How is Corrosive Vial?

[shaggy]

I've never seen anyone use it but like how it fits thematically with my troller. Anyone got opinions about this power and what archetypes could use it?

[Patti]

Yes!   Immobilize or snare and drown them in your acid!

[Strawberry]

I took it once on a Trick Arrow defender thinking about stacking it with Oil Slick Arrow. I was severely underwhelmed. I didn't bother trying to proc it out or anything. So, I could be missing something. I respec'd out of it pretty fast.

[WindDemon21]

I'm pretty sure it's bugged and needs looked at ASAP. I tested it, and for one, mids states it has a 10ft radius (anything less and it would severely limit the power), and upon testing it's radius of the damage was only like 2 feet. On top of that, the damage tics, were only hitting about 2-3 out of it's 10 targets at a time, which could be due to the radius issue.

 

Additionally, you throw a vial, it should really be a location power, not taoe. They need to fix this power asap, but right now it's so crappy nobody is taking it.

[ImpousVileTerror]

I'm pretty sure it's working as intended.  There was quite a bit of testing on the Beta Shards back during final development.  None of the Pool Power Attacks are meant to outshine any Primary, Secondary, or Epic Attack Powers.  Given how strong the Experimentation Set is overall, I think it's alright that Corrosive Vial isn't pushing the envelope.

[WindDemon21]

You might need to checking again on live then. Even at 50 its doing 5s against +3s. So about 37.5 damage in 15s is really poor, but mainly the big part of it is as I described, that its radius seems bugged at just a couple feet and hitting only a couple per tic, rather than at least 10 in a 10ft radius.

 

That puts it at the worst aoe of any skill in the game, for a location power, that should have a 10ft radius which is already small for a "rain" type power, that already sacrifices by having to keep enemies in it for the damage. It SHOULD have better damage/area values for that reason alone.

 

However for only hitting 2-3 at a time, for a 60s base rech location 15s dot power at 38 base damage at 50 over those 15 seconds, it REALLY needs fixed.

[WindDemon21]

So to be clear, that's about half on average of other rain powers, with no slow, a 10 target cap versus bypassing the cap like rain powers, at (if they fix the 10ft radius) 40% of the radius of rain powers. That puts it at about 10% if the damage value of like rain powers, an THAT'S if they fix the radius issue to hit all 10 target properly.

 

Currently with the bug hitting only 3-4 at a time at best, that means it's at about 4% the damage value of like rain powers at the moment. This needs fixed asap. Being a pool power, and one that restricts you from choosing other origin pools, it should easily be at at least half the value of a similar power.

 

Any other damage pool power is at least closer to 75% for its dpa/dps.

[Coyote]

I took Corrosive Vial. I dropped it like it was a corrosive vial of something nasty. It might have been the most underwhelming power I ever slotted and tried hard to use on any character, ever.

 

Disclaimer: I was aware enough to stay away from Serum or Detonator, so I won't say it's the worst power you could take. But it was worse than Invoke Panic. Or Brawl 😛 .

[tidge]

14 hours ago, Coyote said:

Disclaimer: I was aware enough to stay away from Serum or Detonator, so I won't say it's the worst power you could take. But it was worse than Invoke Panic. Or Brawl 😛 .

I take Brawl on all my toons.

[Peacemoon]

18 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

You might need to checking again on live then. Even at 50 its doing 5s against +3s. So about 37.5 damage in 15s is really poor, but mainly the big part of it is as I described, that its radius seems bugged at just a couple feet and hitting only a couple per tic, rather than at least 10 in a 10ft radius.

 

That puts it at the worst aoe of any skill in the game, for a location power, that should have a 10ft radius which is already small for a "rain" type power, that already sacrifices by having to keep enemies in it for the damage. It SHOULD have better damage/area values for that reason alone.

 

However for only hitting 2-3 at a time, for a 60s base rech location 15s dot power at 38 base damage at 50 over those 15 seconds, it REALLY needs fixed.

I would try get some hard numbers and goto the bugs forum if you think it really is ‘bugged’ (different from underperforming).

 

And yes I tried it on a second build just to give it a whirl, and it didn’t feel like a damage power. It felt like a debuff patch without the debuff! 
Am I right in thinking mobs try to flee the patch as well? Just to make it extra tricky to use.

