Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[stryve]

I feel like my experience has been somewhat different than other frequent posters here, and after watching a few videos I think it's down to build and playstyle.  So, rather than try to describe it in text, I finally took the time to figure out how to record and upload video.  Here's my own test build running the first mission of Yin at 0x8.

 

 

As I've mentioned before, if you can encourage flying enemies to stay close to the ground, they'll still be affected by Liquid Nitrogen;  you can see a Super Stunner do flips a couple times in the first group.  Otherwise, the Stun from Flash Bang combines fairly well with the Slow and KD from Liquid Nitrogen to keep things in the patches.  The Confuse from Smoke Cannister helps too, since they are more likely to turn on each other than start running.  That said, sometimes mobs just run, and flying mobs are the worst for that.

 

First group I lead with Smoke Cannister, Liquid Nitrogen, Flash Bang, then cycled powers at range.  Second and third groups I added Tear Gas in so I could close and use Traps.  I didn't use Sleep Grenade here at all since it wasn't needed, and also because it turns off KD/Damage in Liquid Nitrogen.

 

I did continue the TF, and didn't run into any major trouble until the Reactor Core ambushes.  Had to eat a few greens and re-summon Tri-Cannon once during that, due to losing track of details in the crush.  Once the adds were cleared I used every Slow I had to keep Clamor from running around too much (the combined -Run Speed was very noticeable) and eventually wore her down.  Took 97 minutes to complete, which is pretty long for a TF that often takes 30 minutes with a PUG, but this has never been a fast set.

 

I find that Smoke Cannister is a good opener, since it doesn't notify.  Following up with Liquid Nitrogen, Flash Bang, or even Sleep Grenade tends to trigger the Confuse on everything but bosses immediately.  Mobs on the leading edge sometimes start running towards you after triggering the follow up but before it impacts, which can get them out of the area, but Tri-Cannon usually takes care of them.

 

As for Release Candidate 1, I didn't notice any real difference from Build 4.  Possibly that's because I wasn't seeing the psuedo-pet accuracy issues others have reported, which again comes down to build style.  I tend to favor set-bonuses over procs and hate missing, so I usually slot for accuracy anyway.  Comments about psuedo-pets not inheriting Global Accuracy buffs (like Tactics) just reinforced that choice. 

 

I also agree that adding -Fly to a single target Hold is of limited utility;  it works to keep individual mobs from hovering out reach for Melee powers, but generally by the time you manage to target and hit an escaping mob it's already out of the patches.  Plus, it's often Held anyway.  Sometimes between animation and travel times, it ends up Held out of range from your current position (though this is a more common problem with Teleporting mobs, which isn't limited to Arsenal Control).

Edited February 13 by stryve

[tricon]

Tested a 50 Controller */Traps and a few Dominators */Arsenal Asssault ; */Sonic ; */Savage and a */Fire with this set.

 

Through the normal and incarnate missions+4/x8, Purely from a synergy perspective I like Savage and Sonic the most. Was fun to play them with this set and I will certainly create  a Arsenal Control/Savage Assault char after the issue goes live, with a interesting background. The Arsenal Assault was lacking in more then one way but as I wrote in the ohter thread, the problem could simple be, that I have played  a Huntsman (Bane build) and this set hit more like wet noodle in comparison. Tried a Fire Assault (hover blasting) not my cup of tea and a Controller with traps. This is the only set where I can see the lack of a immobilize has some impact but the old lay down your traps and fold space everything into it works, it"s just to slow for me.

 

  Tranquilizer Ranged, DMG(Toxic), Foe Sleep, -SPD,  never picked up and don"t see a reason why I should ever waste slot for it outsite of the early lvls 1-22

 

  Cryo Freeze Ray  Ranged, Minor DMG(Cold), Foe Hold, -Recharge, -SPD, -Fly , bread and butter, take it and love it.

