Potential for a new Rage

[Mr Pierce]

I've been playing on the newest patch and I have to say I'm really loving all the travel power changes. Adding clicks to travel powers that do extra things is such a cool idea that it actually had me thinking about other ways to use it. This inevitably lead me to thinking about Rage and how the developers aren't happy with it's current implementation. So...

 

What would Rage look like if it were made into a toggle that also has a click power?

 

Ideally it would be like a leadership pool combo of assault and tactics, but only on your character. It could give 12.5% to-hit and 20% damage. To balance out the numbers you give it a decently high endurance cost (.36/s maybe?). I'm definitely not a numbers guy, so someone else can probably find the magic balance between strength and cost. I don't want to get too caught up on numbers yet, as this is just a hypothetic.

 

This toggle would have a click power that works a lot like the current Rage power. If the toggle gives 20% damage, then the click would give an additional 80% damage, so that you get to the original 100% damage buff. Add in some number of to-hit buff as well. Have it last 40-60 seconds with a cooldown that is unaffected by recharge. Think the Rune of Protection changes.

 

The issue I am having is with the crash. I know for a lot of players this is the issue they have with the power. I think if you keep the cooldown unaffected it doesn't have to have a crash. However, if the crash needs to exist for thematic purposes or balance reasons, then I think it should be lessened from it's current value. I think you take away what was given, meaning if the click gives 80% damage buff, then you lose 80% damage after it wears off. Your anger drains you of your strength temporarily. Same with the to-hit. Take what is given. I don't know if the -def portion of the debuff is needed. It feels pretty bad on tanks, but I guess it's part of the balance of gaining so much damage for a short period of time?

 

What do you guys think?

[Haijinx]

Rage is basically the postage child for the cottage rule.

 

 

[Haijinx]

Just now, Haijinx said:

Rage is basically the postage child for the cottage rule.

 

 

Or poster child.  Whatevs.

[Alchemystic]

Cottage rule shmottage rule

 

I dont think we have to have to honor a fleeting design choice by a developer who isn't even part of the current team, heck, he wasn't even part of the old team for that long anyways.

[Haijinx]

56 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Cottage rule shmottage rule

 

I dont think we have to have to honor a fleeting design choice by a developer who isn't even part of the current team, heck, he wasn't even part of the old team for that long anyways.

 

While I tend to agree, the flame wars over Rage in this forum have been legendary.  Almost as wild as live.   Even when Capt PH proposed to split the Debuff between Defense and Resist, and make single rage not crash at ALL.  Which was pretty much everything you could ask for.   Short of eliminating all Rage based crashes.

 

 

[TheZag]

1 hour ago, Tyrannical said:

Cottage rule shmottage rule

 

I dont think we have to have to honor a fleeting design choice by a developer who isn't even part of the current team, heck, he wasn't even part of the old team for that long anyways.

 

and even in its day it just meant that powers wouldnt be drastically altered from their original design.  a power that used to do 1 thing and now it builds a tiny cottage in front of you instead.  people have taken it to mean that powers can never be changed or that they cant be changed if they dont like the change.  the cottage rule is too broad in its usage and too vague in its definition (at what point is a change too much to apply the rule?)

 

I would be happy to see rage get a rework (and probably more of SS as well) and as long as rage is still a damage buff,  that satisfies the cottage rule in my book.

 

but seriously,  if something is broke, feel free to fix it.  use foot stomp on that tiny cottage.

[Myrmidon]

Cottage Burn is a thing and I cannot think of a more perfect use for it than Rage.

[Monos King]

I think you're onto something. I haven't had much luck in thinking of ways to address the broad SS conversation, but this feels like something that could lead somewhere.

[Take One]

I think the damage buff should be removed from Rage, along with the crash.

The tohit buff can remain.

The damage should be directly added back into the attacks of Super-Strength, to make up for this.

Rage should instead provide a huge Recharge bonus, which lets you use your heavy hitting attacks more often.

