And one more thing - it looks like the weird number scaling I was seeing on Ego Form was just a local issue. The issue that was brought up about the discrepancy between Id Mastery and Ego Form is a larger problem, since Id Mastery is using the same formula that Way of the Warrior and Unstoppable use.
The primary benefit of WotW over other offensive passives is that it provides a pretty decent buff to dodge and avoidance; its only competitor there is quarry, which has a lower damage bonus than typical offensive passives. Unstoppable, as a passive, has mostly ceased being a competitive option after the scaling on its energy return was changed (it used to be that the energy return on knock meant you could spam some might powers for ever and ever).
From everything Ame has said so far, it seems like this is the intent. At a given level of superstats, Id Mastery, WotW, and Unstoppable should all have the same damage boost, while Ego Form, Shadow Form, Fiery Form, etc., will all match. If you are seeing something different, post the numbers (stats and damage bonus) so Ame can fix it.
Also, Ame, please update the Disciple to use Id Mastery in the next patch.
I did just that. With 255 DEX, 252 EGO, R3 Ego Form tooltip reports 75% buff for all paranormal, and R3 Id Master reports 74%.
Of course, in testing, Id really did do better in buffing the melee attacks, but looking at the difference, I suspect it's entirely within the margin of error since each of my tests ended with a sample size of 40 or so attacks that critical'd, and all I reported was the minimum and maximums that occurred.
The original goal of my test was going to be DPS of MA versus TK, but I gave up on that when it became obvious TK wasn't anywhere near energy efficient enough at the stat levels I used to spam unlimted fully charged attacks like I had with MA. At that point, I focused in on spike damage comparisons where TK did okay albeit with a few problems I detailed.
Why not use those formulas for Ego Form and Id Mastery? Give Id Mastery the slightly better paranormal melee that would be 69% on a toon like mine and let it also have the 34% towards all other paranormal damage. Then give Ego Form the same formula as the elemental and shadow forms which would work out to 55% on my toon..
Well, that's the problem - they are using the same formulas. If you go compare rank 3 of those 2 powers with the same stats, you'll see a problem. Namely, Rank 3 of the melee forms will be slightly worse than Rank 3 of the energy forms. I'm looking at it.
Also worth mentioning - we have found a tooltip bug that is occurring sometimes, that causes the numbers in the tooltip of certain passives (I've seen it on Ego Form and Electric Form) to report as higher than they actually are - like reporting 88% when it is actually granting 56%. This doesn't appear to be happening on Live, and it is very inconsistent as to when it decides to start and stop happening. So far, I've noticed it most frequently when immediately logging in with a character. If I swap passives out, it fixes itself. This would most likely be why people were seeing higher damage buffs being reported from Ego Form, yet doing more damage with Id Mastery. Anyhow, until we get this resolved, just know that Ego Form uses the same formula for Paranormal damage as Fiery does for Elemental, etc. Id Mastery uses the same formula for Melee Ego that Unstoppable and WotW do.
Here's a hypothetical situation with a relevant question:
If a toon has 250 dex, 250 int, and 10 ego on live, how much ego will that toon need to take to keep the same crit rating with these changes?
Without any change in stats, he'd go from having 31.7% crit chance and 16.6% severity on live to 29.4% chance and 40.3% severity. To get back to ~31.7% crit chance again, he'd need either 27 more Dex (which would bring him up to 41.9% severity), or 72 Ego (which would bring him up to 58.4% severity).
well i tried to read all the posts to make sure this hasn't been talked about yet but after page 8 i got all giddy and wanted to post anyway.
Telekinesis - this power is much much better than it used to be.. as in no one used it ever before.. its moved up to maybe a one in a million pick just for gimmicks... i feel like it could be so much more. The obvious problem with it is that there aren't all that many random objects in instances or the outside world to use effectively in combat. And when their are they usually get blown up by your teammates aoe powers.
I was chatting with some other friends i play with and discussing how this power could become more appealing. So here are a couple suggestions and i hope you take the time to consider them.
1 - Have the power draw a random object from... somewhere... more like conjure up an object to be thrown. The only reference i have for this is from the propel in the gravity set in CoH which would do something similar.
2 - Have the power tear off a piece of all or ground and be thrown at the target. This was suggested by a friend and i thought it would be totally plausible.
3 - Have the power not only call on nearby objects but NPC's as well.. throwing minions back into the face of their masters would be totally fun, and funny.
Ego Blade Frenzy does extremely good damage. Eye of the Storm doesn't.
Personally, I don't want to give up my high damage melee aoe for what Dual Blades has.
i agree with you there. i've been trying to push the idea of giving a buff to tk shield adv to enhace defensive capabilities, but it seems like no one cares about a rather lackluster adv.
...
If you're willing to break theme a bit, holdout shot with advantage is a decent enough HoT power that doesn't have BCR's disadvantage. You can also look at bionic shielding or enrage w/ advantage. Or, you can really break theme and just pick up support drones. Not only do they provide very good healing, they also distract NPC's in PvE and act as chaff in PvP (at least until we finally manage to convince the devs that Ignore Pets should be a tab targeting option as it has both PvP and PvE benefits...like actually making it possible to get your toon to fight the target you want rather than the sonic bomb that isn't going to do anything anyway).
