I'm not sure how I feel about impact's bonus damage. On a troller its either going to be too much or too little as it will most likely be in addition to contained damage. For AV fights its largely irrevelevant as you most likely won't be holding squat for any length of time.. and if its being applied because it prevents the knockback in those powers from working why isn't it being applied to every power that does knockback when the knockback/knockup is prevented.
On a dominator impact is also iffy as you still don't need either Lift or Propel as they will be even weaker because they are not going to be doing bonus damage ontop of bonus containment damage like a controller's version will be doing.
Mind and gravity are the only sets where you are not able to take the single target hold at character creation. Allowing that would change would be nice as players could then skip Crush and Lift if they so chose.
Overall as currently stated this does nothing to improve the control of the set which is at least something that many players wish to see improved on both Controllers and on Dominators.
It appears to me to fix some of the major problems with the set. Gravity is a single target damage set with limited AoE contol and no AoE damage. These changes seem to emphasize that. Shortening the animation time for Propel will make it a much better power.
I'm not quite clear how the Impact will work. My Grav/Storm currently uses a GD-Crush-Propel single target attack chain. Will that get "Impact" damage, or do I need to use Propel immediately after GD?
The change to Lift has been needed for a long time, so that's nice. I was hoping for a change to the Order of Powers, and maybe for Wormhole to apply the stun at the beginning, but I like the changes mentioned. Gravity will still need a lot of support from the secondary, but it will do faster single target damage.
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Agreed most of the glaring holes have been at least addressed I for one would still like to see propel be a cone. Call me crazy but I think humming a forklift at someone should take out a couple guys instead of just 1. But it will make it far faster on ST dmg in teams and solo now that they are adjusting this.
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Well, being one who has recently started the Grav journey, I can see why it's needed. I just wish they would make Propel a small cone attack and change Wormholes Knockback to Knockdown.
Holy s!@#$. They actually did something for Gravity?
I still hate Dimension Shift with a passion and the improvement on Propel will help Controller more so than on Dominator but Lift gets a bonus damage too so it's not too bad.
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.
There might be more changes than just the ones mentioned, those were likely just the important ones that came to mind. At least hopefully there will be some other tweaks. Even if there isn't, still some solid sounding tweaks.
I'm really enjoying what they're doing with the sets though and giving them unique mechanics, making them even more distinct from each other.
All good, this reinforces Gravity's niche as a single target damage Controller set.
But it does nothing to address the lack of area control. It sounds like Wormhole still has a long animation, sub-par radius and opens you to return fire while using it.
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Actually they also mentioned in the coffee talk that they will be tagging trial avs and any other 'omgnasty' boss so that controllers will do Containment damage without having to be held.
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Originally Posted by Montaugh
For AV fights its largely irrevelevant as you most likely won't be holding squat for any length of time.. and if its being applied because it prevents the knockback in those powers from working why isn't it being applied to every power that does knockback when the knockback/knockup is prevented.
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I agree that this is a nice step to helping Gravity but...hopefully more will come!
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In regards to the 'impact' effect, my guess is that, in pseudocode, it'd look something like this:
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Point is, it can't be tied to actually being held, because 'being held' isn't a state unique to gravity powers. It'd have to be a state flag or grantpower effect, which will have a precisely set duration (presumably the duration of the -KB) and not depend on whether the target is actually held. I'd be expecting something similar to beam's 'disintegrating' effect, which functions by granting a 'does nothing' power to the target and then having the other attacks check for the presence of that power.Power effects: X duration mag 3 hold .75*X duration additional mag 1 (if overpower) Smashing DoT Extra smashing DoT (if containment) Mag 'lots' KB protection (10 seconds) Enable 'impact' state (10 seconds) OR grantpower 'impact_effect' for 10s etc.
As for the changes themselves, while I certainly won't turn them down, they still seem a bit 'meh' to me. I certainly don't object to making gravity actually *be* the 'single target damage specialist' control set that it was apparently intended to be, but I still wish they'dve done *something* with wormhole. An extra 5 feet of radius. The ability to not eat an alpha while using it. *Something*. Gravity is still in a pretty dire place when it comes to actually providing AoE control.
Controllers will make out better with this. They're the ones who would actually be using propel, the ones for whom a 'single target damage specialist' control set, while still not necessarily a brilliant idea, isn't utterly and completely redundant, and the ones with a possibly mitigative secondary to cover up the primary's control shortcomings.
