Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[theAbsentee]

My feedback on Arsenal Control set:

 

For reference, I played an Arsenal/Dark Controller w/ full IO sets.

 

This set feels really good, especially with /dark. Felt very safe. Pet is a super tank, got it up to soft capped Def and capped Res very easy. It does fell weird having a gun and doing minimal damage, however it is a control set so I wouldn't say that needs to be changed.

 

• Liquid Nitrogen  - Feels like a long cool down, would be nicer to have a faster cool down for leveling, but I'm sure it's on par with other ice patch abilities.
• Smoke Canister, Flash Bang, & Tear Gas  - Really like these abilities!

[Riverdusk]

2 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

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.

 

 

Very good to hear.  I liked all the changes that were made except the one to Sleep Grenade. 

[stryve]

After the Build 2 update, I decided to ran another Arse/Traps Controller from 1-10 again, no Double XP or Prestige attacks.  I did use the Prestige Enhancements this time, in addition to SOs.  Only made it to level 8 so far, mostly running 0x3 with bosses.

 

Overall, it's not nearly as safe a journey with the change to Sleep Grenade, since the set no longer has a reliable way to shut down large groups.  On the other hand, it also doesn't feel like as much as a slog, with Cryo Freeze Ray moving to T2 and Tranq Dart increasing in damage (The Origin attack fall-off adjustment has helped as well).  So you have to be ready to run, but as long as you're careful most groups go down faster. 

 

First, Tranq Dart is now reliably applying Sleep to targets.  I even saw it Sleep bosses a few times, with that chance of extra magnitude.  I usually open with Cryo Freeze Ray to more solidly lock a mob down, but if that misses or I'm just in that part of the rotation when I switch targets it's nice to get Containment on the next cycle.

 

Just after picking up Sleep Grenade it lasted long enough to take out a single even or +1 con Minion before the rest wake up, and then recharged before I could finish off a second, whereupon I promptly putt the survivors back to sleep to continue whittling them down.  This cycle is riskier with some enemies than others (looking at you, level 6 Vazhilok).  By level 8, with two Recharge SOs and a Sleep SO, most mobs only get a shot or two off before Sleep Grenade can be applied again.

 

Liquid Nitrogen remains very effective, but uptime is always going to be an issue at low levels.  I don't think any Controller secondary brings enough AoE to take out largish groups before it times out, and there's just no way to get the recharge down far enough until later in the build.  Plus, mobs sometimes manage to stay on their feet long enough to fire off an attack or two, which can be dicey with some groups (darn Cadaver swarms).

 

Finally, if Liquid Nitrogen is out Sleep Grenade is only worth using for the extra Slow and a bit more damage spread around, everything is immediately woken.  Personally I do find that worth it, but it's definitely subjective.

[StarkWhite]

5 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

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

 

Excellent. That change, as small as it might seem, really impacted my enjoyment of the set and, for lack of a better term, its Controllery feeling.

[LastHumanSoldier]

Hey I hate to be a killjoy, but I was doing some more testing today and I realize that this is going to be a problem on Live:
Original doesn't have this issue. This needs to be fixed before this goes on the live server. 

 

Smoke Canister -- Color tintable Customization -- Dark Color, Bright Color, ANYTHING selected  makes it impossible to see. 
Max graphics settings, Not using the Cellshading mode. 

This is just me in a X8 Map. Imagine a team with more than 1 Arsenal Control characters using Smoke Canister. 

EDIT: Root Cause I think the cloud VFX stick to the mobs.
 

 

 

Edited January 30 by LastHumanSoldier

[Chronocrator]

On 1/28/2024 at 7:13 PM, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Smoke grenade is a confuse-based-analogue to volcanic gasses, which doesn't ever activate domination. Technically, it's a step up on how most pseudopets function to consider overpower or domination mechanics at all. 

I wish they were analagous.VG gets away with not proccing the inherent powers by being actually good. It can hold bosses by itself. Confuse is probably stronger than Hold (if you ignore the fact that they will scatter like crazy if you can't immob them) so I can understand toning town Smoke Canister. Honestly, giving the set a VG clone would be such a big boost. Let's go all in with the patches, make Tear Gas a Volcanic Gasses clone... might even fix the set.

[Shin Magmus]

19 minutes ago, Chronocrator said:

 Honestly, giving the set a VG clone would be such a big boost. Let's go all in with the patches, make Tear Gas a Volcanic Gasses clone... might even fix the set.

