FC.31.20130319.27 PTS Update

lordgar · June 2013

This build is scheduled to hit PTS by 12:00pm Pacific on 6/5/13

Greetings!

We're updating PTS with this build to test stability, as well as the changes listed below:

Release Notes:

Powers:

Mental Leech: The damage over time effects now scale innately with Crit chance and Critical severity.
Mental Leech: Dependancy: This effect now only heals 1 ally near the target.
Mental Leech: This power no longer breaks Sleep.
Mental Leech: The Interrupt on this power now properly sets the target's power to a 25 second cooldown.
Mental Leech: This power now triggers an Interrupt Lockout. While this is active you cannot interrupt again with Mental Leech or Shadow of Doubt. This lockout's duration is scaled by your Hold Strength.
Shadow of Doubt: The damage over time effects now scale innately with Crit chance and Critical severity.
Shadow of Doubt: This power no longer breaks Sleep.
Shadow of Doubt: The Interrupt on this power now properly sets the target's power to a 25 second cooldown.
Shadow of Doubt: This power now triggers an Interrupt Lockout. While this is active you cannot interrupt again with Mental Leech or Shadow of Doubt. This lockout's duration is scaled by your Hold Strength.
Shadow of Doubt: Crippling Challenge now correctly costs 3 Advantage Points.
Mental Storm: The damage over time effects now scale innately with Crit chance and Critical severity.
Mind Break: Detonate damage has now been reduced further.
Master of the Mind: The Interrupts on the powers in this form are NOT affected by the Interrupt lockout.

Please format any bugs you find in the following format:
Bug
Where it happens
What happens

gamehobo · June 2013

Huzzah!

Testing COMMENCE!

gamehobo · June 2013

lordgar wrote: »

Mental Leech: Dependancy: This effect now only heals 1 ally near the target

Mental Leech: This power no longer breaks Sleep.

Mental Leech: The Interrupt on this power now properly sets the target's power to a 25 second cooldown.

Mental Leech: This power now triggers an Interrupt Lockout. While this is active you cannot interrupt again with Mental Leech or Shadow of Doubt. This lockout's duration is scaled by your Hold Strength

This all sounds promising. But the heal effect should (IMO) be around the caster not around the target.

lordgar wrote: »

Shadow of Doubt: The damage over time effects now scale innately with Crit chance and Critical severity.

Shadow of Doubt: This power no longer breaks Sleep.

Shadow of Doubt: The Interrupt on this power now properly sets the target's power to a 25 second cooldown.

Shadow of Doubt: This power now triggers an Interrupt Lockout. While this is active you cannot interrupt again with Mental Leech or Shadow of Doubt. This lockout's duration is scaled by your Hold Strength.

Shadow of Doubt: Crippling Challenge now correctly costs 3 Advantage Points.

Actual Crippling Challenge on an interrupt power.. may feel redundant in PvP but if tanks want an uberpower they may have found themselves one.

lordgar wrote: »

[*]Mind Break: Detonate damage has now been reduced further.

I will check the reduction, but overall feels like it was needed. Does this change include the Mind Break in Master of the Mind?

lordgar wrote: »

Master of the Mind: The Interrupts on the powers in this form are NOT affected by the Interrupt lockout.

Will these be using the same interrupt (25s Lockout) that is found in the other versions of the interrupt? Or are they still completely based on the old version of interrupt?

Is there any power gating to open this power? Any reason it won't be cherry picked? Like requires 5 mentalist powers?

lordgar wrote: »

Please format any bugs you find in the following format:
Bug
Where it happens
What happens

Coming soon

vazkro · June 2013

Good to see telepathy still being tweaked, mental leach heal would really be a lot more viable of it healed at the casters location instead of the target's location.

raediya · June 2013

Interrupt Lockout

Self-generated debuff. Base time: 80s. Minimum time: 40s.

Modified by:
Roles:

Support
Ranged Damage (penalty)
Melee Damage (penalty)

Attributes:

Presence

Powers:

Mentalist: Manipulator (scales with presence or intelligence)
Mystic: Aura of Primal Majesty (indirectly from presence bonus)

Specializations:

Intelligence: Battle of Wits
Presence: Dominion
Sentinel: Torment
Mastery: Intelligence (indirectly if boosting presence)
Mastery: Ego (indirectly if boosting presence)
Mastery: Recovery (indirectly if boosting presence)

Unaffected by:

Sentinel's Brooch (Utility): CC Strength and similar CC Strength effects.

crypticbuxom · June 2013

Does the lockout duration (based on Hold Strength) become reduced by the strength of CC Resist and valid gear of the target?

theravenforce · June 2013

crypticbuxom wrote: »

Does the lockout duration (based on Hold Strength) become reduced by the strength of CC Resist and valid gear of the target?

I swear the intention of Lockout Duration was for the caster not to be able to interrupt again, not for the target.

