Personal Force Field Mechanics Questions

strongbeau · December 2017

I use PFF for the theme of my alien character, firstly. I've used for years and known for awhile it doesn't hold up to big hits well. I went up against Gravitar in her rampage and sometimes when I block, I survive the orange bubble attack but not today. I looked to see how much damage I got after the 9K+ damage flashed on my screen. What I found seems odd: PFF adds 7102 hp to my ~6300 hp. ~13400 total HP. After 9k damage I should have had about 4k hp left and no force field. I found the combat entry and saw something like:

Line 1: Your Personal Force Field absorbs 7102 damage.
Line 2: You take 9,300 (73,000) damage from Gravitar's Force Detonation.

What did PFF absorb damage from before Force Detonation?

So how do the PFF mechanics work? Is it broken? Sometimes it seems like I'm taking damage twice (damaged again by the same attack after the shield goes down).

Is it working as intended, supposed to absorb damage from the big hit before damage mitigation? If it absorbs damage pre-mitigation (lowering the overall damage before mitigation), then that makes it a really weak passive defense against big hits. Basically adding 1% to total mitigation in addition to 87% mitigation of using block against that big attack.

That would explain why it disappears with a really big hit. Also, sometimes, it appears to share damage with HP, especially with small rapid attacks (some kind of vulnerability to attacks by Viper minions? If so, shouldn't that be in the description?). Sometimes I take more HP damage compared to force field damage (falls and knock backs usually).

Reading the Description and Advanced description uses the word "most" a lot in regards to damage absorption. What percentage is "most"?

So can someone explain to me how the mechanics work? How does it work compared to personal force fields in Star Trek Online? Or is this a bugged power?

strongbeau · December 2017

Maybe they can delete it and use how the STO personal force fields for a point of reference. It wouldn't be the first time they've used one game to inspire powers/abilities in the other.

jaazaniah1 · December 2017

The problems with making PFF and IDF (and Redirected Force to some extent) viable probably means that Force will be the last set to get a revamp.

strongbeau · December 2017

Looking at these two threads for an answer too:

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/comment/12790201

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/241876/cyrones-pff-q-a-help-thread-v2/p1

jaazaniah1 · December 2017

Cyrone's builds are from before Rampages and Cosmics were introduced. He gradually dropped out of CO because of how ineffective PFF became.

theravenforce · December 2017

Info: Hi there, I've used PFF since 2009 and I've also used it in endgame content (reluctant tanking in TA & general use in Cosmics).

So I'll try to answer your questions:

1) Question: Line 1: Your Personal Force Field absorbs 7102 damage. Line 2: You take 9,300 (73,000) damage from Gravitar's Force Detonation. What did PFF absorb damage from before Force Detonation?

Answer: So the base damage here is 73k.

What you are seeing here is that PFF has absorbed the full amount that it is capable of absorbing from the incoming attack (Force Detonation), so has been dissipated.

PFF has shaved off: 7.1k, that leaves 65.8k damage to kill you.

Your HP sits at roughly 6.3k according to your post, so you must have also taken the full amount your HP can manage so you have died.

(Someone better with the whole numbers and calculation will likely come along and explain this bit above much better)

2) Question: So how do the PFF mechanics work? Is it broken? Sometimes it seems like I'm taking damage twice (damaged again by the same attack after the shield goes down).

Answer: Personal Force Field layers and works like so:

Damage Immunity > Dodge/Avoidance mechanics > Absorption (IDF) > Field Surge (whilst technically this falls into the 'shields' category, it is meant to apply before shields, however I have not tested this in several months) > Shields (technical name for this layer according to the game is "containment fields" but this is not to be confused with the actual Containment Field power, but includes: Protection Field, Mindful Reinforcement, Bastion, Hardened Particle Matrix, Energy Refraction, Damage Shields from various sources (like Eye of the Storm and Wall of Bullets and Mental Block), Nimbus of Force and Containment Fields from enemies (or other players) > Player Resistances from Defense Stat & Gained Resistances from other players (support passives like Aura of Radiant Protection & Support Auras like Sentry Aura) > Personal Force Field > Your HP.

Despite all of this, Personal Force Field comes up "surprisingly squishy" in terms of perception and actual performance against heightened threats in game.

The combat log in game is somewhat misleading and could do with clarity when it comes to things like PFF and ensuring the names of powers are present and correct etc.

Bearing this in mind, Personal Force Field will "shield" (bear the brunt of) roughly 95% of all incoming damage whilst active and ALWAYS allow through roughly 5% of damage whilst active.

This means, PFF and your HP is chipped away at in combat, so you cannot fully rely on the shielding it provides as it does not function like Field Surge or any of the "Shields" in game which take 100% of damage they can.

Do Note: Personal Force Field is working "correctly" as it is only as strong as it's maximum shielding. In your case your current maximum shielding value is: 7102.

The strongest working PFF I've ever used in game, without shield boosting specializations or Compassion was 18.1k PFF. (Below):

(It was fun, but it isn't easily attainable. Not practical for an "everyday, working PFF")

My current, active PFF stands at 9.5k or something close to that and does not use shield boosting specializations or Compassion.

