Possible ways to help support classes

[Wavicle]

This thread is for people to discuss possible different ways to improve the Support ATs.

Some folks have suggested letting buffs that have previously been ally only be cast on themselves, there are many different suggestions all over the place.

 

 

 

I'll start it off with an idea of my own (not saying it's the best way, just something off the top):

I'm not sure if the technology even exists in the game to have powers effect Either caster or ally, so my idea is to bypass that.

 

 

Instead of allowing ally buffs to effect the caster, we could give the owner of the ally only power Passive buffs with similar (scaled down, unenhanceable, unbuffable) effects.

 

I wrote a non-comprehensive list with made up numbers.

 

 

 

Cold Domination>Fire Shield: Owner gets 10% Smash/Lethal Def and 10% Fire/Cold Res

Cold Domination>Glacial Shield: Owner gets 10% Energy/Negative Def and 10% Cold Res

Cold Domination>Frostwork: Owner gets 10% +Max HP and 10% Toxic Res

 

Empathy>Clear Mind: Owner gets +Perception and 5 points protection against Stun/Sleep/Hold/Fear/Confuse/Immob

Empathy>Fortitude: Owner gets 15% ToHit, Damage, and Def All 

 

Force Field>Deflection Shield: Owner gets 10% Smash/Lethal Def and 20% Toxic Res

Force Field>Insulation Shield: Owner gets 10% Energy/Negative/Fire/Cold Def and 40% Endurance/Recovery Resistance

 

Kinetics>Increase Density: Owner gets 10% Smash/Energy Res and 5 points protection against Hold/Immob/Stun/Knock/Repel

Kinetics>Speed Boost: Owner gets 20% Recharge, Recovery, and Resistance to Slow

 

Pain Domination>Enforced Morale: Owner gets +Perception and 5 points protection against Stun/Sleep/Hold/Fear/Confuse/Immob

 

Poison>Alkaloid: Owner gets 10% Toxic Res and 150% +Regen

Poison>Antidote: Owner gets 10% Toxic/Cold Res, 20% Resistance to Slow, and 5 points protection against Stun/Sleep/Hold/Fear/Confuse/Immob

 

Sonic Resonance>Sonic Barrier: Owner gets 10% Smash/Lethal/Toxic Res

Sonic Resonance>Sonic Haven: Owner gets 10% Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative Res

Sonic Resonance>Disruption Field: Owner gets 15% Damage

Sonic Resonance>Sonic Repulsion: Owner gets 5 points protection against Knock

Sonic Resonance>Clarity: Owner gets +Perception and 5 points protection against Confuse/Fear/Sleep

 

Storm Summoning>O2 Boost: Owner gets +Perception, 5 points protection against Stun/Sleep, 40% Endurance/Recovery Resistance and 150% +Regen

 

Thermal Radiation>Thermal Shield: Owner gets 10% Smash/Lethal/Fire/Cold Res

Thermal Radiation>Plasma Shield: Owner gets 10% Fire/Energy/Negative Res

Thermal Radiation>Thaw: Owner gets 10% Cold Res, 30% Resistance to Slow, and 5 points protection against Stun/Sleep/Hold/Fear/Confuse/Immob

Thermal Radiation>Forge: Owner gets 10% ToHit and 15% Damage

 

Time Manipulation>Temporal Selection: Owner gets 15% Recharge, 15% Damage, and 75% Regen




Feel free to comment on my idea or suggest your own!

Edited April 19, 2021 by Wavicle

[arcane]

Cut the defense buff powers down from 10% to 5% and I’d call this a reasonable compromise with the folks that see a problem. 10% auto defense is too much. 
 

I disagree with the premise that support AT’s are struggling at all though.

 

EDIT: I’m willing to even say 5% *enhanceable*, even though, damn will that make Cold Dom OP.

Edited April 19, 2021 by arcane

[Steampunkette]

Defense values equal to 50% of resistance values are interchangeable. 45% defense results in you taking 10% of incoming damage in the same way 90% Resistance does.

