Focused Feedback: Pool Powerset Revamp: Sorcery

[Bopper]

4 minutes ago, DMW45 said:

My take on Arcane Bolt is simple--having the base damage according to the formula is fine, and having the bonus damage tied to a gimmick is fine--but it shouldn't really be random, it seems like a missed opportunity for specific interactions.

 

Perhaps, as it has a decent chance for knock back, have the bonus damaged tied to only affect enemies that are currently knocked down, for example.

It really isn't random as you'll know when it's ready to do double damage. It's not like a scrapper where you might get the crit, you'll know with certainty if you'll get the crit. It's just a matter of when that crit will be ready that is somewhat random (you'll reach a point where the chance hits 100+%).

[DMW45]

Just now, Bopper said:

It really isn't random as you'll know when it's ready to do double damage. It's not like a scrapper where you might get the crit, you'll know with certainty if you'll get the crit. It's just a matter of when that crit will be ready that is somewhat random (you'll reach a point where the chance hits 100+%).

 

That's the thing, though, it's not something you can really play around.  There's no interaction, it's just 'here, it's ready.'  It doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

And while that's fine if need be, it can be better

[DreadShinobi]

2 hours ago, Crimsanotic said:

The up/down time itself isn't too terrible, though definitely worse for basically anyone who has an even decent amount of +recharge. If it's going to keep the forced 1/3 uptime, I'd rather it last longer and have a longer cooldown to match.

The new 33% uptime with a 40s duration/120 recharge is worse than current RoP with 3 recharge SOs and 35% global recharge (half of hasten). You could get 60% uptime with a high recharge IO build, which was definitely very strong, but it is surprising that they wanted to lower its uptime to even less than what you could get with an SO build currently. Literally any SO build, that has hasten and no other internal +recharge powers, set bonuses, or outside recharge buffs, had better than 33% uptime on RoP.

 

I strongly feel that RoP's numbers should be adjusted to either 50/120 (41.66% uptime), 50/130 (38.46%), 40/100 (40%), or 40/110 (36.36%).

Edited April 9, 2021 by DreadShinobi

[America's Angel]

Here's the closed beta server mitigation numbers for anyone curious. (On a level 50 blaster with no set bonuses/accolades.)

 

Unrelenting

With 3 IOs for healing, Unrelenting heals 1677.36 HP in 30s

...So it adds 27.96 HPS over 60s

 

Unleashed Potential

With 3 IOs for healing and 3 IOs for defense Unleashed Potential mitigates:

1897.8 damage mitigated vs 100 DPS over 60s

2886.2 damage mitigated vs 200 DPS over 60s

3894.6 damage mitigated vs 300 DPS over 60s

4893 damage mitigated  vs 400 DPs over 60s

5891 damage mitigated vs 500 DPS over 60s.

...So it adds 31.63-98.19 HPS over 60s

 

Rune of Protection
With 3 IOs for resistance, Rune of Protection mitigates:

1545 damage  vs 100 DPS over 60s

3090 damage vs 200 DPS over 60s

4635 damage vs 300 DPS over 60s

6180 damage vs 400 DPs over 60s

7725 damage vs 500 DPS over 60s

...So it adds 25.75-128.75 HPS over 60s

 

Rune is better.

 

And here are the numbers on live. Rune is even better, there:

• Unrelenting - 18.45 HPS over 90s
• Unleashed Potential - 20.88-64.81 HPS over 90s
• Rune of Protection - 25.75-128.75 HPS over 90s

[Parabola]

6 hours ago, Cheli said:

The point of the person you quoted and your own point are not mutually exclusive. It just would appear a lot of people vehemently disagree with what their "best intentions" suggest about the nature of the game.

 

"Best intentions" =/= "good".

My response quoted both yourself claiming the devs seemed to be acting out of spite and another poster claiming the devs seemed to be pursuing a vendetta against a power they had taken a personal dislike to. I was pointing out that these attacks on the devs motives are completely unwarranted. You are absolutely free of course to disagree with a change or the general direction of game development but that doesn't excuse those kind of statements. Not agreeing with the devs isn't the same thing at all as claiming they don't have good motives and that sort of posting just makes the debate more toxic.

