Stats Revamp 1.6: Power!

Knew you couldn't stay away

Speccing into power mastery would disable the power regen from the weapon taps, so it would only be good to tap for extra damage, wouldn't benefit you power wise anymore, at least that's what I get out of reading it.

Live server is still off limits lol.

I actually care for the stat revamp, so I'll be willing to test it still.

The idea of a stat to increase power regen is fine, but the regen should be higher. Right now, it's not making a big difference unless low power costs are spammed. I've been on the test server for a couple hours and the bigger issue is CR scaling with regards to power consumption. The issue with CR scaling (as CR increases, power consumption increases) could mess up testing. If that is fixed or at least brought down from being exponential (it seems), the increased regen from power mastery might be ok.

Regarding the balancing act with weapon mastery, tread carefully as getting less power from weapon attacks is a negligible concern for pure weapon players. They are basically getting a buff with no downside, since powers were never of their concern.

I like the idea...but pftt is suffering still. Wm is getting a boost dmg wise. I think the pm should bring more power back to balance it out. I dont want there to be basically one playstyle that trumps others. Pfft...weapons...and hybrid should balance out better than they are currently. Again...i really like the idea...we are heading towards a more diverse game...instead of a one above all playstyle. Im all for this idea. Just needs to balance out in the end before live.

OK, so I decided to test the Power Mastery using my Rage toon, since Rage is notorious for power consumption. All specs were with CR 190 gear straight out of the box, 0 mods.

First I specced 123 sp in power, 20 + 40 in crits, and 1 in flight, lol. Oh, and 1 weapon filled out, no mastery. (Yeah, this toon only has the oly 184 sp or something, lol)

Rotation to test was Galling Eruption for PI, Outrage + 1 tap combo (300 + 200 cost), Dreadful Blast (200 + 200 + 200), and then spamming 2 Frenetic Bombardment (100 x 5 each) until GE was off CD. I wanted to see the effect of a mixed 300, 200, and 100 cost loadout.

1. Open world: here at CR 190, it's easy to stay fully powered all the time when PftT because of the adds. My damage hovered at around 17.5-18.5k, but I'm not great at max damage rotations so that might change with a different player.

2. Solo: Able to stay fully powered during all add encounters (well, after they died, lol). Boss fights were a nightmare. Even only using Galling Eruption (300) and Frenetic Bombardment (100 x 5) you still run out of power before your soder is off cooldown. So you basically have to block and use your weapon anyway while waiting for power regen to catch up.

Then I did the same rotation specced 123 sp in might, 20 + 40 in crits, 0 power, 0 power mastery, 1 in flight, 1 weapon filled out, no mastery.

1. Open world: negligible power difference, since adds death returned nearly the same amount of power (2,200 vs 2,500 per add roughly). Was still able to stay almost fully powered between add fights, perhaps 1 200 cost move away from full. Damage was 19k-20.5k.

2. Solo: Not surprisingly, playing hybrid made the instance go way faster. I used bow just for fun, so for regen I ended up doing flurry shot in between powers. Felix faust was now a breeze because of the added damage. Artemis was just as much of a pain with that stupid fire pit, but her health went down a lot faster.

Conclusion:
From my point of view, full might hybrid specs still vastly outperfrom PftT even with power mastery. I can only see a few options.

For comfort, with a little tweaking, playing PftT with power mastery seemed fun in solo content (and I imagine duos too).

A. Increase the strength of the effect from power mastery. In order to be competitive, you should to be able to use at least 1 or 2 300 cost powers, several 200 cost, and endless 100 power cost powers. In fact, using 100 cost powers should actually make your power bar go up, not down.

B. Lower the damage difference between someone with 0 might and 175 might. Otherwise in raiding situations, it still doesn't make any sense to PftT because the amount of damage vastly outweighs the benefits of using 2 or 3 extra moves before running out of power.

I was under the impression that weapons-only players needed a major buff anyway. So this would be perfect. Unless I'm mistaken.

That's the point. The Weapon playstyle was lacking and it needed a buff. However, buffing the weapon damage would also just make the Hybrid playstyle even stronger. This was a good solution to make the Weapon playstyle stronger whilst not impacting Hybrid as a side effect.

Not true at all thedouble tick ability might have been a factor but its not the only reason and this is why its important not to paraphrase other peoples concerns.

The concern with auto pot and this has been the case with elite gear and in this new system is that it dumbs down a primary part of a controllers role; keeping pot up for the group.

When you automate this you take away the skill involved with a player having to be aware of where they're at in the power cycle and how doing that benefits the group.

All for what because some trolls insist on being able to carry unnecessary cc moves, debuffs not needed in the circumstances and other things wasting slots because they think they're their to do damage when it's not your job.

The reality is pot should be left as it is and all auto features should be removed there us already enough freedom this excuse that we need more doesn't wash with me and I think we would be better served thinking about what moved actually cast pot and what dual purposes they might be able to have to give the freedom players seek.

Auto piloting pot is like switching a plane on auto pilot so the pilot no longer needs to fly the plane.

Auto pot is a mistake.

I said nothing about elite mods. Does every player have the elite gear with the bonus that does the auto PoT? Its obvious the answer is no. Said nothing about me or my league runs. You quote me and try to put words in my mouth or twist my words. I simply asked some questions about how this improves things. Never said i wasnt happy either. I even said its not a bad change. I guess asking questions is problem now. Id appreciate it if u stopped twisting my words around.

