VERY quick improvements to forcefields/sonic resonance

I'd bet that Sonic was specifically designed so as to not plug the psi-hole of armor sets.

Regen is stretching it, since there's plenty of -Recharge to be found in other powers as well. I wouldn't really count SR or Shield, either. Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the only non-positional powers in the game exist in Mind Control and Illusion, both of which are relatively rare to see in the hands of an enemy. Plus only two of those non-positional powers are outright attacks. The rest are all various mezzes.

I don't entirely disagree, but I'm not sure how "psi weakness is too common" somehow justifies removing Sonic Resonance's only outstanding weakness.

Dark Armor gets Obsidian Shield pretty early, too. And Dark Miasma with Shadow Fall, as well. Plus you're never obligated to fight Coralax bosses, AFAIK. And Seers are actually one of the few balanced enemy groups from Praetoria.

Though really that complaint falls apart since even with some early psionic enemies around, none of those sets are powerful to begin with yet, as you yourself say. To a low-level Invuln character, psionic is just about equally as dangerous as any form of elemental damage.


Also, another thing I forgot regarding Sonic Resonance: Can we please reduce the endurance cost on Disruption Field? It does half as much as Enervating Field, but with the same cost. While one could argue that the ability to cast DF on an ally somehow adds to its value over EF, I don't think "slightly more convenient (except when it drops all the time due to elevators/distance)" is equivalent to -25% Damage. Edit: Oh yeah, and I think DF also suffers from the clipping/saturation problem, since one target within its radius must the ally you cast it on, it potentially affects one less enemy than EF.

Rikti (and some Lost) Lts and Bosses, Carnie Illusionists and MIs, the original version of Mother Mayhems minions. Some of the new Praetorian seers, and Psychic Clockwork, off the top of my head. Not all that damaging, but a lot more common than you think.

Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?

Because quite simply it represents for sonic resonance an area in which a protective buff set is incapable of providing protection. Look again at other sets- they do have a weakness to psy damage. But they have lots of mitigative debuffs or heals that can compromise the psy damage dealers.

Sonic does have mitigation, but limited:

• Sonic cage: less mitigation and more damage procrastination
• Sonic repulsion: requires endurance consumption not sustainable, and an ally in harm's way
• Liquefy: has a base 1/10 uptime

Sonic relies a LOT on its shields, because it has such a small toolset for actively taking the bite off of attacks. Having a hole means sonic can suddenly run up against a mobs that will be doing 100% damage and it can't do much about it at present. This is not a good position for a set meant to be relied on for safety to be in.

That doesn't logically follow from what I said...

Sonic Siphon and Disruption Field allow your team to kill things faster. Death is a 100% mez and all that. And while Sonic Repulsion needs a lot of work to make it viable, I'm not really sure how "in harm's way" really accounts for much - in melee, with enemies accounts for a pretty large swath of the game, after all.

But the funny thing is that I don't disagree. I actually feel that Sonic Resonance is a flawed set and needs work. But I'd much rather have a proper overhauling than some band-aid fixes that don't really address the set's core problems.

Yes, that is what a weakness is. Though as said above, it already brings some other things to the table, and should be able bring more.

This statement scares me, though I'm not exactly sure why. All Defender sets should be reliable, yes, but relied upon...hrm.

Forgive me for being unclear, then. Other shielding sets that lack psychic shielding protect from psychic damage with other means. Forcefield blocks most psychic powers through positional means and active knocking about. Thermal heals it when it hits. Cold reduces attack rate among many other things, Sonic, well, doesn't. Sonic, a set that puts its eggs in the 'you're tougher to take the hit' camp, is the least reliable shielding set against psy damage. And anywise, every set that has a psychic weakness has an overwhelming strength elsewhere. Sonic does not, it protects against all with moderate shielding, evenly. Why have a glaring weakness then? ...So, I suggest adding psy damage coverage to a power that has a thematic reason to cover it, and is otherwise suffers from some level of redundancy.

