Tacticals

Juggernaut

Leviathan’s Hide tactical

Crushing blow generates stacks of crushing defense for every enemy it hits, granting 2.5% increased damage reduction per stack for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 8 times

Crushing blow 12s cooldown

Can be used 5 times during a minute

Assassins

Ancient Tome of Wrath tactical

Wither generates Redirected wrath stacks for every enemy it hits, increasing your damage reduction per stack for 10 seconds (its 2.5% per does not include the value)

Wither 10s cooldown

Can be used 6 times a minute and stacking on top of previous stacks if executed correctly

It actually last half second longer cause if you spam wither while it comes of cooldown you will build up on top of the old stacks

Powertechs

Oil Fire tactical

Oil slick makes targets succeptible (typo on PTS?) to firestorm. For each enemy affected by oil slick hit with firestorm, your damage reduction is increased by 2% and cooldown of oil slick is reduced by 1.5 seconds

Oil Slick 1min cooldown Firestorm 18seconds cooldown

Can be used 1 time during a minute or if RNG resets your firestorm at right time you can used twice in a row

Maybe add this as tactical for Shatter slug (15s cooldown): each enemy hit with shatter slug increases damage reduction by 2.5%

Set Bonuses

Juggernaut

The Undying

(2) +3% Armor

(4) After executing Mad Dash, you gain 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds

Mad Dash 45s cooldown can be used 1 during a minute

Assassins

Efficient termination

(2) +2% shield rating

(4) Spike’s stun and slow effects last for an additional second

(6) Using Spike grants you a 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds

Spike 20s cooldown can be used 3times during a minute

Powertechs

20% damage reduction for 6seconds missing why other tanking classes get it and not Powertechs

The 20% damage reduction could be put on Jet Charge change the Double Time set bonus currently:

(2) +2% Mastery

(4) Jet Charge’s range is increased by 5m

(6) Jet Charge gets 2 charges

To

(2) +2% Shield rating

(4) Jet Charge gets 2 charges

(6) Jet Charge grants you 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds

This could also similarly be copied to Juggernaut The Undying set bonus where mad dash gets second charge

Anyway which Powertech set bonus is suppose to be for tanks?

Where is love for PT tanks ... I am just leaving this information here cause anything else I would write would be ranting

Extra

Stationary Grit set bonus

(2) +2% Alacrity

(4) Increases damage by 5% while not moving, Increases armor by 5% while moving

Not moving

Armor rating 18125

Damage Reduction 49.19%

Moving

Armor rating 18301

Damage Reduction 49.42%

Can someone do the math? And find 5% correlation somewhere between those numbers

New Ability Feedback:

The new Ability Power Yield is definitley an step in the right direction. What Powertechs need the most is a new Defensive Cooldown. That there is an offensive component integrated is also great. But now that I was able to test it I think that this Ability is not even remotely strong enough and it will not change that Powertech DPS are in PVP almost always the first Target. First this Ability is only 10 seconds long and even has a ramp up time. A PT DPS with an Itemrating of 306 has normaly a Damage Reduction of about 20%. Under focus fire getting hit with Power Yield activated takes about 1-3 seconds to gain 5 stacks. With 5 stacks now we have 7-9 seconds with about 43% damage reduction. This will not make anyone in PvP to change to a different target. Everyone will just keep on hitting the PTs until they are Dead. What I think needs to be added to this Ability is a Reflect or Selfheal component and for this you could even get rid of the offensive part in my opinion.

For example: At 5 Stacks all direct Attacks are getting reflected for the remaing duration of the Buff.

Or: All Health that is lost after gaining the 5th Stack is healed back up at the end of the duration of the Buff.

Set Bonus Feedback:

- Double Time: Increasing the range of Jet Charge did not work at all. Also activating Jet Charge at a distance over 30m triggers the cooldown but did not move the character.

Also if you have the Battering Ram Utility the 2nd Jet charge is consumed when you use your <10m Battering Ram Jump. 4 jumps in a row not possible like this.

- Game Plan: The damage that is dealt back to the enemy that triggers your Kolto Overload is very underwhelming. Almost not even noticable. Makes this Set Bonus useless when only triggered by such a long cooldown ability.

- Hunter Killer: There is no animation or buff to show that the area around you also revealed when using Stealth Scan.

- Right Price: The Power Yield duration is not extended by 5s. Reduction of Explosive Fuel CD when taking damage is working properly.

- Squad Leader: Interesting Set Bonus that seems to work like intended. The damage reduction that is applied to nearby allys is 10% and with enough incoming damage the uptime of that ally-shield is almost 100% of the Energy Shield duration.

- Strategist: Seems to work nicely. I can see some PVPers using this a lot.