Feedback
The nice things about automatic power-over-time is that it forced the group to maintain line of sight with the Controller (no running ahead) and I believe it continued working during cutscenes. It was also handy in those situations where your Controller went link-dead. You would at least continue to receive power-over-time from their zombie corpse. Finally, it was useful in raiding situations where I needed to rally several people. Having it be an automatic innate made it easier to restore power while turning lots of cogs on tough boss fights.

I don't feel the new version of power-over-time is much of an improvement. Considering how often a Controller has to mash power dump/SC Generator under Revamp rules, power-over-time might as well be automatic with how often you are using powers.

I don't really care for the new new Semi-Auto PoT. If it's going to activate for any controller move, it's basically on all the time anyway, this just adds a pointless flavor to it.

Casting any ability triggers PoT.........How does that even change what we were talking about? That still takes no skill and makes the role just as brainless and boring as it did when PoT was passive. And i also don't get why you think you need to free up room on a trolls loadout, a troll only needs so many powers and has enough room to have a stand alone PoT move on the bar.

You guys are missing the point with PoT. Having a power that only casts PoT like how it is on live keeps the person playing the role more engaged in what they are doing. The passive PoT and this version of PoT take no skill or awareness to keep up. Trolls don't have much to do and by doing things like this you give them even less to do and pay attention to.

Why do we keep going down this road where everything keeps getting easier to play? The way the troll works on live is just fine stop messing with things that aren't broke. Trolling is so sad and un skilled now. PoT just happens, you never run out of power as a troll so you don't even worry about power management, like whats with this stuff being so easy and brainless?? This is the type of stuff that has ruined the game but yet we keep going down this road?? It makes no sense to me and it makes playing these roles super boring.

Just put PoT back to how it is on live and make the instant power heals bigger to give more power to the group. That solves 2 issues right there and they are both simple fixes.

Tanking is the same way, now instead of using the combat mechanics and getting blues you just mindlessly punch everything and as long as you keep that up your good...lol That kinda defeats the purpose of combat mechanics and also takes away one of the funnest parts of tanking. Playing the counter game is was makes tanking interesting but now you end up taking more damage cause god forbid you block.....really like who thinks these things up, you take more damage when blocking??????. So many changes to support roles are just stupid (my bad just being blunt) So while tanking and a big hit is coming in just stand there and keep punching don't try to block it or get a counter......yea that makes no sense. That last part was off topic but just pointing out how even taking has no been dumbed down.

If you want to fix the power issues that Pftt powers have lower the power costs a bit and/or just let trolls give out more power. Trolls instant power should be giving more power then it is. Sure the passive thing might help but why don't we just look at the easy method and bump up power healing for trolls and ease up on power costs. Why is it in this game do we always try to do things the hard way and make more work for ourselves?

Feedback:

I like the Idea of Power Mastery, but the execution is flawed. The Powers I've used had three different results and most of them were lackluster.

First up: Fire.

With Fire I noticed that Power Mastery Kept me Sustained longer if I continued to use The Channeling attacks like Fireburst, so that's good on the channeled attack powers.

Loadout Used:

Second Up: Gadgets.

I was on the Test Server and I heard from other players that the Lackluster Regeneration is much more noticeable when you are using none channeled powers. So I used Gadgets.

The Loadout I used was: Gauss Grenade, Fear Gas, Foam, Napalm, EMP, and Photon Blast. Needless to say I was struggling and was about to be flat out of power within roughly I'd say 2 rotations.


Third UP: Rage.

For Rage I tried a Full on Melee loadout using Galling Eruption, Violence, Severe Punishment, Revenge, E-chain, and OutRage. And I had the same power hungry results as I did with the Previously Used Gadgets.




Recap on first impressions with power mastery:

The power regeneration needs a lot of work. If this thing continues the way it is, Channeled powers are gonna be the norm around for PFTT and I personally don't want that to happen. The Regeneration should be more noticeable too, it really makes me feel like not much was changed with the "Whole" Power Mastery situation.

If you try to use Power Mastery with something like Rage or Gadgets for that matter, it's gonna punish you a lot more for using it versus channeled attacks.

Good Idea; but execution needs a lot of work.

Light FX, Proxy, and Crappy all gave the feedback I would want to give regarding the new "Automated PoT". Well said guys.

Basically this.

The buff needs to be buffed, lol. Maybe around 30% instead of 15, as of right now it barely makes a difference and PFtT with burst powers is a lot more heavy on power consumption then it is with channel powers.

See? I knew there was a reason I loved you.

Yeah I wasn't saying anything on the passive PoT change, cause to me it's still the same thing. Only difference is now you mindlessly throw a power instead of just standing there. If you're propely trolling, you'll never have PoT drop because you'll always throw a power within the 12 second window, so you might as well still call it passive lol.

Didn't get that change and why it's a big deal. Love the power mastery though, but still needs work.

I haven't seen anyone complaining about the "every power gives p ot" ability as long as it was elite only. Once it moved out of elite, now it's a problem. It doesn't take the worlds greatest detective to figure that one out.

But devs, I leave it to you. You've been reading feedback. Have you seen people complain about every power giving p ot while it was elite only? Your call.