Focused Feedback: Shock Therapy (Build 1)

[Hellfist]

I like the name Electric Resonance, fits well with the other power set naming 

[siolfir]

3 hours ago, Trickshooter said:

 

You wouldn't need the damage to prevent stacking. The Sleep could actually be flagged to not stack. I know because PGA used to prevent stacking of it's Sleep, so as soon as you activated it again, the previous Sleep would immediately end.

Thanks, forgot about just flagging that line to not stack. I still think a minor damage component would be thematic for a "shock", but I could see how that adds a lot of procs to the power. I mean, sleep has what, a low ppm minor heal, a chance for -recharge, and chance for placate?

[Blackfeather]

2 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

This may sound a little weird, but what I am finding myself wishing is that Discharge was both a Static Builder and Static Spender.

 

Basically what I wish Discharge did was not actually launch until I let go of the button. Like, I wish I could hold the button down it to charge it up, building up a bunch of Static, then unleash it when I'm ready.

 

This would obviously mainly be useful solo, where you have time to stop between spawns. But it would directly fix the current hole, giving the set a way to build Static easily. On teams you'd get your Static from the buff powers.

This would also have interesting synergy with the rezz.

So something like turning the power into a toggle that causes you to have the "Only Affecting Self" status effect, building up charges of Static over time, and then launching it on a detoggle?

[oedipus_tex]

16 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

So something like turning the power into a toggle that causes you to have the "Only Affecting Self" status effect, building up charges of Static over time, and then launching it on a detoggle?

 

I wasn't thinking of Only Affect Self, but basically yeah.

 

Basically I was thinking that, from a technical standpoint, the power be a non-notify ability that summons a psuedo pet at the target enemy's location for the duration you hold the toggle. When you release the toggle, the pet dies, and that is what unleashes the Discharge power that drains enemies. The toggle could have a max duration of 10 seconds or so before the power autofires to prevent abuse.

 

That's quite a departure from the current power so may not be appropriate. It's just what I kept wishing it did as I was playing and I'd run up on each new mob and go "Oh without a team I can't come at them with full Static, wish could charge up."

Edited February 27, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Dispari]

Faraday Cage is a bit buggy when used in the air. If you're a bit off the ground, the ring that's supposed to be around it ends up disconnected and floats over the cage. The ring itself doesn't grant the bonus.

There is a certain height at which the cage will float in the air, but when it does it spawns a fair bit below you. You end up being at the top of the ring, outside the range of the actual cage.

[VileTerror]

I'd also like to ask if it would be possible to get an alternate animation on Defibrillate?  The slow-mo animations have always bugged me, so while this one is still in Beta, can we nip it in the bud and have some options for more consistently-paced animations?  Like the wind-up time is spent with a ;scheme emote, then the jump-up and hand-slam portion of the animation takes place within a quarter of a second for an overall animation that's not floaty and gravity defying?

Optionally, of course.  I'm sure there are people who prefer the weird reduced-Gs animation(s).

[WhalePuncher]

I haven't had time to play around with it at all because our power went out while I was leveling my test toon ATP Synthase to 50, but as someone who's built toons for end drain in the past I have some comments.

 

Firstly, End Drain by itself doesn't really seem to have too large an effect on a target. Sure, it's cool to see a target's blue bar diminishing but it's not that big a debuff in the long run. Especially given the monstrous recovery EBs and AVs have.

 

Secondly, I was a lot more excited to try the set before I found out it has the same endurance use of other heals or debuffs despite being specifically targetted towards recovery and endurance. But maybe that's just me. As far as I can tell from looking at the numbers in the power selection they didn't even really give the caster endurance when at least the other sets that have end drains do that for you.

 

All in all though this' the first time I've been excited enough to try a set that I've actually gotten on the BETA so I look forward to playing around with it more.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, WhalePuncher said:

I haven't had time to play around with it at all because our power went out while I was leveling my test toon 

 

(Sorry, had to)

 

 

Anywho, I have yet to try this out but from what it sounds ST is almost like an ST blast set but with the benefit of your ST buffs chaining out! I echo a lot of other comments that End Drain as a whole could probably use some looking into, specifically it could be interesting to treat it like a sort of mini-game where draining to 0 end on an enemy actually has some significant payoff the moment you fully drain...

