Stats Revamp: Gadgets

I...
What have you done to gadgets? You changed almost everything that made it unique. There is hardly anything that uses a PI. Instead of opening up powers, you narrowed it. I'm actually rather disgusted by these changes. I felt terrible with GU36 hit, this just makes me not want to play gadgets anymore.

Most options for range are limited to either low damage spam or single target.

• Neural Neutralizer being a shield, great, but it's range is terrible and it should consume dazed as well as setup dazed.
• Sticky Bomb is now a single hit attack. Why? The juggle on it was good for trolls as well as the ticks from it were good.
• Fear Gas is still a channel? It's damage is now like cryo foam. Like it's the replacement for it or something. Just remove the channel, since there is no point to JC it since you lose the damage over time if you do. The PI on it is fine.
• P.Dart... Please, just put it back to multitarget. As it is, there is no multitarget attack that uses dazed. Plus, it was a really good controller group stun.
• Photon Blast is fine and it using electrified makes it more a better option for single target build. Like using taser pull.
• Taser Pull... I know you want to have pulls have a longer cooldown, but as a single target PI setup, this should be shorter. Maybe just in DPS stance, since you can't pull anything in 4+ content. (I know it's possible to make stance specific cooldowns, like rage.) Especially when Sticky is almost instant cooldown.
• Stasis Field, please remove this one and replace it with something similar to Psychic Prison. Encasements are just hated by a large majority of the player base. There are some viable options, but I don't think it's necessary over all.
• Guass Grenade is fine for cooldown and damage, though definitely bugged right now. Oh and it still misses. WHY DOES IT STILL MISS?!
• Napalm Grenade should have a burst element that utilizes burning PI. It's kind of meh. Especially when Guass, when it gets fixed, would be a better option for long battles since more things utilize the Electrified PI.
• Vortex Cannon... The damage on it seems very low and I really feel this should be opened up to max range. It would be a good addition to an electrified loadout. Though I did prefer when it was part of the dazed. (Why was it changed from dazed? It's a sound themed attack?)
• Suppressor Turret, I think I'm going to go against what others are saying, but I think an immortal health pet that does great damage than a mortal pet that does better damage. I kind of feel that if we could treat it like snow devil, it would be more useful in the long run. I just don't want to power it at all either. It should be self sustaining. Also, I thought it was changed that you can have him while in stealth during an early iterations of AM? Was I wrong, I remember talking to spord about it at SOE Live.
• Battle Display? The buff? *shrug* It's a weapon buff. I do think it should be full duration for the buff though.
• Stealth powers don't hold much to me to be viable in combat, considering that they are relatively close range.
• Thermite Mine... Can the cast bar be removed on it? It takes forever to put down and kind of useless in the heat of things. Especially since they are from the stealth loadout. I feel that these things are useless because of the setup.
• Cryofield is the only frostbitten PI applicator and it's cooldown is quite long to use that PI. And the damage from it is kind of low compared to other powers in the set.
• EMP... COULD WE NOT HIT THE GROUND? KTHNKS. I REALLY REALLY like the animation that is currently on live. Like the smoke effect and everything. We don't have to have yourself pushing buttons, but that looks SO LAME. Please. Damage component on it is rather good to me. I kind of feel it should use dazed and electrified. Since it is an EMP that short circuits your brain.

Overall, this feels very "unfun". I'm not even going to talk about a from the tray option. As it is, most attacks are very close range that will result in not a lot of options to choose from. I understand "Batman" and all, but Mental has a little more unified themed PI system. I like having options, but there is nothing that will work together well. Also, please think of the theme of the powerset when making changes. There really are some weird changes that don't work with the theme.

Currently alt-tabbed on test just right now and I was reading all the descriptions when I noticed this too.
Even before GU36, PI-ed dots was my go-to rotation. They just went from full PI to almost non-existent PI. =(

Welcome to weapons universe online where pi's aren't important.

We gotta be realistic here, with the removal of AM, Gadgets seems as bad as it was before first revamp years ago.
Animation of EMP is awful and the most upsetting thing to me is Fear Gas not ticking for longer period of time like it used to. Holo Decoy makes no sense as a SC generator, its not even a harmful ability. WTF ??

DoTs are gone, PIs are gone, advanced interaction between powers - gone. Current changes completely undone everything added during the first and second Gadget revamps without introducing anything even remotely as exciting or good.

How did we go from the removal of AM's and the WM bonus to changing and ruining everything about the powers that made them unique???

Dev's the core gameplay of all the powers works and plays just fine. By that i mean how they worked in the nexus era minus jump canceling. The setups, pi, dots all of that stuff. Like what is going on here and why?? All these changes are seriously killing the powers. Please just leave them alone, take AM's out put them back to how they were with some minor tweaks here and there put it on test and we'll help you fine tune them and we can call it a day.