Summon Shadows + adv is another HoT. That heal scales on CON, and they do Dimensional damage.
Actually it just flat out scales to damage the pet does, not Con. If the pet does 200 damage thats 40 hp, if it does 100 its 20.
Thanks for the correction, I must have been thinking of the CON scaling from Shadow Form (which scales on total health, so I would have at least been in the neighborhood on that one:) )
Maybe it would make a difference in pvp against skarns bane, but the Id passive is not counted as an energy form while ego form is. If that matters to you FYI.
Xavori could i trouble you to comment on TK as it stands now from a PVP perspective as a frame work?
Are there any individual powers that you see as having pvp potential?
Maybe it would make a difference in pvp against skarns bane, but the Id passive is not counted as an energy form while ego form is. If that matters to you FYI.
It seems reasonable to me, since Id Mastery is supposed to be analogous to Unstoppable and WotW, neither of which are Energy Forms. Frankly, I don't get the whole Energy Form distinction. It seems to only matter to Skarn's Bane and Force Cascade, from what I can tell. And Incisive Wit, come to think of it, so maybe it is relevant here.
It seems reasonable to me, since Id Mastery is supposed to be analogous to Unstoppable and WotW, neither of which are Energy Forms. Frankly, I don't get the whole Energy Form distinction. It seems to only matter to Skarn's Bane and Force Cascade, from what I can tell. And Incisive Wit, come to think of it, so maybe it is relevant here.
Xavori could i trouble you to comment on TK as it stands now from a PVP perspective as a frame work?
Are there any individual powers that you see as having pvp potential?
Here's my take.
First, I haven't gotten around to testing the TK ranged powers yet. I plan to do that later today. But, from what I played with last build and the notes, I suspect TK Assault is still going to be a good T0 power and TK Lance is still going to blow chunks.
In PvP, one of the easier, and hence more popular, builds is the ebon ruin tank. The TK pass is going to destroy them. The number of paranormal damage resist toons in PvP is going to increase, making the ruin tank a lot harder to play, and hence, a lot less popular. I already have shadow toons that hunt and kill most ruin tanks with impunity, and this pass just puts more toys into that toybox.
In more general terms, the TK blade type attacks are really close in terms of melee in PvP. You'll notice my original test post for this build wasn't full of suggestions for big swings, just little tweaks (well, outside the Ego/Id slotted passive wonkiness that Ame is already on top of).
Ego Blade Frenzy with advantage is already evil in lower tier PvP. If the TK pass gives it damage comparable to say Sword Cyclone, it'll be just as popular in T4. Having an advantage that traps your target in melee range is just too good to pass up.
I think TK Assault is going to be a really popular PvP power, especially in lower tiers. It's comparable to Lightning Arc, but with a really fun advantage that gives players a really interesting choice. Either get a nasty single target attack or a really good AoE attack. And if the devs don't fix the animation before release, it'll just be evil because it'll be hard to figure out who's hitting you
I already have a toon on live that uses Ego Choke. She's one of those shadows I talked about that kills ruin tanks with impunity. So I'm pretty cool with this power outside of my dislike for the entire way resistance to crowd control works even if this toon happens to benefit from it. Well would benefit if I so choose...I use choke more as a finisher against people I know want to run, or as a defense when actually dangerous melee toons root me...ie melee squishies rather than tanks.
Unlike most of the rest of Champs Online world, the PvP arenas have plenty of stuff lying around which means PvP is one of the best places for the Telekinesis power without needing Tumerboy or whoever to go through adding stuff. Once Ame gets the Ego levels reset, I imagine we'll be seeing a lot more barrels flying through the air (which is going to make one of my SG mates into a very sad mudkipz)
TK Burst as a set-up power is already fine. It's the most reliable way to get ego leech stacks and has an advantage which will annoy people greatly, even after Ame gets it fixed.
TK Wave is another power that already gets used in PvP, albeit not that much. One of the best PvP'ers around, Jeshu, loves it.
Ego Blade Dash gives PvP melee players another option for their lunge. Nothing really special about this one, but then again, nothing wrong with it either.
TK Eruption and Maelstorm aren't really going to be that popular, but whatever. It's not like every power in the game has to work in PvP. In their cases, mediocre damage without any cool benefits. Force Eruption is a much better PvP choice that thematically feels like TK, but since it can be used while held, makes it a very good anti-melee power.
Once Ame gets the Ego levels reset, I imagine we'll be seeing a lot more barrels flying through the air (which is going to make one of my SG mates into a very sad mudkipz)
I doubt that barrels require any significant ego (they don't require much strength), and as far as I know none of the boxes do either, though I think the boulders in lava temple are pretty heavy, and the trees in ZA require fairly high strength.
I doubt that barrels require any significant ego (they don't require much strength), and as far as I know none of the boxes do either, though I think the boulders in lava temple are pretty heavy, and the trees in ZA require fairly high strength.
I still hope to see some changes to the EBB and EBA. Doesn't have to be a buff, but rather something to set them apart more. If EBB had a better debuff it would be a great setup to use EBA on a debuffed foe, but -15% is just not enough to warrant it and even then you'd just be spamming EBB instead anyway...
