More Mental Problems?

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by Sy-Lent-Kill-R, Sep 4, 2017.

  1. Sy-Lent-Kill-R New Player

    Please forgive my lack of forum etiquette as far as size and form and whatnot.
    I love using mental and being a controller, but the bugs as far as dps is out of
    hand. The sc gen. works for troll but as reported previously not properly for dps.
    And to make matters worse, has anyone else noticed that tk bolt and menace
    are both broken? Neither give you ANY big damage with the appropriate pi. I'm
    not a testing guru but, I've used toons with and without specing. Would one of you
    who knows more than I please check and confirm?
  2. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player

    don't know what to tell you.

    the only powers that i get any kind of pi out of is starting off with mass lev. if you hit something thats levitated and there isn't anyone else around you can get a bigger hit (around 10 k) if you hit them with tk bolt. you'll also be able to encase ads with cryo but you could potentially be blocking yourself off from causing more damage. we dont blow up encasements anymore. might look like it but cryo blocks blow up on their own when they want to. if you get a block that doesn't want to shatter you wont be able to damage whats inside it.

    i would love to be corrected if i'm wrong but it seems mentals dpsing ability comes from utilizing invisibility and those two powers it opens up to you: sleep which causes "medium" damage (about 4 k a hit) and then pain which can deal some big numbers...up to 20 k but it renders you visible. you waste time transforming into a form that you can get knocked out of with one hit point of damage. and you lose your movement abilities, and unless youre wearing the stealth mainframe mod you move slow. thats it. thats all there is to mental. doesn't matter what else you carry in your loadout because its going to be low to middling damage no matter the pi's, skill points, gear. we've been rendered invisible and probably because a couple of salty testers didnt like getting out dps'd by mental in amazon fury.

    i've seen a few other loadouts that are allright...but unless you spec into invisibility and learn how to time your pain blast you may as well just troll.

    totally pisses me off.
    • Like x 4
  3. Riger Well-Known Player


    Do you mean we shouldn't, or that we can't? Because I constantly detonated my encasements while leveling with 'pyrokinesis'. Wiped out entire groups with it, no problem. Bosses were a bit difficult with my encasement build, though.
    Also. Even as mental, I still top the damage of every random I've been in unless they're more than 10 cr over me, or are earth or lightning. Maybe I only get really bad players? I use two pi's, though. I'm not sure what my overall damage would be, because I literally made my mental two days ago. But I can tell you my build if you'd like to test it and tell me numbers since I'm only at 54 cr?

    1 Mass levitate for daze, 2 pyrokinesis to add terror to dazed targets, 3 phantom flames affected by terrify, and 4 psychic shock to take advantage of daze, and as a spammer. That's the order I have them in, as well. Grandeur and invisibility are my 5 and 6, with sleep and pain, along with my supercharges on the invis bar. All 4 skills aoe, as well. Not a huge aoe, but still aoe.
    I hit 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4, then repeat from 1. I hit 3 psychic shocks because there's usually a tiny bit of cd left on phantom flames when the 2nd use ends. My most used sc is bolt barrage.
    Admittedly, this is just the build I've worked with to do duos and alerts with. But it seems to do decent damage compared to the randoms I seem to get.
  4. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player

    Again...I don't know what to tell you. I actually tried your loadout (ML>Pyro>PhF>tk bolt) nd a few variations on it with a few powers swapped around and in and out and I came up with embarrassing results in end game content. The open world ads in t8 Area 51 are by no means tough and it took longer to burn them down with this loadout than if i just puse beamed them to death. if you can get it to work more power to you. i have the day off. i'll give it another go to see how it fares. aa good portion of dps'ing revolves around how aggressively you play. admittedly when i tried these loadouts it was the first few days of the revamp and i was playing very cautiously.

    it would also be nice to have some sort of place to start. as i stated above...on weaker ads if i use mass lev into cryo and then pyro my encasements will explode...but i dont see any additional damage and i dont see me as the cause of the encasements exploding. i've been experimenting aound. sometimes it looks like pyro is popping them (from a distance it looks cool), sometimes the ads just break out, sometimes nothing works and i'm stuck with an ad in a block of ice that i cant damage.

    the max range needs to be cut and damage needs an increase. i dont need to be able to hit quarter inch ads half a mile away from my character for little damage. the double cast of powers needs to get fixed. it messes up rotations in both roles. if invisibility is going to remain a mental players best option it needs to become an "official" form change and not just something a hit point of damage can snap you out of. i would rather go back to having grandeur>mass terror be my big go to 1-2 damage move as it was much more fun to execute and had more of a "mental power" feel to it or make it a supercharge move like whats happening with nature.

