Suggestion: Speedster (New Power Set for Attacks + Revamp for Super Reflexes)

[Gloomfall]

Hello World!

I just wanted to preface this post with a couple key facts about myself and my goals with this suggestion. Firstly, I am a Superhero/Supervillain lover and have been reading comics the majority of my life. Speedsters have always held a place at the top of the list for my favorite character archetype. With that said, I completely understand that doing "proper justice" to a speedster is neigh impossible in any multiplayer video game and still difficult in a single player game, but my goal isn't to aim for full realism or even to represent a majority of what they're capable of in the comics other media. My goal in its simplest terms is for you to FEEL like you're playing a character based around speed and reflexes.

 

In this post I have several suggestions but I want to preface it with the fact that I am open to discussions on things that could and should be changed with it in order to bring it more in line with what is expected for a character. My goals here are as follows:

 

• Quick Power Activations.
• Quick Power Recharges. (Mostly)
• Reliable Defenses based primarily around dodging attacks.
• Faster than normal Movement in Combat.
• Better than normal recovery of Endurance.
• Competitive with other "End Game Meta Builds" for taking on high end content. Provided it is properly geared.

 

Super Reflexes

 

Level 1/Level 1: Agile (Passive Elements from Agile, Dodge, and Lucky.)
Level 1/Level 2: Focused Fighting (Reduced End Cost.)
Level 2/Level 4: Focused Senses (Reduced End Cost.)
Level 6/Level 10: Focused Evasion (Reduced End Cost.)
Level 8/Level 16: Practiced Brawler (No Changes.)
Level 12/Level 20: Quick Metabolism (Passive Recovery Bonus and Resistance to End Drain.)
Level 18/Level 24: Quickness (Increased Movement Speed bonus.)
Level 22/Level 28: Lucky Dodge (New Passive. Builds stacks of Damage Resistance up to a total of 10 stacks. All stacks are removed when hit.)
Level 26/Level 30: Elude (Remove Endurance Crash, but make it so that the power is no longer modified by recharge speed modifiers.)

 

Super Speed Fighting

 

Level 1/Level 1: Quick Strike (Very fast animation punch that does okay damage, activates very quickly and has a very fast recharge. Can disorient foes.)
Level 1/Level 2: Quick One-Two (Sped up One-Two Punch that does solid damage, is activated quickly, and has a fast recharge. Can disorient foes.)
Level 2/Level 4: Quick Flurry (Sped up Flurry attack that hits a cone of enemies in front of the player. Can disorient foes. Moderate Recharge.)
Level 6/Level 10: Build Momentum (Self +To-Hit and +Damage, either instant execution or very quick animation speed.)
Level 8/Level 16: Blinding Speed (Quick attack that does a small amount of damage but increases self defense rating to melee and ranged. Can stack.)
Level 12/Level 20: Mach Speed (Dash to a target within a certain range and strike it for high damage and a knockdown. Alternatively, lower the damage but make it have a faster recharge.)
Level 18/Level 24: Flurry of Blows (PBAoE Melee Attack, Can disorient foes.)
Level 22/Level 28: Cyclone (Toggle: High End Cost. PBAoE Damage, Knockdown Foes, Increased Defense while toggled.)
Level 26/Level 30: Infinite Mass Punch / Light Speed Punch (Whirlwind around the targets for a short time before charging in and unleashing an extreme damage punch that knocks down the enemy and reduces their damage resistance.)

 

Super Speed Tertiary Pool

 

Finally, I also suggest an increase to the speed bonuses of the Super Speed power. As it is right now it's nowhere near the premier travel power even with all of its limitations. Teleportation is faster and more accessible and Flight is extremely versatile and almost as fast.

 

Thank you for your time!

Edited December 6 by Gloomfall
Adjusted for feedback provided.

[Gloomfall]

With that out of the way, I'm totally open for feedback on this as long as it's constructive with the goal of actually seeing something similar to this come into the game. There are no hard numbers or anything in my suggestion as that would be left up to the balancing team to make it work properly.

 

Some obvious concerns that I have for making Super Reflexes viable at the high end is that the current "meta" for defenses is to stack different types of defenses to layer them while having a fairly high damage resistance value where possible. Those layers including: Defense, Damage Resist, and Regeneration as primary mitigation layers.. With secondary layers being debuffing or crowd controlling enemies either reducing their accuracy or damage or simply removing them from the fight temporarily.

 

Super Reflexes does have an issue on the high end with it being a "one trick pony" in that it has a very high amount of Defense value but almost nothing in terms of the other mitigation layers. The "Lucky Dodge" power that was suggested was something to somewhat mitigate that by adding something along the lines of a pseudo "glancing blow" system.

