Issue 4 Changes for Gravity - Official Thread
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2005-03-22 14:26 in Developers' Corner
Well, in case the devs read this one, here's my two cents:
I run 3 gravs, 2 grav/kin and and 1 grav/bubble.
I really like the damage bonus to propel, I'll have to respec back into it. Most times (like the car and forklift) I think it should be a cone. Other times (like the monitor) I can see why it isn't. It should be. Since our damage is the most resisted, would an AoE damage cone really be such a bad thing?
I'd prefer a group lift to Dimension Shift. My only experience with it though is my 22 just took it because it might help with the respec trial (respecing into propel remember). Question to people who use it alot: Does it bring spirits back into damagability? That'd be cool 
Second question: Can you hit people you've dim-shifted with the new wormhole? Irrelevant if they increase the disorient enough I suppose, but the thing I've always hated about DS is that you can still target the monkeys even though you can't affect them, so while the enemy group is half as dangerous, it's twice as confusing.
Wormhole - do sings cast it? Of the suggestions i've read here, personally I'd prefer it teleports the target and disorients everyone that was around him for 15-20 sec.
Can you un-shift things with DS?
No.
Can you hit DS'ed people with Wormhole?
No, intangible targets cannot be affected by anything at any time until they phase back in.
Singularities cast Crush, Gravity Distortion and Lift. They don't wormhole, and I really think letting them do that would be a bad idea. You'd end up with randomly selected targets being thrown all over the place, which would just make the job of controlling and doing damage harder.
My Gravity/Kinetics controller is only 6th level, so I can only really talk about the lowbie powers. I didn't take Propel. I think Air Superiority will do better for doing damage if I need it, and it's a vast animation with a fast recharge. I have an Empathy/Psy defender, and the animation time on Propel is the same as Mental Blast or Psy Lance, and those powers are so frustrating to use because of how long they take to use. If Propel had a shorter animation, I'd definitely consider it.
I had hoped to pick up Wormhole as a tool to feed my Singularities once I got them. I don't think I'll pick it up as long as it's AE. While there are occasions where it might be useful, I don't really like the thought of only picking up part of a group. The aggro also concerns me.
I was in a group with an Earth controller who kept using an AE Immobilize, and I think he had to be rezzed after nearly every big pull. From what I understand, the new Wormhole is kind of like that... Activate power, got shot at while power is activating until group is finally relocated and disoriented (at least those that do get popped through the wormhole).
Again, I can't really comment on either power since I'm not high enough level to test Wormhole, and I forgot to copy my Controller to the test server when I got to 6th level.
But, I can't foresee myself taking this version of Wormhole, and I may end up picking up Propel despite it's exceptionally long animation.
Zuri
It hit me today... Your attack powers come from epic pools now. We don't need two attack powers in gravity bringing the total to 3 single target and 1 area attack from most epic pools.
Put wormhole back to the way it was.
Remove either lift or propel. Whichever you remove replace it with Fold Space. Change the other into either an area knock up ala ice slick, or into an area disorient.
By doing this you get blended set.. we have our three forms of control. Hold, knockup(or disorient), and Foe phase shift.
Teleportation utility with Wormhole, and Fold space (group recall). Still making recall friend, TP foe, and team teleport useful to take.
Arrange it as follows...
Power 1 Crush
Power 2 Gravity Distortion
Power 3 Crushing Field
Power 4 Wormhole
Power 5 Fold Space
Power 6 Propel/lift (disorient or knock up area power)
Power 7 Gravity Displacement Field
Power 8 Dimension Shift
Power 9 Singularity
In the end that really makes a well rounded set that is very unique offering part of the teleport pool while not sacrifcing anything in terms of Control ability.
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It hit me today... Your attack powers come from epic pools now. We don't need two attack powers in gravity bringing the total to 3 single target and 1 area attack from most epic pools.
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There are a lot of Gravity controllers that are not level 41+. Please keep that in mind.
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It hit me today... Your attack powers come from epic pools now. We don't need two attack powers in gravity bringing the total to 3 single target and 1 area attack from most epic pools.
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There are a lot of Gravity controllers that are not level 41+. Please keep that in mind.
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I am keeping that in mind. Lift and propel just break the gravity set in terms of control. And in terms of damage they are lack luster... levitate is better then lift for example and they both do the exact same thing and the boost to propel is nice but the animation time will always kill the power until that is shortened.
Removing those two powers will allow you to get wormhole sooner, and have a team recall back in the set at the low levels before travel powers are available much like Illusion's group invis and Fire/ice steath abilities.
Wormhole in the early levels offers a great means of control in the terms of pulling or even just sending a mob away. Something that won't be missed in a team.
Changing propel into an area disorient or lift into an iceslick like power will allow you to have a gheto hold at level 12 along with all other controllers rather then getting dim shift as our first true form of control at 12 forcing us to wait until level 18 before we even begin to resemble a controller in terms of party friendly control.
