Debuff Resistance/Status Protection power pool?

[Marbing]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Adding mez protection to the squishies is not really needed. Not in my experience. And I'm the kind of person that can run through multiple missions before I finally see a replacement inspiration drop. On a corruptor, one of my favorite ATs, I check the spawn, find the mezzer, then gank the mezzer. Deal with the rest of the spawn after. The primary mezzer is a boss? I blind the boss (Darkest Night, Radiation Infection, whatever) and do my best to drop him/her as quickly as possible, hoping the mezzes miss me in the interim. In the meantime, I'm flying out of the opposition's reach, so even if I am mezzed, I will hopefully not be swarmed to death. I can't do that? Then I hit and run the spawn until only the boss is left, then grit my teeth and go for it, popping reds and purples to gank the boss as quick as I can. Like has been said already, there are options for squishies to deal with mezzers. It doesn't always work, and if you have the inspirations, you can use them to mitigate the situation, but options are there.

 

Again, I am not against this idea, but neither am I for it. Inspirations are a core part of the game. They are there to get you out of a bad situation. They are not build considerations. You can't rely on having them when you need to, but they are a consideration.

I do all of this as well. My main is psi/rad, it is 100% doable, yes. But a power that grants just Mag 3 status protection that requires 2 other power choices to obtain doesn’t seem all that horrible an idea overall. If that were available to me I 100% guarantee it wouldn’t be used on all of my toons, but it would see some use on a couple of them where it make sense. Power pools are tight as it is, limiting you to only 4. What would you give up for mag 3 protection? That becomes an interesting question. Most builds as is take Speed Pool, Leadership Pool, and/or Fighting pool, then sometimes throwing in stealth, or jumping, or experimentation, or sorcery, etc etc, so what would clearly be replaced by a mag 3 prot toggle? Idk I’ll have to think on that more but that’s kinda where my head is right now…

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Only irrational thing going on around here comes from the folks that think AT/powerset balance discussions should involve inspiration use.

Well we could be talking about the binary nature of mez, but...

[Naraka]

58 minutes ago, th0ughtGun said:

I agree to an extent but, in my opinion, I think it can be done right. Mag 3 mez prot isn’t going to make you immune to much, most of the problem mobs stack mez anyways and if you do this in a way that would require build sacrifices then you would have a built in trade off for the desired effect.

 

Another idea for this would be, what if the power protected you from from mez up to the point that you would be mezzed and then drops and goes in recharge?

 

For example:

 

Toggle on, you have Mag 3 hold protection.

 

Mob hits you with Mag 2 hold, nothing happens.

 

Mob stacks 2 Mag 2 holds on you for a total of 4 Mag. The protection drops and goes on 30 sec recharge. You are NOT held but now you have no protection for the next 30 seconds.

Could be that the toggle never drops but the prot does go away after it’s limits are reached and then auto turns back on? Idk if that would even work, just thinking outside the box… as a sort of compromise. 

 

 

Now someone's starting to peek outside the box.

 

Why can't all mez protection have some sort of stipulation or function that one has to be weary about?

 

Another idea: rather than protect you up to a threshold but then shut down, how about it aggressively protect you once you're mezzed? Like if you get held out slept, your "mez defense" kicks in and if another hold or stun, ect starts to stack, it takes no effect. So it's assisting the user from being chain mezzed but has no utility for a build that largely ignores mez.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Naraka

[PeregrineFalcon]

There's another possibility that may be factoring into the developers' thoughts on mez. A great way to avoid being mezzed is to invite a tank to your team. Squishies pretty much never get mezzed when a tank is holding aggro.

 

I know, I know. How dare I suggest teaming up with other people in an MMO as a way to solve issues.

 

Brutes, Scrappers, Tanks and Sentinels can solo well due to being able to ignore mez for the most part. Other ATs can't. I just don't see why this is an issue.

[Luminara]

53 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

So right, my bad. And I also completely forgot about just storing them in email, too. Yea, makes perfect sense to "balance" around their use.

 

I believe I can bolster your position with some more pertinent facts, @Bill Z Bubba.

 

A Break Free lasts 30s.  If a player expects a mission to take 10 minutes, that's 20 Break Frees he/she's going to be toting along to make it through the mission without being mezzed.  How many inspiration slots do we have at level 50?

Oh, look at that, it's 20.  Let's see, what would a status-protected character carry, since he/she doesn't need 20 Break Frees... well, he/she could stock up on Lucks, but since that status-protected character has self-affecting toggles which only suppress, and don't require the character to engage in animation time when the suppression ends, they don't necessarily need Lucks.  How about Insights?  Eh, really not necessary most of the time, but it's nice to have one on hand for the occasional Blind.  Okay, we have 19 more slots to fill, let's see... hell, let's just stick a CaB, a Respite and a Luck in there, the "Justin Case collection", and pack the rest of the tray with 16 Rages.

