VEAT improvement suggestions

[KaizenSoze]

Endurance problems are the "bane" of leveling VEATs. A lot of ATs have end issues, but their inherent is not centered around regen and recovery.

 

Increase the inherent recovery rate or add 5-10 points to endurance. Regeneration boost would be nice, but that is tricky with Crab's Serum power.

 

Please, provide a no redraw option. That would allow more build variety. Particularly, huntsman builds. 

 

Night Widows and Banes feel like pre buffed Stalkers. I would suggest that they get full crits from hide. This would not be overpowering, as stalker ATOs and their inherent are what make them single target damage gods. Buffing Fortunatas the same would be nice, but they already have a big damage advantage over Widows. An alternative would be have hidden status timer set to the same as stalkers. Pretty sure stalkers re-hide quicker, but I could be wrong. Or another idea would be to lower the recharge and cast time on placate.

 

Allow Night Widows to take both Follow up and Build Up. Fortunatas can take Follow Up and Aim.

 

This is a reach, but replace Night Widow Psychic Scream with Psychic Wail. Give it higher recharge or lesser damage to compensate. It would be a nice mirror of the differences in Mind Link recharge between Widows and Forts. Forts have Follow Up->Aim->Wail, which gives them a massive damage advantage over Widows. 

 

Bane mace animation need a review, they feel incredible sluggish. Ifeel like I am standing around waiting for attacks to trigger, which kills the fun.

 

Bane AOEs Mace Beam Volley and Blast need more damage. It does not have to huge, just enough to help remove minions quicker.

[Razor Cure]

On 10/3/2020 at 6:41 AM, KaizenSoze said:

not centered around regen and recovery.

Um..what? I may be wrong, but isnt the veat inherent exactly that? A regen and rec bonus?

 

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Razor Cure

[Razor Cure]

On 10/3/2020 at 6:41 AM, KaizenSoze said:

Buffing Fortunatas the same would be nice, but they already have a big damage advantage over Widows.

Not sure about that either. My Fort, who just has the primary psi attacks, in NO way feel like doing amazing damage. especially with Widows get bu or follow up, and crits. Maybe the fort does more average damage, with teh widow being heavily resisted something,.

[Lost Deep]

6 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Um..what? I may be wrong, but isnt the veat inherent exactly that? A regen and rec bonus?

That's the point: VEATs do have a +recovery bonus and they STILL have huge endurance issues. For me, my soldier is the one character I've made with the most pervasive endurance issues no less! It's almost like all VEAT powers just cost more endurance than comparable ones in other ATs.

 

Apart from that, most of these ideas are pretty common in the community and I really hope that VEATs get some kind of overhaul soonish. For me, my biggest gripe is that there's a lot of power overlap: instead of Bane, Crab, and default wolf powers having very different progressions, wolf and crab are almost exactly the same save for the damage type.

 

At the same time, Night widows and bane spiders are just worse versions of /ninjitsu stalkers. Meanwhile, fortunatas get an entirely alternate progression? How is that fair? It's hard to point at any one part of the VEATs and say 'that works well' or even 'that makes sense'.

[Razor Cure]

5 minutes ago, Lost Deep said:

It's almost like all VEAT powers just cost more endurance than comparable ones in other ATs.

Again..say WHAT?

All the those leadership toggles (from the secondaries) have a lower than normal end cost. And all Veats have pretty minimal amounts of 'armour' toggles, with a mez prot and a cloak/resist. I cant speak for teh attacks costing more endurance that comparable powers..but I cant imagine they would. ANd even if they did, that cost is offset by the inherent, minimal toggles AND cheaper toggles.

Especially one a Bane spider, with 2 aoes (venom nade and Crowd Control), the end feels great. On a soldier, sure, they can have more AoE, but literally every AT in the game can have end issues if you constantly spam aoes and dont slot them for end red.

 

Again, not saying Veats have perfect 'regen or bio armour' end recovery, but they are far FAR cry from being as bad as you seem to be saying.

 

18 minutes ago, Lost Deep said:

It's hard to point at any one part of the VEATs and say 'that works well' or even 'that makes sense'.

Simple answer. For me. ALL of it.

