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Removing passive ranks
bluhman
Posts: 2,411 Arc User
Consider this: almost all optimal builds make use of a Rank 3 passive. There's only a single exception to this I can think of, which is defiance, simply due to how the passive inherently works.
Also consider this: In favor of raw numerical stat boosts, most players who do take a passive that does have an alternate advantage than just ranking up (force of will, fair game, etc) usually won't put in the effort to take a unique bonus. Having an odd gimmick isn't appealing compared to just having more damage output or defense. But on the other hand, just 'more numbers' is boring!
So this suggestion poses that Passives will no longer have ranks. All passives as they are now would operate exactly like their Rank 3 versions, but without the need to invest advantage points. instead, there will be a choice between several 2-point advantages each that grant unique bonuses that can provide a boost to a specific playstyle - some of which favor a completely in-set build, and others which would facilitate branching out or synergising with closely-related sets. Also, unlike other powers in the game which have a max. 5 AP spending limit, passives would be restricted to only 2, for balance reasons/technical issues. These passive bonuses would not be significant game changers; only minor bonuses for people who want to get an extra little effect on their attacks, more defense against certain effects, and otherwise enable unusual synergies. Otherwise, if the extra utility doesn't interest the player, they can spend those advantages on more useful powers.
Electric Form:
-Overcapacitence - Any attack you land has a 0-50% chance to generate a 'spark' on-hit effect that will shock the target with a bolt of electricity for extra Electrical damage (not unlike Ebon Destruction). chance for this spark to generate depends on your current levels of energy.
-Energy transfer - Any particle or sonic damage you deal out will gain a 5% chance to inflict Negative Ions on your targets.
Fiery Form:
-Kindler - Fire patches and fire pets have increased duration when within 50 feet of you.
-Heat Differential - When an enemy is inflicted by both a Chill and Clinging Flames effect from your attacks, they gain the Heat Differential debuff, which further reduces their defense against fire and cold damage by 2%. This can also serve as a useful indicator for when Rimefire Burst is ready to be used.
Kinetic Manipulation:
-Barrier Master - Increases the strength of your forcefields by 20%. Bonus increased to 30% if running in an offense role.
-Gravity Root - The longer you stay stationary, the harder you become to knock. As you stand still, you build up stacks of Gravity Root, each of which increases knock resistance by 10%. Up to 10 stacks of this can accumulate over 10 seconds.
Personal Forcefield:
-Accumulation - Whenever your energy reaches full while your PFF is depleted, your shield's health is automatically restored to full. This effect only occurs once every 10 seconds.
-Inertial Negation - While PFF is up, you are extremely resistant to knock, snare, root, and hold effects.
Stormbringer:
-Aerodynamics - The strength of your repels is increased if the target is distant from other enemies, and is decreased if the target is nearby other enemies.
-Cataclysm - If an enemy gets afflicted by both Chill and Negative Ions, they will suffer from the Cataclysm debuff, reducing their resistance to Crushing damage by 2%.
Ice Form:
-Absolute Zero - All ice structures you summon are immune to damage from enemies.
-Chill to the Bone - Every time Chill reaches 3 stacks, the stacks are removed to add the Bonechill effect (extreme snare effect and -0.5% resistance to cold). If you manage to get a target to 3 stacks of Bonechill, they become held in an Ice Tomb for an extended period. This hold is very hard to break, but also boosts enemy defense while active. It can be shattered for very high damage.
Quarry:
-Fair Game - All kills you land will place Restoration on you.
-Sharp Eye - Increases your stealth sight drastically, and causes you to deal bonus damage to targets with stealth buffs.
Medical Nanites:
-Modular Nanites - Grants you a 'mode change' ability on your power bar. When used, Medical Nanites can switch between two modes:
-- Medical Mode - Default functionality, restoring health and boosting defense.
-- Energize Mode - Boosts energy generation and max. energy, alongside attack power and movement speed.
-Infectuous Nanites - Enemies within 40 feet of you and in combat are affected by Infectuous Nanites, inflicting piercing damage to them slowly over time.
Targeting Computer:
-Combat Scanner - The more you attack a single enemy with single-target attacks, the greater your defense penetration becomes against them. This benefit is lost as soon as you begin attacking another enemy.
-Search Algorithm - Grants bonus stealth sight to you and your allies.
Invulnerability:
-Shock Absorbers - Boosts your resistance against knock, hold, and repel effects.
