Weekly Discussion 57: Patron Pools

[Six-Six]

I think the Patron Pools are fine as they are... to change them would warrant a change on the blueside counterparts... to be fair. Although if you think about it, redside has to put in effort to unlock Patron Pools while blue doesn't. maybe blueside should, too??? I've only played VEATs and Sentinels extensively, starting to get the hang of Blasters, Dominators, and Brutes (and incidentally, I think one of the best epics is the Energy Mastery for Brutes). On some toons, like a Fortunata that I have and a few other alts, I chose none of the Epics/Patrons. 

Reactions to some of the posts above.

@Sir Myshkin, I think having a Lord Recluse Patron is a nice idea. Maybe not in the form you suggested (a few tweaks here and there) but in general, I would make it "inherent" to Soldiers and Widows/Forts. In the same vein as you get a mandatory respec once you reach level 24 to choose your path, maybe an auto unlock at 34/35 grants you the LRPP... then again, it might be unfair since HEATs don't get epics at all. (I don't want to get into nit-picking your fantastic idea, but wouldn't it be cool to instead of just summon Bane, you have summon Squad... of 3 or more huntsmen/banes, each one dealing a fraction of your damage and buffs?)

@Katharos, I agree with you how the Leviathan is very thematically limiting. Although, unlike you I don't hate it. I made a specific toon (an Atlantean Water/Bio Sentinel) just for the Patron Powers. Other than that the powers themselves are underwhelming, I don't see how such a niche power can be popular. It would be great if they can make the animations for Spirit Shark and School of Sharks a tad more prominent and noticeable. 😃 I don't mind the vomiting at all. 

I think the only thing that I would change is the Mace Mastery. Scorpion is all about his armour, lore-wise. shouldn't it follow that his Patron Power would beef up your armour... instead of giving you a hitting stick? Don't get me wrong, Mace Mastery on my Bane is awesome and spot on. but an armour upgrade in the same vein as Muntions' Body Armour and Stone (controller) Rock Armour would be more fitting to his character. Just my two or three inf.
 

[Cutter]

(Disclaimer the First: I look at PPPs almost entirely from a mechanical/functional POV. I have exactly one character who crossed over and took one for theme.)

(Disclaimer the Second: I rarely take PPPs - when I do it's either been on a Blaster or Controller, or a Tanker. I do not have extensive experience outside of those ATs.)

• Further to Disclaimer the Second... When I do take a PPP, it's either Mace on a squishy (for Scorpion Shield and nothing else, ever), or Mu on a tanker (for two non-cone AOEs, which are nice to fire off in the middle of a crowd).
• I have Leviathan on exactly one of my Sentinels (because he's ocean-themed, and both KO Blow & Arctic Breath proc out amazingly).
• I've never taken Soul on any character (tho having seen it I agree with some other sentiments that it looks really spiffy).

My biggest beef, frankly, is the significant disparity in speed among them. Mu tends to have a ton of really quick animating attacks, while Leviathan has "go make a sandwich while you wait" times. Mechanically it's really hard to justify taking a 2.67s attack that's otherwise identical to a 1.17s attack. I don't know about all the Mace attacks, but in a brief experiment with Poisonous Ray on a controller it felt horribly sluggish as well.

 

My second beef is that the PPPs I've tried (which, again, is a small handful over a small number of ATs, so certainly not exhaustive) seem to be way more front-loaded than EPPs. The shields are always a first-tier selection (vs second-tier on the EPP side), and they often start with an AOE as well (at least within tanker sets, which is the bulk of my experience). Compare Mu vs Fire on a tank - two Mu picks gets me a pair of AOEs, whereas on the other side I need to go 3 deep in Fire to get one. To be clear on this, I'm not asking for a change to PPPs here - rather I'd prefer to see the EPPs brought up to the same standard. I loathe being stuck with 1 or 2 useless/entirely-too-situational powers to get to what I want, and the PPPs in my opinion do a much better job of eliminating those dead weight intro picks.

[DreadShinobi]

Reduce CD of all single target holds from 32s to 16s, including Char, Electric Shackles, Spirit Shark Jaws, Web Cocoon, Soul Storm. Reduce CD of Soul Mastery Soul Drain from 240s to 120s to match Dark Mastery Soul Drain

 

Reduced animations on School of Sharks, Arctic Breath, and Bile Spray would be really swell. Mace Blast, Disruptor Blast, and Mace Beam Volley would also feel a lot more competitive with similar choices if their animations weren't sitting at 2+ seconds. Have Web Cocoon deal toxic damage over time

 

Give Patron Pets a defense/resist buff that works like a personal destiny>barrier buff upon summoning, something like 30% def and resists for the first 60 seconds, halved for the next 60 seconds, and halved again for the remaining 2 min duration

 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

My problem with the Patron Pools as a whole is that they're themed to sell the idea that you're a lackey to one of Recluse's LTs. You're not even good enough in your own right to "be a LT" yourself in this scenario.

