Devs, Super Reflexes in need of an update....

[Blackjoy]

Played SR back on Live and now again on Homecoming.   In the face of sets like Bio, WP, and Shield, Super Reflexes could really use some updates.

 

Issues:

1. Elude is essentially pointless and deadly.   With the plethora of +DEF in set IOs and non-Secondary powers, Elude's huge defensive boost only matters when you're righting +4s who have massive +to hit.  Even if you are tempted to use it, the 100% endo drain at the end is life-threatening.  Newer sets don't have such a punishing end to their T9's.  
   1. Fix ? 
      1. Reduce the endo drain to 60%
      2. Give Elude a flat (unenhanceable) bonus to Resistance
2. No AoE protection until lvl 38  (let's call it 36 when you actually get to slot it). I never understood why they did this on Live.  It still doesn't make sense.  (EDIT:  I suspect that the developers thought running three toggles might be problematic at low levels and that total AoE damage is comparatively low sub-30). Having to wait 35 levels for anything but a 5% +DEF to AoE is punishing as you level up.  Granted, if your farm your way to 50, it's a non-issue, but there are at least seven people I've met on Homecoming who do not farm. 
   1. Fix?
      1. Similar to what was done with Bio, let SR choose where to focus its +DEF in melee, vs ranged, vs AoE.  As you get more toggles, you get more +DEF to split. 
      2. Or....move Evasion way down the line.
3. Resists are worthless against AVs and Big Hits.  The scalling resist are great.  I argued for them back on Live when the devs finally admitted SR was the worst performing secondary on Live.  But they aren't enough.   When AV's hit you at 25% health, they blow threw your current resist level.  
   1. Fix?
      1. Any hit that would kill exceed your current health +RES,  you gets resisted at max scaling resists.
      2. Give SR resist to positional Toxic and Psi.  There's no reason why SR's defense should only half work against those attacks.
4. No +Recovery,+Endurance, +Heal, +HP, +Regen. The reason why SR did so poorly on Live is that it only had one form of mitigation.  And it was the only type of mitigation that was coded to fail 5% of the time.   Newer sets have multiple forms of mitigation, SR was only given +Resist, which it can't even enhance.  +Recharge is not damage mitigation and honestly makes the lack of +Recovery more of an issue.
5. No fear protection - Granted, most sets don't have Fear protection.  So why does Shield?  Shouldn't someone who is a "practicted brawler" be resistance to fear?  I suspect Fear was given to Shield because people had to pay to get Shield.  If that's true, then there is no reason why that should be true on Homcoming.  I thought each secondary was to have some type of mez loophole.  But Shield has none.  So do SR a solid...patch the hole please.

 

Sure, SR does have its moments (sappers, Centurions?), but I can tell that if you don't have Tough, Weave, and Maneuvers, and a bunch of Set IOs covering up that endurance drain issue, those moments are few and far between.  Let's not pretend that Set IOs and Incarnates make SR balanced with the other secondaries.   It was fine when no one else could beat the soft cap, but now, just about any scrapper set can beat the soft cap so they get SR and everything else.  

 

SR needs an update, it's long overdue.  If Trick Arrow needed help (which I also played on Live and I thought was brilliant) SR needs a full body transplant.

 

Thanks for considering.

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Aracknight]

Lucky is your passive AOE defense.  You get it at level 28.

 

Evasion is your toggle AOE defense.  You get it at 35.

 

If you had only written 38 once, I might have believed it was a typo.

 

I am shitcanning the rest of your post on sheer principle.

[Wavicle]

SR is one of the best armor sets in the game.

[Doomguide2005]

1. Yep Elude could use some love.  It's pretty near pointless in the current game.
2. Okay it would be a nice to have.  Unconvinced it's really an issue however.

Rest of the post kind of baffles me.  SR is near indestructible as it currently exists unless you're building well outside the norm with the expectation of also performing well outside the norm.  

 

Edit:  what makes other armor sets cry (nevermind everyone else) isn't truly our defense it's our DDR which isn't even mentioned.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Doomguide2005

[biostem]

5 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

No +Recovery,+Endurance, +Heal, +HP, +Regen. The reason why SR did so poorly on Live is that it only had one form of mitigation.  And it was the only type of mitigation that was coded to fail 5% of the time.   Newer sets have multiple forms of mitigation, SR was only given +Resist, which it can't even enhance.  +Recharge is not damage mitigation and honestly makes the lack of +Recovery more of an issue.

 

Apples to oranges, here;  With resistance, you take the full brunt of any attacks, including any debuffs or other nasty side effects they happen to come with.  Also, since resistance caps at 90%, by your logic, can it be said to "always fail 10% of the time"?  SR also has resistance to defense debuffs built into 7 of its powers.  Do any resistance powers have any way of resisting RES debuffs?  I know they're much rarer, (-RES effects), but they do exist.  I agree that SR could use some love, but I don't think giving it a heal or more resistance is the answer...

