Do AoE Sleeps even serve a purpose in today's City of Heroes?

[Solarverse]

My personal opinion, they are absolutely a complete waste of a mechanic in today's City of Heroes. Single Target Sleeps I still find useful because most boss ranked NPCs have zero resistance/defense to it, so single target sleeps are great at dropping boss toggles, like Dispersion Bubble for instance. However, AoE sleeps in today's game is something that I personally find out dated and I skip them on every Controller or Dominator that I build. Why? Simple answer: With all the AoE abilities that every class has, it really makes AoE sleeps pointless and obsolete. Even when soloing, I still find them something unworthy of my build.

Do any of you take AoE sleeps in your build? If so, why? What advantage does it serve in your build and how does it help you and/or your team?

For the rest of you; do you think AoE Sleep abilities have finally reached the end of their usefulness? What would you put in their place if they were to change? Could something be done to the Sleep mechanic to improve them and make them in to something that would fit today's game?

My opinion has been made, I would like to get a rough idea on how you all feel. Asking in game, I usually find a bunch of players who agree with me, so the true test is asking in the forums where I am seldomly agreed with, heh. Based on the feedback I get here, this will give me a good idea as to whether or not pursuing a change would even be worth the time and effort.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Solarverse

[Riverdusk]

Only one I really think is still of use is electric control's.  At the least I think they should all work like electric control's and be a pulse that can re-sleep beyond the initial cast.  Only other one I think I'd take would be the one in ice control as ice can be somewhat lacking in alpha mitigation.  You could use it to then safely run in until arctic air takes hold.  That'd be more a solo thing though, and who solo's ice controllers? 😉 And I think in ice control's case it more points out the help that set needs in other ways.

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

Only one I really think is still of use is electric control's.  At the least I think they should all work like electric control's and be a pulse that can re-sleep beyond the initial cast.  Only other one I think I'd take would be the one in ice control as ice can be somewhat lacking in alpha mitigation.  You could use it to then safely run in until arctic air takes hold.  That'd be more a solo thing though, and who solo's ice controllers? 😉 And I think in ice control's case it more points out the help that set needs in other ways.

I couldn't agree more. Elec's version of sleep has proven itself time and again IMO.

[Coyotedancer]

I'd call them situationally useful... 'Dropping it on a potentially-bothersome second group that someone accidentally aggroed when you're on a smaller or lower-powered team, for instance. When an ambush group spawns right on top of you and the aggro-monkeys are all already halfway down the hall, completely oblivious. Things like that. 

[MTeague]

I have both the Single-Target and AE Sleeps on my Mind/Kin controller.  They are quite useful to me. 

 

I acknowledge the more vocal players I find on the forums believe very firmly in a Damage-Is-King, Roving Murderball of eight Soft-Capped Incarnates decked out with expensive IO builds as what you should want for a team. I vehemently disagree with this, find such teams BORING AS HELL. So I rarely team.  Most often, I solo. When I do team, it's for particularly challenging content, like First Ward / Night Ward / Number Six arcs, or squads of Rularuu, or a Malta-Extravaganza like World Wide Red. Usually with only 4-6 players on x8 settings, so having an unexpected large group or wave of scripted ambushes come at you can make having controls or a second tank important to keep from being overrun. 

 

Mass Hypnosis allows me to indefinitely park TWO extra groups, all by itself, because it recharges so much faster than it's duration.  Very little is going to resist sleeps, and if something does, I can still Terrify them to leave them trembling and not attacking while the team beats up the main group of IDF or Arachnos or Animus Arcana or what-have-we. 

 

Sleeps are also, along with Immob's, a form of control that Purple Triangles offer ZERO extra protection against.  Need to park an AV?  (MLTF, etc) Sleep them. 

Sleeps also detoggle enemies, erasing Force Field Bubbles or Tsoo Hurricanes etc.

 

Do I expect the roving murderball crews to ever appreciate sleeps? No. 

Do I care? No.

I would not want these powers yanked away from me to supply yet another Damage Uber Alles power.

