PB and WS changes?

[The Trouble]

The Kheldian culture on the forums is primarily: "You need enhancement sets to be competitive."  Here's the bitter pill that I'm having a hard time with lately...  that sentiment is mostly true.

 

I can build a very solid Tanker with just Single Origin Enhancements.  There are power sets that can soft-cap their protective powers with the regular stuff you can buy from stores.  I know Kheldians were designed to require thoughtful play, but other archetypes - Including VEATs - can dip their toe into the min-max metagame without spending the hundreds of millions that we do.  Then, even after a "perfect" build, I can still be seen as sub-par in hardcore communities.

 

This is not the only measure of an archetype... but it does illustrate that something is amiss.  I want more people to enjoy Khelds the way I do, but the generosity of the archetypes' limitations make them a hard sell.

[Jason0162]

4 hours ago, The Trouble said:

The Kheldian culture on the forums is primarily: "You need enhancement sets to be competitive."  Here's the bitter pill that I'm having a hard time with lately...  that sentiment is mostly true.

 

I can build a very solid Tanker with just Single Origin Enhancements.  There are power sets that can soft-cap their protective powers with the regular stuff you can buy from stores.  I know Kheldians were designed to require thoughtful play, but other archetypes - Including VEATs - can dip their toe into the min-max metagame without spending the hundreds of millions that we do.  Then, even after a "perfect" build, I can still be seen as sub-par in hardcore communities.

 

This is not the only measure of an archetype... but it does illustrate that something is amiss.  I want more people to enjoy Khelds the way I do, but the generosity of the archetypes' limitations make them a hard sell.

 

I don't agree. Please do not misunderstand me - everyone has different expectations and enjoys different things and I am in no way trying to devalue your own perspective. Rather, I am asking you to consider a different persepctive.

 

HEAT's were originally designed with SO's. They can be competitive and balanced with nothing more than SO's, however, when discussing this there is one part of the game experience that is more often than not entirely left out - The inherant. CoH was designed as a MMO. Massively Multiplayer Online Game. The vision was always for players to team and do content together. It's not something that is as popular as it once was and the implementation of the invention system made soloing much more viable for all AT's but the fact remains that the core of the game is still designed for team play. 

 

The HEAT inherant was also designed to take advantage of that and really make the AT more powerful and more adaptable than any of the other AT's. The good news is that the inherant does that successfully and very well. Change how you look at team play and use the inherant to its utmost and your entire experience will change. 

 

That said, I am for some tweaks and QoL changes for the AT as I and others have mentioned in the thread already. I am particularly interested in removing reliance on Lightform and status protection built in somewhere but in general I really like HEAT's and I do not want them changed into something unrecognizable. 

 

My 2 cents.

 

Edited February 9 by Jason0162

[MechaCrash]

I see that "can PB knockback be turned down/off" was already brought up, but I am going to echo that one again. I feel like I always have to hold back when I'm using my Peacebringer, because throwing enemies all over the place is not worth whatever damage I can get with the limited AOE I have in human form. I just kind of roll with it in Nova form, as I did with my Warshade back in the day, because I felt that the damage was worth the inconvenience. But human form PB? Absolutely not.

 

A much taller order would be the ability to get extra slots. If I could trade some of my later power picks for more slots, it'd free up a lot of breathing room, because the reason Kheldians feel so much harder to build than any other AT, Soldiers and Widows included, is because you have way more powers in need of slots, so you need to lean on sets and/or HamiOs so you're actually good at anything, instead of being just kind of mediocre all around, and "mediocre all around" just doesn't feel good to play. But I am not realistically expecting this one, because I remember Castle tried to do stuff to grant extra slots back on live, and things broke pretty badly, so this is one I'll call a pipe dream.

[SableShrike]

Just had a wild thought:

 

How would you guys feel about changing the KB effect on Warshades to the Pull effect we see on Singularity or Whirlpool?

