Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Powers (Release Candidates)

[Bopper]

24 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

This is what it drain with no Static  stacks:

That does look like a problem. Were you using a power analyzer to make sure the endurance drain matches what shows in the Combat Log? I imagine they went instantly to 0 endurance which doesn't need a power analyzer to confirm, but it would also be nice to see what the Sleep Mag and Recovery debuffs showed

[WindDemon21]

43 minutes ago, r0y said:

I agree.  Just looking at this power, assume 1 acc, 1 endmod:  -106.8% recovery debuff (turning off recovery), -28.48 end, -75% regen, -37.5% dam.

 

Now these are defender AT numbers, but with just 1 slot (2 total) of acc and end mod, it's easily a filler (8s rech, 25s duration) and useful on even boss-level dudes.  It's a solid debuff, for a tier 1.  Sure, I'd rather have a heal at level 1, and a debuff is often better at later levels, after level 10 or so (for Posi 1 & 2 AVs, EBs, etc).

 

 

 

Except especially when you look at strollers, where outside of AVs it's useless cause the bosses should be held anyway. And on a good mm, if you focus the pets to attack the boss he should be dead before most of the time that that matters. You also have to factor in the horrid nature that seems worse than it was on live for enemies to flee when their end is zeroed out. At the very least it should have an immobilize component too, but I'd still vote HEAVILY it is swapped with the tier 2.

[oedipus_tex]

2 hours ago, Bopper said:

That does look like a problem. Were you using a power analyzer to make sure the endurance drain matches what shows in the Combat Log? I imagine they went instantly to 0 endurance which doesn't need a power analyzer to confirm, but it would also be nice to see what the Sleep Mag and Recovery debuffs showed

 

Yes, they were instantly drained. I didn't use a power analyzer so I didn't see any more of the effect. The Sleep no longer seemed to reapply itself multiple times though.

[Sir Myshkin]

Just because it wasn't all specific to just Defibrillate, I'll cross-link to it here, but messed around with Discharge through Galvanic Sentinel and not sold on it being 100% in the best place The overshadowing effects of Defibrillate made it easy to overlook before, but taking a closer inspection of what it was doing has me raising a few red flags. Just on its own merits alone it's able to lock down an even-con enemy pretty effectively from attacking so long as the mob doesn't run outside of Galvanic Sentinel's reach. Something to consider when the AI's response is either panic, or "wait it out," the later of which could be abused. Defibrillate's -End wouldn't even really be a major concern for whether that'd matter either, there's enough other powers in the game that the utility of sapping the enemy endurance low enough could be consumed and locked down with Discharge's effect.

 

 

[Jimmy]

Just a note on the intended balance of Defibrillate: The primary purpose of this power is to resurrect allies. It's not meant to be a super strong debuff nuke (like Rad's EMP for example), the offensive component is just a little extra so you can get something out of the power when your allies aren't dead (and because it's thematically fitting).

 

-2859 Endurance is definitely too much!

[Replacement]

@oedipus_tex what was the level differential in those results? Pretty sure that multiplies up with the purple patch.

 

General: I really enjoy having Defib as a strong Sapping move, in that it resets your stacks and deprives you of in-fight revives, but I definitely don't think it should be so universally good at it. It seems to me the issue mostly resides in how much end drain is coming from each static stack (I've been trying to come up with a good portmanteau of that for the last 4 builds - stackic? Statick?).

 

@JimmyI won't blame you if you feel the need to nerf the Sapping into Oblivion, but if it ends up reliably draining 60 or less endurance... I would suggest considering taking a page out of the performance of the old, bugged version and scale the sleep Mag.

 

Having an aoe rez that reliably sleeps entire spawns at the same time would be a powerful recovery tool without it being super sappy. Ideally, pair it with +huge endurance drain vs robots, since they can't be slept.

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

-2859 Endurance is definitely too much!