Grav doms are still boned. They don't have buff/debuff sets to paper over their primary's bad control, and their secondaries are still going to be better than the primary at damage. Check out the DPA values of a few representative dom single target attacks, compared to propel and lift:
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dpa Old propel 28.0 New propel 46.1 Lift 58.7 Hurl boulder 32.8 Thorny darts 33.4 4s blast 44.5 8s blast 46.9 Ice slash 57.8 Ice sword 60.5 Power push 65.6 Bonesmasher 66.7 Heavy mallet 72.0 Charged brawl 73.0 Fire blast 77.1 Mind probe 86.7 Bitter ice blast 91.3 Seismic smash 121.1 Blaze 141.4
I could see some doms using lift as a replacement for a weak blast from their secondary since they have to take either it or crush anyway, especially if it gets a reasonable amount of bonus damage. Propel is still pretty bleh. And doms are still, overall, *not* in need of extra ST damage from their primary. Wormhole is still very much in need of some sort of tweak.
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iTrial AVs/Monsters that have complete Mez Protection will get a flag instead of being mezzed so that Containment will still take effect on them.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
Actually they also mentioned in the coffee talk that they will be tagging trial avs and any other 'omgnasty' boss so that controllers will do Containment damage without having to be held.
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Meh, a crowd control AT that's bad at crowd control is still as broken as it sounds.
I wouldn't call this a fix. I'd call it a tweak.
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Coming on the heels of HEATS, Stalkers and EA, another sub-par set nailed, in the face of fervent protests that it's "just fine". Go devs! This gives me hope that Mind and Ice will get looked at. 
I'm not too worried that the changes won't be enough. I expect that if Grav is still an underperformer, it'll get buffed again, like they did with EA. It's just great to know the dev team is looking at control sets.
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Very good numbers! I like.|
Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
Propel and lift will be better than a couple of stinker attacks like hurl boulder and thorny darts. They'll be competitive with most of the generic 4s and 8s blasts. They're still on par, at best, with most of the other attacks, and worse than the 'good' ones. They'll have to do something like 50% (for propel) or 20% (for lift) extra damage on the gravity distortion'd targets to really become 'good' attacks.
I could see some doms using lift as a replacement for a weak blast from their secondary since they have to take either it or crush anyway, especially if it gets a reasonable amount of bonus damage. Propel is still pretty bleh. And doms are still, overall, *not* in need of extra ST damage from their primary. Wormhole is still very much in need of some sort of tweak. |
By the way, do your new Lift and Propel include the Impact damage? Do we know how much bonus damage?
You are right that most Dominators won't take it. Lift will be a buff since doms are using Hold anyway so the bonus Impact damage will help. Propel is still mostly for "theme" except for Gravity/Earth combo where Propel and Lift are the better range attacks (better than Hurl and Stone Spear!).
This buff makes ST damage on Controller a whole lot better.
And you are right that Lift can replace tier 1 4s attack. My perma Gravity/Fiery is all range and my attack chain is Lift, Fire Blast and Blaze. It's awesome, fast attacking!!! I love knock up so much.
(I suggested to add Impact in Wormhole so when the foes are teleported and stunned, you don't need to use ST Hold again to get the impact damage)
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.
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OOooooOOOOOoooooHHHHH!!!|
Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
From Von Krieger's Dev. Chat summary post, in case you didn't see it.
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This might be very good for my Grav/Kin...
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They do not include the impact damage, since as far as I know nobody outside the dev team knows how much damage that'll be. This is why there's still some caveat about lift and propel's mediocrity, since we don't know yet how much bonus damage they'll get. My personal guess is that it would be either a flat bonus amount that'd be equal between the two, or a flat bonus *percentage* that would be equal between the two. Lift currently has better DPA than propel, so an equal bonus percentage (which I personally think more likely) would still leave it better.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
By the way, do your new Lift and Propel include the Impact damage? Do we know how much bonus damage?
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Looking at that list, by 'good' I was mostly meaning DPA above 70, which might not *really* be good by some standards, but seems to me a nice dividing line between the more 'meh' attacks and the above average ones. A bonus of +50% impact damage on propel would give it a DPA of 69.2, and a bonus of +20% impact damage on lift would give it a DPA of 70.4, so those are the thresholds. If I had to guess, I'd think a full +50% damage might be unlikely, but something between that and 20% definitely could be done, so I wouldn't be surprised to see lift joining the ranks of 'good'-ish attacks. It'll take a lot to put propel there, though, and they're still not going to compete with the likes of blaze (of course, what would?).
