Nanolathe

Unfinished, and I might never finish it. Here's my ideas on this Archetype so far; The Marshal An Archetype that uses Assault as their Primary power set choice and Pet Mastery as their Secondary power set choice. This pet mastery is similar, but not identical to Masterminds Henchmen. Primary sets are largely unchanged from Dominator versions. Any sets that have a generic ‘Power Up’ power should be replaced by Build Up. Replace any ‘Snipe’ power with solid utility power; soft control or good debuff, or similar. If sets need tweaking on a set-by-set basis to bring them more in line with the capacity of this new Archetype then that’s no problem. The intent is to have a suite of both melee and ranged attacks with integrated in-set support like Build Up and in-set utility/soft control. The Secondary sets are heavily tweaked from their Mastermind incarnation, entirely removing the personal attacks and replacing them with limited personal defence powers. This will be described in greater detail, below. One crucial difference is that the ‘Henchmen’ you summon are not permanent summons like the Mastermind, but rather only last for a limited time. They use Pet modifiers for level and damage scale, rather than Mastermind Henchmen versions. Summoning Pets will cause any currently active iterations of your pets to be replaced with new versions. You can’t “stack” pet summons. Inherent: “Strength in Numbers” While active, your T1 pets grant you resistances or defence (based on set theme) at 7.5% RES per Henchman, or 4.25% DEF per henchman. S/L as standard + 1 other (based on set type if possible) While active, your T2 pets grant you protection against sleep, hold, immob, disorient & knockback at Mag2 per henchman. While active, your T3 pet grants you increased regeneration (100%) and recovery (100%), as well as an increase to your maximum HP pool (30%). All these effects are unenhancable. As a Marshal, you do not get the effect of Bodyguard mode (the Mastermind’s ability to share damage taken between his or her Pet). You retain the Mastermind’s Stance commands and Pet movement commands; Aggressive, Defensive, Passive, and Attack my Target, Follow, Stay, Go To. Pet Mastery rework template: Personal Defence (S/L) Level 1 Toggle. Increases your S/L resistance or defence (11.25% -or- 7.5%), and also grants a minor thematic resistance to either Energy, NegEnergy, Fire, Cold or Toxic (3.5%). Additionally it could also minorly increase debuff resistances according to theme. Remember, your total Resistance/Defence values are increased by your T1 Pet’s proximity. Enhanceable Summon Pet [Minion] (up to 3). Minor Resists/Defence Level 2 Summon one to three Pets depending on your level. These Pets are focused on dealing moderate amounts of damage to your enemies, as well as minor debuffs with their attacks (such as minor -DEF). Enhanceable with Pet Damage IO Sets, Universal Damage, Accuracy and any secondary effects that the pets use for their powers. May also be enhanced with Recharge Reduction and Endurance Reduction, though this affects the Summon Pet power, rather than the Pet’s own powers. This is true of all pets the Marshal summons. As standard the recharge of this power is slightly shorter than the total “up time” of the T1 pets. Thus, it has perfect “up time”, minus the summoning animations. At level 2+ you may command one T1 Pet, At level 6+ you may command up to two T1 Pets, At level 18+ you may command up to three T1 Pets. Toggle Personal Defence (Elemental) Level 4 Cold and Fire Resistances/Defences (11.25% -or- 7.5%) Plus secondary resistances to debuffs (such as resisting Defence Debuffs, Slows, etc) And/Or other miscellaneous minor buffs (such as perception, run speed, etc) All effects enhanceable where appropriate. Toggle Personal Defence (Mez Protection) Level 10 Protection against sleep, hold, immob, disorient & knockback at Mag4. Also confers some additional mez protection for one type based on set theme, or other increases to debuff resistances, or other minor miscellaneous buffs as necessary Remember, your total protection values are increased by your T2 Pet’s proximity. One additional increase to one specific damage type Resistance/Defence as appropriate to set theme. Enhanceable Summon Pet [Lieutenant] (up to 2). Moderate Resists/Defence Level 16 Summon one to two Pets, depending on your level. These Pets are slightly tougher and carry more specialised means of dealing with your foes. They focus on support actions that either debuff your opponents or buff You and your other Pets, while dealing some damage. Their secondary effects are the real show here however. If able to mez in some capacity, then when stacked together can affect bosses. Other buffs/debuffs are corruptor-scale. Best to think of these pets as mini-Defenders. Can be enhanced with Pet IO Sets, Damage, Accuracy, and any secondary effects the pet has access to. May also be enhanced with Recharge Reduction and Endurance Reduction, though this affects the Summon Pet power, rather than the Pet’s own powers. This is true of all pets the Marshal summons. As standard the recharge of this power is (approx) 40% longer than the total “up time” of the T2 pets. Thus, it can have perfect “up time” (minus the summoning animations) when it is enhanced for recharge rate. At level 16+ you may summon one T2 Pet, At level 24+ you may summon up to two T2 Pets. Group Survivability / Self Buff Level 20 PBAoE buff that focuses on increasing your team’s survivability while giving an asymmetrical buff to the Marshal. You pets count as allies for this power. As you gather more allies to you, the effects on yourself are magnified. Max 10 stacks of self buff Example: You increase your allies’ Regeneration (125%) and Recovery (75%) around you (25’), while granting yourself a minor endurance discount and increased recharge rate based on the number of allies affected (5% EndDiscount / 5% +RechRate per ally) Example: You increase your allies’ Resistance -or- Defence (11.25% -or- 7.5%) around you (25’), while granting yourself a minor increase in Damage and Accuracy based on the number of allies affected (7.5% +Damage / 5% +To Hit per ally) Summon Pet [Boss] (1). High Resistances Level 28 Summons one mighty Pet! This Pet is very tough. They focus on Tanking actions with taunt and taunt aura, and high resistances/defences to damage. Their damage output is not as impressive as many Mastermind T3s. Can be enhanced with Pet IO Sets, Resistance/Defence, Damage, Accuracy, Taunt, and any secondary effects the pet has access to. May also be enhanced with Recharge Reduction and Endurance Reduction, though this affects the Summon Pet power, rather than the Pet’s own powers. This is true of all pets the Marshal summons. As standard the recharge of this power is (approx) 250% longer than the total “up time” of the T3 pet. Thus, it can have perfect “up time” (minus the summoning animations) when it is enhanced for 3x recharge rate… and a moderate amount of global recharge (or hasten) Unique Set “Theme” Power Level 35 Like Masterminds this power is very tied to your particular style of pet and should have lots of flavour. Nothing micro intensive. Clicky or toggle as needed. No “extra” pets. All-For-One! Level 38 Your T9 should be a trade-off between you and your pets. A darker mirror of your lvl 20 (T6). This in some way, “debuffs” your pets and enhances you and other teammates, personally.

