Focused Feedback: Seismic Blast

[ScarySai]

Three suggestions for seismic, they are mutually exclusive.

 

1: Remove the whole idea of only being able to use one empowered ability per proc, and make it a mode that lasts X amount of time where you can use empowered abilities until it ends.

 

2: CONSIDERABLY buff the empowered abilities to be godlike. These abilities have to be strong. The set is limited not only by rng and ground proximity, but when your shockwaves actually proc, you're essentially blowing your nose on a crowd of people rather than doing anything noteworthy. Meanwhile, I could do better aoe as rad blast or archery without these mechanics getting in my way.

 

3: Add more empowered abilities.

Edited November 8, 2021 by ScarySai

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, 0th Power said:

Posted it earlier in the thread, but here it is again:  Any thought to changing "Meteor" to "Meteorite" to be accurate?

 

Its not a meteorite until it impacts, so I think Meteor is the right choice.

[WindDemon21]

21 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Yeah, I know. But there are not, so far as I know, other power sets that have this “feature” on nearly every power in the set. It’s too much. I like having screen shake on for the few powers that use it appropriately. This set has it too much.

They really should just add a "no shake" option in the power customization.

 

Also on rock shards, I really hate the mechanic of it randomly having more range. More often than not this ends up in forcing you to reposition or to randomly hit a mob further back when you don't want causing aggro. This is fine with the snipe mechanic because you can control it, but with this, it's just funky and bad. If you want it to increase power fine, but I'd rather have it's base range be around 50-60 feet and split the difference of it being perma and not affected by seismic pressure.

[0th Power]

3 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

Its not a meteorite until it impacts, so I think Meteor is the right choice.

But it does impact so meteorite is accurate. A meteor would break up upon entry 

Edited November 8, 2021 by 0th Power

[capricorpse]

I think the set is really cool!!

 

I think that while, yes, the geometry of the bigger moves like Upthrust is rather large, but it goes away so fast that it doesn't really matter.  Reading the comments here I expected some Propel-style clutter all over the place, but it's just gone immediately.  The moves are super cool.  I especially love Shatter, that looks awesome.  

 

I do think Upthrust should do more damage.  It's so spectacular visually, and needs a bit more punch.  I was running around with no enhancements, but fighting against grey names (10 levels down in some groups) and it was barely taking the chunk of their HP I'd expect to see on white names right out of the box.  

 

The meteor is great.  I hear what people are saying about the wait time, and it is pretty long, but maybe only shorten it by a second or half second.  I think the shadow growing is great! I really don't want every set to have the exact same animation times between powers that are similar, otherwise they just feel like re-skins.  Seismic forces should feel like they take longer to use than blasting pure energy straight out of your hands.  However, the tradeoff should be massive damage.  It's an inertia thing. 

 

I also love the animations on Tombstone when long-casting.  Props to the FX artists.

[Menelruin]

13 hours ago, 0th Power said:

But it does impact so meteorite is accurate. A meteor would break up upon entry 

IIRC once it enters Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteorite. 

[Laenan]

The set was fun to play street sweeping in PI. Animation wise, the crystal meteor’s impact was not as… impactful as the fiery explosion of the stone and lava ones, but minor quibble aside, seismic blast was fun to play. 
 

Other animations briefly obstruct the screen in melee range but it’s no worse than other powers that exist (geyser immediately comes to mind, for example).

 

Well done on this set.

[0th Power]

3 hours ago, Menelruin said:

IIRC once it enters Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteorite. 

Meteoroid - floating in space

Meteor - burns up in atmosphere

Meteorite - impacts earth

 

NASA Link

[Vanden]

32 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

NASA Link

 

That page says it's not a meteorite until it impacts, like I said.

[0th Power]

9 minutes ago, Vanden said:

 

That page says it's not a meteorite until it impacts, like I said.

The rock in the power impacts the ground, like I said.

[Vanden]

3 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

The rock in the power impacts the ground, like I said.

 

That happens after our character does their thing. The power calls a big rock in the sky, what happens after that is up to gravity.

