Why is PFF such a waste but Field Surge is considered pretty good?

the1egend1ives

Don't they both ONLY generate extra health for your character? The only difference is that PFF actually regenerates your shield. Also, Field Surge goes away after 5 seconds, while PFF stays on.

chalupaoffury

Honestly? Field surge is weaker in all regards than unbreakable. Even the clicky bubbles are stronger if you gear for em, considering the fact that they're spammable and give you energy/heal you for the remaining bubble amount.

IMO, the only good field surge currently does is theme. And PFF regeneration, of course.

I'd argue pff being a waste, too. I've been running with cyrone a lot recently, and I've seen some things. It really only seems to suffer vs viper, because viper is just evil and hates all tanks. Granted, they can fix the regen bug any time they want to.

selphea

chalupaoffury wrote: »

Honestly? Field surge is weaker in all regards than unbreakable. Even the clicky bubbles are stronger if you gear for em, considering the fact that they're spammable and give you energy/heal you for the remaining bubble amount.

IMO, the only good field surge currently does is theme. And PFF regeneration, of course.

I'd argue pff being a waste, too. I've been running with cyrone a lot recently, and I've seen some things. It really only seems to suffer vs viper, because viper is just evil and hates all tanks. Granted, they can fix the regen bug any time they want to.

Frosty too.

theravenforce

the1egend1ives wrote: »

Don't they both ONLY generate extra health for your character? The only difference is that PFF actually regenerates your shield. Also, Field Surge goes away after 5 seconds, while PFF stays on.

Welcome to the PFF train, lol.

PFF isn't a...well. Again, I'd argue against it being a waste. It's one and only function is to provide defense.

However it's the only defensive passive in game which can be removed before you die.

It's meant to absorb 95% damage and allows 5% to bleed through, however these values are inverted when it comes to VIPER's Pulson Tech (Soldiers use this in higher level content), combine that with Brickbuster tech and you have one gigantic suck fest.

My advice from relatively extensive experience is to NOT take powers in your build which primarily require you to charge them.

Make sure:

-Your attacks are either click or maintain

-Take AoE's

-Be sure to bring along Unbreakable/MD or Field Surge

Keep mobile and avoid being locked down, bring/put in one heal or a shield or both if you are worried about PFF integrity (you should be in some circumstances).

Try to gain as much defense as you can, pick up Force Shield with Force Sheathe or TK Block with TK Reinforcement.

PFF is an impossibly troubled passive.

There is one power accessible to players which can spam tap remove PFF at no energy cost, a major villain group in game who are pretty much everywhere except possibly VB are dedicated to screwing over your passive, it's shield regeneration per 3 sec is broken and it can be removed in combat.

The only thing PFF does well against are large hits, provided you are defended well enough to back up your...defensive passive.

Myself and others have suggested multiple ways to make PFF better, be it adding a button to PFF which allows damage to increase/heal shields, a button to super amp PFF's regen or super charge PFF shield numbers, adding some form of protection to the shield layer to help it deal with damage (since outside of your build. specs and defense/dodge from gear, it has zero resistance to incoming damage by itself) or simply de nerfing it from Beta by re increasing the max shield number.

It's all been suggested for a very long time and nothing has been done, except two things:

- A fix which was pretty much forced, as PFF's shield regen was not giving correct numbers proportional to the shield strength.

- Shield Regeneration in Combat per 3 seconds penalty was removed.

Last and latest fix was broken a year or so ago when breakfree damage was removing shields.

And here we are.

You know, if PFF wasn't such a great concept, I would have dropped it long ago during my Impulse AT days. But I've been PFF for a long time now, and I've forced my build and myself to make it work, doesn't mean it is where I want to be with the character/concept/build however.

As for Field Surge...it just needs help. Seriously. They need to either increase the shielding it provides OR allow it to super boost shield regeneration per 3 sec values for a thirty second period after it's been used.

Yeah...okay. That wasn't a great mini rant for fighting against the notion that PFF is a waste, but it's a defensive passive which can take time to understand and make work.

It all depends on what you are using it for, if your build is mainly a charge power heavy build, you may want to reconsider your passive choice or get used to spamming or change your build, simply because it can put you in a dangerous situation with PFF.

