Then isn't one solution to change the order shields are applied?
(After all it's the case with all other passives, no matter how good or bad they are)
I don't really see the goal of making this a stronger IDF or a clone of AoRP.
Either increase the regen rate or make the other bubbles be hit first, and you have a defensive passive that's not worse than Regen.
As it stands, I love Regen and PFF as they are.
First just got a boost, second could use some as well, but I don't see why make it yet another "I must play with others or I can't do crap" support passive.
Well like I said, I think PFF doesn't follow its own formula. The bubbles should stack on top of PFF, instead of being under it (where they honestly do no good for the Passive) . If the extra bubbles are taking the hits, PFF has a chance to recharge even with its slowed recharge time.
Field Surge functions the way it should, where the bubble goes on top and it recharges the shield, which is why I wonder why can't the others function this way?
And like I said, it would be nice if Protection Field mirrored Mindful Reinforcement (HA! Remembered), and its remainder when it ends would be used to recharge the PFF.
The bubbles should stack on top of PFF, instead of being under it (where they honestly do no good for the Passive) . If the extra bubbles are taking the hits, PFF has a chance to recharge even with its slowed recharge time.
And like I said, it would be nice if Protection Field mirrored Mindful Reinforcement (HA! Remembered), and its remainder when it ends would be used to recharge the PFF.
Agreed, with the exception that the regen rate would still need to be reviewed. A single PF just doesn't last that long against most of the endgame content so even if it went on top of PFF the amount of shield regen it allowed would be minimal and the chances of it surviving long enough to add to PFF would be slim.
This is obviously excluding shield spamming which essentially pulls you out of the fight if you have to do that kind of spamming just get your passive back on. Also, if you are shield spamming to that degree on a competent team someone else is likely to get the aggro which would make the whole thing become pointless rather quickly.
Well like I said, I think PFF doesn't follow its own formula. The bubbles should stack on top of PFF, instead of being under it (where they honestly do no good for the Passive) . If the extra bubbles are taking the hits, PFF has a chance to recharge even with its slowed recharge time.
I believe that the problem is that they have maybe just programmed a general mechanism that Passives come
before Bubbles, since that makes sense for all passives that have some kind of mitigation, and PFF is the only
Passive where it is different
Protip : Roadwulf is actually full of extremely helpful comments if you realize that you have to interpret everything he says as meaning more or less the exact opposite. I'm not sure what causes this behavior, but he's actually a great resource if you're reading him correctly.
Well like I said, I think PFF doesn't follow its own formula. The bubbles should stack on top of PFF, instead of being under it (where they honestly do no good for the Passive) . If the extra bubbles are taking the hits, PFF has a chance to recharge even with its slowed recharge time.
Field Surge functions the way it should, where the bubble goes on top and it recharges the shield, which is why I wonder why can't the others function this way?
And like I said, it would be nice if Protection Field mirrored Mindful Reinforcement (HA! Remembered), and its remainder when it ends would be used to recharge the PFF.
Keep in mind that the overshield put up from Field Surge is also layered under PFF itself. Really the only useful part about Field Surge is restoring *some* of the PFF. As I've stated before, I only keep Field Surge at Rank 2 since Rank 3 is only about 900 more shield points restored for PFF and I put the other 2 points to better use elsewhere. PFF is even layered over top of Unbreakable.
Protip : Roadwulf is actually full of extremely helpful comments if you realize that you have to interpret everything he says as meaning more or less the exact opposite. I'm not sure what causes this behavior, but he's actually a great resource if you're reading him correctly.
Protip: Before offering up advice to one of my posts, be sure to double check what I've quoted to see that I wasn't belittling a suggestion and instead was trying to end a pointless quarrel.
The game has an aura that provides protection to a team already. PFF is a defensive passive and fixing it needs to not abort the entire concept of people who use it.
Arafelis: Upshut. Making bad situations worse is not pro.
Kenpo, I'm surprised at you. I know you don't like the guy, but c'mon. Don't bait him like this - of course he's going to stay snappy and nasty if you keep poking him.
