Focused Feedback: Titan Weapons Revamp

[Grandfeatherex]

20 hours ago, MAH said:

"Firstly, the mechanics of the set make the set difficult to get started with. Secondly, when fully built, Titan Weapons massively overperforms compared to other melee set in almost every metric."

 

My perception of this was that the game developers intended to reward players for learning how to manage a relatively clunky set. Taking the skill requirements away from sets destroys any sense of pride in specialization, practice, or mastery. I view City of Heroes as a relatively easy game and the skill needed to run Titan Weapons at a high level was something that allowed players to stand out from others.

 

Having tested the newer version of Titan Weapons I do not see any value-added reasons to play this set over any other set. I believe that continuing to make changes with this style of thinking will lead to a game where each and every character within an AT will play too similarly to one another and powersets will be differentiated only by visuals. 

 

I have enjoyed City of Heroes for the past 16 years, but a game where practice has no impact on performance is a game that I will tire of very quickly. 

I fell the same way that it feels like every set is being "brought into line with existing sets" (even if that means changing 2/3 sets to match 1/3 of them with the ST and AoE coming at the same levels, same with blaster versions of build up changing to all come at the same level, makes each set seem like a less interesting pallet swap

I didn't do all the math and measure times down to the second on runs, but just for a 'feel' perspective it's lackluster and more boring than the TW's I already have
chaining a powers time from 1 second activation to 1.1 etc might not be too noticeable, I really hate the dmg and end reduction with momentum though.

I made a Dark/TW tank specifically because people QQ over end costs all the time and because I've never seen anyone in game use that combo, now it's just another that will fade into blandness. yes TW had high damage, but it also had high end costs and if you missed you had another slow heavy attack again and again until you got that hit (yes i understand real world physics that just swinging the TW hit or miss would add momentum, but I also understand that in the REAL world you wouldn't use a slab of concrete on an 8' poll in combat either)

NEEDING to hit to build momentum, and the high end cost felt like a justification for that high damage, on top of it's naturally slot out of momentum attacks. 

if changes had to be made I'd rather see a slight changes to slow it down and keep that damage again a .1 activation time not that noticeable,  keep momentum versions of attacks with the same damage, but same end cost, have taunt, rend armor, and crushing blow REMOVE momentum since the don't involve swinging the weapon seems like it would be justifiable and bring the over all DPS down but not break what made the set feel special 

I'm really not looking forward to the inevitable kinetic melee changes either, yes, it "under performs" mathematically but i rolled my kin melee character up because they are FUN and have a distinct look and feel about them, not because I want to be able to solo a pylon in record time or have an AoE farm machine. the fun and uniqueness of sets seem to be getting put to the side in order for them to all perform the same, great if you only have 1 character maybe, but makes alts much less fun and interesting 

[Kanil]

4 hours ago, nihilii said:

If I open Momentum with Rend Armor, I can do Follow Through -> Arc of Destruction -> Crushing Blow -> Follow Through, as on Live.

If I initiate with Crushing Blow, I can do Follow Through -> AoD -> RA -> ... and then Momentum breaks off right before I can chain the second FT.

On Live, initiating with Crushing Blow lets you do FT -> AoD -> RA -> FT.

FT going from 1s to 1.1s and AoD from 1.5s to 1.37s should even out about the same in this scenario. At least intuitively? But it doesn't.

I guess all the old chains need to be reworked anyway.

the reason you can't do the string is related to the crushing blow change. on live, crushing blow's momentum begins when the animation is finished while the sped-up version of crushing blow in the beta actually has momentum begin when the attack "hits" in the animation, which still has an additional second or so of animation time left before you can swing. so you're losing about a second of momentum uptime. honestly though, at the moment it's better to just do AOD last so you can get the crit strikes proc going off for the non-momentum version of crushing blow.

 

anyhow, it definitely feels a bit weird to me to see all these posts commenting on tsuko's results going "see, tw is still top tier!" without really addressing my own testing, but i guess that doesn't really fit that viewpoint, haha.

