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Revamped PFF & IDF
kingpin0000
Posts: 69 Arc User
Tried to post this long ago but it deleted itself while editing it & I wasn't gonna rewrite it. This is another attempt. I think these changes would make both powers far more effective & useful both inside & out of the Force framework.
Personal Force Field:
Slotted Defensive Passive
- Applies a regenerative shield/buffer equal to 30/40/50% of your base health depending on rank. (Stacking at least some additional heath from gear, specs, & mods would be a smart decision. You won't need a lot of health.)
- Provides percentage-based damage reduction to your shield(shield layer only) and shields applied by you on other players scaling with your Presence. (The minimum damage reduction applied is 3% & scales upward to 33% before hitting the DR ceiling. Each additional rank of this power would increase that value by 3% allowing for a range of 9-39%. Note: This reduction does not apply to direct health damage. Unlike dodging, it ONLY applies to damage the shield would incur. This could all scale with overall superstats as well but people would likely just stack CON & end up unstoppable. Since Presence effects shields by design it makes sense as the chosen stat & prevents that scenario while also making PFF users decent crowd control users which supports the containment gimmick.)
- The rate at which the shield recovers scales with your Recovery, while the amount recovered scales with your Endurance. (Both energy stats will have their usefulness. The minimum recovery rate would be every 3 secs and scale to maybe every 1-1.5 secs.)
- Shield recovery rate doubles while blocking. (Think of it as you're absorbing the kinetic energy from attacks & converting it into energy for your shield. Fits with the law of conservation of energy - Physics.)
- Applied shields on self such as Protection Field will be immediately consumed & act to repair your shield by 10% of its initial strength.
Advantages
Expanded Field(2): Applies flat-rate damage reduction to nearby allies scaling with your Presence. (Recreates IDF's original effect though it only applies to allies effectively turning this into a pseudo support passive. Not the percentage-based shield layer only reduction provided by PFF to the user. This would be the only way to get the original effect.)
Breakdown:
Let's say you have 8000 health. As this kind of tank this would be fine. At r3 that would give you a shield value of 4000. We'll assume 50% all dmg resist from gear, specs, & mods alongside 350% from an r3 block. A cosmic(Ape) hits you for 25000 incoming damage with its fist smash while blocking. Going by the damage formula: Damage/(1+(%Damage Resistance)) & not factoring in other resistances, you would end up with 5000 damage through your block. At 5% damage reduction, the resulting shield damage would then be 4850 causing 1150 health damage & breaking your shield. At at 40% reduction, it would simply inflict 3050 shield damage. This establishes the benefit in focusing on PRE.
A blocked hit of 75000 at 39% reduction would cause 15000 damage through your block yet reduce to 9150 shield damage breaking your shield & inflicting 5150 damage to your health but you would survive with 2850 health. Consider a Defience tank in this scenario would gaining an additional 120% all dmg resist though without this shield though geared & spec'd the same. Let's assume them to have comparative CON to the amount of PRE needed for 39% reduction & that that equates 18000 health. That tank would take damage of 12096 from the same attack surving with 7904 health. This means that with PFF you can then gear/spec/mod for PRE & some additional health rather than for CON & defense yet tank cosmics effectively. At the same time you can shield & crowd control thanks to high PRE making force's containment gimick viable. Unlike with dodging the reduction always applies while the shield is up make it even more viable with efficient shield repair & heals.
Inertial Dampening Field
Toggle Form
Currently, IDF provides flat-rate damage reduction on self and nearby allies scaling with your super stats. It's main problems are:
- It's general effect lack of weight by comparison to the stacking buffs provided to damage, healing/shielding, and/or control effects by other form toggles.
New Inertial Dampening Field
Toggle Form
- Whenever you take damage from a single-target attack made against you, gain a stack of Kinetic Energy. You can only gain a stack this way every 4 seconds. (Same as all other toggles before you ask. This is a tanking toggle.)
- Each stack of Kinetic Energy provides a bonus to shield strength, as well as all damage to a lesser degree scaling with your Presence or Endurance, whichever is higher. (The base shielding bonus would be greater than that provided by compassion & similar form toggles. Stacking Presence would allow for naturally stronger shields & healing, while stacking Endurance would pair well with the steep costs of Force powers & the idea of an "Enduring" or "Durable" shield/field.)
Advantages
Energy Well: Having stacks of Kinetic Energy now applies Energy Well to self. This buff counts as an energy form & can only be applied every 4 seconds. (This will allow Force Cascade to consume Energy Well for the cost discount every 4 seconds as long as you can maintain stacks of Kinetic Energy. It basically rewards effective tanking & adds extra Force symmetry.)
Personal Force Field:
Slotted Defensive Passive
- Applies a regenerative shield/buffer equal to 30/40/50% of your base health depending on rank. (Stacking at least some additional heath from gear, specs, & mods would be a smart decision. You won't need a lot of health.)
- Provides percentage-based damage reduction to your shield(shield layer only) and shields applied by you on other players scaling with your Presence. (The minimum damage reduction applied is 3% & scales upward to 33% before hitting the DR ceiling. Each additional rank of this power would increase that value by 3% allowing for a range of 9-39%. Note: This reduction does not apply to direct health damage. Unlike dodging, it ONLY applies to damage the shield would incur. This could all scale with overall superstats as well but people would likely just stack CON & end up unstoppable. Since Presence effects shields by design it makes sense as the chosen stat & prevents that scenario while also making PFF users decent crowd control users which supports the containment gimmick.)
- The rate at which the shield recovers scales with your Recovery, while the amount recovered scales with your Endurance. (Both energy stats will have their usefulness. The minimum recovery rate would be every 3 secs and scale to maybe every 1-1.5 secs.)
- Shield recovery rate doubles while blocking. (Think of it as you're absorbing the kinetic energy from attacks & converting it into energy for your shield. Fits with the law of conservation of energy - Physics.)
- Applied shields on self such as Protection Field will be immediately consumed & act to repair your shield by 10% of its initial strength.
Advantages
Expanded Field(2): Applies flat-rate damage reduction to nearby allies scaling with your Presence. (Recreates IDF's original effect though it only applies to allies effectively turning this into a pseudo support passive. Not the percentage-based shield layer only reduction provided by PFF to the user. This would be the only way to get the original effect.)
Breakdown:
Let's say you have 8000 health. As this kind of tank this would be fine. At r3 that would give you a shield value of 4000. We'll assume 50% all dmg resist from gear, specs, & mods alongside 350% from an r3 block. A cosmic(Ape) hits you for 25000 incoming damage with its fist smash while blocking. Going by the damage formula: Damage/(1+(%Damage Resistance)) & not factoring in other resistances, you would end up with 5000 damage through your block. At 5% damage reduction, the resulting shield damage would then be 4850 causing 1150 health damage & breaking your shield. At at 40% reduction, it would simply inflict 3050 shield damage. This establishes the benefit in focusing on PRE.
A blocked hit of 75000 at 39% reduction would cause 15000 damage through your block yet reduce to 9150 shield damage breaking your shield & inflicting 5150 damage to your health but you would survive with 2850 health. Consider a Defience tank in this scenario would gaining an additional 120% all dmg resist though without this shield though geared & spec'd the same. Let's assume them to have comparative CON to the amount of PRE needed for 39% reduction & that that equates 18000 health. That tank would take damage of 12096 from the same attack surving with 7904 health. This means that with PFF you can then gear/spec/mod for PRE & some additional health rather than for CON & defense yet tank cosmics effectively. At the same time you can shield & crowd control thanks to high PRE making force's containment gimick viable. Unlike with dodging the reduction always applies while the shield is up make it even more viable with efficient shield repair & heals.
Inertial Dampening Field
Toggle Form
Currently, IDF provides flat-rate damage reduction on self and nearby allies scaling with your super stats. It's main problems are:
- It's general effect lack of weight by comparison to the stacking buffs provided to damage, healing/shielding, and/or control effects by other form toggles.
New Inertial Dampening Field
Toggle Form
- Whenever you take damage from a single-target attack made against you, gain a stack of Kinetic Energy. You can only gain a stack this way every 4 seconds. (Same as all other toggles before you ask. This is a tanking toggle.)
- Each stack of Kinetic Energy provides a bonus to shield strength, as well as all damage to a lesser degree scaling with your Presence or Endurance, whichever is higher. (The base shielding bonus would be greater than that provided by compassion & similar form toggles. Stacking Presence would allow for naturally stronger shields & healing, while stacking Endurance would pair well with the steep costs of Force powers & the idea of an "Enduring" or "Durable" shield/field.)
Advantages
Energy Well: Having stacks of Kinetic Energy now applies Energy Well to self. This buff counts as an energy form & can only be applied every 4 seconds. (This will allow Force Cascade to consume Energy Well for the cost discount every 4 seconds as long as you can maintain stacks of Kinetic Energy. It basically rewards effective tanking & adds extra Force symmetry.)
Post edited by kingpin0000 on
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Comments
1) This is false. PFF provides a defensive benefit to the user through absorbing roughly 95% of incoming damage. The effectiveness of said absorbing leaves much to be desired.
2) This is also false. Cyrone and I campaigned for PFF to have defense layering above PFF adjusted in 2013. This is currently how defense layering for PFF works:
Dodge -> Absorb(Invuln/IDF) -> Field Surge -> Shields (Mindful/Protection/Energy Refraction/HPM) -> Resistances (Defense Stat/ Blocking) -> PFF -> HP.
I'm not entirely sure why people still think PFF doesn't take Player Resistances into account. Anyone who uses PFF should know this.
3) This is true, Field Surge somewhat handles this but not as effectively as it should do being an active defense.
This is already the case.
No. We have largely moved away from tying a slotted Defensive passive to scaling with one stat. Any sort of flat-rate damage reduction to PFF should scale with superstats, like the shield strength does.
No. No other slotted defensive passive is tied heavily to a single or multiple stats which are not used as super stats. This is a problematic suggestion. PFF should not need to be tied to Presence or Recovery or any specific stat to function well.
This already is the case. PFF's shield regeneration per 3 sec, is DOUBLED whilst blocking.
This has been suggested many times over. The biggest problem with this (potentially) is that you could just have PRE + Compassion + Double Bubble and insta heal your PFF and never really worry about doing anything else, or have a support do this. That would create problems which may result in either shields getting nerfed, PFF getting nerfed or Compassion getting nerfed.
PFF's boosting from Compassion should be scrapped anyway.
One of the many goals of any sort of buff to PFF should be to ensure that only in extreme circumstances should the shield be completely destroyed. It should be difficult to remove. Putting in place something which makes losing the shield beneficial seems counterproductive.
Again would disagree here. If you want to make a support passive, suggest one, no other Defensive Passive has any sort of shared buff effect.
With some additional thought you could easily turn this into a support passive for force, a hybrid between AoRP & PFF.
Whilst I would normally welcome any sort of improvement to IDF, it seems unlikely that we'll see any change to its current function.
--
I am curious, some of your suggestions here for PFF especially make me wonder if you actually make use of the passive, or just really want a Support Passive version of PFF.
How long have you been using PFF?
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Block timing explained
By "defensive benefit", I was referring to an additional effect that buffs defense/all damage resistance directly such as what you get from all other defense passives & some other passives such as Regeneration & Medical Nanites in the form of as buff driven by a single stat. That all was just poorly explained on my part.
The point of even making note of it in my eyes was to express that while the shield does have defensive application which you have detailed, it does little to bolster your actual resistance numbers. While you can effectively take more hits over time due to the shielding's as you clarified variable resistance, you're essentially no more capable of taking hits directly which feels like a contradiction for a "Tank" passive.
Even if "your defense" buffs the durability of the shield the passive applies as you stated & to any degree for that matter, the passive not bothering to then buff "your defense" to a value on par with tanking effectively against all enemies creates a conundrum. It essentially becomes a "passive defense" rather than a "defense passive". It establishes as shield (a form of defense) that merely gets stronger based on "your defense" which is then no more impressive for having taking the power in the first place. And the fact that the shield can run out & leaves you completely vulnerable further illustrates that the "passive" nature it refers to relates only to it being a defense that you don't have to actively maintain whereas all other "slotted defense passives" bolster "your defense"/all damage resistance by varying degrees continuously while slotted.
Also, I'll point out that the shielding applied by Defensive Combo based on tooltip is apparently one that now factors in defense & is far more effective for it leading to any easy assumption that the former type of shielding did not. I was actually implying the application of that particular form of shielding but again that was poorly explained on my part.
I'll just take your word for it that PFF shielding factors defense in to some degree despite the power tooltip not stating it as the case as it does with Defensive Combo. A player can only go by what's there until they know any better so you can't really assume anyone to know that or even be sure of it after being told so until that tooltip gets updated. In hindsight, I can see what you mean personally in the fact that blocking while shielding does reduce the damage the shield takes though it seems to take a considerable increase to damage resistance such as blocking gives you to see a worthwhile effect again making my point more clear in regard to PFF not actively increasing damage resistance by an effective amount as a major flaw. By all objective measure the shielding provided by Defensive Combo is more effective regardless of the conditions that make it so & would be more suited to a defense passive.
Considering that allowing the shield to stay up indefinitely is not an option & acknowledging the fact that while that is the case, regardless of how difficult it is to remove there will exist a circumstance of the shield going down & leaving you with as much defense/all damage resistance as a defensively geared DPS player. The only viable means I could come up with to allow for this seeming constant, even on it being an off chance, was to apply a sturdy defense/resistance buff thereby allowing a PFF user to continue tanking while the shield recovers vs them ending up a DPS standing in the worst possible position and leaving an unsuspecting off-tank, healer, or DPS next in line for death. In my opinion just leaving an possible circumstance like that on the table is counterproductive & it would be better to plan for such a thing.
I actually agree with moving away from scaling using single stats but I think your claim "we have largely moved away from it" is a bit unfounded. All sorcery support auras still scale with presence as well as Medical Nanites & various other slotted passives still have secondary effects that apply with recovery & such including offensive passives & since "Cryptic" not "we" decide if the few powers that have moved to being solely superstat scaled will lead to a global adoption of the concept, I simply felt it safer to stand on the side of the current standard. Again though, I am in favor of having thing be scaled by overall superstats rather than single stats. I just don't see that change happening in mass anytime soon. I truly hope it does.
