Rollback Recent Proc Changes!!

[Monos King]

Thanks for that @Blackfeather , it doesn't look like the sleep IO conversation is going anywhere now. What should be drawn from all of this is:

 

1. Sleep powers in general are vastly inferior to every other Status effect, and should be reworked to bare any signifiance
2. As of now, the only real utility sleep powers had was to act as carriers for the heal "Call of the Sandman"
3. Call of the Sandman, when firing off only once, in any circumstance, is effectively useless.
4. Call of the Sandman needs to be reworked as a proc (as well as all procs like it that cannot be slotted into auto powers.)

The state of Sandman and sleep as of now is simply unacceptable, so if there are long term plans, they should at the very least be stated to be in design or in development before changes like this with no warning.

 

The issue with the Pet IO's and pet relevant IOs are still in face down position. Suggestions on those, or for a look at some proposals can be found at this thread:

 

[honoraryorange]

So when are you rolling back these changes? And if you aren't when (within the next patch or two) are you making up for the loss that some specific sets suffered and counted on? Specifically talking Gaussian and Thugs, without it their T2 pets are... okay to mediocre to baddish. 

 

Stop the nerfs.

[zenblack]

On 3/14/2020 at 10:28 PM, Monos King said:

• Return player proc to Soulbound Allegiance

Debuffers such as cold and therm with the knowledge have found GREAT utility in the ability to have a minor build up through the faculties of their own build, with no outside source. The Boost Up from Soulbound is definitely nothing new or unique, but was a surefire assurance that your next Heat Exhaustion or Benumb or Weaken was going to hit your elusive opponent. This was true of both PvP as well as PvE instances.

•  Return pet proc to Gaussian's when placed into a pet with +to hit

These last two were changes recently added to the beta server, and they really need to be reverted as quickly as possible. Mastermind IO advantage was hyper low before, and this change removes a cherished, long recognized benefit to powers that thug users have benefitted from for ages. Enforcers gaining the boost up proc was considered integral and removing it without warning or request was truly silly. This one NEEDs to come back.

 

Additionally, even more IO proc changes were dispensed that were wholly unecessary, and I will address both those and changes that should NOT occur.

 

 

 

I'm struggling to understand these changes as well. Were these changes that were apart of the new and upcoming proc changes that you said you were waiting to push out on the next page? Can the HC explain why these were made?

 

If there isn't a technical reason and instead the balance reason is brought into play, what are you trying to accomplish and why now?

 

Off the top of my head:

The argument that pets should only have one Build-up style of power affecting their pets due to AT balance.

Other pets don't have access to the slotting that Thugs does and thus only one pet set gets this, very beneficial proc use? (Even though the comparable balance of the sets is way off, even without this one enhancement.)

This is a precursor to more new enhancement sets or restrictions specifically for pet classes.

[Monos King]

2 minutes ago, zenblack said:

The argument that pets should only have one Build-up style of power affecting their pets due to AT balance.

Other pets don't have access to the slotting that Thugs does and thus only one pet set gets this, very beneficial proc use? (Even though the comparable balance of the sets is way off, even without this one enhancement.)

I considered that, but Gaussian's isn't even that good. It's a beneficial way of increasing damage and more importantly to hit in the support class Enforcers, but other pets from different primaries should have their own unique abilities, and thus, different IOs. 

 

If the ability to have Boost Up were such a deciding outlier, than the balance between certain damaging powers would've been disrupted long ago. It's just a attack boost. Grave Knights and Jounin without it still do more damage than enforcers with it. If IOs are going to be worked on for MMs, then like I said there should have been a notice so we didn't all freak out. It's like they don't actually understand the significance of these changes or the issues for MMs with IOs.

 

And I really don't want to hear another "well that's not what it was ever supposed to do" comment. Not only is that just not true, but even if it were we are CLEARLY distancing ourselves from original intentions to benefit the game. The devs and I share that opinion, that change is ineluctable and can be positive. So let's stop pretending that we are being limited by upsetting strict constructions of nebulous intentions.

