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

[Black Zot]

3 hours ago, Krimson said:

My Assault Rifle Blaster has Munitions for theme. I do use LRM when I can but sometimes it's hard just to get the shot off. I do like it as a lead in followed up with Sleep Grenade and/or Full Auto. I have it slotted with KB to KD. LRM could definitely use some love. 

 

Munitions in general could use some love.  The set almost feels like it's intentionally weak.

[Black Zot]

Stupid internet lag.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Black Zot
Bleh, double post

[Eva Destruction]

2 hours ago, Leetdeth said:

 

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

These powers are comparable to their equivalent powers in other sets.  AR's crap single-target damage comes from its lack of heavy-hitter.

2 hours ago, Leetdeth said:

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.

Buckshot's DPS is on par with Energy Torrent and better than Frost Breath, cutting Beam, and Howl, which are also in the same tier.  We shouldn't be using Fire Blast as a benchmark for blast set performance, since it's a high-performing set.  These four powers are fine.  It's only the lethal damage that makes them suck.

2 hours ago, Leetdeth said:

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.

And here we start getting into the stinkers.  Same damage as Buckshot, with almost twice the animation time and a higher end cost and recharge.  And scatter knockback on top of that to mess up all your cones.

 

2 hours ago, Leetdeth said:

 

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

On the one hand, it's a less-resisted damage type.  On the other hand, lower DPS than buckshot, and massive end cost.  I would also speed up the DoT.

 

2 hours ago, Leetdeth said:

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.

Yes, 20 is asking for too much.  Other blaster T9s have a target cap of 16, Full Auto should too.  And it needs a reduction in animation time.  It doesn't necessarily need more damage, since a faster-recharging but lower-damage T9 is one of the things that makes the set unique.  But, back when these sets were initially introduced, Full Auto had an advantage in being a crashless "nuke" which the other blast sets didn't have.  Now they all have them, and now that we all pay attention to DPS, Full Auto's only advantage is that you can spin the camera around like you're in the Matrix and it looks hella cool, which isn't much of an advantage when you're rooted for 4 seconds by a power that won't even wipe out even-con minions.

 

My other fix would be to make some portion of the damage on Burst, Slug, Buckshot, Sniper Rifle, and Full Auto non-resistable.  That way you're not making the set too overpowered against non-resistant enemies, but it's a fix for the set's biggest weakness.  Give us some armor-piercing rounds for the frankengun.  Beanbag is beanbag, it's meh but whatver.  The only way I can think of to fix Ignite without changing it entirely for the people who use it as an area-avoidance power is to front-load the damage so enemies at least get hurt a little bit before they start running for the hills and accept that a lot of players will skip it.

[Spaghetti Betty]

7 minutes ago, Eva Destruction said:

snip

 

Thank you for clearing up my bad estimates on damage comparison, and the target cap thing. Measuring things up to Fire Blast is indeed unfair, but that's what I get for trying to use my brain before I had coffee for the day. Also, spinning the camera around Matrix-style buffs WAY more powers than you think. Eagles Claw comes to mind. Full Auto is more of a John Rambo shooting his big gun going "BAAAAAAAAH!!!" type of move to me.

[ninja surprise]

Fire Melee (Scrapper/etc) is supposed to be the damage king with no other mitigation or secondary effects, but isn't near the top of the damage heap.

 

4 hours ago, Zepp said:

• 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).

 

Mind could be fixed quick giving the "big" powers had quicker cooldowns. Particularly Mass Confusion, quicker recharge to make it at least as good as Seeds of Confusion, but worthy of being a T9.

Quote

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).

@Heracleahad some great ideas for improving Regen. The one I remember best is giving it super debuff resistance, to reflect how regen heals over everything. Give it maxed out debuff resistance to speed, defense, regen, end, etc, and that would make it unique amongst armors. And then people can IO it up to make it really good. Easy to implement and easy to rebalance later if needed.

 

Quote

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).

A quick buff would be to let it jump but have the rooting powers behave like Grounded in Electric Armor. So the set can jump and move but loses the buff when you're not on the ground.

[Gobbledigook]

What if they buffed/reworked stone armour and then turned Granite into a long cooldown T9 or something. Maybe similar to ice Bastion but with Granites graphic and longer cooldown, longer duration and an auto absorb rather than a Regen.

