Mental Manipulation - Suggestions for Update

[DuQ]

Hi Everyone!

 

I've been a long time /MM lover (played a DP/MM before close through incarnates, and am playing a sonic/MM now), but I noticed that compared to the new sets and the improvements to the other older sets, MM is falling behind a bit. I just rolled a Sonic/Temporal, and I'm finding it to be SUPER fun and super well designed, and it got me thinking about how to bring Mental up to par with these newer sets.

 

(Preface: I realize a LOT is going on with the game right now, and many sets need attentions, but I just wanted to share my thoughts and see if anyone else felt the same)

 

It seems to me like the purpose of Mental is to provide the toon with AOE damage, ST control, and some good self buffs. Here are my proposed changes:

 

Subdual Level 1 - KEEP

This power is nice for keeping an individual target at range. The issue with it right now, however, is that it's slow and low damage... Maybe increase damage to match entangle/electrified net arrow/etc? My IDEAL change would be to replace this entirely with Levitate from Mind Control.

 

Mind Probe Level 2 – KEEP

 

Telekinetic Thrust Level 4 – REPLACE (with levitate)

Levitate would add a more versatile soft control for a blapper. Usable in/out of melee. My IDEAL change would be to move concentraion down to T3, and have some sort of Auto/Toggle OR Powerboost added elsewhere in the set (Either Mental Training, Foresight, or Indomitable Will from Widow Teamwork)

 

Psychic Scream Level 10 – KEEP

 

Concentration Level 16 – KEEP

 

Drain Psyche Level 20 – KEEP <3

 

World of Confusion Level 28 – ...Update?

My Thoughts are EITHER

-replace with the Aura of Confusion that Fortunatas get

OR IDEALLY

-add some sort of survivability component (perhaps minor mez protection/ recharge bonus/ etc)

 

Either would offer the blaster and team a good deal of survivability AND would make this power much more tempting to take. Also having the ST confuse in this set adds some nice synergy. I'd push more for adding a survivability addition to this toggle and maybe removing its damage for this), since AOE confuses should definitely be a controller/dom thing. The survivability bonus I had in mind would be something similar to Mental Training OR Foresight OR Indomitable Will from Widow Teamwork.

 

Scare Level 35 – REPLACE (with confuse/boggle)

This power is bad. The better/more fun control option would be a ST confuse. Received later in the set as to allow Controllers/doms the early game advantage with this power. Also would be on shorter duration/longer cooldown. Stacking with the World of confusion allows for some nice confuse stacking for bosses.

 

Psychic Shockwave Level 38 – KEEP

The newer manipulation sets get very similar powers around level 20/28, so this could potentially be swapped with the updated world of confusion.

 

 

 

 

AFTER FEEDBACK - My IDEAL new /MM set would be:

T1: Subdual (Up the damage!)

T2: Mind Probe

T3: TK Thrust (Make Ranged and add -rech)

T4: Psychic Scream

T5: Concentration

T6: Drain Psyche (casting with no enemies in range still grants 1 [boosted] stack, this 1 stack lasts 1 min)

T7: World Of Confusion (add in some mez protection and increase radius)

T8: Confuse

T9: Psychic Shockwave

 

 

 

 

Any thoughts on these suggestion are VERY much appreciated!

[jack_nomind]

I'm totally on board with MM getting a glow-up.  But.

 

A large part of the reason it looks a little lackluster is because the i12-i24 sustain updates to Blaster kits were eclipsed greatly by the i25 updates -- but the latter-day methods haven't been evenly applied.  MM already had a sustain power in Drain Psyche, so it hasn't gotten a free always-on sustain toggle like other Manipulation kits have.  It also doesn't have enough obvious utility to warrant the weakness, so it's in an uncomfortably backwards in-between; better than pre-i12 kits, but not as good as i25 updates.  To merely conform the set to i25 standards, Drain Psyche would need to be reworked or augmented... but the other powers don't necessarily need to be.  And while I'm usually totally on board with cottaging powers when the set is underperforming as a set, or the power just flatly doesn't work in the modern environment... I don't necessarily see that MM is underperforming in a way that can't be fixed with some numerical changes.