 

This can take form in several different ways, whether it builds up stacks of "damage resistance" over time that are all used to soak damage when they do get hit.. Or it could be a damage resistance power that gains strength the more defense they have compared to their targets. Alternatively it could gain strength based on how full the endurance of the character is at that given time.

 

An alternative to a Damage Resistance power would be some way to allow for high defense values to actually work reliably against high end enemies. I know that normally Villains and other big boss enemies tend to bypass a large portion of defense values to hit straight at the damage resistance values. That's one thing I'm trying to solve for.

 

Some other things worth mentioning for the Super Reflex abilities is that there was a major theme for me there of reducing endurance costs across the board and even giving them an Endurance Recovery passive and resistances to Endurance Drain. The primary reason for this is that almost every Super Speed / Super Reflexes character is seen to have near inexhaustible energy, at least when it comes to dodging.

 

As it is right now SR is one of the most expensive defensive power sets in terms of Endurance Costs and really fights against that dynamic. I do hope that these changes help address that!

Edited December 5 by Gloomfall

[Jeagan]

So I think you mean a Speedster powerset, not Archetype. I can see it as a powerset, basically an expansion on the Speed power pool. But an Archetype is like Blaster, Mastermind, Brute, Defender, etc, and I don't think Speedster would really fit into that category.

 

As far as the power pools go, Teleportation is faster but WAY less accurate, flight is significantly slower but bypasses blockage, and super speed is kinda in the middle. It's slower and more accurate than teleportation, while being faster and harder to control than flight. I think it fits just fine as a travel power.

Edited December 6 by Jeagan

[Gloomfall]

2 minutes ago, Jeagan said:

So I think you mean a Speedster powerset, not Archetype. I can see it as a powerset, basically an expansion on the Speed power pool. But an Archetype is like Blaster, Mastermind, Brute, Defender, etc, and I don't think Speedster would really fit into that category.

 

Thank you, corrected.

[Psyonico]

So, your changes to Super Reflexes seem super overpowered unless you lower the defense values, which, to me is a nonstarter.  SR is about dodging, so it should have high defense. 

 

Also, turning the mez protection into an auto power? That just sounds crazy overpowered.  I could see an argument for turning it into a toggle, but there is a trade off there, in that it could no longer stack with itself.

 

Finally, I disagree with you that SR is particularly endurance heavy.  It has 3 toggles and 1 click that is used regularly.  The toggles are not higher cost than other sets and there are fewer of them.  The click power actually works out to be less endurance per second than a similar toggle.

[Gloomfall]

  

5 hours ago, Psyonico said:

So, your changes to Super Reflexes seem super overpowered unless you lower the defense values, which, to me is a nonstarter.  SR is about dodging, so it should have high defense. 

 

Also, turning the mez protection into an auto power? That just sounds crazy overpowered.  I could see an argument for turning it into a toggle, but there is a trade off there, in that it could no longer stack with itself.

 

Finally, I disagree with you that SR is particularly endurance heavy.  It has 3 toggles and 1 click that is used regularly.  The toggles are not higher cost than other sets and there are fewer of them.  The click power actually works out to be less endurance per second than a similar toggle.

 

I'm totally willing to keep Practiced Brawler as is, or making a portion of it passive while the rest of it is either activatable or toggle.

As for the Defense Values, I'm not a fan of reducing those values at all. Is there a specific power that was mentioned that you were concerned about? Or a combination of them?

I'd love to know more about what you're saying.

Edited December 6 by Gloomfall

[Snarky]

I see where you are going.  You have acknowledged the difficulty in meshing with mmorpg. Very good.  
 

now, a LOT of the stuff is in game.  Just not lumped together in one powerset. For instance, you can get your toon to move pretty fast with buffs from other sets.  AND you can “look” like you are attacking fast with something like Shadow Maul.   Now, if you want all the effects of shadow maul, but cut the long animation time, that is where problems start.  You cant rebalance a power. And if the Devs did ALL Dark melee users will hate them, having struggled with this beast forever.  But the speed self buff would need to be in the defense set, and of course the attacks in the attack set.  So, two new power sets to make this

[arcane]

Super Reflexes can’t take any buffs at this time IMO

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

Super Reflexes can’t take any buffs at this time IMO

The problem with any “Super” power sets is becoming… too super.  
 

A new set would need to be introduced…with rebalancing and from the OPs view prob giving up quite a bit for the “look” of super speed (and effects like speed buff on self)   Otherwise way too OP. Super Reflexes with the additions mentioned above would have all the other set olayers out for Dev blood. 
 

hmmmm…… Dev Blood.  🩸 

[Uun]

14 hours ago, Gloomfall said:

Super Reflexes does have an issue on the high end with it being a "one trick pony" in that it has a very high amount of Defense value but almost nothing in terms of the other mitigation layers. The "Lucky Dodge" power that was suggested was something to somewhat mitigate that by adding something along the lines of a pseudo "glancing blow" system.

