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Knock down is turned into KB quite easily by using KB enhancements. Lowering the mag of Repulsion Bomb's KB actually /increases/ the power's utility by letting players slot (or not, as the case may be) in order to achieve the desired effect.
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QFT
I would love it if they just made a blanket change to the set and turned down ALL the KB numbers by default to just under 1 so that they are all KD by default. Then guess what? You slot in one KB enhancement or not, and it acts like a "switch" that turns it into knockback or not.
I REALLY think that this idea more than anything would make the set infinitely more playable to the average player.
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QQFTFT
"Anti-knockback" apparently isn't an option since it equates to giving knockback resistance to your foes. However, simply not doing knockback in the first place and doing knockdown instead gives you the option to do knockback if you want.
I can only assume that the devs have given this capability to meleers but not to Force Field because it is simply TOO powerful, and would make FF's knockback powers TOO useful. Repulsion Bomb particularly. They would rather add a slight chance of disorient and some damage than make the power able to reliably disable all foes with no negative consequences.
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Only being able to use it every 2 or 3 minutes is a negative consequence that I think we all could live with to have this functionality... wouldn't you agree?
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Only being able to use it every 2 or 3 minutes is a negative consequence that I think we all could live with to have this functionality... wouldn't you agree?
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That's just what I mean. That's obviously not enough for the devs. They require that you have to disrupt your meleeing allies and position yourself for the least amount of negative effect for you to be able to use it.
Obviously we would like it better if Repulsion Bomb, Force Bubble and so on were more consistently useful, and not situational. And yet every time we've brought it up the devs have insisted that they prefer the powers as situational. What I would think of the change isn't going to make it happen.
But what WE think MIGHT make it happen. Remember, it's a whole new ballgame now, anything is POSSIBLE because of the sole ownership of the game now and the new resources.
That and Emmert's gone. I think he was the #1 thing in the way of giving FF any love.
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But what WE think MIGHT make it happen. Remember, it's a whole new ballgame now, anything is POSSIBLE because of the sole ownership of the game now and the new resources.
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Well, certainly we want to do our best to make the devs reconsider their position on whether certain Force Field powers should be situational, or more generally useable. That's why I agree with you, the main problem with many Knockback powers is they do not demonstrate the behavior that they were originally designed to emulate. They are both more disruptive than the devs originally intended, and more able to cause permanent disabling of a foe through chained knockback.
I think the devs are aware of that, they just don't know how to resolve it. I'm not sure that I do, either. Hopefully by talking about it we can get a new perspective on the issue, though, and perhaps make the consequences of allowing more chained knockback seem more acceptable.
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That and Emmert's gone. I think he was the #1 thing in the way of giving FF any love.
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I wish I could believe that. Unfortunately, Statesman was not the only dev to comment on Force Fields.
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And yet every time we've brought it up the devs have insisted that they prefer the powers as situational. What I would think of the change isn't going to make it happen.
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Not picking a fight with you but this inspired me to look at all the Tier 9 'situational' defender powers as the Devs call them:
Dark Miasma - Dark Servant - you only want to avoid this power when you want to prevent aggro on open maps
Empathy - Adrenalin Boost - Not much of an Emp player, someone help me here.
Forcefield - Force Bubble - Great to pin spawns into a corner on a closed map and some open maps, and has a lot of use in PvP right now.
Kinetics - Fulcrum Shift - Great in large teams to give potentially enormous damage boosts to all toons willing to wade into a large spawn.
Radiation Emission - EM Pulse - One of the greatest holds in the game, also -regen, no reason to not use it as soon as it recharges on every large spawn your team comes across.
Sonic Resonance - Liquefy - Not familiar with this power much, but it looks like a great spawn neutralizer when I've seen it used.
Storm Summoning - Lightning Storm - great for open and closed maps to hold back foes, protect a bottleneck, many other uses.
Trick Arrow - EMP Arrow - See EM Pulse
So... I guess the question is FB on the same level as the other Tier 9's in the case of usefulness?
