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Feedback Thread: Power Changes
kaiserin
Posts: 3,193 Cryptic Developer
FC.31.20240621.1
Power Changes
Note: Many of the new powers are using placeholder FX and Icons.
The main focus of this update are the particle related powers from Gadgeteering. Gadgeteering is a large set, and unfortunately we don't have the bandwidth to look into every single power in it at this time. Please keep any feedback specifically to the powers mentioned in this thread.
These changes will be on PTS for several weeks.
Specializations
Detect Vulnerability
- The scaling of this spec now sharply diminishes after 350 Intelligence (30% armor pen).
- Dev Note: This spec is being changed as at high Intelligence values, it provided far too much benefit for one Specialization and caused issues when it came to boss resistance values. We are aware there are other problematic specs, and we will continue to look into specs and adjust and boost ones that are in need of changes.
Misc
Charged Buff
- Increased duration to 12 seconds (from 10).
- Increased Flight Speed to +3 (from +2).
Disorient
- Increased speed reduction to 50% (From 25%).
Call To Battle
- Increased damage reduction per rank.
New Power: Violent Roar
- Tier 1 Supernatural Bestial
- Active Offense
- Increase damage and boosts your Strength and Recovery while active.
- Increases the amount of Energy your Recovery gives you.
- Adv (2): Chance to apply bleed on all direct damage Supernatural attacks.
- Adv (2): Adds a damaging component to the Howl ability. Expires all effects of this power once used.
New Power: Storm Cloud
- Tier 2 Electricity
- Deals electrical damage to targets.
- Attacking a target affected by this Power with direct electrical damage has a chance to Arc to a different target.
- Attacking a target affected by this Power with direct electrical damage has a chance to apply Negative Ions.
- Adv (2): Stuns targets.
Gadgeteering
Implosion Engine
- Area effect increased to 40ft (from 25). Cost has gone up due to this change.
- Changed damage type to Particle.
On-Next-Hit
- All On-Next-Hit abilities now share a linked cooldown.
- Fixed an issue where these powers could apply to non-direct damaging abilities.
- Fixed an issue where On Next Hit abilities were nag flagged as Gadgeteer powers for mod purposes.
- Note: We are considering making the linked cooldown shorter than the power's actual cooldown. The goal of this change is to prevent these powers from being used in sequence.
Miniaturization Device
- No longer applies a generic damage debuff, instead, now applies Disorient to affected targets. This effect scales with rank.
- Reciprocating Gizmo Adv: Removed the generic damage and speed buff. Now applies 3 stacks of Charged Up.
Sonic Device
- Now considered ranged damage. Base damage has been reduced to account for the additional bonuses it now receives due to this change.
- This power can now critically hit.
- New Adv (2): Now applies the stun to multiple targets.
Toxic Nanites
- Moved to Tier 1.
- Now deals an initial amount of Toxic damage up front. This damage is reduced if used against multiple targets.
- Applies a stack of Deadly Poison.
- New Adv (2): Increases the aoe damage of this ability while lowering the single target.
- New Adv (2): Adds an additional stack of Deadly Poison to the effect.
Gauntlet Chainsaw
- Moved to Tier 2.
- Added chance to apply Bleed every hit.
- Removed Open Wound advantage.
- Increased maintain duration to 5 seconds.
- Ripsaw Adv: Damage boost amount now applies as the target's health decreases, up to 35%. (From 30%)
Pulse Beam Rifle
- Moved to Tier 3.
- Removed escalating damage effect. Now deals continuous damage.
- Increased base damage and cost.
- Critical Rate and Severity now adjust with rank.
- Note: Finite Improbability Engine advantage has been temporarily removed. It will return with a later pts update.
Experimental Burst Ray
- Removed the random effects from this power.
- Increased chance to apply Disorient based on charge time.
- Increased the damage boost overcharge gives per stack.
- Increased Overcharge duration to 10 seconds (from 5).
- Increased Overcharge max stack count to 5 (from 3).
- Increased cone radius to 45 degrees (from 30).
- Increased damage variance to 25% (from 10%).
- New Adv (2): Chance to apply Bane to targets.
Particle Mine
- The Particle Mine can now be placed anywhere within range.
- Can now stack up to 5 mines at a time.
- Now knocks up targets.
- Removed Ejector Module advantage as the effect is now built into the power.
- Reduced damage due to new effects.
- New Adv (2): Chance to apply a stack of Plasma Burn.
Experimental Blaster
- New Adv (2): When fully charged, applies Disintegrate to the target.
- New Adv (2): If your are injured, scaling chance based on your current health that the base particle damage of this attack will instead heal you.
- Known issue: Healing amount does not always scale properly to damage.
Tractor Beam
- Increased damage and cost.
- New Adv (2): When fully maintained, applies Disintegrate to your primary target.
- New Adv (2): Pulls additional targets towards you.
Nanobot Swarm
- This power is now an Active Offense.
- Grants a damage boost and breakout damage.
- Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (from 120) to match other Active powers.
- Fixed an issue where the amount of recharge reduced was being reduced by how much recharge reduction you had.
- Reduced base recharge reduction to 15 (from 20) to account for new cooldown time.
- No longer affects Ultimate or Active power recharges.
- Rejuvenating Injectors Adv: While this power is active, now heals whenever a power of yours comes off of cooldown. Increased heal amount.
New Power: Cloaking Device
- Tier 2 Gadgeteering
- Wipes all threat from up to 20 nearby targets.
- Adv (2): Reduces the amount of threat your attacks generate by 100% for the next 10 seconds.
New Power: Detonator Switch
- Tier 3 Gadgeteering
- 60 second recharge.
- Explodes all of your Gadget pets within 100ft of you.
- Depending on what pet is affected deals damage or heals nearby allies.
- Places all Gadget pets on a 6 second cooldown.
- Known issue: Replicated toys are currently not dealing damage when detonated.
New Power: Medical Beam
- Tier 2 Gadgeteering
- 100ft Range.
- Heals target.
- If target is in an offensive or Hybrid Role, boosts their base damage.
- If target is in Support or Defensive Role, boosts their resistance.
- Adv (2): Increases the hel on this power for a short time whenever a power comes off of cooldown.
- Adv (2): Heals allies nearby you for a small amount.
New Power: Radiation Suit
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- Offensive Passive
- Boosts Energy damage, and other damage to a lesser degree.
- Adds a flat amount of damage absorption, and a greater amount against damage over time effects.
- Increases resistance to Energy damage.
- Deals particle damage to nearby targets.
Chance to apply Plasma Burn to targets you damage.
New Power: Electro Magnet
- Tier 2 Gadgeteering
- 50ft Range.
- Creates a Electro Magnet at your target's location that pulls nearby targets.
- Deals a small amount of Particle damage.
- Creates a Static Field once the effect expires.
- Adv (1): Chance to apply Negative Ions.
- Adv (2): Chance to apply Plasma Burn.
New Power: Technological Prowess
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- Form toggle that scales off of Intelligence.
- Triggers whenever one of your powers comes off of cooldown.
New Power: Radiation Poisoning
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- On Next Hit
- Cooldown: 30 Seconds
- Deals an initial amount of Particle damage up front. This damage is reduced if used against multiple targets.
- Applies a stack of Plasma Burn.
- Adv (2): Increases the aoe damage of this ability while lowering the single target.
- Adv (2): Roots affected targets.
- Adv (2): Adds an additional stack of Plasma Burn to the effect.
New Power: Radiation Shield
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- Block
- Gives higher energy resistance than most shields.
