Telok

[ QUOTE ]
If you Attack, or are Hit - Critters see you.

[/ QUOTE ]

So some level 14 hero going SuperSpeed down Steel Canyon passes some minion and gets popped for 9 damage three blocks later, suddenly everything he passes can see him for 10 seconds. Or someone with Invisibility(pool power) is SuperJumping through Crey's Folly and gets tagged by a sniper, for the next two jumps that person is visible.

Also, what counts as a hit? DoT attacks? Caltrops? CoT crystals? I suppose I could go try to test, but that's going to be alot of hospital trips.

This is really similar to the controller 75% AoE nerf, if it looks like it makes a fight an inch easier it gets nerfed by a yard.

I've just been testing Wormhole on live. The base accuracy is either 65% or 75%, I was at 65% for the first 70+ shots until a string of 30 hits with no misses kicked that up.

The knockback is... interesting. When the -kb from GD was on there was no knockback or knockdown. When the targets were held but the -kb expired there was knockback. When the targets were not held there was always knockdown but not always knockback. Testing was all on even con minions, Family and Warriors, and when they were charging me to attack there seemed to be knockdown while when they were just running around there seemed to be knockback. So there being a knockback/knockdown switch based on the direction of movement is something we may have to consider.

On a team the AoE effect either went unnoticed or was disliked because of the scatter. A half decent tank and a defenders snipe negated Wormhole for use in pulling, I wasn't going to aggro my group on me by sending half the fight away, and moving stuff around during combat just scattered it unless it was held already. My feelings here are that it's a minor power in need of slotting now, and I'd rather slot up Propel or a secondary that's useful all the time. Mabey I'll pick it up again in the late 30s once Sings have covered the control gap, which Wormhole can't do because it takes too long.

Here's an idea. We want precise target control with Wormhole, devs want AoE disorient with Wormhole.

We can have both.

Wormhole teleports one enemy, single target and precise. But the exit spot gets the AoE disorient, weak AoE control at level 26. We all get what we want.

The single target grab allows us to throw FF gens, auto-turrets, and DE stumps away from the team. The AoE disorient on exit allows a fig leaf of AoE control. They can even split the to-hit rolls like they do with Blind's hold/sleep setup so the teleport has the normal accuracy and the disorient has the AoE penalty accuracy.

Wormhole gets a clear buff instead of a 50/50 berf. Vote!

Just to add fuel to the fire I went back and found RedWarlock's summary on the controller issues thread. I now quote the Grav portion, just trying to get some historical perspective on the issue.

[ QUOTE ]
Gravity Controllers:

47 people seemed to agree the devs need to ‘replace Dimension Shift all together or give it a severe fix’ (most actually said just get rid of it)

losing 2 entropy, RedGuy, anachrodragon, Dwimble, Robson, Continuum, _Ishtar_, Gravo_Matric, Pheroz, Airhammer, Tetra, Xugumad, Ami_Chan, Detain, MasonL87X, killawatt, rockdeity, Relentless, Ariel, Constant_Motion, Manipulon, FireIron, BlackSly, Psi_Wren, Defender_King, _Pax_, Aristotle, Voidchild, Zloth, Circuitboi, Bloodspike, Fire_Drake, Dr_StrangeFate, Dark_Angel, Kosmos, Idlemind, PsychoKinetic, Gravaton1, Lycanus, Circuitboi, SymonStar, Cinder Imp, Galaxy124, Psychokinetic, Heroic, Darth Mord, Vermin010

3 people I found felt that ‘Dimension shift is fine’

Itioteraser, Seniara, Ayradyss

29 people seemed to agree that ‘Gravity generally needs a boost across the board’

losing2entropy, Pheroz, Jasmijn, Heroic, Gigglebunny, Ariel, Airhammer, Cyynfull, DarthMord, Thief, Starfox, Liekki, Drakana, Amethyst, BlackSly, Defender_King, _Pax_, MildMannered, JF_Carbon, Manipulon, Kosmos, Major_Force, Ramas100, LFire, Beyondthepixal, Dreamlord, Cyberzerker, Blue-bandana, Heroic

3 people I found seemed to feel that ‘Gravity is just fine, leave it alone.’

