Black Hole/Dimension Shift

From Twitter to Positron:

Please, please ask Castle to make Black Hole and Dimension Shift a long recharge toggle, people will take them then. Plz Matt

Reply:

Castle sez it won't work that way. You should prolly PM him on the forums for more detail.

Hmm... I will, but I don't understand why it wouldn't work. Carnies phase shift, we can phase shift, and our phase shifts are toggles. Is it a pet? Someone help me understand this - I want the powers to be desirable, as most seem to hate these powers with a passion.

The explanation I've heard is:

You target enemy and run Black Hole toggle one them. They phase.
Next frame, they are phased, so you can't affect them, therefore the toggle stops running.

However, something's off there. You can run Radiation Infection on a Carnie Illusionist and it doesn't switch off when they phase. It may stop radiating - To Hit from them, but the toggle sure keeps on running.

So in short - I don't know for sure.

Ah interesting - you are probably on the right track there.

The only way I can see it working how you'd want it to work, is if the power was completely redesigned.

At the moment, it hits as an anchor, though not a toggle anchor like most of them, it will radiate from the target and maintain phase untill the power has reached the point where the algorithm comes to an end.

However, to achieve that toggle effect you want, like what was mentioned with Phase Shift ending toggles, is that if it worked as a pet,
Speificly, it would be a toggled pet that would drop at the feet of the target (Defenders tier 1 heal works in the same way) however, if this power is ticking (the only way it can check and cycle the Phase in the algorithm iirc) it would then tick on every mob bought into the anchor (An example would be that if the tier 1 heal was a PBAoE toggle instead of a PBAoE heal single click, every tick of the toggle would heal whatever was in a range, much like if the power was designed to work this way it would phase whatever would be in range)

to make it possible it would have to have a secondary loop in the algorithm while the first is the target placement, which I'd refer to as "Trace"

A possible, yet simple, algorithm may be:

Cast: Black Hole
Target: Yes > Cast as toggle
"       ": No > Do not cast

Cast as Toggle
Is Black Hole toggled: Yes > Drop Anchor: Trace at Target
"                         ": No > Cast: Black Hole

Trace at Target
Is Target Traced: Yes > Cast: Phase
"                    ": No > Is Black Hole Toggled
"                    ": No > Remove Effect: Phase from Target 

Is Black Hole Toggled
Yes: Trace at Target
No: Remove Effect: Trace from Target > Trace at Target
No: Remove Anchor: Trace from Target

Well, how would anything 'tick' if the target is phase shifted from a previous 'tick?'

I would be happy if they made phased targets untargetable. The biggest issue is people wasting their time, cooldowns and endurance. This would solve it.

(Think of how freakshow are untargetable when they rezz)

The problem with Black hole/Dimension is its usefullness later in the game is remote. Personally I think they are powers they should leave as is in their useless form and be done with it. There are better things to focus on.

Note: The following is to the best of my understanding, people more in the know should feel free to swoop in and correct me if I'm wrong :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayboH Well, how would anything 'tick' if the target is phase shifted from a previous 'tick?'

As I recall THIS is pretty much the reason it doesn't work. You can keep toggles anchored on phase shifted targets (like someone mentioned with the rad toggles) but as long as they are phased out the toggle isn't actually affecting them. Toggles apply (making up numbers for niceness) 2 second effects and reapply them every second and a half. So imaginary timeline.

0.0-The toggle activates, target is pahsed.
1.5-The toggle attempts to add another phase effect, but the target is already phased and is unaffected.
2.0-The phase wears off, the target can attack normally.
3.0-The toggle ticks and the target is phased

And then it pretty much loops back. Admittedly there would probably be less then a full second window of action, thats just what my friendly made up numbers gave me, but the AI doesn't need anywhere near a full second to fire off an attack. Even if they get rephased during the power animation, the attack will still land.

Given that the devs comments have been essentially "we can't make it work that way" I assume that coding a toggle to apply through phase effects is either flat out impossible or prohibitively difficult.

I agree, and that's why I find it a problem.

It also has horrible uses as well. Like the anonymous troll on Virtue who thinks its funny to black hole the Rikti Pylons while there's 30+ players trying to take it down. Yeah, not cool.

On the flip side, the ability to cage AVs (and towers in the STF) is a considerable advantage - although admittedly, FF and Sonic have powers better suited to this purpose.

It would need to have a very different effect in pvp.

From Castle, who was kind enough to reply (thanks man!)

"No, we are not going to make Cage powers into a toggle. I do have a tech request in which, if it ever gets approved and implemented will improve these powers, though. "