Test Discussion Episode 46: Artifact - Brand Of Hecate

Feedback
In regards to the updated version of the artifact, I'm seeing betters results in AoE tests if I drop Bird Blitz, replace it with Strategist Card, and commit to using a 3 debuff/Brand of Hectate Build:


On 5 sparring targets, it starts out at 330k/s and eventually plateaus around 380k/s using Strategist Card. On 8 sparring targets, I was able to get up to 550k/s.

In comparison, the same build that replaced Strategist Card/Gauss Grenade with Bird Blitz got to a maximum of 360k/s on 5 targets and 475k/s on 8 targets.

The downside of the 3 debuff build is that you are guaranteed to give almost everything immunity in alert and raid-level content.


EDIT:
It would be interesting to Brand of Hectate as a swap artifact in combat. The idea would be to equip it once every 12 seconds for the Brand/Cull damage and to extend debuffs.

Are you able to say what % that is of your own regular DPS rotation, what is your average DPS rotation getting?

Also The trouble I see is that if the optimal way to use this artifact remains 3 debuffs, then that's what players are going to do and they won't care that it causes immunity issues in raid content and creates problems for the tank, they'll just do it anyway.

I don't have a good set of Damage role gear yet, so I'd feel uncomfortable making that comparison right now.

I'm sure someone can come up with a better rotation than what I was using. The 3 debuffs I picked just happen to have dovetails that line up nicely with one another. Trying to do a Battle Build with Bird Blitz felt really awkward in comparison. It would be interesting to try to come up with a Blitz Battle Build that did not give CC immunity to NPCs. Such a build would need two additional powers that have a <= 3 second cooldown and only do knockdowns or no crowd control.

I was pondering whether it would be better to use Hectate as a swap artifact every 12 seconds to extend Debuff durations and for the Brand/Cull damage.

Oh okay, I'm really just after some sort of reference point of my own as well, because I was just leveling it up to test and I was curious what your own DPS might be like, certainly not claiming mine is any better, which was the point of querying yours.

I think it's helpful to ask because knowing exactly what % of our own DPS a battle controller build is doing is important, since a battle role should really be a compromised DPS with the benefit of support features in exchange, I think without that comparison we're just throwing numbers out there with no idea what we're comparing them with.

Just finished testing:

Prior to the update my battle trolls damage was sitting at 260k. After the update my damage jumped up to 310k. Every once in a while I would get a proc of 400k-420k. This was all using 30s parsers.

My dps with the same toon was sitting at 330k-350k.

The rev up time for AoE is about 13s on sustain damage. So when things are fully stacked this will allow a troll to do nearly the same damage or even more with the spikes.

On ST the damage was sitting at 150k. I can’t really test it properly on ST as the sparring targets will stop taking damage after they hit 0 at which point it greatly throws off the numbers. I’d imagine this would show similar numbers as with AoE in terms of dps.


If you guys are happy with the damage point then it’s there. Biggest issue is essentially the exact same things as before. Time to build stacks remains an issue. Before it was because of the amount of stacks needed. Now it’s because of the 12s cooldown.

My personal opinion is that it does to much damage. Again, personal opinion for everyone who will hate me for it lol. I prefer the old damage profile. My recommendation remains the same as before. Keep the old damage profile, with the 24 max stat limit and the higher buff per stack. I personally do not believe this should turn trolls into full dps who can debuff. But again, personal opinions lol.

Potential bug? Maybe just a visual bug?

From time to time I would lose the buff iconic over my head. Maybe it’s also dropping the buff? However I next cast cull I regain the iconic and have it at max stacks. So maybe it’s just a visual bug.

I was looking at numbers myself and I share this opinion, so no hate from me lol, I think it does too much damage.

Personally I just don’t think a troll (or any role) should ever have the same damage profile as a dps whose job is to be a dps. And if a troll can have higher damage like what is shown here, then it would not be good for this particular community. Players would swap to a troll power just to use this and will exclude others for this sole reason. And yes it would happen. Players used to do this back in the day when powers DoTs wouldn’t stack. “LF none fire dps for…”. Now “LF none hacate dps for…”

So... Are you making the controller role a full fledge DPS, because the damage potential for the current build is actually really good. And I can't believe I'm agreeing with Deity on this one, might be too good. Of course, if you are intending to change the controller role, this is fine, if not, might need to come down a tad.

