issue 27 Focused Feedback: Symphony Control

[kingsmidgens]

Symphonic is great.

Not sure how well it pairs with /Sonic though, thematically.

Potentially this leaves the option of a Sonic Control but I find that unlikely as they're very similar.

Could we get alternate power options?  Make Symphonic look like the weird energy waves from Sonic Resonance / Sonic Attack - and possibly in the future the existing Sonic powers have the note theme applied to them?  Casting a note shield on allies would be pretty nifty.

Oh and a guitar or other instruments .... well, just the choice of a matching musical or sonic theme would be cool.

[Steam_InGen]

I think the concept is cool, guess we'll see how useful it is in the actual game, don't see a ton of control sets in general, but more options, most of the time is a plus.

[Hjarki]

I haven't had a chance to test it out completely on Beta, but the core mechanic of the set seems problematic.

 

If your pet is simply throwing a copy of your control effect on the same target a few second later, that works just fine for the basic attacks. If it's throwing the copy on a different target, you might as well not even bother (a 2 Mag effect might as well be a 0 Mag effect).

 

If your pet is throwing Cones 15 sec later, that's a complete nightmare. Cones require precise positioning to take advantage of - precise positioning which won't exist 2 seconds later much less 15 seconds into the future. Even if they were standard AE attacks, it's unlikely you'll need that same effect 15 secs from now. As noted elsewhere, this is especially true with Sleep where you pet would be actively interfering by replacing your somewhat decent Sleep with its crappy one.

[skoryy]

I may have to re-make Starwave, though I'll miss her bringing her own band.  This sounds fun.

[KaizenSoze]

21 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

I haven't had a chance to test it out completely on Beta, but the core mechanic of the set seems problematic.

 

If your pet is simply throwing a copy of your control effect on the same target a few second later, that works just fine for the basic attacks. If it's throwing the copy on a different target, you might as well not even bother (a 2 Mag effect might as well be a 0 Mag effect).

 

If your pet is throwing Cones 15 sec later, that's a complete nightmare. Cones require precise positioning to take advantage of - precise positioning which won't exist 2 seconds later much less 15 seconds into the future. Even if they were standard AE attacks, it's unlikely you'll need that same effect 15 secs from now. As noted elsewhere, this is especially true with Sleep where you pet would be actively interfering by replacing your somewhat decent Sleep with its crappy one.

Also, I find the pet stupidly aggressive. You peep around a corner to confuse a boss, the pet charges around the corner to fire it's attack which aggros the spawn.

 

Does not happen all the time, but often enough.

[ZephyrWind]

This looks pretty good so far, I like all the cones and it is better thematically for my Mind/Sonic so I will be re-rolling her. I agree that the sfx are a little loud, but I play with my sound turned down most of the time so it's not a big deal to me.

 

I think the sleep might come in handy (not just on this set, but others) with the new aggro rules. Might be handy on some x8 teams now to be able to sleep a spawn in a room with multiple big ones.

[...]

Agree with other posters request to have an option to remove the music notes.

 

Also the name should be Sonic Control. 

 

Thematically broader. 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by ...

[Arcadio]

Echoing ( 🙂 )  a request for a sonic theme. I think the set could be more general as Sonic Control or even something like Acoustic Control.

 

Also reverberant is a great idea for a pet, but it is very anti-synergy with the sleep.

[Captain Powerhouse]

4 hours ago, kingsmidgens said:

Not sure how well it pairs with /Sonic though, thematically.

 

Symphony Control isn't intended to be a Sonic set, and as you suggest, a Sonic Control set is still a possibility.

[Seed22]

Symphony is the love child of Fire(lots of DoT between Aria and the stun if it's stacked) and Mind (Cones a plenty). Should get great mileage in things like the Aeon SF, where adds can be a bit problematic, and possibly even the new ITF. I feel this set will allow me to play some more of the hardcore support sets on troller, like thermal (makin me a Symph/Therm once this goes live) without being bored to all hell/suffering due to a low-damage primary.

