Focused Feedback: Various Power Updates

[CrimsonSurge]

I'm honestly not a big fan of the Frostwork change to absorb since it's the only power in a support set to my knowledge that does +maxhp, so changing that to absorb is removing something unique and absorb can already be gotten from Spirit Ward in Sorcery as an option or you go Nature for example. Plus there are situations where +maxhp definitely has alot of value. Also I can see that overall with the change to absorb it's still going to get skipped by alot of players due to priorities in power picks and as an absorb I'd honestly skip it since I can already get that from Spirit Ward.

[Tatterhood]

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

 

Dark Armor/Dark Embrace:

• Fixed NoFade FX using default FX.

I'm really happy to see this, but is there any chance that the other weird AT inconsistencies in Dark Armor could be looked at as well?

[Dispari]

59 minutes ago, CrimsonSurge said:

I'm honestly not a big fan of the Frostwork change to absorb since it's the only power in a support set to my knowledge that does +maxhp, so changing that to absorb is removing something unique and absorb can already be gotten from Spirit Ward in Sorcery as an option or you go Nature for example. Plus there are situations where +maxhp definitely has alot of value. Also I can see that overall with the change to absorb it's still going to get skipped by alot of players due to priorities in power picks and as an absorb I'd honestly skip it since I can already get that from Spirit Ward.

To be fair, Absorb stacks as far as I'm aware, and Spirit Ward doesn't give that much. The designs are also different. Frostwork would be a good emergency "HP stopper" whereas Spirit Ward tics small amounts of it over time, to shave a little off incoming damage here and there.

I'm tentatively in favor of the power being changed to Absorb, but it definitely has its pros and cons, and I think it could be slightly better. For me, being able to track it as actually doing something is a big bonus though. Though I will admit losing it as a unique bonus that no other set has is a downside. Though maybe it's rare for a reason.

 

Absorb is a very good effect and basically every set that has it is super strong. MaxHP is harder to quantify if it's doing something or not.

[High_Beam]

Gravity in the Movement section of Combat attributes?  Interesting.  I didn't see it anywhere in the various power updates notes.

 

Moon!  Zero Two!

[Mezmera]

On 11/22/2023 at 8:46 AM, The Curator said:

Mind Control/Telekinesis:

• No longer holds
• Now Immobilizes
• Target cap increased to 16
• Radius increased to 20'
• 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

 

Okay I spec'd into this and dropped Burnout for it.  Plus I also spec'd out of the Soul pool to give the new Dark dom pool a lookover.  Here's my assessment: 

 

I loaded in a new Council map in PI at +4/8.  These buggers are not your grandad's Council no more so kudos to that.  

 

I lead in with either Total Domination or Mass Confusion then go to town with Total Focus and my blasts.  I had to stop to realize I didn't have much in way of aoe damage anymore going from my Soul pool to Dark which has more debuffing but hardly much in way of damage.  I found myself relying still on the tried and true Terrify and my ST controls for the harder targets when my aoe control wore off if I didn't want to use my other hard aoe control, which with how much harder these Council were I just used both Total Dom and Mass Confuse in a mob anyways.  

 

Using these tactics I would try to use the new TK as effectively as I could.  That it didn't stop any incoming damage didn't make this an optimal go to control for incoming aggro and that it pushes things away from me when I want to run in to hit some targets is also counterintuitive on a Dominator.  That it clumps them better is a neat little feature but out of clearing the whole map I'd say it came in handy twice.  If there was a mob dispersed far apart from one another I would first pop a big defense shield so I could try to withstand attacks as I have them TK'd and trying to sweep them all into a clump.  Once I had them clumped to how I liked it I would just Mass Confuse or Total Dominate them and turn TK off so I could then run in and hit them with that new Soul Consumption (which I'll talk about in the ancillary pool).  

 

I also had the same issue with my clump of targets getting TK'd up into the air and then when I turned it off so I could get at them they just all dispersed every which way.  

 

I do like the anti-tp part of this and the clumping of targets which your teammates would find more useful if they hadn't already nuked them into oblivion to begin with.  

 

My ultimate assessment is that this is a quirky power replacing its limited use for another.  That all it does for Mind Control is try to clump a group better for your main powers to be more effective at the cost of having to survive all of those attacks I found I'd rather just use Mind's other main powers.  Being somewhat helpful on 2 mobs out of about 15 I could not see myself respecing into this and dropping Burnout or anything else I already primarily use to fight.  

 

In the same way that Mass Hypnosis now has that auto hit control but little in the way of effective powers in a fight I find the new TK to be the same.  That it doesn't also allow to do damage seems to be a missed opportunity especially for the Controller AT.  

[TauntingMonk]

So... about Gremlins getting knockback IO sets? They can be enhanced with common knockback IOs but, not the IO sets themselves?

