Weekly Discussion 37: Epic Power Pools

[GM Miss]

Weekly discussion 37 Week 2/09/20-2/15/20:

⚔️ YOU VOTED: It's time for Epic Power Pools! ⚔️

 

Please note we are not talking about Patron Pools - that will be a later discussion

 

❓ Things to think about:

>What AT's Epic pools are lacking?

>Which AT's Epic Pools do you look forward to the most when leveling a character?

>Are there any specific pools or powers that are underpowered/overpowered at the moment?

>What powers would you like to see tweaked and how?

>What pools would you add if you could? (If its well thought out - i'll add it to the recap post at the end of the week with your name attached.

*Don't just use these questions, comment with more! 😄

Let's get talking! 

[Redlynne]

25 minutes ago, GM Miss said:

>What AT's Epic pools are lacking?

Kheldians are QUITE LACKING in this department ...

 

25 minutes ago, GM Miss said:

>Are there any specific pools or powers that are underpowered/overpowered at the moment?

World of Confusion is misnamed ... given the effects of the power it might as well be called Closet of Confusion or perhaps Cupboard of Confusion ... or perhaps even Arm's Reach of Confusion ... particularly since the MAG on it is so low as to be laughable and the PBAoE is so ... TINY (which is good for procs, but bad for "world" status).

[VileTerror]

Lacking Natural representation across the board.

 

A Tyrrant-of-sorts posted some good stuff in the Suggestion board already.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/13887-proliferation-of-any-epics-not-available-with-like-ats/

[Trickshooter]

Defenders/Corruptors are in need of Epic pools with a Defense shield (that isn't tied to a Patron),:

 

Kinetic Mastery
35    Energize
35    Disrupt
41    Kinetic Shield
41    Energy Drain
44    Concentrated Strike

 

Coldness Mastery
35    Block of Ice
35    Flash Freeze
41    Frozen Armor
41    Ice Patch
44    Energy Absorption

 

 

Also, a Natural option would be great, as well (Power Mastery comes close, but is very glowy/sparkly):

 

Physical Mastery
35    Storm Kick
35    Physical Perfection
41    Heightened Senses
41    Inner Will
44    Eagles Claw

[Dispari]

Always drove me up the flippin' wall that the Heat Mastery epic for Mastermind doesn't have an armor toggle. I think it's the only APP in the entire game (not for a melee/sentinel) that doesn't have one. It's driven me away from playing MMs that would have the fire epic (like, y'know, a demons/thermal MM).

[Chris24601]

Scrapper/Stalker choices are extremely lacking in diversity.

 

Darkness? Sure.

 

Fire? No problem.

 

Exploding Shurikin? Got you covered.

 

Laser Beam Eyes? Kinda outta nowhere, but sure.

 

Lightning? ... Err... break character to unlock the patron pool and recolor it (Thank God we added instant switching via Null the Gull... that would have sucked to have to do 40+ character breaking missions over 8 days just because you had a concept involving using lightning... >_> ).

 

Cold? Zilch.

 

Earth (including throwing rocks)? Zero.

 

Guns or Bows? Nada.

 

Psionic Blasts? No Soup For You!

 

The point being; dark ninja fire with laser eyes is NOT a great spread for heroic choices and Mu Mastery is the only villain pool that isn’t either a variation (Soul Mastery is basically prettier darkness in terms of theme) or with very specific animations that are hard to reflavor.

[siolfir]

6 minutes ago, VileTerror said:

Lacking Natural representation across the board.

 

A Tyrrant-of-sorts posted some good stuff in the Suggestion board already.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/13887-proliferation-of-any-epics-not-available-with-like-ats/

Thanks for linking that, it already has discussion included so people who just go here might have missed it.

 

There are discrepancies between pools even with the same power (see: Soul Mastery > Soul Drain vs Dark Mastery > Soul Drain, where the Soul Mastery version has a smaller radius and double the recharge).

 

Just to throw it out there: does anyone like the Sentinel epic/patron pools? I looked through them on my Fire/SR Sentinel and just went "meh." The Sentinel melee damage modifier isn't high enough to make me want to take any of the melee attacks, and the regular pools seemed to have better options.

[SeraphimKensai]

To increase build variety, I wonder how the game would play if all similarly themed ancillary pool powers were grouped together in an expanded power pool list, and players could choose from any within that theme.

 

Example being: a lvl 50 Defender could take Electricity Mastery. But there's also Electrical Mastery, and Charge Mastery. Why not combine all the themes so people have a wider variety of powers to choose from? I would keep ancillary powers separate from patron powers (but one could even combine over there too).

