[ QUOTE ]
I'm standing on the beach between the two asking for change, but controlled change over time. Something that will make the set more attractive, but not change it in a drastic way. It's an unenviable position because I get hit from both sides. That's life.
[/ QUOTE ]
It is also not easy to define "change, but controlled change over time". These words could probably be used by each of us to describe what we want and still we are not in agreement.
When people who cannot agree with each other are shouting at you, its a sign that you are pushing your point to aggressively. Shooting down people's ideas, as someone said, and generally trying to be the arbiter. I think it would be wiser to adopt a more accepting stance, try to give reasons why you think certain ideas are impractical, suggest modified versions of people's ideas and now and then summing up the discussion so that it can start over.
In other words, take a step back and try to be less defensive. Even if you have played FF a lot, yours is not the only view.
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I don't deny there's a problem with FF Defenders. I played one. I deleted it.
What I want to see are changes made that will actually be effective. When I look at FF and Defenders' secondaries, blasting doesn't work with Knockback and herding doesn't work with Defenders' nukes.
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In my experience, Defender nukes don't work at all. Nuking, for a defender, is mainly a way to get unwanted aggro that you cannot contain. And Defender blasts can work with FF; depending on the set you choose. Radiation and Electricity like to be clos-in, and thus work poorly. Archery and Psi like to stand off and work better.
Still, I agree the synergy between FF and blasting secondaries sucks, and could be much better. This could actually be added to the list of FF issues, and some of the proposed changes here (damage buff field, slow field) could help.
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IMHO, until folks on the Defenders board can admit to themselves that the secondary doesn't work with the primary, you won't be ready.
[/ QUOTE ]
I really can't agree with such a blanket statement. There plenty of secondaries that work well with defender primaries, even with FF.
Take FF/Elec for example. IMO, the synergy between these to sets is really good. Enough protection to get in close to fire off short circuit, a pet that can attack while you hide inside PFF, a great hold when you don't want to use Detention Field and a ranged nuke.
Now are there powers sets that don't work well, absolutely. But that's no different then other AT. Are there secondaries that really don't work well with FF. Sure. But that has more to do with FF then with the secondary, because what doesn't work well for FF might work exteremely well for another Primary.
Plus you also have to keep in mind since Defender Secondaries come from blasters no changes are going to made without the consideration for how they impact blasters.
Synergy Lvl 50 Def FF/Electric/Psy - Protector
Cimarron - Protector Mascot
My DA Page
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Nor will Defenders be the only AT affected by whatever changes come from this, if any.
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THAT is where I disagree. Defenders CAN and SHOULD be the only ones affected by this change. We already know that they can change the effectiveness of powers based on the AT and they should continue to tweak ALL the powers to have unique flavor for the given AT...
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I am afraid this is indeed a cottage. We can wish for Defender FF to be unique and different, but I very, very much doubt that will ever happen. It is extra works for the devs, makes the code harder to maintain, and just isn't really called for.
On the other hand, we could get changes implemented that benefit defenders more. Like a damage buff field. Controllers still do less damage than defenders, and Masterminds already have a damage buff for their minions as an inherent. Defenders also have better damage buff numbers (we can use the figures for Fulcrum Shift to compare). There might be other similar things that benefit Defenders based on playstyle as well.
<QR>
This thread shouldn't be about judging other people's ideas. No one has the ability to do that other than the developers, and they have put in an appearance so we know they are there. Any useless judgements are simply spam that will make the thread harder to read when Castle comes back to refer to it. I'm afraid we're already to a point where the actual ideas in this thread are going to have to be summed up in a separate thread due to all the spam.
We all have the same overall goal, the improvement of the FF set. There's no way we'll all have the same opinions on how that can be done. Let's try and do what the title of the thread says: make change suggestions, brainstorm, and suggest changes to the changes, but let's all try to make it positively constructive.
Thank you.
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When I look at FF and Defenders' secondaries, blasting doesn't work with Knockback and herding doesn't work with Defenders' nukes.
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In my experience, Defender nukes don't work at all. Nuking, for a defender, is mainly a way to get unwanted aggro that you cannot contain.
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Long ago I found Energy Blast's nuke to be counter productive to my maintaining defense for myself and the team. FF requires Endurance. Nukes remove practically all Endurance and that shuts down toggles. The nature of the two powers makes them mutually exclusive. I respec'd out of the nuke because of that.
- B.
Crey Threat Assessment: Bayne
Virtueverse: Bayne
The Defenders of Paragon
At the suggestion of so many, I'm going to back out of this thread slowly and see where it goes. I'm probably getting too involved right now to be unbiased. I think I need to take a step back.
Powerhelm, I looked up Gilderoy. I'm not a fraud, I can DO everything I say I can do. I'm not Gilderoy.
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That's right. But it doesn't change basic manners.
And while we're on the topic, stop trying to deny me the right to express my opinion and we'll get along just fine.
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Who are you to talk about manners, hypocrite? You tell PK to "piss off", same as I told you to do. You come into a discussion about what changes people might like to see in the FF set and for 4 pages, contribute nothing more than your opinion that Defender blasts are lacking and don't mesh well with FF. Do you think if you say it enough times people will agree with you?