What is going on now is not going to work and if this ever makes it live you'll be pushing most of the already small population out the door. WM failed, AM's failed and this is no different.....save all of us the time and frustration and please just stop changing the powers!!

To sum it up and put it bluntly power sucks, you can be the best controller ever and can't keep a group powered up. How frustrating is it to be a troll and be sitting on nearly a full power bar but can't help out your team mates....... We just went from 1 troll runs back to 3 troll runs lol. but hey they should keep the great changes rolling out

Gadget Man in Amazon Fury in Gotham

Flight seems glitched all of a sudden. Can no longer fly faster than the normal start flight speed.

The back bone of gadget dps, gauss, fear, foam. What have you done with our powers

I'm not discounting your numbers or your theory by any means, Dark. I know how thorough you are. All I'm saying is things that used to depend solely on Controller Vitalization (Power over Time and Instant Power Dumps) no longer depend solely on the Controller.

If you go in as a DPS and you up your stats (or lower them) the amount you will be given back in power FROM THE CONTROLLER (Power over Time and Defib) will change. To me, that seems like a bug...or a seriously bad decision.

I understand that we've listened to people complain about bad controllers for years, but that was fixable. Add stuff that teaches about support roles. Instead, the power management that controllers are "supposed" to be responsible for is totally bunk. It's passive by player, not by controller.

We replicated what you did in the duo and open world but nothing changed that was unoridinary. Vit scaled with defibs and PoT range on the controller adding or removing gear, and the dps player who also added and removed gear registered the same amount PoT/defib as the controller who altered stats. We didn't see anything limited by the instance, or lower stats dps player, we were in on a regular basis.

If it happened regularly in a instance, or defib and PoT numbers were regularly limited with the player receiving PoT/defib and had lower stats, then I would say it was intended. Do you have the Vit, Power, and CR of you and the other player each time you guys swapped stats? Which duo were you in? If you take off troll gear your Vit would be lower so would be natural if your defibs gave less power. I also noticed it's harder to go empty in power with lower stats than with higher stats among something else. Was the dps players power bar completely empty when he/she lowered their stats? I saw you wrote down that it was, but are you sure their power bar was mostly gray (not half way)?

This.

My Go to Rotation was this for Gadgets back in the OG days. Statis Clipped with Intimidation, Guass, Fear-foam, then Weapon Combos.


#BringBackCyro-foam
#BringbackPIs

Oh boy where do I start....

First off; Development team. Removing Abilities from Gadgets isn't adding more variety, it's taking away variety.
Cyro-Foam was a Crucial part of many gadget DPS loadouts back then and even now with the current am. It wasn't OP, It wasn't doing high damage. It just got removed for no reason.

Second of all: Your PI Methods on test right now are flawed. On test we have 3 PI routes to work with, and all of them are limiting in rotations.
Electrified PI Applicators: Taser Pull, Gauss Grenade, Supressor Turret.
Powers that consume the Electrified PI: EMP Pulse, Vortex Cannon, Photon Blast.
Burning PI applicator: Burning Grenade, Supressor Turret.
Powers that consume the Burning PI: Fear Gas, Photon blast.
Dazing PI applicators: Sticky bomb, Netural Neturalizer.
Powers that consume the Dazing PI: Paralyzing Dart, Vortex cannon(Thanks Penryn)

See the problem? ALL 3 PI Rotations don't have enough Powers to use all 6 power slots, and there's barely any burst powers too, which leads me to...

3rd of ALL: Gadgets feels like it was rushed on test. Too little variety, useless abilties, great abilties removed, PI's being flawed, Big hitters being single target. This also means if you wanna do aoe damage, you're forced to use the Heavy Power Consumers known as Vortex cannon and EMP.

Not happy at all with these changes.

Since I've seen this mentioned a couple of times, Vortex Cannon uses Dazed.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/stats-revamp-gadgets.283276/#post-3882085

The tooltip for Vortex Cannon is wrong.

I agree with your assessment. I posted a similar breakdown and expressed my frustrations here:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...ats-revamp-gadgets.283276/page-3#post-3882422

Adding the Terror PI to the Gadgets powers and removing Cryo-Foam leaves you with very limited loadout options.

I still don't get why Terror was Added either, this is Gadgets not Mental.

I had the opportunity to play the T8 God of Monster raid today in Damage role in a 2-2-2-2 configuration. The team was decent. We only had one wipe and finished the raid in about 55 minutes. My character was CR 175 with a Might/Power spec. I finished the raid with 20 million damage out. The second DPS (Sorcery) had 18.5 million damage out.

Here is the general loadout I was using:
Sticky Bomb
Paralyzing Dart
Vortex Cannon
Holographic Decoy
Stealth (For Bunker Buster and Surprise Attack)
For the last slot, I tried out Suppressor Turret, Cryo-Field, and Photon Blast. I eventually settled on Photon Blast.