I always look at it this way: In the initial arc, I'm temporarily humbling myself to get access to greater (villan-themed) power. If this bothers me at all, I finish all of a Patron's arcs  and show the Patron what a mistake they made by granting me access to the power. For good measure I'll do Arbiter Daos' arcs to reinforce his subservience, and do the LRSF to get maximum NPC respect. NPC dialogue is affected!

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

and do the LRSF to get maximum NPC respect

...and the Servant of Recluse badge.

 

Generally speaking, I skip all of the pets and melee characters with electric themes (or a need for more TAoEs) get Mu Mastery, other melees get Soul Mastery (Gloom/Dark Obliteration is great, Moonbeam is nice as well), and for other ATs I either take Scorpion Shield for the defense or ignore the Patron pools. I used to take Mu Mastery for Power Sink as an endurance refill for my Ice/Rad Corruptor, but since nukes no longer crash endurance I just don't need it to be able to do anything.

 

Compared to the ancilliary pools, I generally prefer the power order of the Patron pools, but looking at some powers - such as Soul Drain between Darkness Mastery and Soul Mastery - you can see inexplicable nerfs (10' radius vs 15', 240 second recharge vs 120) that really seem just to be punitive because you ran an arc to unlock this power instead of having it buried behind other utility powers (AoE stun, endurance refill, armor, self-rez).

 

I have amused myself by taking Leviathan Mastery on a couple of catgirl characters so they can "throw fishies" at people, though. We may not have gotten Carp Melee, but Carp Blast was added years before shutdown.

Edited June 29, 2020 by siolfir

[Yoru-hime]

I'd just pretty much reiterate most of the above. I have to have a very strong reason to bother with them. The powers force weapons and/or themes on my characters that I usually don't want, even worse than the Epics.

 

As for story, if the unlocking arc involved STEALING power from an Arachnos Patron, that'd be one thing (and one that you could even somewhat justify as a heroic act for those who wanted to), but of course not. Your new master just gives it to you it for proving yourself to be a useful little goon.

[tidge]

24 minutes ago, siolfir said:

...and the Servant of Recluse badge.

It isn't 'Lackey to one of Recluse's LTs'.

[siolfir]

47 minutes ago, tidge said:

It isn't 'Lackey to one of Recluse's LTs'.

Not to tie up too much of the thread on the tangent, but it's one of the badge titles that really needs renamed, and I brought it up because the name refutes the point you were trying to make about gaining respect by running it. I enjoy the LRSF, but every complaint about being "someone else's lackey" is exemplified by the badge title of the highest level Strike Force, which originally you couldn't even run until after you had already won your freedom by literally handing Recluse his head (well, technically his helmet, but it doesn't say that his head wasn't still inside at the time).

Edited June 29, 2020 by siolfir
parenthetical note to the last sentence

[Omega-202]

I feel like there's a lot of people in this thread who are giving their opinion on PPPs right after saying "I've never used them".  Also a lot of just wrong things (eg the armors requiring a symbol or lack of customization).  Why comment on things you don't know about?

 

Anyway, I think that they're fine for the most part, and some are true gems.  Mu and Soul are generic enough to work for a lot of themes and are competitive or superior to APPs for a solid number of ATs, especially Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Tanks.  I would argue that Mu is the min/max choice for Tanks and Brutes and Soul and Mu are the top two for Stalkers.  

 

Lev and Mace often clash a bit more thematically, but Scorpion shield is thematically generic and key to so many squishy builds. And you can take Mako without always needing shark powers.  For example, I have a Controller that grabbed Water Spout, Shark Skin (min graphics) and Hibernate and totally fit an Ice theme without a second thought.  

 

If I had one complaint, it would be the absurd animation time imbalances for certain powers and sets.  Soul gets Gloom for VEATs, which is the best single target ranged DPA available to certain builds.  Then you got Mace and Leviathan with garbage blast powers that nobody should ever use.  It's symptomatic of a larger interset balance issue in this game thats always existed, but it is really bad in the PPPs.  If there ever was a grand rebalance/tweak update, my personal #1 priority would be a global animation time reevaluation for all powers and sets.  

