Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Release Candidates)

[Arcanum]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

• Please note that Focused Feedback threads are heavily moderated to ensure they remain on topic.
  • Any off-topic posts in these threads will be removed without warning.
  • The thread will be locked when no more feedback is required, but you are more than welcome to continue the discussion in a new thread.
• The most up-to-date version of the changes will be listed in the first post.
• The changes in each build will be posted as replies.
  • Most changes from the previous beta build are listed in green.
    • Green text will become white text in the next set of patch notes.
  • Any changes or fixes that are only relevant to the beta builds (ie: fixes / tweaks to new features) are listed in blue.
    • Blue text will be deleted in the next set of patch notes as it is only relevant to highlight changes between beta builds, not a changes from live.
  • Known issues are listed in purple.

 

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Patch Notes for April 10th, 2021 - Issue 27: Second Chances, Page 2 (Release Candidate 1)

 

Powers Changes 

Power Animation & Rooting Update

• Power animation time and rooting time have been decoupled - meaning that powers now decide how long they should root the character for, not the animation
  • This greatly increases our flexibility in making adjustments to power timing, animations, and rooting, and also fixes various issues surrounding animation cancelling
• The following powers will now never root during their activation:
  • Ally-targeting abilities that do not hit enemies (eg: Healing Aura, but not Twilight Grasp)
  • Self-only abilities that do not hit enemies (eg: Build Up, but not Soul Drain)
• The following powers will still root during their activation (and will do so more reliably):
  • Any power that applies any kind of effect to enemies (this includes attacks as well as taunt and damage auras)
  • All powers that summon other entities
  • All interruptible powers (snipes/assassinations/etc) will now root for their uninterruptible window
• Weapon redraw should no longer cancel attack animations
• In addition, many powers with excessively long cast times have been sped up (listed below)

Mastermind Summons & Henchmen Buffs

• Mastermind Henchmen Summons have had their recharge times reduced:
  • T1 Henchmen: reduced from 60s to 5s (25s in PvP)
  • T2 Henchmen: reduced from 90s to 10s (35s in PvP)
  • T3 Henchmen: reduced from 120s to 15s (50s in PvP)
• These summon powers are no longer affected by recharge buffs or debuffs
• Mastermind Henchmen Summons have had their endurance costs reduced:
  • T1 Henchmen: reduced from 19.5 end to 5.46 end
  • T2 Henchmen: reduced from 19.5 end to 9.62 end
  • T3 Henchmen: reduced from 19.5 end to 13.18 end
• Henchmen upgrade end costs have been reduced from 22.75 to 11.375
• Note: This were some quick low hanging changes to help Masterminds out a bit, we are currently investigating further improvements to Masterminds for the future

Inspirations

• Ambrosia
  • This inspiration now applies to the caster and all pets
• Essence of the Earth
  • This inspiration now applies to the caster and all pets

Demon Summoning

•  Summon Demonlings
  • Cast time reduced from 4s to 2s
•  Summon Demons
  • Cast time reduced from 4s to 2s
•  Hell on Earth
  • Cast time reduced from 4.03s to 2.03s
•  Summon Demon Prince
  • Cast time reduced from 4s to 2s

Assault Rifle & Mercenaries

•  Ignite (All Versions)
  • Cast Time reduced from 4s to 2s
•  Full Auto (All Versions, including Henchmen)
  • Cast Time reduced from 4s (or 6s) to 2.5s (Mercenary Commando actually took a whopping 6s before!)

Stone Armor

•  Rooted
  • No longer applies any movement debuffs to the caster
  • No longer suppresses travel powers
  • VFX has been toned down slightly as it no longer represents you being glued to the ground
•  Granite Armor
  • This power now disables all Flying, Running and Jumping toggle powers

