[OPEN BETA] Patch Notes for January 19th, 2024 - Issue 27, Page 7 - Build 1

[ExeErdna]

Arsenal/Traps; welp here we go, let me find my macro notes

[golstat2003]

When the patch notes take me scrolling to about almost near the bottom of the page, you know a Banger is incoming.

 

😁

 

Nice work HC team! 

[Thraxen]

3 hours ago, Thraxen said:

It only does top tier when proc’d out. 

Yeah prove me wrong. Better dos than fire when not proc’d out. Laugh emoji. 

[golstat2003]

11 minutes ago, Thraxen said:

Yeah prove me wrong. Better dos than fire when not proc’d out. Laugh emoji. 

 

Ice Blast has various mitigation tools that Fire rightlyfully will never ever get. All fire does is . . .  fire.

 

Honestly, if I want to blow things up I take my fire blaster out for fun. When I want to play in absolute safety as a blaster my Ice Blaster is it. Ice Blast of any set in the game, does not need a snipe and there is absolutely NO POWER in Ice Blast that I would give up for one. No thanks.

 

EDIT: And I would bet money that I'm not the only Ice Blast player who feels this way. Not every set in the game is valuable only if it does MOAR damage.

Edited January 21 by golstat2003

[Chris24601]

Deleted to put it in Focused Feedback where it belongs.

Edited January 21 by Chris24601

[Schwartz]

Any chance of getting a Slingshot for rifles and pirates for MM =D?

[twozerofoxtrot]

11 hours ago, Ridiculous Girl said:

i should have specified a female shield/mace tank... so, how? i do not see an alternative in the costume creation options.

 

What they unhelpfully meant was that you can modify the game's sound files yourself to play something else.

 

I'm not sure CoHModder has that one already, but if it doesn't there's an old guide somewhere on the forums that explains the process for modifying sound files.

[50caltech]

had  to check out the updates on beta, and the vanguard base updates is awesome,

 make you want to have a running battle search and destroy for ritiki infiltrators, or of course   pain  in the butt nemesis..., the sibyl costume update is awesome too, sweet having 2 versions of it,

had crazy idea though....cross costumes capabilities?   prismatic cot succubus wearing sybils outfit?   any one out there an artist who could sketch some thing like that?

[Clave Dark 5]

Trust me though, all this is great stuff anyway!  Just a wistful aside.... the one thing I really would have liked seeing was lots of AE love.  I mean, something is still something, but I still feel it's an underdeveloped and utilized aspect of the game. 

[Elizabeth Ashlee]

On 1/19/2024 at 12:07 PM, The Curator said:

Epic > Electricity Mastery > Chain Fences (Sentinel) - Recharge increased from 16s to 20s, Endurance cost lowered from 19.5 to 12.74

 

The patch notes state the recharge time will change from 16 seconds to 20 seconds, however currently the recharge time is 8 seconds. Does this mean it will go from 8 seconds recharge to 20 or something else?

[Player2]

Any chance the Talons 

34 minutes ago, Elizabeth Ashlee said:

 

The patch notes state the recharge time will change from 16 seconds to 20 seconds, however currently the recharge time is 8 seconds. Does this mean it will go from 8 seconds recharge to 20 or something else?

20 is the base recharge.  Your 8 seconds is enhanced, maybe with set bonuses?

I'm just guessing.

[Elizabeth Ashlee]

27 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Any chance the Talons 

20 is the base recharge.  Your 8 seconds is enhanced, maybe with set bonuses?

I'm just guessing.

8 is the base, its currently recharging in just under 3 seconds enhanced.

Edited January 21 by Elizabeth Ashlee

[Elizabeth Ashlee]

Tested live and beta, it's a fairly substantial nerf. The recharge time I can see being a warranted change. It was honestly too quick to recharge. Enhanced on live it is recharging in just under 3 seconds, on beta enhanced it is recharging just over 5 seconds which is still very fair. However there were more changes than just the recharge.

 

Damage decreased 15% (granted it was never a big hitter nor used for its damage)

Recharge time has more than doubled (enhanced time, and still not a big deal as it still recharges very fast.)

There were some other changes which are pretty huge though..

AoE radius decreased 50%

Range decreased 34.78%

Number of enemies hit decreased 37.5% (6 targets fewer than before)

 

These changes in mind, I don't think many folks were calling for Sentinels to be weakened. However the patch notes do state the changes were made to correct any powers that were basically obvious meta choices. They know far better than I do for certain and it will still be fun to play.

Edited January 21 by Elizabeth Ashlee

[Chrono-Bot]

On 1/19/2024 at 11:07 AM, The Curator said:

Office Telephones (e.g. Atlas Park Tailor) should ring less frequently (every 4-7 mins over the previous 12-30s).

