oedipus_tex

If you adjust the base value in Mids for Hit Chance from 75% to 39% does this correctly adjust the hit chances for attacking a +4 enemy? I've been meaning to ask this for a while.

Well if you can deal with the complaints, find more ways for enemies to cut through player mezz protection. That will jack the difficulty up real quick. One of the biggest mistakes I always felt like CoX developers made was making melee characters functionally immune to most mezzes. This is partly related to the sheer harshness of mezz itself. I'd rather a system where most enemy mezzes are in the 0.33 to 0.5 Magnitude range, and players start with 1.0 mezz protection. The mezzes therefor would only take hold if you got a few of them stacked on you. With very difficult enemies having some mezzes that can truly grab you in one shot. The huge number of enemies that can instantly hold an unprotected character makes Carnies/Malta etc pure hell. If their intensity was lowered for unprotected characters but they had some possibility to mezz protected characters there'd be a better balance.

IMO the original intent of Force Field was to create a comic book "force field" type of powerset with the mechanics the game provided at the time. Absorb didn't exist yet and it's why it was not given at the time. Other than the fact that it appears on the heal bar and takes Healing sets, Absorption is not conceptually married to healing. Absorb makes more sense to me than Defense does for Force Field.

Based on what you listed you didn't want to play, I'd roll Water. Kinetics desires safety, it's the sets biggest weakness. Water is not 100% safe, but all the knockdown helps a lot. The second thing Kinetics desires is damage procs. Water delivers. Check out your options for slotting Dehydrate for example:

The main reason to take Tactics is so you can short change Accuracy slotting in other powers, and therefor "cheat" your way past normal slotting limitations. This also works well for sets like Kinetic where lots of powers roll ToHit but have crappy slotting options. I haven't looked super closely at your build to see if it applies, but it works out for a lot of builds. Taking an Alpha slot with Accuracy in it can be helpful as well.

If you could figure out how to do that with the flip of a single parameter, sure. I don't think any of the sets needing love are as clear cut as this. There is a setting that specifically exists to stop powers from behaving the way Fade and Farsight currently work. That setting is already in place for the nearly identical power Link Minds. If I felt this fix was complex I wouldn't push it hard. But it's very obvious and already used consistently throughout the game for this style of power. Plus, Fade is technically a bug fix and not just an improvement. Resistance powers should not inherit buffs from +Damage. So either it needs to be marked the way Link Minds is, or the Resistance needs to be unenhanceable.

Force Field doesn't have Absorb mainly because Absorb didn't exist until the last days of the game. Nature is the only buff set that has it, and it never got off the test servers. If the game had continued development I'd be surprised if Force Field didn't end up with an Absorb power. Force Field is the Absorb set in my mind. The idea to make Detention Field an Absorb power stems from how Injection was treated in the Medicine Pool. It's fairly simplistic to have a power have a different effect on an enemy than a player. Detention Field has perfect characteristics for some kind of Absorb: 60 second recharge Currently takes no IO sets at all (this is part of why this power sucks and is wise to skip btw) A graphic that indicates the power is active on the target Thematically, the power would just be said to completely seal off enemies so they can't be harmed, but only partially protect an ally, so they can still attack through it like other Force Fields. If it provided base 50% absorb it would be comparable to the Cold Domination power Frostwork, which adds about that much Max HP. Of course another option would be to create an IO set for Intangible powers that makes them universally worthwhile. I'll hold my breath on that though.

I like these ideas. Personally I wish we raise the aggro cap significantly and then base a penalty based on the number of enemies engaged. Currently we have an "implicit" penalty in that more enemies = more in coming damage which in theory makes survival harder. An explicit penalty would actually lower your stats as the number of engaged enemies crept too high. No longer can you assume after 16 enemies everything stands around ignoring you. It not only attacks, it attacks for more damage than it normally would, and your defenses, resistance, and other values continue to deplete as additional enemies are added. This mechanic exists in some other RPGs. It makes it possible to have an armorer class that functions well when squaring off with a single enemy (a Stalker, say) but falters when surrounded.

I also think some sets deserve some review when new mechanics come out that seem to fit that set. Like, Force Field would have had Absorb if Absorb existed when Force Field came out. Anyway, I have been thinking about Personal Force Field. Was wondering if we could get it to work like this: When you first cast it: Works exactly like now applies defense and resistance But also adds Absorb every tick When you toggle it off: Defense and Resistance go away, Absorb sticks around til its taken away by an attack I also think that Detention Field should be castable on teammates and just provide straight up Absorb. At least that would give Detention Field sets you can slot.

