Overwhelming Overpower: A Controller Inherent Buff - Control AVs and GMs!

[Doomrider]

26 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

To be fair the main premise of the this proposal was that (per the OP) much of the Controller's main arsenal is rendered ineffective against AVs/GMs, due to the high amounts of magnitude protection that they have. While it's true that I pinged @Sovera because of their interest in improving Controllers, and thought it might have aligned with their desire to see them better, my main intent here was always to just make the Controller more able to lock down stronger targets.

 

So unless the premise of "the Controller's primary powerset just doesn't work when fighting against AVs/GMs" is incorrect, I can't really agree with the idea that my suggestion is based on shaky reasoning. I never made a judgement call on whether or not they were over or undervalued...just that the Controller's primary was rendered ineffective against them due to their high protection levels. And that's what my suggestion was aimed at resolving.

 

For the most part, I actually think Controllers are in a fine spot - but it does seem quite clear that that's not the case for some people. I believe @BitCook for example has stated similar things in the past, such as here. Personally, the only annoyance I really have is the fact that they can't really lock down tougher targets alone. Overwhelming Overpower was designed to 'scale' the binary nature of status effects to one or two Controllers: when there isn't enough magnitude on the team to break down a tougher target's protection. I.e. affect AVs/GMs to some degree, but not completely lock them down.

The reason I play a Controller is because I like the way their status effects work. If I wanted stronger buffs/debuffs, I'd roll a Defender. While I won't object to improving this side of Controllers (Ice Control's secondary effects of recharge debuffs are a nice touch for instance), it isn't personally a priority to me.

 

Sure, taking an AV/GM out of the fight for a little while mightn't be as effective as actually debuffing them or something like that...but personally, I don't really see an issue there. The game's easy enough that I don't need to play 'optimally' - I just wish I could actually use my powers and feel like they have an impact: and for a Controller IMO, that's in personally being able to lock down the battlefield, including AVs/GMs from time to time. Hence again, Overwhelming Overpower.

It's a flawed premise because the AV fights don't last long enough on a full team for any amount of lock down to matter. So regardless of the intent of the proposal, it's impact would largely go unnoticed. Until AV's, outside of a few instances, scale to provide some kind of actual threat, I really can't see that changing. 

I would like Controllers to have some kind of impact in those fights as well but it's a multi-facet problem, one that increasing the small likelihood of lockdown is not going to solve IMO. 
Look at the other side of the coin, perhaps it's not Controllers that need adjustments to make them feel impactful in these kind of fights but maybe it's AV mechanics in general that need looking at. /shrug






 

[Blackfeather]

2 hours ago, Doomrider said:

It's a flawed premise because the AV fights don't last long enough on a full team for any amount of lock down to matter. So regardless of the intent of the proposal, it's impact would largely go unnoticed. Until AV's, outside of a few instances, scale to provide some kind of actual threat, I really can't see that changing. 

I would like Controllers to have some kind of impact in those fights as well but it's a multi-facet problem, one that increasing the small likelihood of lockdown is not going to solve IMO. 
Look at the other side of the coin, perhaps it's not Controllers that need adjustments to make them feel impactful in these kind of fights but maybe it's AV mechanics in general that need looking at. /shrug

Well, that's the thing: I'm not talking about whether or not status effects matter to a fight. The situation at hand that I want to resolve is having them work in the first place, without the need of the Purple Triangles. The intent of Overwhelming Overpower is to enable that.

 

I...don't really see how that's flawed? I'm not trying to solve whatever problem of "feeling impactful", because I think Controllers already feel impactful to me. I just would like to be able to lock down AVs/GMs with their powers in some way, and this was the suggestion that I came up with as a result of that.

[Blackfeather]

On 10/16/2020 at 4:08 AM, Uun said:

End-game teams steamroll through mobs so quickly (even at +4) that there's no point in mezzing or debuffing them.

Hmmm...is that really a "Controller" issue in that case? If "enemies die too quickly for effects other than damage to matter" is the issue you've got with the archetype, it sounds like you're talking about an overall game issue that needs to be addressed, rather than a Controller problem - I for one quite enjoy how they play for instance. Status effects are fun!

