Melee Cones need wider angle

[DrRocket]

I do not know about you, but I been totally surrounded by mobs, and I use a cone, and just hit 1. At this rate, I feel maybe melee cone attacks should just be discarded and just give us more DPS.

 

When you look at ranged cones, even when narrow you can go far enough to ensure you get multiple targets, a courtesy you don't get in melee. To adjust for this, why not open up the angle to say 120 degrees?

 

Not sure what the right angle should be, perhaps you folks could advice with other figures and why.

 

Thank you

[arcane]

Which melee cone are you having this experience with?

 

Some cones are supposed to primarily function as single target attacks that occasionally hit a bonus target or two. Golden Dragonfly is an example.

 

Some cones you should already be hitting 10 targets no sweat. Arc of Destruction or Frost are examples.

 

I am guessing you have an issue with the ones in the middle of the spectrum that I never really take. Wouldn’t be opposed to tweaks for some of those. 

[Uun]

I put this together for another thread a few weeks ago. It excludes cones balanced as ST attacks (Head Splitter and Golden Dragonfly) and cones that accept range enhancements (Breath of Fire, Frost, Shockwave, Throw Spines, Repulsing Torrent, Fault). The remaining melee cones are still all over the place in terms of both radius and arc. All of these have target caps of 5 except for 1000 Cuts, Crowd Control and Power Crash in Energy Focus mode (and due to what appears to be a bug, the scrapper version of Proton Sweep). While I believe a balance pass is long overdue, I have no issue hitting more than 1 target with any of these.

 

[lyra]

i'm hitting enemies im not even aiming for with Frost+ShadowMaul and like the range on those.

it's fun to beat a boss with a cone and watch the rest fall in the background

for a good hit on several opponents, it is advisable to bundle those beforehand and/or to pay attention to your own position.

[FupDup]

It's mostly the ones under 90* that really need to be wider, excluding the psuedo-ST powers like Cleave and Golden Dragonfly of course. 90 and above are fine. 

 

Part of the problem is that the damage formula considers arc as a part of the math, so raising the arc has to come with a penalty somewhere else (usually damage). I would suggest slowing down the recharge a bit instead of lowering damage, which can even turn out to be a net buff sometimes because recharge influences proc rates. 

[Psyonico]

I don’t understand people who say cones are useless or hard to use.  I regularly hit 2 enemies with Golden Dragonfly, and that’s balanced around being a ST attack.  I was playing an ice/ scrapper yesterday and regularly hitting 4-5 targets.

 

16 minutes ago, FupDup said:

Part of the problem is that the damage formula considers arc as a part of the math, so raising the arc has to come with a penalty somewhere else (usually damage).

the recent tanker changes suggest this is not a hard and fast rule.

[FupDup]

3 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

the recent tanker changes suggest this is not a hard and fast rule.

The Tanker nerfs prove the point, actually.

 

Previously (when Tanks got gigabuffed), Tanks got free cone arc buffs with no strings attached. In the earlier rounds of beta nerfs, they got to keep the larger arcs but got their damage nerfed to adhere to the formula. People were very understandably not happy about losing damage, so this caused the devs to then simply remove the arc buffs completely in order to avoid nerfing the damage (because they really really like the formula). 

Edited Saturday at 03:25 PM by FupDup

[Psyonico]

4 minutes ago, FupDup said:

simply remove the arc buffs completely in order to avoid nerfing the damage (because they really really like the formula)

Right, but PBAoEs had their areas tweaked and did *not* have their other stats touched.

[FupDup]

1 minute ago, Psyonico said:

Right, but PBAoEs had their areas tweaked and did *not* have their other stats touched.

PBAOEs seem to be treated differently/favorably compared to cones. Here's a Page 2 patch note for Sweeping Cross: 

 

At one point there was going to be something similar for Jacob's Ladder but that got cancelled. Based on previous history/precedent, I would not trust the powers team to give us free arc buffs, which is why I suggested the compromise of "penalizing" recharge instead of damage. 

[Rudra]

Cones give the character depth of attack, not really field of attack. The author said his/her/their character was surrounded. Cones don't work well when the character is surrounded. Take a step back or otherwise shift to put more targets into the affected area. Positioning the character and understanding both the strengths and weaknesses of attacks makes cones very effective.

 

As for consistency across cones? That is a separate matter entirely.

[LightMaster]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Cones give the character depth of attack, not really field of attack. The author said his/her/their character was surrounded. Cones don't work well when the character is surrounded. Take a step back or otherwise shift to put more targets into the affected area. Positioning the character and understanding both the strengths and weaknesses of attacks makes cones very effective.

 

As for consistency across cones? That is a separate matter entirely.

I’ll say cones in general should be consistent in how wide they are. I love Shred because I can hit more than two targets consistently as long as I click on the right target, so other cones should follow upon Shred. Cones that wouldn’t make sense to be wide cones should deal more damage to compensate instead.

[arcane]

2 hours ago, Uun said:

I put this together for another thread a few weeks ago. It excludes cones balanced as ST attacks (Head Splitter and Golden Dragonfly) and cones that accept range enhancements (Breath of Fire, Frost, Shockwave, Throw Spines, Repulsing Torrent, Fault). The remaining melee cones are still all over the place in terms of both radius and arc. All of these have target caps of 5 except for 1000 Cuts, Crowd Control and Power Crash in Energy Focus mode (and due to what appears to be a bug, the scrapper version of Proton Sweep). While I believe a balance pass is long overdue, I have no issue hitting more than 1 target with any of these.

 

Looking at this list I can comfortably say I don’t bother with picking cones for AoE purposes if the arc is under 120 degrees. There are a few others I would take like Sweeping Strike, but in those cases only because they’re viable as S/T attacks.

[Uun]

Say you've got 3 foes in front of you, lined up left to right. Target the one on the left, take a step back and shift to your right. This should put all 3 in your cone, even with something as narrow as Sands of Mu (which has a 45 degree arc). Takes a bit of practice and works better if you've got a taunt aura.

[tidge]

Often I will add a 'lower-performing' melee cone to slot a specific set (for the bonuses), with the (as noted by @arcane) side effect it becomes a semi-decent ST attack.

[Doomguide2005]

Movement!

Two points always connect with a straight line.  If you aren't hitting 2 (or more) then either you are not moving or you haven't been moving and are hemmed in by bodies so you can't move.

Part of the reason I like Combat Jumping.  Much easier to get out of tight quarters and maintain mobility.

 

[DrRocket]

21 hours ago, Uun said:

I put this together for another thread a few weeks ago. It excludes cones balanced as ST attacks (Head Splitter and Golden Dragonfly) and cones that accept range enhancements (Breath of Fire, Frost, Shockwave, Throw Spines, Repulsing Torrent, Fault). The remaining melee cones are still all over the place in terms of both radius and arc. All of these have target caps of 5 except for 1000 Cuts, Crowd Control and Power Crash in Energy Focus mode (and due to what appears to be a bug, the scrapper version of Proton Sweep). While I believe a balance pass is long overdue, I have no issue hitting more than 1 target with any of these.

 

Thank you! This answers one of the questions I had, awesome and my thanks once more

[Tiger Shadow]

My cone heavy characters usually take combat teleport and get a macro/keybind to tp then 10-20 feet straight back. It makes using cones much easier.