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My thoughts on Telepathy...
colonelmarik
Posts: 185 Arc User
Maybe I should call it "telAPATHY"...
Ok. We have a bunch of new powers. I've not taken them out of the power house to try them, but I've tried them in the battle room. My test for most of my characters is to take on Demon foes for a team of 5, set on hard. Most of my other characters have no trouble with that setting (only my Batman-themed character can't handle it, despite MANY attempts to remedy the situation).
What I saw completely underwhelmed. Oh goody, says I, we have a few new DOT powers, and they DON'T break sleep! Nice! Too bad I still don't have an energy builder that doesn't break sleep. Guess I really can't use the new stuff safely.
So I look at the damage and say... Hm. Even built for damage, using the new damage increasing passive, I'm still only doing about 20-30 damage per pulse. Compared to someone using Epidemic for 2000-3000 per pulse, I'm not impressed.
So, we have new debuffs... which mean nothing on a team, where 90% of foes are dead in less than 2 seconds anyway.
So I ask myself, what are Telepath characters supposed to BE?
We're not damage dealers. We do a HUNDREDTH of the damage of actual DPS characters.
We're not tanks, we have no defensive powers except Mindful Reinforcement, which is as utterly worthless as the Force Bubble that gets destroyed the second you cast it.
We're not healers, as we have only a single target heal worth anything. Yes, we have Psionic Healing, but no one uses it because it is so staggeringly worthless. Arcane Vitality drastically outperforms anything Telepathy can do.
We're not Buffers, as the only buff we have access to is Mindful Reinforcement, which is useless, as mentioned.
We're not debuffers, because most foes are dead before the debuff is of any use (thanks to DPS teammates).
We're not controllers. The only control we have that is reliable in any way is Ego Sleep, and it's immediately broken by the egregious AOE spam on every team. Our other controls are short, weak and broken quickly on damage, frequently resisted by ever increasing resistance buffs and/or ignored altogether by most stronger foes.
So, we don't actually bring ANYTHING to any situation.
Who is designing this stuff? Why can't we get some abilities that are actually useful? That reflect the character of TELEPATHY.
Ok. We have a bunch of new powers. I've not taken them out of the power house to try them, but I've tried them in the battle room. My test for most of my characters is to take on Demon foes for a team of 5, set on hard. Most of my other characters have no trouble with that setting (only my Batman-themed character can't handle it, despite MANY attempts to remedy the situation).
What I saw completely underwhelmed. Oh goody, says I, we have a few new DOT powers, and they DON'T break sleep! Nice! Too bad I still don't have an energy builder that doesn't break sleep. Guess I really can't use the new stuff safely.
So I look at the damage and say... Hm. Even built for damage, using the new damage increasing passive, I'm still only doing about 20-30 damage per pulse. Compared to someone using Epidemic for 2000-3000 per pulse, I'm not impressed.
So, we have new debuffs... which mean nothing on a team, where 90% of foes are dead in less than 2 seconds anyway.
So I ask myself, what are Telepath characters supposed to BE?
We're not damage dealers. We do a HUNDREDTH of the damage of actual DPS characters.
We're not tanks, we have no defensive powers except Mindful Reinforcement, which is as utterly worthless as the Force Bubble that gets destroyed the second you cast it.
We're not healers, as we have only a single target heal worth anything. Yes, we have Psionic Healing, but no one uses it because it is so staggeringly worthless. Arcane Vitality drastically outperforms anything Telepathy can do.
We're not Buffers, as the only buff we have access to is Mindful Reinforcement, which is useless, as mentioned.
We're not debuffers, because most foes are dead before the debuff is of any use (thanks to DPS teammates).
We're not controllers. The only control we have that is reliable in any way is Ego Sleep, and it's immediately broken by the egregious AOE spam on every team. Our other controls are short, weak and broken quickly on damage, frequently resisted by ever increasing resistance buffs and/or ignored altogether by most stronger foes.
So, we don't actually bring ANYTHING to any situation.
Who is designing this stuff? Why can't we get some abilities that are actually useful? That reflect the character of TELEPATHY.