 

using proc-based builds to determine high-end strength/tiering, especially in the scope of pyloning has always been one of those things i've wondered about - i've got personal times on pylons with battleaxe dipping into the 1m5s range and broadsword times dipping into the 1m18s range but it's like, conventionally those powersets aren't seen as "top tier", for good reason.

 

when it comes to high-end builds, a lot of the conventional 'tier' knowledge seems to go out the door but there's always a desire to just try and shove those results into that scope without really considering other factors.

[Maxzero]

1 hour ago, Kanil said:

the reason you can't do the string is related to the crushing blow change. on live, crushing blow's momentum begins when the animation is finished while the sped-up version of crushing blow in the beta actually has momentum begin when the attack "hits" in the animation, which still has an additional second or so of animation time left before you can swing. so you're losing about a second of momentum uptime. honestly though, at the moment it's better to just do AOD last so you can get the crit strikes proc going off for the non-momentum version of crushing blow.

 

anyhow, it definitely feels a bit weird to me to see all these posts commenting on tsuko's results going "see, tw is still top tier!" without really addressing my own testing, but i guess that doesn't really fit that viewpoint, haha.

 

using proc-based builds to determine high-end strength/tiering, especially in the scope of pyloning has always been one of those things i've wondered about - i've got personal times on pylons with battleaxe dipping into the 1m5s range and broadsword times dipping into the 1m18s range but it's like, conventionally those powersets aren't seen as "top tier", for good reason.

 

when it comes to high-end builds, a lot of the conventional 'tier' knowledge seems to go out the door but there's always a desire to just try and shove those results into that scope without really considering other factors.

 

Pylons in general are a strange beast. With non pet characters (which dominate times due to action efficiency) the biggest boost you can get for pylon times is having access to flat -resist procs in a ST chain.

 

Take the Ach Heel and Glad Fury out of a TW build and watch the times plummet.

 

Yet once you get into team play those very same procs lose heaps of their value (since other party members often have them).

Edited October 25, 2020 by Maxzero

[Tsuko]

2 hours ago, Kanil said:

the reason you can't do the string is related to the crushing blow change. on live, crushing blow's momentum begins when the animation is finished while the sped-up version of crushing blow in the beta actually has momentum begin when the attack "hits" in the animation, which still has an additional second or so of animation time left before you can swing. so you're losing about a second of momentum uptime. honestly though, at the moment it's better to just do AOD last so you can get the crit strikes proc going off for the non-momentum version of crushing blow.

 

anyhow, it definitely feels a bit weird to me to see all these posts commenting on tsuko's results going "see, tw is still top tier!" without really addressing my own testing, but i guess that doesn't really fit that viewpoint, haha.

 

using proc-based builds to determine high-end strength/tiering, especially in the scope of pyloning has always been one of those things i've wondered about - i've got personal times on pylons with battleaxe dipping into the 1m5s range and broadsword times dipping into the 1m18s range but it's like, conventionally those powersets aren't seen as "top tier", for good reason.

 

when it comes to high-end builds, a lot of the conventional 'tier' knowledge seems to go out the door but there's always a desire to just try and shove those results into that scope without really considering other factors.

I'm the Diva of the forum, that's it !

 

 

More seriously, i think it's normal : how many were in the RWZ on the beta server the day the patch hit ? @Bill Z Bubba me and you.

 

The fact is, most people dont care about real numbers and CoX has been developed to "lure" players into the feeling to be a super hero 😛

 

And tbh it s perfectly fine.

 

Since people have fun... If TW is not powerfull enough now, we will find another way to "break the code"

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

On 10/24/2020 at 11:50 AM, Fink said:

Slightly offtopic, sorry

Are the redraw rules going to get ported to other weapons? I could really use it on Staff Melee 🙂

 

At some point, but it is a VERY time consuming process, so it will take a lot of time before every set gets the treatment.

 

 

On 10/24/2020 at 1:33 PM, Cinnder said:

This doesn't propagate the invisible weapon bug from katana to titan weapons, does it?

 

No it does not, that is a sneaky old bug that is still hard to pin down, but it has something to do specifically with katana weapon customization.

