Armor T9s: thoughts, reviews, and suggestions

[PoptartsNinja]

This is half-suggestion but also half-review of the armor T9s, and how they compare to the rest of the sets they’re sourced from. This thread is not here to compare the T9s against one another (except in situations where they're almost exact carbon copies like Elude and Kuji-in Retsu). The purpose is to take a good hard look at the ‘capstone’ powers of the armor sets to see if they bring any real benefit to their own powerset or if they're completely overshadowed by the things the set is already doing.

 

I personally believe that every T9 has something to recommend it but I also believe a good many of them are outdated or were designed based on a very bad assumption about how City of Heroes would be played. Some just don’t offer enough utility to justify their downsides and others just provide too much of something a set is already doing quite well.

 

As we review these, it’s going to be important to keep in mind that there’s a sharp difference between a modern T9 and an older one. The OG CoH devs didn’t expect or intend for players to run more than one toggle at a time, they expected people would swap between them situationally and so a lot of the original T9s are meant to replace rather than supplement the set they’re from. This is most visible in Granite Armor, but persisted due to inertia and applies fairly universally to pretty much every armor set until the addition of Willpower and Shield Defense. This is part of the problem with the Armor T9s in general, and why some of them feel so badly flawed. It is these T9s that primarily need our attention and I’m going to do my best to offer ideas for each one that I feel are 1) achievable and 2) don't breaking the overall ‘feel’ of each power.

 

Best In Show / The Mostly Modern T9s

 Bio Armor: Parasitic Aura

It’s a modern T9 which means rather than being an “emergency” power, it’s basically a core power for the set. Parasitic Aura is one of Bio Armor’s three major recovery tools, and it’s the most powerful of the three. It’s one of the best T9s in the game.

 Bio Armor: Parasitic Leech

It’s a 40ft cone version of Parasitic Aura, to make it easier for Sentinels to make use of it without forcing them to rub their faces all over a mob.

 

Commentary: Parasitic Aura and Parasitic Leech are the sort of T9s other T9s should aspire to be. For many T9s I’d advocate switching to a flat recharge timer that’s unaffected by recharge reduction, but Parasitic Aura/Leech don’t need that. They’re 100% fine.

 

 Radiation Armor: Meltdown

Another modern T9, it gives +resistance to a set that usually doesn’t fully cap most of its resistances and the resistance it provides is a reasonable value (20% tanker values). It’s also got a solid (about one equal-level SO’s worth) damage boost and crash is an extremely reasonable -10% end / -10000% recovery for 10 seconds. Meltdown makes you fight harder while it’s up and then you enter a brief cooldown period where you either have to tank whatever’s left over for a few seconds or, more likely, everything’s already dead and you can recover in peace.

 

Minor Suggestion: 480s flat cooldown is pretty reasonable for everything it offers, but it would probably be fine at 300s. 5 minutes is still a long time to wait for a power to recharge and is more than enough to guarantee Meltdown won’t be available every spawn.

 

 Fiery Aura: Phoenix Rising

A huge improvement over Rise of the Phoenix, Phoenix Rising is a nice burst of healing and AoE damage that encourages Fiery Aura to ride that thin line between victory and disaster. It’s pretty much perfect for the set. You get damage and a heal coupled to some knockback and stun or you can save it for when you drop to reset.

 

Commentary: I wasn’t sold on this when I first saw it but it’s great, Phoenix Rising is such a great tool now. It really fits the set, and it’s pretty to boot.

 

 Willpower: Strength of Will

Strength of Will is really one of the first of the modern T9s. Rather than trying to replace the entirety of Willpower, Strength of Will is there to give the rest of Willpower time to do its job, offering a nice solid recovery boost in addition to shoring up Willpower’s physical defenses for a bit. Its crash is a on the harsh side of reasonable

 

Commentary: Strength of Will is always useful. The -50% end crash is harsh but reasonable since it’s not coupled with a recovery or HP crash. It’s the sort of crash that could get you into trouble when it triggers, but if it actually does you probably weren’t winning that fight anyway.

 

 Shield Defense: One with the Shield

Shield Defense is another one of the earliest modern T9s, and it’s really good. Its crash is a harsh but fair -60% end, it adds some extra resistance to a set that primarily relies on positional defense, gives bonus max HP, and gives another source of status protection in case you forget to click on Active Defense.

 

Commentary: I can’t really think of any improvements for One With the Shield. 360s fixed recharge feels a bit on the high side but still reasonable.

 

 Ice Armor: Icy Bastion

A more modern take on Hibernate for Sentinels only. Icy Bastion is a nice little bump of damage resistance, regen, and recovery for 30 seconds.

 

Commentary: This seems pretty solid to me and it looks like it fills an actual niche. It’s more akin to Moment of Glory for Ice Armor than Hibernate but that's not a bad thing. If it buys the user an extra 30 seconds of blasting it's done its job perfectly, and even if it doesn't it's crashless which is rare for a +resistance T9.

 

 

 

OK but Could Be Better

 Dark Armor: Soul Transfer

Soul Transfer is a 12 second Mag 30 stun that just so happens to be stapled to a self rez. When you need it, it’s basically a nice soft reset on a fight buuuut… self-rez powers have bad reputations for a reason, and this one’s attached to Dark Armor. Dark Armor is an incredibly tough and survivable set. Between defense, resistance, -ToHit, soft CC auras, and a self-heal that’s effectively a full heal if even two enemies are standing next to you, the odds of you ever having to use Soul Transfer are slim to none.

