Buff Titan Weapons Appropriately

[Naraka]

3 hours ago, BZRKR said:

What you say is absolutely true. However, a compelling part of Zeraphia's argument is at low levels when you don't have 4 attacks, and/or don't have the recharge to use the attacks you do have. When you are always doing a slow attack followed by a fast attack, followed by Momentum running out, followed by a slow attack... well it feelsbadman™

 

Whenever they get around to adjusting Titan Weapons, one thing I hope they look at is the Taunt animation, especially the redraw part of it. Compared to other sets, it feels like Titan Weapon takes longer to taunt, and it's such a super great animation that I wouldn't want it to go away.

You can have 3 attacks by level 4 (on a Tanker), one being Defensive Sweep which recharges in 4sec which you can slot to get a little bit of recharge in to get slightly under 4 seconds so you can open with Defensive Sweep and then chain into your other 2 attacks and either chain another Defensive Sweep or just hold off to use Defensive Sweep to get you some momentum again.

 

The way I see it, they obviously designed Titan Weapons with a certain concept in mind, that concept being it's not suppose to feel smooth and graceful like Katana, or stocky yet brutal like a Broadsword.  TW is supposed to feel heavy and clunky like an over-sized improvised weapon or huge slab of metal.  It's why so many of the attacks are AoEs and have so much control effects tied into them.  I suppose someone could say smoothing the early early levels out to feel less clunky would make it "user friendly", but when do you acknowledge that you're also gaining undue advantage with the amount of early AoE?  By that same level, the only AoE Spines has is Spine Burst, a really slow animating, not boosted by Gauntlet AoE.  By then, most sets are only working with 1 AoE.  There should be a tax for things and TW suffering a few feelsbadman moments before level 6 when everyone is throwing out Brawls and P2W attack powers to fill in gaps seems very minor in the grand scheme of things.

[BZRKR]

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

You can have 3 attacks by level 4 (on a Tanker), one being Defensive Sweep which recharges in 4sec which you can slot to get a little bit of recharge in to get slightly under 4 seconds so you can open with Defensive Sweep and then chain into your other 2 attacks and either chain another Defensive Sweep or just hold off to use Defensive Sweep to get you some momentum again.

 

The way I see it, they obviously designed Titan Weapons with a certain concept in mind, that concept being it's not suppose to feel smooth and graceful like Katana, or stocky yet brutal like a Broadsword.  TW is supposed to feel heavy and clunky like an over-sized improvised weapon or huge slab of metal.  It's why so many of the attacks are AoEs and have so much control effects tied into them.  I suppose someone could say smoothing the early early levels out to feel less clunky would make it "user friendly", but when do you acknowledge that you're also gaining undue advantage with the amount of early AoE?  By that same level, the only AoE Spines has is Spine Burst, a really slow animating, not boosted by Gauntlet AoE.  By then, most sets are only working with 1 AoE.  There should be a tax for things and TW suffering a few feelsbadman moments before level 6 when everyone is throwing out Brawls and P2W attack powers to fill in gaps seems very minor in the grand scheme of things.

You're not wrong.

I concede that it "can" have a bunch of attacks early on. My experience comes from building a Tanker, so I need armor toggles early on too. This does not invalidate what you said, but in order to cram everything into my build, I have 2 Titan Weapon attacks until level 28, which wouldn't be a problem because one would normally fill that attack chain with P2W stuff. In fact, the only AoE I have  at lower levels is Defensive sweep, so I guess I don't see these advanatges that you are refering to. However, I have my Taunt and my Heals, so I can still do my job, but it's awkward. That's all I'm saying. I'm okay with it being awkward, because of how awesome it gets later on. My main concern is that IF the dev team was going to go under the hood for major surgery, they would also look at things like this.

 

Basically, if the advantages are going to be trimmed back, then the disadvantages should be too. I don't want the set to be transformed into something really bad (energy melee) just because it once was good. If that's unreasonable, then I would like the Devs to let us know what the "correct" melee sets to use, so that we don't take another character past 99 vet levels just to see it drastically changed for the worse.

[Haijinx]

On 4/17/2020 at 1:52 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

Qft

[Outrider_01]

I want to get around to my TW, but been thinking about something that doesn't make sense.