Also building up Ego Leech and then wasting it with EBA when you can just as well spam EBB to do the same thing(dps) is also a thing to note.
I still hope to see some changes to the EBB and EBA. Doesn't have to be a buff, but rather something to set them apart more. If EBB had a better debuff it would be a great setup to use EBA on a debuffed foe, but -15% is just not enough to warrant it and even then you'd just be spamming EBB instead anyway...
Also building up Ego Leech and then wasting it with EBA when you can just as well spam EBB to do the same thing(dps) is also a thing to note.
Yea Ego Lance and EBA both both seem to overshadowed by other powers in the set. I realy wanted to like TK Lance too.:o
Quick note on the Id Mastery/melee passive formula issue:
So, without getting too into it, the math for the melee passives is just kinda wrong. It makes for high values of damage bonus when you are low rank and low Super Stat, but gets progressively less good as you increase rank and Super Stat value. At Rank 1, the melee passives are better than a Rank 1 equivalent Energy Form passive until you reach a combined total of ~900 Super Stats. At Rank 2, that number drops to a combined total of ~680 Super Stats, and at Rank 3, it happens at a combined total of ~500 Super Stats. And even before that point, at Rank 3, the melee passive is only providing a marginally better damage bonus than the Energy Form passives.
This is not what was intended. As such, I've replaced the formula for Id Mastery with a corrected formula, such that it will always be providing a higher damage increase to melee Ego damage than Ego Form does to all Ego damage. We'll be including that change in an upcoming PTS push, and doing some testing. This formula change will also affect WotW and Unstoppable. At Rank 1, the 3 melee passives will get slightly weakened, losing up to ~5% damage bonus if you have low Super Stat values. At Rank 3, with combined Super Stat values of ~300, it will go from 64% to 71%. With combined SS of ~600, it will go from providing a damage bonus of 77% to 100%.
Obviously, this fix/buff comes with the downside of a slightly weakened passive at Rank 1, and thus the passive is slightly weaker at lower levels. As soon as you increase it to Rank 2, it will go from being roughly the same as on Live to better as you gear up, and Rank 3 will always be better.
We're pretty happy with how the new formula feels, but if we run into issues with it being problematic for lower level players, we'll look at it further. We'll be looking forward to any feedback you have on this change once it hits the PTS.
Excellent news on the melee offensive passives. Before they simply weren't worth ranking up, you'd go from something like 65-69-73%. If it's more like 60-70-80 now, that's much more useful for throwing 2 or 4 points into.
Ego Blade Frenzy does extremely good damage. Eye of the Storm doesn't.
Personally, I don't want to give up my high damage melee aoe for what Dual Blades has.
In which case, I'd be happy asking for either a new power OR for an advantage which reduces the damage done but gives damage absorption. Either of these would make me happy
i agree with you there. i've been trying to push the idea of giving a buff to tk shield adv to enhace defensive capabilities, but it seems like no one cares about a rather lackluster adv.
Ego Blade Frenzy is an offensive oriented power (with an excellent advantage for PvP-types). It'd be more comparable to dual blade's Sword Cyclone.
Eye of the Storm has extremely low damage for a melee power unless you advantage and even that only works in melee range. That's why most players consider a defensive power.
You'd be better off asking for a new power that provides what you are looking for rather than trying to change a very good offensive power into a mediocre defensive one.
In which case, I'd be happy asking for a new power there to do what Eye Of The Storm does or an advantage to reduce the damage and give some defensive bonus
Not sure why you'd ever want anything like BCR in a non-dodge build. Damage debuff for weak healing is not a good trade. If you're looking for slightly better healing, even in a non-pre stat'd toon, just bounce over to the other mentalist set and pick up empathic healing. I prefer maintained heals since you can sneak them in between hits and/or maintain them as long as you need to to get enough health to get back to fighting more quickly. Also, when used as self-heal, empathic healing doesn't self root which a nice bit of gravy.
Thanks for the idea there. Unfortunately I'd much usually prefer to hit a HoT and leave it when using a squishier hero. (Don't get me wrong, being squishier won't stop me creating a new hero on live when these changes hit, but working around this would be goodly.) If not HoT can be created though, I imagine I will go with Empathic Healing.
If you're willing to break theme a bit, holdout shot with advantage is a decent enough HoT power that doesn't have BCR's disadvantage. You can also look at bionic shielding or enrage w/ advantage. Or, you can really break theme and just pick up support drones. Not only do they provide very good healing, they also distract NPC's in PvE and act as chaff in PvP (at least until we finally manage to convince the devs that Ignore Pets should be a tab targeting option as it has both PvP and PvE benefits...like actually making it possible to get your toon to fight the target you want rather than the sonic bomb that isn't going to do anything anyway).
The key bit there is I like to keep theme as much as possible. Theme is flexible to an extent, but I'd much rather have more moves to allow myself (and other theme-interested players) to stay within theme and not be overly weakened. (That doesn't mean always staying within a set, just within a hero concept.)
My TK blader has always used Ego Form, but will be switching to the new melee form and I don't want his look to change.
Perhaps another ZPA could fix this for all parties? :P
(As much as devs claim they hate these, I think they work well, except for the fact you can't get to the screen to select them if you don't have at least 1 advantage point.)
