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<edit for example :
Blaster melee attacks gain a significant but uncertain chance "stagger" the opponent, causing a status effect like Disorient, but without detoggling or prevention of attack powers. During stagger, a target gets 100% -hold, -immob, -fear, and -disorient debuff, and <pipedream>powers like Phase Shift/Hibernate/PFF/Granite Armor can not be activated</pipedream>. Regeneration and heal powers may have to get a penalty during stagger. Individual staggers are subject to mez suppression, and can only last a short duration, probably two or three times the animation time of the power that starts them (outside of powers such as Ice Slick, knockback powers, which had their primary effect specifically neutered for PvP. They may be better off with a -knockback protection aspect, or just a longer stagger effect). >
No, it's still not a great mechanic. I don't expect to find a great mechanic in PvP. I just want to find the least bad one, and this certainly seems more effective than base PVE ruleset, without having the same irritation or border cases that TDs had.
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This is similar to an idea I had (even to the point of calling it "Stagger"). I just hadn't had time to post it yet.
I think the real problem that toggle drops are intended to solve is the imbalance in mez protection between classes. Squishies can actually get substantial resistance and some defense if they stack skills from their primaries and secondaries with pool and ancillary powers, but these are worthless in PvP due to the prevalence of mezzes. The only characters with any sort of protection for their defensive toggles are the melees and a few Controllers with a certain Ancillary. Furthermore, most of a squishie's active defense (non-toggle) comes in the form of mezzes. So not only do the non-melees have a lack of protection from status effects, nearly half of the ATs (and in practice, WELL over half of their opponents in PvP) are nearly immune to their only defensive abilities.
This information is not news to anybody and it has been debated to death. I only include it to emphasize why a toggle drop replacement must focus on decreasing mez resistance.
Here is what I propose: Replace a chance to drop toggles with a chance to apply a short duration (5-10 second) mez resistance debuff. As I see it, a roughly 20% chance to apply a debuff equivalent to a scrappers mez resistance is fair, but obviously the numbers are flexible. In effect, the attack would have a chance to decrease a melee to "squishie" levels of mez resistance for a very short time.
Advantages:
<ul type="square">[*]No annoying toggle drops/re-toggles.
[*]Goes straight for the most important toggle, making it far more reliable and requiring less goofy toggle obfuscation by players.
[*]Is more effective on Scrappers than Tankers allowing Tankers to keep their edge in mez resistance.
[*]Requires not only a successful mez resistance debuff but a successful status effect within the duration of the debuff to have any effect, emphasizing team work and/or diversity of build.
[*]Should not require any significant new coding on the part of the Devs. If mez resistance can be buffed, I'm sure it can be debuffed. All that would be required is to add a chance to cast this debuff to certain attacks. This avoids messy "toggle suppression" systems that would divert developer effort from more interesting additions to the game.
[*]Can be entirely negated by teaming and gives a stronger role to less popular PvP archetypes. If you don't want to run the risk of having your toggles dropped, have a Defender or Controller available to keep a Clear Mind or Increase Density on you. The stacked mez protection will leave you well defended even if an attack debuffs you.[/list]
Disadvantages
<ul type="square"> [*]Treats click and toggle mez resistance differently. A click mez resistance will pop right back up after the debuff expires and break the mez. A toggle mez protection will stay down. Obviously, this same imbalance already exists with the current toggle drop system, so I think it is not a significant issue.
[*]May not work properly with the "undroppable" toggles like Granite Armor. If there is no way in the code to protect these toggles, the best fix for this would be to apply a few more points of mez resistance to these toggles to make it a little harder to sneak a mez past them.[/list]
What do you think? Is this a viable replacement to toggle drops? If you think so, perhaps PM my suggestion to a red name and get them thinking about it too.