However it seems as aforementioned not to be affected by CC Strength Gear...which for all intents and purposes it should be.

theravenforce · June 2013

vazkro wrote: »

Good to see telepathy still being tweaked, mental leach heal would really be a lot more viable of it healed at the casters location instead of the target's location.

Agreed, I'll be testing if the regular bugs are still around though...

theravenforce · June 2013

EDIT: That interrupt lockout..is a really long time...it makes the notion of having more than one Telepathy DoT super useless IMO..

gamehobo · June 2013

raediya wrote: »

Interrupt Lockout

Self-generated debuff. Base time: 80s. Minimum time: 40s.

Minimum time.. meaning there is a cap, yes? I prefer No Cap but need to test.. I doubt if 38 seconds will make much difference.. but i reiterate, there's no "cap" on Damage output and thusly I advocate the same general treatment applies to crowd control investment. Is it foolish to invest in 500% hold strength? Yes. But I paid the cost to be the boss.. know what I mean?

raediya wrote: »

Unaffected by:
Sentinel's Brooch (Utility): CC Strength and similar CC Strength effects.

There seems to be a large bug with all CC gear. If this can in fact be addressed I know Raven will appreciate it.

theravenforce · June 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

Minimum time.. meaning there is a cap, yes? I prefer no Cap but need to test.. I doubt if 38 seconds will make much difference.. but again, there's no "cap" on Damage output and thusly I advocate the same general treatment applies to crowd control investment.

There seems to be a large bug with all CC gear. If this can in fact be addressed I know Raven will appreciate it.

You seriously need to bring Kontrol, if she has the same lockout as me, you are gonna rage.

purg777 · June 2013

40s is the minimum cap

crypticbuxom · June 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

There seems to be a large bug with all CC gear. If this can in fact be addressed I know Raven will appreciate it.

EVERY player who has ever tried using one would appreciate it.

gamehobo · June 2013

purg777 wrote: »

40s is the minimum cap

I suppose a damage cap of 10,000 per 10 seconds is appropriate then..

Also no player can mitigate more than 7,500 defense until their defenses are stripped.

ANd Healing is now capped at 5000 HPS..

No?

I don't mind the math (as I have not yet tested it in combat), but I do mind the hard-cap because in CO crowd control is a qualitative number that is constantly being hit by a quantitative cap. Crowd control is about quality for those of us who use it.

No more Hard Cap on Crowd Control. Smarter math desired.

crypticbuxom wrote: »

EVERY player who has ever tried using one would appreciate it.

I have Legion's Brestplate of Freedom with r8-9 sentinel catalysts.. and I'm still held.. even longer than my teammates? That's not right.

QUALITY based crowd control starts now. Please put realistic variance between low, average, and high investment (in both CC and CC resistance) that is not game-breaking.

theravenforce · June 2013

Bug:

Alien Crystal and the Confuse Mechanic still causes Dependency's heal mechanic to become confused and heal NPCs

Apply Dependency to targets, allow it to stack and then apply a confuse power and watch them heal.

theravenforce · June 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

I suppose a damage cap of 10,000 per 10 seconds is appropriate then..

Also no player can mitigate more than 7,500 defense until their defenses are stripped.

ANd Healing is now capped at 5000 HPS..

No?

I don't mind the math (as I have not yet tested it in combat), but I do mind the hard-cap because in CO crowd control is a qualitative number that is constantly being hit by a quantitative cap. Crowd control is about quality for those of us who use it.

No more Hard Cap on Crowd Control. Smarter math desired.

I have Legion's Brestplate of Freedom with r8-9 sentinel catalysts.. and I'm still held.. even longer than my teammates? That's not right.

QUALITY based crowd control starts now. Please put realistic variance between low, average, and high investment (in both CC and CC resistance) that is not game-breaking.

I'd prefer an interrupt lockout which is 2 seconds longer in comparison to the target's power tray lockout value, which seems to be 16 seconds to entire power tray.

Or better yet...have CC gear REALLY affect this lockout value, frankly it is unfair that I've crafted and bought gear which doesn't help.

theravenforce · June 2013

Bug:

Telepathy DoTs can be dodged. AFAIK, DoTs are not meant to be able to be dodged.

theravenforce · June 2013

purg777 wrote: »

40s is the minimum cap

As Jay said...shouldn't all mechanics have lockouts then and caps too?

As much as I hate this decision to put in the lockout period, it is necessary, if all gear/specs were taken into account like Sentinel Brooches CC components, then I'd be happy (as long as it made a significant adjustment to the duration of lockout.)

purg777 · June 2013

I answered the question, nothing more nothing less...take it up with crush not me

falchoin · June 2013

I like that the new Telepathy DoT's actually benefit from crit/severity now, though I'm curious how they interact with certain crit bonus debuffs like the one from the Guardian spec tree.

I'm still not a fan of stacking the debuffs 10 times. I would much prefer 3, maybe 5 at most and adjust the debuff amounts accordingly. It lowers the setup time, which in a relatively fast paced MMO is a good thing. Additionally, it makes Mind Break much easier to balance as well. Note, it would be 3-5 per player as each player would apply and pop via Mind Break only their own debuffs.

