Weekly Discussion 61: Inherent Powers

[DoctorDitko]

Prestige Power Slide does have one redeeming feature: It nullifies many of the animations from Ninja Run. Good for characters who aren't really the Ninja type. Might do the same for Beast Run, I don't know.

 

That said, adding it to the P2W Sprints package wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me.  And being able to customize it or making a few elemental versions would be very cool.

[skoryy]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Please move it to P2W vendor so that I don't have to ever see it again.

Right click -> Remove.  There, problem solved.

 

Personally I don't mind having the option at start, I have one character that actually uses it.

[Hexquisite]

32 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Right click -> Remove.  There, problem solved.

 

Personally I don't mind having the option at start, I have one character that actually uses it.

Mmhmm. Part of my routine on new characters is to remove this, as I’m arranging my trays. I barely even think about it any more.

[MTeague]

On 7/27/2020 at 1:16 PM, ImpousVileTerror said:

Containment is irksome to me, especially with Domination making Dominators better Controllers than Controllers are themselves.  I would much prefer something to improve the Controller's potency in their given role.  Of course, there are all those standing complaints regarding Control just not being that useful when everything is melted by high damage.  

QFT, though honestly I'm not sure how best to resolve this. 

[archgemini24]

The passive Inherent on Kheldians leaves a lot to be desired for solo play (where it does nothing) and seems fairly underpowered with a third of the available roster for teammates (other Khelds, SoA, Controllers, and Dominators). Would 2 points of mez resist per Mez teammate and 10% Recharge (rather than just Slow resist) per EAT be that overpowering?

[skoryy]

On 7/27/2020 at 1:16 PM, ImpousVileTerror said:

Containment is irksome to me, especially with Domination making Dominators better Controllers than Controllers are themselves.  I would much prefer something to improve the Controller's potency in their given role.  Of course, there are all those standing complaints regarding Control just not being that useful when everything is melted by high damage.

Dominators are only better thanks to global recharge, which goes back to how do you balance things with IOs in the mix.

 

And I'll never buy control not being useful as long as I see EBs and AVs getting frozen in ice blocks.  Its more a problem that, depending on the playstyle, some controls are far more useful than others.

[GastlyGibus]

Vigilance is the first one I think of when you say "inherent powers that need attention." 

 

As others have stated already, with so many Defender primaries revolving around prevention of damage and being a force multiplier for your team, many Defenders will get absolutely zero use from the endurance discount. If you're a Force Field Defender, for example, an endurance discount on your bubbles isn't going to be helpful if your team is dying, since they presumably already have a field cast on them.

 

I'm no game balance guy, and I couldn't really say what would be more helpful, but I do think a good inherent for Defenders should reward you for keeping your team alive, not the other way around. 

 

Another inherent that I think needs tweaking is Critical Hit for Scrappers. It's nice, yeah, but doesn't really do a whole lot. The only thing I would add to make it useful would be increasing the odds of a critical hit for stronger foes. I know it already does that, but it maxes out at 10% with bosses and never goes higher than that. I think it should go higher for Elite Bosses, Arch-Villains, Giant Monsters and the like, and it would totally fit with the Scrapper's theme of being tenacious and fearless. Seeing a bigger, stronger enemy only encourages them to hit harder, and thus they'd fight even more ferociously than normal.

 

Finally, Conditioning for SoA's could stand a buff. It's a neat concept, but it's so underwhelming that it's like it's not even there. Honestly, I think you could just boost the numbers for Conditioning a little higher and it'd be solid, or maybe even just give players the ability to slot enhancements into it. 

Edited July 28, 2020 by GastlyGibus

[ImpousVileTerror]

If it's felt that Critical Strike really needs some extra oomph, I suggest that it gets increased chances for Crits again Elites, Arch-s, and Monsters (et cetera) based on how many Minions, Lts, and Bosses are nearby.  

In short:  More mooks around the Scrapper equals more Crits against the BIG bad.  

a.k.a.:  More Risk.  More Reward.

It'll also encourage people to not just nuke the minions away at the start of every fight.

[ForeverLaxx]

Many people here seem to be talking about powers like Brawl, Sprint, or the auto-included stuff like Fitness but I think the focus is supposed to be the AT Inherent Powers that are meant to compliment or define the AT in question. To that end, I'm going to focus on those. I'll probably just stick to the ones I have a particular issue with to keep this post short.

