Now That's What I Call Some High-Quality H2-O: The GIFTS OF THE WATERS Powerset

[AspieAnarchy]

GIFTS OF THE WATERS (Buff)

Available to: Defenders, Corrupters, Controllers, Masterminds

Set Color: Aquamarine-on-Sea Green

 

You can wield water – one of the most powerful forces in the world – and direct it to give to your friends and take from your foes. This set is often more subtle and particular than many other Buff sets, but wisely used can turn the tides of almost any struggle. Powers in this set tend to be either unusually cheap or unusually demanding with regard to endurance costs.

 

1) Quicken – You excite and empower the water within a target ally, causing a small, brief increase to its movement speed, recharge rate, and endurance recovery.

Recharge: Fast

 

2) Refreshing Rain (Defenders, Masterminds) – You shower all allies (potentially including yourself) within a small targeted area with water so pure and refreshing that it not only grants beneficiaries a small amount of healing, but also bestows a brief boost to the their health regeneration, and to their defense against Lethal and Fire attacks. This can also be used to fight Fires.

Recharge: Moderate

OR

Undertow (Corrupters, Controllers) – You create a small patch of churning water on the floor that will greatly slow enemies moving through it, and slowly drain their endurance as well, so long as they are within it. This will make short work of most Fires.

Recharge: Moderate

 

3) Restorative Mist – You call up a warm mist in an area around you. While this power is active, you and nearby allies benefit from a small degree of stealth, a small amount of protection from control effects, resistance to Cold and Fire damage, and increased health regeneration. It will also weaken nearby Fires. This power has a rather lenient endurance cost relative to similar powers.

Recharge: Moderate

 

4) Cleanse (Defenders, Controllers) – With the power of water, the universal solvent, you can liberate allies from slow, sleep, immobilization, and paralysis effects, reduce the effects of debuffs to their perception, regeneration, and recovery, and insulate them from more of the same, as well as slightly increase their health regeneration, perception, and resistance to Toxic damage for a brief time thereafter.

Recharge: Fast

OR

Flush (Corrupters, Masterminds) – You subject an ally to a forceful, but beneficent deluge in order to purge it of control effects of all sorts as well as accuracy and damage debuffs, and make it resistant to all such effects for a while thereafter. Furthermore, the target will gain a very small amount of damage absorption. The downside of such a soaking is a brief penalty to speed, recovery, and Cold resistance.

Recharge: Fast

 

5) Waterlog (Defenders, Corrupters) – You so thoroughly soak a single target that in addition to a mild debuff to its accuracy, movement speed, and recharge speed, any Fire or Energy damage it deals is also diminished, and most significantly, it suffers a heavy ‘markup’ to the endurance cost of all its abilities. This can also be used to deal incredible damage to Fires.

Recharge: Slow

OR

Countercurrent (Controllers, Masterminds) – You surround an ally in a protective maelstrom of water, granting damage absorption and increased defense and resistance against Smashing, Lethal, Fire, and Toxic attacks.

Recharge: Medium

 

6) Rust – You rapidly corrode all metal on and in a single target foe. Typically this means a modest reduction to damage resistance, accuracy, and speed, but enemies such as ghosts or wild fauna and flora are unlikely to suffer any penalty at all, whereas robots, machines, cyborgs, and anyone wearing heavy armor not only suffer much more severe versions of the above, but will take substantial damage to boot. In addition, enemies very nearby the target will suffer a much lesser version of whichever grade of the effect would apply to them. Recharge: Moderate

 

7) Waters of Life – You baptize a fallen comrade with the mysterious life-giving power of primordial water, raising it, protecting it from debt, and granting a small amount of damage absorption for 90 seconds. In addition, the initial watery explosion will knock back any nearby foes, stun them, deprive them of a bit of endurance and temporarily reduce their recovery.

Recharge: Very Long

 

😎 Part the Waters (Defenders, Masterminds) – You raise two long walls of powerful gushing water on either side before you, effectively creating a powerful defensive corridor. Attacks made through these walls have extremely little chance of getting through, and don’t do much damage if they do; this is especially true of Lethal, Fire, and Energy attacks, and area attacks of any kind. In addition, you and your allies within the corridor gain increased movement speed, whereas enemies within suffer reduced speed, defense, and resistance to knockdown effects. Ending the power will cause the walls to collapse, dealing High Smashing damage to enemies between them and knocking them down. This power is very expensive both to instigate and to maintain.

Recharge: Very Long

OR

Flash-Flood (Corrupters, Controllers) – You cause a flash-flood in a wide area around you; enemies in the area take damage, have their ground-movement slowed, their defense, perception, and endurance recovery reduced, and become more susceptible to immobilize and knockdown effects. It will also douse all but the strongest Fires ranging in the area.

Damage: Moderate Smashing/Cold (DoT) Recharge: Long

 

9) Erosion – Like a wise man once said, there is nothing more submissive and weak than water, yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it. Mastery of your water powers means proving what this means in spectacular fashion. With the power of water, you both greatly erode the resistances of all foes in front of you and bolster that of you and your allies to the same degree. Recharge: Long

 

Example Character Concept: The Worthy Gunga Djinn! (Heroic Gifts of the Waters/Fire Blast Magic Defender)

 

Edited June 14 by AspieAnarchy
added notes about endurance-costs; added "Easter-egg"!

[CrusaderDroid]

Hm...

 

As a theme, this is pretty great. Water support goes great with Water Blast and is one of those recurring things you see in many RPGs where water = healing and buffs.

 

Mechanics-wise...

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

1) Quicken – You excite and empower the water within a target ally, causing a small, brief increase to its movement speed, recharge rate, and endurance recovery.

Recharge: Fast

This is a nice set of bonuses!

