Musings on Super Reflexes

[Sakura Tenshi]

I want to preface this by saying that I actually think Super Reflexes is overall an okay set and perfectly balanced. It's not top-tier, end-game godmode like some other armor sets in the game but, honestly, not everything has to be. That stated, there's also the fact that the numbers I'd proposition are purely examples as I'm not a theorycrafter and am a rare breed of 'Asian who sucks at math', so feel free to suggest better numbers. Lastly, I would like this to be a bit of an open discussion so feel free to hijack the thread with your own ideas and proposals, even if we've probably heard them before. Let's get started:

 

1. Buffing Practiced Brawler

Now, I just want to say, as someone who has switched from a /SR main to a /Will main: I DO NOT WANT PB TO BECOME A TOGGLE. I've lost endurance, and with it, my mez protection which consigns my brute to instant death from lockdown, where as I've been able to recover from end flat-lining on SR and other click mez protects. However, it is extremely 'basic' compared to other click protections, /nin offers psionic resistance, which can be stacked to resist cap even (another reason not to disrespect click based mez protects), meanwhile, /shield's mez protection provides total mez protection (something neither SR or Nin can boast) and does boost defense debuff resistance, which is helpful on a kind of 'jack of all' set like Shield. So here's what I might consider adding to Practiced Brawler either as individual buffs or all together.

• +1000% Placate/Taunt Resistance: conceptually, a the power name would suggest one is an experienced fighter, and as such perhaps you'd be able to ignore distractions like attempts to placate or pull your focus from your intended target. Mechanically, this is because placate is VERY annoying on high defense characters as the placater will lock you out of attacking them and if they're the last one in the mob, you can just end up in a staring contest for a minute or so as they whiff and keep whiffing. Possible gravy addition: the taunt/placate resist becomes a team buff each time you activate it so your team is similarly not stuck.
• +25% endurance discount: Perhaps another benefit of a practiced brawler is learning to pace yourself for the long haul of the fight, or even you've just grown so used to keeping up your guard it's not a big drain as it would be for others. Mechanically: for some reason /sr feels oddly endurance heavy for a set with three toggles. I have no idea if it's just me but compared to other sets like invul and all that, end poofs pretty fast.
• Shorten recharge to be permanent out the box: pretty self explanatory.

 

2. Altering the passive resistances

Agile, Lucky, and Dodge start to give you sliding resistance scales for all damage types except toxic and psionic (which is now a somewhat dated concept for this server) starting at 60% of your max HP and caps effectively when you're at 1% to... 60% resist to all but psionic and toxic. Now, maybe it's not so bad if you're not a scrapper or a stalker except it definitely is. Tanks would have about 68.4 HP at this point and at level 50 would be killed with brawl from your average Council mook. It gets a little better if you've invested in IOs, but this game is not, and has never been balanced around IOs and IOs should not be needed to complete any given powerset. So, my proposals would be as follows:

• Front load a solid percentage of resistance into each power, perhaps only for a pair of damages, say 10% (on tanks for example) per. With the ability to slot resistance enhancements into the power.
• Start the resistance scaling sooner and cap it sooner as well: let's say the resistance scaling starts at about 90% or 75% HP, just when you're starting to bleed and stops at about 40% or 25% HP, with the scaling resist component adding about 40%. A lot less, yes, but you'd have far more HP and be getting more resistance for remaining HP than current.

 

3. Improvements to Elude

This is not an issue necessarily unique to Super Reflexes, but indeed, many of the old armor sets still have the old '90 or so seconds of godmode followed by instant death crash'. It's something I feel can be a take or leave it, though I understand a lot of people seem to just end up leaving it, even if they're not aiming for a super optimal build because the cost of the crash is often too steep to accept. Plus, I think the biggest issue is that even without IOs, it's not that hard to cap defense on SR and all Elude does is give more of the same, which might make some thematic sense, but I think it could be better.

• Shorten Duration, reduce defense buffs, eliminate crash, reduce recharge rate but make it unaffected by further recharge reduction: my rough number ideas would be - 45 second duration, +30% defense to Melee, ranged, AoE (tanker scaling), Rech time: 300 seconds (unenhanceable), recovery and movement buffs would be unchanged.
• Additional buffs (self): +Recharge (40%, this is part of why I'd have the recharge rate for elude locked), and +20% ToHit buff. These additions are meant to play on the idea of going into a sort of 'ultra-speed' mode, tohit being because it's much easier to target enemies when they move so slow in relation and a recharge buff to stack with quickness for maximum attack spam.
• Additional debuffs (foe): -Spd, jump, fly, recharge, and tohit and a magnitude 2 hold chance in an aura extending in a 35 feet around the user for the duration of Elude. Basically adds martial combat's 'reaction time' to Elude's effects. And in summary this adds a sort of offensive boon to elude on top of its defensive features.