 

Just a thought.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[SaintD]

I wrote a whole post and then deleted it because I realised we already have what Assault Rifle should mechanically be.

 

Archery.

 

Assault Rifle should be 'ranged claws', with really fast recharge and animation time, and low endurance cost. Which is just Archery.

 

Assault Rifle seems impossible to fix now because it should look exactly like Archery.

 

To be honest, I think the set should remove the flamethrower and shotgun entirely, and lean into using only rifle and grenade launcher.

 

We should not be beholden to the ludicrous misstep of the original assault rifle as a dumping ground of weapons themelessly mashed together and justified with an absolutely terrible early 2000's model of a Frankengun.

 

Grenades and bullets. All the assets exist already. Just nut up and do it.

Edited November 9, 2020 by SaintD
Reasons

[JnEricsonx]

14 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

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. 

I'm pretty happy with my fluffballs of death in Beasts.  I paired it with Nature, so I have a lot of healing/buff/debuff at my disposal.  It IS end-heavy though because you're pretty active.

[Heraclea]

2 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

@Heracleahad some great ideas for improving Regen. The one I remember best is giving it super debuff resistance, to reflect how regen heals over everything. Give it maxed out debuff resistance to speed, defense, regen, end, etc, and that would make it unique amongst armors. And then people can IO it up to make it really good. Easy to implement and easy to rebalance later if needed.

That would still be my #1 thematic buff to Regen.  If a set is as dependent on click heals and buffs as Regen is, the ability to use and benefit from them when clicked needs to be preserved.  It should be first in resistance to -recharge, -heal, -regen, -HP, and -end/recovery.  This would simply enable its powers to be useful no matter what.  It could still be overwhelmed by too much incoming damage.  But if the player can hit the button, it would still work. 

 

As to sets that need buffs, I would suggest Flight.  It's the iconic travel power that's way too slow.  Group Flight mostly annoys and confuses teammates.  It is generally too drifty, and needs finer player control.  The performance with Afterburner on should be baseline. 

[Zepp]

3 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

Mind could be fixed quick giving the "big" powers had quicker cooldowns.

This can be said of nearly every control and support set.

[Zepp]

1 hour ago, SaintD said:

We should not be beholden to the ludicrous misstep of the original assault rifle as a dumping ground of weapons themelessly mashed together and justified with an absolutely terrible early 2000's model of a Frankengun.

Zorg does not approve of your statement...

Edited November 9, 2020 by Zepp

[SeraphimKensai]

Traps could use some love, mainly reducing the time it takes to set everything up as it gets left behind by teams.

[Zepp]

Martial Combat, Burst of Speed could use a Recharge reduction.

[Normal Thomas]

I think Bane Spiders could use some love. The animations for the mace blasts could use some chopping. Also Shatter Armor should be able to crit from hide!! I'd also like ranged attacks in the set to crit from hide but that might be asking a bit much.

[Grimz]

From what I've been hearing and through my own experience, Sentinel's have been rather middling to underpowered. Perhaps a secondary revamp similar to the upcoming blaster one could be handy to either cement their role as a durable ranged damage dealer or to maybe give them more damage/debuff options in order to carve them a new niche instead.

[modest]

I would love for Sonic Attack to receive a balance pass. I've played a lot of Sonic Attack: the character "Modest" has always been a Sonic Attack Defender. Here's a short list of what I would recommend:

• Increase the damage on all powers other than Dreadful Wail.
  • The cones need the damage increased the most. They are Sonic Attack's sources of AOE, and without proc slotting their damage is horrid.
  • The single target attacks do not need a huge increase in damage. A small increase would make this set more enjoyable.
• Decrease the animation times of Scream, Howl, Shockwave, and Shout.
  • Shout is especially miserable given that it is a low damage attack with a 2.9 second animation.
• Change the knockback in Shockwave to knockdown.
• Increase the arc of Shockwave to 50% to match the arc of Siren's song. Sonic Attack's cones have relatively low range, and it would be nice if they were given a wider arc to compensate for that poor range.
• Increase the range of Siren's Song to 50ft to match the range of Howl and Shockwave. It is annoying that the three cones in this set do not have the same range.
• Add a 8 second -res debuff component to Shockwave and Siren's Song.
  • The -res debuff is Sonic Attack's only appeal. Two of its AOE powers lack the -res debuff that the rest of the powers have.
• Lower Siren Song and Screech's recharge to 16 or 18 seconds.
• Increase Shockwave's recharge to between 10 and 16 seconds.
• Ideally, add @Bopper's "echo" mechanic to the set.