Cyrone...one of the reasons Wulf is invested in this is because he had a PFF character himself for the longest time, tried very hard to make it work, and he and I've had several discussions about how to try and balance it to be functional. The problem we always arrived at is that increasing the shield regeneration rate, as is typically seen to be the strongest solution, always lands you at, and I quote: "Regeneration except with a fat Health boost." Sure, the Regeneration effect would only apply to the top half of your HP pool, but then again that top half of your health would start regenerating independently of and in parallel with any regeneration happening on your bottom half, too. It'd render Regeneration itself pointless and turn PFF into the sort of all-powerful demonbeast that provokes giant Nerfmeteor strikes on the PTS a'la Primal Rage. We have noted that Aura of Primal Majesty is poop now, right?
Wulf and I both have commented on the fact that we thought it was cool that there was one guy on the forums (i.e. you) who was sticking to his guns and trying to work Cryptic around to fixing the passive, but that turning it into fat-Health-boost Regen'd get people raging over the brokesauce a lot more than they were previously whining about the underpowered passive. If Kenpo'd stop needling the man, maybe you two could have an actual worthwhile conversation about it?
Also a functionality change to Protection Field would be nice, were "If the shield ends at full term, whatever is left recharges PFF". Could be an advantage, but maybe make ita 1 point since its use is conditional upon using PFF.
I like this idea a lot. Some thought would have to go into ensuring that it could not be abused...but still, good idea.
Cyrone...one of the reasons Wulf is invested in this is because he had a PFF character himself for the longest time, tried very hard to make it work, and he and I've had several discussions about how to try and balance it to be functional. The problem we always arrived at is that increasing the shield regeneration rate, as is typically seen to be the strongest solution, always lands you at, and I quote: "Regeneration except with a fat Health boost." Sure, the Regeneration effect would only apply to the top half of your HP pool, but then again that top half of your health would start regenerating independently of and in parallel with any regeneration happening on your bottom half, too. It'd render Regeneration itself pointless and turn PFF into the sort of all-powerful demonbeast that provokes giant Nerfmeteor strikes on the PTS a'la Primal Rage. We have noted that Aura of Primal Majesty is poop now, right?
Wulf and I both have commented on the fact that we thought it was cool that there was one guy on the forums (i.e. you) who was sticking to his guns and trying to work Cryptic around to fixing the passive, but that turning it into fat-Health-boost Regen'd get people raging over the brokesauce a lot more than they were previously whining about the underpowered passive. If Kenpo'd stop needling the man, maybe you two could have an actual worthwhile conversation about it?
Taking into account everything I've just read you should probably remember that I'm no longer asking for a regen boost. What I'm asking for is the regen total that we see in the tooltip when not in combat not be cut in half when we enter combat. 520 shields (based off of my main character's stats) every 3 seconds is *not* alot but it would go a long way considering that when you block your shield regen is tripled, making the mentioned total 1560 shields every 3 seconds, bringing it on par with other passives. Remember that as the shield takes damage, the regen gets lower and lower. The current state of the power drops your shield regen to less than 2% of your max shields every 3 seconds when your shields are low. Additionally, Field Surge has no scaling. This should also be taken into consideration when discussing PFF because it's the only power that offers shield restoration. Rank 3 restores roughly 4.9k shields and layers an "overshield" under PFF. That's still roughly 2,879 shields that PFF has to recover on its own while taking damage. Not happening in the current state of the power.
Personally, I don't think that removing the regen debuff PFF gets when entering combat will turn it into anything so overpowered that people will ignore Regen. That already happened due to Invuln and Defiance.
I like this idea a lot. Some thought would have to go into ensuring that it could not be abused...but still, good idea.
I'm curious why though. Currently anyone can spam bubbles on themselves as long as they have energy and get the protection from that.
Except PFF users.
Yet somehow, if PFF could receive the benefit of a prot field, either by having it go over their PFF, or simply recharging the PFF, then it's Overpowered?
That means Prot Field is overpowered. Period.
