Weekly Discussion 64: T9's Part I

[tidge]

Echoing much of what has been said:

 

Invuln's T9 (Unstoppable) : I took it once to use as a mule, but after analyzing bonuses I respec-ed away from it. It is from another, very different game era. Even in the earliest days of the game it was skipped in order to get Stamina.

 

Willpower's T9 (Strength of Will): I don't take this. The Resist Bonuses are nice, but not at all worth the crash. Recovery and status should be taken care of by the time you can take a T9.

 

Bio's T9 (Parasitic Aura): I take this, but I don't have extra slots for it so it just gets Recharge. Aside from the initial END cost, it really has no downsides. The +Absorb barrier is very welcome. The boosts to Recovery/Regeneration are fine, but in my builds I'm often at the point where extra Regeneration is rarely doing that much, and my builds will shoot for a constant net Recovery so I don't fret about click powers.

 

As was written above: If an Inspiration (blue, green, purple, orange) is as good or better than a T9 power, then why bother with the T9?

 

[JnEricsonx]

Between IO bonuses and insps, I honestly don't take T9s.   I did take them on my Khelds, thinking that perma-Light Form meant no crash-I was wrong, and Eclipse for WS doesn't have a Crash, it just needs bodies around you.

[Eldyem]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

I'd disagree, to a point. Especially now, as you mentioned - recharge complicates things. That said, they could cut the recharge in half and I don't think they'd be reducing the "cost" - again, to me. There's obviously a limit to how much a power's recharge should be cut (even if it can be flagged to ignore buffs to recharge) before that's not true.

 

Generally, I end up seeing thinking that armor T9s "need" to be usable frequently as being... not the point. They should be there for the "heroic moment," not part of the bread-and-butter, use it 50 times a day power choices. (But, given how IOs have changed things, there are fewer times for the ... even moderate IO user for those to come up. I mean, replace the cavalry in the charge of the light brigade with a division of modern tanks... it's much less risk!)

 

See, I like having these decisions in game - having to make these choices in what's otherwise a fairly just-bulldoze-through game. Like I said, I don't perma-dom, i choose when to use it and deal with enemy mezzes other ways. There are few other items like that. Absorb Pain leaves *me* vulnerable for a short time, so I have to take a second to decide if it's a good time to use it - will I die right afterward? Is *that* worth it? (so it's rarely used on, say, mothership raids.) The old ET, where you could do a lot of damage but would damage and could kill yourself. (The flip side being a Defender nuke just... wasn't worth it, often, unless you had a team to follow up. The damage (payoff) wasn't worth the risk (-recovery, etc.) )

 

Eh, I don't have the answers, just a perspective.

My perspective is that I'm a (high level) hero and there should be a "heroic moment" every 10 minutes. That's why I'm playing a superhero MMO. Let me live up to that. Everyone else gets to do their big hero thing way more often than I'd be clicking a T9 even at the Recharge cap.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Eldyem

[Jaguaratron]

Unstoppable and power surge are too punitive to bother taking, if they covered the hole of Psionic then it would have a roll but it doesnt and it doesnt do anything of benefit fundamentally

 

Rise of the Phoenix is pretty worthless, spend a power or carry a wakie.... Soul transfer at least stuns everything.

 

 

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, Eldyem said:

My perspective is that I'm a (high level) hero and there should be a "heroic moment" every 10 minutes. That's why I'm playing a superhero MMO. Let me live up to that. Everyone else gets to do their big hero thing way more often than I'd be clicking a T9 even at the Recharge cap.

Eh. *Should* there be? Would you have sat through a bunch of Marvel movies if it were hero moment - talk  - hero moment - talk - hero moment - small fight - Hero moment? I mean, even Michael Bay doesn't cram that many explosions in. 🙂

[drbuzzard]

4 hours ago, Jaguaratron said:

Rise of the Phoenix is pretty worthless, spend a power or carry a wakie.... Soul transfer at least stuns everything.

There is little doubt that I'm weird, but RotP does pretty damned good damage. I slot it for recharge, damage, and knockback to knockdown, and it becomes a pretty nice attack.

[0th Power]

Please increase MoG duration 

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Jaguaratron said:

Soul transfer at least stuns everything.

