reforming IDF & Mental Discipline

raighn

Ok, so I'm sure just about everyone has been a bit bothered by the fact that these two forms require ranks to be of any good while the other forms do not... and IDF, the only defensive form doesn't even provide an energy return of any kind to offset it's energy costs increase like the other forms.

So I'm here to suggest a change to these two forms, at least one of which I'm certain has been suggested before...

IDF:
+ Ranking up IDF no longer improves it's damage reduction, but instead causes you to provide a constant 2 or 3 stacks.
+ Each stack of IDF provides an increase to damage reduction stacking up to 8 times.
+ The damage reduction per stack scales with your superstats
+ Stacks are have a chance to generate every time an affected party member takes damage. Stacks will always been equal across all affected allies.
+ Each time a new stack is gained or refreshed you gain +X Energy. This energy return only applies to the character who activated IDF.

Basically the idea is to make IDF work like Defiance, except party wide and with a flat DR instead of %Resist.


Mental Discipline:

Honestly I haven't a clue how to fix this one... the only thing I can think of is causing it to provide 1 2 or 3 stacks of Ego Leech at all times dependent on rank...

spinnytop

We should actually be changing all forms so they are worthwhile to rank up... why have ranks on a power if only stupid people who don't know how the game works would invest points into them?

Newb traps are never okay.










Let's be honest, the real reason they're not changing any of this stuff is because it's buried in the code. For crying out loud, they had to "dive into the code" to raise the resource limit.

raighn

gradii wrote: »

I don't like it.

First off, Mental Discipline is fine as is.

IDF needs its overall damage reduction increased, or, Make it not considered a form, returning it to how it used to be.

IDF could do with an energy return but not stack based.

It's ok to have forms which are different.

Personally, I would rather have IDF returned to how it used to be as well... but the odds of that happening seem to be far worse than having it changed to be more in-line with how other forms work.


And honestly, the only reason I mentioned Mental Discipline is because of how many times I've been told it's worthless or that I should drop it for another form on my TK Blades build... I really couldn't think of anything to "fix" it because to me its fine as well... but I've encountered a lot of people who seem to think otherwise... Granted the majority of those people mostly think that you shouldn't have to rank up a form period...


But anyways... IDF should honestly either be returned to it's non-form status, or get some sort of energy return.

bluhman

Fixing IDF: Gradii's got an ok idea with this. A non-stacking defense buff that, likely, applies some light percentage damage reduction to everyone on your team (~10% or so). Each time you or an ally takes a hit, you will gain a surge of energy. Because this can occur very often, the recharge on this energy return is quite long.

Fixing MD: The big shortcoming of MD is that it lacks the same sort of energy management that the other, new toggles grant the user. I've experienced it firsthand - even when using things like Rec superstats or the TK Energy Unlock, Telekinetic MD users have a much harder time maintaining a good damage output due to their inability to generate energy as consistently. I'd say the solution's fairly simple: Because of its close ties to ego damage, just have it generate a small burst of energy whenever the user deals it out, once every few seconds. This is also helpful, as it happens to get over the sporadic nature of Leech stacking (which, actually, is the bigger issue behind TK's energy unlock I think.)

aiqa

gradii wrote: »

the damage increase it grants is Multiplicative as well, instead of the Additive boost other forms give.

Mental discipline not any more multiplicative then other forms, it's just additive with different stuff than those forms.
It is additive with damage bonus from offense, severity and a few other things, which is multiplicative with the sum of damage strength stuff, other forms and passives, etc. The sum of offense and severity is not nearly trivial enough to claim Mental discipline in general to be multiplicative.

You can read more about that here.

theravenforce

IDF just needs to scale better, but as it has already been pointed out, the frankly poor value of 140 or so (which "surprisingly" doesn't actually quite equal this value when a certain passive is brought into the equation) needs to be boosted to something valuable.*

I like the idea that bluhman's posted...that..it should still benefit the whole team.

But I think there should be some sort of set damage boost for the passive, as well as an energy gain mechanic which grants you... 10% of your energy each time IDF absorbs damage on yourself or another player with an internal CD of maybe 6 seconds.

I'd probably see the energy generation and recovery deficit removed and swapped in for something similar to what we have on forms already.

I remember suggesting something about IDF a couple years back too...I can't remember what it was though. I'd have to do some digging.

