Radiation Emission: Quality of Life Adjustments Requested!

[Hateborne]

This is a small list of changes that feel appropriate to keep up with faster clearing teams (excluding Mutation). I do not feel that anything here is truly game changing, more of just removing tedium.

 

• Radiation Infection - Allow players to affix it to other players (e.g., tank) (thanks Luminara), reduce cooldown to 1 second, -or- (if possible) allow target swapping without triggering cooldown^[1].
• Enervating Field - Allow players to affix it to other players (e.g., tank) (thanks Luminara), reduce cooldown to 1 second, -or- (if possible) allow target swapping without triggering cooldown^[1].
• Mutation - Could this be altered to function loosely similar to Phoenix Rising? "Similar" in the sense of being able to use it against a non-dead target, with greater potency with lower health on activation (max effect when used against dead ally). It should still be targetable, unlike Phoenix Rising, to fit with the Controller/Defender/Dominator role.
• Choking Cloud - Reduce cooldown to 1 second as it feels like a situational toggle. Having a 20 second base cooldown feels just bonkers. (thanks Uun)

 

If there is something unknown to me, such as the ability to potentially abuse cooldowns and stack multiples via a single character: please let me know! I might be overlooking or simply not knowing of current caveats or shenanigans.

 

^[1] - I am using target swapping here to mean the effect is currently active on one target, then selecting and activating on another target to effectively "move" the effect without toggle off->wait->toggle on. This would only function if the effect is still active when attempting to "activate" it on another target.

 

EDIT 20240330: Thanks Luminara and Uun for the valid points!

Edited March 30 by Hateborne
New information from others required edits

[Rudra]

Power sets are not designed for and so are not likely going to be changed for speedrunning teams.

[Uun]

Hard no on changing the debuffs to ally targeted. Radiation Infection and Enervating Field were already changed so that their effects continues after the target is defeated. If the 8s cooldown is too long for you, slot recharge reduction enhancements. 

 

Choking Cloud suppresses when you're mezzed and should only detoggle if you're defeated. Again, if the 20s cooldown is too long, slot recharge reduction.

[Zect]

You know, I could see rad infection and enervating being changed so that they can be put on either allies or enemies. There are already some powers that allow targeting of either allies or foes - eg injection from the medicine pool, which has different effects depending on the target. That just sounds funny.

 

Anyway, if teams are clearing so fast that it's becoming a problem, that indicates to me that they are playing at a difficulty level that's too low for them, or (more likely) that the pace of the game has grown too fast and player dps needs to be slashed. And this comes from someone who speedruns 4* ITF in <30 mins.

[Luminara]

Those toggles draw aggro to the caster, so putting them on teammates would be the same result as having them on a fleeing enemy - a whole lot of pissed-off jerks attacking you instead of the debuff anchor.  Since you can't shoot your teammates, or Immobilize teammates, or Hold teammates, to prevent them from running into spawns and sending a lot of aggro your way, the net result would be more debt collection and having to turn the toggles off and back on more frequently.

 

Can't see any positive benefits to that.

[Hateborne]

20 hours ago, Rudra said:

Power sets are not designed for and so are not likely going to be changed for speedrunning teams.

This isn't an issue of speed running. This is more of an issue of feeling clunky and rather useless often as I'm waiting to apply one of my signature abilities only to have the fight be over. I can hold off for the next pull, but that leaves me feeling like I'm sporadically contributing. By comparison, my Force Field / Electrical Blast defender feels like an absolute monster. I built entirely around stupid high defense and obliterating enemy endurance. The only time I was really "idle" was when I died from being too cocky rushing in too soon. 

 

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4 hours ago, Uun said:

Hard no on changing the debuffs to ally targeted. Radiation Infection and Enervating Field were already changed so that their effects continues after the target is defeated. If the 8s cooldown is too long for you, slot recharge reduction enhancements. 

...

 

I was unaware of the change to allow them to persist on the enemy post-defeat, thank you for the heads-up! As for cooldowns, I keep a relatively high uptime of Hasten and Accelerate Metabolism to bring both debuffs to 4ish second cooldown. 

4 hours ago, Uun said:

...

Choking Cloud suppresses when you're mezzed and should only detoggle if you're defeated. Again, if the 20s cooldown is too long, slot recharge reduction.

Valid point on the the mezz and detoggle, thanks again!

 

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4 hours ago, Zect said:

You know, I could see rad infection and enervating being changed so that they can be put on either allies or enemies. There are already some powers that allow targeting of either allies or foes - eg injection from the medicine pool, which has different effects depending on the target. That just sounds funny.

 

Anyway, if teams are clearing so fast that it's becoming a problem, that indicates to me that they are playing at a difficulty level that's too low for them, or (more likely) that the pace of the game has grown too fast and player dps needs to be slashed. And this comes from someone who speedruns 4* ITF in <30 mins.

 

I understand and agree to some extent about power creep, but I don't have the depth or hours of play to accurately/honestly defend that stance. When playing a Force Field / Electrical Blast defender (mentioned earlier in this reply), I feel that I'm almost always busy doing something useful. I'm sapping endurance, dropping shields, using either repel ability to herd enemies back into the meat grinder, or simply stunning/rooting problem foes. Both Force Field and (obv) Electrical Blast feel extremely interactive by comparison.

