Invulnerability Rework Request

[marcussmythe]

To be fair, the OP was more concerned with what keeps Invuln interesting in a world with IOs and Incarnates.  Sure, it may put up bigger ‘Do Not Die’ numbers, but everything past ‘it cant kill me’ is just fluff - and IOs and Incarnates can take -scrappers- to ‘solo ITrial’ resilience.  So having a tank set thats even harder to kill than other tank sets, but with little utility or offense, in a world where tank power-sets that have such offense or utility can also be very easily made to survive anything is hard to justify.

 

Which has at least triggered an interesting thread on the side about T9s - and my point here would be ‘if IOs and Incarnates can elevate less resilient ATs and Powersets to ‘doesnt die’, then perhaps allowing the Invuln T9 to trade off some of its resilience for offense would be interesting.  In the form of +Dam or -Res or -Regen or whatever.

[Galaxy Brain]

18 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

It has good defence/resistance to smashing/lethal. It also requires no micromanagement.

Most powersets do, especially when you take Tough! 🙂 

 

I should be more transparent though, I do agree that on the list of things that need tweaks, Invulnerability is on the last page in the margins, if it's there at all. The issue I personally have with it is that it is simply functional when other sets are flashy and get "tough enough" to make their "flash" more attractive than invuln to me. The set is extremely popular for sure, but often that is due to it being "Invulnerability" and not "Physical Durability" or the like. One of those names has way more thematic weight for character building.

 

Mechanically, other sets can get great S/L mitigation on top of other goodies like better non S/L resists / healing / utility / offense which makes Invuln unfortunately a bit soured. Invuln just sorta does defenses "better" than other sets with the ability to get more HP and solid res/def and some debuff resists. Not saying this is a bad thing by any means, but it also doesn't make it stand out (at least to me). Invincibility's ToHit boost is sweet, but it is quickly overshadowed as well in today's game... hell, maybe thats why I always glaze over it now when making alts since other sets can get "tough enough" + extras!

I guess I just have a desire to make Invuln stand out a bit more in some unique way. Making it so like, you are immune to X amount of damage straight up to emulate how (Superman) just never gets harmed by handguns. Make it so unstoppable gives all your melee attacks knockdown / running into enemies causes knockdown to be like a Juggernaut. Something to make it stand out again!

 

 

[SeraphimKensai]

Considering my first Invulnerability/Battle Axe Tanker back in the day had to teleport around because of Unyielding was kinda crazy, but I did play it in the time of Perma Unstoppable. Then I was there when Invincibility got nerfed to what it is now as well.

 

That all said Invuln is still an amazing armor set, not much beats it, and you can use IO's to reasonably plug the psi hole.

 

Honestly the only change that I see as needed would be a reworking of Unstoppable, but then again almost all the tier 9s could use a reworking.

[MTeague]

44 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Most powersets do, especially when you take Tough! 🙂 

.....
I guess I just have a desire to make Invuln stand out a bit more in some unique way. Making it so like, you are immune to X amount of damage straight up to emulate how (Superman) just never gets harmed by handguns. Make it so unstoppable gives all your melee attacks knockdown / running into enemies causes knockdown to be like a Juggernaut. Something to make it stand out again!

 

 

Well, yes, but Invulnerability is one of those sets where Boxing, Tough, Weave is entirely skippable, freeing up power selections for something else.  Leadership toggles or some of the new pools like Force of Will or Experimentation immediately leap to mind... so maybe you can toss a PAIR of those .... Invuln plus Unleash Potential plus Adrenal Booster could be Quite Nice.  

 

Admittedly, it's not flashy.  But Old Reliable gets the job done mighty well.  And honestly, I'm not a fan of some of the newer tanking sets, however much in the minority i may be there.

Edited May 20, 2020 by MTeague

[America's Angel]

48 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I should be more transparent though, I do agree that on the list of things that need tweaks, Invulnerability is on the last page in the margins, if it's there at all.

You're literally posting in a thread about tweaking it.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, America's Angel said:

You're literally posting in a thread about tweaking it.

Right, because I personally would like to see it more modernized.

 

Does it necessarily need it? No. 

Would it be really cool? I think so.

[Galaxy Brain]

7 minutes ago, MTeague said:

Well, yes, but Invulnerability is one of those sets where Boxing, Tough, Weave is entirely skippable, freeing up power selections for something else.  Leadership toggles or some of the new pools like Force of Will or Experimentation immediately leap to mind... so maybe you can toss a PAIR of those .... Invuln plus Unleash Potential plus Adrenal Booster could be Quite Nice.  

While true, other sets can also pick up leadership/etc (You can only have 1 origin pool unfortunately  😕 ) and still have their other goodies.

 

For example, say you have Shield/ that gets built for incredibly high res to all on top of 55%+ positional defenses. Invuln may have more HP and a bit more resistance, but it cannot compete with Shield Charge AND agaisnt all odds AND grant cover.

 

This is all personal tastes though along with just the niche Invuln has sort of being covered by the IO system and newer sets. It would just be nice if Invuln had something unique to where you couldn't just emulate its performance with other sets.

[MTeague]

16 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

You can only have 1 origin pool unfortunately  😕

Ah, crud, I forgot about that.  Was totally getting ready to respec my tank later tonight.  Back to the ol' drawing board....

