Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[Voltak]

On 2/2/2024 at 3:01 PM, Frosticus said:

I'm a fan of increased debuffs, especially on sleep powers, but I'd take ice slick/nitrogen over an aoe immob every day of the week.

 

 

 

 

This is the same thing I feel about this.  
For example, I can't see Ice control without Ice Slick. 

I will add that the Stun, give it a standard dmg amount (similar to the awesome stun in Dark Control)

You can also add a standard dmg amount to the AoE Hold (make it decent)

Give the ST hold a good chunk of dmg, I won't complain if this ends up the highest ST hold dmg power among all control sets.  

This should add some spice to the set.  

[Voltak]

41 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

 

 

the Hard Mode difficulty modifiers add Mag 10 Confuse protection to all the enemies...

You sure about this ?  ALL enemies ?  Minions, LTs, Bosses ?  All content of hard mode, no exceptions ?  

[Shin Magmus]

6 minutes ago, Voltak said:

You sure about this ?  ALL enemies ?  Minions, LTs, Bosses ?  All content of hard mode, no exceptions ?  

No, I'm not 100% sure.  Well, I think it scales up in a pattern like bosses at 2 star, bosses and luits at 3 star, and all enemies at 4 star, but I was specifically musing about how Controllers are "supposed" to be useful on 4 star Hard Mode.  4 star is the most difficult and therefore the most worth discussing and being concerned about, and 1 Controller or Dom with 1 Confuse power can't do anything with it on 4 star ITF: and I have tested and verified that.  There are specific Confuse-Weak enemies on Hard Mode ASF but they are best handled with Single Target Confuse powers on a low CD (like Deceive) and not by a 90s CD Confuse power like Smoke Canister (until the devs nerf Smoke Canister even more prior to release).  Here's an image for reference.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

No, I'm not 100% sure.  Well, I think it scales up in a pattern like bosses at 2 star, bosses and luits at 3 star, and all enemies at 4 star, but I was specifically musing about how Controllers are "supposed" to be useful on 4 star Hard Mode.  4 star is the most difficult and therefore the most worth discussing and being concerned about, and 1 Controller or Dom with 1 Confuse power can't do anything with it on 4 star ITF: and I have tested and verified that.  There are specific Confuse-Weak enemies on Hard Mode ASF but they are best handled with Single Target Confuse powers on a low CD (like Deceive) and not by a 90s CD Confuse power like Smoke Canister (until the devs nerf Smoke Canister even more prior to release).  Here's an image for reference.

The confuse in Arsenal control is weak.  I don't like it. It could be better. 

The text is not what it seems in practice.    You see, if I run dominators in 4 star, there will usually be another dom there.  
That mag 10 is easily overcome.  
Controllers is different, of course. 

Done more 4 star content than I can count. 

That 10 mag protection in the text which wants to communicate that it is for everything, that's off a bit in practice for me because it's easy to overcome it with Dominators. 

Controllers rely on that critical chance to nail a control that will overpower.  

Still, the confuse not being affected by Domination in arsenal control is a let down for me. 

Edited February 4 by Voltak

[Frosticus]

Smoke Cannister does benefit from domination. Each tick has a 25% chance of adding a mag 3 confuse.

If smoke is intended to be the primary control of the set then it isn't the best. If it is a secondary layer then it is pretty good imo.

 

The bigger issue of Smoke Cannister is:

Base acc: 1 = 75% chance to hit even cons.

 

Patches don't inherit player bonuses like global acc, tactics, or even aim. 

So this power has a hard time hitting +3's at this time* as you need 98% acc slotting (after ED) to hit at 95% rate.

*this is why most psuedo pet powers have higher base acc

 

**additionally - confuse sets aren't boosting the accuracy (which I already reported) and is potentially skewing testing.

[Shin Magmus]

Almost every psuedopet does have a significantly increased base acc beyond x1.0, up to x1.4 in some cases.  Gonna have to agree that powers like Smoke Canister need this in order to be of any value vs high level enemies and on Hard Mode.  People testing this set fighting +0 enemies at lv10 are not noticing this weakness.

