Power Pool Suggestion: Tough Modification

Not a modification to the existing 15% S/L (for tankers) per se, but a list of alternate versions of the power that offer differing bonuses. Basically different versions of the power that are offered the same time as the original, but you can only take one. This is what I had in mind:

(all of these values would be for Tankers, which are pretty high)
Tough: 15% S/L
Tough (Smash): 25% S
Tough (Lethal): 25% L
Tough (Fire): 25% F
Tough (Cold): 25% C
Tough (Energy): 25% E
Tough (Negative): 25% NE
Tough (Pain Tolerance): 7.5% all (but psi and toxic)

Why? Not everyone can stand up to being shot and/or pummeled. If my character is wearing a kevlar vest, that's going to protect him from bullets, but not a giant robot slamming its fist into his chest. If my character is a necromancer, it makes sense for him to be able to dissipate some of the dark magic being shot at him.

And of course, one of the most important values in the game, choice. Do you want to buff your strongest resistance, or plug up a gaping hole? Do you want to have a bit of extra smashing/lethal resistance or do you feel you need more lethal resistance because your robotic chassis resists bullets?

Mmm...

Interesting idea, but it may not be too practical if you can only choose 1 version of it. It is a different beast all together if you could choose multiple ones.

I am lead to believe that S/L attacks are the greatest damage dealers, thus Tough versus this forms of attack is the most beneficial manifestation. You in fact get the best bang for your money by the standard configuration.

But being able to acquire other forms of toughness would be great to add resistance in other areas, you should be able to get toughness for any form of damage to include psionic and toxic, it would lend itself to better character concept creation and game immersion. I could see a radiation defender, whose origin could be actually toxic, would have greater resistances towards her source of power. I would think a fire elemental being resistant to fire to be a natural thing...

Very interesting concept

Stormy

While Smash/Lethal is the most commonly occuring damage types in the game and building defence towards them is a good move, because if an attack is 95% fire and only 5% smashing, but your smashing defence is higher than you fire defence it will use tht and could make the whole attack miss.

However if that same attack hit you with say 20% smashing resistance, then you would take all of the fire damage so already 95% of the whole attack, and reduce the smashing damage down to 4%. So you would take 99% of the damage of the attack...

ouch!

Giving people a chance to round themselves out how they see fit, especially with lacking resistanced in set bonuses, is a good idea. Consider that the invulnerability tanker can get smash/lethal up to the high numbers but may need energy/negative filled in a bit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

I'm just going to /unsign this for now.

I think this is basically what the Epic Pools are for, at least for those ATs that don't get defenses from their Primary or Secondary. And really, that's one thing Tough has to be balanced around. ANYONE can take it, even a Tanker, and if you stack additional non-physical protection on top of the Tanker's normal protection, you can start to get into overpowered territory.

This is one reason why, a long time in the past, I suggested replacing a power in the Blaster Secondaries with a ranged Defense. In addition to the Def, which I believed would be a big help to Blasters in the high levels (this was prior to Epics) it could also add a small resistance to the element of the Manipulation Set. It had already struck me, the inconsistency of a superhero being able to throw around fire, or whatever elemental power, and yet still being vulnerable to that element. This would solve that, and be an option, so the player could skip it if he still wanted to be vulnerable to "his power".

The Epics kind of made that moot, as they provide protection both at range and in melee, and probably in greater amounts than my original suggestion. You have to wait until 41 or later to get it, yes, but the option is available. And if it opened up earlier, it would have to not be as powerful. I suspect a lot of people pick up Tough early on, and then respec out of it when an Epic alternative opens up. I know I do.

That being said, I've said it might be a nice idea to replace the old Fitness Pool with a new Pool of passives. (Since Fitness was the only Pool with Auto/passive powers) I suggested one might be a Melee Defense, and another a Ranged Defense, both of a fairly small amount since they're passive. Another possibility, I suppose, could be to divide it up into four elemental options, Fire, Ice, Energy and Negative Energy. Of course with the tiering system of the Pools you would have to get one of the first two before you opened up the next, but perhaps it could be Fire/Ice for the first, Energy/Negative for the second, then the third and fourth could be Toxic and Psi, with the protection being Res and not Def. Or even just different powers entirely.