 

Anyway, that's my musings, I await the ratio'ing. I can't say for sure how much or how little these could or should be implemented, and I do think of legacy powersets, SR's probably one that's doing among the best, especially with defense changes and the level requirement reduction. But it's always had a softspot to me since live where I can never not think of how I'd wanna make it better.

[Akisan]

1. Buffing Practiced Brawler

• Right there with you on the taunt/placate resist, but honestly, I'm surprised there isn't taunt/placate protection.  Not even Break Frees get you out of those immediately.  And yeah, they're annoying on more than just high-defense characters.  It's so bad sitting there waiting for a Held enemy's placate to run out. (As a side note, I'd be ok with pretty much all survival sets getting those 2 added)
• Not sure about the endurance discount.  It takes a lot more effort to dodge everything, vs. blocking, absorbing, or simply out-healing incoming attacks.
• Last I checked, one of the great things about Practiced Brawler is that it stacks. If you've enough recharge in it, you can get even more DDR, which is... really amazing, and one of the best things about it.  If the cost of "perma out of the box" is that it's recharge is unenhanceable, or that it no longer stacks, then no thank you.

2. Altering Passive Resistances

• No complaints here, while that would result in lower resists overall, they'd definitely be worth more over the course of a fight.  Of course, if the new ones are enhanceable, and the old ones aren't, then you wouldn't actually even lose any resistance at low HP values.

3. Improvements to Elude

• I don't think I've ever taken Elude.  It just doesn't seem worth it, especially since by the time I realize the fight's gone too far south and I need a T9, I've usually already started a survey of the floor. Usually because the RNG is being spiteful (which happens, given enough fights). No amount of +DEF will help that, but current Elude would help with a defense cascade (rare, but does happen).
• Instead of an Ultra-speed mode for Elude, maybe a rework along the lines of "not spending the energy to fully dodge everything, but just enough to minimize how much it does"
  • The defense buff becomes a 20% (30%?) defense penalty (base defense, irresistible) - as you're no longer entirely dodging everything
  • 50% resist/all (unless the Psi/Toxic hole needs to stay for thematic reasons).  You're taking hits now, but they're all glancing blows.
  • 25% endurance discount - it takes more effort to completely dodge something, vs. partly dodging something.
  • Some of the buffs you've mentioned could be factored in too - but they'll take the place of that endurance discount, as at that point you're trading defense for offense, not changing defensive styles (this would also prevent the last point from being a thing)
  • Is now a toggle, like Granite Armor - this is less of a godmode, and more of a change in fighting style.  (Like knowing that the Rularuu Eyeballs will hit you anyways, so you just dodge enough make sure they won't hit your vitals)

 

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

     Hmmm, frankly outside of Elude being fairly superfluous, especially for a t9, I'm pretty happy with where SR is.  Definitely don't see a need to buff it any.  It's a very strong armor set.  But discussion is never a bad idea.

     While SR doesn't offer quite the range of WP for mez protection the set itself is missing only Repel and Terrorize comparatively (with Placate and Taunt missing on both sets).   And none of those are particularly common mezzes.  Thousands of hours on SR I've been terrorized probably not even a dozen times.  And I think the other day courtesy of upgrades? to family bosses several Singularities? were, for the first time ever, giving me a wild ride.  It was actually quite amusing though ill grant only because it was a first.  The 20th time probably not so much.  Taunt also seems kind of silly to worry over.  While more common by far than it used to be thanks to Crey upgrades half the time I'm focused on putting the hurt on my Taunter already.  If not hello AoEs, ditto for Placate.  Not sure if it's just a mistake but PB does nothing to or for DDR.  It does stack the mez protection.

     Endurance usage.  This seems to keep coming up as an "issue" for SR (particularly while leveling or non-IO builds).  SR 3 toggles for  0.780 end/sec.  WP 4 toggles for 0.832 end/sec.  Invulnerability 3 toggles for 0.728.  Energy Aura 4 toggles for 1.04 end/sec.  Shield Defense 4 toggles for 0.780 end/sec.  Etc., etc., if there's an endurance usage issue it's not from running the toggles.   And I'm willing to bet endurance issues in a build lie in the attack/offensive side of the equation, not the defensive/armor set side of things regardless of which set you're talking about. 

     While I wouldn't have issue with PB being perma out of the box I don't see it as needed particularly since it can be clicked while mezzed.  I can run my toggles for a long time on the end otherwise used for PB against a foe that never hits me much less mezzes me😜  And like Akisan if it comes at the expense of stacking or other current capability no thanks.

