Dispari

Agreed with that. Of course there was SOME pushback, no change is going to be universally liked, but it seems clear that people would rather have Aim than Beanbag. But as multiple people have pointed out you could also just have both.

I wanna compare t9s real quick. I'm doing Radiation vs Storm here. The slotting for the powers is with level 40 basic IOs, 1x ACC, 3x DMG, 1x RECH, so +38.6% ACC/RECH and +97.4% DMG. I'm not sure how you're meant to slot Storm Cell so I put 3x DMG in it (+97.4%). Also these were all done with level 40 blasters, with custom units with no resistances or HP bonuses. Anyway, this is Category Five: Category 5 by itself takes about 30 seconds to kill an even-con minion. This is... Aggressively Not Good. Not only does it take about 5 seconds to ramp up but even when it does the damage is very low. We could of course combine it with Storm Cell, but it's not like that changes much so here it is: It still takes about the same amount of time, maybe a second less. Now I want to compare this to Radiation. ...Yeah. Anyway, I'm sure what you're saying is "It's different, it's a patch power." We can compare it to Ice Blast's Blizzard too. Blizzard by itself takes less than 10 seconds to kill minions with the same slotting. So it's at least 3x as powerful. And realistically if you're counting Storm Cell's contributions then Blizzard should get Ice Storm too. And... YES you could say "The procs though! You have to use the other powers." I would just ask why. ALL sets will kill enemies faster if you use the other powers. I could be using Radiation's Irradiate or Neutron Bomb to kill minions faster, except I don't need to because they're already dead. So what exactly does Category Five bring to the table? It's a bad nuke. And if it's not a nuke, then what is it? A bad targeted AoE? It's not like it has a shorter recharge than Blizzard to compensate. The set already has lighter AoE than other sets because it lacks a targeted AoE (only having a chain power which is less reliable), making it weak in that regard. You can say it's "not a minmax set" or "not a speedrunning set" but I want to know what it IS because it doesn't seem like it's actually good at anything. At best it takes a very long time to ramp up to the point where it does something that other sets can just do with a single click. What does it get for that extra effort? What does it do that other sets can't do and would be jealous of? Because I can't think of anything. Are people fine with it just being a weak set because "not every set needs to be top tier?" That's true, but I don't think it means we should make bad sets on purpose. As others have said, it feels like the "theme" of the set is holding it back. The slow ramping up doesn't work. Even if it does, I'm not getting any benefit for the added effort. I'm sure it's too late to change it, but I think people should at least be aware of where the set falls behind. EDIT: Oh yeah. I also forgot to mention that because everything in the set takes so long to set up and ramp up, you get basically no benefit from the damage portion of the Aim equivalent. Category Five wastes a full five seconds of the duration doing basically no damage.

I still think Sentinel's Slug -> Disorienting Shot is a good compromise, considering that gives people a stun power AND Aim. Unless a single target knockback from Slug is that important to the set. It looked like removing Aim was not a popular change considering all the posts and thumbs down.

Of the current options I think Photosynthesis is the best candidate to be placed alongside Mycelium as a basic aura selection that any player could use, since it's an incredibly unique character customization option that can't be obtained in any other way, and is even in the same theme as the mushrooms. I personally know at least 5 plant characters on my server who would love to be able to use it. I was thinking it might not be doable since it uses two colors unlike other auras, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for Mycelium. Other than that I don't have any feedback that hasn't already been said.

Not sure that's true. The set doesn't have a targeted AoE like basically all other sets; the chain power is nice but less reliable (and some sets have all that and more). And the nuke takes a while to ramp up. The set's AoE lacks in general and Storm Cell only brings it up to par at best.

To me it feels like the follow mechanic is more of a bandaid that being able to cast it yourself every 10 seconds (or so) would negate the need for. If you could position it freely like Faraday Cage then it wouldn't NEED to move around. And moving around would actually be counterproductive since it's just AI and has a tendency to do things you don't want it to do. With something like Creepers I can see the purpose of the recharge time and movement. It's more of a damage power than anything and is a perk, not a necessity. For Storm Cell a lot of the set revolves around it and requires it. And it seems to me that being able to put it exactly where you want it at any given time would even solve some common complaints, like the repel being annoying when enemies aren't in the Storm Cell.

Fair enough.

It's not JUST about making the ability permanent, it's about being able to relocate it where you need it to be.

Does the new system actually accomplish this goal, or should we expect more changes to the redraw system down the road if this is the goal? This sounds more like you're advocating for the original system where you draw a weapon every single time, considering the new one still causes weapons to appear in your hand in the vast majority of cases.

Faraday Cage as the main point of comparison for a kit-vital power also has a recharge of 10 seconds with a duration of 4 minutes, so I don't see any reason why Storm Cell couldn't have a shorter recharge so it can be positioned exactly where it's needed at any given time.

I would personally prefer Aim stay if it's between that and Beanbag. Of course what the Sentinel version does is drop Slug for Disorienting Shot, which stuns and does good damage. So you could have both.

I think the power could use more range in general. It's 60 feet for blasters/defenders/corruptors which already makes it hard to place before combat starts. It doesn't aggro on its own, but slinking up close enough to put it somewhere beneficial often put me in range to aggro, to the point I thought it was changed to be a power that aggros for a bit of testing and was going to give feedback on that. And then it's even worse on sentinels at 40 feet. Yeah, I know patch powers like Rain of Fire are usually 60 feet, but this isn't an attack, it's a setup power that the set revolves around. It's a uniquely different type of power and needs special consideration. On that note I would also say giving it an extremely short recharge so you can position it exactly as needed as often as needed is a better idea than having it slowly move around, which to me feels counterproductive to having it set up where it can be most useful to the user. Because as-is it kinda just does whatever it wants and might stop short of actually covering a group of enemies. And... I still think it's too vague where the boundaries of the power are so it's hard to tell who's in it and who's not (IE who might be repelled and who wouldn't).

The benefit my Fort will get out of this is pretty big. Powers like Aim, Mind Link, Psychic Scream, Psionic Tornado, and Psychic Wail all put your claws away. So attacking while doing any good AoEs would cause redraw. Buffing allies would cause redraw. And because enemies have a tendency to flee when hit with -recharge, I would usually cycle Dominate into chains against bosses to make them sit still. Which would also cause redraw. Since my Fortunata is my main I'll be getting a lot out of this change.

Yeah my main is a Fortunata who redraws constantly because of the mix of claw and psychic powers, and it will be a huge boon for her, so I'm happy about this new system overall. It just feels like the extra hangon of one forced draw is completely unnecessary when we had a good alternative already.

Nope, the new system forces at least one draw at the start of combat regardless of circumstances. Katana was even changed away from the version you're describing to this new one. This also removes the "no redraw" option from all sets.

Oh yeah the Water Blast changes are spectacular. Some combo sets really struggle, I wouldn't say Water is one of them, but this makes it even better than it already was as a pretty nice all around set. And fixes a bug the set had.

You can set it up to do both with one function. "powexecname power name$$powexeclocation target power name" It will cast on the target if you have one, and become a reticle if you don't. I've been using these for every set that has ground target powers and it saves me a lot of headache.

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.