@barrier Maybe that just shows up procs as being a bad thing for PvP? (and maybe a bad thing for the game in general?) Especially since it's SO heavily skewed in favour of offence.

Revert the changes that made PVP and PVE into totally separate systems.

Mission Contacts and Dynamic Mission Generation based on your standing with various "groups". Have story arcs form more organically from gameplay as your character specialises (or not) in taking on specific villain/hero groups. Create a "Nemesis" mechanic that can have certain named bosses, Elites, or AVs, spawn as ambushes in missions (with respect to team sizes and difficulty settings); each player would get different enemies declaring them as their nemesis, and the player is free to decide how to deal with them. Every few levels the nemesis would change to reflect the new power that the player has access to, either by being a stronger version, or a new nemesis emerging if the player can successful defeat their nemesis (with the potential for them to return later in your career). Ways to gain and lose influence and infamy not as currency, but as an actual mechanical result of missions chosen, contacts worked for, enemies defeated and survivors rescued. This all culminates in highly custom missions that are specific to your character because of the choices you made along the way to 50 and beyond. Use the phasing system to remove certain villain/hero groups from the game (think more the bit-players rather than the Phalanx or Arachnos) and boost the prevalence of others, with additional cosmetic changes to mission map decor, and maybe even in public zones too, that your character can actually see the impact they have had on the zone. Have generated missions that bring the "Come Back" of groups you've put down before. Have generated zone events based on randomly chosen heroes/villains currently in a zone that everyone can join in. Have opposed Task Forces on Red/Blue side that can push through into how a zone is presented and what enemies spawn there.

We need more weapon-based Epic Pools with the ability to match current Primary and Secondary weapon options. Not all of us with to suddenly develop magical flame powers that manifest from our hands, when up til then we've been wielding a Beam Rifle, or a Katana (etc)

I think the developers learnt a lesson from the last time they tried to develop "outside" a bubble, and involved the forum community. I fully expect to get nothing but cryptic hints to even major features or gameplay overhauls from now on.

Affecting gameplay could mean a lot of things, from accolades all the way through to a whole new system (like the oft suggested faction "reputation"). Hoping for the latter, but I realise that might be a but optimistic.

More Non-targeted Cones... or Vectored Knockback?

A sidearm pistol set of attacks for the Medic would be great, but I'm not sure we have enough single pistol animations for it to be viable. edit: Without crazy gun-kata

If Granite Armour is changed into a regular "click" T9 armour power I think that no one would ever use it. Those powers have just as many issues as Granite does, just in a different direction.

@Bentley Berkeley, I want change. (obviously) I can only say that I despise Global Recharge, and what it has done to the game in terms of powers that can be made permanent, solo, without any real detriment to overall damage output or survivability (and in some cases it actively boosts those other values). If building enough global recharge actually came at a real cost beyond an in-game monetary one I could begrudgingly accept them. But they don't. So I can't. It just breaks the game. The builds you bring up are solely focused around that concept and I just can't bring myself to stifle my creative suggestions because a few min/maxers would be upset. I see the current implementation of IO set bonuses and Global Enhancements as the erasure of inter-archetype integration in pursuit of solo OMNI-Defences, not as a method to make soloing a bit more viable. The values are far too powerful if that was the original idea. Apologies, but there it is. You may tell me to take a hike because of this, and I accept that as the price of posting literally anything on these forums. Someone is always going to think I'm gunning for their build in particular. And there's always a reason that their build is sacrosanct and needs to be preserved at all costs. I also am very much aware that this will probably not be changed. But again, I'm not going to stop suggesting things because it might make someone's current build less good, especially if it might make more people more interested in taking a previously terrible power, or set of powers as is the case here. Mix/Maxers gonna min/max. I'm sure they'll find a new build that's almost just as broken. As it stands there aren't any T9 Armour powers I think are anything beyond "Ok", and none I find interesting. That's what the OP suggestion was about. @tidge, The changes as presented - without significant additional changes to either the core of the design ethos for defence sets, or a change in how players interact with the IO system - are pointless. I will disagree with one point though, and that is that the changes I proposed would make having a team by your side much more appealing. With a team you could more effectively control your "crash" as they would have the time to provide the support you would need, rather than it all just happening in a split second. The current implementation of "The Crash" doesn't give the team any way to interact with it, other than healing for those that have a health crash. The -100% Endurance, 100% Resistance to Endurance, and -10000% recovery rate on some T9 powers are things that a team can't interact with. You're just out for 10 seconds. No ifs, ands or buts. Others may have slightly more lenient versions of this crash, but it's a much-of-a-muchness, really. They're all awful in their own unique ways. Anyway, as the OP states, it was a thought experiment to really nail down what's ultimately wrong with the Pre-Fight Prep style T9s in the current game environment, and a suggestion that might make some people more interested in taking them for the extra challenge and dynamism it would bring. It has become clear that many people actually would be interested in such a design shift in their implementation, but correctly point out that it wouldn't really "fix" the problem. The problem for the T9s is more complicated than just the powers themselves. It is a broader issue that just affects them more than a lot of other powers. They're pointless as an increase to survivability. The only T9s that are viewed by the community at large as any good (outside of some very niche builds) are the ones that increase something more than just Def/Res numbers. They don't function as a capstone to an Armour Set, because 9/10 Armour Sets don't need more armour. As you say the current T9s are now less appealing than both some Patron/Ancillary Pools, and regular Power Pool picks to you (and no doubt others). This speaks volumes as to how the T9s have become completely obsolete, bar a very few exceptions. Mule, as a term to describe IO Enhancement slotting, is a concept I find very irksome. The powers that earn the dubious honour to have that epithet thrust upon them are deemed to have no intrinsic value, outside of slotting IOs. It is especially embarrassing for a T9 power to be brought so low. Primary and Secondary powers should have some kind of value as a basic expectation beyond a convenient place to put an IO. This deserves to be fixed. It should be fixed, but I just can't bring myself to suggest the "easy way" out and simply rework them into +Damage or some other variant of offensive capability. In my opinion, the Armour sets equally should not be about giving you lots of extra damage. They're a defence set, not a fix-all tool to just give the character everything they need. By giving the T9s over to sustain, it would further add to damage classes' invalidation of a need to be supported by other classes for any reason, and we really don't need more of that to happen. Again, in my opinion.

