Feedback - Energy Orbs

Updated and still taking change ideas!


My main concern is if it would be too OP. I wanted to also have a set that gives an alternative to certain powers across multiple sets. This is intentionally an amalgamation of abilities, and I've been told that might be a possible issue, as most sets they design nowadays have a single strength that the theme focuses on. I have since made it location-based like Traps/Trick Arrow, and has a combo end drain setup for enemies between two powers and a power that grants recovery to allies, contributing to the 'Energy' part of the name.

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NEW Location-based video - this is NOT the implementation I want but it gives ideas on how objects can be dropped in the right positions and so on.

Energy Orbs - buff/debuff set, using defender numbers. I haven't gone over recharge/endurance/range on stuff but I don't get paid to do it either, haha.

Works sort of like Traps/Trick Arrow, with energy orbs, which can easily translate into magic/science/tech/mutant/natural (chi)

Orbs themselves give interesting texture/effect possibilities and easier animation work for devs.



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Healing orb -
This orb is tossed towards a teammate and heals in an AOE around this teammate in a 20 ft radius for 12.5 hp. Uses toss animation of Alkaloid and
standard effects of Healing Aura on hit. This is sort of unique, kind of like a reverse autohit twilight grasp. Travel time is faster than Alkaloid. OTHER IDEAS - another Poison Trap activation, that immediately heals in an AOE where it is dropped, or with player interaction if they get near it. This would need to be a decent heal pulse (not regen,) and you again could only have one out at a time. Leave comments on this one.

Shield Orb -
This orb is a PBAOE resistance shield, granting 15% resistance to all types except Psi but including Special for 2 min, hitting a 25 ft area around the caster. Uses Moment of Glory animation with a small globe on top that dissipates, granting similar shield effects of sonic shields/clarion perhaps? Maybe make this grant 25% resist to end drain only.

Drain Orb -
This orb works much like Distortion Field for Time - throws a targetting reticle on the ground that creates a large orb which slows enemy movement by a huge amount and also cuts MAXEND in half. Regen is debuffed by 500% for 30 sec. This can be copied from Time with different textures, even using the same sound fx.

Power Orb -
This is a buff toggle that boosts tohit/damage/defense for teammates - 10.5% tohit, 10% damage, 5% defense. Defense and tohit are enhanceable. A small orb spins around the midsection of those affected. Range is 40 ft.

Sonic Orb -
Throw a sonic orb towards an enemy, which emits a pulse that lowers enemy resistance in a 25 ft radius by 30%. This uses the grenade lobbing
animation when thrown, and the usual sonic grenade/disruption arrow pulse animation/sound fx, with a lingering orb at the center.

Recovery Orb -
Works exactly the same as Triage Beacon + Spirit Tree, but is a droppable orb that emits endurance recovery similar to Circle of Thorns crystals. This is a stationary object but cannot be used to block doorways. This has a moderate recharge, but you cannot have more than one out at a time - if you do, the previous one dissipates. This is intentionally a recovery-only direct competitor to Speed Boost, only that it is location-based.

Freeze Orb -
Standard single target hold, with a minor slow effect for those who are resistant. Uses Freeze Ray animation only with an orb.

Stun Orb -
This works similar to Poison's Poison Trap in use/implementation, a droppable orb that must be triggered by an enemy, causing disorient instead of the puking animation, with pulses of end drain by 1.5 instead of the damage pulses from Poison's Poison Trap. Additional idea: emmits waves of energy that creates a zone that shakes the ground, making it instable and difficult to tread, sometimes knock enemies down. The high instability may be so jarring as to disorient those caught within.

Rage Orb -
Works similar to the Omega Maneuver combined with Oil Slick. Use a targetting reticle to place an orb that taunts enemies towards it which explodes after a few seconds, causing energy damage over time similar to Oil Slick's.





--NOW to some concerns:

I did not put end cost/recharge/range/etc into this - I will leave that to the experts.

The location-based Recovery, Drain, and Stun Orbs are intentional. I want some risk associated with the set as most sets do.

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Tex had a great idea that I modified a little, but not sure if it would work for this set or would work better in a control set:
Orb Aura -
A single-target moderately recharging power that requires a tohit check, that marks a target to have an energy orb damage aura around itself, that allows targetted aoe sets.

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Updated Drain Orb with Arcanaville's ideas.
Updated order of powers.
Updated Shield Orb to have a Psi weakness for Newchemicals.
Updated Drain Orb with Reppu's ideas.
Updated Stun Orb with Tannim222's ideas.
Updated Sonic Orb FX with PrincessDarkstar's ideas.
Updated Heal Orb with several ideas.

Everything here is changeable and would love feedback.

