Suggestion: Buffs For Forcefield

Force Field is one of the very first power sets to come with the release of COH in 2004 and has seen very few changes since. The following are a few suggestions to possibly make FF a bit more comparable to current sets.

Forcefield has too many powers that do the same thing which is almost always knockback. That said, to keep within the cottage rule my suggestions are as follows:

Personal Forcefield - add defense debuff resistance

Deflection Shield - add defense debuff resistance

Force Bolt - This power has always been a powerful single target knockback and should remain as such. That said to make it more valuable it could see either a significant damage increase (making it a viable dps power) or perhaps a chance for an added stun.

Insulation Shield - add defense debuff resistance

Detention Field - As much as I'd love to suggest changing this to a hold I am fairly confident the devs will not alter the functionality of this power so drastically... that said there's no reason there couldn't be a -regen and -recovery debuff added (so trapped and un-damageable mobs cant just recover hp and end while untouchable) or some sort of lingering debuff after the untouchable effect ends.

Dispersion Bubble - Fill the gaps in status protection a bit by adding sleep and repel protection. Let this shield be one of the defining powers for the set and allow the shielder to provide better status protection to themselves and those near them. Add defense debuff resistance as well

Repulsion Field - As much as I'd like this power to just be completely changed at best we can hope for is some sort of additional effect. I'd suggest a to hit debuff of some sort applied to those who enter the radius much like Hurricane does.

Repulsion Bomb - Let controllers get containment benefits from this power. Also make the stun guaranteed and mag 3.

Force Bubble - Allow this power to provide a small amount of personal defense and/or resistance to the user and possibly those within its confines.

Ideas like these could make Force Field closer in performance and utility to the newer sets that were added since.

Starting off with, "I like force field right now."

That said, most of these are straightforward and make sense in the current game, especially with all the def debuffs later on. I do like the -regen -recov in Detention Field.

And repulsion bomb, IIRC, *does* get containment damage. Unless you're asking for it to *set up* containment, which would require changes to Containment itself to include the stun it does, not to the power itself.

Not 100% certain on sleep/repel protection in Dispersion Bubble. It's fairly good as it is now - and I can't think of the last time I needed Repel protection on one of my bubblers.

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Can't see any harm in any of the suggested changes.
Gets my /signed.

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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.

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

These would definitely make me look at Force Field more.

Make the other half of the powerset actually worth taking? What madness is this?

I like these suggestions. They keep the Forcefield theme intact, yet add some relevant and useful buffs to the powers. I like that Detention Field becomes a nearly perfect stasis (you want a hefty -Recharge to finish it). Defense DeBuff resistance is just logical. It didn't exist when FF was made, but if it had, FF would have gotten it.

The only power I disagree with is Fore Bolt, I'd rather that they add an unresistable 0.5 mag knockback against Underlings, Minions, Lieutenants, Bosses, Elite Bosses, and Archvillains/Heroes. And players in PvP. Force Bolt is one of the best single target knocks in the game, I say make it the ultimate. Nothing reliably knocks an AV off its feet. Let's change that.

I'm very wary of buffing Force Bolt because as it stands I see it as one of the underrated, yet borderline overpowered powers in the game. Four second recharge, 5.2 endurance. Built in accuracy bonus and a strong magnitude. That's insanely economical to keep one or two targets juggled non-stop.

I've also never really understood why it should do more damage. That's not really the set's focus and a little bit more damage potential isn't suddenly going to fix any imbalance in the set.

A friend and I just brainstormed some ideas of our own. Apologies if this is a bit thread hijack-y.

Personal Force Field
Nothing wrong with it, but I'd really like to see the Mastermind FF layout adopted by all versions. PFF is a drag of power to get at level 1. Force Bolt is so much more fun and exciting.

Deflection Shield
Add 2.0 magnitude knockback protection. If FF is the king of knockback, it should give protection to its specialty. But given the spammability of the shields, it needn't be too strong.

Insulation Shield
I feel like the endurance drain protection in Insulation Shield is actually too strong. I'd honestly like to see it nerfed a bit in exchange for some slow protection.

Detention Field
I like the idea of -Regen, -Recovery, and -Recharge. I love Detention Field already, and this would make it better still.

Dispersion Bubble
This is the place to add Defense Debuff Resistance. It adds some dynamic where if you want the full protection you have to gather on the FFer. It also gives a small personal buff, which I'm normally wary of but it's fine like this.

Repulsion Field
Option A: Fix all knockback powers of this type (Repel, Sonic Repulsion), then turn this into a clone of Sonic Repulsion. FF already has enough direct knockback powers, including an AoE. At least placing it on a teammate would add something.

Option B: Replace it completely with something more interesting. I have a handful of unique power ideas that would be nice to have both for gameplay and concept reasons. Such as "Soap Bubble" a ST lingering debuff that removes friction from a target, applying a constant chance for knockdown and a damage debuff.

Repulsion Bomb
It dawned on me that there's already a better version of Repulsion Bomb in the game, that lacks all of its downsides: Gravitic Emanation. Guaranteed stun, strong knockback rather than mere knockdown (though I suppose whether that's good or bad depends on the person), and a faster animation time. All at the relatively small expense of turning it into a cone. In short, replace RB with Gravitic Emanation.

Force Bubble
I've never had much of a chance to play around with this, but there doesn't seem to be any problem with it. Not sure if it's worthy of Tier 9 status, but it's otherwise okay.