Unfortunately that's where the different play styles just don't gel. I am on the side that would want a battlefield situation to shift, and where adaptability would be the measurement of success, rather than getting the highest, most stable numbers possible. Not constant changing. There is such a thing as overloading the capability of the player, but something that, every now and then will challenge your accumulated wisdom and reward creative thinking and power use in-game, rather than overly catering for those that think in terms of "builds". I am aware of the Dominator's current capital I, issue when it comes to how the metagame views builds. I may at some point have posted about it, but since I only play 1 Dominator with any kind of regularity I don't feel experienced enough with the AT to have a definitive answer to the problem. I do consider perma-domination as an exploit, if that lets you understand my mindset on the issue. And I'm willing to bet that you and many others, could have figured that out without me even having to say it. The meta-gamers have eight powers they've already stripped down, sucked the lifeblood out of and tuned into soulless, perfectly efficient algorithms that have the least variance possible in terms of clear time and combat optimisations. Can't you* give me, the person that wants to play this game for a bit of escapist nonsense, just one power that is designed with my desires in mind? Something fun and thematic that really speaks to the comic book genre? I don't need another power that's going to keep my damage and health numbers at stable levels at all times to the exclusion of all else. Theme and mechanics coming together to produce something interesting, not predictable. I want to feel like a super hero damnit! I want the secret weapons! I want the sudden mid-fight turn around! I want to win against overwhelming odds because I found the guts and gumption within my character for just long enough to pull the iron out of the fire! (Edit: *Not directed as a complaint to you personally Naraka. I'm talking generally, not specifically) Every time its safe, reliable, repeatable results... ... ... ... I'm not saying that the powers need to be broken and unbalanced and not well thought out. this isn't about "chance" mechanics. It's about pressure and decision making on the knife's edge. I'm rambling. Let's move on. Unfortunately I'm very much aware that the powersets that would receive these new proposed T9 powers are among some of the least deserving of more survivability power. They just don't need it. That doesn't mean I am happy with the position that they're currently in however. The fact that I can say "They just don't need it." is the very crux of the issue. The worst T9s have been essentially erased from consideration when it comes to a sets overall power levels. They're worthless and the original Devs knew it. The writing was on the wall for so long, and the (I feel) unfortunate outcome was that they were essentially ignored. As the game evolved the T9s were not kept "current". I didn't use the word vestigial lightly; it is exactly what they have become. Only Granite Armour truly "survived" this cull, which is why I brought it up in my notes for the OP. I suppose the old T9 Rez powers for Fire and Dark did too, but while the Rez powers are completely functional, and do add something to their sets they are only generally used by those that haven't mastered the game and how to avoid death, which both of those sets are completely capable of doing without all that much more effort, if any. Oh, and the fact that resurection is a 1000Inf Inspiration away... than you can email to yourself so you don't even need to have them "on you" when playing the game. Can you tell that I have problems with the "meta game" yet? 🙃 Maybe the time has come for them to be cut out and replaced by something else? The problem is I have trouble suggesting what could be added to the Armour sets at this point. They are... for better or worse, pretty lean when it comes to design space to explore that would actually, significantly alter any one of their play styles. As you said above, the meta is in agreement and their strengths are in how rock solid most of their defences are. Do not think I don't know why the knockback protection hole keeps being dragged out, again and again, for discussion. People want their defences to be as close as possible to OMNI-defence with absolutely zero trade offs, and they don't want to have to work for it either. It's just what the Armour sets are supposed to do apparently; or at least if you listen to anyone talking about improving Dark Armour it is. Because a few sets started out covering pretty much all bases, and gradually all the rough edges to a lot of sets was shaved off, rounded and polished into a whole pile of functionally identical, interchangeable 9 powers per set. Even the T9s are mostly carbon copies of one another, despite being for completely different Archetype rolls, from Issue 0. And it continued unabated in Issue 6, and on and on... until Bio and Rad. Those two are anomalies I was going to explore in a theoretical follow up to this thread. You have to ask yourself; what did I mean when I used a sub-sub-title simply saying "Godlings"? Thing is, you don't even need to ask that question of me @Naraka. You and everyone else are easily able to extrapolate what I think on IO set bonuses, global recharge, damage procs, and anything else to do with it. Even if I hadn't been vocal about them in the past (which I have), you could probably make at least an educated guess, just from the tonality and apparent goals I have with trying to make T9s something interesting and dynamic. One does not do these things if one is happy with the way things are, no? IO set bonus stacking is out of control. Damage Procs are harmful to build diversity. Global Recharge is a mistake. There's absolutely no reason that the T9s couldn't be imagined as individual bespoke powers that are not only very different, set-to-set, but also very different Archetype-to-Archetype, that played to the individual systems available to each set, and each Archetype... other than it is a lot of work to undertake, and that it would be absolutely savaged on these forums if it were to be suggested. You don't even have to take my word for that. You just have to have eyes and have read a handful of threads in this sub-forum that propose that very topic. As I said, a total rework of the T9s would be lovely, but it wouldn't really change anything to do with set efficiency, since the T9s are part of a sub-set of powersets that don't need any more things to make them work. Anything you add to them is irrelevant anyway, as we've already agreed on, so why not make them a bit of dumb fun?! I'm always willing to spitball ideas however. Hit me up on the Discord, or post a workshop thread here if you feel so inclined. I just thought the idea was fun. If properly tuned, it could probably be made to work, as could be said of lots of different ideas. But this was my stab at trying to add something of worth to the community and of course, something that would be fun for me personally. And it seems there is some support for the idea on its own merit, despite my lack of fine detail on the balance front. It sounds like a fun idea, right? That's all I wanted to achieve with this thread. I like "what ifs". It's a one in a million chance for any idea from this forum to actually gain traction and become a grassroots movement. And even then, that's no guarantee of changes. But maybe my idea made someone smile and have a little "what if" fantasy in their head for just a little bit before it was exposed for the trash idea it so clearly is. Wanna talk about more trash ideas to pass the time though? 😁

