Focused Feedback: VEAT Updates

[balor]

21 minutes ago, Koopak said:

So I cant speak for the devs, but I can give some insight from closed testing (Where we often get the chance to talk with the devs directly). Granted my familiarity is mainly with widow.

That is fantastic and thank you for taking the time to explain the current goal from your point of view. 

[KaizenSoze]

5 minutes ago, balor said:

That is fantastic and thank you for taking the time to explain the current goal from your point of view. 

I think Koopa covered most everything. I helped test the Night Widow, Fortunata, Bane changes quite a bit. It would be extremely easy to make widows in particular overpowered. That said the changes are huge boon for Night Widows. Banes got a very nice damage boost and lost a lot of their attack jankiness. Forts got a modest buff, because they are already by far the strongest VEAT and one of the best ATs in the game. 

 

The placate change is massive for Night Widows and Banes. I think it will take the player base a bit to understand how useful it is now.

Side note:
Previous to page 7 there are Night Widow builds that are extremely tanky. Now, they are even more durable.

 

 

[TalonBlue]

Gotta say, I didn't expect Widows/Forts to get any updates because I never thought they were ever in a bad place. My initial thoughts are this:

 

Widows already have several auto self/passive powers. CT: Defensive, Foresight, Mental Training. Do Widows really need another one? I like new toys, but essentially another passive isn't thrilling me. And these new passives feel like what their inherit powers frankly SHOULD be, if that is an option. I would rather have an another active ability. And when Forts have so many nice choices, and Night Widows have...well less...

 

I do think Night Widows need something, more than Fortunatas do. More HP does bring them closer to Stalkers. I do remember the HP buff Stalkers got on Live. If you want to buff their base HP, sure go for it. But I don't think Pain Tolerance is the way to go here. Problem of course is if you want buff the base HP, both AT's benefit, which may not be your intent.

 

I just wish Night Widows had more offensive tools, than defensive.

 

The Placate buff is exciting though. I've really wanted Night Widows playstyle to be more a Stalker than a Scrapper, or even a pseudo-Tank.

 

[KaizenSoze]

6 minutes ago, TalonBlue said:

Gotta say, I didn't expect Widows/Forts to get any updates because I never thought they were ever in a bad place. My initial thoughts are this:

 

Widows already have several auto self/passive powers. CT: Defensive, Foresight, Mental Training. Do Widows really need another one? I like new toys, but essentially another passive isn't thrilling me. And these new passives feel like what their inherit powers frankly SHOULD be, if that is an option. I would rather have an another active ability. And when Forts have so many nice choices, and Night Widows have...well less...

 Pain Tolerance is quite nice, easily add around 300 HP with 5% resists. Also, widows don't need any more toggles, they have enough end issues.

 

 I would like to see Eviscerate improved. Especially, now that it full crits. It is somewhat useful solo, but in teams I don't feel I can hit enough targets to make it worth the selection.

[TalonBlue]

23 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Also, widows don't need any more toggles, they have enough end issues.

 

I didn't say a toggle power.

[balor]

2 hours ago, Koopak said:

Generally speaking these were meant to be low hanging fruit changes to try and shore up how people already play the ATs, for instance Pain Tolerance already feeds into the pseudo tank playstyle that became popular earlier in HCing's life as a niche for Night Widow. The name goes for NW's crit and placate buffs to enable its stalker like playstyle. Fortunata had its control capabilities improved to better enable that side of the kit, and some tweaks to make both subATs have a bit better ranged experience.
 

 

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

Side note:
Previous to page 7 there are Night Widow builds that are extremely tanky. Now, they are even more durable.

 

 

So, I want to ask both of you on this one: Is 5% Resistance enough, or should it be higher or at least on par with the Bane Spider Armor Upgrade of 7.5%? Or are there any auto powers of Res/Def that have a high enough percentage to really slot those beyond a filler? Yes, Pain Tolerance is more of a health buff. (Joking/slightly joking: It might be better named 'Happy Healthy Spider' vs. the ironically low pain Res% "Pain Tolerance" .) Sorry for the tiered bad Dad jokes.

 

Also, what are you giving up to take Pain Tolerance, as I find that to be the real test as to what is the trade? I'm asking because I don't see a slot that it can easily replace at this point, so I wanted an opinion from another. Yes, I run a tanky Night Widow. This is one of the downsides of new powers. You will remove something to take something, and it needs to fill a role better than what it replaces.
 