- Veteran Ranger: Set Bonus did what it schould. But I think the vulnerable from the Searing Wave is with 5 sec way to short. And I dont like the RNG that is associated with this Set. Nobody likes RNG. Just make it 100% chance to trigger a 2nd Rocket and reduce the damage of that Rocket if you have to.

- Woads Instict: I need to do some more testing on this but the recharge of the 2nd Thermal Sensor Override seems a bit long.

I think there is a Set Bonus missing that is primarily for the Tank Discipline.

Why is every 2 piece Set Bonus +2% Mastery? Very boring.

Tacticals Feedback:

- Sonic Heal: Heals you and allies around you for only about 1000 hp which is < 0.5% health. So underwhelming that noone will equip this ever. Needs to be at least a 10-20x higher heal to be viable.

- Second Contract: Seems to work nicely. I can see some PVPers using this a lot. Even works together with the Reel and Rattle Utility.

- Neural Trigger: Seems to work nicely. I can see some PVPers using this a lot.

- Powerlode: Getting the 4 Energy Lodes from Power Yield works great. This Tactical can make a nice Burst I think. But please adjust the 2nd part of the Tactical. In Operations you almost never get hit critically so its useless there. Please change into something like: "Taking damage while under Power Yield builds an Energy Lode. This effect can not occur more than once every 2 seconds."

- Energized Blade: I dont really get this Tactical. Your little Dot deals more damage (I guess its about 10-20% at 4 stacks) with this Tactical but when you use your hardest hitting ability you lose that small damage bonus. Makes no sense for me and I cant see where and why anyone would ever use this because its a very minimal dps increase even if there would be a 100% uptime on that bonus.

- Flame Detonation: Nice Tactical. Gives the Advanced Prototype Discipline and fun way to increase his AOE damage.

- Hotswap: Overall a nice Tactical. Finally makes Translocate not completly useless anymore because the swapped player gets 100% dmg reduction. And I dont think thats overpovered because the player needs to be guarded first and then you still have to channel the ability. I could not see if the taunt is working and I didnt see a buff for the benign presence that is placed on you or what it does. Also it is strange that the guard on the swapped player is removed after using Translocate. I think the player should stay guarded.

- Thermal Screen: Heat screen Stacks up to 6 times but when you activate Heat Blast only 3 stacks are consumed and you get the same Absorbtion Buff like before. I think I would be nicer if you can consume all 6 stacks at once for a bigger Absorbtion Buff.

- Oil Fire: The mechanics of this Tactical worked but the damage reduction that you gain seems to be wrong. Tooltip says that you gain 2% damage reduction for every target you hit but i only recieved about 0.15% per target.

- Flame Dissipation: I really like this Tactical. Reducing the heat-cost for the pyro core-ability Searing Wave helps alot with the difficult heat-management of that discipline. Also you get those Flame Dissipation stacks in an unique way that it could be beneficial to change the old rotation to speed up the stack-generation. I think that this tactical has the potential to be rotation- and playstyle-defining.

- Explosive Weaponary: Pyro is already a Disciplie with good AoE abilities but with this tactical I think there will be no other Class in the game that can deal so much AoE in a 15 sec window. Could be a little bit overpovered in some bossfights but needs to be tested further.

- Superheated Fuel: What exactly is defined as a "Flame Attack"? For me every Pyro-Ability in the normal rotation (with the exeption of rapid shots and rail shot) has something to do with flames or fire. So this Tactical pretty much changes Explosive Fuel from +25% critical hit chance to 100%. I think this would make Pyro a better Burst-Discipline then Advanced Prototype and could be a little bit overpovered in some bossfights but I like it and will test it more.

- Flying Fists: It is designated wrong as a Mercenary Tactical. Also the tooltip says Rocked Punch has now a range of 10m but in reality it increses the range by 10 to 14m. Tactical also works with the Pyro-ability Flaming Fist.

I hope this feedback was understandable, not too long and helps you to bugfix and make the right adjustments.

- Double Time: Increasing the range of Jet Charge did not work at all. Also activating Jet Charge at a distance over 30m triggers the cooldown but did not move the character.

Also if you have the Battering Ram Utility the 2nd Jet charge is consumed when you use your <10m Battering Ram Jump. 4 jumps in a row not possible like this.

I suggested on the class forums a while back that the problem with the Battering Ram utility is that the 2nd jump is on too short of a cooldown to be used properly. Ideally, you would be able to use the 2nd jump as a filler that deals somewhat more damage than basic attack. But it cannot be used as part of the opener, or it is a dps loss, thus the proc expires before you can use it as a filler during your first rotation after the opener.

My suggestion: Increase the duration of the Battering Ram proc!