[ImpousVileTerror]

Last time I used it; yes, they will flee the patch.

[Twisted Toon]

So, what it looks like you all are saying is that Corrosive Vial is corrosively vile?

[ImpousVileTerror]

What -I'm- trying to say is:  Vile approves of Corrosive Vial.

[Peacemoon]

7 hours ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

Last time I used it; yes, they will flee the patch.

It feels more like a weak level 4 power pool power to unlock the good level 20 ones, not the other way around! Some changes would be good. The biggest shame is that it’s a new set so ideally wouldn’t need looking at again so soon. Maybe they were being extra cautious with this one. Damage powers are hard to balance in power pools.

[WindDemon21]

4 hours ago, Peacemoon said:

It feels more like a weak level 4 power pool power to unlock the good level 20 ones, not the other way around! Some changes would be good. The biggest shame is that it’s a new set so ideally wouldn’t need looking at again so soon. Maybe they were being extra cautious with this one. Damage powers are hard to balance in power pools.

Exactly, but as mentioned most pool powers to avoid this lie in the 75% range of damage effectiveness.

 

With the bug currently corrosive vial is at about 4% effectiveness which is insanely poor.

 

Even if they fix the radius bug it's still poor at 10% of other similar rain type powers, and needs an upgrade of a 50% damage increase, maybe 15ft radius vs 10 (rains are still at 25ft), and a 16 target cap as its still a rain power vs actual aoe.

 

That would put it in most max situations at about roughly 45% effectiveness versus other rain powers in terms of aoes, which is still fairly bad but leagues over the issues it has now.

[Seigmoraig]

It's really really small. I choose it on my MM for the debuffs it offers which are nice for priority targets but I will be lucky to hit more than 2 targets in a spawn with it

[SwitchFade]

It's...

 

...meh

[WindDemon21]

On 6/7/2020 at 3:50 PM, Peacemoon said:

I would try get some hard numbers and goto the bugs forum if you think it really is ‘bugged’ (different from underperforming).

 

And yes I tried it on a second build just to give it a whirl, and it didn’t feel like a damage power. It felt like a debuff patch without the debuff! 
Am I right in thinking mobs try to flee the patch as well? Just to make it extra tricky to use.

Those were all hard numbers. The only non-hard part about it is assuming that it's radius is supposed to be 10ft like mids says. Even with that, it's a 10% efficiency from other rain powers, and it's not even there now.

[Zepp]

Based on level requirements it ought to be equivalent to a T³ primary power, but it appears to be the equivalent of a T^0.1 power... It is slightly underwhelming...

[WindDemon21]

Though that does seem on a brute, the highest damage on a blaster, takes it to about 6% efficiency of rain powers. It should actually have it's radius at 15ft, and about 50% more damage, as it still has the 10 target cap IIRC which they could even take that away too, and it would still be at about 45% efficiency on average, which is about where it should be at tbh.

[WindDemon21]

While some outly a little higher, most pool attacks on average did about 55-60% efficiency, so for this power, yeah 45% efficiency as i described above (some are well below that like troller who are at around 30%) would be right about where it should be since it also has that debuff/toxic damage. (though it doesn't have the slow either like other rain powers so that shouldn't factor much, and even whirlpool has that -defense and cold damage too).

 

So yeah, 15ft radius, no target cap like rain powers, or whatever mechanic they use, and 50% increase in damage.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 6/7/2020 at 7:51 PM, ImpousVileTerror said:

What -I'm- trying to say is:  Vile approves of Corrosive Vial.

You do understand that its not an early teir pool attack right? that it should be roughly on par with something like the attack added to the end of the jump pool. And even then you can make bloody brawl hit harder if one wanted to slot it actually. I mean is that ever ok, for a power we spend a pick on to be inferior to brawl?

[Patti]

I think winds numbers are off.  Pretty sure that vial is performing well above brawl.

[WindDemon21]

The sad part is my numbers aren't off. Remember I'm talking in terms of effectiveness ie how much damage per second per recharge per radius per amount of targets hit. I never said that it does less damage than brawl, someone else did. I said that currently, it is about 4% as good as other rain powers.