Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[Heartsong928]

Gun drone getting lost - 

I made an Arsenal/Storm controller, which is nutty kinds of fun.  But I keep losing the gun drone.  Could it be Steamy Mist, or does it normally get lost when you take an elevator?

[MagicalAct]

1 hour ago, Dispari said:

 

What numbers being buffed would solve the issues of having to pick a sleep at 1 no matter what, having a power with a 45 second recharge at 1, not being able to make enemies stay in patches that the set revolves around, sleep conflicting with several other powers in the set, and not having enough powers that work with Domination/Containment?

I have no problem with them swapping the st hold with the aoe sleep. Tranq needs to have its' damage increased. It should be right behind Gravity, Illusion, Mind in ST damage. Make the hold have a minor slow and take slow sets for more procability. 

 

As for the enemies escaping the patches, I haven't had that problem. Everything is dead long before liquid nitrogen runs out. Flashbang is extremely proccable, people have been doing the same with the sleep as well although I haven't messed with that. So with enough recharge you have 2 proc bombs that are up every fight. You have an aoe stun, aoe sleep, and aoe hold to set up containment at the start of fights. Does it really need an AoE immob? I rather like that it's a different feeling control set and would hate for that to disappear.

[Vinceq98]

This powerset needs severe tuning. Otherwise ARSE control has very little appeal and hardly any bonuses over other powersets. Controllers and Dominators are pretty seldom played. I thought a new powerset is supposed to entice players to the AT not drive them away.

Edited January 22 by Vinceq98

[SaxyGuitar]

So I did a look over of the animations and read the stats before bed. I was wondering why the Hold power is base off Cryo Ray instead of that mid game (I want to say) Council Marksman that has a Cyro Shot with a chance to hold. I believe that enemy just uses the standard Marksmen shooting animation.

 

But overall 1st look is interesting and makes me want to mess with it. So I will haha.

[Cyclone Jack]

No matter what, Cryo Freeze Ray needs to be bumped into the 2nd slot.  To me, that just seems like an oversight.  Also, maybe tone down the glowing trail after effect a bit. 😉

 

I would also suggest adding a Slow and -Recharge to Tranquilizer (I mean, it is a tranq after all), which would make it useful on Bosses and the such, especially since you can't stack any of the Sleeps.

 

Now for a potentially controversial question.  Would it be possible to change Liquid Nitrogen from Ice Slick to Ice Patch, thus lowering the recharge from 90s to 35s?  And would something like this be something players would want?  This could sort of alleviate some of the long recharge issues for the early-to-mid game, and for late game instead of having one large patch it would allow players to place multiple small patches.

 

Another oddball thought (its late, sue me 😂).  Liquid Nitrogen looks like it could be a cone attack, so maybe make it a cone Immobilize?  I'd still want the Ice Slick KD, so maybe replace Cloaking Device with it?  I mean, Cloak is literally just Stealth from the Power Pool, so of all the powers listed, its the one I would replace with a hard control for Containment/Domination, and I'd want it to be a low-recharge ability, something the set is sorely lacking.  Yeah, I'm just spit-balling ideas now to maybe spark an idea of creativity from someone else. 🤣

 

Don't get me wrong, I want this set to work.  I came up with a PPD EAT (similar to VEATS in design) way back in the day that had a SWAT set focused primarily on AoE Grenades, though it was more Defendery and focused on debuffs, so the idea of a gadget-based Control set is right up my alley.  I'm sure this set is fine at level cap, but power sets need to be designed with leveling in mind, and that's where this set suffers, IMO.  Well, that and with the Containment/Domination issues.

 

Edited January 22 by Cyclone Jack

[MagicalAct]

7 hours ago, Dispari said:

 

What numbers being buffed would solve the issues of having to pick a sleep at 1 no matter what, having a power with a 45 second recharge at 1, not being able to make enemies stay in patches that the set revolves around, sleep conflicting with several other powers in the set, and not having enough powers that work with Domination/Containment?

Actually after thinking some more if you're that worried about how the sleep plays with the rest of the set, why not just remove the damage aspect of liquid nitrogen? It'd be like old school ice slick. Enemies would either be falling from the ice slick or slept by the sleeping grenade if you stacked them. And I've not really noticed the damage aspect of liquid compared to everything else once slotted so I'd be happy to give it up.

