Do debuffs take too long to apply?

[DougGraves]

I love the dark defender set.  But I find that I almost never use tar patch or darkest night.  They take so long to apply that I just do not find them worth it.  Tar patch  I can use from around the corner, so I use it on builds that have a rain I can drop around a corner,.  Darkest night I use on AVs and that's basically it.

 

My problem is that the start of the fight is usually the most important.  If you survive that, the rest is more of a grind.  Fearsome stare is great at the start - to hit debuff and fear and it applies quickly.  

 

I play almost exclusively in the 10's and 20's, no 40+ game, no IOs.  So this is not a question of the enemies being defeated too quickly for debuffs to matter.  This is a question of the debuffs taking so long to apply they miss the crucial start of the fight and are not worth  activating compared to other powers I can use.

 

Are people using the long activation (over 2 second) debuffs on dark, rad, and other sets in normal gameplay?  

[Without_Pause]

Tar Patch is fine. I agree on DN. RI from Rad animates too slow for the current meta as well.

[Ironblade]

I use Darkest Night all the time.  With Tar Patch, I need to be a bit more thoughtful since it's useless if the fight moves.  But I think it's definitely worth it and use it plenty.  I ran a Manticore TF on my sonic/sonic defender yesterday and used Liquefy (ground targeted AoE debuff) as often as it was charged.

 

"This is a question of the debuffs taking so long to apply they miss the crucial start of the fight and are not worth activating compared to other powers I can use."

I wonder, do you mostly play corruptors?  Because I see that as a reasonable position if your character is primarily about damage.  But I play a lot of defenders so my debuffs are more powerful while my damage is lower.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Ironblade

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, Ironblade said:

I wonder, do you mostly play corruptors?  Because I see that as a reasonable position if your character is primarily about damage.  But I play a lot of defenders so my debuffs are more powerful while my damage is lower.

 

I play mostly controllers.  So I am using control powers rather than damage.

 

I can see if you are a defender and debuffing is what you do that you take the time to put in the debuffs.

[biostem]

A lot of those "anchor" powers seem, IMO, to be geared toward more stand-up drag-out fights, not when a team is steamrolling normal enemy groups.  Yes, this diminishes the total toolbox at your disposal, but in that case, switch things up and utilize the other powers available to you...

[DreadShinobi]

This is why I like poison as the premier debuff set, VG is always on and envenom is a fast animation. This is why I don't touch sets like dark miasma anymore even though my first 50 on live was dark miasma. Animation times are a big deal and the original game was not balanced with them in mind. Animation times are typically looked at closely in attack chains where DPA is very important but any cast times you're investing into that don't actually deal direct damage should be looked at with even more scrutiny imo.

[Greycat]

Dark, I think is fine. Rad, or anything else with multiple toggle debuffs? That gets ... tedious, sure.

 

(Unless I"m on an MSR> Then... debuff the grates, get nice constant flow of Rikti. as long as I'm not mezzed.)

[DoctorDitko]

Do debuffs take too long to apply?

 

Yes.

[Naraka]

Because I'm special as f***, and I always have an insightful opinion...

 

I like to use Comic Book/Anime logic when it comes to most fights, routine or otherwise: Does Batman plan out every apprehension of a purse robber using every cent of his fortune and resources? Does the Flash blitz every bank robber faster than time itself? Does Goku go into a fight in his final form?

 

You shouldn't need to apply every one of your debuffs in every fight or use all your most powerful nukes and a full rotation on a spawn to spawn basis. You should have these backups and contingencies and powerups in your back pocket for when things get serious.  And you should be relying on your team to throw in their 2 cents and complementing that rather than pump out full capacity at the start of a fight every time.

 

So to the question of do my debuffs take too long, I ask, what are you trying to accomplish? 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Naraka

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Naraka said:

<snip>

 

You shouldn't need to apply every one of your debuffs in every fight or use all your most powerful nukes and a full rotation on a spawn to spawn basis. You should have these backups and contingencies and powerups in your back pocket for when things get serious.  And you should be relying on your team to throw in their 2 cents and complementing that rather than pump out full capacity at the start of a fight every time.

 

So to the question of do my debuffs take too long, I ask, what are you trying to accomplish? 

 

Even with those caveats, the question's still valid. Even if I'm using them selectively versus trying to do so every spawn, debuffs can take too long to apply.  Even if we're looking (say) at Rad Emission in an AV fight (versus a 1-2 hit minion,) it takes a *while* for those debuffs to kick in.  (And as an aside, with the "linger" debuffs do, sometimes that's reason to pick something that'll die quickly - you have a debuff patch that won't run off since the target's already dead.) That's time you're not doing anything else, just being rooted in place.

