page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Shield Defense Adjustments

[The Curator]

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Shield Defense

• Shield Charge
  • Power is now a true Pseudopet (this should not affect how the power works outside inheriting the caster's caps)
  • This attack should now break hide.
• One With The Shield
  • (PvE Only) Recharge lowered to 160s
  • (PvE Only) Duration reduced from 120s to 40s
  • (PvE Only) Crash eliminated 
  • Now grants 25% Res(-end and -recovery)
  • Now grants +20% Absorb (enhanceable) for 40s
  • Now executes a PBAoE shield slam on activation doing minor AoE damage and knocking down some foes around you

[Glacier Peak]

Overall thoughts - A number of proposed changes (on open beta) to the power to compensate for the shortening of duration bring together what I understand as the Homecoming Team’s desire to incentivize more players to pick the One with the Shield who would’ve otherwise skipped it or slot-muled it exclusively, and the contrasting players who choose the power (on live) for it’s incredible benefits and duration in situations where the MaxHP buff and +recovery (and mez protection and resistance) allowed for prolonged melee encounters using layered mitigation. The shortened duration of 40 seconds also comes with the reduced recharge time, potentially allowing for more frequent cycles of the power in rotation with the aforementioned layered damage mitigation tools like Rune of Protection, Melee Core Hybrid, or Eye of the Magus/Inspirations. To compensate for the shortened reduction in power duration, One with the Shield now stands to gain the removal of the crash (-60%) endurance, an enhanceable 20% Absorb for 40.00s, an effective +recovery (no change to live), +recovery resistance, and -end resistance trio of buffs, and Shield Slam aka Shield Charge's little cousin. I’ll go in to more detail below for my thoughts on each of these additions.

Crash Eliminated: This is appreciated on the Shield Defense powerset due to the powerset’s heavier consumption of endurance (to keep it’s four toggles going). It honestly feels weird not having a crash notification that tells me I’m about to experience a decrease in my layered mitigation effectiveness – it’s what prompts me to activate Rune of Protection on my specific build. I think with time I will get used to this change, but 40 seconds goes by quickly in situations where I activate OwtS.

Absorb: The 20% Absorb that is enhanceable is a solid addition to the power that compliments the power’s MaxHP bonus. Absolutely support this change considering the Shield Defense powerset lacks any direct healing. This Absorb works well with the Tanker ATO and the Preventative Medicine Proc as well. I only wish that the power’s absorb persisted until it was whittled down by the enemy or replaced by a future use of OwtS instead of at 40 seconds, but I think that’s more due to my lack of experience with Absorb powers and how they work.

Recovery Resistance: The Shield Defense powerset struggles with endurance due to it’s four toggles and 1 click mez resistance/protection, so having a T9 that provides both +recovery and recovery resistance is a well-thought addition to the power. In practice, the recovery resistance can work to create decision space for the player when encountering mobs which drain endurance, and players can grab additional recovery resistance from the base temp station or START vendor to further push this if desired.

-End Resistance: The addition of -end resistance was interesting, but I didn’t find a noticeable difference in fighting mobs (like Sappers) with this aspect of the power. My understanding is that this would provide resistance to -End debuffs that some annoying mobs have, but I could be mistaken.

Shield Slam: Shield Slam is the corollary to Shield Charge. They work very well together – I found myself using Shield Charge, then OwtS, then rotating through my offensive powers. If Shield Slam stays with the power, I would recommend cutting the activation time of OwtS from 2.5 seconds down to 1.5 seconds.

Conclusion – What to keep, what to change - Without getting in to whether or not T9 Armors should all be changed from long duration/long recharge to short/short respectively, I will say that OwtS stands to gain a great deal that it’s powerset was lacking in this proposed iteration of the power. While the expense of shortening it’s duration is a little jarring to me since I came to rely on the power a great deal for my specific build, the more frequent uptime has helped me prioritize my encounters differently. I will not be soloing an AV or GM with my build using OwtS, but I also won’t need to worry about a crash which could take me out of the fight with my team either. I think this power could stand to gain a shorter activation (from 2.5 seconds to 1.5 seconds), especially if the Minor AoE damage component is removed. 
 

