WP END Drain and REC Drain Resists

[Rudra]

This was brought up in Bio/WP DDR, but I think it needs to be specifically pointed out. Willpower is all about having the wherewithal to persevere and keep fighting until the bitter end, or victory, whichever occurs. However, Willpower has no resists against endurance drains and recovery drains, blowing a huge hole right through the middle of the whole idea of the set. I understand all armor sets should have holes in their defense, but how does not being able to act because a lone Sapper or a Carnie mask effect instantly nukes your endurance make sense for Willpower? If it needs a different hole for balance purposes or whatever, fine. Maybe take it from the set's perception debuff resist. Being able to perceive the target makes less sense as a factor of willpower than being able to press on despite being fatigued.

[MTeague]

Willpower gets Quick Recovery to back up Stamina to keep on going when most others are fatigued, same as Regen.

You also get very solid Psi resist as an example of your will to continue fighting. 

 

That's enough. The set doesn't need more. It was a conscious choice by the oldschool devs to leave this as a potential can-opener to Willpower. I see no need for that to change. 

[Rudra]

Quick Recovery means nothing when a lone minion can completely shut that power down with a single attack. Don't get me wrong, I love Willpower. It is my preferred armor set. (Edit: Even if only because it is the only set besides Invul' that doesn't have a lot of effects. And I just don't enjoy playing an Invul' character.) The fact it has no resist to either END drain or REC drain just makes no sense to me.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Rudra

[Glacier Peak]

So the one thing balancing the set needs removed because it requires the knowing the limitations of the powerset and taking appropriate action?

 

I'm not convinced by this suggestion. Carry more blue inspirations. Pick up the Recovery Serum at the P2W vendor. Team with +recovery granting teammates. Add more +recovery slotting to the build. Kill the minion that is cause for concern first.

 

Edit: Activate Strength of Will which grants +recovery.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Glacier Peak

[Rudra]

No, I'm saying out of all the ways the devs could have balanced the set, like leaving some of the damage resists open (such as both energy and negative energy), they chose to make a hole that completely goes against the set. (And I almost always play solo. So no to the teammates bit.) Look, I know how to play the build. I know if I'm up against a group like Malta, I need to find the -END targets like Sappers and make them follow the dodo into history, effective yesterday or sooner. I don't have a problem doing that. This is not a claim saying the set is kerfuggered. This is basically me asking "Hey, devs, what the hell were you thinking when you made this set?!".

 

Willpower resists Perception debuffs. Why? That has nothing to do with having a strong will and continuing on. (Pop some yellows to compensate for your visual weakness.) The set has a base 22.5% resist to smash/lethal compared to 20.63% psionic and 5.63% everything else. Why is smash/lethal so high instead of 5.63% like the other non-psionic resists? It has a base 300% regen. Why? It should have a 100% regeneration base. Regeneration rate is not a factor of willpower. Because those are so high though, willpower lacks its fundamental resists. (Hells, Dark Armor has 22.5% base smash, lethal, fire, and cold, with 37.5% psionic, 15% toxic and energy, and 30% negative energy, and it still has 69.2% endurance and recovery drain resist. That blows Willpower right out of the water. And for a +200% regen that doesn't even make sense for the set? No matter how strong your will, you can't heal back any faster. That is a function of your metabolism, not your mind.) The ability to keep fighting until the fight is over one way or another is what willpower is about. You pick yourself up and you keep going. And when it is over, you wake up in the hospital or you're standing over your beaten foes. Not standing there glaring at your foe saying "I'm too tired to continue. Can we take a break?"

 

My question is: Why? Why the huge gaping hole in something so intrinsic to the very idea of willpower?

 

Edit: Strength of Will and Quick Recovery mean nothing to a mob that in one hit, zeroes your endurance and ability to fight, and for the rest of the power's duration, keeps setting your endurance to 0.

Sorry, just saw your edit, Glacier.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Rudra

[Rudra]

(Also, please note in my OP, I never asked for END drain and REC drain resists to be put in without something to offset it. So I am not asking for willpower's primary hole to just be plugged without losing something. I'm asking for a hole that makes sense. Your comment, Glacier Peak, feels like you think I am asking for the set to not have any holes.)

[MTeague]

END drain is a relativey rare resist that very few sets get.

• Fire gets it. It gets pathetic resistances to cold, zero defense skills, zero DDR, zero knockback protection.
• Electric gets it.  It get zero defense, zero DDR, zero toxic resist, knockback protection that only functions when you're near the ground.
• Bio gets it.  Bio is wildly OP out of the box. Late added sets suffer from Bigger-Better-Faster syndrome.  Frankly, if it were up to me, Bio would be nerfed.
• Stone gets it.  If they have Rooted on, which is it's own punishment right there. 

losing some Perception Debuff resist doesn't even come close to the price the other sets pay for it.  At least not in my book.

[Glacier Peak]

57 minutes ago, Rudra said:

(Also, please note in my OP, I never asked for END drain and REC drain resists to be put in without something to offset it. So I am not asking for willpower's primary hole to just be plugged without losing something. I'm asking for a hole that makes sense. Your comment, Glacier Peak, feels like you think I am asking for the set to not have any holes.)

Ah not so much, I was more or less for 'here's some alternatives that don't require reworking the set'

 

Yeah end drain is something that only exists at higher levels. As MT pointed out, not a lot of armor sets get protection from that type of debuff and when they do there are trade offs.

 

I couldn't tell you the thought process behind the set's power choices and its not likely any of the original legacy developers are available to ask that either.

 

Good luck!