This is my new favourite patch.

[Magairlín]

I'm really really not a fan of gated costume pieces, even if it's something easy for lowbies. Getting rid of that was a great decision by HC. I remember grinding for Vanguard pieces back on live and it's not a good direction to go in.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Change from level-less to 54 on rikti pylons is definitely eye opening. BZB scrap's live build took 7.5 minutes to take one down. Average 2.5 mins when level-less.

[Britannic]

Could we get a minimal FX version of Ablative Carapace and Parasitic Aura from Bio Armor pretty please. 🙂

[Reiska]

On 1/20/2024 at 9:10 AM, Blackbird71 said:

Why?  Is it really necessary to sow confusion by changing names that players have become accustomed to?  This smacks of change for change's sake.

 

IMO, oldbies will adjust, and having 2 or 3 different names for what is essentially the same epic pool is confusing for new players (and, surprisingly enough, we *do* have new players coming in who didn't play during the Paragon Studios era).  There's a clear enough intent behind this change that it's not "change for change's sake", it's just a change you don't like.

 

Which is fair.

 

On 1/20/2024 at 9:10 AM, Blackbird71 said:

No.  Please no.  Please, please, stop changing the primary functions of powers.  Time Bomb was never a buff/support power, and it's not what it was intended to be.  Also, adding a "temporal bubble" is more thematically narrow for character concepts.  This may not be the most egregious example in the past couple of years (and may not be the only example in this Page; as I said, there's a lot to digest), but it's one more example showing that the Cottage Rule means nothing to the HC team and they will continue to change powers to be significantly different from their original versions to suit their own whim.  Power balance changes in general should NOT require redesigning builds or relearning how to play a particular powerset in order to be effective at the game.  When you've don that, it's NOT a "balance," it's a revamp and a replacement.

 

1. Strictly speaking, this isn't a violation of the cottage rule as originally stated by Castle (although it's straddling the line, sure, since if I did my math correctly the damage has been cut by about 44% for defenders, 53% for controllers, and 35% for corruptors); it retains the core functionality of doing AoE damage, albeit at altered strength, and the cottage rule never ruled out adding or removing secondary effects.  [EDIT: I did not, in fact, do my math correctly, the correct numbers are 66% for controllers, 60% for defenders and 54% for corruptors]

2. The cottage rule was never a "hard" rule even during the Paragon Studios era; it was explicitly stated to be a guideline, not a mandate, and I'm pretty sure there were a fair few instances when Paragon "broke" it or was preparing to break it (e.g. issue 24 blaster secondary revamp).

3. That all said... HC's not Paragon, and they've shown themselves to be a little less conservative when it comes to power tweaks.  Game design evolves; for all we know, Paragon Studios would have become more daring with power tweaks over time too in responding to trends in game design.  Castle's cottage rule was never intended to be a straitjacket to enforce design stagnation; it was a tool to ensure that changes to powers were adequately justified against any disruption they might cause.

Edited January 21 by Reiska

[Argentae]

Cross posted and expanded upon from the thread in the Controller forum as this is where feedback is currently.:

 

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.

 

Edited January 21 by Argentae

[arcane]

14 hours ago, Thraxen said:

Yeah prove me wrong. Better dos than fire when not proc’d out. Laugh emoji. 

That’s literally been disproven by Ston. No, the set cannot be buffed with a Snipe. That would be stupid.

[Indystruck]

Why does everyone hold up Castle's cottage rule as a shining beacon to follow and then we all turn around and rightly dumpster on him for his PVP changes, anyway?

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

That’s literally been disproven by Ston. No, the set cannot be buffed with a Snipe. That would be stupid.

I linked Galaxy Brains Blaster tests earlier in the thread and they're not even acknowledging they're wrong - the poster is beyond reason at this point and will disregard any evidence contrary to their opinion. 

[Milk Sheik]

Holy carp, I didn't even read all the way down until now. New Architect Entertainment power pools are AWESOME. I can finally give my Skamander river god water powers in my Trojan War arc.

 

Also, I am so happy that TinPex has made that tiny change from the portal to the helicopter for the Battle Maiden showdown. That always bugged me.

Not psyched about Thunder Strike sucking up 18 instead of 10 points of end for my defender, but maybe the increased damage will be worth it.

[Super Atom]

Been testing out a lot of the features and reworks, gotta say overall loving the new update. Very fond of the GM rework, the unstable aether stuff, the pets. Love it. Haven't had much feedback to provide someone else hasn't already mention be it bug or adjustment. It's great to see the main plot line get some attention, very hopeful for the future content releases.

 

 

[beanbag] control needs less sleeps, sleeps bad. 😞

[Wilky]

this is simply epic 😇