Test Discussion Episode 34: Supercharges, Artifacts, and Balance Changes

And add HL to that list.
And add Celestial to that list.
And add Gadgets might-based to that list.
And add Elec on 4+ targets to that list.
And add the munitions exploit for double ticking after a pi to that list.

I don't like people who call out flurry shot but don't list the other things that compete with it or are equally broken in their respective sections. Majority of this thread is mad over 1 artifact but calling out nerfs to something that would invalidate generator mods, elite bonuses, and 3-4 artifacts for precision dps's because there's nothing to replace it at the current time. Keep the discussion to the gemini artifact alone and leave flurry out of the discussion.

the title of this thread is

Supercharges, Artifacts, and Balance Changes

not EOG nerf. If I want to bring up Venom Wrist Dispenser, this thread is the appropriate space. and if you say I shouldn't bring it up because it invalidates generator mods, elite bonuses and 3-4 prec artifacts how is that different than saying don't bring up EOG because it costs money to level it up.

I agree i think other issues do need to be looked at along with these supercharges.

If you're going to balance supercharges i think they should all be done at once, not done pieacemeal where it then leaves some outlier cheese FOTM players will flock too until changed.

I also share the dismay that something like this can be looked at so rapidly yet precision damage and weapon damage has remained broken and imbalanced for a year or more now, that's somewhat frustrating devs.

Some of these don't do remotely enough to warrant such a severe nerf to cd. Pheremone Bloom makes sense in the 20-30s range. Dash Attack should be comparable. Speed Drain/Vacuum Bubble/Devastating Flip/Gale would be more appropriate at 12-15s.

These changes feel awkward af, especially considering there was initially an 11s difference between Bloom and the others. It's just arbitrarily adjusting the EoG trigger time.... If you want EoG to only be activated once every 30s for supports and once every 15s for DPS, which seems to be what you're going for there, just say that's what yall wanna do and change the artifact itself. It's not like you're trying to hide that these nerfs are designed to tangentially nerf EoG and everyone's already pissed off about it anyways.You're kinda burning down a whole tree because you wanna trim a single branch with this kinda change.

I agree that something had to be done. However I think that these changes are a bit to much. Nerfjng a lot of stuff because some people exploit things in the game should not be the way to go about doing things. I think that what needs to be done is decreases the amount of sc EoG gives by 1% per second. All moves that have 1 second cooldown should be changed to 15 secon cooldowns. Soul cloak should not affect 15 second cooldowns. This on top of the already on test nerf of EoG not stacking on each other should help tone down the over use of the spams. EoG is to strong as it is on live on the sc department but changing everything other than the cause of all this does not make sense.

Change berserker to 30 seconds and increase the radius that it deals damage.

Decrease neo venom down to 30 seconds and leave the damage out alone.

Change circuit breaker up to 30 seconds and leave the damage out alone.

Decrease bastion down to 30 seconds.

Decrease mass hysteria down to 30 seconds and leave the damage out alone.


Damage boosting/modifying SCs should be 30 seconds. And those that don’t have one can use neo venom. 1 second movement SCs and pheromone bloom should all be 15 seconds.

Devs, the content will still be easy. You all just stopped players from building sc in content and pushed the dps with weaker SC back further. The 2 top dps, who get the biggest advantage from the SC, was left untouched. Berserk and nature dps form changes will be even more op. You all have to do better with listening to the entire community. Not just the loudest.

Correction, the title of this thread is Episode 34: blah blah blah. The supercharges and artifacts discussion is background information needed to assess the balance changes proposed.That section specifically says "In an effort to make Justice League Dark content a little more challenging and tone down (but not remove) the supercharge shield meta, we made changes that will be hitting test today. One of the goals of Eye of Gemini and supercharges was to encourage coordination for a big payoff. We got the big payoff, but with minimal coordination that was ultimately too easy to achieve." "With these changes, the supercharge shield meta is still possible but will require more coordination and will be more challenging to pull off - especially in elite content where everything rarely goes exactly as planned."

Nowhere in this thread does it mention changing any other artifacts directly. This is not a game update thread, this is a thread to address to a specific problem of the shield meta.