I suggested on the class forums a while back that the problem with the Battering Ram utility is that the 2nd jump is on too short of a cooldown to be used properly. Ideally, you would be able to use the 2nd jump as a filler that deals somewhat more damage than basic attack. But it cannot be used as part of the opener, or it is a dps loss, thus the proc expires before you can use it as a filler during your first rotation after the opener.

 

My suggestion: Increase the duration of the Battering Ram proc!

Or they could make it a unique skill that triggers whenever your within 10m of the target, and just make battering ram a double leap instead of... whatever the hell it is now.

And Jet Charge's damage still doesn't... ..ugh nevermind

Also, for those who haven't played the PTS yet, the Powertech cooldown is 2 mins... so, lul

Any hope of using Explo. Fuel in tandem with new cooldown will throw it out of whack the moment you use the new passive, and get cd red. on Explo. Fuel

I think 2 mins is extremely long for a very narrow defensive/offensive, that is so situational, I don't think you can be sad if you fail to max stack it for whatever scenario.

But then again, with all the armor pen floating in the game atm and ranged classes abusing dot specs for easy play, I highly doubt ppl will ever see the 200% armor rating as an immediate threat if they stack it carelessly.

Whatever, I have a ton of marauders I can play, so no skin off my nose

The delusional can enjoy the "80%" damage reduction that will never happen... every 2 minutes lol

Or they could make it a unique skill that triggers whenever your within 10m of the target, and just make battering ram a double leap instead of... whatever the hell it is now.

And Jet Charge's damage still doesn't... ..ugh nevermind

Yeah, that works too. "Battering Ram: Jet Charge now deals 50% more damage, roots the target for 1s, and can be used within 10m or less."

Anything is better than the current.

Wow, so I finally got on to the PTS - Power Yield is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too weak. The base ability only takes you from 27% DR to 34% DR, and that's not including armor pen amplifiers, or any of the abilities that reduce armor by 20%.

This is way too weak a DCD. It needs to drastically buffed to worth anything.

Additionally - the Duration Extension on the set bonus does not work at all

Wow, so I finally got on to the PTS - Power Yield is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too weak. The base ability only takes you from 27% DR to 34% DR, and that's not including armor pen amplifiers, or any of the abilities that reduce armor by 20%.

 

This is way too weak a DCD. It needs to drastically buffed to worth anything.

 

Additionally - the Duration Extension on the set bonus does not work at all

Yikes - may as well be a passive at this rate :p:p

Advanced Prototype

• Energized Blade - Retractable Blade's bleed effect deals more damage the more Energy Lode stacks you have.
  
• Flame Detonation - Dealing damage with Searing Wave or Flame Sweep to a target affected by a pre-exploded Thermal Detonator causes it to explode, creating a large explosion and dealing damage to all nearby enemies.
  
• Powerlode - Power Yield instantly builds 4 Energy Lodes. Getting critically hit while under Power Yield builds an Energy Lode.
  

As it stands, there won't be much of a reason to play AP in 6.0.

Energized Blade rewards you for not using one of the spec's main abilities.... Even if the damage increase on RB dot was massive, it would be at the cost of holding onto lode stacks instead of using. Lame.

Flame Detonation is alright, but unlike pyro and tank specs, you really don't normally flame sweep nor searing wave even in aoe scenarios as AP, so you have to spend a gcd on an inferior ability to gain the benefit. Also, thermal det is a 30m range ability that's sometimes used when you're well out of melee range, and you'll need to move in close to flame sweep or searing wave that target in the 4 second delay before TD detonates, without getting cced, and without them speeding away from melee range (and away from their own teammates, making the explosion harmless). Many TDs will go undetonated against good players. And finally, pyro is the superior aoe dps spec regardless, so if you're taking an aoe tac as AP you should probably just spec pyro instead. Or even tank spec.

Powerlode is a tac that adds an offensive component to a dcd. These types of talents and tacs tend to be bad. On the one hand, using your Power Yield dcd offensively simply to grant you 4 more lode stacks after an energy burst will usually be a terrible decision. On the other hand, when you're forced to pop PY defensively, you will very often already have 2 or 3 lode stacks. A partial remedy could be achieved if you made this tac also allow up to 8 lode stacks during PY, but the tac would still be bleh. Double energy burst will be very rough on heat, but more importantly: Energy Burst does lousy damage if it's not autocritted. I would literally prefer autocrit energy burst like it is on live, over these 3 AP tacticals. AP is currently one of the most setbonus-autocrit-reliant specs in the game. Without it, 6.X will be rough for AP.

Wow, so I finally got on to the PTS - Power Yield is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too weak. The base ability only takes you from 27% DR to 34% DR, and that's not including armor pen amplifiers, or any of the abilities that reduce armor by 20%.

 

This is way too weak a DCD. It needs to drastically buffed to worth anything.

 

Additionally - the Duration Extension on the set bonus does not work at all

Are you sure that's not just with 1 stack of it instead of 5? 200% bonus armor should be way more.

