Release Notes 7/21/2016

kaiserin · July 2016

Mayhem Lockbox

The Mayhem lockbox is out and can give out the following items:
Costumes: Inmate set, Jester Hat, Silverware Weapon Skin.
Auras: Rainy Day, Butterflies, Chaos Butterflies, Nebulous.
Power Unlock: Vorpal Blade Ultimate Power.
Vehicles: Sniper Bladed Glider, Electric Phantom Bladed Glider.

ZEN Store

Added Havoc Key Pack which includes 20 keys, 25 Ripper's Might rank 5 mods and the Draysha Supercharge device.
Ripper's Might increases the damage that Might powers deal.
Draysha Supercharge is a toggle device that increases your damage, speedcharge, power recharge, knock resistance and grants you energy every second. However, it also deals damage based on how much health you have every second and reduces healing effects on you.
Added Maniacs and Sickle Bladed Glider vehicles.
Added Money and Pixel auras.
The Web Key pack has been removed.

Drifter Store

Added Spotlight Aura.
Added Prison Gauntlets costume.

Questionite Store

Added Ankle Shackles costume.
Added Yellowjacket Bladed Glider vehicle.
Added Fire and Fire Chain Swinging travel powers.

Archetypes
Automaton

Automaton powers are no longer locked behind leveling up the automaton.
You will still need to level a character to 40 to gain access to the automaton.
Removed Awakened archetype section on the archetype list.

New Archetype: The Penitent
Primary Stat: Strength
Secondary Stats: Dexterity, Endurance.

Level 1: Reaper's Touch
Level 1: Slash OR Barbed Chain
Level 6: Cut Down OR Thunderbolt Lunge
Level 8: Unstoppable OR Way of the Warrior
Level 11: Aspect of the Bestial OR Form of the Swordsman
Level 14: Lacerating Cyclone OR Throwing Blades
Level 17: Gauntlet Chainsaw
Level 21: Antagonize OR Retaliation
Level 25: Wild Thing
Level 30: Barbed Lariat OR Holdout Shot
Level 35: Masterful Dodge OR Aggressor
Level 40: Breakaway Shot OR Evasive Maneuvers

Misc

All archetypes will now appear for Silver players in the character creation screen allowing them to view their power progression. They can also purchase the archetype at character creation now.
Vibora Bay costume drops now have a glowing symbol when dropped.
The Nightstick weapon is now colorable.
Added Knife as a free bladed weapon costume.
Added Venomous 3 mod to the GCR store.

kaiserin · July 2016

Powers

The Powers UI is slowly going through some visual revisions to make it easier to read. You may notice some different fonts being used and better spacing between advantages and power effects. This will be done over time to all powers.
Removed Break Through advantage from the following abilities: Dragon Claw, Devour Essence, Thrash, Force Geyser, Two Gun Mojo, Lightning Arc, Annihilate, Brute Strike, Pistol Whip, Feint, Laser Sword.
Added the Break Through advantage to a bunch of low tier attacks.
Added Challenge! and Accelerated Metabolism to a lot of powers.
Rearranged advantages so the ones unique to powers appear on the top.
Burning Rain advantage now applies a Pyre patch when fully maintained.
Added Cut Down as an option for the Blade archetype.
Players who owned the following abilities will receive a respec. Please note that this respec does not stack if you previously got a power change related respec that you have not used up: Crippling Challenge advantage, Conflagration, Evasive Maneuvers, Ricochet Throw, Throwing Blades, Mental Storm, Shadow of Doubt, Mental Leech, Manipulator, Svengali's Guile advantage, Iron Chain, Lash, Iron Lariat, Vile Lariat, Defile, Hex of Suffering, Soul Vortex, Vortex Technique advantage.
Due to some powers having their tiers changed or losing advantages some players may have that power removed from their character and will receive a forced respec. A forced respec will not allow you to purchase any new powers until you have gone into the powerhouse and respecced your character.

Global Advantages

Challenging Strikes

Renamed to Challenge!
Now applies flat threat over time effect that varies based on primary and secondary targets.
It is possible to stack the primary and secondary versions of this power on one target, however you cannot stack more than one of each even if you have this advantage on multiple powers.
Single target powers cannot utilize the secondary target portion of this advantage.
Some aoe powers do not have a primary target and cannot utilize that portion of this advantage.
The Debilitating Challenge specialization will now work when using Challenge! against your primary target.

Crippling Challenge

Renamed to Break Through.
Threat mechanics of this power have been removed.
Can only disable block when used against blocking targets.
Block disabling portion lasts 10 seconds. Afterwards applies a 10 second buff that prevents the target's block from being disabled.
Also applies a damage, heal, defense and dodge debuff when you successfully apply the block disable. This debuff can be removed if your target damages you and cannot be stacked from any source.
If used against a non-blocking target, applies a temporary buff that prevents their block from being disabled.

Energy Projector Framework

Fire

Rimefire Burst

Increased cost.
Will only consume your Chill or Clinging Flames.

