The Philotic Knight's Buff Force Fields 1.0!

[PaxArcana]

Because JusticeBeliever claimed it already was dealing excellent damage.

[justicebeliever]

Because JusticeBeliever claimed it already was dealing excellent damage.

 

Oh hardly...It deals minor damage, and I said that all along...Just saying that it does any damage is rare among support sets, and the fact that it is fast recharge, is as good as many of the primary sets that scrappers/blasters have at lvl 1/2 (Minor Damage/Fast Recharge).

 

So it does great damage, for a support set...that's all...I realize it's not saying a lot...

[_NOPE_]

Minor Damage for Defender != Minor Damage for Scrappers/Blasters.

[justicebeliever]

Minor Damage for Defender != Minor Damage for Scrappers/Blasters.

 

True enough.  This is why I tend to stay out of the build discussions...However I stand by Force Bolt not being totally useless...

[malonkey1]

Minor Damage for Defender != Minor Damage for Scrappers/Blasters.

 

True enough.  This is why I tend to stay out of the build discussions...However I stand by Force Bolt not being totally useless...

 

Force Bolt certainly has it's utility. It's a button labeled "Push to make fall down go boom" which is extremely handy for any remotely squishy class.

[_NOPE_]

Yeah, I don't think anyone here said it's totally useless.

[justicebeliever]

Yeah, I don't think anyone here said it's totally useless.

 

You say that, but...

 

I have to disagree with a lot of the conclusions by OP

 

First Force Bolt is a joke and should be replaced. Minimal damage and knockback is a bad power and no group wants it happening

[_NOPE_]

Oh yeah, but that person's just a jerk... I'm ignoring them now.  :P

[sturmcrow]

Oh yeah, but that person's just a jerk... I'm ignoring them now.  :P

 

The only person coming across as a jerk is you, I join the discussion and you reply with a meme. Guess I know from now on not to try having a dialog with you since you resort to insults instead of discussing my points.

 

Force Bolt is bad, it needs to be improved or replaced. Not sure why saying that is so controversial when other posters have literally said the same thing. The same with me suggesting that absorb belongs on FF powers, others have stated as such.

 

::)

[_NOPE_]

 

Now if only there'd be a button for that right on the user, instead of making me go to my profile to do it manually... eh, the new forums should fix that, right?

[jack_nomind]

PK, what do you see as the core reason (other than theme) to take an FF defender over a cold defender or a VEAT?  Any of those can softcap the team's defense, so what's FF bringing that other kits don't?

 

(It looks like what you're saying here they ought to bring is damage, and I'm a bit concerned that you're thinking of FF specifically as a long-time defender.  Giving FF blaster-like damage on a Defender is going to play out very differently on the other three ATs with access.  I personally would see the set moving in a more support-ive direction, adding Absorb, maybe some other ally buff like tohit or damage auras, playing up the Knockdown, and making Detention Field a time-limited toggle rather than a click.)

[_NOPE_]

I'm pretty much a hero side only player, so I can't speak for VEATs. Over Cold? Honestly, knockback/down and repel.

 

I'm not sold on Absorb. It seems to be stepping on the toes of +Resistence sets and might just make FF TOO powerful, by adding another layer of protection.

 

So what should FF do thematically? When I think of Force Fields, I think Sue Storm, as the quintessential bubbler. And her fields were used to defend and to control. She made shields of course, but she also used them for flight, and to push people around, and to hold people in place. She did damage by the force knocking straight into enemies. That's why I want a damage buff on Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb, and that's why I want the other non-shield powers to be buffed to be more "controllery" . Add the disorient to Force Bolt, make Detention Field more useful to the team by allowing them to attack the target, but make the target useless. Make Force Bubble virtually IMPENETRABLE, but make it smaller so it's not a burden. That's what I want to see.

[Galaxy Brain]

Absorb is more of a preventive heal than +Res

[_NOPE_]

I get that, but it's another layer of damage reduction, functionally. One of the few weaknesses of Force Fields and its Defense based abilities is that it just had ONE layer, that was also what made it balanced, because it is SO GOOD at that one layer. If you add more layers of protection, it becomes OP.

 

That's why I'd rather the other powers be buffed to encourage their use in a more active fashion by a larger portion of the player base.

[Galaxy Brain]

I get that, but it's another layer of damage reduction, functionally. One of the few weaknesses of Force Fields and its Defense based abilities is that it just had ONE layer, that was also what made it balanced, because it is SO GOOD at that one layer. If you add more layers of protection, it becomes OP.

 

That's why I'd rather the other powers be buffed to encourage their use in a more active fashion by a larger portion of the player base.