DestineeFable's Guide to an MSTF run (fixed!)
My latest AE madness
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Sonic Resonance - Liquefy - Not familiar with this power much, but it looks like a great spawn neutralizer when I've seen it used.
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I can speak from familiarity here. I have this, it is six-slotted, and I use as often as possible. This is (as a player) my favorite power in the Sonic Resonance set; Hold, followed by Knockdown and -Defense along the way? Yes plz.
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Knock down is turned into KB quite easily by using KB enhancements. Lowering the mag of Repulsion Bomb's KB actually /increases/ the power's utility by letting players slot (or not, as the case may be) in order to achieve the desired effect.
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QFT
I would love it if they just made a blanket change to the set and turned down ALL the KB numbers by default to just under 1 so that they are all KD by default. Then guess what? You slot in one KB enhancement or not, and it acts like a "switch" that turns it into knockback or not.
I REALLY think that this idea more than anything would make the set infinitely more playable to the average player.
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QQFTFT
"Anti-knockback" apparently isn't an option since it equates to giving knockback resistance to your foes. However, simply not doing knockback in the first place and doing knockdown instead gives you the option to do knockback if you want.
I can only assume that the devs have given this capability to meleers but not to Force Field because it is simply TOO powerful, and would make FF's knockback powers TOO useful. Repulsion Bomb particularly. They would rather add a slight chance of disorient and some damage than make the power able to reliably disable all foes with no negative consequences.
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Unfortunately this also creates an unwanted side effect that you're ignoring. KB resistance also comes in various MAG levels. Reducing all KB powers to KD requires lowering their MAG value to under 1. As you say, adding in a KB enhancement then turns the KD into KB, but only for foes that have little to no KB resistance.
Repulsion Bomb has a KB MAG value of 10.386%. Your suggestion lowers that MAG value to something like 0.5 (same as Ice Slick). No amount of KB enhancements is going to bring the MAG value back up to 10.386%.
Now it's hard to say how much of an impact this might actually have without knowing the KB MAG protection values of various critters. But such a change could make RB completely useless against even more foes than it is now.
If a critter has even a moderate KB protection of MAG 4, the current version of RB will knock them back. If you change it to KD by lowering the MAG value to under 1, then the power will have no effect at all.
One way around this would be to add a knockUP component to it. Not many critters have KU protection, and it would have the same overall effect.
Trust me, I don't like uncontrolled KB either, but in an oh crap situation, one where you might actually use this power, you certainly don't want entire classes of critters being able to ignore or resist it.
Just be careful what you wish for. You don't want to accidentally stab yourself in foot.
Of course the best way to alter this power is to make it a cone knockback power. But that's just my humble opinion.
I was gone for two years, but I've been playing the set for the last three months. It just never occured to me that there was a stealth buff to R-Bomb.
Edit: Teikiatsu, Adrenaline Boost gives the target 90 seconds worth of 500% Regen (slottable), 200% Recovery (slottable if you really want to), and 50% Recharge Bonus. At little cost and no special penalty to the user. It's situational in much the same way as Speed Boost is (except that nobody ever protests receiving it).
On Detention: If there is a Magnitude value associated with it, which I'd expect there to be, it may be that Controllers get bonus to it. Controllers do get bonuses to other aspects of Buff sets (compared to Defenders), much as Defenders get debuffs from their blasts that Blasters don't.
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Moreover, you could hypothetically *never* attack out of a supressable PFF as is described above and you'd always have the PFF protection, so voila problem solved. You gonna respec out of that?
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Of course. I took PFF to get me past mistakes in aggro management, potential team wipes, etc. Go try a power with supression of any kind and you'll find that, without exception, detoggling/retoggling the power never cuts out the supression. Fire a blast, activate Super Speed, and try to zip off at 90 mph--you walk. Hit some guy with a sharp stick, turn on Fly, and try to ascend rapidly--you're slower than your Hover speed. Grab a glowie, turn on Invis, and run for the next objective--you aggro everything in sight.