Killawatt, ket_Lad, SymonStar

28 people seemed to agree ‘Propel needs more damage and/or lower endurance cost’

losing2entropy, Detain, PsychoKinetic, Gravo_Matic, Dwimble, Kendal, Tetra, BlueBattler, MasonL87X, KalythR, Starfox, Constant_Motion, Telok, FireIron, Psi_Wren, Aristotle, VoidChild, Dr_Strangefate, Ground_Force, BattleFlag, Idlemind, Paveway, Grav_Sink, Red Warlock IMcurious, QuinnBlackwatch, Heroic, Darth Mord

20 people seemed to agree ‘Propel needs shortened casting time’

Detain, Airhammer, Xugumad, BlueBattler, MasonL87X, KalythR, Rockdeity, LAKmastin, Constant_Motion, Manipulon, Telok, Fire_Drake, Idlemind, Paveway, Grav_Sink, Gravaton1, Kharisma, IMcurious, QuinnBlackwatch, Darth Mord

16 people seemed to agree ‘Propel needs a cone’

_Ishtar_, Detain, Gigglebunny, Tetra, MasonL87X, Rockdeity, Constant_Motion, FireIron, Aristotle, BattleFlag, Sandolphan, Cinder_Imp, Buji, QuinnBlackwatch, Heroic

15 people seemed to agree ‘Propel needs something’

anachrodragon, continuum, Gigglebunny, Pheroz, Nishnig_Jones, Ariel, Nightheat, Zloth, Circuitboi, Bloodspike, PsychoKinetci, SorenXero, Payne, Darth Mord, Vermin010

1 person seemed to feel ‘Propel – doesn’t need a change’

Robson

21 people seemed to feel ‘Wormhole needs a fix such as:

shorten casting time; and/or increase damage; and/or have no Knockback; and/or increase range, magnitude & chance of disorient & let TP work on bosses; and/or decrease the cast/recharge time; and/or Reduce Endurance Cost; and/or falling damage needs to be credited to the player, not the environment; and/or it should be TP foe AND TP friend; and/or Wormhole just needs some serious fixing…’

_Ishtar_, Detain, Contnuum, Gravaton1, LAKmastin, Gravo_Matic, EinValentine, Dwimble, Kosmos, Tetra, Psi_Wren, Grav_Sink, Pheroz, MasonL87X, Ariel, FireIron, Fire_Drake, Aristotle, Cinder_Imp, Heroic, Darth Mord

7 people seemed to feel ‘Wormhole is not that useful’, and/or should be replaced with something better

Starfox, Defender_King, _Pax_, Espionage, Flamechild, Psychokinetic, Darth Mord

3 people seemed to feel ‘Wormhole is great, leave it alone’

Robson, Zloth, circuitboi

1 person seemed to feel ‘Wormhole – should keep Knockback’

ProcessedMeatMan

21 people seemed to agree ‘Casting time for most gravity powers need to be shortened in general’

Detain, Gravo_Matic, anachrodragon, Pheroz, Airhammer, Drakana, Ariel, BlackSly, Psi_Wren, Red Warlock, Gravaton1, Dirges, Circuitboi, Amadan, Arc_7, QuinnBlackwatch, Ayradyss, Ghobetween, Psychokinetic, Heroic, Darth Mord

10 people seemed to agree ‘Singularity should up its damage’

_Ishtar_, Kendal, EinValentine, Tetra, Xugumad, Constant_Motion, Defender_King, Gravaton1, Espionage, Darth Mord

3 people I found felt we should ‘leave Singularity alone’

Robson, Zloth, Grav_Sink

10 people seemed to agree ‘Gravity needs more damage in general’

Kendal, Drakana, Amethyst, SymonStar, Magnet_Hope, Gravaton1, Red Warlock, IMcurious, Heroic, Darth Mord

1 person seemed to feel ‘Gravity doesn’t need more damage’

Robson

5 people seemed to agree ‘devs should shorten the casting time for Gravity Distortion’

_Ishtar_, Detain, Dwimble, BlueBattler, Ariel


7 people seemed to agree Crushing field needs some fixes, such as: shorten casting time, shouldn’t draw so much aggro, should have a chance to disorient, should do more damage, etc.

Detain, Xugumad, rockdeity, FireIron, Ariel, Heroic, Darth Mord

8 people seemed to agree Gravity Controllers should have a power called “Gravity Well” that pulls villains into the ground and does smashing damage and holds villains once in epicenter:

UnknownBlade, Continuum, Circuitboi, Psi-Wren, Sandolphan, Cinder Imp, Ghobetween, Heroic


[/ QUOTE ]

Here's a question. My grav controller is 27, been stuck there for a while now but still having fun. The difference for me is that at 27, with only one slot in it, the new wormhole offers less control and utility. The question ends up being, does the new Wormhole fit with what it's being advertised as?

Supposedly it's an AoE control to fill in the 'control gap.' Wormhole is available at 26, thats eight levels after GDF and 6 levels before Sings. Is that the right place for it? The recharge time on GDF is the cause of the 'control gap' and AoE Wormhole is supposed to fill that, yet it can be argued that Sings also fill that gap in a much better way.

