Blackfeather's Mind Control Updates v1

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

I see! Out of curiosity, how do the regular Hold powers such as Dominate work in comparison - are they queued differently?

Dominate

 

Yes.  The sequencing is different.

The damage and the hold land simultaneously, so there's no opportunity to retaliate.

[MTeague]

Now if they could make Mezmerize (and like powers) do a special type of damage that DOESN'T break sleep, that would be game-changing.

Possibly overpowered, but probably not.  Teams still won't wait, they'll attack anything on sight.  So it would only really help a soloing controller.

[Mezmera]

7 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

No one said "must pair." It's for theme.

 

Mind should be all about control, it isn't. It has 2 AoE holds, that have ridiculously long recharges..... As stated, needing rework.

 

It has terrify, needs rework as noted.

 

Sleep... Is Not a hard control, on mind. It's not even a soft control, one tick of damage breaks it. Sleep on electric is a soft control with pulsing... As noted. Needs rework.

 

TeleK is... Just useless at the moment... Needs rework.

 

Further, earth PRIMARY, as well as ice, dark and others are far better control sets for a Dom. Mind is literally last in class.

 

Mind on doms, is in serious need of rework and far sub-par to other Dom sets... As noted.

I don't think you have much playtime on a Mind dom it seems.  If you're on Excelsior I'll be more than happy to show you how OP Mind is with someone that knows what they can get out of the set.  

[Blackfeather]

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

Now if they could make Mezmerize (and like powers) do a special type of damage that DOESN'T break sleep, that would be game-changing.

Possibly overpowered, but probably not.  Teams still won't wait, they'll attack anything on sight.  So it would only really help a soloing controller.

That'd definitely be quite nice - it sounds like damaging Sleeps/Fears are at a bit of a disadvantage to Holds in comparison due to their more fragile nature. I'm guessing that when damage is applied simultaneously on such powers, it'd break the Sleep, and cause enemies to retaliate when Feared anyway.

 

Come to think of it, I wonder how these powers currently interact with procs - along with non-damaging Fear powers with Glimpse of the Abyss' damage proc...

[Redlynne]

18 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

Come to think of it, I wonder how these powers currently interact with procs - along with non-damaging Fear powers with Glimpse of the Abyss' damage proc...

Procs do "instant" damage along with the rest of the damage output (unless the damage is delayed within the power's parameters, like is done with Lift).

 

I have the Will of the Controller ATO proc for damage slotted into my Mesmerize (where it procs a pretty good deal) and it does damage up front before the Sleep effect 0.25s after the damage is done.  This means that a damage proc on Mesmerize will break a Sleep that was already applied, but will not break a Sleep that happens after the damage is applied (which the power does natively).

[Blackfeather]

2 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

Procs do "instant" damage along with the rest of the damage output (unless the damage is delayed within the power's parameters, like is done with Lift).

 

I have the Will of the Controller ATO proc for damage slotted into my Mesmerize (where it procs a pretty good deal) and it does damage up front before the Sleep effect 0.25s after the damage is done.  This means that a damage proc on Mesmerize will break a Sleep that was already applied, but will not break a Sleep that happens after the damage is applied (which the power does natively).

That's some relief at least! Though I've heard some of the Incarnate DoT interface powers interact badly with these powers as well, which is a bit of a shame. And come to think of it, when do these procs occur on, say, non-damaging Fear powers such as Fearsome Stare?

[Redlynne]

Depends on if it's a DoT or not.  If it's a DoT, say goodbye to your Sleep powers working for Mind Control.

[Blackfeather]

49 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

Depends on if it's a DoT or not.  If it's a DoT, say goodbye to your Sleep powers working for Mind Control.

That's a shame...I imagine the same probably applies for Terrorize as well, in that the extra damage might end up causing additional enemy aggro. Outside of what's currently happening of course.

[Blackfeather]

Though...it does make me wonder if Sleeps/Fears ought to be changed in some way in general then to be a bit more durable: maybe small amounts of damage such as Interface's DoT wouldn't be enough to set them off? It'd make the status effect play a little nicer with rain powers as well.

 

Of course, that doesn't help this whole situation of damaging Sleep/Fear powers causing aggro due to how they're made behind the scenes, at least not directly...

[Redlynne]

7 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Of course, that doesn't help this whole situation of damaging Sleep/Fear powers causing aggro due to how they're made behind the scenes, at least not directly...

Think I've got a solution.

