Test Discussion Artifact Changes

This change just makes EoG a complete swap artifact. And only to be used by troll.
I loaded up some 5k SCs (asphyxi gas & WoP) and played about a little. I run stealth as troll and was able to get a nice bump to group damage using one of those every 12 seconds.

Pollux’s Gaze and Castor’s Watch no longer stack with each other (same fields don’t stack) though so it wouldn’t be group damage. Unless you’re referring to the buff it gives. But even then, it’s only for 6 seconds at rank 200. A 5k SC just to give a 5% buff for 6 seconds isn’t a game changer as opposed to being able to stack damage. I do agree though, it likely will be an artifact that is swapped in with these changes.

This change seems to be too extreme to make this artifact balanced in my opinion.

First of all, "Balancing this artifact to allow other artifacts to compete". This is fine, but we shouldn't forget that it's not just free SC. You have to sacrifice positioning for both damage and support aspects.
Second, encouraging team play. This is one of the few teamplay artifacts in the game. If this change goes through as is, this will become the new Legionnaires Sparring AI during the next 2x Artifact XP Week.

The adjustments:

Dps:
Removed stacking: This is a good change, that shouldn't have been in the game in the first place and was most likely not even intended.
Dmg based on SC used: This feels like a solid Nerf. 25% Sc's were never meant to be the main dps meta if it weren't for the EoG effect. Since 50% SCs are still very good (20% Nerf), and 100% SCs are finally stronger with it, it looks fine to me.

Support:
The amount of SC generation possible as a single healer was too high. I think we can all agree on that. However, with a Nerf this strong, it's simply not worth using it as support anymore. A 25% SC has a regen of 3% now. That's not enough to keep up powers that rely almost entirely on SC (Electricity, Ice, Nature, Rage, and many more.)

Stacking the support EoG was never a thing although it feels like the support is getting punished now for no reason in that regard. 2 healers overlapping their EoGs just in the last second? Too bad, guess you're missing even more SC now since one didn't proc EoG.

I can see where this change is headed when it comes to support roles. Using 100% SCs should be encouraged as Healers.

Going down the rabbit hole

Healer supercharges used to mean a lot. We had Healer supercharges with 50% SC cost that used to be as effective as they are now. Due to (mostly) the electricity SC being abused to avoid mechanics in elite raids, they were increased to 100% Scs. And of course, the cooldown had to be increased to 60sec on top (up from 30).

The nature of healing in dcuo. healers have generally very forgiving ability cooldowns. Why is that? Because healers want to be flexible. What is going against a flexible playstyle? Using a SC, since it's limited. What's even more going against a flexible playstyle? Using a 100% SC with 60 seconds cooldown.
Healers avoid those SC's not because they're less valuable to the group but because even if you use them, using them in the wrong moment just once, locks you out of them for 60 seconds.

When it comes to Tanks, EoG is a welcome artifact to keep up the Sc-based shields (Dash attack/Perfect poise). Due to how the game is balanced, tanks are pretty much forced to use them in high-end endgame (only there). Using Scrap of Soulcloak will have almost the same effect as EoG but has lower stats overall which it can make up for with a decreased SC cooldown.

Conclusion

This change seems to be perfectly fine on the direct Dps-side of this artifact. The lowered SC regen for Dps' provided by healers will disturb the balance between High dmg/ Low CD SC - powersets and high base-dmg powersets that don't rely on SC exclusively or at all.
The 25% SC EoG regen seems fine but the 50% and 100% should be increased. Regenerating 4% SC/sec with the use of a 100% SC seems reasonable. 50% SCs should restore 1,5%SC/sec. The Overlapping of support EoGs shouldn't be punished as they're not stacking anyway, so they should remain as is in that regard. As a final adjustment, due to the tanks most likely dropping EoG, would it be possible to increase the radius of it by 0,5x? It's too risky for the healer to stay as close to the tank as he needs to be to regenerate his SC if it remains the way it currently is.

