I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. I was actually writing a post suggestion here. Whilst I don't mind the current VFX...if it could be more like Force Wall, that would be quite nice!
So backing this suggestion:
Suggestion: Redirected Force VFX
Your suggestion: Please use Force Wall's VFX for the force field dome. Force Wall VFX for reference:
Redirected Force is a 40' sphere and the VFX on PTS look like they reflect the size of the AoE. Whatever VFX is used, I'd like it to continue to fit the size of the AoE.
On a side note, Canada's lighting super increases bloom effects and force fields can look very bright and opaque. I hope whatever VFX used for Redirected Force doesn't do the same. A huge wall of blinding light would not be good.
Obviously I am not recommending that the dome is made smaller, just the actual VFX is changed to match that of Force Wall.
Secondly, Force Shield does not become insanely bright in Canada. Force Wall uses Force Shield VFX, so this should not be an issue.
Bug
Crashing Incantation's energy cost has increased significantly compared to live.
On my Sorcery character, it jumped from 95 on live to 126 on PTS. I'm assuming that this isn't an intended cost adjustment, since it isn't in the patch notes.
No idea why you are advocating for a nerf on a device that has no bearing on the base power. Denial of Service functions perfectly fine as is and already has drawbacks baked into the design. It does not need a nerf.
IF DoS does need to change, some of the restrictions built into the power would likely need to be removed to compensate for the loss of damage.
On test, with 600 str as my ss primary, I do 3005 damage with the new force Cascade with a a full charge. With the variant i do 4006 exactly.
The DoS power variant is not an ultimate power variant. Yet it does 1001 more damage, it interrupts, does this in a line, and it also debuffs 40 percent with download or increases your damage beyond that.
My issue is if they are going to monetize them, as they will do, it should be inline damage wise with the base power.
Also, on a side note, while the spectacle of the inversion reaction for force Cascade is nice It flings enemies so far that its hard to follow up with anything.
Suggestion
Add an inverse inversion advantage that pulls enemies together in one spot and goes boom. Call it gravity well This allows for a gravity powerset to form from force
Edit:
here is a visualization: I use crushing wave and it procs Power shield. I hit force cascade with the "gravity well advantage" and it pulls all those effected by it into one spot and explodes Then use crushing wave to proc power shield again then use the force clap (cannot remember the name right now) with the new inversion advantage that flings the enemies away. Or, if my other suggestion for Gravity Driver is used (see my other post). Drops a bomb that blows the the enemies away while de-buffing the affected enemies for everyone else in a team to mop up.
Suggestion: Demolish Refresher
Force doesn't have a way to refresh demolish, whereas every other set like it has a way to refresh its debuff. I suggest an advantage for force geyser to do this. It'd fall in line with other powers like it, and make force feel a bit less clunky to use.
Suggestion: Demolish Refresher
Force doesn't have a way to refresh demolish, whereas every other set like it has a way to refresh its debuff. I suggest an advantage for force geyser to do this. It'd fall in line with other powers like it, and make force feel a bit less clunky to use.
Force Geyser with Bruiser adv. does refresh Demolish.
Still observing quietly but I have a concern for those who still play. Changing Inertial Dampening Field to a Passive would prevent it from being paired with an existing Aura Passive. It's really only helpful for weak hits or if you already have high defense so why would anyone pick it over Aura of Radiant Protection? This change wouldn't affect me for obvious reasons but for other Pet Masters, this would be a huge nerf as the only other Toggle they can use is one for Bonus Healing, and that wouldn't be as helpful due to the 5-target cap on AoE heals. More generally, it's the only defensive Toggle, the game doesn't need to lose more variety than it already has.
"The good... they do not know how close to evil they really are..." - The Overlord
It has a "Cooldown" of sorts whereas FC doesn't. Should be fine as is, unless the CD mechanic is removed and instead it just does bonus damage with Download/Energy Gain Effect.
That being said it is very annoying that you still *have* to get your main power to Rank 3 for the PVDs.
When I use the variant, with having force cascade, it just takes all my end to fire. Mine regens in full (256 end) in 2-4 seconds. I have not noticed any cool down but will test to see what you mean later (I have gear and mods that lower my recharge rates). But this is the point I am trying to make: 1) A variant power should be based around a change to how the power works- it's usage. It should never do more damage than the normal power does.
As far as damage is concerned, a rank 3 damage cash out type power like Force Cascade should not be 3000 damage with 600 in a primary superstat and 500+ in a secondary superstat when the blast power of the same set does more damage at rank 2 for less usage cost with the same setup (rank 2 with inversion advantage). Utility to work with shields as a goal for the power should exist as a path for character design/building yet. It should not be the only thing force cascade or force does to get the effectiveness that it has on Live with those powers.
I understand this not a discussion thread and is for feedback so I will keep it there in hopes that the above still falls in line with that goal.
TLDR: These force shields (with the exception of Redirected Force) don't have any current usefulness in endgame content whatsoever. Please consider SOME form of resistance for these shields (protection field, advantages on force blast, force eruption, force bolts, etc.), even if it's just something small or just for one power. Yes, I know what's going to be said, "not everything has to be balanced around endgame." But leaving an entire support mechanic limited to only early game content is a little unfair, I feel.
So for the uninitiated, the way the current force shields work (with the exception of Personal Force Field and the new Redirected Force) is that they layer on top of your resistances and defenses, meaning they get eaten up before any of those take effect. In very early game and leveling, this doesn't make too much difference since mobs don't do crazy amounts of damage. In endgame however, resistance and damage values on both the player and enemy side are very high. For example, cosmics will do something like 100,000 damage to you with direct attacks without accounting for any resistances. Once you have all those resistances in place, it lowers the damage down to a much more reasonable level. With current force shields, this resistance isn't accounted for, so regardless of whether you're a tank, or you block, or you have high defense, your shield gets destroyed in that initial 100,000 damage before your resistances are even calculated, so it ends up being completely worthless. That's the way these shields have worked for a very long time, and these changes don't alter that.
Other shields have been improved over time to have endgame application. Bastion/Reckless shields in brick powersets and on certain powers/gear buffs have a shield that stacks with the damage you do. With a recent change, these shields now take your resistances into account, which allows them to be actually pretty useful in endgame. They essentially act as extra HP which can help even when you're blocking. A couple other examples exist like the Hardened Particle Matrix advantage on Energy Wave and Impressive Physique's shielding.
Obviously, given how the shields work currently, simply adding resistance to the shields would cause some balance issues. Instant, several thousand hp strength shields being able to be applied frequently without cooldown can be problematic. So there are plenty of options that can be considered when balancing these shields. You can do something like an optional 3pt advantage on protection field that lowers the values, places the power on cooldown, but allows for the shield to take the target's resistances into account. Alternatively, you could just make the advantage for force eruption that consumes your shield and spreads it to others have resistance counting shields (readjusted in value of course.) I think this advantage is a perfect example for a resistance shield because it requires set-up, cannot be applied to yourself, and already requires a 2pt advantage to even work.
I am NOT arguing that all the shields should be made into resisting shields. I understand that there's value to high-hp value shields without resistance in certain content, and I'm fine with that. However, in the current context of the game, the only shield powers that will be of any use in endgame will be Redirected Force, and that shuts out the powerset for a lot of people in every way except for DPS functions. Endgame support is one of the strictest and least forgiving areas of the game, and this set has the opportunity to provide more functionality and gameplay for that role in its more lacking areas. Just a couple simple power changes here could make all the difference to a ton of players out there! Please consider at least adding something for endgame support to benefit from using these shields!
You can balance it however you see fit: you can make them expensive advantages, increase cost, casting time, add cooldowns, require extra conditions, lower the values, consume certain buffs; whatever you feel is appropriate to make them balanced. But if you leave these shields as they are, they will continue to have no use beyond level 35.
I like the idea of Force utilizing shield effects more, but as it stands it feels as though the set isn't using the shield collapsing mechanic enough when it comes to damage. In Force's current state, there are no native ways of applying a Shield effect to just a single enemy outside of the Containment Field power. Mandatory charge time and CC limitations aside, that power by default applies a Shield only to a single target, and you have no way of capitalizing on it other a fancy Paralyze. While I'm at it... Containment Field's Shield effect expires alongside Paralyze.
