Buffing Forms (Brainstorm)

Long post ahead.

As I've been playing my PB and been reading about various Kheldian issues, one common thread seems to be weaving through all of them: Forms become less and less important in the end game. Opinion is split on whether or not this is a bad thing but the fact is that Forms are not going anywhere.

The endeavor from here on out is to work within the system and not break the cottage rule, that is to say, no matter what happens, you do not take away from the current experience. You can add to, but not subtract from, anything we have currently. For example, a recent thread had the Forms as a toggle that would simply buff offense/defense, depending on which Form you were drawing inspiration from. I would call that a "change", not a addition.

Also, this thread is not about buffing/changing Human form at all. My opinion (and a great many others) is that Human form is essentially fine as-is. There are tweaks we would like to see but that is left for somewhere else. The point of this thread is to buff Bi-/Tri-Forms so that they're intra-competitive with Human-only builds and not just thematically but from an end-game point of view.

So with that in mind, I have compiled a few of my ideas that could work within the rules provided. Some, all, or none may be good, which is why I present them to wiser minds. Also, please feel free to share your own so that we can all comment.

1.) Free Extra Slot In All Form Powers.

This idea is the simplest and with that, may be the easiest to implement. All there is to it is that all the base Form powers come with, by default, two free slots. This alleviates a little bit of the slotting "crunch" that occurs when you are attempting a Bi-/Tri-Form build and opens the Forms to more immediate access when you acquire them at 6 and 20, at their earliest. Ultimately, it's a free 10 slots if you take both Forms, which is somewhat attractive in its own right. Of course, if you're still going Human-only, all this does is allow you to mule more IO sets with less slots. This can be a pro or con, depending on how you look at it.

Ultimately, however, the point is to not punish players for taking Forms. With the free slots, Forms need less of the ever-so-precious slots that are begging to be used elsewhere. In the end-game, this means that you can "afford" to slot up your Forms without crippling your Human form.

2.) Bi-/Tri-Form Bonus Slots

This idea takes the previous idea to the next level. Again, the point of all of this is to give Bi-/Tri-Form builds a little "extra" for attempting to make a very diverse character.

The mechanics are as follows:

If you take Nova -or- Dwarf (not both), you get a free slot for all that Form's powers at levels 20 and 40. If you take Nova -and- Dwarf, you get a free slot for all Form powers at levels 15, 30 and 45. This works retroactively, so if you took Nova at 6 Dwarf at 47, Nova would gain a slot for all powers and Dwarf would default with 4 slots for all powers. Naturally, this means Dwarf would always start with 2 slots in all Dwarf powers and 3 if you took Nova before it.

You *can* slot the Form powers prior to the bonus slots being awarded. There is no penalty and no slots are "lost". Any slots that were placed by the player (not bonus slots), would go back into the slot pool once a power goes over 6 slots. Thus, you can never over-slot or what have you and somehow lose one.

What this allows you to do is naturally keep your Forms slotted up without extra slot investment. Since Bi-Form, by definition, has fewer power choices needing to be slotted, it gets less of a bonus. Tri-Form, on the other hand needs more help, hence, more bonus slots.

Like the first idea, this has ramifications for Human-only. The ability to have 10 powers with 4 slots that you never intend to use gives you huge opportunity for IO bonuses and may make Human-only even better, thus negating Forms all the more. I have yet to figure out a mechanic that could somehow only give the bonus slots to actual Bi-/Tri-Formers but anything I could think up could still be exploited, even if it was time spent in Forms.

3.) "The Kheldian Exchange"

Instead of free slots, per Idea #2, the idea here is to trade potential Human slots for Form power-only slots.