[Vicious Vicky]

13 hours ago, Jimmy said:

You can approach Arcane Bolt as a strong blast with a really long cooldown if you like, and only use it with Arcane Power up - or if you're someone with fewer attacks you can use it to flesh out an attack chain.

 

Hey yall. I like the sound of all of the sorcery changes. Haven't tested any of them on the beta server because I'm a filthy casual but I feel like we need some representation as well 😄

That aside, for the folks arguing that Arcane Bolt is too weak still, and I have no idea if this is mechanically possible, but what if it had zero cast time while used under the effects of Arcane Power? You know just.. an instant projectile.

[Coyote]

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I'd like it if when I click Rune of Protection an ACTUAL PONY named Rune, shows up at my house to protect me.

 

No, that would be Rune of Ponytection, sir. Although it would still belong in the Sorcery pool.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Buffs to arcane bolt DPA and the help that the spirit ward toggle can offer pets might give sorcery more appeal for dominator builds, with RoP as a potentially helpful "throw in" to help when domination is down and/or damage is coming in fast. Sorcery might also end up being appealing to MMs and controllers for similar reasons, especially those that pick a secondary that offers no healing, with RoP perhaps not being taken for a fair number of those builds because mez protection will tend to be organized in other ways (ie: clarion, defense softcap, etc). 

 

If the duration and recharge will be shortened for RoP, then the animation time should probably also be shortened. 

[Coyote]

6 hours ago, DMW45 said:

 

That's the thing, though, it's not something you can really play around.  There's no interaction, it's just 'here, it's ready.'  It doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

And while that's fine if need be, it can be better

 

Well, I don't know when a damage proc will activate. But I still put it into a power, and it has a chance to activate, and if I use that as a major part of my attack cycle, then I can depend on the law of averages to determine what the average damage will be over a long time.

 

You can do the same with this critical damage... figure out how often it is ready when you use AB. Which would probably depend on how many powers you use between activations of AB. If you see that it's up 25% of the time, then you just average out the base damage with a 75% weighting and the critical damage with a 25% weighting, and figure out the average damage. Just like procs, except that instead of the activation chance depending on the power's enhanced Recharge, it depends on your attack chain.

 

Or like how Stalkers can figure out their average damage when they use 4 attacks in between Assassin's Strikes, which is followed up by Moonbeam (which may or may not crit depending on whether the Hide proc in AS activates or not), and several of which attacks have procs in them. No particular attack is guaranteed any particular damage, but you make enough attacks that you will reliably get close to average damage.

 

So, you can really "play around" it... you don't need to have a critical effect guaranteed to occur. I don't know that Fissure WILL Stun on any activation, nor do I know that Energy Font will have a Stun effect procced... but I can figure out my Fissure cycle time, and the Stun uptime of the Font, and figure out that there's a 66% chance that any minion will be Stunned at any moment in time. As long as you're willing to play with random effects, this is fine.

[Coyote]

5 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

Literally any SO build, that has hasten and no other internal +recharge powers, set bonuses, or outside recharge buffs, had better than 33% uptime on RoP.

 

That's not an accurate analysis. Because Hasten's uptime is not 100% on SOs, you wouldn't be getting this uptime on RoP. For the correct number you'll have to figure out Hasten's uptime, and then average out RoP's uptime with Hasten running and with Hasten not running (with the weighting of each version based on the Hasten uptime).

[Coyote]

9 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

If the duration and recharge will be shortened for RoP, then the animation time should probably also be shortened. 

 

This has been suggested before, and I'll add my voice to it. If it's going from a 90 second duration for the current animation to a 30-60 second duration, could we get the animation to be a bit shorter?

[Blackbird71]

1 hour ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Buffs to arcane bolt DPA and the help that the spirit ward toggle can offer pets might give sorcery more appeal for dominator builds, with RoP as a potentially helpful "throw in" to help when domination is down and/or damage is coming in fast. Sorcery might also end up being appealing to MMs and controllers for similar reasons, especially those that pick a secondary that offers no healing, with RoP perhaps not being taken for a fair number of those builds because mez protection will tend to be organized in other ways (ie: clarion, defense softcap, etc). 