 

Containment: Some control effects still need to be added to Containment so that all Controllers can benefit more frequently. Sets that have strong, reliable Fear effects as primary sources of group control suffer because of this.

 

Domination: Dominators are too reliant on this being permanent in the later parts of the game, or so I'm told. While I've never actually made a permaDom character, they definitely feel somewhat anemic when it's down and overwhelming strong while it's up. Perhaps some kind of middle-ground could be achieved so Doms aren't essentially "forced" into budgeting very heavily into Recharge for every late-game build.

 

Cosmic Balance: The resistance to mez effects isn't high enough to see much, if any, use unless you're on a team stuffed full of Controllers or Dominators. If you're in that situation, you don't need the resistance as nothing's fighting back anyway.

 

Dark Sustenance: Same as Cosmic Balance regarding mez resistance, but gaining more of what your team already brings to the table seems backwards. I get the idea behind it, but it just seems off.

 

Scourge: Painfully weak outside of very high HP targets. Defenders will still often out-DPS Corruptors despite the Corruptor being the "offensive-focused Defender" because their damage isn't any better until Scourge kicks in (and their debuffs are weaker). I'm not sure how best to approach this without just turning a Corruptor into a Blaster With Crits but something should be done to at least have them deal more damage than Defenders do when said Defender is running damage resist debuffs.

 

Opportunity: Already listed as something that's getting worked on, and what can be done about it I haven't much of an idea personally. I just know that using it is very clunky and requiring both T1 Blasts to have flexibility in the application of the effect can be build-restrictive. Currently, outside of some edge cases, I don't think Offensive Opportunity is worth much since the bonus damage isn't high enough to care about and many Sentinels appreciate the added sustain Defensive Opportunity provides. It doesn't help that the Damage Resist Debuff effect is resisted hard enough to not provide much of a bonus anyway.

 

Beyond that, I think that's all I can really think of at the moment. Many of the inherent powers are either non-offensive if boring, like Vigilance, but these above are the ones I could see needing looked at. Some more than others, of course.

[GetRidOfWires]

Kheldians, especially PBs are too weak solo, and aren’t fun for solo play. They need a boost so that their inherent gives them, say, mez resistance solo. 
 

Opportunity is clunky. If it were to provide the benefit to the whole team when it fires, increasing damage like Assault does or reducing End cost for the team briefly that might be an improvement. It would give a better meaning to Sentinel’s Ward.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, skoryy said:

Right click -> Remove.  There, problem solved.

 

Personally I don't mind having the option at start, I have one character that actually uses it.

Yup, have to do so every single character. And then I still see it in my powers list. So, while your answer is obvious, why should we have to put up with a nuisance when it could be so easily resolved?

[marcussmythe]

18 minutes ago, GetRidOfWires said:

Kheldians, especially PBs are too weak solo, and aren’t fun for solo play. They need a boost so that their inherent gives them, say, mez resistance solo. 
 

Opportunity is clunky. If it were to provide the benefit to the whole team when it fires, increasing damage like Assault does or reducing End cost for the team briefly that might be an improvement. It would give a better meaning to Sentinel’s Ward.

Given the history of very strong ATO impacts on certain ATs, having the PB set bonuses treat you as having one or more teammates when solo might be interesting.

[Myrmidon]

17 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Defiance:  I feel like this is overpowered, but I run so few blasters I don’t have enough data.

Blasters are fine.

 

You may go about your business.

 

Move along.

[Parabola]

Just to echo previous comments. Opportunity needs a rework, containment needs to at least work on more mez types, domination could do with being less all or nothing, and scourge really needs to be a lot more impactful in a wider range of scenarios.

[Ralathar44]

I'll only speak to those I'm fairly experienced with and feel are outstandingly good or pain points to potentially address.


Assassin’s Focus:  Seems a bit too good.  Reduce the bonus damage IMO.  I'm totally ok with giving Stalkers some chances to use assassination mid combat, but it's too easy to do and too effective IMO.

Containment:  IMO this works how it should.  Allows more solo play, rewards additional control on teams instead of punishing it, etc.  when I'm on my controller I love people who help me get containment and when I'm on other classes I try to help lock things down for the controllers to benefit from the extra damage.  It's more than just a solo inherent, it actively fosters good will and cooperation.  It's an excellent inherent.

