new powerset: Psionic Barrier

[spiralmenace]

let me just preface this by saying don't bother commenting if you're just going to be lame like "we already have willpower and super reflexes and energy aura 🤓"

 

so basically my line of thinking is that an explicitly psionic-themed armor set would be neato. to differentiate it from the above sets i envision it as an offensive defense set in the vein of bio armor, fiery aura, stone armor. primary influences for this are Mob Psycho 100, Mass Effect 3 multiplayer vanguards, and maybe a little splash of Akira for good measure

 

scrapper version:

• Tier 1: Movement Prediction. toggle, self +defense (melee) +resist (psionic)
  • basic melee defense toggle, part of the bread and butter toggle combo. not much to say here
• Tier 2: TK Wall. toggle, self +defense (ranged, AoE) +resist (psionic, stun)
  • the other half of the bread and butter toggle combo
• Tier 3: Mental Fortitude. auto, self +resist (smashing, lethal, psionic, sleep, fear, confuse, taunt, recharge)
  • a little bit of "mind over body" baseline resilience for balance's sake. resistance to mental-type status effects for flavor. to be clear, this is not meant to be more than 20-40% total mez resist value based on level scaling. most of these mez types are non-existent in early game, plus the enemies that actually do use stun and sleep are not terribly common either.
• Tier 4: Clarity of Mind. toggle, status protection (immobilize, stun, hold, sleep, confuse, fear) +resist (psionic, tohit, perception)
  • bog standard melee defensive mez protection
• Tier 5: Psychic Backlash. auto, self +stacks over time (spent automatically on receiving damage, attacker suffers moderate to high psionic damage based on stack count)
  • here's where it gets fun. since the set is defense-based, there's pretty good odds that once a character is kitted out this power won't fire as often as it theoretically would while leveling. fewer HP damage hits, stronger retaliatory strikes to those that actually land.
• Tier 6: Safe Room. click, +absorb +resist (smashing, lethal, energy, fire, cold)
  • environmental protection panic button. hits taken by absorb should also trigger backlash. also shores up a demerit on a later power
• Tier 7: Drain Psyche. click, PBAoE enemy -regeneration -recovery, self +regen +recov
  • self-explanatory. for balance's sake, it'd probably need somewhat less value per target and a longer cooldown than blaster/dom versions. not gonna lie a big chunk of the idea behind this set is getting DP onto melee archetypes lol
• Tier 8: Invert Barrier. click, PBAoE moderate damage (psionic) self -stacks -defense
  • another fun skill. spend backlash stacks to hit all enemies around you, but at the same time since you are exploding your shields your defense briefly dumpsters. use the absorb click preemptively to mitigate this. also this is probably the easiest "skip" power for pairs that have good AoE damage
• Tier 9: Outburst. duration-limited toggle, self +damage +recharge, PBAoE damage over time (psionic) chance to knockdown, delayed self -endurance -recovery
  • a wildly offensive crashing t9. i envision this as lasting 45-60 seconds with a 40% end crash that neutralizes recovery for about 15 seconds after. use DP to mitigate that

 

brute/tanker version:

t1: movement prediction

t2: psychic vortex (toggle, pbaoe psionic DoT +stacks over time)

t3: mental fortitude

t4: TK wall

t5: clarity of mind

t6: safe room

t7: drain psyche

t8: invert barrier

t9: outrage (duration toggle, self +dmg +rech +retaliatory strikes [high psi dmg +knockdown] delayed self -end -recov)

 

stalker version:

t1: hide

t2: movement prediction

t3: TK wall

t4: clarity of mind

t5: mental fortitude

t6: psychic backlash

t7: safe room

t8: drain psyche

t9: outburst

 

sentinel version:

t1: movement prediction

t2: TK wall

t3: mental fortitude

t4: clarity of mind

t5: safe room

t6: psychic backlash

t7: psyche up (click, self +regen +recov +max health)

t8: extend barrier (click, pbaoe repel +chance for knockback)

t9: outburst

 

 

all in all i think it'd be a pretty fun set. there's some glaring defensive gaps (debuff resistance, max hp, general resists) but every set needs to have a couple holes in its mitigation to not be grossly overpowered. also feel like there's a case to be made for rearranging some of the tiers at which certain skills are available, but eh.

 

e: big note, i just realized this set is entirely missing knockback protection and honestly i'm okay with that. if anyone is familiar with MP100 then you'll remember how often people with their full-strength barriers get thrown around like pinballs in that, so it's 100% thematically okay for this imo.

Edited April 8, 2023 by spiralmenace
reordered some skills for parity with existing sets. defensive core available earlier

[Rudra]

Why are both tier 2 and 4 mez protection? Mez protection is tier 4 only in every other set.

