Gothika

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You aren't discussing, you're arguing one (1) point that you wouldn't change if your god told you to.


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We've discussed Wormhole and Dimension Shift mostly, but also the Sing and Propel changes. There's just not much to talk about regarding the latter two powers.

Oh, but since I brought up Propel again, I did do a quick test on how much damage it does now. At level 44 vs a level 43 Rikti Infantry and level 43 Nemesis Lieutenant (both Smash neutral I believe since I got the same numbers), Propel with 4 Damage SOs did 157 damage. For comparison sake, the EPP Power Blast also with 4 Damage SOs (respecced Primal on Test) did 98+65 damage for a total of 163. I had slightly better SOs in Power Blast, so the damage is about the same. Propel still has a much longer activation time than PB of course, and a shorter range. They recharge at the same speed.

From previous tests I did a few weeks ago between Power Blast, Mental Blast and Fire Blast, all the EPP single target damage powers seem to do the same damage. So Propel has been brought up to Epic level for damage, it just still has the same slow activation time and shorter range.

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My point is that you have made your opinion known. And it is just that, your opinion. That's all that's required here. Now stop arguing with other people with differing opinions, you are interfering with their voicing of their opinion.

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Now you're just being belligerent. I'm discussing the issue on a discussion thread. Feel free to ignore my posts if they bother you that much.

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I was talking to you and you alone.

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Then use private messages, not a thread about Gravity changes.

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The point is, does it have more uses than Wormhole? Whether you answer yes or no probably depends a great deal on your secondary and playstyle. As a Kinetics secondary, Dimension Shift works against nearly everything I do. Wormhole on the other hand, works very well with my secondary. So clearly for me, Wormhole is a much better power than DS. It's in that context that I offer the suggestion that DS might be a better choice to change than Wormhole. Based on the feedback in this thread, I'm not alone in that opinion. That doesn't mean DS has no uses, just that when compared to the rest of the powers in the set it might be the best choice to adjust instead of Wormhole.


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I do NOT have Kinetics secondary. A single-target Wormhole was MUCH less useful to me. It only had niche' uses, whereas now I can find a use for it in every fight.

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Try reading the part I highlighted, which was the entire point of that block of text. People's perceptions on the usefulness of various powers are based largely on their secondaries and playstyle. It's entirely subjective. No doubt some people would find an AoE Wormhole more useful than a single target version, but why should people who enjoy Wormhole as it's been for nearly a year have that power suddenly yanked away?

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Dimension Shift DOES have uses in PvP in that most teams don't bunch up so you can more selectively phase your enimies.

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You're completely speculating of course, considering how much chance we've had to test it in PvP so far. On paper it looks like it will, but on paper it also looks good for PvE. We won't actually know how useful it'll be until PvP is back up.

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I personally don't care for Propel. Why not change that to what you want? I don't like it, so I say that's the way it should be. Evertone listen to me .

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You could make a good argument for changing Propel, actually. I'd recommend not being so childish about it if you want people to take you seriously, though.

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Those that were against it were mostly against the duration being so short, the knockback, and the activation (like most of our other skills) being so long.

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Even a lot of us who like it would probably like better Disorient duration, faster activation and/or no Knockback. Perhaps that's where the idea that 'most don't like it' came from. It's a good power, but it could be better with some tweaks. It doesn't need to be turned into a new power by making it AoE though. That's a step backwards, imo.

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Dimension Shift was changed back in Issue 2 (I think), the baddies are rooted now.

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They added a root to DS a while back, yeah. Is it consistantly rooting Bosses, though? I thought the magnitude on the root was the same as all roots, so you had to crit the Bosses to root it even though it was phased out. It's been a long time since I had the power so I don't remember.

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The Pro-Wormholers are crawling out of the woodwork now. Where were you all 3 months ago when I was getting my head chewed off?

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Unfortunately I wasn't around on the boards 3 months ago due to RL stuff, or I'd have been expressing the same opinion then that I am now. Oh well, the change is on TEST for a reason. Hopefully the devs will read the feedback expressed here and consider alternatives.

