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Fix the Eidolon gear pieces! (What's wrong with them, and what could be done to fix them?)
thisiscraftaaa
Posts: 188 Arc User
So, this is a shameless repost of my suggestion on the PTS update that didn't see any feedback whatsoever, but...
I have a question. Why would I use the Eidolon secondary set instead of a full set of Onslaught gear? To compare the two...
The Eidolon gear pieces can slot a single offensive core, defensive core and utility core respectively, all the way up to R9. That means, to get the most out of them, I'd need to burn thousands of Gs on R9s, as opposed to Onslaught taking a few weeks to casually grind a full set of, that only needs R5 Enhancement mods to perform at peak efficiency. To think about it like this...
Eidolon Offensive can give one of these stats, up to X at R9:
103 Critical Strike
31% Bonus Healing
74 Offense
25 Primary Superstat
5.1 Critical Severity
55 Critical Strike and 2.7 Critical Severity
+207 HP whenever defeating a foe
+40 energy whenever defeating a foe
A low chance of +552 Offense for 10 seconds whenever landing an attack
15% defense penetration (if you were gutsy enough to slot a DUC on one of these)
35% pre-mitigation damage is added as threat
42% pre-mitigation damage of one specific type is added as threat
42% pre-mitigation damage of one specific type reduces threat, +15 PSS for 5S whenever using a certain damage type
I probably missed a few, but pick any (one) of those, and see how it compares to Onslaught gloves:
+55 of a stat of your choice, Superstat or otherwise
+7.1 Defense
AND one of the following:
+10% melee damage
+minor damage boost when over 20ft away from the target
+Allies within 35' gain 20% of the energy you gain
+30% pre-mitigation damage is added as threat AND 6% pre-mitigation damage is added to you as a shield
I just don't really see why I'd pick the Eidolon offensive over the Onslaught offensive, outside of maybe building a tank build and needing the extra 5% to 12% threat (but then, doesn't a full set of Distinguished (or Justice, I forget which is more optimal for tanks but I THINK it's Distinguished) already cover that, slotting threat mods into both offense core slots and just using Gloves of the Defender on top of that for added threat as well as a large stat bonus? And since I'm lazy, I won't read out the defensive or utility core ones for the other two Eidolon gear pieces, but I'll just summarize the better options as far as I can tell.
For defensive pieces, you could milk an extra 21 Defense from an R9 Impact Prism, or 739 HP from an R9 Growth Amulet. These, I'd wager are very good, if you're looking for raw survivability as a tank, but the Onslaught defensive gives +553 HP and +14 Defense, AND can be slotted with an R5 Enhancement, making it optimal for DPSes, supports and tanks alike for damage or healing output. And if a tank NEEDS extra survivability, they could just slot an R5 Con mod, which would give +55 con. If memory serves, Con gives 11 health per point normally, so that would be +550 health, for a total of 1103 health and 14 Defense. However, ignoring trash like Tireless and all that, you COULD slot something spicy like Brilliance, which would give you a +20% damage resistance. But that raises the question of why you wouldn't slot it in your defensive primary and just take Onslaught defensive secondary for the overall bonuses it provides anyways, since on their own these Eidolon pieces essentially just sacrifice your secondary gear slots for a single core mod slot of each type. Also, I'm not touching on dodge tanks because there's even less redeeming qualities to slotting dodge mods for Eidolon pieces than just taking the Onslaught dodge defensive piece.
For support pieces, let's be honest. With the odd exception of CC strength, which is vaaaguely covered by Pre, the only things you're going to bother putting here are potentially an R9 damage mod (like Valerian Scarlet's Radiance, Medusa's Presence, Nighthawk's Talons, etcetera,) Swift Wings if you're feeling fancy (but why would you use Swift Wings at all?) Veteran's Core of Might (to be fair, you can slot this in ANY core slot, whether offensive or defensive or support, but why would you need to sacrifice an entire secondary gear slot for it when a slot on your primary piece works just fine and has less drawbacks? Support just happens to be the easiest place to slot this without any noticeable drawbacks in most builds) or just cost reduction, cooldown reduction or max energy. But again, you can only pick one. And whichever one you pick out of the regular support mods, there's an Onslaught secondary that gives anywhere between the same amount (+15 energy for Mask of Energy vs +15 for R9 Growth Amulet) up to around double the same amount (202 Cost Discount for Mask of Efficiency, vs 102 for Gambler's Lucky Gem 9.) And the Onslaught pieces will always give some Cost Discount and some Cooldown Reduction as well.