 

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

RE; The endurance drain. Because of the very long Recovery debuff in Shock, the set is fairly good/not terrible at draining a single target. At least, with medium meddling in the level 25 to 40 range I could do it reliably. I'd assume a Shock character would build specifically for endurance drain, which would probably include Power Sink, which is available to all archetypes that will get this powerset except Masterminds. Power Sink can be brought to around -70 endurance per cast on a same level just by itself, so the foundation is there.

 

Discharge when fully powered by Discharge  is a hefty -Endurance burst. I think I saw it landing at a level of -100 endurance at 5 stacks when cast on a -1 lvl enemy. So the potential is also there.

 

Paired with a power like Thunderous Blast and you can probably drain a whole group. 

 

Power Sink is on a 120 second Recharge schedule for most archetypes. Discharge meanwhile recharges in just 15 seconds and is very spammable. 

 

On an Electric Control Controller the combination of an AoE -Endurance and single target power with -Recovery for 25 seconds has obvious utility. Like, I want to see if we can drain AVs with that combo. 

 

On most other builds it's at least doable. But with a lot of clicking and animation time spent on it. 

[General Idiot]

Regarding potential electric controllers, can I just say that I love that the default two targets on the chain powers with no Static matches the number of pets an elec controller will have? Thematically matching sets also matching up mechanically like that makes me happy.

 

And also regarding controllers (And also corruptors and masterminds) has a timeframe been given for the set being proliferated? Is it a case of once it's balanced it'll be proliferated within this round of testing, or are we looking more at Page 6 before the other ATs get it?

[Dispari]

After toying around a bit, I think I have 3 main comments for the set I want to put out there. Some of these are pretty minor, I know, but still.

#1 is that the color of the power icons is identical to electric blast. Having both sets just makes a sea of blurry icons that I have a hard time telling apart. It'd be great if they were distinct. The elec powers tend to have a bit of a purplish tinge to them, so maybe something more like a lavender, indigo, maroon, or mauve would set it apart?

#2 is that I wish more of the powers actually did something for the user. It's true not every set does this, or even barely does this, but most sets let you benefit from nearly all the powers. The heal and absorb, even though they say the power jumps from you to other people, don't do anything for you at all. There are two more buff powers that don't do anything for you (okay Amp Up gives you a bit of HP and end), an end restore power that doesn't work on you, and a rez which you obviously can't use on yourself. So basically all you get is Faraday Cage and the end drain you might cause with Shock and Discharge, which doesn't feel like much. It would be great if, at the very least, the heal/absorb powers hit you too, though with the target other nature of those powers I'm not sure if that would solve anything in a solo scenario.

#3 is that it'd be great if there was a way to rapidly generate Static if you feel like you need to. Sets like Savage Melee and Water Blast have a power that maxes it out for you, and it'd be nice if Shock had something like that. I could see a scenario where you need to rez a lot of people with Defibrillate but don't have any Static.

[Leogunner]

Could one of the team only buff powers be changed to a hybrid buff/debuff power that jumps between both foes and allies? I was hearing that the jump number with static is going to be capless so it wouldn't be limited that way. 

[Jimmy]

9 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I was hearing that the jump number with static is going to be capless so it wouldn't be limited that way. 

An update on this - we're currently testing the cap being doubled when you get to 5 stacks (so, 12 targets) rather than jumping right to 255.

[Auroxis]

10 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

An update on this - we're currently testing the cap being doubled when you get to 5 stacks (so, 12 targets) rather than jumping right to 255.

I think it can go higher, but I'm not sure what else you're working on.

 

My primary concern with 255 was that with a bunch of Elec's power boosting each other, you could give ridiculous levels of +Absorb to a whole league.

 

 

[HelBlaiz]

@Dispari brings up some good points. The support powers mention arcing from you to your allies, and initially, I thought that meant they'd provide some benefit to the caster, or at least be castable solo. Some other comments early in the patch's history seemed to have the same expectation. The fact that only three of the powers are even castable solo was a bit of a disappointment. Converting a couple of the powers to work solo would also help with solo Static charging, which currently requires copious amounts of Shock spamming. At least one more Static builder for solo play would help out a lot. Discharge would feel a hell of a lot better if I had another power that never misses to build Static with to ensure a full stack cast in a timely manner.