Tl, Dr:

EoG dps:

• Keep all nerfs/changes

EoG Support:

• 25%SC = 0,5%/sec, 50% SC = 1,5% SC/sec, 100% SC = 4% SC/sec
• Increase the area of EoG by 0,5x (to account for Tanks not being able to use it anymore to sustain their sc unless you want to encourage art swapping even more)

No sorry, I should've clarified. I was swapping it in for activation, noone else was using it except the healer. The 16% after using WoP & asphyxi was what I was checking. You can still have semi constant orange circles running with this type of build but it's only really viable as a swap scenario imo. The 5k/16% effect is noticeable but just about. il be testing 10k next to see how 30% feels next.

As I can't hop on test now:
We need the EoG visual to be moving: it currently only shows where the circle initially popped and left it there, while the effect actually follows the caster.
This is significant if you are going ahead with the stack removal: someone could be cheated out of their EoG activation because there is no visual indicator someone else is using an EoG near them.
Death Metal Batman's pool follows the same principle but this isn't the thread.

Just for clarification: No orange can overlap another, while no green can overlap another, correct?
There is still a hitch here: if a healer uses an (invisible) EoG while I was trying to use a supercharge as a tank, I get cheated out of the heals I do want for my own. That's what tanks do with the movement SC shields.

I strongly propose EoG be split into four colours: Red/Orange for DPS, Blue for Trolls, Green for Healers and Yellow for Tanks.
This way healer and tank don't disrupt one another (and maybe troll gets a little better use out of it? unlikely but who knows).

Though I'm not entirely sure if this would discourage elite LFGs to stop asking for EoG healers just for the SCs tbh.

Goes without saying this should have been accompanied by Supercharge rebalance and other artifacts be adjusted but one step at a time I suppose.

The only part of this I think should be amended is the split for troll, keep troll/dps circle as the same colour. This might make a two troll group with one running battle/debuffs the other running buffs more viable at end game.
Would lessen the need for it to be solely a swap artifact too

i would like to see players are losing health and power dramatically while they are in the intersection areas of the same type of eog circles.

Can you also fix the bug that the SC Reg. is at the player, instead of in the green circle?
Kinda confusing sometimes.

I think having it locked into the green circle is more beneficial, as now, everyone knows exactly where the SC regain is.

The removal of stacking effects is good and needed for the DPS side, but the SC regen nerf for supports has more or less killed EoG healing and has put EoG into the Philosophers Stone/Dead King’s pure “swap art” category. Now healers will be expected to swap in other artifacts and become “Inv Healers” like buff trolls are now. Wait until the week of new EP dropping and you will see. I can already see the videos being posted on the forums with people complaining “tHiS iS WHaT HeALiNg iS nOW???!”

For the DPS side, it doesn’t matter that EoG is nerfed, those nerds will find another strong meta and it will be, just like EoG, gatekept behind an art paywall and will be treated the same if you don’t use it.

I can just imagine now for example, you stick with 2 healers, but now they pure full heal with swaps, and 4 DPS now hold onto all 10 might stacks of amulet for max burn with no finisher in rotation. You kind of see what I mean? “Need DPS ammy burn” or something like that.

I would agree with Strich and Skoll, the changes are warranted for DPS but basically kill the artifacts for other roles. Healers would just full heal, and I would say 90% of content doesn't require full healing. You could heal most things with only Clarion ticks, or even as Nature with only one set of Pheromomes and just refreshing with Flourish. Pretty much no one can battle heal properly. EoG at least gave them something to do to support the group apart from just spamming two abilities with PHR. Or... we my indeed find ourselves in the Lernaea's + new artifact (Ebon's) meta, and we need two full healers for every raid hard spamming the entire time to keep up the DPS. Which would be genuinely toxic gameplay.

For Tank, this could kill the use of the 3rd shield from the movement tree, which would make elite content harder. It's probably possible to complete certain raids without that 3rd shield, but you would take a lot more damage. And certain Tank powers are going to be hit much harder than others (*cough* Atomic *cough*).

As mentioned above, the only use of this artifact may be for swapping. As it does multiply damage, it may fall on the Troll (or as I remember AV had written, to the worst DPS) to simply drop an orange on the other DPS' to speed up the group burn. Considering one of the biggest "feels bad" complaints I've heard is that the artifact steals damage, I don't believe this will be a good change.