Where: Any sufficiently ranked Target (tested on highest rank PH Test Dummy) Suggestion: Containment Field should apply Power Shield on the main target separately from the Paralyze effect.
Containment Field aside, all of Force's new focus is limited to advantages.
There are no other powersets in any category that require 10-12 advantage points' worth of commitment to have a rotation. Most of their own mechanics are baked into powers' core functionality, with advantages being utility options.
Force Blast, Force Detonation, and Force Cascade are the only three powers with the Field Inversion advantage which is required to be able to exploit Shield effects. At 2 points per power, that's 6 points just to have a consistent mechanic. Suggestion: For consistency with other powers, move the bonus damage against Knock-immune targets to an advantage and make the Field Inversion effect innate, perhaps adjust power damage accordingly. Suggestion: Force Cascade's Focus Point advantage should greatly increase the damage dealt by the Field Inversion effect as it is only striking a single target. Suggestion: Increase the damage of all Field Inversion effects by 50% of their current value, or scale them with Rank. Suggestion: Give Force Snap the ability to detonate Shield effects.
Shield appliers are in roughly the same state. Containment Field, Force Geyser, and Crushing Wave are ways of applying exploitable Shields on a group of targets at, again, 2 points on each. These effects cannot be refreshed, but that is a different kind of problem as, yet again, we have a situation where the set cannot function as designed without considerable Advantage point investment. 4 points minimum, if not using Containment Field for the purpose which would make it 6.
That's 12 points you need just to have a basic rotation. Ouch.
Considering how other sets' native effects apply... Suggestion: Force Bolts should be given a 15% chance to apply a Shield effect on a target, with an advantage that boosts the initial chance to 30% and 15% for subsequent attacks. Suggestion: Crushing Wave should be able to guarantee that affected targets have a Shield affect applied to them. Suggestion: Allow Crushing Wave to deal extra damage against Shielded targets. Not in the form of a Field Inversion effect, but rather to be a damage bonus against shielded targets. Power Suggestion: A Single Target Maintain whose main perk is persistent detonations of Shield effects. Power Suggestion: Create a power that allows a player to quickly apply a Shield effect on a target (or targets) without requiring the use of Advantage points, much like how Illumination functions with it's namesake buff\debuff.
As for other aspects of Force, I'm not too familiar with the tanking or CC-ing side of things, and while there could be more oprtions there, I think this would really help Field Surge as an AD: Suggestion: Strengthen Field Surge's shield effect, and give it a passive Shield recharge effect comparable to Resurgence, with a similar bonus to existing recharge rates if using Personal Force Field. Advantage Suggestion: Maybe a 3 Pt that boosts the base damage of all Field Inversion effects while Field Surge is active?
Suggestion: Demolish Refresher
Force doesn't have a way to refresh demolish, whereas every other set like it has a way to refresh its debuff. I suggest an advantage for force geyser to do this. It'd fall in line with other powers like it, and make force feel a bit less clunky to use.
A comparison damage of all three adv on Force Cascade. It is important to note a few things, like Rank 3 and Inversion use the Avenger Spec while the Focus Point uses Guardian. Rank 3 is as basic you get with the DPS output. Energy output is on the high end and I had to balance FC and Geyser to maintain constant energy flow.
For Inversion FC, I had to run with one rather than two shielding effect since I couldn't find an effective way to have both shielding for yourself and your target. But this isn't the biggest weakness of the Inversion adv, no. The biggest weakness comes with the shielding effect it relies on to get the damage buff. You see, the effect with the adv call Entropy Field had a duration of 10 second. There is no possible way to refresh this, even if you spam a power (Geyser in this case) that has this adv. You have to let this fall off. Another problem arose when you have to fully charge a Force Cascade to get this effect. In other words, you could get at least 2 fully charge FC, 3 if you're lucky with the input, in that window of opportunity. More likely, you will fully charge a FC, Entropy Field's duration falls off, and your FC will deal only Rank 2 damage. I can only conclude that Inversion adv is meant for turning your FC into a pseudo Ultimate-tier burst damage.
Focus Points is simply good. It has everything going for it when it comes to damage and energy management (more so than Rank3), except no AoE capacity. You will have to keep that last part in mind. Regardless, I hope someone else try testing this out because we need more info on FC and its effectiveness in combat.
It has a "Cooldown" of sorts whereas FC doesn't. Should be fine as is, unless the CD mechanic is removed and instead it just does bonus damage with Download/Energy Gain Effect.
That being said it is very annoying that you still *have* to get your main power to Rank 3 for the PVDs.
When I use the variant, with having force cascade, it just takes all my end to fire. Mine regens in full (256 end) in 2-4 seconds. I have not noticed any cool down but will test to see what you mean later (I have gear and mods that lower my recharge rates). But this is the point I am trying to make: 1) A variant power should be based around a change to how the power works- it's usage. It should never do more damage than the normal power does.
As far as damage is concerned, a rank 3 damage cash out type power like Force Cascade should not be 3000 damage with 600 in a primary superstat and 500+ in a secondary superstat when the blast power of the same set does more damage at rank 2 for less usage cost with the same setup (rank 2 with inversion advantage). Utility to work with shields as a goal for the power should exist as a path for character design/building yet. It should not be the only thing force cascade or force does to get the effectiveness that it has on Live with those powers.
I understand this not a discussion thread and is for feedback so I will keep it there in hopes that the above still falls in line with that goal.
You missunderstand how the device works. The device works somewhat like previous FC, where it used to consume your Passive or any Energy Form in order to cost less energy. What Denial of Service does is consume a Self-Energy Gain effect (Dark Transfusion or Power Conversion in specific) and will cost less energy. If you fail to do so, the power will cost ALL of your energy and heavily nerf your energy income. What that means is that you're only able to use the device reliably when you have Dark Transfusion or Power Conversion active.
Using it also sets those powers on cooldown, meaning you won't be able to use DoS until that cooldown is back, otherwise you'll be outta energy.
The new FC works nothing like that. The new energy cost is lower and no buffs are consumed. That means you can spam FC, whereas Denial of Service is not spammable.
On the note of PVDs, you're also missunderstanding them. With exception of the lightning rifle, the PVDs are made for completely different builds. A toxic rifle build is *not* a munitions build. You have to build around applying poison and keeping poison, rather than keeping your munitions debuff. The devices work for different purposes and therefore the damage values are different. Similar to how the Laser Pistol has different damage values because it benefits from a specific mechanic, and it also has 100ft instead of 50ft.
That being said while I would agree with you something like Toxic Rifle is inherently better than Assault Rifle, that's more because Munitions, and by proxy its brother Archery, are quite terrible DPS wise. Ranged powersets are either pretty low damage, acceptable/quite good or PA. The other PVDs however, different powers, different mechanics, different values.
I like the idea of Force utilizing shield effects more, but as it stands it feels as though the set isn't using the shield collapsing mechanic enough when it comes to damage. In Force's current state, there are no native ways of applying a Shield effect to just a single enemy outside of the Containment Field power. Mandatory charge time and CC limitations aside, that power by default applies a Shield only to a single target, and you have no way of capitalizing on it other a fancy Paralyze. While I'm at it...
You are absolutely Right!
I was thinking that Force right now needs more Flavour and your comment made me realize... that so called flavour mechanic is only exclusive to ADVs, no power has innate any of those effects and that's pretty bad and Dull 🤔
This would be like Fire, Ice and Electricity none of them having their natural mechanic effects and you would need to access Clinging Flames, Chill and Negative Ions respectively only via ADV for each
Right now the Inversion EXTRA DPS mechanic is not really worth the trouble, it's too insignificant!
EndBringer's Grasp
Increased range to 25ft (from 15).
FX adjustments
. Suggestion: Please have EndBringer's Grasp deal extra damage to complete Mind Control-Corruption Immune targets
Outside it's corruption Gimmick, it's pretty underwhelming during Cosmic fights
All player repel effects now grant repel resistance. Against npcs this effect is minor, where against players this effect grants a greater resistance boost.