 

Suggestion: Give it the Phoenix Rising treatment, so it can either be used in its current state as a hard reset self-rez or be activated early to turn it into a second ‘emergency’ self-heal. The stun would probably have to be reduced to mag 3 or so on the ‘still alive’ version but that would stack with Oppressive Gloom to stun even bosses for a few seconds. If the stun alone isn’t enough of a secondary effect, maybe add a mag 3 fear to the ‘still alive’ version as well so it also enhances Cloak of Fear, that way people can run their status effect toggle of choice or even get a little extra safety from running both.

 

 Ice Armor: Hibernate

Hibernate is in a weird spot, because I don’t feel like it’s a bad power but I also don’t feel like it’s particularly useful for Ice Armor. It was designed back when the devs expected players to use rest after every other spawn as a way to rest quickly and safely; but that design philosophy is extremely dated now. Ice Armor already has some good HP management in the form of Dull Pain, and endurance management in the form of Energy Absorption—but at the same time, Ice Armor has always been a weird hybrid defense/resistance set where it feels like the chance of something going wrong is always right there.

 

Suggestion #1: Make Hibernate also self-rez, with debt protection and the whole nine yards, with an initial burst of health/end and the option to detoggle early or keep hibernating to take advantage of the +regen and +recovery. This just gives it a little more attractiveness as a utility power.

 

Suggestion #2: Give Hibernate a taunt aura to invite nearby mobs to continue attacking an invulnerable target. This would probably need to be reduced in power (so there’s an increased risk that someone doing heavy blasting might pull aggro) but it seems like having a way to recover from a bad luck streak while still tanking could be very handy.

 

 Invulnerability: Unstoppable

Invulnerability is a mixed resistance/defense set, and as such has a harder time capping some resistances than some other pure resistance sets. Unstoppable is an old T9 that was built assuming players would only be running one or maybe two toggles at a time, so its values are totally out of whack—but it actually does provide a useful service to the set by letting invuln temporarily cap its weaker energy/negative/fire/cold resistances. It also adds knockback protection and repel resistance, the latter of which is pretty rare and fitting. Unstoppable’s crash is the absolutely brutal -90% hp / -100% end crash and is probably the #1 reason why it rarely gets used.

 

Suggestion: Switch the recharge to a fixed 300s and lower the non-Psi resistance values in Unstoppable to about base 20-25% at Tanker values (Psi can stay at 35%). Maybe even remove the smashing and lethal resistance entirely since your average invulnerability tanker probably has both capped. Then add 100% slow resistance and 100% recharge debuff resistance (Unstoppable means Unstoppable), and add a +50% or so recharge boost while it’s up. Maybe even add a unique interaction with Titan Weapons to give it permanent momentum while Unstoppable’s up. You become tough and strong and brutal for the duration, taxing the +recovery bonus Unstoppable already has. Then tone down the crash from 90%hp / 100% end to 50% HP / 50% End. It’s still a hefty crash but puts you in a recoverable situation and may even qualify as a soft reset depending on how low your HP got while you were smashing things up. This keeps the overall feel of Unstoppable the same while giving it more utility and stopping it from being a death sentence if it drops while there’s still a enemies around.

 

 Regeneration: Moment of Glory

This is probably going to surprise some people, but hear me out: Moment of Glory is actually pretty OK. It offers high-value defense and resistance to a set that has neither of those things and generally just buys time for regen to do its thing. That the rest of regen generally isn’t great isn’t Moment of Glory’s fault.

 

Suggestion: Moment of Glory can be cast through fear but doesn’t protect from it, and it probably should. It makes you nigh-invulnerable when you’re Scrappin’ which sounds like a pretty good reason to be fearless to me. Some slow resistance would also fit thematically, since you’re basically putting everything on the line for the duration no matter how much you get hurt in the process. The +recovery is useful but such a short duration it might be better to swap it for a flat +100 end right at the start so you’re essentially fresh and ready to fight as hard as you can. Back in the day ‘Eternity of Glory’ was a thing, but with only a 15s duration MoG could probably be dropped from 240s flat cooldown to 180s flat cooldown. A 3-minute cooldown for a 15 second duration feels good, if we keep the 4m cooldown adding an extra 5s duration would also be pretty ok since that would be 5s uptime per minute of downtime.

 

 Stone Armor: Granite Armor

Granite has always been an odd duck. It’s extremely strong but at the same time suppresses the other toggles in the set as well as all running, flying, and jump toggles. It’s powerful with a built-in downside, and recent changes (letting it suppress other powers in the set rather than outright detoggling them) have made it a lot easier to pop in and out of Granite as needed.

 

Suggestion: Granite trades movement speed for durability, but I really feel like the tools it offers have grown outdated. The damage, recharge, and move speed debuffs could all be cut in half and they’d still feel punishing. I’d personally advocate for the removal of the damage debuff entirely, discouraging players from using their actual attacks feels bad. I'd actually contend that the the recharge penalty is plenty on its own and Granite could use an inherent damage buff to compensate (you attack more slowly but your attacks have the weight of a whole mountain behind them). Likewise, even though Stone Armor has an inherent move-speed debuff I think it could also use slow immunity. You’re being slowed down by the ton of rock you’ve covered yourself in, a few metal spikes on the floor or a patch of sticky spider glue aren’t going to bother you. Forcibly capping Granite's movement speed at the non-fitness run speed (the way the Pay2Win vendor's Disable All Powers power does) is likewise probably enough of a movement speed penalty.