The change I would've proposed it to just lower the regen overall, and then further lower the % give to other players. For example, maybe 10% of your own damage is stored, and 5% of other players. When only a couple players use it, then it'll be worse than alternatives; but when more people use it properly (stacking), then it'll be better. Maybe a maximum of 8% of your own SC is restored, and 4% for other players (Tanks should still be able to fairly freely use their 2.5K shield with Scrap). I'd also like to see more interesting field effects that actually encourage stacking. Orange circles are very selfish currently, something like a higher % stat bonus when standing in someone else's orange and a smaller one in just your own. The bonuses from greens also aren't very interesting, Tanks hardly get the effect since they probably won't hit a shield within 6s of their last one, and Healers don't need more restoration to heal. Even something like a 5% damage mitigation shield could work.

TL;DR - should be nerfed for individual damage and green spam for group, but make it better than alternatives in coordinated groups, keep the self-SC regen high enough for Tanks to use their 2.5K shield. Give Healers something to do, like how buff trolls can swap to keep up more buffs.

Thanks, I really appreciate how helpful you were in answering my question without insinuating any sort of negative judgement passed on your part concerning the ethics, moral character, or mental capabilities of other players.

Overall, I like the changes, and I'm an EoG healer. Frankly, I don't want to be an EoG healer, but the OPness of the artifact boxed me into it, so I'm glad to see it get the nerf bat.

Some more specific feedback:

1. It seems to me that the artifact would be balanced well for the 50% supercharges. I don't think it needs to be dropped down to 16%, for example, but could simply stay at 20%.

2. The overlapping circles thing is kind of confusing. If it's doing what I think you're saying, it's going to generate some really toxic gameplay, as DPS try to be the one to drop their circles first. Aren't you simply trying to stop the Pollux Gaze circles from expiring in another circle? Can't you simply not count Pollux Gaze damage when calculating the damage of other Pollux Gazes? It would be much simpler and would generate less toxic gameplay.

3. If this changes, is there any chance of unnerfing the healer SCs that got nerfed because of EoG?

Better yet leave the overlapping circles but they no longer stack damage together for DPS for healers it will slightly be nerfed for certain tank powers this effect should be buffed example ice and earth users should receive extra 5% increase which is exclusive to those powers while using support role with supercharges meaning for example if i use Pheromone bloom at 200 with atomic and my heals are 50% of my restoration then as ice or earth that means as those powers ill receive an extra 5% increase for my heals but it has to be exclusive to those powers as for the regeneration percent as those 2 powers in tank role it shouldn't be touched but instead slightly increases to be very fair to those powers you welcome i might reply in 2024 or 2025 also for anyone offended by what I'm suggesting idc also my main is atomic to address a certain person that said above cough atomic struggling in elite content then that player ain't good simple I only use 2 shields rarely have to use my Hardlight

90% of the players here and the ones I've talked are in favor of nerfing orange EoG circle and how it stacks. It created loads and loads of stacked damage and favored some specific powersets only because of this supercharge meta for years. And this situation isnt/wasnt good for game's health.

Im not interested in how Pollux's Gaze will function or what kind of "sweet spot" it will be in after changes are finalized. There are other experts who will share how well Pollux's gaze performs with their testing results. So my concern and testings are for Castor's Watch. (Tank role in particular)

With a little tanking experience (11+ years) plus a quick tanking test in test server I can already see the new sc regen values are downgrade on tank role. There are some similar suggestions but how hard is it to make;

Castor's Watch function different for tank and healer role?

Healer role

• Keep tweaking, discussing, changing % values until changes are finalized for healer role. Let the "bug" which caused green EoG field to stick to caster remain fixed. This will further stabilize the nerf on healer role.