 

I mean, other sets can achieve the same defenses as FF (softcaps) + other debuffs or buffs.... and if we wanna get meta, tons of people build for defense which also mitigates the defense FF brings if thats all it brings

[Apparition]

Yeah.  I really hate it, because I had a level 50 Force Field/Dark Blast Defender, a level 50 Force Field/Fire Blast Defender, a level 50 Gravity/Force Field Controller, a level 50 Robots/Force Field Mastermind, and a level 50 Thugs/Force Field Mastermind before, all but the Controller all +3 Incarnated out, but, honestly, there's nothing Force Field can do that Cold and Time can't do better, especially as a Defender.

 

My Force Field Defenders could add 38% extra defense to teams, but everyone I teamed with already had softcapped defenses on their own so it was pointless.  Knockback?  Everyone hates knockback.  Pointless.  The one and only thing my FF Defenders were good for were Rikti Mothership Raids, and honestly Sonic Resonance would be better there.

 

Force Field needs a hard revamp, badly.

 

Regardless, I plan to make Dark Blast/Force Field Corruptor and a Water Blast/Force Field Corruptor at some point, but they will be strictly solo toons as they would bring nothing to teams.

[Bossk_Hogg]

I get that, but it's another layer of damage reduction, functionally. One of the few weaknesses of Force Fields and its Defense based abilities is that it just had ONE layer, that was also what made it balanced, because it is SO GOOD at that one layer. If you add more layers of protection, it becomes OP.

 

That's why I'd rather the other powers be buffed to encourage their use in a more active fashion by a larger portion of the player base.

 

They could add absorb and it would still be a weak set.

 

Try playing another set, like Dark, Rad, or even Thermal to get a feel for how far FF would need to be buffed to reach baseline. It essentially needs a rebuild from the ground up.

 

My suggestion is to have personal force field act as a "stance" power. One stance keeps all the powers a select few FF fanatics are so protective of. The other makes them something more useful in a post-IO game on a decent team. So in one stance, Detention Field is still the same cage on live. In the other it clumps up mobs and puts a decent debuff on them.  In base stance, repel and force bubble are the (IMO) redundant powers that both knock stuff back. In the stance, force bubble instead gives to-hit and adds a smashing damage proc on allies attacks.

 

Another example - remove the KB from force bolt and up the accuracy. Code it to where with a single KB enhancer it reaches the same level of knockback and accuracy it currently does on live with one accuracy. Have it apply some kind of effect (Encased) that improves other powers. For example, have Repulsion Bomb apply a resistance penalty to something affected by Encased, as you shatter their armor with force.

[Vanden]

Force Field is a set that is not being helped by the Cottage Rule, I think. For example, it'd be great if Force Bubble did +Dam and +Res to all allies in range and -Dam and -Res to all enemies in range. But then it wouldn't be Force Bubble.

[_NOPE_]

Yeah.  I really hate it, because I had a level 50 Force Field/Dark Blast Defender, a level 50 Force Field/Fire Blast Defender, a level 50 Gravity/Force Field Controller, a level 50 Robots/Force Field Mastermind, and a level 50 Thugs/Force Field Mastermind before, all but the Controller all +3 Incarnated out, but, honestly, there's nothing Force Field can do that Cold and Time can't do better, especially as a Defender.

 

If it's so terrible, why do you have so many FF alts?

[Apparition]

Yeah.  I really hate it, because I had a level 50 Force Field/Dark Blast Defender, a level 50 Force Field/Fire Blast Defender, a level 50 Gravity/Force Field Controller, a level 50 Robots/Force Field Mastermind, and a level 50 Thugs/Force Field Mastermind before, all but the Controller all +3 Incarnated out, but, honestly, there's nothing Force Field can do that Cold and Time can't do better, especially as a Defender.

 

If it's so terrible, why do you have so many FF alts?

 

Did, before sunset.  I was just used to it as I played it from Issue 3 through 23.  Don't now, I use Sonic Resonance instead.

[jack_nomind]

I'm pretty much a hero side only player, so I can't speak for VEATs.

 

I think this would be worth addressing before wading in.  You know Defender FF probably better than anyone, but balance adjustments are ecological as much as specific.

 

So what should FF do thematically? When I think of Force Fields, I think Sue Storm, as the quintessential bubbler. And her fields were used to defend and to control. She made shields of course, but she also used them for flight, and to push people around, and to hold people in place. She did damage by the force knocking straight into enemies. That's why I want a damage buff on Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb, and that's why I want the other non-shield powers to be buffed to be more "controllery" . Add the disorient to Force Bolt, make Detention Field more useful to the team by allowing them to attack the target, but make the target useless. Make Force Bubble virtually IMPENETRABLE, but make it smaller so it's not a burden. That's what I want to see.