 

Also forgot to address the various pet complaints: Don't take them if you dont see them fitting.  Every set in the game has a stinker power or two, including a lot of APPs.  Just ignore them if you don't want them.  But for certain builds (eg Crabbermind, certain Defenders, Controllers, Dominators and Corruptors who spec heavily into recharge), the pets are awesomely effective.  My Ill/storm loves the chaos of the extra Widow, and a Crabbermind isn't the same without pet 6. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by Omega-202

[drbuzzard]

I don't know that it's likely to happen, but when I build one melee build or another with one of the endurance strapped sets (which I define as any that doesn't have some endurance gaining trick), I feel fairly compelled to take one of the EPPs which offers an endurance recovery boost. I don't even consider PPPs in those cases. Not sure if it's a great idea or not, but perhaps something like the body mastery (and others) which can be found in the EPPs. Though this would make the PPPs even that much more superior to the EPPs, so maybe not.

[Chris24601]

3 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Mu and Soul are generic enough to work for a lot of themes and are competitive or superior to APPs for a solid number of ATs, especially Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Tanks.

The problem is they (particularly Mu) are SO generic there’s no reason to justify them being patron specific. Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Tanks don’t have a generic Lightning epic option and I’m reasonably certain the reason is “Because Mu Mastery.”

 

So if you build a heroic Elec/Elec Scrapper and want to cap them off at 35+ with being able to throw lighning the ONLY way to do that is break character, use Null the Gull, run a villain arc, and then hit Null again to go back.

 

Meanwhile a dark/dark, fire/fire or ninja themed hero could just snag dark, fire or weapon and stay entirely in character.

 

There is NOTHING about Mu Mastery that says, this and only this elemental energy should be available only to one-tims villains (except the Summon... which no one wanting it for their hero would take anyway).

 

THAT is exactly the sort of thing that makes me resent Red-Side. Its something really generic needlessly gated to being a villain that keeps an alternative for Blue-only characters from being developed.

 

IMHO; the next actual content arc that needs to be added is a pair of level 35 arcs “Get Scirocco out of Arachnos” (a simplefied version of the original devs plans where you play as yourself... with the final mission allowing you to steal power from Recluse’s lieutenants) and “Monsters to Fight Monsters” (an arc where Manticore recruits you to a team that hunts and kills villains to take their stuff... including patron powers).

 

Then either do my idea of linking the summon to completion of the original villain arc(s) or put a mutually exclusive sixth power choice that lets you summon a Legacy Chain (instead of Mu), a Midnighter (instead of Widow), Longbow (instead of spider-bot) or ??? (Coralax are probably sufficiently neutral they could be summoned by either side).

 

Basically pick one or the other, but like the Widow Build-up options, you can’t have both.

[Omega-202]

@Chris24601, I hear you, but at the same time, resources need to be prioritized, especially with a volunteer team running this.  As it is, every AT has at least one electric tertiary pool, and some get two, which is more than you can say for other elements and themes.  

 

Regarding "breaking character", the whole system is a set of compromises when you RP.  If having to spend 30 minutes to do a quick Null>Scorpion>Null run to unlock a pool is a game breaking mechanic to you, then how do you deal with half the stuff the game throws at you?

[Troo]

36 minutes ago, Chris24601 said:

So if you build a heroic Elec/Elec Scrapper and want to cap them off at 35+ with being able to throw lighning the ONLY way to do that is break character, use Null the Gull, run a villain arc, and then hit Null again to go back.

I'm confused, why the need for a new hero specific story arc to infiltrate a villain patron organization to take their powers?

 

I don't need Manticore telling me what to do, do you?

[Chris24601]

13 hours ago, Troo said:

I'm confused, why the need for a new hero specific story arc to infiltrate a villain patron organization to take their powers?

 

I don't need Manticore telling me what to do, do you?

I should have explained more clearly.

 

”Redeem Scirocco” would be the Blue-Side arc to access the Patron Pools. Still have to do an arc to get Mu Mastery for your concept, but you aren’t playing a villain to do it.

 

“Kill other villains and take their stuff” with Manticore as the contact would be a new Red-Side arc to access Patron Pools without becoming Recluse’s lackey.

 

We’ve needed some new story content and the Vigilante and Rogue arcs were both appreciated and well done.

 

So my suggestion is that these would be two good 35+ arcs to add because the payout/reward (Patron Powers without being a Recluse Lackey) is already in game.

 

And because the rewards ARE the draw, I don’t think you’d need to add anything that can’t already be done for the actual missions in the arcs. No new programming needed, no new art or assets needed, just whatever amount of work

goes into writing and scripting a 4-5 mission story arc.

 

Heck, reduce the writing load by make a contest of who can write the best arc for it in AE and credit the winner as the arc’s writer (one award for Redeem Scirocco and one for Monsters Fighting Monster).

