Enrage + Endorphin rush is pretty bad. "Stress tested" it on Elite lair mobs and just kept tapping Fault Line. Heals were scrolling, never-ending. Pretty sure there were heal crits mixed in, too. Not sure if that's intended.
BUG: Concentration does not gain stacks when using the Conflagration power. Tried via both being farther than 25ft as well as just maintaining the power.
Various other powers that should work do, however. Conflag just doesn't. I'm guessing because it's considered a pet and not whatever coding it's looking for.
Started a fresh character on the PTS. No gear, level 40, choosing SS and talents to give 120 Pre (primary SS) and 65 to Int and Ego (not really the best SS stats for the powers I was picking to putz around with, but I'm mostly just trying to give you numbers for Sentinal Aura and Medical Nanites anyways).
Since the tooltips for the two auras didn't seem to change with my spec choices, I'm not going to list those. Here's the numbers from the tooltips:
Medical Nanites Rank 3 in Hybrid Role: 338 HP / 3 sec to self, 151 HP / 3 sec to teammates
Medical Nanites Rank 3 in Support Role: 300 HP / 3 sec to self, 378 HP / 3 sec to teammates
Sentinal Aura Rank 3: 183 HP / 3 secs
And just for giggles...
Seraphim Rank 3: 89 HP / 3 seconds to all
Hm. Sentinal Aura's tooltip doesn't appear to change with Seraphim (which is supposed to give 25% bonus to all healing). Should that be?
Not all opinions are of equal merit, and ignorance is not a point of view.
If the enrage mechanic had a 3 second cooldown, it wouldn't be a problem.
Therefore, proccing it with Force Geyser is not a problem.
This doesn't mean there isn't a problem with the enrage mechanic.
But it does mean that the point you brought up is not an issue.
At all.
Well, non of you said is a problem, but for me, there is one if they are put together.
For me, it means ER becomes a potential advantage for every other knock attacks. Or it can be said as a player can therefore potentially gain an additional heal power which can be triggered when he trys to knock he's foes.
No other form's advantages can do or have such good value. So I say it is sick.
Okay I tried Unbreakable's Better you than me advantage along with Aggressor at rank 3 to see just how quickly I can stack enrage over one another. And to my surprise I couldn't stack squat didly. Either I did something wrong or it's not working.
Well, non of you said is a problem, but for me, there is one if they are put together.
For me, it means ER becomes a potential advantage for every other knock attacks. Or it can be said as a player can therefore potentially gain an additional heal power which can be triggered when he trys to knock he's foes.
No other form's advantages can do or have such good value. So I say it is sick.
Yes well, the game would be boring if everything was absolutely mechanically the same (bezzy balance).
There's a balance between standardization and monotony, and the devs want the game to be interesting, and for there to be interesting power choices with plenty of synergies for freeform players to build around and discover.
If the healing is too powerful, nerf it. But "no other power does that" is a crap argument for changing it to be just the same as everything else.
Sentry Aura provides max 6% resist for 3 point investment. It only provides 1/10 of AoRP (or even less).
The other 2 spec auras provide max 5% damage for 3 point investment. Both of them don't provide overall damage strength and have less than a half of Sentry Aura's influence.
From how they design above 3 auras, the sentinel aura should just provide about 40 healing per 3 seconds.
70% sounds a lot, but it's based on a terriblely overvalued base. I personally don't even think this nerf is enough.
Yeah, and there's a reason I don't really use those 3 auras, because they are useless compared to other Offensive/Defensive Spec Trees.
Seriously, when the average enemy can do 70 points a hit to a non-defensive character, and 3 enemies hitting you at once? So within 3 seconds they could do 1050 if they hit even 5 times.
(this isn't even counting any enemy above Basic, or any charged moves or maintains going on)
And me asking for 400 health a tick is too much?
If Cryptic wants to nerf it, then they should nerf it for the Higher End heal problems.
Like I've been saying.
How do you do this? Make the ranks set numbers rather than being influenced by Presence. That way everyone would have the same level at each rank like with the other 3 auras.
If the healing is too powerful, nerf it. But "no other power does that" is a crap argument for changing it to be just the same as everything else.
On this I actually agree believe it or not. The energy gain on defiance + the energy gain on enrage (if it is to be based on knocks) would be just as "OP".
That being said.. if you are going to take something out of bezzy balance, it should be done in a reasonable fashion.
I don't live in a bezzy bubble in which any of these work independently of the other. But you see what happens when they DON'T follow the base template. Things get very imbalanced very quickly.
Devs my suggestion to you is define how the ENTIRE buff mechanic works first. How ALL Toggle Powers work. Then differentiate from there.
Yeah, and there's a reason I don't really use those 3 auras, because they are useless compared to other Offensive/Defensive Spec Trees.
Seriously, when the average enemy can do 70 points a hit to a non-defensive character, and 3 enemies hitting you at once? So within 3 seconds they could do 1050 if they hit even 5 times.
