Strength of Will

[Gobbledigook]

Could Strength of will from Willpower get its resists evened out please? The biggest boost it provides is to Smash/Lethal yet the set inherently has strong resists to those damage types anyway and is often wasted on many builds. Where the set is lacking is in the other resists.

 

Could the F/C/E/N/T/P resists in SoW be boosted to the same amount as S/L even it it means reducing the S/L resists a little?

 

I just think SoW would be more fitting if it resisted all damage types evenly rather than S/L mostly. It is not like the skin hardens to resist S/L more it is from sheer willpower to resist whatever is thrown at them.

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[Glacier Peak]

S/L is the most common enemy damage type. I'm happy with the power, because of the extra S/L resistance I don't need to dip in to the Fighting Pool for Tough.

[Gobbledigook]

28 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

S/L is the most common enemy damage type. I'm happy with the power, because of the extra S/L resistance I don't need to dip in to the Fighting Pool for Tough.

But if you increased the other resists to the S/L levels as i mentioned it won't even affect you.  Maybe they would reduce the resists by a small amount if they did this, but it will still be a better T9 than it is now. SoW only lasts 2 minutes anyway.

 

So you won't lose you will just gain.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[General Idiot]

If they increased the other resists they'd probably decrease the S/L resist to keep the power balanced. Not sure what metric they judge that by but most likely it'd end up giving somewhere in between resists to everything rather than just boosting the others. Willpower as a set doesn't underperform as is, at least as far as I know, so there's little reason to buff it.

[Outrider_01]

6 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

SoW

Spirit of Wolf? 🤔

[Vanden]

5 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

S/L is the most common enemy damage type. I'm happy with the power, because of the extra S/L resistance I don't need to dip in to the Fighting Pool for Tough.

 

But on the other hand, if you do go into the fighting pool for Tough (and Weave), an extremely common build choice, your t9 can barely do anything for you. A Stalker with end problems might like the Recovery buff, but that's pretty much it. I'd like them to at least buff the Psionic resists.

[Rudra]

I find that having Tough, Weave, and Strength of Will work well together. Tough lets me run without Strength of Will for most fights, and when I'm getting mauled by foes that exploit my (much) lower resists, Strength of Will as is fills the gaps more than well enough for me to clear out the primary threats.

[Gobbledigook]

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

I find that having Tough, Weave, and Strength of Will work well together. Tough lets me run without Strength of Will for most fights, and when I'm getting mauled by foes that exploit my (much) lower resists, Strength of Will as is fills the gaps more than well enough for me to clear out the primary threats.

Of course it does. But the fact is it gives twice the S/L resists than the others and the other resist types are what Willpower is weaker in. WP is already very strong in S/L and a lot of builds cap it without SoW.

 

It is a mediocre T9 and along with other T9s needs a look at. This is an easy quick fix that will not affect anyone in a bad way nor make it OP.

 

I just don't see how a power described as a strength of Will should be better vs S/L than the other resists. Does the skin harden to become more impervious to cuts etc? Surely psionic should be much higher. Rune of Protection even offers better resists without a crash.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[arcane]

We keep saying it’s “weaker” to those other damage types without mentioning that it has easily soft capped defenses to said damage types. 
 

Not much of a meaningful balance discussion if you ignore all the context outside of resistances.

 

That being said I don’t mind if they rebalance the power since, as it is, I don’t even have a reason to take it. Can’t recall my Willpowers doing any dying. But yes, you don’t just get to increase the resistances without a tradeoff, but you could probably trade the S/L resistances for more of the others.

Edited March 25, 2022 by arcane

[Naraka]

15 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

Could Strength of will from Willpower get its resists evened out please? The biggest boost it provides is to Smash/Lethal yet the set inherently has strong resists to those damage types anyway and is often wasted on many builds. Where the set is lacking is in the other resists.

 

Could the F/C/E/N/T/P resists in SoW be boosted to the same amount as S/L even it it means reducing the S/L resists a little?

 

I just think SoW would be more fitting if it resisted all damage types evenly rather than S/L mostly. It is not like the skin hardens to resist S/L more it is from sheer willpower to resist whatever is thrown at them.

 

Is this an OCD thing (get all the numbers the same or the resists to the same range) or a genuine balance concern (WP is being torn apart too quickly that the Regen can't do it's job)?

[Naraka]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

I find that having Tough, Weave, and Strength of Will work well together. Tough lets me run without Strength of Will for most fights, and when I'm getting mauled by foes that exploit my (much) lower resists, Strength of Will as is fills the gaps more than well enough for me to clear out the primary threats.