    the whole thing is just sad. mental feels like it got worked over by a tank.
    • Like x 1
  5. stärnbock Devoted Player

    there are indeed some issues. as mentioned, the SCG doesnt work correctly if you are using it as dps. then the telekinetic bolt is not exploding encasements of course wich was criticized by me without any response received so far. then there is terror tendrils that as somekind of "fix" was changed only days before revamp went live into exploding instead of going through targets (hell even the tank eats more tendrills than they hit the targets, so wrong! just wrong!) and mass terror? it was a DOT, then a burst, then a DOT, now a burst again... setting up terror? your best bet is setting up dazed and then use pyro or risk to use pain blast, that can backfire if invisibility gets a hit. the other options are two broken (BROKEN!!!) powers. also: if you try to clip tendrils with invisibility, invisibility gets canceled and your tendrills get in cooldown for as long as you can activate invisibility again... all of those things are reported multiple times allready. one more thing to add: the mental trolls power dump creates one of the most ugly effects in the game wich covers not only yours but every group members entire head and it stay that way even in the szenes where you would want to have a look at the others characters styles... GET AWAY!!!
    • Like x 2
  6. Riger Well-Known Player

    I also had 'fun' finding out that Gruhn or whatever the mid-boss' name is in gotham unviersity duo is completely immune to all mental attacks I've tried on him when he uses his barrier. The barrier doesn't even take 0's. It acts like you never attacked.
  7. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player

    i'm glad you're posting. i did a little more testing. i should post videos.

    i flew up to a cluster of three area 51 ads and hit them with pyrokinesis. there was no burst rather all three ads got the burning animation and started ticking in the 200-300 point range. i flew off because i wanted to see the extent of how much damage one application of pyro could potentially cause.

    when i use mass lev with cryo cryo will damage the ad, encase it, there are no dots. mass lev causes a few tic of damage about 500 a hit with a crit going off at 1200. cryo on its own hits for under 4000.

    tk bolt tends to be more middling in the 5k hit range with crits going up as high as 10. i dont see much of a difference if any in damage when used as a pi (dazed, terrified etc).

    Using pyro on an ad encased in ice removes pyros dot damage but it does cause a big damage burst. its usually around 6k for me going as high as 8 with it not being uncommon seeing a string of 4's. theres a burst effect sometimes but cryo also pops on its own.

    using tk bolt on an ice encased ad causes no damage but rather "impulses" it (which i guess means moves it a little).

    now out in the open world the area 51 ads aren't a big deal. the problem is going into group content. i need to get into one of the t8 alerts and go through it solo to see what kind of cc effects these powers have on "real" ads because so far none of the stuff i see out in area 51 that looks cool to me works in any other content. this isn't going into any other of mentals powers and the problems those have. this is just my basic "all purpose" loadout.

    then theres the low parsing. i have little to compare my mental guy to except my alts. all my toons are either mental, quantum or nature. i have an ice and fire guy that are well developed and an earth, electricity and celestial toon which need a lot of work.

    my main has all the current op items, a full set of the 175 gear with both might elite bonuses. i have 326 skill points. my mainframe is all special forces, all my gear mods are special forces.

    my tenth alt, a nature healer with 160 skill points has no extra special bells and whistles. seeing as i've never dpsd with this guy before he sports a makeshift set of dps gear that includes a few pieces of healer gear and accessories. all mods are from the free box we got.

    this little guy starts where my main character ends. without stringing everything together and relying on the AM moves that were seemingly built into nature this go around his burst attacks start in the 8k range. his dots are stronger, seeing about 25% more damage from them, last longer and hit more targets. i've thrown voracios plants at area 51 ads on this guy and have hit all three for 6-8 k damage. savage growth routinely hits for 8 and 10 k, crits of 14. this is on a character with half the number of skill points as my main and far, far more inferior gear against the same sets of ds. my two main nature characters hit for much, much harder. i'm not saying "nerf nature" by how did this get a pass? this is not balanced at all.

    now i have run a few AoJ alerts and have topped out in damage but this was mostly due to my tenacity and the other dps lack of sp and gear. even then those few times the margin was by very little. Any experienced player can easily overtake me no matter how hard i try and i've been playing since day one. i'm no lightweight.

    turn mental back on!
    • Like x 3
  8. Sy-Lent-Kill-R New Player

    I really want to thank you guys for your responses. I've been playing mental since psychic blades lol. I've rolled with the flow for every
    change, the final up, and now the down. If controllers are "supposed" to do the next most damage and with two we used to be able to
    feed off of each other and interact with almost all powers with no dps penalty so why the need for battle anything? OH well, thanks
    very much for your insight.
  9. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player

    i haven't even gotten started on controlling.
  10. stärnbock Devoted Player

    mental since i started the game. not that it would mean something, though: i got 345 SP, wich of course is not a direct indicator for my skill level, yet i would think it shows that i am not new to the game, also full special force mods in both gear and base generator, at CR 206. with that in mind: whatever i try with mental, i allways end waaay behind on the scoreboard (not that i would care for it anyways :p) and even if i may never have been a top dps, my assumption would be that something is indeed wrong with mentals dammage capability. to hear others suck too with my favourite power makes me guess its not my fault alone at least ^^

    one suggestion i allways give is (besides fixing the obviously broken stuff), to switch mass terror and terror tendrills setup and exploiting of terror, maybe reestablish mass terror as a DOT, while tendrills could be what is was like before it got "fixed" only with higher power cost (similar to munitions mini nuke) and with the PI changed because tendrils take some time to hit...

