Focused Feedback: Pool Powerset Revamp: Sorcery

[Zepp]

4 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Not a fallacy; arcane appears to just be stating "well here's our current status quo." It needs overturned, but seeking a fight about it in a sorcery thread isn't the way to go on this.

 

Realize the scope of what you're asking, which is likely two dedicated Pages, and let it rest here.

To clarify:
@siolfir made the argument that adjustments to Arcane Bolt were good and similar improvements should be exported to other pool attacks because the "pool powers are supposed to be weaker" argument was not a good argument. @arcane used an appeal to authority fallacy to claim that it was unacceptable for pool powers to be on par with primary, secondary, or epic powers. I was simply deflating that "argument" which, in turn, was a manner to offer support for the initial argument that improvements to Arcane Bolt were justified and it would be reasonable to ask for improvements of other pool powers as well.

I apologize that I did not do more to maintain the focus of the argument on Arcane Bolt in specific. While I am not a big fan of the mechanic (a mechanic that I feel should only trigger off of attacks rather than toggles, heals, donut eating, etc), I think making the power on par with primary T³ or secondary T² powers is reasonable.

[SwitchFade]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

Do you mean to imply that a couple dozen angry forum PvP’ers doesn’t constitute a perfect statistical sample? I’m shocked 😉

Couple dozen? I was thinking maybe 7-8 max.

[SwitchFade]

Sorcery pool updates look very good.

 

RoP ignoring recharge and at 33% uptime is spot on, very eloquent.

 

Grav Singy changes are fun. Need to play with this one a bit more to make sure there are no odd mechanics.

[Blackfeather]

Definitely liking the changes here. Rune's shorter recharge time's nice for me - I've always used the power reactively and now I don't even need to slot it for recharge. 😄

[Blackfeather]

Oh! That being said, it'd be nice if Enflame had a larger radius/target cap. I like how it's a DoT toggle power that isn't relegated to an armour powerset, pretty unique.

[Dahkness]

I personally  would prefer an instant cast double dmg vs the instant recharge. That would be nice for PB’s that are Constantly switching forms. Either way I love Arcane bolt! 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Dahkness

[Carnifax]

3 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

Oh! That being said, it'd be nice if Enflame had a larger radius/target cap. I like how it's a DoT toggle power that isn't relegated to an armour powerset, pretty unique.

It's pretty much a clone of Rad Melees Patch Pooper now. So it's not like your Damage Aura. It's basically an Irradiated Ground you plonk on someone else. 

[Blackfeather]

3 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

It's pretty much a clone of Rad Melees Patch Pooper now. So it's not like your Damage Aura. It's basically an Irradiated Ground you plonk on someone else. 

 

As in, I like having a way of dealing continuous DoT that isn't tied down to having to get up close to someone. 😄

[Galaxy Brain]

8 hours ago, Troo said:

I am not in favor of adding combo mechanics where they previously didn't exist. The number of them that seem to be proliferating is alarming.

• new pool power mechanics
• pop up power trays
• existing power sets getting mechanics added

 

What combo mechanic was added?

[Carnifax]

*Columbo move*

Oh, one last thing. RoP now has the weird ring thing lasting its entire duration. Is there a MinFX for this cos it needs it.

[arcane]

6 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

It's pretty much a clone of Rad Melees Patch Pooper now. So it's not like your Damage Aura. It's basically an Irradiated Ground you plonk on someone else. 

Irradiated Ground is absolutely OP with procs. If it’s half that good it’ll be in a great place.

[Carnifax]

1 minute ago, Blackfeather said:

 

As in, I like having a way of dealing continuous DoT that isn't tied down to having to get up close to someone. 😄

Yup, if you've got a way of keeping things in place it's not bad. For something like Earth Control it could be very useful (melee pet + lots of locking into place + burn patches)

 

[Blackfeather]

I definitely like the Rune FX update! Really thematic on my characters, but more options never hurt. 😁

[Glacier Peak]

6 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What combo mechanic was added?

Going out on a limb here, but @Troo might be referring to Arcane Power for Arcane Bolt? Though it isn't a combo mechanic so much as a build up, similar to Tidal Power for water blast sets.

[Carnifax]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

Irradiated Ground is absolutely OP with procs. If it’s half that good it’ll be in a great place.