Another thing to consider is the level you're testing the power at and the team size and composition. I would imagine that post-32 the new Wormhole is much less offensive to a controller as they have two or three hold spamming pets beside them, while my 27 is actively hurt in his control efforts by the randomness added by the penalty to accuracy. So for me the six levels where I have Wormhole before Sings make this a bad pick because it's harder to use and has to be slotted up. I can as easily do the next five levels as I have the last nine to get to Sings without Wormhole. I probably would want tp pick up Wormhole after Sings as a nice way to feed stuff to the Sings, but at that point it's not patching the control gap, the Sings are.

Earth control gets AoE immobilize and disorients early, before 16. Fire gets AoE immobilize and disorients by 18. Both sets get an early AoE to augment these again in the form of a sleep and -accuracy power. While Gravity gets CF early on like the others do it waits until 26 for the AoE disorient and lacks another control power to assist these, I'm discounting DimShift for this purpose.

Another thing to consider is our secondary sets. Would a Wormhole with 2 accuracy and 4 disorient duration and a CF with 1 accuracy and 5 Immob be better control than some of our secondary powers? For Radiation and Storm no, six slotting Freezing Rain with slows or Radiation Infection with -accuracy is probably better control and uses fewer slots and powers to do so. For Empathy, Kinetics and FF, yes because those secondaries offer no AoE control. Yet would those three secondaries take Wormhole at 26 and slot it at 27 and 29 in preference to taking a power from thier secondaries?

Another question is in the direction we want to take Gravity. Many people seem very emphatic that we need more AoE control, mabey we need less? Would we accept having GDF as our only AoE power if CF and DimShift were replaced by strong single target controls? What if DS was turned into a single target intangible toggle with very high endurance use? What if CF turned into a single target hold with very short or unenhanceable duration but extremely high magnitude? Would Gravity accept a change from AoE control to a very strong single target control?

That last bit was brought on by random thoughts about an Ice blaster I met recently, you can disregard it if you want but it might be worth discussing.

[ QUOTE ]
The reason it needs slotting is because it's a control power now. Just like you wouldn't expect Gravity Distortion Field to be effective with just one or two slots, you can't expect Wormhole to function great with just one yellow SO.

Have you tried putting a disorient enhancement in there? I'd like to know if I'm the only one that's reporting the bug where enhancements do nothing to add to the duration.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not even going to try, the build I built has extremely tight slotting just to get to where it is now. It feeds speed and to-hit from secondary/pools so the primary can skimp on accuracy and recharge in exchange for hold duration. I have way more options for powers than for slots until after 37, freeing up four or five slots for a minor boost in disorient will hurt recharge and accuracy for the primary powers.

Part of this is that I build characters that aren't based on doing respec trials and being fully functional even if exemped to any level. That means I skipped the immobs totally because they didn't do enough without some form of backup, AoE Wormhole is too little and too late to be that backup. I find that I control better alternating Lift and GD then I do simply immobilizing. In theory I could slot up CF and Radiation Infection to get that, but at what cost? I would completely lose perma-AM, it's recharge, endurance, and status effect resistance. The problem with that is that I don't actually need CF, with a heavily slotted RI you can just hold the anchor and walk in.

It's all various options. I don't feel any control gap because I've optimized speed and accuracy on this character. On another controller I am going with the RI option, but that isn't a Grav. Single target Wormhole offered me a tool to move one target anywhere without needing alot of slotting or specific terrain. The AoE still does the same thing but it needs slotting, terrain, and annoys the team if you send something away.

Plus, GDF is great even with one slot at level 18. At level 26 with only one slot Wormhole is 'eh, interesting effect.' Inaccurate, slow recharge, slow animation, much much less useful than GDF even if slotted.

I just got off the test server, was grouped with a friend and we did a few missions to test powers/builds.

27 Grav/Rad (Loche), SK to 32 Storm/Elec (Carli)

I was primarily testing the new Wormhole, tatics were heavy on the use of stealth to gain inital strike and corners to maximize our powers. Both maps were laboratory indoor maps, lots of corners but few hiding places and some areas without decent corners. I led, she followed, no serious damage or opposition due to groups of only five level 32/33 minions and one boss (32) with two minions. Slotting was one 25 (yellow) accuracy SO, perma-Hasten, perma-Acclerate Metabolisim. For comparision GD is one 25 accuracySO and five 25 hold SOs, GDF is two 25 accuracy SOs and four 25 hold SOs.

The AoE size seems to be about the same as GDF, mabey a hair smaller. Most of the stuff I hit with GDF was in the Wormhole radius. No real suprise or complaints here.

