Who uses telekinesis and how do you use it?

[DougGraves]

I'm not asking for people who do not like it to say why.  I am asking to see if anyone does use it and if so, what they use it for.

[Gulbasaur]

It's a fun power. It really is. There's something very satisfying about it. It is also excellent for positioning groups of enemies into corners and it has a Hold magnitude of 3, which means it can hold a boss straight out of the box. 

 

However, positioning is often determined by other teammates' decisions, map layout and the position of other mobs and it has a target cap of five, which is too low to be useful in realistic circumstances. The endurance cost you can kind of work around with enhancements, but as it stands it's basically just a toy due to the low target cap and the fact that in the current meta the combat happens wherever the tank feels like stopping which means that knockback and repel powers are verboten. 

[DougGraves]

Thanks.  A cap of 5 makes it sound useful for soloing but not for teaming.  And I only team with controllers.

[EmperorSteele]

Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to update that guide! Thanks for the mention/reminder! =D

Still, I don't think I said too much more about TK than what's been said here already, other than in PvP, it no longer has an "infinite" duration, which was really it's main selling point for that type of content. Otherwise, a quick and dirty extra 3 points of magnitude can be really useful in some situations, and it can really shine in some late game/incarnate content where foe positioning is important.

[oedipus_tex]

It's an auto-hit Hold, so that's something. It would be considered insanely overpowered except for the Repel function.

 

Oddly it's best when used on enemies significantly higher level than you, because you don't have to roll ToHit and Repel is affected by level differences, so you Repel +4 enemies at half the speed of +0s, and at around +6 they're barely repelled at all. Not that you'd be likely to be able to kill them anyway. 

 

[DougGraves]

so the TK guide is really old - has you six slot END reduction.

 

it does not explain how to aim with TK, it just says to do it.  So is the anchor always repelled directly away from you - to steer them you stand opposite where you want them to go?

 

 

[ThrillMill]

21 hours ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

As promised in my other post:

Hedon's Mind/ guide subsection specific to Mind/ -> [TK]: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904092201/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showpost.php?p=64834&postcount=5

Hedon's whole Mind/ guide: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904092148/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=113044

 

Other notable Mind/ guides that may give you some insight:

 

 @EmperorSteele early guide, player is still active: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904202924/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122388

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120904201323/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122655

 

STOP! I can only get so hard. 

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

• The power is no longer contstrained solely by Endurance resources and is now capped on how long it can remain activated. 20-30s max if I'm not mistaken.

 

That's huge.  Soloing with always on hold for 5 targets would be safe.  Turn off solo bosses and you could just hold every spawn.  Then you would just have to figure out how to do damage.

[gervaise]

So - back in the day - Telekinesis was considered to be one of those powers that distinguished a "good" controllers from - those that couldn't use it lets say. Disclaimer: I didn't like it back in the day, I could use it but preferred not to - I didn't want to be a gravity controller! It was a power though and some excellent guides - like Hedon's - were written.

 

The game changed though over time. TK today is different (nerfed if you like). When it comes to enhancements you have the rule of 5 and diminishing returns - so simply slotting it with 6 End Reduction is not an option - and that is before you factor in the bonuses you can get from enhancement sets (no sets work with TK). Then you have Ancillary (Epic / Patron) sets which provide extra options for builds which, imo, makes fights faster thereby reducing the value of TK; their addition also meant that there are other options available. Back in the day you didn't have the flexibility.

 

Most telling, imo, is that whilst ATs can be slotted into sleep, fear, domination, confuse  enhancement they cannot be slotted into TK. Now you could suggest this was the devs trying to dissuade people from using something that was "overpowered". The argument against that though is that its a Psychic Mastery option - so they made it available to all.

 

My suggestion to anyone thinking about it is … to try it. That is what respecs are for! If you like it and feel it adds value to the teams you group with go for it. If after slotting it you find you are hardly using it, or you use it and a few seconds later all the mobs are dead, or you want to slot an extra set for the bonuses pick something else.

 

Read the guides but recognise that they were written when the game was "different".

[Redlynne]

7 hours ago, gervaise said:

TK today is different (nerfed if you like).

 

Telekinesis is basically nerfed into the ground and then the Cryptic Devs just kept PUSHING it to be worse and worse and worse than what it used to be when they imposed the aggro caps.

 

You can see my thoughts on the topic HERE.

 

Because Telekinesis is supposed to be able to do THIS ... and it can't ... because of the stupid stupid STOOPID(!!) max targets cap of FIVE that was put onto the power.

 

 

Ideally speaking, if I was remaking the power today (from scratch) I'd do it using the Mystic Flight model of "while power 1 is active power 2 becomes available" and just rig it as power 1 is the toggle Hold and power 2 is the Repel so as to make it so you can turn the Repel "on and off" at will while maintaining the Hold.  And I would increase the max targets to 10 (minimum) or even as high as 16 (maximum).

[oedipus_tex]

You could make Telekinesis a non-notify power. That way Mind Control could push targets closer to a center point before launching their salvo. It fits well with Mind's overall theme. It's already the set with the most non-notify powers.

Edited November 20, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[EmperorSteele]

I dunno about that, Tex. I mean, it's one thing for guys not to notice that someone has dozed off, or not know why their friend has suddenly gone nuts and started hitting them (I really wish they'd attack the confused foe back...), but I'm pretty sure everyone WOULD notice and take exception to someone floating through the air against their will!

[oedipus_tex]

3 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

I dunno about that, Tex. I mean, it's one thing for guys not to notice that someone has dozed off, or not know why their friend has suddenly gone nuts and started hitting them (I really wish they'd attack the confused foe back...), but I'm pretty sure everyone WOULD notice and take exception to someone floating through the air against their will!

 

Yeah but they don't notice Wormhole. 😄

 

I think you could rationalize it in that they know something is happening, just not necessarily where it is coming from.

 

I wish there was a 'Alerted' status for enemies that made them more likely to search for nearby players. Would give us a lot more wiggle room between "totally unaware" and "murderous."

Edited November 23, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[VV]

Funny, I asked almost the exact same question over in the Dom forums. I ended up not taking it. I mean, for soloing it seems like it could be okay. Grab up 5 folks and take them out before they got too far away. But, there are so many other good things to take that it just seems so skippable.

[Redlynne]

Telekinesis, like Regeneration, wound up getting successively more and more gimptacular over time as the fundamentals of the game changed out from under Telekinesis.  What the power REALLY needs is a complete top to bottom rewrite overhaul so as to achieve the performance profile is was originally designed for but which the game mechanics did not allow for/support at the time (back in pre-2005 days).  Since then, the only thing that has ever been done to Telekinesis is to add the aggro cap (of FORKING FIVE!!!!!) which just gimped the power beyond recognition while offering NO COMPENSATION for the Power Nerf whatsoever (endurance cost and recharge remained exorbitant).  At this point, I'm hard pressed to think of another example of a power that costs SO MUCH (over 3 endurance per second base!) for so little while simultaneously being so self-defeating (Repel spread that can't be stopped without terrain) and so limited (FIVE max targets!).

 

The concept is fine ... the execution, however, is beyond saving at this point.  The power needs a from scratch rewrite in order to ungimp it back to what it was (and honestly, ought to be) from the pre-aggro cap days.

 

[oedipus_tex]

It's really too bad there isn't a reverse Repel that can pull enemies toward you (apparently not possible in this game engine). If TK pulled to you instead of away I think it would have a lot of useful applications.