Test Discussion Manacles of Force - Artifact

Yeah up until one person made their comments...this was going to be a great artifact. That one comment made them change this due to his views on what he thought was going to happen with the use of this artifact. I spend 700k in nth metal and BUY seals WITH REAL MONEY...it needs to be OP!

That is definitely not the way balancing items should work Jay. Just because you spend money on an item does not mean it should be "OP". It should still be balanced.

Lol...the artifact was great upon being given to us...i dont really mean “OP”...but getting it to 160 should make it worth the while!...i think we are upset as to why this item was NERFED the way it was...im sure if several people spoke of it being OP instead of one person..it would have gone over much better...

Looking back at the thread, I only found 2 individuals that posted actual feedback regarding how the artifact works and the effect it can have on game play through testing. Chill and Penryn. Both of which stated that the artifact was performing exceptionally well or too well in its original form.

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Unless you have combat log up, it can be really hard to see when the Manacles proc sometimes:


In several situations where the Manacles would proc, the screen is usually turning red because your lifebar is low. In those situations, you are focusing on the action and not so much on your character. The vibrant effects associated with the proc are lost against the red dimness of the screen. That one big gold burst you get when the Manacles do proc looks similar to other power FX. The "golden sparking aura" that remains on the character for a few seconds looks similar to some of the NPC curse auras that are used in other content such as the Zeus fight in Olympus. I can also see that aura blending in with other player auras. Those situations can leave you in a bad state if you aren't prepared for the rapid flurry of DoT ticks.

There were a couple of times where I was wondering if Manacles had worked and had to go back to my combat log.

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I tried using Manacles while being the Controller in the Elite King Shark fight.

In an Elite boss fight where there are large numbers of adds, room hazards, and you have to keep reposition because of the boss, it is very easy to miss the Manacles proc. You are concentrating so much on the action and everyone's health/power bars that you aren't following the graphical effects on your own character too much. Missing the proc actually got me killed once. Both of our healers were down and my shields on cooldown. My health was a bit low after taking a big hit from King Shark while trying to perform a rally attempt. I thought I was ok because I was still alive and skipped using a soda because I felt it was more important to rally the healers. Turns out the manacles had procced and the DoT damage finished me off.

Based on the Elite testing I was able to do of the current iteration in a non-tank role, the Manacles will sometimes save you. You certainly can't count on them. Going into a fight, you have to know that you'll be receiving >= 30% damage hits and living for the Artifact to be useful. For the Elite King Shark fight, either the boss OHKOs you or adds do a rapid series of medium-damage ticks that are under the 30% threshold. Both result in the player being KOed. There are only a couple of attacks in the King Shark fight that might trip the Manacles if you are lucky.

I also tried soloing some open world bosses using the Manacles. I can't say the Manacles were too useful for those situations. For most boss fights, the most dangerous attacks were doing damage that was below the 30% damage threshold. The Earth 3 bounties and updated Brine monster are good examples of that behavior. It was only on the Doomsday fight (no probiotic) that I saw the Manacles be somewhat useful.

A much better test that will highlight its usefulness as a non-tank role would be the final fight in CoT elite with the Murk charge or the terra like purple grasping hand. Also in Throne Elite the sea beast fight has multiple instances where the manacles could proc on his slam, the acid spit, the suck in attack etc as those are all large hits and spread out. Also the seabeast strafing run in the final boss fight.



This feat also got infinitely easier with the entire group running the manacles, whats the likelyhood that the by chance a player gets caught out of position and the sea beast charges him and with the damage being -50% and the healer seeing that and pops a sc or uses the orb to cover the dot ticks that the player will die and ruin the feat? very unlikely.

How can we even have Elite no death feats or start to bring them back like the past where we have an artifact that completely minimalizes the the risk of dying unless they start to make multiple OHKO type attacks in quick succession and then that will just create more balance issues.

These are the types of things players don't even think about but want to cry nerf and tell me i'm a moron and thinking only of myself when I have brought up the issues with this artifact.

I was hoping to have the chance to run Elite Throne, but the group wanted to try Elite Crown. I was wondering how the updated Manacles would work against the Sea Beast's body slam and acid spit attacks. My previous experience in Elite Throne was that the Manacles were were too overpowered. They were making it very easy to survive some of the mechanics.

I was looking over a couple of those "No Death" feats and was wondering how much easier it will be to accomplish them with the current iteration of Manacles.

Trying to test Elite content on a weekday and provide meaningful feedback on this artifact is a tall order.

I have a lot of concerns about this artifact, but there just isn't enough time to do thorough testing with the latest changes. These artifacts are going Live in a couple of days.

