Buff Force Field

the only reason i would want it to have a mag 100 kb is so i COULD see a lvl 1 baddy get flung like a train just hit him lol

While I could certainly agree Force Bolt would be nice if it did some damage, that's the one thing I don't want it to do. Currently, Force Bolt is a 100% chance of very nice knockback. It is useful to me because when I WANT to use it, it is immediately available, and only available, as a tool for sending a foe flying. If I were using it as an attack, those foes would be sent flying a lot more often, which would cause problems for the team.

As it is, Power Push got a large damage boost for Dominators, and AFAIK, it still has the same chance of knockback. I have heard nothing about it, but I suspect it is a problem. As Energy Assault needed the damage, it's acceptable, but the other versions of Power Push remain the same. And that includes Force Bolt. (The only reason Force Bolt and Power Push are two different powers is because FF/Energy Defenders can get both. Their difference is negligible)

I've suggested making Detention Shield into a toggle, but according to the devs, that is impossible. A toggle must tick at regular intervals. The first tick would make the foe Untouchable, which means the second tick would immediately fail because it was unable to hit the target.

Personally, I would make it a huge Def bonus to the foe, while making the tick effect autohit, but that would allow other autohit powers to "get through" as well.

Repulsion Bomb is fine. Yes, it is a long animation, but it is hardly "the longest in the game". Propel is longer, and so is Total Focus. Although honestly I wouldn't object to it having the same animation as Neutron Bomb.

It is an attack that does MORE damage than Neutron Bomb, though, has a 100% chance of knockDOWN, and a fairly good chance of Stun. Which makes it a good attack to spam on your Tanker. His foes are flopping at his feet and stunned, but not knocked away from him, so he's not losing any defenses.

Finally, the problem with giving Force Bubble a debuff effect is that its primary effect forces all foes out of its radius, forcing them out of the debuff. And I personally wouldn't want it to have a defensive debuff effect anyway. It's my personal belief that what FF needs are either -Res debuffs, or +Dam buffs, on either the caster or the whole team. The Cottage Rule means new powers can't be made to grant those effects, but maybe they could be secondary effects of existing powers.

In short, Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb are fine. The ones that need work are Repulsion Field, Detention Shield, and Force Bubble. Some effects I'd like to see out of it are buffs, not debuffs, better Endurance management, and maybe a -regen on Detention Shield, so a foe doesn't come out of it better than when he went in. This is supposed to be a set about energy and force. I think those effects best fit the concept.

I've also thought that maybe it would be nice if Force Field had more CONTROL over knockback. Like perhaps the ability to reduce it to knockdown, when desired, or even to knock foes INTO a target. Implosion. I'm guessing that's as difficult to produce with the current game engine as a Untouchable toggle, though...

Okay, there's a lot of misinformation in the past few posts.

First, there's a difference between Phased and Untouchable. Phased targets can only hit other Phased targets. Phase Shift grants this status. Untouchable targets are immune to attacks unless the power used can specifically go through that and yes, that is a feature of Hamidon's attacks. It has nothing to do with the Phased status. You can't attack an Illusionist while it's intangible because their power gives them the untouchable, not phased, status.

Second, civilians in mayhems are NOT untouchable. They just have 100% resistance to all damage and ridiculously high mez protection.

The Devs will never give us a power that pierces Untouchable, simply because it'd no doubt break the mechanics of several battles, such as Lord Winter going Untouchable until you kill his pet GM ambush. You'd be able to, for example, Detention "phased" Illusionists, which isn't supposed to be possible.

Oh no, I'll be able to make invincible enemies the devs want to be invincible.

And also prevent said "purposely invincible but still able to fight back" enemies from fighting back.

Right, that would be totally overpowered. It's not like those enemies are either not always intangible or use an "ignore incoming damage" mechanic that doesn't prevent normal mezzes from working either, or are simply not intended to be unstoppable marauders that instakill your party no matter what.

I like your ideas, Vanden.

If the devs wanted to make Detention Field into a toggle, they could do it. Castle may not be able to do it with a spreadsheet of game data, but with some programming help it is definitely possible.
Just like swappable ammo, Dual Blade combos, insta-recharge-Power-Siphon-criticals and other goodies we now hold in our hands. I'm sure all required some extensions to the game code rather than just data changes.

I think it would be a very good idea to do this, and make the power more useful. Alternatives would be:
1) Apply a Mag 4 stun for a few seconds when the phase wears off
2) Make powers targetting an intangible foe queue up like the target was out of range. This way you don't waste attacks on the intangible enemy, but can be prepared to spike them when the bubble wears off.


Force Bolt Mag 1 damage. Yep! I agree with that one.

Repulsion Bomb could use a quicker animation, yes. Provide the Hand Clap one and an alternate one as well, maybe even a faster version of the current beachball toss.

Repulsion Field, get rid of the unmodifiable endurance drain. Knocking an enemy off you isn't that fantastic. Do the same for Repel.

Force Bubble, I can't say. I have very little experience with it.