Focused Feedback: PvP Changes

[Booper]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

• Please note that Focused Feedback threads are heavily moderated to ensure they remain on topic.
  • Any off-topic posts in these threads will be removed without warning.
  • The thread will be locked when no more feedback is required, but you are more than welcome to continue the discussion in a new thread.
• The most up-to-date version of the changes will be listed in the first post.
• The changes in each build will be posted as replies.
  • Changes from the previous beta build are listed in green.
    • Green text will become white text in the next set of patch notes.
  • Any changes or fixes that are only relevant to the beta builds are listed in blue.
    • Blue text will be deleted in the next set of patch notes as it is only relevant to highlight changes between beta builds, not a changes from live.
  • Known issues are listed in purple.

 

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PVP Changes

• General

• The command /powexec_location now requires line of sight in PVP in order to be used in target mode with teleport powers. This change only applies in PVP zones and arenas, does not affect its usage with non-teleport powers, and does not impact the use of other modes such as forward:20 or up:max.
• All travel power speed cap increases from Issue 27, Page 2 now also apply in PvP

• Modified the PvP diminishing return curves for travel speeds

  • SpeedRunning set to 0.45, SpeedFlying set to 0.60, SpeedJumping set to 0.45 (previously all of these parameters were set to 0.55)

• Powers

• Sorcery > Arcane Bolt / Arcane Power
  • Arcane Power can now trigger 
  • Arcane Bolt can proc for double damage

• Super Reflexes:

  • Lowered the activation period of powers with scaling resistance from 2s to 0.5s (all ATs). The duration of these effects have been set to 0.75s to compensate. NOTE: This affects PvE as well.

  • Increased PvP Elusivity in Focused Fighting, Focused Senses and Evasion to 25%.
  • Added Toxic Resistance to all scaling resistance powers
  • Bug Fix: Corrected Brute's Evasion elusivity duration. It was set to 0.75s when it was supposed to be 2.25s. This resulted in AoE elusivity dropping out between each 2s tick application.
• Electrical Affinity:

  • Rejuvenating Circuit: Increased the Main Target heal to do an extra 0.41 scale in PvP only. This makes the main target get the equivalent of a 1.96 scale heal (same as Heal Other from Empathy). The chain heal still works off of the 1.55 scale heal, so no change for the healing of secondary targets.

  • Defibrillate: Reduced the Endurance Drain from Scale -30 to Scale -20 in PvP.

  • Faraday Cage: Increased the duration of PvP-only effects to 20s (up from 5s). This will allow players to buff themselves inside the Faraday Cage, then exit for up to 20s of protection. These effects only include the following:

    • Resistance to Mez, Teleport
    • Protection to Mez, Knock, and Repel

  • Faraday Cage: Decreased the activation period from 1 second to 0.2 second. The faster rate should allow for the Faraday Cage buffs to apply more quickly/reliably when moving through the Faraday Cage bubble. Note: This does not affect Static build up, which will still use a 5s activation period. NOTE: This affects PvE as well.

• Trick Arrow > EMP Arrow:

  • EMP Field: Increased the duration of all PvP effects to 20s (up from 0.65s). This will allow players to buff themselves inside the EMP Field, then exit for up to 20s of protection. These effects only include the following:
    • Resistance to Mez, Teleport
    • Protection to Mez, Knock, and Repel
  • EMP Field: Decreased the activation period from 0.5 second to 0.2 second. The faster rate should allow for the EMP Field buffs to apply more quickly/reliably when moving through the EMP Field bubble. NOTE: This affects PvE as well.
• Devices > Toxic Web Grenade:
  • Set the stacking on the -Recharge effect to kReplace in PvP. This will still stack in PvE.
• Gravity Control > Dimension Shift:
  • Reduced duration from 20s to 3s in PvP only.
• Singularity's Gravitation Pull:
  • Set a PvEOnly flag on the pull effect that requires Player targets. This should prevent pulling in PvP, but allow critters who summon a Singularity to still utilize the power on players in PvE.

[Glacier Peak]

On 11/2/2021 at 1:07 PM, Booper said:

• Gravity Control > Dimension Shift:
  • Reduced duration from 20s to 3s in PvP only.

Would it be possible to reduce/clarify the extraneous numbers from the PvP Detailed Info for Dimension Shift (see below). I can confirm Dimension Shift now lasts 3 seconds after the cast (though it feels like the effect activates a little bit before the animation finishes).