And finally, there's the set bonus, the only remotely redeeming thing about this. +1000 health, +50 to all superstats, and -2s to your ult's cooldown every time you charge a power fully, or maintain a power fully, or complete a combo, with a 6 second cooldown, essentially translating to your ult's cooldown ticking down 1 and 1/3s every second instead of 1 every second. While a pleasant utility, ults usually aren't that much of an increase beyond the norm in terms of damage output, so it's still JUST a pleasant utility.
Now, I want you to think about the differences between the two sets, and put them together in your head.
A full Onslaught set will provide a BARE MINIMUM of:
21.3 Defense
51 Cost Discount
51 Cooldown Reduction
+55 to any stat
+55 to any stat
+55 to any stat
with your choice of extras:
OFFENSE: +10% melee damage
OFFENSE: +small ranged damage boost beyond 20' away (arguably the weakest of these by far)
OFFENSE: +allies gain 20% of the energy you gain
OFFENSE: +30% pre-mit damage into threat, +6% pre-mit damage into a shield
DEFENSE: 6.9 Defense and 553 health
DEFENSE: 76 Dodge Chance and 76 Avoidance (why would you take this unless you're a dodge build?)
DEFENSE: 51 CC resist (WHY WOULD YOU TAKE THIS AT ALL?)
SUPPORT: 15 energy
SUPPORT: 151 Cost Discount
SUPPORT: 101 Cooldown Reduction and 50 Cost Discount
While a full Eidolon set will provide a BARE MINIMUM of:
+50 to all superstats (a total of 150 spread evenly across all three, as opposed to 165 to allocate in thirds anywhere you want, whether spread evenly or stacked 2-to-1 on two superstats, or all on one.)
+1000 health
33.333(etc.)% faster ult cooldown (likely anywhere from 25% to 30% since perfect activation would be impossible, and that 25%-30% is assuming you're intentionally proccing it as much as possible even if your powers might perform optimally if you do so.)
*ALL OF THESE REQUIRE A FULL THREE PIECES SLOTTED, AND SPECIFICALLY OF THE SAME SUBTYPE TOO!
with your choice of extras:
One of anything that fits in a offensive core slot
One of anything that fits in a defensive core slot
One of anything that fits in a utility core slot
Now, while that is a (lovely) 3-piece set bonus, there's still the issue of: it's a 3-piece bonus, meaning there's no reason to ever mix and match whatsoever, and otherwise they're effectively just an extra core slot on each of your primary gear pieces, and you're running around with no secondaries. I'd say these are slightly worse than the Cosmic secondaries, which themselves are good but still pale in comparison to the Onslaught secondaries. The Cosmic secondaries can slot core mods as well, but only up to R5. I'm... not sure if they can slot special core mods like DUCs, Brilliance, Veteran's Core and the likes or not. In exchange, they give offense (which is something the Onslaught pieces do not,) slightly more-or-less defense than the Onslaught pieces (22.7 as opposed to 21.3, but without the option of extra defense plus health that lets Onslaught take the edge here) and slightly less Cost Discount and Cooldown Reduction than the bare minimum that Onslaught can yield. (+46 to both, as opposed to +51 to both and +15 max energy as well.) They also give either +46 to PSS on each piece, for a total of 138, or +24 to each SSS on each piece, for a total of 144 split evenly between the two, slightly lower in overall gains than the Eidolon pieces but able to be a little bit more selective in where they're applied. Since there's no reason not to slot special mods like, say, Brilliance on your primary pieces, in all but a few tiny hypothetical situations even Cosmic is just objectively better than Eidolon, which begs the question: "unless I'm building for a very niche situation that's one in a thousand where it'd actually be better, why would I use Eidolon over Cosmic, or especially Onslaught?"
And with that, I raise three simple suggestions to make Eidolon a viable competitor to Onslaught, and arguably better than Cosmic (since Eidolon pieces drop from, well, Eidolon, I'm assuming, much like Cosmic pieces drop from the main three Cosmics.)
