Idea for a Force Field Armor set: What do you think?

A few months ago someone made a passing comment about tanking a mission with a Force Field toon. (I believe it was a defender but I couldn't find the post to confirm) It got me thinking; what would a tank force field armor set look like, and would it be viable in this game? Since I couldn't get the idea out of my head, I spent a bit of time looking at the base numbers of the current armor sets and the “force field “ like powers currently in the game already and came up with a set of ideas. I apologize if someone has already mentioned an idea like this; a couple of days looking through the forums didn't result in my finding anything similar.

Along the same lines of what looks to be happening with the new Earth Assault set, I grabbed powers from a number of existing sets. In coming up with the final numbers for some of these powers I looked at how the defensive number differences between primary and secondary powers have been set up in CoH with their 100% vs. 75% effectiveness. If the power I'm grabbing was originally a secondary power I bumped up the defensive numbers to reflect it now being a “primary” power, with one exception that is noted below. I'm going to use the original names of the powers I'm grabbing just to make it easier for both myself and the reader to find the powers I'm talking about. If this set were to be made, I imagine the names and animations would be updated to reflect the “new armor set”. These numbers are based off MIDS ver. 1.4 so if I'm off base, sorry. (I'm not as good with the COH numbers as others in this forum and will certainly never claim to be.) These are also un-enhanced numbers. I'm thinking this maybe a bit overpowered where it stands, but figured it might be a nice starting place for a very rough, rough 1st draft. So, with those quantifications, here goes:

Tier 1:Peacebringer-Shining Shield/ Warshade-Gravity Shield: .26 end/sec. 30% smashing/lethal resistance.

Tier 2: Brute Electric Armor-Lightning Field: .52 end/sec. Minor DOT, small -end on target. Taunt/damage aura. (obviously you wouldn't want the animation for this the be the same, but it's what the power does that I'm looking for.)

Tier 3: Warshade-Penumbral Shield: .26/end/sec. 30% fire/cold resistance, 20% toxic.

Tier 4: Brute Energy Armor-Entropy Field: Status protection- .26 end/sec, MAG 10 vs. kb/ku and repel. 10.4 vs sleep, stun, held, immob. 10000% resist kb/ku/repel. Defense debuff resist: 17.3%

Tier 5: Blaster Devices- Cloaking Device: .26 end/sec. 2.25% defense all. 35ft. Stealth. (this is the one power from a secondary that I would lower the defensive numbers. I'm thinking that with the tier 8 power I've included having this at 5% un-enhanced would make this set too over powered. Even going lower with the defensive numbers might be needed.)

Tier 6: Warshade-Quantum Shield: .26 end/sec. 30% energy/negative resistance.

Tier 7: Brute Energy Armor-Energy Drain: 13 end/click. +25% end, 3% health/Target. 13.5 sec. duration, 60 sec. recharge. Second taunt aura. (this will certainly help with the over all endurance cost of the set)

Tier 8: Defender Force Field-Dispersion Bubble: .52 end/sec. +10% defense all. (I'd reduce the AoE of this from a 25 ft. radius down to a 5-8 ft. radius, similar to Shield's Phalanx Fighting.)

Tier 9: Defender Force Field-Personal Force Field: .26 end/sec. 75% defense all, 40% resist all but toxic. 120 sec. duration/120 sec. recharge making it just like ice armor's hibernate. (Like the other PFF's, you can still move, but you can't affect/attack the “outside” world. As per the minimum to hit chances, they can and will still hit you.)


I'm sure one of your first thoughts as you've looked at this was probably “Man, that's even more endurance heavy then dark armor!” and you'd be correct. Even if one of the armors was changed to an auto it would still be more endurance/second than the dark armor set running all of it's auras. I'm thinking/hoping the Tier 7 power:Energy Drain, helps greatly with this. Endurance costs for the powers would probably need to be tweaked anyway. Of course people may choose not to get some of the powers, similar to how some choose not to get the resist energy/elements from invincibility or all the aura's from Dark Armor. Again, this is a first rough draft.

