Test Discussion Episode 45: Artifact - Ebon's Untethered shadow

What I've seen in group testing so far is that as long as the DPS uses a Finisher at some point, there isn't much need for a Power Healing Controller. At max stack, using a Finisher should replenish almost your entire power bar. If a DPS doesn't use a Finisher, no amount of Power Healing is going to help a DPS that is spamming 200 and 300 base power cost powers. Without a Finisher and with a Power Healing Controller assisting, an Electric player used up all their power at ~11 seconds. Using a Finisher roughly every 10 seconds, they could sustain their rotation indefinitely. Having a Buff Controller along was more than sufficient if the DPS used a Finisher.

I cant speak for a sub R200 Ebon artifact, but using my powerhungry gadget might dps Lo on the non power regenerating sparring targets, Ebon let me use 4 Full stealth rotations opposed to Omegahedron, which only allowed for 2 Stealth rotations.

Since most trolls use claw, its not going to be an issue and can be actually less stress on trolls, if the dps don't abuse this artifact too much. A troll without claw however, will suffer the same issues that healers faced with the introduction of lernaea.

Overall i dont think its problematic after some tests.

Can hope. It really comes down to community adopting these methods. Thank you for testing it.

Hmm... Watching this, I might jump on and give it a test myself. This seems way more manageable than initial builds were and it looks like Ranmaru is doing a great job.

It is more manageable, but it doesn't seem very effective. To briefly summarize a lot of Gadgets testing:
-Lernaea's Amulet + Ebon's Shadow lags well behind Trans+Strat in AoE testing
-Lernaea's Amulet + Ebon's Shadow is comparable or worse to most single-target setups.

If you are testing Ebon's by itself, the lack of any visual effects is a hindrance to keep tracking of stack count.

In real-world group gameplay, I've barely noticed the increased power costs in prolonged fights even without a Controller in the group. The damage mitigation shield is useful in specific situations.

The buffs are lacking, then?

I'm a bit late to this but I'm glad this artifact came out because I been waiting for an artifact to pair my Lernaeas Amulet with. As an Atomic Battle Tank this is how I see it.

-As a tank our power cost is reduced. +1

- Chest Mod *Power Efficiency use 5% less power. +1

As an atomic battle tank using my combos grants me health while doing damage. This has been working well with me ever since Lernaeas Amulet came out. And now we have this new artifact that is similar to Amulet except for it's increased in power cost. Each complimenting one another. The bonus to the new artifact is the damage reduction and as an atomic tank our aura grants us a damage reduction. Can't wait for this to go live.

Just tested latest build and power hit working ok and seem to be getting better results now especially on single target. As mentioned by someone else aoe may be less effective as you don't usually use a finisher in an aoe loadout.

One thing I did notice, and I may be dreaming here, but on previous build there was visual animation to show you had reached the 10 stacks and again when you burned, these seem to have disappeared on this build and are quite useful. Please put these back.

So I went through and did some testing and I see what you mean by it. Also, I realized why I never wanted to use Lernaea's Amulet. Not my play style with death.

I almost want to say... it needs a little buff before going live. Lernaea's Amulet has a lot of risk with death if you don't time it right, but this one could use a bit more might bonus at the cost of a tad more power consumed.

I think if a player has maxed Might & Power, 200 leveled artifact, and spec power in the generator, I can see this being a non issue with controllers. I can also see this working well with powers that already use LA. I don't know if it's worth swapping out the typical Trans or Solar Amp to pair it with LA.

I don't know what to say about it.

So I was able to test Ebon for a very little bit last night.

Two observations not noted here:

• Lernea's Amulet does a *MUCH* better job regenerating your health than Ebon's does regenerating power. I could pretty easily keep myself at or near full health, but without Cyborg, sodas, or similar tricks my power bar hovered near empty in solo play.

• Omegahedron does not seem to work with Ebon at all. Not using the finisher I run out of power at the exact same point in a rotation with or without Omega. Did not look to see if I was receiving the might buff or not.

I see where you are coming from.. as a healer, too many amulet's are not ideal but that artifact never really became meta, luckily.

Ebon

After in-depth testing, it seems to be too weak to be used in any way. Using it with strong powers doesn't work because those use high power-cost abilities. (That's good since strong powers don't need to be stronger)
However, weak power is also not getting stronger. While strong powers must cancel their stacks at 10-11, weaker powers can get away with canceling at 20+ or even never. However, due to the way the finisher plays such an important role in 90% of all ST loadouts, the overall dmg output is lower even with max stacks.

Ebon and Lernaea

Using Ebon, Lernaea, and Transformation Card seems to be a good combo. If at max stacks, the dmg is higher than current meta artifacts, however, it's impossible to keep going beyond 10 or 11 stacks, unless only abilities like taser-pull are being spammed back to back, which isn't good base dmg to begin with, but also not fun.
Canceling at 10 Stacks even with these 2 artifacts is still lower base dmg than meta artifact combos.




Possible actions:

1. Possible changes to counter the Ebon-Lernaea combo would be a 75% dmg reduction at max stacks (instead of 30%). The duration needs to be longer as well because building 10 stacks takes usually around 12-14 seconds. With the current duration of 14 seconds, it's not possible to go above 10 stacks without taking full dmg beyond that point. On top, the dmg reduction must be changed to only mitigate self-inflicted dmg, so tanks cant exploit the incredible dmg reduction, and DPS can't ignore most mechanics in endgame content.
2. Alternatively, a 3rd artifact in the future could resolve these issues, which makes this artifact combo hardly worth using until it's released, however.

Unlikely to see any changes this late, but I just read through the thread and this is what I'd say.

I think when only using one of these, Ebon's is probably better than Lernaea's because you can't kill yourself with it. A good troll should be able to keep you powered if you swap it out during your finisher. I don't see this being more power hungry than say a Gadgets prec.

When using both, and I believe I mentioned this earlier, you're more liable to kill yourself because Ebon's makes Lernaea's hit you harder. The playstyle is interesting because both artifacts ramp at the same time, leading to cycles of explosive damage. Why it may feel lackluster is that it's an additive 30% bonus, so the marginal benefit from using both as opposed to using one is much less noticeable (as well as sacrificing another artifact slot).

I think if this combo is actually pretty bad, then there should be some other incentives to use it. This could include better and easier survivability/sustainability options (using both theoretically makes you able to regenerate your own power/HP), especially for solos or some alerts; more synergistic ramping effects, such as even more might (than the 60%) when using both together; or something like "destructive interference" in terms of the ramping/cyclical patterns of damage — that is to say, as Lernaea's is ramping up in damage (more stacks), Ebon's would be ramping down (losing its stacks), and vice versa, to provide a more stable playstyle. I can see how this may go against the high risk high reward style that using both together currently has though.