[spiralmenace]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Why are both tier 2 and 4 mez protection? Mez protection is tier 4 only in every other set.

the passive is mez resistance, not mez protection. resistance reduces the duration that status effects actually affect you, protection prevents them entirely

 

i figure the passive resistance would be from about 20-40% based on level scaling. it's really just there for flavor since there's overlap with the toggle mez protection

Edited February 9, 2022 by spiralmenace

[Rudra]

Using Willpower as a reference, since it basically fills the same niche, mez protection is the tier 4. Mez resist becomes available as a tier 9. Some other sets have a far more limited resist, looks like mostly slow resist at tier 2 and some mez resist at tier 3. So why is yours so early and expansive with mez resist?

 

(Also, apologies, looking over the other sets, some do have both a mez resist and mez protection, but not before tier 3, and not so expansive as yours.)

Edited February 9, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to add last part of question.

[spiralmenace]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Using Willpower as a reference, since it basically fills the same niche, mez protection is the tier 4. Mez resist becomes available as a tier 9. Some other sets have a far more limited resist, looks like mostly slow resist at tier 2 and some mez resist at tier 3. So why is yours so early and expansive with mez resist?

 

(Also, apologies, looking over the other sets, some do have both a mez resist and mez protection, but not before tier 3, and not so expansive as yours.)

honestly i can't really say there's much reason for it besides flavor. early game enemies don't tend to use most of those types of mez, and the ones they do are fairly rare so it doesn't even really matter in the long run imo.

 

also how do you draw the conclusion that an offensive defense set with positional defenses, absorb, strong regen, and three offensive tools fills the same niche as willpower? WP is wildly different mechanically, the only things it has in common are high regen and psionic mitigation

[Wavicle]

20 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Why are both tier 2 and 4 mez protection? Mez protection is tier 4 only in every other set.

That's not true. There are multiple sets that have their mez protection spread over multiple powers. Fire, Bio, Dark...

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

That's not true. There are multiple sets that have their mez protection spread over multiple powers. Fire, Bio, Dark...

Yeah, hence my apology in my 2nd post. However, none of them cram that many mez resists into a tier 2 power. Or even a tier 3.

Bio: Tier 2: Slow and End Drain.

      Tier 3: Hold, knockdown, and immob.

 

Dark: Tier 2: Resist? I only gots damage resist, yo.

         Tier 3: End Drain

 

Electric: Tier 2: Resist? Why bother? FRY DEM ALL!!!!

            Tier 3: Resist? Mez? HAHAHAHA!

 

Fire: Tier 2: Disorient

       Tier 3: Resist? Mez? I'd rather heal, thanks.

 

Ice: Tier 2: Resist? I gots me some bonus HP, y'all!

      Tier 3: Resist? Better to slow and weaken, thanks.

 

Invul: Tier 2: I'm seeing a trend here. No mez resist.

         Tier 3: Nope, still none.

 

Rad: See Invul.

 

Shield: Tier 2: Resist resist debuff.

          Tier 3: Nope.

 

Stone: See Invul.

 

Reflex: Tier 2: Resist defense debuff.

           Tier 3: More resist defense debuff.

 

Will: Tier 2: You would think so, but no.

        Tier 3: Still no.

 

Proposed: Tier 2: Stun, sleep, fear, confuse, taunt.

 

A bit OP compared to the other sets.

[Wavicle]

Perhaps, it depends on the total package. But maybe some of the earlier stuff should be moved into a later spot.

[spiralmenace]

boy, if some relatively exotic mez resistance in a t2 power bugs you that bad you're really not gonna like when i point out that arachnos soldiers can have straight up mez protection to virtually everything in an auto right out of the gate

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=training_gadgets.training_and_gadgets.wolf_spider_armor&at=arachnos_soldier

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=training_gadgets.crab_spider_training.crab_spider_armor&at=arachnos_soldier

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=training_gadgets.bane_spider_training.bane_spider_armor&at=arachnos_soldier

 

i won't argue that it could potentially be somewhere else. but to say it's OP to have it that early is a little excessive

[Wavicle]

Well, the numbers on the spiders passive are not that high, but sure.

[Rudra]

I don't compare anything proposed to soldiers of arachnos, widows of arachnos, peacebringers, or warshades. Those are all epic ATs. They play by their own rules.

[spiralmenace]

yeah, alright. after some thought i've redistributed a couple of the mez resists from t2 into t1 and t3, it shouldn't seem quite so loaded at a glance now. they're all still there so it wouldn't actually have any impact on gameplay.

 

not gonna lie, i don't get why a handful of status resistances in one auto power is such a contentious idea when t2 skills in other comparable armor sets are even more loaded (looking at you, bio and radiation and willpower)

[Wavicle]

Bio and Rad are OP and the numbers on the WP passive are not very high.

