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Ideas for new Defensive Passives

spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
edited October 2019 in Suggestions Box
That other thread is about munitions o3o so I made this thread so this can be about ideas for new defensive passives.

Really goofy idea: Immortal, doesn't give any stat bonuses like defense or hit points, but automatically rezzes you every time you die, and also gives you a big bonus to threat.


Adaptability: You get a massive bonus to heals received, both from yourself and others, and every time you heal yourself you get a moderate shield effect on yourself that uses your defense rating.

Comments

  • speanozspeanoz Posts: 238 Arc User
    I love the ideas you guys have come up with so far! These are creative and definitely could find a place in-game!

    I'm thinking of some kind of "adaptive armor", myself... though I am not sure how I could differentiate it from Defiance.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    speanoz wrote: »
    I love the ideas you guys have come up with so far! These are creative and definitely could find a place in-game!

    I'm thinking of some kind of "adaptive armor", myself... though I am not sure how I could differentiate it from Defiance.

    Hmmmm... maybe some kind of defensive passive that adapts itself towards straight damage reduction or %-based damage reduction depending on the hits you take. By straight damage reduction I mean "Reduces damage you take by 100", like that part of Invulnerable and %-based it would be like Defiance.

    So if you're taking a ton of small hits, it goes more and more towards straight damage reduction, but if you take big hits it goes more towards %-based. That's what comes to mind for me when you say "adaptive armor", some kind of nano-mesh that adapts its structure to the type of incoming damage. Like it starts out in sort of a middle state, where's it's similar to Invulnerability - some %-based damage reduction, and some straight damage reduction, but not as much of either as Invulnerability. Then when you take big hits, it adjusts more and more completely towards %-based, eventually becoming stronger than Defiance. If you take tons of small hits it adjusts more and more completely towards straight damage reduction, becoming stronger than Invulnerable but without any %-based damage reduction.

    If it quickly goes back to the middle point if you don't take a big hit for a few seconds then that would possibly make it significantly different compared to tanking cosmics with Defiance, since cosmics often have stretches of time where they don't hit you with their main attack. Basically it would have an "OH NO" moment after gaps like that, since you would suddenly take a huge hit, and it would always have a wind-up time after that gap, where Defiance tends to wind up and stay wound up the whole fight. It would on the other hand be a lot more versatile than both Defiance and Invulnerable.
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    So...Immortal, let's get down to the brass tacks. How much threat are we talking and how much of a delay before rezzing? I mean, you probably shouldn't just be able to tank dino by dying continuously.. should you? If that worked, I would be one of the greatest cosmic tanks of our generation! XD
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    vonqball wrote: »
    So...Immortal, let's get down to the brass tacks. How much threat are we talking and how much of a delay before rezzing? I mean, you probably shouldn't just be able to tank dino by dying continuously.. should you? If that worked, I would be one of the greatest cosmic tanks of our generation! XD

    Yeah not really main tank material. With fast enough rezzing though you'd be an amazing soak tank, no healing required! Just get dropped by every bite and rez before the next one
  • would also be a great passive for vampire and lich characters - the latter especially​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • speanozspeanoz Posts: 238 Arc User
    would also be a great passive for vampire and lich characters - the latter especially​​
    Oh man, right?

    "You cannot defeat me! My phylactery yet still exists!"
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    The way I see this being abused is as a second passive for DPS toons. Just switch to it when your healer goes down in gravi.. or just a bunch of dps switch to this to take on Viktorin. Not sure how big a deal all that would be though.
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    ...or make an unkillable healer that can rez herself perpetually and keep the team alive.
  • well, a cooldown could always be added if need be - like the torrasque variant of the ultralisk in HotS; it can resurrect itself, but only once every 90 seconds - if it dies before that comes of CD, it dies permanently​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    well, a cooldown could always be added if need be - like the torrasque variant of the ultralisk in HotS; it can resurrect itself, but only once every 90 seconds - if it dies before that comes of CD, it dies permanently​​

    That wouldn't work, because who's going to use a defensive passive that does literally nothing for 90 seconds?
    vonqball wrote: »
    The way I see this being abused is as a second passive for DPS toons. Just switch to it when your healer goes down in gravi.. or just a bunch of dps switch to this to take on Viktorin. Not sure how big a deal all that would be though.

    The first part is solved by making it so that when you first slot the passive, it won't rez you for 3 minutes. As for the second part, I dunno... it highlights a real downside to the passive, which is: every time you die you have to reactivate your Form.
  • fermifermi Posts: 117 Arc User
    One superhero game I played had a 'damage absorption' power which instead of turning the damage into shields or what instead turned the points into other advantages. So you could have someone who grew stronger as he got hurt more, for example.

    I twisted it so that it gave me more damage resistance. So if someone shot me with a gun over and over, I would eventually become so tough that the gun couldn't hurt me (though the first few shots could be pretty bad). This is kind of how our defiance works... but would be with a growing invulnerability instead. It's self-limiting in a way because once your invulnerability rises to the point where you're not taking appreciable damage, it stops growing. You'd be immune to mooks after a few fights, but the boss would still hurt you.

    In the game, the points also leaked out again as time went by instead of dropping entirely off a cliff as our buffs do.
  • bluhmanbluhman Posts: 2,410 Arc User
    vonqball wrote: »
    ...or make an unkillable healer that can rez herself perpetually and keep the team alive.

    double lol because of all the heals in the game, revives are one of the only ones that don't actually scale with Pre at all so yup rip all lockouts.