Not too often but yes. Mainly the Nemesis enemy group. I am fairly sure they have Stun protection but not Hold protection. Otherwise, Hold and Stun protection are often seen in trio with Immobilize protection. The classic case example is Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion. Fire Controllers despise enemies with these powers because it shuts down all of their controls: Hold, Stun, and Immobilize all in one power. Weirdly, they become less common on enemies at higher levels. It's all over the place in the mid levels. All of the "bubble" powers have holes to Sleep, Confuse, and Terrify. The bubble also provides no protection from knockdown, slow, -recharge, endurance drain, or -ToHit, which is why the "debuffy" control sets don't mind bubbles as much. On players, Acrobatics provides Hold but not Stun protection. There are probably some enemies I am forgetting.

EDIT: Sorry, just saw you were asking about Fade. The response below is about Farsight. I'll comment on Fade in a bit. Yes, this is very easy to do. Time characters naturally have much higher Recharge than most other characters. A typical character with 3 Luck of the Gamblers will have 22.5 Recharge. A Time character will have 72.5 when Chrono Shift is up. I don't remember at what point Chrono Shift becomes perma, but it's achievable. Even non-perma, Chrono Shift is effectively a second Hasten. For finished builds you're normally looking at something like this: Power Boost up every 35-40 seconds Farsight up every ~60 seconds Farsight lasts 120 seconds. Power Boost will Recharge about 2 to 3 times during that duration. Farsight itself likely Recharges twice. You shouldn't have any trouble keeping it up. You can even use Power Boost for other stuff during that time. You likely have 60 second overlap on recasting Farsight, so its not like you are under any particular pressure on when you recast it. RE: Clarion. Clarion uses the same mechanic as Power Boost. Flagging the power would end the Clarion + Farsight combo that also results in crazy Farsight values.

Farsight lasts 120 seconds. With 2 Recharge IOs, it has only a 10 second gap from being perma. Time gets a power that provides the caster +50% Recharge. Given this, Farsight is perma with 2 Recharge IOs even without Hasten or global Recharge slotting assuming you occasionally cast Chrono Shift (the true set defining power IMO). On higher end builds, Farsight recharges in around 60 seconds, but has a duration of 120 seconds, giving you a 60 window to re-cast it at a time with Power Boost is back up. Power Boost's recharge is 120 seconds at base so if you put nothing in it, you have close to perfectly lined up Farsight/Power Boost if Farsight has 2 Recharge IOs. High end Time builds get Power Boost to around 35 seconds. At that point it's almost hard not to have Power Boost available at some point when Farsight is recharged.

Force Field underperforms as a set, but Dispersion Bubble isn't the reason. On its own its pretty much carrying the set. I don't want to see this power have more than the current +10 Defense. +10 Defense is a fantastic foundation for building a tank-fender. The set could use other boosts to save floundering powers like Force Bolt and so on. A good basis of comparison for Farsight is powers like Steamy Mist (Storm), Shadow Fall (Dark), and Arctic Fog (Cold). These are actually sphere powers just like Dispersion Bubble. They typically add in the neighborhood of +5 Defense (I don't have Mids in front of me), some elemental Resistance (Fade copies this), and Stealth. That's closer to the value Farsight should have received. +8 Defense would still be extremely generous. Steamy, Arctic, and Shadow Fall are all marked not to receive external buffs. Power Boost wouldn't break their defense values, because they are toggles, so the Defense would only last the duration of the boost. But they contain Resistance, and Resistance powers are not allowed to benefit from Power Boost. Note that the Controller version of Dark Affinity actually has both Fade and Shadow Fall, and they stack with each other. Fade replaced a Mag 3 single target Hold power from the Defender version of Dark Miasma so its interesting to see its Controller version be Tanker-level armor. 😉

BTW I don't think the Recharge of Farsight is what needs the fix. If it is possible to eventually perma the power with IOs, that just shifts the issue on to higher end builds. The big issues are: It receives a huge, long lasting bonus from Farsight The base values themselves are excessive to start with, exceeding Force Field's big bubble even prior to Power Boost In a perfect world, I'd want Farsight to no longer receive boosts from Power Boost and its +Defense lowered from +12.5 to +8 (Dispersion Bubble is +10). +8 is still insanely good for a buff power you can cast on yourself. I'd settle for just the Power Boost fix though.

I didn't realize Fade actually had Resistance in it. You are correct. It is a bug/oversight that the power receives external buffs if it contains a Resistance component. I haven't checked to see if damage bonuses boost its Resistance, but if what we know about other Resistance powers is true, they might be. Has anyone tried Soul Drain > Fade? I'll check it out when I get home from work today.