I'd rather they just axed the stupid endurance cost both Tough and Weave have. And on all the Leadership toggles, along with hover. I simply don't understand why they all cost so much endurance, in comparison to Primary/Secondary powers and usefullness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Mmm...

Very illuminating posts in most cases...

I like the idea of a customizable tough power, or a pool all of its own for resistances, It will help the ultra-squishies become vey squishie instead, and the melee who already enjoy excellent resistances in most areas to round themselves even better. After all the fear of "ubber" protected melee can be easily solved by implementing resistance caps just as defense is capped. I believe, but uncertain, that resistance itself is already capped to 90% for melee right? But the real problem melee has is the availability of IO sets that actually boost resistance, thus achieving resistance cap is not likely to occur, am I wrong in my observation?

Having a versatile Tough pool, would make sense in all accounts to be there for capability rounding purposes and character concept integration; which is not limited to just melee. I frankly have a real problem with PSI Defenders having no resistances to mez in particular psi based mez attacks. While I can understand a psi defender being stunned cause you punched them on the face is one thing, but a rikti looks at you in an ugly manner and you go "duh" is another thing in its entirety. To me there is nothing more ironic than a mind controller being so easily mezzed by just about anything by mobs using the Controller's tool of the trade. But then I am just a role-player having a problem with rule implementation simply not making good sense, despite that there is a limited legimitate playability justification.

With the advents of IOs and now Alphas the entire balance of Damage Resistance, Defense, Damage Dealing, Mez dealing, and Mez Ressistance might be worth while re-examining and re-balanced.

For instance I can see a tank being very very damage resistant, but I can not see them being very very agile and thus very hard to hit. In contrast I can see a Scrapper being very agile and thus very very hard to hit, but not nearly as damage resistant as a Tank.

When we compare ranged vs melee, we have a sacrifice of armor for gun power. The less damage resistance you have, the more damage you get to have. Kinda like the old naval triad of choices between armor, guns, and speed. A blaster, being basically void of resistances should have some awesome guns, really awesome guns! Not sure they are that awesome for their current nakedness, something in dare need of a re-look. After all a Blaster survival depends on them defeating thier target before the target takes them down.
Should a Blaster's damage be reduced if given defense, absolutely, but one should also factor that defense is not infallible like sheer damage resistance "is".

I really can't undersand the balance with defenders, they have no resistances to speak off in general, despite a few configurations can have some, and not much for defenses as well. Their holds are ok but usually single target, and their debuffs takes time to accumulate; yet they have the lowest damage base ability of all ATs, how was this sense of balance determined? It appears out of whack to me. It would seem to me the damage a defender does should be definetely superior to a tank, and competitive with a Scrapper, who has superior damage resistance, defense and has mez protection which the defender entirely lacks as a whole.

I just feel, that the ATs need to be rebalanced a bit, not nurfed by any means, but some ATs may need upgrading to level the playing field.

Stormy

Ugh....

Stormy, two words: force multiplier

Defenders are not all equal. My cold def does things that my emp can't do, and is different from my D3, which is even more different from my kin, and so forth. Are they the best soloers? Compared to my widow or MM's, by far no. Compared to my ice tank? Heck yeah. Defenders are awesome as-is, even before their recent change.

Their balance solo is what they do for teams: they make others greater. Hopefully you will learn that some day.

Ok, I agree that the option to add any type of resist may be OP, but I would propose a compromise. What if characters had the option to spend a power selection to gain resistance to their focus element. Basically, a fire/fire blaster could gain resistance to fire damage, but not ice, energy, etc. If a character has a different primary and secondary, maybe half bonus against each element (with exception of powersets which don't have a way to classify damage types, such as invulnerability and regen defense sets). This would not be too unbalanced and would add flavor to concept characters.

Certain sets like martial arts or dual blades would only be able to apply this to smashing or lethal defense anyway.

I was gonna make a suggestion but mine was to just make tough res to all, weave is def to all and in pvp tough is in fact res to all. If you think making tough res to all would be overpowered you have no idea what OP even means.

Or they could simply make tough function the same way in pve that it functions in pvp.