Focused Feedback: Marine Affinity

[UltraAlt]

Water Blast/Marine Affinity corruptor here.

 

Only had time to play to level 3.

Ran the lake in Altas for leveling with the x2 XP booster.

Ran around and did my usual new character stuff (unlocked Atlas Tour Guide and grabbed enough explore badges elsewhere to unlock the fast travel power - but didn't bother with Null the Gull stuff as I probably won't end up teaming with anyone - which kind of lowers the usefulness of this power set to a good extent and impedes good testing as a corruptor ... this being the case, I might end up making a Mastermind before the beta wraps up if there is time to see how that works being able to heal/buff minions)

 

This won't go as I would usually play a set because I intend to purchase/gain any marine affinity power as soon as the character is able to get it while leveling up so that I can at least see how they play.

[UltraAlt]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Water Blast/Marine Affinity corruptor here.

 

Level 5 at this point. 

 

well...

 

 Toroidal Bubble - You create a ring of Bubbles that encase your allies, constantly hydrating them to replenish endurance and reducing the effects of endurance drain. The bubble also reduces all incoming damage, providing extra resistance to Fire and Smashing damage, and also increases jump height thanks to added buoyancy.

 

... I was shocked to find that this power bubble you as well ... and you can still attack while using it.

 

I'm still just getting going, but it seems to have the possibility to be a great team buff and debuffing set.

[Awilix]

I played with the set some more!
I (finally) noticed that  Shifting Tides can also be targeted on allies, which made it more constant and useful, but that brought up another observation.
 Wellspring has a relatively short recharge, especially once enhanced, making the fact that it despawns after a while a lot more of an annoyance than an obvious cost of a power. Is there any 'value' to making it despawn instead of keeping around indefinitely like many pets do? Especially considering its negative threat, it was extremely rare for the thing to ever die. The only effect appeared to be instant annoyance with having to retoggle shifting tides.

 Shoal Rush still feels like it could be replaced with some unique, water based gale equivalent. A knockdown while they're in the tide pool patch or using the various Leviathan Ancillery visuals to give it random immobilizes or holds or et cetera. 

There were situations even one +0/1* difficulty where I would get mezzed by single mobs, something that none of my powers could prevent aside from one second of mitigating knockdown from Whitecap. While I was mezzed, the great mix but low maximum defenses of either the bubble and/or depths caused me to take a lot of damage. And then once I recovered from my mez, the only recovery I had was spamming my generic support set heal.
Other sets that have this issue, like Kinetics, can bring entire teams up to damage cap. Other nonactive sets like Nature or Thermal have exceptional resistances either for yourself or/and your team, so while squishy (moreso in thermal's case), you add a load of value. All of the active effects of this set appear to be built to the theme of Dark Miasma or Storm Summoning, but this set is noticeably missing any ability to actually mitigate damage aside from a middling amount of resistance and a long recharge, minor maximum health buff. Whereas those other sets could be dropped in as a weird controller primary.
It feels like it's missing something. One active mitigating power or an extra mechanic.

[MirrorDarkly]

I've noticed that the END costs are inconstant across ATs in a non-standard way.  Normally MMs pay an endurance tax, where as currently they are mostly the same with only Toroidal Bubble costing MMs more and Shifting Tides actually costing them less.

 

Marine Affinity end costs (taken from character creation screens)

Shoal Rush
   MM: 10.40
   Cor: 10.40
   Def: 10.40
Soothing Wave
   MM: 13.52
   Cor: 13.52
   Def: 13.52
Toroidal Bubble
   MM: 10.00
   Cor: 8.00
   Def: 8.00
Whitecap
   MM: 26.10
   Cor: 26.10
   Def: 26.10
Tide Pool
   MM: 13.00
   Cor: 13.00
   Def: 13.00
Brine
   MM: 7.00
   Cor: 7.00
   Def: 7.00
Shifting Tides
   MM: 0.60/sec
   Cor: 0.78/sec
   Def: 0.78/sec
Wellspring
   MM: 25.00
   Cor: 25.00
   Def: 25.00
Power of the Deep
   MM: 26.00
   Cor: 26.00
   Def: 26.00

Edited July 10 by MirrorDarkly

[MirrorDarkly]

49 minutes ago, Awilix said:

I played with the set some more!
I (finally) noticed that  Shifting Tides can also be targeted on allies, which made it more constant and useful, but that brought up another observation.
 Wellspring has a relatively short recharge, especially once enhanced, making the fact that it despawns after a while a lot more of an annoyance than an obvious cost of a power. Is there any 'value' to making it despawn instead of keeping around indefinitely like many pets do? Especially considering its negative threat, it was extremely rare for the thing to ever die. The only effect appeared to be instant annoyance with having to retoggle shifting tides.