@Naraka, While it is often be true that min/max discussion is often hyper-focused on by a specific subset of this forum's members, that is not the intention of the original post. This isn't about making the sets more powerful, or plugging their specific weaknesses, or trying to find a new angle to make the ATs with access to these sets into more min/max-y iterations. It is about taking a set of powers that are mechanically useless and making them usable. While I understand where you're coming from; "The sets themselves aren't broken, so why fix it?" is a valid concern to have, I find that the sets are actually somewhat lacklustre. The old sets for which these problems are most pronounced, can be very dry from a player interaction standpoint. You toggle up... and that's pretty much it. I would like things to be a bit more dynamic. Dynamism is one of the key descriptive words most people would associate with the comic book hero genre, and yet what we mostly have here is pretty flat. The goal of the changes proposed would be in service of giving the late game of these powersets something interesting to interact with - that means you have to engage with the mechanics of the power beyond "set it and forget it" - which is in my opinion a much better situation to be in than what we have currently. Armour sets are very prolific sets, being one of the key pillars of 5 out of 13 Archetypes (or 14/15. Depends how you count). That's at least a third of all ATs having to play with powersets that have weird vestigial powers that don't make sense anymore. While the sets on the whole aren't broken, the capstone power, the thing you unlock last and should be your most powerful asset is an actual, literal punchline. They are pointed at and used as a point of reference for what not to do with a power. If that doesn't warrant their admission into the "This should be fixed" club, I don't know what does. Nor what would convince you to change your stance on them. If they, of all things, shouldn't be changed because it would rock the boat too much... then I'd find it hard to argue that anything deserves to be changed. Edit: If you want to talk about specific changes to specific powers, and rebuild them from the ground up, I'm all for that, since as stated in my OP I think the cottage rule is a bludgeon applied to far too many good ideas. But here I tried to tailor and pitch this idea so as to not "spook" anyone into kneejerk reactions against it based on poor number crunching on my part. I won't even try to hide that I am not capable of number crunching like some others on this forum and I don't want to compete in that arena. I want to have the discussion over the concept's merit, rather than ignoring it in favour of endless "number talk" and min/maxing fixations. Which is generally why I haven't responded to posts that try to suck me into defending the numbers. I won't do it, y'here me!?

@Yoru-hime I agree, and it's entirely possible the the original developers were caught between the exact same rock and hard-place. I think that the current implementation of the T9 powers are absolutely not fit for purpose. They're designed in such a way as to have become "trap" powers, and more recently, mere mules for IO sets or Global enhancements. I don't know what the correct answer is for actually fixing the problems that the entire sets have, with regards to their capstone powers being vestigial. Well, other than re-evaluating them all from the ground up to include the capstone as something viable and valuable. Somehow I don't think that's on the cards even if it did have more widespread support. I just wanted to bring an idea I had been putting off to a place where it's a more well rounded and developed "plan of attack" so to speak for if these powers were deemed interesting enough to be reworked. If it were possible, I would love to have some kind of proof of concept style tests done at least. At some point we have to admit that the place these powers once occupied is no longer a valuable one, nor desirable. Equally, we may have to admit that we live in a flawed universe and that they are unsalvageable without a rather substantial rework to the sets themselves. I would like to believe that changing them would open up more doors than it would ever close, and be something of an evolution of the Archetypes that have access to them. That's the way I look at changes anyhow. But I've never gotten so attached to a character, or a specific build, or a stash of enhancements, within CoX that I would block change if it were change for the better more interesting. To answer your question as an individual; Yes, I would like to see a downward revision of sets, especially those that overperform handily in their current iteration. I see that as balancing out a skewed design though. If I may get on my soap-box for a moment: Every power should have at least some inherent value beyond just IO Set Bonus and Global Enhancement optimisation. Edit: @America's Angel, At no point did I say that more detailed and unique perks for each set was unaccountable within this system. I did mention in the post that individual set ideas would be something I was very open to discussing. However I think some form of base is needed to work from, otherwise you've got a free-for-all without any kind of structure. If you disagree with that, that's fine. But I find that having something basic and universal will be better for much generating more creative results than just saying "whatever you want". We do have to consider some form of inter-set parity of power levels after all. If they all start from a similar position you'll get results that are comparable. If you start from very different points then you're going to get things that really don't line up at all. The majority of the T9s being awful proves this, since they are all of a similar design. It's not the intrinsic similarity between each other that makes them bad, otherwise every T1 and T2 "punch" would be considered bad. It's the fact that they're all starting from the wrong place.

A sliding scale might be more complicated (and perhaps not possible in the engine?) but I do think a slow "step" increase every 5, 10, 15, etc, seconds would produce something very similar and almost indistinguishable for the end user experience. These pseudo-curves can be tweaked, powerset by powerset, based on just how long the desired average length of the power could be active for. Another thought. What if the power became not just more costly, but also more powerful over time? This further incentives players to try to keep it on for as long as possible. It should still start out at a very reasonable level, but over time it gets better and better, but more and more unmanageable. I think there could be some more fun limit-pushing gameplay.

One step at a time. 😛

What did I tell you about @'ing me with the numbers @Galaxy Brain?! What did I say?! But in all seriousness, the reason these powers are "allowed" to be so nutso is that they have a 1000s cooldown and Crashes. The frankly silly power level of these individual powers is compensating for an arbitrarily long lockout in the first place. And those powers also have downsides so heinous that people just can't really justify them. I will agree that, at those levels, just having one power bring you to the hardcaps by itself is not ideal. As I mentioned, I see these powers becoming more Hero [Plus], additional layered defences, rather than God Mode by themselves. Having such a warped power level skews them too far, and the insane recharge and crash is then the justification for them being over powered. Unfortunately, being "Overpowered" has backfired on these powers massively, because now they're a joke. I think I can see what the original idea for these powers was. But it's a power that's trying to be so powerful that it's invalidating all that comes before it, rather than being a compliment to your other powers. Without giving the player some degree of control over how they're going to be affected by using them, the crash is just too heavy a price to pay, especially in late game content where only being "super" for 3 minutes isn't enough, and then waiting for 16.66 minutes for it to come back online is just too much. They've been pushed to the extreme, and failed because of it. They're a leech on the powerset. They often don't make you substantially better than just running all your normal toggles with IOs. Your normal toggles don't have crashes either. @Replacement, I did say interesting and set defining. I am positive that I also did not say it was good, nor that it was the goal I was trying for with this system. As above I said, I want this system to redefine T9s to Hero [Plus] and a complimentary part of the powerset. The main reason I shyed away from mentioning precise numbers that would need nerfing is because that's not the point I was driving at. Trying to talk about an idea relating to changing T9s for the better and also (in a roundabout way) nerfing them in the same sentence would have been completely insane of me, given what the community currently thinks about them. Yes, a slowly incrementing cost would probably be the logical place to take these powers given the thematics and the overall "feel" I want the powers to have. This is exactly where I thought the conversation would go, so I'm glad about that. I wanted to propose the minimum possible change first that would keep the old, while introducing the new. Got to do these things slowly, or someone will over react.

