Could we get a click-heavy defense or resist armor set?

[aethereal]

I know that I'm in a minority here, but I like armor sets that give me things to do.  Managing my clickies in Bio armor gives some added interest in play.

 

Clicks in armor sets in CoH seem to be heavily heals/absorbs (and endurance tools).  There are only a few cases I can think of where you get click defense or click resist, usually as a secondary effect of a heal or endurance heal.  Doesn't seem any inherent reason why that would have to be the case, and it means that if you have my preference for a click-heavy set, you get pushed towards healing/absorb based sets like bio, rad, or regeneration.  Which is fine, but sometimes I want to make a character who doesn't theme well with healing.

 

I think it'd be cool to get a new armor set or two which are based on clicks rather than toggles but get resist/defense primarily through their clicks instead of healing.  You could theme a "tactical defense" set kind of like a Batman deal where an intellectual fighter uses the positioning of their opponents to defend themselves with a +defense-per-target power, for example.

[ZacKing]

No thanks.

[Doomguide2005]

I suspect you are in a very small minority with this idea ... one look at the numerous posts about click vs toggle mez protection or looking for workarounds for only being able to place a single power on auto to get an idea on the general popularity of clicking anything to keep it up 24-7.  

[Lines]

I mean, It's maybe a cool idea by itself. I know many other MMOs work on a sort of similar principle.

 

I dunno if it translates well into CoH though. The attacks on the player are pretty constant and relentless. There's no sort of 'good timing' to figure out, because all the time is good timing.

 

Then there's balancing it. Would the set provide extra resistance/defence for long cooldowns? How would it perform during the downtimes?

If the cooldowns can be made perma, why should it outperform a toggle?

 

One thing that might work is a resistance based set providing defence on a click, or visa versa. It feels like it would be something for scrappers, sentinels and stalkers who might not need reliable defences but could occasionally do with burst tankiness. But we sort of already have that in many t9s. Sort of. 

 

If an armour set could redirect attacks back to enemies - that would be a cool click power! 

[aethereal]

You guys are acting like bio armor and rad armor aren't good, popular armor sets, or that shadow meld isn't a commonly used epic or whatever.  Which is weird.

 

Clearly there is a constituency for Willpower, SR, or Invul-like "absolutely minimal clicks" in CoH.  But there are plenty of players who are fine with juggling a few clicks and using them at appropriate times.  Most sets have a click heal.

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

You guys are acting like bio armor and rad armor aren't good, popular armor sets, or that shadow meld isn't a commonly used epic or whatever.  Which is weird.

 

Clearly there is a constituency for Willpower, SR, or Invul-like "absolutely minimal clicks" in CoH.  But there are plenty of players who are fine with juggling a few clicks and using them at appropriate times.  Most sets have a click heal.

To be clear I don't think it's a bad idea merely not likely a popular one.  Variety of sets for varied playstyles, choices is always going to have my support.  But Heals and Endurance recovery/+end are reactive things generally.  Armor (defense, resistance, (absorb fits here too)) has to be in place already when you get hit.  If it's a click it's preemptive or an emergency power.  Which leads to either people waiting for it to recharge (not a good idea unless solo), building to largely ignore its benefit or cycling various clicks to try and achieve the desired result (cycling, MoG and Shadow Meld,  for example).  I will admit owing to the computer dying on me I haven't tried Bio and my Rad was still not to 20 when it up and died on me so personal experience is basically non-existent.  I do have multiple Regen characters, though only one in the 30's on HC (a remake of a 50 on Live).  And I ran numerous missions paired with a Stone tanker which while they're toggles the various armors pre-Granite could involve a far bit of toggling on and off, sort of pseudo clicking of powers, if you wound up fighting multiple foe types in a single mission.

 

The challenge as I see it is providing a base level of mitigation with those clicks to be viable without the clicks being either overly redundant or too often on cooldown when needed.

[aethereal]

20 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

To be clear I don't think it's a bad idea merely not likely a popular one.  Variety of sets for varied playstyles, choices is always going to have my support.  But Heals and Endurance recovery/+end are reactive things generally.  Armor (defense, resistance, (absorb fits here too)) has to be in place already when you get hit.  If it's a click it's preemptive or an emergency power.  Which leads to either people waiting for it to recharge (not a good idea unless solo), building to largely ignore its benefit or cycling various clicks to try and achieve the desired result (cycling, MoG and Shadow Meld,  for example).  I will admit owing to the computer dying on me I haven't tried Bio and my Rad was still not to 20 when it up and died on me so personal experience is basically non-existent.  I do have multiple Regen characters, though only one in the 30's on HC (a remake of a 50 on Live).  And I ran numerous missions paired with a Stone tanker which while they're toggles the various armors pre-Granite could involve a far bit of toggling on and off, sort of pseudo clicking of powers, if you wound up fighting multiple foe types in a single mission.

 

The challenge as I see it is providing a base level of mitigation with those clicks to be viable without the clicks being either overly redundant or too often on cooldown when needed.