The attack range is your usual range, you have to be within range to use your normal powers. The long exit range allowed me to run off across rooms and feed additional mobs to Carli while the clouds ate and controlled them, only reason I got away with this is because I had GDF up most of the time to hold anything I missed.

The accuracy was interesting for me, no hard numbers but a very definite impression from both of us. I used Wormhole on live and got the same accuracy as I do with GD, on test the accuracy is less than both GD and GDF. I was normally hitting around 70% of the minions I was targeting with Wormhole while GD abd GDF had the usual 90%+ hit rate. This suggests to me that AoE Wormhole now has the controller AoE accuracy penalty as applied to our holds.

The effect duration was noticeable in that it wasn't, after the first set I used Wormhole on we made sure to corral the mobs with wind or gravity before activating Wormhole. Carli would do this just using Hurricane and standing in the target corner, if I needed to I used GDF. The knockdown was sufficent that I could get a GDF or Propel off before mobs could get back up, the disorient counted for nothing in this duo.

When using Wormhole to pull it quickly became apparent that an additional form of control was needed to immobilize the mobs after they had be moved, the knockback and disorient combined to spread them out beyond effective AoE control in under five seconds after they got back to their feet. Additionaly the accuracy issue meant I was often eating a accuracy and/or defense inspiration before using it. The aggro from pulling seemed interesting. When I hit all of the targets is seemed not to matter how close to another mob they were, as long as I hit everything only those Wormholed seemed to aggro on me (most of the time, there were exceptions but they were fewer then expected). However if I missed anything, everything aggroed on me without exception. Luckily the two of us did little enough damage that GDF was pretty much always available.

When using Wormhole to move enemies while in combat the AoE nature helped a little, the long recharge hurt alot, and the accuracy made the recharge highly annoying. When attempting to move something I couldn't be sure of moving anything because I kept missing 1/3 of the targets. The ability to precisely position a target was also hampered, if enough targets were hit the conga line effect when they came out could throw them out of the corner I was aiming at.

After the tests I'm annoyed at the change to Wormhole. It's now harder to use, needs slotting (absolute minimum of two accuracy), and I wouldn't use it as often. Carli said [ QUOTE ]
It seems good if there's a corner. But if you don't it just looks like a piss-off power

[/ QUOTE ]

The flaws in this test are fairly obvious. It's a duo with a limited number of mobs, slow enough pace to always have GDF as back up (needed it too), possible the best deftroller primary powerset for this, and an excellent player for a partner. Unfortunately getting a decent randomized team on the test server is still impossible due to the Arena crap and the team seek functions chashing CoH every time you use them.


Good hunting to you and keep sending the devs feedback.

GDF with one slot is still very nice, with 5 DOs in Hasten and AM it's even up relatively often. Wormhole with one slot is a nice way to split a group in two and suck aggro.

The problem I have with the new WH isn't as a pulling tool, GDF is much better for that if I'm using an AoE. The problem I have with it is that I lost the other 80% of my useage of Wormhole because I now have to use another AoE control either before (CF) or after (GDF/CF) in order to avoid scatter and mass aggro. Replacing a single target, easy to use, every fight power with a AoE, terrain dependant, once in a while power is annoying. Furthermore disorient powers are a very weak form of control unless combined with immobilize or slow powers, and you need to be able to combine those powers quickly to avoid the inherent scatter effect of disorient, which we can't do because of added knockback and long animations.

The new Wormhole may in fact be a very good AoE pulling power. As non-pull foe TP or as a disorient it's just not good enough to use at level 27, and I don't see it becoming any more useful with more slots. Pulling with it is pretty bad too. When I solo an AoE disorient pull is useless next to GDF. When I'm grouped we either just walk in and nail everything or we single pull to avoid getting overwhelmed. You just don't pull with AoEs unless you can handle everything that's going to aggro, and in that case you don't need a foe teleport.

At level 27 this power fails to improve my control options solo or in a group. Secondary powers and power pools are better long term choices as pet buffs for level 32 than AoE Wormhole is as a control power.

On the subject of Lift a couple of posts back, it's a great control asset pre-SO slotting. Even with six slots in GD it can be very difficult to lock anything more than a single boss using DOs, and TOs are worse. Lift works wonders there because with two accuracy and a recharge reduction you can mostly hold an additional boss or slow two additional bosses. So Lift can offer really good control with little slotting in the early game when control is so hard to do.

