Control Powers

colonelmarik · January 2014

I think we can agree, control powers in this game are all but worthless in groups. I have a couple of suggestions to make them more valuable in the ways they should be.

Controls (independent of any damage they do) are a DEFENSE. That is, controls protect you by preventing the enemy from attacking you. In groups, this defense does not exist, as the holds are generally broken instantly. The result is that all the controlled enemies go attacking the controller, who usually has no other defense - meaning he gets killed.

Thus, the main purpose of the control is lost.

So, I suggest the following.

First, make control powers (ie. holds, sleeps, incapacitates, etc... not snares, roots or the like) clear all threat/aggro. That is, if I put a group of foes to sleep, they would have their aggro wiped so they would not attack ME if awakened. They would attack whoever is closest, or whoever woke them.

Second, add a secondary effect to the hold power that persists for the duration of the power, even if the hold itself is broken. This would make the power useful in groups, where the hold itself is pointless. This effect should be a debuff of some sort, possibly depending on the type of hold it was (ie. Sleep would make the foe groggy, debuffing accuracy and damage while Paralysis might make him stiff and sore, debuffing his movement and attack speed and his accuracy).

What say you, does the idea have merit?

theravenforce · January 2014

Just out of curiosity...how many times have you used control powers and observed their after effects?

Ego Sleep - Grants Disorient on breaking, which can be stretched to symbolise grogginess.

Paralyzes - Have the potential to apply debuffs for a short duration which increase the damage an opponent takes through specs. New Telepathy's Mental Storm grants Stress as a lingering and stacking debuff, which reduces the target's resistance to your ego damage.

In the main Crowd Control is dead and broken as a mechanic. It actually has no place in CO's fast combat. And by saying it has no place I mean conventional holds and crowd control forms such as Sleep, Paralyze, Incapacitates, Confuses and Placates.

Roots, Stuns etc are cheaper forms of CC, that due to their nature (Stun especially) makes them easy to come by and easy to use.

People who say CC is "fine" likely use Stun-lock builds with Sleep and one shotting, or something akin to that mix with Manipulator.

Not directed at the OP: I am very surprised that after all this time people have recently been realising how bad Crowd Control is in CO.

@ The OP: In the suggestions thread a few pages back, you'll see multiple threads on crowd control, most of which include my own thoughts and ideas as part of the thread as well as other ideas. I honestly do think this topic sadly has been beaten to death.

Crowd Control to work in CO would require:

1. A severe cut back on how many powers can apply crowd control effects.

2. Hold HP to actually be an increase-able mechanic. It is currently a static number.

3. NPC AI to be updated to allow for control effects to work on them to an extent, when you specialise for CC.

4. Breakfree sources would need to be cut down.

5. Manipulator form would need to provide breakfree nerfing to Manipulated Holds so that Manipulated Holds cause less breakfree from Z mashing to occur.

For starters. I've said all this time and again.

Unknown · January 2014

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theravenforce · January 2014

You may want to have a look here and the associated links before replying colonelmarik.

colonelmarik · February 2014

The issue I'm seeing with the debuffs these things currently apply is that they don't do anything noticeable.

Here's the typical scene.

I move in and hit a group of foes with ego sleep. They're immediately released by the team. Now groggy, they all run over and attack me to the exclusion of all others, and I die in about 3 seconds.

Repeat for the next group.

Thus, I think a critical thing is the aggro wipe I suggested.

My character's concept is that he's strictly a telepath. He reads and controls minds, and that's all. Technically, he shouldn't be doing any damage at all, but he has to have something. Ego Sprites has always been adequate (though, I'd really like to see Psi Lash changed so it won't awaken sleeping enemies), but the new powers add nice DOT that won't break sleep.

The problem remains teaming, because teams break the holds, which are far too fragile as it stands. This in turn means that holding the enemy in teams is useless, and doesn't help anyone. The debuffs are so weak as to be unnoticable, so again don't help anyone.

Perhaps changing some of the hold mechanics so holds can stack. Thus, if I apply one hold and it's broken, a stack of that hold would remain on the foe for a time. Repeated applications would restore the hold and add to its strength. This might even allow holds to be used on bosses and higher.

Something I'd love to see is a change to Mind Lock, where I could maintain the power to keep the target confused, kind of like Binding of Aratron, but with a significantly longer duration.

Anyway, as you said, it's not likely to get looked at again.

colonelmarik · February 2014

Actually, let me put this to you then.