Of these two, definitely Radiation. Sonic Resonance is kind of a "I rolled this interesting set so I can say I did it" set. I consider it a bottom tier set. Poor slotting options, endurance hungry, no restoration powers at all (heals or endurance), and a T9 power on an absurd 300s recharge schedule that lasts 30 seconds that still manages to be worse than many powers that recharge in 60 seconds and last 45. If they addressed the endurance consumption and found a way to fix Liquefy, Sonic Resonance would be more attractive. As is, it's in the low tier. It's not quite as bad as Trick Arrow, but it could use developer love.

I think Illusion Dominators would be cool, but since Dominators lack significant debuffs, Controllers probably still come out ahead. The only strong debuffs available to Dominators are Sleet and Drain Psyche. Drain Psyche is strong... but PBAoE. The rest of the Psi set doesn't offer particularly good damage to back it up, so a Cold Domination Controller probably comes out ahead. The strongest Dominator raw DPS set is Fire, which doesn't have any significant debuffs to speak of. A few Dominator sets provide Power Build Up, but Illusion Dominators can already get Power Boost. I think Illusion Dominators would be fun, but where most would excel would be AoE and trash mobs. But still not to the extent of a Blaster, just typical Dominator stuff. Dominators tend to have pretty mediocre damage overall, in the age of crashless nukes. Ahead of your standard Illusion Controller, sure, but nothing crazy.

The lowest damage set is Earth. It's a solid control set, but its two single target powers each take almost 2 seconds to cast. At least Ice's Chillblain casts in 1.17 seconds. On top of that, Earth has no access to Confusion to help up the numbers, which at least Ice intermittently has. Earth does make up for it somewhat with a super solid pet, though.

I think Illusion could port over exact;y as is and be fine. Again the only thing I'd consider is whether to increase radius the Sleep radius on Blind and make it benefit from Domination. It would make for a very different and interesting Dominator. Dominators are a direct damage class and play nothing like a Controller, so I'm not worried about it being redundant. I suspect what we'd find out is Controllers with debuffs do more damage than Dominators, at least against single hard targets. The Dominator would be better against larger groups. If there is real worry that not enough powers benefit from Domination, you could put a Fear AoE in Spectral Terror that launches the moment the power is cast. See Dark Control's Shadow Field for an example of a power that has both an immediate cast effect and a long term effect. Shadow Field's initial cast benefits from Domination, where the remainder of the power does not.

I mean its hard to get excited about Force Field and the defense it brings when you can play Time and with 8 slots get this: That's the formula to softcap a Time Defender to all positions and elements. For the record, I just posted that in a "please nerf Time Manipulation" thread. 🙂 You can find it in the Suggestions forum if you have opinions about it. Force Field does have its uses, mainly on leagues in iTrials, where the quick recharge of the bubbles is ideal. But its original claim to be the "Tanker" Defender set is more than destroyed by Time, so its hard to come up with reasons to stick with it.

Sonic Resonance doesn't offer any -Defense alongside its -Resistance powers so falls behind in the -Resist game. Try Poison if you want crazy Resist debuffs. Though to be honest I am not that crazy about Poison. A set like Storm Summoning or Cold Domination will get you what you are after. Sonic/Cold was for a long time considered a "super debuffer"character. It's still pretty good. FWIW I prefer Beam Rifle to Sonic Attack. Don't feel stuck with Sonic just because it natively has -Resist. Beam Rifle is very competitive when slotted and less of a PITA to play. On the other hand, Sonic/Sonic isn't strictly badi if that's what you really want to play.

A nice thing about Siphon Speed compared to a "real" travel power is the speed does not suppress when you are in combat.

For the LOLs I wanted to see what the minimum effort to soft cap a Time Defender to all positions looks like. Turns out it's something like this: This shows the results prior to Power Boost. Power Boosted Farsight provides 31% defense on its own. Farsight without Power Boost with 2 Defense IOs is 18.7% Defense. 31 - 18.7 = 12.3 Defense added to Farsight by Power Boost. So, factoring that in to the build's totals: 12.3 + 33.1 = 45.4 Defense to all positions. Working as designed, yes. But beyond ridiculous. 🙂 EDIT: Some tweaks to math to show numbers coming specifically from Farsight,, not including the +6% from bonus IOs. The end result is the same.

As an Illusion character I would be mightily tempted by the Mace Mastery pool. The blasts in there are slow, but they debuff Resistance, which is exactly what Illusion wants. You also get an extra pet out of it, which works well, because your Army will draw aggro away from it so it can survive to do damage.

BTW I didn't even post the worst example of how Power Boost interacts with Farsight. Just for the eye pops, here it is on a Defender: