Power Pool: Sleuthing

[megaericzero]

tldr version in yellow at the bottom of this post

 

I saw biostem's thread suggesting Pistol Mastery for Scrappers and the responses it got. It seemed pertinent to post about a power pool I had been bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now. That being: Sleuthing. (Edit: this isn't throwing any shde at biostem or their idea; it just seemed relevant to post now since they mentioned a pistols options for a melee archetype.)

 

A short preface: I think the existing power pools in the game cover the gamut of generic, not-full-powerset concepts and give good coverage of abilities to double down on strengths or shore up weaknesses very well so it's not lightly I suggest a new pool that would be available to every archetype, both conceptually and mechanically.

 

That being said, let's jump in and I'll explain my reasoning as I go in darker text.

 

Sleuthing

You have experience as a detective, journalist, or other investigator that allows you to outsmart your foes and benefit from preparing for missions beforehand.

This is a non-travel pool. Out of the gate, this would help cover the detective/journalist concept. I don't believe there's specifically a day job for that yet.

 

Power	Level	Effect
Sidearm	4	(Ranged) Foe Minor Damage (Lethal)
Distraction	4	(Location AOE) Foe Taunt, -Range
Advanced Investigation	14	[Toggle] Self +Defense (Psionic); [Auto] Self +Special
Superior Reasoning	14	[Toggle] Self +Tohit, +Protection (Disorient, Hold, Sleep); [Auto] Self +Special
Contingency Plan	14	Self Resurrect, +Protection (XP Debt)

I think I got the power levels correct for a power pool? I'm still working off very old knowledge of live where it was 6, 6, 14, 20 but I know they've been lowered since then. If I got the level ranges wrong, please correct me.

 

POWER DETAILS

I'm not very good with numbers so I hope the power descriptions and you, the reader's, experience with existing pool powers will suffice to give an idea of how potent the effects should be.

 Sidearm
(Ranged) Foe Minor Damage (Lethal)
You carry a trusty sidearm on your person at all times. While just a small-caliber weapon only capable of dealing minor lethal damage to a target, it can come in handy in a pinch or be useful to attack targets out of reach.
Damage: Minor
Recharge: Fast

This would allow people to have a permanent single-pistol power if they are willing to use the power (and pool) pick on it. Hopefully with power customization. The damage is small and could be supplemented with IOs or just serve as a mule.

 Distraction
(Location AOE) Foe Taunt, -Range
You create a distraction at a targeted spot, attracting the attention of nearby enemies. Though only momentary, this distraction can be utilized to corral enemies towards a desired spot or to cause them to cluster together. Note that the distraction is only minor, and the presence of you or any allies may supercede it in threat value.
Damage: -
Recharge: Slow

Conceptually, this is the "knock on a wall" or "throw a rock in the distance to attract the faceless minions" trick. Mechanically, it would summon an invisible pseudopet at the location that does very low-magnitude taunt but is otherwise intangible or un-attackable and then disappears after a few seconds, causing enemies to gather around it. This hopefully adds some minor utility that is useful for smaller, lower-level, or inexperienced teams. It's not meant to be doing any favors for end-game TFs/trials that are built to steamroll.

 Advanced Investigation
[Toggle] Self +Defense (Psionic); [Auto] Self +Special
By leveraging your field experience, connections to information networks, and some prep time, you can prepare yourself for missions. While this power is active, you have a slight defense bonus against psionics as you are on the lookout for mental attacks as well. You also gain a passive bonus to damage against inanimate, destructable objects in missions and interact with other mission objects 30% faster.
Damage: -
Recharge: Moderate

This would provide an option for psi damage mitigation. I chose defense because: a) without stacking it with other psi defense, it's less useful than resistance, b) being a defense power, it can't slot Impervium Armor or Aegis' psionic resistance enhancements to double its psi mitigation out of the gate. It also grants bonus damage to destructible objectives, which was actually the primary effect I had in mind. I wanted the Sleuthing set to give some sort of boost to mission objectives but definitely did not want any powers to affect rewards (influence, experience, enhancements/salvage/recipe drops). It's also the tier 3 power so that you have to take a prerequisite power pick in the same way as Tough.

