Ion attack awareness

[Etched]

When I use Ion incarnate on a mob, the mob senses that I'm about to use it and the target will come at my toon and sometimes making me miss some of the mob. However, Pyro incarnate does not do this, which is the case for any ranged attack. The bad guy doesn't know that I'm about to  attack until he is hit.

 

My suggestion is to remove the awareness of the Ion attack.

 

[BassAckwards]

Although I agree the mob alert sucks, this is one of the drawbacks that gives the power a little more balance. It can hit more targets than any power in the game, even jumping around corners. 
 

It also has the drawback to critically failing if you target a mob who’s body immediately de-spawns upon defeat, and they are defeated before impact. 
 

Ion doesn’t need any drawbacks removed it is already the only logical Judgement power choice from a pure damage/meta/numbers perspective. 
 

If you choose any other Judgement power you are doing it purely for flavor/theme because it’s the wrong choice if it’s not Ion. 

Edited Tuesday at 04:04 PM by BassAckwards

[TheMoneyMaker]

They hear the thunder and are reacting by going after the source.

[DrRocket]

it seems mobs are aware that an AOE is targeted on them, and as you go through the stupidly long graphic they have all the time they need to get away from their group and move to the most worthless place, which usually annoys me.

 

At times, I think it exploits the long winding times to get a power off... but then it may just be luck more than anything, is just like every time I target a mob and set the AOE a player with area knockback exclusively knocks my target and none others....

 

V/R

 

[biostem]

I have specifically avoided the lightning/elec judgment power specifically because of the longer animation;  IMHO, that is the price you pay for the increased damage, high target count, and optional AoE hold...

[BassAckwards]

If you really want these critical failures to be removed, then ion would have to be nerfed to save any semblance of balance. Either lower target cap or less damage. 
 

I do think a discussion/suggestion thread on how to make the other judgement powers more appealing would be worth while. I would like to be able to pick the judgement that fits my theme and not feel like I’m losing out in the high level content incarnate powers are designed for. 
 

Destiny is a good example of a more well balanced set IMO. Of course Barrier is more common in the extreme meta, but Destiny is the only set that most of my toons have at least 2 different powers crafted if not more. Because there is a case to be made where depending on the content, you will want a certain Destiny over another. 
 

With judgement you are either choosing theme, or you are choosing Ion. 

[srmalloy]

10 hours ago, BassAckwards said:

Although I agree the mob alert sucks, this is one of the drawbacks that gives the power a little more balance. It can hit more targets than any power in the game, even jumping around corners. 
 

It also has the drawback to critically failing if you target a mob who’s body immediately de-spawns upon defeat, and they are defeated before impact. 

Ion Judgement also has the drawback that it will not affect mobs that have too recently been hit by another Ion Judgement, which makes it less than ideal in mass-attack situations, like the monster hunting phase of a Hamidon Raid. You can fire off Ion Judgement and have it jump to thirty or forty targets, or you can fire it off and have it make no jumps at all -- and potentially not even damage your main target for the power, because someone got an Ion Judgement off a half-second before you did. The other Judgement powers, while they don't have the targeting flexibility that Ion Judgement gives you, are more reliable -- if a target is in the beaten zone of the power's AoE, they can get hit by the power, regardless of their having had the same Judgement power used on them immediately prior.

 

And Ion Judgement isn't the only "aggro on animation start" power in the game. It has become less of an issue since HC made the change to not have the absurd delay on the power's damage, but Rain of Arrows from the Archery powerset also draws aggro the moment you start drawing your bow. Fortunately, targeting is now determined when the animation starts rather than after the (old) animation delay when the arrows land (at which point in a rapid firefight all the targets were likely to have moved out of the beaten zone before the arrows landed, making the power useless in the vast majority of situations, so all you have to worry about is having all of your targets turn and attack you before you even get the attack off, no matter what degree of stealth you have prior to starting the attack. (The quirk that has the arrows falling vertically from the sky, but turned at a 45° angle, is a separate but not game-breaking bug.)

[BassAckwards]

1 minute ago, srmalloy said:

Ion Judgement also has the drawback that it will not affect mobs that have too recently been hit by another Ion Judgement, which makes it less than ideal in mass-attack situations, like the monster hunting phase of a Hamidon Raid. You can fire off Ion Judgement and have it jump to thirty or forty targets, or you can fire it off and have it make no jumps at all -- and potentially not even damage your main target for the power, because someone got an Ion Judgement off a half-second before you did. The other Judgement powers, while they don't have the targeting flexibility that Ion Judgement gives you, are more reliable -- if a target is in the beaten zone of the power's AoE, they can get hit by the power, regardless of their having had the same Judgement power used on them immediately prior.