[Greycat]

Swear people don't know how to use sleeps with all the "worst in the game" talk. They're damn useful. Yes, even if damage breaks a sleep right away, when the sleep htis (the current issue, with it not taking effect) knocks off some otherwise problematic powers/armors. And they do *not* get to turn them back on right away. Sleep is often a notable weakness for enemies, even before it was autohiit. Though, yes, I can see the argument for swapping with the hold as the T2 for early containment setup for controllers.

 

I don't think it particularly needs "more" added to it - I mean, it's autohit. Took a level 1 dom in to Brickstown and... 100% hit rate on stuff 30+ levels over me. Granted, it had little to no effect (especially with the sleep not taking hold - which it looks like is known, after all,) but - autohit, knocks off armors/-tohit powers/toggles with a momentary sleep (once fixed,) takes ranged and sleep sets... even a non-"build" user like me is thinking "... so what procs can this take, and how many, and how silly abusable will this be?"

[Dispari]

Sleep is not completely useless, it has its moments, but you have to know it's regularly skipped in most sets, and is basically useless 99% of the time in any team content. You can manufacture scenarios where sleep is useful, but it's very difficult to have much use in an AoE-centric meta where Interface is ticcing DoTs on all enemies at all times. The common pairings of the set in Arsenal Assault and Traps also have AoE DoTs. The set already has an AoE stun, AoE hold, and AoE -perception/confuse if you want to keep extra mobs under control. The few cases where people do use sleeps regularly, it's for the secondary effects (like Static Field), which could easily just be in a different power that's more widely usable.

 

Nobody is saying sleep has no use at all, but is it what the set needs? It lowers the damage of the set by disabling damage other powers would do, the set has plenty of AoE mez already, it's yet another power that doesn't interact with your inherent (Controllers especially as mentioned have no reliable way to set up Containment), and it's one of too many powers with a long recharge so you have basically no quick recharging powers to use at any level range.

You could solve some of the problems by moving it down to 8 like it is in Mind Control, and accepting most people will skip it like they already do in other sets, which is fine. But there are still problems with the set and places where it is lacking that just rearranging powers won't fix.

[Voltak]

18 hours ago, FupDup said:

The point of being rifle-based is that it allows natural-origin Controllers and Dominators to be a thing. Normal unpowered humans can't create cages of electricity or fire just by training real hard. They can, however, pick up a gun. 

This is an important point.  In our group, which is a group to do hard mode content, many times I cannot bring any of my Dominators or Controllers .  WHY?    Because we have not had yet any power set that is a "Natural " or "Enhanced combat" category.  
It would not fit any of the themes we were going to run.  

FINALLY the wait is over.  

Finally we got Assault Rifle themes or Enhanced combat themes.  

We needed this.   

[Voltak]

7 hours ago, Vinceq98 said:

 Controllers and Dominators are pretty seldom played. I thought a new powerset is supposed to entice players to the AT not drive them away.

The vastly biggest reason for this is that these ATs are among the most difficult to play. 
The other main reason is that most players play the straight up dmg dealers, which , again, are also the EASIEST ATs to play with.  

This is closely linked to the fact that the vast majority of players in the game only play CoH in EXTREMELY EASY MODE.   

They are not interested in playing very challenging stuff.
Most players will not ever be interested in playin CoH the hard way.  
That's not the fault of the game developers at all. 

I know people that the only thing they do is 

FARM
Do ITF kill most 
Do some of the incarnate trials 
Do Radio missions 

that's it. 

In other words , the easiest and most brainless things to do in the game. 
For such things straight up dmg dealers and dmg buff ATs are played. 

So how Arsenal Dominators are built will not have anything to do on how attractive the AT becomes for such a group of players. 


There are other players who like a better challenge 
There are other players who like ATs that are a lot more of a finesse , tactically, and strategically, to play.  

 

Edited January 22 by Voltak

[Sovera]

Well, you're arguing to keep it as is for the nichest of nichies niches, so the 0.5% of the content. It's a solid argument if dev time is devoted towards the 0.5% and the players are told 'yeah, well, you know, it sucks for everything, but, if you decide being one of the dozen people who do X content then definitely take Y. It will still be useless for 99.5% of the content but you will shine in the 0.5%'.