Once, I was simply called Mojo. Now, I'm forced into a new name, but don't be fooled, I'm the original STO Mojo!
Crafting, Exploration and Interaction as it should be:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1108521
Crafting, Exploration and Interaction as it should be:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1108521
Post edited by colonelmarik on
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As a heads up, a telepath can manage 2k-4k DPS, even without the new powers. You will be hard pressed (read as will not ever) to find a DPS character that can manage a hundred times the numbers a telepath can manage.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Haven't you heard? It so in right now to hate on Telepathy. All the cool people are doing it.
Besides fixing what SHOULD have been fixed on PTS, Development Team will not be looking at Telepathy again.
Since COBeta, proponents of Telepathy have been pushing for fixes and additions etc and it just got worse as time went on.
On Alert gutted the Crowd Control Mechanic which in actual fact is what Telepathy seems to have excelled at. No other set is as dedicated to that mechanic as Telepathy is.
Secondary focus was Healing then Celestial Powerset came along and blew Telepathy's maintained healing out of the water with it's POWER Healing abilities.
So Telepathy resided with CC and Supporting. On Alert killed off CC.
These new powers were originally the saving grace of Telepathy after years of neglect towards this very unloved and crippled power set.
At first it promised high CC and kept in line with the Telepathy theme, hell, it even made having Telepaths in an instance against a cosmic actually worth it.
Then the naysayers came along and that focus was scrapped. Then came the 10 month waiting period whilst Telepathy was "in the works". It finally got put back on the PTS and it was so unlike what it used to be it was a shock.
It went through various nerfs (as damage was simply too high in some instances) and finally came to the iteration that was prematurely shipped out of the PTS.
Until CO either gets:
- A Crowd Control Mechanic Pass
- An AI overhaul to deal with CC powers on bosses
Telepathy will be reduced to debuffing (with new powers) or DPSing (with new powers) in boss situations.
Neither of those things are going to happen any time soon. To be perfectly honest it was a miracle in itself that the Dev (GMC) was able to work on Telepathy to begin with.
Now he is so overworked I figure he either didn't have time to finish the powers properly OR his bosses forced him to ship out the powers and have him focus on something else. Either way it is a shame this has happened.
Besides DPSing or Debuffing, a telepath seems to need to do this in boss fights:
Telepath: WATCH OUT HERO! I READ HIS MIND! HE'S GOING TO ATTACK!
Heroes: No S@!t Sherlock...
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I started a telepath based around the debuffs, rushing for Mental Storm (so not going outside Telepathy until level 21). It's not easy. Slow killer while soloing, even if I can handle a mob. Very, very vulnerable in certain alerts -- until the chaos settles down and the boss is pounding on a tank and I can provide useful debuffs and support. But until then, ouch.
Assuming you're talking about ebon sigils, because in SV+ fights the debuff caps make anything beyond ~25% suffer extremely heavy DR. In my testing I saw no noticable difference in damage dealt by Qwyjibo beyond just one sigil, even though there were two people using ebon sigils.
What other massive debuffs are in sorcery?
Try removing Kinetic Manipulation from Gravitar. It doesn't work. Skarn's has been nerfed by the devs making many of the buffs it used to remove not able to be removed.
Plus it's hilarious if you're in PvP fighting someone using MR. Since Skarn's forces buffs to time out it triggers the heal effect on MR so you're actually *helping* your foe.
Next?
[SIGPIC]http://imgur.com/9gptU4e[/SIGPIC]
I think it's obvious apathy. And we have the name of EXACTLY who was apathetic enough to release this piece of poop.
After 10 months.. to release such absolute crap.. it's inexcusable.
The good. .
It feels different. It's nice that there's a proper DoT play style available now rather than having to mix and match a few DoTs from different sets. I happen to be very fond of DoT game play, so it's nice to have something that feels right for me.
The animations aren't bad at all. I like them.
The powers are functional while solo. Note that I do not think that testing it against a 5 person group in the powerhouse is a valid way of testing whether or not a set is feasible. A set on its own should be able to handle a 1-3 person group with a few actives. This set does just that. Overall, I can solo fine with this power set.