- Adv (2): Reduces the cooldown of your Technology powers by 1 second whenever you take damage. Does not affect Ultimate or Active powers.
FC.31.20240621.3
Powers
Additional power changes will be coming to PTS on Friday.
Detonator Switch
- Reduced cost for Particle Mine applications.
Particle Mine
- Corrected and issue with the targeting for ranks 2 and 3.
Medical Beam
- Field Medic Adv: Fixed an issue where this adv was not triggering properly.
Toxic Nanites
- Fixed an issue where this power was applying Plasma Burn instead of Deadly Poison.
Storm Cloud
- Shocking Strike Adv: Fixed an issue where the Stun effect wasn't always applying.
Electro Magnet
- Increased the effectiveness of the pull.
- New Adv (1): The Static Field now applies at your location.
Radiation Suit
- Removed Particle damage effect.
- Now has a 10% chance to apply Plasma Burn when attacking with Energy damage.
Miniaturization Drive
- Fixed an issue where the damage debuff was scaling too steeply per rank.
Plasma Beam
- Increased activate period to 0.5 seconds (from 0.25). Damage and cost has been adjusted to accommodate the change.
Minigun
- Increased activate period to 0.5 seconds (from 0.25). Damage and cost has been adjusted to accommodate the change.
Particle Smash
- Fixed an issue where the damage radius was incorrect. Radius increased to 20ft.
Soul Vortex/Implosion Engine
- Increased the effectiveness of the pull.
New Power: Plasma Cannon
- Tier 3 Gadgeteering
- 20 second recharge.
- 50ft..
- Deals particle damage to targets in front of you. Deals additional damage for every Radiation effect on the targets.
- Stuns affected targets.
- Refreshes the duration of your Plasma Burn and Disintegrate.
- Adv (2): Applies Restoration.
FC.31.20240621.7
Mighty Kick
- Fixed an issue where Madness?! advantage was not applying Aegis.
Radiation Suit
- Added scaling proc rate per rank for Plasma Burn's application methods.
Plasma Cannon
- Fixed an issue with the fx playing incorrectly.
- Fixed rank scaling.
- Fixed an issue where it was refreshing Plasma Burn for a small portion of time.
Experimental Blaster
- Removed Confuse effect.
- Added chance to Disorient. Chance is guaranteed when fully charged.
New Power: Sonic Amplification
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- Energy Unlock
- Grants energy whenever you apply Disorient.
- Scales off of Recovery and Endurance.
FC.31.20240621.13
Intelligence Mastery
- Changed to provide +20 Intelligence and +20 maximum power.
Intelligence Specializations
- Swapped Revitalize and Enlightened spec locations.
Cosmic Gear
- Fixed an issue where Cosmic Presence could expire other Cosmic effects from other players.
Flamethrower
- Chance to apply Clinging Flames now scales with rank.
- Spitfire adv: Now increases Clinging Flames chance by 10%.
Fire Breath
- Chance to apply Clinging Flames now scales with rank.
- Chemical Burn adv: Now also changes the damage type to particle.
- Spitfire adv: Now increases Clinging Flames chance by 10%.
Accelerated Metabolism
- Reduced cooldown to 10 seconds (from 15).
On-Next-Hit
- Linked cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
Bionic Shielding
- The heal effect is now considered a heal over time for interaction purposes.
- Reduced the healing effect by 10%.
- Added a 3 second cooldown.
- Overloaded Circuits Adv: The damage from this advantage is now considered reflect damage, no longer scales off of ranged bonuses and can no longer crit.
- Note: The cost for this power is currently higher than intended.
Plasma Cannon
- Fixed an issue where it wasn't applying bonus damage for Disintegrate.
- Fixed an issue where Onslaught Gloves of the Sniper was not interacting with it.
Resurrection Serum
- Reduced cooldown to 3 seconds (from 15).
- New Adv (2): Resurrects up to 3 additional players within 25ft.
Experimental Burst Ray
- Increased overcharge damage to 12% (from 10).
Attack Toys
- Fixed an issue where Replicated Toys were not considered to be the player's pet.
- Updated flight power so they do not toggle it on and off periodically while fighting.
Detonator Switch
- Reduced cooldown to 45 seconds.
- Fixed an issue where this power's cost was scaling off of non-Gadgeteering pets.
- Increased overall damage.
- Power can only be activated if you have a applicable pet active.
Particle Mine
- Fixed power coloring issues.
Strafing Run
- Changed to use primary target instead of a reticle.
- Reduced damage and cost.
- Adjusted how the damage is distributed between each hit so that the majority of the damage is on the last hit.
- Increased area effect to 15ft (from 10).
- New Adv (1): Changes damage type to Particle.
Pulse Beam Rifle
- Increased the amount of Critical Severity given.
- New Adv (2): Reduces the cooldown of Technology powers while maintaining.
- Adjusted the Hit FX and Pulse FX to not strobe quite as much.
Technological Prowess
- Changed to only trigger off of Technology cooldowns.
- Can now also trigger additional stacks by fully charging or maintaining a Technology power.
Experimental Blaster
- Fixed an issue where the Mending Protocol heal was not healing the correct amount.
New Power: Plasma Radiation
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- 50ft Range
- Deals particle damage to targets in front of you.
- Chance to apply Plasma Burn.
- Adv (2): Increases base damage by 50%, but there is a 5% chance every hit that the power will go on cooldown for 5 seconds.
- Adv (2): Increases chance to apply Plasma Burn, and guarantees application when fully maintained.
- Adv (2): Chance to Snare targets, Chance to root targets.
- Adv (2): Refreshes Plasma Burn.
- Adv (2): Refreshes Disintegrate.
New Power: Technological Advancements
- Tier 1 Gadgeteering
- Healing Form
- Scales off of Intelligence
- Adds a stack whenever one of your technology powers is fully charged, maintained, or comes off of cooldown.
New Power: Energy Blaster
- Tier 0 Gadgeteering
- Energy Builder
FC.31.20240621.15
Powers
- Various tooltip updates for Gadgeteering and Laser Sword powers.
New Power: Technological Advancements
- Fixed an issue where this power wasn't always stacking properly.
Intelligence Mastery
- Fixed an issue where the effect wasn't reapplying properly.
New Power: Particle Blaster
- Tier 0 Gadgeteering
- Blast
- 100ft
- Deals Particle damage and has a chance to apply Plasma Burn.
- Adv (2): Applies Disintegrate on full charge.
- Adv (2): Heals you instead of dealing damage if your health is low.
- Adv (2): Spreads your Plasma Burn and Disintegrate effects to nearby targets.
New Power: Eye lasers
- Tier 0 Laser Sword
- Blast
- 100ft
- Deals Particle damage and has a chance to apply Plasma Burn.
- Damage is considered melee damage at close range, and ranged at long range.
- Adv (2): Applies Disintegrate on full charge.
- Adv (2): Spreads your Plasma Burn and Disintegrate effects to nearby targets.
- Adv (2): Stuns your target on full charge.
FC.31.20240621.20
Intelligence Spec Tree
- Preparation: Now provides Defense based on your secondary superstats.
- Enlightened: Now provides healing bonus based on how much cooldown reduction you have from gear.
- Revitalize: Increased amount per rank to 3%, reduces total ranks to 2.
- Tactician: Increased totals ranks to 3.
- Mastery: Increased max energy to +30.
Power Variant Devices
- Fixed an issue where Technology based PVDs were not being affected by effects that boost Technology powers.
