Psychic Shockwave need a buff?


Antoinette

 

Posted

Do you think they reduced Psychic Shockwave too much in issue 12? I was looking at its numbers, and Psychic Scream does more damage, recharges faster, and cost less endurance. This is despite the fact that it comes 22 levels earlier and can be used from greater safety. Something about this whole thing seems backwards to me.

I don't want a return to the 37 levels of suck where Psychic Shockwave was the only reason Psi Assault was tolerable, but it seems an underwhelming 9th tier now. Right now it's barely better than Whirling Hands. Whirling Hands! Only the possibly most lamentable PBAoE attack in the game!


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Posted

10 target cone, vs. 16 target PBAoE with a VERY strong chance to stun. *shrugs* I don't have a problem with it. To be honest, this isn't a matter of Psy shockwave being not good enough, but Scream getting a buff on top of a buff. If I recall correctly, they gave it the overall domination boost, then added even more to offset the long animation.

The powers team deliberately looked at those two powers, and purposefully made them as they are. They function quite well in my experience, so I'm wondering why they should change their minds and mix this up again?

Edit: using whirling hands as a comparison is a misnomer. I know it has bad rep in energy melee, but the dom version is as good as any dom PbAoE, and a different power.


 

Posted

25% chance is not "very" strong if you ask me. Besides, as a Dominator I don't usually need to look to my secondary for active mitigation.


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Posted

Eh.

25% on a crowd means with a large mob some will get stunned. This is on top of a whopping -50% recharge that is guaranteeed. If mitigation doesn't matter, that's your thing, but in /psy it's there by design, and such things are always taken into account when values are balanced. It's also darned handy in an attack that hits 6 more targets than almost all other secondary powers, blunting some of the return fire.

It's certainly a darned fine power, and when viewed as part of the set, doesn't really beg for attention. But that's my view, good luck on getting it changed.


 

Posted

Yea I rarely see things get stunned by PSW. Then again I rarely use it nowadays, too. If they don't up the damage a bit it would be nice if it was 100% chance to stun.


SG: Guadians of Paragon - VG: Paragon's Darkness
The Usual Suspects: Fimboolvetr (Icer Tank), Tsukiyomi (Mind/Psi/Ice Dom), Smiting Dragon (Dm/Sr Scrap), Widow Mortis (NW)
Up and Comers: Ameterasu (Km/Reg Scrap), Arrhymian (Elec/Nin Stalk), TDMKII (Bot/Traps MM)

 

Posted

That's really the thing; it's not a standout power. It's really just a "grab it to fill out your attack chain" thing, not an "All right! I'm 38 and life is great!" power. I think Drain Psyche would make a better t9.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Infini View Post
Yea I rarely see things get stunned by PSW. Then again I rarely use it nowadays, too. If they don't up the damage a bit it would be nice if it was 100% chance to stun.
*blinks* So if in /thorns, spine burst could both stun and give -recharge, you wouldn't use it? Or Ice sword circle in /ice? or combustion in /fire? (with a faster cast)

I understand it's not what it used to be, but you take a tool and use it for what it is. In any other set, it would be a good power. In it's own set, it still is.


 

Posted

Also keep in mind that cones almost always have better damage/faster recharge than AoE/PBAoEs. I believe it's to balance out the ease of use factor, particularly for Dominators, where in order to maximize a Cone's effectiveness you have to bounce in and out of range for your melee powers.

The only instances I can think of where the PBAoE or (non-rain)AoE in a set is better than the Cone AoE, is when dealing with Fire Melee's BoF vs FSC, and Dual Pistol's Empty Clips vs Bullet Rain.


@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Seldom View Post
*blinks* So if in /thorns, spine burst could both stun and give -recharge, you wouldn't use it? Or Ice sword circle in /ice? or combustion in /fire? (with a faster cast)

I understand it's not what it used to be, but you take a tool and use it for what it is. In any other set, it would be a good power. In it's own set, it still is.
Oh assumptions based on limited information. I never said I rarely use it because it is a shadow of its former self or because it doesn't guarantee a stun. My current playstyle with him limits use of PSW. Typically only use it after I go in for DP, then I PSW and back off for Terrify, Psi Scream, Sleet, and Ice Storm.

