Older Powers

Here is my question, why no to upgrading older powers? Does that mean as the game ages, they will just let them fall to the wayside as they create new powers with new art, and mechanics.

One I have seen mentioned is FF. I have also see many mentions of the Devs saying we are not looking back, we are looking forward. Like really? That is part of the whole suite of powers offered in COH, and not all people will use the new powers and let the old ones wither and die.

I realize resourcing is an issue, but one power revamp every 3 issues, is that really that difficult? Don't get me wrong, this can be rationalized many different ways, but at the end of it all, it doesn't make sense.

I would love to see an official Dev stance on this.

You realize that Fire Armor one of the old sets in the game just got a major major upgrade in the last year by having the avoid tag removed from burn, consume being buffed to add end drain resist and giving a short term recovery buff and Fiery Embrace being turned from a fairly useless damage buff to the best damage buff in the game?

Energy Aura is getting ready to release in i21 with an entire powerset makeover. This is a CoV launch set.

Regeneration which is as old as they come has upgrades inbound with i21 also.

Don't get me wrong FF needs some love but I don't think it is fair to say the devs are abandoning older sets.

Just wondering - what changes do you think FF needs?

And BTW, it did receive some updating recently, when some of its shields were among those powers that can now be cast as an AoE instead of clicking through the entire team to apply them separately.

p.s. - If you want to see a Dev stance on the question of updating older powersets, this isn't the place to ask. This particular forum is for Players asking Players for assistance and answers, and the Devs rarely post here (in fact, I can't remember the last time they did post here, off the top of my head).

My apologies. I was reading a post from the PAX, and essentially one of the points of the large thread was that FF needs to be updated because of the late game changes and what FF does. In reading in that thread, people seemed to think that FF needed to get upgraded, and that the Devs stance was no updating old powers, focusing on new. Now, I don't think it had to do with animations, it was balance and tweaking the power itself.

Fun little fact - The Cottage Rule derives it's name from an off hand comment from Castle(iirc) along the lines of;

"We won't alter a power in anyway that changes it entirely. Like taking Build Up and making it build a cottage instead of buff damage."

Thus, the phrase 'Cottage rule' started getting used whenever changes to a power are suggested.

I also think that changing the buffs to be AOE wasn't a change in FF's power, just in how annoying it is to actually use it. It's now a lot easier to hand out your bubbles, but once you've done it, FF is in exactly the same position it was in before.

There are still many powers they need to look into, but they probably never will. Epic pool for blaster has such gimped powers in it (EM Pulse, repulsion field, repulsion bomb). Then again, Frozen aura for blaster never got the damage as Tanker's version (it wont really break the damage-balance, since /ice is one of the weakest already), /TA since the day they released it has still issues (floating mobs and the ignite power combined with pets), while other powers became somewhat obsolete or their counterpart has a way better version (timebomb versus MM's detonate), or the gun drown with a retarted 6 sec interuption timer. I can continue, MM merc heal, it even interupts when he is hit by a non-dmg ability, while they did change that non-dmg wont interupt such anymore.

Maybe in time, some day, they would give old sets or outdated powers some attention, for now.. they just focus on new sets, new stuff, more money.

(like fire shield, how to explain a new player with no acces to IO's that he has to use combat jumping and acrobatics to not being tossed around as a tank against knockdown/back/up and immobilise?)

Replusion Bomb in FF got several big changes before the change to how the shields are cast...about the same time the fire tank changes came into effect.

Its actually a worth while power now.

The knock back was changed to knockdown. Damage was increased. Disorient was added.

The animation is still the same...it works sort of the same way...so cottage rule is still "sorta" in effect for the power.

So they are not gonna change; 2 small shields or dispersion bubble, nor PFF or force bubble.

They probably wont change detention field...some people use it to great effect in STF neutralizing towers.

Force bolt has many uses so no real change there.

They recently changed repulsion bomb as mentioned above.

That leaves only ONE power from the set that has potential to be changed - Repulsion Field. Making it a stun like the Stalker set mention earlier may be an option.

So what about the set makes it an old useless set?

Most people HATED the constant bubbling team and pets...thats gone now. Well to quick clicks every 4 minutes or so.

The set is a bit passive. You can turn on dispersion bubble and sort of just forget it...leaving lots of options to the other half of the AT - or just absolutely LOTS of dots to put in power choices

IMO the set is fine as is. Heck for a defender - if he takes power poost...the small bubbles alone give 38% defense to ALL positions. If they stay inside the dispersion bubble they are well over soft cap...even without armors.

What do you want - God mode?

I wish they would take a good long look at Stone Armor and make it so that the set doesn't have a tier 9 that effectively replaces three of the four previous armor powers with a better version, and cannot be used with the fourth.

It's entirely possible to build a Stone Armor that doesn't take Granite, yet is softcapped to all types except Fire/Cold. Fire and Cold are not that common late in the game either.

It's also possible to respec into a build that is effectively useless when exemplaring below level 27, rather than simply having reduced capabilities.

What I'd like to see is Granite changed so that it becomes an additional bonus on top of the other armors that grants the same final effect as Granite does currently by itself. Recalculate some of the endurance costs to account for needing to run all of the armors to get the same level of protection. Retool Rooted so that the set is no longer 'Take Teleport or else' for travel options, even if this means lowering the mez protection a bit since Granite gives mez protection as well.

Heck, reducing the effectiveness of Granite when used by itself might even be seen as an argument for reducing the penalties associated with that power.

Show of hands, how many people would LOVE to see some of the penalties from Granite reduced even if it meant making the power less useful without stacking with the other armors?

Rule #1 : Never.ever.touch.Granite

Serious, never.

Granite is what granite always has been, pre-ED, pre-hitcap, pre-villains, pre-IO's and pre-everything.