Claws Shockwave Needs ... Something

[krj12]

Just recently leveled my Claws/fire brute to 50, and have really been trying to find a use for shockwave.    In one of the popular AE fire farms, I'm seeing the following numbers:

T4 Spin Attack (PBAE) usually hits in the 120s to 130s ( utilizing a full set of Avalanche) against a level 54 boss.

T9 Shockwave (Cone)  (utilizing 5 brutes' furies and an overwhelming force)  can hit from low 90s to low 100s against the same boss.

 

Observations:

A T9 should hit for substantially more than any of the lower tier attacks, period, regardless of the attack type.  It's supposed to be the heavy hitter.

The supposed "Cone" is hard to utilize.  Appears to be very narrow and short range, to the point that it usually ends up hitting just 1 target.  Occasionally 2 or 3 at most.

 

Suggestions:

Up the damage, at least to the point that it does more than spin.

Either widen and lengthen the cone or make it a PBAE.

 

 

 

 

 

[arcane]

Powers are balanced by effect (in damage set cases, by melee vs ranged, aoe vs s/t vs cone, long vs short recharge), AT modifiers, and whether or not the power appears in primary/secondary/epic/pool. Tier historically has very little to do with it. And shockwave isn’t exactly at the back of the pack as far as struggling T9’s are concerned.

Edited September 3, 2020 by arcaneholocaust

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, krj12 said:

The supposed "Cone" is hard to utilize.  Appears to be very narrow and short range, to the point that it usually ends up hitting just 1 target.  Occasionally 2 or 3 at most.

Wut.

 

I do not understand the above statement. It's a 90° cone with a 30' radius hitting up to 10 targets. Are you sure you're not talking about Eviscerate with the silly backflip? It can only hit 5 targets and has a 7' radius.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, krj12 said:

The supposed "Cone" is hard to utilize.  Appears to be very narrow and short range, to the point that it usually ends up hitting just 1 target.  Occasionally 2 or 3 at most.

I’m over here knocking over entire spawns with Shockwave, so I can only assume this is user error.

[Coyotedancer]

To be honest, I'm not seeing the problem either...

I use Shockwave routinely on both of my farming brutes and it's anything but a small, "only hits one goon" effect. o_0 

[Bill Z Bubba]

OP has to be talking eviscerate. Which, granted, is 100% skippable unless ALL of the following are true:

You are a scrapper

You have both +Crit AT IOs in use

You have some bizarre fetish for ridiculous flip animations and probably also take elude on your SR characters.

[AerialAssault]

Better suggestion: make it so that Shockwave throws a giant Frisbee

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Wut.

 

I do not understand the above statement. It's a 90° cone with a 30' radius hitting up to 10 targets. Are you sure you're not talking about Eviscerate with the silly backflip? It can only hit 5 targets and has a 7' radius.

I actually like Eviscerate. 

The flip takes more time than I'd like, but it hits hard, and the extra crit chance is nice. 

I do tend to run more +2x5 vs +4x8 on my Claws/SR.  I'm often surrounded on my scrapper but not to the same extent a farmer might be.

 

I don't take Shockwave or Focus (I know, I know, I'm doing it wrong, but it's for concept reasons, I want physical attacks with the claws, not waves of force).

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

You have some bizarre fetish for ridiculous flip animations and probably also take elude on your SR characters.

*Plans out claws/sr that also takes leaping for jump kick.... *

[HelenCarnate]

Assuming we are talking about shockwave, a great way to hit more targets is to jump and hit the power while in the air. If you have 3 targets in front of you and several right behind you (and assuming the map lets you jump high enough) you can hit all of them in one hit.

[Doomguide2005]

Short?

 

Well you could do what I did long way back and put 3 Centrioles in.  Was somewhere in the area of 70ft iirc, then inventions and sets came along and I had to do something more reasonable 😁.

[Leo_G]

Wouldn't it be cool if Claws had a gimmick where it can use its own powers during the cast of other powers on the set? Particularly, using Shockwave while Eviscerate is animating. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

39 minutes ago, Leo_G said:

Wouldn't it be cool if Claws had a gimmick where it can use its own powers during the cast of other powers on the set? Particularly, using Shockwave while Eviscerate is animating. 