Are you sure that's not just with 1 stack of it instead of 5? 200% bonus armor should be way more.

Yes, that was with one stack. At 5 stacks and with stabilized armor up, in 306's, you go from 27% to 59% (57% with a 20% armor break from Mara/Jug/PT/Sniper/etc). The Duration extension from the set bonus flat out does not work, it stays at 10seconds not the 15 the set bonus is supposed to give.

It *does* tick from dots, so you're going to hit 5 stacks very quickly but - that really isn't very useful. It does nothing to dissuade the enemy from focusing you - they're just going to keep killing you through. We need this ability to "stack" up to like 80-90% DR or something, or provide some kind of genuine deterrent to stop attacking us for a period. As it stands, this DCD is ultimately going to be helpful but it will do nothing to change the status quo for PT.

Yes, that was with one stack. At 5 stacks and with stabilized armor up, in 306's, you go from 27% to 59% (57% with a 20% armor break from Mara/Jug/PT/Sniper/etc). The Duration extension from the set bonus flat out does not work, it stays at 10seconds not the 15 the set bonus is supposed to give.

 

It *does* tick from dots, so you're going to hit 5 stacks very quickly but - that really isn't very useful. It does nothing to dissuade the enemy from focusing you - they're just going to keep killing you through. We need this ability to "stack" up to like 80-90% DR or something, or provide some kind of genuine deterrent to stop attacking us for a period. As it stands, this DCD is ultimately going to be helpful but it will do nothing to change the status quo for PT.

If you think that ~30% added armor DR for 10 secs on a 2 minute cd isn't good enough of a new dcd, I'll have to disagree. Class homogenization is bad and boring, and not every class should have a hard damage stop like undying rage. PT has been OP before because they do tons of dmg, and if you aren't satisfied with them becoming more of a leather cannon instead of glass cannon, and demand that they be turned into a plate armor cannon, you're gonna have a bad time.

It is nice that there are so many diffenrent Set Bonus available for Powertech but there is not really one that I would want to equip to increase my damage on an single target Operation Boss. (exept maybe the Veteran Ranger set to get one or two more rockets but this is very minimal and to get this small bonus you even have to use Searing Wave which is not even in the normal AP rotation)

Just compare this to what Mercs are getting :

• Critical Charge - (4) Gaining a stack of Supercharge increases your critical chance by 10% for 10 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds. (6) Doing damage or healing an ally has a 5% chance to build a Supercharge and can only happen once per 3 seconds.
  
• Power Step - (4) Activating Power Shot, Tracer Missile or Rapid Scan increases the critical chance of your next Power Shot, Tracer Missile or Rapid Scan by 3%. Stacks up to 5 times. - (6) Power Shot, Tracer Missile and Rapid Scan grant a stack of Power Step, stacking up to 5 times. At 5 stacks, your next Power Shot, Tracer Missile or Rapid Scan is more effective and costs no Heat.
  
• Surging Power - (4) Power Surge grant Precision Targeting, increases armor penetration by 10% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once peryh minute. (6) Power Surge gets an additional charge
  

I bet all these can lead to a more or less significant increase in Damage against single target Operation Bosses.

You have to keep in mind that with 6.0 we are loosing the old Setbonus which was a significant increase in Damage against single target Operation Bosses with the 2-Piece and the 6-Piece bonus and also helped with heat-management with the 4-Piece bonus. If there is nothing compareable to this it will be a hard nerf for this class.

I also did some more testing with the tacticals:

Flame Dissipation: After you have consumed the 5 stacks of Flame Dissipation with Searing Wave you get an increased periodic fire damage for 10 seconds. In this 10 seconds it is not possible gain new stacks for the next Searing Wave. Is this intended? I think the intention of this tactical is that you now have a fun way to play Pyro without having to use auto attacks all the time for heatmanagement. But because of this 10 second window where you can not build stacks of Flame Dissipation you are still forced to use auto attacks a lot so that you dont overheat.

Explosive Weaponry: There is a glitch/bug that when you equip this tactical (in Pyro-Discipline) you fire a Searing wave (that does not trigger the cooldown)

Powerlode: This tactical looks good at first but firing so many Cell Burst are very heatintensive which makes them not worth it without an autocrit. The fact that this offensive tactical is tied to a defensive ability makes it even worse

If you think that ~30% added armor DR for 10 secs on a 2 minute cd isn't good enough of a new dcd, I'll have to disagree. Class homogenization is bad and boring, and not every class should have a hard damage stop like undying rage. PT has been OP before because they do tons of dmg, and if you aren't satisfied with them becoming more of a leather cannon instead of glass cannon, and demand that they be turned into a plate armor cannon, you're gonna have a bad time.

can't comment at this without laughing

im going to wait for combat balance changes and see where the chips fall.

