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

[Mystic_Cross]

5 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Does Domination double the affect though? 

Domination absolutely doubles the magnitude of any mez. A mag 3 hold becomes mag 6, a mag 4 immobilize becomes mag 8 etc. 

 

it also increases the duration of the domination part of the mez to be about 50% higher than a Controllers base duration on their mezzes.

[Solarverse]

6 hours ago, Mystic_Cross said:

Domination absolutely doubles the magnitude of any mez. A mag 3 hold becomes mag 6, a mag 4 immobilize becomes mag 8 etc. 

 

it also increases the duration of the domination part of the mez to be about 50% higher than a Controllers base duration on their mezzes.

Wow....I had to do some research before responding to this, but you are absolutely correct. So, Domination...the most powerful inherent in game by far. It grants status protection, it grants a full bar of endurance, it grants DOUBLE the mag for CC's AND adds 50% to their duration. And what did Defenders get? Ha! That is just mind blowing.  😞

[Blackfeather]

22 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

I'll take a look at that sleep thread. As far as the others the only issue I have with them is the binary nature, they either work completely, or no effect. Overwhelming Overpower just continues that theme. If they aren't going to address the binary nature of mez then I have no problem with it as an option for helping out a bit in endgame scenarios, it's just I am hoping for something a bit more radical to beimplemented instead. But I suspect I am probably in the minority there.

Thanks for the response, and hope you find some ideas of interest in it! And that's definitely pretty interesting - while I did address the way status effects work to some degree in the original post, I'm not entirely certain that it's an issue to the extent that they need an entire do-over. At the very least, it's not something I can personally conceive of without factoring in the potential work and side effects it might result in depending on its implementation.

 

There's actually been quite a few posts on addressing the status effect system itself in this thread, such as from @ABlueThingy here, and @FoulVileTerror here. @skoryy also mentioned something about break bars and the like over here. Perhaps some of their thoughts might be of interest to you?

[MsSmart]

I like the trend of the suggestion

 

At this time, controllers for their name sake are totally  inferior to Dominators. If you try to do your job, and cast an aoe, all you do is draw 100% agroe, especially since must melee do not bother with Taunt (especially now since the great taunt nurf and even with 4 slots it's pretty much mediocre), results with all the Status-Effect users (almost all mobs) spamming them on the controller, who oh by the way, has "Zero" protection from it (resistance is worthless, so at best you are in lala land for half the time, way too much time to get killed while totally helpless). So possibly the controller locks down a minion, but the bunches of LT and Bosses they laugh at you, you won't live long enough to take the 2 or 3 or more attempts to lock them down. When you get to he sadistically status effect resistances of EBs and AVs, why bother trying to "control" them, you might as well use harsh language.

 

If you are going to make the controllers useful, they need a lot of real love and not cosmetic.

 

1) They are supposed to be master of the Status-Effect attack, how come they can't defend from it?  It strikes me they are like a dragon who can breath fire, but can't take fire at all, so utterly dumb. The first Controller improvement is that they get Status Protection that is 4 points better than tankers, they actually need the protection more so than tankers, that is 16 points.

 

2) Their status effect powers have too low mag to be effective, and the ones at 3 has such terribly long recharge times, they themselves are practically useless. Two things needed, 1) double the mag level effect potency of their Status Effect powers, that may make a dent and make them practical (while do not increase mob's status effect protections), 2) give a 5% chance their status effect powers ignore the mob's status effect protection regardless of their quality (minion, lt, boos, eve, av, monster). The same 5% they get to hit us despite our very high defenses rationale...

 

So I am using the authors' concept to an extent, but just making it a bit easier to do, and practical.

 

With regards to many controllers using it, when MOBs are attacking me, each and every one gets the 5% arbitrary chance of getting a hit, there is no change to the rule because 20 mobs are shooting at me...

 

Hugs

 

Sue

[Blackfeather]

On 10/11/2020 at 11:24 PM, Solarverse said:

Does Domination double the affect though? For example, a Dom's Single Target Hold is Mag 3, however, I believe when activating Domination, it simply brings it to a Mag 4 hold and then increases the duration by 66.6%. I'm not saying that is any better, but I just wanted to clarify that it does not double the Magnitude of the Hold power or the duration. However, increasing the Magnitude of the power by a factor of one is the reason you can hold a boss with a single application of a Hold Power instead of having to cast a hold twice, because you need a higher Mag than 3 to hold a boss. Same with locking down Wolves which has I think a Mag 7 resist to Immobilize (I could be wrong with the wolves resistance factor, but not by much) since it takes my Controller 3 attempts to lock them down before I actually get passed their resist to Immob.