 

I think @BitCook has said similar things, such as in this post, and @Sovera has said the same here.

[dangeraaron10]

I love the idea of utilizing a Break Bar ala. Guild Wars 2.  Any sort of Control type power would knock it down, and this would work for a control on any AT (like ones from Epic Pools, Blaster Manipulation, or secondary effects from certain powersets like Ice Blast), but Controllers and Dominators would do more "damage" to the Break Bar.  Perhaps once this Break Bar is broken, the AV/GM gets briefly stunned before flooring its Resistance and Regeneration for a short while.  This opens up the possibility of AV/GM hunting for low-damage powersets that include controls but not specific powers that reduce these stats (like in Traps or Radiation, etc.).  

 

However, Doomrider brought up a good point that AVs/GMs don't really last all that long to make such a thing worth it.  Plus, the game has already suffered from power creep since Incarnate Powers were introduced without much accompanying Incarnate Content.  I feel like something akin to a Break Bar mechanic should be looked at if Homecoming ever decides to add content meant to challenge Incarnates or beefs up old content to make such a mechanic worth while.  

[Blackfeather]

On 10/19/2020 at 4:35 AM, dangeraaron10 said:

I love the idea of utilizing a Break Bar ala. Guild Wars 2.  Any sort of Control type power would knock it down, and this would work for a control on any AT (like ones from Epic Pools, Blaster Manipulation, or secondary effects from certain powersets like Ice Blast), but Controllers and Dominators would do more "damage" to the Break Bar.  Perhaps once this Break Bar is broken, the AV/GM gets briefly stunned before flooring its Resistance and Regeneration for a short while.  This opens up the possibility of AV/GM hunting for low-damage powersets that include controls but not specific powers that reduce these stats (like in Traps or Radiation, etc.).

Oh! I'm pretty sure @skoryy mentioned something along those lines a little while back here. @FoulVileTerror also mentioned something similar, but different, with having controls provide a 'resolve' metre themselves, that could allow for defeating enemies in a different way than reducing health, I believe. It'd be a neat way of defeating enemies for low-damage powersets as well, I imagine! I think @DougGraves also brought up Guild Wars 2 a little while back as well, as seen here. While it's not something I can easily envision replacing the magnitude system any time soon, it's definitely an interesting way of going about it!

 

But it's something that could be sort of emulated in the current system - I believe @Replacement made a suggestion here about providing a long duration Mag 1 status effect on a Controller's Overpower for instance, which would effectively lower the "health" of the target enemy's "break bar" (magnitude protection).

 

(Will get to the other part of your post in a bit!)

[Blackfeather]

On 10/19/2020 at 4:35 AM, dangeraaron10 said:

However, Doomrider brought up a good point that AVs/GMs don't really last all that long to make such a thing worth it.  Plus, the game has already suffered from power creep since Incarnate Powers were introduced without much accompanying Incarnate Content.  I feel like something akin to a Break Bar mechanic should be looked at if Homecoming ever decides to add content meant to challenge Incarnates or beefs up old content to make such a mechanic worth while.

I feel like @Doomrider and @Sovera have somewhat mistaken my proposal's intent as "making Controllers more relevant" or something along those lines - I personally think Controllers are in a fairly decent spot at the moment. Per my original post, the main intent of this proposal was to allow the Controller to lock down AVs/GMs even if they didn't have the adequate magnitude to do so, like they would if they came in a team: hence partial lockdown in Overwhelming Overpower.

 

While there's certainly discussion to be had about endgame balance and whatnot, and the place of status effects, etc. this wasn't quite what I was aiming for in this proposal, you know? But if there's indeed an issue with "enemies being defeated too quickly/game being too easy for status effects to matter" like @Uun has suggested in the past, frankly any change to Controllers won't really do the trick. Personally speaking, that sounds like a game balance issue, not a Controller issue, and should be addressed accordingly if that's the case.