Here I'll take a stab at explaining this to you. I'll type slowly so maybe you can figure it out. Defender blasts are fine; they work very well with every Primary. You say Defender nukes are broken? How's that? Only if you are stupid enough to use them as an opener rather than a finisher in which case you end up in the middle of the fight, with half dead enemies all agroed onto you. The problem is that you obviously have no clue how to blast as a Defender.
You honestly think giving all blasts the exact same characteristics in terms of range and area affected is going to magically fix them? Why? You've mechanically repeated your opinion that Defender blasts are the problem like some OCD addled child, and yet have offered no points to back that up.
When people ask you about how changing the blast sets would affect other Defender primaries, you have no answer.
Let me ask you a simple question Magicj; which would be easier? Changing 7 Defender blast sets, which work well with 7 out of 8 Defender primaries, or changing the 1 Defender primary that has issues? Bear in mind, this is your position. I don't believe that FF's issue stem from the secondary. In fact, that is one of the most ludicrous ideas I've read since I've seen every single Defender blast set perform well with every single Defender primary.
Let's see if you have some answers for us. You call other people's ideas "stupid" when suggestions are made for tweaking FF and yet you put forth garbage like this. You state FF has secondary effects inherent to the powers because they change enemies behaviours? Good grief! Please spare us this garbage.
Freezing Rain causes -speed, -resistance, -defence, knockdown and has a fear component. Uhm, let's see, what other imaginary effect can I attribute to that? Enemies are running away from me, and aren't attacking me...I know! I'll tell everyone that Freezing Rain is a hold with a -dmg component since I take less damage when I use the power!
See how silly that is? Secondary effects are direct attributes of powers; not some imaginary tertiary effect.
I'll iterate what I said earlier; piss off if you have nothing more to contribute other than "Defender blasts are broken and don't mess with my favourite set". The likelihood of any changes being made are slim, as threads like this have been made since 2004. For your information, there was a collaborative report submitted in 2005 from all the active FF'ers on the forums. Nothing was changed then, and it's likely nothing will change now.
Quite honestly, all you are doing is stunting the discussion. I for one enjoy reading people's creative attempts at fixing the set. Who knows, something might pop up that everyone likes. But to be the person who repeatedly states "No! This is stupid don't change my set" has got to be the some of the most arrogant, ignorant, childish and quite honestly, stupid behaviour I've seen on these boards.
[QR]
I wasn't going to post in this thread because i thought it'd turn into another chaotic mess. I see that most of it has, but since a Redname decided to peak around it gives me hope. The fact that it's also been Pinned makes me feel better. I'll start by saying that this discussion has been made a lot since the game was put out. Hopefully, the DEVs will smile on us and do what we want, which is make the entier set work much better as a whole. The powersets that perform the best are the ones where atleast 7 of the 9 powers have some utility. That isn't quite the case with Force Field. Everyone has agreed that every power has a use, but not every use works as we (the players) want. Can we just all chose the specific powers we want changed and go from there? So far (from history) we can all agree (with this generally) that:
Personal Force Field
Deflection Shield
Insulation Shield
Force Bolt
Dispersion Bubble
are good the way they are. Individually we all have ideas as to how to better improve the above listed powers. However, we (the Bubbler Community in general) agree that the powers work well. I reiterate ... as a general statement of truth, we ( The Bubbler Community) agree that the above listed powers are working well.
What we (The Bubbler Communtiy) agree that we have problems with:
Detention Field
Repulsion Field
Repulsion Bomb
Force Bubble
Can we please get into how we can improve these powers? Argueing over strategy and tactics isn't going to get us what we want. The DEVs have said before that they are satisified with how Defenders perform. We know from the past that they will change the way individual powers to perform better. Maybe we need to look at these underperforming powers and brainstorm ways to improve them to work more effectively for the powerset as a whole. My wishful thinking would be:
Detention Field have it's FX improved and/or given a "placate" like status so that players can't target the victim inside.
Repulsion Field have it's pulse effect changed to match that of repel from the Kinetics primary.
Repulsion Bomb changed to a targeted AoE knockdown effect using a fast acting animation/FX.
Force Bubble should have it's radius reduced to 40Ft and replace the repel with a 50% Damage debuff and give it a 12.75% ToHit Debuff.
Now these aren't my ideas alone. I'm sure others have suggested these in some way, shape, fashion, or form. Can we just start this thread a new and go on looking for ways to improve the powers we all agree don't work the way we want?
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Can we please get into how we can improve these powers? Argueing over strategy and tactics isn't going to get us what we want. The DEVs have said before that they are satisified with how Defenders perform. We know from the past that they will change the way individual powers to perform better. Maybe we need to look at these underperforming powers and brainstorm ways to improve them to work more effectively for the powerset as a whole.
[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly! Thanks G, for getting this back on topic. If I get a chance after work, I'll try and go through the thread and summarize the proposed changes so this discussion can get going again. I'll be sure to omit any of the asinine tangents posted by some people.
[QR]
There was a post in the past, i'm sure it's been removed, that had come up with a lot of great idea. If memory serves me correct it was posted atleast 6 Mos prior to CoV's release. Many players drew the conclusion that the power changes and ideas are what the Cold Corruptor Secondary was based on. Maybe we can look at the Cold Secondary and see if there are aspects of that secondary we'd like. I for one would love to trade Repulsion Bomb for a Frostworks-Like Shield. I'd even settle for changing it to a Location AoE -ToHit similar to Liquify. Something to increase the damage of our Secondary. I understand that FF's are about Defense, but Sonic gets a -Tohit/ -Def debuff when it's primary ability is -Resistance Debuffs with +Damage Buffs. I don't think a -ToHit Debuff in a +Def set is out of place.