The mechanic works as follows:

If you have 3 slots "banked" (i.e. not in powers, just waiting to be assigned), you can "spend" them to give an extra slot to all Form powers. If you only have Nova, you'd be spending 3 to gain 4 (+33% return). If you only have Dwarf, you'd spend 3 to gain 6 (+100% return) and if you have both Forms, you'd spend 3 to gain 10 (+333% return). Thus, you'd be taking away from your Human powers to add to your Form powers, in a very efficient manner. Theoretically, if you had both Forms, you could spend 18 normal slots to gain 60 Form slots.

Now, not every power that gains slots is really worth the slot (6-slotting Dwarf Step?) so some slots may even go unused or aren't terribly needed but the ultimate outcome is the Forms gain a huge boon for sacrificing Human potential. Varying degrees of "exchanging" would occur, with some only losing 3-6 Human slots to IO out their Human-only build while a true Tri-Former could end up spending 12-18 slots to really deck out their Forms.

The question I have in all of this is whether or not 6-slotted Forms, with a moderately slotted Human Form, can compete with Human-only as we have it now.

4.) Form Duplication

Nova and Dwarf Form powers are almost all duplicates of Human powers. Part of the issue with Kheldians is that you not only have to slot your Human version, but your Form version as well. Even with bonus slots, like above, that still means you're double-purchasing IOs/SOs to make both versions of the power usable.

Form Duplication would be a mechanic that has a one-way transfer of Human-form power to the duplicate Form power. This can be handled in a few ways:

a.) One-to-One. If you slot up Human Bolt, for example, Nova Bolt gets identical treatment without needing to slot it, though it naturally gains the +45% damage and +ToHit of Nova form. Slotting the Power above and beyond what is Human Form would continue to add to its effectiveness and would only be hit with ED once the Form's enhancement bonuses begin to add up. So, in Bolt's example, if Human form had 50% +Damage, Nova Bolt would also have 50% +Damage and it could be slotted up with an additional ~97% damage before ED really kicks in the diminishing returns (and don't forget the Nova's +45% naturally!). Thus, it would be possible for Form powers to truly out-shine the Human counterparts in almost every aspect.

b.) X-to-Y. Some % of the enhancement bonuses from Human Powers would carry-over into duplicate Form powers. That % could be anything, as needed to make it attractive without going overboard. 50%? 33%? Or maybe even a tiered system that increases as you gain level milestones.

c.) Some combination of the above paired with "limiters". Maybe not all the enhancement bonuses from Human-only carry over to the duplicate Form powers. Maybe only the "offensive" aspects of a power carry over to Nova (and "defensive" to Dwarf). Maybe Procs don't carry over. Again, whatever aids in creating a balancing factor. I think it goes without saying that Set bonuses do not get doubled!

Of course, you still have to take and slot the Human Power to really see any effect out of this system and you'd still be desperate for slots to take full advantage. Also, some powers do not have a true duplicate. Black Nova Emmanation and Black Dwarf single-target attacks don't have true duplicate Human analogues nor does White Dwarf Step/Black Nova Flight. We could always assign "duplicates" but some might feel counter-intuitive (Gravity Well/Incandescent Strike = Dwarf Smite? Same for Nova Blast actually as analogue for Ebon/Glinting Eye). Also, Dwarf resistance would have to be handled in an interesting way, otherwise you would have to take all 3 shields in order to affect it in a holistic way.

Ultimately, however, a Human-only build can't exploit this mechanic, which is part of the appeal it has to me. A true Tri-Former could manage to squeeze out high damage out of Nova and high survivability out of Dwarf (maybe even moderate damage out of Dwarf too) that is not dependent on Perma-Light Form/Eclipse (and the massive recharge that is needed to fuel that). Depending on how this mechanic was implemented, it could give Bi-/Tri-Forms a loftier end-game that focuses on maximizing Form potential.

