Focused Feedback: Powerset - Plant Control

[Wavicle]

Don't look at any one change in isolation. Look at them together.

Vines isn't as Bursty (controlwise) but it's much better over the course of its uptime.

But now both Spores and Tree are actually very useful. So you have plenty of tools.

[LastHumanSoldier]

6 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Don't look at any one change in isolation. Look at them together.

Vines isn't as Bursty (controlwise) but it's much better over the course of its uptime.

But now both Spores and Tree are actually very useful. So you have plenty of tools.

Why would I use a control I cannot rely on to lock down a group.
Yeah my character is ranged capped but I am certain most doms aren't using vines is suicide fighting  large groups then.

 

[Electronuts]

On 5/26/2025 at 1:07 PM, The Curator said:

 Spirit Tree

• Cast time lowered from 3.2s to 1.67s.
• Recharge reduced from 200s to 120s.
• Duration reduced from 90s to 60s.
• Spirit tree can now be attacked.
• Spirit tree now taunts and has a scaling defense and resist aura.
• Even after being defeated, spirit tree's regen aura should remain.
• The taunting pet component has been made sturdier.

I'm still not sure what I'm meant to do with this. I would expect to place it near me or the rangers for the heal buff, but now it taunts stuff so I tried opening with it in the spawn. It lasts a bit then dies, but it gathers some of them tighter together, which is maybe useful (lets pretend we dont all have fold space to do that). I tried not using it for a bit and concluded it makes no real difference and is just using up a needless space in my attack chain.

 

Is it too late to try something completely different to try and make this more useful? Thematically I couldnt work out why a healing tree would taunt anything, so my thoughts are:

 - if its going to keep the taunt and therefore be placed away from me and other rangers inside a mob, change the regen buff to a regen debuff, with the new regen changes, this makes it useful to pull out for bosses and tougher mobs, also something poisionous taunting makes a bit more sense;

 - or, perhaps change it to a regen aura (just regen, not taunt 😁), so it doesnt take up space in the attack chain, if I could switch it on and forget about it, I think I would fit it in and becoming the healing tree myself is a bit cool.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

Are you kidding me?
WTF devs.

Have you tried it after today's patch? I was soloing at x8 and found Seeds to be effective. You have to apply it more often, but it's still able to control a spawn. I don't have Vines in my live build and added it on beta just to check it out. Didn't need it most of the time, but it was useful when I aggroed 2 spawns.

[Electronuts]

On 5/26/2025 at 1:07 PM, The Curator said:

 Carrion Creepers

• VFX now moves along with the pet patch.
• Carrion Creepers can now proc Domination, Containment and Overpower.
• This power should no longer execute an excessive proc cascade.
• Adjusted the vines spawn timing, should spawn more fluidly now.
• Vines should now be able to proc Containment damage (33% chance).

I can't say I had ever used the "excessive proc cascade" in the live version, but from a regular user point of view, I think this works fine now - all the creepers come out quickly and its much like it was before.

[Electronuts]

12 minutes ago, Uun said:

Have you tried it after today's patch? I was soloing at x8 and found Seeds to be effective. You have to apply it more often, but it's still able to control a spawn. I don't have Vines in my live build and added it on beta just to check it out. Didn't need it most of the time, but it was useful when I aggroed 2 spawns.

I actually really like that you can drop vines and leave it doing something for the rest of the fight versus the old version (I agree you dont need it most of the time). With all the other plant stuff happenning, the old version didn't add much visually (unlike on Grav, where I really liked the animation of lifting a whole group in the air in one go).

Edited May 30 by Electronuts
clarified referring to vines

[Captain Powerhouse]

Hello everyone,

 

Dropping by for a quick bit of dev feedback. Sorry I been silent but I have been working non stop on adjustments. As you all likely seen, Page 2 was a gargantuan patch.

 

@LastHumanSoldier "How did this go through entire closed beta only noticing in open beta it spawned 5? Thank you for reverting your intended change"

 

We did notice, a fellow dev brought it up and I meant to adjust it, but as I mentioned above... this page is gargantuan in size. I personally spend more hours working on this than on my own day job. Between all the changes leading to open beta, this timing issue simply slipped through the cracks. It simply started [the delay] as a personal grudge with them spawning all instantly and repeating the same motion in unison. What was meant for me to just give a small delay (half a second or so) to make them less synchronized in motions ended up with 5s wait between some of the spawns. It is now working as I first hoped, with just a second in between some of them popping on screen. I seriously apologize for the chaos that timing slip (literal in so many dimensions) created.

