Hey guys! More updates here! We have been working hard and listening to feedback and have some more patch notes to share with you for the next push so you guys can get a sneak peek. Keep the feedback coming!
Enrage:
-You now gain Energy when you gain a stack of Enraged! and you no longer gain hit points. This now has a 3 second cooldown.
-Advantage: Endorphin Rush: This advantage now has a flat 6 second duration (duration no longer scales on Defiance stacks) and the healing granted is modified by the number of stacks of enrage you have. The effectiveness at 8 stacks of Enraged! is roughly ~30% more effective than the previous base.
-Enrage should no longer drop off in the rare cases where you were at 8 stacks and used a power that would temporarily cause your stacks to exceed 10. It is properly capped at 8 stacks now.
Compassion:
-Now affects shield strength as well.
Concentration:
-You may only gain stacks once every 2 seconds now.
Inertial Dampening Field:
- Energy Penalty reduced to 10%.
- This power has had its shield amount increased by roughly ~19%
Aspect of the Bestial:
-This power now allows you to stack Enrage by applying bleeds to your foe. You do not need to own the Enrage power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Aspect of the Infernal:
-This power now allows you to stack Concentration by applying poisons to your foe. You do not need to own the Concentration power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Aspect of the Ethereal:
-This power has been removed.
Does Compassion effect Personal Force Field? Or is it only the shields you cast on other players?
Okay, this should probably be addressed at long last:
Context menu items MUST NOT DISAPPEAR as the target moves out of range. Grey them out, sure. But keep the menu consistent otherwise misclicks will continue to happen.
Also, I don't see anything happening to Mental DIscipline, and it's in the same camp as Aspect of the Infernal. It's in a hybrid ranged/melee framework and it buffs all powers in the framework equally.
Aspect of the Bestial doesn't work for Devour Essence because Infernal applies no bleed. Enrage itself doesn't work because Infernal doesn't knock unless you pick up the spinning chain attack, which I don't use. Aspect of the Infernal applying Concentration sucks for Devour Essence because for one thing, Devour Essence doesn't apply poison, and also because Devour Essence is melee and so gets half the bonus from Concentration. With this change, the only thing that will work properly with Devour Essence is Form of the Tempest, which sucks because I liked the graphics for Aspect of the Infernal and it kills my ranged damage. What was wrong with how it was where Infernal users were true hybrids? Devour Essence isn't as good at melee damage as other sets using Focus/Enrage and ranged Infernal damage isn't as good as dedicated ranged characters using Concentration.
There's no way to make this sound not-snarky, so please just take my word that that's not my intent.
But you have more than one attack. DE is a really, really, really good power. It doesn't need to do everything. Hitting one of your poison aoes occasionally in a boss fight to keep your stacks up is not game-breaking.
Also, I don't see anything happening to Mental DIscipline, and it's in the same camp as Aspect of the Infernal. It's in a hybrid ranged/melee framework and it buffs all powers in the framework equally.
Shhhhhhhh!
...crap, is Ego Leech going to become one of the 'no stacking without a Form' bit? There goes TK lance...
Hey guys! More updates here! We have been working hard and listening to feedback and have some more patch notes to share with you for the next push so you guys can get a sneak peek. Keep the feedback coming!
Enrage:
-You now gain Energy when you gain a stack of Enraged! and you no longer gain hit points. This now has a 3 second cooldown.
-Advantage: Endorphin Rush: This advantage now has a flat 6 second duration (duration no longer scales on Defiance stacks) and the healing granted is modified by the number of stacks of enrage you have. The effectiveness at 8 stacks of Enraged! is roughly ~30% more effective than the previous base.
-Enrage should no longer drop off in the rare cases where you were at 8 stacks and used a power that would temporarily cause your stacks to exceed 10. It is properly capped at 8 stacks now.
Compassion:
-Now affects shield strength as well.
Concentration:
-You may only gain stacks once every 2 seconds now.
Inertial Dampening Field:
- Energy Penalty reduced to 10%.
- This power has had its shield amount increased by roughly ~19%
Aspect of the Bestial:
-This power now allows you to stack Enrage by applying bleeds to your foe. You do not need to own the Enrage power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Aspect of the Infernal:
-This power now allows you to stack Concentration by applying poisons to your foe. You do not need to own the Concentration power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Aspect of the Ethereal:
-This power has been removed.
Will Aspects be losing that god awful aura then? Also will aspects grant energy per stack? Will aspects be gaining a special advantage like every other form out there? Also, what about Mental Discipline?
There's no way to make this sound not-snarky, so please just take my word that that's not my intent.
But you have more than one attack. DE is a really, really, really good power. It doesn't need to do everything. Hitting one of your poison aoes occasionally in a boss fight to keep your stacks up is not game-breaking.
I already use Epidemic for poisons and to get the extra damage buff stacked up. That's not the point. The point is that the new Aspect of the Infernal will only buff the damage of DE for half as much as it buffs the rest of the Infernal powers.
There's no way to make this sound not-snarky, so please just take my word that that's not my intent.
But you have more than one attack. DE is a really, really, really good power. It doesn't need to do everything. Hitting one of your poison aoes occasionally in a boss fight to keep your stacks up is not game-breaking.
Yeah, I dunno... it sounds like the core of that one build is DE, and that strikes me more as a bigger problem then the current changes to Infernal then anything else.
If DE is still that good that it can functionally replace other attacks in and of itself, should it be allowed to? Life Drain doesn't have the same problem (that I can tell), so maybe there's something up specifically with either Devour Essence, or it's interactions with Focus/Enrage/other melee buffs that's the issue here (and if so, maybe Life Drain will get the same focus going forward).
Again, not sure. Speculation on my part here, almost exclusively.
Hey guys! More updates here! We have been working hard and listening to feedback and have some more patch notes to share with you for the next push so you guys can get a sneak peek. Keep the feedback coming!
Enrage:
-You now gain Energy when you gain a stack of Enraged! and you no longer gain hit points. This now has a 3 second cooldown.
-Advantage: Endorphin Rush: This advantage now has a flat 6 second duration (duration no longer scales on Defiance stacks) and the healing granted is modified by the number of stacks of enrage you have. The effectiveness at 8 stacks of Enraged! is roughly ~30% more effective than the previous base.
