PoptartsNinja

Ok, so on its face, this suggestion "add more zone events" isn't terrible. It's just under-developed, which is why you're getting such a lukewarm response @KingCeddd03. It's great that you want to improve a game you enjoy playing, but they'd like you to spend a little time developing your suggestions and explaining the intentions behind them so that even if something is flawed people can still see your logic and support your idea. So, let's twist this a little. Instead of looking for a general but vague suggestion like "add more zone events," let's try something specific: What could we do to one of the current zone events to make people more likely to engage with it? Let's look at the Troll Rave and specific ways we could make it better. Right now, the Troll Rave gets pretty much no action unless someone just happens to be passing by or is hunting for a badge. It's really got 3 major problems: - 1) It's in the ass-end of Skyway, a big zone that sees little traffic. - 2) Just knowing its happening doesn't tell you *where* it's happening, so you could spend the entire duration of the troll wave searching for it. - 3) a level 50 blaster can solo the whole thing in a few minutes so even if you do want to do the Troll Rave when it's level appropriate there's a good chance it'll be cleared before you get to fight anything. Now, we could just make the Troll Rave zone-wide to try to force participation from everyone in the zone, but that would be disruptive. What happens if someone's doing Numinas and needs to hunt 50 Lost in Skyway or whatever? Sorry, all the spawns are Supa Trolls for 10 minutes, no PB on the Numina Speedrun for you today. So we'll throw that idea out. Improved Troll Rave 1) Problem #3's the easiest to fix so we'll start there: Make all mobs associated with the Troll Rave level-agnostic like the Clockwork from the Paladin Construction or the other invasion events so they always count as +0 bosses. This alone would help with interest because a Troll Rave would always be a source of XP/Inf (and boss XP/Inf at that!) instead of just a free badge for a passing 50. 2) When a Troll Rave begins or when someone zones into Skyway while the Troll Rave is active, they should get a map thumbtack pointing them to the Rave unless they've got a manual thumbtack placed. That way players can head straight to the Troll Rave and don't have to try to figure out which of the (three? four?) places it spawns is actually active. 3) Break the Troll Rave into 3 waves. Wave 1 is functionally the same as it is now, with Supa Troll bosses spawning in large groups. If nothing is killing the trolls, the rave despawns on its normal timer. But if something kills enough of the Wave 1 Trolls (and this should be a kill counter rather than a timer) Wave 2 begins. In Wave 2, Elite Supa Troll Elite Bosses should begin to spawn. Maybe 1-2 in a pack of Troll Bosses, with a badge reward for killing say... 15-20 of them. This encourages people to team up to take them down, and when enough Elite Supa Trolls have fallen Wave 3 begins. Wave 3 is functionally identical to Wave 2, except now the Trolls friends/rivals have taken notice. Either the Freakshow, the Outcasts, the Lost, or the Warriors show up in force with a boss rush of their own. So Freak Tanks, Warrior Bosses, Anathema, or Lead Outcasts. This gives players a way to farm some of the less-common midlevel group bosses but there's a twist. Because they can't take on the Supa Trolls directly, in Wave 3 the newly-arrived rivals will bring along a Giant Monster. - The Lost can bring along the Kraken - The Warriors could bring a monster-ized version of a Cimeroran Cyclops (name it Polyphemus and up its size by 20%!) - The Outcasts can bring a hijacked Babbage (with Lead Shockers puppeting it, beat them and it goes rogue and attacks everyone!) - The Freakshow are the hardest but I'm amused by the idea of them bringing a Clockwork Paladin with a Freakshow Tank poking out where its head would be. Alternatively, we could finally get the Freakshow Tank Centcar the Freaks keep threatening. Alternatively they can just steal the same idea as the Outcast GM and have a bunch of Super-Stunners puppeting the Paladin (with the same results as the Outcasts version for beating all of the controlling Super Stunners) until a better idea comes along. Tie a badge to defeating any of the giant monsters (or if you want to get cheeky and frustrate the badge hunters tie a badge to each unique giant monster) and you've got yourself a more entertaining Troll Rave that now: - Gives experience to everyone - Has reward merits on completion (tied to the defeat of the giant monster) - Lets people farm "defeat bosses" badges for a few of the mid-level villain groups - Gives groups like the Outcasts, Lost, and Warriors a little moment in the spotlight while also letting them show off their rivalry with the Trolls (or just their love for mayhem if the Freakshow show up). 4) Give players a way to trigger a Troll Rave. I suggest tying it to Clamor's defeat at the end of Penelope Yin's task force. The Trolls are so happy Clamor's going to prison again they get krunk on Mr. Bocor's Mercy Island Water and party down.

