A note on Rune of Protection changes

[arcane]

34 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

I find it funny that people bring up some very weird changes for 'anything' to fix mezz protection, even things that could end up making it harder for everyone. 😕

 

Debuffs transitioning to mezzes sounds nice, except that the people getting mezzed would just get debuffed harder before getting mezzed on top of things. Let's punish squishies more and I'm sure I could hear the screams of protected ATs if they started to get random debuffs instead of being 100% protected like they are now.

Yeah I’d prefer they leave it as is.

[Ankhammon]

I think for the game, as it stands today, the issue could be largely made better by just not dropping toggles when mezzed. The suppression of them should be enough. Particularly when you think that this only affect a subsection of the "squishy" community and something like dozen or more powers. 

I think the devs were worried about this allowing this to make things too easy on teams but with the way things are in teaming nowadays anyway I don't see that as nearly as valid as I would have in previous years of the game.

 

It would also give a real reason to stack up the mez resistance on these characters as you could potentially wait out that short mez if your main source of mitigation came back on when the mez stopped.

It would also give just a tiny more reason to maybe make that resistance char instead of just another that focuses first and always on Defense.

[arthurh35353]

Isn't the problem that you can't slot to resist mezzing? While their are powers that give mez resistance, you can't actually aim to improve that generally beyond primary power choices. 😞

[Troo]

just kidding I didn't read all the post..

[Ankhammon]

5 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

Isn't the problem that you can't slot to resist mezzing? While their are powers that give mez resistance, you can't actually aim to improve that generally beyond primary power choices. 😞

Although I've never built to test this, the devs put in a small mez resistance component per IO set resistance bonus.

 

For example, if you take 2 impeded swiftness, you get 1.5% S/L resist but also a 2.5% mez resistance. Not much but if you build for it, it can add up to ok numbers and maybe even half mez times (or for you rad people it's way higher).

[Hedgefund]

Here's a "my 2 inf" post on this change.

 

I've never used RoP as mez mitigation, at least as a primary usage.  I handle that issue via Defense Amp, Clarion and insps, in no particular order.

 

I do use it as a de facto orange insp (with effectiveness varying by AT), mostly pre-emptively in fights for which a Defense reliant character might need a boost in other forms of mitigation.  Maybe reactively if there's an unexpected spike in def debuffs.

 

I have found in reality though, that I don't use RoP frequently, going entire play sessions without using it.  So at the end of day, here's where RoP lands for me - not going to respec out of it for old toons (mostly due to annoyance with the process of respeccing) and won't be using it for future toons, the ROI just isn't there any more.

 

I will note this is the second straight nerf of my "contingency powers".  First Demonic is fixed at 10 minute rehcarge, which may seem like a buff but in actuality it recharged in 8 minutes typically for my toons, now this.  Just don't hinder my ability to access insps in e-mail.

[PirateCrew]

PvP-like, player-only mez protection/immunity after getting mezzed once

AND/OR

Easy access to way more mez resist (addition to epic armors? squishy inherent? IOs? additions to any remotely thematic powers like siphons / mists / fogs / farsight / fade / RA buffs?)

PLUS

Suppress offensive toggles instead of detoggling

PLUS MAYBE

No/less suppression of protective toggles, making them equal (rather than currently inferior) to IO-based protections

 

I could definitely see a highly accepted solution emerge from these ideas.  If it does, then rocking the RoP boat will accidentally be the best thing to happen in a while, for a huge segment of the archetype list.  For now though, we appear stuck with the RoP band-aid getting ripped off partway, and no real indication that the rest of the sorcery pool is getting adequately buffed to compensate, much less a mez system revamp.

Edited April 1, 2021 by PirateCrew
clarified sorcery pool comment

[Doomrider]

13 minutes ago, Ankhammon said:

I think for the game, as it stands today, the issue could be largely made better by just not dropping toggles when mezzed. The suppression of them should be enough. Particularly when you think that this only affect a subsection of the "squishy" community and something like dozen or more powers. 

I think the devs were worried about this allowing this to make things too easy on teams but with the way things are in teaming nowadays anyway I don't see that as nearly as valid as I would have in previous years of the game.

 

It would also give a real reason to stack up the mez resistance on these characters as you could potentially wait out that short mez if your main source of mitigation came back on when the mez stopped.

It would also give just a tiny more reason to maybe make that resistance char instead of just another that focuses first and always on Defense.

Having offensive toggles suppress when mezzed instead of detoggling would be a nice QoL upgrade for squishier classes. Also buffing value of the mez resistance set bonuses that are already in just about every set anyway would be a good way to provide a meaningful way to reduce mez duration, while not completely invalidating it. 
Rather than re-working mez like some posters are suggesting, why not just make it less annoying? Nobody likes having to re-toggle powers. 

