Test Discussion Water Powers

Quick things during my testing. I'll have videos broken down on Sunday including some ramblings from Q&A with the stream.

Water Combos:

Power costs are a bit too high and again are misleading in a sense since Combos cost power. Aquatic Arsenal may say Base Cost 100 but the x4 Melee taps after round up to 50 Power each so in essence the actual Combo Ability costs 300. Same cost for Tsunami Strikes and Ebb seems to be 250. The long animation for Ebb didn't allow me much time to notice how much power Flow was using cause of the regen starting so fast.

High Tide:

very unique ability and kudos for trying something knew with the interactions. The Cooldown and the one and done was something to get use to and it was in my Range loadout using the Superpowered Focus "High Tide" abilities. Power Costs for Combos drained me so if the costs get lowered i think it would flow (ha) a bit better. I used my Soder much more than ever during my tests.

For now Im okay with the One and Done but an idea that came about with it to give it Roles. DPS Role would be fine with the one and done due to it having the Combos for range and melee attacking to decrease the cooldown. Healer Role would need the duration idea. In healer Role, you are having High Tide take a spot and you will also need a Combo ability to decrease the cooldown making it very active for a healer and wasting power to reduce the cooldown on one ability where that power needs to go for a Heal. You could say not to use the Combo and instead use Riptide which is certainly an option especially being a low power cost ability but thats still a spot that could go better for a heal.

Side Rant - With High Tide, as it is now let me say, be sure not to put FOCUS on it being the "everything revolves around it" mentality. Its an bonus option that is there to serve, in my view, as the "ship is going down button, time for some miracles". You're not always going to need that crit heal or having Blessing (think its the name) as a HoT all the time. Its very situational and should be used as such at this time. Devs can of course make changes to it and i hope so but in the case they dont, this is how I will perceive it. Its not an ability that needs to be used every time its off of cooldown.

Shields:

Alrighty Bubble, you are certainly the special cousin arent ya? A shield that has a buff in Damage Role? Certainly trying new things and where I certainly hope its a change that we will retroactively with the rest of the powers. I havent had the time to sit down as of yet to see if this buff to damage is even significant but just reading it on paper certainly stirred some feelings from twitch chat.

Bubble and Tempest Guard. It was said on stream (thats what folks said) that these shields stack upon each other whereas other shields in the game override. If thats the case the F1 buff menu only shows Bubble but never Tempest Guard either cast together or cast separately. TG wont show up.

Thats all i can really recall from my stream. I'll have gameplay footage and such edited on Sunday. have a great weekend folks. Happy Testing.

Water doesn't use and doesn't apply the Electrified PI, it should be crushed enemies take additional damage.

This is something i was messing with combo wise. One thing i will say is that Tsunami Strikes constantly moving you forward is very annoying, is there anything that can be done about that?

Shield strength formula:

"Maximum Damage Absorption = Base Shield Modifier * ((112.5% * Restoration) + (150% * Dominance))"

Maximum damage absorption is found by getting hit by a high level mob (Dox Bounties) possibly wearing DPS Gear to die faster. Once you take a hit pop your shield, wait for it to break and then calculate the total amount absorbed and you found the Max damage absorption. Do it a few times to make sure you have the right number.

Sweet! Thanks!

Yes the duration is very short.

When I first saw the gif you guys posted, i was disappointed. But after watching the stream and trying it on test server. I LOVE IT!!!! Great job by everyone who spent hours and hours in designing the animation. Now time for the suggestion:

1. Solace of the Sea needs to be AoE DoT in Damage Role.
2. Power costs of few powers needs to be reduced.
3. Tsunami Strike: Character needs to stay at one spot while doing those Tai Chi moves.

Other than that, great job. Can't wait for you guys to fix the Shark Frenzy animation. That was amazing.

The duration may be short but is long enough to be used when clipped with riptide twice. Ex. HT clipped RT shark clipped HT then aqualance. Duration lasts long enough to benefit from it twice like that.

Not sure if its latency on my end but im having issues clipping the last hit of aquatic arsenal.

Yea i noticed the last hit of tsunami strikes crit for virtually the same as shark frenzy on a crit.

Another concern: dehydrate.
Ive tested it at 100% around 15 times and i havent seen it crit, might be bad luck or what but when less than 2500sc it can crit

I see no combos for healing, to bad, the powers work like electric healing with the add of the one big are hot and a mitigate shield wich acts like other hot.
Visuals are fine, but its not very dynamic on healing side for now.

Anyone else getting no effect from clipping the last move from tsunami strikes? Is this intended?

Posted a problem you already are aware of, apologies.

You need to let the animation run almost completely; if you cliped fast (like we all used to) you get no damage from the last part of the combo.

Just another aesthetic request: It would be possible to add some water animations on Tsunami Strikes? i mean i love the animations on the character (i´m a big fan of martial arts and those really seems like Tai-Chi / Kung-Fu moves) but the lack of Water Effects made this ability feel kinda bland IMHO.

Keep up the good work guys, the DPS side is really fun and i´ve been seeing like 3 ways of play this powerset on Damage stance. It has a lot of flexibility.

