Test Discussion Episode 46: Artifact - Brand Of Hecate

What's up players!

With the new episode comes a new artifact!

Brand of Hecate

[Controller Role]
Grants Ability: Blood Moon Brand

Blood Moon Brand
Cooldown: 0.5s
Power Cost: 100
Damages (2/3/4/6) enemies over time for (3.3/6.6/9.9/13.2)% of your Vitalization and (0.75/1.5/2.25/3)% of your Might if they have a [Controller Debuff]. Refreshes all [Controller Debuffs] on the enemy, marks them for Harvest Moon Cull for (12/16/20/24) seconds, and grants you a stack of a +0.75% Might and Vitalization for each [Controller Debuff] on the target up to a max of (18/36/54/72) stacks.
Stacks also give Power Cost Reduction based on number of stacks.

• 25 Stacks: 12% Reduction
• 49 Stacks: 24% Reduction
• 72 Stacks: 50% Reduction

[Combo]
Tap Melee: Harvest Moon Cull
Power Cost: 200
Removes the mark and all [Controller Debuffs] and damages up to 8 enemies that are marked by Blood Moon Brand for (5/10/15/20)% of your Vitalization and (1.25/2.5/3.75/5)% of your Might, and restores Power to 3 group members. Damage dealt and Power restored are increased based on how many [Controller Debuffs] are removed.

The Brand of Hecate can be obtained from the Artifact Testing Cache.

Let us know any feedback you have!

Summary:

1. Cast Bird Blitz to place 3 debuffs on some enemies.
2. Use Brand of Hectate to "Mark" them and place A DoT. Marking also extends debuff duration to 24 seconds
3. Use weapon tap to "Cull" the marked enemies for big undivided damage and to remove all player debuffs. The number of big damage ticks you get is equal to the number of debuffs you placed.

Example:


As you do more Debuff/Mark/Cull cycles, you gain "Full Moon" stacks - the icon over your head - which buffs your Might/Vitalization and increases your Damage/Power Output. At Rank 200 with maximum buffs, you also get a 50% reduction to all your powers.

This is what it looks like if you are going all out in an AoE setting:


Note that I was clipping Cull with Cryo-Foam. You can get some decent damage on sparring targets. I was seeing 360k/s AoE damage.

Basically it is an artifact that enables a purely Play-From-The-Tray Based Battle Controller playstyle.

The way this artifact is now it’s on a very awkward position and it’s not doing what it’s setting out to do.

PROBLEMS

• To begin with in order for you to get the stacks, you need to keep culling your bird blitz .Which is contradictory to what one of the effects of the artifact itself. It’s supposed to help you as well with your debuffs lasting longer, but then that becomes useless if you want to do any type of damage. Since you need to keep culling and debuffing with BB to build your stacks and also to do damage.

• Speaking of the synergy with Bird Blitz and BOP Com, it reduces drastically the « power » aspects of BOP, this is because you never get the power benefits from BOP since you’re culling as often as you can to do damage. Thus you’re never having the ability « syphon weakness » to proc, maybe once after the brand and that’s it. Which the buff to BOP was originally done for better synergy with this artifact… So it almost feels like it was for nothing.

• Another problem is, when you’re culling after blitz you got a few secs without debuff, this is even more prominent when you’re doing hallways ads, so there is quite a loss on dps for everyone since nothing is getting debuffed. If you want to diminish the problem, about things not getting debuffed you can run a defense debuff on your tray as well. Nevertheless, if you clip the cull with your debuff, 90% of the time cull also takes away that debuff that you’re throwing after the cull. The other way of doing it is by waiting a second after culling to redebuff, but then you’re losing on damage potential and also on debuff time. So overall DPS loss.

• It’s in a very bad position if you want to run another artifact besides BOP com. This is because you have to set up your 3 debuffs and in hallway ads you barely can put 2 and you have to cull or your ad will be dead. Trying to get to max stacks during the alert in regular was almost next to impossible without bop as everything was dead in the ads before I got to cull. And even on the bosses, the bosses had 30% health or so by the time I arrived to max stacks, so I had a big dps loss in that time for myself too. Provided it would be less of an issue in elite instances, but then again I’m sure more people would like to enjoy this artifact not only those who run elite. It’s really a struggle to run it without bop and in single target trying to get the stacks up.
  
