Thoth93

First, your launch hasn't been great. Wide spread player disconnects every 20 minutes blows.

Second, 5 members of my Supergroup quit and went back to WoW. Including my wife. They all tried WoW when it came out, liked CoH better and came back, issue 5 is put on test and they are gone again. "[censored] this", I believe was the most oft termed phrase.

As for me? I've been trying hard to hang in there Jack... My Invuln tank is no longer invulnerable. Now he just dodges fairly well as long as he herds. Yay. I spend more slots for less return and no longer feel at all like an invulnerable super man. There is no resist pool for me but there is a def pool for fire tanks. So I dodge, and when I get hit, I die... You chose to take MY resist based character and out of the [censored] blue make him a Defense based character. I've been playing him since the pre-release and you destroyed him.

My blaster is the same face planting glass cannon he's always been, except now he does better damage 2 seconds before he dies. Which is good. Because you've nerfed his stealth so it's useless in combat and nerfed his phase shift so it's useless outside of combat and while in combat it remains too slowly activated to be of any use. So the added damage is good since I'm dieing more. So, again... that character is no longer my character.

My Grav/kin controller is still fun. Except I can never find a group. Can't contol worth a [censored] past one small group of mobs... And since I'm not sonics...

Everywhere I go, inbetween disconnects, I feel like I'm playing EQ again. Better get the sonic defender, no don't get the grav cntrlr they suck, get the blaster no we dont want the tank, but we can't do the mission without, blah,blah,blah...

And everyone, EVERYONE is now focused on building all the exact same builds... the only builds that work, the only builds without near worthles suerflous powers like phase shift or energy resist because frankly, they are a waste of picks and only the "right" build is an "effective" build.

You know what... screw this. I'm really sick and tired of your Mr. "I see what I want, hear what I want and comment on what I want, isn't everything lovely" load of crap, driveby, grandstands Statesman

As of today my SG had two accounts still active. Mine and my daughters (she used to play with her mother and I) but as I said, her mother has quit and with exodus back to WoW the remainding members are never seen anymore... And now this thread has sealed it for me as well. You obviously do not "get it" Jack.

Your finnished with the changes to the power sets... happy now with them as they are after your little deconstruction and realignment?

Fine. Cio.

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EQ does it...

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I didn't bother to read beyond that.

Yeah, I think a lot of you folks are misunderstanding the point of defiance. Don't roast me, this is just my opinion...

I've played with Defiance extensively on test and I think many of you are confusing the purpose of this power. Most of you seem to be assuming that defiance is meant as an "offensive" bonus to blasters but it's really not. It is in fact a defensive bonus.

If it were an offensive bonus I would agree with you all that it is a very... disapointing addition that we don't really need. Too dangerous to use with any real efficiency or consistancy as an offensive tool.

But it's not an offensive boost, it's a defensive boost. Let me explain...

I have a high level blaster (3rd main) and my wife has a high level Empathy (her 3rd main) and we often duo as a pretty effective team. She's a great healer but in the past and on live it is often a race for her to keep me alive.

I steal or assume aggro of a high damage mob, it begins striking me for serious damage, She starts healing me and now the race is on... can she heal me and keep me healed faster than the mob can damage me? Let's say it's actually 2-3 mobs... can she keep up with the heals while they lay into me? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Don't get me wrong, she does a great job but sometimes the damage is just coming in too fast for her to keep up and keep me alive. I do my best to help reduce the amount of damage I am taking by... you guessed it, dropping as many of those mobs as fast as I can so they stop killing me.

Now, on test I can honestly report that in my experience I live longer and survive MUCH more consistantly. The fact is that once I am hurt, as she is throwing heals my way as fast as she can, I am wiping out the offending attacking mobs much faster once I've entered the danger zone of having taken aggro and damage.

In the few seconds where my health drops to the danger level, just before the heal lands (or while it's recharging for her) I am suddenly and thankfully dishing out considerably more damage. And guess what, I'm dropping the mobs that are attacking me considerably faster when Im wounded. This means that when the heal lands the next heal is not nearly as critical to come in seconds later because... wheras on live I would prollly STILL have the same 2-3 mobs on me... on test I've dropped 2 of them with my added damage... leaving only one left to deal with in surviving.

This is what I mean by it being a defensive power. Solo is the same story. On live I have a boss or lieutenant taking my health down in chunks... while I take theirs down in small pieces. On test, the mob is still taking me down in chunks but now, just before he can finnish me off, my damage goes through the roof and I end up finnishing him off much faster and surprisingly I end up dropping him first. I may have only a sliver of life left... but I'm still alive which is more than I could say about the same scenario before defiance.

