Focused Feedback: Plant Control

[LastHumanSoldier]

[OPEN BETA] Patch Notes for June 9th, 2025 - Issue 28, Page 2 - Build 6

Seeds is screwed up. Recharges instantly atm. Adaptive didn't take.

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

We are aware of the current issue with Seeds of Confusion. It seems to only be happening on Controllers. Please test Dominators and let us know if you see a similar bug there.

[Mezmera]

Simple fix just delete the power. 

 

 

You can blame Bob though let the Plant players keep their staplers, we don't want them migrating over to Fire control.  

[Caimie]

Seeds recharge is working as intended on Dominators.

The Vine -damage change makes no difference from it's last version.

[MC333]

I would have preferred if Vines received the Adaptive AOE treatment.  I'll acknowledge some advantages/use cases for this longer lasting patch with damage (at least on a Controller, not so much on a Dominator).  Regardless, I'm providing feedback for the power as it currently stands.

 

 

TESTING:  Level 50 Dominator vs various Level 50 enemies on Peregrine Island.  Tested Vines 16 times with hold enhanced 80%, against groups with 1-4 Bosses.

 

CONCLUSION:  VINES is awful on a Dominator, due to lacking in upfront Domination.  All Bosses able to return fire for 4s and majority for 8-12s.  After the very long ramp up period, Domination was effective against Level 50 Bosses.

 

SUGGESTION:  

- Increase Domination upfront (0-12s) so Dominators can Dominate. 

 

OBSERVATIONS ABOUT DOMINATION:

- Domination not seen in combat logs.

- Domination appears to roll every 4s (guessing 25% chance), and appears to do initial roll at 4s.

- Bosses are typically Dominated/held at the 8s-12s mark, an eternity in CoX.  Occasionally Bosses were Dominated/held at 4s mark. 

- After the ramp up period (>12s) Domination was quite effective.  I'd say roughly most Bosses were Dominated, most of the time, for the remaining duration of the patch.  However, it is worth noting I did not test against +level Bosses where hold duration would be significantly decreased. 

 

NOTES:  

Aside from Domination the rest of Vines seemed to work as stated (M3 hold, DoT, recharge, etc.)

If I tested on a Controller I'd probably say Vines is ok (as long as overpower and containment are actually working).  

[MeisusChrist]

Just tried out the new Vines and it feels much weaker. Foes broke out of the initial "16 target cap" after 1-2 secs. The field persisted on the ground for a decent amount of time, but foes would only be restrained for what seemed like .2 secs before immediately being released. As it stands, the power is doing a very poor job at control and it has a cooldown that is way too long for the value.

 

I would like to see the cooldown of Vines reduced. As a controller we should excel at CC, having our holds on such long cooldowns is an unnecessary burden. It would allow the class to fulfill it's fantasy and give players more agency over the battlefield. 

 

What I'd like to see is:

When first spawned, Vines can Hold up to 16 foes (for 10 secs or so), and then continue to hit up to 8 targets every 2 seconds. 

 

Recharge reduced to 180s

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 minute ago, MeisusChrist said:

Just tried out the new Vines and it feels much weaker. Foes broke out of the initial "16 target cap" after 1-2 secs. The field persisted on the ground for a decent amount of time, but foes would only be restrained for what seemed like .2 secs before immediately being released. As it stands, the power is doing a very poor job at control and it has a cooldown that is way too long for the value.

 

Just double checked and the initial 16 target cap hold is exactly the same duration as it is live. 14.9s at level 50 with no enhancements on a controller.

I AM noticing the initial hold is not getting the 100% chance for domination as it should, fixing that right now.

[MeisusChrist]

35 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Just double checked and the initial 16 target cap hold is exactly the same duration as it is live. 14.9s at level 50 with no enhancements on a controller.

I AM noticing the initial hold is not getting the 100% chance for domination as it should, fixing that right now.

I’ll try again because it really seemed like it wasn’t holding anyone. This was on a controller btw, I haven’t tested any dominator stuff.

Edited Wednesday at 09:53 PM by MeisusChrist

[MeisusChrist]

I checked again and caught my mistake (I had switched out enhancements on Vines). Once I corrected this and properly mirrored my live character I tried again.

 

On test I was able to hold a mob with my Vines for about 3 seconds on initial cast. It would then intermittently hold targets for 2-3 secs before releasing them. 
 

On live, I can hold a mob for 28 secs before they break free. 
 

 Vines is significantly worse on test, and drastically hurts our ability to CC mobs.

 

The duration of the hold and target cap should be increased (alongside reducing the cooldown!)