I stuck with the Dazing powers since none of them are bugged.

I used a Hybrid play style. I would do a weapon attack and clip it with Sticky Bomb. Then I would do another weapon attack and clip it with an appropriate power. I tried to keep Holographic Decoy up as much as possible to build Supercharge as quickly as possible. Whenever Stealth came off cooldown, I would use Surprise Attack on the closest enemy.

I think the phrase I can best use to describe the experience is "not fun at all." The general pace of combat was very sluggish. If more than a few mobs were pulled at a time, there was a good chance once of the tanks would die. It took a long time to kill the mobs and bosses. I found I was using the same attack rotations and it all felt very tedious. From the player's point of view, I have more fun using Gadgets Advanced Mechanic on Live compared to the Revamped Gadgets.

Here are some notes from my playing experience:
Cryo-Field
The range on this power was too small to be any use as a general purpose AoE DoT.

Holographic Decoy
I really liked that I could keep this up 100% of the time. The Decoy's damage transference ability allowed me to stay in melee range most of the time. Also, Decoy was a reliable aggro magnet whenever one of the tanks needed rallied. Too bad this is going to be changed...

Paralyzing Dart
It wasn't very useful for helping to clear mob groups or multiple bosses. Dart's slighly enhanced single-target damage didn't outweigh its heavy power cost. Photon Blast and Surprise Attack did better single-target damage at lower power costs.

Suppressor Turret
This pet was useless for boss fights. It would always die very quickly whenever it entered a boss's melee range. Also, it died quickly to room hazards like lava flows. I quickly gave up on trying to use it as a pet. It was mildly useful for helping to clip powers.

Power
Power wasn't too much of a problem for me. The Controllers did a good job of keeping power regen supercharges going constantly. The only time I ever got low on power was when I used multiple high-cost powers in a row.

Meleeing
Staying in melee range wasn't too much of a problem. Decoy's Damage transference helped to keep me alive and the Improved Stealth mod was good for a quick shield.

Here are bugs I ran into and noticed today.

"There are definitely bugs I ran into. Fear Gas had some but if Fear Gas actually a unique power when involving Power Interactions. It's burst damage concept was kept but just reversed and buffed. You need to channel for 2 seconds and have it end for the burst damage to execute on burning targets. Its terror PI and damage on burning targets even if you channel for the complete 2 seconds does not always register. It no longer grants reduced damage if you jump cancel but completely cancels all damage if you jump cancel. Recap of burning burst, channel for 2 seconds for it. Channel for complete 2 seconds for Fear Gas Damage Over Time ticks.

Also the Vortex Cannon is misleading. It does not deal additional damage on electrified targets. It applies additional damage on Dazed targets.

Gauss grenade misses it's target even if you stand infront of it. Penryn also reported this. The electrified PI appears & CC registers but not the damage.

Paralyzing Dart's animation of smoke appears on me when I throw it instead of the target at a distance"

I currently have damage values for comparison in my own thread right now. It's so that I can edit and update them. Once they're completed I can post them here.

We set up 6 power interactions
2 set up Daze
1 sets up Burning
2 set up Terror (1 from within stealth tray)
2 set up Electrify
1 sets up Crush
1 sets up Frostbite

We take advantage of 5 power interactions for 10% more damage
2 benefits from Daze
2 benefit from Burning (1 from within stealth)
2 benefit from Terror (1 from within stealth tray)
3 benefit from electrified (1 from within stealth)
1 benefits from frostbite

I excluded burning and electrify set up from the turret for now

EMP's delay on the damage tick is still the same on test server.

Also, I'm not pushing for thermite to be accessible from the normal tray but if it is, it'll be more useful if it delivers a knock down and/or stun with it.

I also took a quick glance of some of the numbers i have & I did see some things that look slightly off in regards to what they should be doing. I'll reply with detail at some other time.

Haven't really offered much feedback on the entire update because I've been quite busy recently. But from what I have experienced specifically in relation to the Controller role, I've been left feeling underwhelmed. I feel as though change is needed because what we have on live right now isn't good. But I haven't been blown away by the changes I've seen on test. Especially not to my role of choice over the years - Controlling.

My feedback here applies to both Mental and Gadgets, but more so Gadgets as I've been Gadgets since I started playing in 2011.

The Controller role feels stripped of everything that made it unique. This entire update has done nothing for the Controller role except take away things which made it a necessary role. You've given nothing back to compensate for taking the things away which you have.

You've taken away the need to manage Power Over Time. Which I feel indifferent about personally. It's neither good nor bad. It's good because that Troll who doesn't know how to POT or how essential POT is, is automatically casting it. But you've still taken it away as an essential duty and it's no longer something I need to concern myself with, as a Controller.

