Focused Feedback: Epic / Ancillary Power Pools

[WindDemon21]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:44 AM, The Curator said:

Epic > Energy Mastery > Energy Transfer (Dominator) - This power no longer accepts Taunt enhancements

Can we also SERIOUSLY get the end cost on this power fixed. It literally costs zero end on other ATs, yet on dominators it costs 19.11 which is insanely high on the already worst endurance AT in the game, and still does the -hp which is why it doesn't have an end cost on other ATs as well.

 

On 11/22/2023 at 11:44 AM, The Curator said:

Epic > Energy Mastery > Explosive Blast (Dominator): Recharge increased from 16s to 32s.

Again, even double recharge on powers like this kinda is an overdone nerf for the mto be "epic" powers. At most powers should be like 50% "worse" than their primary/secondary counterparts and a more appropriate recharge on these types of powers would be 24s, not 32.

[Blackbird71]

On 2/9/2024 at 1:08 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

Do you wear pants? Why? People have been doing that for centuries. You should stop wearing pants to work. Wearing pants is outdated in this day and age.

 

Yeah, see how silly that sounds? Just because something was done a hundred years ago doesn't mean that it's automatically wrong.

 

 

This is a misleading analogy.

Do you wear pants made of coarse homespun wool?  Or do you wear modern cotton-synthetic blends?

[WindDemon21]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:44 AM, The Curator said:

Soul Consumption (PBAoE DMG(Negative), Self +HP, +End)

Just fyi, the stats on this power are TERRIBLE. 10 mintues for a 1 minute lasting power that just gives a minor heal/end/hp? Even at 4 minute recharge for the effects and a 3 power investment not till 44 at the earliest would I still don't think I'd take this on most toons since it's only going to really help anything if it hits on a full mob too. This power should be so much better than it is but the recharge time for the duration on top of that is just extra absurd. Come on now...

[twozerofoxtrot]

So, after 15 pages of bad feelings and gnashing of teeth, I'm here with some good news! (please don't downvote me D:)

 

On 11/23/2023 at 1:44 AM, The Curator said:

New Psionic Mastery Epic pool for Brutes and Tankers:

• Mesmerize (Ranged, DMG(Psionic), Foe Sleep)
• Dominate (Ranged, DMG(Psionic), Foe Hold)
• Harmonic Mind (Auto: Self, +Recovery, Endurance Discount)
• Mental Blast (Ranged, DMG(Psionic), Target -Recharge)
• Psionic Tornado (Ranged (Targeted AoE), DoT(Psionic), Foe Knockback)

 

Harmonic Mind is fairly cracked. It has the same +Recovery bonus as Physical Perfection but dispenses with the superfluous 20% Regen to provide (on a Tanker) 12.96% End Discount (as per Combat Numbers window, I think it might say 15% in the Power Selection screen; that's a common discrepancy with End Discount).

I took this on a Dark Armor Tanker at level 38 and it completely removed the Endurance pains I was having. Running a hojillion toggles (including Fly, lmao) while actually attacking was in the realm of doable. At 50, all blinged up with Very Rare sets (but no incarnates), I struggled to trash my own Endurance. 

 

This power is great.

 

Spoiler

Getting there doesn't feel bad, either.

 

Dominate seems like a fan favorite and still very proc-able. (please don't downvote me D:)

But I was tight on slots for my build and already had a full attack chain, so I went with Mesmerize. I found this a useful tool for:

• Turning off enemies toggles (mag 3.5 auto-hit sleep)
• Stopping enemies from running away
• Killing very low-health enemies that were running away
• Shutting up Immunes Surgeons
• Shutting up Malta Sappers

 

 

[ArticulateT]

I briefly scanned the thread to make sure I wasn't reposting, apologies if this is already brought up as a bug, but:

 

Scrapper > Psionic Mastery > Psionic Nexus: seems to be marked as Ice Control under its group name, and is also incapable of flight, but I don't know if that's intentional as part of the pet's design or left over from the template that was used.