(As much as devs claim they hate these, I think they work well, except for the fact you can't get to the screen to select them if you don't have at least 1 advantage point.)
They also increase your retcon costs when they really shouldn't, since they're just a cosmetic effect, but the real reason is how they work under-the-hood and the amount of extra work it takes to create and maintain them.
Totally stoked on the math changes for the melee passives. I love running Unstoppable - people hate on it, but it works SO WELL for Heavy Weapons, and now the damage scaling will make sense. I'll have to turn up four extra advantage points, but fortunately Mina was already sitting on about six of those spare. Won't likely be able to hit the +100% breakpoint with a STR/REC character, but I'll take anything I can get. Thanks so much for looking in to that, guys.
...This would require completely reworking how all of the Ego/Id Blade powers function.
They currently all look for the same thing, and all 3 of the powers with the Id Blades ZPA are actually all the exact same ZPA,
and provide the exact same thing that used to get passively provided by default on Ego Form,
it now just gets turned on via the advantage.
Sorry, but this isn't likely to happen any time soon...
I figured it was something like that
But a comment i saw about it being very hard to include this ability into the tailor (seperate blade skins per power) made me think this might be possible
Oh well, at least it's commented on
Thanks Ame!
EDIT: Oh hey, was it ever confirmed that the new ZPA was going to be available to all 3 powers? (2 passives and the toggle)?
Substantially. Seriously, it has a short cooldown (give it a 90s cooldown, sure, it's not overpowered) and how is an offensive power that makes you able to leap into a clump of tough MVs and take no damage a minor effect?
Ego storm was a decently useful power back when it took three tics to hold people. Now it's silly.
/late
Because it is the only one of it's kind and it's literally saved my life dozens of times since I got it, because the hold is strong enough to give me a breather while I kill the mobs and can heal up in relative safety. My character is a squishy by the way.
Plus if you give it a 90 second cooldown you might as well call it an active offense that does damage, and nobody would use it with a high cooldown like that. Admit it Penta, that's just too much. The entire point of the power is the hold. Nerf or take it away, and the power becomes bland.
This is yet another power that is FINE in PVE and a "QQ" in PVP. I really really wish the devs would stop letting PVP dictate what gets nerfed.
No, it's really still an overpowered crutch in PvE.
PvP just highlights how OP it is.
I have it on my telepath, out of 28 characters he's the only one who has it, and I have a lot of squishies, and even he barely uses it. It's not needed in it's current form for PvE content even for squishies.
This is yet another power that is FINE in PVE and a "QQ" in PVP. I really really wish the devs would stop letting PVP dictate what gets nerfed.
No. It's absurd in PvE. Especially when the mobs use it on you.
I really wish players would stop pretending that PvP issues are not also PvE issues and pretending that somehow the devs have a long and stable history of giving two s***s about PvP in this game.
Because it is the only one of it's kind and it's literally saved my life dozens of times since I got it, because the hold is strong enough to give me a breather while I kill the mobs and can heal up in relative safety. My character is a squishy by the way.
Well, first of all, learn to manage your pulls; you shouldn't need ego storm to save you. Other than that, the primary issues with ego storm are that it (a) does damage, and (b) doesn't break when the held critter is damaged.
Question: Why does Ego Form provide a percentage increase to physical damage?
Does that mean all your powers will have extra physical damage or does it mean only powers with physical damage get the increase?
Basically, this:
Ego Weaponry does Ego Damage. With Ego Form, i'll increase my ego damage by a percentage, but where does the increase in physical damage come in place. Will my Ego Weaponry do ego damage AND physical?
Because it is the only one of it's kind and it's literally saved my life dozens of times since I got it, because the hold is strong enough to give me a breather while I kill the mobs and can heal up in relative safety. My character is a squishy by the way.
Plus if you give it a 90 second cooldown you might as well call it an active offense that does damage, and nobody would use it with a high cooldown like that. Admit it Penta, that's just too much. The entire point of the power is the hold. Nerf or take it away, and the power becomes bland.
This is yet another power that is FINE in PVE and a "QQ" in PVP. I really really wish the devs would stop letting PVP dictate what gets nerfed.
No, it's ridiculously overpowered. But a lot of that's the way the hold mechanics work post-F2P.
If they reverted it back to the way it worked prior to F2P, that'd fix the PvP issues while still leaving it ridiculously overpowered for PvE. Which I'd be fine with, as that's the best we're gonna get.
Question: Why does Ego Form provide a percentage increase to physical damage?
Does that mean all your powers will have extra physical damage or does it mean only powers with physical damage get the increase?
Basically, this:
Ego Weaponry does Ego Damage. With Ego Form, i'll increase my ego damage by a percentage, but where does the increase in physical damage come in place. Will my Ego Weaponry do ego damage AND physical?
It's like half an energy form for physical damage, for stuff like TK Maelstrom.
So, going by what your saying, they added that increase to physical damage for ONE power? (TK Maelstorm is the only one that does Physical damage)
That really doesn't make much sense.