Lets stop arguing from the starting point that PFF must be inferior to everything else. It should be just as good as Defiance and Invul.
Heh...honestly Cyrone, that's more in line with what I'd been trying to wrestle PFF into, insofar as usable passives go. I wasn't aware of the precise numbers behind PFF's current shield regeneration rates as I'm not actually much of a defensive passive guy, and what few d-passive types I do have focus more on armor (Invulnerability) than protective shields.
To be frank, I'd always figured that cutting the while-blocking regeneration on PFF at all was kinda silly. It's classically A Thing for force field characters in comics (I think, I'm not exactly a comics junkie) to be able to throw their emphasis on defense and restore their shields - at the cost of offense - under almost any circumstances short of getting punched by Galactus or something. Why not lock the while-blocking shield regen at that 1500-ish number you mentioned, or at least something higher than fifty-odd points a pulse. That way the forcefield would act as I'd always figured forcefields would - a mostly fixed amount of defense that can be relied upon to do its job, but which requires active reconstruction by its generator to maintain/repair in the face of heavy combat. It wouldn't be on par with things like Defiance or Invuln, but it'd be at the point Regeneration is - i.e. working more than well enough for players to use for theme without feeling unacceptably self-gimped.
Also the whole "But but, two health pools!" argument is a total red herring.
So a PFF user can hide behind their defensive passive while they recover their health?
Yeah, so?
Defiance and Invul users can hide behind their defensive passive while healing themselves and receiving a dramatic multiplicative effect from even small heals by virtue of their massive mitigation. Yet no one seems to think that is unfair.
I'm curious why though. Currently anyone can spam bubbles on themselves as long as they have energy and get the protection from that.
Except PFF users.
Yet somehow, if PFF could receive the benefit of a prot field, either by having it go over their PFF, or simply recharging the PFF, then it's Overpowered?
That means Prot Field is overpowered. Period.
Lets stop arguing from the starting point that PFF must be inferior to everything else. It should be just as good as Defiance and Invul.
I believe that it is viable to design power balance around what synergies are available. If power A is less potent (on its own) than power B, but has greater synergy with powers C, D, whatever then there is a degree of balance.
Balance does not have to mean that every power is balanced, on its own, against every other power of its general type. How they work within the context of the entire system, counting synergies of all sorts, is a viable (if more complex) approach to balancing.
For what its worth I think that the current implementation of PF and MR is a bit OP. Energy management for virtually infinite spammability is entirely too easily accomplished.
Heh...honestly Cyrone, that's more in line with what I'd been trying to wrestle PFF into, insofar as usable passives go. I wasn't aware of the precise numbers behind PFF's current shield regeneration rates as I'm not actually much of a defensive passive guy, and what few d-passive types I do have focus more on armor (Invulnerability) than protective shields.
To be frank, I'd always figured that cutting the while-blocking regeneration on PFF at all was kinda silly. It's classically A Thing for force field characters in comics (I think, I'm not exactly a comics junkie) to be able to throw their emphasis on defense and restore their shields - at the cost of offense - under almost any circumstances short of getting punched by Galactus or something. Why not lock the while-blocking shield regen at that 1500-ish number you mentioned, or at least something higher than fifty-odd points a pulse. That way the forcefield would act as I'd always figured forcefields would - a mostly fixed amount of defense that can be relied upon to do its job, but which requires active reconstruction by its generator to maintain/repair in the face of heavy combat. It wouldn't be on par with things like Defiance or Invuln, but it'd be at the point Regeneration is - i.e. working more than well enough for players to use for theme without feeling unacceptably self-gimped.
Here's all the current numbers for PFF on my main, in detail (roughly) with the current mechanics of the power.
Heh...honestly Cyrone, that's more in line with what I'd been trying to wrestle PFF into, insofar as usable passives go. I wasn't aware of the precise numbers behind PFF's current shield regeneration rates as I'm not actually much of a defensive passive guy, and what few d-passive types I do have focus more on armor (Invulnerability) than protective shields.
