Which ATs or specific power sets are most in need of a review?

[KaizenSoze]

What is your prioritized list and why?

 

HEATs - Overly complicated, severe slot and power starvation, giant mezz or psi holes.

Sentinels - Great till 50. Then fall off badly compared to other ATs. Inherit needs review.

VEAT - Yeah, I am biased here. There are serious issues with endurance costs and powers strength on some builds.

 

 

[Faelia]

Kinetic Melee

 

Mastermind pets(just make all pets scale with level, the level difference just doesn't work out tbh)

 

Mercenaries and Beasts, maybe ninjas

 

 

[Apparition]

Mastermind pet levels need to be equaled out to the Mastermind.  Having lower level pets worked fine back when the maximum difficulty was +2 (remember that?), but not so much at +4.

 

I also believe that Mastermind pets should have an innate AoE defense, like pets in almost every other MMOG.

 

Kinetic Melee and Fiery Melee both need a revamp.  Assault Rifle needs a revamp.  Sentinels need a revamp.

 

Regeneration needs a serious buff and made overpowered, only so Regen can be nerfed again a few months later.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Apparition

[Black Zot]

HEATs and Sents are objectively, mathematically trash-tier.  This has been demonstrated again and again, and yet no finger has been lifted towards the overhaul needed.

 

Mastermind pets being downleveled is a stupid idea that renders most of them worthless against anything stronger than +1 or +2.  And as Apparition said, they desperately need some protection from AoEs.  No other AT has the potential to lose nearly all their combat strength to a single AoE that wasn't necessarily even aimed at them.

 

The weaker Mastermind primaries need to be brought up to par; you can't call a primary of any AT viable if you need to carry it with your secondary, and that's what you'll end up doing with anything outside of Demons/Thugs/Robots.

[InvaderStych]

Two that are combination of personal bias and relatively low hanging fruit:

 

Blaster, Sonic Manip: Deafening Wave -

 

Remove the tag that causes it to "Ignore External Strength Boosts." No buffs from Aim or Sound Booster among many other things.

 

Note the lock icon next to Activation Details. Thanks to @Bopper for pointing this out in a convo, explaining what it meant, and in the process teaching me a little bit about how to read CoD.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=blaster_support.sonic_manipulation.deafening_wave&at=blaster

 

All Affected ATs, Psi Melee: Boggle -

 

Adapt the revisions made to Touch Of Fear to make Boggle more useful, but without a damage component to preserve its non-notify nature for Stalkers.

 

Match Activation/Activation-Before-Affect/Etc times to that of ToF (slight reduction for all of them, effectively)

 

Single Target Confuse remains the same, applies "Boggled" status as it currently does.  Short Version: "Boggled" is a hidden status that is separate from confuse and increases the change of triggering Insight on subsequent attacks hitting that target while Boggled.  Thanks to @Replacement for figuring that out and posting a guide.

 

AoE component (adjust radius and target caps as appropriate) applies 1/3 duration mag 2 confuse (ST is 15s Mag 3) and Boggled status to all affected targets.

 

Yes, easier to straight copy ToF and make it a damage power, but that messes with stalker tactics apparently, and it's about the Boggled status more than anything else.

 

Part and parcel to this, a blanket increase to the "Insight Chance" on each power both with and without Boggle active.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by InvaderStych

[The_Warpact]

Amost everything...really. 

Brutes fury needs an increase for dmg potential.

Or 

Tankers dmg needs taken down a smidge, I'm playing tanks more because the miniscule amount of dmg broots do above tanks is a trade off for higher survivability. 

 

Sentinel yeah don't get me started.

HEATS same as above.

VEATS I like where crabs/forts are at, but, banes/widows need some help.

 

Masterminds pets need to lvl as you lvl,  almost all secondaries need help, from poison with its small radius to kin/emp being mehtastic, change up some stuff to make it unique. 

 

Scrappers/Defenders/Corruptor/Blaster/Stalker/Controller are ok more powerset stuff than anything.

 

Dominator are to me in a weird spot that they all have to have high recharge to make them shine. Sorta like having to take fitness back on live all the time. You have to slot for rech too much.

 

Then alot of powers across the spectrum. Basically, all the skippable ones, ie black hole, hand clap(it still sux with procs), etc. Fire melee, kinetic melee, AR, Sonic resonance, Regeneration, etc, etc.

