Galaxy Brain

It would be global for all KB powers, except for KD unless we want that to just do like.... 5 damage

If so, make it an actually God-tier turret

Honestly, yeah. It's such a niche thing so why not.

More dakka?

The bottom line is that KB is the most common tool that a player can use to, intentionally or not, interact with another player's powers in a non beneficial way. (Other examples are Repel, Wormhole / tp foe which all relocate enemies per the player's whim. There is also the ST cages and Phases/Dimension Shift that lock other players from interaction depending on the scenario. But these are much much much more infrequent than the array of KB powers) I think what is missing from the conversation is that not all KB powers are created equal. I dont think anyone has a problem with powers that are guarenteed to knock back, as often those are used "correctly" or at least are predictable. A new player using Gale has a very easy "tell" for when they use the power with the massive effect, as well as how it more or less uniformly moves a group. Other players can adapt to that easily and you can likewise easily talk to the stormy to have them use gale into a wall or something if that comes up. Same deal with the ST knockback powers. If a player is actively using only those powers, imo they are on some level aware of what they are doing and then it could fall under griefing since they are actively choosing to go against the team by just pushing mobs everywhere and nothing else. What is an issue is when you get into RNG KB as well as key powers that scatter mobs by design (PBAoEs). The RNG ones like say, Energy Torrent or Explosive Blast have a 60% and 50% chance to knock their targets. With caps of 10/16, you are looking at 4-8 targets on average who do *not* get moved while others get sent along even when you are utilizing KB correctly. This can be frustrating even when Solo as you do not get uniform utility. The PBAoEs likewise also cannot be easily controlled. Targeted AoEs at least always knock enemies away from where you are facing in the same general area, even if you launch it at the back of the group those closest to you should be knocked "forward" and not towards you. With PBAoE KB the best use is often to surround yourself and let it rip which causes all kinds of scatter. Some, like Nova, can have the luxury of a ton of area where you can position the blast, but others more or less lose out on damage / etc if you arent mobbed all around.

Assuming you actually knock somebody out of the sky, sure that makes sense. The times where that is relevant are pretty small anyways so sure 🙂 Im fiddling with the formula on my end to see if accounting for the base chance / target cap for the knock powers makes sense or not... what do you all think? Using Nova as an example, that has 100% chance to knock with high mag to upwards of 16 targets. With the current formula, that is a bonus 186.94 damage per target with 0 enhancements for blasters, bumping it from 250.24 > 437.18 damage (~75% damage increase) if you are able to yeet people. This can be pushed to +514.09 bonus damage with KB enhancement, for a total of 764.33 damage. For reference, a lvl 55 minion has 437 hp exactly.... (a lvl 50 has 430.8, per paragon wiki) What we could do then is alter the formula a bit so: KB bonus = ((MAG * 10) * (1.5 - KB Chance)) * AT Mod This favors KB% chances that are less than 50% with bonus output, and chances above 50% with lesser output. New Bonus = 93.47 base (37.35% boost), 257.04 max enh (102.72% boost). Total damage -> 343.71 - 507.28 Likewise, a power like Power Blast would go from 18.7 -> 22.5 bonus damage due to having a <50% chance.

Just to touch base here, we have a few answers with over 100 picks a piece: 175: I would play on an advanced difficulty setting only if it were optional 165: Introduce specific “advanced” enemies to shake up combat with either special attack powers or enemy-buffs 118: Existing enemy groups should have their rewards balanced to scale to their difficulty 116: Ramp up difficulty per team member in some way specifically to combat “Steamroll” 101: Existing enemy groups should get glow-ups to make them challenging Consensus seems to favor an Optional setting for "Hard Mode". When this setting is selected, "Advanced" enemies can spawn with new, unique powers to oppose players with. Existing, and new enemy groups should also probably get a rewards pass for scale, and / or get makeovers to still be thematically tough. In addition to all this, the hard-mode should have an emphasis on combating steamroll in some way.