Ninjitsu

•  Scrapper > Shinobi-Iri
  • This power no longer grants movement buffs (as they would be absorbed into the new stacking mechanics)
    • This power no longer accepts Jump, Run and Universal Travel enhancements
    • The buff has been toned down and moved to Kuji-In Rin
  • Stealth crit mechanic has been significantly improved
    • Now kicks in after 8s of no combat, rather than 20s
      • This allows the bonus to be used every encounter without requiring you to stop for 20s
    • Stealth crit chance for single target attacks is now 65%
    • Stealth crit chance for AoE attacks is now 30%
  • Power icon updated
•  Sentinel > Shinobi-Iri
  • This power no longer grants movement buffs (as they would be absorbed into the new stacking mechanics)
    • This power no longer accepts Jump, Run and Universal Travel enhancements
    • The buff has been toned down and moved to Kuji-In Rin
  • Stealth damage buff has been doubled from +20% to +40%
  • Power icon updated
•  Scrapper | Sentinel | Stalker > Kuji-In Rin
  • This power now grants a small run speed and jumping buff (and as a click power, this will stack with all other movement buffs)
    • This power now accepts Jump, Run and Universal Travel enhancements
  • This power now accepts damage resistance sets (which will improve the psionic resistance component)

Dual Pistols

•  Hail of Bullets (All Versions)

  • Cast time reduced from 4.17s to 2.47s

  • Adjusted Hail of Bullets animation

• The text description for Dual Pistols powers have been updated for readability, if no issues are found with these descriptions, other powers will follow similar formatting

Other Powers Changes

•   Snipe Powers
  • Fast (in-combat) snipes have had their ranges normalized to 80ft (and 100ft for Psi)
    • Slow snipes are unaffected and retain their increased range
•  Phase Powers
  • The No Phase suppression window for all powers (PvE and PvP) has been reduced from 2 minutes to 90 seconds
•  Inherent > Rest
  • No longer has a recharge, making it easier to use at low levels
  • No longer accepts recharge reduction enhancements
  • It should now be a bit harder to accidentally move and interrupt Rest before it begins properly
  • Can now be activated in the air, but you will fall to the ground once Rest is fully active
•  Hibernate (All Versions)
  • This power no longer de-toggles flight powers, but will still suppress flight
    • Fixed an issue introduced in build 1 which allowed you to teleport while hibernating
•  Sentinel > Mace Mastery > Focused Accuracy Coordinated Targeting
  • Unlike other versions of Focused Accuracy, this power is a team buff
  • To distinguish it from other versions of Focused Accuracy, it has been renamed to Coordinated Targeting and now has a new icon

•  Electrical Blast > Thunderous Blast (All Versions)

  • Cast Time reduced from 3.7s to 2.93s

•  Radiation Emission > Choking Cloud

  • Cast Time reduced from 3.47s to 1s

•  Darkness Manipulation | Dark Armor > Death Shroud (All Versions)

  • Cast Time reduced from 3.47s to 2.47s

•  Ice Manipulation | Ice Melee > Ice Patch (All Versions)

  • Cast Time reduced from 3.47s to 1.57s

•  Beast Mastery > Summon Dire Wolf

  • Cast Time reduced from 4.67s to 2s

•  Sentinel > Bio Armor > Athletic Regulation

  • The stance benefits of this power have been modified

    • Note that this power always provides +Run / +Fly speed and -Defence resistance, only the stance bonuses have been changed

  • Defensive:

    • Before: 65% Resistance(-Run/-Fly)

    • Now: 40% Resistance (-Run/-Fly) (reduces the strength of speed debuffs)

  • Offensive:

    • Before: +227.5% Run Strength / +88.7% Fly Strength

    • Now: +14mph Run Speed / +14mph Fly Speed (a flat increase to movement speed in and out of combat

  • Efficient:

    • Before: +113.75% Run Strength / +44.36% Fly Strength / 32.5% Resistance (-Run/-Fly)

    • Now: +33% Run / Fly Speed Strength (increases the strength of all your travel powers - essentially a free SO in every run / fly power)

•  Jump Pack +  Steam Jump +  Double Jump
  • Improved the reliability of the mutual exclusivity mechanics for these powers

•  Gravity Control > Singularity

  • Singularity will now slowly pull enemies towards it, allowing it to make much greater use of the Repel effect

•  Temporary & Prestige Costumes (aka Halloween Costumes)
  • These costumes are no longer mutually exclusive with stealth powers (they never provided stealth)
•  Inherent > Walk
  • These changes have been reverted for now - we may revisit this in the future
•  Trick Arrow > Disruption Arrow
  • The visual FX for this power has been changed to alleviate headaches being induced by the old VFX
  • Due to the health implications of the old VFX, this is not an optional change
• Freedom Corps > Nullifier > Sonic Grenade
  • The visual FX for this power has been changed to alleviate headaches being induced by the old VFX

Edited April 10, 2021 by GM Arcanum

[Bopper]

I'm glad Athletic Regulation finally got looked at, but I fear the change to Offensive Adaptation might be an overcorrection. Is it intended to have Offensive's Adaptation be worse than Efficiency Adaptation? If so, carry on. Just curious on their reshuffling of buff ranks.