    another option would be for mental to get lost of dazed as PI for terror, making it way more easy to create loadouts. or making it so that every setup power for dazed PI would exploit terror and every setup power for terror PI would exploit daze...

    if thats not a possibility (lets get crazy with this one): after fixing horrific visage in dammage role, maybe they could make thought bubble a second SCG, leading to lose some dammage, but for exchange making up for faster SC's, resulting in more dammage...?

    well, if only telekinetic bolt would explode encasements again, just as it was used to, that would help a lot too. it could make up for thought bubbles weakened dammage as an SCG, through the encasements exploding with bolt...

    these are some ways for how mental could improove, not only in dammage output: wouldn't it be more interesting as a whole?
    • Like x 1
  11. stärnbock Devoted Player

    also: why does mass levitation not work as an encasement? the visual effect around levitated targets still shows that it did once... well, with telekinetic bolt as an encasement blaster, that would help mentals dps for sure! also also: wouldn't it be much easier to just setup the PI's with pyro (terror) and cryokinesis (dazed), painblast (terror) and ambush (daze), instead just adding a second PI if the other one is activated first? it wouldn't even change much, only that you wouldn't need to setup daze first, before you can terrorize and terrorize first before you can daze... well, it would help i guess...
  12. Bloodlife New Player

    Right now mental dps is just a mental disease. Lots of headache to just be close on damage with tanks.... Ok, kidding, but not far from it.

    Takes too much power to do a bit more than half an good earth / lightning / nature dps damage . Talking about new alerts, not the sparring targets on bases....WC and SJ. alerts with 3dps Im the 3rd, far by a lot from the first. 3Mental? Yet to see it, but the alerts would turn into raids timewise.

    On my other toon, nature, Im 1st or 2nd, dont matter the loadout, always the same. Too many 200/300 consumition powers on mental, unless you spam 100power TP, not worth it, not high enough damage so far, unles they add some quirk to it on the future. Nature do better with 200 and 100 powers on his loadout.
    The best I came up: Mass levitation (200)(+dazed), Pyrokinesis (200)(if dazed->terrified), Mass Terror (300)(+dmg if terrified), Cryokinesis (200)(if terrified->dazed), Telekinetic Bolt (300)(+ dmg if dazed), Filler (SC, TP, inv, etc).1200 power total! MAX 3 rotations, with ML used only on the first, and already empty powerbar.
    Instead you can spam 3x Telekinetic Push (100) instead of Telekinetic Bolt or use the iconic Sonic Shout (150/S) both do the same dps.

    You can also change something in the order above... not for the better dps, but for burst on first 3-5 secs, but same or slightly worse dps on the end.

    Some Headaches, pls debate, need pointers how to dps right now... :( also no Youtube video is good enough. Do not point em, they all do less dps than the above LO.
    1) Mass levitation > some Dazed PI has the biggest dps so far, all else you do after it do somewhat smaller dps. Maybe the timing of real PI is smaller than the effect itself?
    2) Comparing with nature, nature have multiple dots, a refresher (needed) and now the "quickener" Roar, that can also count as a finalizer because can make the dots in queue to hit instantly, so to quick kill something. Nothing similar in mental, even if mental has dots too, yet they are quick and weaker, so not lucrative to speed ot refresh them. Also, the main loadout nature spam a 100power and the reflesher, and can keep doing it close to 30 secs. Mental is power empty in half the time +-.
    3) Having 2 PIs actually are hurting the loadout because we cant see what we gain in each one, and can lose both timings. Mental is heavily hurt here for no gain.
    4) even with invisibility ambush the dmg is similar, also its only once/12sec, and harder to master than anything in nature.

    5) err... not real 5, its a mental illusion (got it?)... or just my thinking: no use shouting at developers or testers, the top powers are now bottom and the bottom powers are now top, just because some powers were not enough tested, they aimed to make the worse ones better... Aaaaaaand they (the good testers, not the average rock paper scissor people (tnx starnbok for the idea)) did all they could based on what was there and their free timeframe.