 

Perhaps a middle ground can be reached which is what people are asking, and this is the time to get it because once the set is shipped it will not be touched any time soon.

 

And go easy on the sneering for the easiest content in CoH BS, you're acting like an hipster turning their nose up at people who don't drink soy milk hand pressed by virgins from Guatemala.

Edited January 22 by Sovera

[Cyclone Jack]

3 hours ago, MagicalAct said:

Actually after thinking some more if you're that worried about how the sleep plays with the rest of the set, why not just remove the damage aspect of liquid nitrogen? It'd be like old school ice slick. Enemies would either be falling from the ice slick or slept by the sleeping grenade if you stacked them. And I've not really noticed the damage aspect of liquid compared to everything else once slotted so I'd be happy to give it up.

Double-checking the Detailed Info, and doing some testing, Liquid Nitrogen will not affect targets affected by Sleep.  Every aspect of Liquid Nitrogen specifically states "While target is awake."  So it seems they already thought of that. 😉

 

And with some extra testing, I can confirm.  I had two enemies on Liquid Nitrogen, and only one of them was within Sleep Grenade.  The awake guy was a fish out of water, the asleep guy was asleep.  Also of note, enemies on Liquid Nitrogen flopping around and taking damage will immediately stop flopping and taking damage when Sleep grenade is applied.  So, in a way, Sleep Grenade "interrupts" Liquid Nitrogen.

Edited January 22 by Cyclone Jack

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

 

 

And go easy on the sneering for the easiest content in CoH BS, you're acting like an hipster turning their nose up at people who don't drink soy milk hand pressed by virgins from Guatemala.

Brother, I am not even trying to do that.  

But do please try to understand where I am coming from.  

Why push the devs or critique them in this creation which is a creation made in a game that it is just too damn easy to play ?  

For how the game is right now, most of it super easy, anything can work , yep, anything. 

So, for my view, it can be adjusted for more difficult content, but for the vast majority of the game, the set as is works to get the mission done. 

I would add domination to the confuse  , like all confuse powers, but even if that is not made, it works fine for a game that is too easy to play and the vast majority of players play the game that way.  

To each his own or her own.  
I am not looking down, but actually kind of giving the positives of the set as is. 
 

Edited January 22 by Voltak

[MagicalAct]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Jack said:

Double-checking the Detailed Info, and doing some testing, Liquid Nitrogen will not affect targets affected by Sleep.  Every aspect of Liquid Nitrogen specifically states "While target is awake."  So it seems they already thought of that. 😉

 

And with some extra testing, I can confirm.  I had two enemies on Liquid Nitrogen, and only one of them was within Sleep Grenade.  The awake guy was a fish out of water, the asleep guy was asleep.  Also of note, enemies on Liquid Nitrogen flopping around and taking damage will immediately stop flopping and taking damage when Sleep grenade is applied.  So, in a way, Sleep Grenade "interrupts" Liquid Nitrogen.

I should have noticed that. There's even less of an arguement that the aoe sleep doesn't belong then. It fits the set perfectly fine.

[Cyclone Jack]

16 minutes ago, MagicalAct said:

I should have noticed that. There's even less of an arguement that the aoe sleep doesn't belong then. It fits the set perfectly fine.

Yeah, my problem isn't the AoE Sleep, other than where it is on the list; imagine picking up Sleep Grenade as your first power and then entering the Tutorial. 😬😖😭 My issue is with 2 of the 1st 4 powers having a 45s and 90s cooldown.  That would be like Fireball having a 45s cooldown and RoF a 90s cooldown.  Blasters would be all "WTF is this!?" 🤣 Yes, I understand that most Control sets have mostly long cooldowns, but those are typically not within the 1st 3-4 powers.

 

I'm guessing most people here are bumping to 50, IOing out, and saying "This is fine," which ignores the casual player leveling experience.  This set needs a 3rd fast-recharging ability, at the very least, and I don't mean Cloaking Device. 😉 Even Earth Control, the set with the most long-recharge powers, has 3 fast-recharging abilities early on (the 1st 3 abilities, in fact), and all of them work with Containment/Domination.  These are the bread and butter of the set, and used every single fight.

