Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[warlyx]

20 hours ago, Cotys said:

i havent really seen someone ask, why are they releasing new powersets when we have many many MANY sets that need a good look over/rework?

while i agree with u ......

 

because new sets make ppl come back to try sets and get hooked again

because devs want to have fun designing new sets i guess? and want to ppl to play new powersets 

 

i for one want wind control .....but gonna wait my turn lol

[warlyx]

16 hours ago, Videra said:

Seismic Blast is extinct for a reason, Symphony Control is only used by /Fire dominator for a cozy, full ranged build. Even seeing use of Storm Blast - which is thus far HC's best added set - is rare. In the current state it's in, Arsenal Control is actively fighting itself. Why do we need this when there are other sets that are in similar states of disrepair?

Edited 4 hours ago by Videra

 

Some powersets are just rare to see , because there are better sets or because they arent fun , or annoying i for one love archery or lightning but outside of playing it for theme or fun...there is no reason. 

 

Seismic was cool on paper....the animations are nice , but grounded and meteor takes days by the time it hits mobs are respawning already 🤪

 

Symphony is one of the most DMG controls sets , but is all cones no variety (and annoying to hear after a while , thank god for mute mod) , the pet copy the powers and some ppl prefer a pet that does it own thing , we will see a symph support set in the future for sure

 

Stormblast , well Storm cell is to blame  ,visuals are TOP , aniamtions and what not, but tons of ppl dont like the whole snail moving cloud , and Cat5 build up (fixed in beta afaik), when others blast sets just press buttons and make mobs die (and thats what u expect from a blast set i guess)

 

 

Edited January 27 by warlyx

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, warlyx said:

 

Some powersets are just rare to see , because there are better sets or because they arent fun , or annoying i for one love archery or lightning but outside of playing it for theme or fun...there is no reason. 

 

Seismic was cool on paper....the animations are nice , but grounded and meteor takes days by the time it hits mobs are respawning already 🤪

 

Symphony is one of the most DMG controls sets , but is all cones no variety (and annoying to hear after a while , thank god for mute mod) , the pet copy the powers and some ppl prefer a pet that does it own thing , we will see a symph support set in the future for sure

 

Stormblast , well Storm cell is to blame  ,visuals are TOP , aniamtions and what not, but tons of ppl dont like the whole snail moving cloud , and Cat5 build up (fixed in beta afaik), when others blast sets just press buttons and make mobs die (and thats what u expect from a blast set i guess)

 

 

 

The enforced roleplay with Seismic is crushing (see what I did there?). I'm not sure why it was placed in and why it was not vetted. I don't need roleplay explanations of why it has to work like that because roleplay is A) fiction, and B) altered at a whim.

 

Unfortunately the same about Storm Blast. We were literally told it was build to be mediocre because not all sets should be good. This leaves me with a borderline aneurysm. Why should not all sets be good? Why not let theme and aesthetics guide a pick? Why say 'well if you want damage you go Fire. Storm looks cool but is weak so if you want damage then Fire' instead of 'Well, Fire and Storm are good. Storm needs prep time but makes up for it by having stronger hits and it looks cool as heck. Fire hedges ahead in damage but Storm has debuffing'.

 

I would even say okay, sure, Storm has debuffing so it should do less damage. I understand. But insult to injury is adding the prep time for every fight. It's almost like the game is not played by the ones designing the sets. Sure was enough feedback about it but it was a no go. End result? A beautiful set, dozens, if not a cool hundred, code hours devoted to something that is relegated to obscurity.

 

 

At the very least put both ground patches at 1 second cast times so we can get that delay out of the way and start playing.

[warlyx]

while i understand that balancing a game like this is a huge effort , so many variables.

 

fire does more dmg because it has no other thing going for it ( we heard that before ) , elec has drain , ice has -rech -speed , dark -tohit  , and so on....

 

50 minutes ago, Sovera said:

would even say okay, sure, Storm has debuffing so it should do less damage. I understand. But insult to injury is adding the prep time for every fight. It's almost like the game is not played by the ones designing the sets. Sure was enough feedback about it but it was a no go. End result? A beautiful set, dozens, if not a cool hundred, code hours devoted to something that is relegated to obscurity.