 

  Sleep Grenade Ranged (Targeted AoE), DMG(Smash), Foe Sleep, -Recharge, -SPD ,  found it a waste to use, Could be usefull in some circumstanced but I play mostly dominator so nope

 

  Liquid Nitrogen  Ranged, Target DoT(Smashing),  -Fly ,  like it, one of the powers that carry this set and I cast this one with smoke canister when needed

 

  Cloaking Device  Toggle: Self Stealth, +DEF(All), I usually I pckup one of these for the def and 7.5% recharge lotg but as I found a bit late, the power is even stronger as expected 

 

  Smoke Canister Ranged (Location AoE), Foe -Perception, -To Hit, Confuse, love it this power is awesome and makes it the biggest reason outside of theme to use this set

 

  Flash Bang  Disorient, -To Hit, what would a Domintor with a aoe stun but this time I used it only as a emergency power 

 

  Tear Gas  Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Hold, -DMG, never picked it up, thanks to the long cooldown I avoid this. Normally I wouild use it for IOs set and as another cc backup

 

  Tri-Cannon  Build Tri-Cannon: Ranged, DMG(Lethal), yeah is not a beauty and dosen"t does a lot of damage but it is TOUGH and he can peel of some of mobs of you, not a bad one

 

 

 

Overall I enjoed the set as a Dominator. The extra weapon options for customization are nice. 

 

Not a fan of the sleep powers and outside of certain points like ambushes I don"t see much use of it. Even if you play lower content like the Posi TF these days I never thought that would be needed here. The last couple times I run through it on the live servers the power would have never needed in a group.

 

So in the end I run my Dominators with Cryo Freeze Ray, Liquid Nitrogen, Cloaking Device, Smoke Canister, Flash Bank and Tri-Cannon and as an example the final mission from the Dream Doctor was a smooth sailing wihtout any kind of stress compared to a Storm Corruptor and Psychic Blaster.

 

I will see if I can find the time to run solo a few TF or do some other stuff to try our harder content.....

 

 

Edited February 14 by tricon

[Sszl]

On 2/13/2024 at 2:26 PM, Captain Powerhouse said:

Hello everyone, thank you all for the feedback provided so far. 

 

We understand this set wont make everyone happy, either performance wise or conceptually. No set will ever be able to fulfill that. This is not the first, nor will be the last, new control set we add, so there will be future opportunities to fulfill different themes.

 

As was noted at some point by other devs, we intentionally don't post about the "vision" of sets because we want to see the set get on players hands and them go wild without pre-established expectations. 

 

Throughout the testing cycle we have seen some of you make this set work very well, and others have a harder time with it. Some of it has been addressed, some of it can't be addressed at this time due to current limitations that we hope will improve in future updates. Other things are simply not compatible with some of your play styles.

 

For the most part, we try to make every new set play somewhat differently, and require different approaches to maximize their potential. This is true with most sets, but it's especially so with control sets where the combat loop is a lot more reactive than it is with standard damage focused sets.

 

Honestly, if every set we introduce can be easily approached using the same tactics as any other set, then we feel that is a big failure. 

 

We do have some internal concerns with the set ourselves, I cant talk much about what we see in the future for it, but things like Controller Containment are things that have not escaped us. That is more of an AT design issue than a set one, and not something we will be able to tackle this page.

 

We are on a release candidate now, but we are not done. We still need to find some bugs, and some additional quality of life features may still make it into the live build. Just please, cope with us, this is a gigantic jenga tower of a game, and modifying any one brick can make the whole tower collapse, so we just cant do everything at once.

 

Do please continue reporting any issues you have with the set, but we ask you remain polite in doing so. 

- Captain Powerhouse

I think this is a great post from CPH and directly addresses at least my core questions about this set, as well as the dev's intended communication style. 