 

I think of Sue Storm as an FF/Energy Defender; she gets her force bolts from her secondary.  I would see a power that holds enemies in place so friendlies can hit it as less of a "hold" in CoH terms and more of a -def, or maybe a strong -slow/-rech.  It's also a bit difficult to plan mitigation around mez powers, since they're all-or-nothing effects.  If you hit an AV with a -60% tohit like Dark easily can, they resist 5/6ths of it but that's till -10%.  If you hit them with a mag 3 Stun, nothing at all happens.

 

I get that, but it's another layer of damage reduction, functionally. One of the few weaknesses of Force Fields and its Defense based abilities is that it just had ONE layer, that was also what made it balanced, because it is SO GOOD at that one layer. If you add more layers of protection, it becomes OP.

 

This is probably the core of why I'd advocate for different changes to FF.

 

FF is only marginally better than Cold (FF softcaps with set + manuevers, Cold softcaps with set + manuevers + grant invis and an alpha) and conditionally worse than Dark (which achieves -60% tohit with Darkest Night and Fearsome Stare, as opposed to four powers providing an equivalent -45% for FF; but ofc, Dark has to hit first).  Both Dark and Cold provide additional mitigation in the form of -rech, -dmg, and soft controls. 

 

FF does as well; knockdown is a form of active mitigation.  But while Cold and Dark multiply team damage with -Res, -Def, -Regen, and the like, FF only does three things: AoE mez protection (fantastic!), defense (good!), and knockdown (okay, but this is usually sufficient as one strong KD power or as a secondary effect on several powers, not the primary point of half the set).

 

Defense as the sole point of the set also ends up problematic for two other reasons.  First, Defense is by far the most common direction to build up a high-level character's resilience.  It means very little that FF can softcap a toon from nothing when in practice, Time can softcap most toons from where they actually rest.  Further, even if it were to be simply "the best at defense," FF provides no defense debuff resistance.  All Defense-reliant armor sets (and many mixed sets) do, and for good reason.

 

As far as VEATs: VEATs softcap defenses very easily, provide a good amount of offensive buff, and can do other debuffs and/or Blaster-level damage on their own.  Granted, they are an EAT, but their tradeoff is supposed to be flexibility -- their bag of tricks is impressively strong but shallow.  Putting FF into the "impressive but shallow" category invites a comparison that they're likely to lose.

 

Finally, there's the issue of action economy.  Force Bolt is interesting as an active defense but it ends up being really disproportionate in terms of cast time-to-effect.  Compare for example Dark Blast's Torrent, which is another strong KB power has about 4x the recharge time.  Even with that, you end up with more effect time in most cases -- you only have to cast Torrent once to affect four enemies, as opposed to four separate casts of Force Bolt.  Suggesting that FB is specifically a single-target mitigation seems... strange, since it still takes multiple castings to break through an AV or EB's resistance and protection (eating up a lot of action economy vs eg Benumb, which just eats 62.5% of the target's damage for 30s on one cast).

 

The community thought has generally been to amp up FF's debuffs, its debuff resistance (especially for Defense), and provide it with absorb; the last either by cottaging an unpopular power like Force Bolt or reworking the shields somehow.  The reason an Absorb power is preferred is because a direct heal is a bit out of theme for FF but Absorb has a similar effect and makes thematic sense with force fields.  I think it'd be great if I could convince you of that, and if we could figure out how to keep FF's active role in combat without either making the set OP on controllers or eating a Defender's entire action economy to maintain the effects.

[Redlynne]

Counter-proposal for Force Bolt.

 

What if the coding used for Propel in Gravity Control that allows a "knockback splash" around the single target were ported over into Force Bolt?

[Bossk_Hogg]

Counter-proposal for Force Bolt.

 

What if the coding used for Propel in Gravity Control that allows a "knockback splash" around the single target were ported over into Force Bolt?

 

Still a near pointless parlor trick unless you add some kind of effect to it. Small AE knockback. you know, the thing that teams love! Torrent, Shockwave, etc do that and damage on a fast recharge anyways.

 

Putting an interaction similar to how Delayed and Accelerated works in Time to force field effects would go a long way to making the set actually engaging and useful again in a post-IO world.

 

You guys need to start thinking big on changes.

[_NOPE_]

Sorry, I didn't jump back in here sooner...

 

I'm pretty much a hero side only player, so I can't speak for VEATs.

 

I think this would be worth addressing before wading in.  You know Defender FF probably better than anyone, but balance adjustments are ecological as much as specific.

True, absolutely. I will NOT suggest anything for any other AT. These suggestions are just for Defenders, I don't have enough experience in other ATs to propose changes to how they work for them. I will defer to the advice of those more experienced in the other ATs and FF's synergies (or lack thereof) with them.