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Suggestion one: make the +1000 health and +50 to all superstats a 2-piece bonus instead of a three-piece! This would allow for some mixing and matching, especially in the case of melee DPSes and tanks where there's essentially no reason not to take Gloves of the Slicer and Gloves of the Defender respectively, every time, and would make it match other gearsets better, since very few gearsets have a 3-piece bonus but no 2-piece (the only one I can think of off the top of my head would be Catalyst's Heirloom, which is the cheap and flimsy Nem heirloom secondary set that gives a chance to find extra catalysts when interacting with crafting nodes, which basically nobody does outside of grinding their crafting to 400 without spending on crafting skill-ups, so it's essentially worthless and not worth mentioning.)
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Suggestion two: add a R1 Enhancement slot (or perhaps an R1 omni slot, if that's possible?) to each of the Eidolon pieces, and in return, reduce the 3-piece (hopefully changed to 2-piece) +50 superstat bonus to 25! The entire worth of these gear pieces lies with their set bonus, and they're still not good enough even with that set bonus. The health is fine as it is, but why not put a little more value into each individual piece by letting it slot a R1 Enhancement or Armoring mod, and then making the set piece stat bonus a little more moderate?
Thinking about it, a R1 Enhancement or Armoring mod gives +39 to one superstat, which is much smaller than the +55 of Onslaught, and still smaller than the +46 PSS or +24 SSS (+48 total) of Cosmics. But then it gets pulled over the hump by a 25 bonus to all superstats, which is 75 total. If you slotted two Eidolon pieces, then each would give 37.5 spread evenly across all superstats as well as 39 to a stat of your choice, for a total bonus of 76.5 collectively, or 12.5 to all three and then 39 to one of your choice, for a total of 51.5, 12.5 and 12.5, almost as good as Onslaught for stacking up your toggle-form or your Con if you're a tank or whatever else you're aiming for but with a bit of extra fluff and wiggle-room on the side.
If you slotted all three Eidolon pieces, then it'd be +25 spread across all three superstats for each piece, divided by three would be 8.333(etc.) for each superstat plus 39 for the R1 Enhancement/Armoring. This would be 47.333(etc.) for the superstat of your choice, and 8.333(etc.) for each of the other two. A little less efficient stat-wise than just going two Eidolon and one Onslaught or one Cosmic, but I'll get to addressing that in a bit.
Firstly, this use for R1 mods would give people a reason to bother with crafting nodes again! It might be a bit annoying, but there'd be a reason to do so! Alternatively, perhaps Max Plank (the fusion tutorial and fusion trainer NPC) could be given a vendor menu where he'd sell R1 mods for 1G a piece? Expensive enough that it couldn't be exploited to easily farm crafting levels, but at the same time cheap enough that just one Smash alert at level 40 would be enough to get Enhancements/Armorings for a whole set of Eidolon gear. This would be a viable alternative if players getting upset about having to bother with a boring, dumb system like the crafting nodes is an issue, I think! And if it isn't... hey, guess people will be bothering with nodes and have a little more use for Catalyst's Heirloom's 3-piece bonus? A tiny up-side, I'd prefer the Max Plank alternative myself, but whatever.
Secondly, to loop back around... surely you're noticing that this essentially puts Eidolon pieces in the same role as Cosmic pieces, right? Essentially just "for when you don't feel like grinding a full Onslaught set but want something usable?" Well, I have a solution for that, which is suggestion number three!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Suggestion three: rework and add to the three-piece bonus! A hypothetical 33.333(etc.)% increase in how fast ults recharge is iffy at best. You'd have to go out of your way to get around 25-30%, sacrificing overall performance otherwise for most builds save a few, and the technically optimal 33.333(etc.)% is impossible to achieve. So instead, how about this? The three-piece bonus could come in two parts: a 25% flat cooldown reduction to all powers. Your ult takes 90 seconds to cool down? Now it takes 67.5 seconds. Your self-rez takes 4m 30s (270s) to cool down? Now it takes 202.5 seconds. This is much more beneficial, since some FF builds (and if memory serves, EVERY SINGLE AT) don't even have ults. But that alone isn't enough to give most players a good reason to consider a full Eidolon set. So the second part of the three-piece bonus would be this! -5% damage resistance to hostile targets, in the same layer as Dexterity Spec Tree's Expose Weakness, which means it'd be a flat 5% damage buff when hitting a target whose defenses are reduced to zero by other effects, like Int-primary, Night Warrior, resist debuffs from powers, etcetera. While not as strong as the 10% overall buff of Slicer gloves, it'd be usable regardless of whether you were using a melee or ranged attack, and even tanks and supports with damage-dealing powers could benefit slightly from it.