Having said that, the only issue I have with this is that until a day comes where AV's and GM's become more difficult, I don't believe making AV and GM fights easier by allowing a Controller more power to hold them is the answer. AV's and GM's already go down so fast with the exception of Reichsman and Lord Recluse of course. If the Devs ever buff the AV's and GM's though....I would be all for this idea.

Hey there! I see @Mystic_Cross has already answered this, but yes, Domination does indeed double the magnitude of status effect inducing powers, along with a host of other things. It's definitely quite the neat inherent ability!

 

As for the second point: I kind of see AVs/GMs (outside of things such as the purposefully overpowered Hamidon/Lord Recluse) as less of a "monumental effort to be conquered" and more of a "capstone enemy flourish", kind of like Big Bads in D&D. True, they may have some powerful abilities and the like, but with enough firepower, even the strongest singular enemy can be brought to their knees quite easily.

 

As such, most of the challenge from such Big Bads generally comes from the fact that they aren't alone, so said firepower can't be concentrated on them. A nice example of this that I like citing is Penelope Yin's task force - the ambushes involved there are a far larger danger than Clamour herself. For the Controller, especially on a team, they can't just content themselves with attempting to plug away at the Big Bad: there's other enemies to deal with that their powers are more effective against.

 

Overwhelming Overpower is basically designed to give Controllers the ability to lock down AVs/GMs instead of having their primary powerset essentially invalidated against them (cycling Purple Triangles of "alright, I suppose I'll let you do this to me" notwithstanding). I see that as kind of jarring, given that there isn't really any other category of powers rendered ineffective to that level. Debuffs work, but are lessened, similar to powers that deal damage. And of course, buffs work just fine.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Blackfeather

[Blackfeather]

Oh, and should probably ping @oedipus_tex about the above post as another response to the one you made a little while back about Archvillain fights - I feel like I didn't quite do an adequate job the first time around, so this is a bit of a do-over! 😅

[Blackfeather]

10 hours ago, MsSmart said:

At this time, controllers for their name sake are totally  inferior to Dominators. If you try to do your job, and cast an aoe, all you do is draw 100% agroe, especially since must melee do not bother with Taunt (especially now since the great taunt nurf and even with 4 slots it's pretty much mediocre), results with all the Status-Effect users (almost all mobs) spamming them on the controller, who oh by the way, has "Zero" protection from it (resistance is worthless, so at best you are in lala land for half the time, way too much time to get killed while totally helpless). So possibly the controller locks down a minion, but the bunches of LT and Bosses they laugh at you, you won't live long enough to take the 2 or 3 or more attempts to lock them down. When you get to he sadistically status effect resistances of EBs and AVs, why bother trying to "control" them, you might as well use harsh language.

While Dominators are indeed the better choice for strong, consistent lockdown, especially if they manage to get their Inherent permanently up, I do think it's important to clarify a few things. Most status effects in the control powersets have a magnitude of 3 - this allows the Controller to lock down both Minions and Lieutenants with a single use of one of their powers due to the protection levels that these enemies have. It's only Boss ranking enemies that generally require a second application to make them stick.

 

Another thing that's important to note: if you're teaming with more durable characters, it's generally good practice to let them take the first hits. Not only does this help reduce the amount of enemy attention gained against more fragile players, but it also helps to group enemies together, perfect for area-of-effect powers such as one's control powers.

10 hours ago, MsSmart said:

If you are going to make the controllers useful, they need a lot of real love and not cosmetic.

 

1) They are supposed to be master of the Status-Effect attack, how come they can't defend from it?  It strikes me they are like a dragon who can breath fire, but can't take fire at all, so utterly dumb. The first Controller improvement is that they get Status Protection that is 4 points better than tankers, they actually need the protection more so than tankers, that is 16 points.

Frankly, I'm not sold on this reasoning. A Blaster is an offensive juggernaut, and can strike down swathes of enemies with their massive arsenal of firepower. That isn't justification enough to say that they should be resistant to large amounts of damage, just because they're good at dealing it. Instead, they're expected to use their offensive powers to actively mitigate threats in front of them - defeat enemies before they defeat them. Alternately, teaming with more durable characters does wonders for them. Similarly, the Controller has tools in their arsenal to pre-emptively mitigate enemies as well: lock them down before it happens to them.