-Armored Up - When out of combat, you gain an extra layer of temporary health over your HP, equal to 10% of your max HP. This armor layer cannot be regenerated until you leave combat for 10 seconds.
Quantum Stabilizer:
-Absolution - Every melee attack you land has a small chance to refresh Particle Burn.
-Magnetic Force - Electricity attacks you use have a chance to drag targets inwards, such as Lightning Arc or Thunderstrike. The chance of this effect triggering increases if the target suffers from Radiation.
Lightning Reflexes:
-Untouchable - Dodge chance is reduced (35%), but avoidance is increased to 90%, meaning you will take almost no damage when succeeding a dodge. Other dodge buffs that stack on top of this will act as normal.
-True Balance - All knocks are turned into repels, and your break-free strength is heavily boosted.
Way of the Warrior:
-Lightning Fists - Charge time on melee crushing attacks is reduced.
-Skilled Ripostes - Blocking attacks will refresh the duration of any defense debuff on the target that made the attack.
-Bloodletter - When you land a kill on a target who suffered from a wound, your next attack gains a bonus burst of slashing damage and applies bleed.
Night Warrior:
-Silent Running - Same as before, removes the slow penalty while sneaking.
-Displacer - Sneak instead will render you intangible and immune, while also removing the slow penalty (allowing you to run through enemies or blockades). However, this also causes Sneak to use up your energy while active, and disable when energy is drained.
Ego Form:
-Domination - Any mentalist holds or stuns you inflict will render the target vulnerable, drastically reducing their defense against your attacks. However, once Vulnerable is exploited, they will gain 3 stacks of hold resistance and will be unable to become vulnerable until the resistance runs out.
-Superego - Your attack and defense is boosted for any low-health targets nearby you (ally or enemy). The benefits of this are greater for low-health enemies than allies.
Id Mastery:
-The Unyielding Mind - As you attack, you gain stacks of Indominable, which will be used up when knocked to fully resist the knock, or when held to deal break-free damage to the hold.
-Feedback Loop - When using up Ego Leech stacks via an attack, they have a small chance to not be removed.
Congress of Selves:
-Conditioning - All attacks have a chance to apply Trauma. Your hold strength is increased, reducing the time lost when targets are hit.
-Unity of Minds - You reduce the damage that all allies nearby you take, as well as increasing the damage they deal. When allies take damage, 2% of it is transfered to you (rounded down). When you deal out an attack, all allies gain an extra 2% damage on their next hit.
Unstoppable:
-Punitive Priority - Fully-charging an attack has a chance to interrupt the target hit, regardless of rank.
-Bloodied Wrath - Gain up to 50% bonus damage the lower your HP is.
-Burning Rage - When an enemy is afflicted by both Clinging Flames, and Disorient or Stagger, they have their resistance against Crushing damage reduced by 2%
Defiance:
-Force of Will - Boosts knock and stun resistance as health is depleted. The scaling on this effect should be way jacked up.
-Cross-Countering - Attacking can use up a stack of Defiance to grant the hit an extra 10% damage. This effect only occurs once every 5 seconds.
Earth Form:
-Stonewalling - Blocking reduces damage a further 20% and doesn't snare you as severely.
-Difficult Terrain - Enemies within your Snaring aura continuously have their stacks of Stagger refreshed.
Seraphim:
-Balance - Healing aura of Seraphim is expanded to 50 feet and is strengthened. Does not have the damaging aura aspect. Instead:
-Vigil - Vigil will deal low radiant damage over time to enemies within 25 feet of the user of Seraphim.
Shadow Form:
-Corrupted Elements - All ranged attacks have a 30% chance to deal bonus Dimensional damage. For melee attacks, the chance is only 15%. Fully-charged attacks can induce fear when this effect triggers.
-Nightstalker - Improves the stealth aspects of this passive, and causes blasts you use against enemies who haven't detected you to do significant bonus damage.
Enchanter:
-Invocations - Swaps out the bonuses for Toxic and Dimensional damage for Fire, Ice, and Electrical damage. Clinging Flames, Chill, and Negative Ions now count as Curses for you.
-Illusionist - Grants bonus damage for Psionic attacks. Psionic debuffs such as dependency and mental storm now also count as Curses.
Arcane Clarity:
-Haste - You and your allies move 10% faster
-Spotless Mind - Allies under your aura are immune to any effects that debuff attack power, such as Fear, Disorient, or Regret.