 

 Stone Armor: Geode

Geode replaces Granite for Scrappers, Stalkers, and Sentinels. I haven’t had a chance to play with Geode yet, but it feels like “hibernate, but fragile.”

 

Suggestion: Granite-less Stone Armor feels like it’s in the same boat as Ice Armor, so Geode is a pretty good fit. Since it’s primarily for Scrappers, Stalkers, and Sentinels a taunt aura doesn’t really seem to fit either. This is another contender to turn into a “can also be used as a self rez” for added utility.

 

 

 

In Dire Straits

 Electric Armor: Power Surge

Why is this down here when it’s basically a carbon copy of Invulnerability? Because unlike Invincibility, Electric Armor is a pure resist set which makes Power Surge total overkill. Even without IOs, Electric Armor can pretty comfortably cap Smashing, Lethal, and Energy just by adding tough. Power Surge’s resistance values are +60% to negative, +70% to Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, and Toxic, and a hilarious +80% to energy (a resistance Electric Armor will generally push to 120% or so without any outside interference). Aside from resistance to the extremely rare Toxic damage, which is Elec’s “traditional weakness,” Power Surge just doesn't bring anything to the table… and it has a 90% hp / 100% end / -10000% recovery crash which is undeniably the worst in the entire game.

 

Suggestion #1: I feel like this is the strongest idea so I’ve put it first. Set a 300s fixed recharge, then reduce most of the resistance values across the board to 20% (tanker values), and Toxic to 35-45% or so since Electric Armor has no inbuilt toxic resistance. Then add a hybrid-style energy damage proc (50% base attack damage as additional energy damage?) to all player attacks, since you’re a zappy electrical gremlin and even powersets with weapons convert the weapon to energy for the duration. Then tone down the crash to 50% hp / 50% end / -1000% recovery so again, it hurts without being a death sentence. That should give Power Surge enough resistance to approach caps without necessarily reaching them, making Power Surge a bit of a damage race T9 rather than a T9 that protects the user with a concrete wall (then bulldozes it over on top of them).

 

Suggestion #2: Nearly identical to the above, except rather than a crash this should reverse Elec’s normal strengths and weaknesses. Apply a -50% energy damage resistance debuff for the duration for, so energy resistance becomes a vulnerability while you’re a gremlin but the power ends without a crash.

 

Suggestion #3: Dump all resistances except toxic and apply 20-30% typed defense to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Fire, Cold, and Psi (and then maybe 10%-15% defense to Negative) to simulate attacks passing straight through you without causing any harm. Elec currently doesn’t have any +defense powers so Power Surge would be a decent candidate and that would give it a nice survival buff that’s usable with or without set bonuses. It just feels like a lazy solution, and still needs the crash toned way down or nobody will use it for anything more than a LotG mule.

 

Suggestion #4: At its current resistance values Power Surge could easily be made into a Granite Armor-esque toggle (slotted with an actual resistance set it caps all damage types except Psi) but people like seeing their characters and Power Surge would look pretty bad with the rest of Electric Armor suppressed. It would also probably need end drain resistance, but at that point I feel this runs the risk of obsoleting most of the rest of what is already a really strong powerset. Power Surge, build for melee defense, then tank four-star Rommy forever? No thanks. I’m just mentioning this option because this is the only ultimate in the game that could be made similar to Granite Armor.

 

 Super Reflexes: Elude

Oh look, more overkill! Super Reflexes already soft-caps positional defenses with ease which means Elude’s biggest contribution 99% of the time is a run speed / jump height boost and some +recovery. It’s got a very harsh crash with 100% end / -10000% recovery.

 

Suggestion: 300s fixed recharge. Then change Elude’s +60% positional defense to +20% typed defense (smashing/lethal/energy/negative/fire/cold/toxic/psi). Maybe leave out Toxic/Psi if you want to keep its weaknesses on par with EA. This gives Super Reflexes more opportunities to evade rather than just pushing the set’s already sky-high evasion to the moon. If you want to get fun, since Elude is all about mobility, have it phase shift the player so that they can move through allies and enemies with no collision detection for the duration. Pets blocking a door? You’re so elusive you can slip through anyway! Then tone down the crash. Just -10000% recovery seems like plenty but maybe -10% to -50% end too.

 

Suggestion Revamp: Since defense doesn't work quite the way I thought, I'd instead advocate lowering the numbers from the crazy +60% positional defense to a more reasonable 20% (tanker values) and removing or toning down Elude's crash, then maybe adding something fun to keep the theme of Elude being a high-mobility T9 by adding no-collision for the duration.

 

 Ninjutsu: Kuji-In Retsu

This is literally just elude with worse Defense Debuff Resistance.

 

Suggestion #1: It feels lazy to just copy my suggestion for Elude, but that’s suggestion #1. Switch the positional defenses to a lower value of typed defense to give the set twice the opportunity to evade well. 300s fixed cooldown.

 

Suggestion #2: There has to be something appropriately ninja-y we could do with this. Keep the DDR since Ninjutsu has difficulty getting Defense Debuff Resistance natively; but dump evasion entirely. Shorten the duration to 30-60 seconds or so and then: what if, instead of boosting survivability, targets struck by an attacker with Kuji-in Retsu active received a unique stacking debuff with a short (5 second?) duration that stacked up to 3 times and refreshed all stacks each time the target got hit (encouraging the user to focus on one target exclusively for as long as possible). Each stack should grant something like 20/40/60% bonus crit chance (even for ATs that don’t normally crit) vs. that specific target for each debuff stack so long as the attacker still has Kuji-in Retsu active. That would give Ninjutsu a way to just go ham and burst down that one hardened target because there’s more than one way to outlast an enemy. This would turn Kuji-in Retsu into more of a counterpart to Moment of Glory and help differentiate it from Super Reflexes.

