"If it ain't broke, don't fix it", except in mental's case, "If you broke it, you fix it". And don't come here with, "only proper feedback apply", we have 60+ pages of proper feedback, if you want to read it.
I can't really comment on the damage, but just comparing its AM to Gadgets', which is very similar, Mental's is much more restrictive. Adding the ability to get max Resonance instantly by using Grandeur and Invisibility would help, as would making more of the powers work as part of the Advanced Interactions. Namely Cryokinesis, Pyrokinesis, and Thought Bubble. I understand that making Mental too similar to Gadgets might be kind of a boring approach but I think that if the Advanced Mechanics are going to work in virtually the same way they should be virtually equal.
Mental really does need a fix, the damage it does just quite simply put is just not on par with other powers; I know the developers meant all good and well but it simply just hasn't worked out. I think the biggest problem generally speaking is the consistency in which mass terror hits compared to the likes of timebomb. I've made a couple of videos, they're a bit rough I'm just doing a basic rotation and they're far from flawless because quite frankly I'm not going to muck around and record a perfect rotation simply to make myself look perfect -Im just doing this to help the community so if you feel the need to bash me or my gameplay keep it to personal messages. Basically in summary of the videos it takes about 1minute more to do the same amount of damage with mental as it does to do it with Quantum - so the inbalance isn't massive, but the problem arises when you spend longer in a raid, imagine for every 30 minutes spent in a raid that's extra minutes worth of damage the quantum player has on a mental player. I would really appreciate it if the developers actually listen here, because I've seen you before pass it off as "apples and oranges" but it really isn't. It's AM V.S. AM and all things really should be equal. The power class should only be a different method of getting to the same result. i.e. different powers and application but with the same end damage, isn't that what balance is? Because if that's not the idea of balance then we may as well just accept the fact right now, some powers are always just going to be better than others and move on. The other issue that I haven't really had time to look at is the realistic application of the two AM's - I think a primary difference with mental is it has different moves for different range, mass terror and mass lev, where as quantum has just timebomb. I think where mental is hurting is range DPS, when applied in reality we have to accept the fact that melee range damage isn't always practical, especially in new content with AOE damage etc. I don't think the Mass Lev range AM is hitting anywhere near as hard as it should - something I still want to test a bit more and this is where quantum is excelling because it doesn't have this weakness. Any way I might do some more test videos of range loadouts to check that out and update later but in the meantime I'll chuck these videos in.
The other thing worth pointing out, is that good and great DPS can also be seperated by other things such as situation awareness and ability to stay alive. Let's face it if you're dead, you can't do damage so if you're always dying that is inevitably going to affect your bottomline when it comes to damage output. You can have the best power type/rotation and still fail because you're always dead. Also I think something that distorts reality on live server is people aren't telling you when they're sodering, they may also scoreboard chase i.e. kill adds when other DPS are focusing on helping the task at hand, such as in labyrinth. So there are a few more variables to being a great DPS than just knowing a rotation. I'm particularly fond of the mental power type and I'd like to see it fixed, but we have to be realistic about our expectations and ensure we're keeping feedback constructive. There's no point coming in and saying "Mental's broke" while giving no evidence or suggestions on a fix so if anyone else has ideas and decent feedback feel free to add them, maybe we'll get listened too..
The peoples bad guy's league mate uses mental and he has no problem. He is a beast and only second to the great one.
It definitely needs a buff. I have been playing mental since I started. I do decent damage however it does not hit as hard nor does it have much to offer as far as rotations in comparison to other powers. I guess if I cared much to always top a score board I would have switched after GU43. I enjoy the power but they really need to revamp it
Here is something I tried and it works wonders... Use mental AM with Mass Levitation as the power to restart the cyle. Use Rifle as your weapon. Use Might and Precision VI Expert for DPS mods. When running through the rotation for the AM for mental, tap triangle for the rifle damage, between each power. I have seen a big increase in damage when I tried this on my wife and daughter toons. Not sure how many players know this, but it works.
The problem is not Mass Levitation or Terror but the powers that build up to those powers. Those powers damage need to increase by 50% when using the AM. Another thing I recommend now is using the rifle range, tap triangle inbetween the powers to get a slight increase in damage.
Quantum doesn't leave Nature, Sorcery, or Hard Light behind. Not sure about Electricity or Gadgets as I see very few people use those to do damage. The only powers it is clearly leaving behind are Mental, Fire, Ice, Earth, Celestial, and Rage at the moment. Two of those have not had their mechanics tweaked yet. And for all I know, I'm using Ice wrong and that's why I'm not able to keep up with Quantum. I started a thread to see if I can find a better rotation for Ice to do stronger damage a few days ago. So far, I've only received a response from one person: Honing/Experimenting Ice DPSI may also not be maximizing my damage on Mental. I'll have to try using a rifle weapon in between powers to see if it helps (as suggested by MEBegnalsFan). The jury is still out on whether the AMs are balanced. I do not think even the developers know yet since they are probably still collecting data to see if any out perform others by a wide margin. It'd be nice to get another chart like the following to see what they are seeing in their data:
