Wishes for Modifications in Gravity Control...

I'd rather have some of the following powers in Gravity control than a few of the less useful powers currently there.

Gravity Sink: creates an AOE which slows movement and drains endurance to critters moving through it. Would bring down flyers. Moving though a field like that should tire someone out.

Group Levitate would be awesome: throw the whole group up in the air with anti-gravity and then smash them to the earth by sucking them back down... minor damage + knock-up

Wormhole: should have a stun factor to it. If you're sucked through a worm hole and spit out the other end shouldn't you be disoriented?

I like Propel, but it's not really needed in Grav for a Dominator. Dominators already have a lot of damage in their secondary.

Wormhole does stun.
Otherwise im not sure this stuff can be done because of the cottage rule. Group Levitate sounds fun though

Replace Dim Shift with something akin to your Gravity Sink (called Gravity Well) idea and all's right in the world with gravity control.

Screw the cottage.

If the vast majority of people skip a power like Dim Shift (and they do), then it needs to go. I would defy anyone who does use DS to state they'd prefer keeping it over something new like this Gravity Well.

Free respecs could be granted to all gravity control character upon the power's replacement. Majority are happy and minority are compensated.

The cottage rule needs to go far, far away.

It didn't always exist, you know. In the beginning, Gravity's final power was a high endurance costing, interruptible Assemble the Team. It was changed to Singularity to bring the set more in line with other control sets. It was a vast improvement.

The devs need to allow themselves the freedom to change the game for the better. The players will adapt just as we always have.

Edit: Actually, the last power was Wormhole. Fold Space was the level 26 power. Per Paragon Wiki.

Cottage Rule

Basically, Castle made it a rule that the devs would never alter the fundamental purpose of a power.

My first CoH character was a Grav/Rad controller. When I firs used Dimension Shift, it caused a team panic, and me to be kicked from the team.

No in game power should cause that type of reaction. I've tried to defend it (it has some utility for soloers). Its also useful as an "Oh Crap" power..if at team takes on more than it can handle.

But in general...I never see anyone use it....

Make it a Sonic Cage clone..and call it a day IMO...

Nice suggestions by the way!!!! I would love a set with the proposed powers.

Hmm,

Well, again I go back to the idea that at least in part the set is at least minorly broken because there's actually not enough control in the control. I.e. most of what you have to work with is suicidal vs. groups at lower levels.

There's not much there to keep people off your back vs. groups at under 20, and lots to make them hate you big time.

That's why I suggested Gravity Sink. That would work thematically and provide the extra control that would keep you from getting over-run by angry mobs. Right now they just eat your head after one or two attacks.

I still have this PM from Castle regarding Dimension Shift, from back in July:

"Without even following the link, 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. "

There are way to improve Gravity WITHOUT BREAKING THE COTTAGE RULE.

Any of all of the following ideas would be a boon IMO:

LIFT
1) Convert Lift into an AoE. This gives Gravity a bit of area soft control for the very early game, which it completely lacks atm.

2) Failing that, at least increase the damage of the Controller version to 1.32Damage Scale (DS) to match both Dominator's Lift, and Mind Control's Levitate, which is 1.32DS on both ATs.

Propel
1) Reduce the casting time of Propel. This won't necessarily help Dominators (other than giving them another ranged attack if they care to take it) but it'd be a BIG help for Controllers.

2) Failing that, increase Propel's Recharge and Damage to make it more worthwhile for it's activation. (Note that this doesn't actually improve Gravity's overall damage, it just attempts to make Propel worthwhile.)

Currently Propel deals 1.96dDS every 11.5s (8s recharge 3.5s activation) or ~0.17DS/sec, and it's damage per second of activation is 0.56DS/sec. For comparison sake lets look at other 8s recharge blasts.

Tier2 blasts have roughly the same overall damage (1.64DS every 9.67s (8s recharge 1.67s activation) for ~0.17DS/s) but their damage per second activation is DRAMATICALLY higher (1.64DS/1.67sec=0.98DS/sec). To bring Propel up to the same damage per second activation it would need to deal roughly 3.44Damage Scale.

So if they don't lower it's activation, I propose pushing Propel to 3.56scale on a 20s recharge giving it 1.02DS/sec activation. This would actually lower it's sustained damage slightly to 0.15scale per second, but you would spend a LOT less time locked into the propel animation over the fight, so you could be doing other things,.. like controlling.

