Focused Feedback: Marine Affinity

[Shin Magmus]

You guys aren't able to slot Slow sets into Shoal Rush?  I bought procs to test them out (since this power is a skip if you aren't proccing it) and I was able to slot Impeded Swiftness and Ice Mistral procs into it: so it accepts the sets for me in-game.

[megaericzero]

This is petty but I think a number of the icons leave a bit to be desired.

 

Power icons have always had a strong language to them - not without their mistakes, shortcomings, or differing views on edge cases - but repurposing the symbols for such disparate meanings than what they originally had based solely on redefining the visual's interpretation rubs me the wrong way. (For instance, Shadow Slip flipping the "summon 4 / summon lots" upside down to assert it being "drops 4/lots of entities out of a portal").

I'm not too concerned as I can just replace the icons myself. I do want to give my honest feedback, though, as it's been bugging me with some of the new power icons produced. No shade to the HC team's art person(s).

 

Brine and Whitecap seem to have actual mistakes. Brine presumably used to do -DMG and was changed after its icon was made. If Whitecap requires a target, doesn't have the player click where to place it, and affects an area of foes, it should really use the targeted-AOE ring instead; both easy fixes.

 

The next three are just nitpicks/preference. Tidepool's frenzy icon I wouldn't have done a different color to the rest of the set and Toroidal bubble I wouldn't have gone with a modified buff-recovery symbol over the standard one. Also I think placed powers that affect an AOE with a pseudopet should have the summon AOE ring but I understand the precedent is to not do that with powers like Bonfire, Ice Storm, etc.

 

Wellspring and Power of the Depths...

The former recycles one of the henchmen upgrade icons - I assume because it looks like somethings splashing out of a fountain - and the latter overlays the droplet icon on the glow from the mega-buff icon but notably not even with the upward-arc to denote it's a buff. Creative but seeing the symbol that goes with what the power actually does mechanically is more important if you ask me.

 

The rest are fine; they're standard symbols whose powers do what they say on the tin. I will add to the headcount of people who think Barrier Reef is a far better name for Wellspring.

[Shin Magmus]

Count me among the people who want the icon on Whitecap changed.  The frame is literally wrong if it's an enemy-targetted power.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

4 hours ago, Shin Magmus said:

You guys aren't able to slot Slow sets into Shoal Rush?  I bought procs to test them out (since this power is a skip if you aren't proccing it) and I was able to slot Impeded Swiftness and Ice Mistral procs into it: so it accepts the sets for me in-game.

 

Could you tell us which ATs allow slow IOs and which ones don't?  It maybe that some ATs got it and some didn't and that probably needs a fix.

[Shin Magmus]

3 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

Could you tell us which ATs allow slow IOs and which ones don't?  It maybe that some ATs got it and some didn't and that probably needs a fix.

Slow sets/enhancements in Shoal Rush...

Defender:  Yes.

Corruptor:  Yes.

Controller:  Yes.

MM:  No.

I just tested them all right now and nothing in-game prevented me from slotting a Slow SO into the power, except on MMs.  I also unslotted the procs on my Defender and re-slotted them with no issue.

 

While you guys are at it, Shoal Rush is a movement Slow power that's missing the -3.5 maxrunspeed flag that all good Slows have, and this power is also sort of a sidegrade to Infrigidate: which does have that flag.  Its omission is very weird and the power already looks like a skip *if* you aren't proccing it out, so giving it parity with good Slows should be fine.

 

Edited July 8 by Shin Magmus

[Warspite]

So as someone who plays Controllers 90% of the time when teaming, I saw the comments saying this would really benefit MM, and I thought what that could mean to trollers.  What controller has the squishiest, stupidest pets that could love some steamy love?  Fire Imps!

 

And it gets even better when you start looking at the powers.   

 

Toroidal is going to buff my imps, but also the right out of the box recharge means pretty much a constant end boost to counter some of the end hit of Hot Feet.  I started at level 17 just to get a feel at lower levels. but I am (so far) keeping Hot Feet on without any issues.  Not to mention a little resistance boost to myself and my imps once I get them.

 

Then throw in:

Shifting Tides, boosting the little guys accuracy as well as more damage along with recharge.

Wellspring with a + Absorb and + Def.

Power of the Depths, + MaxHP, along with regen and more End.

 

You may not get the damage boost of Fulcrum shift, (hard for me to understand how much +Dam I am getting from Tide Pool) but everything else seems to be a win for Fire Controllers.