Conflagration

The Burning Rain advantage has been integrated into the base version of this power to fix some tracking issues the power had and to put it in line with similar powers (Lightning Storm, Avalanche).
Burning Rain will now leave behind a fire patch if you fully maintain Conflagration.

Ice

Ice Blast

Hard Frost Debuff: Can now stack a maximum of 3 times from all players.

Icicle Spear

Decreased cost.

Fractal Aegis

Cool down is now 90 seconds across ranks.
Decreased cost.
Increased buff duration to 20 seconds.

Force

Gravity Driver

Increased cost.
Charge time reduced to 2.5 seconds (from 3).

Electricity

Neuroelectric Pulse

New Advantage: Recharge: Applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.

Technology Framework

Archery

Evasive Maneuvers

Dodge bonus duration reduced to 6 seconds.
New Advantage: Stim Pack: Stim Pack applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.
Sleight of Mind advantage: Now changes Evasive Manuevers into a threat wipe ability with a 45 second cooldown.

Gadgeteering

Throwing Blades

The damage and cost for this power have been recalculated to bring it in line with other powers.
Tooltips now state what damage it deals from stealth.
Damage changed to slashing.
This power no longer needs to be half charged to use.
Changed the critical severity buff it gave to instead apply "Sudden Strike." Sudden Strike makes your next critical hit have an additional 15% severity.
This power now self roots while charging.
Updated the way this power checks to see if you're stealthed for its bonus damage. This change should allow the power to be paired with more stealth granting abilities.
New Advantage: Aggression. If fully charged applies Bleed to targets not affected by bleeds. If used in melee applies the bleeds on tap.

Boomerang toss

Changed to slashing damage.

Richochet Throw

The damage and cost for this power have been recalculated to bring it in line with other Blasts.
Tooltips now state what damage it deals from stealth.
This power now self roots while charging.
Damage changed to slashing.
Updated the way this power checks to see if you're stealthed for its bonus damage. This change should allow the power to be paired with more stealth granting abilities.

Gauntlet Chainsaw

Ripsaw Advantage: Made the bonus to base damage.

Implosion Engine

Reduced cooldown to 90 seconds (from 120).
Slightly increased cost.

Power Armor

Updated the descriptions on many Power Armor abilities to clearly state what slot they belong to.

Rocket Punch

Increased Cylinder radius to 2ft (from 1)
Reduced target cap to 3.
Lowered damage slightly to bring it in line with other Blast powers.

Munitions

Burst Shot

Slightly increased cost.

Holdout Shot

Stim Pack Advantage: The heal on this advantage now has an internal cooldown of 4 seconds.
New Advantage: Open Wound: Has a chance to cause additional bleeds over time.

Martial Arts Framework

Martial Arts: Single Blade

New Ultimate Power: Vorpal Blade

Type: Melee Slashing Damage
Range: 15' Range, 15' AoE
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Deals damage in a 15' sphere 5 times.
Applies Bleed for each hit that is staggered over 4 seconds.
Damage scales off of your Focus stacks.

New Power: Slash

Type: Melee Combo
Very similar to Reaper's Caress, has a chance to cause Bleed each hit.
Advantage: Serrated Blade: Applies Shredded on the last hit.

New Power: Cut down

Type: Lunge
Roots targets if lunging from more than 20ft away.

Reaper's Touch

Three Edged Blade advantage: No longer applies focus. Now has a chance to apply Bleed.

Martial Arts: Shared

Shuriken Throw

Damage changed to slashing.
New advantage: Poisoned Shuriken: 10% chance to apply deadly poison.
New advantage: Serrated Edges: 10% chance to apply bleed.

New Power: Chained Kunai

This is a seperate power from the Chained Kunai advantage on Shurkien Throw.
Range: 25'
Type: Melee Slashing damage
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Pulls targets to you.
Advantage: Open Wound: Has a chance to cause additional bleeds over time.
Advantage: Fine Cuts: Fully charging the power applies the Shredded debuff.
Advantage: Weak Points: Fully charging the power refreshes all bleeds.
Advantage: Inner Peace: Applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.

Fury of the Dragon

Fixed a bug where the focus stack scaling was based on your target's focus stacks, not yours. Whoops.
Because the player is the source of the damage (not the dragon that is summoned) this power now roots you in place to make it visually clear where the damage is coming from.
The snare no longer requires you to be focused to apply.
Now applies Clinging Flames.
Reduced cooldown to 60 seconds.
Increased cost.

Smoke Bomb Lunge

Sudden Strike Advantage: Now applies the Sudden Strike buff which makes your next critical hit have an additional 15% severity.
Corrected the tooltip to state that this applies to any ability that crits. Previously the tooltip stated it only applied to melee single target attacks which was not true.

Smoke Bomb

Power now has a flat cost instead of being based off of your equilibrium.
Power will now actually wipe your threat.
Now counts as a threat wipe ability and will place all other Threat Wipes on a 30 second cooldown.

