Stats Revamp 1.3 - Gadgets Feedback!

Power Set Feedback: Gadgets

If you haven't, please read this thread about overall survey results.

In this thread, I will address the top 3 pieces of feedback for Gadgets. In some cases, I will describe what changes we are making based on your feedback. In other cases, I will describe why we are not (at this time) making changes. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback and remains passionate about the Gadgets power set. We appreciate it and want to make sure that we can continue working together to make Gadgets amazing.

The top three pieces of feedback are:

• Cooldowns: You were concerned about cooldowns being too long
• Power Interactions: You were concerned about PI rotations being too repetitive
• Stealth: You were concerned about stealth not being useful

Cool Downs

We spent time specifically combing through the gadgets power set in order to address cooldown and “awkward feel" issues. While not everything has been fixed, we made significant steps towards reducing many cool downs. Shin-O-B will have more specifics on this, and the general crowd control changes adjusted gadgets significantly as well.

Power Interactions

PI rotations are touchy, touchy things. We think that adjusting the cooldowns of most crowd control abilities should help open up options, and we added the Dazed PI to Stasis Field.

I also wanted to drop a note about Fear Gas. We globally removed the option to jump cancel channeled abilities AND still get all of their effects, since this doesn't make sense. This change has been on the test server since the stats revamp hit. Since you can’t cancel Fear Gas anymore, we have made it so that you could move while using it.

Stealth

When we removed the crit bonus from stealth, it left it in a state where it didn’t really give any bonuses. We liked the feeling of going stealth and then sneaking up and jumping out to get bonus damage. This fulfills the stealth fantasy people have grown to love. So, to make this a thing again we decided to add a damage proc on your initial attack out of stealth. This will make coming out of stealth feel more powerful and rewarding, while not being significantly overpowered when combined with things like (already very strong) Supercharges.

Question
Why are the Sparring Targets breaking out after running back to their designated spot while using Implosion Mine?


I'm finding it difficult to test control effects on the sparring targets. They keep breaking out of everything fairly quickly.

Feedback
The graphics for Thermite Mine are extremely misleading:


With a graphic like that, you'd expect it to have decent range. Instead, you have to be very close to the enemy:


You have to be a couple of steps closer if you want it to auto-detonate.

This is one of those situations where I'd like a "distance to target" UI indicator. Trying to eyeball ranges like that in-game is always difficult. If you're even a step out, you are going to miss the attack.

Bug Report
From the patch notes:
Taser Pull - Cost increased to 300 from 100, and damage is rebalanced to reflect that.

In reality, it still costs 100 base power. However, it sports the increased damage:



Feedback
This change is leaving me confused on the intent. My expectation is that a high-cost damaging power would be a PI consumer instead of an applicator. That is the way of the rest of the Gadgets powerset currently works. For single-target situations where you might use this, you aren't going to get the 10% PI bonus that a consumer would. The previous high-cost single-target Gadgets power - Paralyzing Dart - was a PI consumer.

Also, I don't think Gadgets has any low-cost single-target power. This becomes an issue when you are trying to use a PftT style in boss situations. Is Thermite Mine intended to fill that role with its terrible range?

Feedback:

• I like the Changes to Stealth, feels awesome coming out of out there and getting extra DPS for popping a Supercharge.

• I like that Fear Gas has mobility now, a much welcomed change. However the time you have to move is very limited, about maybe 1.5 seconds at best. Not a bad thing but something to keep in mind.

• I like the fact that we can encase people and explode them. But a part of me Really wishes we could Explode enemies using Gauss Grenade. (They're grenades after all.and If Napalm is gonna Leverage burning instead of applying it; that's gonna leave a problem for people like me who uses Stasis field alongside Fear-gas and Cyro-Foam.)

• Pace of combat still feels a tad off. Using Napalm Grenade, Fear Gas, and Cyro-foam. I consistently had to rotate between Fear Gas and Cyro Foam. And during the Artemis boss fight; I just couldn't dps her due to timing of the cooldowns. Fairly happy to see that Cyro-foam now has a 2 second cooldown.

Bug Report and additional feedback.

• Taser Pull is still at 100 power cost, according to the changes from Mepps this power should now cost 300.
• Personally speaking, I'm not a fan of having Taser Pull being a Big attack now. We already have 3 big hitters with gadgets, we don't need 4.

Conclusion: Playing Gadgets Felt pretty great when I went against Artemis, much better then before. I only died once here because I had a bad habit of trying to Jump cancel Fear-gas when I shouldn't have since I was so used to doing that.

Bug Report
From the Patch Notes:
Stealth - Cooldown reduced to 12 seconds from 18 seconds, has a passive damage bonus, and now triggers a proc of additional damage when using a damage ability from stealth mode.

