Changes Repulsion Bomb?

Hey guys just an idea i thought i'd go through with you before posting in suggestions. The force field set has so much potential for a team but I feel is a very unpopular buff set due to its lack of debuff and many skippable powers within the set. Even with just a small change to 1 of the powers i feel it will make the set 100 times more desireable to play. So here it comes...... give repulsion bomb some -def and -res! even if the numbers on this debuff are smaller then others it will still b a positive change to the set and i feel it wont become another skippable power in the force field set. Lower the knockdown and chance for disorient in the power to balance it out and then that way your not playing with the cottage rule 2 much. 1 last thing is that I'd love repulsion bombs animation to be changed to the grenade throw 1 to be cooler but i feel im asking to much now haha. Let me know what u guys think !

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Repulsion bomb is fine. If anything at all needs some love it would be force bolt. Scale 1 damage and a hefty -res debuff for hard targets would be my suggestion.

Scale 1 damage for force bolt was exactly what I've been suggesting too. I'm not too big on debuffing being added to force field, but only for conceptual reasons. My ideal conceptual vision of force fields is defense buffs, knockback/down, and damage.

Repulsion Bomb does AoE quality damage now and KnockDown. The chance to disorient is gravy. It's a very good power and opener. Treat as another AoE and be happy.

Now the other FF powers could use something.

The problem with giving anything else to Force Bolt is that you can machine gun that thing with very little recharge. Any damage or debuff might end up upping the recharge.

Not that I think it's always needed to shoot it that often, but I'd think some people do.

Numbers time!

Force bolt has the same recharge rate, endurance cost, and range of a standard tier 1 blast. Compared to power bolt, it has significantly larger knockback that happens 100% of the time instead of 20% of the time, and also has an accuracy bonus of 1.4x. If we did buff force bolt's damage to be in line with power bolt, then it would have only one drawback, but it's a large one when talking about single target damage output, and that's DPA. Force bolt's animation time is by no means large, but it's still bigger than power bolt's. The argument could very easily be made that force bolt would be better than an actual attack power at that point (and I would agree with it) but because it would still have a lower DPA, it wouldn't have a large effect on the damage output of high end defenders, especially considering that we're talking about a set that doesn't have the 30%+ resistance debuffs that other sets do. It would be pretty nice on controllers who desperately need the extra single target damage pre-epics, but again not anywhere near overpowered for them at high level because it has to compete with ancillary pool powers and its total damage output is still lower than the likes of radiation and kinetics as it should be.

TLDR: Force bolt would be above the bar for powers if it was set to damage scale 1, but it is not significant enough to unbalance mid-level play and due to the context of the power and the set that it's in it would not unbalance high level play either.

I honestly don't see too much to fight about IF they were to put -defense and/or -resistance in a power that knocks a character down, say like... earthquake or liquefy. I also think a little -tohit in Force Bubble would make sense logically if you are being pushed then your targeting would be suspect.

Alternate animations in attacks have been implemented. If a player wanted his bubbler to throw a repulsion bomb aka grenade, I don't see anything wrong with that either.

What if the developers put some -defense in repulsion field. More Bubblers could opt to take it if desired. (I am thinking a power mimicking the effects of hurricane)

I think adding a debuff to Repulsion Bomb is a fine idea. I love Force Field, but it certainly would not be out of line for RB to crack armors. I'd line it up at -20% res with a 35 second duration. You'd be able to stack it twice with some investment for -40% (the end burn would by pretty high, and the animation time cost is horrendous).

Repulsion Bomb is kind of a funny power. It's been changed and changed and changed throughout the game's history and still IMO is a very low performing power. I routinely skip it. Attrocious cast time, really slow projectile, Mag 2 stun (and only a 50% chance at that), abysmal DPA. I can think of a lot of things to do with cast time better than using this power.

Force Bolt as a true projectile attack or debuff I'm 100% okay with. That is actually exactly how a very similar power, fairly worthless power in the Energy Assault sets was dealt with. Force Bolt is quite noticeably worse than the Nemesis Staff temporary power, even with its lowered accuracy, which is what my FF characters used in its place after a few IOs because it didn't waste so much cast time to achieve very little.

I'd be OK with FF getting a buff, as I think it needs something to be more on par with the newer sets.

I think it doesn't need a whole lot, tho, so whatever it gets should be carefully tested.


I don't really have much of a preference about what type change that should be, but I think perhaps what makes the most sense is to add in some Defense Debuff Protection in to one or more of the powers. I'd choose Dispersion but a case can be made for any of the other obvious choices.

Forcebolt gives you 100% def against one target for 5-6 seconds...other attacks of an equal level dont do that...if there is only one target, he is held [functionally]. That is decent for a tier 1 attack. With better recharge, and some coordination skills, it can keep 2 targets on their backs while you kill their friends...or push them off cliffs to be dealt with later...or into groups to be AoE'd...or onto melee teammates while they whine about KB [you chose to not have range, stfu]. I feel utility should count for something even if you are unable to use it well.

RepBomb as it was 6hrs ago, when last I used it [in game, not on paper], was quite good at what I needed it to do. Now, I am unslotted, so I assume it can only get better.

I've always thought it would be interesting to have an opposite power to force bubble in which the bubble started large, and any foes caught within are pulled toward you in the center.

FF chars usually have good defense so it wouldn't be an instant death power, and the ability to cluster foes tightly would be nice for teams using AoEs and Judgement powers.

Or it could be cool if force bubble worked like that AV's bubble power in the sutter tf.....the slow and -recharge 1

Minor quibble: I prefer thread titles that clarify the difference between, say:

• OMG I Discovered They Are Planning Changes to Repulsion Bomb!
• Hey Did They Already Make Changes to Repulsion Bomb?
• I Suggest Some Changes to Repulsion Bomb