 

Doing so wouldn't stop anyone from what they've been doing already, just give them more choices.

 

So all ice based ones groups, all fire based groups, all energy grouped, dark, weapons/munitions, etc.

 

For anyone confused btw: Epicpower pools are a combined term for both ancillary power pools and patron power pools.

 

Any thoughts?

[Coyotedancer]

Sentinels need an Earth epic so that I can do a Water/Fire/Stone Elementalist mage proper justice.

(Yes, I can recolor the /Ice epic to look like green crystal, but I want real Stompy-Smashy-Earthy goodness darnit. XD)

[Shred Monkey]

I know you're probably looking for balance discussions, but I'd like to address the color customization and animations.

 

As mentioned before there are very few "natural" options.  The work around for this can be more/or better minimal effect options to avoid having burning, or freezing effects on my natural toon.   Similarly, but for the opposite reason, I'd like also like to have more/better options for the bight color pallet on every power.  Faded color pallets like the ones used on ice shields and earth powers make it difficult to mix and match colors with my primary/secondary sets.

 

 

 

 

[nihilii]

2 hours ago, siolfir said:

Just to throw it out there: does anyone like the Sentinel epic/patron pools? I looked through them on my Fire/SR Sentinel and just went "meh." The Sentinel melee damage modifier isn't high enough to make me want to take any of the melee attacks, and the regular pools seemed to have better options.

I like Fire, Psi and Elec.

Psi - live and die by it on my Sentinels geared for DPS. Procced out Dominate and Mind Probe fit nicely to enable the highest DPS chains available to Sents. Psi Shockwave has great stats (20s rech, 15' radius). Mass Hyp has great situational use. Even Link Minds can be good.

Fire - Cremate is a solid, fast recharging melee attack for Sents who want to go that route. FSC dishes out decent damage (wish it was 15' and not 10' though). Fire Cages can greatly boost survivability (range is truly defense on an armor AT with blasts). Warmth might help certain builds, and frankly it's fun to heal on a Sentinel (incidentally, the one Sentinel I use the /fire epic on is my fire/SR).

Elec - damage aura !!

[tremor3258]

MM patron pools are a little odd, given the theme typically of 'covering bases' there is a lack of consistent defenses or armors compared to some of the other ATs within all the pools. Was that ever discussed live? Just curious, it adds some flexibility.  Given MM powers, would expect AOE damage, a shield, and some sort of control as standard.

[Generator]

To piggyback off Trickshooter's comment up-thread, a lot of ATs need the "elemental" options to cover all bases.  Like, Controllers and Doms need Electric mastery options, to name just one.

[Bopper]

Defender's/Corruptor's Soul Drain for Dark seems thematically over powering, as its radius is larger than the Dark Melee version, while having the same recharge.

 

I would like to see a 6th power added for each Epic/Patron pool. Two T1s available at 35, two T2s available at 41 (needing a T1 to unlock), and two T3s available at 44 (needing two sub-T3s to unlock).

[Snarky]

I would like to see the extra incarnate powers that we will maybe see in a year or three temporarily filled with powers from various pools. And. ... at tier 3 or 4. Extra enhancer slots (builders do the snoopy happy dance here). 
 

i could be wrong. I am wrong a LOT. But i am guessing adding powers and slots in this fashion will be much more friendly to existing coding than adding entirely new game effects and powers like the current incarnate powers. (Which are great). 
 

i suggest this in humbleness. And hopefulness. We are very grateful for what we have. I would be pretty happy to game away with The current setup for a long time. So would many of us

 

But looking forward to the near future there does not appear to be a ton of new content rolling out. This suggestion allows an existing part of the game to be expanded 

 

Game balance will of course be affected. I have not visualized all the ramifications of throwing this boulder in the pond.  But i just really like the heft of this rock. And the water just seems a perfect 🎯 target

[Carnifax]

Khelds could do with some Epics. Some mix of team buffs, debuffs and maybe controls. And preferably form usuable.

 

Forts are a bit odd. Ranged attacks for a set with ranged attacks. One or two additional with something else rather than ranged attacks might be a nice alternative option.

 

And give controllers some or all of their Epic Containment damage back. Even 50%. Primals attacks make me sad. 