 

It's actually too nice. Tier 1 doesn't give you enough room - you'll end up with either really low values to the point that it's not even noticeable when you use it, a duration so short you need to pocket someone, or a bunch of frantic clicking that makes you wish this was AoE instead. Brief boosts to movement speed and recovery aren't particularly impactful in small numbers, either.

 

This might be better as a team buff later in the set instead of a tier 1 power.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

2) Refreshing Rain (Defenders, Masterminds) – You shower all allies (potentially including yourself) within a small targeted area with water so pure and refreshing that it not only grants beneficiaries a small amount of healing, but also bestows a brief boost to the their health regeneration, and to their defense against Lethal and Fire attacks. This can also be used to fight Fires.

Recharge: Moderate

So I checked the support sets to make sure I wasn't going crazy, and every AT able to take a set has the same nine powers, with the exception of Mastermind, which sometimes swaps out a power for something that isn't a pet or plays better with pets. As such, divvying up the powers like this just seems like more work for not enough gain. You could make an argument that this would help further differentiate Defenders from Corruptors, and I'd agree and would even be in favor of that, but that's an entirely different topic altogether - right now in this system, they're pretty unified.

 

This is nice for...probably the wrong reasons - area AoE healing is really inconvenient, but this lets you mule LotG + 5x Panacea. Once you get around that and use a macro to cast it immediately on your target, it's probably just flat-out better than the PBAoE heal that the healing sets get. Which, uh, good? That's good. We need more flavor there.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

Undertow (Corrupters, Controllers) – You create a small patch of churning water on the floor that will greatly slow enemies moving through it, and slowly drain their endurance as well, so long as they are within it. This will make short work of most Fires.

Recharge: Moderate

In contrast, if you're running around with Water Blast, you already get Whirlpool, which does most of what you're asking for here. Endurance drain is not a useful effect unless you either drain huge chunks of it or have a bunch in the kit, and it takes until Flash Flood for you to pick up another power related to endurance drain - and it's just -recovery instead. I think these two are getting a raw deal here unless they're running Electric Blast or Electric Control, and I don't think you should be forcing one power choice to make this power's other thing relevant.

 

Otherwise, it plops a slow field, which is a proven good thing to have, but it's definitely something I'd cut if needed.

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

3) Restorative Mist – You call up a warm mist in an area around you. While this power is active, you and nearby allies benefit from a small degree of stealth, a small amount of protection from control effects, resistance to Cold and Fire damage, and increased health regeneration. It will also weaken nearby Fires. This power has a rather lenient endurance cost relative to similar powers.

Recharge: Moderate

Okay, hold up.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

small degree of stealth

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

small amount of protection from control effects

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

resistance to Cold and Fire damage, and increased health regeneration.

I cannot actually assess how useful this power is because none of these things map neatly to numbers. Either go big with your claims, or slap some numbers on, but writing out "small" and "small" so many times makes the whole thing look like a write-off.

 

Which this one probably is, to be honest. You did this with the Telluric support too - you really like doing +resist or +defense on one or two types, but that's generally pretty useless to the point where beyond its utility as a mule for enhancements, it's forgettable.

 

The +stealth for allies, I will confess to having no idea how useful this is - it feels to me like it'd be wasted since most everyone ends up in melee for best results anyways. The +mez resist, I can't tell if it's good or not since it really depends on what numbers and what mezzes it covers. The +resist to cold and fire, though, I can tell you is pretty ineffectual - nothing that deals cold damage is actually a threat, and fire damage resist is easy to pick up from multiple other sets and powers. That leaves health regen, which is generically useful, I guess? Without a clear value I'm not sure how good that is, or if you can drag fights out long enough to get enough effective healing from that.

 

I think I skip this power if I was using this set, honestly, unless that mez resist is really good.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

4) Cleanse (Defenders, Controllers) – With the power of water, the universal solvent, you can liberate allies from slow, sleep, immobilization, and paralysis effects, reduce the effects of debuffs to their perception, regeneration, and recovery, and insulate them from more of the same, as well as slightly increase their health regeneration, perception, and resistance to Toxic damage for a brief time thereafter.

Recharge: Fast

Oh yeah I'm totally skipping that mez resist aura then.

 

Not much to comment on here, other than the inexplicable Toxic resist. I'm not sure how many damage resist sets you need to mule.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

Flush (Corrupters, Masterminds) – You subject an ally to a forceful, but beneficent deluge in order to purge it of control effects of all sorts as well as accuracy and damage debuffs, and make it resistant to all such effects for a while thereafter. Furthermore, the target will gain a very small amount of damage absorption. The downside of such a soaking is a brief penalty to speed, recovery, and Cold resistance.

Recharge: Fast

I think using this gets you kicked from the team.

 

The other support sets have zero issues sharing their mez heals with all four ATs. You don't really get anything here by splitting it between Cleanse and Flush. You DO lose a ton by having Flush impose any penalty at all to an ally. It's either so small you can cut it easily, or big enough to be noticeable and accordingly upsetting. Even if it's on the small side, if someone notices this affecting them and things go poorly, you're now the top person to blame.

 

Highly recommend you cut this.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

5) Waterlog (Defenders, Corrupters) – You so thoroughly soak a single target that in addition to a mild debuff to its accuracy, movement speed, and recharge speed, any Fire or Energy damage it deals is also diminished, and most significantly, it suffers a heavy ‘markup’ to the endurance cost of all its abilities. This can also be used to deal incredible damage to Fires.

Recharge: Slow

I missed this when assessing Undertow. For Defenders, this is a dead drop, since they don't get Undertow or Flash Flood in your model, and "mild" implies values low enough that they're going to be drowned (heh) out once the purple patch comes into play.

 

Actually, yeah, let me break really quick - the purple patch is why you need to go big on these debuffs. Level gaps cut the effectiveness of everything you do on that target, which is most noticeable with purple mobs that are 4 levels above you, where you're looking at less than half the original value. If you're leading with "mild debuff", I'm imagining something puny like 5% or 10%, which may as well not exist when halved.