Yeah, the way it works for my bio armor characters is, I mean, it's not a super reactive save-your-ass thing, each one has a fairly long cooldown and somewhat different conditions needed to activate it for best use.  Ablative Carapace is agnostic to conditions around you, DNA Siphon wants a few alive and a lot of dead enemies around you, Parasitic Aura wants lots of live enemies around you, and is on a longer cooldown.

 

It's not rocket science to get coverage from them, but it's not just completely blind "click when they're off cooldown," either.

 

That's the kind of thing I'm asking for.  Just injects a bit of variance into your attack rotation.

[Greycat]

Variety in how armors play? Sure, why not? Give people more choices in creating characters.

[Doomguide2005]

Oh I get that but thought you were more interested in getting the emphasis on the Defense, Resistance, Absorb side of things not +regen, +end, +recovery and +health.  Most of the Armor (vs recovery tools) are either toggles or autos near as I can, not clicks.

 

Or I'm I still not getting it?

[aethereal]

16 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Oh I get that but thought you were more interested in getting the emphasis on the Defense, Resistance, Absorb side of things not +regen, +end, +recovery and +health.  Most of the Armor (vs recovery tools) are either toggles or autos near as I can, not clicks.

 

Or I'm I still not getting it?

I'm saying, imagine an armor set where you got a (lower-than-usual) baseline level of mitigation through toggles and autopowers, and then supplemented that with a series of medium-duration clicks, one where, say, you got a defense bonus per enemy around you, one where you got a flat resist bonus, and one where you did a short-lived AoE Terrorize and a heal.  Or something like that.  Maybe a short-duration crashless godmode.

 

And so, like you had to think about how to layer or ration out those clicks so that they're available in the situations you need them the most.

Edited November 18, 2020 by aethereal

[Blackfeather]

I will say that I'm a fan of "contingency" style powers like Rune of Protection and Unleash Potential on my more fragile characters - ones used to up survivability on the fly when necessary. Not sure how well it'd translate to a dedicated armour powerset though.

[Razor Cure]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

I'm saying, imagine an armor set where you got a (lower-than-usual) baseline level of mitigation through toggles and autopowers, and then supplemented that with a series of medium-duration clicks, one where, say, you got a defense bonus per enemy around you, one where you got a flat resist bonus, and one where you did a short-lived AoE Terrorize and a heal.

Soo basically Regen, with bells and whistles?

 

[aethereal]

1 minute ago, Razor Cure said:

Soo basically Regen, with bells and whistles?

Sure.  Regen, but good, and with a focus on defense/resist instead of heals/regeneration.

[Razor Cure]

3 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Regen, but good,

Then shouldn't the priority be on FIXING regen, to make it good, before adding a powerset with pretty specific (and dare I say, generally unwanted) mechanics?

Don't get me wrong, it could be interesting, but the amount and nature of the clicky powers would need a LOT of tweaking, of the set would be super reaction based and ruin attack flow.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Razor Cure

[aethereal]

33 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Then shouldn't the priority be on FIXING regen, to make it good, before adding a powerset with pretty specific (and dare I say, generally unwanted) mechanics?

 

We have good healing-oriented armor sets in Bio and Willpower, one click-heavy and one click-nonexistent.  I understand that people have historical affection for the regen powerset and gravitate to the name instead of modeling their Wolverine-like characters as Willpower, but a Regen rebalance would bring relatively little to the state of modern CoH, and a radical reimagining of it wouldn't be much less work than building a powerset from scratch, and would be more contentious.

 

So, no, I don't think that's a good prioritization.

[Razor Cure]

34 minutes ago, aethereal said:

We have good healing-oriented armor sets in Bio and Willpower, one click-heavy and one click-nonexistent.  I understand that people have historical affection for the regen powerset and gravitate to the name instead of modeling their Wolverine-like characters as Willpower, but a Regen rebalance would bring relatively little to the state of modern CoH, and a radical reimagining of it wouldn't be much less work than building a powerset from scratch, and would be more contentious.

 

So, no, I don't think that's a good prioritization.

Willpower has ZERO healing. None at all. It is a hybrid with more regen than regen (often). Also Bio armour technically has ONE heal. The other 2 are absorbs. That is both 'healing' sets having less healing powers than Regen.

I also agree people love the idea of regen, and a rebalance would annoy a lot of people. My suggestion to 'fix' regen was more tongue in cheek, since you basically said 'I want regen but good,' implying regen isnt good.

A good priority also definitely is NOT a click heavy, low base stat, armour set, given points made by others here (such as lotsa people wanting less clicks in sets like SR and Nin).

[Eclipse.]

I think if you were to make a click-heavy (or click-exclusive) set it'd need to be really uniquely different. I think it'd also need to be a very high-risk, high-reward set.  Something like Attack Reflector

Autos with low base-line defenses/resistances.
click powers that are unique takes basically on confusion mechanics with cooldowns that prevent them from ever being perma.
like % chance to return projectiles for X amount of time,
redirecting melee attacks to nearby enemies, if no enemies are in range for redirection you take it.
Absorbing AoE damage as healing.
Short duration Mez reversal...
Give them a confusion, stun, recharge, or -tohit aura.
T9 that is basically just all of the above on steroids.