 

It's not like we call powers like Trip Mine or Frag Grenade "Shrapnel," even though that's what they always become.

[ForeverLaxx]

Just now, Vanden said:

The power calls a big rock in the sky, what happens after that is up to gravity

So let's call it "Rock Drop" and we can stop arguing about which phase said rock should be named after.

[0th Power]

A trip mine that explodes is still a trip mine (that has exploded).  But a rock from space that hits the ground is no longer a meteor.  If were going by what it is when our character does their thing, then it should be a meteoroid.

[Hjarki]

I find the whole Seismic Shockwaves ability clunky and underpowered.

 

As a defensive mechanism, it's simply too unreliable to be of much value.

 

As an offensive mechanism:

• Rock Shards. Ranged Cones are tricky to make work since you need your enemies to stay at range to catch them in the AE. When you're also forced to stay on the ground to use them, this makes Rock Shard very niche. Consuming Shockwaves so it can do half the damage of your second basic attack rather than a third the damage of your second basic attack doesn't really make this power worth taking. 
• Seismic Force. Aim/Build Up abilities tend to be used as openers, especially in sets that have abilities like Sniper attacks and ultimates. But this is the one scenario where it doesn't work very well because you won't have Seismic Shockwaves to start the fight. So the benefit would really be confined to very long fights where you can wait out the (long) recharge of Aim and then use it rotationally.
• Stalagmite. These sorts of abiliites are almost invariably skipped in Blast sets. That's why when the Sentinel revamps were made, they were transformed into an actual attacks rather than underpowered control abilities. Having Stalagmites ramp up to a Blaze-style heavy-hitting attack makes it far more reasonable. Haviing it also gain a really, really long recharge when it does so tosses the pile right back on the scrap heap.

When I look at design possibilities for this set, I'm probably not going to take either Rock Shards or Stalagmite. I'm also probably going to build for Hover-blasting since it provides a solid defense to remove flight from others while retaining it yourself and it has a ranged ultimate, while not losing anything because the core set mechanic is so pointless. Since -def is such a proc-friendly ability, I'm probably going to play something like Storm/Seismic.

 

Which doesn't seem like the design intent at all. While the aforementioned Storm/Seismic would be a solid enough build, it seems strange to have a set where the best builds for it actively avoid the core mechanics of the set.

[Blackfeather]

On 11/9/2021 at 5:33 AM, Vanden said:

Its not a meteorite until it impacts, so I think Meteor is the right choice.

 

If Final Fantasy can get away with it, I think it's fine: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Meteor_(ability)

[Tacheyon]

So after playing with this set some more on a Blaster I think I do like this set a bit more.  I did a SB/TA blaster and the combo of Meteor + OSA is really good.  I am not sure if I misread the damage it does last time I played or there was a small change but now that it does some Fire damage it can light up OSA.  Anything that Meteor doesn't auto-defeat will burn.  Especially after a Upthrust and/or Glue Arrow to keep them in place.  And yes I put either a SA: KB to KD or OF: KB to KD in both of them to prevent things from flying out of the Ignited Slick.

 

Rock Shards are still ehh, and I'll probably skip them on my Live build.

Since I was staying at range the Shockwaves only kept those really persistent mobs flopping around while I reposition but it was helpful.  Then I would fire off the powered up Stalagmites, which is the only time I would use it.

 

I do think that SB needs a bit of work.  Upthrust needs to be scaled down to 2/3rds it size I think and maybe a small decrease on it's activation time (maybe .5 faster).  Some damage numbers do need a little increase as well (Rock Shards).

 

It's a different powerset for sure, and does feed into my love of Earth powers.  It might be able to get me away from Controllers or MM's for a while...might. 😉

[GraspingVileTerror]

Alternative Power name:  "ROCK FALLS!  EVERYONE DIES!"

(Sorry!  Mostly not serious.  I'm honestly not too picky on the name here, but maybe something like "Summon Meteor" would be more appropriate without getting in to the minutia of technicalities?)

[UltraAlt]

Playing at level 30.