Thanks Marcussmythe, The intent was not to steal your thunder but to try and really nail down the problem that most seem to have with the T9s specifically, and try to expand on a specific solution to the point where some good discussion can happen. I have no doubts that I've missed something. I'm sure someone will point that something out to me in due time. This is something that's been on the back burner for a long time, and your post finally made me sit down and develop it into something presentable! So partial kudos go to you for making me do this.

-== Armour Set T9s - A Discussion Of Their Design ==- -- And How To Fix Them Within Their Current Intended Function -- - The Godlings- Some preamble. I need to justify where my intentions lay and give you my thought process before I just jump right into my proposal without context. For those that are interested I have my original thought in this spoiler bar. It was in a different thread before, but I include it here for the sake of completeness. Please read it if you haven’t seen it before. Additionally I’m going to call this a workshoppable idea, rather than a straight-up suggestion of what I think must be done. I don’t mean to be overly pedantic but there’s a crucial difference between the two. I am very open to additional ideas being added, or significant problems with the idea being reworked. I am not going to put hard and fast numbers into this proposal. That isn’t my style, partly because I’m not equipped to run every single number I might suggest through every conceivable in-game situation (I have but one life and this is better done with real data from real players, play-testing) but second, because I see an unhealthy number of suggestions being torn down that have solid foundations, but have put too much of their essence placed on certain percentages they feel are necessary. To me they’re a loose thread just begging to be unravelled, and tend to be hyper-fixated on, rather than people actually discussing the broader topic at hand. I’d rather save my time and energy to talk about the overarching concept, rather than the minutiae of its precise implementation. I’m going to split T9 Armour powers into two different types and see if this thought experiment makes any sense to everyone else. All the Armour T9 powers are trying to do one thing of course; keep you alive - but, there’s (broadly) two ways they can go about doing this in my opinion: Pre-Fight Prep, and Panic Mode. I will cover Pre-Fight Prep powers below because those are the ones that generate the most ire from the majority of players I see talking about them. It is a universal truth it seems that these kinds of powers - Unstoppable, Elude, Power Surge and so on - are terrible for a multitude of reasons. But "The Crash" is front-and-centre in a lot of these discussions. More on this later. I will address Panic Mode powers in a separate Part 2 post because there's so much needed to be unpacked, and is only tangently related to Pre-Fight Prep powers that it would only confuse things if it were here. There is a third type of power too, with a much lesser representation, but I'll get to them in either the next thread as an addendum, or as their own thread entirely. But I want to focus on just one of the types in this post today. So, with that said; What are Pre-Fight Prep Armour Powers? Pre-Fight Prep powers are just what you think they are. You'd use them before, or just as a fight begins. They increase your capabilities to M A X I M U M levels… or at least that’s what I’ve always assumed they do / are supposed to do. Often these T9 Armour powers are easily identified with the significant increase to defences or resistances, sometimes mez protection, and often some increases to your sustainability; some moderate increase in regen and/or recovery, for instance. With zero exceptions these powers layer over any toggled defences and will put you near or above the caps for your Archetype when enhanced for at least the more common damage types. As previously stated these powers are almost never used because either; You’re already hitting some of the caps through canny IO slotting and the side benefits of the power aren’t worth it to you. The cooldowns are long and you’re not sure if it’s worth popping the power on this group, or holding back for the next. As humans we tend towards the latter. It’s just how our brains work. You’ve overextended and have forgotten that this power even existed. Maybe you should have used it 40 seconds ago, but hindsight is 20:20 don’tcha know? Regardless, you’re probably going to die anyway. Previous experience has told you that if you’re the first to go down, your T9 wouldn’t have helped, and if you’re last to go down then surviving for another 20 or so seconds by yourself wouldn’t really have been worth it either. These are the problems that the T9 Armour powers are up against. Unlike a lot of people who think the game should only cater towards SO quality builds I think there is reason to expect your capstone armour power to be both useful and complementary to any player’s build; be that SOs, HamiOs or IOs with all the set bonuses. They don’t have to be catered specifically for IOs - I'm not suggesting that - but they at least shouldn’t be nearly invalidated by IO usage. I’m going to come right out and say now that I think the cottage rule against changing something “too much” is applied far too liberally on these issues. Some of these powers may need significant work to make them fit into the current game of CoX we find ourselves playing. That said however, I actually think the T9 Pre-fight Prep powers on the whole, don’t need excessive tinkering to make them work, and work well. The design goal they are trying to achieve isn’t an incorrect path to pursue, so I think they can retain their essence in pretty much their totality with just a few little tweaks to re-contextualise how they are used, not what they’re trying to do. This may sound radical to some, but the T9 powers need to feel powerful right out of the gate - Pre-Enhancement. The T9 powers need to feel impactful within general play and the T9 powers need to be more usable on a whim. Not without consequences for misuse, naturally; but they need to be easily experimented with while you’re levelling past lvl 38 (32 for Tankers) or someone's bad first experience with them is going to sour the whole deal. A T9 Pre-Fight Prep power is something you want to use to make the fight go more smoothly. However you are confronted with a hard limit of 60 seconds to get the job done for most, and often you’re worse off once the power’s buffs expire. If you’re not finished the power has now become a liability, and you're possibly even more likely to fail with the “crash” coming into effect than you would have been just ignoring the power and doing things more slowly. But that’s less fun in this game about whiz-bang-whollop! Or, at least it is for the Archetypes that use these Armour sets. How do we fix this? Most will advocate for just removing the crash and nothing else. This is a mistake. Flawed thinking. The "Down" is a necessary tool to teach the player about the ebb and flow of combat ant to provide some kind of contrast between the "High" of your T9s effects, and the aftermath. If everything is just a steamroller with no breaks, that’s not particularly fun. Contrast is necessary. But, having only the control of when to start your crazy buffs, and knowing that there’s a really nasty surprise waiting for you in 60 seconds regardless of how this next fight pans out isn’t very appealing. By using a T9 power your goal is to have greater control over the situation you’re about to engage in. Losing the control of when you suddenly stop being a superhero isn’t what you pick a power for. Let alone your capstone power. So how do you keep the crash without it being obnoxious. How do you keep the power, keep the player control, and keep the ebb and flow of being S U P E R powered versus your normal power level? You give the exact timing of when the crash is going to affect the player into the hands of that player. After setting out the groundwork, here is my proposal: Make the Pre-Fight Prep T9s… toggles. No, I’m serious. Make Them Toggles. Toggles, so that the player has control over when they can start them up and when they can wind them down. Give the player control over when they want to slug it out for just a few more seconds or when they want to back off on the gas pedal because they’re tapped. I need to explain exactly why I think this is a preferable system, and what I hope to achieve with this change. So here’s why: The T9 Armour powers are sometimes referred to as “God Mode”. Now, going in, nothing in an armour set is ever going to live up to that moniker; it can’t. Not just for gameplay and balance reasons (and more besides), but mostly because that kind of expectation of anything is doomed to disappointment. So, I’m not going to try to make “God Mode”. These powers need to be more: Hero [Plus]. They need to be an expression of the player’s wish to push it to the limit. My goal here is to give players the ability to use these powers as they seem to have always been intended to be used, going beyond your normal capacity and saying “No. Guys, I’ve got this”. By changing these powers to toggles there exists a much finer granularity between Power On and Power Off. I want the “crash” to be something that the player has much greater control over, become something self-inflicted, rather than a delayed effect dolled out from upon high, and always at the worst possible time. I feel that this is at the absolute core of why the majority of these T9 powers are so reviled. They hurt you without you, the player, knowing exactly when it’s going to happen and the circumstances you’ll be in when it does happen. Removing this suckerpunch is the ultimate goal of the proposal. You need to be in control the whole time you’re using your limit break. I am firmly of the opinion that there needs to be a cost for increased power. But this proposal would mean changing that cost into a variable one, and solely in the hands of the player to manage or exploit as they see fit. How would this work in detail? The player’s new T9 would be a toggle with a pretty normal Endurance cost. It grants the full bonuses currently experienced by a typical a T9 armour power: Substantial Defence/Resists, boosted secondary effects, regen, recovery… the whole 9 yards. And then, after 60 seconds of being amazing, the player is given a choice. This isn’t a “Timed Toggle”, like the Hybrid Slot Incarnate powers. You are in full control of when this toggle is turned off. It obeys all the normal player-affecting armour toggle rules. Your power is never just taken away. You have to choose when you turn it off, or you choose to let it drain you dry. Because after 60 seconds the cost of the toggle changes. After the initial 60 seconds these new T9 toggles have a