How would you build a character as I described? That is, PURE telepath, no telekinesis. He'd be all about controlling and reading thoughts. What powers would you give him? What specializations?

theravenforce · February 2014

colonelmarik wrote: »

The issue I'm seeing with the debuffs these things currently apply is that they don't do anything noticeable.

Here's the typical scene.

I move in and hit a group of foes with ego sleep. They're immediately released by the team. Now groggy, they all run over and attack me to the exclusion of all others, and I die in about 3 seconds.

Repeat for the next group.

With the way Crowd Control is in CO, it is best to avoid teams if you are going for conventional holds (Sleep and paralyzes in high DPS environments).

Personally I don't like teaming unless I am with people who know what they are doing. Teaming with other "control" telepaths, has been and may always be a hot mess.

I am not too sure why you'd use Ego Sleep in team content unless you were far away from the team and wanted a group to yourself. In team content, your best friends in terms of holds are Stuns and Paralyzes/Incapacitates.

All Crowd Control values in CO are static. Nothing increases hold HP. Manipulator breaches foes resistance to holds making them "last longer", when it is actually a static value which just has more "crowd control defense penetration" if you will.

If your using PRE to fuel your crowd control, teamed situations will almost always be an issue for you. PRE still generates a ton of aggro in the form of initial aggro, which means you either kill off your held enemies or hope your team is organised enough to remove the focus from you (even in the best teams this can be extremely difficult, because of how strong PRE's threat generation is, this is especially discernible on Elite Serpent Lantern or other Elite instances with a full team.).

colonelmarik wrote: »

Thus, I think a critical thing is the aggro wipe I suggested.

Your suggestion would break a number of things, in the sense of player vs player and the fact that threat wipes work on (IIRC) everything. If everyone was tossing out Ego Sleep and other associated control powers and gaining threat wipes, there would be an issue.

When playing a control toon, your control powers are your defense, offense and threat wipe. If I face a group of 5 foes, I full charge Ego Sleep and lock them out until they die. This of course is challenging in a team situation, which is why it is good to have other holds or attacks or defences on hand such as blocking or an active defensive.

I tend to go off and do my own thing if working with players who don't know how to work with crowd controllers (it's sad that players need to know how to work with CC toons who use conventional holds but that is by the by really.).

Avoiding other crowd controllers is a fantastic start to enjoying a CC toon, as well as identifying the right targets to lock down.

colonelmarik wrote: »

My character's concept is that he's strictly a telepath. He reads and controls minds, and that's all. Technically, he shouldn't be doing any damage at all, but he has to have something. Ego Sprites has always been adequate (though, I'd really like to see Psi Lash changed so it won't awaken sleeping enemies), but the new powers add nice DOT that won't break sleep.

Ideally none of your telepathic attacks should damage your crowd control abilities, but there would be issues associated with such a set up. Psi Lash not affecting holds would be great, but that may have to be applied across the board for all Energy builders.

In CO we no longer have true controlling powers in the sense of total and absolute faction conversion (even for a short time). The closest we have now is Confuse and Placate, both of which have their own resistance stacks, are reduced by incoming damage duration wise and in Confuses case, may not work at all against a target and for both they are capped at working at a certain level of foe. (Alien Crystal device used to operate on old CC mechanics which allowed me to confuse pet masters so their pets would kill them, was fun while it lasted, as well as causing mass confusion in team PvP.)

colonelmarik wrote: »

The problem remains teaming, because teams break the holds, which are far too fragile as it stands. This in turn means that holding the enemy in teams is useless, and doesn't help anyone. The debuffs are so weak as to be unnoticable, so again don't help anyone.

There are a lot of issues with crowd control powers in CO. It's more to do with DPS and damage interaction with hold HP (the life of a hold, which is NOT the same as duration) than anything else. Players have gotten a lot stronger and crowd control was stopped from being allowed to increase via hold HP so, it's incredibly weak.

Also note that Mental Storm is a paralyze, it should have a lesser duration than Ego Sleep (Sleep is a higher order hold) but instead Ego Sleep seems to have been brought down to the same level as a paralyze. (Your Ego Sleep values are the same as Mental Storm, Bolas and other charged paralyzes.)

Crowd Controlling in a team outside of using a Stun lock build with incapacitates mixed in is a waste of time generally.

The debuffs that Mental Storm, Mental Leech and Shadow of Doubt have as well as Mental Weakness and Malaise, -seem- weak (and probably could do with increasing in power as Manip stacks do) but they actually do make a difference in combat that I've run them in, such as Gravitar, Vikorin or Therakiel.

colonelmarik wrote: »

Perhaps changing some of the hold mechanics so holds can stack. Thus, if I apply one hold and it's broken, a stack of that hold would remain on the foe for a time. Repeated applications would restore the hold and add to its strength. This might even allow holds to be used on bosses and higher.