 

If subdual is underperforming for damage, all it needs is more damage.  TK Thrust similarly only needs either more damage, a lingering slow/-rech, or both; KB powers are already 'fixable' and some of us still use them for herding.  If World of Confusion is limited by radius... it just needs a bigger radius.  Scare... yeah, is bad.  There are maybe some avenues open other than just replacing it, but also having a single bad power isn't a beacon for redesign.

 

Drain Psyche is the elephant in the room.  The *simplest* thing I can think of is to just double its duration, which makes it better than some Blaster sustain sometimes (really high +rech, high Defense builds) and worse than most Blaster sustain most of the time (needs recasting, costs end, runs on enemies in melee, etc).  Because it can be broken on the very high end and is meh-to-bad on the low end, I still don't love that solution... but the alternative of turning it into a toggle with scaling per-enemy effects and general -regen seems like badly flattened gameplay.

 

Kind of all to say -- I'm with you, I don't agree with your proposed changes, and I'm still thinking over what might actually be best.

[srmalloy]

Telekinetic Thrust Level 4 – REPLACE (with levitate)

Levitate would add a more versatile soft control for a blapper. Usable in/out of melee. My IDEAL change would be to move concentraion down to T3, and have some sort of Auto/Toggle OR Powerboost added elsewhere in the set (Either Mental Training, Foresight, or Indomitable Will from Widow Teamwork)

 

aka "Re-establish range". This takes a mob that has gotten to melee distance and puts it back at range, where their attacks typically do less damage. As such, it's useful for all the /MM Blasters that don't want to be blappers. If you don't want them getting pitched away from you, don't take it. A powerset is not required to have a complete roster of powers well-suited for a particular playstyle.

 

World of Confusion Level 28 – ...Update?

My Thoughts are EITHER

-replace with the Aura of Confusion that Fortunatas get

OR IDEALLY

-add some sort of survivability component (perhaps minor mez protection/ recharge bonus/ etc)

 

Either would offer the blaster and team a good deal of survivability AND would make this power much more tempting to take. Also having the ST confuse in this set adds some nice synergy. I'd push more for adding a survivability addition to this toggle and maybe removing its damage for this), since AOE confuses should definitely be a controller/dom thing. The survivability bonus I had in mind would be something similar to Mental Training OR Foresight OR Indomitable Will from Widow Teamwork.

 

This feels to me like "I want to play a Fortunata with Blaster-level damage". Having damage in the power and not being a PBAoE autohit Confuse make it something that's going to draw aggro to the Blaster and be somewhat risky to use. Changing it so that the Blaster can run in with Invisibility, fire it off to Confuse everything in the spawn but the bosses, and be perfectly safe while the spawn whittles itself down, allowing the Blaster's nuke to more reliably drop the whole spawn feels as if you're tipping things too far the other way.

[Vanden]

World of Confusion Level 28 – ...Update?

My Thoughts are EITHER

-replace with the Aura of Confusion that Fortunatas get

 

Aura of Confusion is a T9 power for an AT that specializes in control. To make it a T7 power for an AT that specializes in damage, there would be nerfs involved, and arguably World of Confusion is already pretty much what that would look like.

[DuQ]

World of Confusion Level 28 – ...Update?

My Thoughts are EITHER

-replace with the Aura of Confusion that Fortunatas get

 

Aura of Confusion is a T9 power for an AT that specializes in control. To make it a T7 power for an AT that specializes in damage, there would be nerfs involved, and arguably World of Confusion is already pretty much what that would look like.

Fair point, I hadn't thought about that!

 

 

 

World of Confusion Level 28 – ...Update?