In return for the high endurance cost, you've got a base for an armor that sits with defenses in the Invincibility range. Although not as good as Ice Armor's or Shields primary areas of defense, it gives a wider range of coverage which would allow for greater flexibility for IO bonus enhancement choices. It is fairly close to Willpower primary defensive numbers, but lacks WP's regeneration and recovery numbers. It shouldn't step on the toes of Granite armor's defensive numbers. Resistance wise, the closest comparison would be to Dark Armor's resistances without the higher psionic/negative and lower energy/toxic numbers.

There you have it. What do you think? How would you tweak it? Would you play an armor set like this if it existed in the game? Does it look as overpowered as I think it might be, or is this workable?

I would love playing a bubble Tank. The only thing this set would need is some passives. It would be damn near impossible and unbearable to play at the state it is now without a kin with you at all times. As if we need another tank set always saying "SB plze!"

It would be a good set, but as I said it would need some passives. I would even switch PFF and make it T8 and use [Force of Nature] for the T9. PFF would need to have a major threat lvl reduction though or someway to keep people from hitting taunt and turning on PFF for it to be balanced in a tank set.

Otherwise, looks to be a fun set to play!

Although not exactly look-alikes, Energy Aura is basically a Force Field concept (energy barriers that protect you from harm via defense.)

Force fields add defense, not resistance. Besides that, this set is a near-duplicate of Energy Aura, except that it has way too many toggles.

I'm down with this! I've said for a while that a bubble tanker would be the business. Shield Defense may have stolen some of the thunder but I still think it's a great idea.

As I mentioned, if something like this was made the endurance costs would have to be looked at. You'd want at least one power as a passive to at least get it closer to manageable...

Interesting idea, and a subject close to my heart.

I've been a Force Fielder tank, not as tough as a real Tanker, but capped Ranged, AoE and Psi Defence, about 38% vs Melee and 60-odd v% S/L resistance.

I've currently got a Dark Armour tanker who's concept revolves around a personal force field.

I'm trying to think how I'd design a set to represent a Force Field tanker like Captain Britain in the early Moore/Davis run and Dave Thorpe's work that preceded it.

Obviously the first priority for the set is to provide lots of defence to the user. I'd go from there to remain consistent with the Defender set by not providing a self heal or any Resistance, but add extra mitigation and a bit of damage via knockback.

1 Deflection Shield - 16% Def vs S/L/Melee, self only
1 Insulation Shield - 16% Def vs F/C/E/N/Ranged/AoE, End Drain resist, self only
2 Force Bolt - as per the Defender power, fast recharge, KB, small damage. This version also taunts
6 Dispersion Bubble - 10% Def vs All, immobilise, Hold and Stun protection, extends over teammates in 15ft radius.
8 Detention Field - why not? Every set has skippable powers, and giving this to a Tanker seems kind of unique. Maybe give it melee range just to be different.
12 Passive Power -Sleep and KB protection, Defence Debuff protection of maybe 40%
18 Repulsion Bomb, 30 second recharge Knockdown and 40% chance of stun PBAoE, scalar 0.5 damage in 15 ft radius
26 Force Bubble - like the Defender power, repel and occasional knockback with added taunt. This is your aggro aura, with a difference. Maybe make the radius a little smaller, or just learn to pulse it.
32 Personal Force Field - cross between PFF and Hibernate - you cannot be hurt, can still move, cant interact with others, but +100% Regen and +100% Recovery while its turned on. 120 second recharge toggle.

Slotted you have 41% Defence slotted (16% vs Psi from Dispersion) and moderate defence debuffs, low enough for you to worry in the presence of Earth Thorn Casters, for example. This would make it worth exceeding the Defence cap by adding in Weave or set bonuses.
No Resistance or self heal, just some mild +Regen in PFF at the end.
You get additional mitigation via KB, and provide some team cover, and get bonus damage from your primary. You get a little bit of range with Force Bolt.

Most importantly, it would be great to have a tintable (in I16) humanoid force field that animates around your body rather than just a sphere.

Thanks to those that did reply. Funny, I was trying to come up with something that didn't resemble an existing armor set but somehow came up with something looking to others like Energy.