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| (I suggested to add Impact in Wormhole so when the foes are teleported and stunned, you don't need to use ST Hold again to get the impact damage) |
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Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
"OK you Hellion, through the power of Gravity, I've pinned your feet to the floor. Now I'm going to fling you into the air!" *Kra-snakle!* "Oops. Those were his shins...weren't they?"
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Neither one really applies to wormhole, since it doesn't do -KB. In fact, it knocks things back itself. It would be nice, I admit, but ultimately pretty minor - if they changed wormhole, I'd rather they make it better at *control*.
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OP: you missed some stuff.
Lift is not getting changed for doms because it was actually doing correct damage already - controllers were not.
Dimension Shift will stay as it is for a reason, and the reason Arbiter Hawk gave is that it is great in PVP.
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Yes, to me Gravity's real problem is Wormhole. Other sets have Flashfire and Stalagmites, which can be used pretty much anywhere, anytime, in extreme safety. As one would expect from an area control power.|
Originally Posted by Dr Harmony
But it does nothing to address the lack of area control. It sounds like Wormhole still has a long animation, sub-par radius and opens you to return fire while using it.
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Gravity has Wormhole, which can't be used most of the time because it teleports the spawn away from the rest of the team and puts it in an essentially random place (as far as the rest of the team is concerned). It then scatters the spawn across a broad area unless you have a wall to prevent the scatter. And the spawn has enough time after you start activating the power to walk over to you and beat on your noggin.
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I gotta agree. These changes do nothing to fix the single most glaring weakness of Gravity Control. That being it's lacking Control ability.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
Yes, to me Gravity's real problem is Wormhole. Other sets have Flashfire and Stalagmites, which can be used pretty much anywhere, anytime, in extreme safety. As one would expect from an area control power.
Gravity has Wormhole, which can't be used most of the time because it teleports the spawn away from the rest of the team and puts it in an essentially random place (as far as the rest of the team is concerned). It then scatters the spawn across a broad area unless you have a wall to prevent the scatter. And the spawn has enough time after you start activating the power to walk over to you and beat on your noggin. |
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I have to agree. These changes might be nice, but they in no way correct the fundamental problems with Gravity as a control set. Wormhole has to be fixed: change KB to KD so that reasonable positioning is possible, increase the radius to match other area stuns, and apply the stun at the beginning of the animation so that the player doesn't get instantly slaughtered during the cast. Anything less is simply inadequate.
Until this (or something similar) happens, the set will remain crippled. The above-average single target damage that Gravity will offer needs to come in place of the additional, supplementary soft control that most other sets offer with those extra powers. It should not come at the expense of the basic, ground-level funcitonality that is expected of every other control primary.
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May I speak for "the other 99%" and say "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzpvp".
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Originally Posted by JayboH
Dimension Shift will stay as it is for a reason, and the reason Arbiter Hawk gave is that it is great in PVP.
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Before too many people start "QFT-ing" some serious fallacies:
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Ony if the wormhole user is a moron. The targeting for this power does work. Communicating intent ("I'm WHing mobs around the fire brute, unless anyone has a better idea.") alerts even PuGs, as long as everyone can read (not always a winning assumption...).|
Originally Posted by Rodion
Gravity has Wormhole, which can't be used most of the time because it teleports the spawn away from the rest of the team and puts it in an essentially random place (as far as the rest of the team is concerned).
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Quote:
| It then scatters the spawn across a broad area unless you have a wall to prevent the scatter. |
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| And the spawn has enough time after you start activating the power to walk over to you and beat on your noggin. |
Dimension Shift, I really don't care about. A largely useless power that ends up being "a place I can fill with an actual power."
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From Von Krieger's Dev. Chat summary post, in case you didn't see it.
Improvements in Issue 22!
Propel: Similar animation, but shorter. 2.07 seconds instead of 3.8. Damage will be lower in PVP, but the same in PVE.
New mechanic called "Impact" added to the set. A bonus for using Lift or Propel hit by Grav Distortion. You'll get bonus damage for using Lift/Propel, as the hold cancels out the knock effect.
Projectile speed on Propel has been upped as well. That will be ported over to other things with slow projectile speeds.
Lift was not doing as much damage as it ought. It was doing 0.8 scale and will be doing 1.3 scale. That carries over to Singularity for Trollers and Doms.
kwsapphire: Summary: Gravity Control changes: any foe held by the grav hold who is then hit with propel or lift will take extra damage.
"Kind of like Time Manipulation, and the synergy with other Grav users since you can use any Grav hold, like you can use anybody's Disintigrate."
Dominator Lift was already at the proper scale, it will carry over to the Dom pet however.
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