 

On the set and my perception of a gap for Controllers specifically:

• Given that controllers have an inherent bonus for extra damage for immobilized targets, I don't understand the lack of any area immob on this set. I can understand wanting different capabilities in a new set, but this seems inconsistent with the original design of controllers since they have that inherent bonus.
• I would guess dominator is ok since it's damage is not based on that containment bonus. controller design and inherent buff seems inconsistent with this new power set in its current state to me since that inherent bonus is dependent on having the targets immobilized/held/sleep/disoriented.  I'll have to defer to more experienced players for the dominator performance.
• I think almost every other control set either has containment / immob aoe's, or they have a compensating feature, like illusions phantom army, as someone else mentioned. I just haven't heard what the compensating feature is for this new power set, or if the aoe immob is an oversight / miss early in the development. It's not on live yet, obviously so everything can change.  Although it's very close I suppose since the release candidate is loaded on Beta.
• Many players on here are far more experienced that I am, and I am prepared to have devs, players or both disagree with me.  I've just spent some time trying to distill the various points of view to help me understand if the new power set has gaps, or is just a difference in design philosophy.  My conclusion is that for Controllers specifically, the lack of any comparable area containment powers, or other compensating features, make this set uniquely undesirable for Controllers, specifically due to no ability to access their inherent bonus (at least in solo play).
• I do know the new set has a couple of single target immobs, as do the other power sets, but I don't think that compensates enough for the lack of any area immobs for Controllers to access their inherent bonus. (EDIT to correct.  This set does not contain any single target immob's.  I was referencing what the devs have confirmed was a documentation error in the patch notes when I said this.  This documentation error has been corrected since I posted this)

On communication style - I like to hear about product vision on non-game software products, so I was one of the people asking for vision here, but I can understand your desire to see players reactions first.  So some props for being straight forward in responding to that feedback.  I'd still like to know what the vision is for the game and for all new features, but can respect your choice.

 

Thanks again for a great and direct communication - this helps me at least, and I hope others in the community.

Edited February 15 by Sszl

[Shin Magmus]

17 hours ago, stryve said:

I feel like my experience has been somewhat different than other frequent posters here, and after watching a few videos I think it's down to build and playstyle.  So, rather than try to describe it in text, I finally took the time to figure out how to record and upload video.  Here's my own test build running the first mission of Yin at 0x8.

 

I went ahead and watched the video.  Credit where credit is due, I didn't realize that Sleep Grenade was so fundamentally awful and bad that it actually increased how long fights took rather than decreasing it: you successfully managed to not use Sleep Grenade once in this video and it seems to have helped.  I'll be sure to respec out of it (while wishing it was an AoE Immob), and not use it at all on my Arse Controller, since the slow isn't strong enough and it robs significant damage from Liquid Nitrogen.  Thanks for enlightening me about the useless power.  It was my bad for enhancing the slow in it and using it.

[Videra]

I have little feedback left to give as I feel mine isn't particularly useful at this point, but can we please get the erroneous fact that Liquid Nitrogen has an Immobilize component in its power description corrected?

Edit: Typo, sentence structure for clarity.

Edited February 14 by Videra

[Captain Powerhouse]

Clarification: a few builds ago Liquid Nitrogen was changed to no longer suppress its knockdown or damage if the target is asleep. It was documented in the patch notes when it was changed but seems to there is still an erroneous note in the power info about it requiring the target to be awake. That's a bug that will be corrected in a future build.

 

Sleep will not stop Liquid Nitrogen damage from triggering on enemies, and has not for a few builds. 

[Bionic_Flea]

Has anyone noticed that you can target all the patches, except for Liquid Nitro, into the air on flying targets?

 

Why am I getting containment damage on a critter that has no prior mez on it?  All my Arsenal attacks appear to do containment damage by themselves.  Either it's applying the mez before looking for containment and then checking the box or CPH just gave them double damage.  Or am I going crazy?

 

Ignore the rantings of this insect.  The dummy always gives containment damage.

 

Edited February 14 by Bionic_Flea

[Sszl]

I haven't seen this posted before so sharing my feedback on some potential bugs with Arsenal Control interaction with Containment when using the new power set:

 

Test Scenario:  Confirm Containment inherent bonus damage works correctly for Arsenal Control powers Sleep Grenade and Cryo Freeze Ray.