I think Telekinesis the power still does physical damage. TK Maelstrom is an odd one since it deals both Ego and Crushing damage. That means half of it gets the full bonus and the other half gets the smaller bonus. The other thing is that Force framework, which is full of ranged crushing (read: physical) damage, is well... more telekinetic than the actual Telekinesis framework, which is more loaded with psycho-genetic swords than anything else. That aside, you can also construe it as your character's telekinetic ability to manipulate physical objects being utilized to aid their physical attacks. For example, I can lift a telephone pole and fling it at something with my mind. Why can't I make use of that same force to make my sword swing hit harder?
The added percentage increase to crushing damage has little place in the actual Framework, especially if it's just for one power. If they have such a hard time with TK Maelstorm, then focus on fixing it instead of adding a bandaid fix on Ego Form.
As for the synergy with Force, you're really only gimping yourself since you get a very, very small amount of increased damage added to your force attacks. You're much better off picking one or the other. Now, for you theme people, you probably don't care about gimping yourself. However, for people like me, this option is non-existent. It just makes your character overall weaker.
Also, I was under the impression that there was at least a clear difference between ID Mastery and Ego Form, ID Mastery being more focused on Blades and Ego Form focused on purely ranged.
Lets say for example you wanted the long awaited hybrid blades/ranged TK character. Why even take ID Mastery when you can take Ego Form that increases ALL, yes folks, ALL of your Ego damage. No point in taking ID Mastery.
Lets compare the two with my example character:
Dex: 241
Ego: 233
Rank 3 ID Mastery:
73% increase Paranormal melee damage
35% increase to other Paranormal damage
14% cost reduction
19% damage resistance
So, basically what we have here is just a trade off between cost reduction and resistance, as that is the only clear difference. You either take higher cost reduction with ego form, or higher damage resistance with ID Mastery.
Now, some may say "But ID Mastery has the increase for ranged TK attacks!" Oh really? Then why don't you just take Ego Form and get 72% increase to BOTH melee and ranged TK attacks? The only thing that says this is a melee focused passive is the higher damage resistance. I was honestly expecting more, and feel let down.
If anyone would like to chime in and give me an argument for ID Mastery, i'd love to discuss it. So far I see no reason to take it over Ego Form unless you really want that 4% more damage resistance.
Edit: Please tell me the reason behind Ego Form having 50% increased paranormal damage at rank 1 and ID Mastery has 65% increase at rank 1?
- Melee Passive changes. The basic idea behind the new formula is that the melee passives will provide ~15% more of a damage boost than an equivalent "ranged" passive does. Obviously, the only real direct comparison currently in game will be Ego Form and Id Mastery.
The scaling of melee and non-melee passives was noted. The devs will patch it up soon. The new scaling does make the difference at R1 a bit wonky, but the devs said they will do work on that if need be.
The scaling of melee and non-melee passives was noted. The devs will patch it up soon. The new scaling does make the difference at R1 a bit wonky, but the devs said they will do work on that if need be.
Ah, my mistake then. I didn't read that one yet. Thank you for pointing it out for me.:)
I can't help it but I really want to know the purpose and reasoning behind TK Lance? The power is lackluster in damage and is a single target with a small AoE added to it I believe. The power is even counter-productive, consuming all stacks of Ego Leech which in turn lowers your damage. You're also rooted in place.
This power has no purpose and no advantages over other single target powers. It actually holds you back more than it helps you. I've already asked this before in another thread, but can you PLEASE change the consume portion of the power to grant you health when you consume stacks? I see no reason why the set couldn't have an attack that consumes stacks and heals you per stack.
About last changes...PTS Update (7/7): FC.20.20110705.1
Telekinetic Maelstrom: This power now deals half its damage as Ego, and half as Crushing
Seriously... Why? actually there is nothing that could boost this with some sense. People could make a "force/Telekinetic" character that uses Kinetic Manipulation, it also fits the animation and the concept of a char, but actually it dont fits with the animation, not the concept, not the passivve, didnt get any damage buff, just doing half as ego and half as phisical... the only way you could boost it is with ego form or quarry, but it will still giving less damage. Why this nerf? why this change?
Ego Form: In addition to the bonus Paranormal damage this power grants, it now also grants half of that bonus to Physical damage.
Is not bad, but, i got the feeling you are trying to fit Telekinetic Maelstrom and Telekinesis (power) inside this framework that is all ego, except this two.
Actually, "half" boost to phisical damage will not justify, or fits, telekinesis and maelstro in a Ego build.... or this is my feeling. Seems they will work better with kinetik manipulation, and, they are all phisical, than this change.
Between, maybe they could have advantadges in a way that they fit with the framework instead of changing the passive cause they will still being outclassed by the others that got the full ego buff from the passive.
Maybe some kind of hold/stun/travel power removal to them (well travel removal works when you use an object over a target, supose it stills working with the new rework) or somekind of damage buff/debuff based on ego... this is something to discuss, but, actually, I think the changes done are not the best for this powers.
Comments
Thank you for always answering my questions! I really appreciate you taking the time to do so and thank you greatly!
If I could just ask two more questions (with justified reasons underneath each for asking), I'd be very happy:
1. Is there a chance that one of the TK blade moves (the swishy swirly one that I forget the name of!) could get some damage absorption
I did just that. With 255 DEX, 252 EGO, R3 Ego Form tooltip reports 75% buff for all paranormal, and R3 Id Master reports 74%.
