Any Savage Melee, Titan Weapons, and Super Strength changes?

[Neo Nocturna]

So I've been away from HC for a little under a year now, maybe like 9-10 months or so? I wanted to know if there were any significant changes to Savage Melee, Titan Weapons, and Super Strength during that time.
 

Savage Melee - I wanted to know if they ever reworked Blood Frenzy so that it synergizes more with the set as a whole. I wanted to main SvM back then, but I was discouraged by people claiming that certain powers that remove Blood Frenzy, such as Hemorrhage, were actually detrimental to DPS and you'd be better off not spending any Blood Frenzy at all. Is this still the case to this day? Were there changes to Blood Frenzy or have opinions changed about the set regardless?

Titan Weapons - I believe significant changes were planned for this set not long after I stopped playing and I wanted to know what exactly those changes were or if someone could direct me to the patch notes for it please?

Super Strength - There was talk back then about reworking the way Rage worked and/or stacked and rebalancing SS around a reworked Rage. Were these changes ever pushed? If so, could someone tell me what those changes were or direct me to the patch notes please?

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

[TemporalVileTerror]

Titan Weapons had a Power Set Revamp here:  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/24367-patch-notes-for-november-24th-2020-issue-27-page-1/

[Outrider_01]

1 hour ago, Neo Nocturna said:

Savage Melee - I wanted to know if they ever reworked Blood Frenzy so that it synergizes more with the set as a whole. I wanted to main SvM back then, but I was discouraged by people claiming that certain powers that remove Blood Frenzy, such as Hemorrhage, were actually detrimental to DPS and you'd be better off not spending any Blood Frenzy at all. Is this still the case to this day? Were there changes to Blood Frenzy or have opinions changed about the set regardless?

It works as intended.  Score 5 whack a mole, you gain bonus damage and a lockout.  You run at 3-4; you are clicking 1-2 attacks and then consuming it....then rebuilding it without any EXHAUSTED! text floating.  Its like the part after the big drop on a roller coaster, you ride the curves, loops, and circles.

[siolfir]

Since Titan Weapons and Savage Melee have already been spoken for, Super Strength has not changed and to the best of my knowledge is still stagnated as to which direction to go.

[Neo Nocturna]

6 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

It works as intended.  Score 5 whack a mole, you gain bonus damage and a lockout.  You run at 3-4; you are clicking 1-2 attacks and then consuming it....then rebuilding it without any EXHAUSTED! text floating.  Its like the part after the big drop on a roller coaster, you ride the curves, loops, and circles.

With all due respect, "working as intended" doesn't exactly apply to a power set that was stuck in beta before the live servers got shut down. It never got the chance to be properly tested and was released "as is" on HC, so the only ones who would know if the set is truly "working as intended" are the original devs.

 

Anyways, this is what I was hoping they'd change... I'm not a fan of watching stacks to specifically consume them at 3-4. I'd prefer it if it was an "all or nothing" kind of deal. I know others back when I played had similar complaints because a stack consuming set that punishes you for maximizing your stacks is counter intuitive. If nothing's changed, then sadly I won't be picking up SvM again, or if I do then I'll just have to live with the fact that I'll always be "sub-optimal" when playing it.

4 hours ago, siolfir said:

Since Titan Weapons and Savage Melee have already been spoken for, Super Strength has not changed and to the best of my knowledge is still stagnated as to which direction to go.

Ah. Good to know, though it makes me wary of playing SS. If it never ends up changing then I can live with that, but if I started playing it more and it suddenly changed, I'd be worried if I ended up not liking the changes and dropping it, which is why I held off on playing it until a decision was made, but it seems that never happened.

[MTeague]

also:  Welcome Back. 😀

[siolfir]

6 hours ago, Neo Nocturna said:

Ah. Good to know, though it makes me wary of playing SS. If it never ends up changing then I can live with that, but if I started playing it more and it suddenly changed, I'd be worried if I ended up not liking the changes and dropping it, which is why I held off on playing it until a decision was made, but it seems that never happened.

The concerns about how people currently play it are why there wasn't any decision made - for a bit there was a change on beta that allowed a single Rage without any crash, but if you tried to stack it, even for a fraction of a second, then it would crash.

 

Some people disliked that because they had to pay attention to when it dropped and make sure not to hit it before it did in order to avoid the crash. It was suggested to turn it into a toggle to prevent stacking, and people who stack it hated that idea. Then there are people that hate the idea that it's called Rage ("my super strength character doesn't have anger issues!") and want the whole set rebalanced without it.

 

Basically, people want it to change but nobody agrees on what's a good change, so I think you're safe to enjoy it for a while.

[arcane]

My Rad/Savage tanker is easily one of my better tankers, so I would frankly recommend not worrying about the clunky mechanic since the set as a whole is kind of awesome.