 

It makes WAY more sense when you look at what gravity and supermassive black holes actually do.

 

They drag crap in and crush it beyond our time line.

[tidge]

On 2/18/2025 at 5:03 AM, MechaCrash said:

I see that "can PB knockback be turned down/off" was already brought up, but I am going to echo that one again. I feel like I always have to hold back when I'm using my Peacebringer, because throwing enemies all over the place is not worth whatever damage I can get with the limited AOE I have in human form. I just kind of roll with it in Nova form, as I did with my Warshade back in the day, because I felt that the damage was worth the inconvenience. But human form PB? Absolutely not.

 

Keep in mind...

 

On 2/8/2025 at 8:30 PM, Jason0162 said:

HEAT's were originally designed with SO's.

 

And that Nova Form is available really early, giving Kheldians access to more ranged attacks at a level sooner than any other AT (originally, before prestige attacks)... and that Knockback is a mitigation for the terrible defenses of Nova Form. Nova Form makes Kheldians OP, but only for a very limited level range of content, and those are levels that many players breeze right past!

 

@Jason0162 point is a good one. On the days of Live, Kheldians were really quite good using the non-human forms at the levels those forms are available... since Live (on HC) players can get access to their higher tier powers earlier in the build (all ATs) so it isn't like a Dwarf form with all its tricks at level 20 is going to seem all that impressive when a Tanker/Brute/Scrapper isn't going to have to wait much longer (in terms of levels) to get an even more impressive choice of powers.

 

I find it disappointing, but the price Kheldians pay for getting a suite of powers with one form pick is that those powers never get any better, except with slots.

[AmbiguousOmen]

Rather than removing powers from the Forms, as the OP said, I do think I'd support more hybridizing between human and Dwarf/Nova as an avenue to improving Kheldians, but mostly in the other direction:

 

Make the human-only powers that duplicate Dwarf/Nova powers available to human-form as soon as you pick the form power (i.e. give PBs Bright Nova Scatter at level 4 rather than picking the duplicate Proton Scatter at 8 ) and replace these with new powers.

 

Some of the new powers would then be usable in both human and the appropriate Dwarf/Nova form, allowing Novas to have higher-level blasts with better modifiers and Dwarfs to flesh out an AoE chain, and a few of the new powers would help cement an extra niche for the human form. For example, more pet powers for Warshades and more healing powers for Peacebringers. Animations would be recycled as much as possible.

[RCU7115]

On 1/14/2025 at 4:16 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Hmmm I would buy pizza for the whole dev team if kheldians got native mez protection while in human form. I'd even buy wings if theit damage scalar/cap was raised. Then I'd buy cinnamon rolls as well if the aoe knock back on PB attacks was naturally knockdown rather than knock back.

Get'em Stuffed Crust !!

[chi1701]

On 2/4/2025 at 7:07 PM, Captain Fabulous said:

 

They were always designed to be a jack of all trades, master of none. A little bit Blaster, a little bit Tank, and a little bit Sentinel all in one AT.

 

Prior to Sentinels they were the only AT with ranged attacks and armors. And in some ways a human-only Kheldian is better than a Sentinel as they get a few hard-hitting melee attacks and a number of utility powers Sentinels don't.

 

I think part of the difficulty in building them is that you have so many options. They are not clear-cut or cookie cutter like most other ATs.

 

Took break due to community, constantly demeaning any attempt to make suggestions that could or couldnt make heats easier to play, or give a role to.

 

As a BI form (squid and dwarf) both dont bring anything to the table. Squid attacks are average and Dwarf below average. Constant need to shift to activate self buffs. Heats have a low damage modifier. Dwarfs have no defence, limited status resistance/defence. (no energy drain resistance etc), and forms do not bring any support or team buffs.

 

Could go on, but feel like im still beating the dead horse. 

[UltraAlt]

When you come at it like:

 

1 hour ago, chi1701 said:

Could go on, but feel like im still beating the dead horse. 