Shadow Strike

Updated the way this power checks to see if you're stealthed for its bonus damage. This change should allow the power to be paired with more stealth granting abilities.

kaiserin · July 2016

Mentalist Framework

Telepathy

New Power: Mind Wipe

Type: Threat Wipe
Range: 50'
Cooldown: 45 Seconds
Wipes all of your threat from the target. Places all other threat wipe abilities on a 30 second cooldown.
Advantage: Free Your Mind!: Helps players nearby your main target break free of holds.

Mental Storm

Cost Increased.
Slightly increased damage.
Damage over time portion of this attack can no longer be stacked by the same player.

Mental Leech

Slightly increased damage.
Cost reduced.
Cooldown set to 8 seconds for all ranks.
Damage over time portion of this attack can no longer be stacked by the same player.
Corrected a bug where the power was using the wrong activation time. It now has an activation time of 0.67 seconds.
The Mental Weakness debuff has been removed from being innate to this ability and made into an advantage.

Shadow of Doubt

Slightly increased damage.
Cost increased.
Cooldown set to 8 seconds for all ranks.
Move this power over to the Ranged Area attack section.
Now has access to the Challenge! Advantage.
Corrected a bug where the power was using the wrong activation time. It now has an activation time of 0.67 seconds.
Damage over time portion of this attack can no longer be stacked by the same player.
The Malaise debuff has been removed from being innate to this ability and made into an advantage.

Placate

Now applies Disorient instead of the generic damage debuff.
Now has a flat threat reduction on top of the placate.
Svengalis Guile advantage: No longer applies a resistance debuff. Instead partially refreshes the duration of Stress, Dependency and Regret.

Collective Will

Consume Will advantage now applies the Stress debuff.
Made some changes to how the advantage works so that the entities summoned reliably apply the debuff.

Manipulator

Changed the way Manipulator is triggered so that advantage based powers can trigger it.
Because of this change powers actually have to apply an effect that procs Manipulator to gain stacks. Prior to this change if a power had the chance to apply a a control effect it would always trigger Manipulator even if it didn't apply the effect. Now the effect must be applied for Manipulator to trigger.
Updated Manipulator's description to state that the form triggers off of stun, paralyze, incapacitate, root, sleep and confuse as "control" wasn't very descriptive.
Powers that do not apply a stun, paralyze, incapacitate, root, sleep or confuse will no longer trigger Manipulator.
Updated the description to state that Manipulator increases stun, paralyze, incapacitate, root, sleep and confuse magnitude as "Hold" was too vague.
Updated the description to state what damage Manipulator increases as its previous description suggested it increased all damage when it actually increases attacks typed as melee or ranged (there are some abilities typed as neither).
Manipulator now has an internal cooldown of 4 seconds.

Psionic Accelerator Device

Device was using an old hold mechanic. Updated it to use Paralyze instead.

Brick Framework

Might

Iron Cyclone

Slightly increased damage.
Slightly increased cost.
Now has a chance to Disorient.
Vortex Technique Advantage no longer applies or refreshes Enrage. It instead applied Furious when fully maintained.

Iron Chain

Changed into a combo power.
25ft range but counts as melee damage.
Damage and cost recalculated for being a combo power.
First two hits are single target, last hit is a 30' cone.
Applies knock down with the first two hits and knock upwards on the third.
New Advantage: Demolition: Applies the Demolish debuff to your primary target when finishing the combo.
New Advantage: Rampant: Each swing applies the Reckless buff.

Iron Lariat

Can now be charged.
25ft range but counts as melee damage.
Damage and cost recalculated for the charge time.
Removed the Kyoketsu Shoge advantage.
Increased cooldown to 10 seconds.
New Advantage: Intimidate: Applies Fear to target.
New Advantage: Red Hot: Applies Clinging Flames to target.
New Advantage: Work Up: Applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.

Enrage

Moved to Tier 1.

Heavy Weapons

Cleave

Changed Cleave's tooltip for the Defensive Stance advantage to state that finishing the combo applies Defiance. Beforehand it stated that the target needed to be Disoriented, this is just a tooltip change.

Vicious Descent

New Advantage: Work Up: Applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.

Mystic Framework

Supernatural Bestial

New Power: Barbed Chain

Type: Melee Slashing Damage Combo
Range: 25'
Chance to bleed with each hit.
Advantage: Sever: On the last hit applies Shredded.
Advantage: Wild Slashes: 25% chance to apply Furious every hit.

New Power: Barbed Lariat

Type: Melee Slashing Damage
Range: 25'
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Knocks targets towards you.
Chance to apply Bleed.
Advantage: Work Up: Applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.
Advantage: Open Wound: Has a chance for additional bleeds over time.
Advantage: Messy: Fully charging the power refreshes the Shredded debuff.
Advantage: Slice and Dice: Fully charging the power refreshes all bleeds on the target.

New Power: Lacerating Cyclone

Type: Ranged PBAoE Slashing Damage
Range: 25' PbAoE
Knocks enemies.
Chance to apply Bleed.
Advantage: Vortex Technique: Knocks targets towards you instead of away. If fully maintained applies Furious.