 

 Energy Aura: Overload

Slightly more forgivable overkill since Energy Aura doesn’t naturally soft-cap Psi and Toxic defense. It’s got the standard 100% end / - 10000% recovery crash as the other defense sets, soft caps all typed defenses (except toxic and psi), and has a +max HP buff. Overload's max HP buff would make it pretty good if it weren't for the total end crash.

 

Suggestion: 300s fixed cooldown, then switch the defense to 20% (tanker values even though EA doesn’t have a tanker proliferation) positional (melee/ranged/AoE). Like Elude, this would give Overload more opportunities to evade well rather than just taping ‘soft capped’ over all of the typed defenses. I think the +max HP is enough of a secondary bonus that Overload probably doesn’t need anything else. EA has amazing end recovery tools so an endurance crash doesn’t feel appropriate, maybe switch to a -50% hp crash?

 

Suggestion Revamp: Since defense doesn't work quite the way I thought, I'd instead advocate lowering the numbers from the crazy +45% smashing/lethal/energy/negative/fire/cold defense to a more reasonable 20% (tanker values) and removing or toning down Overload's crash. Then I'd add Toxic/Psi defense +30% because Energy Aura has very few ways to get either and having a way to temporarily get both would be handy even endgame.

 

 

 

And, while we’re all here, since there’s only two of them, let’s take a quick look at other self rez powers to see if they could be given the Phoenix Rising treatment.

 

 Regeneration: Revive

It’s a self rez and that’s pretty much it. It’s the most basic self rez in the game and it also does nothing to buy the user any time to retoggle or pop dull pain or anything of the sort. A better version of this power already exists for Sentinels, called Second Wind. Second Wind already has the Phoenix Rising treatment so I’m not talking about it.

 

Suggestion #1: Copy Second Wind over to other ATs with Regen.

 

Suggestion #2: It should be pretty terrifying watching someone you’ve killed stitch their wounds together and stand up again. Add a PBAoE fear component to Revive and allow it to be used either as an emergency heal (with PBAoE fear) or as a self-rez (with PBAoE fear) buying the user 12-ish seconds to get their feet under them again. Then change the name to Revivify.

 

Suggestion #3: Turn Revive into a self-rez with a heal-over-time component like a core power version of the Presence Pool's Unrelenting. Then you can either pop it while alive for a quick burst of healing and some healing-over-time or use it while dead to get back up and quickly heal up while soaking incoming damage. Then change the name to Revivify too, to make it clearer that this isn’t just a self rez anymore.

 

 Willpower: Resurgence

You self rez and get +damage/+ToHit for 90 seconds, then -damage/-ToHit for 45.

 

Suggestion: Yeah, this feels like a strong contender for Phoenix Rising treatment. Keep the +Damage/+ToHit values constant, but scale the duration of the buff (and debuff) so you can pop it early for health and a short-duration damage boost (and shorter duration debuff) or wait until you’re critically injured/dead for longer duration buffs

 

 

 

So, what do you think? What are your thoughts on the current T9s? Which ones do you like and take? Which ones do you skip or use as proc mules? Do you have any suggestions for improving one or more of the T9s? I tried to keep the ‘feel’ of the current T9s intact but I know I haven’t considered every angle. There are bound to be growing pains no matter what, so I’m hoping this suggestion thread can at least help our wonderful Volunteer Devs narrow down which T9s are the least useful.

Edited December 17, 2022 by PoptartsNinja

[tidge]

I offer no disagreements with the general premise "Those original T9s are disappointing!"; I am in agreement with the assessment of teh power sets that I have played.

 

I want to offer an overlooked power that I think could offer some addition insight into how to possibly revamp some of the t9 powers:

Unrelenting

This is (one of two) capstone powers in the Presence pool. It is a self-rez power, but that aspect of it not the reason to take it, you take it for the healing, recovery, recharge and damage boosts. I think the power is very well-balanced for a power pool:

• It is available at a low level balanced by requiring 2 other pool choices (*1)
• It has no downsides (i.e. no 'crash') balanced by its very long natural recharge time, and is only 30 sec duration
• It provides boosts that every AT can use, although mileage may vary w.r.t. the +20% Damage depending on AT

I've always slotted Unrelenting with enhancement  sets, but it doesn't require them.

 

(*1) I feel that the page 5 change making T9s available at lower levels offers a slight improvement in 'game balance' for a reason beyond just making the T9s available earlier... '3rd choice' pool powers get 'squeezed' if players opt to take most primary/secondary powers when first available, and I find the Presence pool to be annoying to try to make good use of the mandatory choice of Pacify/Provoke/Intimidate (pick any two).

 

------

 

The "poor old T9s" need something to make them worth picking, and probably should be evaluated with the following in mind:

• They should be balanced around "SO only", so that means ignore any potential to slot them as Enhancement piece mules. (But don't eliminate that!)
• They should not be weaker than an inspiration (in effect or duration)
• As a "capstone" power, the 'click powers' really ought to offer multiple benefits (I am thinking passive boosts) in addition to whatever the click does
• 'crashes' need to be reassessed. The 'rest between spawns' is from a different era that the game has long since evolved away from.

