Please turn all mez protection powers into toggles

[GM Sijin]

50 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

I'm getting sick of seeing this argument in particular.  Newsflash: if you're end-drained to the point where toggles drop, you're dead regardless of being mez-shielded or not.  Because all the effects that were keeping the enemy's normal, non-mezzing attacks from smearing you across the floor?  Just.  Got.  Switched.  Off.  Which means all that incoming damage WILL hit you, at full force.  You're not mezzed, but it doesn't matter because you're still helpless.

Helpless? No. You have options. You can still control your character. You can use a large variety of inspirations without needing to hit a break free first. You can still activate other powers. You have one less toggle you need to re-activate to get back up to 'not gonna die' mode. You can run to buy time. Can you save all situations? No, but your chances are a lot better than if you got knocked back or stunned/held the moment your toggles dropped. It's also not another toggle draining your endurance if you get hit by -recovery, thus increasing the chances you'll detoggle if you were at low endurance. These are real advantages. I've made use of these advantages in my time playing the game.

26 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

And I'd like to point out that a significant portion of the players don't use Crafting or the Market AT ALL. This is not an option for them.

 

Also, unless you already have a sugar-daddy character to bankroll you, the sets mentioned are among the most popular (and therefore expensive) IOs in the game before getting into the PvP and purple sets. Sure...I can fix my problem for 10-20 million Inf...or I could IO out almost another whole character with it.

Price point is about 7x too high but otherwise that's not inaccurate. You can also opt for Acrobatics, which is certainly available to anyone. Me, I'd rather 4 slot the power ASAP and keep recharge DOs in it up to date if I thought I needed permanent status protection prior to 22.

33 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

I have never thought that using recipes to solve flaws in the game's design to be a good solution.

Valid opinion, but I have conversely never thought that ignoring the tools available to you is a good part of a solid argument for change. If you hate getting knocked back, you have options. Required options, if you're a fire/dark armor character by most people's measure, I suspect. I will say that I agree that set IOs shouldn't be the only recourse available. Fortunately in this case they certainly aren't. I also contend, however, that active mitigation's design is not flawed in the least. It adds meaningful choice. Something that's becoming a lot more rare in games.

[Sura]

1 hour ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

And I'd like to point out that a significant portion of the players don't use Crafting or the Market AT ALL. This is not an option for them.

 

Also, unless you already have a sugar-daddy character to bankroll you, the sets mentioned are among the most popular (and therefore expensive) IOs in the game before getting into the PvP and purple sets. Sure...I can fix my problem for 10-20 million Inf...or I could IO out almost another whole character with it.

 

I have never thought that using recipes to solve flaws in the game's design to be a good solution.

 

Thanks for mentioning my other suggestion though. I really don't want to wholesale change parts of the game unless it's terminally broken. As has been discussed here, click Status ISN'T really bad, simply less desirable and more difficult than the alternatives. Small problem = small fix which was what I suggested.

 

It's hardly a flaw in the game's design, there are holes like this all over for players to deal with.  Fire, Dark, and Energy Armor sets, for example, have more knockback issues than other Armor sets.  There are vulnerabilities to Psychic damage scattered all through the Armor sets.  For that matter, there are entire AT's that have no real methods of dealing with status effects other than trying to use power pools and IO's to help themselves.  These vulnerabilities push players to make meaningful choices, and also encourage a real feeling of growing power as a character levels and finds ways to deal with (or not) those vulnerabilities.

 

Acrobatics, in the Jumping power pool, gives you Knockback Resistance for no INF at all.  As does Rune of Protection in the Sorcery power pool.

 

Steadfast Protection Knockback Resist is currently 1,250,000 on the market.  Or 20 merits at a merit vendor.  

Karma Knockback Protection is currently 3,000,000 on the market.  Or 20 merits at a merit vendor.

Neither of those even scratch the surface of expensive.

 

I would venture a guess that even if there are people that play without the Market, they don't do so for long.  The Help channel, forums, friends, teammates, SG mates; there are a lot of helpful sources that will be able to point them toward the Market and explain a few things.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Sura

[WindDemon21]

I would fully agree with this. Even at the cost of an end toggle I'd much prefer the toggle end cost over the interrupting click on sr/shield/nin. At the very least make it a little over perma on it's own without slotting recharges so you can slot it with just one end reduction and be done, and speed up its activation time.

