Focused Feedback: Devices, Stealth and Misc Power changes

[MindOverMatter]

10 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

They did not become build-up, they became “Power Up”, basically the same as Gather Shadows (a damage/special booster.)

Hey Captain Powerhouse, glad that you responded.

 

While I recognize the Homecoming changes are in the spirit of Gather Shadows, my original comment referred to how these new variants of Gather Shadows lack the option to enhance with ToHit Enhancement sets. I specifically named "Power Build Up", as the Defender Power Mastery Epic Power existed before Dark Assault - yet it could be enhanced with ToHit Sets. 

 

I'm simply asking if these similar powers including Gather Shadows (+Damage/special booster including +ToHit) could now *all* have the ability to be enhanced with sets. If not, I was curious if there was a design intention behind restricting sets. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

Power Build Up grants ToHit, that’s why it takes ToHit buff sets.

 

Gather shadows and Power Up only grant toHit Str, that do nothing on its own unless you have another power that grants ToHit.

[csr]

14 hours ago, Eclipse. said:

You're correct.

I also used the highest number possible for Tactics - which only defenders and VEATs get - and combined it with a secondary skill that provides +perception as well, which AFAIK Defenders don't get, nor do any other classes [afaik] that get more than 242 perception from tactics.

The classes that actually get a secondary +perception power (brute, Scrapper, blaster) only get 242 perception from Tactics, not 432.  In a best-case scenario solo you can see the stalker from ~20' away, assuming the stalker doesn't have any stealth IOs and you went with a power-set that offers +perception. For melee classes this isn't TOO bad since they have several +perception powers (ice armor, dark armor, ninjitsu, super reflexes, and/or the Ancillary Body Mastery), for blasters you're locked to */devices/*.

 

So, in a best case scenario where you specked for it you can still get hit with the following skills without any opportunity to counter : Focus Burst, Impale, Throw Spines, boggle, Lightning Rod, Savage Leap, Serpent's Reach, consume, smoke flash, blinding powder, and Shield charge

In the case of Shield Charge + Lightning Rod, those won't break stealth, either, so both could be guaranteed crits.

---

Another important note is that the Perception bonus from tactics scales with level, the numbers I'm giving are only true in RV for perception, but the stealth numbers are the same regardless of level.

The GOOD news is there is a cap to stealth...and stalkers will hit it if they take the stealth IO, even w/o it they're already really close (at 1111/1143). The Perception cap is just slightly higher at 1153, unless that has been changed you should always at least have a chance to see them if you are one of the above mentioned classes. Brutes, Scrappers, and Tanks [?] I believe should be able to solo hit the Perception cap, with a select few defensive sets, ensuring they can always see stalkers once they're within 10',  enough to at least stop assassins strike if they're next to their allies.  */Device blasters can see a non-IO'd stalker from 20', most other blasters can not, and non will be able  to see an +stealth IO'd stalker. VEATS with 2x tactics have no issues with stalkers - VEATS also have a higher perception cap @ 1260, so they can see stalkers from 100'+ away. All other classes can not bypass hide+invis solo
 

I agree with this. Which is specifically why I brought it up.

Even with these changes [in PvE] I feel invis is undertuned. SS + StealthIO gives 65 stealth, Invis alone gives 55. 
Once the Defense suppression is 100% for invis it seems like a strange choice over stealth - unless you just don't take the stealth IO and/or super speed.

Thanks for the clarification and information.  Invisibility needs better tuning in both PvE and PvP.  Though perhaps the latter should be part of a more general reworking of PER v STEALTH in PvP.

 

As an aside you can add Focus, Shockwave, Savage Leap and APP ranged attacks (I believe every set has at least 2) to the list of those that Stalkers can use to strike without warning.

 

Contollers can get some +PER from Mace Mastery or the Fortunata Seer in Soul Mastery.  Dominators only get the latter.  Corruptors get the former.  Stalkers can get +PER through Body Mastery or Weapons Mastery.  Tankers through Energy Mastery or Mace Mastery.

[MindOverMatter]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Power Build Up grants ToHit, that’s why it takes ToHit buff sets.

 

Gather shadows and Power Up only grant toHit Str, that do nothing on its own unless you have another power that grants ToHit.

Thanks for that clarification! 

[Rambolazer]

8 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Just out of curiosity, did you slot a Gaussian proc in your gun drone?

