StratoNexus

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  1. [ QUOTE ]
    "We consider it acceptable for the second highest power in the gravity control set to be inferior to similar powers much earlier in other sets, many of which have other strengths over grav as well".

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Well, I am sure many of those other sets wished their AoE holds were not PBAoE.
    Our AoE hold is a HUGE cone that can be used from GOOD range. This is a great advantage.
    To be honest, Grav gets a 2nd AoE control at 12th just like the other sets. Yeah, I hate it, you hate it, any good, effective team will hate it. But it is there. I do not think wormhole is Strictly inferior to the Stalagmites and Flashfires, because I believe the porting has uses (I was only comparing wormhole to those powers because they also disorient, but that is really all they do, where wormhole also has mob placement potential). I mean really, Bonfires is cool, but I wouldn't say it is better than the new wormhole, just different. You can't really compare exactly when the other sets get exactly what, but should compare the sets as a whole. On the whole, the new wormhole brings Grav much more in line with the other set's ability to have AoE control. Could wormhole be better? Sure. Would Ill controllers prefer not to run into the middle of mobs in order to use Flash? Probably. I like holding the mobs from way back here, and when I first started playing it never occurred to me that a controller would dive headlong into mobs, as I have since seen them do.
  2. [ QUOTE ]
    But see, that's my whole problem with it. I don't usually fight even-cons.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Yeah, netiher do I. I run on invincible. However, 12 seconds vs. an even con is about the same as the other sets get in their AoE disorients. Heck GDF only holds even cons for 15 seconds (I think), I am sure the time degradation for levels between disorients and holds is the same. So if you are saying the wormhole duration sucks, you are also saying GDFs duration sucks. Is that what you are saying? GDF is useless to you vs. the +2 and +3 level of mobs you are fighting normally? Slot it for Disorient duration like you slot GDF for hold duration and all is well again.

    [ QUOTE ]
    BUT IMO, it still stinks.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    IMO, you want another AoE hold, and that ain't gonna happen. Yes, it is not as good as GDF, but it is nearly as good as Stalagmites and Flashfires (the knockback thing drops it a tier below those). It is a secondary control method, not as good as a hold (it has drawbacks a hold doesn't have). It helps fill the gaps between GDF recharges. It is not another GDF. If it goes live as is, it is better than the nothing we had before (well we had Dimension Shift, but really), and we can work around the drawbacks.
  3. Did some testing with the new wormhole last night.
    Against even level minions and lts (lvl 41 Rikti and Nemesis), I was getting 12 seconds of disorient.
    Against my friend in the Arena I was getting 5-6 seconds of disorient. I am hoping this is just an Arena bug (and I did bug it), but overall I am not too worried, since it works properly in PvE.

    [ QUOTE ]
    Disorient +knockback + dodgy teleportation targeting cause a lot more scatter than just disorient alone. More scatter, and much more violent and sudden scatter.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Meh. I am not going to argue this point, you are correct. As far as how much it matters in game... the scatter of other disorient powers is just as annoying. The extra 3 feet my scrapper may have to run for a mob that has been Wormhole scatterd as opposed to Stalagmite scattered is irrelevant really.

    As far as the knockback on wormhole, I too would like to see it removed. I am not arguing that the Devs have made a perfect power out of the new wormhole. IMO, they have made it a better power. Gravity has plenty of single target effects, but was lacking AoE. This gives us another AoE. I am truly sorry for those who prefer the single target version, but IMO this change makes wormhole worth taking and gives valuable control which is almost constantly available (with one Rec Red SO and perma hasten it recharges in about 20 seconds if I remeber correctly).

    Things I would like to see them change about the new wormhole:
    Remove the knockback - while cool looking, it is annoyingly detrimental to the use of the power.
    Make the disorient take effect as soon as the power hits, instead of waiting until after the mob is ported. I don't mind the guys I miss shooting me, but the ones I hit getting a shot off is bothersome.
    If the disorient time is still unenhanceable, I would like them to fix that bug (I did not test this last night, it was late I had to sleep).