 

Where are all these TW players?

 

Unless Excelsior and Torchbearer are causing the problem of the masses running with an "OP" weapon set; I don't see it as broken as everyone thinks.  I have seen one farmer on Indomitable once with TW, unless that person was just running a farm to fill out for a content build.  Out of all the players I check out, it's the more main stream types like Spines or Dominators/ whatever LFG, not TW sets.

 

TL;DR - there are not a lot of TW running around, unless someone can correct me.

 

So, it makes me the set is less player friendly without factoring in IO or Incarnate for the lack of people playing it.  I think the set is going to get a pass similar like Dark melee, fix playability issues and bring it more in line.  I don't see it as a nerf but more as a buff.

[nihilii]

3 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

TL;DR - there are not a lot of TW running around, unless someone can correct me.

Hard stats from devs show it's a massively popular combo (especially once pure farmers are averaged out). You can see the data dump here:

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by nihilii

[Zeraphia]

13 hours ago, Naraka said:

You can have 3 attacks by level 4 (on a Tanker), one being Defensive Sweep which recharges in 4sec which you can slot to get a little bit of recharge in to get slightly under 4 seconds so you can open with Defensive Sweep and then chain into your other 2 attacks and either chain another Defensive Sweep or just hold off to use Defensive Sweep to get you some momentum again.

 

The way I see it, they obviously designed Titan Weapons with a certain concept in mind, that concept being it's not suppose to feel smooth and graceful like Katana, or stocky yet brutal like a Broadsword.  TW is supposed to feel heavy and clunky like an over-sized improvised weapon or huge slab of metal.  It's why so many of the attacks are AoEs and have so much control effects tied into them.  I suppose someone could say smoothing the early early levels out to feel less clunky would make it "user friendly", but when do you acknowledge that you're also gaining undue advantage with the amount of early AoE?  By that same level, the only AoE Spines has is Spine Burst, a really slow animating, not boosted by Gauntlet AoE.  By then, most sets are only working with 1 AoE.  There should be a tax for things and TW suffering a few feelsbadman moments before level 6 when everyone is throwing out Brawls and P2W attack powers to fill in gaps seems very minor in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, you point to its AoE, and it is a fair criticism, however, you are not pointing this out accurately, you are giving it a more rose-colored glasses look than it actually is at lower levels.

 

You really get overall, less AoE out of this set than you'd be made to believe. You point to Defensive Sweep, yes it is nice, however, it also does pretty "piss poor" damage on a very slow off-momentum swing. You're making this seem better than how it really is. The only other AoE you get until at least 26+ (more than half the game) is Titan Sweep. Even at 26, when if you're Scrapper/Brute, you access Whirling Smash which is locked behind momentum as an AoE and cannot be used to open battles with unless you have a momentum carry-over from a previous fight or you used Build Momentum. This is also if you're Scrapper/Brute, if you are a Tanker, you won't get access to Whirling until 35. The AoE until very late in the set's life is not great.

 

Conversely, with Spines, you neglect so many details... Spine Burst is not locked behind anything, you can use this power at level 2 (or 4 if Tanker) as a battle opener, you do not have to be locked behind a game mechanic to use it. It also gains Quills at 18 for Scrapper/Brute which is far from "one aoe." Tankers actually gain Ripper at level 16. These sets have better AoE than TW does for half of the game, now you can argue it doesn't trade ST, sure, I'd agree there. However, what it DOES trade, is being extremely slow to enter battles, a lot of its utility powers not being able to be used at low levels, and massive endurance costs. At level 26/32 on Scrapper/Brute, you're "cooking with gas" in terms of AoE, it feels glorious. It has better AoE than TW, period. Why do you think people use it for farming over TW? You're leaving out significant details here. 

 

The result of this ends up being that TW is not nearly as polished at lower levels as you're making it seem and it does not have the "heavy aoe" you're claiming it does until very late in the set's life. You left out very important details with Spines and made an unjust comparison.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Galaxy Brain]

Spine Burst is as slow if not slower than most TW attacks without momentum,  and Quills is even less danagebthan Defebsuve Sweep if you're just tossing it out constantly.