 

1 hour ago, chi1701 said:

Took break due to community, constantly demeaning any attempt to make suggestions that could or couldnt make heats easier to play, or give a role to.

 

You aren't making suggestions.

 

This is just complaining:

 

1 hour ago, chi1701 said:

As a BI form (squid and dwarf) both dont bring anything to the table. Squid attacks are average and Dwarf below average. Constant need to shift to activate self buffs. Heats have a low damage modifier. Dwarfs have no defence, limited status resistance/defence. (no energy drain resistance etc), and forms do not bring any support or team buffs.

 

Do you have any actual suggestions?

 

But I have to say, I have never heard of someone playing a squid/dwarf/no human Kheldian before. Kind of sounds interesting, but almost impossible unless you level to a certain point and then /respec

 

I'm unclear why you think Khedlians should have a support role as they are currently. I don't think there is a way to squeeze in a fourth - say - all energy form that is some kind of support mode. I, however, think that is entirely unnecessary.

It seems to me that you are apparently seeing Khelidians as a jack-of-all-trades AT. That was never really my take on them.

 

[chi1701]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

When you come at it like:

 

 

 

You aren't making suggestions.

 

This is just complaining:

 

 

Do you have any actual suggestions?

 

But I have to say, I have never heard of someone playing a squid/dwarf/no human Kheldian before. Kind of sounds interesting, but almost impossible unless you level to a certain point and then /respec

 

I'm unclear why you think Khedlians should have a support role as they are currently. I don't think there is a way to squeeze in a fourth - say - all energy form that is some kind of support mode. I, however, think that is entirely unnecessary.

It seems to me that you are apparently seeing Khelidians as a jack-of-all-trades AT. That was never really my take on them.

 

 

Talking past tense as in made suggestions and got shot down, as in cant make any suggestion that will effect holy trinity of damage, healer and tank.

Would love to have access to more abilities within the forms, remove the healing ability from dwarf and use the base one would be example of balance and not having 2. It can be hard to activate abilities like hasten mid tanking something. Damage buff is the same for nova form, needs activating when human. Do you reduce to healing cooldown but expose your self to more incoming damage, or have longer cooldown reducing hps.

 

Always liked the option of within a team, being able to "off tank" as in support team if mobs are somehow peeled off the tank.

 

My build has 60-70% resistance in dwarf, perma hasten average of 15% defence to all damage.

[arcane]

6 minutes ago, chi1701 said:

 

Talking past tense as in made suggestions and got shot down, as in cant make any suggestion that will effect holy trinity of damage, healer and tank.

Would love to have access to more abilities within the forms, remove the healing ability from dwarf and use the base one would be example of balance and not having 2. It can be hard to activate abilities like hasten mid tanking something. Damage buff is the same for nova form, needs activating when human. Do you reduce to healing cooldown but expose your self to more incoming damage, or have longer cooldown reducing hps.

 

Always liked the option of within a team, being able to "off tank" as in support team if mobs are somehow peeled off the tank.

 

My build has 60-70% resistance in dwarf, perma hasten average of 15% defence to all damage.

There will not and cannot be any Kheldian buffs until the animation cancelling exploit is nuked from orbit. Based on my own observations of how willing the devs are to reign in this set of cheat codes, we can expect the patch in approximately 20 years.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 hours ago, chi1701 said:

 

Took break due to community, constantly demeaning any attempt to make suggestions that could or couldnt make heats easier to play, or give a role to.

 

As a BI form (squid and dwarf) both dont bring anything to the table. Squid attacks are average and Dwarf below average. Constant need to shift to activate self buffs. Heats have a low damage modifier. Dwarfs have no defence, limited status resistance/defence. (no energy drain resistance etc), and forms do not bring any support or team buffs.

 

Could go on, but feel like im still beating the dead horse. 

