Test Discussion Episode 39: Computo's Redistributer HUD Artifact

Seems to me like the supercharge (blue) bar is a bit iffy. I haven't tested it a lot, but there are times where I pop two neo venom boosts back to back and it fills, and there are times where it doesn't.

A couple of reasons why it is perplexing. 1, popping a 5000 supercharge doesn't fill the blue bar up half way or anything. If you pop two consecutive 5000's or pop a 10000, the bar fills from 0-100. This makes it difficult to assess things, as seen in point 2: neo-venom boost itself has a 40+ second cooldown. Popping it once would lead one to assume you would have 30 seconds left to hit another supercharge before it resets, according to the rules that have been established. Clearly that's not possible since its cooldown is longer than 30 seconds, but I've been able to get the blue bar full with consecutive neo venom boosts. So the blue bar has to operate differently from the other two, but it's a bit confusing so it's hard to piece everything together. Clarification would be appreciated.

This was all done on single target, not sure if it's different on multiple targets.

hmm thats very interesting and could explain the imbalance since i was testing with Fury.

The color alert is too subtle, even for those who have no problems recognizing colors in the midst of a battle, this is problematic.
Suggestion: add a sound alert. Something similar to sonar (or any other sound alert), 1 bar pum, pum, pum .... 2 bars pum-pum, pum-pum, pum-pum, .... 3 bars pum-poo-pum , pum-poo-pum, pum-poo-pum ...

If players are actually gonna get it. If the difference between the damage is 3% from artifact to artifact it really would matter much in real combat. People are gonna gravitate towards their preferences and usually people prefer the user-friendly one, which in this case is is the Grim as it is offers continuous passive damage.

CRHud
Complex, Yes.
Viable, For sure
Fun, Debatable.
Satisfying........???

The problem with it is exactly the same problem with the Gem of Horus. It offers you a complex system to play DPS with the main theme of "work vs reward". Although, the problem with it is within the "reward" system of these artifacts as it never justifies the amount of complexity and work put into it. The damage can be easily compared to your 300 tray abilities in which is also "free" unlike the artifacts. The "reward" factor is not their (You can increase the damage of the Ray by filling up the bars but they again you are falling a little short to other artifacts for the amount of work you've put it... and the reward is?). I'm not gonna say these artifacts are useless when compared to other artifacts as they are not, but I'm gonna say is why even pick a complex artifacts ability over an ability you already own. This is like reinventing the wheel for the sake of reinventing it.

Yeah... and I understand that you don't have to chose or follow the meta or create a new one.
I have 200 GoH / 200 Grim which I pair with the Trans and Strat and the damage difference is barely noticeable between the two setup.

I know that it is too early to conclude for the CRHud but at least improve the visual effects of the ray. More bars filled = bigger and grander the effects.

ok so reviewing my testing from last night....

• The bars don't fill gradually. Nothing appears until one of your bars is half-way full, and then after a while they'll jump to all the way full.
• You get 0 damage from your new ability until at least one of your bars is 100% full.
• The ability costs 200 power, whether it does any damage or not.
• If you don't fill a bar completely, it will go away after ~30 seconds or so, even if you're continually doing a little bit of that kind of damage (like a dot or melee taps).
• Your red bar is filled by might but seems to be based on precision. With no skill points or augments spent on precision, the precision bar was out-damaging my might bar by about 5%. With the weapon buff and VWD equipped, my red bar increased its damage by about 8%.
• Pet damage-- including the one from the grim artifact-- seems to count as precision for some reason in terms of filling up bars.
• I never got all 3 bars filled, but if they were, the burst would be really strong. I wasn't able to fill the supercharge using 2 atomic blasts cast virtually back-to-back which seems like a bug.