 

Letting Wellspring/Barrier Reef (crosses fingers for name change) not de-spawn would be a huge quality of life improvement for the set. 

[MirrorDarkly]

I'm gong to skip ahead to talk about Power of the Deep.  It's an ability that I suspect will be most apricated by high level "meta" characters that already have their defense and/or resist in place but barring a few sets likely won't have max HP or Regen as well as Master Minds for obvious reasons.

 

On my test lv 50 Defender I can give out +615 max hp plus about +460% regen on a near* perma bases plus that amount again that decays over 30 seconds (and some max end and range).  Now that won't turn a glass cannon into a tank but it will increase the sustain and survivability of most characters that already have strong defenses.

 

However it feels very odd to have this huge impressive animation for a buff, especially one that's not incredibly likely to turn an eminent defeat into a victory.  And if you're running with a team that hasn't got their defenses sorted it not going to be nearly as helpful.

 

I know it is unlikely at this stage but what I'd love to see is the decaying 30 second buffs removed and replaced with a more immediate, and dramatic, effect that would then allow the regen some time to work.  Say it knocks down enemies in the area and applies a very strong 10-15 second -Recharge, -Speed, and -Damage effect (auto hit & unenhanceable to prevent it from becoming a proc bomb but also keep it relevant against high level foes).  All of that is keeping with the theme of the set, and imo much more dramatic, interesting and likely to create satisfying "I just changed the tide of battle" moments.

 

*With an unplanned build, so I likely would get perma or just a few seconds off in an actual character.

 

Edit: Also I am not sure if this in intended, but Power Boost from the Epic Soul PP is not affecting either the +Max HP or the Reg the power grants even though it has +healing.  It does boost +Max End and I'm not sure about the range component. 

 

Edited July 10 by MirrorDarkly

[ExeErdna]

5 hours ago, Awilix said:

I played with the set some more!
I (finally) noticed that  Shifting Tides can also be targeted on allies, which made it more constant and useful, but that brought up another observation.
 Wellspring has a relatively short recharge, especially once enhanced, making the fact that it despawns after a while a lot more of an annoyance than an obvious cost of a power. Is there any 'value' to making it despawn instead of keeping around indefinitely like many pets do? Especially considering its negative threat, it was extremely rare for the thing to ever die. The only effect appeared to be instant annoyance with having to retoggle shifting tides.

 Shoal Rush still feels like it could be replaced with some unique, water based gale equivalent. A knockdown while they're in the tide pool patch or using the various Leviathan Ancillery visuals to give it random immobilizes or holds or et cetera. 

There were situations even one +0/1* difficulty where I would get mezzed by single mobs, something that none of my powers could prevent aside from one second of mitigating knockdown from Whitecap. While I was mezzed, the great mix but low maximum defenses of either the bubble and/or depths caused me to take a lot of damage. And then once I recovered from my mez, the only recovery I had was spamming my generic support set heal.
Other sets that have this issue, like Kinetics, can bring entire teams up to damage cap. Other nonactive sets like Nature or Thermal have exceptional resistances either for yourself or/and your team, so while squishy (moreso in thermal's case), you add a load of value. All of the active effects of this set appear to be built to the theme of Dark Miasma or Storm Summoning, but this set is noticeably missing any ability to actually mitigate damage aside from a middling amount of resistance and a long recharge, minor maximum health buff. Whereas those other sets could be dropped in as a weird controller primary.
It feels like it's missing something. One active mitigating power or an extra mechanic.

