Focused Feedback: Arsenal Control

[arcane]

3 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

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.

The Ignite patch is now a typically negligible part of the power, FYI. Its single target damage is the highlight, and the power no longer requires immobilizes to get great use out of it. You sound like you’re still thinking of old Ignite.

Edited January 22 by arcane

[Draeth Darkstar]

Overall I love that the theme of this set finally introduces our first equipment-based control set and gives us an option for a no-powers Controller. That said, I think the current power line-up has some serious room for improvement, especially on the lower end, though, to get it to a point where it will be reasonably competitive with the bulk of the Control sets. The set feels all but unplayable on a Controller to me due to the lack of Containment options on an archetype that is already desperately behind on the damage curve.

 

Tranquilizer: A single-target sleep is very high on my list of powers I would never want. The only time I have ever taken a power like this is Mind Control > Mesmerize, and only because it can be stacked with the AoE Sleep that doesn't do damage.

 

I would much, much rather see Cryo Freeze Ray here.

 

Sleep Grenade: An AoE sleep that does damage trumps Tranquilizer as the #1 power I do not want. Not being able to stack this with itself or Tranquilizer makes it so limited in use I honestly can't think of why I would ever take it. The anti-synergy with Liquid Nitrogen also feels really bad from a psych perspective.

 

If this were replaced by an AoE Immobilize, the whole set would instantly feel much better to play.

 

Cryo Freeze Ray: An unremarkable single-target hold; a staple of Control sets and fine as-is. It's a little weird to me that it doesn't have a slow component when practically every other ice-themed power in the game does, though.

 

As I said before, I would much rather see this be the 1st power option. I really dislike the choice between two Sleep powers that I do not want. I know it's less unique, but the set would just be better and more enjoyable if it were ST Hold, ST Immobilize, AOE Immobilize like most others.

 

Liquid Nitrogen: I love Ice Slick and I love this. It's not the best power in the world, but it's a lot of fun.

 

The short text description of this power erroneously states it does smashing damage. It also says it does -Fly, which the power details do not; I'm not sure which of those two is wrong, I didn't have time to find something to fly into it, but I'm guessing it's the short description because Ice Slick doesn't do -Fly and this seems to basically be that.

 

Cloaking Device: Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I like having weird utility powers in Control sets and I like the stealth in Illusion too.

 

This is fine as it is if the sleep powers get replaced with Immobilizes. If either Sleep power has to stay I would rather have an AoE immobilize and then a ST immobilize before this. The set just doesn't have enough actual control to be a functional Control set right now with two sleeps and a stealth.

 

Smoke Canister:  An AoE Confuse is always welcome. The debuffs attached to it make a certain amount of thematic sense, but they also make the power worse at being a Confuse.

 

I would be fine with that if the set had better damage elsewhere and an effective way to set up containment, but it doesn't have either, which makes this underwhelming when it would be the centerpiece of the set otherwise.

 

Flash Bang: Again, unremarkable but effective; feels like the Fire disorient, which is a good thing. Again, really would be a lot less annoying to use if the set had an AoE immobilize.

 

Tear Gas: Another stock example of a Control staple, the AoE hold with an excessively long cooldown. Of all the stock Control staples to pick for this set, this is the last one that I would have asked for and it's the one that most often gets skipped in other sets. There's nothing wrong with this power in a vacuum, it's just not what the set desperately wants to feel more playable.

 

Gun Drone: Completely subjective, but I have always hated the way this thing looks. It's goofy. It looks too low tech to be something out of a comic book technologist's arsenal but too inexplicable in function to be a real toy for a natural character either.

[Frosticus]

My video recorder keeps crashing, but this is easily shown through 2 screens. I'm slightly aggravated that this needs to be further explained.

 

Has PToD with sleep hole (not all AV's have this hole)

 

Apply sleep grenade (3 acc, 3 sleeps)

Proceed to get attacked like you did nothing

 

Even though quite a few AV's have a sleep hole you need they still have base boss level protection, so mag 3 won't mez them. 

Sleep grenade does not self stack no matter how you slot it, so Arsenal will not sleep ANY AV on its own with sleep nade.

 

7 hours ago, Voltak said:

****SNIP!***

****MORE SNIP!***

Arsenal has some issues, it also has some high points. 

 

Thank you for your time.