 

If the duration and recharge will be shortened for RoP, then the animation time should probably also be shortened. 

 

This is one thing I dislike about the Sorcery pool, and the changes don't seem to improve on it.  The powers seem to be geared towards shoring up the weak areas or otherwise augmenting a few specific ATs.  This is an origin pool; there should be something in it that can be appealing or useful to any character of a magic origin, regardless of their AT.  I realize that's much easier said than done, but I think the proposed changes only serve to further pigeonhole the set as the "pet AT" pool.

 

And I should clarify I'm not saying that every power in an origin pool should be useful for every AT, but there should be at least one power that could be a reasonable pick for each AT.  Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't really see that in Sorcery.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Blackbird71

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Picking up on the idea of what a "magic origin" pool might involve, damage, protection, mez, and pet summoning and/or assistance would seem to fit with a *lot* of archetypical magic characters. 

 

Mez would be the missing element for a magic origin pool here. Perhaps enflame could be turned into an AOE immobilize or slow that leaves fire on the ground after the immobilize / slow ends; if it's a "pet drop" that immobilizes / slows, then it could affect mobs that enter the area after it's cast. Then enflame would be kind of a "magical caltrops", sorta kinda, but with a shorter duration overall than caltrops, and even shorter duration for the mez than for the flames.  

 

Enflame could perhaps switch places with spirit ward, as well, and spirit ward could have its end cost reduced because you would need 1 other sorcery power pick to get to it. 

 

As an alternative, spirit ward could be changed to "spirit summon, spirit ward", meaning that if no spirit summon was currently summoned it would summon one, while if one was summoned then the ward would be the next thing cast. The summoned pet could have a fairly minor effect, but still be noteworthy enough to justify making spirit ward swap places with the nerfed rune of protection. 

 

If enflame becomes interesting to more builds then perhaps sorcery can break out of its upcoming and narrow niche of being appealing for pet builds, going forward. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by EnjoyTheJourney

[arcane]

7 hours ago, America's Angel said:

Here's the closed beta server mitigation numbers for anyone curious. (On a level 50 blaster with no set bonuses/accolades.)

 

Unrelenting

With 3 IOs for healing, Unrelenting heals 1677.36 HP in 30s

...So it adds 27.96 HPS over 60s

 

Unleashed Potential

With 3 IOs for healing and 3 IOs for defense Unleashed Potential mitigates:

1897.8 damage mitigated vs 100 DPS over 60s

2886.2 damage mitigated vs 200 DPS over 60s

3894.6 damage mitigated vs 300 DPS over 60s

4893 damage mitigated  vs 400 DPs over 60s

5891 damage mitigated vs 500 DPS over 60s.

...So it adds 31.63-98.19 HPS over 60s

 

Rune of Protection
With 3 IOs for resistance, Rune of Protection mitigates:

1545 damage  vs 100 DPS over 60s

3090 damage vs 200 DPS over 60s

4635 damage vs 300 DPS over 60s

6180 damage vs 400 DPs over 60s

7725 damage vs 500 DPS over 60s

...So it adds 25.75-128.75 HPS over 60s

 

Rune is better.

 

And here are the numbers on live. Rune is even better, there:

• Unrelenting - 18.45 HPS over 90s
• Unleashed Potential - 20.88-64.81 HPS over 90s
• Rune of Protection - 25.75-128.75 HPS over 90s

Thank you for always providing the raw data!

[Myrmidon]

4 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Beyond the travel option (which is definitely useful to every AT)?

You mean aside from the Travel power (which is definitely useful to every AT)?

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

his is one thing I dislike about the Sorcery pool, and the changes don't seem to improve on it.  The powers seem to be geared towards shoring up the weak areas or otherwise augmenting a few specific ATs.  This is an origin pool; there should be something in it that can be appealing or useful to any character of a magic origin, regardless of their AT.  I realize that's much easier said than done, but I think the proposed changes only serve to further pigeonhole the set as the "pet AT" pool.

 

So far, I have three characters going with more than Mystic Flight for sorcery, all of which are melee ATs (If I want pets, I’ll just grab seven Pick Ups and I’m good to go. 😉). Just a dash of refinement and the set will be fine for everyone, no worries.

