Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[arcane]

2 minutes ago, Rand0lk said:

So, this is it. Not going to have a GOOD control set, with just a few changes. Just the one everyone requested, actually.

As a side but sad note, Arsenal Control will be the ONLY control set in the game with an AOE disorient AND without any meaningful aoe or cone immobilize. Heck, not even a single, lol.

So?

[Dispari]

Enemies wander and scatter when disoriented, which isn't a problem for sets with immobilizes.

[Rand0lk]

5 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Illusion control on doms? 

Oh, right there. At least, there's a single imm and no trash sleeps.

[Player-1]

Hello all,

 

I want to reiterate that we do comb through and greatly appreciate the feedback in these threads (and the suggestions forum too!). However, there are certain things we cannot action on either altogether, or in a timely fashion that lines up with the beta cycle at hand.

 

At this time, the powers in Arsenal Control are locked in and we cannot commit to any major swaps such as one type of crowd control to another. That said, if there are suggestions on how the current power framework can be improved we would be happy to look into those! 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

It's good policy to not make a lot of last minute changes to a set. Totally understandable point of view. Glad to see that the hold was swapped to T2, that was a helpful change. 

Arsenal control seems likely to land as a set that could use some love, in the future. Hopefully that idea can be borne in mind, going forward. 

[Plutoria]

Minor suggestion would it be possible to add a -Fly component to Cyro Freeze Ray?

Would assist in lower level content ( like brickers and sky raiders) and incarnate boss mobs (Talons).

[mistagoat]

The problem is that once the set enters the game it will never be fundamentally changed. This set is not done baking and needs to go back in the oven and if that means it doesn't come out in this page, so be it. I'd happily wait a page for an improved set rather than having to deal with this set as it is now for the rest the games lifespan.

[arcane]

41 minutes ago, Dispari said:

Enemies wander and scatter when disoriented, which isn't a problem for sets with immobilizes.

You do realize there’s tons of precedent for people having powers that scatter without having an AoE immobilize available, right? Illusion Doms AoE stun, Trick Arrow patches, Storm patches, Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Oppressive Gloom, etc etc etc. People function just fine without AoE immobilizes. 
 

I even skipped the AoE immobilize on my recent Symphony/Trick Arrow because I really didn’t have space for it, because I thought my Oil Slick’s slow would do well enough, and because most of my damage (procs) wouldn’t benefit from Containment.
 

This does not constitute a problem.

Edited January 29 by arcane

[arcane]

7 minutes ago, mistagoat said:

The problem is that once the set enters the game it will never be fundamentally changed. 

HC does a lot of buffs and reworks, so there’s no reason to believe this statement.

[Dispari]

There's plenty of precedent for bad powers yes, but that doesn't mean we should do more of it.

[arcane]

Just now, Dispari said:

There's plenty of precedent for bad powers yes, but that doesn't mean we should do more of it.

If you think every powerset combo with a scatter mechanic but no AoE immobilize is “bad”, then you’ve written off so much of the game that you can’t possibly be taken seriously from here on out.

[Vinceq98]

Hilarious. All this developer time used up only for a set the community will relegate as below average. The forefathers of the original game kept pushing out meta sets when the game became pay to win. Darkness Control, Nature Affinity, Titan Weapons.

 

Homecoming clearly has an agenda that all new powersets MUST not exceed average in power strength. They want them to be as unmemorable as possible lol. 

[arcane]

Just now, Rand0lk said:

 

I'd take as a valid argument AoE stun's illusion Dom, and even there is a dom primary single case, not a whole Control Set. Everything else you mentioned is NOT in a Control Set, and you know, a controller's purpose is to...control. Obviously you can't expect the same efficiency is a defender/blaster/whatever set, those AT have different roles.

So scatter is only problematic if your AT icon is purple. Gotcha 🙄

[Frosticus]

I think some people are being too harsh on this set.

 

For Doms - Objectively you have a very good suite of control powers in:

(the entire set is ranged)

Ranged aoe stun - it gets out fast and is as good or better than most of them. For doms, aoe stuns are bread and butter for many of the sets.

Ranged (place around corners) confuse - I put up a video. It works reasonably well with domination and lets you walk right up to the spawn, which is valuable sometimes.

Ranged (place around corners) ice slick - most people are familiar with quake/slick, it just works

Ranged (and decently mobile) taunting tank - this pet is better than most single target controls because it works when they don't. Some enemies are very resistant to be held and few solo players (and no teams ever) have the patience to stack single target confuse enough to mitigate AV's while doing exactly zero dps to them. I've shown what Stoney from earth can do and Tri-Gun makes him look like hes made of paper tissue.

 

I think you get a lot, but in exchange you have the figure out a way to mitigate the patches issue.

 

For trollers:

I'm less confident in the set. They have way more tools to mitigate the patches issue in their secondaries, but...

Their damage potential is extremely minor and they have no reliable, or even semi reliable (previous sleep patch) was of setting up containment. 

To me that is more limiting in play experience than what dom's will have to overcome. 

 

That said, I doubt this set will be very popular, but I'd surely love to see some of the smoke canister action ported over to fire control and widow versions of smoke.

 

[mistagoat]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

HC does a lot of buffs and reworks, so there’s no reason to believe this statement.

They do indeed and I certainly appreciate that, however it's extremely rare that they change the fundamental effect of the power. For example we don't see them change a blast to melee or change a buff into a debuff or a sleep to an immobilize. If the set goes live with no AoE immob, it will never receive one.