 

EDIT: You may not want a Symph to be your dedicated CC on these TFs alone though. The CCs are good, but kind of soft-CC, with the only hard CC coming in the form of the AoE hold and maybe the reverb stacking, which can be somewhat unreliable at times.

 

And yes, I know trollers aren't meant to do mad damage 😛

Edited July 13, 2022 by Seed22

[ScarySai]

I like how we have another control set where damage is actually decent, now. I don't subscribe to the idea that every control set should have weak damage.

 

I like the set, personally. I'm not sure I care about the confuse notifying, it removes a very powerful strategy that mind and dark can utilize. Definitely think it's high-time we look into adding pet controls to doms/controllers, that would help this set out a lot, as well as others.

[kingsmidgens]

I'm not sure why but the early damage feels pretty good, be it that most of the powers are direct damage as opposed to having several DoTs mixed in or if it's the Psionic damage type.  Outside of Ill/Mind, every T1 is an Immobilize DoT and your most reliable damage dealer at a low level, needing to wait around 9s for the full amount of damage to tick down, whereas with Symphony you get it all immediately - which would result in a use of the ability that would "eventually" defeat the foe, doing so up front instead.  It's possible that the DoT allows the enemy just enough regen to actually need a further application.  Can't figure out why, just tried out a few low-level chars and Symphony felt much, much better on damage.

At higher levels the Reverberant seems quite strong and I feel like long-term that's the draw to the powerset.  The CC doesn't stack for each of the the Reverberant's activations but it's still basically +2 mag on your initial application, which is nice.  How it repeats your powers feels a bit weird, it sometimes seems to queue them up for ages, other times it'll chain them pretty quickly.  I definitely feel the need to have the ability to control where the pet goes because it sort of just drifts where it wants and targets something at random, meaning the cones will only hit a couple of things when yours just tagged the whole group.

Edited July 14, 2022 by kingsmidgens

[Nemu]

Reverberant doesn't allow dominator/controller ATO slotting, even though it takes all the respective Mez IOs. Is this by design?

 

It would seem that if the design for this pet is to emulate our controls then we would get more bang for the buck by slotting it with ATOs which enhance all mez attributes rather than trying to frankenslot it for each mez type.

 

The pet and cone heavy nature of the set mandates a ranged only play style if you want to position the pet to maximize its coverage. This puts a pretty tight restriction on how you want to optimally build any Symphony control character. I can certainly weave in and out of combat to use my various powers, but the fact that I can't really control when the pet fires it's powers, what it targets, or where it moves to makes a lot harder to play with that kind of fluidity.

 

Unless I just ignore the pet altogether, but that's kind of the draw with this set isn't it?

[Arcadio]

It seems like the powers being granted to the reverberant benefit from your character's slotting of that power. But they also benefit from the slotting in the actual reverberant, since procs I don't have slotted elsewhere are activating on its attacks, so I'm assuming it would also be further modified by other types of enhancements. Is this intended?

[KaizenSoze]

3 minutes ago, Nemu said:

The pet and cone heavy nature of the set mandates a ranged only play style if you want to position the pet to maximize its coverage. This puts a pretty tight restriction on how you want to optimally build any Symphony control character. I can certainly weave in and out of combat to use my various powers, but the fact that I can't really control when the pet fires it's powers, what it targets, or where it moves to makes a lot harder to play with that kind of fluidity.

 

Unless I just ignore the pet altogether, but that's kind of the draw with this set isn't it?

Yes, I am finding the pet ironically the weak point of the set.

 

As for the cones, combat teleport is your friend.

Example Symphony/Savage goes like this:
Fire control cones
Fire damage cones
Savage leap or combat tp if you're using a different secondary
Use this macro to back out of the spawn
/bind lshift+s powexec_location back:35 combat teleport
Repeat

[laudwic]

On 7/13/2022 at 5:08 AM, kingsmidgens said:

Oh and a guitar or other instruments .... well, just the choice of a matching musical or sonic theme would be cool.

