Work In Progress: Hard Light Balance - Updated

on top of that we better get some new constructs ... since ram is dead now and other powers as well

HL seems very awkward to use with the proposed changes in GU36. The changes mean we lose a LOT of damage. Where is my speed to do damage!? Thats what we HL players rely on to put out the big numbers, as our might based damage is paltry. Our power moves do not hit as hard as other top tier power-sets like Rage, Celestial and even Nature! Not to mention the fact how poor our 'finisher' Light Blast is....There is no way HL dps' can put out the damage we consistently did before these changes.

The way to fix this (if you intend to continue on with the GU36 changes) is to buff our damage considerably. Taking our speed away in essence kills the powerset, on the dps side of things anyway. And if you do not make the changes proposed in this thread for the controller side of the powerset...its bye bye HL on all fronts!

That is now a problem with the new timings, all are different and take way to long to be effective in combat.

If the changes with UP 36 persist to live the best course of action would be to buff all HL attacks, the fact is they are taking way too long, damage isn't going out as it should, I fell like i'm using T3 gear, and that's with exp mods since they are being sold now, not to mention rifle is pretty much the level as a paint gun (i know i'm exaggerating there), I honestly believe the best thing would be to buff all HL attacks, specially Ranged attacks since HL doesn't really have that many range attacks that work well on their own without clipping or JC (before someone says I don't know how to range at least tell me a good range combo without clipping or JC please).

It seems i was right in my earlier statement, someone in the thread 'hl is now sl' posted a video of him trying to do construct combos and theyre even more broken than before. Light claws is extremely slow and you cant combo into it from fan. Fan hits like hits like a breeze no pun intended (still) and lost all dot(meh) ram moves like an aged snail, minigun still takes 3589 years to cast, Hand clap looks like the golfer slow clap at the speed it happens i could go on all day. I tried since this thread was started not to have any bias or use personal opinions that might offend others; i tried to view the power in a neutral type of way, but now im gonna go on a whim and say whats on the test server is absolutely ridiculous
I kid you not when i say HL looks like one of those ancient slow mo japanese fighting film scenes, or even like the matrix. Idk where this notion of adjusting speed is the key to balance came from, but it doesnt look appealing in the slightest. And im guessing odds are this update will go live without addressing all the problems. I really hope someone actually listens to the people who have experience with the power or those who take time with calculations for damage, cause as of yet we just got the fire treatment; hell, HL is makin Fire Dps look like rage right now

please some1 at soe define balance 2 me, because what u did 2 HL is NOT BALANCE. The power is awful now and the fact that ive played it for a year and a half ( and some have played it alot longer) and have dumped a pretty good amount of $ in2 this game on top of my sub every month i expect a free power respect token because of this awful update and what its doing 2 HL for the dps side. U say its getting revamped but if the past is any indicator then i would guess HL will sit there being awful 4 dps just like electric and earth have 4 how many months now? This update is ridiculous, flat out ridiculous and shows me u dont care what your community thinks at all and if HL is not "fixed" or changed in some way i will not give another cent 2 this crap

Can HL get the buffs we have been mentioning before GU36 goes live or when it goes live every HL player will be like

So will everyone need weapon mastery in order to achieve this "balance" that the devs have been talking about?

RIP DCUO

HL WELCOME TO EARTH!!!!!

Trying to hope for a bright side...

Upon further research...

Maybe Construct Empowerment can be something like the Green Lantern Corpse Disk. (The Secret Black Ops .... Purple imbued Constructs like the Corpse members....although that may be odd for Sinestro Corps....I suppose Construct Empowerment is more universal)

Ugh GU36....well they did not balance the dove tail with other method's of animation cancel. (Chat box clip/cancel is faster than animation dovetails and allows for slightly faster attacks to this now sluggish gameplay.)

I want to see the animations as much as anyone: simple fix speed up the animations keep the dovetails Hard Light without speed needs to be scrapped and completely redone..

I'm fine with a new HL power set as long as you all are giving out power tokens with it

Amen

I know it is a very minor thing and probably not needed, BUT, as a HL user, I´d love if you changed more animations to further differentiate Heroic and Villainous HL.

So far the powers that look different are Entrap, WhipTrash, Ram and Minigun. I´d love it if there was further differences to make the villain HL look more vicious and the hero HL look more virtuous.

My examples:

Claws: Villains keep the current version, Heroes get Katars/Swords or robot pincers (those claws look too violent for a hero, IMO).
Light Weight: Villains get a wrecking ball with a chain.
Chompers: Villains get bats biting the targets
Boxing Gloves: Villains get brass knuckles instead
Snap Trap: Villains get a Piranha/shark head biting the target

I don't know what to think about some of these changes other then it seems like not one word , concern or idea from the community was listened to it seems like the fix was in so to speak and these W.I.P threads were made to try and keep the peace so to speak .

Is the crushing PI currently not working for entrap(and other encasements) or am I just not seeing it? I see entrap is supposed to hit up to 8 targets in GU36 - perhaps if it could apply crushing to 8 targets we could work with that somehow? I'm really not sure what direction they're trying to take light to.

After playing on test with HL, I sincerely hope you get good feedback, and contemplate how the power will operate.

As it stands now, you have rendered HL fairly sub optimal. Not even from a damage respect primarily, but from a "this power isn't fun to play" aspect.

So devs,

Listen, absorb, and be reasonable.

I was flipping through the patch notes for GU 36. I hope the increase animation time powers ram, impact, claws etc are getting a buff since they're being slowed down. The risk of being in that attack longer and those powers hitting for weaker damage isn't very appealing. I also hope fan is altered to not be a channel type power or it receive's a drastic buff as a precision attack the 1.35 sec dove tail is a little long sounding. At least if its not a channel type power it can be clipped.

I don't want to get to dramatic and worried since I haven't seen anything yet myself but reading through it looked less than ideal. I hope players will get on test and voice their opinions and that the dev's/GM's watching this thread will take into account current user's play style's and preferences and continue to provide us a fast, fun and engaging experience.

I don't wanna read through 27 pages, so sorry if this was talked about. Have anyone made the complaint that the HL balance should rollout with the WM/JC nerf? If it hasn't y'all are focused on the wrong thing, because the jc nerf is happening no matter how many QQ threads/post are made, y'all (The hl dps community) should be pissed that the SOE dev team is nerfing JC and making y'all wait for the balance. Seems like a money grab to me

This makes sense. The dev team should have had the foresight to think; "Well, we're rolling out the JC nerf.....maybe we should roll out the HL balancing fix at the same time. This way we can better listen to the players and balance the powerset in one fell swoop, instead of rolling out the JC nerf and leaving our players to wait for a good few months (in this game a few months can extend to a year), to balance the powerset for the dpsing and controlling side."

Its going to be an interesting wait to see what happens with HL....