[Blackfeather]

Going to be pinging @SaddestGhost for their thoughts on this proposal - hey there again! I recall your feedback on some of my previous suggestions, and they definitely were quite well thought out and reasoned; I get the feeling that you've got a fair amount of experience with both Controllers and Dominators under your belt.

 

As such, I'd love to hear any opinions you might have on this new proposal, which is meant to help provide Controllers with the ability to lock down AVs/GMs, somewhat circumventing the binary nature of status effects (which you've mentioned in the past). Any thoughts on this proposal - too powerful, too weak, would do something different, something else entirely? Looking forward to your opinions!

[Patti]

Thanks you black feather for putting so much work in to making controllers more controlly.

[Blackfeather]

5 hours ago, Patti said:

Thanks you black feather for putting so much work in to making controllers more controlly.

Oh, thank you! That was a lot of notifications I woke up to, was a pleasant surprise. 😄

[Blackfeather]

Also going to ping @Steampunkette about this - hello there! I've seen you around the forums talking about the binary nature of control powers against enemies and the like. While this proposal of mine isn't quite designed to change it completely, I do think this proposal does help to alleviate it somewhat against enemies with higher amounts of protection that a Controller can dish out, allowing their powers to work on them, if not all the time, then sometimes.

 

As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on Overwhelming Overpower, and whether or not it'd be something you'd be interested in seeing with the archetype. From the looks of it, it sounds like you've a fair amount of experience with Controllers/Dominators, so would love to hear your response!

Edited October 23, 2020 by Blackfeather

[Blackfeather]

Hello @honoroit! I noticed you mentioning that you primarily play Controllers and Dominators a little while back. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on this proposal to modify the Controller's inherent somewhat, allowing their powers to affect AVs/GMs more easily, even without the adequate magnitude to outright override the protection levels they possess.

 

What do you think: would this be something of interest to you, is it overpowered/underpowered, would you do something else entirely? Looking forward to your response! 😄

[honoroit]

HI!

12 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

Hello @honoroit! I noticed you mentioning that you primarily play Controllers and Dominators a little while back. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on this proposal to modify the Controller's inherent somewhat, allowing their powers to affect AVs/GMs more easily, even without the adequate magnitude to outright override the protection levels they possess.

 

What do you think: would this be something of interest to you, is it overpowered/underpowered, would you do something else entirely? Looking forward to your response! 😄

 

As it is now, I rarely play a controller vs dominator, and only if I'm itching for a def secondary. See I like CC, and controller is... well... underpowered.

 

If I slot illu like I'm doing damage, why don't I just make a fortunata and wreck stuff - i don't need decoys.

/thermal is fun to have as a secondary. there's others.  illu/poison, i guess...

 

But you can't beat double magnitude on a button you can make perma, that also comes with an end fillup.  powers like telekinesis are worth the toggle on an av - its a mag6 base to further holds you spam, secondaries on dom with effects like disorient are one-hit-stunning bosses.

 

if you like CC, a healthy damage scaling, super aggro playstyle (anything/savage)... and you know how to build out perma/near perma dom (you don't even need to take hasten on an elec/earth, slot all the kb for the recharge)

 

By comparison, controller is a wet noodle, and debatably you'd do better with a def if what you want is a strong def set as primary.

 

If anything, imo your suggestion is too low a mag bump for controllers - though I like it.  I can ALWAYS be mag 6 holds on a dom, and the extra mag from domination comes with duration boost.

 

In today's breakneck speed where the CC character needs impact NOW or its dead, where we don't have time for 2 slow casts, or an AV half dead before you get the player satisfaction of seeing it controlled (and then that control on controller wears off super quick because you cannot keep stacking mag)... controllers need a buff.

 

I don't want to hear about 'well controllers can have kin/dark affinity and that's great and because heals and things... so they should have weak control...' or 'you can stack -tohit with controller better and that works at high levels and everything!' - nonsense!

 

As is, hands down, all over, in every way, a dominator is superior to a controller - at the 'control' part.

 

So give them something. take your suggestion, and x2 all those percent chances.  I do like how it can do battle flow twisting stuff like insta cc a giant monster, rarely. fun though - and that'd be the point, one might hope.

