Gravity (Again)
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2009-04-08 08:20 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Wow. Really?
I'm a new player (and pretty new to crowd control in general) who picked grav/therm.
If this is weak, I need to try another controller! *cackle*
Disclaimer: I'm only level 14 as of yet, and I'm not sure I grok Dimension Shift.
But I don't feel like a weakling at all; I feel pretty durn cool!
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The game is not going to shoot you in the face becaus eyou are running a gravity controller. This isn't the first time this topic has come up and it won't be the last, and gravity has gotten some improvements in the past. Remember when wormhole was single target? Anyway, if you like the character go ahead and stick with it, gravity is still (in my opinion at least) a fun set.
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Remember when wormhole was single target?
[/ QUOTE ]No. And I don't because that happened before I started to play the game. Three years ago.
Gravity is a lot of fun but I agree some improvements are in order.
I'm not sure I agree that more knock-up is the solution tho, because knock is cancelled by other Controllers spamming cage powers. This is already a source of irritation for Ice and Earth trollers, sets that luckily have other powers to rely on. Gravity does not, and having your main source of controls constantly zeroed out by other players setting up containment would be really frustrating. I know some will say you can just ask other players not to to do spam cages, but that basically means that bringing a Gravity controller forces your team to hold back, and you would have been better off with a different Controller altogether.
Now, if the knockup powers included a chance for a stun or hold, I'd be much more inclined to like them.
I think shortening the recharge on the area effect hold is the way to go. Changing Dimension Shift from an intangibile to a.... well <i>anything</i> but intangibility power would vastly improve it as well. As long as it isn't Sleep.
There is only one real issue with grav and it has been noted here a few times. Fixing that one issue would fix Grav: Dimension Shift. It's not a problem exclusive to grav, though, its an inherent issue to shift powers in this game.
Reordering powers is out of the question, according to the last I heard from the devs.
The devs also won't change the use of a power so no matter what, dimension shift will remain a shift aoe.
The idea of making the power a low end cost toggle, though, is a darn good one. It would allow for a part of the mob to be shifted for the amount of time needed, no longer than needed. It still would not be the ideal for many, but given level range, it would sure beat sleep powers. It's recharge should be lowered to 60s to be more in line with Telekinesis, but endurance should not be based on a per-foe basis as TK as you already are in a position where you can't attack these foes.
I'd also lower the hit cap from 16 to 7, this would allow to split a decent sized mob without being forced to shift the entire thing.
Separate thing, and more in the lines of the game itself, I would make some interface option that the user was able to change on the options screen that made shifted foes not targetable so that clicking on them or tabing won't select them. The option, as noted, should be something the user be able to change and by default turned off in PvP zones while by default on in PvE. This would make shift powers more useful as players would be less likely to waste endurance and time hitting a shifted foe.
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The idea of making the power a low end cost toggle, though, is a darn good one.
[/ QUOTE ]It also, at last check, can't work. You apply the toggle, the entity phases out, they can't be affected by the toggle, they phase back in.
I played a gravity controller for quite a long time so have a good bit of experience with Gravity as a powerset. Ive also played a Gravity Dominator, simply because I love Gravity so much despite its performance issues.
There are three easy fixes that will not make the set overpowered, will bring it up to par with the other control sets, and overall give Gravity the attention it has needed for a long time but has yet to receive.
1) Lift needs to be an AoE or Cone power with its damage scaled down to reflect the change. One thing Gravity does not lack is single target control and damage. Using Lift to shore up the lack of AoE soft control and damage is the most logical place to start.
2)Wormhole needs to be altered so that the radius is slightly larger and the knockback is converted into knockup or knockdown. It also needs to come earlier in the set; between 12-22 is fair. The activiation time also should be looked at and probably shortened.
3) Dimension Shift needs to be removed from the set and replaced with am AoE soft control power. The consensus is that a Location Based AoE that uses Knockup as a soft control; similar to how Freezing Rain or Ice Slick use Knockdown as a soft control. In this case, such a power could be interchangable with Wormhole as far as the level they are available go. Iwould prefer that Wormhole stay later in the set while a power like this be gotten earlier.
