Life Drain


AshWind

 

Posted

This is just as relevant and maybe more so to Corruptors but does anyone else think that Dark Blast life drain should get a damage boost like dark melée siphon life did? The change to Siphon life basically changed DM from a so so set to one of the most popular and made it a lot more playable.

I think the same thing will happen if the Devs made a similar change to drain life. In it's present state, unless your other set does not have a self heal like storm, any other set like dark it's basically redundant and skipped. If they upped the damage then I think it will be more widely taken and make the set overall more useable. To be honest dark blast could do with a 3rd high damaging blast to have a viable single target attach chain to make it inline with other blast sets.

What does everyone else think?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Two5boy View Post
This is just as relevant and maybe more so to Corruptors but does anyone else think that Dark Blast life drain should get a damage boost like dark melée siphon life did? The change to Siphon life basically changed DM from a so so set to one of the most popular and made it a lot more playable.

I think the same thing will happen if the Devs made a similar change to drain life. In it's present state, unless your other set does not have a self heal like storm, any other set like dark it's basically redundant and skipped. If they upped the damage then I think it will be more widely taken and make the set overall more useable. To be honest dark blast could do with a 3rd high damaging blast to have a viable single target attach chain to make it inline with other blast sets.

What does everyone else think?
Absolutely. Dark Blast has been crying out for a bit of Castle tweaking ever since the changes to Dark Melee.

Wouldn't even need too much, make this change and maybe make the PvE version of Torrent do knockdown instead of knockback and you're done.


 

Posted

That's an awesome suggestion for torrent. Its simple and would make torrent a really good power. The Dev just need to re-use the animation from psychic tornado and we are done!


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Two5boy View Post
That's an awesome suggestion for torrent. Its simple and would make torrent a really good power. The Dev just need to re-use the animation from psychic tornado and we are done!
It's even worse than that, the Lich in the Necromancy set for Mastermind also has Torrent. But his was switched to do knockdown years ago (it was most annoying before that change).


 

Posted

I think I agree on this one as well. I've played dark blast twice to 50. Each time i initially took life drain thinking it'd be nice to have that extra heal, but then I never really needed it (being kin both times lol) and respecd it out. A damage boost on it would make me consider putting it back into my attack chain.

In general though, I don't see many dark blast players around ...


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Two5boy View Post
That's an awesome suggestion for torrent. Its simple and would make torrent a really good power. The Dev just need to re-use the animation from psychic tornado and we are done!
I'm sure there are many (maybe even me ^^) who would like to replace all knockback with knockdown lol


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Destroyer View Post
I'm sure there are many (maybe even me ^^) who would like to replace all knockback with knockdown lol
Not all necessarily, but certainly I'd like to see a sweep done on knockback powers on a set by set basis


 

Posted

I'd like to say personaly I'd dislike it if torrent got changed to KD. I currently use it to knock anything that escapes tarpatch patch in, and for positioning large groups into tight clumps to be more easily debuffed.

However, as to life drain, I do agree it could use more damage. As is, it seems like a weak attack with a weak heal and a large end cost, and wouldn't even consider picking it up unless the other powerset I was using had no self heal, and even then I'd don't think I'd fit it in till a post i19 build.


Quote:
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler View Post
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.

Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Come Undone View Post
I'd like to say personaly I'd dislike it if torrent got changed to KD. I currently use it to knock anything that escapes tarpatch patch in, and for positioning large groups into tight clumps to be more easily debuffed.

However, as to life drain, I do agree it could use more damage. As is, it seems like a weak attack with a weak heal and a large end cost, and wouldn't even consider picking it up unless the other powerset I was using had no self heal, and even then I'd don't think I'd fit it in till a post i19 build.
Torrent is slottable for knockback. So all you do if you do like the knockback aspect is throw a Knockback enhancement in there and it's back the way you like it.


 

Posted

If the Devs made these changes to dark blast then it would make my dark/dark defender my absolute main!