much steeper endurance cost introduced to their sustained upkeep, and I mean unenhanceable, non-reducible 6-8% of your max endurance per second steep, or thereabouts. Perhaps steeper, perhaps less so. I want to stress that the exact numbers for their usable uptime and the endurance cost spike afterwards isn’t important. I will not go to bat for these exact numbers. Numbers can be changed. Please don't @me about these numbers, alright? I'm using some baseline numbers that help conceptualise the idea, ok? What is important is that the player is confronted with a wall that they just can’t overcome… but it’s not immediate. It is in the middle distance. You can see it coming, or rather, you can see it steadily happening in real time. You don’t “crash”. You don’t have to turn this power off juuuuust yet if you don’t want to. You’ve probably still got enough in the metaphorical tank that is your Endurance bar, thanks to the power’s increased recovery buff, to hold on for a few seconds more. Time to retreat and regroup if that’s necessary while still keeping your defences up, or maybe just enough time to lay out that final boss or two before you stop. The endurance drain becomes painful, but you can make the drain stop. All you need to do... is give up the power… and you’ll be ok again. There would be zero lingering effects from these toggles. By turning them off, you are returned to exactly the same capability as before you turned them on. No -Recovery, no -Endurance, no -Damage, no -Health. You turn it off, and the power is just off, like any other power. Of course, when you turn off the juice the power has to go on cooldown. It behaves just like every other toggle after all. The Devs can set this recharge to something significant, but not unfair. (Let’s stay away from greater than 4 minute cooldowns, ok Unstoppable?) You can’t ever get enough recharge in these new toggle powers to ever make them permanent anyway, so keeping them semi-frequent on their uptime would be preferable - you want these powers to be used after all, not remain in a totally skippable state, or worse... forgotten in the power trays. Any lack of endurance you end up with, something that would normally have been referred to as a crash, you have inflicted upon yourself by keeping the toggle on for far too long. "The Crash" is now a consequence of the player's action or inaction, rather than something inflicted upon them from an outside source. After the first stage of the power where everything stops being all sunshine and rainbows, I’m imagining a “critical hit” style notification on your hud that tells you you’re now on borrowed time and your endurance is about to flow a lot less freely in about 10 seconds. Or not, if that’s too intrusive (and I can absolutely understand those that would say it is). Maybe something more on the player character FX side of things that would let the player know in short order that they’re running on fumes now. At the very least the change in situation needs to be immediately and noticeably visible, that’s what’s important. I think this introduces some interesting changes to how the player can approach the game with the Pre-Fight T9s set up in this way. The change from an all-or-nothing click to a player controlled toggle, albeit one with a stern disincentivising addition rather than the precipitous cliff of the current ones, means that the player will always be in control of the price they’re willing to pay for serious amounts of power. These powers have much, much more interesting and varied slotting potential as well. As a toggle you’re no longer chasing recharge reduction and can focus on the defences more, or up the recovery bonus, or tinker with any other secondary effects the power has without feeling like you’re wasting your time. But most importantly a Toggle power is viewed in such a different way than a click power. They are perceived as something you use in concert with other powers, rather than something that in isolation, has to be extremely powerful to justify itself. They're also something far less likely to be erroneously used as a "Oh God! Help me!" power. When panicking, you will rarely reach for a toggle and expect it to suddenly turn your fortunes upside-down. But the player, rightly or wrongly, often has the concept in their mind that a click power will, and that a click power should. It should give them a lot, and give it all to them immediately, rather than giving them something over a long period of time. So often the T9s are used incorrectly because they are formatted and presented to the player incorrectly. They're not like Build Up. This isn't a quick flash of extreme increases. Your T9 is a sustained drip-feed of moderate power that you will want to use early in a fight, not when you're half-way through and already having trouble. This style of power suits a Toggle far more than it suits a Click. What I would like to see is players really pushing the limits of this system. Trying to break it. Trying to get their recovery to a point where they can sustain this new T9 power for far longer than is usually possible. I'd like to see teams that really enjoy the extra freedom +Recovery powers give them. Teams with Accelerated Metabolism or Recovery Aura given a new lease of life thanks to how they would now interact with an endurance heavy toggle. I want to see people overextend with these powers, not from just forgetting about the timing as is the case now, but rather because they want to just hang on a few more seconds. Risk it. Go for it. Fight. W I N! The powers would change from something that you would have to pre-calculate their usefulness, to something that is a management decision on a moment-to-moment basis. Put it on cooldown early when you don't need it. Keep it running when you do need it! "Just a few more seconds... I just need a few more seconds... I've got this!" I know that this proposal isn’t an instant fix with no further work. I’m not suggesting it as such. Each power would still need revision and adjustment to function as intended within such a different design paradigm. However I do think that this is a fundamentally better way of dealing with some of the T9s that has some merit. At least enough to workshop it further within the context of each power set it would affect. Remember, this isn’t a call for ALL T9 armour sets to be handled this way. Some T9s aren't configured as a buff that is meant for sustained fighting. Ice’s Hibernate, Dark and Fire Armour’s Rez and Bio’s AoE based Absorb/Heal spring to mind as something wholly different. But Unstoppable, Elude, One with the Shield, and Power Surge? Those kinds of powers are more what this part of the proposal is covering. Thoughts? I mean… It wouldn’t make Unstoppable worse! Right? I’ll talk more about the other side of the coin - the “Panic Mode” powers in Part Two. *Some quick notes: Stone Armour is an interesting (sort of) precedent for this kind of T9 power. Now I will be the first to say that Granite Armour isn’t a perfect role model. It has heavy trade offs in both manoeuvrability, recharge and damage for its limitless toggle. And it takes away all your other toggles bar Rooted. That’s perhaps a little much for what I’m trying to do here, and it’s not a good idea to make everything the same carbon copy. But I notice it doesn’t get the same kind of hate that a lot of the other powers in armour sets get. It isn’t a joke. And there are those that are even able to make the power work, despite the extreme shortcomings it presents at first blush. It’s a build defining decision for Stone Armour players: Am I focusing on Granite Armour or not? The buffs Granite gives you are essentially unprecedented, but they do make the power worth investing in. The downsides are not insurmountable. So Yes, while keeping Granite armour in mind while workshopping this idea it is not the goal I am shooting for other T9s. My proposal is to still keep the uptime-downtime of our current T9s, but to give the player the ability to push themselves further than usual at a cost that slowly wears them down. Meltdown from Radiation Armour is an interesting one. It doesn't have a noticeable crash and the entire set is designed to replenish your Endurance and Health at a rapid rate. It also gives you a noticable increase to your damage value, rather than putting all its eggs into the +resist. It almost feels like a kind of Build Up (and also has better overall uptime than build up too) rather than the traditional T9. This is much better design, and apart from the, perhaps excessive, 8 minute cooldown, is far less causing of distaste than Unstoppable. I have it here for completeness' sake, but this power in particular is in less need of a rework. I don't think it would hurt the power for it to change into a toggle, as discussed above however. And speaking of getting better offence from a T9... Increased Offensive Capability is something that’s brought up a lot when it comes to the T9s and is something that I think is both essential, and yet, needs to be very carefully handled. Increasing the T9s possible offensive buffs, be that in the form of +Damage, +Endurance or +Recharge or a plethora of other possible ideas will almost certainly need to be considered to give these powers a more general performance increase, and make them enticing to players that have already hit the Defence or Resistance caps. I would personally like to see some added offence put onto the T9s in question here, but each should really follow the flavour of the set, rather than something generalised. I’m thinking that Super Reflexes’ increased offence should be very different from Shield Defence’s, and so on. If there’s interest in the idea then I’ll be happy to share more detailed thoughts on each individual powerset, but it’s beyond the scope of this initial post. It's long enough already. Lastly, the Scrapper - Stalker / Brute - Tanker divide may be brought up here due to the changes that happened to Hibernate and Icy Bastion from Ice Armour. Because Hibernate is the original power I feel like it, specifically can be talked about in greater detail in part two of this topic. The split is either something these kinds of powers (T9 Armours) could embrace and continue to diversify along the same lines (or at least parallel ones), or something to be abandoned entirely. For the moment, I am aware of the Ice Armour set being somewhat unique in how it handles T9s, but essentially it has divided them between Pre-Fight Prep and Panic Mode, which is actually somewhat convenient for me and this discussion. We can talk about Icy Bastion here, and talk about Hibernate later. Let's keep like-minded powers together for ease of discussion. In my opinion, not all Tanker/Brute powers need to be Panic Mode variations and not all Stalker/Scrapper powers need to be Pre-Fight Prep powers. This does not even have to be the only way the four Archetypes can be divided into two groups.