The fact that you use your heavy hitting attacks more often will drain your endurance faster, so there is a drawback built into the power already, if you want to call it that.

There, I think that would fix SS and Rage and make it work satisfactory for both Tankers and Brutes.

 

[Alchemystic]

8 hours ago, Haijinx said:

 

While I tend to agree, the flame wars over Rage in this forum have been legendary.  Almost as wild as live.   Even when Capt PH proposed to split the Debuff between Defense and Resist, and make single rage not crash at ALL.  Which was pretty much everything you could ask for.   Short of eliminating all Rage based crashes.

 

 

 

I believe that may just come down to Brute mains wanting to preserve the status quo, and getting quite uppity about anything that threatens change.

 

Dunno of you saw the forum when Tankers were getting a buff to make them more competitive with Brutes, but... yikes.

[Hyperstrike]

9 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

Cottage rule shmottage rule

 

I dont think we have to have to honor a fleeting design choice by a developer who isn't even part of the current team, heck, he wasn't even part of the old team for that long anyways.

So, 17 years is now "fleeting".

Good to know!

[Hyperstrike]

7 hours ago, TheZag said:

 

and even in its day it just meant that powers wouldnt be drastically altered from their original design.  a power that used to do 1 thing and now it builds a tiny cottage in front of you instead.  people have taken it to mean that powers can never be changed or that they cant be changed if they dont like the change.  the cottage rule is too broad in its usage and too vague in its definition (at what point is a change too much to apply the rule?)

 

I would be happy to see rage get a rework (and probably more of SS as well) and as long as rage is still a damage buff,  that satisfies the cottage rule in my book.

 

but seriously,  if something is broke, feel free to fix it.  use foot stomp on that tiny cottage.

That's the thing.  Not everyone agrees that something is broke here.

[Alchemystic]

2 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

So, 17 years is now "fleeting".

Good to know!

 

As in; it was fleeting 17 years ago, as Castle himself said he could overturn it any time he deemed it necessary.

 

So until we know what is and isn't necessary, the cottage rule is moot.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Tyrannical

[Alchemystic]

Moving on from that tangent...

 

Yeah, Rage could use some work. It's one of the relics of the old way of designing things, and one of the few ones that have remained untouched.

 

Powers with archaic design choices need to be modernized, which so far has been the case for powers like Rooted and Dimension Shift, but tackling Rage is an entirely different beast. 

 

Having the power as a toggle might be a good way to go about it. Have it so while active you gain all of the normal benefits, but also suffer the debuff to resistance. I would also have it so that the endurance cost for maintaining it would be quite high, maybe with 50% of it being unenhanceable.

 

That way there is no 'crash', and you can end the effects when things start to get dicey, but the penalty to your endurance and resistance would be somewhat the same.

[Haijinx]

Id halve the bonus, remove all crashes.  This would put it more inline with followup. 

 

Then Double the recharge on jab, punch, and haymaker, with the resulting increases in damage.  

 

Swap footstomp with KOB in progression.  Maybe move a couple others around 

 

This would bring SS more in line with other sets, reduce the godliness of FS with double rage.  But rage would still be a sweet bonus.

[arcane]

13 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Rage is basically the postage child for the cottage rule.

 

 

I think it’s just really hard to change. It has a crash because its buff is insanely powerful, so it has to be punishing in some capacity to be balanced - the devs just haven’t found a crash palatable to both their design sense and to players yet. I think -defense is just an awful thing for melee to sign up for though - defense sets in particular. There are a lot of debuffs I’d sign up for before that. 
 

EDIT: Reading on further, I agree that I’d rather diminish the buff if it meant no crash. I think the rest of the set is fine but tweaks to the earlier attacks wouldn’t be too OP.

Edited April 27, 2021 by arcane

[Lazarillo]

13 hours ago, Haijinx said:

While I tend to agree, the flame wars over Rage in this forum have been legendary.  Almost as wild as live.   Even when Capt PH proposed to split the Debuff between Defense and Resist, and make single rage not crash at ALL. 

