Stats Revamp: Mental 1.2

Please use this thread for feedback specific to Mental powers.

For general combat feedback (not specific to Mental), please use this updated overview thread instead.

For a power cost overview, go here.

I brought up to Spord that Psychic Prison seemed to do a lot of damage and he confirmed it was doing damage as if it was a high cost power. Has this been corrected?

So the 1st link in the OP brings ya to mepps thread from today and when u click on the mental revamp thread it just brings u back to this thread. Was trying to find the changes for mental from the original 1.1 or 1.0 build and that seems to be gone. I would recommend putting those changes back up somewhere please. Thank u.

Hmm..I was on test for a wile yesterday,here is what i think:You changed many things for the better,so we are getting there..but why taking out psichic resonance??With this move you just ruined mental..i understand now you get power back continously and you want trolls to matter and thats ok..you did good to trolls in instances,but what about solo and duel?? How am i suppose to kill the boss if i cant do just 1 rotation and i run out of power?? I do not see why you removed phisic resonance,and why is it good?How am i suppose to kill bosses in solo now? You said you listened to feedbacks and you want ppl to use and rely on there powers-yet i cant use my powers properly even with continous powerback i run out of power.

Maybe this will give you some ideas:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...ost-update-1-11-17.283171/page-6#post-3881536

Your power regenerates very fast on its own but especially if you use just a few weapon combos every so often. If you want to rely on weapons less then you will need to put SP into power along with the usual crits and might.

PHANTOM FLAMES NEED A DOT!!!
you can take away its burst dammage and replace it completely for the dammage over time, however: as it is called phantom flame, one can only assume it to burn! Please, do that, or rename it something like "phantom burst"...

Devs, just for the sake of trying it out: can you take away all cooldowns on PI setup and burst powers, please? They are limiting the superhero feeling and are forcing the gameplay in an unnessary bad way... If one decides to spam power till his power bar is empty, then one should be able to do so... Give it a try, let us test a version completely without cooldowns and let our feedback to this be heared for the sake of the game! Additionally: dots and shields make sense to have cooldowns as long as they are active, however: i would like to see how it would be like, if they could be reactivated at the same momment when the powers function ends... Let power dictate our actions without the force of artificial cooldowns! At least, give us a short taste on how it would be like!!!

I don't know if this issue is specific to Mental or if it's a PoT issue in general, but I noticed that the timing of the ticks of power while in Controller role were extremely inconsistent. In the video below I had 12 ticks of power, and the timing (in seconds) between each tick of power was as follows:
Between tick 1 and 2: 2 seconds
Between tick 2 and 3: 4 seconds
Between tick 3 and 4: 2 seconds
Between tick 4 and 5: 4 seconds
Between tick 5 and 6: 2 seconds
Between tick 6 and 7: 4 seconds
Between tick 7 and 8: 2 seconds
Between tick 9 and 9: 2 seconds
Between tick 9 and 10: 8 seconds
Between tick 10 and 11: 2 seconds
Between tick 11 and 12: 2 seconds
Between tick 12 and 3: 2 seconds



I tried to narrow down the cause, and initially thought that using my power dump (Psychic Empowerment) caused a delay in the PoT ticks, but it didn't seem to be that. I can't find the cause for it at all.

Thanks for the tips mate,following your way its easier to maintain power-however.. it is still not as good as phiscic resonance was.So i cant say its good if its actually worse.What i've noticed now you need to focus on your power-to make sure your not running out -atm on live server you dont have to worry about power with psr.You just activate it 1st and you can do whatewer you want,as many times as you want,you never run out.If they want to remove it then at least we should get a massive power back after hitting with each power so its the same as pr is still there and continously activated.The problem is,atm on test you get a small power back and the powers are not balanced-for example try to hit with mass terror and phiscic shock..you will see that mass terror takes away like 50% of your power.. so basically atm you can only use lets say 4 powers..i mean in your video you used 2 powers because those dont consume much power..thats how you can maintain your power- we should be able to use all powers freely.So they need to adjust that percentage to be the same as with psychic resonance and there you go.Sacrificing lots of sp (45-80) to get a bit faster powerback is unacceptable.To be honest,i choose mental power because of psychic r.. the game was super with it..if you remove it and that free powerback doesnt give you back the same amount of power ..you cannot say this was a good deal.

