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

[khy]

I'd cast my vote for taking a good look at all underperforming MM specs, Mercs especially but not the only ones.

 

Just going off of the testing done in this thread : MM Primary Comparison: Standardized Environment Testing

 

In terms of clear times (Which is the best measurement for DPS I can tell from those charts) Necro, Robots, and Mercs are all noticeably worse than the other MM sets. Doing the same controlled environment run, Mercs took 50% longer to clear the same content, while Necro and Bots took 25% longer. When he starts in on IOs and procs, Robots drop to dead last. All 3 need some form of boost to damage to bring them closer to the rest of the pack.

 

Ninjas were able to clear the content rapidly but at the cost of having to be re-summoned CONSTANTLY because they were dying in DROVES holy crap. You'd think zombies or Robots would be the 'suicide into the enemy' option but nope, that's ninjas.

 

IMO Mercenaries is the most in dire need of a boost, followed by a smaller buff to bots and necro to bring them closer to the other MM sets and make them more competitive. Ninjas would probably be a lot more viable with some melee positional +Def to balance out how they get in close and get massacred a lot.

Edited November 13, 2020 by khy

[Vanden]

5 hours ago, kazrack35 said:

mesmerize  >> ok with it mostly >> I'd made it a Mag 4 on first apply ==> garanteed boss sleep, but with the sleep effect unstackable on secpnd apply

Mesmerize is already a guaranteed boss sleep on one application, and you can’t stack it with itself because the damage will break the first sleep.

 

5 hours ago, kazrack35 said:

1 apply on the target sleep + damage, second apply within the sleep duration only does damage

I can’t understand what this is trying to say.

[@Ghost]

10 hours ago, Vanden said:

No power should be an "emergency numbers buff" candidate. We can see with Energy Assault/Whirling Hands and Dark Melee/Shadow Maul that players get attached to any sort of change, so if you make a buff intending to reverse it when there's finally time to do a proper balance pass players protest vehemently when the other shoe finally drops.

Sort of? "Emergency" is probably a misnomer in this situation. I think there are plenty of sets that are fine as they're designed, but just lack in the numbers department. Probably no coincidence that the holy damage formulas don't actually take cast times into account, and sets like DP/Staff/KM are considered poor performers - and you have instances of dev intent to revise DP's animations. You don't need to reinvent the wheel like what might be necessary with Stone Armor, just some tuning.

 

I do agree to avoid any more situations like you mentioned, though. I don't think those would go over well even with proper communication of the intent.

[Marshal_General]

Stone armor doesn't need an emergency fix, it needs an intervention.

[UpandAtom]

Revisiting AR could conceivably bleed over into improving Mercs, as their ARs would be improved. Synergy! But the super-long recharges on half of the commando's powers (which he doesn't use particularly smartly, and he can't hasten unlike a player) is one thing that could have some emergency treatment. One thing they do surpassingly well is behave, I guess. You can order them to just stand back and they rat-tat-tat away without getting in anybody's way (they benefit from Group Fly pretty well. Maybe they should steal some Wing Raider jetpacks in-set :))

Commando's LRM reminds me, that blaster ancillary pool he stole the power out of is sort of wimpy itself. I have a flavor-themed blaster who took Munitions but it's not exactly a great app set.

Edited November 12, 2020 by UpandAtom

[Panthonca7034]

Buff Mercs, they need a boost, Nuff Said...

[zomgowen]

I'd like to see Electric blast just get added damage to targets as their endurance gets lower. Like powers would deal an extra 5% damage if the target has 90% end left, up to 50% extra damage if the target has 0%  endurance left. Lets you keep the classic effect since there are people out there who love to play the endurance drain game, and gives a reward draining in the form of bonus damage which is Elec's real issue for most people I think.

[cazaril]

10 hours ago, Vanden said:

Mesmerize is already a guaranteed boss sleep on one application, and you can’t stack it with itself because the damage will break the first sleep.

 

I can’t understand what this is trying to say.

10 hours ago, Vanden said:

Mesmerize is already a guaranteed boss sleep on one application, and you can’t stack it with itself because the damage will break the first sleep.

 

I can’t understand what this is trying to say.

 

Edit : 😅 oups, edit with the wrong account, original post was with kazrack35

 

I haven't play mind control for the last past year, so I wasn't sure. I seem to remember that sometimes sleep applied on boss without containment, sometimes not. I figured it was some twist between the sleep application vs the damage application.

 

The global intent here was to assure a sleep on the boss (if there's no interference betwen sleep and damage on application), but to prevent some kind of abuse by killing them stacking only sleep.

So the first mezmerize would do : damage then sleep the boss

the second, IF the sleep was still active would only apply damage, ie awaken the boss 

 

And also as I said first, I'm mostly okay with mesmerize, this was just a slight buff intended

Edited November 13, 2020 by cazaril

[Zombie Hustler]

On 11/8/2020 at 3:29 AM, Lunchmoney said:

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

This option is only available to Masterminds with the C.L.I.N.T. set. 

[xl8]

On 11/8/2020 at 5:56 AM, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

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

Unfortunate truncation, but I feel the whole set could be fixed simply by removing root from EVERY power. It's handheld for Peter's sake!