[Maxzero]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:39 AM, Videra said:

 

It was not added as a joke, but Powerhouse refuses to elaborate. So far I've discovered that Trick Arrow and Traps cannot proc the 'Wet' affect, but Freezing Rain on Storm can.

 

Funnily enough that /Storm can proc the Immobilize is actually really useful otherwise Tornado and LS will just make enemies run everywhere.

 

A Arsenal/Storm combo might actually work...kinda.

 

The turret would probably work better as a tank if it were shorter range. Be cool if it were a flamethrower like turret (maybe a Cryo version for theme?) instead of a boring old gun turret.

Edited February 4 by Maxzero

[Shin Magmus]

1 hour ago, Maxzero said:

 

Funnily enough that /Storm can proc the Immobilize is actually really useful otherwise Tornado and LS will just make enemies run everywhere.

 

A Arsenal/Storm combo might actually work...kinda.

 

The turret would probably work better as a tank if it were shorter range. Be cool if it were a flamethrower like turret (maybe a Cryo version for theme?) instead of a boring old gun turret.

Truth, which is why Storm Summoning as a set is commonly played on Controllers because they have AoE Immobs that make Storm work better.  It's basically a circle right: to not give this set an Immob, but then sneak in a conditional Immob that works specifically with the powerset that needs it... like a roundabout way of admitting what the core problem is across Controllers, and the secondary problem is specifically with Storm Summoning, then adding a band-aid so it doesn't come up.

 

A Band-aid solution is better than no solution... but why would my Natural Origin Gun Controller magically conjure a bout of Freezing Rain?

[Voltak]

10 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Smoke Cannister does benefit from domination. Each tick has a 25% chance of adding a mag 3 confuse.

If smoke is intended to be the primary control of the set then it isn't the best. If it is a secondary layer then it is pretty good imo.

 

The bigger issue of Smoke Cannister is:

Base acc: 1 = 75% chance to hit even cons.

 

Patches don't inherit player bonuses like global acc, tactics, or even aim. 

So this power has a hard time hitting +3's at this time* as you need 98% acc slotting (after ED) to hit at 95% rate.

*this is why most psuedo pet powers have higher base acc

 

**additionally - confuse sets aren't boosting the accuracy (which I already reported) and is potentially skewing testing.

The chance is what I don't like.  I would prefer to be as the other confuse powers. 
The domination in other powers affects it immediately so the additional mag is right there at the very moment, not on a 25% chance later. 

It would be much better if it was like Mass Confusion or Seeds, and we just adjust the recharge time  as necessary to balance it out. 

The base acc is a problem for me as well, no doubt. 

 

[ScarySai]

I'd strongly encourage some of the power devs to give this set a spin in some papers and tell me it isn't a joke compared to any other control set. Really feels like an on paper vs ingame issue. There's a disconnect, somewhere.

 

Going off experience, they probably have a dataset they point to to justify how "fine" they think the set is, but they'd be wrong in actuality due to a failure to account for many variables.

 

Set needs help, guys. We're trying to help you here, nobody's out here just to baselessly shit on your work.

Edited February 4 by ScarySai

[Shin Magmus]

Here is proof that I'm testing and doing the real work at endgame that needs to be done.

I'm still working out exactly how to build an Arse/Traps for this but focusing slots and effort on Arse Control itself to both determine its (lack of) power and to not let my secondary set carry the test.  I'm also not going to run on [currently] easy Council or do redundant low-level testing that's already being done by other people... so I made a fully IO'd and Incarnate'd build and took it against some Carnies (I've tested a few harder groups like Arachnos as well) at solo +4/x8 but it's +3 cus of level shifts.  This took considerable time by the way.  Here are my thoughts yet again:

 