Power Description Edit (on all AT versions of Shield Defense) 

Extra "l" at the end of "Special" in the title buff (right at the end). The power description still describes a Crash and does not describe all the new power effects. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:34 AM by Glacier Peak

[nyttyn]

Why is Shield Charge getting changed to break Hide after a literal decade of it not being a problem? It can't crit. 

[lemming]

2 hours ago, nyttyn said:

Why is Shield Charge getting changed to break Hide after a literal decade of it not being a problem? It can't crit. 

My guess.   It never made sense.   No idea when Shield got propagated to Stalkers, so that's probably where the mistake was.

[Mezmera]

Not particularly fond of removing the ability to stay in hide after using Shield Charge but it seems like damage has the potential to improve so I'm neutral on it.  

 

As for One With The Shield some aspects I find neat.  The addition of absorb is highly valuable and the Shield Slam sounds like a novel idea for it.  I do take OWtS but only use it in a pinch which usually can be a longer fight than that 40s.  The old crash wasn't as harsh so I'm not really swayed by its removal since after 2 minutes I'm anticipating that I was able to ride it for what I needed.  Maybe the duration could be bumped a little and some numbers get massaged to compensate. 

 

Mostly my feelings on it line up with @Glacier Peak's.  I'll have to give my BS/SD scrapper a playthrough now to see how I really feel.  The absorb will for sure be nice, we'll see about the slam.  If we can slot damage sets that might be cool.   

[Troo]

9 hours ago, The Curator said:

• (PvE Only) Recharge lowered to 160s
• (PvE Only) Duration reduced from 120s to 40s
• (PvE Only) Crash eliminated 

 

More deviations without justification. Screw players who happen into any of the PvP zones for a temp power, badging, or participating in zone events.

 

8 hours ago, nyttyn said:

Why is Shield Charge getting changed to break Hide after a literal decade of it not being a problem? It can't crit. 

 

+1

 

Are devs handing out t-shirts?

"More same-same and less uniqueness"

"Homogenization for the win!"

"Let's fix it even though no one complains while we ignore other things"

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, lemming said:

My guess.   It never made sense.   No idea when Shield got propagated to Stalkers, so that's probably where the mistake was.

 

This. Game Engine's moved in. Pseudopets can now break hide.

Lightning Rod got the same treatment but at least it can partially crit.

[Black_Assassin]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

This. Game Engine's moved in. Pseudopets can now break hide.

Lightning Rod got the same treatment but at least it can partially crit.

 

Doesn't this also nerf LR on Tanks too since it proc'd really well?

:

[Maelwys]

31 minutes ago, Black_Assassin said:

 

Doesn't this also nerf LR on Tanks too since it proc'd really well?

:

 

Tanker version was a Power Redirection rather than an Entity Creation IIRC.

Which yes, procced much better. 

 

Can't remember exactly when it was changed (may have been a few minor patches previous to this one, there's been a LOT of tweaks lately) but yes they should all be the same lower proc rate now.

[Black_Assassin]

Tank LR is currently power execution on live so its good, sad day for the elec melee tanks 

[Night]

[Apologies for cross-posting, I was told that's the best way to give feedback specifically to the relevant T9s while there's no Focused Feedback thread specifically for those changes]

 

TLDR: The way those T9s are presented are a massive nerf to what an armor T9 offers and the lowered recharge is not worth the massively reduced scaling and duration, cutting down a power's duration to 1/4th and sometimes 1/6th of its current duration, and the quadrupled activation cost. Those are not worthwhile tradeoffs for what we have now and a huge departure from what those T9 armor powers offer currently.

 

Reduced scaling means you'll be hit more often and harder when going up against anything at a higher difficulty or against any enemy group with ToHit buffs, meanwhile right now Elude/Overload/Kuji-In Retsu softcaps you all on its own and it's very useful if you wanna survive an encounter, activate it when getting up with a wakie or a rez and get right into the fights, or if you run out of endurance and don't wanna die from all your toggles dropping. 30 seconds is also not long in a fight and when you activate a godmode you wanna feel powerful and survive whatever bad situation forced you to pop it in the first place.

 

 

I think that defense/resistance-oriented T9s should still keep their current scaling, putting you at defense softcap out of the box is what they do now and lowering that would only be an unwanted nerf. It's also useful in situations when you're just getting up with a wakie, or running out of endurance and needing to get your defenses back instantly so you don't get defeated, or getting attacked by an ambush or a giant monster (particularly during a zone event) and activating that so that you can get right into the action and ignore your actual defensive toggles for the moment. That's also an argument for keeping the endurance cost low as quadrupling it only removes its use as a panic button.

