Mind Control/Mass Confusion recharge needs a buff

[Kaballah]

Just inexplicable that the recharge for Mass Confusion is four times the recharge for Seeds of Confusion.  Seeds is just plain enormously better in every way. The overall utility of Mind Control vs. Plant Control isn't too great either but reducing Mass Confusion base recharge to parity with Seeds would be a start.

[roleki]

I would have argued that Seeds was what needed correction, not Mass Confusion, but that ship sailed, sank, and corroded down to just a keel and ribs eons ago.  I rarely use Mass Confusion on my Mind/ characters (it functions more as a panic button than a tactic) but wouldn't mind it being available more often.

[Kaballah]

The whole paradigm of 4 minute tier 9 "BIG MOVE" powers got dismantled with reducing cooldowns for nukes across all sets. It's really long past time to make Mass Confusion a little more on par with Seeds, Arctic Air, Bonfire/KD, Phantom Army and other much better CC powers.

[Riverdusk]

I wouldn't say "better in every way" as it really is just better in recharge, but it is a LOT better in recharge.  Mass confusion is a ranged aoe vs. a cone and ranged aoe are usually considered "better".  Mass confuse also doesn't notify mobs on use (much safer for those you miss or the bosses you don't overpower).  So, mass confuse does have advantages over seeds.

 

But I agree those slight advantages don't make up for the big disparity in recharge.  I'd say it should be on a 90 second to 2 min recharge.  I also think all the mass aoe hold powers in every set should also be reduced to 2 mins (including minds of course).   Mind would then have multiple big aoe controls it could routinely rotate. 

 

It isn't like big aoe holds/controls are really even that game changing when people can just nuke everything every 2 mins (or less) as it is.

[Kaballah]

in practice the cone of Seeds is easier to hit full packs with than the AOE radius of MC, I really can't see anything that isn't better about Seeds after using both extensively. I agree about reducing the 4 minute AOE holds too, these days it's something every AT can do with some varieties of Judgement.

[chi1701]

11 hours ago, Kaballah said:

in practice the cone of Seeds is easier to hit full packs with than the AOE radius of MC, I really can't see anything that isn't better about Seeds after using both extensively. I agree about reducing the 4 minute AOE holds too, these days it's something every AT can do with some varieties of Judgement.

 

My blaster has an aoe hold with ioed out is 18.8 second mag 2 hold with 21.37 sec cooldown, obiviously fulled ioed incarnates etc. My flash on my troll lasts longer but even with massive recharge bonus is 52 second recharge (with 331% haste)

[Senbonbanana]

20 hours ago, roleki said:

I would have argued that Seeds was what needed correction, not Mass Confusion, but that ship sailed, sank, and corroded down to just a keel and ribs eons ago.

Truthfully, I think Seeds needs a minor nerf (base cooldown increased to 70-90 seconds? Give the mobs hit a -acc penalty for the duration?), and MC needs a huge buff (drastically reduce the CD (down to 90-120 seconds?), maybe increase the duration/magnitude/area to give it a slight leg up over Seeds (be cool if MC reliably hit bosses).  

[Kaballah]

I feel like the cooldown for Seeds is a relic of when they were selling the Plant Control set for money, similar to how Titan Weapons was blatantly just plain superior when it was released.

[EmperorSteele]

There's a lot more wrong with Mind than just Mass Comedy's recharge. Not arguing against reducing the recharge, but that would be a band-aid when what we need is full invasive surgery. But that discussion is beyond the scope of this thread.

 

As for Seeds, if I had my way, I'd probably lower it's target cap, arc and/or range. My grand idea would be that it starts out at 3 targets at level 8, and it gains more as you level up, up to a cap of 10 at level 50. It's a level 8 power and needs to act like it.

[Kaballah]

"scope creep" is a thing, just shortening the cooldown for Mass Confusion is a very small change and shouldn't be a massive six month project to get implemented. I agree Mind Control is not in a great place overall but that one small change would go a very long way.

[Parabola]

I don't really think seeds and mass confusion are directly comparable powers. Sure, they are both confuses but seeds is in the 'high availability, bread and butter control' position and mass confusion is what mind control gets instead of a pet. Now seeds is a very good control and might indeed be overpowered but that needs to be determined by comparing it to powers fulfilling similar roles in others sets: stalagmites and flashfire for example.

 

The most glaring problem mind control has is that it lacks a good option for use as a bread and butter control. A non-pulsing sleep doesn't cut the mustard nor does a fear. But adjusting mass confusion won't help this as it's in totally the wrong tier. That isn't to say mass confusion couldn't use a buff but how to balance it against pet powers is beyond me.