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA View Post
Torrent is slottable for knockback. So all you do if you do like the knockback aspect is throw a Knockback enhancement in there and it's back the way you like it.

Just did a quick test in mids. Using a power that now has KD (crowd control from mace) I 6 slotted it with all KB IOs, making sure making sure every single IO enhanced knockback (and because of ED, the enhanced value was cut by 85%, but anyway...) Maxed out knockback is 1.874. Current knockback on torrent is 10.39 unenhanced. So unfortunatly, if it was changed to KD there would be no way to get it anywhere remotely close to where it was through enhancing.
Maybe if there was a way to switch between the two, but that's not a debate I want to get involved in, or bring here. And I can see why some would want to to be changed to KD, but like I said, I like the fact that it can knock things back into debuff patchs.


Quote:
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler View Post
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.

Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Come Undone View Post
Just did a quick test in mids. Using a power that now has KD (crowd control from mace) I 6 slotted it with all KD IOs, making sure making sure every single IO enhanced knockback (and because of ED, the enhanced value was cut by 85%, but anyway...) Maxed out knockback is 1.874. Current knockback on torrent is 10.39 unenhanced. So unfortunatly, if it was changed to KD there would be no way to get it anywhere remotely close to where it was through enhancing.
Maybe if there was a way to switch between the two, but that's not a debate I want to get involved in, or bring here. And I can see why some would want to to be changed to KD, but like I said, I like the fact that it can knock things back into debuff patchs.
But you don't really need 10.39 do you? Anything over 1 (or is it 0.75?) will do knockback. It may be truncated a bit but it'll still work in the same way.


 

Posted

/signed

I'd love to see these suggested changes implemented.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA View Post
But you don't really need 10.39 do you? Anything over 1 (or is it 0.75?) will do knockback. It may be truncated a bit but it'll still work in the same way.
The amount depends. It's typically 1, but a few things might be knocked back with less than that. The problem with this "idea" is you're talking a fair amount of slot investment, because of the Purple Patch.

So, for example, you would need at least a 70% enhancement to make a +1 enemy get knocked back, assuming it's has no protection. That's possible with one slot, once you're level 42 and can slot a level 45 IO. Otherwise, you're talking about two SOs, or some mix of IOs with more than one aspect.

For +3s (the least I would expect on a team) you're talking 130% enhancement. Three SOs, 2 level 45 IOs, or dedication to a knockback set.

No matter how you get at it, you would be sacrificing some enhancement aspect, most likely damage, to appease the folks who can't handle knockback. So you might make one group of people a bit happier, but you're going to upset another.

Knockback magnitude also determines the distance they fly. It changes its effectiveness. Knockdown is great if you're in melee, but some ranged characters really like knockback. With Dark Blast, I love it with TT, because it means being able to bunch enemies from range.

Dark Blast is probably the last set I would call for removing KB from, besides Energy Blast. The set already has two higher damaging and lower recharging cones, so Torrent is easily skippable or used primarily for mitigation. Outside of Dark Pit (no damage, low magnitude), Torrent is the only way to avoid taking a full frontal alpha strike and making it KD would severely reduce its usefulness there.

It would be much better to call for -KB in TT, IMO. Perhaps even an appropriate amount that could appease both crowds, like only -9.5 KB. That's if they change it at all.

I agree with the OP, though. I would be content to see the recharge and heal rate cut in half instead. Perhaps that wouldn't be as good for heavily IO'd builds, but as you say it's not really a popular power now anyhow...


@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.

 

Posted

Agree with life drain. Disagree with torrent. Lich's version was changed to knockdown because pets can't strategically use knockback. Players can. It may be hard to use, and it may not always be possible, but that's how some powers are.


 

Posted

I too agree with Life Drain. Dark Blast suffers from having no Aim and no Tier 3 Blast. Giving Life Drain a bit more oomph would help nicely.

As for Knockback, I like it the way it is. I hate the "oopsy-daisy" knockdown animation compared to proper rag-dolling. I believe most players are more than capable of using KB strategically.