 

Whether the values are 3.5 and 7 or 5 and 10 it works out.

 

But if you give 10 and 10, holy crap does that favor Defense sets!

 

I respect the intention, though. Spreading the value to the caster through passive increases. I would probably lean toward the 3.75 and 7 range, personally, including for things like bonus Damage from powers or Recharge. Regen is a stickier wicket, and I haven't thoroughly examined how the values would interact. But generally speaking they, and recovery bonuses, should probably be closer to the order of Health and Stamina than 50% of whatever the original value is.

 

In this way, a Support Character could get -some- baseline defense/resistance/damage outside of their Epic Power Picks and PBAoE effects, on which they could stack set bonuses, without it being huge. Which would free up set bonuses for other types, like recharge or damage so they can better contribute to putting the enemy down through more debuffs, more team-buffs, and more damage.

[Ukase]

I think a better question is, why do you think they need help? 

[Hew]

What is the problem to be solved?

 

No, this is a genuine question, zero sarcasm. I play a lot of support chars and don't really see any issues, especially with the change to defenders scaling self-bonus related to team size.

[Andreah]

I'm feeling a little lost of the purpose here too.

 

Do we believe that support AT/builds are too fragile, even with a strong group?

 

Do we think they are too difficult to solo, and we'd want them to do better when not in a group?

[Steampunkette]

The suggestion boils down to Incarnates and Inventions.

 

Once you hit 50 as a defender, you can become a -really- strong character. But on a team, your ability to shine is gravely diminished. Take a Dark Miasma for example.

 

Twilight Grasp is a really nice group heal. Works all the way through to 50 really -really- well!

Tar Patch: If you don't put this power down before the first Judgement or Blaster Nuke lands almost everything will be dead before you finish the cast time.

Darkest Night: Your Anchor exploded before the cast time ended, and everyone on the team has soft-capped defenses, anyhow.

Howling Twilight: Really powerful group rez, assuming anyone dies! Strong Stun component, too!

Shadowfall: Really strong and useful PBAoE Stealth and +Def buff. Mostly to get yourself to softcap, 'cause everyone else is already there. But hey, it's debuff overhead!

Fearsome Stare: Everything that would get Feared is dead by the time you finish casting it.

Petrifying Gaze: Everything that could be held is dead by the time you finish casting it.

Black Hole: Very few people bother with this power, and you'll probably get yelled at for trying to use it.

Dark Servant: More damage is good? The rest of the pet's powers are useless.

 

Granted, Dark Miasma is one of the more extreme examples, but Radiation and Sonic face similar problems. Electric, at least, provides benefits in unique ways and unique values to make it more useful overall at high end. Which I think may have been part of it's design ideology.

 

Maybe there's a better way to take it than minor buffs that allow for wider build variety, I just haven't really given them much thought. But support classes, as well as Khelds, are against a brick wall at high end.

[Doomguide2005]

16 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I think a better question is, why do you think they need help? 

This pretty much sums it up.  Outside of solo + the occasional mez craziness that can occur while solo I'm now thinking "I need help?"

[Wavicle]

Defenders and Corruptors in particular, less so Controllers and Masterminds, suffer a little from having both low base damage and low hitpoints while having buffs that take time away from attacking and in many cases buffs that don't help the caster.

Are they bad? No. Could they be better without breaking the game? Yea, I think so.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Doomguide2005 said:

This pretty much sums it up.  Outside of solo + the occasional mez craziness that can occur while solo I'm now thinking "I need help?"

There was a pretty good amount of chatter in the Sorcery threads that told me all of my support characters supposedly suck. I too wanted some guidance as to how all support AT’s could simultaneously be as gimped as some were saying and yet I could be feeling so effective on my dozens of support characters.

[Wavicle]

I definitely don't think they suck or are gimped. But I don't think Blasters were gimped or sucked before i24 or the latest round of changes, yet they got a buff.

