Weekly Discussion 66: Trick Arrow

[GM Miss]

Weekly discussion 66 - Week 8/30/20-9/05/20:

 

⚔️YOU VOTED: Let's talk about Trick Arrow! ⚔️ 

 

❓Things to think about:

>Here is a link to Trick Arrow: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Trick_Arrow

>How does it compare with other debuff/support sets?

>Where is it lacking?

>What do you love about it?

 

Let's Chat 😄

[FoulVileTerror]

Tactical Arrow did it better.

[cranebump]

Have always enjoyed the set, particularly the AoEs, and playing it with archery (usually).  It’s quick, versatile, and fun to play. Pretty sure we’re going to hear how it doesn’t stack up to X,Y and Z powersets, but I don’t think every fruit has to be an apple. I play this with Natural or Tech origin characters, “street-level” types, the allure being the emulation of a “realistic” super (well, as realistic as wacky arrows can be). Only power I have no use for is net arrow. Just seems to fade into obscurity as I level.

Edited September 3, 2020 by cranebump

[DougGraves]

Trick Arrow has 3 main issues: it is terrible at the start, it has no heal (self or otherwise), and it is very active making it hard to use with your other powerset. Trick Arrow has 3 basic advantages: it is more accurate than other sets, it has a single target hold, it has good high level powers.

 

I am assuming that making changes to a set go in order of ease: tweaking the exiting power, porting over a power from another set, creating a new power.  And re-ordering powers or changing powers impacts current characters so it should be avoided if possible.  So while I would propose replacing Entangling Arrow with a heal, either Triage Beacon or Alkaloid, these proposals just tweak the existing powers.

 

The changes are to 3 lower level powers to make them more useful and make the set better for soloing especially at lower levels.

 

Entangling Arrow

This immobilizes and does negligible -recharge.  It is essentially useless and is required for controllers and corruptors.  

- Give this power a mag 1 hold (enough to hold a minion and stacked with Ice Arrow to hold a boss) and damage over time equal to Stone Prison. This gives the power actual control/damage mitigation and the damage makes this great for soloing.

 

Flash Arrow

This gives reduced perception and a -5% to hit debuff for 60 seconds.  The to hit debuff is negligible out of the box.  Stealth is nice but not important at low levels when you get this.

- Change the to hit debuff to -10%.  

 

Ice Arrow

This is a single target hold. 

- Give this power the same damage as Block of Ice.  The damage makes this great for soloing.

[FoulVileTerror]

Ok, sorry.

That was a little cheeky of me . . . but it's also true.

 

Trick Arrow is one of those Sets that, on paper, is pretty amazing!  It can do some pretty stellar stuff, and it has a lot of character/personality to its theme.  It's basically a Control Set with the nominal title of Support!

But actually playing it . . . well, it never -felt- like it was doing stuff the way that most of the other Support Sets FELT like they were DOING something.

Traps, which seems to have been Trick Arrow v2.0 from a design standpoint, has a better "feel" to it, I think.  Even with the last three Powers in Traps being kind of throwaways.  When I play Traps, I can definitely see the impact my Powers are having in the moment.  The benefits are tangible and the feedback I get from the game really makes me feel valuable with Traps.  While my logical mind can deduce that "yes, Trick Arrow is having an impact," it's not as apparent.

(NOTE:  All of that is very subjective feedback.  I'm unsure how many other people out there will actually feel the same, but there you have it all the same.)

 

Tactical Arrow, on the other hand . . . HOOBOY!   I'm not generally a fan of adding Damage to Control or Debuff Powers . . . but the way Tactical Arrow has some real OOMPH to it . . . 

Well, back again to the whole topic of subjectivity:  I -feel- like I'm doing something when I use Tactical Arrow Powers.  There's a sense of my efforts contributing to a greater whole, or even being impactful while solo.

Maybe it's just the Damage component that was added . . . or maybe there's something else to it . . . I'm not entirely sure.

 

Ultimately, though, I'm not sure Trick Arrow really needs that much of a change.  MAYBE making one of the other Powers in the Set deal Energy or Fire Damage so it can ignite its own Oil Slick is all it needs.  I get that the originally expressed design according to the Legacy Devs was that they expected Trick Arrow to be paired with another Set to take advantage of Oil Slick Arrow's Ignite phase . . . but really . . . is there ANY other Set in the whole game that -requires- a pairing quite like that?  Even Dark Melee / Dark Armour and the whole Endurance thing being addressed with Dark Consumption doesn't seem as uncharacteristically pigeon-hole'y as the Oil Slick Arrow requiring specific Set pairings to take advantage of one of its core elements in Ignite.