Powers
- Added Download advantage to various Gadgeteering powers.
Pulse Beam Rifle
- Fixed an issue where this power was using the wrong values for its maintained cost.
- New Adv (2): Increases this power's damage by one rank, and makes the crit/severity bonus a flat rate.
Orbital Cannon
- New Adv (2): Refreshes the duration of Plasma Burn and Disintegrate.
Particle Blaster/Eye Lasers
- Refreshes the duration of Plasma Burn depending on the number of stacks on the target.
Experimental Burst Ray
- New Adv (2): Creates a random Healing Rune one your primary target when fully charged.
Particle Cannon
- Increase to cost/damage.
FC.31.20240621.21
Powers
Repurpose/Enlightened
- Both of these specs now have diminishing returns on scaling and have had their scaling reduced overall. They scale normally up until 36%, then use a significant diminished scaling.
Detect Vulnerability
- Adjusted scaling to no longer have a higher scaling at lower levels.
- Adjusted scaling so that taking ranks is always beneficial.
Telekinetic Assault
- Fixed an issue with how the bonus damage was being calculated.
Eye Beams
- FX adjustments for all ranks.
Strafing Run
- Fixed an issue where the Pyre Patch on various ranks was not applying properly.
Plasma Cannon
- Fixed an issue where it did not always trigger forms.
Eye Lasers/Particle Blaster
- Fixed an issue where these powers did not always refresh Plasma Burn for the full duration.
Detonator Switch
- Support Drones will now deal damage if they are in Turret Mode.
FC.31.20240621.25
Luminescent Slash
- Adjusted animation sequence to look smoother when chaining.
- End of line adv: Changed thresholds to 65% and 90%.
Please format any bugs you find in the following format:
Bug
Where it happens
What happens
BBCode: [color="#ff0000"]Bug Where it happens What happens[/color] HTML: <font color="#ff0000">Bug Where it happens What happens</font>
Please format any suggestions you have in the following format:
Suggestion
Your suggestion
BBCode: [color="#4a86e8"]Suggestion Your suggestion[/color] HTML: <font color="#4a86e8">Suggestion Your suggestion</font>
Post edited by kaiserin#0958 on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Medical Beam
Buff on target depends on role of Medical Beam user instead of role of target.
Example: User is Support, Target is DPS -> Result: Target gains resistance boost.
Toxic Nanites is applying Plasma Burn instead of Deadly Poison, as does its Precise Attack advantage.
Medical Beam: Field Medic Advantage
It doesn't do anything.
Particle Mine placement reticule when using Rank 2 & Rank 3 of this power.
This does not accurately reflect where the Particle Mine will spawn in.
Proposed Placement:
Actual Placement:
Bug
Particle Mine's damage.
When placed behind an enemy of Supervillain Rank this power hits twice.
My Characters on PRIMUS
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I am @RavenForce in game
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Technological Prowess only procs when powers come off cooldown, which would be fine on its own, but this results in its inability to stack consistently and means it can only ever proc at the exact same time as Gadgeteering's energy unlock (Molecular Self-Assembly) which necessitates using Endurance (otherwise some energy is wasted, which severely limits any build utilizing them.) Instead, I would advise, in order to make Technological Prowess actually useful instead of almost as much of a dead power as Aspect of the Machine...
Suggestion: (Highly recommended) change Technological Prowess to instead proc whenever dealing damage with a Direct Damaging Technology Attack of any kind.
Nerfing Experimental Burst Ray's maximum wind-up from a 2x multiplier at 3 stacks to a 1.5x multiplier at 5 stacks in exchange for widening its AoE was fine, but now that its maximum wind-up isn't as high, the lock-out of Overheat- which you're encouraged to risk when dealing with particularly dangerous groups of mobs- is even more punishing.
Suggestion: (Highly recommended) change Overheat to instead only expire Overcharge stacks upon proccing, and still allow Experimental Burst Ray to be used at its base level but prevent Overcharge stacks from being applied while still Overheated. (An increase in duration of Overheat to something slightly higher like 8 seconds would be fine as compensation.) This is especially a concern given the new Archetype- Fissile- gets Experimental Burst Ray as its only proper non-ult AoE.
Suggestion: change out the Disorient application chance of Experimental Burst Ray for Plasma Burn application chance; double this chance because 13%-50% on a 2.67sec charge for Plasma Burn would be too small.
While the nerf to Detect Vulnerability was understandable; it's worth considering that that was the purpose of Detect Vulnerability in the first place: Intelligence's specs are built around mostly stacking Intelligence in the same way Dexterity's specs are built mostly around stacking Secondary Superstats instead of Dexterity. If the concern was that Ego falls behind Intelligence, then consider: Strength also blows Ego out of the water. Instead of the Intelligence nerf, Ego needs a slight buff of some kind. Having said that, though, since we're choosing solely to focus on Intelligence...
Suggestion: change Intelligence's Detect Vulnerability spec to scale with all Superstats; gaining half the benefit from Secondaries that it does from Intelligence/Primary, allowing it to be used with either a PSS or SSS focus similar to Ego.
And, on that note!
Suggestion: change Intelligence's Expertise spec to affect all three Superstats, not just the two Secondaries. This serves the same purpose as the above suggestion in allowing for a PSS (or) SSS focus.
With those all said, the new powers and many of the tweaks to existing ones are varying degrees of interesting and I look forward to playing with them, though a few thoughts do arise there as well for things that could be changed and tweaked a little more but aren't urgently in need of a fix or thrown wildly out of whack by their changes... maaaybe barring bugfixes, but those are bugfixes and not "something is conceptually wrong here."
We've been asking for gadgeteering heals for a while, so Medical Beam- with a sprinkle of TF2 flavoring on top- is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking forward to using. However, what stands out to me is that, granted, it is a 100ft heal with a secondary effect of defensive and/or base damage buffs depending on the target it's being used on, which is awesome, but it does also do less healing than even the likes of Celestial Conduit or Rebuke, where the former is a quasi-AoE that can hit up to 4 people via Illumination application and the latter is a tier zero / free-from-the-start power. So a few thoughts come to mind.
Bug: Medical Beam's "Field Medic" adv does not appear to work whatsoever.
Suggestion: allow Medical Beam to target its own user, as it currently cannot do so.
Suggestion: make the bonus base damage and def% from Medical Beam dependent on the user's healing strength and allow it to scale higher than it currently does. (Reaching 10% or so base damage buff at R3, for example.)
Suggestion: give Medical Beam a slight buff to base healing, even something tiny like 10% or 20% more healing.
Suggestion: give Medical Beam a new advantage that turns it into an AoE proper of some sort in exchange for reducing its healing when spread across multiple targets, similar to Arcane Vitality. (Maybe a 15ft sphere or 20ft sphere on the primary target?) Field Medic is useful in concept but is A. currently bugged to not work at all, and B. says it is centered around the user rather than the target which isn't inherently bad (it'd allow for healing a distant tank while also healing nearby DPSes/other supports) but does mean its AoE component can't be used at range itself.
Suggestion: give Medical Beam a new advantage that drastically increases the bonus base damage/def% provided to the target being healed but diminishes the amount of healing this power provides in turn.
Electro Magnet is an interesting one. It's a slightly more traditionally useful parallel to Soul Vortex, in that the energy gain from Static Field is more useful on melee DPSes and tanks, where the Healing Rune is only really useful on healers, while the damage itself is identical. However, there's still the same core issue shared between Electro magnet and Soul Vortex, and that is: the Pull effect is too weak to be used in combat; enemies can- even if slowed 100% or even 200% by various debuffs- casually power-walk out of it. To that end...