    Now is time to do the smaller adjustments, so I would only recomend 2 itens, and would be satisfied: bringing PI needed powers to 50/100 less power (if PI is working, cause no PI = less dps), and also up the dmg of the dot powers a bit, 15/20%, so to contrast instant powers vs dot powers loadouts. They would be situational, and only best in the right hands. Or minds :)
    • Like x 3
  13. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player

    i spent the last two days the same way i've spent the past six weeks since the revamp went live. doing nothing but testing different loadouts in different instances and i keep coming up with the same disappointments and frustrations.

    i'm tired of it.
    • Like x 2
  14. stärnbock Devoted Player

    that loadout you mentioned is allmost the same as i run, only that i use invisibility and clip ambush (makes target sleep) with (if ready, other wise it will get skipped) neo venom (because i hate to transform into an ugly, purple, giant fury) and finish with painblast (does good damage at least on one target, recomended for boss battles). you could also switch pyro for terror tendrils (very risky, works only better when you can be sure you will not hit the tank with it... or wonder women) and have the finisher terrorize instead of cryo (also a glitched power: the finisher should be worked out with the next update, right now you will loose dammage because you will cancel terrorize if you kill the targets, after the fix it should properly go to other targets if the one before is killed).

    thank you for mentioning ^^ mental was botched shortly before revamp went live. we reported terror tendrills as OP and the only power you needed to make your dps go crazy high in numbers (well, that was only if you had walls around, basicly the sparing targets did overparse for that reason alone). well, after they "fixed" the only power that was setting terror on multiple targets (horrific visage was broken and reported numerous times before and they didn't fixed it anyways) it became practicly too risky to have it on your loadout. pyro after thought bubble became your only chance to setup terror on eight targets. but then of course you have to use two powers for the one PI you actually wanted.

    well, i allways thought that the idea of pyro setting terror on dazed targets was nice yet in no way satisfying, and nothing got changed because it was decided that it should be that way and nothing reported seems to get fixed for now (exept the executioner, cant wait to see it finaly working as it should though). those are all reasons why i thought the revamp was not ready yet, but the time was set in stone and it feels even now, all mental reports get more or less ignored by the devs... somehow, this is not realy encuraging me, yet i still care for mental because it is still my favourite power, no matter if it does good or bad dammage ^^ well, i guess one can only hope...
  15. Bloodlife New Player

    another downside: inv + pain = singletarget. so the change daze>terrorized isnt useful for setting terror PI in multiple adds, its better pyro atm, of course inv+pain is top dmg, so hard to skip... but using both takes space on LO and casting time.
    Actually its just this little the PI? 10% For PI to be important should be higher...
    only lose-lose situations here. tired.
  16. stärnbock Devoted Player

    of course you can rotate between mass terror > brawling tap > phantom flames > brawling tap > telekinetic bolt > brawling tap > repeat... if you want to test the trolls capability. you will run dry very fast, but produce numbers for a short time even with -10% for the PI. requires alot of power and all you can put into gear to raise your capacity... the weapon taps are only to make the timing right, not to produce power back with weapon attacks: go "super powered"! for this to work. if you can, try to sway your group leader to search a second troll for you.
  17. McShotzz Well-Known Player

    Pre-am pyro never had burst iirc, was just a really strong dot and i believe it was brought back to that in revamp
  18. stärnbock Devoted Player

    well, pyro is doing all dammage at once if you are bursting encasements. its practicly the same as if you would run pyro for its DOT without encasement getting exploded, only you don't have to wait for the dammage to tick. and thats a reason why i guess pyro for exploding sucks anyways, even if considering the timeframe in wich in raids you get if you should have a troll using encasements in raids. well, with the next OP item in the next DLC, you may have enough dominance (normal gear doesn't give dominance at all) to encase finaly on your own, without requirering you to either wear troll pieces in dammage role, going all dominance in stats and drinking bulldozer in preparation before you can even start to use encasements in group instances. thats why we need mass levitation encasing too and telebolt to explode encasements aswell for a huge dammage increasement: if you even want to make any use at all for this kind of tactic that is...
    • Like x 1
  19. stärnbock Devoted Player

    i tryed it all. and i totally sucked with those tactics i just gave to you for consideration... anyways ^^'
  20. stärnbock Devoted Player

    oh yeah: if you choose to take out the weapon taps and phantom flames, and replace those with swoop attack (with the tap for a second hit (single target) and with the right base mod for feet) you can do enough dammage that you can hold yourself against a jackhammer spamming crystal user (braking bad), yet that for itself is a problem for itself: a power should never require neither iconics nor movements to hold up against other powers. well, if you use low pressure into high pressure, your dammage is getting even higher... long story short:
    if you realy want to do dammage with mental, either change all power for movements and iconics or use the weapons that produce fast and hard hitting WM (one handed, martial arts and (to some extend) staff) and go weapon expert (yeah, that sucks too) IMHO...
    • Like x 1