So does Rise of the Phoenix.

 

I think powers (specifically t9s) should have the power to increase defensive caps. For example, Unstoppable could increase the Brute and Tanker resistance cap to 95%, 82.5% for Stalkers and Scrappers. This would mean the powers could still serve a purpose without having to radically redesign them.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Vanden

[Eldyem]

3 hours ago, Greycat said:

Eh. *Should* there be? Would you have sat through a bunch of Marvel movies if it were hero moment - talk  - hero moment - talk - hero moment - small fight - Hero moment? I mean, even Michael Bay doesn't cram that many explosions in. 🙂

With the Blast T9 changes, that's... kind of what the game is now? There's an explosion every 145/Recharge seconds, probably every minute on most builds, per Blaster/Corruptor/Defender. I really do not think it would be unreasonable to become an unkillable god once every 10 minutes or so; all it would really do in the current meta environment is ease up some pre-IO'd gameplay, since IOs already make most of the long recharge T9s (Unstoppable, Elude [which is redundant baseline], Power Surge) completely superfluous to even very casually IO'd out builds.

[Zep]

From my personal experience the only t9 that needs work is Photon Seekers. 

 

They are usable and have their uses but mostly as a mini nuke or a cast it and run into combat nuke.

[Bopper]

For Armor sets, all the hard crash T9s are fully skipped. Those that have no crash or a soft crash, I take. If we can do a sweep on Blaster T9 nukes not having hard crashes, i think we can do the same with T9 armors.

[Omega-202]

3 hours ago, Greycat said:

Eh. *Should* there be? Would you have sat through a bunch of Marvel movies if it were hero moment - talk  - hero moment - talk - hero moment - small fight - Hero moment? I mean, even Michael Bay doesn't cram that many explosions in. 🙂

The hell you talking about?  Most Marvel movies have at least that many hero moments.  There's like five major action set pieces each movie over the course of 2 hours.  Civil War: Lagos > Bucky chase> Bucky escape> Airport> Finale.  There's a hero moment every 20 minutes in a FILM that we're passively observing.  Why shouldn't there be a hero moment ever 5-10 minutes in a game that we are actively participating in?

[Jaguaratron]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

So does Rise of the Phoenix.

 

I think powers (specifically t9s) should have the power to increase defensive caps. For example, Unstoppable could increase the Brute and Tanker resistance cap to 95%, 82.5% for Stalkers and Scrappers. This would mean the powers could still serve a purpose without having to radically redesign them.

Rise of the Phoenix = Mag 4 stun, Soul Transfer = Mag 30 stun

 

As I said, one stuns everything.

[Vanden]

15 minutes ago, Jaguaratron said:

Rise of the Phoenix = Mag 4 stun, Soul Transfer = Mag 30 stun

 

As I said, one stuns everything.

[Machariel]

Broadly speaking, I like the idea of Tier9 Armor Powers having drawbacks, including the possibility of endurance crashes.  I like that they force the player to make choices about when and how to use the power, as opposed to being something that you can account for in mids as part of the given 'stat block' of your character.  Or, in other words, they're situational powers like Dimension Shift and Black Hole, and about as popular.  And that's cool, I like having situational powers in the game that might be more or less useful based on what I'm doing.  When I have powers like Rise of the Phoenix, I know I have the option to play more aggressively in a way that I wouldn't be able to do if I relied purely on Awakens.  Or if I'm speedrunning missions and spending most of my time outside of combat, the crash from something like Power Surge might not matter to me. etc.  Like all situational powers it's a question of 'how many use cases are there' and 'are those use cases frequent enough for the cost', because all powers have a cost / drawback, even if it's just the minimum opportunity cost of what those slots/powers could have been.

 

I also kind of like the variety in the tier9s and find them fun and flavorful.  I like having that variety in the game and I think it's part of what makes Electric "feel" electric.  "Meltdown" from Rad Armor is a good example of what I mean - it provides a small but steady res/rec/damage bonus, at the end of which there's a small endurance crash.  Normally a small end crash is no big deal, but if you've mismanaged your end during the fight then it turns off all your radiation shields (aka toggles) in a critical failure, which IMO is super flavorful. 