This is not entirely true, at least on the Defender version (it could be different on Controllers, I know Controller Detention Field has a higher magnitude than the Defender version so Repulsion Field might've converted differently). When a KB to KD was slotted into the Defender version of the old Repulsion Field, the Knockback aura got reduced from Mag 8-ish to Magnitude 0.018 rather than the typical 0.67. This means it would trigger knockback attempts (and burn 1% of your max end) every 2-3 seconds but most enemies would be unaffected until 10-15 seconds passed and it racked up enough magnitude to score a knockdown, after which it would usually score 2-3 knockdowns then reset and have to start accruing magnitude again. It's a more usable power now, it's basically Hurricane without a debuff component and a more forceful knockback.

Cityscape -> Statue Block 2's hitbox (but not appearance) sometimes resets to the default when the base loads/edits are made, causing it to slightly shift in apparent position without changing its visual orientation. This one looks out of place, but it's actually fine, the hitbox is normal All of the surrounding blocks have had their hitbox reset to, I assume, the default orientation for the map without changing their apparent orientation.

My "wish list" for Time Bomb would be to make it taunt in an AoE. If mobs kill it early it should detonate for (half?) damage and if they don't the bomb still did its job because you probably killed them all during the taunt. Either way, it should probably be balanced around the idea that most high-level spawns will be able to set it off in 2-3 seconds barring other factors (probably faster if you're fighting Malta).

I hate double-posting but since @Arnabas mentioned Archery for Dominators in another thread, I thought I'd flesh out the idea a little more. Tactical Arrow already lacks melee attacks, so the idea of making a very range-focused Dominator secondary doesn't seem too out there. It's going to be redraw heck no matter which primary you choose, but I think it's a decent mix of powers. Assault Arrow Tier 1 Electrified Net Arrow - Moderate energy DOT, Immob, -fly, slow / Tier 2 Stunning Shot/Snap Shot - Light Lethal w/ a short duration Stun; or just Moderate Lethal for the Snap Shot version. They'd both work but since the set is giving up heavy-hitting melee attacks I thought it would be nice if all of the non-Snipe Assault Arrows had a secondary effect. This basically gives Dominators their choice of back-up control options at level 1. Tier 3 Acid Arrow/Flash Arrow - Single target light toxic DOT, target -Def, -resistance(debuffs), healing reduced Tier 4 Glue Arrow - Targeted AoE -Recharge -Spd, it's the Tactical Arrow version of Glue Arrow rather than the location AoE from Trick Arrow, so it can be fired a little quicker by busy Dominators. Tier 5 Upshot Tier 6 Explosive Arrow - Targeted AoE, moderate lethal/smashing, knockback Tier 7 Ranged Shot - Extreme lethal damage sniper, the only arrow that's just an arrow (probably!) Tier 8 Blazing Arrow - High lethal damage with a minor fire DoT Tier 9 Oil Slick Arrow - It's Oil Slick Arrow, so it feels pretty ok for a Dominator Tier 9. It's solid damage in an AoE to make up for the lack of an extreme melee bop.