 

Yeah, probably needs to be lowered by 10-15 points 😛 😄

 

I also like Oedipus's idea with large but not guaranteed Endurance Drain effects... it gives us what many players have been asking for, which is a way for Endurance Drain to not be so binary...  it's still binary PER MOB, but not PER SPAWN, which works well enough for an AoE. Having partial guaranteed followed by an uncertain but large drain that will shut down SOME of the mobs but not ALL of the mobs in a spawn means that the power's level can be kept strong enough to drain some mobs without being OP because it's shutting down an entire spawn on command.

 

Getting the heal at Tier 1 would be nice. But I can live with a decent debuff there, and -Damage is useful for Boss fights at all levels, and once you're strong enough not to worry about single Bosses, it starts to see use against AVs. So I'd like to see the Heal at Tier 1 but I'll live with it at Tier 2. At least the debuff will help with Bosses one-shotting lower-tier minions for MMs.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Coyote

[Myrmidon]

12 hours ago, Number Six said:

 

Edit: I just went and double checked and the power is actually set to center the AoE powers around the caster. That's not my understanding of the design intent, so I'm checking to see if that was intentional or if it's a mistake.

If possible, the answer to this would be great to know before we try out the multiple Rez test.

[Jimmy]

39 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

If possible, the answer to this would be great to know before we try out the multiple Rez test.

It's meant to be on the target, but it currently isn't. We're resolving that (and the... somewhat misplaced decimal point on the -end value) today. No ETA on a new build just yet though.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

It's meant to be on the target, but it currently isn't. We're resolving that (and the... somewhat misplaced decimal point on the -end value) today. No ETA on a new build just yet though.

Thanks, Jimmy, and no worries. I just want to know the parameter that we will be working with before then.

[Jimmy]

Fixes for Defibrillate from today that will be in the next build:

• Rez & Sleep AoEs will now be anchored around the target, not the caster
• Rez & Sleep AoEs will still fire off even if you lose LoS with the target during the cast animation
• Fixed the -end being 100x stronger than intended
• Can only be activated on dead allies or living foes (ie: not on living allies or dead foes)

If you find any issues that aren't covered by those fixes please let us know 🙂

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Can only be activated on dead allies or living foes (ie: not on living allies or dead foes)

But what if you're confused?

 

[Mystic Fortune]

3 minutes ago, siolfir said:

But what if you're confused?

 

Then you'll rez the entire mob your team just defeated!

 

lol, can you imagine?

[siolfir]

6 minutes ago, Mystic Fortune said:

Then you'll rez the entire mob your team just defeated!

 

lol, can you imagine?

While draining your team's endurance, too.

Edited March 24, 2020 by siolfir

[Mystic Fortune]

Just now, siolfir said:

While draining your team's endurance, too.

I could definitely get on board with this...

[Wavicle]

Sparky seems to be having trouble consistently following me through elevators. Not that other pets in the game are perfect, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Wavicle]

I like having the MM with Discharge and everyone else getting the Sentinel. I'm trying the set out now on an Electric/Electric corruptor.

I again will state my opinion that Voltaic Sentinel should have the same duration Galvanic Sentinel has now, obviously that isn't feedback about this set.

The duration, endurance cost, and recharge of Galvanic Sentinel all feel ok for what it does.

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

Sparky seems to be having trouble consistently following me through elevators. Not that other pets in the game are perfect, but I thought I'd mention it.

To be more emphatic, Galvanic Sentinel seems to almost always be unable to go up an Elevator with me.

[WindDemon21]

What about the sentinels cast time since we cant reduce the recharge of its debuff, yet you can on a mastermind version.

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, WindDemon21 said:

What about the sentinels cast time since we cant reduce the recharge of its debuff, yet you can on a mastermind version.

The trade-off is that you aren't burning the same amount of endurance.

[WindDemon21]

25 minutes ago, JayboH said:

The trade-off is that you aren't burning the same amount of endurance.

What is the rech/duration/radius of the sentinels debuff?

[oedipus_tex]

18 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Just a note on the intended balance of Defibrillate: The primary purpose of this power is to resurrect allies. It's not meant to be a super strong debuff nuke (like Rad's EMP for example), the offensive component is just a little extra so you can get something out of the power when your allies aren't dead (and because it's thematically fitting).