Primal Majesty:
-Augmentation - Your aura only boosts Superstats now, but does so with 5% extra potency as usual. The aura now scales purely with your superstats of choice.
-Ritual Master - Speeds up the charge times of all Sorcery abilities
Ebon Destruction:
-Dread Haze - Your critical effect also will refresh one random debuff on the enemy if they have any.
-Overlord - Gives you a stacking buff depending on how many pets you have, which further boosts the potency of Ebon Destruction's effects on yourself.
Radiant Protection:
-Unyielding Ranks - Allies under your aura are immune to defense debuffs, such as Stagger, Shredded, or Mental Storm.
-Grand Guard - Allies who block under the aura will gain extra moving speed and damage resistance, until their guard is lowered.
Regeneration:
-Resilience - Debuffs and Control Effects wear off twice as fast for you.
-Adaptable - Similar to Unstable Brutes, you can gain slight damage resistance to up to 2 damage types as you remain in combat.
Pestilence:
-Rot - Enemies affected by your pestilent aura will be infected with Trauma and slowly have their damage resistance sapped, up to a maximum of 10% resistance lost over 60 seconds.
-Brimstone - Applies a small damage boost to Fire type attacks.
Projected effects of this change:
Also consider this: In favor of raw numerical stat boosts, most players who do take a passive that does have an alternate advantage than just ranking up (force of will, fair game, etc) usually won't put in the effort to take a unique bonus. Having an odd gimmick isn't appealing compared to just having more damage output or defense. But on the other hand, just 'more numbers' is boring!
So this suggestion poses that Passives will no longer have ranks. All passives as they are now would operate exactly like their Rank 3 versions, but without the need to invest advantage points. instead, there will be a choice between several 2-point advantages each that grant unique bonuses that can provide a boost to a specific playstyle - some of which favor a completely in-set build, and others which would facilitate branching out or synergising with closely-related sets. Also, unlike other powers in the game which have a max. 5 AP spending limit, passives would be restricted to only 2, for balance reasons/technical issues. These passive bonuses would not be significant game changers; only minor bonuses for people who want to get an extra little effect on their attacks, more defense against certain effects, and otherwise enable unusual synergies. Otherwise, if the extra utility doesn't interest the player, they can spend those advantages on more useful powers.
Electric Form:
-Overcapacitence - Any attack you land has a 0-50% chance to generate a 'spark' on-hit effect that will shock the target with a bolt of electricity for extra Electrical damage (not unlike Ebon Destruction). chance for this spark to generate depends on your current levels of energy.
-Energy transfer - Any particle or sonic damage you deal out will gain a 5% chance to inflict Negative Ions on your targets.
Fiery Form:
-Kindler - Fire patches and fire pets have increased duration when within 50 feet of you.
-Heat Differential - When an enemy is inflicted by both a Chill and Clinging Flames effect from your attacks, they gain the Heat Differential debuff, which further reduces their defense against fire and cold damage by 2%. This can also serve as a useful indicator for when Rimefire Burst is ready to be used.
Kinetic Manipulation:
-Barrier Master - Increases the strength of your forcefields by 20%. Bonus increased to 30% if running in an offense role.
-Gravity Root - The longer you stay stationary, the harder you become to knock. As you stand still, you build up stacks of Gravity Root, each of which increases knock resistance by 10%. Up to 10 stacks of this can accumulate over 10 seconds.
Personal Forcefield:
-Accumulation - Whenever your energy reaches full while your PFF is depleted, your shield's health is automatically restored to full. This effect only occurs once every 10 seconds.
-Inertial Negation - While PFF is up, you are extremely resistant to knock, snare, root, and hold effects.
Stormbringer:
-Aerodynamics - The strength of your repels is increased if the target is distant from other enemies, and is decreased if the target is nearby other enemies.
-Cataclysm - If an enemy gets afflicted by both Chill and Negative Ions, they will suffer from the Cataclysm debuff, reducing their resistance to Crushing damage by 2%.
Ice Form:
-Absolute Zero - All ice structures you summon are immune to damage from enemies.
-Chill to the Bone - Every time Chill reaches 3 stacks, the stacks are removed to add the Bonechill effect (extreme snare effect and -0.5% resistance to cold). If you manage to get a target to 3 stacks of Bonechill, they become held in an Ice Tomb for an extended period. This hold is very hard to break, but also boosts enemy defense while active. It can be shattered for very high damage.