 

So yes, seeds might be overpowered and mass confusion might be underpowered but they aren't in direct competition with each other and I wouldn't balance them as such.

[Kaballah]

Well yes they're not comparable powers, because Seeds is dramatically better in every way that matters. NB: not asking to have Seeds nerfed here, but Mass Confusion and Mind Control in general are plainly in a really poor state, as anyone who has played both sets can see. No reason for people to get defensive about Seeds being a good power here.

 

They are absolutely 1:1 in direct competition with each other as they're literally the only two AOE confuse powers in the game, and Seeds is just hands down way, way way way better.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Kaballah

[roleki]

2 hours ago, Parabola said:

I don't really think seeds and mass confusion are directly comparable powers. Sure, they are both confuses but seeds is in the 'high availability, bread and butter control' position and mass confusion is what mind control gets instead of a pet. Now seeds is a very good control and might indeed be overpowered but that needs to be determined by comparing it to powers fulfilling similar roles in others sets: stalagmites and flashfire for example.

 

The most glaring problem mind control has is that it lacks a good option for use as a bread and butter control. A non-pulsing sleep doesn't cut the mustard nor does a fear. But adjusting mass confusion won't help this as it's in totally the wrong tier. That isn't to say mass confusion couldn't use a buff but how to balance it against pet powers is beyond me.

 

So yes, seeds might be overpowered and mass confusion might be underpowered but they aren't in direct competition with each other and I wouldn't balance them as such.

 

I'm sure the notion that Mind Control got Mass Confusion in lieu of a pet is canon from somewhere, but that only makes it even more ridiculous that Plant has a pet AND an always-up AoE confuse.  That said, I knew Mind Control was pretty low on the popularity scale, but it never occurred to me that it was unpopular for cause... probably because I've always paired Mind with a secondary that can finish the job that Terrify + Mass Hypnosis started.  I suppose somewhere there's a Mind/Nature, desperately trying to Levitate everything to death in serial.

Edited June 30, 2021 by roleki

[oedipus_tex]

Don't forget that Synaptic Overload is also an AoE Confuse on a 60 second recharge. That power has some weird characteristics (like the fact that the first link in the chain can miss) but it still recharges x4 faster than Mass Confusion. For some reason it also has 25% shorter confuse duration than Seeds.  

 

I've always felt the correct Recharge for Mass Confusion in a game that has Seeds and Synaptic should be 120.

 

As for Seeds of Confusion, what seems most overpowered to me is the Scale of its Confuse (ie the duration). It's Scale 20, which is the same as Mass Confusion, and very high for a power with 60 Recharge. Flashfire/Wormhole/Stalagmites/Heart of Darkness are Scale 8 Stuns with 90 Recharge. Based on that, Seeds probably should be a Scale 12 Confuse. Or at least not be higher than Scale 15, which is the duration of Synaptic.

Edited June 30, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[arcane]

On 6/29/2021 at 7:53 AM, roleki said:

I would have argued that Seeds was what needed correction, not Mass Confusion, but that ship sailed, sank, and corroded down to just a keel and ribs eons ago.  I rarely use Mass Confusion on my Mind/ characters (it functions more as a panic button than a tactic) but wouldn't mind it being available more often.

Eh, they could still balance Seeds recharge and we’d be fine. Carrion Creepers still being insanely powerful, for starters. I basically agree with you that Seeds could afford to be less stupidly OP.

Edited June 30, 2021 by arcane

[Kaballah]

Really not here to talk about nerfing Plant control.

[arcane]

23 minutes ago, Kaballah said:

Really not here to talk about nerfing Plant control.

Your thread appeared to be interested in bringing greater parity to Seeds of Confusion vs Mass Confusion recharges. There’s two ways to do that.

[Kaballah]

One of them will be popular, easy to implement and easy to revert, the other would be nerfing plant control.

[Kaballah]

4 hours ago, Kaballah said:

They are absolutely 1:1 in direct competition with each other as they're literally the only two AOE confuse powers in the game, and Seeds is just hands down way, way way way better.

 

Actually on this note, Ice Control has Arctic Air, an autohit confuse toggle, although it does have other things going on that make it differently powerful from Seeds (not worse, but different)

[oedipus_tex]

It's true Plant doesn't have a lot of versatility. The proc damage in Carrion Creepers stands out as a "must fix" to me though. The obviously broken double damage in the AoE immobilize probably needs to be fixed too.