I was actually just stating that that should be the case an regards to the revamp concept. I never said it wasn't there to begin with or anything else that was there already. I simply stated what I felt would be needed to make it work. Also, I made note of it specifically because the line before addressed how shield regeneration would work so I felt it needed to be stated as well. Otherwise it would've needed to be assumed that all things not stated would simply adopt from the previous PFF which was not something I wanted to give the impression of. It may all look and read like madness here & there but there was method tied to it's design.
I agree the compassion shouldn't boost PFF shielding. To go further I feel it shouldn't boost shielding at all when it boosts also healing. That is why the new IDF concept only boosts shielding & also damage by a lesser amount giving tanks a chance to do more damage & stay on top of threat. This would hopefully allowing for the removal of a shielding boosts from compassion & the like. Also note "repair your shield by a portion of its initial strength". I think you lack for a clear understanding of the concept so let me clarify a bit.
Most shield powers give upwards to around 1000 shield as far as I can see without compassion and/or presence stacking so that's why I said a "portion". Unlike typical field surge consumption, this would devour all shields/bubbles instantly & entirely while giving you only a "portion" or a fraction of what a normal player would get as a shield towards repairing your shield. Something like 10-20% which would in theory put it at the same level of a normal heal move & simply repair shielding rather than heal hp. So a 2000 shield applied to you would repair your shield for like 200-400. Support role healer/shielders would see higher returns.
Heal bubbles from the presence mastery spec barely shield for anything regardless of the heal move so they would be consumed to give next to nothing. It's only 10% of the shield value based on the heal's value. Even a heal for a whopping 10,000 hp would only give a shield/bubble for 1000 which would then be consumed to restore 100-200 to your shield. At the same time, the heal itself will still do nothing for your the shield.
I thought about the implications pretty deeply on that suggestion. Given that normal heals don't effect shields & the major investment required to see halfway decent returns it would not be quick to need a nerf. Even with Iniquity spammed heals of somehow even 8000 hp every half a second, you would see 80-160 towards your shield every half a second. That is very far from OP but still allows for active shield repairs & would be made more viable from multiple shield users casting on you at the same time such as with normal heals. Even then shield repair from heal bubbles will never be able to come close to instant healing your PFF. Even direct shields would never be able to. A tank with a PFF shield of 10k would need a direct shield applied of 50,000-100,000 to insta heal PFF. Anyone who can Protection Field, etc. for 50-100k is someone who may get banned for life because that'd be a hack & an impressive one being server-side.
Here we would simply have to agree to disagree. No other defensive passive utilizing such an effect does not make it any less effective or conceptually sound. It simply makes since for a force user to be able to project a field further than ones self. The force framework is all about range & projecting outward. A force field that only affects one person is better labeled a force barrier or force cloak. Field implies application over an specified area or expanse. The advantage gives the "personal" force field a chance to be a lot more field-like. The current PFF is setup as a defense passive but has nice support applications in hybrid so I figured this would extend that & covers for the suggested changes made to IDF. I specifically wanted to come up with a way for people to tank endgame content with PFF so I stayed in that lane.
Sidenote: PFF, as is, is pretty ideal for a support passive with the only major downside being that you can't use it in support role. That is mostly what I've used it for since I'm not required to take heavy damage or be the center of attention as a healer or pet user though again that makes my heals and shields suffer. If it buffed the damage resistance of nearby party members a bit such as with Medical Nanites thereby making them need heals less & stay shielded longer, it would be able to fill that niche pretty well for me. This is off-topic though.
Totally agree. Still the idea has been in my head for a long time now, ever since unlocking the Impulse AT & deleting it at lv40 in favor of a Freeform version which has become one of my favorite alts though it is a support build & thus doesn't use PFF. It became pretty apparent that PFF was practically useless against excessively large mobs compared to Invulnerability, even alongside IDF, as well as against hard hitting bosses even some below cosmic level compared to Defiance & meanwhile it left you far too vulnerable when the shield effect depleted to ever be considered a realistic tank option.
I thought just as long about a support version as a functional tank version & came to the conclusion that the idea & nature of force lends itself better conceptually to a defense passive. Something that's meant to protect yourself & others meaning something ideal for tanks & pet users specifically. IDF is already a pet user's dear friend but sacrifices a proper toggle for the effect which felt like a waste so the premise of the concept was tying the two together. This passive could let a pet user tank for their squishy dps & healer pets while making them a bit less squishy which are the same capabilities you'd expect from it while tanking regularly: keeping you & your people alive. If your pets die while using a passive like this you won't die outright yourself & can re-summon them without serious risk. The new IDF provides more shielding as you take direct damage only also keeping things from ramping up too quickly & that tends to happen to pet users anyways like with tanks. It's your job to draw in direct attacks. It simply "ensures that only in extreme circumstances should the shield be completely destroyed" by giving your more when you need it.
Pets aren't great at tanking anyways & as a pet user I often find myself having to turtle up due to out damaging my pets & sidekicks anyways. I consider it better to have a defensive passive and just tank the stuff while they attack, heal, & maybe off-tank. That's the role of my pet-type builds I currently enjoy using & they work far better for me.
A shield that works on the level of the one provided by Defensive Combo combined with a scaling flat-damage reduction like IDF & invulnerability would cover for the lack of a scaling direct defense/resistance buff which could make PFF too OP & potentially see it nerfed like you mentioned. The shield itself with IDF's effect tied in as such would in theory be enough to then make it comparable to Invulnerability without cloning Invulnerability. It altogether makes gearing up for defense useful for survival & actually effective given the better type of shielding & natural damage reduction. The PFF advantage(2 or 3 points) limits support builds from having it at rank 3 & thus being as sturdy as proper tanks while also being able to buff allies. It's a theoretical compromise with current role in mind. It effectively creates a choice between being more effective at tanking or being able to provide support for others.
I agree that that would be the easiest way, but at the same time it effectively removes PFFs identity. This method is essentially the same as someone applying Protection Field on a tank but made passive & slowly letting the shield recover vs reapplying it directly. Because of the quality of shielding provided by the force framework the shields aren't very effective even on tanks with loads of damage resistance this is not very effective regardless. Defensive Combo now a shield as well but far better, though it comes with the drawback of only lasting for a very brief time while not steadily reapplying it & even then it can be one-shot away by a cosmic. That was my reason for applying Defensive Combo's more resilient shielding to PFF allowing it's resiliency to scale with overall superstats & gear while not being force to attack non-stop and missing a block.
When it comes to PFF on this point, where I'm concerned, you're preaching to the choir.
Defensive Passives such as Lightning Reflexes, Invulnerability and Defiance all provide a type of resistance which supplements your natural defenses from your overall resistance value (Defense Stat), these are "Dodge/Avoid with increased DoT resistance mechanics, Flat Damage Reduction & Increased Resistance mechanics & Stacking Resistance".
PFF supplies a "considerable regenerating damage shield" and nothing else. I am well aware of this fact having used PFF for 11 years, and made a comment that PFF was less "Defensive Passive" and more "Defend-Your-Passive" so again preaching to the choir!
I find the possibility of losing your shield in theme for someone who projects a force field, but mechanically it should be a very very rare occurrence and should be able to be rectified ASAP. This is currently not the case.
Having spoken to several different developers over time about PFF, it is a unique and complex ability to balance.
For me personally I do what I can to ensure my PFF doesn't dip below 70% ideally, I like the idea of maintaining it but the current set up for PFF means that most of my time is spent doing that. I think the effort placed in maintaining it is just more troublesome because it feels extra in comparison to other defensive passives.
PFF's tooltip hasn't really been updated since the early days of CO, it probably could do with stating that the player resistances are factored into the shield layer.
I guess the reason why players have a hard time with taking that on board is because of how little it appears to do. Visually you see PFF drop, and whilst it is a great indicator, it also shows quite clearly that innate resistance from player is not enough to save it, merely a band aid on a gaping wound.
Players can also test. Manipulate your defensive stat and test PFF's incoming damage. Best way to do this is in the PH laser rooms, so you can analyse combat logs and differences in defense in your gear.
The argument about PFF "increasing damage resistance" needs to be reworded. Technically speaking, absorbing 95% of the damage you take does increase your resistance to damage because it has done away with a good portion.
What would be better to ask for is for PFF's SHIELD LAYER to have innate resistance to damage in addition to what it gains from player resistances, which, if this is what you mean, I want the same thing and have done for years, so again preaching to the choir!
Blocking is on another layer of resistance which is why it generally has a powerful effect.
Defensive Combo's shielding seems better because it is smaller and can stack quickly and does not count as your entire slotted passive.
Once again I will reiterate, PFF & Defensive Combo have exactly the same kind of shielding.
The plan to avoid such a scenario would be adjusting PFF to:
- Increase base shield value
- Increase shield regen from per 3 sec to per 2 sec or 1.5 sec.
- Moving to a set percentage of shield per X sec regen which is higher than it currently is.
- Adding Damage Resistance to the shield layer, so it benefits from its own innate resistance as well as player resistances.
- Buffing Field Surge to heal up to 50%/75%/100% (rank 1/2/3) worth of PFF with a regenerating "surging" shield for the duration.
If all of that fails then it falls into the category of "extreme circumstances".
By applying a massive defensive boost to the player when they lose the shield...it'll encourage players to simply lose PFF faster to gain that boost, rather than maintain the shield, which is part of the point of PFF.
Perhaps it was a bit much to claim we HAVE moved away from that, the correction would be "we seem to be moving away from that" in relation to passives (see Defiance's recent changes).
I think as more reviews happen, you'll start to see a trend, if you haven't already with EU scaling, and certain sets making use of specific stats for some of their scaling etc.
Again, I have seen this idea batted around before and the explanation you've given here, is not different from previous suggestions on this topic I can recall, so I don't lack a clear understanding of what concept you are attempting to explain here.
Consider that a rank 3 Protection Field can apply close to 2000 points of shielding without shield boosting from any source including Compassion, bonus healing cores or shield boosting specs or Presence.
Then add all of those things in, plus high PRE stacking, you get shields which can shield for around 10k or higher quite easily and they are spammable, Support users would definitely see higher returns, so 1k shield healing per two spams at least.
It is possible this would result in some sort of lockout period for shields, thereby impacting other builds because of PFF, I don't see this being an ideal solution myself, but it is a valid one which I have considered before.
It also brings yet another crutch for PFF to rely on but with tweaking maybe it could be an acceptable one. Would require testing.
This seems like a convoluted and quite possibly unnecessary way to stress out healers who are trying to keep a PFFer up in the unlikely event they are tanking in higher end content.
As someone who heals in all kinds of content, I've never had to worry that much (yet) about keeping a tank alive. What you are describing, without testing, sounds somewhat hellish in a Cosmic situation for a healer.
I did not say it was less effective or less conceptually sound, I said that the idea would be better off as a support passive, because it would, given PFF's current classification.
Whilst yes, force field does imply an area of effect, the addition of "Personal" has a very clear meaning and the area of Personal Force Field is then specified as covering ones person, hence why it only applies to the player.
The flat damage reduction on PFF would have to be so significant that the passive becomes a bit too powerful. Again this would need testing.
I still think it would work better as a Support Passive in Force with some more elements of PFF so it functions like an AoRP/PFF/IDF hybrid.
Yeah, I can see that but as I have been making use of PFF in Hybrid role, I think it is okay staying that way. (I run around with a 9.5k PFF)
There is room for a new support passive to appear in Force which fills that concept pretty damn well.
I've had to tank in endgame content with it as well and it was successful but I put that down to my experience with PFF and the fight (and being forced into it by the main tank...).
Well, here's the thing. This is generally accepted when it comes to these passives:
Invuln is great against mobs because they break their hands against your skin with Invuln's protection, but it doesn't do that well against larger hits.
Defiance is great against larger hits but doesn't do that great against smaller consistent damages.
By making use of various mechanics at the time, you could tank with PFF realistically. I never bothered because it wasn't really my thing.
I've only more recently tanked with PFF on purpose (I've carried alerts and Custom Alerts with PFF often enough).
That's quite a shift and again, is not really a Tank Passive in the way that tanks work in CO. Tanks apply threat and make themselves the focus and are sturdy, and through that they indirectly "support others".
If they applied additional resistance to players, that would just be a support passive. If you still see that as a Tank passive then you can say that AoRP is a tank passive (though I'm sure if you wanted to you could tank with it).
Force straddles the "Tank - Support" area which is why I think your idea with some development could be a useful and welcome support passive which would enable you to use it in the role you want, without affecting PFF.
I see the appeal in the idea, but I strongly believe it should be separate from PFF rather than an option within it. After all, advantages are entire powers themselves mechanically speaking.
Sounds like AoRP and healing is what you may want to look into if you haven't already. Pets are another bag of worms that hopefully we don't open any further on this thread.
But the note I will say on Pets is that they should be clearly specialized for such roles and right now they aren't. Funnily enough they are similar to PFF in that you have to actively maintain them (I suppose the name is fitting then...) instead of being able to rely on them.
"Current PFF combined with flat damage reduction" would be a good start but it would need some level of resistance to shield layer to be worth it as well.
--
It's nice to see that the tradition of someone taking up for PFF every few years hasn't stopped lol.
I would say definitely re-run PFF again now in game and stick with it, especially if deleting your Impulse AT was not fairly recent.
It has gotten better since Impulse days but that's not saying much at all.
I found this screen grab, this was back when I ran with old Masterful Dodge & IDF. I managed to tank a Yellow Bubble with Gravitar's Rampage (and I was reluctantly tanking):
I had 8.8k PFF back then...and IIRC 40% defense? I survived, similarly to the player in this YouTube clip:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6DuzOmQzM0Q&feature=youtu.be&t=219
The only person I know who was actually successful in tanking with PFF in all content at that time. Protogen@Cyrone85
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The best suggestions that I've found have been to make it into a support passive that applies to friends nearby, but that's pretty much a different passive entirely. The problem is that in order for it to regenerate, the user can't keep taking damage, which is counterintuitive for a tank passive. It works great as a hybrid passive or a buff for nearby folks, but not for someone dedicated to taking damage. If you find a way to allow that shield to regenerate more effectively in a way that applies to most combat situations, it can work. My only suggestion might be somehow allowing incoming healing to be applied to the shield when blocking. I'm sure there are better suggestions out there.