[skoryy]

I put together my old elec/TW build from live, loaded him up with incarnates, and gave him a test run in PI.  I wasn't interested in numbers or times, I just wanted to get a good feel on the set.  And, yeah, it runs a lot smoother now.  Being able to hold up a steady attack chain is a huge improvement over janky missed momentum moments, even more so on a tank where more attacks means more aggro.  I may have to bring this guy back on Everlasting now.

Edited October 26, 2020 by skoryy

[Kanil]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

At some point, but it is a VERY time consuming process, so it will take a lot of time before every set gets the treatment.

 

sorry, no idea how to tag folks so i'm quoting you:  any idea if non-momentum crushing blow acting the way it is in beta (being 2s activation time instead of ~4s on live) is a result of the redraw fix? or if it's a bug or somethin'?

 

curious if that's one of those weird side effects where the 'proper' activation time (it's always listed as 2s) comes into play with the fix rather than whatever is going on with the live version

 

edit:

probably not doing any favors for the case to buff fire melee (it needs it) but, lol:

 

started adding in melt armor into my clearing times and turns out i can match/beat live TW  trapdoor times with a helping of fireball. what a power, man

that was the first run i did with melt armor, too! with a fuckup where i ran out of endurance!

Edited October 26, 2020 by Kanil

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 hour ago, Kanil said:

sorry, no idea how to tag folks so i'm quoting you:  any idea if non-momentum crushing blow acting the way it is in beta (being 2s activation time instead of ~4s on live) is a result of the redraw fix? or if it's a bug or somethin'?

 

curious if that's one of those weird side effects where the 'proper' activation time (it's always listed as 2s) comes into play with the fix rather than whatever is going on with the live version

 

Not sure what is going on live right now with the power, but it should always be 2s cast time on slow mode, and 1.2s cast time on fast mode.

 

Is this issue on a specific AT?

 

[Kanil]

1 minute ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Not sure what is going on live right now with the power, but it should always be 2s cast time on slow mode, and 1.2s cast time on fast mode.

 

Is this issue on a specific AT?

 

it's universal as far as i can tell, between the brute and scrapper i've got. i can record video of it, but the 'no video' rule makes it kind of a problem to share, haha.

it's not only on initial draw as well - if the weapon is drawn on live, it still has the 4s~ cast time

 

 

[Heraclea]

I would suggest running a Penny Yin on Brainstorm sometime  soon with Titan Weapon characters.  I must admit that I more or less abandoned my TW scrapper after the drums began beating to nerf the set.  I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised working the Roman wall with the transferred character on test.  But that's level 50 content, and not difficult level 50 content.  The smoother feel of the attacks was more noticeable to me than any loss of damage.  Then again I never was that into soloing pylons to perfect a rotation; as I said, I didn't like the feel or jerky rhythms of TW as it is now.  

 

Penny Yin was where I decided to give up on the character; here's where its existing disadvantages became glaring, when limited to under 25 powers.  You'd cue up attacks and land them on mobs that are already dead.  I'd recruit a couple testing blasters to see if this is how it still works.  I'd really like to know whether this fixes any of that. 

[Troo]

Oh my, it seems so cordial over here.

[King Kog]

I don't have any number-crunching to add, just want to say I ran a mission with my 41 TW/Invuln and even though the damage was noticeably lower, the set still feels good. I knew when I was playing on Live that it was overtuned, and now it just feels... tuned.

[BZRKR]

8 hours ago, Heraclea said:

I would suggest running a Penny Yin on Brainstorm sometime  soon with Titan Weapon characters.  I must admit that I more or less abandoned my TW scrapper after the drums began beating to nerf the set.  I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised working the Roman wall with the transferred character on test.  But that's level 50 content, and not difficult level 50 content.  The smoother feel of the attacks was more noticeable to me than any loss of damage.  Then again I never was that into soloing pylons to perfect a rotation; as I said, I didn't like the feel or jerky rhythms of TW as it is now.  

 

Penny Yin was where I decided to give up on the character; here's where its existing disadvantages became glaring, when limited to under 25 powers.  You'd cue up attacks and land them on mobs that are already dead.  I'd recruit a couple testing blasters to see if this is how it still works.  I'd really like to know whether this fixes any of that. 