That is all. With those three changes, gravity would perform on at least the same level as other control sets and would be more played, and also more enjoyable for those that play the set. These changes are realistic in terms of game balance, seemingly not too resource intensive for the Devs, and dont diminish the "feel" of Gravity Control but rather enhance it noticeably.
I know we have all been lobbying to the Devs for a much change to our favorite control set, for a long time. I can only hope that a Red Name or Dev read this thread and take action, this time. I dont care what certain Devs have said about not doing this, or changing that, in the past. Today is where we are. They CAN and SHOULD change their minds based on the amount of player feedback they have received about this particular problem.
How many threads about Gravity that are tons of pages long, with multiple ideas and fixes for the powerset, need to be made before someone in charge finally says "Lets make Gravity shine!"? Not too many more I hope.
I have modest expectations.
Just enlarge the AoE radius to wormhole and I'll be happy. 
"Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty." -- Plato
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I'd love it if Dimensional Shift were replaced with a power called Gravity Well. Target based toggle that has a reverse repel effect. All enemies in the area are drawn closer to that target.
Gets them in niiiiice and close for some AoE havok.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
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I'd love it if Dimensional Shift were replaced with a power called Gravity Well. Target based toggle that has a reverse repel effect. All enemies in the area are drawn closer to that target.
Gets them in niiiiice and close for some AoE havok.
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This.
Although, Warshades already have "Gravity Well."
Perhaps something like "Gravitational Vortex" which could be a location AoE? Just shooting from the hip.
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The idea of making the power a low end cost toggle, though, is a darn good one.
[/ QUOTE ]It also, at last check, can't work. You apply the toggle, the entity phases out, they can't be affected by the toggle, they phase back in.
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The last time i recall the Devs saying that was also before phased targets were given the ability to attack each other in PvP. Even before that Police/Arachnos Drone, Hamidon and Mitochondria blasts had the ability to affect phased targets. IIRC, debuff toggles placed on enemies continue running when they phase even though they stop having an effect on the anchor. It may be possible now to have a toggle continue to affect phased targets. Since i'm not a Dev i can't say for sure.
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i make stuff...
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I'd love it if Dimensional Shift were replaced with a power called Gravity Well. Target based toggle that has a reverse repel effect. All enemies in the area are drawn closer to that target.
Gets them in niiiiice and close for some AoE havok.
[/ QUOTE ]This also 'doesn't work' because of the way repel currently works.
Things have changed. The devs now have the ability to allow a power to affect shifted foes. Hammi does it, and PvP code was made to allow any power affect shifted foes if the caster is shifted himself.
The idea of making it a toggle is no longer impossible. Actually, it never was. If you made it a 2 second duration with .5 second pulse, it would keep trying to refresh. Once the target unshift he may be able to toss an attack if he is lucky but he will be unshifted immediately by the subsequent shift pulse in less than .5 seconds. That, as i noted, was before tech was added. Now a shift can affect a shifted foe and stack on top if the dev so desire.
As for the knockback in wormhole, the kb in wormhole is not there to mitigate but to simulate an effect (you get sucked in and toss the other side) that likely will never change. The disorient after the porting is the mitigation effect. However I seen many gravs manipulate this effect. If you point it up they will be shoot up and then down, with very minor scatter. If you point it to a wall or corner, instant herding as no tanker can achieve. If you hover and point it straight down: knockcown.
The radius is balanced against it's incredible ability to bring the foe to you so i doubt that will ever change either.
Now, I do admit I have not used the power myself but have teamed with many that do and I seen the effects of wormhole and never seen anyone do scatter with it and rarely do foes off a mob stay behind due to the radius being too small. Not sure how hard it is to pull off, but seems that most people that have bothered to get that far have figured it out quickly.
The problem with the set lies at the low levels where other sets have other types of soft control. Sleeps specially. These, too, can be hard to do much on AoE heavy teams, but at least they help mitigate damage. By making DS a togle it can work as it does now giving the user an option to just turn it off. If so it is determined, they can cap how long the toggle can be on to 30 seconds top.
