Black Hole - Final Verdict

[Snarky]

at level 39 on my Dark Dark Corr i am respeccing out of Black Hole

 

the final sad straw is (on top of the random intang on odd minions) the trawl is virtually useless.  the AoE on the Trawl is less than the AoE on Dark's Nuke...  so ... wtf use is this?

[LastHumanSoldier]

Yeah it was mildly interesting when it was bugged and persistent.

 

Its garbage tier as it is.

[Oklahoman]

Is it still doing that weird thing where if it misses, it makes the target intangible? Or did that get fixed recently?

[Snarky]

38 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

Is it still doing that weird thing where if it misses, it makes the target intangible? Or did that get fixed recently?

"working as intended" it "hits" everything.  but if you are a "weird" target like DE emanators DE Swarm, Carnie Strongmen, or other randos (even if minion/grey) will go intangible. 

 

Then it does not help me gather for Nuke.   

 

Why did i even try it?

Edited July 10 by Snarky

[Oklahoman]

5 minutes ago, Snarky said:

"working as intended" it "hits" everything.  but if you are a "weird" target like DE emanators DE Swarm, Carnie Strongmen, or other randos (even if minion/grey) will go intangible. 

 

Then it does not help me gather for Nuke.   

 

Why did i even try it?

 

Was asking because it looks like someone used it on Hami recently, causing it to go intangible. May not have been a troll - they may just not have realized it works like that now.

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

 

Was asking because it looks like someone used it on Hami recently, causing it to go intangible. May not have been a troll - they may just not have realized it works like that now.

can't answer if a troll, but anything that cannot be trawled, grey, minion, AV w/e is intangible under current reality

[Scarlet Shocker]

Latest Scientific theorems suggest we might actually be living in a Black Hole.

 

That's kinda scary too

[Oklahoman]

33 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Latest Scientific theorems suggest we might actually be living in a Black Hole.

 

That's kinda scary too

 

 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Latest Scientific theorems suggest we might actually be living in a Black Hole.

 

That's kinda scary too

does explain the truth of "Welcome to the suck..."

[Jacke]

10 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Latest Scientific theorems suggest we might actually be living in a Black Hole.

 

That's kinda scary too

 

I think that's bad science.  We can't observe any consequences.  And I sure don't see anything like a Singularity (outside of Grav Controllers' Pets) in the vicinity.

 

The Universe is what can be observed and what can interact with us.  While that excludes some things we can infer but can't interact with us (like what used to be parts of the observable Universe but which now due to the expansion of the Universe (which is an expansion of Space) are receding from us at greater than the Speed of Light in a Vacuum), well, thems the breaks in an Expanding Universe.

 

Saying we're in a Black Hole but can't notice anything different is just silly.

 

In other news, I figure @Snarky's right about the revised Black Hole Power.  Still a Must-Skip Power.  Needs some serious rework again.

 

Could have been worse.  Could have accidentally introduced something out of Katamari Damacy and we'd still be working on getting Snarky unstuck from a big ball of stickiness in a Cave Map's Layer Cake Room.  😺

 

 

Edited July 11 by Jacke

[Snarky]

36 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

I think that's bad science.  We can't observe any consequences.  And I sure don't see anything like a Singularity (outside of Grav Controllers' Pets) in the vicinity.

 

In other news, I figure @Snarky's right about the revised Black Hole Power.  Still a Must-Skip Power.  Needs some serious rework again.

 

Could have been worse.  Could have accidentally introduced something out of Katamari Damacy and we'd still be working on getting Snarky unstuck from a big ball of stickiness in a Cave Map's Layer Cake Room.  😺

Well, I have had exactly one college science course (Intro to Sci for Sci majors, netted a B) but I will offer an opinion (of course!)  Without reading anything on the subject but the bumper sticker "we are in a black hole":

 

If we are living in a Black Hole. Then that explains the "Big Bang"  where all the material came from.  And all the energy to propel it across our universe to the far reaches of many galaxies.

