Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Release Candidates)

[EnjoyTheJourney]

 

19 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I would consider the idea that squishies get mezzed to be an inherent part of their basic functionality. There are ways to get around it and powersets that can handle it, but in general, squishies get mezzed and have to deal with it or plan on how to avoid it, not build so that they don't have to deal with it any more.

 

I'm kind of on both sides of the argument for RoP... it's clearly an outlier for the kind of power that it is, and better than the T9s from armor sets. And usually outliers get either buffed or nerfed, depending on which side of the balance they are on. But in this case, considering how bad the metric is (armor T9s are generally terrible), I have to at least consider that maybe RoP is of the right strength, and the powers that are compared to it should be buffed instead.

 

However, the argument that squishies should have a good way around being mezzed is not a winning argument for me. The non-armored characters have had to worry about being mezzed since Issue 1.

Agreed about the RoP / T9 armor power comparison; "let RoP suck as badly as T9 armors" seems a less than compelling argument. 

 

Regarding mez, the post you're quoting seems to mean something different than what you're referencing, something more aligned with how RoP works. RoP provides part-time protection against mez at the high cost of 3 power picks and heavy investment in recharge. That doesn't warrant the phrasing "a good way around being mezzed." Even when paired with melee core (foregoing the otherwise potentially appealing assault hybrid choices, another tradeoff) there is still a 30 second gap without mez protection. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

I ha

Agreed about the RoP / T9 armor power comparison; "let RoP suck as badly as T9 armors" seems a less than compelling argument. 

 

 

 

Keep in mind that ROP is crashless.

 

If T9 armors were crashless, none would suck. 

 

Some wouldn't be needed depending on the set, but none would suck.  

 

Also ROP is closest to Strength of Will in the Willpower Set,  Which is generally considered one of the best T9s.   Mainly because it has only a "mild" crash (50% END).  

But ROP also has two advantages over SOW.   It can have a higher uptime.  And it increases all resistances equally.  SOW is a big S/L buff and less for everything else.  Less than ROP.  

 

[Coyote]

6 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Regarding mez, the post you're quoting seems to mean something different than what you're referencing, something more aligned with how RoP works. 

 

While I agree that RoP doesn't work the way the post implies it does (which it to allow a squishie to maintain its basic functionality), I'm arguing about the concept that a squishie's basic functionality includes mez protection as part of the build rather than as an add-on. And so for my argument, the RoP downtime is irrelevant, because my argument is only "squishies have a mez protection vulnerability, and that actually is part of their basic functionality".

The post I was replying to would have been incorrect in any case, to imply that the change in RoP turns squishies from being able to maintain their basic functionality to being unable to maintain it, because as you say... RoP doesn't allow them to manage 100% uptime even with Melee Hybrid. But that's a side argument, my main argument is that the design of squishie ATs is that in most cases "they deal with mez by mezzing/debuffing, not by having protection against it". And the ones that have mez protection toggles are specifically outliers.

[Blackfeather]

I will say that I do prefer Rune of Protection granting resistance even when used while mezzed, if only because I use the power as an emergency button for when I really need it (i.e. when a mez gets through my lockdown/damage/debuffs), so the lower uptime is less of an issue for me, while the more reactive nature of my use case means that the resistance boost'll be relevant for me. I actually didn't know that was the case...I do look forward to hardcapping my resistances after breaking free from a mez.

 

Just putting out a counterpoint as to why I'm personally happy with the change - but I can definitely understand why it could be a problem for some builds (I think Meltdown/RoP cycling's a thing for instance).

[Hew]

21 hours ago, Keleko said:

They’ll tell me to unsummon my pet or I’m kicked. Not having my pet is not at all fun.

I would never kick you and think it is stupid that someone would do so.

[Andreah]

17 hours ago, medieval said:

If ya'll are going to be changing grav control can you make boss rank creatures have lower mag teleport protection for wormhole or have wormhole having a higher mag to go through said protection? It's kind of lame that the premier power of the spec doesn't affect them at all. 