10 hours ago, MsSmart said:

2) Their status effect powers have too low mag to be effective, and the ones at 3 has such terribly long recharge times, they themselves are practically useless. Two things needed, 1) double the mag level effect potency of their Status Effect powers, that may make a dent and make them practical (while do not increase mob's status effect protections), 2) give a 5% chance their status effect powers ignore the mob's status effect protection regardless of their quality (minion, lt, boos, eve, av, monster). The same 5% they get to hit us despite our very high defenses rationale...

 

So I am using the authors' concept to an extent, but just making it a bit easier to do, and practical.

 

With regards to many controllers using it, when MOBs are attacking me, each and every one gets the 5% arbitrary chance of getting a hit, there is no change to the rule because 20 mobs are shooting at me...

All status effect inducing powers that a Controller has are of magnitude 3 or higher (such as Mesmerize, which has a magnitude of 3.5). As said before, this is sufficient to lock down enemies of rank Lieutenant and below, with another application sufficient to lock down Bosses.

 

A Dominator with perma-Domination has consistent Mag 6 status effect inducing powers - this takes work and a decent grasp of the IO set system to achieve, and allows the Dominator to instantly lock down even Bosses. As such, providing magnitude 6 controls for Controllers out of the box is frankly far too potent, so it's not something that I can get behind.

 

Instantly allowing status effects to work, regardless of rank or protection levels is personally much stronger than my proposal intended to be. What about enemies that aren't supposed to be locked down, such as a Web-infused Lord Recluse? @Mystic_Cross has previously expressed their concern about the volatile power that my proposal might potentially have, and it's certainly something that I've been thinking about - this proposal sounds like said it'd exacerbate said concerns.

 

Additionally: the aggro cap for a single character is 17 enemies. It's impossible for a single character to attract the attention of more enemies than this cap.

 

While I do appreciate your desire to improve Controllers, and am glad that you've found merit in the suggestion that I've put forth, your proposals for improvements ought to stem from a solid foundation of the archetype's current capabilities, along with sound justifications for why they ought to be changed.

 

(Also, I do think @FoulVileTerror may have some thoughts on this, especially considering that the use of multiple Controllers with a change to their inherent like this was one of their initial concerns in the first place with my proposal.)

[Blackfeather]

On 10/12/2020 at 12:45 PM, Solarverse said:

Wow....I had to do some research before responding to this, but you are absolutely correct. So, Domination...the most powerful inherent in game by far. It grants status protection, it grants a full bar of endurance, it grants DOUBLE the mag for CC's AND adds 50% to their duration. And what did Defenders get? Ha! That is just mind blowing.  😞

They certainly do get a lot of mileage out of their inherent...though out of curiosity, how would you change the inherent that Defenders currently have? The Support powersets are quite varied, which is very nice, but it does mean that finding something that provides a benefit across each of them in some way can be a little tough.

[Blackfeather]

Going to ping @Erydanus about this proposed addition to the Controller's inherent - hello! I've noticed you had your fair share of experience with this archetype, so I'd definitely be interested in hearing your views on this suggestion (apologies in advance for the length and tangents in this thread if you do decide to do so!). Additionally, I noticed your post about Containment/Overpower a little while back; it was certainly interesting! Any critiques/views about Overwhelming Overpower? Is it something you'd be interested in seeing? Would love to hear your stance on this!

[Blackfeather]

Shouldn't forget to ping @Tater Todd either - hello there! From what I've seen of you on the forums, it looks like you've got a fair amount of experience under your belt with Dominators and the like. I wanted to design Overwhelming Overpower to help the Controller lock down stronger targets, but didn't want to step on the toes of the Dominator in the process. I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether or not those goals were achieved, given your experience with the archetype (and any feedback you might have about the proposal itself of course)!

[Blackfeather]

Also, hello @Uun! I've seen you talk about Controllers here and there on the forums (such as here), and it seems like you've a fairly wide breadth of knowledge about the archetypes in general. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts about this addition to the Controller's inherent - do you see it as something useful/overtuned/undertuned? Would love to hear your thoughts on it!

[Tater Todd]

5 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Shouldn't forget to ping @Tater Todd either - hello there! From what I've seen of you on the forums, it looks like you've got a fair amount of experience under your belt with Dominators and the like. I wanted to design Overwhelming Overpower to help the Controller lock down stronger targets, but didn't want to step on the toes of the Dominator in the process. I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether or not those goals were achieved, given your experience with the archetype (and any feedback you might have about the proposal itself of course)!

I have to apologize for not reading 7 pages of this thread but I don't fully understand your question.  Are you trying to find ways of achieving a new type of Controller inherent?  Or are you asking what ways can a Controller make their holds more potent using IO sets?