 

We don't need to enter a test environment to determine which character would complete that hypothetical mission more quickly, more easily and in less jeopardy, it's patently obvious.

 

So it really does come down to e-mailing inspirations to oneself to make the claim that the balance between the haves and have-nots is maintained by inspirations.  Without that, there's definitely no parity, in any sense.  Using the e-mail to yourself option to sidestep the 20 slot limitation, yeah, that's on the shady side of legitimate, but it is still, technically, legitimate.  Still, it doesn't benefit the unprotected characters as much as it benefits the protected ones.  Claiming items from e-mail takes time.  Click the e-mail, click Claim, click the next e-mail, click Claim... even if it's done with a macro or bind, that's still time spent.  The unprotected characters are already spending extra time on animations for click and toggle debuffs, this just stacks more time against their completion run.  Animation time which status-protected characters aren't spending, because, even if they're mezzed, their self-affecting toggles they automatically restore without animation when the mez ends, and they may never need to claim anything to keep going, and still be faster, in less danger and having an easier run.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with you, the very notion that the situation is "fine" because a defender/corruptor can pack his/her e-mail with inspirations is beyond ludicrous, because it ignores the fact that characters with status protection can pack their e-mail with inspirations just as well, and drive their own performance edge even further away from that of the characters with no status protection.  It's a given that everyone has access to inspirations, in the general sense, but that everyone has equal access to different load-outs of inspirations is not, not even with that extra 100 in e-mail.  The characters with status protection always come out ahead when inspiration use is factored in, because they're less reliant on them in general, and rocking status protection which frees up their selection of inspirations overall.  Stating that characters without status protection are balanced by inspiration use in the current game is completely disingenuous misinformation based on speculation in a vacuum, independent of the facts, and not even remotely reflective of the reality of the situation.

[Major_Decoy]

11 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

There's another possibility that may be factoring into the developers' thoughts on mez. A great way to avoid being mezzed is to invite a tank to your team. Squishies pretty much never get mezzed when a tank is holding aggro.

 

I know, I know. How dare I suggest teaming up with other people in an MMO as a way to solve issues.

 

Brutes, Scrappers, Tanks and Sentinels can solo well due to being able to ignore mez for the most part. Other ATs can't. I just don't see why this is an issue.

Mez isn't a huge problem when you've got someone taking and are able to stay at range, but there are some power sets are a lot more helpful on teams if they're standing right by the tank. These are sets that are encouraged to be in melee but kind of lack reasonable options for staying there. It's why I feel like break-frees aren't a reasonable solution. Either you're just eating one a minute or you're waiting until you're detoggled to use one and the one debuff that was keeping you alive is no longer active.

[Marbing]

24 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

There's another possibility that may be factoring into the developers' thoughts on mez. A great way to avoid being mezzed is to invite a tank to your team. Squishies pretty much never get mezzed when a tank is holding aggro.

 

I know, I know. How dare I suggest teaming up with other people in an MMO as a way to solve issues.

 

Brutes, Scrappers, Tanks and Sentinels can solo well due to being able to ignore mez for the most part. Other ATs can't. I just don't see why this is an issue.

For me it really isn’t about that. Side stepping the mobs that have AOE mez, btw. Tanks/Brutes can’t help you against that. Regardless, I know there are methods around it, I use all of the mentioned methods all the time and still enjoy playing the game.

 

For me it’s about introducing a new and interesting power pool that (if done correctly) can further promote build diversity, especially among the squishier AT’s, without necessarily being inherently overpowering.

[Luminara]

16 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Brutes, Scrappers, Tanks and Sentinels can solo well due to being able to ignore mez for the most part. Other ATs can't.

 

You left out stalkers, dominators, Kheldians, Soldiers of Arachnos, controllers with Indomitable Will and/or pets which hold aggro exceptionally well, blasters with their triple-stacking mag 1 status protection ATO, and masterminds who let their henches do the heavy lifting.  And the defender/corruptors playing a primary with status protection.

 

17 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I just don't see why this is an issue.

 

Because teaming should be optional, not a mandated solution to a problem which only exists for a minority, and that only because the design bible was thrown into a shredder shortly after the game launched.

[PeregrineFalcon]

8 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Because teaming should be optional...

I agree. And it is optional. For players, not necessarily for characters.