[Rudra]

That's fair. (Though I was thinking perception, energy, and negative energy with a large reduction in regen, smash, and lethal; but apparently I can't seem to get anyone to understand that. Or they don't care. One or the other. Oh well.) Figured I'd be running into opposition on this. ... Actually, I figured a lot more opposition.... I thought there would at least be some people that agreed though. Nothing ventured, nothing gained though. I pitched the idea, and the only (two) respondents are against it.

[MTeague]

18 minutes ago, Rudra said:

 Nothing ventured, nothing gained though. I pitched the idea, and the only (two) respondents are against it.

 

Indeed. I don't begrudge you the right to make the ask.  Who knows? Maybe the devs will decide you're right, and I'm just Mr Grumpster channelling the "Change is Bad" meme.  (and I am, sometimes).  You never do know.

[SeraphimKensai]

Sounds like you need to be aware of your weaknesses and priority target the sapper, much like kheldians have to prioritize a quantum.

 

Honestly I think WP is reasonably fine as is.

 

Edit: that said if there was an end mod proc that added some end drain res, I would be alright with that as you would have to make the conscious choice to adjust your build to fit it in and it could be of use to other characters as well. Otherwise chasing defense and dodging the end drain or taking aegis are options.

Edited February 20, 2022 by SeraphimKensai

[Indystruck]

Willpower is a bonkers set that runs into the very rare problem of a select enemy type that does something exotic which can hamper it for a moment. It's fine.

[srmalloy]

10 hours ago, Rudra said:

Willpower resists Perception debuffs. Why? That has nothing to do with having a strong will and continuing on.

I'm suddenly reminded of Obi-Wan Kenobi's use of Force tricks to confuse or distract people -- "The Force can have a strong effect on the weak-minded."

[Marbing]

11 hours ago, Rudra said:

(Hells, Dark Armor has 22.5% base smash, lethal, fire, and cold, with 37.5% psionic, 15% toxic and energy, and 30% negative energy, and it still has 69.2% endurance and recovery drain resist. That blows Willpower right out of the water.

But Dark Armor also doesn't have any KB protection. You could say that is a hole that can be filled with IO's and then I could say that your endurance/recovery debuff resistance can be covered with incarnates. So... trade-offs and all that...

[Uun]

11 hours ago, MTeague said:

END drain is a relativey rare resist that very few sets get.

• Fire gets it. It gets pathetic resistances to cold, zero defense skills, zero DDR, zero knockback protection.
• Electric gets it.  It get zero defense, zero DDR, zero toxic resist, knockback protection that only functions when you're near the ground.
• Bio gets it.  Bio is wildly OP out of the box. Late added sets suffer from Bigger-Better-Faster syndrome.  Frankly, if it were up to me, Bio would be nerfed.
• Stone gets it.  If they have Rooted on, which is it's own punishment right there. 

losing some Perception Debuff resist doesn't even come close to the price the other sets pay for it.  At least not in my book.

You missed quite a few. Invul, Rad, Energy, and Dark also have resistance to end drain/recovery debuffs. So it's not relatively rare - 8 of the 13 armor sets get it. Thematically, it makes a lot more sense for Willpower to have it than Invul. Addiing 25% endurance/recovery resistance to Willpower (the same that Invul has) makes a lot of sense to me and I don't think would require rebalancing the set.

[Rudra]

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Sounds like you need to be aware of your weaknesses and priority target the sapper, much like kheldians have to prioritize a quantum.

 

Honestly I think WP is reasonably fine as is.

 

Edit: that said if there was an end mod proc that added some end drain res, I would be alright with that as you would have to make the conscious choice to adjust your build to fit it in and it could be of use to other characters as well. Otherwise chasing defense and dodging the end drain or taking aegis are options.

Do you not read what posts say and just post responses to them? (Edit: Also, incarnates are not a reasonable argument in my book. The set was designed long before incarnates were added. Incarnates are effectively post game content to me. Adding things to builds were never considered as responses to the sets. Inspirations? Yeah, that is an argument, it was a consideration when the set was made. Teammates? Also a good argument, except my counter is I solo. Still a good argument though. Incarnates? Post main story content where your character becomes a god? No.) As I said:

 

15 hours ago, Rudra said:

Look, I know how to play the build. I know if I'm up against a group like Malta, I need to find the -END targets like Sappers and make them follow the dodo into history, effective yesterday or sooner. I don't have a problem doing that. This is not a claim saying the set is kerfuggered. This is basically me asking "Hey, devs, what the hell were you thinking when you made this set?!".

This is not a claim the set is broken. It is a claim the set's designed hole makes no sense. As I mentioned to MTeague and Glacier Peak. It's great you think WP is reasonably fine. I do too. Makes no real sense, but is fine. Please read the posts in a thread if you are going to respond. Appreciated.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Rudra

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, srmalloy said:

I'm suddenly reminded of Obi-Wan Kenobi's use of Force tricks to confuse or distract people -- "The Force can have a strong effect on the weak-minded."

Obi-Wan didn't make them not see the droids. He made them think they were not the droids they were looking for and that they did not need to check the droids. Like you said, he confused and distracted them.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to remove duplicate line in same sentence.

[SeraphimKensai]

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

Do you not read what posts say and just post responses to them?

 

Please read the posts in a thread if you are going to respond. Appreciated.

Never done this before but here's something for you to read /jranger.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Never done this before but here's something for you to read /jranger.

No, you don't read the posts? No, you won't read the posts? If you are /jranger'ing my request you actually read what people are posting, what exactly are you /jranger'ing?

 

...

 

You know what? I don't have the /Willpower to deal with you. So not going to bother with you.