Power pool reboot suggestions

So after being in the game for over 5 years now, I was thinking what we could really use is maybe a revamp of sorts to the power pools. When they changed over Fitness, it had people respecing their toons to take advantage of it. Then when they changed the requirements for the travel powers, everyone again reevaluated their builds looking to see how they could improve their current ones. So I think that if the pools were redone, weak powers changed and new powers added and the whole thing uniformed so all the pools had 3 no requirements, 1 one requirement, and 1 two power requirement, that it would add more interest in the game yet again. After thinking about it for a few days, here are my suggestions:

Power Pool Reboot v 1.0

Presence Pool
Idolized: (Auto) You gain 20% more INF from mission completes.
Charismatic: (Auto) Merchant cost and auction house listing fees are 10% cheaper.
Show Off: (Auto) Your end of missions XP gains are 5% higher.
Intimidating: (Toggle) Enemies within 10 feet receive a minor (-3%) ToHit debuff.
Display Power: (Click) Cause mag 3 fear (6 seconds) to all enemies in 10 foot radius

Teleport Pool
Recall Friend (Same)
Teleport Foe (Same)
Short Range Teleport (Same)
Long Range Teleport: (Click) Teleports you to a waypoint selected on your map. If the area is unreachable (Wall for example) you will not teleport anywhere. 1 Pool requirement.
Area Teleport: Change the power so that it can cross zones from hero to villain and vice versa for Vigilantes and rogues. 2 Power pool picks.

Flight Pool
Air Superiority: Add “This power deals out increased damage if the target is flying/ hovering”
Flight (Same)
Hover: (Same)
Aerial Specialist: Auto power that gives +acc (Equal to the penalty of flight gives) and a + defense equal to that of hover while hover or flight is active.
Afterburner: (Same)

Fighting Power pool
Boxing (Same but increase damage)
Kick (Same but better animation and increased damage)
Tough: No requirement.
Weave: Drop to one pool requirement.
Exploit weakness: Your melee attacks cause 3% more damage. 2 power pick requirement

Super Speed
Flurry: Add causes mag 2 stun
Hasten (Same)
Super Speed (Same)
Whirlwind: While active, all your other powers are suppressed . You cannot be harmed for duration and causes knockback. After 60 seconds, power detoggles. 1 Power pick requirement.
Burnout: (Same)

Leaping
Jump Kick: Add causes knockdown.
Combat Jumping: (Same)
Super Jump (Same)
Acrobatics: Reduce requirement to only one power pool pick.
Spring Attack: (same)

Medicine
Stimulant: Add a Recovery buff.
Aid Other: (Same)
Aid Self: Make no power pool requirement
Recover Self: Provides 25% end. Has a 1 min recharge and is Interruptible. 1 power poll requirement
Revive (Same)

Leadership
Assault (Same)
Maneuvers (Same)
Reinforce: Adds 5% to smashing/ lethal resistances
Tactics (Same)
Vengeance (Same)

Concealment
Stealth (Same)
Invisible Other (Same)
Invisible Self (Same but remove power pool pick)
Improved invisibility: Similar to the Illusion power of the same name except has increased end cost and requires one pool pick.
Phase self: Reduce activation time.

I like these ideas. Especially the reworking of the Presence pool. The idea of Flurry adding stun is simple and works well within the theme of the power. Whirlwind still looks like a skip power, what if instead of KB it would impose a hold with Scirroco's tornado hold animation, the hold would be short duration but could be reapplied the longer you wait out Whirlwind's timer. It would pretty much work to turn a battle's tide, but with a cost, since the character using it would be unable to aid in any other way. Maybe when the small hold wears off, chance for mag 2 stun?

All in all, I like the ideas.

iirc flurry already has a chance to stun but its only like a 10-20% chance of maybe a mag 2 stun or something really worthless

for the presence pool i dont see how that at all relates to the current presence pool and with it as you suggest you couldnt enhance the first 3 powers at all, plus everyone would end up taking it only for the inf and xp boosts and then respec out of it at lvl 50

in your flight pool suggestion, fly and group fly do not have -acc ot -tohit so it wouldnt be countering anything

i like the fighting pool changes except maybe tweaks needed on the new 5th power

in the leaping pool im pretty sure the jump kick already has a chance for .67 mag knockback which is knockdown, but its only a 10-20% chance

in the concealment i dont think we can have a power which reduces our activation times, powers have to be designed with both activation times so that wouldnt be feasible

pretty much anything that i didnt mention here should be ok but i still dont see myself using most of them, the biggest one i would start using is fighting pool because i would be able to skip boxing or kick

Absolutely, positively *not* to the presence pool. I suggest you look up "tankerminds."