[Peacemoon]

28 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

Isn't the problem that you can't slot to resist mezzing? While their are powers that give mez resistance, you can't actually aim to improve that generally beyond primary power choices. 😞

There are some very big mezz resist % in IO set bonuses. I think the HC devs have already doubled these once actually, but if toggles weren’t switched off mezz resist would be better 🙂 

[Mezmera]

Back in my day if you got mezzed you had to retoggle everything you had running, even sprint...

 

The change to how detoggling when mezzed works was a great QoL update.  I understand the explanation they gave for why the offensive ones just couldn't operate the same way and trust there really was an issue that offensive ones just needed to detoggle.  

 

If I get caught by the game and get mezzed and die, I die, so what.  Being a Dominator main I see what I do to the npc's and don't wish that onto myself so I know to build to avoid such a happening.  

 

Yeah your outward defenses get shut down even though they don't detoggle but I know to build internal defenses up as best I can because that doesn't get shut down.  Then there's all kind of things that'll break you out of mezzes.  

 

I mean how easy do we need to make the game?  Log on, take a gondola ride, pet some geese, punch some monkeys, participate in a CC and log off?

[Peacemoon]

22 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

Having offensive toggles suppress when mezzed instead of detoggling would be a nice QoL upgrade for squishier classes. Also buffing value of the mez resistance set bonuses that are already in just about every set anyway would be a good way to provide a meaningful way to reduce mez duration, while not completely invalidating it. 
Rather than re-working mez like some posters are suggesting, why not just make it less annoying? Nobody likes having to re-toggle powers. 

Big reworks are also taxing for the devs. That’s why I always *try* suggest stuff that works within the current system. So utilising the mezz resists that already exist, and the tech that already exists for not dropping toggles should be ‘relatively easy’.

[Peacemoon]

5 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Back in my day if you got mezzed you had to retoggle everything you had running, even sprint...

 

The change to how detoggling when mezzed works was a great QoL update.  I understand the explanation they gave for why the offensive ones just couldn't operate the same way and trust there really was an issue that offensive ones just needed to detoggle.  

 

If I get caught by the game and get mezzed and die, I die, so what.  Being a Dominator main I see what I do to the npc's and don't wish that onto myself so I know to build to avoid such a happening.  

 

Yeah your outward defenses get shut down even though they don't detoggle but I know to build internal defenses up as best I can because that doesn't get shut down.  Then there's all kind of things that'll break you out of mezzes.  

 

I mean how easy do we need to make the game?  Log on, take a gondola ride, pet some geese, punch some monkeys, participate in a CC and log off?

I’m pretty sure it was a design decision not a tech limitation to have offensive detoggles switch off and not suppress.

I’m not sure about your ‘it’s all going to be too easy’ argument. It feels quite dismissive without wanting to engage with the issues we’re discussing. 

[Mezmera]

10 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

I’m pretty sure it was a design decision not a tech limitation to have offensive detoggles switch off and not suppress.

I’m not sure about your ‘it’s all going to be too easy’ argument. It feels quite dismissive without wanting to engage with the issues we’re discussing. 

 

Break Frees, Rune of Protection, take your mez shields, Clarion, Melee Hybrid, team with buffers that give mez protection, cap your defenses.  That's just from the top of my head, shall I go on? 

 

It's not dismissive, if someone's having issues with mez they've identified their weakness, there's toooooonnnnns of helpful people on the forums to walk someone through how best to avoid being controlled.  Being mezzed in this game is a quaint gimmick that keeps you on your toes and should push you to adapt.  Yes it'd be funny to watch tanks get mezzed every once in a while but meh.  

[Peacemoon]

1 minute ago, Mezmera said:

 

Break Frees, Rune of Protection, take your mez shields, Clarion, Melee Hybrid, team with buffers that give mez protection, cap your defenses.  That's just from the top of my head, shall I go on? 

 

It's not dismissive, if someone's having issues with mez they've identified their weakness, there's toooooonnnnns of helpful people on the forums to walk someone through how best to avoid being controlled.  Being mezzed in this game is a quaint gimmick that keeps you on your toes and should push you to adapt.  Yes it'd be funny to watch tanks get mezzed every once in a while but meh.  

And your thoughts on allowing offensive toggles to stay active when mezzed are? It’s the one issue that will suddenly make the game too easy in your opinion?

 

We've already discussed this pages back in regards to melee vs squishy on the effects of mezz. 
As for your Dominator, they have status protection with Domination, and no offensive toggles they rely on for their survival. So yes I can see why you aren’t too bothered about the status quo 😉 

[Blackbird71]

20 hours ago, Faultline said:

Something that may not be obvious is that the amount of feedback, in either direction, lets us know how much people care about a specific power. Realize that less than 5% of all characters have Rune at level 50; with Corruptors being the AT that takes it the most at 11%, and Brutes taking it the least at 1.7%. Compare to something like Afterburner, which was also modified this patch: 11% of all characters have it by level 50, with Blasters leading at 22% and Brutes in the back at 4% (Peacebringers are at 0.6% but we're ignoring them since they get inherent versions of it). So part of the reason why the Rune feedback was largely not acknowledged is that it was seen as a sidegrade (remember that it comes with a buff when used reactively) that affected a minority. So having many pages of feedback arguing about this one particular power lets us know that while it's only used by a minority, that minority is pretty serious about it, and we should handle it with more care.