So to summarise, PFF can be satisfactory if your build allows for it. It all depends what you want out of the passive. If you want a force field concept for a full force field user toon, it'll do well for a short time, just be sensible, block is your friend.

Anything else with click attacks, hard hitting DPS or maintains, it'll do pretty well.

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monsterdaddy

I had a thought about PFF. I think PFF is so weak vs say Regen is that the devs were worried that someone would stack CON and PFF. I think a solution would be to make PFF regenerate just like Regen does with a bonus like damage resistance BUT have PFF scale on all SS EXCEPT CON. It could even scale negatively after 100 CON (giving some room for other heroes AoPM).

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chalupaoffury

gradii wrote: »

its like having more HP

You just explained why it's a good idea to have con with PFF. Fast regenning layer of hp you can stack on top of your meaty self and occasionally boost back to full levels with field surge. What tank couldn't use another 7k hp?

theravenforce

gradii wrote: »

Neutrino never had much trouble using chargeups, even force cascade.

I used protection field and masterful dodge to keep her safe as I charged.

although I must say, freelancer does better than neutrino with click attacks and maintains. (PBR, wheres the kaboom, strafing run)

I'm not saying that someone who uses charge ups will necessarily have a super troublesome time with PFF, but the simple fact is, that unless your charge ups deal significant damage, you may run into some issues with PFF maintenance outside of using or relying on shields from PF or MR or ER or relying on an AD.

Click attacks/Maintains with PFF are pretty much superior in terms of desirability when compared to charge up attacks.

My own idea is that if I can personally keep PFF at good levels without having to resort to using extra shields or an active defensive during "trashy combat" then I'm on the right track.

monsterdaddy wrote: »

I had a thought about PFF. I think PFF is so weak vs say Regen is that the devs were worried that someone would stack CON and PFF. I think a solution would be to make PFF regenerate just like Regen does with a bonus like damage resistance BUT have PFF scale on all SS EXCEPT CON. It could even scale negatively after 100 CON (giving some room for other heroes AoPM).

^ This would be a good idea, I could definitely get behind it. The issue with stacking CON and PFF is that one will eventually have to give, you either put more faith in your shields or in your HP.

And since shields are meant to do just that, I think this would be a great idea for PFF. I remember discussing something similar with Cy a few months back.

Despite this being a nice idea, I'd like PFF itself to gain something which is based on the actual power's shielding/passive instead of or before interacting with super stats.

chuckwolf

What makes you think PFF is weak? While I admit that by itself it has somewhat of a difficult time staying up.

But combined with it's support powers, most importantly IDF it becomes one of the strongest Defensive Passives there is.

I use an Impluse and there is very little that can hurt the character. In fact the few times I do use Field Surge, it is when my PFF is at full strength not when it's worn down, so I can get the 15% damage buff from it, the cost discount to cascade, and a free 30 seconds of extra defense.

The main problem with PFF is not big single attacks, but rather the lots of little attacks from small mobs. IDF almost completely eliminates this. so much in fact that my Impulse has not needed any heals against PvE content since hitting level 14.

hasukurobi

chuckwolf wrote: »

What makes you think PFF is weak? While I admit that by itself it has somewhat of a difficult time staying up.

But combined with it's support powers, most importantly IDF it becomes one of the strongest Defensive Passives there is.

I use an Impluse and there is very little that can hurt the character. In fact the few times I do use Field Surge, it is when my PFF is at full strength not when it's worn down, so I can get the 15% damage buff from it, the cost discount to cascade, and a free 30 seconds of extra defense.

The main problem with PFF is not big single attacks, but rather the lots of little attacks from small mobs. IDF almost completely eliminates this. so much in fact that my Impulse has not needed any heals against PvE content since hitting level 14.

As stated its regen can get bugged, VIPER mess with it hardcore, and it gets destroyed decently easily.

Regeneration by contrast, as a defensive, gives you defense bonuses (win) and heals you fast (double win), if you combine with things like IDF or other extra damage reducing effects you quickly become nearly unkillable.