Running a Yin to test is a good idea!

I ran the new Graveyard Shift arc (max lvl 29) with my Radiation/TW Tanker. On the team I had two blasters (Sonic/Sonic Manipulation and an Archery/TA) and a Fire/Dark controller. I won't say that there was no corpse swinging, but not as much as on Live. I do concede that as a Tanker, I also use my non-momentum taunt a lot, especially on wounded enemies that just need to look at me, not the team. In general, running the new arcs with this team was enough to allay my fears about the TW changes, at least on a Tanker.

[Bionic_Flea]

10 hours ago, Troo said:

Oh my, it seems so cordial over here.

Don't jynx it!

[ShardWarrior]

11 hours ago, Heraclea said:

I would suggest running a Penny Yin on Brainstorm sometime  soon with Titan Weapon characters.  I must admit that I more or less abandoned my TW scrapper after the drums began beating to nerf the set.  I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised working the Roman wall with the transferred character on test.  But that's level 50 content, and not difficult level 50 content.  The smoother feel of the attacks was more noticeable to me than any loss of damage.  Then again I never was that into soloing pylons to perfect a rotation; as I said, I didn't like the feel or jerky rhythms of TW as it is now.  

 

Penny Yin was where I decided to give up on the character; here's where its existing disadvantages became glaring, when limited to under 25 powers.  You'd cue up attacks and land them on mobs that are already dead.  I'd recruit a couple testing blasters to see if this is how it still works.  I'd really like to know whether this fixes any of that. 

Have to agree the lower levels TW still feels very underwhelming and the damage nerfs are much more noticable.  Overall, it is less clunky to play and smoother with regard to animations.  As @Heraclea says, I am not into soloing pylons either, so that was never a problem for me.  Only other thing I notice is Arc of Destruction seems underwhelming damage to me.  A "superior" damage attack that takes 2 or 3 hits to take down and even con Lt. seems off to me. 

[Cinnder]

17 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

No it does not, that is a sneaky old bug that is still hard to pin down, but it has something to do specifically with katana weapon customization.

 

Makes sense: katana is a sneaky weapon! :-)

[ABlueThingy]

17 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

No it does not, that is a sneaky old bug that is still hard to pin down, but it has something to do specifically with katana weapon customization.

I remember there being a lot of issues with Katana's animations back when they first updated them. It had something to do with the left handed stance Katana uses..  The Katana has to be anchored there because of how the transition animations work to standing/walking.  Which leg you lead with and such.  Maybe something about how they anchored it is broken?

 

Katana is the only weapon that's locked to only the left hand, as far as I know. Maybe that has something to do with it...

 

But I also recall the Live Devs describing a bug where the trams wouldn't run if too many people had capes on in the zone or some nonsense like that.  So who knows.

[Coyote]

On 10/25/2020 at 10:00 AM, Keleko said:

It also seems to run counter to every other combo power system in the game.  Combos give bonus damage/effects.  Savage melee gets bonus damage, endurance reduction, and recharge reduction with blood frenzy stacks.  TW should get a bonus without being penalized for it.

 

Momentum attacks do less DAMAGE because of their lowered Recharge causing their damage formula to change.

Momentum attacks also activate faster. The increase in speed is greater than the decrease in damage, thus...

Momentum attacks do more DAMAGE PER SECOND. So, you end up hitting weaker per attack, but better in terms of DPA and DPE.

This is a bonus, not a penalty.

[Kanil]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

 

Momentum attacks do less DAMAGE because of their lowered Recharge causing their damage formula to change.

Momentum attacks also activate faster. The increase in speed is greater than the decrease in damage, thus...

Momentum attacks do more DAMAGE PER SECOND. So, you end up hitting weaker per attack, but better in terms of DPA and DPE.

This is a bonus, not a penalty.

how would you feel about non momentum attacks having their damage overall lowered but momentum keeping the same damage on its attacks?

 

i'm sure this was tested/considered since it's such an occam's razor answer, but is it one of those things where it skews off The Formula too much to keep a decent balance between the two?