4 distinct playstyles (with MORE combos if you count the starting solider powers, and epic powers), that all use pretty iconic powers from the Archnos VG. A custom story arc that totally makes sense and deals with detsined ones and VEATS. Minimal toggles that cost LESS (how can you say this doesnt work well?), auto powers that are actually decent and slottable with good stuff (7.5s), leadership that is way way better than the pool version..and still stackable with that.

 

[Zeraphia]

1. Make the crab backpack optional and give alternative animations for the backpack that are still theme-fitting, or at *very least* acknowledge that multiple possibly crab origins for things like magic and give more designs for the crab backpacks.

2. Give Banes/Night Widows a special ATO (I think Fortunatas/Crabs are good enough as is but B/NW need a boost) that functions as a replica of the Stalker ATO's so they can re-hide and be comparable to Stalkers even though they still are not given the same tools.

3. Buttcapes for men!

4. No redraw options.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

1. Make the crab backpack optional and give alternative animations for the backpack that are still theme-fitting, or at *very least* acknowledge that multiple possibly crab origins for things like magic and give more designs for the crab backpacks.

 

... and my brain goes, "Well, you know what? Give human form khelds an over-the-shoulder tentacle-blasting option..."  Just imagine.

 

The warehouse is recently put back in order after the Council's ... acquisition of it from the prior owners. The guards in the hall are talking, when someone notices a lone figure walking to them from the door. No council uniform... is this a contact?

 

The figure's eyes start glowing purple and tentacles emerge from their back, blasting the guards with an unqualified "no" to that question...

[KaizenSoze]

A couple of points in reply.

 

I still remember and it was a year ago. How painful end issues were when leveling my Night Widow.  This is when I had little money and could not IO myself out at 25.

 

The individual power costs might be low, but the attacks recharge quickly. The combination of several toggles and quick attacks is really hard on end.

 

As with any AT, end problems tend to go away after getting fully slotted. Though my melee/psi hybrid Fortuanta, can still burn through end in sustained fighting out w/o Ageless.

 

Again, for an AT whose inherent power is improved regen and recovery. 

 

Giving the inherit a  boost would not break PvE or PvP.

 

As for the damage difference between Night Widows and Fortunatas. It's very obvious when a Fortunata has most of the same claw attacks and can stealth into a group and delete most of minions with Aim->Wail. Where all a Widow has only Spin with a possible crit. The Widow might kill the bosses quicker because of slash. But the depends a lot on resists. For example, my Fortunata switches to a mix of melee and psi against human Malta bosses because they seem to be decently lethal resistant.

 

 As for Banes, there is a thread in the VEAT forums, talking about Bane issues. The quick version is that constant redraw is very painful on huntbanes builds. That pure mace build can be pretty good, but are very far behind even Night Widows in overall damage, particularly AOE, and durability. 

 

Honestly, if they would improve end issues and add no redraw, that would be enough to make Night Widows and Banes fun enough for most folks. 

[Omega-202]

I honestly don't think that VEATs have any more of an endurance issue than any other AT, and definitely don't see it as anything that needs addressing over so many other balance issues in the game.  

 

If you have the big 4 slotted (Performance Shift, Miracle, Numina and Panacea) some decent end redux in your attacks and toggles and a slot or 2 of End Mod in Stamina, you should be fine.  If you're huffing and puffing, drop one of the Leadership toggles.  You shouldn't need to run 5 of them at a time, and for a lot of team content, dropping one or both Assaults can be the difference between end drain and end recovery.  

[KaizenSoze]

54 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

I honestly don't think that VEATs have any more of an endurance issue than any other AT, and definitely don't see it as anything that needs addressing over so many other balance issues in the game.  

 

If you have the big 4 slotted (Performance Shift, Miracle, Numina and Panacea) some decent end redux in your attacks and toggles and a slot or 2 of End Mod in Stamina, you should be fine.  If you're huffing and puffing, drop one of the Leadership toggles.  You shouldn't need to run 5 of them at a time, and for a lot of team content, dropping one or both Assaults can be the difference between end drain and end recovery.  

Just pointing out those health pieces together are around conservatively 20 million at current prices. Money solves a lot of problems.

 

My inherent suggestions more concerned with the under 50 experience. Specially, the under 24 experience.