Dimension Shift(and Blackhole in Dark Miasma)
Convert it from a Target AoE into a Location AoE patch such as Quicksand or Tar Patch. Have it tick a short duration phase, say 0.75slong, every 0.5s, which affects BOTH enemies AND allies within it's radius (but only immobilizes foes) so that if you don't want to deal with them right away you just stay out of the phase and it works just like it does now, but if you WANT to interact with the mobs you can enter the phase field and attack them like normal. If it proves a bit too much heat for you, you can just get out of the patch and be safe from the phased mobs.

Since the immobilize doesn't protect from knockback or teleport, an ally could also go into the phase field, target a phased mob and then KB/TP/Worhole them out of the field to be dealt with individually. Or on the flip side, if you don't manage to get all the mobs in the field when you first cast it, you can KB/TP/Wormhole them into the field after it's set up.

Also rename it Dimensional Breach or Dimensional Rift, since Dimension Shift is more of an Action, while the power's now more of a Thing.

Wormhole
1) Lower it's activation time. Really it's too damned long.

2) If not, at least apply the stun right away so that mobs can't shoot, EVEN IF IT HITS THEM, you while the power's activating.

Power Order
Depending on which changes are implemented a change to power Order could be made. I know they shied away from doing that recently when they changed Electric Armor (Conserve Power/Energize) but it HAS happened before, when they moved Taunt in tanker melee sets to level 10.

At the very least, even if they made no other changes, I would like for them to move around Dimension Shift/Wormhole/GDF. There are 4 options that IMO make more sense than the current order for those 3 powers:

1) Wormhole at 12, Gravity Distortion Field at 18, Dimension Shift at 26
2) Wormhole at 12, DS at 18, GDF at 26
3) DS at 12, Wormhole at 18, GDF at 26
4) GDF at 12, Wormhole at 18, DS at 26


EDIT:

Something I would like to see for ALL control sets, where it applies, is to have the Damage over Time of the Immobilizes cut down to a remotely reasonable duration. Currently they're 5ticks of 0.2ds over NINE POINT TWO seconds. (!)

I would like them to be shortened to 4.2seconds to match the current Hold DoTs OR have BOTH the Immobilize and Hold DoTs cut to 3.1seconds (the same as Dark Blast's Gloom).

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

I always thought the set needed an AoE version of Lift somewhere in it. But then, I love KnockUp.

[QUOTE=Carnifax_NA;3489766]Is there any real reason it couldn't be Lift itself? Doesn't have to be a massive AOE, 10 feet would be enough to make it pretty awesome and add more soft control to Grav. [QUOTE]

Lift is more an attack than control with the damage boost it got a few issues back. So what you're asking for here is an AoE attack power to be added to both doms and gravs in their control set. Such a thing exists in no other set.

If it were to become AoE, then I'd suspect its recharge would be increased, its endurance increased, and its level of availability to be moved into the teens or twenties. Because it you didn't, you'd be able to spam that power nonstop and do some hefty damage to several mobs. I'd even go so far as to say OP.

I'm not sure the repercussions of such a change would help or hurt.

My money is still on replacing or vastly altering Dim Shift. What if the mobs that were hit were only slightly shifted, meaning that you could still damage them, but for only half? Meanwhile, they'd suffer a damage debuff and only be able to hit you for half.

The change to Dimensional Shift sounds interesting what about this?

1. Creates a big Dimensional shift patch on the ground (about the size of a control ice slick or vocanic gasses).
2. Allies and enemies can enter and exit both would be phased.
3. Phased can attack/affect phased within the patch.
4. Enemies in the patch are slowed making it difficult for them to exit.
5. Duration about the same as ice slick or volcanic gasses.

This might have some interesting interactions with repulsion bubble, hurricane, or bonfire... i.e. foes attempting to enter the bubble would be repulsed/thrown out essentially rendering the allies inside invulnerable for the duration of the shift.

I like the idea of turning Lift into an AOE. You could even lower the damage from Moderate to Minor. Just keep the recharge time fairly short so by the time they're getting up again you can hit them again with it. I'm not sure the developers would buy into this, considering that Wormhole is essentially a group "Lift" with stun.