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selphea

Afaik you can stack Con to power Juggernaut to raise PFF's defense? Barring the irony that for a strong PFF you need to stack HP of course.

chuckwolf

gradii wrote: »

I don't think its a good idea to exclude any stats from PFF scaling period.

a high CON tank with defiant or invuln almost always will do better than one using PFF, so what need is there for this?

I don't think so. With both Invulnerability and Defiance you still take damage to your health, That isn't the case with PFF.

How often does someone using Defiance need heals? I've never needed heals with PFF. PFF blocks 95% of all damage against you up to it's limit. And certain things like Force sheath, blocking, Refraction, Protection field, IDF, Field Surge either reduce or completely prevent the PFF itself from taking damage.

There have been times when Force sheath was active that I have actually GAINED health from attacks against me. Try that with defiance or invulnerability. And that's with an Impulse that's locked into Balanced Role.


The key is using PFF together with it's support powers and knowing when to do so. Against most mobs just PFF and IDF with the occasional tap of block to activate Force Sheathe. and there is nothing that can touch you and you gain energy from their attacks.

Against more powerful enemies, you be amazed how much damage you can withstand if you activate Field Surge and/or Protection Field when PFF is at full strength when a Boss is firing off an alpha Attack. Both of those block 100% damage up to their limit before your PFF takes even a single point of damage, and if damage does make it through that to your PFF the PFF still blocks 95% of damage to your health, and that's without actively blocking.

There's a reason for all those powers and advantages in the force framework. They're designed to work together to give you tons of protection.


Edit:

About Superstats, AFAIK PFF already scales with all superstats meaning if you are freeform and superstat CON then the PFF gains" health" in scale with the Con and your other chosen superstats. so you'd gain benefit from both higher Health and higher PFF strength.

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monsterdaddy

chuckwolf, I don't think you have enough experience with PFF to know how truly weak it is. We aren't talking about 5 man Powerhouse, it's about a PFF hero in tank role is far less durable than a melee role in Way of the Warrior. Until you try and tank Gravitar (much less Frosticus) with PFF, you won't know how weak it is.

Sylviana, I made the point that the devs may be worried about stacking CON with PFF to make a 28K+ HP/PFF tank and that is why they purposely made PFF weaker than Regen. It doesn't matter if the other passives make more sense than PFF with high CON, it's the perception (and I'm sure folks like Selphea and myself could find a way to make it OP).

My reasoning is if PFF does not scale with CON, then this concern goes away and the devs really don't have any reason not to make PFF at least scale at the level as Regen. IMHO, I still think high CON regen toon will be more tanky than this improved PFF but it allows a different variety of builds not dependent on CON. i.e. I think this would be a great match for PA concepts.

flowcyto

I'm not too sure the Con-stacking issue is too big a concern w/ regards to holding back PFF buffs. I mean if you really are in the situation where PFF is depleted and its down to a big health pool, you'll still be taking dmg worse than even most dps builds would. Juggernaut is a possible saving grace, but that's avail to other defensive passives too. 18k+ HP builds w/ a huge shield sound great as well, but any tank passive can be monstrous w/ that amount of health, tbh.

Perhaps what they could do is limit health scaling above PFF's own shield amount if they wanted to keep it in-check if/when it gets buffed, but I wouldn't just outright disable Con as a SS counting towards PFF. It just doesn't jive w/ how normal building works and could create a 'trap' for players trying to build around PFF.

chuckwolf

monsterdaddy wrote: »

chuckwolf, I don't think you have enough experience with PFF to know how truly weak it is. We aren't talking about 5 man Powerhouse, it's about a PFF hero in tank role is far less durable than a melee role in Way of the Warrior. Until you try and tank Gravitar (much less Frosticus) with PFF, you won't know how weak it is.

Sylviana, I made the point that the devs may be worried about stacking CON with PFF to make a 28K+ HP/PFF tank and that is why they purposely made PFF weaker than Regen. It doesn't matter if the other passives make more sense than PFF with high CON, it's the perception (and I'm sure folks like Selphea and myself could find a way to make it OP).

My reasoning is if PFF does not scale with CON, then this concern goes away and the devs really don't have any reason not to make PFF at least scale at the level as Regen. IMHO, I still think high CON regen toon will be more tanky than this improved PFF but it allows a different variety of builds not dependent on CON. i.e. I think this would be a great match for PA concepts.

