Your Opinion on Sets and ATs that Over or Underperform

[capricorpse]

On 4/9/2022 at 11:44 AM, arcane said:

Meh, I defended the set but more because I don’t get upset over slotting Sudden Accelerations. Probably because on live I had to do high maintenance stuff to make Tornado etc awesome so I realize how blessed we are to have those procs at all. Not to mention what it does to Bonfire.

 

You *can* play your way and master the knockback, but I’ve become too lazy over the years for that. I don’t totally blame people for not wanting to bother with constant attention to positioning. I do however think they’re acting like complete weenies when they act like slotting 2-4 Sudden Accelerations makes an otherwise cool/awesome set completely intolerable 🙂 

 

exactly!  while I totally agree that there is a masterful directional knockback technique, and I try my best to achieve that like I did on the live game, my main reaction to the energy blast complaints is that the knockback just ... doesnt happen that often?  Yes, i now slot a KD enhancement into Explosive Blast and Nova.  But for everything else, it really just doesnt happen as often as the forums would lead you to believe (unless you're fighting white name enemies).  Anything that can't resist the Energy Burst KB is probably dead in another hit, and usually a Controller has immobilized them anyway.  Mostly I see things get knocked down, or maybe a pace or two backward.  People on here act like every breath an energy blaster takes is shooting enemies across the entire map and making missions literally impossible.  ppl need to relax lol energy blast is awesome and players will keep using it until the end of time bc it is so iconic.  I can't imagine being SO dramatic over the set. 

 

[oedipus_tex]

Underperformers I'd like to see made more interesting (not necessarily stronger):

• Archery on Defenders (used to be okay because crashless nuke. now not so much)
• Assault Rifle
• Dominator Martial Assault, Electric Assault, Thorny Assault (may be fine damage wise, but have zero utility powers. other than particle effects can you really tell these apart?)
• Ice, Mind, and Electric Control on Dom and Controller
• Gravity Control on Dominators
• For some reason, any buff/debuff set with a single target anti-mezz: Pain, Empathy, Sonic Resonance, and Poison. Only Thermal escapes the single target anti-mezz curse
• Force Field. For a set that supposedly uses knock extensively, why is it so bad at it? A Blaster with Bonfire has better knock potential than the entire set.

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

RE: Energy Blast, I have three thoughts.

 

One, waiting til level 35 for Explosive Blast on Defenders is torture. Most sets get their AoE around level 20. 

 

Two, its a shame knock chance doesn't scale with archetype modifiers, so that Defenders got a version of this set that felt extra Defender-y. The knock chances are identical to a Blaster, so the only value you get playing it on a Defender is the occasional very mild ability to overcome an enemy's knock protection. I can't think of a situation where I've seen that actually come into play. 

Three, Nova feels like it should do more damage than a typical nuke. The fact that it doesn't and the knock is considered an "extra" is strange to me. I consider the knock a hassle to deal with, you're either slotting it for kb to kd or else dealing with scatter. I feel like this particular nuke should be doing incomparable damage as an incentive for dealing with it.

[aethereal]

The thing with Energy Blast is that KB is at best a mixed blessing.  People get really hung up on whether it's Good, Actually or Bad, Actually, but we don't super need to weigh it into an overall assessment.  Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad.

 

And it's also inconsistent.  So if you're in a situation where it's good, you can't rely on it.  If you're in a situation where it's bad, you have to do the work to mitigate it (maneuver, apply only to immobilized targets, whatever) even when it's not going to happen. If you turn it to KD, you get short-duration CC that's very inconsistent, at the price of a slot.  It's hard to plan around.

 

In comparison, all the other sets give you consistently useful buffs.  Dark gives you -to-hit on every hit.  Rad gives you -defense on every hit (and has some holds mixed in).  Fire gives more damage.  Ice has slow and holds.  Etc.

 

What does Energy get in return for a side effect that's inconsistent, and also an active detriment that must be played around some of the time?  Is KB when it does activate and when it's not a negative super great?  I don't think it's so amazing that we need to pay this cost for it.  Does Energy have any other benefits?  Not that I can see.  It has the template for average power types (T1/T2/Heavy Hitter/Snipe/Cone/TAoE/PBAoE T9/soft mez/Aim).  It has a fine damage type but not an amazing one.  It has average-ish DPAs.