[Coyotedancer]

Also, just a reminder that you don't have to be a "Pet AT" to have pets...

 

The Spirit-Ward-as-Leashed-Toggle may not be great for scattery human-controlled team-mates, but it works just fine on Lore, Patron and mission pets. Trying it out over on closed with my Energy Mage, Tosca (Electrical Dominator) and her Mu sidekick (Yes, his name is Mario. 😝 ), it seemed to work just fine for them, for instance.  Adepts are glass cannons, so the extra absorb was nice. And they tend to stay close enough that leash range wasn't an issue.... So, yay.  Thumbs up there.

 

I still think the END cost is going to be a little brutal on lower-level characters... Especially Masterminds, whose pets are great candidates for the power now... But when have leveling Masterminds ever NOT been in the soup when it comes to the state of their blue bars?  

[Parabola]

13 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

22 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Beyond the travel option (which is definitely useful to every AT)?

You mean aside from the Travel power (which is definitely useful to every AT)?

Has some strange timewarp phenomenon happened here?!

[EnjoyTheJourney]

34 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

Also, just a reminder that you don't have to be a "Pet AT" to have pets...

 

The Spirit-Ward-as-Leashed-Toggle may not be great for scattery human-controlled team-mates, but it works just fine on Lore, Patron and mission pets. Trying it out over on closed with my Energy Mage, Tosca (Electrical Dominator) and her Mu sidekick (Yes, his name is Mario. 😝 ), it seemed to work just fine for them, for instance.  Adepts are glass cannons, so the extra absorb was nice. And they tend to stay close enough that leash range wasn't an issue.... So, yay.  Thumbs up there.

 

I still think the END cost is going to be a little brutal on lower-level characters... Especially Masterminds, whose pets are great candidates for the power now... But when have leveling Masterminds ever NOT been in the soup when it comes to the state of their blue bars?  

The key question isn't "Is it possible?", but "Is there a good functional case for that choice?" 

 

The (current) steep cost for spirit ward means that only characters with a very good handle on their endurance costs are likely to consider it. Electric dominators have a leg up on many other character types, in that regard, as well as having the controls to make a fairly modest survival buff such as an absorb shield more helpful. Also, for many builds pets are just an add-on and it's not worth giving up a power pool choice to buff them. 

[Coyotedancer]

19 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

The key question isn't "Is it possible?", but "Is there a good functional case for that choice?" 

 

The (current) steep cost for spirit ward means that only characters with a very good handle on their endurance costs are likely to consider it. Electric dominators have a leg up on many other character types, in that regard, as well as having the controls to make a fairly modest survival buff such as an absorb shield more helpful. Also, for many builds pets are just an add-on and it's not worth giving up a power pool choice to buff them. 

 

Well, yes. Obviously. People's goals and priorities aren't all going to be the same. Not every Dominator is going to have, or even want, a Patron pet. Of those that do, not all of them would have the build space or desire to pick up Spirit Ward.

 

My point isn't that 100% of everyone ever will want or need it, or that it's The Optimal Choice(tm) for us all.   

 

My point is just that the power... and the pool as a whole... probably shouldn't (And I would argue, won't-) be seen as one that's "only going to be for Pet ATs". 

 

(ETA: Also keep in mind that I was trying it out on Tosca over on closed beta, where Build 4 and its tweaks to the powers are active... The END consumption of that version is still likely to bite unfinished characters, but isn't quite as steep, which helps the situation some at least. It's .39/s rather than .52/s.)

 

  

Edited April 9, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[DreadShinobi]

6 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

That's not an accurate analysis. Because Hasten's uptime is not 100% on SOs, you wouldn't be getting this uptime on RoP. For the correct number you'll have to figure out Hasten's uptime, and then average out RoP's uptime with Hasten running and with Hasten not running (with the weighting of each version based on the Hasten uptime).

The numbers in the post you quoted assumed 35% global recharge as an average demonstrating 50% uptime on hasten.

Current RoP with 3 recharge SOs and 35% global recharge is 34.5% uptime (greater than the proposed changes)

Hasten lasts 120 seconds. With 3 recharge SOs, Hasten recharges in 230.9 seconds, which is over 50% uptime, NOT counting that hasten reduces its own recharge.