[Blackfeather]

32 minutes ago, Tater Todd said:

I have to apologize for not reading 7 pages of this thread but I don't fully understand your question.  Are you trying to find ways of achieving a new type of Controller inherent?  Or are you asking what ways can a Controller make their holds more potent using IO sets?

Oh! My apologies - let me clarify a little bit. The Controller inherent is currently composed of two things: Containment and Overpower. My thread looks at Overpower, and tries to scale it up to higher magnitudes, giving the Controller a small chance to lock down tougher targets (hence Overwhelming Overpower).

 

So essentially, I wanted to get your view on how powerful this might be - I didn't want this inherent to overshadow what Dominators are currently capable of (consistent, powerful controls capable of locking down AVs), since these two archetypes are the most control heavy, and it looks like you've got your fair share of experience on the latter. 😅

[Uun]

11 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Also, hello @Uun! I've seen you talk about Controllers here and there on the forums (such as here), and it seems like you've a fairly wide breadth of knowledge about the archetypes in general. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts about this addition to the Controller's inherent - do you see it as something useful/overtuned/undertuned? Would love to hear your thoughts on it!

I'm not sure how much I can add to this discussion after 7 pages of comments. I don't disagree that Overpower as presently implemented is pretty underwhelming, especially when compared to Domination. That said, I don't see the value in having a small chance to mezz an AV in one shot. We already have the purple triangles and mezzing an AV when the triangles are down is trivially easy (as is mezzing a boss). A 1% chance to mezz a GM seems pointless - even if it were to happen, you're only going to mezz the GM for 30-40 seconds tops. That's certainly not going to tilt the battle in a meaningful way.

 

I've been playing controllers since before Containment was implemented. While Containment is certainly a better inherent than Vigilance, it pales next to Domination and Fury, and we gave up multiple pets and AoE mezz recharge to get it. I'd like to see controllers tweaked so that they're more relevant in the end game, but I don't think this goes in the right direction.

[Blackfeather]

4 hours ago, Uun said:

I'm not sure how much I can add to this discussion after 7 pages of comments. I don't disagree that Overpower as presently implemented is pretty underwhelming, especially when compared to Domination. That said, I don't see the value in having a small chance to mezz an AV in one shot. We already have the purple triangles and mezzing an AV when the triangles are down is trivially easy (as is mezzing a boss). A 1% chance to mezz a GM seems pointless - even if it were to happen, you're only going to mezz the GM for 30-40 seconds tops. That's certainly not going to tilt the battle in a meaningful way.

Not at all - you've added in plenty of great points, and they're definitely worth discussing. As such, thank you very much for your post!

 

I certainly agree that the Purple Triangles do a fair amount to 'allow' AVs to be controlled. That being said, I do think that Overwhelming Overpower does provide a tangible advantage in a good amount of scenarios, without being able to permanently lock them down; any thoughts on the post I provided about the likelihood of it going off within the 50 second cycle of the "triangles up" phase of an AV? Would be glad to hear your thoughts on it.

 

The slim chance of locking down a Giant Monster was meant to be something of a bonus rather than something properly significant: I figure that they're meant to be taken down in groups - as such, actually controlling them should usually take the work of a few characters, which should now be achievable with Overwhelming Overpower, given the chance for a higher magnitude level. Even if they don't one-shot them, they can now more easily build up enough magnitude to do so via lesser 'crits' so to speak.

 

As such, I don't personally think one character individually should be able to tilt GM fights in a significant way; in those sorts of things, the whole's generally greater the sum of its parts.

5 hours ago, Uun said:

I've been playing controllers since before Containment was implemented. While Containment is certainly a better inherent than Vigilance, it pales next to Domination and Fury, and we gave up multiple pets and AoE mezz recharge to get it. I'd like to see controllers tweaked so that they're more relevant in the end game, but I don't think this goes in the right direction.

Out of curiosity, what sorts of tweaks would you like to see, and what issues do you have with them that you don't find them as relevant in end-game content than in other sorts of content? This proposal I'm making is made with the view that Controllers are generally in a fine spot...but the binary nature of controls makes locking down AVs/GMs something a bit annoying - Overwhelming Overpower was meant to try and offset that to some degree.

[Blackfeather]

I'm also going to ping @EmperorSteele - hello there! I've seen you a little around the forums, and it looks like you've got a good amount of experience with Controllers. Additionally, I noticed a post from you a little while back about potentially improving the archetype; as such, I'm definitely curious as to your thoughts on this proposal I've made to better allow Controllers to lock down AVs/GMs! Think it's too underpowered/overpowered/something else entirely? Would love to hear your thoughts!