Let's try that logic with PFF: Tenebrous Tentacles on a large spawn, pull aggro, turn on PFF, get wailed on by a bunch of +2's for ten seconds before anything happens. NOT COOL.
Necross:
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With defensive powers suppression normally just cuts the value in half for the duration of suppression. In the case of PFF i can't imagine that it would be made suppressible without first drastically slashing its current values.
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Which is what I would expect, making such a change to the power worth nothing for me. I'm not saying NOBODY could like such a change.
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The "... Yeah." was meant as a response to the (presumed) disbelief someone would feel when finding out that the most basic description of a power was completely wrong for over two years. It was intended as a sort of sarcastic comment regarding the Developer/QA attention the powerset has received until extremely recently.
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Oh, sorry. I see what you mean here.
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Not picking a fight with you but this inspired me to look at all the Tier 9 'situational' defender powers as the Devs call them:
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It's not my terminology, it's the devs that have said that the FF knockback powers are "situational", and they prefer them that way.
It seems to me as well that other Defenders have Tier 9 powers that are more generally useful. Without being limited to an indoor mission with lots of corners in it. (And PvP means nothing to me)
Let me put it this way, is there ANY reason that you can think of to have your Force Bubble up constantly? Is there any reason you can think of NOT to have Dark Servant up as often as possible? Can you think of any reason not to fire off EMP Pulse? (Other than the number of foes would be too small to merit it)
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Let me put it this way, is there ANY reason that you can think of to have your Force Bubble up constantly? Is there any reason you can think of NOT to have Dark Servant up as often as possible? Can you think of any reason not to fire off EMP Pulse? (Other than the number of foes would be too small to merit it)
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No; Aggro management; Team so awesome you don't have time (AM helps to make this true). Yeah, obviously FF is shafted somewhat on its T9.
Also, the P in EMP stands for Pulse.
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Unfortunately this also creates an unwanted side effect that you're ignoring. [...] Repulsion Bomb has a KB MAG value of 10.386%. Your suggestion lowers that MAG value to something like 0.5 (same as Ice Slick). No amount of KB enhancements is going to bring the MAG value back up to 10.386%.
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I'm not ignoring the effect, but I am saying that in the absense of a power that lets you reduce knockback, if you want knockdown, you have to start with it. And I think it can be argued that more people think Ice Slick is a useful power than Repulsion Bomb. This change may make Repulsion Bomb less useful against Bosses and AVs, but it would be more useful against Minions, and since the power is not single target anyway, you could say that that is its purpose.
But what about a power that, instead of subtracting from Knockback magnitude, reduces its magnitude to something like 10%? This would not have the problem of lowering Knockback below zero, since it is a percentage of the Knockback and not a constant. And if you apply it AFTER the resistances of the target, then a Boss or AV could still be effected by the knockdown, but be knocked down instead of knocked back.
It would require adding a new calculation to the game, which probably means changing the game engine, but it would solve the issue you refer to, which is that knockdown powers, however slotted, can't generate enough magnitude to effect resistant foes.
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And yet every time we've brought it up the devs have insisted that they prefer the powers as situational. What I would think of the change isn't going to make it happen.
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Not picking a fight with you but this inspired me to look at all the Tier 9 'situational' defender powers as the Devs call them:
Dark Miasma - Dark Servant - you only want to avoid this power when you want to prevent aggro on open maps
Empathy - Adrenalin Boost - Not much of an Emp player, someone help me here.
Forcefield - Force Bubble - Great to pin spawns into a corner on a closed map and some open maps, and has a lot of use in PvP right now.
Kinetics - Fulcrum Shift - Great in large teams to give potentially enormous damage boosts to all toons willing to wade into a large spawn.
Radiation Emission - EM Pulse - One of the greatest holds in the game, also -regen, no reason to not use it as soon as it recharges on every large spawn your team comes across.
