issue 27 Focused Feedback: Symphony Control

[TygerDarkstorm]

As posted by myself and others previous, the Reverb with the Basic AI was not really a suicide pet. The little bugger is damn tanky, and made more so by secondaries that can buff it. And I was in range, often times with mobs right on top of me and the darned thing wouldn't use cone abilities from where it was behind me. If this is the intended use/purpose of this pet, then, imo, the pet is totally skippable and the set will nearly play better without it since it doesn't help and you're lucky if it copies your abilities. Before this change the Reverb was tanking and helping me control 2 spawns, and it made a secondary like /Sonic a joy to solo with. 

 

Regardless, I understand they intend it to be a ranged pet, for which I hope they have a means of tinkering with the AI a bit so he is as you said, @Bionic_Flea; not quite fire imps level of insanity (which I didn't feel it was, but I think others had issues with it), but also not wait until I get swamped in mobs to attack. At this point, it's trying to decide if I want to make /Sonic work, if I want to roll with a different secondary, or if perhaps this just means that I am not a skilled enough player to play Symph as is. I will have to see if I can put some more time into the beta to play with it more than the brief session I did last night.

[Bionic_Flea]

I'm sorry if my post sounded unsympathetic or belittling.  That was certainly not my intent.  I was merely offering a work-around.

 

I think there will be another tweak to the Rev's AI and hopefully that will fix it. 

 

I tested a Symph/Sonic Dominator and a Symph/Dark Controller.  The /sonic dominator prefers to play in melee, so Rev would follow and sometimes get ahead of me and get in trouble.  My /dark controller played from range and my build worked on getting extra range bonuses to make those cones even better.  The Controller Rev almost never died as it tended to stay at range and I was able to buff it.  But I did notice that sometimes I had to move a great deal to "unstick" Rev.  It's very noticeable and reproducible on RWZ Dummies.

 

STEPS:  Get inside the firing range all the way to the back and let Rev follow.  Then move up until you are in range and another little bit to accommodate the distance between you and Rev.  Use ST and cone attacks, Rev will copy EXCEPT for Enfeebling Lullaby or unless he is slightly out of range.  Now run up to the dummies.  Rev seems to get stuck at one of the paper targets.  He doesn't move until you leave the area entirely to "tug on the leash".

[KaizenSoze]

I understand that some folks might want the old behavior back. My first testing was on Dominators and the pet was almost a liability solo against tough groups. Think 4x8 DA or PI mobs. The pet was so stupidly aggressive that I could not safely prep groups. One memorable experience was peeking around a corner to confuse a BP boss and then watching the pet charge into the spawn at full speed.

 

The pet was much more manageable on a controller, at least with dark/storm/trick arrow. Especially, dark and trick arrow. But there still remained the issue of charging into melee and turning its cone powers effectively into single target powers.

 

The new ranged pet is an improvement IMO, but it has trade offs as people have noted.

 

CoH's core pet AI is not good. The devs have made it better over time, but there is only so much they can do.

[Bionic_Flea]

I think that Rev is particularly "stupid" as it only has attacks after you use yours and only those for a few seconds.  It may be having mean thoughts and wanting to attack but does not have any attacks and then gets stuck in that "there's nothing I can do" mindset even after it does have copied powers from you.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I see what you guys are saying and I understand better now. I could definitely see the previous behavior being quite a liability on doms. Hopefully I will get the chance to fiddle around with it more in beta and see how to make the new changes work, while also hoping that the AI can be tweaked so he operates a little bit better when following you and engaging in attacks. Especially since he copies our moves and doesn't provide his own attacks. While my previous playstyle with the old AI was quite fun, I will now shift gears into learning a new strategy. Can't improve if I don't learn and try to adjust with the changes/playstyle. 🙂

[Wavicle]

Maybe just give him a single weak ranged attack that he can use on his own so that he will position correctly himself.

[ExeErdna]

The problem now is that personally the best pets are Gremlins of Elec and Umbra Beast from Dark due to their aggression, I'm able to use a secondary that works with them. Yeah I can agree with Doms the pet might have been too aggro for them. Yet as Troller it was perfect because it kept up. It allowed more short ranged builds to work like Kin which no longer works with Symph since the pet is behind me. Since the pet is behind me that means I have to tank for the pet that refuses to get close enough to use the cones. Since before it would haphazardly go into a middle of 2 mobs and fire away that was damn effective when you had Sonic's toggles on it. Before I could shred my personal 50+ character baseline of +2/8 now I worry about it's effectiveness. The pet is too sturdy to be that passive at lease for me since a lot of places we're fighting are indoors I've rather have that aggression back with the pet.