Of course, in testing, Id really did do better in buffing the melee attacks, but looking at the difference, I suspect it's entirely within the margin of error since each of my tests ended with a sample size of 40 or so attacks that critical'd, and all I reported was the minimum and maximums that occurred.
The original goal of my test was going to be DPS of MA versus TK, but I gave up on that when it became obvious TK wasn't anywhere near energy efficient enough at the stat levels I used to spam unlimted fully charged attacks like I had with MA. At that point, I focused in on spike damage comparisons where TK did okay albeit with a few problems I detailed.
Well, that's the problem - they are using the same formulas. If you go compare rank 3 of those 2 powers with the same stats, you'll see a problem. Namely, Rank 3 of the melee forms will be slightly worse than Rank 3 of the energy forms. I'm looking at it.
Also worth mentioning - we have found a tooltip bug that is occurring sometimes, that causes the numbers in the tooltip of certain passives (I've seen it on Ego Form and Electric Form) to report as higher than they actually are - like reporting 88% when it is actually granting 56%. This doesn't appear to be happening on Live, and it is very inconsistent as to when it decides to start and stop happening. So far, I've noticed it most frequently when immediately logging in with a character. If I swap passives out, it fixes itself. This would most likely be why people were seeing higher damage buffs being reported from Ego Form, yet doing more damage with Id Mastery. Anyhow, until we get this resolved, just know that Ego Form uses the same formula for Paranormal damage as Fiery does for Elemental, etc. Id Mastery uses the same formula for Melee Ego that Unstoppable and WotW do.
Without any change in stats, he'd go from having 31.7% crit chance and 16.6% severity on live to 29.4% chance and 40.3% severity. To get back to ~31.7% crit chance again, he'd need either 27 more Dex (which would bring him up to 41.9% severity), or 72 Ego (which would bring him up to 58.4% severity).
Thanks, we'll get it fixed.
Telekinesis - this power is much much better than it used to be.. as in no one used it ever before.. its moved up to maybe a one in a million pick just for gimmicks... i feel like it could be so much more. The obvious problem with it is that there aren't all that many random objects in instances or the outside world to use effectively in combat. And when their are they usually get blown up by your teammates aoe powers.
I was chatting with some other friends i play with and discussing how this power could become more appealing. So here are a couple suggestions and i hope you take the time to consider them.
1 - Have the power draw a random object from... somewhere... more like conjure up an object to be thrown. The only reference i have for this is from the propel in the gravity set in CoH which would do something similar.
2 - Have the power tear off a piece of all or ground and be thrown at the target. This was suggested by a friend and i thought it would be totally plausible.
3 - Have the power not only call on nearby objects but NPC's as well.. throwing minions back into the face of their masters would be totally fun, and funny.
Well thats all i got for now.
In the tooltip for Ego blade powers, Ego Form will show as doing more damage than Id Mastery at level 3.
Also if you didnt see my other post the Rank scaling for Id Mastery is weird.
R1: 71%
R2: 74%
R3: 79%
Lol @ ~3% increase per rank.
i agree with you there. i've been trying to push the idea of giving a buff to tk shield adv to enhace defensive capabilities, but it seems like no one cares about a rather lackluster adv.
Summon Shadows + adv is another HoT. That heal scales on CON, and they do Dimensional damage.
And that one would be fairly thematic and even do the right kind of damage for an ego/id form toon.
Actually it just flat out scales to damage the pet does, not Con. If the pet does 200 damage thats 40 hp, if it does 100 its 20.
Thanks for the correction, I must have been thinking of the CON scaling from Shadow Form (which scales on total health, so I would have at least been in the neighborhood on that one:) )
Are there any individual powers that you see as having pvp potential?
It seems reasonable to me, since Id Mastery is supposed to be analogous to Unstoppable and WotW, neither of which are Energy Forms. Frankly, I don't get the whole Energy Form distinction. It seems to only matter to Skarn's Bane and Force Cascade, from what I can tell. And Incisive Wit, come to think of it, so maybe it is relevant here.
It mattered for Gigabolt too until recently.
Here's my take.
First, I haven't gotten around to testing the TK ranged powers yet. I plan to do that later today. But, from what I played with last build and the notes, I suspect TK Assault is still going to be a good T0 power and TK Lance is still going to blow chunks.
In PvP, one of the easier, and hence more popular, builds is the ebon ruin tank. The TK pass is going to destroy them. The number of paranormal damage resist toons in PvP is going to increase, making the ruin tank a lot harder to play, and hence, a lot less popular. I already have shadow toons that hunt and kill most ruin tanks with impunity, and this pass just puts more toys into that toybox.
In more general terms, the TK blade type attacks are really close in terms of melee in PvP. You'll notice my original test post for this build wasn't full of suggestions for big swings, just little tweaks (well, outside the Ego/Id slotted passive wonkiness that Ame is already on top of).
Ego Blade Frenzy with advantage is already evil in lower tier PvP. If the TK pass gives it damage comparable to say Sword Cyclone, it'll be just as popular in T4. Having an advantage that traps your target in melee range is just too good to pass up.