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Yikes, I remember when the Defender forums were considered some of the nicest around. Let's keep things civil shall we, devs aren't going to pay attention to a thread filled with personal attacks.
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You suck jerk face!
I have nothing to add to this discussion, just wanted at least one post in this thread full of lawl.
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It appeared, based on the discussion surrounding the time when the two ally bubbles were bumped to 4 minutes that the original intent appeared to be, as so many things were in the original conception for the game, that the bubbles were supposed to cost "just enough" in time and endurance to make you think about whether to apply them or not, rather than to monotonously perma them, so that the bubbles presented an actual tactical decision.
[/ QUOTE ]
/em scratches head
Isn't that what I said?
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The game plan seems to have been, "Buff whoever needs it, and watch out for who's taking what kind of damage. From 18 to 32, evolve away from buffing into keeping mobs out of melee for squishies and onto rooted tankers."
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You also said:
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From 18 to 32, evolve away from buffing into keeping mobs out of melee for squishies and onto rooted tankers.
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I don't believe the set was ever intended to "evolve away" from bubbling. I believe bubbling was always supposed to be a critical tactical option, just not one that was always used on everyone all the time, at any combat level.
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[ QUOTE ]
You suck jerk face!
I have nothing to add to this discussion, just wanted at least one post in this thread full of lawl.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hey, get out of our thread you smelly bum!
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[QR]
There was a post in the past, i'm sure it's been removed, that had come up with a lot of great idea. If memory serves me correct it was posted atleast 6 Mos prior to CoV's release. Many players drew the conclusion that the power changes and ideas are what the Cold Corruptor Secondary was based on. Maybe we can look at the Cold Secondary and see if there are aspects of that secondary we'd like. I for one would love to trade Repulsion Bomb for a Frostworks-Like Shield. I'd even settle for changing it to a Location AoE -ToHit similar to Liquify. Something to increase the damage of our Secondary. I understand that FF's are about Defense, but Sonic gets a -Tohit/ -Def debuff when it's primary ability is -Resistance Debuffs with +Damage Buffs. I don't think a -ToHit Debuff in a +Def set is out of place.
[/ QUOTE ]
Good call on this one. I forgot about that until you mentioned it, but I do remember someone advocating a power to effectively add health to whatever player buffed by the power. Lo and behold, Cold Corruptors get Frostwork.
Count me in with the 'further dev-tailored threads are pointless if past threads have been ignored' crowd. Even though Castle suggested he needs these threads, in essence he only said he needs only the one thread that exists at the specific time he develops the rare, random need for it, and all other threads are pointless to him. And that's a pointless scenario under which posters must decide whether to participate.
But, in any case, I suppose I could for fun reiterate one of my various ideas posted in the past.
Leave the powers as they are. Instead increase the fun/value of knock mechanics in the global environment.
My favorite example involves the new Faultline zone. If I'm fighting some bad guys on one of the construction grounds scattered throughout the northern area, and I knock a bad guy near one of those cement mixer drums, it would be fun and cool to see the game have him get his upper torso stuck in the drum, legs dangling as the drum turns a revolution before spitting him out again with a bit of a goopy coating.
Adding contextually-sensitive elements to environments that activate for various effects under various conditions (such as intersecting with a knock-state mob) inherently increases the value of powers that can leverage those elements (such as knockback-heavy powers like those FF wields).
And the devs have already done a few environmental elements that sort of count as contextually-sensitive. CoT crystals, Trolls shlepping barrels of dynamite around, fire-ignitable oil slicks. They could add electrical power boxes that add electricity damage to mobs slammed against it. Exotic plants that explosively expand like a blowfish to deal lethal damage to mobs slammed against it. If these elements are common enough, knockback powers could start being a tactically-useful dps augmentation.
This should be doable without touching the FF set or even the entire power system. Certainly there would be a lot of work required in other areas, but the potential value of such additions would go far beyond just the FF set. A lethal-damage attack against a cryo-freezing tanker truck could impale a hole that spews out a cold-based hold attack against nearby mobs for example.
PvE and PvP would be made much richer with such an approach. And it can even be rigged to align spawning so that when the game triggers a new spawn for you, the contextually-sensitive elements that spawn are attuned for your powers. Even if your build is not something a potential team leader is looking for, he can at least be assured that the game will spawn something you can leverage for team success.
So... was that pointless?
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Yikes, I remember when the Defender forums were considered some of the nicest around. Let's keep things civil shall we, devs aren't going to pay attention to a thread filled with personal attacks.
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You suck jerk face!
[/ QUOTE ]
Quiet you and keep healing! 
I had forgotten about Ice buffs. A Frostworks like power would be thematic, but it would be hard to tack that onto something existing in the set without changing the whole power. Perhaps putting a minor HP buff for anyone inside Force Bubble. That makes it's big radius suddenly attractive and worth working at times. Although the in and out drop of HP might not be possible. Which would bring the -dam aspect back up I suppose.
The debuffs are a bit harder to work into existing powers, although overall the Ice set is a very nice one and maybe worth exploring for options rather since the sets don't share common AT's.
