Weekly Discussion 76: Noticeably underpowered sets. What needs an emergency buff?

[GM ColdSpark]

Hey folks, last week we had a vote to give us a new set of discussions for the next few weeks. 

 

Weekly discussion 76 Week 8th Nov till 14th Nov 2020

YOU VOTED: Let's talk about - Noticeably underpowered sets. What needs an emergency buff?

 

As always - I will capture the essence of the disussion at the end of the week, please be respectful of other peoples views. One persons weak set could be one that another finds very strong because you all have different playstyles. 

 

Remember if you have suggestions for future topics to go into the next vote pool, pop me a direct message and I'll add it to the list. People who offer up a suggestion that is subsequently chosen will receive an in game title for the character of their choice (4 of the next 5 weeks were player suggestions, just so you know).

 

And with that - lets chat! 🙂

[CrudeVileTerror]

As stated in https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23662-weekly-discussion-75-poll/?tab=comments#comment-284903

Mercenaries could use an emergency buff!

There's been a LOT of discussion about it, and I believe a few big names in the topic have been @Tyrannical, @Monos King, and @Shazbotacus.

The fix which I've fixated on (heh) is the idea that Mercenaries decouple of the Medic from the Soldiers Power, add a third Soldier Henchpet, and have the Medic become a 7th Henchpet as the level 18 Power in the Set.

"What happens to Serum then," you may ask?  We tone it down, remove the crash, make it an AoE, and give it to the Medic as a Buff for all the other Henchies. 

 

I feel this will help Mercs catch up a bit without completely undermining their theme, and hopefully be low impact compared to some of the other popular suggestions to save the Set which involve new animations and activation times.

[Mr. Vee]

I second mercs. Ass rifle as well - if the tier 9 roots you for more seconds than enemies you hit with it, there's issues 😛

There are several sets that could use an overall activation time pass.

[Lunchmoney]

I think there is a different forum for Ass Rifles.... 😉

[Gobbledigook]

Fire melee could do with a little buff. It is damage only yet lags behind the other sets. Ranged fire is top tier damage yet FM isn't.

 

Kinetic melee.

 

Sonic attack could do with some of its powers speeding up a little. The dpa is pretty bad. It is good on defenders though as a debuff set.

 

 

 

 

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, Lunchmoney said:

I think there is a different forum for Ass Rifles.... 😉

Talk about Full Auto...ouch...

[tidge]

I don't consider myself qualified to speak to all sets, but the performance of Mastermind primaries seem... uneven.

[The_Warpact]

24 minutes ago, tidge said:

I don't consider myself qualified to speak to all sets, but the performance of Mastermind primaries seem... uneven.

I'm going to agree on this. Comparing Bots/Demons/Thugs to Mercs/Ninja is laughable. Necro is ok depending on secondary, Beasts I have no experience with.

Also, going to agree with AR its a cool set but its lacking....something. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Emergency?  I'm not sure why a rebalance would be an emergency?  Is there a threat of mass exodus unless Assault Rifle is buffed?  It may just be me, but that one word implies a quick fix and I'd hate to see a cobbled-together buff for anything.  I'm far more on the side of emergency nerfs, but again, that may just be me.

 

There are some sets that could benefit from careful, reasoned buffs though, and I'll work on my opinions later today.

[Eva Destruction]

Adding my vote for Assault Rifle.

 

-The most heavily resisted damage type in the game, especially late game.

-An AoE-focused set in which all but one of its AoEs have a 10-target cap

-A T9 that also has a 10-target cap, and a far-too-long animation.

-A short-range medium-width cone in Buckshot, a short-range wide cone in Flamethrower, a long narrow cone in Full Auto, and scatter knock-back in M30, makes it difficult to hit multiple enemies with multiple AoEs.

-Ignite is useless.

-Crap ST damage, which on its own, fine it's an AoE set, but see above re: the issues with the AoEs.

[Tsuko]

Broad Sword, Archery, Sonic resonance, Ice Armor, Regeneration, Peacebringers, Warshade, Sentinels

Edited November 8, 2020 by Tsuko

[Darkneblade]

Ice Armor -> Icicles : Change to cold damage. Also it looks really ugly. It is not spines set not sure why it is lethal.