Sonic Resonance - Liquefy - Not familiar with this power much, but it looks like a great spawn neutralizer when I've seen it used.
Storm Summoning - Lightning Storm - great for open and closed maps to hold back foes, protect a bottleneck, many other uses.
Trick Arrow - EMP Arrow - See EM Pulse
So... I guess the question is FB on the same level as the other Tier 9's in the case of usefulness?
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There is a certain amount of logic here tho. Most Defender tier 9 powers are short-duration, long recharge click powers, making them "situational" by that nature.
Force Bubble is a low cost toggle that can always be running. They make it situational by having the bubble extra large and unwieldy for constant use, the idea being you're only going to use it when absolutely necessary, i.e., an "oh crap" moment.
The problem is FF is full of these "oh crap" moment powers. One or two would be plenty. 4 is simply too much.
And again it cycles back to the fact that FF isn't a set that underperforms by and large. What it does well it REALLY does well. But the set is a one trick pony that's very binary -- either your abilities help or they don't, there is no middle ground.
And the lack of a variety of debuffs is another very sore spot. Every single Defender set has had debuffs added to them over the years to counter the extra abilities given to critters. All except Force Field.
So from the dev's point of view you have a very effective set with a large number of "situational" powers that statistically performs very well. But statistics can't convey pleasure or enjoyment. FF is a very boring, sometime frustrating set to play because you feel like you simply aren't contributing enough to the team, and when it's time for the other Defenders to bring out the big guns in the tough fights, the FFer simply has nothing else to offer.
And as has been pointed out a number of times by "he whose name I shan't utter..." many of the FF powers that are highly situational for the FF Defender actually work pretty well for Controllers and Masterminds who have the tools to make them less situational and easier overall to use.
And I think that since Castle has visited the FF set and the only thing he saw fit to do was add damage to Repulsion Bomb (the one thing Defenders by and large didn't ask for) kinda makes me highly pessimistic that any significant changes are coming.
Datamining probably shows that the set performs well compared to other sets for all ATs that can take it, and therefore doesn't need any adjustments. Unfortunately datamining can't tell Castle just how boring the set is to play. And I fear no matter how often we tell him, it's not gonna make a difference.
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Let's try that logic with PFF: Tenebrous Tentacles on a large spawn, pull aggro, turn on PFF, get wailed on by a bunch of +2's for ten seconds before anything happens. NOT COOL.
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Hey, you already have to deal with that with stealth powers. It's not a big deal, it just requires thinking ahead. If you want PFF to go up, then you make sure you aren't attacked for ten seconds. Of course, that makes it less useful for "turtling up" so you can play psuedo-Tanker for the team, but that's sort of the point. Instead of using the power to do something your Archetype is not really designed for in emergencies, you can use it to protect yourself considerably better the rest of the time.
This is not to say that I support making PFF a suppressable defense power, but you're ignoring what you could gain because of what you don't want to lose.
Personally, I would rather PFF allow me to defend my team with it up, even if I can't shoot anything. If it suppressed when I fired, but allowed me to use Dispersion Bubble even with it up, I'd certainly spend a great deal of time with it at full strength.
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There is a certain amount of logic here tho. Most Defender tier 9 powers are short-duration, long recharge click powers, making them "situational" by that nature.
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Well, I think the point is that while there are some more "click based" Tier 9s, there are also some that are much more generally useful. Dark Servant, for instance, while it may be a click power and may have a long recharge, I don't think you can say that the Dark Servant is a short duration effect to be used situationally. And even powers like Adrenaline Boost and Fulcrum Shift you are very likely going to want to use them as soon as they become available, you won't be standing around waiting for an emergency before you try to use it.
And even if that is the case, then why make Force Bubble a Tier 9 power? Why not make it more of a toggle buff, and move it down, and make some other short duration click power your Tier 9?
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Datamining probably shows that the set performs well compared to other sets for all ATs that can take it, and therefore doesn't need any adjustments. Unfortunately datamining can't tell Castle just how boring the set is to play. And I fear no matter how often we tell him, it's not gonna make a difference.