I really like this power set. Seismic pressure doesn't seem to excessive yet. 

 

My only feedback is the power SFX are too big. I would reduce the size of the SFX at least in half for most of the powers.

The SFX take up too much screen space.

 

Tombstone really seems like it should have a hold component for some reason ... even if is for a very short time and not slotable. 

 

Oh, forgot. It seems that the ranges are very short for some reason, but might be due to the size of the SFX.

Edited November 10, 2021 by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

 

If Final Fantasy can get away with it, I think it's fine: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Meteor_(ability)

[UltraAlt]

On 11/8/2021 at 11:02 AM, Upgrade9 said:

WHy? WHY? in all the world of blasters does this set have the most "Light dmg attacks"?  Its like its not even made for a blaster more like a defender.   Can this be adjusted please?

 

I have brought up before the word usage in the power description. The power does X damage. Where X means something, but, apparently, it really doesn't mean anything.

Typically powers that do light or minor damage have some debuff worked into them and can usually be proc'ed to do some additional minor damage/etc or even hold in addition. Since they recharge fast often dual proc'ing them can pay off.

Encase - for example - slots defense debuffs. You can put a Devastation : Chance for hold, Dark Watcher : Chance for Recharge Slow, ?

Rock Shards - for example - slots defense debuffs. You can put a Dark Watcher : Chance for Recharge Slow, Bombardment : chance for fire damage, ?

 

Usually there is some pay off for the reduced damage :

Stalagmite -  If affected by Seismic Shockwaves, this power will halt the shockwaves and deal extreme damage. Bonus Damage is only 2/3rds enhanceable.  You can put a Devastation : Chance for hold, ?

[UltraAlt]

On 11/6/2021 at 12:24 AM, Wavicle said:

Except you have no control over Shockwaves. If you choose Seismic Blast a PBAoE Sleep is simply impossible for you to make use of in most situations.

 

By "most situations" do you mean end game content?

 

Sleeps are most useful when soloing or working with teammates that are also using sleep powers or those that know you are using sleep powers and are trying to work with you.

 

I never take the sleep-like powers when I play an Earth Controller. It would be the same for this set when I make a character with it on-live.

 

(and, yes, I already have a character conception for this. Made it years ago for the original Champions RPG - not to be confused with the MMORPG)

[Wavicle]

8 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

By "most situations" do you mean end game content?

 

Sleeps are most useful when soloing or working with teammates that are also using sleep powers or those that know you are using sleep powers and are trying to work with you.

 

I never take the sleep-like powers when I play an Earth Controller. It would be the same for this set when I make a character with it on-live.

 

(and, yes, I already have a character conception for this. Made it years ago for the original Champions RPG - not to be confused with the MMORPG)

No I don’t mean end game content.

[WindDemon21]

The issue with rock shards being low damage is because it recharges in 8 seconds. Might be better to bump up it's damage and move it to a 10 or 12 second recharge. Also give it an alternate "energy torrent"/throw sand animation, hate the double handed weak fling one it has now. And increase the range to 50 or 60 feet, and then not affected by seismic pressure as far as increasing it's range. I already exclaimed earlier why the range increase with seismic pressure is a bad idea. Damage, fine, but not range. And would be cool if we could slot kb sets in it for the FF proc.

[SuperPlyx]

Hilarious to me, the one power that throws rocks will be the one most builds skip. 

[Nemu]

I think power gamers will only use the empowered buff for seismic force with a gaussian's proc. I tried the other empowered powers and found the timing unreliable since building stacks of seismic force and getting the actual buff to proc is not as cadenced and thus predictable as building charges in water blast. With the latter is 1,2,3 go, with the former it's 1,2,3,4?,5?,6?,7? ok now I get the proc go.

 

I tried the other spenders, the lack of consistency in anticipating when I can use them in a chain starts to annoy me once I got past the novelty of a new set. Aim though, that's always a nice low investment buff to have and I see the whole mechanic as a free stalkers ATO build up recharge proc which I'm actually cool with.