Focused Feedback: Arsenal Assault

[Parabola]

43 minutes ago, Dispari said:

You're not wrong, but gotta shoot for the stars sometimes. Dominators do tend to get cone attacks, for some reason, even if they don't synergize with the set well. Trying to mix ranged cones with melee powers is always obnoxious.

I'm still waiting for the assault sets to be rebuilt across the board to be more user friendly. I appreciate that isn't going to happen but I can dream!

[WindDemon21]

19 hours ago, Plutoria said:

Swap Buck Shot for Slug?

100% NO

 

Though swapping it for m30 grenade yes. TBH all the dom assault sets should really be reworked to have ranged aoe (not cone) and melee aoe so you can use both in melee. Leave the cones for the epics. Number one issue with dom assault sets really for most of them. So dumb to always be forced on 80% of assault sets to have to constantly jump in and out of melee to use your aoes.

Edited January 28 by WindDemon21

[Captain Powerhouse]

3 hours ago, Dispari said:

You're not wrong, but gotta shoot for the stars sometimes. Dominators do tend to get cone attacks, for some reason, even if they don't synergize with the set well. Trying to mix ranged cones with melee powers is always obnoxious.

 

This is by design. It's always been intended to encourage dominators to jump in and out of melee range.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

If the devs' conception of doms is that they're mostly melee / ranged hybrids, then "mission accomplished", but not necessarily because of cone attacks. 

 

Melee oriented doms (most doms?) tend to stay in melee unless there's a survival-based reason for doing otherwise, they're aiming to take out a key enemy away from the main battle (ie: a surgeon on a hard mode ITF), or they're assisting an ally from afar with dispatching a mob that may be defeated before they repositioned to help out in melee. Or, they may back out to survey the scene and decide if and where controls may be used if a battle seems to suggest more control might be helpful. These scenarios happen a fair amount. So, plenty of things other than cone attacks already lead doms to move in and out of melee. 
 

For melee-oriented assault sets, at least for me, cone attacks are empty spots in the assault set that are consistently ignored when picking powers. So, at least for me "mission not accomplished" if the goal is to get me jumping in and out of melee to maximize the value of a cone attack. There are plenty of posts on the dom forums that align with that way of thinking, so I'm probably not alone in this.

 

The main exception is that I'm willing to play a melee-oriented assault set with plant control because seeds isn't cast frequently enough to make using it a bother. The same is true for mind control. But, using a cone attack that is available every several seconds isn't worth the time spent repositioning that could have been spent attacking instead. Also, often while repositioning on a fluid battlefield a cone attack will end up hitting few targets because mobs are frequently moving or dying. 

If there was one power type in melee-focused assault sets that may with many players earn the title "most irrelevant power in the set" it would be the cone attack. 

Edited January 29 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Dispari]

2 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

This is by design. It's always been intended to encourage dominators to jump in and out of melee range.

Is this a real thing that a live dev said? That doms uniquely are supposed to bounce around like bunny rabbits changing position all the time? Or is it just extrapolated from the observation that Doms tend to get cones?

[TygerDarkstorm]

I agree that cones are sucky, but idk, I joust in and out of melee on my doms and some blasters and I guess I don't mind that playstyle.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

13 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I agree that cones are sucky, but idk, I joust in and out of melee on my doms and some blasters and I guess I don't mind that playstyle.

I do as well, although not for a cone attack. There are usually ways to build around having a cone attack and still get decent AOE; that choice will be more effective and efficient than spending time repositioning just to use a (usually mediocre) cone attack. Less annoying, as well. 

[LastHumanSoldier]

3 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

This is by design. It's always been intended to encourage dominators to jump in and out of melee range.

 

I guess I play my Dominators wrong?
Just checked all my combos, and I skip the cone on all of them.

 

Thanks for the insight. Just want to add that sometimes even the pro's design something ineffectively (shout out to Boeing!).

 

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 minute ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

Thanks for the insight. Just want to add that sometimes even the pro's design something ineffectively (shout out to Boeing!).

 

I have received many insults over the years, but comparing to Boeing is a new low...

[carroto]

"Doms seem to consistently be designed in a way that many players don't like."

