powers: is it OP?

[TheTinyPebble]

From patch notes 6.8:

Powers:

• Reduced the cooldown of mind blast 2.
• Mind blast 1 and 2 now targets the mind pool.
• Mind blast states now last 20s, up from 10s.
• Reduced the cooldown of force lightning 1 and 2, force lightning area 1 and 2.
• Changed all force lightning to lightsaber damage.
• Reduced the cooldown and force cost of force intimidate 1 and 2.
• Reduced cooldown on force knockdown 1, 2, and 3, and raised effectiveness.
• Force choke damage is now 2x.
• Force weaken is now a percentage modifier, weaken 1 reduces HAM by 10%, weaken 2 reduces HAM by 20%.

Skill descriptions are often wrong as SOE never updated them when they updated the skills, and we haven't either. Arguing that mind blast should be a random pool attack on this basis is a very weak argument, "this is how it's always been".

There are 2 problems with powers from a code standpoint at the moment.

1) Force defense isn't implemented on SR yet. We are behind SWGEmu on purpose to limit conflicts.
2) Powers attacks aren't subject to PvP damage reduction as all other attacks are, which means powers is effectively 4x as strong as it's supposed to be in PvP.

I don't really think mind blast being a mind attack is a problem if these problems are addressed.

[Buzzo]

ya when powers gets up to date and the pvp damage reduction is in place i dont think it will be OP at all, but should still be powerful. Thanks for the infos tiny guy!

[Jat_1668]

I have changed my opinion. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

[Buzzo]

hahahah, someone saw what powers can do to you finally its just a matter of maybe reducing the mind blast damage and getting that defender stuff to work vs it...(although lightning is crazy damage too hahah, come on, we know it). if psg and ranged defenses work vs powers then mbh is the powers killer if not then its kinda OP

[Tyclo]

I've got something in the works, including pulling over Defender having defense against Powers.

Powers is not getting an across the board nerf, so put down your pitch forks. Burst damage will still be possible and they will have more longevity in fights. Mind Blast will retain it's mind targeting, but it will not be as effective against non Jedi.

Needs some more testing before release.

[Buzzo]

I've got something in the works, including pulling over Defender having defense against Powers.

Powers is not getting an across the board nerf, so put down your pitch forks. Burst damage will still be possible and they will have more longevity in fights. Mind Blast will retain it's mind targeting, but it will not be as effective against non Jedi.

Needs some more testing before release.

if MB was made LS damage like lightning then all the problems are kinda solved....need no real other tweaks...vs bh that would make psg's work and vs jedi their defense would come from MLS rather than defender (which I am not...not all jedi are defenders).

[scionyoto]

I'm stuck on the fence on this on lol, i like that its very powerful but if LS resist armour wont be in game then bhs/players are reliant only on psgs as there resists so yea a bh should get nuked by mind blast BUT i do think lightning should be electric type damage so that normal players should have some resists

[Tyclo]

if MB was made LS damage like lightning then all the problems are kinda solved....need no real other tweaks...vs bh that would make psg's work and vs jedi their defense would come from MLS rather than defender (which I am not...not all jedi are defenders).

Not sure if this is a typo, but Mind Blast is currently Lightsaber damage, which is why it's too strong against non-Jedi. Even with a PSG, it destroys non-Jedi with no way of recovering unless you're a CM or have Blue Milk.

I changed Mind Blast to "Blast" damage and then buffed it to compensate for the damage type change. Pairing that with Defender having defense against Powers, it's less lethal in PvP for non-Jedi and TBD against other Jedi (Needs more testing). But overall, the attack is actually stronger while also being more balanced.

Lightning has had it's damage reduced slightly, but buffed in other areas to compensate. (Shouldn't one shot anymore)

Both attacks are stronger all around, but less effective in PvP.

Nothing is final yet, still testing.

I'm stuck on the fence on this on lol, i like that its very powerful but if LS resist armour wont be in game then bhs/players are reliant only on psgs as there resists so yea a bh should get nuked by mind blast BUT i do think lightning should be electric type damage so that normal players should have some resists

The issue with LS armor is that once we open that door, there's no closing it. I can't just retroactively change everyone's armor if LS resists end up being "too strong." We'd all be stuck with it. - Also, Mando has very low LS resists.

Like I said above, the problem with Mind Blast is that there's no real recovering from it for non-Jedi. Sure, lightning can still target mind on occasion, but it's slightly more balanced than a single attack you can spam to target mind.

...

I had another idea of changing Lightning back to Electricity and then maybe swapping Force Choke and/or some other force attacks to Lightsaber. This would give Powers the utility of Electric damage from Lightning, Blast from Mind Mind and then Lightsaber with Force Choke (or others), while maintaining some sort of balance between Jedi and non-Jedi.

But for now, I'm going to stick with the above and test it a little more.

[Awesome]

what I did to defend against the current meta of powers 4xxx and powers x4xx builds is very easy. i respecced to MLS/MFD/heal 3xxx/enh x4x3. That gives forceShield, forceFeedback, and forceAbsorb, i then fought Buzzo and didn't have to heal once in our 5 minute engagement. Be careful redefining powers again, as powers has been a dog for a long long time. Lets face it not even SOE could get powers right. As for non jedi not being able to heal mind, some used to say that jedi ruined pvp for that very reason, i was one during live who thought jedis being able to heal mind was a game killer. Why not introduce mind stims into the game instead of trying to balance jedi vs non jedi. Jedi vs non jedi will never balance. Mind stims however will level the playing field.

[Awesome]

sorry for back to back posts, just wanted to add that with my current build I can probably beat 3 powers builds at once right now. Every Jedi has a weakness, it was never intended to be balanced. The skills are too dynamic to balance out. That's why most players end up with the same builds over and over. Also why most non jedi PvEers are melee stackers. A doc/TKM cant balance with a swords stacker, or a Master healer jedi cant solo a Master defender jedi. Don't kill a whole jedi tree based on a powerful build, every build has a weakness, find the weakness and exploit it. #stopthenerfing