The ability to pull party memebers at the low levels is VERY useful as is the ability to TP around foes. Wormhole is our 8th power.. that's a heck of a long trek for whats currently yet another form of trinary control as an area teleport KB/disorient
I'm only 39 myself. I don't have lift or propel in my build either, nor will I be taking them. Neither power offered anything in terms of actual control that I was willing to sacrifice something else for. If they offered these two forms of control I would take them in a heart beat.
By removing 2 low level powers and shuffleing the set around a bit you make the early levels MUCH more enjoyable, much more playable and much more in line with what typical controllers are expected to do in those levels. Plus if they could add a recall pet feature to fold space imagine how much that would rock in the later levels after sigs and teaming with other controllers.
I did think about it, and I honestly beleive it's for the best for the overall enjoyment of playing a gravity controller. We bring a utility to a party that no one else does making us unique without over balancing us as a set or giving up anything in terms of control.
Think about this... We give up control and yet don't really get damage in return. Levitate is better then lift, and Propel while nice is outshined by epic pools which everyone has access to.
What is the benifit of having lift and propel in gravity compaired to what can be gained by removing these powers and changing them with something else.
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Remove either lift or propel. Whichever you remove replace it with Fold Space. Change the other into either an area knock up ala ice slick, or into an area disorient.
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OK, I can grasp the idea of wanting to remove propel. I'd rather see it be made into a good power, but removing it in favor of another better power makes a certain amount of sense. But remove lift? For fold space? You have got to be joking. Lift is a great power, I use it very regularly and the last thing I need is a lame power like a group recall friend. I'd be furious if this happened.
Yeah, Lift is one of my staple powers. I have it so it's recharge comes up just before the villian can pick himself off the ground. So I now have a ghetto single target hold in between GD's and GDF. Would more damage be nice? Sure, but I can live without it. I would rather for lift to get through KB resistance easier than the MC version.
Agreed. Especially in the low levels, lift is half your damage. There's no way I'd want to give that up. At one time I thought the other half of your damage was propel - which it can be - but later realized the most flexible damage combo comes from lift/crush. I'd hate to see either of these warped into another less useful ghetto hold like wormhole has been.
I'd be ok with touching propel. While it does help out a young controller soloing, I can't count how many times my team told me "sorry I ruined your propel" when the room was cleared before I got through the animation. I'm not sure the new damage increase would give me enough incentive to spec it back in.
/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.
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...
One thing i noticed in pvp when i hold another person than use lift i dont get the extra boost in damage has anyone else noticed this but they might have changed this havent done pvp in a while.
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.
Anyone think the devs will make additional changes?
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
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Anyone think the devs will make additional changes?
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I hope so.
Zuri
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Hell dammn near the entire player base acknowledges that Grav needs serious help.
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Gravity isn't broken. It doesn't play like other control powersets. If you make a gravity controller and try to do the exact same things other controllers do, it won't work. If you want to be able to walk around with a group of damage dealers and just toss down an AoE control on each group (to have the others defeat the group before your control wears off), then gravity isn't the powerset for you.
The issue here isn't a control gap, it's control envy. I think a lot of gravity controllers see (or have themselves played) other types of controllers coasting along, and they get jealous. Playing a gravity controller takes work. You've got to be using your tools to get the job done. No, every villain your group faces won't be locked down for the entire battle. That's probably okay - control implies precision. You can be just as useful to a group by knowing which villains you need to control, and focusing your efforts on them. Many groups don't need all the minions locked down to fare well, for example.
Having said that, I agree that Propel is worthless. I had it for a while, and got rid of it. It's a waste of endurance and animation time. This seems like an excellent candidate for improvement or replacement.
Issue 4 Wormhole is sad. If it goes live, I expect to respec out of it in favor of Teleport Foe. The precision of I3 Wormhole was its great advantage. I could see improving the disorient mag/dur of Wormhole, but turning it into a bad AoE ruins it.
Dimension Shift is a nice concept, but as a click power it's just too annoying in a group setting. It's not enough to make a low(er) level controller into a decent soloer either. It makes an okay panic button, but that's it. Making it into a toggle power would be great, but apparently that's not possible due to technical considerations. Turning it into a single target power would make it less useful as a panic button, but much more useful as a control power. Slightly reduce the animation time and make the endurance cost appropriate to a single target power and I'd be happy with that change.
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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.
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I agree completely. I've said before that phased heroes/villains should be able to affect each other. I very much like the utility of being able to target a friendly or an enemy with the power, even if phased targets remain unable to affect one another. This would go a long way to expanding the tools of the gravity powerset.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
if they do give a 10th power i think it should either be a giant grav pet like a crazy monster or somthing or make it a team phase shift but a click phase. that would be cool imo.
Exidor,
Nice post with lots of good comments. I agree that gravity is not the mass lockdown of other power sets but does ok. I have never felt that I could not control the group and do just fine with sloting, pets and enhancements making up for my power choices.
With that in mind, Propel is ok in its new form. Properly sloted it does decent damage, same as my epic power pool blast. My only complaint about it is the slow animation time. If the devs could fix that I would be very happy with it. I never notice the end cost but I am a grav/emp with stamina, RA and conserve power. I am probably an exception here. In PvP this is one of the nicest powers since controllers have so few actual damage attacks. The 3X damage has been allowing me to hit for over 500 in the arena. I cant ask for more than that. As a future improvement I would love if the objects changed to reflect time of year (maybe a old tree in winter), environment (how about a computer terminal in the lab settings, a I-Beam in a warehouse, etc) and overall fun (what about a boat instead of a car).