[ QUOTE ]
Just wanted to respond to this one point, not trying to argue against the whole post:

Quote:
teams don't need the controller to pull the entire group

Ah, but that's where AoE Wormhole could be unique. Why don't we pull the whole group?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the simple one for me. I'm not going to pull an entire group into two different sets of mobs, in two different places, both aggroed on me, and one set being uncontrolled. The only time I pull with Wormhole is on a team in order to avoid pulling the enitre group, if the team wants the entire group then the tank/scrapper taunts or someone with a snipe pulls. I have no wish to split the enemy into two groups, one of which is behind me uncontrolled and untargeted. It simply seems like using more powers with longer animations and costing more endurance in order to accomplish what I can do with Lift + strafe + GDF as they come around the corner, and then they're all held in one nice tight cluster.

In addition part of my point was that the imprecision of AoE powers removed two of my Wormhole tatics (pushing away and moving around) while making pulling harder and more situational. Wormhole as an AoE is less useful as a foe teleport than Wormhole as a single target. I'm not saying that it will never be useful, but the number of situations where it can be used easily and effectively are now fewer. The increased disorient, to me, fails to make up for this loss of useage because I have to slot it and another power in order to get a ghetto hold.

The 26 to 32 span isn't so large that I and my teams can't get past it without a Grav backup for GDF, the 18 to 24 range before perma-hasten and full GDF slots is where it hurt me.

Actually this change is going to make me drop Wormhole from all my Grav builds. The increase in disorient duration tells me that the power is going to go live as an AoE.

I used Wormhole as a placement power to pull, push, and move individual anchors and troublesome foes but the AoE change has killed that for me. I'm not going to use it to pull because I can't just get one when soloing and teams don't need the controller to pull the entire group. I can't push with it anymore because I can't control what I send away and what gets left behind. Moving stuff around in battle has the same problem as pushing but with the added problem of knockback, I could take CF to deal with that but then I have to slot two powers to replace one unslotted power.

Since I'm not going to be using the new Wormhole as a placement power that leaves it as an AoE disorient. An AoE disorient, at level 26, with three times the activation length of any other AoE disorient. Actually I'm thinking that most of the controller secondaries have a tier 6 or 7 power I could take and slot instead, even though I'd have to wait untill level 28 to take the 7th tier secondary power. Wormhole was a slightly better choice for me than Lingering Radiation, now LR is much more group friendly for me than Wormhole.

While it's nice to know that this thread is being looked at, I do think that actual dialog with the players might be better than picking at the suggestions we blindly throw out into the silence to see how many /bug reports they generate. A number of us didn't like Wormhole being made AoE and we made fun of it being described as an AoE disorient power, now it is capable of being a difficult and annoying AoE disorient + knockback power and we still lose the useful Wormhole placement power.

Thank you for your reasoned and detailed arguments about the powers and how they've changed Nexus_X.

Since I'm not interested in PvP I won't be taking DShift. It does have some applications in solo PvE but since Grav is so slow to solo with anyways pre-32, I simply can't solo anything worth using DShift on with enough speed to make it worth my time. On teams, well teams don't like DShift outside of PvP even on the test server.

Wormhole however has changed considerably and, in my opinion, for the worse. The primary use previously was to move one target anywhere in sight. I has a long animation and activation time for it's value, but is quite useful for precision manipulation of targets that are resistant or immune to normal control methods. Pulling, repostitioning in combat, and sending DE/FF generators/autoturrets away are all nice uses when solo and in large and small groups.

The Wormhole on test is now less useful to me. It's still a nice pulling tool if you have a tank or /Dev blaster, mabey even after level 32 when you have Sings. Unfortunately pre-32 without a tank using it to pull is risky, because things come back after the controller after the 5 second disorient plus you aggroed the entire group and missed some of them. Also unfortunately, the longish animation and requirement for a tank or multiple AoE powers in the group means that teams generally don't seem to want to wait for the controller to pull. Normally the tank/scrappers just walk in and grab aggro by attacking, why wait for the controller to pull if that works just as well? So to me the power has become less generally suitable for pulling in groups and solo.

The ability to reposition in combat has been a bit lessened due to the stringing effect, the power is simply not precise anymore. It can be used as an AoE knockdown/knockback power if you don't move them any distance, except you have that ungodly long animation for an AoE knockdown power. I can't even qualify the disorient as control because of the extremely short disorient, the power can't be effectivly used as an AoE disorient without a meaningfully enhanceable disorient duration. Simple words, five second disorient ain't doing anything.

I can't justify using the new Wormhole to send stuff away as an AoE without already using a hold/immobilize power before. Again this means that long animations are a detriment to using the power because you're using two powers with long animations. Sending single targets away is a good tatic because you can pick things that can't move (DE fungi/cairns) or you can stick a single target immobilize/slow/hold on them to increase the time they take to return. Single target powers work well with this because of fast recharge rates, good base durations, and they are normally highly slotted for effect as opposed to accuracy and recharge. Just try to remove a DE fungi from combat with AoE Wormhole, your team will not thank you because any fungus/devoured you also unaviodably send away will start throwing holds, poisons, and swarms at them.