Archtype:  Controller

Power Set:  Arsenal Control

Powers Tested:  Sleep Grenade, Cryo Freeze Ray and Containment (Inherent power)

Summary:  From my testing it seems that Sleep Grenade is either not actually applying Sleep status to targets, or is not interacting with Containment correctly as no other powers tested had extra damage from Containment following Sleep Grenade.

 

Steps to reproduce:

1. Character created with Arsenal Control set on a Controller archtype.  Choose both Sleep Grenade and Cryo Freeze Ray powers by level 3.  This is so you have access to both Sleep and Hold effects as well as a secondary Controller power to use for damaging the target when it is Contained.
2. Find a group of same/similar targets - I used Blood Brother Brawlers and similar of the same levels in Atlas.
3. Use Sleep Grenade and confirm visually that targets are asleep
   1. Bug #1:  Shouldn't Sleep Grenade post a message in the combat chat messages that the target is in Sleep status?  It does not post this message.  Other powers do this, such as Poison Gas Arrow (as shared with me by another helpful community member earlier)
   2. Bug #1a:  Is Sleep Grenade actually applying Sleep status?  If not that would explain Bug #1 above and require a different fix.
      1. Edit to add update - tested again, this time using Power Analyzer per another community member's suggestion and confirmed that Sleep Grenade is applying Sleep Status Effect - it's just not sending the chat message confirming that, so it may also not be actually causing Containment.  If it's not actually causing Containment that would explain why following attacks do not get the inherent Containment bonus damage after Sleep Grenade is used.
4. Use Cryo Freeze Ray to damage a target that is in Sleep status
   1. Bug #2:  Never see an extra damage message from Cryo Freeze Ray to indicate a Containment damage effect on the target that appears to be in Sleep status
5. Use Cryo Freeze Ray to Hold a target, then Cryo Freeze Ray again to damage that target with status Hold, and confirm that I see Containment work.
   1. Results:  Passed.  So Containment does seem to work for Hold effects at least for Cryo Freeze Ray as both Hold and Damage initiator.  See Cryo Freeze Ray messages at these time stamps in log file (attached):  2024-02-14 09:41:22
6. Use Sleep Grenade to establish Containment with Sleep status on targets.  Test if non-control power sets apply Containment damage.  (this is to test if the issue is with the new powers or any powers that should interact with Containment - need to confirm if all damage from the controller will get the Containment bonus, or if only control type powers that do damage get the bonus)
   1. Bug #3:  If all damage done by Controllers are affected by Containment, then there is a Containment bug as I am never seeing Blackwand get extra damage messages on targets in Containment status
   2. If only control type powers give Containment bonus damage by design, then can ignore this section as educational only for me.  I thought it applied to any damage done by a Controller, but it may only apply to Controller damage from Controller powers (so not prestige, incarnate, epic pools, etc. maybe).  Might be worth adding a cosmetic bug to update the in game description for Containment to clarify which powers are affected by Containment when/if the devs ever run out of anything else to do.  Or not. 🙂

Long write up that's hopefully helpful.  In short - Sleep Grenade does not seem to cause Containment for either control powers following it like Cryo Freeze Ray, or for non-Control powers like Blackwand.

 

Questions  welcome.  Thanks!

 

Edit to attach log file.

chatlog 2024-02-14.txt

Edited February 14 by Sszl
edit to add results from using Power Analyzer to confirm Sleep Grenade is applying Sleep

[Frosticus]

Good: patches inheriting caster buffs for short duration. Hopefully ported to all appropriate powers in game eventually.

 

Bad: that (caster buffs) didn't address/resolve base accuracy issues.

Example Smoke Can (base acc 1.0 =75% vs even con)*

*it is not getting the 1.05x weapon bonus

+0 up to +2 = easy enough to hit

+3 and +4 = 98% to 144% acc slotting required respectively  (in power+alpha only)

 

Bad: sleep nade. Still hoping it is returned to build 3 version. The targetted aoe worked properly and dropped a continuous patch for dominators that quickly (almost instantly after impact) put things to sleep. It worked how'd you'd expect. 

