Kheldians 3.0

Warning, this will probably end up being a long post.

I'm really not sure how I'm going to put into words what my current thoughts are on my Peacebringer, so perhaps I should preface this post with a little background of where I'm coming from in regards to Peacebringers. But most of this can with minimal changes be applied to Warshades I would imagine.

Of My over two dozen characters, my Peacebringer is my favorite. I just really enjoy playing him and over the years I have made several adjustments and tweeks to his build, powers, and slotting to make him even more fun.

I play a tri-form type of build so my slotting is fairly evenly split between all three forms, but I would have to say I lean more towards Dwarf form and less so towards Nova Form, mainly because when things get bad I tend to survive more often when in Dwarf Form.

Now the new Peacebringer changes have me feeling like I'm waiting for the second half of the peacebringer changes. I say this because to me it really feels like the Devs in one fell swoop made Dwarf and Nova forms pointless to take anymore. I mean other than for concept.

So let me get this straight: I can now perma-lightform and do something I was never able to do solo in Dwarf Form (The TANK form), which is to cap all of my resistances, (except psi) as well as having the ability to have defense, up to the point that I can cap S/L defense, plus I can make Essense Boost perma to cap out my hit points to match what my Dwarf form gives me, and the new build up power can also be made perma to make the inherent damage bonus of Nova Form moot.

To sum up: I can now remain in human form and have better survivability than my dwarf, have better melee damage than my dwarf, and I would estimate at the very least on par ranged damage as my Nova form without any of it's squishiness to worry about, and to top things off I have access to all of my powers, referring to all of my nice support powers that I don't have to risk dropping out of Dwarf form to fire off while trying not to get killed like before.

Alright, those last few bits I admit are very ranty sounding, and I won't lie, I feel sort of grumpy about it because my character was (currently still is) a Tri-Form PB and I feel like by dumping those two forms I can make my character much more powerful and versatile than his current Tri-Form setup. Wasn't the whole point of forms to make PBs versatile? Currently they do the exact opposite it seems, makes them inferior because each form doesn't do anything "better" anymore and locks them out of too many abilities that they wouldn't be locked out of if they just remained in human form.

So now that I've got that out of my system, I would like to take a stab at how to possibly make Dwarf and Nova forms relevant again.

Now, where to begin: First let's state the obvious, Dwarf and Nova forms as they currently exist break the game in too many horrible ways. I have never heard a Dev comment about this, but I can't imagine that they really like how the forms work.

To give you some examples of what I mean by "breaking the game", When I run the first Signature Arc and I get Synapse's powers, and I am in Dwarf Form, using the Synapse Flurry attack (forget it's name), my Dwarf just takes ONE swing with it's claw, but I see and hear the whooshing and ghost image of human arms punching the foe. There are a few other instances of similar weird power animations and behaviors when in either Dwarf or Nova forms.

Next there are a ton of animation and emote oddities and outright bans put in place because the forms can't animate them properly or even at all, more so for the Nova form, which just goes to make you feel even more generic as you can't even use an emote to somewhat make your Kheldian "different and special" compared to every other Kheldian in the vicinity. When you don't have any access to power color customization or alternate animations for powers, the ability to at least emote can mitigate the feeling of "Gee I am exactly like every other Dwarf/Nova here". Ironically I guess this is now becoming less of a problem because with the new PB changes there are probably less Dwarfs and Novas around anymore.

Alright, now that we understand that the current forms tech does bad things to the Game, I've been pondering how to address that.

Peacebringers are supposed to be beings of energy right, so was thinking along those lines, what if we were to change the forms from a "change into" toggle, to more of an "Aura Envelope" toggle?

To explain what I mean by that, currently whatever costume slot you have active just disappears and is replaced by a SINGULAR looking Dwarf or Nova form, which is identical to every other Dwarf and Nova form, which is the crux of their problem and why they break the game so much when in those forms.

But what if instead when you activated a Form Toggle you just radiate a Dwarf or Nova shaped energy aura that envelopes your human form in whatever costume slot you had active? Basically for game purposes it would act like any other toggle shield power, you turn it on, and you get fancy graphics surrounding you.

To describe it somewhat, picture yourself surrounded by a whispy glowing Dwarf-shaped energy aura while the Dwarf Form toggle was active. The same goes for the Nova, although I think the Nova aura might need more of a revamp to better accommodate a human skeleton more so than the Dwarf form which is already kind of humanoid shaped in terms of it's skeleton.