Well in the tiny 30 second combat I parsed Enflame with Posi & Bombardment accounted for 39% of my damage. 

 

3 procs apiece. I think I triggered it just the once. I borked my "activations" parsing yesterday so I need to revisit my parser code and maybe start recording "casts" as well separately". 

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, Carnifax said:

Well in the tiny 30 second combat I parsed Enflame with Posi & Bombardment accounted for 39% of my damage. 

 

3 procs apiece. I think I triggered it just the once. I borked my "activations" parsing yesterday so I need to revisit my parser code and maybe start recording "casts" as well separately". 

Are these PPMs firing off per enemy? One of my to-do lists for this build was to test this in varying mob sizes.

[aethereal]

1 minute ago, Glacier Peak said:

Are these PPMs firing off per enemy? One of my to-do lists for this build was to test this in varying mob sizes.

The way it "should" work to my understanding is:

 

On cast of the power, it should proc as a ST-power of its actual recharge time, for any procs that are applicable to the target or caster.

 

With each drop of the patch (which is a pseudopet), it will have a chance to re-activate procs, with an effective 10 second recharge time, and the appropriate area factor, per target.  It won't be subject to the "only once every 10 second" rule because each patch is a new pseudopet that doesn't "know" about previous castings.

[Carnifax]

17 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Are these PPMs firing off per enemy? One of my to-do lists for this build was to test this in varying mob sizes.

Log files just tell you that there was a hit, but yes on a per enemy basis. Looks like they're triggering when each patch drops. I'm guessing either my sample size is too small or they aren't proccing in the actual dropped Pseudopets (or they use the same names so my parser wraps them into one). 

 

2021-04-07 14:40:39 You Enflame the ground, setting it ablaze!
2021-04-07 14:40:39 You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon Lord with your Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage for 56.07 points of Fire damage.
2021-04-07 14:40:39 You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon with your Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage for 56.07 points of Fire damage.
2021-04-07 14:40:39 You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon with your Positron's Blast: Chance for Energy Damage for 72.9 points of Energy damage.

 

2021-04-07 14:40:51 Enflame:  You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon Lord with your Enflame for 2.46 points of Fire damage.
2021-04-07 14:40:51 You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon with your Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage for 56.07 points of Fire damage.
2021-04-07 14:40:51 You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon with your Positron's Blast: Chance for Energy Damage for 72.9 points of Energy damage.

 

2021-04-07 14:41:00 You Enflame the ground, setting it ablaze!
2021-04-07 14:41:00 You hit Nerva Spectral Daemon Lord with your Positron's Blast: Chance for Energy Damage for 72.9 points of Energy damage.
 

chatlog 2021-04-07_sub.txt

 

Which tallies with my Summary

    "summary" : {
      "Arcane Bolt" : {
        "name" : "Arcane Bolt",
        "value" : 312.08,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 21.621621621621617
      },
      "Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage" : {
        "name" : "Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage",
        "value" : 168.21,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 11.653976457872892
      },
      "Crushing Field" : {
        "name" : "Crushing Field",
        "value" : 22.049999999999997,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 1.527674816575098
      },
      "Enflame" : {
        "name" : "Enflame",
        "value" : 177.12,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 12.271281791917524
      },
      "Gravity Distortion" : {
        "name" : "Gravity Distortion",
        "value" : 58.5,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 4.053014819484955
      },
      "Lift" : {
        "name" : "Lift",
        "value" : 129.48,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 8.970672800460031
      },
      "Positron's Blast: Chance for Energy Damage" : {
        "name" : "Positron's Blast: Chance for Energy Damage",
        "value" : 218.70000000000002,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 15.152040017459138
      },
      "Propel" : {
        "name" : "Propel",
        "value" : 96.14,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 6.660800764876641
      },
      "Singularity" : {
        "name" : "Singularity",
        "value" : 261.09000000000003,
        "total" : 1443.3700000000003,
        "percent" : 18.088916909732085
      }

Edited April 7, 2021 by Carnifax
Added combatLog

[Bopper]

42 minutes ago, aethereal said:

The way it "should" work to my understanding is:

 

On cast of the power, it should proc as a ST-power of its actual recharge time, for any procs that are applicable to the target or caster.

 

With each drop of the patch (which is a pseudopet), it will have a chance to re-activate procs, with an effective 10 second recharge time, and the appropriate area factor, per target.  It won't be subject to the "only once every 10 second" rule because each patch is a new pseudopet that doesn't "know" about previous castings.