 

Hell if they dedicated one issue just of changing up or balancing or fixing all the ATs and powersets I'd be happy. 

Because, honestly there are alot of powersets I skip because they straight up suck or have too many shit powers.

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by The_Warpact
Forgot something

[tidge]

Masterminds (all primaries)

• The effects of the first henchmen upgrade power should be baked into the initial summon of the henchmen
• The initial henchmen upgrade should be replaced with a rechargeable non-targetable pet (not a henchmen) that
  • provides buffs for the henchmen/Mastermind
  • can accept recharge-intensive and pet-specific IOs, so that all MMs have more freedom for henchmen slotting.

Edited February 25, 2022 by tidge

[Without_Pause]

Not said yet, but Staff needs a good look over. It feels like the set was given overly good combo benefits(Resist) in place for piss poor DPA.

 

Psionic Melee as previously mentioned.

 

Making Hemo worth taking on Savage.

 

A touch up to Mind control wouldn't hurt. We can all admit TK sucks and isn't really mind control.

 

Claws for Stalkers. I can't begin to imagine the rationale for no Spin and Eviscerate being ST. I can't think of another double whammy to a set's AoE for a Stalker to fit in AS. Compare Elec having loads of AoE and losing a control for AS but Claws gets two AoEs removed. The whole point of Eviscerate's animation is it a heavier hitter cast time wise but a cone.

 

Regen needs bare bone debuff resistance to regen, end, and recharge as a starting place for a fix.

 

Sents. Not dropping a full bomb on the AT but yeah.

 

Numerous end cost balance issues. There certainly are cases where one can find unexplainable end cost for a power considering the standard for even that same power used in a different situation, see Spin for Widows. I think there is one for a Dom epic as well I seem to remember someone pointing to.

 

EDIT: Adding Kin Melee. I keep rolling it and being reminded why it never sticks.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Without_Pause

[Bill Z Bubba]

Very glad to see all the mentions of making mastermind pets even level to the player. It may force a downgrade to their damage output to compensate but I'd be surprised at even that.

 

Sentinels ... yea, they need help. The inherent should allow for heavy spike damage and the APP/EPP pools are garbage and need a total rework/rebalancing (so that choosing anything but mind probe isn't a dumb choice) to include an ST immobilize.

 

Kheldians I've covered in other threads. Powexectoggle off needs to be *MADE* to function properly. (It gets janky due to form animations.) Human toggle armors should be turned into passives that work in the forms. (Yes, that means a reduction in base values to compensate.) Human form click buffs should be made to work from the forms. Warshades are far too dependent on dead enemies and far too weak against single hard targets because of it but I've no idea how to fix that at the moment.

 

Lastly, and they don't need it because they're weak, because they aren't weak, they need it for soloing, buffers should be able to target self and utilize their buffs on themselves. Yes, that Emp defender should be able to clear mind on self. If they can spam the powers on a duo partner, how would it be overpowered on one's self?

[PeregrineFalcon]

Most in need of review?

 

Assault Rifle and MM Mercenaries.

[oedipus_tex]

I always want to be careful to list powerset "opportunities" versus "criticisms." There are a few sets I think could really benefit from some extra function and flavor. Here's my top list based on the ATs I am most familiar with.

 

 

• Ice Control. 
  • I adore the design vision of this set. It's original, and clearly someone poured love into the design.
  • The high endurance cost of Arctic Air is a starting point. The set wants you to wander into close range, but hits your blue bar hard and requires mezz protection to make it viable, making it hard to achieve the survivability that AA requires to really leverage. AA is also less effective on Dominators than it should be, being penalized with lower mezz times than Controllers (all powers are outside of Domination mode) but then not being able to enter Domination mode.
• Force Field.
  • Totally iconic. Who doesn't love Force Fields conceptually?
  • The criticisms are well known, so I won't rehash them. I think there are plenty of ways to make this set more effective with the its current tools.
• Sonic Resonance.
  • You've read about this already. Lots of good ideas out there.
  • Above all else, endurance costs don't seem to justify themselves here.
• Electric Assault.
  • Even if the numbers are technically fine, the set is ripe for an extra fun mechanic or two. Other Electric sets are interesting in various ways, from endurance crashing to Lightning Rods, endurance drain auras. and shock mechanics. Electric Assault has Build Up. It's ripe for something fun.
• Thorny Assault.
  • Granted, it looks kinda neat if it fits your concept. But this is another set I wish would distinguish itself somehow. It's currently got Build Up and a version of Caltrops. I've never gotten one of these characters past level 20. I wish there was interesting stuff to make it play differently.
• Icy Assault.
  • Sensing a theme here? 🙂Other Ice sets have cool (LOL) stuff going on. Here it's Power Up and a slow aura. That's better than what we had on live, but still a wide open opportunity, when you look at how fun and extra other Ice sets are. 
• Empathy.
  • I'm probably going to be the odd guy out here by listing this, but I think Empathy could do with a few minor updates to make Resurrect, Clear Mind, etc not feel like "the flavorless original version later copied by other sets with added, interesting effects."