If you mean targeting drone, Both slotted and unslotted with that build up proc it jumps around all over the place for me right now.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Rambolazer

[whorlbinder]

I love the Devices changes! Targeting Drone in particular having good functionality makes me wonder if similar changes could happen for /Nin on Blasters. Last time I toyed with one, at least, it felt like it took ages to get the (smaller) damage bonus back from their Build Up replacement. (and i mean while we're at it, maybe that power could get a little bit of buff value love too, since it's currently bad at being both a defence booster and a damage booster)

 

Also, the numbers on it feel fine. De-facto SO slotting gets you about 25% uptime on build-up, Targeting Drone provides less tohit (18% vs 20%) and provides one fifth the strength of the damage buff, with periodic alpha strikes at four fifths the strength. Seems fair. Blaster secondaries, in my opinion, need something relatively equivalent to Build Up to be viable.

[Captain Powerhouse]

21 hours ago, Rambolazer said:

If you mean targeting drone, Both slotted and unslotted with that build up proc it jumps around all over the place for me right now.

There was a bug on Targeting Drone, I think its fixed, but keep an eye out for those swings on the next patch. There wont be a note since next patch will have a consolidated list of notes relative to current HC (and i think that bug was introduced during this testing.)

22 minutes ago, whorlbinder said:

I love the Devices changes! Targeting Drone in particular having good functionality makes me wonder if similar changes could happen for /Nin on Blasters. Last time I toyed with one, at least, it felt like it took ages to get the (smaller) damage bonus back from their Build Up replacement. (and i mean while we're at it, maybe that power could get a little bit of buff value love too, since it's currently bad at being both a defence booster and a damage booster)

 

Also, the numbers on it feel fine. De-facto SO slotting gets you about 25% uptime on build-up, Targeting Drone provides less tohit (18% vs 20%) and provides one fifth the strength of the damage buff, with periodic alpha strikes at four fifths the strength. Seems fair. Blaster secondaries, in my opinion, need something relatively equivalent to Build Up to be viable.

Other manipulation sets are bing looked at and will receive a pass on the future. The Devices changes were originally intended to go on that future patch, but were moved up due to the snipe change devaluing the set too much.

 

Cant go into too many details yet, but expect buffs to many sets, and some necessary nerfs to the newer i25 power sets.

[Bossk_Hogg]

On 8/17/2019 at 1:47 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

Vanden hit the nail right on the head.

 

there is nothing on the board at the moment for buff sets, but this has been discussed in the past. Ideally: any changes to improve Time Bomb and Trip Mine on the Traps sets would be oriented towards the goal of buff/debuff. 

 

Cottage rule and all that, but damage and usability may be adjusted in ways that allow for additional aspects being added that actually help the sets do their jobs.

I don't understad this. The powers are simply unwieldy in a team environment due to taking too long to set up/trigger, and that is universal. There is essentially no amount of debuffs inflicted to make Traps time bomb worth waiting around for.

 

This isn't to say that I wouldn't like them to be more debuff oriented. I had originally posted a suggestion for Trip Mine to have 3 types of mines to set out (similar to dual pistols swap ammo power), with an incendiary mine being the current implementation, a cryo mine for slows, and a toxic mine for debuffing enemy damage and to-hit.   

 

Turning Time bomb into Omega Maneuvers (and improving Omega Maneuvers) would help this as well.

 

But the core issues of traps not meshing well with how modern COH actually plays on a team needs to be looked at. 

[whorlbinder]

In all fairness I don't think the bombs in traps meshed particularly well with contemporary CoX when they were added. The amazeballs powers in it were amazeballs back then, but the bombs were, at least to me and mine, fluff picks, even back in 2005.

 

Stealing Omega Maneuver for /Traps seems incredibly decent and I support the concept, or at the very least having some kind of alpha-eating dummy to throw down, which, since it's Superhero Land and a trap set, probably would explode...

 

So, yeah, stealing Omega Maneuver seems like a good call. While we're at it, why not make Shield Drone into a bot that hovers around the user a la Targeting Drone, so you can't lose it anymore and the buff area is reliable.

 

Also 😱 @ the possible implications of Temporal Manip and Tactical Archery nerfs, lol

[Bionic_Flea]

On 8/19/2019 at 12:23 PM, Captain Powerhouse said:

Cant go into too many details yet, but expect buffs to many sets, and some necessary nerfs to the newer i25 power sets.

I'm excited and filled with dread at the same time.  SO CONFLICTED!

[MunkiLord]

Which ones are the newer i25 power sets?

[Captain Powerhouse]

Plant manipulation, temporal manipulation, atomic manipulation, tactical arrow and ninja training 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Seale]

5 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Plant manipulation, temporal manipulation, atomic manipulation, sonic manipulation, tactical arrow and ninja training 

would love that one 😄

[Troo]

On 8/11/2019 at 10:48 AM, Leandro said:

Earth Control > Animate Stone: should no longer stop to reconsider it's life choices for about 6 seconds after using Hurl.