* = What this "valuable" value would be would be up for discussion. Some builds benefit greatly from the added absorb (Defiance/IDF and Invuln/IDF etc). I'd prefer if the value was a real percentage the way Redirected force was advertised as "real" (I think it may still be real but I haven't tested in a while).

raighn

Personally I'd rather not see IDF turned into just another %reduction... flat value reductions have their uses too. I'm all for adding a %reduction to IDF though in addition to it's flat reduction, though.

Those %reductions are very effective against large attacks, but significantly less beneficial against smaller attacks. Throw in some flat damage reduction and you have the exact opposite, smaller attacks are reduced to a greater extent, and bigger attacks are hardly affected. With the two combined you've got what amounts to the best damage reduction you can get. Reducing all attacks by a % and then knocking off a flat value from what's left over. With a flat reduction of 140, if you add in a "real" %reduction of say 20% then you could reduce any attack dealing under 2800 damage to nothing.

Thats some pretty effective mitigation if you ask me.

notyuu

gradii wrote: »

IDF Should not have a damage boost, it's an inertial dampening field. Its ok to have defensive forms, the game needs more of them.

it just needs to be a USEFUL defensive form.

IDF is useful as it stands, in it's current state it pretty much reduces all DoT ticks to 1s

I think the term you're looking for would be "more applicable" making IDF have more than just the one basic function..orr, we could leave IDF as it is and set about making other defensive forms [like one that adds damage resistance % based on con for example]

soulforger

IDF should not have a % reduction, the flat reduction should be raised, but no additional reduction, otherwise you just made Invuln into a form and if you stack them, kiss all damage good bye.

IDF needs more flat reduction and a energy return system to it. Thats all it needs.

notyuu

soulforger wrote: »

IDF should not have a % reduction, the flat reduction should be raised, but no additional reduction, otherwise you just made Invuln into a form and if you stack them, kiss all damage good bye.

IDF needs more flat reduction and a energy return system to it. Thats all it needs.

Raising the flat reduction of IDF, i'm all for that, however pushing it past the 400 mark would lead to stacking with invul providing upwards of a flat 700 damage reduction, sure it's not much against bosses, but any maintain attack wouldn't be able to scratch you like...what so ever

also giving IDF a damage resistance boosting % would be stupid, which is why i'm suggesting that we get ANOTHER form that grants damage resistance %..because ya know....having more variety in a game all about the customization is better, unless you lack the imagination to use it....

aiqa

The flat mitigation on invuln (which is generally agreed on, is very good) is a little over 170 with high stats. The 140 on IDF is fine for a power that works as an aura, if it requires any buff in that it would need a be a small one. It would be nice if it got an energy return of some kind.

rtma

Mentioned something awhile back about my suggestion was to do with IDF performing like a defensive Form that the mechanic worked like Defiance, IDF shields your teammates as is but when you're hit the IDF applies a Shield Hardening Stack, that works like a form scaling with End/Rec suggestively to give a certain percent of Damage Reduction, stacks upto 3 times or something, eventually wears off like any other buff, wither to give energy is another thing.

As for MD, using it with TK Ranged and Melee, all you need is Rec and Ego Reverberation and you're all set. o.3.o

theravenforce

notyuu wrote: »

IDF is useful as it stands, in it's current state it pretty much reduces all DoT ticks to 1s

I think the term you're looking for would be "more applicable" making IDF have more than just the one basic function..orr, we could leave IDF as it is and set about making other defensive forms [like one that adds damage resistance % based on con for example]

IDF does have its uses yes. I think at the end of the day the flat damage absorb value it gives could do with being a little higher, since it does scale pretty poorly with your chosen superstats. I guess that's probably a product of the weirdness that some powers in CO have.

Nothing more than 190 points of absorb though, due to the potential combinations.

I'd like to see it properly apply to PFF but that's another thing entirely (which could be tooltip based or just general fail).

So...IDF could do with:

+ Minor Flat Absorb value increase
+ Energy gain every 6 seconds based on number of targets that take damage OR (perhaps better overall) 10% of your energy each time IDF absorbs damage on yourself or another player with an internal CD of maybe 6 seconds.

Perhaps change the % damage reduction scaling it already has with Super Stats to a slightly higher percentage instead for Rank 2 and Rank 3 respectively.