One of the first good suggestions I've seen in a while here besides the Immob fight that we can't win.  Just as an aside, VG does cause enemies who aren't initially Held to run from it: and a big reason the power works is because Earth Control can both put down Quicksand preemptively to slow enemies in its patches like VG and Earthquake, AND it can just Stone Cages to traditionally lock enemies in the area and make them get subjected to the patches.

 

Quicksand is a "weaker" power than most CCs but in exchange it has half the CD of a power like Ice Slick or Liquid Nitrogen: which means you have the freedom to use it every single fight and synergize with patches that enemies can run out of.  For Arsenal Control to work: Sleep Grenade needs to retain movement slowing effects and be at max a 45s CD so we can use it like a ghetto Quicksand to slow enemies in the other patches.

 

Reminder that this -50% in Sleep Grenade is not enough total slow against most enemies to get them to the run speed floor: so Controllers are still going to be locked into picking secondaries with another strong AoE slow to make the set be tolerable.

[CaptSquid]

I personally feel swapping one of the sleeps or the stealth power for something like "poison caltrops - caltrops coated in a paralytic poison, functions same as normal caltrops with a minor toxic dot. The first instance of damage enemies recieve from them has a chance for a short immobilize. It would allow some containment interactions, a tiny damage boost plus the animations are already in game so very simple to implement and still works thematically. I know the set would be heavy on placeable aoe powers but that can then be the sets "playstyle"

 

I've played cox since issue 1 and sleeps are wholesale the only power type I have consistently skipped in every power set they are available in, I've never found them useful beyond niche 1 in a 1000 circumstance so having to choose between 2 at the start feels bad but I'm probably just biased here 😂

[Shin Magmus]

We can't get power swaps or Immobs anymore, but adding slows or some sort of thematic poison debuffs to existing powers might still get done... I hope?  At the very least Tranq Dart and Cryo Freeze Ray would benefit from some slow effects in tandem with Sleep Grenade's.  Cryo Freeze Ray is in some ways simply inferior to Block of Ice: and that's not good.  Give the ST Hold that deals Cold damage parity with the other ST Hold that deals Cold damage.

[Maxzero]

6 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

One of the first good suggestions I've seen in a while here besides the Immob fight that we can't win.  Just as an aside, VG does cause enemies who aren't initially Held to run from it: and a big reason the power works is because Earth Control can both put down Quicksand preemptively to slow enemies in its patches like VG and Earthquake, AND it can just Stone Cages to traditionally lock enemies in the area and make them get subjected to the patches.

 

Quicksand is a "weaker" power than most CCs but in exchange it has half the CD of a power like Ice Slick or Liquid Nitrogen: which means you have the freedom to use it every single fight and synergize with patches that enemies can run out of.  For Arsenal Control to work: Sleep Grenade needs to retain movement slowing effects and be at max a 45s CD so we can use it like a ghetto Quicksand to slow enemies in the other patches.

 

Reminder that this -50% in Sleep Grenade is not enough total slow against most enemies to get them to the run speed floor: so Controllers are still going to be locked into picking secondaries with another strong AoE slow to make the set be tolerable.

 

Since they are reverting the Sleep Grenade change making it pulsing again if the Stun was also also pulsing it would actually serve to create a bit of a theme with Arsenal Control. It would trade damage for multiple powerful AoE CCs.

 

At least it would have a unique niche then.

 

 

[Dispari]

4 hours ago, CaptSquid said:

I've played cox since issue 1 and sleeps are wholesale the only power type I have consistently skipped in every power set they are available in, I've never found them useful beyond niche 1 in a 1000 circumstance so having to choose between 2 at the start feels bad but I'm probably just biased here 😂

 

The thing is, sleeps aren't completely useless. There are situations where they could help, and you could always manufacture a situation in a vacuum where sleep would solve it. Every time you say "nobody likes sleeps" someone inevitably says "well what about (scenario that might happen once every 15 missions)." I wouldn't deny that it is theoretically possible for sleep to contribute occasionally. I would just rather have a power that actually reliably does something useful in every single fight.

 

But "drop the sleep for an immobilize" has been feedback since day one of closed beta, so it's safe to say it's not going anywhere. They did, briefly, test an AoE immobilize in the set; a web grenade that did smashing damage, but they did so by replacing the stealth power, which nobody wanted. Someone on the dev team really likes sleep powers I guess.