Yes, I'm aware kill speed is mitigation. Hence why I kept my suggestions pretty minor. Sonic at its heart is still about making the team tougher and the enemies weaker, outlasting. Filling its crack neither overpowers the set, nor compromises its theme. If anything, it updates the set to a time where many more psychic foes appear than when it was built, and more reliably do what it's meant to do.

You want a set revamp? I know there are some deeper changes that could happen. Liquefy needs a better look, and sonic repulsion would, in my opinion, be far better as an ally click. But those are larger changes than some debuff resistances and unenhanceable side-effects added to a few powers.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'band-aid fixes.' Do you believe small improvements threaten to keep the sets from getting larger adjustments that they need? If so, I really don't get placing such an adversarial relationship between the two. If both are needed, they'll happen.

Your point wasn't unclear, my problem was that you were replying to an argument about someone else's post. Your point doesn't really have much to do with ArcticFahx's reasoning or my opposing viewpoint to it.

As you can see from previous posts, I disagree with the idea that psychic damage has become particularly commonplace.

I'll admit, I'm more opposed to the amount of Psi resistance than the concept. It might be more agreeable at something closer to what Bookkeeper_Jay suggested, though I would keep it at 5-10% Psi resistance, and unenhanceable.

I'd also fix the problem of Clarity being redundant by adding a lot of the debuff protection you were looking to add to the rest of the set to it instead.

Exactly that. I wouldn't be so firm on that if not for the fact that it's happened several times before. See the history of Energy Aura for a good example.

I'm sorry if it came off like I was pulling a quote out of context. I read the quoted portion as a restatement of a position you had taken in general to the set, and was stating my reasons for challenging said position. My focus on psychic damage may be different, as I play a lot high-level on the redside. There you can't throw as stick high level without hitting a carnies, widows, fortunatas, psychic wardens, or rikti.

As to the rest, I would hope you could address the suggestions as they stand or at least enumerate your position rather than dismissing them as being an hindrance to a hypothetical, broader revamp of unstated scope.

Please don't take that as a personal affront, I'm just trying to be specific here.

I already did in my first post of the thread, though..

Don't worry, I try not to take things personally.

or Numina, Sister Psyche, Aurora Borealis, Barracuda, psychic tarantulas, PPD Psi Cops, etc., etc.

I appreciate the feedback and counterpoints you've brought up. I obviously have a few differences of opinion, but I'm glad the back-and-forth can stay friendly.

I was referring to the comment about how the set was "flawed" and needed a "proper overhauling." You've stated that most of the stated debuff protections in the shields and psy resistance are not the way to go, but that debuff protections in clarity do make sense. In fact, you'd mentioned the debuffs protections might be best shifted to it instead. You'd mentioned a stackable sonic siphon and faster liquefy would be preferred. You believe there should not be any psy resistance.

I'm just trying to clarify the stance you have here-
-An overhaul of the powerset is more necessary than small changes
-Stackable sonic siphon
-Shields staying as-is for the most part
-No comment on sonic cage, repulsion
-Lower cost for disruption field
-clarity carrying debuff protections
-An altered liquefy, for -dam/res rather than -tohit/-def.

Do I have this correct?

I've probably run into the ground my stance on protecting from side effects as well as damage, and treating psy damage as most others are. The other things well, I made these suggestions because they seemed in my mind pretty simple, and for the most part had little to upset balance-wise. They are straight-up additions rather than alterations of present values.

When you get into altering powers up and down, it has more ramifications on present characters. Most of the changes I'd suggested follow present functions, or are unalterable, thus more straightforward to balance.

I agree with some of your positions, particularly about liquefy needing to be changed, (Though I'd do it differently) and altered disruption field cost. I just think these are a bit outside the purview of 'quick additions.' Their exclusions are not to communicate that they shouldn't be changed. Rather, I just think those debates would be longer, more crazy. Hence why I thought I'd simply share the faster, simple changes.