New Power: Wild Thing

Type: Energy Unlock
Grants the player energy over time when they apply a Bleed.
Scales off of Endurance.

New Power: Cower

Type: Threat Wipe
Cooldown: 90 Seconds
Range: 35' PBAoE
Wipes all of your threat from all nearby targets and applies Placate to them.
Applies Fear to you.
Places all other threat wipe abilities on a 30 second cooldown.
Advantage: Run Away!: Increases your run and jump speed significantly for a short time.

Howl

No longer applies Enrage. Instead applies Furious.
Added Challenge! advantage to howl.
Make them Tremble advantage additionally roots targets.
New Advantage: Intimidating Force. Howl now knocks down targets.

Aspect of the Bestial

Moved to Tier 1.

Supernatural Infernal

Debilitating Poison

Now debuffs Toxic resistance by 12% and Elemental resistance by 8%.

New Power: Mephitic

Type: Energy Unlock
Grants the player energy over time whenever they apply a poison.
Scales off of Endurance.

New Power: Entrancing

Type: Threat Wipe
Cooldown: 45 Seconds
Wipes all of your threat from the target.
Places all other threat wipe abilities on a 30 second cooldown.

Lash

Changed into a combo power.
Removed bonus damage based off of poison stacks scaling.
Damage and cost recalculated for being a combo power.
First two hits are single target, last hit is a 30' cone.
Chance to apply Deadly Poison with each hit.
New Advantage: Decay: Applies Debilitating Poison on the last hit.

Vile Lariat

Can now be charged.
Damage and cost recalculated for the charge time.
Removed bonus damage based off of poison stacks scaling.
Removed the Kyoketsu Shoge advantage.
Increased cd to 10 seconds
New Advantage: Work Up: Applies a heal over time to the player and heals an additional amount if the player is below 20% health. This effect has a internal cooldown of 4 seconds.
New Advantage: Fester: Applies a damage debuff based on the number of poison stacks on the target.
New Advantage: Viral: Has a chance for more poison stacks to apply on the target.

Vicious Cyclone

Removed bonus damage based off of poison stacks scaling.
Vortex Technique Advantage no longer applies or refreshes Enrage. It instead applied Furious if fully maintained.

Defile

Removed the debilitating poison debuff.
Added chance to apply Deadly Poison in its place.
Reduced cost.

Infernal Blast

Slightly increased cost.

Condemn

New Advantage: Corrupting Force: Applies Debilitating Poison on full charge.

Aspect of the Infernal

Added refresh poison as a proc criteria.
Now has an internal cooldown of 4 seconds.
Moved to Tier 1.

Sorcery

Hex of Suffering

The Magic resistance debuff this power applies is now named Hexed.
Made it so the Hexed debuff cannot stack more than 3 times from all players.
The damage over time effect of Hex of Suffering can no longer be stacked by the same player.

Darkness

Endbringer's Grasp

Cooldown is now a flat 90 seconds across ranks.
Cost reduced.

Ebon Ruin

Slightly reduced cost.

Soul Vortex

Slightly increased damage.
Slightly increased cost.
The effects of this ability can no longer be stacked by the same player.

avianos · July 2016

Im getting assaulted by SNR and chat is offline, I cannot test anything else and the game is unplayable for the time being

Conflagration
The Burning Rain advantage has been integrated into the base version of this power to fix some tracking issues the power had and to put it in line with similar powers (Lightning Storm, Avalanche).
Burning Rain will now leave behind a fire patch if you fully maintain Conflagration.

This fixed Conflagration and now it Triggers Overdrive and Onslaught Gloves of the Sniper

AMAZING! \o/

xacchaeus · July 2016

probably won't be much in the way of cosmics hunts for the next few days...lol

hogarthundead · July 2016

I'm a little confused by Challenge and the the whole Primary/Secondary target thing. Does it just mean single target vs AE or if i use an AE with an enemy targeted is it a Primary Target?

roughbearmattach · July 2016

hogarthundead said:
I'm a little confused by Challenge and the the whole Primary/Secondary target thing. Does it just mean single target vs AE or if i use an AE with an enemy targeted is it a Primary Target?

What would that mean for an untargeted power, like Ego SPrites?

hogarthundead · July 2016

roughbearmattach said:

hogarthundead said:
I'm a little confused by Challenge and the the whole Primary/Secondary target thing. Does it just mean single target vs AE or if i use an AE with an enemy targeted is it a Primary Target?
What would that mean for an untargeted power, like Ego SPrites?

Well scenario A it would apply the lesser hate buff to all enemies, scenario B it might apply the greater hate buff to the enemy you currently have targeted? I am personally wondering for Plasma beam. I assume it only applies the lesser hate over time to all enemies, but the wording isn't 100% clear to me.

EDIT: Also, i assume AEs like chest beam that target an enemy but effect the area around it apply the greater hate to the enemy targeted, but again not 100% sure from the wording. Maybe add descriptors to powers that explain who their primary and secondary targets are?