5.) Quality of Life Improvements

Maybe all we need is some simple QoL buffs.

a.) Faster animations for Form Switching. If Forms were less tedious to go back and forth to, maybe more people would use them. Dynamism is the Kheldian way and it's being hampered by rough transitions.

b.) Toggle suppression. Going back to Human without shields is a death sentence mid-battle, even with macros and binds that switch one on on Form drop. The tedium and time-wasting of turning toggles back on make Human-only that much more desirable.

c.) Human click powers usable while in Forms. PBs are especially hampered by this since they have so many. Essence Boost, Inner Light, Conserve Power and even Photon Seekers (which is more of a "click-to-go-boom" power then pet) could all be used while in Forms and it would make the tedium and danger of switching back to Human (long animation times notwithstanding) all the more unsettling.

d.) Auto-Tray switching. Yes, we all have binds and macros to do this but what if it was automatic? It might encourage the folks that don't come on these forums to use Forms. Might be hard to do from a Dev standpoint, so I don't fault anyone if this isn't possible.

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Feel free to critique/humiliate/amend and supplement anything you see here. Combinations of ideas are always on the table as well. They are not meant to be mutually exclusive (though the extra slot stuff probably should be).

Ideas 1, 2 and 3 might be very hard to implement. Apparantly adding more slots breaks everything.

4 is something I've argued for in the past, and it could certainly work. But Warshades do not have the duplicate powers that PBs do. Any change to PB has to be considered there too.

5 is duh. Absolutely. Add in KD rather than KB, mag 3 pulsar, the standard wishlist and we're good.

Can I add a 6?

6. Pet style
The forms are slotted the same as pet powers are now. Allowing: accuracy, damage, recharge, end reduction (and Nova gets the option of range and Dwarf gets the option of taunt).

Eg. Adding damage enhancements to the form power adds damage to all attacks. Adding recharge enhancements adds recharge to all attacks.

Dwarfs would accept melee or PBAoE sets. Nova would accept ranged damage or TAoE sets.

There's no need to slot individual powers from the forms. Ones that cannot be enhanced directly are already at a reasonable level (Dwarf Step, etc).

This would also make the forms more useful earlier on (since you wouldn't be stuck with a Dwarf form with one slotted attack for how many levels). And it gives the devs the option of adding another attack to PB Dwarf for a full attack chain without meaning even more slot crunch.

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My issue is that even if forms are attractive, they have to be attractive enough to justify the current massive investment of slots (and time to shapeshift, retoggle, etc, but all that can be reduced). I can't see a way for that to happen without making one or more of the forms overpowered. So I'd reduce the number of slots required.

Folks who want to use form powers as set mules can go take another power.

My big problem with the Forms is that they're so slot hungry. Take Nova Form, and you get not only Nova but four more additional powers to slot. Take Dwarf Form and you get six more powers to slot, over and above Dwarf itself. If you're going to get ANYWHERE with the forms, you just about have to dedicate something like 15 additional enhancement slots to EACH FORM just to make them viable options relative to Human form, and combined they devour HALF THE SLOTS you have available by Level 50. That's completely non-trivial.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I like these suggestions and my tri-form is certainly slot hungry (if it weren't for the MFing guide I'd have NO CLUE how to begin slotting him), but as mentioned more slots supposedly breaks the game. The QoL improvements would be great, and I feel like especially A and B are needed while C I'm kind of opposed to simply because I think that's a part of the AT and D I feel is pretty unnecessary (I'm not real savy and don't use binds like at all and I have very little trouble with it). I like the line of thinking from point 6 too but you'd piss off a lot of folks who used those powers to help get more IO set bonuses. It'd be a little harder to get some recharge and defense IO sets your way but would make the AT a lot less slot strapped and open up some fun choices for those of us who are triforms (some of my human powers feel whoafully underslotted for having to slot up my form powers).

@ Oreso

There's no way #6 could ever be put in-game. That's a massive change and would take slotting options away from a current player (i.e. breaks the cottage rule). Also, how would you slot Dwarf? You'd want Resists, Damage, Endurance, Accuracy and Recharge all in 6 slots. Nova makes sense (all you'd really want are attack buffs) but Dwarf has too many powers to enhance that would make doing it in 6 slots feasible. I'm not against the idea, per se, but it's too big of a change.

