Dispari

Agreed with all that. This new system is... acceptable, but I'd rather it just worked like katana works on live and I don't see a good reason why it shouldn't.

I've certainly played a lot of it before it even landed on this server, and more here, and I have always disliked both the repel and Storm Cell having a long recharge while the set revolves around it. Yes it follows you around like Creepers -- IE too slowly. And the set overall doesn't feel very coherent or good in the way most sets are actually played. But I've outlined my actual criticisms and don't have any reason to argue with anybody over them.

Here are my thoughts on Storm and why the repel is a bad decision. First of all, the nature of AoE repel/knockback causes enemy scatter. You can see here how it causes the enemies to move away from the caster, meaning they become more spread out than they were before. This is just bad for AoEs in general and bad for teaming, and the main thing everyone hates about KB in the first place. Now, I understand why the repel is there. It's to push people into Storm Cell (and Category Five). But I think that's a solution to an entirely different problem, which is that the set is very reliant on Storm Cell but it can be difficult to make sure everyone is in it. The recharge time is long, and it's not clear where the border of the power is. Like here, is the border this part? How many dummies are in it? The rain is touching the left one but the vague bubbles on the ground only sometimes touch the left one... is this guy in or out? The solution of pushing people into it is novel but... not very well done. You can't easily control the trajectory or distance of the push, and you might push people you don't mean to, or really just waste a lot of time trying to push enemies around instead of actually killing them. It might be something better accomplished with a single target repel. Or, solve the problem in another way, like making it much easier and snappier to reposition Storm Cell, instead of trying to wrangle mobs. And yes, you can turn off the repel with an IO (tested and confirmed, you get an occasional KD instead). But I think that's just admitting that the repel is a problem in the first place and needs to be "fixed." If you look at set design around the end of the game, the devs had learned that AoE KB is a problem. They stopped designing sets with it. OF came out around the same time as Water Blast, which has knockDOWN (and knockup), not knockback in its AoEs, without needing to slot any special IOs to "fix" it. I think there are other problems with the set of course. The AoE is light and random as you rely on procs to go off, and the nuke ramps up slowly. It just doesn't feel like a set designed to work in the current meta. It feels anemic for how long it takes for things to get going and by then the team has moved on and your contribution was minimal. The nuke struggles to kill even blue minions in a timely manner, and buffs from Build Up or Intensify wear off before it gets around to doing reasonable damage. And goes back to the problem of it being an immobile effect people need to stay in which generates the "need" for a repel. The set generates novel problems for itself that need to be solved when other sets just... work. I do like the visuals and animations though. And the way the set has a combination of damage types and secondary effects for diverse slotting. And the fact that Storm Cell doesn't aggro which is key for positioning and setup. (Also is it permanently night on the beta server right now? Sorry I can't get any brighter screenshots but I sat around waiting for daylight for over 30 minutes in two different zones)

Very good suggestion. Given the whole set revolves around the Storm Cell, and it doesn't do damage or aggro on its own, it should be the sort of thing you can move around at will.

I still generally agree with this. Even if I only end up drawing my weapon once per mission it's still something that weapon sets deal with that other sets don't. Water blast is never expected to waste time in combat doing something that's not attacking enemies. But weapon sets, basically all of which are already weaker than non-weapon sets, are held back by this expectation. There's just no logical reason for this additional burden, and it's certainly not for balance reasons. It also doesn't make much sense to me since we even got a version of katana/TW that did exactly this in the interim before this new system. Katana would skip the draw animation entirely if you start with it in combat but draw it if nothing is around. It seemed like the perfect compromise of "no redraw" while still letting you get the animation if you wanted it. (And, for feedback purposes, you can play with katana on live to see what I'm talking about. Those sets were basically nerfed to bring them in line with other weapon sets right now on beta). That said, having done a bunch of testing with screen-recorder programs to track the animation times frame by frame and going back and forth on the specifics with devs, I did confirm there are some odd quirks with the redraw system that truncate the second attack in a chain, essentially eliminating any extra animation time of drawing your weapon, so you're not wasting any time in the long run in the vast majority of circumstances. There are still some edge cases of course; if I'm playing a dark/ninja blaster and only do a single katana attack (not a chain) then yes I wasted time drawing my weapon and am essentially punished for playing a weapon set. So this quirky new system is mostly not a big deal but is not perfect. It will however be a dramatic buff to my Fortunata who has no less than 10 powers that make her put her claws away. And the new redraw system should be an improvement in performance overall for nearly all my characters in nearly all circumstances. It just still feels completely unnecessary to have this extra little thing hanging over the system for no apparent reason.