    Have I mentioned how cool a Reverse Gravity Field would be recently?
  4. [ QUOTE ]
    And if I were an ice controller I could just ice slick them. If I were a fire controller I could just flashfire them and not worry about whether I'd targetted the exit point correctly to keep them from winding up out of range of my teams' melees. If I were an illusion controller, I could drop PA and draw some mob aggro onto the pets. Getting some dev attention is a fine thing, but we shouldn't be settling for second rate "improvements" that remove the utility of our existing powers. We should be asking for real improvements that bring us up to par with the other existing controller primary sets.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Ice Slick rules, and I have stated my preference for a Reverse Gravity Field that operates mechanically similiar to Ice Slick many times. However, even Ice Slick cannot be said to keep mobs together, some mobs flop on it, others run off it, some see it and don't enter its area ; all of these conditions are at least as much scatter as wormhole is normally going to cause.
    Flashfire has the about the same drawbacks as wormhole, insofar as disorient causes scatter.
    PA = knockback = mobs not clumped

    If your main gripe is that Wormhole causes scatter, it can situationally cause much less scatter than all the powers you mentioned, due to your ability to drop the baddies into scatter preventing terrain. Scatter is the nature of an AoE disorient (and knockback). I can live with scatter if the mobs stay disoreinted for 12 seconds (if that can be enhanced to be longer). (As a side note, I have now seen conflicting reports of the new disorient time, I have not tested wormhole since the 4/13 increase myself, so I will have to do that. I have trouble believing the post that said it was only 5 or 6 seconds though, as that is what it was pre 4/13, but the 12 seconds is not confirmed by me.)

    For reference Arinara said on 4/13 :
    [ QUOTE ]
    Base disorient is now 12 seconds against an even-con Nemesis LT, but enhancements currently do nothing to increase this.
    I made a bug post.

    [/ QUOTE ]


    madmage asked:
    [ QUOTE ]
    If you use it for that, whats the point in having the option of selecting the destination, you may as well just call the power gravity sickness. a power that causes mass disorientation.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    The fact that you can do both doesn't seem like a strength to you? You whine becuase you have an option?
    If the team is barely handling what you are facing, disorienting a group of adds and sending them down a hallway, over the railing downstairs, or way up in the air over there gives some extra time beyond the disorient. If your group is ready to kill the next group of mobs, making them disoriented in about the same place just makes the fight safer (like Flashfire and Stalagmites).
  5. If you are that stupid, then not just melees will hate you.

    [ QUOTE ]
    I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it before.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    What you should be kicking yourself for is you haven't realized that you don't have to move them at all to get the disorient. You haven't realized that you can pull a mob into the burn batch or the Invincibility aura. You can drop the mob in between the crates/railroad cars/in the dumpster/that corner near the lunchroom at the end of many warhouse missions in order to limit the spread.
    You can send them far away, where they will stagger for a bit if you need more time and your group is in trouble. You can also just disorient them where they are so they can be killed with less risk.

    The knockback is the only issue I have now, but I can work around that easily enough anyway.
  6. [ QUOTE ]
    ...but I don’t mind the AoE version IF they increase the disorient.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    They did increase the disorient time on the 13th.
    It was increased to a very respectable level as well.
  7. WOW. 12 seconds base duration. Holy smokes.
    Once they fix the bug with enhancers not working this is going to be great.
    This will fill my control gap nicely even just 3 slotted, woot.
  8. StratoNexus

    XP and I5

    [ QUOTE ]
    Just a thought, reading some of the concepts, maybe you're dealing with debt from the wrong end?

    Maybe debt should be accumulated as normal, but missions should burn it off twice as fast? (I.E....an enemy is defeated that gives 100 XP. On live you gain 50 XP and burn off 50XP. I'm prpoposing that you gain 50 XP and burn off 100XP.)

    It also gives you more "tweaking points". When doing something particularly heroic, you burn off faster. When doing something borderline, you burn off slower.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I like this idea much better. It seems to encourage doing missions even more. Even street sweepers might be more inclined to do a mission if they can burn their debt off twice as fast.

    I think the no debt until level 10 is actually a bad change from the standpoint that it encourages recklessness for much longer. 4 levels of reckless play is learning the game. 10 levels turns it into a bad habit that is going to be hard to break. Perhaps making the hollows and perez park not suck so much would be a better solution? Maybe level 7 missions should not be placed in hollows red zones or in the middle of the woods in Perez Park? Maybe heroes should get together and build a safety wall around those ditches of doom in the hollows, making it harder to accidentally fall into them. Of course this change is also silly because the debt at level 10 is so small and irrelevant anyway.
  9. Good point about Dimension shift. However dimension shift has that whole cannot arrest badguys and "weeee" another alpha strike issue. I have tested dimension shift, and I don't like it, but I agree it can be used well for a second group of adds or as a run away power.
    Wormhole can do those things, but is useful in many other situatons as well.
    Look at it this way.
    You lost a screwdriver, but gravity has plenty of other screwdrivers.
    Where before we had one great wrench, now we might have two wrenches (depending on whether or not they fix the issues the new wormhole has).