EDIT 2: Played with it in the powerhouse, and the two effects have differant indicators so you can figure it out on a per power basis in the powerhouse. I was right about Plasma beam and Chest beam

duskenradholm · July 2016

hogarthundead said:

roughbearmattach said:

hogarthundead said:
I'm a little confused by Challenge and the the whole Primary/Secondary target thing. Does it just mean single target vs AE or if i use an AE with an enemy targeted is it a Primary Target?
What would that mean for an untargeted power, like Ego SPrites?
Well Scenario A it would apply the lesser hate buff to all enemies, scenario B it might apply the greater hate buff to the enemy you currently have targeted? I am personally wondering for Plasma beam. I assume it only applies the lesser hate over time to all enemies, but the wording isn't 100% clear to me.

As far as I understand, it's something like, say, Untargeted/same damage to all targets does the lesser, and single-target and say, Fireball, Rocket, and other "X to target, X-less to all others" would apply the Primary/both. Some AoEs classify that they hit -ONE TARGET- and do damage around that target, while others just do damage to ALL targets equally, is i think what works out here.

lunnylunny · July 2016

I'm pretty sure Ego Storm had Challenge in the PTS and does not have in the live server. Gravitic Ripple could also use having Challenge!, lance rain does after all and it's a good skill for tanking.

theravenforce · July 2016

Ignore this post.

kazecat · July 2016

Sweet I've been looking forward to a lot of these changes! It was requested on the PTS chat but I figured I bring it up again since it may be an oversight. Mind Lock will proc Manipulator while Mind Control doesn't, I'm not sure if this is intentional.

theravenforce · July 2016

kazecat said:
Sweet I've been looking forward to a lot of these changes! It was requested on the PTS chat but I figured I bring it up again since it may be an oversight. Mind Lock will proc Manipulator while Mind Control doesn't, I'm not sure if this is intentional.

Intended, as Corruption (much like Placate) is no longer classed as a Control effect for the purposes of Manipulator, and it has never increased in duration by Manipulator.

squirrelloid · July 2016

Did telepathy really need to eat yet more nerfs? Because as far as I can tell, 90% of that is nerfs, and the small buffs don't compensate at all.

... And manipulator moves all the way into completely unplayable territory. Might as well take Concentration on my telepath, never going to actually benefit from the hold buff, so might as well do marginally more damage...

Edit: Also, bug on Mental Leech where the healing doesn't work for everyone in the party wasn't fixed? Still? :rolleyes:

avianos · July 2016

Wow the Jester hat is BEUTIFUL

Howl
No longer applies Enrage. Instead applies Furious.
Added Challenge! advantage to howl.
Make them Tremble advantage additionally roots targets.
New Advantage: Intimidating Force. Howl now knocks down targets.

Howl Furious doesnt seem to trigger Willpower even if the entire powerhouse attack me... is that intentional or is it a bug?

ogremindes · July 2016

*sigh*

Every Crowd Control nerf just saps all the enthusiasm I have for the game right away. I mean, for as long as I've played the game, I started shortly after F2P, control has been universally considered underperforming. I've rolled controllers anyway, heck, my favourite toon is a controller, even then the actual control effects felt useful exactly once: two-manning an alert because of a quitter, a leech and someone who was AFK for most of it. The rest of the time I was just playing control for the hell of it, even within that control-focused build ignoring control and playing DPS actually worked better.

The upshot of this is that the control nerfs haven't felt necessary, they haven't felt thought out. Honestly, they've started to feel like malice. I want to think that this is leading up to something that will finally fix control, but having been part of this game through the years of non-development, I'm beyond having faith that anything is going to change.

friezaliveson · July 2016

ogremindes said:
*sigh*

Every Crowd Control nerf just saps all the enthusiasm I have for the game right away. I mean, for as long as I've played the game, I started shortly after F2P, control has been universally considered underperforming. I've rolled controllers anyway, heck, my favourite toon is a controller, even then the actual control effects felt useful exactly once: two-manning an alert because of a quitter, a leech and someone who was AFK for most of it. The rest of the time I was just playing control for the hell of it, even within that control-focused build ignoring control and playing DPS actually worked better.

The upshot of this is that the control nerfs haven't felt necessary, they haven't felt thought out. Honestly, they've started to feel like malice. I want to think that this is leading up to something that will finally fix control, but having been part of this game through the years of non-development, I'm beyond having faith that anything is going to change.