[Brutal Justice]

12 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

1. Make the crab backpack optional and give alternative animations for the backpack that are still theme-fitting, or at *very least* acknowledge that multiple possibly crab origins for things like magic and give more designs for the crab backpacks.

2. Give Banes/Night Widows a special ATO (I think Fortunatas/Crabs are good enough as is but B/NW need a boost) that functions as a replica of the Stalker ATO's so they can re-hide and be comparable to Stalkers even though they still are not given the same tools.

3. Buttcapes for men!

4. No redraw options.

I feel like this covers most of the things they might need.  

 

Banes and widows fall behind scrappers for only a few reasons.  The ATIOs are one of those reasons.  The scrapper and stalker versions are far superior when it comes to dps output.  I largely ignore the stealth crits and just open with venom grenade so I am not interested in a stalker clone ATIO.  

 

If crabs can fire  a venom grenade from their arms why can’t a bane fire one from the mace?   Being able to fire that one attack from the mace would make a big difference in performance and concept.  Even if the mace animation was longer than the rifle animation it would “feel” better.  

 

The reason bane mace is underperforming war mace is clobber.  The animation times and damage scales are largely the same for the attacks they share.  Criticals also help scrapper war mace but that is an archetype characteristic and not a power set characteristic.   When clobber was changed from a minimal damage stun to its current “set carrying” status, bane mace was forgotten about and left behind.  If bane mace had an equivalent it would be right back in the running.  Change one of the ranged mace attacks into clobber.   This one change would transform banes just like it did war mace.  

[KaizenSoze]

36 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

The reason bane mace is underperforming war mace is clobber.  The animation times and damage scales are largely the same for the attacks they share.  Criticals also help scrapper war mace but that is an archetype characteristic and not a power set characteristic.   When clobber was changed from a minimal damage stun to its current “set carrying” status, bane mace was forgotten about and left behind.  If bane mace had an equivalent it would be right back in the running.  Change one of the ranged mace attacks into clobber.   This one change would transform banes just like it did war mace.  

Also, Banes do not get Whirling Mace. Instead they get two low damage AOEs. They are just over half the base strength of WM.

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

Just pointing out those health pieces together are around conservatively 20 million at current prices. Money solves a lot of problems.

 

My inherent suggestions more concerned with the under 50 experience. Specially, the under 24 experience.

I've recently got a set for 15 mil on an alt, you just need a bit of patience.  But either way, that's kind of how the whole game is currently balanced.  VEATs are better off than half of the power combos in the game due to their inherent.  And the other half of the combos need to use power picks to address endurance concerns.  To give VEATs a freebie fix to endurance issues feel like a bit much.  

 

And to your comment about VEAT powers costing more than similar powers on other sets: that's not true.  They follow the same ~5.2 end/1 scalar damage unit for single target attacks.    If anything, some powers are better than their counterparts (Frag does more scalar damage than M30 from the AR set with the same end cost, but a bit of a smaller AoE). 

[KaizenSoze]

2 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

 

 

And to your comment about VEAT powers costing more than similar powers on other sets: that's not true.  They follow the same ~5.2 end/1 scalar damage unit for single target attacks.    If anything, some powers are better than their counterparts (Frag does more scalar damage than M30 from the AR set with the same end cost, but a bit of a smaller AoE). 

Not sure where I said that VEAT powers cost more than other set. I re-read my comments to be sure, because I don't think particular powers are more expensive than other ATs. Just the combination of powers and toggles. 

 

Let's say for the sake of argument that I'm wrong and VEATs are in a good place. Why are there so few? Both HEATs and VEATS have the lowest numbers across all ATs and at level 50. Widows, Night or Fortunata, have the lowest play time of any AT in the game. Banes might be worse, because they don't break out specialties.

 

I don't know why VEATs are so rare.

 

Crab soldiers are in a good place. Even with that ugly backpack.

 

Several Fortunata builds are very powerful. Blood Widows are my favorite build in the whole game.

 

Night Widows and Banes not so much. 

 

I think that it's the leveling experience, endurance woes in particular, that turn folks off early on.

 

I almost deleted my Night Widow even at 50, because end was still constant issue. I was a newbie which didn't understand accolades and couldn't afford nice enhancements.  In the end, I respec'ed into a Fortunata Blood Widow.

 

Here are the player stats from March.