     I'll take 60% resistance over capped at some smaller amount any day of the week.  60 is a whole lot closer to the 75% cap.  I can reach the cap of 75% via set bonuses against at least one type of damage.  Adding 35% is going to be a whole lot harder.  At least that's my first instinct.

     Elude - can of worms.  Haven't come up with anything I like while puzzling over the question myself.  Did take it on my last respec on HC and have used it exactly once during an incarnate mission while solo.  Mostly it sits there muling a LotG while I ponder its potential for use in Hardcore content.

[Sakura Tenshi]

@Akisan

I just want to point out that the idea of Practiced Brawler being perma'd out the box was that it could still be enhanced further, with the idea of it being possible to multistack enough to theoretically make SR effectively unmezzable outside of its holes and AVs with ludicrous mag powers. (or a looot of stacking). The other thing is that dodging and evasion is considered by many martial artists to be the most energy efficient form of defense as a parry will still require you to maneuver your means of defending to deflect and attack, and blocking outright gets taxing pretty fast as your expending energy to resist and incoming force and even strike back at the attack. And I admit the elude idea is a little absurd, though I've been kind of reticent about giving SR a lot of additional resists to fall back on since it is a bit counter concept, but without that or regen, I couldn't think of much else besides just playing on SR's best defense being to add to its offense.

 

@Doomguide2005

As far as fear, placate/taunt being rare, well, yes, but pretty much any mez that isn't KD/KB, Hold, Stun, and Sleep is fairly rare, but you tend to end up grateful for them when you do have them and feel it when you don't. Especially in endgame mobs and even just some that were added far latter in the game's life cycle (and even those being added by the Devs now) you start to see some of these rarer forms of control being used. But as mentioned Taunt/Placate was primarily because it'd not only be unique but also because being placated (which is autohit) can be very annoying when you're softcapped or near it and stand there while the placate-er whiffs for the next minute.

 

And while I defend my points here, I do want to say I appreciate your inputs and thoughts so far.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Sakura Tenshi

[Rudra]

10 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

because being placated (which is autohit)

Depends on the placate being used. I've not been affected by Succubi using theirs depending on the character I'm on. As in, sometimes that Succubus hits me with her Placate and I can't attack her for an annoyingly long time, and other times she does the animation but I am not placated, on the same character.

[Rigged]

On 7/14/2023 at 12:55 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

1. Buffing Practiced Brawler

Honestly I think a lot of the survivability issues with SR could be alleviated by giving it slow ticking absorb, possibly in practiced brawler. Seriously, I am running ranged ATs with more passive survivability than SR.

 

On 7/14/2023 at 12:55 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

+25% endurance discount: Perhaps another benefit of a practiced brawler is learning to pace yourself for the long haul of the fight, or even you've just grown so used to keeping up your guard it's not a big drain as it would be for others. Mechanically: for some reason /sr feels oddly endurance heavy for a set with three toggles. I have no idea if it's just me but compared to other sets like invul and all that, end poofs pretty fast.

 

Not a bad idea, but will benefit mostly lowbies. Won't change anything at the endgame where everyone packs ageless... Energize in /EA for example does not really help much on the END front - the real END power in that set is Power Sink. Mind you, SR's toggles are already very light on END.

 

On 7/14/2023 at 12:55 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

• Shorten recharge to be permanent out the box: pretty self explanatory.

 

Nothing wrong with this idea, but really, this is not a big deal at all. At the earlier levels it is in fact quite rare that you really need it up 100%, since you only need to click it when a mez actually gets past your Defense, so a single SO (or two later on) will get you all the uptime you need, especially since HC hands you SOs right at the start. I don't exactly object to it, but maybe we should conserve buffs for elsewhere.

 

On 7/14/2023 at 12:55 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

2. Altering the passive resistances

 

The issue with increasing scaling resists is that it is in fact very easy to get another 8% resist across the board with two global IOs and another bunch for smash/lethal using Tough, a whole lot of set bonuses with fire/cold resist, leaving the only real slightly-harder hole on resists at low health as energy/neg. Look, I'm not saying it's a bad idea (and in fact it is a very good idea for tanks/brutes). I'm saying that we might want to address that in a different way because it is not going to help a lot for scrappers/stalkers once they get low, and a big problem with SR is that a single attack hitting at max health can drop you to 1HP.

 

I do expect though that some purists will object to the idea of SR getting better resists.

 

On 7/14/2023 at 12:55 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

It gets a little better if you've invested in IOs, but this game is not, and has never been balanced around IOs and IOs should not be needed to complete any given powerset.