Critical Hit:  On it's face critical hit is not terribly strong but it still enforces the scrapper status as LT/Boss hunters.  Scrappers are quite strong so I don't know what more you could give them. 

Defiance:  Prolly overpowered in the current state of the game.  There has been significant power creep since this was implemented.

Domination:  Broken as heck lol.  IMO it's way too large of a dominator's power share. 

Fury:  You smash more and you smash more betterer, it really emphasizes the AT's role and I think it's fantastic.

Gauntlet:  It's a large part of what makes Tankers tank.  You can just smash things and do your job of taking aggro.  Tanks get to smash, team gets to have an effective tank, everyone is happy.  Tanks are pretty strong so this power seems core and fitting and well done.

Opportunity:  I personally like it.  I like the way that's implemented as well.  IMO I think the baseline -res for Sents is good and I think the offensive/defensive opportunity is a good idea letting you choose in the moment according to the situation.  IMO it's all down to poor feel for people here.  I think the -25 res on a single target should prolly be removed however, put that power budget into making the remaining effects of the offensive/defensive opportunity a bit stronger by making the first few procs of each double the normal strength.  Make the inherent slottable and make it slowly unlock slots as you level automatically.  With better help text, slotting, and reduced effects it'll be more clear what the power does.  With the ability to slot it that'll open up more....opportunities for how to make a build and sets to use.

Scourge:  I agree with the other poster.  It's underpowered and I’d like there to be a (decreasing) chance for scourge damage over 50%.

Vigilance:  Working as intended, but not particularly sexy.  Defenders are super powerful so they really can't have a major passive.  I think it's ok to have some passives be more/less impactful than others.

[mechahamham]

On 7/27/2020 at 5:55 PM, drbuzzard said:

Defiance in its current state is one of the best inherents out there and does not at all need to be changed. Blasters already do very high damage, they sure as hell don't need criticals added in. I say this as someone who actually does play blasters.

Defiance is pretty damn good right now. The only thing I'd even POSSIBLY consider would be adding the t3 blast to the list of powers that can be executed while status'd. Even then I'm not 100% of that.

[kiramon]

Hmmm...

 

Scourge is neato, but I can't help but feel that Cors really get the short end of the stick. Probably should start at 75% health and go from there -- maybe scaling like:

75% enemy health = 25% chance to scourge; 25% enemy health = 100%. Might just be me, but I swear scourge used to be a lot more reliable... 😛  I also think that Cors really could use some help with Endurance - maybe some +end when you scourge..  I think Scourge is kinda like Fury in that it helps guide the way you play by choosing targets, power orders, etc. So that's fine with me.

 

Domination I feel should be unaffected by Global Recharge so it can be better balanced across IOs -- it's just such a huge power swing to Perma it. Remove the bar building up, reduce it's cooldown but not perma...

 

Supremacy is fine - body guard is great - but I think these were implemented in a very clunky way that could be refined with some buttons added -- so that you get a BODYGUARD toggle to activate it and keeps the pets in defensive etc and a Supremacy toggle that just puts a low-graphic circle circle perimeter around you equal to your supremacy range to help new players see what's in its radius...

 

Sentinels are clunky and tying to the T1 blasts is just weird. Probably should just have 2 buttons to activate either -- larger discussion is on the Sentinel forum.

 

 

[Banni]

The only thing that comes to my mind is Gauntlet. Make it affect more targets with single attacks. 

[tidge]

In the broad category of (perhaps) unintended consequences:

 

Health (Fitness): The inherent boost (without slotting) to Regeneration is nice, but as far as I can tell it does help many character builds hit the point of diminishing returns quickly. Could this use a revisit? YMMV. I'm less concerned with Recovery from Unslotted Stamina, because many of us remember how bad Endurance burn was back-in-the-day.

 

Some specific thoughts, with no real proposals:

 

Conditioning (Soldiers of Arachnos): Seems underwhelming. I never really noticed it helping at low levels. At high levels I run a lot of toggles, which I suppose isn't different than many other characters... except that I feel like my VEATs have slightly more Endurance issues than other ATs, so I suppose those issues might be even worse without Conditioning? See my above comments on the Regeneration bonus from Health.

 

Domination (Dominators): I'm in the camp that that this works great, as long as you build to Perma-Dom. I don't want to rehash any of those threads (or invite rehashing), but having read those many many threads, I never saw any of the several detailed proposals that I thought were an improvement over what we have now. No need to change.

