Blackfeather

Sleeps are generally not resisted by enemies - Archvillains have no special protection to them for example, and Mind Control's Mesmerize has a 3.5 magnitude compared to the regular magnitude 3 control powers. And I did mention making Sleep similar to something like Champion's version of a Hold - reducing in duration depending on the damage taken, which could certainly work considering how Sleep powers tend to last longer than their counterparts (when not broken prematurely). I wouldn't quite describe Sleep as having a problem per se, but it's a status effect in a game where AoE damage is very prevalent, and its control fragile, making their use suboptimal in a lot of cases.

Turning Sleep into a Knockdown that they can't get out of until they wake up? That's a neat idea for sure, I like this.

While Mind Control could certainly do with a look over (I'm planning on making a thread on that at a later time in fact), single shot AoE Sleeps remain as something to be looked over in general, rather than this being an issue with any one set, personally speaking. Sleeps definitely have their uses - the main issue is that their main use, that is to say, pre-emptively taking out enemies for later, is in direct conflict with the high amount of AoE attacks in the game. It's much easier to evaluate if an enemy is slept in smaller groups for example (though I suppose the chaos murderball of an 8-group party is a whole 'issue' in of itself). While secondary debuffs are nice, I do think it'd be a good idea to find ways to improve the status effect directly, or explore avenues in which its use can be better made use of, if that makes sense.

It sounds like you're presenting another use case for when Sleeps are useful - when there are too many enemies for the group to effectively handle via just having all attacks targeting the Big Strong Bruiser(s) of the party. Could you explain your point in further detail, and how this links back to improving the utility of Sleeps?

Partially inspired by the whole Sleep status effect talk, partially something I've been thinking about for a while. Happy to route that sort of discussion here!

I don't really see how the aggro cap is relevant in this case - if anything, a larger increase in enemies that can't all be drawn away by a a single Big Strong Bruiser sounds like it'd make Sleeps more relevant in this scenario, because it'd provide an alternative means of reducing the numbers of enemies that are able to engage with the group, instead of all of them just targeting said Big Strong Bruiser.

That's a fair standpoint! Though it does sound like part of this is due to a lack of understanding of mechanics from others. However, I'd say that even in an ideal scenario where everybody knows how they work, it's still a bit difficult to work with Sleeps. I did think up of another potential way of increasing the utility of Sleeps: to introduce scenarios where they would be more necessary/useful. At the moment, most enemy mobs are static, waiting for parties to come to them, leaving groups with an easy choice on what to focus down on. This can come at the detriment of Sleeps in larger groups - while damage is focused, it's not necessarily clean, nor is it really capable of being so, due to the high amount of AoE damage around. What if there were more cases where enemy ambushes occurred for example, where the party has to handle simultaneous groups from different sides? This is an extension of the 'mobs could be more spread out' idea, essentially; not everything can be hit this way, leaving Sleeps a useful means of shutting down part of the group.

Those are certainly two potential avenues to go about doing it! Personally I view Static Field as Electric Control's counterpart to Ice Slick/Bonfire/Earthquake - an AoE control that just happens to use a pulsing Sleep instead of knockdown to lock down enemies. As such, I see it as an exception to how Sleeps work, rather than what the norm ought to be. Additionally, this may potentially step on the toes of the Fear status effect, which essentially does this 'pulsing' - enemies either cower in terror or run away, and have a chance to attack once if they're attacked before resuming their feared state. Secondary effects attached to status effects are nice, but I'm not so sure if they should come along with the status effects themselves; it seems like such effects are attached to the powerset themselves rather than any one status effect. E.g. -Def for Earth powers, Slows for Ice/Psychic powers, and so on. Plus, on a more subjective note, while debuffs aid in utility, if a mez is mitigated 'early', does that feel as useful for the power-user? Certainly, it's compensation of a sorts. Definitely a lot of food for thought - they're very interesting suggestions!