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Well, there is datamining that can demonstrate that there is a problem, even if the performance of the set seems up to par. First of all, there is the number of characters of that power set available. Whether or not Force Field performs great or not really isn't important if teams can't find FFers because no one is playing them. Plus, it should be extremely easy to determine if a character levels extremely slowly solo when compared to on a team. That should be a warning flag, or if it isn't, the devs should change their attitude so that it is considered one.
If players are getting frustrated with Force Fields and this is having an effect on the game, then that should be verifiable by datamining.
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On Detention: If there is a Magnitude value associated with it, which I'd expect there to be, it may be that Controllers get bonus to it. Controllers do get bonuses to other aspects of Buff sets (compared to Defenders), much as Defenders get debuffs from their blasts that Blasters don't.
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According to City of Data it does indeed get a higher mag value for Controllers than Defenders; same with Sonic Cage. I also noticed that Controllers get longer mez durations from the various Defender mez powers than Defenders do (same MAG level tho).
I'm guessing this is due to Controller's higher mez AT modifier. Even though it's in their secondary set, the Controller can use a mez power better than a Defender that gets it as a primary. Yet another strike against the Defender AT. What's the point of AT modifiers if Controllers are STILL going to be able to use a power that ONLY does mez better than a Defender?
So we do about half the damage of Blasters due to Defiance (even though it's supposed to be 65%), and Controllers who share our powers only get the lower % they're supposed to on non-mez effects.
Wow... and the devs see absolutely nothing wrong with this double standard? No wonder why so many people (myself included) have virtually given up playing Defenders. Why would you play an AT when other ATs can do nearly everything you do significantly better, not to mention a crapload of things you can only DREAM of being able to do.
JUST...NOT...RIGHT...
Fault does knockdown.
I can't think of many specific mobs it didn't work on for my brute, beyond things like EBs and AVs. Having RB do low mag knock down would make me take and six slot the power, 3+ second animation be damned.
/em shrugs
On big teams, I fire off Fault the second it's up since it's an OMG WOW!!!! good power. Lots of PuGs have remarked on how effective my popcorning of mobs with alternating Faults and Tremors is.
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So we do about half the damage of Blasters due to Defiance (even though it's supposed to be 65%), and Controllers who share our powers only get the lower % they're supposed to on non-mez effects.
Wow... and the devs see absolutely nothing wrong with this double standard? No wonder why so many people (myself included) have virtually given up playing Defenders. Why would you play an AT when other ATs can do nearly everything you do significantly better, not to mention a crapload of things you can only DREAM of being able to do.
JUST...NOT...RIGHT...
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Well, keep in mind that you're comparing three things here. You're comparing Defenders to Blasters, Controllers to Defenders, and Blasters to Controllers. Each of these, in theory, specializes in one of three areas, damage, defense, and control. Blasters are supposed to be good at damage, not so good at defense, but still have some control. Controllers are supposed to be good at control, not so good at damage, but still have some defense. And Defenders are supposed to be good at defense, not quite so good at control, but at least have some damage.
The problem is that for most Defenders, you're talking about damage that can be boosted by their Primary. So rather than doing 65% damage, or 50% of a Blaster's damage, they can do like 85% of the base modifier, or (surprise, suprise...) 75% of a Blaster's damage. FF doesn't get that option. But for those that do, they're doing 75% of a Blaster's damage, when a Blaster doesn't have anywhere NEAR 75% of a Defender's defense. (maybe a solo FF Defender's defense, but not a Rad Defender's defense)
The problem is, that while a Defender can use his buffs to increase his damage, a Controller can, too. And Controllers have Containment, as well. Really, Controllers needed containment, you need damage to be able to solo. But it messed up the balance. Controllers now have okay damage, okay defense, and really good control. There's no longer a big gap between the damage a Defender can do, and what a Controller can do.