(this isn't even counting any enemy above Basic, or any charged moves or maintains going on)
And me asking for 400 health a tick is too much?
It isn't.
This solution kinda screams "Pffft, coding diminishing returns is hard."
This solution kinda screams "Pffft, coding diminishing returns is hard."
Ditto for the aura stacking solution.
I agree again..
but I still don't think one aura WAY outperforming the other 3 is a good sign either.. so in that I disagree. Yes it should be possible, but frankly the system they set up.. the RULES they made.. sentinel aura simply shouldn't give health. It should give the POSSIBILITY of increased health.
Allright, so at about 178% Bonus Healing and in the Support Role I get Sentinel Aura ticks of 308 HP. That's a bit too low, IMO.
With Superstats of 262, 194, 185 and a Presence of 262 my Medical Nanites heals for 436 to self in Hybrid, 447 to allies in Support, which is also a tad to low in my not-so-humble opinion. The Med Nan amount may be okay if other effects were added to it. However, I think that Bonus Healing should have a larger impact on Sentinel Aura.
but I still don't think one aura WAY outperforming the other 3 is a good sign either.. so in that I disagree. Yes it should be possible, but frankly the system they set up.. the RULES they made.. sentinel aura simply shouldn't give health. It should give the POSSIBILITY of increased health.
Allright, so at about 178% Bonus Healing and in the Support Role I get Sentinel Aura ticks of 308 HP. That's a bit too low, IMO.
With Superstats of 262, 194, 185 and a Presence of 262 my Medical Nanites heals for 436 to self in Hybrid, 447 to allies in Support, which is also a tad to low in my not-so-humble opinion. The Med Nan amount may be okay if other effects were added to it. However, I think that Bonus Healing should have a larger impact on Sentinel Aura.
When I get dragged afk after aggroing two spawn groups in Lemuria and come back ten minutes later to a full health bar on a matching-level squishy healer, something's wrong.
Sentinel aura outperformed every other spec element by orders of magnitude. It made an (even bigger) mockery of an entire passive. It shouldn't make up the whole or even the majority of anyone's defense. If you're a squishy healer, heal thyself. Sentinel aura will just take some of the pressure off, like other Sentinel spec bits make heals fly a little harder or linger longer. Medical Nanites could probably still use another nudge upward, but Sentinel Aura shouldn't even be in its weight class.
When I get dragged afk after aggroing two spawn groups in Lemuria and come back ten minutes later to a full health bar on a matching-level squishy healer, something's wrong.
Utterly incorrect for a number of reasons.
Go in TT Elite and tell me that 300 HP is worth piddly squat. Prior to On Alert, henchmen in there could crit for about 1000 damage.
This is a classic Cryptic overnerf, all we're missing is Roper stopping in to tell us about how they're "steering the boat."
Slotted Auras don't stack? That is...bad. Please let me elaborate.
If two people happen to have the same slotted passive and they group, one will effectively have no slotted passive at all. If you duo (which I often do), that means you have one slotted passive for the both of you. Now, a freeform character might be able to take a second slotted passive to get around this (although no one with a non-aura passive has to do this), but archetypes are stuck.
This is not good. People with slotted auras want to group and help a group. That's the entire purpose behind the auras. This patch is trying to make them better and more attractive to players. But, any time someone happened to pick the same power as you and you group with them, one of you has no passive at all. And, again, these are people who WANT to group that get these. They're more likely to be grouped up together. And this patch is improving the group buffing ability of the auras, making them even more desirable to those who want to help a group. Unfortunately, this is going to cause many instances of them not only being less effective than they are on live right now, but being wholly and utterly ineffective. As far as I know, these will be the only powers in game that will be worthless if two people in a group both have it...and it's on a slot where you only get one power.
Diminishing returns? That's fair. At least you get something. Having a different effect when someone else has the same power? That's actually pretty cool, and could be fun. Your slotted passive doing absolutely nothing at all? Not good. Not fun. Not even logical considering they're for groups. For the moment, the two new characters I started upon seeing the new aura changes, are grinding to a very disappointing halt. I don't want to lose having a slotted passive when I group with some people.
Slotted Auras don't stack? That is...bad. Please let me elaborate.
If two people happen to have the same slotted passive and they group, one will effectively have no slotted passive at all. If you duo (which I often do), that means you have one slotted passive for the both of you. Now, a freeform character might be able to take a second slotted passive to get around this (although no one with a non-aura passive has to do this), but archetypes are stuck.
This is not good. People with slotted auras want to group and help a group. That's the entire purpose behind the auras. This patch is trying to make them better and more attractive to players. But, any time someone happened to pick the same power as you and you group with them, one of you has no passive at all. And, again, these are people who WANT to group that get these. They're more likely to be grouped up together. And this patch is improving the group buffing ability of the auras, making them even more desirable to those who want to help a group. Unfortunately, this is going to cause many instances of them not only being less effective than they are on live right now, but being wholly and utterly ineffective. As far as I know, these will be the only powers in game that will be worthless if two people in a group both have it...and it's on a slot where you only get one power.