 Superior Reasoning
[Toggle] Self +Tohit, +Protection (Disorient, Hold, Sleep); [Auto] Self +Special
With your honed observation skills, photographic memory, and some common sense you are able to piece things together with less information and tools than others. While active, this power slightly boosts your tohit chance and grants minor protection from disorient, hold, and sleep effects. You also gain a passive bonus that allows you to see the last groups of enemies and objectives in a mission map earlier than others as well as knowing which enemies hold keys to locked doors.
Damage: -
Recharge: Moderate

This provides some minor mez protection (not resistance) that squishy archetypes could take and is purposely gated behind two prerequisite power picks. As above, I did not want Sleuthing powers to affect rewards or the market but still contribute something unique to missions. While the tech that shows remaining enemies and objectives can be quite jank (as Greycat pointed out in another thread), hopefully this would be workable. I don't know where the line is best - a third remaining? as early as half-way through? - but whatever point makes people feel the power pick adds something. Personally, I don't think seeing objectives or keyholders would break anything. Might just be awkward on story-heavy missions where your character isn't meant to know objectives until specific points in progression.

 Contingency Plan
Self Resurrect, +Protection (XP Debt)
You are always prepared for your missions with one or more contingency plans. If you are defeated in battle, you can choose to come back at one-quarter health and endurance as well as being protected from XP debt for a time.
Damage: -
Recharge: Very Long

Mostly also meant for squishies but also potentially for melee archetypes that want a self-rez (eg: Invulnerability). I am aware Return to Battle exists. Very much the "ha, it was all part of my plan so I pretended to be dead / rigged an auto-defib to me beforehand!" Thinking out loud: should the player be able to activate this power early so they can completely avoid debt if they hard-read their impending defeat?

 

tldr I don't suggest a new pool lightly and I hope this covers

- a permanent single-pistol power option for all archetypes

- the detective skills some comic characters have (conceptually) and powers that slightly boost mission QOL (mechanically)

- give options for psi mitigation, mez protection, and a(nother) self-rez, purposely as a pool so it grinds against the Holy Quad

 

Thanks for the read! I'm looking forward to hearing your guys' feedback on the idea.

Edited December 15, 2023 by megaericzero
added clarification to beginning of post; fixed redundant power description

[Rudra]

32 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

I think I got the power levels correct for a power pool? I'm still working off very old knowledge of live where it was 6, 6, 14, 20 but I know they've been lowered since then. If I got the level ranges wrong, please correct me.

Power availability levels for non-travel pools are as you have them listed. You can verify with City of Data on any non-travel pool.

 

34 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

 Distraction
(Location AOE) Foe Taunt, -Range
You create a distraction at a targeted spot, attracting the attention of nearby enemies. Though only momentary, this distraction can be utilized to corral enemies towards a desired spot or to cause them to cluster together. Note that the distraction is only minor, and the presence of you or any allies may supercede it in threat value.
Damage: -
Recharge: Slow

Conceptually, this is the "knock on a wall" or "throw a rock in the distance to attract the faceless minions" trick. Mechanically, it would summon an invisible pseudopet at the location that does very low-magnitude taunt but is otherwise intangible or un-attackable and then disappears after a few seconds, causing enemies to gather around it. This hopefully adds some minor utility that is useful for smaller, lower-level, or inexperienced teams. It's not meant to be doing any favors for end-game TFs/trials that are built to steamroll.

I was going to say Distraction shouldn't have a -range component, but should instead have a brief -Perception component. Then I got to your description of it. While I still think it should have the taunt component to get targets' attention and I would like it to have a -Perception component to show the targets as distracted and so less likely to notice you/your team, I have to admit your take on it does work well.

 

38 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

interact with other mission objects 30% faster.

I don't know if this part of Advanced Investigation can be done. Would be nice if it could though....

 

40 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

You also gain a passive bonus that allows you to see the last groups of enemies and objectives in a mission map earlier than others as well as knowing which enemies hold keys to locked doors.

Again, I don't know if this part of Superior Reasoning can be done. Especially given how unreliable the current version of this seems to be. Though again, would be nice if it could.