 

Level difference between you and the enemy and their rank will still affect their accuracy to a significant degree even if it's an accuracy modifier instead of ToHit one, there's usually many consecutive attacks swinging at you every few seconds and that builds up. Also big number is nicer than small number.

 

 

Using Moment of Glory as a blueprint for godmodes is also misguided. Moment of Glory started out as a clicky that maxed out your defense and resistance (to all but psi, and probably toxic) for a few minutes but it set your health to 25% and prevented you from healing in any way (aside from increasing your max health number via Dull Pain). The way the power worked was changed because preventing yourself from regenerating health went against the idea of Regeneration as a whole. It was also a death sentence when fighting Psychic Clockwork or Carnies.

 

That way the new (current) Moment of Glory was also changed was so that you would be able to survive a mob's alpha strike, the initial mass of attacks a big group hits you with when you first charge in, before the rest of the team could join you to help you or so that enemy attacks stagger out instead of hitting all at once, allowing for the bulk of the set, its passive regeneration and clicky heals, to keep you alive. 

 

 

Since Moment of Glory seems to be the main inspiration for these changes, we must look at what Regeneration as a set was, from the wiki:

"This set has been in the game for Scrappers since Issue 0."

"This set was included with the original release of Stalkers in Issue 6."

"This set was proliferated to Brutes in Issue 21."

 

For the massive bulk of the game's lifespan, Regeneration was not a set designed to be the sole tank of a team and with its many, many nerfs, only recently was Regeneration given a long-deserved glow-up. This kinda design does not apply to every other armor set.

 

That and low-duration buff powers provide a massive benefit, so instead of nerfing their scaling, they should be heavily buffed to make you actually unkillable for this heavily reduced duration. Even now Moment of Glory offers ~70% defense and resistance values.

 

 

 

There are three main suggestions I propose for those suggested T9s:

 

1. Make them into a mutually-exclusive option to the current existing T9s that retain their current existing scaling, features, cost, and their current existing durations without any changes.

 

2. Make them into a mutually-exclusive option to the current existing T9s that retain their current existing scaling, features, cost, and their current existing durations while also adding minor buffs to the current existing T9s, such as simply removing the crash and reducing their recharge times while still being fully enhanceable, and changing nothing else, no nerfs.

 

3. Try out the idea of applying a form of adaptable recharge into the T9s and turn them into Incarnate Hybrid-style toggles that have a maximum duration (2 minutes and 3 minutes depending on T9, as they have now) but can be detoggled early for reduced recharge time. So that each second of use adds one second of recharge time. Meaning that if you toggle a T9 for 30 seconds, it goes on a 30 second cooldown, but you can also toggle it for its full duration of 2 minutes or 3 minutes depending on the T9, with their full current scaling and all current benefits, and afterwards let it go on a 2 and 3 minute recharge respectively. It could be adjusted so that the power has a base recharge of ~30s onto which use-time is added, so that if you use the T9 for 10 seconds, the recharge time is 40 seconds, and so on, but that's for later.

 

Personally I like option 2 since it's a simple buff to the powers' functions and covers the goals of the changes without turning them into completely different powers. At the very least those suggested T9s should be added as a mutually exclusive option to choose between that and the current T9s and not be forced into these suggested versions as they deviate so much from their current originals that they do not cover the same bases anymore.

[Glacier Peak]

Been testing Shield Charge proc rates and they feel the same on beta versus live. I really don't notice a difference between the pseudopet and true psuedopet in gameplay. 

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

Been testing Shield Charge proc rates and they feel the same on beta versus live. I really don't notice a difference between the pseudopet and true psuedopet in gameplay. 

 

Aside from the Stalker Hide interaction differences, AFAIK the main thing is a higher damage cap from proper modifier inheritance. Proc rate should be the same, so glad it's bearing out in testing...

[Major_Decoy]

Does this change the way that Shield Charge interacts with Assassin's Mark: Chance to recharge build-up? As I recall, the chance to recharge build-up proc wasn't active upon zoning until after you had used Shield Charge. (If it was slotted in Shield Charge)

Edited 7 hours ago by Major_Decoy

[Neiska]

And just like that, I can hear many Shield Stalkers suddenly scream into the oblivion as they are moved to the back of folks character pages, snuffed out like candles in the wind.