Mental Storm can still crit

Interrupt lockout happens even if no powers are interrupted

Interrupting energy builder powers lockouts everything (powers, devices, block, travel powers)

The heal over time from Mental Leech does not proc Compassion or the Honor spec.

The heal from Mental Leech has odd scaling with roles: rdps = 111 dmg/tick, 69 heal/tick; support = 69 dmg/tick, 63 heal/tick; hybrid = 94 dmg/tick, 63 heal/tick; mdps = 89 dmg/tick, 55 heal/tick; tank = 78 dmg/tick, 55 heal/tick

Not sure if intended, but block can also be interrupted.

gamehobo · June 2013

purg777 wrote: »

I answered the question, nothing more nothing less...take it up with crush not me

I'm sorry if you thought that was directed at you. Thank you for testing.

If a numbers guru can tell me where this cap hits i'd appreciate it.. as finding the number when investing in +CC ends is rather important to me as a player in:

Sentinel Role
Manipulator
Specializations maxxed
and Stats maxxed for Crowd control.. I mean MAXXED

And as selfish as this sounds, I am really saying this for the game as a whole. Crowd control is a quality based system, just like heals, shields, damage and mitigation. Please remember that.

theravenforce · June 2013

I have the same and even with Sentinel 9 cap is still 40 secs.

blademaster5121 · June 2013

Crowd control is not quality based, it never will be, Crowd Control is hit or miss.
Something that forces a target's power to go on a long cooldown should, by all rights, be hardcapped.

gamehobo · June 2013

blademaster5121 wrote: »

Crowd control is not quality based, it never will be, Crowd Control is hit or miss.
Something that forces a target's power to go on a long cooldown should, by all rights, be hardcapped.

Well I would have been happy with hit or miss.. but the % chance was not a change that was approved.

And therefore we have a 100% hit with a diminishing cooldown. The COOLDOWN, that is affected by hold strength, should not be hard capped.

Frankly I don't think ANY Crowd Control should be hit or miss but rather depend on the severity of the HP of the hold.

But this is the Champions Online combat system. Until the entirety of Crowd Control is changed to reflect this we have to work within the available parameters. And in these parameters the +HoldStrength is NOT capped and yet its effects are.. this is a sign of bad planning.

- -

Unlike stealth, Crowd Control was not designed in CO to be a binary system

blademaster5121 wrote: »

Something that forces a target's power to go on a long cooldown should, by all rights, be hardcapped.

Be smart about the math.. find the EXTREME limit and take preventative measure. That does not mean make the person with 200PRE and no specs do the same as the person with 800 PRE and all the specs. Cost benefit structure should exist in CC just as it does for all other mechanics that ARE quality based.

theravenforce · June 2013

blademaster5121 wrote: »

Crowd control is not quality based, it never will be, Crowd Control is hit or miss.
Something that forces a target's power to go on a long cooldown should, by all rights, be hardcapped.

That entire power tray going into CD is not intended...only the interrupted power should go into cooldown.

Maintains are being naughty and setting entire tray into CD.

Even though it should be controlled ironically, do you think that once per 40-80 seconds is fair? And if I interrupt on a charge power, they get at most 12-16 sec lockout on THAT power, the rest of the build is fine to pummel me with..now tell me how that is fair?

kaiserin · June 2013

Master of the Mind should very much obey interrupt cooldown. This power is ridiculous enough as it is, it should not be able to lockdown a cosmic entity, have absurd damage and absurd defenses.

Master of the Mind does not purge existing buffs. It should.

If Master of the Mind is to stay as a 'become' power it needs to have its effects hacked down. It's much too powerful in its current state.

Consider increasing the interrupt lockout time. Manipulator is a very popular form due to its ease of maintaining (even with it not working on all holds) and loses very little damage output thanks to DR. Say 90seconds base with a 50second minimum.

falchoin · June 2013

Which maintain is setting everything on cooldown when interrupted? I just tried it against PBR rank 1 and only PBR was locked out. Fireball was properly interrupted as well. Energy builder interrupts on the other hand seem to lock out everything.

gamehobo · June 2013

kaizerin wrote: »

If Master of the Mind is to stay as a 'become' power it needs to have its effects hacked down. It's much too powerful in its current state.
.

Am I the only person who finds MoTM extremely suck? The power lasts a fraction of that of Vapor form or even Ascension (even tho ascension isn't a transform) with a huge cooldown

kaizerin wrote: »

Consider increasing the interrupt lockout time. Manipulator is a very popular form due to its ease of maintaining (even with it not working on all holds) and loses very little damage output thanks to DR. Say 90seconds base with a 50second minimum.

Doesn't manipulator proc on a hold attempt.. not on a successful hold. So I dont see how that would change.. Do i misunderstand you here?

theravenforce · June 2013

falchoin wrote: »

Which maintain is setting everything on cooldown when interrupted? I just tried it against PBR rank 1 and only PBR was locked out. Fireball was properly interrupted as well. Energy builder interrupts on the other hand seem to lock out everything.