[arcane]

22 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Maybe just give him a single weak ranged attack that he can use on his own so that he will position correctly himself.

From how I was reading it, it sounds like he needs all his attacks to have the same range, even if that means a slight range nerf to his longest range stuff.

[Wavicle]

Frankly I think the idea of giving it a single attack it can use independently is virtually essential.

A pet that's completely passive except when YOU attack? What's the point? Might as well just make the attacks stronger and scrap the pet.

[Wavicle]

Controller and Dominator pets are useful because they help do damage and other stuff WHILE YOU ARE BUSY WITH YOUR CONTROLS. The Reverberant as designed does none of that. The set overall looks cool, but I think the concept of the pet probably just should be scrapped and made into a normal pet.

[Bionic_Flea]

8 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I think the concept of the pet probably just should be scrapped and made into a normal pet.

 

I disagree.  Perhaps giving it a single, standard, non-mez. single-target attack may not be a bad thing or perhaps it needs other tweaks.  But I don't think the entire idea should be tossed just because it's not like other pets.  The fact that it is different is the reason to keep it!  The Rev does indeed "do damage and other stuff" AS LONG AS "YOU ARE BUSY WITH YOUR CONTROLS."

 

This is the only pet that you can dictate what power it uses and that allows you to get stacks of mez that you could not reliably get before with any other pet.  It may take a bit for us to get used to it.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Wavicle]

3 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I disagree.  Perhaps giving it a single, standard, non-mez. single-target attack may not be a bad thing or perhaps it needs other tweaks.  But I don't think the entire idea should be tossed just because it's not like other pets.  The fact that it is different is the reason to keep it!  The Rev does indeed "do damage and other stuff" AS LONG AS "YOU ARE BUSY WITH YOUR CONTROLS."

 

This is the only pet that you can dictate what power it uses and that allows you to get stacks of mez that you could not reliably get before with any other pet.  It may take a bit for us to get used to it.

right now this is the only controller or dominator pet that will STOP ATTACKING if you get mezzed. That seems like a brutally unfair disadvantage. It would have to be incredibly good apart from that to justify it.

[Captain Powerhouse]

 

Hey guys just dropping by for a few quick updates:

 

• The pet AI is being looked at. It should had been set to ranged from the start (it has no melee attacks so it just going into melee was never intended.) We will still tweak the pet AI a bit further, even after launch if needed.
• It not using the Enfeebling Lullaby at all is a bug that was already fixed internally, should be fixed in the next patch.
• The pet technically can continue to attack even if you are held, depending on the attack. Each power you use has different durations on the pet, and can stack to a limit. Sometimes the duration is just long enough for the power to force its recharge, but in other cases its quite more. Following is a list:

  • Power	Base Duration	Max Duration	Delay	Rch	Pref
    Melodic Binding	10	20	2	2	1x
    Hymn of Dissonance	10	20	2	4	2x
    Aria of Stasis	7	14	4	8	1x
    Impassioned Serenade	7	14	2	8	3x
    Dreadful Discord	18	36	4	20	2x
    Enfeebling Lullaby	18	36	4	20	2x
    Confounding Chant	43	86	5	45	3x
    Chords of Despair	118	236	5	120	4x

 

Also keep in mind the pet will not always use the power as soon as available, if there are multiple powers available, the AI may pick something else. based on the preference values listed above. Preference is not a fixed value, it is just a modifier to a dice roll, so dont expect Hymn of Dissonance to always be used before Melodic Binding.

 

Melodic Binding in particular can be very useful since it has the lowest recharge and a 20s duration, if used often enough, even if you are held, reverb might still be able to use it up to an additional 10x times while you are held.

 

One final note: 

This is not exclusive to this set, but it is extremely rare that we will ever change a power from one type to another without a ton of good reason. Such change will usually mean significant fx and art changes that just are not trivial, not to mention, sometimes the goal is for the set to just feel a certain way. I know if it was up to a lot of people, every single aoe in the game would be a TAoE.