That I wasn’t aware of, but explains some of the quirks I have noticed that I was attributing to chains just being weird. 
 

Good info!

[Jacke]

I'm just waiting until someone with Ion Judgement knocks out a Star Destroyer.  😺

[Uun]

22 hours ago, Etched said:

When I use Ion incarnate on a mob, the mob senses that I'm about to use it and the target will come at my toon and sometimes making me miss some of the mob. However, Pyro incarnate does not do this, which is the case for any ranged attack. The bad guy doesn't know that I'm about to  attack until he is hit.

 

My suggestion is to remove the awareness of the Ion attack.

What you're experiencing is that there's a 1s delay after Ion's animation completes (at which point the mobs are notified) before the first damage strike. None of the other Judgement powers have this.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=incarnate.judgement.ion_core_final_judgement&at=blaster

 

22 hours ago, BassAckwards said:

Ion doesn’t need any drawbacks removed it is already the only logical Judgement power choice from a pure damage/meta/numbers perspective. 
 

If you choose any other Judgement power you are doing it purely for flavor/theme because it’s the wrong choice if it’s not Ion. 

Debatable. All the Judgement powers do the same amount of damage. All the other Judgements have faster animations than Ion. Ion has a target cap of 40, as does Vorpal Radial, while the others have a target cap of 32. (How often do you face more than 32 foes?) Ion has a 40 foot radius, as does Pyronic, while Mighty and Void have a 50 foot radius and Cryonic and Vorpal have a 120 foot radius. (Cryonic is a 45 degree cone while Vorpal is a 120 degree cone). 

[BassAckwards]

55 minutes ago, Uun said:

Debatable. All the Judgement powers do the same amount of damage.

 

Like I said above from a pure damage/meta/numbers perspective, Ion out performs by a lot. Though I would concede that as far as "balance" they are all probably fine where they sit (for 90% of content). I was mainly trying to drive home the point to OP that Ion does not need any help.

 

To an individual enemy, yes 428.36 points of damage. But when you take into consideration the target cap difference for example Pyronic Radial, Ion Core does 3,426 more damage. That is ignoring the fact that Ion Core has a chance to crit @40 targets unlike Pyronic Radial.

 

55 minutes ago, Uun said:

All the other Judgements have faster animations than Ion.

 

Agreed, big advantage for them. I think they should animate faster than Ion.

 

  

55 minutes ago, Uun said:

Ion has a target cap of 40, as does Vorpal Radial, while the others have a target cap of 32.

 

Yes, but vorpal is a cone (and although it is a healthy cone) the chain is more likely to saturate. This isn't even taking into consideration the target cap differences of the judgements that can crit. Vorpal Core only hits 30. Pyronic Core only 24. Again from a pure damage perspective nobody is talking about the non-crit branches. Ion really outshines all other Core Judgements.

 

  

55 minutes ago, Uun said:

(How often do you face more than 32 foes?)

 

I can't speak for everyone else, but for me a lot, I like to run KM ITF. But sure, for some people the target cap may be overkill.

 

Like I said earlier, I was really just trying to drive home the point that Ion doesn't need any help to OP and we should really be looking for ways to make the other judgments more enticing. I can't remember the last time I saw someone with cryonic.

Edited Wednesday at 04:19 PM by BassAckwards
Clarification

[tidge]

26 minutes ago, BassAckwards said:

 Like I said earlier, I was really just trying to drive home the point that Ion doesn't need any help to OP and we should really be looking for ways to make the other judgments more enticing. I can't remember the last time I saw someone with cryonic.

 

Cryonic helps to put out fires in Steel Canyon!

[BassAckwards]

Just now, tidge said:

 

Cryonic helps to put out fires in Steel Canyon!

 

Okay, now that is a really cool use case for Cryonic, does it 1-shot the fires?

[tidge]

I don't have enough different characters, but I don't recall having any attacks that can one-shot the fires.

[Uun]

51 minutes ago, BassAckwards said:

I can't remember the last time I saw someone with cryonic.

I have it on several characters, but I choose based on theme. I find it effective, and if you go radial, the secondary effects are pretty nice (50% -recharge/-speed for 30s plus 25% chance for mag 4 hold).

[arcane]

On 4/8/2025 at 10:59 AM, BassAckwards said:

it is already the only logical Judgement power choice from a pure damage/meta/numbers perspective.  

no it isn’t 

[BassAckwards]

44 minutes ago, Uun said:

I have it on several characters, but I choose based on theme. I find it effective, and if you go radial, the secondary effects are pretty nice (50% -recharge/-speed for 30s plus 25% chance for mag 4 hold).