 

A couple of things I noticed.

 

So I think the cone on Soothing Wave, in part, has to do with the -dam, so you can get that 45 feet of range to debuff baddies.  I was curious to see, since it is a "heal" if they noticed.  Not surprisingly, they noticed!

 

One potential bug(s) on Tide Pool:  The Show Detailed Info tab says that Enemies will not notice this attach under Aggro Type.  So of course I was going to lay down the patch before attacking, just like NA, and aggro happened.  I was confused at first looking thru the Combat Logs, because I didn't see anything that would have triggered them.  Then I realized that I had a damage proc, doh!  Removed the proc and no more aggro!

 

So is it a bug that the proc damage does not show up or is that just some sort of pseudo-pet proc damage that doesn't show in the logs?

 

Also when Tide Pool is dropped, I'm not seeing any visual indication that the targets are being de-buffed, but maybe those only show for -Resistance/-Def powers?

 

[Awilix]

EDIT: Oh no. I was having trouble submitting. Um, ignore those first two posts unless I can somehow delete them

Here's a lot more thoughts to dump onto the pile. I was experimenting on a water/water Cor.
 

Shoal Rush
The core design of the power is confusing. Some amount of its strength was attributed to removing stealth effects, but it is a power that requires a target. So if you see an enemy, you are able to remove the stealth on them, which seems to be an impossible situation. You can at best hope that it might hit something you assume is there.
On top of that, stacking movement speed debuffs in a set always seems to compel you/me into using the best possible one, making it rare for me to actually use this power once I had tide pool. Tide pool seemed to max out the debuff or near to it and I could use it without causing aggro, causing shoal rush to once again have no measurable effect in the fight.
That only leaves the defensive debuff ability, but being a targetted power, it requires you to hit the enemy to make the enemy easier to hit. While not as egregious as the -stealth component, all of this effects of its designed combined that I could not find a -single- situation while missioning to use this power despite honestly trying. Other powers in the set did all of these things much better. It didn't feel just like a skippable power with a strange but potentially useful effect, it felt absolutely dead in the water.

 

Soothing Wave - 
The basic support set heal power. Adding that -damage into the cone effect makes it feel a lot more satisfying to use than the Nature heal cone version that sometimes just felt like a more awkward version of the sterotypical PBAOE heal. I like this one.

 

Toroidal Bubble - 
It's a very odd feeling power in a positive way. An unusual collection of very useful buffs; even the jump is handy. The small resistance buff that isn't stacked anywhere is the set feels like start of a problem I noticed while playing the set; it felt like there was extremely little I could 'do' when there was a problem.

 

Whitecap- 
This power seems as though it was good, but it was very frustrating to have to get into the mindset of awkwardly targeting an enemy with it like I was a melee character prepared to jump in despite having literally zero other powers that made use of that except arguably Tides.

 

Tide Pool- The nonaggro slow patch seems pretty effective. It reminds me of a group Storm Cell, but the movement debuff seemed much stronger. The -damage effect wasn't noticeable, but that might be due to the very nonreactive nature of the set. Like a lot of the set, it seems like it'd be effective in raids or teaming environments.

 

Brine - This power feels like a very old-style design. It looks almost exclusively useful on AVs. And hopefully ones without high defense due to its tohit-requirement.

 

Shifting Tides - Much like tide pool and a lot of this set, this seems like an ability that built for raiding-level encounters that has a more muted effect when you're playing by yourself or in small groups. That said, it was very satisfying to watch those little buffs build up and give you free +tohit that once again made Shoal Rush feel increasingly useless. But at the same time, it didn't really feel like anything different was happening when I had it on or off which combined with it being as awkward to use as powers like Darkest Night (except powers like the one mentioned often had a significant, noticeable immediate effect of saving your bacon or casting a dominating debuff.)

 

Wellspring - What a weird little guy; I love him. Once again, like a lot of the set, it feels like a diminutive buff that's built to function in raids, the core issue with that being that /any/ AOE buff will function well in that setting, making all of these powers feel collectively very meek in comparison to other sets.

 

Power of the Depths - The range buff is very satisfying. And on the broken record, the buff effects seem like exceptionally good minor bonuses to some full raid experience, but have a very muted effect in actual play. It's nice that it's one of those sets that mostly solves your endurance problems between this and the bubble. It seems similar to Chrono Shift, but that set has several active mezes and defensive debuffs that make that power feel a better tier nine. And chrono shift also actively healed you.