[Outrider_01]

8 hours ago, Neo Nocturna said:

With all due respect, "working as intended" doesn't exactly apply to a power set that was stuck in beta before the live servers got shut down. It never got the chance to be properly tested and was released "as is" on HC, so the only ones who would know if the set is truly "working as intended" are the original devs.

Then I would say TW is still in beta.  It wouldn't be so bad, if every single attack didn't have a massive long wind up animation, build momentum, 1-2 attacks, momentum crash, and long animation build up again.  And this animation build up isn't a 90 second +DMD buff, its every attack, 2-3 second animation like some other T9 is more tolerable since you got other faster attacks to use between the recharge of the T9.

 

Closest description of TW is stop and go traffic.

 

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

Some people disliked that because they had to pay attention to when it dropped and make sure not to hit it before it did in order to avoid the crash

Hit your attacks, profit.  People try to optimize for DPS, literally your attack chain is the optimal set up.  Savage -> Maim or Shred  -> Vicious  -> rending or hemmorage as you are at 4.  You don't have to count or watch, just set a pattern. 

[America's Angel]

15 hours ago, Neo Nocturna said:

Super Strength - There was talk back then about reworking the way Rage worked and/or stacked and rebalancing SS around a reworked Rage. Were these changes ever pushed? If so, could someone tell me what those changes were or direct me to the patch notes please?

 

Nothing's been changed. And I'd be surprised if anything does. SS is a great set.

[arcane]

3 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Hit your attacks, profit.  People try to optimize for DPS, literally your attack chain is the optimal set up.  Savage -> Maim or Shred  -> Vicious  -> rending or hemmorage as you are at 4.  You don't have to count or watch, just set a pattern. 

You don’t even have to set a pattern. You can ignore the mechanic entirely and the set would still be great because of Savage Leap.

Edited May 19, 2021 by arcane

[siolfir]

4 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Hit your attacks, profit.  People try to optimize for DPS, literally your attack chain is the optimal set up.  Savage -> Maim or Shred  -> Vicious  -> rending or hemmorage as you are at 4.  You don't have to count or watch, just set a pattern. 

You did catch that I was talking about Super Strength and Rage, not Savage Melee, right?

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

The concerns about how people currently play it are why there wasn't any decision made - for a bit there was a change on beta that allowed a single Rage without any crash, but if you tried to stack it, even for a fraction of a second, then it would crash.

 

Some people disliked that because they had to pay attention to when it dropped and make sure not to hit it before it did in order to avoid the crash. It was suggested to turn it into a toggle to prevent stacking, and people who stack it hated that idea. Then there are people that hate the idea that it's called Rage ("my super strength character doesn't have anger issues!") and want the whole set rebalanced without it.

 

Basically, people want it to change but nobody agrees on what's a good change, so I think you're safe to enjoy it for a while.

 

This is pretty much the summary of ANY potential change that can't be agreed upon ever, in COH history.

 

I pray for anyone who does dev work on this game most of the time. LOL

[Heraclea]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

You don’t even have to set a pattern. You can ignore the mechanic entirely and the set would still be great because of Savage Leap.

The stacks on Savage Melee are like the insight mechanic on Psionic Melee.  On the characters using those power sets, I pay them no heed and enjoy them all the same. 

[Outrider_01]

10 hours ago, arcane said:

You don’t even have to set a pattern. You can ignore the mechanic entirely and the set would still be great because of Savage Leap.

Essentially what I was saying, first 4 attacks build and use a finisher after 3 attacks before 5 and the crash.

 

10 hours ago, siolfir said:

You did catch that I was talking about Super Strength and Rage, not Savage Melee, right?

No, Bat signal was blinding me after Supes beat me into the ground.  Kind of groggy, thought I was staring at the Pearly Gates.

 

  

9 hours ago, Heraclea said:

The stacks on Savage Melee are like the insight mechanic on Psionic Melee.  On the characters using those power sets, I pay them no heed and enjoy them all the same. 

Savage is closer to Water Blast, Psionic's Insight is essentially a proc like an IO.  It goes off 90% of the time with Mass Levitate, everything else is like 10-20% chance and it was so rare I surprised myself when seeing it go off for a single target attack one time.  Insight is unreliable, Savage Melee can build up 5 stacks, consume and Exhausted; hit BU and have another 5 stacks while the Exhausted status is removed; and the +DMG buff is 15 seconds long for any remaining attacks; can at least get Rending going off twice in that time period.

 

What would make Savage better is a small +DMG for each for each stack, 2.5% x 4 = 10% but 5th stack triggers a higher damage bonus on the next attack.  -Endurance is kind of useless on a stack building scheme, +DMG and +Rech would go a long way to being a better effect.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Outrider_01

[Neo Nocturna]

On 5/19/2021 at 9:57 AM, Outrider_01 said:

Then I would say TW is still in beta.  It wouldn't be so bad, if every single attack didn't have a massive long wind up animation, build momentum, 1-2 attacks, momentum crash, and long animation build up again.  And this animation build up isn't a 90 second +DMD buff, its every attack, 2-3 second animation like some other T9 is more tolerable since you got other faster attacks to use between the recharge of the T9.