 

[Wavicle]

56 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Hey guys just dropping by for a few quick updates:

 

• The pet AI is being looked at. It should had been set to ranged from the start (it has no melee attacks so it just going into melee was never intended.) We will still tweak the pet AI a bit further, even after launch if needed.
• It not using the Enfeebling Lullaby at all is a bug that was already fixed internally, should be fixed in the next patch.
• The pet technically can continue to attack even if you are held, depending on the attack. Each power you use has different durations on the pet, and can stack to a limit. Sometimes the duration is just long enough for the power to force its recharge, but in other cases its quite more. Following is a list:

  • Power	Base Duration	Max Duration	Delay	Rch	Pref
    Melodic Binding	10	20	2	2	1x
    Hymn of Dissonance	10	20	2	4	2x
    Aria of Stasis	7	14	4	8	1x
    Impassioned Serenade	7	14	2	8	3x
    Dreadful Discord	18	36	4	20	2x
    Enfeebling Lullaby	18	36	4	20	2x
    Confounding Chant	43	86	5	45	3x
    Chords of Despair	118	236	5	120	4x

 

Also keep in mind the pet will not always use the power as soon as available, if there are multiple powers available, the AI may pick something else. based on the preference values listed above. Preference is not a fixed value, it is just a modifier to a dice roll, so dont expect Hymn of Dissonance to always be used before Melodic Binding.

 

Melodic Binding in particular can be very useful since it has the lowest recharge and a 20s duration, if used often enough, even if you are held, reverb might still be able to use it up to an additional 10x times while you are held.

 

One final note: 

This is not exclusive to this set, but it is extremely rare that we will ever change a power from one type to another without a ton of good reason. Such change will usually mean significant fx and art changes that just are not trivial, not to mention, sometimes the goal is for the set to just feel a certain way. I know if it was up to a lot of people, every single aoe in the game would be a TAoE.

 

 

That all makes sense. I DO think giving the pet a single target ranged attack it can use independently is a good idea.

It just feels frustrating that the pet in Symphony Control does not work well with a soloist /Sonic Controller as far as the Disruption Field toggle goes. We've seen from the Electric Blast rework that the HC team is ok with making certain sets pair particularly well with others and this would have been a nice place to do so.

[JAMMan0000]

There is something odd about the Revs attack range. Many times it would hang back and not attack at all. I would have to run in closer to 'drag it in' to get it to attack. It needs to move up on its own and start attacking soon after I do. 

[TygerDarkstorm]

2 hours ago, JAMMan0000 said:

There is something odd about the Revs attack range. Many times it would hang back and not attack at all. I would have to run in closer to 'drag it in' to get it to attack. It needs to move up on its own and start attacking soon after I do. 

If you read CP's update, he said they're still tweaking the AI of the pet so he'll behave better, but that he'll stay ranged.

[TygerDarkstorm]

8 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Hey guys just dropping by for a few quick updates:

 

• The pet AI is being looked at. It should had been set to ranged from the start (it has no melee attacks so it just going into melee was never intended.) We will still tweak the pet AI a bit further, even after launch if needed.
• It not using the Enfeebling Lullaby at all is a bug that was already fixed internally, should be fixed in the next patch.
• The pet technically can continue to attack even if you are held, depending on the attack. Each power you use has different durations on the pet, and can stack to a limit. Sometimes the duration is just long enough for the power to force its recharge, but in other cases its quite more. Following is a list:

  • Power	Base Duration	Max Duration	Delay	Rch	Pref
    Melodic Binding	10	20	2	2	1x
    Hymn of Dissonance	10	20	2	4	2x
    Aria of Stasis	7	14	4	8	1x
    Impassioned Serenade	7	14	2	8	3x
    Dreadful Discord	18	36	4	20	2x
    Enfeebling Lullaby	18	36	4	20	2x
    Confounding Chant	43	86	5	45	3x
    Chords of Despair	118	236	5	120	4x

 

Also keep in mind the pet will not always use the power as soon as available, if there are multiple powers available, the AI may pick something else. based on the preference values listed above. Preference is not a fixed value, it is just a modifier to a dice roll, so dont expect Hymn of Dissonance to always be used before Melodic Binding.

 

Melodic Binding in particular can be very useful since it has the lowest recharge and a 20s duration, if used often enough, even if you are held, reverb might still be able to use it up to an additional 10x times while you are held.

 

One final note: 

This is not exclusive to this set, but it is extremely rare that we will ever change a power from one type to another without a ton of good reason. Such change will usually mean significant fx and art changes that just are not trivial, not to mention, sometimes the goal is for the set to just feel a certain way. I know if it was up to a lot of people, every single aoe in the game would be a TAoE.

