Focused Feedback: Various Power Updates

[LastHumanSoldier]

Seems there is an issue with triggering Temporal Bomb:

if you are near another traps player, teamed or solo, and you both have Temporal bomb out.
Either player can trigger the other players bomb. 

Game doesn't care who triggers.

Game doesn't care if you are grouped.

Line of sight doesn't matter.

Range doesn't seem to matter either. 

 

This has some serious bugs associated with it.

• This breaks the UI.
  • It also makes it so the next time you  put the bomb down you can't trigger it.
• This breaks the cooldown.
• This breaks the SFX/VFX. 

Edited February 2 by LastHumanSoldier

[Player-1]

7 hours ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

Seems there is an issue with triggering Temporal Bomb:

if you are near another traps player, teamed or solo, and you both have Temporal bomb out.
Either player can trigger the other players bomb. 

Game doesn't care who triggers.

Game doesn't care if you are grouped.

Line of sight doesn't matter.

Range doesn't seem to matter either. 

 

This has some serious bugs associated with it.

• This breaks the UI.
  • It also makes it so the next time you  put the bomb down you can't trigger it.
• This breaks the cooldown.
• This breaks the SFX/VFX. 

Hello LastHumanSoldier,

 

This is something we tested internally and were not able to recreate early on. Can you please confirm that another player is indeed setting off your Temporal Bomb and vice-versa? Also, are you and the other player the same Archetype?

[LastHumanSoldier]

1 hour ago, Player-1 said:

Hello LastHumanSoldier,

 

This is something we tested internally and were not able to recreate early on. Can you please confirm that another player is indeed setting off your Temporal Bomb and vice-versa? Also, are you and the other player the same Archetype?

 

Yes once we noticed it we tested it repeatedly.

RWZ at the new dummies.

Symphony/Traps and Arsenal/Traps controller.

 

Teamed.
Solo.

Near

Far

Without line of sight.

If we get a chance we will try it again tonight.

 

[ScarySai]

To add the the list of "Things broken by the cancel on damage flag being fixed", Axe cyclone's reverse repel feels notably worse on beta than it does on live.

 

On beta it seems struggle to gather things tightly way more. It still works, but it's a notable enough difference to maybe need a tweak. Your ability to set up mobs for a big cleave AOE is a lot more limited.

Edited February 2 by ScarySai

[WindDemon21]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:46 AM, The Curator said:

• Defender: -Res increased from -35% to -40%
• Controller/Corruptor: -Defense lowered from -30% to -24%
• Masterminds: -Defense lowered from -30% to -18%

Why. Are. We. Still. Giving. MMs. Less. Debuff. Than. Controllers/corruptors.... They should have the same as those as it's their support secondary. This needs fixed, lets not change new stuff already nerfing them further on MMs...

 

 

[Monos King]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:44 PM, Monos King said:

The Take-Away

I look at this through the lenses of a mastermind and a scrapper, but I do consider every AT in the game. Even so:

 

Absorb is better when used on a mastermind, but worse when used by a mastermind.

If an MM were to have Frostwork used on them, generally speaking, it will be better for bodyguard mode because now the pets don't take any damage at all. However, this is a rarer instance. If you are a mastermind, you are focused on supporting your pets, and so while the absorb will be stronger than max HP for them, they are literally benefitting nothing when BG damage hits them. They are taking Hamidon's damage raw, along with many others. 

 

Because this isn't purely an absorb vs max HP conversation, and is instead a "which is better for Cold Domination" conversation, I have to argue that the benefits this single target power of Frostwork are just much higher when as a MAX HP power. The current limitations of Frostwork and Cold Dom make it better tailored to be max HP, and not an absorb power.

 

It's also just mechanically misaligned. Cold dom's point is to make the team take less damage through defense, and debuffing enemies. It cripples enemies so the team can spread out and destroy. It has long last duration buffs to contribute to this task. Giving it a buff that inherently demands of the Cold Dom user 

to tail and reapply crushes the spirit of the independent playstyle that it cultivates. You're supposed to buff them, and then they go off and do their own thing. Absorb isn't allegiant to that mechanic. 