IF the duration is capped there is suddenly a second thing you can add to it: damage over time. You can claim that this other dimension is extremely hot, cold, whatever, causing the foes that are sent there to suffer damage over time while there. Might mitigate a bit the fact the team can't harm these foes and not become a tool that would allow the caster to safely kill anything because you only have 30 seconds before it crashes.
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I think wormhole works as is, the only thing I wuold change is to have the stun apply at the beginning of the animation rather then after the port. As it is if you try to open with it you eat the alpha unless you can do so from out of LoS. That said, if it meant giving up one of it's aspects to get that, I'll keep the delay :P
I think wormhole should have a bigger radius, it isn't THAT great. It has negatives like kb, awkwardness on teams (where'd the enemies go effect), and needing to be out of LoS. I'm 110% for toggling dimension shift and limiting it to a cap of 7. The increase in accuracy and control is offset by enemy limit and toggles can be detoggle through holds/stuns/sleep.
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I really liked the idea of making Lift an AOE. I find this particular fiendish since Grav's Immob doesn't have the -KB component other Controller Immobs have. That would allow you to have some amount of reliable if very soft Control before Wormhole. Lock them down with Crushing Field, keep them more or less on their backs with Lift.
Of course, Lift would have to be moved back in the list (making it AOE would roughly make it the equal of Mind's Terrify) or have its Damage component reduced.
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Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
I like my grav/TA controller quite a bit.
I skipped the phase power because they annoy the heck out of me, but a lot of sets have dumb powers most people skip. It's be nice if it didn't stink, but it's no big deal.
I rate power sets by how fun they are to play, and I think grav is a lot of fun.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Ive said this severfal times. Make the propel attck look like a small singularity being launched. This would easily speed up the long animation. I hate it when propel launches and hits AFTER the foe is dead...
Grav has no soft conrtols.. thats a serious weakness.. Earth has stuff like quicksand and earth quake to go along with its Aoe immobilize and Aoe Hold. Ice has tools like Ice Slick and Artic Air to help mitigate damage.. Fire has an EASY to use disorient as well as AoE and utilities like smoke.. Illusion is Illusion nuff said there...
Gravity has the standard AoE immobilize and hold,,, It has dimension shift a power that almost NO ONE takes and EVERYONE hates on teams...
Wormhole which is difficult to use and annoys teamates when mobs in front of them disappears..
The graphices are hard to see so sometimes is hard to tell who is affeccted and who isnt...
The WARSHADE got better gravity attacks than the Grav based Primary has...
Gravity needs serious help... badly... IMO it is one of the worst Controller sets that exists.. I think Grav is fun and I will never get rid of my grav/kin but this set needs love.. badly....
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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Ive said this severfal times. Make the propel attck look like a small singularity being launched. This would easily speed up the long animation. I hate it when propel launches and hits AFTER the foe is dead...
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I'm all for speeding it up, but DO NOT touch the animation.
Throwing cars and telephone poles at people is the best thing about the set.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Personally? All Grav needs is a few touch-ups.
First off, lowering the animation times of Propel (From 3.5 seconds to maybe 2 or 2.5 seconds) and Wormhole (3 seconds to 2 seconds) would be a big help, right there.
Making the effects of DS visably obvious would go a long way to helping that power out. If Shifted opponents suddenly glowed bright blue, it would be a whole lot easier to tell what opponents were still viable... and thus, remove probably the biggest complaint against the power.
Finally, if Crushing Field did a higher rate of damage than it currently does, that would be quite nice. (Maybe scale it to the same level as Roots from Plant Control?)
With those tweaks, I think Gravity would need nothing more.
-This Space Intentionally Left Blank.-
My opinion leans towards, Lift being made an AoE, and wormhole being moved to an earlier level.
Reordering powersets is not unheard of. Tankers used to get Taunt at level 4. It was moved to level 10 at some point, allowing Tankers more attacks at very low level.