To my mind the change in Wormhole from single target to AoE has changed it from a power that moved one enemy anywhere, to an AoE knockback/knockdown with limited pulling applications. Wormhole seems like a strange Gale/AoE TP Foe hybrid now and suffers from an excessive animation and endurance cost for such a power. Granted the animation was rather too long for what it did in the first place, but it is an even larger drawback on an AoE knockabout power than on the single target version.

Wormhole would be improved with shorter animations or longer disorient, not by a change to AoE.

I think it might be cute to have DimShift changed to single target. The devs might learn something when 80% of the gravity controllers with Wormhole respecced into DS.

I've only had Wormhole a little over a month on the live servers and I really like it. Putting one enemy anywhere in sight is useful to me, both coming and going. On the test server I only have one use for Wormhole, pulling, and teams only want to let me do that to test it. An AoE Wormhole on live will probably just be a mass TP foe pulling tool, only used rarely. Sending stuff away dosen't work without CF or another immobilize, and with our current casting times that can add up to a good 15 to 20 seconds of targeting and casting. Plus indoors there isn't enough room to reach maximum 'Hole range so control via distance won't work. Outdoors most people just use a travel power to escape when things go bad, plus you run the risk of dropping the clump of mobs on someone else.

The low disorient duration does not qualify this power as a control tool. Even a longer disorient won't make it much better, adding four SOs to get a 20 second stun dosen't sound like the best place to spend slots.

In my opinion the Wormhole change is bad because it replaced a precision movement tool with an imprecise movement tool, it did not make Wormhole a disorient control power.

Ooh, suggestion... Could Wormhole drop the knockback and disorient and affect allies and pets? A ranged team and foe TP? That I could use.

>I plan to use it as a secondary control. Mostly for when you're on
>a large team and you need to lock down a few more things.
>Also... it's just fun. It really is one of the best animations in the
>game.

Good animations are the reason my Grav controller has always had Propel, might not use it outside of Atlas but I have it. So I'm going to have ST (I really want it mobile now) and in the late 40s I'll probably have the extra slots to set it to all range or all recharge to play with snipers and AVs. It's just that the new ST can't do anything my holds can't do better.

For clarification my primary use for ST was in Rikti Crash Site to split groups of red/purple into bite sized numbers. I was using the long duration run away to unmanageble numbers to manageable numbers. The new ST can't do that for me, I tried and ate asphalt for it. Other than that sort of situation I just don't need more control of the type that the current fear effects offer. With the way I play and slot my holds are a better use of my time and endurance.

Anyways I'm putting this in the 'dead horse' pile since I don't think it's going to change anymore. The voice of the minority will now get off it's soapbox and leave you alone.

I re-tested and then didn't have an chance to post for a couple of days, definite AoE effect on yellow and orange minions.

It looks good to use on lots of minions or small numbers of bosses and Lts. Unfortunately I'm probably going to drop it soon as it isn't as useful with multiple bosses and large mixed groups, and that was the only place I felt a need for more than my holds and two basic pets. I may pick it up again in the late 40s, but it looks like I'm going to get more mileage out of Lingering Rad or Choking Cloud.

Just got off test with Wormhole, the Disorient may have been upped. I was getting between 46.5 and 47 seconds on -12 levels and 11 to 11.5 seconds on even level enemies. However both these numbers are from when I saw the mob appear at the teleport target and every single mob I tried it on fired at me at about the time they appeared. So I was getting alphas when using it to pull.

Did a short team to try it out in that setting, they only liked it if I pulled with it. Holing a group into another group and holding the whole set was loved by the blasters and the tank. Use during combat to reposition, disorient (hey, I tried), or thin, was universally considered a bad thing. Actually they threatened to kick me if I kept doing it during fights.

Done more playing around.

At 42 nobody objects to ST now, on the other hand you don't really notice it either. ST casts a single target fear effect six times during it's duration. The fear seems to last about 20 seconds (not sure, hard to test this) and does the standard cowering in fear bit now. I really only noticed ST doing anything when I was soloing after I re-slotted for more recharge. Solo, versus 8+ enemies of +0 to +2 levels, with three ST out at once, I noticed an increase in control to the extent that I could stop casting Blind and just chain cast all three pets.

That's really what it took before I noticed ST having an effect on the fight. Fights in groups don't last long enough to get enough STs and ST fears going to make a difference. I didn't get to try ST on any AVs or monsters so I don't know how it stacks up on them. It might be useful in the reactor on respec trials, mabey.