[Uun]

Version of Vines in RC1 is bugged. Initial hold duration is about 3 seconds. Not seeing Domination at all. Power is 6-slotted w/ Superior Dominating Grasp.

[Vinceq98]

Vines is now horrible. Tesla Coil and GDF are in the same shitiness boat. MAKE AOE HOLDS GREAT AGAIN. Please go back to 180 sec recharge.

[Midnight Mystique]

Vines is also confused - the power description claims it is a "Ranged (Location AoE)" much like carrion creepers however clicking on the power without a target does not produce a targeting circle (unlike carrion creepers) and it basically behaves like a targeted AOE power. 

 

I posted a similar note on the electric control feedback thread on tesla coil, it has the same problem. Either your power descriptions are out of date and need to be changed, or your powers are further bugged. 

 

EDIT: I tested this on my L50+ plant/fire dom that I copied over from everlasting after respecing into a build that had spirit tree and spore burst. I only ran tests against even level mobs and turned off bosses, mostly to keep things simple, but as far as I can tell except for the targeting issue vines appears to hold a large group (ran at +0/x4) and I did see plenty of domination messages once I had domination up. On this build my vines is slotted with a 5 piece unbreakable constraint and reports the following in the power description:

 

 3.00 magnitude hold for 22.64s(11.92s) on target Against up to 16 targets, only at initial summoning time

 

If the base hold is supposed to be 14.9 seconds that is NOT what I am seeing reported. 

 

Edited Thursday at 12:21 AM by Midnight Mystique

[Captain Powerhouse]

I am looking into the duration bug, cant reproduce locally but can only assume it has to do with a timing issue. Doing some timing adjustments to see if that clears the issue next build, as well as fixing text errors.

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, Uun said:

Version of Vines in RC1 is bugged. Initial hold duration is about 3 seconds. Not seeing Domination at all. Power is 6-slotted w/ Superior Dominating Grasp.

Is there any chance that you're doing this against some kind of exotic mob that has huge Hold Resistance?

[Uun]

3 hours ago, aethereal said:

Is there any chance that you're doing this against some kind of exotic mob that has huge Hold Resistance?

Nope, just Rikti.

[Antarus]

What level Rikti?
I was testing in Dark Astoria with Gravity and Electric control on Banished Pantheon. The AoE hold worked fine on level 50s, but not at all on level 54s, even though my character was level 53 Incarnate. 
I posted about it in the electric control feedback thread, but I see the conversation here is going similar.  I don't think the aoe hold pseudo-pets are scaling with incarnate levels, making it a 50 vs. 54s, which is very reduced. If my suspicion is correct, that may be an easy fix.

[Uun]

2 hours ago, Antarus said:

What level Rikti?

It was a Borea mission set to +2/x8, so 52 and 53. I was 50+1. Strangler, Roots, Spore Burst and Seeds were all working fine. The previous (location-based) iteration of Vines had been working fine. The bug showed up with the new version of Vines introduced in RC1. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

Issue has been replicated and fixed. Keep your eyes out for the next RC build.

[MC333]

Opinion:  I strongly prefer the Adaptive AOE Hold treatment be applied to the old Plant, Gravity, and Electric AOE Holds.  Adaptive AOE Holds are a clever solution, flexible for use in a wide vareity of playstyles, team sizes, and difficulty settings.  Pseudopet AOE holds don't seem to be a good fit for the game, are overly complicated for Devs, and player feedback has been negative. 

 

Full opinion posted in Gravity Control Feedback

Spoiler

Opinion:  I would strongly prefer the Adaptive AOE Hold treatment be applied to the old Gravity, Plant, and Electric AOE Holds.

 

I have been intentionally open minded about the 3 new pseudopet patch AOE Holds, testing in all of the builds.  I really do appreciate the thought/effort that went toward creating a new type of hold with damage.  However, I don't think the 60s pseudopet holds are a fit for the game.  Player feedback shows the Adaptive AOE's are popular and the pseudopet patches are not. 

 

Adaptive AOE Holds are a clever solution, flexible for use in a wide vareity of playstyles, team sizes, and difficulty settings.  Pseudopet patches on the other hand are clearly very complicated to code/implement, have issues scaling up versus +level enemies, and will be more difficult and time consuming to fix and balance in the future.  It's not too late to pivot to the simpler flexible Adaptive solution which will please players and reduce Dev headaches now and in the future.  🙂

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Tested:  RC1 Vines on a L50+1 Plant Dominator.   

Very brief tests done to capture some details about the current version of power.  Admittedly small data set.