 

But, there are many other powers like this. Can enhance with a common IO but, not of the IO sets. Wonder if you read any of the posts or looked into to this. Was really  hoping for this change for my Gremlins.

 

On the /em pocketdog... what on earth is the falling meat that comes out of nowhere, is this a glitch or something I have no internet clue on?

 

Nice issue though...  looks ok

[Videra]

You buffed Storm Blast. Thank you, Devs, you have saved my life.

[Sorena]

I think TK has more use as a hold effect. Also, not a big fan of the toggle limits. I would rather pay more end to keep it a toggle. I like the inward draw of the baddies and the stable distance so they don't just keep repelling away from you. If a perma toggle is just not on the table, maybe perhaps make it into a more interesting click power. A location based target that just does a quick yank of baddies to a location you target. Do a type of Psychic version of Fold Space or Wormhole. That would seem more useful. 

[Avocado]

7 hours ago, macskull said:

I'm still not sold on why exactly non-Defender Sleet needs its debuff values adjusted downward (instead of raising the Defender values) considering the values have been the same since CoV launch when it was added as a Corruptor-only set, especially considering that Freezing Rain is getting its -res increased for Defenders in the same patch.

 

 

You beat to the punch bringing up the Freezing Rain chain, but it looks like the changes across the board (both in this update and in updates over the past year or two) have been to normalize downward for the other ATs.

 

-------------

 

 

On 1/19/2024 at 9:07 AM, The Curator said:

...

Storm Summoning

Similarly to Cold Domination, Storm Summoning has been using incorrect values for one of its powers (Freezing Rain). It now is a true pseudopet and will use that caster's AT modifier tables. Summary of changes for each AT is provided below.

• Freezing Rain
  • Defender: -Res increased from -35% to -40%
• • ...

 

 

Just want to double check: is this really intended to be 40% ResDebuff for Defenders rather than 30%?  I'll definitely be playing my Storm Defenders more if so!, but I'm wondering if it's a mistype in the notes.

 

 

-------------

 

 

Great set of updates, overall, though it'll take some mental adjustment (and quite a lot of respecs) to get used to some of the changes to long-standing stats for many of these powers -- moving Gloom's recharge time in the epics from 12 to 16 seconds is a game changer for 15 years of brute min/maxing, but I think it makes sense. After almost 20 years of playing this game, however, I don't mind some change. Thanks for all of the hard work!

Edited January 21 by Avocado

[c0]

Surveillance (Arachnos Soldier AT, unsure if other ATs affected) aggros mobs, despite the "Enemies will not notice this attack" flag.

 

 

[Psyonico]

6 minutes ago, c0 said:

Surveillance (Arachnos Soldier AT, unsure if other ATs affected) aggros mobs, despite the "Enemies will not notice this attack" flag.

 

Do you have a proc slotted in there? I just tried it and it isn't notifying mobs for me.

[Frosticus]

Savage leap: savage stalkers are back on top. Really good buff in conjunction with new placate (from a bit ago). 

[Troo]

47 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Do you have a proc slotted in there? I just tried it and it isn't notifying mobs for me.

 

i use an -res proc and they notice. fyi

[Mezmera]

Yeah u cant put almost any procs in a non notice power or it will cause aggro

Edited January 21 by Mezmera

[c0]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

 

Do you have a proc slotted in there? I just tried it and it isn't notifying mobs for me.

Looks like even Achilles' Heel proc causes aggro, which is a shame as it's non-damaging.

[drbuzzard]

Made a elec/energy stalker to try out the thunderstrike change. It is definitely a good thing and puts electric melee into the realm of good sets. Thunderstrike used to be a somewhat marginal power IMO. It is no long marginal, it is good. 

[WeatherLord]

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

Increased Spines - Impale from 5.2 to 8.528 (All versions).

 

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

Fixed Spines - Spine Burst recharge; was 15s, should be 16s (Stalkers only).

 

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

Spines

• Fixed Ripper animation time not matching minimum sequencer frames (the power was never actually animating at 2.17s) (Spines, Plant Manipulation, Thorny Assault).

 

I understand the above are formula standardizations / bug fixes for Spines, but these three powers were already kinda underperforming within the set IMO. The lower End Cost for Impale and slightly faster Recharge for Stalker Spine Burst made them more appealing to actually use on a Spines Stalker. For Impale and Spine Burst, the damage done compared to the animation cast time is really low. Impale Activation Time is 2.43 seconds while Spine Burst is a massive 3.00 seconds. If the End Cost and Recharge are going to be standardized, OK fine, but could the cast times at least be lowered a bit please?

