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

[TheMoneyMaker]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

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.

 

That's a flawed comparison. Mez protection is working while the toggles are running whether you're being attacked or not.  The benefit isn't suppressed, even when you are mezzed it still determines how quick you come out of it. Travel powers have reduced effectiveness if you attack or are attacked because the original devs tried to limit jousting in pvp. I get combat being able to trip you up or slow you down, but that's what attacks with slow, knockdown, immobilize, and hold are for. If you happen to run through a mob's perception and attack range and they attack you, then you benefit of the full speed of your power briefly, so yes you could be trying to cross distances while "fighting" because there's no distinction between attacking or being attacked. If I choose to turn off my travel power to conserve endurance then I should lose the benefit of the power, but if I have my power suppressed against my will I shouldn't have to turn off the power to save endurance.

 

I'll go either way, suppress the power and the endurance or don't suppress either. But I'm against suppression of both because it was a pvp channge that crept into pve.

[TheMoneyMaker]

4 minutes ago, OEM61 said:

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.
 

Fair. Slowing down speed but adding defense means the power is still doing something that justifies the endurance cost.

 

If there's no benefit, then there's no justification for the endurance cost and suggesting that it's incumbent on the players to turn off a suppressed toggle just because the game is about ebdurance management seems like a silly argument.

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

That's a flawed comparison. Mez protection is working while the toggles are running whether you're being attacked or not.  The benefit isn't suppressed, even when you are mezzed it still determines how quick you come out of it. Travel powers have reduced effectiveness if you attack or are attacked because the original devs tried to limit jousting in pvp. I get combat being able to trip you up or slow you down, but that's what attacks with slow, knockdown, immobilize, and hold are for. If you happen to run through a mob's perception and attack range and they attack you, then you benefit of the full speed of your power briefly, so yes you could be trying to cross distances while "fighting" because there's no distinction between attacking or being attacked. If I choose to turn off my travel power to conserve endurance then I should lose the benefit of the power, but if I have my power suppressed against my will I shouldn't have to turn off the power to save endurance.

 

I'll go either way, suppress the power and the endurance or don't suppress either. But I'm against suppression of both because it was a pvp channge that crept into pve.

Not really. You and the author want travel power endurance costs suppressed because you aren't getting the benefit of the travel power while in combat. So by the same token, why should you have to pay the endurance costs of your armor or aura toggles when you aren't getting any benefit from them outside of combat or against enemies they don't apply to? It's the same thing. We control our character's endurance use. Not the game. It is up to us to manage our character's endurance use. I have melee characters that can run all their toggles including their travel power during combat and still be able to fight all day. Because I built them to do that. (Edit: Admittedly, they can't 1-shot bosses or even most lieutenants, except for the Stalkers, but you have a trade-off to do different things.) If you don't want to build to do that? That's fine. That also means that if your endurance bar can't handle the extra load, then you should turn off your unused powers like your travel power.

 

(Edit: Oh, and by the way? Travel suppression was not a PvP thing that crept into PvE. It has existed in the game since long before PvP was added to the game. That was to prevent us from jumping into fights our characters couldn't handle and then just darting away at full speed to safety when things took a turn for the worst. It wasn't equally applied to all travels, but it was there. And as far as Super Speed goes, I can still dart out of a bad fight at full speed at just a couple of steps.)

 

Edited December 9, 2024 by Rudra

[Seed22]

On 12/5/2024 at 7:38 PM, Psyonico said:

Also, turning the mez protection into an auto power

Thats already been done on sentinel. Not even in the same timeline as the word overpowered, and wouldn’t be on any other AT.

 

Also wouldn’t be done though because it was a PITA to code

[Gloomfall]

42 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

Thats already been done on sentinel. Not even in the same timeline as the word overpowered, and wouldn’t be on any other AT.

 

Also wouldn’t be done though because it was a PITA to code

 

Sentinel also gets Enduring added to their power set for Super Reflexes.. and people aren't crying about that being overpowered. That gives Endurance Recovery and Damage Resistance to all damage except for Toxic.

 

I really don't get the doom and gloom that people seem to give any posts that touch on improvements to existing power sets..

[Psyonico]

2 hours ago, Seed22 said:

Thats already been done on sentinel. Not even in the same timeline as the word overpowered, and wouldn’t be on any other AT.