 

I'm not too worried about the base acc, I think that will be bumped up in the future after more data mining because even teaming doesn't resolve it.

 

I won't lose sleep over sleep nade because the set has ample control without it.

 

I think people will grow to like smoke can quite a bit and it may make this set well received in time. 

[Shin Magmus]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Has anyone noticed that you can target all the patches, except for Liquid Nitro, into the air on flying targets?

 

Why am I getting containment damage on a critter that has no prior mez on it?  All my Arsenal attacks appear to do containment damage by themselves.  Either it's applying the mez before looking for containment and then checking the box or CPH just gave them double damage.  Or am I going crazy?

 

Because training dummies and Rikti Pylons are permanently immobilized.  The irony...

[Bionic_Flea]

Yeah, I made a stupid.  Already admitted before your post.

 

[stryve]

5 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Clarification: a few builds ago Liquid Nitrogen was changed to no longer suppress its knockdown or damage if the target is asleep. It was documented in the patch notes when it was changed but seems to there is still an erroneous note in the power info about it requiring the target to be awake. That's a bug that will be corrected in a future build.

 

Sleep will not stop Liquid Nitrogen damage from triggering on enemies, and has not for a few builds. 

I completely missed that patch note, and was going off experience with previous builds.  This did inspire me to do some more dedicated testing of Sleep Grenade, and I'm afraid I have to report that it is currently suppressing KD and damage for Liquid Nitrogen.  

 

First, Sleep Grenade followed by Liquid Nitrogen, with my fully kitted level 50:

 

Then, Liquid Nitrogen followed by Sleep Grenade on a level 17 with SOs:

 

As can be seen, as long as the target is asleep Liquid Nitrogen has no effect.  This is also true for Tranquilizer, though I didn't get video of that.

 

I also tested  general effectiveness against a wide variety of groups, with both my level 50 IO and level 15-17 SO builds.  Overall, it seems to work better than I expected for the level 50, considering I have it slotted for Slow, with Intuition Radial Alpha.  Possibly the extra -Run Speed keeps them from running out of the patch as much.  As a disclaimer, I was deliberately pausing to see what happened after firing off Sleep Grenade in most of these videos.

 

That said, it's still not a reliable opener.  Some enemies are more resistant, or you just get a string of bad rolls.

 

The level 15-17 was even less consistent, probably due to lack of available slots.

 

I admit, the early encounters with Vazhilok loom large in my memory.  More of an emotional response, but it definitely affected my opinion of Sleep Grenade.

 

I also tried out combining Smoke Canister with Sleep Grenade.

 

The combination does work, but there's more chance of leakers than Smoke Canister with Liquid Nitrogen, from what I've seen.  I have an encounter with the new high level Council that demonstrates that clearly, with Warwolves just charging straight at me.  Unfortunately I ran into my daily upload limit before getting to that video.  

 

@ShinMagmus:  I can't blame you for feeling that way.  Sleep Grenade had utility while leveling with SOs to help cover Recharge gaps in the other AoE controls, but it was relegated to backup as soon as Liquid Nitrogen became available.  On my full IO build it's mostly there for the set bonuses; the only time I've used it in regular gameplay (not counting all the specific testing I just went over) was Exemplared down for Posi 1, and to stack Slow on Clamor at the end of Yin.

[Captain Powerhouse]

Bugs with sleep and liquid nitrogen should had been addressed in today's build.

[Booper]

47 minutes ago, stryve said:

I completely missed that patch note, and was going off experience with previous builds.  This did inspire me to do some more dedicated testing of Sleep Grenade, and I'm afraid I have to report that it is currently suppressing KD and damage for Liquid Nitrogen.  

Can you confirm if your videos are tests from Release Candidate 1, or from Release Candidate 2 that went out about an hour ago?