To me Wellspring is like Galvanic Sentinel, there's been many a time I forgot to resummon it. Shifting Tides is gonna be nice on, Beast MM and Dark/Earth/Plant/Grav trollers. I also agree Shoal needs to either accept slow sets. What I noticed this set is more so about -/+ damage that's the mitigating factor that ironically makes more so for Defender/MM/Trollers compared to corrupters

[Trickshooter]

2 hours ago, MirrorDarkly said:

Also I am not sure if this in intended, but Power Boost from the Epic Soul PP is not affecting either the +Max HP or the Reg the power grants even though it has +healing. 

 

It's intended, Heal Strength is only for true Healing. For Regen and MaxHP effects to be affected by Power Boost, it would need to give Regeneration Strength and HitPoints Strength, respectively.

 

It's a little confusing because Heal Enhancements provide all 3, plus Absorb Strength, so we tend to associate the word healing with all 4 effects, but they're their own attributes and Power Boost has only ever improved Healing, and then Absorb when it was added to the game.

[MirrorDarkly]

1 hour ago, Trickshooter said:

 

It's intended, Heal Strength is only for true Healing. For Regen and MaxHP effects to be affected by Power Boost, it would need to give Regeneration Strength and HitPoints Strength, respectively.

 

It's a little confusing because Heal Enhancements provide all 3, plus Absorb Strength, so we tend to associate the word healing with all 4 effects, but they're their own attributes and Power Boost has only ever improved Healing, and then Absorb when it was added to the game.

 

Thanks for the explanation! 

[MirrorDarkly]

Shifting Tides.

 

When I first tried this power on my defender (solo) I was not impressed.  I was getting between 3-4 stacks per fight for something like +9-12% damage, +3-4.5% to hit and +7.5-10% recharge and extra attack was going off at most once per fight.  Since it's not a cheep power to run it was a real toss up as to if that was worth the end and time to manage.

 

Then I tried it on my MM, and it's a completely different experience!  I put it on my Bruiser, forget about it and my bar fills with stacks with the extra damage happening every few second.

 

The way I think it works is that every time a friendly character or pet uses any power within Shifting Tides radius everyone gets a stack.  These stacks last for 8 seconds and do not refresh existing stacks, so your ability to stack it depends on how many actions you and everyone else in it takes in 8 seconds.  I'm not sure there is a limit to the number of stacks it can generate but only 10 seem to count at any one time.  With my defender values that's +30% damage, +15% to hit and +25% recharge to everyone near the target at max stacks.  The attack part of it also has a higher chance to proc the more people in the area but I'm almost certain there is some sort of lock out where it can only happen once every N seconds.

 

In a group I feel this is a core power of the set but solo it's very marginal.

 

Finally it does take melee damage procs but even on my MM I'd almost never see them go off, maybe once every 3rd fight.  The one exception I found was Gaussian's Chance for Build Up, which happened so often on my MM that it wasn't uncommon to have it double stacked.  Now on a MM that doesn't mean a whole lot but it might be worth exploring on say a corruptor that mostly runs with full groups. 

 

 

[UltraAlt]

On 7/5/2024 at 7:12 PM, The Curator said:

Whitecap- Summon and ride a wave of water towards your target, crashing down to knock over all enemies in the radius and staggering them, lowering their damage resistance! Enemies close to where you crash will receive harsher debuffs for a brief time.

 

I believe the outer ring key is incorrect.

I thought I was going to click on a location to use this power, but instead, when I click on it, it transports me to the targeted enemies location.

Not what I was expecting based on the outer ring key.

 

However, it does say "toward your target" and not "toward your targeted location".

 

I did go back and look at the outer ring key for Combat Teleport (targets the ground for transport, but does no damage to the surrounding enemies) and Burst of Speed (targets the ground but also damages surrounding enemies).

 

So I do believe since White Cap is targeted AoE damage that it should have the AoE outer ring key instead of the "summon or drop" outer ring key. The transport part is incidental and transport powers have no outer ring key.

[UltraAlt]

2nd Character - Mastermind - Beast/Marine Affinity

 

The first couple of levels were rougher than normal.

I did my standard hunting the lake in Atlas for the first couple of levels, and level 1-3 were markedly more difficult than on the Water blast/Marine Affinity character I'm testing.