The swords are not tintable. With the other two the only tintable aspect is the eye glow.

Oh I will also add I did some testing of AR as well and it makes it feel like a more coherent set, closer to the Sentinel version actually, with fewer AoEs (it had a few too many) and more ST powers (which it was lacking in). Though I do understand some people won't enjoy the changes to Incinerate. The addition of Aim is useful, not that every set needs one, though it does come at the cost of some mez in the set, so pros and cons there. Of course the main pure buff the set got is the nuke having a much wider cone which made it much easier to aim and land. I'm skeptical this will put AR in a competitive spot in the meta; most of its effects are just -DEF and it has KB that has to be reigned in. But it does feel like a more playable set now so it might've moved up a couple slots. The lack of ST was pretty painful before IME. Also weapon sets in general are a bit more playable with the redraw changes.

Ah Vanden you're right. Makes sense. I guess that would've been the culprit for gutting the set in the first place when it went to blasters (they both got ported in i12). Psi blast on blasters has been an AoE-light this whole time and it's a lot beefier now.

Having done some testing on the psi blast stuff, it's all pretty neat. Gives the set a new flavor and the chain power helps add to the AoE of the set as it seems to chain very well. I'm not ENTIRELY sure why we have psychic darts instead of just psychic scream which already existed, but the VFX of a bunch of darts showering enemies is pretty cool. I am hopeful that the cast time changes for psychic powers make it to VEATs though.

Not currently a thread for emotes so I figure this is close enough, looks like the /e votmmug emote got dropped although I thought it was pretty neat alongside the other mugs. Was it buggy or something?

Oh yeah, all the changes look good at a glance. As you said not all the Mastermind changes are present; you can't slot the RES/DEF/heal sets in the upgrade powers for instance just yet.

By the way, is there a way to move large stacks of prismatics around between characters like Hero Merits and Transcendent Merits? Or I guess I should ask, is that on the docket? Because it's going to be very time consuming to move prismatics one at a time through email if some of these costs are in the hundreds or over a thousand.

The ranged weapons and melee weapons for VEATs go over the same shoulder so basically sit in the same place. Though it might also be a uniquely problematic VEAT combination and may not be easily fixed. Was looking good for Sentinel with AR/ninja epic.

Well, if all the devs are sold on these prices, then there's no point in continuing the conversation. I've said my piece.

I'm definitely not saying 10 is unreasonable or unattainable. But even the next tier up is 10x that work, and the highest tier is 150x that work. Just because the first tier IS attainable doesn't mean the other ones are. How many hours does your datamining say 250 or 1500 is? How many prismatics per hour should we be expecting exactly?

Halloween is temporary. Which I also already said. High-difficulty hardmode TFs are things that are a big ask for people who aren't into difficult content (like RPers). And even at 13 that would still take 8 runs which take 2.5 hours each, for just the 100 tier.

I don't agree. 100 is a lot when WSTs drop 1 or 2 prismatics. That's multiple hardmode TFs even, of which there are only two in the game, so lots of grinding and repeating the same content. Hell, just 10 is multiple WSTs, like I said. Do you really think hundreds of hours of grinding is a reasonable ask for one costume for one character? If you do, then I have nothing more to say.

That sounds like a good reason to lower the prices. I'm from the RP server, everyone there has lots of characters. Altitis is a pretty common ailment for City players in general I hear. Hundreds of prismatics for one costume for one character is pretty unreasonable.