 

[Blackfeather]

44 minutes ago, honoroit said:

HI!

 

As it is now, I rarely play a controller vs dominator, and only if I'm itching for a def secondary. See I like CC, and controller is... well... underpowered.

 

If I slot illu like I'm doing damage, why don't I just make a fortunata and wreck stuff - i don't need decoys.

/thermal is fun to have as a secondary. there's others.  illu/poison, i guess...

 

But you can't beat double magnitude on a button you can make perma, that also comes with an end fillup.  powers like telekinesis are worth the toggle on an av - its a mag6 base to further holds you spam, secondaries on dom with effects like disorient are one-hit-stunning bosses.

 

if you like CC, a healthy damage scaling, super aggro playstyle (anything/savage)... and you know how to build out perma/near perma dom (you don't even need to take hasten on an elec/earth, slot all the kb for the recharge)

 

By comparison, controller is a wet noodle, and debatably you'd do better with a def if what you want is a strong def set as primary.

 

If anything, imo your suggestion is too low a mag bump for controllers - though I like it.  I can ALWAYS be mag 6 holds on a dom, and the extra mag from domination comes with duration boost.

 

In today's breakneck speed where the CC character needs impact NOW or its dead, where we don't have time for 2 slow casts, or an AV half dead before you get the player satisfaction of seeing it controlled (and then that control on controller wears off super quick because you cannot keep stacking mag)... controllers need a buff.

 

I don't want to hear about 'well controllers can have kin/dark affinity and that's great and because heals and things... so they should have weak control...' or 'you can stack -tohit with controller better and that works at high levels and everything!' - nonsense!

 

As is, hands down, all over, in every way, a dominator is superior to a controller - at the 'control' part.

 

So give them something. take your suggestion, and x2 all those percent chances.  I do like how it can do battle flow twisting stuff like insta cc a giant monster, rarely. fun though - and that'd be the point, one might hope.

First of all, thank you very much for your response! I did indeed create this proposal with fun as a large part of it - personally it doesn't make much sense that a Controller needs the AV to "let" them get locked down via the whole Purple Triangles mechanic, so I thought Overwhelming Overpower would help fill in the gaps a little. I wanted to create a proposal that increased the Controller's potency with status effect powers, but also provide them with a separate niche to Dominators. I figured the difference there was "potentially more powerful, but higher variance" (Controller) and "consistently strong, but lower peak" (Dominator), especially considering that Controllers already have a chance based mechanic attached to them.

 

The "speed" of the game was definitely a point brought up by some other users in this thread. I believe @Doomrider has said such things, as has @Sovera and @Uun. I do wonder a little if that's more of a balance issue than something to be dealt with on the archetype level, but that's neither here nor there. I'm glad to hear that you like where this proposal is going! Dominators are indeed currently the clear better choice when it comes to actually locking down the battlefield, and I wanted to even this out somewhat, in the Controller's own, unique way.

 

Out of curiosity, what do you think of the whole +Chance to Overpower proposal that came along with the original post? I envisioned it as a more dynamic way of increasing the chance of an Overpower as compared to just upping the chances of it occurring across the board (e.g. the more magnitude stacked on an enemy, the higher the chance of triggering an Overpower). Did any of them strike your fancy/thought of a potential alternative way of increasing the Chance to Overpower dynamically?

[honoroit]

1 hour ago, Blackfeather said:

First of all, thank you very much for your response! I did indeed create this proposal with fun as a large part of it - personally it doesn't make much sense that a Controller needs the AV to "let" them get locked down via the whole Purple Triangles mechanic, so I thought Overwhelming Overpower would help fill in the gaps a little. I wanted to create a proposal that increased the Controller's potency with status effect powers, but also provide them with a separate niche to Dominators. I figured the difference there was "potentially more powerful, but higher variance" (Controller) and "consistently strong, but lower peak" (Dominator), especially considering that Controllers already have a chance based mechanic attached to them.