What I mean by that is that the KB damage is seperate from normal damage. If you use Build Up, it won't effect the KB damage since it is solely attached to KB magnitude

Well, Zapp is a big bolt of lightning as-is so I pictured that would be what jumps about! It doesn't necessarily need to be Zapp, but I'm not sure what else would fit. I wouldn't mind the other AT's getting "Zapping Chain" either, possibly just in the Blast sets tho and not epics. If it chained -End/Rec.... eh, its nice but I'd rather the damage. If it were to be a "triggered" effect, it'd be nice if AIM in the set were altered into sort of a "Tidal Forces" clone that maybe gave less stats but let you chain for the duration?

@oedipus_tex, if this were to hypothetically go through on top of my KB damage proc idea, I'd need to alter it to include the chance as a factor 😛

Even though I mentioned it in the past, I'd be against all attacks having a chain chance now. I'd rather have 1 heavy chain attack (Zapping Chain?) to differentiate it and make use of a unique chaining snipe that it could tote above other sets. This on top of making the end sapping back to you consistent on hit, a boost to VS in some fashion.... and then something with Tesla Cage if we're being nice 😛 if Zapp is a chain that deals less damage than other ST snipes, giving some ST back in TC would be nice.

This clearly breaks the SO only meta Redlynne, think of the casuals! 😧 +1 for the idea tho, it makes sense and gets rid of tech debt slightly where you already have an RNG roll with degrees of success

@kelika2, there are others besides blasters who get the set and dont have the sustains. I'm not sure what you're referencing for elec blast buffs, like before issue 10? It's been the way it is for many, many years. The sniper changes are also global, so while yes it did help out elec a good bit it still is in the same relative place.

Agreed, but I think sticking it to one power is more how the chain powers "work" currently

A far out one I'd like to see is to make Zapp do less damage, but become a chain-lightning attack. You would lose out a bit on ST but gain a very cool AoE power!

As for a real response to this, there are hardly times where the classical T9s are useful compared to other, non IO options. Armor sets gave a baseline that give you decent enough personal protection to get you through most content. Combined with how most melee sets have built in mitigation powers via stuns, knockdowns, or even parries, you can cruise though a ton of missions with just the bare necessities. I'd you're in trouble, there are already options you can click that last over a minute and provide useful defenses: Inspirations. An SR character on SOs is in trouble, 1 small purple and your pick of some orange or greens makes them right as rain for a while with 0 crash. Hell, purple insps in general are super good given they grant 12.5% def to all, making the "soft cap" effectively 32.5%. On top of this, if you're teamed you have ally buffs on top of your armor that push the stats up higher. The more outside buffs and inspirations you have access to, the less value a traditional T9 honestly has as it gives less and less defenses to get to your respective caps. This is why the T9s that give far less benefits for a set recharge, have a tiny uptime but very fast recharge, or do rather unique things like a rez nuke / increase hp, etc, are seen as far better since they do things that you cant generally get from just munching candy or passive ally buffs. MoG and Icy Bastion are good examples here. I think the OPs suggestions are great given the ways to circumvent the need for most T9s without IOs. They add additional flavor to powers that imo are rarely taken and flavorful to the sets in a way that stacks with the rest of the set. Sorta like how RotP works honestly, it's not just another +res power but a game changing one that can alter your strategy.

Yus

Fixed

Right, but why not all the elec attacks?

Another bump, but also please tag elec attacks as "EMP" vs robots for some bonus damage? Just seems right, you know?

You know, the activation times were not considered in my data. That is sort of another point in the Sentinel's favor since it just axes that part completely for a chunk of powers.

@monos1, why not compromise and say you can only buy Temp powers you already unlocked with that character?

I think the raw absorb amount would be interesting to test. We should get some DPS numbers from real enemies.

Ok, Tankinel numbers: Passive HP boost = 2546.39 HP Resilience = 19.76% res to all damage Passive Regen Rate = 61.32 hp/s Absorb Shield = 149.2 per Tick (49.74 hp/s). Max Absorb = 746.02 The latter is huge. With Resilience 3 slotted, you can straight up eat an attack worth 893 damage without your HP being touched every so often. With a combined passive HP/S of 111.06, you'd also need to deal over 133 DPS to actually begin to hurt a Regen "Tankinel". For comparison, a Regen Scrapper with Instant Healing active can only stand up to 101 DPS, and 161.38 with both IH and DP active, only a bit better than what this tank could do *Passively*.

Actually, with tanker values the sentinel version may be kinda diesel... will edit numbers in later.