Suggestion: give Electro Magnet a new Adv that drastically increases its damage output but removes the Pull effect. (Consider also giving the same to Soul Vortex, but this is relevant for Electro Magnet in the here and now.)
Radiation Suit is mostly fine as a passive, and an interesting alternative to Quantum Stabilizer. With that in mind, though, the periodic tiny pulse of Particle damage to opponents within 25ft has the same disrupting effect as Fiery Form does for the purposes of a select few pieces of content where crowd control matters, such as Kigatilik and Qwyjibo. With that in mind, I suggest one of two options...
Suggestion: (tiny nerf) remove Radiation Suit's periodic AoE pulse of Particle damage with each hit, so it doesn't interfere with Crowd Controllers or cause any oopsies in aggro generation.
Suggestion: (tiny buff) cause Radiation Suit to refill a small amount of energy each time the user deals Particle Damage to an enemy with any Direct attacks. (This is from the perspective of Gadgeteering's energy management being genuinely bad due to the overlap between Molecular Self-Assembly and Technological Prowess, and would also serve to make this an attractive lower-damage higher-flexibility alternative to Targeting Computer for Power Armor builds.)
Pulse Beam Rifle's changes are a bit awkward to work with, mostly because it eats a lot more energy now while not interacting with Gadgeteering's Energy Unlock or Toggleform in any way whatsoever. The aforementioned suggestion of changing said Toggleform to proc off Direct Damage Technology attacks landing instead of on power cooldown would help remedy this, but that still leaves Pulse Beam Rifle in a... strange state, compared to its more "mundane" counterpart of Assault Rifle. With that said, I have what one simple suggestion, since the new critical chance and severity backloading on PBR with the equalized damage just does slightly less damage than Uncompromising Assault Rifle, but is for some reason more expensive than Assault Rifle energy-wise.
Suggestion: (highly recommended) give Pulse Beam Rifle a small chance to apply Plasma Burn with each tick innately, without changing anything else about it. (The energy cost being something like 1/3rd higher than Assault Rifle while doing the same if not slightly less damage as it is now should really cover that.)
Or, alternatively, accounting once again for Pulse Beam Rifle being around one third more expensive than Assault Rifle in its current iteration...
Suggestion: give Pulse Beam Rifle an adv to match Uncompromising: +30% base damage to targets affected by Disintegrate, and a bonus 2% critical chance per tick and 0.6% critical severity per tick against targets affected by Disintegrate. (For a total of 7%/2.1% at R2+Adv versus 6%/1.8% at R3, compared to R2 being 5%/1.5% and R1 being 4.2%/1.2%.)
This is my cry for help
Mending Protocol makes a cameo on the bottom of normal Experimental Blaster's tooltip.
[Particle Mine]:is now 100% Unusable with gamepads because it was given the Strafing Run target mechanic
Please DON'T do that! Having 1 Single power not working with gamepads for the entire game was enough!
---
Bug:
[Storm Cloud]: the Shocking Stike ADV does nothing! No stun effect
NEEDS useful advs
Suggestion: Give Storm Cloud Restoration and Electrocution ADVs
---
Bug:
[Technological Prowess] Rank 3 is called New Power (Rank 3)
---
Suggestion: Give both [Experimental Burst Ray] & [Experimental Blaster] innate chance to apply Plasma Burn depending on the charge
Even with the slightly increase of cone range, Experimental Burst Ray is still pretty bad with the Overheat Gimmick,
---
This is a head head scratcher! How does even work when the damage reduction is in the Disoriented effect itself? 🤔
Are there 3 versions of Disoriented? How does the game track it down?
What happens when multiple players apply their own? Does it stack? Replace the previous disoriented or the enemy is going to have multiple versions of disoriented
I'm not a fan of this ADV, but removing its DAMAGE BUFF is a PRETTY BAD IDEA
doesn't make sense in context of the power neither! You become BIGGER, how does that make give you more speed?
Suggestion: Instead of removing the Generic damage buff, why not create a new buff for or let Reciprocating Gizmo also apply 3 stacks of Furious along with the 3 stacks of Charged Up?
or 1 Stack of Coruscating Might + 3 Charged Up
--- Trying to constantly juggle powers on CD already felt pretty junky with MSA alone, but now having the toggle as well feels like an overkill!
Can be universal usable from every power-frame in the game at least
CAN'T say i'm a fan of Gadgets focusing on Juggling Cooldowns to trigger their effects, it feels like 2011 all over again with MSA being used everywhere
---
Just Commentary/Riffing under the Spoilers
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL!
We finally got the Team Fortress 2 Medic's Medi Gun
TF2 came out in 2007 while CO came out in 2009, we are literally brothers
--- Pretty Good Visuals! Can pass out for a Magic-user too
... but why didn't Archery got a Block too?
--- Another awesome Threat wipe addition
--- Implosion Engine fans rise up \o/
Underrated ultimate, deserves more love!
--- This feels like a MEME power
Suggestion: Give Radiation Suit a Mechanic to reward the player with putting Technology powers on Cooldown
That way it stand out more and actually help the Gadgeteering powerframe
Suggestion: Move the random effects on Experimental Blaster to an advantage, or add a new advantage that increased damage on full charge, but removes the random effects.
Need a 50-100' power that can RUPTURE Plasma Burn stacks. The one in Laser Sword is only a 25' and is for melee oriented characters.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=-
"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
Suggestion: Consider making this passive Boost Toxic & Energy Damage, and other damage to a lesser degree. Rather than just Energy with everything else as an afterthought.
I get why it does what it does conceptually, I was just hoping to get rid of Pestilence for my Rad themed gal. Anyway...
In a similar vein to what has been mentioned here before, I think Rad Suit needs something replacing on it to make it a standout choice, particularly when paired with the new toggle form.
As a result, my second suggestion will be:
Suggestion: Remove the "Deals Particle Damage to Nearby Targets" and replace with: "Applies a 5% Cooldown Reduction to all Gadgeteering Powers whilst slotted. If the Technological Prowess form is active, this cooldown reduction percentage is doubled (10%). This does not affect Ultimate or Active powers."
I think with the way the changes are now, there needs to be some good incentive to make use of this passive, beyond the FDR to DoTs (which is nice). Particularly for something like the Fissile AT which will be tied down to these two powers anyway.
I think the dealing particle damage to nearby targets can be problematic if you are tagged as in combat and you break the exceptionally fragile CC we have in CO, which has ramifications for various encounters, because that would double with the "Chance to apply Plasma Burn to targets you damage" which would have a compounding effect.
This brings me to my third suggestion:
Suggestion: Remove the "Chance to apply Plasma Burn to targets you damage" and replace with: "Applies Radiation Sickness to targets you damage. Radiation Sickness has a 30%/60%/90% chance to refresh existing instances of your Disintegrate/Superconductor/Deafening/Debilitating Poison on a target."
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I have mixed feelings about this power. I feel like it should be something baked into the Pet UI bar. I think the cooldown and energy cost is absurd at the moment particularly with Pets out.
I don't know what this was balanced against in terms of practical application because in combat pets can be everywhere and in content that's higher end, we get a free Detonator Switch with any AoE that a mob uses, but no benefits.
I think this power might exclusively work best with Particle Mine, if Particle Mine felt better to use as its a bit awful feeling at the moment due to placement method. (This might feel better once fixed tbh).