And no; I do not consider Taser a viable solution.  Maybe for people who just play "a game" when they're on City of Heroes / Villains . . . but I feel we shouldn't have to sacrifice conceptual choices for access to fundamentals of our chosen Power Sets.

[Troo]

I thought this week was Energy Meleeeeeee..

[ForeverLaxx]

Overall Trick Arrow is fine in a vacuum. The nature of the set doesn't lend itself well to modern CoH's obsession with murderballs so the many location-based effects don't get as much use as they otherwise might. In the slower days of the past, TA was allowed the time to layer its many different effects to protect a team, especially when the old days focused a lot on corner pulling. It also has the stigma of being "terrible" even though it's really not and I think this stems from the set lacking strong visuals. It's hard to tell people what you're doing if no one can really see any effects.

 

As far as set improvements may be concerned, the lack of an in-set way to ignite an Oil Slick can be an issue. You either take another set with fire or energy damage, or keep your ranged origin power on your bar specifically for that purpose. To remedy this, you could give it Tac Arrow's modification to Net Arrow (Electrified Net Arrow) to set the Oil ablaze. Acid Arrow might be able to justify a -regen effect as TA's contribution to taking down tough targets is only truly enhanced by Disruption Arrow which isn't enough most of the time. I've also never been a fan of how Glue Arrow works as I like being able to throw down slow zones before a pull but I know lots of people like it how it is.

 

What might also be skewing things is the natural inclination to use Archery in combination with Trick Arrow. Archery feels weak overall and only picks up once you get the nuke (which is often considered a weak nuke anyway but it's much more spammable than others). Being "forced" to use Blazing Arrow on an Oil Slick doesn't feel great sometimes and the animation for that attack is also absurdly long.

 

The prevailing opinion is that Tactical Arrow does everything better but I don't really agree. Yeah, that version has more damage which makes the powers feel more useful, but Trick Arrow is a stronger control/debuff set than Tac Arrow and it should exemplify that. Lean into the set's stronger debuffs and maybe make them available more often so players can "keep up" with the faster-paced game of today.

[Luminara]

TA's problems are lack of viability in end-game play, and lack of sufficient debuffing/control options to protect teams prior to the end game without blowing their entire arsenal at once, and lack of focus as to what it's supposed to be doing (protecting teams, or increasing the pace of teams).

 

The recharge times across the board are too high.  The set is too reliant on +Recharge to keep up with the modern pace of play.  The set doesn't even begin to function well until and unless IO sets are used to garner significant amounts of +Recharge.  It needs significantly lower recharge times to make it a proper combat set.  Durations can be reduced correspondingly, but it should provide better combat effectiveness, which it can't do with long recharge times.  A debuffer who can't debuff because all of the debuffs are recharging is dead weight.  None of us like to feel like dead weight on a team, and it's worse in solo play.

 

As a mitigation set, it's lacking.  In the early game, none of the powers can be used more frequently than once every 3rd to 5th spawn, and some of the powers offer no meaningful mitigation.  -Recharge doesn't protect a team, or the player, from the alpha strike.  Flash Arrow's debuff is low, not significant on it's own at lower levels, and due to the Unresistable flag, not high enough to be worthwhile in the early to middle game.  It's all but useless until PGA, in regard to mitigation, and that's not appropriate for a set without buffs.  The set needs something to stack.  Another source of -ToHit, or -Damage, or even, failing anything else, another Sleep, to mitigate incoming damage.  Glue, Acid and Disruption would all be good candidates for an additional debuff/control effect to stack with an existing debuff/control.  A corruptor or defender shouldn't have to wait until levels 28 and/or 32 to have usable damage mitigation options, or be forced to couple the set with a debuffing blast set just to make TA feel less like a failure of design.  A mastermind has to wait even longer, and given that the debuffs and controls are critical to the functionality of the mastermind, the lack of mitigation absolutely does not justify the wait.  For a set which was designed and intended as a defender primary, it's frustrating to know that it performs best as a controller secondary simply because controllers already have sufficient mitigation to ignore the holes in the set's design.

 

Disruption Arrow is still limping along with a 10 target cap.  It should be 16.