[zenblack]

6 minutes ago, Monos King said:

I considered that, but Gaussian's isn't even that good. It's a beneficial way of increasing damage and more importantly to hit in the support class Enforcers, but other pets from different primaries should have their own unique abilities, and thus, different IOs. 

 

If the ability to have Boost Up were such a deciding outlier, than the balance between certain damaging powers would've been disrupted long ago. It's just a attack boost. Grave Knights and Jounin without it still do more damage than enforcers with it. If IOs are going to be worked on for MMs, then like I said there should have been a notice so we didn't all freak out. It's like they don't actually understand the significance of these changes or the issues for MMs with IOs.

 

And I really don't want to hear another "well that's not what it was ever supposed to do" comment. Not only is that just not true, but even if it were we are CLEARLY distancing ourselves from original intentions to benefit the game. The devs and I share that opinion, that change is ineluctable and can be positive. So let's stop pretending that we are being limited by upsetting strict constructions of nebulous intentions.

 

Before I reply to the substance, these were potential responses from HC. Not my own personal opinions. So if you are going to put that entire last paragraph in my mouth without knowing me at all or what I'm going to say, then I think it's pointless to discuss anything with you and I wouldn't be surprised if others had no intention to either.

 

Now to your points: On one hand you say that Gaussian is not good and not worth much, then on the other hand you say because of the limitation of IO's that MM have that it is a big deal. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It either is a significant change (to me it is, since extracting the most out of your pets is the whole point of playing a pet class in my opinion, it's the gimmick) or it isn't. That's why I even offered up the hope that they were going to expand MM IO's much like this current page's expansion for a certain niche.

 

I do agree with you that these seem like changes that don't take a look at the whole AT/enhancement/play of MM's and only a limited viewpoint which is why I wondered if it had to do with the overall "Proc change" scheme they are teasing (probably to avoid a massive explosion when they actually do it).

[Monos King]

6 hours ago, zenblack said:

So if you are going to put that entire last paragraph in my mouth without knowing me at all or what I'm going to say, then I think it's pointless to discuss anything with you and I wouldn't be surprised if others had no intention to either.

lol whoops. I was just bouncing off of what you said and stating why I don't think that would be a good reasoning on HC teams end. I was replying to you, but addressing everyone with that argument I kept seeing. Sorry about that confusion.

 

I don't think I ever said Gaussian's wasn't worth much, I'm rather sure I've repeatedly reiterated it is quite helpful. When I said it isn't "that good", I meant as in not OP. I'm pretty sure we're on the same side here.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Monos King
Clarity and stuff

[Vanden]

17 minutes ago, Monos King said:

If the ability to have Boost Up were such a deciding outlier, than the balance between certain damaging powers would've been disrupted long ago. It's just a attack boost. Grave Knights and Jounin without it still do more damage than enforcers with it.

As I understand it, when you put Gaussian's in Tactics it has a chance to fire on the caster for each target being hit by Tactics. I don't have the math in front of me, but with the Enforcers hitting 6 pets (including themselves) with Tactics I think it comes out to about a 50% chance the proc will fire every 10 seconds. Boost Up is 80% damage for 5 seconds (unless the pets have lower self damage buff scalars), so that's about a 20% damage increase for each Enforcer overall with Gaussian's slotted. Decent, but definitely not something that needs to be fixed, IMO.

[Monos King]

3 minutes ago, Vanden said:

As I understand it, when you put Gaussian's in Tactics it has a chance to fire on the caster for each target being hit by Tactics. I don't have the math in front of me, but with the Enforcers hitting 6 pets (including themselves) with Tactics I think it comes out to about a 50% chance the proc will fire every 10 seconds. Boost Up is 80% damage for 5 seconds (unless the pets have lower self damage buff scalars), so that's about a 20% damage increase for each Enforcer overall with Gaussian's slotted. Decent, but definitely not something that needs to be fixed, IMO.