Edited April 11, 2022 by aethereal

[Myrmidon]

Blaster on SOs at /x8. Left-side is without KD IOs, right-side is with them. Go ahead and put that “Energy Blast is better with KB!!!!11!” to rest.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Myrmidon
Forgot that none of you are in my testing group.

[arcane]

37 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Blaster on SOs at /x8. Left-side is without KD IOs, right-side is with them. Go ahead and put that “Energy Blast is better with KB!!!!11!” to rest.

Uhhhh… correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t this chart show that Energy Blast is (1) under no circumstances the worst set and (2) actually in great shape if optimally built?

[Myrmidon]

15 minutes ago, arcane said:

Uhhhh… correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t this chart show that Energy Blast is (1) under no circumstances the worst set and (2) actually in great shape if optimally built?

 

[oedipus_tex]

I'm actually impressed that the gap between A Tier and upper D Tier is only about a minute and a half.  Considering a full A tier run is 7 minutes, 47 seconds, that's only a 12 percent difference. I'm not surprised to see Assault Rifle dragging in a half hour late though. That set feels like I'm shooting a pop gun.

 

Not sure I'm entirely clear on the category rankings. Is there only a 3-4 second difference between Energy Blast with KD and Archery and DP? I'm surprised to see them ranked B tier since their rating is still the same from the previous column where they were Tier A. Maybe not understanding your ranking system though.

 

 

[tidge]

Nerf Energy Blast.

[Myrmidon]

30 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Not sure I'm entirely clear on the category rankings. Is there only a 3-4 second difference between Energy Blast with KD and Archery and DP? I'm surprised to see them ranked B tier since their rating is still the same from the previous column where they were Tier A. Maybe not understanding your ranking system though.

That is all @Galaxy Brain. While I don’t mind setting up builds for such, my brain might melt from the tedium of that level of testing.

[Mezmera]

16 minutes ago, tidge said:

Nerf Energy Blast.

 

Finally someone said it!  

 

If not an actual nerf evidence shows that it clearly needs to be made more knockbacky...

[oedipus_tex]

Just had another look at that graph. Adding KB to KD improved Assault Rifle by almost a minute and a half? 😮 That's actually longer than the gap between Tier A and upper Tier D.  It's interesting too, coz I think everyone thinks of Energy Blast as "the knockback blast set" but Assault Rifle has nearly identical KB chances in its AoEs, minus the nuke.

 

I'm not backing down from how annoying it is that Explosive Blast doesn't unlock til level 35 on Defenders though, since it's basically the same power as Fireball, Water Burst, Ball Lightning, Irradiate, Explosive Arrow etc. 

 

I also actually forgot Power Push existed until just now.

Edited April 12, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I'm not backing down from how annoying it is that Explosive Blast doesn't unlock til level 35 on Defenders though, since it's basically the same power as Fireball, Water Burst, Ball Lightning, Irradiate, Explosive Arrow etc. 

 

No argument there. Even on a Blaster, I found waiting until level 26 to be more than annoying and there is no way that I would take the set as a Secondary.

[Onlyasandwich]

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Explosive Blast doesn't unlock til level 35

This is a bit of a pain!

 

It's worth noting that Energy Torrent has superior DPA to most cones, sharing a similar DPA with Buckshot, Rock Shards, and Fistful, while most other cones are significantly lower.

 

Of these four cones, Energy Torrent also has the most desirable proc stats (extra damage proc possible, better recharge ratio). As a result, Energy Torrent pulls more weight than cones in other blasts sets do for aoe contribution. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Onlyasandwich

[oedipus_tex]

While we're talking about stuff over or under performing, it might be worth dragging up Plant Control's Roots power, the AoE Immobilize. Here is the Dominator version of Roots next to Energy Blast's Explosive Blast on a Defender. It has half the recharge and about twice the AoE radius. AoE radius can actually result in lower proc rates, so it's not the royal flush it used to be, but it's still impressive numbers. 