 

Sure, you only have 2 AoEs for a little while, but those levels fly by and the AoEs you do have both animate in 1 second with 120* arcs.

[golstat2003]

13 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Spine Burst is as slow if not slower than most TW attacks without momentum,  and Quills is even less danagebthan Defebsuve Sweep if you're just tossing it out constantly.

 

Sure, you only have 2 AoEs for a little while, but those levels fly by and the AoEs you do have both animate in 1 second with 120* arcs.

Spines has better AOE. I don't consider TW having better AOE with how slow it is compared to spines.

I"m not sure you could really get away with using TW for farming over a Spines character, even if both took the Fire secondary. I"m not sure your clear speed would equal spines or Rad.

 

I might be wrong, so if someone has data, let me know. But I don't see a lot of TW farmers out there.

Edited April 21, 2020 by golstat2003

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

Yes, you point to its AoE, and it is a fair criticism, however, you are not pointing this out accurately, you are giving it a more rose-colored glasses look than it actually is at lower levels.

Right back at you.  While your criticism isn't wrong, you're unjustly exaggerating my claims while completely ignoring specific aspect of your own argument to try and get ahead.  For example:

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

You really get overall, less AoE out of this set than you'd be made to believe. You point to Defensive Sweep, yes it is nice, however, it also does pretty "piss poor" damage on a very slow off-momentum swing. You're making this seem better than how it really is.

This is an underestimation.  While the AoE isn't amazing, it's rare for a set to have amazing AoE pre-lvl 20 but my criticism is specifically targeting the portion of the leveling career *BEFORE* you can get more 4 attacks because that was the criticism brought about ("don't even have 4 attacks to chain during momentum" was the specific statement).

 

Also, you say "piss poor" in quotes, but in early levels, any damage will add up, even the mediocre accuracy of the P2W powers and brawl.  Not only that, but you also get free +dmg/rech +proc damage enhancements you can shove in those powers so the more procs you pile into them, the less "piss poor" it will be.

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

The only other AoE you get until at least 26+ (more than half the game) is Titan Sweep.

I can't believe you actually tried to pass lvl 26 as half the game.

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

Even at 26, when if you're Scrapper/Brute, you access Whirling Smash which is locked behind momentum as an AoE and cannot be used to open battles with unless you have a momentum carry-over from a previous fight or you used Build Momentum. This is also if you're Scrapper/Brute, if you are a Tanker, you won't get access to Whirling until 35. The AoE until very late in the set's life is not great.

I'd hardly call Whirling Smash as being "locked" behind anything when you literally just have to hit something (anything!  you got 2 AoE attacks, just land a hit on something!) and boom, you have *UNLOCKED* Whirling Smash lol.  Whirling Smash pays the tax for being "locked" behind momentum for a reason...it has a relatively fast cast for a PBAoE, doesn't rely on DoT, does high damage (Spin does more though) and recharges relatively fast.

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

 

Conversely, with Spines, you neglect so many details... Spine Burst is not locked behind anything, you can use this power at level 2 (or 4 if Tanker) as a battle opener, you do not have to be locked behind a game mechanic to use it.

It also recharges pretty slow (16sec) and has a slow animation (slower than every animation in TW).  Again, TW has access to 2 proc-ladden AoEs that can be belted out as fast while you have momentum.

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

It also gains Quills at 18 for Scrapper/Brute which is far from "one aoe."

See the above 2nd quote reply.

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

These sets have better AoE than TW does for half of the game, now you can argue it doesn't trade ST, sure, I'd agree there. However, what it DOES trade, is being extremely slow to enter battles, a lot of its utility powers not being able to be used at low levels, and massive endurance costs. At level 26/32 on Scrapper/Brute, you're "cooking with gas" in terms of AoE, it feels glorious. It has better AoE than TW, period. Why do you think people use it for farming over TW? You're leaving out significant details here. 

Also, need I remind you of the massive amount of control TW can put forth.  That is also an advantage...also, it get access to a +def tool as well.  Oh, and later a -res/-def power (they love to shove those in every new set, huh?).  I don't think TW is hurting for utility.