3) Question: Is it working as intended, supposed to absorb damage from the big hit before damage mitigation? If it absorbs damage pre-mitigation (lowering the overall damage before mitigation), then that makes it a really weak passive defense against big hits. Basically adding 1% to total mitigation in addition to 87% mitigation of using block against that big attack.

Answer: You have arrived at the conclusion everyone who has used the passive well has come to (and even though who have only poked it a little).

This has been a massive failing point of the passive for the past...almost 10 years soon. It has a history of being very difficult to fix and generally being an annoyance to maintain in comparison to every other defensive passive in game (even Developers in the past have tried fixing it, only for another problem to crop up literally days later and they start bashing their heads against the wall).

Personal Force Field has been pretty challenged as a defensive passive for the longest time, however, players like Cyrone and I have done some pretty impressive things with it, but it's not really commonplace and does not mean PFF is "fine" and usable in endgame content (which is part of the problem).

It may be the case that PFF was never meant to be competitive with the big three "Lightning Reflexes/Invulnerability/Defiance (and Regeneration arguably)", who knows?

As for whether the passive is broken or not...I'd argue whilst it is functional, it is not fit for purpose in the current game environment where we have enemies capable of dealing damage in excess of 90k quite frequently.

It used to be able to function pretty okay in Gravitar, especially vs high damage like so (note: this was three years ago or less, my build has changed quite a lot since then) This is versus, Gravitar's Yellow Bubble in the Rampage:

It is broken when it comes to certain calculations, as I don't think it was built with the "intention" that players would be exceeding the 7k mark (I'm probably wrong, but based on the lack of appropriate scaling for shield regeneration per three seconds...it seems off)

It also doesn't like certain boosts being applied to it, as this makes it go all funny.

We have examples in game, of players who can push their HP much higher and further than 10k with relative ease, before considering slotted passives, which are only enhanced by their workable HP. I have no problem with this, but it does leave PFF in the dust (it can be argued that Regeneration is in the same / similar boat, but if you ever need to know anything about Regeneration or Regeneration tanking, I'd strongly suggest speaking to @championshewolf, who is the Regen goddess pretty much.)

Have a look at my Force Review (linked in my sig) and see if you like what I propose for Personal Force Field (and the rest of the set).

I hope some of this is useful information!

Raven

theravenforce · December 2017

jaazaniah1 said:
Cyrone's builds are from before Rampages and Cosmics were introduced. He gradually dropped out of CO because of how ineffective PFF became.

This isn't quite correct. His builds were not designed from before Cosmics or Rampages were introduced.

They were designed with Rampages in mind, he would tank in Gravitar's Rampage for example.

Cosmics were always around, but Cyrone never updated his builds for the new Cosmic changes.

PFF has always remained at a relatively samey level of effectiveness, which only improved slightly after he and I campaigned to get IDF layered over PFF instead of applying below it and to fix the amount of shield regeneration (which was victim to a bug which continually halved the amount)

pantagruel01 · December 2017

strongbeau said:
I use PFF for the theme of my alien character, firstly. I've used for years and known for awhile it doesn't hold up to big hits well. I went up against Gravitar in her rampage and sometimes when I block, I survive the orange bubble attack but not today. I looked to see how much damage I got after the 9K+ damage flashed on my screen. What I found seems odd: PFF adds 7102 hp to my ~6300 hp. ~13400 total HP. After 9k damage I should have had about 4k hp left and no force field. I found the combat entry and saw something like:

Line 1: Your Personal Force Field absorbs 7102 damage.
Line 2: You take 9,300 (73,000) damage from Gravitar's Force Detonation.

That 9,300 is the damage after PFF has been applied. What happened is:

You took 73,000 damage.
Defenses (blocking, Defense score) reduced that to 16,402.
PFF absorbed 7,102, reducing it to 9,300
Remaining damage killed you.

Those numbers do imply that you have an r1 block.

strongbeau said:
Sometimes I take more HP damage compared to force field damage (falls and knock backs usually).

Falling damage bypasses all defenses.

strongbeau · December 2017

Thank you all for the well researched help. I will consider in the future adding more abilities to "Defend the Passive" or remove 2 advantage points from PFF and add them to make a R2 block. I may just keep it to stay with my character's theme and balanced good at everything (not best at anything) philosophy, also I'm very happy with my build and since the character is also a dodge build, I can dodge and avoid a lot of damage. If I dodged that attack while blocking, I would have likely lived through it. By the way, your mitigation against the extra damage was incredible, Raven.

theravenforce · December 2017

strongbeau said:
Thank you all for the well researched help. I will consider in the future adding more abilities to "Defend the Passive" or remove 2 advantage points from PFF and add them to make a R2 block.

You're welcome! I'm glad Pantagruel corrected me on the calculations bit...(it's something I should honestly know by now but have never taken the time to look into >_>) Please do not weaken your PFF! Take advantage points from elsewhere and rank up your block.

strongbeau said:
I may just keep it to stay with my character's theme and balanced good at everything (not best at anything) philosophy, also I'm very happy with my build and since the character is also a dodge build, I can dodge and avoid a lot of damage. If I dodged that attack while blocking, I would have likely lived through it. By the way, your mitigation against the extra damage was incredible, Raven.