This really gives only two options: either its damage absorption is low enough that you still need heals, or the field can be healed. There are a couple of ways of accomplishing the first, but it doesn't match the image people were having of PFF, so it needs to focus on the second.
External healing could be specific to effects like protection field, but that means 'only certain support can support this tank', which is less than optimal. The best option is probably just "any time you get healed, any over-healing is applied to your PFF", and then PFF has 5-10 health per point in superstats, depending on regen rate (looking at cores, it seems currently normed as about 15:1, so at 1,000 points in superstats, which is fairly representative, that gives you a 10,000 hp shield with no regen, or a 5,000 hp shield with +1000/3s, or a 7,500 with +500/3s).
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
- Increase base shield value
- Grant innate damage resistance to shield layer which stacks with current resistance from player (like other passives) which decreases as shield goes from 100% to 50%. Cannot decrease past 50% remaining shields. (Maybe starting at 50% resistance and scaling down to 25% resistance)
- Force PFF to stop depleting after 30% shielding remains, so it always provides some lasting benefit.
- Remove the effects of all shield boosting specs & Compassion's influence on PFF.
- Remove the shield regeneration per 3 sec from PFF entirely.
- Create a new shield healing power which only applies to PFF and heals in percentages only. Not influenced by super stats or bonus healing, literally only by rank. Functions similarly to BCR, so would do something like:
"Force Field Reconstruction" - Heals your Personal Force Field for 5%/10%/15% of your maximum shield value per 2 seconds over a 16 second period. Applies a damage absorption effect to your PFF whilst this is active.
This would be a click power that would be part of PFF, like how Night Warrior has Stealth and Shadow Strike, OR be a separate power altogether.
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Is there any force field user in the source documents whose field is healed by an outside source? Are there any comic book force field users who actually "tank" in the way MMOs handle it? Sure, sometimes Sue Storm gets Hulk's attention, but usually only when the others are down. She usually isn't trying to grab aggro.
Maybe trying to "fix" PFF to be a tanking passive should just be abandoned and Force should just have a passive that boosts its core damage and provides a bit of protection to its user (i.e. focus work on fixing Kinetic Manipulation). If a player wants to tank, but look like they rely on a force field, maybe just take Defiance or Invulnerability and use an aura to provide a field look. Maybe the truly workable all or nothing end game PFF tank is just a Chimera?
Are the Green Lanterns tanks? To me they seem mostly to be energy projectors who can use their will power to boost their defenses temporarily at the expense of doing damage. Sue Storm doesn't have her force field always on either. Maybe when they are using their fields for personal defense they are just blocking?
My Invisible Woman homage uses really high AoRP, Protection Field, Mindful Reinforcement and Sigils to support the team. I could have tossed Redirected Force in there as well. She uses 2 auras for that in combat force field look.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
It is.
It just depends how it is worked, but I think it (and others I've suggested in parts) are some of the better solutions for PFF in a vacuum, but would need to be coupled with some way for others to support a PFFer.
Despite being very opposed to the thematic implications of PFF being healed by external sources. I can see the mechanical requirement for it but that's partly borne out of the desire to tank with PFF.
Thematically the force field either shatters (hence PFF's removal) or is "repaired" by the caster getting some reprieve (you could say blocking could fit into this as that double's PFF's regen rate).
Then again, I have never really seen PFF as a tanking passive, despite having tanked content with it. It is too unique to fit into the conventional slot of "tank passive".
I think it is appropriately classed as a "Defensive Passive" but needs core improvements to actually hit that, as I pointed out earlier in the thread.
@jaazaniah1 , personally, my intention with PFF fixes and suggestions over the years, has never been to make it a tank passive, but at a basic level make it a better Defensive Passive. To me, Defensive Passive doesn't equal "Tank". It's more the build and gear which lend itself to being a tank and this happens to coincide with people taking Defensive Passives because some of them are great at their job.
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Just curious, have you ever suggested that PFF be usable in all roles? I.e. tank, support, melee, ranged and hybrid. That might make it a bit more attractive.
Well, so far, I've only seen me at Cosmics / Endgame with PFF. I know others are either trying or have though.
I guess that's why the Hybrid Role exists? I've taken non tanks who are in Hybrid Role with a Def passive and damage orientated into Cosmics before and scored well.
As for PFF being usable in all roles...I am personally not keen at all on Hybrid Passives which can be used in every role. But if Congress of Selves in its somewhat lacklustre capacity can manage it...PFF could but I don't think the solution would be to make it a Hybrid Passive, that just makes its current failings applicable to every role.
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As Protection Field and Mindful Reinforcement take "Raw" damage...it is unlikely but I don't know if it has been attempted before.
Consider the base damage that a Cosmic hit does and see if you can cast a bubble powerful enough to take that.
Maybe in a situation where its:
Protection Field, Mindful Reinforcement, Redirected Force, AoRP & AoPM all active at the same time, maybe that could work? But I wouldn't be confident in that myself.
It just doesn't seem worth it?
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Again, would love to move away from PFF being labelled a tank passive, only one player has managed (to my knowledge) to tank effectively with PFF (Despite tanking in content (endgame and otherwise) with PFF, I don't count myself as a "PFF tank").
But with regards to blocking...it doubles regen rate, so 200 per 3 sec goes to 400 per 3 sec.
I think the base shield regen rate should be per 2 or per 1.5 secs anyway at a minimum, but if blocking did this instead innately I would not mind at all, would be a good middle ground.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Maybe change IDF to like a Role-based (Tank & Support) form, stacking bonuses to Threat, shield strength and efficiency all based on Role – sorta like Compassion does with healing? I dunno...
Anyways. I like the idea of Force becoming Champions Online’s “official Barrier Warrior set”, shields/bubbles being the main “gimmick” as opposed to Knocks/physics (though can still be part of it). It’s an idea that CO hasn’t managed to fully explore yet; existing in comics, the PnP game – even the FX of most (all?) powers in that set, offensive or defensive, can all break down to creative use of fields of force. Lots of potential there, and PFF is a great place to start!
IDF could be a +Defense% per stack. Stacks up to 8 times. And has a minor effect of +Offense% per stack. Where the +Offense% would only be half of the +Defense%. This lends itself to being a tanky Toggle and (I hope) a viable option other than the usual offensive toggles such as Enrage, etc. HOW it stacks, well ... maybe something like "each time you take a hit, pre-mitigation, of X% of your max health, you gain a stack". This way, you need to be Tanking ie taking hits. Additionally, with this suggestion, it should no longer be acting like an aura (affecting up to 20 players in a 100' range).
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Honestly, despite how knowledgeable about the subject you seem to be, I'd need a dev to confirm that one way or the other to believe it since their own choice of description argues against it. And yes mention of the "Shield Layer" in the tooltip would be quite helpful because I was unaware of the distinction until you made note of it. I rarely ever get on the forums. I tend to actively avoid participating in any type of forum chats whenever possible really, so if there's info only people active in the forums would know you can trust that I do not know it.
That's essentially what I was hoping that applying a form IDF's flat-rate dmg reduction directly to PFF would accomplish. It just applies scaling reduction vs scaling resistance which I think would work better by design.
After reading other comments including your ideas & thinking further on it though, I'd overlook changes to the shield itself like I originally pitched & change the flat-rate reduction to a percentage-based reduction still scaled by a superstat or overall superstats but more akin to avoidance in function since avoidance in itself is flat-rate deduction though tied to dodge chance.
New Personal Force Field:
Slotted Defense Passive
- Applies a regenerative shield/buffer equal to your base health. (Stacking at least some additional heath from CON, gear, specs, & mods would be smart decision.)
- Provides percentage-based damage reduction to your shield(shield layer only) scaling with your Presence. (The minimum damage reduction applied is 10% & scales upward to 50% before hitting the DR ceiling. Each additional rank of this power would increase that value by 5% allowing for a range of 20-60%. Note: This reduction does not apply to direct health damage. Unlike dodging, it ONLY applies to damage the shield would incur. This could all scale with overall superstats as well but people would likely just stack CON & end up unstoppable. Since Presence effects shields by design it makes sense as the chosen stat & prevents that scenario while also making PFF users decent healers/shielders.)
- The rate at which the shield recovers scales with your Recovery, while the amount recovered scales with your Endurance. (Both energy stats will have their usefulness. The minimum recovery rate would be every 3 secs and scale to maybe every 1-1.5 secs.)
- Shield recovery rate doubles while blocking. (Think of it as you're absorbing the kinetic energy from attacks & converting it into energy for your shield. Fits with the law of conservation of energy - Physics.)
- Applied shields on self such as Protection Field will be immediately consumed & act to repair your shield by 10% of its initial strength. Shield buffs such as Bastion would also be consumed.
- If the shield is consumed completely, provides a temporary buff to all damage resistance. (A 60/70/80% buff depending on Rank for 3-5 seconds.)
Advantages
Expanded Field(2): Applies flat-rate damage reduction to nearby allies scaling with your Presence. (Recreates IDF's original effect though it only applies to allies effectively turning this into a pseudo support passive. Not the percentage-based shield layer only reduction provided by PFF to the user. This would be the only way to get the original effect.)
Breakdown:
Let's say you have 7654 shield, around 25% all dmg resist from defense, & 350% from an r3 block. A cosmic hits you for 50000 incoming damage while blocking. Going by the damage formula: Damage/(1+(%Damage Resistance)) & not factoring in other resistances, you would end up with 10526 damage through your block. At 10% damage reduction, the resulting shield damage would then be 9473 causing 1819 health damage & breaking your shield while at 60%, simply 4210 shield damage. A blocked hit of 75000 at 60% reduction would also only cause 6315 shield damage. This means that you can gear/spec/mod for additional health rather than defense & stack Presence to tank cosmics effectively though you would need between 8000-10000 health and as much Presence as you can stack. Unlike with dodging the reduction always applies while the shield is up make it even more viable with efficient shield repair & heals.
In the above scenario, in which your shield was destroyed & you took 1819 damage, your would now be able to take a blocked hit of up to 31227 damage pre-mitigation without being one-shot though only if at full health & for the next 3-5 secs thanks to the resulting buff. With proper heals in that moment you may be able to take one or two solid hits from ape at least while blocking which is better than dying immediately. If at r3, you could take a blocked hit of up to 42479 pre-mitigation at full health. Again, this effectively solves the 11th hour issue as long as your shield can be repaired in that time.
This is an agree to disagree point. I can't believe that even a significant boost for say 3-4 seconds or even 8-10 seconds would encourage player to wanna sacrifice PFF. It simply ensures that when your shield goes down you can still take a couple hard hits before you die giving your shield a chance to repair & healer a chance to keep you alive. It's your "lasting benefit" without having to leave the shield up indefinitely which could end a bit too OP even at 30% or utterly useless depending on the amount of damage involved while leaving someone to have to figure out what to do with the excess damage. Would your shield stay up at 30% but you still get hit with the excess damage while still having DPS level defense/resistance? If so, you'll still die. And as is, if your shield goes down you're as good as dead whether blocking or not if a cosmic hits you because your defense/resistance is much lower than other tanks.
Also, maintaining the shield is easier said than done in situations where it really matters due to the factors that separate it from the likes of both Invulnerability & Defiance that we mentioned. Damage beyond what IDF can reduce and/or damage piling on really fast such as what you're hit by with Nightmare Event mobs can quickly burn through shielding & there will likely always be enemies or a number of enemies that can burn through it even after either of our changes just to keep things balanced. In that event, being able to then take a few hits in a tanking situation is paramount.
I'd concede your point if we were talking about a permanent buff or a buff that can be quickly reapplied or even stacked. When the buff I'm talking about goes away that's it whether your shield is repaired or you've been healed up on not. It's an 11th over shout-out to your healers/shielders to "Save my a$$ or you're next!". If you've played say FF14, then you'll note that all tanks have a move that works similarly. It's a more than viable countermeasure that would get the job done. It's essentially just an extra active defense specific to PFF users but with a really low duration. It's also very much like Protector Tree's mastery. And in practice like you said, it would rarely have occasion to happen.
The numbers you presented actually prove my point as far as not being able to "insta heal" a shield even after investing everything you can into bolstering your shield output, but I concede the issue within how spam-able protection field is. The simple solution to that would be to give it a cooldown period or restrictive debuff such as that applied by Bionic Shielding.
Also, it could call for the implementation of maintain-type shielding powers which could only apply once every second or half a second like maintained heals & share around the same output though specific to shielding. They could then have the effect of applying short duration stacks of shielding like Defensive Combo & bypassing my PFFs effect in order to repair it directly. The stacks would be nice a way to cap the max amount of shielding someone can get from a single player at any given time. Each player can only apply say 3 stacks on another player or self with applied shielding reduced each time & capping off at like 9 stacks.
My AoRP shielder doesn't have any heals aside from bionic shielding & because it doesn't fit the character concept it never will. My power MUST ALWAYS fit character background and concept. I don't care for making an OP build if it has me as say a chicken man shooting lasers. (I think I've come across one of those actually...) Anyway, that said, having comparative shield repair like that in the form of not just clicks but maintains would be awesome. I can only heal in a pinch with bionic shielding so spending my time maintaining a shield power would be fun especially knowing that if my tank is a PFF user that I'm keeping their shield going. Even if a healer dies & can't top off the the tank's health in a moment of crisis, being able to potentially shield them through it would make me feel like a true shielder & not a healer with an identity crisis.
It's neither. Put simply, direct shields repair PFF for 10% of their total. Shields from Presence Mastery, despite being 10% of a heal also repair PFF for 10% of their total. That makes secondary shields from heals ineffective at repairing shields vs direct shields. It's really not complicated despite the word logistics involved. Healers will still top off health like normal. Shielders & healers with shield moves would be the ones to focus on shield repair. People may end up more or less having to decide between healing and shielding. Don't mean to sound rude but realistically, if they can't manage to grasp that heals are for health & shields are for PFF or simply shielding somebody then they're gonna struggle regardless. They always should've been separate things. Like someone else said, the Invisible Woman doesn't heal. Shields shouldn't work like that. Shields are the condom & heals are the ointment. One prevents while the other treats.