As a KB user and IO-slotter who uses all the slots I get for sweet sweet set bonuses, I would hate to have to waste slots on restoring KB to any of my powers.


 

Posted

I agree with the Life Drain change. The only thing that's keeping me from playing Dark Blast is the low ST damage.

Torrent could be changed to KD with high KB available through minimal slotting. If it were given two attributes along these lines (if negative KB is possible...):
* Mag 10.67 KB (enhanceable)
* -Mag 10 KB (unenhanceable)
The net effect would be mag 0.67 KB unenhanced while it being over 1 with any KB enhancement at all.


- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom

My Katana/Inv Guide

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein

 

Posted

That could possibly work if it did two rapid ticks, the first giving the targets about one second of mag 10 kb protection and then the second tick applying the 10.67 kb.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
I agree with the Life Drain change. The only thing that's keeping me from playing Dark Blast is the low ST damage.

Torrent could be changed to KD with high KB available through minimal slotting. If it were given two attributes along these lines (if negative KB is possible...):
* Mag 10.67 KB (enhanceable)
* -Mag 10 KB (unenhanceable)
The net effect would be mag 0.67 KB unenhanced while it being over 1 with any KB enhancement at all.
I love this idea! Perhaps not for Dark because of the other stuff I mentioned, but it could make for an awesome mechanic with future power sets or something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwilightPhoenix View Post
That could possibly work if it did two rapid ticks, the first giving the targets about one second of mag 10 kb protection and then the second tick applying the 10.67 kb.
It wouldn't have to be that complicated. It really would only be as complicated as DSorrow said. There's already powers that have a mix of enhanceable and unenhancable values for the same mechanic (fly and sprint come to mind), so there's no reason to think it wouldn't work for knockback.


@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.

 

Posted

Acrobatics and integration work this way too. It's a little unintuitive, but like others said, there might be some powers that would benefit from this type of thing.


 

Posted

I think it is obvious from the responses that dark blast needs to be looked at in particular life drain and maybe torrent. A change to life drain to be equal to other 3rd tier single target blasts like bitter ice blast et al would seem fair to me and make the set much more useable.

So how do we go about partitioning for dark blast to be looked at?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
I agree with the Life Drain change. The only thing that's keeping me from playing Dark Blast is the low ST damage.

Torrent could be changed to KD with high KB available through minimal slotting. If it were given two attributes along these lines (if negative KB is possible...):
* Mag 10.67 KB (enhanceable)
* -Mag 10 KB (unenhanceable)
The net effect would be mag 0.67 KB unenhanced while it being over 1 with any KB enhancement at all.
...That might work. It'd still take a little extra slotting and have slightly reduced power, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as the idea of simply knocking it down to .7 KB, needing 4 extra slots for 1/10th the effect and calling it a day. This looks more like 1 extra slot for 4/5ths of the effect.


Quote:
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler View Post
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.

Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.

 

Posted

While I won't say no to more damage, I think it's incorrect to categorize Dark Blast as poor. It's certainly lower damage than some sets but also much higher in utility and safety. IMO its performance is middle of the road on all sides. It certainly appears to be in better shape than Electric Blast, which also lacks a tier 3 blast.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DSorrow View Post
Torrent could be changed to KD with high KB available through minimal slotting. If it were given two attributes along these lines (if negative KB is possible...):
* Mag 10.67 KB (enhanceable)
* -Mag 10 KB (unenhanceable)
The net effect would be mag 0.67 KB unenhanced while it being over 1 with any KB enhancement at all.
Nice idea!


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
It certainly appears to be in better shape than Electric Blast, which also lacks a tier 3 blast.
Electric blast has voltaic sentinel, which is basically a third blast that you can't choose the target of. Dark blast certainly doesn't NEED a buff, but considering the precedent set by dark melee and the fact that this wouldn't overpower it by any means, I think it's a safe bet.