 

Acid Arrow is hampered by an 8' radius.  That's melee attack range.  With a target cap of 16, it should have a radius capable of actually hitting 16 targets, not 4.  Increase the radius to 15', minimum.

 

With these changes, TA will be much better positioned in the early and middle game.

 

For late/end game play, it only needs one thing.  -Regen.  Tack 500% -Regen onto Disruption Arrow, a power the player is going to use in AV/GM fights anyway.

 

And reduce the recharge time on OSA.  The mechanics don't justify the recharge time.  Neither does the damage.  The existing 180 second recharge time isn't balanced, for what the power actually accomplishes, for the set or in the game as a whole.  90-120 seconds would be appropriate.

[Bopper]

I'd like to see Entangling Arrow be replaced with Weakening Arrow, making it an arrow version of Weaken Resolve. It would help with early levels as the -ToHit and -Defense will help offset the lack of accuracy and defense you have early on. And the -Resistance would become desired for late game (and early game as well, sure).

 

Can it be proc'd out? Sure. But it would have a far more moderate recharge than weaken resolve, preventing any true proc bombs that would come of it.

 

Not sure what numbers would fit into balance, but using defender values I would think something like, 8s recharge, 1s cast time, 15s duration (no stacking), -12.5% defense, -10% resistance, -6.25% to-hit.

[Yomo Kimyata]

This is the worst set ever.  It's like Regen and Assault Rifle had a baby, then left it on the steps of an orphanage where it was raised by Ninja masterminds and Energy Melee stalkers.

 

A short non-comprehensive list:

 

1.  No heals.  Can you imagine an archer, either from the comics or history, who DIDN'T have a band-aid arrow, either to shoot their comrade with or even just to jam into their own thigh?  Ridiculous.  And don't tell me to go into the power pools -- you have got no right to tell me how to play.  And I don't like the sound of Heal Other, but that's a complaint for another time.

2.  Lack of a damage aura.  How do you expect me to hold aggro?  Seriously.  Replace Entangling Arrow with Chilling Embrace.  Bam!

3.  Not enough proc-able powers, especially knockback.  You know how hard it is to slot this puppy for high recharge?  Permadom is *literally* impossible.

 

 

[zenblack]

Trick Arrow. Worst Support set of them all... by a lot.

Terrible Recharge on powers.

Terrible Enhancement choices on powers.

Crash T9. OH JOY!

Has a sleep power, I guess I know what I'll skip.

 

Pick any number of powers and improve them considerably. I would even consider trying to combine a few arrows (Entangling and Glue?) balancing their effects then add a personal (like Agility) or aura power that you can use to cover some of those very large holes in the set.

Edited September 3, 2020 by zenblack

[kiramon]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

This is the worst set ever.  It's like Regen and Assault Rifle had a baby, then left it on the steps of an orphanage where it was raised by Ninja masterminds and Energy Melee stalkers.

 

A short non-comprehensive list:

 

1.  No heals.  Can you imagine an archer, either from the comics or history, who DIDN'T have a band-aid arrow, either to shoot their comrade with or even just to jam into their own thigh?  Ridiculous.  And don't tell me to go into the power pools -- you have got no right to tell me how to play.  And I don't like the sound of Heal Other, but that's a complaint for another time.

2.  Lack of a damage aura.  How do you expect me to hold aggro?  Seriously.  Replace Entangling Arrow with Chilling Embrace.  Bam!

3.  Not enough proc-able powers, especially knockback.  You know how hard it is to slot this puppy for high recharge?  Permadom is *literally* impossible.

 

 

Harhar

 

Anyways,

 

I think trick arrow's real problem is that it's spread way too far out -- a little bit of everything, everywhere to make up a whole... and long recharge timers = frustrating.

 

[Lines]

Anything to mesh it better with Ninjas/ MM. That should be one of the most obvious MM synergies.

 

I don't care if you have to gut it and start over.

[Monos King]

I agree greatly with the desires to give TA greater mitigation. Giving it additional weakening in powers like entangling or glue arrow would go a long way.

[FoulVileTerror]

Oh, and . . . 

Crossbows as an option for visuals would be lovely!  Naturally it would require new animations for a few Powers, but at least the basic Crossbow animations are already in the game thanks to the Circle of Thorns.

[Black Zot]

Trick Arrow does a lot of different things, but does almost none of them very well.  Compared to basically any counterpart set, the debuff numbers are too low and the recharge timers are too long.  When you have sets like Rad which can debuff enemies harder with two buttons than TA can with its entire moveset, AND have those buttons ready to go again sooner, AND Rad is considered to be kind of slow in the present meta ... ouch.