The Sleep status effect is best described as a fragile Hold - once it is inflicted on an enemy, they are unable to attack or move. Unlike a Hold, they break free as soon as any damage is inflicted upon them. This places powers which cause Sleeps in a different niche to ones that inflict Holds. Instead of being used as a means of attacking with impunity like Holds are, they are instead better used to take enemies out of the fight, reducing the amount of attacks coming the party's way. Most Sleeps last much longer than Holds do, and are far less resisted in comparison (AVs have no special resistance to them for example), supporting this use case. However, I would argue that this primary use case rarely comes up - I will attempt to explain why below: Damage is 'messy' and takes work to concentrate on specific targets AoE damage is easy to come by in many powers. This results in potentially slept enemies awakening prematurely, taking them back into the fight and thus mitigating the utility that a Sleep provides. Compare this to something like D&D, where such AoE is rare, and generally limited in usage - Sleeps are much more useful in this case due to said rarity, as it is easier for a group to attack a target one at a time in relative safety Larger teams result in larger amounts of damage Compounds the above issue - additional characters means that additional damage will invariably be dealt. It is also more difficult to concentrate on specific targets due to the increase in chaos across the battlefield: lots of graphical interference, swarms of enemies (and players!) getting in the way, etc. Given this, I personally think that Sleeps ought to be looked over, to see how better they might increase their utility - Static Field for example mitigates many of the issues above due to being reapplying itself over time: even if an enemy wakes up due to being damaged, they are quickly subdued again. However, I believe that such methods merely sidestep an issue with how Sleeps function with the rest of the game. As such, I've thought up potential different ideas that could potentially help with the goal of "increasing the utility of Sleep status effects", roughly ordered in order of least to most change to the game: Add a status icon indicator on targeted enemies that displays inflicted status effects At the moment, one is reliant on looking at the actual enemy NPCs, along with the graphics surrounding them to determine whether or not they are under the effect of a status effect. In large groups, this is much more difficult to do - as such, a series of status icon indicators in the Target window might better assist in making judicious decisions about where to attack. Is this necessary? If one wishes to focus their attacks on a single target, why not just target through another player? Increase the range/radius of one-shot AoE sleep effects My reasoning here hinges on the idea that if such effects are applied pre-emptively on a group, this would allow a higher amount of enemies to remain slept, even if AoE damage were inflicted afterwards, due to them being more spread out than said damage could encompass. Perhaps enemies could be spawned in a way that keeps them more spread out by default, thus increasing the likelihood that such sleeps lock them down? Make the Sleep status effect itself less fragile One could take inspiration from Champion Online's Paralyze effect - their equivalent of CoH's Hold effect, but with one large exception: any damage taken to the target reduces the duration of the effect. This could potentially be implemented with Sleep status effects, though this does raise a myriad of questions. Namely: How large of a Sleep duration loss ought damage cause, and what metrics might be used? How can this be implemented without edging out the benefits of a proper area-of-effect Hold, or a Hold in general? Status effects work both ways. Would people enjoy being hit with a more persistent Sleep effect? Reduce the prevalence of AoE damage...? This is less of a serious idea and more of a thought experiment due to how such a change would be extremely wide sweeping and generally Not FunTM. As mentioned before, Sleeps are generally more potent when attacks are focused, which AoE damage by their nature...isn't. Reducing the frequency with which characters could deal high amounts of AoE damage with ease could be a hypothetical way of increasing the utility of Sleeps. However, this has a whole range of questions attached to it: How would the game 'feel'? It's part of the superhero genre to be able to lay waste with large explosions, etc. Being limited to the amount one can do this sounds odd from the get-go Would enemy spawns need to be changed to match this lack of AoE? It's clear that such damage is here to stay, especially with things like the Tanker changes coming out that increases the range of their sweeping attacks - is it fair to limit such improvements just for the sake of increasing the utility of one status effect? Needless to say, this is a difficult topic to approach - there's a lot of factors at play that require considering, but I do hope that these thoughts were well articulated, and spark a good amount of discussion. What do you think? Was I correct in my assumptions of the main functions of Sleeps, and the lack of necessity/utility of said functions? Any ideas that I put forth sound appealing/need adjusting? New ideas entirely? I look forward to everybody's responses! Neat Additional Points and Suggestions @ScarySai suggested making enemies go prone (Knockdown) once they're hit with a powerful enough Sleep, meaning that they'd need to get back up before returning to the fight once woken up. I like this suggestion a lot! Not only does it make thematic sense to make an enemy sleep on the ground, but it's also an effect that I wouldn't be too bothered by if a Sleep hit my character as well. Additionally, it'd provide a nice way of identifying which enemies have been put to sleep by seeing them prone on the floor. Building on this, perhaps different kinds of Sleeps ought to have different kinds of potential effects. While putting enemies to the floor makes sense for powers which cause unconsciousness (e.g. Siren's Song, Mass Hypnosis), it makes less sense for powers which trap enemies in a fragile prison (e.g. Salt Crystals). In these cases, having a Sleep's duration merely shorten with damage instead of disappearing entirely might make sense. Blind's Sleep effect could also lower perception/ToHit for example.

Don't forget the Nemesis faction.

Grapple hook powers would be interesting, pulling enemies towards your character and so on.

Exciting - now to speculate on what that'll mean!

This sounds like a very neat change - it allows for vertical movement that Super Speed lacks, while also being different from the teleportation that Mystic Flight has.

I wonder what this might mean...

Duplicated paragraph in the Breakout tutorial from contact Sakai Tamaki.

Philotic's suggestions for a stronger Force Bolt/Repulsion Bomb, and having a system in place to add damage from Knockback would definitely be very nice. And of course, I do stand by Detention Field and Force Bubble having more finesse in their usage (able to cancel out the Field early and potentially affect even AVs, have Force Bubble shrinkable/expandable and act differently depending on its size - stronger repel/slow when smaller, opposite when larger).

I do like Trickshooter's suggestions on this matter.

I didn't have a whole discussion against the whole +Absorb thing just for it to be brought up again! 😝

If it affects your RP sensibilities, it might be a good idea to flavour Levitate as convincing the enemy to fling themselves into the air, triggering a muscle spasm.

Enemies have an in-built level of status effect protection, some higher than others - it's why Dominate (and all holds) will eventually cause an enemy to be Held with sufficient applications, since their effects will stack in magnitude. Mesmerize's effects tend to be strong enough to work in a single shot, even on bosses. Additionally, Levitate can work excellently as a means of soft control to provide you with the opportunity to apply further Holds onto opponents - Dominate, followed by Levitate, followed by Dominate again. They can't attack if they're flying in the air, after all.

How effective is Mesmerize against such targets as opposed to Dominate? Sleeps tend not to be protected against all that much.

I'm pretty sure resistance to -Res effects is baked in - the higher the resistance, the higher the resistance to -Res.

I don't seem to see anything about changes to AE drop rates in the patch notes. Maybe it'd be best to report it as a bug if that's the case?

That's fair - it'd probably be better to express that in the beta feedback forums though, so the devs can hear you out better about it.

I think the main thing is that Fade benefiting from Power Boost is explicitly a bug, while Farsight isn't (due to not providing enhanceable resistance).