 

"This is by design.  Doms are designed in a way that many players don't like."

 

Ummm...okay but why though?

[Frosticus]

I might be misremembering, but don't you want to be 60ft+ for max damage on feral charge (5 target aoe), but unkindness is only a 40ft cone.

So hop back once to use unkindness, hop back again to use feral?

 

I just end up not taking unkindness on the many /sav doms I have. 

[Sovera]

5 hours ago, carroto said:

"Doms seem to consistently be designed in a way that many players don't like."

 

"This is by design.  Doms are designed in a way that many players don't like."

 

Ummm...okay but why though?

 

Cones are universally reviled, but instead of having Fireball or PbAoE only we keep having cones because That's How It Is. And somehow, despite hitting fewer targets than said PbAoEs or fireball effects they STILL do less damage. You'd think the risk/reward would reward having to jump out, manually aim, jump back in, but no.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Did a bit of back-of-the-napkin math a while back, comparing PbAOEs for melee-oriented doms versus cones such as unkindness. Jumping out of melee, aiming, correcting if a bad target gets selected or the pre-selected target dies or moves unexpectedly, finally casting, then jumping back into melee, then re-starting the melee attack chain can turn a 2 second casting animation for a cone into 6 or 7 seconds of time being used up. Thus, the "on paper" DPA from a cone, which as Sovera points out is usually not great anyways, can turn into 1/3 or less of that amount. Generally not a great use of in-combat time to do that.

This math doesn't factor in the lost efficiency due to cones sometimes misfiring in a way that substantially reduces the number of targets hit. 

Given how cones make my doms less effective at helping out teammates, cone attacks do not make my melee-oriented doms move into and out of melee because for those doms cones do not exist. 

For my plant / fire dom fire breath was taken and it sees a lot of use. Combustion is not taken for that dom because hopping into and out of melee to use it would mean several less seconds of blaze and blazing bolt (a big single target DPS loss). So, for assault sets that can work well from range the logic flips and then it's PbAOEs that become bad choices. 

Basically, jumping back and forth between melee and ranged to use a single AOE attack tends to be a bad bargain. Not sure why the devs think we want to do that. 

[Dispari]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Cones are universally reviled, but instead of having Fireball or PbAoE only we keep having cones because That's How It Is. And somehow, despite hitting fewer targets than said PbAoEs or fireball effects they STILL do less damage. You'd think the risk/reward would reward having to jump out, manually aim, jump back in, but no.

 

It's most likely just that cones tend to come first in blast sets that Doms get them, to preserve the power order, and not to encourage any sort of gameplay. Net result is they just get worse powers which end up mixing with melee powers, creating a more annoying playstyle than most ATs.

Earth Assault is an example of a Dom set that doesn't have to deal with cones, and it's a much better set for it. Other sets could follow that example, but simply don't. Anyway, as I said I'm not really holding out hope that the power would be changed, even if it would make the set more enjoyable to play. Buckshot is the weaker AoE, and Doms tend to get cones, because as you said, That's How It is.

[Videra]

1 hour ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

- Snip -

Basically, jumping back and forth between melee and ranged to use a single AOE attack tends to be a bad bargain. Not sure why the devs think we want to do that. 

 

There is an answer to this, and it's somewhere between pride and stubborn adherence to a completely made-up 'formula'. Homecoming players universally revile both cones and sleep, and sets keep being designed with them as either a primary focus or a *significant* chunk of the kit. It's frankly frustrating, especially since Arsenal Assault is otherwise a fine and functional set. As you say, jumping in and out for cones is both numerically bad and as I will say, not fun.

Edited January 29 by Videra

[Shin Magmus]

Me also no like cone.  Me prefer circle, it remind of wheel.  Oog.

 

It's funny because Assault Sets already got a large balance pass on Homecoming but kept the crappy cones that everyone hates and skips, so in a war it's like they need another large balance pass anyways just to address cones. 

[StarkWhite]

1 hour ago, Videra said:

Homecoming players universally revile both cones and sleep

"Universally" is doing a lot of work there.