Actually I've probably got more experience with PFF than anyone playing Champions online right now. I've been playing since early 2010 (Feb 14 to be exact) and my main has always been a force character even before they were kind enough to give us IDF, back when PFF was really a power that had to be self reliant. I was one of those that actually used it in PVP on those 5 man teams. Of course those were the days when people thought that using Teleport was a defense strategy. I've seen many changes to the Force Powerset, and in fact I'm the very one that came up with the idea for a wide angle maintain.. that ended up being crushing wave. I've been around Champions and these forums for a very long time, don't doubt my experience. Remember usernames only date back to when the merge with perfect world happened, before that I was know by the nick Powerblast (which is still my in game @handle) and was instrumental in postss that brought about the fix to the PFF layering problem amongst other things.

Next time think about who you are saying has too little experience... I've played a PFF user every day for over 4 years, give or take a couple short breaks. The only people on these forums with anywhere near as much experience with PFF are Ravenforce and Cyrone.

monsterdaddy

Good to have you back chuckwolf. Sorry, but I based my comments on your claim that PFF is the strongest defensive passive and I am clearly of the opposite opinion based on my experience. Forgive me if I don't give much credence to people who have played since CO started, many tend to be arrogant, unhelpful and downright clueless given all the changes made to CO.

I am curious how your PFF builds have fared vs. Frosticus.

chuckwolf

monsterdaddy wrote: »

Good to have you back chuckwolf. Sorry, but I based my comments on your claim that PFF is the strongest defensive passive and I am clearly of the opposite opinion based on my experience. Forgive me if I don't give much credence to people who have played since CO started, many tend to be arrogant, unhelpful and downright clueless given all the changes made to CO.

I am curious how your PFF builds have fared vs. Frosticus.

To be honest I haven't tried one against him. I don't do many alerts. I'm more of a PvE mission chain altaholic.

Though I've heard he's is very hard to tank no matter what passive you're using. I base my findings on regular PVE content for the most part. I know that PFF solo against bosses or trying to act as a "tank" for a team for the most part is a stupid idea, in fact as far as I know there's only one person who has successfully used PFF as a tanking ability and that is Cyrone. My use of PFF and it's support powers is for survivability while still being on the offense, not being the focus of the Boss' attacks but still having enough defense to survive if he does happen to target you.

Think about this. By stacking the various defenses that work together with PFF, on an Impulse, at level 22 (I often replay Impulse based characters as alts) I have survived a beatdown by Grond by simply activating Field Surge, Protection Field and blocking, Attacks the should have caused well over 30K damage to me without any defense only caused a little over 1000 hp,(I checked the combat log) luckily he got bored and jumped away. But try surviving that on a level 22 defiance or invulnerability based character.

My play style is about taking out mobs and dealing with those. That's what the PFF/IDF combo is best at, I leave the true tanking to those who draw aggro. I don't draw aggro from the Bosses, or rather try not to, I'm that guy that stays back a bit, and fires off full strength force cascades at the Boss and relies on my PFF/IDF to keep any mobs from hurting me while the others do the close in fighting. Nobody can solo some of the bosses in this game, it's all about teamwork.

I fully admit that PFF is fairly weak by itself, but like I said combine it with it's support powers and it becomes great for survivability.

The only thing that gives me a problem is viper pulson weapons, and that's because they reverse the PFF effect, and cause 95% damage instead of 5%.

And even in those cases... the best defense is a good offense. Hit them before they can hit you.

monsterdaddy

I understand where you are coming from now. I think the disagreement is that many of the posters on this thread have tried PFF to tank the toughest bosses and PFF just fails so badly. I have made a tanking PFF PA who has tanked Gravitar several times unsupported and let me tell ya -- a lot luck is involved with my Active Defense cycling. And on Frosticus, I've never got through once on PFF without dying -- I pray I can block and stay alive until Field Surge or Masterful Dodge recycle. His Frost Dagger is 20,000 base and he'll spam it repeatedly on you (not to mention while you're Held in his Frost Spire).

Tanking with other defensive passives is seriously soooo much easier. IDF and PFF may be great for defense but in tank role you have just your 5 stars and a pittance of SS to boost damage, we cannot hold aggro with such low damage.