You've made power healing redundant. My Defibrilator was returning roughly 150 power to the 3 individuals in my group. This seemed low, so I switched to Mental and surely enough, Mental was returning about 500 power per cast. So there's definitely a bug there. But even still, 500 power is redundant when power bars are close to 20k by default.

Yes, you can argue "power costs! I need a troll to help" and all that, but my low power healing isn't going to do anything to help replenish your power bar when your rotation contains power-hungry choices that eat half of your bar.

My stuns are still weak and pretty much worthless. They only work efficiently on the adds which don't present much of a challenge, anyway. The adds which actually do need controlled, break out almost immediately and become immune to further controlling effects for a short time, usually by which point they've been killed. The bosses can't be controlled in Alerts or Raids, so I'm redundant as a Crowd Controller for the most important parts of group content.

Then there's the debuffs, which are still worthless and don't make a noticeable impression when they're being used unless it involves a specific enemy which requires a specific debuff, of which there are few and far between.

Considering all of what I've just wrote, I ask what exactly my purpose is, as a Controller, in the group dynamic? I'm ineffective at power return. My debuffs are unnoticable and my stuns are useless in areas where they might actually be useful. As a Controller, I'm essentially a 3rd wheel.

Once the wider community realise how redundant the Controller role is with changes made in this update, I foresee players completely excluding Controllers from all content. Because what's the point in bringing them?

So where do we go from here?

Well, I don't know. Power Healing as a function of Controlling is a lost cause. People want to play from their trays. So if you buff the power return aspects of controlling, then you're basically restoring Controlling to it's current form on the live servers. It's current form on live servers also sucks.

Those calling for more Crowd Controlling I feel are also misguided. The only way more crowd controlling would be useful is if they actually made Controller CCing apply more efficiently to Matches and apply a little bit to Boss level NPCs. Without this, then what's the point of building an entire role around crowd control? Somehow I don't see you guys allowing us to hard stun Matches and Bosses, because that would turn almost every encounter into a cheat run with "notarget" enabled.

I think the direction you need to go with Controlling is emphasis on NPC debuffing and team mate buffing. Debuffs which stack with a 2nd controller's debuffs. Debuff pecentiles which are based on the amount of Dominance a Controller has. Group buffs which improve the stats and strength of the Controllers team mates.

The reason I think this is because you would be making the Controller role a desired role for every group composition. As my vision for the controller role would achieve exactly what the community are looking to achieve every time a new piece of content comes out: A stronger, fast group.

From a comic books standpoint, reinventing the Controller role around an emphasis no debuffing/buffing would make a lot of sense, too. Controllers are the "brains" of the group. The Felicity Smoak's, the Cisco Ramone's. The ones using their intelligence to find and exploit weaknesses in the enemies Defence. Neutralise the weaponry and threat imposed by the enemy. Come with tactics, devices and whatever else to make the group they're working for stronger. This is what I feel the Controller should represent in DCUO. Not a battery that barely stuns with unnoticable debuffs. Maybe even rebrand the entire role as "Tactician" or something, so that players are aware the role isn't just about power return and CCing any more.

Any way, I've prattled on enough here. Redefine the Controller role. Because right now, in it's current form on test, it's essential useless, offering nothing important to the group's dynamic.

My suggestion re troller is to drop the idea of trollers being powerback healers and give them something else to do AND, most importantly, design content accordingly.

For example, have trollers, as they do dmg increase each party members supercharge. Give trollers all of the party buffs like, prec up, might up, crit chance up, def up etc. Next, design content that requires a troller to know which buffs to use when.

For example, you may have a boss that is about to do massive party wide dmg. A troller, seeing that move is about to happen has a limited window to give the party a def up boost. The second troller can give healers a resto up boost to help recover from it. If the troller misses the window then the party either wipes or it makes it that much harder to recover from. Add cool downs on the buffs to they cant be abused and trollers have to think strategically as to when to use them.

Second actually give them good crowd control powers AND, again, most importantly design content that makes it necessary. Remember FOS raids where you had the trollers pull adds over the ledge to stop them from getting to the middle or stunning them etc. Also remember trollers that had to help with adds on the bridge in FOS2. This is all based on CONTENT design to make the role worthwhile. Somewhere along the way, as dev resources shrank and you rushed to push out content, the content became generic and there was very little thought as to what each role in the party should be doing.

As people have posted, good luck trying to balance power back for players for small group content and playing from the tray and making the power back heal mechanic work. Since it seems that you are redoing everything else right now, just rethink the troller role altogether.

LOL, for trollers you can put both your powersets powerback supercharge and speed drain. They are on separate timers. If you use your supercharge builder you can basically have enough supercharge to rotate between these two constantly. Still doesnt really help that much but its better than not using it currently.

No, you can't. You're doing good to keep battle drone up all the time with a 50% supercharge cost now. You can't get close to 1000 supercharge in 30 seconds.