Many Armour T9s are designed in a way that is not in line with their use. When you have a powerful 'click' power you are under constant pressure to hold off from using it until absolutely necessary. However, CoH gives the player very little information before a fight is started as to whether using the T9 is worth while, or better saved for a different fight. Consequently the T9 is not popped until either it is blindingly obvious that the fight calls for it (AVs, GMs, etc) or not used until it's too late. The average Armour T9 is not a "reset fight" button, and is rarely worth clicking as a panic button. If the idea of a T9 is a "prepare for a tough fight" power, then the only way the player will ever use it is if they feel they completely understand the odds against them, and feel that the T9 is able to swing the fight in their favour. However, it doesn't last long and (sometimes) has a period of weakness after the power expires. Meaning the player has to understand not only the strength of the combatants, but the likely time period in which the fight will occur and judge if they can win in time before the debuff kicks in. This is compounded by the possibilities of harder encounters further into the mission, and the long cooldown of most of these powers is a deterrent towards misjudging the use and being flippant with when you activate it. A player, unless they have back-to-front, upside-down knowledge of a mission, the enemy and the troubling spots ahead of when they need to be used is not given enough information to make these calls with any degree of accuracy. Experience is the only way to know these things, and once you have experience you don't need the T9 anymore; you've already learnt other methods for success that will be more effective, and dealing with the backlash of the power expiring will slow down your progress more than the T9 will speed it up. If the idea is for the T9 to be a "panic button" then many of these T9 powers are equally ill suited to their roll as they are not actually powerful enough to turn an imminent failure into a salvageable situation. Most don't heal you or give you a sudden burst of endurance to fire off your headliner attacks. Most don't give you enough time to regain the upper hand if you were already outmatched. Most won't let you finish the fight any quicker in your favour and you've still got that debuff coming down on you... and that's only going to make the situation worse! They're fundamentally unsuited to being a panic button, since unless you're experienced in how the fight is changing moment-to-moment, you're not going to see the suckerpunch coming. A major issue is that the Brute, Tanker, Stalker and Scrapper all get access to what is essentially the SAME power, that is supposed to compliment their vastly different pay styles. Each Archetype is going to want something different from a "Oh God, Help!" power. Again, the only time this could be used properly is if you're prescient by about 10 seconds. And the only time that could happen, your so experienced with the game that you'll avoid the situation before the T9 is necessary. There's one of two fixes needed. But first you have to decide which of the two situations the T9 is going to cater for. Is it's purpose success through superior planning, or snatching victory from the jaws of defeat? More thoughts on this as time permits. Edit: I have created a new thread, rather than derailing this one