This.  They had a fix for Rage, and they shelved it because of people whining that the changes weren't OP enough.

I think it's unfortunate, but unlikely they're going to touch it now.  Best we can hope for is that SS gets ported to Scrappers and a totally different power is put in its place.

[Naraka]

6 hours ago, Take One said:

I think the damage buff should be removed from Rage, along with the crash.

The tohit buff can remain.

The damage should be directly added back into the attacks of Super-Strength, to make up for this.

Rage should instead provide a huge Recharge bonus, which lets you use your heavy hitting attacks more often.

The fact that you use your heavy hitting attacks more often will drain your endurance faster, so there is a drawback built into the power already, if you want to call it that.

There, I think that would fix SS and Rage and make it work satisfactory for both Tankers and Brutes.

 

Not too keen on the rech buff but I like the prospect of replacing the dmg buff with a damage proc (100% chance during Rage). If you make the additional damage proc also affected by damage buffs, you're actually buffing the damage since you're own Rage won't count against your damage cap and you'll be doing additional damage on teams when you are capped.

 

Although, to balance out that buff, having the damage proc only affect SS attacks would be an adequate nerf that does make sense.

[Snigery]

 

Quote

I've been playing on the newest patch and I have to say I'm really loving all the travel power changes. Adding clicks to travel powers that do extra things is such a cool idea that it actually had me thinking about other ways to use it. This inevitably lead me to thinking about Rage and how the developers aren't happy with it's current implementation. So...

 

What would Rage look like if it were made into a toggle that also has a click power?

 

I think the travel powers are pretty amazing too! I love the Mighty Leap and Takeoff combination. I wish it felt more like a takeoff with a quicker animation, even if it had no knockback (it is kinda slow). But on-topic, I don't understand the goal of turning a situational power into a toggle (which as a SS/Invuln Brute I already have plenty of toggles, and that is not even considering secondary power pool powers I choose as situational boosts to heal/endurance form Presence, or Willpower).

I personally am a new player, I like the situational powers with drawbacks, because they're meant to be that and are more interesting. As a brute I already benefit from Fury gain, so maybe this is a problem for tanks or scrappers with Super Strength? The 10 second downtime is rather minimal compared to the 2 min duration. And with recharge enhancements, you can re-cast this over and over, if you need to. Inspirations are more than enough to recover end loss, and the dmg reduction is only 10 seconds. I just don't understand the desire to turn something into a passive stat booster (which is boring) just for the sake of a gimmic? This doesn't mirror what the travel powers do. They already introduce meaningful changes to mechanics and game experience. These travel powers just add more to the travel powers, not detract.

 

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Ideally it would be like a leadership pool combo of assault and tactics, but only on your character. It could give 12.5% to-hit and 20% damage. To balance out the numbers you give it a decently high endurance cost (.36/s maybe?). I'm definitely not a numbers guy, so someone else can probably find the magic balance between strength and cost. I don't want to get too caught up on numbers yet, as this is just a hypothetic.

 

I personally don't take leadership because it is all toggles - which is boring and I have enough of them as SS/Invuln - and does not fit my character. I feel like it should be said that these difference in stat boosting bonuses are also more than made up for by other team members and supporting buffs from power pools such as kinetics and time manipulation (I know of these two from experience and I play time manipulation - I like temporal selection).

 

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This toggle would have a click power that works a lot like the current Rage power. If the toggle gives 20% damage, then the click would give an additional 80% damage, so that you get to the original 100% damage buff. Add in some number of to-hit buff as well. Have it last 40-60 seconds with a cooldown that is unaffected by recharge. Think the Rune of Protection changes.

 

Just being critical hear, but I think you're taking what is good from the travel powers and applying it in a poor manner. We're talking about changing a situational damage boost that has a very mild drawback of 10 seconds and some endurance loss (which is worth the damage boost) and neutering it into a toggle, then the user has to re-activate this click power from a separate power tray less than every minute - whereas Rage lasts 2 min with 10 sec delay. I don't see how this is better? But again, I am not too experienced and tend to enjoy more casual play (have also yet to reach 50). But again, these differences I feel are made up for by team members. I don't think Rage needs to be min-maxed this way.

