Metapower Manipulation Power Pool

[Steampunkette]

Based on a few brief notes in the KB to KD Inherent Toggle thread, I threw this together to offer up some interesting solutions to common "Problems" in City of Heroes and one power mostly useful for -fun-.

 

Tier 1) "Focused Power Use" (20% End Discount, Toggle .56 end/sec, 45 second Cooldown, Detoggles on CC)

Tier 2) "Explosive Effort" (KD to KB, Click 30 second duration, 3 minute Cooldown)

Tier 3) "Restrained Impulses" (KB to KD, Click, 90 second duration, 3 minute Cooldown)

Tier 4) "Directed Force" (KB to KU, Toggle, 1 minute duration, 2 minute Cooldown)

Tier 5) "Empathic Investment" (Sleep to Stun, Click, 30 second Duration, 5 minute Cooldown)

 

Focused Power Use: By creating an Endurance Discount Toggle we grant a power that basically anyone can take advantage of. 20% end discount -might- be too high, but it would give lower level (Pre-Cardiac) characters a bit more sustain at the cost of a power and power pool selection. Definitely dip-worthy, the higher end cost is partially offset by it's function, but could result in overuse of endurance resulting in crashing the power.

 

Explosive Effort: Mostly a funtime giggle power, it can cause knockdown powers to provide an increased survivability benefit by forcing enemies to get back up from across the room.

 

Restrained Impulses: Something a fairly decent number of players might enjoy, if only because it would allow them to provide a temporary shift to their Knockback Powers. Might be best to pair it with a small (5-10%) damage debuff if only to offset the damage increase of things like Bonfire. Or we could make some powers unaffected by Restrained Impulses to avoid too much damage-shifting.

 

Directed Force: KB and KU are largely interchangeable when it comes to overall survivability, but KU createsw a teaming AoE damage increase relative to the survivability. By making people invest in the power pool -before- they can unlock Directed Force I think we safely offset that increase.

 

Empathic Investment: Let's face it, sleeps are almost useful in a team-based environment. But a Stun is -everyone's- best friend! By making it a capstone we increase the cost of the increased survivability of changing Sleep to Stun. I think that's a solid cost to effect ratio.

[Steampunkette]

It should be noted: This would be one of the -MOST- Laborious power pools ever created, even without balancing time. 

 

Because all of these modifiers are power-external there would need to be separate entries into every power that these powers interact with that could be activated, or de-activated, based on which power is currently active. Any of the Knockback and Knockdown interacting powers, for example, would -need- to be mutually exclusive.

 

Also, rather than making them always on toggles I largely chose to make them click powers or durational toggles. This could interact with Recharge powers, it could not. The impetus is to create a larger initial endurance cost for most of the powers, and to make sure these aren't "Always On Perfect Powers". This is a Power Pool meant to provide some options and variety, not utterly change the way the game is played.

 

As to Animations? Just give it some general Flexing/Build Up/Headgrip type stuff and maybe a small aura that can be made minimum effects. Give 'em all 1.6 or 2.0 animation times, and let 'er rip.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Steampunkette

[justicebeliever]

+1...I like #1 as a complement/couterpoint to Hasten...I love the interplay with KB/KD/KU

[MunkiLord]

I'm all for this, especially those first two powers!

[Zepp]

That last one might be a little OP... Just think about Siren's Call + Flash Freeze + Frozen Aura... That is more than half a minute at Mag 8 stun, around 45s at Mag 5 stun, and well over a minute at Mag 3 stun... and that is without spamming Siren's call every 10s or so... In fact, with Siren's Call alone, you could stack around a Mag 21 AoE stun and keep it up while doing damage...

 

Actually, thinking about the time limit, you would be looking at a perma-hasten level build having it up a third of the time... That means that you would be able to use Siren's Call once every 5s or so, plus animation time, that is around 4 stacks of mag 3 in 30s (lasting around 75s) which means that you would likely still have a mag 9 stun going the next time the T5 was up... realistically speaking...

Edited August 26, 2019 by Zepp

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, Zepp said:

That last one might be a little OP... Just think about Siren's Call + Flash Freeze + Frozen Aura... That is more than half a minute at Mag 8 stun, around 45s at Mag 5 stun, and well over a minute at Mag 3 stun... and that is without spamming Siren's call every 10s or so... In fact, with Siren's Call alone, you could stack around a Mag 21 AoE stun and keep it up while doing damage...

Sure. If you're a Sonic/Cold/Cold Mastery blaster you can spend 3 powers into a power pool to unlock a specifically great combo that requires you to use 3 different powers (or one over and over that does piddly damage) in order to maintain it.