  
• The playstyle then becomes very restricting if you have to depend as much on BOP to get to max stacks. I don’t think that an art that is for a different type of build like this restricting. Not only that but the playstyle when doing this becomes monotonus. You’re focusing more on spaming blitz, brand and cull, than being able to focus on other things. Like what BOP was intended to do free up spots so you can do more things. For instance, it feels like you can’t be using finisher in the loadout as easy and you can’t then use BWL which is almost a must have in the allies for trolls, to help group.
  
  
• With a regular battle troll I can just do max damage from the get go, here you do need to get that max stacks, and getting to max stacks depending the amount of targets it’s not ideal. I got to max stacks rather fast in the ww and circe fight but that was the only time, I was using bop too, would’ve been different if it wasn’t the case.
  
• I felt that you can’t consistently power your group, more so if they have power hungry loadouts , mostly and more likely because of the cull intereference with BOP’s syphon weakness, but also because it focuses more on those 3 powers. If I wanted to give more power I’d have to on purpose stop and use instant power more often. All of this considering I was clipping BOP with instant power every time it was off cooldown.

• Overall it felt like a constant battle of keeping everything debuffed for the group but also trying to get my damage in. It’s not a great feeling for a controller. Keeping everything debuffed is one of your main goals as a controller so it leads to a bit of a non settling feeling.( Almost like oh they’re going to complain that this isn’t debuffed because I just killed the debuff on purpose.)
  
• You definitely lose the feeling you’re using your powerset, you’re just using bird blitz, brand, cull, as new powerset, instead of being complementary.
  

The damage potential is good, but in reality when you’re moving around ads are getting killed and you’re trying to move to debuff everything and then cull, often times ads aren’t even able to get culled because they died already. So it’s really one of those things that is good on paper but not on practice.

Potential BUGS.
It’s unclear if this is intended or not, but if you use brand couple times after the targets are debuffed you only get the brand dot once. It might be related to getting the stacks?



After culling every time you get those “buff” green symbols on the targets you’re hitting, both sparring targets or actual enemies. It’s unclear if that’s just visual or not, but it’s a tad bit unsettling.


THE GOOD
The Best benefit of this artifact hypothetically would be to make your debuffs last longer.
The Full moon buff is great but getting it it’s not always ideal or easy depends on what you’re running.
The Power Reduction cost is amazing, more so as a troll I personally really like this aspect.


SOLUTIONS

In my opinion some solutions are to make this artifact a competitive and very usable artifact.

• If you could build your stacks without having to cull that would make it much more interesting. Also keeping that aspect of having the debuff staying longer.
  
  
• Needing less stacks to reach full moon, keeping same % of buff nevertheless
  
• Changing the way cull works, maybe having cull damage the debuff effectivity, for instance instead of removing entirely the debuff it just makes it so debuffs are 5% instead of 15%, before re-applying the debuff.
  
  Or just having cull take 2 debuffs instead of all 3, like the heal and damage debuff.
  
  On that same train of thought, maybe to activate stacks from brand you could use it not based on the numbers of debuffs, but just if there is a debuff, that way you could just for instance use a heal debuff to build your stacks but try to keep the defense debuff by other means.
  
• Instead of having to spam cull every time, you could have cull act as a finisher, the same way as many Legends Characters have a comboable finisher this could be how it works.
  
  By making in a finisher, 1 you make it so that you don’t have to battle for a finisher in your loadout that you’d want for certain builds., and 2 makes it so that you don’t want to “spam it” or “can’t spam it” just making it so that it does great damage in certain ocassions.
  
  This way you allow to for the powerset shine through instead of making the artifacts become the powersets, which is really what it feels like now. It feeels like the new troll powerset is BOP, BRAND, RAO.
  