I keep getting the same tells from people to simply just use "Telekinsesis for damage". Yeah well I want to use Telepathy for damage. Considering I established a build like that years ago, cannot believe it's being destroyed in favor of the same hate from a similar dev that disliked "control powers" so therefor, wanted to destroy Telepathy.

deadman20 · July 2016

Aww, I thought for sure you guys would've fixed Cut Down saying it has 2 advantage points already invested in it. I believe we mentioned it a couple of times.

riverocean · July 2016

Limiting control powers has been a popular meme among many game devs for a few years, not just here in CO. Most consider control powers uncessary and unfun.
[ Massively article on the subject if you feel like reading: http://massivelyop.com/2015/04/02/massively-overthinking-crowd-control-in-mmorpgs/]

That aside -- I just realized that Lacerating Cyclone & Iron Cyclone feel very redundant. I currently have Vicious Cyclone and Lacerating Cyclone. These easily could simply be one power IMHO. YMMV.

guyhumual · July 2016

Why was aspect of the Beastal removed from my character? If it's now Tier 1 then it shouldn't have affected anyone's builds. Seems like you automatically remove it to force me into the power house.

theravenforce · July 2016

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees what's happening lol

Aside from the requirement for MOAR Telepathy nerfs! (that we seem to be having every other month, see 29th of April patch notes)...this has been a pretty good update for almost every other power set.

I don't expect to see positive changes to the Crowd Control system...in fact, if anything I think we may see more ways to resist crowd control or further limitations...only time will tell

guyhumual · July 2016

Also, Defile should be renamed, it's no longer a debuff (even though the description still lists it as one), and it's not even remotely a defile with out the debuff. It's now more of a "contaminate" or "envenom", and it's now far weaker then the tier 1 infernal Blast.

theravenforce · July 2016

riverocean said:
Limiting control powers has been a popular meme among many game devs for a few years, not just here in CO. Most consider control powers uncessary and unfun.
[ Massively article on the subject if you feel like reading: http://massivelyop.com/2015/04/02/massively-overthinking-crowd-control-in-mmorpgs/

Much like in CO, it's down to "The Fear".

Players hate being crowd controlled and so then hate the mechanic. They fear how strong it could be in PvP if it was given the correct amount of power it deserves. Then you have players who don't think Crowd Control is a valid form of gameplay OR a valid combat tactic so also hate on it.

When either of those two opinions are loudest, things get bad fast for crowd control.

The annoying thing is that when counters are provided (like the more than adequate counters we have here in CO), they are not utilized then people complain and cry and then things get nerfed into oblivion (see On Alert).

I think that's why in CO it is highly unlikely to get better and if it does "get better" it'll have some serious downsides which will make it highly undesirable to focus your play style on and then you are back to square one.

It can be argued that content in CO doesn't require proper crowd controllers who are actually dedicated and not "CC tanks" outside of two or three instances (TA, Qwyijibo and Kigatilik), but with the amount of damage that players can put out...what is the harm to bring Crowd Control to a similar level of power?

The counters to Crowd Control are numerous and already here in CO...but lol, the fear will prevail!

theravenforce · July 2016

guyhumual said:
Also, Defile should be renamed, it's no longer a debuff (even though the description still lists it as one), and it's not even remotely a defile with out the debuff. It's now more of a "contaminate" or "envenom", and it's now far weaker then the tier 1 infernal Blast.

^ This. I was very disappointed to find out, Defile is basically a slightly stronger but more costly version of Infernal Blast.

pantagruel01 · July 2016

gradii said:
Whoever thinks control powers are un fun obviously has been smoking some strong stuff.

Being crowd controlled is unfun (with the degree of unfun strongly depending on duration). Permanently stunlocking something while everyone else beats it into a pulp is boring. More selective sorts of crowd control can be interesting.

theravenforce said:

riverocean said:
Limiting control powers has been a popular meme among many game devs for a few years, not just here in CO. Most consider control powers uncessary and unfun.
[ Massively article on the subject if you feel like reading: http://massivelyop.com/2015/04/02/massively-overthinking-crowd-control-in-mmorpgs/
Much like in CO, it's down to "The Fear".

It's not really about fear. Oddly enough, tabletop RPGs have done a much better job of analyzing the issues with crowd control than online games, though they have much different mechanics for coping (for example, the monsters aren't AI-controlled). It's basically a problem of action economy: if you can spend an action to deny an equal fraction of the enemies one action, crowd control is worth doing. If you can deny a higher fraction, it's overpowered and needs controls such as cooldown, resistance, and recharge. If you can deny a lower fraction, it's a waste of time. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a nasty balancing act.

This means solo bosses need a lot of resistance (though they are usually not entirely immune; a modern standard is bosses that get multiple actions and CC reduces their number of actions), whereas if you've got five PCs against twenty trash mobs you're going to need area effects or it's a complete waste of time.

riverocean · July 2016

At this point I hold no illusions of crowd control getting any significant improvements in CO. If it hasn't happened since 2011 it ain't happening. What I will continue to speak up for is that the Telepathy framework gets fixed. It's been a hot mess for years and this update didn't help it much.

It's riddled with powers like Master of the Mind and Psychic Vortex that no one uses because they are so terribad. Telepathy players have patiently waited for YEARS for some kind of improvement. The last thing we got was a broken mini-set full of strange compromises - that is now effectively dismantled. Telepathy crowd control tanks might still be possible - but the set's powers don't actively support that playstyle.