 

Once ....

 

 Soothing Wave - Send forth a calming wave of water, washing over friend and foe alike. Allies will be healed by this power, while enemies will have their offensive power watered down.

 

 Toroidal Bubble - You create a ring of Bubbles that encase your allies, constantly hydrating them to replenish endurance and reducing the effects of endurance drain. The bubble also reduces all incoming damage, providing extra resistance to Fire and Smashing damage, and also increases jump height thanks to added buoyancy.

 

... were gained the progress was remarkably smoother.

 

I ran through level 10.

Hunted the lake and moved to the Hollows.

 

Only ran at +1, but wanted to get used to the set before moving to +2.

Slotting SO's only at this point.

 

 

[MirrorDarkly]

Here is my level 50 Marine/Water Defender taking on a couple of packs of Infernal's guard on +4/x8. I have to say the two sets together do an amazing job of feeling like you're in control of the oceans. 

 

When not CCed into a stupor the set is very fun and effective:

 

This build used Core Paragon Vigor and purple sets but no other incarnate abilities, temp powers or accolades. I was able to face tank AV Infernal indefinitely but I couldn't do enough damage to overcome his regen.  As expected Brine was much to small of a debuff to matter.  

[ExeErdna]

Fire/Marine troller is currently my favorite showing of the Marine set atm. Toroidal Bubble helps mitigate how Hot Feet plus your standard toggles just eats end. Then Shifting Tides is so good on the Imps since their attack rate is fast. Wellspring following so close it allows the little ones to fight without getting smashed like they often do. Tide Pool is the highlight of the set to me with this paring it'll ramp up constantly having you deal some very respectable damage especially if you're Whitecap-ing anytime it's off CD. Power of the Depths simply helps the very frail Imp. I didn't take Smoke, Shoal or Brine in this build. This set is really good for mid to late gameplay once you get Tide Pool that's when the set starts to make sense. It really wants you to set up the field and have aggressive pets or allies. I can also see this set being a popular support in fire farms since it does a lot of things they like.

 

[tricon]

Feedback from playing a Fire/Marine corruptor and a Marine/Sonic at lvl 50 va +4/x8

 

The set feels like a jack of all trades, master of none set with visually gogeous animations/fx.

 

 Shoal Rush  - Good start, can take slow sets and -res proc, the -stealth part seems to be unique. 

 

 Soothing Wave - Heals yourself and friends and has a dmg debuff, so even if you don't need the heal it has its uses

 

 Toroidal Bubble - A bit of resist, and a very useful endurance drain resistance. 

 

 Whitecap-  Wow I like this power but I am fan of compat teleport/savage leap powers. No need to take stealth if you have nuke pbaoe dmg powers if you                                    can jump into action

 

 Tide Pool- Like the power as well, but it seems the subpower has a low accuracy. Even with kismet +6% to hit, 1.29% global acc and one a/d/e ice mistrel vs                               -1 the log shows this:  Tide Pool:  MISSED The Swarm!! Your Rough Waters power had a 90.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 90.89.

 Brine -  Oh well, this power sucks. It's only single target, The -hp is tiny and the -res is decaying way to fast. I got cc and in the time I used a break free, half                            the resist was decayed. If the Theft of Essence -end proc is the problem to make the power a aoe one. I sugest increase the -hp potion and make it single target and the -res potion should be a aoe, dosen't need to be huge area. ATM the power is meh

 Shifting Tides -  Interesting power concept. I used it mainly on my pet. The mobs don't aggro part dosen't work, if you have interface dmg procs, So I                                                    rather would not eat the alpha strike, even if it would take a few sec to have this power going.  For teams it's even better

 Wellspring - The MVP of this set. Very noticable if the got killed and you lose the absorb and I build with his little +def in mind. However would not mind if                                     its gets a toggle

 

 Power of the Depths - Hmm the power feels for a T9 a bit underwhelming.  The +hps is ok but with 2 HOs it's very easy to run into the HP caps of the                                                             classes. I got 1493 hps and the cap is 1606 for the class even my Regen brute sits at 3155hp with a 3217 cap, so both are very close to the cap and that dimishes this buff a lot.   The endurance and regen part are not that bad but the diminshing part is fast,   so my regen goes from 12.82 to 57 and then down  to 36.10. Decay seems to be part of the theme but IMO the ticks are to fast.   Range part is a bit meh, I don't need it myself and  outsite of Sentinals I never needed more. But maybe hover blasters and cone  users like it more *shrug. Something is missing, maybe add a large absorb shield that has a decay factor or something else witj more of a oomph behind it.