[KaizenSoze]

25 minutes ago, balor said:

 

So, I want to ask both of you on this one: Is 5% Resistance enough, or should it be higher or at least on par with the Bane Spider Armor Upgrade of 7.5%? Or are there any auto powers of Res/Def that have a high enough percentage to really slot those beyond a filler? Yes, Pain Tolerance is more of a health buff. (Joking/slightly joking: It might be better named 'Happy Healthy Spider' vs. the ironically low pain Res% "Pain Tolerance" .) Sorry for the tiered bad Dad jokes.

 

Also, what are you giving up to take Pain Tolerance, as I find that to be the real test as to what is the trade? I'm asking because I don't see a slot that it can easily replace at this point, so I wanted an opinion from another. Yes, I run a tanky Night Widow. This is one of the downsides of new powers. You will remove something to take something, and it needs to fill a role better than what it replaces.
 

IMO Pain Tolerance mostly fixes the 1-2 shot issue for Night Widows. Between that and the scaling resists it's pretty hard to kill even my general content NW build. I dropped Smoke Grenade for Pain Tolerance for general content build. An easy trade in my book.

Banes on the other hand need all the resists they can get, because they have no DDR (Defensive debuff resistance).

[lineuphere]

So many great adjustments for the VEATS.  Well done.

 

This is so tiny, but probably a good time to bring up:

The SFX on the Power Maul mace option is bothersome. Is there any way to turn it off (or have it fade out)?  I love the visual of it, but aside from the soft, very faint jingle that the 3 carnival maces make, the Power Maul is the only one that has a perpetual SFX.  Thematically, it goes against me being all stealthy when the critters can certainly hear my invisible mace buzzing and whirring nearby.

Edited January 24 by lineuphere

[SaxyGuitar]

4 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Banes on the other hand need all the resists they can get, because they have no DDR (Defensive debuff resistance).

 

This is true. If I die on my Bane it's normally because I stopped checking my defense and didn't see I got hit with a couple of -def.

 

I do need to add this to my list of things to test on the server with my main. It might be worth working placate back into the build.

[Koopak]

5 hours ago, balor said:

 

So, I want to ask both of you on this one: Is 5% Resistance enough, or should it be higher or at least on par with the Bane Spider Armor Upgrade of 7.5%? Or are there any auto powers of Res/Def that have a high enough percentage to really slot those beyond a filler? Yes, Pain Tolerance is more of a health buff. (Joking/slightly joking: It might be better named 'Happy Healthy Spider' vs. the ironically low pain Res% "Pain Tolerance" .) Sorry for the tiered bad Dad jokes.

 

Also, what are you giving up to take Pain Tolerance, as I find that to be the real test as to what is the trade? I'm asking because I don't see a slot that it can easily replace at this point, so I wanted an opinion from another. Yes, I run a tanky Night Widow. This is one of the downsides of new powers. You will remove something to take something, and it needs to fill a role better than what it replaces.

 

NW doesn't need much and if anything the resist is just icing. The max hp is the big value.

 

I don't feel NW was tight for picks personally once you cut unnecessary attacks. If it doesn't fit the ST rotation and doesn't provide meaningful utility, I don't take it. I also feel the aura toggles are highly over valued. Assault is worthless in a team with plenty of +damage, unless you are facing a lot of taunts. Tactics does nothing if you are already at hit cap save power against debuffs.

 

I feel if you are attempting to optimize, there's loads to drop.

Edited January 24 by Koopak

[Shin Magmus]

4 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

IMO Pain Tolerance mostly fixes the 1-2 shot issue for Night Widows. Between that and the scaling resists it's pretty hard to kill even my general content NW build. I dropped Smoke Grenade for Pain Tolerance for general content build. An easy trade in my book.

Banes on the other hand need all the resists they can get, because they have no DDR (Defensive debuff resistance).

 

I also specifically planned my Respec to drop Smoke Grenade for the new passive.  In fact, I mostly had Smoke Grenade for the Max HP Set Bonuses... but it's also insanely strong because it is unresistable debuff.  I'll kinda miss it. 

[Wavicle]

On 1/21/2024 at 3:11 PM, ScarySai said:

The more I play with night widow, the more I really want some manner of dealing with runners.

 

Because ya know, for fort I can basically just obliterate runners with dominate, gloom and the two nukes (aura + wail), widow, I have gloom, then it's up to hoping they line up for a psyscream.

 

Enhancable slows seem like an easy win for the widow attacks, but I'm not entirely sure it would actually solve the runner problem. Still, something should be done to alleviate the issue.

Confront. 😛

[Dispari]

It is true enemies will flee like mad from NWs because of the -recharge. I have Confront just for AVs who will run screaming every time otherwise, and makes fighting them obnoxious.