 

Especially brass instruments like Marching Tuba (Contra) 

[Nemu]

You are most likely not just Savage leaping and then hopping out. You are more likely to savage leap/rending flurry and get any other opportunistic melee attacks off before moving out. The cumulative cast time on these powers matter, as your pet will have started to move into the mob as you are getting your attacks off. And by the time you port out the pet may not be in the best position to maximize it's targets with any cones it's about to fire.

 

I think the fear can be turned into either a PBAoE or a TAOE, since that's a power with moderate recharge that's more likely to be spammed mid combat. I'd prefer that the mass immob be a TAoE due to reasons I mentioned in my last post. The sleep and the stun can stay cones since they are more likely to be used as openers.

[oedipus_tex]

Thank you again for your hard work and dedication bringing us a new Control set. 

 

 

Overall:

It's obvious that a great deal of creativity went into this set. It's truly a strange set in a lot of ways, but uniquely its own.

 

 

What I'd keep:

Most of it, really. This is primarily a Stun-based set that has Damage as its secondary effect.

I've seen a few posts requesting that the single target Confusion should not aggro enemies. I personally disagree and like that this Confusion is different. It has a different purpose than other Confuses, especially because casting it results in the pet echoing a Confusion power, which even on a Controller can result in pretty fast Confusion of a boss. 

 

The pet is daring and interesting. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm not completely sold on it yet, just because experience with other control sets has taught me that pets fall apart at higher difficulties. It's definitely an interesting mechanic though.

 

The way the pet echoes attacks, from a sound design perspective, is super creepy and atmospheric. Good job.

 

The note particle themselves are really cool looking. Love the sheet music.

 

Damage is more or less on par with other control sets except where noted below.

 

 

What I'd think about:

The pet: As much as I like the pet, I think he's a bit too reined in. I understand why you are scared of making him amazing, but Control set pets barely factor into end game play. They are 99% likely to fold against anything that presents a severe challenge, so you might as well make them very strong. In this case, I'd consider removing most of the internal timers that prevent the pet from quickly stacking Confusion and Hold. Or at least allow the pet to have some ability it can use frequently, so he doesn't stand around doing nothing. Mainly this is an issue on Dominators, because they use Assault sets for attacks, and the pet won't echo those.

 

Altho I think a target cap of 5 on the echoed stun is possibly warranted, the sleep, terrorize, and immobilize should probably hit 10 targets.

 

 

Cones: So, cones are this set's thing, and that is fine. Thing is, Dominators as a whole don't play great with cones. Right now I'd consider playing a Symphony/Fire Dominator over most others, just because that set happens to lend itself to a ranged style. It's not a total no-go. However, widening some of these cones would help Dominators a ton, and since this is a set that specializes in cone attacks, I think at least having the Sleep and Immobilize be very, very wide would be interesting without being overpowered. 135 degrees on each of these would do a lot. I know that's a big area, but since everything in this set is a cone, the set is still scrambling for positioning. Being helped out in a few of the minor controls would help with that.

 

 

Damage in the Stun power: This power does a LOT of damage. Like, significantly more than any Control. I've estimated it to deal as much damage over its duration as an enemy standing in Hot Feet for the same duration. That's fine, of course. It's also way more damage than any Control I can think of, on par more with a Blast power. I'm not exactly asking you to nerf it--obviously Fire Control deals that amount of damage--but it's an awful lot of the set's capability contained with a single power. The Stun is absolutely the keystone of this set at the moment, even more than other control sets. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[tidge]

On 7/12/2022 at 1:56 PM, The Curator said:

Symphony Control

• New primary for Controllers and Dominators.
• Use the power of music to captivate and control the spirits of your enemies! Most of your symphonic abilities influence the mind of your enemies, causing psionic damage.

 

Powers:

 Dreadful Discord  Ranged (Cone), Minor DMG(Psionic), Fear
 

 

Sorry: I'm still not joining Discord!