Suggestion: I sort of envisioned Particle Mine being thrown at targets and they just attach and either explode when the target dies, or early with Detonator switch. (It would also be interesting if Particle Mine could deal 1 Particle Damage to latch onto an enemy and they could be "loaded up" with 5 of them and then Det Switch is activated).
If something like that could be worked with the time that's remaining, I think that might be interesting. The cooldown on Particle Mine feels bad, especially when you realise that Detonator Switch can destroy Particle Mines without an explosion.
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Suggestion:I think there'd be a preference for Ejector Module to be reverted and kept as an advantage whilst the damage is returned to the base power with a slight reduction to account for an innate chance to apply Plasma Burn.
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Suggestion: Please use this as an opportunity to add a Deafening applicator advantage to this power as well..
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Further to the above...I feel I have to post this:
A 283 energy cost with 9 pets out...
And if I add a singular Particle Mine, the cost goes up to 311:
And if I force the near maximum (all pets plus 5 mines), it tops out at a whopping 424!!
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Suggestion: The trigger conditions for this need to be more friendly to players and builds which do not want to make use of Tractor Beam, which has a cooldown that works nigh perfectly with this form. I think a secondary trigger condition of: "Triggers whenever one of your powers comes off of cooldown OR when you deal direct damage with a Gadgeteering Power." should be more than sufficient to bridge the gap.
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&
Interaction Bug between Technological Prowess & Experimental Burst Ray's Overheated! debuff.
PTS
Overheated! debuff which places Experimental Burst Ray on cooldown does not trigger Technological Prowess (under current trigger conditions)
Also...why did the Gordon Freeman costume get removed and changed with an extradimensional cat??
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PTS
See below
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Bug: Particle Mine appears at player's location, rather than targeted area
When it happens: On use of Rank 2 & Rank 3 versions of the power
Where it happens: Any location
Bug: Particle Mine applies damage & effects twice
When it happens: On detonation -- Includes manual detonation via Detonator Switch power
Where it happens: Any location
Also, Particle Burst advantage will also apply twice when this happens.
Bug: Particle Mine targeting reticle appears even power is on cooldown
When it happens: On any use of Particle Mine while the power is on cooldown
Where it happens: Any location
Suggestion: Particle Mine - Manual Trigger (Advantage)
+ 1 point advantage which disables Particle Mine's automatic detonation, greatly reduces the power's cooldown and grants a mini-power not unlike Night Warrior's Stealth, called 'Remote Trigger'.
- Max amount of Particle Mines that can be placed is reduced to 2
- Particle Mine no longer counts for the Detonator Switch power.
Suggestion: Particle Mine - Primed detonator visual\sound effect
Power presently has no indicator of when detonation is ready, placing a Particle Mine and immediately using Detonator Switch will destroy the Particle Mine, but produce no explosion.
Beeping sound would only begin when the placed Particle Mine is primed for detonation.
Side Note: In PVP, intelligence underperforms because players damage resistance simply outweighs the defense penetration offered by detect vulnerability. In addition to this, intelligence loses both defense, and critical severity. Essentially, the only thing intelligence had going for it in PVP was the defense penetration, and now that penetration is being mutilated with no other boosts to the intelligence tree to balance that out.
This power is now an Active Offense.
Grants a damage boost and breakout damage.
Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (from 120) to match other Active powers.
Fixed an issue where the amount of recharge reduced was being reduced by how much recharge reduction you had.
Reduced base recharge reduction to 15 (from 20) to account for new cooldown time.
No longer affects Ultimate or Active power recharges.
Rejuvenating Injectors Adv: While this power is active, now heals whenever a power of yours comes off of cooldown. Increased heal amount.
I think this is a mistake. Nano is only power with cd reduction, that any build can use. Turning it into an AO will bench it to never be used by rest of builds.
With 2 min cd, (with out AoAC), you could push rotations back to back a dps check on dino, which helped us push one extra check.
There are also devices. Nano provides some interesting combos when you mix in various devices.
If 16/20/24 cd reduction is strong for actives and ultimate's, then just cut it in half for them and leave full cd reduction for rest.
Suggestion: revert Nanobot swarm to how it used to be and cut 50% for actives and ultimate's.
16/20/24 cd for all powers except actives and ultimate's which would provide 8/10/12 cd.
Create new AO for gadget. Why can't we have both? Wouldn't gadget benefit of having both of them?
Again, this is a small gem of power that all builds can use after they are done with core of build and it's sad to see it never to be used again.
Did Gabe Newell himself came and demanded the removal of it because he wouldn't release Half-Life 3?
You may as well remove the Team Fortress 2 Easter eggs from westside and Left 4 Dead from Vibora Bay 🤨
This is a silly Easter Egg, Keep it the way it is!
Suggestion: Make a set of 1/1, 10/10, 100/100 Perks for players who trigger this Easter Egg!
Suggestion: Give Magnet ADV that allows it to refresh the Disintegrate Debuff on activation and when the power expires, Similar the way Ball Lighting does with Electrocution
I agree, the Cooldowns of majority of Gadgets are already too long and NOT everyone wants to use Tractor Beam
Suggestion: Give Technological Prowess a Similar secondary trigger mechanic like Sharp Shooter
When you deal Critical Hit with a Technology power while one or more your Gadget Powers are on CD, you Trigger Technological Prowess
Please AVOID the awkward Archery's Precision situation that can fall apart if you fail to critical hit
Suggestion: Give Access/Copy existing (and few) Tractor Beam weapons so they can work with Medical Beam's weapon category
Suggestion: Offensive Toggles are cool, but please make a unique SUPPORT toggle for Gadgets too!
- Triggers exactly like Technological Prowess but have it Critical Heal an ally while a Technology power is on CD also as secondary trigger
- Empathy stacks
- Scales exclusive with INT
- Have the Inventor AT have an option between this and Compassion
We already have Support toggles that scale with REC and END(to a lesser quantity) why not add INT too?
We need more Toggles in general for variety
Also, and I can't stress it enough, Archery Needs a Block
Create a new Slotted Support Passive for Gadgets that works like Seraphim, and give it as an option over Medical Nanities for Inventor
-Boost Your Energy damage/or all your Technology powers! Limiting it only for Technology
-Increases the strength of your healing
-Every time one of your powers comes out of Cooldown, It gives a Healing over time to allies around you and boost your damage to a lesser degree and your healing power! Stacks x amount of times
-Increases Energy damage Resistance
-Recovers energy when you receive Energy damage
My Reasoning for this: Darkness was given Harbinger and Fire was given Hearth! We need more passives like this across the powerframes
A new support Passive that works this way would greatly benefit Technology and give the players more options, even if its not like the Sorcery buff Auras
Do you want to a passive HoT and don't care about how much damage you deal? Pick Medical Nanities
Do you want to be balanced around your damage but also HYPER FOCUS on Healing with Medical Beam? Pick [Gadget Seraphim] and save yourself from the trouble of Medical Nanities building Healing aggro on you!
Suggestion:
Give Bionic Shielding an ADV that turns into into a AOE SPHERE application around your main target
Suggestion:
Healing Rune for Gadgets
I can confirm that Field Medic adv on the heal gun doesn't work
Nanobot Swarm's adv where it heals you when a power just finish its CD? Yeah, its not reliable at all. You have to plan this to pull this off.
Toggle Form: Sharp Shooter
Turns off whenever you make an attack. 😭
Toggle Form: Technological Prowess
Does not stack from devices coming off cooldown.