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Let's try that logic with PFF: Tenebrous Tentacles on a large spawn, pull aggro, turn on PFF, get wailed on by a bunch of +2's for ten seconds before anything happens. NOT COOL.
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Hey, you already have to deal with that with stealth powers. It's not a big deal, it just requires thinking ahead. If you want PFF to go up, then you make sure you aren't attacked for ten seconds. Of course, that makes it less useful for "turtling up" so you can play psuedo-Tanker for the team, but that's sort of the point. Instead of using the power to do something your Archetype is not really designed for in emergencies, you can use it to protect yourself considerably better the rest of the time.
This is not to say that I support making PFF a suppressable defense power, but you're ignoring what you could gain because of what you don't want to lose.
Personally, I would rather PFF allow me to defend my team with it up, even if I can't shoot anything. If it suppressed when I fired, but allowed me to use Dispersion Bubble even with it up, I'd certainly spend a great deal of time with it at full strength.
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But that's exactly what they DON'T want us doing -- hiding in PFF with all our other toggles running, dropping it every 4 minutes to refresh teammate bubbles. It's the same reason they made drastic changes to the MM version of PFF, like the super long recharge and inability to control your pets.
I think you've got one of two options with PFF -- either leave it the way it is or drop the defense to Deflection/Insulation Shield levels and let you attack normally.
Honestly I kinda like PFF the way it is, as both an "oh crap" power and a "travel with impunity" power. I highly doubt the devs will ever consider changing it.
Hey everyone. 
Just got my account reactivated, and figured i'd repost this myself now to add to the discussion since it got lost a few pages back. Figured i'd write something after reading here, and talking to a bunch of people in game about Force Field defending. Here goes...
When basing these changes and tweaks for the Defender primary version of Force Field, I did it with the intent on providing more synergy with Defender secondary sets as well as maintaining the overall theme of the set. These changes I believe would give the solo defender much help when using this set, and help the Defender to better provide for their team.
Deflection and Insulation Shields: Allow to be used on self. It doesnt really make too much sense that a force field user can cast their shields on just about anything but themselves, and as a primary ability the Defender should have a much better aptitude with them then a controller to warrant this. How and to what degree they are used is that the Defender is best at. This change would reflect just that. Also, this is suggested for Defenders only because in a controllers primary there are a full set of tools which provide more then enough mitigation in the form of their controls to aid them both solo and team. Thats not even considering that those same tools also offer them means of damage. This would make the force field defender much more capable but no way overpowered solo, and be able to survive and focus more on defending the team. They wont be above or really on the same level of many of the other defender sets in terms of solo ability (such as kin, rad, TA, dark) but it would be a nice boost without much work.
Personal Force Field: Same as is, but would now cancel out Deflection and Insulation shields as well as Dispersion Bubble if activated. It is and I think should be the oh crap! last ditch self defense power that routs all of the users energy to maintain the shield around themselves when things go absolutely bad. ( IE: The old elude, hibernate without any recovery benefits concept). Also provides a good balance and trade off for allowing the user to benefit from their own shields.
Force Bolt: As already stated here, add a low percentage chance to disorient or a minor disorient. Also increase the knock back magnitude.
Dispersion Bubble: Only changes being the addition of the cancel effect when PFF is activated and possibly switch the radii with Force Bubble.
Detention Field: As stated in the list of previously proposed changes:
Changed to a timed toggle so that it can be turned off at will, but will be forced off if left on too long
Change the graphic so that its super obvious that thing has been detained
Add a power icon to the bubblers status window to show when the field is about to lift
Make the target of the field unable to be targeted by anyone until the power is lifted
Repulsion Field: Increase the endurance cost per hit and increase the pulse rate of the knockback pulses, or change to the same as that of Repel in Kinetics.
Repulsion Bomb: Just greatly increased damage and chance to stun, and increase the endurance cost or recharge time if needed.
Force Bubble: Switch the radii of this and Dispersion Bubble, increased magnitude of the repel effect and add a +slow component to anything that might get through. If a greater end cost is deemed appropriate, thats perfectly ok.
