Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Powers (Build 2)

[Wavicle]

Voltaic Sentinel needs to stay out permanently like controller pets.

Galvanic Sentinel needs to do the same.

[Wavicle]

Seriously, I was REALLY hoping that in an upcoming pass at Pet powers Voltaic Sentinel would be made permanent.  This idea for Galvanic Sentinel pretty much dashes that idea and I am not happy about it.

[Coyote]

Personally, I'm looking at Galvanic Sentinel as a 1500 HP ball of Absorb effect, with the Absorb shield put on it. It draws aggro with a fast-spamming AoE debuff, you can add more aggro to it with a Stun proc, and if the character is slotting the two +10% Resist IOs it can have over 40% Resist to everything. This will hold up a high-level boss for a bit, saving T1 henchmen from being one-shotted, and help keep aggro off the character if you're a Controller with a single non-AoE pet like Earth and Ice. It should have uses just as a resummonable Absorb effect for extra safety, besides the -Damage debuffing and ability to act as the source of a chain so the character can heal or buff himself.

 

I do think that an increase in Duration may make sense... 10-30 seconds on the base duration would probably be fine.

[Dispari]

I said before that I don't like Static as a resource because it feels like you're constantly chasing it just to make your powers good, making the set spammy. I still mostly believe that, although I did have a thought that might make Static less annoying and more unique. I noticed it already lasts longer than most similar stacking bonuses, so what if it just lasted forever until used? Or at least something like "10 minutes or until you zone." That way I don't have to constantly work to keep it up, and I can simply discharge it when I want to use it for a specific effect. Just food for thought.

[Auroxis]

At that point @Dispari you're kind of giving up on the "combo" aspect of the set.

 

Edit: To be clear, you only need to use five +static abilities in a minute. If the game doesn't encourage you to use some +static or a single -static power within a minute of active gameplay, then there's a major problem. The only issue you're addressing here is that none of the +static builders are self target-able, so you can't sustain static while traveling to a location without slowing yourself down with the pet.

 

My preferred solution to this problem would be:

 

1. Making just one of the +static powers a self buff/heal that chains to others.

2. Make the +static powers refresh all active stacks, so you only need to use the above power once per minute if you're traveling. Or keep it up indefinitely like you suggest.

 

This still wouldn't fix the main issues of the combo system, but it would let you build up and conserve stacks for a good opener (like a rez) without a hassle.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Auroxis

[Vanden]

Forgive me if this seems out of touch, as I haven't had the chance to test the new set, but I see people saying that Shock doesn't do enough, so would it be possible to make Shock usable on the Galvanic Sentinel to some effect? Maybe something like, it maxes out your Static stacks and makes the Sentinel do a PBAoE damaging hold, but kills the Sentinel, or charges it up, making it use its own Shock attack in addition to Discharges for a few seconds.

[Seigmoraig]

Would be nice if Shock dealt some damage instead of just doing the end drain and the -dmg. Feels like it would be a much better incentive to actually use the power and have some positive feedback when using it.

As it stands, it doesn't feel great to use shock since it doesn't feel like it's doing much of anything. It feels like a weaker version of Infrigidate to me

Edited March 3, 2020 by Seigmoraig

[KelvinKole]

I'd like to suggest swapping the tiers of Amp Up and Empowering Circuit. Make Amp Up statistically similar to Temporal Selection (time gets this at tier 4) and significant buff Empowering Circuit to be a Heat loss and Fulcrum Shift level ability with moderate +dmg, moderate +recharge, and moderate +special. 

[Dispari]

4 hours ago, Auroxis said:

At that point @Dispari you're kind of giving up on the "combo" aspect of the set.

I mean, that was kind of my original feedback. Building Static is a hassle, there's nothing I really want to spend it on, and the set is weak if it has low Static and can only hit a couple targets. My first option would just be to drop it entirely. The set doesn't NEED it.

[ajlee209]

42 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

I'd like to suggest swapping the tiers of Amp Up and Empowering Circuit. Make Amp Up statistically similar to Temporal Selection (time gets this at tier 4) and significant buff Empowering Circuit to be a Heat loss and Fulcrum Shift level ability with moderate +dmg, moderate +recharge, and moderate +special. 

I really like this. I mentioned these two powers specifically before. Both feel weak in their current forms and switching them around while buffing empowering circuit seems like a great change. 