So yes, while defiance functions like an offensive boost, it's real primary purpose is that of a defensive "oh [censored]! Must kill faster to survive" kind of bonus. Stop thinking of it in terms of "How do I use this offensivelty?" and more in terms of "Thank god defiance kicked in and I dropped that guy before he dropped me." and the power starts to make a lot more sense.

I don't know if all that above made sense, forgive me I'm only on my first cup of coffee here...

So, all Im saying is that as an offensive power defiance is really just meh. But as a defensive power, allowing you the the much greater possibility of dropping an attacking mob before he drops you... it seems to work out as such on test quite well. And means your healers are less worked trying to keep you alive when you're dropping the mob doing the hurting faster so they dont have to repeatedly heal you as fast and furiously.

Now, having said all that... the simple truth is that while I see the usefulness of defiance as I've described, it simply is not a fair trade off for our defense being so thoroughly nerfed. For the nerfs to Stealth defense and so on AND it still does not address the single biggest issue with playing a blaster which is being held/stunned/sleeped/feared and then one shotted or two shotted immediately after. Defiance can't help you when you're asleep.

So in the end, while defiance is... "nice"? It isn't anything to be excited about when compared to what we need, have asked for, and what we've lost in the release of I5.

In short... nice try devs, it's a pretty cool power... too bad it so widely misses the mark. Too bad you've made it's "OOO" and "AHH" factor pretty much nothing but a "/sigh" by the rest of the miserable crap being pushed in I5.

Thanks for listening.

It's a good thing for the Predator that he wasn't a CoH hero.

Suppressing defense is just dumb. Yeah, everyone knew the predator was there, everyone even knew his general direction, location, size, etc. What they could not do was get an easy bead on him to fire back... why? well, duh... he was steathed... thus, although his presence became known, his stealth continued to provide him some defense as it made his "kill zone" very difficult to target.

CoH Stealth should work the same way. You attack, you lose the benefit of being unnoticed. But the fact that you are still physically stealthed (toggle running) should mean that the defensive portion to the power remains.

And here I thought invisibility and phase shift were designed for moving through enemy territories unobserved or unassailable...

Someone said it above... What is the point of having defense added to the power if that defense is going to only work when no one is firing at you? Or ceases to work the moment you are fired upon or attack. That's just stupid.

Part of a long list of stupid I5 changes actually.

My blaster, the only character I have left worth playing after I5 goes live, only has stealth for defense (no SS, no CJ, no tough, no weave, no etc.) ... just stealth.

Anyways... whatever.

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That portion of the discussion was when we were asking for the stars, right? Asking for the absolute best possible fix, in our minds. Which is still "gravity well in place of DS, wormhole single target, increase damage on propel, reduce animation times across the board." Well, that's my take for ideal, you might differ.


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Sort of... Ideal to me?

Make us comparable in damage and control to Fire/Earth/Illusion/Ice.

Decrease our casting times. Our powers are among the slowest if not the slowest to activate of any of the control AT's. Slowest to activate and if not the slowest to recycle I would be very surprised.

Increase our damage. And no I do not mean just on Propel. I mean across the board. We cant even touch a Fire or Illusion controller in damage, not even close. Grav has the most highly resisted damage type in the game. My best friends are Fire and Illusion controllers and I am astounded by the amount of damage they can pump out... while still having better overall and consistant AoE control.

Is it any wonder most Gravs retire before they ever get GDF much less wormhole and that most of them are rerolled as Fire or Illusion and that Fire and Illusion out number Gravs by like 20 to 1. Each. Don't get me wrong, I like not being the proverbial FotM, but that doesn't mean I want to be the uniquely rare midiocre controller AT either.

Hell, even Dark Miasma is becoming a more popular "controller" AT than Grav, when it comes to bosses the Dark Miasma single target hold is less resisted than mine. It can often do in one application what takes me 2 or 3 because of the level of resistance mobs have against Grav's power type vs. dark.

Somewhere there has to be a payout for Grav to make the AT comparable to the others. Dam? Control? Speed? Secondary Effect? Something. Anything.

And while we are on the subject of Propel, the power is simply too slow to be used as a single target attack in any team setting. Take the time to use it and at least half the time the mob is dead before the power activates, unless it's a boss or AV in which case you should be stacking holds to keep your party mates alive instead of messing around with a long casting 1 shot for highly resisted Grav controller damage.

And yes I admit I would be much more inclined to accept the new wormhole if either a) Propel came with an AoE disorient to do what we asked for that wormhole imo does not address and/or b) DS were made single target such that I could duplicate the single target scalpel effect I once had with wormhole.