That said, slotting duplicate powers or slotting Forms up does make the AT inherently harder to manage and creates a slot crunch that is very difficult to overcome and remain competitive with a Human-only build. That was the point of #1-3 but as mentioned, adding slots may break the game.

#4 is essentially where I'd like them to move (with QoL improvements thrown in). You could get away with slotting the Human powers and it would translate to slotted Form powers without needing slots (though you could still spend them there to enhance it further). Yes, Warshades would get a little less out of such a system but they could still benefit from Mire, Bolt, Eye/Nova Blast, Detonation and Dwarf Resists (and I'd argue that Gravity Well would translate over to Dwarf Smite, just as I-Strike=Dwarf Smite in PBs). That only leaves Nova Emmanation and Dwarf Strike as the odd ones out. If PBs were more known for their Form damage and WS were more known for their MFing nature (holds, AoE, Pets, needing bodies/ToHit checks, etc), you're just creating more defined niches for each of the Kheldian ATs.

How about this. Adding something to the Kheldian inherent proc. A kinda reverse for the forms.

So, if you team has alot of blasters, corrupters, MMs etc, tank form will gain a faster animation, the enhancements in the slots become x more effective and to a degree are like alpha slots in the defensive/tanking stats, as in some of the bonus doesn't suffer from too much of a good thing and add a memory, so if you change forms, like when you change spec, it remembers your new trays.

Make Nova be better dps if you have more tanks, brutes, scrappers etc with something similar.

Keep human powers the same.

However I've only played a Kheldian to 30 so feel free to ignore me.

Well, if we want more slots we will have to wait. As others have said, adding more slots in any way currently breaks the game. We know that because the devs were going to give everyone 3 additional enhancement slots during the level up process recently, but discovered in testing that it caused a variety of issues - presumably of the "wow, what was Cryptic trying to do here" sort that has prevented other changes (like fixing bases).

The idea of changing the forms to be slotted like pet powers is something I have a split opinion on. It would certainly be a powerful change for both Kheldian ATs, but it almost reverses the overall issue. By removing the oppurtunities the form powers give to slot set bonuses, it almost invalidates playing a human only Kheld. That's not good. I want to see Kheldians be effective no matter how someone chooses to play them. That means there should be a reason to avoid the forms as well as a reason to take them. The problem right now is that there are 2 reasons to avoid using them (less slot crunch, human is more effective) and only 1 reason to use them (being on SOs or lower than level 50).

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

Taking a detailed look at it, I think forms are pretty effective as they are. They only have two major problems: animation time and detoggling.

The Nova forms are essentially identical and both have the same reason to take them: higher AoE damage. Currently, many people choose to skip them since the gain is fairly small and requires you to either avoid defensive toggles or turn them back on every time you shift. This is seen as too great a price for using the form. Thus, the jury is out on whether or not to take Nova.

The Dwarf forms function somewhat differently, and are taken for different reasons:

Black Dwarf form is still used by a lot of players because it allows for stacking Sunless Mire and Black Dwarf Mire. This gives Warshades a substantial boost to offensive power. While the form does feature a heal in Black Dwarf Drain and a taunt, those are not the main attractions since most Warshades aren't KBing mobs all over the place and have Stygian Circle for all their healing needs.

White Dwarf form has been called obsolete in light (see what I did there?) of the recent changes to Peacebringers. However, there are still reasons to take and use the form. The biggest reason is White Dwarf Sublimation. That power is an enormous self heal that has an obvious use. It does, however, require some planning to use effectively in combat since you have to shift to trigger it. White Dwarf offers two additional benefits in the form of a taunt (which allows you to gather mobs back together if you goof on reigning in your KB) and White Dwarf Flare - a lower damage Solar Flare that does KD instead of KB. That makes it very useful when PBAoE KB would be a bad idea and as a 1-2 punch with Solar Flare since Dwarf Flare won't knock foes out of Solar Flare's radius.