This is true for the live version. Now that it is a toggle instead of a click on a target, my guess is the first part no longer works. Based on the patch notes, the 2nd part should still work the same unless they changed something else and forgot to document it.

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, Cheli said:

Completely mystified how pages and threads of comments on ROP led the team to decide the solution was to make it worse than a high-tier breakfree. It seems sorta like spite honestly.

 

Maybe it just comes down to the power being someone on the dev crew's proverbial personal bugbear? A power they just intensely dislike for whatever reason, and would love to flat-out nuke from orbit if they could? Taking a heavy nerf-bat to it may be the next best thing in that case. If it becomes even more uncommon a pick than it already is, I could see that being counted as a win for someone who really wanted it out of the picture.

 

We all have something like that, I think... Some bit of the game we want to punt right into a volcano... 😝

[Parabola]

5 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

3 hours ago, Cheli said:

Completely mystified how pages and threads of comments on ROP led the team to decide the solution was to make it worse than a high-tier breakfree. It seems sorta like spite honestly.

 

Maybe it just comes down to the power being someone on the dev crew's proverbial personal bugbear? A power they just intensely dislike for whatever reason, and would love to flat-out nuke from orbit if they could? Taking a heavy nerf-bat to it may be the next best thing in that case. If it becomes even more uncommon a pick than it already is, I could see that being counted as a win for someone who really wanted it out of the picture.

 

We all have something like that, I think... Some bit of the game we want to punt right into a volcano... 😝

Or we could assume that the devs are operating with the best of intentions and are being completely upfront with their reasoning as they have done nothing to suggest otherwise.

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, parabola said:

Or we could assume that the devs are operating with the best of intentions and are being completely upfront with their reasoning as they have done nothing to suggest otherwise.

 

You have more faith than I do in human beings not starting with a desire and then finding reasons to justify it as the right and proper course of action. But that's a subject that goes way, way beyond changes in game design...

 

Anyway, I'm off to try out Arcane Bolt on the only character I've ever taken it on. I usually don't mind stacking mechanics... They work just fine for my /Water types... So I have some hopes for that one.

 

Enflame I can't try out. I've never used it on anyone, so have no basis for comparison. 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

6 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Maybe it just comes down to the power being someone on the dev crew's proverbial personal bugbear? A power they just intensely dislike for whatever reason, and would love to flat-out nuke from orbit if they could? Taking a heavy nerf-bat to it may be the next best thing in that case. If it becomes even more uncommon a pick than it already is, I could see that being counted as a win for someone who really wanted it out of the picture.

 

We all have something like that, I think... Some bit of the game we want to punt right into a volcano... 😝

This is quite possibly true.

 

Despite multiple people who actually use RoP indicating builds using it are absolutely not meta and aren't even overpowered the nerf looks certain to go through anyways. There are also clear hints that there were no defenders for RoP on the dev team and at least one team member who *really* wanted to nerf it for quite some time. 

 

Fortunately, the game is a lot bigger than RoP and the sorcery pool. Even if this pool will ultimately be off the table for even more players than before there are still plenty of things to like about the game, including how much time and effort the devs are willing to put into it. 

 

Nobody hits a bullseye with every dart they throw. Expecting otherwise wouldn't be realistic. 

[Number Six]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

With each drop of the patch (which is a pseudopet), it will have a chance to re-activate procs, with an effective 10 second recharge time, and the appropriate area factor, per target.  It won't be subject to the "only once every 10 second" rule because each patch is a new pseudopet that doesn't "know" about previous castings.

 

That would be a completely broken proc rate since it would calculate PPM based on a 10 second cycle but get to apply the resulting chance roll every 3 seconds. Irradiated Ground currently suffers from this problem.

 

EnToggleflame - once the issue with it not passing enhancements through to the pet at all was fixed - was designed in a way that procs should have a chance to fire per the normal 10 second toggle rule. The dropped patches do not apply procs once they're on the ground.

[arcane]

15 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Despite multiple people who actually use RoP indicating builds using it are absolutely not meta and aren't even overpowered the nerf looks certain to go through anyways. 

And there was plenty of disagreement from people who actually use RoP. Just how many people do you think play this game that leads you to think the little handful of protestors constitutes some sort of consensus?