Power boost and the traps force field generator

[KaizenSoze]

I was playing around in Mids with a traps/sonic defender at I noticed that power boost effects the force field generator.

 

Is the an artifact of Mids or does the effect stick on the FFG after power boost ends? Because that makes a huge difference if it does.

 

An FFG with three level 25 def IOs is ~22% def to all. Power boosted, it is 33% def.

 

That makes soft capping all defense extremely easy. 

 

If no one knows I'll try it out on the beta server in the next few days.

[Darkir]

1 minute ago, KaizenSoze said:

Is the an artifact of Mids or does the effect stick on the FFG after power boost ends? Because that makes a huge difference if it does.

I believe it does stay on after the power boost ends, same with time's farsight. For even more crazy boosting potential look at Radial Clarion+Power Boost+FFG it alone can softcap your team. 

[Carnifax]

15 hours ago, Darkir said:

I believe it does stay on after the power boost ends, same with time's farsight. For even more crazy boosting potential look at Radial Clarion+Power Boost+FFG it alone can softcap your team. 

Does it? As far as I knew the PB buff does transfer to FFG but since the def bubble is a "toggle" type power, refreshing every couple of seconds, once the PB buff wears off the increased defense wears off shortly afterwards. 

 

So the boosted defense only lasts 16 seconds so so max afaik when combining FFG with power boost.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

Does it? As far as I knew the PB buff does transfer to FFG but since the def bubble is a "toggle" type power, refreshing every couple of seconds, once the PB buff wears off the increased defense wears off shortly afterwards. 

 

So the boosted defense only lasts 16 seconds so so max afaik when combining FFG with power boost.

FFG is a pet and therefore doesn't inherit any buffs from its caster (pseudopets are different but FFG isn't a pseudopet). Power Boost is of extremely limited utility to the Traps set as a whole.

 

You can do a comparison to, say, Force Field's bubbles - the ally shields are click buffs and will keep their PB'd value for their entire duration while the AoE bubble is a toggle and will be boosted only for the duration of PB.

[Darkir]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

FFG is a pet and therefore doesn't inherit any buffs from its caster (pseudopets are different but FFG isn't a pseudopet). Power Boost is of extremely limited utility to the Traps set as a whole.

 

You can do a comparison to, say, Force Field's bubbles - the ally shields are click buffs and will keep their PB'd value for their entire duration while the AoE bubble is a toggle and will be boosted only for the duration of PB.

Ahhhhhh its the force field's that I mixed it up with. Thanks for the correction.

[oedipus_tex]

I just went into the test environment and checked to be sure. Can confirm that Force Field Generator is not affected by Power Boost.

 

I do believe there are psuedo pets that benefit from Power Boost, but FFG is a "true" pet. 

[KaizenSoze]

Alas, I got to 35 and power boost does not work on FFG.

 

Mids is wrong.

[Frosticus]

Unpopular opinion, but I'd be ok if powerboost didn't affect defensive powers at all.

It's current application is inconsistent and not entirely intuitive.

 

Things like powerboosted farsight, or fade, eclipse ffg.

I mean fade shouldn't work with pb to begin with, but it does.

 

But there is no reason for the average person to know before hand that pb will or won't boost ffg/farsight.

Just like the avg person wouldn't know that pb does work on forcefield ally buffs, but doesn't work on cold's ally buffs. 

[macskull]

16 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

Unpopular opinion, but I'd be ok if powerboost didn't affect defensive powers at all.

It's current application is inconsistent and not entirely intuitive.

 

Things like powerboosted farsight, or fade, eclipse ffg.

I mean fade shouldn't work with pb to begin with, but it does.

 

But there is no reason for the average person to know before hand that pb will or won't boost ffg/farsight.

Just like the avg person wouldn't know that pb does work on forcefield ally buffs, but doesn't work on cold's ally buffs. 

There are a lot of game mechanics in CoH that the average person doesn't know about (accuracy vs tohit is one big example, and the absolutely wacky player powers/pets/pseudopets system) but I don't think nerfs are a solution to those mechanics being unintuitive. PB'd Fade is 100% not working as intended, I'll give it that at least. I'm amazed that hasn't been fixed yet.

 

A good rule of thumb to determine the interaction between PB and defense buffs (for non-pet powers, at least): if the defense buff also grants resistance, and that resistance is enhanceable, then PB won't boost the defense. For powers granted by pseudopet, the pseudopet generally inherits all the player's buffs for the remainder of their duration, and for powers granted by pets, the pet generally inherits none of the player's buffs.

Edited January 19, 2020 by macskull

[oedipus_tex]

One other thing that is weird about Power Boost is it does not align with the normal Schedule of enhancements. Like, +Defense, ToHit, -Defense, and -ToHit all take schedule B enhancements, which are weaker than Schedule A (Healing, Absorb, End Mod, Mezz Duration, etc). But Power Boost boosts them all equally....

 

That's why Power Boost is so incredibly effective in powers like Farsight and Fade, and would be in FFG if it worked. You can achieve with Power Boost numbers way outside what you could do with enhancements.