Also, shields would work the same as they used to on non-PFF users. Though, I would add the cooldown or debuff I mentioned earlier to click shields & incorporate maintain-type shield powers. Only PFF shielding would see major changes thanks to shield layer reduction. If you have enough Presence & your target has enough defense, shielding is already pretty effective. PFF just needs a re-haul.
This is another agree to disagree point. I get your reasons but I still wholly believe the option the best way to go due to the effect definitely not being worth the cost of a power slot especially your one & only form toggle while at the same time being a bit too useful to give freely as a default part of PFF especially as a tank passive. It also gives you a reason not to rank it up to 3 which I feel is important because that passive at r3 would be very tanky & start feeling OP if it buffed others in any way as well.
A support player needs a reason to forgo taking r3 or they will for the simple purpose of wanting to be as OP as possible. That's what I wanted to give. When I'm working on a game, that's something I like to keep in mind because you don't want to give players a reason to only wanna play with or as this or that. Checks & balances have to be there. Advantages moreover are meant to serve that purpose anyways. They make you choose between ranking up or not.
Towards the point of PFF, the advantage allows it to remain "personal" (which is redundant anyways) when not selected & "field" when it is making it true to its name in both regards. It should at least have access to a field effect under some condition. All that said, with the distinctions made in the changes I posted above it makes it an even more desirable choice especially since I'm try to do away with IDF as it stands with this idea. It's a logical way to keep it incorporated whether it's been done before or not. Different from the rest is not bad it's just different which can seem scary. That's what testing is for. I think it
In general, I feel like we're already on the same page. We just have a few different approaches.
Or you can simply go in game, like I suggested and test it for yourself and see that it is true. All you need is to take PFF, slap some defense mods in and then remove that gear and compare laser damage to shield layer in PH.
But I can't promise a Dev will come onto this thread and confirm what I've said. You can look back in Forum history and find the change for yourself as well.
Disagree here. PFF should not be tied to HP at all, that goes against the entire design of the passive. With incredible HP you might as well forgo all the stuff that goes with PFF and grab Defiance, Invuln or LR.
Disagree. Not only would that require a mechanical mess to make the resistance added for PFF to not affect bleed through damage (which is a bad idea) but it seems to be tied to a specific super stat, which seems to be what you are consistently pushing here, despite it being a bad idea.
CON/PRE are on opposite ends of what it means / can mean to tank. PFF should not be used to implement such a strange combination, because you'll really end up with unstoppable tanks because they could go: STR/CON/PRE with this set up, end up with strong heals and incredible defense, potentially out performing current set ups with limited drawbacks?
The shield is there to absorb damage but absorbs a percentage of it, it does not function like Protection Field.
What I do agree with is a scaling resistance, but it should start higher and scale quickly to a certain point (provided PFF cannot be healed by external sources, which currently it cannot).
Disagree here. Again, you are pushing certain stats into roles for this passive which do not exist for other Defensive Passives. You are not required to stat CON or STR for Invuln or Defiance to work, so why should you need:
- CON, PRE, REC for PFF to work?
Makes little sense here. I get what you are going for but this is a Slotted Defensive Passive, not an EU, healing power or shield other ability.
Using stats to make PFF such an exception is a bad, bad idea.
Already works this way. But I assume this is just a copy!
This could be somewhat interesting. Right now, Bastion and Protection Field and other shields, like I've said above, layer above PFF so provide padding for PFF.
Might need testing, but an interesting idea, values seem a bit high though.
Again, this can easily become a Support Passive for Force rather than trying to force this into PFF.
There's a device in game which damages you over time until you take 100% HP damage in order to boost your damage, I've seen enough players use it until they are almost dead to squeeze out additional damage. Something similar -could- apply here with PFF.
Much like with standard tanking, the objective should be to ensure that your HP (or PFF in this hypothetical case) should not be dropping below 40-50%.
When you remove the 'danger' associated with PFF dropping completely it no longer becomes a priority to maintain which is not ideal.
This is why you ensure, just like with any other passive, to select your targets and opening attacks well and despatch them as quickly as you can.
You just see it more readily with PFF because the visual and real threat of it dropping is trackable and possible. With other passives, there is no danger of you being alive and not having your passive.
My point was in reference to a temporary buff. Look at standard tanking, healers know when to heal a tank when they drop sharply or at all, they don't need a specific prompt if they are cognizant of what is going on in the fight.
In a hypothetical situation where a PFFer is tanking and requires healing and healers can actually influence the shield, the healers and the tank will be tracking PFF automatically (or they should be) and know when to step in, to avoid said scenario. Which is why it is better to implement measures where PFF dropping off completely is incredibly rare or can be recovered from very quickly, which is where the purpose built AD Field Surge comes in.
As I think I mentioned here, that should be your "Oh ****!" button for PFF, it should function similarly to Resurgence, so heals 100% of PFF shield and provides surging damage shields for the duration. That would be your insurance policy like tanks who rely on Resurgence or Indestructible or MD.
You then compromise many different builds which use shielding as part of their kit, because of one passive. I don't think that would be a welcome solution at all, unless it only applied when using against PFF, which again, causes a bit of a problem.
And just to note, that value is not the upper limit of Protection Field sans healing gear, although it is a higher value.
So they would be powers which are created to apply Bastion stacks or additional PFF shielding, whilst this would be interesting. It feels like a lot of extra work to force PFF to work a certain way.
Because lets be honest, a "maintain shield" type of power would only be relevant to PFF, it is highly unlikely to be usable for temporary shielding powers.
So this is the core of why you are pushing certain stats to work with PFF, to fulfill a character concept. I think it is better to make PFF generally accessible and not restricted to working with certain stats.
Generally speaking the kinds of passives which require specific stats to work in a supportive manner, are Support Passives. As I've pointed out, PFF is NOT a support passive so tying stats to it makes little sense.
(I am not counting the "generates small energy" scaling some passives have with REC or the resistance bonus ID Mastery gets from REC in this. I am looking at the general make up of Defensive Passives and other passives).
You weren't being rude, don't worry. You've just managed to explain it better here, so thank you for that.
Currently the only direct shield other powers we have are Protection Field and Mindful Reinforcement, and MR is a heal/shield combo anyway.
I'm not sure how well it would be received to force PF & MR to be solely more useful for PFF. I am inclined to believe shields may get some sort of cooldown/lockout debuff anyway, its been discussed for years.
The problem with Shields in CO (not counting PFF) is that they are meant to be temporary barriers for damage not permanent, so Invisible Woman style combat force fields are tricky to get right without some sort of sacrifice (using AoRP for example).
Agree, but I don't think I could support your enforced stat requirements for PFF to function well. No other passive in game has such requirements, even support auras can function very well in Hybrid Role with no PRE, the PRE is only for the support other portion of the passive.
That's fine, but Personal Force Field as a slotted defensive passive is pretty clear that its meant to be for a single use.
The goal of suggestions to improve PFF should be to get it to be competitive with other Slotted Defensive Passives, not become a pseudo support passive.
I mean, IDF is still used by some tanks out there as additional assistance.
PFF used to be in PA as an alternative passive before it was moved to Force, despite it being a defensive passive, I don't think based on its mechanics it was intended to function as a tanking passive. Maybe that will change in the future but looking at it now, I have tanked in TA with it (shifted to tank role mind you). I don't see the benefit in adding an advantage to a slotted tanking passive which means the passive will not be functioning at full effectiveness.
More often than not, a tank is not standing in front of a crowd of DPS/Support, so the advantage would be wasted in that regard and most people don't sidle up to the tank, it's a nice idea, but belongs on a support passive, not PFF.
Again, PFF is not a support passive and should not become one.
Would a Force Support Passive be welcome in CO which increases shield strength and applies a smaller shield to self and applies AoE resistance to allies?
Absolutely!
Should it be smashed into PFF? No.
I don't think anyone is afraid of PFF being different, it's been the odd one out since CO launched. The problem is bending over backwards to cater to that which can present problems.
I definitely feel PFF should retain its identity but simply do what it currently does a whole lot better. I think your suggestions by and large would ruin that or push it over the edge in a number of ways and that's not something we need.
Of course, this is my opinion without any testing.
My own suggestions if implemented would need testing but having used the passive for 10 years or so and also active use of the passive in game...I think some are closer to the mark of being appropriate whilst not making PFF OP AF.
I think I'd probably revisit my thread and tune up some of my suggestions, but then again, mine were made with the intention of revamping the whole set, not just PFF in a vacuum.
I think we both agree PFF needs help, but based on our different levels of time using PFF as well as potentially conceptual differences when looking at the theme, we have different opinions on what it should be.
I do feel like your suggestions definitely come from a great place (the same place people seem to come from every couple of years to suggest PFF improvements), so that's definitely a plus.
I have to say though, whilst I can see where your reasoning comes from for forcing stats on PFF...it comes across that you want PFF to fit a character you have and want to run, instead of it being more of a generalized upgrade to PFF and this makes me wonder if that's why you want to tie certain stats to PFF and want to add things to that instead of making a support passive.
I mean, if you won't suggest a support passive for Force, I'll get round to it at some point!
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My super cool CC build and how to use it.
> Wow you two are goin nuts. Scrolling past your posts is like watching imperial cruisers float past.
Yeah I am looking at this on a phone...never again lmao. Waaay too long!
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Some decent points were made, however.
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Dev confirmation is the only way to take that sort of context from justifiable theory or speculation to proven fact. It's not about whether your testing is valid or theory is reasonable. It makes sense well enough but it's still technically unconfirmed. I would need it confirmed to accept it outright. Simple as that. It is in no way personal.
I am of the mind that if a theory works to solve a problem or answer an otherwise unanswerable question then you should go with it if for no other reason than practicality's sake. That is why I did not disagree with your findings. It is not confirmed though. That is fact. That's all I'm saying so please don't take it as a discredit or point of contention. This is simply an intriguing conversation as far as I'm concerned. I've even adjusted previous approaches due to information I've gained from the back & forth. The concept of a shield layer & it's relative priority to base resistances during damage calculation is something I can now see & factor for so I appreciate you informing me of it.
Yes, as is, by matching base health you could stack CON and effectively have like 30,000-40,000 health even after hitting diminishing returns while the extra 15-20k takes 10-20% less damage than your base health. I didn't consider that enough when I originally proposed that aspect. That's also a considerable amount of reduction given that what's left gets deducted from the shield rather than health. If I was to try resolve that on the spot:
New Personal Force Field:
Slotted Defensive Passive
- Applies a regenerative shield/buffer equal to 30/40/50% of your base health depending on rank. (Stacking at least some additional heath from gear, specs, & mods would be a smart decision. You won't need a lot of health.)
- Provides percentage-based damage reduction to your shield(shield layer only) and shields applied by you on other players scaling with your Presence. (The minimum damage reduction applied is 3% & scales upward to 33% before hitting the DR ceiling. Each additional rank of this power would increase that value by 3% allowing for a range of 9-39%. Note: This reduction does not apply to direct health damage. Unlike dodging, it ONLY applies to damage the shield would incur. This could all scale with overall superstats as well but people would likely just stack CON & end up unstoppable. Since Presence effects shields by design it makes sense as the chosen stat & prevents that scenario while also making PFF users decent crowd control users which supports the containment gimmick.)
- The rate at which the shield recovers scales with your Recovery, while the amount recovered scales with your Endurance. (Both energy stats will have their usefulness. The minimum recovery rate would be every 3 secs and scale to maybe every 1-1.5 secs.)
- Shield recovery rate doubles while blocking. (Think of it as you're absorbing the kinetic energy from attacks & converting it into energy for your shield. Fits with the law of conservation of energy - Physics.)
- Applied shields on self such as Protection Field will be immediately consumed & act to repair your shield by 10% of its initial strength.
Advantages
Expanded Field(2): Applies flat-rate damage reduction to nearby allies scaling with your Presence. (Recreates IDF's original effect though it only applies to allies effectively turning this into a pseudo support passive. Not the percentage-based shield layer only reduction provided by PFF to the user. This would be the only way to get the original effect.)
Things being tied to a specific stat is only a bad idea in your opinion & your only stated justification for it being so is a personal bias towards wanting to see things move away from it in general while ignoring cases & factors that make it unrealistic to do otherwise. You're saying consistently pushing but that has being in there in the same aspect from the beginning because it will not work if scaled by superstats in general. There is precedence for it given that its how things used to work & it would function just fine. Not all effects can be safely made into ones that scale with over superstats. In my eyes it's not a bad idea & condemning it as such with no regard to how it operates or consideration for why I use it as such is not at all constructive or influencing towards making me feel otherwise about it.
If you wanna claim it wouldn't function then please explain why. If you wanna claim it would be better if scaled with overall superstats then please explain why. I can't respond to "That's a bad idea." with anything but "No, it not." so you gotta give me more than that. If you can explain it I may see your side but you're not. And you have to be willing to accept me not agreeing after hearing you out which is likely the case here because I know it would work. You just need to get outta the head space of "This isn't how things are done." or "This sets a bad precendent." & have a bit more objectivity.
CON & PRE are on opposite ends, but so are CON & DEX, yet you can stack DEX and with additional health to dodge tank effectively. You really only even need additional health with dodging because it's chance based. This is a reduction type of defense like dodging though the reduction is guaranteed as long as the shield is up and thus considerably less than you get through dodging. This is in order to account for the shield consuming the adjusted damage before ever reaching your base health. This in theory would allow PFF to take hits on par with Invulnerability & Defiance.
I disagree. I don't consider it a strange combination at all. It's simply one you have never seen applied before but still technically sound even if I do say so myself & I'll support the claim. Before that, let me address a later part of your reply now as a means to set the stage for the concept. This idea is based loosely on the Impulse AT's concept which I speculate is how the framework was intended to operate. To me, it's a defensive build(thus defense passive) utilizing shields to reduce incoming damage(shield absorbs damage while IDF reduces it), while also providing limited crowd-control(containment gimmick). I am simply staying true to that established theme.