In short: 25% flat cooldown reduction to all powers rather than up to a hypothetical 33.333(etc.)% for ult only, and a 5% resist debuff to enemies on the same layer as Dexterity Spec Tree's Expose Weakness, making it a potential 5% damage multiplier. Not as raw a damage boost as Slicer (though potentially better than the embarrassment of Sniper,) not as strong a potential defensive boost as Defender (outside of specific situations where rapid and repeated use of Active Defenses is a necessity,) and not as strong a supportive boost as providing nearly infinite energy to nearby allies, but an even spread increase to all three.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
With all that said, this is just one potential way of making Eidolon's Eternal, Endless and Nightmare sets more worthwhile. Though, given that the set bonuses for all three would be identical, it'd make having three different sets of the same gear pointless. A good excuse to cut down on extra programming, or perhaps to provide a new unique buff to each of the three sets? You be the judge of that.
Oh, and can anyone else wing their own suggestions for making Eidolon's gear not worthless too?
I have a question. Why would I use the Eidolon secondary set instead of a full set of Onslaught gear? To compare the two...
The Eidolon gear pieces can slot a single offensive core, defensive core and utility core respectively, all the way up to R9. That means, to get the most out of them, I'd need to burn thousands of Gs on R9s, as opposed to Onslaught taking a few weeks to casually grind a full set of, that only needs R5 Enhancement mods to perform at peak efficiency. To think about it like this...
Eidolon Offensive can give one of these stats, up to X at R9:
103 Critical Strike
31% Bonus Healing
74 Offense
25 Primary Superstat
5.1 Critical Severity
55 Critical Strike and 2.7 Critical Severity
+207 HP whenever defeating a foe
+40 energy whenever defeating a foe
A low chance of +552 Offense for 10 seconds whenever landing an attack
15% defense penetration (if you were gutsy enough to slot a DUC on one of these)
35% pre-mitigation damage is added as threat
42% pre-mitigation damage of one specific type is added as threat
42% pre-mitigation damage of one specific type reduces threat, +15 PSS for 5S whenever using a certain damage type
I probably missed a few, but pick any (one) of those, and see how it compares to Onslaught gloves:
+55 of a stat of your choice, Superstat or otherwise
+7.1 Defense
AND one of the following:
+10% melee damage
+minor damage boost when over 20ft away from the target
+Allies within 35' gain 20% of the energy you gain
+30% pre-mitigation damage is added as threat AND 6% pre-mitigation damage is added to you as a shield
I just don't really see why I'd pick the Eidolon offensive over the Onslaught offensive, outside of maybe building a tank build and needing the extra 5% to 12% threat (but then, doesn't a full set of Distinguished (or Justice, I forget which is more optimal for tanks but I THINK it's Distinguished) already cover that, slotting threat mods into both offense core slots and just using Gloves of the Defender on top of that for added threat as well as a large stat bonus? And since I'm lazy, I won't read out the defensive or utility core ones for the other two Eidolon gear pieces, but I'll just summarize the better options as far as I can tell.
For defensive pieces, you could milk an extra 21 Defense from an R9 Impact Prism, or 739 HP from an R9 Growth Amulet. These, I'd wager are very good, if you're looking for raw survivability as a tank, but the Onslaught defensive gives +553 HP and +14 Defense, AND can be slotted with an R5 Enhancement, making it optimal for DPSes, supports and tanks alike for damage or healing output. And if a tank NEEDS extra survivability, they could just slot an R5 Con mod, which would give +55 con. If memory serves, Con gives 11 health per point normally, so that would be +550 health, for a total of 1103 health and 14 Defense. However, ignoring trash like Tireless and all that, you COULD slot something spicy like Brilliance, which would give you a +20% damage resistance. But that raises the question of why you wouldn't slot it in your defensive primary and just take Onslaught defensive secondary for the overall bonuses it provides anyways, since on their own these Eidolon pieces essentially just sacrifice your secondary gear slots for a single core mod slot of each type. Also, I'm not touching on dodge tanks because there's even less redeeming qualities to slotting dodge mods for Eidolon pieces than just taking the Onslaught dodge defensive piece.