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

The result of this ends up being that TW is not nearly as polished at lower levels as you're making it seem and it does not have the "heavy aoe" you're claiming it does until very late in the set's life. You left out very important details with Spines and made an unjust comparison.

Well, at best, I can say you set up a strawman to attack.  I only stated that TW has access to more AoE early.  I didn't really touch on other aspects that give TW an edge but the point I was making is, for the benefits that TW has, it shouldn't get clemency just because it might not be "user friendly" for the first 12 levels...and by user friendly, I'm talking about specific stuff like corpse blasting, low accuracy, needing to finish off something so you have to use a no-momentum attack to do it, etc.

 

EDIT: I'm not crapping on Spines, btw.  None of this has to do with trying to argue for TW having better AoE than Spines or what not, this is moreso about the package as a whole  (like, Spines gets exactly 1 KD power...how many does TW get?  TW also get -def/res and +def as well).

Edited April 21, 2020 by Naraka

[Zeraphia]

43 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Right back at you.  While your criticism isn't wrong, you're unjustly exaggerating my claims while completely ignoring specific aspect of your own argument to try and get ahead.  For example:

 

This is an underestimation.  While the AoE isn't amazing, it's rare for a set to have amazing AoE pre-lvl 20 but my criticism is specifically targeting the portion of the leveling career *BEFORE* you can get more 4 attacks because that was the criticism brought about ("don't even have 4 attacks to chain during momentum" was the specific statement).

 

Also, you say "piss poor" in quotes, but in early levels, any damage will add up, even the mediocre accuracy of the P2W powers and brawl.  Not only that, but you also get free +dmg/rech +proc damage enhancements you can shove in those powers so the more procs you pile into them, the less "piss poor" it will be.

 

I can't believe you actually tried to pass lvl 26 as half the game.

 

I'd hardly call Whirling Smash as being "locked" behind anything when you literally just have to hit something (anything!  you got 2 AoE attacks, just land a hit on something!) and boom, you have *UNLOCKED* Whirling Smash lol.  Whirling Smash pays the tax for being "locked" behind momentum for a reason...it has a relatively fast cast for a PBAoE, doesn't rely on DoT, does high damage (Spin does more though) and recharges relatively fast.

 

It also recharges pretty slow (16sec) and has a slow animation (slower than every animation in TW).  Again, TW has access to 2 proc-ladden AoEs that can be belted out as fast while you have momentum.

 

See the above 2nd quote reply.

 

Also, need I remind you of the massive amount of control TW can put forth.  That is also an advantage...also, it get access to a +def tool as well.  Oh, and later a -res/-def power (they love to shove those in every new set, huh?).  I don't think TW is hurting for utility.

 

Well, at best, I can say you set up a strawman to attack.  I only stated that TW has access to more AoE early.  I didn't really touch on other aspects that give TW an edge but the point I was making is, for the benefits that TW has, it shouldn't get clemency just because it might not be "user friendly" for the first 12 levels...and by user friendly, I'm talking about specific stuff like corpse blasting, low accuracy, needing to finish off something so you have to use a no-momentum attack to do it, etc.

 

EDIT: I'm not crapping on Spines, btw.  None of this has to do with trying to argue for TW having better AoE than Spines or what not, this is moreso about the package as a whole  (like, Spines gets exactly 1 KD power...how many does TW get?  TW also get -def/res and +def as well).

I'm trying really hard to grasp what it is you WANT out of this, quite frankly though, I've said what I want for TW, you seem to exclusively want a damage nerf on it, and nothing BUT a damage nerf. You've advocating for all nerfs, and zero "givebacks" when it is, which will not sit well for people. 

 

I am trying to advocate for smoothing the level experience and making it not feel horrible for exemping... I felt you made Spines to be worse than it actually is at low levels, and how Spines is actually one of the better ones for exemping down and leveling early due to its high AoE + excellent herding capabilities.

 

You haven't again, stated what you want to see... all I've seen you post so far has been advocacy toward nerfing things that people really enjoying playing/use... That's not meant to be a personal attack, that's just what I've observed so far. 

