Stats Revamp: Mental 1.1

Alrighty, I reworked my mental dps on Test with the feedback above and here are general impressions so far.

*WARNING: STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS. THIS IS NOT A FINAL BUILD OR DEFINITIVE SET OF CONCLUSIONS*

Objective: Does 1.1 allow for a tray-only dps build?

Setup

1. Create a Mental toon in dps stance
2. Equip with a cr 166 dps gear box from the womb vendor
3. Fill out all Gear slots with Synth mods from the womb vendor. I chose all Might and Might hybrids. For the yellow slots, Mental+Power. For the white slots, I kept the recommended HT mods from dcuobloguide.
4. Fill out all lair generator mods from a gear vendor. I bought from 'Karen' in the Themyscira outpost (6.3 mods). I chose 50/50 Prec and Might for the reds, all Power for the yellows, and 50/50 Dom and Health for the blues.

SP composition

1. I filled out the weapon type (Brawling) to get all the native combos. No WM
2. Flight filled out for fast speed and all the resistance innates
3. Skill tree filled out on 1st and 2nd level in the attack crits just enough to unlock the subsequent level (10 per level or 20 total SP). Once unlocked, every remaining SP went into the Power slot (~135).
4. Net stat result - Power was a little over 30k, Might was ~8k, and the rest of the stats were decreasingly less than Might.

Loadout composition and rationale

1. Knowing the power costs could be a detriment to tray-only, I chose the lowest cost powers possible to activate and take advantage of PI plus one slot for a shield and one slot for a SC.
2. There wasn't enough low-cost powers to fill out the 4 damage slots for any one PI, so I split the difference between 2 for Dazing and 2 for Terror
3. As of this writing, loadout looks like this - Telekinesis, Telekinetic Bolt, Terror Tendrils, Psychic Shock, Telekinetic Shield, Bolt Barrage *WARNING AGAIN - NOT FINAL LOAODUT. STILL TWEAKING*


General Observations/Impressions

1. I tried out this setup in the Typhom Monster area to test against single targets and small groups (2-3). Whenever possible, I explicitly avoided using any weapons moves aside from a lunge to get into melee range or an interrupt if I was hit with channel damage.
2. Against single targets this setup works quickly. Casting Telekinesis to activate Dazing and right into TB, then cast TT right into PS. I found that low to medium strength npcs were wiped out by the time I hit that fourth power. If the npc still had a little health left, both TB and PS have a very short cooldown so I would recast based on whichever PI was still active.
3. Against groups, not as effective. The current loadout setup is not a very broad, strong AoE type method for damage, so I was trying to spam the powers with short cooldown to avoid getting swarmed and would quickly run out of power.
4. Based on the Devs explanation, powerback in dps stance is % based on your power stat. I regularly observed that knocking out a monster with a powers-only attack returned a blue power bubble of ~3k or ~10% of my power per npc.
5. Using this setup, I could not get past the first set of adds in FoS3 without getting overwhelmed by the npcs (sniper, medic, infantry)


Preliminary conclusions

1. Using this stat setup and loadout, it's not workable to engage in tray-only combat in areas without a troller.
2. It may be workable to use this config by reducing the amount of SP allocated to Power and increase the allocation to Might such that npcs are knocked out faster. Knocking out faster means faster return of blue bubbles. There may be a curve to calculate the point where Might going up versus Power going down intersects at some optimal level that grants the most damage within the largest possible power pool. Just don't know what that is at this time without more trial and error.
3. The loadout may not be ideal. There are higher cost powers that could also knock out npcs more quickly to get that return faster as well, but interruptions become a much riskier thing to consider when moving to higher cost powers. Given the delicate balance of speed-to-knockout versus power return, one or two interruptions will have you running on empty.
4. Lots more testing and tweaking is needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn.

--Feedback welcomed and encouraged--

*EDIT: edited to replace Grandeur with Telekinesis in the loadout description. Too early, not enough coffee.

I find it Ironic that you are looking for a 1 2 34 loadout; when the Devs are doing all this work to prevent that.
It'll turn out that using various powers will be a lie, and every Mental will end up using the same but new cookie cutter 1 2 3 4 loadout. This is not meant to be a criticism of you; but just showing how human nature finds a way to the most simple solutions.

Not exactly. I'm looking to prove it out if one type of dps mode is possible. Using a hybrid of powers and weapons works fine from what I've tried. Using weapons only with powers that shield/buff/debuff works just fine. It's the tray-only mode that seems to be a sore spot. So I'm not looking to say "here's the best 1234"...I'm looking to test out if it's possible with the current settings of power return and power cost if a tray only build is possible, with the goal of saying players that want to play that way physically can't unless adjustments to power regen and power cost are made.

Players do want to play from tray. Oddly the power costs are ridiculously high. Only Power Stats Matter.

Yes, some players do want to play from the tray. Part of the driver for removing the damage bonus from AM/WM was to help facilitate a state where a player could choose weapons, powers or a mix and still have a relatively equal potential for damage. If the power return is too low or the power costs too high, then tray-only approach is not viable and the goal of giving players options falls short.

Another way to look at is is I'm trying to answer the question "Can I not play tray-only because I'm doing it wrong?" Since this is revamping pretty much everything, we're essentially having to go back and re-learn how to use these powers all over again. That will take more time and testing before we can rightfully go back to the Devs and say "it's not right, fix it".

That is your opinion and only your opinion. I for one, love playing with my tray only because I'm a super powered metahuman.