Only gotten Ego Storm rank 3 to proc super lockout, as well as Empathic Healing.

I'm going to assume maintain self heals/heal others and AoE Maintains are the cause of this bug. cause Mind Break as a charge gets locked out by itself and that's intended, so win on that account.

As for the call in increase interrupt lockout time...does Kaizerin refer to the self debuff? If so...lol.

Manipulator procs on any hold attempt, hence why Ego Storm hitting nothing can proc manipulator.

So there has been a call for increasing this debuff which at best = 1 interrupt per 40 secs?

Ok..just as soon as every other mechanic has something similar ^_^

cyrone · June 2013

falchoin wrote: »

Which maintain is setting everything on cooldown when interrupted? I just tried it against PBR rank 1 and only PBR was locked out. Fireball was properly interrupted as well. Energy builder interrupts on the other hand seem to lock out everything.

Raven's instance happened when I interrupted her Empathic Healing. It happened to me as well when she interrupted my Ego Storm.

crypticbuxom · June 2013

If a transformation doesn't last longer than ten seconds without having to worry about building up an obtuse mechanic, I'm not interested in it. Its why I loathe Become Vampire.

kaiserin · June 2013

If the critical chance aspect is staying with the dots, consider scaling back the damage. Particularly with Mental Storm. The damage for these dots is a tad high.

Build: Ranged Damage role, Congress of Selves, Manipulator, 40% crit, 117% severity
Combined dot damage against Teleiosaurus: 2.9kdps

Individual (no other debuffs running)
Shadow of doubt: 620 dps
Mental leech: 490 dps
Mental storm: 1000 dps

Bug: Falchoin pointed out that Mental leech was gaining better healing output in ranged dps role than in other roles.

R1 Mental Leech heal, dex, con, int, with gear:
melee: 16
ranged: 20
hybrid: 22
support: 23
tank: 16

R1, no gear:
melee: 16
ranged: 20
hybrid : 19
support: 19
tank: 16

blademaster5121 · June 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

Be smart about the math.. find the EXTREME limit and take preventative measure. That does not mean make the person with 200PRE and no specs do the same as the person with 800 PRE and all the specs. Cost benefit structure should exist in CC just as it does for all other mechanics that ARE quality based.

You're right about this, in fact I think the scaling should be way harsher, and a larger max CD.

falchoin · June 2013

For the record 506 PRE, 8 stack Manipulator, PRE main spec buff, and the sentinel hold spec buff yields ~47 second interrupt cooldown while in ranged dps role (~48 sec with no Mani stacks). The above with no Mani stacks in hybrid or support is at the 40 sec cap.

riverocean · June 2013

Was on PTS tonight and noticed that "Telepathic Reverb" seemed be stacking with another telepathy player. I.E we were both gaining energy from one another's attacks. We noticed and started testing it out and this sure seemed to be the case. While it was cool as heck, it's probably not WAI.

For clarity sake, we were in the Training Room casting powers on test dummies. Not sure if this is specific to that area or if this is happening during general game play on the PTS. I'm not the most experienced tester, so others with more skill in this area are welcome to confirm or disprove this. I did report it as a bug.

As a side-note: having a power that allowed players to buff teammate's energy would be really awesome. But I know that's asking for too much.

gamehobo · June 2013

Everything about this feels wrong. Ranged DPS and Crowd control are at opposite ends of the fight spectrum and combining them gives you the worst of both. You can do high DPS and then not hold anything.. or you can do high holds and very low DPS. Champions Online already has high DPS (to the point of overkill complaints). I understand that crowd control "scares people" but this just is not right.

Gentleman Crush, I love you but this playstyle has as much to do with playing with crowd control as the price of tea in Beijing.

This is just a poorly guised ranged DPS build. Once every forever I get to do something that MIGHT be cool.. on ONE target. I thought it would at LEAST be per target.

We have already HAD plenty of Ranged DPS ego changes. TK assault and TK lance were welcome additions to that playstyle..

But this.. this is just bad. Ego Sleep is the ONLY thing that makes it remotely feel telepathic. The damage has become the major part of the framework and not the crowd/aggro control. In fact I can't hold ANYTHING because this stupid DPS kills off all my hold strength.

I am not speaking very techically, but the "feeling" is there.. Not everyone wants to play ranged DPS or Tank. Those are the only options available right now and this took what I loved about telepathy and really took it off the mark.

Honestly.. I want to love this, but i just don't. I feel useless for far too long and spend my time spamming DPS. The strategy is gone, the control is gone, there is no reason for me to really rank up any of my control effects.. and I'd be much better served with Concentration..

That's .. sad.

I .. I don't know what to say.

- -

riverocean wrote: »

Was on PTS tonight and noticed that "Telepathic Reverb" seemed be stacking with another telepathy player. I.E we were both gaining energy from one another's attacks. We noticed and started testing it out and this sure seemed to be the case. While it was cool as heck, it's probably not WAI.