To be frank, I'd always figured that cutting the while-blocking regeneration on PFF at all was kinda silly. It's classically A Thing for force field characters in comics (I think, I'm not exactly a comics junkie) to be able to throw their emphasis on defense and restore their shields - at the cost of offense - under almost any circumstances short of getting punched by Galactus or something. Why not lock the while-blocking shield regen at that 1500-ish number you mentioned, or at least something higher than fifty-odd points a pulse. That way the forcefield would act as I'd always figured forcefields would - a mostly fixed amount of defense that can be relied upon to do its job, but which requires active reconstruction by its generator to maintain/repair in the face of heavy combat. It wouldn't be on par with things like Defiance or Invuln, but it'd be at the point Regeneration is - i.e. working more than well enough for players to use for theme without feeling unacceptably self-gimped.
If PFF will regenerate reliably while you're blocking, wouldn't that make PFF unkillable? Whenever you get low on PFF, you just turtle up into block until it's full power - and then you can attack safely again. The problem is that blocking is extremely powerful defense mechanic, and if you can reliably recover your 'health' (PFF in this case) while blocking, it becomes overpowered. I believe that's the very reason why regen scales down sharply while you block.
I think one big question is whether the PFF is supposed to be able to stay constantly up during the fight, or whether it's supposed to last for a time, and then crash.
If it's the latter, then it'll never be feasible for tanking, because the most important aspect of tank is enduring durability (that can be replenished through heals).
If it's the former, then it needs a whole synergy of it's own to balance it in way that's equal to other defensive passives. The most feasible and thematically reasonable way that comes to mind, is synergy with other forms of forcefield (PF, MR, FS). From what I've experienced, they are all more or less worthless in elite content, because of their lack of proper mitigation. It's possible I'm using them wrong somehow, but it's the way they've always felt to me. I did make a long post - on suggestions box I think - that had some suggestions about forcefields, but overall I'd say if they are meant to be a feasible mechanic in 'endgame', they need some rework.
Also the whole "But but, two health pools!" argument is a total red herring.
So a PFF user can hide behind their defensive passive while they recover their health?
Yeah, so?
Defiance and Invul users can hide behind their defensive passive while healing themselves and receiving a dramatic multiplicative effect from even small heals by virtue of their massive mitigation. Yet no one seems to think that is unfair.
I don't think the 'double health' thing is complitely a red herring. If forcefields are strong enough to stand on their own, then they do give you a 'dual buffer' of health before you go down for good. Of course if you don't have other forms of mitigation, then it's hard shell and soft meat.. and your health itself becomes a rather minor factor - which is often the case with forcefield users in comic context. If they aren't strong enough for that.. then they aren't strong enough as a reliable form of protection.
Protip: Before offering up advice to one of my posts, be sure to double check what I've quoted to see that I wasn't belittling a suggestion and instead was trying to end a pointless quarrel.
I'm serious, though. Like, I mean, obviously it started as a joke, but I've actually had a bunch of interesting ideas to consider following that method.
If PFF will regenerate reliably while you're blocking, wouldn't that make PFF unkillable? Whenever you get low on PFF, you just turtle up into block until it's full power - and then you can attack safely again. The problem is that blocking is extremely powerful defense mechanic, and if you can reliably recover your 'health' (PFF in this case) while blocking, it becomes overpowered. I believe that's the very reason why regen scales down sharply while you block.
What's the difference in blocking with Regen? With enough damage coming in against your block your regen rate will stay capped. Or Invuln/Definace/Lightning Reflexes? With the aid of a HoT can you not keep block up the whole time and never die? The mechanic behind PFF is to have reduced survivability while you're attacking (focusing your attacks while lowering your defenses) and to have increased survivability while "turtling" (retreating into your block to bolster your defenses to stay alive). Oh, wait, the difference is every other passive can survive outright against practically anything in the game *WITHOUT* blocking. Which is why PFF regen rate needs to be looked at and which is why I repeatedly beat the fact that the regen on it is itself cut down by 50% when you enter combat and another 50% when shields are low.
