What would 'fixed' mean for PFF?

pantagruel01

Presumably, it would mean 'usable for tanking', but that covers a lot of ground. The other four defensive passives each have particular niches, so what feels like a proper niche for PFF? As far as it goes, the niches of the other types of passives are:

• Defiance: Tanking heavy hits.
• Invulnerability: Tanking multiple light hits.
• Lightning Reflexes: this is the active tanking choice; unlike other defensive passives, you're quite reliant on maintaining your buffs.
• Regeneration: Tanking without healer support.

A bump to the shield regen rate is the easiest option and makes it compete with Regeneration, but does that seem right? The built-in synergies in force (extra energy from being hit) suggest some form of energy tanking, and in the tabletop game force field was defense that cost energy, but that seems tricky to balance and might not be the right flavor anyway.

spinnytop

Make it give you immunity to holds and knocks while the shield is up, and it can be the "Tank that doesn't need to block hold and knock attacks".

Make it so that while the shield is down it goes into some sort of Emergency Mode where it super duper empowers your Block, so they can avoid dying while the shield is down by holding block. After a certain amount of time, the shield resets to completely full all at once. Then the pattern for a PFF user becomes:

Attack for a bit
Shield goes down
Hold block for a bit
Shield comes back up
Repeat


Then it's a tanking passive that has certain advantages in generating threat ( not needing to block as much to avoid stuns/knocks ) but also disadvantages in generating threat ( needing to block for long periods ).​​

slowecsl4pwe

Boy I wished the devs listened to you guys, because if PFF was stronger then it would be perfect for Power Armor because even in Alerts, if I'm up against someone like Draconis (I think that's how it's spelled), you constantly have to block or even with Heroic Gear and Lev7 mods, you still have to stop attacking and block or you are just knocked all over the map (from experience 15 minutes ago).

I was originally asking if it was "fixed" due to a bug in how it mitigated damage a few years ago. I know when I was using it, I could get a cosmic spike damage that killed me in a hit, yet my PFF was still up (7200HP/5999PFF)

flowcyto

I'm not sure I'd just increase the shield regen rate, since I'd like for normal inc heals to influence it more in some way. I prob wouldn't go w/ an energy-based approach either.

One could consider the approach of packaging new active powers w/ PFF when you train it, like w/ NW's extra powers. Just to give PFF more tools to balance around it w/o making it take up more power slots, or having everything be rolled into passive effects that make it seem like a diff flavor of Regen.

gentlegiantvexx

spinnytop wrote: »

Make it give you immunity to holds and knocks while the shield is up, and it can be the "Tank that doesn't need to block hold and knock attacks".

Make it so that while the shield is down it goes into some sort of Emergency Mode where it super duper empowers your Block, so they can avoid dying while the shield is down by holding block. After a certain amount of time, the shield resets to completely full all at once. Then the pattern for a PFF user becomes:

Attack for a bit
Shield goes down
Hold block for a bit
Shield comes back up
Repeat


Then it's a tanking passive that has certain advantages in generating threat ( not needing to block as much to avoid stuns/knocks ) but also disadvantages in generating threat ( needing to block for long periods ).​​

I like this.
I REALLY REALLY Like this.

warcanch

spinnytop wrote: »

Make it give you immunity to holds and knocks while the shield is up, and it can be the "Tank that doesn't need to block hold and knock attacks".

Make it so that while the shield is down it goes into some sort of Emergency Mode where it super duper empowers your Block, so they can avoid dying while the shield is down by holding block. After a certain amount of time, the shield resets to completely full all at once. Then the pattern for a PFF user becomes:

Attack for a bit
Shield goes down
Hold block for a bit
Shield comes back up
Repeat


Then it's a tanking passive that has certain advantages in generating threat ( not needing to block as much to avoid stuns/knocks ) but also disadvantages in generating threat ( needing to block for long periods ).

Plus/And/Or,
PFF 1 point advantage: Fill er UP!
While you hold block, it drains your energy while rapidly refilling your FF. (exactly how much is restored per point of energy would require proper balancing). (Perhaps this as well) +minor amount of threat for each second blocking.

This makes it better for tanks because usually you get lots of energy when you take a hit while blocking.

Regardless, I think the Hold/Knock Resistance while up should be part of standard PFF. Give the player the 3 stacks of Hold resist and Knock resist, that counts down from 5/7/10 seconds. If PFF falls to below some threshold, and the timers hit 0, then gone are the stacks of resistance. (this needs work) Resistance stacks restored at some middle to higher level of PFF (25/35/50% or more). You would "naturally" have 1 stack per level of PFF (rank1 gives 1 stack, rank2 gives 2, and rank3 gives 3).​​