For support pieces, let's be honest. With the odd exception of CC strength, which is vaaaguely covered by Pre, the only things you're going to bother putting here are potentially an R9 damage mod (like Valerian Scarlet's Radiance, Medusa's Presence, Nighthawk's Talons, etcetera,) Swift Wings if you're feeling fancy (but why would you use Swift Wings at all?) Veteran's Core of Might (to be fair, you can slot this in ANY core slot, whether offensive or defensive or support, but why would you need to sacrifice an entire secondary gear slot for it when a slot on your primary piece works just fine and has less drawbacks? Support just happens to be the easiest place to slot this without any noticeable drawbacks in most builds) or just cost reduction, cooldown reduction or max energy. But again, you can only pick one. And whichever one you pick out of the regular support mods, there's an Onslaught secondary that gives anywhere between the same amount (+15 energy for Mask of Energy vs +15 for R9 Growth Amulet) up to around double the same amount (202 Cost Discount for Mask of Efficiency, vs 102 for Gambler's Lucky Gem 9.) And the Onslaught pieces will always give some Cost Discount and some Cooldown Reduction as well.
And finally, there's the set bonus, the only remotely redeeming thing about this. +1000 health, +50 to all superstats, and -2s to your ult's cooldown every time you charge a power fully, or maintain a power fully, or complete a combo, with a 6 second cooldown, essentially translating to your ult's cooldown ticking down 1 and 1/3s every second instead of 1 every second. While a pleasant utility, ults usually aren't that much of an increase beyond the norm in terms of damage output, so it's still JUST a pleasant utility.
Now, I want you to think about the differences between the two sets, and put them together in your head.
A full Onslaught set will provide a BARE MINIMUM of:
21.3 Defense
51 Cost Discount
51 Cooldown Reduction
+55 to any stat
+55 to any stat
+55 to any stat
with your choice of extras:
OFFENSE: +10% melee damage
OFFENSE: +small ranged damage boost beyond 20' away (arguably the weakest of these by far)
OFFENSE: +allies gain 20% of the energy you gain
OFFENSE: +30% pre-mit damage into threat, +6% pre-mit damage into a shield
DEFENSE: 6.9 Defense and 553 health
DEFENSE: 76 Dodge Chance and 76 Avoidance (why would you take this unless you're a dodge build?)
DEFENSE: 51 CC resist (WHY WOULD YOU TAKE THIS AT ALL?)
SUPPORT: 15 energy
SUPPORT: 151 Cost Discount
SUPPORT: 101 Cooldown Reduction and 50 Cost Discount
While a full Eidolon set will provide a BARE MINIMUM of:
+50 to all superstats (a total of 150 spread evenly across all three, as opposed to 165 to allocate in thirds anywhere you want, whether spread evenly or stacked 2-to-1 on two superstats, or all on one.)
+1000 health
33.333(etc.)% faster ult cooldown (likely anywhere from 25% to 30% since perfect activation would be impossible, and that 25%-30% is assuming you're intentionally proccing it as much as possible even if your powers might perform optimally if you do so.)
*ALL OF THESE REQUIRE A FULL THREE PIECES SLOTTED, AND SPECIFICALLY OF THE SAME SUBTYPE TOO!
with your choice of extras:
One of anything that fits in a offensive core slot
One of anything that fits in a defensive core slot
One of anything that fits in a utility core slot
Now, while that is a (lovely) 3-piece set bonus, there's still the issue of: it's a 3-piece bonus, meaning there's no reason to ever mix and match whatsoever, and otherwise they're effectively just an extra core slot on each of your primary gear pieces, and you're running around with no secondaries. I'd say these are slightly worse than the Cosmic secondaries, which themselves are good but still pale in comparison to the Onslaught secondaries. The Cosmic secondaries can slot core mods as well, but only up to R5. I'm... not sure if they can slot special core mods like DUCs, Brilliance, Veteran's Core and the likes or not. In exchange, they give offense (which is something the Onslaught pieces do not,) slightly more-or-less defense than the Onslaught pieces (22.7 as opposed to 21.3, but without the option of extra defense plus health that lets Onslaught take the edge here) and slightly less Cost Discount and Cooldown Reduction than the bare minimum that Onslaught can yield. (+46 to both, as opposed to +51 to both and +15 max energy as well.) They also give either +46 to PSS on each piece, for a total of 138, or +24 to each SSS on each piece, for a total of 144 split evenly between the two, slightly lower in overall gains than the Eidolon pieces but able to be a little bit more selective in where they're applied. Since there's no reason not to slot special mods like, say, Brilliance on your primary pieces, in all but a few tiny hypothetical situations even Cosmic is just objectively better than Eidolon, which begs the question: "unless I'm building for a very niche situation that's one in a thousand where it'd actually be better, why would I use Eidolon over Cosmic, or especially Onslaught?"