 

 

More important to me than nerfing Seeds is correcting the fact that on Dominators, neither Arctic Air (on any target) or Synaptic Overload (on any target other than the first) Dominate enemies. Sometimes Arctic Air is described as an "auto hit Confuse" but IMO that oversells it a bit. A better description of both of these powers is "Confusion powers that no amount of added Accuracy will ever make reliable." They should Dominate. Especially Synaptic--Dominating only the first target is something no other power is coded to do and to me feels like an oversight or bug rather than a feature.

Edited July 1, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Parabola]

8 hours ago, roleki said:

I'm sure the notion that Mind Control got Mass Confusion in lieu of a pet is canon from somewhere

Well no other control set has a control power in the tier 9 slot rather than a pet. Therefore it seems reasonable to say that mind has mass confusion instead of a pet.

 

Mind is an outlier set in many ways; no pet, no mass immobilize, extra single target attack and importantly no reliable means of setting containment. This makes direct comparisons against powers in other sets tricky other than to say mind as a whole lags behind and needs some love.

 

10 hours ago, Kaballah said:

Well yes they're not comparable powers, because Seeds is dramatically better in every way that matters. NB: not asking to have Seeds nerfed here, but Mass Confusion and Mind Control in general are plainly in a really poor state, as anyone who has played both sets can see. No reason for people to get defensive about Seeds being a good power here.

I think you've misinterpreted my comment a little. I'm not being defensive about seeds or saying that mass confusion couldn't use a buff. But I am saying that even reducing mass confusions cooldown to match seeds isn't going to fix the set as a whole because mass confusion is in the tier 9 slot and mind control needs a reliable high availability control earlier than that.

 

8 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

As for Seeds of Confusion, what seems most overpowered to me is the Scale of its Confuse (ie the duration). It's Scale 20, which is the same as Mass Confusion, and very high for a power with 60 Recharge. Flashfire/Wormhole/Stalagmites/Heart of Darkness are Scale 8 Stuns with 90 Recharge. Based on that, Seeds probably should be a Scale 12 Confuse. Or at least not be higher than Scale 15, which is the duration of Synaptic.

Yes, exactly. Powers should be compared against others that are designed to fulful the same role rather than happen to use the same effect. Seeds is very powerful when compared to other mid tier high availability control powers and maybe should be balanced accordingly.

[Mezmera]

I've been playing Mind Control for quite a while now.  While I do agree it's bs that Mass Confusion, Mind's signature power, pales in comparison to Seeds of Confusion, I don't think the recharge in any way needs tinkered with.  I do think Seeds needs to be toned down though.  

 

I know there's quite a want for a buff to Mind Control but it could only use a slight sprucing up. 

 

Here's what I'd do with Mind: 

t1: Mesmerize

t2: Dominate (up from 3)

t3: Confuse (up from 4) 

t4: Levitate (down from 2) 

t5: Mass Hypnosis - Add a good tohitt debuff to go along with the sleep like Flash Arrow

t6: Telekinesis - This can go many ways, maybe up the target count to 8 and or add some sort of debuff to the main target

t7: Total Domination - Controllers get to proc an additional mag hold, Dominators get a minor damage proc (I'd do something like this for all control aoe holds)

t8: Terrify

t9: Mass Confusion - Leave the recharge as is but add a self buff per enemy hit, something that still doesn't cause aggro but you get like a 3% dmg/2% tohitt buff per target hit up to 16 for 30s kind of like Soul Drain or a defense buff somewhere in there. 

 

 

Mind is pretty good as is though, at least on doms thanks to all of the fluid instantaneous control you get from being in Domination.  

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Mezmera

[Android Nim]

I paired it with storm and force feedback +rech in gale and levitate. It procs often and makes a noticeable difference with Mass confusion. Just hit 50 and love playing the toon. 

[Onlyasandwich]

I feel like one of the biggest issues here is that Telekinesis is so wonky and underpowered. 

 

I would say that this power used to be the set's "signature" power back when it could do crazy things, and it is still a really unique tool. If TK were buffed in some way to make it more powerful/reliable/sustainable, the downsides of Mass Confusion would be less of an issue.

 

At that point, I would lump MC into the overall issue of "long cooldown aoe controls that have sort of silly high recharge compared to other powers."

[Randolk]

To make it comparable with other sets, I think it would be neat to convert mass confusion in a single, permanent, confusion hit.

Something like, I choose my own pet.

Obviously you couldn't tame a boss, but it should be available for minion and LT class enemies. In a single hit, you revitalize a full powerset.

Probably it would be difficult to code, though.