Edited January 22 by Frosticus

[Alchemystic]

I'm not seeing much point in Cloaking Device.

 

I can understand why it was added, perception reducing powers exist in the form of Smoke and Superior Invisibility on other control sets but mechanically it's redundant to have both of them. If the purpose of it was to provide a power that obscured the player; Smoke Grenade does that and more, the only real benefit is that it grants +DEF to the player and doesn't have a target cap. But, when compared to the Stealth pool power, it has the same stealth radius, but lower defense. Compared to Superior Invisibility, it has the same defense, but a lower stealth radius.

 

So with that said... why not just remove Cloaking Device? It's way more viable to just pick Stealth, and Smoke Grenade has way more versatility. It would be much more beneficial to have more control in the powerset, something like an AoE slow? The PPD have a Glue Grenade power that would work extremely well with this powerset. Either that or add in Wide Area Web Grenade from VEATs.

 

 

Edited January 22 by Alchemystic

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

Guys, please post testing results and your general feelings about the set and refrain from having arguments with each other.

 

The devs do want to get feedback on their work and are ready, willing, and able to make the changes if testing demonstrates it's warranted.

 

But if they have to wade through pages of bickering, you reduce their readiness and willingness.

 

From the GM side, we don't want to spend the day trimming threads and getting in the middle of arguments.

 

So please, please, please . . . test, comment, don't argue with each other.  Thanks!

[Psyonico]

55 minutes ago, Alchemystic said:

I'm not seeing much point in Cloaking Device.

 

I can understand why it was added, perception reducing powers exist in the form of Smoke and Superior Invisibility on other control sets but mechanically it's redundant to have both of them. If the purpose of it was to provide a power that obscured the player; Smoke Grenade does that and more, the only real benefit is that it grants +DEF to the player and doesn't have a target cap. But, when compared to the Stealth pool power, it has the same stealth radius, but lower defense. Compared to Superior Invisibility, it has the same defense, but a lower stealth radius.

 

So with that said... why not just remove Cloaking Device? It's way more viable to just pick Stealth, and Smoke Grenade has way more versatility. It would be much more beneficial to have more control in the powerset, something like an AoE slow? The PPD have a Glue Grenade power that would work extremely well with this powerset. Either that or add in Wide Area Web Grenade from VEATs.

 

 

 

It actually has the same 200' non-breaking stealth radius of Superior Invisibility.  Looks to me to be an exact clone of it.  Also, Cloaking Device means you don't have to use one of your 4 power pools to get it.

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, Psyonico said:

 

It actually has the same 200' non-breaking stealth radius of Superior Invisibility.  Looks to me to be an exact clone of it.  Also, Cloaking Device means you don't have to use one of your 4 power pools to get it.

 

Ah, I just found that I was looking at the old Blaster version of Cloaking Device, which has lower stealth values. 😅

Still, I'm a little pensive about having two perception lowering powers in the same powerset, especially on Controllers where you could easily stack that with the several other perception lowering powers available (Dark and Storm especially).

A little too much buff/debuff in a control set for my liking, especially when said buffs/debuffs are fairly similar in use.

[arcane]

Swap the Hold with the AoE Sleep and release the damn thing. Good Illusion/Mind Control players prove that an AoE immobilize is not necessary.

[Captain Powerhouse]

8 hours 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.

 

Smoke Canister does not confuse on its own. It requires enemies inside the area of effect to be attacked to trigger the confusion. Only enemies that are attacked, damaged or knocked will see their confusion triggered for a maximum of 15s so long they stay within the area of effect.

The power is not designed to be as strong as Seeds or Mass Confusion.

[brass_eagle]

3 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

...confusion triggered for a maximum of 15s so long they stay within the area of effect.

 

Apologies if I missed this further up. Is this duration of the initial confuse? Do enhancements extend that maximum or have much effect? Or is that the hard cap of time per target per cloud. 

 

The cloud last around 30 secondsish.. and I think I saw confused bosses by stacking two clouds briefly.

 

If it's a hard cap, that might be good to put into the description of the power. Just left me with a lot of questions.