 

Also, is there a reason why Offensive only buffs Run speed? Would it be fair to allow it to also get a 1.0 scale flyspeed effect (+21.48 mph) to mirror the new run speed effect?

[Saikochoro]

On 3/19/2021 at 8:46 AM, PirateCrew said:

Not seeing strong logic behind the Rune of Protection 33% duration reduction.  Increasing the other similar powers' duration or effectiveness is equally valid given what the patch notes state...and has the benefit of making more pools interesting (they are not, for me, right now).  If RoP is "too good" according to those with the power to initiate this change and the ability to peer into the stats, just say it - the need for a change would be much easier to understand if "50% of builds have this power now, it's Hasten 2nd edition" or "Look at all the melee players dropping their T9s in favor of RoP" (though maybe that points to a different issue & solution).

 

In my experience, RoP is a reasonably good power as-is, and for some characters it's worth the investment into the prerequisite powers and some slotting.  Its duration reduction doesn't really seem to accomplish anything beneficial for the game, unlike most everything else adjusted in this bundle of changes.

 

If we assume that RoP effectiveness *must* be reduced in value, I would prefer to see some alternatives considered first (buffs to other pools, higher end cost, giving up that new when-mezzed effect buff, etc).  I'd say that -33% also feels on the extreme end... these top-tier pool powers are supposed to be somewhat desirable, right?

Agreed overall. However, if the reason is because melee are taking RoP over armor t9s, this has a lot less to do with RoP being decent and more to do with a lot of armor t9s being terrible power picks. Nerfing RoP won’t change that. 
 

I think making other pool powers better to increase the opportunity cost of going into sorcery to get rune is a much better solution. Gives more incentive for more build variety rather than restricting it even further. 

[UberGuy]

50 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

I assume this is to prevent some sort of cheesing with open sky maps?

 

Actually, it's to allow people to do things like use Rest in a lava patch for damage badges.

[Starforge]

2 minutes ago, UberGuy said:

 

Actually, it's to allow people to do things like use Rest in a lava patch for damage badges.

 

Currently you can toggle Rest and then use enough Break Frees to move your character.

[UberGuy]

5 minutes ago, Starforge said:

Currently you can toggle Rest and then use enough Break Frees to move your character.

That's "fixed" by this, but it's not relevant to why using it drops you out of the air, which is what I was answering. That's not an exploit fix - it's actually a nod to a way players use Rest to get damage badges. 

 

Beyond even that though, fixing the ability to move using BFs is not the motivation for the change to Rest. (I don't think anyone actually cared that you could do that.), But Powehouse would speak to that if he wants to at this point.

Edited March 20, 2021 by UberGuy

[Starforge]

Oh yeah, I wasn't commenting on whether this change was good or not. I think it's fine. I was merely pointing out how one would currently try to maneuver themselves using Rest for a damage badge.

[ScarySai]

47 minutes ago, UberGuy said:

 

Actually, it's to allow people to do things like use Rest in a lava patch for damage badges.

 

I just let a + 1 guide hit me and go watch netflix. >.>

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 3/13/2021 at 7:29 AM, GM Arcanum said:

Sentinel > Bio Armor > Athletic Regulation

 

On 3/13/2021 at 7:29 AM, GM Arcanum said:

Offensive:

• Before: +227.5% Run Strength / +88.7% Fly Strength

• Now: +14mph Run Speed (a flat increase to run speed)

 

Gotta admit I'm bummed about this. My fire/bio sent perma-hovers and the loss of extra flight speed here kinda sucks.