  
  

Possible bug report:

If you lose the visual FX for the stacks if you get out of combat you lose also the buff if you check your stats.
If you hit an enemy again with hecate after that happens, the FX returns and so does the stats.

I am struggling to understand the intention with this. When reading the tooltips on the artifact, it looks like this is trying to be geared toward controllers that want to eke out more damage. "Battle controllers" so to speak. There are issues with that:

• You need to set up your loadout in a way that prioritizes maxing stacks ASAP
  • Bird's Blitz > Blood Moon Brand > Blood Moon Cull (clip, likely with the controller instant dump). Rinse and repeat until moon is full
  • Debuff 1 > ... > Debuff N > Blood Moon Brand > Blood Moon Cull (clip, likely with the controller instant dump). Rinse and repeat until moon is full
• In both cases above, you have to change any "battle" loadout you have curated in a way that makes your damage output suffer
• You spend a massive amount of time in the setup phase
  • Best case scenario, 9 rotations on 8 targets
  • On single target, even on a boss, you're looking at more rotations than that
  • You continuously get rid of your debuffs during this set up phase, which is the opposite of being supportive to your group
• Blood Moon Cull is fantastic for adds since it doesn't split, but it doesn't come close to the single target damage of other moves. So once you get to 72 stacks, you'd just want to use brand to upkeep your debuffs. Instead, you have to cull periodically or you lose all your stacks. (Don't know if that's intended, but that's what's currently happening.)
• The damage Penryn showcases above is on the group of sparring targets once you've built to max stacks.
  • The likelihood of that playing out in content is slim-to-none. Adds won't live that long.
  • Mechanics will definitely make your ability to get to max stacks a nightmare.

The main takeaway for me on the damage side of things is - this does not have enough reward to outweigh sticking with something like Rao, Claw, Strat card on a HL battle troll and spamming hand clap/grasping hand rotations.
The most appealing things for me on this artifact are:

• Debuff timer extension
• Power cost reduction
• Another way to give power to my group

The debuff timer extension makes the synergy between this and BOP Commlink work really well together. And then the idea of being able to eat those debuffs to combo and do a massive group power back? I wish this leaned heavier into that idea and left the damage stuff out of it.
There is a bug on power back with BOP Commlink and Brand of Hecate both equipped. With 3 debuffs on a target, Blood Moon Cull will proc Siphon Weakness and give power back to your group, but Blood Moon Brand does not seem to count as a "hit" so does not proc the power back. Is that intended?

I’ve tested this art A LOT. When you are able to reach max stacks this art is in a great spot for damage. However there are a few things that really hurt and hold back this artifact.

When I did the alert as a troll, I never got to max stacks. Getting to max stacks takes quite a bit of time. During testing in sparring targets it would take about 30-40s to get to max stacks. In content it would take a lot longer. You will be lucky to get 2 rotations of this to gain a second set of stacks per group of adds. In order for this to be a viable and useful art it needs to be able to get to max stacks within 10s and not 30+

My suggestion:
Max stacks should be cut down to a max stack of 6/12/18/24. And each stack should provide 2.25% might and vit. This would give the same max stats while reducing the time it take to get to max stacks by 3.


The second issue is that this actually lowers the groups overall damage (in a good group) since it removed the defense debuff for a few seconds. There are ways around this by the use of rotations. But it’s still something that can be an inconvenience. Instead of it removing debuffs as way to stop players from spamming it to get max stacks and retrigger cull, it may be a better idea to just give it a 3s cooldown and not have it remove the debuffs. Then remove or reduce the effects of it extending debuffs.

The missing debuff for a short period isn't the only thing to keep in mind. There is also a missing buff from a different artifact if you play buff troll. On top of that, it's a very active combat artifact, making swapping harder. If you only want to get the 24-second debuff duration then it's worth swapping I guess. Not that I promote that playstyle but it's an even tougher sell if we take all of that into account.