 

exactly ! , cant agree more , i love the set and i dont play it because is annoying / frustrating , or i dont feel like im contributing on teams on that set .

 

in the end and that goes for arsenal that its the topic at hand , it feels like new powersets while cool , good animations/ideas , they dont feel as fun/usefull to play as old sets

 

we are in 2024 the playerbase already knows COH , and how it plays , how the teams go , ppl farm Hard modes for breakfast even solo....so we cant understand why the new sets arent "adapted" to this times. (edit truth be told some changes were made,  that made the game more fun , hundreds of them probably )

 

And i cant be thankfull enough for the devs for creating new sets dont get me wrong , but the sets need to be rethinked and changed to make it more team friendly , because solo no1 cares that the meteor takes 10s to fall or 15 , but in teams....when things die fast , u want to contribute and a meteor falling on dead bodies , or a having to recast a cloud over and over , and u wonder why im playing this new powerset instead of  X powerset , if im not even having fun while doing it. (and i know some players that love some of the new powers but in the end they lvl it to 50 and dont main it or touch again so meh)

Edited January 27 by warlyx

[WindDemon21]

17 hours ago, Videra said:

Actually, I've said my piece about this set. It's a sleep/ground patch based set with no AOE Immob and it fundamentally doesn't work - to the point it doesn't even interact with dominate and containment. But someone earlier posted a sentiment I'm really curious about. We have several power-sets that are direly in need of improvement and the ones that are worst off, mechanically, are generally the ones that have been added by Homecoming.

Seismic Blast is extinct for a reason, Symphony Control is only used by /Fire dominator for a cozy, full ranged build. Even seeing use of Storm Blast - which is thus far HC's best added set - is rare. In the current state it's in, Arsenal Control is actively fighting itself. Why do we need this when there are other sets that are in similar states of disrepair?

It's pretty clear it's because they're obviously too afraid to make anything "OP" which usually just means "good" set and thus keep intentionally nerfing the new stuff they're creating with major flaws that kinda make the sets not worth playing most of the time. Yet another slew of nerfs this round again and making enemies tougher, it's clear what the agenda is. Seismic I'd say is actually one of the most standard-well sets outside of how terrible meteor still is if they don't at least make it target based instead of location based which would fix all of it's issues except the long impact time :/, that and the terrible design of seismic focus USING up seismic stacks for just a super lame 25% recharge bonus that is short lived and only works on seismic powers, rather than GRANTING full seismic focus stacks so it actually works with how people use aim/bu powers :/...

Edited January 27 by WindDemon21

[Shin Magmus]

1 hour ago, WindDemon21 said:

Seismic I'd say is actually one of the most standard-well sets outside of how terrible meteor still is if they don't at least make it target based instead of location based which would fix all of it's issues except the long impact time :/, that and the terrible design of seismic focus USING up seismic stacks for just a super lame 25% recharge bonus that is short lived and only works on seismic powers, rather than GRANTING full seismic focus stacks so it actually works with how people use aim/bu powers :/...

 

I still can't believe that Meteor never gets any buffs.  It has 2 simultaneous weaknesses of hideous KB (slot tax) and the extreme delay (cool for theme but terrible in practice), all to just deal Smashing damage at the exact same level as every other standard nuke, on the same CD.  It also lacks their superior secondary effects like Holds, Stuns, or massive debuffs.  Meteor is not just the worst nuke in the game, it's a borderline joke power.  We could multiply its damage by 1.3x and push that patch tomorrow and it would be completely fine for the game.

 

I just don't know: if the dev team doesn't see any issue with Meteor, I suppose it makes sense how we got the current Arsenal Control.

[warlyx]

50 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

 

I still can't believe that Meteor never gets any buffs. 

 

its because the devs buff it in beta and by the time it falls down , the patch goes live and meteor miss 😄

 

jokes aside , this new sets deserve better (all of them) , look no further than arsenal , makes me doze off looking at so many sleeps 😪

Edited January 27 by warlyx

[Plutoria]

Thoroughly enjoying The new sets on test. Rolled Troller and Dom, but dom has captured my heart. Running a 40k Battle sister theme. I look forward to this being a new main on live.