 

 

Played both sets with the Ice epic set so that I could get some extra def and anohter pet with the build up. It seems it's a good set, if you can migate the dmg somehow because outside of the knockdown there is not much hard cc. I don't know, the set impression feels more like new kind of hybrid set. 

 

Edited July 11 by tricon

[Shin Magmus]

...At least it's better than Empathy still.

[Maelwys]

On 7/9/2024 at 10:21 PM, Riverdusk said:

 

Was thinking the same thing when I saw it.  Typically just like -regen, a -hp debuff is only going to really be noticeable against an AV.  -267 hp against an AV is virtually worthless.

 

I compare it against incarnate interface degen which gives -1000 hp and can self or group stack up to 4 times for -4000 hp.   Now that makes a difference.

 

-267 I find kind of a joke.

 

Agreed.

 

The -MaxHP component of Brine could really do with being flagged as Unresistible (and possibly Unaffected by level differences) in order to be worthwhile against exactly the sort of tough single targets that you'd want to use it on.

[Trickshooter]

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The -MaxHP component of Brine could really do with being flagged as Unresistible (and possibly Unaffected by level differences) in order to be worthwhile against exactly the sort of tough single targets that you'd want to use it on.

 

Not sure making it unresistable is really going to do anything to improve it, I doubt a single entity has Res(HitPoints).

 

I know that part of this beta test is testing the waters (zing!) on whether we can have powers with this kind of debuff in the future, how strong should they be, and whether they can be enhanceable, but I think ultimately the most important thing should be that it just needs to be better on it's own than the Degenerative proc.

 

The Degenerative proc is only a 3.5% MaxHP debuff, I think, which on most enemies is obviously gonna be nothing, but definitely feels more impactful on things like EBs, AVs, GMs, Pylons, etc. when it gets up in to the 800-1000 -MaxHP range.

 

I know the desire of the devs is for Brine to be used a MaxHP debuff first and foremost, and on most enemies in the game (boss rank and below), the flat value is better than a percentage. But I think the power as is, focused on the MaxHP debuff over its Resistance debuff, reminds people of powers like Heat Exhaustion and Benumb; big boss killer powers that you save to use on Elite Bosses and up, in which case the MaxHP debuff feels underwhelming.

 

I think the best solution is to split the effect based on the rank of the target: Minions, lieutenants and bosses get the enhanceable flat value; Elite bosses and up get a percentage, hard-capped at -1000.

 

p.s. I don't care either way, I love the set as is and can't wait to play it Live. Very creative theme, I would have never thought of an ocean-themed support set. I say it every time I post about this set, but I'm super impressed by whoever conceived it.

Edited July 12 by Trickshooter
typo

[MirrorDarkly]

Agree that the -hp part of Brine is largely useless as stands, and I don't think doubling it's effect is unreasonable (and perhaps even that is not enough).  Let me explain why.

 

In normal gameplay you start of with AoEs to drop the weakest members of the group so by the time you get around to using Brine everything has already lost more health than the -hp will drop its max leaving that part wasted.  The exception tends to be if you are trying to lock down or one shot a particularly dangerous enemy like a Sapper which Brine also does not help with.

 

On AVs or GMs it's simply to small to notice.  With Vigor and 1 healing SO I get it to about +90% effectiveness and it still needs to be stacked to equal one Degenerative proc.  Given recharge time and timing I find that is about what it adds under the best case, 1/4 of what I get from Degenerative starting a 40 second to a minute into the fight (because again it needs to stack to even get that).

 

So if you want this to be the primary draw of Brine then it needs to be *a lot* better.  Otherwise remove the decay on the -Resist and leaving the minor -hp as a flourish to make the power feel a little more unique.  But like Trickshooter said overall this is a great, and extremely evocative, set that I would absolutely play live if it were releases as it.... I just wouldn't invest much in Brine.