Totally up to you, main thing...is to have fun really, all the maximum shielding values and pushing them "through the roof" isn't all that fun, since it's actually worse (takes longer to restore) and suffers from the same issues as a 6k PFF would (aside from having more damage to soak up).

And thanks! Looking back, it was pretty strong, so I may test and see if I can do better...although I think I'd probably want to upgrade my gear on that character...Justice and everything else can be a pain to get a hold of...or rather...it just takes a bit more time than I'd want.

(Note: I didn't "face tank" yellow bubble, I was blocking at the time.)

strongbeau · December 2017

Yep, as was I. I figured you both blocked and dodged and have more Avoidance then I do.

pantagruel01 · December 2017

Incidentally, while personal force field has some severe flaws, they aren't relevant to this situation; it is unlikely that any other defensive passive would have performed better (without knowing more about your build and gear, this is speculation, but it is probably true). The big flaw with personal force field isn't with its ability to withstand a big hit, it's with the ability to withstand multiple hits in a row. If a tank with a different passive loses half his health in one hit, a healer can have him back to full in 2s or so, in time to take a second big hit. The personal force field will still be pretty much zeroed out.

theravenforce · December 2017

strongbeau said:
Yep, as was I. I figured you both blocked and dodged and have more Avoidance then I do.

That was post dodge/avoidance nerf, but before I changed my gear to full defense, so my avoidance rating was 35% back then but I had like a 40% chance to dodge. (I've never fully invested in dodge on a PFFer, it's been mostly defense rating since I started using it way back.)

Blocking with a rank 3 block really does make a significant difference in situations like that. I have survived a face tanked Yellow Bubble before, but I ended up on the other side of the map.

Masterful Dodge is, naturally good, but I do get annoyed about the fact that it seems not to apply well vs normal non PFF shields (but makes sense tbh), so I don't have it often. I prefer to use Unbreakable (personal preference, mechanically MD is superior in most situations if not all)

theravenforce · December 2017

pantagruel01 said:
Incidentally, while personal force field has some severe flaws, they aren't relevant to this situation; it is unlikely that any other defensive passive would have performed better (without knowing more about your build and gear, this is speculation, but it is probably true). The big flaw with personal force field isn't with its ability to withstand a big hit, it's with the ability to withstand multiple hits in a row. If a tank with a different passive loses half his health in one hit, a healer can have him back to full in 2s or so, in time to take a second big hit. The personal force field will still be pretty much zeroed out.

This is a point and could be "fixed" several ways:

1) Adjust all healing powers to also affect shields. <-- IMO, this introduces all sorts of unwanted balancing issues because of how general shields work, and I don't think it would be an appropriate use of Developer time to re-tool every single healing ability to affect one defensive passive in game that "may" show up to larger encounters.

2) Look at Personal Force Field's mechanics and improve them. i.e. Increasing the maximum shield value, granting the shield layer a useful amount of innate damage resistance to all damage and making the shield regeneration it has more responsive and less restrictive. <-- I'd prefer this option and have suggested as such, however I do realize that without proper testing, this could get out of control. (I honestly just want to still keep some of the unique "force field" features of Personal Force Field without it feeling unnecessarily weak, like it does right now.)

3) Introduce better ways to maintain the passive in combat, without "having to rely on an active defensive" or "excessive blocking" <-- This kind of does tie into healing...again. Part of me would like to see PFF be more self sufficient than other defensive passives which don't necessarily provide a HP shield, but that does leave room for issues and drawbacks to be plentiful...which is perhaps why PFF is the way it is now.

strongbeau · December 2017

They just need to scrap half the set and start over to avoid those coding pitfalls. Then after replacing half the set and making it synergize better, they need to have a force/energy melee powers offshoot connected to the set ala light sword from Power Armor.

deadman20 · December 2017

I honestly can't wait for a Force revamp with a PFF update. I always just considered PFF as an extension of the Health Bar that is significantly harder to replenish. You would have to invest whatever you can into its defense, so I honestly think going for the standard tank setup of Strength Primary and Constitution Secondary with the Juggernaut spec is the best way to go for it. Or the Ego/Presence Primary alternative of Force of Will.

Whatever it takes to boost your Defense stat as far as it will go. You might even be able to get away with Endurance Primary and the Wardicator loop if you get Power Overwhelming which gives Offense with Secondary Superstats. In any of these given conditions, I'd always recommend Constitution added as a Secondary Superstat and invest heavily into it like a regular tank.

spinnytop · December 2017

strongbeau said:
They just need to scrap half the set and start over to avoid those coding pitfalls.

That seems a bit drastic. I'd rather they didn't do that since the set has some good stuff in it. Really the only thing that sucks in Force is PFF and IDF. Not sure what other powers you would want them to scrap.

Personal Force Field Mechanics Questions

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