[Mezmera]

I do agree that it feels like there's just one too many cones which makes this less conducive to Dominator playstyles which have a high mix of melee and pbaoe powers.  I found I lead in with the Stun and the Sleep cones and pretty much the sleep aspect of that control is null due to wanting to use the other aoe controls and the dot of the stun cone.  It is nice with that -20% damage but I'd rather see the sleep be a large area pbaoe power that way the control itself feels a bit more useful and lends itself to melee style doms a bit more to give this set a bit more variance.  

 

Edit: 

Of course that would change a lot of how the pet mimics that sleep which I ultimately have come to like this pet.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Mezmera

[Shin Magmus]

I only have 2 items for feedback.

 

1: In terms of CC and ignoring the debuff components: this is literally just Dark Control but with the Haunt pets swapped out for the Sleep... which is fine... but y'know the incredible similarity stuck out to me.  I like the aesthetics definitely though.

 

2: Damaging Sleeps are non-functional at all levels of the game outside of simply being attacks that have the gimmick of also accepting a heal proc and a placate proc from the sleep sets.  As a useful tool for Controllers or Doms to stack from lvs1-49, they DO NOT WORK because they literally can't be stacked due to the damage component.  Moreover, at lv50 they DO NOT WORK EVEN IN THE FIRST APPLICATION because damaging powers proc Interface, and every good build has a damaging interface.  In order to use a damaging sleep as a sleep at level 50+, you have to gimp your own build and run a bad Interface just to be allowed to use the sleep as a sleep.  I highly recommend this power be changed to anything else.

 

Some possible replacements for the non-functional damaging sleep are: a cool musical effect field that does no damage and pulses a sleep similar to Elec Control's sleep, or a musical shockwave/sonic boom that is specifically an attack and does 100% knockdown in an area.

[gameboy1234]

On 7/12/2022 at 2:23 PM, Lazarillo said:

¿Por qué no los dos? is favorite maxim of mine.

 

As long as it's an option, I think it's good.  Personally I've been asking for a different theme for Sonic Blast.  It's not so much that I wanted a music themed set as much as I really dislike the Sonic Blast sound effects and animations.  The current look of Sonic Blast works for very very few of my personal character concepts.

 

Please devs, still need customization on Sonic Blast so we can have some different character concepts.  The *numbers* on Blast are great, but I really do dislike how it looks.  Customization options would be the cat's meow here.

[Lazarillo]

On 7/13/2022 at 9:42 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

Symphony Control isn't intended to be a Sonic set, and as you suggest, a Sonic Control set is still a possibility.

That's a real shame because it basically pigeonholes this set into a very specific theme, and doing an entirely separate set with such little thematic difference feels like time that could be better spent on something more new and unique.

[ExeErdna]

Personally I like it, the Reverb pet has the aggression level I like. Since I was running Synth/Kin the cones suited my needs I'm fine with pretty much everything doing damage. One thing I've noticed and I really like is that the stun doesn't break the sleep allowing you to set up some very interesting burst damage so as is now Synth does looks like it'll work very fine as a troller.

A personal issue at least for me is that the sounded were kinda quiet. Like I have a double sonic blaster on HC and I can hear each difference in the attacks and they have some punch. Even my Kin sounds were much louder

I need to get into an ITF or Market Crash to really see what this control set can really do.

 

Going back to the pet it now reminds me of a way more involved Gun Drone. From what I'm seeing this a highly aggressive set that wants you to lean more so on the Primary over the secondary overall. So Synth is gonna be good with Kin/Storm/Sonic/FF for sure. Out of those four Sonic might be the most interesting because due to the pet's aggression it's perfect to drop the auras on it and watch it cook.

 

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, ExeErdna said:

One thing I've noticed and I really like is that the stun doesn't break the sleep allowing you to set up some very interesting burst damage so as is now Synth does looks like it'll work very fine as a troller.

 

Yeah I realized that today after playing symph again.  Kinda neat but not sure how I feel about the damage pause.