 

Thanks Cap, this is quite informative. 🙂 I'm still a bit bummed to lose my tanky Reverb that made /Sonic quite fun to solo with, but I will adjust accordingly. I do hope that you guys will be able to get the AI to be slightly more aggressive than it currently is where you practically have to drag him into melee anyway before he'll engage. I am quite excited for Symphony Control to be released--I just adore the differences in the set that make it stand out from the other control sets. Thank you all for the hard work you put in for this community. ❤️

[Burnt Umber]

I didn't see until the most recent patch that enemies are starting to be protected from damage when under a sleep power.  While I am sure this is a valuable feature for Enfeebling Lullaby, I think it's worth noting that sleep is one of the four conditions that enables containment damage, so I hope that sleep protecting enemies from damage is used sparingly/thoughtfully to prevent an unintentional nerf to containment/controllers.

[Booper]

1 hour ago, Burnt Umber said:

I didn't see until the most recent patch that enemies are starting to be protected from damage when under a sleep power.  While I am sure this is a valuable feature for Enfeebling Lullaby, I think it's worth noting that sleep is one of the four conditions that enables containment damage, so I hope that sleep protecting enemies from damage is used sparingly/thoughtfully to prevent an unintentional nerf to containment/controllers.

It should be only given to DoT powers, where the ticks of damage will not trigger if the foe is asleep. In the case of Confounding Chant, it will still do Containment, but it will be a duplicate DoT that also checks if the foe is asleep. If the foe wakes up, both the main DoT and Containment DoT will start hitting the foe.

 

As for Impassioned Serenade, it does both upfront damage and a DoT. Containment will duplicate both of these effects. The upfront damage will still always apply and would break sleep. But if the foe was to be slept again, the DoTs would suppress so that it does not disturb their sleep.

[kelika2]

For weeks I thought it was Sympathy control

[Wavicle]

4 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

For weeks I thought it was Sympathy control

Sympathy/Empathy looking for team!

[High_Beam]

There's a lot of feedback in here that is far more detail-driven and data oriented and I tip my hat to those cats because I am not that person.  My takeaways from this are merely from playing them for a bit on Test with bumps at 20, 30 and 40 using just SOs because at the core a character is supposed to be fun no matter what.  I tested it as a Symphonic (or Symphony) Control/Sonic Resonance Controller and a Symphonic (or Symphony) Control/Fiery Assault Dominator (again because I am not super number person and had ideas as to what I wanted to play thematically).

 

1.  The sound.  Its not good.  It's really the opposite of what I would call symphonic (or symphony).  What would work is something akin to the melodic aspect of Howling Twilight (I think that's what the darkity dark power that is a rez but used often as a stun is).  Of course not so loud or jarring but that harmonic resonance really works.  There could easily be variations of that instead of . . . whatever the sound is we have.

 

2.  Now speaking of Symphony as in many musical instruments working together to produce something beautiful; this set does that.  In playing, especially around level 20 - 30 it was really fun with the cones all flowing well together.  As others have said a key here is setting up with the stun then hammering in with the other cones.  I didn't seem to have too much problem with positioning but that's always been the way for me who played an energy blaster on live for years who used Energy Torrent tactically to rearrange mob positions.  The single target confuse didn't (and doesn't) get used much by me but it fits.  The best part was that the locking layers meant I wasn't getting pounded back on too much.  I cant wait to run it in a team.

 

3.  Again, the sound.  Yuck.  This is one of those things that I really am having a hard time dealing with.  I know there are customizations that will allow me too turn it off but really, I cant be the only one here..

 

4.  Now I went with Fire on the Dom because I am still a range kind of gal for the most part.  Yes I am getting better but it takes time to erase habits.  So the combination is sweet and again, the flow was real good and this is where I noticed something.  At 20 I had two fire attacks and almost all of the Symphonic (or symphony)  and I was mowing through Warriors in Talos and Freakshow in Bricks (mobs, of like 7).  I am no power player, not a super Set IO and min-max guy, not running at +4/+8 on missions.  I test with SOs because base play is important, I hate the term "the set shines when you slot Set IOs".  It should shine without them and it does, Set IOs later is just gravy on the pancakes.  I super enjoyed it.

 

I really look forward to playing this set when it goes live.

 

P.S. - The sound.  Ew!  Seriously?  So Gross.

[Bionic_Flea]

19 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Sympathy/Empathy looking for team!

 

And thus, Pathetic Flea was born!

[MistressOhm]

PLEASE tell me this powerset comes with a conductor emote, or lounge singer, or something music-y.  🙂

[Black Zot]

22 hours ago, High_Beam said:

P.S. - The sound.  Ew!  Seriously?  So Gross.

 

Part of the reason I don't trust the devs' claims that the new patch does anything to address the ear-rape inflicted by certain powers is that they're using that same patch to introduce a whole powerset that runs on ear-rape.