 

Kheldians (Particularly Peacebringers): Very underwhelming, especially since Cysts have been eliminated/restricted in Homecoming.

 

Fury (Brutes): I have nothing to say about the performance, except that I 100% oppose porting a Fury-like mechanic to anything else (especially Domination).

 

Scourge (Corruptors): With so many alpha-strikes in the game, it feels (to me) like this is in the category of 'may not be doing much' but I can't say for myself.

 

Defiance (Blasters): I'd put this in the category of 'working absolutely fine'. This is a pretty good design as it provides a counterweight to a typical blaster weakness, and it stays useful in all content levels without ever becoming too weak or too powerful.

 

Assassination/Critical Strikes: Too good to ever take away from us!

 

Ninja/Beast Run: I understand why these will detoggle other powers, but I'm not crazy about this effect.

 

[Nyghtmaire]

Re Supremacy, one proposal from another thread addresses the slot tax masterminds experience, specifically:

• Add the aura buffs from ATOs to Supremacy, rising in effectiveness from level 15-50 until it is at the same strength as they are now (credit to Everfreefire, et al. for this one)

 

The TLDR summation, addition of scaling (by level) AOE defense and resistance to Supremacy specifically targets survivability challenges inherent to all pets, as well as the AOE “problem” from bodyguard mode (when in BG mode, pets caught in the effect take damage individually and as an unresistable share from the player). This also permits a bit more flexible slotting for pets rather than going down a shopping list of IOs.

 

As always, thanks to @Monos King and@Galaxy Brain for all the work on the linked thread(s), and @Everfreefire(and the rest) for the specific idea. Highly recommend review for the mastermind-specific balancing discussion.

 

 

 

[Patti]

Vigilance is the only one I think is really needs to change.   And Controllers should get a choose between the damage or even better control or cooldown please.

[Galaxy Brain]

Containment:

Fantastic effect, feels incomplete tho. It would be very nice if *all* mez effects could trigger containment damage for parity's sake. 

Perhaps have a small bonus damage for allies that attack foes controlled by Controllers too? This would affect your Controller Pets + Confused Targets as well, and I think be a benefit for the current meta where strict control loses a bit of value. 

 

Domination:

The Jekyll/Hyde style doesn't really exist if you can always be Hyde.  They should not get the bonus damage vs control like I proposed for Controllers, given they have stronger control options. I would like there to be some way to make the process of getting to PermaDom smoother though so there isn't like an arbitrary "gap".

 

Scourge:

Another great *idea*, but in practice it's questionable. As noted, its really only good vs Big targets which is neat, but lackluster in normal gameplay. Just tossing ideas at the wall but what if Scourge also scaled on both your HP (maybe the more you have the higher base chance so when you are playing very well you're rewarded) or maybe your Team Size where you get X% base scourge chance per Team mate in a ~40ft radius?

 

Supremacy:

As noted in @Monos King and I's threads, I feel there is room to reallllllly play with this. It's a fine inherent if a bit boring. Looping effects such as the upgrades or defensive stats would be gucci.

 

 

[RageusQuitus2]

I had no idea VEATS had an inherent.  And I mained a veat crab on homecomming return.  That might say something.

 

Swift and hurdle are far outclassed.  Swift doesnt give much return on investment in slotting/the initial boost seems low.  And hurdle is guilty of the same and has no jump increase.  A little boost here would hardly be game breaking.  Theres an overall cap on movement speeds anyways who cares how you get close to it.

[kiramon]

22 minutes ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

I had no idea VEATS had an inherent.  And I mained a veat crab on homecomming return.  That might say something.

 

Swift and hurdle are far outclassed.  Swift doesnt give much return on investment in slotting/the initial boost seems low.  And hurdle is guilty of the same and has no jump increase.  A little boost here would hardly be game breaking.  Theres an overall cap on movement speeds anyways who cares how you get close to it.

 

Yeah, not a fan of inherents that don't affect how you play -- the VEATs/hero ones are a bit different since they dont compete with anything, but theyre very lazy. 

[Patti]

If domination is supposed to be Jekyll and hyde, doesn't that mean it should improve your brains while off?   What if the solution to domination was to make non-dominantion time good in a different way so players had to decide.   Like better accuracy and defense which you lose when in domination mode?