Healers require an option to reduce the cooldown from "High Tide" without having to rely just on the SC.

I suggest "Tsunami Strike" heals in Healer stance (and reduces the cooldown of "High Tide" by 4 seconds each time you actually healed someone equal to the DPS counterpart) instead of dealing damage with the same AoE behaviour as in DPS stance. This will open up more healing options as of right now "High Tide" alone isnt worth to take as healer (unless you pair it with "Riptide" but then you run 2 slots already with nothing but support'ish stuff and not actual heals).


At the same time give the DPS the much requested option to use "Solace of the Sea" as a DoT counterpart with a different name (and icon) but same animation. I mean those floating jellyfish in the animation can be deadly so it shouldnt be seen as a pure heal

While these would be cool you are forgetting something. Each of these powers starts out with a certain mover before you even go into the combos.

Aquatic Arsenal, on activation of the power from the tray, pulls out a water sword and lunges towards the enemy. So tapping range from there wouldn't do much unless you've missed with your initial hit from the tray due to being out of range. On second thought, if you miss the initial hit, maybe the long range could be an aquatic whip for 4 hits. But that will take time to develop animations for.

Ebb, on activation from the tray, pulls the adds towards you. The only option would be to add a second ebb, but that wouldn't make sense without a flow (which is tap range as the water hits your feet to push back out).

The only one that could work out right is Tsunami Strike, but they'd have to come up with something different to add in for a melee combo. And character animations and power animations take time to create.

Water Healing Feedback:

Ok so I know I'm gonna say some things that won't be so popular, and I expect backlash from some of the community..I did comparisons between the other healing powersets and there are discrepancies that need adjustments based on the guidelines we've been working with.

Priority Heals:
Water-Soothing Mist- 250 power cost .5s cooldown- base heal 102> HTM- 154
Sorcery- Rejuvenate- 250 power cost .5s cooldown- base heal 132
Electric- Bio Surge- 250 power cost .5s cooldown- base heal 134
Celestial- Renew- 250 power cost .5s cooldwon- base heal 125

• For the priority heals if Soothing Mist can be buffed without buffing the HTM it would be best to bring it inline with Sorcery and Electric for priority heals. If buffing it has an effect on the HTM then it should stay as is. Renew needs a slight buff to be on par with Electric and Sorcery.

4 Man Bursts:
Water- Mending Wave- 300 power cost 3s cooldown- base heal 98> HTM is Critical Heal
Sorcery- Ritualistic Word- 300 power cost 3s cooldown- base heal 93
Celestial- Admonish- 300 power cost 3s cooldown- base heal 87

• For the 4 man bursts Mending wave is over performing compared to the other 4 man bursts especially Admonish. Either Rit Word and Admonish need a buff or Mending Wave needs a reduction.

8 man HoT:
Water- Solace of the Sea- 300 power cost 12s cooldown- base heal 20
Sorcery- Circle of Protection- 450 power cost 12s cooldown- base heal 24
Celestial- Virtuous Light- 450 power cost 12s cooldown- base heal 8

• Solace of the Sea needs to be increased to a 450 power cost to be on par with Sorc and Cele with the tiniest buff to the HoT to bring it inline with Sorcery..Obviously to address the elephant in the room Virtuous Light HoT needs a buff to be brought inline with the other two.

8 Man Burst:
Water- Blessing of the Depths- 300 power cost 6s cooldown- base heal 94> HTM HoT base heal 12
Electric- Electroburst- 300 power cost 6s cooldown- base heal 117

• Blessing of the Depths is under-performing compared to Electroburst and needs a buff to be brought in line. The HoT provided from HTM seems to be inline with certain HoTs within the other powersets just hard to give an exact comparison since it's a completely different function.

4 man shields are all inline with power cost and cooldown (300 power cost 18s cooldown) so I can't say much there. In regards to Tempest Guard (8 man shield) this is a 450 power cost with an 18s cooldown, why is the cooldown the same as the 4 man shield? Also why isn't this a 50% SC like Transcendence or Group Transducer?

Overall there are plenty of discrepancies and imbalances between all the healer powers now including Water. Healing powers need to be balanced just as much DPS does. If you don't have balance among the healing powers it creates a FOTM for healing just as it does for DPS. With the extra variety that Water offers it will inevitably be the new FOTM over Electric. This is going to cause discrimination in raids and especially SM if some balance isn't achieved for all the healing powers. There's already a big enough imbalance on Live Server with the healing powers I'd hate to see it get any worse.

My stats were:
~CR 201
~258 SP- Superpowered Mastery- 60 in Crits- 175 Restoration
~Restoration- 11,365
~Dominance- 119

To obtain the base numbers I used base stats (no leaguehall buffs, trinkets, omega, or buff soders).

Cause the shield is not mitigating 100%. It is different from a "normal" shield. Idk the exact base modifier for it but if its the same as a normal shield, a slight reduction would help here so it breaks around the same time as a normal shield by having the same damage in taken at each of their different absorption rate (100% and 75%).