[Xanatos]

I think a "nofx" option for the armors would be cool. (For concept/RP purposes.)

[Hexquisite]

I seem to be in a minority here. . . I like that you have to unlock them by playing through an arc. I wish the epic pools were the same way. Honestly, I wish there were more things you had to unlock through actually playing content. 

 

Thematically, it can be frustrating to have a hero go redside just to get that last bit you need for their build. I plan this in advance, though. Through RP, both with people and just in my own head, they start heading down a darker path. Start wondering if they can truly be effective operating entirely within the law. Or they start planning a covert mission into Arachnos territory, and must get in the good graces of one of the Patrons to get what they need. Once, on live, I planned out an entire redemption arc with a friend's villain toon ( one of the very few I had during live; I was very much a soloist then, and quite antisocial) that also coincided with me getting the Patron pool I needed. Great fun, that was.

 

And, if I can't justify it in character, I just don't do it. Character and theme override raw power for me, always. I recently ran Ghost Widow's arc on one of my stalkers, Queen Raccoon, but since none of the patrons actually fit Queen's theme, I spent the levels before that RPing that she was stealing Tsoo ink every time she fought them, with plans to give herself a mystical tattoo. This tattoo is what grants her the Soul Mastery abilities. A bit of a stretch, but it made sense for the character.

 

As for the pools themselves. . . not much to really say about them. Never taken Leviathan, because I've never had a character that it fit for. How good they are rarely matters to me, as mentioned above.

[Troo]

9 minutes ago, Hexquisite said:

I like that you have to unlock them by playing through an arc. I wish the epic pools were the same way. Honestly, I wish there were more things you had to unlock through actually playing content.

this

[Puma]

I would REALLY love some of the current gaps filled in. 

 

Blasters:  They need a Psy Mastery.  They have Psychic blast and mental but no option for a Psy Patron Pool on either side.  Same with Rad mastery.  

Defenders/Corrs: They need an Ice Mastery. They both have ice/cold sets (and weather) but no ice option for epics. 

Scrappers/stalkers need a Psy mastery, rad, and Ice mastery.

Masterminds need a Psy and rad mastery. 

And so on down the list. 

 

And if you wanted, it would be kind of fun to make the "unlock" for these rogue/vig contacts, not more villain APPs.   Have an arc that is a rogue/villain unlock arc that unlocks them all.  Would be fun. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Puma

[DoctorDitko]

3 hours ago, Puma said:

Defenders/Corrs: They need an Ice Mastery. They both have ice/cold sets (and weather) but no ice option for epics. 

 

I hear ya!

My Storm/Ice Defender had to go redside to get better armor (Smash/Lethal/Cold) and gain Hibernate (the giant Ice Cube power). It works great for me, but some players aren't cool with that (pun intended).

I'm lucky that Mako's set can be pretty much seafood-free if you pick the right powers/customizations.

 

OT, it would be nice if Patron Pools had more customization available.

I don't mind having to do quests to unlock them, I just wish the quests weren't the typical "Be my lackey!" redside stuff that turns me off from redside in general.

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by DoctorDitko

[Eldyem]

I'm personally a huge fan of the Patron Pools being high concept, and honestly wish there were more Patron Pools that were clearly taken directly from a character; however, I seriously wish the arcs ended with me supplanting the respective Patron (and a piece of their power) at the end rather than ending up their lackey - something I always felt like was vaguely written in with Barracuda's absurd prominence in the villain arcs over every other villain, but dropped in favor of what we have now.

 

I particularly love Leviathan Mastery. Almost all the powers feel so cool, especially because they're absurd, and I don't feel like I need to concept them into my characters, personally - and that's honestly what I really like about the Patrons vs the Ancillary pools, since I'd had to take Body Mastery for the 100th time on every melee just to fit a concept.

I will say that I sort of hate that 3/4 are pretty magic-oriented; considering Mako a mutant patron is a little disingenuous when he's clearly giving me access to some kind of magic powers instead of an infusion of his mutant powers. I think that's more of an overall downer in the general design choice of the game, however, since my "would never use magic" characters are kind of drawn into it by incarnate progression being magic except not.

[Zepp]

On 6/30/2020 at 7:09 AM, Chris24601 said:

There is NOTHING about Mu Mastery that says, this and only this elemental energy should be available only to one-tims villains (except the Summon... which no one wanting it for their hero would take anyway).

Which is why I suggested that the unlock arc should only be required for the summons...