The entire set needs to be gutted and re-thought in context of how the game is now. Right now it's not even a decent DPS set. It just resides in a no-man's land and there's no compelling reason to use it. Personally, I think TP has the bones of a decent Illusionist type set. With pseudo pets and secondary effects that confuse and distract. That would be interesting and different enough and in keeping with a mentalist style of play.

And yes this thread has veered off into a telepathy discussion, but that's because this recent update hurt an already borked set so badly.

guyhumual · July 2016

theravenforce said:

guyhumual said:
Also, Defile should be renamed, it's no longer a debuff (even though the description still lists it as one), and it's not even remotely a defile with out the debuff. It's now more of a "contaminate" or "envenom", and it's now far weaker then the tier 1 infernal Blast.
^ This. I was very disappointed to find out, Defile is basically a slightly stronger but more costly version of Infernal Blast.

More damage but it doesn't refresh deadly poison, so it's far worse IMO

zer0x0ne · July 2016

There's nothing I like better than having to retcon every few weeks because of seemingly arbitrary changes.

berucross · July 2016

"Players who owned the following abilities will receive a respec. Please note that this respec does not stack if you previously got a power change related respec that you have not used up: Crippling Challenge advantage, Conflagration, Evasive Maneuvers..."

So i do have 2 tanks that had CC and one dps that have Evasive Maneuvers... and only one tank did got the respec and it was the one i didnt even want to respec... :P

strongbeau · July 2016

So you all put the Sci Fi stuff on sale but forgot one very important thing...You still have not returned the Pulson RF Pistol skin to Gadgeteer power weapon skins. It is the most sci fi looking ray gun thats out there (and yes, I do like it more then the ray gun weapon pack ray guns). Why is it not returned? You are failing this whole Sci Fi theme sale in my opinion by not fixing this.

dommit · July 2016

Has Psychic Vortex's advantage, Single Minded been overlooked or has it just not been touched yet? It currently does not proc Manipulator whenever it stuns something.

duskenradholm · July 2016

"Due to some powers having their tiers changed or losing advantages some players may have that power removed from their character and will receive a forced respec. A forced respec will not allow you to purchase any new powers until you have gone into the powerhouse and respecced your character."

Have a character that had Aspect of the Bestial. The tier on Aspect of the Bestial was changed. It got removed from my bar, I go to respec and... find that I've only been refunded a power point. What's this about "forced respec"? Does that not apply to Aspect of the Bestial because of its tier?

Edit: Or is the respec bugged if you're already in the powerhouse?

dathar12 · July 2016

Basically all tanks got screwed by this patch. The CC changes mean that no modifiers such as critical challenge, challenging strike, etc..... No longer seem to work. I tried my force tank since the patch no dice, she couldn't aggro even if she was with a group of only 2.

Thanks guys great COS change. You may as well have left it broken. I've already had to respec once which means I HAVE to buy my next respec. More money in the great cryptic coffer.

This game is losing heart and probably players. Going lifetime is just plain dumb at this point. Lifetime is measured by years I don't see this game lasting more then another 2.

Pheonix

avianos · July 2016

Oh I really like the Jester Hat, in fact i Gave it to my "New" Telepathy character as a SHAME FOR GETTING HIS BUILD NERFED FOR 3rd TIME

Actually I gave it to him for his Dream Traveler theme, Poor Zackary doesn't deserve this

sterga · July 2016

Challenge! doesn't benefit from having on more than one power, right? But didn't Challenging Strikes allow stacking to be a thing? So anyone who had CS on multiple powers doesn't necessarily get a respec. Anyone with CS may not want Challenge! which is more like CripC, but won't get a respec for that either. I guess those people just get screwed and have to fix things themselves.

"Due to some powers having their tiers changed or losing advantages some players may have that power removed from their character and will receive a forced respec."

Unless it's changed, removing a power from a build can still mean the build is valid. In that case, the player won't get a forced respec, but still have to fix their build. Some of us deal with the garbage pile respec system by putting our powers in a certain order, which this would mess up and have to be fixed at the player expense.

Is it really necessary to be so stingy with respec tokens? I don't see many people spending money in the cash shop to fix something the devs messed up in their build.

I used to PvP quite a bit in Rift and didn't think being crowd controlled was a big deal. However, it only lasted for 1-1.5 seconds. Not having control over your character sucks, but only a second isn't bad. Even on bosses, a very short duration control effect wouldn't be bad. Especially in both cases where players and bosses slowly build up immunity.

Someone who specializes in crowd control should be able to mez a boss for a second. With some sort of immunity build up or measures to prevent perma control, it would make a dedicated controller useful, but more challenging to play.

chaelk · July 2016

I'll log on later, after the screams in zone have died down.
Good thing our serial complainer has found a new hobby(after getting banned again)

avianos · July 2016

What's the deal with the SNRs?
The game is currently unplayable for me

pwestolemyname · July 2016

I have a character with Conflagration, but I checked last night and no free Retcon. What is up with that?

pwestolemyname · July 2016

LOL I just tried to send an in-game bug report about the mission retcon for my Conflagration character and I got an error:
"[System] [TicketError] Could not connect. Please try again later."