My Thoughts are EITHER

-replace with the Aura of Confusion that Fortunatas get

OR IDEALLY

-add some sort of survivability component (perhaps minor mez protection/ recharge bonus/ etc)

 

Either would offer the blaster and team a good deal of survivability AND would make this power much more tempting to take. Also having the ST confuse in this set adds some nice synergy. I'd push more for adding a survivability addition to this toggle and maybe removing its damage for this), since AOE confuses should definitely be a controller/dom thing. The survivability bonus I had in mind would be something similar to Mental Training OR Foresight OR Indomitable Will from Widow Teamwork.

 

This feels to me like "I want to play a Fortunata with Blaster-level damage". Having damage in the power and not being a PBAoE autohit Confuse make it something that's going to draw aggro to the Blaster and be somewhat risky to use. Changing it so that the Blaster can run in with Invisibility, fire it off to Confuse everything in the spawn but the bosses, and be perfectly safe while the spawn whittles itself down, allowing the Blaster's nuke to more reliably drop the whole spawn feels as if you're tipping things too far the other way.

Again with world of confusion, I hadn't considered this. I understand why the damage portion is necessary now. I do still think something should be done to make world of confusion a little more useful.

 

 

I'm totally on board with MM getting a glow-up.  But.

 

A large part of the reason it looks a little lackluster is because the i12-i24 sustain updates to Blaster kits were eclipsed greatly by the i25 updates -- but the latter-day methods haven't been evenly applied.  MM already had a sustain power in Drain Psyche, so it hasn't gotten a free always-on sustain toggle like other Manipulation kits have.  It also doesn't have enough obvious utility to warrant the weakness, so it's in an uncomfortably backwards in-between; better than pre-i12 kits, but not as good as i25 updates.  To merely conform the set to i25 standards, Drain Psyche would need to be reworked or augmented... but the other powers don't necessarily need to be.  And while I'm usually totally on board with cottaging powers when the set is underperforming as a set, or the power just flatly doesn't work in the modern environment... I don't necessarily see that MM is underperforming in a way that can't be fixed with some numerical changes.

 

If subdual is underperforming for damage, all it needs is more damage.  TK Thrust similarly only needs either more damage, a lingering slow/-rech, or both; KB powers are already 'fixable' and some of us still use them for herding.  If World of Confusion is limited by radius... it just needs a bigger radius.  Scare... yeah, is bad.  There are maybe some avenues open other than just replacing it, but also having a single bad power isn't a beacon for redesign.

 

Drain Psyche is the elephant in the room.  The *simplest* thing I can think of is to just double its duration, which makes it better than some Blaster sustain sometimes (really high +rech, high Defense builds) and worse than most Blaster sustain most of the time (needs recasting, costs end, runs on enemies in melee, etc).  Because it can be broken on the very high end and is meh-to-bad on the low end, I still don't love that solution... but the alternative of turning it into a toggle with scaling per-enemy effects and general -regen seems like badly flattened gameplay.

 

Kind of all to say -- I'm with you, I don't agree with your proposed changes, and I'm still thinking over what might actually be best.

I really liked your feedback!

 

As for Subdual, more damage would be lovely and easy to implement.

 

TK Thrust would be even better if it could be used at range and had more damage OR the secondary effect you mentioned... but that would be the same as what's in psi blast... It's not broken, I suppose, and others seem to have found use for it, so I suppose it's not a necessary change. Something just feels lackluster about /MM's control capabilities compared to the newer sets, and I feel like something more useful could replace TK.

 

For Drain Psyche, it could potentially function the way that fulcrum shift does - one stack emanates off of the caster (Potentially a larger +regen +recov than what one stack of Drain Psyche is now that lasts for 1 minute), and then the other stacks emanate off of enemies in melee range (a smaller buff than what 1 stack of Drain Psyche is right now lasting for 30 seconds, but at max num enemies hit plus the user centered stack would still cap at the current maximum). This seems like an interesting and more stable middle ground.

 

World of Confusion with a bigger radius would be wonderful (Although I think having some sort of user buff in it would be fun as well... like +rech or something), and I still think it would be really cool to have scare replaced with confuse!

[DuQ]

(editing OP with more reasonable ideas)