 

Back to Waterlog's own merits - I can't see the value in debuffing recharge speed while simultaneously increasing endurance costs. You want them to bleed out endurance, why are you making it harder for them to attack to do so? I think what hurts the most is that unless you slap on a ton of -recovery, or already have enough Electric shenanigans to drain endurance already, this is likely to fail at doing anything - endurance damage only really matters once the target has bottomed out, and anything else may as well be the same thing as if it was maxed.

 

I don't think you'd feel good using this power for the most part.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

Countercurrent (Controllers, Masterminds) – You surround an ally in a protective maelstrom of water, granting damage absorption and increased defense and resistance against Smashing, Lethal, Fire, and Toxic attacks.

Recharge: Medium

Wait, so the AT with the best defensive scalars DOESN'T get this? That's backwards.

 

This is actually so good it should have been picked up at tier 2, with Refreshing Rains at tier 1 instead.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

6) Rust – You rapidly corrode all metal on and in a single target foe. Typically this means a modest reduction to damage resistance, accuracy, and speed, but enemies such as ghosts or wild fauna and flora are unlikely to suffer any penalty at all, whereas robots, machines, cyborgs, and anyone wearing heavy armor not only suffer much more severe versions of the above, but will take substantial damage to boot. In addition, enemies very nearby the target will suffer a much lesser version of whichever grade of the effect would apply to them. Recharge: Moderate

Okay we are at tier 6 right now. Sonic Resonance can impose -30% resist as an aura on a target ally. Nature has been able to grant +15% resist to everything to allies since level 2. Time can give an ally 30% recharge, 31% damage, and 150% regen. We've got some seriously good stuff here in the world of support sets.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

Typically this means a modest reduction to damage resistance, accuracy, and speed,

So why in the world are you implying some weak-sounding numbers like this?

 

This is a single-target hit to resist, accuracy, and speed, but not only does it sound like it's going to be underwhelming, it doesn't even work on some enemy types at all. I see the weak "splash AoE" thing at the end there, which Poison has too - on its ludicrously potent single-target debuffs that completely screw over the poor bastard that gets hit by them.

 

It's like you're afraid to make things strong. This is City of Heroes - EVERYONE is strong. Go big! If you're going to rust things, make it count! Either pump up the numbers to really doom a guy, or make this properly AoE by default. Probably both tbh.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

7) Waters of Life – You baptize a fallen comrade with the mysterious life-giving power of primordial water, raising it, protecting it from debt, and granting a small amount of damage absorption for 90 seconds. In addition, the initial watery explosion will knock back any nearby foes, stun them, deprive them of a bit of endurance and temporarily reduce their recovery.

Recharge: Very Long

This is a little late for a rez.

 

You're also still using "small amount of damage absorption" for a tier 7 rez. Shoot, man, give the guy half his health bar as absorption.

 

The debuffs look like they synergize with the endurance hits you have elsewhere on the set, but they really don't - if your teammates are dropping, you are in no position to follow up on endurance drain. Still, the power's a rez, so really anything goes here.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

😎 Part the Waters (Defenders, Masterminds) – You raise two long walls of powerful gushing water on either side before you, effectively creating a powerful defensive corridor. Attacks made through these walls have extremely little chance of getting through, and don’t do much damage if they do; this is especially true of Lethal, Fire, and Energy attacks, and area attacks of any kind. In addition, you and your allies within the corridor gain increased movement speed, whereas enemies within suffer reduced speed, defense, and resistance to knockdown effects. Ending the power will cause the walls to collapse, dealing High Smashing damage to enemies between them and knocking them down. This power is very expensive both to instigate and to maintain.

Recharge: Very Long

This is pretty cool.

 

So, before anything else - I'm pretty sure with City of Heroes' janky coding rules, this is impossible. You can't create an area of effect shaped like this, nor can you apply penalties based on where a power's projectile travels.

 

If we pretend instead that this is actually a really elaborate ground-targeted area that grants buffs to allies that simulate these effects, e.g. +defense, +resist, doubly boosted VS Lethal, Fire, Energy?

 

Finally, a powerful buff. At long last, instead of middling around with "small" and "modest" and "brief", we get something big and grand and without any of those words trying to put a damper on expectations. About the only sin is that it's a toggle, except that since you don't really need any more defense or resist mules, you can jam this one full of endurance reduction to bring it down to a reasonable cost.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

Flash-Flood (Corrupters, Controllers) – You cause a flash-flood in a wide area around you; enemies in the area take damage, have their ground-movement slowed, their defense, perception, and endurance recovery reduced, and become more susceptible to immobilize and knockdown effects. It will also douse all but the strongest Fires ranging in the area.

Damage: Moderate Smashing/Cold (DoT) Recharge: Long

How did we go from "GIANT WALLS OF WATER THAT DUMP EVERY BUFF EVER" to "PBAoE nuke that putters around"? This is such a huge L for these two ATs.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 5:01 PM, AspieAnarchy said:

9) Erosion – Like a wise man once said, there is nothing more submissive and weak than water, yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it. Mastery of your water powers means proving what this means in spectacular fashion. With the power of water, you both greatly erode the resistances of all foes in front of you and bolster that of you and your allies to the same degree. Recharge: Long

Well this sounds promising!

 

---

 

So, some things to note:

 

• You're doing a bunch of combo-platter debuffs where you're picking multiple things to debuff instead of taking one stat and dumpstering it. I think you're psyching yourself out thinking that that's powerful and accordingly dropping the supposed numbers on them to balance it out, except then it's just going to be a write-off all around.
• Same with buffs. You're throwing out a bunch of things to buff instead of buffing one thing a bunch.
• Perception changes are nigh-worthless. Only a handful of enemies can even stealth in the first place, and the omnipresent Tactics from Leadership grants more than enough perception to get the job done. Meanwhile, enemy perception hits are usually on powers that won't trigger aggro, since they can still find you after getting aggro no matter how bad their perception is.
• The split for ATs doesn't work in this current game design. You're making more work for yourself.
• Even within this split, you still want to match up powers with what the AT is good at. Not giving Countercurrent to Defender is a headscratcher.