-Enrage should no longer drop off in the rare cases where you were at 8 stacks and used a power that would temporarily cause your stacks to exceed 10. It is properly capped at 8 stacks now.
Compassion:
-Now affects shield strength as well.
Concentration:
-You may only gain stacks once every 2 seconds now.
Inertial Dampening Field:
- Energy Penalty reduced to 10%.
- This power has had its shield amount increased by roughly ~19%
Aspect of the Bestial:
-This power now allows you to stack Enrage by applying bleeds to your foe. You do not need to own the Enrage power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Aspect of the Infernal:
-This power now allows you to stack Concentration by applying poisons to your foe. You do not need to own the Concentration power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Aspect of the Ethereal:
-This power has been removed.
Okay I don't have too much of a problem from what I am reading here so far but I gotta say if enrage is gonna keep its flat HOT adv then I think it's only fair that at least some of the other toggles get their own type of individual adv to be on par with it . Just to show some variety in one's selection so they would have plenty to choose from .
Yeah, I dunno... it sounds like the core of that one build is DE, and that strikes me more as a bigger problem then the current changes to Infernal then anything else.
If DE is still that good that it can functionally replace other attacks in and of itself, should it be allowed to? Life Drain doesn't have the same problem (that I can tell), so maybe there's something up specifically with either Devour Essence, or it's interactions with Focus/Enrage/other melee buffs that's the issue here (and if so, maybe Life Drain will get the same focus going forward).
Again, not sure. Speculation on my part here, almost exclusively.
Devouring Essence is high damage, high innate threat, self-healing, and it can take Crippling Challenge (while other tanks are forced to spam crappy tier-zero attacks).
If it only gets half the bonus from AotI maybe that will save it from a nerf-train.
Concentration still does boost melee damage and I assume that Aspect of the Infernal will work on Toxic, not Ranged, so the damage loss to DE for a pure Infernal is theoretically quite small -- merely annoying. The greater problem is that Supernatural builds may not use Ego or Int as a primary stat, and their in-frame buff scales only on these things.
Attaching a range/role-dependent buff to Supernatural is very disappointing.
Devouring Essence is high damage, high innate threat, self-healing, and it can take Crippling Challenge (while other tanks are forced to spam crappy tier-zero attacks).
If it only gets half the bonus from AotI maybe that will save it from a nerf-train.
Maybe.
Well, they nerfed it once already (and that disappointed me a little, but it was still usable), but if it's still something people are using as their only go-to power for all the things and it feels bad for them to use other powers (or they do it as a 'tax' just to keep that one power at full effect), that sounds like an issue for me.
The ideal solution here would make it so that the power was still good (effective and fun), while not being the only power people want to use for the set. I know it's not (Defile, Epidemic, etc.), but it sounds like some people are still leaning very heavily on it that changes that benefit Infernal (which is primarily a ranged set) that don't somehow benefit Devour Essence in specific are causing some issues.
So wait, if Enrage is going to proc energy instead of health what advantage is there to taking a focus form over Enrage? Assuming the % buff is equal they will all pale in comparison. Enrage will give you health (w/adv), energy, and be easier/quicker to stack in most cases.
I liked that Enrage gave you extra health on each stack. I thought it made a nice contrast to the focus forms.
but it sounds like some people are still leaning very heavily on it that changes that benefit Infernal (which is primarily a ranged set) that don't somehow benefit Devour Essence in specific are causing some issues.
Which is part of why I find this so disappointing. I use DE in a Bestial Supernatural build with a STR super, so I come out of this relatively well. But if I wanted to add other 'special effects' Infernal moves to the set, like Venemous Breath or the chain attacks... well, the short answer is, I shouldn't. Similarly, an EGO-stacking Infernal Supernatural has very little to fear from this; their damage loss per tick will be fairly small (I think virtually unnoticeable against all the other changes). This hurts optimal choices much less than it hurts thematic ones, which seems like a really... annoying way to do things.
Which is part of why I find this so disappointing. I use DE in a Bestial Supernatural build with a STR super, so I come out of this relatively well. But if I wanted to add other 'special effects' Infernal moves to the set, like Venemous Breath or the chain attacks... well, the short answer is, I shouldn't. Similarly, an EGO-stacking Infernal Supernatural has very little to fear from this; their damage loss per tick will be fairly small (I think virtually unnoticeable against all the other changes). This hurts optimal choices much less than it hurts thematic ones, which seems like a really... annoying way to do things.
You find it somewhat disappointing that it's in a primarily ranged set, or that you'd be forced into a more hybrid choice that you'd be making anyway with other similar powers (Might Chains, Fire/Ice Breath, etc.) for that same general niche?
So wait, if Enrage is going to proc energy instead of health what advantage is there to taking a focus form over Enrage? Assuming the % buff is equal they will all pale in comparison. Enrage will give you health (w/adv), energy, and be easier/quicker to stack in most cases.
I liked that Enrage gave you extra health on each stack. I thought it made a nice contrast to the focus forms.
If you don't have CON, the return is pretty pathetic. If you don't have defiance, you don't get an HoT.
Well, they nerfed it once already (and that disappointed me a little, but it was still usable), but if it's still something people are using as their only go-to power for all the things and it feels bad for them to use other powers (or they do it as a 'tax' just to keep that one power at full effect), that sounds like an issue for me.
The ideal solution here would make it so that the power was still good (effective and fun), while not being the only power people want to use for the set. I know it's not (Defile, Epidemic, etc.), but it sounds like some people are still leaning very heavily on it that changes that benefit Infernal (which is primarily a ranged set) that don't somehow benefit Devour Essence in specific are causing some issues.
Or that's just my thoughts on it.
WTF are you even talking about? It's used as the single target DPS power. What set doesn't use ONE attack for single target DPS? Other than weaving something else in for the purposes of a proc, which a DE user uses Epidemic to get poisons up, Defile to put the toxic resistance poison, and Infernal Blast to refresh said poisons. Where you come up with "Devour Essence does everything" I have no idea. If they want to nerf it, then they can nerf the healing it does. Even on live with Aspect of the Infernal AND Enrage it doesn't do as much DPS as any of the Dragon attacks using focus, or a Ego Blades, or most properly built ranged characters. After this change it will be useless as a DPS ability and the only use for it will be for tanking.