Interesting ideas. Healing orb is a neat concept and Rage orb sounds cool - I'd love to see Time Bomb replaced with something useful like that. How wedded to the location-based (like traps/spirit tree/beacon) focus are you? I'd love to see something using this concept that was more enemy/ally/self targeted.

But OP? Oh hell yes. Shield Orb is better than both of a Sonic defender's ally buffs combined. Its better than scrapper armors that only provide resistance to a few damage types. The last power is basically controller manuvers+assault+tactics all rolled into one toggle, but with better defense.

Maybe this should be a MM set

Yes, yes, it should be an MM set.

But yes, yes, it is OP. It basically takes the greatest powers from a bunch of other sets and makes them cooler. I guess you could make the recharge and end costs high, but there is a fine line there between OP and Unplayable.

I like your suggestions overall. I'm not sure about all of these powers together in one set, or with the numbers provided, but I also understand when lobbying for power sets or changes that it's better to provide a pasteboard for ideas and have the developers pick from them.

Regarding Healing Orb, I would make this a ground-click and not ally targetable. There are a couple of ally-targetable powers in the game and the limitation is you need a teammate or a pet to make them work. That's assuming you intended it to affect the caster.

An alternative would be to have the set include a pet of some kind. That's actually something I've been pushing for Sonic Resonance for some time. In Sonic's case, my suggestion has been a pet with no attacks, good base Resistance (better with your shields), and a Taunt aura. It would thus cause enemies to gather inside your debuff ring. I actually do something similar to this using my Veteran pet on my Sonic Res Defender, although only vets can do that and that pet has only 1 HP.

No, I didn't intend for it to affect the caster without ally targets - you can heal yourself off a vet buff pet though. That sonic pet idea is pretty cool, but what about it's own health and so on? Would it be invincible but not perma?

An unrelated idea you may want to incorporate is something I envisioned for a Fate/Fortune/Luck set: have one power that rolls a "global die" on the caster (which sets random a bit on him or her). Then the nature of his or her other powers change. The character can thus potentially do a lot, but pulling up a specific buff or debuff is more difficult.

Another option is to give it two single-target debuffs of some kind which in turn cause colored orbs to 'orbit' the target. When targets with opposing orb colors are near each other they take DoT damage like in the Keyes raid.

Oh that last bit is an awesome idea. I would make it just a single power that is quick recharging and requires a tohit check.

Thing is, I could see this working better in a control set - actually, how about this:

A single-target moderately recharging power that requires a tohit check, that marks a target to have an energy orb damage aura around itself, that allows targetted aoe sets?

EDIT: I added it in at the bottom as an idea, giving you credit.

I dont see it as OP. You have some +res(emphasis on some) and a kind of aoe heal and some sort of tricky to use +regen. Those effects work well together for a team, makes incoming dmg slow down a little to allow for enough reaction time to use the heal power. Looks good to me there.

Not sure about eh -res to enemies, combined with the plus dmg in that last power to team mates. -30% res and +15% dmg is a pretty big swing there. The slow power and stun power look fine. I might consider dropping the -res to 25%.

Mostly I like it. it is a kind of animation/powerset that doesnt really exist and would fit tons of concepts, and offers a lot of powers that would be usable solo which is unlike a lot of existing sets. Thumbs up.

Ok, got some nice comments from one of the devs regarding it. The Rage Orb was met with high approval in particular, and would need to balance the set around it to make it work.

The main concern is theme. Most sets they design are really, really good at one thing specifically. This set was intentionally an amalgamation. The dev feedback I got was that the Energy theme is great, since the closest we have to that is Time, but what kind of buffs/debuffs would define the set - that is, when you think of Kinetics, first thing that pops into everyone's head is unlimited endurance and Fulcrum. When you hear Empathy you know lots of healing is available along with some good buffs, etc.

EDIT: updated Recovery Orb

Comments below:

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayboH I didn't want to toss this into a suggestion forum - I was hoping to see some feedback first and fine tune this. My main concern is if it would be too OP.

Without knowing all the numbers, its hard to say one way or another. But I'm going to assume the numbers are similar to analog powers.

Quote:

Healing orb - This orb is tossed towards a teammate and heals in an AOE around this teammate in a 20 ft radius for 12.5 hp. Uses toss animation of Alkaloid and standard effects of Healing Aura on hit. This is sort of unique, kind of like a reverse autohit twilight grasp.

You'll want to make sure the projectile velocity for this power is very high: delayed healing could be frustrating for players.

Quote:

Shield Orb - This orb is a PBAOE resistance shield, granting 25% resistance to all types and also grants 25% resistance to resistance debuffs for 2 min, hitting a 25 ft area around the caster.

Technical note: the second half is redundant: 25% resistance to damage is 25% resistance to resistance debuffs. The two are synonymous.