Telepathic reverb has always worked this way. But having more than one telepath on a team has been suicide until now so no one used the synergy.

- - -

falchoin wrote: »

For the record 506 PRE, 8 stack Manipulator, PRE main spec buff, and the sentinel hold spec buff yields ~47 second interrupt cooldown while in ranged dps role (~48 sec with no Mani stacks). The above with no Mani stacks in hybrid or support is at the 40 sec cap.

Thank you for numbers. I was too distraught to find the values for myself. I find this completely unacceptable. Basically takes investment in +CC and makes it a bigger joke than it already is. But I think my issue is with this whole lockout thing.. which prompted me to DESPERATELY seek another solution. (40 seconds of NO effect while waiting enemies pummel you and you can't even HOLD them? no thank you)

- - - -

This update prompted me to start an EMERGENCY Google Hangout with some well known game designer friends of mine in the Bay Area (some of whom any longstanding Cryptic worker would possibly notice) and we've brainstormed the following list of actual debuffs.

We mainly focused on the defensive debuffs as they are what the current "interrupt" system represents but offer others as well.

I sincerely hope its not too late to reverse course and come BACK to Debuffs and Control instead of toward DPS:

gamehobo wrote: »

Consulting with game designer friends of mine and they've offered suggestions.. note many of them have played CO in its original state:

Here are some Defensive Debuffs that came up in my emergency brainstorm:
Neuter. Instead of interrupts, severely neuter the attack damage of an incoming attack (or enemy altogether). I like the idea of mitigation scaling with hold strength.

Slow Attack Speed. Instead of interrupts, lengthen cast time of the power being used.. providing crucial extra seconds during schtick attacks.

Slow Attack Frequency. Instead of interrupts lengthen the time between attacks by lengthening cool downs of your enemies (assuming NPC AI works schtick attacks with cooldowns as players do)

Affect Targeting (this came from a designer who works on a game that doesn't use tab targeting..) dunno how effective this would be in CO where there is no "miss" chance perhaps then increasing dodge chance of person/people attacking a target. Technically making this a buff, not a debuff.

The idea here is to SLOW Damage per second from an enemy without destroying their ability to attack.

Offensive debuffs are pretty well established in CO but my friends came up with some cool ideas I'll share:
Add penetration against a target

Mitigate enemy defense to only DoT damage

Lower enemy dodge chance

And I have always focused on the utility side of the game so I contribute these as well
Move enemy equilibrium to 0 (already exists, i know)

A Maintain to sap enemy energy (not health)

Increase enemy energy cost by a percent

These don't all have to exist in telepathy but they show that there are MANY better options for debuffing than what is currently being offered in my honest opinion.

- - - - -

kaizerin wrote: »

If the critical chance aspect is staying with the dots, consider scaling back the damage. Particularly with Mental Storm. The damage for these dots is a tad high.

Build: Ranged Damage role, Congress of Selves, Manipulator, 40% crit, 117% severity
Combined dot damage against Teleiosaurus: 2.9kdps

Individual (no other debuffs running)
Shadow of doubt: 620 dps
Mental leech: 490 dips
Mental storm: 1000 dps

I agree here.. the DPS is just too high.

I'm going to reiterate that Congress of Selves should be Support or Hybrid only.

Reasoning:

Because Ego Form already gives the SAME buff to the Ego DoT without specifically stating it.. it affects ALL Ego powers which INCLUDES the DoT. Please do not make this choice irrelevant.
Additionally, giving offensive players access to "Conditioning" is a mistake in my opinion. This advantage should not be accessed by a role with neutered crowd control as it is a quantitative debuff that takes NONE of the hold strength of any hold cast (including lunges) into effect. Basically it is free trauma and will be cherry-picked for such. I feel that I am arguing the same point twice, but telepathy can ONLY be balanced when it is relegated to role.
Thirdly, Penetration is generally saved for powers with LOW NUMBERS (a la gun damage ticks). Giving penetration to builds with already high numbers leads to a new FoTM that's basically "Ranged Dragon's Wrath". I do not want to see this happen either.

- - - - - -

Champions online has a mechanic for increasing base strength of DoTs.. it's +Offense. Why are we throwing that out?! Crit Chance/Severity should not replace +Offense.

The game has already been relegated to "Crits and Dodges and Cooldowns" There are many more mechanics that exist and should be allowed to thrive. (INCLUDING +CC Resist given from Legion's Breastplate of Freedom.. why doesn't this protect agaist ALL debuffs INCLUDING Knocks?!)

Please remove the damage buff based on Crits. If people want to maximize DoT damage they should use the mechanics already offered.