 

Also wouldn’t be done though because it was a PITA to code

Not quite.

 

The sentinel power adds mez protection to the toggles, its not auto.

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Gloomfall said:

 

Sentinel also gets Enduring added to their power set for Super Reflexes.. and people aren't crying about that being overpowered. That gives Endurance Recovery and Damage Resistance to all damage except for Toxic.

 

I really don't get the doom and gloom that people seem to give any posts that touch on improvements to existing power sets..

People already refer to Super Reflexes as “immortal” on this forum… you’re either playing it wrong or not playing it.

[Seed22]

37 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Not quite.

 

The sentinel power adds mez protection to the toggles, its not auto.

You’re absolutely right, it’s a click absorb if I remember correctly, which if you’re thinking an auto mez power is bad, that should theoretically be way worse given the mitigation SR already has.

 

I want to add, I am not advocating it be nerfed or removed. I’m saying in this one instance, I wouldn’t be against that being adapted to any new def sets. SR as is is solid imo on other ATs, so I’m not thinking it exactly needs some of sent’s tools. 
 

But I do think those tools in sent SR should appear in other future def sets.( like water armor? 👀)

Edited December 9, 2024 by Seed22

[Enamel_32]

I like the suggestion of Lucky Dodge, I think it may be of more use than the passive scaling resistance since it's a front-loaded effect. I can only imagine you'd get one source of resistances or the other, not both.

[TheMoneyMaker]

11 hours ago, Rudra said:

Not really. You and the author want travel power endurance costs suppressed because you aren't getting the benefit of the travel power while in combat. So by the same token, why should you have to pay the endurance costs of your armor or aura toggles when you aren't getting any benefit from them outside of combat or against enemies they don't apply to? It's the same thing.

 

It is not the same thing. mez protection toggles are providing protection when they're on and that protection is at the ready for when a mez attack comes in.

 

Travel powers toggled on get suppressed not because of attack secondary effects such as being slowed, but just by the virtue of attacking or being attacked. You get reduced benefit from the power in speed being slowed down but the endurance cost doesn't change. I've seen you argue stuff before; you argue stuff just to argue so I'm not going to keep trying to convince you. Agree to disagree.

[Rudra]

47 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

It is not the same thing. mez protection toggles are providing protection when they're on and that protection is at the ready for when a mez attack comes in.

 

Travel powers toggled on get suppressed not because of attack secondary effects such as being slowed, but just by the virtue of attacking or being attacked. You get reduced benefit from the power in speed being slowed down but the endurance cost doesn't change. I've seen you argue stuff before; you argue stuff just to argue so I'm not going to keep trying to convince you. Agree to disagree.

And depending on the travel power, it also remains available. Flight powers have their speed drastically reduced, but you still remain airborne and can fight from max range. The power itself is not suppressed. Leaping powers are mildly affected, but you can still jump out of the fight far faster than you can fly out of it. Running powers are barely suppressed at all. Like I said, you can use Super Speed to run out of a fight at full speed shortly after you start moving. I even tested it on my level 50 Dominator last night to make sure. Walked into a group of Banished Pantheon in Dark Astoria, waited for them to start attacking me, threw some attacks but no mezzes at them, and then immediately ran off using Super Speed. It took my character maybe 6 steps total after I started moving, while still under attack, and then I was rocketing away at full speed. Those are still benefits you retain while those powers are active. And all that is ignoring the entire basis of your request that you should only have to pay for powers' endurance cost if they are providing you with a benefit, which anyone can extrapolate to any other toggle they want using that exact same reasoning. So on the basis of that claim, yes, they are the exact same thing.

[Owl Girl]

i for one wouldn't be upset if travel powers weren't suppressed in combat tho the stat boosts from, say, stealth or evasive maneuvers might be a bit powerful.

[stryve]

12 hours ago, Gloomfall said:

 

Sentinel also gets Enduring added to their power set for Super Reflexes.. and people aren't crying about that being overpowered. That gives Endurance Recovery and Damage Resistance to all damage except for Toxic.

 

I really don't get the doom and gloom that people seem to give any posts that touch on improvements to existing power sets..

A few things about Enduring on Sentinels.  First, Enduring grants Psionic DEF, Endurance Recovery, DDR, and scaling Damage Resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy).  