[Solarverse]

4 minutes ago, MTeague said:

I have both the Single-Target and AE Sleeps on my Mind/Kin controller.  They are quite useful to me. 

 

I acknowledge the more vocal players I find on the forums believe very firmly in a Damage-Is-King, Roving Murderball of eight Soft-Capped Incarnates decked out with expensive IO builds as what you should want for a team. I vehemently disagree with this, find such teams BORING AS HELL. So I rarely team.  Most often, I solo. When I do team, it's for particularly challenging content, like First Ward / Night Ward / Number Six arcs, or squads of Rularuu, or a Malta-Extravaganza like World Wide Red. Usually with only 4-6 players on x8 settings, so having an unexpected large group or wave of scripted ambushes come at you can make having controls or a second tank important to keep from being overrun. 

 

Mass Hypnosis allows me to indefinitely park TWO extra groups, all by itself, because it recharges so much faster than it's duration.  Very little is going to resist sleeps, and if something does, I can still Terrify them to leave them trembling and not attacking while the team beats up the main group of IDF or Arachnos or Animus Arcana or what-have-we. 

 

Sleeps are also, along with Immob's, a form of control that Purple Triangles offer ZERO extra protection against.  Need to park an AV?  (MLTF, etc) Sleep them. 

Sleeps also detoggle enemies, erasing Force Field Bubbles or Tsoo Hurricanes etc.

 

Do I expect the roving murderball crews to ever appreciate sleeps? No. 

Do I care? No.

I would not want these powers yanked away from me to supply yet another Damage Uber Alles power.

Absolutely not, I do not play Controllers or Doms for the damage, like you, I play them they way they were intended to play from the gate. I would just like to see some better utility with Sleep powers. I mean, the Elec version got some serious love in that it constantly refreshes the sleep. I would like to see the other versions get something else that makes them a good back-up if the sleep gets broken by other players. I don't want them all to be like Elec though, I would like to see each one get something unique to the set they are in...if possible.

[JnEricsonx]

If they had a secondary debuff for when they wear off, like slow, or a small -tohit?   I mean, let's be honest, when you wake up, for a few moments you can't do a damn thing well.  Except run to the bathroom if you realize you gotta go.

[Solarverse]

8 minutes ago, JnEricsonx said:

If they had a secondary debuff for when they wear off, like slow, or a small -tohit?   I mean, let's be honest, when you wake up, for a few moments you can't do a damn thing well.  Except run to the bathroom if you realize you gotta go.

Lol, at run to the bathroom. I think a disorient would be suit that scenario.

[Greycat]

It depends on the sleep.

Mind? (Targeted AOE) Yes. Being able to put a group (or, yes, a single, even with an AOE) to sleep is handy. Yes, even if it breaks right away. And yes, there are ... not infrequent times shutting down a group with multiple bosses with defenses a Sleep can shut down (but other effects would not) is useful, even if the sleep is broken right away.

 

Ice? (PBAOE) No. I constantly skip that, since *I* don't want to be in range of anything the sleep would hit - I'd rather use a hard control (or ice patch) on them.

[MTeague]

13 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Absolutely not, I do not play Controllers or Doms for the damage, like you, I play them they way they were intended to play from the gate. I would just like to see some better utility with Sleep powers. I mean, the Elec version got some serious love in that it constantly refreshes the sleep. I would like to see the other versions get something else that makes them a good back-up if the sleep gets broken by other players. I don't want them all to be like Elec though, I would like to see each one get something unique to the set they are in...if possible.

 

Fair enough. I misunderstood your position / assumed what it was I see in General chat all-too-often.

My apologies

[Naraka]

53 minutes ago, MTeague said:

 

I would not want these powers yanked away from me to supply yet another Damage Uber Alles power.

Absolutely.  Not everything has to align to the meta to be useful or usable.  Leave something for the non-meta players to leverage for marginal effectiveness if only so it's not the same herd-n-burn tactic that is played over and over and over and over again. 