 

 

[Herotu]

3 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

 

OK but Could Be Better

 Dark Armor: Soul Transfer

Soul Transfer is a 12 second Mag 30 stun that just so happens to be stapled to a self rez. When you need it, it’s basically a nice soft reset on a fight buuuut… self-rez powers have bad reputations for a reason, and this one’s attached to Dark Armor. Dark Armor is an incredibly tough and survivable set. Between defense, resistance, -ToHit, soft CC auras, and a self-heal that’s effectively a full heal if even two enemies are standing next to you, the odds of you ever having to use Soul Transfer are slim to none.

 

Suggestion: Give it the Phoenix Rising treatment, so it can either be used in its current state as a hard reset self-rez or be activated early to turn it into a second ‘emergency’ self-heal. The stun would probably have to be reduced to mag 3 or so on the ‘still alive’ version but that would stack with Oppressive Gloom to stun even bosses for a few seconds. If the stun alone isn’t enough of a secondary effect, maybe add a mag 3 fear to the ‘still alive’ version as well so it also enhances Cloak of Fear, that way people can run their status effect toggle of choice or even get a little extra safety from running both.

 

Regular viewers will know I'm not a numbers person. I don't dig them digits. I'm a wooly-headed "feeling" person when I'm playing CoH, but you asked for opinions, here's mine.

 

Firstly, sorry to generalise, because many of these powers have very cool effects with some quite potent buffs, BUT... all Self-Rez powers seem like a dumb waste because 90% of the time you either have, can make or be given a Wakey. That's why I like it when they attach a bunch of other buff-guff to Self-Rez powers.

 

I like the idea that Soul Transfer has to have an enemy nearby, but

• it's so hard to remember about your self-rez because you die so little these days
• especially in a team, and
• even if you die in a team, there are dedicated healers who want to bring you back with their own powers so they can give their own buff-guff to the group

So adding the idea that you have to have an enemy nearby more or less puts the final nail in Soul Transfer's coffin, for me. It's a skipper.

 

[JasperStone]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I offer no disagreements with the general premise "Those original T9s are disappointing!"; I am in agreement with the assessment of teh power sets that I have played.

 

I want to offer an overlooked power that I think could offer some addition insight into how to possibly revamp some of the t9 powers:

Unrelenting

This is (one of two) capstone powers in the Presence pool. It is a self-rez power, but that aspect of it not the reason to take it, you take it for the healing, recovery, recharge and damage boosts. I think the power is very well-balanced for a power pool:

• It is available at a low level balanced by requiring 2 other pool choices (*1)
• It has no downsides (i.e. no 'crash') balanced by its very long natural recharge time, and is only 30 sec duration
• It provides boosts that every AT can use, although mileage may vary w.r.t. the +20% Damage depending on AT

I've always slotted Unrelenting with enhancement  sets, but it doesn't require them.

 

(*1) I feel that the page 5 change making T9s available at lower levels offers a slight improvement in 'game balance' for a reason beyond just making the T9s available earlier... '3rd choice' pool powers get 'squeezed' if players opt to take most primary/secondary powers when first available, and I find the Presence pool to be annoying to try to make good use of the mandatory choice of Pacify/Provoke/Intimidate (pick any two).

 

------

 

The "poor old T9s" need something to make them worth picking, and probably should be evaluated with the following in mind:

• They should be balanced around "SO only", so that means ignore any potential to slot them as Enhancement piece mules. (But don't eliminate that!)
• They should not be weaker than an inspiration (in effect or duration)
• As a "capstone" power, the 'click powers' really ought to offer multiple benefits (I am thinking passive boosts) in addition to whatever the click does
• 'crashes' need to be reassessed. The 'rest between spawns' is from a different era that the game has long since evolved away from.

 

 

Absolutely agree here.

I find a way to work this into some of my builds depending on play style.

[Zect]

I think that before you embark on an analysis like this, you should first define what the purpose or purposes of a T9 is. Is it a recovery tool? Is it a wipe preventer? Is it meant to plug defensive weaknesses of the set? etc.

 

Without first defining the purpose or purposes of a T9, asking for buffs is merely like a kid asking for candy - he will never say "enough" even though more is objectively bad for him.

 

Personally, I think T9's should not be something that IO builds benefit from (including set muling possibilities, which should be removed where appropriate; muling is a powerful function that saves precious slots and/or offers access to sets not normally available; it should not be casually dismissed). IO builds are strong enough already, and further benefit to them simply worsens the pervasive power creep problem in the game.

 

I think most old-style T9's from the Cryptic studios era, e.g. Unstoppable - should be designed to serve as a temporary power booster so that SO builds can, for a limited period, enjoy the same defenses as full-fledged IO/incarnate builds. This makes them attractive and very useful, without contributing to power creep. To this end they should:

• Ignore recharge enhancement (newer ones already do, but it should be applied to the ones that don't and their base recharge rebalanced around it)
• Be less than 60s duration, so that they cannot be cycled gaplessly with melee hybrid incarnate powers;
• Provide the same amount of defensive stats roughly available with an IO build
• Not provide different or unique benefits that an IO build would take advantage of

So an example Tanker Unstoppable should be something like: ignores recharge enhancement, 300s recharge, 60s duration, +59% res to all including psi (which will bring an SO tanker to 90% res to all, with psi at ~82%). A good IO tanker isn't going to take this because IO builds on tankers already cap all resists. But it could still be useful for someone who is on SO's.