[Crasical]

Buff LRM Missile

[Gulbasaur]

5 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

HEATs - Overly complicated, severe slot and power starvation, giant mezz or psi holes.

I don't think they're complicated at all, really - it's just a stance swap with some sexy visuals. Personally, I don't think the psi hole is that bad... it's easy to end up with  zero challenge if you don't have some weakness. I'd like it if toggles carried over between forms. Considering how IO sets throw balance out of the window with defence basically on tap, I honestly don't think it's as much as an issue on HC as it was on live. They also all have a mezz shield - dwarf form.

 

There is a slotting problem as Nova form shares a lot of identical powers with human form, meaning slotting both is hard work. I'd really like it if there were shared slots somehow. Maybe picking a form could lock you into a certain "path" like with VEATs, so a human could have human skills but a Nova could have shared skills? I don't know how that would work from a programming perspective.

 

I really do think they lose their sparkle at top level as they were, early on, about the only true ranged hybrid archetypes. Now, blasters can rock up with defence that would have made an pre-IO tanker impressed and they lost a lot of what made them unique, aside from the shapeshifting. Give Nova a damage review (instead of a base damage increase, maybe a proc based on number of allies?) and let toggles carry over perhaps. It's worth noting, though, that Kheldians scale extremely well in Flashback missions and I'm fairly certain that between about levels 20 and 30 they're statistically better than a few Tankers.

5 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Sentinels - Great till 50. Then fall off badly compared to other ATs. Inherit needs review.

Sentinels are arguably very similar to Kheldians and suffer the same problems - their niche is easy crowded out by IO bonuses. They're peacebringers without the screen-obliterating effects. They're fun to play, though.

5 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

VEAT - Yeah, I am biased here. There are serious issues with endurance costs and powers strength on some builds.

Eesh. I am a Fortunado main and I'd say the high END cost is the price you pay for being awesome. I think Night Widow needs a bit of a look at because at the moment it's a crap stalker who gets the epic power pools a bit early, while Fortunatas are a controller, a scrapper and a blaster all in one. I don't really know about crabs, but I think they occupy their niches a bit better. Bane spider is probably a better sentinel than sentinels, but that's not saying much.

 

Narrowing it down a bit (a lot), I'd really like to see a bit more balance between scrappers and stalkers. The Live stalker revamp and the HC tanker revamp were really good examples of how it can be done well. Blasters need a bit of a look at - glass cannon DPS should be the highest DPS, not vaguely somewhere in the middle with a "high risk, middling reward" playstyle. I'd love it if the old style Defiance (more powerful as you lose health) and new Defiance (damage boosts from attacks) were combined. Vigilance, the Defender inherent is... just not wonderful. It allows them to solo better, yeah, but beyond that it's just a bit lacklustre. Maybe a stacking Power Boost effect or something? It's just quite underwhelming, especially when compared to the Corrupter version which is a reliable DPS increase. The controller and controller ones are solid and the dominator one is a playstyle in and of itself... the VEAT one is basically a footnote. Masterminds... I honestly can't remember if they have one.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Gulbasaur

[KaizenSoze]

39 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

Eesh. I am a Fortunado main and I'd say the high END cost is the price you pay for being awesome. I think Night Widow needs a bit of a look at because at the moment it's a crap stalker who gets the epic power pools a bit early, while Fortunatas are a controller, a scrapper and a blaster all in one. I don't really know about crabs, but I think they occupy their niches a bit better. Bane spider is probably a better sentinel than sentinels, but that's not saying much.

I agree that Fortunatas don't need any buffs. If the Night Widow claw and ranged attacks get an endurance review that would probably indirectly fix Forts end issues. They could make separate copies of the shared attacks and only the buffs to the Night Widow version and I would be fine with that.