 

I agree, the secondary effects are nice. I still think Cryonic could use a little uplift, maybe a wider cone for example.

 

33 minutes ago, arcane said:

no it isn’t 

 

I would welcome your viewpoint if you care to elaborate.

[arcane]

16 minutes ago, BassAckwards said:

I would welcome your viewpoint if you care to elaborate.

Pyronic is by far the meta choice for everyone I play with. Best base damage, fast activation means using it doesn’t lower your single target DPS against hard targets, and far fewer chances to aggro additional unwanted mobs. 
 

Ion is only the meta for farms or other trash mob activities like radios or Unai. Once you play content where ST DPS matters and where you don’t necessarily want to aggro whole rooms, Pyronic passes Ion with ease.

Edited Wednesday at 05:58 PM by arcane

[BassAckwards]

43 minutes ago, arcane said:

Pyronic is by far the meta choice for everyone I play with. Best base damage...

 

They all do the same base damage, so I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this?

  

43 minutes ago, arcane said:

... fast activation means using it doesn’t lower your single target DPS against hard targets, and far fewer chances to aggro additional unwanted mobs. 

 

Sure, but using these powers against only a couple of hard targets isn't really their purpose is it? At a fixed 90 sec recharge I would hardly say these powers are part of my attack chain. They are situational. If you have 1 boss left in a mob and Pyronic is available to use, but you know 30 seconds from now you will be on a new group of 24 mobs, are you going to use pyronic on that one boss because it's available or are you going to save it for the next mob group? But sure, if you are fighting the last AV and no other mobs will show up, Pyronic would be great attack because of its fast activation and its higher crit chance, but again, that's not really the purpose of these attacks.

  

43 minutes ago, arcane said:

Ion is only the meta for farms or other trash mob activities like radios or Unai. Once you play content where ST DPS matters and where you don’t necessarily want to aggro whole rooms, Pyronic passes Ion with ease.

 

Sure, if you are never going to fight more than 24 enemies (or are actively trying not to) at a time, I would agree pyronic is better because it has a higher chance to crit. However, as soon as you come across more than that Ion is the clear winner. If you think of all the enemies in a mob as one enemy with a big hit point pool, when you can hit 40 of them vs 24, you are doing way more damage than Pyro ever could. Again, ST DPS isn't the point of these powers. I don't use my Blaster T9 for ST DPS, I could, but that's not it's intended purpose.

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, BassAckwards said:

I can't remember the last time I saw someone with cryonic.

I have to agree with @Uun -- if it's thematic for the character, I'll pick Cryonic; my Ice-based characters all have it, my Fire-based characters will have Pyronic, Electric-based characters will have Ion, etc., with Ion being a common fallback if there's no better choice to match the character. There are a couple of oddities -- Rad-based characters taking Pyronic recolored with the same blues used for the rest of the Radiation powers, instead of the incorrect green color that has become the popular perception of radiation.

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

if it's thematic for the character

I tend to take vorpal on my melee characters, since it's a "ranged-melee attack", (the optional def bonus is nice, too)...

[Etched]

Ion isn't normally my first choice,  normally it's Pyro and sometimes I'll use Mighty with the massive KU on some of my Tanks. Just so happen it fits the toon.

 

I get what everyone is saying and it makes sense in the grand scheme of things but it's annoying when it happens.

[PoptartsNinja]

Much as I hate the Incarnate Blasts, I do think they're pretty well balanced against each other (with the exception of Cryo and Vorpal (Void is good!), but cones are always going to be a hard sell). Pyro's the fastest so it's a good fight initiator and the easiest to get solid results out of, mighty and void have great utility, and Ion is slow but guaranteed to do the most damage if used well.

 

The trick to Ion is: it isn't a snipe and it isn't a fight initiator. Because it's single target, it has a good chance of only alerting its initial target until the damage component goes off, so if you toss it out from max range there's a good chance that target will have charged out of range of his friends before ion hits it.

Instead of using it like pyro, Ion is more of a mid-range attack. You'll get much better use of it in any (or all) of the following ways:
- Fire it at just the very edge of the mob's vision range, where they're likely to turn, walk a step, and then pull out their pistol or any other ranged attack option before they charge for melee

- Fire it against a target on the far edge of the spawn you want to engage (rather than the closest target)

- Fire it after aggroing the spawn through another means like a ranged aoe, a hold, or via just a good old-fashioned body check.

 

Because if the whole spawn is together, through whatever means you choose, you're going to devastate them.

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:48 PM by PoptartsNinja