[Red Thorn]

I read "you can still control your character" and "running is an option" but my experience when I am hit by a mez effect is that my character isn't under my direct control due to being asleep, fearful, dazed, confused, etc. This may last for an instant or two or for a few seconds. In those circumstances, I can't tell my character to do much of anything until I click an interrupt that takes that mez effect away (typically, Break free or a power clickable on some sets). And, if my mez protect is a toggle, that often means I have to hit the break free and then click the appropriate toggle to turn it back on and hope it activates before another mez hits me and I am not able to move again (or not moving of my own volition). And if I do that, I often don't have to run because my toggles are back up and I'm safe unless another mez attack gets through my protection. Then I am going through this cycle again. And this is all assuming I have enough endurance to do all of that (or I take the time to eat a blue while also eating a break free).

If my mez protect is tied to another protection, when that mez hits me I may be taking suddenly much more damage, meaning I'm more likely to go down while my character isn't under my control and stumbling about or cowering or grabbing its head.

I just don't see how you can control your character, click other things before a break free, or run away in these circumstances. I'm not sure I have these options you say I do.

Now, granted, if I recognize the mob types and know that there are mezzers, I will often wait until my End is full, eat a purple Insp of one sort or another, and target them first. I do have options if I recognize and am prepared for them. But if you miss one, or they come in later, or they get a sneaky good roll on your defenses and get through it regardless, you're not under your control, your options are limited, and you may drop without being able to run or before you can even click an Insp.

My preference is that toggles are only suppressed, not turned off. I don't mind having clickable mez protection but usually bolster that with Acrobatics/combat jumping/Combat flight or the like so there's something there all the time. And I usually carry around a couple of break frees in case they still make it through so I can get control back for my character as quickly as possible.

I really like the idea proposed that clickable mez protection would provide a minimum level of protection all the time and only need to be clicked against bosses and the like.

 

[Steampunkette]

4 minutes ago, Red_Thorn said:

I read "you can still control your character" and "running is an option" but my experience when I am hit by a mez effect is that my character isn't under my direct control due to being asleep, fearful, dazed, confused, etc. This may last for an instant or two or for a few seconds. In those circumstances, I can't tell my character to do much of anything until I click an interrupt that takes that mez effect away (typically, Break free or a power clickable on some sets). And, if my mez protect is a toggle, that often means I have to hit the break free and then click the appropriate toggle to turn it back on and hope it activates before another mez hits me and I am not able to move again (or not moving of my own volition). And if I do that, I often don't have to run because my toggles are back up and I'm safe unless another mez attack gets through my protection. Then I am going through this cycle again. And this is all assuming I have enough endurance to do all of that (or I take the time to eat a blue while also eating a break free).

The point was that if you have a Toggle Mez Protection and get end drained and already have controls on you but not -affecting- you, suddenly you're held/stunned/sleep/whatever and completely screwed unless you have a Break Free Handy.

 

But if you have a Click Protection on in the same situation, the mez doesn't shut you down when your toggles die. You can run, pop a blue, toggle up, and get back into the fight.

 

A /Fire or a /Bio or an /Invuln in that situation is pretty well f'd in the A. An SR/Nin/Shield ain't.

[Myrmidon]

On 9/11/2019 at 4:01 PM, GM Sijin said:

If you hate getting knocked back, you have options. Required options, if you're a fire/dark armor character by most people's measure, I suspect.

 

Unless one enjoys jumping around like a giant bullfrog as their primarily means of travel while playing those armor sets, then yes, those are most definitely Required options.

[VanguardXL]

On 9/11/2019 at 5:11 AM, EyeLuvBooks said:

Point 3) For those that say 'Mez isn't a problem until you're high enough to make it Perma anyhow' I cite Buckshot Hellions being able to knock you down at lvl 1.

The entirety of the Hollows, holds from Death Dolls and Death Walkers, Hellion (as stated) and Skull Buckshot, Slammers, and Sluggers. There's a lot of CC from start to finish.