And I think this is a fair way to evaluate passives -- when stretched to the limit we will see which passives will fail and which will succeed.

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chuckwolf

gradii wrote: »

I honestly don't care how much experience you've had with it in the past. "oh I've been here since launch/closed beta" means nothing in the long run in a game where powers can be changed by the devs on a whim, and huge things like On Alert happen. In the current CO, PFF sucks vs high tier bosses plain and simple, just as monsterdaddy has said.

Interesting that you should mention changes to powers. Because in the years I've been here they have only made using PFF better.

I completely admit that by itself PFF is somewhat lacking. In the beginning even when used with other powers like Field Surge and Protection Field, and even blocking. They had the stacking all messed up and those would take damage after the PFF took the initial brunt of the damage. In fact even when IDF was first introduced it was still lacking due to the same layering problem. Then the Devs finally listened to us and realized that other than actual health PFF should be the last thing that takes damage. That layering fix increased PFFs survivability greatly.

I've never said PFF was a tanking passive, it's not, it's best used in a balanced role, as protection not for tanking alert bosses. But for it's intended purpose it works great.

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theravenforce

gradii wrote: »

PFF is listed as a defensive passive and should act like one. also, if you use PFF chances are you'll be ONE SHOTTED by frosticus. none of my non PFF tanks are one shotted, nor even close.

Cyrone's been here at least as long as you, ask him about PFF. He's been able to make it work, that doesn't mean it isn't bad.

PFF needs some innate damage resistance, (15% flat might even be enough) and they need to ditch the regen penalty entirely.

I don't tank with ForceGirl as a regular thing, but I have tanked with her in basic alert settings and even Gravitar and on Frosty (just the one time actually) and I've never been one shotted with PFF.

@Chuckwolf: I too have been here a while, 5-6 years to be exact-ish . PFF has been subject to a number of fixes each which have come along with a number of bugs.

I do not count fixes as buffs, but as fixes meaning this should have been standard practice.

I dislike the fact that PFF should need to rely on IDF and Field Surge in order to be remotely satisfactory on a full force build, seems a bit lame to me.

None of the other defensive passives have to rely on their respective AD's to deliver.

I've posted and posted about changes to PFF to improve it and so far nothing has been done. Whether this means that nothing WILL be done or that they are planning to completely start over with that power I have no idea.

If PFF was meant to be a balanced hybrid passive, make it usable in ALL roles already.

Just going to go an LOL here.

There is absolutely NO reason to introduce another bad decision as making CoS a "Hybrid" passive. Are you aware of what could happen if PFF was usable in ALL roles?

We'd get Compassion using Support Toons with very high PFF values and super DPS toons with enough shielding to maintain their DPS.

So in short NO.

PFF is a defensive passive and needs a fix to it's shield regen per 3 sec and a mechanic to aid the shield layer with taking damage. If that doesn't put it in a good position then it needs to be looked at from Beta levels.

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theravenforce

gradii wrote: »

if they DID start over on that power, how would you feel about it being a hybrid passive, but not being quite tough enough for tanking without tank role?

I could go with that.

although I'd much prefer if they just fixed the current PFF, of course.

If they did re start the passive, they'd simply need to do two things.

Bring it back to Beta standard (or maybe a little lower than that actually), fix that damn regeneration bug it has.

Keep it as Hybrid/Tank Passive.

We don't need anything else breaking the way things are with passive role designations.

In tank role, PFF is still not tough enough by itself to tank with.

theravenforce

Chuckwolf, I'd seriously recommend you fight Frosty and Gravitar, even with your supporting powers.

I know the Impulse AT inside out, on it's good days and bad days. Same with Force based builds that utilize PFF.

Go up against them and then you may realise what the majority of us are saying.