[Yomo Kimyata]

This set, which I adore by the way, has exactly one meh power.  It does one thing (debuff) and it does it extremely well.  It's not flashy (with one or two exceptions), so if you are the type of kid who says, "Mom.  Mom.  Mom mom mom.  Look at me, Mom.  MOM!" then this set may not be for you.

 

T1:  Entangling Arrow.  Meh.  I have to agree that a single target immobilize power with no damage is underwhelming.  Consider it the price of admission.  Skippable on defenders, but mandatory on other classes.  If you put a band-aid arrow to my head and forced me, I would probably admit that you could improve an already great set by either making this an AoE immobilize or adding a small damage component so that it can be procced up.

 

T2:  Flash Arrow.  Do you like defense?  Did you realize that defense and -to hit are essentially the same thing?  Start every encounter with this NON-AGGRO move to make the lives of you and your teammates easier (unless you put in damage procs, which will trigger aggro.)  You can FA and then snipe, which as far as I'm concerned is free money.  I generally 4-slot it with Cloud Accuracy, and I feel the -to hit levels are more than sufficient.  If you want to floor -to hit, play a Dark defender.

 

T3:  Glue Arrow.  Caltrops with much greater range.  Great power.  It's like using your long arms to put your hand on a child's head as he windmills his fists trying to hit you but can't because his arms are too short.  Also a small -regen debuff.  I'll 1- or 2-slot it, since there's not much proc potential in Slows.

 

T4:  Ice Arrow.  Proccer's Paradise.  Put as many slots in it as you can afford.  I 6-slot it.

 

T5:  Poison Gas Arrow.  Sleep?  SLEEP?!?  Why that's useless, and furthermore, hey, wait a second, why aren't they hitting me as hard?  Oh is that the -damage buff kicking in?  1 slot is enough.

 

T6:  Acid Arrow.  Oh, sweet, sweet Acid Arrow.  I wish I could 10-slot you.

 

T7:  Disruption Arrow.  -res that stacks with Acid Arrow and everything else.  I don't love the graphics, but generally this is the way you are going to realize that you have a TA on your team.  1- or 2- slots for recharge is sufficient.

 

T8:  Oil Slick Arrow.  This is a ridiculous power.  All the floppy goodness of Sleet or Freezing Rain.  All the fun damage of, well, some good damaging power.  I can't understand the naysayers who can't light it because they refuse to get an energy damage power from the P2W.  I've barely scratched the surface on how to slot this thing.

 

T9:  EMP Arrow.  I have to admit I have yet to take this power.  I'm not a big fan of crashing T9s, but there are two things that strike me for when I eventually respec into something that can solo TFs:  AoE hold procs, and -1000% regen for AVs.  Admittedly, that kind of -regen every 5 minutes or less isn't SUPER helpful, but it's certainly helpful.

 

 

Great set.  I'd call it an almost perfect set since it covers so much, and yet isn't incredibly slot hungry.  You can do great with a number of great powers with only the base slot.

 

Happy hunting!

 

 

 

[Myrmidon]

It was hear that I learned that there can be no true despair without hope.

[arcane]

Double the tohit debuff on flash arrow, give a powerful -Regen to poison gas arrow, and maybe give disruption arrow a second effect and I reckon it’ll be just fine.

 

Clickiness is a bit of a problem but it’s not the only set with that issue and that’s not going away without trashing the whole set. So I’ll live with that issue.

 

Doesn’t need a heal.

 

EDIT: In case it’s not clear: my position is that the set needs a solid perma-capable -regen more than anything else.

Edited September 3, 2020 by arcaneholocaust

[KC4800]

Poison Gas Arrow, a sleep, needs a bigger effect radius.

Flash Arrow was skipable on my Illusion Controller.

 

The rest are ok.

 

Set doesn't need a heal.

[roleki]

8 hours ago, Luminara said:

TA's problems are lack of viability in end-game play, and lack of sufficient debuffing/control options to protect teams prior to the end game without blowing their entire arsenal at once, and lack of focus as to what it's supposed to be doing (protecting teams, or increasing the pace of teams).