RoP uptime on live, with just SOs, Hasten, and no set bonuses will be greater than 34.5% uptime, unless you click it right after hasten drops or is about to drop. Any primary or secondary power that affects recharge such as quickness, entropy shield, beta decay, gymnastics, accelerate metabolism, time lord, chrono shift, speed boost, etc will allow for even greater RoP uptime in a purely SO world.

[BGSacho]

Spirit Ward's absorb seems to be calculated differently than it used to be on live. On live, the absorb value depended on the MaxHP of your target. Now, the absorb value seems to depend on...well, it's unclear what exactly, but it for sure does not depend on the MaxHP of the target. This might be an unintended nerf. The patch notes don't really give a good idea about the intended mechanics, so here's a quick breakdown for a level 50 MM:

Live Spirit Ward:
10% absorb of target's MaxHP every 3 seconds, 5 times total(15 seconds). Each shield overwrites the last one.

Beta Spirit Ward:
21 absorb every 3 seconds, stacks up to 10 times. For an MM's level of hp, that's about 2.5% hp per tick. The max is about 25% then.

Compare casting live spirit ward at the start of combat, vs having a fully-stacked beta spirit ward coming into combat:

Live Spirit Ward: 10% * 5 = 50% max healing, assuming you're losing 10% of your hp every 3 seconds
Beta Spirit Ward: 25% + 2.5% * 5 = 37.5% absorb, assuming you've lost 12.5% of your hp over the duration

I think the only thing I dislike about the new version is that it doesn't scale with the target's MaxHP. Please address whether this is intentional in future patch notes.

[Bopper]

14 minutes ago, BGSacho said:

This might be an unintended nerf.

That was intended. The power now uses the Ranged_Heal modifier table (so defenders will offer the strongest buff).

 

The version on Beta does 0.2 scale absorb every 2s, and each absorb tick lasts 20s. So at its max, the Absorb will cap at 2 scale.

 

For a level 50 defender, that max would be 267.724 (before enhancements/buffs). For a level 50 Blaster (and many other ATs), that will be 192.7614.

[BGSacho]

3 minutes ago, Bopper said:

That was intended. The power now uses the Ranged_Heal modifier table (so defenders will offer the strongest buff).

 

The version on Beta does 0.2 scale absorb every 2s, and each absorb tick lasts 20s. So at its max, the Absorb will cap at 2 scale.

 

For a level 50 defender, that max would be 267.724 (before enhancements/buffs). For a level 50 Blaster (and many other ATs), that will be 192.7614.

Ah ok, that's exactly the values I was seeing. Where can I find the ranged_heal modifier table?

[Bopper]

Just now, BGSacho said:

Ah ok, that's exactly the values I was seeing. Where can I find the ranged_heal modifier table?

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/modifiers-table.html

 

From the dropdown menu on the left side, select ranged_heal

[aethereal]

I just did a little bit of qualitative lowbie testing on a fire/kin controller with Arcane Bolt and Mystic Flight, levels 1-7.  Planning to continue to level the character and grab more Sorcery powers and see what it looks like holistically.

 

I used a Controller on the theory that Arcane Bolt was best for Trollers.

 

Mystic Flight

 

I mean, it's fine.  The flight definitely feels faster than it does on live (presumably because it is much faster, especially for a lowbie).  Trying to use the teleport to speed travel time still feels like a bit of a wash.  Only marginally faster than just flying in the straight line instead?

 

Arcane Bolt

 

It was definitely nice to have a solid damaging power for a lowbie 'troller.  One reason why I've tended to bounce off this AT has been that it's just so frustrating to actually kill shit in the early game.  Arcane Bolt felt pretty chonky and damaging at least at this very early part of the game.

 

It felt especially chonky and damaging with arcane power, of course, but I did note that if you want to use AB as a mainline power in constant rotation, the random yellow circle business wasn't well-aligned for that.  I had to train myself not to wait for Arcane Power and just use it on cooldown because, like...  that was the point.  I wanted an in-the-rotation blast.  So, for this character, in this point in their evolution, I probably would've quite happily traded the arcane power thing for a further reduction to cast time.