I was getting about 40-50k/s MORE damage over my pet build dps role and the only thing that was giving me inconsistencies was I was struggling with the cull combo. (I'm not very good with combos, tbh.)

My loadout was Bird Blitz, Brand of Hecate, Cryo-foam, Defibrillator, Battle Drone, and Suppressor Turret. My allies were Harley for combat, and Zatanna passive 1. I also had Emperor Aquaman, but that doesn't work against targets.

The cooldown on the power makes it awkward to use in actual battles. Not only does it cause a problem when you get interrupted, you also lose out on damage when you get to the next group of enemies. It's not terrible really, but this is probably a hot take, this felt very much like the old Advanced Mechanic with Gadgets and Mental. Where you can hit Distract > EMP and one shot everything around you. Which I understand a lot of players did not like. Aside from the people who flocked to it to chase the meta, which this will cause. Again, I agree with Deity on this one. This will be too much as it is.

With that said, my suggestion would be lower the cull damage a tad bit. Maybe about 30% lower. I didn't really feel an issue with getting to full moon, even with the open world. I didn't get a chance to test single target or boss damage. Maybe split the difference here. Lower the cooldown on BoH/Cull, that way if you are interrupted, which you WILL in hard content, gives a bit of breather room.

Power consumption actually became apparent again. Maybe because I was using Suppressor Turret, but I actually was bottoming out mid rotation. Doing two 30 second parses, I was bottoming out and had to take a soder.

Do not go back to the original build, it was really just not fun to do. This one does give more to what you can do, if you choose to.

Its definitely not visual, if it drops fx it drops buff I’ve noticed the same. Recasting cull and also having max stacks again I’ve noticed it too

Feedback
One issue with Brand of Hectate is that once you mark a NPC, it impossible to refresh any player debuffs on the target until after 24 happens.

That would explain why I have been seeing debuffs drop off at awkward times.

Here is a demonstration:


I cast Brand at 8 seconds and then keep spamming my Defense debuff. All debuffs drop off from the targets at 31 seconds.

With the new 12 second cooldown, your debuffs drop off exactly as you are starting to cast Mark for the third time:


Since players can't refresh any of the debuffs, it means you will inevitably have your debuffs drop off on a target just as you go to use Mark/Cull. Trying to build a rotation that accounts for the 24 second dropoff is awkward.

If you are using any allies or pets that inflict debuffs and trigger debuff icons, you might not realize your debuffs have dropped off.

Those are major inconveniences for an ability that has such a long cooldown.

On live: I am having the issue where B.O.P. debuffs will not appear (no red symbols) despite multiple casts

I understand sometimes an enemy/boss is buffed so the buff/debuffs is null. However I can cast a regular debuffs like Sticky Grenade and that debuffs will apply but not debuffs from B.O.P. .

Is it possible the same lingering effect is happening on test server?

Oh, a minor heads up. There's a known bug where Blood Moon Brand will give more buff stacks than it should if you brand 2 or more targets (it will act as if you branded max targets.)

A fix for that will be out after the weekend.

I've seen most people focusing on the AOE damage and decided to look at the single target comparison. Given the way content is designed, the majority of fight times take place against single targets. Granted, I'm biased, I'm a fan of the raids.

Setups

• Full DPS: 177401 might; Grim/Strat/Trans artifacts
• Battle Troll #1: 167085 might/50703 vitalization; Strat/Rao/Claw
• Battle Troll #2: 163770 might/52464 vitalization; Brand/Rao/Claw (this was my best parse, I tried swapping things with trans/strat but this gave me the best output :shrug

I realize there would be better ways to eke out more damage by changing the artifacts above. I'm a controller first, so I want to support a full raid group at the same time as trying to eke out more from my own build. There's not going to be a lot of instant dumping, and the 12s cooldown on Claw's benefits work nicely to clip Brand's 12s cooldown.
Rotation on all 3 is an easy Hard Light 2 power rotation: Hand Clap x3 / Grasping Hand > Grasping Hand Pull. For the 2 controller builds, I'm mixing in Light Blast to keep the defense debuff up and Blood Moon Brand/Cull/Recharge as it comes off cooldown.
Results

• Full DPS: Let's call this the baseline. This was "100%" damage.
• Battle Troll #1: This averaged out to about 70% of my full DPS damage.
• Battle Troll #2: This was 97% of my full DPS damage. And it was not clean on the Brand power integration/clipping. That's a 40% increase in damage between non-brand damage and brand damage.

