Force Field Suggestions (PFF and Detention Field)

[PoptartsNinja]

I'm a long-time Force Field player. My first 50 on live was a bubbler, back when the bubbles were all single target; and I still break out my homecoming bubbler on the regular. I love a lot of the new changes with Force Field, and first of all I'd like to thank you specifically for the lingering Dispersion Bubble as well as Repulsion Bomb improvements!

 

Unfortunately, I feel two of the three least useful powers in the set went untouched. It's nice to have skippable powers, but I think PFF at least could be improved.

 

 

 Personal Force Field - Live Implementation

With about 2x the defense as the (non-Hard ITF) soft cap and 40% resistance to everything, this power... lets you run away from a fight and abandon your team or allies? Actively removes the user from combat? Encourages the user to leech or otherwise not participate in the game? PFF sets a really bad example for what the Force Field is actually capable of. Force Field has no real way to leverage its own survival (other than passing out awakens) in a team wipe situation and since PFF also selfishly disables most of the rest of the set, using it to save your own life may directly cause an actual team wipe when your passive bubbles drop. PFF falls into a "so powerful it's bad" situation, it's just too situational to be useful.
Why this is a bad Tier 1: Current PFF is an escape tool. Rather than being a safety blanket, It teaches players new to the set that they need to get good at hiding or even avoiding combat entirely. The current implementation is fine in ancillaries (where the escape tool may actually be actually warranted) but it's a terrible Tier 1.

 

The improvement:
 Personal Force Field - TLDR: "selfish" D-Bubble
Remove the damage resistance entirely, and give PFF the same defenses (and mez resistances) as Dispersion Bubble, but with the base defense value set to 2x the values of Dispersion Bubble (so 20% base defense for defenders instead of D-Bubble's current 10%). Remove the "only affecting self" limitation and make PFF mutually exclusive with Dispersion Bubble (the same way Stealth and Infiltration are mutually exclusive with each other). This effectively turns PFF into a 'selfish' version of Dispersion Bubble, allowing the user to play Baby Sentinel while soloing OR deploy the d-bubble to protect a team.

Why this is a better Tier 1: This lets new users participate in combat, but also teaches them that Force Field is a very safe set, which helps them build the confidence to stay close to their front liners right from the get-go.

 

I'd also personally recommend changing the name of Dispersion Bubble to "Force Field" to make the connection clearer. It also seems warranted since D-Bubble is the linchpin power in the set and we're losing Force Bubble so why not?

 

 

 

 

 Detention Field - Live Implementation

Hoo boy, what good things can I say about this? It's probably not the worst power in the game? I think that's a fair statement. This is an extremely situational "emergency" power in a set that generally has enough survivability that it doesn't need any emergency powers. Let's get into the grit: Detention Field claims it is an intangible, but it's lying. Detention Field applies 3 statuses at high magnitude (4.77 for Masterminds and Corruptors, 5.95 for Defenders, and 7.45 for Controllers): Immobilize, Only Affecting Self, and Untouchable, which is like intangible except nothing can attack an untouchable target. So Detention Field is a 30s Untouchable. Which happens to be just long enough to make everyone on the team hate you for using it.

 

I won't be heartbroken it Detention Field stays, but if I could have my way I'd move Force Bomb into its spot and make a new Tier 8.

 

Something like:

 

 Ablative Shield - Frostwork for Force Field

This should be a single target, high-value Absorption shield (perhaps even % of target max HP based so it benefits tanks and blasters proportionally?) with a 15-30 second duration that also grants the target a hefty amount of defense debuff resistance (something FF currently lacks) so it's still useful for the full duration even for people who are already soft-capped. And maybe some other lingering buffs just for flavor, like a modest regen or recovery boost to show that the target is getting a brief reprieve from combat. Then put it on a cooldown on par with fortitude / frostwork so it's not really spammable. Say, 60 seconds base. Maybe 90, depending on whether or not anything else gets bundled in.

 

It's still thematically like detention field, but for your friends instead!

 

 

Since it's probably too late, and since Masterminds deserve to have fun too, allow Detention Field to be cast on MM pets to Untouchable them but also mega-taunt all nearby enemies into attacking that pet for a bit. Show all those the Fake Nemesis that turnabout is fair play.