I'm not sure how to address this. Human form is where all the team, utilities, and debuffs are. You can't leave it out and then complain you don't have them. You say that you have to constantly change forms, but isn't that the point of a shapeshifter class? Why pick shapeshifter forms if you don't want to, y'know, shapeshift? How much you do or do not shift forms is completely up to you. Want to blast away in Nova, go for it. Want to tank a bit, rock your Dwarf. Want to swap back and forth to keep things interesting, have at it. How you play is entirely up to you.

Nova attacks have a 1.2 damage modifier, the highest in the game, higher than Blasters. Dwarf has a 1.0 modifier, higher than Tanks and Brutes. The mez protection in Dwarf is FAR higher than what other melee sets get. You are correct there is no defense in either Nova or Dwarf form, and only a trivial amount in Combat Flight and Shadow Cloak. But you are forgetting that Cosmic Balance/Dark Sustenance boosts your damage, damage resistance, mez protection and can provide slow resistance, depending upon team composition. Electric Armor, Radiation, and Fiery Aura also lack any defense (Dark Armor gets a trivial amount in Cloak of Darkness) and most sets only get 1 or 2 debuff resistances while Regen has none.

The ability to change forms and fill multiple roles on a team is what they bring to the table. Need extra damage, go Nova. Need an off-tank, go Dwarf. Need extra control, healing, debuffing and other assorted utilities, go human.

I'm never against suggestions on how to improve an AT or set, but lets not misrepresent what it actually is and does before making suggestions on how to improve it.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, chi1701 said:

Talking past tense as in made suggestions and got shot down, as in cant make any suggestion that will effect holy trinity of damage, healer and tank.

 

You can make any suggestion you want to.

You can disregard any feedback you want to.

 

I've posted suggestions and I get mixed reactions. I figure that happens with everyone.

You can see how I handle the more abusive stuff in my signature.

You can pick and chose.

 

We are all looking for different things out of the game and play differently.

I think in the need we are all playing and interacting because we enjoy running around in THE CITY.

 

 

 

[chi1701]

12 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I'm not sure how to address this. Human form is where all the team, utilities, and debuffs are. You can't leave it out and then complain you don't have them. You say that you have to constantly change forms, but isn't that the point of a shapeshifter class? Why pick shapeshifter forms if you don't want to, y'know, shapeshift? How much you do or do not shift forms is completely up to you. Want to blast away in Nova, go for it. Want to tank a bit, rock your Dwarf. Want to swap back and forth to keep things interesting, have at it. How you play is entirely up to you.

Nova attacks have a 1.2 damage modifier, the highest in the game, higher than Blasters. Dwarf has a 1.0 modifier, higher than Tanks and Brutes. The mez protection in Dwarf is FAR higher than what other melee sets get. You are correct there is no defense in either Nova or Dwarf form, and only a trivial amount in Combat Flight and Shadow Cloak. But you are forgetting that Cosmic Balance/Dark Sustenance boosts your damage, damage resistance, mez protection and can provide slow resistance, depending upon team composition. Electric Armor, Radiation, and Fiery Aura also lack any defense (Dark Armor gets a trivial amount in Cloak of Darkness) and most sets only get 1 or 2 debuff resistances while Regen has none.

The ability to change forms and fill multiple roles on a team is what they bring to the table. Need extra damage, go Nova. Need an off-tank, go Dwarf. Need extra control, healing, debuffing and other assorted utilities, go human.

I'm never against suggestions on how to improve an AT or set, but lets not misrepresent what it actually is and does before making suggestions on how to improve it.

 

Like i said, its been awhile, not sure what would the max damage be called? cant remember if it is 400 or 500% based on self and team buffs. Apollogies for use of wrong terminology.

Would be nice if dwarf/nova form supported the team more. Cosmic balance unless it has changed, only gets buffed if have other keldians in your team.

Would still be nice to have more self buffs in the forms.

Dont think the amount of damage the forms do is bad.

For me, more ulitlity and qol changes for more fluid gameplay.