Observations: The set seems to have an issue with activity. It looks like it has good offensive potential once you get all the stacking effects going; that makes it a bit slow, but not outrageously so. The personal buffs are all very strange and subtle, never reaching significant numbers on anything, but they are all individually welcome. But with the lack of meaningful 'defensive' debuffs, the fact that Soothing Wave is the only active defensive power that you have (aside from one long recharge knockdown in Whitecap), the fact that the buffs are focused around resistance but the set utterly lacks mez protection all creates one of the squishest experiences I've ever felt with an 'active' set. It has the structural feeling of playing something like the Fire support set, but the buffs won't keep anyone alive nearly as well and it's as active as playing something like Dark Miasma or Kinetics without their immediate power. It looks like it'd be absolutely bonkers to play on a Mastermind, though.
 
Suggestions:
In the very least, Shoal Rush should be untargeted like Soothing so that the stealth component can be intentionally used. But I would lean into the offensive nature of the set and turn it into some kind of power like Storm Summoning's Gale. It could lean into its multiple effects and roll between knock down, immobilize and something else. Maybe lean in to Tide Pool's storm cell similarity and make it activate all effects when within the pool.
 Whitecap might almost remove the teleport and make it like Tar Patch, but teleport is fun. In the very least, it seems like it'd less unnecessarily frustrating if it was a click target (as mentioned in other posts). It could also some kind of lingering defensive effect like -tohit or a buff or something as one optional place to make you feel more sturdy in the set. Otherwise, it feels suicidal to use.
 Tide Pool appears like it wants to be a short recharge toggle or something; the click and sit for four minutes feels strange. It's another place you could try to solve the arguable activity problem, but the power is pretty fun as is.
Maybe Brine could have some special activation effect; like, you cast it on someone inside tide pool and it automatically activates the 'brief frenzy effect' from tide pool regardless of if it hits. Some special effect to make it feel more modern and satisfying to use without needing to adjust its power meaningfully.
Wellspring's defensive buff is so minor and out of place in this set with no other defense or -tohit that it seems better to remove it and add a stronger absorb, a minor heal or, my personal favorite, allowing him to cast mez protection on mezzed friendly targets. Give the little guy a short recharge breakfree he can cast on you or your friends with O2 Boost's animation, which would solve a core problem with the set in how little you can do to 'save' a situation which makes being mezzed feel absolutely damning.
The fatal flaw of this set feels exceptionally egregious in Power of The Depths; a gigantic tier nine ability that I cast and nothing obvious happens. It feels like it could use a heal effect. Or use that badass animation and set consistency with Soothing Wave to give it some multi-faceted offensive capability. Keep its buffs as high as you can while also doing some negative effect to the enemy. Some basic -dmg or -tohit or a short-lived, powerful repeating knockdown aura to represent the tentacles or the tumult of the waves. Or for the insane, too much effort solution, make the tentacles that it summons into something like short-lived Carrion Creepers and make them slap foes around and knock them down or attract aggro so you can roleplay as being Lusca.

Kudos to anyone that read this far. I had the urge to write down every single thought, because the interesting set design and fun visuals make me very excited, but actually playing the set had some awkward components.

Edited July 8 by Awilix
Catastophy of accidental posting

[Tandi]

Not to add to any sort of giant chorus of people saying it, but I do think it's a very, very weird choice to have such an offensive-themed support set with a high emphasis on location [T]AoEs...and still be incredibly, absolutely incapable of taking any mez. As mentioned by Awilix, it lacks any sort of panic response, any sort of ability that helps in survivability (besides the heal), and leaves the entire set feeling fun, but feeling just a couple puzzle pieces from complete (IMO.)

Overall, my suggestions on the set is to give it some more "chaos" to the offensive aspects (More knockdowns! Please. It has no survivability outside of buffing smashing and fire resists, one of which being a particularly uncommon damage type to find in most places, and the max HP is on a base 4 minute cooldown. This works great for other sets like Nature, but nature provides...a lot more buffs and healing. It's very hard to keep yourself alive. Also, the defense is okay to have, but it's the only source of defense in the set, and provides about as much as weave while forcing you to decide between slotting set bonuses for defense, or set bonuses for healing/absorb. The regen buff is great, though! ). My personal idea on mez protection was my thought process on keeping it offensive, but granting it some measure of survivability against being held. Thought of Fulcrum shift, and how it applies a buff to everyone around you and the targeted enemy,

 

Why couldn't Whitecap do the same, but with mez protection? Making it a LAoE would be nice, but keeping it targeted to make this simpler would be okay, too. Thought process is that Whitecap could grant you moderate mez protection (Maybe 5? enough to keep you from being mezlocked by anything that isn't dedicated to locking down everything), but have the potential to stack it twice on teammates (for a total of 10, middle-ground for typical mez prot in support sets).