 

And again, Bodyguard mode ignores absorb. This is terrible for masterminds. Cold Dom has no healing to supplement. If nothing else, Frostwork is a screaming sponsor to the notion that Mastermind secondaries should get different treatment for certain powers than other Archetypes get, taking from the example of Detonator from traps. There is definitely a better way to address this power.

Okay...so. Follow up to this one. Now that the absorb from Frostwork has been set to correctly replace, I started doing my main tests: fighting AVs. +4, and with small amounts of surrounding mobs. Build 1 is a demons/cold MM with capped res, but only 27% meaningful def. Build 2 uses soft-cap defense, and lower resistance. The pets have 58% AoE defense in both scenarios. I use Positron and BABs because most other AVs aren't a threat to this build even petless.

 

Build 1 (Res) AV Fighting

Oh my goodness. It is worse. It is so much worse. All of the issues I had anticipated were in full display, as well as a few others I hadn't even considered. Fighting AVs with even a little bit of AoE is just waaaay worse, so any tanking capability just got hit hard.

 

Positron, who is quite the menace for MMs to be fair, was killing my pets via doing damage to me. When the demons had max HP (which again, doesn't ignore BG mode), I would only ever need to summon at most one Cold Demonling (he hates those), with rebirth saving me when he uses his whopper -recharge ability. But with the absorb change? I simply cannot protect them enough. I have no heals, and when they die, they die. 

 

What about re-applying absorb? How did that play in?

To use it effectively, you use Frostwork on each minion before the fight. This is the same with absorb and +HP. What happened is that I quickly discovered that while re-application sounds nice in a vacuum, it just isn't diddly when enemies use recharge debuffs. Back Alley Power Punch was far worse to fight against than on live. As was his whole moveset. Positron, with his recharge death ability, took away any meaning or value that Frostwork had everytime he used it, as I couldn't click on it during its downtime. Once the absorb was damaged off..it was off. Positron is an extreme example, though, so I also tested against Galaxy's (not too bad but worse than when it was max HP, has its own issues), Cabal (reallly, reaaaally unpleasant), and Arachnoids (I'm not even going to speak about how unpleasant that was). 

 

Before, when fighting heavy -rech guys, I was mostly fine. I only needed to worry when Frostworks duration wore off. Now, if the absorb shield is off due to damage, I have to scramble to try and re-apply it to whichever pet is taking damage. The other pets, also taking damage, are slowly losing absorb while I apply absorb to pets individually one at a time, rather than being able to naturally regen back up to a health level where they won't be one shot, or being healed by the ember demon. The trade-off for being able to better protect a single henchman is waaaay not worth the tedium of having to keep reapply the absorb to these squishy lil punks. It was essentially the same experience as when I use Aid Other in a build, but worse.

 

And furthermore, even that advantage was just completely gone when fighting AVs or hard hitting mobs with AoE. Absorb ignores bodyguard mode. Absorb ignores bodyguard mode. IT IGNORES IT! You get a Back Alley Power Punch, and that's a wrap. Keep in mind, for every 100 DMG the MM takes, each pet is taking 50. The minion pet only has 574 health base, and losing a pet increases the damage they take by 14%.

 

I was getting flung out there. The more res heavy build is practically a dud for fighting AVs like that now. It's really, really not good.

 

Build 2 (Def) AV Fighting

So, yeah, the change invalidates my preferential up close and personal fighting style. What if I just cheese it and go full Hover, Soft Cap def? 

 

Well first off, Positron can fly. My pets cannot. And, everyone already knows that being able to fly will make you take much less damage, that tactic isn't really relevant in a discussion about power improvement. Here I went up close and personal, just with higher def, lower res, and lower damage.