 

Enduring replaces Lucky from SR on other Archetypes (except Stalkers, who swap Lucky with Hide), trading Auto AoE DEF for Auto Psionic DEF and Endurance Recovery (the loss of AoE DEF is added into Evasion, the AoE toggle, but that does mean if your toggles drop you loose all AoE DEF).  DDR and scaling Damage Resistance are both present in Lucky on other Archetypes.

 

The Psionic DEF does cover one of the holes built into SR, but the values are low enough it's not much of a difference even enhanced to ED cap.  Considering how rarely one encounters Psionic attacks with no Positional component, it's probably worth slotting DEF Enhancement for the increase to total DDR more than the Psionic DEF itself.

 

The Recovery increase is pretty great (30% boost base, compared to 25% from Stamina), and the lack of any built-in sustain is absolutely a weakness of SR on other Archetypes.  

 

[Gloomfall]

On 12/9/2024 at 3:06 AM, OEM61 said:

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.
 

 

Honestly after working with my Scrapper and Brute on the Super Reflexes side of things.. I still think one of the things that I really could say I want is a Recovery Bonus somewhere in the tree. Wherever it makes sense to put. It would just be super nice to have and help me mitigate quite a lot of the issues I'm having with my energy. Outside of that it performs mostly alright. Though I definitely wouldn't mind some additional consolidation in the powers so you didn't have to have a passive and active for each defense... But that's just a personal gripe.

 

At this point, I just really want that Recovery bonus tacked on somewhere. 😅

 

As for the "Speedster" side of things, still putting it out there that I'd love a thematic quick/fast attacking character that bounces all over the place throwing flurries of punches at their enemies and doing "rush" attacks to speed up to a target and do some damage. Especially since there aren't really many "thematic" Speedster sets out there. It's mostly just "Guy with Super Reflexes that moves fast.. and does another thing."

Edited March 14 by Gloomfall

[Stormwalker]

Super Reflexes is already one of the best defensive sets in the game.  It doesn't need to be overhauled.

 

This is speaking as someone who has been maining a Claws/Super Reflexes scrapper since before IO's were a thing.

 

Super Reflexes has...

• End costs are no higher than those of most armor sets, as already observed. 
• Easily soft-capped defenses to all positions.
• Scaling damage resistances
• One of the best mez protections of any armor set (because, as a long duration click, it can be stacked and it doesn't drop if you get detoggled... not that this is likely to happen to you unless you are really careless or very unlucky since soft-capped defenses provide excellent protection against endurance drain).
• The best defense debuff resistance of ANY armor set in the game.
• 20% free recharge buff, a movement speed buff, and 40% slow resistance, all in an AUTO POWER.

The only thing I wish for when playing my SR characters (I have many) is Terrorize protection, and I'm pretty sure it isn't getting that anytime soon.

 

The only armor set I like better than SR is Energy Aura, and the margin between them is small.

 

SR is just fine as it is.  Also, not everyone who takes SR is a super-speedster, so I see no need to tie those two together conceptually.  NONE of my SR characters have Super Speed.  Not one.

 

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on your proposed attack set.  I wouldn't use it, but there are lots of sets in the game already that I don't use, so I have no objection to adding more of them.

Edited March 15 by Stormwalker

[Gloomfall]

49 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

Super Reflexes is already one of the best defensive sets in the game.  It doesn't need to be overhauled.

 

This is speaking as someone who has been maining a Claws/Super Reflexes scrapper since before IO's were a thing.

 

Super Reflexes has...

• End costs are no higher than those of most armor sets, as already observed. 
• Easily soft-capped defenses to all positions.
• Scaling damage resistances
• One of the best mez protections of any armor set (because, as a long duration click, it can be stacked and it doesn't drop if you get detoggled... not that this is likely to happen to you unless you are really careless or very unlucky since soft-capped defenses provide excellent protection against endurance drain).
• The best defense debuff resistance of ANY armor set in the game.
• 20% free recharge buff, a movement speed buff, and 40% slow resistance, all in an AUTO POWER.

The only thing I wish for when playing my SR characters (I have many) is Terrorize protection, and I'm pretty sure it isn't getting that anytime soon.

 

The only armor set I like better than SR is Energy Aura, and the margin between them is small.

 

SR is just fine as it is.  Also, not everyone who takes SR is a super-speedster, so I see no need to tie those two together conceptually.  NONE of my SR characters have Super Speed.  Not one.