The Blaster archery secondary doesn't have any melee powers, so a strong argument could be made for weaving some of Trick Arrow's kit in to make a bow assault set. You'd probably want to suggest something like: Tier 1: Electrified Net Arrow Tier 2: Stunning Shot Tier 3: Acid Arrow Tier 4: Glue Arrow Tier 5: Upshot Tier 6: Explosive Arrow Tier 7: Ranged Shot Tier 8: Blazing Arrow Tier 9: Oil Slick Arrow

So, we have a lot of pistols that look like they could be energy weapons. So I thought I'd try my hand at an energy weapon set that uses just a single, left-handed pistol. This is primarily a single-target blast set and the goal is to (hopefully) avoid stepping too heavily on either Dual Pistols or Beam Rifle. As it's mostly single target, I feel it should be a fast-animating set to help the user cycle through targets more quickly, but with some longer recharge times (on heavy tractor beam, photon grenade, and probably parting shot) to encourage the use of weaker attacks. Blaster Pistol Tier 1 Laser Blast - Light energy/lethal damage, either repurposing the appearance of the robotics lasers, the resistance, or possibly war works? Tier 2 Suppressing Fire - Moderate energy/lethal damage DOT, with a moderate slow Tier 3 Tractor Beam - Minor energy damage, 6s low-mag 2(?) hold and a 2-3 second tractor that pulls the target closer to the attacker Tier 4 Parting Shot - Heavy energy/lethal damage, deals bonus damage to held targets (like: mini-containment just for this power) Tier 5 Photon Grenade - repurposed photon grenade from bots. Moderate energy damage, -regen Tier 6 Aim Tier 7 Heavy Tractor Beam - Moderate energy damage, brief Mag 4 hold (2-3 seconds? Just enough to immediately get off a Parting Shot) reducing to a 7s mag 2(?) hold and a 2-3 second tractor that pulls the target closer to the attacker Tier 8 First Shot - Extreme energy/lethal damage sniper attack Tier 9 Orbital Lance - Makes use of the surveillance wrist computer animation. Location AOE, Extreme energy damage, -resistance(all), vectored knock-up (the original War Walker version has -regen but that seems like it's too much when coupled with photon grenade) Now, the follow-up and the reason the blaster pistol is a left-handed weapon: a right-handed sword manipulation set. This is basically broadsword turned into a Blaster secondary, and the idea is that while either set is usable individually, if used together the right-handed sword and left-handed pistol can be drawn at the same time. This should both minimize redraw and make for a fun swashbuckling / sci-fi serial look. Blade Dancing Tier 1 Hack - Light lethal damage, -Def Tier 2 Slice - Light lethal melee cone, -Def Tier 3 Build Up - Builds a small cottage at the user's location Tier 4 Deflect - Minor lethal damage, +defense(melee, ranged) (it's pretty much just parry with the lethal defense subbed to ranged defense) Tier 5 Pommel Strike - Minor smashing damage, disorient Tier 6 Battle Meditation - PBAOE Toggle Self +recovery, +defense(ranged), foe -damage and moderate slow Tier 7 Whirling Sword - Moderate lethal damage PBAoE, -Def Tier 8 Mind Trick - PBAoE Placate, mag2 very short duration confuse Tier 9 Head Splitter - Extreme lethal damage, -Def and knockback Which leads us to a reprise of my old Dominator Swashbuckling suggestion with a tighter focus and less stealing from Dual Pistols. Swashbuckling Assault (Dominator Sword & Laser Pistol Assault Set) Tier 1 Laser Blast - Light energy/lethal damage, either repurposing the appearance of the robotics lasers, the resistance's blasts, or possibly war works? Tier 2 Slash - Moderate lethal, -Def Tier 3 Slice - Light lethal melee cone, -Def Tier 4 Tractor Beam - light energy damage, 6s low-mag 2(?) hold and a 2-3 second tractor that pulls the target closer to the attacker. Since Domination effectively turns this into the blast set's heavy tractor (with a better hold), it splits the difference in terms of base damage. Tier 5 Build Up Tier 6 Whirling Sword - Moderate lethal damage PBAoE, -Def Tier 7 First Shot - Heavy energy/lethal damage sniper attack Tier 8 Mind Trick - PBAoE Placate, mag2 very short duration confuse Tier 9 Parting Shot - Heavy energy/lethal damage, deals bonus damage to held targets (like: mini-containment just for this power)

Do you have any levels pending? You can't respec if you haven't leveled up to your current maximum. If you're level, say, 33, but could level up to 36 then the respec will fail until you level yourself up to 36.

