Prpposal for Super Reflexes: Scaling Defense to offset To-Hit Buffs

Occasionally the topic comes up of how Super Reflexes compares to other, newer sets -- Shield, specifically. Example: Why choose Super Reflexes?

I know they buffed SR a bit in the past with the scaling resistances, but if they were inclined to buff it again, I would like to see a buff that addresses its greatest weakness, instead of adding a damage power or something silly.

What is SR's greatest weakness? Well, once you have got your DDR to 95%, it's no longer defense debuffs. :P I'd say the thing my SRs worry about most of all is to-hit buffs to my enemies: Nemesis Vengeance, Devouring Earth Quartz drops, Rulaaru eyeballs, and special bosses using Build Up (in Architect and certain missions). These things tend to completely overpower defense, and since SR has insignificant layering, huge damage pours in fast. The scaling resistances cut in to slow it, but they really work better in normal (non-to-hit-buffed) combat, because resistance allows some damage in, and since the scaling resistances cut in when life is very low, when every attack hits, even the reduced damage getting in is almost always fatal.

But how to make these things less dangerous (i.e., not an immediate death sentence) without totally removing their effectiveness?

Just giving SR more resistance seems like a cop-out. It's already going to get a little bit of resistance (along with everyone else) with the I24 IO changes.

I propose that scaling defense be added to the scaling resistances. I hope I can explain clearly.

Under normal (non-to-hit-buffed) circumstances, a high-defense character can in theory get a lot of use out of the scaling resistances, because the hits are still fairly infrequent, allowing the resistances to buy the player some time to react.

Scaling defense, one's defense numbers climbing as one's life bar drops, would provide little help in these normal circumstances, thus not making the character unbalanced/invincible. When you're soft-capped, more defense is (normally) literally no help at all.

But that changes when the enemy is to-hit-buffed. The buffs would allow the enemy to hit the SR character easily, quickly putting some damage on the character...but then as the life bar dropped, the otherwise-superfluous scaling defense would pile up. If set at the right values, this defense could progressively offset big to-hit buffs, slowing the character's decline enough to make the fight interesting, without making the character immune to harm. Randomly-occuring spikes of damage could still kill the character outright (health being low at this point), but the point is, it would now require spikes of good to-hit rolls, it wouldn't be "everything hits and down you go."

You can kind of do something like this now if you slot Elude, but I get the impression a lot of these to-hit buffs are way stronger than Elude can counter. Plus, Elude is a fixed number, and can contribute to the binary state problem of being invincible or dead. Scaling numbers might help instead (or alongside Elude). Of course the exact numbers would be up to the Devs to set.

The trouble is trying to decide how much would be enough. The worst offenders in the game (in my opinion) would have to be DoE and Nemesis. How much extra defense would you need to offset two quartz pets out or killing 3 or more Nemesis Lt.'s and the mini-vengeance that is cause with each death?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm honestly curious at how much extra defense you think we would need in those situations and why we can't counter it by using our tier 9 or popping a few purples. I know that I carry a few for those situations, even though all my positional defense is above 50 and I found room in my for I slotted elude for when it really hits the fan.

I likey I likey a lot!

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Originally Posted by Revanchist I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm honestly curious at how much extra defense you think we would need in those situations and why we can't counter it by using our tier 9 or popping a few purples. I know that I carry a few for those situations, even though all my positional defense is above 50 and I found room in my for I slotted elude for when it really hits the fan.

That is if players pick the tier 9 power. I for one NEVER EVER EVER pick them, the crash is just too ridiculous IMO. I don't even use it as a mule.

I'm not sure this would be very easy to code this.
And as mentioned: how much is really enough?

Frankly I think that SR could instead stand to have it's own +tohit buffs. Afterall, reflexes aren't just about dodging, but taking advantage of openings.

Oh, and maybe a +recharge buff to Elude.

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I'm interested in this idea. Given SR's "defence and pretty much nothing else" survival strategy and the fact that once you're soft capped more defence doesn't help much except with these tohit corner cases, I don't see why they couldn't go right off the far end with the defence buffs, making it so SR characters (or at least tankers) at or below 10% health hit the defence hard cap (which still wouldn't completely overpower the effect of 3 quartz emanators at +100% tohit).

Off the top of my head, I'd like to see the scale at something like:

100% health - +0% def
75% health - +2.5% def
50% health - +15% def
25% health - +75% def
10% health - +200% def

That said, though, I do have a few concerns about this idea. First off, Elude. It's already on very unsteady ground since, as you said, it's not worth much once you're capped. The very large +tohit buffs would laugh at any minor addition to +def that scaling would add, while significant scaling buffs would further weaken Elude's already tenuous position. What if it were rolled into the def buff Elude gives instead of being an always-on deal? It would give Elude a better use against those high-powered +tohit without undermining it.