The stealth of the new passive is a neat thing. It certainly suits a psychic character. The passive itself seems okay for what it's intended to do as well.
The bad. .
I'm not hearing any sounds for most of these powers? Was that intentional?
The cool downs are a little icky. I'm sure having an intelligence super stat would help, but otherwise I'm not sure I understand how I'm supposed to get 10 stacks of these debuffs. Most enemies, master villains included, are defeated before 2-3 are applied. I presume this was intentional for combating super villains and stronger.
The ultimate form is okay. It's gone like a puff in the wind. I wouldn't mind if they made it last 15 or more seconds and decreased the damage bonus it gives. You don't really get a chance to think about what you're doing the way it's set up now. It's pretty much spam all the buttons until the enemy falls over. Then you have to wait for two or more minutes while you're wondering what exactly happened before the effect wore off. I can see this form being a great way to build debuff stacks quickly onto critical targets rather than a full out damage buffing form. All of this, combined with the super high endurance cost that makes having Endurance or Intelligence as a super stat mandatory, makes this power incredibly disappointing.
The passive has no synergy with anything other than the telepathy tree. The damage boost is waaaaaay too specific. Whatever happened to having cross synergy for passives? Way of the Warrior is a great example of this. I use WotW on my laser sword character (Particle damage, but melee so still gets some benefit), and WotW can even boost physical damage from ranged attacks, so it suits a melee/bow character or otherwise. Congress of Selves only buffs one damage type, ego damage over time effects. There is no reason to take this otherwise. The stealth just isn't worth losing out on everything else a passive offers. It should, at the very least, buff all paranormal damage by a lesser amount. It doesn't have to be nearly as much, but it has to give other characters such as an elusive magician a reason to take this stealthing passive. Or, I guess you could just take the superior stealthing passive (Night Warrior) and one shot most enemies with the bonus power.
Edited out the last bit because I saw that dexterity does actually increase the damage of these powers. oops.
TL:DR version - All around I give a C for effort. I like the theme but I don't like the execution. It's nice to have something new, at least.
That's because the tooltips and power description are inconsistent and just plain wrong. The debuffs stack to 4. And the cooldowns scale down with ranks (apparently). At Lvl.24, with Aura of Arcane Clarity (R3), INT as SSS, I get roughly 11/7/4 secs (depending on rank) on the dots.
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This is what I've found to be the case pretty much.
Which leaves just DPS -- ok it has really good DPS. But that's it.. that's all it has. Which is the problem for many telepathy players. Every set has good DPS -- so that doesn't really make the set all that unique. Last year there were some really COOL team buffing powers. IMHO GC should've just stuck with those instead of coming up with something altogether new. The team buffs would've been welcome and people would enjoy having a Telepathy oriented toon on their teams. But we did get MOHR DAMAAAGES so at least we got something. But I'm not expecting much more -- I think this is all we get for now.
Ebon Ruin
Sigils of Ebon Weakness
Skarns Bane
While I understand your argument about Skarn's Bane in PvP -- I'm talking about PvE. It's probably the best debuff you can have against hard targets. While Sigils of Ebon Weakness are a more reliable damage reducing debuff because they don't require stacking. Keeping and maintaining 4-stacks is a lot harder than you think on a harder target -- mostly because it's very easy to accidentally detonate (yourself or a team member). The sets being played a lot now -- so running into a second telepathy toon on a team happens a lot.
Ebon Ruin, Sigils, and Skarns easily out perform Mental Weakness, Mental Leech, & Shadow of Doubt. I know this because I play both sets. Unless I'm fully delusional.
Again, the new powers aren't awful -- but they don't really shine either. Also, the set was launched before it was really ready for prime time (buggy powers and messed up tooltips!??!?!). That's shoddy by anyone standards.
I decided to dive in and create my 41st character and for all but 1 power kept it completely in the telepathy/TK tree. I have gotten the character up to level 13 and I have noticed something odd. First here is the build I am using, I have Mind Break R2, Ego Sprites R2, Congress of Selves R3 and running in the Support Role...