    Not that I would mind replacing dimension shift (or wormhole) with a Reverse Gravity Field with knockup that operated bascially the same as ice patch. Have I mentioned how classic a reverse gravity field/upside down room is?

    I figure the devs looked at the data and more people had DS than wormhole, and considering our biggest weakness was AoE they were loathe to remove one AoE and replace it with another. Now gravity has 4 AoE powers, and while I dislike DS personally, I can see its use as a battlefield control tool on a much higher scale than another single target effect like wormhole.
  10. [ QUOTE ]
    This is where I get worried. I'm glad you like the new wormhole, but the fact you respec'd into it suggests you didn't use the old wormhole.

    [/ QUOTE ]
    Don't be worried. I hate the old wormhole. I am truly sorry for you that they made this change to a power you liked. However, I hope they keep it as an AoE. It now has a use for me and I am sure many other gravity controllers who already feel we have plenty of single target control.

    My testing suggests to me that those who liked it as a single target control tool will find it is more useful this way if they keep an open mind and don't get overly pouty (no insult intended, I get pouty too when i am bummed about something).

    It has flaws that other sets 2nd tier AoE control powers don't have. I hope they fix those before it goes live, otherwise it could be problematic. I have played around with it on test some more and the more I use it the more I like it. I hope all you single target controllers give it a fair shake and try to change your mentality to become real controllers (something we as Gravity have been sadly lacking until now). I do not think this change puts us on par with the other sets as far as mass battlefield control goes, but it does help. I felt much more useful control-wise on big teams (3 missions, team of 6, and two runs with 7 men teams) as I could use GDF, then wormhole a 2nd group, then either wormhole again (it recharges decently with perma-hasten and one recharge, I think I will put 2 recharges into it eventually) or GDF might be back up depending how long the battle took. Accidental agro was much easier to handle with wormhole to fall back on while GDF was recharging, and no one was bummed that the extra baddies that were charging us were delayed by 8-10 seconds from impacting us, and these guys who were accidentally agroed by another teammate never shot at me during the wormhole activation (but they could still act and shoot whoever agroed them until they ported, I noticed).
  11. I have done some quick runs after a test respec into wormhole.
    Lvl 40 Grav/Storm
    30 minutes of solo street sweeping in PI. (Rikti and Nemesis)
    1 solo mission on invincible (CoT)
    1 mission (Rikti and Crey) with 2 other controllers on invincible (a lvl 40 ill/kinetics, and a lvl 35 mind/storm skd to me - ty guys for helping out in case you read this)

    Wormhole is slotted with one ACC, one Recharge, and one End reduc (all 40++) and I am perma-hasten.
    I very much enjoyed the concept and visual effects of the new wormhole. I even liked the knockback aesthetically.
    I had a lot of fun throwing mobs into the Sing field of doom and found that wormhole helped me save a bunch of endurance while street sweeping. It did this because I never felt I needed to spam my holds once I got the enemies in the murder hole and because I could get more use out of one casting of lightning storm.

    The solo mish was not a real good test obviously, I used wormhole a couple times to practice with it, but one GDF and then Sings and LS and who needs anything else in a solo mish?

    The 3 person mission was a lot of fun and I got to see groups of mobs in tight areas that numbered usually around 6-10 (42s mostly). My teammates were told I was testing the new wormhole and were helpful in watching the mobs and would wait when we were doing tests. We ran through the mish easily and no real problems crept up where emergency control was vitally needed (or with 3 controllers we locked down the battlefield from the get go). It was a lab map and had some good areas where wormhole could be used tactically, which was nice and lucky I got a map like that. Same basic principles applied for wormhole as when I street swept most of the time. Pick a group of baddies up, drop them into Sings, Phantoms, LS, and PA. Meanwhile the bad guys are killing each other and the murder zone is being debuffed with 2 freezing rains. Wormhole was nice to use to get any stragglers from a pull who felt like using range attacks back into our pets. Sending mobs down a long hallway kept them out of the action for a decent time (around 12 seconds from the time I push the button until they get back into combat) and when they did re-enter they would use weaker range attacks (and we could move to the opposite side of our pets while waiting for them). Using crush and wormhole around a corner also worked as described in previous posts, but I dont have crush on live and only respecd it in to check it out again (soon I will respec again and replace it with Propel to test that out).

    Overall I like the new wormhole much better than the previous version. It works fabulously as an AoE IMO. At levels 26 + I don't normally want to single pull mobs, so I am glad I could pull a bunch with it. The ability to disorient in a pinch is nice (but flawed). It recharges quick enough to use every fight and will be ready twice in a medium length fight.