[ QUOTE ]
So far (from history) we can all agree (with this generally) that:
.
Personal Force Field
Deflection Shield
Insulation Shield
Force Bolt
Dispersion Bubble
.
are good the way they are.
.
What we (The Bubbler Communtiy) agree that we have problems with:
.
Detention Field
Repulsion Field
Repulsion Bomb
Force Bubble
.
Can we please get into how we can improve these powers?
[/ QUOTE ]
This is also my perception of our collective responses.
In order to effectively improve the powers we have to understand what is it about the way the powers work now that cause us problems. We've been going back and forth about these problems. Let's try to summerize them.
Detention Field
1) The affected character can still be targeted and attacked even though the captured target cannot be harmed.
2) The immobilization of the captured target can be resisted (the target can move while captured).
3) The captured target can target others in order to queue up attacks that will activate the moment the capture timer expires. The queued attacks can not be matched in timing by other characters.
Repulsion Field
1) The PBAoE field effect allows targets to melee attack prior to being knocked back.
2) The endurance cost per target knocked back is excessively high. Large groups of targets can quickly deplete the endurance of the casting character.
3) Uncontrolled knockback is a negative effect for melee characters teamed with the caster.
Repulsion Bomb
1) The recharge time on the power is too slow.
2) The chance of stun is too low.
3) The magnatude of the stun is too low.
4) The casting time is too high/long.
5) Uncontrolled knockback is a negative effect for characters teamed with the caster.
Force Bubble
1) The radius of the power can prevent teammates from benefiting from the defense buff provided by Dispersion Bubble when targets are repelled out of the radius of Dispersion Bubble.
2) The chance to knockback a repel resistant target is too low.
3) The repel effect combined with the large radius creates substantial aggro on the caster without means of mitigating the aggro.
4) Many secondary powers do not have the range to attack a target affected by the repel effect.
Other Issues Not Specific to a Single Power
1) The FF set lacks buff/debuff effects found desirable by players.
2) The problem powers are highly situational, and therefore not found desirable by players.
I'm sure you can add to the list. Give it a go.
- B.
Crey Threat Assessment: Bayne
Virtueverse: Bayne
The Defenders of Paragon
[QR]
I like the idea of KB being more useful with the interaction of external objects as Goldbricker mentions. However, I don't think adding another element to what our powers affect is a good solution. I'd much rather focus on the powers we all agree do not work as well as we think they could. I don't want to compare Primaries, but I think it's necessary so I'll give it a shot.
Detention Field
[*] SUGGESTION = Make it's FX as good as Sonic's or turn it into a Targetable AoE. (just a suggestion not a request)
Repulsion Field
[*] SUGGESTION = make it equal to Kinetics Repel or make Force Fields Repulsion Field better. It makes no reasonable sense why it would be a tier7 Power and be so bad.
Repulsion Bomb
[*] SUGGESTION = Give it the same animation as Force bolt, or Increase the duration of the stun effect, or change the power to a location Knockdown similar to Liquify.
Force Bubble
[*] SUGGESTION = return it's -ToHit debuff or Reduce it's radius and increase it's knockback/ repel mag. (personally i'd love to have the -50% Damage and a -ToHit)
[ EDIT ] My post was submitted after Gargoyle's. I agree with all the points he made.
-The Elite-[50's]Va'Leria�X'hian�Stormy Monday�Radical Burn�Mo'Mentum�Heat-Source�Professor Blaze
-World Wide Evil, Inc-[50s]Soulfire�Perma.Frost�Kold Soul�Foxphyre�Pitch-Black�Corrupt Fusion�Cassanova Brown�Tyler Thorn�Iron Siren�Solaura�Fortunauta Wade�Look'Alike�Arctic Engineer
[ QUOTE ]
Detention Field
1) The affected character can still be targeted and attacked even though the captured target cannot be harmed.
2) The immobilization of the captured target can be resisted (the target can move while captured).
3) The captured target can target others in order to queue up attacks that will activate the moment the capture timer expires. The queued attacks can not be matched in timing by other characters.
[/ QUOTE ]
I have often wondered if detention field should really be altered into a "reverse PFF." I.e. the target is surrounded in a high defense, high resistance bubble, where they can't attack. For some reason, I've always found the symmetry to be attractive. However, that might be problematic in PvP, since it would effectively be an unresistable hold no one has mez protection against.
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Consolidated List of FF Change Suggestions
These suggestions are in order of their appearance in the thread. All suggestions listed so far in the thread have been added here, whether I agree with them or not.