 

For 6 power choice investment and a click power every 10 seconds to maintain it and the ability to only use it for 30 seconds every 5 minutes (Which you could arguably get down to 2 minutes reasonably) with no set-slotting options for at -least- 2 of those powers...

 

I think we're in the realm of "You've paid for it"

[Zepp]

If you are perma-hasten (a lot of builds get there) you are looking at 80s or less. That means, if you spam Siren's call for 1/3 of your attacks you will still be doing decent damage and keeping all enemies in a spawn on extreme lockdown beyond troller or dom levels while keeping a more damaging combo the other 2/3s of the time. That means with any blaster, sentinel, or corruptor you can invest four powers (Siren's Call, Empathic Investment, and two unlock) and five-six slots (for or five for Fortunata Hypnosis, and one more to two slot Empathic Investment with Recharge)  a 75s mag 3 stun with a 5s cooldown... That is more than a return on investment...

There are other powers out there that you can get over half a minute easy with sleep on five-ten second timers. Mesmerize could give you a single-target stun that lasts nigh two minutes... That being said, in general, ranged attack sets have better sleeps than control sets, but the T5 would give high damage ATs easy access to controls that are out of the reach of CC-focused classes...

[Steampunkette]

5 minutes ago, Zepp said:

If you are perma-hasten (a lot of builds get there) you are looking at 80s or less. That means, if you spam Siren's call for 1/3 of your attacks you will still be doing decent damage and keeping all enemies in a spawn on extreme lockdown beyond troller or dom levels while keeping a more damaging combo the other 2/3s of the time. That means with any blaster, sentinel, or corruptor you can invest four powers (Siren's Call, Empathic Investment, and two unlock) and five-six slots (for or five for Fortunata Hypnosis, and one more to two slot Empathic Investment with Recharge)  a 75s mag 3 stun with a 5s cooldown... That is more than a return on investment...

There are other powers out there that you can get over half a minute easy with sleep on five-ten second timers. Mesmerize could give you a single-target stun that lasts nigh two minutes... That being said, in general, ranged attack sets have better sleeps than control sets, but the T5 would give high damage ATs easy access to controls that are out of the reach of CC-focused classes...

It would give high damage ATs who choose one specific power and one specific primary powerset an amazing stunlock ability for 30 seconds out of 80. There's no other fast-recharging AoE Sleep out there.

 

And no. You wouldn't be doing decent damage. For the sake of argument lets say you've gotten the Siren's Song recharge to 5 seconds. It has a 2.44 second Cast Time. So you use it once and then 7.44 seconds later you get another hit of it. Each one deals 60 damage at level 50 fully slotted. During that 7 seconds you've got 4.56 seconds to fire off another attack or two. Howl being the most obvious choice ('Cause AoE). Fully slotted that's 100.9 damage and you've just spent another 2.5 seconds casting it. You're down to 2 seconds left and all your abilities have at least a 1.18 cast time, so if you wanna stack that stun you get 1 single target attack -or- you can knock enemies away for 57 more damage.

 

You stack it, you get the boss (Unless it's Arachnos) you're back to 7.44 seconds. By throwing off that long cast time animation over, and over, and over, you're more than halving your possible DPS for Single Target in order to lock things down. This is true whether you're a Blaster or Corruptor... Even Sentinels. And after 4 stacks, you're back to casting sleeps around

 

 

 

That said. Maybe you're right. The easy answer is to make the Duration Different. See, this wouldn't just replace the word "Sleep" with "Stun" in the power. It'd be more like Fiery Embrace's interaction with Scrapper powers.

 

A separate tag would need to be made at the end of the power entry for the Stun effect and to remove the Sleep effect. We could always just set the Stun Duration as half that of the Sleep Duration. Or 3/4s. Or whatever testing presents as appropriate.

[Rylas]

Cross posting from the other thread because I didn't see this one already started.
 

Focused Power Use seems slightly odd only because it's a toggle with end cost. Would it discount itself? And why detoggle as a self-affecting power? Would a half as strong discount as an auto power be balanced? 

Explosive Effort makes as a click with longer cooldown since KD to KB potentially provides more mitigation.

Restrained Impulses would make more sense as a toggle without end cost or cool down, but regarding a concern you brought up earlier, powers that only do KB should probably be unaffected by it. And I only say it would make more sense this way as it would give the player an on-demand ability to switch play styles, much like Adaptation in Bio Armor.

Directed Force again, think this makes sense as a toggle without end cost or cool down. KB to KU wouldn't add any mitigation since the foes melee attacks would still be usable once they got up. But I'm open to hearing why either should be time limited.