 

Adaptive Recharge on Seeds was something that was considered at some point but shied away because I honesty did not know how the mechanic was going to be taken. Despite its downsides, its benefits have been appreciated beyond what I ever could had expected, so decided to go through with it here. It should also be extremely helpful mitigating critical failure on Elec control's Synapse Overload.

 

Finally, the patch holds. One thing I always try to avoid is homogenizing everything, when trying to improve the 240s AoE holds, I was seeking to have at least two main groups: the dynamic recharge ones and the area of denial ones. We can't really make the Area of Denial ones use dynamic recharge, though, the system just is not compatible with that implementation. As a token for counterbalance, added a bit of damage and opened up the doors for more sets in these powers. The powers that became adaptive or denial zones were selected based on what felt more thematic. Anyways... I am oversharing. At the end, the point I am trying to get to is that I am still keeping an eye on the denial zone powers, how strong they can be in their respective kits, and evaluating any potential further adjustments (as with this build the duration being extended for more reliable denial zone creation). On a future build, a potential tweak to the recharge of these powers is possibly in the table but first need to see how they play out on wider testing.

 

@Electronuts "I'm still not sure what I'm meant to do with [Spirit Tree]"

 

It is meant just to be bonus utility. Thought: if I was trying to defeat that hero, but they have a weird tree healing them, I might as well try to stop it from doing that". Can be used to soak in an alpha, or can entirely ignore the functionality and keep it near you instead. As a bonus from the change, it now has a faster cycling allowing for it to be available more regularly, improving some of the set's mobility.

 

Oh and anyone expressing concern about the immob, there are zero plans to reduce its damage now or ever.

 

I need to hop back on the work grind; I likely will continue to delegate most the communications to @Player-1 going forward (I seriously am not a great communicator).

 

Do know that I am doing my best to read all feedback to power changes even if I do not post much.

[Electronuts]

6 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

I personally spend more hours working on this than on my own day job.

Thank you! There's been lots of emotive feedback here as the changes are big and everyone loves their characters, but I hope lots of people have said thank you.

[Mezmera]

Yes Plant won't be a head above the rest of the controls but it's not getting such a shellacking people are making it out to be.  Other controls are being brought up and I don't see any indicators that Plant won't still be with the top of the pack, just not dominating over them. 

 

Honestly the initial Seeds change was completely adequate.  You were getting to confuse 10 targets with a sprinkle of damage every 90s enhanceable.  Okay how about we make it 6 more targets and add in 150s more?  Plus it's still adding in your own damage.  They added in that nice Adaptive Recharge function and still it's not good enough at 10 targets?!  Wild. 

 

For what it's worth the dev team did quite well with this (minus the admitted oversight on Creepers).  I don't envy having to deal with the tsunami of criticism for tuning lingering objectively OP powers while leaving them still really great powers to use and yet still get pissed on for it.  

[Burnt Umber]

I've been playing my Plant Control/Psionic Assault/Leviathan Dominator through some of the new bits in Kallisti (at +1/x5 solo), and compared it to my experiences on the regular servers. My impressions are as follows:

 

On 5/26/2025 at 8:07 AM, The Curator said:

 Spore Burst

• Upgraded to Deep Sleep.

 

This has been a mostly fantastic change to the set.  It really turns a completely skippable power into a must-have.  I end up using this power at the start of every fight to line-up my cones or to lay down my multiple patch-powers (e.g., vines, creepers, etc.).  My only issue was having to cut an attack out from my secondary to make room for this power in my build.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 8:07 AM, The Curator said:

 Seeds of Confusion

• Recharge increased to 90s.
• Scale reduced from scale 20 to scale 12.
• Target cap lowered from 16 to 10.
• Endurance cost lowered from to 15.6 to 8.528.
• This power now has Adaptive Recharge. It has a base recharge of 8 seconds, and each affected foe will increase the recharge by 8.2 seconds for a maximum total of 90 seconds. 

 

This is an understandable change that has been telegraphed for years.  However, I think this is an over-correction: the target cap reduction definitely hurts where the number of targets is well above the target cap.  The power is not rendered useless, but I feel like it's mostly relegated to a secondary control to throw out if mobs get too close together or if I'm waiting on spores to recharge.  Also, I'm definitely not a fan of the adaptive recharge addition here because it seriously impedes the Coercive Confusion proc from firing (as well as any other proc that someone might slot); I much preferred the 90 second recharge change from the prior patch.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 8:07 AM, The Curator said:

 Spirit Tree

 

I had skipped this power before and I do not find these changes enticing for me to fit it into my build.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 8:07 AM, The Curator said:

 Vines

• Now summons a Pseudopet that will continue to hold enemies for its duration.
• Now inflict damage over time on its targets.
• Now applies a -DMG debuff on targets.
• Now accepts damage set and enhancements.
• Added missing true pseudopet flags.
• Increased duration from 45s to 60s, set stacking to replace.