Sorry I'm late to this.

 

There is a way around this, right now, which is not widely known. It's expensive and limited, but very useful for certain situations. Keep a few Ultimate inspirations around. They can shift your combat level up by one for three minutes, and while shifted from 50+1 to 50+2 in regular content, you can teleport +4 bosses and even EB's. If you email an Ultimate to yourself, you can claim it from your email even while inside a mission so long as you have one insp slot open in your tray.

[Andreah]

7 minutes ago, Hew said:

I would never kick you and think it is stupid that someone would do so.

I would ask the person to try to control their pet more carefully. And sometimes they can and sometimes they can't, it'll work out.

[Andreah]

Regarding Singularity messing with tankers (and others) concentrating mobs together, well, it already does. But if its KB is converted to KD, and if it could be commanded to follow a specific player closely, maybe that would do it?

 

Perhaps more a change that can be done at this point, but if a singularity followed the tanker closely, drew more mobs in, and knocked them down, I couldn't see that as anything but a win all around.

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Andreah said:

Regarding Singularity messing with tankers (and others) concentrating mobs together, well, it already does. But if its KB is converted to KD, and if it could be commanded to follow a specific player closely, maybe that would do it?

 

Perhaps more a change that can be done at this point, but if a singularity followed the tanker closely, drew more mobs in, and knocked them down, I couldn't see that as anything but a win all around.

 

I think this is a case where dimensional shift gains a ton of value. Drop it on the tank and he can keep doing his thing without the singy interfering, unless singy joins in on the bubble. 

 

As for people who group without the knockback to KD IO, first of all - WHY? ( I get it for solo messing around)

[Andreah]

9 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

As for people who group without the knockback to KD IO, first of all - WHY? ( I get it for solo messing around)

For some players, the knockback feels "super", even if it lowers overall group kill efficiency, and they want to do it anyway.

[ScarySai]

It does feel awesome, shame we have to devote a slot to dealing with that, over say, some kind of switch we could flip on the side.

 

We control gravity! We could feasibly decide where our cosmic monstrosity sends things flying.

Edited March 29, 2021 by ScarySai

[Andreah]

4 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

We control gravity! We could feasibly decide where our cosmic monstrosity sends things flying.

Imagine if you could designate the singularity to fling mobs AT THE TANKER! 😮

[ScarySai]

Luckily we have wormhole, which is easily in my top three powers in the entire game.

 

It'd be #1 if it affected higher level bosses.

[Apparition]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Luckily we have wormhole, which is easily in my top three powers in the entire game.

 

It'd be #1 if it affected higher level bosses.

Wormhole really needs a magnitude increase.

[Andreah]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

Wormhole really needs a magnitude increase.

Apparently this will almost certainly not ever happen, because too many non-mobs have mag thresholds jus above where it (and fold space, and teleport target) are right now.

[Ratch_]

Hm, idk - I could see it happening. I don't see fold space getting the same treatment but letting a control power do it's thing doesn't seem like a farfetched changed in my opinion. It'd be a nice improvement for grav control.

[Andreah]

4 minutes ago, Ratch_ said:

Hm, idk - I could see it happening. I don't see fold space getting the same treatment but letting a control power do it's thing doesn't seem like a farfetched changed in my opinion. It'd be a nice improvement for grav control.

I can see it being a good change, I was relaying that I heard somewhere there was a good reason why it wasn't easy to do , but instead more game-breaking-really-hard.

[Andreah]

Thematically, I like that singularity will have this dual effect to draw things in and then throw them out (or knock them down). And that it can fling objects out of nothing at enemies. 

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

Wormhole really needs a magnitude increase.

And faster animation

[oedipus_tex]

This won't be a popular opinion, but IMO the balance issue with Rune of Protection is that armored characters are overpowered. They don't need RoP because they have effective immunity already. Their T9 isn't a good point of comparison, because they don't actually need it and it doesn't fill a hole. I'm ok with RoP getting nerfed but I do think some questions need to be raised about why armored characters don't even need powers like this or their T9s. The answer isn't because RoP is overperforming, its because armored characters are.