Tank role:

The only/biggest concern/driving force is SC regen for the tanks when it comes to leveling EOG.(this population is high in endgame. Even more concerning if this tank is a Elite+ tryhard). With that being said;

• Revert SC gain to 2% and make self regen only. Current(nerfed) SC regen values narrowing tank flexibility and removes the "different playstyles" option which artifacts meant to grant us. In this particular artifact its movement supercharges and a few other usable 5k ones. Or at least pull SC regen values to somewhere that a tank able sustain its own 2.5k and 5k supercharges.
• I know this will be contraversial but fixing that "bug" I mentioned earlier also narrows the area that a tank has to be in to benefit from its own SC regen. Thats not so practical when a boss or bosses pounding you with 300k to 400k weapon attacks + abilitiy attacks WHILE moving towards you. Tank pops the movement SC to stay alive but also has to move away and get out of green eog circle because if he/she doesnt, boss will kill him/her. (this is like 90% of the tank-boss scenario in Elite+)At the end the SC regen which supposed to be highest incentive of this tank becomes meaningless because he/she cant benefit from it. Im highly debating on it but letting this bug exist for tank role sounds more "meaningful".

If making Castor's Watch function different for healer and tank roles is a big hassle at least pull SC regen values to somewhere that a tank able to sustain its own 2.5k and 5k supercharges while not allowing healers to over feed once again with these same values.

So other than the fact that buffing 10,000 cost supers is interesting, I hate these changes.

It's already been pointed out that, with these changes, this artifact is no longer suitable for Tanks. Absolutely useless. It also crushes an entire play style of running multiple supers. To me, these changes seem heavy-handed. Couldn't most of the issues be fixed by just giving EoG a 20 second internal cool down?

The elephant in the room here is that currently we can solo-heal elite content using only 2-3 healing abilities, and these changes do absolutely zero to alter that.

For castors watch & as a tank I agree whole heartedly. In my opinion in its current state Castor's watch serves no purpose for tanks & it actually benefits tanks the most.

If tanks can't have the original percentages then all the enemies in the game across all content will have to have their damage out & mechanics readjusted b/c everything was scaled to the EOG. For pol gaze even their defense & health have to be readjusted now, especially in elite/elite plus b/c enemies will last longer after being stripped of the utility of an extra shield or heal.

I seriously agree about readjusting the content that have gotten like this because of EOG and all the powers and supers that got recked because of ONE artifact and now that it’s being nerf.Retract all nerfs and content that gif boosted because of it

Despite the fact the healing back is useful I'm not as convinced that aspect is what's really sought after by some tanks. I get the feeling what they're really after is the personal SC regeneration and the resultant loss of then having less access to Dash attack.

So here's a slightly left field idea.

Reduce Dash attack (and the equivelent other movement shield) to be a 10% super, it then won't trigger EOG at all, you'll lose the healing back, but you'd retain the ability to use Dash as frequently and then the tanking issues are more eliminated.

If you still wanted to trigger EOG as a fire tank or something you could use pheramone.

You know you’ve gone too far when a healers pre nerf lvl 80 Eog would generate more supercharge on average than a post nerf 200 Eog. I happen to be an endgame player who goes into crit and plus raids often and I’m just gonna say if you wanted a balanced change to the artifact all you had to do was remove the dps stacking effect and make it a personal buff (perhaps even increase the 20% flat rate dmg applied to 40% since it’s for 1 person, or if it’s supercharge cost determining percentages start at 20%-50% dmg applied) the goal shouldn’t be to destroy the artifact to the ground. To people that don’t use the artifact masterfully they won’t understand that these changes are essentially a double nerf to damage; not only is the Eog flat rate of dmg % nerfed but the rate in which supercharge is generated is cut by 75%. (I’d get more supercharge by lunging a sparring target for 6 seconds than a post nerf Eog). These changes also affect Eog adjacent Allies and arts (aquaman, static (new ally), flute, etc.). So there’s a chain reaction of consequences from these changes that were not practically factored in, which has been the theme of a lot of new artifacts, allies, and augments (classic Batman’s “6 instances of dmg” really?! change that to 6 seconds bc some powers hit slower/faster and have dots). And its quite disgusting to “finalize” these changes after 2x xp. With these changes just take Eog out of the game, no one’s using it post nerf (endgame player wise). I’m definitely canceling membership, not about to support a game the disregards my time/money/effort invested into a useful artifact by turning it into a paper weight. Please do better than this, maybe consider feedback from elite level players and not players who use circe’s mask and mixed colored augments as a dps. And if the goal is to make the game fair for casual players only then start by removing feats from Time Capsules, or balancing base power damage.