 

-2859 Endurance is definitely too much!

 

Jimmy, thanks for taking a look and for continuing to work on the power.

 

 

 

If Defib is not meant to be a powerful sapping move, can I convince your team to set its drain to something like this:

• Restore area of effect to 20ft
• Endurance drain amounts:
  • 100% chance for -15% endurance 
  • 33% chance for -60% endurance (critters only)

 

This works out to "A 25% chance for -75% endurance, 75% chance for -15% endurance." With End Mod slotting, that would randomly drain 1 out of 3 mobs in a stack.; on average, 4-6 mobs in a stack of 16. That would hit a threshold of "maybe useful, definitely not a nuke."

 

The reason I am asking for this is that even when reduced 100x in drain strength. when this power is combined with Electric Blast or Electric Control, it IS nuke-like. With any other set, its not really useful at all. To normalize it, reduce the guaranteed portion and give it a chance to really floor a couple of enemies. It would still be useful to the end drain sets, just not exclusively to them.

 

 

If 33% chance feels too high and you want it even weaker, you could use a 25% chance (1 in 4 mobs).

Edited March 25, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Azrik]

I'm liking electric affinity for the most part so far, however there is one thing I need to nit pick. Both Shock and Galvanic Sentinel provide the exact same debuffs. It sort of makes shock feel useless in you can have a pet running around providing the same debuff for you. I know they probably stack, but at the same time I'm not too impressed with either ability. -regen abilities are always useful when fighting AV's, but I just can't help feel like they shouldn't have the exact same functions.

 

Here is an idea I had to replace/change the sentinel.

 

Static Cling: This changes the Galvanic Sentinel from being a debuffing pet to a untargetable magnet. When the power is activated it flies to a target enemy or ally and begins pulling enemies in the area toward them. Enemies resistant to repel effects will also be resistant to this effect. The sentinel also produces a debuffing aura that slows enemy movement and recharge times.

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Azrik said:

-regen abilities are always useful when fighting AV's, but I just can't help feel like they shouldn't have the exact same functions.

 

Remember, they are primarily -Damage and -Recovery powers to decrease incoming damage. The -Regen is probably added to make them more useful in the high levels, but their main use at lower levels when you don't yet have good Boss-handling tools is to heavily decrease the incoming damage from a Boss. Also from a spawn, but the pet's AoE targeting isn't exactly reliable.

[Bopper]

I'll keep the results short, but we have screen shots to supplement if needed/requested.

 

Tested Defibrillate with the new build pushed recently (half hour ago?). 

On 3/24/2020 at 12:10 PM, Jimmy said:

Fixes for Defibrillate from today that will be in the next build:

• Rez & Sleep AoEs will now be anchored around the target, not the caster
• Rez & Sleep AoEs will still fire off even if you lose LoS with the target during the cast animation
• Fixed the -end being 100x stronger than intended
• Can only be activated on dead allies or living foes (ie: not on living allies or dead foes)

If you find any issues that aren't covered by those fixes please let us know 🙂

@Doc_Scorpion @Myrmidon and I tested a few things. It appears the -end is behaving much better and targeting can only be done on living enemies and dead allies (tried targeting a living ally with no success). Also, jousting (new to me) seems to work. I flew at an ally, casting it as soon as I was in range and overflew. The rez worked.

 

We did not test the Sleep AoE, but we did confirm that the Rez AoE works up to 20 feet (21 feet, no success).

 

However, if you target an enemy, the Ally Rez does not work. It doesn't matter how close the target is to the ally (I placed them at 0 ft separation, even), and never did an Ally Rez occur. These tests included a target while it was moving and while it was not moving (I slept the target and used TP foe to make sure of exact distances).

 

Here is one example where I had allies exactly 20 feet apart, and the target was on top of one of them. No rez for either ally

Edited March 26, 2020 by Bopper
added Jousting results