I think that a lot of people think of forms the wrong way. The usefulness of the forms isn't to sit in one and be a fake blaster or a crappy tanker. It's to leverage the additional powers they give you to create additional offensive or defensive strength. That's what everything I posted above attempts to say.

So what changes need to be made to buff forms? The animation times need to be drastically reduced. I don't understand why they are so long. That alone would make me happy. However, to make Tri-Forms exist on a level similar to Human-only builds toggle suppression must be introduced into the forms. That way, you could leave defense toggles like Weave and Maneuvers running (for free and at no effect) while you were shapeshifted and would not have to turn them back on when you returned to Human form. IIRC, the animation times at the very least have already been cited as a problem by the devs. They wanted to fix them in the i21 changes but had no time for the new animations. I can't claim to know when the shifting animations will be reduced or what led the devs to reduce them, but I would wager it will happen "Soon" and will be for the reasons I've outlined here.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

oreso, I really think you're thinking of the forms the wrong way. There's no reason to slot all the powers in either form. Only the ones you want to use. For Nova, slot the AoEs and use them in place of the Human AoEs. Leave the ST Nova attacks with only the default slot and don't use them. With Dwarf, use the attacks as set mules or give them the same treatment as Nova's ST blasts. The heal from White Dwarf or the mire from Black Dwarf is worth slotting and using. My PB will be slotting and using White Dwarf's PBAoE as well. The best part? White Dwarf's heal doesn't even require that many slots to be powerful as it is. With two slots (the default and one added), my build has it recharging in less than 20 seconds and healing 80+%.

After spending time yesterday to make a build for my PB I really do think that having the forms be slotted the way you are suggesting would be more of a debuff than a buff.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

That's the thing though, forms are never going to be good if you just sit in them and expect to perform as well as a complete character. Each form is just a part of your overall performance. The point of the slotting I'm suggesting is to do something like this:

1.) Open up the fight in Nova form by firing off your two AoEs.
2.) Shift to Dwarf and close to melee using the teleport. Fire off Dwarf Flare/Dwarf Mire.
3.) Drop to Human to fire off Solar Flare/Sunless Mire and mop up.
4.) Repeat at next spawn.

Since you never use the Dwarf or Nova ST attacks with this sort of playstyle, there is no reason to slot them as anything other than set mules. If you get into trouble and see your hp start to go down, you can use any number of tools available to you. That includes shifting to Dwarf form and using Sublimation/Dwarf Drain. IMO, this is the way that a tri-form is designed to be played. All three forms are supposed to be used each fight. And if you are in Nova or Dwarf for longer than it takes to use the powers they have, something is wrong. Therefore, the single biggest buff to Kheldians would be reduced animation times for forms which are supposedly in the pipeline.

Your proposal would mean that a tri-form build would have to sacrifice either set bonuses or enhancement values in exchange for some extra slots that aren't really quite that high in demand anyway. Kheldian utility powers look seriously underslotted at first, but most of Human form's tools are fairly effective on a small number of slots. All that needs fully slotted in Human is the attacks that aren't replaced by form attacks - mostly the single target attacks and the pet. Eclipse and Light Form both only require about 4 total slots (including the default slot) to be effective. Stygian Circle and, to a lesser extent, Reform Essence are good with 1 or 2 slots. Conserve Energy is good with, again, 1 or 2 slots.

Really I think the animation times are the only thing holding tri-form back in comparison to Human only. Lack of defense is something I would consider a trade off for access to the versatility in a tri-form build.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

Vauluur, I could see your method working (a la MFing Wshades) if transformation times were massive reduced. But I still wouldn't be happy with that: I would like Dwarf to actually be tougher than Human form on its own, like, for a whole fight. I would like Nova to be more damagey than Human form on its own.