To DrMike2000: I'd chosen not to go the direction you did for a couple of reasons: A. it would have made the defensive/resist numbers very close to what Energy Aura might be if it comes blue side. B. as for the Force Bubble, I'm not overly fond of a lot of kb on a tank, and C. I think the change you're describing to PFF would make it too close to Hibernate, without Hibernates penalties... But that's from my perspective.

Part of the reason I'd gone with PFF for the tier 9 was to avoid the crash that a number of higher tier powers have, and not go the self rez direction either.

Again, thanks to those that replied. I guess it's time to go back to the chalk board.

Are you intending for the effects of the tier 9 to stack with other toggles?

So far the throw-away looks to be the 2.25 def/stealth...

I haven't made up my mind on whether or not I like the idea, especially if energy is proliferated.

As dispersion bubble currently stacks with PFF for controllers/fenders/MM's, I'd certainly think those should still stack. I'd also think the steath should as well if it were to remain part of the idea. The others maybe. If one of the powers were to become an auto then that one certainly should. It would certainly be nice to do so to max out resists while you're in PFF for survivability.

I'm certainly not wedded to any specific power but do lean towards wanting to keep in the dispersion bubble, cloaking device and PFF. (I very much like the idea of the PFF being used as a pseudo hibernate, instead of a buff power with a crash.) Again this is a rough draft so any suggestions or thoughts would be great.

Here's an idea:

Make it a mix of Sonic, FF, and Shield Defense.

1) Physical Solidarity - Passive, minor (5%) resistance to Smashing/Lethal

2) Force Shield - 15% defense to Melee, 15% resistance to Smashing/Lethal, Toggle

3) Energy Shield - 15% defense to Ranged/AoE, 15% resistance to Energy/N. Energy/Fire/Cold, Toggle

4) Dispersion - Protection from Hold, Sleep, and Stun, Toggle

5) Disruption Field - Taunt Aura, 10' radius -10% resistance to foes in range.

6) Resistance Field - Toggle, works like Invincibility (with no taunt effect, because it's elsewhere) but resistance instead of defense. 8' radius, +.75% resistance per foe in range up to a max of 10. The idea is it uses your enemy's proximity to cushion blows by dispersing kinetic energy through the crowd. Slotted would provide an extra 10% resistance or so to all when fully saturated.

7) Inertia Field - Passive KB/KD/KU/Immobilize protection. Slight slowing effect that can be counteracted with Sprint or an extra slot in Swift. 10% unenhanceable damage bonus. You become more difficult to move or prevent from moving, as a result your blows hit slightly harder.

8) Energy Wave - Effect akin to Foot Stomp or Shield Charge with lower damage. Using the animation of Irradiate, but slightly slower. 15' radius KD effect. 15% Chance for mag 2 stun. Power effect would look like a ripple on the ground expanding outward from your position, sort of like when you drop a large rock into a pool of still water.

9) PFF - As others have said, make it a crashless version of Hibernate where you can still move, +50% recovery/regen increase for 120 seconds, 1000s recharge (like other tier 9s) 25% defense, 25% resistance. You cannot attack through it, but you CAN taunt. Your taunt aura will still function as well, but the -res will not. The way it is set up, you can still keep your foe's attention, but cannot deal any damage or affect them in any other way.

It would be different enough from Energy Aura and Force Field to make it a unique set, while being similar enough to both to be effective and make sense.

This sounds better than what the OP suggested.

Passives don't seem to fit with Force Fields as we know and love them. An all- toggles set will drag down the user's blue bar.

What about taking another property from the Force Fields set and making click-type timed self buffs that work like the ally-only bubbles, except they defend the casting player? If done right, click-type defenses can be chaeper over time than toggles (see Practiced Brawler). Have the hero bubble himself every few minutes and it works, looks, and feels like the familiar FF, without tons of expensive toggles or hard-to-rationalize passives.

Sorry if it seemed like I was putting your idea down. It was too close to energy melee imo. I like the conversation it started though.

All good Jebe. No offense taken what so ever.