 

Play one of those stalkers, dominators, Kheldians, Soldiers of Arachnos, controllers with Indomitable Will and/or pets which hold aggro exceptionally well, blasters with their triple-stacking mag 1 status protection ATO, and masterminds who let their henches do the heavy lifting.

 

But if you play a Defender, whose literal job it is to defend the team, then I don't believe that it's unreasonable to expect that you'll want to be on a team.

[Naraka]

23 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

 

We don't need to enter a test environment to determine which character would complete that hypothetical mission more quickly, more easily and in less jeopardy, it's patently obvious.

 

 

Lol you kind of had to revert to the base point of clear times, which in and of itself is useless because solo times are not supposed to be standard. They never were, they shouldn't be and I wouldn't use clear times as a standard for extra-AT balance.

 

Also, why would a Controller or Defender need to have a break free on every second? If you have a luck+debuffs, a mez might never connect. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

But if you play a Defender, whose literal job it is to defend the team, then I don't believe that it's unreasonable to expect that you'll want to be on a team.

 

And the tank's literal job is to hold aggro for a team so why did they get a damage buff?

The blaster's literal job is be the glass cannon for a team but were given an overhaul that included extra mitigation.

 

Even defenders were granted a damage buff for soloing.

 

It's almost like changes were made to archetypes in the past specifically to make it more enjoyable to solo them.

[PeregrineFalcon]

3 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

And the tank's literal job is to hold aggro for a team so why did they get a damage buff?

I was against damage buffs for tanks when it came up on the retail forums, and I would have been against it here had I known it was going to happen. Personally I preferred Bruising to a damage buff.

 

There's a big difference between a bit of a damage buff and a "let's give everyone mez protection so that no one ever gets mezzed, ever!" And yes, that is exactly what we're talking about, because if this mez pool gets implemented then it will become just as mandatory in peoples' minds as Hasten is.

 

What's the point in even having mez in the game if no one is vulnerable to it? I've asked this question many times, but no one has ever even tried to answer it. It just gets ignored.

 

What's the point in having mez in the game if no one is vulnerable to it?

[Naraka]

16 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

And the tank's literal job is to hold aggro for a team so why did they get a damage buff?

The blaster's literal job is be the glass cannon for a team but were given an overhaul that included extra mitigation.

 

Even defenders were granted a damage buff for soloing.

 

It's almost like changes were made to archetypes in the past specifically to make it more enjoyable to solo them.

Do two wrongs make a right?

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

There's a big difference between a bit of a damage buff and a "let's give everyone mez protection so that no one ever gets mezzed, ever!" And yes, that is exactly what we're talking about, because if this mez pool gets implemented then it will become just as mandatory in peoples' minds as Hasten is.

 

True. Good thing no one has asked for that. I mentioned 3 pts. That stops ONE mez. That's it.

 

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

What's the point in even having mez in the game if no one is vulnerable to it? I've asked this question many times, but no one has ever even tried to answer it. It just gets ignored.

 

What's the point in having mez in the game if no one is vulnerable to it?

 

What's the point in asking the question when no one, not a single person in this thread, other than you, have brought up being invulnerable to mez?

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Naraka said:

Do two wrongs make a right?

 

Should things that are wrong be corrected?

[Bill Z Bubba]

Side note: Mez is binary when you're only considering is mezzed/not mezzed.

 

How one GETS mezzed isn't binary at all. You need X mez to get past Y mez protection. The values are different between ATs and in some cases even different between powers within an AT. The mag values coming in from enemies vary amongst rank and enemy groups and powers. It's not nearly as black and white as some wish it were.

[PeregrineFalcon]

13 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

What's the point in asking the question when no one, not a single person in this thread, other than you, have brought up being invulnerable to mez?

Ok, so if being invulnerable to mez isn't the issue then why not just take Rune of Protection?

[Zeraphia]

On 2/14/2022 at 1:15 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

This came to me in a fever dream, so bear with me.  I am perfectly content with using the tools we have to manage the risks we face, but I see a lot of posts on this section and elsewhere that demonstrates many people are not.  Rather than advocate an approach that says, "Everyone gets the best advantages from every set," I was thinking of some sort of trade-off in the form of giving up power picks and/or slots.

 

I haven't gotten into any ideas of amounts or balance or how/if these could be slotted, but I was thinking something like:

 

Lvl 4:

Regeneration Resistance

To Hit Debuff Resistance

 

Lvl 14:

Status Effect Protection

Recovery Debuff Resistance

Defense Debuff Resistance

 

Just an idle idea.  You'd still be restricted to choosing at most four different pools, and you'd need two (or more) picks to reach the really useful stuff.