Yeah it's about like that, as long as by caster you mean the enforcers themselves. Enforcers do in fact have the 80% dmg scale, t1 pets gets 60% and the big boy pet gets 100% value, just for future reference.

 

Big boy and fodder pets don't get to hit modifiers (accept for wolves, who can't actually slot Gaussian's for whatever reason) so they can't even use Boost Up from it anyway.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Monos King

[csr]

10 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Does this mean the proc is now under-tuned? Possibly.

Change that "possibly" to "definitely".

 

Ironically the soon-to-be-identical Power Transfer special is OP.  Context is everything, and EndMod Sets >>>> Sleep Sets.

[Gorgar]

On 3/15/2020 at 3:11 PM, Jimmy said:

Back on topic - Procs that impact yourself were never meant to stack with additional targets. This was only not the case with +heal/+end procs because the tech for it simply didn't exist when they were made (you could not prevent a heal from "stacking" like you could with other buffs). The tech now does exist, so this proc should follow the same rule, because as it stands it was downright broken under certain circumstances.

If this means the same treatment is coming for Theft of Essence, a *lot* of Dark Armor users are going to be very unhappy about this.  I don't really like this direction, because I find it less fun.  Whether multiple firings were intended or not, to me the old unreliable non-PPM proc mechanics, including chances for multiple +heal/+end, were more fun.

 

I tested Call of the Sandman on Mind controller last night on Everlasting, and the most I ever got that proc to fire was four times, 51 hp each.  This amounted to pretty minimal healing on a 1000 hp controller.  Most of the time I got much less.  Granted I didn't always have max targets in range, but even with capped ranged defense I don't see any path to gaming real, effective healing out of it.

 

I expect that the experience is different on a melee character with a sleep aura, where there'd be no reason to slot recharge (which would reduce proc firing chances), and the character is sturdy enough to just stand in a pile of mobs soaking up proc healing.  I can see this being a problem, but it seems more like an artifact caused by PPM more than a problem with the proc.  I'd much rather get rid of PPM, personally, and possibly disallow sleep auras from taking sleep sets if necessary.

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, Gorgar said:

If this means the same treatment is coming for Theft of Essence, a *lot* of Dark Armor users are going to be very unhappy about this.

The same thought had occurred to me. I think a discussion should be had about the balance of Dark Regeneration itself; it isn't ideal that a single proc is being relied upon to make a power practical to use. The power has a fairly brutal end cost in exchange for a massive heal, if the end cost could be reduced the heal per target could also come down without seriously compromising its utility.

[Peacemoon]

On 3/15/2020 at 11:07 AM, Faultline said:

I cannot give an explanation for those, since I had nothing to do with that. @Captain Powerhouse did post an explanation elsewhere though, he may just have to repeat it here.

 

Regarding Call of the Sandman: again, the explanation for the nerf is that it turns an AOE power into a strong self heal by slotting a single IO. The explanation has been given, multiple times. You disagree with it, but that doesn't mean there's a different deeper reason to be found: it just means you disagree with it. A single IO giving 5% health back is fine. A single IO giving 50% health back isn't.

Call of the Sandman has always done this with aoe sleeps. I didn’t play beyond issue 21 and this proc was firing multiple times many moons ago. We can argue as to whether it’s balanced or not, but it firing multiple times is not a result of PPM. It has always done this, as I used it on live in mass hypnosis before these proc changes. It is % chance to trigger for each target hit by sleep.

 

Personally I agree with other posters that this is not a warranted change, unless it’s much more powerful now procs have changed to PPM. I never used to get healed for 50% due to this proc. It was always in the region of 5-20%. Which was quite nice for my mind/storm with no self heal.

 

Given how powerful other procs can be in other powers, this is a strange choice to change, unless it’s the start of a much wider proc review.