 

What changed my mind, because I used to agree that support sets were fine as is, was this history shared by @Luminara in one of the beta threads:

 

"Support archetypes are forced to adhere to a rule set which was modeled around and based on toggle mutual exclusivity being the standard in the game.  The purpose of support sets containing ally-only buffs was specifically to complement toggle mutual exclusivity, and the purpose of toggle mutual exclusivity was to promote teaming.  Toggle mutual exclusivity was removed and the game was redefined around an entirely different set of rules, except for support archetypes.  The archetypes with the lowest HP, lowest damage output, no status protection and slowest progression were left with the legacy restriction of not being able to use their own powers on themselves, for no reason beyond Cryptic's determination that they weren't unplayable as they were, so there was no reason to bring them into the new rule set unless or until they reached that point."

[arcane]

I saw that post but saw no evidence provided to support its claim - the claim that support sets were designed the way they were specifically because of toggle exclusivity - and that the removal of toggle exclusivity diminished support’s value too much. Seemed like a vague correlational observation sans causation type of thing to me.
 

Unless I remember incorrectly, toggle exclusivity was almost exclusively a scrappers and tankers issue, meaning the support AT would have maintained the exact same value to Blasters, Controllers, and Defenders (and still quite a lot of value to scrappers and tankers until IO’s and incarnates allowed them to round out their shortcomings to reach nigh invincibility).

Edited April 19, 2021 by arcane

[Wavicle]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

I saw that post but saw no evidence provided to support its claim - the claim that support sets were designed the way they were specifically because of toggle exclusivity - and that the removal of toggle exclusivity diminished support’s value too much. Seemed like a vague correlational observation sans causation type of thing to me.

 

I wasn't around before i3, but it sounded like a very likely history based on what I am aware of.

[Apparition]

Not to mention additional support sets and even an entire support AT were added way after toggle exclusivity ended, and the Defender inherent was completely overhauled in Issue 17 to make them more solo friendly.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Apparition

[arcane]

4 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 

I wasn't around before i3, but it sounded like a very likely history based on what I am aware of.

Basically you couldn’t simultaneously run Temp Invulnerability and Unyielding on a Scrapper or Tanker, for example. Yes you could easily say support sets lost meaning to those AT’s when that exclusivity feature was removed, but rounding out the defenses of melee characters was never the only purpose of a support AT to begin with. Just because my main, a Scrapper, no longer needed to choose between S/L resistance and mez resistance does not mean that (1) I did not benefit from even more resistance and defense and (2) the other three AT’s at the time did not benefit from mez protection ally buffs.

[Night]

That's just giving everyone status protection which has been said no

Edited April 19, 2021 by Night

[arcane]

2 minutes ago, Night said:

That's just giving everyone status protection which is no, and has been said no

I was too busy looking at the defense/resistance values to notice! Yeah - no from me on the status protection bit. Change it to status resistance for the user and maybe though.

[PeregrineFalcon]

20 hours ago, Wavicle said:

This thread is for people to discuss possible different ways to improve the Support ATs.

Looking at the suggestions in the OP it appears to me that you're trying to improve their ability to solo. I submit that that goes against the entire purpose and spirit of those ATs.

 

Look, Scrappers can solo quite well, and you'd expect them to. Tankers, Brutes, Controllers, even Blasters can solo ok given some work. But Defenders are "the AT specifically designed to buff and protect the team." I'd argue (and I am arguing) that it's literally against the entire purpose of the AT to improve their ability to solo.

[MTeague]

The only issue I really feel day-to-day playing is Control powers feel increasingly useless after 32 and carrying onward to 50, unless, the team really seeks out the "this mission arc will break your teeth and make you cry" arcs. 

 

When the team starts fighting massive amounts of Rularu, or some of the really hard Night Ward arcs, or the Belladonna / Number Six arcs, then you'll be very glad to have some controllers or doms on hand, and you'll be so glad for control, you won't care which it is.  But for your average high end murderball doing nonstop ITFs or Radios?  It's not worth joining most teams as a controller, unless you truly don't mind feeling like a seventh wheel / being carried. 