 

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on your proposed attack set.  I wouldn't use it, but there are lots of sets in the game already that I don't use, so I have no objection to adding more of them.

 

Did you read my last reply to this thread..?

 

Was acknowledging that SR is in a fairly good place and the one thing that is still hurting me is the lack of a Recovery passive in it. So that's the only thing I'm really pushing for at this point.

 

I'd love to see a little bit of a consolidation of skills.. so there aren't so many separate active/passive powers just for different defense types, but I acknowledge that people don't want to mess with it. That's just a personal gripe of mine.

 

The only thing I'm asking for on SR at this point is a Recovery effect somewhere.

 

With that said though, I do thank you for your reply and your feedback.

Edited March 15 by Gloomfall

[Stormwalker]

1 minute ago, Gloomfall said:

 

Did you read my last reply to this thread..?

 

Was acknowledging that SR is in a fairly good place and the one thing that is still hurting me is the lack of a Recovery passive in it. So that's the only thing I'm really pushing for at this point.

 

I'd love to see a little bit of a consolidation of skills.. so there aren't so many separate active/passive powers just for different defense types, but I acknowledge that people don't want to mess with it. That's just a personal gripe of mine.

 

The only thing I'm asking for on SR at this point is a Recovery effect somewhere.

 

I don't see a need for a Recovery buff in the set.  I wouldn't object to having one, because one of the reasons I like Energy Aura better than SR is the combo of Energize and Energy Drain, but I don't usually find Endurance to be a problem on my SR characters once they get to high level (and at lower levels, every set that isn't Regen struggles with Endurance).  I did take Conserve Power on my Claws/SR, but that was mostly as a measure of defense against actually getting hit by one of those Recovery debuffs that takes your Recovery all the way down to zero (see: IDF), and a Recovery buff wouldn't help there because the mag on that debuff is so huge it's taking you to zero regardless.

[Gloomfall]

1 minute ago, Stormwalker said:

 

I don't see a need for a Recovery buff in the set.  I wouldn't object to having one, because one of the reasons I like Energy Aura better than SR is the combo of Energize and Energy Drain, but I don't usually find Endurance to be a problem on my SR characters once they get to high level (and at lower levels, every set that isn't Regen struggles with Endurance).  I did take Conserve Power on my Claws/SR, but that was mostly as a measure of defense against actually getting hit by one of those Recovery debuffs that takes your Recovery all the way down to zero (see: IDF), and a Recovery buff wouldn't help there because the mag on that debuff is so huge it's taking you to zero regardless.

 

Technically, this set already has a Recovery buff in it. It's just only available to Sentinels. And it doesn't seem to break anything from the people I've spoken to about it.

[Stormwalker]

2 minutes ago, Gloomfall said:

 

Technically, this set already has a Recovery buff in it. It's just only available to Sentinels. And it doesn't seem to break anything from the people I've spoken to about it.

 

Sentinels are a pretty different beast, though.  Blast sets tend to have very high endurance requirements (this is one of the reasons Blasters need sustain powers).

[Glacier Peak]

Or don't change the powerset at all and instead...

 

Use an inspiration to recover endurance.

 

Use a temporary power to improve endurance recovery. 

 

Slot endurance recovery Invention Origin set bonuses and globals.

 

Slot endurance reduction enhancements in toggles, clicks, and attacks as needed. 

 

Team up with other players who provide endurance recovery buffs. 

 

Attack and retreat, and Rest if needed. 

 

Lower difficulty in missions to reduce the amount of overall endurance needed to complete the required tasks. 

[Rudra]

Funny thing about powers and their endurance costs. We have the tools to reduce it. From endurance reduction enhancements we can slot in our powers to global endurance reduction set bonuses, we have the ability to make our characters endurance neutral in combat. (Outside of say Sappers sapping that precious blue bar.) The basic rule of thumb is to get your endurance consumption down and your recovery rate up to a 2:1 ratio. Having at least twice as much recovery as endurance consumption. Three times is an absolutely safe space to be in, but at two times you are in a very good place. And building characters to reach that isn't hard. There are even guides available for how to build characters to achieve that.