Past that, I think you might be unaware of a couple of really, really useful tools for creating powers:

 

• Powers can have effects that can't be enhanced, which means it won't show up for set bonuses. You can use this to have a power grant +resist, and then declare it unenhanceable so it can't be used to mule resist sets.
• Powers can also have effects that skip to-hit entirely. This is on the rarer side, but Nature's Spore Cloud has no to-hit roll at all as an example.
• Powers can have effects that ignore resistance entirely. This blocks the purple patch completely - the number you see is what you get. Trick Arrow's Flash Arrow has half of its to-hit penalty ignore resistance completely.

My recommendation as a whole is to find a few mechanics or statistics you want to focus on, and focus on them. Mechanically, this is incredibly scattershot, trying to hit too many stats on buffs and debuffs and kinda flopping around until it can use its T8 and T9 powers. I think it's best when you're playing with the logically large areas of effect - Restoring Rains is very cool as a targeted AoE heal, for instance. +DMG and -RES are always going to be top tier effects to have, but I think you might have more success if you hard focus other stats (except to-hit) to a higher degree. Decreasing enemy resistance - or even protection - to mezzes is an interesting hook, for instance. Even just -1 mez protection opens up a significant number of new mez opportunities for your entire team.

 

If you want to emphasize endurance drain as a theme, you need to have that down by T1 or T2 in a low-cooldown, easy to apply manner. Any later and it's going to feel weak if nobody is running Electric. Undertow doesn't cut it here - you'd need something similar to Nature's Corrosive Enzymes, and you'd want that available to everyone.

 

Please stop kneecapping your pitches with "small" and "mild" and "modest" as descriptors. If you feel like you have to sell something that short, it's a good sign you're doing something wrong. Crank up the power - if you think it's buffing too many things, just buff one thing twice as much instead. Check your competition in other support sets - they've got generally good numbers on everything they want to do. We're superheroes! Let's have fun with power!

 

Keep making power sets though! They're fun themes, which is why it's worth reviewing and critiquing.

[AspieAnarchy]

19 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Keep making power sets though! They're fun themes, which is why it's worth reviewing and critiquing.

I'll have more to say in reply soon; just allow me some time.

[AspieAnarchy]

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Hm...

 

As a theme, this is pretty great. Water support goes great with Water Blast and is one of those recurring things you see in many RPGs where water = healing and buffs.

Personally, I'm just surprised we've gone this long without such a thing being implemented.

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

This is a nice set of bonuses!

 

It's actually too nice. Tier 1 doesn't give you enough room - you'll end up with either really low values to the point that it's not even noticeable when you use it, a duration so short you need to pocket someone, or a bunch of frantic clicking that makes you wish this was AoE instead. Brief boosts to movement speed and recovery aren't particularly impactful in small numbers, either.

 

"Pocket someone"??? I have no idea what that means in this context.

Anyway, yeah, the idea was kind of for its effects to be subtle; I had similar effects from other games (e.g. Lords of Magic, Warcraft III) in mind - but those are both awfully different systems, and there's no 'single-target auto-use toggle' option here like the latter had (not that that wouldn't be interesting!).

What do you think? Would such a mechanic - 'turn on, it steadily costs endurance like a normal toggle, but intermittently targets individual allies' make this work the way it otherwise is?

Alternatively, I could make it long-lasting, but non-cumulative with itself (but cumulative with the same effect from other Aquarians, of course).

I do want it to be subtle, and early.

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

So I checked the support sets to make sure I wasn't going crazy, and every AT able to take a set has the same nine powers, with the exception of Mastermind, which sometimes swaps out a power for something that isn't a pet or plays better with pets. As such, divvying up the powers like this just seems like more work for not enough gain. You could make an argument that this would help further differentiate Defenders from Corruptors, and I'd agree and would even be in favor of that, but that's an entirely different topic altogether - right now in this system, they're pretty unified.

 

Change has to start somewhere, right? Part of why I do all that is so I can play with more ideas, too.

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

This is nice for...probably the wrong reasons - area AoE healing is really inconvenient, but this lets you mule LotG + 5x Panacea. Once you get around that and use a macro to cast it immediately on your target, it's probably just flat-out better than the PBAoE heal that the healing sets get. Which, uh, good? That's good. We need more flavor there.

 

I did not consider Enhancement cheese; I could dispense with the Defense bonus (or would it be enough to change it to Resistance? Heck, not every power that has a certain attribute actually accepts Enhancements to that attribute - consider also things like Swift and Hurdle, which accept Run/Fly/Jump Enhancements, but NOT from set IOs). 

 

Maybe I'm confused; are you saying you do think it's good as it is, possibly because of Enhancement cheese?

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

In contrast, if you're running around with Water Blast, you already get Whirlpool, which does most of what you're asking for here.

 

Whirlpool does damage; this is meant to be a non-damaging debuff version that does things Whirlpool doesn't.

I would not assume most people who'd take this would also take Water Blast; some, sure, and anyone who feels

they'd be redundant would be free not to take one or the other.

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Endurance drain is not a useful effect unless you either drain huge chunks of it or have a bunch in the kit, and it takes until Flash Flood for you to pick up another power related to endurance drain - and it's just -recovery instead. I think these two are getting a raw deal here unless they're running Electric Blast or Electric Control, and I don't think you should be forcing one power choice to make this power's other thing relevant.

 

I certainly agree with the latter part! As for the former, I'm not as sure I agree; it depends on your enemies, your team (if you're on one, there are lots of powers that are far less useful without a team than this one, after all!), any Ancillary/temporary powers/"proc" IOs you may have, and how long the fight takes.