I also suggest you look up what happened when the devs just decided in a beta to replace - not add, just replace - the "least popular" power in the Patron power pools. I don't think there was a single person who actually approved (especially as IOs would become completely useless.) You'll notice we have five powers to take there now...

Perhaps you should rethink those.

See my Guides and Tutorials

In Flurry and Jump Kick's cases, I would do away with the percentile chance then as I didn't even remember that they had those abilities. Thing is all melee attacks in the power pools really don't get used at all. Just think they can be improved.

In regards to concealment, I totally forgot about it. lol. I remembered it as I was typing this out and going "Hmmm.. I'm missing one" So wasn't so much running out of ideas but never really having the chance to try for it. But improvements on it could be made as well.

I could see switching display and intimidating and altering them to fit better. However presence is just the neglected pool that never sees the light of day for like 90% of the builds out there at least. So some changes would need to be made.

Flight could easily work for MM pets only. Least I think so as I don't see how that makes MMs that much better. I had flight on my MM for awhile but it was only for show.

As for coding, not a computer code genius here but attacks are already labeled for positional defenses wise so I didn't think that would be a problem. However, I could see changing it to just a +3 dam buff. Fighting is fighting.... the idea was along the lines of just knowing where to hit someone to make it hurt.

The problem I have with phasing is when you hit it, it takes forever to go off. Making it a possible escape button but one you have to wait til it actually took hold which is why I stayed away from it. If I could hit it and have it take effect immediately, then I would think it was a good power. Maybe change it to a toggle type power then?

Hover mentions penalties associated when using fly. I remembered reading somewhere that fly gave -acc but can't remember where. If it wasn't that though, what is hover referring to? Or is it text that needs removing?

Whirlwind is...well.... Kinda worthless overall. lol. There really isn't any way to make it a real good power other than a Escape power. Maybe a PBAoE attack that damages enemies around you for a burst damage followed by a DoT effect similar to Fire Armor's Blaze?

The problem is the Cottage Rule. Devs don't like changing a powers function entirely, as that can and likely will break peoples builds and enhancement slotting.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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

Thank you Bradley for not just saying "No" or "No, you can't do that" and actually adding to the suggestion pool. lol

Ok, So if you do not like my suggestions, then let me ask what would you do to revive the power pools so it's not the same powers picked by everyone every time? Or is life perfect for you with a few powers only getting selected by certain types of toons? What would you add to the pools to increase them all to five powers?

I'll have to agree with what Leo and Bradley said for the most part, a lot of the powers we have are in a good place, and the presence pool is really out of place the way you're presenting it, as there's no reason for anyone NOT to take those powers, and the existing presence pool has some good uses.

I would like an-zone teleport though, that uses some kind of waypoints. Each sub-area in z zone has a marker on the map, between those and a few major points of interest like trainers, hospital and university, you'd be able to get anywhere int he zone pretty quick if it were implemented well.

I do like the idea of a resistance toggle of Leadership too, but it would have to work against more than two damage types to compare to Weave. Probably at least Energy.

As Bradley said, Exploit Weakness wouldn't work as is, but it could work as a build-up style click, like his more defensive suggestion. A good pick for the builds that don't get a build-up like power.


As an aside, i'd love to see more power pools all over the place. Maybe ones that only unlock after doing certain arcs, on either side so we can avoid the problem of having to go Villain for Scorpion Shield. heck, incorporate some of the Day Job temp powers into them. Do an arc involving helping out the Paragon police? gain access to a power pool containing a baton attack, tear gas, that sort of thing. Redside, you could get the same pool by raiding a PPD station as part of an arc. As opposed to just a temp power with X uses, you could choose to make it part of your character. Sure there are places where we already don't have enough power picks, but it could be interesting.

I rather like the Presence pool as is, but I would also like to see your presence pool as a Charisma pool.

Dropping all the prerequisites for power pool powers would be a huge improvement. Is there any T4 or T5 power pool power that is so useful that players should be required to pay the cost of picking one or two earlier powers?

* Players investing in the Fighting pool could get back a power choice.
* Squishies could get decent status protection from Acrobatics without limiting their travel power choices.
* The fear powers from the Presence pools might get some use.

Without changing a single power, dropping the prerequisites could open up a lot of room for players to improve their characters.