[Stormwalker]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Funny thing about powers and their endurance costs. We have the tools to reduce it. From endurance reduction enhancements we can slot in our powers to global endurance reduction set bonuses, we have the ability to make our characters endurance neutral in combat. (Outside of say Sappers sapping that precious blue bar.) The basic rule of thumb is to get your endurance consumption down and your recovery rate up to a 2:1 ratio. Having at least twice as much recovery as endurance consumption. Three times is an absolutely safe space to be in, but at two times you are in a very good place. And building characters to reach that isn't hard. There are even guides available for how to build characters to achieve that.

 

I suspect that one reason people may think SR's endurance costs are higher than they actually are is the free 20% +recharge that SR gives.  This makes it easier to attain high global recharge, which enables more aggressive attack chains which are substantially harder on endurance. 

 

I know when building my Claws/SR and my DB/SR, I absolutely had to build in extra endurance management (Physical Perfection, Conserve Power - though the Claws/SR doesn't really need Conserve Power, as previously noted - she's just barely end-positive without it) to account for their highly demanding attack chains (Claws less so, because Claws lighter on end, but if you push it hard enough it can still get pretty tight.   My DB/SR, on the other hand, required going to great lengths to tame her endurance usage, but that's because she has truly absurd amounts of global recharge (her final build will have 285%, but she's not quite there yet).

 

But my other /SR scrappers, like my MA/SR, are not nearly as hard on endurance because they don't need the same degree of recharge to make their attack chains go that my Claws/SR and DB/SR do.

 

Those high-recharge attack chains tend to be very, very rough on endurance.  That's not SR's fault, though.  It's just that SR makes getting to those levels of recharge a little bit easier than it otherwise would be.

[Gloomfall]

11 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

 

I suspect that one reason people may think SR's endurance costs are higher than they actually are is the free 20% +recharge that SR gives.  This makes it easier to attain high global recharge, which enables more aggressive attack chains which are substantially harder on endurance. 

 

Those high-recharge attack chains tend to be very, very rough on endurance.  That's not SR's fault, though.  It's just that SR makes getting to those levels of recharge a little bit easier than it otherwise would be.

 

With that said though.. it would be nice, at least for me to have something additional built in to mitigate it a bit more. Especially with the main suggestion of this thread being the Speedster Power Set, which would likely have a number of quick hitting attacks. Especially when paired with Super Reflexes.

 

You may be able to build around it for the most part but that doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist.

 

The relative danger of allowing a Super Reflexes character to have a bit more recovery is also fairly low. It's not like I'm asking to increase the amount of defenses they get, give them immunities to anything, or to give them some way to gain additional damage modifiers. Especially if as claimed by most people, they don't run into endurance issues for the most part. Because for those people, functionally.. Nothing would change at all.

[Stormwalker]

33 minutes ago, Gloomfall said:

 

With that said though.. it would be nice, at least for me to have something additional built in to mitigate it a bit more. Especially with the main suggestion of this thread being the Speedster Power Set, which would likely have a number of quick hitting attacks. Especially when paired with Super Reflexes.

 

You may be able to build around it for the most part but that doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist.

 

The relative danger of allowing a Super Reflexes character to have a bit more recovery is also fairly low. It's not like I'm asking to increase the amount of defenses they get, give them immunities to anything, or to give them some way to gain additional damage modifiers. Especially if as claimed by most people, they don't run into endurance issues for the most part. Because for those people, functionally.. Nothing would change at all.

 

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea, since I think it would narrow the gap between Energy Aura and SR (and also between Shield and SR) a little bit, since both of those sets outperform SR (though neither by a large margin).

 

On the flip side, though, the only sets that give Recovery buffs do so for reasons (though it's not really apparent in the case of Regeneration, since Regeneration's Recovery buff is an artifact of when Instant Healing was a very expensive toggle power rather than a click; back then, Regen really needed that extra Recovery.  Not so much now).

 

What I might suggest as an alternative is that you work the Recovery buff into your attack set concept somehow.  The Recovery buff would be a bit more thematic for a Speed-themed set, because speedsters need an accelerated metabolism to maintain that rapid pace.  Perhaps do something like Staff, where your attacks apply a small self-buff?

[Uun]

12 minutes ago, Gloomfall said:

You may be able to build around it for the most part but that doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist.

The endurance cost for SR's 3 toggles (0.78 end/s) is no higher than most other sets. If you're having endurance issues (other than against end draining foes), it's your build, not the set.