After fiddling with the new figures on regeneration, I would love to see weaker heals every second, instead of the heal 3x as strong, every 3 seconds, like it is now. Just saying.
You find it somewhat disappointing that it's in a primarily ranged set, or that you'd be forced into a more hybrid choice that you'd be making anyway with other similar powers (Might Chains, Fire/Ice Breath, etc.) for that same general niche?
Not sure which here.
A less thematic choice. Pure builds come out of this quite well; tanks that use DE and Infernals that use Ego come out of it well. Infernals with mixed stats, or melee characters that pick up chain powers from Infernal, lose the most.
Compared to previous, where eg Aspect of the Infernal benefited the entire Infernal framework equally, and Aspect of the Bestial offered a greater partial benefit to a mixed Supernatural build (the core power did not, but the stacks did. Now the core power still doesn't, and the stacks only offer half).
A less thematic choice. Pure builds come out of this quite well; tanks that use DE and Infernals that use Ego come out of it well. Infernals with mixed stats, or melee characters that pick up chain powers from Infernal, lose the most.
Compared to previous, where eg Aspect of the Infernal benefited the entire Infernal framework equally, and Aspect of the Bestial offered a greater partial benefit to a mixed Supernatural build (the core power did not, but the stacks did. Now the core power still doesn't, and the stacks only offer half).
Might has suffered from this kind of problem for awhile. Mixed types of attacks and damage with very specific buffs that discourages anything out-of-framework. And it makes out ok despite it all.
A less thematic choice. Pure builds come out of this quite well; tanks that use DE and Infernals that use Ego come out of it well. Infernals with mixed stats, or melee characters that pick up chain powers from Infernal, lose the most.
Compared to previous, where eg Aspect of the Infernal benefited the entire Infernal framework equally, and Aspect of the Bestial offered a greater partial benefit to a mixed Supernatural build (the core power did not, but the stacks did. Now the core power still doesn't, and the stacks only offer half).
You're always going to be making compromises in effectiveness for theme in this case, so I don't see what the problem is unless we're speaking in a more general sense. Infernal is a primarily Ranged set, with one power that's an outlier (Devour Essence) for whatever reason (well, the big reason is that it did Toxic damage and when they broke the Supernatural set in half, they put it in Infernal Supernatural [where it had little synergy anyway] instead of Bestial [where it had the most synergy] for likely that one fact; when Supernatural was one big set, this was less of a problem).
The net change to Aspect of the Infernal is going to be a good thing for Infernal in a general sense, with Devour Essence as the only casualty of this. Even if they switched it to Bestial (despite the fact it does make more thematic sense in Infernal now that I think about it, being as you're ripping the soul-essence out of something more then mauling it's face apart), it still likely wouldn't be getting the full suite of benefits it could.
You can either make the thematic compromise (and you would anyway, if you want to get any powers that have the same general 'feel' as either the Chains or Breath-type) and deal with it, or give it up because going with a slightly more hybrid setup doesn't jive with you. That's something you should have worked out a while ago, if you ask me.
EDIT: All secondary to the fact that I don't see anything that suggests that AotI doesn't boost Toxic damage any longer, just that it allows you to stack Concentration... Gonna re-read that part and see if I missed it or something.
EDIT again: Yeah, I don't see anything in the wording to suggest it's losing anything realistically in allowing you to stack Concentration at all. I suppose we could use some clarification on that (and for Aspect of the Bestial as well).
Endorphin Rush no longer scales on Defiance. And are there really a lot of melee fighters that don't have CON?
Quite a few. I don't have CON and I tank quite effectively. Think you are a bit outdated there And if the HoT scales to enrage stacks that means it's nerfed then.
After fiddling with the new figures on regeneration, I would love to see weaker heals every second, instead of the heal 3x as strong, every 3 seconds, like it is now. Just saying.
Unless DEVs add new mechanisms have been suggested (such as resist, defense, some immune and etcs.), or increase its heal amount might be the easiest way to make it "look better".
EDIT: All secondary to the fact that I don't see anything that suggests that AotI doesn't boost Toxic damage any longer, just that it allows you to stack Concentration... Gonna re-read that part and see if I missed it or something.
That's correct, and why I made the point that pure Infernal only loses out if they aren't superstatting Ego or Intelligence. Which a pure Infernal will do; the only reason they wouldn't is because they want, say, Con or Recovery or Presence.
You're always going to be making compromises in effectiveness for theme in this case, so I don't see what the problem is unless we're speaking in a more general sense. ...You can either make the thematic compromise and deal with it, or give it up because going with a slightly more hybrid setup doesn't jive with you. That's something you should have worked out a while ago, if you ask me.
Sorities problem. What's 1% less effectiveness on something that was only 90% as effective anyway?
Might has suffered from this kind of problem for awhile. Mixed types of attacks and damage with very specific buffs that discourages anything out-of-framework. And it makes out ok despite it all.
As above. Plus, that's not strictly true -- all of its attacks I can think of are Crushing or Crushing combined with something else (like Sonic). Only the range type is mixed. In fact, this is true for the entire Brick framework.
I'm curious; have you tried a non-melee or mixed Brick with the Enrage changes?
That's correct, and why I made the point that pure Infernal only loses out if they aren't superstatting Ego or Intelligence. Which a pure Infernal will do; the only reason they wouldn't is because they want, say, Con or Recovery or Presence.
You already stated you weren't using a pure Infernal build to start with, so I don't see where the problem is necessarily here in specific. If you were only splashing Infernal attacks in here and there for an otherwise melee-focused build, then the only thing that's really changing here is you're getting an incremental bonus (a small bonus is still a bonus) on those splashed powers. It's not forcing you to change your build, necessarily. Unless you were using Enrage+Aspect, in which case, the change to AotI isn't the part that's doing the most damage, it's the Enrage changes.
I'm not using a 'pure' Infernal build (AoPM Support with Infernal as primary attacks, one of which is at-present Devour Essence; Something that I'd been finding hard to work into my build anyway), either, and I'm not specifically broken up about these changes as I can see the general benefit for people that are already using the primary set for it's intended purpose (ranged damage).