Dampening Bubble gives you Defense Debuff Resistance, and applies a Debuff to enemy Debuffs in the radius. It doesn't affect their stats directly, it makes any debuffs (like -ToHit or -Defense) that they might try to use on you worse. The easiest way to test its effectiveness in a PVP zone would be to have someone use a toggle that does a debuff (like one of the dark anchors) use it on you while you're unprotected; while only you are in the bubble; and while both of you are in the bubble and see how much debuff you actually get.

It functions "the same" but it's a different tool. The size of the old Force Bubble was its strength, the buffed version of Repulsion Field doesn't really directly compare. It's more like a Hurricane without the useful ToHit debuff.

Combine it with Whirlwind's animation so you spin in a circle like a fiery sprinkler. No joke though, all the breath attacks really need their animation times looked at. Starting with the fire breaths would be fair.

That's a good point too, I did call it "Psych Up" originally but changed my mind at the last minute. Should've stuck with my first idea!

I also realized it would be trivially easy to turn those into a Dominator set too. Physical Assault Tier 1 Trash Toss - You hurl small objects at your target, dealing smashing/knockdown (uses propel's object pool, maybe removing some of the biggest objects like the forklifts) Tier 2 Heavy Blow - Moderate smashing damage, foe knockback Tier 3 Pocket Sand - You throw a handful of sand with great force, dealing minor smashing damage in a cone and temporarily blinding your opponents (-ToHit, -Perception) Tier 4 Rib Cracker - Heavy smashing, foe -Resist, -Dmg Tier 5 Rage - Yup, it's Rage Tier 6 Explosive Barrel - You hurl an exploding barrel at your target, dealing damage in a targeted AoE (smashing/fire + fire dot) Tier 7 Gunshow (Psych-Up?) - You flex your muscles to psych yourself up, healing yourself and boosting your recovery rate for a short time Tier 8 Rock Smash - You pick up a big chunk of concrete to throw at your target, dealing smashing and knockdown. (It's basically a non-snipe version of Bigger Rock) Tier 9 Footstomp - You stomp the ground at your feet, knocking down and disorienting nearby enemies (PBAOE smashing damage with knockdown) This trades the combo building of Muscle Manipulation for Rage, which is a pretty fair trade.

Super Strength Blast (Strength Blast? Muscle Blast? Hurling? Think Super Strength as a ranged attack set) Tier 1 Rock - You hurl a small rock at your target, dealing smashing/disorient Tier 2 Trash Toss - You hurl small objects at your target, dealing smashing/knockdown (uses propel's object pool, maybe removing some of the biggest objects like the forklifts) Tier 3 Pocket Sand - You throw a handful of sand with great force, dealing minor smashing damage in a cone and temporarily blinding your opponents (-ToHit, -Perception) Tier 4 Explosive Barrel - You hurl an exploding barrel at your target, dealing damage in a targeted AoE (smashing/fire + fire dot) Tier 5 Adrenaline Overload - You boost your ToHit significantly and your damage minimally for an extended period, but when the power wears off you are momentarily exhausted and do reduced damage Tier 6 Deafening Clap - You clap your hands with incredible force, dealing moderate smashing damage with a chance to disorient weaker foes Tier 7 Bigger Rock - You pick up a big chunk of concrete to throw at your target, dealing smashing and knockdown (Sniper Attack, should be able to do the job by changing the wind-up time for hurl's animation; lengthening it for the sniper while shortening it for the quick form) Tier 8 Tantrum - You stomp the ground at your feet, knocking down and disorienting nearby enemies (PBAOE Knockdown + Disorient) Tier 9 Biggest Rock - Like meteor, except you throw the rock yourself Muscle Manipulation Combo Combo increases damage slightly (5% per level?) while built up, or can be expended to boost the damage of a finisher Tier 1 First Strike - Light smashing damage, Foe disorient, combo builder Tier 2 Heavy Blow - Moderate smashing damage, foe knockback, combo builder Tier 3 Combat Readiness - Increase ToHit and damage, sets combo level to 3 Tier 4 Powerflex - Single target confuse, light psionic damage Tier 5 Rib Cracker - Heavy smashing, foe -Resist, -Dmg, combo builder Tier 6 Adrenaline Rush - PBAOE +Recovery, +Dmg, nearby ally +recovery (or nearby enemy -Dmg?) Tier 7 Ground Pound - PBAOE moderate smashing damage and knockdown, (finisher?) Tier 8 Dull Pain - Dull Pain Tier 9 Crushing Uppercut - Smashing damage, foe knockup, finisher Strength Blast is pretty much an excuse for a throwing set, but not a "small/sharp objects" throwing set so I don't think it deserves the "Throwing" name. I wanted to see if I could come up with a reasonable concept for super strength as a blast set, and the idea of someone just chucking a meteor at a spawn makes me grin. I don't think this steps too heavily on Seismic Blast since this is more about making rocks fly than making rocks that -fly I wanted a matching physical strength-based manipulation set, and Street Justice seemed an obvious choice since Blasters can already get Knock Out Blow via their APPs. Powerflex is hilarious, and Dull Pain got a spot because I think this is a manipulation set that really wants to be in melee. It's sort-of like the opposite of Trick Arrow in that regard. Edit: A strong argument could be made for swapping Dull Pain and Combat Readiness, since Muscle Manip doesn't get any finishers until later but probably wouldn't mind the extra survivability early.