 

As a comparison:

• Blaster Plant Manipulation Thorn Burst is only 2.00 Activation Time (compared to 3.00 Spine Burst) for similar damage
• Dominator Thorns Impale is only 1.43 Activation Time (compared to 2.43 Spines Impale) for similar damage. The Thorns version does have more End Cost/Recharge but also gets more Range and def debuff

 

As another comparison specific to Stalkers only, Electric Melee was already considered one of the best Stalker sets, and the Thunder Strike consistency change (which was definitely needed, thank you Devs!) has buffed an already top set to be even better. There's also a lot of inconsistencies between the Spines/Thorns powers as well, and the Melee versions have the short end of the stick.

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

Thunder Strike consistency pass (All versions):

• Recharge increased from 18s to 20s
• Radius increased from 7' to 10'
• Endurance cost increased from 10.192 to 18.512
• Cast time reduced from 3.3s to 2.53s
• Main target damage increased from scale 2.38 to scale 2.98
• Secondary target damage set to scale 0.42
• Epic versions of this power has 40s cooldown and 23.14 endurance cost

 

To be clear, I'm not asking for huge buffs to the Spines set, but if the powers are going to be tweaked to fit the standard formulas, I think the context of the powerset also needs to be considered. I admit my bias as Spines is one of my favorite melee sets, I'd just like to see a little love to avoid it being unintentional nerfs for an already middling set (especially to Stalkers). Lowering the cast time of Impale and Spine Burst a bit would help a lot.

[Argentae]

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

Mind Control/Telekinesis:

• No longer holds
• Now Immobilizes
• Target cap increased to 16
• Radius increased to 20'
• 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

Actually posted the original in the Controller forum thread, then expanded and posted in patch release notes then finally copied to here as the appropriate location.
Sorry for the duplication!

 

I've been playing around a bit with the new TK on test on a Mind/Storm build. No IO sets or enh, purely SO. No incarnate powers/slots.

For context, I LOVED the original pre-ED TK. It was one of the few powers that was balanced by player SKILL. You could do amazing things with it, but it took real practice, and you had to do pretty much nothing else given the end cost.

 

Initial reaction:

The new TK has some potential, I like the way it looks. The reverse repel is excellent. If I could effectively maneuver the spawn around to pull together stray mobs it could be really useful/cool.

 

As it exists though, it's a VERY poor swap for the existing TK.

 

I can understand why they want to give Mind/ an immob, not having a durable containment setting power like almost every other Control primary (Except Illusion as mentioned below) is really unfair given everything being balanced around Containment. The new TK could fill that slot, but the recharge being set to 2 minutes and the end cost still being 3.12 end per second makes it useless as an every spawn power. 
Another problem is it does NOT apply a -kb.

It also doesn't last anywhere near 30 seconds. I was testing as a lvl 50 in PI against lvl 43 mobs and it barely lasted 20 seconds and then went into a 2-minute cool down.

 

So first pass synopsis, obviously very subjective, maybe it gets better with a lot of practice, but I'm pretty good with Mind/ and used to use TK a lot back in the day.

 

It went from auto hit to needing to slot accuracy. -- usefulness

It is no longer a hold it's only an immob. - usefulness though having an immob in mind would be useful

The target cap has gone back to 16 + usefulness

Cool down is still 2 minutes -- usefulness given it's now being a every spawn kind of power, rather than a situational power

Endurance cost is still 3.12 PER SECOND which has been broken ever since the target cap was dropped to 5. -- usefulness

Having the TK immob lack a -kb component reduces the utility substantially compared to most other Controller Primary immobs. Which is absurd considering the huge recharge and massive endurance cost - usefulness

 

The ability to use it as a positioning power is really only largely theoretical.
I had the from-the-caster repel reverse and pull them towards me on some (con -5) DE mobs on a beach in PI. 
I clumped up some even level Council in a warehouse mission, fast hovered to the other side to push them out of a corridor and it didn't really work. The repel from the caster seems to be on too slow a pulse to be very useful.
I threw a Tornado at spawns and watched the spawn explode like bowling pins.

 

In summary, a power that has been broken since ED (end cost was never adjusted when target cap was gutted to 5) but was still situationally useful, has been replaced by a power that while it has some potential, is currently worse in almost every way. 

 

This is literally the point of having a beta test though! 🙂
This change has potential, but IMO needs MAJOR tweaks as it stands.

I want to repeat though, I think it's great that someone is looking at TK and Mind/.
Mind/ is at a substantial disadvantage against pretty much all other Control primaries (except Illusion, and they get PA which more than balances it out) in not being able to readily use containment (which the AT is balanced around) for AOE damage. I think TK is probably the right place to put a solution, and conceptually it makes some sense. As it stands though, it has made a situational, borderline skip-it power so much worse, which I'm sure is not the intent.

[arcane]

Figures… for years here you couldn’t find a single soul that would stand up for Telekinesis, and now the old version is everyone’s favorite power. Beanbag Argument 2.0.

[Argentae]

Pre-ED it was a signature power.

