Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Release Candidates)

[Blackfeather]

1 minute ago, Zepp said:

I like the use of vectoring in Singy's repel effect. However, I was wondering if the KB could be given a similar vector.

 

As in, making Singularity's Lift power knock enemies up towards it? That'd be neat.

[WindDemon21]

On 3/20/2021 at 11:54 AM, GM Arcanum said:

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

Still not seeing the buff powers being pbaoe with wider radius XD

[WindDemon21]

4 hours ago, Heatstroke said:

Speaking of Animation time. Meltdown in Rad Armor.  Is there any chance that power can have its animation time reduced?

And ground zero ugh, it literally casts in 1s, then you just stand there like an idiot for 2 more seconds for no reason.

 

Also the -regen resistance is bugged as well as seen here:

 

[Bionic_Flea]

[BUG] I am unable to slot any I-power.  I keep getting " 'X'  has not been equipped because you have activated a power or have been attacked too recently."  But I have been out of any combat for 25 minutes and have 11 minutes with all toggles turned off and removed auto-hasten.  The only combat spam I am getting now is from Panacea and Power Transfer HP procs.  (*checks game*)  I was finally able to slot them, not sure why.  The last two events other than HP procs was Hasten crashing and using LRT.  Toggles and Hasten have never prevented me from slotting I-powers before.

 

[BUG] Rune of Protection says it has a minimal effect version, but it still has all the magical runes and circles.

[UberGuy]

The iPowers bug has been identified as being related to some of the timer changes, and fixes are in the pipeline according to chatter in the testing Discord

[Wavicle]

The Defense elements of Stealth seem to be a little buggy. They come on really slowly, and the Unsuppressed defense seems to be around 7.5% which is a lot higher than I expected. The suppressed defense was 1.88% which was what I thought it would be.

 

Also the toggle has no recharge, which surprised me.

[Bopper]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

The Defense elements of Stealth seem to be a little buggy. They come on really slowly, and the Unsuppressed defense seems to be around 7.5% which is a lot higher than I expected. The suppressed defense was 1.88% which was what I thought it would be.

 

Also the toggle has no recharge, which surprised me.

That sounds right, recall Invisibility was merged into Stealth (kinda like how Teleport Friend was merged into Teleport Foe). So now Stealth has Invisibility's old stealth radius (55 ft?) and old unsuppressed defense (7.5%?). When you lose your stealth, the defense gets suppressed to 1.875% (which is what Stealth does on Live). As for the bugginess, I'm not surprised but it's good to report that. And the 0 recharge is definitely odd to hear...if that's not in the patch notes that should get addressed. It might have been a blunder when converting Invisibility into a travel power (Infiltration), which would have a 0 recharge. So maybe a copy/paste error when merging it into Stealth? Who knows?

[Carnifax]

2 hours ago, Bopper said:

That sounds right, recall Invisibility was merged into Stealth (kinda like how Teleport Friend was merged into Teleport Foe). So now Stealth has Invisibility's old stealth radius (55 ft?) and old unsuppressed defense (7.5%?). When you lose your stealth, the defense gets suppressed to 1.875% (which is what Stealth does on Live). As for the bugginess, I'm not surprised but it's good to report that. And the 0 recharge is definitely odd to hear...if that's not in the patch notes that should get addressed. It might have been a blunder when converting Invisibility into a travel power (Infiltration), which would have a 0 recharge. So maybe a copy/paste error when merging it into Stealth? Who knows?

Am I being dim or are the Stealth Pool changes not in the patch notes on Page 1 of this thread? 

 

Trying to figure out what the new power is. 

[Jimmy]

3 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

Am I being dim or are the Stealth Pool changes not in the patch notes on Page 1 of this thread? 

 

Trying to figure out what the new power is. 

It's sometimes tricky to decide which thread to put things in, but the stealth / invisibility change was so tightly tied to Infiltration that it's in the travel thread. This thread is basically an "everything else powers related" thread.

[Bionic_Flea]

But Jimmy, why can't you be more transparent?  But not too transparent like Invisibility was.  Or maybe that's OK if you have the option to turn it on and off.

[Jimmy]

8 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

But Jimmy, why can't you be more transparent?  But not too transparent like Invisibility was.  Or maybe that's OK if you have the option to turn it on and off.

 

[Luminara]

23 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

 

 

Flea Austin.  A flea barely alive.  Developers, we can rebuild him.  We have the technology.  We have the capability to make the world's first bionic flea. Flea Austin will be that flea.  Better than he was before.  Better... stronger... faster.

 

He is... The Six Million Inf* Flea.

[SuperBear]

Sniper Rifle (Assault Rifle - Blaster) The yellow ring appears randomly and not reliably (sometimes not at all during an attack using Burst, Slug, M30, Flamethrower, Full Auto, Buckshot in random orders). When it does appear, it lasts for only approx. 1 second, making it difficult to use. I have a set of 5 Winter's Bite in the power on Beta. Current recharge on my Snipe is 5 seconds (when the ring does appear, recharge is still 5 seconds).

Also noted, when I am able to use the enhanced Snipe, the animation time doesn't seem to be shortened nor does the range seem to change.

Edited April 8, 2021 by damienray
additional test info

[VashNKnives]

Am I imagining things or did enemy mez durations get tweaked? I was running Creys Folly and letting the Freaks and others hold/stun me and mezzes seemed to wear off very quickly on two characters (lvl 35 and 36 )

 

edit: it must be some sort of cheat that I'm not aware of - I'm too tough on those characters... I'll go read and look around at the menus

 

edit2: I'm going to go with it all being in my head.... I didn't record numbers and am not committing to testing correctly, for instance: a petless MM just spamming healing aura in front of one 36 smasher boss and one 36 super stunner 

-on test was easily healing back to full over and over

-on live must have had an unlucky streak

 

Anecdotal "feelings" are not really good for this part of the forum 😛I apologize for raising any concerns.