[Jimmy]

7 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Gotta admit I'm bummed about this. My fire/bio sent perma-hovers and the loss of extra flight speed here kinda sucks.

That's an oversight, it will be getting a Fly buff.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Woot!

[ScarySai]

5 hours ago, GM Arcanum said:

•  Sorcery > Rune of Protection
  • Duration reduced from 90s to 60s to match the other Origin pool tier 5 powers

 

 

In the meantime, going to make a new post-wipe flyer to test the jump pack/double jump changes.

Edited March 20, 2021 by ScarySai

[macskull]

5 hours ago, Starforge said:

 

Currently you can toggle Rest and then use enough Break Frees to move your character.

You won't need to do that anymore, but IIRC you'd still be able to just pop the breakfrees before activating Rest and you'd still get the immob protection.

[Tater Todd]

Yeah, I'm still not a fan of the Rune of Protection nerf.  If the change is pushed through to live I hope when the power is revisited HC considers how beneficial RoP can be for squishies especially for buff and healing toons as well as debuff toons.  For example Poison Defenders can accidentally generate enough threat to "outpace" even Tankers and Brutes when it comes to aggro EVEN when the Poison Defenders are being extremely careful.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Tater Todd

[KingofMonkeys]

I'll just say, the range nerf (bug fix?) on fast cast snipes mid combat is a bit of a bummer, I can understand if this was broken/not working as intended but it was really nice to have a way to deal with cowards that fly away and run to great distance on open maps, watching them cling to hope of escape only for my dominator's snipe to dispose of them mid combat.

Would it be too much to ask for a middle ground between 80' and 150'? Or at the very least only reduce the range for Scrapper/Stalker fast snipes?

Edited March 20, 2021 by KingofMonkeys

[macskull]

7 hours ago, GM Arcanum said:

 Sentinel > Bio Armor > Athletic Regulation

• The stance benefits of this power have been modified

• Defensive:

  • Before: 65% Speed Strength

  • Now: 40% -Speed Resistance (prevents / weakens speed debuffs, making it harder to slow you down)

• Offensive:

  • Before: +227.5% Run Strength / +88.7% Fly Strength

  • Now: +14mph Run Speed (a flat increase to movement speed in and out of combat)

    • Known issue: Fly speed increase is currently missing

• Efficient:

  • Before: +113.75% Run Strength / +44.36% Fly Strength / 32.5% -Speed Resistance

  • Now: +33% Run / Fly Speed Strength (increases the strength of all your travel powers - essentially a free SO in every run / fly power)

So I'm finding an issue here.

 

Defensive Adaptation's "before" value is listed as "65% speed strength" which implies it does what Efficient Adaptation is now doing, but in reality Defensive Adaptation provides 65% slow resistance (except to recharge). Is this patch note incorrect, or did the slow resistance actually get nerfed?

[Captain Powerhouse]

44 minutes ago, macskull said:

Defensive Adaptation's "before" value is listed as "65% speed strength" which implies it does what Efficient Adaptation is now doing, but in reality Defensive Adaptation provides 65% slow resistance (except to recharge). Is this patch note incorrect, or did the slow resistance actually get nerfed?

 

-Run/-Fly resistance was lowered in Defensive stance and removed from Rested stance.

Edited the post in an attempt to clarify that.

 

1 hour ago, macskull said:

You won't need to do that anymore, but IIRC you'd still be able to just pop the breakfrees before activating Rest and you'd still get the immob protection.

 

This wont prevent Rest from preventing movement, it is now handled via rooting.

[macskull]

Ehh, I'm not really seeing why the movement slow resistance value needed to be lowered, especially since you don't get any of the extra movement bonuses at the same time as the movement slow resistance. It might be a bit more palatable if it were 40% resistance to all slows (recharge included).

[Dahkness]

3 hours ago, Tater Todd said:

Yeah, I'm still not a fan of the Rune of Protection nerf.  If the change is pushed through to live I hope when the power is revisited HC considers how beneficial RoP can be for squishies especially for buff and healing toons as well as debuff toons.  For example Poison Defenders can accidentally generate enough threat to "outpace" even Tankers and Brutes when it comes to aggro EVEN when the Poison Defenders are being extremely careful.