    Also would the self-revive be automated or something manually activated? 'Cause if it just fires off automatically that could produce some situations where someone wants to respawn but can't and is just stuck in a die/revive loop. Anyways sounds like it'd be a lot of fun for people who can't do Cybermind properly.
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  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    1. Equip Immortal
    2. Die in front of [insert cosmic or other dangerous foe here] all alone
    3. Get raised by Immortal
    4. Die again instantly
    5. Goto 3

    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    aesica wrote: »
    1. Equip Immortal
    2. Die in front of [insert cosmic or other dangerous foe here] all alone
    3. Get raised by Immortal
    4. Die again instantly
    5. Goto 3

    I knew I was on to something when I put "Really goofy idea" in front of that.

    Unfortunately, if you're the only one fighting a thing it would de-aggro when you die and go back to full health. So that wouldn't work, you would literally just be dying repeatedly in front of that thing forever. Is this Dark Souls? :(
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    Well... if you gave the rez a bit of a delay, you could just hit recover and respawn normally to avoid endless death cycles.
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    Removing the lockout mechanic from the game might be the big issue.
  • panthrax77panthrax77 Posts: 309 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    Two possibly niche, but fun ideas:

    Resilience (Darkness):
    The user only takes about 10% direct damage. The rest of the damage is cut by x amount received as a DoT. Rank ups can increase resistance and lengthen out the DoT time. Ideally would work well when paired with a healer.

    Immovable (Earth):
    Grant's a small amount of base resistance and a large amount of hold and knock resistance. Stacks of hold and knock resistance applied to the character grant shields for each stack and stacks can be refreshed through advantages on certain powers. Alternatively, instead of shields, bonus resistance could be applied but I figured shields might be a bit more interesting.

    I also really like the ideas suggested! I think both would be fun, even if they're a bit quirky. :P
  • only if resilience also cuts healing effectiveness by 80%, otherwise you might as well just rename it unkillable...because that's what you're going to get​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    Well it is in Darkness, so reducing healing effectiveness from non-drain heals is certainly in-theme. With the Darkness form scaling on Pre you might even be able to contribute some okay-ish self healing as the tank.
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    Another idea! Energy Absorption...

    Big defense, but a percent of the damage you take goes to your energy bar. If taking damage raises your energy beyond you maximum, you take Overload Damage. So, a bit like defiance, but more so.. and with an extra twist that you have to dump energy or die! XD

    This would synergize with high end builds, and maybe trying to not generate too much energy with attacks... so topsyturvyland for building your toon. Also, you would want to dump all your energy before turtling behind your block replacer... So, a totally different playstyle.

    Can it work? I don't know!
  • cptmillenniumcptmillennium Posts: 449 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    Maybe the adaptive armor could work like:

    Every time you receive a type of damage you gain 20% resistance to it for 20 seconds, stacking up to around 160% (or whatever, but it should be higher than Defiance). But you can only have up to 160% of total resistances from the power, so if you receive damage of a different type the 20% resistance you gain toward it would decrease your resistance to the first type to 140%.

    The higher defense number makes it ideal for tanking against a single damage type, but challenging against multiple damage types where your resistance is split among them all.
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  • cptmillenniumcptmillennium Posts: 449 Arc User
    edited October 2019
    In the theme of the Shield powerset suggestion I put out there, a Shield defensive passive could be dodge-based like Lightning Reflexes and include a damage reduction like Invulnerability on a successful dodge/avoid. This would simulate your shield taking the hit, otherwise you take the full impact. If you throw your shield, your dodge and avoidance is reduced and you lose the damage reduction for a few seconds till it returns, sort of like an energy form that gets used by a Force Cascade (or since we don't actually have shields to throw yet, ignore that last part and the rest seems like it could be done today).
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    Maybe the adaptive armor could work like:
    Note that there's a pre-existing npc power (used by the rank 2+ primal summoning pet and one of the horrors) that gives adaptive damage resistance. I'm not sure what you could do to make it usefully distinct from defiance, though.
  • cptmillenniumcptmillennium Posts: 449 Arc User
    The useful distinction is that it would have a higher defensive cap than Defiance against a single damage type, which would be balanced by a lower defense against multiple damage types. The more damage types the more your resistance is split.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    Making abilities distinct is a bit of an issue for new passives in general; since defensive passives are mostly fx-free, you mostly want to distinguish them by favored play style, which is roughly:
    • Defiance: good for boss tanking.
    • Invulnerability: good for add tanking.
    • Regeneration: good for unaided (no healer present) tanking.
    • Lightning Reflexes: high effort, high performance.
    • Personal Force Field: inferior version of regeneration.
    One possible area would be hybrids, such as:
    Hybrid Attack/Defense
    Generally, it's a passive that provides offense when you are being hit. Some thoughts
    • Absorption: provides a defense bonus that is inversely proportional to your energy. Provides an offense bonus that is proportional to your energy (figure the sum of the bonuses is fixed, energy level determines distribution). Generates energy when hit.
    • Pain Conversion: provides both offense and defense that is inversely proportional to your health (so nothing when you're at full health, large bonus below some fraction). Based on trying to get full benefit out of imbue, this would be hard to make work well.
    • Reflection: a portion of the damage you take is converted into damage to the enemy (and the damage you take is reduced correspondingly).
    Hybrid Defense/Support
    I'm not sure what that would be. All the ideas I can come up with seem more like active powers or are already support passives (e.g. AoRP, Medical Nanites).
  • cptmillenniumcptmillennium Posts: 449 Arc User
    I’d like to see a few more passives that work for multiple roles, like Congress of Selves.
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