Empathic Investment Nice to see a mix up away from KB/KD/KU mechanics. Could this additionally change other mez or secondary effects with exclusive power options. For example, changing Fear to Stun, but you can only pick one switch up. Clearly, switches would need to be evaluated for balance reasons, but Sleep/Stun seems a combo that might only be useful to few people. 

 

Can this be evolution in discussion be an olive branch?

 

EDIT: Oh, and maybe instead of a pool, it's content unlocked. Like the patron pools. Which provides further difficulty for KB haters to justify their demands.

[Steampunkette]

9 minutes ago, Rylas said:

Cross posting from the other thread because I didn't see this one already started.
 

Focused Power Use seems slightly odd only because it's a toggle with end cost. Would it discount itself? And why detoggle as a self-affecting power? Would a half as strong discount as an auto power be balanced? 

Explosive Effort makes as a click with longer cooldown since KD to KB potentially provides more mitigation.

Restrained Impulses would make more sense as a toggle without end cost or cool down, but regarding a concern you brought up earlier, powers that only do KB should probably be unaffected by it. And I only say it would make more sense this way as it would give the player an on-demand ability to switch play styles, much like Adaptation in Bio Armor.

Directed Force again, think this makes sense as a toggle without end cost or cool down. KB to KU wouldn't add any mitigation since the foes melee attacks would still be usable once they got up. But I'm open to hearing why either should be time limited.

Empathic Investment Nice to see a mix up away from KB/KD/KU mechanics. Could this additionally change other mez or secondary effects with exclusive power options. For example, changing Fear to Stun, but you can only pick one switch up. Clearly, switches would need to be evaluated for balance reasons, but Sleep/Stun seems a combo that might only be useful to few people. 

 

Can this be evolution in discussion be an olive branch?

 

EDIT: Oh, and maybe instead of a pool, it's content unlocked. Like the patron pools. Which provides further difficulty for KB haters to justify their demands.

Focused Power Use is set up as a toggle with a long recharge because it's a -very- nice power! 20% End Reduction would save a lot of builds out there a lot of endurance slotting, freeing them up for more damage/defense/other survivability. By making it a toggle that gets broken with CC (like Taunt Toggles or Offensive Toggles) we create a risk element. Do you base your build around something that -can- become detoggled and suck wind when it breaks until it recharges? Probably! But it creates an element of risk to reward. Also it makes you hate Malta -EVEN MORE-.

 

Explosive Effort: Understandable, but KD powers are less common than KB powers and the mitigation provided isn't going to be a comprehensive or big quantity. Especially compared to the potential damage increase for Restrained Impulse or Directed Force...

 

Restrained Impulse: I feel like a cost-free toggle is too much for a Pool Power. Making it a Permable Click gives it a quick out of the box turnaround while still giving it an endurance investment (That gets lowered by Focused Power Use if you take it). Sort of like Hasten or Practiced Brawler.

 

Directed Force: Doesn't add Mitigation. DOES increase damage values. Enemies that pop up but stay in the same area keep inside AoE powers while a knocked back opponent could wind up out of an AoE. 

 

Empathic Investment: I chose Sleep because it's specifically something that gets largely shafted in team play by AoEs. Fears don't. Neither do any other form of crowd control. 

 

There's no need for an olive branch. I'm not angry or anything.

[Rylas]

14 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Focused Power Use is set up as a toggle with a long recharge because it's a -very- nice power! 20% End Reduction would save a lot of builds out there a lot of endurance slotting, freeing them up for more damage/defense/other survivability. By making it a toggle that gets broken with CC (like Taunt Toggles or Offensive Toggles) we create a risk element. Do you base your build around something that -can- become detoggled and suck wind when it breaks until it recharges? Probably! But it creates an element of risk to reward. Also it makes you hate Malta -EVEN MORE-.

There's no denying 20% end reduction would be a great advantage, especially as a Tier 1 choice. But the implementation would play massive favorites. For ATs that receive Mez protection powers, there's basically no risk. It would provide an unfair advantage to Brutes, Scrappers, etc. I know a lot of Dark Armor users who would invest for this power. Considering the level of community debate around the -Def in Rage, I could see this becoming a point of contention. 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Rylas

[Steampunkette]

2 minutes ago, Rylas said:

There's no denying 20% end reduction would be a great advantage, especially as a Tier 1 choice. But the implementation would play massive favorites. For ATs that receive Mez protection powers, there's basically no risk. It would provide an unfair advantage to Brutes, Scrappers, etc. I know a lot of Dark Armor users who would invest for this power. Considering the level of community debate around the -Def in Rage, I could see this becoming a point of contention. 

