Focused Feedback: Marine Affinity

[mistagoat]

12 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

 

I dunno how different it is than a walking houseplant, a gravitational singularity, coalesced energy in a vaguely humanoid shape, or any number of other things that just happen to follow you around. 🙂 

Yeah, thats true. Maybe we can give the reef legs? Strangely, within this world, I'm more apt to believe that a reef could grow legs and follow me around rather than sliding along the ground sans any ambulatory appendages.

 

It's a small detail and it won't affect my enjoyment of set either way, just pickin nits.

 

Anyway, I got my Beast/MA up to low 30s so I've unlocked all the MA powers. Shoal Rush and Brine seem to be only potentially skippable powers, not that they feel bad but the rest of the powers just seem far more valuable. Good to have a couple powers that are on the bubble for the builds where power picks are super tight.

 

I don't have any scientific details or numerical breakdowns to offer but I can say that it feels good and offers a comparable leveling experience to other similar sets.

I have been playing with a buddy (MA/Fire Def) and we've duo'd everything so far so that may skew my perspective but that's also how we play on live and the experience feels comparable.

Feels based data is probably not super helpful but figured it couldn't hurt to mention.

Edited July 17 by mistagoat

[BZRKR]

Two appearance/ non-number-crunchy pieces of feed back:

Barrier Reef appearance:

After looking at the power customization options, I do like the "no crystals" option better. Maybe if there are more "coral" art assets that can be harvested from the Coralax golems or elsewhere in the future, I'd turn them on, but as it is, the simple splashy orb of water suit me fine. In-universe, I think of it as a mobile portal or dimensional gateway to a vast reservoir of "barrier reef" energy. Without having seen the Alpha conversations, I wonder if the crystal art assets are why the power had been renamed "Wellspring"? Either way, I wouldn't let this slow down the update.

*edit* Oh yeah, legs. If it exists/ could exist in game the perfect leg-based art for Barrier Reef (for me) would be a hermit crab with a coral outcrop on/ as its shell that scuttles along behind me.

 

Whitecap Button appearance:

I like the button as is. I feel like the power is unique enough to warrant art that diverges from the power iconography language like Savage Melee's Rending Flurry or Hemorrhage. I do think that making sure the border art is accurate or removed is important. The "surf's up!" art should be enough for folks to recognize the power, and if not, they can right click it for info.

 

Generally, I like what I've seen of Marine Affinity on Controllers, and have already secured names for 3 Marine Affinity characters 🙂

Edited July 17 by BZRKR
Added leg-based comments

[BrandX]

12 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

Two appearance/ non-number-crunchy pieces of feed back:

Barrier Reef appearance:

After looking at the power customization options, I do like the "no crystals" option better. Maybe if there are more "coral" art assets that can be harvested from the Coralax golems or elsewhere in the future, I'd turn them on, but as it is, the simple splashy orb of water suit me fine. In-universe, I think of it as a mobile portal or dimensional gateway to a vast reservoir of "barrier reef" energy. Without having seen the Alpha conversations, I wonder if the crystal art assets are why the power had been renamed "Wellspring"? Either way, I wouldn't let this slow down the update.

*edit* Oh yeah, legs. If it exists/ could exist in game the perfect leg-based art for Barrier Reef (for me) would be a hermit crab with a coral outcrop on/ as its shell that scuttles along behind me.

 

Whitecap Button appearance:

I like the button as is. I feel like the power is unique enough to warrant art that diverges from the power iconography language like Savage Melee's Rending Flurry or Hemorrhage. I do think that making sure the border art is accurate or removed is important. The "surf's up!" art should be enough for folks to recognize the power, and if not, they can right click it for info.

 

Generally, I like what I've seen of Marine Affinity on Controllers, and have already secured names for 3 Marine Affinity characters 🙂

 

 

Speaking of appearance...

 

Can the non crystal version get an original color option, that way it always matches the rest of the set?  Never seems to match the rest of the set when one gets a "Choose your colors options"

 

 

[TygerDarkstorm]

6 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

You should see if it's healing without it, because I didn't have it slotted and it healed my Defender.