 

It may also be moot, but if the power is only going to last 3 seconds in PvP and act primarily as a ground based spike-adverting power (as opposed to the current meta for turtling), shouldn't the recharge be reduced in kind? On live, the base recharge is 60 seconds and enhanceable to nearly perma and the effect lasted 20 seconds. On beta, the base recharge is still 60 seconds and enhanceable to around 20 seconds, but the effect only lasts 3 seconds. Where is the trade off (risk versus reward) being balanced here? It's not like the user can attack while dimension shifted. It is as much a boon to their safety as a detriment to their team losing an attacker during stacking of the spike. Trade off on live made sense IMO. Now a player casts the power and it lasts nearly the same as a mez would. I am seeing less options to avoid the damage cascade with this change.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Glacier Peak

[Wavicle]

5 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Would it be possible to reduce/clarify the extraneous numbers from the PvP Detailed Info for Dimension Shift (see below). I can confirm Dimension Shift now lasts 3 seconds after the cast (though it feels like the effect activates a little bit before the animation finishes).

 

It may also be moot, but if the power is only going to last 3 seconds in PvP and act primarily as a ground based spike-adverting power (as opposed to the current meta for turtling), shouldn't the recharge be reduced in kind? On live, the base recharge is 60 seconds and enhanceable to nearly perma and the effect lasted 20 seconds. On beta, the base recharge is still 60 seconds and enhanceable to around 20 seconds, but the effect only lasts 3 seconds. Where is the trade off (risk versus reward) being balanced here? It's not like the user can attack while dimension shifted. It is as much a boon to their safety as a detriment to their team losing an attacker during stacking of the spike. Trade off on live made sense IMO. Now a player casts the power and it lasts nearly the same as a mez would. I am seeing less options to avoid the damage cascade with this change.

 

To me it seems like the power is still just as useless as it has always been. The change to how it works in PvE made it slightly less useless but overall still basically useless. This PvP change makes it almost entirely usless in PvP as well.

[Wavicle]

Unless I'm missing something, I see no real value for this power whatsoever in either PvE or PvP. No one should ever waste a power slot on this.

[Wavicle]

I'll amend. I could see it becoming situationally useful in the new Challenge Mode encounters.

[Aracknight]

On 11/2/2021 at 1:07 PM, Booper said:

• Super Reflexes:

  • Lowered the activation period of powers with scaling resistance from 2s to 0.5s (all ATs). The duration of these effects have been set to 0.75s to compensate. NOTE: This affects PvE as well.

 

Does this mean that the resistance kicks in faster?  If so: Awesome.  Then the oft-overlooked second trick our pony does just got better. 

 

Can we consider adding the PVP Toxic resistance to PVE also, and with bated breath, PSI damage too?

Edited November 8, 2021 by Aracknight

[Bopper]

3 hours ago, Aracknight said:

 

Does this mean that the resistance kicks in faster?  If so: Awesome.  Then the oft-overlooked second trick our pony does just got better. 

 

Can we consider adding the PVP Toxic resistance to PVE also, and with bated breath, PSI damage too?

It works both ways. Resistance should update faster, both when losing health and gaining health. Before, you could use a Heal inspiration and have a couple seconds of the increased resistance stick around. Now it will lower the resistance faster after you heal.

[Aracknight]

Still digging it.  Thanks.

[arcane]

19 hours ago, Aracknight said:

PSI damage too?

Don’t hold your breath - it’s SR’s only meaningful hole, really. SR is already pretty god tier right now.

[Alouu]

I will be updating this post with additional info later but this is the first round of feedback that myself and the others I PvP with have:

 

Arcane Bolt: Does not yet deal double damage on a Crit, still deals +50% damage Crits, will test again when its fixed.

 

Super Reflexes: From the testing myself and @Purblind did so far, 25% elusivity makes SR ideally balanced for fightclub. It has niches that make it attractive to pick when compared to EA or Ninjitsu, but does not outperform those sets, it also compares decently to top fightclub sets like rad armor and regen.

 

Singularity: As noted before this is a great change.

Dimension Shift: This change did its job of shutting down the abuse that was previously possible. Speaking for the small arena (1v1, 2v2, 3v3) community, we are happy with it at 3 seconds but would also be okay with it at 4 or 5 seconds (though I don't know if 8v8 players are okay with 4 or 5 seconds). We will be testing the power more in the future, it will take some time to get used to using it in a new way as the playstyle changes a bit. In terms of Gravity Control as a whole, I think it will still be a top tier control set after these two changes. Since it gets banned right now for the ways it can be abused, in small matches it will also see more use thanks to these changes.