Also I've never known Grond to do 30k damage.

cyrone

chuckwolf wrote: »

Actually I've probably got more experience with PFF than anyone playing Champions online right now. I've been playing since early 2010 (Feb 14 to be exact) and my main has always been a force character even before they were kind enough to give us IDF, back when PFF was really a power that had to be self reliant. I was one of those that actually used it in PVP on those 5 man teams. Of course those were the days when people thought that using Teleport was a defense strategy. I've seen many changes to the Force Powerset, and in fact I'm the very one that came up with the idea for a wide angle maintain.. that ended up being crushing wave. I've been around Champions and these forums for a very long time, don't doubt my experience. Remember usernames only date back to when the merge with perfect world happened, before that I was know by the nick Powerblast (which is still my in game @handle) and was instrumental in postss that brought about the fix to the PFF layering problem amongst other things.

Next time think about who you are saying has too little experience... I've played a PFF user every day for over 4 years, give or take a couple short breaks. The only people on these forums with anywhere near as much experience with PFF are Ravenforce and Cyrone.

Go solo Serpent Lantern Elite with PFF, no heals, then come back and tell me all about your adventures. :biggrin:

Edit: Andrithal works too.

kenpojujitsu3

Oh boy...just going to watch this one play out...


.

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cyrone

gradii wrote: »

well I know you're all about role defined passives, so not too much of a surprise there.

as far as I'm concerned though, hybrid passives can be a very good thing.

How would taking a defensive passive and granting it the ability to be used in offense/support roles benefit us in any way if said passive does nothing for damage/support abilities in the first place?

theravenforce

gradii wrote: »

well I know you're all about role defined passives, so not too much of a surprise there.

as far as I'm concerned though, hybrid passives can be a very good thing.

Incorrect. I'm about things making sense.

If you SERIOUSLY believe that having PFF work in all roles is a good thing then I'm going to attempt to direct your attention to the simple fact that PFF doesn't work that well in the first place.

You know how STUPID it would be to make PFF a hybrid passive?

About as stupid as granting every role in CO the same bonus to Crowd Control as Support Role has, without any of the drawbacks.

Like Crowd Control, PFF doesn't even work that well in it's niche. So why on earth would you want to spread it to all roles and create more problems?

selphea

I can kind of see PFF having synergy with Support Role mechanically - the healing boost should have a nice effect on shield strength, but I don't see how PFF is particularly supportive in design. If PFF buffed shield strength the same way Seraphim buffs heals I could totally see it happen though.

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theravenforce

gradii wrote: »

No reason to freak out over a simple difference in opinion. if PFF was to be made hybrid, it would need to be balanced for that, AND fixed first.

No one is freaking out. I'm as calm as ever here.

Earlier in my time on the forum I suggested that PFF have a support role version which super boosted the shield numbers but this was spread out to all allies in a 50ft radius.

If something like that could be done then I'd rather have it as a supportive form power rather than a passive (like a better IDF perhaps).

A shield form which increases in potency over time or is a flat number which absorbs damage or something, I can't find the link to the suggestion at this point in time.

EDIT: In fact, that's what I would have liked Redirected Force to be. A Group Active Defensive which generated a large dome shield like Force Wall and granted PFF 95%/5% protection for 15 seconds or something until the shield was overwhelmed by damage or it dissipated.

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shadowzero66

kenpojujitsu3 wrote: »

Oh boy...just going to watch this one play out...


.

I've been out for a few months and it really does look like things haven't changed. It's still the same people arguing the same things. There's the usual people coming and going, but that seems to be the extent of it.

I really want to go into details on this topic but it might be a bit too early to dive back so deeply into the forum cesspool right now. Against the better wisdom shown by kenpo, I'll touch this but keep it brief...

PFF is underperforming as a defensive passive because it doesn't offer a multiplicative bonus to HP. Regeneration is in the same boat but has more going for it; both won't match Lightning Reflexes, Invulnerability, and Defiance for that reason.

Field Surge is probably the weakest Active Defense, again for the same reason as PFF. It's nice if you're running PFF, but situational otherwise. The advantage is kinda fun to play with but you can get something similar from Masterful Dodge, the most powerful Active Defense by a huge margin.

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chalupaoffury

Shadowzero, I think unbreakable is trying to make a good argument for that slot now too. That regenerating bubble. Mixed with the dodge nerf, it's a pretty damn good contender.

It pains me to compare field surge to it, especially considering that in the end for non-pff toons they basically do the exact same thing.

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tdits

gradii wrote: »

by not offering a multiplicative bonus to HP, do you mean the shield HP should be stronger overall?