Super Stats:
Level 6: Dexterity (Primary)
Level 10: Intelligence (Secondary)
Level 15: Presence (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Grimoire
Level 6: Impresario
Level 9: Accurate
Level 12: Lasting Impression
Level 15: Daredevil
Level 18: Wordly
Level 21: Amazing Stamina
Powers:
Level 1: Psi Lash
Level 1: Mind Break (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 6: Ego Sprites (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 8: Congress of Selves (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Ego Sleep
Level 14: Telepathic Reverberation
Level 17: Ebon Void (Voracious Darkness)
Level 20: Mental Leech (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23: Manipulator
Level 26: Shadow of Doubt (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Mental Storm (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Mindful Reinforcement (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Empathic Healing (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 38: Ego Surge (Nimble Mind)
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Mystic Flight (Rank 2)
Level 35: Athletics
Specializations:
Dexterity: Combat Training (2/3)
Dexterity: Gear Utilization (3/3)
Dexterity: Deadly Aim (3/3)
Dexterity: Expose Weakness (2/2)
Sentinel: Torment (2/2)
Sentinel: Caregiver (1/3)
Sentinel: Sentinel Aura (3/3)
Sentinel: Wither (2/2)
Sentinel: Genesis (2/2)
Overseer: Administer (1/3)
Overseer: Ruthless (2/2)
Overseer: Impact (2/2)
Overseer: Trapped (3/3)
Overseer: Conservation (2/2)
Mastery: Dexterity Mastery (1/1) or Sentinel
I wanted to take a more of a support route on the build. At level 15 I will equip the character with Nemesis Gear primaries as well. I have noticed one thing that does seem odd. When attacking multiple targets with Ego Sprites (x2) they seem to tick damage correctly, but hit a target with Ego Sleep followed by the Sprites and they tick damage much slower.
I have attacked a mob with the same hit points where Ego Sleep missed some of them, but the Sprites didn't. Consistently those that were not hit with Ego Sleep died quicker. The ticks almost seem to be ticking at 2 second intervals rather than 1 on the sleeping targets. CoS is also supposed to ignore x% of a targets damage resistance, but it seems on dbl bar targets that it actually ticks at a lower damage rate then will rise to the normal stated rate, then slip back down again.
When the target eventually wakes up, and it has not died, there is a flurry of damage ticks pop up like they were backlogged or something. I am assuming also that the DEX numbers are on the initial hit, not the ticks, as I have seen very little DEX hits on my DoT's even though I am at around 30% with current gear.
I will continue to push forward, I was able to level a Radiant AT to 40, so this should be no problem, just very slowwwwww at 32 damage a tick currently.
Apathy is on the rise, but nobody seems to care.
The downside to Ebon Sigils being they're destructible. Some bosses like Teleiosaurus or Mega Destroid wipe them out with frustrating ease. Don't forget the other debuffs applied by Mental Leech and Shadow of Doubt. Increasing charge times and cooldown times lowers boss dps as well.
Ideally with another telepath detonating stacks they would also help build them. I guess it's situational here. Mind Break requires a half charge to detonate the debuffs still right? How do you accidentally detonate them?
I do not understand why people say Skarn's Bane is some super debuffing power. It is useful against Nocturne and Ao'whatever in alerts and that's about it. Gravi's KM passive cannot be removed by Skarn's. Defiant stacks cannot be removed by Skarn's. Enrage/Concentration/etc stacks cannot be removed by Skarn's. Most enemies/bosses do not even have buffs/passives to remove. Skarn's is nice to have in the few situations it's *allowed* to actually remove buffs, but those are few and far between. Otherwise it's a very expensive average damage cone.
Ebon Ruin isn't Sorcery, it's Darkness. Plus, you can get the same effect (trauma) by getting the adv on the new telepathy passive and using any control power.
Skarns is great against most alert bosses with a passive actually.
