Captain Powerhouse

Hello guys, sorry I had not replied here yet but been busy juggling many things (and reading every single post on this thread all today.) I don't have answers for everything right now but I want to clarify a handful of things When we say we want to give more incentives to get into melee range, we mean that we want the melee powers that blasters get to be more useful. This is not about forcing all blasters to get into melee, but to reward the use of these powers beyond raw concept characters or set mules. No one will be forced to jump into melee range with a set they would not do so in the past. I could had phrased that part of the patch notes a lot better and avoided some confusion. Net Arrow's high range was simply a mistake. There is one set that has some of its powers intentionally at higher-than-standard range, Mind Manipulation, as Mind attacks in this game have had bonus range from the start. You will notice Subdue is still 80ft range. The high CC blasters got was an extreme over-correction from the live state where blasters where forbidden from having reliable AoE mez that was above mag 2, it had to be toned down. What is right now in test is still higher levels of CC out of manipulation sets than was allowed by the live team, just not enough to start stepping into controller or dominator territory with a single power. On the resistiability of Flash Arrow: resistance in this game means that a foe that happens to have 50% perception resistance might have (for example) its view distance cut by -10feet instead of -20feet. They still will have their perception reduced. Device's Smoke Grenade is basically the same, it has always been resistible. Be assured homogenization is not at all my goal, but some deviations from the standard just are too loop-sided. Case in point, we will not be turning every single sustain power into a toggle, much less a passive. Some will be toggles, some will be clicks, some like Mind and Dark will require an enemy to use. Oh, one more thing: Currently all versions of Total Focus are bugged while flying, 50% of the time they execute the old 3.3 second animation. This will be fixed in the next patch. Don't have a full list of future changes, but there will be some tweaks to a few powers based on feedback compiled from this thread.

Not sure what is going on live right now with the power, but it should always be 2s cast time on slow mode, and 1.2s cast time on fast mode. Is this issue on a specific AT?

Energy Transfer, indeed, does not crit extra damage. To clarify: this is an extremely old rule that has been maintained by the live team and I am not ready to dismiss. Basically, powers that are too high damage (usually powers with a recharge of 20+ seconds) are not allowed to crit, as their crits (3.56 x2) results in more damage than Assassination (7.0.) The only exception to the rule is Crushing uppercut, and you need to build 3 stacks, something Stalkers cant actually do before entering combat since they have Build Up instead of Combat Readiness. Even then, a regular crit for Crushing Uppercut, at 25s recharge, is just 3.18x2=6.36) For years before shut down, it was the goal that they would simply give such powers (like Concentrated Strike, or Energy Transfer) special functions instead of a damage crit, reason why you see Auto Recharge on CS for Scrappers, BU recharge on CS crit for Stalkers and Self Damage Avoidance on Energy Transfer. Again, it is a design rule I am not ready to throw out the window at this time.

A lot of the debuffs have been made much stronger with PvE balance and the reality that debuff sets need to remain competitive against +3 foes relative to buffing peers. I have not stopped thinking about how this will impact even level combat, to be specific: PvP

That is not entirely accurate, and was not even back early on live. The actual rule is that players would be able to complete all solo content, in 1x+0, with an SO build, no temps, and pools being optional (edit oh and no inspirations.) Basically just primary+secondary+SOs. Believe it or there where cases that required buffs because that low standard could not be met (reason Defenders got Vigilance's solo +DMG buff, for example.) The devs always looked at the potential impact of high recharge, and there still are remnants that show how they would evaluate the impact of hasten on x or y power, not that it would be needed given they told everyone the reason powers like Unstoppable have the recharge they have is precisely to prevent they ever became perma, even at the recharge cap.

Note there is currently a bug (noted by one person very early in the thread) that Total Focus is executing the slow animation half the time while flying. That drastically can slow the chain, a fix is in for that in the next build among a few other bugs squashed. In the meantime, don't test for performance while flying.