I think it would be interesting, but doable/popular is a completely different matter and balancing is a whole other issue. A set like this in teams with Thermal Shields/Ice Shields and set bonuses capping their defenses would basically just be free damage.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Eclipse.

[aethereal]

30 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Willpower has ZERO healing. None at all. It is a hybrid with more regen than regen (often). Also Bio armour technically has ONE heal. The other 2 are absorbs. That is both 'healing' sets having less healing powers than Regen.

 

I think that on a thematic level, the difference between regen and healing is pretty small, and absorb of the type offered by bio is also not very different (rapid-tick absorb shields like blasters get feel different from healing, bio's big chunky one-off absorbs don't).

 

30 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

A good priority also definitely is NOT a click heavy, low base stat, armour set, given points made by others here (such as lotsa people wanting less clicks in sets like SR and Nin).

SR and Ninjutsu remain good, popular sets despite their clicky status protection, but also I think there's a pretty notable difference between a strategically used mitigation click and a status protection click.  I'm not suggesting that we need a bunch more sets with clicky status protection.

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Then shouldn't the priority be on FIXING regen, to make it good, before adding a powerset with pretty specific (and dare I say, generally unwanted) mechanics?

Don't get me wrong, it could be interesting, but the amount and nature of the clicky powers would need a LOT of tweaking, of the set would be super reaction based and ruin attack flow.

I'd be weary of "fixing" Regen considering what they've done to a lot of other sets in the recent change.

 

Sure, a lot of people enjoy the boost and changes but I'm certain there are plenty who liked some aspect that was completely altered, locked behind a gimmick or simply removed.  Unless the changes are slight additions, I'd rather just get "new hotness" in new sets and keep legacy stuff plain and similar.  I am actually a fan of Regen BECAUSE it's clicky and adding extra mitigation to it via mez, set bonuses or raw damage makes the healing it does get stand out.

 

Not saying don't change anything about Regen, btw, just that I'd be far more cautious.  The game's balance is already getting completely out of hand and just making everything out of hand isn't healthy.

[Haijinx]

Widow Training has a click defense power

[Menelruin]

So, idea for a power set:  Energy Absorption, like Bishop in X-Men.  Has powers like a click to steal some Resist from all enemies around you for a while, and maybe a buff that, once you click it, remembers the last damage type you were struck with, and gives extra Resist to it for a while.  As an interesting twist, could give it LESS protection to Smashing and Lethal, as it's about absorbing radiant energy as compared to strictly kinetic attacks.

[nihilii]

*/regen/soul is basically your click heavy defense set. Alternate Shadow Meld and Moment of Glory for permanent softcap and beyond (and ridiculously low DPS, as your animation time gets swallowed up).

[Naraka]

3 hours ago, nihilii said:

*/regen/soul is basically your click heavy defense set. Alternate Shadow Meld and Moment of Glory for permanent softcap and beyond (and ridiculously low DPS, as your animation time gets swallowed up).

Sweet. I don't use /soul but I use some of the other pool click self buffs in conjunction with other mitigation for something clicky...

 

... But I think the point of the thread is to put up MORE set options for clicky protection as there is a majority of set-and-forget armor. Having more styles for more preferences and all...

 

Another aside is you only have access to one of those origin click self buffs so you're kind of shoehorned into presence for unrelenting if you want to get more of those clicks.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Naraka

[MTeague]

I'm aware I'm in the VERY distinct minority, but I actually like Regen *exactly as it is* and I don't even think it needs to be 'fixed'.

 

For an armor set that provides Resistance/Defense via Clicks.....

• Conceptually, I immediately think of Shields. How in a lot of other games you have to actively manage use of your shield in combat. 
• Of course, in CoH, "Shield Defense" already exists, and it's unlikely to undergo a wholesale change. 
• But maybe some kind of "Deflection" set?  With several powers that provide a Parry-like bonus for X seconds upon use, vs a variety of types?
• I agree that actual Damage Reflection for some kind of "Critical Deflect" would be wonderful. But extremely hard to balance if it actually did the attack's incoming damage to the attacker. It would probably be both easier to implement, and easier to balance, if it did a FIXED amount of damage to the attacker. 

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

I'm aware I'm in the VERY distinct minority, but I actually like Regen *exactly as it is* and I don't even think it needs to be 'fixed'.

 

For an armor set that provides Resistance/Defense via Clicks.....

• Conceptually, I immediately think of Shields. How in a lot of other games you have to actively manage use of your shield in combat. 
• Of course, in CoH, "Shield Defense" already exists, and it's unlikely to undergo a wholesale change. 
• But maybe some kind of "Deflection" set?  With several powers that provide a Parry-like bonus for X seconds upon use, vs a variety of types?
• I agree that actual Damage Reflection for some kind of "Critical Deflect" would be wonderful. But extremely hard to balance if it actually did the attack's incoming damage to the attacker. It would probably be both easier to implement, and easier to balance, if it did a FIXED amount of damage to the attacker. 

What if it was some kind of power that sort of measured how much damage is received up to a certain amount? Maybe if it was a click with resist and some moderate +absorb every 5sec or so and if you have no absorb at the time it reapplies, it pulses AoE dmg equal to that absorb amount before reapplication.