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Catastrophic Pummelling, not that impressive

tilartatilarta Posts: 291 Arc User
I acquired a new Ultimate Power, Catastrophic Pummelling and decided to see if it'd be useful for my tank:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SxzIq0t-q0[/video]

For an Ultimate Power, it's very underwhelming.
The duration is too short and it doesn't do enough damage.
Also, it should have cone AOE resonating outwards from the initial target, because the punches are generating shockwaves due to the force of the blows.

Another player stated they believe this power is just a minor variation on a martial arts power.



I guess the low price of 100g on Exchange should have been an indication it wasn't very good.
Otherwise it would have cost more......

Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad :'(

Comments

  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    I've done extensive testing of the power and on the contrary I believe it's duration is too long. Here are 2 parsers, one without and another with Pummeling thrown into the rotation

    ptJ5TJF.jpg
    (on Live, Full Justice and OV gear, r7 mods, no DUC, Brawler/Avenger)

    The first thing you would probably notice is that my DPS went up by 700 when using Pummeling, and you'd think this means the power is good.

    However I had to follow a very strict rotation to do so. I started by popping my first AO, and when the effect is about to expire I start mantaining Pummeling, then when the Overpower debuff is about to expire, my 2nd AO is close to coming off cooldown so I pop it when it does. When 2nd AO is about to expire, I used Nanobot Swarm to reset the cooldown of my first AO.

    So basically what I was doing is using Overpower debuff as bridge between my 2 AOs to keep Dragon Claw's damage up.

    HOWEVER, this was done in a controled environment where the PH dummy did not attack me at all.

    When trying to test this rotation in Ape I found myself having to constantly interrupt the Ult cause of Meteors. Throughout the whole fight I only managed to get one full Pummeling off. Since Overpower only applies on a fully mantained combo, my DPS ended up going down in this scenario in comparison if I had just spammed Dragon Claw. I did not test it on Dino, but I imagine results would be worse since after baby spawns you are constantly getting interrupted.

    After me and some others suggested it in PTS due to the long duration of the mantain, Pummeling got a CC resistance factor added, yeah...however this CC resistance is inferior when compared to the other mantained Ultimate Fury of The Dragon. Fury of the Dragon's CC resistance kicks in immediately, whereas Pummeling you have to mantain for 2 seconds. This is a huge problem, because even with FotD being instant, you have to start the power almost immediately when you see Dino/Eido/Ape starting their hold animations, otherwise the hold will go through anyways. Pummeling requiring 2 extra seconds to activate means you can't use this power as a response to a boss starting their hold animation, but more as luck based guessing game.

    So as you can see from this 2 observations, Pummeling is currently in a spot where theoretically it would be a good Ultimate, but in practice is not.

    DPS get their mileage out of this Ultimate by applying the Overpower debuff, however having to interrupt it earlier and frequently due to AoEs ends up having a negative impact on your DPS

    Tanks expose themselves to high risk of taking an unblocked hit due to the long duration of this attack.

    And then you have the thing where this power does not feel as a Might power at all. So in response to all this issues I made the following suggestions in PTS (crossposting from that thread):
    Suggestion
    Catastrophic Pummeling
    Currently CP is on the average side of Ultimates damagewise, and it's duration does not help. I don't know how escalating damage formula used to work for attacks, but I know they are being phased out for reasons.

    So instead, I suggest that each hit of the attack applies and refreshes a stackable 1 second buff called Unstoppable Rage on you that increases your damage by 3% per stack. With some readjustment to the base damage, this way the attack can start low and as you build up momentum or "Rage" it hits harder.

    The 1 second duration is so that this buff only benefits this attack and cannot be used for other attacks
    Suggestion
    Catastrophic Pummeling
    Same as above but instead it applies a buff on you (Demolishing Punches) that causes further attacks to ignore 2% of your enemies damage resistance. The idea being that as your punches demolish your enemy's defenses into thin paste you start hitting harder.
    Suggestion
    Catastrophic Pummeling
    New Adv: Each hit of Pummeling has a 10% chance to apply a stack of Furious on you. The final hits deals extra damage based on the number of Furious stacks on you
    Suggestion
    Catastrophic Pummeling
    New Adv: Incapacitates the enemies and refreshes the duration of it for the duration of the mantain (like Ego Storm or Crippling Coils). If fully mantained, Stuns the enemies for a short duration of time

    Suggestion
    Catastrophic Pummeling
    Increases your Damage Resistance by 50% (shield layer) while mantaining this power.


    Personally I still have hope that the power was released in it's current state due to the necessity of putting the Lockbox out for the 4th of July, and that the power will continue to be revised together with the SB revision, but also have experience with another underperforming ultimate, Meteor Blaze, being left as is, so hopes are not too high.​​
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