Play tested solo 4/8 all foe types:

 

Tranq Dart: ended up skipping on dom ( but kept on troller). Slotted on troller as x2 heal proc, hold proc, toxic proc power ( was using traps secondary).

 

Sleep Grenade: My current set up is Heal proc, Cold proc, and immobile proc, slow enhancement. Working pretty well and appreciate the built in -slow. My play style tends to be aggressive and I rarely use AoE immobs so the proc immob is doing the trick I can see this as being skippable on both troller/dom ( skipped on the troller). Slow lasts about 30 seconds and with recharge focused build you can spread the love. Currently enjoying the design as it does stagger attacks from foes.

 

Cryo Freeze Ray: I like that it offers a different damage type ( cold) and the general flavor of the attack power. Works as good as every other T2 ST hold. Not required but maybe a lingering -slow/-recharge effect to assist in low level applications without sets/end game influence? ( and additional possible slotting combos).

 

Liquid Nitrogen: Tried different combos, ended up keeping it as one slot wonder. The KD patch compliments the set well.

Dom: acc/dmg/end/rech single slot and on troller -12 res proc. Wouldn't mind if Slow Enhancements could be slotted to compliment the -slow factor and tie in with Sleep Grenade.

 

Cloaking Device: Instant love

 

Smoke Canister: tested different combos, Really love this power.  Combo works great slotted or single slot on both troller/dom. Opening is great with the debuff to hit and confuse but mostly helps regulate aggro/alpha strikes. On dom i ended up 5 slotting: Confuse proc, Fiery Orb proc, +dmg proc, 2 damage procs ( energy/neg energy).

 

Flashbang: 5 slotted purp with -tohit proc works great

 

Tear gas: 5-6 slotted on different build combos.

 

Gun drone: tried different slotting arrangements, works great if slots to spare and want to dump pet def/res in it to enhance other summons/temp pets. Currently just running with overwhelming KD and BU proc. Hits often and still very tanky out of the box. The KD proc gives it some soft control, the damage isn't anything to write home about ( even when fully enhanced) but it is a great tank pet and honestly I love the fact it helps pull aggro and can tank a few baddies.

 

Gun Drone suggestion: To give more flavor to a control set, perhaps add additional attacks?

Thematic suggestions:

None lethal ST or AoE Immob? 16 sec recharge  Web Grenade or 30 sec  Area Web Grenade

Beanbag / Taser (with damage)

Long Recharge EMP type of attack like with some of the epic pets but of lesser effect?

 

All that said, I can see why people may feel frustrated with how this control set plays. Personally I've always had a love for the soft control style sets over hard control. This set has a nice mix of both but seems to favor the soft control approach ( which matches my general play style.) It's also one of the first control sets where I've taken nearly every power.

 

Traps: Enjoy the updates/overhaul to Time Bomb. Tested on all AT's but MM. I noticed Seekers changed so they no longer accept BU proc but they do take pet slotting now which makes more sense and has merit for most builds using traps.

 

Arsenal Assault:

Honestly my new favorite Assault Set ( energy and dark being the others).

 

Love:

Targeting Drone ( Can at last skip tactics for Assault toggle)

Trip Mine because boom! ( Was always the fun part of devices/traps)

Ignite - Purify the heretics in the name of The Emperor! ( with new changes made to power)

 

Unpopular opinion:

As much as we all enjoy a good buttstroke the stun duration is extremely long ( plus with domination it's even longer) for a level 1 attack.  Maybe swap with KD/KB from Heavy Blow and put the stun in Heavy Blow? ( or reduce duration?)

 

Selfish suggestion, Swap Buck Shot for Heavy Burst (like from SoA) or with Slug?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27 by Plutoria
typo

[Frosticus]

Again, I don't really like that this set was designed not to work with troller/dom inherent. That is a miss imo.
I also don't like using a gun, rather just be tossing grenades.

 

That said, I think I'll find a way to do ok with this set.

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

7 hours ago, Cyclone Jack said:

Question, did you go through the tutorial with just the Sleep Grenade?  And if so, how was it? 

 

A good question. I'll answer it and then then implied question.