(Now if you want to talk about doubling the +Offense rating on Telepathy DoT I am all ears)

raediya · June 2013

New Mind Break Numbers:

Attributes: 262 Dexterity, 63 Constitution, 453 Intelligence
Role: Ranged Damage
Powers: Quarry R3, Concentration R1 (8 stacks), Shadow of Doubt R3, Mental Leech R3, Mental Storm R3, Mind Break R3, Ice Sheath R3

10 Stress, 10 Regret, 10 Dependency Detonation
Time to stack: 61 seconds
Target: Mega-Destroid (Cosmic, Level 28, Base resistance: 55%)

Non-critical Hit:
Total Damage: 30382

Critical Hit:
Critical Severity: 140.8%
Total Damage: 70647

falchoin · June 2013

Yeah... over 70k spike against a target with a base resist of 55%? That's still absurd.

Either Mind Break needs to deal a very small amount of extra damage per stack of debuff -or- the max number of stacks needs to decrease -or- Mind Break should strip one from each stack per hit (not sure if possible).

As stated previously I'd prefer a lower max number of debuff stacks.

gamehobo · June 2013

falchoin wrote: »

As stated previously I'd prefer a lower max number of debuff stacks.

I respectfully disagree. 5 telepaths should not be penalized just because the system hasn't properly planned for debuffs.

As for the Damage.. I'm conflicted.. it takes a LONG time to get to the levels that players find "ridiculous" and for that same amount of time I could have fired off 4-5 shadow strikes..

Not to mention it has to be detonated by coordinated attack by the ONE telepathy using concentration with high amounts of INT or EGO..

theravenforce · June 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

I respectfully disagree. 5 telepaths should not be penalized just because the system hasn't properly planned for debuffs.

As for the Damage.. I'm conflicted.. it takes a LONG time to get to the levels that players find "ridiculous" and for that same amount of time I could have fired off 4-5 shadow strikes..

Not to mention it has to be detonated by coordinated attack by the ONE telepathy using concentration with high amounts of INT or EGO..

I think that's the issue, it takes a hell of a long time to stack these debuffs, this play style is made for long drawn out fights, stuff like Gravitar, not for the usual DPS races we have currently. The debuffs have a good effect on defense and apply penetration which affects the damage values.

Values using Quarry yes are high when you look at it, but to reach those numbers...is hell to get to, if you can get a target to wait around that long without killing you...

..and as I said before..that lockout to interrupt being capped at 40 secs sort of kills the want/need to get more than one of the DoT's since you can only use the intended affect once every 40 secs at best.

Was Mental Storm's hold values reduced? I noticed that my holding power with the same build was significantly weaker on players with no EGO or breakfree. Not sure if this is just my perception but..

Mental Storm rank 3 = over 65 secs with Manipulator Active and when applied to a target this value is sliced in half almost to 35 secs at best on a player and 50 something on test dummies.

For example my Shadow Striker has the capacity to hit for 17k every 15 or so seconds provided I am in stealth.

In a shorter amount of time I would have fired off 4 shadow strikes (for example purposes lets assume they all hit for 17k) totalling 68k damage, within the space of 60 seconds. And since they cannot crit...

In almost double that time (using the aforementioned numbers from raediya) I'd hit for less than half provided they don't crit.

EDIT: Just realised that Conc and Quarry were the results...so..I'd probably hit a lot lower with CoS and Manipulator..

falchoin · June 2013

I guess I should have reiterated my previous post with that one so here goes...

I would like to see the debuff cap per player (so multiple telepaths can still stack their own debuffs, and only rupture their own debuffs with Mind Break) brought down to 3 to 5 at most. The debuff effects would likely need to be scaled up. This allows for some build up of debuffs while also allowing for more significant support in faster fights without multiple telepaths on the same target stepping on eachother's toes. Additionally it should help keep Mind Break's rupture damage under control without nerfing the per stack damage completely into the ground.

If you still disagree, then I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree and I can live with that.

gamehobo · June 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

Was Mental Storm's hold values reduced? I noticed that my holding power with the same build was significantly weaker on players with no EGO or breakfree. Not sure if this is just my perception but..

Mental Storm rank 3 = over 65 secs with Manipulator Active and when applied to a target this value is sliced in half almost to 35 secs at best on a player and 50 something on test dummies.

DPS kills breakfree thus killing Mental Storm.

JUST SAY NO TO TELEPATHY DPS! Bring back (consistent) Debuffs!

falchoin wrote: »

I guess I should have reiterated my previous post with that one so here goes...

I would like to see the debuff cap per player (so multiple telepaths can still stack their own debuffs, and only rupture their own debuffs with Mind Break) brought down to 3 to 5 at most. The debuff effects would likely need to be scaled up. This allows for some build up of debuffs while also allowing for more significant support in faster fights without multiple telepaths on the same target stepping on eachother's toes. Additionally it should help keep Mind Break's rupture damage under control without nerfing the per stack damage completely into the ground.

If you still disagree, then I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree and I can live with that.

Still decimates team telepathy gameplay. Debuffs are per target. Not per player (those are buffs). And if I want to help my teammate take some big bad down I should be allowed to. That's what being a telepath is all about. Self buffs are Out of Control.. debuffs are needed. Sorely

Again, respectfully, i disagree.. completely.

theravenforce · June 2013

falchoin wrote: »

I guess I should have reiterated my previous post with that one so here goes...