The bars coming and going is probably working as intended, but it seemed buggy and strange. Having the tray ability deal 0 damage is also probably intended, but the experience was not good. Right now, it's essentially a supercharge that is harder to build and goes away if you don't use it almost immediately. I couldn't really tell if I was getting an extra 1% damage from a half-full bar or not, since 1% is more or less noise at a sparring target.

Having to run this as well as a supercharge ability seems really limiting in terms of load-outs. Mental and Gadgets will be able to make way better use of this than other power sets. If Nature still had a 2500 form change supercharge, that would probably have worked also.

The ring around the tray ability lighting up was great. Would be better if the ability icon were a little less colorful, but I really liked the effect. Also, testing this reminded me of how much more fun it is to clip weapon attacks with tray abilities in a hybrid style of play than either PFTT or what passes for precision today.

If the bars didn't expire, this artifact would be much more attractive. If you didn't need to burn a load-out spot on it and you just got bursts as you built might or precision or supercharge bars, this artifact would likewise be useful. As it is, I think the majority of players will find it very confusing and be generally unhappy with it.

Feedback
Just a couple of random tests:

1. I was expecting to see the Supercharge meter appear on this test:


I cast a 5000 SC and the 50% fill meter doesn't appear.

2. Weaponization counts toward the Precision Gauge too:

The meter doesn't fill half way for Supercharge. This unfortunately is a tech limitation and we wouldn't want to confuse players into thinking they were meant to be getting 1% damage increase while Supercharge was half filled.

Given that it's only 1% and doesn't last very long at all, wouldn't it be better and easier just to be consistent?

Also, I noticed that the ability is generating a decent amount of supercharge. if you could make the extra ability do moderate damage and apply a PI, that might take some of the sting out of losing a load-out slot.

Is it possible to have pet damage fill the might bar instead of the precision bar?

The reason I say this is because Earth for example and I imagine sorcery players can choose to be a specific pet players (I appreciate that there's also a few other artifact combinations such as source shard for pet players to build other builds as well, but I'm looking for flexibility here)

As an earth player, if you were wanting to make a Crystal build you'd ideally carry

1. Crystal
2. Fortify Golem
3. Supercharge
4. Redistrubtor Ray
5. Might Move
6. Reinforce or another Might Move

It seems at present pets fill the precision bar, but not very quickly, Crystal by herself won't even touch it, but as shown earlier it'll raise the bar when you pull out boos or crystal, backups and another pet.

Choosing only to carry one might move makes filling the might bar very difficult, and you're sacrificing reinforce at that point for another move to make it easier, impacting your precision damage

Is there a reason you've chosen pets to contribute towards the precision bar presently?

Pet's build precision bar due to the nature of how our system reads pet damage. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done about this at this time.

That's unfortunate, I wondered whether there was a more widespread balance concern, thanks for answering in any case.

In that case, would it be possible to lower the might bar threshold by x1 ?

It is just very hard to get to 4x your might damage on a single target on time - compared to prec with weapon mastery combos (e.g. Flurry Shot Mastery/ Shuriken Storm Mastery).

On a side note, are WM combos even wanted to play along with Hybrid playstyle? (was thinking about it due to the missing energy regen).

What I'm finding is that this Artifact is really good in AoE situations. I got the best results using short Weapon Mastery combos and clip it with heavy-hitting AoE burst attacks.

Here is what I've been testing:
Weapon: Dual Wield Explosive Shot
Loadout: Stealth, EMP Pulse, Paralyzing Dart, Suppressor Turret, Redistributor Ray, Asphyxiation Gas. For Stealth, I'm using it to clip Surprise Attack
Artifacts: Grimorium, Transformation Card, Computo HUD Artifact

What I found in AoE testing is that it only takes four Dual Wield Explosive Shots and a bit of pet damage to completely fill the Precision gauge.

The Might meter is the one that takes significantly longer to fill. The trick is about finding the proper combination of powers to use in sequence and working in Explosive Shot clipped with EMP/Paralyzing Dart.