Once again, Defiance and Invulnerability users can already do this by popping BS and then turtling up. LR tanks can do it with BCR.
My tanks regularly heal while blocking. This is not some magic power that only Regen has access to, it's merely a function of the passive rather than an additional power.
PFF already has to take one additional power just to not completely and totally suck. There is really absolutely no danger that it will suddenly become overpowered simply by allowing it to use other additional powers that better defensive passive users already use.
Again: Stop arguing from the position that PFF must be inferior to other defensive passives. It should not be. They should all be roughly the same overall strength, but more or less desirable under various circumstances.
all defensive passives should be viable and right now pff and regen are not viable in certain situations, pff just sucks in general and regen isnt that great against lair mobs. in general pve they are fine but when you start doing lairs pff and regen fall way behind, regen can still be used on bosses but pff is almost unuseable. Regen needs little something extra to it not extra heals but something else maybe some additional defense, pff needs to stop having its regenration rate cut period.
I think PFF just needs a determination buff which decreases dmg taken as shield goes down...also maybe PFF could have a mechanic which works as one of the specialzations works which give a chance to regain shield strength for half dmg taken or something... regards numbers...it is very difficult...not very but reasonably difficult to get good numbers/high PFF because levels have to be pushed so high....
Totally not true. I linked my suggestions earlier in this thread. Go look!
Reading through that list, it seemed kind of like: ''Add health boost, small damage resistance and immunity to criticals to regeneration.. and call it a day''.
You're suggesting that pretty much everything that normally affects health, will also affect PFF. Why make it a separate bar at all, then? I'm not saying that those changes wouldn't do good for regen though. They might very well bring it up to speed with other defensive passives.
What's the difference in blocking with Regen? With enough damage coming in against your block your regen rate will stay capped. Or Invuln/Definace/Lightning Reflexes? With the aid of a HoT can you not keep block up the whole time and never die? The mechanic behind PFF is to have reduced survivability while you're attacking (focusing your attacks while lowering your defenses) and to have increased survivability while "turtling" (retreating into your block to bolster your defenses to stay alive). Oh, wait, the difference is every other passive can survive outright against practically anything in the game *WITHOUT* blocking. Which is why PFF regen rate needs to be looked at and which is why I repeatedly beat the fact that the regen on it is itself cut down by 50% when you enter combat and another 50% when shields are low.
Well I did say regenerate 'reliably'. At it's current incarnation it's very obvious PFF doesn't do that. That aside.. The obvious difference to regen is that regen gets weaker when you block, and gets stronger as you take damage. The PFF gets stronger when you block, and weaker when you take damage. That's the opposite of regen. But it does mean that regen scales relative to damage you take at any given time - which means it tries to 'keep up' with the damage. Unlike PFF.
That's actually kind of strange - because if PFF can't keep up even while you cut your damage taken by blocking AND improve your regeneration.. then I can't see any chance for it to keep up when you take full damage, and PFF regen is significantly lower. Basically the ability of PFF to sustain the damage you take scales opposite to damage you take - which to me suggests it's pretty much made to fail protecting you. The only way it could stand a chance to stay up, would be if it would reliably regenerate itself while you are blocking (because it's ability to resist damage during that time is many times it's numbers outside blocking), and that obviously can't happen.
Which is why I don't think it's current design principles can make it a reliable tanking power. I'm not saying that's good or right. Just saying I believe that's it's current state. The biggest issue is really that it's designed to collapse under sustained pressure. But the problem is too, that it's the major thing that sets it apart from regular health (enhanced by other defensive passives). If you take that away, what's left to set it apart from regular health boost? Well, except the thing about not having inherent damage resistance.
I believe that it is viable to design power balance around what synergies are available. If power A is less potent (on its own) than power B, but has greater synergy with powers C, D, whatever then there is a degree of balance.
Balance does not have to mean that every power is balanced, on its own, against every other power of its general type. How they work within the context of the entire system, counting synergies of all sorts, is a viable (if more complex) approach to balancing.