Try it vs Gemini, Madame Mayhem etc
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^ This. The 10 stack stuff was back when Telepathy was pretty powerful with the interrupt mechanic on the powers which made them half insta CC and half debuff. It worked on everything so even one telepath in Gravitar for instance would reduce her to a punching bag, provided they kept up the interrupts.
The tooltips have remained the same for 10 months straight. This should be getting fixed soon though..like the rest of the powers in this mini-set.
I find it a shame that it is not a CC centric Mini-set, but at least I can combine some of old telepathy with the new (with the exception of Telepathic Reverberation).
I await to use these powers when they aren't bugged so hard.
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It combines Darkness, Telepathy and Sorcery for a debuff style build. Congress of selves has the ability to add Trauma, which occures when I use the DoT's. Now I tested this on my 40 and went back to my normal build. But I will be making a new toon with all of these abilities.
Since the debuffs are a click and inflict Trauma, if I combines that with Scarnes, I do not need to take Ebon Ruin and focus on something else that is more creative and theme fitting more me.
For the most part I am not impressed with the powers. Congress of Selves I do like, but I need a secondary passive, like a defensive or an offensive. On teams I would use it, but since Dark form enhances Supernatural damage, it would effect all of the DoT's in Telepathy, Dark and Sorcery. CoS just has the added advantage of being able to cause Trauma on clicks, not charge ups, which is really effective.
Again, I would use Congress in a support Role or Hybred, and Dark Form in a Damage Role to enhance a more DPS rounded build.
Old time member. I miss NERF :eek:
After having used the powers more frequently I've discovered that. . I'm having fun.
They take a lot of getting used to, but they certainly do just fine. In fact, I'm sick of dying in alerts because apparently the big foozle never likes me, lol!
So I take back what I said earlier. I give this update a B. It certainly could use some work, but once an individual is used to it, it's really not that bad at all. I had to rework my stats a little bit, but not so much that I had to get new gear.
Conditioning applies Trauma (50% reduction in healing effectiveness) to targets you use the control powers on.
R3 gives 81% additional damage on DoT, Ignore 30% of target's damage resistance, Your character gains 90% Ego damage resistance, +18% power cost discount, +42 Aggression Stealth, +36% reduction in threat generation.
R2 gives 68% additional damage on DoT, Ignore 20% of target's damage resistance, Your character gains 75% Ego damage resistance, +15% power cost discount, +35 Aggression Stealth, +30% reduction in threat generation.
The gains with R3 are pretty substantial, is Trauma worth it in PvE against anyone other than that big ugly alien in alerts?
Thanks
Apathy is on the rise, but nobody seems to care.
Depends what you want really. If you are attempting PvP with CoS then Conditioning may be worth it.
BUT, the gains from rank 3 are as you correctly pointed out, quite substantial.
Since mobs as a whole tend not to have healing (besides Elder Worms, Fire Demons, DEMON and New Shadows) I'd go with rank 3. Anyway, the healing that mobs will have access to will not be so great that you cannot out DPS them, and their healing is only periodic so by the time they are able to proc their healing again you should have already killed them off.
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On a side note you are very familiar with the new powers from the posts I have seen TheRavenForce. I so far have been a little disappointed in the damage numbers I have gotten so far and the consistency seems off.
I have noticed that I rarely get the damage per tick that the DoT power suggests I should. I have seen it in the Live world where a double bar baddie gets less damage per tick than their single bar minions.
I am not familiar with the damage resistance calcs that your enemies have if they have no passive going like invulnerability. It seems that the DoT powers should at least tick for the damage they say they should do.
I noticed this more glaringly against the test dummies in the powerhouse. Where the DoT says it should tick at 64 per tick I get maybe 50 or so. That was with R2 of Congress of Selves so I'm going to try it with R3.
The damage also doesn't seem to tick per second in the world as well. Throw a DoT on a mob with the same hit points and they go down pretty fast, but throw Ego Sleep on them then hit them and they tick much slower and constantly die slower. Example, if you hit a mob with Ego Sleep and one of them is out of range of the effect and you hit them all with Ego Sprites, the one that is not sleeping will always die before the others.
Thanks
Apathy is on the rise, but nobody seems to care.