[stryve]

9 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Bugs with sleep and liquid nitrogen should had been addressed in today's build.

Aha, all my testing was done yesterday and earlier this morning; took me a while to get videos uploaded and the post written.

 

Just ran the update and hopped back on:  I am happy to report sleep is no longer suppressing KD and damage for Liquid Nitrogen.  I can also report that Sleep Grenade is no longer taking several seconds on average to actually apply Sleep.

 

I am still seeing the glitch where Sleep Grenade just kinda cancels itself without triggering anything, though.  Won't be able to upload new video until tomorrow, but the visuals haven't changed from my post to the Bug Thread:

 

Something I forgot to mention in my last post:  I was seeing the double damage for Containment on targets in Sleep Grenade with Tranquilizer, Cryo Freeze Ray, and Toxic Dart even before todays update.  Now I also saw a big "Containment" notification.  I keep forgetting to check the Combat Logs, so that's just what displays onscreen.

[Shin Magmus]

20 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Bugs with sleep and liquid nitrogen should had been addressed in today's build.

The set... actually works now?  The set works?  THE SET WORKS!

 

[WindDemon21]

19 hours ago, stryve said:

Aha, all my testing was done yesterday and earlier this morning; took me a while to get videos uploaded and the post written.

 

Just ran the update and hopped back on:  I am happy to report sleep is no longer suppressing KD and damage for Liquid Nitrogen.  I can also report that Sleep Grenade is no longer taking several seconds on average to actually apply Sleep.

 

I am still seeing the glitch where Sleep Grenade just kinda cancels itself without triggering anything, though.  Won't be able to upload new video until tomorrow, but the visuals haven't changed from my post to the Bug Thread:

 

Something I forgot to mention in my last post:  I was seeing the double damage for Containment on targets in Sleep Grenade with Tranquilizer, Cryo Freeze Ray, and Toxic Dart even before todays update.  Now I also saw a big "Containment" notification.  I keep forgetting to check the Combat Logs, so that's just what displays onscreen.

I've noticed this on other aoe sleeps as well. Actually just 20 minutes ago on my earth controller with salt crystals, started the mob with it, but NOTHING happened, nothing at all. It was just me starting the mob, so no damage or anything was affecting it from sleeping the mob.

 

There still seems an inherent issue with the confuse as well where you have to actually damage the mobs in order for the sleep to occur. Any chance, if not just making it work like static field but confuse instead of sleep, which is the best way to go with this power, but if not at LEAST make it so any type of enemy interaction, ie debuffs etc, will also trigger the confuse? I'm betting a lot of testing is being done with arse/traps where acid mortar etc is skewing how much it's doing to confuse, but if you try with a different combo you'll notice, at least I have, that the confuse comes MUCH less often because of the weird "have to damage the enemy" component to making the confuse trigger.

 

Glad the sleep is fixed, but the confuse cannister is easily in the core powers that will be relied upon each mob so it really needs to work.

[Beldath]

On 2/13/2024 at 12:25 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

Care to elaborate?

 

Oh!  Is it that critters are running away from caltrops because you have no immob, but are still killing everything just as fast as your fire with an awesome immob?

 

Okay, I'll take the bite. No, it isn't even close, Arse control is failing at one of the more important aspects of a controller which is to keep the enemies close to each other so that the team's AoE can effectively hit them all. If you take a closer look, you can tell all his CC options are Soft CC, and he is breaking his own sleep by tick damage. Furthermore, in his Fire/FF video most of his damage is coming from the Fire/ control, where as in the Arse/Traps a vast majority is coming from /Traps and experimental pool. He does in fact have his pet out in the Arse control video as well named Bullet Bill, it's just that unimpactful. Furthermore, just to get containment, he had to slot the Controller IO to make the orbs, which is horribly inconsistent. Arse/Traps had far more going for it defensive, offensive, and CC wise due to having /traps instead of /ff, yet it still struggles to keep up taking over 20 more seconds to kill two groups, with a lot more mob spread. You could achieve what was done in the Arse/ video with any standard control set with /traps, but it would be slightly more effective. He was losing out about half of his damage due to his inability to proc containment, and Arse/ isn't doing enough damage to make up for it.