This was a nice touch.

[Rathulfr]

34 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Plant manipulation, temporal manipulation, atomic manipulation, sonic manipulation, tactical arrow and ninja training 

 

Of course, just my luck, as I'm finishing off the build on my new Energy/Temporal Blaster.  Well, I suppose I can sell or re-use the IO sets ...  😭

 

(edit) And I don't look forward to what this may mean for my main villain (see sig below).  😖

Edited August 21, 2019 by Rathulfr

[Captain Powerhouse]

30 minutes ago, Seale said:

would love that one 😄

Edited my post, nothing to see here.

[Captain Powerhouse]

5 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

 

Of course, just my luck, as I'm finishing off the build on my new Energy/Temporal Blaster.  Well, I suppose I can sell or re-use the IO sets ...  😭

 

Of the top of my head, the nerfs are mostly to aoe crowd control.

[Rathulfr]

Just now, Captain Powerhouse said:

Of the top of my head, the nerfs are mostly to aoe crowd control.

 

Well, that's a relief, for me at least.  Thanks!

 

[Thezanman]

2 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Of the top of my head, the nerfs are mostly to aoe crowd control.

Completely fair. It's ridiculous that Blasters would have AoE holds with 40% the cooldown of the actual control ATs.

[Bossk_Hogg]

3 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Of the top of my head, the nerfs are mostly to aoe crowd control.

That legit needed to be done. As much as I love my blasters with 30 second AE holds, they shoudlnt be better than my controllers. 

[Williwaw]

3 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Of the top of my head, the nerfs are mostly to aoe crowd control.

Depending on how loosely you define "Crowd Control", that's could be a number of powers in Tactical Arrow.

 

But I'm guessing you mean the AoE Holds rather than, say, Glue Arrow.  And looking at them... wow, I didn't realize that the base cooldown on ESD Arrow is only 1m30 compared to 4m for, say, Gravity Distortion Field, with comparable Hold durations. I thought it felt short, but I didn't realize how short.   If that's what you're doing, I'll miss ESD Arrow being up nearly every spawn, but I understand why the would need to be changed.  (And I see the AoE Stun in Temporal Manipulation is on the same 1m30 cooldown)

 

(Side note... does anyone have a list of the Mez scales for the ATs?  I really miss Red Tomax's City of Data right about now, and the archive.org version doesn't have all the pages or let you set your class to "none" to see the base values of powers)

 

... also, comparing various powers in the character creator makes me want to try a /Temporal Blaster.

[Thezanman]

1 hour ago, Williwaw said:

Depending on how loosely you define "Crowd Control", that's could be a number of powers in Tactical Arrow.

 

But I'm guessing you mean the AoE Holds rather than, say, Glue Arrow.  And looking at them... wow, I didn't realize that the base cooldown on ESD Arrow is only 1m30 compared to 4m for, say, Gravity Distortion Field, with comparable Hold durations. I thought it felt short, but I didn't realize how short.   If that's what you're doing, I'll miss ESD Arrow being up nearly every spawn, but I understand why the would need to be changed.  (And I see the AoE Stun in Temporal Manipulation is on the same 1m30 cooldown)

 

(Side note... does anyone have a list of the Mez scales for the ATs?  I really miss Red Tomax's City of Data right about now, and the archive.org version doesn't have all the pages or let you set your class to "none" to see the base values of powers)

 

... also, comparing various powers in the character creator makes me want to try a /Temporal Blaster.

The wiki has mez scales on each AT's individual page if you click modifiers in the top right, but I don't think there's a table with all of them listed in the same place.

[Kimuji]

Uh regarding the changes to Burn... how about we tweak Burn in a way that procs will no longer trigger? That would be much preferable to a fix that will hurt even those who were not abusing of the IO procs mechanic. Fiery Aura doesn't need a blow like this one, I mean everyone is getting punished because there is a way to abuse the system. It's the interaction between Burn and the IO procs system the issue, not Burn's "natural" base damage.

I really think that keeping the base damage as it is while preventing the use of damage proc IOs is the best compromise.

[Williwaw]

52 minutes ago, Thezanman said:

The wiki has mez scales on each AT's individual page if you click modifiers in the top right, but I don't think there's a table with all of them listed in the same place.

Ah!  Okay, that's what I wanted to check.  So if my math is right, ESD Arrow and Gravity Distortion Field have the same base Mez duration (adjusted for AT), but wildly different cooldowns, so I can totally see why a nerf to the former is needed.

[Frosticus]

Did you guys alter the PPM system with regard to aoe's? specifically poison envenom/weaken. It is performing much worse on test than the game server with procs