Helping Dimension Shift and Black Hole shine

[Night]

Both Dimension Shift and Black Hole are very situational powers, and both are mostly proactive in that you look at a group of enemies waiting up ahead and decide they won't be a problem for a while. While both powers are fine and very much in-line with the control and support sets they appear in, the one part of both powers that generally gets in the way of their usability is the intangibility effect placed upon enemies.

 

But this suggestion isn't about removing the quite unique to them phase shift effect and instead about making it fun with the tech available in other powers we have now, and improving the two powers in general.

 

For clarity, the effects of both powers as seen on a controller, since you can have both on a grav/dark controller:

 

 

 

While the radius of the placeable effect of Dimension Shift isn't stated on the power, it seems to be 25ft as per https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.dimensionshift.dimension_shift&at=minion_pets .

 

Now to buff up those two powers, first up, we add the trawl/draw-in effect that the Singularity pet uses. For Dimension Shift, we make the effect 5ft larger than the power's phase shift effect, giving it a constant draw-in effect radius of 30ft around the point of placement. Black Hole meanwhile gains a constant draw-in effect radius of 20ft around the initial target for the 30s of its duration.

 

Adding the draw-in effect would cause nearby enemies to be pulled into the powers' effects: becoming phased and immobilized in the case of Dimension Shift, and simply piled up and continuously pulled together in the case of Black Hole, similar to its current effect.

 

The persistent intangibility effect to all affected targets of Black Hole would also be returned to the power, as would its immobilize effect, both applied to all targets within the AoE upon initial cast with no distinction to their status, as the power is extremely weak in its current state and from testing, seems unable to reliably trigger intangibility at all.

 

 

At this point we have a buncha phased enemies piled up together with more being periodically drawn in with the trawl effect, so to make this entire suggestion work, instead of using the current Phase Shift effect, we apply the effect of Speed Phase to all affected targets. This makes them unable to affect their enemies (players) while still being able to be affected by them, allowing for players to actually attack phased enemies while the effect still acts as a soft-CC since those enemies may still affect each other with buffs or heals and enemies with mez resist and bosses may escape each power's effect by simply walking out of them.

 

 

 

 

I think this way the idea and full functionality of these two powers is retained, that of shoving a group of enemies into another dimension so that they're not a problem for a short while, and it removes the effect of your teammates being annoyed because their attacks do nothing or powers that need an enemy to work fail to do anything.

 

[Snarky]

I tried the new Black Hole extensively after the recent rework on my main Dark^3 Corruptor.  
 

The problems with Black Hole are legion.  It has a small footprint for its power effect in my opinion. Most importantly, the phase shift effect has certain enemies it always works on. So it will do a half assed Fold Space on some mobs, yet ALWAYS leave things like DE Emanators unfolded AND phase shifted.  Even on Discord this is tough to communicate to teammates.  So, confusion, misapplication of powers, and slower team speed is always the result.  
 

Black Hole was somehow made worse in it’s new form. Which is amazing, because before it was as bad as radioactive sewage.  Goes to show that anything can be made worse if tou find someone who really THINKS they know how to “improve things…”

[Uun]

You seem to be unaware of how Dimension Shift actually works. Note highlighted portion of the power description below:

 

Location-targeted AoE toggle. This power folds space in an area, immobilizing and phasing all targets within the sphere. Enemies who enter the area become immobilized and phased for the duration of the effect. Allies who enter the sphere's area of effect will enter the phase as well, allowing them to combat phased enemies. Detoggling this power ends the effect, bringing the phased creatures back into the physical world. Maintaining this dimensional distortion is taxing on the user, and cannot be done for more than 20 seconds.

 

 

[Night]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I tried the new Black Hole extensively after the recent rework on my main Dark^3 Corruptor.  
 

The problems with Black Hole are legion.  It has a small footprint for its power effect in my opinion. Most importantly, the phase shift effect has certain enemies it always works on. So it will do a half assed Fold Space on some mobs, yet ALWAYS leave things like DE Emanators unfolded AND phase shifted.  Even on Discord this is tough to communicate to teammates.  So, confusion, misapplication of powers, and slower team speed is always the result.  
 

Black Hole was somehow made worse in it’s new form. Which is amazing, because before it was as bad as radioactive sewage.  Goes to show that anything can be made worse if tou find someone who really THINKS they know how to “improve things…”

I've not used Black Hole since live before this testing, simply could not make it trigger its intangibility effect on command, even by stacking a controller's AoE immobilize on a group several times, which usually adds a -knockback effect to targets for a while, they would still get pulled in and nothing else would happen.