 

I am aiming to try to mitigate some of the huge criticisms of this set, trying to address the issues that it has at low levels compared to other sets, and I am trying to advocate more for the different animations, smoother low level experience and more weapon options than anything else before it gets a huge nerf bat it may never recover from. 

[Naraka]

27 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I'm trying really hard to grasp what it is you WANT out of this, quite frankly though, I've said what I want for TW, you seem to exclusively want a damage nerf on it, and nothing BUT a damage nerf. You've advocating for all nerfs, and zero "givebacks" when it is, which will not sit well for people. 

???

 

I'm not advocating for anything.  I wasn't even tracking there was definitive word that they are working on changes to TW.  I'm just saying it doesn't really *need* to be made "faster" or "user friendly" as it already is rather straight forward in its utility and function.  And even if they do some "givebacks" I was merely stating don't expect much when they do...and I mostly say that because givebacks that people want are most certainly aimed at DPS.  Few would care about increasing the KB chance or an increase to the -def debuff numbers.  Most would likely only care if it had shorter animations, decreased costs/recharge or more -res.

 

27 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I am trying to advocate for smoothing the level experience and making it not feel horrible for exemping... I felt you made Spines to be worse than it actually is at low levels, and how Spines is actually one of the better ones for exemping down and leveling early due to its high AoE + excellent herding capabilities.

You can advocate for whatever, I'm merely saying curb your expectations.

 

And Spines is pretty meh at low levels, especially solo when you don't have many powers thus you can't leverage the AoE.  Spine Burst is very much a mediocre AoE.  For comparison, Fire Melee's Combustion has the same cast time but does more damage (and it's fire damage) as Spine Burst (same level).  Same recharge too.  Not saying Fire Melee is bad but few people clamor over Combustion.  Now Spines on Stalkers is a bit of a different story.  The added ST damage is a large help to shore up Spines' woes in early levels.

 

As for exemping down, I've not argued anything about that primarily because if you don't indicate what levels you're exemping to, it's hard to form any kind of argument.  And frankly, I don't care as it's what you make of your build that determines if you're going to optimize that period or not.

 

27 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

You haven't again, stated what you want to see... all I've seen you post so far has been advocacy toward nerfing things that people really enjoying playing/use... That's not meant to be a personal attack, that's just what I've observed so far. 

 

I am aiming to try to mitigate some of the huge criticisms of this set, trying to address the issues that it has at low levels compared to other sets, and I am trying to advocate more for the different animations, smoother low level experience and more weapon options than anything else before it gets a huge nerf bat it may never recover from. 

You're not wrong.  I don't particularly advocate for nerfs (discussing things that I consider over powers, that could be considered power creep or the like is different from calling for nerfs), I advocate for balance.  A lot of people ask to have powers buffed which isn't a bad thing and no one chastises people for doing that, but when asking if things are too strong, apparently that's just not right.  If you want things buffed, expect things to be nerfed.  You seem to be focused on some dev comment about nerfs coming to TW so you want some compensation for the nerfs, I would say curb your expectations.  You might get some smoothing out but I don't think they should change the feel of the set for that.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Naraka

[Zeraphia]

46 minutes ago, Naraka said:

???

 

I'm not advocating for anything.  I wasn't even tracking there was definitive word that they are working on changes to TW.  I'm just saying it doesn't really *need* to be made "faster" or "user friendly" as it already is rather straight forward in its utility and function.  And even if they do some "givebacks" I was merely stating don't expect much when they do...and I mostly say that because givebacks that people want are most certainly aimed at DPS.  Few would care about increasing the KB chance or an increase to the -def debuff numbers.  Most would likely only care if it had shorter animations, decreased costs/recharge or more -res.

 

You can advocate for whatever, I'm merely saying curb your expectations.

 

And Spines is pretty meh at low levels, especially solo when you don't have many powers thus you can't leverage the AoE.  Spine Burst is very much a mediocre AoE.  For comparison, Fire Melee's Combustion has the same cast time but does more damage (and it's fire damage) as Spine Burst (same level).  Same recharge too.  Not saying Fire Melee is bad but few people clamor over Combustion.  Now Spines on Stalkers is a bit of a different story.  The added ST damage is a large help to shore up Spines' woes in early levels.

