Patch Notes for February 25th, 2020 (Issue 26, Page 5 - Build 1)

[Force Redux]

4 hours ago, darkgob said:

Minor complaint -- not a fan of the name for the Shock Therapy set.  If nothing else, it really breaks the naming convention of the elemental powersets -- should be "Electrical {Something}" at least.  I also feel like it's a bit of a glib reference to something that is really rather serious.

 

I just read the patch notes and don't have any time to brainstorm (pardon) at the moment so I don't actually have anything constructive to suggest in its place, just wanted to throw it out there.

Electrokinesis is my suggestion.

 

I work in mental health. I don't care for "Shock Therapy" either, for a couple reasons. One, it's kind of a flavor killer. 

[DMW45]

How about the fairly straightforward Electric Support?

[Apparition]

36 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Agreed. A drop patch status protection on a long recharge timer isnt really useful. Status protection is one of those things you either need on basically every fight, or its not worth the effort.

 

Turning Faraday Cage into a toggle would remove value from the one worthwhile benefit Force Field provides at high levels: AoE mez protection. 

 

If you do that, then I would like to see a complete overhaul of Force Field simultaneously. 

[DMW45]

Will say this about the set, it will probably be the most fun soloing on MMs.

 

There will likely be trouble with MMs on teams, though.  Unless the chaining prioritizes allies that don't already have the buff.

[DMW45]

In fact, I imagine pets at all are going to be an issue with this.

 

Imagine trying to heal the whole team because everyone's hurt, but you can't even at max static because there are a few pets out.

 

If anything, I'd say the heal needs to be strong to accommodate for that.

[Wobegone]

8 minutes ago, DMW45 said:

How about the fairly straightforward Electric Support?

Since you "control and manipulate electricity' I'm kinda partial to galvanic control.  

[Widower]

17 minutes ago, DMW45 said:

How about the fairly straightforward Electric Support?

If you look at support sets, they don't have the same theme naming as Blast or Control or Melee sets and so on. To name one [whatever] Support seems uncreative, at best, to me.

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, LQT said:

 

1 minute duration with a 10 minute cooldown. 

Ah that's quite a bit different than what city of data had from it's original concept, so clearly impossible to perma. Thanks.

[Doc_Scorpion]

3 minutes ago, DMW45 said:

Imagine trying to heal the whole team because everyone's hurt, but you can't even at max static because there are a few pets out.

 

If anything, I'd say the heal needs to be strong to accommodate for that.

The way I'm reading it this is a generalist support set (as opposed to a more specialized healer, buffer, or debuffer).

That is to say, not all Defender primaries carry full team or powerful heals - nor should they.  It should go without saying that "Defenders are not healers".

[QuiJon]

All of this sounds really nice. However it made me think, how about we look at changing the original AT pool's travel option. It seems to me that when Power of Will or whatever it was called was released, that power pool is jumping centric and provides a boost to jump speed as its little bonus. This new one is super speed, and the one draw back to SS has always been lack of vertical in zones like Terra Volta but now you get a short distance teleport to get you unstuck. However Mystic Flight gets a short range teleport, which really has nothing to do with enhancing its own power. Being that the shit end of the stick for flight was always its top speed, I think we should change mystic flight to have an afterburner power. Have it be unique to the set, it boosts flight speed, maybe not as much but some as the normal flight pool, and it doesn't take or enhance defense. So you can not use it to mule IOs like taking hover/flight/afterburner allows for. It just simply adds like 10-15 mph on top of whatever you have squeezed out of mystic flight and still leaves you only effecting self. 

[DMW45]

6 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

The way I'm reading it this is a generalist support set (as opposed to a more specialized healer, buffer, or debuffer).

That is to say, not all Defender primaries carry full team or powerful heals - nor should they.  It should go without saying that "Defenders are not healers".

I'm looking at it in comparison to other sets team heals--I'm saying it should probably be closer to Twilight Grasp, a group heal with a complicating effect (albeit possibly not as strong, as twilight can miss) rather than something like Warmth, which is for all intents and purposes extremely simple.

 

Risk/Reward and all that.

Edited February 25, 2020 by DMW45

[Bossk_Hogg]

41 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

Turning Faraday Cage into a toggle would remove value from the one worthwhile benefit Force Field provides at high levels: AoE mez protection. 

 

If you do that, then I would like to see a complete overhaul of Force Field simultaneously. 

From my early testing, this set sucks way more than FF does. Trick Arrow better watch out, as there's a new contender for worst set!