Another option: Make force bubble into two bubbles: Inner bubble same size as dispersion and act as FB does now, outside bubble would be the same size as FB is now, but does KD instead of repel. Increase endurance cost appropriately.
In closing, whats proposed here with these changes to the Defender Force Field primary set tries to showcase the Defender as the best wielder of the set in both solo and team play. Furthermore, it is important to note that the proposed changes provide more of a synergy between the primary and secondary sets within the confines of what a force field/** defender is supposed to be about. They do not have the means of increasing their damage like their other defender counterparts, but should be able to both defend themselves and their team to the full extent that the tools given them will allow. Again, this is meant to reflect that, and should be a boost to both team and solo play without taking much work on the end of the developers. Hopefully this is also something thatll encourage more people to not only enjoy playing the set as a primary for solo and team, but invest time and slotting into more abilities and allow more styles of play using the set and whatever secondary the player chooses.
Thanks for reading.
Cypher Flash: 50 TA/Rad/Dark Defender
Controller = The Guardian Angel over your shoulder who makes sure nothing goes wrong.
Defender = The Combat Corpsman who bandages your wound, kills a Nazi with a tounge depressor, then hands you a clip of ammo.
All of those are already included in the consolidated list in my signature will, but thanks for contributing.
They are? I just need more sleep then. :P Didn't see anything about the Shields suggestions so wasn't sure. (the defender able to use them on themselves, but PFF cancelling it) Thanks.
Cypher Flash: 50 TA/Rad/Dark Defender
Controller = The Guardian Angel over your shoulder who makes sure nothing goes wrong.
Defender = The Combat Corpsman who bandages your wound, kills a Nazi with a tounge depressor, then hands you a clip of ammo.
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They are? I just need more sleep then. :P Didn't see anything about the Shields suggestions so wasn't sure. (the defender able to use them on themselves, but PFF cancelling it) Thanks.
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You're right, that one is missing but honestly, that will never happen. It just won't. It WOULD make us into tankers, and the devs will never do that.
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There is a certain amount of logic here tho. Most Defender tier 9 powers are short-duration, long recharge click powers, making them "situational" by that nature.
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Well, I think the point is that while there are some more "click based" Tier 9s, there are also some that are much more generally useful. Dark Servant, for instance, while it may be a click power and may have a long recharge, I don't think you can say that the Dark Servant is a short duration effect to be used situationally. And even powers like Adrenaline Boost and Fulcrum Shift you are very likely going to want to use them as soon as they become available, you won't be standing around waiting for an emergency before you try to use it.
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Dark Servant, even though you can have it up all the time and is a nice companion, really doesn't do all that much. It slowly cycles through 3 powers, Twilight Grasp, Tenebrous Tentacles, and Petrifying Gaze. You need to be standing right next to it to benefit from TG as the radius is small; TT is a nice immobilize but does very minor damage and is also a short, narrow cone; and PG's only real usefulness due to its extremely short duration is stacking with your own to stop a boss. Even though it supposedly can cast Darkest Night and has an always-on PbAoE Chill of the Night, I don't think I've ever seen them used (I could be wrong, my Dark/Rad Defender has been shelved for a LONG time). It's significantly more useful solo or duo than on large teams. I'm not saying it's a bad power, nor a situational one; far from it. I *love* pets; it's just not a GREAT pet, merely an OK one, and hence why we can have it up and running all the time.
And in regard to other tier-9s being situational, I think it all depends upon what you're doing and what your team is like. If the team is generally doing OK you may not see any value in constantly casting Adrenaline Boost every time it comes up (like you'd do with fortitude). Some might just for the hell of it thinking, well, it can't hurt, but some might sit on it till it's really necessary, ensuring it's recharged and ready for those "oh crap" moments.
Some powers like Lightning Storm and Fulcrum Shift have much shorter recharges and can be used much more often -- less situationally as it were -- but FS is really only useful at the beginning of big battles and is very location-dependent. And Lightning Storm can't be controlled and doesn't move. You cast it and hope it attacks what you want it to attack.