I agree the reduced duration on DS is better than the old, but not enough for me to want to chance pissing off my teammates by using it and therefore I still wont be picking it up. It remains entirely too situational to fit in my build. Which is fine... I'm not really missing it now.

I'm actually happy with our Sings. Though I think it's a bit disingenuous to say they received a speed bonus because in fact all pets did, so that's hardly a bonus to grav in leveling the playing field. Again, I think the Sings are pretty much fine as is.

But for the most part I've given up on being able to pulloff what a fire or illusion controller can do. I've given up on more damage to offset the resistances mobs have against us. I've given up on asking for reduced casting and recasting times. I've given up on asking for DS to be improved into a power that I might actually hate not choosing. And I have also all but given up asking for Propel to be turned into something more useful than an oh so occassionally quick enough form of single target contoller level damage eye candy.

But you'll have to forgive me if I find it very difficult to accept that when Statesman said he was going to send some AoE control help our way that this "porting, knocking back, disorienting, terrain dependant, team aggrivating" wormhole (at the expense of it's previous scalpel like function) which we did not ask for is what he meant or what we had hoped for.

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The problem with the argument of scrappers hating you for wormhole is that's not a tactic you'd use with any powerset.

If you are doing anything else to a scrapper's target besides holding, flopping around on ice or a quake, or laying down a targeted debuff... you're doing something wrong.

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You are missing the point here. The whole point is we were asking for something exactly along those lines. An AoE control function to fill the control gap we currently are plagued with. Like an Ice slick or a quake or a secondary hold, etc... thats not what we've received.

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If you immobilize them, they are attacking you rather than the melee guy.

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Which is why we need another AoE control option other than GDF since the only other thing we have is an immobilize which is little more than a "please kill me" power. Even still, at least the mob is still right there for the melee to attack and kill, yes? You haven't ported them away, knocked them back and sent them strolling all over the combat field.


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If you disorient them, you're still making the tanker lose aggro and making them walk away from the scrapper.

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Yes, but at least the melee tank and melee scrapper still has them targetted, is still right on top of them, and can still attack/kill the mobs by just following a step or two behind their target.


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If you phase them, you're sure to be kicked from the group fast.

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Which is exactly why Wormhole with an AoE teleport, AoE knockback AND and AoE Stun/Disorient all in one fell swoop is just as bad an idea in any team situation involving a melee. You might as well have phased them out.


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Even if you had an AoE lift, launching them in the air and dropping them with precision, the problem still exists.

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No, lift does not break a melee's attack. The mob is still essentially in the exact same position relative to the melee and doesnt move except for straight up and from my experience even the knockup doesn't interfere with a melees attack landing if the melee has already triggered the attack. If not it's just a matter of a half sec wait till they hit the ground right at their feet again.


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Mob control is more for the mobs that your melee guys are NOT handling at that time.

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Thanks for the tip. Your insight is astounding.


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Just don't target the power at the guys near your melee combatants. You shouldn't have been doing that with the old wormhole either.

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Dude... I don't even know how to respond to this last bit... oh, yes I do... the old wormhole was not used as an AoE control power... and as it stands... the new one won't see much use as such either.

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Lvl 50 grav/rad/psy here.

Been a while since I've been here, and in light of some soloing and occasional teaming on test... new wormhole still gets my nay vote.

It loses a lot of the utility that it had for pinpoint control. And I can safely say it isn't replaceable with TP Foe. For all those who say 'TP Foe is a pool power! We don't want a glorified pool power!' here's a few other examples:

Scrapper melee attacks and boxing. They do the same stuff, so why do scrappers have attacks?

Stealth and Superior Invisibility. They do the same stuff too, so why Sup. Invis?

It's not a bad thing to have an all-around-more-powerful version of a pool power in our primary. And wormhole-on-live is exactly that.

The new wormhole is, as has been described, poorer for managing enemies. The scatter + teleport + knockback causes confusion even if you drop them in the same place you picked them up from. It's another power for us to gain agro from our team-mates with.

In addition, it needs a lot more slot love to be effective without endangering the team. As it stands we already need to dedicate a lot of slots to other powers (GD, GDF, Singularity, secondaries to make up for our control gap). It's nice having powers that don't need significant slotting to be effective instead of downright dangerous.

Finally - PvP. TP Foe is proving to be quite a nice PvP trick. It'd be nice to be able to do similar, only with the power to pinpoint-place that squishy near the scrapper or in the debuff field of tar pit. But unfortunately doing so nets you the scrapper that has been tasked to protect the squishy too - meaning that TP Foe is now a better PvP power than wormhole. Nice to see a pool power outperforming its primary power counterpart.