Just saying it would be nice if the stun had a higher chance to hit, which would apply to similar powers, too. It's still a good power for what it does and would probably see more use if paired with a primary that likes to hang around melee like Elec/.


SG: Guadians of Paragon - VG: Paragon's Darkness
The Usual Suspects: Fimboolvetr (Icer Tank), Tsukiyomi (Mind/Psi/Ice Dom), Smiting Dragon (Dm/Sr Scrap), Widow Mortis (NW)
Up and Comers: Ameterasu (Km/Reg Scrap), Arrhymian (Elec/Nin Stalk), TDMKII (Bot/Traps MM)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Infini View Post
Oh assumptions based on limited information...
My sincere apologies. I confess my response was partly reflexive to a more common thread of complaint, those who complain about PSW (and at times /psy) being junky after the 'downgrade.' This was incorrect and unfair of me, I should not have jumped to conclusions.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Seldom View Post
My sincere apologies. I confess my response was partly reflexive to a more common thread of complaint, those who complain about PSW (and at times /psy) being junky after the 'downgrade.' This was incorrect and unfair of me, I should not have jumped to conclusions.
No harm no foul. My mistake for not fully explaining that to begin with. Also I shouldn't have called you out like that. Pet peeve of mine about assumptions, and all.


SG: Guadians of Paragon - VG: Paragon's Darkness
The Usual Suspects: Fimboolvetr (Icer Tank), Tsukiyomi (Mind/Psi/Ice Dom), Smiting Dragon (Dm/Sr Scrap), Widow Mortis (NW)
Up and Comers: Ameterasu (Km/Reg Scrap), Arrhymian (Elec/Nin Stalk), TDMKII (Bot/Traps MM)

 

Posted

i wish it had its old range back but the damage and end/rech are fine imo, but my perspectives may be skewed since i play mine IO'd or otherwise on steroids(read:buffs).


 

Posted

eh, Domination still turns PSW into a Mag 4 Stun, which even with a 25% chance, is still nice.

I don't find myself running into melee all that much either on my Mind/Psi Dom, usually Sleep -> DP -> PsiTor -> PsyScream


 

Posted

I believe it acts as two separate chances for 2-mag stun when domination is active. If I'm right, that means there's a 43.75% chance of at least a 2-mag stun being applied to a given enemy, and there's a 6.25% chance of the stun being 4-mag.

Psychic Scream only does 28.43 damage per animation second, while Psychic Shockwave does 35.86. That aspect is about all I care about in my attacks, since I usually have enough attacks and recharge rate to never miss a beat.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DeProgrammer View Post
I believe it acts as two separate chances for 2-mag stun when domination is active. If I'm right, that means there's a 43.75% chance of at least a 2-mag stun being applied to a given enemy, and there's a 6.25% chance of the stun being 4-mag.

Psychic Scream only does 28.43 damage per animation second, while Psychic Shockwave does 35.86. That aspect is about all I care about in my attacks, since I usually have enough attacks and recharge rate to never miss a beat.
This and this. The way domination and "chance of mez" work means you cannot directly up the mag of a chance of, all you can do is add another effect with a chance of working, if domination is up. Domination mezzes are extra conditional effects which are built into the powers (which is why I suggested elsewhere that Arctic Air should get an additional chance for a mag 3 confuse effect in domination, rather than just upping the mag of the existing effect, the engine doesn't allow it).

Psi screams animation and 30 degree cone makes it less effective than the quick animating pbaoe. The animation is really the only thing remaining which makes psi shockwave better than the other pbaoes nowadays.


 

Posted

Whoa, what's this? According to Castle's first post in the Dom Revamp thread, Psy Shockwave was supposed to get a damage buff on top of the regular formula just like Psy Scream. But it's still doing roughly the same damage at similar recharge and end costs as the PBAoEs in the other assault sets. Did it not get that after all?

Incidentally, that's really all I'd want: a small boost to damage, enough to make it basically a psychic version of Foot Stomp. That's like 12 more base damage at level 50.


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Whoa, what's this? According to Castle's first post in the Dom Revamp thread, Psy Shockwave was supposed to get a damage buff on top of the regular formula just like Psy Scream. But it's still doing roughly the same damage at similar recharge and end costs as the PBAoEs in the other assault sets. Did it not get that after all?