[ScarySai]

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Confront. 😛

Explode.

[KaizenSoze]

28 minutes ago, Dispari said:

It is true enemies will flee like mad from NWs because of the -recharge. I have Confront just for AVs who will run screaming every time otherwise, and makes fighting them obnoxious.

It's the recharge, dots, and debuffs, which is why it's such an issue for VEATs.

 

Placate aka Ghetto taunt, will a lot of the time cause mobs to stop running, switch to walk mode, or stand still. At least long enough to hit them again.

[ScarySai]

My overall thoughts: What was changed is generally good, but not enough changed to really move the needle on SoA besides maybe Night Widow.

 

Long requested stuff like psinado and spin being changed are still not here, despite every other version being changed now. The ranged mace attacks are still kind of bad except for poison ray, and crabs that were using the gun might now only keep heavy burst.

 

I expected more, honestly.

Edited January 24 by ScarySai

[Dispari]

I would take the changed Psi Tornado, even with the lower target cap, just because it's so much faster.

I will also agree with the mace AoE powers all being super weak for some reason. Maybe that's why they don't want to give us mace Frag Grenade, because it just invalidates the blasts. Maybe give us the mace Frag and make the mace blasts better.

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, Dispari said:

I would take the changed Psi Tornado, even with the lower target cap, just because it's so much faster.

I will also agree with the mace AoE powers all being super weak for some reason. Maybe that's why they don't want to give us mace Frag Grenade, because it just invalidates the blasts. Maybe give us the mace Frag and make the mace blasts better.

 

We only have so many power picks and many are essentially mandatory, of course we'll want to gravitate towards what works best. If the fear is they don't want us to rotate disruptor>blast>frag endlessly, then they don't understand how the AT is played.

 

At that point you'd be way better served as a huntsman, but I don't know. I'm just trying to understand why it's such an anemic pass.

 

Hopefully more tuning to come.

Edited January 24 by ScarySai

[KaizenSoze]

5 minutes ago, Dispari said:

I would take the changed Psi Tornado, even with the lower target cap, just because it's so much faster.

I will also agree with the mace AoE powers all being super weak for some reason. Maybe that's why they don't want to give us mace Frag Grenade, because it just invalidates the blasts. Maybe give us the mace Frag and make the mace blasts better.

I like the new Mace Beam Blast. A 100% KB chance with the same radius, faster recharge, but alas lower damage than Frag, works well for keep mobs clumped up for Crowd Control.

I agree Mace Beam Volley is pretty meh. Give MBV a 100% KB chance and it becomes more interesting.

[ScarySai]

28 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

I agree Mace Beam Volley is pretty meh. Give MBV a 100% KB chance and it becomes more interesting.

On what planet does that help?

 

At best, the power becomes objectively worse unless I pay the knock tax.

Edited January 24 by ScarySai

[KaizenSoze]

Video of Mace Beam Blast in action. The amount of damage mitigation 100% KB->KD is useful.

 

 

[balor]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

 

We only have so many power picks and many are essentially mandatory, of course we'll want to gravitate towards what works best. If the fear is they don't want us to rotate disruptor>blast>frag endlessly, then they don't understand how the AT is played.

 

At that point you'd be way better served as a huntsman, but I don't know. I'm just trying to understand why it's such an anemic pass.

 

Hopefully more tuning to come.

This^ My Bane is a Huntsman with only a few of the bane powers.  Crab is a happy crab all day but sometimes you want to play something else.

------

I'm glad they are addressing some issues but I think it would have been better to take on Anarchnos changes and updates as a collective whole vs patching for sub group. For example the two new powers for widow might be done differently when the full clean up/reevaluation is done.  Now if anything changes on those two powers after this update there always will be people wasting time complaining about it. Even if it fits better with the archetype as whole.

[ScarySai]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

Video of Mace Beam Blast in action. The amount of damage mitigation 100% KB->KD is useful.

 

 

 

That's blast though, the knock on blast - while not my preferred way to tune the power, can at least play well with how bane works.

 

Volley wouldn't work the same way for a variety of reasons.

[SaxyGuitar]

With Widow getting powers to boost up some playstyles. I thought it would be cool if crab got something to boost tank playstyle. Something like Fate Seal where it's an auto that gave crabs attacks a taunt would be cool.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, SaxyGuitar said:

With Widow getting powers to boost up some playstyles. I thought it would be cool if crab got something to boost tank playstyle. Something like Fate Seal where it's an auto that gave crabs attacks a taunt would be cool.

Sure, when Kheldians get team buffs.