I think TK Assault is going to be a really popular PvP power, especially in lower tiers. It's comparable to Lightning Arc, but with a really fun advantage that gives players a really interesting choice. Either get a nasty single target attack or a really good AoE attack. And if the devs don't fix the animation before release, it'll just be evil because it'll be hard to figure out who's hitting you
I already have a toon on live that uses Ego Choke. She's one of those shadows I talked about that kills ruin tanks with impunity. So I'm pretty cool with this power outside of my dislike for the entire way resistance to crowd control works even if this toon happens to benefit from it. Well would benefit if I so choose...I use choke more as a finisher against people I know want to run, or as a defense when actually dangerous melee toons root me...ie melee squishies rather than tanks.
Unlike most of the rest of Champs Online world, the PvP arenas have plenty of stuff lying around which means PvP is one of the best places for the Telekinesis power without needing Tumerboy or whoever to go through adding stuff. Once Ame gets the Ego levels reset, I imagine we'll be seeing a lot more barrels flying through the air (which is going to make one of my SG mates into a very sad mudkipz)
TK Burst as a set-up power is already fine. It's the most reliable way to get ego leech stacks and has an advantage which will annoy people greatly, even after Ame gets it fixed.
TK Wave is another power that already gets used in PvP, albeit not that much. One of the best PvP'ers around, Jeshu, loves it.
Ego Blade Dash gives PvP melee players another option for their lunge. Nothing really special about this one, but then again, nothing wrong with it either.
TK Eruption and Maelstorm aren't really going to be that popular, but whatever. It's not like every power in the game has to work in PvP. In their cases, mediocre damage without any cool benefits. Force Eruption is a much better PvP choice that thematically feels like TK, but since it can be used while held, makes it a very good anti-melee power.
If you do fine with with TK in pvp now, then you will do fine with TK after the pass.
There are some cool new toys, and the toggle frees up the ability to use different stat combinations.
But dont automatically believe that the pass will allow you to faceroll everything.
QUIT PIDDLING ON TEH PHUNNEE!
Thx for the heads up.
Also building up Ego Leech and then wasting it with EBA when you can just as well spam EBB to do the same thing(dps) is also a thing to note.
Yea Ego Lance and EBA both both seem to overshadowed by other powers in the set. I realy wanted to like TK Lance too.:o
I guess Ame is ok with perma lock n load.
Quick note on the Id Mastery/melee passive formula issue:
So, without getting too into it, the math for the melee passives is just kinda wrong. It makes for high values of damage bonus when you are low rank and low Super Stat, but gets progressively less good as you increase rank and Super Stat value. At Rank 1, the melee passives are better than a Rank 1 equivalent Energy Form passive until you reach a combined total of ~900 Super Stats. At Rank 2, that number drops to a combined total of ~680 Super Stats, and at Rank 3, it happens at a combined total of ~500 Super Stats. And even before that point, at Rank 3, the melee passive is only providing a marginally better damage bonus than the Energy Form passives.
This is not what was intended. As such, I've replaced the formula for Id Mastery with a corrected formula, such that it will always be providing a higher damage increase to melee Ego damage than Ego Form does to all Ego damage. We'll be including that change in an upcoming PTS push, and doing some testing. This formula change will also affect WotW and Unstoppable. At Rank 1, the 3 melee passives will get slightly weakened, losing up to ~5% damage bonus if you have low Super Stat values. At Rank 3, with combined Super Stat values of ~300, it will go from 64% to 71%. With combined SS of ~600, it will go from providing a damage bonus of 77% to 100%.
Obviously, this fix/buff comes with the downside of a slightly weakened passive at Rank 1, and thus the passive is slightly weaker at lower levels. As soon as you increase it to Rank 2, it will go from being roughly the same as on Live to better as you gear up, and Rank 3 will always be better.
We're pretty happy with how the new formula feels, but if we run into issues with it being problematic for lower level players, we'll look at it further. We'll be looking forward to any feedback you have on this change once it hits the PTS.
YES. This will be awesome.
I hope not.
My TK blader has always used Ego Form, but will be switching to the new melee form and I don't want his look to change.
In which case, I'd be happy asking for either a new power OR for an advantage which reduces the damage done but gives damage absorption. Either of these would make me happy
I'd like that too if possible!
In which case, I'd be happy asking for a new power there to do what Eye Of The Storm does or an advantage to reduce the damage and give some defensive bonus
Thanks for the idea there. Unfortunately I'd much usually prefer to hit a HoT and leave it when using a squishier hero. (Don't get me wrong, being squishier won't stop me creating a new hero on live when these changes hit, but working around this would be goodly.) If not HoT can be created though, I imagine I will go with Empathic Healing.
The key bit there is I like to keep theme as much as possible. Theme is flexible to an extent, but I'd much rather have more moves to allow myself (and other theme-interested players) to stay within theme and not be overly weakened. (That doesn't mean always staying within a set, just within a hero concept.)
Perhaps another ZPA could fix this for all parties? :P
(As much as devs claim they hate these, I think they work well, except for the fact you can't get to the screen to select them if you don't have at least 1 advantage point.)