 

The "speed" of the game was definitely a point brought up by some other users in this thread. I believe @Doomrider has said such things, as has @Sovera and @Uun. I do wonder a little if that's more of a balance issue than something to be dealt with on the archetype level, but that's neither here nor there. I'm glad to hear that you like where this proposal is going! Dominators are indeed currently the clear better choice when it comes to actually locking down the battlefield, and I wanted to even this out somewhat, in the Controller's own, unique way.

 

Out of curiosity, what do you think of the whole +Chance to Overpower proposal that came along with the original post? I envisioned it as a more dynamic way of increasing the chance of an Overpower as compared to just upping the chances of it occurring across the board (e.g. the more magnitude stacked on an enemy, the higher the chance of triggering an Overpower). Did any of them strike your fancy/thought of a potential alternative way of increasing the Chance to Overpower dynamically?

I think a lot of what you suggest would elegantly, and uniquely empower and differentiate the controller AT.

 

however, I also think simple is very good for getting things done and the key point we'd agree on is: controllers cannot control things well enough. 

 

this might be best solved by making them just apply mag bonus (or override) more frequently - and reach higher overlapped stacks of it for AVs etc.  simpler is easier to implement, simple might get done.

Edited October 23, 2020 by honoroit

[Blackfeather]

1 hour ago, honoroit said:

I think a lot of what you suggest would elegantly, and uniquely empower and differentiate the controller AT.

 

however, I also think simple is very good for getting things done and the key point we'd agree on is: controllers cannot control things well enough. 

 

this might be best solved by making them just apply mag bonus (or override) more frequently - and reach higher overlapped stacks of it for AVs etc.  simpler is easier to implement, simple might get done.

Well...I suppose that's true - something I found a little difficult was trying to avoid stepping on the Dominator's toes while thinking about changes to the Controller's inherent. Perma-Domination's big draws are its reliable, powerful controls, but it does take some work to achieve in the form of some IO bonus slotting. So I wanted to find something that could match both perma and non-perma Domination for the Controller: unfortunately I'm not sufficiently experienced with math to say whether or not upping the chances of and Overwhelming Overpower would make it more/less effective compared to a Dominator that's either perma/non-perma.

 

But I suppose if that's the case, I can't very well say that +Chance to Overpower is any better in that regard: having an outright higher chance across the board might work out quite well in practice, true!

[honoroit]

Whatever you advise, it needs to be mechanically:

 

Snappy, quickfast, hocus pocus, cloud of smoke bs. 'you can't move'. There's no time! 

 

Like Illu control blind, but then it did the hold. 

 

[Blackfeather]

2 minutes ago, honoroit said:

Whatever you advise, it needs to be mechanically:

Spoiler

Snappy, quickfast, hocus pocus, cloud of smoke bs. 'you can't move'. There's no time! 

 

Like Illu control blind, but then it did the hold.

Hahah! Oh for sure - providing some way of indicating that impact I definitely wanted to do. Hence the whole Overpower!! with extra exclamation marks on the end to denote it being stronger than usual in that table. Status effects are certainly quite potent things, and I wanted to capture the feeling of the Controller putting all of their effort into one big lockdown power with this proposal...getting the nuts and bolts of it, figuring out a nice balance of numbers, etc. is the hard part, sadly! 😅

[honoroit]

9 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

Hahah! Oh for sure - providing some way of indicating that impact I definitely wanted to do. Hence the whole Overpower!! with extra exclamation marks on the end to denote it being stronger than usual in that table. Status effects are certainly quite potent things, and I wanted to capture the feeling of the Controller putting all of their effort into one big lockdown power with this proposal...getting the nuts and bolts of it, figuring out a nice balance of numbers, etc. is the hard part, sadly! 😅

What I mean is, you can afford to be aggressive on the chances for an extra exclamation mark override to occur, especially at the low end of the scale, I'd say (eg 60% boss) . Then something big like Mega octopus boss: 1/40, 1/30, not 1/100.  punchy! 

Edited October 24, 2020 by honoroit

[Blackfeather]

3 minutes ago, honoroit said:

What I mean is, you can afford to be aggressive on the chances for an extra exclamation mark override to occur, especially at the low end of the scale, I'd say. Then something big like Mega octopus boss: 1/50, 1/40, not 1/100.