It's basically just a clone of the cone heal in nature; it heals both the user and friendly targets in range of the cone.

[BrandX]

43 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

It's basically just a clone of the cone heal in nature; it heals both the user and friendly targets in range of the cone.

 

Awww...I never played that set, so didn't know that.

Edited July 17 by BrandX

[mistagoat]

1 hour ago, BZRKR said:

Barrier Reef appearance:

After looking at the power customization options, I do like the "no crystals" option better. Maybe if there are more "coral" art assets that can be harvested from the Coralax golems or elsewhere in the future, I'd turn them on, but as it is, the simple splashy orb of water suit me fine. In-universe, I think of it as a mobile portal or dimensional gateway to a vast reservoir of "barrier reef" energy. Without having seen the Alpha conversations, I wonder if the crystal art assets are why the power had been renamed "Wellspring"? Either way, I wouldn't let this slow down the update.

*edit* Oh yeah, legs. If it exists/ could exist in game the perfect leg-based art for Barrier Reef (for me) would be a hermit crab with a coral outcrop on/ as its shell that scuttles along behind me.

Ya know, I hadn't checked out the water only option until you mentioned it but yeah, that looks great and for whatever goofy reason a giant water bubble following me around makes perfect sense!

 

Absolutely love the hermit crab concept too, I'd use that in a heartbeat!

[MirrorDarkly]

3 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

 

Speaking of appearance...

 

Can the non crystal version get an original color option, that way it always matches the rest of the set?  Never seems to match the rest of the set when one gets a "Choose your colors options"

 

 

 

I would love an original color option for this power too!  I didn't realize we could go back to the no crystal version, and while I don't mind the crystals I thought it was about perfect before. 

[UltraAlt]

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

Wellspring - Summon a Wellspring teeming with life at your target location. The Wellspring will emit an aura that washes over allies in range, providing them with a defensive cover of water that will absorb and deflect some damage.

 Barrier Reef - Create a Barrier Reef teeming with life at your target location. The Barrier Reef will emit an aura that washes over allies in range, providing them with a defensive cover of water that will absorb and deflect some damage.

 

I agree with what others have said in other posts. the "barrier reef" that looks like stalagmites chasing you around just doesn't fit with the game well.

I would suggest the ground level part of the storm cell graphics and add some fish jumping out of the water (preferably circling around the character).

 

Honestly, I would also lock this onto the summoning character versus having it follow around (far too slowly) as a pseudo pet. The thing is going to be useless to end-game steam-rolling teams (which I do not do myself, but point it out before that ends up being a big thing once this goes live). It is entirely defensive.

 

It makes more sense to me to have  Barrier Reef lock onto the casting player versus a target character as there is already a power that can be locked onto a front line character.

 

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

Shifting Tides - Select a target to create a field of shifting waters around them. Enemies within the shifting waters have a chance take bonus damage when any power hits them, as well as provide you and your allies a stacking Rising Tide buff that increases ToHit, Damage, and Recharge time. The more allied players effected, the higher the odds to proc bonus damage!

 

... and it would also fit in to how ...

 

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

Power of the Depths - Becoming a conduit of the ocean itself, you boost the max hit points and endurance of allies within range. This power will also increase the Regeneration rate of all nearby allies, while also increasing the Range of all of their powers. A portion of these effects will decay over time.

 

... works and how the two could work in conjunction without standing around and waiting for  Barrier Reef to catch up.

 

I can understand wanting to fit some kind of pseudo pet in to mix up the mechanics, but it really doesn't work well. If you want to be some kind of pseudo pet that isn't buffing all the time, make it a wave front that starts like 10-15 feet and travels like 10-15 feet in front of the casting character over a certain length of time that applied the buff for a very limited time with re-applications each time the top of the wave hits character and declines as it passes until the next wave hits. pseudo pet locked ton the character that moves from behind the character to ahead of the character and teleports back to the set distance behind the character to repeat.