They also increase your retcon costs when they really shouldn't, since they're just a cosmetic effect, but the real reason is how they work under-the-hood and the amount of extra work it takes to create and maintain them.
But a comment i saw about it being very hard to include this ability into the tailor (seperate blade skins per power) made me think this might be possible
Oh well, at least it's commented on
Thanks Ame!
EDIT: Oh hey, was it ever confirmed that the new ZPA was going to be available to all 3 powers? (2 passives and the toggle)?
Because it is the only one of it's kind and it's literally saved my life dozens of times since I got it, because the hold is strong enough to give me a breather while I kill the mobs and can heal up in relative safety. My character is a squishy by the way.
Plus if you give it a 90 second cooldown you might as well call it an active offense that does damage, and nobody would use it with a high cooldown like that. Admit it Penta, that's just too much. The entire point of the power is the hold. Nerf or take it away, and the power becomes bland.
This is yet another power that is FINE in PVE and a "QQ" in PVP. I really really wish the devs would stop letting PVP dictate what gets nerfed.
PvP just highlights how OP it is.
I have it on my telepath, out of 28 characters he's the only one who has it, and I have a lot of squishies, and even he barely uses it. It's not needed in it's current form for PvE content even for squishies.
No. It's absurd in PvE. Especially when the mobs use it on you.
I really wish players would stop pretending that PvP issues are not also PvE issues and pretending that somehow the devs have a long and stable history of giving two s***s about PvP in this game.
Does that mean all your powers will have extra physical damage or does it mean only powers with physical damage get the increase?
Basically, this:
Ego Weaponry does Ego Damage. With Ego Form, i'll increase my ego damage by a percentage, but where does the increase in physical damage come in place. Will my Ego Weaponry do ego damage AND physical?
No, it's ridiculously overpowered. But a lot of that's the way the hold mechanics work post-F2P.
If they reverted it back to the way it worked prior to F2P, that'd fix the PvP issues while still leaving it ridiculously overpowered for PvE. Which I'd be fine with, as that's the best we're gonna get.
It's like half an energy form for physical damage, for stuff like TK Maelstrom.
So, going by what your saying, they added that increase to physical damage for ONE power? (TK Maelstorm is the only one that does Physical damage)
That really doesn't make much sense.
TK Maelstorm also still does full crushing damage, not partial Ego and partial Crushing. Devs missed it this patch?
I think Telekinesis the power still does physical damage. TK Maelstrom is an odd one since it deals both Ego and Crushing damage. That means half of it gets the full bonus and the other half gets the smaller bonus. The other thing is that Force framework, which is full of ranged crushing (read: physical) damage, is well... more telekinetic than the actual Telekinesis framework, which is more loaded with psycho-genetic swords than anything else. That aside, you can also construe it as your character's telekinetic ability to manipulate physical objects being utilized to aid their physical attacks. For example, I can lift a telephone pole and fling it at something with my mind. Why can't I make use of that same force to make my sword swing hit harder?
As for the synergy with Force, you're really only gimping yourself since you get a very, very small amount of increased damage added to your force attacks. You're much better off picking one or the other. Now, for you theme people, you probably don't care about gimping yourself. However, for people like me, this option is non-existent. It just makes your character overall weaker.
Also, I was under the impression that there was at least a clear difference between ID Mastery and Ego Form, ID Mastery being more focused on Blades and Ego Form focused on purely ranged.
Lets say for example you wanted the long awaited hybrid blades/ranged TK character. Why even take ID Mastery when you can take Ego Form that increases ALL, yes folks, ALL of your Ego damage. No point in taking ID Mastery.
Lets compare the two with my example character:
Dex: 241
Ego: 233
Rank 3 Ego Form:
72% increase to Paranormal damage
35% increase to physical
15% damage resistance
81% Ego resistance
18% cost reduction
Rank 3 ID Mastery:
73% increase Paranormal melee damage
35% increase to other Paranormal damage
14% cost reduction
19% damage resistance
So, basically what we have here is just a trade off between cost reduction and resistance, as that is the only clear difference. You either take higher cost reduction with ego form, or higher damage resistance with ID Mastery.
Now, some may say "But ID Mastery has the increase for ranged TK attacks!" Oh really? Then why don't you just take Ego Form and get 72% increase to BOTH melee and ranged TK attacks? The only thing that says this is a melee focused passive is the higher damage resistance. I was honestly expecting more, and feel let down.
If anyone would like to chime in and give me an argument for ID Mastery, i'd love to discuss it. So far I see no reason to take it over Ego Form unless you really want that 4% more damage resistance.
Edit: Please tell me the reason behind Ego Form having 50% increased paranormal damage at rank 1 and ID Mastery has 65% increase at rank 1?
The scaling of melee and non-melee passives was noted. The devs will patch it up soon. The new scaling does make the difference at R1 a bit wonky, but the devs said they will do work on that if need be.
Ah, my mistake then. I didn't read that one yet. Thank you for pointing it out for me.:)
This power has no purpose and no advantages over other single target powers. It actually holds you back more than it helps you. I've already asked this before in another thread, but can you PLEASE change the consume portion of the power to grant you health when you consume stacks? I see no reason why the set couldn't have an attack that consumes stacks and heals you per stack.