Debuff Resistance/Status Protection power pool?

[PeregrineFalcon]

39 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Hell, even Def - FF - Dispersion Bubble gives 8.65 pts to Hold, Stun and Immob. The other defenders can't even access 4 pts from a pool?

People complain that FF defenders suck in comparison to other Defender types. FF being able to give out defense and mez protection is literally the only reason people are willing to put up with an FF character taking up a valuable team slot. So let's give all of the other Defender powersets mez protection too and put FF squarely in the trash bin right alongside Assault Rifle and Mercs.

 

Now that being said, having a mez protection click, with the same stats as Rune of Protection but with different FX, being added to other pools, is not something that I'd be opposed to. Let someone other than wizards have a mez protection click in their pool.

 

31 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Yes, I know that you know all of that.  Others don't.  And I haven't bitched about mez yet this year, so this was a good place to start.

I actually did not know all of that. Thank you for the info!  😃

 

Since I'm on the subject, the way I'd like to see the mez system done is the way it was done in SWTOR.

 

Every class has a click breakfree power that also makes them immune to all mez for 10 or 20 seconds afterward. Certain classes also have conditional mez protection. Several of the tank classes have a gap closer - a "jump to the enemy" power - that also gives them mez immunity for 4 seconds after they land.

 

This actually works very well because mezzes in SWTOR are pretty uncommon. This means that tanks occasionally get knocked back by certain named task force bosses, and squishies get mezzed more often, but still not often, and the NPCs cannot perma-mez any character.

 

15 minutes ago, Luminara said:

After my blue bar went bye-bye, that sapper spent the next 20 minutes poking me with his cattle prod, keeping me perma-Stunned.  20 minutes.  20 goddamn minutes.  That's how long it took for that thing to defeat my character, and I never had a single chance to escape.

Yeah. This is the kind of thing in game design that makes me wonder how these people can possibly still have jobs in this field.

 

I had something similar happen to me on my Invuln tank happen the first time I took her into a PvP zone.

 

A lot of games have a thing where if you've been mezzed then once the mez is over you have immunity to that kind of mez for a little while, usually 5 or 10 seconds or something. This allows you to escape and prevents the situation that you've just described from happening.

Edited February 15, 2022 by PeregrineFalcon
Added a new thought.

[Bopper]

Have some fun with it. Make it magnitude 2 mez protection(all) but make it enhanceable. You'll see some 2 slotting of Hamis for sure.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

People complain that FF defenders suck in comparison to other Defender types. FF being able to give out defense and mez protection is literally the only reason people are willing to put up with an FF character taking up a valuable team slot. So let's give all of the other Defender powersets mez protection too and put FF squarely in the trash bin right alongside Assault Rifle and Mercs.

 

And FF does suck in much of the game because far too many are able to hit the defense softcap on their own thanks to set bonuses and/or barrier. The problem isn't with FF, the problem is with IOs and Incarnate powers. AR and Mercs definitely deserve some buffage. I really like my AR/Nrg Sent and her damage output is downright awful.

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Have some fun with it. Make it magnitude 2 mez protection(all) but make it enhanceable. You'll see some 2 slotting of Hamis for sure.

 

How does that help against a stray boss mez for the first 49 levels?

[Naraka]

23 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

 

So very glad I didn't start until issue 1. Toggle exclusivity would have had me turn right around and never play.

 What about the period of time where numbers were hidden? If I'm not mistaken, there didn't used to be numbers displayed that told you how much damage an attack did (just minor, high, extreme, etc) or how much defense/healing/etc a power provided. 

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

how did they rationalize practiced brawler?

 

Differentiation between sets.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Naraka said:

 What about the period of time where numbers were hidden? If I'm not mistaken, there didn't used to be numbers displayed that told you how much damage an attack did (just minor, high, extreme, etc) or how much defense/healing/etc a power provided. 

 

That went on for ages. We got our numbers from players on the forums instead. Yes, CoD is a VASTLY superior tool.

[Bopper]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

How does that help against a stray boss mez for the first 49 levels?

Depends on how much magnitude the mez does.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Luminara said:

Differentiation between sets.

 

SR superiority out of the box. No wonder ED/GDN hit it so hard. 🙂

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Bopper said:

Depends on how much magnitude the mez does.

 

Fair. What % of boss mezzes are 3 or higher?

[Bopper]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Fair. What % of boss mezzes are 3 or higher?

I dont know, but I feel like we'll run in circles with that. I'll just lay out what the idea means:

Base: Mag 2 protection

1 SO: Mag 2.67 protection

2 SO: Mag 3.33 protection

3 SO: Mag 3.9 protection 

 

If you want to go over 4, you'll have to really invest hard. Diminishing returns, Yada yada.

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

A lot of games have a thing where if you've been mezzed then once the mez is over you have immunity to that kind of mez for a little while, usually 5 or 10 seconds or something. This allows you to escape and prevents the situation that you've just described from happening.

I actually hated that about CO, which was the only game I played that had that. NPCs had mezzes that timed in for use just as the timer for reduced effect timed out, so they always knocked you or held you for full effect. Players however, would get sets that every power included knock or repel, and after the first attack, the whole theme of the set was useless because every attack added a stack of resist to the target and renewed the timer. (Hells, one attack was a sustain with repel that almost instantly maxxed out the target's repel resistance to immunity before you even got halfway through the power's attack duration.) It's an advantage of CoX that inherent mez protection does not exist to cause that.