Getting back to this!
Even with this new mechanic, Hypervoice's Repel is overwhelming! Suggestion: Make Hypervoice's Repel mechanic the same with Wind Breath
Wind Breath stops repelling the targets when they reach 50 feet range, allowing you to continue attacking! Hypervoice's repel range is a mess that will repel the enemies beyond 50 feet and turn them out of range constantly! It's very frustrating using it on a Sonic-Damage dps, no matter how Gimmicky it is
Wind Reverberation
This power should apply more reliably against Repel immune targets.
New power: Weather Shaping
Form
Boosts ranged damage primarily. Scales off of Endurance.
Triggers when attempting to Repel a target.
U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle won't trigger Neither Wind Reverb nor Weather Shaping on singlet targets
I understand that ONLY the Splash damage effect of the PVDs is able to reverse-repel/vacuum, But against Single targets and bosses its pretty much useless and breaks the synergies!
Suggestion: For more synergies and interaction, Please do something with U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle interaction with those Repel-trigger powers
Perhaps make it count as Repel/vacuum ATTEMPT so it can Trigger both Wind Reverberation and Weather Shaping on Single Targets!
New power: Weather Shaping
Form
Boosts ranged damage primarily. Scales off of Endurance.
Triggers when attempting to Repel a target.
While Repel is Wind's main mechanic, it still feels pretty overspecialized Toggle!
Not as terrible as Archery's Precision toggle at least which ONLY works with Archery powers and nothing else... Seriously... why?
Only Torrent will be the only Wind power not be able to trigger it Suggestion: Give/Create ADV/Innate Pull/Vacuum effects for other powerframe powers as well
For Example: ICE's Snow Storm and FIRE's Pyre can be a candidates for Vacuum ADV
I'm thinking this with the Concept of creating various Elementalists that can take advantage of the new form and Synergies within the sets
Concussion Grenade
New Adv (2): Applies Demolish to your primary target if they are affected by Disorient.
New Adv (2): Applies Disorient to targets.
Disorient is 12 seconds Debuff
Concussion Grenade is has around 10 Seconds and has AOE knock effect The Demolish ADV doesn't apply the same time with the activation of Disoriented, causing a frustrating Dead time between the Disoriented appliance and the Reactivation of Concussion Grenade for the Demolish debuff
Yeah... this is VERY messy! And I don't want to take the Disoriented ADV on Mini Mines for that
I have to say, Shoehorning Disoriented requirements for Munition, a set that has no use or variety of Disoriented powers, doesn't make sense at all! Suggestion: Make the Demolish debuff apply the same time with the Disoriented ADV effect
Suggestion: Have the Demolishing Blast ADV using a Second trigger effect effect requirement! ADV will also apply Demolish to the target if you are under the effect of FURIOUS
FURIOUS Should have more synergy with its own powerframes that utilize it
Armor Piercing/No Quarter/Burn Through
These debuffs are now considered personal debuffs. Only the person who applied the debuff can now benefit from their effects.
I'm going to go ahead and dare suggest another Debuff now that this new rule is gonna be a thing Suggestion: Create an Ice + Crushing Damage Debuff for the WIND POWERFRAME
Since Wind is also getting slightly updated I see no reason not helping it out right now until its turn for revamp!
Same with it's sibling powerframe, Earth
Suggestion: Give EARTH'S Stone Shot (Range Blast) and Onslaught (Melee combo) access to Demolish ADV
The reasoning is that EARTH is in REALLY bad spot right now with both Heavy Weapons and Might UPDATED and Could use some Help being the only BRICK powerframe untouched!
While WIND has GOOD DPS, Earth currently doesn't, it would benefit greatly from its own local debuffers!
Post edited by avianos on
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Suggestion: Give Power Shield ADV on Electric's Neuroelectric Pulse
Underwhelming utility, this power needs more ADV flavour to make up for the fact it's a SCR store power
Enforcer
Now affects ranged combo powers.
Bug: Enforcer Doesn't Buff Infernal- Lash at all
Suggestion: Have Avenger's Preemptive Strike also work with Ranged Combos too!
Suggestion: Have Arbiter Mastery work with Ranged Combos too!
Post edited by avianos on
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
There needs to be a Failsafe mechanic for various pulls powers, so their pulls still be considered as ATTEMPTs against single and Immune targets
Wind Reverberation
This power should apply more reliably against Repel immune targets.
New power: Weather Shaping
Form
Boosts ranged damage primarily. Scales off of Endurance.
Triggers when attempting to Repel a target.
Repel
All player repel effects now grant repel resistance. Against npcs this effect is minor, where against players this effect grants a greater resistance boost.
With those 3 as Criteria, I went ahead and tested every Pull and Vacuum power available
Where Single Targets= The Regular Single Test Dumies
Where Pull-IMMUNE Targets = Regenerating Test Dummies
Forgive my Emoji Use! NOTE: I can't test Eroded Shard ... yeah...
Edit: Forgot to test Transcendence! It's VERY hard power to test constantly
DEVICE: U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle
✅ Triggers Wind Reverberation
✅ Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
🚫 Single Target
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
🚫 Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
Additional Notes: Thought I would admit, giving Repel Resistance Stacks would hurt the Splash Damage gimmick of this power
DEVICE: Shadow Pact
🚫 Triggers Wind Reverberation
🚫 Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
🚫 Single Targets
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
🚫 Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
WIND: Whirlwind + Vortex ADV
✅ Triggers Wind Reverberation
✅ Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
🚫 Single Targets
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
✅ Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
WIND: Updraft + Dispersal ADV
✅ Triggers Wind Reverberation
✅ Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
🚫 Single Targets
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
✅ Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
Darkness: Ebon Rift
✅ Triggers Wind Reverberation
✅ Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
🚫 Single Targets
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
✅ Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
Force: Gravitic Ripple + Inverse Polarity ADV
🚫 Triggers Wind Reverberation
🚫 Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
🚫 Single Targets
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
🚫 Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
Additional Notes: BUG: The Power doesn't even pull the targets right, it keeps Yanking them back and Forth like Whirlwind + Vortex does
Wind: Invocation of Storm Calling + Strong Wind ADV
✅ Triggers Wind Reverberation
✅ Triggers Weather Shaping
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against
✅ Single Targets
🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
So Shadow Strike is now an ultimate power, meaning you can only get it once it starts suffering serious diminishing returns. Also, without Shadow Strike, Night Warrior seem like a pretty crummy passive, it's one advantage was in PvE solo, but without the Shadow Strike it seems a lot less useful for that. Nether passive or ultimate are going to be particularly useful outside of PvE solo I'd imagine.
To say Night Warrior is now a nothing passive is to ignore everything else it can do. It didn't exist just so people could have free defense penetration and a one-shot at early levels. Note that it increases all damage types. It's the most Freeform-friendly DPS passive there is, because you can mix any powerframes you want with it. Not to mention that damage also got buffed (in my measurements, an additional 13% from it's previous iteration) while retaining it's charge speed benefit, and you still get stealth for free. Very useful for getting past needless mooks in PvE, or getting a stronger alpha strike.
It might not be the meta passive anymore, but these changes are far from making it obsolete.
Come on now, what is this? I have also seen people ingame chats, saying that "NW SUCKS NOW" and it boils my blood!
Saying that Night Warrior will be "crummy" is pretty ignorant to what it provides for FF Builds!
I don't need Shadow Strike neither the small Defense penetration with my Night Warrior to PVE Solo the QWZ dailies! That's my true PVE Solo experience metric! And the solo difficulty challenge there is pretty high 😏
Shadow Strike was nothing more than a free second ultimate cheese TBH to CHEESE things (which now this title belongs to the Lockboxes Ultimate power variations devices if the power required for it was going to be in your regular build anyway like Chest Beam)
Night Warrior is still going to be one of the best Freeform building Passives! It also got Damage Boost to make up for the removed penetration and increased Avoidance which will help with survivability
Still the best Passive for Freeform builds with 3-4 different damage types, the removal of the Shadow Strike and Defense penetration won't change a damn thing on my builds!