Diminishing returns? That's fair. At least you get something. Having a different effect when someone else has the same power? That's actually pretty cool, and could be fun. Your slotted passive doing absolutely nothing at all? Not good. Not fun. Not even logical considering they're for groups. For the moment, the two new characters I started upon seeing the new aura changes, are grinding to a very disappointing halt. I don't want to lose having a slotted passive when I group with some people.
As the meme would say, "I am disappoint."
I think he's actually just talking about the individual buffs within the slotted aura. Each attribute of the aura will be compared with the better of the two trumping the like-other. So this would benefit Teaming to have each person have a different aura in this case, while those with the same aura/same role won't be affected by this. Are you requesting that they stack with diminishing returns instead?...you know what..nevermind...even if I understood/missunderstood..it's not a conversation I want to get into..carry on.
With natural diminishing returns in play, the only aura I can see any problems actually arising from stacking is AoPM, which is problematic even in an individual instance with the omnicompetence effect.
Amusingly, AoPM might just be the only one that can actually stack benefits in this system, if the help-other component of the guy with the lesser aura overwrites the help-self component of the other guy, buffing his help-other even more.
Feedbacks!
Coming soon, nothing! Archetypes are way too messed up to quickly add even one toggle to each to.
Primal Aura:
On the money perfectly
Ebon Aura:
Personal effects are right on
Team effects in both modes need more of a buff or a side effect added like damage penetration
Arcane Aura:
Looks good but still needs to benefit Maintains / Combos as well as Charges. Faster tick rate for maintains and quicker activations on combos would do fine if possible
Radiant Aura:
Numbers look right
Medical Nanites:
Great! Still might need threat reduction but havent been able to test that on a team on pts so no idea. Still wish the fx would be up in combat not just once on zoning / turning on
Focus:
Should be Str OR Dex which ever is higher
Enrage:
Fine to me but endorphin rush using medical nanites fx is kinda weird and distracting, also massively needs a cooldown timer of 1 second on adv or aoes break it badly
Aspects (all):
Um... are these going to get reworked or turned into actives? Without enrage these things are totally useless.
Mental Discipline:
Could use a MINOR damage boost now or even just a severity boost per stack
IDF:
Needs Energy Penalty removed completely, not having any energy gains on the toggle is punishment enough. Could really use better scaling per rank
Manipulator:
Great, except the mez on Legends is WAY too short, 1/100th is pointless, atleast 1/10th lets you even see you succeeded in holding even if its going to pop instantly thanks to damage. There is also no mention on tool tip or anywhere that it also increases mez duration. Also think its just patch note error but under energy gain you list Rec not Int
Concentration:
Great if used beyond 25 feet, painful if not but then again I'm fine with promoting keeping range at range so it's fine by me. Strangely Rebuke isnt working with this at all though, might be a bug on heal / hurt powers?
Compassion:
I like it but wouldn't mind seeing the timer bumped up to 30 or so on the stacks as sometimes you just get no real times to heal as its either 'heal 50 hp to refresh stack, or hurt guy for 2k damage' ... sorta a crappy choice. Odd as it might sound, is it possible to make it give stacks if you and your team (not pets / npcs) are about 90% hp it gives a stack every few seconds? Also the self heal aspect doesn't seem to work at all unless you are hurt but healing a fully healed friend does which is nice but soloing would be nice to heal ones self and get it to count
Power Armor:
Haven't tested it other then to say Fire All Weapons needs more weapons, maybe make an advantage to turn it1/3rd particle, 1/3rd crush and 1/3rd pierce and add missiles / minigun / shoulder launcher to the mix fx wise for more weapons? Also eye beams needs to be included in base laser fx, it does take up head slot after all.
Also Life Drain is acting very.... weird... with skill trees, about half work completely properly, the other half either dont work at all or work BACKWARDS and buff the enemy instead.
Go in TT Elite and tell me that 300 HP is worth piddly squat. Prior to On Alert, henchmen in there could crit for about 1000 damage.
This is a classic Cryptic overnerf, all we're missing is Roper stopping in to tell us about how they're "steering the boat."
It's worth a fraction of an active power activation, which is about where the rest of the spec system is pegged, except for ridiculous overperformers like old!Sentinel Aura and that one in the Int tree that brings any power in the game off cooldown in 17 Energy Builder ticks.
It's 3 spec points. Look at the equivalent effect on your character 3 spec points have, placed anywhere else. Take the pseudo-regen Quick Healing in the Con tree, for example.
Moving a L25 character over to Test with CON/Dex/Int 101/87/83 and Presence 10, in Tank stance, 3 points in Quick Healing gets a 25 healing every 3 seconds (unlike Sentinel Aura, it seems to be unaffected by stance or Bonus Healing). 3 points in Sentinel Aura gets, applied to each member of the team, 55 points. Even solo, Sentinel provides 30 more points of healing in its nerfed form in healing-unfavorable conditions.