I finally got a real chance to test this, and wow, Battle Axe is one monster of a tank primary now. I think it'll still be pretty good on brutes and other ATs with smaller AOEs but I think Tanks are where it'll really shine brightest. Which is pretty fitting, it was one of "the" Tank secondaries back in the day.

Oh, I wasn't getting any use out of Repulsion Field before. That's Force Field's T7 knockback aura, it's a very redundant power that doesn't benefit the set very much (mostly because it's completely outclassed by Force Bubble). The live version is a strong contender for "worst power in the entire game" due to the way it eats 1% of your max end every time it scores a knockback and the way it stops working almost entirely if you slot it for Knockback to Knockdown (the knockback gets reduced to 0.0018). It's only really beaten by Whirlwind which has all of the same problems but a funnier animation. Both are completely outclassed in utility by the inherent (free) seismic shockwaves from Seismic Blast. That's the power we kept. If a power had to go away, Repulsion Field is the one I'd have chosen. The power we're losing is Force Bubble, which is great for making space (even against mobs that resist it), cramming spawns into corners for blasters to nuke, and keeping ambushes off the back line while the tanks and scrappers finish the front-line murder. Imagine if you could toggle it between a repel and tractor, and pull everything into the tank?

Here are three more runs of each. To keep things as fair as I possibly could, I tried to run in to at least the edge of Repulsion Field's effective range for both tests even though Force Bubble doesn't need to. The only thing I didn't do (but probably should have) is quit and talk to Imperious between each run to reset the spawn's agro. Force Bubble's survival times: 18:01 (original run from the first vid, tried to stay at the edge of Force Bubble's radius) 18:48 (tried keeping to the edge of Repulsion Field's radius) 16:88 (tried keeping to the edge of Repulsion Field's radius) 4:61 (tried keeping to the edge of Repulsion Field's radius) Average TTD: 14:495 Repulsion Field's survival times 10:85 (original run from the first vid, tried to stay at the edge of Force Bubble's radius) 2:54 (tried keeping to the edge of Repulsion Field's radius) 4.33 (tried keeping to the edge of Repulsion Field's radius) 2.61 (tried keeping to the edge of Repulsion Field's radius) Average TTD: 5:285 Admittedly, Romans are an extremely hard match-up for either power since (at least the bosses and higher) have 300% repel resistance in addition to their massive knockback resistance. This was the hardest scenario I could think of to make either power useful. They're not mutually exclusive. We could have both.

Sure, absolutely. Give me a few minutes, we'll see how much variance there is. Edit: And I'll see if running in close enough to maybe score a knockdown (against the knockdown and repel resistant Cimerorans) makes a difference.