 

Posters always say, "if you don't like this or that or if you think the game is too easy, then don't use x or nerf yourself with y" but how the heck is someone suppose to be able to play the game in a limited fashion for fun if the game keeps being made easier, more convenient and more gameable at every turn?  I can't have my normal Dark Melee back lol but let's pump it up with more AoEs anyway.

 

As for the topic at hand, I would have sworn there was another thread about the Sleep mez very recently...

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

It depends on the sleep.

Mind? (Targeted AOE) Yes. Being able to put a group (or, yes, a single, even with an AOE) to sleep is handy. Yes, even if it breaks right away. And yes, there are ... not infrequent times shutting down a group with multiple bosses with defenses a Sleep can shut down (but other effects would not) is useful, even if the sleep is broken right away.

 

Ice? (PBAOE) No. I constantly skip that, since *I* don't want to be in range of anything the sleep would hit - I'd rather use a hard control (or ice patch) on them.

Funny, it was my Ice Dom that I was playing that got me thinking about this to begin with, heh.

[Solarverse]

5 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Absolutely.  Not everything has to align to the meta to be useful or usable.  Leave something for the non-meta players to leverage for marginal effectiveness if only so it's not the same herd-n-burn tactic that is played over and over and over and over again. 

 

Posters always say, "if you don't like this or that or if you think the game is too easy, then don't use x or nerf yourself with y" but how the heck is someone suppose to be able to play the game in a limited fashion for fun if the game keeps being made easier, more convenient and more gameable at every turn?  I can't have my normal Dark Melee back lol but let's pump it up with more AoEs anyway.

 

As for the topic at hand, I would have sworn there was another thread about the Sleep mez very recently...

Agreed, not wanting to make the game easier at all. However, I would like there to be a reason for me to pick up...say...Flash Freeze. Like Greycat was saying, it's a point blank AoE, you jump in the middle of the crowd, hit your AoE sleep and then you are at the mercy of the gods. Considering that sleeps break with any damage at all, it makes the power pretty useless to me. I am willing to bet if we looked up the stats, it's one of the most skipped powers in the set. Make the game easier? No, in fact, I am sure there are people who read that and chuckled pretty hard at the notion. Anyone here who is familiar with me knows that I am a HUGE advocate of not only not letting this game get any easier, but also I am all about making the game more difficult to play. I have been very vocal on this ever since the game came back out and even on the forums before the game shut down, heh.

If there was a topic for sleep mez before, I am sure that players wanted it to have MOAR DAMAGE or something or another. Players who post are often looking for ways to make themselves more of a god than they already are, I am simply curious how players feel about the set...as I made clear in my opening post.

This is not a suggestion post or I would have put it in the suggestion forums. This is a post asking the players how they feel about the set and asking them if they use it. Somehow by asking that it has turned in to a suggestion thread though...but that's not on me...I don't think?
 

[Naraka]

4 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

If there was a topic for sleep mez before, I am sure that players wanted it to have MOAR DAMAGE or something or another. Players who post are often looking for ways to make themselves more of a god than they already are, I am simply curious how players feel about the set...as I made clear in my opening post.

This is not a suggestion post or I would have put it in the suggestion forums. This is a post asking the players how they feel about the set and asking them if they use it. Somehow by asking that it has turned in to a suggestion thread though...but that's not on me...I don't think?
 

If I recall, it was suggesting making the mez more persistent so basically a different flavor of Fear.

 

If I were suggesting giving more purpose to the sleep mez, it'd be through buffing enemies with toggle-like defenses that have a low/moderate chance to be dropped with stuff like Holds, Disorient, Knockback, and have a very high/100% chance to be dropped with either Sleep or full END drain.  Of course, you'd need to buff enemies to have such powers and sustain first to make toggle-dropping a useful utility and retrofit chance of dropping on other mezzes to balance out their mitigation.

 

Overall, it's hard to make fringe aspects of the game more useful when the meta-aspects of the game directly reduce said usefulness.  

[Solarverse]

20 minutes ago, Naraka said:

If I recall, it was suggesting making the mez more persistent so basically a different flavor of Fear.