I think you may be working at this from the entirely wrong angle, is what I'm trying to get at (probably pretty terribly - it's late and I haven't had enough coffee today).
Sorities problem. What's 1% less effectiveness on something that was only 90% as effective anyway?
Repeat x90.
Mathmatically speaking, that's a logical fallacy in that reductions of 1% of a base number that changes with every reduction would never approach 0 (and would take functionally a long time to hit that point). I get what your point is, but your example kind of sucks and seems somewhat irrelevant.
If your main concern is theme, you should be willing to give up effectiveness. How much you're willing to give up is your business, and at junctures like this, you need to examine what is more important to you: The theme, or the effectiveness? Nobody can give you anything more then their subjective opinion on which is better, but it's still something that's kind of intregal to the build design concept in the first place. Something has to give.
EDIT:
m curious; have you tried a non-melee or mixed Brick with the Enrage changes?
Wish I could (seriously), because I have a number of characters that are infact directly affected by this (Force/Might and Might/PA). Thing is, though, I'm not even remotely bothered by this. I'm probably still going to use Enrage on both of them, and just deal with some of my 'thematic' flavor attacks doing less damage (provided I don't have enough superstats and other damage buffs to have even the half-ranged damage bonus hit me to the damage soft-cap anyway; Hooray Cryptic math).
It's not that big of a deal for me (not trying to belittle your feelings on it, just stating my opinion; It can certainly read like that, and I'm willing to take the blame for that. S'not you, it's just the way I talk/type).
There's no way the Aspects will keep their old mechanic while also stacking Concentration/Enrage. That would definitely make them overpowered.
Easy fix - since we know that they can affect how many stacks you get when you have certain powers as opposed to others (If Form=ENRAGE, max_ENRAGED=8; Else max_ENRAGED=1), then maybe they can cap the buffs you get from both Aspects at 4-6 (however much it takes to get the same approximate damage value) instead.
Numbers are just props pulled out of thin air - I trust Crush or Akinos to be less random (or, well, at least Akinos*).
(*DISCLAIMER: This subtext is facetious. You know I care, Crush-man!)
Easy fix - since we know that they can affect how many stacks you get when you have certain powers as opposed to others (If Form=ENRAGE, max_ENRAGED=8; Else max_ENRAGED=1), then maybe they can cap the buffs you get from both Aspects at 4-6 (however much it takes to get the same approximate damage value) instead.
Numbers are just props pulled out of thin air - I trust Crush or Akinos to be less random (or, well, at least Akinos*).
(*DISCLAIMER: This subtext is facetious. You know I care, Crush-man!)
Personally, I want Forms to become Aspects more.
Ex: assume 18% damage strength per Focus
Old: 18% x 8 My ideal: 64% + 8% x 8 or 74% + 12% x 5
Higher beginning, the same ending. Good for everyone.
Ex: assume 18% damage strength per Focus
Old: 18% x 8 My ideal: 64% + 8% x 8 or 74% + 12% x 5
Higher beginning, the same ending. Good for everyone.
Just my thought .... :P
Technically you can already get that by ranking up the form; Otherwise, there's no point to it (unlike ranking Aspects, which did have a base increase) outside of 'easier' bonus stacking.
Aspect of the Infernal:
-This power now allows you to stack Concentration by applying poisons to your foe. You do not need to own the Concentration power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
If that means you can stack concentration on top of the actual aspect .. fine .. but is that patch not in favour
to prevent stacking ?
Else .. please leave Aspect of Infernal how it is.
There's no way the Aspects will keep their old mechanic while also stacking Concentration/Enrage. That would definitely make them overpowered.
I think the tradeoff is more damage to specific damage types with the aspects, compared to the energy return with the other toggles. Seems pretty even to me.
Technically you can already get that by ranking up the form; Otherwise, there's no point to it (unlike ranking Aspects, which did have a base increase) outside of 'easier' bonus stacking.
Defiance works the same way.
Yes, I also want ranking does improve the bouns.
The other reason which makes me want to have some fixed bouns is that the stacking mechanisms are actually unfair between each other.
ex:
Form of the Swordsman -- player can gain 3 stacks at once with R1; and it has no cooldown.
Form of the Tempet -- player can maintain 8 stacks by using healing powers when they are out of battle
Form of the Tiger -- Also be able to grain 8 stacks before a battle
Form of the master -- Rely on dodge, and have a cooldown. Unable to maintain it out of battles.
BTW, this means I also think Defiance needs some fixed bouns rather than all reply on stacks.
That's correct, and why I made the point that pure Infernal only loses out if they aren't superstatting Ego or Intelligence. Which a pure Infernal will do; the only reason they wouldn't is because they want, say, Con or Recovery or Presence.
Hm ... a have a lot Infernals .. and none of them has superstated INT or EGO.
Hey guys! More updates here! We have been working hard and listening to feedback and have some more patch notes to share with you for the next push so you guys can get a sneak peek. Keep the feedback coming!
Enrage Changes, Snip.
Looking good now. This toggle is just about done in the oven, assuming all the bug kinks are worked out.
Concentration:
-You may only gain stacks once every 2 seconds now.
Absolutely needed. Taking 4 seconds to stack this to 8 without ranks was silly before. Will need some testing to make sure it's good.. the only possible further suggestion (outside of the bug fixes in the thread) would be to reduce the ICD to 1 second, but I'm not even sold on that. I'd suggest adding some sort of unique advantage here as well for the cherry on top. Assuming it's bug fixed, this is probably a release candidate change.
Inertial Dampening Field:
- Energy Penalty reduced to 10%.
- This power has had its shield amount increased by roughly ~19%
Need to test this, looks good though, although not sure it's good enough. The comparison toggle is Compassion here, and Compassion might arguably still be stronger.
Aspect of the Bestial:
-This power now allows you to stack Enrage by applying bleeds to your foe. You do not need to own the Enrage power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
Guessing this is in lieu of current wording, rather than in addition to it. If not, might be overpowered.
Aspect of the Infernal:
-This power now allows you to stack Concentration by applying poisons to your foe. You do not need to own the Concentration power for this to work.
-This power counts as a Form.