[Starhammer]

22 hours ago, Plutoria said:

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).

I wish we merely had a variety of IO sets that offered a -Fly proc.

[Starhammer]

6 hours ago, CaptSquid said:

I personally feel swapping one of the sleeps or the stealth power for something like "poison caltrops - caltrops coated in a paralytic poison, functions same as normal caltrops with a minor toxic dot. The first instance of damage enemies recieve from them has a chance for a short immobilize. It would allow some containment interactions, a tiny damage boost plus the animations are already in game so very simple to implement and still works thematically. I know the set would be heavy on placeable aoe powers but that can then be the sets "playstyle"

 

I've played cox since issue 1 and sleeps are wholesale the only power type I have consistently skipped in every power set they are available in, I've never found them useful beyond niche 1 in a 1000 circumstance so having to choose between 2 at the start feels bad but I'm probably just biased here 😂

I absolutely love the idea of poison caltrops thematically... maybe not for this set, but for something. I hope we see it in the future.

[OverkillEngine]

2 hours ago, Dispari said:

 

The thing is, sleeps aren't completely useless. There are situations where they could help, and you could always manufacture a situation in a vacuum where sleep would solve it. Every time you say "nobody likes sleeps" someone inevitably says "well what about (scenario that might happen once every 15 missions)." I wouldn't deny that it is theoretically possible for sleep to contribute occasionally. I would just rather have a power that actually reliably does something useful in every single fight.

 

But "drop the sleep for an immobilize" has been feedback since day one of closed beta, so it's safe to say it's not going anywhere. They did, briefly, test an AoE immobilize in the set; a web grenade that did smashing damage, but they did so by replacing the stealth power, which nobody wanted. Someone on the dev team really likes sleep powers I guess.

 

 

Yeah that's why I made one of the suggestions that I did, and pointed out a precedent. A sleep is a crappier unreliable hold, and either needs to be heavily discounted in design budget for any powers using it, or altered to be on parity with hold or stun. (As to why it was never done before now, well, no set has forced the issue like Aresenal Control has either) Though more than a few powers it looks like the "compensation" for unreliability took the form of a fairly long duration....the issue with that approach is you will almost never have a use for that duration in group play since all other mezz options are superior in practice.

I mean, FFS, sleep gets outperformed by a knockback/down proc when it comes to mitigation in team play. And KB spam is something that is divisive as hell within the playerbase.

Edited January 30 by OverkillEngine

[Videra]

7 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

We can't get power swaps or Immobs anymore, but adding slows or some sort of thematic poison debuffs to existing powers might still get done... I hope?  At the very least Tranq Dart and Cryo Freeze Ray would benefit from some slow effects in tandem with Sleep Grenade's.  Cryo Freeze Ray is in some ways simply inferior to Block of Ice: and that's not good.  Give the ST Hold that deals Cold damage parity with the other ST Hold that deals Cold damage.

 

This is such a good idea, seriously. Not just damage parity, but making tear gas function similarly if not identically to Volcanic Gasses would genuinely help. I'd like to see the Tranq Dart get changed so that it replicates poison dart's vomit effect, in lieu of a sleep, but that might be asking a bit much.

There is a way to fix this set without giving us an AOE Immob - I'd still rather have the AOE Immob, but the changes broadly suggested in this page would give the set a genuine niche. In addition, buffing the slows already in the set would help a lot.

Edited January 30 by Videra

[JayboH]

11 hours ago, CaptSquid said:

I personally feel swapping one of the sleeps or the stealth power for something like "poison caltrops - caltrops coated in a paralytic poison, functions same as normal caltrops with a minor toxic dot. The first instance of damage enemies recieve from them has a chance for a short immobilize. It would allow some containment interactions, a tiny damage boost plus the animations are already in game so very simple to implement and still works thematically. I know the set would be heavy on placeable aoe powers but that can then be the sets "playstyle"

 

I've played cox since issue 1 and sleeps are wholesale the only power type I have consistently skipped in every power set they are available in, I've never found them useful beyond niche 1 in a 1000 circumstance so having to choose between 2 at the start feels bad but I'm probably just biased here 😂

I brought up a caltrops grenade idea in another thread as well for these new Arsenal sets, so I approve.