[DSorrow]

Changing AD to a toggle would be a nerf. Right now I can choose to activate it every 60 seconds to get double stacked mez protection along with some extra DDR if it's needed or activate it closer to the once every 120 seconds mark if extra DDR/mez protection isn't needed. Take away that choice from me and you've nerfed my /SD Scrapper's performance against heavy def debuffers / mezzers for no gain other than the small convenience of allowing Hasten or Ageless to be autocast. 

[Haijinx]

On 8/27/2019 at 4:54 AM, molten_dragon said:

I'd also be completely find with just allowing us to auto-fire a second power, but that seems like it's somewhat of a slippery slope.

With creative binds you can effectively do this. 

 

You can set Hasten to fire every time you move forward if its up, for example 

 

 

[Heraclea]

The biggest problem with click mez protection is all the -recharge flying around from the early game (Vahzilok, Council) to the late game.  It's fine to say you can use it as an emergency escape when mezzed, but what if it isn't up?

[MunkiLord]

Then you get some debt, it builds character. If you ain't dyin, you ain't tryin.

[DSorrow]

2 hours ago, Heraclea said:

The biggest problem with click mez protection is all the -recharge flying around from the early game (Vahzilok, Council) to the late game.  It's fine to say you can use it as an emergency escape when mezzed, but what if it isn't up?

I think this is slightly exaggerating the issue. I can't even remember the last time I've been mezzed because of -Rech, but then again I haven't really played my /SD with vanilla enhancements.

[GM Sijin]

5 hours ago, Heraclea said:

The biggest problem with click mez protection is all the -recharge flying around from the early game (Vahzilok, Council) to the late game.  It's fine to say you can use it as an emergency escape when mezzed, but what if it isn't up?

This would have far more merit if active mez was on resistance sets. It's on defense sets, however, that have a much easier time avoiding such debuffs. SR and SD also have some resistance -recharge. SD's T9 grants status protection on top of that, if you find yourself significantly effected by -recharge when you need to activate AD. Ninjitsu is more vulnerable to this of the three, but has higher base defense than SD.

[ninja surprise]

On 9/12/2019 at 1:33 PM, Red_Thorn said:

I read "you can still control your character" and "running is an option" but my experience when I am hit by a mez effect is that my character isn't under my direct control due to being asleep, fearful, dazed, confused, etc. 
 

To clarify: with click-protection like Practiced Brawler your status protection is active for the next two minutes whether or not you have any endurance or whether any of your other armors are running.

 

So when an Invulnerable character runs out of endurance and Unyielding drops, so does all status protection.  That's when your toon is no longer under your direct control and you go in panic mode.

 

If a Super Reflexes character already clicked PB and gets toggle-dropped while fighting a bunch of witches or sappers, PB is still active. You're still status-resistant to KB, holds, etc.  You can run away, click a big Purple, or just keep fighting because who runs away when critters need punched in the face?

[Leogunner]

On 9/11/2019 at 3:26 PM, MunkiLord said:

You can get KB protection for less than 10 million. 

Yeah I want to say they sell for 6mil now. The universal travel kb protection is a little cheaper IIRC. 

[molten_dragon]

On 9/12/2019 at 3:40 PM, Steampunkette said:

A /Fire or a /Bio or an /Invuln in that situation is pretty well f'd in the A. An SR/Nin/Shield ain't.

Unless the duration on their mez protection runs out and they don't have the endurance to recast it, in which case they're just as screwed.  

[Steampunkette]

36 minutes ago, molten_dragon said:

Unless the duration on their mez protection runs out and they don't have the endurance to recast it, in which case they're just as screwed.  

... Yes. If the situation is different in a way that explicitly takes away the benefit of having a Clickie, then the benefit of the clickie is gone.

 

What point, exactly, are you trying to make, here?

 

Let's see. Every single Clickie Mez Protection lasts 120 seconds, and is easily perma'd through 2 Recharge SOs of equal level so. For that situation to happen you'd need to get mezzed and end drained right at the end of your mez protection (which is harder for NPCs to do 'cause you have Vectored Defenses and End Drains are ranged or melee attacks >.>) before your mez protection cycles...