 

IT SUCKED. Like, it was better in some ways. Positron hit me much less, so the pets didn't get as much damage. The same with Back Alley Brawler. But eventually they did; they hit me with an AoE, this AoE also hit the pets, and it was just a one shot. Full wipe, besides myself. Likely aided by my lower res in the defense trade-off. Being able to protect that one or two pets longer is vastly inferior to being able to protect your whole crew longer, which is what Max Health represents. When the whole henchmen set up is taking damage slowly, which takes off all of their absorb at a "manageable rate", you are still left with the need to reapply absorb to EVERYONE, even if Frostworks 1m duration isn't over. This makes your pets really in danger for a while. Meanwhile, Mr MaxHP keeps everyone nice and steady for the whole duration, and they can heal back up to that value without being swatted by BG damage, or interrupted by recharge debuffs. 

 

And they *will* heal, if you can protect them. Thugs is the only set with no heal baked in, and they've got other things going on for them. Your pets will also most likely have AT IOs, giving some regen. 

 

Testing the changes in content with lower damage enemies, Absorb frostwork wasn't too bad. I would argue it was in fact, a little better. Zombies benefits hard from this, seeing as they get max health buffs already. For every other set, this is really only while they aren't actually in that much danger. I didn't test Hamidon or Crimson or enemies like that because the results would be obvious: they literally ignore absorb. Obviously worse in those cases. I have yet to test out with ninjas, bots, or wolves. Based off of my understanding of the sets, bots will do better with max HP in all instances due to defense and heals, wolves will be a bit better with absorb, and ninjas will require me to see directly.

 

Tl;dr after doing further testing in my natural element, with it behaving as intended, I have to be more adamant. This is a very bad change for most MMs. Absorb needs to start noticing Bodyguard mode at the  very least before MaxHP is replaced with it on a set with no heals.

Edited February 7 by Monos King

[SwitchFade]

On 2/1/2024 at 7:55 PM, Booper said:

We didn't change that, that has been there from the start.

 

What did change is we implemented a fix to the Cancel on Damage event. Before, it was unreliably canceling. Under the hood, there was an engine bug that prevents the cancel from working most of the time. It would depend on the ordering within the combat tick, so damage could cancel but seemingly random. Recent testing that was requested by Player-1 shows that on Live you would see the Stalker ATO proc get canceled 14% of the time, which for what it's worth is what similar tests showed for Beta.

 

Regardless, we have added a small buff to the Stalker ATO and Placate powers by giving them a small window where they will not cancel via damage. So instead of having an 86% success rate, you'll now have a 100% success rate within those windows.

Speaking for myself, I very much appreciate this information. Knowing the intent was important, as bugs or unforeseeable impacts are absolutely understandable. Thanks again.

[victusfate]

On 1/20/2024 at 2:04 PM, Vinceq98 said:

Omg I'm at work but someone please test out Mind Control Telekinesis.

 

That is an Uber buff to MC playstyle and helps the set setup containment DMG it really needed. Also pulling in mobs is going to be soo helpful. I really hope this power trend picks up in other future power sets the. Decide to make. Imagine grouping up everyone in a nice tight pack and melt them in a burn patch or fireball. I really need to get to the test server for this. 

Losing hold and gaining immobilize will make for many surprise KOs. The other control immobilizes have much lower cool downs. What about IO set changes, currently it takes none.

 

I honestly took it for the nostalgic bizarre sound effect on my mind/psi dom.

[tricon]

The buff for Storm Blast was needed. 

 

The movement of Storm Cell should be increased, feels still a bit slow and atm its much faster to recast it again.  Another point I have issues with is Chain Lightning

and how ranged chain forks function. This actually applies to all skills that are structured in this way. It's nice that we have another mechanism at our disposal, but in general it seems to me that the powers are a bit underpowerd vs the aoe powers.