I think DE spammers are still going to take a MA form over this, but Concentration does expand the options a little bit here. If only Pestilence was so accommodating. ;-P Good change though, especially if toxic damage from poison stacks counts as ranged damage now.
Aspect of the Ethereal:
-This power has been removed.
Considering this power will be indistinguishable from new Enrage, if not weaker, I can see why you did this, but I suggest putting a ZPA into Aspect of the Infernal to retain the graphic for the nostalgic.
Re: Regeneration changes: Still needs more. Preferably one of the 7+ mitigation suggestions in this thread, (I suggest dramatically boosted Base HP + Increased Healing Received, but there's a host of great options) as well as the mutually agreed upon anti-anti heal component. Not holding my breath here as Regeneration is a defensive passive, and it's sort of an added bonus to have this power get -any- positive changes in a patch that seems outside it's purview.
Re: Medical Nanites: Good stuff. Hope it scales with the energy return on hot tick mechanic in the spec trees. We've seen what Sentinel Aura can do, now we know in advance that MN will be competitive assuming the numbers are right. Needs a bit of testing to make sure it's right, (and probably some +Healing Scaling for good measure).
Re: Sentinel Aura: Was overpowered before, still very strong even after taking a 70% nerf. I suggest reconfiguring the nerf a bit to revise the scaling downward and replace it with more flat healing though, but that's a minor quibble. This was just the right amount of audacity on a 'must have' spec that badly needed the nerf bat.
Re: AoAC changes: Can we get a confirmation of the Maintain tick reduction buff in addition to the already listed charge time decrease? This aura is almost done and needs just that extra oomph.
Re: AoPM changes: Possibly still a touch too much nerf here, but at least a manageable one.
Re: AoED changes: Some folks seem to want more, like a crit bonus or something. I'm mostly ambivalent.
Re: AoRP changes: Still overpowered, don't expect changes though. Re: Aura Stacking: Auras need to have diminishing returns on stacking. This is non-negotiable. Having 2 AoPM users in a party has happened to me far more times than I can count, and having one of us be effectively without a passive unless they recognize what's going on is a problem. Biggest issue right now with this patch.
I think DE spammers are still going to take a MA form over this, but Concentration does expand the options a little bit here. If only Pestilence was so accommodating. ;-P Good change though, especially if toxic damage from poison stacks counts as ranged damage now.
Aspect of Infernal has gotten much better compared to Form of the Tempest for DE after On Alert. I think the
main reason is, that it is multiplicative and now we also have the higher base damage from +Offense.
If i take an Invuln build with DE it was before like a crit did 1500 damage with FoTT and 1100 with Aspect,
but now they both do something around 1700. At least with not stacking DEX over 300 or whatever.
This specialization has had its healing reduced by 70%.
That will kill my petmaster pet and make me always recast it, in live i cant pvp and only can pve good and i think that change will make my build in troubles.
If your pet build was relying on Sentinel Aura to keep your pets up, you have bigger problems than the nerf to Sentinel Aura.
Might I suggest the commander tree? Using a spec that pretty much everyone said was going to be nerfed)and one that is still, despite a huge nerf, arguably overpowered in comparison to Sentry Aura) in your build in a non-optimal way doesn't mean that the power as a whole is fine, or that you should stop using it. It's still effectively BCR + RR advantage for all your pets, you, and your entire team to boot.
Even then, Commander and Sentinel are probably two of the best options for you, even after these nerfs.
If that means you can stack concentration on top of the actual aspect .. fine .. but is that patch not in favour
to prevent stacking ?
Else .. please leave Aspect of Infernal how it is.
One of infernal's big reasons it does so well is because of the fact the aspect is a multiplier and aspect of the infernal is ridiculously easy to get it stacked up and going. It's pretty easy to maintain a 23% damage multiplier all the time with infernal with little effort at all. So, leaving as is considering all the other changes, I doubt it's going to happen.
You already stated you weren't using a pure Infernal build to start with, so I don't see where the problem is necessarily here in specific.
I said I'm not using an infernal at all, except for DE on a Bestial tank build. I have zero ranged Infernal powers on any character I currently play. If anything, this whole patch may well be an effective buff to him, since I wasn't stacking AotB and Enrage anyway.
I think that's the essential communication failure here. I'm not upset because some character of mine is getting nerfed. Unless you understand that, you will approach everything I say in entirely the wrong way.
Mathmatically speaking, that's a logical fallacy in that reductions of 1% of a base number that changes with every reduction would never approach 0 (and would take functionally a long time to hit that point). I get what your point is, but your example kind of sucks and seems somewhat irrelevant.
I'm not sure you properly understand what a logical fallacy is, but I'll throw you a bone and say "comparative," since this appears to bother you and your inner Zeno. As in, "What's an additional 1% comparative loss to something that is only 90% comparatively effective to another thing?" And then I will stab Bertrand Russel's ghost again. I keep it around to serve as a positivism punching bag. Luckily, he's a very witty fellow, and being incorporeal, doesn't mind the stabbing much at all.
If your main concern is theme, you should be willing to give up effectiveness.
Since we've ventured into a territory I'm very comfortable with, what with math, language, and philosophy all intersecting, I'd like to ask you the most complicated question I know:
I said I'm not using an infernal at all, except for DE on a Bestial tank build. I have zero ranged Infernal powers on any character I currently play. If anything, this whole patch may well be an effective buff to him, since I wasn't stacking AotB and Enrage anyway.
I think that's the essential communication failure here. I'm not upset because some character of mine is getting nerfed. Unless you understand that, you will approach everything I say in entirely the wrong way.
Then let's refocus - What exactly is your specific beef with the change? I'll not bother making further assumptions.
I'm not sure you properly understand what a logical fallacy is, but I'll throw you a bone and say "comparative," since this appears to bother you and your inner Zeno. As in, "What's an additional 1% comparative loss to something that is only 90% comparatively effective to another thing?" And then I will stab Bertrand Russel's ghost again. I keep it around to serve as a positivism punching bag. Luckily, he's a very witty fellow, and being incorporeal, doesn't mind the stabbing much at all.