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I don't see it as a huge change to the power. Before it was a sniper rifle, now it's a cannon. We needed another cannon. Having a power that makes a bunch of bad guys take a fifteen second timeout on the far side of the map sounds useful to me, especially if I can slot it up to increase the disorientation time.


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You don't see a huge difference between a sniper rifle and a cannon? O.o Besides, D-Shift already functions as the 'time out' power. AoE Wormhole would do it in a less annoying fashion, but then why not just put old Wormhole into D-Shift's spot and leave new Wormhole in the 8 spot seeing as how AoE Wormhole and D-Shift serve similar functions?

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Two ways around that. The easiest is to hide behind a corner. The better-but-more-expensive way is to put a couple of slots into range. Heck, one will do it pretty well but two SO's should give comfortable range.

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That's exactly what I do with Wormhole right now. I have 2 range SOs and 2 Accuracy SOs in it. The range is nice, but it doesn't solve the problem of getting fired upon nearly as well as you think. Most villians at high level have very long range, and the ones that don't can generally run into range before affected by the teleport. Breaking line of sight using corners is golden, though. I do that all the time to pull singles out of groups without aggroing the rest of the group. A function that's lost with the new Wormhole, btw.

Actually, you'll still take the alpha strike because of the delay between activating Wormhole (which is when the villians become aware of you) and when it goes off.

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1. DS needs to be made single target. Have a boss bearing down? DS him out while you clean up the minions and Lieuts. FF generator screwing up the works? DS it away for a few moments to kill it's creator. Inv Tank got ya down in PvP, take him out of the fight for a few while ya deal with that damn scrapper... etc.

This would serve to provide nearly the same functionality as the old wormhole while at the same time making DS a worthwhile power pick for nearly any situation, not just the rare occassional situation.

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DS as a single target power would indeed be better than as an AoE. It wouldn't make a suitable replacement for Wormhole however, because it can only simulate one of Wormhole's functions. In some ways it simulates that one fucntion better (target is completely phased pretty quickly) but in others worse (a Boss crushed and teleported away is also completely removed at the cost of it taking longer to do, but you can choose when to engage the Boss rather than waiting for a phase to wear off).

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2. Worm Hole should effect multiple targets. Open up a black hole on a street corner and see how well you can contol it from sucking up more than one person/target. You can't. It's a black hole. It sucks up anything close enough to be drawn in. Works for me. But put a larger disorient on it and stop the knockback so that mobs stay more closely together upon arrival. Now you have a working "control" AoE.

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We're talking about a game where I can create singularites that objects bounce off of. Saying 'It's a black hole' is no reason to change the power. A power should be changed because A) it's too strong and needs to be toned down for the betterment of the game or B) the power isn't performing as well for the set as it should so it needs to be improved. A significant portion of Gravity Controllers don't view adding AoE to Wormhole as an improvement.

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3. Propel. Added damage is fine. Still takes TOO LONG to get off, meaning it is still mostly worthless. You could have raised the damage 200% and I still wouldn't take it with that cast time. 200% damage against dead air is still just hitting dead air.Make Propel and AoE cone, so you aren't dependent on a single target being around long enough to get hit, or decrease the activation time by at least 2 seconds. Seriously, I have more important things to be doing with those precious seconds than to stand there working through a long single target attack that still only does ok damage and prolly will never reach the target before someone else kills it.

5. Review power activation times across the entire primary set. Why are we so slow in comparison to all other controllers?

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I agree that the activation times for most of the single target Gravity powers still need to be adjusted. I've had Propel since day 1 on Gothika, I never did respec out of it. So I'm not unhappy with the increased damage, but I agree a shorter activation time would have been a better choice to improve the power. Crush and Gravity Distortion also have activation times that seem excessive, imo.

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With the notable exception of ProcessedMeatMan, almost all of us called for some kind of change to Wormhole -- shorter animation, no knockback, longer disorient, whatever. We also largely called for another AoE control, although this request was generally formulated as "Replace D-Shift with a useful AoE control." So it looks like they read what we suggested and tried to meet our requests, such as tweaking Propel so that it no longer did sub-Brawl DPS.