[Starhammer]

On 1/21/2024 at 3:37 PM, High_Beam said:

PPD Equalizers, Arachnos Huntsmen, Longbow Nullifiers and Spec-Ops, Malta Group just to name a few in game who use suppression rounds from guns.  Firing target suppression rounds from a rifle-like weapon is not only a no brainier but the norm.  With the exception of the ports of tranq and cryo freeze ray (and its terrible lingering muzzle glow) it's awesome.  People have asked for grenades or grenade launchers and now we have them . . .

 

Military M32 MSGL

FN 303

 

By the way, I got to shoot cans from the M32 when I was in the navy for SSDF school, fun as hell, almost as fun as firing Thumper and a Ma-Deuce.  Tingles.

Because of the control set nature, I really wish we got the M32 (or similar) grenade launcher as a weapon option in costuming. Yes, I know the default "all in one" assault rifle thing has that as part of it, but there's an NPC weapon model that's pretty close to the M32 that would be especially fitting. The shoulder fired rocket launchers Crey and Council (among others) use would also be extremely welcome (for Munitions Mastery too... LRM)

[Starhammer]

13 hours 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.

The set needs a net gun, thematically. I don't care if it's single target or aoe, immobilize or hold. It just needs one.

[Starhammer]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Smoke Canister does not confuse on its own. It requires enemies inside the area of effect to be attacked to trigger the confusion. Only enemies that are attacked, damaged or knocked will see their confusion triggered for a maximum of 15s so long they stay within the area of effect.

The power is not designed to be as strong as Seeds or Mass Confusion.

Thematically (yeah, I know, that's generally much more important to me than the invisible math), I love this. It makes a lot of sense that the enemy would only attack blindly at what they can't see when something hits them.

Two things though... even though it would lessen the effectiveness of the power, could enough of a +Perception protect from the confusion? again, with why they're "confused" it would make sense that those with special/enhanced senses are immune to this.

Also, I worry that the complexity, as much as I appreciate it, might put off many prospective users. I don't have any idea for a fix, it's just a concern.

[Captain Powerhouse]

40 minutes ago, brass_eagle said:

Apologies if I missed this further up. Is this duration of the initial confuse? Do enhancements extend that maximum or have much effect? Or is that the hard cap of time per target per cloud. 

 

The cloud last around 30 secondsish.. and I think I saw confused bosses by stacking two clouds briefly.

 

If it's a hard cap, that might be good to put into the description of the power. Just left me with a lot of questions.

 

The confuse works like the opposite of suppression. You know how stealth breaks when you attack, and will stay broken for 8 seconds after your last attack (or being hit)?

It is similar to that, but instead of suppression, it activates, and remains active so long as the confused foe has been attacked, damaged or knocked in the last 15s. Every time one of those events triggers, the timer extends for another 15s.

 

That is just the "activation" requirement, and that activation could had happened before you tossed the canister. 

 

The canister patch itself pulses once a second, and the base duration is approximately 4s on controllers at level 50. If something leaves the are of the patch, they will only be confused until that last tick runs out, about 4s without enhancements.

 

Not the optimal tactic, but lets say you throw an AoE attack at a group of enemies. You "attacked" them all, and then tossed the Smoke Canister. Everything has been attacked, so everything should be confused as soon as they are covered by smoke. They will likely be confused for at least 15s, but likely they will all attack eachother and continue refreshing their timers, remaining confused for the full duration of the patch, and until the last tick expires, so a maximum total of 34-38s on controllers.

 

You can also opt to toss the canister first, and follow up with an AoE attack that activates everything quickly. As things attack each other they may refresh their activation timers.

 

Alternatively you can just throw the canister and attack a single foe. That foe will attack something else, and that in turn may attack something else. The more AoE the enemy group has, the more likely they are to activate faster with you only attacking them once.

 

There are many intentional points of unreliability here. You are forced to alert at least one enemy for this to kick off, and if that enemy is never counter-attacked by its allies, his confuse may wear off and they may come for you. 

 

This all is meant to simulate a situation where the enemies are blinded by smoke, and confused, so they are not sure whom to attack. Of course not every enemy will get confused and those will just go for you if they notice you.

[twozerofoxtrot]

19 hours 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.

 

I did this on the second page, where I smoked a group of even-cons with basically nothing but procd Sleep Nade, Cryo Beam, and some Tranq Darts. I feel like it works fine.

The only real issue is that the boards won't accept files over 4.88 megs. If there's a way to compress to decent size or link to a place that hosts 50-100 meg clips, then I think we can see better results (literally).