For what its worth I think that the current implementation of PF and MR is a bit OP. Energy management for virtually infinite spammability is entirely too easily accomplished.
I concur completely. All Shields should follow the same rule as bionic shielding imho.
I also agree that total output should be balanced. That by no means that balance = homogenous.
Where I disagree is where mutally exclusive buffs are concerned. That's where a standard really should be set and adhered.
Comments
Well like I said, I think PFF doesn't follow its own formula. The bubbles should stack on top of PFF, instead of being under it (where they honestly do no good for the Passive) . If the extra bubbles are taking the hits, PFF has a chance to recharge even with its slowed recharge time.
Field Surge functions the way it should, where the bubble goes on top and it recharges the shield, which is why I wonder why can't the others function this way?
And like I said, it would be nice if Protection Field mirrored Mindful Reinforcement (HA! Remembered), and its remainder when it ends would be used to recharge the PFF.
Agreed, with the exception that the regen rate would still need to be reviewed. A single PF just doesn't last that long against most of the endgame content so even if it went on top of PFF the amount of shield regen it allowed would be minimal and the chances of it surviving long enough to add to PFF would be slim.
This is obviously excluding shield spamming which essentially pulls you out of the fight if you have to do that kind of spamming just get your passive back on. Also, if you are shield spamming to that degree on a competent team someone else is likely to get the aggro which would make the whole thing become pointless rather quickly.
I believe that the problem is that they have maybe just programmed a general mechanism that Passives come
before Bubbles, since that makes sense for all passives that have some kind of mitigation, and PFF is the only
Passive where it is different
Protip : Roadwulf is actually full of extremely helpful comments if you realize that you have to interpret everything he says as meaning more or less the exact opposite. I'm not sure what causes this behavior, but he's actually a great resource if you're reading him correctly.
Keep in mind that the overshield put up from Field Surge is also layered under PFF itself. Really the only useful part about Field Surge is restoring *some* of the PFF. As I've stated before, I only keep Field Surge at Rank 2 since Rank 3 is only about 900 more shield points restored for PFF and I put the other 2 points to better use elsewhere. PFF is even layered over top of Unbreakable.
Protip: Before offering up advice to one of my posts, be sure to double check what I've quoted to see that I wasn't belittling a suggestion and instead was trying to end a pointless quarrel.
That's exactly why I removed that part from the quote I agreed with.
Kenpo, I'm surprised at you. I know you don't like the guy, but c'mon. Don't bait him like this - of course he's going to stay snappy and nasty if you keep poking him.
Cyrone...one of the reasons Wulf is invested in this is because he had a PFF character himself for the longest time, tried very hard to make it work, and he and I've had several discussions about how to try and balance it to be functional. The problem we always arrived at is that increasing the shield regeneration rate, as is typically seen to be the strongest solution, always lands you at, and I quote: "Regeneration except with a fat Health boost." Sure, the Regeneration effect would only apply to the top half of your HP pool, but then again that top half of your health would start regenerating independently of and in parallel with any regeneration happening on your bottom half, too. It'd render Regeneration itself pointless and turn PFF into the sort of all-powerful demonbeast that provokes giant Nerfmeteor strikes on the PTS a'la Primal Rage. We have noted that Aura of Primal Majesty is poop now, right?
Wulf and I both have commented on the fact that we thought it was cool that there was one guy on the forums (i.e. you) who was sticking to his guns and trying to work Cryptic around to fixing the passive, but that turning it into fat-Health-boost Regen'd get people raging over the brokesauce a lot more than they were previously whining about the underpowered passive. If Kenpo'd stop needling the man, maybe you two could have an actual worthwhile conversation about it?
I like this idea a lot. Some thought would have to go into ensuring that it could not be abused...but still, good idea.