Yeah, that sounds like the easiest application. Basically take your fighting pool and when either to much -res or a lot of other damage (like cold or energy) is bombarding you, SoW can iron out the tough spots.

[Hyperstrike]

54 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Yeah, that sounds like the easiest application. Basically take your fighting pool and when either to much -res or a lot of other damage (like cold or energy) is bombarding you, SoW can iron out the tough spots.

Exactly.  It's not REALLY a god power like Granite.
It's an *Oh Shit!* button or a *GERONIMO!* button.  You hit it and go nuts on an enemy that'd normally be too big for you.

Was showing someone this sort of thing less than a day ago on a WP Tank.

 

 

And for the people calling the S/L boost "superfluous".
Please note that if this is an anecdotal argument.
Simply because this applies to YOUR particular top-end build doesn't mean your experience is "The Norm".

Edited March 25, 2022 by Hyperstrike

[Hyperstrike]

And on that point, here's a comparable build ON COMMON IOs.


 

 

Sure, the AMOUNT given to the less common damage types is smaller.
But ENFC Resists NEARLY TRIPLE.

[arcane]

Willpower has multiple layers of mitigation to all damage: very high regen to all, great S/L/P res and great F/C/E/N defense. And such great recovery and mitigation that you can comfortably skip everything else for Ageless Radial to even cover your DDR. I think we have yet to see an argument that it actually needs help as a whole set.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by arcane

[Gobbledigook]

Above shows the build going from 89.92% S/L resist to completely uselessly overcapping. I guess on io/So's it is valid though or those who don't take tough to have this power up 40% of the time.

 

But is Unstoppable fine also? just use Io's and don't take tough or temp invulnerablity etc.

 

I was just trying to help WP where i thought small improvements could be made but a lot of you think it's perfect as it is so ill leave it alone and stick with my Bio which is just so much better but /shield is even better again lol. I have built WP and found it was lacking hence my suggestion but my opinion doesn't matter.

 

Regen is fine also :P

 

[Rudra]

Don't get me wrong. I would absolutely love if Willpower was as good as Bio and Shield. (It's my favorite armor set.) I just don't think reducing the S/L resists to bolster the other resists in Strength of Will will do that. Strength of Will is supposed to be your "Oh shit!" button. It works pretty well in that regard.

 

Edit: And over-capping helps when you're getting hit with -Res.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Rudra

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Strength of Will is supposed to be your "Oh shit!" button. It works pretty well in that regard.

 

It really doesn’t. For anything other than Smash/Lethal, you have to pop it well in advance of getting into trouble, and it really just slows down how quickly you can be defeated, giving you some extra seconds to pop some inspirations or retreat. For Smash/Lethal, going Tough/Weave is probably better. You get the extra defenses all the time, instead of just some of the time, and Willpower gets Quick Recovery to help with the extra end costs (except on Stalkers).

[Rudra]

I don't understand. Most of the time (70+%?) that I wind up popping Strength of Will, my health is already red and it balances me out long enough to heal back to yellow/orange and drop the primary threats eating my health. Unless I'm fighting Cimerorans... they just eat me.... If the devs want to boost the resists in the power? I won't complain. Maybe my chance of surviving desperation mode will increase. As an "Oh shit!" button though, Strength of Will has pulled my butt out of the fire more often than not.

[Uun]

I think the more relevant fact is that Rune of Protection, a pool power, is arguably better than Strength of Will, a T9. It provides superior resistance to F/C/E/N/P/T with close to the same uptime (33% vs. 40%). Granted it requires you take 3 powers from the Sorcery Pool.

 

That said, the buff I would rather see WP get is resistance to end drain and recovery debuffs. 

[Rudra]

4 minutes ago, Uun said:

That said, the buff I would rather see WP get is resistance to end drain and recovery debuffs. 

We've already had this discussion. It... did not go well...

 

For whatever reason, the Live devs decided WP's armor hole was to be the logical heart of the set. (Not the design heart, which seems to be everywhere, just the part that would make the most sense to me for it have.) And there is very dedicated opposition to changing that.

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

 

But is Unstoppable fine also? just use Io's and don't take tough or temp invulnerablity etc.

 

I was just trying to help WP where i thought small improvements could be made but a lot of you think it's perfect as it is so ill leave it alone and stick with my Bio which is just so much better but /shield is even better again lol. I have built WP and found it was lacking hence my suggestion but my opinion doesn't matter.

 

Regen is fine also 😛

 

I don't think sets are supposed to be perfect.

