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Earth Set Suggestions for future update/fixes

championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
edited April 2016 in Suggestions Box
This is basically going over a few things that I think earth players were hoping for, but never really blossomed with the set, as a whole. So I will discuss these, but first, outline them in bullet points;
  • Damage feels lacking especially in a set with so much wind up time.
  • Particle effects of earth get intense and many effects are based on target size creating some serious performance issues.
  • Earth aesthetically is lacking. Yea, it's earth but you expect certain look when using it to.
  • While it's intended as a hybrid set, the set as a whole feels like it was aimed more at ranged, lacking melee potential or feeling, and even lacking what many might considered core ideals of a set based solely on earth, such as roots and stuns.

Damage feels lacking
Now while we can probably discuss ad nauseum the damage issue with earth, I think this issue can basically be stated, everyone is aware, pointing it out further isn't going to change these facts, and what is decided to fix this particular concern is a wait and see.

Particle effects
Now, I think the biggest issue concerning the earth set is the particle effects. Let's not beat around the bush on this a single earth player wreaks havoc on people with low end PCs, and not in the good way. I think this will have to be addressed, as particle effects of many earth effects scale with the size of the monsters. This creates a stigma where certain earth effects, even if they are decent damaging effects (relatively speaking) are undesirable because they just create lasting performance issue for some people. I think these need to be addressed.

Aesthetics
For the most part I think a lot of the powers are ok, aesthetically. The earth particles and such do there job, to an extent but could probably just be improved a bit. Of particular glaring note is the block for the earth power set, Stone Shroud. I don't particularly understand the choice of using the standard arm bar and putting one of the most hideous geometry designs that only gets worse as you rank this power up, but there you are. My suggestion change it to the two hand extended pose that Force Shield uses, and use the rock wall that forms from earth Slide as a placement in front. If need be start adding a bit of rock around the character that gets a bit more pronounced as this power is ranked up, but as it stands the current is just hideous.

Lack of Hybrid in a Hybrid Set
Now, there are a few powers in this set that are classified as melee, but weirdly enough are ranged. In fact, they are suppose to have varying animations based on range. However, in general, it feels lackluster because when people were thinking an earth set they would think more melee used powers and not mostly ranged powers. Things like earth fists or create rock weapons to smash over someone's head all for the melee lovers. Then you have an effect in Telekinetics that is oddly missing from earth that would have been perfect, but could be named something else, which is called TK Maelstrom, and maybe it can be an earth style ultimate. Then of course there is a lack of actual roots and stun type holds that are essentially staples of the set, as well as a power specifically designed to be defensive by creating an earth shield around you, even if it is only an active defense. To put it bluntly, Earth feels like an incomplete set that feels lackluster and for those people who have low end PCs, a bit overwhelming as far as causing performance issues.​​
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Comments

  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User
    I agree... it really is rather lack luster on it's own... I've got 3 characters that use earth powers as a large part of their build and another 2 that have 1 or 2 eath powers each... yet NONE of them are pure earth and even the ones that have a larger selection from earth are mostly other powersets... Vector my "telekinetic" is a mixture of Earth/Force/TK, only uses earth because it contained some powers that were aestheticlly fitting for her concept... Brimstone uses Earth/Fire/HW, and only actually uses like 3 powers from Earth despite her concept being largely earth focused... Even Shatter Point my actual Earth themed hero uses mostly powers from Ice (explained as crystals) rather than the Earth powerset... The other 2, Aspect & Yuki, just have one or two token earth power each to fit their elemental themes...
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  • bluhmanbluhman Posts: 2,410 Arc User
    For something meant to be a hybrid set, I find it really weird that it has probably the least power choices of any of the brick options. It makes it very hard to specialize an Earth character as a result. There's a very high probability that a melee-geared Earth character is probably going to use something outside earth as their main single-target damage dealer, for example.

    A way that the set could be engineered to get around performance impact is to deliberately encourage full-charge tactics on particle-heavy effects. To give a great example of this, I've used quite a bit of Cave-In and Faultline:
    In the case of Cave-In, this is a very particle and shake-heavy power effect (another thing to consider is how much shaky screen the effects generate as well. There's a reason I turned it off a whiiile ago.) But aside from its stun effect on staggered enemies, there is no reason to full charge it. Optimal damage on Cave-In is fully achieved by just spamming a person with 3892 rocks per second.
    Faultline is clearly meant to be full-charged, with its optimal damage, knock effect (to make the most of each knock) and its stagger-breaking mechanic, all make its charge way stronger than its tap. However, have you ever tried tap-spamming that power? I did it once against Andrith and it murdered my framerate, and mind, this is on a powerful I5/GTX770 machine. Even if the powers are redesigned to do more DPS and effect at full-charge, I really feel like the power effects need some better charge-scaling. Like, only throw one rock if you tap an attack or whatever, because we really do need to minimize the instances in which that could possibly happen.


    Underlying everything I feel is wrong about Earth is that it just straight-up doesn't know what to do with its central debuff of Stagger. Bestial is very upfront about maintaining a bleed and pairing it with very high damage, while SB ruptures it for strategic bursts, but both have some significant ramp-up time. Fire, Ice, and Elec all focus around being very quick at applying their effect and taking advantage of it while it's on, but even then it still requires some conscious effort to reapply, has somewhat limited effect, or otherwise balances out the ease-of-application with much lower result than a massive rupture. Then we get to earth; what does it do with itself?! Really, seriously analyzing the whole set:
    • Stagger itself is a minor defense and speed debuff. This already makes it a somewhat touchy debuff, because it on its own enables extra damage from all sources.
    • There are no powers in Earth that refresh Stagger.
    • Stagger applications do not refresh the entire stack, making the debuff operate much like bleed rather than something like shred.
    • Stagger can enable extra knockdown or control on some attacks, though usually not enough to justify the buildup process.
    • The biggest 'payoff' attacks in Earth are Cave-In (a stun on a full charge), Faultline (10%? extra damage per stagger stack, but consumes), and Upheaval (Extra damage per stagger stack, but knocks out).
    • The only way to guarantee applications of stagger is through lengthy charges of moderate-damage attacks, such as Stone Shot or Tremor. Landslide is also fast, but requires spacing and mobility (the latter, earth isn't exactly good at.)
    Thinking on it all, I feel like the best way to first revitalize Earth would be to reinvision how the melee and ranged aspects of the set operate with Stagger and utilize it.

    A ranged Earth setup would focus specifically on triggering minor side-effects on the stagger, much like Cave-In's stun. To that end, however, Ranged earth would be unable to stack stagger, but would make up for this with its ability to apply one stack easily. Ranged earth would be about a lot of brute force rather than strategic setup.
    Melee earth inversely would be able to build-up stagger to further help out allies damage against a target. They would also have powers built to specifically refresh and maintain the stagger to allow their effects to do optimal damage. Especially because of earth's nature, the Stagger debuff would take place of the function something like Arc of Ruin or Demolish focuses on, and instead be able to use its powers to apply heavy damage and knock effects.

    Combined, this would make for a deadly beast that can trigger control and support at range, using up stagger stacks one by one, and then close in at melee to deal the highest damage and force enemies around with knock and pushback, if possible.
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