This nerf troubles me a little. With sets like poison, they don’t have a lot of resources for aggressive play styles. They already have to fill in holes that poison doesn’t offer. No self heal, no end buff. Powers like RoP really helps to fill in giant gaps in builds and it lets you be more creative on your slotting. For example: RoP gives the defender a little extra time to juggle there health to get there heal procs to fire off while taking just a little less damage.
 

Not to offend the devs! They are amazing! But this nerf seems like it’s a nerf to creativity. Really the amount of freedom  this one power gives you really helps.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Dahkness

[scottocamp]

Sorcery > Rune of Protection

• Duration reduced from 90s to 60s to match the other Origin pool tier 5 powers

 

First, the reason offered for this change has no meaning.  You can "match" RoP, Adrenal Booster and Unleash Potential by making all three powers any duration of time.  Making all of them 120 seconds in duration matches the three powers.   Making all of them 10 seconds in duration matches the three powers.  What would be helpful to know is why they are being matched at 60 seconds.  What is special about 60 seconds?  Is it simply because there are two of them at 60 seconds and only one of them at 90 seconds?  That seems a little silly to me.  Why is 60 seconds appropriate for those 3 powers and 90 seconds inappropriate?

 

Second, why do these three powers even need to be matched?  Why not match all three up with Hasten - another pool power with a 120 second duration.  Why balance RoP against even less popular pool power choices?  Why not balance against the pool powers players actually seem to use?  Or better yet, why not balance RoP against the primary, secondary and epic powers players would need to skip in order to take RoP?

 

When Titan Weapons was nerfed, there was a lot of data given to demonstrate the excessive popularity of the set and a lot of metrics presented to show how over-powered the set was in practice.  Nothing like that has been offered in defense of this nerf.   Let us see how many level 50 toons even use RoP.  I suspect it is close to 10%.  I make that estimate based on the number of builds I have that make use of RoP.  If 90% of the builds don't consider RoP worth taking, then what is the rationale to nerf such a power?  Conversely if 30% of the builds take Tactics, 40% of the builds take Weave, 60% of the builds take Hasten and 80% of the builds take RoP; then that is a convincing argument that RoP is likely too powerful.  But nothing concrete like that has been offered to justify this nerf.  Show us the metrics to support this nerf.

 

The arguments presented so far - like Arcane's statement that "the change is perfectly reasonable and that Sorcery comes out the other end as a strong and viable power pool choice" offer no factual support that the change is indeed perfectly reasonable.  Why exactly is a 60 second duration more reasonable than a 90 second duration?  What data are you basing that on?  How do you know RoP will remain viable after this change?  My personal "data" shows that only 1 in 10 of my builds think RoP worth the investment with a 90 second duration.  That would indicate it is *not* a power that is breaking the game and needs to be reduced in utility.  Other pool powers like Hasten are much easier to obtain and just as powerful with an even longer duration.  Many pool powers - like Tactics, Combat Jumping, Combat Teleportation, Tough and Weave are certainly taken much more frequently than RoP and yet they are not being nerfed.

 

There needs to be more justification offered for this nerf.  Let us see what pool powers are actually being taken and how RoP compares.  Please offer an actual explanation for why this needs to happen. 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by scottocamp

[PeregrineFalcon]

I've tested a Mercs Mastermind and a Stone/TW Tanker on the test server.

 

The animation times for some of the Mercs attacks were noticeably shorter, but the time it takes to kill targets doesn't seem to have decreased noticeably. Yeah, Mercs MMs are that bad.

 

The lack of speed debuffs on my pre-Granite Stone Tanker was awesome. I looked but I couldn't really see any difference in Rooted's new FX.

 

Now if you could just buff the pre-Granite defenses a bit then sticking with pre-Granite might actually be a viable choice for some people.

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, Tater Todd said:

For example Poison Defenders can accidentally generate enough threat to "outpace" even Tankers and Brutes when it comes to aggro EVEN when the Poison Defenders are being extremely careful.

 

It appears that you’ve been hanging out with the wrong Tankers, Mr. Wayne.😉

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Now if you could just buff the pre-Granite defenses a bit then sticking with pre-Granite might actually be a viable choice for some people.