[Nemu]

All the enemy targetted toggle debuffs with a 3 second casting time - rad infection, darkest night, spore cloud can use an animation/cast time review.

 

There is the argument for the speed kill meta but there's also the argument that mez is a real thing and retoggling these after a mez take a significant amount of time and that can be life or death in certain situations. Heck even throw in snow storm in there even though no one uses it.

 

I'd love it if high impact self toggles like venomous gas/arctic air and such got an animation redux too because of the same reason. They can detoggle, and retoggling them quickly and moving on to the next action can be life or death.

[brasilgringo]

2 hours ago, Nemu said:

 Heck even throw in snow storm in there even though no one uses it.

 

I like to use it when I want to the AVs to run all over the map.

[Snarky]

In the near future I will be running more dark debuff toons. For theme and fun.  Dark is a very hardy, yet quirky, powerset in every iteration it has in the game. In my opinion.  But due to its quirks it tends to be stronger in certain cases and less useful in others.  As opposed to something like fire, which just always has one trick, more damage. Or something like Rad with a constant one effect secondary.  So using the Dark powersets to the best of their ability, learning or creating new strategies is definitely part if the fun.  

[Naraka]

5 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

Even with those caveats, the question's still valid. Even if I'm using them selectively versus trying to do so every spawn, debuffs can take too long to apply.  Even if we're looking (say) at Rad Emission in an AV fight (versus a 1-2 hit minion,) it takes a *while* for those debuffs to kick in.  (And as an aside, with the "linger" debuffs do, sometimes that's reason to pick something that'll die quickly - you have a debuff patch that won't run off since the target's already dead.) That's time you're not doing anything else, just being rooted in place.

 

You should also be taking into consideration PvP and enemy debuff usage. Do you really want to be having faster activation debuffs used against you by players and spawns of NPCs? Having the chance to retaliate or disrupt before the effect takes a large portion of your stats away could be considered a tactical aspect of gameplay that you're snubbing by making everything faster faster faster.

 

Or were we only talking about player debuff affects against NPCs and not the other way around? I'm not against giving the enemies sharper teeth by quickening their debuffs but I'm certain no one's asking for that so it's just a case of "I need to senselessly beat these helpless NPCs harder for some reason".

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Naraka said:

You should also be taking into consideration PvP

 

Nahhh.

 

2 minutes ago, Naraka said:

and enemy debuff usage

 

I'd be ok with it if it meant mine were faster to lay down as well.

[Without_Pause]

10 hours ago, Naraka said:

Because I'm special as f***, and I always have an insightful opinion...

 

I like to use Comic Book/Anime logic when it comes to most fights, routine or otherwise: Does Batman plan out every apprehension of a purse robber using every cent of his fortune and resources? Does the Flash blitz every bank robber faster than time itself? Does Goku go into a fight in his final form?

 

You shouldn't need to apply every one of your debuffs in every fight or use all your most powerful nukes and a full rotation on a spawn to spawn basis. You should have these backups and contingencies and powerups in your back pocket for when things get serious.  And you should be relying on your team to throw in their 2 cents and complementing that rather than pump out full capacity at the start of a fight every time.

 

So to the question of do my debuffs take too long, I ask, what are you trying to accomplish? 

Do superheroes and villains have 3 second animations as part of their attack chain? How about 2.5? You don't think Batman, Hulk, or Deathstroke can't figure that out? Gee, they keep jumping up in the air and having their hands above there heads. What to do. What. to. do.

[Naraka]

58 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Do superheroes and villains have 3 second animations as part of their attack chain? How about 2.5? You don't think Batman, Hulk, or Deathstroke can't figure that out? Gee, they keep jumping up in the air and having their hands above there heads. What to do. What. to. do.

 

I doubt they use "attack chains" lol

 

But something I bet you they do use: Knockback. And lots of it.

[Peacemoon]

Some, yes. Others, not so much. Not very helpful I know!

 

I would say Radiation Infection and Darkest Night are possibly the worst offenders.

 

Powers like Enervating Field and Lingering Radiation are fine. As are Sleet and Freezing Rain. 

 

[Peacemoon]

11 hours ago, Naraka said:

Because I'm special as f***, and I always have an insightful opinion...

 

I like to use Comic Book/Anime logic when it comes to most fights, routine or otherwise: Does Batman plan out every apprehension of a purse robber using every cent of his fortune and resources? Does the Flash blitz every bank robber faster than time itself? Does Goku go into a fight in his final form?

 

You shouldn't need to apply every one of your debuffs in every fight or use all your most powerful nukes and a full rotation on a spawn to spawn basis. You should have these backups and contingencies and powerups in your back pocket for when things get serious.  And you should be relying on your team to throw in their 2 cents and complementing that rather than pump out full capacity at the start of a fight every time.