 

I have to say this is a well reasoned power pool. Though there are elements I would do differently, most notably the comment I already made about Distraction, I find the proposed pool interesting and (at least in my personal view) balanced. For what little it's worth, it gets my approval. As a side note, just food for thought, what do you think of Contingency Plan being a self teleport to a preplaced fall back point, a very long recharge unaffected by recharge enhancements/buffs high Mag PBAoE Stun, or a brief Untouchable effect to get out of the fight?

[Luminara]

53 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

 Distraction
(Location AOE) Foe Taunt, -Range
You create a distraction at a targeted spot, attracting the attention of nearby enemies. Though only momentary, this distraction can be utilized to corral enemies towards a desired spot or to cause them to cluster together. Note that the distraction is only minor, and the presence of you or any allies may supercede it in threat value.
Damage: -
Recharge: Slow

Conceptually, this is the "knock on a wall" or "throw a rock in the distance to attract the faceless minions" trick. Mechanically, it would summon an invisible pseudopet at the location that does very low-magnitude taunt but is otherwise intangible or un-attackable and then disappears after a few seconds, causing enemies to gather around it. This hopefully adds some minor utility that is useful for smaller, lower-level, or inexperienced teams. It's not meant to be doing any favors for end-game TFs/trials that are built to steamroll.

 

-Range in a pool power is an iWin button for all ranged archetypes.

[Rudra]

42 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

-Range in a pool power is an iWin button for all ranged archetypes.

I didn't think of that. What about a brief -Perception component instead?

[megaericzero]

  

38 minutes ago, Luminara said:

-Range in a pool power is an iWin button for all ranged archetypes.

 

A very good point; I had failed to consider that. My bad!

 

53 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I have to say this is a well reasoned power pool. Though there are elements I would do differently, most notably the comment I already made about Distraction, I find the proposed pool interesting and (at least in my personal view) balanced. For what little it's worth, it gets my approval. As a side note, just food for thought, what do you think of Contingency Plan being a self teleport to a preplaced fall back point, a very long recharge unaffected by recharge enhancements/buffs high Mag PBAoE Stun, or a brief Untouchable effect to get out of the fight?

 

Thanks!

I'm not married to specific powers/effects so it's all good.

 

The idea for Distraction was how to get enemies to run over to a location themselves instead of using teleport or draw-in effects - like Metal Gear Solid and other games/movies where the peons will go "WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? [walks over to spot and stands there, staring at something on the floor]" With what Luminara pointed out, going with your -perception would be better.

 

As for Contingency Plan, there were a couple of different ways I thought of going about it - such as an extremely brief but super-high mez resistance on a very long recharge to basically function as an instant break free that only frees you from current mez in that instant that it's activated ("Ha! I was ready for you to trap me!"). That ended up becoming Superior Reasoning as a normal mez protection instead. The reason I went with self-rez was to give people a pool option for self-rez and for the aforementioned "I tricked you" / "I was ready for you to [defeat] me once!" Your alternative effects are good and have unique utility, though untouchable specifically might be redundant with Phase Shift.

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

I didn't think of that. What about a brief -Perception component instead?

 

Aggro overrides -Perception... but if it created a pseudo-pet which taunted, then applied -Perception, it might be functional for masking player character presence.  Maybe.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

Aggro overrides -Perception... but if it created a pseudo-pet which taunted, then applied -Perception, it might be functional for masking player character presence.  Maybe.

I wonder if you could have a stationary pet that both emitted a taunt aura/effect AND applied an effect like hurricane or arctic fog, (with the specific effects adjusted for balance and such, of course).

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

I didn't think of that. What about a brief -Perception component instead?

 

Aggro overrides -Perception... but if it created a pseudo-pet which taunted, then applied -Perception, it might be functional for masking player character presence.  Maybe.

Wouldn't a pseudo-pet be necessary just to make a taunt effect at a targeted location rather than the character? (Though to be fair, I'm fine with aggro overriding -Perception. The power is Distraction after all. If you attack the distracted targets, they should immediately ignore the distraction to deal with the obvious threat. Same thing if they are already in combat against you.)