I'm just going to try to go back to the main topic. To Hit Debuff and Regeneration Resistance can be very meh to a lot of characters (obviously not willpower/regen/bio), so I see how for a lot of characters it would be in the "yeah we could take it but there's better things I could've done" power pick to get in, and then the Defense Debuff would be a huge boon for characters that are softcapped but don't have DDR. It would be fair I think to do. 

 

I think a lot of it depends too on the values these resistances are given. 10-25% DDR can be quite substantial, especially if it's enhanceable, but only 5% unenhanceable would make it an insta-skip. Not entirely sure about the regen values. To Hit debuff resistance is pretty mediocre/useless because well just buffing tends to be better but it's a pre-req for the better things so I do see it as a fair tradeoff. 

 

I am not sure about the Status Effect Protection on this, I think somethings like maybe a mag 3 protection to stuns only or something would be nice and impactful but not gamebreaking or Rune of Protection levels of mitigation. 

 

I approve of the idea, but the numbers would be totally up to the developer discretion and I could see DDR being a huge make-or-break for the set.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Ok, so if being invulnerable to mez isn't the issue then why not just take Rune of Protection?

 

Because of it's 2/3 downtime. It's literally useless 66% of the time. Course I take it now anyway on several squishies because at least it also means it's useful 33% of the time.

[Luminara]

29 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

What's the point in even having mez in the game if no one is vulnerable to it?

 

No-one's invulnerable to mez now.  Status protection defers the effects until sufficient magnitude is stacked, but it doesn't make the protected individual invulnerable to mez.  I've been mezzed through mag 10 protection many times.

 

The point of proliferating status protection isn't to make everyone impossible to mez, it's to even out the wide disparity between the ~88% and the ~12%.

 

The ~88% can shrug off three mag 3 mezzes.  The ~12% can't shrug off a single mag 2 mez.

 

The ~88% have 0.0s animation time attached to their damage mitigation toggles when suppression ends, and those damage mitigation toggles only ever have to be activated a single time, immediately upon acquisition (barring detoggling after entering "personal story missions").  The ~12% have varying animation times attached to their comparable damage mitigation toggles, up to 3.3s, or the click powers they're required to activate provide comparable damage mitigation, and those clicks and toggles have to be reapplied with every spawn, and the toggles turned back on every time mez disables them.

 

The ~12% have to spend still more time trying to counter mez by using their own status effects pre-emptively, presuming their primaries or secondaries offer status effects, and always have a 5% chance for that attempt to fail (missed).  The ~88% spend 0.0s countering mez and have a 0% chance of failure because status protection is a buff.

 

The ~88% is better equipped to deal with the loss of control due to mez already, due to toggle reactivation after suppression being automatic, but they also tend to have a larger pool of HP to buffer them.  Some of the ~12% have heals or +Regen, but neither is usable while mezzed... and some of the ~88% also have heals and +Regen, which they can use despite one or two mezzes landing.

 

The ~12% have to dedicate at least part of their inspiration inventory to one specific inspiration.  The ~88% have the option to utilize a more diverse selection of inspirations.

 

The ~88% have higher damage output across the board, allowing them to progress quickly through content, and this is magnified by their ability to shrug off most mez.  The ~12% have lower damage modifiers and scalar values, even accounting for the -Res in their primaries and secondaries, and are required to progress at a much slower pace, thereby magnifying the temporal discrepancies between them and the ~88%.  After all of their extra clicks and re-toggles, they're slowed down further by their lower damage output.

 

The ~12% have one pool-based option to deal with mez (i don't include Acrobatics because it doesn't prevent Stuns or Sleeps, it's only mag 2 Hold protection, and there aren't any critters with Holds of mag 2.9 or less of which i'm aware).  Not a great option, but since it's there, it's pursued.  The ~88%, not having the need to pursue that option, can exercise more lateral choices in character design and play style.

 

How many points of disparity do I need to list to make it apparent?  Lack of status protection costs that ~12% significant amounts of real life time and compromises build diversity, neither of which should be sacrificed on the altar of teaming or the retention of "the way it was when the game was released".  The ~88% aren't forced to play Issue 0, the ~12% shouldn't be, either.  That is the point.  Not immunity to mez, but a less drastic gulf between the two groups.  Mez is still, and will always be a threat, but that threat is disproportionately higher for the ~12% than it is for the ~88%, who fold when a mag 2 effect completely shuts them down, whereas the ~88% soldier on without ever realizing there was a mez.

[Naraka]

6 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Because of it's 2/3 downtime. It's literally useless 66% of the time. Course I take it now anyway on several squishies because at least it also means it's useful 33% of the time.