 

Having said that, how about these alternatives to endurance drain: A smaller 'endurance markup' (to complement Waterlog below), a defense debuff (this I tried to avoid because it seemed boring/overused), or/and a chance to occasionally knock down enemies within?

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

*snip* [Restorative Mist critique]

 

I meant for it to be comparable to existing "steam/mist/fog" powers, like Steamy Mist, Arctic Fog, and Shadow Fall; if those are good enough as they are, what's wrong with this? If it's not up to par with them, what in particular might I change/improve?

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Not much to comment on here, other than the inexplicable Toxic resist. I'm not sure how many damage resist sets you need to mule.

 

Cleansing protects you from toxins?

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

I think using this gets you kicked from the team.

 

The other support sets have zero issues sharing their mez heals with all four ATs. You don't really get anything here by splitting it between Cleanse and Flush. You DO lose a ton by having Flush impose any penalty at all to an ally. It's either so small you can cut it easily, or big enough to be noticeable and accordingly upsetting. Even if it's on the small side, if someone notices this affecting them and things go poorly, you're now the top person to blame.

 

It's not without precedent, which is why I figured it was acceptable; Increase Density slows, and Enforced Morale actually does damage to your teammates (admittedly, only if they're in good shape to start with); certain Mystic Fortunes impose penalties (again, including damage in one case) as well, although I admit those aren't the best examples since players can opt out of them.

 

It is a little incongruous that you think the penalties of this power are so bad, yet in the last one, you roundly pooh-poohed enemies who do Cold damage.

 

22 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

I missed this when assessing Undertow. For Defenders, this is a dead drop, since they don't get Undertow or Flash Flood in your model, and "mild" implies values low enough that they're going to be drowned (heh) out once the purple patch comes into play.

 

I am not familiar with "the purple patch"; I mean, I could guess, but please enlighten me to be certain.

 

I'm getting tired now; I think I'll save the rest for later....

 

Edited June 15 by AspieAnarchy
trivial clerical edits

[CrusaderDroid]

35 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

"Pocket someone"??? I have no idea what that means in this context.

You only target one player and focus your effects on that player. Usually in a context where you are a support or healer and want to keep exactly one person alive, either because they're critical to staying alive like a tank, or because they're your buddy and everyone else can take a hike.

 

36 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

What do you think? Would such a mechanic - 'turn on, it steadily costs endurance like a normal toggle, but intermittently targets individual allies' make this work the way it otherwise is?

Alternatively, I could make it long-lasting, but non-cumulative with itself (but cumulative with the same effect from other Aquarians, of course).

I do want it to be subtle, and early.

I really think this is probably a higher tier power, but making it the equivalent of the Shield powers that sets like Thermal, Force Fields, and Cold get is a pretty cool take - AoE, hits all your allies but you, lasts for about 4 minutes. I could see it usable like that, although you still won't have the room for huge numbers.

 

Randomly targeting toggle sounds absolutely frustrating to play. Write that idea down on a piece of paper, then burn it to exorcise it from your mind.

 

39 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

I did not consider Enhancement cheese; I could dispense with the Defense bonus (or would it be enough to change it to Resistance? Heck, not every power that has a certain attribute actually accepts Enhancements to that attribute - consider also things like Swift and Hurdle, which accept Run/Fly/Jump Enhancements, but NOT from set IOs). 

 

Maybe I'm confused; are you saying you do think it's good as it is, possibly because of Enhancement cheese?

So, it's independently good IMO even ignoring slotting since you have AoE healing that isn't centered on you, which is meaningfully unique.

 

I actually address some of the enhancement bits at the end of my post, but to recap - you can make certain benefits unenhanceable. In powers that have those effects, they don't take sets that they would normally take if the parts of the power that would be affected are unenhanceable. You can use that if you aren't comfortable with healing powers being used as LotG mules.

 

There isn't anything intrinsically wrong with that, either. By having a heal - and a T2 at that! - able to slot LotG, the player is able to free up one of their power pool picks if they wanted to maximize LotG slotting. That opens up more options.

 

43 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Having said that, how about these alternatives to endurance drain: A smaller 'endurance markup' (to complement Waterlog below), a defense debuff (this I tried to avoid because it seemed boring/overused), or/and a chance to occasionally knock down enemies within?

Don't sleep on defense debuffs. On this power, it would be atrocious since it'd probably work by summoning a pseudopet, which have terrible proc rates. On anything else, defense debuffs let you slot Achilles' Heel, which is a chance for -20% Resist on hit. Accurate defense debuffs also give you an extra damage proc option in Shield Breaker, for even more damage. Procs are the primary way that Defenders can deal damage in this game - since procs aren't affected by the Defender's low damage scalars, they do the same damage as when slotted on anyone else, and dramatically increase their DPS.

 

"Endurance markup" would be a debuff to endurance cost. It's a neat trick, and I don't think any power set can do that. The main obstacle there is still that without any external endurance drain, it's not going to mean anything. That doesn't make it weak or useless, but does constrain your sets or your team's sets for maximum effectiveness. If you want to keep that, I'd advise making sure it has some other effect that makes it independently good even if no one can exploit it. Knockdown is always useful, for example.

 

48 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

I meant for it to be comparable to existing "steam/mist/fog" powers, like Steamy Mist, Arctic Fog, and Shadow Fall; if those are good enough as they are, what's wrong with this? If it's not up to par with them, what in particular might I change/improve?

The wording throws me off completely, for one. Seeing "small" to its benefits twice makes me wonder why keep it.

 

Looking at Defender values for Steamy Mist, it offers +20% resist to Fire, Cold, and Energy, +5% defense to everything, and (at 50, anyways) 216% resistance to Confusion (effectively making you immune). Those are really good. The stealth exists too but whatever, Steamy Mist is good because it grants a nice chunk of resist to Fire and Energy as well as +defense. I wouldn't call either of those "small".