We need some love, and particularly we need some love in the 12-17 range. Whenver I RSK down, that's where I feel the pain the most. Changing a lvl 26 power that worked fine thanks is not the solution - even if it gets whined about a lot on the forums. Of course you only see the whines - typically people who are happy don't comment. Now, of course, we have just reason to.

The sad thing is a rad/dark defender can control better from 12-17 than a grav/rad controller. When a defender secondary provides better control than a controller primary then something is wrong.

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Exactly. Hell, when you add up Tar Patch+Fear+Petrifying gaze+dark servants, even the defender Dark Miasma can achieve equal or better control than Grav. Fear alone recycles so much faster than GDF it is almost laughable.

We asked for a fix to the control gap. The control gap is present very early on and waiting for 26 levels (really more like 27 or 28 becuase it needs slots) is hardly a viable answer.

Moreover, the "answer" is more problematic than it is helpful. Look, the new wormhole may be a great new novelty power with a great new coolness factor for Grav. Im sure we can find some interesting uses for it. Still, It does not adequitly address the control gap effectively in a team environment. In fact it can hinder it.

GDF drops, you are still waiting for it to recycle... you need to get some control over the mobs again... you wormhole the group... you have just removed every melee teammate's target. You have removed them, sent them flying away with all the precision of a shotgun full of rock salt and have now caused them to scatter all over the room in random confused directions. Thats if you grab them all and don't miss some. Some of them are now possibly shooting at you from right where they were... now half a room away from the rest. How many times are you going to do that before your teammates tell you to quit doing it or they will kick you from the group? Even if you do take the necessary time (because we all know how patient your teammates can be in waiting for you to line things up just so...) to shoot them into a corner and then apply CF onto the group to keep them from scattering (now using two powers in conjunction to do what most controllers do with one and paying for it in stam and time) then you still have to deal with the fact that you just potentially caused a wasted high stamina draining attack from half your teammates who only struck air where the mobs "used to be". And now they get to chase them over to the corner... until the next time you use Wormhole... yet again adding to their aggrivation.

Hey, you're just trying to do your job and these are the tools the devs are giving us. I'm sure the melees will understand and the next time they have a choice between you and say an Earth or a Fire or an Ice controller, or hell even a Dark/Rad defender... I'm sure you and your team friendly wormhole will be considered fairly. After you get to level 27 and catch up in ability (sorta) with those other sets that is.

Wormhole may be a neat new power as I said... It is not however an answer to what we have been asking for. It simply is not. It does not address the issues faced by Gravs in the teens and early twenties. And even after you do get it, it becomes such a situational and potentially aggrivating power as to make it's use a detriment in many cases. To your team and yourself in the long run.

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No Einstein. I'm a 37 Grav/Kin and the new wormhole sucks. It just flat does. -Thoth93

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Sure it could control more by slowing or holding... I wouldnt be mad. But then it might be a bit to powerful. No? I have used wormhole for year. I am still able to pull single targets with a little timing.. Could it be even better? Yes. Should it be? Not so sure. Is it better than it was? YEP

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No, it is not better than it was. It isn't anywhere close to what it was. WH was an apple, now it's an orange. I dont care how ya time it, you aren't going to be pulling a sapper, or a boss, or a FF generator out of the middle of a group to seperate them and send them singly away from your team or to your team. Sure you can single pull some lone wanderer if ya wait long enough. BUT THATS WHAT TP FOE IS FOR. It IS NOT what WH was for.

And yes, if you added a slow or hold to it, it would be too powerful. Which is why the whole idea simply DOES NOT WORK. It's either overpowered or a nightmare. Scrap it, and try a disorient on Propel... one that doesnt knockback (except the one mob it hits), doesn't teleport mobs away from melees and one that only disorients for a time as an AoE disorient originating from the point of impact... and with just the disorient can be managed effectively with Crushing Field or just your pets. As a viable secondary control function.

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No dev response and their continued [Censored] with Worm Hole is really starting to worry me. -Thoth93

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Mark my words. "The new wormhole is here to stay." Its has most of the same usefulness+extra power and control. If you dont like it, you are prolly a lowbie controller using it instead of tp foe...

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No Einstein. I'm a 37 Grav/Kin and the new wormhole sucks.

It just flat does. Want me to tell you all the reasons why it sucks? Alright...

1. It randomly picks up several mobs in a group and ports them... melees hate you.
2. It then knocks them back... melees and anyone with you on a bridge or catwalk, etc... hates you, more.
3. THEN it disorients the mobs so they go careening and leaping over walls and all over the room... melees and everyone else, including other controllers who had a nice tight group... HATE you. Alot.