 

Shock Treatment, or whatever it ends up being called, needs to be balanced on its own merits, not held back awaiting a FF buff that might never come. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Bossk_Hogg

[DMW45]

1 minute ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

From my early testing, this set sucks way more than FF does. Trick Arrow better watch out, as there's a new contender for worst set!

Howso?

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Sailboat said:

Yeah, Dark Melee is already regarded as a strong set.  Buffing its AoE by a lot (Shadow Maul) and then a hell of a lot (Dark Consumption) would seem to be leaving other puny sets in the dust.  How will Martial Arts rank against this behemoth?

It was bottom tier before this change while MA was a solid mid tier. I'll have to te run it.

[Super Atom]

Toxic dart needs -regen

 

just imo

[DMW45]

2 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

Toxic dart needs -regen

 

just imo

I feel like that might make it too useful in comparison to the other origin sets.  I don't think there's any other general pool power with -regen.

[Super Atom]

1 minute ago, DMW45 said:

I feel like that might make it too useful in comparison to the other origin sets.  I don't think there's any other general pool power with -regen.

Well, it doesn't need to be a big amount of -regen but i can see your point. It just feels like this attack isn't worth taking over the heal.

[Seigmoraig]

Shock Therapy looks like it's going to be a really fun set !!

I see it's available for Defenders only right now, but will be eventually be available for Masterminds, Controllers and Corruptors ? It seems to be like it will be a fantastic set especially for Masterminds. Between the self heals, the absorb buff, the build up and the status protection it would (will?) make for something great I think !

Edited February 25, 2020 by Seigmoraig

[Novacat]

As far as pool attacks go this one's probably the best. No special effect, but other than on a Blaster where it's inferior to a T1 blast (toxic though) it's a pretty solid option for quick and easy DoT at full range.

[Wavicle]

Shock looks kind of worthless, but the rest of these additions and changes look great.

[Wavicle]

I must echo others, please change the name.

[Super Atom]

Just now, Wavicle said:

I must echo others, please change the name.

I can see how it's decently offensive but more so it's just not a good name.

 

For me, I just don't think it fits well with other set names on top of being a not great thing in the real world. You're not gonna name water control waterboarding so why shock therapy lol if anything it sounds like an ability more than a set name.

[Oubliette_Red]

 

Quote

 T2: Rejuvenating Circuit (Ranged (Special), Ally Heal, Self +Static)

I was playing last night (this morning) right after the announcement in Discord and did some street sweeping up to L4. I found Rejuvenating Circuit at that level to be not useful at all at least not while solo. Though I suppose it's no different that Empathy or Kinetics with their early heals.

[johnnysc]

Add a -hair to the powers and rename Shock Therapy to Electrolysis 😀

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 minute ago, DMW45 said:

Howso?

So I rolled up a Shock/Electric defender. Electric blast kind of sucks on defenders due to 1) no AT specific scaling on end drain (hint hint devs) and 2) being electric blast. But I figured I would test the combo most likely to be rolled. Chose Shock as my starting power

 

Galaxy Tutorial was a slog, and highlighted how low utility Shock will be. A single target debuff is pretty bad, given COH's AE centric and mass combat focused nature. The end drain will continue to be nigh worthless as anything will be dead before it matters in regular play. The - damage is nice, but is single target. It compares unfavorably to corrosive enzymes, which has - damage resistance, siphon power which provides a damage buff, and weaken which has an ae component and -to hit. IMO it should chain to provide early support.

 

Got out of the tutorial, onto Atlas! Helped Matthew Haberty and then chose Sondra Costel as my second contact. I'd picked up Rejuvenating Circuit at 4, and wanted to test it out on Icedrone. Sadly it doesnt chain to yourself. So great, a targeted heal w random secondary targets that excludes the caster for some reason.  

 

Leveled to 6, got empowering circuit. The text kind of reads like it will affect you, but nope, another ally only power. The damage buff is kind of underwhelming compared to Siphon Power which will hit more of the team without fiddling with stacks of Static. The +special is interesting, but notably excludes +defense, so you can't act as a buff bot's buff bot and boost force fields. Boo-urns. The control boosts may be good on a team, at least until control becomes more irrelevant in the march to City of MOAR AE DAMAGE.  Devs take note - this particular power is going to skew early info on this set, due to the large numbers of shock defenders rolling around buffing each other with this power, and make it seem like end drain is much more effective than it is. I'm hoping to avoid the repetition of TA and Sonic's beta test, where due to the proliferation of defenders on teams the sets came out underpowered.

 

After lunch I'll bump myself to 12 and run some KR arcs. But looking ahead,, this set seems like crappy Kinetics.