Having to rely on stacking slows is just a clunkier, more click-intensive version of being able to keep the enemies all permanently immobilized.  I've also decreased my peak damage potential to add some extra Slow enhancement into Sleep Grenade and Caltrops.  Even with all of that said and a focus on baiting and pulling enemies into my patches and my kill-zones, then trying to keep them from leaving said kill-zones, this is a slog.  It would be a bit better in a team context of course, but only because I kill slowly in my "role" as a Controller by CC'ing and dealing next-to-no damage while I rely on my team to deal the damage for me.  The problem is the same as it's been this whole time... why would I click like 4-6 powers to sortof create the situation I want when I could pick other Controller primaries and get the same result in 2 clicks.  Those sets (Plant Control, Fire Control, etc.) not only achieve the meta end-state I want as a Controller in fewer clicks, but they also provide more damage within their set inherently.  So you start to click the "kill stuff" buttons sooner because you didn't have to spend as much time clicking the "please don't run away from me and out of my patches" buttons.

[FupDup]

If we're really going to stick with the "wet" mechanic, can we at least get a P2W water blaster power? Give it one of the high-tech looking pistol models and have it reuse FX from Aqua Bolt. Then characters of fully "natural" human origin could at least make enemies wet, instead of relying on non-natural means like storms or ghost sharks or such. 

 

(Assuming that the set can't be given an internal source of wetness for whatever reason so it doesn't need to depend on outside factors to function). 

Edited February 4 by FupDup

[CherryBunbun]

+Lose the wet flag.

+give it an aoe immobilize

+Make The sleep a static effect similar to electric control's sleep

+Lose the wet flag.

 

 

[WindDemon21]

17 hours ago, Voltak said:

The confuse in Arsenal control is weak.  I don't like it. It could be better. 

The text is not what it seems in practice.    You see, if I run dominators in 4 star, there will usually be another dom there.  
That mag 10 is easily overcome.  
Controllers is different, of course. 

Done more 4 star content than I can count. 

That 10 mag protection in the text which wants to communicate that it is for everything, that's off a bit in practice for me because it's easy to overcome it with Dominators. 

Controllers rely on that critical chance to nail a control that will overpower.  

Still, the confuse not being affected by Domination in arsenal control is a let down for me. 

Um, the mag on controls is 3, 4 on doms. Outside of single target stuff, it'd take 3 of the same type of aoe mez to break through that which is highly unlikely to happen without at least 3 troller/doms, especially for confuse which is already really rare to have aoe confuse.

[Shin Magmus]

Please don't get into an argument about that Hard Mode math, I see it coming.  I agree that it ends up taking 2 Doms + a 3rd *Controller or Dom* but the math is more than that and the number you need to hit is more than 10.  It's 13 total mag protection on bosses so the number to hit is actually 14.  It's so totally not the point of the thread though; The only note is that Smoke Canister will not help you hit these totals any more than Seeds of Confusion will... and in fact Smoke Canister will reliably do worse.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

Please don't get into an argument about that Hard Mode math, I see it coming.  I agree that it ends up taking 2 Doms + a 3rd *Controller or Dom* but the math is more than that and the number you need to hit is more than 10.  It's 13 total mag protection on bosses so the number to hit is actually 14.  It's so totally not the point of the thread though; The only note is that Smoke Canister will not help you hit these totals any more than Seeds of Confusion will... and in fact Smoke Canister will reliably do worse.

BINGO, smoke canister without question will be worse.  

But we done HM runs on ITF 4 stars , and if we run one dom, we running at least one other, so, 2-3 doms at once.  
The mag 10 is not felt because we end up breaking it enough to a degree that matters to move on to next objective.   
Enough mitigation there to proceed. 
 But, again, canister is in a serious disadvantage, and ESPECIALLy if you wan to wait for the chance of a successful reapplication, time is a precious element in hard mode and waiting for this is drawback. 

Edited February 4 by Voltak

[Voltak]

2 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Um, the mag on controls is 3, 4 on doms. Outside of single target stuff, it'd take 3 of the same type of aoe mez to break through that which is highly unlikely to happen without at least 3 troller/doms, especially for confuse which is already really rare to have aoe confuse.