The build up proc in tactics uses the same mechanism as call of the sandman. Whereby if you’re in a full team you are getting the build up much more frequently than if you are solo. Like how Sandman heals more frequently in an aoe power rather single target.

[Super Homer]

3 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Call of the Sandman has always done this with aoe sleeps.

It had the potential to do this, but it had, I think, a 5% chance for 5% heal. Today it has like, a 50% chance to go off, on sleeps that can hit up to 16 targets. 

 

My math might suck but, if you hit half those 16 today you get like a 40% heal?

Before, the way it was designed, with 5% chance, in average you would get a 4% heal if you always used it with 16 foes in range. 

 

Sure, it was fun to get it trigger on more foes, but the chances were ridiculously low.

 

9 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Given how powerful other procs can be in other powers, this is a strange choice to change, unless it’s the start of a much wider proc review.

My guess is they dealing with these heal procs simply because they just introduced a new heal proc, pointing a huge neon pink spotlight at all heal procs.

[Monos King]

2 hours ago, Super Homer said:

My guess is they dealing with these heal procs simply because they just introduced a new heal proc, pointing a huge neon pink spotlight at all heal procs.

They actually changed Gaussian's and Soulbound before Sandman, which is curious (and appalling) as it didn't change the way it functions for players, just the pets it is slotted in.

 

According to my poll, there isn't any desire to add new pet IOs amongst the forum majority. And those that did want new pet IOs didn't have any ideas as to what they would like added. 

 

So loosing boost up is a big bash for current and future pet related IOing with no big picture established. I frankly can't think of any end goal that would even make this necessary or acceptable to begin with, less they were going to add a new universal damage unique that did the same thing.

 

I think feedback speaks for itself that all of these changes need to just get reversed.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Monos King
Further information

[Myrmidon]

On 3/15/2020 at 12:08 PM, macskull said:

maybe it's time to reevaluate AoE sleep powers (and sleep in general)

This.

[Greycat]

On 3/15/2020 at 5:13 PM, Monos King said:

 

 

1. Sleep powers in general are vastly inferior to every other Status effect, and should be reworked to bare any signifiance
2. As of now, the only real utility sleep powers had was to act as carriers for the heal "Call of the Sandman"

 

Er... no.

 

Some individual sleep powers (such as salt crystals) need a rework, sure. That one's been skippable since live. Sleep as a whole... not so much. You'll find a lot of annoying defenses, especially those that use dispersion bubbles, are vulnerable to sleep. Hold bounces off status protection? Use a sleep. Even if the NPC is attacked immediately after, breaking the sleep, there's a delay until they can recast that. On my mind control characters, sleep is pretty much useful through their entire career, from Posi 1's ruin mages through MLTF/RecTFs and putting chained AVs to sleep with no fuss. And that's without IO shenanigans.

 

Yes, I know, theoretical person -  "but my eleventy billion INF super purpule IO'd out ignores their defenses and blah blah blah" - that's not everyone. That's not even everyone on the forum. And doesn't affect all the content.

 

Sleeps are far more useful than are being portrayed here.

[Monos King]

9 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Sleeps are far more useful than are being portrayed here.

I would love to learn that sleep has a greater application than I'd thought. However, it currently seems that even the developers I have been debating with agree that sleep requires a rework. If you could provide more evidence of the contrary, that would actually save us a lot of time and effort. My understanding of sleep is heavily based off of the reception I've gotten asking the experienced, and in more general situations.

 

I'm more prioritized on the MM IO debacle myself currently, and I think the people over at Blackfeather's referenced thread would probably need to hear it most. But I wouldn't mind seeing said evidence here either.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Monos King

[JayboH]

My impression was that Theft of Essence was designed for Dark Regeneration.  Sure it's a huge heal but a self-heal that takes over a third of your endurance bar base is screaming for that proc.

[Captain Powerhouse]

5 hours ago, Greycat said:

Sleeps are far more useful than are being portrayed here

 

Quote for truth.

