gameboy1234

Thing is, it's called Traps, not Floaty Robot Bits. It's kind of the theme that each power is static and stays where you place it. I find traps hard to use on fast moving teams, it's hard to feel like you're contributing. This makes the whole set situational on a lot of teams. But it's still a fun set, and I'm not sure I'd change it. As said not every power needs to be an world beater in every situation. Floaty Robot Bits? Would go great in some kind of Gadgets power pool...

Another idea: the temp powers wear off, which might be an issue if someone is trying to level slowly permanently. Change the "Earn XP" button in the Options so that it takes more than one value: Earn XP, No XP, -25% XP, -50% XP, -75% XP. Each click moves the option to the next value, the last one cycles back to the first. Permanent, and you don't have to make a trip back to P2W when a temp power wears off.

I was literally going to add the exact same suggestion. I'll assume that final two are a 75% reduction in XP and a 90% reduction. I think the last one is unnecessary, maybe a 25% reduction (earn 0.75 XP) would be a better choice.

The main thing I used Force Bolt for on Live was to knock Gold Bricks and Longbow out of the sky, and it was nearly 100% with that as I recall. I could be wrong about that, but I'm also sure of it. It was a nice quick "stun" that would get them to skip a power or two in their attack chain.

I'm sure the Mastermind version of Force Bolt had -Fly on live, because I used it often just for that purpose. Dunno when that got changed.

I did some quick testing this morning on Live. Eochai was up in Atlas Park so I used him as a test with my Bots/Time and I grabbed a Power Analyzer from P2W. Short summary was that -Regen had about a 75% uptime over four minutes of testing, but most of that was one -Regen only, and I never saw the powers triple stacked. Unless one is trying to solo GMs, I think 4 minutes is a pretty long fight, most things with a team will drop before then. So I had some trouble with the bots getting wiped out early, so I actually started testing about 3 minutes into my stopwatch test when I got everything stabilized. I tried to use no debuffs from Time on Eochia so it wouldn't interfere with testing. I did use Farsight and Chrono Shift on the bots to help keep them upright. Of course I also used Temporal Mending, the Leadership pool and Equip and Upgrade Robot. From 2 min 48 second until 7 minutes exactly (when the assault bot died again) here's what I got: 1 minute 5 seconds no debuffs, about 35 seconds double stacked (one -Regen was -2.5 hp/sec, two of them were -5 hp/sec), and the remainder of the time 2 minutes 30 seconds roughly Eochai had only one debuff on him. That's slightly more than a 50% uptime with just one buff. At no point did I see a triple debuff (-5 hp/sec from Plasma Burn plus the second power, -2.5 hp/sec from I think it was called Double Plasma Burst) Because my timing started in progress, Eochai already had one -Regen on him, which might skew the numbers to look like -Regen has a higher uptime than it otherwise might.

Right, so the next question is what would be the expected uptime? Would the -Regen last long enough that we'd expect it to double up? Or would the -Regen wear off before the next 30% chance happened? Are we expecting to see -1500% regen or would it not trigger often enough and we'd only see an average of (for example) -250% regen? I'm just trying to figure out whether a constant -600% is worth three attacks, and if it's equivalent to what is on live right now. I guess I should grab a power analyzer and try it myself.

If the devs want to keep DF as is, then this is definitely the change I'd ask for. Maybe the total time could be messed with. Like make it a toggle that costs 2 end/s, with no time limit. So you're effectively limited at low levels by its high cost, but at higher levels as you slot more and get more global EndRedux, you're able to run it for much longer.

If you're referring to the Lore pet re-uses the Targeting Drone SFX, yeah I took that back on Live and I was *so* disappointed.

I'm on the fence about this. I think before the Bots had a chance of -Regen. Now it's 100% of the time? That might actually be an improvement. We should now be able to reliably stack -600% Regen on a foe and keep it there, before status resistances. But I didn't have the time to test whether the current implementation is actually better.

Honestly I hope they don't change it. It looks better than many of the other "floating robot" type powers in the game. (My personal bugaboo "it looks bad" is the Targeting Drone, which is literally just a cube with an SFX slapped on it. Man that thing looks cheap.)

In that case, sure if we got this power at level 10 it would be pretty cool. As a Tier 9 it feels really weak. Adding some direct buffs and debuffs would certainly help it.

I remember that the power was +Res for players (to status resistances) but it said -Str for foes, which seemed like it would be the powers themselves. But yeah reading the power info is kinda confusing, I'm not 100% sure I was reading it right either.

If I'm reading the power info right, the Dampening Bubble debuffs (by -25%) foe to-hit, all movement, perception, regeneration, and -12% to defense debuff resistance. The -To-Hit is pretty beefy and should provide some mitigation, especially when stacked with the +Def in the rest of the set. Effectively it's already -Damage. Those are some decent foe debuffs. What I'm concerned about is it doesn't really feel Tier 9 ish. Maybe that's just a perception problem but it's not a very apparent effect. The power is useful but feels "off" for a Tier 9. I'm not sure what my point is, I just wanted to point out that there are some debuffs already in the power.

Just kinda of thinking out loud, I also found Dampening Field to be a bit of a let down, esp. for a Tier 9 power. Its effects (and sfx!) where difficult to see. To make this feel like a real Tier 9, perhaps make this much more powerful, and greatly increase its recharge time as well. Greatly increase the Defense Debuff protection so that suddenly your own buffs will be most effective, increase the radius and add the Absorb that everyone has been asking for (you could replace the Regeneration buff). The other aspects can stay the same, the stationary bit is OK. Increase the recharge to (pulls number out of the air) 5 minutes, you'd have something that feels like a Tier 9 rather than as some folks are saying feeling like a clone of Faraday Cage. Overall I like the changes, they just feel a bit weak in places. It's good to see HC trying to improve some of the oldest powersets (some really need it) and overall the changes to FF are a great addition.