Probably a pain in the butt to do, but would make more sense than a coral/barrier reef chasing you around (so, yeah, at the very least I would make it the ground level graphics for Storm Cell with fishes jumping out of it).

 

[EDIT : I see that you can go to a tailor and remove the crystals. I think "no crystals" should be the default. ... but, yeah, I would still like the mentioned power VFX.]

 

[EDIT 2:  Barrier Reef also needs to be able to jump higher. it is getting stuck on stuff chasing after my character.]

 

[EDIT 3: please avoid using pure white or near white in power colors especially when you can't change them. Eye pain is real. Also please allow darker color customization. It seems impossible to darken the colors on this power to my liking/to avoid eye pain]

 

Edited July 18 by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

15 hours ago, BrandX said:

You should see if it's healing without it, because I didn't have it slotted and it healed my Defender.

 

It is healing without out a heal enhancement (no enhancements at all in fact) on a corruptor that I just rolled up to test it.

However, I wasn't really able to test it until level 3 because the incoming damage was so low that default health was healing it pretty much completely on its own and I couldn't time when that hp replenishment was happening.

[BrandX]

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

It is healing without out a heal enhancement (no enhancements at all in fact) on a corruptor that I just rolled up to test it.

However, I wasn't really able to test it until level 3 because the incoming damage was so low that default health was healing it pretty much completely on its own and I couldn't time when that hp replenishment was happening.

 

I had full health but it would put numbers over my head.  

[Shin Magmus]

On 7/16/2024 at 4:22 AM, Tacheyon said:

I agree.  Shifting Tides is a staple on this set and it doesn't play well with Ranged MM's (Mercs & Bots).  You have to be constantly anchoring on a enemy that can take a few hits for it to be effective, and then the long CD makes it hard to keep flowing (pun intended) by consistently dropping anchors all over the place.  Although it's ok with Thugs since you can send in your Bruiser and he'll be fine.

Ninjas I was surprised at how well they do with this set.  I've still yet to try out Demons since they also have a mix of Ranged and Melee minons. 

     I understand this complaint but Disruption Field in Sonic Resonance is the other ally-anchored toggle and that one doesn't even have the option to anchor it on an enemy like Tides.  In both cases, the actual anchor for the power will be a melee AT on your team.  These are powersets that are not really built for soloing... and MMs are the niche edge case where sets like that still really benefit a solo player.  It's a support set available to support ATs and so I probably won't solo at all on my Marine Affinity character: I'll just have a teammate to slap it on, who closes into melee range faster than any pet.

[tricon]

1 hour ago, Shin Magmus said:

     I understand this complaint but Disruption Field in Sonic Resonance is the other ally-anchored toggle and that one doesn't even have the option to anchor it on an enemy like Tides.  In both cases, the actual anchor for the power will be a melee AT on your team.  These are powersets that are not really built for soloing... and MMs are the niche edge case where sets like that still really benefit a solo player.  It's a support set available to support ATs and so I probably won't solo at all on my Marine Affinity character: I'll just have a teammate to slap it on, who closes into melee range faster than any pet.

 

Well IMO this set is made in heaven for MM. The T9 is lacking for full IO chars but if you throw it on your henchman it shows that it can be very useful. 

 

Solo should not be a problem with this set, you still have your own pet in the set where you can anchor it. I have run through my usually incarnate solo content and the fire/marine corruptor was 3 min slower then my full proc out AR/TA controller, so it works. However on the lower end side, when you start you will run into the the same old problems with this set.

 

I played a bit without the P2W mez protection power and it sucks runing into so many cc powers and endurance was still a problem but thats not unusual for many set.s The MM play on the other side was a super relaxing play even with Mercenaries but yeah I guess going Neco or Thugs with more melee pets will be even better.

 

 

Edited July 18 by tricon

[arcane]

Looks like Brine no longer decays per the patch notes, which sounds like good news.