[Shin Magmus]

This video is the same repeatable expectable mission 1 of Yin TF on the same settings I tested last time.  The only difference is that I respecced to just almost completely max everything out on damage (at the expense of Control in some spots), and abuse procs like crazy: Tranq Dart has 4 damage procs now.  Now that Sleep Grenade works (except when it completely disappears, but I'm going to discuss that at the end) and no longer has anti-synergy with Liquid Nitrogen, I am able to see the damage that Liquid Nitrogen should be doing.  Up until this point, my performance was being passively hampered by using Sleep Grenade at all: Because of this, I also wasn't enhancing Liquid Nitrogen for damage because its damage sucked in those conditions.  Freed from those shackles. Liquid Nitrogen is now performing reasonably well.  I agree that the Confuse might not be the best opener in the world, but in realistic terms you could skip that power and start almost every fight with Flashbang since it's a 90s CD Stun.  I'm happy that the ToHit debuff in the Confuse is stronger at least, so it has use as a debuff regardless of the CC.  I tried to show just Sleep Grenade + Liquid Nitrogen a bit in the first fight, because the interaction when things work is actually pretty good if you get lucky: it's possible for enemies to get Re-Slept as they are getting back up and then Knocked down in an inescapable loop.  This won't be as practical on teams where everyone breaks the Sleep instantly, but it's nice to see a solo lockdown loop that works.

As for the Sleep Grenade completely disappearing, I was able to encounter this once during my testing.  I wasn't recording, and I wasn't even targeting enemies.  I was messing with power color customization and testing it by the tailor, and on one of my casts the Sleep Grenade fizzled out almost instantly and never left its lingering cloud FX.  It looked like what Stryve showed, and then I kept clicking tons of buttons in random orders trying to duplicate the glitch... but I never could.

[WindDemon21]

43 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

I agree that the Confuse might not be the best opener in the world, but in realistic terms you could skip that power and start almost every fight with Flashbang since it's a 90s CD Stun. 

Problem, then though, the set is just like almost any other, it's basically earth control only worse at that point. The confuse is clearly meant as kinda the niche/crutch power so it really should be working properly for all combos damage or not, or like i said it SHOULD just proc the confuse like static field procs sleep.

[Shin Magmus]

We're also all still trying to test it solo, near universally... which is fine (and it highlights the issues with the Confuse that you're mentioning), but I think the Confuse might perform very differently in full team scenarios.  With 7 other players all attacking the enemies... and imagine if one of them is a Mastermind, it might swing the other direction and be insane.  The main thing I don't know about the Confuse mechanics is the "lockout" period between rolls for Confuse, when an enemy takes damage while in the area of effect.  It's "like" almost any other Control set except that it focuses on patches more, and at least all the powers work now.  Earth Control and Ice Control are both similar, but Earth Control can't Confuse and Ice Control can't stun: and no other Control set can debuff damage: which will only come into play on AV and GM fights but it's still something for Tear Gas to do.

[stryve]

Did some more Sleep Grenade testing at both low and high levels on Release Candidate 2.  First, I finally had the Combat Log open when Sleep Grenade failed to trigger:  looks like there's a To Hit check when Sleep Grenade is fired, and if it misses nothing else happens.  95% chance to hit with one +3 Acc SO, so it's no wonder we weren't seeing it often.  Also posted over in Bug Reports.

 

Decided to see what Sleep Grenade looked like right out of the box, so I went Street Sweeping in Atlas Park at level 4.  Only a single Acc SO slotted here.  A little dicey on such a large group, but it worked.

 

Next jumped to level 5 so I could slot one Sleep and one Recharge SO as well.  This went a lot more smoothly.

