Help for Healing Sets: Turn Direct Damage into DoTs with a Damage Queueing Ability

[oedipus_tex]

This suggestion is to improve "reactive healing" sets like Empathy and Pain by giving them the ability to turn direct damage into a DoT.

 

Concept

The basic concept is simple, even if the implementation probably isn't:

• A power in these sets would cause damage to a teammate to flow into a "queue" instead of damaging the teammate's green bar outright.
• Every second, a portion of the queued damage would be applied to the Green bar. 
• Any healing the teammate receives would first heal their Green bar, followed by whatever damage was in the queue waiting to be dished out.

 

Note this isn't a suggestion that all damage in the game be queued. Only players hit with the queueing flag because they've been buffed by an Empathy/Pain/other character.

 

Balance

Teammates would still receive the same total amount of damage, this change would just change how fast it applied and give more reaction time. I don't think a significant shift in balance would occur beyond these sets being better able to react.

 

Implementation

I think (but am not sure) that this would require an engine change.

 

Basic implementation would be creating a player property that tracks Queued Damage. Any damage received goes into this queue. Every second, apply 25% of the damage in the queue to the green bar. 

 

 

Future Expansion/Other Uses

Bringing a similar idea into other powersets, like Armors, might be interesting. The Regeneration set in particular seems like a set that would be improved by a feature like this.

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Razor Cure]

Sounds..a bit complex and not needed? I mean..why? EMp and Pain work fine as is (even if some tweaks would be nice), without needing a whole new mechanic.

Can you lay out a more specific example of how it would work?

 

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

give more reaction time

Let's not use this reason. There are already SO damn many lazy emps around. Giving them more time to do whatever the hell they actually do (not much) seems like a bad reason.

[CrudeVileTerror]

I'm afraid I don't follow, @oedipus_tex.

If I'm reading this correctly . . . isn't what you are describing basically just the Absorb mechanic?

[Monos King]

I like this idea (though I'm positive it'll never happen). It's pretty much that instead of taking 3000 damage at once (almost always a one shot), you'd take a DoT of 300 dps over 10 seconds or another interval. 

 

It'd definitely be pretty powerful an ability; different from absorb in that the damage isn't outright countered just delayed.

[Razor Cure]

11 minutes ago, Monos King said:

instead of taking 3000 damage at once (almost always a one shot)

Still wont kill you, no matter how high teh damage is. The one shot code..prevents being one shot. Pretty much all in the name!

And making said 3000 damage attack a DoT..lets say RIGHT as you get hit with that attack you are in the ConcStrike animation (3 seconds ish)..so by the time it ends, you have taken 3x300 damage. Thats 900..which seems pretty low to a melee toon (with say 1600hp,compared to taking 3000 in one go). Most melee armour heals are around 300-700ish..so ONE heal gets rid of most of that damage right away.

Of course..then you have 7 more tics of 300 damage coming. And NO way to stop it (because its coming, no matter what your def or resists are). I assume you cant, for example, pop MoG and make each of those ticks about 30 damage, because there is only of MoG around, and it would be pretty hard on other powersets.

 

For non melees, it gets even WORSE. Instead of that one big hit, taking you to 1 hp (but still not actually killing you), you take a big tic every second. Healing aura is 300ish, 'big' heals are 400-600ish. Then what? The heal recharges is say 3 secs, average, during which time you are already down 900 damage.

 

That just sounds..really really bad. You'd have to carry a tray of greens in case of one hit.

 

From fighting clones and some of the guys in Marchands arc, fire melee and its Dots kill me far more than other things, because you see that first tic and think..oh, 300 damage, I'll be sweet. Then you hit an attack, and are dead by the time it goes of..due to the other tics landing. Against an AV, than would be even worse (or stupid easy to get around, if there was a half awake ranged healer on the team).

 

 

[Monos King]

2 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Still wont kill you, no matter how high teh damage is. The one shot code..prevents being one shot. Pretty much all in the name!

That's true though, I did forget about that. This mechanic would end up allowing one shots to genuinely one shot which would be a great deal of suck. 

 

I think perhaps in another game it could be made to work with the right design and armor. Maybe won't work here though.