This DLC has been dead on test sever I see more people from the EU timezone one test during the day than I do anyone from NA in the evening. The TT dlc I didn't have issues finding groups and did alot of raid testing. This dlc hasn't been active which is a shame.

They need to start offering incentives or something that will drive players to want to test.

In Tank you don't get often 1 hit 35% health except some boss can do ( ex Terra 50k+ hit). In tank you fear more 10 add who can be immun control doing a lot damage in few second specialy from stat revamp in elite version.

They can make a Tank role part and other role part (like Gemini) for avoid abuse and like that it make more sense Tank can benefit more than other role.

Ps1: I play and played every power tank so i wasn't thinking for fire only but for every power tank. And that not bad if fire can benefit more than other power.

Ps2: sorry my english^^

This is the part being overlooked. We’re hearing “but if everyone has 160 Manacles, content will be too easy!” It’s the same line of thought to say, “if everyone is 30cr above the boss, content will be too easy!” Under that philosophy, there’s no reason to grind or work on anything if it’s going to be the same difficulty no matter what you do. There’s really no reason to spend a dime.

The devs need to decide if progression matters. If it doesn’t matter, then we should know not to waste our time or money.

But that's the thing though, tanks do get hit for 35% of their health in 1 hit alot of times in fights with all those adds and they aren't realizing that is what is killing them. In terra it's not the 8 rock creatures that kill you its them keeping you using your powers on cooldown to stay at health and then its one of terra's skulls or her combo that drops your health to a point then you can't cover all the add damage. In machine its not all the adds killing you its the beebot skulls electric field that hits you in addition to all the adds. In Crown of Thorns raid in Atlantis tanks will find its not all the adds killing you its one of the subboss's skull attack or murks charge or damage combo that drops your health to a point where the adds kill you. It's these situations that the manacles will save you that is what makes them more powerful than anything else because in a moment where the majority of times you would have died as a tank and possibly wiped the group you are saved just from having 1 artifact.

Hey not everyone does elite

Yeah, im not doing any of these artifacts now.

While that is certainly true, it should be the player's choice as to whether or not they want to do elite content. The decision should not be dictated by a weakness in the powerset.

PS4 test server is way overdue.

Ultimately I think this artifact is impossible to balance for all roles. If it's at a level that's strong enough to create elite viability for tanking, then it's too strong for other roles in terms of trivializing blocking, and general difficulty. My suggestion would be to make the manacles only proc in tank role.

It seems hard, but not impossible to balance for tanks as well. I think the solution there is to offer a boost to the absorption based on resto. Then fire would get more out of the artifact, while still keeping it viable for the other tanks.

Leaving the Manacles of Force available to every role is going to create future balance nightmares. Devs will find it difficult to create scenarios that are challenging for groups where everyone is running Manacles, while still being possible for groups where no one has Manacles. That is bad design.

Progression will obviously matter. If a player does not drop an good chunk of money on day one of the Episode to get their Artifact up to 160, it will essentially take them 3-4 months to get the Artifact up to 160 (by hoarding their XP and spending it on a double XP weekend). However, in that time frame our CR will have not gone up above the bosses at all because we will still be in the Atlantis Episode. It will essentially take roughly a year and a half before we are "30crs above the boss" and be 3-4 Episodes into the future. At that point, sure progression has enabled you to avoid some mechanics because of skill point gain and gear improvement.

However, in the case of an Artifact, if it becomes a problem where a vast number of the end-game player base is running around with 160 Manacles in 3 months and continuously avoiding mechanics in fights while the Episode is still current or players are continuously avoiding mechanics on day one of a Episode because of the Artifact, then the Developer's answer to this is going to be more than likely one of two things. One, they will be putting in more scripted 1-Shots that will hit you so hard, no matter how much health you have or what Artifact you have it will kill you on the spot and the community in DCUO has shown that they get upset at these types of hits. Two, balance the Artifact AFTER players have spent money on it which will piss off people left and right. But when you have players just blatantly ignoring mechanics of a fight because they have an unbalanced Artifact the Developers have to find a way to make you pay attention to the fight and that will come in the form of scripted 1-shots or balance passes to the Artifact. I would personally, for the sake of future arguments, have them balance it now.

I like this idea for tanks. As well as MoF working different in each role. It should be prioritized towards tanks. I dont want an artifact to be in the "OP" range, but balancing this has to be a nightmare. I see no immediate changes coming, if any at all before it is available on Live.

Yeah not a fan of limiting the effect to tank roles only, this kind of artifacts could benefit melee dps who have to deal with random weapon melee aoe damage.

THIS. Is there a technical reason this cannot be accomplished?