Didnt we learn anything from DS having random "lets screw with the fight process" properties that makes everyone around you Hate you? Hardly anyone uses it either.

Let's get something straight here. Wormhole was not changed so that we could have an AoE "teleport Foe" for some peoples amusement, Mr. Seasoned Veteran. Nobody was asking for that. Wormhole was changed to alieve the control gap. Period.

You may not have a control gap, or at least not a bad one. If you are one of the vaunted Rads or Darks or Storms, groovy for you. But if you are Kinetics, or Empathy or FF... you are screwed waiting for GDF to recycle... because it's pretty much all you have. Your secondary has no backup control. None. Zilch. Unless ya wanna die quick using crushing field. Heaven forbid a second group aggroes, you might as well just forget it and hope the team can manage them without you. Because there aint really [censored] you can do until GDF comes back. (then you use it on the second group perhaps in the nick of time, perhaps not and now the first group gets free and comes gunning for you. Now what?) And even with GDF 2 slotted with recharge and perma hasten, you're gonna be waiting for a WHILE.

So while some of you may be able to use Wormhole as a liesurely "AoE foe teleport when desired", because you don't rely on it for control with "your" secondary, the rest of us are now forced to use as our Control secondary a power over and over in combat (in between GDFs) against already engaged foes, that ultimately pisses off everyone around you, is extremely situational and dependant on terrain and it has cost you the old functionality you once had with the old WH.

Great!

Shall we continue with how badly all this sucks...

4. So now our secondary AoE function is a detriment to our teammates much of the time. Becomes very situational depending on team, mobs, terrain (do you have a corner or wall? One they cant jump over in their stupor?) Is CF up to lock them in place? Have you apologized enough to the melees yet for breaking their stride and sending them chasing?

5. Now, as they (the melees) try to angrily and hastily reassert their taunts and their aggro control, on mobs that are running in all directions, if GDF still isnt up when the disorient wears off guess what, yep... the mobs are all gunning for you. Isn't that nice?

Is GDF back yet? No? Well, I guess you could WH them again, it comes back faster than GDF... boy are your teammates gonna love you.

6. We've lost the functionality of the old WH.

And anyone who thinks TP Foe is a valid replacement is a complete idiot. With the old WH we could seperate mobs and send them off into the far distance away from your team, great for several mob and pet types like generators, cant do that wit TP foe. TP foe doesnt disorient. You cant use it to stun a boss. TP Foe all but guarantees and alpha strike, on you. WH was a great power.

Now it's only useful (arguably) on groups (randomly) of mobs... see above.

7. Because WH was chosen and apparently will remain the AoE control "fix" this means that Propel probably will stay the same as well. Which also sucks. Propel is entirely too slow to be a single target attack. Period. Quadruple the damage, so what? It still is too slow. As an Aoe Stun... say as in a secondary control function it would be quite decent. But alas, the new craptastic WH is "here to stay".

8. Same could be said for DS. Another power that could stand to be changed into a more useful power, that wont be because they have chosen to give us "Hate Hole".

If so I will likely retire my Grav/Kin. I (we) needed the help of the devs to fix the inharent problem of having no good secondary control function along with no viable backup in "our" secondaries... and we get this.

Thanks, but no thanks.

No dev response and their continued [Censored] with Worm Hole is really starting to worry me.

It seems clear to me the overwelming majority do NOT LIKE the new Worm Hole. Why have the devs seemingly ignored this little insight?

Please STOP wasting dev time on WH. Remove the new WH code before you patch it live. Read this thread. The Majority would prefer the I4 WH not go live. Look into Propel as an alternative AoE stun or even DShift. Please.

Actually, the more I think about it... if time and dev resources are so limited... just;

1. Revert Wormhole back to the way it is on live. (easy, remove the new code from test)

2. Add an AoE disorient to the I4 Propel and make that our control gap fix with a decent disorient. (timely, effective, unique and makes the power worth using)

3. Call it good.

No fuss no muss. Wormhole people are happy with the non-changes to their loved power and Propel people lose nothing while the entire AT gains the needed AoE contol component.

Seems right to me...

/sigh


Once again...

Give Propel an AoE disorient effect (base 12 seconds) at the point of impact, leaving all else about the power as it is in I4. This is the only way to balance the casting/animation time for propel, to make it's use worthwhile. Even at Triple damage, Propel rarely hits a target that is not either a) already dead or b) is better served stacking holds and keeping them stacked.

Moreover Wormhole, while arguably now a "viable second AoE control power", it however does not come until relatively late in the game. Too late for most Grav's. This does nothing to help with the very real control gap for Grav pre-pet when soloing is next to impossible and teaming is so important, and yet... Grav has serious teaming issues precisely because teams mean more mobs and more mobs means, you guessed it... greater exposure to the failings of Grav's control gap.