Now that we have the visual aspect of the forms "fixed" so that they no longer break the game like they do now, how do we go about making them worth taking, because so far we haven't changed how they work mechanically. And that's the other half of this problem. Currently they aren't really worth taking anymore unless we update them somehow.

If we assume that the Dwarf Form is designed as the "tank" form, and by that I mean, lower damage, higher survivability and some agro control, then we have a good start point from where to begin.

When Dwarf form is toggled, you have several self buffs and debuffs active. You have a self damage and movement debuff in effect, to keep it in line with the original dwarf design. You also still get extra powers that belong to having taken the Dwarf form power, those can be slotted just like before.

Now, the buffs that you get while it's active is where I'm finding things trickier to figure out because if I simply say you have better resistance to damage, that doesn't mean too much if you can already cap all of your resistances just using Lightform so why would you even bother activating Dwarf Form and get hit by those self debuffs.

And I know if I tried to suggest that it shouldn't be possible to self cap resistance with lightform alone I would catch hellfire and brimstone from the forums. Although, I think that's probably the best way.

The self debuffs to go along with the form buffs I think are essential to both Dwarf and Nova because they really flesh out the character concept.

Let's try something different, let's give the Dwarf a modest resistance buff, which I would suggest be lower than it's current resistance buff because how you have access to your other resistance toggles to compensate, plus I don't want to make those 3 shields completely worthless while trying to fix forms from that exact problem. Dwarf still has it's endurance mod ability, it's +hit point ability, it's mez protections, and it's inherent jumping ability.

Let's give it some modest across the board debuff resistances to make up for the loss of damage resistance.

Here's where I would like to suggest a unique ability added to PB and WS Dwarf Forms that are polar opposites of each other in keeping with their concepts. Give the PB Dwarf Form a scaling resistance that increases as you are attacked by foes, sort of like fury, but for your ability to withstand damage. And give the WS Dwarf the same thing only instead of increasing it's damage resistance it increases it's damage bonus. Lastly, since the Dwarf form can get you to the PB cap as well as Essence Boost if made perma, the extra hit points provided by the Dwarf Form are rendered moot in a way, so instead, how about a modest +regeneration bonus. Nothing to high, but nice enough to make wanting to use the form worthwhile.

Now, onto the Nova form. I would assume it loses it's innate flight because now that you have access to all of your powers you can activate hover, flight, etc, or not, as you see fit. It retains it's endurance mod, to hit, and damage bonuses, while suffering debuffs to resistance and mez protection and/or resistance.


I just had an interesting thought his me as I was re-reading this to make sure it made sense somewhat. I put above that the forms come with the powers that they currently have on live, but that would be sort of odd since you would also have access to the human form versions of those same powers. Seems like it could be problematic.

Here is what I propose, using the same kind of tech as the Dual Pistol Swap Ammo power utilizes, Each Form Toggle can affect a group of specific powers like swap ammo does.

Dwarf Form affects the following melee powers:
Radiant Strike (Equivalent to White Dwarf Strike)
Incandescent Strike (Equivalent to White Dwarf Smite)
Solar Flare (Equivalent to White Dwarf Flare)

Basically KB is turned into KD, damage is adjusted accordingly, and taunt is applied, as well as any stats as needed.

And when Nova Form is activated, which in keeping with it's squishy ranged attacker theme, the following powers are affected:

Luminous Detonation (equivalent to Bright Nova Detonation)
Proton Scatter (equivalent to Bright Nova Scatter)
Gleaming Blast (equivalent to Bright Nova Blast)
Gleaming Bolt (equivalent to Bright Nova Bolt)
And the oddball power that doesn't have an equivalent is Glinting Eye, but it's still affected by the Nova Form buffs/debuffs.

These ranged attacks are adjusted for effects and stats as needed to keep them comparable to human versus Nova form performance levels.
I.E. To Hit, Range, damage, endurance, recharge, etc.
Nova Form would significantly improve these powers to account for the Nova Form self debuffs.

My first thought I was going to suggest using the VEAT power tree tech to select either human melee or Dwarf Melee trees,and Human ranged or Nova ranged trees. But I figured that was sort of specific to VEATS and what makes them unique, and since Swap Ammo is more of a nice gimmick tech and the Devs have shown they don't seem to mind using gimmick tech for other than those it was invented for, as in the case with Dual Blades Combos and the Street Fighting Combos, I figured it would serve two purposes, one, to handle the "fix" nicely using existing game tech, plus it would serve the Kheldian theme of being versatile since it's not a permanent effect and you can toggle the forms on and off at will adapting to the situation at hand.