 

I have come to think that Banes are a bit under appreciated. They are AOE machines providing -resist, toHit, and defense. They are a decent soloer and a great support melee build.

Edited February 25, 2022 by KaizenSoze

[Major_Decoy]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

I have come to think that Banes are a bit under appreciated. They are AOE machines providing -resist, toHit, and defense. They are a decent soloer and a great support melee build.

Yeah, but it'd be nice if they got a Venom grenade that fired from the mace the way that Crabs get a venom grenade that fires from a leg.

[KaizenSoze]

10 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

Yeah, but it'd be nice if they got a Venom grenade that fired from the mace the way that Crabs get a venom grenade that fires from a leg.

Yes, that is on my short list of improvements. If crabs get those attacks, banes should their own version.

 

Imagine if Web Cocoon fired as fast as Fort:Dominate. 🙂

[Lancek]

Masterminds, you're pretty much required to use the plus Def/Resist IO's and DMG procs.

[Yomo Kimyata]

So long as the damage first dynamic is in place, then every power that does not result in the max dps (or dpa, whatever your benchmark) needs to be upgraded to provide the same. 

 

I mean, it's criminal that Black Hole doesn't cause as much AoE damage as Burn.

[SuggestorK]

Kinetic Melee for sure.

 

And MM pet Lvls... yes the -1 and -2 lvls from T1/T2 pets are annoying if u on a team with higher diff lvl setting

[Carnifax]

18 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Warshades are far too dependent on dead enemies and far too weak against single hard targets because of it but I've no idea how to fix that at the moment

Alter some of the their powers to create something like Oil Slick Arrow targets (living) and corpses (dead) so they can fuel mires, heals and pets. Single target attacks would make the most sense (since you use them in AV fights). 

 

Basic purple blob things would do, call them "essenses" or something. 

[tidge]

17 minutes ago, SuggestorK said:

And MM pet Lvls... yes the -1 and -2 lvls from T1/T2 pets are annoying if u on a team with higher diff lvl setting

 

I have to say it: Henchmen, not Pets. Some MM can have both, but I am suggesting adding a Pet to each primary.

 

This is part of my thinking that went into my "replace the Tier 4 Equip power with a recharge-intensive pet"... if the pet could provide a buff to make up for some of the level shift (especially if it only affected the MM's henchmen... and pets)... and it didn't become the Leadership pool... It would allow all of the primaries a place to slot the Global IOs that improve survivability of the henchmen AND free up slots (in the henchmen) to allow MMs to actually focus on ENHANCING diverse elements of their Henchmen. All MM primaries suffer from this problem in some way, but several primaries REALLY suffer.

 

I focus on reworking that Tier 4/Level 6 power because TWO of the henchmen are not even summonable until higher levels (level 12, level 26) and it seems CRAZY to me that a MM requires a low level power to improve a higher-level power. I don't think the game balance below level 6 will be that much harmed by giving the Tier 1/2 summoned henchmen boosted abilities.

 

There are enough recharge-intensive game resources (P2W pets, Incarnate Lore) that it wouldn't be a big graphical ask for the Dev team to add such a thing to each MM primary.

 

I recognize that there are a few elements of game balance to consider:

1. Should the buff pet be inherently permanent, or should it require resummoning (like a FFG or VEAT pet)?
2. Should the buff pet be targetable/destroyable?
3. Should the pet buff the same thing for each primary?
4. Should the pet buff all allies, or just henchmen/pets?

My hot takes:

 

(1) I don't care. The HC improvements have already made the game much easier for MM management, I don't think it would be too much to force it to be resummonable, unless it becomes target-able.

 

(2) I prefer "NO", otherwise AoE will probably wipe it out, and then we have to start considering recharge time for the power as a game balance issue. For example: with /Traps,I don't think I ever had a FFG get destroyed.

 

(3) My heart says "no" but game balance says "yes". Maybe a compromise, where all primaries boost ToHit for the Henchmen, but then individual primaries boost a secondary attribute?

 

(4) I prefer "just henchmen/pets". I wouldn't want MMs (via their primary) to encroach on the realm of other ATs to buff allies (again, via the primary)... my want is to buff the henchmen, not everybody else. I'm flexible on this point, as some MM players may want to go the "petless" or "semi-petless" route, so maybe the buff should also work on the MM too?

 

[Ukase]

As far as I can tell two ATs are in dire need of a revamp. 

Heats & Veats. 