 

I think I'd like to see the self-revive powers get some modest utility that you can use while you're alive, which would put the power on cooldown.  I guess we could remove "hard crashes" if by that we mean powers that just set your endurance to 0 as opposed to cause you to lose a fixed (and thereby manageable) amount.

[Croax]

I skip every t9 with a hard crash. The only exception is when i need it to mule some sets. I do not understand why SR or Ninjitsu need tons of Defense on top of Defense. Look at Bio or Ice these are meaningfull and good t9 Powers. Even WP has a better t9 than Elec or Invul. Funny that i consider Shadow Meld beeing a better t9 for resist sets than most of their own t9s. It just adds another layer of mitigation. I think of the t9 powers as defensive cooldowns. But in a fast paced game with everyone on Defense Cap, the classic defensive cooldown is not needed and thus skiped. To make t9 meaningfull again they could work like Buffs or debuffs fitting the theme. Or address something that bugs a lot of people, you could make short bursts of psi or toxic defense or resist. Some unique ways of encouraging the power pick. 

[Zepp]

Armor: 18% base uptime for most of these (Icy Bastion is 10% & Moment of Glory is 6%) is on the low end. The irony is that the two lowest uptimes (IB & MoG) get the highest praise. This is because of two aspects. They fill gaps - most armor T9s reinforce strengths and offer basically no bonus for 3m/20m. Also, the shorter cooldown means that their effects are more spread out and more likely to be available when you need them. Moving Armor T9s to 45s duration with 240s cooldown would be a great move and only move their base uptime from 18% to 18.75%. In addition, adjusting the effects of the T9s to cover holes would make the T9s appealing.

 

Assault: These tend to be fairly good, but the lack of AoE in many of the sets makes them less appealing.

Control: The Pet power! This is generally a good pick, but can be skipped without it being a "mistake" in the build. The durability of pets could be improved (removing the level penalty on T9 pets?), but overall, they are okay. The big outlier here is Mass Confusion. This is a great power, but because confused "pets" don't count toward player damage, this can be an XP sink. Also, as confusion does not count towards containment, confuse moves from a tie for the best control (with Hold) to one of the worst control powers - depending on your group's goals and attitudes. Confusion needs some love (and also fear, which should count towards containment).

Manipulation: The ST melee attacks are often a poor fit for blasters. However, the exceptions are quite interesting and enjoyable. If melee attacks can be shifted out, it would be better to give them more interesting AoE damage+control powers here.

Melee: These are a range of high value attacks, a mix of ST and AoE, and they tend to be valuable but not OP.

 

Pet: The final pet upgrade! As with control, it would be nice if this granted pets a level shift to bring them up to the same level as the Mm.

Ranged:  The removal of crashes was a blessing. That being said, they still tend to have longer animation times and cooldowns. Some adjustments could be made, but there isn't a need to move on these soon.

Support: This is a complete mixed bag. From pets (look at control) to game-changer buffs on long cooldowns. Some of these need to have shorter cooldowns (Chrono Shift), while others need to get a full make-over (EMP arrow). It is hard to generalize these because support sets are the most varied sets in the game. That being said, they all need help with recharge, especially the T9s.

Kheldians: [top tier powers] Some great choices that can be either crucial or skippable depending on your choice of playstyle.

 

Arachnos: [top tier powers] Omega maneuver is terrible, needs a complete revamp. Aura of Confusion could be good, but confusion needs a revamp. Elude is like Armor T9s, needs a huge revamp. Other than that, they look good.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

20 hours ago, Greycat said:

Eh. *Should* there be? Would you have sat through a bunch of Marvel movies if it were hero moment - talk  - hero moment - talk - hero moment - small fight - Hero moment? I mean, even Michael Bay doesn't cram that many explosions in. 🙂

The problem is that they don't give you hero moments on the sets they are part of.

 

Looking at Elude again, given the way the game works it does not actually improve your performance in any meaningful way or even change what you do as SR. The T9 armors that stack the same stat on top of the armor again are really, really pointless as they give such a small boost for the downsides of them. Another example is elec armor where you very well may have near capped resists to several damage types, where popping overload wouldn't actually buff you.