[Dispari]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

Me also no like cone.  Me prefer circle, it remind of wheel.  Oog.

 

It's funny because Assault Sets already got a large balance pass on Homecoming but kept the crappy cones that everyone hates and skips, so in a war it's like they need another large balance pass anyways just to address cones. 

Doms as a whole have had numerous balance passes, because they've always been a mess. I still remember when their base damage was Defender level, and when they just had random utility powers like Build Up, Aim, or Power Boost with no rhyme or reason.

[WindDemon21]

20 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

This is by design. It's always been intended to encourage dominators to jump in and out of melee range.

Which makes zero sense to be forced into that, was something that the previous devs designed, and clearly doesn't need to be the rule. This is a bane on the entire AT and just doesn't need to be the case. It is 100% entirely in your realm to fix, and everyone would be happier for it.

 

Edit: tbh, most sets have more ST attacks than they need, where the assault sets REALLY should have a ranged aoe, cone, AND pbaoe. So that way depending on your playstyle and control set, you have two aoes that can be used in melee, or 2 aoes that can be used at range. Having these 3 should be the norm, quite frankly with all the other issues of doms, especially domination needing to be a toggle, it would make sense, and would probably still have more people skipping the cones anyway, but at least the assault sets would be better. (and if needed per assault set supplementing a possible ST address in the epic rather than the aoe).

Edited January 29 by WindDemon21

[WindDemon21]

3 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

Me also no like cone.  Me prefer circle, it remind of wheel.  Oog.

 

It's funny because Assault Sets already got a large balance pass on Homecoming but kept the crappy cones that everyone hates and skips, so in a war it's like they need another large balance pass anyways just to address cones. 

To start, it's always made zero sense that ranged cones have a 10 target cap, when they clearly should have a 16 target cap like any other ranged aoe. They take more skill and positioning to use versus a standard aoe, THAT is the tradeoff for the shorter recharge/bigger damage. This has always needed fixed, but instead, cones are nerfed to the 10 target cap for literally zero reason.

[Plutoria]

Subjective opinion but:

If we are to assume the cone will stay would we be able to switch heavy burst in there instead?

Would at least reward the jumping in and out of fray a bit more with the starting 50 foot range / 30 arc

Adds a little more IO diversity

Animation is a bit more flavorful compared to buckshot

Set is already heavy in KB so one less KB wouldn't be missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tricon]

I created 3 Arsenal Control Dominator. One with Sonic, then with Arsenal Assault very close in terms of IO set picks and then one with Savage Assault with a different approach in mind.

 

The one with Arsenal Assault has by far the worst performance. I don"t hoverblast or jump for better cone range. There's nothing to complain about in terms of looks, but the performance leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe I get spoiled by playing a Huntsman (Bane) before but there I got 2 workable aoe attacks, weapon fire and some awesome hitting Mace like Crowd Control. This Assault set looks like looks very weak in comparison and that dosen"t stop there. 

 

Playing withj the Sonic and Savage Assault was way more fun with Arsenal Control. I found myself less in dangerous situations with way more damage output. I have on the live servers a few Dominators and this set just dosen"t click for me. 

 

 

I have a suggestion, although this is more of a design wish for the future, which the development team could perhaps take a look at.

The Sentinal Class has with the Super Reflexes powers one dual choice pick between Master Brawler and Practiced Brawler, You can pick only one of them, not both. So there is a codebase for this options. Wouldn't it be nice if you could offer this more often. So you could choice between a aoe attack like M30 Grenade or a cone attack like Buckshot but not pick both.

 

 

Would offer more variety for us players......

 

 

[StarkWhite]

They've flat-out said that they're not doing that again.

[...]

Not that this is the topic at hand, but I'll just chime in to say I agree with the sentiment regarding cones in assault sets. 

 

Poor design choice that has never been fixed. 

 

Makes more sense on blasters to take the occasional cone for set bonuses or as a "just in case I find myself in a cone favorable position, and because I have so many attack powers, so why the fuck not."

 

Dom builds are generally far tighter than other ATs, and cones end up being a near universal auto skip.

[Indystruck]

Wild to see folks hatin' on buckshot, it's insanely good.