[u]General Requests[u]<ul type="square">[*]Add a Defense DeBuff somewhere.[*]Give us a way to add to the team's damage.[*]Suggested power: Force Wall, a placeable "wall" of force that cannot be passed, suggested 40 foot length.[*]Add "movement powers" to the set, like Kinetics has, justified as us giving ourselves and teammates "low friction".[*]Add more contextually-sensitive elements to environments that activate for various effects under various conditions. Similar to dynamite or light-able oil-slicks that already exist in-game.[/list]
[u]Power Specific[u]
Personal Force Field:<ul type="square">[*]Allow slotting for +Res.[*]Allow the field to be "suppressed", allowing the bubbler to fire through it with either a loss of defense or with a severe defense and/or resistance penalty.[*]Allow the user to affect allies while in the field.[/list]
Deflection and Insulation Shields:<ul type="square">[*]Switch the Defense percentages between Dispersion Bubble and Insulation and Deflection Shields.[*]Make them into PBAoE auras.[*]Add +Recovery to Insulation Shield.[/list]
Dispersion Bubble:<ul type="square">[*]Replace the sleep weakness with an immobilize weakness.[*]Add +Recovery to all allies.[*]Increase the size to the same as Force Bubble, or switch their sizes.[/list]
Force Bolt:<ul type="square">[*]Add a low percentage chance to disorient knockback resistant mobs.[*]Increase the toggle dropping ability.[*]Increase the knockback magnitude.[*]Add -Damage or -Resistance.[*]Add more damage to the power.[/list]
Detention Field:<ul type="square">[*]Add a short-term placate effect to anyone that tries to attack the enemy that's detained.[*]Change to a timed toggle power so that it can be turned off at will but is forced off if left on too long. [*]Change the graphic to where its super super obvious that thing has been detained.[*]Add a power icon to the bubbler's status window to show when the field is about to lift.[*]Make the target of the field unable to be targeted by anyone until 5 seconds before the power deactivates.[*]Make the detained target unable to affect itself as well.[*]Add -Regen to the detained target.[*]Allow it to target enemies or allies.[*]Make Cold, Fire, Energy, and Neg. Energy attacks directed at the detained target become small radius AoEs of the same damage type - a splash effect. [*]Change to a Mag 4 Sleep.[*]Allow player attacks to "move" the detained target even if they do no damage.[*]Change to an immobilize and adds -Accuracy to the enemy.[*]Make into a targettable AoE.[*]Make into a "reverse Personal Force Field". The enemy has high Defense and Damage Resistance but can't attack.[/list]
Repulsion Field :<ul type="square">[*]Increase the endurance cost per hit and increase the "pulse" rate of the knockback pulses, or change the pulse rate the the same as that of Repel in Kinetics.[*]Add a knockback magnitude modifier that is based on the radius distance away from the PBAoE; the closer to the center of the PBAoE the higher the magnitude of the KB.[*]Either increase the magnitude to make it more powerful or decrease it to make it knockdown.[*]Add a small percent chance to disorient or a +Slow effect to enemies.[*]Add a "negative Power Boost" effect: reduces all enemy effects i.e. mez durations, defense buffs, heals, etc.[*]Give it a larger radius but decrease the pulse rate.[*]Alternatively, make it half the size of Dispersion Bubble and increase the knockback magnitude.[/list]
Repulsion Bomb:<ul type="square">[*]Decrease the animation and/or cast time SUBSTANTIALLY.[*]Increase the chance to stun substantially, or change the knockback into knockdown.[*]Increase the recharge time of the power to 2 or 3 minutes and/or increase the endurance cost. (Assuming that one or more of the items above are done as well)[*]Increase the damage the power does to that of a tier 1 blast.[*]Change it to an AoE or cone version of Force Bolt.[*]Change into a Defender version of Bonfire: It would be a placeable AoE knockback object.[*]Add a -Defense, -Resistance or -Regen.[*]Change it back to ally-targeted, or fix the description in-game.[*]Add a Transference effect.[*]Make it a placeable AoE or targeted AoE with a "reverse knockback" effect that sucks all enemies towards it.[*]Replace with a "Frostworks-Like Shield"[/list]
Force Bubble:<ul type="square">[*]Increase the chance of knockdown/back.[*]Make it give +10% Resistance to all, or 5-10% Defense bonus to the FFer.[*]Make it the same radius as Dispersion, or switch the radii of the two powers.[*]Increase the magnitude of the Repel effect and/or add a +Slow component to the power.[*]Reduce the endurance cost or the recharge.[*]Change to a -Damage, -Speed, -Recharge, -Accuracy, -ToHit, or -Resistance aura. (Pick and choose your DeBuffs)[*]Add a +ToHit or +Damage, +Regen or +Recovery to allies.[/list]
All similar or identical suggestions were removed.
Please consider the following guidelines with your future suggestions:
No Cottages: The smaller the change, the more likely it is to become reality.
Maintain the Theme: Force Fields is known best for damage mitigation, it is also known for Knockback, Repel, and "Phasing".
Equivalent Exchange: For balance reasons, it's easier to give something up to get something. No free lunches unless something is vastly underpowered.
Please feel free to post your future suggestions here. I will offer no more negative criticisms of them.
Here is a shortcut so that you can refer to this post in the future as a new "starting point": http://tinyurl.com/3xedkh
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[QR]
There was a post in the past, i'm sure it's been removed, that had come up with a lot of great idea. If memory serves me correct it was posted atleast 6 Mos prior to CoV's release. Many players drew the conclusion that the power changes and ideas are what the Cold Corruptor Secondary was based on. Maybe we can look at the Cold Secondary and see if there are aspects of that secondary we'd like. I for one would love to trade Repulsion Bomb for a Frostworks-Like Shield. I'd even settle for changing it to a Location AoE -ToHit similar to Liquify. Something to increase the damage of our Secondary. I understand that FF's are about Defense, but Sonic gets a -Tohit/ -Def debuff when it's primary ability is -Resistance Debuffs with +Damage Buffs. I don't think a -ToHit Debuff in a +Def set is out of place.