 

The recharge times across the board are too high.  The set is too reliant on +Recharge to keep up with the modern pace of play.  The set doesn't even begin to function well until and unless IO sets are used to garner significant amounts of +Recharge.  It needs significantly lower recharge times to make it a proper combat set.  Durations can be reduced correspondingly, but it should provide better combat effectiveness, which it can't do with long recharge times.  A debuffer who can't debuff because all of the debuffs are recharging is dead weight.  None of us like to feel like dead weight on a team, and it's worse in solo play.

 

As a mitigation set, it's lacking.  In the early game, none of the powers can be used more frequently than once every 3rd to 5th spawn, and some of the powers offer no meaningful mitigation.  -Recharge doesn't protect a team, or the player, from the alpha strike.  Flash Arrow's debuff is low, not significant on it's own at lower levels, and due to the Unresistable flag, not high enough to be worthwhile in the early to middle game.  It's all but useless until PGA, in regard to mitigation, and that's not appropriate for a set without buffs.  The set needs something to stack.  Another source of -ToHit, or -Damage, or even, failing anything else, another Sleep, to mitigate incoming damage.  Glue, Acid and Disruption would all be good candidates for an additional debuff/control effect to stack with an existing debuff/control.  A corruptor or defender shouldn't have to wait until levels 28 and/or 32 to have usable damage mitigation options, or be forced to couple the set with a debuffing blast set just to make TA feel less like a failure of design.  A mastermind has to wait even longer, and given that the debuffs and controls are critical to the functionality of the mastermind, the lack of mitigation absolutely does not justify the wait.  For a set which was designed and intended as a defender primary, it's frustrating to know that it performs best as a controller secondary simply because controllers already have sufficient mitigation to ignore the holes in the set's design.

 

Disruption Arrow is still limping along with a 10 target cap.  It should be 16.

 

Acid Arrow is hampered by an 8' radius.  That's melee attack range.  With a target cap of 16, it should have a radius capable of actually hitting 16 targets, not 4.  Increase the radius to 15', minimum.

 

With these changes, TA will be much better positioned in the early and middle game.

 

For late/end game play, it only needs one thing.  -Regen.  Tack 500% -Regen onto Disruption Arrow, a power the player is going to use in AV/GM fights anyway.

 

And reduce the recharge time on OSA.  The mechanics don't justify the recharge time.  Neither does the damage.  The existing 180 second recharge time isn't balanced, for what the power actually accomplishes, for the set or in the game as a whole.  90-120 seconds would be appropriate.

Wholeheartedly agree with the post quoted above. 

 

I love TA... as a Controller secondary.  You need to put the lid on several mobs at once?  /TA is the way.  Want to debuff one mob thirty different ways?  Roll a /TA.  But even as someone who grew to love the set on Live, on HC I was like 15 alts deep before I got around to recreating my beloved Ice/TA, simply because I knew that by the time I hit 37 or so, my entire contribution to a team could be replaced by a pair of Inspirations.   I'd really like to see what the average TA character is leveled to, within ATs and as a whole compared to other support sets.  I am willing to bet that an outsized percentage of TAs are collecting dust somewhere after slotting OSA.  It just doesn't DO a whole lot with higher-level mobs, and I think that's the biggest drawback of the set.

 

I don't mind that I have to light my own Oil Slick, even though I have to first find an ignition source somewhere else in the game, then waste an attack cycle to get MY slick to do what other damage slicks do automatically; that's just the price to pay for having a Slick that can do nuke-level damage to everything in a 25' radius. 

 

I don't mind that EMP Arrow carried over the end/recovery crash from EM Pulse, even though thematically it makes absolutely zero sense that firing one arrow would wipe me out whereas another doesn't; that's just the price to pay for having a second, ranged AoE hold.

 

I don't mind that the Recharge of key powers is so dang long; I can't think of a reason it has to be that way, but maybe it's the price to pay for a secondary that can do everything from range.

 

 I don't mind that /TA doesn't buff the team; it was conceived and delivered as a dedicated debuffing set, and that's all it should be.  

 

 I *DO* mind that the game's dedicated debuffing set is miserable at the most important debuff in the game: -Regen; it should have one of the (I'd argue THE) best -Regen effects, full stop.  Otherwise, as a TA you're just a useful stand-in until a Cold/Dark/Rad shows up to REALLY help the team.

 

In terms of 'fixing' TA, I would rather not see powers swapped out or changed wholesale, or team buffs introduced.  Get it some compelling -Regen, increase the target caps and AoE radii as @Luminarasuggests, and I think it would be just right for those players that know what TA does and still decide to ride it out. 