I didn't do the tutorials.
I took Tranq Dart at level one on my Controller, which I tested first. This informed my opinion that it is a skip power, but it did give me *something* to damage characters with besides Brawl and my Origin Attack at level 1. 

 

7 hours ago, Cyclone Jack said:

For Arsenal/Traps would you take Web Grenade or Caltrops alongside Sleep Grenade at level 1?

 

Myself personally? Nothing beats the GTFO of Caltrops.  At level 1 I'm not worried about much, but if I do get swarmed then Web Nade isn't going to do anything for me whereas Caltrops gives me some breathing room.

[warlyx]

8 hours ago, Cyclone Jack said:

Question, did you go through the tutorial with just the Sleep Grenade?  And if so, how was it? 

 

For Arsenal/Traps would you take Web Grenade or Caltrops alongside Sleep Grenade at level 1?

i guess you brawl your way out of it

[Psyonico]

Right now, arsenal control feels like it's designed to be respec'd.  Take tranquilizer at 1, then at a higher level respec and take sleep grenade at 1.  This seems a bit silly in my opinion.

[PoitVok]

Am I reading it right that the new release candidate essentially turns sleep grenade into a Mass Hypnosis clone?

[Psyonico]

12 minutes ago, PoitVok said:

Am I reading it right that the new release candidate essentially turns sleep grenade into a Mass Hypnosis clone?

Can't test it now to confirm, but seems like it's now a single pulse AoE sleep akin to mass hypnosis/flash freeze.

 

I'm going to roll up a new Arsenal controller and try it in the next couple days, but it sounds significantly weaker than what it was.  And nobody was saying it was op here.

[High_Beam]

So I just logged in on the ARS/ARS Dom I have been testing on to see what the changes have wrought.

 

The Good

 

- Moving Cryo Tier 2 Slot - Good call

- The fix to the timing of the bright muzzle animation after firing Cryo Freeze Ray -  excello.  Now its not distracting/angering.  Still would have liked it changed to a simple grenade but you know what, compromise isn't a dirty word and that is what has happened so awesome.

- Tri-Gun - The additional damage is nice.  Thanks.

- Smoke now having a chance to trigger OP or DOM - Groovy

 

The Bad

 

- Sleep Grenade - Really?!  Now it doesn't pulse which was what made it useful (regardless of what the anti-sleep crowd thinks).  Now it is useless without the pulse, just another effin proc mule.  That took pre-Tri-Gun survivability down a bit.  Not money.  Just became an optional power pick.

 

The Other

 

- When Tri-Gun is cast the default name for it still says "Gun Drone"

- Will have to respec to take Tranq to test because i found it not useful.

 

 

 

Edited January 28 by High_Beam
spelling fixes

[Dispari]

48 minutes ago, PoitVok said:

Am I reading it right that the new release candidate essentially turns sleep grenade into a Mass Hypnosis clone?

Not quite. Mass Hypnosis has a 45s recharge and twice the duration. This seems meant to be a short-duration AoE sleep you can fire out basically whenever you want.

[High_Beam]

I can’t stop focusing on this thing with Sleep Grenade no longer pulsing so I am just going to say it.

Gas clouds don't stop dosing after one time.  If you find yourself in a Tear/CS Gas situation, until you get out of the cloud to mask up and clear, you are still getting dosed.  I have, as part of my training in the military, you want to get the eff out of it as soon as possible which of course is why it’s great for riot control and infantry suppression.  Now this is super hero shit where somehow they have synthesized an extremely fast acting, instant action sleep gas but the body develops an immediate immunity to it so that when they are tapped on the shoulder its is rendered ineffective, unless a new dose of gas is applied.

The games mechanic establishes that very rule and that’s fine.  Most other sleep powers use different mechanics that can explain away the one application only (mostly that it’s not a cloud/field they have to get out of).

But as has been shown with the game mechanics, the more realistic sleep gas/field application is what is seen in Static Field (and formerly Arsenal Control).  They are touched and awakened but until they get out of the cloud/field it should reapply.  In fact several other AoE sleep powers should be altered to match that.  Just looking at the Homecoming Wiki there are four (4) cloud-based sleeps; Poison Gas Arrow, Poison Trap, Sleep Grenade (Munitions) and Spore Burst (Cloud of Spores).  There may be more but I am just using the wiki.  Now if we include persistent field shots then there might be more.  Honestly you all should do a power change to all of those to make them reapplying

You have something new-ish with Arsenal, but you are giving in to making it more vanilla.  You’ve diminished Sleep Grenade and are buffing damage . . . to a control set.