Also, Quarry has an effect that scales with INT in a similar manner. A number of powers have multiple effects utilizing specific stats I believe though I can not remember the names of most offhand. And as for why you would need to specify a particular stat when compared to Invuln or Defiance, the answer is because it works and wouldn't properly otherwise. Also, Defiance's effect used to do the same thing using CON to increase all-damage resist & was only recently changed. Just because that could be changed with marginal success does not imply that everything can be.
Also, if this operates in the shield layer, then it should not affect the layer that deals with bleed through damage right? Wasn't that the point of you being behind the concept of resistance added to the shield layer specifically? How would it be anymore of a factor than in your own idea? It's literally a tweak to that part of your idea.
Mine replaces the inconsistent variable "player resistance" that no other tank passive takes as a factor btw with a single superstat in order to add durability to the shield layer in a far less complicated & convoluted way in the sense of not needing to tally player resistances before attempting its own calculations which would require frequent re-checks due to how frequently those values are modified & creating a ton of lag during fights. Player resistance is a combination of values that each can change while blocking, being debuffed/buffed, when affected by certain specs and/or auras, among other scenarious such as synching to a team leader's level while wearing heirloom gear. Resistance isn't even solely a matter of all-damage resist. There's crushing resist, dimensional resist, wind resist, and many more values to factor in under the scope of "resistance". Using a single stat for reference is gonna be much cleaner code. A passive factoring in resistance from gear, specs, ADs/AOs, ect. would quickly become in your words a "mechanical mess".
Again, reduction as the shield mitigation type simply wouldn't work using overall superstats. And the point of the shield should be to serve a supplement for additional health. The shield is essentially extra health though with a built in defense mechanism. That defensive protects it not you though. The shield itself is your protection until it breaks. You shouldn't be able to get more health and a stronger shield from a single source.
Stacking certain stats & still being given high reduction alongside those high values would be far to overpowered & a bad idea. As you pointed out, if you have high health why would you need a sturdy shield? You would be better off taking Invulnerability, Defiance, or Lightning Reflexes as you said. Using overalls means there's no reason not to stack CON. It will get you all the reduction and health you need to be unstoppable. A now maxed durability shield plus all that health would be far too OP. Having a crap ton of a damage by stacking STR or EGO while being super hard to damage due to a now maxed durability shield would be far too OP. This is stopped by assigning a stat. It creates a tradeoff for trying to stack those stats. Yes, it's limiting build-wise. Will it work though? Yes. Was CON stacking encouraged on Defiance before the change? Yes. Was it effective? Yes. Defiance tanks still stack CON. Will that change to overall superstat scaling work for this? No, because of every reason above. This is an instance of where a singular stat would be needed whether PRE, END, or otherwise due to the very nature of percentage reduction vs resistance or even low-grade flat-rate damage reduction such as IDF uses.
If PRE is the source of scaling then at best your shields, heals, & crowd control will be really effective which falls in line with the type of powers in the set. Ideally you would take REC and/or END with PRE or PRE, EGO/CON, & REC/END with this passive to get the most out of it. Personally, I wouldn't take CON at all. I'd take EGO and an energy stat. The extra damage would mean extra threat.
Also, my suggestion of shielding works how IT works. It functions to reduce incoming damage based on a measure of durability sourced by the superstat PRE, which I have already detailed my reasons for choosing. What anything else does or did is not a factor on what it does & what it needs to do it properly.
Ok, you've won me over. An additional AD like that would be a better solution given the circumstances. I removed that buff aspect from my idea.
I don't disagree with you in general, but I don't feel that having a support themed option in a tank passive would hurt or change the dynamic of the passive. I don't see that advantage as something that makes this any less of a defense passive. Could it find its place well in a support version of this? Definitely, but I'm basically trying to expand the gameplay concept established by the Impulse AT.
I'm not LTS so I mostly use ATs. Would I like to see a support version of PFF? For sure. I've simply only wanted to stay in the lane of a defensive passive that works for endgame content on par with Invulnerability & Defiance though. I don't wanna get lost in the what if of another idea which is bound to happen if start thinking about changing this from one to the other. It would still leave me wondering about an effective way to tank with a force passive. And again I wouldn't change much if anything from the original PFF for a support version. I would be happy just being able to use the existing PFF in support role. Outside of that I would merge IDF with it not as an advantage be outright effect & forgo most other changes.
The dodge-like reduction I use in my defensive mock up may be too much for a support passive. If I was gonna convert it, it would need to at best only apply that reduction to shields applied by you which I guess is possible but would be even more complicated than the current version.
Also, let me point out that I use tank passives on healers all the time. I may lose the benefit of support role but I can still stack PRE. I also get bonus healing from superstats in hybrid, and my durability more than makes up for the reduced healing. If everyone would die from an attack but the tank I often survive too & can then rez people which is nice. On top of that Iniquity doesn't scale with PRE so decreasing the damage I take leaves me more health to sacrifice for healing which I can even get a boost to by being in tank role. I heal tank during nemesis alert week all the time. Healing naturally draws aggro anyways so I can turtle up & let my block given enemies who attack me stacks of clinging flames that I can then sacrifice for an AOE heal. Support tanks are very much a thing. I've seen a few especially at event fights like Tako. One in particular blew my mind but I can't remember their name. There are also plenty of CC who show up at kiga in tank role.
The benefit of freeform & champions online in general is that roles don't have to be clearly defined. The existence of the hybrid role and design of the Impulse AT is case in point really. Saying that defensive passives shouldn't have advantage like the one I added is a self-imposed restriction of your own creation. Loosen up a bit. Things are only the way they are until they're not. Devs could decide PFF has to go entirely tomorrow just like they did subs and you would have to be like "Well damn, ok... Did we get something else? How does it work? A hybrid passive?!... Ok, so it works like this. It's not great but I get it. Let's see what I can do with it.". You don't seem like someone to just loose your ****. There's always a new status quo. Most people stay at home & avoid getting to close to others right now. That could change any day, week, month, or year though.
What I wanna know is could you have fun with this passive? Would it be fun to stack PRE and still be able to mitigate cosmic level damage while also being able to effectively shield allies and trap opponents in bubbles? The fact that you're in tank role means you're taking regaular damage so your force sheath advantage has plenty of opportunity to kick in keeping your decreased energy generation offset. Your pets would have good health & can focus on healing & dps while you contain targets or hold there attention. That's a fun prospect for me that makes use of every gimmick build in the force set.
I am totally counting them. They are no different. They use single stats to scale an additional effect. As far as I'm concerned, if it can be done, resolves a problem, and doesn't create more problems than it resolves, then it's a viable option regardless. Makes no sense to me not to. If you can fix a bug in an old game but nobody bothers to do that sorta thing nowadays why would you not fix it? Is there a valid reason not to outside of the fact that nobody bothers? Would it hurt you or put you in a bad position to do it? If not & you both can & want to do it then do it. It's that simple.
Doesn't make it the best use of it & simply put "things change everyday". The goal of suggestions is to literally to voice your desires. I want what I said so that's what I voiced. I use IDF on all my tanks just in case mob damage gets to heavy & one of my tanks is a pet user so it's common sense to use it. That's news to me about its history. Interesting but doesn't change my stance. Not sure the relevance of who a tank is standing in front of to the application or usefulness of such an advantage. Even if not at a cosmic, pets & sidekicks would benefit. Those type of effects all have large ranges and effect 20 so people. It would see as much use as Medical Nanites, Sorcery auras, spec tree auras, & IDF as it stands now even as a tank passive. All you gotta do is be in the group. You don't even have to be MT.
I like them temporary. By default there should've been maintain type shields through. I still wouldn't replace the click ones though I would apply a cd or debuff that's about the length of their duration that prevents targets from be affected by it again. The shield would need some proper shield layer reduction as well.
Both your ideas and mine are all about making PFF work a certain way & would take a fair amount of work. The part of your idea I quoted would take more code and system resource to pull off than mine technically speaking. OP codes have to be called and register values saved, overwritten, & reloaded. Pointers would need to be stored in memory for quick access. Arithmetic would be running around the clock to update & consolidate resistance sums. Most of this happens all the time anyways to be fair but no changes will come for free. All that isn't even programmer related. That's system handled stuff. The coding would be fairly complicated either way as well I'm sure though I've never seen this games source code. If it's worth it it'll get done. If not, it won't. Nobody should really be hopeful about anything they post here. This thread seems more or less a sounding board to keep up interacting with eachother. If the devs really intended to use these suggestions they would have them be submitted in private to avoid legal claims and such. Some people are more than petty enough to be like they "they stole my idea!".
As far as maintained shields I totally disagree. It would be as simple as applying a new cast animation and target to a Defensive Combo clone then setting it to maintain which we can make happen with a line of code in chat. It could apply the same 3 stacks of shield but to your target once every half a sec or one sec vs at the end of the combo. The animation could be the same as protection field or containment field's cast just made to stop at the hand raise til you stop hitting the key. It's really not that hard at all. The stacks already work how they would need to. When you stop maintaining they'd quickly fall off due to their short duration. To sum:
- Copy Defensive Combo.
- Make it a maintain.
- Change when new stacks apply.
- Assign it a new animation which is simply playing a new emote before applying the effect.
- Throw a shield vfx on the target.
Bam, new maintained shield move. Just as easy to make an AOE one. Different animation + multiple targets.
I may have missed some stuff. It was hard not to lose my place. Sorry about that.
I couldn't let you type that much & not try to read as much as possible despite how hard it was to keep my place lol. I appreciate you taking the time to read all I said and respond on it all like that. Don't think you even missed a single point. As a guy with OCD I have mad respect for the dedication lol the and constructive criticism. Me & some friends have had convos like this over texts. I think the longest had to be sent over 15 texts. :P ...texts were free & calls weren't so yeah.
This comes across as problematic, because that would mean that Player testing cannot be trusted or be used as reliable data in any circumstance. I don't need a Developer to tell me AoRP is working if I slot it and take less damage from an attack when it is not slotted.
It is in no way unconfirmed, it is something that has been implemented, it is also something you can actively test AND you can look it up on forums. I would urge you to abandon all doubt on this by doing one of those two things, or both to be doubly sure.
Otherwise you are perpetuating false information, just go and test it. We all know PFF has no innate resistances to skew the results so play around with your defense stat and PFF and see for yourself.
I'm not taking this as a personal affront, I just don't think you should be rejecting facts, especially considering the evidence is there and can be tested for reliability.
No, it's not personal bias, it's an informed opinion based on the observation of recent changes to passives which have been re-tooled to no longer scale with a specific stat.
Remember we are discussing a Slotted Defensive Passive. The only other Slotted Defensive passive which scaled with a specific stat primarily or at all, was Defiance.
This was very recently changed to scale with super stats instead of just CON.
What I am trying to get across to you is that PFF's scaling with all super stats is the way it should stay and the way it probably will stay and makes PFF accessible to all kinds of users, not just ones who wish to scale in the way you want it to.
No slotted defensive passive in game requires a specific stat to perform base functions, nor should they. You should not attempt to lock out a passive from being used to fit your specifications. That is selfish.
Because it is in line with how every other passive works in game? We don't need more things to isolate PFF from being a viable option.
Regardless of if you agree with it or not, you cannot ignore that stat specific defensive passives have been phased out.
You are failing to be objective by thinking that PFF scaling with specific stats is the best way to go. You have also failed to be objective by not taking into consideration that not everyone tanks with Defensive Passives. This much is apparent in your suggestions.
Again, this is coming from the premise that PFF can only be used / should only be used to tank. This is not the case. When you fail to consider other uses for PFF (or anything) you fall into the trap of suggesting things which mean it should be used a specific way.
As it will hopefully continue scaling with all superstats, nothing stops people from stacking CON & PRE and Compassion to use PFF to tank. (I've seen it happen many times).
Force's suggested scaling for super stats are: EGO/END. They always have been. Force's entire gimmick is knock back. Impulse AT is something I ran from the time it was an AT and even before then. Impulse AT also has an Offensive set up via KM.
I think shields should scale on super stats anyway and get a bonus boost from Compassion if they are: Protection Field or Mindful Reinforcement.
Point on Quarry is valid, which is why I specified slotted defensive passives. You are drawing in other irrelevant examples, they are not slotted defensive passives.
As for Defiance, Defiance's change was not a "marginal success" it was quite a good change and works better than previous (and resulted in an energy unlock for Might).
You don't appear to have understood what I disagree with. I do not agree that specific stats should be imposed onto PFF to make it better.
Just like some others who have suggested changes to PFF, you have not grasped that forcing it to work in certain conditions, does not make it accessible to everyone (like all passives should be) nor does it solve anything, merely provides a poor band aid solution to the passive.
I know you have to defend your suggestion but as someone who has used it for a long while in different iterations of the passive, I don't agree that forcing it to not be accessible to all is a good thing (I have suggested similar things in the past myself and upon reflection its not a good idea)
What? Are you unaware that Defense Stat (player resistance) affects Defensive Passives? Because if you don't know that then I can see why you are so confused by what I mean.
I don't even need to read the rest of this quote, because this bit is incredibly concerning. If you have just not clearly communicated what you mean then please clarify.
Okay so let me break it down for you, because this seems like you are quite confused.
1) The Defense Stat on your character sheet applies a percentage resistance to your character against all kinds of damage (unless they completely bypass resistance) (You can test this)
2) Blocking is a different kind of resistance and operates on a different layer to conventional resistance. (you can look this up)
3) We do not have specific resistances on the character sheet any more, we used to have Energy Resist and Physical Resist but everything now works under the "Defense Stat".
4) I don't think you fully understand resistance in CO. We have several types of damage:
Crushing, Slashing, Piercing <-- These come under PHYSICAL Damage
Particle, Sonic & Electric <-- These come under ENERGY Damage
Magic, Dimensional & Ego <-- These come under PARANORMAL Damage
Fire, Cold, Toxic <-- These come under ELEMENTAL Damage
Defense stat applies a flat resistance against all of these damage types, and mainly comes from gear and specs. This is what I am referring to.
ALL Slotted Passives factor in Defense from Gear, Specs, AD's etc already! That's actually how things work in CO.
CON stacking was encouraged for players who made use of Defiance, because it was the only stat which influenced Defiance. Coincidentally, CON is still required for tanking, which is why Defiance tanks still stack CON. The change means that you can get better values from Defiance.