 

Yes, Black Hole, while previously useful for grabbing glowies and very rare team saves, is now MUST SKIP

 

Appreciate you taking the time to unstick me!

[MoonSheep]

i tried black hole from blaster dark mastery recently and thought what, surely that isn’t right?

 

a 10ft one time trawl with a 4 minute recharge.. err… ??

 

the AoE radius is so small that there’s never really a reason to use it as many AoE attacks have a larger radius and it has a 4 minute recharge rather than a dwelling location power

 

did someone really test this during development and think “hmm this seems balanced”

 

Link to City of Data stats

[Troo]

18 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

did someone really test this during development and think “hmm this seems balanced”

 

yep 'they' did.. while patting themselves on the back and squealing "I did a thing"

[dukedukes]

Black Hole is not for nukes, it can still benefit 15 ft or less AOEs and cones, so there is a purpose to the power. I agree it's too weak though.

 

I would like to see a pseudo-pet persistent trawl effect that lasts a few seconds at least similar to singularity, same radius (20ft), and a shorter cooldown (120sec -> 90sec). I don't understand the 1frame or conditional intangible part, unless it serves a purpose it should really just go in the bin.

[dukedukes]

33 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

i tried black hole from blaster dark mastery recently and thought what, surely that isn’t right?

 

a 10ft one time trawl with a 4 minute recharge.. err… ??

 

the AoE radius is so small that there’s never really a reason to use it as many AoE attacks have a larger radius and it has a 4 minute recharge rather than a dwelling location power

 

did someone really test this during development and think “hmm this seems balanced”

 

Link to City of Data stats

 

Yeah the 10ft version given to blasters is strange... I wouldn't think blasters would get this at all because the 10ft radius doesn't really benefit them. Melee could have used this a bit to hit more targets with cones, it would have been usable, but still the cooldown is way too long.

[Andreah]

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

Well, I have had exactly one college science course (Intro to Sci for Sci majors, netted a B) but I will offer an opinion (of course!)  Without reading anything on the subject but the bumper sticker "we are in a black hole":

 

If we are living in a Black Hole. Then that explains the "Big Bang"  where all the material came from.  And all the energy to propel it across our universe to the far reaches of many galaxies.

 

Yes, Black Hole, while previously useful for grabbing glowies and very rare team saves, is now MUST SKIP

 

Appreciate you taking the time to unstick me!

I've had quite a few more, including grad-level general relativity, and I also think it's bad science, or at least not very interesting science. @Jacke's post was on-target.

[mistagoat]

Yeah, I ran up a pyro/dark troller and used Black Hole a ton. I wouldn't say it's useless but it's value is very limited. The pull effect doesn't cover a large enough area so I'd usually get just 3-5 guys out of a full mob to pull together. I found the best way to use it was to immob/hold/sleep/ect first and then use BH, otherwise enemies almost ignore the power. They might get pulled a little but then they're right back to running as if nothing happened.

I thought I might get some use out of the intang for AVs/EBs but I just never needed it in those situations and using it only would have slowed things down. 

I think my most successful use of BH was in an arc where the first mission has 3 levels of giant catwalks full of DE. On that mission the intang actually helped because all their buff pets went intang and the DE weren't getting all those buff and we weren't taking all those debuffs. That's cool but it's so dam niche it's extremely hard to justify the pick.

I really like the concept and I gave it as fair a chance as possible but I don't think I'll be taking it again unless gets an overhaul.

 

Now I'm playing a Mind/Fire Dom and TK is godly in comparison! A little trickier to use and it's certainly quirky but I'm pulling full mobs into a tight ball so my Scrapper buddy can slaughter them with brutal efficiency!  It's scratching the itch that I was hoping BH would scratch but didn't.

 

I hope the Devs try again, there's something there but it's not ready for prime time yet. 