 

Playing with it on board, I like it, it's able to handle minions at least by itself, attacks regularly, sticks around for a long time but is otherwise fairly squishy given it has no outward defences of its own besides a resistance to psychic damage.

[WindDemon21]

11 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

So, after 15 pages of bad feelings and gnashing of teeth, I'm here with some good news! (please don't downvote me D:)

 

 

Harmonic Mind is fairly cracked. It has the same +Recovery bonus as Physical Perfection but dispenses with the superfluous 20% Regen to provide (on a Tanker) 12.96% End Discount (as per Combat Numbers window, I think it might say 15% in the Power Selection screen; that's a common discrepancy with End Discount).

I took this on a Dark Armor Tanker at level 38 and it completely removed the Endurance pains I was having. Running a hojillion toggles (including Fly, lmao) while actually attacking was in the realm of doable. At 50, all blinged up with Very Rare sets (but no incarnates), I struggled to trash my own Endurance. 

 

This power is great.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Getting there doesn't feel bad, either.

 

Dominate seems like a fan favorite and still very proc-able. (please don't downvote me D:)

But I was tight on slots for my build and already had a full attack chain, so I went with Mesmerize. I found this a useful tool for:

• Turning off enemies toggles (mag 3.5 auto-hit sleep)
• Stopping enemies from running away
• Killing very low-health enemies that were running away
• Shutting up Immunes Surgeons
• Shutting up Malta Sappers

 

 

It's not cracked, it's actually more like what superior conditioning SHOULD be (which should go to tank/scraps energy/body mastery too instead of CP), but  that 20% regen isn't useless allowing you to slot it and put in sets like numina that gives 12% more regen and 1.88% max hp. I'll agree it is a little low but it's still in the power and helps some sets like shield out. Sure it's useless for a dark armor toon as you mentioned, and the end discount would help out a lot more for dark armor, but it's not "superfluous." But yes the power would and should be better for endurance if swapping out that regen for end discount. That's pretty much the point.

 

(especially if my dream of fixing the base regen/recovery values from the odd .42/1.67% per sec gets fixed to .5/2% and health bumped to 50%, as this is the half values on PP for health/stamina that regen would bump to 25%. Not huge, but still would give more value to the regen having an extra like 11% more too)

[WindDemon21]

4 hours ago, ArticulateT said:

I briefly scanned the thread to make sure I wasn't reposting, apologies if this is already brought up as a bug, but:

 

Scrapper > Psionic Mastery > Psionic Nexus: seems to be marked as Ice Control under its group name, and is also incapable of flight, but I don't know if that's intentional as part of the pet's design or left over from the template that was used.

 

Playing with it on board, I like it, it's able to handle minions at least by itself, attacks regularly, sticks around for a long time but is otherwise fairly squishy given it has no outward defences of its own besides a resistance to psychic damage.

Personally a lot of the pets in the epics like this are really pointless on most at/combos since, lets say on the scrapper here it has no way of really keeping it alive and they end up dying too fast especially worth the recharge times. controller/dom pets and epic pets really should have their recharge times lowered by 1/4. Letting the epic pets obviously get recast as they die before the inevitable 4 minute duration ends, and on controller/doms for the same recast reason. As they would replace their prior pet it wouldn't do much different strengthwise for most of them besides give possible options to use the pet to absorb the alpha and recast, especially on doms, but on the epic pets it would go a long way to helping them be more viable.

[Legion of One]

Why do The Currator’s posts always get the Nov 22, 2023 date stamp?  It’s damn confusing 😵‍💫

[twozerofoxtrot]

Hey I know it's not been brought up for discussion this far but any chance we could have NoFX/Alternate options applied all to buffs and toggles for the Epic / Ancillary Power Pools, similar to what their derived powers? It's a bit inconsistently applied, with some powers like Temporary Invulnerability having a NoFX option but Mind Over Body not. Likewise, Dark Embrace doesn't have the effects options you'd find in the Dark Armor set.