[Glacier Peak]

So are people thinking other Stalker powers should just do damage, but not notify enemies? Are there any that do that?

[Indystruck]

If it's gonna break hide it should have a chance to crit.

[Glacier Peak]

17 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

If it's gonna break hide it should have a chance to crit.

Why?

 

Edit: Genuinely confused too guys, glad we're all on the same page. Is there another Stalker secondary powerset power that can do damage and not break hide? I think they fixed Stalker Fire Armor powerset power "Burn," so that leaves... Ninjistu secondary powerset power "Caltrops" and Radiation Armor secondary powerset powers Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero.

Edited 4 hours ago by Glacier Peak

[Indystruck]

Bonkin' some dudes with a melee implement, makes sense to me

[Erratic1]

15 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Why?

 

I think the notion is that attacks from stealth deal critical damage. Obviously, there is nothing written in the fabric of the universe that says there cannot be exceptions, but the question would be why make an exception.

 

I do have one Stalker (that I rarely play at this point) who is EM/Shield, but I do not overly care too much if Shield Charge crits or not. Still, why would it not crit?

[Glacier Peak]

Just now, Erratic1 said:

I think the notion is that attacks from stealth deal critical damage. Obviously, there is nothing written in the fabric of the universe that says there cannot be exceptions, but the question would be why make an exception.

 

I do have one Stalker (that I rarely play at this point) who is EM/Shield, but I do not overly care too much if Shield Charge crits or not. Still, why would it not crit?

I think what is lost here is that I am actually asking a question and not being rhetorical - I don't play Stalkers and I don't know why it would or wouldn't. I am asking for someone who does play them why it Shield Charge should do damage and not break stealth.

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

Does this change the way that Shield Charge interacts with Assassin's Mark: Chance to recharge build-up? As I recall, the chance to recharge build-up proc wasn't active upon zoning until after you had used Shield Charge. (If it was slotted in Shield Charge)

 

That's how that ATO behaves in any attack you have it slotted in.  The chance to doesn't rev up until you use the attack it is slotted in within the instance you've just loaded.  That wouldn't change.  

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I think what is lost here is that I am actually asking a question and not being rhetorical - I don't play Stalkers and I don't know why it would or wouldn't. I am asking for someone who does play them why it Shield Charge should do damage and not break stealth.

 

I did not take the question as rhetorical and tried to answer it from a perspective of how attacks from stealth work.

 

As for not breaking Stealth, that seems silly ala, "OMG! Something just pummeled everyone in the office, leaving broken bones and bruises on everyone! Oh well, back to work."

 

 

[Mezmera]

9 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I think what is lost here is that I am actually asking a question and not being rhetorical - I don't play Stalkers and I don't know why it would or wouldn't. I am asking for someone who does play them why it Shield Charge should do damage and not break stealth.

 

I figure it was because they didn't want to get into the guts of changing the pseudopet to inherit AT modifiers.  Which means it was getting lower regular damage output as it could have been and things like Fury weren't affecting it.  Leaving it so that it doesn't break hide was likely one of the byproducts of the old pseudopet behavior and was a bone left for people due to how it operated at the time.  

 

I don't disagree that if you're blasting someone out of the shadows you're breaking stealth, though I don't disagree with others that now maybe it should have some chance to crit as per that's what the AT does with their first attacks from the shadows.  

Edited 4 hours ago by Mezmera

[Glacier Peak]

18 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

I did not take the question as rhetorical and tried to answer it from a perspective of how attacks from stealth work.

 

As for not breaking Stealth, that seems silly ala, "OMG! Something just pummeled everyone in the office, leaving broken bones and bruises on everyone! Oh well, back to work."

17 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

I figure it was because they didn't want to get into the guts of changing the pseudopet to inherit AT modifiers.  Which means it was getting lower regular damage output as it could have been and things like Fury weren't affecting it.  Leaving it so that it doesn't break hide was likely one of the byproducts of the old pseudopet behavior and was a bone left for people due to how it operated at the time.  

 

I don't disagree that if you're blasting someone out of the shadows you're breaking stealth, though I don't disagree with others that now maybe it should have some chance to crit as per that's what the AT does with their first attacks from the shadows.  

Thank you both!