Basically, if you use your weapon you should have enough power to use any ability. If you don't use your weapon you will have to limit yourself to the low-cost abilities. Maybe things will change, idk. You should try both ways out and give your feedback. The developers are more likely to accept what you have to say that way.

I've used the best of Low cost abilties, you still won't be able to maintain power.

You can try what you'd like, but the Power-regeneration is still weaksauce on test.

The power costs are weighted and scaled beyond the passive Regen. In fact I dare say it's bugged with higher tiers.
In tier three through five you are definitely able to keep a near infinite rotations of power clipping going with great damage but you have to be in lower tier gear.

If that's fixed, you shouldn't have a problem with maintaining a rotation with no problem.
^.^

Adding on to what BumblingB said, Yeah it doesn't feel very Super.

And Unfortunately, all because you started using Weapons when you played doesn't mean everyone else did.

Alot of the population on live right now as we speak came from the AM Era. So while we may-be able to adapt towards weapons, I'd imagine the guys on live would drop the game.

That's why I'd wish the developers would use the Current Power-regeneration on live, because right now it's far from being good on test.

I think I understand. Can you compromise at all on that vision though? I think there's a limit to how far we can take player requests before it starts compromising core mechanics of the game.

For example, I don't think there should ever be a time where you can skip weapon selection when creating a new character. There should never be a time where you can ignore the fundamental counter mechanics of blocking / interrupting / blockbreaking. That's what sets DCUO apart from other MMOs on the market for me. If this game lost that uniqueness then I may as well be playing GW2 or Final Fantasy.

Mental is about using your Telekinesis and Telepathy to do things for you. There are some that manifest themselves into a physical attack, but for the most part it's your mind.

I do think all should be viable, but I don't think spamming one high cost power would be viable either. A rotation designed around several powers would be effective. For the most part, we are double punished by high cooldowns AND high power costs.

Noob Alert!

Where I'm coming from:
I have played DCUO at various times briefly but have never really been seriously into the game or played it for extended periods of time.
I am a former City of heroes and Champions Online player so DCUO has always been a game I wanted to like but never could get into.
I know very little about the game so I don't know how meaningful my feedback is compared to some of the number crunching vets on this forum, but maybe I can provide a fresh pair of eyes.
I suspect the devs may want feedback from someone who would be returning to DCUO after a long time or trying it for the 1st time because of this revamp.

My builds:
I have tested both mental and gadgets on test servers.
The devs asked us to name our testing characters so...
The mental controller that I am using to test is named "Beta" and is on a villain on test servers. I also have a gadget hero named "Chronos" too.
I did my testing in the Gotham under siege zone because that's the most recent thing I've played in DCUO and that's the only way I could give some context to my testing.

The stat spread is:
20 in crit
20 in crit damage
40 in dom
40 in vit
10 in health

Powers Are:
Telekinesis, TK pull, terror tendrils, TK bolt, Psychic prison, and stealth.
stealth load-out is: ambush pain blast, bolt barrage, horrific vestige, Convalesce, Bastion

Weapon:
Brawling with MA mastery

CR: 97

I did not mod my gear.

The intent behind my build is basically what these forums would call a melee battle troll.

My views on the update as a whole so far:
Seems to be progressing in the right direction. Getting rid of the power trees and separating stats from weapon trees makes building a lot more straight forward. Power Interactions being reduced in potency makes me feel like I can ignore them if i want for the sake of theme. Overall, feel that I can more create the hero that I want to build instead of being forced by AMs, WM, PI and power trees down a restrictive build path.