 

Edited January 28 by High_Beam

[Booper]

1 hour ago, High_Beam said:

When Tri-Gun is cast the default name for it still says "Gun Drone"

 

Please post bug findings in the Beta Bug Report forum. Thanks for letting us know, but I don't want your findings to get lost before developers can address this issue.

[MagicalAct]

Well that sucks to see the devs caved in on making Sleep Grenade a standard sleep. Just add the AoE immob at this point to make the set as bland as possible and get it over with.

[SnyPy]

Might as well rename Sleep Grenade to Proc Grenade because that will be it's only use in team play if the pulse effect won't come back.

[Cyclone Jack]

Overall, the fixes and adjustments I feel are all well done, with the exception of Sleep Grenade which still doesn't feel good, but for different reasons this time.  Now, I'm perfectly fine with it being a Sleep, and at L50, once slotted, I think the power is pretty good, as you can get the recharge down and the duration up; and I feel that this opens up additional tactical value that isn't seen in other Control sets.

 

The problem is still on the low level experience.  The Sleep is so short that it just doesn't feel like a meaningful power.  I understand why it was updated in this way, to keep the Recharge short enough so that the power can be used every fight, but not allowing the Sleep to be near-perma without heavy slotting.  My question is, would making it a 10.25s Sleep across the board be too powerful (ie, no scaling duration)?  Because starting out its only 6 seconds, and that feels almost pointless.  To be honest, the power feels like a mid-to-late level power that you can pick up as early as level 2, but then you move it off to the side until you actually reach those mid-to-late levels when the power finally becomes somewhat useful.

 

And, honestly, I'm not sure what the solution is, because this is a tough thing to balance.  Like I said, you want to keep the duration and recharge to where the power can use used just about every fight, while also not making to too powerful in the early game.  I think this is why most sets use an Immobilize, because you can have the longer duration that feels impactful, yet you're not preventing the enemies from attacking; whereas Sleep prevents enemies from attacking, so it can easily trivialize content.

[Spectre7878]

I am enjoying the new arsenal set on my dominator. I did a couple of respects and added enhancement sets to see how it plays at end game. It seems very endurance heavy even after adding sets. 
 

I don’t mind the single target sleep. Only because I like It on my mind control.
 

I would recommend making the aoe sleep act like the static field from electric control, since it’s one of the best sleeps in the game.  Or make it an aoe immobilize

[Shin Magmus]

Okay, so for build 2...

 

The Good News: Tranq Dart being adjusted upward as an attack is good and ironically makes it fall in line with my own separate gadget control prototype: Doms don't care but Controllers need this power for their attack chain.  Power Order fix was critical: Hold available at lv1 makes way more sense.  Making Smoke Canister bigger and giving it Overpower/Domination values brings it more in line with other actually good Control sets.  I think it's okay to buff Tranq Dart one final time and give it the same slow values as Sleep Grenade.  All other positive changes just seem like bugfixes really...

 

The Bad News: All of our valid complaints about the weakness of the set not having an AoE Immob are still just as valid, while Sleep Grenade is in some ways even weaker than it was in the previous build.  It's clear that the devs reading this thread won't relent on that, so at this point our option seems to be asking to add Immob chances to Sleep Grenade.  You can call it Torpor Canister or something and give it chances to Sleep wave chances to Immob.  Please, do something to address this now before the set goes live and inevitably gets dropped and never played after a 2 month honeymoon period. 

[SnyPy]

22 minutes ago, Spectre7878 said:

I would recommend making the aoe sleep act like the static field from electric control, since it’s one of the best sleeps in the game.  Or make it an aoe immobilize

I think no immob is fine, maybe adding slow somewhere in the set would be perfect.

[Captain Powerhouse]

7 minutes ago, SnyPy said:

I think no immob is fine, maybe adding slow somewhere in the set would be perfect.

 

Sleep Grenade has enhanceable Slow.