    1) The AoE was big enough to make me happy with it. A tight pack of 6 - 10 would be all in the AoE. In some of the rooms in the last mish there were three or four groups of mobs in twos and threes all within agro range of each other but I could only get a single little group at a time (dang baddies using tactics and not clumping nicely for me). It rarely agroed baddies who were not in the AoE, even when the guy right next to them was TPd away (but it does agro guys in the AoE you miss, at least it sometimes does).

    2) The range is fine (the activation range is shorter than I expected, it seems much shorter than TP Foes activation range). Do range enhcancers up both the range from which I can activate the power and the range I can send them away?

    3) Some of the baddies shot at me while I was activating the power, even ones I hit (Obviously the misses can shoot at me all they want). It would be preferable to me if they were disoriented, then TPd. I don't believe any of the other controllers second tier control powers allow the baddies to shoot until after the mez wears off. The activation/animation time "looks" right for the effect, I actually dont think it needs to be shortened, but the baddies I successfully hit should not be able to shoot at me once I hit them, IMO.

    4) Disorient time - sigh. It is short. It is so short, it is almost unenhanceable short. Could it last 10 seconds and start as soon as the power hits as opposed to waiting until after the port? The current disorient duration will kill this power as second tier control in 95% of the battlefields we will likely face.

    5) Knockback after the port. It is cool. It adds 1-2 seconds to control (so that is 2 seconds of them sometimes shooting at you, 1 second of them porting, 2 seconds of them falling down and getting up, and 5 (?) seconds of disorient, total of ~10 seconds of control, but only 5 seconds of enhanceable control). However, I still question the value of a positioning tool which destroys your positioning. The coolness factor only goes so far. Personally, I would prefer them to stumble out of the wormhole disoreinted but not flying back 10 feet from my target point, but I can get used to it and put my target point 10 feet in front of my real goal or use walls and corners and trucks. So... either way is fine with me.

    6) I would be remiss if I did not state that disoriented bad guys often zip around at amazing speeds (yeah I know you are aware of it, and I know it is some pathing (?) thing I have no comprehension of, but it still makes me a sad hero).

    I want to try to get a big group (6+ team) together and run 2 or 3 missions with it to see if it helps with the gap. I am afraid the disorient time is too short and I will not be able to enhance it to anything meaningful, but I really want to be able to use this power on live after my testing. I am sorry for those who mourn the loss of old wormhole, but I had a grand time with the new Wormhole.
  12. Those of us who dislike the old wormhole do not have anything to [censored] about, so we don't show up and post.
    I much prefer the new wormhole as a concept (I can understand those who are bummed about losing a power they liked, but someone was probably gonna lose something). I haven't gotten to test it, I will have to do the respec trial if I want to do that (I just did one a week ago too, but took the xp and SO, having no freakin clue we were gonna get some luvin).
    If it agros the mobs and they get to shoot you before they are tpd away, that needs to be fixed. If the disorient time + time caught in the tp are too short, that will need to be addressed.

    I hate DS too btw, so I am ok with the idea of having both wormholes and ditching DS, but I will never take the glorifed tp foe personally.

    For those who worry that wormhole would remove the villians from the battleground, just wormhole them to the spot they are and it becomes just an AoE disorient.

    ACTIVATION TIMES STILL TOO LONG. CAN A DEV TELL US WHY, PLEASE? Give me somthing man. What do the devs feel Gravity has over the other sets that require the extra long time to cast? Maybe they have a good reason, I am dying to know what the hell it is.

    I would be remiss if I did not include my grandest desire for the Reverse Gravity field. This is too classic a concept IMO to not have in the game. Mechanically it functions just like ice patch, so it should be no big deal to include. (Use lift animation on an area of effect, the small chance they don't fall up, and they can sometimes activate powers between falling - just like ice patch - and it is a classic (did I mention it is classic) for gravity).
  13. Maybe I should have used this smiley.
    But the raspberry thing was too funny for me to resist.
    I was agreeing with him (unless he did mean KB in general, but I figured he just meant on wormhole as well), but thought the anti-KB stance was funny coming from an illusion controller.

    I sure would have preferred a Reverse Gravity type power that gave knockup (and would have been similiar in effect to icepatch), but I have always loved any game or story with the upside down room/reverse gravity effect.
  14. [ QUOTE ]
    (though I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would -want- knockback)

    [/ QUOTE ]
    You have a level 50 Illusion controller but can't figure out why knockback can be good?
    A power like wormhole that allows you to position enemies, and then destroys your positioning with knockback it just the silliest thing ever (next to mobs who will stand in a burn patch but flee in terror from Freezing Rain).