As it is, it's just not feasible to go from the tray only w/o sacrificing something and being more simplistic than current AMs. That's a complete 180 from what we have now. And it forces the use of weapons. I don't have anything against weapons, but I seriously not a fan of using them. I've read enough comic books to tell you, if you are a mental meta, you aren't tapping away with a sword. You are using your telepathy or telekinesis to do it for you.

If this goes live, okay. Whatever. I'll deal. I have been around since f2p Oct 2011. I can manage a weapon clip loadout. But they did say we could work from tray and they included SC regen as well as combo counter to tray powers. So they do intend for us to try it.

Bug Report:
I'm finding power interaction registration for Terror Tendrils to be buggy. In the Typhon Monster Invasion zone, it often takes multiple attempts to get Terror PI to register. Here is a an example:


Takes two attempts for the Cockatrice.

Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 attempts to get it to register. Sometimes it won't register on the targeted enemy, but will be inflicted on a nearby enemy.

Telekinesis has always worked for inflicting the Dazed PI in that zone.

I take back what I said earlier about PIs giving a 10% buff. It depends on what Mental PI you are using as to what the damage bonus is.

For the TERROR power interaction, Psychic Shock and Phantom Flames receive ~10% damage bonuses. For example, Psychic Shock is doing 5100 to 5300 damage for me without PI. With PI, it does ~6000 damage. Phantom Flames does 9800 damage on average without PI. With the PI, it does 10900 on average.

For the DAZED power interaction, Telekinetic Push and Telekinetic Bolt give double damage ticks. For example, Telekinetic Bolt is doing a single tick of ~9800 damage for me on a Minotaur. If I setup the PI, I see two ticks of ~9800 damage. Here is a quick demonstration on a Gorgon:

I cast Telekinetic Bolt without PI for a single damage tick, Telekinesis to setup the PI, and cast Telekinetic Bolt again for two damage ticks.

My Recommendation:
Take the DAZED power interaction powers for now. Double Damage beats 10% damage bonus and Terror Tendrils is buggy for its PI application.

Sorry... the double damage on a Dazed Telekinetic Bolt is a bug!

Thank you for your efforts in exploring options and providing feedback!

Thank you very much for your effort and feedback, ChillCat! Every little bit of testing helps!

Spark of parallax was pre-GU47 and pre-AM buffs. It doesn't seem like a great choice for testing.

Based off today's Power Cost post I did some testing.

Power: 25796
Might: 9125
Precision: 9986
CR: 173

Used Synth 6 mods in my gear, Might for the red slots, Power for the yellow, Health for the blue.
Generator had 4 power 6.2 mods in it.
Using staff with full weapon mastery.
20 points in Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Might. 78 points in power.

Compared to the other supercharge generating abilities, Horrific Visage is severely overpowered. The others hit for 800-1500 based off my stats but Visage is hitting for 10000+ every time with crits upwards of 16000.

Actually compared to their counterparts in the other powersets, a lot of Mental's powers seem to be hitting for much greater numbers.

I can report seeing similar numbers for Horrific Visage at 9479 Might/CR 174.

Here is a list of damage ranges I recorded this afternoon:

Cryokinesis
6100 to 6400
6800 to 7200 damage with PI.

Horrific Visage
10600 to 10900

Mass Levitation
5700 to 6000 damage

Mass Terror
6 ticks of 1350 to 1450 damage.

Psychic Shock/Telekinetic Push
5100 to 5300
PS does 10% more with PI
TP does double ticks with PI

Pyrokinesis
6 ticks of 1188 to 1260 damage.
6 ticks of 1300 to 1400 damage with PI.

Telekinesis
7440 to 7958

Telekinetic Bolt/Phantom Flames
9300 to 9800
PF does 10% more with PI
TB does double ticks with PI

Telekinetic Pull
5600 to 5800

Terror Tendrils
6200 to 6600
(Double damage if in melee range)

These damage ranges are pretty rough. I only spent a few minutes testing the damage ranges of each power. Ideally I'd spend a lot more time with each power to get its true range.

I wasn't really sure where to put this bug. The Central City Trinket shows the might and precision you gain for using it (different as the other trinkets that now don't show that). And the bug is the damage done by pressing the trinket and holding range after.

Wow what the heck lol.

So why such a low bonus on pi damage?? Players should be encouraged to set things up right and with such a small increase in damage it looks like it might not make that big of a deal with and without setting up a pi.

I feel such low pi damage is a step in the wrong direction and instead of being rewarded for a thoughtful loadout/rotation you can just blindly use powers with no setups and do almost as well as someone who is doing proper setup. Also the powers that setup the aoe pi's have a 12 second cooldown and thats much to long for a power that inflicts a pi. A power that sets up a pi should be always available to use so you can always setup things as you move around or as new enemies join the fight.

- I ignored finishing my crits to get my power pool as high as I could
- When you max power pool (takes 195sp), it's like 11/12k power. I was around 40-50k power pool depending on if I put power in my mods as well.

Wish they gave us 235sp to test us being able to cap 1 tree and finish crits still. 170 doesn't do that much under the new system. Even under a casual guide for end game testing, we should've gotten 190sp to match top cr.

So you just hated dps in this game for 4-5 years, really?

Yes. Some of my earliest posts included such lines as, why do I have a sword when I have super powers? I can make a character that doesn't use powers as well. I appreciate having options.

In any case you are derailing the testing thread.

with 1 post, sure..