And that's about all I got for now, as I guessed, it was a long post, I just hope I got my suggestion out in a somewhat understandable way. Thanks for reading.

Dunno, lots of players really like the Alternate Forms as is.

I don't think "Breaking the Game" means what you think it means.

Also, while I'm all for making the forms worth taking...I don't think they could make a change that massive without pissing off a whole lot of people that like their khelds as is.

Surpessed toggles, on the other hand... Give us that and we're golden.

I should amend that forms are still useful on high end builds for set bonus mules. Dwarf attacks in particular are useful for reaching the s/l softcap via kinetic combats, BotZ/Winter's Gift in Dwarf step, and a steadfast res/def or KB protection in Dwarf itself.

I have an SR scrapper, and because I have managed to get my endurance issues under control, and capped all 3 positional defenses I realized that Elude became a pointless power for that character. So alright, one power became moot. The same can be said about probably a few other singular powers in various other AT power sets.

I'm not thrilled with this, but I accept it, since like everyone points out, those powers became useless due to invention enhancements.

Then I come back to my PB, and while it's essentially the same thing, I also have to wonder that with the PB it's not just one power. The Dwarf and Nova forms each come with a slew of other powers. Basically the way I'm looking at it is like I've just made two thirds of my Peacebringer's powers moot.

I guess all of you can probably live with a singular power like Elude becoming pointless, but do you all feel OK with two thirds of your powers becoming moot? I guess that's the crux of my issue with the recent changes. And I suppose I thought there could be some solution to make those two thirds of my powers worth taking without messing up how and why folks like the current PB mechanics.

Perhaps there really isn't a suitable fix...

I'm just not comfortable with a total rework of how the AT functions, since it's already pretty powerful and a lot of people are very fond of their Peacebringers how they are. I know the OP is only trying to make the forms relevant for end game play, but I really just don't see a reason for that to be necessary. You get plenty of mileage out of forms from levels 1-50 and on cheap builds/lack of build.

I see no reason for forms to be turned into something that they're not. I feel like the suggestion quoted in the last post is more a desire for an aesthetic change for Peacebringers, and there's a simple solution for HEAT's to be distinguishable: Give us teh Kheld sash!

Nova forms always have relevance to me, its super range dps when ya need it and yes ya can need it. Dwarfs, well if a Dwarf tank is better in keeping the team up and about than a human form with glowin touch.

The bottom line here is that you're going to use the Nova & Dwarf forms to level up. You're not born a 50, so they're still extremely relevant to your build. What you do at end-game versus the rest of your career is a different story.

Personally...I think the Devs need to totally scrap & re-develop Khelds to bring them in line with the current state of the game. I think that the transformations should be clickable powers that are buffs, rather than complete alternate forms - and that those forms should have access to the full range of abilities of the human powers + the inherent bonus of the alternate form. If you did that, you'd only have to slot 1 set of powers, and you'd make alternate forms exactly what they are supposed to be: abilities that serve as a situation buff. In one master stroke you'd end the eternal argument of Triform vs Humanform.

It's an old & well-worn argument that the newer Arachnos epic AT's are better than the older, blueside AT's. I personally feel that the newer AT's leave the older ones in the dust. Others will disagree, and I respect their opinions.

Unfortunately, we wont get a complete rework. That's just not in the cards. Its a lot of work for little "payout" from the devs point of view, and from the player's point of view not everyone will be on board with such an overhaul to begin with. At best we'll maybe get changes to individual powers as long as they're not TOO drastic. Personally, Ive always liked the idea of the forms being more like "stances" from other games. For starter's it'd go a long way towards clearing up our slot starvation, but at the cost of not having as many powers to abuse for slotting IO sets. Its probably just a bit too drastic a change though.

I will say I am not on board with this "The forms are good for leveling, who cares if they're useless at 50" train of thought though. NO power should become obsolete based on if you pass a certain level. No power should become obsolete PERIOD as far as I'm concerned...So no, I do not agree with that one bit.

The problem is, they cant really fix any one thing without breaking something else. They "fixed" lightform, well that broke forms. If they "fix" forms, that'll probably break something else, which when fixed will break something else. They cant really add more abilities, we're slot starved as is and they cant fix that without breaking much of the game as a whole according to...Synapse I think was trying to add more slots at one point...If they buff up the powers in the forms then they risk overshadowing the human form abilities and we end up in the reverse of this situation. An overhaul would alleviate that problem, but I've stated above why an overhaul isn't in the cards.