 

So out of 120 seconds of duration, that perfect storm of landing a bunch of End Drain and Mez has to happen right in the last second or two of your mez protection. The odds are it's not going to happen. And that if it DOES happen, it's going to be exceedingly rare 'cause it's more likely to hit somewhere in the other 118 seconds than in the last 2.

 

And do please remember, with a third Recharge SO you can overlap the duration of your Click Protection by 17.8 seconds. Any level of Recharge Slotting or Hasten is going to make that overlap even larger... which means the "Perfect Storm" gets even HARDER to initiate.

 

But at ANY TIME a Resistance/Healing/Absorb set is just as likely to get end-drained to mezzed and die. There's no second during a given hour where they're incapable of being Mezzed when they hit 0 endurance.

 

Do you understand, now, that it's a benefit to have click protections in this situation and that only by creating an extreme circumstance which intentionally removes that benefit that it isn't?

[Erydanus]

On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 5:44 PM, MetaVileTerror said:

Alternatively, putting something else in to the Power, like some coding that allows them to be used _while_ Stunned/Held/etc (like a Breakfree) or some other utility might go a long way to making them compelling choices.

Well … I think that's already the case. I was able to activate Kuji-In Rin on my claws/ninjitsu stalker when he was held during Trick or Treating. I was able to activate Rune of Protection on my mastermind with the sorcery pool when he was held. 

 

Also for anyone complaining the market is too expensive to purchase a Steadfast Protection: Knockback Protection, you can directly purchase the recipe for 20 or 25 merits at a level of your choice from the merit vendor. You can get those merits from running a Hollows arc. I've done it. It's easy.  You can also use Breakfree inspirations which grant 5 points of knockback protection for the 30 seconds the inspiration is in effect. Knockdown is merely knockback that is less than 1 so this is more than enough to protect yourself from all knockdown. Larger resist effect inspirations of course last longer and you can select the prestige power that manufactures 3 random medium to large inspirations every 30 minutes to amass a huge stash of them with ease.

 

Another option for low level characters is to use your supergroup base's empowerment station. That can buff you for just a few pieces of salvage to have knockback protection. 

[Crysta Clear]

Let me keep my clicky Rin please.

[Aracknight]

Why not split the difference, and give mag 4 as a passive for having the power, and add 6 when you click it, and still allow it to stack?  This way you dont get annoyed by low level cc, and still have the "breakfree" and stacking options for tougher fights?

 

I'm sure ddr can be adjusted in a similar fashion.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Aracknight
Forgot ddr.

[Rylas]

On 9/11/2019 at 2:56 PM, EyeLuvBooks said:

And I'd like to point out that a significant portion of the players don't use Crafting or the Market AT ALL. This is not an option for them.

Where are you sourcing this claim from? As far as I know, there's no telling how many do or don't use IOs. 

Quote

Sure...I can fix my problem for 10-20 million Inf...or I could IO out almost another whole character with it.

You don't need inf to get KB protection. Hell, it doesn't sell that high anyway. Just run both Posi TFs and use the merits for it.

 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Rylas

[WindDemon21]

We need to be able to slot the universal travel sets, ie blessing of the zephry kb and winters gift slow resistance IOs into the sprint powers.

[Hero_of_Light]

On 8/26/2019 at 2:45 PM, Steampunkette said:

Put simply: Click Mez is superior.

 

Yeah. You don't have to remember a toggle. But a toggle is a constant end-drain, sucking away just a tiny bit of your power that could be spent on an attack. And a lot of enemy groups don't really -have- Mez until you're SO level (Circle of Thorns being the big exception because low-level Thorns are monsters)

 

But with a Click? It functions like a Break Free. Click it when you need it, and don't bother with it the rest of the time. Or click it right before you run into a fight where you're going to be dealing with me. Once it's SO slotted it'll always be ready either at the start of a fight with mez, or in the middle of it.

 

I love click protection. It's so -rare- and useful and people always poo poo on it 'cause it's different from the Meztoggle or Mez across toggles powers.

Agreed. As a Super Refkex scrapper I've never had issues using Practiced brawler either as needed, or just slotting one recharge into it and having it auto activate.

 

 

 Variety among the power sets is good imho