How Many Passives do we have that increased MORE than 3 damage types?
Night Warrior,
Quarry (to a lower degree because it prioritize PHYSICAL Damage)
Aura of Ebon Destruction (which gets you stuck on Support or Hybrid role) if the AOED could be also slotted as a DPS role passive it would change a lot of things *wink* *wink*
Not to mention, it still buffs ALL DAMAGE TYPES! BOTH RANGE AND MELEE POWERS! I was afraid that the DEVs would Nerf it to the ground and ruin my FF builds! And I'm glad they didn't
My Elementalist build: Fire, Electric, Ice and Crushing Damage! Building around Rimefire! Which passive buffs all 3 of those damage types equally? NONE
My Warlord build: Fire, Darkness, Magic with Fireball being the focused DPS and deal 15k Critical with current gear! NW's charge speed benefit helps it greatly
TL;DR Night Warrior is still GREAT
The only Crummy thing here is Shadow Strike ALONE as an ULTIMATE 😒 mmm yes, an ultimate that can deal 2-digits of damage because it can fail!
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Something extra I've noticed is that IDF still scales off of Presence only as every other Aura has always done. While not necessarily a bug, Aura passives tend to lead to builds which only stack Presence, stifling the usage of any Form that doesn't also scale on Presence. It may be prudent to remove the dependency on Presence for Auras to be potent and let them scale off of all superstats instead so that support forms like Vital Shielding and Smoldering will be considered more often.
I haven't noticed the presence difference on IDF. I haven't equipped it but looking at the description with my healer and with my DPS, the value is just about the same (if I unequip AoPM obviously).
Something extra I've noticed is that IDF still scales off of Presence only as every other Aura has always done. While not necessarily a bug, Aura passives tend to lead to builds which only stack Presence, stifling the usage of any Form that doesn't also scale on Presence. It may be prudent to remove the dependency on Presence for Auras to be potent and let them scale off of all superstats instead so that support forms like Vital Shielding and Smoldering will be considered more often.
I haven't noticed the presence difference on IDF. I haven't equipped it but looking at the description with my healer and with my DPS, the value is just about the same (if I unequip AoPM obviously).
Hmm, my bad. It seems that the absorption is actually just that low across the board. I just saw it being really low while I was testing everything else on Endurance and figured it was because my Presence was poor. Swapping mods out does confirm that IDF is scaling on all superstats... granted it does feel a bit disappointing that it only applies up to like 80 Flat Absorb at most.
Even so, I'd still like the other Auras to change to scale off All SS instead of just Presence.
IDF as a passive is a huge sacrifice to make, as it stands the values are just not enough. Either the flat damage reduction needs to be massive or it needs some personal benefits so that one can use it as a support-offtank of sorts. For example, AoRP is sometimes used by "support tanks", as it gives them just enough resistance to survive while they can also give a small bit of resistance to allies, this is an usually niche build as it makes the tank squishier than Invul/Defiance, but gives a bit to allies around.
As it stands right now, the "benefit" of using IDF as a healer or as a niche support-tank is ignorable. On Cosmics, no DPS or Tank is going to notice a difference between blocking 5000 damage and 4925 damage. On normal content it would be better to take *Seraphim* of all things just cause the healing value you get is going to be better than the flat damage reduction. On TA/Eido OMs it's useless except for the offtank, who generally doesn't need it. On TT same as for the normal content, you'd rather have more healing strength (Harbinger comes to mind) than this.
If that's the planned future for "Passive Auras" then that's awful: with the exception of AoPM, none of them are out of line and don't deserve to be brought down to this kind of uselessness. I'd rather have a presence DPS or a tank healing themselves and the team instead of an "actual healer" if this is what's expected of the auras.
On a different note, Cold Snap (from passive and Active offense) should refresh when applied. Every buff refreshes itself when applied unless it's specifically stated it won't refresh. It also is a crucial mechanic to the tree and currently makes damage wildly variable when it runs out even though you're doing everything right.
Ice cage fix is great tho, thanks!
Also "Shield effect now takes into account resistances." wasn't it a flat damage reduction effect anyways? Don't those apply at the end of the calculation (and so already took resistance into account)? Or am I just missunderstanding something?
IDF’s new scaling seems to operate below resistances as opposed to above them, which should make it much more powerful.
I think the passive description REALLY needs to make this abundantly clear somewhere, because right now, the scaling looks terrible, despite this effect being kitted out for 20 people.
Suggestion: Inertial Dampening Field
Your suggestion: Please consider making the description for this power explain that the absorption it provides applies to resisted damage, not raw damage. It needs SOMETHING to explain this so it isn’t shunned the moment it gets out of PTS. Additionally, I think IDF should apply a capped 2-3k shield on the caster whilst it is active.
This power is a little confusing. Seems to benefit from bonus healing and all which is nice, but there are a few problems:
Bug: Shield Restoration
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: The shield effect this power provides does not actually absorb any damage. Please fix.
Also the placement of where this rune spawns is absolutely criminal for a support rune, particularly one that is meant to be specialised.
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power MUST deploy from caster in a PBAoE like Pillar of Poz and other runes. It should NOT be a target centric spawning rune. It will be DoA if it is.
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power's VFX is identical to Gravitational Polarity. Please consider ripping the Magic Cage VFX from Resistance (Stronghold) Cell Block C and editing that down to a clean dome effect for this power's VFX.
This power is a little confusing. Seems to benefit from bonus healing and all which is nice, but there are a few problems:
Bug: Shield Restoration
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: The shield effect this power provides does not actually absorb any damage. Please fix.
Also the placement of where this rune spawns is absolutely criminal for a support rune, particularly one that is meant to be specialised.
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power MUST deploy from caster in a PBAoE like Pillar of Poz and other runes. It should NOT be a target centric spawning rune. It will be DoA if it is.
yeah ngl I was giga disappointed when I used shield restoration and it showed up on my target 100 feet away, it's kinda like why bother at that point.
Suggestion
Please keep the old Inertial Dampening Field as it was, a form, and use a different name for the new passive. It has niche usage and is being completely removed.
Suggestion: Singularity Bomb
Your suggestion: Please NERF this power's SFX, it is FAR too loud. Please bring it more in line with Gravitar's ability SFX.
Bug: Gravitic Ripple
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Gravitic Ripple's base cooldown is 20 seconds. Not 10 seconds like advertised. Please fix.
So now each of the Sorcery Auras has a 7 second duration that auto refreshes when the effect gets to 1 second remaining. I noticed that it was weird to see the other passive time out.
It is really nice to see their tooltips cleaned up! Particularly Aura of Ebon Destruction's!
Bug: Aura of Primal Majesty
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Hover over description on ally buff bar says "Boosted Damage". Please fix to "Boosted Stats" or "Enhanced".
Bug: Aura of Radiant Protection
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Hover over description on ally buff bar says "Boosted Damage". Please fix to "Boosted Resistance" or "Protected".
Bug: Aura of Arcane Clarity
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Hover over description on ally buff bar says "Boosted Damage" and uses Aura of Radiant Protection's icon. Please fix to "Boosted Cooldown, Perception and Cost Discount" or "Boosted Utility" or "Boosted Lotus Blossom"??.
(I'm not really sure what it should be described as but it definitely doesn't directly boost damage)
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power MUST deploy from caster in a PBAoE like Pillar of Poz and other runes. It should NOT be a target centric spawning rune. It will be DoA if it is.
I disagree on this point. If the power can only be cast from PBAoE, then the advantage associated with it that applies a Shield effect to enemies around it makes the alternative use just as DoA.
I think it actually has a unique application of being a way to prime targets for a Field Inversion FC without immediately aggroing them as it is. It is somewhat confusing that a power named Shield Restoration, categorized under 'Buff Targets', can be used as a debuff on enemies.
I have my own thoughts as to what can be done on this point, though: Suggestion: Shield Restoration
- Extend the power's Rune radius from 15 feet to 20 feet. At present scale, it seems very likely that particularly large targets will prevent melee players and\or tanks from being able to benefit from the rune due to it's target-centric placement in certain encounters.