For a more direct comparison, let's look within the tree. On this character that was never meant to heal, switching to support stance. Buying two points in Sentinel Aura and 2 points in Eternal Spring, and take R3 Psionic Heal for an extreme example. Sentinel Aura is providing 70 HP every 3 seconds to up to 5 (in the future, up to 10) people with no energy expenditure and no attention. Assuming a critical hit on Psionic Healing for 2822 (base 1881, 50% crit severity), the 20% to be doled out over six seconds* is 564.4, or 282.2 over three seconds, to a single target. While in a five-character group, Sentinel aura passed out 350 HP in those three seconds. While Sentinel aura is always on, for Eternal Spring to come into play at that magnitude, it had to follow off a skill that cost 3.5 seconds of wind-up time, 58 energy, a power pick, 4 advantage points, and a chance-based event. Making that chance-based event come more reliably would itself involve spending even more spec points and other resources.
Sentinel Aura should never have been released in its Live form. It shouldn't ever have done anything more than give a little extra over time, providing a little breathing room and pasting over sudden SQUIRREL! moments from NPCs that were paying attention to someone else. Its current form seems to live in that space, and if it's 'too weak' then a lot of options need even more help.
*I don't know if the HoT from Eternal spring is 20% of the base value or 20% of the critical value; I chose to assume the critical value.
Sentry Aura provides max 6% resist for 3 point investment. It only provides 1/10 of AoRP (or even less).
The other 2 spec auras provide max 5% damage for 3 point investment. Both of them don't provide overall damage strength and have less than a half of Sentry Aura's influence.
From how they design above 3 auras, the sentinel aura should just provide about 40 healing per 3 seconds.
70% sounds a lot, but it's based on a terriblely overvalued base. I personally don't even think this nerf is enough.
Very Sane and very good analysis here. People had been suggesting that Sentinel and MN swapped places and this is a strange way to do it (I would have nerfed the scaling harsher instead and took the raws down a bit too, but this is the right move and arguably not aggressive enough, for much the same reasons the quoted poster listed.
It's okay, it'll mainly be used by tanks. They're supposed to be unkillable.
Gotta make sure the supports die, though. It makes the tanks look better when Staff Chick gets offed and they get all ragey.
Come on now.. none of these changes are going to kill support. Don't be hyperbolic like this dude..you should know better. You are better than this. Cite specifics and don't go 'woe is me'. I remember the Dr. Sage who used to be easily the most prepared person in a discussion about mechanics and not the angry reactionary. Make posts like the first one I quoted, and not like the one you made that I just quoted here.
Keep in mind that AoRP was and still is a force multiplier for shield effects so saying 'AoPM is the only aura that buffs them' is disingenuous. Less raw shielding yes, but each shield means more because of the damage reduction. Let's get real here.
This solution kinda screams "Pffft, coding diminishing returns is hard."
Ditto for the aura stacking solution.
Agreed. Somewhat short sighted when you know that supports get paired up all the time. Need to code in DR on this instead of exclusivity. I get the fear.. that raids will consist of 3 aopms, 2 aorps, 3 <other aura> and 2 tanks, but they need to do the hard work of figuring out the math on this and what they're comfortable with. We have no idea what future raids entail. Only they do. There's not much we can help them with here, except to say that making auras exclusive with lesser copies of themselves is probably a bad idea. A> I don't want to sort out who should swap to Hybrid for damage, and B> I don't want a SMASH full of 5 supports to fail because they all happen to have the same passive.
Regarding Endorphin Rush:
Considering their change to BCR and RR, I'm pretty sure that Endorphin Rush not having an ICD is an oversight. There's a multitude of posts in this thread already attesting the crazy factor. Some of it might be bugs, but having an ICD would fix all of that in one fell swoop.
The only problem I see with the Sentinel aura changes is it seems to be considered totally separate from all other healing.
You can only improve it by raw stats. Any other healing increase has no effect. It seems to behave more like bubbles then a healing power. Not honestly sure if that is intended or not.
None of the other spec heals are improved by anything other than raw stats, although none of the other spec heals are support, so you might have a case for +heal% to improve it.
Bug
Concentration still bugged on many ranged attacks. Have Confirmed Sniper Rifle so far. Sniper Rifle also apparently allows stacks of concentration to -fall off- when it's the only attack made, even if you otherwise have Rank 3. Others have spoken about Orbital Cannon and Conflag, but I haven't tested those.
Maintains stack concentration per tick. In the case of power beam, that's 7 stacks in 0.7 seconds at concentration rank 1. tested on micro munitions and Power Beam.
edit: Tested. No ICD on Concentration. If this is intended, stacking it will be very easy. I recommend ranking an AO instead. It's not even a comparison here.