 

So to the question of do my debuffs take too long, I ask, what are you trying to accomplish? 

Should long animation times be a factor for whether you use a debuff or not though?

 

For sure there is an argument that in some fights you only need Enervating Field (-res, -dmg), and that Radiation Infection (-def, -acc) is unnecessary, and sometimes I do follow that line of thought. But there is also a difference between ‘you shouldn’t have to use every power for every enemy group’ and ‘I try not to use this power because it takes 3 seconds to animate and they’ll be dead before it works…’

[Naraka]

28 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Should long animation times be a factor for whether you use a debuff or not though?

 

For sure there is an argument that in some fights you only need Enervating Field (-res, -dmg), and that Radiation Infection (-def, -acc) is unnecessary, and sometimes I do follow that line of thought. But there is also a difference between ‘you shouldn’t have to use every power for every enemy group’ and ‘I try not to use this power because it takes 3 seconds to animate and they’ll be dead before it works…’

 

Well is the enemy being dead before the debuff works a factor here or not? Because the OP seems to say that isn't really the point.

 

Further I'd ask: Okay, 3 seconds is too slow for a debuff. So what powers *should* have 3sec animations?  What constitutes a long animation and which powers should have it?

[DougGraves]

14 hours ago, Naraka said:

You shouldn't need to apply every one of your debuffs in every fight or use all your most powerful nukes and a full rotation on a spawn to spawn basis. You should have these backups and contingencies and powerups in your back pocket for when things get serious.  And you should be relying on your team to throw in their 2 cents and complementing that rather than pump out full capacity at the start of a fight every time.

 

I agree.  But those should be the powers you get at higher levels.  The ones you get at lower levels should be the core powers you use all of the time.

 

Dark gets Tar Patch at level 1 and Darkest Night at level 2, and Howling Twilight at level 6.  If instead they got Shadow Fall, Petrifying Gaze, and Fearsome Stare at first it would make sense.  But getting a power at 2nd level that you use for AV fights feels wrong.

 

Rad gets Radiant Infection at level 1 and Enervating Field at level 6.  I would think those would be core powers to be used all of the time.

[Naraka]

29 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

I agree.  But those should be the powers you get at higher levels.  The ones you get at lower levels should be the core powers you use all of the time.

 

Dark gets Tar Patch at level 1 and Darkest Night at level 2, and Howling Twilight at level 6.  If instead they got Shadow Fall, Petrifying Gaze, and Fearsome Stare at first it would make sense.  But getting a power at 2nd level that you use for AV fights feels wrong.

 

Rad gets Radiant Infection at level 1 and Enervating Field at level 6.  I would think those would be core powers to be used all of the time.

 

I'd say it depends.

 

Early game crucially uses tactics because it actually matters.  Using Tarpatch around a corner saves lives. Casting Darkest Night while the melee's move in makes its use have no consequences or effort in planning. Fearsome Stare is the tool to save yourself when other tactics are not available or not as fruitful. It's not about when you get the power determining its frequency, but rather what you are capable of accomplishing with those powers and applying it to the situation.

 

Also, Petrifying Gaze is just mediocre lol...I dunno, do people proc this?

 

All that aside, I really think one has to start considering the entire pallet a set has.  Ultimately, Dark Miasma is an extremely safe (for the user) set.  What do you gain by making Darkest Night faster that Fearsome Stare didn't already accomplish? Give you the option to skip Fearsome Stare or something?

[roleki]

I don't know what this guy is talking about.  Whenever I fire off Radiation Infection, I take advantage of the downtime by doing some stuff I've put off, like filing my taxes or tearing down, refurbishing and reassembling an 1886 Waltham pocketwatch.  By the time the animation is complete, I'm back in the good graces of my wife, the government, and all the amateur horologists in the neighborhood.  And if I'm REALLY lucky, the mob I debuffed hasn't 'accidentally' been insta-smoked by a Tank standing 500 f'ing feet away with the ridiculous AoEs they've been gifted.

 

[Ironblade]

9 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Do superheroes and villains have 3 second animations as part of their attack chain? How about 2.5? You don't think Batman, Hulk, or Deathstroke can't figure that out? Gee, they keep jumping up in the air and having their hands above there heads. What to do. What. to. do.

Doctor Strange and other sorcerors sure do.  Some have all kind of arm waving and incanting.

And now long does it take Goku and others to fire off the Kamehameha attack?

[MangoKulfi]

Main character is Dark Defender.

 

Tar Patch = If it's up it's out.  The -res does more for the group than anything else I'd being doing in the time it takes to cast it.

Darkest Night = Unless the group is struggling with defense I only throw it out if a fight is going to take a noticable amount of time or if I'm pulling another spawn into a fight.