 

As for exemping down, I've not argued anything about that primarily because if you don't indicate what levels you're exemping to, it's hard to form any kind of argument.  And frankly, I don't care as it's what you make of your build that determines if you're going to optimize that period or not.

 

You're not wrong.  I don't particularly advocate for nerfs (discussing things that I consider over powers, that could be considered power creep or the like is different from calling for nerfs), I advocate for balance.  A lot of people ask to have powers buffed which isn't a bad thing and no one chastises people for doing that, but when asking if things are too strong, apparently that's just not right.  If you want things buffed, expect things to be nerfed.  You seem to be focused on some dev comment about nerfs coming to TW so you want some compensation for the nerfs, I would say curb your expectations.  You might get some smoothing out but I don't think they should change the feel of the set for that.

You again have totally factored out Quills' ability... It really adds a lot of value to the set, however, some people just may not look at it from that standpoint, I digress.

 

Again, you are not bringing up the fact that fire is 1. an older set. 2. has great single target that is not locked out by momentum. BTW, I for one, totally agree with the notion that Fiery Melee should be 100% buffed (it is not gaining substantial damage for its "loss" of a secondary effect/cc relative to how "fire" works on various other sets), but that is another topic for another thread. 

 

There have been multiple sources I've heard (reliable) that TW will very likely be nerfed. I'm not going to name the names of which developers, but I'm afraid the nerf looks very likely at this point. I have many characters with TW that are 50'd, have full incarnates, and were made around its potential, it would be a shame to have all of that wasted and "dustbin" characters I've already worked hard and done really difficult tasks with. 

 

And that brings me to asking for changes to make those characters not just "dustbins," giving TW animations, and different feels would go a lot better for me. What I am asking for is not to make it more powerful, what I am asking for is when/if the nerf happens, that it gets to have some gems too. I think a lot of people would appreciate more costumization and a smoother feel for the set to not have it feel so drastic in and out of momentum. Given that TW/Bio is the most popular combination in Scrappers, so much so it beats Elec/Shield, a LOT of people would be heavily impacted by this.

 

Yes, this is based upon hypotheticals, but this is what forums are made for, changes and hypotheticals. Nerfs to TW are not new, or ubsubstantiated claims. Further, "curb your expectations" is rather rash, making a suggestion in the suggestion forum to change things that many view as negatives about the set before the nerf happens so that people possibly get these QoL changes to off-set some of the backlash/dustbining of their characters would really help ease the nerfing of it. I did not say that I "expect" them to do these things, these are suggestions. 

 

You know what's a perfect example of not giving gems after a very hefty nerfbat to a set that was very powerful that to this day is hanging on by a thread?

 

Mind Control. 

 

I'm aware that HC is very different, but at the same time, it is an example of what can happen when you take an ironcore nerfbat to a set and just hammer it into the ground without ANY QoL improvements/changes.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Zeraphia

[kenlon]

I don't even know why you're discussing TW AoE like that's the important part of the set when it outdamages every other melee set in ST damage, and then adds in the AoE on top of it.

 

TW badly needs a rebalance, and to be made less terrible to play at the same time. Speed up some animations, bring the damage/endurance use back in line with the standard formulas, etc. Not to nerf it into uselessness, but to make it not hands-down superior to every other option.

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, kenlon said:

I don't even know why you're discussing TW AoE like that's the important part of the set when it outdamages every other melee set in ST damage, and then adds in the AoE on top of it.

The context of the thread was the early levels which was why I brought up AoE damage.

 

1 hour ago, kenlon said:

TW badly needs a rebalance, and to be made less terrible to play at the same time. Speed up some animations, bring the damage/endurance use back in line with the standard formulas, etc. Not to nerf it into uselessness, but to make it not hands-down superior to every other option.

With the context of the OP saying that the set will get a pass over with an eye for balancing the set, I'm not opposed to changes to the set, but I will mention this part of your post sounds a lot like homogenization of the set.  Just sand everything down until everything is just a different visual for the same effects moreso than it is now.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

The context of the thread was the early levels which was why I brought up AoE damage.

 

Can you define early levels? Like, what level would you cutoff the "Early" point from?