Because statements like these on an unfinished content release, make you look really daft. and im at my wits end trying my best not to insult people, because i sometimes wonder whether you think before you say some of the things you say.... i really do

On another note.... i can't be bothered to check, so can someone check for me:

Does applying stacks to Power Yield refresh its duration?

can't comment at this without laughing

 

im going to wait for combat balance changes and see where the chips fall.

Because statements like these on an unfinished content release, make you look really daft. and im at my wits end trying my best not to insult people, because i sometimes wonder whether you think before you say some of the things you say.... i really do

 

On another note.... i can't be bothered to check, so can someone check for me:

Does applying stacks to Power Yield refresh its duration?

Statements like informing this dude that the new DCD is fine and that PTs shouldn't be given a godmode dcd bc they do tons of dmg and could easily be made OP like they were at one point in time? Lol shoo

Statements like informing this dude that the new DCD is fine and that PTs shouldn't be given a godmode dcd bc they do tons of dmg and could easily be made OP like they were at one point in time? Lol shoo

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Man, that was four freaking years ago. FOUR YEARS. What PT needed - what we freaking told them, for years now - was that PT needed a short-duration, hard negation CD to alleviate being targeted first. Now we just have a DCD that is weak as hell and does nothing to change the fact it will be targeted first (yes, even over jugs) and that, because it is based on armor - is specifically vulnerable to any class with any kind of armor pen AND especially so since they have added these amplifiers of which armor penetration is a stat that can now be stacked. Seriously - the DCD is basically useless against a Carnage marauder. That's HARD counter. Way too hard to be acceptable.

So, yes - this DCD is weak as hell.

The current 10s duration feels too short. I know there is a set bonus to increase it, but feel the base ability should last longer.

I think power yield would work better if the duration is extended for 1 sec per stack.

Something like this would, I think, work well, and be useful in more situations.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

 

Man, that was four freaking years ago. FOUR YEARS. What PT needed - what we freaking told them, for years now - was that PT needed a short-duration, hard negation CD to alleviate being targeted first. Now we just have a DCD that is weak as hell and does nothing to change the fact it will be targeted first (yes, even over jugs) and that, because it is based on armor - is specifically vulnerable to any class with any kind of armor pen AND especially so since they have added these amplifiers of which armor penetration is a stat that can now be stacked. Seriously - the DCD is basically useless against a Carnage marauder. That's HARD counter. Way too hard to be acceptable.

 

So, yes - this DCD is weak as hell.

For pve this dcd is fine, it‘s not an insane damage reduction like undying, but it certainly isn‘t weak like a shield probe. I think there are two main problems with this ability:

1.: Why not just give us flat damage reduction? This would adress the issue in pvp aswell. I don’t think the ramp up time it has is a problem since most abilities have multiple damage instances anyway and you should be up to max stacks in half a second when being targeted.

2.: The cooldown feels too long. I don’t think this ability should have a 2 min cooldown that isn’t affected by alacrity. It doesn‘t line up with explosive fuel which makes it kinda annoying in pve since you mostly want to use it as an offensive cooldown, and as an DCD it just isn‘t strong enough to have a 2 min CD. Both its offensive and defensive component probably justify the long cooldown, but then atleast make it be affected by alacrity so the cooldowns line up well.

Let's see,

Power Yield

- Increases your armor by 40% and your damage done by 2% for 10 seconds. Getting attacked during this time adds an additional stack, up to 5 times for 200% armor and 10% damage done.

As everyone else said, it shouldn't be reliant on taking damage and too situation for use in PVE even if it works from AoE damage.

Explosive Yield

- (4) Power Yield's duration is extended by 5 seconds.

- (6) Each time you take damage while under Power Yield, the cooldown of Explosive Fuel is reduced by 3 seconds.

Is this a PVP only set?

Autocannon

(4) Searing Wave makes all targets vulnerable to Shoulder Cannon for 5 seconds.

I know this isn't for AP, you better not ask me to use something like searing wave during AP burst. And 5 seconds? isn't the fire rate 1.5s per rocket? Sure alacrity but still you'd barely get off the 4 rockets Pyro gets let alone the 7 AP has. And yes what does vulnerable mean? 5, 7, 10% more damage?

(6) Each Shoulder Cannon rocket has a 25% chance to trigger an additional rocket.

25% chance on 4 rockets, so you want us to get a 6 set for maybe 1 extra rocket or 2 if we're AP? A 6 set for what, worst to best potential 0-70k extra damage every 90s? Talk about inconsistent.

Doublecharge

- (4) Jet Charge's range is increased by 5m.

Why would I want this? If you want to make Magnetic Blast and Rail Shot +5m then maybe we have something.

- (6) Jet Charge gets 2 charges.