[siolfir]

Melee sets: Kinetic Melee

Ranged sets: Assault Rifle

Support sets: Force Field

Armor sets: Stone Armor 

 

While I'm talking about armor sets remove the KB hole from FA, DA, and Stalker Nin so "armored" ATs don't have to pay the KB IO slot tax for picking those sets. It was deemed a big enough hole in Ninjitsu to plug when porting it to non-Stalkers, and isn't there for any new sets regardless of whether or not the protection is thematic, so why does it still exist for any set?

[siolfir]

1 minute ago, Darkneblade said:

Ice Armor -> Icicles : Change to cold damage. Also it looks really ugly. It is not spines set not sure why it is lethal.

This one makes sense as lethal though because it's not the cold of an icicle that hurts you, it's the sharp point at the end.

I could see a split of the damage type similar to Ice Blast, but then you're just spamming more numbers above the mobs' heads for the same result.

[OmegaOne]

Not sure if it's qualified as an emergency, but Force Field could use a little boost in the lategame. There is a recent thread about Force Fields in General so I'll just short-form my opinion on that set - I think some amount of Absorption in the various buff bubbles could help shore it up. Maybe some +Absorb in Deflection and Insulation, and some +Absorb over time in Dispersion Bubble? Detention Field seems to be very unpopular as well - making it a toggle or timed toggle (like Hybrid Incarnates) could help there. Maybe doing something about Repulsion Field and Force Bubble - they are both "keep away" powers that kind of step on each other's toes a bit. As well, reducing the radius of Force Bubble to around that of Dispersion Bubble could make it easier to use. Just spitballing some ideas.

 

Similarly, Ice Armor feels like it should be a little beefier at higher levels. At least I feel like with all the DE emanators, Nemesis Vengeance, Rularuu auto-hit and some Incarnate stuff it feels a little on the weak side. Maybe a little Absorbtion or +HP could help with that set as well? Or perhaps a beefier version of the scaling +RES that Super Reflexes gets? Hmm.

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by OmegaOne

[The Volt]

Are Epic Power Pools included in this? Because if so: Munitions Mastery. LRM specifically (maybe give it the Sniper treatment and give it a quick version and extra damage for the full thing perhaps) but also don't think I've ever seen Sleep Grenade used by anyone.

[Eva Destruction]

1 hour ago, Krimson said:

Ignite is not useless. It's crowd control. Surrounded by mobs and trying not to die? Drop it on yourself. 

It has a 4-second cast time and a radius that's smaller than melee range.  That's pretty crap as an emergency crowd control power.  Especially in a set with a bunch of cones that encourage staying at range where you won't get surrounded by mobs in the first place.

[chi1701]

The devs have access the statistics, just need to look at least used power set/archytype is and then ask why. 

[Zepp]

A couple come to mind (with suggestions for fixes).

• Assault Rifle - Damage is basically in line with other sets, but this set has no Aim. (Replace Beanbag (an unpopular, rarely chosen power) with Cryo-shot (Same as Beanbag except with additional effects [Cryo-shot cools down your rifle increasing your firing rate and damage for subsequent attacks (+Rech +Dam)])).
• Force Field - Is all about KB/KD & Defense, but other sets do both better. (Convert +Def Ally powers to either TAoE or PBAoE powers, increase damage of Repulsion Bomb).
• Mind Control - few attacks trigger containment and perceptions of lost XP make confuse less powerful than it ought to be. (adding confuse & fear to containment and making a minor tweak to decrease the effect of confuse on player XP would fix this).
• Ninjas - They keep dying. (Increase pet defense & DDR).
• Regeneration - Is the third best +regen set and lacks the layered defenses of the other two. (Either reduce Recharge on Instant Healing or convert it to a toggle, change Moment of Glory to 180 Recharge 30s duration [make all other Armor T9 "godmode" powers 360/60] as it is currently the worst "godmode" T9 in terms of Recharge:Duration ratio, add a +Absorb element to Dull Pain).
• Sonic Attack - (especially for Blaster & Corruptor) has lower damage than other sets and secondary effect under-performs in practice. (Increase damage scaling and replace Amplify with Resonance (a Reach for the Limit clone) would help with consistency and performance).
• Sonic Resonance - Is all about Resistance and a little -Res, bot doesn't stand out. (Convert +Res Ally powers to either TAoE or PBAoE powers, convert Sonic Cage to a ST hold with damage, increase damage of Liquefy).
• Stone Armor - The -Recharge on self is brutal, add in -mvmnt and you are a sitting duck. (Remove -Rech & -Run, tone down -Jump, give players a reason to take any armor in the set other than just Granite, give alternate/minimal effects choices).
• Trick Arrow - Currently in Beta.