My AR/EM pretty much owns TFs, but that's because of the pairing. Boost Range really sells it. Don't forget the speed of the recharge.

 

Mercs - This is definitely priority one.

Everything else I've seen ppl mention isn't pressing.

Kinetic Melee? On a stalker! You aren't playing it right. Although if you can skip the final four powers of the set, something is off.

Edited November 13, 2020 by xl8
2 cents

[Dazou]

AS most people said, sets that need emergency buff to me are (from what I experienced):

 

MM Primaries:

-Mercs

-Ninjas

 

Blaster primaries:

-Energy ( please do something about that KD thing, I know there are IO but at which cost... I mean you have to sacrifice so much bonuses...)

-Assault rifle needs a buff too

-Electricity :/

 

I haven't test everything so certainly there re more, like Im questionning myself about ice melee and Battle axe for melees. I see very few of them...

Edited November 13, 2020 by Dazou

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, xl8 said:

Kinetic Melee? On a stalker! You aren't playing it right. Although if you can skip the final four powers of the set, something is off.

Kinetic Melee is decent on a Stalker (having the fastest of fast Assassin's Strikes does that), but there's no excuse for Concentrated Strike.

• Despite having a shorter animation, the damage hits later from power activation than Total Focus - even the slow one and not the faster beta version, so you end up blasting corpses with it more often than any other single target attack in the game. Unlike slow Energy Transfer, at least it doesn't hurt your hit points.
• For Stalkers or Scrappers, it provides no critical damage, instead recharging Power Siphon or Build Up - except it doesn't do it at the rate it should for criticals on a Scrapper, since it's not affected by things that affect the critical rate, and the benefit is moot for Stalkers since with the ATO every attack has a chance to recharge Build Up.

And as you said, having a situation where ignoring half of the set consistently gives you better performance than actually taking and using any of the powers means that something is wrong.

[xl8]

1 minute ago, siolfir said:

Kinetic Melee is decent on a Stalker (having the fastest of fast Assassin's Strikes does that), but there's no excuse for Concentrated Strike.

• Despite having a shorter animation, the damage hits later from power activation than Total Focus - even the slow one and not the faster beta version, so you end up blasting corpses with it more often than any other single target attack in the game. Unlike slow Energy Transfer, at least it doesn't hurt your hit points.
• For Stalkers or Scrappers, it provides no critical damage, instead recharging Power Siphon or Build Up - except it doesn't do it at the rate it should for criticals on a Scrapper, since it's not affected by things that affect the critical rate, and the benefit is moot for Stalkers since with the ATO every attack has a chance to recharge Build Up.

And as you said, having a situation where ignoring half of the set consistently gives you better performance than actually taking and using any of the powers means that something is wrong.

Not a priority tho. Put my kin/ stalker on a tf and it will kill everything faster than the rest of the team put together.

[Blackfeather]

Juuuuuuust putting this out there. 😉

[Galaxy Brain]

On 11/12/2020 at 1:20 PM, khy said:

I'd cast my vote for taking a good look at all underperforming MM specs, Mercs especially but not the only ones.

 

Just going off of the testing done in this thread : MM Primary Comparison: Standardized Environment Testing

 

In terms of clear times (Which is the best measurement for DPS I can tell from those charts) Necro, Robots, and Mercs are all noticeably worse than the other MM sets. Doing the same controlled environment run, Mercs took 50% longer to clear the same content, while Necro and Bots took 25% longer. When he starts in on IOs and procs, Robots drop to dead last. All 3 need some form of boost to damage to bring them closer to the rest of the pack.

 

Ninjas were able to clear the content rapidly but at the cost of having to be re-summoned CONSTANTLY because they were dying in DROVES holy crap. You'd think zombies or Robots would be the 'suicide into the enemy' option but nope, that's ninjas.

 

IMO Mercenaries is the most in dire need of a boost, followed by a smaller buff to bots and necro to bring them closer to the other MM sets and make them more competitive. Ninjas would probably be a lot more viable with some melee positional +Def to balance out how they get in close and get massacred a lot.

I do want to point out a massive caveat for bots: I did not run the set with fully saturated enemies (x6 or more). This would for sure have an impact on their performance.

 

That said, I do agree that Bots need a little somethin, but nowhere as bad as Mercs. Followed by Ninja needing some survival tweaks or just more raw damage to cement them as *the* damage Primary, and then Necro just needing a little extra TLC.

[Gobbledigook]

16 hours ago, xl8 said:

Not a priority tho. Put my kin/ stalker on a tf and it will kill everything faster than the rest of the team put together.

A team of controllers? lol

 

I would like to see that. What secondary is it running just out of curiosity?

[Max Firepower]

On 11/11/2020 at 7:27 PM, CrudeVileTerror said:

Did my best to collect all the votes so far.

I tried to avoid double-counting any Sets which a single user may have posted on more than once in the thread, but I may have made a mistake here or there.