And with that, I raise three simple suggestions to make Eidolon a viable competitor to Onslaught, and arguably better than Cosmic (since Eidolon pieces drop from, well, Eidolon, I'm assuming, much like Cosmic pieces drop from the main three Cosmics.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Suggestion one: make the +1000 health and +50 to all superstats a 2-piece bonus instead of a three-piece! This would allow for some mixing and matching, especially in the case of melee DPSes and tanks where there's essentially no reason not to take Gloves of the Slicer and Gloves of the Defender respectively, every time, and would make it match other gearsets better, since very few gearsets have a 3-piece bonus but no 2-piece (the only one I can think of off the top of my head would be Catalyst's Heirloom, which is the cheap and flimsy Nem heirloom secondary set that gives a chance to find extra catalysts when interacting with crafting nodes, which basically nobody does outside of grinding their crafting to 400 without spending on crafting skill-ups, so it's essentially worthless and not worth mentioning.)
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Suggestion two: add a R1 Enhancement slot (or perhaps an R1 omni slot, if that's possible?) to each of the Eidolon pieces, and in return, reduce the 3-piece (hopefully changed to 2-piece) +50 superstat bonus to 25! The entire worth of these gear pieces lies with their set bonus, and they're still not good enough even with that set bonus. The health is fine as it is, but why not put a little more value into each individual piece by letting it slot a R1 Enhancement or Armoring mod, and then making the set piece stat bonus a little more moderate?
Thinking about it, a R1 Enhancement or Armoring mod gives +39 to one superstat, which is much smaller than the +55 of Onslaught, and still smaller than the +46 PSS or +24 SSS (+48 total) of Cosmics. But then it gets pulled over the hump by a 25 bonus to all superstats, which is 75 total. If you slotted two Eidolon pieces, then each would give 37.5 spread evenly across all superstats as well as 39 to a stat of your choice, for a total bonus of 76.5 collectively, or 12.5 to all three and then 39 to one of your choice, for a total of 51.5, 12.5 and 12.5, almost as good as Onslaught for stacking up your toggle-form or your Con if you're a tank or whatever else you're aiming for but with a bit of extra fluff and wiggle-room on the side.
If you slotted all three Eidolon pieces, then it'd be +25 spread across all three superstats for each piece, divided by three would be 8.333(etc.) for each superstat plus 39 for the R1 Enhancement/Armoring. This would be 47.333(etc.) for the superstat of your choice, and 8.333(etc.) for each of the other two. A little less efficient stat-wise than just going two Eidolon and one Onslaught or one Cosmic, but I'll get to addressing that in a bit.
Firstly, this use for R1 mods would give people a reason to bother with crafting nodes again! It might be a bit annoying, but there'd be a reason to do so! Alternatively, perhaps Max Plank (the fusion tutorial and fusion trainer NPC) could be given a vendor menu where he'd sell R1 mods for 1G a piece? Expensive enough that it couldn't be exploited to easily farm crafting levels, but at the same time cheap enough that just one Smash alert at level 40 would be enough to get Enhancements/Armorings for a whole set of Eidolon gear. This would be a viable alternative if players getting upset about having to bother with a boring, dumb system like the crafting nodes is an issue, I think! And if it isn't... hey, guess people will be bothering with nodes and have a little more use for Catalyst's Heirloom's 3-piece bonus? A tiny up-side, I'd prefer the Max Plank alternative myself, but whatever.
Secondly, to loop back around... surely you're noticing that this essentially puts Eidolon pieces in the same role as Cosmic pieces, right? Essentially just "for when you don't feel like grinding a full Onslaught set but want something usable?" Well, I have a solution for that, which is suggestion number three!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Suggestion three: rework and add to the three-piece bonus! A hypothetical 33.333(etc.)% increase in how fast ults recharge is iffy at best. You'd have to go out of your way to get around 25-30%, sacrificing overall performance otherwise for most builds save a few, and the technically optimal 33.333(etc.)% is impossible to achieve. So instead, how about this? The three-piece bonus could come in two parts: a 25% flat cooldown reduction to all powers. Your ult takes 90 seconds to cool down? Now it takes 67.5 seconds. Your self-rez takes 4m 30s (270s) to cool down? Now it takes 202.5 seconds. This is much more beneficial, since some FF builds (and if memory serves, EVERY SINGLE AT) don't even have ults. But that alone isn't enough to give most players a good reason to consider a full Eidolon set. So the second part of the three-piece bonus would be this! -5% damage resistance to hostile targets, in the same layer as Dexterity Spec Tree's Expose Weakness, which means it'd be a flat 5% damage buff when hitting a target whose defenses are reduced to zero by other effects, like Int-primary, Night Warrior, resist debuffs from powers, etcetera. While not as strong as the 10% overall buff of Slicer gloves, it'd be usable regardless of whether you were using a melee or ranged attack, and even tanks and supports with damage-dealing powers could benefit slightly from it.