So, if I understand your position correctly, you want the prices to go up for everyone, because for you, it's not worth your time?

@Razor Cure, "missing" the sarcasm wasn't the point I was making by taking your words at face value. The point is that you're championing a change that reduces a sets unique mechanics, while claiming that the two new armour sets made don't have any diversity or difference in mechanics (which is very false), and at the same time implying that those that want to keep the on-the-ground part of a power called "Grounded" also don't want to see changes made in other areas of the game. For the record, anyone who takes the position of not altering the Grounded power does not automatically mean they are opposed to changing any other sets' powers and you know it. That is a disingenuous claim at best, and a strawman at worst. There are a total of 8 different IO enhancement based solutions to the Knockback "problem", and every single time you dismiss this solution as not good enough. You can get higher, entirely passive KB protection without even taking the Grounded power if you so want, let alone that Grounded is a passive power to begin with. The KB hole is not some insurmountable issue. It is not kneecapping the set in any way for Knockback being the set's main Mez weakness. In fact it's probably the easiest Mez "hole" to completely patch over, without needing any meaningful sacrifices in build efficiency. Electric Armour has not just passable, but rock-solid resistances across the board (except toxic) and goes over 90% of the way to hard capping Energy Resistance at 82.5% unenhanced on Tankers. You hard cap it on every single archetype with access to the power set without even trying! With those slots you might have dedicated to capping your resists, that are now free due to the set's phenomenal base resistances, you could invest in some very effective knockback protection. Just a thought. Grounded's other effects; that of both energy and negative energy resistance, AND an endurance drain debuff resistance are totally unaffected by being airborne. If you're using hover in combat then you're not even put out of position by being knocked back. You are using Hover in combat, right? You're not expecting your travel power to be carrying you in combat, right? Unless you were to slot your travel power with a universal travel IO set that just so happens to protect you against Knockback! Hey, You can still use Hover too, since the IO's protection is a global effect and doesn't care one whit about which power's you have toggled on or off! I can not fathom why the easiest mez protection to buy on the cheap is the straw that breaks the proverbial pack-animal's back when it's the one omitted from a personal defence set.

Neither one of the two Pool Power Placate-like effects do. They lack the +Self Stealth/Hide effect tag. Misdirection does give a -Resistance (11.25% ) on hit, while Pacify is mostly a worse Placate in every conceivable way.

I for one would welcome that potential. More sets with more in-built weaknesses that affect gameplay would be great. Although I think more Armour sets aren't at the top of everyone's list I'm still waiting on a good Tech Power Armour set, maybe with Absorb as the main mechanic? As for the KB hole, It's really easy to patch with any 2 of 3 IOs, or a set bonus. And it's not particularly fair to compare Issue 0 launch melee sets to Issue 6 Armour sets. The game had come a long way in that time. But I don't quite understand the dig at wanting more diversity. Are you saying you would vehemently oppose changes to diversify Katana, Battle Axe, Broad Sword and War Mace? Apart from them having slightly different secondary effects and different AoE potential, the power progression on the sets is pretty same-y. And 3 of the 4 sharing the same animation pool is pretty disastrous. I'd say they're much more deserving to be looked at, than this supposed "problem" with Electric Armour. And isn't it a bit backwards bemoaning the similarities between those 4 sets, and yet at the same time trying to quash this much smaller bit of diversity? Lastly, while Radiation and Bio Armour might have a click heal/absorb and an increased Regen/Recovery over many other sets, the similarities really do end there. Radiation is very much more focused around the player having to balance between endurance and health management for maximum efficiency and is a pure Resistance set with good secondary resists to Recovery Debuff and increased Speed Debuff and Recharge Debuff over its counterpart, with a little bit of natural +Recharge. It's main Resistance hole is Cold. That's almost thematic! Bio is a hybrid set of both Defence and Resistance, while giving the player 3 toggled "styles" that modify their output. It beats out Radiation on both base Recovery and Regen, and has options to push those even further with the adaptations. Meanwhile it gains far fewer secondary resistances. It also spreads out its Mez protection among multiple powers, rather than Radiation's one. Overall the set really pushes the player to be more offensive, with far more of its powers focused on mitigating damage by getting stuck in and debuffing the opponent, while in comparison, Radiation gets an odd PBAoE debuff and team heal?! and a Taunt Aura that's boosting your recharge rate! In fact, these two sets aren't all that similar at a fundamental level... at all! As I've pointed out, they're not both pure Resistance based sets. If your main point is that the two newest armour sets have a click Heal/Absorb... well, it's not like Absorb was a new mechanic at the time of these sets development or anything. Definitely not a desire to show off the new mechanics. Must be a desire for homogeneity. Yes, absolutely. <em sarcasm> They're not even copies of the same power... they have different mechanics and everything.

As a counterpoint; I couldn't stand playing a Claws/ character for ages, until the abysmal "wild flailing" animation was changed. Sometimes animation changes are something that opens up a powerset to someone that previously wouldn't touch it. Claws is now my favourite melee set.