The charge system in this expansion is broken I don't want to use 2 charges then have to wait double the CD to use 2 charges again (Same applies to the grapple tactical.) Also really? a 6set for an extra jump? No, no, just no.

Carbon Conversion

- (4) Carbonize's cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds

- (6) Carbonize vents 5 heat for each enemy it hits.

Again is this a PVP set? Way too situation for PVE, Unless you're saying all trash pulls are going to be that hard we need to constantly CC

All these sets are far too weak and designed for abilities I don't think people care about. I'd rather get 3 2sets for more mastery or the set of 5% more damage when I guard people. I don't even want to post about the PT specific tacticals atm because they too are simply depressing.

In the immortals words of AVGN "What were they thinking?!"

Idea to make current powertech better

Issues - Power Yield's overall powerlevel as an ability is fairly poor.

Namely:

- Requirement for taking damage in order to stack is ridiculous given powertech's current performance and power level

- Fails to serve as an effective deterrent as most effective cooldowns tend to serve as

- Too much "one-size fits all"-esc around it's main concept

Possible solution

Make Power Yield a passive, that is directly tied to Explosive fuel, Hydralic Override, Kolto Overload, Energy Shield, Vent Heat and Thermal Override with 40% armor rating 3% damage reduction and 2% damage increase, each activation of the corresponding ability instead adds a stack of Power Yield, which actually reflects well off the name of the ability, the more cooldowns you use, the more power you yield

The passive remains activated so long as ONE of the cooldowns are in effective duration, when they run out, power yield and the stacks built as a result, runs out

In correspondence to this, what in turn happens, is with the (6) bonus, while the mentioned abilities are either activated or on their respective cooldown, everytime you take damage, reduces the effective cooldown of the abilities by 3 seconds

For what little justification I can offer to this choice (which you of course DO NOT NEED TO AGREE WITH), what this does is actually blend well with Powertech's actual playstyle, as the class tends to have to use their cooldowns in very close proximity within each other, creating an 'all-in' tendency the class so demands of you

There are many scenarios where you will end up using them all in close proximity of each other, and very rarely will you only need one or two stand-alone, in which case you are most likely in complete control.

Regardless, Power Yield would then accurately reflect how much you would be committing to a certain situation, as the higher you commit, the more cooldowns you would use

This would also make Power Yield more usable in situations than it currently is, as the situation would simply reflect the cooldowns you use. In situations where you would be going all-in, you'd use all your abilities, which then allow the Powertech to ramp up in power while having a slight backbone in damage soaking and the control of it's stacking mechanism without soul draining requirements like... ...dying. Whilst taking damage the mentioned abilities would come up more often, due to the 6 set bonus constantly triggering based on how much damage you take, which would make power yield available, so long as you're activating the corresponding skills as often as they come back off cooldown.

There are probably easier ways to explain this, and even easier ways to come up with a solution of this ability, but this was one... lets say unique one I thought of.

But as it stands, Power Yield by itself is worthless and demands you use it in tandem with other abilities, this change not only encourages that, but creates conflict of counterplay, where players are either forced to deal with you at your strongest, or leave you be, hoping the effect will expire, while you wreak havoc, with a 10% damage tied to a burst class that shouldn't be left alone.

The synergy of this ability with the rest of your kit is self-explanatory, and will add value to increasing duration of Hydraulic Override, gives value to Energy shield duration increase, as well as Thermal's cooldown reduction and the rest of 'em!

Good players will search for ways to keep the stacks up as long as possible, making it a beast when used correctly or with perfected play.

To reflect

Power Yield - Activating Explosive Fuel, Energy Shield, Kolto Overload, Hydraulic Override, Vent Heat & Thermal Override adds a stack of Power Yield granting 40% Armor Rating 3% Damage Reduction and 2% Damage Increase. Once the most recent ability's duration has expired, Power Yield will end

Set Bonus

(2) Increases Mastery

(4) Power Yield has a duration of 5 seconds if not stacked or refreshed before duration ends

(6) While Power Yield is active, abilities that add Power Yield stacks cooldowns are reduced by 3 seconds whenever user takes damage.

No Undying Rage needed...

Alright Powertech feedback, better late than never I guess.

warning: large wall of text

Power Yield

As a PT main I can definitely say that this is a welcome addition to the class toolkit and fits very well into the risk-reward style of the other CDs, additionally the strength of the DR gain (for the dps specs at least) helps a lot in giving the class more options for tackling damage in fights. As a baseline I don't have many gripes with the ability other than that due to the nature of how the CD works that it is weaker for the tank specs than the dps specs -- ~15% DR versus ~27% -- so I will be mostly reserving feedback for it's interactions with the sets and tacticals. All-in-all a great ability otherwise.