[Rudra]

You're still trying to front-load your mez resists. And as my list shows, some of those power sets may have a lot of damage resists, but they are not heavy on mez resists. It still feels like you are trying to god mode your power set. Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be chasing my tail on this topic, so I'm just going to bow out now.

[spiralmenace]

i think you guys are vastly overestimating how useful status resistance is. copied from https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Resistance_(Mechanics):

 

Resistance to status effects follows a different formula:

SufferedDuration = AppliedDuration / (100% + TotalResistance)

So 75% resistance to Sleep duration, for example, would not cause all Sleeps to affect the character for only 1/4 of their normal durations. Their durations would be divided by 1.75, which is roughly only a 43% reduction.

More importantly, the formula means that achieving 100% or more resistance to effect durations does not cause them to end instantly. 100% resistance actually only cuts their durations in half, 200% cuts it to a third, 300% would cut it to a fourth, and so on.

 

20% status resistance on a level 2 scrapper is not going to make any appreciable impact on gameplay at early levels. it's not as OP as it looks

Edited February 9, 2022 by spiralmenace

[Naraka]

43 minutes ago, Rudra said:

You're still trying to front-load your mez resists. And as my list shows, some of those power sets may have a lot of damage resists, but they are not heavy on mez resists. It still feels like you are trying to god mode your power set. Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be chasing my tail on this topic, so I'm just going to bow out now.

While the criticism for the mez resistance is noted, it's not as productive of a critique when the rest of the tools in the set are being ignored. Having some extra mez resist early on could just be flavor and balanced by the rest of the sets tools (or holes).

 

As for the OP'd ideas, it does remind me of another suggestion I made for a Psi armor. It also has mostly mez resistance and a short duration/recharge click mez protection like a break free. It was more of a niche idea because most of its protection was from autos and further still, it had a unique effect to gain lots of def/res/Regen only while it was mezzed *AND* would explode with an AoE power that would control 10 foes with whatever mez it was under when it used it's break free.

 

Having another offensive focused armor set is, I suppose, in the minority of expertise but in the meta of things, I don't think we need another dps benchmark for melee. It is an idea tho. Curious what others feel about it compared with the spread we already have.

[Greycat]

... I read the T4 as "Clarity of Mud." >.<

 

For some reason I'm picturing this set getting a bit chaotic during play, but in a fun way. (And as far as missing KB protection, well... fire, dark.)

[PeregrineFalcon]

[Safehouse]

I love this set idea, and could imagine it being loads of fun. Thematically, it also reminds me of lots of espers in media, who use their psychic powers not just offensively, but defensively as well. One example that comes to mind is Tetsuo from Akira. Sure, he's an offensive juggernaut with his psychic abilities, but he also applies his telekinesis defensively to great effect.

 

 

I could definitely envision a psy/psy sentinel being lots of fun 🙂

[lemming]

I like this concept.  Get to work on the assets now

[Crasical]

I like the idea of Backlash, but I feel like it only works for Scrappers. Brutes and Tanks would prefer a more consistent taunt aura.

[spiralmenace]

1 hour ago, Crasical said:

I like the idea of Backlash, but I feel like it only works for Scrappers. Brutes and Tanks would prefer a more consistent taunt aura.

you know, that's a really good point. i really like the flavor of the ability but i think the slot would need to be something pretty much completely different for tank-types. first thought is something to the effect of swapping the DoT out of outburst into its own power, then moving the retaliatory strikes into it as an exchange. Psychic Vortex and Outrage, as alternate names? i guess in that case invert would need to just be an ordinary pbaoe damage click, probably with some rebalancing to compensate how it doesn't require stacks to use anymore. not sure how i'd wanna handle that tbh.

[spiralmenace]

bump. threw together alternate versions of the set for all the other armor ATs, with a handful of thematic skill replacements for each

[Kismet Cowboy]

I'm not going to comment anything on the exact mechanics or numbers because I don't know a thing about that stuff, but thematically I think it's a wonderful idea, especially since we now have Psi Melee to partner it up with. I don't understand any comparisons to Willpower; one is about being grizzled and never giving up, the other is actively using psionic superpowers to protect yourself?

 

Even if its just thematically, its a thumbs up from me.

[MTeague]

For this kind of character, I would probably just roll Energy Aura (if melee/sentinel) or Force Fields (if ranged/support) and just say "my bubbles are psychic barriers that deflect attacks".

 

I mean, more choices is always good. So I wouldn't be terribly opposed to more sets.

But really, I've seen a lot of "ooh I want a new set for THIS" requests that are very easy to create that type of character with an existing set and just get creative on your backstory.