Once I found the proper rhythm, I was getting a 2-bar Computo blast every ~18 seconds. That was resulting in some decent parser numbers.

Finding a single-target loadout that gives the same results is proving more elusive. You can't rely on AoE effects to help fill the Might meter which is translating into a longer fill time.

Agreed, and btw, I have a 200 gem of Horus, and it’s trash. The needed scenario that applies the damage boost to talon strike is tedious, plus the damage is low

I am curious to know whether you compared your best parses with this artifact vs swapping it out with strat or something else and if so what did you see?

For single-target, the best time I've seen for getting a 2-bar Redistributor Ray is 22 seconds. In extended parser testing, it is taking roughly 26-27 seconds on average. I'm finding the variance mostly comes down to having some luck on Might damage crits. If you're having a really unlucky parse, it is going to take a few extra seconds. If you have some luck, everything lines up around the 23-24 second barrier.

Here is what I've been testing:
Weapon: Dual Wield
Loadout: Stealth (Surprise Attack, Asphyxiation Gas), EMP Pulse, Taser Pull, Photon Blast, Redistributor Ray, Suppressor Turret
Artifacts: Transformation Card, Computo Redistributor HUD Artifact, Grimorium

I was using Turret and Void Gazer to help fill in the Precision gauge. After that, it was mostly about doing Might attacks and some DW clipping when necessary. Here is a brief demonstration:


I found the damage parses from this loadout matched up with what I was seeing on a Solar Amp/Transformation Card/Lernaea's Amulet build.

In reference to Strategist, all I've tried is a very basic Gauss Grenade, Paralyzing Dart, EMP Pulse, Implosion Mine rotation using Grimorium/Strategist/Transformation as a comparison. It is what I've been using as a baseline for the last year when I start artifact testing. Redistributor Ray did significantly more damage than it.

Beyond that, I haven't done too many comparison tests yet. I've been trying to get a better handle on how to play this artifact.

I agree with this. With all the things going on during actual combat and especially during raid, a kind visual reminder that your bars are full was totally a great idea but the execution was rather lacking. The contrast between the colors of the "ability" and the "glow" is rather.... let's say... not that good. It could help if the color of the ability is much less vibrant and make the "glow" glow more and pulsate increasingly as more bars are filled to give players the cue or the sense of urgency to fire. This way the burden on the user can be lessen by not having to focus on the bars itself but rather than to respond to the visual cues given by the "glow" of the ability icon.

I don't know if you'll agree or if anyone else agree with me on this. But...

I think that it would be a lot less complicated if it goes like this:

• have only 2 bars; Might and Precision
• have three levels of accumulated charge; Level 1, 2 and 3
• You must fill both Might and Precision bars to enter level 1. Fill it up again to enter level 2 and again for level 3
• Each level increases the damage of the ray

*Some adjustments to the amount of damage needed to fill in the bars are need of course but that is another talk

In this system the need to add in a supercharge or the need to rely on a supercharge spam to reach it's full potential is mitigated. Just weapon attacks and superpowers, clean and simple. This leaves more flexibility in the tray for the player to explore and thus offering a true "hybrid" type of play.

... and as far as I remember if I remember correctly.. there is no supercharge type.. only Weapons Expert, Hybrid, Superpower.

But then again it is highly improbable that they'll scrap the supercharge component out as the Legion is right around the corner and they are forced to have to release a wonky artifact. But hey! they can delay the release of this one art to further improve it rather than give us half-baked goods that none will like.

... still pissed about the Gem of Horus. If not for it's "hit counter system" that I've grown fond of, I would have fed it to another art at this point. I just find these kinds of things to be fun.. for real.. like a game within a game. I am just scared if another "unique" concept would fall short just because of some lousy execution. I hope this wouldn't be the case on this one.

I like the idea and yeah I hope someday they review the mistake on hours, I love it but only on paper, it needs a buff on... everything.

Any additional thoughts on this art so far, is it looking good