Stone Armor was the only Tanker primary that I just could not stomach taking to 50 before The Snap. Now that non-Granite can actually move, I am looking forward to giving the set a go.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Myrmidon

[ExeErdna]

 

 

7 hours ago, scottocamp said:

Sorcery > Rune of Protection

• Duration reduced from 90s to 60s to match the other Origin pool tier 5 powers

 

First, the reason offered for this change has no meaning.  You can "match" RoP, Adrenal Booster and Unleash Potential by making all three powers any duration of time.  Making all of them 120 seconds in duration matches the three powers.   Making all of them 10 seconds in duration matches the three powers.  What would be helpful to know is why they are being matched at 60 seconds.  What is special about 60 seconds?  Is it simply because there are two of them at 60 seconds and only one of them at 90 seconds?  That seems a little silly to me.  Why is 60 seconds appropriate for those 3 powers and 90 seconds inappropriate?

 

Second, why do these three powers even need to be matched?  Why not match all three up with Hasten - another pool power with a 120 second duration.  Why balance RoP against even less popular pool power choices?  Why not balance against the pool powers players actually seem to use?  Or better yet, why not balance RoP against the primary, secondary and epic powers players would need to skip in order to take RoP?

 

When Titan Weapons was nerfed, there was a lot of data given to demonstrate the excessive popularity of the set and a lot of metrics presented to show how over-powered the set was in practice.  Nothing like that has been offered in defense of this nerf.   Let us see how many level 50 toons even use RoP.  I suspect it is close to 10%.  I make that estimate based on the number of builds I have that make use of RoP.  If 90% of the builds don't consider RoP worth taking, then what is the rationale to nerf such a power?  Conversely if 30% of the builds take Tactics, 40% of the builds take Weave, 60% of the builds take Hasten and 80% of the builds take RoP; then that is a convincing argument that RoP is likely too powerful.  But nothing concrete like that has been offered to justify this nerf.  Show us the metrics to support this nerf.

 

The arguments presented so far - like Arcane's statement that "the change is perfectly reasonable and that Sorcery comes out the other end as a strong and viable power pool choice" offer no factual support that the change is indeed perfectly reasonable.  Why exactly is a 60 second duration more reasonable than a 90 second duration?  What data are you basing that on?  How do you know RoP will remain viable after this change?  My personal "data" shows that only 1 in 10 of my builds think RoP worth the investment with a 90 second duration.  That would indicate it is *not* a power that is breaking the game and needs to be reduced in utility.  Other pool powers like Hasten are much easier to obtain and just as powerful with an even longer duration.  Many pool powers - like Tactics, Combat Jumping, Combat Teleportation, Tough and Weave are certainly taken much more frequently than RoP and yet they are not being nerfed.

 

There needs to be more justification offered for this nerf.  Let us see what pool powers are actually being taken and how RoP compares.  Please offer an actual explanation for why this needs to happen. 

 

 

 

From what I've read ALL the Origin Pools have something "busted" about them. Personally I would want those T5 to be like 120sec so maybe squishes don't have to take Clarion at 50 or get killed by just being near all the CC mobs throw around. Like how each T5 Origin Pool soft replaces a Destiny pick. RoP is Clarion and Barrier all before lv 20 which can keep you from getting killed by Ruin Mages on Posi 1. My issue is that quite a few times I ended up being the only support on a team and you start to feel it without some sort of natural mitigation.  Sonic, Elec and Traps have something to help that Mez hole yet for others you end up avoiding content. Like I know people that don't want to fight Carnies or Malta due to their mez happy ways when you slip up.

Also yes Tactics, Combat Jumping and Teleport, Tough and Weave are vital as hell when you can make it fit. I WISH I could fit more build with CT since it's cool to use.

Personally I don't care about flying like 100mph I just wanna Hover 40-50mph so I can just take that over Fly then use CT to poof into mobs or by allies.

[schrodingercat]

Hello! This may have been reported, but I can't see it. With the movement changes, I figured it needed to be checked.

 

Rooted applies a movement debuff to the user ONLY when Granite armor is toggled on.

First image: Rooted + Granite armor

Second image: just rooted

 

None of the other movement power changes work in unexpected ways with the powers tested.

Edited March 22, 2021 by schrodingercat