[Jacke]

 

5 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

i tried black hole from blaster dark mastery recently and thought what, surely that isn’t right?

 

a 10ft one time trawl with a 4 minute recharge.. err… ??

 

the AoE radius is so small that there’s never really a reason to use it as many AoE attacks have a larger radius and it has a 4 minute recharge rather than a dwelling location power

 

I'm not a Dev.  I'm a Tester.  I try to test a number of things I know well when there's a Closed Beta.  And follow as much as I can.

 

That's a problem with a lot of Epic Pool Powers.  There's many that have such a long recharge and short duration that they are only really emergency powers.  But few of them have enough impact to deal with any emergency.  As to how this will be fixed, welp, get a chance on every Epic Pool change that comes up in Closed Beta.  Won't talk about the details but I think I have contributed to making some changes less bad that they could have been.

 

 

5 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

did someone really test this during development and think “hmm this seems balanced”

 

Link to City of Data stats

 

Testing is hard.  Doesn't always get it right the first pass.

 

There was some discussion and testing during Closed Beta (as there always is) about the Black Hole changes.  I never tested that one.  I think the problems with Black Hole as it was were so great that what was at least a potential change for the better was allowed to go to release to see what would happen with the wider community.  As @Snarky mentioned above, it's actually worse in that one use case (making mobs intangible while going after a glowie) was trashed for next to no benefit.

 

This one is going to need to get another pass.  When, I don't know.

 

 

10 hours ago, Snarky said:

Well, I have had exactly one college science course (Intro to Sci for Sci majors, netted a B) but I will offer an opinion (of course!)  Without reading anything on the subject but the bumper sticker "we are in a black hole":

 

If we are living in a Black Hole. Then that explains the "Big Bang"  where all the material came from.  And all the energy to propel it across our universe to the far reaches of many galaxies.

 

Poppycock.  Doesn't solve anything.  Because we can't describe what the inside of a Black Hole is like, there's no real way to know if we're in one.  Simplest assumption is to say we are not in a Black Hole.

 

As for where all the Energy came from for the Universe and how it ended up having a bit more Matter than Anti-Matter, that one is still waiting on a good hypothesis to explain it, as far as I know.

 

 

10 hours ago, Snarky said:

Yes, Black Hole, while previously useful for grabbing glowies and very rare team saves, is now MUST SKIP

 

I love love love Dark Miasma.  Black Hole was and is still a MUST SKIP.  Maybe some day....

 

 

Edited July 11 by Jacke

[OverkillEngine]

The core problem is that intangibility sucks major donkey balls as a mechanic unless it both reliable and under complete control of the player from second to second, since it inherently interferes with the primary progression mechanics of the game.

 

Black Hole in its current incarnation has neither.

It needs to be less of a quirky "I'm not like other powers" power that constantly flakes on you, and instead be something more ugg boots and northface jacket basic. Make it a placed AoE trawl patch with a moderate -tohit debuff (or even -range if you want to add some extra cinnamon to that vanilla chai latte) , and dumpster the entire intangibility fancifulness, and it becomes 1000% better despite being much simpler. Just an example.

I know, I know, cottage rule. But this particular cottage needs to be condemned by the city. It's a dump.

Edited July 12 by OverkillEngine

[MoonSheep]

12 hours ago, Jacke said:

 

 

I'm not a Dev.  I'm a Tester.  I try to test a number of things I know well when there's a Closed Beta.  And follow as much as I can.

 

That's a problem with a lot of Epic Pool Powers.  There's many that have such a long recharge and short duration that they are only really emergency powers.  But few of them have enough impact to deal with any emergency.  As to how this will be fixed, welp, get a chance on every Epic Pool change that comes up in Closed Beta.  Won't talk about the details but I think I have contributed to making some changes less bad that they could have been.

 

 

 

Testing is hard.  Doesn't always get it right the first pass.