Well, that itself is a hassle. I wonder what's painful about that particular technique that makes HC want to avoid it.

Since some folks seem to like these, I wonder if PFF and DT are good candidates for getting the "two powers in one" treatment. PFF could work like now, or be a personal Deflection Shield+Insulation Field, your choice. Just adds a smaller amount of Def to you personally without the Affecting Only Self. Using one power locks out the other, and both are required to recharge before either can be used. Same with Detention Field. One power works like it does now (although perhaps make it a toggle, so we can turn it off), one is just an ordinary hold with a much smaller magnitude. An AoE hold even with just Mag 1 would be pretty nice. I'd like to have the choice to either put a boss or his minions in detention. Again both of these powers lock the other out and both have to recharge before the other can be used. To me those feel like easy fixes, although I'm not the one who has to create and test it.

I think more importantly the bots are cycling their powers much more often, which increases End drain quite a bit. I don't recall slotting my bots much for EndRedux either, but I also recall way back on Live that soloing with the bots was a major drag and their attacks were really slow before level 32. Which is why I started thinking about the rate of fire as the real culprit here. But I think I did slot for EndRedux eventually on Live. On HC I think I tend to start IO sets much early than back on Live, and it might now be a necessity.

I'm going to double down on this. The SFX seems to be back, but even if I go to the Tailor and color it as garishly as possible, the SFX is still too light and easy to miss. It's a pain because it doesn't stand out in a sea of rather strong SFX from other powers, and it doesn't communicate to a team what is going on. It barely communicates to me that my power has landed, and I was watching for it. I think it needs: 1. new polygons for the hold effect, the transparent bubble isn't cutting it. I'd like something nearly solid to demark the Detention Field effect. 2. New animation, the target just does an idle pose, which is easy to miss again. A more definite animation like the waist struggle one or something that has a sharp and quickly repeating animation would also help people notice that the Detention Field is active. If there's a "let me out" animation (like beating on a door or pushing against a barrier) that might work as well.

If I recall correctly, Burn Patches were a little overtuned on live because mobs were also feared by them, and would just run out. Then overlapping Burn Patches became a problem, so the patches were made so that only one would be in effect, regardless how many overlapped, and the tuning was increased somewhat to compensate for the reduced damage. If Burn Patches now look overtuned, that's why, they're a big big source of damage for Robotics, and if they get de-tuned it might have a serious effect if nothing else is done to compensate. Obviously AOE Slows or Holds will massively increase the damage done, but that's the sort of power synergy that is supposed to happen in a game. Maybe reduce the fear (substitute a chance for fear?) or something else to improve actual damage taken a bit (add a slow effect to the patch?). The idea here is that if a held mob is seen as taking too much damage, then adding a slow won't increase the damage. Holds are still synergistic, but they don't increase damage if the mob is also slowed. (Personally I didn't test this yet, but "stuff dies in a burn patch" is a big part of how Robotics kill and feels strong. Too much reduction here might weaken the set too much.)

Gotta agree with this too. Played a Bots/FF to 50 and beyond on Live, and did eventually put Force Bubble in a build once we got our 3rd build, tried it out a few times (ITF), couldn't really find a good use for it. On a small map I might have been able to use to pin enemies in corners, but the "spread out" effect pushing all enemies away a common center made it really hard to do any sort of herding with. I eventually gave up on that build. The iconic powers in FF are Deflection Field, Insulation Field, and Dispersion Bubble, and fortunately those happen really early. (And maybe Detention Field is iconic too, in a "terrible power design" sort of way.)

This is actually a good point. With Faraday Cage, you get a really strong AOE effect, and there's an effect on each affected person too, a relatively bright red effect attached to their head. You can tell pretty much at a glance who has the power effect on them. Dampening Field has a really soft visual effect, or maybe none at all. It could be dialed up without any problems imo. If nothing else, the SFX from Faraday Cage could be reused and recolored (both of them), though I'd like to see a different individual effect myself. (Detention Field still needs a better SFX too, or maybe just an SFX because it seems to have none at all.)

Well the 16 (I thought it was 17) mob cap went away last update, so that's no longer an issue. Just get in their face any way you like, they'll all follow you now. Though quickly grabbing aggro away from the bubbler still sounds like a smart plan.

Besides auto levels from the "Freebies Menu," don't miss that you can get free IO, SO and DO from the same menu. Also if you look just below those (just beneath "Special") there's an option to Auto Enhance your character with SOs, generic IOs or IO Sets. Yup, you don't have to even get free Enh and place them manually, the game will just do it for you! It's not half bad either, though it often needs tweaking. Saves a lot of work. Some of the options in the Freebies Menu have more extensive commentary and instructions, there's one that says "How-To" that's worth reading. Like it says too that Auto Enhance if used more that once will change what the system placed before, so if you don't like the slotting it did, you can just try another.

Just randomly spitballing here: Apply a small taunt to one or both of these powers? And allow Taunt Enh to be slotted for those who want more, perhaps. Is there a Taunt proc in game? I guess also if you really want to you can get Provoke. OK now I want Personal Force Field to affect only self, *except* for Taunt powers like Provoke. Yes I want to stand in the middle of a group of foes and make waggle ears at them and go "you can't hit me, nyah nyah."