Knockback Protection...how much?

[Snarky]

I ran Invulnerability for well over a year when I first started.  Knockback was one of the many reasons.  It serves very well.  -10KB.  Man was I surprised the first time I encountered Back alley Brawler and he launched me across the map?!?

 

My main now, A dark Dark Brute, has one 4 pt KB prot in Mystic Flight.  And flies most of the time.  Rarely an issue.  Although in a +4 ITF with a lowbie team (complete nigtmare, I was not team lead) I was getting pinballed in fight at comp terminal very bad. Over, and over, and over, and then one more time.   Survived, but lost a lot of time getting into position....as KB will do.

 

I have heard, but am unsure, that 5 , 6, 7, 8 pts KB prot are effectively the same as 4 pts, due to the way the game scales KB.  

 

What arte the actual "breakpoints" in KB prot?  

 

(building a Dark / Dark Sentinel.  decidedly untanky but definitely no room to get mezzed /KB.  

[Apparition]

Generally twelve points of knockback protection is enough.  Any more than that is a waste as the things that do more knockback than that generally require way more knockback protection (like 41+), and are few and far between.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Apparition

[Greycat]

4 points handles most content.

8 is what I aimed for on, say, my fire tanks with no KB protection inherent to them.

Past that, depends what you plan to go after. I believe PVP has its own preferred levels, for instance.

[Outrider_01]

Check sets, some resist Gladiators Armor or Javelin, and Fury of the Glad have KB protection in the first couple of slots.  And there is also the 3 IO themselves, though blessing of the zephyr is the cheapest in slot cost since you mostly just need the default.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

I ran Invulnerability for well over a year when I first started.  Knockback was one of the many reasons.  It serves very well.  -10KB.  Man was I surprised the first time I encountered Back alley Brawler and he launched me across the map?!?

 

My main now, A dark Dark Brute, has one 4 pt KB prot in Mystic Flight.  And flies most of the time.  Rarely an issue.  Although in a +4 ITF with a lowbie team (complete nigtmare, I was not team lead) I was getting pinballed in fight at comp terminal very bad. Over, and over, and over, and then one more time.   Survived, but lost a lot of time getting into position....as KB will do.

 

I have heard, but am unsure, that 5 , 6, 7, 8 pts KB prot are effectively the same as 4 pts, due to the way the game scales KB.  

 

What arte the actual "breakpoints" in KB prot?  

 

(building a Dark / Dark Sentinel.  decidedly untanky but definitely no room to get mezzed /KB.  

It's not really based on scaling unless you're talking about level differences, but rather based on the magnitude of knockback an NPC's attacks have. 4 points is enough to stop about 80% of all NPC knockback. 8 points brings that up to about 95%. This difference is because there are a lot of powers that do mag 4 KB or less and way fewer that do greater than 4. Keep in mind that's only true for even-level NPCs and if you are routinely fighting things 3-4 levels higher than you you should look for about 50% higher. According to the wiki page there are something like 1300 NPC powers that cause knockdown/back/up, and most powers that will punch through 4 points of protection are found only on bosses/EBs/AVs/monsters. There are certain things you might want to build more though - if you're doing lots of Hami raids on a Fire/Dark you might want to build for 12-16 to deal with the KB from the yellow mitos.

 

It's also worth pointing out that the 10(ish) points most armor sets get in their mez protection toggle/click is a bit of a lie since they also tend to include 10,000% knockback resistance, which reduces incoming knockback to a magnitude so low that 10 points is more than enough. Dark, Fire, and Stalker Ninjitsu get no in-set KB protection or resistance, Scrapper/Sentinel Ninjitsu get a smaller amount of KB protection and a much smaller amount of KB resistance (like 130% to 180% I think, which realistically cuts incoming knockback magnitude more than in half), and Elec Armor gets KB protection but no resistance and only while on/near the ground.

[Snarky]

7 minutes ago, macskull said:

It's also worth pointing out that the 10(ish) points most armor sets get in their mez protection toggle/click is a bit of a lie since they also tend to include 10,000% knockback resistance, which reduces incoming knockback to a magnitude so low that 10 points is more than enough. 

This is what was not adding up in my head.  I knew that 10 points on Invulnerability felt, well, invulnerable.  Thanks.  

[siolfir]

5 hours ago, macskull said:

Elec Armor gets KB protection but no resistance and only while on/near the ground.

Power Surge offers 100 points and 1000% KB resistance, but nobody uses it because it's so superfluous.

 

That said, I usually drop a -KB IO in Grounded to get 4 points while off the ground and 14 points on it, precisely because I don't take Power Surge and don't like being bounced around when I try to jump over something to get to another mob.

 

 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

Power Surge offers 100 points and 1000% KB resistance, but nobody uses it because it's so superfluous.

 

That said, I usually drop a -KB IO in Grounded to get 4 points while off the ground and 14 points on it, precisely because I don't take Power Surge and don't like being bounced around when I try to jump over something to get to another mob.

 

 

I've never even tried Power Surge.  For the same reason I wont run Granite.  Where is my character?  Oh, can you suppress the effects?