MA is indeed one of the sets. That stated, the set is one of the ones that got the least attention during closed testing, so it is in the most flexible position right now. As it stands right now, the cone change is a bit over-stated. Think more of it as a Thunder Strike Splash, that happens to be in a cone instead of the main target. Secondary targets don't take full damage. Keep your eyes on the patch notes and stay active in the discussions. We all know you have kicked nazi robots so hard they exploded. 😉 Although some changes are a bit more unlikely to be changed than others, this one not really set in stone yet. Shadow Maul is still a superior AoE than it was before Page 5, the AoE changes for the set were not completed that issue. Last patch, damage, area and target cap were all increased. With this patch, only the target cap is being cut back to what it used to be before (and what every melee cone tends to be.) This is a change that might not happen until a future update. It's still possible we might re-brand TAoE as "Ranged AoE" and PBAoE as "Melee AoE" but that likely wont be this update (not ruling it out but hands are full all around,) this might mean this power will go as is for now and be changed in the future, but until we are sure to go that way we will follow the same standard as Street Justice. This set has access to Soul Drain, a shadow that looms on all it's balance decisions. For the most part, it is expected that many will ignore the power on end-game optimal builds, the power is meant to help more casual builds achieve a minimum level of AoE self-suficiency, something this game basically mandates given the emphasis on defeating large number of enemies. This is overall intentional. See above quote. Overall, it is intentionally spammable but the DPA per target of this power is not the best a DM character will have access to. No, sorry.

At some point, but it is a VERY time consuming process, so it will take a lot of time before every set gets the treatment. No it does not, that is a sneaky old bug that is still hard to pin down, but it has something to do specifically with katana weapon customization.

Hey everyone Thank you for the feedback so far. I completely understand that some players ardently dislike conditional mechanics, many of the early iterations to Energy Melee changes tried their best to avoid them, but in the end, Energy Transfer is a special mechanic power that is ridiculously hard to balance without a more elaborate approach. For those concerned about other legacy sets, I can’t promise specifics, but I will do my best to avoid complex combos. Super Strength, Fiery Melee, Stone Melee, they won’t be getting combos. In the interest of full disclosure, Broad Sword might be getting a purely additive Parry focused mechanic, but that is in extremely early draft stages. Now, I am not asking anyone to stop posting feedback, but agree to disagree, let others express their discontent and feedback, and focus on your own personal feedback, not theirs. It will make the job of going through everyone’s feedback much smoother.

Only because you said "please".

Been meaning to reply to this but been swamped: An unrealistic state so keep that in mind when i say this, true sentinel performance will likely never hit this level, its just "on paper": Without offensive opportunity, the sentinel modifier is at .95 if i recall correctly. At even level foes, the additional -5% resist means in solo play this is about 0.9975 equivalent base damage (things go down against higher level foes) With offensive opportunity, the sentinel has procs equal to +20% enhanceable damage (so long the attack obeys the damage formula) for about scale 1.045. The AT also can land it's -25% resist during this window against the single foe, provided it is strong enough to survive a long test, it would bump hypothetical damage to 1.425 scale (again, even foes, if they have enough HP to make that one-shot debuff count) Since the mechanic is designed for an max 50% uptime, the average of these two ends up being an average 1.21 scale damage, actually higher than scrapper + crits, in between scrapper hypothetical 1.18125 scale (vs minions) and 1.2375 (against non-minions) And of course, even then its only valid for single target damage (since the -res is not AoE) but every Sentinel gets a mini-nuke, the same is not true for Scrappers. Now, all this is just a hypothetical optimal that only truly work in paper, but it is basically the center of the balance for the whole feast/famine design. The fact it cant really be practical to leverage in game is why there is going to be a big revamp for everything, at some point.