 

Still have to be wary of Bosses, or other Sleep resistant mobs, but still pretty smooth.  Also at level 5, 0x4 Lost with Bosses. (not shown is the first try against this group, where Sleep Grenade missed and I didn't notice.  Que frantic fleeing).

 

Jump up to level 10 to see how things work with Liquid Nitrogen.  I reiterate: still have to be wary of Bosses.  Especially when there's two in a group.  The rest of the group was held up enough to recover, though.  0x4 Hellions with Bosses.

 

Last of the low level tests was my old nemesis (not to be confused with Nemesis),  Vazhilok.  Sleep Grenade really showcased it's improvements over Build 4 here, though Smoke Canister helped as well.  Level 16 0x4 Vazhilok with bosses, though none in this group.

 

On the high end, I started with a +1x8 Safeguard Mission.  The Arachnos bank robbers were a bit too frantic of a fight to showcase Sleep Grenade, so I went and found a nice group of Carines outside.  Deliberately restricted myself to just Smoke Canister, Liquid Nitrogen, and Sleep Grenade until most of the group was down.  +1x8 Carnival of Shadows with bosses.

 

Next I took on the new Council.  Didn't restrict myself as much here, but still shows how much of a group can be shut down just with Arsenal Control.  +1x8 Council with bosses.

 

Finally, an unrestricted run against new Circle of Thorns at max difficulty.  +4x8 Circle of Thorns with bosses.

 

Overall I have to say Sleep Grenade is now in a pretty good place.  With only minor slotting it's very reliable at low levels, and remains useful all the way to end game (though I still prefer slotting for Slow rather than Sleep at 50).  This obviously will be subjective, depending on playstyle and player preference.  I haven't tested things with a team yet, but I expect it to be at least as effective as Static Field from Electric Control, which I do consider worth using in teams.

 

I saw some complaints early on about damaging sleeps, but personally I like that three of the five AoE powers in Arsenal Control can reliably trigger Smoke Canister's Confusion.  Only Smoke Canister itself and Tear Gas can't.  It wouldn't really make sense for the former, and the recharge is too long to pull it off anyway.  For the later, there isn't much use for Confusion when the enemies are busy purging their last three meals.

[Shin Magmus]

33 minutes ago, stryve said:

Did some more Sleep Grenade testing at both low and high levels on Release Candidate 2.  First, I finally had the Combat Log open when Sleep Grenade failed to trigger:  looks like there's a To Hit check when Sleep Grenade is fired, and if it misses nothing else happens.  95% chance to hit with one +3 Acc SO, so it's no wonder we weren't seeing it often.  Also posted over in Bug Reports.

If I understand this game's spaghetti code power execution like I think I do, then they just need to add an autohit flag to the "carrier" power that plants Sleep Grenade's psuedopets onto the ground.  For a lot of patch (psuedopet) powers, if you check City of Data, the power that comes up first is just a carrier.  It creates an entity and that entity has to be clicked on and looked at independently to see all the real power effects.  Hopefully the devs making sure all of the carriers are flagged as autohit is a simple fix.

[Vinceq98]

I am soo damn pleased with the changes from this set. I never would have thought the devs would update a set to be past average and I have to say ARSE control aint arse at all. Im soo excited to play this set. TY TY!!!

[Booper]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

If I understand this game's spaghetti code power execution like I think I do, then they just need to add an autohit flag to the "carrier" power that plants Sleep Grenade's psuedopets onto the ground.  For a lot of patch (psuedopet) powers, if you check City of Data, the power that comes up first is just a carrier.  It creates an entity and that entity has to be clicked on and looked at independently to see all the real power effects.  Hopefully the devs making sure all of the carriers are flagged as autohit is a simple fix.

This is a good guess, and is the first thing I'd check. But I think the issue is something else. Should be a simple fix once we get a look at the details. In the meantime, maybe test blaster glue arrow and see if you see a similar bug. Glue arrow may not be a great example as the pet is autohit, but I'm blanking on foe targeted pseudopets that create a patch that isn't auto-hit. If you can think of one, do try it.