Speed of Sound/Jaunt, the worst of both worlds

[Warspite]

Every time I select this power, I remember why I don't take it.  Basically a clone of Superspeed, but instead of phase shift and the added Momentum vertical movement from Issue 27,  Speed of Sound is stuck with a broken teleport power.  

 

Why do I plummet like a stone tanker in Granite when I Jaunt up in the air?  For the love of Mike, can we please get a built-in hover mechanic?   The days of having to take hover with any other teleport power are long gone.  The base hover time even increased from 6 seconds to 15 seconds for every other power, but nothing for Jaunt.  Yes, I can use binds, but there was a reason many teleporters took hover back in the day. 

 

 

I know big changes to Experimentation would take a Power Pool update, but for a stretch goal, can we get rid of the 3 jump limit?  

 

Speed of sound, with it's limit of 3 jumps actually had me convinced that the Mystic Flight had the same limit of 3 jumps for the longest time.  Then on my way to stop by and see Ada after the 2 minute warning, I was shocked to see that I could jump on an on and on.

 

So short term, please keep me from dropping like a granite tanker. Long term, release the shackles!  No jump limits!

[biostem]

It's because jaunt is meant as a way to enter/exit combat more easily, or to cross gaps you couldn't with just speed of sound or by jumping.  It isn't meant to be a full-on replacement for the actual teleport power, (Mystic Flight is a different story, because you already have the flight power to compensate).  Don't get me wrong - the power could use some love, like maybe the stealth that SS grants...

[Warspite]

I thought about that, but then why even give the vertical option and not make it a ground based teleport like Shield Charge?  But, fine, gimme a 6 second QoL hover built in and I'll deal with the three jump limit and I won't question why Mystic Flight gets unlimited jumps. 

 

What can I say, my 2 favorite travel powers are Superspeed and Teleport. 😉

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, Warspite said:

I thought about that, but then why even give the vertical option and not make it a ground based teleport like Shield Charge?

Because as a movement sub-power, a character moving fast enough to seem to be teleporting can get to different elevation places through sheer momentum. And just like those speedsters that move so fast they seem to teleport, if they don't make it to whatever platform or surface available for them to stand/run on, they fall back down. As opposed to an actual teleporter that can teleport where (s)he/they/it wants but that game limitations don't directly allow except by constant use of teleport with hovering to buy players time to re-target a destination.

 

(Edit: Teleport had hover added for two reasons. The first was to make the power easier to use so more players would start taking it rather than respec out of it for personal difficulties in employing it. The second was because even if a player was able to immediately teleport at the end of their teleport, the game would occasionally have them immediately start falling and we didn't lose any falling speed as we teleported. And the rate of fall increased as you continued to teleport. This resulted in characters that ended their teleport on a surface still losing massive amounts of health on their landing unless they placed the cursor on actual surface and not just slightly above but looking like it was actual surface. A few characters I've teamed with died from their teleports. So for those two reasons, Teleport got Hover added. Jaunt can only be used three(?) times in a row before going on cooldown. On a running power. It doesn't face the same problems Teleport did.)

 

That said? I don't really care if Jaunt gets a (very) brief hover duration added. I don't think it fits the theme of a super speedster jumping to a different elevation whereas with Teleport it is necessary for some players to have the time to continue their teleportation, but neither do I think it will break anything as long as it does not come close to Teleport's brief hover duration.

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:18 PM by Rudra

[arcane]

Jaunt is a long range Combat Teleport, not the power Teleport. If you want it to have hangtime and unlimited uses, you will have to have a much slower animation. I don’t personally want that to happen, because we already have Teleport and Translocation for that sort of thing. Combat Teleport and Jaunt fill a completely different niche and do not need hangtime or unlimited uses. I use both Teleport and Combat Teleport regularly on all of my characters because both have their use cases. Adding a hover effect to Jaunt or Combat Teleport would actually be a nerf in several use cases.

 

Working as intended. No issue.

Edited Tuesday at 10:47 PM by arcane