 

[Omega-202]

19 hours ago, Lost Deep said:

That's the point: VEATs do have a +recovery bonus and they STILL have huge endurance issues. For me, my soldier is the one character I've made with the most pervasive endurance issues no less! It's almost like all VEAT powers just cost more endurance than comparable ones in other ATs.

Just FYI on where I got the "the powers cost more".  Sorry, it was someone else.

 

As to why they're played less, I agree there are issues on Banes and some aspects of the Widow kit could use some help.  Don't get me wrong.  But to say that the issue is endurance is tantamount to saying that half of the power sets combinations in the game have endurance issues. 

 

Yes, VEATs don't get any endurance management powers, but neither does a SS/Inv/Mu Brute.  Do they need buffs too?  VEATs are no worse off on the endurance front than most other builds.  

 

As to why they're not played as much, I think a large part of it is the "flavor" of them.  I still have the occasional person in a pick up team say they thought Crabs had to be villain side only.  People don't know what they can do, don't like the lack of power customization and don't like the cosmetics of VEATs.  

 

If you need proof of how little people understand what VEATs can do, see the below thread, which I believe you cited in a different thread.  Is it any wonder why people don't play VEATs when so many people in that thread thought that they did similar damage to Defenders?  For the sake of comparison, VEATs are scale 1, Defenders are scale 0.65, or in other words, VEATs do over 1.5x the damage of a Defender.  You can't fight that level of ignorance.  

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Omega-202

[Brutal Justice]

8 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Here are the player stats from March.

Not to be contrary but there are some important things to consider when looking at those numbers.  

 

Combined VEATs are about 2/3 as popular as stalkers.  That’s not too bad considering there are only about 6 different combinations of VEATs.  Night widow, blood widow,  fortunate, huntsman, bane, crab.  There are 15 primaries alone for stalkers.  Chances are also high, if you have 50’d one path of soldier or widow you won’t do another in the same branch.  

 

This all applies to HEATs as well.  Neither should ever be anything but at the bottom for popularity.  It doesn’t reflect their performance. If they ever become more popular than a mainstream archetype then that archetype is having serious issues.  

[Vanden]

5 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

The reason bane mace is underperforming war mace is clobber.  The animation times and damage scales are largely the same for the attacks they share.  Criticals also help scrapper war mace but that is an archetype characteristic and not a power set characteristic.   When clobber was changed from a minimal damage stun to its current “set carrying” status, bane mace was forgotten about and left behind.  If bane mace had an equivalent it would be right back in the running.  Change one of the ranged mace attacks into clobber.   This one change would transform banes just like it did war mace.  

This is an easy fix: give Shatter Armor in Mace Mastery Clobber's animation and cast time. Right now it has the same animation as Shatter.

[Omega-202]

23 minutes ago, Vanden said:

This is an easy fix: give Shatter Armor in Mace Mastery Clobber's animation and cast time. Right now it has the same animation as Shatter.

That would help more than a little.  2.33 s being dropped down to 1.23 s is a lot.  I would prefer a fix to things in the base Bane kit to help at lower levels, but this isn't a bad starting point.  

 

Three things I would want to see are:

- Banes getting a Venom Grenade variant that fires from the mace, just like Crabs getting a Venom Grenade firing from the crab arms.  This would cut out the unnecessary redraw between the gun and mace.  

 

- Cut all/most of the mace ranged attack animation times in half.  Bane's don't get Whirling Mace, but they do get Mace Beam Blast and Disruptor Blast.  If those weren't both 2s animations, then they could do some respectable AoE damage.  Poisonous Ray could be a great mix-in for a melee Bane, if it's animation wasn't complete garbage.  

 

- Change Web Cocoon to Toxic Web Cocoon and add damage to it.  Let it be turned into a true proc monster power instead of a mediocre hold.  

[KaizenSoze]

1 hour ago, Omega-202 said:

As to why they're played less, I agree there are issues on Banes and some aspects of the Widow kit could use some help.  Don't get me wrong.  But to say that the issue is endurance is tantamount to saying that half of the power sets combinations in the game have endurance issues. 

 

Yes, VEATs don't get any endurance management powers, but neither does a SS/Inv/Mu Brute.  Do they need buffs too?  VEATs are no worse off on the endurance front than most other builds.  