Quarry:
-Fair Game - All kills you land will place Restoration on you.
-Sharp Eye - Increases your stealth sight drastically, and causes you to deal bonus damage to targets with stealth buffs.
Medical Nanites:
-Modular Nanites - Grants you a 'mode change' ability on your power bar. When used, Medical Nanites can switch between two modes:
-- Medical Mode - Default functionality, restoring health and boosting defense.
-- Energize Mode - Boosts energy generation and max. energy, alongside attack power and movement speed.
-Infectuous Nanites - Enemies within 40 feet of you and in combat are affected by Infectuous Nanites, inflicting piercing damage to them slowly over time.
Targeting Computer:
-Combat Scanner - The more you attack a single enemy with single-target attacks, the greater your defense penetration becomes against them. This benefit is lost as soon as you begin attacking another enemy.
-Search Algorithm - Grants bonus stealth sight to you and your allies.
Invulnerability:
-Shock Absorbers - Boosts your resistance against knock, hold, and repel effects.
-Armored Up - When out of combat, you gain an extra layer of temporary health over your HP, equal to 10% of your max HP. This armor layer cannot be regenerated until you leave combat for 10 seconds.
Quantum Stabilizer:
-Absolution - Every melee attack you land has a small chance to refresh Particle Burn.
-Magnetic Force - Electricity attacks you use have a chance to drag targets inwards, such as Lightning Arc or Thunderstrike. The chance of this effect triggering increases if the target suffers from Radiation.
Lightning Reflexes:
-Untouchable - Dodge chance is reduced (35%), but avoidance is increased to 90%, meaning you will take almost no damage when succeeding a dodge. Other dodge buffs that stack on top of this will act as normal.
-True Balance - All knocks are turned into repels, and your break-free strength is heavily boosted.
Way of the Warrior:
-Lightning Fists - Charge time on melee crushing attacks is reduced.
-Skilled Ripostes - Blocking attacks will refresh the duration of any defense debuff on the target that made the attack.
-Bloodletter - When you land a kill on a target who suffered from a wound, your next attack gains a bonus burst of slashing damage and applies bleed.
Night Warrior:
-Silent Running - Same as before, removes the slow penalty while sneaking.
-Displacer - Sneak instead will render you intangible and immune, while also removing the slow penalty (allowing you to run through enemies or blockades). However, this also causes Sneak to use up your energy while active, and disable when energy is drained.
Ego Form:
-Domination - Any mentalist holds or stuns you inflict will render the target vulnerable, drastically reducing their defense against your attacks. However, once Vulnerable is exploited, they will gain 3 stacks of hold resistance and will be unable to become vulnerable until the resistance runs out.
-Superego - Your attack and defense is boosted for any low-health targets nearby you (ally or enemy). The benefits of this are greater for low-health enemies than allies.
Id Mastery:
-The Unyielding Mind - As you attack, you gain stacks of Indominable, which will be used up when knocked to fully resist the knock, or when held to deal break-free damage to the hold.
-Feedback Loop - When using up Ego Leech stacks via an attack, they have a small chance to not be removed.
Congress of Selves:
-Conditioning - All attacks have a chance to apply Trauma. Your hold strength is increased, reducing the time lost when targets are hit.
-Unity of Minds - You reduce the damage that all allies nearby you take, as well as increasing the damage they deal. When allies take damage, 2% of it is transfered to you (rounded down). When you deal out an attack, all allies gain an extra 2% damage on their next hit.
Unstoppable:
-Punitive Priority - Fully-charging an attack has a chance to interrupt the target hit, regardless of rank.
-Bloodied Wrath - Gain up to 50% bonus damage the lower your HP is.
-Burning Rage - When an enemy is afflicted by both Clinging Flames, and Disorient or Stagger, they have their resistance against Crushing damage reduced by 2%
Defiance:
-Force of Will - Boosts knock and stun resistance as health is depleted. The scaling on this effect should be way jacked up.
-Cross-Countering - Attacking can use up a stack of Defiance to grant the hit an extra 10% damage. This effect only occurs once every 5 seconds.
Earth Form:
-Stonewalling - Blocking reduces damage a further 20% and doesn't snare you as severely.
-Difficult Terrain - Enemies within your Snaring aura continuously have their stacks of Stagger refreshed.