In short: 25% flat cooldown reduction to all powers rather than up to a hypothetical 33.333(etc.)% for ult only, and a 5% resist debuff to enemies on the same layer as Dexterity Spec Tree's Expose Weakness, making it a potential 5% damage multiplier. Not as raw a damage boost as Slicer (though potentially better than the embarrassment of Sniper,) not as strong a potential defensive boost as Defender (outside of specific situations where rapid and repeated use of Active Defenses is a necessity,) and not as strong a supportive boost as providing nearly infinite energy to nearby allies, but an even spread increase to all three.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
With all that said, this is just one potential way of making Eidolon's Eternal, Endless and Nightmare sets more worthwhile. Though, given that the set bonuses for all three would be identical, it'd make having three different sets of the same gear pointless. A good excuse to cut down on extra programming, or perhaps to provide a new unique buff to each of the three sets? You be the judge of that.
Oh, and can anyone else wing their own suggestions for making Eidolon's gear not worthless too?
Defender save my soul, for I have sinned...
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Comments
As perhaps the self-proclaimed foremost expert on Dodge tanking, let me share how this impacts it, because you're actually a bit wrong there.
To start off, let me be clear: Avoidance buffs are a useless waste of stats. Maximizing your Dodge Chance is ALL that matters. Lightning Reflexes and the Elusive Monk Advantage on Parry will already give you all of the Avoidance you will ever practically need.
This means that the Justice and Distinguished Primary Defense gear is actually suboptimal to Legion's Breastplate of Elusiveness because it gives a much larger Dodge chance buff by forgoing the useless Avoidance buff. This goes similarly for the Onslaught gear. It used to be the best we could get, at least until we got Cosmic Talons of Rage which allowed us to forgo the unnecessary Avoidance buffs for a straight R5 Dodge Core, even though we went from +55 DEX down to only +24. This is because CON should be your Primary Super Stat, not DEX, because the Dodge Bonus in the CON spec tree actually scales MUCH higher than the DEX spec tree. So even though we lose DEX, the Dodge core ends up being better for us.
On that note, even without ANY DEX bonus from a singular piece of the new Eidolon Secondary Defensive gear, even without the other two pieces to give us any set bonuses, an R9 Dodge Mod STILL ends up giving us more Dodge chance. The previous maximum standing dodge chance you could get was 76.3%, or 103.6% in combat. I know because its what I've used for the longest time and its what lets me Tank at Kigatilik without AoPM, even with his global 3.5% dodge chance debuff. With the new Eidolon piece, its up to 76.6%, or 103.7% in combat. So getting to slot an R9 core mod for us is actually pretty huge.
However, I have to agree with the OP, beyond that, the gear kinda SUCKS. The stats are just atrocious. You don't even GET any stats or bonuses until you have ALL THREE pieces from the SAME set. This is BEYOND dumb. This is one of, if not THE hardest to get gear in the game. It SHOULD be the best, and its absolutely not.
So here's my idea how to fix it:
Get rid of the +50 to All Primary Stat Bonus. This is just WAY too restrictive and underpowered.
Get rid of the +1000 HP if you want to. No one will really miss it. Or keep it. Who cares.
Keep the Ultimate Cooldown Reduction as the 3 piece set bonus. This is pretty cool and unique. I like it.
Give it two slots instead of just one. One Enhancement slot and one Core slot, both up to an R9.
"GASP! SHOCK! AWE! NO! HOW COULD YOU! ITS SO OP!"
...okay but... is it really?
I mean think about it. You don't just get those stats for free. You still NEED to get those R9 mods to get the biggest bang for your buck, and those are far from cheap. Most people top out their gear with R7's. So that'd be what, +62 instead of +55? That's only +21 in total across all three pieces. Even WITH all R9's, that would still only a +66, or +33 more stats than Onslaught Gear with MUCH cheaper R5 mods. Not to mention the other R9 Core mods you'll need too. That is a HEAVY investment appropriate for maximizing your endgame gear. You're not going to be breaking the game with this.