Bottom line is this, either make Propel worthwhile, by not henging it's entire use and effectiveness on a single target (while it's the AoE that is needed), at the same time hampering it with such extreme cast times (which only adds to the delay in control functionality, can't lift while propelling) by adding an AoE function to it, at a very timely and apporpriate time in the Grav's career... Or I agree with the others, might as well ditch propel and come up with something else.

Because 3x the previous damage... to an already dead guy, or getting a teammate killed because you were using Propel on a boss (because hey, they live long enough to be hit, sometimes) or an AV when you should have been trying to stack Magnatude of holds is... well, a pointless increase in damage that will never see the light of day in most builds.

And while we are on the subject of Wormhole's new AoE "control" functionality (even if it is much too late in coming) if the knockback isnt addressed, causing the mobs to continue to string out like they do... this power too will be relegated to the "of not much use" catagory. Depending on finding just the right wall or corner to position and manage the stringing every battle is just well... stupid and not very practical. Just as is trying to "control" a long string of disoriented and chaotically wandering mobs. Let them wander out, thats fine, but the stringing makes this wandering a serious control liability.

DS should be single target. Surgical Temporary Removal of tactical enemy assets. Right now it's not surgical, it's chaotic bludgeoning (without damage... in fact preventing damage) and thus... "of not much use." Hell, Tie it in with the whole Phase shift debate, make it castable on individual teammates as well as individual mobs and then let phased parties attack each other. Great to counter PvP phase shifters.



:EDIT: Statesman, you acknowledged that we needed help. Hell dammn near the entire player base acknowledges that Grav needs serious help. But it seems the dev's percieve the problem as "simple"' requiring only a smallish tweaked "quick fix". Please hear me when I say; Not so. We need genuine attention.

Not a cone. Please not a cone. Cones are too unreliable and too dependant on exact positioning to be of much use as a real control function. Instead, I think the preferred method would be the other suggestion of giving Propel an AoE disorient radiating out from the point of Impact.

And I'm not sure that increasing the recharge time on Propel is really necessary considering the long casting time on it already. Sure it may recharge faster than some other control type powers but most others also do not include that ungodly long activation animation either.

If it is necessary, you can always just reduce the duration of the disorient to offset the recharge rate. Remember, we are trying to keep from changing Propel so much that it no longer fills it's other long standing function as a single target direct damage attack. Increasing the recharge time would hurt that function and isn't really necessary.

My personal opinion is that even with the damage bonus added in I4, Propel STILL takes entirely too long to activate and use. Which means better than half the time your striking an already dead target anyway. The addition of an AoE disorient, to me, would (finally) justify the current activation time even with the added damage left as is.

Well, as long as we are discussing our most favored versions, I'll give ya mine.

Propel.
Go with the I4 version; add an AoE disorient to the impact. Make this the timely and unique AoE control gap power we need for all occassions.

Worm Hole.
Go with the I4 version; (sorry)(leave the disorient slight) but fix the knockback streaming of mobs so that they remain grouped, for so long as the disorient allows them to remain grouped.

Dimension Shift
Make it a single target effect. This will aleviate most of the loss in single target functionality from Worm Hole and at the same time make DS a more widely usable and effective power.

And I still think that overall across the board, we need either our activation times reduced or our damage increased to compensate for being so damn slow.

Works for me!

;thumbsup

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Uh, if you want to increase your mission difficulty pre-32, more power to you Uni. Personally I do not see how you can take a gravity controller against a pack of 10 red minions and even kill one of them pre-32 before you faceplant.

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I don't bother soloing pre-32. I guess I didn't communicate it very well, but I'm trying to say that based on the difficulty I can handle with my Ice and my Fire controllers (who do have their pets), and based with my general familiarity with gravity (having played 5 of them, a few into the mid-late 20s now, and having grouped with several pet-enabled ones), I don't see how gravity could handle the same level of opposition (EDIT: depending on your secondary and your level).


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And I'm not talking about what you can handle anyway. I'm talking what tends to spawn inside a mission. Clumps of three bad guys. Sometimes multiple clumps, sure. Sometimes clumps of 2 bad guys. But typically a spawn happens in groups of three on base heroic. Heck, spawn size is similar on invincible, the mobs are just two levels higher.

