Focused Feedback: Powerset - Arsenal Control

[The Curator]

 

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Arsenal Control

 Sleep Grenade

• Pulse timer reduced from 4s to 3s.

 

 Tear Gas

• Increased duration from 45s to 60s, set stacking to replace.

 

Quote

Design Notes:
Although relatively a minor change, this should have significant impact when combined with the new 3s rules for Controller Containment triggers after sleep is broken. In the previous configuration, a 4s pulse, the 3s of containment on sleep foes left about 25% chance for no containment damage. You likely wont notice this impact, but having it at 3s pulses will make containment work smoother and have a nearly unnoticeable buff to the regularity enemies fall asleep again after being disturbed.

 

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[Hjarki]

Is this change applied to the similar Static Field as well?

[Uun]

Not really noticing a difference. 

[TygerDarkstorm]

As of right now, I'm also not feeling like I'm noticing much of a difference.

[Ridiculous Girl]

6 hours ago, Uun said:

Not really noticing a difference. 

  

4 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

As of right now, I'm also not feeling like I'm noticing much of a difference.

 

 

it'll probably make a difference when you start stacking it with the deep sleep of tranquilizer... 🙂

Edited May 28 by Ridiculous Girl
added another quote

[TygerDarkstorm]

7 hours ago, Ridiculous Girl said:

  

 

 

it'll probably make a difference when you start stacking it with the deep sleep of tranquilizer... 🙂

I was; I still didn't feel like it made a huge difference.

[Troo]

Not noticing is a good thing, right?

[KaizenSoze]

Arsenal/Kinetics works really now. 

 

Send in the pet with the new controls, because of the cloak and Smoke Canister the pet aggros anything first.

Fulcrum Shift is relatively safe now as many mobs don't wake up until you fire multiple AOEs on them. Or they wake up confused.

And the pet gets max damage because you were able to keep it right next to you for FS. Also, great for healing it.

[stryve]

Testing between Live and beta, I did notice a slight improvement in mobs falling back asleep after waking up in Sleep Grenade.  I also appreciate the duration/recharge changes to Tear Gas, even if it comes with decrease of potential damage (16 ticks of 12.2 vs. 12 ticks of 17.75 with the same slotting).

 

However, the "significant impact when combined with the new 3s rules for Controller Containment triggers after sleep is broken" mentioned in the Design Notes is really not in evidence.  The reason for this is simple:  of the seven powers in Arsenal that can trigger Containment, four now only have a 33% chance to do so.  The only powers left are Tranquilizer, Cryo Freeze Ray, and Flash Bang.  Two single target powers and an AoE Stun with low enough damage it's only worth mentioning for completions sake.  I have tested on Beta while tracking Pet Combat, and the other four powers that can trigger Containment (Sleep Grenade, Liquid Nitrogen, Tear Gas, Tri-Cannon) are doing so about 33% of the time.  On Live, all four are triggering Containment 100% of the time.  Unless I'm missing something, the significant impact here is the massive reduction in Arsenal's ability to leverage Containment at all.

 

Additionally, there's something odd going on with the Power Details in the Enhancement screen on Beta.  Tranquilizer including Containment in Average Damage never was fixed after Arsenal went live, possibly something similar is happening with Sleep Grenade, Tear Gas, and Tri-Cannon on Beta?  Liquid Nitrogen has always been off just because of how the power works, but it's even worse on Beta now.

 

Here's a comparison of Average Damage as shown in Power Details on Live and Beta:

Average Damage

Power	Live	Beta
Sleep Grenade	96.79	128.63
Liquid Nitrogen	476.55	953.91
Tear Gas	195.26	243.47
Tri-Cannon	178.84	357.45

And here's a comparison of Listed Damage as shown in Power Details on Live and Beta:

Listed Damage

Power	Live	Beta
Sleep Grenade	1x96.79	1x96.72
Liquid Nitrogen	5x119.14	5x119.12
Tear Gas	12x17.75	16x12.2
Tri-Cannon	4x14.9	4x14.89
	4x14.9	4x14.89
	4x14.9	4x14.89

As can be seen, despite Listed Damage displaying as very slightly lower on Beta, Average Damage displays as significantly higher.  I'm sure these are just due to the quirks in how Power Details calculates things, as has happened many times before.

 

Finally, Liquid Nitrogen and Tri-Cannon have no mention of the current 33% chance for Containment, even if both very definitely have it.

[LastHumanSoldier]

Did today's patch change anything here?

 

[stryve]

Finally got a chance to hop onto Brainstorm again this evening.  Decided to run around SW Kallisti Warf for a bit, trying out various patches on 50+ groups.  Sleep Grenade, Liquid Nitrogen, and Tear Gas are all still showing the same 33% Containment proc rate, unfortunately.  So is Tri-Cannon, but that was expected since it's explicitly called out in the Controller Pets section.

 

I did pay a little more attention to Tear Gas, as it occurred to me I'm not entirely sure what " set stacking to replace" means.  Bosses that stayed in the cloud were Held after a pulse or two, so it's still stacking Mag.

 

After thinking about things for a few days, the changes to pet/pseudo-pet Containment proc rate are probably to bring Arsenal in line with what other Control sets are getting in this Page, which is... understandable.  I'm not particularly enthused about it though, especially in regards to Sleep Grenade (since the damage portion is a single burst on impact, rather than a continuing pulse like Liquid Nitrogen or Tear Gas).  I'd much rather a higher percentage was used for proc rate across the board.  It's not like even 100% would be breaking any DPS records.