[MirrorDarkly]

Brine update bug:

 

I'll post in the bug report forum as well but on my Illusion/Marine controller I'm not seeing the new cooldown reduction when used alongside Rising Tide, despite having a lot of stacks.  

With no slotting in Brine and Rising Tide OFF I'm seeing a cooldown of 21 seconds.

When I fire it with Rising Tide stacked I'm seeing a cooldown of 18-20 seconds.  That very small difference is almost certainly the global recharge Rising Tide grants.

 

If I we're getting 45 seconds off the base recharge Brine should have somewhere around a recharge of 5-6 seconds(!) when it eats 3 stacks.

 

Also there are still a few odd endurance costs between ATs.

Shifting Tides (it seems like those should be switched).
   MM: 0.60/sec
   Cor: 0.78/sec
   Def: 0.78/sec

 

Power of the Deep
   MM: 26.00
   Cor: 26.00
   Def: 26.00

 

 

 

[Player-1]

Hello everyone,

 

There is a bug that made only Defenders able to use the new Brine mechanic that will be addressed in the next patch. 

[MirrorDarkly]

I tested Brine out on my Marine/Water defender and the changes felt *very* good.

[ExeErdna]

7 hours ago, tricon said:

 

Well IMO this set is made in heaven for MM. The T9 is lacking for full IO chars but if you throw it on your henchman it shows that it can be very useful. 

 

Solo should not be a problem with this set, you still have your own pet in the set where you can anchor it. I have run through my usually incarnate solo content and the fire/marine corruptor was 3 min slower then my full proc out AR/TA controller, so it works. However on the lower end side, when you start you will run into the the same old problems with this set.

 

I played a bit without the P2W mez protection power and it sucks runing into so many cc powers and endurance was still a problem but thats not unusual for many set.s The MM play on the other side was a super relaxing play even with Mercenaries but yeah I guess going Neco or Thugs with more melee pets will be even better.

 

 

 

I agree it's perfect for MM's or anybody who for sure knows they're playing with groups often. This is also why I said this will be popular support set for fire farmers. When it goes live people are gonna enjoy it whenever a Marine user shows up.

[BurtHutt]

For the first time ever, I went into beta. The new HC launcher made it easy. I try not to spoil stuff by going into test but I wanted to check out the powerset. I like the looks of it but I totally agree with everyone saying you need to change some of the looks. Barrier Reef...cool power but the look...not fitting for the theme of the power. Hopefully this can be changed.

 

I never gripe too much about the numbers and how powerful the set should be. No power set is perfect. This one has some slightly new wrinkles and is worth playing. 

 

Again, I hope the HC team really tries to add different content. This set looks like a winner. 

[MirrorDarkly]

Having gone back to do some testing on my Marine/Water defender one thing that I really noticed is that I miss the noisier Barrier Reef much more that I thought I would.  Those two power sets together with the constant "whale songs" really felt like I was surrounded by, and in control of, a vast ocean.  It was evocative in a way I've rarely experienced in a video game.

 

I realize that was toned down due to feedback and that at least some people disliked it as much as I enjoyed it.  So I was wondering if it would be both possible and relatively easy to include one customization option which is both the model and sound from patch 1?  It could be called "Undersea Songs" or something like that to let people know it is louder than the other options.

 

Anyways that is purely a personal ask.  Overall I think the set is in great shape and I have three names reserved for parings I 100% know I'm going to make with probably many more after that.    

[arcane]

So has anyone discussed the viability of this set in a 4* setting? If it’s good enough to sub in for one of the typical roles (like, say, how Elec Affinity or Trick Arrow are not Cold/Nature/Kin but are close enough)… I might as well pair it with Ice Blast. Otherwise, I’m leaning Water Blast for the pure RP.

Edited July 19 by arcane

[Bionic_Flea]

I would think it might be an able alternate to Nature.  But we won't know until we know.  And we won't know until enough folks try it out with those settings.