While the Troll #2 damage took about 2 minutes to settle in (I was on a sparring target, so it would take considerably less on an actual boss), even my initial 30s parse difference between Trolls #1 and #2 were negligible. You could chalk it up to a missed clip.
Feedback
I agree with some others in that the damage is quite good. I'm not familiar enough with the other controller powersets anymore to make a good might rotation to test differences. Hard Light's in a niche spot where you can do a lot of single target might damage cycling between two moves. That makes it really easy to adopt it onto a controller loadout since one is a debuff already.
The only downside I currently see is that I can verify Penryn's debuff dropping feedback as well. My rotation includes Grasping Hand often enough that a damage debuff should be on the target non-stop. I didn't video my testing this evening, but I'm sure Penryn's reasoning is sound - it's around 24 seconds, and likely because it doesn't count subsequent applications of a debuff to "refresh" the timer.

Hey,
Is it a bug that the power from the art doesn't appear in the stealth loadout of the gadget & the invisibility of mental?
thx!

I finally was able to get on Test server.

I believe the reason Bloon Moon Brand does not appear on Stealth loadoutbis because of the combo/tap to Harvest Moon Cull

The initial Blood Moon Brand does damage and then it is forced transition out stealth/invisibility before you can perform the tap melee combo.


On that note since Cull no longer removes debuffs is the tap melee function still needed.
*I could see if the Cull was changed to be what triggered Debuffs extension*
Otherwise it might make more sense for artifact to be more like Clarion: normal attacks on debuffed enemies grant Blood Moon Brand and then ability cast is what culls.
(Clarion normal weapon attacks can heal, but weapon buff(ability cast) empowers more healing and shield.)

Possible Bug*
I'll double check to see if it is initial Blood Moon Brand or Harvest Moon Cull, but without prior debuffs cast: using Blood Moon/Combo as opener triggered the Death Metal Batman Energy Pool as of a debuffs had been cast.

(I know Death Metal Energy Pool can drop when casting in DPS mode and also in (non-debuff applied) Stealth mode w/Gadgets; just seemed weird that Blood Mood Brand/Harvest Cull were triggering as a debuffs rather than debuffs booster.)
(Using PvP debuff consumables do not trigger the Death Metal Batman Energy Pool)*

Follow-up

Death Metal Batman Black Lantern Energy Pool activates with Blpod Moon Brand cast regardless of previous Debuff(s) cast.

I do like the 6 second cooldown change.

Way more forgiving if interrupted most timed (bad grouping) adds.

From Mepps September 26th test server update:

Artifacts
Brand of Hecate
Blood Moon Brand
Fixed Brand refreshing already extended debuffs under specific conditions
Cooldown reduced from 12 seconds to 6 seconds
Damage decreased to 22.95% Vitalization and 4.72% Might at max rank
Debuff duration refresh increased to 26 seconds at max rank
Harvest Moon Cull
Damage decreased to 29.75% Vitalization and 6.13% Might at max rank


The damage change is very noticable compared to the 12 second cooldown iteration.

The 12 second cooldown felt more like a save for add wave* (Like when popping a group shield)

60% Vitalization 15% Might scaling for Blood Moon Brand and 80% Vitalization 20% Might scaling for Harvest Moon Cull

Was burst damage that was noticable when landed and felt wasted if cast when enemiea died or Debuff wore off = no damage, so strategy/timing was needed.
Would have preferred a 10 or second timer due to 24 second Debuff timer starting at initial cast animation but combo cull damage doesn't start until combo animation.