 

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

5 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

This all is meant to simulate a situation where the enemies are blinded by smoke, and confused, so they are not sure whom to attack. Of course not every enemy will get confused and those will just go for you if they notice you.

 

One way I've made this work with me on both Controllers and Doms is speeding missions, with Cloaking Device and a Stealth IO in sprint, and then popping Smoke Can on any mobs nearby a mission-required glowie.

 

Sometimes there's an enemy who's not in the cloud, or around the corner, or what have you. He rolls up to me like a jabroney arm cocked backed to punch. The purple circles float above his head as he enters the cloud. His punch lands... on the guy next to him. A brawl ensues.

My stealth reactivates and I hop off to the next glowie.

[KaizenSoze]

33 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

I did this on the second page, where I smoked a group of even-cons with basically nothing but procd Sleep Nade, Cryo Beam, and some Tranq Darts. I feel like it works fine.

The only real issue is that the boards won't accept files over 4.88 megs. If there's a way to compress to decent size or link to a place that hosts 50-100 meg clips, then I think we can see better results (literally).

 

 

I think providing a YouTube unlisted link is good enough. At least that's what I do.

[Voltak]

Obviously, I cannot vouch nor will I vouch for the sleep in Arsenal set to be used as an attempt to stack it over itself , not by yourself nor by someone with the same set.  
 I never did I mean that at all. 
The only stacking here that is possible is from another set, as I have said before, in another post.   

Now, I do vouch for the dmg component of the sleep to be eliminated.   ( @ShinMagmus )
I do vouch for the mag to be increased for the sleep. 

There is no need for this set to go down the path of symphonic, which ended up being underwhelming.  
I don't know if the devs will interpret changes being "warranted" as changes "they personally want or will accept".  

There is a chance here to make the set as great as 
Dark
Plant
Earth
Illusion 

Or there is a chance to be a set a little better than Symphonic 

 

Edited January 23 by Voltak

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

I think providing a YouTube unlisted link is good enough. At least that's what I do.

 

Really feeling dumb here not having considered youtube while literally listening to it for hours in the background testing. 

[Shin Magmus]

I don't think that even a better AoE Sleep power without damage ruining it will make it "fit" in with this DoT-laden set that is meant to be paired with Traps (DoTs) on Controllers and Arse (Ignite DoT) on Doms.  There's simply no synergy with Sleep powers with this powerset or the most common pairing powersets.

 

It's okay to go back on the sleep and give it a net shot or a glue bomb as immobs.

[Voltak]

13 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

I don't think that even a better AoE Sleep power without damage ruining it will make it "fit" in with this DoT-laden set that is meant to be paired with Traps (DoTs) on Controllers and Arse (Ignite DoT) on Doms.  There's simply no synergy with Sleep powers with this powerset or the most common pairing powersets.

 

It's okay to go back on the sleep and give it a net shot or a glue bomb as immobs.

A couple of options 

1. Irresistible to hit debuff or dmg debuff blended in with the vomit idea from traps 
2. Wormhole idea 

[Rand0lk]

Imho, those are the ideal fixes to the whole set:

 

1- Move Cryo to tier 1;

2- Replace Sleep Grenade with Web Grenade (AoE Imm);

3- Give a couple diversity attack options to the Gun Drone (eg, a cone Flamethrower-like attack or some sort of AoE)

 

This would solve the Contaiment issue very nice and quick, plus giving some nice QoL features.

[Vinceq98]

So many good suggestions and feedback from this thread. Lets hope Captain Powerhouse listens and not give this set the Storm blast treatment. 

[ScarySai]

Wishlist aside from upping power values dramatically:

 

1: Cryo at tier 1.

 

2: Mega buffs for smoke cann - there is no universe this power ever matches seeds in potency, you can really afford to super buff it without worrying about it, seriously.

 

3: Kill cloaking device for an aoe immob.

Edited January 23 by ScarySai

[ScarySai]

5 minutes ago, Vinceq98 said:

So many good suggestions and feedback from this thread. Lets hope Captain Powerhouse listens and not give this set the Storm blast treatment. 

Storm blast is like the only set they made that's actually a banger. Seismic is the one to make fun of.

Edited January 23 by ScarySai