In my opinion, it must slightly exceed the average damage of a DPS on sparring targets to make it feel worth it. The debuffs will still make the Dps do more damage in group content but a Battle troll will have a good chance to keep up - if competing with equally skilled and geared players.

Hello Heroes and Villains...

Against Sparring Targets.. very tempting to spam
Bird Blitz.... Blood Moon... Combo...... rinse and repeat.

In battle.... sometimes it is possible.... sometimes not so much.
Sometimes you will be able to spam.....
but often you will be interrupted... or need to do something else then get back to spamming.
Will need to experiment some more... but.....

Do you really want every Trolls to become sort of Battle Trolls spamming
Bird Blitz.... Blood Moon... Combo......
Bird Blitz.... Blood Moon... Combo......
Bird Blitz.... Blood Moon... Combo......
Bird Blitz.... Blood Moon... Combo......
Bird Blitz.... Blood Moon... Combo...... ???

Hey players!

We decided to try out some changes to Brand of Hecate to make it not require the player to constantly be casting it back to back.

The changes are follows:

Blood Moon Brand
- Damage increased to 60% Vitalization and 15% Might at max rank
- Max stacks reduced to 24 at max rank
- Stack buff increased from +0.75% to +1.875%
- Power Cost Reduction reduced to 25% at max rank
- Cooldown increased to 12 seconds
- Branding a boss gives 3 stacks of the buff

Harvest Moon Cull
- No longer removes debuffs
- Damage increased to 80% Vitalization and 20% Might per debuff at max rank
- Power given to group members increased by 5 times its previous amount
- Power cost increased to 300

Let us know what you think!

Question about stacking and the cooldown.

Is there a reason why the cooldown was increased to 12 seconds?
Using the 5 targets as an example, if I hit brand on all 5 who have 3 debuffs and then hit cull I would receive 15 stacks. Which seems great with the 24 max stacks. However this means I wouldn’t be able to get to max stacks until the 12th second. And if a group of adds has 3 in them which most groups have it means I would only get 9 stacks. This would mean that in hallways I would not be able to get to max stacks unless there were 3 groups of 3 adds. Most adds die I’m 4-8 seconds. So normally you would not be able to regain a second set of stacks until the 3rd group.

When will this hit test? I’d like to try out the damage differences with the 12s cooldown

Just arrived!

Awesome!! I will be home later tonight and that will be top of my todo list!!

Feedback
Some early impressions on the updated version for a BOP Commlink/Brand of Hectate Play from the Tray Build:

Open World

• At best, you are using Brand/Cull on every other open world group now due to the cooldown changes.
• There were a couple of times I got crowd controlled while trying to use Brand/Cull. When that happened, the Cull didn't happen and I had to wait 12 seconds.
• For open world gameplay, you really need to make sure everything in the immediate area is debuffed before using Cast/Cull.That can be difficult to determine sometimes.
• I feel like the changes make Play from the Tray Battle Controlling harder. After you've done a Cast/Cull cycle, you have to rely on your powerset's native abilities for damage. I feel like only Munitions does that type of Battle Controller gameplay style well.

Elite Alert

• You might be doing 500k damage to every enemy per Cast/Cull cycle now, but that is only a small portion of a health bar for Elite enemies.
• You have to make sure the tank has everything grouped up very nicely before you use Brand Cull. That means you have to wait a few seconds while the DPS are already going all-out.
• I found myself not wanting to use Brand/Cull when there were only a couple of normal hallway mobs. Otherwise you were putting yourself at a disadvantage while you waited to use Brand/Cull on the next larger mob group.
• Related to the previous point, that made building and maintaining max stacks harder
• All of the previous feedback about Open World applies here.
• You have to be really selective about when you use Cull/Brand. I generally wanted to save the abilities for when adds appeared in boss fights. If you miss the timing, you might not be able to use Brand/Cull when it matters.
• Getting transformed in the middle of using Brand/Cull isn't much fun.
• There were a couple of awkward spots where my debuffs dropped off just as I was starting to use Brand. Here is an example:

Etrigan is debuffed as the video starts. I cast Bird Blitz at 3 seconds and 7 seconds. I try to use Brand of Hectate at 8 seconds and my debuffs drop just as I start to cast it resulting in zero damage.