It's definitely true that locking down Giant Monsters outright with the current scaling would be fairly rare...I did want the Controller to be able to temporarily lock them down, but I wasn't certain about how often they ought to be able to do that, especially since I don't believe even perma-dom Dominators have enough magnitude to breach the level of protections they have.

 

Something I also considered was that Giant Monsters are supposed to be tackled in large groups - it assumes the presence of a lot of characters, along with status effect inducing players, such as Controllers/Dominators. As it stands, two Archvillain level Overpowers would be sufficient to lock a Giant Monster down...though at this point, I really ought to try running the numbers to see how likely that'd be in a given timeframe and so on...math is not my strong point, but I'll see if I can run some scenarios down in a subsequent post soon. 😂

[Blackfeather]

Additional Magnitude	Chance per Overpower	Chance per Power Usage	Floating Text
+1 = affect a Boss	50%	20% = 20 in 100 uses	Overpower
+4 = affect an Elite Boss	25%	10% = 10 in 100 uses	Overpower!
+54 = affect an Archvillain	20%	8% = 8 in 100 uses	Overpower!!
+100 = affect a Giant Monster	5%	2% = 2 in 100 uses	Overpower!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alright! Time to run some numbers with these new chances (suggestion courtesy of this post by @honoroit).

 

Old Chances

Previously, using these parameters, I created a test that checked the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower working on an AV:

• We have a 50 second window to inflict Overwhelming Overpower (Purple Triangles up time)
• Assume a Hold can be used every 5 seconds or so (decent slotting, includes recharge/animation time)
  • Each Hold has a 1 in 20 chance of affecting an AV
• This gives us a total of 10 attempts in that window

The results from the original chance table resulted in a 40.13% chance of at least one Overwhelming Overpower that'd affect an AV in that timeframe.

 

New Chances

Plugging in these new numbers, we have a 1 in 10 chance of affecting an AV.

 

Likelihood of an Overpower not occurring: (9/10) ^ 10 = 35%

 

Therefore, the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower occurring at least once in those 10 attempts is 65%.

 

It's definitely a very big leap up in comparison. Not quite sure how to feel about it - definitely would want some more feedback: I don't want this outshining perma-Dom Dominators, given the work they need to put in to achieve that. I recall @MTeague mentioning something about the reliability of this proposal a little while back, would be interested in hearing how this sounds to you!

Edited October 24, 2020 by Blackfeather

[Steampunkette]

I definitely think it's an -interesting- way to go with it. It would make Controllers the ultimate go-to control characters for Giant Monster Hunts, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

 

It would, however, often result in completely irrelevant overpower. Most of your "+100 Overpower!!!" uses would happen on minions, lieutenants, and bosses which could make the RNG incredibly annoying to some players. And make most of the power increase invisible due to the low proc-chance on a boss.

 

I feel it would be a way to help offset the lack of "Oomf" that many Controllers feel when fighting particularly hard targets. 

[Blackfeather]

2 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

I definitely think it's an -interesting- way to go with it. It would make Controllers the ultimate go-to control characters for Giant Monster Hunts, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

 

It would, however, often result in completely irrelevant overpower. Most of your "+100 Overpower!!!" uses would happen on minions, lieutenants, and bosses which could make the RNG incredibly annoying to some players. And make most of the power increase invisible due to the low proc-chance on a boss.

 

I feel it would be a way to help offset the lack of "Oomf" that many Controllers feel when fighting particularly hard targets. 

Hey there! First of all, thanks for your response, it's definitely appreciated.

 

The main goal of Overwhelming Overpower was to give Controllers a reason to use their primary, even against enemies with higher levels of protection: their binary nature does make it a little more difficult to wrangle with compared to debuffs/damage, which can be easily scaled (i.e. affect, but at a lower amount). Definitely glad to hear that the impact of that's appreciated!

 

The element of randomness in the proposal was my way of trying to help breach the gap between "permanently controlled" and "never controlled", with the intent of having the Controller land somewhere in the middle. Whether or not that was adequately achieved...well, that's another story. I believe @Mystic_Cross mentioned that the power variance here was perhaps a bit too large, and @MTeague mentioned its reliability might potentially be a concern for solo survivability.