Anyone else testing it? Especially in the 27 to 31 level range? Last note: I don't care how it works in PvP, it needs to be good in PvE first.

I tried out the new Wormhole, don't really like it. It's messy now, you can't just 'hole a DE anchor or Raider FF out to oblivion anymore. Plus I just can't justify a four second disorient as a control power.

New uses as a sort of mass TP foe for pulling and AoE clusters are interesting if you can get the group to slow down to use them. Definite loss of it's primary use is replaced with situational utility and a minor coolness factor. I'll have to try it more and do an in-game response one way or the other.

One interesting thought, we could ask for D-shift to be dropped and a faster Wormhole with a 10 second disorient could replace it. While it is unlikely the devs would chuck D-shift the possibilities are worth talking about.

Just been trying it. We have a droppable single target fear caster now. The AoE only affects grey/green/blue, the cast is single target and short range. There is very little running, about three to five steps, per fear cast by ST.

Two STs nicely floored the attacks and movement of a blue Warhulk and a bunch of green Freakshow. Unfortunately no real effect in a 8 Carnie fight of even level minions, better off using Blind here.

I'd consider using it on AVs if I slotted it up for recharge on top of Hasten. Four of these kids could probably pretty well snag an AV. Other than AVs and blue cons I can't really see a good use for it anymore. Since I need to respec anyways to pick SuperInvis back up I'll probably drop ST now, but I'll play with it on test untill it goes live to see if I can work it into normal fights.

Last note, all testing I'm doing is with a level 42 in outdoor maps and not using my secondary powers with this. Secondary powers may alter utility of ST but I'm not sure how yet.

Slight correction, player cast PBAoE, cone, ranged and melee single target fear effects and power descriptions were changed. For about a week or two ST used two player level fear powers repeatedly for 30+ seconds, but the power description of ST never changed. ST using Terrify (mind control) and Cloak of Fear (dark armor) at the same levels of effect as players while being a droppable, unkillable, pet was deemed too powerful. When the power was corrected and once again matched it's description, people who had respecced into it to use it as another AoE hold started posting to try to get it changed again. To an extent they have been successful, ST is being changed again to affect fewer enemies with a smaller cone and only blue/green/gray with the AoE in exchange for less fleeing duration. We don't know how well this will work since it apparently hasn't hit the test server yet.

Edit: I've actually suggested what you suggested too, because it would be fun to watch and fun to have a couple of STs following me around. I think it'd be fun, but most people want it to chain cast a MC power.

If you don't want to make things run away then don't use ST. On the other hand if you like fighting smaller numbers of enemies than you are currently facing then using ST to make some of them run off for a while works nicely. ST is not a hold or immobilize and since the accuracy debuff isn't enhanceable you won't see it unless you stack three of them on one target. ST is good on AVs and in situations where there are too many enemies for your group to survive on just damage/hold alone.

Whup, my bad. Too long after that last post to edit it and I made a mistake. I was grouped while playing with Fearsome Stare and didn't quite realize some of it's effects untill I went back and soloed some to get numbers off of it.

Now, comparing Fearsome Stare and Spectral Terror... Can't do it. Completely different powers for different effects, yes they both use the word 'fear' but they are completely different. And yes, ST casting the standard Terrify/FS fear cone would be way overpowered.

The base duration of the fear effect of both powers is about 30 seconds, perhaps a bit less. With FS any damage done causes the enemy to retaliate at heavily reduced accuracy and of course there's no running. With ST the enemies run away for 30 seconds and that's all they do, take as many potshots as you want, they won't turn and shoot you, then depending on terrain it will take another 15 to 30 seconds for the enemy to return. St has about one and a half times the base range to cast as the FS cone is long, but the ST cone is approximately the same size. Recharge and end cost for the two powers is pretty similar except of course that ST lasts 30 to 45 seconds itself and recasts it's fear cone at anything it can hit.

I have the feeling I'm going to really have to test the altered ST. Alot of it's usefulness will depend heavily on how wide the cone is and how far things run since it will be affecting far fewer enemies than before and attracting just as much aggro to me.

I hear ya ILL_CON, unfortunately people apparently never need to thin a crowd and can always lock down every single enemy they face already. Good old "Run Away!" ST is a life saver if there's more than you can lock, less because of the running and more because of the loss of LoS, aggro, and the extreme base fear duration.

I've been playing around with the "every other fear power" cone fear on my little 20 Dark/Elec, massive difference from ST. All other fears in the game are cone, single target, or melee and at least the Dark cone has a base duration of almost the base recharge. Plus you have to target, plus it costs just as much end, plus it's a narrower cone. In order to perma fear stuff with the normal fear powers you need probably to four slot the power. Honestly I like both forms but think that a lockdown spamming ST is too much.