Highlighted the appropriate part in bold.

This isn't working for all damage abilities though. Here's a demonstration with Gauss Grenade:


It works with some powers like Cryo-Foam, EMP Pulse, Fear Gas, and Surprise Attack.

Here is a list of powers that do NOT work:
Gauss Grenade
Paralyzing Dart
Sticky Bomb
Taser Pull

Bug Report
How many damage over time ticks is Stasis Field supposed to have?

Damage Role - 15 ticks:


Controller Role - 6 ticks:



Question
When did Stasis Field become an AoE Dot?

That's weird, I tested out and used Stasis field in the Seeing Shades Solo and only noticed the Dot happening on one target.

Maybe the targets have to be really close together or something like that for it to trigger aoe damage.

Question (Bug Report?)
Is Self-Destruct Signal supposed to be the only power that gives damage from blowing up a Stasis Field encasement?

Here is a demonstration video with Self-Destruct Signal:


Note the 2.5k ticks from Self-Destruct Signal in Combat log

Now compare that to a video where I use Sticky Bomb to blow up the encasement:


My Sticky Bomb only does ~1100 damage to each of the three sparring targets.

Now compare that to this video with just Sticky Bomb:


Sticky Bomb damage the sparring targets each for at least 4451 damage.

Napalm Grenade and Thermite Mine aren't providing any extra detonation damage either.




Bug Report
What happened with the damage division on Sticky Bomb when I used it to blow up two encasements? Surely at least one of the sparring targets - the non-encased one - should have received at least one 4.4k damage tick.

Stasis Field has always been single target in damage role but AoE multitarget in Controller role. It's also been like that on Live forever. If there's an alteration in the number of DoTs in either role, it's probably associated with what I just mentioned for balance.

Bug Report
When Suppressor Turret blows up, its last attack can damage/stun the player.

Here is an example:


Jump to 17 seconds.

So far I've had Suppressor Turret damage, stun, and electrify me.

What an absolute piece of junk! How is this any better than the mortal pet that we started off with? The 30 second cooldown and 500 base power cost only adds insult to injury.

EDIT:
Here is an example where is damages, stuns, and electrifies me. Jump to 12 seconds:

lol.

Bug Report
Not sure if this is related to Gadgets or the update, but I noticed this skinning error on Distract while fighting Gorgons. Jump to 12 seconds:


If you cast Distract right before the Gorgon does its skull attack, you are freed from the crowd control effect. However, your character still retains an altered skin.

Feedback
From the patch notes: Defibrilator -Power healing output increased.

That patch note is an understatement. Power dump mechanics have changed again.

Prior to this update:
The Controller's power pool was being divided among the group members. At CR 175 in Controller role, that meant in 4 player and large teams, 3 players in the team would receive less than 300 power individually.

Now:
The power pool the Controller returns has been increased and is no longer being divided. At CR 175, I'm now returning 1200 power individually to 3 players on the team. The caster cannot receive any power back.

This change means I'm outputting more than 10x the amount of power for each Defib cast as compared to the last build.

Feedback
From the patch notes:
"Adjusted Breakout profiles for a wider range of content. NPCs should no longer use Breakout instantly, with rare exceptions"

Is this considered an "instant" breakout?


I'm seeing those types of breakouts a lot in content tonight. Most stun effects don't last long at all.

Bug Report
Battle Display's buff is not being shown under "Current Effects" when the power is active.

Did some testing and I definitely have some positive responses to these changes.

• Mines are way better, but the range makes them more suited for content you have a healer for. I know one shots don't happen anymore, but since they don't stun, you can get a lot of attacks at once and that isn't fun unless you are a tank. Also, is it possible to remove the cast bars? I keep accidentally jump cancelling them. I like to jump around a lot.
• Fear Gas's damage reduction is noticeable, but overall, I like the feel of the change. The mobile aspect is great. (Now I got to recondition myself not to JC it.)
• Paralyzing Dart, what can I say, it's a good AOE fast cast power. I still wish it would setup and benefit from the same pi, but I understand why it doesn't.
• Stealth is nice, it definitely is useful again. I wont be using it, since my play style makes it hard to use, but surprise attack hits dang hard when you cast it from stealth. Cuff'em is kind of fun too, though again, it's so easy to get knocked out of stealth, that overall, not sure. I think I want to test the hand mod maybe.
• Neural Neutralizer, yep, now a great power. Very useful, but the range on it is really narrow. Is it 7m? I really like the upfront attack change.
• EMP's upfront damage does make it more useful in that regards. I can see a good loadout with it.
• Holographic Decoy, I am not sure if the taunt is consistently working. I would drop it and still get followed. Sometimes it catches the aggro, but not so much. I know before it would be rather quick on catching the aggro. Maybe the taunt is bugged with the recent changes?
• Bunker Buster needs a buff. 100% supercharge isn't very strong. I understand when it was in stealth, it was hitting too hard, but in comparison, I'd really would think it would do more. Sorcery's pets and Mental's transformation are way better in regards to Bunker Buster.