I will miss the single target Wormhole as well but I dont mind the AoE version IF they increase the disorient. Right now its duration is almost negligible and I feel like it take me longer to set up than it disorients the mobs. Double or triple it and I will still keep it around.
Dimension shift is a worthless power and we are stuck with it. Every power set has its stinker and this is ours. It sounds good on paper but its just not worth it. I think the devs will continue to tinker with it but its a load stone our Spec is stuck with.
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...but I dont mind the AoE version IF they increase the disorient.
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They did increase the disorient time on the 13th.
It was increased to a very respectable level as well.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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...but I dont mind the AoE version IF they increase the disorient.
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They did increase the disorient time on the 13th.
It was increased to a very respectable level as well.
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That's funny, I just tested it again yesterday & on even-cons/+1's the disorient time was under 6 seconds. That's not what I consider to be "respectable", that's what I consider to be "AoE aggro-Hell".
Also, throwing them into a corner did NOT make them clump any better, that tactic doesn't seem to be feasible either. The KB isn't the problem, IMO, it's the "drunken stagger" after the mobs get up. They really REALLY seem to stagger too much & cover a considerable distance much too quickly. What I ended up with was enemies ALL OVER THE PLACE, I couldn't even attempt to GDF them all they were spaced so far apart.
I was willing to TRY to make the new WH work, but "as is" it's useless for my needs, I'll have to respec it out at the 1st opportunity.
I would imagine you could stop some of the staggering with Crushing Field, but I think that's also a request for large amounts of debt as you asborb lots of ranged damage between the time you hit with Crushing Field and get to the point where the disorient hits.
I think one of my least favorite forms of control is disorients. I have an attack that causes disorients occasionally on my MA scrapper, and again on my EM tanker. If they just sort of wobbled in place, it wouldn't be so bad. If you hit someone with a disorient while they're moving, it seems like they suddenly take off at Warp 9 leaping over anything that happens to get in their way.
When you're trying to control mobs, and all you do is make them scatter in a random fashion, that's a serious limit in how much you can actually control.
As I've mentioned before, I have no intention of picking up this version of Wormhole. While there may be cases where it could be useful, it feels like way too unreliable and random to ever hope to rely on.
Zuri
Anyone tried wormhole since the new test patch? Any idea whether disorient enhancements are affecting the duration now?
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With that in mind, Propel is ok in its new form. Properly sloted it does decent damage, same as my epic power pool blast. My only complaint about it is the slow animation time. If the devs could fix that I would be very happy with it. I never notice the end cost but I am a grav/emp with stamina, RA and conserve power.
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I consider Propel a waste of endurance because there are better things to spend that endurance on, not because the endurance cost is inappropriate. If they lowered the endurance cost then it would be a waste of less endurance, but still a waste. If they were to lower the animation time, then it might become worth using - but they'd have to lower the damage it does (!) to ensure it doesn't outperform Defender single-target attacks available at around the same level. The fundamental problem with Propel is that it's a direct-damage attack for a controller, and controllers aren't supposed to be good at direct damage, therefore it can't be good.
Personally, I think they should combine Propel & (single-target) Wormhole into a single power. Still call it Propel, make it available at level 6 (just like the current Propel), its effect would be to attempt to port the villain target to the designated location. If the attack hits and is not resisted then the villain is thrown from a vortex at the targeted location and disoriented (like I3 Wormhole) and also takes some damage (like Propel, although the amount of damage might need to be adjusted for balance). The endurance cost would probably need to be increased to reflect the greater effectiveness of the power, and of course it would need to have a higher Bring-a-Friend factor than Teleport Foe, since it's doing damage.
That would allow us to keep our single-target port/disorient (and make it available at a more logical point, ie when the pool Teleport Foe is available), and free up Wormhole for whatever change/new power they want to try.
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As a future improvement I would love if the objects changed to reflect time of year (maybe a old tree in winter), environment (how about a computer terminal in the lab settings, a I-Beam in a warehouse, etc) and overall fun (what about a boat instead of a car).
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That would be a nice improvement. Also good would be if the objects summoned were appropriate to the area you're in, such as crates in a warehouse or boulders in a park.
Mosly, I'd also like to see them apply a fix that causes everyone to see the same object tossed. Currently, I may see a car and someone else standing right there may seel a pool table. Very unrealistic and slightly annoying in some situations.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
I'd like to see propel replaced with rail gun theory. Why does it have to pull an large object and toss it when firing a rock or small peice of metal through a hyper accelerated gravity rail could be faster and much more effective. I'd also like to see them get rid of Dimensional Shift and put a targeted AoE power or toggled targeted AoE that pulls everything together by making a target have its own Gravitational Force.
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Just wanted to respond to this one point, not trying to argue against the whole post:
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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?
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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.