 

If I remember correctly, they all have a significantly lower proc rate, in addition, you need longer to hit all targets. Maybe you could look into in one of the other issues and bring the powers in the different sets , like this power or e.g. Trick Shot from the Dominator Martial Assault set more in line with power rating of aoe attack. This issue have all the powers with the true "Chain Delay" and "Fork at Jumps" powers.

Edited February 3 by tricon

[SableShrike]

Been mucking with the new Telekinesis.

 

It still feels underwhelming.  It's not reliable Containment on a Controller, and the Recharge is too long to use it comfortably every spawn.  This is with maxed out enhancements for recharge on it.

 

Considering something like Plant gets Roots they can easily perma (and does damage) Telekinesis needs further work.

 

Honestly, I'd be happier with it as a Targeted AoE; something that pulls targets to the location and Immobs them there.  Doesn't need damage if it keeps the attraction mechanic; it'd still be unique.

 

Then you can totally do away with the clunky 30 second timer and overly-long Recharge.

Edited February 3 by SableShrike

[Vince]

1 hour ago, SableShrike said:

Been mucking with the new Telekinesis.

 

It still feels underwhelming.  It's not reliable Containment on a Controller, and the Recharge is too long to use it comfortably every spawn.  This is with maxed out enhancements for recharge on it.

 

Considering something like Plant gets Roots they can easily perma (and does damage) Telekinesis needs further work.

 

Honestly, I'd be happier with it as a Targeted AoE; something that pulls targets to the location and Immobs them there.  Doesn't need damage if it keeps the attraction mechanic; it'd still be unique.

 

Then you can totally do away with the clunky 30 second timer and overly-long Recharge.

Agreed. I was messing around with it finally this morning with Levitate and it is immensely underwhelming. Was testing out against lvl 50 mobs in PI, and the splash damage from levitate was so laughable. Combine that with TK’s new longer recharge and timed immob gimmick makes me never want to use it as a damage move or a soft control move. 
 

For me, it’s more skippable now than the live version. 
 

If it had the same grouping/repel mechanic on beta with the same stacking hold that it currently has on live (or the TAoE idea you suggested), then it would be worth taking imo…

Edited February 3 by Vince

[ScarySai]

Axe cyclone's definitely behaving different, the pull isn't as tight, especially mid-combat. Assuming this is related to the cancel on damage flag's fixes, since this power has it too.

 

sucks for following a cyclone with cleave. 

 

Beta footage starts at 1:09

 

 

 

Edit: This has been fixed for a week or so, just mentioning it because it's still getting reactions.

Edited February 13 by ScarySai

[SableShrike]

@ScarySai, I wonder if that same bug is affecting the Telekinesis changes?

 

During testing, one thing I noticed is the 20 foot radius to attract mobs is nowhere near what it should be.

 

Fire Cages would lock a full spawn, while my new Telekinesis constantly missed the edges.

[victusfate]

Tested out Telekinesis briefly for my Mind/Psi dom (think they were level 21) in Talos outdoors.

 

It worked very well at rounding targets up (neat!). But they predictably just kept on blasting (hold -> immobilize) which was a bit dicier. Would hope for a bit shorter recharge on that immobilize like other aoe immobilize powers, the doubling from 60 to 120 makes it only reliable at late game play for high recharge situations. So maybe good for farming support, or KM ITF or Market Crash runs.

 

I didn't test out what new IO sets it can take now as enhancements.

Edited February 4 by victusfate

[SableShrike]

13 hours ago, Vince said:

Agreed. I was messing around with it finally this morning with Levitate and it is immensely underwhelming. Was testing out against lvl 50 mobs in PI, and the splash damage from levitate was so laughable. Combine that with TK’s new longer recharge and timed immob gimmick makes me never want to use it as a damage move or a soft control move. 
 

For me, it’s more skippable now than the live version. 
 

If it had the same grouping/repel mechanic on beta with the same stacking hold that it currently has on live (or the TAoE idea you suggested), then it would be worth taking imo…

In regards to Levitate, it actively makes using Telekinesis WORSE.