 

One thing I think that can be safely removed from old T9's are the crashes. That is the part which you have correctly identified as belonging to an older era of CoX where design assumptions were different, namely, frequent resting between combat. I think they can be safely removed without worsening power creep; IO builds are still not going to take them, crash or no crash.

[tidge]

33 minutes ago, Zect said:

I think most old-style T9's from the Cryptic studios era, e.g. Unstoppable - should be designed to serve as a temporary power booster so that SO builds can, for a limited period, enjoy the same defenses as full-fledged IO/incarnate builds. This makes them attractive and very useful, without contributing to power creep. To this end they should:

• Ignore recharge enhancement (newer ones already do, but it should be applied to the ones that don't and their base recharge rebalanced around it)
• Be less than 60s duration, so that they cannot be cycled gaplessly with melee hybrid incarnate powers;
• Provide the same amount of defensive stats roughly available with an IO build
• Not provide different or unique benefits that an IO build would take advantage of

 

I think applying the quoted criteria to other ATs would cause massive revolts... let's say Blaster Primary T9s. It's always felt 'wrong' to me that many of the Armor T9s are completely skippable, (and worse, likely detrimental to a build if actually used) but skipping an offensive T9 would result in a character not living up to the promise of the AT.

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Zect said:

I think that before you embark on an analysis like this, you should first define what the purpose or purposes of a T9 is. Is it a recovery tool? Is it a wipe preventer? Is it meant to plug defensive weaknesses of the set? etc.

 

Without first defining the purpose or purposes of a T9, asking for buffs is merely like a kid asking for candy - he will never say "enough" even though more is objectively bad for him.

 

Personally, I think T9's should not be something that IO builds benefit from (including set muling possibilities, which should be removed where appropriate; muling is a powerful function that saves precious slots and/or offers access to sets not normally available; it should not be casually dismissed). IO builds are strong enough already, and further benefit to them simply worsens the pervasive power creep problem in the game.

 

I think most old-style T9's from the Cryptic studios era, e.g. Unstoppable - should be designed to serve as a temporary power booster so that SO builds can, for a limited period, enjoy the same defenses as full-fledged IO/incarnate builds. This makes them attractive and very useful, without contributing to power creep. To this end they should:

• Ignore recharge enhancement (newer ones already do, but it should be applied to the ones that don't and their base recharge rebalanced around it)
• Be less than 60s duration, so that they cannot be cycled gaplessly with melee hybrid incarnate powers;
• Provide the same amount of defensive stats roughly available with an IO build
• Not provide different or unique benefits that an IO build would take advantage of

So an example Tanker Unstoppable should be something like: ignores recharge enhancement, 300s recharge, 60s duration, +59% res to all including psi (which will bring an SO tanker to 90% res to all, with psi at ~82%). A good IO tanker isn't going to take this because IO builds on tankers already cap all resists. But it could still be useful for someone who is on SO's.

 

One thing I think that can be safely removed from old T9's are the crashes. That is the part which you have correctly identified as belonging to an older era of CoX where design assumptions were different, namely, frequent resting between combat. I think they can be safely removed without worsening power creep; IO builds are still not going to take them, crash or no crash.

 

Don't see an issue with the idea of IO Mule.  Honestly, I would want to see the T9 be more than that.  Technically, one could call Strength of Will an IO mule, but it's also handy.  I know I've always said WP users should grab it, just it's better used before you're close dying.

 

 

[Uun]

2 hours ago, Herotu said:

Firstly, sorry to generalise, because many of these powers have very cool effects with some quite potent buffs, BUT... all Self-Rez powers seem like a dumb waste because 90% of the time you either have, can make or be given a Wakey. That's why I like it when they attach a bunch of other buff-guff to Self-Rez powers.

Self-rez powers are admittedly situational, but they have big advantages to inspirations in those situations. The self-rez powers all provide a 15-second untouchable period that allows you to retoggle. This allows them to be used in combat with foes nearby. Inspirations are fine if your team has cleared the foes or they have moved out of aggro range, but even the large rez inspirations (with no stun) leave you completely vulnerable and aren't designed to be used in combat. 

[PoptartsNinja]

3 hours ago, Herotu said:

Firstly, sorry to generalise, because many of these powers have very cool effects with some quite potent buffs, BUT... all Self-Rez powers seem like a dumb waste because 90% of the time you either have, can make or be given a Wakey. That's why I like it when they attach a bunch of other buff-guff to Self-Rez powers.

 

 

That's why I'd like to turn them all into emergency heals that just happen to be usable as a Self-Rez if you wait too long to click on them. Imagine popping Soul Transfer at 30-40% HP for a chunk of health and nice, long-duration mag 3 stun that stacks with oppressive gloom? Just bam knock a whole spawn senseless when it seems like things might be going south and use the next 12 seconds to clean them up.

 

 

2 hours ago, Zect said:

I think that before you embark on an analysis like this, you should first define what the purpose or purposes of a T9 is. Is it a recovery tool? Is it a wipe preventer? Is it meant to plug defensive weaknesses of the set? etc.

 

They're a utility tool, which means their implementation can be quite varied. They either perform something the set already does in a different way (Parasitic Aura), shore up defenses while offering timed benefits (Meltdown), or offer a way for a set to do what it's best at with a little reassurance that if something does go wrong you have something to fall back on (Phoenix Rising).