[EmperorSteele]

WhO dARes sUMmoN meE?!

*cough* Huh, wait, what? Oh... hey, Sorry about that, just woke up, little grumpy. Anyway, what's all this then?

*reads thread* Uh huh. Hmmmm... Hm. Uh huh. Hmm.. Huh. Ah... Oh. Hm...

Right, then! My own thoughts go in the opposite direction. I'm less worried about locking down big targets, and more just about adding damage.

I would first expand Containment to cover all mez types (so add Fear and Confuse). Then, instead of just a flat damage bonus when a foe is locked down, we get a scaling damage bonus based on a) type of mez applied and b) amount of magnitude. Note that being affected/locked down is no longer required for Containment damage to kick in. So if you assail a foe with Holds and immobs and fears and confuses and stuns, you'll do a LOT more damage on your next attack than if he's just immobilized.

 

I've tried to work out a spreadsheet to figure out the optimal amount of damage per mag point per mez type. The thing is, I wouldn't want an Immobilize giving as much damage as a Hold, because Immobs are very common, plus they don't really "contain" the foe all that well, they can still shoot you! Holds lock down targets, but are also common. I would give Sleep the biggest bonus, since it's less common and can't be stacked easily (except by say, a Mind Controller...). I'd want the most bonus to come from cleverly stacking different mez types, or having several Controllers on one target. I'd probably cap the Mag bonus for each mez type at mag 15, and the total damage bonus at +300% (easily achievable solo for some controller combos, btw).

 

However, I've found it hard to work out a way that's both team friendly AND solo friendly. If I make it too easy to stack mag damage bonus when solo, it'll be trivial when on a team (assuming the team has another troller or a dominator or anyone else with a few control tricks up their sleeve). But if I make the Controller work for it when teaming (see above), it becomes really hard solo. Also, I don't think many people would appreciate the fact that it's a surface nerf to Controller damage early on, when we don't have reliable ways to stack multiple controls at once.

My concern wasn't just giving Controllers M04R DAMAGE, but also trying to rise Mind Control specifically up in power ranking. It doesn't have a pet, and its AoE controls become the most useless on a good team (Watch as your confused Force Field Generator is the first thing killed, your TK anchor is the next thing killed, Mass Comedy is no longer all that special -thanks, Plant-, and someone fireballs the nearby mob you just put to sleep >_> ), so it's panned for good reason. At least this way, with the ability to stack multiple types of mezzes quickly, a Mind Controller can still make up for the lack of extra pet damage. Other primaries that rely on immobs get a bit shafted, but they can still stack holds and various mez types, and have their pets to keep choppin' away at the badies. I was hopping to give Mind an edge in this regard, but I don't want to go TOO far, either.

So yeah, still working out the math. Cuz I'm bored. W/e.

[Patti]

Damage?  On a controller?  Ew

[EmperorSteele]

So I just realized I never gave a direct answer to the OP and just went on about my controller damage wet dream like a jackass, soooooo here we go:

 

How about instead of giving Controllers a chance for high mag for 1% of situations, thereby encroaching on Dominators (quick rant, if I were doing everything all over, Controllers would get the ability to dole out and ignore mez while Dominators got the damage bonus on mezzed opponents but I digress), we just fix those encounters? Get rid of the PToD, and just have AVs use PvP rules for mez?

 

So we can hold them, but only for a few seconds, then have a few seconds where they can't be mezzed. It wouldn't have to be a blanket overhaul, either. Right now, Sleeps and Immobs work fine on AVs. Confuse is 50/50, it's fun in a multi AV fight, but kinda cheap vs one AV. I'd probably let confuse work normally in multi AV fights until one of the other AVs die, then they all become immune. Fear would work ok (lasting until they get attacked), so that really just leaves Holds and Stuns that AVs would need protection from, and of those, stuns aren't nearly as common.

 

So, yeah, PvP holds: 4 seconds for a controller or dominator, 2 seconds for everyone else, give or take enhncemtn and resistance. Problem solved. We can hold them for short periods, letting us do our job without turning tough opponents into statues.

[Patti]

Containment on dominators totally makes sense yea.  I agree with that completely.