- Advantage that changes the method of the Rune's deployment from target-centric to a PBAoE effect.
- Alternatively to the above, add the ability (or an advantage) for Force Eruption to spawn the same Rune at the caster's position.
So... IDF as a passive, said to reduce shield effects but account for resistance with them in the patch notes on the other thread. That doesn't appear to be present on the current passive. Might you also specify on whether this applies to shield effects on yourself or on anyone affected by IDF? I love the idea, as long as some care is taken to not let this become an "infinite effective HP" thing, but it's not even active right now from the look of things.
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power MUST deploy from caster in a PBAoE like Pillar of Poz and other runes. It should NOT be a target centric spawning rune. It will be DoA if it is.
I disagree on this point. If the power can only be cast from PBAoE, then the advantage associated with it that applies a Shield effect to enemies around it makes the alternative use just as DoA.
I think it actually has a unique application of being a way to prime targets for a Field Inversion FC without immediately aggroing them as it is. It is somewhat confusing that a power named Shield Restoration, categorized under 'Buff Targets', can be used as a debuff on enemies.
I have my own thoughts as to what can be done on this point, though: Suggestion: Shield Restoration
- Extend the power's Rune radius from 15 feet to 20 feet. At present scale, it seems very likely that particularly large targets will prevent melee players and\or tanks from being able to benefit from the rune due to it's target-centric placement in certain encounters.
- Advantage that changes the method of the Rune's deployment from target-centric to a PBAoE effect.
- Alternatively to the above, add the ability (or an advantage) for Force Eruption to spawn the same Rune at the caster's position.
I understand where you are coming from but the base power is more important than the advantage.
Nothing stops you from using at least 3 or 4 other applicators of Power Shield in the set to achieve the same effect. You'll aggro them eventually anyway.
Additionally, nothing stops you from casting the power (if it was PBAoE) in melee range amidst a number of enemies.
My main issue with the rune is that aside from being bugged, the power seems to suggest that it should actively support your allies yet cannot spawn underneath them.
It might even be better to make it truly unique and make it a rune you can cast on others.
Whilst I doubt the rune will change at this point, from the suggested options presented via advantages, I'd have to say:
The innate ability (or advantage) for Force Eruption to spawn the same rune would be great.
So... IDF as a passive, said to reduce shield effects but account for resistance with them in the patch notes on the other thread. That doesn't appear to be present on the current passive. Might you also specify on whether this applies to shield effects on yourself or on anyone affected by IDF? I love the idea, as long as some care is taken to not let this become an "infinite effective HP" thing, but it's not even active right now from the look of things.
The wording used is a bit confusing.
Inertial Dampening Field
-This power is now a Support Passive
-Can only be slotted in Support role.
-Reduced shield effect.
-Shield effect now takes into account resistances.
-Increases Knock and Hold resistance.
--
With the above the "Shield Effect" referenced here is the ABSORB VALUE that IDF provides, not an actual shield (blue effect over HP) as the game defines them.
So this means that the overall scaling that IDF provided has been reduced. The reason for this is covered in the next point.
"Shield effect now takes into account resistances"
This means the Absorb element of IDF now works below your resistances from defenses, whereas previously it shaved off raw damage.
Unfortunately IDF is a bit busted at the moment so the amount it says it absorbs isn't actually the amount it is absorbing...
Said somewhere earlier in this thread but, IDF feels kinda underwhelming. I think it needs some help but first some bugs:
Bug: Inertial Dampening Field
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: IDF does not absorb the amount it states it does on the tooltip. It is only taking into consideration Rank 2 of IDF. Not Rank 3. Please fix. Example listed below.
Bug: Inertial Dampening Field
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: IDF does not actually apply to team mates when appropriate conditions are fulfilled. Unslotting and reslotting does not solve this. Example listed below. (Wind 1 is team mate and was testing blue beams. IDF did nothing to support).
Bug: Inertial Dampening Field
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: IDF places an stance animation lock on a character when it is slotted, like a "battle ready" pose. This is instantly removed when IDF is unslotted. Examples listed below.
Suggestion: Inertial Dampening Field
Your suggestion: At present due to aesthetics, wording and tooltip, this power feels very underwhelming for a support passive. Frighteningly so. I was going to suggest that IDF places a 2-3k max shield over the caster at all times, but with the access to shield options being greatly expanded, this might be a bit redundant. Maybe something to innately bolster damage resistance as well for the caster and half as much for others? Alternatively improve the scaling so rank 3 at least hits 100 points of absorb.
Note #1: As a general note, referring to absorb as "shield" is confusing. Much like referring to Crowd Control as "Mez". I think the confusion around IDF really highlights this.
Note #2: Regarding IDF again, I think the issue is that typically a slotted passive is meant to be a defining power for a character, so it has to hold some weight either to focus a DPS, focus a Tank, focus a support or focus a Hybrid build. On the surface, IDF just looks like it has gone from form to passive, been nerfed and had some knock rez and hold rez added to it. Due to the nature of Knock rez being quite RNG dependent, this doesn't feel very impactful in combat nor on paper. I personally have a hard time imagining someone levelling with this passive unless something else was added to it OR they had extremely early access to shielding effects. Whilst IDF may not be particularly focused for higher level content...in its current state it makes it a bit questionable as a pick.
Note #3: Whilst I am a fan of knock resistance being piled into Force specifically, I have to wonder if there will be some sort of adjustment to how Knocks work in order to make these changes and additions far more valuable? The RNG system we have at present leaves a lot to be desired when someone can stack 720 STR and still get launched through the air by "Henchie with a Shotgun".
Bug: Fiery Form
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Fiery Form is dealing Mysterious Slashing DamageTM (0 slashing damage) to the caster in combat. Please fix.
...so uh, why would anyone take this passive? It's just an extremely worse AoRP with Knock/Hold resists.
In its current state...I am searching hard to answer this to be honest. I think there's a severe disconnect between how valuable players see Knock/Hold resist vs the Dev Team. Because as a player, whilst it is valuable...it doesn't feel impactful enough to warrant sacrificing a passive slot for.
For example, in addition to current effects I'd maybe expect IDF to:
- Give me and allies Additional Resistance either via an innate shield (2k for me 2.5k for others) or DoT resist.
- Give me and allies some sort of damage boost for Physical Damage (XX% for me, XX% for others)
- Boost my shielding and healing innately by a small amount (5-10% boost)
I hate to say it but the passive looks like half of it is missing.
Then again, as some have speculated, if this is what the future of support looks like...we healers are not going to be as...altruistic as we are now. Because we are all going to have to take care of ourselves first before anyone or anything else.
Because with a passive like this, you could literally just run a DPS/Support build and slap on IDF as a boost.
Also, it might be prudent to ignore: AoRP/AoPM/AoAC/AoED and instead compare this aura to something like:
I liked most of the choices here except for a few, the dual debuffs no longer applying to the whole group that's just gonna make some fights slower and possibly hurt pet builds.
Suggestion: Force Eruption's Gravitational Polarity
I would suggest to make the new version a separate advantage because it is a downgrade from the old one. The energy gained is very small. The dmg boost from the old one was more useful.
The old animation's particle effects looked much better to because the area around you was surging with power. The new one is just a decent looking circle. I am pretty sure someone can make use of the new one it just shouldn't come at the cost to the people who really liked the old one.
So this means that the overall scaling that IDF provided has been reduced. The reason for this is covered in the next point.
"Shield effect now takes into account resistances"
This means the Absorb element of IDF now works below your resistances from defenses, whereas previously it shaved off raw damage.
Unfortunately IDF is a bit busted at the moment so the amount it says it absorbs isn't actually the amount it is absorbing...
IDF already at live counts resistances. So the value is just lower.
And yes Harbinger/Seraphim/Hearth are unimaginably better than 100 flat damage reduction as a passive.
Allow Ricochet Throw - a Tier 0 Power - to cause the Shredded debuff on a full charge without needing a 2 pt. Advantage to pull it in line with other Tier 0 Powers.
In-game, I'm The_Kef -- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "That's really it for Champs."