Edited February 27, 2020 by HelBlaiz
dont you apostrophe censor me, Autocorrect

[Number Six]

@Auroxis
 

The main reason for increasing it was due to the issue with pets eating chain jumps.
 

However we think we have a solution for that, so it’s only being increased a bit in order to test how effective the fix is.

[Auroxis]

 

1 minute ago, Number Six said:

However we think we have a solution for that, so it’s only being increased a bit in order to test how effective the fix is.

Really interested in what you come up with to tackle that concern. 12 indicates you may have figured out how to buff only the pets you control.

[arcane]

Huh. Pretty odd that my post was removed while a number of posts on the same subtopic remain...

[Number Six]

1 minute ago, Auroxis said:

 

Really interested in what you come up with to tackle that concern. 12 indicates you may have figured out how to buff only the pets you control.

This is still preliminary (but proof of concept is working), so it may change before it’s patched in.

 

Instead of always chaining to the nearest eligible target, a priority system was implemented.

 

For all of the chain powers, if the target you cast it on is a player, it will try to jump to other players. It can still jump to pets, but will only do so if there are no eligible players in the jump range.

 

Similarly, if you target a pet first, it will prefer to jump to other pets and allied NPCs (but can still chain to players if there aren’t any other targets).

 

The healing and absorb chains were also given “smart heal” logic and try to jump to the eligible target with the lowest HP first.

[Trickshooter]

Just now, Number Six said:

This is still preliminary (but proof of concept is working), so it may change before it’s patched in.

 

Instead of always chaining to the nearest eligible target, a priority system was implemented.

 

For all of the chain powers, if the target you cast it on is a player, it will try to jump to other players. It can still jump to pets, but will only do so if there are no eligible players in the jump range.

 

Similarly, if you target a pet first, it will prefer to jump to other pets and allied NPCs (but can still chain to players if there aren’t any other targets).

 

The healing and absorb chains were also given “smart heal” logic and try to jump to the eligible target with the lowest HP first.

😮 Cool! I asked if that was possible after Jimmy's response to the initial feedback, so it's neat to see it was.

[Number Six]

It wasn’t possible at the time. It is now. 😉

[Dispari]

Oh! I forgot to mention this earlier. Empowering Circuit and Amp Up have a +ToHit component but they can't take ToHit enhancements.

[Coyotedancer]

On 2/25/2020 at 12:59 PM, anubys1 said:

Am I blind, or is Shock Therapy only available for Defenders?

 

I would LOVE to get this set on controllers and masterminds. Otherwise, I can't imagine I'll be playing too much of it.

Agreed, that it seems like a fine choice for a Mastermind...

 

Honestly, though? I just can't see it working very well on most teams, particularly at high level. People just don't tend to bunch-up often, and having the "mez bubble" work like it does? Your people are going to be moving out of it an instant after you cast the thing. As mobile as most teams are, and as scatter-prone (Which we sort-of HAVE TO BE given the number of things that run for the hills if you sneeze at them... Yeah. I may have been dealing with Longbow and Skyraiders recently. <_<) the static placement really limits its usefulness as team protection.  

[Draeth Darkstar]

56 minutes ago, Number Six said:

This is still preliminary (but proof of concept is working), so it may change before it’s patched in.

 

Instead of always chaining to the nearest eligible target, a priority system was implemented.

 

For all of the chain powers, if the target you cast it on is a player, it will try to jump to other players. It can still jump to pets, but will only do so if there are no eligible players in the jump range.

 

Similarly, if you target a pet first, it will prefer to jump to other pets and allied NPCs (but can still chain to players if there aren’t any other targets).

 

The healing and absorb chains were also given “smart heal” logic and try to jump to the eligible target with the lowest HP first.

That's neat, and all, but it still doesn't address the fact that every other support set can support an entire team and all their pets, and this one can't support a full team and half of one Mastermind's pets... forget League play.

 

Effects that scale in power with Static would be a lot more playable and less frustrating than target caps that scale with Static. It's just not a mechanic that meshes well with the Support role in this game.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Dispari]

Faraday Cage recharges pretty fast by default, and it has a very distinct visual effect. As an anchor power (like Lifegiving Spores), it's probably one of the better ones. And if you decide not to stand in it... I guess it's your own fault you died, dude.