 

55 minutes ago, Vanden said:

 

It really doesn’t. For anything other than Smash/Lethal, you have to pop it well in advance of getting into trouble, and it really just slows down how quickly you can be defeated, giving you some extra seconds to pop some inspirations or retreat. For Smash/Lethal, going Tough/Weave is probably better. You get the extra defenses all the time, instead of just some of the time, and Willpower gets Quick Recovery to help with the extra end costs (except on Stalkers).

Well considering WP has no other active mitigation, it shouldn't be hard to gauge if you need to use it soon or sooner.

 

7 minutes ago, Uun said:

I think the more relevant fact is that Rune of Protection, a pool power, is arguably better than Strength of Will, a T9. It provides superior resistance to F/C/E/N/P/T with close to the same uptime (33% vs. 40%). Granted it requires you take 3 powers from the Sorcery Pool.

 

That said, the buff I would rather see WP get is resistance to end drain and recovery debuffs. 

You don't compare powers in a vacuum. Have you looked at the durations? Recharges? Other utility? 

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

Above shows the build going from 89.92% S/L resist to completely uselessly overcapping. I guess on io/So's it is valid though or those who don't take tough to have this power up 40% of the time.

 

But is Unstoppable fine also? just use Io's and don't take tough or temp invulnerablity etc.

 

I was just trying to help WP where i thought small improvements could be made but a lot of you think it's perfect as it is so ill leave it alone and stick with my Bio which is just so much better but /shield is even better again lol. I have built WP and found it was lacking hence my suggestion but my opinion doesn't matter.

 

Regen is fine also 😛

 

The majority of sets will be found wanting if compared to the positive extremes, but that’s not how balance works. You balance around the averages, not the extremes, otherwise you aren’t balancing, only creating power creep.

 

You’ve made an error here if you’re genuinely equating “not Bio” or “not Shield” to “found wanting”. Same goes for anyone whose only critique of a blast set is its failure to compare to Fire Blast.

 

I recommend playing all powersets so you get a better perspective on the whole bell curve. There are a lot of players on this forum that can’t seem to find 80-90% of powersets to be playable because they’ve so thoroughly screwed up their frame of reference by failing to seriously invest in characters that don’t have Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Claws, Energy Melee, Bio Armor, Shield Defense, Time Manipulation, Kinetics, etc.

Edited March 25, 2022 by arcane

[Gobbledigook]

20 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I don't understand. Most of the time (70+%?) that I wind up popping Strength of Will, my health is already red and it balances me out long enough to heal back to yellow/orange and drop the primary threats eating my health. Unless I'm fighting Cimerorans... they just eat me.... If the devs want to boost the resists in the power? I won't complain. Maybe my chance of surviving desperation mode will increase. As an "Oh shit!" button though, Strength of Will has pulled my butt out of the fire more often than not.

I am not saying SoW is bad i was just thinking the resists could have been more equal to help boost the resists WP is weaker in, more like RoP. When the defence debuffs role out WP can fail quite badly. My Bio doesn't because it has other heals etc to back it up. Even ITF isn't a problem at all and 801.5 is doable which i doubt WP can do. 801.7 is just instant death unless you are /Shield or something which is also a damage set lol.

[Gobbledigook]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

The majority of sets will be found wanting if compared to the positive extremes, but that’s not how balance works. You balance around the averages, not the extremes, otherwise you aren’t balancing, only creating power creep.

 

You’ve made an error here if you’re genuinely equating “not Bio” or “not Shield” to “found wanting”. Same goes for anyone whose only critique of a blast set is its failure to compare to Fire Blast.

It was only a small buff i was thinking that may help a power i found a little underwhelming not the set as a whole, though i do find it behind other sets. Not a big deal really. I have only ever suggested very small changes for WP that i thought might be an improvement.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[Uun]

20 minutes ago, Naraka said:

You don't compare powers in a vacuum. Have you looked at the durations? Recharges? Other utility? 

SoW has a 2 minute duration and a 5 minute recharge (unenhanceable). RoP has a 1 minute duration and a 3 minute recharge (unenhanceable). As I said, this gives SoW 40% uptime and RoP 33% uptime. Comparing the fully enhanced tank values, SoW provides 39% S/L and 19.5% non-S/L resistance, while RoP provides 29.25% resistance to all. If you're also taking Tough, you're at 70.2% S/L before using either (ignoring set bonuses) and the extra S/L resistance in SoW is superfluous. SoW also has a recovery buff, which WP doesn't really need, and repel protection, which is of pretty limited use. RoP has no endurance crash. Both have KB and mezz protection. If you're using either in an "oh shit" context, the question is whether you need more than 1 minute.