 

If I were suggesting giving more purpose to the sleep mez, it'd be through buffing enemies with toggle-like defenses that have a low/moderate chance to be dropped with stuff like Holds, Disorient, Knockback, and have a very high/100% chance to be dropped with either Sleep or full END drain.  Of course, you'd need to buff enemies to have such powers and sustain first to make toggle-dropping a useful utility and retrofit chance of dropping on other mezzes to balance out their mitigation.

 

Overall, it's hard to make fringe aspects of the game more useful when the meta-aspects of the game directly reduce said usefulness.  

True. It can get pretty complicated, this much is for sure, heh.

[kiramon]

They should make the “wake up” hit do a damage proc. 

[Blackfeather]

I'll just put this here. 😋

[TheZag]

I feel that sleep is mostly useless with how the game is played now.  Back when setting up a pull to have the bosses under some control effect while the rest were fought and pulling a second group was almost certainly a wipe was when sleep was useful.  Now the best thing people can say about it is that its good in small teams or poorly geared groups.  Not my top priority pick for a power thats only good when your team isnt.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Do any of you take AoE sleeps in your build? If so, why? What advantage does it serve in your build and how does it help you and/or your team?

 

All of my TAs use the Sleep in PGA while leveling/exemplaring.  My Ill/TA, for example, has no other AoE control on short recharge, so PGA fills a pretty notable void there, providing both Containment on the cheap and reliable mitigation that she otherwise lacks.  My TA/Dark, with TT and NF slotted heavily for procs and not so much for Accuracy, relies heavily on it when fighting things like Earth/Air Thorn Casters (the assholes with the Defense shields).  When my Bots/TA doesn't have access to the AoE upgrade, PGA allows her to focus the damage on the hard targets while the easy stuff naps, which saves me a lot of frustration.  On all of my TA characters, I can, if I choose to, PGA a spawn to pull the lieutenants and bosses without the minions and underlings.

 

Every power is as useful as we choose to make it.

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

Agreed, not wanting to make the game easier at all. However, I would like there to be a reason for me to pick up...say...Flash Freeze. Like Greycat was saying, it's a point blank AoE, you jump in the middle of the crowd, hit your AoE sleep and then you are at the mercy of the gods. Considering that sleeps break with any damage at all, it makes the power pretty useless to me. I am willing to bet if we looked up the stats, it's one of the most skipped powers in the set. 
 

 

Actually, considering Flash Freeze does slight PBAE damage and can thusly taken Melee AoE sets, I could see people Proc-Bombing with Flash Freeze. If the damage procs all fire just a hair before the sleep kicks in (sleep IS on a very slight delay), you'd potentially get in free damage and slept mobs.  orrrrrrr mobs that are really pissed off at you when someone else wakes them up, lol. 

 

Probably proc-bombed more as an Ice/Ice/Ice blaster epic power than as an Ice Controller power, though. 

[Gulbasaur]

12 hours ago, MTeague said:

I acknowledge the more vocal players I find on the forums believe very firmly in a Damage-Is-King, Roving Murderball of eight Soft-Capped Incarnates decked out with expensive IO builds as what you should want for a team. I vehemently disagree with this, find such teams BORING AS HELL.

Oh good golly gosh this is very true of how I play. My ideal team is 2-4 people, still levelling. I do run my incarnate main around, but tend to do so in Atlas Park specifically so I can invite newbies who want to mooch experience when I just want to piss about a bit and kill skuls. There is no challenge to most of the game once you hit the top. 

 

I think there are three clear mindsets in playing MMOs (and games generally) that often interact but often have different goals:

1. "Rewards are what makes it rewarding" - Some people judge how well they've done by how much inf/tokens/merits/gold/drops they end up with at the end of a session - they're the ones running AE farms, who poo their knickers if anyone suggests playing below +4x8, feign allergies to knockback and have amazing puns for names; 
2. "Challenge is what what makes it rewarding" - Some people will judge how well they've done by whether or not they've actually had to problem solve - they're the ones running Dark Astoria story arcs with a load of sidekicks and treating it like an escort mission, doing no-death runs and hitting 50 without using IO set bonuses; and
3. "Fun is what makes it rewarding" - Some people just want to see the weird, unique maps, play being a superhero/villain and tell bad jokes in chat - they're the ones with multi-page bios, use knockback like a fine art and have six travel powers but can still hold their own.  