Definitely possible. Sentinels, too. Also Widows and Soldiers of Arachnos, PBs, and WSs... Rune of Protection would protect you for a limited time but it's a -deep- investment.

 

But the Support ATs, Blasters, and Control characters, also Masterminds, would run a higher risk of getting detoggled, it's true.  Of course they're also all at range so not getting the PBAoE or regular AoE mezzes aimed at the tank. (If they're on a team) and if they're soloing they could pop a Break Free ahead of a fight with mezzer mobs...

 

But maybe we could or should make different ATs get different levels of benefit from it? Not 100% sure on implementation, after all. I threw this together over about 6 minutes of going "Oooo! What if!"

 

 

 

[Yoru-hime]

It's a neat idea, and I like it in general. It basically creates a bypass to the Cottage Rule for some powers, without forcing that change on those who love them the way they are.

 

A few thoughts:

 

I'm a bit concerned about how specialized all the powers are and how that interacts with the pool power requirements. Telling someone with no Knock powers that they have to take a power that literally does nothing for them to get the sleep mod power they want just doesn't sit very well. Kick is bad enough, but it at least always serves a function and one that the original devs were trying to make somewhat appealing all the way up to the end. The pool power requirements have been proven to be fungible in the past with travel powers, perhaps they should be tinkered with here as well.

 

I'd also ideally want to keep the "KB tax" to one power pick, if we can. The less we punish someone's build for having knockback powers, the better, in my opinion.

 

I do think that steps would need to be taken to keep modified sleeps from completely overshadowing actual stun powers, even if they're only intermittently available. I think those durations just weren't intended for mez powers that aren't broken by damage. A simple "cut duration by N%" would probably cover it.

 

I also wonder at the need for three Knock related powers. Being able to choose between KU and KD is nice, but might we give poor forgotten Intangibility a way to come in out of the cold instead? Not sure how just off the top of my head, but if I'm thinking of powers that we never use while teamed (or at all, in most cases), Intangibles come in pretty high on the list.

 

Overall, a very interesting idea. Thanks for posting it up.

[Steampunkette]

It wouldn't actually be "Cut Sleep Duration X by Y seconds" It would be "Mag 3 Stun Z Seconds". A completely separate entry in the power itself. So we could set the stun duration however long was appropriate.

 

The "Tax" to get it would be a bit steep. One power you might use, another power you -MIGHT- use if your build has some KB or KD... and then a pretty powerful ability that makes your Sleeps even more useful than wide are long-lasting fairly fast recharging crowd control (that breaks on a single point of damage, granted). It's a big benefit, and I kind of feel like both Controllers and Dominators would benefit, -heavily- from the FPU power. Like... A lot a lot. Almost all their Primary/Secondary powers are clicks with fairly high costs!

 

As to the KB Tax: Power Pools can be set up so you can take the first 3 powers without having to take any prior powers. So the "KB Tax" would still be just one power pick.

 

Intangibles are just too rare. There's what? Four or five in the entire game? And what would you even -do- with an Intangible power to make it still useful but different?

[kelly Rocket]

I like this suggestion, but it feels so mandatory, and power slots being as tight as they are, I'd want this as an inherent pool like Fitness, tbh.

[Steampunkette]

Just now, kelly Rocket said:

I like this suggestion, but it feels so mandatory, and power slots being as tight as they are, I'd want this as an inherent pool like Fitness, tbh.

Too much power as an inherent. Any and all of these powers would need to be nerfed into the ground from where they -are- to be made into inherents.

[Megajoule]

But they aren't powers, really. That's just a workaround because it's too hard to implement them as options. Right?

[kelly Rocket]

Just now, Steampunkette said:

Too much power as an inherent. Any and all of these powers would need to be nerfed into the ground from where they -are- to be made into inherents.

Disagree. The knock* powers are something I definitely think everyone should just have. Only Focused Power Use and the pinnacle power in this are really super strong.

 

And as it is, there are already 3-4 power pools I consider practically mandatory on every AT, so adding another pool like this when I can never even find room for a damn travel power on a build in the current state of things would just have me tearing my hair out.

[Steampunkette]

22 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

But they aren't powers, really. That's just a workaround because it's too hard to implement them as options. Right?

They're as much powers as Hasten or Field Medic are powers. They're powers whose only purpose is to modify other powers.

 

I just made a whole pool of them, instead of one power in a pool.

21 minutes ago, kelly Rocket said:

Disagree. The knock* powers are something I definitely think everyone should just have. Only Focused Power Use and the pinnacle power in this are really super strong.

 

And as it is, there are already 3-4 power pools I consider practically mandatory on every AT, so adding another pool like this when I can never even find room for a damn travel power on a build in the current state of things would just have me tearing my hair out.