Seasonal Alert

• I wanted to test this as an example of "regular content".
• I was only able to use Brand/Cull four times on Klarion. The DPS went through each phase so quickly that I wasn't able to use Brand/Cull.
• Trying to build a Full Moon stack in this situation is impossible.

I don't know if pulling it off in a seasonal event is a worry, when its tuned down so low and only intended to be a bit of quick fun?

I think the circumstances you've found within that particular scenario are as much with the nature of that content as it is to do with the artifact. I don't think that's a good regular scenario to be looking at because altering the artifact to ensure you could achieve what you want in that scenario could imbalance the impact in other content not designed as a fun event.

There's lots of things I can't achieve in a seasonal event simply because it's over too quickly, sorry I thought that was just important to note, How much damage did you do in the seasonal event compared to everyone else as it was?

First of all, you know I respect you highly as a tester!! I got excited when saw your name as a thread that I thought meant you were a dev lol!!

However I don’t know if it’s a fair expectation to have this art be good in every situation like open world content and seasonals. I’ve stated that trolls are the more versatile role for their large number of ways to build for different situations. But I can’t except something like this to be great im every situation. No matter what they do a battle troll is just never going to be in a place that it would replace another dps unless it did 1:1 damage at the exact same rate as a dps (IE time to kill and rev up time). I’m an alert the group will always be better with a dps in troll role using a defense debuff instead of a battle troll. In solos and open world content players will always have an easier time as a dps than in support role. And this is coming from someone who was doing battle support before arts came out and loved battle support roles.

I don’t test this with the mindset that it must be optimal in every situation. I test it with the mindset of how it does in content that benefits with a troll. These being raids and elite alerts. Even in elite alerts a dps in troll role is optimal. Not saying you can’t give feedback (since that’s what people tend to think lol). Just saying what I personally believe is a more fair way or testing.

Now that said, my actual feedback on how this feels will be after I finish testing tonight when I get home. I do have my worries which do line up with what you said. 12s does feel way to long. I even said as much in my post before these changes were made that I believe this should be maxed out at 10s.

I was noting the differences between the versions of the artifacts in different content formats. I would have been able to cast Brand/Cull at least a couple of times per phase with the previous version of the artifact. With the longer cooldown, you might miss an entire boss phase depending on the group composition.

No iteration of the artifact has done well in low health content.

We had a 1/1/1/1 group. The DPS had 80k overall damage. I had 30k. The tank and healer were both close to 20k.

Were the tank and healer in this setup battle roles or were they standard roles?

Appeared to be standard roles.

I agree that an artifact does not need to be optimal for every situation. However, I believe it is important to test the artifact in a wide variety of content and note potential issues. I can recall several instances where an artifact/ally has performed very differently in clamped content versus current end-game content. Not everyone using the artifact is going to be an end-game player. Several of the issues that I saw in open world were relevant in the Seasonal and Elite alert.

In regards to your comment about DPS always having an easier time for open world content, that isn't true. The new version of the Brand of Hectate melts open world mob groups if you are willing to wait a few second in between mob groups.


For the Halloween seasonal, Bird Blitz, Rao DoTs, and Hectate DoTs one-shot the open world ghosts:


That's a lot easier than doing a bunch of 1 and 2 damage with regular attacks.

I definitely get where you’re coming from. Couple things:

1: I believe this art would be great in EEG content for players who have multiple OP items because of how the clamp works. So this would “theoretically” be amazing in elite content (testing pending).
2: On my might toons I actually have brawling into Shuriken unlocked specifically to melt those things fast. That would be a better approach for most players than having hacate.
3: You say it melts things fast if you’re willing to wait to build stacks. So I’m curious about the overall time to complete all dailies. Would the wait time be worth the time to do all dailies? Or would it be faster to just melt through everything. I normally spend about 3-5s per group of adds as a dps. Even on my baby farmer toons.