I think you may have missed my point a bit (and I may have missed yours). If you reduce the effectiveness of something by 1%, you have only really reduced it's value to 99% of it's original value (regardless of what that value is). If you then reduce it by 1% of it's new value... it's not now 98% of it's original value, but a bit more then that (by about .01%, but still). Further iterations out to 90 isn't reducing the original value to nothing, mathematically, because the number we're reducing it by continues to get smaller as our value decreases. You'd never get to 0 using this method.
Nevermind that for the most part that tangent is completely, and utterly, irrelevant to the main conversation.
Since we've ventured into a territory I'm very comfortable with, what with math, language, and philosophy all intersecting, I'd like to ask you the most complicated question I know:
Why?
Maximal effectiveness requires taking powers that may not thematically work for all concepts and themes one could go with. There are some that could certainly work under such cherry-picking (as concept is a pretty wide bridge), but for the most part if you're building for the most effective thing you can, you're likely to have to put concept on the back-burner or otherwise come up with some way (even using the theme itself) to reconcile the change.
It requires flexibility in some fashion, and some of that is just dealing with something that's out of theme, but works.
Conversely, if your main concern is theme, in order to preserve that theme, you should be willing to take what could be considered sub-optimal choices (or ones that don't play as nicely together) and find a way that makes them work better for your concept.
Personally, I find it easier to balance the two, but that's because I have a completely different main concern (making stuff fun and interesting) then preservation of theme, or effectiveness.
Then let's refocus - What exactly is your specific beef with the change? I'll not bother making further assumptions.
It limits the number of effective options that exist. It doesn't hurt any of the characters I have; it reduces the number of potential, functional combinations that exist.
The rest of this reply was truly enormous and probably of little interest to others, so I'm relegating it to elsewhere.
Comments
I say leave ethereal there, have it proc enrage, since it already working with knocks, problems solved.
Does Compassion effect Personal Force Field? Or is it only the shields you cast on other players?
Context menu items MUST NOT DISAPPEAR as the target moves out of range. Grey them out, sure. But keep the menu consistent otherwise misclicks will continue to happen.
There's no way to make this sound not-snarky, so please just take my word that that's not my intent.
But you have more than one attack. DE is a really, really, really good power. It doesn't need to do everything. Hitting one of your poison aoes occasionally in a boss fight to keep your stacks up is not game-breaking.
Shhhhhhhh!
...crap, is Ego Leech going to become one of the 'no stacking without a Form' bit? There goes TK lance...
Will Aspects be losing that god awful aura then? Also will aspects grant energy per stack? Will aspects be gaining a special advantage like every other form out there? Also, what about Mental Discipline?
Yeah, I dunno... it sounds like the core of that one build is DE, and that strikes me more as a bigger problem then the current changes to Infernal then anything else.
If DE is still that good that it can functionally replace other attacks in and of itself, should it be allowed to? Life Drain doesn't have the same problem (that I can tell), so maybe there's something up specifically with either Devour Essence, or it's interactions with Focus/Enrage/other melee buffs that's the issue here (and if so, maybe Life Drain will get the same focus going forward).
Again, not sure. Speculation on my part here, almost exclusively.
Okay I don't have too much of a problem from what I am reading here so far but I gotta say if enrage is gonna keep its flat HOT adv then I think it's only fair that at least some of the other toggles get their own type of individual adv to be on par with it . Just to show some variety in one's selection so they would have plenty to choose from .
Devouring Essence is high damage, high innate threat, self-healing, and it can take Crippling Challenge (while other tanks are forced to spam crappy tier-zero attacks).
If it only gets half the bonus from AotI maybe that will save it from a nerf-train.
Maybe.
Anyway.
Concentration still does boost melee damage and I assume that Aspect of the Infernal will work on Toxic, not Ranged, so the damage loss to DE for a pure Infernal is theoretically quite small -- merely annoying. The greater problem is that Supernatural builds may not use Ego or Int as a primary stat, and their in-frame buff scales only on these things.
Attaching a range/role-dependent buff to Supernatural is very disappointing.
Well, they nerfed it once already (and that disappointed me a little, but it was still usable), but if it's still something people are using as their only go-to power for all the things and it feels bad for them to use other powers (or they do it as a 'tax' just to keep that one power at full effect), that sounds like an issue for me.
The ideal solution here would make it so that the power was still good (effective and fun), while not being the only power people want to use for the set. I know it's not (Defile, Epidemic, etc.), but it sounds like some people are still leaning very heavily on it that changes that benefit Infernal (which is primarily a ranged set) that don't somehow benefit Devour Essence in specific are causing some issues.
Or that's just my thoughts on it.
I liked that Enrage gave you extra health on each stack. I thought it made a nice contrast to the focus forms.
Which is part of why I find this so disappointing. I use DE in a Bestial Supernatural build with a STR super, so I come out of this relatively well. But if I wanted to add other 'special effects' Infernal moves to the set, like Venemous Breath or the chain attacks... well, the short answer is, I shouldn't. Similarly, an EGO-stacking Infernal Supernatural has very little to fear from this; their damage loss per tick will be fairly small (I think virtually unnoticeable against all the other changes). This hurts optimal choices much less than it hurts thematic ones, which seems like a really... annoying way to do things.
You find it somewhat disappointing that it's in a primarily ranged set, or that you'd be forced into a more hybrid choice that you'd be making anyway with other similar powers (Might Chains, Fire/Ice Breath, etc.) for that same general niche?
Not sure which here.
If you don't have CON, the return is pretty pathetic. If you don't have defiance, you don't get an HoT.
WTF are you even talking about? It's used as the single target DPS power. What set doesn't use ONE attack for single target DPS? Other than weaving something else in for the purposes of a proc, which a DE user uses Epidemic to get poisons up, Defile to put the toxic resistance poison, and Infernal Blast to refresh said poisons. Where you come up with "Devour Essence does everything" I have no idea. If they want to nerf it, then they can nerf the healing it does. Even on live with Aspect of the Infernal AND Enrage it doesn't do as much DPS as any of the Dragon attacks using focus, or a Ego Blades, or most properly built ranged characters. After this change it will be useless as a DPS ability and the only use for it will be for tanking.
A less thematic choice. Pure builds come out of this quite well; tanks that use DE and Infernals that use Ego come out of it well. Infernals with mixed stats, or melee characters that pick up chain powers from Infernal, lose the most.