 

0.00 to 0.25s: Damage ... and Hold (unresistable! unenhanceable!) ... for 0.25s

0.25s onwards: Sleep duration

 

Basically do a 1/4 second Hold effect to prevent the retaliation shot and then end the Hold so as to let the Sleep take over.

Could do the same thing for Terrify, because it has the same timing issue, as Mesmerize.

 

Would be a relatively simple tweak to implement.

[Blackfeather]

4 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Think I've got a solution.

 

0.00 to 0.25s: Damage ... and Hold (unresistable! unenhanceable!) ... for 0.25s

0.25s onwards: Sleep duration

 

Basically do a 1/4 second Hold effect to prevent the retaliation shot and then end the Hold so as to let the Sleep take over.

Could do the same thing for Terrify, because it has the same timing issue, as Mesmerize.

 

Would be a relatively simple tweak to implement.

That sounds pretty good! Though I think you mentioned somewhere that Hold/Stuns detoggle things on enemies, which Fear doesn't currently do, I believe? Maybe a Confuse like you mentioned before could work for that instead.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Blackfeather

[Redlynne]

3 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

That sounds pretty good!

We make every pretense of competency around here ...  😎

3 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Though I think you mentioned somewhere that Hold/Stuns detoggle things on enemies, which Fear doesn't currently do, I believe?

Maybe a Confuse like you mentioned before could work for that instead.

Hold for 0.25s before Sleep effect.

Confuse for 0.25s before Fear effect.

 

Works for me.

 

If there needs to be a slight overlap in order to protect against server timing wonkiness (just to be sure) ... could do it this way:

 

Mesmerize

Damage

Hold for 0.3s (unresistable, unenhanceable)

Sleep for duration after 0.2s

 

Terrify

Damage

Confuse for 0.3s (unresistable, unenhanceable)

Fear for duration after 0.2s

 

So basically make the "neutralizer" factor last for the first 0.3s and have the Sleep/Fear start at 0.2s after the damage (instead of 0.25s) ... which is a difference that I honestly don't think anyone will notice the shift aside from the lack of retribution to the Mind Controller.

[Blackfeather]

14 hours ago, Redlynne said:

So basically make the "neutralizer" factor last for the first 0.3s and have the Sleep/Fear start at 0.2s after the damage (instead of 0.25s) ... which is a difference that I honestly don't think anyone will notice the shift aside from the lack of retribution to the Mind Controller.

Mmhm - preventing additional aggro sounds like a good place to start. Sounds like a change that ought to be done for any other damaging Sleep/Fear effects. Along with @Zeraphia's suggestion post of making such effects less prone to breaking due to Interface DoT procs and so on...though again, less of a Mind Control thing, and more of a general thing of course.

[Blackfeather]

On 4/16/2020 at 4:08 AM, ZekeStenzland said:

A simpler, no new tech implementation of Dizzied might be just to add an unenhanceable 15sec mag 3 disorient to mesmerize and mass hypnosis. That way, if mobs get woken up immediately, there’s still some benefit, but if they’ve been asleep for a bit, you’ve probably gotten most of the value out of the sleep anyway. 
 

Doesnt address the other issues of Mind a Control, but does make the sleeps more relevant on teams. 

  ...whoops, I might have missed this, let me address this real quick.

 

It's a potent idea that definitely helps the fragility of sleeps on teams/AoE heavy builds - I could see this working nicely for Plant Control's Spore Burst for example, it'd be quite thematic. That being said, I do prefer the idea of the Dizzied! mechanic when it comes to Mind Control. I've a few reasons for that:

• I was heavily inspired by Gravity Control's changes, using it as an example of the extent to which changes to a powerset might be made
  • The Dizzied! mechanic is basically an analogue to Gravity's Impact! mechanic that instead grants additional control instead of damage under some circumstances
  • I wanted a mechanic that worked similarly to Impact! - encouraging the use of powers in a certain combination to trigger an additional effect
• I didn't want to make Mass Hypnosis and Mesmerize always act as a means of stunning an opponent - only under specific circumstances (that is, when followed up with Levitate or Terrify)
• A lot of the changes I made were designed around maintaining the each power's "intention", with any improvements made stopping short of changing their main use case - when possible, use Mass Hypnosis and Mesmerize to sleep enemies, but if that's not possible, another avenue opens up
• As a kind of trade off for this, I made the disorient from this mechanic extendable; enhance the sleep duration, enhance the Dizzied! mechanic
  • This also provides Mind Control with a more persistent way to keep up Containment (outside of adding an Immobilise to Telekinesis) than if it could not be extended