Set Bonuses

I'll start with the general BH sets then move to the PT specific sets.

Game Plan Set: as far as possible interactions with Kolto Overload this is definitely on the less interesting side of things, the idea works well in theory but unless the damage from the health monitor trigger is extremely hard hitting it will effectively be a nominal damage gain from the set due to the long CD of Kolto Overload. As far as suggested improvements go, if the intention with this set is to interact with the health monitor trigger I would prefer if while health monitor is active you build up stacks which increase the health threshold that kolto heals you to up to some percentage, say 50-60%. This would give some amount of possible planning around potential spike damage in a fight like induction cascade or rage overload.

Hunter Killer Set: no much to give here as far as interesting feedback goes. that being said in the current PTS build there is no visual way to check if the stealth protection is active as there is no buff nor visual around your character to tell if it's active.

Squad Leader Set: as it currently stands the shield is 10% DR for 3s per refresh which while a nice little group buff due to the base CD of energy shield being 2min I could see potentially increasing the DR by 5-10% to make it compete with the sniper shield.

Woads Instinct Set: as far as functionality in raid encounters I have yet to fully test the benefit on fights with significant downtime/lax offensive CD usage, that being said as the only set bonus that directly interacts with heat management I could see buffing this set to include an extra charge of Vent Heat or increase the heat vented by Vent Heat to make it competitive with other sets as far as functionality goes.

Double Time Set: While I personally will not be using this set ever due to the nature of Jet Charge being an inconsistent gap closer I can see the benefit for people who need the extra movement and gap closing ability.

Right Price Set: this is the big one right here so this may be longer. first all in the current build the 4 piece set bonus simply doesn't work, the duration of Power Yield remains 10s regardless of if this set is equipped or not. In regards to the 6 piece it would be nice to understand the combat devs intention with this set, is this set suppose to have an internal CD or not? since as of the current build the CD of Explosive Fuel is reduce by 3s for every single damage intake that is taken regardless of how frequent it occurs while withing Power Yield. This means that on fights like Brontes for example If I am hit by Fire and Forget twice during the burn phase I can effectively reset the CD of Explosive Fuel due to Fire and Forget hitting me 8 times in one activation. This also means that any flurry attack such as Nahut's melee attacks or if another Bounty Hunter hits me with rapid shot the CD will be reduced more than 3s even though only one attack hit me. I have no qualms with the functionality as it stands but it would be nice to know if this is intented functionality or if we should only be able to reduce by 3s once every second.

Strategist Set: overall I like the both the 4 and 6 piece set here, not much to say functionality or power wise as I feel it fits it's purpose very well and I look forward to finding interesting ways to use it.

Veteran Ranger's Set: As this is the obvious dps set bonus I'll be judging it accordingly. starting with the 4 piece the functionality here simply just doesn't work, the buff doesn't last long enough to fit all Shoulder Cannons in regardless of spec and the tool tip is completely unclear as to what "vulnerable" even denotes. I personally know that it increases the damage taken from Shoulder Cannon by 10% but your average player will have zero idea as to what "vulnerable" means. It's obvious that the intention with this set is to increase the damage from Shoulder Cannons be activation, however, coupling that with an ability that is only rotationaly used in 1 of the 3 specs is completely worthless. I would strongly recommend coupling this buff with Explosive Fuel or making the bonus something else like each use of shoulder cannon increases the damage of the next shoulder cannon or shoulder cannon applies a stacking dot to the target to make this set useful. Moving on to the 6 piece, this bonus is even more worthless than the last. ON AVERAGE this 6 piece set bonus is ~50-100 dps for specs that are doing over 17k DPS and it's tied to an RNG factor completely out of the players hands. Obviously in theory the idea of launching additional rockets for your shoulder is cool but functionally this kind of bonus frankly cannot work. I'm not gonna go out and list a dozen of ideas (I already put 2 in the 4 piece section) but off the top of my head you could make Shoulder Cannon deal 100% more damage to enemies under 30% HP or have some kind of interaction with Explosive Fuel that reduces the CD of the ability, simply stated this 6 piece NEEDS to be something tangible that the player can interact with that gives a noticeable damage increase, not an RNG dps increase.

Tacticals

I'll be limiting this section to the tacticals that I feel currently need feedback for as well as only the general and DPS tacticals since I haven't finished testing the Tank tacticals

Flying Fists: currently increases the range of Rocket Punch/Flaming Fist by 10m instead of setting them to 10m so we have 14m punches.

Sonic Heal: the heal is completely pathetic, with full 306 gear it barely heals over 1k and for an ability with a 35-45s CD I cannot see a realistic situation where I would ever equip this tactical.