[PeregrineFalcon]

I don't think that anyone can argue that both Assault Rifle and Mercenaries need buffs.

 

Sure, not every set has to be the same. Not every set has to be top-tier. But both of those aren't just last place for their respective AT's, they're last place by an enormous margin. I'm not advocating for either of those sets to be buffed up to be equal with the top-tier sets, but they should at least tie with another set for last place.

 

Mercenaries: I think that a low effort fix to make them viable would be to add some serious damage resistance to Equip Mercenary and some defense to Tactical Upgrade. This would make them tank-y compared to other MM pets. So it becomes the low damage/high survival MM set. This allows this set to be one where the MM can focus more on their secondary rather than their primary. Perfect for a support character.

 

Another low effort fix would be to add stacking damage buffs to Equip Mercenary and Tactical Upgrade. So they do lots of damage but they're still kinda squishy. Once again this solves the issue of this set being undesirable without requiring a lot of effort on the dev's part and without the need to add some kind of combo mechanic. Please don't do that. Please don't add a combo mechanic to Mercenaries.

 

Assault Rifle: Thematically this set being AoE heavy is ridiculous, but I think that ship already sailed about 15 years ago, so I'll stop there. In addition to a small damage buff for the powers across the board, I would increase M30 Grenade's radius and damage to be equal to that of Rain of Fire. I would also double Ignite's radius and increase the arc and target cap on Full Auto.

 

So them's my 2 cents.

[Spaghetti Betty]

I'm on board with a lot of people here where Assault Rifle is at the top of my list of sets that need help. In fact, it was the first set I thought of when "emergency buffs" was in the topic. Seems like every power in Assault Rifle could use some buffage. Now, I'm no fountain of wisdom and game experience, but I have a wall of text I can contribute to possible changes.

 

Burst, Slug, Sniper Rifle are all horribly weak ST powers for a blaster set. They're fine powers, just need a damage buff.

 

Buckshot requires you to be in the danger zone for not a whole lot of payout, and is just generally skippable IMO. I would increase the range and damage a sizable chunk. To put it into perspective, Fire Ball is in the same tier as Buckshot. I'm not saying Buckshot should destroy, but it's current form leaves a lot to be desired.

 

M30 Grenade, which should be a star player of the set, is more annoying than anything. Smashing/Lethal damage just hinder this power so hard. My crazy idea to fix that is to roll M30 Grenade and Ignite into one power that would now be known as Incendiary Grenade. TAoE that does Fire/Smashing on hit and leaves a burn patch under the primary target. No more KB. Buckshot could be buffed and fill the role of KB crowd control.

 

Beanbag is worthless, and I don't know how to fix that.

 

For Flamethrower I would probably increase range a tad and speed up the DoT, kind of like Incinerate.

 

Assault Rifle is one of the only ranged sets without Aim. I would say just put Aim where Ignite was, based on my proposed changes, but in my head, Assault Rifle should be about action and blowing stuff up. Who needs to aim? Put Incendiary Rounds in that puppy and watch the sparks fly. It could work like Fiery Embrace where it just adds a tick of fire damage instead of giving you a damage bonus.

 

Full Auto needs help all around the board. I don't think it needs a super wide cone as much as an increase in the target cap (is 20 asking for too much?), and more damage. This power encapsulates the "yeah, I'm a commando with a big gun and I'm gonna yell and shoot until everything stops moving" feel of the set. It should literally be the best power in the set. It's not. Also, you're shredding everything in front of you with all the ammo you have. Anything left standing should be severely weakened.

 

Now, when I sat down write to this, I didn't expect to come up with radical changes, but if I had unlimited resources, this is how I would make the set more interesting. Number buffs are fine too 😁

 

 

 

[Monos King]

Obligatory Reposts (ninjas best viewed in desktop mode):

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Monos King

[Mr. Vee]

I like that folks thought I didn't intentionally call it ass rifle. It's fought hard to earn that name.

[RCU7115]

4 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

Ice Armor -> Icicles : Change to cold damage. Also it looks really ugly. It is not spines set not sure why it is lethal.

I love my Ice Armor Popsicles on my Ice/Fire Tank. The baddies are killing themselves to get one as it melts before they can even suck on it.

[RCU7115]

Street Justice Spinning Strike needs to be changed from an TAoE to  PBAoE. It hits about 3 baddies when the baddies are surrounding you. I hit more baddies with Sands of Mu.