 

Looking at Defender values for Arctic Fog gets us similar results. Arctic Fog just swaps out Confusion resist for slow resist. Shadow Fall has similar design, but instead targets Energy, Negative Energy, and Psionic and Terrorize.

 

Restorative Mist doesn't specify what mez it protects from, drops a damage type from its resistances, doesn't boost defense at all (meaning we can't slot LotG in it), and only offers health regeneration as compensation. Maybe in your head, this thing has numbers comparable to those three, but I can't read your mind, only your words - from what you typed, it looks inferior on average.

 

If you want to keep it, those three powers are a pretty good model, honestly - just swap out the mez resist for a different mez protection of your choice. You could also run with the endurance theme and protect allies from endurance drain.

 

57 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Cleansing protects you from toxins?

This logic is used at least once in the game, so it works. On that power, it's also unenhanceable, so it doesn't slot resist sets.

 

I wouldn't really feel compelled to abide by "real world logic" when doing video game stuff. Video games violate expectations of reality all the time, repeatedly, in numerous creative ways. If you lock yourself into following "real world logic" it's much easier to end up adding extraneous elements or overcomplicating things. I don't think gratuitous Toxic resist is the end of the world, but it's something to keep in mind - you're not bound by reality in a video game.

 

1 hour ago, AspieAnarchy said:

It's not without precedent, which is why I figured it was acceptable; Increase Density slows, and Enforced Morale actually does damage to your teammates (admittedly, only if they're in good shape to start with); certain Mystic Fortunes impose penalties (again, including damage in one case) as well, although I admit those aren't the best examples since players can opt out of them.

 

It is a little incongruous that you think the penalties of this power are so bad, yet in the last one, you roundly pooh-poohed enemies who do Cold damage.

 

Using Defender values for Increase Density, it has a -12.5% slow to all movement speed and jump height. The tradeoff is effective immunity to three separate types of mezzes that not everyone can replicate on their own sets, on top of a nice 25% boost to Smashing and Energy. That's really good. Even better: this is on the same set as Speed Boost, which grants SO MUCH speed that you can turn it off if it's too much, which completely eats the meager penalty of Increase Density. (Opting out of Speed Boost's movement speed also opts out of Increase Density's movement speed loss, too, making it a wash no matter what.)

 

Meanwhile, Enforced Morale deals just enough to drop the target to about 90%, if I'm reading that right, which only happens if the target was above 90% health. This is a negligible penalty that is more or less there for flavor. In exchange, it also grants a small boost to recharge and movement speed on top of its usual cleanse effect.

 

Flush doesn't grant any offensive bonus and in fact actively hinders your offense by reducing your speed (recharge? movement speed?) and your recovery, making you worse at using your powers or getting range to use them, as well as worse at getting back endurance to use them. This is significantly more frustrating than the downsides of Increase Density and Enforced Morale, both of which are on sets that generally completely eat the drawback with another power. You don't have any power on this set that can offset these penalties so thoroughly.

 

It might not be without precedent, but the precedent is clearly "you only penalize stuff you can give back in abundance".

 

1 hour ago, AspieAnarchy said:

I am not familiar with "the purple patch"; I mean, I could guess, but please enlighten me to be certain.

Right here. The main takeaway is that debuffs need to go big because the values they have are not the values that are getting applied on enemies - you're always going to be at least 1 level down on any content that's supposed to challenge you, and just one level cuts 10% off the total effectiveness of everything. Any further, and values start to drop precipitously - a 3 level gap is 35% less effectiveness, and 4 levels is a whopping 52% less effectiveness.

[AspieAnarchy]

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

You only target one player and focus your effects on that player. Usually in a context where you are a support or healer and want to keep exactly one person alive, either because they're critical to staying alive like a tank, or because they're your buddy and everyone else can take a hike.

 

I guess it must be derived from billiards, then.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

I really think this is probably a higher tier power, but making it the equivalent of the Shield powers that sets like Thermal, Force Fields, and Cold get is a pretty cool take - AoE, hits all your allies but you, lasts for about 4 minutes. I could see it usable like that, although you still won't have the room for huge numbers.

 

Let's say I still didn't want it to be AoE; how could I compensate? Bigger numbers? I could certainly do that.

Again, I wanted it to be a little different from many other single-target buffs, and I tried lowering both ends of the "something for something" ratio.

I grant that "clickiness" could be the obstacle there....

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Randomly targeting toggle sounds absolutely frustrating to play. Write that idea down on a piece of paper, then burn it to exorcise it from your mind.

 

...which is one reason I think you're starting to stray from "opinion" to "dogma" here. I like the idea just fine; it opens doors.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

So, it's independently good IMO even ignoring slotting since you have AoE healing that isn't centered on you, which is meaningfully unique.

 

Thank you! I was hoping for that.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

I actually address some of the enhancement bits at the end of my post, but to recap - you can make certain benefits unenhanceable. In powers that have those effects, they don't take sets that they would normally take if the parts of the power that would be affected are unenhanceable. You can use that if you aren't comfortable with healing powers being used as LotG mules.

 

There isn't anything intrinsically wrong with that, either. By having a heal - and a T2 at that! - able to slot LotG, the player is able to free up one of their power pool picks if they wanted to maximize LotG slotting. That opens up more options.

 

So Refreshing Rain is a winner all around; glad to hear it.

Maybe I will make it universal, in that case - or at least find another place/purpose for Undertow.

 

Undertow, clearly, has things in common with both Whirlpool and Dark Miasma's Tar Patch - and heck, while I still don't intend for it to do damage, consider the fact that a Water/Traps Corrupter can have Whirlpool and Caltrops (with Scourge!), so if that's too much, there's precedent for it nonetheless! Surely the concept is worthy, at any rate. 