I respeced to try weapon only option. My loadout was fine, I think.
Battle Display, Holographic Decoy, Neural Neutralizer, Stasis Field, Self Destruct, Bunker Buster
Right now, weapon only really isn't viable due to weapons. I know this isn't Gadgets related, just wanted to mention I was doing more damage with Stasis Field than my weapon attacks. And I was utilizing heavy hitter combos.
In regards to:

This sounds very positive. So my understanding, Sticky will setup burning and Napalm would leverage it, but have a dot still?
Redundancy isn't really a problem, considering it is a powerset that has 3 grenade lobs from the start. And makes sense thematically if you are making a tech based character that utilizes different tools that are similar but achieve different things. (1966 Batman's utility belt anyone? No? Then Green Arrow's trick arrows as an example.)

My take, this is shaping up to be more fluid. I'm really liking the direction. Finally liking the direction.

These new changes look good so far.

• Thermite Mine: can the cast time be shortened and the dovetail/transition animations be increased? The duration is fine but now the transition times are so short that it looks strange. I instantly kneel down, set up the mine, then instantly stand up without any actual kneeling or standing animation. Feels awkward. Functionality wise I like it now though.

• Implosion Mine: its damage seems to be slightly lower than EMP which is strange considering its damage is delayed. Also, even if this did the same damage as EMP it's redundant because EMP already fills the expensive, electrify niche. I'd prefer if Implosion Mine would exploit either Burn so that it's a melee alternative to Sticky and interacts with Thermite Mine, or Frostbite so that it's a melee burst alternative to Cryo Field.

• EMP Pulse: much better now that it registers sooner. The only functional problem I have with it now is that I can't clip from EMP into Stealth without getting thrown out of it instantly which doesn't happen with other instant burst powers like Taser Pull. Also, ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE PULSE sigh

• Fear Gas: I wanted to complain about the complete removal of JC from this but then I reconsidered. With the shortened channel time it's almost as fast as our other powers except that it can't be clipped and can be awkward to transition to a weapon combo. The new way the PI works (consolidating all the dot ticks into a third burst hit) makes this essentially a burst for any mixed-PI rotation spot where it doesn't need to be clipped. It can still function as a dot in dot-based Daze/Frostbite rotations. I'd probably rather use it now than with the post-GU36 JC.

• Stasis Field: thanks for changing the PI. Single-target Daze isn't anything to get excited about but Crush never did anything for Gadgets. In theory it may have been a good idea to allow us to setup PI for other powersets but in reality this never happened and everyone nowadays will setup their own PI and not want to depend on someone else to do it.

• Stealth: neat changes here. Is it intended that the unstealth PROC only hits one target? That would kind of restrict Stealth to single target situations, at least make it more effective for those, especially considering that Surprise Attack and Cuff'em are single target as well. I'd prefer if the PROC hit could be multi target to make it more versatile. With the new quick Mines and the PROC at the very least I can see builds that dip into Stealth every 12 seconds to use Surprise Attack on a boss. I did try some builds where I used Cuff'em or Implosion Mine before Surprise Attack and that worked out well, too. For melee range at least, the Improved Stealth tactical mod is definitely needed but that's a good thing.

• Neural Neutralizer: this is good now. I mean, really good. This can easily be a key piece for any melee rotation now, for both roles even. There's one thing I find strange though - why does it setup and exploit Daze? It can't exploit the PI it sets up itself because that will run out exactly when this comes off cooldown, but if you carry another Daze setup for this then it's irrelevant that this sets up Daze as well It would be better in my opinion if NN would exploit another PI or just did more damage by default.

• Taser Pull: I'm as confused as everyone else about this. It's cool to have an expensive single target burst, but now we have even fewer cheap powers and this PI setter does more damage than the powers that exploit it. Strange.

• Suppressor Turret: absolutely useless now, even more than it is on live.

There isn't a movement thread so I'll ask here.

• Throwing Knives: could this be enabled for Stealth loadouts please - for the single reason of being thematic? The same should go for Batarang Multi-Throw, in whatever form it will return.

• Backflip Attack: just want to point to this in case the dedicated thread has been missed. Can this be returned to a regular power, to allow for it to pair with Forward Flip Attack for quick positioning?

Bug Report
I looked into Throwing Knives and that turned up another interesting bug:


The UI thinks I can slot the power in Stealth, but I can't.

Also, I support these change requests for Throwing Knives and Backflip Attack.