Seraphim:
-Balance - Healing aura of Seraphim is expanded to 50 feet and is strengthened. Does not have the damaging aura aspect. Instead:
-Vigil - Vigil will deal low radiant damage over time to enemies within 25 feet of the user of Seraphim.
Shadow Form:
-Corrupted Elements - All ranged attacks have a 30% chance to deal bonus Dimensional damage. For melee attacks, the chance is only 15%. Fully-charged attacks can induce fear when this effect triggers.
-Nightstalker - Improves the stealth aspects of this passive, and causes blasts you use against enemies who haven't detected you to do significant bonus damage.
Enchanter:
-Invocations - Swaps out the bonuses for Toxic and Dimensional damage for Fire, Ice, and Electrical damage. Clinging Flames, Chill, and Negative Ions now count as Curses for you.
-Illusionist - Grants bonus damage for Psionic attacks. Psionic debuffs such as dependency and mental storm now also count as Curses.
Arcane Clarity:
-Haste - You and your allies move 10% faster
-Spotless Mind - Allies under your aura are immune to any effects that debuff attack power, such as Fear, Disorient, or Regret.
Primal Majesty:
-Augmentation - Your aura only boosts Superstats now, but does so with 5% extra potency as usual. The aura now scales purely with your superstats of choice.
-Ritual Master - Speeds up the charge times of all Sorcery abilities
Ebon Destruction:
-Dread Haze - Your critical effect also will refresh one random debuff on the enemy if they have any.
-Overlord - Gives you a stacking buff depending on how many pets you have, which further boosts the potency of Ebon Destruction's effects on yourself.
Radiant Protection:
-Unyielding Ranks - Allies under your aura are immune to defense debuffs, such as Stagger, Shredded, or Mental Storm.
-Grand Guard - Allies who block under the aura will gain extra moving speed and damage resistance, until their guard is lowered.
Regeneration:
-Resilience - Debuffs and Control Effects wear off twice as fast for you.
-Adaptable - Similar to Unstable Brutes, you can gain slight damage resistance to up to 2 damage types as you remain in combat.
Pestilence:
-Rot - Enemies affected by your pestilent aura will be infected with Trauma and slowly have their damage resistance sapped, up to a maximum of 10% resistance lost over 60 seconds.
-Brimstone - Applies a small damage boost to Fire type attacks.
Projected effects of this change:
- A higher probability of utilizing builds that make use of multiple passives for different situations, or different roles, without having to worry about optimizing as heavily for dual passives.
- More advantage points usable for general builds - an average of 3 extra points on normal builds, usable for improving non-essential, but useful abilities such as actives, travel powers, and blocks. (the last of which is extremely useful in raids).
- Potentially greater number of unique build possibilities, counterbalancing most powerset buffs that focus powersets into their own role mostly.
How to block a user with μblock:
forum.arcgames.com##.Comment:has(.CommentHeader:has-text(username))
Post edited by bluhman on
0
Comments
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
To pick on Fiery Form - Enkindler, having fire patches and fire pets last longer would be nice, but would the loss of Rank 3 make up for these increased durations? If yes, R2 + Enkindler becomes what everybody takes. Otherwise, Enkindler gets ignored and it's Rank 2 Rank 3 as normal.
Electric Form
Charged Surge
+Whenever you deal Electrical Damage, you gain a stack of Charge. If you damage a target affected by your Negative Ions, you gain 2 stacks instead.
+Upon reaching 100 stacks of Charge, Electric Form consumes them to apply Charged Surge to you. Charged Surge lasts for 5 seconds. The next time you deal non-Energy Building damage, you consume Charged Surge to deal 250 additional Electrical Damage in a 10 foot Sphere.
-Gaining Charged Surge prevents you from gaining stacks of Charge for 10 seconds.
Fiery Form
Pyromania
+Whenever you apply Clinging Flames, Fiery Form has a 10% chance to apply Pyromania to you. Pyromania grants 10% Fire Damage Strength for 5 seconds. When Pyromania expires, it heals you for 200 Health Points. Scales with your Level.
-You can only gain Pyromania once every 10 seconds.
Kinetic Manipulation
Kinetic Absorption
+Whenever you attempt to Knock a foe, you have a 10% chance not to Knock that foe. Instead, that target takes 100 additional Crushing Damage and you gain a stack of Absorbed Kinetics. Absorbed Kinetics grants 1% Physical Damage for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times. Scales with your level.
