Thoughts on Earth Control's Volcanic Gasses?

[tidge]

I have an Earth/Cold build I'm pretty happy with: It's a great teammate, not too flimsy (without trying to be non-flimsy), and while DPS is so-so, it isn't my worst character to solo. I'm completely fine with the placed-AoE powers, although some maps mess with my macros.

 

The one power I have, that seems like a bit of a head-scratcher is Volcanic Gasses. On most characters, I really like the AoE Holds, and I expected this to be somewhat similar. After making decisions on power choices and enhancement sets elsewhere, I landed on this slotting:

• Gladiator's Net Accuracy/Hold (50+5)
• Gladiator's Net Accuracy/Recharge (50+5)
• Gladiator's Net %Damage (Lethal)
• Superior Will of the Controller Recharge/%Damage (Psi)
• Superior Entomb Recharge/%+Absorb
• Unbreakable Constraint %Damage (Smashing)

 

Which is a sort of typical long-Recharge AoE %proc-bomb, albeit with Recharge values deeper in the ED territory than is typical for me. On other AoE Holds, slotting like this adds reliable AoE damage and a good bit of control.

 

It procs just fine, even with a pseudo-pet. The +Absorb is only on cast (this is my expectation, but it's hard to witness this if it also happens later), and the combat log shows the %damage hitting, but somewhat less than if there were no pseudo-pet effects (as expected), but not as poorly as what I've seen from other pseudo-pets.

 

Where the head-scratching comes in: The chaining of consecutive, short-duration holds seems to make this a pretty bad Hold, even with the inherent (1.4) Accuracy of the pseudo-pet. Ultimately the AoE for the potential %damage is not great, and IIRC the target cap is also small (I think 5?)...

 

So.... was my initial thinking to try to leverage %damage wrong on this power? I'm starting to wonder if I should be thinking of this more as a single-target hold that sometimes can catch more than one critter, provided I lean harder into the hold than just the 33% I currently have slotted.

[Psyonico]

I really can't speak to the procing of the power, but because its a series of short duration holds, it really does need some decent hold duration slotting in it or mobs will be able to attack semi-regularly.

[tidge]

I did some set-swapping to boost the hold values, at the cost of some recharge. I am missing the +Absorb (may add it back, may not) but I more appreciate seeing the critters be held for the duration than the 70 - 100 points of random %proc damage.

[Uun]

I've never bothered slotting procs in it. I just slot it with a hold set. 

 

Volcanic Gasses summons 6 Volcanic Geysers, one every 10 seconds. Each Geyser (except the last one) has a 15s duration. The Geysers deploy Thermal Vents, a 10 ft radius, 7.45s hold with a 6s recharge. While the Vents do stack, they're targeted, not location based. Increasing the hold duration improves both your chances of stacking and area saturation. 

[Frosticus]

Slotted for hold it will consistently stack up to and remain at mag 9 vs lvl 54s (mag 12 vs even con). 

[Death2Tyrants]

22 hours ago, tidge said:

Superior Will of the Controller Recharge/%Damage (Psi)

How is this working for you?

I am expecting it to only work on initial cast.

[tidge]

59 minutes ago, Death2Tyrants said:

How is this working for you?

I am expecting it to only work on initial cast.

 

I want to say that each of the %damage powers, when they trigger, trigger on one of the "hold" cycles. As near as I can tell, they work similarly to Poison Trap: The %+Absorb may fire upon cast, but the %damage require a target. Since there are no targets upon immediate cast of these powers, the ToHit check (and %proc check) happen upon trigger, and AFAIK it also requires the pseudopet to not vanish to work; Seeker Drones are one of those pseudo pets that appear to never do %damage.

 

I can't swear that I saw the %Psi, but I know I saw the other %damage when the Hold power activated, per the logs.

[Death2Tyrants]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

 

I want to say that each of the %damage powers, when they trigger, trigger on one of the "hold" cycles. As near as I can tell, they work similarly to Poison Trap: The %+Absorb may fire upon cast, but the %damage require a target. Since there are no targets upon immediate cast of these powers, the ToHit check (and %proc check) happen upon trigger, and AFAIK it also requires the pseudopet to not vanish to work; Seeker Drones are one of those pseudo pets that appear to never do %damage.

 

I can't swear that I saw the %Psi, but I know I saw the other %damage when the Hold power activated, per the logs.

The reason I ask is there was a discussion on how this PROC was coded to only activate by the Controller. The assumption is pseudo pets wont PROC it but I stand to be corrected with evidence to the contrary.

Edited October 17 by Death2Tyrants

[tidge]

I could try to do some testing. I had slotted it because of the Recharge component even if the proc didn't fire.

 

EDIT: After testing, it fires with the Volcanic Geyser component (as did the other Hold %pieces)

Edited October 17 by tidge

[Frosticus]

55 minutes ago, Death2Tyrants said:

The reason I ask is there was a discussion on how this PROC was coded to only activate by the Controller. The assumption is pseudo pets wont PROC it but I stand to be corrected with evidence to the contrary.

Controller one definitely fires in poison- poison trap.

 

This image is from my poison guide. It has  Armageddon and controller proc slotted (among other things)

 

Edited October 17 by Frosticus

[tidge]

I suspect that the confusion about "only on cast" might have come about from powers that end up targeting immediately (such as Caltrops) and also have a 'tick' (which has poor %proc chances because of the extremely short recharge times of the "ticks".) In other words: It can be really obvious for those sorts of powers on cast to see a %proc but it would be relatively unlikely to find the %proc for any of the subsequent tics.

[Death2Tyrants]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I suspect that the confusion about "only on cast" might have come about from powers that end up targeting immediately (such as Caltrops) and also have a 'tick' (which has poor %proc chances because of the extremely short recharge times of the "ticks".) In other words: It can be really obvious for those sorts of powers on cast to see a %proc but it would be relatively unlikely to find the %proc for any of the subsequent tics.

Possibly but this seemed to be discussed as a special case where it wasn't firing in a pet. Or was it a pseudo pet?

 

I may be misremembering but I think the speculation was since the set couldn't be used by anyone but a Controller the PROC wasn't firing in entities that weren't Controllers. Had something to do with how the set itself is tagged.

 

Dunno. Screenshot Frosty posted says otherwise since the PPT clouds PROCing demonstrates it isn't true.

[Frozen Burn]

I love this power, but I don't use damage procs in it for the reason you've experienced - the hold doesn't last long enough.  As a controller, I want my holds to, well, hold, and I leave the damage to others.  But I can see for a a soloist why one would want to damage proc it. 

 

I just have a full set of superior Entomb in it - so, it has the +Absorb proc.  Given my troller (Earth/Nature) is built to tank and engage 3-4 mobs at once, I like the additional Absorb I get from it, but I never pay attention to it beyond the initial cast.  

[Shin Magmus]

     Basically all procs in Volcanic Gasses suck, that's the long and short of it.  The fact that ATO pet only goes off once (on initial cast) is bad, but the damage field and the hold pets have exclusive ability to fire only 1 type of proc (Hold or Damage sets), so it never works the way you want.  I recommend extracting set bonuses from the power with whatever type of 4-pc or 5-pc bonus you're going for, such as the non-proc parts of Unbreakable Constraint or a Controller/Dom ATO set for Recharge bonuses.  If you want to 6-slot the power, the extra slots can just be Damage/Mez Hamis since those will boost all aspects of the power.