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The difference is, improving Wormhole by shortening the activation, taking away the Knockback or lengthening the Disorient leaves the power fundamentally the same. Making it AoE changes the power on a fundamental level. People have been asking for the activation on Gravity Distortion to be shortened as well, that doesn't mean GD is a bad power that needs to be replaced. Without getting into the right or wrong of it, the power that consistantly gets the most requests for a fundamental change has always been Dimension Shift.

Well, you can probably tell by my post count that I don't usually spend much time on the boards, so it's no surprise I missed all the Wormhole hate you're talking about.

And just because I can't resist another shot at DS...

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Dark Defenders have the exact same power, it's called Black Hole.

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Dark Defenders also have the exact same dislike for their version of Dimension Shift, from what I've seen on the Defender boards.

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Then apparently all of the old wormhole haters have quit and moved on, have drastically changed their tune, or are now being very hypocritical.

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I have no idea. I made Gothika on day 1 of pre-order release, I picked up Wormhole as soon as I hit 26, and I've used it ever since. I have no idea what these other threads you're talking about are or who these other people are; I can only speak for myself. If you look through this thread though, you'll see quite a few different people posting who like Wormhole just the way it is on Live right now.

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The thing that gets me the most about this current "Wormhole Debate" is the fact that, as it stands now, it's a second rate glorified TP foe that rarely ever sees use.

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It should be clear by now just by looking through this thread that it's not.

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But I personally think that Dimension Shift DOES have uses in PvE, if the team knows what is going on, and the controller uses it well.

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The point isn't that Dimension Shift has no uses. It certainly does. Every power in the game has a use. The point is, does it have more uses than Wormhole? Whether you answer yes or no probably depends a great deal on your secondary and playstyle. As a Kinetics secondary, Dimension Shift works against nearly everything I do. Wormhole on the other hand, works very well with my secondary. So clearly for me, Wormhole is a much better power than DS. It's in that context that I offer the suggestion that DS might be a better choice to change than Wormhole. Based on the feedback in this thread, I'm not alone in that opinion. That doesn't mean DS has no uses, just that when compared to the rest of the powers in the set it might be the best choice to adjust instead of Wormhole.

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I think that the new wormhole will have enough interesting uses to make up for the lack of single-target percision.

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Pretty much the entire reason I'm posting in this thread so much is my strong opinion that it doesn't. Now if the new version of Wormhole were somehow going in in addition to the old, that might add some flavor to the set. I don't think it would really help the set all that much, but at least it wouldn't hamper what I can currently do. But then we're back to the same question: what do we take out to fit in both Wormholes? Eyes drift again to DS.

I think the best options for the devs to look at at this point are: Upsen's suggestion of leaving Wormhole a single target, and have the villian trigger an AoE Disorient at its exit point; or fitting in an AoE Lift + Disorient.

Touché! Let's just keep it at one mob, though.

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Well, "sucking" is a gravity sort of thing to do...

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Ironically, that's one thing that's actually missing from the set.

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Just for the reccord, Dimension Shift was never as worthless as everyone seemed to think on the forums either. I mean, it WAS a power that, unslotted, with just the base SO in it, could remove an entire group from combat, INCLUDING BOSSES, for a longer time than it took to recharge.

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The problem with Dimension Shift isn't that it's 'worthless'. It does its job very, very well. The problem is the side effect of doing that job so well. Most groups hate the fact that DSed villians can't be affected by anything. Trust me, I've tried using DS in many different situations, and the only time it was better to use it than not was when the group was completely overwhelmed. The fact that in today's game groups are rarely put in that position might be more of a general game problem than a DS problem, but the impact on DS is that it's a rarely used power. Certainly a power that's even more situational than Wormhole currently is, and it offers less utility.

Dimension Shift does it's job well, there's just few situations where people are willing to put up with Intangibility as a side effect.