 

That being said, I don't see this likely to be addressed. So I lean on the side of just leaving RoP alone.

Edited March 29, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

There are two types of need when it comes to squishy mezz protection:

• The "Like a Break Free inspiration" kind, which RoP is well suited to because it can be used reactively
• The "protect my offensive toggles" kind, which RoP is not well suited to because of limited up time

 

It's that second class of mezz protection that drives offense mezz toggle builds. Arctic Air is probably the most egregious power in this class. Just popping a Break Free doesn't rescue an Ice Control build from the trashbin. It's full time mezz protection or get detoggled at every half second Sleep from a gray Freakshow minion. Hence for builds that truly need mezz protection RoP isn't an option. 

 

Since the emergence of IOs Controllers have had Indomitable Will and Dominators have had perma-Domination to help them deal with detoggles. RoP is more of a power for more "vanilla" Control sets like Plant, Mind, etc than can do things reactively. 

 

I said earlier I think armored characters are overpowered. Probably Controller and Dominator total mezz protection is as well. The issue is that the penalties for getting mezzed are sky high so the developers made whole classes of characters mostly immune to it. If we were making CoH2 I'd make everyone but Tankers subject to mezz but remove its armor cancelling and detoggling properties. Just the inability to click anything or use inspirations other than Break Frees is a serious penalty already.

Since all of that is unlikely to happen I'd vote to keep RoP as is. If something must be nerfed, make it the Resistance duration but not mezz protection. Players who need full time mezz protection are already using other powers, there's no need to come for RoP.

[ScarySai]

5 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

It's that second class of mezz protection that drives offense mezz toggle builds. Arctic Air is probably the most egregious power in this class.

 

I would consider venomous gas the absolute worst example, since if that falls off there goes more than half your debuffs, and probably your life bar if you aren't IO'd out or quick on the break free.

[oedipus_tex]

Just now, ScarySai said:

 

I would consider venomous gas the absolute worst example, since if that falls off there goes more than half your debuffs, and probably your life bar if you aren't IO'd out or quick on the break free.

 

 

Yes that one is way up there. Overall IMO these powers should suppress and not detoggle. If that were to happen much of the pressure on squishies to find mezz protection would lessen.

[ScarySai]

Ideally, every power pool would have something compelling and useful in some capacity, but it's simply not the case. Fighting/leadership/hasten/leaping/flying/experimentation all offer something useful, but you can only have four of them. 

 

So naturally, sorcery - which is really just rune and mystic flight - if this passes, it will be weighed and found wanting.

[SwitchFade]

45 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

 

30% resistance to all damage is quite good.  Tankers don't even get that except for in some of their t9's and even then they mostly have a psi resist hole where RoP does not.  I have very few toons with RoP but my SR stalker makes quite the good use of that added resistance.  

 

It's not like you can't build up your hp and resistance bonuses from sets for your squishy character.  Even if I'm adding just this resistance that's roughly half of the incoming damage I am now resisting of what I am allowed to resist.  Both utilities for RoP are completely valid for every AT, except maybe those already running real high resists with mez protection too.

30% resist in a vacuum is poor mitogation. For example, a tank with 30% resist would be very delicate. The nature of resist demonstrates that resist becomes effective over 60%. In fact, the difference between 60 and 70% is a huge decrease in damage taken, where the difference in 30-40% is meager.

 

Due to this, 30% from RoP is only good if it can put you over 60% total, and that's the real issue. A squishy, in most cases, will not have a base 30-40% to start and any build that did get that would sacrifice too much in other areas, such as defense, offense, etc, generally.

 

Additionally, certain combinations of sets which could get 40% base resist, then add 30% RoP resist.... AND 90-100% uptime with RoP and one other power for status protection.... Very overtuned.