Well, if it worked it'd be a bug that needs fixin.

[Leo_G]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Well, if it worked it'd be a bug that needs fixin.

Intentional bugs aren't bugs. That's just functional coding. 

[krj12]

Ok.... just retested using combat logs instead of floating damage numbers - you guys are correct in terms of targets hit.  I am hitting more targets than I thought.   I guess small numbers in a sea of other small numbers doesn't stand out.    Typical damage is somewhere in the 80s. 

 

Going to reserve final judgement on this set until I get at least one incarnate shift,  but the dps doesn't seem to be there relative to my other farmers - even my fire/fire tank.   I've been resisting it, but I may have to try a spines/fire next.  :)

 

 

 

[Solarverse]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

OP has to be talking eviscerate. Which, granted, is 100% skippable unless ALL of the following are true:

You are a scrapper

You have both +Crit AT IOs in use

You have some bizarre fetish for ridiculous flip animations and probably also take elude on your SR characters.

Eviscerate is a Single Target ability after it was changed during live, which is why it does more damage than it used to.

 

Also...I love the backflip animation, so shut it before I take my toys and go home!   😠  lol

[Neogumbercules]

Eviscerate should share the animation of Sweeping Strike. Fast and brutal. DB is just Claws but better. 

 

Anyway Shockwave is good. I like to throw KB2KD in it so I can keep enemies inside my Spin/Death Shroud/Epic AOE party. On a farming Brute I'd say it's invaluable, and you can probably skip the KB2KD with that much density it doesn't matter. 

[Pzn]

Shockwave has a 1 second animation time.  It's fine how it is.

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

19 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Eviscerate is a Single Target ability after it was changed during live

That's only true for stalker claws.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That's only true for stalker claws.

Ah, makes sense because I have never played Claws on anything else. I was never a big fan of Scrappers for many years. Stalkers kind of warmed me up to Scrappers, but my Scrapper is a Dark/Elec. I thought they had changed it for all AT's, did not realize it was Stalkers only, good to know.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Solarverse said:

Ah, makes sense because I have never played Claws on anything else. I was never a big fan of Scrappers for many years. Stalkers kind of warmed me up to Scrappers, but my Scrapper is a Dark/Elec. I thought they had changed it for all AT's, did not realize it was Stalkers only, good to know.

If you ever get a hankerin for a tank, try claws there. Just... trust me on this.

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

If you ever get a hankerin for a tank, try claws there. Just... trust me on this.

I'll do that! (I'm an Altoholic, so trust me, I'll do that.) 

[Menelruin]

On 9/3/2020 at 11:23 AM, AerialAssault said:

Better suggestion: make it so that Shockwave throws a giant Frisbee

Hard pass:  My Claws/WP Scrapper is based on Cut Man from Mega Man, and I joysploded when I saw Shockwave actually looked like a giant Rolling Cutter.

[ClawsandEffect]

One thing that was completely overlooked: Yes, Shockwave's damage is lower than other tier 9s, but it is also a guaranteed KB/KD. The amount of soft mitigation in that one power is invaluable for secondaries that need the occasional bit of breathing room. And it's also a ranged attack in a melee set. Claws and Spines are the only sets I can think of that can slot all 4 of the offensive purple sets without going outside the set for a pool power. Maybe Kinetic, but I don't know that set very well. 

[kelika2]

OP if you are trying to make a firefarmer go Radi/Fire/Mu

1 acc 5 procs in irradiated ground

slot fences/ball/discharge for damage

skip the radi cone

ground smash is amazing

and if soloing, i dont know why you are fighting bosses since they take x4 the effort of a LT for only double the rewards of a LT

the Contaminated effect is neat but not worth focusing on

 

Go to the P2W vendor and bring some power analyzers with you, many firefarms have lethal resist on enemies and zero fire/energy

 

As for the rest of you, the new Artillery Set or even the Detonation(got an extra range a few patches back) set was made for Shockwave.  Also Intuition Partial Radial Revamp and Cardiac Partial Core Revamp are other options for more range.