[ApocalypsePlease]

Please please please make the sleep grenade a patch tick sleep again, it’s completely unusable in its current form as it doesn’t even put them to sleep right away. All it does at this point is agro a mob and earn me a face full of damage if I don’t put something else out first. 
 

edit: having done some back reading, I see it will be fixed. Thank you thank you. I love this set and that patch sleep was actually one of my favorite powers. It’s so good for a dom

Edited January 30 by ApocalypsePlease
Did some reading

[High_Beam]

9 hours ago, Maxzero said:

Since they are reverting the Sleep Grenade change making it pulsing again ...

Where did you read this.  I cant seem to find a Dev post or note about that.

[Subber]

I'm not sure if it just me, but on current build, Tear Gas and Sleep Grenade appear to be nearly identical to one another, with the exception that Sleep Grenade barely works. I've not yet seen a single mob enter sleep, at best they do a choking animation for half a second, and then get right back to their regular activities, without being slowed or having their recharge reduced. Granted, I could be mistaken.

[Booper]

57 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

Where did you read this.  I cant seem to find a Dev post or note about that.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/45247-focused-feedback-arsenal-control/?do=findComment&comment=608384

[High_Beam]

2 hours ago, Booper said:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/45247-focused-feedback-arsenal-control/?do=findComment&comment=608384

Thank you.  I guess I was distracted by the bad actor and the bad pun based upon the bad gimmick writing on the show that said bad actor was the lead on.

[VashNKnives]

Has anyone considered adding cryo rounds or something to the gun drone pet? It seems weird having a pure gun on a control set.

 

Would be cool if it rotated ammo on its own kind of randomly like a mini dual pistol swap ammo.

Edited January 31 by VashNKnives

[UltraAlt]

On 1/23/2024 at 9:02 PM, UltraAlt said:

On 11/22/2023 at 11:43 AM, The Curator said:

New Powerset - Arsenal Control

Expand  

 

I'm working with Arsenal/Arsenal Doms so I'm going to post in both threads - at least to start - and then keep specifics of the sets to the on the individual threads.

 

Character 1) auto leveled up to like level 22. Set-up with mostly if not all SOs.

Ran a police scanner mission in Talos.

I didn't really get the flow of the game play. Their are a bunch of click on a target location powers, and I wasn't using them so much because I forgot to turn the difficulty up, was on a purple cave map, and just wasn't figuring when to use the different click on target location powers.

 

Character 2) Since I wasn't getting the flow of the set, I created a new character. Running x2 xp but leveling through game play. 

Ran the lake and the building behind it to get the first 4 levels without enhancements. It seemed easier than most sets.

 

Character 1) dormant for for this post

 

Character 2) Ran in a 3 player team. Levels 3-7. Hunted behind the Lake in Atlas until 5, then moved to Hollows, ran Wilcott's first mission, unlocked Meg, and ran first two door-missions from Meg. First one on flat. second one at +1.

No real challenge on the door missions on that setting.

Current Arsenal Control powers unlocked - Tranquilizer, Cyro Freeze Ray, Liquid Nitrogen.

 

I'm not overly attracted to the set, but it is something different to explore

[Random Robot]

I'd imagine this is outside of the scope of the upcoming patch but if in future the powers from arsenal control could have alternate animations that have the powers emanating from the characters' hands instead of the assault rifle model it would make for a pretty great Powered Armor set combined with something like Energy Assault on a Dominator.

[tricon]

5 hours ago, VashNKnives said:

Has anyone considered adding cryo rounds or something to the gun drone pet? It seems weird having a pure gun on a control set.

 

Would be cool if it rotated ammo on its own kind of randomly like a mini dual pistol swap ammo.

 

 

I like the idea but why not go a step further and look at the Swap Ammo from the Dual Pistol Set

 

Quote

Swap Ammo

(Blaster Ranged.Dual Pistols)

 

Change Secondary Damage/Effects

By purchasing this power, you will be granted the Cryo Ammunition, Incendiary Ammunition and Chemical Ammunition toggles. Activating these toggles will change your secondary damage type on most Dual Pistols attacks from lethal (Standard Rounds) to cold (Cryo Rounds), fire (Incendiary Rounds) or toxic (Chemical Rounds).

These toggles are mutually exclusive and only one can be active at a time. If no Swap Ammo toggles are active, the player will revert to Standard Ammunition.

Different ammo types also have different secondary effects. Examine your Dual Pistols powers for more information.

 

 

Would be a great fit for the Gun Drone  Tri-Cannon and also for our class.