Mabe Take a Look at Levitate?

[Arnabas]

I am looking at Mesmerize and Levitate, the first two powers in Mind Control. I am a bit confused at the balancing....

Levitate, the tier 2 power is:

 

• Less accurate
• Slower to cast
• Longer to recharge
• Has a shorter range
• Costs more endurance

 

This might make sense if it was the more damaging of the 2 powers, but on top of being worse in every way, it also does less damage. It doesn't seem to match other powers. Is this intentional? Does it have advantages that are not immediately apparent? 

[Kaika]

Well for one, less accuracy isn't really a big deal past the early level

It's only takes 0.2 seconds longer to animate and it more then makes up for that in damage coming out to about 15% more DPS.

They both have 6 second recharge, so I'm not sure where you are getting that from.

And the 1ish endurance cost difference is fairly trivial.

 

On top of that, levitate causes knock up, which is consistently reliable in most situations. While Mesmerize causes sleep, which falls off the moment you join a team or deal any AoE damage.

 

The real issue here seems to be that that powers info is showing the controller "critical control" damage as always being a thing. This effects all controller powers and makes them deal double damage to enemies already controlled, this effects both levitate and mesmerize, but mesmerizer's info is listing it in it's overall damage numbers (even on dominator which does not get this), basically making them power look like it deals double the damage it actually deals. This is a fairly common issue among alot of sets, in reality mesmerize is dealing half the damage it shows in the info.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Riot Siren

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Arnabas said:

Is this intentional? Does it have advantages that are not immediately apparent? 

 

Sleeps are interrupted by any damage, healing or change in position (KB/KD/KU).  KU isn't, which makes Levitate a stronger control than Mesmerize.

[Vanden]

3 hours ago, Arnabas said:

This might make sense if it was the more damaging of the 2 powers, but on top of being worse in every way, it also does less damage.

 

Levitate does around 1/3rd more damage than Mesmerize. I'm not sure where you got the idea that they're the same damage?

[PoptartsNinja]

Levitate does smashing damage in a set that does almost exclusively psi, which makes it really useful for the things that resist psi. The things that resist psi damage tend to resist it heavily (70-95%).

 

Try soloing a bank vault door with only mesmerize vs. only levitate and you'll see levitate's value. It's also a knockup which tends to ragdoll its targets in a way non-vectored knockdowns don't.

[Arnabas]

12 hours ago, Riot Siren said:

It's only takes 0.2 seconds longer to animate and it more then makes up for that in damage coming out to about 15% more DPS.

They both have 6 second recharge, so I'm not sure where you are getting that from.

 

I would have sworn that I saw 8 seconds on Levitate. Must be hallucinating.

But for sure, it says Mesmerize does more damage.

[Arnabas]

9 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

Levitate does around 1/3rd more damage than Mesmerize. I'm not sure where you got the idea that they're the same damage?

I didn't say they are the same damage. I said Mesmerize does more damage.

And I got that idea when creating the character, where it reads that Mesmerize does an average of 19.8 and Levitate does an average of 13.07 

[Kaika]

16 hours ago, Riot Siren said:

The real issue here seems to be that that powers info is showing the controller "critical control" damage as always being a thing. This effects all controller powers and makes them deal double damage to enemies already controlled, this effects both levitate and mesmerize, but mesmerizer's info is listing it in it's overall damage numbers (even on dominator which does not get this), basically making them power look like it deals double the damage it actually deals. This is a fairly common issue among alot of sets, in reality mesmerize is dealing half the damage it shows in the info.

 

3 hours ago, Arnabas said:

I didn't say they are the same damage. I said Mesmerize does more damage.

And I got that idea when creating the character, where it reads that Mesmerize does an average of 19.8 and Levitate does an average of 13.07 

Like I said, it a issue with how the info is being displayed in game It's listing the controller critical damage, as the base damage

[Uun]

9 hours ago, Arnabas said:

I didn't say they are the same damage. I said Mesmerize does more damage.

And I got that idea when creating the character, where it reads that Mesmerize does an average of 19.8 and Levitate does an average of 13.07 

As stated above, the in-game Average Damage number is incorrect for Mesmerize since it includes containment damage. Excluding containment, at lvl 50 Mesmerize does 30.586 points of damage and Levitate does 40.373 points of damage.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=controller_control.mind_control.mesmerize&at=controller

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=controller_control.mind_control.levitate&at=controller

[Greycat]

On 9/26/2023 at 8:52 AM, Riot Siren said:

On top of that, levitate causes knock up, which is consistently reliable in most situations. While Mesmerize causes sleep, which falls off the moment you join a team or deal any AoE damage.

 

EXCEPT... yes, even if the sleep is broken, it's already shut off various armors or buffs/debuffs, which take time for the NPC to be able to use again and usually can cut through defenses other things aren't.  *Especially* with how early you get it, that's insanely useful. COT mage bubble? Doesn't resist sleep. AOE debuff aura that's making everyone miss? Turned off by a sleep. Armor? Turned off by sleep. Used to toake my mind controllers/doms on MLTF/LRSFs because ... they'd let you deal with the AVs one at a time while the others took a nap. Sleeps are *quite* powerful, but people are so hung up on "oh, but they're woken up with any damage" nobody pays attention.

[Kaika]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

EXCEPT... yes, even if the sleep is broken, it's already shut off various armors or buffs/debuffs, which take time for the NPC to be able to use again and usually can cut through defenses other things aren't.  *Especially* with how early you get it, that's insanely useful. COT mage bubble? Doesn't resist sleep. AOE debuff aura that's making everyone miss? Turned off by a sleep. Armor? Turned off by sleep. Used to toake my mind controllers/doms on MLTF/LRSFs because ... they'd let you deal with the AVs one at a time while the others took a nap. Sleeps are *quite* powerful, but people are so hung up on "oh, but they're woken up with any damage" nobody pays attention.

Oh I didn't mean to imply it wasn't useful, sorry if it came off that way, more that I found the knock up more constantly useful, while the sleep tends to be more situational.

[FrauleinMental]

I find Levitate really useful as it is.  It doesn't set up Containment, but I slot a Hold proc to help with that.

 

I sometimes find KB/KD to be the most reliable control, especially against stuff like Nemesis.

[golstat2003]

Levitate is godlike when combined with Singularity in. Specific sets, but I'm sure there are other instances where the synegry happens.