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Yeah, I'll grant you that a solo gravity controller can play on easy mode and do fine, from what I can infer from my as-yet-incomplete experience (based on seeing other people's singularities in action). However, I can think of a lot of missions like COT missions that Arctic Moon soloed on the next to last setting, which I think is +1/+numbers. Despite the fact that they were only +1, supposedly, they were actually mostly all +2, which meant oranges, with red LTs and purple bosses. Also, with more spawning, and the way the Caves clump packs, it was almost impossible to isolate one pack from another. Invariably, the next group 20 feet over would aggro on me so I'm dealing with 2 packs. Sometimes 3 on a steep temple slope. On some missions I'd have to deal with those portals that spew out nasties (I failed some of those because I couldnt target the portal reliably, but went back and won some of them too). So in reality, I'd often fight 10 or more. I had similar issues with Rikti, especially in the instanced outdoor zones.

Again, setting it back down to heroic is a viable option, but I'm not claiming a Grav can't solo. I'm just saying I wonder if I will be able to handle large numbers of spawns with them? I can't visualize a Gravity controller handling a room full of portaled Behemoths. To come full circle, I would think that one way to help a little with the control gap in big situations would be the scalpel Wormhole for delivering targets (after an opening hold) into the limited lock-down zone of the Singularities. With new packs being added, I'd think I'd have to expose myself to too much risk to try to use the new AoE WH (multi aggro during slow animation) to move a new pack or section to the Wormholes. Could they lock down 5-10 adds? I'd almost rather pull in one at a time.

As I've said before, this is just a concern I have. I liked the precision tool but I won't really be able to know for sure until I'm 32-34 myself.

Lewis

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This was a good post. Sorry I missed it before.

Your concerns are well founded UP. And I can tell you that at 35 with 3 pets up and fully slotted a Grav/Kin is in serious trouble as a lone controller in any large encounter as you described above. The control gap exists in the upper game just as prevalently. Our pets do help, but they are not designed to help us where we need it most. They have no AoE holds. They have a root and single target holds only. Now try to get them to hold that entire extra group of Nemesis that just joined in. LOL Fat chance. At this level, squishies (you know the people who depend on you) can't afford to wait while you slow down the enemy attack... one foe at a time.

Oh and did I mention the first group you held, before being so rudely interupted, is about to drop out of your first hold and with Perma hasten and two recharge slots... your GDF is still some time off from returning.

Dont get me wrong, I like our pets. They aren't the problem, they just aren't the solution either. Which means, neither is progressing post 32.

Seems the best solution remains an elusive beast. The more I think about it though, the more I favor an AoE disorient or stun to Propel. That way it doesn't in any way lose it's current functionality (single target direct damage) for those who like it as such, and at the same time fills a very large gap at the oportune moment and becomes/remains a useful power justifying that ungodly activation sequence.

Meanwhile, wormhole remains unchanged for those who have come to depend on it over the last year as it is. As for DS, make it single target... or don't. /shrug

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First, this was a gravity discussion. How your ice controller could solo pre-pet is relevant, but only as a comparison. A gravity controller who set mission difficulty to +1lvl/+numbers actually just set his difficulty to the highest difficulty for his set (because the numbers make it more dangerous than the extra level of the next setting, even post-pet thru 50). All other controller sets are better at atypically-large mob spawns than gravity.

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I know we're taking the subject slightly off track, but I have to mildly disagree with this. While a Gravity controller that relied entirely on his/her Primary set to solo might be limited by those level ranges, I can assure you that Gravity can solo higher levels than that depending on their secondary. I used to solo hunt lvl 41-42 Nemesis in PI when I was 38. I've even soloed 5 AVs... which I consider my personal crowning achievments in this game. Nemesis, Chimera, Countess Crey, Terra and Envoy of Shadows (Countess was -1, Envoy and Terra were -2, Nemesis and Chimera were even con). I question my ability to have done that without a hefty supply of Inspirations, determination and my radiation secondary. My point is that Gravity is in no way limited to small groups of +1 enemies. Are we as efficient as a Fire or Illusion controller? Doubtful, but we aren't pushovers.

If you were talking pre-32, then I apologize for ranting.

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Rad secondary has control aspects that other secondaries do not have. Which is why this discussion is not about secondaries, but primaries... namely Grav. Obviously you have a way around the "Grav" issues, being that you have access to the Rad secondary. Others, such as myself, do not have a secondary that is as multi-functional as Rad and therefore suffer from the base troubles associated with Grav Primary.

So with all due respect... I'm thrilled your life is so easy... seems to be a common thread with anything */rad. (hmmm...) But as for the rest of us, your argument is just so much... Hyperbole.

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I always wanted a disorient cone on Propel, with the targeted foe being struck by the old damage (or even the new amount) but everybody else just gets the disorient. A FULL LENGTH disorient. The zero range would balance the damage to 1 target. You could slot this puppy for damage or for disorient, your choice. Would rock.