Edited March 2, 2020 by ajlee209

[Razor Cure]

I have not tried teh set yet, but looking at the power info (teh OP) and what people are saying...the static mechanic, while thematic, seems..overly punishing. Needing static to actually hit an entire team with heals/buffs? No other set gets that penalty. Imagine if Nature 'needed; 4/5 Bloom stacks, before the heal could hit a full team, instead of the bloom just being an 'addon' to an already good power. That is..the elec powers shouldnt need static not to suck.

An aoe heal that hit the whole team, but had a chaining animation would be unique enough. The set shouldnt suffer just because it is new and different.

[Dark Current]

Why can't sets that have a build up mechanic provide a new power button like domination that you can click when you want to use it?

 

I don't like having to build something like static only to use it willy nilly when you click some other power.

 

Why can't I build up 5 stacks and store until I want to make use of th hem fully charged?

[Yoru-hime]

1 hour ago, Dispari said:

I mean, that was kind of my original feedback. Building Static is a hassle, there's nothing I really want to spend it on, and the set is weak if it has low Static and can only hit a couple targets. My first option would just be to drop it entirely. The set doesn't NEED it.

This is where I am on Static. It feels more like something that's there because "new sets must have a gimmick" rather than a needed balance to the power of the set. Even if Static was always full, I still feel like this set would be struggling, especially in the late game.

[oedipus_tex]

What I like this set is what I imagine the developers felt as they were testing it, with the raw current running through the team. It's like the team is constantly being blasted. It's an aesthetic very different from any other power set, and I like how it feels.

 

Rather than extend these power durations directly, would you be down with longer recharges on the Circuits, but once you hit your target, it becomes "Charged" and fires chains on its own for a period of time. Like, in other words, you cast Empowering Circuit, the +Damage circuit. The person or pet hit with it becomes a conduit. Every 15 seconds, a chain of Empowering Circuit is eminated from him or her, so anyone near him or her keeps getting their Empowering Circuit restored. 

[KelvinKole]

I finally got to spend some time with this set tonight and definitely felt what others have been saying: It's too weak. Here's a couple thoughts I have

 

• Static needs a rework or buff. My suggestion would be to have it provide a passive buff rather than be needed to create full chains. Have it provide a small reduction to endurance cost and increase to recharge (just like Blood Frenzy) and stack up to 5 times
  • Rework all the chains so that they chain to 8 targets always
  • Defibrillate consumes Static as currently designed
  • Faraday cage becomes a new consumer, increasing the radius per attack
    • Base radius reduced to 15ft, +3ft per Static
  • Amp up no longer consumes static
    • Change this to increase max endurance by 10-20% (unique!) and provide +recharge
• Swap the tiers of Amp Up and Empowering Circuit
  • Buff Empowering Circuit to be roughly +60% dmg, +60% recharge, +60% Special
    • Increase the recharge to 90s, maybe 120s
• Shock will need to become something more useful. I'm tempted to say make it Jolting Chain, but that could be too much. Maybe just add a high magnitude knockdown to it and keep it single target.

 

Edit: Wanted to add that I actually really like the set design and think it will be extremely fun to play after some buffs. The concept is fresh and it feels different from anything else. This was a great start!

Edited March 3, 2020 by KelvinKole

[DMW45]

36 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

I finally got to spend some time with this set tonight and definitely felt what others have been saying: It's too weak. Here's a couple thoughts I have

 

• Static needs a rework or buff. My suggestion would be to have it provide a passive buff rather than be needed to create full chains. Have it provide a small reduction to endurance cost and increase to recharge (just like Blood Frenzy) and stack up to 5 times
  • Rework all the chains so that they chain to 8 targets always
  • Defibrillate consumes Static as currently designed
  • Faraday cage becomes a new consumer, increasing the radius per attack
    • Base radius reduced to 15ft, +3ft per Static
  • Amp up no longer consumes static
    • Change this to increase max endurance by 10-20% (unique!) and provide +recharge
• Swap the tiers of Amp Up and Empowering Circuit
  • Buff Empowering Circuit to be roughly +60% dmg, +60% recharge, +60% Special
    • Increase the recharge to 90s, maybe 120s
• Shock will need to become something more useful. I'm tempted to say make it Jolting Chain, but that could be too much. Maybe just add a high magnitude knockdown to it and keep it single target.

 

Edit: Wanted to add that I actually really like the set design and think it will be extremely fun to play after some buffs. The concept is fresh and it feels different from anything else. This was a great start!

I don't like the limit on chaining--it punishes teams that have pets and such.

 

The current limit of 12 at full static is... an adequate middle ground between the craziness of uncapped and the harshness of a low cap

[DMW45]

Though, that makes me think--is it possible to have a cap on players, but not on pets for chains?