 

I'm not sure how much extra work this is, but it'd be a nice QoL and frankly if we're trying to standardize/make uniform APPs, then this tucks neatly into that line of effort.

[Booper]

9 hours ago, Legion of One said:

Why do The Currator’s posts always get the Nov 22, 2023 date stamp?  It’s damn confusing 😵‍💫

They don't. All the posts you see were drafted on that date in preparation for Open Beta, and they were edited over time. When Open Beta dropped, those posts were made public.

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 2/10/2024 at 1:36 PM, Blackbird71 said:

This is a misleading analogy.

Ok, so what would you suggest? If nerfing OP powers is old-fashioned, outdated, and "hated by all gamers" then what alternative do you suggest that the developers use to balance powers?

 

Mostly I'm just annoyed with the apparent claim that if something's been done a certain way for more than a handful of years then it's old and therefore automatically bad. Sometimes things have been done a certain way for centuries because that is the best possible way to do something. Progress is worthless if you're not progressing toward something. And, once you get there, it's time to put the axe down and move on to something else. You can't just change something every 10-20 years and then say "ooooo... we're making progress!!! Whoooo!"

 

So if nerfing a power that's OP is something that the Homecoming developers shouldn't do because it's "old-fashioned and outdated" then how should they handle powers that, for whatever reason, are OP or unbalance the game?

[Blackbird71]

38 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Mostly I'm just annoyed with the apparent claim that if something's been done a certain way for more than a handful of years then it's old and therefore automatically bad. Sometimes things have been done a certain way for centuries because that is the best possible way to do something. Progress is worthless if you're not progressing toward something. And, once you get there, it's time to put the axe down and move on to something else. You can't just change something every 10-20 years and then say "ooooo... we're making progress!!! Whoooo!"

 

I'm not disagreeing with this basic premise; I absolutely agree that just because something is old doesn't make it "outdated;" rather it can often be "tried and true."  And "progress for the sake of progress" is folly (unfortunately many of HC's changes seem follow this erroneous mantra, in my opinion).  I just felt that the way you argued the point with an analogy that gave a false representation of the opposing argument came off a bit disingenuous and dismissive.

 

As to the matter at hand though, I do think that the HC devs lean too heavily on the nerf bat.  When several powers are underperforming and one or two are overperforming, they do seem to go for nerfing the stronger power instead of buffing the weaker powers.  To me, this approach often reduces the fun and enjoyment of the game, forcing everyone into equal drudgery by making all powers equally underpowered.  If there is a power that is legitimately "OP" to the point that it breaks the game, then yes, something like that should be addressed and scaled back.  However, I believe such powers are rare in CoH, and most often an "OP" power is only overpowered relative to the available alternatives, and in such cases the game and players would be better served by treating the alternatives as underpowered and addressing why they are less desirable.

[PeregrineFalcon]

6 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

I just felt that the way you argued the point with an analogy that gave a false representation of the opposing argument came off a bit disingenuous and dismissive.

Oh it was definitely dismissive, but it was not disingenuous.

 

7 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

If there is a power that is legitimately "OP" to the point that it breaks the game, then yes, something like that should be addressed and scaled back.  However, I believe such powers are rare in CoH, and most often an "OP" power is only overpowered relative to the available alternatives, and in such cases the game and players would be better served by treating the alternatives as underpowered and addressing why they are less desirable.

Agreed.

 

And for the record I don't believe that Bonfire on the live servers is OP. I already showed how it's inferior to Rain of Fire in every way. Yes, Bonfire is far more popular than most of the other Ancillary powers, but that's not because Bonfire is OP, it's because its competitors suck and they should be buffed up to Bonfire's level of usefulness. I know everyone's screaming "power creep!", but nerfing a single power into the dirt isn't going to fix the power creep that's happened in CoH and bring the other Ancillary powers up to Bonfire's standard isn't going to increase the power creep, just diversify it.