[Rudra]

No. Since resist caps at 90%, then it would be considered a constant partial fail by this analogy. Which worsens as resist is debuffed unless your uncapped resist is high enough to ignore being debuffed.

[Bill Z Bubba]

20 hours ago, biostem said:

Do any resistance powers have any way of resisting RES debuffs?

 

Resistance automatically resists resistance debuffs. DDR caps at 95%. RDR can actually go to 100% if you're over the resistance cap.

 

Scrapper SR power order is borked, that much is true. And only that much. SR is only beaten (when properly built) by Shield due to shields damn near capped DDR when Active Defense is doublestacked and Shield's +damage aura and shield charge. Shield AD DDR should be changed to block stacking because of its benefits.

 

The ONLY change SR needs across the board is a power order adjustment.

 

FocFig

FocSen

Evasion

PB

Dodge

Agile

Lucky

LATE EDIT: Quickness. How could I forget good ol' quickness?

Elude

 

This should be the order for Tanks, Brutes and Scrappers.

 

While changing Elude into something worthwhile might be nice, it would mean all the other full crash T9s would have to be fixed and I don't see that happening. As it is, I enjoy that I know I can always skip it as useless just as I do with all the other armor T9s.

 

Fear resists? Again, if shield has it in AD, remove it from there. Between that and blocking stackable DDR in AD would bring shield in line with the majority of the armors.

 

The passives are fine as is. Sent SR passive scaling damres is broken, by the by. It grants 80% when the AT caps at 75%.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Resistance automatically resists resistance debuffs. DDR caps at 95%. RDR can actually go to 100% if you're over the resistance cap.

Not only this but it never drops.  If you're damage resist hits 100% you'll never be effected by a resistance debuff unless it's coded to ignore resistance.  So if you're hit by Melt Armor 3 times you will resist the last debuff as strongly as the first.  No cascade failure can happen.  If you're defense gets debuffed 3 times each time it checks vs the new cumulative debuffed defense value.  Hence the potential for cascade defense failure as defense is eroded by previous debuffs.

 

[aethereal]

RDR should probably be capped at 90% or 95%.

[arcane]

All I know for sure is Tanker and Sentinel SR. Both of which I would say are firmly in “nope, too good already to buff” territory. You’d have to ask others if there are specific buffs that Brutes/Scrappers/Stalkers need exclusively, but I doubt it.

 

OP’s specific suggestions sound kind of ridiculous. He’s literally isolated the few tiny holes SR has (news flash: every set has a few tiny holes) and asked for all of them to be plugged so much so that no SR in the game could ever really die again. I already log on to my SR tank if I need to be sure of not dying. Its nigh immortality doesn’t need to be literal immortality…

Edited May 28, 2022 by arcane

[Cancrusher]

Quote

Give SR resist to positional Toxic and Psi.  There's no reason why SR's defense should only half work against those attacks.

I don't see how superior reflexes would allow you to avoid the effects of a cloud of poison gas or a psionic attack.

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Cancrusher said:

I don't see how superior reflexes would allow you to avoid the effects of a cloud of poison gas or a psionic attack.

Naughty, naughty things start to happen when you go down this road (see holds stuns should down flyers thread).  Natural meets the supernatural and all that, it's a deep as $^&^% rabbit hole.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Doomguide2005
Changed holds to stuns

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

RDR should probably be capped at 90% or 95%.

 

95% just like DDR.

 

1 hour ago, Cancrusher said:

I don't see how superior reflexes would allow you to avoid the effects of a cloud of poison gas or a psionic attack.

 

SR passive resists were recently changed to include Toxic. As per CoD:

 

Scrapper:

[MagExpr]% Damage Resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy) (self only) for 0.75s

 

Wait... what the fuck? It was there last time I looked.

 

 

• Super Reflexes:

  • Lowered the activation period of powers with scaling resistance from 2s to 0.5s (all ATs). The duration of these effects have been set to 0.75s to compensate. NOTE: This affects PvE as well.

  • Increased PvP Elusivity in Focused Fighting, Focused Senses and Evasion to 25%.
  • Added Toxic Resistance to all scaling resistance powers
  • Bug Fix: Corrected Brute's Evasion elusivity duration. It was set to 0.75s when it was supposed to be 2.25s. This resulted in AoE elusivity dropping out between each 2s tick application.

 

WTF?!?!?! It's only for PvP?

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Doomguide2005]

*shrug*

I wonder the how many Psi and Toxic attacks are non-positional?