I like the the idea of turning propel into an AOE. However, I'd suggest that it be more like a grenade than a cone. Object hits the target and explodes doing damage to the target and a small radius around them knocking them down. The object exploding would also get rid of the 'foam' bouncy objects cluttering the landscape (which really sorta dispells the feeling that the target was hit by a 'heavy' object when it goes skittering away from you the instant you bump into it).

I agree about animation times. Many powers in this game have animation times that are very very long and really slow things down. I realize that the slowing down may be part of the design, but mostly they're really annoying to play in the heat of battle. Hit a button, the animation time so slow that your opponent kills you before the animation finishes. By the same token just remember that shortening the animation time for Powers like Propel will also shorten them for the MOBs that use them (like Family Bosses). I'm good with that though, because the over all affect will help our performance as players. I'd really encourage the developers to review the activation and animation times on those powers in the gravity set with long delays, and see if something couldn't be done to shorten them a bit.

One thing that this powerset could really use is an AOE slow. I mean really, this is gravity! You ought to be able to establish a patch of high gravity that would make your opponent's feet really heavy slowing them down...and of course moving slowly under intense gravity would tire you out (thus my suggestion for -endurance). That seems to me an obvious choice for a power in this set.

Dimensional shift... well not so much. I mean I get the whole black hole thing where you distort time and space. I guess that happen to foes shot through the worm hole or near a black hole. Would seem to me that it would make sense for the foes exiting the wormhole to be disoriented and temporarily phased. (I'm speaking here from a concept stance--people shot through wormholes might possibly go through a dimensional shift in the process--I'm probably wierd but I think that powers should have a justifiable explaination for the resulting effect). Dimensional Shift is in the catagory of "Which of these things is not like the others". It's a power that, to me, seems a little odd in this set. Perhaps there needs to be a dimensional control set. That could be fun, but that's another topic.

I could see taking the group imobilize and turn it into a group slow + endurance drain, and then put some damage in the group hold and make it come up faster. Group imobilize usually gets me shot to pieces anyway...

In terms of rearranging powers...

I'd take Wormhole and trade its position with Propel (up the damage, make it AOE, and reduce the animation time). That would give more control in the early part of the power set, and it would give gravity controllers a higher damage AOE power in the later game.

I really hope someone is reading this thread, i have a grav kin and basically because grav lacks synergy with other troller sets and its difficult to use even for veteran players and I dont know about specifics of how it should be changed, but it definitely needs some love. the targeted aoe dimension shift idea is really good, the reason dimension shift sucks is because it lasts a very long time and the enemies trapped are unkillable, right now its only a solo power but it could be made useful for teaming and soloing.

Dimensional shift: I always thought that phasing powers would be amasingly powerful, but for one portion: The lack of control on duration.

So what if dimensional shift became a timed targeted AoE autohit toggle, with an associated mag 50 immobilize?

This solves a couple issues:
1 As a toggle, you can release the foes as soon as you're ready to deal with them. Team ready to kill them? Just un-toggle.
2. As a mag 50 immobilize, you won't have the issue of immobilize-resistant phased runners.
3. As a timed toggle, you cannot remove foes from a fight indefinitely, so they will be a threat at some point. I was thinking 30 seconds? As toggles only begin recharging when they deactivate, this becomes a balance point as well. You have greater control over duration, but can't remove foes 100% of the time.
4. As an autohit toggle, you are guaranteed to capture your targets. However, they are still immune to you, so it can't be exploited. When they become un-phased, you will have to deal with them.

Regarding toggle/patch phase powers - there's a technical issue with making a phase power anything other than a click. Specifically, a toggle or patch power works by pulsing a short duration effect repeatedly while it's active (generally, the effect lasts slightly longer than the pulse time to ensure that it stays perma). That works fine for a debuff or whatnot, but what happens when the effect is a phase?

Say you had a toggle or patch that applied a 0.75s phase every 0.5 seconds. The first tick will phase the targets just fine. But when 0.5s rolls around and it tries to apply the second tick of phase.... all the targets are phased, and so can't be targeted! If it's a toggle, it will detoggle at this point, since its anchor is no longer a legal target. But even if it's a patch (or if it somehow didn't detoggle), the phase will expire at 0.75s, and the enemies will be unphased for 0.25s until tick 3 rolls around.

The only way to prevent this is to make the phase last less time than the pulse, but then you have the same problem of the enemies being periodically unphased before the next pulse arrives. So in general, phase powers can't be anything but clicks or *self* affecting toggles.