I tested that hypothesis. I took Force Bubble (+Dispersion Bubble, Scorpion Shield, Tough, and Weave) into a 4 star ITF to see how long it took the first spawn to kill me. Then I did the same with Repulsion Field + Dampening bubble (+Dispersion Bubble, Scorpion Shield, Tough, and Weave) with comparable IOs and level shifts. Force Bubble survives nearly a full 8 seconds longer, which is enough for a fallen tank to pop a wakie, a break free, a blue, and get at least one toggle up provided they're on the ball and don't have a better self rez available to do it all faster.

Force Bubble was useful for keeping Rikti away from bomb planters on the MSR, for cramming spawns into corners, making breathing room so people can pop awakens, and for holding surprise ambushes far enough away from a team that they can clean up what they're fighting before getting overwhelmed by adds. It's a very powerful tool that's difficult to use well. Repulsion Field might be able to keep Rikti away from bomb planters on the MSR provided there isn't much latency and you don't mind eating a lot of fire yourself in the process.

Force Bubble and Repulsion Field are two different powers with two different use cases. We're getting a buff to repulsion field in exchange for loosing the unique use cases Force Bubble had.

Correct, it's Debuff Resistance and an enemy Buff/Debuff Debuff, it has no impact on their actual combat performance unless they use a lot of buff/debuff in their primary attack set (like dark or swords).

I don't necessarily think that's true. Ancillaries are the right place for an escape power and come at the level range where an escape power could be genuinely helpful to the ATs that get access to it. The PFF in the Ancillaries could have a name change to Emergency Force Field to make its intended use clearer and be left unchanged. I feel a Tier 1 power should give you an idea what the set is capable of. Storm gets Gale, Time and Cold get a hefty debuff slows, Traps and Trick Arrows get utility immobs, and Force Field gets... a situational escape tool that primarily enables ghosting combat. In that regard, PFF may very well be the outright worst Tier 1 because it directly prevents new or inexperienced users from participating in combat. Making it a personal defense shield that encourages new bubblers to play closer to their scrappers/tanks makes a fair amount of sense. There are a lot of options they could take with PFF. Things like: - A soloing toggle that's mutually exclusive with D-Bubble - A low-defense auto power that gives a little extra safety when the toggles drop - A personal absorb shield that builds up over time - A defense that scales based on current HP so at high health it provides marginal benefit but at low health it buys you a few extra seconds for Force Bolt to recharge. There's a lot that could be done that would give PFF more general utility without breaking the power curve, it's not like Force Field can't casually soft cap pretty much every defense with just D-Bubble and pool powers alone. Situational powers are nice. 'Dump' powers that you don't have to take are nice. But the low-tier powers should still probably be the ones people should want to try out even if you don't wind up keeping them in your final build for whatever reason. In that regard, it's the exact same as Force Bubble. Extremely powerful in the right situation. I personally feel Force Bubble has more general utility for the non-extreme portions of the game and I'm sorry you don't feel the same way. It's great that Detention Field has use cases for speedrunning hard mode content. I'm glad you find it to be useful. It would be even more useful if it was a 30 second timed toggle (like the Hybrid Incarnates) so you could choose to turn it off before the end of its normal 30 second duration. That change alone would make it a lot more useful for standard team play for say, shutting down Tsoo Sorcerers, eliminating a missed sapper, or even preventing