 

Mercenaries, Assault Rifle, and Kinetic Melee are the three other sets that come to mind.

 

Archery and Sonic Resonance are under performers, but I don't think that they're bad enough to need an "emergency fix".

[Sakura Tenshi]

my own thoughts on an 'emergency fix' for Full Auto, perhaps in addition to target cap increase and overall damage increase, to make up for the long cast time, and to sort of match how Hail of Bullets works, I would propose Full Auto also gaining a decent -tohit and -recharge debuff that it inflicts on enemies caught in the cone to reduce retaliatory fire. From an in-universe stand point, this would be represented as the overwhelming suppression fire laid out by full auto causing enemies to choke on their counter shots and struggle to aim under the hail of bullets.

[Mr. Vee]

I like the idea of a to-hit debuff from full auto being suppressing fire, but at least make it a TAoE instead of a terrible cone that requires perfect placement to hit half a mob. Meanwhile an archer is hitting full mobs from around a corner.

[Blastit]

1 hour ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

I like the idea of a to-hit debuff from full auto being suppressing fire, but at least make it a TAoE instead of a terrible cone that requires perfect placement to hit half a mob. Meanwhile an archer is hitting full mobs from around a corner.

Full Auto should be a cone because a cylinder of bullets is how letting loose with a machine gun works. Let's let sets be unique and not just strictly designed around the one thing that's the strongest and easiest to use.

 

 

One thing I'd like tried out is turning Full Auto into a timed toggle that roots you. You can, after all, just let go of the trigger.

[Gulbasaur]

14 hours ago, Zepp said:

• 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).

I would love it if Fear and Confuse were added to Containment. If an inherent can count as a power set - it needs a look at. 

 

If we compare Containment to the Control Hybrid incarnate power:

Quote

Enemies qualify as "controlled" if under the effect of: confuse, fear, hold, immobilize, sleep, stun

It's especially irritating, as the system is clearly there. Confuse I can sort of forgive (because it's already very powerful), but I genuinely think Fear effects were left off by accident. 

[Mr. Vee]

3 hours ago, Blastit said:

Full Auto should be a cone because a cylinder of bullets is how letting loose with a machine gun works.

Is there some reason it needs to be a 25 degree cone? Can't it be thematically ok as a TAoE or a wider cone with the gun being moved side to side?

Edited November 9, 2020 by Veelectric Boogaloo

[Hopestar]

135 degree cone still wouldn't be absurd as there's still a target cap.

Mercenaries, Stone Armor, Broadsword, All Electric primaries, Assault Rifle, Robotics, and Sonic Blast need the most love I think.

Mercenaries just don't function as anything but vengebait that you can't use vengeance on.

[tidge]

Regarding:

19 hours ago, siolfir said:

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?

So many AT have a 'Knockback Hole' that is (as noted above) trivially plugged by the use of a Universal IO piece in a travel power that I don't think this specifically requires an 'emergency' fix. I know that dedicating a slot (Resistance or Travel) to getting 4 points of KB protection was the specific complaint, but this strikes me as a pretty narrow issue given that there is a fix for everyone. I am aware that not everyone wants to take a travel power, but that is a somewhat radical choice given that a travel power can provide a character KB protection, and KB resistance is a craft-able temporary buff.

 

[The_Warpact]

21 hours ago, siolfir said:

Melee sets: Kinetic Melee

Ranged sets: Assault Rifle

Support sets: Force Field

Armor sets: Stone Armor 

 

FF and SA DEFINITELY, FF is ok but so many skippable powers and SA is just horrendous, the -rech and mvmnt just makes the set unplayable unless you have your own pocket kin...yeah you can get it to some half ass mvmnt if you specifically IO it but frankly that blows.

 

 

[MaHaBone]

On 11/8/2020 at 7:22 AM, Gobbledegook said:

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

This. My poor Sonic blaster just stands there, long after her power activated, waiting for a high five that never comes.

I'd also add Ice Armor and it's warmed-up twin Energy Aura. Poison, too.