 

the rift between "its a buff because better dpa" and "why is my damage per attack being lowered when the mechanic thematically is a giant sword accelerating" is a pretty real thing to consider, especially with the additional layer of "i just did build up/bm and now my attacks do less damage...?"  kinda feelin'

Edited October 26, 2020 by Kanil

[Coyote]

It's an interesting topic to consider:

 

On the one hand, I buff for damage, get Momentum, and do more damage in the next 5 seconds than if I didn't have it.

On the other hand, I buff for damage, get Momentum, and open the fight with an AoE knockdown attack that knocks most of the opponents down. If the attack did more damage, even with a slower swing, it would be better, because fewer of them would be getting up off the floor. In the long run, DPA matters more, and also sustained DPS with AoEs, where their faster recharge means that you don't actually lose long-term damage even if you lose damage per attack.

However, there is an interesting spot of time, say 3-6 seconds into a fight, where the faster recharge doesn't matter because they're still not recharged, but if they had done more damage in the opening AoE salvo, you'd be seeing fewer mobs get up and get an attack off.

 

I like the change overall because sustained DPA and DPE can be counted on. But it's true that in some situations, hitting faster but more lightly does have a period of time where you end up worse off. Well, besides the fun of hammering health bars with one big swing.

 

I'm not sure that they can really avoid it, it's a case of "big hitters are better until powers start to cycle, at which point DPS balances out", but if they keep the damage high while lowering animation times, then we're left with an OP version of TW. So... lowering the damage is probably the best solution overall, but not necessarily in every case.

[Cheli]

On 10/24/2020 at 6:33 PM, Shadowflare said:

This is called "balance", and if some of the numbers I've seen are right TW "played at high level" was head and shoulders above almost anything else with strong AOE and ST damage with almost no downside besides "Build right" and "Learn to play". If you really want to practice your rotation down to a fine ballerina dance so you can "stand out" try FF14 or something and get into competitive parsing. COH has never been the game for that. TBH the original iteration I think was the start of paid, premium powercreep by NCsoft, something we've seen with the "premium" powersets typically outperforming "base" ones by large margins.

This isn't even close to true. StJ, staff, kin melee, and beam rifle are mediocre at best, and some of the best sets in the game (claws, fire manip) are "base" sets that have been in the game forever. 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Cheli

[Galaxy Brain]

Edited my post to reflect the actual IO results, I took  an incorrect screenshot prior!

[BrandX]

Just curious, wasn't the idea of Momentum, to get a speed boost on the attacks, but maintain the damage formula as if slow attacks?  Not, get two different damage formula's for an attack, one when in momentum and one, when not in momentum?

[Kanil]

10 minutes ago, Kanil said:

okay, went ahead and did some live mission/aoe testing for EM scrapper vs. my other sets so try and compare them. i ended up trying to supplement the set's lack of great AOEs with fireball.

 

as usual, my method was testing by running mender ramiel's defeat trapdoor mission at +4x8. all incarnates, similar rules to pylon testing where you don't use hybrid active nor lore pets - only destiny and yellow insps for the blinds that the arachnos do. you kill everything up to trapdoor except the popup turrets (this favors ranged by a lot to run off to the sides) and then waste trapdoor. timer starts when you self-buff w/ destiny or whatever, ends when trapdoor turns blue.

 

why trapdoor? it has a good combination of enemies, is a straight line with room for enemies to flee still and a decently sturdy EB at the end.

 

 

the general strategy was to open with TF (with crit strikes procced because it's got an insanely high chance to fire off), fireball, whirling hands, power crush (with focus on). that's pretty much it. you just keep doing that or go into ET/bonesmasher to pick off stragglers. if melt armor was up, i'd use it on the next possible group.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

beta tw/bio:
5m12s
5m22s
6m7s (enemy scattering)
6m1s (spent time healing due to -def from t.mistresses)
5m42s (the hell is with all the x:x2 enders?)