Thank you for providing the numbers; this gives us something to work with as a basis for discussion.

I think it's very telling that even among AT's who lack the sort of protections provided by RoP in their base powersets, still only 11% of characters take the power.  This would seem to indicate that even in the absence of such protections, nearly 90% of these "squishy" ATs either consider the investment for RoP to be too much, or the benefits too little, or at least prioritize the effects of other power picks over RoP (and the Sorcery Pool powers necessary to get it).  The HC power devs may consider RoP to be overtuned or overpowered in a vacuum, but at least to me, these numbers indicate that in practical application and context of actual use, it is far from it.  If RoP does actually need a nerf/rework, then it should be postponed until the Sorcery Pool as a whole can be rebalanced, or better yet, all of the Origin Pools can be revisited.  Until then, all this change will do is ensure that RoP will drop to even lower than that 5% use rate.

[Peacemoon]

12 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

 

Break Frees, Rune of Protection, take your mez shields, Clarion, Melee Hybrid, team with buffers that give mez protection, cap your defenses.  That's just from the top of my head, shall I go on? 

Break Frees - yes we all have access to inspirations but they are not always available, even if you combine other inspirations into them. There’s a reason why people defence cap without needing purples.

Rune of Protection - T5 power in an origin pool that is about to be nerfed to even less up time, hence this whole debate...

Clarion - incarnation power not available pre-50 and the game is not just about playing at 50. Plus it does cost you access to the alternatives.

Melee Hybrid - see above 

Team with buffers - yeah the squishes should huddle up so they can support each other whereas Scrappers etc are free to run ahead and solo the whole TF 😉 

Cap your defences - you can’t 100% cap your defences. You only need 1 mezz to get through and you lose all your defences and are basically naked on most squishes. 
Also you are basically telling people they need to deck themselves out in full IO suits in order to have some counter a main part of the game. 

 

OR you could just play a melee AT and be completely immune by like level 10.

 

There is a reason why CoH language uses the term “squishes” as a catch all for non-melee

ATs. 😏

 

[Doomrider]

I don't think making offensive toggles suppress is gonna suddenly make the game too easy. The mez would still suppress the effect of the toggle and lock you out until the mez was countered. It's the required re-toggling afterward that I'd like see go away. 

To use a personal example, back on live I used to play a Human Warshade a lot. Countering the mez using break frees was never a big deal, it was part and parcel of playing the class as far as I was concerned. What annoyed me to the point where I just ended up respeccing into forms and not looking back was the 4+ seconds I'd have to spend (after using a break free and once the spawn was dead) to put my offensive toggles back on.

I don't mind being mezzed and having to counter it. I just don't like long drawn out re-toggling. It feels very disruptive to the flow of combat and re-toggling, most of the time, only makes sense to do so in between fights. So if i'm mezzed mid-fight but quickly break out of it and continue, I'm most likely spending the rest of the fight without a couple of my key powers.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Doomrider
grammar

[CaptainLupis]

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

Back in my day if you got mezzed you had to retoggle everything you had running, even sprint...

 

The change to how detoggling when mezzed works was a great QoL update.  I understand the explanation they gave for why the offensive ones just couldn't operate the same way and trust there really was an issue that offensive ones just needed to detoggle.  

 

If I get caught by the game and get mezzed and die, I die, so what.  Being a Dominator main I see what I do to the npc's and don't wish that onto myself so I know to build to avoid such a happening.  

 

Yeah your outward defenses get shut down even though they don't detoggle but I know to build internal defenses up as best I can because that doesn't get shut down.  Then there's all kind of things that'll break you out of mezzes.  

 

I mean how easy do we need to make the game?  Log on, take a gondola ride, pet some geese, punch some monkeys, participate in a CC and log off?

I believe I covered that point some time ago.

8 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

It's not even the risk of death for me. It's just plain frustrating having to wait for the toggles to recharge, turn them back on only for them to immediately get dropped again. Over and over.

 

[arthurh35353]

1 hour ago, Peacemoon said:

There are some very big mezz resist % in IO set bonuses. I think the HC devs have already doubled these once actually, but if toggles weren’t switched off mezz resist would be better 🙂 

The "large" numbers sound good until you realize that you need +100% mez resistance to decrease the full time to 50%. +200% to lower it to 33%. +300% to decrease the mez duration to 25%. So seeing a bonus of +10% is not as large as you need really.