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Anogther good way to do disorient on propel is to make it an AOE from the point of the impact. You throw an object, it hits the target for damage, and the boom from the impact causes an AOE disorient.

I'd take that power.

Upsen.

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Now that is a great idea! Even I would pick up Propel!

Keep the same activation time, keep the new single target damage, adjust the recast timer accordingly and make the point of impact a radiant AoE stun with a good 10 second or so base disorient or whatever. Beautiful. Or even reduce the single target damage a bit and make the AoE a possible toggle killer too. heh.

This solves so many issues... One it makes propel a worthwhile power to pick up. Two, it fills the Control gap nicely and uniquely AND at the right point in the Gravity Controllers career.

Then you can put Worm Hole back to the way it was/currently is and I think almost everyone would be happy. I know I would. I would pick up both Propel and Worm hole which currently have no place anywhere in my build.

I hope the devs are still reading this thread...

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.

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.

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.

4. Knockback resistance as a secondary effect. Come on. Can't we have something a little more... worthwhile? We are already the next to last in damage (across the whole game) with the most highly resisted attack type.

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

Ok well, here are my thoughts on the subject and they aren't pretty...

Apparently, it seems, the Dev's either aren't listening to what we are saying or if they are they aren't understanding the issues clearly...

1. Grav has less overall or group control than any other controller. (control gap) This makes us very suspect for invite into any large scale group/mission. We have fewer options, get them much later on, and ultimately MUST rely on a secondary source (secondary powers or 40+ power pools) to compensate for what other controllers get early on just in their primaries. And if yer not Grav/Rad, well...

2. Grav has the longest animations and casting times of any controller. Recast timers suffer similar lengthy waits. Why?

3. Grav has crap for secondary effects. (resist knockback?!?! Craptastic!) How can you possibly compare this with -Res, -Rech, -Acc, etc.? And even then, Crushing Field rarely does even that much that it's supposed to do.

4. Grav uses one of the most highly resisted power types. Which means by default, even with craptastic secondary effects, craptastic hold coverage, CRAPTASTIC DAMAGE, etc, we can also count on being resisted more than any other controller. Weeeeeee!

5. We do next to last in damage for controllers. For controllers! Is it not enough that we already cast/recast slower? Have crap for secondary effects? AND use the most highly resistable form of holds and damage? With FEWER control options TO BEGIN WITH!

6. Our Pets do very little to address any of these issues as they are designed to a) attack SINGLE target foes and b) hold them with minimal COMPARITIVE TO OTHER PETS damage.

So, to sum up... Gravity is a noticably inferior controller in any large group or team setting due to innadequit AoE control options, significantly slower activation/recharge times, with inferior secondary effects that are mostly worthless, with greatly inferior damage potential, and pets that do not serve to shore up any of these weaknesses as they are also designed primarilly around single target attacks... all this while using the most heavily resisted attack type in the game.

Is this getting through to anyone upstairs???? By comparison to any other controller AT, Grav very simply, sucks. It's going to take more than just a few minor tweaks to fix this AT.


Propel. More damage is nice. But so what. By the time it hits the mob the mob has been killed three times over by the other party members. Waste of a power slot. You will be hitting air more often than mobs because the casting time and animation is simply rediculous. (like with most other gravity powers) Make the damn thing an AoE or reduce the cast time by at least 2 seconds... otherwise, skip.

Worm Hole. I actually like the change with a couple of caveats. 1. Increase the disorient duration so it actually IS a group control option in reality and not just in overly optimistic patch notes. 2. Fix the stringing out of mobs that come through the other side. If they cant be placed as a bunched group the power is worthless to a team. "Thanks for spreading them all out bro, very helpful." Lastly, return the functionality of the old Worm Hole by making Dimension Shift a single target attack. That way we can still do precision "cuts" of Bosses, and stasis effect mobs such as FF generators. Return it to it's previous cast times and duration and call it good. If we could pick and choose what to phase out the DS becomes a worthy AND POPULAR power.


As it is, I could not be more disapointed with the Dev's understanding and effort in regards to Gravity's delima.

These "quick fixes" without any real consideration for what our true issues are just make me want to ditch my 35 Grav.

Well, this Grav controller is very pleased to hear that the controllers are getting looked at. Some of us could really use the help.

As for Illusion and fire, you are overpowered by a large degree over the rest of us. You know it as well as everyone else who plays this game. If that means all they do is raise some of the rest of us up and leave you guys alone, great. But if that means they feel it necessary to nerf a bit to help even things out, well thats just how these things have to go sometimes.