It's not a tanking passive. Just because players are CAPABLE of tanking with a passive does not make it a tank passive. I have tanked content with AoRP, Electric Form, Unstoppable and various other passives. This does not make them tank passives.
Obviously there is a correlation between people using "Defensive Passives" with "tank characters" but not everyone with:
LR, Defiance, Invuln, PFF or Regeneration intend to tank.
A support passive will expand game play, as it would be a valid option rather than a very weird sub par choice.
But this means you aren't as an effective healer as you could be by being in support role, but that's another topic entirely. If it works for you, I just hope it doesn't negatively impact your team / allies.
What? Where did you get this misinformation? Of course it scales with PRE. The only thing about it which relies on HP is the cost, it costs HP instead of energy like conventional heals.
Whilst this is true, you'll find more and more that for encounters, people call for clearly defined roles, DPS, TANK, HEALER (even CC).
Look at the data, recent updates and reviews to power sets have always standardized things and made very similar options across reviewed sets.
Looking at on topic and relevant examples to the passive in question, advantages on slotted defensive passives have been removed (see Defiance's Force of Will).
But they are irrelevant to the current discussion. Which is centered around PFF & Slotted Defensive Passives.
I think the whole point of this forum is for Developers to take ideas forward that we come up with, and it has happened many times to me and others. It's not like players can implement changes like that by themselves.
Maintain shield in reference to repairing a shield. Only PFF would benefit from that, which is why we have Field Surge.
Do I support the idea of projecting a force field to protect allies and having it as a maintained ability? Absolutely, I've been asking for one for YEARS and I've used one in game (called Force Wall):
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"Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
I do this every few years when someone suggests something for PFF.
It's refreshing to see someone new bring ideas to the table! Although there are a lot of similar themes, there are always new twists to read about and discuss!
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Firstly, I'm saying that as a player of a Cryptic game, that I need information confirmed by Cryptic in order to take it as official which is a perfectly reasonable concept. What you need has no bearing on that point. Also, my saying that I would need confirmation from a Cryptic employee or developer about a cryptic product does not invalidate the relevance or usefulness of a working theory & related testing done by users. No matter how useful the information though or even how on point on it may be, being confirmed by you still does not make it confirmed by Cryptic unless you represent Cryptic.
Something being on the forums, if posted by a "user" and not at least backed publicly in the form of a comment or something by someone involved with Cryptic cannot call itself confirmed by Cryptic. That is a fact plain & simple regardless of how you feel about it & claiming that information as anything more than an unofficial theory is actually an act potentially perpetuating false information. Saying something has not been backed by Cryptic when it literally has not been backed by Cryptic is not perpetuating anything.
Second, at best we all "speculate" & with valid reasons, but not "know". Not unless, like something common in the PTS threads for new content testing, a dev steps in to clarify things one way or another. This feels like you're just throwing a fit at the prospect of people not wanting to use the information available here anymore due to it not being official information. First you need to understand that I am in no way encouraging that scenario. For lack of better information, or official word on a particular subject matter I have already stated that I'm all for going with what works to solve a problem. There are nothing wrong with theories. Theories can be true as well as false and I'm not saying that the working theories on PFF are wrong. I'm say they are not official, or confirmed by the people who made this software.
Useful information is useful information. Relevant information is relevant information. Accurate information is accurate information. A user discovered explanation for something they had no actual hand in bring about is just that. That information can at the same time still be useful, relevant, & accurate without being confirmed if an official, someone who had a hand in it, has not confirmed it. I'm not rejecting anything. I'm simply being objective and accurate. I have not told a single person not to use any of the information on here so don't misrepresent me as such.
No, you're forcing the guideline Slotted Defensive Passive on to the idea as a defining factor & thus justification for your argument. I'm trying to get you to stop burying it in that context hoping it dies. Defiance is not the only passive scaling to ever scale with a single stat & that those others remain for various reasons including functionality all of which I'm pointing out to illustrate the category this falls into and why I make the choice I made. This power wouldn't work scaled with overall superstats.
You keep trying to go back to this one point over and over which I have addressed to no end. Again, I support more powers scaling with overall superstats. I do not believe though that all powers can benefit from being operated that way. Also, Defiance changed to use that method but what else did? It wasn't some huge change in global design method. Most things that scaled that already did. Defiance works better that way plain & simple. It gives more options without breaking anything do to the fact that Defiance is really simple. It raises your damage resistance by a large amount. The only consideration to make for that is how much. There's no reduction or other complicated factors. They even removed the energy return which was the only thing may have been a complication. Being high in any particular stat won't break anything with how simple a passive it is now.
It seem like you just don't even wanna acknowledge my reasons for NEEDING a single stat to be the focus for fear of the prospect of it leading to more powers, specifically defensive passives for some reason, working in the same manner which I'm not even encouraging. In my opinion powers should work in a way that makes them perform best. If it needs something to act the way it's designed to then that's what it should have. Why is Night Warrior the only Offensive Passive that boosts damage evenly across the board. That's just as strange as this would be. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be worthwhile or effective as such. Night Warrior need to have dual boosting because the concept was built around Nighthawk who uses melee and range attacks. It's also the only Offensive Passive with unique power unlocks. It did what the devs needed it to do though so that released it. Slotted Defensive Passive or no it's set up to do a certain thing and in the best possible way to do it.
I'm wishing you could accept that rather than pushing your agenda of seeing things no longer focus on single stats or making this into a support passive so it can make more sense to you personally onto the idea and how it is setup to work. You have yet to even speak on whether the thing would even function or not. You literally just repeat the same thing over & over just ignoring my key points at this point. You're all "things are not done this way." which is not accurate; "This is a bad idea." with not basis on it's function as a power & only the factors of its design; "It isn't inline with" when a lot of power multiple powers don't fall inline with other powers like Quarry, Night Warrior, & even Lightning Reflexes because it is the ONLY dodged based slotted defensive passive. To further that point Regeneration is a total one-off for a slotted defensive passive. Nothing new is ever gonna fall in line conceptually is ever gonna fall in line. It draws a new line once it's adopted like all of those did.
You're making grand claims of how single stat focus has been phased out but it hasn't. It changed on Defiance and maybe a couple other powers. The rest that don't simply never did & many still do whether support passives or Quarry or whatever else. It's like you're trying to will the facts away. All you seem to wanna do is stear me back to your big same point & get me to see it your way but I won't because I can't see it as a valid point in the way you're presenting it right now.
You can't seem to grasp this one point: This is NOT the same PFF.! It's not applying a single stat to PFF. It's taking a brand new approach to tanking with a shield using part reduction & part deduction to mitigate damage away before it even reaches your base health & THAT functionality REQUIRES single stat scaling simply to avoid certain pitfalls. Sure, you may not get or you may not like it. It may not be your cup of tea for an effective way to tank with shields. That's all well & good. I understand completely but it's still MY solution. I came up with it to make a shield defense strategy that could accommodate for taking cosmic level damage & until it's proven incapable of doing that I'm gonna see it as a viable solution to THAT problem. I DO NOT CARE if it's been done before! I care that it's able to do what I wanted it to do. I also don't care about the concept of how people may or may not use it in the concept of different builds. I care that if you pick this power you can tank cosmics with it. It doesn't even matter to me if you could tank with the original under whatever conditions. I care that THIS could potentially do it more effectively. Even if it's less effective I am personally happy with the fact that it is different & makes you have to look at shield tanking in a different light: one not about high health + defense. Goal accomplished.
I'm not going to be sidetracked from the point of posting this in the first place because you can't wrap your head around a defensive passive still scaling of a single stat for any reason whatsoever. You're not even trying to give constructive criticism anymore. You're trying to defend a stance on what you feel should be the future way of doing things for all things slotted defensive passive at least. I'm not going to comment on that aspect of this design anymore. I've done that enough. You can quote me & repeat the same thing to me all you want. Get over it. If you wanna tell me something like "Hey, your math is wrong so this won't actually work." or "Hey, the concept of shields can't work with reduction for this reason." or "Tying anything to health is gonna create this drawback so it's better to do this." or anything else in the realm of actual constructive criticism again then I'm all for talking with you as much as you want to work towards a better solution because you seem like a nice well intentioned person with a lot of insight that I as a casual player really don't have. All that said, I will continue this reply only addressing statements beyond the scope of how you feel personally about the scaling or what this could do for your sense of freedom or continuity. I am honestly trying my very best not to be rude or disrespectful & I hope my frustration at seeming not being able to get my point across hasn't come off like that. If it has I apologize, but I don't how to address that sorta thing at this point other than pointing out that that's all a you problem. It falls outta the scope of whether this works or not & how to make it better. And if it makes you feel any better, consider this a new power unrelated to the original PFF which has now become a slotted support passive. Honestly, whatever it takes for you to look at this in a more objective light.
Ok, I get all that. Now, please explain to me the part where the passives come in. What in passives scales with accumulated resistance? If you take off your gear & all sources of damage resist, will the bonuses applied by passives then drop? That's a serious question. I've never checked. And to clarify I was more trying to refer to the fact that not passive has bonuses scaling with a players acquired defense/damage resist like you were suggesting. According to you, since it hasn't been done your idea needing unique scaling or any scaling beyond using overall superstats to work properly is irrelevant.
Last I checked, acquired resistance may sometimes come from passives as a source such as Defiance but I've not seen an instance where stacking defense through gear raises any bonuses granted by a passive so I gotta stand by what I said until you confirm that for me. And if you couldn't even bother addressing my whole point as you said then this isn't a conversation topic to have anymore. I have no reason to hear a contradiction to something you didn't even finish reading based on your own account.
This makes no sense as a response to my point. You're only addressing my choice of phrase specifically in the first line. And a defensive passive is easily considerable a tanking passive given that outside of hybrid role they can only be used in the "Tank" role. IE the fact that I'm presenting this as a slotted defensive passive qualifies it. Intent is a whole other consideration. It is still designed for used in the tank role rather than dps or healer roles.
Effective is entirely relative & you have no grounds for saying it isn't as effective. Relative to other particular healer builds out there I could very well be far more effective. Relative to who's around to rez and use heals longer during the fight my build tends to excel because I can take much harder hits and even survive being focused by enemies which can happen often when you're healing. Given that I stack PRE my heals still tend to be more than enough to keep my targets alive even at cosmics even if it's just a matter of my own personal tactics. Either way that's a baseless claim to make under such a limited context.
That very well could be misinformation I acquired somewhere, or even simply a matter of me confusing that power with something else entirely in the moment. I will withdraw that statement since I have memory of how I even came about it out at this point lol.
Defiance seems to be your only point of reference for that claim. That doesn't make for compelling data. Most people that say "Look at the data" present some comparative data... I see most of your argument as invented facts & exaggerations at this point. I won't hold to this stance either so you can very well change my mind by tallying the actually number & identities of the powers that qualify as supporting your claim vs the total number of powers that have saw no change in the relative subject area. That's data. That's what you can build a proper thesis around. Also, my point of whether or not defensive passives should or shouldn't have advantages like the one I propose is not something that can be validated by current trend even if you could adequately support the existence of said trend. That's just you saying your goto argument again in response to what I said vs addressing what I said directly: diverting. Again, I won't keep talking to that point you're trying to force down my throat. I simply don't agree with it & if that's actually fine like you say then how about not bringing it up again. The status quo is BS in my book conceptually as a basis for anything.
My point was that there could be legal repercussions to actually trying to take ideas presented in such a manner making it unlikely for Cyptic to actually take any of the ideas posted hear unless they were already on the todo list in some form or other. Intellectual property & liability are major considerations unless the terms & conditions we signed included a disclaimed or point referencing the use of said ideas once they've been posted. They could've. I honestly didn't read it.
And... repairing PFF would be a secondary effect. I would be a shield power. I would apply a shield like I said. One power making a special use of it simply is what it is. In that case it wouldn't differ from Resurgence which has an effect unique to Regeneration, another slotted defensive passive.
O_O ...Force Wall? That's something in the game?! A maintained shield power in Force? Is it a device? How do I get it?
Honestly, you seem like a cool person & I've liked talking to you up to now for the most part but the conversation seems to have stopped going anywhere a reply or two ago. I suggest we change subject rather than debating points we'll never agree on anymore than we already have. Point blank, I discuss not talk about superstat scaling or limitations or specifications between types of slotted passives anymore. I won't keep defending my strictly circumstantial choices to deaf ears & it's become WAY too much to read. If I even see another quote I honestly will not read anything you say in a next reply. I can't. I feel like my soul is bleeding lol. I'd sooner take a kick to the nutts... by a steel-toe shoe... with them up against a metal beam... blind folded so I can't even see it coming or brace myself for the hit. PLEASE stop lol. I like you personally & I think it was cool meeting you & getting to talk to you. At this point though, I would personally prefer to talk about what you would do for a support version PFF since you keep steering the discussion in that direction like you have a lot of existing thoughts on it particularly.
Whilst you retain the right to request that information is “confirmed” by Cryptic, this does not ensure that it will be provided. In lieu of such confirmation, you are not “stranded” as to how to progress with the ‘claim’ or information you are given. Since you seem to doubt it, I have time and again, given you instruction on how to test what I’m saying and come to your own conclusions.
You seem to be resistant to this for reasons which you have not specified, so it’s like repeatedly telling someone that “Ink is permanent, use pencil instead” and handing them access to a pen and a pencil and some paper to test and they sit there grumpily and say they don't believe you because the creator of the modern pen has not confirmed that this is the case.
I’m NOT saying it is BAD to ask for confirmation, but when you have the opportunity to test something, especially if you are suggesting changes, you should take it instead of blindly arguing against it. PFF taking into account the Defense percentage from the Defense stat is not an opinion, it is a fact which can be tested for reliability and validity. I could understand your reluctance to take it on board IF you tested and came out with wildly different results, but this is not the case.
Never disputed this, nor implied that this was the case. What I did say however is that you can look up where the resistance layering was fixed for PFF which was done under the “shield layering” fix for PFF. You can look that up in your own time, the thread exists and was started by a Developer in the PTS section.
Incorrect. Theories by definition cannot be or have not been proven, which is why they are called theories.
What I will state YET AGAIN, is that you CAN actually go and test this for yourself.