[cohRock]

An unmentioned option to this point is Acrobatics.   It offers mag 7 (+2 more according to Mids) KB protection and some hold resistance.  One of the downsides is that you need two prerequisite Leaping Pool powers (chosen from Combat Jumping, Super Jump, and Jump Kick) before taking Acrobatics.  The end cost is somewhat high (0.26/sec) considering that the -kb procs use no end at all.  My fire/fire tank has chosen this option and has had no kb problems, especially considering he has no knock protection otherwise.

 

Incidentally, I have recently made a suggestion to buff Acrobatics so more people will consider taking it.  See:

Basically, I suggest that its functionality be improved, by actually making characters more athletic.  It would slightly buff speeds and provide some resistance to slow and recharge debuffs.

[Doomguide2005]

For a while I had 16pts on my main Emp/Sonic/Elec because of Director 10.  He was rather nuts zipping around all invisible dropping tripmines every where.  First time against him my poor Emp was getting chain knocked all over the place (except if you retreated almost out the door).  Thankfully afaik he got tweaked a bit shortly thereafter.  I think one of the more common KB well above 4 are Fake Nemesis bosses.  The 'break free' line of inspires also contains increasing amounts of KB protection and there's a craft able base empowerment buff that offers protection as well as one of the p2w amplifiers for when you know you're likely going to need more.

[siolfir]

10 hours ago, cohRock said:

An unmentioned option to this point is Acrobatics.   It offers mag 7 (+2 more according to Mids) KB protection and some hold resistance.  One of the downsides is that you need two prerequisite Leaping Pool powers (chosen from Combat Jumping, Super Jump, and Jump Kick) before taking Acrobatics.

True; I mostly ignore it since the KB protection was reduced from 100 to 7 + an enhanceable 2 because it's an extra power pick and costs endurance. Before IOs it was how I plugged the KB hole for nearly everyone, though, because it's not really a penalty to take Combat Jumping (which also provides 10 points of immobilize protection in addition to the defense) and then just use Super Jump for travel.

[macskull]

21 hours ago, siolfir said:

Power Surge offers 100 points and 1000% KB resistance, but nobody uses it because it's so superfluous.

 

That said, I usually drop a -KB IO in Grounded to get 4 points while off the ground and 14 points on it, precisely because I don't take Power Surge and don't like being bounced around when I try to jump over something to get to another mob.

The problem with Power Surge is that standard tier 9 rant applies - it's good while it's up but the penalty for using it is too severe, and I'm pretty sure the other armor sets with in-set KB protection also get extra KB protection/resistance in their tier 9 powers. I think the only exception there is Scrapper/Sentinel Ninjitsu. The lack of knockback resistance also means there are a few NPCs that will routinely KB you. Lord Recluse from the last mission of the STF is the prime offender there.

19 hours ago, cohRock said:

An unmentioned option to this point is Acrobatics.   It offers mag 7 (+2 more according to Mids) KB protection and some hold resistance.  One of the downsides is that you need two prerequisite Leaping Pool powers (chosen from Combat Jumping, Super Jump, and Jump Kick) before taking Acrobatics.  The end cost is somewhat high (0.26/sec) considering that the -kb procs use no end at all.  My fire/fire tank has chosen this option and has had no kb problems, especially considering he has no knock protection otherwise.

Pre-I9 this was the only way to get KB protection  on characters who lacked it (short of teaming with a Kin). It was still at least a little useful until I11 when it got nerfed from 100 points to 9 points. The extra hold protection/resistance are nice but not worth 3 power picks in a pool that has little to offer aside from Combat Jumping. For most builds the power picks are more valuable than the 2-3 slots you might have to devote to KB protection.

[Cutter]

I usually run 4pts on squishies, 12pts on Dark & Fire Armour, and for the rest of the armour sets take what's offered (tho I echo the +4 on Elec Armour sentiment).

[cohRock]

4 hours ago, macskull said:

..

Pre-I9 this was the only way to get KB protection  on characters who lacked it (short of teaming with a Kin). It was still at least a little useful until I11 when it got nerfed from 100 points to 9 points. The extra hold protection/resistance are nice but not worth 3 power picks in a pool that has little to offer aside from Combat Jumping. For most builds the power picks are more valuable than the 2-3 slots you might have to devote to KB protection.

Which is a large part of my rationale for proposing that Acrobatics be buffed.  Many people I think reach the conclusion that it is a lame power not worthy of their build.  And it certainly is overpriced in end cost for what a character receives.  Instead of just having another eminently ignorable power, give it enough qualities to make it worth taking.  What do you think of my suggestion? (You can answer there.)

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, cohRock said:

Which is a large part of my rationale for proposing that Acrobatics be buffed.  Many people I think reach the conclusion that it is a lame power not worthy of their build.  And it certainly is overpriced in end cost for what a character receives.  Instead of just having another eminently ignorable power, give it enough qualities to make it worth taking.  What do you think of my suggestion? (You can answer there.)

Most pool powers are lesser than versions of ATs power sets.  costing more end and having less effect.  What "compromise" do you suggest.  What AT power (i assume from a melee AT) comes closest to this power?

Edited February 8, 2021 by Snarky

[cohRock]

@Snarky To avoid further side-tracking this thread, I replied in my original suggestion thread.

Edited February 8, 2021 by cohRock