[Doomguide2005]

Interesting thought, but as a player of many an Empath not sure it would really cut down on my actual reaction time as much as it might allow me to avoid getting fatally stuck in a blast animation or time to move around an obstacle to get to a position to use my healing on my allie(s) ... HA, HO, HA etc. or reversed HO, HA, HO etc..  I could typically spam those heals very quickly when needed (minimum total recharge 250%+ without external buffs or Incarnates).

 

How would the proposed mechanic handle actual DoT attacks?

[CaptainLupis]

I could see it annoying people when they start taking dot damage which causes multiple interrupts on other powers/interactions instead of one single interrupt.

[oedipus_tex]

Thanks for the replies. Brief responses below.

 

10 hours ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

I'm afraid I don't follow, @oedipus_tex.

If I'm reading this correctly . . . isn't what you are describing basically just the Absorb mechanic?

 

That's a fair question. Absorb is different because it is an increase in the total size of the HP pool, so that a player who normally has 1000 HP now has 1300 HP. With queuing, there is no change in the size of the HP pool.

 

Absorb shields also can't be repaired by Healing spells, while the damage queue can.

 

Really all damage queueing is is a delay in killing a player. They still take the exact same amount of damage.

 

8 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

How would the proposed mechanic handle actual DoT attacks?

 

A "real" DoT is just damage taken. Any damage taken from a DoT would apply to the damage queue just as if you got hit by a quick string of attacks.

 

 

9 hours ago, Monos King said:

That's true though, I did forget about that. This mechanic would end up allowing one shots to genuinely one shot which would be a great deal of suck. 

 

I think perhaps in another game it could be made to work with the right design and armor. Maybe won't work here though.

 

Again a fair question.

 

This would be handled the same way it currently is. You couldn't put more damage in the queue than the player's total HP -1. The only difference between taking a hit with these mechanics is that damage is applied first to the queue before the Green bar.

 

 

5 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

I could see it annoying people when they start taking dot damage which causes multiple interrupts on other powers/interactions instead of one single interrupt.

 

There is no reason damage transferred from the queue to the Green bar should interrupt powers, although that's a good question to ask because it's an important design parameter.

 

The attack already happened. It was just temporarily queued. It should not interrupt powers, 

Edited November 9, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[CaptainLupis]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

There is no reason damage transferred from the queue to the Green bar should interrupt powers, although that's a good question to ask because it's an important design parameter.

 

The attack already happened. It was just temporarily queued. It should not interrupt powers, 

The way the game is coded now ticks of damage from DoTs cause interrupts per tick, even though the attack has already happened. I would presume this would do the same, but not knowing how it could be implemented otherwise that's an assumption on my part.

[Doomguide2005]

"A power in these sets"

 

Are you thinking a new power replacing one in the set or a rework/additional function of an existing power or still brainstorming this?

[CaptainLupis]

28 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

"A power in these sets"

 

Are you thinking a new power replacing one in the set or a rework/additional function of an existing power or still brainstorming this?

I think the easiest way to implement something like this, and still give the player control, would be a toggle, like for swap ammo where you can alternate the mode.

 

I had actually thought about something similar before with toggling between normal heals and proactive absorb shields, but while I think it's a reasonable enough idea, I just don't think that would be practical to implement. Especially with how it would work along with other absorb powers, then there's things like durations, heal vs absorb values, stacking or not, it all started to look a bit messy so I shelved the notion. This just made me think about it again.

[Weylin]

This reminds me a lot of the Brewmaster on WoW. Instead of taking instant damage, it's converted into a DoT, with a meter for how much is in queue, and that meter can be reduced with other abilities.

 

It's not really an absorb, more of a damage smoothing. You're going to take the same damage in the end, but something that would kill you instantly can be mitigated by healing during the time your health is plummeting

[CrudeVileTerror]

Ah, I see now.

 

I think that something like this should be reserved as the signature special Inherent for an Archetype.  Maybe this is the missing ingredient in to making the Sentinel something special?

 

[oedipus_tex]

18 hours ago, Weylin said:

This reminds me a lot of the Brewmaster on WoW. Instead of taking instant damage, it's converted into a DoT, with a meter for how much is in queue, and that meter can be reduced with other abilities.

 

It's not really an absorb, more of a damage smoothing. You're going to take the same damage in the end, but something that would kill you instantly can be mitigated by healing during the time your health is plummeting

 

 

I haven't heard of the Brewmaster, but that's exactly the idea.