Hm. Actually, the unenhanceable 25% resistance to psy damage (20% for controllers/corrs) I can see. It means set vulnerable are less vulnerable, but still must be careful. The lack of enhanceability means sonics don't all of a sudden need to find new slots, or gain new slots to use +res sets in.

I think some of the confusion may be because my position isn't concrete. I'm perfectly willing to concede on some points, and as you have argued and others have chimed in, I've been swayed on some things.

Yup. Getting everything hammered out in one go is much preferable to having the set get tweaked to make it a little less painful, but still lacking.

This was slightly due to a mistake on my part, as I had forgotten exactly how much Sonic Siphon did. I just think that something needs to be done about Sonic Siphon. Stackability would be nice in a vacuum, but I equally like adding -DMG or reducing the recharge time (though that may impact its effectiveness) or really anything else to make it more useful in the early levels where Sonic doesn't get much to work with.

Edit: Oh, and reduce its animation time. It just feels really slow and clunky, numbers aside.

Yup. I see where you're coming from regarding defense protecting against debuffs where resistance does not, but I'm not a numbers person, and I'd really want to see exactly how big that gap is before agreeing to comprehensive debuff protection in that fashion.

Force Field gets some exotic protections, though I don't really recall why it does, since I'm pretty sure they were added after launch. I wouldn't mind seeing Sonic get a few of its own.

I personally love Sonic Cage (and Detention Field), and have no complaints about them. And I like the idea of making Sonic Repulsion a click power with a much more reasonable endurance cost and a usable recharge time.

Yup.

I think my ultimate goal would be to change Clarity quite a bit. My current working idea is to turn it into an omni-buff that protects against all debuffs and some psionic damage, but would be closer to Fortitude in terms of recharge/uptime. That way Sonic isn't completely negated by psionic damage, and can work against some debuffs, but can't necessarily protect every single member of the team. It also makes Clarity much more unique and useful outside of making up for any shotcomings of resistance versus defense.

And with a better uptime. I get the impression it's unfairly penalized for being an AoE hold.

Aside from what I clarified.

Whereas I look at it from the perspective of developer workload. Reducing the endurance cost of Disruption Field is, as I understand it, as simple as tweaking a number on a spreadsheet. Adding entirely new effects, and especially as many as you suggested for Sonic Dispersion for instance (or as many as I suggested for Clarity), would be quite a bit of work. Hence why I think that regardless of what they do with the set, they're probably better off going at it whole-hog.

I'd bump it down to 20%/15% myself, but yeah, I think it's a fair compromise.


Something else I noted upon rechecking FF versus Sonic, is that Sonic is clearly out of whack compared to FF in terms of raw defense/resistance numbers. Probably due to coming about right when the dev team was terrified of stacked protection, capped protection, and resistance especially.

These are good ideas, esp. the Def Resistance. I personally would like to see powers in FF that no one takes addressed also. In particular, Detention Field and Repulsion Field.

Detention Field: While being "out of phase" is a cool concept, in practice players (esp. teammates) seem to hate it. Change this to a 4.7 Mag Hold, straight up. No other changes needed.

Repulsion Field: This one is harder, because I don't just want to make it like every other power out there, but I think a slow movement, slow recharge, and a small -def debuff PBAoE Toggle would be a thematic changes. Instead of being thrown about, targets are hindered by the lines of force you produce! The -End per enemy hit will have to go away, but the base endurance cost could be increased.


I'd also like to see FF get "the stalker treatment." Add a small, unmodifiable, and unresistible debuff to some of the powers. This is a different idea than the debuffs you mention, so I think it would have to be one or the other.

Detention Field: -5% Recharge, unresistible (and doesn't depend on the Mag hitting).
Repulsion Field: -5% Defense, unresistable
Repulsion Bomb: -10% Resistance, unresistable
Force Bubble: -5% Damage, unresistable

Or there abouts, not sure if the numbers make sense.