Compared to previous, where eg Aspect of the Infernal benefited the entire Infernal framework equally, and Aspect of the Bestial offered a greater partial benefit to a mixed Supernatural build (the core power did not, but the stacks did. Now the core power still doesn't, and the stacks only offer half).
Endorphin Rush no longer scales on Defiance. And are there really a lot of melee fighters that don't have CON?
Might has suffered from this kind of problem for awhile. Mixed types of attacks and damage with very specific buffs that discourages anything out-of-framework. And it makes out ok despite it all.
All running around with 10 CON? Seems...implausible.
You're always going to be making compromises in effectiveness for theme in this case, so I don't see what the problem is unless we're speaking in a more general sense. Infernal is a primarily Ranged set, with one power that's an outlier (Devour Essence) for whatever reason (well, the big reason is that it did Toxic damage and when they broke the Supernatural set in half, they put it in Infernal Supernatural [where it had little synergy anyway] instead of Bestial [where it had the most synergy] for likely that one fact; when Supernatural was one big set, this was less of a problem).
The net change to Aspect of the Infernal is going to be a good thing for Infernal in a general sense, with Devour Essence as the only casualty of this. Even if they switched it to Bestial (despite the fact it does make more thematic sense in Infernal now that I think about it, being as you're ripping the soul-essence out of something more then mauling it's face apart), it still likely wouldn't be getting the full suite of benefits it could.
You can either make the thematic compromise (and you would anyway, if you want to get any powers that have the same general 'feel' as either the Chains or Breath-type) and deal with it, or give it up because going with a slightly more hybrid setup doesn't jive with you. That's something you should have worked out a while ago, if you ask me.
EDIT: All secondary to the fact that I don't see anything that suggests that AotI doesn't boost Toxic damage any longer, just that it allows you to stack Concentration... Gonna re-read that part and see if I missed it or something.
EDIT again: Yeah, I don't see anything in the wording to suggest it's losing anything realistically in allowing you to stack Concentration at all. I suppose we could use some clarification on that (and for Aspect of the Bestial as well).
Prevent from 1 shot dead
I also don't 10 everything that isn't a superstat, on any of my characters.
This is what gear is for.
Quite a few. I don't have CON and I tank quite effectively. Think you are a bit outdated there
Unless DEVs add new mechanisms have been suggested (such as resist, defense, some immune and etcs.), or increase its heal amount might be the easiest way to make it "look better".
That's correct, and why I made the point that pure Infernal only loses out if they aren't superstatting Ego or Intelligence. Which a pure Infernal will do; the only reason they wouldn't is because they want, say, Con or Recovery or Presence.
Sorities problem. What's 1% less effectiveness on something that was only 90% as effective anyway?
Repeat x90.
As above. Plus, that's not strictly true -- all of its attacks I can think of are Crushing or Crushing combined with something else (like Sonic). Only the range type is mixed. In fact, this is true for the entire Brick framework.
I'm curious; have you tried a non-melee or mixed Brick with the Enrage changes?
You already stated you weren't using a pure Infernal build to start with, so I don't see where the problem is necessarily here in specific. If you were only splashing Infernal attacks in here and there for an otherwise melee-focused build, then the only thing that's really changing here is you're getting an incremental bonus (a small bonus is still a bonus) on those splashed powers. It's not forcing you to change your build, necessarily. Unless you were using Enrage+Aspect, in which case, the change to AotI isn't the part that's doing the most damage, it's the Enrage changes.
I'm not using a 'pure' Infernal build (AoPM Support with Infernal as primary attacks, one of which is at-present Devour Essence; Something that I'd been finding hard to work into my build anyway), either, and I'm not specifically broken up about these changes as I can see the general benefit for people that are already using the primary set for it's intended purpose (ranged damage).
I think you may be working at this from the entirely wrong angle, is what I'm trying to get at (probably pretty terribly - it's late and I haven't had enough coffee today).
Mathmatically speaking, that's a logical fallacy in that reductions of 1% of a base number that changes with every reduction would never approach 0 (and would take functionally a long time to hit that point). I get what your point is, but your example kind of sucks and seems somewhat irrelevant.
If your main concern is theme, you should be willing to give up effectiveness. How much you're willing to give up is your business, and at junctures like this, you need to examine what is more important to you: The theme, or the effectiveness? Nobody can give you anything more then their subjective opinion on which is better, but it's still something that's kind of intregal to the build design concept in the first place. Something has to give.
EDIT:
Wish I could (seriously), because I have a number of characters that are infact directly affected by this (Force/Might and Might/PA). Thing is, though, I'm not even remotely bothered by this. I'm probably still going to use Enrage on both of them, and just deal with some of my 'thematic' flavor attacks doing less damage (provided I don't have enough superstats and other damage buffs to have even the half-ranged damage bonus hit me to the damage soft-cap anyway; Hooray Cryptic math).
It's not that big of a deal for me (not trying to belittle your feelings on it, just stating my opinion; It can certainly read like that, and I'm willing to take the blame for that. S'not you, it's just the way I talk/type).
Easy fix - since we know that they can affect how many stacks you get when you have certain powers as opposed to others (If Form=ENRAGE, max_ENRAGED=8; Else max_ENRAGED=1), then maybe they can cap the buffs you get from both Aspects at 4-6 (however much it takes to get the same approximate damage value) instead.
Numbers are just props pulled out of thin air - I trust Crush or Akinos to be less random (or, well, at least Akinos*).
(*DISCLAIMER: This subtext is facetious. You know I care, Crush-man!)
Personally, I want Forms to become Aspects more.
Ex: assume 18% damage strength per Focus
Old: 18% x 8 My ideal: 64% + 8% x 8 or 74% + 12% x 5
Higher beginning, the same ending. Good for everyone.
Just my thought .... :P
Technically you can already get that by ranking up the form; Otherwise, there's no point to it (unlike ranking Aspects, which did have a base increase) outside of 'easier' bonus stacking.
Defiance works the same way.
If that means you can stack concentration on top of the actual aspect .. fine .. but is that patch not in favour
to prevent stacking ?
Else .. please leave Aspect of Infernal how it is.
I think the tradeoff is more damage to specific damage types with the aspects, compared to the energy return with the other toggles. Seems pretty even to me.
