Prohibit Power Pool Pre-requisites Please.

[Aracknight]

This is my proposal for removing the pre-requisites for Tough, Tactics, Intimidate, and Aid Self. 

 

Prolly gon' get yelled at fo sho!

 

There are, currently, twelve non-Ancillary/Epic/Patron Power pools.

 

They are Concealment, Fighting, Flight, Leadership, Leaping, Medicine, Presence, Speed, Teleportation, as well as Sorcery, Experimentation, and Force of Will.   

 

Of those twelve Power pools, only four do not allow you to choose the third power without choosing one of the first two as a pre-requisite.  If Utility Belt or Gadgetry ever join the pools, I suspect they will not have pre-reqs for their T-3's either.  This means there are only four powers that are gated in such a fashion.  They are Tough, Tactics, Aid Self, and Intimidate.

 

Tough, from Fighting, is one of only two Power Pool powers that offers Resistance that I am immediately aware of.  The most often counterargument made when Tough is asked to be un-gated, is that the pre-requisite is the price you pay for being able to slot Tough with several valuable global enhancements, such as Steadfast Protection +Def, Steadfast Protection Knockback Protection, Impervious Skin Status Resistance, Impervium Armor Psionic Resistance, Unbreakable Guard +Max HP, Aegis Psionic/Status Resistance, And Gladiator's Armor + Def.  Furthermore, as this and Rune of Protection are the only pool powers that take Resist sets, you still have to invest additional slots to take more than one of these enhancements.

 

However:  There are six powers that you can take, without prerequisites, that allow you to slot enhancements from Defense sets which are arguably equal in value, including Karma Knockback Protection, Kismet +To Hit, Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resistance, Luck of the Gambler +Increased Global Recharge, And Shield Wall +Res.  These powers are Stealth, Grant Invisibility, Infilitration, Hover, Maneuvers, and Combat Jumping.  As these are scattered between four power pools, you could conceivably take all of them!  I'm willing to accept that Grant Invisibility, as a click power, isn't as useful for some of these enhancements, but the other five are well known mules.

 Another poster suggested that gating some of those behind other powers like Tough is would be fair, but I don't know how serious that was or how much I like it.  My guess: not a lot.

 

Tactics, from Leadership, is another gated power pool power with pre-requisites.    Tactics, among other things, provides +To Hit and takes +To Hit set bonuses.  Blasters, Brutes, Corrupters, Defenders, Scrappers, Sentinels, Stalkers, Tankers, HEATS, and VEATS have access to +To Hit powers that, while level-restricted, do not have pre-requisites, and everyone else can easily slot these +To Hit sets using Combat Teleport, a power with no pre-requisites. But it helps your teammates?  So do Maneuvers and Assault.

 

Intimidate, from Presence, is a ranged, single target status effect for Fear.  It does no damage, and Fear, while useful, does allow a mob to hit you back or run away if you attack it while it is "feared."  Other existing powers that contain some form of "crowd control," with no prerequisites, include Boxing (Stun), Kick (Knockdown), Air Superiority (Knockup), Jump Kick (Knockdown), and Flurry (Stun).  While there is an argument to be made that all of these are melee attacks, while Intimidate is ranged, so are Arcane Bolt (Knockdown), and Project Will (Knockdown) and both of those do damage, where Intimidate does none.

 

Last comes Aid Self, from the Medicine Pool.  While none of the other pools have a self-heal to compare to this, this one does have an interrupt built in, unless you take other powers to get Field Medic, which I feel still retains a certain amount of balance.  I can face the fact that this power is my weakest argument.

 

I think it's time to move these last four powers out from behind the "You must be trained in another power" pre-requisites.  Is it power creep?  Of course it is!  But to be honest, the horses have already fled the barn on that one once ALL OF THE OTHER POOLS had this restriction lifted.  Travel powers alone let you enter or escape combat easily, or cross great distances, with no pre-requisites, and at a much lower level, which was also power creep when it happened.  This is part of that same original creep, it's just overdue.

 

C'mon devs.  Let's make a deal.  Let's make it happen.  

[Rudra]

If at first you don't succeed, ask, ask again? And the thread's title implies that you want all the pool powers including the ones that currently require you to have 2 other powers from the pool to not have prerequisites. I don't know how many times the same argument can be had on this.

 

To be clear, I am against comparing non-travel pools to travel pools. That is akin to comparing them to Patron power pools in my book. I am against power creep, which at least the author had the integrity to admit this is rather than claim "quality of life" like every other person that asks this. I'm against this proposal. For reasons already given on every other thread that asked for this.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Not going to lie, I loved this feature in other pServers I played on that had it.

 

 

But those servers didn't suffer from the wild power creep that i25 codebase in particular does. Especially with regard to attuned set slotting while leveling. 

 

 

I like the idea but hard for me to endorse it. I'd feel like a politician voting to give myself a raise.

 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by twozerofoxtrot
Incidentally I proofread like a politician, too.