Also, have you noticed that ST will now have Provoke? Well actually that's a small exaggeration. ST will hit everything near it with a minor fear(cower) effect, drawing aggro to you of course, but only affecting blues and greens. And of course the cone width got cut in half, at least that's what I understand.

All that said does anyone know of the changes are on test yet? It looks like I'm going to have to change my style (read: start taking on smaller spawns) or respec out of ST, which would really be a pity because it's a graphically cool power. Also I want to see if the fear duration changes, I think it will with the more lock like effects.

Well I happily used ST today. I found a nice clump of Nems and Ricks shooting at each other and decided to solo them. Now a Warhulk and bunch of Caribiners isn't any problem, but add in six Headsmen Gunmen Lts and it could be a nuisance. Since they were in nice little formations shooting at one another I dropped ST in front of the lead Headsman and all the Headsmen ran off or teleported out. A few of the Nemesis turned to shoot at me but they got distracted by PA and then smooshed by the Phants. By the time any of the Headsmen returned the Warhulk was on it's last legs, and as they trickled back in one or two at a time they recived the individual loving treatment of my little psycho illusions.

A couple of months ago I was running that nice mission where all the enemies are Paragon Protecters at minion and Lt level instead of as bosses. I had a scrapper friend two levels lower then myself with me and she had a tank SKed to her, mainly to drive up the numbers but more people is always enjoyable. About half way through the mission we went into a room, the Phants threw a toggle anchor into another group, PA ran amok and pulled extra, Flash clipped someone in a close but previously unaggroed group, and in short order we had over thirty Protecters gunning for us and my nice little Rad heals weren't cutting it. I dropped two STs and backed around a corner. Enough stuff ran away that we could handle what was left, as the enemies started coming back they did so in smaller clusters that we could take down.

ST with scatter isn't a good thing in large AoE heavy groups, but solo or small groups it's quite useful to thin the herd. I've talked to other Illusion controllers in RL and in game, most of them never took it because they heard it was useless, but they've never tried or tested it either and have passed on the "heard it was bad" impression to other people because that's what they were told. Only two other controllers I've talked to actually had ST and they both liked it, they said what I do, that ST is a really situational but really useful terror weapon. After issue 3 and before the reversion patch my use of ST dropped to almost nothing, I found that having stuff stick around and shoot at me isn't all that useful in any size group.

The impression I've gotten in these pages and the previous threads in the Training Room is that people who think that scattering enemies is always bad hate ST. That and when the global fear power change made it an amazing mass immobilise/slow/debuff they respecced into it, and when ST changed back to what it had been, they complained. People who are happy, and were using ST successfully, haven't complained.

I dunno, I just don't see making ST only affect 1/3 th 1/4 the number of targets it used to as being a good thing. That and stuff is going to go back to sticking around and shooting at me with this. Why are we changing a power that was never broken? Why do people hate powers that they can't just mindlessly spam out all the time? I kind of hate to say it bit I think people will still be complaining about ST after this, it seems to be a bad compromise between having a pet and having just another fear cone like Dark and MC.

I don't like this change.

Unless ST becomes mobile or starts accepting accuracy debuff enhancements I forsee some possible problems. Like things being feared, running five steps, waiting seven seconds, and then shooting you. That and it sounds like at least half the stuff you fight is going to ignore the PBAoE effect.

Personally I liked the 'run away' ST and thought the 'all cower' ST was overpowered. I picked up ST after Issue 2 and learned to use it as a fear power, it was not always useful, but there were times when having things run so far away that they lost aggro was useful. After Issue 3 it offered easy, mindless control. Just spam out two or three and shortly everything was immobile and heavily debuffed, but you really had to throw about three to do it. So it took slotting to be good, but then it was almost too good.

Most of the complaints about ST came from it making things run away. I don't think this will change, I think people will whine about it making things run in any way, shape, or form. You see, I don't think people really want a situational fear power that you have to learn, no matter how effective it is. I think most of the people want an immboilize that they can just throw out every fight and not have to think about.

Since I'm not going to get what I want (a real fear power) and most people won't get what they want (an immobilize), how about a compromise that is so cool it won't really matter how effective ST is? Strip the Terrify-like cone attack and make ST mobile, make it slide so it can't stop moving and give it the PA AI scripts. Obviously the PBAoE would have to be upped to affect at least up to +4 minions since this would be the only effect left to it. A mobile ST without the cone would be cool enough to take no matter what, and the people who want it to just be another immobilize would get that too.