Enrage will 'overload' and drop all of its stacks when channeling Vicious Cyclone Rank 2 with Vortex Technique. I am testing this with Enrage Rank 3. Maintaining it will stack to 8 but after a few more channels of the ability, three or so in my testing, it will drop all the stacks of Enrage completely.
so regen got a buff... but wasn't changed from having to block to gain more? :rolleyes:
medical nanites... 30% in hybrid, 150% in support... yet hellhound's numbers show differently. pretty sure that 436-447 isn't a 120% difference(unless it was a typo).
all forms should have internal cooldown.
was the scaling on concentration fixed? for comparisation:
489 str was giving me(after the changes) 19% to melee and 9.7% to ranged on enraged.
what does 489 int/ego give me on contcentration? (numbers should be the same), if it's not the same then it's not worth it...
Agreed. Somewhat short sighted when you know that supports get paired up all the time. Need to code in DR on this instead of exclusivity.
Also agreed, and with the stronger caveat that the best instance of the same aura passive from an ally should affect the caster at full strength (and then diminish in returns for each further, additional copy affecting them). Specialization Auras should diminish 'normally.'
I still think that Sentinel Aura should be a %heal/shield received buff. If for some reason, of which I cannot fathom, this is undesirable, I am in agreement with Felivia and Terlisha that the 70% nerf is probably not enough -- although again, it should always stack.
It's okay, it'll mainly be used by tanks. They're supposed to be unkillable.
Gotta make sure the supports die, though. It makes the tanks look better when Staff Chick gets offed and they get all ragey.
This is exactly how I feel about the new Enrage + Endorphin goodness vs. Sentinel Aura nerf issue.
And also agree with Roadwulf. The newly nerfed Sentinel Aura is P.O.I.N.T.L.E.S.S.
No, its not that I loved having an OP spec or that I didn't mind that it was OP. Its that the amount of healing it would give with a freaking 70% nerf makes it a completely POINTLESS spec to have. Haters can hate Sentinel Aura all they want but it doesnt change the reality that a minuscule healing pulse of less than 200 HP per 3 sec on a lv 40 toon is going to do next to nothing, and there's no point in having it like that. Where are the good buff to healing power specs so I can take those instead?
But pumping up tanks more than they already are is always good
PS: And apologize for not reading 100% the whole thread, but I fell asleep early last night and when I woke up and checked it again it had exploded by over a dozen pages and it was too much to read
Comments
It's okay, it'll mainly be used by tanks. They're supposed to be unkillable.
Gotta make sure the supports die, though. It makes the tanks look better when Staff Chick gets offed and they get all ragey.
Every build should die.
~JayBezz
Quoting yourself is definitely the first sign of narcissism
Various other powers that should work do, however. Conflag just doesn't. I'm guessing because it's considered a pet and not whatever coding it's looking for.
You completely forget melee dpsers. And, if its healing is that crazy, then everyone will want to use it.
The easiest way:
Force Geyser + Enrage = Unlimited heal
Force Geyser + Enrage + MSA = unlimited heal + unlimited energy.
Then we can simply cancel all other forms.
Force Geyser has a cooldown.
The healing on this new ability is only problematic because there is *no* cooldown on it.
3 second, fast enough to trigger next enraged and the heal.
Since the tooltips for the two auras didn't seem to change with my spec choices, I'm not going to list those. Here's the numbers from the tooltips:
Medical Nanites Rank 3 in Hybrid Role: 338 HP / 3 sec to self, 151 HP / 3 sec to teammates
Medical Nanites Rank 3 in Support Role: 300 HP / 3 sec to self, 378 HP / 3 sec to teammates
Sentinal Aura Rank 3: 183 HP / 3 secs
And just for giggles...
Seraphim Rank 3: 89 HP / 3 seconds to all
Hm. Sentinal Aura's tooltip doesn't appear to change with Seraphim (which is supposed to give 25% bonus to all healing). Should that be?
You are missing the point, as usual.
we always view things from different directions.
Why does this Toggle Form gain health instead of gaining energy?
Leaving Bezzy Balance makes for imbalances.. some acceptable, some not.. this imbalance is unacceptable so i suggest just going back to bezzy balance.
Not all opinions are of equal merit, and ignorance is not a point of view.
If the enrage mechanic had a 3 second cooldown, it wouldn't be a problem.
Therefore, proccing it with Force Geyser is not a problem.
This doesn't mean there isn't a problem with the enrage mechanic.
But it does mean that the point you brought up is not an issue.
At all.
Because the devs wanted something different, and apparently they don't care about bezzy balance.
Well, non of you said is a problem, but for me, there is one if they are put together.
For me, it means ER becomes a potential advantage for every other knock attacks. Or it can be said as a player can therefore potentially gain an additional heal power which can be triggered when he trys to knock he's foes.
No other form's advantages can do or have such good value. So I say it is sick.
Okay I tried Unbreakable's Better you than me advantage along with Aggressor at rank 3 to see just how quickly I can stack enrage over one another. And to my surprise I couldn't stack squat didly. Either I did something wrong or it's not working.
Yes well, the game would be boring if everything was absolutely mechanically the same (bezzy balance).