 

Other than that, the set's a lot of fun! Needs a few wrinkles ironed out, but shows promise as a powerful team amplifier and fun as heck, to boot.

Edited July 8 by Tandi
Mentioned something, forgot to elaborate on it. Whoops! Thanks, Shin!

[Shin Magmus]

2 minutes ago, Tandi said:

Not to add to any sort of giant chorus of people saying it, but I do think it's a very, very weird choice to have such an offensive-themed support set with a high emphasis on location [T]AoEs...and still be incredibly, absolutely incapable of taking any mez. As mentioned by Awilix, it lacks any sort of panic response, any sort of ability that helps in survivability (besides the heal), and leaves the entire set feeling fun, but feeling just a couple puzzle pieces from complete (IMO.)

How exactly do the +res, +def, +maxhp, and +absorb all not help in survivability.

[Tandi]

9 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

How exactly do the +res, +def, +maxhp, and +absorb all not help in survivability.

I got distracted IRL and forgot to elaborate on that point! Thank you!

[Warspite]

Another thing I like, Tidal Pool acts like Faraday Cage in that I can just place a new Pool instead of having to remember to un-toggle it before I can use it again.  Can we possibly get Lifegiving Spores this minor rework at some point?

[Warspite]

Slotting questions for the new power effects.

 

1)  Tide Pool accepts Slow Movement sets, but, at least on controllers, the power description and detailed info both only give this info:

 

 +24.00%% strength to all damage for 4m 5s on target Ignores buffs and enhancements unresistable. 

 

So no information on the amount of - Jump or Run speed is displayed.  Can you enhance the slow and the description is just missing? Or just proc it up?

 

2)  Brine allows Accurate Healing!  So anti-healing from a heal set? To paraphrase King George, I wasn’t aware that was something a heal set could do.

 

So is this like a reverse Dull Pain?  If I use it on a target with full health, the green bar doesn't change but his hit points just drop by 400 or so? I have it 6 slotted, (5 from Theft of Essence including the +End proc and the chance of Neg Damage proc from Touch of the Nictus. So it would seem that if you hit a target that has less than the -max hit points, that it should kill the target, but that doesn't happen.  (Street sweeping with Brawl in AP and you can see the effect of the -resistance, but the -MaxHP is harder to quantify. 

 

Also, both procs reliably hit, though with only 1 target, the Chance for + End may not be worth the slot. 

[Player-1]

22 minutes ago, Warspite said:

So is this like a reverse Dull Pain?  If I use it on a target with full health, the green bar doesn't change but his hit points just drop by 400 or so? I have it 6 slotted, (5 from Theft of Essence including the +End proc and the chance of Neg Damage proc from Touch of the Nictus. So it would seem that if you hit a target that has less than the -max hit points, that it should kill the target, but that doesn't happen.  (Street sweeping with Brawl in AP and you can see the effect of the -resistance, but the -MaxHP is harder to quantify. 

 

Hello Warspite,

 

Brine is a unique new power that is in a sense reverse Dull Pain. While it cannot defeat a target on its own as the minimum MaxHP is 1, it is a potent power multiplier as it reduces the amount of HP that you and allies ultimately need to work through on tough targets. Especially when stacked multiple times, -MaxHP behaves as another layer of -Resistance and -Regen at the same time and makes those effects even more impactful from other players!

 

 

I am also looking into the slotting bugs, icons, and possibly names at this time.

[MirrorDarkly]

Finished the King's Row Skull arc, upping my difficulty to +0/x3 starting with the mission where you first fight the Family's goons.  Morana stalemated me as an AV at level 16, every time I'd get her down to around half health she'd use Dark Regen to go back to full health.  Went back and redid the mission with her as an EB and it was an easy win.  I have been able to solo her as an AV with other MM support sets (Dark, Cold, Rad) so it's keeping with the theme of "good but not as powerful as some other sets" at these levels.

 

Went back to AVs for the Veles fight.  Started the mission at lv 17, leveled up part way through and beat him the first time without leaving to train.  Took a while and a fair amount of resummoning defeated thugs, but Toroidal Bubbles was enough to keep my end manageable which is a huge plus for the set.