Change the order to:
1)Crush
1)Gravity Distortion
2)Crushing Field
6)Propel
8)Lift - AoE
12)Dimension Shift
18)Wormhole
26)Gravity Distortion Field
32)Singularity
or
1)Crush
1)Gravity Distortion
2)Crushing Field
6)Propel
8)Lift - AoE
12)Wormhole
18)Gravity Distortion Field
26)Dimension Shift
32)Singularity
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
It is nice that my thread has been bumped again, it really offers a good rationale for why Gravity should receive some positive changes. Thanks for all the input everyone.
Nethergoat:
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I like my grav/TA controller quite a bit.
I skipped the phase power because they annoy the heck out of me, but a lot of sets have dumb powers most people skip. It's be nice if it didn't stink, but it's no big deal.
I rate power sets by how fun they are to play, and I think grav is a lot of fun.
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I accept there will be differing views of opinion on this subject.
However I question whether your opinion is based largely as a result of the 'Trick Arrow' secondary, a set which is largely known for its heavy control. This could be influencing your opinion greatly on whether Gravity suffers from a lack of control.
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It is nice that my thread has been bumped again, it really offers a good rationale for why Gravity should receive some positive changes. Thanks for all the input everyone.
Nethergoat:
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I like my grav/TA controller quite a bit.
I skipped the phase power because they annoy the heck out of me, but a lot of sets have dumb powers most people skip. It's be nice if it didn't stink, but it's no big deal.
I rate power sets by how fun they are to play, and I think grav is a lot of fun.
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I accept there will be differing views of opinion on this subject.
However I question whether your opinion is based largely as a result of the 'Trick Arrow' secondary, a set which is largely known for its heavy control. This could be influencing your opinion greatly on whether Gravity suffers from a lack of control.
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He didn't mention anything in that quote about Gravity's control or potential lack thereof. He merely said that he rates sets based on how fun they are, and the feels Grav is a lot of fun. I really don't think Trick Arrow came into play anywhere in there. Wormhole is a really fun power, and so is Propel. Singularity is also highly amusing, so I tend to agree with him that Grav is a fun set.
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@Laxx
"You will bend to my will, with or without your precious sanity." --Dragon Mage
Well it is true that it was not explicitly stated. However my understanding was he thought that despite Gravity underperforming, it is a fun set and so nothing should be done in regards to its problems. Having read some of his other posts, he doesn't strike me as someone who plays an underpowered set just because he finds it fun, so thats why I spoke out about his TA secondary.
This brings about a question though, can an underpowered set be 'fun' in some peoples opinions?
If the answer is yes, then surely whether a powerset is fun or not is completely irrelevant to whether the set is overpowered/underpowered. It might influence people on whether they are more or less likely to complain about though. A fun, yet underpowered set might find it more difficult to find a voice. Perhaps Gravity falls under this category?
If the answer is no, that underpowered sets are never considered 'fun', then I maintain my original opinion which is that Trick Arrow is a very control heavy secondary for controllers, is would be quite effective in masking any problems Gravity has. The result could be someone who plays Grav/TA or possibly Grav/Storm doesn't find the set so lacking.
Personally, I find 'fun' to be a very subjective term that doesn't really add anything to a discussion on whether a set needs dev attention or not. People can have fun doing some pretty silly and bizarre things, that is very evident ;-)
If you have a read about you will find the general consensus on gravity is that it is a late bloomer, and has at best only average control.
Another problem I have with Gravity is on Dominator. Propel is an ok attack for Controller because troller lacks attacks early on. Proper with Containment is decent dmg but Dominator already has secondary devoted to damage. Propel seems out-of-place on Dominator. Maybe Dom's Propel can deal more damage? I might consider taking it. I took it early it 'cause it looks cool!
I say lower the activation time on Propel. Increase Lift's radius to 4' radius and switch Wormhole and DS. Bingo.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Wow. Really?
I'm a new player (and pretty new to crowd control in general) who picked grav/therm.
If this is weak, I need to try another controller! *cackle*
Disclaimer: I'm only level 14 as of yet, and I'm not sure I grok Dimension Shift.
But I don't feel like a weakling at all; I feel pretty durn cool!
I'm new-ish. Again.
@Kahzi. Pinnacle, mostly.