[Doomrider]

On 10/6/2020 at 4:57 AM, Sovera said:

- Most AVs are inconsequential. They don't hit hard and they go down in 30 seconds. Less if Lores are used. So the premise of a solution to help CCing an AV still bears no fruit because they are simply not difficult to handle. Sorry man, I know this is your baby and you put thought into it, but the premise is flawed. Even Reishman in Khan is just one big blob of HP and does not hit hard. Recluse when buffed by the towers is the biggest contender, but can be easily defeated simply by hovering and using taunt or ranged attacks to keep agro (protection against endurance drain is a must though). While leveling TFs are usually done at +1 and AVs can be soloed even without full slots and IO bonuses, and at 50 we have incarnates.

- Most packs of enemies are composed half by minions, then the other half are lieutenants and bosses. Neither lieutenants nor bosses tend to be difficult to deal with, and all the minions die in the first volley of AoE (not even nukes or Judgements). CCing those few lieutenants and bosses tends to bring no particular reward. If an AV is not difficult then it's not an half dead boss VS eight players that slows things any. Because of this even the 'hard' TF such as the ITF where meleers can and do hug the pavement due to the huge defense debuffs (which also mess with resistance based sets) tend to be easily passed by because, again, we kill half the pack of enemies in the first volley. Where it is dangerous is where we do -not- kill half the enemies in the first volley. Unsurprisingly deaths tend to happen at the top of the hill in the first mission and the huge number of enemies that ambush during the climb towards the computer in the third mission. This is where we could say a Controller would come in handy, but lets be honest: CC the enemies or kill them? The same problem applies to Controllers there as it does everywhere else in the game: press a button to stun enemies and then kill them, or press a button and kill them?

 

While your proposal tries to shore the AT the truth is that Controllers are too powerful. In the comics this is a reason why we don't see binary super-heroes. A comic book hero whose power is to mind-control enemies either immediately wins because their opponent is mind controlled, or the enemy is not mind controlled and then the hero is useless because that's their thing.

 

The same works here. A Controller before the nerfs (a long long long long time ago) would keep a full pack of enemies CCed until they died. This neutered the game to a huge degree. So they were nerfed to only CC a group for part of the time and not at every group. This eventually was worked around as IOs and power creep happened. But the rest of the game did not stop in time either and the power creep happened to all.

 

 

I'm going to say what I said in other threads: for a Controller to be important they need to face important enemies.

 

- Those enemies need to survive longer and be dangerous so that an initial AoE volley does not kill half of them. Without those foundations there is no amount of spackling over that will help.

- Once we have a 'every enemy spawns as a boss' then a Controller will be valuable. Once we have 'tanks can only hold agro on five enemies (just a random number) and a pack of enemies is composed of ten enemies'  then extra crowd control will come in handy since boss level enemies will not die in a volley of AoEs and the Blaster who tries to go into melee to unleash their nuke will be turned to paste.

- All factions need to have NPCs that do something that makes it important to shut them down. Vengeance stacking with Nemesis lieutenants is not very fun, but if they had a full set of Leadership powers then each one killed would drop damage, accuracy, and defense from all the others. While this is not particularly a Controller's thing (since a Blaster could blast those) it might work better with the following suggestion that is...

- Controllers being able to bypass T9s in PvE would make them valued. Imagine not having to wait until a Paragon Protector's Moment (hour? 😛 ) of Glory ends? Or a Minotaur/Cyclop's T9? Now lets add more of these speckled through factions and Controllers can shut them down so the team can do with the smacking? What if they are the ones with a full set of Leadership toggles? -And- a T9? Do we want to whittle through the T9ed Minotaur while they are buffing everyone, or whittle through the whole pack as they benefit from... dunno.. a pulsing absorb shield? What if a Controller stunned the T9ed Minotaur while the team were now free to 'arrest' the rest?

 

I think Sovera hit the nail on the head and I agree. Kudos for the efforts made, but this proposal is based on a flawed premise. More control, even with a small percentage chance won't lend more usefulness to Controllers late game or against EB/AV type enemies.
The other variables as to why Controllers can be seen as undervalued in these circumstances have to be taken in consideration, not just the Controller's contribution through CC.

That being said, even if enemies were made to survive longer or be dangerous enough for locking them down to be beneficial I still think we'll still run into a bit of a wall with how CC's contribute to an AV fight. IF AV's were likewise going to be increased in power and actually be a threat, I would prefer to see Control powers serve an alternate purpose or effect in those fights then just purely locking down when the purple triangles or down, or not when they are up.

What if Controller's CC abilities could reduce enemy debuff resistances? Surely that would be not only benefit the controller themselves, letting more of the debuffs from their secondaries affect the AV but also that of their teammates debuffs as well.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Doomrider

[Uun]

19 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

what issues do you have with them that you don't find them as relevant in end-game content than in other sorts of content?