What you have described is what Incapaciderps (as I like to call them) once were. Ego Storm with Malevolent Manifestation Advantage as well as Binding of Aratron, used to be used in PvP a lot. Why? Because each tick of the maintained hold restored hold HP.

Unless the Development team suddenly came into a bountiful supply of money and were given a very extended period to work on CO solely, delving into CO's Crowd Control system would be a nightmare balancing wise and just in general. Making holds stack in light of the ability to get 12-16 second STUNS (which do not break on damage) is a bad idea.

colonelmarik wrote: »

Something I'd love to see is a change to Mind Lock, where I could maintain the power to keep the target confused, kind of like Binding of Aratron, but with a significantly longer duration.

If Confuses and Crowd Control in general ever is resurrected, Confuses should be AoE and have a 100% chance to confuse targets (provided you are a crowd controller ofc) and not allow them to attack you, nor have their durations lessened by damage.

colonelmarik wrote: »

Anyway, as you said, it's not likely to get looked at again.

Sad isn't it? I cannot blame them however, it's a hot mess in practice so goodness knows how bad it is coding wise.

theravenforce · February 2014

colonelmarik wrote: »

Actually, let me put this to you then.

How would you build a character as I described? That is, PURE telepath, no telekinesis. He'd be all about controlling and reading thoughts. What powers would you give him? What specializations?

It depends, if you are going to be a telepath with next to zero offensive capability, controlling foes will only get you so far. A stray shot or two and your Ego Sleep is broken and before you know it immunity!

Before making a build, have you got any passive in mind? I'll post a build here for a frame work to build from.

theravenforce · February 2014

Based on the information you gave, I've thrown this together.

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name: Untailored build

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Presence (Primary)
Level 10: Intelligence (Secondary)
Level 15: Constitution (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Radiant
Level 6: Enduring
Level 9: Brilliant
Level 12: Intimidating
Level 15: Diplomatic
Level 18: Healthy Mind
Level 21: Shrug It Off

Powers:
Level 1: Psi Lash
Level 1: Ego Blast (Rank 2, Mind Opener)
Level 6: Ego Sprites (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 8: Ego Form (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Ego Sleep (Rank 2, Plagued by Nightmares)
Level 14: Telepathic Reverberation
Level 17: Ego Placate (Svengali's Guile)
Level 20: Summon Nightmare (Rank 2, Night Terror)
Level 23: Manipulator
Level 26: Mental Storm (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Masterful Dodge
Level 32: Mental Leech (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Empathic Healing (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 38: Psychic Vortex (Rank 2)

Travel Powers:
Level 6:
Level 35:

Specializations:
Presence: Selfless Ally (1/2)
Presence: Dominion (2/2)
Presence: Grandeur (2/3)
Presence: Moment of Glory (1/3)
Presence: Force of Will (2/2)
Presence: Vulnerability (2/2)
Sentinel: Torment (2/2)
Sentinel: Sentinel Aura (3/3)
Sentinel: Wither (2/2)
Sentinel: Genesis (2/2)
Overseer: Administer (3/3)
Overseer: Overseer Aura (3/3)
Overseer: Trapped (3/3)
Overseer: Conservation (1/2)
Mastery: Sentinel Mastery (1/1)

You have no block. Your healing is from Mental Leech and Empathic Healing and Sentinel Aura.

Everything there is subject to change. Personally I wouldn't run this build yet, until I've got some more information from you about it.

Unknown · February 2014

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theravenforce · February 2014

gradii wrote: »

Crowd control needs to be something anyone can do in small amounts but only some do very well. this does not require changing which powers apply it, nor reducing what breaks you free. changes like that are selfish IMHO, and reflect the view of someone heavily biased towards niche CC builds.

You are entitled to your own opinion of me regardless of how backward and misinformed it might be. (And yes, anyone who has been following the topic that I have beaten to death on suggestions forums and elsewhere will realise this was directed at me.)

Saying you want to no longer have contact with me then highlighting clear digs at me is totally in line with your previous thoughts on NO contact with me aren't they?

And just for the record, those changes I proposed were all justified with sound reasoning, if anyone is interested they can look back on threads and see for themselves.

Clean up your act gradii. It's pitiful, pathetic and petulant. If you have an issue with me, ignore what I say.

cyrone · February 2014

I find this to be on topic with the direction this thread will most likely go. Test your might.

Unknown · February 2014

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Unknown · February 2014

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Control Powers

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