Energized Blades: I like the tactical as a way to increase the sutstained dps of AP, however, the tooltip should be made more clear that it is a 5% damage increase stacking up to 20% per energy lode. additionally due to how quickly we consume the 4 stacks of energy lode after we gain them I would recommend adding some kind of additional minor damage increase for a short duration after consuming 4 stacks since we do not stay at 4 stacks very long typically.

Powerlode: the burst increase is definitely a plus here for AP, however, much like the Prototype Armor passive this tactical's second effect is completely useless in any PvE scenario as we never take critical damage. I would highly recommend change that to just damage but have an ICD of 1-3s.

Flame Dissipation: As it currently stands a couple things need to change with this tactical to make it compete with the other pyro tacticals. Firstly the periodic fire damage buff after consuming should either be increased by more than 10% or changed to all fire damage in order to give a noticeable dps increase. Secondly the stacks which reduce the heat cost of searing wave currently cannot be gained while under the effect of the periodic damage increase making it nearly impossible to gain any stacks for one full rotation cycle. Finally as a personal recommendation due to the number of flame bursts that we can feasibly due between every searing wave being around 2-4 every cycle we need to do 3 full rotations to fully benefit from this tactical, one to build the buff, one to consume the buff, and one more during the periodic effect. This means that we rotate between a searing wave that costs 5 heat, then 20 heat, then 8-14 which seems inconsistent with what I assume the intentions is with the tactical -- that we always use searing wave at 5 heat -- as an adjustment I'd recommend change the buff to 5 heat stacking 3 times as this would hit the sweet spot for average flame bursts every cycle and making it so we can gain those stacks while the periodic damage increase is active.

New Ability Feedback:

Very nicely done Lebu ... I haven't got much more to add but I'll touch on some points here.

The new Ability Power Yield is definitley an step in the right direction. What Powertechs need the most is a new Defensive Cooldown. <<snip>>

My findings:

the ability seems to work as advertised however I got to agree with what Lebu says here. (although please don't add more reflects to this game. In fact, please remove all reflect. Reflects are silly and way too hard to balance when it comes to PvE. /rant)

All in all power yield is a good addition to the PTs toolbox as they really needed another defensive cooldown.

- Right Price: The Power Yield duration is not extended by 5s. Reduction of Explosive Fuel CD when taking damage is working properly.

- Sonic Heal: Heals you and allies around you for only about 1000 hp which is < 0.5% health. So underwhelming that noone will equip this ever. Needs to be at least a 10-20x higher heal to be viable.

- Oil Fire: The mechanics of this Tactical worked but the damage reduction that you gain seems to be wrong. Tooltip says that you gain 2% damage reduction for every target you hit but i only recieved about 0.15% per target.

I got the same results as you (actually oilfire gave me 0,13% for stacks 1,3,5,7 and 0,14% for 2,4,6,8).

Regarding oilfire I need to add in a second bug.

The total amount of stacks that you can have at 1 point are 8 stacks. I get that with 1 attack you can only hit a max of 8 enemies. You can however use the ability twice. Which means the amount of stacks should be 16. Even better idea. Get rid of the cap of 8. There is no way you can exploit this one anyways.

The cd reduction does benefit correctly from hitting 16 enemies by the way.

Sonic heal is a very very very bad tactical like this. like Lebu is saying, 10x / 20x more healing needed.

- Hotswap: Overall a nice Tactical. Finally makes Translocate not completly useless anymore because the swapped player gets 100% dmg reduction. And I dont think thats overpovered because the player needs to be guarded first and then you still have to channel the ability. I could not see if the taunt is working and I didnt see a buff for the benign presence that is placed on you or what it does. Also it is strange that the guard on the swapped player is removed after using Translocate. I think the player should stay guarded.

DR - 50%, not 100%

Not sure how / where you tested. But you only get 50% DR. Not 100%. If I get swapped as a tank I do get very close to 100% DR though. But thats because my DR is already close to 50% as a PT tank.

The taunt - it works

Yes, the taunt works. When I translocate a friendly all adds instantly turn to me and hit me.

benign presence - bugged

Just as Lebu I havent seen anything related to anything hampering my abilities when translocating other people. Not sure what is supposed to happen but nothing happend to me

dropping guard - please fix this bioware!

Alternative ideas:

6 seconds is rather short as a cooldown. Maybe slightly increase the duration and lower the DR gain so it gains even more use. In PvP the 50% DR is bordering to way to strong too. Especially as its also increasing elemental/internal. Swapping someone basically means a 6 seconds godmode.

- Thermal Screen: Heat screen Stacks up to 6 times but when you activate Heat Blast only 3 stacks are consumed and you get the same Absorbtion Buff like before. I think I would be nicer if you can consume all 6 stacks at once for a bigger Absorbtion Buff.

Amen! Currently, you can already click heat blast on cooldown so essentially this tactical only gives a little bit of extra absorption per stack active. Which feels a shame.