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This is a viable tactic, and considering that we have 2 fulltime /dev blasters in the SG that team up regularly, as well as a Fire/Fire tanker, an Axe/Fire tanker, an Invuln/Fire tanker, an Earth/Earth tanker.. AoEs are the bread and butter of our fighting style. Being able to not only GDF a group but then Port them on the Flypaper of death is incredible. I'm excited about the new Wormhole.. I just haven't run the numbers to tweak it to order. What I do know is that the single target was good for emanators and such, but porting a +4 boss away from the crowd was nigh impossble.

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So won't those +4 bosses still be left behind when you try to port the group? The tactic you list above is an interesting one, but it goes against the entire point of the Wormhole change.
<ul type="square">[*]Gravity Control/Wormhole is now an AoE (Wormhole applied a Disorient, so now Gravity Control has another AoE Control power). Recharge Time was increased to compensate.[/list]Note that the intent of the change is to give Gravity Control 'another AoE Control power'. Using GDF first, then using area Wormhole to moving things around is a nice trick, but doesn't match the intent of the change.

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Also, please note that the biggest advocate against wormhole had a gravity controller but deleted her. For those that currently play a gravi/* controller have, for the most part, found good application for it. I for one think that it is a good alpha strike as well as an excellent tool for herding (which, coincidentally, also involves packing large groups against fences and in corners)

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I'm really not sure what you mean here. Biggest advocate against which Wormhole? The new or the old? There are a lot of us who very much use and like the current Wormhole and don't want it to change, especially when the result of the change isn't a power that actually has much more control, but one that would just be used for herding.


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Clearly inferior? To who? As far as "pure" AoE control goes, Dimension Shift is far superior to both versions of Wormhole. All this statement does is support the notion that no matter which power the Devs decide to manipulate, there will always be a group that's decidely not in favor of it.

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Dimension Shift if only far superior on paper. In practice, in real groups, it's just an awful power. I had DS for months before finally respeccing out of it and I can count the number of times on one hand when a group didn't hate when I tried to use it. In my experience, groups loathe Dimension Shift, and for that reason it's an inferior power.

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Regarding use of Wormhole against the DE emminators, it should still be fine. I haven't tried it to be sure but I would think any DE that went along with a little pet would simply run back to the battle as soon as they could.

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The problem is the new Wormhole will be scattering a number of enemies around, which is the opposite of control. Right now if I Wormhole an emminator away, the group can safely igonore it. When I tried it with the new Wormhole, it picks up other DE as well. Some run back, some stand off and use ranged attacks. There's DE scattered all over and are much more difficult to control. Groups already tend to not like Knockback much, this is Knockback to the Nth degree.

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I'm quite worried about agro, though. It seems like we get a chance to agro the whole group for each enemy we hit. Now we are hitting more enemies per use. Won't that increse the chances of bringing the whole group down on us? Hard to test this solo, unfortunately.

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One of the quirks of Wormhole is the target becomes aware of you the moment you activate the power. The target isn't actually 'ported until the end of the activation however, so there's a 3 second gap where the target will attack you. This quirk is still present in the new Wormhole, which is why you're seeing reports of Grav Controllers getting hit with alpha strikes. While this quirk generally isn't deadly against a single target, mulit target Wormholing will get you killed real fast.

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Let's see if we can get away with a knockdown effect as the single enemy ports into the targeted area too... it would fit the picture perfectly as well.

Boomf! wormholed enemy appears, knocking enemies in the area off their feet, they all get up disoriented.

It'd be similar to a one-shot version of Ice Slick that's uniquely gravity's.


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I'm sold. Now just convince the powers-that-be.

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Have the wormhole teleport only ONE enemy, but have the destination area qualify for an AOE disorient.


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That's an excellent suggestion and a compromise I could live with, since it doesn't take away from Wormhole's current functionality. Good show!

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Dimension Shift is going to be massive in PvP, imo.

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Possibly. I would be more inclined to agree if it were a single target power rather than an AoE. Like Wormhole, I think Dimension Shift would work better as a precision power rather than a sledgehammer.