Edited April 9, 2021 by VashNKnives

[hejtmane]

On 3/20/2021 at 11:58 AM, Saikochoro said:

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. 

The only reason i take t9 on my scrapper is for an IO mule and it never gets put in my tray and never gets used. they are terrible and the crashs are just terrible

Edited April 9, 2021 by hejtmane

[PeregrineFalcon]

I just logged off of Brainstorm where I was running around with my Gravity/Storm Controller. This feedback specifically concerns the changes to Singularity and Arcane Bolt. Note, I have a Sudden Acceleration KB to KD slotted in Singularity.

 

So first I would drag, or teleport, Singularity into a group. Then I would cast Tornado right on top of Singularity. The entire group would be flying away, because of Tornado, and then pulled back in because of Singularity. So I would just stand there watching while the entire group was constantly flying out and then back in, while Singularity and Tornado killed them.

 

Sometimes I would lock a group down and use my controls until Arcane Power flashed over my head, then I would use Arcane Bolt. When it's empowered it's the highest damage attack my Controller has. While I didn't monitor damage numbers, using it obviously increased my damage output.

 

Overall, I'm very happy with the improvements to both Singularity and Arcane Bolt.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I just logged off of Brainstorm where I was running around with my Gravity/Storm Controller. This feedback specifically concerns the changes to Singularity and Arcane Bolt. Note, I have a Sudden Acceleration KB to KD slotted in Singularity.

 

So first I would drag, or teleport, Singularity into a group. Then I would cast Tornado right on top of Singularity. The entire group would be flying away, because of Tornado, and then pulled back in because of Singularity. So I would just stand there watching while the entire group was constantly flying out and then back in, while Singularity and Tornado killed them.

 

Sometimes I would lock a group down and use my controls until Arcane Power flashed over my head, then I would use Arcane Bolt. When it's empowered it's the highest damage attack my Controller has. While I didn't monitor damage numbers, using it obviously increased my damage output.

 

Overall, I'm very happy with the improvements to both Singularity and Arcane Bolt.

That's actually a great powerset combo to use these changes with. I'd like to test it myself, but if you happen to know, do the enemies have time to attack or is there no window for this due to the constant knocking around?

[PeregrineFalcon]

6 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

That's actually a great powerset combo to use these changes with. I'd like to test it myself, but if you happen to know, do the enemies have time to attack or is there no window for this due to the constant knocking around?

If I stood around doing nothing they'd occasionally have an opportunity to get a shot off at me. If I used any of my controls at all then they had none.

 

I have Rune of Protection on this character and only used it once. When a Super Stunned slept me.

[srmalloy]

On 3/22/2021 at 5:52 PM, gameboy1234 said:

This is a super good idea.  My bots have the same problem on live right now.  My character just plain runs much faster than back in the day with Sprint, and the bots can no longer keep up.  I am constantly leaving them behind just moving around normally.  If all pets could have their normal running speed increased to match what Sprint gives players now, that would be awesome.

 

Give pets the same speed as their summoner (whatever it is) when out of combat, dropping them to their current speed in combat.

[Arcanum]

Release Candidate 1 - April 10th

---

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

[Wonderbolt]

I'm sure there was some bug that's preventing its rollout, but I can't even begin to describe how disappointed I was to learn the Walk changes had been reverted. PLEASE make sure this gets put into an upcoming update or worked on some more for this one. That was such a fantastic change and having it reverted back feels awful.

Having to de-toggle everything on my character just to have a walking animation for RP should not stay the norm.

[Andreah]

I don't know. I prefer walk mode without powers. The current walk mode suppresses everything, which I find to be a good thing. For example, in you have the panacea unique slotted, and turn on walk now, the ticking heal/refresh numbers don't show. I like that feature. Also, many of us find constant VFX and especially pulsing auras to be distracting in casual RP settings.

 

It's almost like there ought to be two modes for walk. One with complete suppression, and one without. Popup tray variant, perhaps?

[Wonderbolt]

Why tie it to walk? Just have a "Suppress everything" toggle and a walk toggle. If you want to suppress all while walking, toggle both on. I want to be able to walk around carrying my shield, or with my cool-looking toggles active, and be able to turn Walk on for some RP without needing to spend 20 seconds putting 13 toggles back up before I'm allowed to fight again, every time I want to do a scene where my character isn't sprinting.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Rikti

[Bopper]

22 minutes ago, Rikti said:

I'm sure there was some bug that's preventing its rollout, but I can't even begin to describe how disappointed I was to learn the Walk changes had been reverted. PLEASE make sure this gets put into an upcoming update or worked on some more for this one. That was such a fantastic change and having it reverted back feels awful.

Having to de-toggle everything on my character just to have a walking animation for RP should not stay the norm.

I don't think it was a bug,  it was mostly the impact on Role Playing. Walk suppressed everything, including your inherent. So things like Panacea would stop procing green numbers over your head. So it sounds like it needs more time to flesh out all the impacts for changing walk. Hopefully it's in Page 3 because I also liked the changes. 

[Wonderbolt]

If it needs more work then give it more work, but it better not get shelved indefinitely. Toggles during walk is a fantastic change and we should get it when they're able to do it properly.