As for the comment of not bringing it up because it invalidates 3-4 prec artifacts is to show that you're being a hypocrite. You can't complain about losing money and investment, but then bring up something that causes others to lose even more money than what you did. That's just nerfing out of spite, not out of balance. Not to mention that in the current situation, when you invalidate that many artifacts, you've killed the playstyle. Weapons expert is supposed to be an alternative to PftT and when you have the only competitive weapons made useless or the defining artifact that finally made it competitive nerfed, the attractiveness of that alternative is gone. Hybrid dps was already killed because of an update that happened less than a week before stats revamp went live, to kill off weapons expert as well throws us back into AM era. There's a difference between breaking an entire playstyle and undo'ing 8 months of testing and just nerfing how often you can use supercharges.

How is your first point relevant at all? Most of these 4 new artifacts aren't good whatsoever when compared to existing artifacts. The Pet PI one only helps a few powersets and the others will just use it as an extra robot sidekick worth of damage (how exciting) the controller one will be used rarely in completely niche setups and has zero mainstream appeal, the supply drop one is only beneficial for healers and even then its not practical when compared to regular content and the next round of artifacts will certainly have a healer artifact so wasting XP on this one where you could just keep the ones you already have is pointless. The tank one will be useful for fire and others but its not like the other tanks really needed this artifact to survive, it will just be icing on the cake but to to say this new tank artifact will change the meta is incorrect. So your entire point about reasoning behind changes to make new artifacts is completely baseless.

They existed this long without nerfs because there wasn't a viable opportunity to change them mid-dlc when you have a new dlc release to enact change on test server. Also the developers are reading much more feedback on the forums because of the DLC on test so it gives the players a better opportunity to voice concerns.

Agreed if you're going to make these changes then you need to look at nature and rage now before this goes live.

and elec* circuit breaker is 15s

The very argument here is that you are changing the powersets which directly in turn impact the artifacts, it's a cause an effect. HOWEVER they are not adjusting the artifacts in any way, so players who paid for them and are complaining throughout this thread as the only reason why this change shouldn't go through have no argument to stand on because nothing is actually changing with their artifacts. How can you complain about spending $ on something that hasn't changed? The game itself has changed which will impact what a player is used to seeing but the actual change to the artifacts are negligible.

How do you use your supercharge the most often and most frequently?

Before this change EoG+Cloak

After this change EoG+Cloak

you still have to use the artifacts to have a more supercharge concentric playstyle and that doesn't change, what does change is how that playstyle impacts the game by abusing and borderline exploiting raid mechanics

Sure add whatever you want, it all still needs to be looked at, at once.

I am not the one being hypocritical. I am simply pointing out the absurdity of you being on the side of changing eog and saying that people who say money spent doesn't matter but then having the exact opposite position on VWD which has been abused longer

Some good points are being made here and also some terribly transparent, agenda-driven ones where some feel entitled to keep an Artifact cheesy and imbalanced simply because they spent a lot of money to take advantage of it. My vote is for balance.

you do understand that the changes they are making directly affect healers who use those two artifacts. and money spent is a valid argument. money spent means the game is profitable. otherwise there is no game. if you upset people with drastic changes to the point where they stop spending money that becomes a significant issue.
to your point "what does change is how that playstyle impacts the game by abusing and borderline exploiting raid mechanics" things that do this do need to be addressed.

now is EOG/SC shield spam still an issue? that's what is being discussed.

I'll reply to this when you update your post with corrections. Obvious you didn't read the entire post and started pre-typing.

Honestly simply making the changes to Dash Attack, etc. to close the loophole on exploiting building SCs is more than enough.

Money spent is not a valid argument when you signed the ToS stating you couldn't argue using it. Whether you or anyone else in this thread likes it, you spending money is not something they care about. They care about the bulk population and the heavy whales when it comes to consistent income to keep the game running. The bulk of the population who doesn't have 160's and heavy whales already sitting on 5-6+ 160 artifacts won't care about these changes to how useful gemini is. Even from a business perspective, you're not the target audience to influence major decisions.

you said I was being hypocritical, that is what I am responding to, I don't need to update anything. if you want me to address the other parts of your post, great, I don't have to. my point is that spending money does matter is not an invalid argument. if you would like to say the same thing about VWD, great. just understand that your making the same argument.

as I have stated in other posts the devs can do whatever they want and if there are obvious exploits they need to be addressed. you have added a large list to said exploits so those should be addressed to.

you know nothing about me. I have 5 characters and between them they have 19 160 artifacts that I have spent over 1000 dollars on along with the 1000s I have spent on time capsules over the past 3 years among other items. and I do care about the changes.