Edited January 22 by Cyclone Jack

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Jack said:

Yeah, my problem isn't the AoE Sleep, other than where it is on the list; imagine picking up Sleep Grenade as your first power and then entering the Tutorial. 😬😖😭 My issue is with 2 of the 1st 4 powers having a 45s and 90s cooldown.  That would be like Fireball having a 45s cooldown and RoF a 90s cooldown.  Blasters would be all "WTF is this!?" 🤣 Yes, I understand that most Control sets have mostly long cooldowns, but those are typically not within the 1st 3-4 powers.

 

I'm guessing most people here are bumping to 50, IOing out, and saying "This is fine," which ignores the casual player leveling experience.  This set needs a 3rd fast-recharging ability, at the very least, and I don't mean Cloaking Device. 😉 Even Earth Control, the set with the most long-recharge powers, has 3 fast-recharging abilities early on (the 1st 3 abilities, in fact), and all of them work with Containment/Domination.  These are the bread and butter of the set, and used every single fight.

I can certainly see this.  I, for the purpose of grinding, I would jump on board with your suggestion. 

[KaizenSoze]

I think we have reached the point in discussion that folks should just post videos.

 

Talk is cheap, videos are worth 1000 posts.

 

Look up OBS if you don't have recording software. It's easy to use.

[Voltak]

55 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

I think we have reached the point in discussion that folks should just post videos.

 

Talk is cheap, videos are worth 1000 posts.

 

Look up OBS if you don't have recording software. It's easy to use.

Kaizen, this idea was proven to be important to us when we tried to do all Dominator runs for the ITF 4 star 
or 
For the blasters/Dominator runs 
or 
for the Controller/Dominator runs 

The TWINs fight , after figuring out that once split up, it was only a matter of time before the other Twin who was out of the fight automatically directed his attention to us and joined the other twin for the fight... 
... so once that was established a while ago , then when we could, when we had Dominators with Sleep, we figured we give the try to sleeping the one that was alone, to make sure he was totally out of the fight until the other Twin was dead. 

This idea then surged up again for the theme runs of natural or enhanced combat sets, like Arsenal now is.  

The Purple Protection Triangles do not include sleep protection.  

If needed, the sleeps could be stacked using multiple Doms to get the same effect if needed. 

I am posting in good faith here. 
Just trying to give some optimist vibes concerning this new Dominator set and the use of the sleeps.  

 

[KaizenSoze]

2 minutes ago, Voltak said:

Kaizen, this idea was proven to be important to us when we tried to do all Dominator runs for the ITF 4 star 

I am posting in good faith here. 
Just trying to give some optimist vibes concerning this new Dominator set and the use of the sleeps.  

 

I trust your experience. It's just easier to show than tell. I have seen too many of these conversations go on for pages, where a little bit of video would have made the point.

[Tex Connor]

TL;DR - Smoke Canister seems to not know what it wants to be.

Did some testing last night, comparing Smoke Canister to the Psy Dominator powers Confuse (single target) and Mass Confusion (targeted AoE).  I used newly minted 50s on the Brainstorm server with no enhancements.

• Smoke Canister: Mobs mostly just stood still. On two occasions I saw one - I repeat one - mob attack a nearby mob. Those two fought; the remaining mobs in the group stood idly by.  I attacked a "smoked" mob with Burst on two other occasions - in both cases that mob ran over and attacked me, not its cohorts.
• Confuse: The mob immediately attacked another mob in the group, and all the mobs in the group attacked the Confused mob. This is consistent with the behavior I saw on Live.
• Mass Confusion: Glorious shenanigans as the mobs all attacked each other. This is consistent with the behavior I saw on Live.

 

I'll be happy to demonstrate this behavior to any who wish to see it first-hand.

[Cyclone Jack]

8 minutes ago, Voltak said:

The Purple Protection Triangles do not include sleep protection.  

If needed, the sleeps could be stacked using multiple Doms to get the same effect if needed. 

I am posting in good faith here. 
Just trying to give some optimist vibes concerning this new Dominator set and the use of the sleeps.  

I think the problem in this case is that, while Sleep Grenade or Tranq could be used to start the Sleep stack, neither of them can be used to stack it, since they both deal damage on application, thus breaking the Sleep.  I used to use Frozen Aura on my Ice/Ice Blaster back in the day, because I could quickly and easily stack it on bosses since it did no damage.  It was a huge mitigation tool when things went sideways, and I fully appreciate the power of Sleeps.