Comparing TW to SvM isn't a fair comparison in that sense. TW actually did get pushed to the live servers and was only available if you either paid for a sub or paid to unlock the power set. People recognized that TW was OP and needed tweaking, but my guess is they wanted it to be a bit OP because you had to pay to unlock it. Regardless, TW was released in a working state, whereas SvM was never released. And even after all of this, the HC team finally decided to do something about TW to bring it in line with other power sets. I'm not implying "I don't like this power set, therefore I deem it's broken and needs fixing", I'm just saying that unless you're a developer or the devs themselves released a public statement about it, you literally cannot say the set is "working as intended". You don't know this and you have no authority to make such a claim.

[Hexquisite]

On 5/19/2021 at 10:04 AM, Heraclea said:

The stacks on Savage Melee are like the insight mechanic on Psionic Melee.  On the characters using those power sets, I pay them no heed and enjoy them all the same. 

 

Same. You get a bonus regardless of how you utilize them, and it's not as though Exhausted saps your endurance or anything.

 

I personally don't understand the fervent need to eke out every scrap of possible DPS. It just doesn't sound fun to me to concern myself so much with numbers. But then, I also don't understand algebra, the appeal of dubstep, or any number of other things. Nothing wrong with it, just can't wrap my head around the why.

 

Play what looks fun. Have fun.

 

Hunt. Kil Skulz. 

[KauaiJim]

I have so much fun playing Furrocity (Savage Melee) that I really pay almost no attention to the Blood Frenzy mechanic (like @Heraclea said).  That doesn't mean everyone should play that way or that the extra from utilizing Blood Frenzy is worthless.  But I am saying that I like the feel and damage of the set even without using it.  Could it be improved, sure, especially the Blood Frenzy mechanic.  But it's actually pretty decent now IMO.  What the OP is hoping for is valid though.  I've never really matched this toon up against anything brutal yet and still levelling it so that mechanic could actually become much more important in certain content situations for all I know especially at higher levels.  One thing I really wish would get 'fixed' or cleared up is the confusion between Mid's and in-game as to the builders vs the consumers (looking at you 'Shred').  

 

As for Rage in Super Strength, I don't actually find myself using Rage much.  Probably because the toons (SS/INV Brute and INV/SS Tanker) are already silly powerful.  I concur that the 'crash' makes it unappealing to use - I just don't find myself actually needing it as part of my regular fighting - it's more of an emergency button type ability for me (on toons that almost do not need any emergency buttons, lol).  Again, Rage crash is a valid concern, I just work around it.

 

Titan Weapons I haven't played much lately so I'm not sure how the changes there feel or impacted me.  This set was pretty good before - I hope it's not been completely hobbled and simply adjusted a bit.  

 

Also - Welcome Back!  🙂 

[Outrider_01]

4 hours ago, Neo Nocturna said:

Comparing TW to SvM isn't a fair comparison in that sense.

SM is a far easier combo system, not talking about "testing" and releasing.   Its underwhelming, sure...but you don't have to count it.  You don't bring up Dual Blades, yet its worse than any other combo system, its not all or nothing; its optimized in a series of chained attacks.  SM, you don't have to do anything but click 3 buttons and your done. 

 

TW on the other hand, is just a terrible mechanic because of how momentum is built up.  It pauses and interrupts every 10 seconds.  Its irritating.  You don't hammer toss for the olympics from a stand still, you spin and release after building momentum.  TW should have the SM mechanic, less AoE (3 and a cone +def is ridiculous) so that you can wade into battle building up momentum from  2 AoE smacking minions around then clobber the Boss with a hefty crunch of a single target that you can bring around for a second attack; kind of like that one in Water.

 

Can I ask, is the effects more underwhelming then the building of the mechanic?  Cause Hemorrhage, its a PoS attack when it gets bonus damage ticks.  The endurance reduction is pointless, +DMG would be better.  Maybe have the stacks contribute a +Proc effect until its consumed, so you can use none finishers a few times before hitting a finisher.  But you still don't need to count it.

[ScarySai]

SS is untouched and savage for scrappers/stalkers had crit rates 'fixed', which did kill the set for stalkers, but brute was always the best version for savage anyway.

 

TW was adjusted, I was never a fan of the set, personally - but the fixes make me care for it even less.

[KauaiJim]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

savage for scrappers/stalkers had crit rates 'fixed', which did kill the set for stalkers,

 

I was unaware of this.  Shredator will be unhappy to hear this news... (my sm stalker)  🙁

[SaintD]

Savage Melee is absolutely mental anyway, too many people underestimate it.