He means that it gives no damage resistance. Which is not strictly speaking true of Regen anymore, it's just that if you're very hurt then the resist is only ten percent.

chalupaoffury

gradii wrote: »

Unbreakable and Masterful dodge are good in different situations. Unbreakable usually isnt enough to save you from Gravitar's yellow bubble for instance, and Vs Frosticus its laughable.

in short, Masterful dodge is for mitigating spike damage, Unbreakable is for many smaller hits.

Oh, yeah, definitely. It's the invuln vs defiance argument. That's why I put them on the same playing field and on an equal level, because for their intended purposes they're just spectacular. Unbreakable on a healer, in particular. heals =/= attacks, so your bubble stays up and regenning the whole time you're trying to do your thing. That's borderline op, really. The same could be said for using masterful/bcr to face tank a yellow bubble on a squishy. Granted, that's a bit more difficult to pull off.

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bludskarr

Just throwing this out there. Maybe make PFF a defense/offence combo? Leave all the issues it has now but give it a all-damage boost dependent on it's total currant percentage full?

theravenforce

bludskarr wrote: »

Just throwing this out there. Maybe make PFF a defense/offence combo? Leave all the issues it has now but give it a all-damage boost dependent on it's total currant percentage full?

Wat?

Leave all the issues it has now? Leave them? How about no?

It's a defensive passive, it should NOT be boosting your offense in anyway shape or form.

It needs it's shield regen per 3 seconds to be fixed and needs to have an incoming damage to shields modifier placed on it as an innate ability to help shields deal with incoming damage, either via:

Dodge/Avoid

Damage Absorb

Damage Resistance

OR

Damage Ignore/Reflect back to attacker.

There is really no logical reason why it should remain in it's current pitiful state. Even if a few players can make it work, it shouldn't be a job to make it work at a satisfactory level.

That isn't the case with any other passive I've encountered or used, and I've used quite a few in the time that I've been in CO.

selphea

If PFF is so uniquely reliant on supporting powers, why not grant a boost to the supporting powers?

Fix the 3sec regen, then as I said earlier, let it buff shield strength - a perfectly thematic function of the passive imo, then add the Form I'm suggesting.

theravenforce

selphea wrote: »

If PFF is so uniquely reliant on supporting powers, why not grant a boost to the supporting powers?

Fix the 3sec regen, then as I said earlier, let it buff shield strength - a perfectly thematic function of the passive imo, then add the Form I'm suggesting.

Whilst I do like your idea to make END useful, and in fact I welcome that form power. I would say that in the case of PFF, this form power would restrict it to the Impulse AT's primary usefulness.

If it scaled on END/EGO (Both of Force's main stats) then it would be a better option IMO, but that's by the by really.

Fixing supporting powers to PFF is not fixing the root cause. If this happened I think PFF would be much better off:

- PFF's Shield Regeneration per 3 seconds was not halved in combat. Right now with an 9.1k PFF you can achieve, IIRC 820-840 (can't remember exact number, I retconned out of that build) per 3 seconds of shield regeneration.

We have powers, bosses and even trash NPCs which can deliver more than 840 damage in the space of three seconds.

9.1k PFF is by no means the standard level of PFF at all. The standard distribution falls more between 6.4k - 8.4k with these values and higher on those who are focusing on PFF completely. Being forced to use an active defensive and/or a special form power to make a passive work at a satisfactory level is not okay.

- PFF's Shield layer was granted some form of damage mitigation which reduced damage by a reasonable amount before it hit shields, to help shields deal with damage better.

Even though, yes, it is nice that Dodge, Absorb(Invuln/IDF), Field Surge, Shields (PF/MR/ER/HPM) and Resistances (Defense/Blocking) all layer on top of PFF now. This isn't in anyway shape or form a buff. It's merely a fix which should have been standard practice from day 1.

With the Dodge "Fix" taking down the levels of dodge/avoid that were generally attainable by the player population regardless of passive, PFFXDodge was significantly impacted and as a result lost an RNG Based Resistance to count on.

The Shield layer needs incoming damage manipulation in order to better deal with it. I'm not saying PFF should be undying, I'm saying that the shield regeneration rate should supplement the defense Personal Force Field gives to the user. The shield layer itself should have an innate mechanic to reduce the incoming damage by an amount then allow things like dodge/absorb/shields/resistance to factor in.