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

[Blackfeather]

7 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

WhO dARes sUMmoN meE?!

*cough* Huh, wait, what? Oh... hey, Sorry about that, just woke up, little grumpy. Anyway, what's all this then?

*reads thread* Uh huh. Hmmmm... Hm. Uh huh. Hmm.. Huh. Ah... Oh. Hm...

Right, then! My own thoughts go in the opposite direction. I'm less worried about locking down big targets, and more just about adding damage.

I would first expand Containment to cover all mez types (so add Fear and Confuse). Then, instead of just a flat damage bonus when a foe is locked down, we get a scaling damage bonus based on a) type of mez applied and b) amount of magnitude. Note that being affected/locked down is no longer required for Containment damage to kick in. So if you assail a foe with Holds and immobs and fears and confuses and stuns, you'll do a LOT more damage on your next attack than if he's just immobilized.

 

I've tried to work out a spreadsheet to figure out the optimal amount of damage per mag point per mez type. The thing is, I wouldn't want an Immobilize giving as much damage as a Hold, because Immobs are very common, plus they don't really "contain" the foe all that well, they can still shoot you! Holds lock down targets, but are also common. I would give Sleep the biggest bonus, since it's less common and can't be stacked easily (except by say, a Mind Controller...). I'd want the most bonus to come from cleverly stacking different mez types, or having several Controllers on one target. I'd probably cap the Mag bonus for each mez type at mag 15, and the total damage bonus at +300% (easily achievable solo for some controller combos, btw).

 

However, I've found it hard to work out a way that's both team friendly AND solo friendly. If I make it too easy to stack mag damage bonus when solo, it'll be trivial when on a team (assuming the team has another troller or a dominator or anyone else with a few control tricks up their sleeve). But if I make the Controller work for it when teaming (see above), it becomes really hard solo. Also, I don't think many people would appreciate the fact that it's a surface nerf to Controller damage early on, when we don't have reliable ways to stack multiple controls at once.

Rise, riiiiiiiise! Mwaaaaahahahah! 😈

 

First of all, thank you for both of your responses, they're very comprehensive and in depth - I'll get through the second soon enough, but I thought your first was interesting too, so I'll be looking through it first!

 

I do admit that on some of my Controllers, soloing can be a little slow, though this is mostly an issue at the lower levels, and Prestige Powers do wonders to help shore this up. While I didn't play the game on Live, I've heard that Containment was introduced in the first place to help speed soloing up for them. I'm fine with this for the most part, as I figure that that's mostly in line with them being a support oriented archetype. I figure that if one wants to have ways to lock down the enemy and deal damage, Dominators are the better choice, you know?

 

Not to say that Controllers can't do a respectable amount of damage - I know my Plant Controller is quite monstrous with Stone Mastery's attacks and a procced out Carrion Creepers. But not all combinations work that way, and I think that's mostly fine.

 

That being said, I wouldn't object to some additional damage while soloing; I believe Defenders actually have something along those lines in their own Inherent ability, Vigilance - they have a flat damage increase while not in a team, or in a small one, to my knowledge. So stacking damage according to the amount of status effects/magnitude, I wouldn't mind alone, or in a small team. Though again, I do see this as more of an issue at the lower levels. Maybe scaling said damage increase depending on how large the team is would work as well, in this case.

 

Additionally, I can't help but draw parallels to your idea and my +Chance for Overpower thought in the original post. It looks like we both came to similar conclusions about stacking status effects/magnitude to cause a greater result! We just came to different conclusions about what said greater effect might be: increasing the chance for an Overpower to occur, and dealing more damage respectively. I do like the idea of having separate status effects having higher potencies than the others too...I might borrow that for my own suggestion in fact! I.e. having a higher chance of an Overpower depending on the kind of status effect applied on an enemy.

8 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

My concern wasn't just giving Controllers M04R DAMAGE, but also trying to rise Mind Control specifically up in power ranking. It doesn't have a pet, and its AoE controls become the most useless on a good team (Watch as your confused Force Field Generator is the first thing killed, your TK anchor is the next thing killed, Mass Comedy is no longer all that special -thanks, Plant-, and someone fireballs the nearby mob you just put to sleep >_> ), so it's panned for good reason. At least this way, with the ability to stack multiple types of mezzes quickly, a Mind Controller can still make up for the lack of extra pet damage. Other primaries that rely on immobs get a bit shafted, but they can still stack holds and various mez types, and have their pets to keep choppin' away at the badies. I was hopping to give Mind an edge in this regard, but I don't want to go TOO far, either.