 

I do have a suggestion of my own though. I like the idea of making powers more dynamic. Where travel powers got some extra usable 'click' powers, I think rage would be even better as an EVEN MORE situational power. This would allow us to enhance it more without having to design extra drawbacks or re-work the mechanics. What if rage was usable under certain circumstances? If you are surrounded by a certain group of enemies? Or your health drops below 75%/50%? This ties better thematically with a Rage powerup, and is still interesting. Leadership already does have situational powers from what I've read, such as victory rush. Also, what if Rage had archetype-unique trigger conditions such as scrappers unlocking rage by chance on a crit, brutes when maintaining or reaching a fury limit, and tanks when surrounded by number of aforementioned enemies. I still think there should be some drawback. It makes the flow of combat/gameplay more interesting and less streamlined or steam-rolly. Having a break to 'rest' is not a bad thing. I think the goal of Rage should be to help the hero tip the scales of a fight so that they can take the break, rest, then face the next encounter. And if by means of lack of skill on the heroes end they can't finish the fight or retreat soon enough, there's a consequence because they're not immortal and rage is drawing on a limited pool of emotion and consentration of will.

 

Another thing to consider as I am writing this is again I am biased, casual player who has not reached or replayed endgame content - but to consider is that the drawback is not so bad compared to others. Invulnerability end-power provides much more benefits in the form of resist damage types, etc, but after 3 min entirely drains you of HP.

[MTeague]

I can see how the Defense loss on rage crashes are Highly Unpopular on say, an /SR character. 

Whereas my Invuln/SS tanker barely notices the short-term defense loss, because even if things hit him it ain't for much. 

 

Then 10 seconds of "might as well not attack" from the short term damage debuff doesn't matter to me in the slightest. 

I can taunt, I can combine some inspirations, I can double check positioning, I can let some attacks come off cooldown.

[Biff Pow]

I think we should create a new "Smash Melee" powerset so we can make changes to Super Strength but still have the old Super Strength so everyone's happy.

 

(Just kidding, there will still be complaints.)

[PeregrineFalcon]

I'd just turn Rage into a toggle and then up the damage of the Super Strength attacks so that the new overall damage output would be equal current SS + 1.5 Rage. This seems like a nice middle ground and would allow it to be ported to Scrappers without unseating Titan Weapons as the best damage dealer.

 

Of course I'd also add damage to Hand Clap. I've always thought that Hand Clap doing no damage at all made no sense.

[Mr Pierce]

On 4/27/2021 at 3:43 AM, Take One said:

I think the damage buff should be removed from Rage, along with the crash.

The tohit buff can remain.

The damage should be directly added back into the attacks of Super-Strength, to make up for this.

Rage should instead provide a huge Recharge bonus, which lets you use your heavy hitting attacks more often.

The fact that you use your heavy hitting attacks more often will drain your endurance faster, so there is a drawback built into the power already, if you want to call it that.

There, I think that would fix SS and Rage and make it work satisfactory for both Tankers and Brutes.

 

You would be removing the sets Build Up entirely for a recharge buff. I don't think I want that.

[Night]

I'd like to see Rage get the treatment Practiced Brawler gets in Sentinel SR set. You have 2 versions and you can pick between them, the current version or an auto power that passively increases damage and tohit but doesn't crash. May as well give them the same numbers, since you can easily doublestack Rage as is, so there's already the drawback of it being an auto power right there, that can't be doublestacked for double the damage and tohit boost.

[Andreah]

How about the toggle plus two pop-up options, only one of which can be chosen to be available at a time.

 

The first one is a crashless rage boost with recharge that cannot be enhanced or reduced.

 

The second in a short term boost with a crash much like the current one, but it can be affected by recharge.

 

Balance such that the total average boost over a full cycle is about the same for a character with modest total recharge.