 

However, I'd still love it if someone could explain to me why something is automagically bad just because it's outdated and/or old-fashioned.

[Akisan]

48 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

However, I'd still love it if someone could explain to me why something is automagically bad just because it's outdated and/or old-fashioned.

 

<sarcasm>

It's just progressive Imperialism at its finest - anything not in use by the fashionable elite is at best "quaint", and at worst "backwards" or "primitive".

</sarcasm>

I don't get it either - new concepts & discoveries & QoL stuff is generally nice, but at the same time we now have concepts/policies like Planned Obsolescence, so some stuff *deliberately* isn't built to last, so... yeah.  Old-fashioned stuff can perform just as well, and generally won't break when you look at it funny.

 

On topic though...

Went out for another few rounds with my Blaster on Beta.  Have to say that while the 50% increased recharge on Char hurts, it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as the -range.  It's now much more difficult to open a fight by locking down a priority target in the back of a large-ish group without accidentally aggroing said group. It also means that I'm in range of the alpha strike, at 72 ft, compared to the 96ft range I had before (enhanced values, common enemy attack ranges seem to be 80 or 100 ft).  It's also really noticeable while out street sweeping, as there's now a 30ft gap where I can use most of my powers vs. hold them (136ft vs. 102ft). 

[Maelwys]

The latest revision of the patch that went live a few hours ago has altered Bonfire yet again.
I've been tracking and testing the changes on my Bot/Kin/Heat MM.  A longer comment is in the main thread , but the main points are below:

------

+ On Live, a player always flopped five times over Bonfire's 45 second duration. A critter was likely to flop ten times.
+ On Brainstorm yesterday, a player always flopped five times over Bonfire's 45 second duration. A critter was likely to flop four times.
+ On Brainstorm today, a player always flopped three times over Bonfire's 30 second duration. A critter was likely to flop six times.

Yesterday I noticed many large spawns that didn't have a single flop before they all made it out of the bonfire.
Today was better. Not quite as good as on live, but better. The smaller radius means that critters are rather more likely to make it out of the patch than they are on live; but providing you can keep them within the area of effect then the flop rate is good enough to make bonfire "viable" once again as a CC tool.
The shorter duration is annoying however - 120s base recharge, 30s duration, and 3.07s cast time makes it practically impossible to run permanently any longer; even for a /kin with Perma-Hasten, triple-stacked Siphon Speed and a +33% recharge rate T4 Alpha Slot.
I don't see anything in the patch notes about a reduced duration, so I'm hoping that's a bug...?

Notably the ToHit check does indeed appear to only be kicking in for damage. The knockback/knockdown didn't appear to be missing; even vs players. My "hostile" target player in warburg noticed a lot of misses from the damage ticks; but they still got flopped on their rear the same number of times regardless of +defense toggles or insps.

I also tested both Sudden Acceleration KB->KD and Overwhelming Force KB->KD individually and combined; as well as adding Ragnarok: Chance for KD.
There did not appear to be any noticable difference in flop rate from the additional IOs (e.g. pick any one single KB->KD and don't bother adding a Ragnarok proc)
However combining Bonfire with another ability like Whirlwind or Repel (with KB->KD procs in them) made the critter flop rate skyrocket.

[EDIT: @TheDevs: I know part of the balance pass involves a penalty for "Hard Mez" (like Holds) of 3.0x cooldown and for "Soft Mez" (like Immobilises) of 2.0x cooldown. And Bonfire as a KD patch could nearly count as "Hard Mez". However 30s duration/120s recharge combined with the reduced 15ft radius feels a bit too drastic to me. Any chance of 30s duration/90s recharge or 40s duration/120s recharge instead; or bumping the radius back up to 25ft please? Personally I'd actually lean towards the latter - Bonfire's damage is honestly an afterthought for me; but there are people who have been leveraging it as a AoE damage patch... and at least if it keeps the original radius they could choose to slot it for +Accuracy and Damage Procs, at the expense of Recharge Rate and CC effectiveness. Alternatively, perhaps apply yesterday's lessened KD rate but allow multiple slotted KD IOs (Sudden Acceleration KB->KD, Overwhelming Force KD Proc, Ragnarok KD Proc) to combine and raise the rate so that 2-3 IOs = equal to Live?]