That way the shield regeneration will work better with the passive, so that it would not be impossible to damage PFF users but it should be difficult to do so, since the passive can be readily removed in combat by enough damage.

That right there, is really what needs to happen NOW. I don't want to see people 'discussing it' constantly or creating arguments or spread sheets about how it could possibly affect the power balance in CO. I'd like to see real time experimentation and results from people who actually would benefit from such a change and have experience with the power and would use it, instead of people who have little to no interest in it having a say. (Too many opportunities for better things/improvements have been missed because of the negative opinions or evidence of those on certain topics who don't and wouldn't even remotely benefit from the power/powers/mechanics in question)

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Changes listed below would probably be in order IF the aforementioned changes were not enough.

- PFF's overall shield number needs to be increased at base levels. Right now, running around with 7-8k PFFs and above is all well and good, but it really doesn't take long for 8-9k damage to be dealt to you in rampages and from players, the two main things that players face. Blocking your way through everything is not conducive to supporting a team simply because your passive doesn't operate as well as other people's.

- PFF's Shield Regeneration to be reduced from per 3 sec to per 1.5 sec. <--extreme change. Which could, dare I say it...make PFF OP. But this is just a guess and would be on the premise of everything else which has been previously said being in order.

Note: This post was not a dig or an attack on you Selphea or anyone else for that matter, I just decided to say this all over again. Just saying this for clarifications sake.

selphea

theravenforce wrote: »

Whilst I do like your idea to make END useful, and in fact I welcome that form power. I would say that in the case of PFF, this form power would restrict it to the Impulse AT's primary usefulness.

*snip*

Note: This post was not a dig or an attack on you Selphea or anyone else for that matter, I just decided to say this all over again. Just saying this for clarifications sake.

Np

Anyway someone needs to do a spreadsheet comparing the EHP of PFF to say, Regen and Defiance - lets not even talk about LR. I'm sure PFF will come up short but I am curious about exactly how short.

That said, passives like LR do rely a LOT on support powers to be useful, and I do agree that the issue with PFF may be part due to the passive, but it's also due to a lack of active support powers. Short of Field Surge, there is no way to maintain PFF other than PFF itself. Essentially, when talking about the Trinity, the PFF tank is trying to stand on a chair with two legs and a toothpick in place of the third leg. The real third leg - healing, or specifically, active healing - isn't there. That's where I feel the problem lies.

But the solution isn't as simple as fixing regen. Regen is passive, so as you say, you want to be careful with the regen. Too much regen means the game plays healer for you, too little regen means PFF sucks. Even Regen characters can actively work to heal themselves, or be actively healed by a healer. But due to the unique nature of PFF, when it is a challenge to stay alive, there's nothing you can do to fix it after Field Surge. At near-death, any other tank can receive a very helpful Iniquity or maybe pop a Conviction and keep going. When a PFF character is at near-death though, that Iniquity is not going to save you from the next Frost Dagger.

The only thing in the game that a support character can do to you, or you can do to yourself as a PFF character that will help you as much as it will help a tank with a different passive, is use bubbles. So that's where I'm coming from with buffing bubbles on PFF. Maybe you can't actively fix a broken bubble without Field Surge, but at least you can be better than other tanks at preventing damage to you in the first place - like the basic concept of PFF. If anything, treat PFF regen under a bubble the same as PFF while blocking. That way, people can't say "oh this passive is too good". Because it's not the passive alone carrying the tank. You and maybe a Support could be working your butts off to stay alive too while trying to hold aggro.

So yes, the passive may or may not be adequate, but looking at the passive alone is like looking at one of the two legs in a chair. I'm saying maybe that leg is shaky, but don't forget to replace the toothpick with a third leg too.

jaazaniah1

I only have one player who uses PFF. He hasn't reached 40 yet and I haven't done Rampages with him and haven't tried any of the high end lairs. However, I've had very little trouble soloing all the elite content in regular missions and regular alerts. If improvements were made to PFF for the sake of the highest level content my only hope would be that they don't end up trivializing the lower level content any further.