Each power is useful in their own way, and situational in their own way. Some more than others. But their utility and strength is typically balanced by their recharge times. The really strong ones have long recharges while the less powerful ones are shorter.
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And even if that is the case, then why make Force Bubble a Tier 9 power? Why not make it more of a toggle buff, and move it down, and make some other short duration click power your Tier 9?
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Because they will NEVER move powers around in established sets, nor change the core function of a power. This is A#1 taboo, as stated recently by Castle. So for now till the end of days, Force Bubble will be FFs tier 9, and it will always be some kind of AoE repel power. Any changes have to be made within that framework.
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Datamining probably shows that the set performs well compared to other sets for all ATs that can take it, and therefore doesn't need any adjustments. Unfortunately datamining can't tell Castle just how boring the set is to play. And I fear no matter how often we tell him, it's not gonna make a difference.
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Well, there is datamining that can demonstrate that there is a problem, even if the performance of the set seems up to par. First of all, there is the number of characters of that power set available. Whether or not Force Field performs great or not really isn't important if teams can't find FFers because no one is playing them. Plus, it should be extremely easy to determine if a character levels extremely slowly solo when compared to on a team. That should be a warning flag, or if it isn't, the devs should change their attitude so that it is considered one.
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All true, but like I said, I don't think FF throws up any red flags in datamining in terms of performance or leveling, and that's where I think the devs usually stop. If they see a discrepancy in terms of performance then they might start to look deeper. But I don't think FF has ever been an underperformer. Just under-interesting.
And lets not forget -- although we are forumites, are very vocal, and have very straight up ideas as to what we like and don't like about FF, we are not necessarily the majority. I'm sure there are thousands upon thousands of FF Defenders that see it as a great, casual, laid back set -- where they can join a team, earn lots of XP, and all they need to do is throw up some bubbles every 4 minutes and blast once in awhile. So where we see it as dull and boring compared to other sets, they see it as "CoH easy mode" where they can earn lots of XP and not have to do that much. Different strokes for different folks.
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If players are getting frustrated with Force Fields and this is having an effect on the game, then that should be verifiable by datamining.
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It *should* be, if it were the case. I'm not any more privy to the numbers than anyone else, but I'm betting it's just not the case statistically. I think it's more of an issue where there may be some that simply don't play or have abandoned the set, there are more that simply accept it as is, taking the big 4 and ignoring the rest in favor of secondary or pool powers, and make the best of it, either in an active or barely-active playstyle.
Think so? Like to hear why..just for my own info. Didn't think of that due to the lack of status protection which does amount to a lot in this game.
Cypher Flash: 50 TA/Rad/Dark Defender
Controller = The Guardian Angel over your shoulder who makes sure nothing goes wrong.
Defender = The Combat Corpsman who bandages your wound, kills a Nazi with a tounge depressor, then hands you a clip of ammo.
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Knock down is turned into KB quite easily by using KB enhancements. Lowering the mag of Repulsion Bomb's KB actually /increases/ the power's utility by letting players slot (or not, as the case may be) in order to achieve the desired effect.
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QFT
I would love it if they just made a blanket change to the set and turned down ALL the KB numbers by default to just under 1 so that they are all KD by default. Then guess what? You slot in one KB enhancement or not, and it acts like a "switch" that turns it into knockback or not.
I REALLY think that this idea more than anything would make the set infinitely more playable to the average player.
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QQFTFT
"Anti-knockback" apparently isn't an option since it equates to giving knockback resistance to your foes. However, simply not doing knockback in the first place and doing knockdown instead gives you the option to do knockback if you want.
I can only assume that the devs have given this capability to meleers but not to Force Field because it is simply TOO powerful, and would make FF's knockback powers TOO useful. Repulsion Bomb particularly. They would rather add a slight chance of disorient and some damage than make the power able to reliably disable all foes with no negative consequences.