 

I wanted to avoid making them all set replacements because I feel that often doesn't really mesh with the feel of the set or even the power in question. If Elude offered a big chunk of damage resistance or was a long-duration heal-over-time it would definitely be more immediately useful to SO-only builds than the current incarnation but at the same time it wouldn't really feel like Elude. By changing Elude's defense from positional to typed we can take advantage of the fact that the ToHit formula rolls against positional defense then rolls again against typed defense and if either of them are a miss the attack misses. By offering Super Reflexes a way to temporarily take advantage of both of these defenses Elude would still be very useful even if the full strength of the typed defenses it provides is somewhat less than that provided by SR's normal positional defenses.

Edited December 15, 2022 by PoptartsNinja

[Doomguide2005]

 

On 12/15/2022 at 10:55 AM, PoptartsNinja said:

 

I wanted to avoid making them all set replacements because I feel that often doesn't really mesh with the feel of the set or even the power in question. If Elude offered a big chunk of damage resistance or was a long-duration heal-over-time it would definitely be more immediately useful to SO-only builds than the current incarnation but at the same time it wouldn't really feel like Elude. By changing Elude's defense from positional to typed we can take advantage of the fact that the ToHit formula rolls against positional defense then rolls again against typed defense and if either of them are a miss the attack misses. By offering Super Reflexes a way to temporarily take advantage of both of these defenses Elude would still be very useful even if the full strength of the typed defenses it provides is somewhat less than that provided by SR's normal positional defenses.

Unfortunately that's not how defense works.  The game looks at all your defenses, positional and typed and takes the best one.  The only time adding typed defenses to Elude is likely to help is if there is no position to the attack.  Some Psi attacks for example (see Mind Control) fall into this category.  What I don't know is if some of the recent changes altered how many attacks now lack a position to the attack that didn't previously.  It was relatively rare to not have both.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Doomguide2005
Clarity

[aethereal]

3 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

 

Unfortunately that's not how defense works.  The game looks at all your defenses, positional and typed and takes the best one.  The only time adding typed defenses to Elude is likely to help is if there is no position to the attack.  Some Psi attacks for example (see Mind Control) fall into this category.  What I don't know is if some of the recent changes altered how many attacks now lack a position to the attack that didn't previously.  It was relatively rare to not have both.

Nope!  Attacks with multiple types got collapsed to one type, but nothing should've lost a position in the recent defense changes.

[Rudra]

@Doomguide2005 is actually correct. Some attacks lacked the number of flags others had. Like Psi damage attacks that lacked positional flags as @Doomguide2005 said. So it's not that some attacks lost their positional flags, but that they simply did not have them to even begin with. (Though, hopefully that has been changed or fixed since the devs went through and simplified the flags for defense.)

[Uun]

19 minutes ago, Rudra said:

@Doomguide2005 is actually correct. Some attacks lacked the number of flags others had. Like Psi damage attacks that lacked positional flags as @Doomguide2005 said. So it's not that some attacks lost their positional flags, but that they simply did not have them to even begin with. (Though, hopefully that has been changed or fixed since the devs went through and simplified the flags for defense.)

Mind Control attacks (Dominate, Mesmerize, etc.) still lack positional flags and only check against psi defense. Psi Blast attacks check against both positional and psi. Holds true for Rikti and other factions with these attacks. 

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

@Doomguide2005 is actually correct. Some attacks lacked the number of flags others had. Like Psi damage attacks that lacked positional flags as @Doomguide2005 said. So it's not that some attacks lost their positional flags, but that they simply did not have them to even begin with. (Though, hopefully that has been changed or fixed since the devs went through and simplified the flags for defense.)

He said two different things:

 

1.  That some attacks lack positional tags.  This is true.

 

2.  That he didn't know if the recent defense changes stripped any possible tags from attacks the previously had positional tags.  These changes did not (intentionally) render any attacks newly positionless.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

He said two different things:

 

1.  That some attacks lack positional tags.  This is true.

 

2.  That he didn't know if the recent defense changes stripped any possible tags from attacks the previously had positional tags.  These changes did not (intentionally) render any attacks newly positionless.

I sit corrected.

[Troo]

@PoptartsNinja lots of good details and some decent suggestions.

 

Bearing in mind the level at which a T9 becomes available they are game changers.

 

That said, I've assumed since enhancement diversification that we were given the opportunity to respec out of T9s when they might became superfluous as we acquired enhancement sets and more complete builds. Even more so with Incarnates.

 

oh nooo.. rant alert..

I believe powers may be valuable early in the game and then become simply not needed in later levels. This is part of the secret sauce that can be lost on endgamers. Character evolution, character specialization, and character diversity can fade in a haze of FOTM, google me the bestest T4 50 possible, and farmz me there now or I will spam all global chat channels until I gets whats I wants.

 

Serious question: Would you rather revamp T9s or have Genesis, Mind, and Omega Incarnates?

 

 

[BrandX]

Some suggestions (going by Scrapper numbers)...

 

Electric Armor: Power Surge

 

Have to keep the Gremlin look.  Just needs to be done, especially for those who may take it purely for that.

 

Currently gives 52.5% Resist to all but Psionics.  This really just feels useful to get Toxic Resist, while capping the rest on a SO build.  I'd say halve this.  20-26.25% (26.25% being the amount of resists the shields give unslotted) Resist All (except Psionics) and Mez Protection.

 

Then add an Energy Damage Proc to attacks (like Brimstone), +Recharge (10-20%), +Slow Resist (10-20%), +Recovery (as much as it already gives) and +Defense All, the Meta is you're pure energy and it adds another layer of survival and yes, it could make for a IO mule for some, but I believe it'd be more than that with this change.