My pleasure
After testing them for almost a year I should hope I am! :biggrin:
It has come to attention (As it did ages back on Test Server), that CoS is not applying the defense penetration from it's passive after the initial strike so it is only boosting the initial hit, like Detect Vulnerability in the Intelligence Spec Tree. As a result, when you combine this bug with duelling an enemy with LR or Invuln or dodge/avoid mechanic it becomes a living nightmare. There are a number of things wrong with these powers, both tooltip wise and actual numbers wise.
However they are in the process of being fixed. The first of the fixes comes through tomorrow namely Shadow of Doubt and Mental Leech being able to benefit from ranking.
I know that certain mobs have varying resistances to types of damage. The only one I can say I have seen a stark difference in damage vs other mobs of the same level is PSI. They seem to have higher (and rightly so) resistance to Ego Damage than other foes.
Hmm, try it and re-post what happens.
Really? I haven't noticed this at all...odd. I know that starting off a fight with Mental Storm inflicts a significant portion of damage to the foe.
But as for Ego Sleep slowing down ticks...I am not sure about that, I'll have to test that, but you may be right in that respect, I do notice that sleeping targets tend to receive numbers in a slower fashion...
If you have any more questions regarding New Telepathy do not hesitate to PM me in game:
Mentella@Ravenforce or forum inbox me :cool:
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1 and 2 are the passive values for the player/attacker.
3 4 5 and 6 are the passive values for the enemy/defender.
5 is technically a multiplicative damage buff if and only if you reduce the enemy's passive resistance below 0%. Damage resistance is permitted to go below zero and defense penetration will only put you at zero no matter how high you stack it. Resistance debuffs are what puts it below zero.
Now, the way the system is designed it takes the passive values of the player/attacker and pits it against the passive values of the enemy/defender then it does an immunity/range check to make sure that the mob doesn't have immunity to all damage or is out of range.
Lingering effects such as dots only take the passive values from the character on the initial hit and any ticks after that are passed through the passive values of the enemy/defender alone. This is how you get 1 (2) in the combat log.
They have yet to make it so that lingering effects do a check for the passive values of the player/attacker for all secondary ticks/effects. The only way to not have your lingering effects pass through the passive values of the enemy/defender is to debuff the passive values of the enemy/defender to zero or below it by adding on resistance debuffs. This is how you get 2 (1) in the combat log.
In other words:
Congress of Selves is working as designed within our current system. It might not be working as intended but it is working as well as the system allows it to. The only true way to 'fix' it and all dots is to allow the system to re-check the passive values of the player/attacker for all ticks! This would also fix the problem of dots/bursts auto-critting but it also opens up another pandora's box of problems and woe. So, best to just leave the system as is...a pile of spaghetti code piled on top of even more spaghetti code...makes for an interesting meal..
A passive that improves Ego DoT damage and provides penetration.. to the first tick of those DoTs.
Designed as Intended
Two powers marked as crowd control that do not perform any crowd control nor scale with crowd control.
Designed as Intended
A transform power that makes the character weaker in almost every way (but DPS)
Designed as Intended.
Taking the time to make DPS additions to telepathy even though players have consistently held that DPS telepathy is already viable?
Designed as intended.
Completely ignoring character CC strength in the powers and CC as a whole
Designed as Intended.
I question the intentions of the designer(s) of these telepathy additions. And my biggest thought about telepathy is that the producer(s) thought it better to give up and move on to another project - the same happened last year. Telepathy was aborted twice.. What was eventually delivered was severely under-developed
Have consequences for using it.
The only other power that I can even think of that has consequences for using it is Dark Transfusion.
If you want to play the 'energy' route then all form toggles, travel powers and pets also provide energy management consequences.
In all seriousness, is master of mind a utility power or is it just a legacy open world "Become" device that forgets where the device slot is. now that I have broken the srsnss: OH WAIT I KNOW WHAT IT IS! IT IS THE OPPOSITE OF VAPOR FORM! DUH!!!!
Ok I ranked up Congress of Selves to R3 and went in and DoT'd the level 40 training dummines. The results were fairly consistent and a little worse than I thought.