a Master Illusionist from summoning pets until the team's ready for them if you get two in the same spawn. Detention Field existing isn't really a problem. I don't currently feel it's a good power but it could be improved, it could be made less frustrating for teammates who aren't expecting the single rarest control type in the game and don't want to wait around for 30 seconds for it to wear off when it takes 5-15 seconds for the average 8-man PUG to clear most spawns. I just really like Force Bubble, and not just because it lets you yeet Level 1 Hellions so hard the server just deletes them (that's just an added bonus). I am genuinely upset that we're losing the specific niche utility it provided as there is no other power in the game that provides that same niche utility. I wish I at least knew the rationale behind killing it in favor of the least useful power in Force Field's arsenal (Repulsion Field). Is it too disruptive in Rikti Raids? Is it the least-used toggle power in the game (I'd find that hard to believe when Whirlwind exists)? Is it the least chosen power in the set (and if so, are they taking into account that it's a Tier 9 and is it still the least taken power if you only look at level 50 characters)? Do they just dislike it the way I personally dislike Repulsion Field? They made Repulsion Field better! The people who really enjoy knockdowns will enjoy the sheer chaos the new Repulsion Field can sew. I appreciate that! But it's not Force Bubble, Force Bubble had entirely different use cases which people have already explained. Heck, speaking of improving existing powers: what if Force Bubble was a 25 foot repel with a 26-55 foot tractor so it simultaneously tries to keep things from getting too close while also not letting them get too far away? Force Bubble was as close as the OG Devs could get to programming a 'force wall' type power. They couldn't really make it a temporary impassable physics object (imagine if that broke and literally trapped players forever?) so... it was made a big ol' repel field. But force works both ways, what if it was a dual mode power so it could be either a repel or a tractor? They could make the tractor relatively weak or decrease the tick frequency and I imagine Rikti Raids would still love it even if it only gently encouraged everything to get off the ramps and move closer to the middle of the bowl. There are things that could be done to improve strong but niche powers and/or strong but potentially problematic powers. Detention Field has just as much potential to be disruptive on a Rikti Raid as Force Bubble, I just don't think anyone who's used one would ever intentionally hit a pylon with a 30 second Untouchable. It's why I'm saying I hope they give Force Field a little more development time. I'm glad they're looking at it, it's a set that does need some love and attention, especially when compared to more modern sets. There are a lot of things they could do to improve the set that could give the niche powers a little more general utility. The debuff in Force Bomb is a great touch but I already enjoyed lobbing knockdown basketballs for the sweet Force Feedback procs, I love what they've done with D-Bubble, it's a minor improvement that takes a 5-star power and makes it even better in a way I didn't even know the game was capable of. I just wish there was a way to provide numbers as to how losing Force Bubble will impact my play, but I can't. It's not a power that generates numbers, it's a power that prevents numbers from being generated at all. Turn on Force Bubble and see if you can't escort a hostage out of a mission just as easily as if you'd used PFF. All I can do is say "I really like this power, and these are the reasons why. I'm sorry you (and this is a general 'you' not addressing anyone specifically) don't seem to like it as much as I do, and I do understand that it's a niche power that's difficult to use well. Are you really sure it needs to go away?"