Edited February 10, 2020 by Carnifax

[EmperorSteele]

I'm of the mindset (and this may be unpopular opinion) that the Epics should all be made more alike, with maybe one extra flavor thing to set them apart. Right now, some epics get their armor later than others, or their AoE earlier than others, or their utility at a different time, etc. I feel, taking Controllers for example, the epics should all be:

ST attack (T1)
Armor (T1)
AoE Attack (T2, req's a T1)
Self Buff (T2, req's a T1)
"Flavor" (T3, req's 2 other powers)

Right now, except for the ST attacks, all the epics are jumbled up, and some don't have an AoE or a special self-buff. You guys have the numbers, you know what powers or even entire SETS are taken or not taken. I'd look at that if you were looking to make a change!

The only Epic power I don't like is World of Confusion. The radius, damage, tic rate, and confuse chance/mag/duration are all WAY too small. At least two of these need to be at least doubled, without any increase in endurance usage, for the power to be viable. The only saving grace on Live was being able to proc it out, but since procs are awful in toggles now, that's out the window. It's only real use is as a set mule, if you happen to have 5 or 6 slots available at level 50 for a power you'll never use.

Either that, or replace it with a psi vortex like Pen Yin has. Sure, this gives some Controllers an extra pet when they don't need one (Ill/Dark/Psi-with-a-pet would be a zoo!), but it'd give Mind Controllers access to one, and the irony of MC being the only Controller primary without a pet, but PSI being the only epic to offer one, would be lovely!

[Redlynne]

11 hours ago, VileTerror said:

Lacking Natural representation across the board.

Easiest way to add Natural origin epics would be to pirate some of the weapon sets for it.  Dual Pistols and Archery+Tactical/Trick Arrow plus Assault Rifle/Wolf Spider come to mind as the most obvious candidates for this in the ranged weapons category.  For melee ranged Natural origin epics you've got Broadsword, Dual Blades, Katana and Ninja Sword as the somewhat obvious go to weapon choices along with Martial Arts and Street Justice for unarmed attack powers that can be ported into an epic pool.

 

Taking things in a more Technology origin epic direction, there's always making some Beam Rifle attacks available.

 

Would be kind of cool to see a Sonic Attack epic pool for builds that don't have access to sonic attack powers, which aren't exactly origin specific (or obvious) but ought to be proliferated more broadly.

 

 

 

It would be awesome of the Dual Pistols epic pool simply used ports of the existing Dual Pistols powers (modified for pool status) with no Swap Ammo option in the epic pool, so if you aren't running Dual Pistols as your primary or secondary you're limited to Standard Ammo effects only, but if you do have Dual Pistols as your primary or secondary you can get the effects of cryo/incendiary/toxic ammo types on the epic pool versions (although why you'd want to double up on attack powers you already have is another question).

[Sakura Tenshi]

There's a lot of thematic powersets missing for epic pools that Tyrannical and a few others have worked out ideas for.

 

I know I'd also like to see Kheldians get some APPs, possibly a thematic pair that involve dipping into nictus methods or higher kheldian ideas. Similarly I'd like to see Arachnos soldiers get some that are not tied to patrons.

 

As for powers that underwhelm, probably laser beam eyes, if I could 'fix it' my own idea would be to turn it into a snipe power. Stronger, long range, but longer recharge and such. It's not unprecidented for at least scrappers and stalkers to have snipes as Patron pools show, and I can't see why this couldn't extend to tanks and brutes too. In the end though, the suggestion is not rooted in any balancing besides just 'laser beam eyes are normally pretty powerful attacks in comics'.

 

[GamerRick]

Would there be a way to add powers to the pool based on the actual powersets picked for your character rather than just the arch type?  As mentioned before some elemental themed powers are missing. For example, earth/earth dominator has no earth epic option.  The options it does have just does don’t go with the theme.  Another idea would be to make the powers from each AT‘s current powers available to its counter part. Dominators and controllers have access to combined current option. Same for defenders and corruptors, etc.

[biostem]

Almost all of the Patron Power Pools have some sort of pet/summon.  It'd be awesome if hero APPs got a similar option, (maybe Longbow, Wyvern, or PPD themed).

 

I'd love to see some of the more sought-after attacks expanded to other areas - maybe a whip or bird-summoning APP for controllers or scrappers.

 

Cheers!

[VileTerror]

I think there should be Hero Epic Patrons eventually, and those should have the Pets, personally.  But that's a topic for another week, according to Miss.

[GM Miss]

Topic is now locked - check the suggestion and feedback post later this weekend for a recap and here (In General Disc) over the next few days for a new topic!