[megaericzero]

That was the idea originally, yeah - that you create the Distraction and it makes an invisible pseudo-pet that generates a very tiny amount of aggro so that enemies are attracted to it instead of the caster but the moment you generate any threat value by being in LOS or attacking the pseudo-pet stops being relevant to them.

 

Probably also should've mentioned I assumed you wouldn't need LOS to place the reticle, since the distraction in-universe could be you throwing your voice or banking an object around a corner so the reticle represents where you intend for it to be seen or heard.

[BrandX]

Advanced Investigation I think I'd add +PSi resist to it as well.  I'm just not sure a power with just Psi Defense would be worth taking (unless it's a lot of defense) when all else it gives is faster clickie time and less damage from exploding objects (nice for squishies in ITF for sure).

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, BrandX said:

Advanced Investigation I think I'd add +PSi resist to it as well.  I'm just not sure a power with just Psi Defense would be worth taking (unless it's a lot of defense) when all else it gives is faster clickie time and less damage from exploding objects (nice for squishies in ITF for sure).

The proposed Advanced Investigation provides no damage mitigation against exploding objects. It would provide the character bonus damage against destructible objects. (Edit: So you can destroy destructible objects on the map faster, but if they explode and you're in range, it's still going to hit you for normal damage.) (Edit again: The main advantage of the power I see is for stealth characters or other characters trying to grab glowies behind enemies' backs or while under fire. Since you could feasibly grab the glowie between their attacks if the spawn is small enough or go back into stealth sooner if a stealthy character.)

Edited December 16, 2023 by Rudra

[Wavicle]

I don't think this is sufficiently differentiated.

There are already Taunt, Self Defense, Self Status Protection, Self Rez, and Ranged Attack options in the pools.

[megaericzero]

11 hours ago, BrandX said:

Advanced Investigation I think I'd add +PSi resist to it as well.  I'm just not sure a power with just Psi Defense would be worth taking (unless it's a lot of defense) when all else it gives is faster clickie time and less damage from exploding objects (nice for squishies in ITF for sure).

10 hours ago, Rudra said:

The proposed Advanced Investigation provides no damage mitigation against exploding objects. It would provide the character bonus damage against destructible objects. (Edit: So you can destroy destructible objects on the map faster, but if they explode and you're in range, it's still going to hit you for normal damage.) (Edit again: The main advantage of the power I see is for stealth characters or other characters trying to grab glowies behind enemies' backs or while under fire. Since you could feasibly grab the glowie between their attacks if the spawn is small enough or go back into stealth sooner if a stealthy character.)

 

The idea for Advanced Investigation was just more damage to destructible objects and faster glowie progress - basically complete object-oriented objectives slightly faster. Less damage (or even less push) from object explosions could be a thing; it can be really annoying to destroy a person-sized item and be sent flying from Cap au Diable to Peregrine Island because the live devs put so many zeroes on the repel number.

 

To be fully honest, the pool idea started as "give people a permanent single-pistol option on all archetypes for RP during gameplay + complete objectives slightly faster + slightly better see-last-mob/glowie" but since the latter two are not standard effects and thus can't be enhanced, I had to add additional effects. That's where the other parts came in - some psi mitigation, a way to encourage mobs to gather (taunt was just how I figured you could encourage the mob AI without using teleport/draw-in), some status protection (as opposed to resistance) to the standard three disablers (hold, sleep, stun), and a self-rez.

 

EDIT: The reason I went with psi defense instead of resist was to purposely block the immediate combo of "I take the psi resist power then slot it with two more psi resist globals so now it's triple-y effective!" and to still leave a psi opening since, without additional defense, there's still a strong chance you get hit and will instead take full damage. It was a cruel choice, to be sure. The consolation is that it would still be useful as a LOTG mule. I'm not good at actual numbers so if the defense by itself would be too polarized or if it's a non-issue to be able to slot Impervium Armor and Aegis' globals into it, totally change it to resistance instead.

 

10 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I don't think this is sufficiently differentiated.

There are already Taunt, Self Defense, Self Status Protection, Self Rez, and Ranged Attack options in the pools.

 

That's fair.