 

On a squishy character where thats all they had, or say if a resist set got elude, thatd be a totally different story as it has much much MUCH higher value.

 

The best ones IMO are the t9s that offer something radically different. Meltdown being a boost to offenses for a time, Icy Bastion patching holes that ice normally doesn't cover, fire and dark having tide-turning rez nukes, MoG giving you the Mario Star power up, etc. Thinking outside the box with T9s I feel would be much more fun as you then have a meaningful choice of how to incorporate them instead of them being near auto skips or mules.

 

Like, imagine if Unstoppable was changed to be more of an offensive/cc tool. You pop it, get some minor res/def, but also have a 3ft PBAoE around you for the duration that causes knockdown to foes as you barrel through/adds KD and some smashing damage to your attacks. Overload on elec armor grants you some res, but also a ton of recovery and a supercharged damage aura where everything around you is constantly shocked. Elude grants maybe some elusivity in PvE to counter accuracy on top of your defense, and a larger movement and recharge bonus. Etc, etc.

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Murcielago]

One with the Shield doesn't crash hard enough. Everytime it crashes it should literally kill the character AND the player. 

[kiramon]

Parasitic Aura, Icy Bastion, Meltdown, MoG (just cuz of Regen...) are the only ones worth a dang.

 

The rest are either mules or skipped. 

 

Meltdown gets a special nod, because it's really good - it's just in a set that has a lot of really good powers, resulting in you actually noticing that sometimes having a skippable t9 makes life easier.... lol

[Replacement]

44 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Elude grants maybe some elusivity in PvP to counter accuracy on top of your defense, and a larger movement and recharge bonus. Etc, etc.

I was thinking a pop-up power that is like a 4s recharging version of Spring Attack. Pop Elude and suddenly you're just everywhere.

 

I think realistically, these need approached 1 at a time, regardless of the path to improvement. And I definitely think that starts with Unstoppable.

On that note, if you didn't want to go for the Control version, causing havok - a simple route for Unstoppable would just be a large constantly regenerating Absorb shield paired with a large damage bonus.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Replacement

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, Murcielago said:

One with the Shield doesn't crash hard enough. Everytime it crashes it should literally kill the character AND the player. 

Maybe have the computer explode in a 10' radius burst of shrapnel?

[Sura]

I don't take anything with a crash unless I want to mule it.  Hibernate I rarely take, unless it's as a throw away last power.  Hibernate for Tankers makes no sense to me.  

[Yoru-hime]

There are lots of problems with the traditional protective T9s. Most of them come down to the problem that the game is simply built wrong for them.

 

Up-and-down defensive powers aren't as beneficial as they look on paper because the game rarely varies the level of damage incoming in such a way as to make them work. If you NEED them, you're likely to still going to need them XX seconds from now, so you're dead anyway. If you don't need them, using them just adds to your risk of death with the crash. With a few exceptions, enemies don't really have enrage cycles or tankbusters and those can generally be managed without something that actively tries to kill you.

 

Even when they do seem useful, the design of the defensive formulas means that the massive buffs many of the T9s claim to offer are rarely realized because they're usually just boosting over softcaps. If you're already at 42% defense, a +5% defense boost and a +50% defense boost are usually indistinguishable in terms of effectiveness and the former is probably pretty easy to get on a permanent basis if you've got a power pick to spend.

 

When it comes to actually changing T9s you hit the problem that the defensive sets are by and large already so good that a T9 worth taking just makes them absurd. While there's a natural impulse to want to make a capstone power awesome, they simply don't exist in a vacuum. Do the defensive sets REALLY need to be any stronger? Are we OK with other powers being nerfed to get a great T9? Personally, I'd say the answer to both of these is "no". Most every melee AT can already be built to be just about indestructible. What more do we really need from a defensive powerset?

[Saikochoro]

9 hours ago, Croax said:

Funny that i consider Shadow Meld beeing a better t9 for resist sets than most of their own t9s. It just adds another layer of mitigation.

Snipped for brevity. 
 

I think the same way about rune of protection for defense sets. It offers a decent boost to survivability with 50% uptime. It is better than most t9 armors without the drawbacks. 

Edited August 20, 2020 by Saikochoro