 

This has been a weird change for me because, on the one hand, the power is available more often and affects more targets over time, but on the other hand, the less reliable effect of Domination together with the time it actually takes to take hold of mobs hurts.  I've found that laying it down under a mob that's deep-sleep-ed by spores helps, but it has lost a bit from not being instantaneous.  I think I like it but I still shall need time getting used to it.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 8:07 AM, The Curator said:

 Carrion Creepers

• VFX now moves along with the pet patch.
• Carrion Creepers can now proc Domination, Containment and Overpower.
• This power should no longer execute an excessive proc cascade.
• Adjusted the vines spawn timing, should spawn more fluidly now.
• Vines should now be able to proc Containment damage (33% chance).

 

SO a bit of full-disclosure:  I saw these changes in the Closed Beta last year around this time (before it was reverted), and I had stripped all but two procs (namely, Annihilation Chance for -Res and Glad. Javelin Chance for Lethal Damage) from the power.  Comparing that to what's on Beta still stings a bit.  It definitely feels like the power is firing-off it's sub-powers less; or at least, I feel like I'm seeing fewer ticks of orange numbers when I use the power on the regular servers.  It also feels like the power is still spawning less creeper vines but that might be a bit of observation error on my part.  The underlying power still works so I can't complain.  And I have found great success in using spores, and following up with vines, then creepers, and then water spout.  That seems pretty effective, but it's not available every mob.  It will definitely take some getting used to.

 

On 5/26/2025 at 8:07 AM, The Curator said:

 Fly Trap

• AI mode changed from Pet_Base to Pet_Ranged.

 

The pet seems better?  I do wish I had better control over it's more aggressive tendencies.  I don't use it all the time; it mostly comes out when I have to face an EB or above.

[LastHumanSoldier]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

Have you tried it after today's patch? I was soloing at x8 and found Seeds to be effective. You have to apply it more often, but it's still able to control a spawn. I don't have Vines in my live build and added it on beta just to check it out. Didn't need it most of the time, but it was useful when I aggroed 2 spawns.

Sorry was talking about Persistant holds not having 100% domination that time.

 

[LastHumanSoldier]

Played with My Plant/Sonic/Nrg dom, and made a Pyro/Nrg/Nrg dom and an Elec/Sav/Mu Dom 
All ranged capped with Perma dom/hasten.

Honestly folks?
Plant still kills faster than the other two by a far margin at 54x8 solo. The plant isn't yet respec'd for test changes either, and still has proc slotted creepers, and doesn't have spore burst yet.

 

It still slower than live, but its still a very capable build, now that they Fixed  reverted the spawn rate changes they made to creepers.

 

 

 

Edited May 30 by LastHumanSoldier

[LastHumanSoldier]

Now Vines. I would rather the single shot version with Adaptive Recharge than the Persistant at 25% chance for domination.
That is my dominator preference talking. The persistant one is better for contorllers.

 

[Riverdusk]

1 minute ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

Now Vines. I would rather the single shot version with Adaptive Recharge than the Persistant at 25% chance for domination.
That is my dominator preference talking. The persistant one is better for contorllers.

 

 

Maybe they could give the persistent one to controllers and the adaptive one to doms. I wouldn't mind that.  Illusion shows sets can do different things depending on whether it is a controller or dom.

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Maybe they could give the persistent one to controllers and the adaptive one to doms. I wouldn't mind that.  Illusion shows sets can do different things depending on whether it is a controller or dom.

That would be kind of cool

[Vinceq98]

So I just fired up the latest change and I have to say I am impressed how a bug fix and a minor tweaks ended up making me satisfied with the change. I really wish that Vines had a little bit shorter CD because i didnt pick up spirit tree and i dont plan on it either. I was only fighting the Battle Maiden Mission so the enemies werent exactly threatening but my clear times were very acceptable moving from pack to pack. Im optimistic that these changes will satisfy the NERF PLANT CUZ SEEDS OP crowd and also satisfy the plant players who wanted to play an OP set because thats what it was since live. 