 

I think of Sue Storm as an FF/Energy Defender; she gets her force bolts from her secondary.  I would see a power that holds enemies in place so friendlies can hit it as less of a "hold" in CoH terms and more of a -def, or maybe a strong -slow/-rech.  It's also a bit difficult to plan mitigation around mez powers, since they're all-or-nothing effects.  If you hit an AV with a -60% tohit like Dark easily can, they resist 5/6ths of it but that's till -10%.  If you hit them with a mag 3 Stun, nothing at all happens.

The "Only Affect Self" attribute appears to be called SEQBITS_TELEPORT, from what I can see:

 

So, all the devs have to do is take out THAT AttribMod from the power and give it another instead, let's say, duplicate the "throw up" effect of Mastermind's Elixir of life (minus the animation of course) that holds the target with a mag 1000 hold:

 

 

 

 

FF does as well; knockdown is a form of active mitigation.  But while Cold and Dark multiply team damage with -Res, -Def, -Regen, and the like, FF only does three things: AoE mez protection (fantastic!), defense (good!), and knockdown (okay, but this is usually sufficient as one strong KD power or as a secondary effect on several powers, not the primary point of half the set).

I disagree. The amount of time that enemies spend ragdolling (and often times getting stuck in the game's geometry) makes knockback/down count as a solid soft control, IMO. Being able to keep all enemies off their feet at all times? I think that's worth its weight in gold. It just depends in the skill of the person to make good use of those powers.

 

Defense as the sole point of the set also ends up problematic for two other reasons.  First, Defense is by far the most common direction to build up a high-level character's resilience.  It means very little that FF can softcap a toon from nothing when in practice, Time can softcap most toons from where they actually rest.  Further, even if it were to be simply "the best at defense," FF provides no defense debuff resistance.  All Defense-reliant armor sets (and many mixed sets) do, and for good reason.

Fair points. Defense Debuff resistence... I would not say no to. But I'm not going to ask for it. I'll ask for what I think I can reasonably get.

 

Finally, there's the issue of action economy.  Force Bolt is interesting as an active defense but it ends up being really disproportionate in terms of cast time-to-effect.  Compare for example Dark Blast's Torrent, which is another strong KB power has about 4x the recharge time.  Even with that, you end up with more effect time in most cases -- you only have to cast Torrent once to affect four enemies, as opposed to four separate casts of Force Bolt.

The difference there being precision control. Torrent is a cone and can only effect things in a cone. FB is far more precise and can be pointed in multiple different directions in short succession. Torrent... can't.

 

Suggesting that FB is specifically a single-target mitigation seems... strange, since it still takes multiple castings to break through an AV or EB's resistance and protection (eating up a lot of action economy vs eg Benumb, which just eats 62.5% of the target's damage for 30s on one cast).

Since target mitigation for anything but EBs and AVs, true. I never claimed otherwise.

 

The reason an Absorb power is preferred is because a direct heal is a bit out of theme for FF but Absorb has a similar effect and makes thematic sense with force fields.  I think it'd be great if I could convince you of that, and if we could figure out how to keep FF's active role in combat without either making the set OP on controllers or eating a Defender's entire action economy to maintain the effects.

I'm still open to Absorb... if I can be convinced that it won't make FF totally OP.

[Trickshooter]

So, all the devs have to do is take out THAT AttribMod from the power and give it another instead, let's say, duplicate the "throw up" effect of Mastermind's Elixir of life (minus the animation of course) that holds the target with a mag 1000 hold:

 

That's not any special effect though, that's just a 4s Mag1000 Hold on an Ally with the HitFX being the 4s long vomiting animation. I don't see FF getting a Mag1000 Hold to use on foes, even if it's only for 4 seconds. I think you might be confusing this with the "throw up effect" from Traps/Poison Trap which is just a forced animation without actually being a mez.

 

I feel like you could simulate the intended effect of Detention Field (they can't hurt anyone) without upsetting teammates with like a Mag6 Immobilize with a massive, unenhanceable, single-target ToHit/Damage debuff instead of the OnlyAffectSelf status. AVs would resist the ToHit debuff of course, but not the Damage debuff necessarily and most AVs are naturally vulnerable to Immobilize.

 

I'm still open to Absorb... if I can be convinced that it won't make FF totally OP.

 

Having played every Defender Primary except Rad, I can tell you I honestly do not feel it would make FF OP. It would just add some versatility to a set that otherwise is a bit too focused compared to its Support siblings.

 

P.S. Knocking enemies in to ragdoll physics is very useful, which is why I don't like putting the -KB IO in Force Bolt. Now... if Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb both did knock UP instead, so that they were less inconvenient for other players, but also still applied ragdoll physics... that'd be great.