With 257 stat (combined super stats, EGO, CON, INT. 111, 73, 73.) Rank 1 IDF grants 66 points of absorb and goes up by 14 points for rank 2 and 13 for rank 3.

Rank 2 - 80
Rank 3 - 93

Perhaps increasing the ranks (with 257 stat in this case) to 70, 84, 100?

I suspect this may be a little too much since high stats can achieve closer to 200 already, but there's just a value I've put up.

I think Ranks 2 & 3 are meant to be 10% and 20% increases to the power of the scaling for IDF, but I can't remember.

IDF having damage boost, it would make the form more desirable outside of being used as a team wide Invuln alongside AoRP.

In fact if Redirected Force's damage boost was flat out removed (I wish the entire power was redone personally) and applied to IDF but with some modifications so it isn't too strong or too specialist (i.e. Ranged Physical Damage only), I think that would be a useful feature. It'd also give it a reason to have the energy generation and recovery penalty.

If IDF were to be "brought in line" with other forms, then it would have the main defensive component which would be the flat absorb value as well as a lesser damage component which stacks (could be a small % damage increase per stack) as well as energy when you absorb damage (with an internal CD).

But that's on the assumption that IDF should be put "in line". IDF and MD both work for specific builds and have some good combinations.

Realistically as aiqa said an energy return would be good to add to this form.

I don't particularly like the idea of restricting IDF to a certain stat or tying it to two stats, this can reduce variation.

But with Impulse AT's who are far and few between nowadays (I think), perhaps allow the energy return part of the form to be influenced by END/REC rather than the damage absorb.

notyuu

gradii wrote: »

If you doubled the returns from IDF you wouldn't get 300, so....

aiqa wrote: »

The flat mitigation on invuln (which is generally agreed on, is very good) is a little over 170 with high stats. The 140 on IDF is fine for a power that works as an aura, if it requires any buff in that it would need a be a small one. It would be nice if it got an energy return of some kind.

on my knight i'm personally getting 230 off of idf at rank 3....but then again they have like ALL the con ever, so that's understandable...but i'mn still for increasing the amount from IDF to 300 at rank 3, with the trade off that IDF no longer scales with super stats.

aiqa

notyuu wrote: »

on my knight i'm personally getting 230 off of idf at rank 3....but then again they have like ALL the con ever, so that's understandable...but i'mn still for increasing the amount from IDF to 300 at rank 3, with the trade off that IDF no longer scales with super stats.

Getting to 230 is not possible with just SS scaling, with over 1200 total SS I am seeing r3 IDF at 140.

notyuu

aiqa wrote: »

Getting to 230 is not possible with just SS scaling, with over 1200 total SS I am seeing r3 IDF at 140.

gradii wrote: »

Radiation Rumble?

Might be a whole lot higher in that case.

I've been able to get over 100k force cascades and 20k 2gm ticks there.

so me and aiqa actually ran a few tests and the results are

1: my tool-tip is broken, the actual mitigation is sitting at about the 130 mark
2: any damage over the IDF protection amount doesn't actually get mitigated, instead i end up taking the full brunt [to quote the combat log "Your Internal Dampening Field Adsorbs 0(136) damage"]
3: IDF is still a beast against DoTs

jennymachx

I think it's a valid observation to say that IDF is the only form that needs to be ranked up for it to actually be any good. The general consensus I come across often regarding the other forms is that ranking them up is a waste of advantage points, considering it's easy and quick to get full stacks even at rank 1. They're already potent without having to rank them up.

Maybe slightly increase the damage reduction to further justify having to go rank 3 with IDF. I also agree with giving it energy returns, but to balance things a little maybe the rate of energy returns shouldn't be as good as the other forms.

spinnytop

raighn wrote: »

Ok, so I'm sure just about everyone has been a bit bothered by the fact that these two forms require ranks to be of any good while the other forms do not...

Not really. I think it's fine if forms are different from one another in various ways. In fact, I'd like to see more diversity, not less.

purin1

gradii wrote: »

I agree. you still see people in PVP ranking concentration, and as I mentioned, ranking manipulator has use in PVE as well.

I'd be pretty surprised if anyone who knows what they're doing in PvP ranked Concentration. Not to mention most of them go pre stack on objects anyway.