 

Elec Blast: The changes to elec have very nuanced connotations for PvP.

Currently (on live), Elec Blast is a top tier 1v1 set when used on Defenders or Sentinels. In 2v2, it is a mid tier set which has very strong strengths but also very punishable weaknesses.

 

In terms of 1v1, the changes to Elec Blast will be a buff to the attacks but at the same time nerf the Voltaic Sentinel. This is because detoggling happens on a constant basis in pvp and the Sentinel takes 3 seconds to turn on. Overall I expect that the buff to the attacks and the nerf to the Voltaic Sentinel will cancel out in 1v1 and thus the set will remain top tier but not become any better. This is probably for the best.

 

In terms of 2v2, things are different because there are powers such as Clear Mind, Thaw and Antidote, which all provide Mez Protection. These powers can prevent offensive toggles (such as the new Voltaic Sentinel) from being detoggled by Mez. This will mean that both Elec Blast's attacking powers and its pet will be buffed in 2v2, with the right team compositions. Although Elec Blast is only mid tier in 2v2 right now, any push could make it very strong. We will be doing more testing regarding this at the same time as we test the Electrical Affinity changes.

 

Electrical Affinity: This will be the subject of our upcoming arena tests. Edit: We finally got this done yesterday, it took a long time because for the testing we wanted to use the ideal sapping comps for 2v2, which meant creating some of the needed characters on brainstorm.

 

We can say that: Defibrillate is now in a good spot.

 

Aside from that, our testing was in relation to how elec affinity characters and elec blast characters pair up in 2v2, after the buffs to the latter. We were concerned about two things being too strong going into the tests:

 

1. We were worried that when amp-up is used on the newly buffed electric blast attacks, the sapping might be too strong.

2. We were worried that when mez protection is granted to an elec-blast character, voltaic sentinel might be too strong.

 

After our testing, it appears that both of our concerns were valid (in 2v2). However from what we could tell, neither was so problematic that they warrant any action to be taken. To put it another way; after these changes elec-blast sap comps are now very strong in 2v2, but it remains to be seen whether it beats out other top tier team compositions. As a result, we can not say if there is any need for pvp specific nerfs to either elec-affinity or elec-blast at this time.

 

Seismic Blast: This set is great in pvp, especially 2v2 and 3v3, while not being too strong. In testing some of us felt that the ability of the attacks to deactivate Double Jump might be oppressive, but personally I see that as an acceptable niche for the set to have.

 

Earth Manipulation: We have not yet tested this set, on paper it looks to be balanced and has a mixture of passive effects that we have seen before on other manipulation sets.

 

Hypersonic +Fly Proc: Right now it is sufficient in combination with Fly, Hover and Evasive Maneuvrers to stay airborne after being hit by a -jump power, but is not sufficient to protect against a -jump power together with another -fly power. I cannot say whether this is going to be problematic or not at this stage, it takes a while for people to learn to use/abuse things like this to their full potential. My initial thought is that it will be okay, but I cant say for certain.

 

Movement Speed Cap Increases: These are universally liked.

 

 

Travel DR Changes: Among the people I do small scale Arenas with regularly, the majority of us would like to see the DR on travels drop further, allowing us to reach speeds closer to PvE. However this sentiment is not shared with everyone among the 8v8 community (although some people who 8v8 do also agree). I have been directing people to vote on this specific issue, to show that there is a good deal of popular support for lowering the DR values further.

 

As a separate issue, Flight powers still outspeed Leaping Powers in pvp with the DR curves in use on Test now (0.45/0.6/0.45).

 

While I do not have any concrete proof that this will disrupt balance, I strongly feel that this should not be the case. It would be a very bad thing for PvP if flight was used as the main method of travel as it would take the skill away from traversing terrain with precision and conserving momentum while attacking. It also contradicts the speed cap orders set up in PvE, as well as the historic achievable speed orders that have always been in pvp, which is Running > Leaping > Flying. As mentioned earlier, many of us would like to see the DR on Leaping and Running travels reduced, and this would resolve this, but if that is not possible then increasing the DR on flight powers would also work.

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Alouu

[Purblind]

On Seismic Blast: Disabling double jump is not only what I assume to be an unintended consequence of the -jump mag, but is also overly oppressive. Double jump is an offensive and defensive move, as it allows a player to evade someone by using extra jump height and also allows an offensive player to stay in range of a target (especially with the animation time reductions). Disabling double jump would be a huge boon to the set in itself, and it is solid for small scale pvp without doing that.