[/ QUOTE ]
Good call on this one. I forgot about that until you mentioned it, but I do remember someone advocating a power to effectively add health to whatever player buffed by the power. Lo and behold, Cold Corruptors get Frostwork.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, not to toot my own horn, but I posted a number of good suggestions a few pages back both showing the shortcomings of various FF powers and some ideas how to fix them that don't require breaking their core functions and are completely do-able. So good in fact, I'm reposting them with a few additions and expansions 
WARNING: this is loooong... so many horrible powers to fix, it takes a lot of words
1.) First off, it's a proactive rather than reactive set. Now if the bubbles are sufficient protection for the team, then you're fine. If the bubbles aren't, then there isn't much more you can bring to the table other than knocking foes all over the place all willy-nilly, which is likely to get you booted very quickly from most teams. The set desperately needs some kind of reliable, stackable foe status or debuff effects (more on this later). Other than the big 3 the set doesn't really offer anything that's better or even comparable to powers in other sets.
2.) Repulsion Field is the red-headed stepchild of Kinetics/Repel, but its significantly more difficult to use due to the mechanics of the bubble. This is not to say Repel is all that great either, most Kins skip it religiously. But it works better than Repulsion Field, so what's that say about RF? Very few ideas on how to change this without changing the core of the power (but I have more about this later too). At the very least make it work as well as Repel, with either a greatly increased pulse speed or better yet, NO pulse at all. Fast moving foes should not be able to get to me between pulses. Repel is the same radius, has no pulse issues, and is available at lvl 2 compared to RF at 18. Not right.
3.) Force Bolt is, IMO, a wasted power to take. Almost every single Defender secondary has at least one power with KB, many of which do more than FB's trivial damage. It's pretty much why no one takes Power Push. And as has been pointed out previously, the KB doesn't work on many of the more difficult foes -- the ones you really need to KB.
There are a few things you can do to enhance this power. The obvious solution is to ramp up the KB MAG so that it works on all but the most resistant foes (AVs/GMs, perhaps even a few 'natural' EBs). Right now it's ~MAG 18 (all numbers taken from City of Data). But here's the kicker: it's the highest MAG KB in the game. Considering that Acrobatics is MAG 100, MAG 18 doesn't seem so impressive. If you want to consider PvP play for a moment, MAG 18 has no chance of stopping any Tank, Scrapper, Brute, or Stalker that has KB protection in their set (with the sole exception of Electric Armor Brutes who get MAG 15 protection in Grounded), or any toon that takes Acrobatics. KB IOs are only MAG 4 each, so even with two of them Force Bolt is going to send them flying.
But perhaps one way around giving it an even higher knockback MAG is to add in a knockUP MAG as well. Since KB, KU, and repel are all exclusive of one another (whereas KDown is just a very low MAG KB), adding some KU might allow Force Bolt to affect critters resistant to KB, but not KU (y'know, the ones you can't seem to ever knockback but have no problem flipping with Air Superiority). This change would have no effect in PvP as all powers with KB protection also have KU protection.
Second would be to add some kind of status effect or debuff. Personally I like the idea of a disorient. It fits the nature of the power very well, and makes it much like a single target version of Repulsion Bomb. My only concern here is the devs would most certainly want to drastically lengthen the recharge time if they gave it a standard disorient (most single target disorients have a base recharge of 20 seconds; Force Bolt currently is 4). So perhaps it could be a minor disorient to keep recharge time fairly short (20 seconds IMO would be far too long). Enough stun to be useful, not enough to warrant a 500% increase in recharge.
4.) Detention Field is all but useless except in solo or duos. Period. Use of this power on a large team is a quick ticket to kicksville. It's the same reason NO ONE takes Black Hole or Dimension Shift. I have made this suggestion before, but one way to fix these powers is to make them toggles with a maximum duration, ala phase shift. Nothing is worse than a team standing around waiting for DF to drop so they can kill the last baddie of the spawn. If the power were changed to a limited toggle at least you could control pulling down the field when you wanted to.
Another option is to turn it into a something of a ghetto hold by dropping the "cannot be attacked" flag but keeping the "cannot attack" and immobilize features (and for God's sake add a -teleport already), and shortening the duration to match that of Defender holds. At least that way it doesn't last forever and the target can be attacked. And since you're not making it a true hold, you're not really changing the core function of the power, just shortening the duration and allowing us to attack it.
If nothing else ever gets done to these cage powers at least make it so the detained foe(s) cannot be targeted. This in itself would go a long way towards improving usability, and put an end to the "unaffected" messages and wasted attacks that drive teammates crazy. Oh, and of course, redo the FX so even a blind man can see that a foe is detained.
5.) Repulsion Bomb. Repeat after me: uncontrolled 360 degree KB is BAD; uncontrolled 360 degree KB is BAD... You want to make this power useful, turn it into a fairly wide, long cone. KB newbs will still have issues with using it (and will learn), and the more experienced KB users will actually be able to get something from this. Directional KB, used correctly, is very useful. Omnidirectional KB is just bad no matter how you slice it. And IMO I'd rather see the disorient perform more like Super Strength/Hand Clap (100% chance MAG 2, 50% MAG 1, 0.8 Accy) rather than the 1.2 Accy, 40% chance MAG 2 we have now. Each have a 30 second recharge and similar end costs, so those shouldn't need to change.