Yes, Kelly. I know how you disagree and why. I also know you're the kind of person who would DEMAND everyone on your teams use the KB/KD or KB/KU power and kick anyone who doesn't use it. Which is a big part of why I don't hold your opinion on this matter as being particularly unbiased.

 

Make no mistake: Aside from Explosive Effort every power in this proposed pool could create big balance changes... And the only reason that one wouldn't is because the increase of survivability from KB over KD is around the same as the DPS loss from an ungrouped NPC during an AoE Slogfest. Making them Power Pool Picks is itself a balancing factor.

 

Making these inherent to all characters would require some nerfing. Like... Immune to Recharge Changes style nerfing. FPU's End Discount being dropped to 7-10% style nerfing.

 

Maybe some of these powers would be "Nearly Mandatory" for certain builds. But I'd take "Nearly Mandatory" over "Use it or I'm kicking you!"

Edited August 26, 2019 by Steampunkette

[kelly Rocket]

Actually I rarely, if ever lead teams. I don't like the social pressure. And I wouldn't personally kick people from my teams unless they're using knockback badly.

 

I just find that 99% of people who love knockback do in fact use it badly.

 

PS: Knockback isn't meaningfully better mitigation than knockdown.

Edited August 26, 2019 by kelly Rocket

[Steampunkette]

43 minutes ago, kelly Rocket said:

Actually I rarely, if ever lead teams. I don't like the social pressure. And I wouldn't personally kick people from my teams unless they're using knockback badly.

 

I just find that 99% of people who love knockback do in fact use it badly.

 

PS: Knockback isn't meaningfully better mitigation than knockdown.

You made a big show about leading meaning you get total control, Kelly. The ship on me thinking otherwise has sailed.

[Zepp]

Empathic Investment

Siren's - > Howl - > Shockwave

X4-5ish

Howl - > Shockwave

X8-10ish

Rinse & Repeat

 

Also, cutting down times would not deal with the fact that troller/dom sleeps tend to be shorter durations. Some excessively short...

 

There are other fairly high speed long duration blaster/buff sleeps out there. They make sense in context, but you are suggesting making a solo play isolation mechanic a team CC balance nightmare...

 

[Steampunkette]

2 hours ago, Zepp said:

Empathic Investment

Siren's - > Howl - > Shockwave

X4-5ish

Howl - > Shockwave

X8-10ish

Rinse & Repeat

 

Also, cutting down times would not deal with the fact that troller/dom sleeps tend to be shorter durations. Some excessively short...

 

There are other fairly high speed long duration blaster/buff sleeps out there. They make sense in context, but you are suggesting making a solo play isolation mechanic a team CC balance nightmare...

 

Yes. I did the math, before, remember? Thanks to cast times you could get off that chain 4 times within the duration of the Empathic Investment. (Can't reduce Animation Times, after all). And thanks to Shockwave and Siren's doing piddly damage you'd be giving up your role as DPS to instead stun-lock a group for a certain amount of time (Unless you miss) based on the duration of the stun tied to Empathic Investment.

 

HOWL makes sense. But there's no sane reason to keep using Shockwave when stuff like Shout exists. No matter how you slice it, the Blaster would be giving up a LOT of damage just to try and permastun some enemies. Period. And if that's the case the Survival to DPS shift is there to work on a balance.

 

And dude, I don't care how long the Sleeps are. I don't. I just do not give 1 flying frog fart. 'Cause we can make the Stun last for as long or as short as we want.

[kelly Rocket]

3 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

You made a big show about leading meaning you get total control, Kelly. The ship on me thinking otherwise has sailed.

Yes I did. But notice I never in that post said anything about me being the team leader. I would like to see team leaders get that power, and I do think the team leader's job is to dictate to the team how we approach the missions. That doesn't mean I expect to be that dictator.

[Steampunkette]

8 hours ago, kelly Rocket said:

Yes I did. But notice I never in that post said anything about me being the team leader. I would like to see team leaders get that power, and I do think the team leader's job is to dictate to the team how we approach the missions. That doesn't mean I expect to be that dictator.

Cool beans. Dictatorship one step removed from your hands is still a dictatorship.

 

Part of the reason I was cool with suddenly whipping up a whole power pool of "Metapowers" was the idea that because it was an explicit investment into one's build there'd be LESS little dictators running around demanding everyone use their KB to KD toggle or get booted from the team. Making it an inherent means it's in everyone's arsenal. Meaning those dictators have got some ground to stand on, shaky as it is, to appeal to authority.

 

And I never want to encourage that kind of miserably behavior in a game. Much less one that I love so dearly with a community so welcoming.