So was not exactly a 12 second cooldown to reapply during the 24 second Debuff window. (A little clunky)

The new change to 6 second cooldown sort of has the same clunkiness while.being able to cast more frequently in a "rotation" with B.O.P. Commlink
Due to the combo animation even when "clipping" with a power at the hand raise: I can only get 3 Brand/Cull combos in during a 24-second Debuff duration as the animations don't allow for 4 casts during the 24-second Debuff window.

My damage parsers are about equal with using Clarion vs using 6-sec cooldown Brand of Hecate (12 second itieration had damage twice that of Clarion)

-Superpowered Spec -
All Damage and Power Critical inmates
Handblaster mastery only (clipping solar flame/meteor blast)
100 sp in Precision, 100 sp in Vitalization, 100 sp in Might, 30 sp in Health, 30 sp in Dominance

All 4 - 372 Vitalization origin augments ; Adaptive augments are Vitalization

Amulet Of Rao; B.O.P. Commlink; Clarion/Brand of Hecate*

Loadout:
Sticky Bomb/Blood Moon Brand*; Defibrillator; Bird's Blitz; Holographic Decoy; Distract; Stealth

Stealth loadout:
Cuff'em; Battle Display; Paralyzing Dart; EMP Pulse; Neo-Venom Boost; Battle Drone

Was using Vitalization trinket for Brand of Hecate and using DPS trinket for Clarion
Static Grenades were used for when transitioning out of Stealth.



Solar Flame->Bird's Blitz/clip Defib -> Blood Moon Brand combo Cull/ clip Stealth-> Battle Display->EMP/clip static Grenade
Solar Flame-Blood Moon Brand combo Cull/clip Defib

Repeat*

Clarion Rotation
Solar Flame-> Bird's Blitz/clip Stealth->Battle Display->EMP/clip Static Grenade
Solar Flame->Bird's Blitz/clip Defib->Solar Flame->Sticky Bomb/ clip Defib->Solar Flame->Bird's Blitz/clip Static Grenade
*Repeat

The 12 second Blood Moon Brand was performing better with Vitalization trinket vs DPS trinket.
It feels like "my rotation" performs almost the same when comparing Vitalization trinket vs DpS trinket with 6 second Blood Moon Brand and lower percentage scaling change.

(Falls behind when Neo-Venom Boost is active in Brand of Hecate vs Clarion rotation, probably due to more Critical capable attacks with weapon combos and Sticky Bomb being used)
(Also falls being Clarion on Single Target)

Amulet of Rao damage, Bird's Blitz damage, and Brand of Hecate damage are not crit capable
All with varying scaling from Vitalization and Might.

Defibrillator and Battle Display will self Boost Precision/Hybrid Spec for the 5% Vitalization and Dominance = combined seem super to play-from-the-tray Super powered spec and just casting or using Brawling-Shuriken storm mastery (which doesn't work with Hybrid Spec for weapon power Regen) and using harder hitting might-based debuffs.

I like that the ability Blood Moon Brand and Hecate Moon Cull have no cc* (same with Bird's Blitz), just confused as to if this was supposed to allow Trolls to be competitive with competent Battle Healers.
Or just pair with Bird's Blitz to be a controller power set alternative for debuffs and extra power Regen.

Really wish there was a 4th artifact slot:
Amulet of Rao; B.O.P. Commlink; Claw of Aellhünd; Brand of Hecate

Double PoT, with power dumps being covered by Hecate Moon Cull combo.

Damage from 12 second iteration also wouldn't displace a 4 Artifact DPS.
Especially when above controller artifacts don't benefit damage wise from criticals.

Thank you Massah for the testing. I'm very confused as to what they have been trying to do with the last few controller updates. Is it just making due with the resources they have or just trying to pull a soft revamp for the role without actually redoing any of the issues that Stats Revamp brought us? Seeing that this isnt a DPS, Healer, or Tank artifact thread we only have 2 pages of discussion, from your testing can you answer these questions.

Is this artifact a must have in any way or a hard pass?

Is this artifact going to be good for a jack of all trades master of none controller build (group regen, damage, enjoyability) or is it just going to bring us back to this weird unneeded pseudo DPS thing the devs have been pushing?

What's the best power, artifacts, loadout, skill point allocation for the various particular playstyle goals with this artifact?