Heats are trash unless you go with Dwarf & Nova primarily (and forgo slotting anything in human form) or just human form. Dechs Kaison can scream "MFin' Warshade" all he wants, and the AT is fun, but it needs improvement. There just aren't enough slots for all three builds. And, if you sacrifice the sole purpose of playing human only, you lose status protection - which means you might as well play a blaster. Just a trash AT. 

Veats are also just plain trash. The only reason to play one is for the team buffs, but a level 50 Widow can't beat up a level 7 hellion without chewing damage inspirations. Okay...so maybe it's not THAT bad, but they're quite weak, at least the one I leveled up to 50 was. I moved it to Reunion, (along with my Warshade and there they will sit until they get some kind of attention from the HC devs. They were without question the most painful AT's I've played, and that included a Dominator I deleted at 48. To be fair - part of that is me, likely not really understanding how they should be built - but any character that is forced to do a respec at level 24 needs serious work. It's just plain trash, and I won't be convinced otherwise. If you like them - that's fantastic, but I find them feeble. They do nothing my blaster can't do better - aside from the team buffs. 
 

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Veats are also just plain trash. The only reason to play one is for the team buffs, but a level 50 Widow can't beat up a level 7 hellion without chewing damage inspirations. Okay...so maybe it's not THAT bad, but they're quite weak, at least the one I leveled up to 50 was.

 

I think a lot of it is our builds. Much like Kheldians, there's a right way and a wrong way.

 

My soldier is a bane with only the assault rifle attacks. No mace anything even buildup. So I went double assault. It's fun, it's servicable, it gets the job done, but it's a weak AR/SR Sentinel with no DDR. This is a FAR cry from the crabberminds I've seen in action.

 

My widow is a pure claws/sr clone just to see if the hell my SG gives me about widow claws being the superior version had any merit. It doesn't, of course, but that's because the widow claws they're talking about includes all the glorious psi shit that mine lacks.

[KaizenSoze]

57 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Veats are also just plain trash. The only reason to play one is for the team buffs, but a level 50 Widow can't beat up a level 7 hellion without chewing damage inspirations. Okay...so maybe it's not THAT bad, but they're quite weak, at least the one I leveled up to 50 was. I moved it to Reunion, (along with my Warshade and there they will sit until they get some kind of attention from the HC devs. They were without question the most painful AT's I've played, and that included a Dominator I deleted at 48. To be fair - part of that is me, likely not really understanding how they should be built - but any character that is forced to do a respec at level 24 needs serious work. It's just plain trash, and I won't be convinced otherwise. If you like them - that's fantastic, but I find them feeble. They do nothing my blaster can't do better - aside from the team buffs. 
 

We really need to talk. You're obviously doing something wrong, at least with your Fortunatas.

 

Go check out the Trapdoor thread in the scrapper forum. Fortunatas are up there with the best times.

 

I have a Night Widow build that can complete an 801.2 under the two hour limit. Though I will admit it's not a fun build in regular play.

 

If you tried to level a Night Widow normally, then yes that is probably the most painful way to level a VEAT. Hence, why I think they need some improvements. Fortunatas are much easier to level. Wolfspiders are probably the best out of the box w/o IOs.

 

All VEATS suffer somewhat from not awesome until IOs, but after IOs they almost all serviceable to awesome from 1-50.

Edited February 27, 2022 by KaizenSoze

[KaizenSoze]

39 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

My soldier is a bane with only the assault rifle attacks. No mace anything even buildup. So I went double assault. It's fun, it's servicable, it gets the job done, but it's a weak AR/SR Sentinel with no DDR. This is a FAR cry from the crabberminds I've seen in action.

 

My widow is a pure claws/sr clone just to see if the hell my SG gives me about widow claws being the superior version had any merit. It doesn't, of course, but that's because the widow claws they're talking about includes all the glorious psi shit that mine lacks.

Order of VEAT power IMHO:

Fortunata, they are what dominators should have been

Crabbermind, if you like pets build, which I don't, in the right hands they are monsters. Some would say better than MMs.

Banes, good single target damage, good AOE,-resists, def, resists. Great support melee build.

Huntspiders, Bane or Crab. AOE machine, -resist, great support. Poor single target damage is the reason they are this low.

Night WIdows, dog poop AOE, expensive claw attacks. No VEAT is bad. But in the current game meta they need help. Their only saving grace is that they can be made incredibly durable.