OR
Suggestion
Have Toggle Form: Technological Prowess stack from devices coming off cooldown.
It's like the area of damage is stationary for where you activate it and doesn't move with you. Damage doesn't continue unless both you and the enemies return to their spots on its activation.
[Electro Magnet] doesn't Trigger [Weather Shaping]
Bug
[Electro Magnet] doesn't Trigger [Wind Reverberation]
Bug
[Electro Magnet] doesn't grand Repel Resistance to the enemies
Nanobot Swarm
Keep Nanobot Swarm as is mostly, reduce Ultimate CD timers some, still the long recharge/CD time, but add Adv, which will change it into an Active Offense.
- New Nanobot Swarm Adv Changes it into active offense.
- No Damage boost, but for 15 Seconds its active, increase Power Charge Speed by 35%
- Will now only Cut Recharge timers by 15 Seconds Max
- Improve Rejuvenating Injectors Adv. to Heal by +650HP and +45% health Points, This will make it an Active Defense.
Can we get another form which improves ranged damage scaling off of Radiation effects? This form could use the stacks of the Analyze buff.
FC.31.20240621.3
[Particle Mine] is still 1 0 0 % unusable on Gamepads
Don't do this to me, I'm actually using this power compared to Strafing Run which was unusable since Day #1
If you want to keep this target system like that, you will have to address both powers not being usable with Gamepads
Suggestion:
Can we please have a reskin version Plasma Beam for Gadgets?
It's been requested for years and by using the Tractor Beam weapon it could be the gadget's version of Gatling Gun
Bug:
All ranks of Plasma Cannon are the same and don't change any of the power's values
Bug:
If you use another power like [Experimental Blaster] or [Experimental Burst Ray] before Plasma Cannon,
the visuals beam charges comes from your hand instead of the Gun's Barrel
Seems its happening with any range weapon power, it also happened when I was testing Rocket
With Heroic gear getting Plasma Cannon under 15 seconds
There is NO POINT This power's Plasma Burn and Disintegrate refresh can be useful at all with both Debuffs having 15 Seconds duration and the power itself can get down to 15... this is illogical
--
What can I say, I'm glad its using Tractor Beam's weapon and stance of Flamethrower and Gatling Gun, but I feel this goes WASTED Here!
I would prefer this being a maintaining attack without cooldown and crowd control and basically the PA Plasma Beam for Gadgets who need a maintain aoe attack
Cool visuals! 20 seconds CD feels wasted
Suggestion:
Give Plasma Cannon increased 7 MAX target cap to make up for its 20 seconds Cooldown
Suggestion:
ADV For Electro Magnet that turns the Static Field into a Healing Rune
Suggestion:
Please Give Dust Devil innate Vaccum effect so it can be actual useful and help trigger Wind's Junkie Toggle and EU
Right now Soul Vortex makes BETTER wind powerthan Dust Devil
Bug?
Radiation Suit's chance to apply Plasma Burn can be triggered by each tick of Plasma Burn. It's kinda fun, but can also lead to a stack of Plasma Burn lasting several minutes. This might cause issues when a player is trying to get out of combat.
Suggestion:
Particle Mine
- Rollback (2): Particle Mine now spawns at your location, and its damage is increased.
This doesn't seem to effect gameplay, but it is messing with parse.
Can we possibly get an Experimental Blaster Energy Builder? I just want a pistol to shoot either a laser beam or bolt.
I can't talk about Detonator Switch or Particle Mine because those sorts of powers... absolutely aren't my area of expertise. Simple bug-fixes like Toxic Nanites applying the wrong DoT or Shocking Strike not Stunning right, likewise, I won't talk much if at all about because, honestly, they're working as intended now and I'm content with that! But moving on from those though...
- Medical Beam
Now that Field Medic works correctly, I'm absolutely delighted by how it functions. Since Field Medic is able to heal its own user, like a weak drain heal, this turns Medical Beam into a weird almost quasi-Life-Drain that you aim at allies instead of enemies. With that in mind, I do personally still think that Medical Beam needs a slight bump to bring it up from interesting and a passable side-grade to non-meta heals that you really shouldn't be using for Cosmics, Eidolon, Lairs, etcetera all the way to "viable sidegrade to current meta heals" like proper drain heals, Arcane Vitality and the likes.
Suggestion: widen the range of the Field Medic adv from 15ft to 20ft, and make it apply Medical Beam's damage-and-or-defense-buff at half strength to all targets being affected by Field Medic. (Allow this to stack with Medical Beam's primary damage-and-or-defense-buff for the primary target.)
Suggestion: (repeat suggestion) allow Medical Beam to target its own user.
Suggestion: (repeat suggestion) add a new Adv that turns Medical Beam into an AoE (could be any shape, but probably cone?) centered on the primary target, with healing divided up between all targets hit (all the way down to 1/2th strength at a full 5 targets) similar to Arcane Vitality. Potentially split/reduce the damage-and-or-defense-buff across targets accordingly as well; down to 1/2th strength hitting a full 5 targets.)
Suggestion: (repeat suggestion) give Medical Beam a slight bump in base healing strength. I understand that, yes, it's a mobile heal and it has a (tiny) boost to defense and/or damage built into it for the recipient, but it's still a high-tier power, and should not be outhealed significantly by the likes of Celestial Conduit in most situations. (If you say "oh, but R2+Field Medic Medical Beam outheals R3 Celestial Conduit, remember that Celestial Conduit can chain up to three times to heal four targets at once.
All in all, I'm looking forward to using Medical Beam no matter what, but I feel it still needs some buffing to bring it up from passable to a strong sidegrade, considering heals are otherwise (almost) entirely dominated by high-output mystical taps and maintains, with a slight side of brain magic psionics to go with.
- Electro Magnet and Soul Vortex
Okay, so, the buff to their Pulls is huge and I love it. However, something is immediately apparent. Two things, in fact, which are rather problematic especially put together.
Bug(???): (tested on R1 and R3 Soul Vortex + R3 Electro Magnet before posting this) the Pull effect of these powers is ticking every 0.5 seconds instead of once a second. (Live/pre-buff Soul Vortex's Pull only ticks once per second.) Tested with no Superstats, no Specs, no devices equipped, in Nemesis Heirloom primaries and Catalyst Heirloom secondaries. If this is intended as part of "Increased the effectiveness of the pull." then please disregard this. If this is not intended, then please consider the following statement, and the suggestion that comes after it:
With that said, Even bugged to pull twice as often, even at R3, random mooks can still casually power-walk out of them. Fixing this bug would require overlapping both Electro Magnet and Soul Vortex to achieve the same Pull strength. Having said that...
Suggestion: keep this bug as an intended feature. (Potentially package it into a 2-point Adv that makes the Pull tick twice as often, and make it Snare targets while Pulling them to compensate for not being able to take R3 at the same time?) The current bugged doubled Pull frequency is actually reasonably fair considering how mobs can effortlessly shrug it off on its own unless paired with slowing effects from other powers, making it finally strong enough to do its job of keeping them still.
Now having said that, I'd also like to say; the 1-point Adv that makes Electro Magnet's energy rune spawn underneath the user is a step in the right direction for The Fissile and a helpful utility for Electro Magnet usage in general, but isn't enough to save The Fissile from its crippling energy problems from the poorly thought-out toggleform and bad superstat choice. Consider revisions there later, but for now, since my focus is on these two powers in particular...
Suggestion: give Soul Vortex a matching 1-point Adv to make it spawn its healing rune underneath the user upon expiring instead of under the target.