If I understand correctly, Shield Orb affects the caster. If that's the case, it sounds problematic to allow a defender to get 39% resistance to all, on top of having a heal as strong as healing aura, even with the mechanical limitation (its also a mechanical limitation that is irrelevant to high level controllers and any level masterminds). That's higher than average scrapper survivability at SOs slotting.

Quote:

Drain Orb - This orb works much like Distortion Field for Time - throws a targetting reticle on the ground that creates a large orb which slows enemy movement by a huge amount and also cuts recovery in half. This can be copied from Time with different textures, even using the same sound fx.

This seems to be a relatively weak power: cutting recovery in half, particularly near the beginning of the fight, won't provide significant damage mitigation until much later in the fight. I would suggest stealing some additional mechanics from Distortion Field. Instead of debuffing recovery in half, I would cut maxend by half, and then instead of chance for hold have a chance for drain. Cutting maxend in half not only cuts recovery effectively in half, it also essentially doubles the cost of attacks. And a proccing random drain would mean that some of the critters will drain out even quicker. This would be more effective and also seems to fit the name of the power better.

Quote:

Sonic Orb - Throw a sonic orb towards an enemy, which emits a pulse that lowers enemy resistance in a 25 ft radius by 30%. This uses the grenade lobbing animation when thrown, and the usual sonic grenade/disruption arrow pulse animation/sound fx. Freeze Orb - Standard single target hold, with a minor slow effect for those who are resistant. Uses Freeze Ray animation only with an orb. Stun Orb - This works similar to Poison Trap in use/implementation, a droppable orb that must be triggered by an enemy, causing disorient instead of the puking animation, with small chances to hold, and can take stun/hold sets.

The chance for both stun and hold have to be small, because disorient can set up containment for controllers: its not a plug-in replacement for the puking animation by itself.

Quote:

Recovery Orb - Works exactly the same as Triage Beacon + Spirit Tree, but is a droppable orb that emits endurance recovery similar to Circle of Thorns crystals, with the same recharge time as those powers. This is a stationary object but cannot be used to block doorways.

There's nothing wrong with this power, but something makes me want to suggest there's a lost opportunity here. If you're going to create a stationary buffing pet, perhaps the pet to emulate isn't spirit tree but spectral terror. The spectral terror has a fear aura, but it also has an attack that blasts fear around while foes are in range. I wonder if it would be more interesting to reverse that, and make the recovery orb have a recovery aura and give it a single target buff blast that randomly fired buffs at players. Maybe something like a 15 second +regen/+recovery buff that it just fired at players. That would be something that doesn't exist in the game currently.

Quote:

Rage Orb - Works similar to the Omega Maneuver combined with Oil Slick. Use a targetting reticle to place an orb that taunts enemies towards it which explodes, causing energy damage over time similar to Oil Slick's.

Oil Slick Arrow is also a knockdown patch. Are you advocating that effect as well? Taunting *into* a KB patch might be too much for a buff/debuff set.

Quote:

Power Orb - This is a buff toggle that boosts tohit/damage/defense for teammates - 10.5% tohit, 10% damage, 5% defense. Defense and tohit are enhanceable. A small orb spins around the midsection of those affected. Range is 30 ft.

I don't see an issue with this power if it only affects allies. If it also affected the caster, you'd be stacking 8% defense on top of 39% resistance on top of a rapidly cycling heal. For reference, the combination of 8% defense and 39% resistance is about 49% total damage mitigation. Any higher than this, and you'd be making a slightly above average tanker primary.

This set could work easily with different themes so there's no worry. you could be a Wizard using magical artifacts, Or a Medium/Summoner using the power of spirits, Alien Technology, Alien being made out of energy, different personalities with different abilities....I could go on! No worries!

Yeah, I think playing with the numbers a little is already mandatory - I just didn't want the heal to be any weaker than other AOE heals, with the mechanic I mentioned. You can get around the 'needing an ally' requirement to be sure, but it takes a little thought and positioning. Hmm... I assume there is no way around making Power Boost ineffective.

I suppose Shield Orb would have to be weaker, because not making it affect yourself could cause problems. People have a hard time with Poison and Trick Arrow as it is due to lack of mitigation in earlier levels. I think that's the main point.

Well, we could mess with it a bit perhaps towards the end drain/-recovery idea, perhaps something tacked onto the sonic orb?

Way to cross post dude: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=288516 One thread is probably enough for any idea.

As for actual feedback? If the image you posted is any indication of the graphics you intend to have paired with this set, I am most definitely on board with this idea. The powers need much better names, and a more unified theme to be successful, but the idea certainly has merit.

It is also clear that this set SCREAMS to have a pet in it. I really like the idea Arcana had of a pet that tosses around +End but is stationary a la Spectral Terror.