Personal Force Field
Emergency Response
+Whenever your Health falls belows 25%, Personal Force Field restores 25% of its Shield. For the next 5 seconds, it gains 50% increased Shield Regeneration. Scales with your Level.
-This can only occur once every 60 seconds.
Stormbringer
Wind Shroud
+Stormbringer grants 50% Snare, Root, and Hold Resistance.
Ice Form
Freezing Skin
+Whenever you are struck with a Melee attack, Ice Form has a 15% (30% if your attacker is Chilled) to deal 100 Cold Damage to your attacker. They are also Paralyzed.
-This can only occur on the same target once every 10 seconds.
Quarry
Steady Aim
+Every second, Quarry applies Steady Aim to you. Steady Aim grants 2% Ranged Damage Strength and 2% Critical Chance for your Ranged attacks. Stacks up to 10 times. Scales with your Level.
-All stacks of Steady Aim are consumed upon dealing damage with a non-Energy Building Ranged attack.
-You don't gain stacks of Steady Aim while you are dealing or taking damage.
Composure
Return Fire
+Whenever you Dodge an attack, you have a 50% chance to fire at your attacker, dealing 25 Piercing Damage per Furious stack. Scales with your Level.
-This can only occur once a second.
Semper Fi
+Whenever you gain a stack of Furious, you are healed for 80 Health Points.
+Whenever you reach 3 stacks of Furious, your stacks of Furious are consumed and you gain a stack of Semper Fi. Semper Fi grants 0.5% Munitions Offense and 5% Damage Resistance for 15 seconds. Scales with your Level.
-You can only gain Semper Fi once every 20 seconds.
Quantum Stabilizer
Black Hat
+1% of Particle Damage you deal is dealt as Penetrating Damage. Scales with your Level.
+Your Particle Burn ignores 5% of foes' Particle Damage Resistance. Scales with your Level.
+Your Particle Damage ignores 0.5% of your target's Dodge Chance for each stack of Particle Burn they have. Scales with your Level.
Lightning Reflexes
Bullet Time
+Whenever you Dodge an attack, you gain a stack of Adrenaline. If you Dodged a Ranged attack, you gain five stacks instead.
+Upon reaching 50 stacks of Adrenaline, Lightning Reflexes consumes them to apply Bullet Time to you. Bullet Time grants 10% Dodge Chance, Avoidance, Run Speed, and Jump Speed for 5 seconds. Scales with your Level.
-Gaining Bullet Time prevents you from gaining stacks of Adrenaline for 10 seconds.
Night Warrior
Assassin's Prowess
+Whenever you land a Killing Blow while in Stealth, Night Warrior has a 50% chance to wipe all Threat from you, immediately put you back in Stealth, and grant 20 Energy. The Energy Gain scales with your Level.
-This can only occur once every 8 seconds.
Id Mastery
Mind over Matter
+Whenever you take Physical Damage, you have a 5% chance to negate that damage and deal that much Ego Damage to your attacker. This applies a stack of Ego Leech. The chance scales with your Level.
-This can only occur once every 6 seconds.
Congress of Selves
Mind Razer
+Whenever you deal Ego Damage to a target affected by one of your Mental States, you deal 10 additional Penetrating Damage. Scales with your Level.
Earth Form
Geothermal Activity
+While in combat, Earth Form deals 15 Fire Damage to targets within 25 feet of you every second. This damage increases by 10% per Stagger stack. Scales with your Level.
+While in combat, Earth Form has a 5% chance to Snare and apply Clinging Flames to targets withing 25 feet of you every 3 seconds. Scales with your Level.
Seraphim
War is our Peace
+Seraphim causes your attacks to deal 10 Dimensional Damage. Scales with you Level.
+Seraphim grants your attacks a 5% chance to apply Illumination.
The utility of an advantage can also be difficult to balance versus an extra rank, which is another point as to why ranks on the passives should be dropped. Without that reference point, the special advantages on the passives can be implemented more specifically for the playstyles that a powerset might be aiming for, with much less of a concern of having to measure up to a statistical boost.
A better first step for implementing this probably would be to remove ranks, and then not worry about advantages until they get tested/balanced. That does leave the issue of making surplus APs in such a case, which could probably be fixed by perhaps removing Advantage Points from players until the new advantages are implemented/balanced? This is a lot of what-ifs here.