 

1 hour ago, Uun said:

You seem to be unaware of how Dimension Shift actually works. Note highlighted portion of the power description below:

 

Location-targeted AoE toggle. This power folds space in an area, immobilizing and phasing all targets within the sphere. Enemies who enter the area become immobilized and phased for the duration of the effect. Allies who enter the sphere's area of effect will enter the phase as well, allowing them to combat phased enemies. Detoggling this power ends the effect, bringing the phased creatures back into the physical world. Maintaining this dimensional distortion is taxing on the user, and cannot be done for more than 20 seconds.

 

 

 

Oh I'm aware of that. From trying to make Dimension Shift work in teams it works as a good tool to make a group irrelevant for a short while, but teammates will always try attacking or CCing the oncoming mob on top of that and wasting their cooldowns regardless. I'm simply suggesting the phase shift effect be altered so that the mobs can be affected by players while still retaining their own inability to attack others. An effect that would also make Black Hole usable which does not have a field you can enter to also get phased in.

Edited 2 hours ago by Night

[Uun]

25 minutes ago, Night said:

I've not used Black Hole since live before this testing, simply could not make it trigger its intangibility effect on command, even by stacking a controller's AoE immobilize on a group several times, which usually adds a -knockback effect to targets for a while, they would still get pulled in and nothing else would happen.

Black Hole was changed in the most recent patch. Only foes immune to the pull are made intangible.

 

Dark Miasma

 Black Hole 

• This power now applies a trawl (reverse repel) effect.
• Targets that are immune to the trawl effect will be phased.

 

27 minutes ago, Night said:

I'm simply suggesting the phase shift effect be altered so that the mobs can be affected by players while still retaining their own inability to attack others. 

This seems massively OP.

[Jiro Ito]

It'd be nice if they were turned into toggles so you could exert some control over the duration of the phase.  "Everybody ready for the Longbow Gravity Warden?  Cool here we go."

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Jiro Ito said:

It'd be nice if they were turned into toggles so you could exert some control over the duration of the phase.  "Everybody ready for the Longbow Gravity Warden?  Cool here we go."

Dimension Shift is already a toggle with a maximum duration of 20s.

 

There already are Longbow Gravity Wardens, but they don't have Dimension Shift. The Illusion Wardens do have Detention Field. I seem to always run into them in the mission where you have to rescue Ghost Widow, and I sit there looking at "Only Affecting Self" while the Longbow pound her into mush.

[Jiro Ito]

6 minutes ago, Uun said:

Dimension Shift is already a toggle with a maximum duration of 20s.

 

There already are Longbow Gravity Wardens, but they don't have Dimension Shift. The Illusion Wardens do have Detention Field. I seem to always run into them in the mission where you have to rescue Ghost Widow, and I sit there looking at "Only Affecting Self" while the Longbow pound her into mush.

 

Sorry, I mean to say, the player holds an annoying NPC like a Warden in phase until the team is ready to tackle it.  It was the most annoying NPC I could think of.

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, Uun said:

The Illusion Wardens do have Detention Field. I seem to always run into them in the mission where you have to rescue Ghost Widow, and I sit there looking at "Only Affecting Self" while the Longbow pound her into mush.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Longbow Ballista that is in that mission? They have Detention Field. Not saying you aren't being affected by an Illusion Warden's Detention Field, because they have it too, but there is for certain always a Longbow Ballista that shows up as part of the ambush.

[Night]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

This seems massively OP.

 It's not. It's weaker than an AoE hold that prevents enemies from doing anything at all.

[Indystruck]

It's also substantially weaker than just deleting the mob with a nuke.

[Uun]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Longbow Ballista that is in that mission? They have Detention Field. Not saying you aren't being affected by an Illusion Warden's Detention Field, because they have it too, but there is for certain always a Longbow Ballista that shows up as part of the ambush.

The ambush usually has 2-3 Longbow Warden bosses and the Ballista elite boss. I believe the power sets of the Wardens and the Ballista are randomized, so whether one of them has Detention Field is a crap shoot. I've done the mission dozens of times and whether I succeed or fail is largely a function of whether one of them hits me with Detention Field.

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, Uun said:

I believe the power sets of the Wardens and the Ballista are randomized,

Longbow Wardens are pulled from a pool of different types. Longbow Ballistas only have one type. And as along as the Ballista is level 35+, he has Detention Field.