 

Tide Pool: Is a really fun power.  It looks good, the sound effect is nice, it's easy to use and the Frenzy effect is entertaining.  I do notice the difference fighting in it but It doesn't feel game changing and I'm not sure if there is any fight I where it made the difference between victory and defeat.  Which seems to be how I'm feeling about almost every power so far besides maybe the heal and bubbles (having some help with END early really lets me keep going where other sets might need to rest or be addicted to blues).   Also I'd love to know the debuff values, I assume the +/- damage are mirrors of each other but that's just a guess and the slow is ?? (but significantly better than Shoal). 

 

Speaking of....

Shoal Rush: Now that I have Tide's, Shoal seems like much more of a skip power unless I want to slot it full of procs.  It would be nice if it did a little something more to justify taking it for it's own sake.  It kind of feels like two secondary effects of say Rad and Ice blast AoE's combined with none of the damage. 

 

Now on to the Faultline arc! 

 

   

Edited July 8 by MirrorDarkly

[Thraxen]

Seems super fun. Can’t wait. Nature is my only defender and I love it. Seems like a somewhat similar set. 
 

How can one have a trident with this on a defender? Temp power maybe?

[High_Beam]

So I am having fun testing it using the bumps to 10 and twenty to test the normal play fun meter using three different (thematic) characters.  This means default difficulty because if I cant enjoy that then I will really not enjoy more difficult.

 

Defender - Water Affinity/Water Blast

Corruptor - Water Blast/Water Affinity

Defender - Water Affinity/Storm Blast

 

Discovered early on its clear that Shoal Rush is totally skippable especially since 1/3 of its effects are good for like a minuscule percentage of foes (Stealthy), most of which are still targetable regardless (PPD Ghosts, Longbow Spec-Ops) when stealthed.  This is fine becuase it means you dont have to lose some shooty powers.

 

As has been said by others, Tidal Pool is fun and funny.  Obviously I am using a target macro to smooth out the use in the attack chain.  I really wish the casting animation was more dramatic, I am having to train myself to trust that it has been cast.

 

Whitecap was respec'd out.  Its on of those you may get it early but take it later powers; when you have improved your survivability.  It deals minimal damage; probably becoming a proc mule and puts you at significant risk and likely will be skipped.  Now if say it had the same small temporary defense buff that you see in Hail of Bullets then you might find me surfing in more.

 

Whats interesting is that this is an AoE monster of a different stripe which now makes me want to add a Synphonic Control type to the mix.  More feedback ans I continue

[Shin Magmus]

10 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

Whitecap was respec'd out.  Its on of those you may get it early but take it later powers; when you have improved your survivability.  It deals minimal damage; probably becoming a proc mule and puts you at significant risk and likely will be skipped.  Now if say it had the same small temporary defense buff that you see in Hail of Bullets then you might find me surfing in more.

Whitecap is AoE -res so nobody serious would skip it at endgame, since -res is basically the most valuable debuff to teams.  The main target of Whitecap takes -30%, and stacked with Brine that's another -30% for -60% total (on Defenders).  You'd probably respec back into it in the real game, especially since it can proc FFB +Recharge on cast as well.

[High_Beam]

27 minutes ago, Shin Magmus said:

Whitecap is AoE -res so nobody serious would skip it at endgame, since -res is basically the most valuable debuff to teams.  The main target of Whitecap takes -30%, and stacked with Brine that's another -30% for -60% total (on Defenders).  You'd probably respec back into it in the real game, especially since it can proc FFB +Recharge on cast as well.

Endgame totally but not at level 20.  That's what I am testing, level 20.  Just SOs to test the fun part; nobody likes to struggle grind and also have no fun there (unless they are a farmer and just skip the entire game).  Later is thirty and mixing in Set IOs to see what can sing.  Then its endgame . . . how far I can push her.  That is my testing process.

[MirrorDarkly]

Took a short break from leveling to test out some other ATs.  Two notes about Tide Pool.

 

1. Could it please not spam the combat log with "makes enemy wet" messages?

 

2. Tide Pool: Rough Waters (which I assume is the knockdown part of the frenzied mechanic?) misses constantly against higher level foes but the power doesn't take Acc enhancements.  Something should probably change there.