 

This can take form in several different ways, whether it builds up stacks of "damage resistance" over time that are all used to soak damage when they do get hit.. Or it could be a damage resistance power that gains strength the more defense they have compared to their targets. Alternatively it could gain strength based on how full the endurance of the character is at that given time.

This already exists. Super Reflexes has scaling damage resistance in the 3 auto powers that kicks in below 60% health and increases as your health declines (at 45% health you have 15% resistance, at 30% health you have 30% resistance, at 15% health you have 45% resistance). 

 

Super Reflexes is currently one of the best performing sets in the game. It doesn't need any changes, with the possible exception of changing Elude so that there's a reason to take it.

[Gloomfall]

22 hours ago, Uun said:

This already exists. Super Reflexes has scaling damage resistance in the 3 auto powers that kicks in below 60% health and increases as your health declines (at 45% health you have 15% resistance, at 30% health you have 30% resistance, at 15% health you have 45% resistance). 

 

Super Reflexes is currently one of the best performing sets in the game. It doesn't need any changes, with the possible exception of changing Elude so that there's a reason to take it.

 

My biggest issues with SR are the endurance costs for running 3 high cost toggles, the lack of endurance recovery and endurance drain resist, and the fact that the defense bonuses are split between 6 different powers.

 

At least, that has been consistent on every SR character that I've played.

 

For the most part, my go to defensive sets these days are Willpower, Regen, Bio Armor, and Shield.

 

All for different reasons.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Gloomfall said:

My biggest issues with SR are the endurance costs for running 3 high cost toggles

SR's 3 toggles total 0.78 end/s. Bio, Ice and Energy have 3 toggles (excluding the damage auras and stealth) that total 0.78 end/s. Shield and Willpower have 4 toggles that total 0.78 end/s. Radiation has 4 toggles that total 0.94 end/s. Stone has 5 toggles (excluding the damage aura) that total 1.04 end/s. About the only sets that have lower toggle costs are Invulnerability and Electric at 0.73 end/s. Built properly, you should have no issues with SR's end cost.

 

You are correct that SR has no resistance to end drain or -recovery, however, unless those debuffs are autohit, they're likely to miss. Neither Willpower or Regen have -end or -recovery resistance either and without defense are much more likely to be sapped and toggle dropped.

[Gloomfall]

On 12/7/2024 at 10:07 AM, Uun said:

SR's 3 toggles total 0.78 end/s. Bio, Ice and Energy have 3 toggles (excluding the damage auras and stealth) that total 0.78 end/s. Shield and Willpower have 4 toggles that total 0.78 end/s. Radiation has 4 toggles that total 0.94 end/s. Stone has 5 toggles (excluding the damage aura) that total 1.04 end/s. About the only sets that have lower toggle costs are Invulnerability and Electric at 0.73 end/s. Built properly, you should have no issues with SR's end cost.

 

You are correct that SR has no resistance to end drain or -recovery, however, unless those debuffs are autohit, they're likely to miss. Neither Willpower or Regen have -end or -recovery resistance either and without defense are much more likely to be sapped and toggle dropped.

 

WP has 40% Recovery Bonuses, as does Regeneration. It easily offsets and overcomes the Endurance deficit of the power set.

 

Shield Defense only has 3 Toggles, as far as I'm aware... But they do have similar costs to SR. The main difference is that it has many more defensive layers for mitigation. Reducing Enemy Damage, Increasing Defense, Damage Resistance, Increasing Health, and it scales pretty well with additional allies and foes.

 

Willpower is by far one of the most comfortable power sets for defense.

 

Radiation does have 4 Toggles... but it's also closer to Fire Defense in terms that it's an offensive power set with a damage aura. It's also got pretty solid damage resistance and health regeneration as well as a pretty decent steroid.

 

Stone Armor has always been pretty endurance heavy, but is also a very strong defensive power set. You have crowd control and damage with Mud Pots that can be pretty useful. You've got defense, damage resist layers, and with Rooted you can get a decent chunk of regen and additional bonuses.. Though, I'll definitely agree with some QoL being given to Stone Armor in terms of usability.

Super Reflexes pretty much just has... Defense. Not that it's a bad thing. I'd just argue that it would also be nice for it to have some recovery bonuses, and for the defense bonuses to be consolidated a bit so you're not having to take 3 passive powers and 3 toggles just to make sure each of the different defenses are covered.

 

I'm not saying that the numbers aren't good where they are in terms of defense. I'm not even asking for higher defense values. I'm asking for recovery bonuses to be added to the set and for some consolidation. Either having both the Active/Passive powers merged so that you have one for Melee, one for Ranged, and one for AoE... or Merging the Passive powers into one so you have a single passive power and 3 toggles for each of the different types.