As for attracting new people to the set in the first place... I don't know.  If they had it to do over again, I would like to have seen TA delivered with some of the same mechanics that Dual Blades brought, where executing A and B followed by C applied an AoE debuff on top of whatever the individual powers did themselves, or, maybe have it amp the duration or lower the recharge time or proc a build-up effect, or some other gimmick.  Nothing excessive, but, you know, something to keep the kids pressing the buttons.  

[Bopper]

10 hours ago, Bopper said:

I'd like to see Entangling Arrow be replaced with Weakening Arrow, making it an arrow version of Weaken Resolve. It would help with early levels as the -ToHit and -Defense will help offset the lack of accuracy and defense you have early on. And the -Resistance would become desired for late game (and early game as well, sure).

 

Can it be proc'd out? Sure. But it would have a far more moderate recharge than weaken resolve, preventing any true proc bombs that would come of it.

 

Not sure what numbers would fit into balance, but using defender values I would think something like, 8s recharge, 1s cast time, 15s duration (no stacking), -12.5% defense, -10% resistance, -6.25% to-hit.

One thing I forgot to mention. The single target immobilize that Entangling Arrow offered could be moved to glue arrow. Since glue arrow uses a target, the main target is able to be immobilized on cast, and the glue patch it summons would slow all others in the area. It would be fairly thematic to have the intended target of the glue arrow become engulfed by the glue, being unable to move, and the runoff/excess glue slows those around the target.

[Chris24601]

Tactical Arrow has totally ruined Trick Arrow for me. It’s got;

 

- Net Arrow, but electrified (so it could actually ignite an oil slick)

- Ice Arrow, but does cold damage

- Flash Arrow

- Glue Arrow, but deals toxic damage.

- EMP Arrow, but no crash and better recharge.

 

Sure, there’s no acid, disruption or oil slick arrows, but it gets a whole bunch of survival self-buffs, can slot much more interesting sets and the Blaster AT makes up for the lack of damage resistance (at least for soloing).

 

The simplest fix to Trick Arrow to start would be to just normalize the set by using the Tactical Arrow variants of Net, Ice, Glue and EMP for it. This also gives the set a way to ignite the oil slick on its own (electronet energy damage).

 

The next fix I’d suggest is to change disruption arrow from a stationary debuff zone to one you stick on a target that moves with it. This makes it a lot harder for a specific target to just run out of the patch (so you can keep it on an AV even as it runs around) and means that it will stick with the mass of a spawn you’ve aggro’d even if you started from a distance.

 

Add a -Regen effect to the Poison Gas arrow that persists even if the Sleep is broken (the ONLY reason I’d even keep the sleep part is the cottage rule). I’d also increase the AoE of Acid Arrow.

 

Even though the first change would allow you to ignite it anyway, I’d like to see a toggle option added to Oil Slick Arroe to allow it to just automatically ignite when the toggle is on, saving you an activation.

[zenblack]

The problem with that is that the dev who made Tac Arrow said he made a huge mistake and they are nerfing it. This was dismaying to me to find out because I thought Tac Arrow was a huge step in the right direction and was excited to see more of what this type of design would bring.  Though after hearing about the cottage rule lunacy I can certainly see the how making a well rounded secondary that really compliments any primary well something you absolutely cannot do for other sets due to the artificial constraints and poorly thought out rule.

Edited September 3, 2020 by zenblack

[Jaguaratron]

When it first came to test server teams stacked it which led to unbalanced metrics, same as if you stack any AT so NCsoft nerfed it hard and it became mediocre and more of a control set than what it should be as a buff/debuff set.

 

As mentioned by many, the recharge times are punitive and dont lend themselves to being of continuous use to a team, lets look at their "debuff" of disruption arrow as a secondary powerset, it gives a location based -res effect of -15% and a 25ft radius, not mobile so if fight moves you are stuck until it recharges which reasonably you can expect it done in 30s. Then you have sonic, which you can throw around whoever is in the thick of the fight, and do more -res (-22.5%) at a slightly smaller radius (15ft) as a toggle which is infinitely more useful to a team.

 

Just look at it

 

oil slick arrow, 3 min recharge

EMP arrow, which is crap, is on a FIVE minute CD, the blaster variant, though holds for less is on a 90 second recharge

 

and it goes on, you could cut the trick arrow recharges in half and it may still not be OP.