Work In Progress: Hard Light Balance - Updated

I feel like when I face a gadgets player, they can pop shield after shield that gets them out of control effects while also providing damage immunity. HL has one of the lowest survivability out of the troller classes. All we have is light barrier and a 50% SC shield

I feel like HL needs more survivability and Control resistance breakout effects

Oh wow, I just read that... He has gotta be trolling by now, saying that HL constructs hit too hard because they can be chained infinitely. Sounds like day 1 HL scrub talk. When is infinite constructs ever viable in high level play, HL abilities do the lowest amount of damage of any class, this needs to be fixed.

Can someone with access to test please address this? Usually I don't encourage feeding trolls... but wow

I havent been reading the forums lately(Just got injustice ) but i completely agree. There is no way possible to endlessly chain together construct combos unless you're fighting chinatown zombies, gorrillas at the beach, or the training dummy. Its so interruptible, that even level 12 mobs will block or lunge eventually to stop your combos, which is why JC was so appealing. If HL was a better/more viable power to begin with, we might not have so many distraught over the butchering of it; we might have actually used the CCs.
As for giggles, ive not seen him post a single good or constructive post about this powerset that didnt include " this powerset is fine, devs keep it up " or "HL is one of the top dps powers ,it needs balancing to bring it in line with the others." Honestly , somethings gotta be done. Im always appalled to see someone elses comments get removed if they speak about somethin they dont know about non constructively but when it comes to him, a blind eye seems to be turned. I wont post about this in the future because i wanted to get that off pleasently instead of callin the guy something immature. Im done. Now back on topic to HL balance

Just saw kaiser's new HL GU36 video... Everything looks so boring, bland and sloooow. Yeah, we get to see the pretty constructs, but it looks like we're fighting under water now

HL DPS currently needs more work than the troller side, easily one of the worst dps classes on test atm

Floating lantern pet is a great ideal, it would work like watcher expect giving power, this change would make me stay hl trolling,but as of right now I'm waiting for a new troll power

Make Light blast a viable finisher around to where photon blast is (Hey, I can dream right?)
Also, change it's place on the tree so we don't have to fiddle with all the useless powers on the support tree, replacing chainsaw with it. Also, don't know where to start, but the support tree is awful

Consistent needs/wants from the DPS side seem to more viable range attacks. With many powers being vulnerable to being countered and melee to mid range we need some range alternatives/adjustments.

Making Spike Quake and Chompers no longer share a DoT and increasing the number of targets Spike Quake can CC/damage would make those abilities viable options.

In addition Fans animation either needs to be changed to a regular type cast or the damage needs to increase during channeling(more ticks). Currently there is no benefit to staying in the animation. It also is bugged. It has line of sight issue's and enemies pulled, knocked down will get up and attack before being stunned.

Lastly for far range attack powers would be Light Blast. The animation time is too long. The might damage is too weak. Both need to be adjusted. It would help if the precision damage was increased as well.

I'd also have to point out that any animation/cast that has been slowed down should have its damage buffed. There will now be more risk involved in casting said power.

As for the Troller side... A range PoT option is the biggest recurring theme I see over and over. I like the idea of Impact being swapped with boxing the best but as it does its most damage at melee it may need other tweaking as to how it delivers it's damage. This is more of a need with the other troller powers being made to affect up to 8 enemies. This weakens Light drastically as a controller power. It needs a range capable multi target CC. Having 2 PoTs that lunge and don't really provide a beneficial CC is really lame.

The Spike Quake CC adjustment would give us a decent quick range stun.

A weapon buff that will provide CC will help both DPS and trollers. The Fan CC adjustment will make that power more user friendly.

I cant help but to wonder if and how could Ram>SnapTrap>Fan match animation time and total damage out of Retribution>cleansedWither ?

Since the jump canceling changes in GU 36, I would recommend making Snap Trap and Grasping hand AOE as well as to increase the damage and duration of the DOTs.

Funny that you mention light barrier and group shielding, since thats exactly 2 more shields than gadgets players have available to them. I could see you being jealous of quantum's teleport... but gadgets?

How many damage mitigation moves does gadgets have? I know they have more than just one and a 50% sc. It's almost like fighting a mini ice tank with all the shields and breakouts they have...

For the record, when I am referring to a "shield" I'm referring to any ability that offers damage mitigation. I know for a fact that gadgets has more than Light. Distract is a shield, they also have the one that activates when your health is below 35%

Don't tell me that gadgets has no shields when they clearly do, just because their shields don't put you in a big bubble doesn't mean it's not a shield.

maybe because ST and Fan have a 50% dmg buff ffor five seconds, but it only takes like 3 to do the combo.

the problem with ST as an AoE is that it combos into Fan which only does single target dmg, which is why i've said Fan should still have the single range weapon shot if you tap range after you activate it, but to make it fair and balanced that shot wont go out until the 1 second mark is reached, that way it can still do almost the same damage as before without using JC.

No, I mean starting with ability Ram and then combo into Snaptrap then Fan.
If I JC last Fan I can do that in pretty much same time as Retribution.cleansedWither. Im comparing them cause they both start with 35% damage modifier, take almost same time to complete and have similar mana costs but different total damage. (To clarify: I think Retribution is ok, Im just using it to compare damage)

Best solution will be to change Fan and LightBlast into regular DoTs instead of channeling and then fine tune their damage as tray ability and as constructs. Without that any other change to HL will be meaningless.

Agreed, HL moves have hit for the lowest damage numbers, this needs to be fixed...

No one can say "it's because they can do infinite constructs, that why the damage is so low" because outside if killing mobs in metropolis or Gotham, infinite constructs are in no way viable for high level play. At best people chain ram>snap>fan, but it's usually span>fan.

So either remove infinite constructs if that's the reason devs are keeping HL damage so low, or realize that nobody in high level play does infinite constructs and give all if HL moves a damage buff.

Remember, Tunso said that HL with jump canceling puts out 2.5x more damage than HL without jump canceling. So if they remove jump canceling then we clearly need a damage buff to keep up

Well if Tunso did the math already, 2.5x base damage increase on each HL ability sounds about right.

The unicorn trinket was a great joke! I hope GU36 is also a joke.

let there be jump canceling

Fan is an Aoe attack

never seen it do AoE before.