Elec Affinity vs untouchable targets

[The Godchild]

Yeeeeah, this is something I've noticed and been wonder if its something that can be addressed as a QoL change. Elec affinity's various 'circuit' chain powers are amazingly fun to use.....BUT, when on teams with Illusion control users things get alot more frustrating. Not sure if the supposed rumor that the chain favors whatever type of target its activated on (pc's vs pets) but when you have it potentially jumping to 20+ targets it really doesn't matter what's the primary target most times.

 

Regardless of jump preferences, the moment the chain hits a phantom army....BAM, chain ends regardless of how many additional targets are still viable jumps. This wouldn't be 'as' bad if the phantoms didn't generate ridiculous threat to the point they'll pull from tankers alot of times because there's 3 of them, so targeting through enemies is almost pointless because the primary friendly target will almost always be one of the phantoms :/ or it'll be one of the first couple of jumps if there's a clusterfuck of people in melee range.

 

Is it possible to adjusted things so that either the chain continues to jump rather then stopping dead on an untouchable target...or just ignore untouchable targets as viable jump targets? Illusion control is an extremely popular set as of late because of the PA customizing changes so I tend to encounter it often in my random pug'ing.

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by The Godchild

[Razor Cure]

GOD YES

I was thinking of posting this myself. Its just..awful and screen cluttering. I mean the Untouchable text itself.

Also noticed teh chains can, and do, hit things like Carrion Creepers (saw it in the healing tab). Is that really by design? Does anything else buff CC, ever? Is CC just sucking up all the targets for the chains?

[The Godchild]

It'll hit ANY friendly target...including pets, creeper vines...energy fonts/firey orbs, npcs, etc. The creeper thing is when there's a damn forest of the things slapping mobs around so yeah you might run into target cap issues there but its more of a rarity compared to running into Illusion control I'm finding.

 

My issue is with untouchable targets being viable jump targets; because they're untouchable...the chain stops dead, regardless of how many jumps its done or can still do. This is really the first time we've had a support/buff type of chain effect so no one's really noticed some of the more janky interactions with pc's because we have access to more powers that npc's just flat out don't. I will say, there are a few enemies that to intangible/untouchable effects like fake nem PFF, Coucil Ascendants (which are hella rare), Carnie Illusionists, Diabolique...possibly longbow Ballistas as well since they use force field powers....but those are a tiny minority compared to coming across untouchable friendly effects/pets. PC's do have access to a couple chain jump attacks/effects but those are limited almost completely to electric control and the Ion judgement and the infrequent occurrences of intange/untouchable jump-stops probably got overlooked in the usual mess of combat.

 

Illusion control generates 3 untouchable pets by itself (4 if you count the phantasm's decoy, 5 if you count the spectral terror being targetable but unable to use powers on *testing pending on this last pet*) who are frequently neck-deep in melee where the chains want to jump the most since that's the highest concentration of possible targets. Nothing better then throwing out my heal and seeing it smack flat into a decoy/phantom on the first or second jump and my attempted aoe heal is completely wasted because of it. It has gotten people killed too, because I have 0 control over what the chain jumps to next. 

 

Its just...frustrating, because the set is crazy fun and quite good but that 1 facet is really ruining the fun when I have to check every...single...controller I team with now to see if they're using illusion and either a: give my team warnings that my affinity buffs/heal aren't gonna be very reliable because of them, or b: basically force them into not using Phantom Army which is kiiiiinda the iconic power of the set and not fair to the other person.

 

tl;dr: I shouldn't have to avoid a specific power set someone else is playing just to make sure my own works properly.

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by The Godchild

[The Godchild]

Woo, did some testing today....results are as follows:

 

The chain DOES favor whatever type of target its initially used on....so it'll at least try to jump through all players first before veering off to other targets like phantoms...most times, still iffy in a clusterpile of melee and useless to target through enemies :/

 

Spectral Terror does not accept chain jumps, though it is targetable which is annoying but eh.