 

That being said, I do think this randomness already occurs somewhat as things currently stand - I've had my fair share of "Overpower" occur on minions when it wasn't necessary: I figure that since stronger enemies tend to take longer to take down, the Controller'll have more chances to use their powers on them, so hopefully it'd balance out those 'wasted' Overwhelming Overpowers, you know?

 

Any thoughts on the +Chance to Overpower aspect of the initial proposal? Perhaps that might offset that likelihood that an Overwhelming Overpower might be 'wasted' - a result of it would mean that the likelihood of it occurring'll tend towards stronger targets...at least in theory.

[Blackfeather]

Going to ping @Naraka for their thoughts on this proposal for buffing the Controller's inherent. Hello there! I've noticed you posting your fair share of things about Dominators and Controllers in the past, so I'd definitely be interested in hearing your opinion on Overwhelming Overpower - does it overshadow how Dominators currently function, is it overpowered/underpowered/something you'd be interested in seeing? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Edited October 26, 2020 by Blackfeather

[Steampunkette]

13 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Hey there! First of all, thanks for your response, it's definitely appreciated.

 

The main goal of Overwhelming Overpower was to give Controllers a reason to use their primary, even against enemies with higher levels of protection: their binary nature does make it a little more difficult to wrangle with compared to debuffs/damage, which can be easily scaled (i.e. affect, but at a lower amount). Definitely glad to hear that the impact of that's appreciated!

 

The element of randomness in the proposal was my way of trying to help breach the gap between "permanently controlled" and "never controlled", with the intent of having the Controller land somewhere in the middle. Whether or not that was adequately achieved...well, that's another story. I believe @Mystic_Cross mentioned that the power variance here was perhaps a bit too large, and @MTeague mentioned its reliability might potentially be a concern for solo survivability.

 

That being said, I do think this randomness already occurs somewhat as things currently stand - I've had my fair share of "Overpower" occur on minions when it wasn't necessary: I figure that since stronger enemies tend to take longer to take down, the Controller'll have more chances to use their powers on them, so hopefully it'd balance out those 'wasted' Overwhelming Overpowers, you know?

 

Any thoughts on the +Chance to Overpower aspect of the initial proposal? Perhaps that might offset that likelihood that an Overwhelming Overpower might be 'wasted' - a result of it would mean that the likelihood of it occurring'll tend towards stronger targets...at least in theory.

Earnestly... I feel like it might be better to skip the idea of randomness to avoid permanent control. Purple Triangles exist, after all, on a 50/25 rotation. 

 

Why not leave Overpower "As Is" for proc rates and such, with no sub-check for levels of overpower, but increase the variable value to +20 rather than double-value?

 

That way a single Overpower Proc could hold most targets pretty well, but a pair of procs back to back could cut through purple triangles like butter, without requiring massive amounts of additional work.

 

Functionally, Overpower would work the same way as it always has in normal content, except now you'd occasionally be able to meaningfully Overpower specific hard-targets.

 

And because of the PvE/PvP mechanics split, we can just not mess with Overpower in PvP mechanics, leaving it unchanged, there.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Steampunkette

[honoroit]

38 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Earnestly... I feel like it might be better to skip the idea of randomness to avoid permanent control. Purple Triangles exist, after all, on a 50/25 rotation. 

 

Why not leave Overpower "As Is" for proc rates and such, with no sub-check for levels of overpower, but increase the variable value to +20 rather than double-value?

 

That way a single Overpower Proc could hold most targets pretty well, but a pair of procs back to back could cut through purple triangles like butter, without requiring massive amounts of additional work.

 

Functionally, Overpower would work the same way as it always has in normal content, except now you'd occasionally be able to meaningfully Overpower specific hard-targets.

 

And because of the PvE/PvP mechanics split, we can just not mess with Overpower in PvP mechanics, leaving it unchanged, there.

Simple mag add seems wise. It tacks on, it wears off. 

 

With an override(!!!), what happens to stacked mag on the target?