 

Note the Alpha slot enhancements do follow schedules. That's why the Defense in Alpha slot powers is so much lower than the other enhancement values. 

 

 

[Frosticus]

Maybe. I think  some nerfs are good in the long run. even if they sting a bit at first. 

Powerboost is clearly intended to be a short duration buff, yet it applies unevenly across sets with some getting upwards of 2 minutes bonus out of what is supposed to be a 15 second buff. 

 

I dont think farsight giving as much or more def (with powerboost) as the entire super reflexes set to everyone, caster included, is good for the game. I dont think farsight in and of itself is broken though.

 

Conversely I dont think it is fair that a cold user cant boost their ally shields just because they offer a bit of resistance no one slots for. Not when forcefields shields offer endurance drain resistance, but do benefit from pb. I understand why, but I doubt the vast majority of users do. 

 

Lack of intuitiveness may not be reason to nerf, but it is reason to normalize. Pick a direction, it ultimately doesnt matter, but it should be predictable and consistent. 

 

 

 

[Darkir]

32 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

Powerboost is clearly intended to be a short duration buff, yet it applies unevenly across sets with some getting upwards of 2 minutes bonus out of what is supposed to be a 15 second buff. 

As with many things in this game, I think we can blame the game's spaghetti code. 

[Redlynne]

Actually, Powerboost is something of a "legacy power" from the pre-Invention (and even pre-Enhancement Dysfunction!) days, when long duration Click powers (like Force Field's ally bubbles) were a decided rarity.  You simply didn't HAVE powers like Farsight or Fade in the game ... at all ... to worry about (spoiler alert: they showed up later).

 

The other thing you need to remember is that Powerboost was designed for a time in the game's history when SO enhancements (and HOs) was all you had available to you.  The penalty/tax you paid for using Powerboost was the delay in casting/animation time it took to use your powers (since Powerboost is not an "instant" cast power) and that delay could potentially upset your timing when in combat.  I took Powerboost on a Controller (go figure, eh?) back in the day and found myself using it more while OUT of combat (mainly as a travel speed booster power) than when IN combat, ironically, simply because of the logistical juggling/anticipation act needed to use Powerboost effectively when combat got hectic and timing got really important.  Eventually, I respecced out of Powerboost on that character simply because the habits I developed for using it did not match the theoretical theorycrafting performance profile I'd been assuming from the start.  Powerboost spent a LOT of time on my powers bars fully recharged and not being used (which was entirely my fault, granted, but it's also how things wound up working out in practice, so there you go).

 

Having played with Powerboost "back in the day" and having put it into a few builds for Homecoming here, I'm thinking that Powerboost (itself) is FINE and that the wonders of theoretical maximum performance are not going to be as consistently achieved as people like to make out that they will be (there are certain "inefficiencies of human" involved).

 

The things that ought to be "fixed" (per se) would be removing Resistances from Cold shields (more trouble than they're worth, really) so that Cold shields can benefit from Powerboost ... and remove Fade from the list of powers that can be boosted by Powerboost (due to resistances and because the fact that Fade does augment via Powerboost is a flat out bug).  That's basically my take on the subject.

 

Although ... now that I'm thinking about it ... I wonder if Powerboost augments Victory Rush at all ... wouldn't that be something?

[Frosticus]

Exactly. Powerboost has turned into a power that you get to have your cake and eat it too.

Several things:

- ally buffs used to be single target, so powerboosting everyone's was much more difficult. Now it is pb+one shot buff entire team into the statosphere. I like one shot buffing though.

- There used to not be any meaningful aoe buffs that powerboost had a major long duration impact on. 

(boosting the runspeed on Accel metab and similar is pretty minor)

- huge amounts of recharge have made the base recharge of powerboost a non factor

 

I'm not trying to pick on farsight, but I doubt anyone would be like "yah fortitude should be an aoe buff", but that's what pb'd farsight basically is. I stopped in i19, but did the original devs just stop caring? And there is no documentation in the game, or logical recourse that explains to the player that something like ffg from traps won't be awesome with pb, but farsight will be.  

 

 

 

[Frosticus]

2 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Although ... now that I'm thinking about it ... I wonder if Powerboost augments Victory Rush at all ... wouldn't that be something?

pb, doesn't boost endurance recovery. 

If it works with victory rush, then that is an oversight. 

[oedipus_tex]

I have a long post in the Suggestions forum about Power Boost + Farsight /Fade if anyone wants to add their thoughts to the discussion there. A developer chimed in at one point in the discussion to say they had no specific plans but they did make note we were talking about it.  

 

 

 

Slightly off topic, what's interesting about Power Boost is at some point it became semi-associated with the Dominator archetype. Three of the Assault sets had a direct copy of it (Ice, Energy, and Earth Assault) and one had an offshoot (Gather Shadows in the Dark Assault set). The devs for Homecoming turned all the old Power Boosts into a new power called "Power Up" that retains some of Power Boosts function and adds some +damage. So, currently 4 / 11 (or about 1 out of 3) of the Dominator Assault sets have some version of this power baked into the set.