 

For mediocre Levitate AoE, you lose the Containment set up on the spawn.  This makes your AoE damage powers far less effective than on any other Controller set (apart from Illusion).  Difference is, Illusion has masses of pets to deal damage.  Mind only has the caster.

 

For testing, I dropped Levitate and added in Wall of Force for spammable AoE.  Even this with the Telekinesis changes feels very slow.

Edited February 4 by SableShrike

[Uun]

6 hours ago, victusfate said:

I didn't test out what new IO sets it can take now as enhancements.

Telekinesis doesn't take any IO sets. Can only be enhanced for end reduction, recharge and range.

[Crysis]

On 2/2/2024 at 5:17 PM, WindDemon21 said:

Why. Are. We. Still. Giving. MMs. Less. Debuff. Than. Controllers/corruptors.... They should have the same as those as it's their support secondary. This needs fixed, lets not change new stuff already nerfing them further on MMs...

 

 

 

I’ve been on Beta testing with my alt account and no matter how I try to look at the changes to /Cold for MM’s, it’s just all around resulting in more deaths for my henchmen and less ability to hit the targets (since they lowered the -DEF in this patch).

 

Now if the dev team would remove the level shifts for the Tier 1/2 pets, then perhaps I could see my debuffs being lowered.  But otherwise, this is just a net nerf to MM’s who, out of all the classes, likely don’t deserve even more penalties than they already have given the level shift mechanics in play.

[csr]

23 hours ago, SableShrike said:

@ScarySai, I wonder if that same bug is affecting the Telekinesis changes?

 

During testing, one thing I noticed is the 20 foot radius to attract mobs is nowhere near what it should be.

 

Fire Cages would lock a full spawn, while my new Telekinesis constantly missed the edges.

 

I don't think it's the same issue as Whirling Axe.  I believe it's just that Fire Cages has a 30' radius rather than 20'.

[MoonSheep]

• Mind Control/Telekinesis:
  • No longer holds
  • Now Immobilizes
  • Target cap increased to 16
  • Radius increased to 20'
  • Recharge increased from 60s to 120s
  • Will now keep the targets between 40 and 60 feet from the player
  • Will group enemies close to the main target (i.e. "reverse repel" or "pull towards").
  • Toggle now lasts a max of 30s before auto-shutdown

I've remade my mind/fire on the test server and tried out the new TK and levitate

 

The recharge is too long in my opinion. Doubling the recharge of a power which already has a 60 second cooldown is quite a nerf - If it needed increasing, could this have not been a subtle increase? Perhaps 80 or 90 seconds.

 

The damage aspect of Levitate impacting the group is disappointing. Looks like it deals around half as much damage as a standard application of the power. Levitate has a standard base (according to mids) of 69.74 damage, halved is 34.87. A 90 second recharge AoE with 34.87 damage is a bit meaningless

 

Mind control has a lot less damage compared to almost every other control set through the lack of pets. Setting the AoE damage of a TK induced Levitate at 90-110 base would be a great addition. Even base 85 would be worthwhile. The current damage is far too low

 

[TinyJuggs]

On 2/1/2024 at 8:55 PM, Booper said:

We didn't change that, that has been there from the start.

 

What did change is we implemented a fix to the Cancel on Damage event. Before, it was unreliably canceling. Under the hood, there was an engine bug that prevents the cancel from working most of the time. It would depend on the ordering within the combat tick, so damage could cancel but seemingly random. Recent testing that was requested by Player-1 shows that on Live you would see the Stalker ATO proc get canceled 14% of the time, which for what it's worth is what similar tests showed for Beta.

 

Regardless, we have added a small buff to the Stalker ATO and Placate powers by giving them a small window where they will not cancel via damage. So instead of having an 86% success rate, you'll now have a 100% success rate within those windows.

 

Despite the whole situation and the other players complaints, I think the majority of us stalkers are very happy with the new change and having more consistency.