Not reducing the massive end cost when dropping it to 5 targets made it much more situational. It was still useful in the right circumstances, and unique. 
 

I like the idea of the new version, but as mentioned above, it needs some major tweaking. 
 

I don’t think TK is many people’s  favorite power anymore, but the new version as it stands is a substantial change for the worse. The idea of the change seems good though.

 

If you reduced the cool down a lot, dropped the end cost substantially and gave it -kb like FireCages or Root I think it could be useful. 
 

It’s also worth noting that if you’re putting it in the same class of power as other AOE immob powers, then doing zero damage is already a big downgrade from the standard. A 2 minute cooldown and massive end cost just isn’t at all justified for what it currently does.

 

I do love the clumping effect, that’s useful and unique. Maybe make it a click power that does that, does no damage, and has a reasonable end cost and immob duration with -kb,  and give it a cooldown twice the immob duration so it can be perma with three SO Rech equivalent. The utility of clumping is balanced by zero damage and longer cooldown. It would be a useful but not game breaking power that would be unique to Mind while fixing some imbalances. 
 

With a long recharge you would have to be careful about what sets can be slotted, as it is you can’t slot ANY sets iirc. 

[Onlyasandwich]

Maybe have TK still have the hold effect on the primary target, but retain the reverse repel and immob on those who clump?

 

If the immob were even just a little persistent after release (5-6 seconds?) and slottable for duration, that would allow you to use quick timing to combo it with other powers in an interesting way. It would also make the choice of when to release a bit more interesting instead of just "I ran out of end or they died."

 

My use cases for the current TK include:

• Quick, guaranteed backup hold layer to get a boss out of commission when needed.
• Layering holds on AV's.
• "Get out of my face" button.
• Push mobs carefully back into a patch.
• Just being silly and doing fun things with mob positioning.

 

It isn't an all-star, but it is a solid tool to have in my pocket, and usually pops out a couple times a mission solo.

 

I need some more time with the new version to better understand my thoughts, but my initial impressions are:

• Get out of my face works okay.
• Hold layering obviously not happening.
• Patch positioning is superior.
• Faffing about with mobs has some new amusing scenarios, but it seems like the repel effect may be weaker. Am I imagining this bit?
• It still absolutely doesn't deserve to basically double my end/sec used while active.
• The recharge should be balanced against the idea that it is toggled for up to 30 seconds before it begins recharging. Other controls apply persistent effects and count down right away. I would at minimum knock 30 seconds off.

 

 

[StarkWhite]

1 hour ago, Argentae said:

I had the from-the-caster repel reverse and pull them towards me on some (con -5) DE mobs on a beach in PI. 

That's by design. It will push or pull depending on how far away the target gets, trying to keep the target a set distance away from the caster (unlike the old "push infinitely" version).

[Psyonico]

@Argentae Thinking about the lack of -knock it makes sense.  This means that Levitate still has its full effect.

 

I like the concept of the new TK, but I still think I'll skip it in its current state.  Bare minimum I'd like to see the end cost cut dramatically and/or the 30 second duration removed.

[Mezmera]

3 hours ago, arcane said:

Figures… for years here you couldn’t find a single soul that would stand up for Telekinesis, and now the old version is everyone’s favorite power. Beanbag Argument 2.0.

 

The old old version was broken.  When it was 16 targets and would instantly hold everything coming at you with no accuracy checks needed it kind of made the case for why even take some of the other nice aoe controls in the set.  Before they changed Mass Confusion to make it a much longer recharge and TK you could get by on taking a very few specific OP powers.  So yeah I understand why the oldest version of TK is the most popular.  

 

With that said this change doesn't go far enough to make it useful in the kit of Mind Control imo.  

Edited January 21 by Mezmera

[Argentae]

1 hour ago, StarkWhite said:

That's by design. It will push or pull depending on how far away the target gets, trying to keep the target a set distance away from the caster (unlike the old "push infinitely" version).

I figured out what was happening there, the "Automatic field of view" setting in graphics was causing things to look WAY closer outside than in the warehouse on my ultra wide curved monitor. With that setting corrected it seemed like it was working correctly. The reaction time to my moving is still a bit delayed, I think a faster pulse would probably make it more responsive. I played around with it more on the beach, and I really do like it as a mob sweeping function, flying around and gathering up the mobs. 

 

I LIKE the mechanics of the new TK as a spawn clumping tool, the only other negative repel I can think of is Singularity. I think it could be a fun and useful positioning tool with much lower end cost and cooldown. Seriously, 2 minutes cooldown is just way too much.

Good point about the -kb and Levitate, though it would do the damage anyway. Pretty sure Entangling arrow applies a massive -KB (resistance?) and Levitate still works fine. Actually has a great FX as it looks like the mob stretches the net way up and then SLAMS back into the ground. 😛