Why you are apparently so reluctant to test this for yourself is beyond comprehension Before accusing someone of perpetuating false information be sure to do your own testing or have a solid knowledge base for what you are talking about. Your last post highlighted some alarming misconceptions and gaps in understanding of basic mechanics in CO. Whilst that can be helped with asking questions, it can also be helped by reading up on things, doing research and your own testing.
Whilst we do all speculate on things we cannot prove. This is not the case with PFF here nor with what I'm about to give as an example.
I do not need a Developer to confirm for me, that me taking a level 40 Support to tank against a Cosmic entity will result in failure for me to acknowledge this simple fact. I can even test it if I want to and KNOW that knowledge for myself. Calling information baseless or speculation or theories, without testing it for yourself comes off as ignorant, which isn't a good look.
I’m sorry you feel that way but by rejecting the possibility of utilizing existing information and testing things for yourself, this comes across as an illogical & flawed approach to learning. The concept that you need official confirmation for everything severely limits your ability to progress, in this specific context. Whilst I am not denying that official confirmation is useful, it does not stop you from testing an objective fact in game utilizing the mechanics. Maybe you aren’t comfortable with grasping the mechanics in game which is why you are hesitant to test? I don’t know. I can only use what you give and whether its your intention or not, that's what it is coming across as, you've not said "Sure okay, this is my handle, we can meet up in game and do some testing" or "Okay sure, I'll go off and do this test and bring back results.".
Again, I urge you to test for yourself and respond with results, either as a PM via forums, or on this thread or in game. My handle is in my signature, I'm more than happy to meet up in game and talk!
Incorrect. I am sticking to the discussion. PFF is one of the Slotted Defensive Passives. With CO’s more recent move towards standardization (as shown by power reviews and mechanic adjustments), we have a RELEVANT example of a slotted defensive passive which scaled with a singular stat and was re-worked to scale with super stats. In the spirit of moving forward, therefore it would make no logical sense to force PFF, an already underperforming slotted defensive passive (therefore more comparable for relevance) to be hooked to several different super stats, otherwise, why was Defiance changed at all?
Can you please cite your source for this? I don’t know of any other slotted defensive passives or slotted passives in general whose core function does not work unless paired with a specific stat. No Support Auras do not qualify for this, because they function just fine in Hybrid Role with non PRE super stats. (I ran an AOPM DPS Build with EGO/CON/INT)
This is false. PFF has mechanical issues related to its design in an environment where its level of protection is not adequate. This does not directly come from a scaling with all super stats, this comes from a mechanical design flaw and lack of update to the passive to make it as good as it needs to be in the current game environment. By your logic here, Invulnerability, Defiance, Regeneration and LR do not work well with overall super stats, yet there are some mind blowing tanks out there with these passives. How do you explain this?
You have successfully contradicted yourself and your previous stance regarding Defiance. I’m glad to see you have grasped the point I made regarding Defiance being better now that it scales with all super stats.
Right and you can see from PFF’s design it was never intended to extend any sort of benefit to others around it. Yet you continue pushing this as being a viable option. PFF was designed to be a regenerating force field that absorbed a large percentage of incoming damage from any attack, allowing a small amount through for bleed through to HP. No where in its design does it call for: CON/PRE/REC or HP to scale with it to function.
It is important to look at what is more likely to happen than some extreme variant.
More often than not, powers are amended but still retain their base design, what you are suggesting is a horrible mess of new mechanics for a power that is already mechanically challenging.
My turn. “I wish you could accept the knowledge that I am trying to share with you and test things for yourself to come to your own INFORMED conclusions. Stop trying to make PFF into a Support/Tank passive because it makes more sense to you personally”. I do not have an “agenda” when it comes to stat scaling, as I said to you earlier, this is an informed opinion based on the current and past reviews of power sets in CO. I don't know how long you've been in CO but it doesn't sound like its been for a long time based on what you've said in this thread so far.
Alright, at a glance? No, the passive would not function well in your intended way.
You have placed a variety of circumstantial scaling and stat set ups to rigidly control who uses PFF and have failed to take into consideration the implications this would have for a larger variety of builds which make use of PFF.
You have failed to comprehend that PFF is not a tank passive and is not routinely used this way.
You have failed to do enough testing to understand some of the basic combat mechanics in CO nor have you considered the impact that such a change would have when you look at gear and power interactions. For these starter reasons (without tearing your suggestion apart completely), I, as someone who has used the passive for over 10 years consistently and still does today, would not be confident in the proposed mechanics of your PFF.
False. By looking at what has happened in CO and what is happening in CO, you can get a good sense of where power reviews are headed and what the outcome may be when you look at the redistribution of power within a set. It is far more likely that instead of producing something that is so wildly bizarre and potentially problematic, a solution which is more in line with what can be expected from power reviews would appear. Your point regarding LR, Quarry, Night Warrior does not make sense, I’m not sure it even qualifies as a point of contention actually, nor is what you said about Regen. Anyway, I’d say that Composure & Enchanter fall in line with what is expected of Offensive Slotted Passives, they are slightly different from the others but not so drastic that they demand specific stats to scale with them to function.
It’s not a ‘grand claim’. Do not blow what I’ve said out of proportion.
You don’t seem to be able to stick to the present point, which is “SLOTTED DEFENSIVE PASSIVES”.
Instead you are going off on strange tangents for some reason. Defiance was brought up as an example because in the context of this discussion it is the only relevant example. Perhaps like the other things you were unaware of, you are unaware that for support passives there is a difference between base function and support function. The BASE function of a support passive (or an offensive passive) scales with super stats in all cases in game. The SUPPORT function of a support passive scales with PRESENCE as it is heavily relied upon for supporting powers. Without PRESENCE your support passive will still function as it should, it only matters when you wish to jump to SUPPORT role and SUPPORT others. The issue with your PFF suggestion is that your PFF does not have this option, you have tied BASE functions to super stats thereby restricting what sort of builds make use of it because of your vision for it as a tank passive. THAT is selfish.
You cannot see it as valid because it doesn’t fit with the knowledge you have of the game right now or your conceptual desires for the passive. You have demonstrated on this thread that you have some alarming gaps in knowledge which is why I’m not going hard on your suggestion but having a discussion. Your resistance to test things for yourself is unfortunate however.
Contradiction here. Your whole suggestion has been rooted in getting PFF to work with CON/PRE/REC and tying base functions to those stats or to HP or other arbitrary things which don't need to be there. If this suggestion has nothing to do with PFF you should never have mentioned it in this thread at all.
No, it’s not brand new at all. I’ve tanked in Teleios Ascendant (Endgame Lair) with PFF without needing "to single stat to avoid pitfalls".
I just needed in game knowledge, skill and an excellent team to support me. So you can throw that one out of the window.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be interesting to be able to tank more things using shields but it is not a brand new approach by any stretch of the imagination.
And this is why I’ve called your solution selfish, because you aren’t taking multiple factors into consideration, it’s just about what you want. There’s nothing wrong with that but its how you present this which makes an idea palatable to others. Right now, as someone who has been using PFF for years, this idea does not appeal to me in the slightest.
You don’t seem to understand that no other Defensive Passive forces you to tank if you select it, which is why you are pushing this selfish agenda. I speak for myself and no one else. The fact that you’ve tried to change your idea is good however, it shows you are taking some information on board.
Contradiction here also. Your suggestion actively encourages high health, yet here you say it should not be about high health? Can you pick which stance you’re taking please? Would be a lot clearer to discuss.
I’m not the one bringing in irrelevant examples and waffling about things which aren’t on topic and trying to relate them to...something, you are. My criticism has been constructive but you are not capable of seeing it that way nor taking advice I have given you on board because you see what I am posting as an attack, rather than points of discussion for you to reflect upon. Unfortunately it means I may respond in kind.
The future of how things should be isn’t up to me nor do I have any more influence on it than any other vocal players do. As I’ve said, I am simply giving you my opinion which has been informed by recent and past changes and patterns that we see in them.
For what its worth, as I’ve said before, its always nice to have these conversations regarding PFF every few years, because there’s always a clearer picture with how things are going in CO which helps me tailor my suggestions based on Dev changes to the game. I think a couple of times in your responses, out of frustration we’ve both come close to being less than cordial which happens in the course of a discussion sometimes but its nothing you need to apologize for yet.
I think my issue is that with what you have said so far, you come across as someone who wants to make a difference without being properly informed and this leads to problems. I’ll play the broken record for you again and say you should go out and do testing so you are better informed. Also I offer the chance to talk in game, my handle is in my signature.
I’ll pull up an example for defense:
Bob the Superhero has Invulnerability which grants him 100% damage resistance and 100 damage absorption. This makes him quite tough.
Bob the Superhero also has 100% damage resistance from his Defense Stat on his character sheet. (This comes from a combination of his gear & specializations). This also makes him quite tough.
Bob the Superhero’s overall damage resistance is 200% damage resistance with 100 points of damage absorption. This makes him incredibly tough.
So what we can see here is that the “Damage Resistance” part of a slotted passive stacks with the “Defense” stat from the character sheet.
The same thing applies for Dodge/Avoid. If you stack dodge/avoidance modifications into your gear, it is going to top up your dodge and avoidance values by a set amount relative to the modification you slot and the bonus it gives at your level.
(Side note: When Bob the Superhero is blocking with his rank 3 Telekinetic Shield, he gains 410% resistance to PHYSICAL damage and 360% resistance to NON-PHYSICAL damage. This means that if he is blocking Crushing, Piercing or Slashing damage his overall resistance WHEN BLOCKING is 610% plus 100 points of absorption shaved off. (Note: Blocking exists on a different defense layer to normal resistances) If he is blocking against PARANORMAL, ENERGY or ELEMENTAL damage his overall damage resistance is 560% plus 100 points of absorption. This is assuming that there are no defense debuffs on him or the attacks do not have defense penetration effects.)
If you remove your gear which has been modified to boost your superstats, form, specs and other bits and bobs, your entire build values for nearly all powers bar Blocking and travel powers will drop. So your resistance will obviously drop as well.
This is a gross misunderstanding of what I was saying, I’m not even sure where you managed to pull this from and interpret it this way.
I think you’ll find this is your idea. Not mine. Please don’t attribute your ideas to me. You were the one claiming PFF needs to scale with HP or CON and PRE, not me. Please ensure you know your stance before making such comments.
Again, gross misinterpretation of what was said, I am shocked at how you’ve managed to stumble to this conclusion but I don’t think that’s something I can help you with. Feel free to take your time and re-read what I said. If you have a question, ask.
Because you have not understood your own wording. Your whole suggestion is forcing PFF to be a tank passive, rather than being accessible to those who want to use it…without tanking. That is the point I am making there. You claim to want to make the Impulse AT have expanded gameplay but your suggestion would ruin what little cohesion it has.
I’m glad you’ve managed to absorb what I’ve been telling you here. yes, a defensive passive can be considered to be used to tank.
HOWEVER, that does not make it a “tank” passive You are presenting this suggestion as something which should only be used to tank, this much is evident by the stats you wish it to scale with. That is part of the problem, one which although you have spelled out for yourself, have not taken on board
If the effectiveness of a healer is based on the amount they can heal and survive and juggle those aspects then you can consider that a hybrid role healer is likely to always under perform / be less effective vs a healer in support role as their heal bonus will be higher than yours under the same conditions.
My grounds are understanding what Hybrid Role bonuses provide versus those in Support Role. I am not saying your character isn’t EFFECTIVE, I am saying that in terms of healing potential, they’d be at a disadvantage in comparison to a support role healer. This is something you can test for yourself. (I've taken a Hybrid Role healer through Endgame content with 10k HP, Shadow Form, Life Drain and Empathic healing. Did we manage to go through the lair? Yup, was it rough compared to the next run with a support build I had? Absolutely.)
Because it is relevant to the conversation, bringing in irrelevant things for comparison does nothing to help your argument. Your suggestion forces a DEFENSIVE PASSIVE to scale with specific stats. We have an example of a DEFENSIVE PASSIVE which has been recently improved (as you’ve noted above) to scale with all super stats present so it only makes sense to consider it as something to discuss in relation to the topic, anything else is off topic and irrelevant.
And I see your entire stance & suggestion concerning considering you thought that "Crushing Resist" & "Wind Resist" were different things and didn't know that Defense Stat stacks with whatever defense you get from a slotted passive.
But on a more serious note, this is likely because you have failed to do enough testing to prove or disprove these “invented facts and exaggerations” instead you have decided not to make use of the testing powers at your disposal nor made any effort to look things up, I say that based on the fact that you haven’t provided anything which disproves my so called “invented facts & exaggerations”. Once you do, we’ll have something to talk about. I don’t need to convince myself of what I know, you are a capable human being so I trust you are capable of doing the leg work for yourself, if you want to use this as a point of discussion. If you aren’t able to look back at release notes, and threads made by developers and compare what is changed, that’s your problem not mine.
Then perhaps this is why you have failed to look back at threads, because you’ll start to see a trend that things are being homogenized. Hell, even look up that word and do some reading around it in relation to threads here. There is nothing wrong with suggesting things which don't yet exist in game but I think its better when they are suggested and presented in the vein of how powers have been designed. If you want examples outside of what I've presented, look up Bluhman's suggestion threads.
...You do realize you are loosely describing Field Surge, the Active Defense power? Right? If you've used the Impulse you must know this.
Something in game, creates a large AoE force field which either contains a foe or blocks LoS. You cannot obtain this power, it was PTS only.
You're passionate and that's a good thing when focused. I think it would do you a lot of good to test things and have a bit more experience with things before suggesting drastic changes. This has been an interesting discussion, reminds of a few I've had before but that's usually the way with PFF threads lmao.
Hmm, that'd be a shame because you've asked some questions which I've answered. I'd have done some digging and linked you to forum posts but I'm missing the thread link to Defense layering.
Also, I don't think I've been pleaded with to stop having a discussion on a topic before, that's one of the new things I was talking about.
Well I am glad we've been able to have this discussion, it's always nice to have slightly longer discussions on topics like this. I've not thrown anything suitable for posting together for a Force Support Passive and doing so here would hijack your thread a bit.
I do think you should have been driving for a Force Support Passive, perhaps an AoRP version of PFF, as I think that would fit what you are after rather than butchering PFF.
I suggest you think on it and then when you're ready suggest it.