I think this sounds beyond reasonable. Increased power and flexibility for what should be some of the most prized and highly sought after gear in the game from the biggest baddest endgame boss there is. People should be EXCITED to get these, not criticizing them for how bad and disappointing they are.
As perhaps the self-proclaimed foremost expert on Dodge tanking, allow me to share how this impacts the Dodge Tanking meta, because you're actually wrong about the Onslaught gear.
To start off, let me be clear: Avoidance buffs are a useless waste of stats. Maximizing your Dodge Chance is ALL that matters. Lightning Reflexes and the Elusive Monk Advantage on Parry will already give you all of the Avoidance you will ever practically need.
This means that the Justice and Distinguished Primary Defense gear is actually suboptimal to Legion's Breastplate of Elusiveness because it gives a much larger Dodge chance buff by forgoing the useless Avoidance buff. This goes similarly for the Onslaught gear. It used to be the best we could get, at least until we got Cosmic Talons of Rage which allowed us to forgo the unnecessary Avoidance buffs for a straight R5 Dodge Core, even though we went from +55 DEX down to only +24. This is because CON should be your Primary Super Stat, not DEX, because the Dodge Bonus in the CON spec tree actually scales MUCH higher than the DEX spec tree. So even though we lose DEX, the Dodge core ends up being better for us.
On that note, even without ANY DEX bonus from a singular piece of the new Eidolon Secondary Defensive gear, even without the other two pieces to give us any set bonuses, an R9 Dodge Mod STILL ends up giving us more Dodge chance. The previous maximum standing dodge chance you could get was 76.3%, or 103.6% in combat. I know because its what I've used for the longest time and its what lets me Tank at Kigatilik without AoPM, even with his global 3.5% dodge chance debuff. With the new Eidolon piece, its up to 76.6%, or 103.7% in combat. So getting to slot an R9 core mod for us is actually pretty huge.
However, I have to agree with the OP, beyond that, the gear kinda SUCKS. The stats are just atrocious. You don't even GET any stats or bonuses until you have ALL THREE pieces from the SAME set. This is BEYOND dumb. This is one of, if not THE hardest to get gear in the game. It SHOULD be the best, and its absolutely not.
So here's my idea how to fix it:
Get rid of the +50 to All Primary Stat Bonus. This is just WAY too restrictive and underpowered.
Get rid of the +1000 HP if you want to. No one will really miss it. Or keep it. Who cares.
Keep the Ultimate Cooldown Reduction as the 3 piece set bonus. This is pretty cool and unique. I like it.
Give it two slots instead of just one. One Enhancement slot and one Core slot, both up to an R9.
"GASP! SHOCK! AWE! NO! HOW COULD YOU! ITS SO OP!"
...okay but... would it really?
I mean think about it. You don't just get those stats for free. You still NEED to get those R9 mods to get the biggest bang for your buck, and those are far from cheap. Most people top out their gear with R7's. So that'd be what, +62 instead of +55? That's only +21 in total across all three pieces. Even WITH all R9's, that would still only a +66, or +33 more stats than Onslaught Gear with MUCH cheaper R5 mods. Not to mention the other R9 Core mods you'll need too. That is a HEAVY investment appropriate for maximizing your endgame gear.
I think this sounds beyond reasonable. Increased power and flexibility for what should be some of the most prized and highly sought after gear in the game from the biggest baddest endgame boss there is. People should be EXCITED to get these, not criticizing them for how bad and disappointing they are.
Seriously, you're not going to be breaking the game with this. However, what this COULD mean for prospective Dodge Tanks is that Dodge Tanking could perhaps become at least a LITTLE more viable in endgame content without having to MINMAX ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! (Seriously, you even NEED a Veteran's Core of Might for the +13 DEX just to get to 103.6% to reliably tank Kiga). It'd be nice to have just a LITTLE BIT more leeway, please and thanks.
And while we're on THAT note: Please make the Elusive Monk bonus last 3 seconds instead of only 2. You can't even get off a full 1.5 second charge-up attack before it falls off and your Dodge drops below 100%. This is dumb and incredibly and unnecessarily limiting to a tanking style that is already handicapped in 12 other ways. Please help.