[arcane]

28 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

The "large" numbers sound good until you realize that you need +100% mez resistance to decrease the full time to 50%. +200% to lower it to 33%. +300% to decrease the mez duration to 25%. So seeing a bonus of +10% is not as large as you need really.

50% reduction sounds like a huge boon to me. And it’s not hard to get there because they give this particular set bonus out like candy. Resistance bonuses are already very common, and this comes with every one of them. So however common resistance to a damage type is, this bonus is about 4x more common than that.

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, Peacemoon said:

And your thoughts on allowing offensive toggles to stay active when mezzed are? It’s the one issue that will suddenly make the game too easy in your opinion?

 

We've already discussed this pages back in regards to melee vs squishy on the effects of mezz. 
As for your Dominator, they have status protection with Domination, and no offensive toggles they rely on for their survival. So yes I can see why you aren’t too bothered about the status quo 😉 

 

I'm glad they added that QoL feature where you didn't have to retoggle your self affecting toggles, job well done.  The values of toggles should suppress as they do and if this team feels the need to devote manhours to making it so offensive toggles don't detoggle but just suppress from working while mezzed I have no issue.  There must have been a valid reason for leaving offensive ones to turn off and being that most characters have maybe only one offensive toggle they need to retoggle big whoop.  

 

As for dominators yes I do have the status protection but I play blasters and corruptors frequently too so the experience I take from my doms translates well over to my other squishies.  

[arcane]

Yeah assuming that any common user of this forum doesn’t play every single AT in the game is a bit of a weak bet.

[PirateCrew]

If mez resist or breakfrees worked well enough as-is for the archetypes and situations noted by Luminara and many others, we wouldn't be here, talking for page after page about a 33% reduction in the usefulness of a power taken on a mere 5% of characters.  "Helpful" suggestions about Mez resist from IO set bonuses and incarnate powers feel totally inadequate in a game where not everyone is expected to use sets, not everyone is fighting mild-mez Council at L50, major components of certain powersets detoggle with the briefest sleep, all powerset-granted protection vanishes with a chained hold from one ruin mage (etc), and not everyone gets to handpick teammates' powers and skill level.  The problem isn't lack of awareness of a particular poster's favorite ways to deal with mez.  The problem is lack of balance.

 

Because what feels adequate, or even amazing in comparison, solving all those troubles in one fell swoop?  Rip off that RoP anti-mez bandaid, switch ATs, play a Meleer/Dom/Fort...  Yes, these downtrodden, recently-nerfed ATs that nobody wants to play. /s ...extreme /s

 

There are reasons why players gravitate to ATs with full-time mez protection.  There are reasons why permadom is a goal, and LotG:Def/+Rech costs what it does.  There are reasons why players of certain powersets grit their teeth and pick Clarion...and then exemplar less than they might otherwise.  Sure, RoP may be overtuned when looked at alone.  But at least it felt like a decent way for a character, under their own power, to fight a mezzing horde.  It didn't lean on external crutches like emailed/purchased breakfrees, or feel like P2Win vendor cheatery just to achieve partial parity with other ATs.

 

I would take a RoP duration nerf in a second, if counterbalanced by some mez-related buffs / QoL upgrades to some of the least-played ATs in the game via something that doesn't require IOs or level 50.

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by PirateCrew

[Blackbird71]

What I would like to see:

1. Any changes to RoP postponed until the Sorcery Pool, and Origin Pools as a whole, can be evaluated and reworked into something better balanced than their current state.
2. Mez effects changed so that they only suppress, not detoggle, any and all affected powers.
3. Proliferate the PvP effect of temporary immunity to additional mez effects after being affected by a mez to player characters in all parts of the game.

I think points 2 and 3 would put the game in a better place for some rebalance of RoP and other powers, while 1 would allow a reduction in the power level of RoP without necessarily making the Sorcery Pool feel even less useful to the handful of people who employ it in their builds, and hopefully would make the Origin Pools more appealing overall (without being overpowered).

 

[Coyote]

14 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

What I would like to see:

1. Any changes to RoP postponed until the Sorcery Pool, and Origin Pools as a whole, can be evaluated and reworked into something better balanced than their current state.
2. Mez effects changed so that they only suppress, not detoggle, any and all affected powers.
3. Proliferate the PvP effect of temporary immunity to additional mez effects after being affected by a mez to player characters in all parts of the game.

 

1 and 2 seem good to me.

3 is okay, but I could also see just increasing the IO set bonuses for +Mez Resistance so you can get some decent Resistance from bonuses, and then with shortened mez durations and not having to re-toggle, things would be be too bad. Another option would be to find some Pool powers and try to sneak in mez resistance into them... Health already has some Resistance to Sleep, adding some more around some other powers could make this discussion a lot less ... let's say ... urgent for players of squishies.