 

As to why they're not played as much, I think a large part of it is the "flavor" of them.  I still have the occasional person in a pick up team say they thought Crabs had to be villain side only.  People don't know what they can do, don't like the lack of power customization and don't like the cosmetics of VEATs.  

 

If you need proof of how little people understand what VEATs can do, see the below thread, which I believe you cited in a different thread.  Is it any wonder why people don't play VEATs when so many people in that thread thought that they did similar damage to Defenders?  For the sake of comparison, VEATs are scale 1, Defenders are scale 0.65, or in other words, VEATs do over 1.5x the damage of a Defender.  You can't fight that level of ignorance.  

 

A fair point about the ignorance to the power of the spider. The fools!

 

Making endurance my primary suggestion is to avoid the dreaded, but that effects PvP argument.

 

I am hoping for incremental improvements.

 

Changing weapon damage/recharge/cast times, is a harder sell.

Edited October 4, 2020 by KaizenSoze

[Brutal Justice]

14 hours ago, Vanden said:

This is an easy fix: give Shatter Armor in Mace Mastery Clobber's animation and cast time. Right now it has the same animation as Shatter.

I wish shatter armor had a different animation just because I shatter and shatter and shatter and shatter.  You get it.  But changing the animation to clobber wouldn’t help that much because you don’t get it until late and shatter armor has a 30s recharge while clobber has a 16s recharge.   It takes a lot to be able to work it into an attack chain.  

Edited October 5, 2020 by Brutal Justice
I shattered so much I shattered when I should have clobbered

[tidge]

The Soldiers need no-redraw, and the ability to lose the backpack if you aren't playing a crab build (as one of the alternate builds).

 

As for the inherent: The VEAT +Recovery and +Regeneration is essentially just contributing to the law of diminishing returns, due to the Recovery/Regeneration formula... not to mention Recovery/Regeneration contributions from inherent Fitness. Yes, like all ATs the VEATs can get Endurance under control by slotting endurance reduction, adding certain procs, set bonuses, and accolades... but I think giving the VEATs a starting +MaxEndurance rather than a +Recovery would go much farther for them, especially at lower levels. Of course, such a thing would go farther for every AT, but I kinda feel like having less Endurance issues was supposed to be one of the hallmarks of the VEAT.

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

As for the inherent: The VEAT +Recovery and +Regeneration is essentially just contributing to the law of diminishing returns, due to the Recovery/Regeneration formula... not to mention Recovery/Regeneration contributions from inherent Fitness. Yes, like all ATs the VEATs can get Endurance under control by slotting endurance reduction, adding certain procs, set bonuses, and accolades... but I think giving the VEATs a starting +MaxEndurance rather than a +Recovery would go much farther for them, especially at lower levels. Of course, such a thing would go farther for every AT, but I kinda feel like having less Endurance issues was supposed to be one of the hallmarks of the VEAT.

VEAT Regeneration and Recovery is higher at base than other ATs. It effectively makes all Regeneration and Recovery effects on them stronger than they are on other ATs. Diminishing returns don't enter into it.

[tidge]

8 hours ago, Vanden said:

VEAT Regeneration and Recovery is higher at base than other ATs. It effectively makes all Regeneration and Recovery effects on them stronger than they are on other ATs. Diminishing returns don't enter into it.

My mistake on the base. What's the difference between recovered Endurance per second for a VEAT and a non-VEAT, just because of stamina?

 

A quick look using MIDS shows a blaster with 2.08 End per Sec, and a VEAT with 2.19 End per Sec (no slots filled)

With a level 50 EndMod IO in Stamina the blaster is 2.26 End per sec, the VEAT is 2.37 End per sec.

 

The extra .11 End per sec is appreciated, but between toggles and attacks, it still doesn't feel like enough.

 

 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

i agree with nearly everyone here, the Veats biggest issues is endurance. I think the inherents need a bump. i have one of each and although they are well rounded in many aspects endurance management seems to be a common issue with both. Another solution is to diversify the epic patron power pools so that they can pick up body mastery or some other analogue. 

[Vanden]

7 hours ago, tidge said:

My mistake on the base. What's the difference between recovered Endurance per second for a VEAT and a non-VEAT, just because of stamina?

VEAT Regen is 20% stronger than other ATs, and Recovery is 5% stronger.