I tried one attack at a time making sure no effects were active on the dummies.
1 Stack of Ego Sprites R3 - Tooltip says 56 Ego Damage - Actual damage, initial hit 34 dropping to 31 for each subsequent tick.
Mental Storm R2 - Tooltop 68 Ego Damage - Actual Damage, initial hit 38 dropping to 34 each subsequent tick. A second test revealed even different results. Damage on main target had an initial hit of 38 and the other two dummies were ticking at 38 and 36.
In the tests it seems sleeping or not the ticks looked consistent here in the Powerhouse.
Apathy is on the rise, but nobody seems to care.
When you list it all out like that it really is all over the place. It just fails so hard.
Underdeveloped? Try purposely induced fetal alcohol syndrome
It pains me to say it, but I pretty much agree. I've been playing the set in various combos and builds over two character slots. In doing so I've squeezed every bit of performance out of it I could (including Master of the Mind).
When all is said and done -- this isn't a finished product. To be honest I think the first incarnation hit the mark a lot more closely than what we have now. If anything I want to beg Lordgar and GC to please just revert the set to how it worked originally. That way they won't have to updated the tooltips.
The tooltips being wrong is causing lots of in-game confusion btw. People have IM'd me asking me how I got my build to work. So I have to first explain to them that how the powers are described as working and how they really work are totally different.
For now I'm burned out on telepathy. I have several mentalists toons and I'm going to give them a rest for now. Hopefully, the ice set will give me some of the control mechanics I've been looking for.
At level 40 and in exceptional gear, it's yet another damage set. It doesn't really offer a whole lot beyond what most sets do, as in it's capable of doing great damage.
I still find the stealth mechanic of the passive to be enjoyable.
I still find Master of Mind to be puzzling, as well as the limitations of the passive itself.
All around, as far as damage sets go, it's actually rather exceptional. But, alas, this doesn't make up for the fact that control is a broken mechanic in the game, and something I feel will be for a long time to come. The debuffs don't seem particularly remarkable, except I can inflict a little more pain to otherwise highly resistant enemies, and I'm not sure if the charge debuff is doing anything to the NPCs.
Is it fun? From the standpoint of someone who likes to do lots of damage, yes. But I still think it's missing a lot of the eccentric power play that a mentalist is actually capable of doing in a superhero setting. It's very much spam all the DoTs, then do that again, then keep doing that until you want to detonate the debuffs on the off chance you need to heal somebody near your target.
I think CO's versatility works as a double edged sword in some cases. Point being. .
In a typical MMO, you have several 'roles.' Each role could be compared to an instrument. A player learns the keys of their instrument, then plays that instrument while alone or in a group. Mastering that instrument is crucial to playing it well.
In CO, there aren't keys to an instrument per se. Instead, we get all the keys, all the notes, all the pieces in a lump and we can mix and match them. Unfortunately as we strip away the dynamics of each of these instruments we also lose some of the individuality which these instruments portray, because the more individual these instruments become the less they will cooperate when mixed with other instruments. Thus, I doubt we'll ever get a set that feels truly -unique-, because in order to create this it would need a kind of synergy which only compliments its own set.
So, the mentalist changes work just fine fitting CO's current style of power design. I honestly think it'll be difficult to come across a set that actually feels entirely distinct from the other sets.
Also, was kind of half asleep when I typed this. I'll edit it if changes are necessary.
True.
This pisses me off no end, the Malaise and Mental Weakness debuffs scale with base CC str, nothing more and are not affected by Manipulator..hopefully this will be fixed soon. I am also of the opinion that the CC cores are not affecting these values and possibly some specs.
I remember when this power was actually badass, it used to be almost worth taking, all that needed to be changed was the FX (to what it is now, my suggested astral form FX) and working the energy cost to be lower perhaps. Now thanks to naysayers it was nerfed into the ground.
It may truly be one of the only powers in game which do not provide a meaningful benefit to your survival AD/Transformation wise.
