy takes damage while in the area of effect. It's "like" almost any other Control set except that it focuses on patches more, and at least all the powers work now. Earth Control and Ice Control are both similar, but Earth Control can't Confuse and Ice Control can't stun: and no other Control set can debuff damage: which will only come into play on AV and GM fights but it's still something for Tear Gas to do.

This video is the same repeatable expectable mission 1 of Yin TF on the same settings I tested last time. The only difference is that I respecced to just almost completely max everything out on damage (at the expense of Control in some spots), and abuse procs like crazy: Tranq Dart has 4 damage procs now. Now that Sleep Grenade works (except when it completely disappears, but I'm going to discuss that at the end) and no longer has anti-synergy with Liquid Nitrogen, I am able to see the damage that Liquid Nitrogen should be doing. Up until this point, my performance was being passively hampered by using Sleep Grenade at all: Because of this, I also wasn't enhancing Liquid Nitrogen for damage because its damage sucked in those conditions. Freed from those shackles. Liquid Nitrogen is now performing reasonably well. I agree that the Confuse might not be the best opener in the world, but in realistic terms you could skip that power and start almost every fight with Flashbang since it's a 90s CD Stun. I'm happy that the ToHit debuff in the Confuse is stronger at least, so it has use as a debuff regardless of the CC. I tried to show just Sleep Grenade + Liquid Nitrogen a bit in the first fight, because the interaction when things work is actually pretty good if you get lucky: it's possible for enemies to get Re-Slept as they are getting back up and then Knocked down in an inescapable loop. This won't be as practical on teams where everyone breaks the Sleep instantly, but it's nice to see a solo lockdown loop that works. As for the Sleep Grenade completely disappearing, I was able to encounter this once during my testing. I wasn't recording, and I wasn't even targeting enemies. I was messing with power color customization and testing it by the tailor, and on one of my casts the Sleep Grenade fizzled out almost instantly and never left its lingering cloud FX. It looked like what Stryve showed, and then I kept clicking tons of buttons in random orders trying to duplicate the glitch... but I never could.

The set... actually works now? The set works? THE SET WORKS!

Because training dummies and Rikti Pylons are permanently immobilized. The irony...

I went ahead and watched the video. Credit where credit is due, I didn't realize that Sleep Grenade was so fundamentally awful and bad that it actually increased how long fights took rather than decreasing it: you successfully managed to not use Sleep Grenade once in this video and it seems to have helped. I'll be sure to respec out of it (while wishing it was an AoE Immob), and not use it at all on my Arse Controller, since the slow isn't strong enough and it robs significant damage from Liquid Nitrogen. Thanks for enlightening me about the useless power. It was my bad for enhancing the slow in it and using it.

I've already reserved the best "Arse" name on Everlasting, and even if I don't like the set, I'm still going to make the character and take the name just so nobody else can have it.

Yes you did.

I'm going to embed 2 videos side-by-side and not use the Forum Link option, for ease of viewing and make this point. You guys be the judges. 2 different builds, one on Beta with Arse Control and the other on Live with Fire Control: both vs Yin TF at +0/x8.

Release Candidate 1: Thanks for adding -Fly to 1 single target power. Anti-Thanks for not adding -Fly to any AoE power: this is just another way that Arse Control will be glaringly inferior to good Control sets. Seriously, have fun playing this on Katie Hannon TF. ...and that's it. There were no other meaningful buffs to the set. Welp, this is what we're getting: it's better than nothing but worse than all other available choices. Now that we have the next round of patch notes, I will conclude with the statement I made while I was testing Arse Control in Build 4... All of my lv50 characters "work" (as in function). If my team literally wipes on something like the Ambush Waves on Posi1 TF or the Toxic Sewer of Apex TF, I can pop some insps (and maybe also Demonic Aura), and win the fight anyways... solo. My Melees can do this, my Supports can do this, and all of my Controllers can do this. As a general rule of thumb, I can insp up and be powerful enough (for a brief window) to win any fight solo. This is true even on hard support Defenders with full Leadership, who lack the Fighting pool at all, and whose kits are focused on buffing allies. It's just how this game works and how functional most sets are. Arse control dis-functional. My Arse Controller will be my one and only character who doesn't work. I'll need both a solid Brute or Tanker ahead of me to taunt enemies to hopefully reduce scatter, and also a real Controller or Dom to apply better slows -or- an AoE Immob (some sort of AoE -Fly) to enable my terrible character to perform at an adequate level: sad. Thanks to everyone else who tried.