Taking into account everything I've just read you should probably remember that I'm no longer asking for a regen boost. What I'm asking for is the regen total that we see in the tooltip when not in combat not be cut in half when we enter combat. 520 shields (based off of my main character's stats) every 3 seconds is *not* alot but it would go a long way considering that when you block your shield regen is tripled, making the mentioned total 1560 shields every 3 seconds, bringing it on par with other passives. Remember that as the shield takes damage, the regen gets lower and lower. The current state of the power drops your shield regen to less than 2% of your max shields every 3 seconds when your shields are low. Additionally, Field Surge has no scaling. This should also be taken into consideration when discussing PFF because it's the only power that offers shield restoration. Rank 3 restores roughly 4.9k shields and layers an "overshield" under PFF. That's still roughly 2,879 shields that PFF has to recover on its own while taking damage. Not happening in the current state of the power.
Personally, I don't think that removing the regen debuff PFF gets when entering combat will turn it into anything so overpowered that people will ignore Regen. That already happened due to Invuln and Defiance.
It could apply a similar debuff that Bionic Shielding uses to prevent perma-spam healing PFF.
I'm curious why though. Currently anyone can spam bubbles on themselves as long as they have energy and get the protection from that.
Except PFF users.
Yet somehow, if PFF could receive the benefit of a prot field, either by having it go over their PFF, or simply recharging the PFF, then it's Overpowered?
That means Prot Field is overpowered. Period.
Lets stop arguing from the starting point that PFF must be inferior to everything else. It should be just as good as Defiance and Invul.
To be frank, I'd always figured that cutting the while-blocking regeneration on PFF at all was kinda silly. It's classically A Thing for force field characters in comics (I think, I'm not exactly a comics junkie) to be able to throw their emphasis on defense and restore their shields - at the cost of offense - under almost any circumstances short of getting punched by Galactus or something. Why not lock the while-blocking shield regen at that 1500-ish number you mentioned, or at least something higher than fifty-odd points a pulse. That way the forcefield would act as I'd always figured forcefields would - a mostly fixed amount of defense that can be relied upon to do its job, but which requires active reconstruction by its generator to maintain/repair in the face of heavy combat. It wouldn't be on par with things like Defiance or Invuln, but it'd be at the point Regeneration is - i.e. working more than well enough for players to use for theme without feeling unacceptably self-gimped.
So a PFF user can hide behind their defensive passive while they recover their health?
Yeah, so?
Defiance and Invul users can hide behind their defensive passive while healing themselves and receiving a dramatic multiplicative effect from even small heals by virtue of their massive mitigation. Yet no one seems to think that is unfair.
I believe that it is viable to design power balance around what synergies are available. If power A is less potent (on its own) than power B, but has greater synergy with powers C, D, whatever then there is a degree of balance.
Balance does not have to mean that every power is balanced, on its own, against every other power of its general type. How they work within the context of the entire system, counting synergies of all sorts, is a viable (if more complex) approach to balancing.
For what its worth I think that the current implementation of PF and MR is a bit OP. Energy management for virtually infinite spammability is entirely too easily accomplished.
Here's all the current numbers for PFF on my main, in detail (roughly) with the current mechanics of the power.
http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=2086880&postcount=100
If PFF will regenerate reliably while you're blocking, wouldn't that make PFF unkillable? Whenever you get low on PFF, you just turtle up into block until it's full power - and then you can attack safely again. The problem is that blocking is extremely powerful defense mechanic, and if you can reliably recover your 'health' (PFF in this case) while blocking, it becomes overpowered. I believe that's the very reason why regen scales down sharply while you block.
I think one big question is whether the PFF is supposed to be able to stay constantly up during the fight, or whether it's supposed to last for a time, and then crash.
If it's the latter, then it'll never be feasible for tanking, because the most important aspect of tank is enduring durability (that can be replenished through heals).
If it's the former, then it needs a whole synergy of it's own to balance it in way that's equal to other defensive passives. The most feasible and thematically reasonable way that comes to mind, is synergy with other forms of forcefield (PF, MR, FS). From what I've experienced, they are all more or less worthless in elite content, because of their lack of proper mitigation. It's possible I'm using them wrong somehow, but it's the way they've always felt to me. I did make a long post - on suggestions box I think - that had some suggestions about forcefields, but overall I'd say if they are meant to be a feasible mechanic in 'endgame', they need some rework.