[Omega-202]

7 hours ago, Eldyem said:

I will say that I sort of hate that 3/4 are pretty magic-oriented; considering Mako a mutant patron is a little disingenuous when he's clearly giving me access to some kind of magic powers instead of an infusion of his mutant powers. I think that's more of an overall downer in the general design choice of the game, however, since my "would never use magic" characters are kind of drawn into it by incarnate progression being magic except not.

See, I always took his powers to be a combination of mutant enhancement (Bile Spray, Knockout Blow, Shark Skin, Artic Breath, Hibernate) and Coralax based psionics (psychic shark projections).  I never thought that they were straight up magic.  

[Chris24601]

8 hours ago, Eldyem said:

I think that's more of an overall downer in the general design choice of the game, however, since my "would never use magic" characters are kind of drawn into it by incarnate progression being magic except not.

If it helps on the incarnate front, my all natural archer’s fluff around the incarnate stuff is that they built incarnate stuff into their tech. Their uniform is reinforced with Incarnate Threads for added protection; Threads were also woven into their bow string and polyfiber bow to give it increased strength and their arrows are tipped with Incarnate Shards for better penetration. Ionic Judgement isn’t even them... they’re calling in a strike from a Vanguard orbital ion cannon.

 

The character invented all their tactical arrow loads; incarnate is just a very advanced form of technology to them; akin to Tony’s ARC reactor or Vision; they’ve learned to adapt into their tech.

[dopeninja]

It is annoying that I have to stop what I'm doing and go unlock patrons so I can finish my build. I seldom use the regular APP's as they feel weakand require more investment to get the good stuff  compared to patrons. I could probably run Black Scorpions arc in my sleep if needed at this point. I have run it at least 70 times.

 

Brutes/Tanks normally take Mu for Ball Lightning. I use it as a second taunt that does damage. Electric Fences ends up being a set mule.

Blasters/Dom's take Mace for Scorpion Shield

Def's/Corr's take Soul for Power Boost and Soul Storm (my favorite power in the game)

Stalkers take Mu or Lev. Waterspout with a KB-KD proc is fun times.

The rest take whatever fits or I feel like using. I think I have taken the pet once on an Elec/Dev Blastermind build.

 

So no more mission unlock, some alternate animations / weapon options would be nice.

[DSorrow]

Mu mastery:

This PPP is great for melee ATs with Zapp + Ball Lightning or Elec Fences + Ball Lightning at two picks. I think it's also good for MMs, but nothing special for other ATs. The concept and graphics are generic enough that you can use it on pretty much any character that can justify using electricity.

 

Soul mastery:

Great power picks for several ATs. Top pick for Tanks, Brutes and VEATs (Gloom + Dark Oblit) and quite useful for some Scrapper/Stalker builds (Moonbeam + Shadow Meld). Defenders and Corruptors get a lot out of this if their support sets benefit from Power Boost. Several ATs also get access to Soul Drain which is generally a really useful poewr. Like Mu Mastery, the concept and graphics are generic enough to fit into many character concepts.

 

Mace mastery:

I don't think I've ever picked this for anything other than Scorpion Shield, and on MMs also for Power Boost. From a numbers perspective, it's the best +Def shield for squishies, available at the first power pick into the pool and pretty light on graphics or at least easier to justify than an ice shield on many characters. Other powers in the set just feel pretty bad, honestly. The mace attacks are slow animating, require redraw, deal bad damage and they're hard to justify unless your character is some sort of gadget user or affiliated with Arachnos.

 

Leviathan mastery:

In my opinion, this PPP comes with a bunch of issues:

• the shield is arguably the worst PPP shield given that Cold damage is the rarest damage type in game, so any other exotic type on top of S/L would be better
• there's no good single target attack to build into your attack rotation, besides maybe KOBlow
• everything is sharks or vomit, so it's hard to fit them into character concepts
• the animation times for basically everything are atrocious

In general, I think Mu and Soul patrons are pretty well implemented. Scorpion Shield is nice, but otherwise the PPP needs work. Leviathan is mechanically so far behind other PPPs and EPPs that I'm not even sure what can be done without violating the cottage rule. As for the pets, I don't really like them. The cooldowns are insanely long while the pets aren't all that useful and generally die pretty easily. Then there's the whole issue of them being Arachnos related, which goes against a lot of my character concepts at least. The only pets I've ever picked out of the PPPs are Mace because they can at least be justified as stolen/modified Arachnos tech.

 

Finally, there's the unlocking part which I have slightly mixed feelings for. On the one hand, it's not really a huge effort and there's some value in having to unlock some things through gameplay. On the other hand, I do dislike having the same shopping list of things to do on all alts (passive accolades + PPP unlocks), because some of the required content gets really tedious when you've done it a few dozen times.