 

Hmm, that got me thinking...  Would Sleep Duration Enhancements increase the duration of the AoE, or the duration of the individual sleeps inside the AoE?  If the latter, I wonder if by doubling the Sleep Duration you could get it to self-stack.  I may have to make a new character and bump them to 50 for some good IO Sets and see if that works (but I'll have to do that after work. 🤣), unless someone else wants to give that a test.

[Voltak]

41 minutes ago, Cyclone Jack said:

I think the problem in this case is that, while Sleep Grenade or Tranq could be used to start the Sleep stack, neither of them can be used to stack it, since they both deal damage on application, thus breaking the Sleep.  I used to use Frozen Aura on my Ice/Ice Blaster back in the day, because I could quickly and easily stack it on bosses since it did no damage.  It was a huge mitigation tool when things went sideways, and I fully appreciate the power of Sleeps.

 

Hmm, that got me thinking...  Would Sleep Duration Enhancements increase the duration of the AoE, or the duration of the individual sleeps inside the AoE?  If the latter, I wonder if by doubling the Sleep Duration you could get it to self-stack.  I may have to make a new character and bump them to 50 for some good IO Sets and see if that works (but I'll have to do that after work. 🤣), unless someone else wants to give that a test.

Diversified teams was no issue, Doms could not repeat power sets. 
When enhanced combat is the rule then Mind and Arsenal could stack with Arsenal reapplying 

Also, to repeat, the sleep reapplies itself, this worked great with elec and arsenal together.  

 

[MagicalAct]

1 hour ago, Tex Connor said:

TL;DR - Smoke Canister seems to not know what it wants to be.

Did some testing last night, comparing Smoke Canister to the Psy Dominator powers Confuse (single target) and Mass Confusion (targeted AoE).  I used newly minted 50s on the Brainstorm server with no enhancements.

• Smoke Canister: Mobs mostly just stood still. On two occasions I saw one - I repeat one - mob attack a nearby mob. Those two fought; the remaining mobs in the group stood idly by.  I attacked a "smoked" mob with Burst on two other occasions - in both cases that mob ran over and attacked me, not its cohorts.
• Confuse: The mob immediately attacked another mob in the group, and all the mobs in the group attacked the Confused mob. This is consistent with the behavior I saw on Live.
• Mass Confusion: Glorious shenanigans as the mobs all attacked each other. This is consistent with the behavior I saw on Live.

 

I'll be happy to demonstrate this behavior to any who wish to see it first-hand.

So Smoke Cannister is pretty different from those powers despite being a confuse as well. It doesn't alert enemies when deployed, but it doesn't trigger the patch to start confusing until you aggro the group. I have it slotted mainly as a to hit debuff but it still confuses multiple targets no problem. I think the way you're engaging the -to hit and perception is causing only a small portion of the mob to be aggroed. I start with smoke and then immediately go into flashbang or sleep, followed by liquid nitrogen so the whole mob is aggroed everytime.

[Tex Connor]

46 minutes ago, MagicalAct said:

So Smoke Cannister is pretty different from those powers despite being a confuse as well

You have a gift for understatement 😉

 

And it's true that I wasn't using it as part of an attack chain - I wanted to do an "apples to apples" comparison of Smoke Canister to the Psy Dom Confuse power.  That's why I had no slots in either, as well.  I'll take it for a spin this evening and test it as you suggested to see if that makes Arsenal Dominator less of a "non-starter".

[Shin Magmus]

I hate damaging sleeps.  I hate damaging sleeps.  I HATE damaging sleeps that literally force me to nerf my character and intentionally run an inferior Interface proc just so my power can work. 

 

We already have 2 really good Sleep Control sets in Mind and Elec.  This is so unnecessary.  This... guys I'm not going to mince words here: just give this set a ST Immob and an AoE Immob and completely drop the Sleeps, and it's fixed (enough). The idea that this set is supposed to be paired with a gun Assault set with Ignite as the capstone is uh... really genuinely bad if the enemy can just walk out of my Ignite.

 

Even if I wanted to make a Gun Dominator with the new Assault set, I'd just pick a real Control set that actually stops enemy movement consistently and keeps them in my Ignite: probably Earth Control.