Suggestion: give both Electro Magnet and Soul Vortex 2-point Advs to make them follow the user, similar to Wall of Ice's Frozen Footsteps or Fire Snake's Fiery Path.
All in all, the buff to these two powers was needed, but even then they're still a bit lacking to the point that the bug making their Pull proc twice as frequently should be kept as a legitimate feature. Though this leads me to bring up one more thing that's a bit of a half-related tangent, connected mostly by the topic of Pull tweaks.
Suggestion / personal Pull-buff-related request (for U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle users): since we're finally cluing in to how weak Pulls actually are, could this PVD's energy cost be decreased or Pull strength be increased to match? (This PVD also has a bit of buggy jank where sometimes the Pull effect itself "untethers" from the primary target, along with the VFX, and stays in a fixed location even as the damage portion of it moves with the primary target, but I digress.)
- Radiation Suit
The change from constant ticking Particle Damage in an AoE to the added chance to apply Plasma Burn when dealing Energy damage is very nice. Just like that, I like this a lot more than I did just days ago when testing it. Having said that, I'd like to suggest a possibility or two to make this even better without unbalancing it.
Suggestion: make the Plasma Burn application chance rank dependent. (Say: 8%/10%/12% at R1/2/3.) This as an idea would also be paired with...
Suggestion: change the Plasma Burn application chance to, instead of a fixed chance that can happen once every 0.5 seconds at a minimum, scale with the power's charge/activation/maintain/etcetera time, similar to the Coruscating Might effect from the Offense Core Mod of the same name, allowing for builds doing slower, larger bursts of Energy damage, from Luminescent Slash to Chest Beam and beyond, to benefit from it to the same proportionate degree that a Pulse Beam Rifle or Pulp Fiction Ray Gun (or I suppose Lightning Arc as well) build benefits from it.
Beyond that, I can't think of anything else to suggest or recommend here. Radiation Suit is shaping up to be a very nice and rather avant-garde slotted passive that I look forward to muddling around with and swapping some builds over to using when it hits Live if it keeps up along this line of things.
- Plasma Cannon
Okay, so, here's the controversial one, going off both what I've been reading, what people have been telling me. Popping onto the PTS to give it a test, and I'm met with... a few immediate thoughts. Firstly, "wow, this is... pretty much just a weirder Chest Beam stapled awkwardly onto Rocket Launcher." Secondly, "wow, that recharge time really is genuinely garbage." But before I get ahead of myself, first things first.
Bug: Plasma Cannon's extra ranks don't actually do anything. No new secondary effects, but most importantly, no 20% multiplicative damage increase per rank and matching increase to Stun strength either.
Having said that, Plasma Cannon looks cool, but it's effectively a Chest Beam with a long cooldown that can only be fully charged and rather than applying a beneficial effect, only refreshes existing effects that are already there (but it cannot maintain them consistently due to its incredibly long cooldown.) Considering that it's a jankier Chest Beam, I have several suggestions to make to make Plasma Cannon more usable and more interesting; these are all meant to go together.
Suggestion: allow Plasma Cannon to fire off on taps and partial charges; the damage dealt as a result scaling with how long it was charged for. (See also: Chest Beam, which has identical AoE size, identical charge and activation time, and near-identical energy costs and damage before accounting for Burn Through application and Knock Back versus Stunning plus Disintegrate and Plasma Burn refreshing.)
Suggestion: remove Plasma Cannon's cooldown timer completely, allowing Plasma Cannon to be fired continually and repeatedly. Yes, I am fully aware that this would make Plasma Cannon ridiculously strong for single-target damage, but I'm going to address that with my next suggestion.
Suggestion: take away the base Plasma Burn and Disintegrate refresh, as well as the bonus damage for each Radiation Effect; package all of these together into a new 2-point Advantage. Make this Advantage give Plasma Cannon a cooldown with a base of 12 seconds to prevent it from being spammable, but also make it widen the AoE of this power from 2ft to something slightly more forgiving, like a 5ft cylinder, or potentially even a 30* cone instead.
I want to like Plasma Cannon, but as it currently is, it's just not a good power. It seems mostly like it exists as a "dead power" alternative to Orbital Cannon for The Fissile, since Experimental Blaster (and even Tractor Beam as well) is miles more forgiving for Disintegrate, and between Orbital Cannon, Electro Magnet, and now with the (much deserved) change to Radiation Suit, its entire toolkit has low Plasma Burn application chance. And that's to say nothing of moving beyond The Fissile, where there are many more ways to maintain Disintegrate for both Melee and Ranged, and now a healthy variety of ways to do so for Plasma Burn as well. However, consider instead that if these changes are too much all together, the following could be workable instead.
Suggestion: alternatively, reduce the recharge time of Plasma Cannon to a base of 12 seconds and allow it to be tapped and partially charged, with its damage scaling with charge time just like suggested previously. Replace all the secondary effects (bonus damage for Radiation Effects, Plasma Burn and Disintegrate refresh, Stun) with a refresh of solely Plasma Burn on taps and partial charges, and a Ranged version of Particle Smash's Plasma Burn rupture and Disintegration application on full charge.
If we want to keep these changes safer then making Plasma Cannon some sort of weird ranged mixture of Eviscerate and Particle Smash would absolutely make it from a bad power into a good one. Now, moving on from that, a few more miscellaneous things...
Bug: both portions of Implosion Engine (the damage and the Pull) appear to be ticking twice every 0.5 seconds instead of once. While I love how aggressive this makes Implosion Engine, I am 100% confident this is not intentional.
Suggestion: increase Implosion Engine's duration from 12 seconds to 16 seconds to match Whirlpool, Corrosive Pit, Meteor Blaze's Ultimate Pyre Patch and the likes.
Suggestion: give Soul Vortex a 2-point Adv that makes it apply Bleeding to targets, to match Electro Magnet's Plasma Burn application Adv and match the association with Bleeds that the Darkness set has.
Suggestion: give Experimental Blaster a 2-point Adv that makes it apply Burn Through to targets. Yes, this is pretty much just because The Fissile is in a horrible state and needs a lot of help.
Suggestion: give Pulse Beam Rifle a 2-point Adv that makes it deal 30% bonus damage against targets affected by Disintegrate. This is because Pulse Beam Rifle deserves a leg up over Assault Rifle if it's going to cost close to 50% more energy to use. (27+27/0.5sec PBR vs 35+19/0.5sec AR.) Otherwise, reduce Pulse Beam Rifle's energy costs to be in the same realm as Assault Rifle's, since almost 1.5x the energy cost for roughly the same damage... doesn't make any sense.
This is my cry for help
Firstly, no particular thoughts in regards to bugfixes; powers underperforming because they're broken is very icky, no good, and those being fixed is always welcome.
- Radiation Suit
Was the application chance of Plasma Burn actually per 1 second originally but the tooltip mistakenly displayed as per every 0.5 seconds? If the answer is "no, this is a nerf to the effect" then disappointing. In this state, I'd argue it should have a higher Plasma Burn application chance per attempt, which...
Suggestion: increase Plasma Burn application chance to compensate for the nerf to application time. If the restriction is once a second then consider something like 12%/16%/20% once per second to at least bring it in line with its pre-nerf state, if slower but more consistent. Otherwise, if that's considered too much of a damage boost for this passive, then...