Dominator and controller holds, stuns, confuses and fears are mag 3
but... 
Dominators get an additional 3 mag with domination up, even on stuff like Seeds.  

Two doms is fine

However, like @Frosticus said earlier, canister works different than seeds. 
Canister would need to wait on a successful reapplication. 
That's not something I am a fan of at all. 

[Frosticus]

4 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

Here is proof that I'm testing and doing the real work at endgame that needs to be done.

I'm still working out exactly how to build an Arse/Traps for this but focusing slots and effort on Arse Control itself to both determine its (lack of) power and to not let my secondary set carry the test. 

This was good stuff. I see your concerns about the occasional runner being an annoyance. Everything runs from my fire/traps corr, so in that regard, it was much less considering arsenal does lack the ability to make things stick in place. I'm not sure if a dev (but who knows) would categorically claim that runners are an issue for arsenal. 

 

It's not up to me though and your concerns are valid. Next time check your pet combat log, I have a feeling your smoke cannister was drastically underperforming due to missing as it was likely rolling at 48% tohit chance* other than things that eventually get tagged by acid mortar. 

 

*unless you have vigor/nerve alpha?

[Shin Magmus]

2 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

This was good stuff. I see your concerns about the occasional runner being an annoyance. Everything runs from my fire/traps corr, so in that regard, it was much less considering arsenal does lack the ability to make things stick in place. I'm not sure if a dev (but who knows) would categorically claim that runners are an issue for arsenal. 

 

It's not up to me though and your concerns are valid. Next time check your pet combat log, I have a feeling your smoke cannister was drastically underperforming due to missing as it was likely rolling at 48% tohit chance* other than things that eventually get tagged by acid mortar. 

 

*unless you have vigor/nerve alpha?

Nah I have Intuition Radial alpha and I forgot to switch off the Global tab to the Combat tab.

[Voltak]

1 minute ago, ShinMagmus said:

Nah I have Intuition Radial alpha and I forgot to switch off the Global tab to the Combat tab.

I also feel your concerns are 100% valid 
 

[Frosticus]

41 minutes ago, Voltak said:

However, like @Frosticus said earlier, canister works different than seeds. 
 

It does. For Doms, Smoke Can is more analogous to Volcanic Gases albeit with some  differences. The who arsenal set is pretty similar to earth really.

*I worked around the acc issues of smoke can so it hits 95% in the following examples (just generic IO's for now, 2 acc, 2 confuse+vigor = 114% acc/confuse)

 

Differences compared to volcanic gasses

-Need domination active for smoke can, VG doesn't use domination. 

-Half duration, Recharges more than 2.5x faster

-Can potentially reach mag 6 much faster, doesn't hold mag as well.

-Different mez type, with confuse probably being the more desirable.

 

You can see in this vid smoke holds mag 6 confuse about 2/3rds of the time vs lvl 54s

You can see once volcanic gases stacks, it never lets them go and actually holds mag 9 for the majority of its duration vs lvl 54s.

 

 

Smoke Can (bugs aside) is fairly decent, but the main take away is that VG is just that good. 

[Voltak]

16 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

It does. For Doms, Smoke Can is more analogous to Volcanic Gases albeit with some  differences. The who arsenal set is pretty similar to earth really.

*I worked around the acc issues of smoke can so it hits 95% in the following examples (just generic IO's for now, 2 acc, 2 confuse+vigor = 114% acc/confuse)

 

Differences compared to volcanic gasses

-Need domination active for smoke can, VG doesn't use domination. 

-Half duration, Recharges more than 2.5x faster

-Can potentially reach mag 6 much faster, doesn't hold mag as well.

-Different mez type, with confuse probably being the more desirable.

 

You can see in this vid smoke holds mag 6 confuse about 2/3rds of the time vs lvl 54s

You can see once volcanic gases stacks, it never lets them go and actually holds mag 9 for the majority of its duration vs lvl 54s.

 

 

Smoke Can (bugs aside) is fairly decent, but the main take away is that VG is just that good. 