Has anything changed with the Protection Field animation and cancelling? It seems like its much easier to quick tap and then immediately cast something else than it is on Live.
Otherwise, I rather enjoy the force power changes. The new Singularity Bomb combos nicely into Force Detonation and Force Cascade, and I think really helps bring the set together in terms of making use of the powr fields.
I think some kind of self-cast for Shield Restoration would also be good, even if it's single target and puts the heal over time powers on cooldown, I think it would be quite thematic.
Possible Bug: The Field Inversion advantage on Force Cascade is only counting the Force Blast Shield Generator advantage as a qualifying shield effect to deal additional damage.
I'm not sure if this is intended. I did test it with a passive shield (Bad Sector) and re-read that the advantage specified it has to be a direct shield, so I tried it with Protection Field and Mindful Reinforcement, which are both powers that have to be hard cast with only one shield effect, which seems like an aforementioned "Direct Shield" effect to me, so I was confused when they weren't consumed for the Field Inversion. Only the Force Blast shield did it.
So this means that the overall scaling that IDF provided has been reduced. The reason for this is covered in the next point.
"Shield effect now takes into account resistances"
This means the Absorb element of IDF now works below your resistances from defenses, whereas previously it shaved off raw damage.
Unfortunately IDF is a bit busted at the moment so the amount it says it absorbs isn't actually the amount it is absorbing...
IDF already at live counts resistances. So the value is just lower.
And yes Harbinger/Seraphim/Hearth are unimaginably better than 100 flat damage reduction as a passive.
Based on how it worked, I saw it always applying first. So before resistances, so the resisted value would be quite different. But I always assumed that's because its not a shield. Hmm.
Maybe I need to do more testing.
Not gonna lie, as I've said it does feel kinda pathetic in its current state.
We need to figure out how it translate in the "losing health" equation now.
IIRC, it used to be :
HP after taking damage = Current HP - ((base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer))) - Shield amount)
Now I wonder if its either something like:
1. Shield amount after taking damage = (Current shield amount - (base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer)))
2. HP after taking damage = (Current HP - (base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer))) - Shield amount after taking damage)
or
HP after taking damage = (Current HP + Shield amount) - ((base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer)))
tl;dr : I'm wondering if shields have their own pass of damage mitigation, or if they act as bonus HP
Most shields do not take into consideration damage resistance so they layer over everything (bar absorb and dodge/avoid).
Exceptions are: Bastion, Defensive Combo Shields, Personal Force Field & Field Surge. However Field Surge is an odd one in this line up because whilst it does appear to take into considerations defenses...the status as an active defensive makes it layer over other shields like Protection Field.
That's how *shields* work, but IDF, Invul and so on work as Flat Damage Reduction. It reduces the damage taken at the end of the calculation.
This is on live with a tank. First part is IDF off and second part is IDF on. The damage varies exactly what is written in IDF, meaning it's post damage negation. And it has always been like this even Invul's FDR (flat damage reduction).
If it didn't work like this it wouldn't make any sense. Every game does FDR like this.
For reference if I take 12k damage and reduce it to 6k by resistances, if I then take the same 12k but now have a 5k shield it first reduces the damage to 7k (12k -5k), then my resistance reduces the damage to 3500. So that "5k shield" actually only reduced damage by 2500 (difference between 6k without shield and 35000 with shield). So you can notice because my resistance halves damage, the 5k shield only matters for half of its value too (which is not to say that resistances are bad, but that "Normal" shields that don't count resistance are terrible, especially when you block: the more resistance you have the less those shields do anything for you).
So if IDF/Invul and other FDRs didn't count resistance, the damage difference between unequipped and equipped in practice should *never* be the same as is being told. So the fact I took exactly 132 less damage shows that it does count resistance.
Posting this feedback for the new power in Force. Thanks for taking in consideration my feedback.
While not a advantage, Singularity Bomb does give great utility and combo ability to force as a set
and it functions to bring enemies into a group.
Suggestion
Make the SFX that hits the target a large inverse to the charging animation in the palms when it hits with the particles, when it does not have the stun advantage
Internal Dampening Field in its presented state does not do anything that would work from a solo perspective. I will miss it as a toggle but I have a suggestion to split the difference of the utility
Suggestion
Turn IDF into a Active Defense/support that greatly increases resistances of shields on you and a group around you with the benefits of knock and hold resistance scaling with superstats, within a range.
Advantages for the power does the following:
Increases range of powers effect
lowers cool down by use of Force powers to shield yourself and others (similar to advance advantage on warcry)
(depends on balancing) higher shield resistance and knock and hold
Also I still think Power Shield needs a way to refresh refresh of Power Shield
Suggestion If the current version is not just bugged
Add an internal cool down for energy generation effect of Power Shield like the recharge advantage mechanic but allow for refresh of the effect that are consumed
Also, if possible, remove the shield overlay on the enemy heath bar since it does not protect them from damage
Comments
Obviously I am not recommending that the dome is made smaller, just the actual VFX is changed to match that of Force Wall.
Secondly, Force Shield does not become insanely bright in Canada. Force Wall uses Force Shield VFX, so this should not be an issue.
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I can confirm with the others saying that toggles aren't working. The tiger toggle isn't working in this end.
This has already been mention but I think an image is needed. Force Control has the wrong text .
Crashing Incantation's energy cost has increased significantly compared to live.
On my Sorcery character, it jumped from 95 on live to 126 on PTS. I'm assuming that this isn't an intended cost adjustment, since it isn't in the patch notes.
On test, with 600 str as my ss primary, I do 3005 damage with the new force Cascade with a a full charge. With the variant i do 4006 exactly.
The DoS power variant is not an ultimate power variant. Yet it does 1001 more damage, it interrupts, does this in a line, and it also debuffs 40 percent with download or increases your damage beyond that.
My issue is if they are going to monetize them, as they will do, it should be inline damage wise with the base power.
Also, on a side note, while the spectacle of the inversion reaction for force Cascade is nice It flings enemies so far that its hard to follow up with anything.
Suggestion
Add an inverse inversion advantage that pulls enemies together in one spot and goes boom. Call it gravity well This allows for a gravity powerset to form from force
Edit:
here is a visualization: I use crushing wave and it procs Power shield. I hit force cascade with the "gravity well advantage" and it pulls all those effected by it into one spot and explodes Then use crushing wave to proc power shield again then use the force clap (cannot remember the name right now) with the new inversion advantage that flings the enemies away. Or, if my other suggestion for Gravity Driver is used (see my other post). Drops a bomb that blows the the enemies away while de-buffing the affected enemies for everyone else in a team to mop up.
Force doesn't have a way to refresh demolish, whereas every other set like it has a way to refresh its debuff. I suggest an advantage for force geyser to do this. It'd fall in line with other powers like it, and make force feel a bit less clunky to use.
Force Geyser with Bruiser adv. does refresh Demolish.
- The Overlord
When I use the variant, with having force cascade, it just takes all my end to fire. Mine regens in full (256 end) in 2-4 seconds. I have not noticed any cool down but will test to see what you mean later (I have gear and mods that lower my recharge rates). But this is the point I am trying to make: 1) A variant power should be based around a change to how the power works- it's usage. It should never do more damage than the normal power does.
As far as damage is concerned, a rank 3 damage cash out type power like Force Cascade should not be 3000 damage with 600 in a primary superstat and 500+ in a secondary superstat when the blast power of the same set does more damage at rank 2 for less usage cost with the same setup (rank 2 with inversion advantage). Utility to work with shields as a goal for the power should exist as a path for character design/building yet. It should not be the only thing force cascade or force does to get the effectiveness that it has on Live with those powers.
I understand this not a discussion thread and is for feedback so I will keep it there in hopes that the above still falls in line with that goal.
TLDR: These force shields (with the exception of Redirected Force) don't have any current usefulness in endgame content whatsoever. Please consider SOME form of resistance for these shields (protection field, advantages on force blast, force eruption, force bolts, etc.), even if it's just something small or just for one power. Yes, I know what's going to be said, "not everything has to be balanced around endgame." But leaving an entire support mechanic limited to only early game content is a little unfair, I feel.