 

I have no viable solution to that, however. 

Teams aren't going to gravitate to the kick-your-face-in arcs when the other arcs provide the same rewards.

If other mobs were beefed up to the point where teams no longer felt safe in most content without multiple tanks or a few controllers, that would be a step backwards in the idea of "bring what you got". 

[Wavicle]

13 minutes ago, MTeague said:

The only issue I really feel day-to-day playing is Control powers feel increasingly useless after 32 and carrying onward to 50, unless, the team really seeks out the "this mission arc will break your teeth and make you cry" arcs. 

 

When the team starts fighting massive amounts of Rularu, or some of the really hard Night Ward arcs, or the Belladonna / Number Six arcs, then you'll be very glad to have some controllers or doms on hand, and you'll be so glad for control, you won't care which it is.  But for your average high end murderball doing nonstop ITFs or Radios?  It's not worth joining most teams as a controller, unless you truly don't mind feeling like a seventh wheel / being carried. 

 

I have no viable solution to that, however. 

Teams aren't going to gravitate to the kick-your-face-in arcs when the other arcs provide the same rewards.

If other mobs were beefed up to the point where teams no longer felt safe in most content without multiple tanks or a few controllers, that would be a step backwards in the idea of "bring what you got". 

There is a solution, making harder enemy groups worth more xp.

[Wavicle]

Anyway, I’m not here to argue over whether Support needs buffs. I’m not completely convinced in either direction. Thanks for reading my suggestion!

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

There is a solution, making harder enemy groups worth more xp.

It could be taken too far but I really do think a measured attempt to implement something like this could incentivize a lot of players to revisit neglected content. I’m looking at you Shadow Shard.

 

Though one thing that would definitely be “too much” would be to make the groups in Dark Astoria worth much more - considering you have the option to fight 54’s as +1’s. DA missions on a decent melee character are already super lucrative in spite of their enemy groups being harder than Council.

Edited April 19, 2021 by arcane

[Andreah]

Harder content would help, otherwise we're complaining that teams that don't need support don't need support.

 

If we're talking about soloing, I agree some buffs to certain AT/Powersets might be welcomed. But I don't believe soloing is not viable already. We have a difficulty setting just for the less solo-capable AT's -- -1/x1, no bosses. I have some of those characters, myself, and they work if you don't expect to farm like a brute.

 

I want to call back to the motivation and design objective -- I believe we need to have a clear and accepted idea of what those are before we suggest changes. Should every AT/powers-combo be able to solo +4/x8? Should every team be overjoyed when AT/Powers-combo joins as the eighth member? Should every AT/combo be able to solo decently well at -1/x1? With bosses? How fast? Which enemy groups? A which levels? Should everyone be able to add something to a team, even when it's steamrolling so fast everything dies before you can debuff them? A lot of these, no, probably not. But which and whether and how much makes a difference as to what is done, or even if anything is done.

[Grindingsucks]

Well, the game is broken at high lvls, thanks to persistent power creep.  Characters have become so powerful at that level, that support AT's feel superfluous.  The fix would be across the board nerfs, which are neither possible nor practical, because:

 

1) The majority of the players base, which loves their steamrolls and OP'ed munchkitoons, would riot.  But, more importantly...

 

2) The scope of work to do all of those nerfs to properly balance the game, would not be practical given the present size of the development team.

 

So, what is the answer?  I don't know.  For me personally, I've decided that the answer is concentrating on enjoying mid-level play and forgetting about end-game content.

[Pzn]

3 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

Granted, Dark Miasma is one of the more extreme examples, but Radiation and Sonic face similar problems.

I don't think sonic suffers nearly as bad as radiation and dark miasma.  Your AoE -res can just be toggled on whoever is always running in first.  And the resistance buffs are still pretty useful to layer on top of everyone being soft capped.  At least half the set is useful at 50.