 

Sleeps need help, but they are indeed far from useless. One of the many potential fixes is actually look into content and potentially give more situations for sleep to shine, that's not a trivial task, though. But imagine if... for example, sleep could cancel out Nemesis Vengeance.

[Blackfeather]

29 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Quote for truth.

 

Sleeps need help, but they are indeed far from useless. One of the many potential fixes is actually look into content and potentially give more situations for sleep to shine, that's not a trivial task, though. But imagine if... for example, sleep could cancel out Nemesis Vengeance.

Sleeps definitely have their defined uses at the moment for sure. Though I have to wonder why they were so valuable in something like say Everquest and its Enchanters for example when they're considered less so here.

[Monos King]

I quite like the idea of sleep shining more frequently, or even getting improved after effects, though I imagine it would be some work. However, let's not forget this is not a thread soley, or even primarily, about the utility of sleep.

 

@Captain Powerhouse There is still a great deal of explanation in regards to proc changes on the MM side of things that is required. Preferably an announcement of reversal. As well as on the greater plans for procs that are rendered useless by changes of this nature.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Monos King

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 hour ago, Blackfeather said:

Sleeps definitely have their defined uses at the moment for sure. Though I have to wonder why they were so valuable in something like say Everquest and its Enchanters for example when they're considered less so here.

Working from memory because I don’t know the current meta, but EQ is a game where basically everything is an elite boss and you don’t want to fight multiples.
 

AoE spells are highly disliked in that game as they likely will bring unnecessary aggro and not speed up things much, or they might break sleeps that are keeping everyone alive.
 

You can (or could) also use sleeps there to interrupt powerful enemy spells, if you are attentive enough to see them casting.

 

Overall, it’s just a different game, and sleep just fits under their game structure.
 

[Kal5]

On 3/15/2020 at 4:11 PM, Jimmy said:

 

Back on topic - Procs that impact yourself were never meant to stack with additional targets. This was only not the case with +heal/+end procs because the tech for it simply didn't exist when they were made (you could not prevent a heal from "stacking" like you could with other buffs). The tech now does exist, so this proc should follow the same rule, because as it stands it was downright broken under certain circumstances.

 

Just because a new tech for limiting it now exists, does not mean that tech should be swiftly and forcefully implemented changing gameplay for the players.
I'm glad the devs got a new tool. That does not mean it should be used without careful thought first.

Stacking procs from multiple targets is *fun*.
Hopefully we can at some point get the best of both worlds: Single cap strong procs, and procs with lesser effect that can AoE stack. 

 

---

And again, Gaussian for pets was a perfectly reasonable and interesting pet buff proc, that worked fine.
Enforcers is an entity that gives +to hit. Gaussian is a +to hit set that gives a short term buildup proc to an entity that gives +to hit.
What was the problem?

• Now we have a proc that does nothing when slotted in a valid way, and seems to be an artificial recent choice of breaking something that was working, that nobody was complaining about.

Please do revert it.
 

Quote

Does this mean the proc is now under-tuned? Possibly. Does this mean we'll never look at it again? Definitely not.

Measure twice, but when all measurements are ambiguous and feelings and enjoyment are involved, cut in multiple small amounts over time.

There is no rush to balance game mechanics with sweeping cuts or changes.

[Blackfeather]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Working from memory because I don’t know the current meta, but EQ is a game where basically everything is an elite boss and you don’t want to fight multiples.
 

AoE spells are highly disliked in that game as they likely will bring unnecessary aggro and not speed up things much, or they might break sleeps that are keeping everyone alive.
 

You can (or could) also use sleeps there to interrupt powerful enemy spells, if you are attentive enough to see them casting.

 

Overall, it’s just a different game, and sleep just fits under their game structure.

That makes sense - in comparison, AoE powers are much more usable in this game, and definitely speed things up a lot. Holds are also available right from the start for Crowd Control classes, which don't care about damage; it doesn't look like Everquest has any easily accessible equivalent to that.