I think if the additions were CC/DPS/Debuff like they were before with the interrupt system, that would be more welcome. However having said that, the debuffs do work in combat, but anything past Super Villain and it would be unwise to try and solo it. I will say though that the DPS from my attacks do not seem to impact on my CC on NPCs (non ego sleep or stun CC) but it is more than evident on players.
I reckon this is one of the many bugs which the powers have, it should take it into account but it doesn't.
I will be perfectly honest here, it felt as if it was shoved out of the PTS onto LIVE waay too early.
No signature FX for CoS, Misinformation spreading tooltips, various power bugs etc
As much as I am grateful for being able to play Mentella again, I am disappointed that I have to solo missions if I want any feeling of playing my intended role.
And then you have people who have no idea what they are talking about saying we have "gotten our review, now stop complaining and go play" *shakes head* I'd love it if they had their mains put out of action for 10 months then given buggy powers and what their response would be...lol
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As it has been pointed out before, under developed powers, with zero sound FX (bar the electric sound on Mental Storm).
As for Emantation points...doubtful, since they are in the right places, aka the head and uses the correct Ego Blast Pose, which is unique to Telepathy.
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Expect little. Receive less.
That irks me as well. We got a quick draft and an even faster publish. I'm not as angry as others -- but these powers worked so darn well in the first iteration. Now we arguably have one the most nerfed sets in the game. Imagine if blade users had their crit frequency lowered, or damage nerfed..etc. People would be up in arms about it. But since not that many people are fans of mentalist powers -- it feels like we just got the bum rush.
I've made this argument. At this point it's pretty irrefutable.
year after year. And now you can truly expect it to never get better. They had their chance.. twice. And they blew it
This is not a feeling, but an accurate depiction of historical event
As it has been pointed out, it isn't even an arguable point any more. The Release notes post was moved from SNN Forums to SUGGESTIONS Forums...it was THAT unloved.
What I tend to find is that people seem to think that if something can DPS, it is fine.
I can DPS with Sorcery. Does that mean it is fine and does not need any additions or a review? No of course not. The same goes for Telepathy.
And now that the hold system is SO broken it is now killing off player shields in a shout (presumably) for justice to be served.
Pretty much, I think out of the people who I have known who are mentalist fans, most have given up on support style play for Telepathy and just slapped on Ego Form and gone for DPS. Nothing wrong with that, but it is just sad that there aren't any other viable ways of playing this powerset like their used to.
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Shadow of Doubt comes with four components:
-Initial Damage <-- applied on initial hit.
-Initial Debuff <-- applies 15% debuff to charge time
-DoT <-- applied after initial hit (but does not benefit from 30% ignore resist from passive which is odd)
-Lingering Debuff <-- Regret -6% to all damage strength x 4 stacks.
Mental Leech has a similar set up. What needs to really happen is the list of bugs I have presented to Devs, that needs to be worked through to make these powers better.
After that making the 30% from CoS work on ALL ticks of damage instead of just initial hit (like it is supposed to as the 30% is FOR the DoTs) is in order.
Then perhaps looking at special FX for CoS (in combat) and sounds to be attached to the powers.
This all really shows how rushed the powers were, even over a 10 month span..
Well, anyway, I have word that the devs have seen my list and already one of the points have been fixed (ranking properly).
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I feel like it should go like this:
Initial Damage
Initial Debuff
Lingering Debuff
DoT
Mainly because it's way too easy to kill everything in PvE before the DoT cycle ends.
Regret/Stress/Dependency themselves apply alongside the DoT damage. So it tends to continue "DoT-ing" until the lingering debuff is almost completed it's duration.
If it was set out exactly the way you have set it out, it would be useless. The Lingering Debuff (Regret/Dependency/Stress) would end before the DoT making the DoT a useless added feature.
Especially in the case of the Stress Debuff which applies -% resistance to ego damage, since the DoTs are Ego Damage they would not be able to benefit from the debuff in that fashion, whereas now they do.
The powers themselves were made with the intention to make Telepathy more useful in boss battle situations, so they were made for prolonged fights, that way all can benefit from the debuffs/buffs.
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