 

 

[MirrorDarkly]

So on a defender you can consistently apply -60%* damage across a fairly large area, between Soothing Wave (-15%), Tide Pool (-30%) and Tide Pool: Frenzied/Rough Waters (-15%).  And you can give out close to +20% resistance to all damage types by enhancing Toroidal Bubble.  All together that is fairly significant protection but it also requires stacking a number of effects and having enemies defeated in your Tide Pool.

 

I wonder if allowing Shoal Rush to proc Frenzied/Rough Waters if used on an enemy in the Tide Pool would make the set feel more reliable and impactful? 

 

*On even con enemies.  The purple patch reduces that significantly on higher level foes which might also be a reason the set feels less impactful, especially since unlike -to hit there is no slotting you can do to pull the numbers back up.

[MirrorDarkly]

Whitecap seems to be fairly weak compared to other AoE resistance debuffs.

 

 It gives the "standard" -30% (defender values) but half of that is over a smaller area and drops off after about 20 seconds.  Also, I used a power analyzer to confirm that it cannot stack with itself and while leaping in is awesome it makes the power significantly more dangerous to use in many situations.  Consider perhaps allowing the half that lasts the full 40 seconds to stack and/or giving it a short but powerful (resistance + mez resistance) or defense self buff to make it less suicidal to use.  

[MirrorDarkly]

Did some playing around with Brine and the power analyzer.  The -HP is an interesting feature but it doesn't seem like it will be very significant against an AV or GM unless you have a lot of characters stacking the power.  It may be more noticeable vs bosses and EB which have much lower hp pools. Given the high recharge and single target nature of the power I'll probably take it but just keep the base slot and use it mainly for the 30 sec, decaying -Res buff. 

 

All values are defender at lv 50.

-267.72 hp base with a 1 minute duration and recharge time.

It is affected by the purple patch/level differences, but not by AV resistance.  The -hp effect does stack with itself.

 

So against a lv +3 AV you can expect to see -174 hp per hit, which, I think, will reduce their regeneration by roughly 0.5%.  You can get that up to around 1% per cast if you slot it for +100% healing and likely stack it 2-4 times depending on your recharge and miss chance.  

 

One thing I'm really noticing about this set is that it is very hard to increase its effectiveness in significant ways through slotting.  The things it's best at you can't enhance and the things you can enhance have low enough values that you don't get great return on slotting them.  

 

[BrandX]

Did a little checking out...

 

Interesting on Shifting Tides.  Looks like if placed on an ally it stays going, but I can also just place it on an enemy.  Just can't place it on self.

 

Wellspring only gives 5% Defense (unlsotted) on Defender and it's a click that appears to stack.  Can this just be turned into a Toggle the likes of Force Field Generator?

 

Whitecap I love, however, as it puts you into melee with everything, it would be nice to have the defense to not get killed with it.

 

Brine...hmmm...looks like it's -Resist can stay perma on a target with slotting so not so bad imo.

 

Soothing Wave didn't look to aggro, is that supposed to be that way, when it does -DMG to enemies?  Interesting on healing others.  That cone can miss teammates standing right next to you.

 

Honestly trying to decide if I should reroll my Cold/Water to Marine/Water or leave Cold/

 

 

 

[ScarySai]

Today's (undocumented) changes to brine hurt the set a lot, and the proc changes don't help.

 

The buffs to the maxhp debuff don't make up for the -res decaying. The maxhp debuff is still a complete joke.

Edited July 10 by ScarySai

[Riverdusk]

3 hours ago, MirrorDarkly said:

Did some playing around with Brine and the power analyzer.  The -HP is an interesting feature but it doesn't seem like it will be very significant against an AV or GM unless you have a lot of characters stacking the power.  It may be more noticeable vs bosses and EB which have much lower hp pools. Given the high recharge and single target nature of the power I'll probably take it but just keep the base slot and use it mainly for the 30 sec, decaying -Res buff. 

 

All values are defender at lv 50.

-267.72 hp base with a 1 minute duration and recharge time.

It is affected by the purple patch/level differences, but not by AV resistance.  The -hp effect does stack with itself.

 

So against a lv +3 AV you can expect to see -174 hp per hit, which, I think, will reduce their regeneration by roughly 0.5%.  You can get that up to around 1% per cast if you slot it for +100% healing and likely stack it 2-4 times depending on your recharge and miss chance.  

 

One thing I'm really noticing about this set is that it is very hard to increase its effectiveness in significant ways through slotting.  The things it's best at you can't enhance and the things you can enhance have low enough values that you don't get great return on slotting them.  

 

 

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.