I was talking about this on discord with some friends before you even posted this 

My sentiments --

Volcanic gas , if they are in the area of effect, they going to be held, no ifs or buts, if time goes on, its looking like it is 100% 

Canister, no such thing.   Why?  Well, the chance is a far cry from 100% 
In addition, volcanic gas is aided by Earth having an ST hold to stack

Canister - no ST confuse to help stack them up.  

So, I don't know if I am wrong but it looks like Arsenal is destined to be a jack of different things.   
Not really what I was hoping for but, hey, that's just me. 

I am not saying it is horrible set, but there is room for much wanted improvement. 

Edited February 4 by Voltak

[Shin Magmus]

If the jack of all trades box of powers had a stronger debuff in each one or more total debuffs in each power, then the combined sum of all the debuffs would be good enough to have an impact even when the controls fail.  Doing this really would just be simple numbers tweaks for the devs. 

 

That alone would improve the pairing with any other debuffing set like Traps or Poison, as well as giving it some kind of identity.  The movement slows need to go way up as of right now though: especially if the weird conditional Immob they added remains impossible to proc for most builds.

[Shin Magmus]

Also, the bug was already reported, but Sleep Grenade's patch canceling on initial target death makes testing Arse Control's performance just that much harder.

 

It means you have to both know the bug exists and also play around not-killing certain enemies like pre-buff Rad Emmission toggles.  I also think it's weird this bug is even possible because the power summoned a patch in build 1 and does again in build 3 but isn't ground-targeted for some reason: and ground-targeting for these types of powers is objectively a buff in how and where you can place them.  Enemy-targeting only makes it better in one specific way: which is increasing proc rates via silliness of the game's code.

 

Hot take: if Arse Control was a better set, we wouldn't need a proc-nuke attack to try and make it work.  Sleep Grenade that can't be proc-bused, but that works correctly and can be placed preemptively, would be a buff: then just add more damage to another power to compensate. 

 

To put this in a more damning way: I'm slotting both of the Sleep powers in Arse Control with damage enhancing sets, Slow enhancing sets, and damage procs: because they work better that way.   I'd look at that from a dev perspective as reason for change. 

Edited February 5 by ShinMagmus
Made extra point at bottom.

[UrbanHound]

16 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

Hot take: if Arse Control was a better set, we wouldn't need a proc-nuke attack to try and make it work.  Sleep Grenade that can't be proc-bused, but that works correctly and can be placed preemptively, would be a buff: then just add more damage to another power to compensate. 

 

To put this in a more damning way: I'm slotting both of the Sleep powers in Arse Control with damage enhancing sets, Slow enhancing sets, and damage procs: because they work better that way.   I'd look at that from a dev perspective as reason for change. 

 

I can certainly understand this, or at least the primal need to eke out every opportunity to maximize damage with Arsenal. I've made a few attempts at a lower level Stank Arse (Arse/Poison) to see how it performed without the pet to assist with damage and things did not go favorably. I played at 22 on just paper mishes and I typically get a feel for a combo by starting out at a -1/x2-3 and then ramp it up from there based on how a set performs. But with this combo, and particularly without the Tri-Cannon, I did not feel comfortable raising that starting threshold at all. I tried to stick with basic IOs but started to include procs to help ease the pacing somewhat. I guess Electric Control hasn't made a total masochist of me yet.

 

While I still enjoy the overall vibe of the set, and the control tools it has in its toolbox, I agree that damage is sorely needed. However I will leave it to those with a better mind to the overall game and its modes to find out 'where' you reasonably squeeze that in. I want to do more testing to see how to make better use of Smoke Canister and if it can be more helpful. And just another note that, at this low level and with this specific powerset combination, I didn't have a meaningful way to activate Wet if the use of Wet to setup area containment is the intended missing piece to the damage puzzle.

 

I will definitely be encouraging the missus to roll a high damage Blaster or something similar to ultimately roll this on live. Thankfully she's used to that with my various Electric Controllers. 🙂