Second, of course, is the fact that +tohit seems to be the intended "kryptonite" for the set. Now whether or not the devs still hold to that philosophy, most of the sets so have a few gaping holes that leave them less capable when dealing with certain threats. +Tohit is SR's. Now, I don't agree that one power should be capable of completely negating an entire powerset, as some of them do, but that should still be a consideration.

Lastly, there's the addition of more +res in IOs, which is undoubtedly going to be a game-changer for SR. Once that goes through, I'm not sure SR will need much more help competing with the other "big boys."

It's an interesting idea, and one I'd like to see played with. I'm just not sure it's necessary.

I say we just add a great resistance buff to Elude and reduce its defense buff, then call it a day.

I guess I'm not seeing how this would help anything, based on my understanding of the current attack mechanics. I'll go poke my head at the formula again, as it's been a while since I've looked at it.

Re-balancing Elude in the manner Dechs mentioned wouldn't be a bad way to go.

The problem with my idea is that it's not at all thematic. Super Reflexes is about not getting hit at all, a strict theme that isn't helping in a world of hybrid mitigation sets.

If SR is going to continue on the path of the one trick pony, that trick should damn well work. DDR is great for debuffs, but SR needs some kind of protection from tohit. Arcanaville long ago suggested Elusivity, which I believe would be sufficient, but it may be more difficult to implement.

Hmmm...a way to help Super Reflexes...

Step 1) Get rid of scaling resists

Step 2) Turn Practiced Brawler into a toggle and give it one unique resistance (placate, confuse, fear, -tohit resistance)

Step 3) Give Agile, Dodge and Lucky a 50% Regen component (enhanceable)

Step 4) Give Focused Fighting, Focused Senses and Evasion a 150% Regen component (enhanceable)

Step 5) Turn the God Mode, Elude, ability into Adrenaline Rush, a 120second Recharge, 25% Self Heal, 100% Regen for 60seconds, 20% EndRec for 30seconds, with a 15 Point End Crash after 60seconds ability!

Step 6) Increase Quickness to 25% +Recharge/Speed

^_^ The set would be love!

A simple suggestion:

Instead of finding some way to add more +Def, add a small -To Hit aura to one of the toggles (possibly along with a scaling-per-enemy +To Hit buff for the SR character). The idea would be that it'd be easier to dodge enemies who were very close (and similarly easier to reflexively adjust your attacks to better hit close enemies - who says reflexes are entirely defensive?).

With that reasoning, the -To Hit would make the most "storytelling" sense in Focused Fighting, but I'm wary of putting such a powerful tool in the Tier 1 power, so instead I suggest putting it in Evasion (because that's the power that already has the Taunt aura for Tankers and Brutes).

I know Willpower already has a similar -To Hit aura, which is why I suggested having a +To Hit instead of +Regen as the counter-effect, so to speak.

Actually now that I think about it, I believe that a scaling PvE elusivity effect might be a larger benefit for scrappers than just throwing more def at them.

My first two characters were FF and SR. One trick ponies, pure Def in a world that has steadily chipped away at the effectiveness of same. Debuffs, buffs for other sets (including new sets that give most or all of the practical benefits plus other goodies, like Ninjitsu and Sonic), autohits that outright ignore the entire set, IOs and bonuses and builds that regularly hit the softcap...

It would be nice to matter again.

Not sure just more def is really the answer. Sure, it would be good, but as people are saying, against BIG sources of to hit..you would need so much to do anything at all.
It would mostly help vs Incarnate mobs, and even then, that first hit (with no +def or res) quite often hammers an sr down into almost dead status.
Likewise..+regen in the passives..how much is too much? A small amount and it wont do anything, to large and it breaks SR's niche of being 'the' defence set.

I'm not against the OP, but I don't like new mechanics when simple changes to existing powers could get to a somewhat similar result.

I.e., what if Elude was turned into a crashless, short duration buff? This way you could fight tohit buffs, and it would actually require player involvement, something SR is missing. It would also give the power an use beyond these situations, as a temporary end recovery / movement speed buff.

Then again, the case could be made my suggestion would go against the feel of the set, and there's probably people out there who like Elude as is.

Elusivity to Elude sounds nice, but if anything I'd like the scaling resist in the passives to be reversed, but have their percentile thresholds limited further.

At 100% you have (or nearly have) capped resistances. By around 80-70%, it's all gone. It would make more sense for the first hit or so to be shrugged off while the following ones cripple you. Presently, you're just being beaten down to near death before any of the resistance applies at a reasonable level, and by then the next hit is going to drop you either way.

This would allow specing for defense (or using elude to counter high to-hit), resistance, and regen to be viable options, in addition to making allied heals more useful.