[El D]

1 hour ago, Cancrusher said:

I don't see how superior reflexes would allow you to avoid the effects of a cloud of poison gas or a psionic attack.

 

Thier brain does the same dodging motion inside the character's head that they're doing on-screen. That's how I always imagined it.

Edited May 28, 2022 by El D

[Rudra]

Well, there was a scene in a Marvel comic where (fake) Xavier was trying to psi-blast Gambit and commented that Gambit's mind was as elusive as his body. I think that was a Gambit trait though.

[Sakura Tenshi]

@Cancrusher
In an ancient Nordic Myth, Thor, Loki, and Thialvi were challenged by the giants in three fields. Thialvi, boasting being the fastest thing alive challenged the giants to a race, for which their king summoned Huggi. When all was said and done, Huggi outraced Thialvi easily and the truth was, the opponents of Thor and his companions were not what they seemed. Huggi was, in fact, Huginn, thought itself and 'nothing is faster than thought'.

 

Super Reflex characters just disagree.

 

@Blackjoy
I can sort of agree Super Reflexes could use some looking into, but as for what specifics is where we diverge.

Elude - While I agree with the reduction to end crash, I would actually suggest instead changing it to:

• Elude now lasts 30 seconds, it recharges in 180 seconds, the cooldown cannot be reduced.
• Elude now gives a more modest +20% Defense buff with an additional, whopping +40% Defense Debuff protection, and keeps its +Recovery and movement speed buffs. And here's where the new stuff comes in.
• Elude now gives a +40% recharge bonus for its duration and as well as a +50% ToHit and Accuracy buff (when you are moving so quickly, its easy to hit things moving so slow)
• Elude now casts a strong -50% recharge, Run, Fly, and jump speed debuff, and a -35% ToHit debuff to all enemies within a 60 ft. around the caster without needing line of sight. (these debuffs cannot be stacked from the same source)

The idea to this change is to basically let an SR player have a sense of being Quicksilver in Days of Future's Past, living in a moment of slowed time where enemies might as well not even be moving. Admittedly, numbers to the above may need serious adjustment as I'm not a theory crafter.

 

I do agree about Evasion, admittedly, and would personally prefer to somehow move it to the level 20 slot where Brutes can get it. For Tanks, I would like to see it buffed into a better taunt aura though. I would say in addition to it's AoE bonus maybe each enemy gives the tank a stacking bonus to ToHit or Recharge, while enemies inside have a chance to suffer a mag 2 confusion lasting only 1 or even half a second. The idea being that the confusion represents letting your enemies hit one another with their attacks as you dodge around them.

 

For a secondary layer of defense/mitigation, I might suggest just giving the passives maybe an additional +3% resistance that can be affected by enhancements. Alternatively, maybe try to sneak in a decently strong -Rech debuff. (maybe into that above mentioned change to Evasion?)

 

As for Practiced Brawler lacking Fear protection? I admit, it annoys the hell out of me too since a lot of controls can be said to be some actual restraint on the character while fear implies your character suddenly devolves into a sniveling coward. BUT! A lot of mez protection in sets lack Fear protection actually, or confuse protection, sometimes knockback, and sometimes a combo of those three (Fire armor, looking at you. Holy crap, it doesn't even have stun protection!). There are only three sets that have total mez protection: Willpower (makes sense for the set theme), Shield (thematically the shield is a protective ward), and scrapper/sentinel Ninjutsu (which only get that from the passive KB protection power tacked on) That's three out of fourteen armor sets in the game. Though Practiced Brawler is kind of anemic in terms of effects, as it ONLY gives its mez protection while others have secondary effects (Invul's gives Damage resistance, Shield gives Defense Debuff Resistance, etc.) I might propose a secondary effect for PB being to give them nigh immunity to taunts and placates, there's only really three enemies that make use of it, but when they do come up, it's annoying, especially placate for SR as the enemy that's placated you can't hit you to end it and if they're the last one standing you might be staring at eachother for a bit. Thematically, a 'practiced brawler' might be able to ignore distractions such as taunts and placates.

[Luminara]

10 minutes ago, El D said:

 

Thier brain does the same dodging motion inside the character's head that they're doing on-screen. That's how I always imagined it.

[Wavicle]

SR does not need anything at all with the exception of Elude.

However, the question of fixing Elude really has little to do with SR specifically and more to do with the general design of most of the oldest t9 armor powers.

 

SR is fine. Elude will only get fixed when Unstoppable, Overload, Power Surge, and Kuji-In Retsu get fixed.

[Naraka]

Grrr, this aggravates me.