It isn't purely cosmetic only in the part that the damage and beam were moved from frame zero to frame 28 (for the case of electricity.) Either way, both animations always had 40 rooting frames in them. Only two snipes ever worked correctly (and didn't need to be changed) when skipping the interrupt window were Sniper Rifle and Blazing Bolt.

Brutes are not meant to be 90% of tanks, they are meant to cap at 90% of tanks, with the help of external buffs (or inspiration spam.)

To clarify some things, although I'm sure this will not clear enough since I'm a bit short of time to be too expansive today: The goal is for Sentinels to have comparable DPS to scrappers, but with the following concessions: More Range [obviously], lesser than-stalker survivability. More sustained AoE damage than scrappers, less sustained ST damage than scrappers. The above is, of course, in average. Given the sets are not identical accross ATs, a one-to-one will never be identical (a 3fire sentinel wont be the same as a 3fire scrapper.) The current opportunity design, at it's optimal usage, actually averages at about that (if you always use offensive and never miss an activation.) It just does so in a way that you have ridiculously low damage half the time, and absurd high damage the other half the time (if you managed to be 100% optimal, something that also should is unlikely to happen)

Of the top of my head, only two snipes were faster than they are now: Psionic and Ninja Assaults. Both these were 1 second in fast mode. All other are exactly as fast/slow as they always were. The sequencers were just unfinished and the beams/projectiles would fire damage before the animation would actually fully execute, and arms would do jerky movements, then stand there with arms slowly going back into position for 1.33 to 1.66 seconds. No snipe was ever less than a second. AR fast animation was set to 1.5 second internal cast time as part of the fast-snipe implementation by the live team before the game shut down.

Since I am being quoted a lot: the post that is being quoted is just one of many potential directions for the power. If I was set on thinking that was my definitive preferred approach, I would had already started work on it and it would had been ok a test wave. PA is problematic because not only can it manage aggro too well, but also because it’s basically immortal and easy to sustain perma. The damage is an issue but not as big as the other two factors. It’s the dominators own damage output that makes that a bigger issue than it is for Controllers. Basically, a Dom replacement of the power would either be less effective at aggro management, or killable, or have a much shorter duration, or an in-between of all that. One thing so am set to do whenever I get there, is to make the Dom version of this power a player clone first (by default use player costume and have some powers from the player assault set) instead of a generic phantom with random attack assortment that happens to be customizable as a look-a-like.

I feel a YoYo set would be a ranged set.... (No, Yo Yo Combat NOT confirmed, that would require a crazy amount of animation work, but I’ll admit it would be damned cool.)

Yes, that was an intentional experiment (to give taunts a bit more of an AoE “mocking blow that does no damage but agraviantes“ option instead of a “hey yo mama” taunt.

Most mez prot click powers can be used while mezzed. It was added a long time ago to counter balance the toggle-and-forget advantage toggle mez prot have. You still likely want mez prot active are all time, mostly because of knockback, but it still gives some leeway to the user where they can opt to not have their mez prot ok auto, as they can still break free once held/stunned/etc. Even powers like unstoppable should be usable while mezzed.

@Tater Todd If a power has not finished recharging, or not in range, the draw animation will start to play. If mid way through it the power recharges, or the foe gets closer, that draw animation should be instantly interrupted as the attack activates. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Taunt and BU sequencers are just weird. Draw always ends up prioritized over the power's boost up or taunt animation, if the weapon is not drawn. It should not be slowing you down, though, and I kinda liked the result so didn't fight the sequencers too much in fear of breaking more things. I will still look to see if i can get it to do the correct animation.

If possible, I would appreciate more testing with other players around to see if the “visible katana only while animating” thing is consistent or random.

New pseudopets should share the same caps as the caster, and build up should boost its damage (but as before only for the duration remaining at the time of summoning,) unless something is configured wrong.

Due to the current no-redraw themes are a broken mess, they have higher priority.

This was a very arduous process to get working, need to make 100% certain it works before trying to do it for other sets. Still, it will likely be a while before any other set gets the treatment.