I would like to see the debuff cap per player (so multiple telepaths can still stack their own debuffs, and only rupture their own debuffs with Mind Break) brought down to 3 to 5 at most. The debuff effects would likely need to be scaled up. This allows for some build up of debuffs while also allowing for more significant support in faster fights without multiple telepaths on the same target stepping on eachother's toes. Additionally it should help keep Mind Break's rupture damage under control without nerfing the per stack damage completely into the ground.

If you still disagree, then I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree and I can live with that.

Why not just have it tagged so multiple telepaths cannot rupture more than 10 stacks of a buff per telepath with Mind Break, I mean have the debuffs tagged according to the player so if I am stacking 10 Stress and you come along and try to detonate, nothing will happen but base damage of your Mind Break. You'd have to stack to get detonation damage and in like manner I could not ruin your stacks by detonating them.

gamehobo · June 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

Why not just have it tagged so multiple telepaths cannot rupture more than 10 stacks of a buff per telepath with Mind Break, I mean have the debuffs tagged according to the player so if I am stacking 10 Stress and you come along and try to detonate, nothing will happen but base damage of your Mind Break. You'd have to stack to get detonation damage and in like manner I could not ruin your stacks by detonating them.

Because leaving stacks on an enemy has its own penalty. Using MindBreak resets the DPS cycle back to zero.

This is the only strategy left after the latest round of crowd control killing

theravenforce · June 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

DPS kills breakfree thus killing Mental Storm.

JUST SAY NO TO TELEPATHY DPS! Bring back Debuffs!

Telepathy DPS just doesn't work lol, keep Telepathy Support/Hybrid, high controls, if DPS is what you want, I can go bring 2GM.

I am glad the OP in the SNN section said that a few iterations are needed of Telepathy before going live..cause this would be a huge let down to anyone who has previously played around with these powers.

People PMing me last night saying, "Oh, I bet your happy the powers will be finally making it here right?"

Me: "Weellllllllllllllllllllllllll.................."

sanguineviper · June 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

Telepathy DPS just doesn't work lol, keep Telepathy Support/Hybrid, high controls, if DPS is what you want, I can go bring 2GM.

I disagree entirely, my current TP toon on live still out DPSes most of the players in alerts using ego sprites and ego blast....

I'm looking forward to all the debuff synergy that these new DoTs open up to be honest. Because as we all know, crowd control is something that will never matter in the long run in CO. Everything dies far too quickly for anything besides these new interrupts to matter. And the new interrupts, if not for their long cool down would make boss fights even more pathetically easy since every time a boss was to use its most damaging attack, you could just stop it. As it stands, you can basically interrupt Therakiel's deathspin every time he attempts it, and interrupt Teleiosaur's death breath every other time she uses it. That's A LOT of damage mitigation for flinging a DoT on a target.

I still think a much needed change to telepathy is that Confuse should be a powerful .5 second activation 5 target cone AoE, and that the confuse effect vs. master villains and below should be much stronger (read: last longer).

You can't possibly disagree that having 5 enemies suddenly fighting amongst themselves for the duration of a fight is far more useful a control effect than anything else we can currently do...

theravenforce · June 2013

sanguineviper wrote: »

I disagree entirely, my current TP toon on live still out DPSes most of the players in alerts using ego sprites and ego blast....

I'm looking forward to all the debuff synergy that these new DoTs open up to be honest. Because as we all know, crowd control is something that will never matter in the long run in CO. Everything dies far too quickly for anything besides these new interrupts to matter. And the new interrupts, if not for their long cool down would make boss fights even more pathetically easy since every time a boss was to use its most damaging attack, you could just stop it. As it stands, you can basically interrupt Therakiel's deathspin every time he attempts it, and interrupt Teleiosaur's death breath every other time she uses it. That's A LOT of damage mitigation for flinging a DoT on a target.

I still think a much needed change to telepathy is that Confuse should be a powerful .5 second activation 5 target cone AoE, and that the confuse effect vs. master villains and below should be much stronger (read: last longer).

You can't possibly disagree that having 5 enemies suddenly fighting amongst themselves for the duration of a fight is far more useful a control effect than anything else we can currently do...

I am well aware of Telepathy's DPS ability, I've seen Kr'anri (Cyrone's Ranged Offensive Telepathy build), its nice, but not my style (although I may be forced to construct something similar if I want Mentella to take part in anything it seems).

I meant the "DPS doesn't work" in relation to the control effects, it diminishes them greatly.

Yes I know that locking down bosses every sec is bad. I am aware the balance needed to be called for.

However, that interrupt lockout period means for 40 seconds I can do nothing but stack debuffs by which time, I could be in the medical bay/dead. But if I do time it correctly that person's charge power/maintain power goes "offline" for a few seconds, and is back up and running at least half a minute before my lockout period ends.

What makes it even more fun is that this lockout period will proc when nothing is being interrupted which is always great.