 

You're comparing SR to other more "modern" sets but exactly how?  Are you taking into account pool powers? Are you leaving out IOs for those other sets too? WP is great and all, but against a single hard target and no IOs or tough and weave, you better hope you picked up that tier 9 or that revive ability. Without a hoard of foes to back you up, you can just as easily succumb to the difficulties that SR faces too.

 

There's also the funny prospect of "dodging" debuffs that defense sets benefit from that resist sets have to eat. At what point do we accept that pros and cons can and should exist for ATs and powersets? Yeah, SR scaling resist isn't going to be your saving grace for AVs but it's going to make crowds of foes your buffer (just like *gasp* WP's scaling regen!).

 

And Bio's claim to fame is just its variety of options. Yeah, it's great, but how many are actually using Efficiency mode? Or Defensive mode for that matter? It's all about the Offense and that's why Bio is so good, because IOs can take care of those other two.

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Cancrusher said:

I don't see how superior reflexes would allow you to avoid the effects of a cloud of poison gas or a psionic attack.

In the case of the cloud of gas, I assume you simply avoid it altogether.  Yeah, if you choose to remain within it, then you should take the full effect.  With regard to psionic attacks - at least the way they're depicted in CoH, they just seem to be generated by the mind, but are still a visible bolt or dart that has to hit the target, not a direct mind-to-mind intrusion...

[Wavicle]

SR defends against Psionic attacks that require the enemy to physically target you, but not attacks that directly assault the mind itself. Mind Control and Illusions and related abilities are the only real weaknesses SR has.

[Blackjoy]

15 hours ago, biostem said:

 

Apples to oranges, here;  With resistance, you take the full brunt of any attacks, including any debuffs or other nasty side effects they happen to come with.  Also, since resistance caps at 90%, by your logic, can it be said to "always fail 10% of the time"?  SR also has resistance to defense debuffs built into 7 of its powers.  Do any resistance powers have any way of resisting RES debuffs?  I know they're much rarer, (-RES effects), but they do exist.  I agree that SR could use some love, but I don't think giving it a heal or more resistance is the answer...

 

"Apples to oranges"?  That doesn't even make sense.   I'm not comparing +DEF to +RES.  I'm pointing out that essentially all other sets combine multiple forms of mitigation to survive, not just one.   On Live, I repeatedly made this argument and when the Devs finally checked the stats, they realized I was 100% right and the added resistance.  Well, comparatively, it's not enough.  

 

"by your logic, can it be said to "always fail 10% of the time"?  That is isn't my logic, because that is not logic.   Yours is a statement made by people who have no idea what they are talking about.   You seemed to be confused by the use of the % sign and seem to think +RES is a probability, it is not.  SR....is the only secondary whose primary means of mitigation is defeated by the the Streak Breaker code.  So the game is CODED to make SR fail even if the RNG would have been your friend.   It's an asymmetrical detriment to +DEF.   

 

For all of those who think SR is fine, go play SR without Tough and Weave and your Incarnates, and see how well you do comparatively.   In fact, I encourage the devs to run simulations of SR versus all the newer sets and see how well it does.   Pair it with primary that has no +ENDO/Recovery and let's see its comparative XP/Hour.  

 

Without Set IOs and the pool powers, SR is a comparative dismal experience from 1-50, it needs to be adjusted.   Run the stats.

 

And SR was never built for Tankers, so the fact that it plays great for Tankers (because base values, Caps, and AoE availability are all different) is irrelevant to how it plays for Scrappers.  This is a call to address SRS for "scrappers."

 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Wavicle]

Try playing ANY armor set without Tough, Weave, IOs, Pool Powers, and Incarnates and see how well you do.

 

I repeat: SR is one of the best armor sets in the game. On EVERY archetype that gets it.

[biostem]

6 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

"by your logic, can it be said to "always fail 10% of the time"?  That is isn't my logic, because that is not logic.   Yours is a statement made by people who have no idea what they are talking about.   You seemed to be confused by the use of the % sign and seem to think +RES is a probability, it is not.  SR....is the only secondary whose primary means of mitigation is defeated by the the Streak Breaker code.  So the game is CODED to make SR fail even if the RNG would have been your friend.   It's an asymmetrical detriment to +DEF.   

DEF does not "fail" 5% of the time - It is intentional and by design that attacks cannot drop below a 5% chance to hit;  "Working as intended" is not "failing".  My reference was to how you erroneously seem to think a floor of 5% chance to hit is somehow a failure, to which I compared it to the 90% RES cap, thereby meaning that at least 10% damage will always get through.  Get it:  5% chance to be hit (minimum) and 10% damage taken (minimum).

 

Do enemies benefit from the streakbreaker code, or are you referring to PvP?  If it's the latter, well then I don't PvP, so I have no opinion in that case...

Edited May 28, 2022 by biostem