 

Wait. There's self-rez in the power pools?

Edited December 16, 2023 by megaericzero
added clarification on choice of psi mitigation

[Rudra]

31 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

 

Wait. There's self-rez in the power pools?

Relentless from the Presence pool. If used while alive, it heals you and applies a HoT. If used after defeated, it rezzes you.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.manipulation.unrelenting&at=scrapper

[Wavicle]

The final power in the Presence pool is a self rez.

[megaericzero]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Relentless from the Presence pool. If used while alive, it heals you and applies a HoT. If used after defeated, it rezzes you.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.manipulation.unrelenting&at=scrapper

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

The final power in the Presence pool is a self rez.

 

Oh geez. I'm more out of touch than I thought. Thanks for updating me! 👍

[Saiyajinzoningen]

this is a really cool and well thought out suggestion

well done OP

Im crossing my fingers 

[Starhammer]

On 12/15/2023 at 11:30 AM, megaericzero said:

 Superior Reasoning
[Toggle] Self +Tohit, +Protection (Disorient, Hold, Sleep); [Auto] Self +Special
With your honed observation skills, photographic memory, and some common sense you are able to piece things together with less information and tools than others. While active, this power slightly boosts your tohit chance and grants minor protection from disorient, hold, and sleep effects. You also gain a passive bonus that allows you to see the last groups of enemies and objectives in a mission map earlier than others as well as knowing which enemies hold keys to locked doors.
Damage: -
Recharge: Moderate

This provides some minor mez protection (not resistance) that squishy archetypes could take and is purposely gated behind two prerequisite power picks. As above, I did not want Sleuthing powers to affect rewards or the market but still contribute something unique to missions. While the tech that shows remaining enemies and objectives can be quite jank (as Greycat pointed out in another thread), hopefully this would be workable. I don't know where the line is best - a third remaining? as early as half-way through? - but whatever point makes people feel the power pick adds something. Personally, I don't think seeing objectives or keyholders would break anything. Might just be awkward on story-heavy missions where your character isn't meant to know objectives until specific points in progression.

 

I would quickly find this mandatory in most builds that don't have their own status protection. I think I would drop the Hold protection, as that can already be found in Acrobatics. Whether or not it's kept, I think, based on the theme of reasoning your way out of things better, resistance might be more appropriate than protection anyway. Also a nice container for +Perception and Build Up procs.

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Starhammer said:

I would quickly find this mandatory in most builds that don't have their own status protection. I think I would drop the Hold protection, as that can already be found in Acrobatics. Whether or not it's kept, I think, based on the theme of reasoning your way out of things better, resistance might be more appropriate than protection anyway. Also a nice container for +Perception and Build Up procs.

 

... seconding this. That's just - a bit much for ranged, but doing some mental conditioning and using a bit of status resistance... is less problematic.

 

(Acrobatics isn't a "must take" power now (at least for fire/dark armor) thanks to IOs, among other things, and only gives 1 mag protection as I recall... so it's a steep cost for a little protection. Superior Reasoning at 14... oof, as described, yeah, you'd see most every controller, defender, possibly mastermind, blaster and controller - barring, maybe, FF and Sonic thanks to the big bubbles giving protection - respeccing to take it.)

[Wavicle]

Probably the status protection should be Mez Resistance not Protection. I would also suggest making it a Non Permaable Click.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Starhammer said:

I would quickly find this mandatory in most builds that don't have their own status protection. I think I would drop the Hold protection, as that can already be found in Acrobatics. Whether or not it's kept, I think, based on the theme of reasoning your way out of things better, resistance might be more appropriate than protection anyway. Also a nice container for +Perception and Build Up procs.

 

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

 

... seconding this. That's just - a bit much for ranged, but doing some mental conditioning and using a bit of status resistance... is less problematic.

 

(Acrobatics isn't a "must take" power now (at least for fire/dark armor) thanks to IOs, among other things, and only gives 1 mag protection as I recall... so it's a steep cost for a little protection. Superior Reasoning at 14... oof, as described, yeah, you'd see most every controller, defender, possibly mastermind, blaster and controller - barring, maybe, FF and Sonic thanks to the big bubbles giving protection - respeccing to take it.)