So for the uninitiated, the way the current force shields work (with the exception of Personal Force Field and the new Redirected Force) is that they layer on top of your resistances and defenses, meaning they get eaten up before any of those take effect. In very early game and leveling, this doesn't make too much difference since mobs don't do crazy amounts of damage. In endgame however, resistance and damage values on both the player and enemy side are very high. For example, cosmics will do something like 100,000 damage to you with direct attacks without accounting for any resistances. Once you have all those resistances in place, it lowers the damage down to a much more reasonable level. With current force shields, this resistance isn't accounted for, so regardless of whether you're a tank, or you block, or you have high defense, your shield gets destroyed in that initial 100,000 damage before your resistances are even calculated, so it ends up being completely worthless. That's the way these shields have worked for a very long time, and these changes don't alter that.
Other shields have been improved over time to have endgame application. Bastion/Reckless shields in brick powersets and on certain powers/gear buffs have a shield that stacks with the damage you do. With a recent change, these shields now take your resistances into account, which allows them to be actually pretty useful in endgame. They essentially act as extra HP which can help even when you're blocking. A couple other examples exist like the Hardened Particle Matrix advantage on Energy Wave and Impressive Physique's shielding.
Obviously, given how the shields work currently, simply adding resistance to the shields would cause some balance issues. Instant, several thousand hp strength shields being able to be applied frequently without cooldown can be problematic. So there are plenty of options that can be considered when balancing these shields. You can do something like an optional 3pt advantage on protection field that lowers the values, places the power on cooldown, but allows for the shield to take the target's resistances into account. Alternatively, you could just make the advantage for force eruption that consumes your shield and spreads it to others have resistance counting shields (readjusted in value of course.) I think this advantage is a perfect example for a resistance shield because it requires set-up, cannot be applied to yourself, and already requires a 2pt advantage to even work.
I am NOT arguing that all the shields should be made into resisting shields. I understand that there's value to high-hp value shields without resistance in certain content, and I'm fine with that. However, in the current context of the game, the only shield powers that will be of any use in endgame will be Redirected Force, and that shuts out the powerset for a lot of people in every way except for DPS functions. Endgame support is one of the strictest and least forgiving areas of the game, and this set has the opportunity to provide more functionality and gameplay for that role in its more lacking areas. Just a couple simple power changes here could make all the difference to a ton of players out there! Please consider at least adding something for endgame support to benefit from using these shields!
You can balance it however you see fit: you can make them expensive advantages, increase cost, casting time, add cooldowns, require extra conditions, lower the values, consume certain buffs; whatever you feel is appropriate to make them balanced. But if you leave these shields as they are, they will continue to have no use beyond level 35.
I like the idea of Force utilizing shield effects more, but as it stands it feels as though the set isn't using the shield collapsing mechanic enough when it comes to damage. In Force's current state, there are no native ways of applying a Shield effect to just a single enemy outside of the Containment Field power. Mandatory charge time and CC limitations aside, that power by default applies a Shield only to a single target, and you have no way of capitalizing on it other a fancy Paralyze. While I'm at it...
Containment Field's Shield effect expires alongside Paralyze.
Where: Any sufficiently ranked Target (tested on highest rank PH Test Dummy)
Suggestion: Containment Field should apply Power Shield on the main target separately from the Paralyze effect.
Containment Field aside, all of Force's new focus is limited to advantages.
There are no other powersets in any category that require 10-12 advantage points' worth of commitment to have a rotation. Most of their own mechanics are baked into powers' core functionality, with advantages being utility options.
Force Blast, Force Detonation, and Force Cascade are the only three powers with the Field Inversion advantage which is required to be able to exploit Shield effects. At 2 points per power, that's 6 points just to have a consistent mechanic.
Suggestion: For consistency with other powers, move the bonus damage against Knock-immune targets to an advantage and make the Field Inversion effect innate, perhaps adjust power damage accordingly.
Suggestion: Force Cascade's Focus Point advantage should greatly increase the damage dealt by the Field Inversion effect as it is only striking a single target.
Suggestion: Increase the damage of all Field Inversion effects by 50% of their current value, or scale them with Rank.
Suggestion: Give Force Snap the ability to detonate Shield effects.
Shield appliers are in roughly the same state. Containment Field, Force Geyser, and Crushing Wave are ways of applying exploitable Shields on a group of targets at, again, 2 points on each. These effects cannot be refreshed, but that is a different kind of problem as, yet again, we have a situation where the set cannot function as designed without considerable Advantage point investment. 4 points minimum, if not using Containment Field for the purpose which would make it 6.
That's 12 points you need just to have a basic rotation. Ouch.
Considering how other sets' native effects apply...
Suggestion: Force Bolts should be given a 15% chance to apply a Shield effect on a target, with an advantage that boosts the initial chance to 30% and 15% for subsequent attacks.
Suggestion: Crushing Wave should be able to guarantee that affected targets have a Shield affect applied to them.
Suggestion: Allow Crushing Wave to deal extra damage against Shielded targets. Not in the form of a Field Inversion effect, but rather to be a damage bonus against shielded targets.
Power Suggestion: A Single Target Maintain whose main perk is persistent detonations of Shield effects.
Power Suggestion: Create a power that allows a player to quickly apply a Shield effect on a target (or targets) without requiring the use of Advantage points, much like how Illumination functions with it's namesake buff\debuff.
As for other aspects of Force, I'm not too familiar with the tanking or CC-ing side of things, and while there could be more oprtions there, I think this would really help Field Surge as an AD:
Suggestion: Strengthen Field Surge's shield effect, and give it a passive Shield recharge effect comparable to Resurgence, with a similar bonus to existing recharge rates if using Personal Force Field.
Advantage Suggestion: Maybe a 3 Pt that boosts the base damage of all Field Inversion effects while Field Surge is active?
Force geyser has a demolish refresh adv
Please consider adding an innate knockdown to the initial pulse of Gravitic Ripple
New Adv (2): Applies Force Sheathe for as long as Gravitic Ripple is maintained
Adv (1): Challenge!
For Inversion FC, I had to run with one rather than two shielding effect since I couldn't find an effective way to have both shielding for yourself and your target. But this isn't the biggest weakness of the Inversion adv, no. The biggest weakness comes with the shielding effect it relies on to get the damage buff. You see, the effect with the adv call Entropy Field had a duration of 10 second. There is no possible way to refresh this, even if you spam a power (Geyser in this case) that has this adv. You have to let this fall off. Another problem arose when you have to fully charge a Force Cascade to get this effect. In other words, you could get at least 2 fully charge FC, 3 if you're lucky with the input, in that window of opportunity. More likely, you will fully charge a FC, Entropy Field's duration falls off, and your FC will deal only Rank 2 damage. I can only conclude that Inversion adv is meant for turning your FC into a pseudo Ultimate-tier burst damage.
Focus Points is simply good. It has everything going for it when it comes to damage and energy management (more so than Rank3), except no AoE capacity. You will have to keep that last part in mind. Regardless, I hope someone else try testing this out because we need more info on FC and its effectiveness in combat.
You missunderstand how the device works. The device works somewhat like previous FC, where it used to consume your Passive or any Energy Form in order to cost less energy. What Denial of Service does is consume a Self-Energy Gain effect (Dark Transfusion or Power Conversion in specific) and will cost less energy. If you fail to do so, the power will cost ALL of your energy and heavily nerf your energy income. What that means is that you're only able to use the device reliably when you have Dark Transfusion or Power Conversion active.
Using it also sets those powers on cooldown, meaning you won't be able to use DoS until that cooldown is back, otherwise you'll be outta energy.
The new FC works nothing like that. The new energy cost is lower and no buffs are consumed. That means you can spam FC, whereas Denial of Service is not spammable.
On the note of PVDs, you're also missunderstanding them. With exception of the lightning rifle, the PVDs are made for completely different builds. A toxic rifle build is *not* a munitions build. You have to build around applying poison and keeping poison, rather than keeping your munitions debuff. The devices work for different purposes and therefore the damage values are different. Similar to how the Laser Pistol has different damage values because it benefits from a specific mechanic, and it also has 100ft instead of 50ft.