There's a balance between standardization and monotony, and the devs want the game to be interesting, and for there to be interesting power choices with plenty of synergies for freeform players to build around and discover.
If the healing is too powerful, nerf it. But "no other power does that" is a crap argument for changing it to be just the same as everything else.
Yeah, and there's a reason I don't really use those 3 auras, because they are useless compared to other Offensive/Defensive Spec Trees.
Seriously, when the average enemy can do 70 points a hit to a non-defensive character, and 3 enemies hitting you at once? So within 3 seconds they could do 1050 if they hit even 5 times.
(this isn't even counting any enemy above Basic, or any charged moves or maintains going on)
And me asking for 400 health a tick is too much?
If Cryptic wants to nerf it, then they should nerf it for the Higher End heal problems.
Like I've been saying.
How do you do this? Make the ranks set numbers rather than being influenced by Presence. That way everyone would have the same level at each rank like with the other 3 auras.
On this I actually agree believe it or not. The energy gain on defiance + the energy gain on enrage (if it is to be based on knocks) would be just as "OP".
That being said.. if you are going to take something out of bezzy balance, it should be done in a reasonable fashion.
I don't live in a bezzy bubble in which any of these work independently of the other. But you see what happens when they DON'T follow the base template. Things get very imbalanced very quickly.
Devs my suggestion to you is define how the ENTIRE buff mechanic works first. How ALL Toggle Powers work. Then differentiate from there.
Hate it or love it.. Bezzy Balance.
It isn't.
This solution kinda screams "Pffft, coding diminishing returns is hard."
Ditto for the aura stacking solution.
I agree again..
but I still don't think one aura WAY outperforming the other 3 is a good sign either.. so in that I disagree. Yes it should be possible, but frankly the system they set up.. the RULES they made.. sentinel aura simply shouldn't give health. It should give the POSSIBILITY of increased health.
With Superstats of 262, 194, 185 and a Presence of 262 my Medical Nanites heals for 436 to self in Hybrid, 447 to allies in Support, which is also a tad to low in my not-so-humble opinion. The Med Nan amount may be okay if other effects were added to it. However, I think that Bonus Healing should have a larger impact on Sentinel Aura.
Yeah.
No. It can give whatever they want it to.
When I get dragged afk after aggroing two spawn groups in Lemuria and come back ten minutes later to a full health bar on a matching-level squishy healer, something's wrong.
Sentinel aura outperformed every other spec element by orders of magnitude. It made an (even bigger) mockery of an entire passive. It shouldn't make up the whole or even the majority of anyone's defense. If you're a squishy healer, heal thyself. Sentinel aura will just take some of the pressure off, like other Sentinel spec bits make heals fly a little harder or linger longer. Medical Nanites could probably still use another nudge upward, but Sentinel Aura shouldn't even be in its weight class.
Utterly incorrect for a number of reasons.
Go in TT Elite and tell me that 300 HP is worth piddly squat. Prior to On Alert, henchmen in there could crit for about 1000 damage.
This is a classic Cryptic overnerf, all we're missing is Roper stopping in to tell us about how they're "steering the boat."
To be fair to those who agree with the nerf (myself included) many people warned them about leaving Sentinel Aura in the game in the first place.
You give a kid a piece of candy then heaven help you if you try to take it away for rotting their teeth.
If two people happen to have the same slotted passive and they group, one will effectively have no slotted passive at all. If you duo (which I often do), that means you have one slotted passive for the both of you. Now, a freeform character might be able to take a second slotted passive to get around this (although no one with a non-aura passive has to do this), but archetypes are stuck.
This is not good. People with slotted auras want to group and help a group. That's the entire purpose behind the auras. This patch is trying to make them better and more attractive to players. But, any time someone happened to pick the same power as you and you group with them, one of you has no passive at all. And, again, these are people who WANT to group that get these. They're more likely to be grouped up together. And this patch is improving the group buffing ability of the auras, making them even more desirable to those who want to help a group. Unfortunately, this is going to cause many instances of them not only being less effective than they are on live right now, but being wholly and utterly ineffective. As far as I know, these will be the only powers in game that will be worthless if two people in a group both have it...and it's on a slot where you only get one power.
Diminishing returns? That's fair. At least you get something. Having a different effect when someone else has the same power? That's actually pretty cool, and could be fun. Your slotted passive doing absolutely nothing at all? Not good. Not fun. Not even logical considering they're for groups. For the moment, the two new characters I started upon seeing the new aura changes, are grinding to a very disappointing halt. I don't want to lose having a slotted passive when I group with some people.
As the meme would say, "I am disappoint."
I think he's actually just talking about the individual buffs within the slotted aura. Each attribute of the aura will be compared with the better of the two trumping the like-other. So this would benefit Teaming to have each person have a different aura in this case, while those with the same aura/same role won't be affected by this. Are you requesting that they stack with diminishing returns instead?...you know what..nevermind...even if I understood/missunderstood..it's not a conversation I want to get into..carry on.
Oh good, someone else said it so I don't have to.