Hmmm...
Force bolt:
The huge (almost 19 mag) kb puts this power squarely in the 'made to send things flying' camp. The primary use is to knock things back. Removing enhanceability invalidates most slotting, of its primary purpose. Also, while knockdown is friendlier to placement, it is inferior for safety, as it does not cause the foe to spend more time closing in. Also, the unresistable idea is cool, but would never be allowed on high rank foes like AV's and such. (with good timing you could then cause an AV to spend a fight falling all over itself.) The idea to add bruising may not be in theme with the rest of the set, but it is in-theme with the power, and gives the power a use in an AV fight, or against tough foes. Force bolt is to push away dangerous foes. The bruising would make the foes also more easy to defeat, so it increases the power's utility in pinpointing and taking out one particular priority target. As both KB and +defense have a threshold of stackability, it also gives forcefields a tool that has no easy stacking threshold at which utility falls off.

Detention field: this power is insane. Yes, you have to time it well, and it can be easily misused. But the fact that it can single-handedly remove as high level threats as it can is almost absurd. Making it able to do so without any threat of repercussions or timing? Such things seem glaringly like the balance for the ability to remove the foes, considering the recharge/magnitude. (To rephrase: you can remove absurdly high level enemies from a fight, but they always get a slight window to return fire)

Repulsion field: unsuppressed knockback WAS available when ragdolling was first implemented, but it was deemed too powerful. Entire groups of enemies could be kept in infinite knockabout against wall invalidating any threat whatsoever without any skill or timing involved. even in this select power, especially since it's a toggle, I would not see them giving an exception that allows the exact scenario they wished to prevent to happen. A chance for stun seems more than doable, though.

Repulsion bomb: honestly, this power has great knockdown mitigation with more than reasonable damage for being in a set as it is. I'm not certain this power needs the help.

Force bubble: removing the knockdown...I'm not sure. It does help as a foe slowly fighting the repel can get close, only to get flipped and be repelled back as they do so. A slow gives cool set possibilities, but the knock +repel combo is incredibly potent. In fact, this power is so strong I'm not sure it needs a hand.

Detention field: this power is situational. But it's so good in those situations, that making it a hold would actually decrease the safety the power provides. More safety most of the time, less safety in extreme circumstances? It seems a fare trade, but it's a tradeoff I'm not certain needs to be made.

Repulsion field: a debuff seems fair. I would certainly not argue against it. In all honesty, this power is at present pointless with force bubble around.

Repulsion bomb: See comment earlier. A debuff would be cool, but this power is more than respectable at present.

Force Bubble: I like the debuff, but even a token one seems hard to justify on an ability as strong as force bubble.

Maybe I am misremembering this, but my impression was that the change was related to PvP since an FF'er could pin you against something like a bus stop and keep you there. There was a lot of bitter chatter about PvE powers being compromised due to PvP concerns.

Actually, during (wasnt it I6 when ragdolling was introduced?) closed testing, someone posted about testing energy blast characters being able to keep enemies permanently ragdolling against walls in a warehouse map. I believe they even showed a video of a boss basically getting hit, ragdolling,hit,ragdolling/etc. Every single attack that had knockback made the foes go limp for several seconds, and there was no limit. The enemies were completely helpless so long as the knockback was triggered.

No offense, but for the longest time ANY PvE nerfs/changes were blamed on PvP. (and vice versa)

I didn't say remove the knockback on Force Bolt. Keep the current enhancable one, but add a minor unenhancable and unresistable one, too. Like Hover does its thing to move you slower than your maximum flight speed.

Detention Field won't be able to remove something indefinitely, it'll miss eventually. No matter what, you'll never go higher than 95% hit rate with it and it still has a hefty recharge.

I know Repulsion Field would be very powerful like that, I just miss tagging a Death Mage as the ball and lifting him into the sky. I wonder if anyone ever got hit by a falling, dead Death Mage in PI.

For Force Bubble, I'm thinking mostly of the BAF trial where it's great against the minions, but not so much against the lieutenants as they're immune to Forcefields in general.