 

OK true, but the thing is that if you compare the sets purely on their performance without IOs, SR is actually one of the best. You can softcap (or more practically, come close to softcap) everything without IOs, giving you a solid 90% (or 85ish%) mitigation to all damage. This is more than many of the other sets with no egregious holes except for the fact that you lack a heal power, which can be alleviated using a pool or an offense powerset with a self-heal. It is a far better argument to compare the performance of SR with just a small amount of IO slotting - one of SR's biggest problems is that it overdoses on defense that other sets can use IOs to equalize, meaning that their other mitigation such as resists and self-heals put them ahead on survivability. Look, I am all for buffing SR or at least making its mitigation more consistent, but the argument for doing so is much better when you consider the practical modern IO environment, is what I'm saying.

 

On 7/14/2023 at 12:55 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

3. Improvements to Elude

 

Completely true that that power seriously needs a revamp. In many cases it does nothing but give you a bit more defense debuff resist- which is pathetic for a t9. At least for resist sets, the T9 will often at least partially cover resist holes. Now I know this is going to be controversial, but I seriously think SR should get more offense in order to compete with /Shield or the sheer utility spread of /energy aura. Would it really be so overpowered to remove the crash and give Elude a sizable damage buff (or the recharge buff OP suggested) for the 2/3 uptime at the practical recharge limits, while reducing the superfluous defense a bit?

 

Overall, please don't mistake my critique of your suggestions as trying to pooh-pooh them. If nothing else, I think you are in fact being too reserved in your buff suggestions.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Rigged

[Uun]

9 hours ago, Akisan said:

If you've enough recharge in it, you can get even more DDR, which is... really amazing, and one of the best things about it. 

Practiced Brawler doesn't provide DDR in PVE. Are you thinking of Active Defense in Shield?

[Doomguide2005]

     Just going to point out you can build now to double stack PB (or be exceedingly close), no buff necessary.  Recharge base 200, duration 120 or about perma Hasten levels of recharge to overlap fulltime.  I think the only time I ever think about wanting it is vs Rommie and his rez and a lot of the time I either have a breakfree (deliberately created or retained) or there's folks using any of numerous buffs that eliminate mez/stun.  It's not done (far as I know) for lack of need and not wishing to devote multiple slots to PB by most.  I'm much like @Rigged in that these days about the only time I'm careful about keeping PB up is vs heavy mez users as most of any knock is covered by incidental IO protection plus they have to hit first.  When it gets through I click.  I can go through entire +4/×8 ITFs and rarely end up using it.  And again I wouldn't object to buffs here like an absorb or resistance to psi/tox I'm just of the opinion SR doesn't really need help.

     

[Captain Fabulous]

/powercreep

[TheZag]

I havent encountered survivability problems with super reflexes.  I took energy melee and use energy transfer as much as i can to try and damage myself and im pretty much full the entire time.  Its hard to slot all the goodies from the resist IOs since there are no resist powers in the set but thats probably for the best.  I already have more slots in my attacks than any other of my melee characters since defense was so easy to cap and there were no resists to build and use up my slots.

 

The set does show its age somewhat though when compared to newer armors.  SR was around back before stats were shown to the player and toggles were all exclusive.  We couldn't have the melee, ranged and AoE toggles all on.  We had to pick one at a time and that was it.  Elude was useful back then to get all 3 types of defense at the same time.  Now it suffers the same as many armor T9s where they appear to be mostly useless for your character.  Some powers could use a tweak and i personally dont like the scaling resist only kicking in at 60% but im not sure what the set could get that wont take it from a top performer to godmode faceroll i-win button.

 

[Akisan]

14 hours ago, Uun said:

Practiced Brawler doesn't provide DDR in PVE. Are you thinking of Active Defense in Shield?

 

Yeah, that's the one.  I keep getting the 2 sets all mungled together since I rerolled a /SR into a /Shield.

 

16 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

The other thing is that dodging and evasion is considered by many martial artists to be the most energy efficient form of defense as a parry will still require you to maneuver your means of defending to deflect and attack, and blocking outright gets taxing pretty fast as your expending energy to resist and incoming force and even strike back at the attack.

 

For non-supers (and many SR toons), yes.  For supers, my thought was that this was the difference between "totally dodged that bullet" and "only dodged it enough that it just cut me", or "I dodged that entire salvo of bullets" vs. "I dodged most of that salvo" (mechanically, SR is you either totally dodged the salvo, or ate all of it).  My Elude suggestion was for a "lazy" (or desperate) SR to accept the partial damage in exchange for not trying as hard - freeing their energy for other things.