 

I'm ambivalent to what else makes it into the power set to fill in the missing spots once the consolidation is done.. I just made a couple suggestions of what might be nice to see. I'm totally open to feedback of different options if people can come up with other nice things to add that aren't overpowering and are thematic to the power set.

[TheMoneyMaker]

On 12/5/2024 at 8:11 PM, Jeagan said:

super speed is kinda in the middle. It's slower and more accurate than teleportation, while being faster and harder to control than flight.

"more accurate" 😄

 

Obviously you've never seen me running into walls at super speed

[TheMoneyMaker]

Honestly I think what super speed as a travel power needs is what flight has: a short term speed boost

 

You should be able to run around at your normal increased speed but when you're crossing a long distance zone kick in the afterburners to get there sooner

[Gloomfall]

24 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Honestly I think what super speed as a travel power needs is what flight has: a short term speed boost

 

You should be able to run around at your normal increased speed but when you're crossing a long distance zone kick in the afterburners to get there sooner

 

TBH that would also be awesome.

[Gloomfall]

On the topic of super speed and other travel powers.. Would love for the endurance cost to be suspended or lowered significantly while they're suppressed in combat as well. Would be a nice QoL at least. Lol

[Glacier Peak]

7 minutes ago, Gloomfall said:

On the topic of super speed and other travel powers.. Would love for the endurance cost to be suspended or lowered significantly while they're suppressed in combat as well. Would be a nice QoL at least. Lol

There's a good way to do that now - turn off the power. 

[Gloomfall]

22 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

There's a good way to do that now - turn off the power. 

 

Well... no duh? That's why I said it would be a nice QoL for something like that to be automatic?

[Glacier Peak]

Just now, Gloomfall said:

Well... no duh? That's why I said it would be a nice QoL for something like that to be automatic?

That would be a click power, not a toggle. 

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, Gloomfall said:

33 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

There's a good way to do that now - turn off the power. 

 

Well... no duh? That's why I said it would be a nice QoL for something like that to be automatic?

Automating the game isn't a quality of life request. Endurance management is part of the game.

[Uun]

3 hours ago, Gloomfall said:

WP has 40% Recovery Bonuses, as does Regeneration. It easily offsets and overcomes the Endurance deficit of the power set.

It has extra recovery, but it has no resistance to end drain. I've played WP extensively for years and can't count the number of times I've been toggle dropped by Arachnos Mu. It has also very little DDR or resistance to -regen. SR is light years better than WP as an armor set. 

 

3 hours ago, Gloomfall said:

Shield Defense only has 3 Toggles, as far as I'm aware

Battle Agility, Deflection, Against All Odds, Grant Cover

[TheMoneyMaker]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Automating the game isn't a quality of life request. Endurance management is part of the game.

If the power gets suppressed then the endurance cost should be suppressed too, otherwise don't suppress the power. Just let people joust and charge them the endurance cost for doing so.

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

If the power gets suppressed then the endurance cost should be suppressed too, otherwise don't suppress the power. Just let people joust and charge them the endurance cost for doing so.

Why? Just turn off the power(s) you don't need/aren't using. If this becomes a thing, what next? We don't have to pay for our mez protection toggles until an enemy applies a mez to us or for our damage auras until enemies start taking damage? (Edit: Maybe our armor toggles shouldn't cost us any endurance unless we are being attack by the appropriate type of attack it defends against.) (Edit again: It's not like we are trying to get across any large distances when we are fighting.) It is up to us to manage our endurance usage. If you have your travel power turned on despite knowing you can't use it because you are in combat, that is your choice to keep paying that cost.

 

Edited December 9 by Rudra

[OEM61]

What I would say is just add a defense boost to super speed.
Make it cost what it costs endurance-wise, make it go however much slower it goes in combat, but add some defense boost while it is on because faster=harder to hit.
Same basic idea as hover or combat jumping, but since there is no room to add a new power to the pool, just build that little extra functionality into the basic movement power.
Not that I would be opposed to a 6th power in the Speed pool for such a thing, but it would open a can of worms that the devs would be dealing with for a long time as more and more people would be suggesting things to fill in the 6th slot of every other pool set.

(Or just take combat jumping and use it as the "combat speed" power as it does provide enhanced movement around the field of battle and a small defense buff)

I'd also be good with a "high-speed melee" kind of set.  From the rapid-fire punches to a high-speed ramming attack and whatever else.

But SR is fine as near as I can tell.  I have not played with it since the old days, but I don't really see many complaints, either.  I am real hesitant to support big changes to existing sets.  People are out there using it.  The proposal seems to just give it more and more, so something, somewhere, has to be taken, and I don't think I would want to be maining an SR character when that shoe dropped, or having to explain those changes to the players that were.