There are also players who will only do it if there is a badge to be won, those who haven't left Pocket D for anything less than a costume competition and those who enjoy the theory more than the practicality of build-crafting. 

 

Actually, the Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types springs to mind. 

 

All gameplay styles are completely fine and whatever you want to do is great, but for the love of Mot please use your words in the LFG. A speed clear attracts a different crowd to it than a chilled out Dad Jokes run. 

 

So, anyway... I completely agree. Mass sleeps can be a team-saver and can certainly be a solo-saver. I've had more deaths to poor tanking than poor control since joining HC. 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Gulbasaur

[tidge]

I will agree that I find Mass Hypnosis (Mind controller, T5, taken at level 8 ) to be a useful power, albeit a situational one. I find myself using it:

• When exemplared to low level missions, it is a valuable control for the solo player.
• When playing x8 spawns and things are going pear-shaped.

I agree that the mechanic is tricky, but an AoE Sleep is much more useful IMO than a single-target Immobilize. It certainly doesn't fit well with the preference for AoE damage, but that is a balance problem with AoE damage .

[Heraclea]

Technically Salt Crystals is an AoE sleep.  I will often take it as an ancillary pick on a tanker that doesn't have a strong need for Conserve Power and Physical Perfection.  The fact that it's an AoE sleep is not the attraction.  But it's a very wide AoE that puts a tanker attack on what is it - 12 mobs? - makes it an attractive proposition to me.  You can slot a proc from one of the Sleep sets that gives you a tiny self heal.   It also adds a bit of defense debuff.  Quick Sand from the same pool is also attractive.   

[Greycat]

Salt crystals - that was the other one I'd been trying to think of, yeah.

 

For me, those two aren't low-priority/non picks because they're sleeps, but because of the PBAOE not really "working" with the rest of (or most of the rest of) the set. Everything else is at range (Ice Slick, Volcanic Gasses, Quicksand, etc) and I want to stay at range, not hop in the middle of things for a sleep.

[Solarverse]

For me personally, I find sleeps useful in very rare situations these days. I use sleeps even less than I use Dimension Shift. Dimension Shift has two good reasons to use it, A: If you over aggro and the extra aggro'ed mob is just too much for a team that is currently struggling with the first mob, or B: If your team is all grounded up in the center of a room with several mobs stacked on the team, you can use it to prevent anything outside the bubble popping you with ranged abilities and it allows the team to focus on the mobs that are inside of the bubble instead.

Sleep on the other hand I can only find one use for on a team setting, and that is sleeping a mob from afar to prevent over-aggro. Meanwhile, you have Fire, Darkness and Electric over there, with every single ability in its arsenal being something useful that can be applied to every single mob you come across.

So for me personally, what I usually end up doing, is when I play sets that have AoE Sleeps, is that I will skip those and replace them with the new Teleport ability that gathers mobs around you. I will run up to the Tank, hit the ability and follow it with a Stun/Root/AoE Hold or whatever strikes my fancy.

Now, there are a couple of characters that I have the Sleep power on, but the only situation I tend to use them on is say for instance, Posi 2, at the AV fight when you get the spawn of Vhaz. I will sleep them so that we can continue to focus on the AV. However, before that fight, I don't click that button a single time unless we are on the verge of team wipe...which doesn't really happen all that often.

So yes, it has its uses, but do those uses happen enough to justify me putting it in to my build? For me, not usually. Pretty rare actually. I just wish Sleeps had some after effect that will kick in after the sleep is broken, maybe perhaps a short lived disorient effect, or perhaps a short lived hold effect, or a short lived confuse effect...depending on which powerset it is applied to that is and what makes sense for that powerset.