 

16    Assault Rifle
15    Mercenaries
8    Stone Armour
7    Regeneration
7    Kinetic Melee
7    Sonic Blast
6    Sonic Resonance
5    Force Fields
4    Ninjas
4    Ice Armour
4    Broadsword
3    Peacebringer/Warshade
3    Sentinel Archetype
3    Mind Control
3    Electric Blast (specifically Endurance Drain versus Recovery Debuff)
3    Mastermind Primaries (with request for the whole Archetype to get another week under the magnifying glass)
3    Beasts
3    Fire Melee
2    Bane Spider
2    Willpower
2    Pain Domination
2    Archery
2    Traps
2    Street Justice
2    Munitions Mastery
1    Staff Melee
1    Dual Pistols
1    Battle Axe
1    Ice Melee
1    Empathy
1    Ninjitsu
1    Robotics
1    Dark Melee
1    Medicine Pool
1    Force of Will Pool
1    Martial Combat
 

I honestly don't agree with some of these, but I can't argue with the top 5!

From the top down to Ice Armor are all sets I actively avoid choosing because I feel they are so out of touch, underpowered, or broken.  I used to enjoy my Mind/FF troller from the day, but it is so underwhelming with the lack of DDR and largely pointless powers, I wouldn’t take it.  I had at least 4 AR blasters/def/corrupters and cannot see doing it compared to current options.

[Kazuuk]

Ice primary for Doms needs a serious look over.  It's perhaps the only set I've tinkered with that was borderline unplayable.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Kazuuk

[Lost Deep]

This might not be good for an emergency fix, but the poison support set needs to be looked at. It banks on debuffs instead of buffs, which fits but has limitations that buff powers don't have. Specifically, you need to re-apply them every encounter.

 

It has some really good powers (neurotoxic breath) but the rest of it is limited by the small, basically melee range AoE areas and some odd decisions (A single-target hold at tier 7?!). People have mentioned splash effects or what have you, but the mere act giving Envenom and Weaken better areas and giving Paralytic Poison something so that it isn't just a worse Tier 2 control power would go a long way.

[TygerDarkstorm]

On 11/10/2020 at 6:39 AM, Tyrannical said:

I was gonna comment on the whole Mastermind primaries thing, but thinking on it I think Masterminds need a week of discussion dedicated to just that.

 

Mercs, Ninjas and Beasts definitely underperform compared to the others, but that's going to need a lot of focused debate to figure out how to move forward.

But beasts don't actually underperform? Like, there's a whole thread dedicated to testing out the MM primaries and beasts were a long way from underperforming. I know that was in a specific environment and such, but I know I'm not the only beast MM player who agrees that their damage isn't as anemic as a lot of people make it out to be, especially when paired with /kin.

[xl8]

7 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

A team of controllers? lol

 

I would like to see that. What secondary is it running just out of curiosity?

You know... I share what I've learned from playing the game, because there are too many ppl who are outright dismissive of a set/power/ because of their own experience.

There are many ppl who learn to leverage sets in interesting ways and in doing so discover they can achieve things in game that they won't find discussed at large in the forums.
I will say this, I read @sir_myshkin's advice on Kin melee and I adapted it to my toon.

[Alchemystic]

1 hour ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

But beasts don't actually underperform? Like, there's a whole thread dedicated to testing out the MM primaries and beasts were a long way from underperforming. I know that was in a specific environment and such, but I know I'm not the only beast MM player who agrees that their damage isn't as anemic as a lot of people make it out to be, especially when paired with /kin.

It's not the damage output that's making them underperform, its the fact they can be somewhat squishy compared to other pets.

[Gobbledigook]

1 hour ago, xl8 said:

You know... I share what I've learned from playing the game, because there are too many ppl who are outright dismissive of a set/power/ because of their own experience.

There are many ppl who learn to leverage sets in interesting ways and in doing so discover they can achieve things in game that they won't find discussed at large in the forums.
I will say this, I read @sir_myshkin's advice on Kin melee and I adapted it to my toon.

Good for you. I was joking with you somewhat though.

 

I just found it funny you have such a big claim to kill faster than anyone on the TF. I would like to see that damage as i reckon i have some that may give you a run for your money. 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[TygerDarkstorm]

17 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

It's not the damage output that's making them underperform, its the fact they can be somewhat squishy compared to other pets.

I have not really heard that before. Most people I see talking about them consider them pretty tanky, which is one of the reasons that they pair nicely with /kin. They're not a top tier set, which is fine, but they don't suffer the way mercs or ninjas do. I'm not sure where you're getting this from, but it doesn't fit not just my personal experience with beasts, nor that of other avid beast/ players on these forums/reddit. The thread was provided last page, but I'll link it here to provide some raw data to back up my point: 

 

[Alchemystic]

1 hour ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I have not really heard that before. Most people I see talking about them consider them pretty tanky, which is one of the reasons that they pair nicely with /kin. They're not a top tier set, which is fine, but they don't suffer the way mercs or ninjas do. I'm not sure where you're getting this from, but it doesn't fit not just my personal experience with beasts, nor that of other avid beast/ players on these forums/reddit. The thread was provided last page, but I'll link it here to provide some raw data to back up my point: 

I did say somewhat squishy.

Compared to the likes of Demons, Robots and Zombies, they certainly fall a little short when it comes to staving off damage.