 

Conclusions: 

Vines was effective vs. L50 (-1) Lieutenants and minions.  (Ya, I know, -1's...)

Domination upfront was relatively short (7s and 10s) on 2 out of 3 L50 Bosses (-1).  Small sample, RNG may have been unkind (Dom rolls not in combat logs).

Domination overall was fairly effective (vs. -1 level 50 Bosses), with tiny sample size of 3 Bosses.

Overall, have concerns about how Vines Domination holds up against +level enemies.  

Damage adds up in longer fights of 45-60s, or in solo/small team play.

Note this testing did not address the four new foe caps 16/5/5/16 listed above.

 

Test Details: 

All Enemies Level 50 (-1)

Vines hold enhanced by 60%

All Damage is BASE

See spoiler for test details

Spoiler

Test 1:  Versus 2 Bosses (CoT)

- Dominated both bosses upfront - Boss 1 Domination ended after 7 seconds...

- Boss 1 Held/Dominated for 42s out of 60s.  Overall Boss 1 attacked me for periods of 3s, 9s, 3s, and 3s.

- Boss 2 Held/Dominated for entire 60s 

- Total Base Damage = 308 over 60s (11 x 28 ticks)

- Recharge is back to 240s, as stated in patch notes.  

- Damage debuff was in effect for 60s on the Boss who was held for the duration (power analyzer)

 

Test 2:  Versus 1 Lieutenant (Nemesis)

- Held entire 60s duration 

- Total Base Damage 330 over 60s (11 x 30 ticks)

 

Test 3:  Versus 7 Lieutenants and Minions (Nemesis).  

- All Held for entire 60s duration 

(no other details noted)

 

Test 4:  Versus 1 Boss (CoT)

- Dominated upfront for 10s, Dominated for 44s out of 60s 

- Damage debuff was in effect while in patch, while Held and when not.

- Damage debuff ended immediately upon Boss leaving patch, two times.  Appeared to be no 20s duration but it could have been coincidental timing. 

Note:  Further testing required to determine if damage debuff duration matches the 20s shown in Info.  When is debuff applied? (by ground patch or when held like GDF)

 

Note:  "Alpha" return fire experienced from 3 out of 10 enemies in 4 tests.  I have seen return fire in all builds of Vines.  Based on eyeballs guesstimate in all builds, on average 2 of a group of 8 will return fire even when when the entire group is successfully held.

 

Edited Friday at 01:23 AM by MC333

[MC333]

Vines - Dominator DoT damage interval does not match Info.  

Dominator damage is ticking every 2 seconds (5.27 base damage x 30 ticks over 60s).  Should ticks be every 4 seconds?

  

 

Also, Info says both "over 5.20s" and "every 4 seconds".  Is that a contradiction? 

Controller Info shows the same, but I have not tested Controller to confirm actual damage amount & tick interval.

 

Vines - damage test result.

VINES	Base Damage 60s	Dam/tick	Interval	# Ticks	Source
Dominator	168	5.27	2 sec.	30	Tested
Controller	91 ? (If 2s x 30)	3.06	?	?	Info Screen

 

Is Vines base damage inadvertantly set too low? 

Dominator - damage is significantly lower (5.27/2s, or equal to 10.54/4s) than Info for Dominator GDF (21.79/4s) and tested Dominator Tesla Coil (29.20/4s). 

Controller - untested, but appears to be similarly low (3.06/2s, or equal to 6.12/4s) compared to tested Controller GDF (12.62/4s) and tested Controller Tesla Coil (15.29/4s)

Edited Friday at 08:15 PM by MC333
typo

[Captain Powerhouse]

3 hours ago, MC333 said:

Vines - Dominator DoT damage interval does not match Info.  

Dominator damage is ticking every 2 seconds (5.27 base damage x 30 ticks over 60s).  Should ticks be every 4 seconds?

 

Not exactly. Every 4 seconds the power pulses and hits up to 5 targets. If held, that target will take 3 ticks of damage every 2 seconds over the next 5.2 seconds.

[Shin Magmus]

   It's conditional If:Then damage like most of Arse Control.  This means that Vines won't deal damage to targets it can't hold, causing it to woefully underperform in every metric vs enemies like Cimerorians using their Mez Protection shout.  Powers with these conditions become very very poor choices any time the condition can't be met, but fortunately most powers in the game simply try to apply all of their effects at once, without If:Then statements.

[MC333]

Thanks for the explanations.  The combat logs I reviewed were all of Lt. & Minions who were held for the entire duration, so 30 31 damage ticks makes sense.

Edited 3 hours ago by MC333