I don't think the 'double health' thing is complitely a red herring. If forcefields are strong enough to stand on their own, then they do give you a 'dual buffer' of health before you go down for good. Of course if you don't have other forms of mitigation, then it's hard shell and soft meat.. and your health itself becomes a rather minor factor - which is often the case with forcefield users in comic context. If they aren't strong enough for that.. then they aren't strong enough as a reliable form of protection.
Totally not true. I linked my suggestions earlier in this thread. Go look!
I'm serious, though. Like, I mean, obviously it started as a joke, but I've actually had a bunch of interesting ideas to consider following that method.
What's the difference in blocking with Regen? With enough damage coming in against your block your regen rate will stay capped. Or Invuln/Definace/Lightning Reflexes? With the aid of a HoT can you not keep block up the whole time and never die? The mechanic behind PFF is to have reduced survivability while you're attacking (focusing your attacks while lowering your defenses) and to have increased survivability while "turtling" (retreating into your block to bolster your defenses to stay alive). Oh, wait, the difference is every other passive can survive outright against practically anything in the game *WITHOUT* blocking. Which is why PFF regen rate needs to be looked at and which is why I repeatedly beat the fact that the regen on it is itself cut down by 50% when you enter combat and another 50% when shields are low.
My tanks regularly heal while blocking. This is not some magic power that only Regen has access to, it's merely a function of the passive rather than an additional power.
PFF already has to take one additional power just to not completely and totally suck. There is really absolutely no danger that it will suddenly become overpowered simply by allowing it to use other additional powers that better defensive passive users already use.
Again: Stop arguing from the position that PFF must be inferior to other defensive passives. It should not be. They should all be roughly the same overall strength, but more or less desirable under various circumstances.
What if PFF would also repair when you gain energy? Not from basic EB tho.
Here are some of my ideas for shields in game ^^
http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?p=2082290#post2082290
I think this could be done...without it being over powered...and a smaller version done for PFF as well:cool:
Do you mean IDF?
Reading through that list, it seemed kind of like: ''Add health boost, small damage resistance and immunity to criticals to regeneration.. and call it a day''.
You're suggesting that pretty much everything that normally affects health, will also affect PFF. Why make it a separate bar at all, then? I'm not saying that those changes wouldn't do good for regen though. They might very well bring it up to speed with other defensive passives.
Well I did say regenerate 'reliably'. At it's current incarnation it's very obvious PFF doesn't do that. That aside.. The obvious difference to regen is that regen gets weaker when you block, and gets stronger as you take damage. The PFF gets stronger when you block, and weaker when you take damage. That's the opposite of regen. But it does mean that regen scales relative to damage you take at any given time - which means it tries to 'keep up' with the damage. Unlike PFF.
That's actually kind of strange - because if PFF can't keep up even while you cut your damage taken by blocking AND improve your regeneration.. then I can't see any chance for it to keep up when you take full damage, and PFF regen is significantly lower. Basically the ability of PFF to sustain the damage you take scales opposite to damage you take - which to me suggests it's pretty much made to fail protecting you. The only way it could stand a chance to stay up, would be if it would reliably regenerate itself while you are blocking (because it's ability to resist damage during that time is many times it's numbers outside blocking), and that obviously can't happen.
Which is why I don't think it's current design principles can make it a reliable tanking power. I'm not saying that's good or right. Just saying I believe that's it's current state. The biggest issue is really that it's designed to collapse under sustained pressure. But the problem is too, that it's the major thing that sets it apart from regular health (enhanced by other defensive passives). If you take that away, what's left to set it apart from regular health boost? Well, except the thing about not having inherent damage resistance.
But if PFF can recover while blocking it's OP?
Makes no sense at all, yet keeps being repeated.
I concur completely. All Shields should follow the same rule as bionic shielding imho.
I also agree that total output should be balanced. That by no means that balance = homogenous.
Where I disagree is where mutally exclusive buffs are concerned. That's where a standard really should be set and adhered.
Also balancing builds p