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Don't sleep on defense debuffs....

 

In what sense? I can think of at least 3 different ways to interpret this. I did say I did not like the idea, but you seem to be trying to discourage it, so I'm confused why you'd do that when I'd already discouraged myself, if that's how you feel about it.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

"Endurance markup" would be a debuff to endurance cost. It's a neat trick, and I don't think any power set can do that.

 

It all depends on whether one defines "buff" as "numerical increase" or "something the subject would want".

Yes, thank you; I was pretty proud of it.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

The main obstacle there is still that without any external endurance drain, it's not going to mean anything. That doesn't make it weak or useless, but does constrain your sets or your team's sets for maximum effectiveness. If you want to keep that, I'd advise making sure it has some other effect that makes it independently good even if no one can exploit it. Knockdown is always useful, for example.

 

You said this in response to Undertow, and I did suggest knockdown as an alternative to whatever it was you didn't like about it; sure, I could give Undertow a Knockdown effect.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

*SNIP* Mist/Fog/etc discussion

 

I honestly had not caught that the other powers had strong protection from specific effects.

I did specifically say that Restorative Mist "has a rather lenient endurance cost relative to similar powers"; overall, I still want it to be 'less for less' compared to the others, but yeah, I'd be happy to change the mez/debuff protection!

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

I wouldn't really feel compelled to abide by "real world logic" when doing video game stuff. Video games violate expectations of reality all the time, repeatedly, in numerous creative ways.

 

I am a stickler for distinguishing between "video game" and "computer game"; this is very obviously the latter (Good luck playing it with a video-game controller!), and I do not like the recent vernacular insistence that they be merged, all the moreso since it's favored the former over the latter - but that quickly becomes an entirely different topic.

 

Otherwise, do recall Mark Twain's admonition regarding the obligations of fiction; if this powerset doesn't feel like "water", what's the point?

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Meanwhile, Enforced Morale deals just enough to drop the target to about 90%, if I'm reading that right, which only happens if the target was above 90% health. This is a negligible penalty that is more or less there for flavor. In exchange, it also grants a small boost to recharge and movement speed on top of its usual cleanse effect.

 

Part of the idea with Flush was that it was supposed to give more in exchange for what it took, relative to the gentler Cleanse.

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Flush doesn't grant any offensive bonus and in fact actively hinders your offense by reducing your speed (recharge? movement speed?) and your recovery, making you worse at using your powers or getting range to use them, as well as worse at getting back endurance to use them. This is significantly more frustrating than the downsides of Increase Density and Enforced Morale, both of which are on sets that generally completely eat the drawback with another power. You don't have any power on this set that can offset these penalties so thoroughly....

 

Well, come to think of it, there IS Quicken, which would do almost exactly that.... 

 

Anyways, I was trying to give the impression of, you know, being sopping wet; it's supposed to be a little bit funny in addition to effective.

I don't know, given that it's for primarily for liberating people from mezzes anyway, and (to my surprise) you deemed the damage done by Enforced Morale a negligible concern, perhaps an alternative downside would be a momentary knockdown (plus the Cold Resistance debuff, which you don't seem to be very worried about)?

Alternatively, what about a small amount of direct endurance drain (as opposed to recovery penalty)?

 

21 hours ago, CrusaderDroid said:

Right here. The main takeaway is that debuffs need to go big because the values they have are not the values that are getting applied on enemies - you're always going to be at least 1 level down on any content that's supposed to challenge you, and just one level cuts 10% off the total effectiveness of everything. Any further, and values start to drop precipitously - a 3 level gap is 35% less effectiveness, and 4 levels is a whopping 52% less effectiveness.

 

Fair enough; I did not really realize that debuffs also suffered in this manner.

 

Continuing this discussion may take a while; I don't use the Internet on Mondays, and shortly thereafter I'll be on the road for at least a day or two.

 

Edited June 16 by AspieAnarchy
added to/refined earlier remarks

[AspieAnarchy]

Before going anywhere else or any further, however....

 

On 6/14/2024 at 6:50 PM, CrusaderDroid said:

It's like you're afraid to make things strong. This is City of Heroes - EVERYONE is strong. Go big!

...

...

Please stop kneecapping your pitches with "small" and "mild" and "modest" as descriptors. If you feel like you have to sell something that short, it's a good sign you're doing something wrong. Crank up the power - if you think it's buffing too many things, just buff one thing twice as much instead. Check your competition in other support sets - they've got generally good numbers on everything they want to do. We're superheroes! Let's have fun with power!

 

You are onto something here; the typical vice one sees with amateur's ideas for games is being stupidly overpowered, and perhaps that's something I worry more about getting stepped on for rather than the opposite.

 

We've covered both sides of the problem with non-precise terms (I know Jack Emmert's approach to game design gets a lot of flack, but even if he sometimes went too far or got too dogmatic himself, he nevertheless had some good basic insights about how the 'bean-counter' mentality was a blight).

 

Bear in mind that this particular set is, by nature, meant to be more of "[literally] a wash" approach - if you want to see my idea of a Buff set that, shall we say, paints in starker shades and bolder strokes, Try THIS! And since this one surprised me by not getting any commentary to date, maybe you want to see this one as well.

 

I will endeavor to keep your observations about "go big, and here's why" in mind going forward.

[CrusaderDroid]

7 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Let's say I still didn't want it to be AoE; how could I compensate? Bigger numbers? I could certainly do that.

Yup! But big +recharge numbers in tier 2 isn't really a thing - hence my initial suggestion that Quicken get bumped later down the line so it has more room to be big. Either way, swing big! Nerfs are easy, if they're even necessary.

 

9 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Starting to stray from "opinion" to "dogma" here. I like the idea just fine; it opens doors.

Yeah, no. It really doesn't.