[ivanhedgehog]

On 5/28/2025 at 10:52 AM, ExeErdna said:

Yeah, people see a cluster of vines pop out at pulls on ITF and think it's amazing. It was yet the REAL DPS players still clear way faster than I. Where I was good at is when we had to lockdown and sit somewhere. Which allows the creepers to grow and seeds to soften up mobs a bit. After switching out Will of the Controller for Cupid's Crush now Creepers has a funny confusion gimmick since from what I played with Cupid's Crush is better in most Controller pets than anything else. To me Creepers might as well be a pet. Isn't that the point of how slotting works. Yeah somebody is gonna put 6 procs to me that's dumb because I want the set bonuses. I'm losing out on my fun because procing's a bit crazy "sure" Yet it's making it feel like everybody is running Plant and it "ruining" content. It's just people know what they're doing, that how and why I can pull up and be a hitter in many fire farms. This just feels like I'm getting punished for knowing what I'm doing. 

This is the problem balancing around 50 incarnate IO builds.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, ivanhedgehog said:

This is the problem balancing around 50 incarnate IO builds.

Pretty sure they do not balance around that. They take it into consideration, but primarily they balance around performance on SOs.

[aethereal]

With build 2, does Seeds now proc like an 8s recharge power?

[ApolloInferno]

I got some Number Crunching for Carrion Creepers!!!

-----
Test Parameters:
- Dropped 1 Carrion Creeper Patch in a Rikti Enemy Group In the North part of RWZ ( Near the Mothership)
- Compared multiple data collections on Live and Test Build 2 against each other (lvl 52s; 53s; 54s with a total of 24 data collection files)
- Each group had similar counts of minions, LTs, and bosses ( 3 bosses, 2 LTS etc..)
- Stood in each group while at Defense Cap so all damage dealt was ONLY from Creeper Patch to give it best chance of consistent accurate data.
- Goal was to look at and compare DPS and Total Damage dealt with one Patch

Note: Carrion Creeper patch was on a Dominator with 5 procs and a Max Dysync Acc/Theat/Recharge; t4 Degenerative Radial Interface; t4 Intuition Radial Alpha; t4 Assault Radial Hybrid (passive only didn't activate)
-----

Result: About a 20% decrease in damage output ( give or take 3% due to some inherent error in an imperfect test)

Limitations:
- Testing showed the proc cascade on live DOES seem to increase damage output significantly the more enemies are grouped up in the area. Big enemy groups (Like Council 8x or ITF) will see the difference be higher then 20% but this test can't confirm by how much because of its format.
- None of this test takes Controllers in consideration. They should be done with a different test. 
- Nowhere in this test did I test other powers that contribute damage nor did I test if Mez/Spirit Tree could increase the damage output by increasing survivability of the Creeper Vines
- There were no Kin buffs so Creeper was not Damage Capped ( which can influence the findings a bit)

Opinion: Might consider a slight boost on the base damage for Creepers after more testing (5% might be good) So it is in an excellent place. However, the test server build 2 is satisfactory and surprised me on how close it was to Live version. Again, power needs some slight tweeks but the spawn rate for creepers seems spot on.

Maybe Vines damage is decent with the change? I'm not actually sure yet. Test for later.

Hope this Helps!

[ExeErdna]

10 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

This is the problem balancing around 50 incarnate IO builds.

 

Yeah at 50, respecing a few times, and then having the ability to buy more stuff. Hard to balance when something new ends up having a spicer than intended interaction  

[Ratch_]

9 hours ago, aethereal said:

With build 2, does Seeds now proc like an 8s recharge power?

Yes, with adaptive recharge it will.

Not getting a decent chance at contagious confusion is a big nerf to controllers specifically. You roll overpower chance and now a small roll on purple proc - who knows, maybe you'll get that boss mezzed...

Edited May 30 by Ratch_

[Riverdusk]

9 hours ago, aethereal said:

With build 2, does Seeds now proc like an 8s recharge power?

 

That's a good question and from what I understand the downside to the change.  That purple confuse set is so good I'd always fill it with that eventually.  The coercive persuasion proc I'd assume would be down to the 10% min chance or close to it.  Not going to stop slotting it though as the set bonuses are too good. 

 

Guess that 10 target cap really will be a hard 10 target cap, maybe 11 or 12 if you get really lucky?  And tougher for controllers to affect bosses end game with it unlikely to proc on them to stack mag.

[Championess]

You'll be fine Seeds will still be the best control in the game with this setup just not absurdly so.

[Ratch_]

9 minutes ago, Championess said:

You'll be fine Seeds will still be the best control in the game with this setup just not absurdly so.

I don't disagree, but even on live seeds of confusion doesn't necessarily move the needle on the overarching game state of speed and mow downs mobs that is too fast for many control sets that rely on pet damage to feel valuable as often compared to bringing a damage or -res support archetypes. (+ plus tank)

I'm aware some of this is looking to be addressed content wise through critter updates which is a good sign, just might be awhile.

Edited May 30 by Ratch_