Incidentally, that's really all I'd want: a small boost to damage, enough to make it basically a psychic version of Foot Stomp. That's like 12 more base damage at level 50.
PSW's damage bonus came from the fact that it's classed a "Ranged" power, but was allowed to keep it's (bugged) Melee modifier. It should have been using the Ranged Damage modifer all along, due to it's huge radius compared to other Dom PBAoE powers.

When the devs standardized the radius of Dom PBAoEs that pushed all the other PBAoE's performances up to match PSW's lowered effectiveness (which was brought down farther when it lost it's bonus radius).

It still has the bonus it always did, it's just that it's not an actual BONUS anymore, because for all intents and purposes it IS a melee PBAoE now.


@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oathbound View Post
PSW's damage bonus came from the fact that it's classed a "Ranged" power, but was allowed to keep it's (bugged) Melee modifier. It should have been using the Ranged Damage modifer all along, due to it's huge radius compared to other Dom PBAoE powers.

When the devs standardized the radius of Dom PBAoEs that pushed all the other PBAoE's performances up to match PSW's lowered effectiveness (which was brought down farther when it lost it's bonus radius).

It still has the bonus it always did, it's just that it's not an actual BONUS anymore, because for all intents and purposes it IS a melee PBAoE now.
Castle's post explicitly says that being on the melee damage modifier was in ADDITION to the bonus damage, though.


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Castle's post explicitly says that being on the melee damage modifier was in ADDITION to the bonus damage, though.
You can go back to old posts and argue about semantics all you want but the fact is that if Castle had meant PSW to do more damage than it does now, it is likely he would have changed it sometime before he left -he had plenty of time to do that between the overall dom revamp and when he left CoX.

PSW is just fine as it is - if you compare it to all the other PBAoE attacks that dom's get you can see that its still way at the top, although you DO need to look at them all together:

Code:
Attack          Dam      recharge    end    cast
Combustion    75.91      17s      15.95    3s
Thorn Burst   74.16       17s      16.02    3s
PSW             70.65       20        18.51    1.97s
ISC              69            22         20       2.67s
WH              64.23       20         18.51    2.5s
Tremor         58.39      18         16.5     3.3
The only PBAoE's that are ahead of PSW on damage are combustion and thornburst. Both of them do a lot of thier damage in a long DoT and have 150% the cast time of PSW, plus combustions secondary effect IS extra damage, so it should do more. If you think PSW is bad, check out Tremor - worst damage overall, longest cast time plus its all smashing damage, so more resisted than everything but thorn burst. Once you factor in cast time, damage type (psychic damage, which is rarely resisted) and the double secondary effects (50% recharge debuff + chance to stun) and I would argue that PSW is still the best PBAoE that dom's get.

The fact that PSW is a tier 9 power is meaningless - the dev's have stated (and shown) many times that the tier of a power has nothing do to with how 'powerfull' it is - it was just a coincidence that a lot of the original power sets had nukes and god powers as tier9's. The only thing that matters is the overall effectiveness of ALL the powers in the set.


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Posted

Keep in mind, its still the best PBAE attack available to Doms by a decent measure. It might not be the mini-nuke it once was, but I wouldn't describe it as a bad power by any degree


 

Posted

Well I don't know what the damage formula is for attacks, but assuming that Whirling Hands is what the normal results would be, then it does look like Psychic Shockwave has a damage boost after all.

That's that mystery solved.


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.

 

Posted

The only thing I want done to the power is for them to bring back the original sound effect it used to have. It sounds horrible since they changed it.


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Posted

If you think PS is so bad I'll trade you my ice sword circle for it. As has been shown PSW does better damage, faster recharge, faster cast time, and much better secondary effects. -50% rech and a chance for stun? Compared to what I get, -20% rech and that's it?

Amazing what people complain about sometimes.

I agree on the sound effect though.


 

Posted

I didn't say it was bad, I said it was too average. Besides, you get Ice Sword Circle at what, 4?


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
I didn't say it was bad, I said it was too average. Besides, you get Ice Sword Circle at what, 4?
But the rest of the ice assault set has piddly damage for way too high of endurance costs compared to the other dom sets. Ice was the only set that didnt get a damage boost during the dom revamp when it was in bad need of help compared to the rest aside from psi.


Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator

Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!