 

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44 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Those toggles draw aggro to the caster, so putting them on teammates would be the same result as having them on a fleeing enemy - a whole lot of pissed-off jerks attacking you instead of the debuff anchor.  Since you can't shoot your teammates, or Immobilize teammates, or Hold teammates, to prevent them from running into spawns and sending a lot of aggro your way, the net result would be more debt collection and having to turn the toggles off and back on more frequently.

 

Can't see any positive benefits to that.

 

That's an excellent point that I overlooked. I'll edit the original post and thank you!

[Ghost]

1 hour ago, Hateborne said:

This isn't an issue of speed running. This is more of an issue of feeling clunky and rather useless often as I'm waiting to apply one of my signature abilities only to have the fight be over. I can hold off for the next pull, but that leaves me feeling like I'm sporadically contributing. By comparison, my Force Field / Electrical Blast defender feels like an absolute monster. I built entirely around stupid high defense and obliterating enemy endurance. The only time I was really "idle" was when I died from being too cocky rushing in too soon. 

 

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Once your buffs/debuffs are thrown down, it’s time to……..ATTACK!!!!!

😀

[Indystruck]

Get rid of the crash on EM Pulse too.

[Uun]

14 hours ago, Indystruck said:

Get rid of the crash on EM Pulse too.

Technically it doesn't have a crash, you just can't recover endurance for 15s. That said, I'd like to see EM Pulse get the same treatment EMP Arrow got.

[Vanden]

Reduce the recharge on Accelerate Metabolism, too.
 

 

[Hateborne]

What harm/danger would allowing Radiation Infection and Enervating Field to self-radiate if no target is selected? (Optionally) The player has live more dangerously, but it feels like a happy compromise for quantity over quality situations (looking at you Mapserver events too).

[kelika2]

going from warshades corpse explosion to radiations corpse explosion is hard

warshades get a huge radius and use enemy corpses which are more likely to land

and radiation requires a friendly corpse and has a smaller radius

maybe change up to allow it to be used on enemies effected by one of your radiation debuffs?  more damage the more debuffs?  maybe triggering it causes you to detoggle?

[Riverdusk]

Honestly I think the set is very good and seems underrated if anything now as so many seem to consider it slow and outdated.  The casting time for Radiation Infection was the biggest issue I had and that was already reduced and 'fixed' a while ago (which I find a lot of people still don't even realize).  I find RI so much more useful now thanks to that simple buff alone.  Side note:  Please give the same animation reduction time to Nature's spore cloud.

 

My next biggest wish at this point is to increase the radius of Radiation infection and enervating field.  15 feet seems a bit small, especially when I can't help but compare it to tar patch and darkest night's 25 feet radius which just feel massive in comparison.  Some other comparisons, disruption arrow is also 25 feet, freezing rain and sleet are 20.  Melt armor 20 feet.  

[Purrfekshawn]

12 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Honestly I think the set is very good and seems underrated if anything now as so many seem to consider it slow and outdated.  The casting time for Radiation Infection was the biggest issue I had and that was already reduced and 'fixed' a while ago (which I find a lot of people still don't even realize).  I find RI so much more useful now thanks to that simple buff alone.  Side note:  Please give the same animation reduction time to Nature's spore cloud.

 

My next biggest wish at this point is to increase the radius of Radiation infection and enervating field.  15 feet seems a bit small, especially when I can't help but compare it to tar patch and darkest night's 25 feet radius which just feel massive in comparison.  Some other comparisons, disruption arrow is also 25 feet, freezing rain and sleet are 20.  Melt armor 20 feet.  

 

Oh no plz, Nature is OP already with +82.5% damage buff from Overgrowth, which also nullifies team endurance issues. And it has solid +RESISTANCE from Wind Growth.

 

Radiation Emission powerset seems to be outdated itself pretty much (although not as much as Empathy), and if compare it with some "newer" or "newly updated" sets it may start looking weakish that's what l believe could be done:

 

Radiation Infection - may get some portion of its -DEF and -TOHIT as Unresistible debuffs, similar to that of Trick Arrow powerset, as currently almost no point of using Radiation Infection on bosses.

Electromagnetic Pulse - may have portions of buffs given to EMP arrow, not sure about Antimez bubble, but prolonged -REC, -REGEN, as well as -SPECIAL plus maybe -DAMAGE definitely worth to be added to EMP. And in case it gets Antimez component of some sort it may be enabled to be launchable while mezzed.

 

[Uun]

33 minutes ago, Purrfekshawn said:

Radiation Infection - may get some portion of its -DEF and -TOHIT as Unresistible debuffs, similar to that of Trick Arrow powerset, as currently almost no point of using Radiation Infection on bosses.

Bosses don't have debuff resistance, just AVs.

[Purrfekshawn]

7 hours ago, Uun said:

Bosses don't have debuff resistance, just AVs.

Yah AV is whatcha mean!