 

Edit: Another idea would be to increase the duration of the -hp so that given enough casts it could eventually stack to a significant degree.  If, for example, the -hp was increased by 50% and the duration doubled to two minutes I bet it would end up feeling a lot better in long fights.

 

   

Edited July 12 by MirrorDarkly

[Riverdusk]

Some have commented on the lack of any protection against mezzes and it being a set with hardly any defense so you can't avoid mezzes by avoiding being hit either.

 

How about instead of mez protection, at least adding some solid mez resistance?  I was just bringing up in another thread that radiation emission's accelerate metabolism is the only power in the game right now with significant mez resistance in it.  It'd be cool to have another set with a solid mez resistance power.    At accelerate metabolism's mez resistance levels (around 200%) I find mezzes last noticeably shorter and it makes them less often a death sentence, but still keeps things "spicy".  

[ExeErdna]

25 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

Some have commented on the lack of any protection against mezzes and it being a set with hardly any defense so you can't avoid mezzes by avoiding being hit either.

 

How about instead of mez protection, at least adding some solid mez resistance?  I was just bringing up in another thread that radiation emission's accelerate metabolism is the only power in the game right now with significant mez resistance in it.  It'd be cool to have another set with a solid mez resistance power.    At accelerate metabolism's mez resistance levels (around 200%) I find mezzes last noticeably shorter and it makes them less often a death sentence, but still keeps things "spicy".  

 

I agree, with my theory crafting of the set it does not want you to hang back at all. It wants you to play in the Tide Pool so something needs to prevent mezzes or solo'ing with it under 50 isn't gonna be fun. The moment you run into your first Ruin Mage is gonna be a very bad time.

[Wavicle]

On 7/6/2024 at 1:22 PM, Shin Magmus said:

     Is there a reason that Whitecap, a forced "teleport the user to a new location" power using a common ground-targeted power icon, isn't ground targeted?  Whitecap has to have an enemy selected and it forces you to move to that enemy's location.  This is inconsistent not only with the power icon, but with every other power in the game that is a teleporting attack including Shield Charge, Lightning Rod, Spring Attack, Savage Leap, etc.  Even if you wanted to go directly to the enemy: it's trivial to create a macro or keybind that performs this behavior.

 

Why?

The Dominator version of Savage Leap also requires a target.

[BrandX]

3 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Some have commented on the lack of any protection against mezzes and it being a set with hardly any defense so you can't avoid mezzes by avoiding being hit either.

 

How about instead of mez protection, at least adding some solid mez resistance?  I was just bringing up in another thread that radiation emission's accelerate metabolism is the only power in the game right now with significant mez resistance in it.  It'd be cool to have another set with a solid mez resistance power.    At accelerate metabolism's mez resistance levels (around 200%) I find mezzes last noticeably shorter and it makes them less often a death sentence, but still keeps things "spicy".  

 

It's not like Dark Miasma or Time or Radiation and others have mez protection, so I'm not sure why people think that it needs it.  Not that it wouldn't be nice.

 

I still go back to think Wellspring should be a toggle with better Defense (as it's a quick clickie power that stacks).

[Riverdusk]

3 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

It's not like Dark Miasma or Time or Radiation and others have mez protection, so I'm not sure why people think that it needs it.  Not that it wouldn't be nice.

 

I still go back to think Wellspring should be a toggle with better Defense (as it's a quick clickie power that stacks).

 

Dark, time, and radiation all have solid defense and/or tohit debuff which means mez are much less likely to hit in the first place.  Radiation also has solid mez resistance which is what I was saying would be a nice addition. 

[Riverdusk]

Also on further thought, at least some sort of sleep and possibly stun protection/resistance also makes sense in a thematic/roleplaying sense.

 

A buff that is throwing water on a person is going to wake them up and keep them awake for a while, no?  Also could be argued would snap them out of a stupor (stun). 

 

So, maybe leave hold and other mezzes as a 'hole' for balance and just give some sleep and stun resistance/protection.  Would be similar to Storm's O2 Boost power.  Could slide it right in to soothing wave as just one possible spot for it.