Well, since this is now the official Gravity changes thread, I'll try to summarize my thoughts again here.

Most of the Gravity changes I'm fairly content with. I still think the activation times on most of the single target powers are excessive, but the improvements to Propel and Singularity are nice and a step in the right direction.

Most of my comments will deal with Wormhole, though. My big problem with the new Wormhole isn't so much what it's being turned into, but the loss of the current Wormhole. Wormhole as it is now is one of my staple powers.
<ul type="square">[*] I use it to pull key villians out of groups, whether to pull or after a GDF. With the new version, you now get a clump of villians, there's no precision.[*]I use it to get rid of villian 'pets' (DE eminators, Malta auto-turrets, ect). Try to do that now and it throws a clump of villians away, which can be annoying for the same reason Dimension Shift is so frequently annoying. [*]I use it to position a villian I've GDed next to an ally to heal with a Transfusion or Transference. Blasters won't be happy when you try that with the new version and there's suddenly 10 angry villians next to them. [*]Wormhole + Crush is excellent control vs Bosses. Use Crush on a troublesome boss and then Wormhole it far away and it's out of your hair until the Crush wears off, or you Wormhole it back. This is especially helpful in multi-boss encounters and vs Carnies. With the new Wormhole, all the allies around the boss are teleported as well, creating a scatter effect. Precision control is lost.[/list]I could keep going, but I don't want to make this post into a novel. The point is, Wormhole as it is now is much too good a power to effectively eliminate. There are alternatives that could be implemented that retain 'classic' Wormhole and still add an AoE Disorient to Gravity.

<ul type="square">[*]Retain the proposed Wormhole under a new name and replace Dimension Shift with the current Wormhole (My favorite suggestion). [*]Replace Dimension Shift with an AoE Lift + Disorient.[*]Replace Dimension Shift with some other AoE Disorient (seeing a theme? ). [*]Change the current Lift into an AoE Disorient (Lift is a popular power though).[/list]Or any other idea that retains the current Wormhole but adds an AoE Disorient. No other power in the game can duplicate what Wormhole currently does, not even Teleport Foe. The change to Wormhole eliminates the precision of the power and effectivily removes a large part of my gameplay strategy and makes Gravity much less fun for me to play. This I feel quite strongly. I'd rather have no change to Wormhole and retain the 'control gap' for another few months until Issue 5 than have my Gravity Controller lessened by this change.

I can't stand the new Wormhole. Making it AoE pretty much removes most of the utility from the power. I posted most of my comments about Wormhole Here and Here . No need to cut and paste hehe.

As for the other Gravity changes, they're pretty good. No changes to any activation times, some of which need to be reduced, but the extra damage on Propel is nice, and faster Sings are certainly nice as well.

AEG also made the only CCG I ever really enjoyed: Doomtown. That game was a ton of fun. CoH should be in good hands with them.

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As for gravity, the other control set that needs help.
-Perhaps reduce the base recharge of many of their powers might help. Sure Distortion Field is a nice hold, but you really need lots of accuracy and recharges to make it useful.

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GDF needs the same amount of accuracy and recharges as any of the other area of effect holds. The problem with most Gravity powers isn't the recharge time, it's the godawful long activation times across the board.

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-I suppose boosting the pet a bit might be good too.

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Why? Singularities are one of the best pets in the game. Singularity, GDF and GD are the three powers in the Gravity set that really need no changes.

Most of the problems with Gravity can be dealt with using relatively minor adjustments. Activation times are the biggest issue. Add a longish disorient to Propel to make it more of a control power. Remove the knockback from Wormhole for better placement (right now the only way to try to overcome Wormhole knockback is to GD the target first, which is rather inefficient).

The only power I think needs replacement is Dimension Shift. Replace it with something like a ground targetted Slow + End Drain field. Give it a 10 second duration with -5 End per second. Heavily slotting end drain could make a power like this pretty nasty, but it woud be pretty situational since a lot of villians don't rely a lot on end. The slow aspect would always be handy though.