 

 

 

 

It's long been noted that Plant Control's AoE immobilize does twice as much damage as other AoE immobilizes. I'm not saying it necessarily needs to get nerfed. It's interesting though that that power has twice the radius, half the recharge of a Defender's Explosive Blast.

Because of Containment, the Controller version is actually a bit better than either of these. Again not asking for it to be nerfed to heck, but it does make me wonder what would come of a review of Control set performance. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[golstat2003]

Fine as is: Defenders and Corrupters.

Need help: Controllers, Sentinels

 

I don't really think anything over performs. 

[JasperStone]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:14 PM, Mezmera said:

 

Finally someone said it!  

 

If not an actual nerf evidence shows that it clearly needs to be made more knockbacky...

 

Wish there was Knockback to Knockup option .... Hit them so hard they go up

...

...

...

and never come down

[TheZag]

Several of the old pay for powersets were overperforming but most have been tuned down now that they are free on homecoming.

[Without_Pause]

Speaking of KB, I finally got around to playing Grav and noticed a bit of a quirk. Take a controller's hold and main AoE mez. You would to a default 6-slot both of those with the ATOs. Except, for Grav, it can be beneficial to slot KB to KD in Wormhole thus skipping on out on 6-slotting it. Sure, you could put it in the AoE Hold, but that has a much longer recharge so less times it would proc. Only certain secondaries offer an additional mez in which to 6-slot. Even if you 6-slot Wormhole anyway, a number of debuffs can be location based, and thus you could likely Wormhole targets outside of your debuffs. I mean, it is rather odd for a Grav controller to pick a spot for a mob to go to only for that mob to not really go there.

 

Obvious statement, Wormhole's cast time is "Who play tested this power and gave the okay?" bad.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Without_Pause

[arcane]

I think the insane amount of fun behind Wormhole justifies any animation time or quirks 🙂 

 

Tho my squad got mad at me and doesn’t want me Wormholing the ITF tower mobs down at them anymore 😢

[golstat2003]

9 minutes ago, arcane said:

I think the insane amount of fun behind Wormhole justifies any animation time or quirks 🙂 

 

Tho my squad got mad at me and doesn’t want me Wormholing the ITF tower mobs down at them anymore 😢

 

Agreed. I never minded the animation/cast time because of how much fun it is. Sorry about your squad though. lol

[pawstruck]

I shelved my MM as soon as I hit 50 and realized that no matter how I played, my pets digitally embody the statement, "Life sucks, then you die."

 

I'm gonna be controversial and suggest that corruptors and most blasters overperform simply because of how IO's benefitted them. It might feel cool to spend billions and become a mage-tank, but the concept is self-contradictory and I think it's bad for the game.

[TygerDarkstorm]

On 4/13/2022 at 5:56 PM, JasperStone said:

 

Wish there was Knockback to Knockup option .... Hit them so hard they go up

...

...

...

and never come down

Tornado needs to do this, and then propel whatever went up into another enemy lol

[oedipus_tex]

4 hours ago, pawstruck said:

I shelved my MM as soon as I hit 50 and realized that no matter how I played, my pets digitally embody the statement, "Life sucks, then you die."

 

I'm gonna be controversial and suggest that corruptors and most blasters overperform simply because of how IO's benefitted them. It might feel cool to spend billions and become a mage-tank, but the concept is self-contradictory and I think it's bad for the game.

 

 

Personally I would argue the opposite. I think Armored characters benefit the most from IOs, because they have better bases to work with and fewer holes to try to cover. You can IO a squishy character and get pretty good Defense, but you really you're just chasing behind Brutes and Scrappers, and more recently Tankers and Stalkers. Outside of some specific builds, It's very hard to lose the fundamental squishiness.

[SaintD]

I think I/O set bonuses shouldn't provide direct percentage RES and DEF like they do. They should provide a percentage increase to your existing RES and DEF as if they're an enhancement bonus that isn't affected by ED. You need to actually have RES or DEF from another source like your primary, secondary, or pool powers to improve.

The only exceptions would be the super special uniques like in Steadfast Protection that give a flat bonus.