Are you mezzed 100% of the time?

 

Maybe I'm just not mentally syncing with this, but I tend to try and avoid being mezzed and if I get mezzed, I use RoP. If I tried to keep RoP up for max its duration, I'm certain a portion of that time would not actually be doing anything but acting like insurance... literally a waste of resources unless you screw up. Basically, how you view self rez powers.

 

Still, RoP isn't supposed to be full coverage. It's just a pool. Heck, mez protection across all ATs shouldn't always be full coverage like it mostly is now.

[Naraka]

7 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

No-one's invulnerable to mez now.  Status protection defers the effects until sufficient magnitude is stacked, but it doesn't make the protected individual invulnerable to mez.  I've been mezzed through mag 10 protection many times.

 

 

I'll clarify then:

 

Until your magnitude of protection is exceeded, you are invulnerable to the mez stacked on you *because* it takes no effect.

 

In the game, mez below the protection had no tertiary effect besides a background counter. It doesn't partially suppress a buff, it doesn't lower your AT inherent, it doesn't lower the effectiveness of your enhancements or inspirations, it is literally just a tally for the specific mez effect.

[PeregrineFalcon]

19 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Because of it's 2/3 downtime. It's literally useless 66% of the time. Course I take it now anyway on several squishies because at least it also means it's useful 33% of the time.

Exactly. Because, as I said, people (not just you) are basically talking about being immune to mez most and/or all of the time.

 

Bill, Lumi, I understand your math and your points. I really do. And I don't entirely disagree with either of you.

 

However, Squishies at 50 can already solo, thanks to IO sets and/or Incarnate abilities. If squishies under 50 gain the ability to solo then I guess I should just retire my now worthless tank. And FF defender. And Controller. When you allow Blasters to solo all the time you basically destroy any reason for those characters to even exist.

 

Also, if squishies under 50 can solo then you've now removed all reason to team up for anything except a couple of Task Forces and iTrials. Not requiring people to team up is one thing. Not even giving them any reason to is a whole 'nother thing.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Are you mezzed 100% of the time?

 

Maybe I'm just not mentally syncing with this, but I tend to try and avoid being mezzed and if I get mezzed, I use RoP. If I tried to keep RoP up for max its duration, I'm certain a portion of that time would not actually be doing anything but acting like insurance... literally a waste of resources unless you screw up. Basically, how you view self rez powers.

 

Still, RoP isn't supposed to be full coverage. It's just a pool. Heck, mez protection across all ATs shouldn't always be full coverage like it mostly is now.

 

RoP provides 10 pts of mez protection to everything 1/3 of the time as a pool power pick.

 

The request would provide 3 pts of mez protection all the time as a pool power pick.

 

Are you stating that you think mez protection across all ATs should only be up some % of the time with "Heck, mez protection across all ATs shouldn't always be full coverage like it mostly is now?"

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Exactly. Because, as I said, people (not just you) are basically talking about being immune to mez most and/or all of the time.

 

You mean immune to ONE mez at a time all the time. That's nowhere even remotely in the same ballpark as immune to all mez all the time and you know it.

 

2 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

However, Squishies at 50 can already solo, thanks to IO sets and/or Incarnate abilities. If squishies under 50 gain the ability to solo then I guess I should just retire my now worthless tank. And FF defender. And Controller. When you allow Blasters to solo all the time you basically destroy any reason for those characters to even exist.

 

Your tank is worth no more or less than any other character now at any level. My new blaster has soloed 100% of her time so far and will continue to do so until I get bored or overly annoyed. So far, she's only faceplanted once in Perez Park when I jumped into a spawn without noting the two red bosses within it. Of course, I'm also only running at +1/x1 w/bosses.

 

So this statement about making your characters useless because of the rest of us soloing is also a false statement. To me they're already useless. Or are the huge numbers of "did a TF without a tank or a brute or, hell, any melee at all!" posts complete fabrications?

 

7 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Also, if squishies under 50 can solo then you've now removed all reason to team up for anything except a couple of Task Forces and iTrials. Not requiring people to team up is one thing. Not even giving them any reason to is a whole 'nother thing.

 

MMO means you can team. Nothing more, nothing less. I team with my SG when I want to which these days is far more than I did back before the snap. I don't need to team with them or anyone else. Hell, if I wanted to, I have no doubt that I could dualbox a great many things that my characters aren't actually capable of soloing but I choose to instead accept that I can't solo them and move on.

 

I'm unsure why there needs to be ridiculous jumps straight into "Gone To The Americans!!!" land on this topic. It will change NOTHING other than making soloing a few ATs more pleasant and less annoying.