 

As for the debuff/resist power pool? I have no opinion. Blasters can still attack while mezzed. I don't play defenders so I don't know how well they handle it. My corruptors handle even mez focused bosses well, but all my corruptors fly and stay out of reach. I don't play controllers and rarely play doms, so no insight on them. And the other ATs have some protection built in. You want a dedicated pool for mez protection? I definitely won't complain. It never happens? I still won't complain.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to add lines in parenthesis.

[Major_Decoy]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

Yes and no.  Mez was part of a trifecta of design choices which were all made to work together: toggle mutual exclusivity, mez, and extreme power effects.  With all three in place, critters posed a real challenge to every archetype.  Tankers and scrappers had the option to shrug off mez, but it cost them their other damage mitigation toggles, so they were facing a threat no matter how they played.

Honestly, they didn't ever really do a particularly good job of balancing stuff even with the mutually exclusive toggles. Yeah, up until Unyielding Stance became Unyielding, my tanker knew which enemy groups had which status effects, but if I'd been okay with tele-tanking, it'd never have been a concern. Yeah, Temporary Invulnerability and Unyielding Stance were mutually exclusive, but if you six slotted Resist Physical Damage, Resist Element, Resist Energy, and Unyielding with 6 Resists you'd get up to the 95% resist cap anyway. I just don't remember if you needed SOs for that or Hamis.

 

Okay, if I remember correctly, RPD used to give 20% base and unyielding stance also had 20% base, so 6 slotting with 50+++ single origin enhancements would get you to 95%.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Major_Decoy
Further information

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

SR superiority out of the box. No wonder ED/GDN hit it so hard. 🙂

 

Elude was originally a toggle.  And players couldn't attack when it was active.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Truth be told, on the topic of mez itself, I'd still prefer every powerset that has a power that grants mez protection to teammates also affect the player. Non-stackable, of course.

 

As it is, I skip it. Were it changed, I'd take it and use it often and make sure I had a pet to use it on for soloing.

[Zeraphia]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Elude was originally a toggle.  And players couldn't attack when it was active.

Now that sounds dreadful

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, Major_Decoy said:

Honestly, they didn't ever really do a particularly good job of balancing stuff even with the mutually exclusive toggles.

Let's not forget that when Star Trek Online launched there was a mez effect, Viral Matrix, that could be stacked in duration. People would come out of a PvP match with enough stacks of Viral Matrix on them that their character would be mezzed for AN ENTIRE HOUR after the match ended.

 

These were the same people who designed and built City of Heroes.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

Elude was originally a toggle.  And players couldn't attack when it was active.

 

I vaguely remember folks talking about that. Ugh. Flip side, I very much remember the day I got permalude. Folks would literally ping me to come help kill all the sappers in Malta missions.

[Major_Decoy]

13 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

SR superiority out of the box. No wonder ED/GDN hit it so hard. 🙂

Well, no. Super Reflexes had issues because bosses and lieutenants used to get to-hit bonuses instead of accuracy bonuses, and going from +0 to +1 was also to-hit bonuses, so they'd get absolutely shredded by +1 bosses.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Major_Decoy said:

Well, no. Super Reflexes had issues because bosses and lieutenants used to get to-hit bonuses instead of accuracy bonuses, and going from +0 to +1 was also to-hit bonuses, so they'd get absolutely shredded by +1 bosses.

 

See above about permalude. 🙂 It wasn't an issue after that. At least that I can recall. Unsure when higher rank/level became Acc buffs though. Do remember getting a ping on Steam when brutes got claws and the new difficulty settings were put into place.

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, Major_Decoy said:

Well, no. Super Reflexes had issues because bosses and lieutenants used to get to-hit bonuses instead of accuracy bonuses, and going from +0 to +1 was also to-hit bonuses, so they'd get absolutely shredded by +1 bosses.

 

That's what made GDN so inexplicable.  There were several improvements to Defense, plus the reductions to critter Acc/ToHit, before GDN.  And when Cryptic decided Defense was a problem, instead of revisiting some of the previous adjustments, they took a hammer to it.

 

"Okay, guys, now that we've fixed all of the oversights and problems with this mechanic, we're going to add some new ones!  You're welcome!"

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 minutes ago, Luminara said:

That's what made GDN so inexplicable.  There were several improvements to Defense, plus the reductions to critter Acc/ToHit, before GDN.  And when Cryptic decided Defense was a problem, instead of revisiting some of the previous adjustments, they took a hammer to it.

 

"Okay, guys, now that we've fixed all of the oversights and problems with this mechanic, we're going to add some new ones!  You're welcome!"

 

My suffering and bitching on the forums was legendary ... even in Hell.

Edit: But it led to scaling resists for SR so yay.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Luminara]

25 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

Honestly, they didn't ever really do a particularly good job of balancing stuff even with the mutually exclusive toggles.

 

No, they weren't particularly good at balance.  But they had a foundation.  They had a plan, a road map for where they were going and how to get there.  The idea was feasible, it simply needed a better implementation.

 

Instead, on the way from Tampa Bay to Chicago, they set the map on fire and ended up in Albuquerque.

[Major_Decoy]

6 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

No, they weren't particularly good at balance.  But they had a foundation.  They had a plan, a road map for where they were going and how to get there.  The idea was feasible, it simply needed a better implementation.

 

Instead, on the way from Tampa Bay to Chicago, they set the map on fire and ended up in Albuquerque.

It was the old joke "Find three possible solutions to a problem. Implement all three."

[macskull]

59 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'd be fine with Hold, Stun, Sleep. I'd prefer it be to all.

I still think that's very unlikely - Powerhouse explicitly stated during the Blaster secondary rework that those secondaries which granted mez protection intentionally only granted protection against one, maybe two, types. I don't see any reason why that same logic would not be extended to the rest of the ranged ATs.