 

There was some discussion and testing during Closed Beta (as there always is) about the Black Hole changes.  I never tested that one.  I think the problems with Black Hole as it was were so great that what was at least a potential change for the better was allowed to go to release to see what would happen with the wider community.  As @Snarky mentioned above, it's actually worse in that one use case (making mobs intangible while going after a glowie) was trashed for next to no benefit.

 

This one is going to need to get another pass.  When, I don't know.

 

 

 

Poppycock.  Doesn't solve anything.  Because we can't describe what the inside of a Black Hole is like, there's no real way to know if we're in one.  Simplest assumption is to say we are not in a Black Hole.

 

As for where all the Energy came from for the Universe and how it ended up having a bit more Matter than Anti-Matter, that one is still waiting on a good hypothesis to explain it, as far as I know.

 

 

 

I love love love Dark Miasma.  Black Hole was and is still a MUST SKIP.  Maybe some day....

 

 

 

i’m not a dev or a tester, so feel free to discard my opinion into the Bin of Ignorance™ but i can’t see how it would be difficult to click it _once_ during beta and think “hmm, that seems a bit naff” and then instead type in radius “25” rather than 10 in the configuration

 

Edited July 12 by MoonSheep

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

i’m not a dev or a tester, so feel free to discard my opinion into the Bin of Ignorance™ but i can’t see how it would be difficult to click it _once_ during beta and think “hmm, that seems a bit naff” and then instead type in radius “25” rather than 10 in the configuration

 

25 would be as useless as 10, or 5.  

 

Fold space, a pool power has a 100' radius.   Black Hole, when converted to this trawl thing that seems to want to compete with Fold Space, has a miniscule radius.  and it is a Tier 8 power.  

 

The only reason I have to Trawl, is to Nuke.  Blackstar has a 25' radius.  Why do I want to slow down the nuking process to gather 0 more enemies? and possibly intangible some of them?  If anyone can answer those two questions I might give this thing another....heh.....no no no no no

[MoonSheep]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

25 would be as useless as 10, or 5.  

 

Fold space, a pool power has a 100' radius.   Black Hole, when converted to this trawl thing that seems to want to compete with Fold Space, has a miniscule radius.  and it is a Tier 8 power.  

 

The only reason I have to Trawl, is to Nuke.  Blackstar has a 25' radius.  Why do I want to slow down the nuking process to gather 0 more enemies? and possibly intangible some of them?  If anyone can answer those two questions I might give this thing another....heh.....no no no no no

 

i completely with you, the fact that it would still be quite useless as a 25ft radius power does make me wonder why the radius was set so incredibly low

[Forager]

I have never used Black Hole... so forgive my ignorance...

 

But shouldn't it ideally just be a trawl that lasts for a few seconds with a large area of effect? And if it doesn't work on a target, it just doesn't work on a target?

 

Am I missing something? It seems obvious that's what the power should be. Is that the consensus?

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, Forager said:

I have never used Black Hole... so forgive my ignorance...

 

But shouldn't it ideally just be a trawl that lasts for a few seconds with a large area of effect? And if it doesn't work on a target, it just doesn't work on a target?

 

Am I missing something? It seems obvious that's what the power should be. Is that the consensus?

the only consensus, if there is any, that I have seen is 1) the original black hole was a must skip power 2) the new version made it worse

 

no one, or not many, have offered any ideas as to what it should be.  to me it seems like they are trying to emulate Fold Space, a power pool power.   But they made "8 heads in a duffel bag" while thinking they made "Goodfellas"

 

This new version of the power stinks on ice.  A giant aromatic turd bouncing around an olympic ice skating event.  it...is.........BAD

 

because of the precious "Cottage Rule" (which is emulated by no other game, ever, and for a great reason) they do not want to alter the core function.  which, in this powers case, is basically to be a completely F-ing useless power pick.

[Forager]

7 minutes ago, Snarky said:

no one, or not many, have offered any ideas as to what it should be.

 

What do you think?