Most sets have what I (informally) call a bread and butter mez power. It tends to be a short recharging AoE mez (stun, fear, or confuse), usually available by level 12, that you can probably drop on every group. For Dark it's Fearsome Stare, for Earth it's Stalagmites, for Fire it's Flashfire, for Plant it's Seeds of Confusion, and so on. Illusion doesn't really have one, because it has other stuff going on. But with the changes for Doms, it does now have one in Gleam. That is to say, I don't think it existing is bad necessarily or makes the set too powerful. For Doms, Illusion loses all of its ability to taunt and keep people from being attacked. In the absence of that, there isn't as much keeping enemies from killing the party (or you). You do have an AoE hold, but basically every set has that ON TOP of the bread and butter mez power. So, I think if you're going to take the taunt and party +DEF away from Dominators, it makes sense for a power like Gleam to exist. Performance-wise, at least for me, the set hasn't seemed to be unusually good or anything. But more testing should be done of course.

Okay, I'm gonna be real harsh on the costume power costs because I REALLY think they deserve it. The prices are absurdly high and I don't know why they need to be there to begin with. I know, this is beta and a place for feedback, so I'm not going to assume these are the final for sure prices, but I DO want to be VERY clear. I want to point out that when HC launched, all the previously earnable costume powers and emotes were made free for everyone to use. If you didn't play on live, you used to have to go grind and earn the ability to use Vanguard or Roman costume pieces (and weapons). Some of those you couldn't even do until 35+. HC changed that and made it so this stuff is all free and doesn't require grind. Then the HC devs added some new emotes... and decided to lock them behind earning stuff again (the donut badge, heroside only). Then changed their mind and made it free. Then added new costume options that not only require unlocking but require an awful lot of grinding to unlock. It feels like you guys can't decide what you want to do. Ignoring that, even if I was fine with unlock things (we can't have EVERYTHING free after all, and I'm not saying we should), the amount that you're asking is... extreme. Doing the WST gives 1-2 prismatics. Doing hardmode content can get you like 20 or so depending on the difficulty. But even if you were doing that, these TFs take about 2.5 hours to run. And some of the SINGLE individual costume options you have are 1500 prismatics. You'd have to run 75 hardmode TFs at 2.5 hours each. Or run WSTs 750 times. For ONE unlock for ONE character. And inf? Even at their current 3m each (which it's going to spike when these new requirements hit) you'd need 4.5 billion influence. And sure, that's just the highest option, there are others that only cost 10 or 250 or whatever. But that's still a huge investment of time or influence. And I get it, you said you wanted some of these to feel accomplished and for people to "earn" them. But this isn't really earning stuff it's just... grinding. Intense, long, unnecessary grinding. I think even if you cut all the current costs to 1/10 they'd still be pretty high, but at least DOABLE. Do you guys really want to incentivize people to just... grind, for days, weeks, months to get a single costume thingy to play with? And not even getting into the fact that this punishes RPers the most who WANT to have these things for their interesting characters, but can't get them because of the intense time investment they ask. I don't want to be mean, I just want to be clear that you're just asking the moon from players here. Even the current cheapest ones of 10 prismatics on live require running multiple WSTs or trudging through hardmode TFs on high difficulties (which a lot of people -- like RPers -- don't want to do). And they're only affordable right now because of Halloween, but as soon as that's gone, it's going to be a nightmare. This is a free game with a small community. You can't ask people to grind for hundreds of hours for a single costume. Short version, all these prices are too high by at least a factor of 10. Seriously.

Great comparison! So bots do burn out unusually fast compared to every other set, especially the Protectors. Assault might be okay for a t3. Maybe the Protectors need Conserve Power too.

Would be nice. With AS taking the place of Gash or, if absolutely need be, Swoop. Stalkers losing AoEs is one of the most fundamental problems the AT suffers from.

Yeah it can be hard to say. Some sets are largely unchanged while others are extremely different. Sentinels probably have the best version of Regeneration available. So it can be difficult to say if their overall durability is lower. But I do still wish their numbers were higher regardless. Having done numerous builds, they're a lot harder to build DEF on as well, due to most S/L/melee DEF being on melee powers (they do get a couple in epics and sometimes nukes at least).

Actually really glad to hear that. Set slotting variety can be nice but I really think the ranged sets are a downgrade for melees, build-wise.

This is a great test and good knowledge to have. Would be worth trying with some of the other pet sets. Also curious how they currently perform on live. Might do that myself if you don't get around to it.