6.) Force Bubble. What can be said about this 500 lb brute of a power other than MEH... The bubble is so large trying to use it indoors will likely aggro the entire room (been there, done that...), and it makes no sense why the radius is twice that of Dispersion Bubble. It should be just the opposite. This way melee fighters can be outside Force Bubble but still inside Dispersion Bubble.
And for God's sake it's a tier 9 power. I bust my [censored] to get to lvl 32 and get this pile of manure as my final power? Compare the utility of Force Bubble to other tier 9s -- Dark Servant, Fulcrum Shift, EM Pulse, etc. Every single one of them is leaps and bounds more useful than FB. And again, it's a 360 degree repel, pushing everything not immune 50' away from the Defender (and worse, beyond any short-ranged, high damage or cone attacks they might have).
In comparison, Hurricane, which you can get at lvl 12, does everything Force Bubble can do and so much more. It repels, it debuffs, it knocks back, and is small enough at 25' to be used in an office corridor without aggroing around the corner or thru the wall. Why is a lvl 12 power significantly better than a lvl 32 power?
Shrink the bubble to 15-20' so that it's still large enough for many teammates to fit into and keep foes out of melee range, but small enough that you don't unintentionally aggro nearby mobs. This size also allows melee fighters to be inside Dispersion Bubble while they fight foes stuck at the edge of Force Bubble. And in addition to the repel add a knockDOWN, NOT back, which could be changed to knockback with the addition of a KB enhancement (not that I would ever do that personally, but options are always good). Any foe that tries to enter the field is knocked down and pushed out. This one-two punch will catch foes that are resistant to one or the other. If you really want to go all hog crazy you could also throw in a chance to disorient. This at least gives it some semblance of equality to other tier 9 powers. And in adding a disorient to both Force Bolt and Force Bubble, along with an enhanced disorient in Repulsion Bomb gives the set 3 powers with a disorient. It may not seem like much, but for a set with virtually no foe status effects other than uncontrolled knockback, those 3 disorients adds a significant extra utility to the set it sorely lacks.
7.) Personal Force Field, Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, Dispersion Bubble. I don't really have much to say about these, I think they all do exactly what they're meant to do and are the core of the set. PFF is much nicer since the changes to defense; it's very difficult to get hit now compared to before. I will always lament the lack of sleep protection in Dispersion Bubble, especially since it's the most prevalent and longest of all the mezzes in PvE, but that's more of a nitpick than anything else. A welcome addition for sure, but more a QoL thing.
Now we get to the really fun part...
Previously I've gone thru the troublesome powers one by one with suggestions on how they could be easily modified and made better. But now I'm going to get a bit more extreme. Some radical ideas as to how to significantly improve these powers without modifying their core function. Cause we all know now it ain't gonna happen otherwise.
1.) Repulsion Field. Core function: AoE foe knockback.
So many things I would love to do with this, unfortunately almost all would change the core function. But I can keep the CF and go three ways, any of which would be a drastic improvement.
First idea, instead of a toggle power that constantly throws foes all over the place, generates tons of aggro, and burns thru end faster than a cheap ****** burns thru LJo perfume, turn it into a PBAoE click power, pretty much identical to Hand Clap. You activate the power and all foes around you get knocked back and disoriented.
Second, and better idea, make it a targeted-location stationary pet like Disruption Arrow, only with knockback instead of -resistance. You drop it wherever you want it and any foe that tries to enter gets knocked back. In this case no disorient is necessary. I can't even begin to count the ways this power would be useful, as opposed to what we have now that is universally considered useless. Since the user is not tied to the bubble you don't generate tons of aggro (the pet does... but who cares, it can't be hurt) and you're free to maneuver around without worrying about inadvertently tossing things all over the place.
And with this kind of functionality you could do all sorts of cool things, like place it around an object you want to protect, or drop it to block a hallway or entrance to slow down an incoming ambush or accidentally-aggroed spawn, etc. etc. etc. Change it to something like this and it would definitely be part of my build.
Third idea, and the most radical, would be to turn it into a pet that follows you around and tosses any foes that get near it (and you). Basically Singularity without all the gravity attacks, just Repel. Make it work very much like Voltaic Sentinel in terms of game mechanics, and keep it similarly sized as well. The advantages to this over what we have now are two fold: since you're not doing the knockback you don't generate aggro, and although the field is mobile, small and not attached to your person the knockback it creates will be more localized depending upon where the pet happens to be, again, very much like Singularity. You can choose to stand behind it to protect yourself from frontal attacks while you pick away them, or stand in front of it to protect you from a rear ambush while you're fighting foes in front of you. Massive amounts of flexibility instead of massive uncontrolled knockback.
2.) Force Bubble. Core function: AoE foe repel.
This is another one I would love to scrap and redesign from scratch, but no-can-do, we gotta keep the AoE repel.
One thing that makes Force Bubble substantially different from other tier 9 Defender powers is that it's a toggle. And I think that's the key to its dysfunction. There is no way to make it a tier-9 class power and have it running all the time. It simply would be too powerful, even if they gave it a ridiculously high end cost (didn't work with Instant Healing, no sense in trying here).
If you make it a long recharge, short duration click power like the other tier-9s there is a lot more you can do with the power simply because it won't be running all the time. The standard for most Defender tier-9s is a 300 second recharge and 30 second duration, and I'm ok with that as long as the power is buffed to the same level as the others.