Feedback on the mental power set:
Invisibility:
The main complaint that I have is that Gadgets feels more cohesive as a set especially as it relates to the Invisibility power. It just feels tacked on. Gadgets has decoy which synergizes strongly with stealth. And even if the mines are under powered I feel that there is interesting potential there.
1. I wish that Mental had more ways to distract mobs the way that decoy does. I wish I could summon some kind of horror to fill a similar role.
2. Invisibility is obviously a re-skin of the gadget "stealth" power. The problem is that Stealth and Invisibility do not mean the same thing. With both powers you can approach from the side or the back without being seen, but if you approach from the front you will be detected. for "stealth" that makes seance, but if I'm "invisible" I should be able to stand in-front of you and you still cant see me. I think invisibility needs to be buffed above stealth so that you are undetectable even when standing in front of mobs or at least agro range from the front should be considerably reduced. I believe this would make things less confusing and also help compensate for the fact that Mental has less synergy with stealth/invisibility than gadgets has.
If this is not possible, then Invisibility needs to be renamed as stealth so that the name can be accurate, expectations can be managed and confusion can be minimized.

Horrific vestige:
This power just feels weird to me. I personally would expect it to act like a confuse power. The way the horrors just multiply and then stand around without attacking just seems counter intuitive and boring. I would prefer for it to turn the target into a longer lasting "pet" that would do damage and draw agro and last longer, but not multiply. In other words, I want them to behave more like the Mass Hysteria ghost.

Mass Hysteria:
On the paper I like the power but I will never use it in its current form for one reason. It turns you in to some big Skeletor ghost. This is extremely theme breaking and unnecessary. My hero is a cyber punk psychic like those found in anime and and would never turn into this clearly occult themed Skeletor ghost for any reason. On top of that, as a hero, why would i turn into something that looks so villainous? Please remove the costume change element from mass hysteria or at least make it optional. Why would I spend all that time hunting styles and tinkering in the costume creator customizing my hero only to have the devs choose a costume for me. This is bad for the same reason that power trees ect were bad because it removes player choice and forces player theme and identity.

To the community:
I am open to tips on how to improve my build as long as it keeps in mind my intent as a melee battle troll.

I have tried Ice, Atomic and Mental on Test. The 1st two, still fell comfortable.
Mental on the other hand feels sloppy. The Cooldowns are too long and many animations are quite similar. (beams out of the head)
The game play seems like you are constantly floundering. PI's are useless due to long Cooldowns of PI starters (MT) or the can't be brought to completion due to power loss. DOT stacking is difficult also due to the same reasons.
I'd like to know the designer's Vision of the "NEW MENTAL"; because I must be missing something here.

True. The mental powers look the same and don't have the visual feedback of newer power sets. If you watch youtube videos of mental, its hard to tell whats going on.
I'll take this opportunity to reiterate my problem with the Mass Hysterias visuals and suggest the "Skeletor costume" be replaced with a cool looking psychic aura.

As for the "feel" of mental. It has the feel of a set that has seen drastic changes over time and lost its focus. Didn't it used to have some kind of "shape shifting" powers? Maybe removing something so integral to the original design of the set helped lead to the "three legged table" feeling that the set has now. This is inline with what I said about gadgets feeling more focused.

A dev said that gadgets is a "stealth/mid-range/skirmishing" set. It would be helpful if they would describe mentals intended play-style.

pls no cooldowns for burst and PI setups.
if players want to spamm theyr power bar empty, then they should be able to do so.
cooldowns only for DOT and shields and such, for as long as theyr effects last.
power management should be a responsibility of the individual players.
cooldowns prevent from this reliance by restricting and are restricting the game play more than it helps...
if a player shoots out all his power at once, then he must suffer the consequence of his playstyle.
COOLDOWNS MUST GO!
pls dont keep them just so you can sell mods in time capsules!
it is more fun to play the style you want, even if it is not the best way at all times to do so...