 

Random-target roulette buff isn't particularly desirable for several reasons.

 

1. You don't have clear feedback if this is even doing anything. It might catch allies that need it, or it might catch a pet that totally wastes it, or it might catch an ally who is about to drop in 2 seconds and there is no longer anything to be done to save them.
2. You don't have any fine control over this. You turn it on and pray it hits someone in need of assistance. This lack of reliability means nobody on your team can expect to benefit from it at any given point in time.
3. You can't really play around this without sabotaging yourself. Trying to manipulate range by moving around to target exactly one person requires flight (not possible in many indoor maps) or exposure to significant amounts of danger which all available ATs are poorly suited for dealing with.
4. Any attempt to mitigate these flaws - say, by making the tick timer 2 seconds or so - defeats the entire purpose of this roulette. At that point, it's just a really slow, janky aura, and its inability to reliably affect everyone is a bug, not a feature.

 

About the only mechanic I could see it be workable would be if it was a heal instead of a buff. It wouldn't be a particularly great heal, either, since you could just ping your full health ally five times in a row while your Scrapper dies next to you. You're better off with either a one-off buff on all allies, or a toggle aura that continually affects everyone.

 

18 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Undertow, clearly, has things in common with both Whirlpool and Dark Miasma's Tar Patch - and heck, while I still don't intend for it to do damage, consider the fact that a Water/Traps Corrupter can have Whirlpool and Caltrops (with Scourge!), so if that's too much, there's precedent for it nonetheless! Surely the concept is worthy, at any rate. 

Undertow is working off a proven model, which is fine. It's also the first thing I'd cut here since you can get this elsewhere and it's not really breaking any new ground. I don't say cut as in "this is bad, drop it", but "this is taking up space that could be used by something more unique or with more value" - it happens frequently with drafts, and that's okay!

 

20 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

In what sense? I can think of at least 3 different ways to interpret this. I did say I did not like the idea, but you seem to be trying to discourage it, so I'm confused why you'd do that when I'd already discouraged myself, if that's how you feel about it.

As in you're passing up on defense debuffs because they're too common. Hence, "don't sleep on defense debuffs". They're a very useful tool, not just for the obvious mechanical effect of making it easier for everyone to hit things (VERY useful in lower level, pre-full build content where people have lower to-hit numbers), but also for the enhancement sets that come with it. Achilles Heel's proc enhancement is generally a good thing to have on every character whenever possible because -RES is just that good, and that needs to be slotted in a defense debuff power.

 

22 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

I honestly had not caught that the other powers had strong protection from specific effects.

I did specifically say that Restorative Mist "has a rather lenient endurance cost relative to similar powers"; overall, I still want it to be 'less for less' compared to the others, but yeah, I'd be happy to change the mez/debuff protection!

Low endurance cost isn't the win you might think it is, unfortunately. Other supporting sets such as the S-tier Kinetics can negate endurance as a consideration entirely, and players are generally expected to solve their own endurance problems themselves with their builds. I wouldn't try to use low endurance to offset lacking certain bonuses or having lower effects.

 

This does mean that "less for less" doesn't work. I don't believe that every power needs to be equal though - I think it's okay if Restorative Mist happens to cost less than the others anyways despite being the same power level. It really isn't a big deal.

 

26 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Otherwise, do recall Mark Twain's admonition regarding the obligations of fiction; if this powerset doesn't feel like "water", what's the point?

City of Heroes doesn't have enough space to accomplish this. Just go with your heart.

 

27 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Anyways, I was trying to give the impression of, you know, being sopping wet; it's supposed to be a little bit funny in addition to effective.

Oh, if you're going for humor, just slap them with a 50% movement slow for 1 second. Job's done.

 

28 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

I don't know, given that it's for primarily for liberating people from mezzes anyway, and (to my surprise) you deemed the damage done by Enforced Morale a negligible concern, perhaps an alternative downside would be a momentary knockdown (plus the Cold Resistance debuff, which you don't seem to be very worried about)?

Alternatively, what about a small amount of direct endurance drain (as opposed to recovery penalty)?

The better question is "why does the cleanse have to have a downside at all". Other sets don't really have an issue with this, and the alt cleanse in this very set doesn't bother. The one that does - Pain Domination - only does so if they're close to full, and can quickly heal back that 10% health anyways. Is it supposed to be an offset for removing damage debuffs? Are you sure you really need that offset?

 

I think it's part of the "this is too good, I need to turn it down" trap. If you delete the downside, or just merge it with the other cleanse, nothing's going to break. The set gets a really beefy ultra-cleanse that totally purges every possible debuff known to man and several only known to kheldians - awesome!

 

8 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

You are onto something here; the typical vice one sees with amateur's ideas for games is being stupidly overpowered, and perhaps that's something I worry more about getting stepped on for rather than the opposite.

This is generally applicable for everything in the world of game design. You always start strong and then tone down afterwards if necessary. Arguments over whether something is OP or not are much better than crickets and silence because it's so weak nobody cares, and when it comes to selling your game to your audience, you want big strengths you can point to.

 

Starting weak just risks not having any clear direction. That's really bad - if you don't have a direction to go in with your design, there's nothing you can do to save it other than to start over. If you go strong, it's obvious to everyone what you're trying to do, and everyone can work with that.

 

It does take some practice though. Not really an intuitive thing. Once you're aware of it, though, it's rather liberating. You can swing for the fences without a care.

12 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Bear in mind that this particular set is, by nature, meant to be more of "[literally] a wash" approach - if you want to see my idea of a Buff set that, shall we say, paints in starker shades and bolder strokes, Try THIS! And since this one surprised me by not getting any commentary to date, maybe you want to see this one as well.

I'll take a look at these soon!

 

12 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

I will endeavor to keep your observations about "go big, and here's why" in mind going forward.

Being able to help other people with their craft is why I take the time to write out these big posts. Best of luck.