 

The hide proc is such a critical, and enjoyable feature that only stalkers have. It has a meaningful impact on game play and fun at the same time. So this "fix" is greatly appreciated.

[bigfashizzel]

The Telekinesis change is beautiful.  I love it so much.  I noticed it breaks sleep when repositioning enemies, is this intended?  does Repel always break sleep?

[Booper]

4 minutes ago, bigfashizzel said:

The Telekinesis change is beautiful.  I love it so much.  I noticed it breaks sleep when repositioning enemies, is this intended?  does Repel always break sleep?

Yes, if I recall correctly, damage, heal,  knock, and repel break sleep.

[victusfate]

10 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

• Mind Control/Telekinesis:
  • No longer holds
  • Now Immobilizes
  • Target cap increased to 16
  • Radius increased to 20'
  • Recharge increased from 60s to 120s
  • Will now keep the targets between 40 and 60 feet from the player
  • Will group enemies close to the main target (i.e. "reverse repel" or "pull towards").
  • Toggle now lasts a max of 30s before auto-shutdown

I've remade my mind/fire on the test server and tried out the new TK and levitate

 

The recharge is too long in my opinion. Doubling the recharge of a power which already has a 60 second cooldown is quite a nerf - If it needed increasing, could this have not been a subtle increase? Perhaps 80 or 90 seconds.

 

The damage aspect of Levitate impacting the group is disappointing. Looks like it deals around half as much damage as a standard application of the power. Levitate has a standard base (according to mids) of 69.74 damage, halved is 34.87. A 90 second recharge AoE with 34.87 damage is a bit meaningless

 

Mind control has a lot less damage compared to almost every other control set through the lack of pets. Setting the AoE damage of a TK induced Levitate at 90-110 base would be a great addition. Even base 85 would be worthwhile. The current damage is far too low

 

If you could slot IO procs in here with massive global recharge you could have a little extra damage tool every 45-50 sec.

 

I don't understand the recharge doubling, for an aoe immobilize it should be lower right? Not sure how much since it clusters too, but maybe 30-40 seconds vs 120 sec

Edited February 5 by victusfate

[WindDemon21]

On 2/2/2024 at 8:33 PM, Monos King said:

Tl;dr after testing this in my natural element with it behaving as intended, I have to be more adamant. This is a very bad change for most MMs. Absorb needs to start noticing Bodyguard mode at the  very least before MaxHP is replaced with it on a set with no heals.

Or again, make it pbaoe with decent stats, like 25% absorb 60s recharge or something. Or make it still pbaoe, but max hp and add 100-150% regen to it. Solves pretty much every problem and makes the power much more user friendly and helps address the self-squishy nature of cold domination as well. As absorb or max hp even with regen added though it's current single target nature just really doesn't do enough for it's rech/duration, it needs to be pbaoe.

[WindDemon21]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:46 AM, The Curator said:

Increased Dual Blades - Vengeful Slice from 6.8224 to 8.528 (All versions).

Wait.. so you made this power even WORSE!??? This power is already over twice as weak than it should be for it's cast time/damage. Please just fix the power if you're doing this as well, shaving off the first 2 hits which are entirely unnecessary and are just the same animation as one of the tier 1/2 powers anyway and the only cool parts are the last 2 hits. That would take it's cast time from 2.43s to 1.43s, and then would up the recharge to 10 seconds per the fixed damage/cast time in the formula (ie would gain 25% damage increase for the new recharge time as well making it a "big" ST hitter for the set, it'd still be a far cry from powers like total focus and such, but would put the power where it should be for the set).

 

While at it please fix impale too to the 1.43s version that dominators already have. 2.43s on this remains utter crap. (same with frozen fists and greater ice sword which should clearly be the .83s one punch "frost punch" instead of frozen fists, and the original 1.83s ice slash instead of the terrible slow/low damage it has now, then ice melee would be perfect as well)

Edited February 6 by WindDemon21