 

[ExeErdna]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

So has anyone discussed the viability of this set in a 4* setting? If it’s good enough to sub in for one of the typical roles (like, say, how Elec Affinity or Trick Arrow are not Cold/Nature/Kin but are close enough)… I might as well pair it with Ice Blast. Otherwise, I’m leaning Water Blast for the pure RP.

 

Personally, the set feels like a middle ground between Nature and Kin but with a strong soft control gimmick with the knockdown in Tide Pool. There's a lot of -/+Dmg in the set. To me the Def/Corr side of it really shouldn't be +4 at all outside of groups even though I like the Water Blast setup. Even Storm Blast has a nice synergy with Tide Pool

Yet from what I played MMs and some controller combos can hang in a solo +4 with Clarion. Tide Pool and Shifting Tides are the mainstay of the set so it will be amazing if you have a tank that knows what they're doing. Barrier Reef and The Bubble can help a lot. Yet for Marine it depends if you want to use Whitecap or Shoal Rush to proc the frenzy effect on Tide Pool. Since the most skippable pieces in the set are Shoal Rush, Brine and Whitecap. You can wait on getting Shoal and Whitecap for later after you get Tide Pool. Yet Brine might be something you either take late or simply skip outright.

[MirrorDarkly]

4 hours ago, ExeErdna said:

 

Personally, the set feels like a middle ground between Nature and Kin but with a strong soft control gimmick with the knockdown in Tide Pool. There's a lot of -/+Dmg in the set. To me the Def/Corr side of it really shouldn't be +4 at all outside of groups even though I like the Water Blast setup. Even Storm Blast has a nice synergy with Tide Pool
 

 

I can't speak to 4* but once you get Clarion Marine defenders can absolutely run many groups at +4/x8.  Here a Marine/Water defender vs the new Council at that difficulty (and I made the mistake of not putting down Tidal Pool until most of the first group was defeated).  For Incarnates I used Vigor Core Paragon and Clarion Core Epiphany, so no Judgements, Lore or Hybrids.

 

 

I've also done Carnival of Shadows, Malta, Devouring Earth, Talons of Vengeance in DA and hordes of demons at that setting.  This set up lacks the single target damage to take down an AV (at least one at that difficulty) but I tanked Infernal until I got bored when testing it.  The one group so far that has been a hard counter to my Defender is the Seers, between all Psy damage, staying at range and near immunity to knock back they shred me.  The only Marine character I've been able to fight them at +4/x8 and consistently win is my Illusion controller.

 

 

Edited July 20 by MirrorDarkly

[Grandfeatherex]

Neither bright water only, nor dark water only removes the crystals from barrier reef, hopefully this will be fixed, but can we have a "water only : default colour" without having to set it as bright, or dark?

I can't get the same water colour to match the set with the bright, or dark options, and I wouldn't want to change the colour of all the powers just so they match

(this goes for other powers that have been changed too and now have to choose 'bright or dark' and can never really match the colour it should be, like Martial combat's "reaction time" where I want the original colour but also to "show floaters")

[tricon]

All normal and incarnate content should be no problem at +4/x8 but if you go beyond this my guess would be this set loses quite a bit of the power, special in 4*

 

@arcane

This is how problems can arise:

 

Our +def and absorb come from our pet. So you can get out of the area effect and the defense aura is gone. The absorb will stay but it will not get refreshed until the pet is back in your area. The absorb numbers are low. so if it is not permanently renewed from the pet it is bad. Pet has low hp no speed/fly/resist on his own and will only follow his master.

 

One of the -resist power is a self teleport, so we have to reorient ourselves again and that brings me to the knockdown. We have quite a bit in the set that build a good synerg until you encounter mobs that are immune to it.

 

The -fly is resistable

 

Besides the recovery/endurance resistance this set has none besides the extra resistance in the bubble or does it offer cc protection

 

Brine has a flat minor -hp so forget that part vs AVs

 

You don"t have any kind of oh shit button in this set

 

 

Don't get me wrong, maybe it can work as a subsitute for nature/ea but it has is issues, we will see.