Doesn't mean I'm asking for Dwarf to be as tough as a tank or Nova to be as blasty as a blaster, just compared to Human form to make them worthwhile.

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Smiling Joe, woah there, nelly! I'm not trying to break all your toys here. It's just an idea that I don't even hold very preciously, but I'm just clearing up misunderstandings about what I'm proposing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe So let me get this straight - you don't care if Dwarf form has enough room to slot for taunt or endurance reduction, and you'd go so far as to remove the ability to slot endurance modification?

No, no and yes. I could see putting in a Taunt IO if you wanted to focus on tanking. And slot as much end mod as you would any other attack.

If Dwarf can't sustain an attack chain without slotting for end mod or unusual amounts of end reduction, it needs to have its end costs and end mod values looked at, because the form isn't working. In my view here, I've already slotted Stamina enough to run a human attack chain, I shouldn't have to slot even more end modification just to run Dwarf. I'm all about reducing the amount of investment required to make Dwarf viable.

Quote:

OH YEAH! Moar slots for human form! YAY HUMAN! I think that's my favorite part. You're proposing a buff to human form at the expense of the forms in a thread about doing something for the forms.

Not exactly.

It will result in more slots available for the whole, and make a viable Dwarf and Nova form require much less slot investment. Note that I want them to be viable! No reduction in ability whatsoever!

The forms aren't as if you're carrying a whole other AT in your pocket to be added to your own. They're just for flexibility. It only shifts your niche, and takes away from your ability as much as it adds. I mean, such an ability is worth a six-slotted power, sure. And it's awesome and I'd love to use them.

But I'd say that flexibility is not worth two dozen slots.

Quote:

Look, it's really simple. You want to give players with high end builds a reason to take white dwarf? Give White Dwarf psionic damage resistance. You want to do something to give Nova more damage? Bake the 45% damage buff into the nova powers (effectively raising Nova's damage cap without actually raising it). Shorten the shift animations as a third step and you're done.

I heartily support this too.

Cheers!

Well, the form shift animations are mitigated on a PB since when you are shifting to Dwarf the enemies are getting back up after Nova's AoEs. When you are shifting to Nova, you aren't actually in combat. It may feel slow, but the shifting shouldn't actually have much of a numeric effect as it is right now.

That said, shorter animations are currently planned for Kheldians and awaiting a moment when the art team can actually make them. That's a change I greatly support.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

I have a high end reason to take Nova form.

I have a high end reason to take Dwarf.

They're both practical.

Any Dev worth his/her salt is going to know this. Who would I be fooling?

Three quick notes.

1) Dual Nova/Dwarf spec offers alot of versibility and exemplars really well in Ouroboros or when teaming with lower level players, so I wouldn't say the forms are useless even at lvl 50. Still, that I found a potential use for the forms doesn't invalidate the need to buff them, if merely for fairness and quality of life issues. Black Dwarf is so ridiculously stronger than White Dwarf that it makes me wonder if they were even designed for the same game.

2) While I won't mind if MFing Tri-form builds with 30+ buttons become viable for Peacebringers, that's not what I'm really asking for - and I'd be really disappointed if MFing macro-mashing-mayhem becomes the sole mandatory build. I want simplicity. I want each form to be valid on its own, from lvl 1 to 50. If I'm taking damage, Dwarf. If I have a tank pulling aggro from me, Nova. If I'm soloing a normal challenge, Human. Regarding this issue, all forms, even human, could use a serious revision.

3) Lightform. It's nice, but it's also absurd for an AT to have its entire playstyle completely dependant on a single power. We all know where it leads, because we've seen what happened to Energy Transfer and Psychic Shockwave. Lightform is a bandaid, and one we shouldn't be overly attached to. For the purpose of these discussions, I'd avoid falling back into the counter-argument "yes, but we have lightform", because that counter might not remain valid for long.