[KelvinKole]

1 minute ago, DMW45 said:

Though, that makes me think--is it possible to have a cap on players, but not on pets for chains?

This was my thinking. If this were ever a Mastermind Set, it would be infuriating to not be able to reliably heal your pets. Or even as a Defender set, I'd hate to waste 12 chains on someone's Gang War. Hopefully there's a way to limit the cap to players only. Good point.

[Coyote]

My thoughts about the balance and power of the set:

 

1: Look at the power numbers first, when arguing if it's weak or strong. For example, it's annoying that the Heal power needs a bit of extra work to get it to work on the caster... and that it doesn't heal a full team. HOWEVER, the heal seems to be about halfway between a single-target Heal Other and a team-wide Healing Aura. So, with a bit of work, it becomes a heal that can hit a good amount of targets, but at higher strength than the usual AoE Heal. I'm not sure if this is ... good enough, but it's definitely something to consider when comparing to other heals.

 

2: The pet is really several casts of the AoE -Dam debuff, done with one pet summons. Plus an extra ball of HPs for the team that can take a few hits. For it, you give up control of where the AoE debuffs are being targeted, and it wasn't a great power anyhow. So, with the extra bonuses of having a pet that can take a bit of damage, I think the power is fine.

 

3: I don't like the Tier 1 and the Tier 9... T1 seems useful against AVs and not much else. How often does a single-target -Damage get used, anyhow? I'm not sure if the sapping abilities are worth that much, either. If it had some other minor effect like a chance to knockdown, chance to stun, chance to chain to nearby targets, etc, it would feel more useful.

 

3.1: Amp Up doesn't seem like a bad power, in fact it seems worth taking... I'll wait until it's available to Controllers to see, but if the +Special works on a pet's base auto Defense powers, it could be an interesting boost to Jack Frost or to the Demon Prince for MMs. However, other than that, I'm not sure it's really enough of a game changer to compare to most other Tier 9 powers. It makes me thing of EMP from Rad... good power, not bad, but certainly not something that you take a set for except in some specific rare builds. Not like Chrono Shift, Fulcrum Shift, Overgrowth, Dark Servant, etc. Basically, if you have it... and one mission you don't use it at all, I think the only sets that will really notice are the ones where it's boosting a +Defense power for a pet. Meanwhile, imagine not using Fulcrum Shift or Overgrowth or Heat Loss.

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention... I hope that they prioritize the chaining for buffs and heals to hit characters over pets... you'd prefer to heal a character at 50% health than a pet at 30%, I would think.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Coyote

[JayboH]

Definitely no to the Faraday spender idea as far as range/radius goes.  Just no.

 

One thing I don't see people discuss when it comes to the tier 9:  it actually grants new passive abilities to your target that they don't get from other sets - other sets buff, this one buffs and grants new passives.  I hope it doesn't lose that part of it.

[ScarySai]

The sentinel should be either stackable, or permanent.

[KelvinKole]

9 hours ago, JayboH said:

Definitely no to the Faraday spender idea as far as range/radius goes.  Just no.

 

One thing I don't see people discuss when it comes to the tier 9:  it actually grants new passive abilities to your target that they don't get from other sets - other sets buff, this one buffs and grants new passives.  I hope it doesn't lose that part of it.

I agree regarding Amp up. While I couldn't test it that feature, it's very unique and should be very cool when you can get it active on 2 players. 

[Auroxis]

9 hours ago, JayboH said:

One thing I don't see people discuss when it comes to the tier 9:  it actually grants new passive abilities to your target that they don't get from other sets - other sets buff, this one buffs and grants new passives.  I hope it doesn't lose that part of it.

It doesn't seem different on the surface level, but it's a major step behind the scene that made me worry about bugs a bit.

 

From my tests (playing around in power selection/enhancement menus when it turns off) it didn't cause any crashes but I'm still not sure if it's bug-free.

[Draeth Darkstar]

14 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

This was my thinking. If this were ever a Mastermind Set, it would be infuriating to not be able to reliably heal your pets. Or even as a Defender set, I'd hate to waste 12 chains on someone's Gang War. Hopefully there's a way to limit the cap to players only. Good point.

Even if pets didn't count for jumps, the chains would burn out way before getting to them in any multi-group content, which is a serious weakness no other support has to deal with, aside from just not being able to support a whole league, full stop, like every other support set can - with better powers.

[Replacement]

23 hours ago, Auroxis said:

Make the +static powers refresh all active stacks, so you only need to use the above power once per minute if you're traveling. Or keep it up indefinitely like you suggest.

This would be exemplary.