 

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

Probably the status protection should be Mez Resistance not Protection. I would also suggest making it a Non Permaable Click.

Fair assessments. (And again, something I didn't think about when I reviewed the set.... *goes stands in corner*) Anyway, I think those are fair trade offs. (I'm not the author, just giving my ha'penny.) I think changing Superior Reasoning to not affect Holds, be a click instead of a toggle, not be enhanceable for recharge or be affected by recharge effects, and changing from protection to resistance or making the Mag protection 1 are all fine. What do you think, @megaericzero? It's your suggestion.

 

(Edit: Though to be fair, I thought the proposer power was only going to be Mag 1 in the first place....)

Edited December 19, 2023 by Rudra

[Akisan]

I was under the impression that Holds, Stuns and Sleeps are generally Mag 2 - Mag 4, so wouldn't a Mag 1 protection be effectively useless? (The only effects that I know of that are less than 1 Mag are knock downs, immobilizes and confuses - with the latter two intended to be slowly stacked until they affect something)

 

I'd be ok with that status protection being just Stun, and Mag 2 (catches the minor stuns, like Murk Eidolon's stun aura), on par with Acrobatics (maybe add some sleep/stun resistance, similar to Acro's hold resist).  If someone wants to lock themselves into 2 pools (leaping and Sleuthing) to get minor permanent protections to Stun/Hold, that's fine.  If they want a non-perma clickie for higher protection, there's always Sorcery, or Clarion once they get to 50.  (I'd also be okay with it being changed to Taunt/Placate protection.  Last I checked, those 2 effects only have resistance, which is all kinds of frustrating for builds that need to prioritize targets.)

 

@Rudra's idea about Contingency Plan teleporting you elsewhere would be an excellent twist on a self-rez.  Pretty much all the current rezzes have you stand back up into a group, which is... not great if you were overwhelmed before.

 

Distraction seems like it'd be a great utility piece.  I can already think of several rather useful situations for it - distracting a patrol so you're not overwhelmed, drawing enemies into a /traps minefield, herding multiple groups together for an AoE...

[megaericzero]

The idea was actually, yes, to give squishies an option for protection to the main three mezzes that all melee get protection from (hold, sleep, stun) specifically because they don't have a toggle-able option outside of FF and sonic's bubbles. In my own head, it was low magnitude only sufficient for one mez (mag 3?) and I figured the cost of having to go three powers deep into a specific pool would be a good enough balancing factor. Doubly so if we remove the hold protection so that they have to take Acrobatics. (It's annoying that power tooltips list both protection and resistance as just resistance.)

 

If a dedicated mez protection toggle is still too good for the ranged archetypes, perhaps going with a previous idea I had to turn it into a pseudo-break free might work? Having it be insanely high mez resistance so it basically instantly ends all mez of those types on the character but only last for a single second and on a very long cooldown. The problem I see with that, though, is the resistance can't discriminate by magnitude so it would be able to shrug off some ridiculously large magnitudes of holds that even tankers would be jealous of.

[Akisan]

1 hour ago, megaericzero said:

The idea was actually, yes, to give squishies an option for protection to the main three mezzes that all melee get protection from (hold, sleep, stun) specifically because they don't have a toggle-able option outside of FF and sonic's bubbles. In my own head, it was low magnitude only sufficient for one mez (mag 3?) and I figured the cost of having to go three powers deep into a specific pool would be a good enough balancing factor. Doubly so if we remove the hold protection so that they have to take Acrobatics. (It's annoying that power tooltips list both protection and resistance as just resistance.)

 

Mag 2 to match Acro should be fine.  As I mentioned, that should be enough to stop most minor stuns (Eidolon Gloom, hopefully also the random stun proc from Tsoo Ink Men and Crey Power Tanks), but still allow dedicated Stun attacks through (e.g. Malta tasers)

 

The other CC that pops up occasionally is Fear, and a toggle protection from that would also be nice to have.  Sleep's annoying, but not as big of an issue, as any HP change breaks it (whether that be being attacked or healed, even if it's a tick of regen).