60-180 second duration - possibly fixed recharge - same End Drop as SoW can even put in a -Recovery for 10 seconds.  However, it just shouldn't have the drop it does now.  I will be fair, if the drop it had now wasn't so awful, I was going to take it myself, just to turn into the gremlin every now and again.

 

...

 

Super Reflexes: Elude

 

Keep everything, but lower Defense to 13.88-20% Defense All (You're softcapping w/ SOs).  Now tack on 5-10% Resists and some Regen, give it SoW level Drop and Recharge.  It does add some new IO sets yes, but now one can feel to use it for some added Recovery/Recharge (offense) or Defense when the already awesome Defense is some how failing.

 

...

 

Ninjitsu: Kuji-In Retsu

 

Same as Super Reflexes, instead of Resists added  in, some Regen and Heal.

 

...

 

Energy Aura: Overload

 

Same as Super Reflexes.  Drop that Defense.  Give it an Energy Damage Proc.  So able to softcap the SO builds.  More damage.   Has it's same goodies.  On a SoW recharge/drain.

 

...

 

Regeneration: Moment of Glory

 

+15seconds to MoG

 

...

 

Ice Armor: Hibernation - Stone Armor: Granite / Geodea - WP: SoW - Shield: OWtS - Bio Armor: Parasitic Aura - Fiery Aura: Phoenix Rising

 

I think are good as is.

 

...

 

Dark Armor: Soul Transfer

 

Rise of the Phoenix treatment, except it needs a target.

 

...

 

Invunerability

 

Same as Super Reflexes...SoW treatment.  For INV I'd go with some good Resist/Defense without it being 52% base.  Go smaller, with less of drops.

 

 

In the end, desireable while not leaving you in a dead state 😕  

 

Also, didn't mention Radiation Armor, because I haven't played this set to comment.

[PoptartsNinja]

17 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

 

Unfortunately that's not how defense works.  The game looks at all your defenses, positional and typed and takes the best one.

Ah, my mistake. I could've sworn I heard it was checking both at some point, but just using the strongest makes sense.

 

In that case, my suggestion for Elude would be to cut the power down to 15%-20% positional defense and remove the crash; and my suggestion for Overload would be similar (10% to most typed defense, but to add +30% to Psi/Toxic which Energy Aura supplies very little of)

 

 

9 hours ago, Troo said:

Serious question: Would you rather revamp T9s or have Genesis, Mind, and Omega Incarnates?

I know that you don't intend it this way, but this is a false equivalence. The Devs spending a few hours or even days reviewing the numbers in the old-fashioned armor T9s doesn't preclude them from working on incarnates if that's what they want to be doing. Making the T9s more attractive by toning down some of their utterly bonkers armor/defense numbers in exchange for softening their crashes won't somehow lock us out of ever getting Genesis, Mind, or Omega.

[BrandX]

I should note, I don't think every set has to be a no recharge power, like SoW, even when I make suggestions for it or compare them to SoW.  It's just easy comparing.  I'm okay with them being longer recharge and effected by recharge...or even the same and effected by recharge.  😛

 

It's the crashes that need to be looked at.  I can't recall if all are as bad as Electric Armor (the most recent I was looking at to take), but everything dropping to zero, with no way to use another power to save one from the crash isn't good 😞

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

23 minutes ago, BrandX said:

I should note, I don't think every set has to be a no recharge power, like SoW, even when I make suggestions for it or compare them to SoW.  It's just easy comparing.  I'm okay with them being longer recharge and effected by recharge...or even the same and effected by recharge.  😛

 

It's the crashes that need to be looked at.  I can't recall if all are as bad as Electric Armor (the most recent I was looking at to take), but everything dropping to zero, with no way to use another power to save one from the crash isn't good 😞

 

 

Elude is pretty much this way (-100% end and -10000% recovery).  Pre-IO days I dealt with it by using Eye of Magus followed by Geas of the Kind Ones and using one blue to jump start things.

[PoptartsNinja]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

It's the crashes that need to be looked at.  I can't recall if all are as bad as Electric Armor (the most recent I was looking at to take), but everything dropping to zero, with no way to use another power to save one from the crash isn't good 😞

Elec Armor's crash is the worst in the game -90% hp, -100% end, -10000% recovery, all of the others are some lesser combination of those effects
Invuln is -90% hp, -100% end
Elude, Kuji-in Retsu, and Overload are -100% end, -10000% recovery

 

 

Even keeping what they're currently doing 100% the same with no changes, but toning down the resist/defense values in favor of toning down the crashes would be a huge improvement to the worst offenders.

Edited December 17, 2022 by PoptartsNinja

[golstat2003]

The crashes need to go. Other than using them as mules, with the crashes as they are, most of the T9s I would not touch even on an SO build, especially with Incarnates being a thing. Sorry but that design is an archaic relic that needs to go.

 

I like a lot of the suggestions here. I would tack on that the crashes simply need to go as the first requirement.

[Aracknight]

I *really* like the idea of giving the armor t9s the Phoenix Rising treatment.

 

A self rez, or a heal/+end if alive and <75% health, and an AOE with a secondary effect.

 

Dark's could be -ToHit.

Electric could be Stun.

Energy could be Knockback.

Ice could be Hold.

SR could be Slow.

Ninjitsu could be -perception (to hide)

Others could be others, etc etc.