With natural diminishing returns in play, the only aura I can see any problems actually arising from stacking is AoPM, which is problematic even in an individual instance with the omnicompetence effect.
Amusingly, AoPM might just be the only one that can actually stack benefits in this system, if the help-other component of the guy with the lesser aura overwrites the help-self component of the other guy, buffing his help-other even more.
That's what i get for sharing Missi's magical healing adventures.
Bleh...
Back to iniquity.
Coming soon, nothing! Archetypes are way too messed up to quickly add even one toggle to each to.
Primal Aura:
On the money perfectly
Ebon Aura:
Personal effects are right on
Team effects in both modes need more of a buff or a side effect added like damage penetration
Arcane Aura:
Looks good but still needs to benefit Maintains / Combos as well as Charges. Faster tick rate for maintains and quicker activations on combos would do fine if possible
Radiant Aura:
Numbers look right
Medical Nanites:
Great! Still might need threat reduction but havent been able to test that on a team on pts so no idea. Still wish the fx would be up in combat not just once on zoning / turning on
Focus:
Should be Str OR Dex which ever is higher
Enrage:
Fine to me but endorphin rush using medical nanites fx is kinda weird and distracting, also massively needs a cooldown timer of 1 second on adv or aoes break it badly
Aspects (all):
Um... are these going to get reworked or turned into actives? Without enrage these things are totally useless.
Mental Discipline:
Could use a MINOR damage boost now or even just a severity boost per stack
IDF:
Needs Energy Penalty removed completely, not having any energy gains on the toggle is punishment enough. Could really use better scaling per rank
Manipulator:
Great, except the mez on Legends is WAY too short, 1/100th is pointless, atleast 1/10th lets you even see you succeeded in holding even if its going to pop instantly thanks to damage. There is also no mention on tool tip or anywhere that it also increases mez duration. Also think its just patch note error but under energy gain you list Rec not Int
Concentration:
Great if used beyond 25 feet, painful if not but then again I'm fine with promoting keeping range at range so it's fine by me. Strangely Rebuke isnt working with this at all though, might be a bug on heal / hurt powers?
Compassion:
I like it but wouldn't mind seeing the timer bumped up to 30 or so on the stacks as sometimes you just get no real times to heal as its either 'heal 50 hp to refresh stack, or hurt guy for 2k damage' ... sorta a crappy choice. Odd as it might sound, is it possible to make it give stacks if you and your team (not pets / npcs) are about 90% hp it gives a stack every few seconds? Also the self heal aspect doesn't seem to work at all unless you are hurt but healing a fully healed friend does which is nice but soloing would be nice to heal ones self and get it to count
Power Armor:
Haven't tested it other then to say Fire All Weapons needs more weapons, maybe make an advantage to turn it1/3rd particle, 1/3rd crush and 1/3rd pierce and add missiles / minigun / shoulder launcher to the mix fx wise for more weapons? Also eye beams needs to be included in base laser fx, it does take up head slot after all.
Also Life Drain is acting very.... weird... with skill trees, about half work completely properly, the other half either dont work at all or work BACKWARDS and buff the enemy instead.
It's worth a fraction of an active power activation, which is about where the rest of the spec system is pegged, except for ridiculous overperformers like old!Sentinel Aura and that one in the Int tree that brings any power in the game off cooldown in 17 Energy Builder ticks.
It's 3 spec points. Look at the equivalent effect on your character 3 spec points have, placed anywhere else. Take the pseudo-regen Quick Healing in the Con tree, for example.
Moving a L25 character over to Test with CON/Dex/Int 101/87/83 and Presence 10, in Tank stance, 3 points in Quick Healing gets a 25 healing every 3 seconds (unlike Sentinel Aura, it seems to be unaffected by stance or Bonus Healing). 3 points in Sentinel Aura gets, applied to each member of the team, 55 points. Even solo, Sentinel provides 30 more points of healing in its nerfed form in healing-unfavorable conditions.
For a more direct comparison, let's look within the tree. On this character that was never meant to heal, switching to support stance. Buying two points in Sentinel Aura and 2 points in Eternal Spring, and take R3 Psionic Heal for an extreme example. Sentinel Aura is providing 70 HP every 3 seconds to up to 5 (in the future, up to 10) people with no energy expenditure and no attention. Assuming a critical hit on Psionic Healing for 2822 (base 1881, 50% crit severity), the 20% to be doled out over six seconds* is 564.4, or 282.2 over three seconds, to a single target. While in a five-character group, Sentinel aura passed out 350 HP in those three seconds. While Sentinel aura is always on, for Eternal Spring to come into play at that magnitude, it had to follow off a skill that cost 3.5 seconds of wind-up time, 58 energy, a power pick, 4 advantage points, and a chance-based event. Making that chance-based event come more reliably would itself involve spending even more spec points and other resources.