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At the very least you could've forgone the quotes in favor of a more chronological approach simply leaving it to me to look back at what I said and paraphrasing your point to some degree as to not repeat yourself on nearly every point which I'm fairly certain is the case again for it to be that long. I can only assume though because again I will not read something THAT long. It's not even a matter of not being curious to what you have to say because I am making this choice quite hard for me. I like to talk about stuff way too much but I HATE one-sided conversations & being forced to repeat myself. You obviously have the experience to make some valid points but I feel like you've lost your objectivity. The lack of any new points or ideas towards common ground or a more favorable solution being presented by you & thus giving me cause & opportunity to troubleshoot, alter, and/or further expand the idea this topic represents makes this conversation feel untenable.
Also, I spoke my peace on all your personal points & stand by every word I said so I don't see a point of further discussing anything outside the context of this idea & how to make it better or something better to use in place of it. This whole discussion has deviated far too much already and no longer works the problem. It's about personal stance which we won't come to terms with. If you can't let that go & start fresh then have fun talking to whoever sees fit to respond to that wall. It won't be me one way or another. It would take too much time from my night to even try so I respectful decline & bow out from that conversation. My stance is mine & yours is yours & for no reason must either stance become the other's. Let that crap go please.
I personally gotta get back to my regularly subbed game before I waste any more time & money than I have been with this. I feel fairly confident with the concept where it stands currently considering that I'm no longer receiving any feedback in the context of alternative approaches or suggestions. At the very least I feel ok about it enough to no longer be involved in it's discussion.
If there is in fact some actual chance of any ideas posted in these threads making it into the game, which I personally doubt, then I simply leave it to the devs to know best how to move forward with it if the concept is even deemed to have enough merit. The suggestion has been made & in so far as my involvement, the topic is closed. By all means continue to speak amongst yourselves & please forgive me my leave on the matter. I have people to raid with & relic weapons to grind for.
Again, my apologies on now perpetually leaving you hanging @theravenforce, but a train gone this far off the rails needs to be brought to a stop. It was still nice getting to meet you & getting to consider your perspective despite how differing ours may be. I feel like, to a point, it served well to broaden my own which is always great. I'll leave you with a bit of philosophical food for thought before I go:
What is fact? Is it truly black & white? I personally see it as a grey area, one made brighter or darker by context. A person walks outside at noon & notes "The sky is blue." In that moment, the statement is easily considerable as fact, and yet to someone at the moment on the other side of the world, that same statement could be rightfully taken as false. Simply waiting a variable amount of time could & would invariably make that true statement reconcilable as false. At any given moment, fact can yield way to fiction. For this reason there is often truth in most things yet they can remain perceivable & justifiably so as false. The vice-versa of that statement is equally true. One persons truth will never be everyone's truth no matter how hard that person tries to force the idea. Wars have ever been waged over this fact. Look at Hitler's ideal of human perfection as the lengths he was willing to go to impose those ideals on others. Now he is perceived as one of history's greatest villains by arguably most yet still held in high esteem by others to this day. That just further illustrates the point that people are gonna believe what they can see personal justification in believing. That's why there are so many religions.
So what is stance? Is it always be based in truth & can it be correct all the time? No, it is actually impossible. My point is, try not to take yourself and your personal politics too seriously. What you feel is perfectly fine & is under no obligation to change but try not to openly declare anyone else's ideals or justifications as unfounded or any less that you own. That will never be well received or serve to further a point with anyone who feels differently. It's not an actual argument. It's a declaration. From my perspective, you were merely declaring your stance as fact for most of what you said leaving the conversation quite one-sided. You feeling differently though fine could barely hope to change that. The best people can do to understand one another is to consider outside perspectives and take from them what they can. This can then lead to people of different vantage points still being able to view the same point of focus with more clarity.
For the reason of this very philosophy, I prefer keep my own stance as pliable as possible. What's true for me is simply true "for me" until it isn't. My truth is independent on outside belief & circumstance. It's based solely on what I can reconcile & as such it I seldom stays the same forever. I try my best to consider all other perspectives. This approach is integral to the very way I approach life. What you have said could easily sway me later after further thought but currently there was simply not enough basis for my ideals to sway. This is all just to let you know a bit about the perspective you're dealing with & hopefully clear up any misconceptions. Nothing I said was intent as a direct attempt at changing what you believed. The whole time I was simply justifying the reasons for my own position as clearly as possible. I always avoid making blanket statements. If you look closely, I never tried or honestly cared to change your position. I simply voiced my disagreement & why. I meticulously kept my statements in the context of "me" and why "I" did what I did for a reason. I talked on what "I" needed to see something as confirmed and argued the context for why someone wouldn't under the unique circumstances presented. All to avoid boxing you into the same corner I was feeling steadily pushed towards. I know you meant well though. I'm hoping this personal address can help you avoid feeling insulted for the lack of resolution my withdrawal is likely to bring about. Stand by what you believe & I'll do the same. Hope you have a good time on here as this is goodbye for now my friend.
My only input will be on the defense layering for PFF:
Before a good number of posts from 2012 were archived, I personally worked with Gentleman Crush to get the layering adjusted properly to be the manner in which Ravenforce has stated at the start of this thread.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
"Your post was too long to bother reading!" says man about to write post too long to bother reading.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Incorrect.
You have placed an idea of yours on a public forum for critique and for consideration. You just happened to be unfortunate that your suggestion was something I am quite familiar with and knowledgable about in CO, and that I came across it.
I have not drilled, nor dissected your suggestion as much as I could have. I was going to but after your post detailing how many things you were unclear on in CO, I decided to be very lenient and instead try to encourage you to learn.
You have flatly rejected this at every corner.
You have chosen to ignore discussion points and your ability to stick to the topic has failed miserably. Instead you have opted to delve into placing thinly veiled insults my way and offering apologies whilst realizing you'd overstepped the mark.
You keep labelling things "my agenda" because you are incapable of seeing points which do not fit your knowledge base of CO and how things are. Whilst this is fine if you have no opportunity to learn, this becomes ignorance when information is given to help you better understand and especially when it is given to you in means which you can test for validity and reliability.
So on this point, you have signed up for exactly what you have gained.
My approach was to address everything which falls in the realms of being relevant to the topic as well as any problems or points which were raised which need correcting or insight injected into them as a matter of urgency or things I felt like responding to. I only responded to what you put out.
If you are incapable of having a discussion without going off the rails on some philosophical waffle about unrelated topics, then perhaps you need to evaluate how to effectively hold a discussion.
The conversation becomes "one sided" when you refuse to look at the discussion from another perspective and take on board what is being said and try to get to grips with it.
Just because I do not agree with you (and have provided ample reasons why) does not mean I have lost the ability to be objective. Nothing in your suggestion was objective, you have already made it QUITE clear that your intention was to make something selfish and something which worked the way YOU wanted. This is a perfect example of a bad suggestion and your response in places whilst promising for some smaller parts was unfortunately, textbook.
If you actually took the time to read what I responded with you'd see plenty of points for you to go away and consider and reformat your suggestions and alter your wording.
None of the points I have made here fall under the realm of being "personal". As I've said time and again, these are things you can go and test.
If you allowed yourself to see the discussion from another perspective you'd have greater insight but you have chosen not to.
The discussion deviating was entirely of your own engineering. Throughout the course of this discussion you have continually brought up irrelevant points or examples which have nothing to do with the topic. You have actually successfully derailed your own thread by bringing up irrelevant points of discussion and getting confused by your own rhetoric and wording.
This is not a personal issue, believe if it was about personal things for me, you'd be even more out of your depth. By your own admission you don't have enough experience with PFF to suggest something which isn't entirely selfish and that is part of the problem.
Well of course you feel confident, no one here has actually attacked or deconstructed your suggestion. I definitely haven't.
You have received ample feedback but have chosen not to take it on board.
RL I am not a doctor of philosophy, I'm a doctor of psychology. I see the inclusion of this text as an avoidance of the topic, much like I had seen earlier in the thread and suspected would rear its head again if there was no suitable rebuttal which is relevant to the suggestion in question.
I find this to be quite unfortunate.
Again, attempting to apply a philosophical argument to this context has very little value. Because this is not a debate about the philosophy of PFF, we were discussing actual things which are quantifiable and measurable.
You not having enough experience or information to get your point across does not equal "any other point aside from my own is a declaration or an attack on my world view". I said as much earlier, this is the very reason why you were unable to look at things from another perspective. Without even considering the gross misinterpretation of text that you seemed to experience in several responses.
Where relevant, I was giving you instruction on how to test things which are actually fact. You say that "the best people can do is to consider another's perspective" and yet you failed to consider anyone who doesn't want to use PFF as a passive for tanking. So you have set yourself up for failure.
I read, and considered what you had to say and gave you the appropriate feedback.
Except you have shown to some extent an unwillingness to challenge your own held beliefs about certain things related to this topic, you have shown no evidence that you had gone away and tested things but were just spouting suggestions with no real basis. This was one of the core problems.
It would have been impossible for you to change my knowledge about PFF or anything in game actually, so you don't need to worry about that. Go back and re-read your responses, you will see quite a lot of blanket statements which have nothing to back them up.
As far as I am concerned, you can only feel pushed into a corner, in this example, if you are unwilling to take onboard what is being said and explore for yourself. When you do this, you are able to see other points and amend what you suggest or believe as true.
This response from you is more than enough and nothing which I wasn't expecting anyway, so you don't need to worry about coming across as insulting, you've managed that several times out of sheer frustration which is unfortunate but not unexpected.
As you've decided to no longer respond, I think its safe to say this discussion has come to an end. Thank you for your participation and the offer still stands to meet in game.
My Characters on PRIMUS
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Simply trying to quote the reply I TL;DR'd gives me an error: "Body is 7409 characters too long."
And before that in my own reply I clearly said "Point blank, I discuss not talk about superstat scaling or limitations or specifications between types of slotted passives anymore. I won't keep defending my strictly circumstantial choices to deaf ears & it's become WAY too much to read. If I even see another quote I honestly will not read anything you say in a next reply. I can't." & regardless of the typo it's pretty clear.
And yet... I log in to a reply so long I actually can't quote it & filled with quote points that I would then need to individually respond to again all after responding at length so many times already no matter how long the replies were. Granted my last posts were still quite long but I think I did pretty well in purposely cutting them way back after your earlier comment about the battleships. And yes it was totally selfish to not respond which I hated doing but I simply & truly did not have it in me to give that a proper reply & I'm such an OCD head that if I started reading I would reply to everything & it would've spanned multiple comments to address all of that. Couldn't justify it. Simple as that. Sorry, that this is probably too wordy too. You should really just expect it from me by now lol.
If you think so feel free. I could argue otherwise but truthfully I'm all argued out & don't care enough to try. That's why I'm just now checking this. I mean again I said outright before the reply I reference that I wouldn't read it if it was long & quote heavy. The reply was so long it broke my enthusiasm to keep going. That's an entirely personal thing that is not @theravenforce's fault. Also like I said the convo was devolving past the point I felt I could take anything useful from it which made for a viable reason to break free. I simply couldn't give the convo anymore time or energy. It was literally taking hours to respond due to all the scrolling and quoting which I feel I must be doing the hard way or something. I don't get on forums or use bbcode often.
I may be a windbag (definitely am to an extreme) & it was definitely distasteful to just bow out but I did not lie & was totally upfront & apologetic about the choice. It couldn't have possibly been a surprise that I would bow out given what I said. Not taking it literal was not a me choice or problem. Even now I hesitate to respond to @theravenforce & probably won't but honestly not because of any negative feelings (don't have any) but simply & truly because it's too hard not to fall back into a long conversation with them & I don't wanna be getting back on here looking for their replies rather than doing the things I've been putting off for too long already. The back & forth is too engaging & competitive for me to not get wrapped up in so take it for what you will. I'm still about to sign off & leave the convo where it stands. If they need to feel like they won the argument or something, sure they won. I genuinely don't care about that. I gotta refocus my attention elsewhere before I screw myself over long term. Responsibilities & such demand it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Who said I hated writing? I was pointing out the difficulty in having to read & respond to really long & quote heavy comments properly. Takes me forever & requires a lot effort. That's what I said. I couldn't keep it up at that point. And I would never accept or integrate an idea or concept that I can't find proper justification for using regardless. Someone else's experiences or acquired knowledge has no direct bearing on whether their suggested idea gets me where I'm trying to go in my own idea. If it goes against the design concept then its not useful to me. It's still my idea & something I have to ultimately be happy with. I wasn't happy with any other suggestions past those I already adopted & I reached the point I couldn't be on here for hours at a time replying to disagreements on my choice of variable and general power-type alone. I'm replying to you because what you said was short & to the point so this took minutes to write, not hours. (Still long I know. Obviously can't help it. Sorry.)
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
No, I'm really good I sticking to a concept & not wanting to deviate too far from it. You're really good at trying to tell me what I'm doing. You should stop that.
Edit: Btw, I'm still on because I figured you were on so I wanted to wait for your reply. You're obviously very active on here. The weather is bad so I'm not doing anything important on my pc. The power might go out again. Also, do you believe everything you're told? I highly doubt it. I believe what I can wrap my head around. Is that a bad thing? And I did in fact incorporate multiple points made into the idea. I'm even tempted to incorporate ideas from your PFF post having read it into it but I think it's best to let your post breathe its own air & keep mine from getting too close to it. That way it can get it's own attention. Again, if something makes sense to me that's all I need.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Again, you're trying to get personal & increasingly insulting. I'm trying to refrain from joining in so I'm not even gonna dignify that remark with a response. If you wanna actually talk about something like an idea or give me your own information especially if short & sweet like it has been then cool. It's a decent distraction from the weather so I'm listening. I don't care to argue with you about something I stopped talking to someone else about though. It doesn't matter to me what you think of me personally. I don't have to like you either to consider your point & I don't have to speak on you as a person to get my point across. I'm me & you are you. Let's please leave it at that before this convo takes anymore of a unnecessary turn.
I scrolled past this short reply before. Sorry about that. Sounds good. You mean the @kingpin0000 thing? The weather is too bad to risk playing games right now for me but I'll hop on there tomorrow if you can meet up with me at some point that afternoon.