As for Confuse Effects....I was able to briefly experience what confuse effects used to allowed Controllers to do way back when CC worked (before F2P and all that) on players, I was able to turn pets against their owners and watch as Teleiosaurus Dinos devoured their handler whilst I sat down and watched. It was awesome, then it got exploited...and removed, like it was before hand...funny.

Confuse effects should not hold a chance to attack a random crate, run around and do nothing or still attack the caster. It should outright be attack allies. No compromise. Then again, calling for Confuse function to work again would be against the intentions for the game which is more and more DPS focus and then you'd get the people who say: "why control/confuse them if you can just one shot them?" Good Question. "Why should I have to be forced to run a certain playstyle to run my toon? If I was told I was able to play the hero I want to be, why can't I do that?" Good Question again. Answer? = "Because people don't like control, majority vote FTW"

In high level events, as it stands I personally have ONE shot per 40 seconds to stop Gravitar from doing something..whatever that something maybe, she could be walking to get closer to a player she's targeting I don't know and I'd generate a debuff, now that means for 40 seconds, I'm not contributing to the team, bar minor DPS via DoTs and stacking Debuffs, in which time I could be unconscious up against a building wall, unable to save myself because of the lockout.

As much as I hate that interrupt lockout mechanic, it is necessary to stop exploitation, I understand that, BUT paying up for stuff like [Sentinel Brooch Rank 9] and slotting it in Utility slot for +51 CC strength...which is MEANT to affect the lockout timer (afaik, it would reduce the lockout timer duration the higher CC bonus you have) and its not having that effect, which I would hope doesn't take 5 seconds off but rather a larger number. I also need to be doing something in an active control manner whilst I have crippled myself by trying to help in the battle.

theravenforce · June 2013

Bug

Interrupt timers are being modified by INT/CD reduction gear on target.

For example, one of my toon has INT/CD reduction gear and Mind Break when interrupted has a lockout of 12 seconds, instead of stated 25 seconds in patch notes

Maintained Assault style powers, Energy Builders, Maintained Heals are putting entire power tray into lockout, this includes Forms, Travel Powers, Devices and Powers

cyrone · June 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

Telepathy DPS just doesn't work lol

My Telepathy DPS works.

gamehobo · June 2013

cyrone wrote: »

My Telepathy DPS works.

Precisely, people who want a DPS telepathy have options. (take Ego Form being the top option)

People who want to play as a debuffer (Holds are debuffs too but not the ONLY debuffs) is SoL.

- -

There SHOULD BE more to Champions Online than Ranged Offense that crits and uses dodge with lowering cooldowns.

In gear we have +Offense that is crap.

We have +Defense that is crap. +CCResist is more crap

We have +Energy that is crap. +CC is barely supported (not even gear that provides it?)

We went through a huge gear update so many aspects of gameplay are just useless.. this is just not ok to me

- - -

I don't like thtis new version of interrupt, not at all.. I'd much rather have a 3s debuff on the target that debuffs a % of enemy damage output. The goal of the interrupts was to give telepaths a use in boss fights that helped their survivability solo and in team play. More hold strength means more mitigation so the power DOES NOT become a free tanking power. The mitigation should on its own be weak, but with 200% crowd control could reach a high debuff amount.

I understand that "Crowd Controlling" bosses freaks people out, so think broader about what debuffs can do.. but this lockout is both useless to crowd controllers and over powered to cherry-pickers.. Two MAJOR balance concerns of mine.

keikomyst · June 2013

I'm just lolin' at the fact that Mind Break does seven times more damage than Reaper's Embrace with five bleeds and penetration debuffs does. #TelepathyWow.

As for the control problems... doesn't it seem kind of like a pain to have a huge lockdown on your actual telepath abilities? Here's what I would have done.

- Made a power that allows you to snag enemies and make them your 'pet' until they bite the dust, you leave the instance or ten minutes passes. Success is based on hold strength and the enemy's classification, so you'll be able to easily snag henchmen but snagging a Master Villain or an Enforcer would be hard, yet doable. Super Villains would be an on-case basis (because who wouldn't want to run around with Viper-X as their mind slave for ten minutes?) Call it "Dominated Mind" which is ironically a great way to sum up Telepathy before the update.

- Control effects work like they used to when used on enemies (welcome back Ego Storm, Ego Choke.) When used on players, they become immune to control effects for a few seconds so they have time to retaliate, until complete immunity is gained at three stacks of hold resistance.

- Telepathy DPS becomes viable, but Telepathy Control also becomes viable. Perhaps even to the point where telepathy powers have a severely reduced effect on hold HP? Since, admittedly, I do find it very silly that a telepath can undo all of their hard work by trying to attack a held target.

- Interrupt Resistance might need to become a thing, especially on cosmics and legendaries. Should be short enough to still make interrupts viable (considering it's very important in Baron Cimetere's battle in TT) but long enough to keep an enemy from being utterly helpless.

FC.31.20130319.27 PTS Update

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