[Zeraphia]

1 hour ago, marcussmythe said:

To be fair, the OP was more concerned with what keeps Invuln interesting in a world with IOs and Incarnates.  Sure, it may put up bigger ‘Do Not Die’ numbers, but everything past ‘it cant kill me’ is just fluff - and IOs and Incarnates can take -scrappers- to ‘solo ITrial’ resilience.  So having a tank set thats even harder to kill than other tank sets, but with little utility or offense, in a world where tank power-sets that have such offense or utility can also be very easily made to survive anything is hard to justify.

 

Which has at least triggered an interesting thread on the side about T9s - and my point here would be ‘if IOs and Incarnates can elevate less resilient ATs and Powersets to ‘doesnt die’, then perhaps allowing the Invuln T9 to trade off some of its resilience for offense would be interesting.  In the form of +Dam or -Res or -Regen or whatever.

This is a really nice post and I think it brings back a lot of perspective to what the OP was speaking of but didn't have the correct wording/phrasing to get their point across! And your point, I do actually agree, Invulnerability is a little bit "flat" and I've said this before when I was giving my "tier lists" for Tankers, Invulnerability is a C-tier set overall IMO not because it isn't good at making you tanky (it is excellent for that!) but it brings very little to the table other than that. Other sets can do that same "trick" of making you very survivable with bringing much more to the table in terms of offense/CC (dark, rad, shield being the "big ones"), other sets offensive capabilities are so high and with incarnate use/inspirations/party buffs for when you really need it, other sets perform at a higher standard in a more "true" gameplay experience (bio, fiery aura). Also, just because I didn't rank other sets that you play higher, does not mean they are bad at tanking, I'd even say Invul is better at tanking than all but Stone in Granite/Shield (when really built for it)/Rad, but there are things that must be considered when picking a powerset beyond its primary purpose, there are significant variables people must look at that make a much more rounded set (read: Rad).

 

Bottom line is, we are clearly not experiencing the same gameplay environment where these types of hardcore Tanking styles are rewarded or needed in most scenarios or are so critically required that they can't be "subbed" (I've used many a Scrapper to tank LR over a weaker Tanker - I've seen many scenarios now where it just isn't "needed.")

Edited May 20, 2020 by Zeraphia

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Cool, so why would a non-lowbie / semi-casual player pick invuln over another armor set?

With the assumption that the semi-casual player is playing an AT that takes an armor set...

 

I'd recommend Invulnerability because it is easy to slot and reinforces the core game concepts of typed damage resistance, endurance management, and (self-)healing. Semi-casual players can work with Invulnerability without having to worry about the Fighting pool, and can explore other options in their build. The player can eventually use this primary's powers to also learn about the role of Defense.

 

It also doesn't have gimmicks.

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

While true, other sets can also pick up leadership/etc (You can only have 1 origin pool unfortunately  😕 ) and still have their other goodies.

 

For example, say you have Shield/ that gets built for incredibly high res to all on top of 55%+ positional defenses. Invuln may have more HP and a bit more resistance, but it cannot compete with Shield Charge AND agaisnt all odds AND grant cover.

 

This is all personal tastes though along with just the niche Invuln has sort of being covered by the IO system and newer sets. It would just be nice if Invuln had something unique to where you couldn't just emulate its performance with other sets.

I almost want to say it's like a Schrodinger's cat scenario: You like shield and bio and all those good sets.  Don't mess with them, just don't look at them...

 

...but what about Invuln?  Compare it to Shield or Bio and see how far it's left behind...but then we have to actually look at those sets...I feel if you start crunching the numbers, you might find some discrepancies in their favor...or should we just look at Invuln and see there's nothing wrong with it and *not* look at those "other" sets?

 

I wouldn't be against some nifty functionality and utility to the set.  I remember reading a suggestion about the tier 9s, they suggested keeping the crash (I'm actually for having powers with consequences which is why I remember the suggestion) and having the tier 9 activate the temp bar and granting a few extra powers, like an AoE CC, a mini buff or attack and another click that prematurely ends the effect of the power to bypass the crash, like if the power lasts 180sec, you have the option to press that termination click for the first 100sec with no ill effect.  The different crashing tier 9s can have different extra skills like a teleport attack for SR.

[America's Angel]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Right, because I personally would like to see it more modernized.

 

Does it necessarily need it? No. 

Would it be really cool? I think so.

Yeah, only change powers that need it, please.

[marcussmythe]

On the other, other hand - and Im wandering off topic, but bear with me...

 

Given that, at a mere SO level, with no tough/maneuvers/yadda, much less set bonuses  lnvuln is still probably ‘face tank near anything’ tough due to the layering of def and res and dull pain...

 

What does it look like if we just chase utility and damage with our IOs, Sets, Pools, etc?  Sure, it wont be 90% resist/45% Defense all, but can we leverage the headroom given us by that phenomenal defensive overperformance to make headroom on other goals?  Are there Stupid Games with Stupid Prizes to be played and won by interleaving Unstoppable and Barrier so we accept some risk/micro to still get just-silly defense while still pushing offense out the door?

 

Hmm.  *goes to fiddle in mids*

[Galaxy Brain]

11 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

Yeah, only change powers that need it, please.

Ok mom

[America's Angel]

27 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Ok mom

You've a perfectly good rad tank at home.