 

 

RE: Force Field's shields. Like Redlynne said, Power Boost has always technically worked for these powers. What changed is they didn't used to be AoEs. So you could always create PB'ed shields. It just took more effort, and you couldn't hit a whole league with it.

If I recall correctly, the feeling at the time of the change of Deflection and Insulation Shield to AoEs was that Force Field significantly underperforms. So the developers allowed it to keep its Power Boosted AoE shields mainly so Force Field could at least not totally suck next to Cold Domination. Force Field has carved a minor, tiny niche for itself for certain iTrials like Lambda as a the premier AoE Defense set when teams break up and run around a maze, due to Power Boost.  

[oedipus_tex]

1 hour ago, Frosticus said:

pb, doesn't boost endurance recovery. 

If it works with victory rush, then that is an oversight. 

 

 

I was going to write back and say it does boost Recovery, but you're absolutely right. Power Boost does not boost Recovery. I had it mixed up with +Endurance Mod, which it does boost (as in the instant Endurance you get back from Power Sink or Chrono Shift). Glad you said that, because even tho I understand the difference between -Recovery and -Endurance, until just now I hadn't really thought through the difference between +Recovery and +Endurance.

[Darkir]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

Slightly off topic, what's interesting about Power Boost is at some point it became semi-associated with the Dominator archetype. Three of the Assault sets had a direct copy of it (Ice, Energy, and Earth Assault) and one had an offshoot (Gather Shadows in the Dark Assault set). The devs for Homecoming turned all the old Power Boosts into a new power called "Power Up" that retains some of Power Boosts function and adds some +damage. So, currently 4 / 11 (or about 1 out of 3) of the Dominator Assault sets have some version of this power baked into the set.

 

Does gather shadows and mind link work together on a dominator?

 

Edit: It doesn't. For my own clarification, would power up work? Or is there something specific to mind link that is just unboostable?

Edited January 19, 2020 by Darkir

[oedipus_tex]

12 minutes ago, Darkir said:

Does gather shadows and mind link work together on a dominator?

 

Edit: It doesn't. For my own clarification, would power up work? Or is there something specific to mind link that is just unboostable?

 

Link Minds is unboostable. The power has a teensy tiny bit of Resistance in there, which I always read as an excuse not to allow Power Boost/Power Up.

 

[Darkir]

Just now, oedipus_tex said:

 

Link Minds is unboostable. The power has a teensy tiny bit of Resistance in there, which I always read as an excuse not to allow Power Boost/Power Up.

 

So incredibly lame.

[oedipus_tex]

Just now, Darkir said:

So incredibly lame.

 

I vaguely remember that when power was added, Power Boost came up in discussion. I believe the developers said they specifically did not want it to be boostable because it would be inappropriate to give Dominators such solid armor. Farsight is a very similar power so it was a surprise when it was boostable. 

[Darkir]

18 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Farsight is a very similar power so it was a surprise when it was boostable. 

THIS. SOOOOO THIS. Just why? We have time defenders able to give a full 45% def to all with PB+Clarion+Farsight.....*grumble* *grumble* *grumble*

 

Edit: sigh, I'm just upset because I didn't notice the resist in mind link and I spent the last 3 hours leveling a dominator to 35 to try one out for the first time after spending a bunch of time on a build.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Darkir

[Auroxis]

There are a few things often overlooked with the PB+Farsight issue:

 

1. Nerfing Clarion/PB to address Time also nerfs FF and Empathy which aren't overperorming.
2. Clarion Radial has downsides, being an inconsistent CC protection power that takes up a valuable incarnate slot. It also limits your Farsight usage to once per two minutes which can often leave some teammates unbuffed if they're out of range, and yourself unbuffed for a couple seconds due to the game's cast time+recharge interaction.
3. Power Boost via Soul Mastery means you aren't picking up the superior Soul Drain version from Dark Mastery.
4. Time isn't that amazing outside of Chrono Shift and Farsight. Is it the best support powerset for Defenders? Probably, but not by a large margin since it lacks significant anti-AV offensive tools. Much like with Empathy and Force Fields, Defenders need to go Sonic for the debuffs(Beam can also work to a lesser extent) in order to be consistently valuable against AV's.

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Auroxis

[oedipus_tex]

This isn't a Time Manipulation discussion thread, but I will say even without Power Boost Time Manipulation would be a top-performing set. The only things it lacks (sort of) are -Regen and self-mezz protection. Self-mezz protection is available to only 3 sets (Traps, Sonic Res, Force Field). 

 

Farsight without Power Boost provides more base Defense than Dispersion Bubble, and Time is one of only 5 buff sets with a reliable heal. It is the only set that gets a Defense buff higher than +5 and a heal at the same time other than Controller Dark Affinity.

 

The Power Boost thing just takes it and makes it hilarious. +31% Defense to all, as a baseline, no issues here.😄

 

[Salous]

 PB does essentially nothing for Traps

 

I'm waiting on changes to Trip Mine and Time Bomb, its a shame they couldnt port the Devices changes over to Traps even if it just were a temporary bandaid until they got around to Traps.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Salous