I know how you feel, it's still "the" iconic Defender set for me. Force Bubble and Repulsion Field (live) are two different powers with two different use cases. Force Bubble is a hugely powerful tool for repositioning enemy mobs or to let teams deal with multiple surprise ambushes or even buy them a few moments of safety to recover from a wipe or near-wipe. Repulsion Field is... ok, admittedly finding even an edge case for Repulsion Field is really difficult. Toggle it on for a few seconds if an ambush spawns literally on top of you? Soloing but too lazy to use force bolt? Playing with falling leaves in a park? Removing a very powerful, unique, set-defining tool to slightly enhance a much worse PBAOE knockback aura that very few people took (because it's just hard to find any excuse to use Repulsion Field) and that few people take after the change (for exactly the same reasons they don't take it now) is... just disappointing.

Having just played this on Brainstorm, I'm unhappier than I thought I'd be. I feel like the Force Field rework needs more time in the oven. Personal Force Field Same as on live, same problems as live. This is a terrible Tier 1, it really needs to be changed. It's a selfish escape tool in a set that has just lost the only tool it had to leverage its own survival to help the team recover from a wipe (Force Bubble). Turn it into a "selfish" version of D-Bubble, with 2x the defense (20% for defenders, 15% for other ATs) that only applies to the user. Give it all of D-Bubble's status resistances, then make it mutually exclusive with D-Bubble. That way the user can run the selfish self-buff or the selfless team buff, while also letting new players understand that Forcefield is a very survivable set and that they really can get pretty close to the scrappers and tanks without dying. Force Bolt (now Repulsion Bolt) It's not a repel, it's never been a repel, so why the name change? I like giving Force Field a debuff somewhere and -resist is really good, but Force Bolt is the wrong place for it. I never really took or used Force Bolt but it was a good, usable power. Some people swear by it as a mitigation tool, and for all of Force Field's (too numerous) mitigation tools, Force Bolt was the one most people actually like. Making it a debuff encourages irresponsible, indiscriminate use, which means you may not have it for actual mitigation when you need it. Dispersion Bubble This is a good change, and sorely needed. Thank you for this. Psst. Hey. Rename it "Force Field" so it's more obvious that this is the set's key power. Detention Field Not a field. "Situationally Useful." Does anyone remember Force Field even has a 30 second untouchable? Yup, it's still a 30 second untouchable. Typically used once or maybe twice by players who don't realize what it is they've taken and then respecced out of at the earliest opportunity (or after it gets them kicked out of a PUG). This is a bad egg (pun intended) with a good and noticeable effect. The particle effect would make for a great-looking single target buff, just saying. 😉 Repulsion Field I hate to say that I hate this change, but I hate this change. Repulsion and Knockback are two different effects with two different uses. They are not interchangeable. They do not want to live together in the same power where neither of them get to really do what they want. On live, I use Force Bubble to keep Rikti away from the people planting bombs on the Mothership. I use it to push weird spawns closer together or to cram them into corners. I use it to push mobs away from a team wipe to give people a chance to pick themselves up. That's only really possible with Force Bubble as it currently exists because of its sheer size, which this... lacks. This is tiny, it scatters mobs everywhere, it's just Repulsion Field without the 1% max end per knockback end drain. It sacrifices everything that makes Force Bubble a (difficult to use but) very strong power in service of a knockback power nobody takes. Worse, because of the way Repulsion Field's knockback ticks work, slotting it for KB to KD drops the magnitude of the knockback to something like 0.0018. After 4-5 seconds you might score a knockdown on a minion or LT, and since KB to KD disables the repel (the effect I actually want) that means slotting this for KB to KD makes this a power that does absolutely nothing but still costs a lot of endurance anyway. Repulsion Bomb (now Force Bomb) Never did repel, so this name change I like. Activation time change is much needed. Remember how I said Force Bolt was a bad place for a debuff before? This is the opposite. Force Bomb is a power that's always been pretty good while also being a nice Force Feedback carrier. Remove the damage entirely, boost the debuff to like -30% (Defender) -20% (other ATs), keep the stun at 30% (or just let it mag2 minions?), it's all good. The damage was always the weakest component of this power so just turn it into a good, strong AOE knockdown and debuff and I think everyone will be pretty happy to free throw glowing basketballs at people. Force Bubble (now Dampening Bubble) I don't know who this is for. Is it "better" than Force Bubble? Maybe? I guess? I'm one of the people who really likes Force Bubble. I can't really say I noticed the effects of this. Debuff Resistance is one of those things where, if you need it, you don't really want to have to think about applying it. You should be applying it with other effects, getting the Debuff Resistances incidentally, and not realizing that you were needing it at all. I don't think anyone is going to notice whether this is up or down, except in the most extreme content. It doesn't feel like a Tier 9. It doesn't really feel like anything, even the mobs don't notice it. Just stealing this from my old suggestion thread: Ablative Shield - Fortitude for Force Field A single target, high-value Absorption shield (perhaps even % of target max HP based so it benefits tanks and blasters proportionally?) with a 15-30 second duration that also grants the target a hefty amount of defense debuff resistance so it's still useful for the full duration even for people who are already soft-capped. And maybe some other lingering buffs just for flavor, like a modest regen or recovery boost to show that the target is getting a brief reprieve from combat. Then put it on a cooldown on par with fortitude / frostwork so it's not really spammable. Say, 60 seconds base. Maybe 90, depending on whether or not anything else gets bundled in. "It's like a Detention Field, but for your friends!" Edit: I know the difference between Live and Brainstorm, I swear! 😄