 

live tw/bio:
5m24s
4m48s
4m51s
4m54s
5m18s

 EM/bio/fire scrapper
6m34s - 1st run
5m44s
6m2s
5m48s
5m41s
5m43s
5m57s
5m21s
5m42s

fire/bio/fire scrapper
4m48s
5m27s
5m12s
4m46s
4m56s
4m48s
4m58s
5m16s

 

ba/bio/phys scrapper
5m25s
5m15s
5m46s
5m30s

 

kat/bio scrapper
5m35s
5m12s
5m19s
4m58s

 

ice/bio/mu scrapper
4m46s
4m36s
5m17s
4m41s

 

fire/time/dark corr
6m26s

 

fortunata/soul
4m51s

 

so, yeah. it seems pretty alright in AOE - pretty much middle of the road as far as i can tell. power crush is a bit disappointing for AOE purposes, but as a non-weapon set you have the advantage of not having to deal with redraw times for stuff, so it's something to consider re: picking up fireball or ball lightning. nothing too out of the blue there, i guess, but a tad disappointing when the ST results that i've been able to muster have been just kinda "ok"

 

figured i'd crosspost my trapdoor testing for other sets alongside EM/bio/fire to compare. i'm curious if anyone is willing to try and compare their results.

 

recently learned that the optimal string for TW is different (rather, it's the standard everyone uses than the one i use which i guess had the same results as that one) and found that the pylon times range from 1m5s to 1m35s. the average was around 1m20s~ across 20 or so pylons which is significantly better than the 1m40s average from string i was using prior.

 

however, the reason why it has such great results kinda bugs me. it's related to the use of crit. strikes on follow through and how the standard string always ends in follow through-> non-momentum rend armor.

 

because the non-momentum version of rend armor does so much more damage and follow through is always setting up crit strikes, you end up gaining a massive amount of damage compared to using rend armor inside the string as much as possible (as per the strings i've built) because of how much less damage the momentum-up version of follow through does.

 

it really ties into that backwards feeling i was talking about re: momentum mechanics and how it feeds into weird situations re: optimization that feel 'backwards'. i'm sure it's probably fine overall since it's the output is generally OK usin' that string on scrappers. i'll have to do some brute testing, i guess. also need to run trapdoor with crit strikes in FT, but i can't imagine that it'd have better results than it being in AOD.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Kanil

[Steam_InGen]

Going to chime in here myself. I have never even looked at TW before now, mostly because people say things about the set that made it seem  like a hassle to play and what not. The damage was there, but hard to come by type of things. I myself am a huge min/maxer. I've got at least 3 to 5 toons that can clear meteor farm in under 6 minutes per run some under 5. I have a WS that doesn't die, no matter what I'm facing. I spend a lot of time just running builds in mids just to sus out what can make me faster, more stable, do more damage... etc. So in short I'm not afraid to try new things. 

 

Now onto TW. I had no idea how to build one. As a matter of a fact I free handed my first build. After some trial and error and a little more motivation, I found a build I liked and IO'd it. Ran bloody rainbow map, on my rad/fire brute. 5:08, normal time for that setup. Then busted out Big Cheese, for my first run 6:23. (Had no idea what attack chain to use or anything) Reread some powers re-setup my bars ran again. 6:08. Better, but still not good enough. Reordered my powers once more, made sure to focus on powers that built momentum and did serious damage.  Next run was 5:55. I think you see the pattern, it literally took me 3 to 4 runs with him to get on the same level as a rad/fire brute. To compare, I've literally have been working on my blaster setup period for 2 months solid. Running different combos, trying different powers... etc. I now have a setup where I don't die unless it's a real bad situation or I get lazy. water/fire/fire OP... 😛

 

Tl:dr

In short, being virgin to the primary, It literally took me only a few runs to become efficient with the set, and still felt like I was doing damage. Maybe not blaster numbers, but things melted as fast as on my rad/fire brute. In turn the set feels nice and I might even make him a farmer I use every once and a while for a change of pace. I usually only play my rad/fires for efficiency proposes. (45:44 on term farm. :P)

 

Say whatever you want about pylon times going down due to the damage nerf, but as a person who just picked up the set to try out the changes, the set feels very new user friendly, as well as competitive with the other top tier sets.  I like the set as a whole. 😄