 

You've made your position clear, you don't want an AoE immob. I respect you opinion but to my eye, the set is begging for an immob and it seems the majority in here agree with that sentiment.

[Dispari]

Scatter is always problematic. That's why all but like 2 control sets have AoE immobilizes. It's why the devs eventually introduced KB->KD IOs, because everyone hates AoE knockback. It's why later sets like Water Blast do knockdown by default. It's why repel effects are rare. Yes you CAN manage all these things if you want to do extra work just to prove you can, but you shouldn't have to. Just because there are a couple powers that cause scatter that aren't managed doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

9 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

For Doms - Objectively you have a very good suite of control powers

Agreed, on reflection. 

On beta I only tried arsenal control paired with arsenal assault. There are anti-synergies there and I muffed the build by not including KB to KD IOs. Didn't really see arsenal control at its best that way. But, arsenal control can work well with either a ranged assault set like fiery assault or the more melee-focused assault sets (which is most of them). 

On the controller side, one potentially good pairing is probably poison. Getting a /poison troller safely into melee range to get venomous gas applying to mobs is made noticeably easier with smoke canister. 

Edited January 29 by EnjoyTheJourney

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Dispari said:

Scatter is always problematic. That's why all but like 2 control sets have AoE immobilizes. It's why the devs eventually introduced KB->KD IOs, because everyone hates AoE knockback. It's why later sets like Water Blast do knockdown by default. It's why repel effects are rare. Yes you CAN manage all these things if you want to do extra work just to prove you can, but you shouldn't have to. Just because there are a couple powers that cause scatter that aren't managed doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Scatter is still caused by some of the absolute top performers in the game. Sleet. Oil Slick Arrow. Blizzard. If there’s something wrong with a little scatter, it sure isn’t reflected in the meta. Players must be completely okay with a little scatter, or these sets wouldn’t be as dominant as they are today.

[Cyclone Jack]

1 hour ago, Player-1 said:

Hello all,

 

I want to reiterate that we do comb through and greatly appreciate the feedback in these threads (and the suggestions forum too!). However, there are certain things we cannot action on either altogether, or in a timely fashion that lines up with the beta cycle at hand.

 

At this time, the powers in Arsenal Control are locked in and we cannot commit to any major swaps such as one type of crowd control to another. That said, if there are suggestions on how the current power framework can be improved we would be happy to look into those! 

Would it be possible to revert Smoke Grenade back to what it was, and just swap its tier with Cloaking Device?  I feel that trying to balance Smoke Grenade as a L2 power ended up making the power objectively worse and all but useless in those low levels (which is probably why we don't see low-level AoE Sleeps).

[Shin Magmus]

28 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

On the controller side, one potentially good pairing is probably poison. Getting a /poison troller safely into melee range to get venomous gas applying to mobs is made noticeably easier with smoke canister. 

You know what else works?  Using an AoE Stun as an Opener followed by an AoE Immob to prevent scatter: cast the Immob as you are jumping in.  It's crazy how well this works on one... two... three... four powersets.  Dark Control is a bit different since the Stun is a PbAoE so you usually have to open with Fearsome Stare, and then jump in to use the Stun slotted more for procs than mez.

 

Basically, if the enemies are actually disabled for real, then you don't need a gimmick to get closer.  Stunned + Immobed enemies just sit there and take it. 

[WindDemon21]

On 1/28/2024 at 12:49 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Sleep Grenade has enhanceable Slow.

LOL with that amount even with the slow in nitrogen is hardly enough against higher enemies, and still doesn't address the issue of enemies getting knocked back by the team, and especially within the same set, any confused enemies. I'd much rather have the slow speed (not rech unless replaced with the proper -damage) removed and have the power proc again.

[WindDemon21]

On 1/28/2024 at 11:22 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

That said: I have mentioned this before but the power selection is not going to be changing. This set will not have any power replaced with an immob, nor have immob added to any of its powers. 

If that's the case then, this set definitely needs like i said with ice slick/patch to let nitrogen and those accept slow/kb IOs and sets), and the aoe sleep DEFINITELY needs to re-proc then. I still don't think it's out of the realm of the set to without an aoe immobilize and so much focused on the location patches to have a pull-in added to one of the location powers. Could even animate the liquid nitrogen to not be completely flat, but rather have a slight concavity to how it gets put on the ground so enemies "slowly slide to the center".

 

Edit: FYI, this already exists with the ice in the Frostfire mission. I know that's a fixed terrain verus power that comes and goes, just saying that the precedence is there.

Edited January 29 by WindDemon21

[warlyx]

im just hope wind control isnt like this , and bring something fresh to the table

[Psyonico]

17 minutes ago, warlyx said:

im just hope wind control isnt like this , and bring something fresh to the table

I think you'll find wind control to be a....

 

Breath of fresh air

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

As Player1 noted, we are still reviewing the set. Things are still changing. I usually prefer not to talk about future build until they land, but next build will see the return of the patch-based 45s cooldown Sleep Grenade, we are just not changing the power selection but will continue to tweak things further.

 

Edit: the current form of sleep was an experiment to add more regularly usable AoE attack for controllers, but its obviously too detrimental to the set's control.

 

That said, reminder: please post your feedback and don't argue with other posters about their feedback. This always results in arguments and next to no usable information. It takes significant amount of time to comb through these threads, and it can slow down many things when they fill up with multiple posters just repeating the same things back at each other.