Edited February 13 by Maelwys

[Crimsanotic]

On 11/22/2023 at 10:44 AM, The Curator said:

Tar Patch (Ranged (Target AoE), Target -Speed, -Res, -Fly)

 

Is there a reason for this? It just seems odd.

[tricon]

52 minutes ago, Crimsanotic said:

 

Is there a reason for this? It just seems odd.

I have no idea. The only fix it needed was the same cd as Sleet from the epic pool

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13 by tricon

[Ratch_]

Quote

• Patron > Leviathan Mastery > Spirit Shark (Brute/Tanker/Scrapper/Stalker/VEAT) - Recharge increased from 9s to 13s, End cost increased from 8.58 to 15.86, Cast Time reduced from 3s to 2s, base damage scale increased from scale 1.4 to 1.56

Can we please lower the knockback on this power to be in knockdown range? I really like having spirit shark as a competitive option to choose over a snipe since it's SOOOO nice to be able to switch it up. Power Mastery > Energy Torrent has already gotten the kb -> kd treatmeant, can Spirit Shark get the same thing? It's very asinine that my powers knock enemies just out of melee range when I'm a melee character.

[TotalThunder]

On 11/22/2023 at 9:44 AM, The Curator said:

Tar Patch (Ranged (Target AoE), Target -Speed, -Res, -Fly)

 

Could we get any kind of logic clarification for this change? You might as well rename it if you're going to make it essentially a completely different power.

[Gorgar]

I'm confused about the two-pass intent here.  Sounds like the plan is to nerf a bunch of epic powers, then adjust later.  Why not just figure out the right values the first time, and not change epics until you know what you want to do?  Seems odd to nerf epics, have everyone who cares about that respec out of things, then buff some and people respec back.

 

Kind of makes me want to just not play until they figure it out.

[Legion of One]

On 2/12/2024 at 8:54 AM, Booper said:

They don't. All the posts you see were drafted on that date in preparation for Open Beta, and they were edited over time. When Open Beta dropped, those posts were made public.

I guess that means the closed testing began in Nov?  

[Booper]

3 minutes ago, Legion of One said:

I guess that means the closed testing began in Nov?  

No, we were preparing for open beta when we thought there was a window for it in November. But plans changed, December hiatus happened, and I think a couple other things happened that caused us to go to open beta in January, instead.

 

Either way, youll notice a lot of our Patch Notes posts are started days before the actual Patch Notes gets released. Nothing interesting about it, we just don't like doing everything at the last minute. 

[Jacke]

Posted these Patron Pool changes typos in the Open Beta RC 1 topic.  Copying here so they don't get missed.

 

On 2/13/2024 at 9:00 AM, Jacke said:

Typos in the follow Patron Pool Powers changes.  I think "degrees" should be "feet".

• Patron > Soul Mastery > Darkest Night (Sentinel) - Recharge increased to 20s, Radius decreased from 25 to 15 degrees, Target cap lowered from 16 to 10
• Patron > Soul Mastery > Darkest Night (VEAT) - Recharge increased to 20s, Radius decreased from 25 to 15 degrees, Target cap lowered from 16 to 10

 

[Super Atom]

[Melt tarmor]

 

[Tar explosion]

 

[The artist formerly known as tar patch]

 

nvm tar patch is tar patch again. rip melt tarmor 2024-2024

Edited February 15 by Super Atom

[Maelwys]

Bonfire behaviour in Release Candidate 2 appears unchanged from Release Candidate 1.
Compared to live: slightly less bouncy, smaller radius, now requires accuracy for the damage component.
And it still has the wrong duration (30s instead of 45s; which may be intentional but isn't listed in the patch notes)

 

Edited February 15 by Maelwys