Let's for a moment look at Sonic/Liquefy. It's a targeted AoE pet that has a slow, -recharge, 37% tohit AND defense debuffs, -run, -fly, knockdown, a 4.5 second MAG 2 hold, AND does a nice chunk of damage. It lasts for 30 seconds and is on a 300 second timer. I mean, DAMN...
Storm Summoning/Hurricane, available at lvl 12. PbAoE MAG 1 foe repel, knockback, 60% -range, 37.5% tohit debuff, 25' radius, 10 second recharge, 0.16 end.
Force Bubble? PbAoE MAG 10 foe repel, 50' radius, 15 second recharge, 0.16 end.
Like I said earlier, Hurricane gives you 3x more ability for the exact same end cost and is available at lvl 12. Hell, I'd be happy if they just gave Force Bubble the same attributes as Hurricane. Unfortunately, you'd still have a tier-9 power that's equivalent to a tier-6, and that's no good.
Ok, repel we must have, so that's a given. Shrink the bubble to 25' at the most. Add in a 37.5% tohit debuff, 60% range debuff, and a 25% damage debuff (it makes sense -- you're projecting an outward force, anything trying to get to you should be severely hampered). Anything that manages to resist the repel and enter the bubble should have the kitchen sink thrown at it -- I'm talking the same tohit, range, and damage debuffs as they get on the edge, but once inside apply a 37.5% defense debuff, a slow/-recharge, -fly, -jump, -recovery, -regen, and damage equivalent to brawl*4 (slightly more than most tier 1 Defender attacks), preferably on every pulse/tick. And of course the deal clincher, change the power from a constant toggle to either a 30-sec click with a 300 second recharge, or alternatively, a toggle with a 30-second max duration, 300 second recharge, and an increased end cost to balance the added functionality.
Now we have a tier-9 worthy of taking. Something we can actually use against AVs/GMs/EBs that currently ignore virtually every offensive power in the set. And really, it's no more or less than any other Defender tier-9 has, and nothing that would be un-thematic to the set.
And best of all, it's completely do-able with current game mechanics and doesn't abandon the power's core function.
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Second would be to add some kind of status effect or debuff. Personally I like the idea of a disorient. It fits the nature of the power very well, and makes it much like a single target version of Repulsion Bomb. My only concern here is the devs would most certainly want to drastically lengthen the recharge time if they gave it a standard disorient (most single target disorients have a base recharge of 20 seconds; Force Bolt currently is 4). So perhaps it could be a minor disorient to keep recharge time fairly short (20 seconds IMO would be far too long). Enough stun to be useful, not enough to warrant a 500% increase in recharge.
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That's why I like the idea of a low CHANCE to disorient. If it will only disorient every 5 to 6 hits, I don't see a need to nerf the power in any other way, and then we can spam it on AVs and GMs to give us something else to do to help in that fight.
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Second would be to add some kind of status effect or debuff. Personally I like the idea of a disorient. It fits the nature of the power very well, and makes it much like a single target version of Repulsion Bomb. My only concern here is the devs would most certainly want to drastically lengthen the recharge time if they gave it a standard disorient (most single target disorients have a base recharge of 20 seconds; Force Bolt currently is 4). So perhaps it could be a minor disorient to keep recharge time fairly short (20 seconds IMO would be far too long). Enough stun to be useful, not enough to warrant a 500% increase in recharge.
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That's why I like the idea of a low CHANCE to disorient. If it will only disorient every 5 to 6 hits, I don't see a need to nerf the power in any other way, and then we can spam it on AVs and GMs to give us something else to do to help in that fight.
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So much for
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Please feel free to post your future suggestions here. I will offer no more negative criticisms of them.
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That came and went fast, didn't it.
But to address your concern, a "minor" disorient could be one that's short in duration, low % chance, or low MAG level, or any combination thereof. I didn't specifically say how I thought it should be done other than say "minor" -- whatever was going to be useful without significantly lengthening the recharge time. No more, no less.
Yikes, I remember when the Defender forums were considered some of the nicest around. Let's keep things civil shall we, devs aren't going to pay attention to a thread filled with personal attacks.
While I normally don't much care for threads on improving FF since they all tend to go in circles, I've been trying hard to think of some new suggestions for the set. One thing that I'm not sure has been touched on before is adding movement powers to the set. For instance adding a type of superspeed, fly, or super jump to say Repulsion Field. Easily rationalized as low friction (can't think of a specific example but I'm sure there is one, a force field construct that allows movement (ala Invisible Woman) or literally a repel field that bounces you around (Speedball would be an example).
That stays thematic, doesn't necessarily change the default use of the power, and Kinetics has two powers that set precedence for this sort of behavior. It should also be in theory fairly easy to code. No it doesn't change how good FF is against AV's or drastically change the set, but it could give some incentive to take the less than stellar powers. Although if you were to put a travel power into the huge Force Bubble, we'd know that you do hate us.
It's probably been mentioned before, and while I'm not sure I like it myself, what about switching Repulsion Bomb to either replicate Bonfire or leave a similar effect in the area it's used. Sure almost everyone hates Bonfire, but the same can be said for Repulsion Bomb anyway, and it's possible that Force Fielders with our limitless potential for knockback could actually use Bonfire in some clever way. If nothing else it would let us play Hellion ping pong without having to find another bubbler first.