Yes, I also want ranking does improve the bouns.
The other reason which makes me want to have some fixed bouns is that the stacking mechanisms are actually unfair between each other.
ex:
Form of the Swordsman -- player can gain 3 stacks at once with R1; and it has no cooldown.
Form of the Tempet -- player can maintain 8 stacks by using healing powers when they are out of battle
Form of the Tiger -- Also be able to grain 8 stacks before a battle
Form of the master -- Rely on dodge, and have a cooldown. Unable to maintain it out of battles.
BTW, this means I also think Defiance needs some fixed bouns rather than all reply on stacks.
Hm ... a have a lot Infernals .. and none of them has superstated INT or EGO.
DEX / CON / REC is for me the best actual.
Re: Regeneration changes: Still needs more. Preferably one of the 7+ mitigation suggestions in this thread, (I suggest dramatically boosted Base HP + Increased Healing Received, but there's a host of great options) as well as the mutually agreed upon anti-anti heal component. Not holding my breath here as Regeneration is a defensive passive, and it's sort of an added bonus to have this power get -any- positive changes in a patch that seems outside it's purview.
Re: Medical Nanites: Good stuff. Hope it scales with the energy return on hot tick mechanic in the spec trees. We've seen what Sentinel Aura can do, now we know in advance that MN will be competitive assuming the numbers are right. Needs a bit of testing to make sure it's right, (and probably some +Healing Scaling for good measure).
Re: Sentinel Aura: Was overpowered before, still very strong even after taking a 70% nerf. I suggest reconfiguring the nerf a bit to revise the scaling downward and replace it with more flat healing though, but that's a minor quibble. This was just the right amount of audacity on a 'must have' spec that badly needed the nerf bat.
Re: AoAC changes: Can we get a confirmation of the Maintain tick reduction buff in addition to the already listed charge time decrease? This aura is almost done and needs just that extra oomph.
Re: AoPM changes: Possibly still a touch too much nerf here, but at least a manageable one.
Re: AoED changes: Some folks seem to want more, like a crit bonus or something. I'm mostly ambivalent.
Re: AoRP changes: Still overpowered, don't expect changes though.
Re: Aura Stacking: Auras need to have diminishing returns on stacking. This is non-negotiable. Having 2 AoPM users in a party has happened to me far more times than I can count, and having one of us be effectively without a passive unless they recognize what's going on is a problem. Biggest issue right now with this patch.
Aspect of Infernal has gotten much better compared to Form of the Tempest for DE after On Alert. I think the
main reason is, that it is multiplicative and now we also have the higher base damage from +Offense.
If i take an Invuln build with DE it was before like a crit did 1500 damage with FoTT and 1100 with Aspect,
but now they both do something around 1700. At least with not stacking DEX over 300 or whatever.
That will kill my petmaster pet and make me always recast it, in live i cant pvp and only can pve good and i think that change will make my build in troubles.
Might I suggest the commander tree? Using a spec that pretty much everyone said was going to be nerfed)and one that is still, despite a huge nerf, arguably overpowered in comparison to Sentry Aura) in your build in a non-optimal way doesn't mean that the power as a whole is fine, or that you should stop using it. It's still effectively BCR + RR advantage for all your pets, you, and your entire team to boot.
Even then, Commander and Sentinel are probably two of the best options for you, even after these nerfs.
One of infernal's big reasons it does so well is because of the fact the aspect is a multiplier and aspect of the infernal is ridiculously easy to get it stacked up and going. It's pretty easy to maintain a 23% damage multiplier all the time with infernal with little effort at all. So, leaving as is considering all the other changes, I doubt it's going to happen.
I said I'm not using an infernal at all, except for DE on a Bestial tank build. I have zero ranged Infernal powers on any character I currently play. If anything, this whole patch may well be an effective buff to him, since I wasn't stacking AotB and Enrage anyway.
I think that's the essential communication failure here. I'm not upset because some character of mine is getting nerfed. Unless you understand that, you will approach everything I say in entirely the wrong way.
I'm not sure you properly understand what a logical fallacy is, but I'll throw you a bone and say "comparative," since this appears to bother you and your inner Zeno. As in, "What's an additional 1% comparative loss to something that is only 90% comparatively effective to another thing?" And then I will stab Bertrand Russel's ghost again. I keep it around to serve as a positivism punching bag. Luckily, he's a very witty fellow, and being incorporeal, doesn't mind the stabbing much at all.
Since we've ventured into a territory I'm very comfortable with, what with math, language, and philosophy all intersecting, I'd like to ask you the most complicated question I know:
Why?
Then let's refocus - What exactly is your specific beef with the change? I'll not bother making further assumptions.
I think you may have missed my point a bit (and I may have missed yours). If you reduce the effectiveness of something by 1%, you have only really reduced it's value to 99% of it's original value (regardless of what that value is). If you then reduce it by 1% of it's new value... it's not now 98% of it's original value, but a bit more then that (by about .01%, but still). Further iterations out to 90 isn't reducing the original value to nothing, mathematically, because the number we're reducing it by continues to get smaller as our value decreases. You'd never get to 0 using this method.
Nevermind that for the most part that tangent is completely, and utterly, irrelevant to the main conversation.
Maximal effectiveness requires taking powers that may not thematically work for all concepts and themes one could go with. There are some that could certainly work under such cherry-picking (as concept is a pretty wide bridge), but for the most part if you're building for the most effective thing you can, you're likely to have to put concept on the back-burner or otherwise come up with some way (even using the theme itself) to reconcile the change.
It requires flexibility in some fashion, and some of that is just dealing with something that's out of theme, but works.
Conversely, if your main concern is theme, in order to preserve that theme, you should be willing to take what could be considered sub-optimal choices (or ones that don't play as nicely together) and find a way that makes them work better for your concept.
Personally, I find it easier to balance the two, but that's because I have a completely different main concern (making stuff fun and interesting) then preservation of theme, or effectiveness.
EDIT: RIght now it isn't recieving the melee or ranged bonuses even with the stacks
It limits the number of effective options that exist. It doesn't hurt any of the characters I have; it reduces the number of potential, functional combinations that exist.
The rest of this reply was truly enormous and probably of little interest to others, so I'm relegating it to elsewhere.