This game has such awful customer support.

theravenforce · July 2016

dommit said:
Has Psychic Vortex's advantage, Single Minded been overlooked or has it just not been touched yet? It currently does not proc Manipulator whenever it stuns something.

Intended (most likely).

Due to the way Psychic Vortex works, Single Minded advantage actually spawns a "Stunning Vortex" which is a pet that applies Stuns, not the actual player, so since it doesnt come from you it may be difficult to get it to proc.

As a result of Manipulator's now stricter conditions on what is classified as Crowd Control, a number of abilities have lost their intended synergy with Manipulator.

theravenforce · July 2016

sterga said:
I used to PvP quite a bit in Rift and didn't think being crowd controlled was a big deal. However, it only lasted for 1-1.5 seconds. Not having control over your character sucks, but only a second isn't bad. Even on bosses, a very short duration control effect wouldn't be bad. Especially in both cases where players and bosses slowly build up immunity.

Someone who specializes in crowd control should be able to mez a boss for a second. With some sort of immunity build up or measures to prevent perma control, it would make a dedicated controller useful, but more challenging to play.

Well, it is interesting to note...Mental Weakness and Malaise were the only two debuffs which had Crowd Control Strength duration scaling in Champions online and actually worked on higher level targets.

Both were then nerfed and moved to 2 point advantages and had their Crowd Control duration scaling removed so that they no longer interacted with Manipulator.

Those two debuffs before they were ruined were good first examples of how CO could begin to make Crowd Control useful in higher level content.

However for reasons not given they were made less desireable.

theravenforce · July 2016

avianos said:
Oh I really like the Jester Hat, in fact i Gave it to my "New" Telepathy character as a SHAME FOR GETTING HIS BUILD NERFED FOR 3rd TIME

Actually I gave it to him for his Dream Traveler theme, Poor Zackary doesn't deserve this

#GottaKeep'EmDown! #StatusQuoMustBeUpheld

avianos · July 2016

Rimefire Burst
Increased cost.
Will only consume your Chill or Clinging Flames.

BUG: Rimefire Burst is STILL consuming other players Chill and Clinging flames on Live despite the update

duskenradholm · July 2016

sterga said:

"Due to some powers having their tiers changed or losing advantages some players may have that power removed from their character and will receive a forced respec."

Unless it's changed, removing a power from a build can still mean the build is valid. In that case, the player won't get a forced respec, but still have to fix their build. Some of us deal with the garbage pile respec system by putting our powers in a certain order, which this would mess up and have to be fixed at the player expense.

Is it really necessary to be so stingy with respec tokens? I don't see many people spending money in the cash shop to fix something the devs messed up in their build.

My two characters with Enrage (also dropped to tier 1) got forced respecs (which I gladly used) while my AotB character (who was in the PH at the time) did not need one. He didn't -need- a fix, but it could have been nice to streamline his build a bit like I did the others.

As a silver freeform, respec tokens are my lifeblood and must be cherished with caution lest I **** myself with a 700G+ cost.

avianos · July 2016

BUG: Wall of Ice Pathfinding broke after this update
The move is acting like it has Frozen Footsteps, and it wont follow the target

I have it rank 1, no ADVs, and yet it acts like Frozen Footsteps

stratluver · July 2016

I had Enrage removed and didn't get the "forced respec". Sent in a ticket for what it's worth. I don't know if it's just me but my tickets never show up and never get answered. I'll keep throwing spaghetti at the wall though

n8mcd · July 2016

Bug Report:

Vicious Strikes Adv Drunken Master is supposed to have a chance of applying Focus on the character. The description now reads as and advantage for Reaper's Touch (presumably three-edged blade) and when attacking with Vicious Strikes+Drunken Master, I stack bleed effects on my target, but get no stacks of Focus.

This advantage was working properly prior to the patch. I suspect this error is a result of the change to Reaper's Touch.

avianos · July 2016

BUG: Smoke Grenade Escape Artist ADV is being applied to Teammates as well
Same issue has been going on with friendly NPCs Smoke Grenades

roughbearmattach · July 2016

darkfenrir113 said:

As a silver freeform, respec tokens are my lifeblood and must be cherished with caution lest I **** myself with a 700G+ cost.

I sympathize. If you change your stats/specs last (for 50 G), the rest of a full retcon usually costs around 500-550 G (depending on the number of advantages you bought). If you respec your stats/specs first (still for 50 G), everything else gets much more expensive.

I will say the mix of forced respecc, retcon tokens, and nothing given out do not exactly match the release notes. Moreover, giving every single toon a retcon token would have generally created much player goodwill. Why not do that after such big changes?

elseguard · July 2016

I have to ask, was Challenge! left off of Lead Tempest intentionally or was that an oversight because it had challenging strikes before and also almost every other power in the munitions/tech set has it now even though some of them didn't have it before the update. One of my tanks has been using that for aoe tanking for years and it would be terrible if I would have to break her theme with something else.

Release Notes 7/21/2016

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