Suggestion: (alternative to the above) give Radiation Suit an innate base cost discount on all Technology powers, one not affected by the same DR that Int-stacking and Cost Discount on gear is subject to. Something like 8%/10%/12% at R1/R2/R3 potentially? This is, once again, a stopgap fix for the Fissile's awful toggleform and bad choice of energy secondary superstat that would happen to double as making this a higher-utility alternative to some other more damage-focused technology passives.
- Experimental Blaster
This impacts very little about the power. I'm personally in the "Confuse is bad because more unpredictability can cause awkward and unwanted deaths" camp, so I do feel like this is fine. I do also want to call Disorient into question though. What is the fascination with Disorient? I do understand more sound-centric powers (Sonic Beam, Sonic Arrow, etc.) as well as some "jarring hit" powers like Hurl or Thunderclap having it, but why are the more laser-y, plasma-y gadgeteering powers getting it too? Experimental Burst Ray and now Experimental Blaster? It's odd, and it doesn't mesh well mechanically with the focus on Plasma Burn that's also being brought into gadgeteering bit by bit.
Suggestion: replace Experimental Blaster's Disorient application with Plasma Burn application.
And with that, a brief side note for Experimental Burst Ray...
Suggestion: replace Experimental Burst Ray's Disorient application with Plasma Burn application.
Now having said that, I have a more radical suggestion that would be very helpful for Fissile users, as well as any using Experimental Blaster for Disintegrate application on singular large targets instead of multiple smaller targets in general, before I move on.
Suggestion: change the "Disintegration Ray" adv to apply Disintegrate on taps and partial charges as well, but also put Experimental Blaster on a short cooldown (base 5 seconds, similar to Experimental Burst Ray's Overheated, though preferably (though it wouldn't need it) actually affected by cooldown reduction. (If affected by CDR, base 6 seconds instead for fairness.) This would be a QoL increase for Experimental Blaster in general but also make Fissile far more functional without changing anything else about its toolkit (by letting it tap-apply its defpen after each full maintain, similar to what you're meant to be doing with Shotgun for the Soldier AT, while ensuring that Fissile's toggleform procs consistently without having to handicap it with Tractor Beam taps instead of Electro Magnet.)
Please consider this suggestion in particular, as-is.
- Sonic Amplification
Honestly, there's nothing particularly impressive about this but nothing particularly bad either? It's another Rec/End EU, and we've got mountains of both Rec/End and End/Rec EUs. We have some Intelligence representation but not nearly as much as those two, and we have- as far as I recall- no Int-secondary EUs. With that in mind, a thought does arise...
Suggestion: change Sonic Amplification's scaling stats to Endurance primary, Intelligence secondary. Recovery is almost always horrible for ranged DPSes compared to Endurance and we have no Intelligence-secondary representation in EUs, only Intelligence-primary.
- Plasma Cannon
I have to bring this up one more time, because while the bugfixes are good, Plasma Cannon's excessively long cooldown means it can't properly do what it's meant to do, and is effectively a "dead power" (it has one job of refreshing Plasma Burns and Disintegrate but cannot maintain them indefinitely even with extreme int-stacking to keep its cooldown as low as possible.)
Suggestion: reduce Plasma Cannon's base cooldown from 20 seconds to 12 so that it's actually usable. In its current state, it is not.
Now, with all that said, I'd like to make a few smaller, more cosmetic QoL suggestions. The creation of the second Fitted Hood to go over the gask mask face pieces was an awesome start, but let's push that further!
Suggestion: for the sake of themed players (and because it'd be really cool,) give Implosion Engine the option to use an alternate skin from the Powers menu- similar to pets, and to how some powers can choose different emanation points there as well- to make it use the "hand raise" animation from Whirlpool, and use Gravitar's black hole visuals (or something similar) instead of the rotating gravity generator.
Suggestion: do similar for Electro Magnet to the above suggestion, but give it a smaller/miniature version of the visuals for Implosion Engine as an alternative skin/option.
Suggestion: give Pulse Beam Rifle an alternative visual option (picked from the Powers Menu like the aforementioned suggestions) that makes Pulse Beam Rifle a solid beam instead of rapid laser pulses. (To satisfy all the laser-lovers out there.)
Suggestion: change Experimental Burst Ray's VFX/energy cone to be wider the longer it is charged. (Just a VFX change, no change to the power's actual range or AoE size.)
This is my cry for help
Bug
Replicated Clones of Attack Toys still do not deal any damage to targets if detonated.
Bug
Munitions Bots do not release any mini mines when detonated.
I think the cost vs damage output is still very off.
I am currently on PTS and my Detonator Switch costs 30 energy and when I summon Attack Toys, it jumps up to 33 and then when that summons one replicant the cost jumps up to 54 and then when I have just one attack toy and 3 replicants out, the cost jumps to 110:
Suggestion Have Detonator Switch scale its maximum cost to your maximum energy and set this ability's base cooldown to 20 seconds. Right now, the sheer cost of the power plus its near Ultimate ability cooldown make it extremely undesirable for pet masters or people who want to experiment with niche trap style stealth builds. If the damage/healing that this power can output cannot be increased significantly then the cooldown and cost of this ability needs to take a serious hit.
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
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As multiple players have pointed out, the cooldowns on things are just too long to make this a reasonably attractive form (competitive to Concentration/Chilled Form), which it needs to be.
Suggestion: The trigger conditions for this need to be more friendly to players and builds which do not want to make use of Tractor Beam, which has a cooldown that works nigh perfectly with this form. I think a secondary trigger condition of: "Triggers whenever one of your powers comes off of cooldown OR when apply, refresh or consume a Radiation Effect with a Gadgeteering Power." should be more than sufficient to bridge the gap.
Reasoning: In larger / higher end fights where powers may need to be cancelled to help with blocking/survival, keeping your form up with this toggle is very tricky. I am all for in set synergy but I think this is a bit too far as you are almost forced to take the adv on Rad Shield and Tractor Beam to have a hope at keeping it up with consistency unless you are timing all your cooldowns in succession which isn't a particularly fun way to play.
Suggestion: Whilst I am a fan of the replacement icon for Tech Prowess, I quite liked the icon with the spanner that was placeholder. Maybe this can be used for the Expertise stacks instead?
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
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With the introduction of Technological Prowess, the Arcturus Cooling System advantage seems to be a counterproductive advantage.
With this, there's a few possibilities:
Suggestion: Adjust the Arcturus Cooling System advantage to remove the chance to Overheat entirely.
Suggestion: Change this advantage to now apply a 0.5/1 sec cooldown on the power when more than 1 stack of Overheat is active after a full or partial charge.
Suggestion: Alternatively, remove this advantage altogether.
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
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PTS
Overheated! debuff which places Experimental Burst Ray on cooldown does not trigger Technological Prowess (under current trigger conditions)
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
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Plasma Cannon/Particle Mine/Electro Magnet + Onslaught Gloves of the Sniper
These powers are tagged as Ranged AoE Damage but are not enhanced by Onslaught Gloves of the Sniper's increased base damage. These powers also do not trigger the gear to stack its buff.
Electro Magnet
Lower activation time from 1s to 0.67s.
I think there isn't a good reason for this power to have so much of a high activation time. Soul Vortex is a comparable power and has a 0.67s activation time.
Suggestion
Rewrite the power description on experimental blaster for clarity. Or simplify the actual power and advantages.
Was death ray changed? It says it increases the chance of additional damage when the power is charged. However, in the general power description, it says additional damage when partially charged... finally in the details it specifies "when charged for less than one second". This should be clearer, and less contradictory. Or maybe this power (and the death ray adv) is just too complicated, and should be simplified.