Sentinel Aura should never have been released in its Live form. It shouldn't ever have done anything more than give a little extra over time, providing a little breathing room and pasting over sudden SQUIRREL! moments from NPCs that were paying attention to someone else. Its current form seems to live in that space, and if it's 'too weak' then a lot of options need even more help.
*I don't know if the HoT from Eternal spring is 20% of the base value or 20% of the critical value; I chose to assume the critical value.
But, you balance versus baseline not top-end, else everything less than Elite level becomes trivial.
Elite is SUPPOSED to be a challenge, not a gimme.
The Endorphin Rush advantage on Enrage has no internal cooldown.
BUG: (?)
Achieving a critical with a knockback results in Endorphin Rush ticks also being criticals.
To replicate: execute a critical hit with a knockback power.
Very Sane and very good analysis here. People had been suggesting that Sentinel and MN swapped places and this is a strange way to do it (I would have nerfed the scaling harsher instead and took the raws down a bit too, but this is the right move and arguably not aggressive enough, for much the same reasons the quoted poster listed.
Come on now.. none of these changes are going to kill support. Don't be hyperbolic like this dude..you should know better. You are better than this. Cite specifics and don't go 'woe is me'. I remember the Dr. Sage who used to be easily the most prepared person in a discussion about mechanics and not the angry reactionary. Make posts like the first one I quoted, and not like the one you made that I just quoted here.
Keep in mind that AoRP was and still is a force multiplier for shield effects so saying 'AoPM is the only aura that buffs them' is disingenuous. Less raw shielding yes, but each shield means more because of the damage reduction. Let's get real here.
Agreed. Somewhat short sighted when you know that supports get paired up all the time. Need to code in DR on this instead of exclusivity. I get the fear.. that raids will consist of 3 aopms, 2 aorps, 3 <other aura> and 2 tanks, but they need to do the hard work of figuring out the math on this and what they're comfortable with. We have no idea what future raids entail. Only they do. There's not much we can help them with here, except to say that making auras exclusive with lesser copies of themselves is probably a bad idea. A> I don't want to sort out who should swap to Hybrid for damage, and B> I don't want a SMASH full of 5 supports to fail because they all happen to have the same passive.
Regarding Endorphin Rush:
Considering their change to BCR and RR, I'm pretty sure that Endorphin Rush not having an ICD is an oversight. There's a multitude of posts in this thread already attesting the crazy factor. Some of it might be bugs, but having an ICD would fix all of that in one fell swoop.
You can only improve it by raw stats. Any other healing increase has no effect. It seems to behave more like bubbles then a healing power. Not honestly sure if that is intended or not.
Bug
Concentration still bugged on many ranged attacks. Have Confirmed Sniper Rifle so far. Sniper Rifle also apparently allows stacks of concentration to -fall off- when it's the only attack made, even if you otherwise have Rank 3. Others have spoken about Orbital Cannon and Conflag, but I haven't tested those.
Hilarious to see, actually.
edit: Tested. No ICD on Concentration. If this is intended, stacking it will be very easy. I recommend ranking an AO instead. It's not even a comparison here.
Circle of Ebon Wrath causing even automatic stacks of Concentration to fall off if you idle on it.
medical nanites... 30% in hybrid, 150% in support... yet hellhound's numbers show differently. pretty sure that 436-447 isn't a 120% difference(unless it was a typo).
all forms should have internal cooldown.
was the scaling on concentration fixed? for comparisation:
489 str was giving me(after the changes) 19% to melee and 9.7% to ranged on enraged.
what does 489 int/ego give me on contcentration? (numbers should be the same), if it's not the same then it's not worth it...
Lost me here. What about regen and blocking?
Erm .. what ? Leave my Aspect of the Infernal alone please. After all they are multiplicative buffs, and not
just additive like focus and rage.
Also agreed, and with the stronger caveat that the best instance of the same aura passive from an ally should affect the caster at full strength (and then diminish in returns for each further, additional copy affecting them). Specialization Auras should diminish 'normally.'
I still think that Sentinel Aura should be a %heal/shield received buff. If for some reason, of which I cannot fathom, this is undesirable, I am in agreement with Felivia and Terlisha that the 70% nerf is probably not enough -- although again, it should always stack.
This is exactly how I feel about the new Enrage + Endorphin goodness vs. Sentinel Aura nerf issue.
And also agree with Roadwulf. The newly nerfed Sentinel Aura is P.O.I.N.T.L.E.S.S.
No, its not that I loved having an OP spec or that I didn't mind that it was OP. Its that the amount of healing it would give with a freaking 70% nerf makes it a completely POINTLESS spec to have. Haters can hate Sentinel Aura all they want but it doesnt change the reality that a minuscule healing pulse of less than 200 HP per 3 sec on a lv 40 toon is going to do next to nothing, and there's no point in having it like that. Where are the good buff to healing power specs so I can take those instead?
But pumping up tanks more than they already are is always good
PS: And apologize for not reading 100% the whole thread, but I fell asleep early last night and when I woke up and checked it again it had exploded by over a dozen pages and it was too much to read