I've written up a suggestion thread on Mind Control in the past, actually! Though in retrospect, I would have changed some things about it...I'll get to making a version 2 one day. For instance, I do think adding a long lasting Immobilize to Mesmerize and Mass Hypnosis would do a lot for it - not only does it provide a way of inflicting Containment on enemies at a lower level, but it'd provide something unique to the powerset: an Immobilize that doesn't aggro. Even if those enemies wake up, they still won't be able to move (which I'd flavour as the fact that the Mind Controller's managed to make their limbs partially fall asleep), providing the standard AoE Immobilize that other Controllers get on a team, while also preserving the utility that the Sleep status effect provides in some edge cases.

 

And of course, a numbers pass through the other powers would be nice - no reason for Mass Confusion to be on that long of a cooldown, or have accuracy penalties in some of its abilities, especially not when the powerset is described as being more accurate in the first place!

 

Thanks again for your two responses - I'll get one up for your second post soon!

[Blackfeather]

On 10/16/2020 at 3:19 AM, EmperorSteele said:

So I just realized I never gave a direct answer to the OP and just went on about my controller damage wet dream like a jackass, soooooo here we go:

 

How about instead of giving Controllers a chance for high mag for 1% of situations, thereby encroaching on Dominators (quick rant, if I were doing everything all over, Controllers would get the ability to dole out and ignore mez while Dominators got the damage bonus on mezzed opponents but I digress), we just fix those encounters? Get rid of the PToD, and just have AVs use PvP rules for mez?

 

So we can hold them, but only for a few seconds, then have a few seconds where they can't be mezzed. It wouldn't have to be a blanket overhaul, either. Right now, Sleeps and Immobs work fine on AVs. Confuse is 50/50, it's fun in a multi AV fight, but kinda cheap vs one AV. I'd probably let confuse work normally in multi AV fights until one of the other AVs die, then they all become immune. Fear would work ok (lasting until they get attacked), so that really just leaves Holds and Stuns that AVs would need protection from, and of those, stuns aren't nearly as common.

 

So, yeah, PvP holds: 4 seconds for a controller or dominator, 2 seconds for everyone else, give or take enhncemtn and resistance. Problem solved. We can hold them for short periods, letting us do our job without turning tough opponents into statues.

Actually, I do believe @aethereal suggested something along those lines!

On 9/17/2020 at 9:23 AM, aethereal said:

I kinda wish that AV resistance to status effects was more based on shortening the duration than being flat-out protected from it.  It feels like being able to hold an AV for 2 seconds every 12 or so wouldn't be out-of-control powerful.  Maybe with then a 2 second period afterward of mag 1000 protection so multiple controllers couldn't statue an AV by working together.  But too big a change for the game as-is.

It might be an interesting way of implementing things, though I'll admit there's an appeal to being able to lock down AVs/GMs for a long (albeit not permanent) time. Along with that, I do believe Dominators with perma-Domination are able to permanently control such enemies - Confuse for instance is something they can build up to quite easily, to my knowledge. I wouldn't want to take that sort of thing away from them by changing the way that controls work on these types of enemies, you know?

 

On a slightly different tangent...I do kind of like Containment on Controllers - got to deal damage in some sort of way. And the difference between Overpower and Domination for me is of 'reliability'; both are strong, but Overpower varies more. Hence the route I went with Overwhelming Overpower.

[Blackfeather]

On 10/16/2020 at 3:51 AM, Doomrider said:

I think Sovera hit the nail on the head and I agree. Kudos for the efforts made, but this proposal is based on a flawed premise. More control, even with a small percentage chance won't lend more usefulness to Controllers late game or against EB/AV type enemies.
The other variables as to why Controllers can be seen as undervalued in these circumstances have to be taken in consideration, not just the Controller's contribution through CC.

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.

On 10/16/2020 at 3:51 AM, Doomrider said:

That being said, even if enemies were made to survive longer or be dangerous enough for locking them down to be beneficial I still think we'll still run into a bit of a wall with how CC's contribute to an AV fight. IF AV's were likewise going to be increased in power and actually be a threat, I would prefer to see Control powers serve an alternate purpose or effect in those fights then just purely locking down when the purple triangles or down, or not when they are up.

What if Controller's CC abilities could reduce enemy debuff resistances? Surely that would be not only benefit the controller themselves, letting more of the debuffs from their secondaries affect the AV but also that of their teammates debuffs as well.

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.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Blackfeather