That being said while I would agree with you something like Toxic Rifle is inherently better than Assault Rifle, that's more because Munitions, and by proxy its brother Archery, are quite terrible DPS wise. Ranged powersets are either pretty low damage, acceptable/quite good or PA. The other PVDs however, different powers, different mechanics, different values.
I was thinking that Force right now needs more Flavour and your comment made me realize... that so called flavour mechanic is only exclusive to ADVs, no power has innate any of those effects and that's pretty bad and Dull 🤔
This would be like Fire, Ice and Electricity none of them having their natural mechanic effects and you would need to access Clinging Flames, Chill and Negative Ions respectively only via ADV for each
Right now the Inversion EXTRA DPS mechanic is not really worth the trouble, it's too insignificant! .
Suggestion: Please have EndBringer's Grasp deal extra damage to complete Mind Control-Corruption Immune targets
Outside it's corruption Gimmick, it's pretty underwhelming during Cosmic fights
Getting back to this!
Even with this new mechanic, Hypervoice's Repel is overwhelming!
Suggestion: Make Hypervoice's Repel mechanic the same with Wind Breath
Wind Breath stops repelling the targets when they reach 50 feet range, allowing you to continue attacking!
Hypervoice's repel range is a mess that will repel the enemies beyond 50 feet and turn them out of range constantly! It's very frustrating using it on a Sonic-Damage dps, no matter how Gimmicky it is
U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle won't trigger Neither Wind Reverb nor Weather Shaping on singlet targets
I understand that ONLY the Splash damage effect of the PVDs is able to reverse-repel/vacuum, But against Single targets and bosses its pretty much useless and breaks the synergies!
Suggestion: For more synergies and interaction, Please do something with U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle interaction with those Repel-trigger powers
Perhaps make it count as Repel/vacuum ATTEMPT so it can Trigger both Wind Reverberation and Weather Shaping on Single Targets!
While Repel is Wind's main mechanic, it still feels pretty overspecialized Toggle!
Not as terrible as Archery's Precision toggle at least which ONLY works with Archery powers and nothing else... Seriously... why?
Only Torrent will be the only Wind power not be able to trigger it
Suggestion: Give/Create ADV/Innate Pull/Vacuum effects for other powerframe powers as well
For Example: ICE's Snow Storm and FIRE's Pyre can be a candidates for Vacuum ADV
I'm thinking this with the Concept of creating various Elementalists that can take advantage of the new form and Synergies within the sets Disorient is 12 seconds Debuff
Concussion Grenade is has around 10 Seconds and has AOE knock effect
The Demolish ADV doesn't apply the same time with the activation of Disoriented, causing a frustrating Dead time between the Disoriented appliance and the Reactivation of Concussion Grenade for the Demolish debuff
Yeah... this is VERY messy! And I don't want to take the Disoriented ADV on Mini Mines for that
I have to say, Shoehorning Disoriented requirements for Munition, a set that has no use or variety of Disoriented powers, doesn't make sense at all!
Suggestion: Make the Demolish debuff apply the same time with the Disoriented ADV effect
Suggestion: Have the Demolishing Blast ADV using a Second trigger effect effect requirement! ADV will also apply Demolish to the target if you are under the effect of FURIOUS
FURIOUS Should have more synergy with its own powerframes that utilize it I'm going to go ahead and dare suggest another Debuff now that this new rule is gonna be a thing
Suggestion: Create an Ice + Crushing Damage Debuff for the WIND POWERFRAME
Since Wind is also getting slightly updated I see no reason not helping it out right now until its turn for revamp!
Same with it's sibling powerframe, Earth
Suggestion: Give EARTH'S Stone Shot (Range Blast) and Onslaught (Melee combo) access to Demolish ADV
The reasoning is that EARTH is in REALLY bad spot right now with both Heavy Weapons and Might UPDATED and Could use some Help being the only BRICK powerframe untouched!
While WIND has GOOD DPS, Earth currently doesn't, it would benefit greatly from its own local debuffers!
Underwhelming utility, this power needs more ADV flavour to make up for the fact it's a SCR store power
Bug: Enforcer Doesn't Buff Infernal- Lash at all
Suggestion: Have Avenger's Preemptive Strike also work with Ranged Combos too!
Suggestion: Have Arbiter Mastery work with Ranged Combos too!
With those 3 as Criteria, I went ahead and tested every Pull and Vacuum power available
Where Single Targets= The Regular Single Test Dumies
Where Pull-IMMUNE Targets = Regenerating Test Dummies
Forgive my Emoji Use!
NOTE: I can't test Eroded Shard ... yeah...
Edit: Forgot to test Transcendence! It's VERY hard power to test constantly
DEVICE: U-MD Ghosthunter Phase Rifle
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- 🚫 Single Target
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
Additional Notes: Thought I would admit, giving Repel Resistance Stacks would hurt the Splash Damage gimmick of this power
DEVICE: Shadow Pact
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- 🚫 Single Targets
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
WIND: Whirlwind + Vortex ADV
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- 🚫 Single Targets
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
WIND: Updraft + Dispersal ADV
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- 🚫 Single Targets
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
Darkness: Ebon Rift
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- 🚫 Single Targets
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
Force: Gravitic Ripple + Inverse Polarity ADV
- 🚫 Triggers Wind Reverberation
- 🚫 Triggers Weather Shaping
- 🚫 Triggers Repel Resistance Stacks
Additional Notes: BUG: The Power doesn't even pull the targets right, it keeps Yanking them back and Forth like Whirlwind + Vortex does└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- 🚫 Single Targets
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
Wind: Invocation of Storm Calling + Strong Wind ADV
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- ✅ Single Targets
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
It only works on AOE with multiple targets
Electricity: Storm Summoner + Magnetic ADV
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- ✅ Single Target
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
Gadgets: Tractor Beam
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- ✅ Single Target
- 🚫 Pull-IMMUNE Targets
Wind Breath (Within the Repel Distance)
Wind Shield
Hyper Voice
Crushing Wave
Implosion Engine
Hurricane
Concussor Beam (Within the Repel Distance)
Dual Wrist Rocket Barrage (Within the Repel Distance)
Quick Sand (from rank 1 to 3) + Repulsing Waves (plus rank 2)
└📁Can the Power Trigger those two above against- ✅ Single Target
- ✅ Pull IMMUNE Targets
It might not be the meta passive anymore, but these changes are far from making it obsolete.
Saying that Night Warrior will be "crummy" is pretty ignorant to what it provides for FF Builds!
I don't need Shadow Strike neither the small Defense penetration with my Night Warrior to PVE Solo the QWZ dailies! That's my true PVE Solo experience metric! And the solo difficulty challenge there is pretty high 😏
Shadow Strike was nothing more than a free second ultimate cheese TBH to CHEESE things (which now this title belongs to the Lockboxes Ultimate power variations devices if the power required for it was going to be in your regular build anyway like Chest Beam)
Night Warrior is still going to be one of the best Freeform building Passives! It also got Damage Boost to make up for the removed penetration and increased Avoidance which will help with survivability
Still the best Passive for Freeform builds with 3-4 different damage types, the removal of the Shadow Strike and Defense penetration won't change a damn thing on my builds!
How Many Passives do we have that increased MORE than 3 damage types?
Not to mention, it still buffs ALL DAMAGE TYPES! BOTH RANGE AND MELEE POWERS! I was afraid that the DEVs would Nerf it to the ground and ruin my FF builds! And I'm glad they didn't
TL;DR Night Warrior is still GREAT
The only Crummy thing here is Shadow Strike ALONE as an ULTIMATE 😒 mmm yes, an ultimate that can deal 2-digits of damage because it can fail!
FC.31.20220721.4
I haven't noticed the presence difference on IDF. I haven't equipped it but looking at the description with my healer and with my DPS, the value is just about the same (if I unequip AoPM obviously).
Hmm, my bad. It seems that the absorption is actually just that low across the board. I just saw it being really low while I was testing everything else on Endurance and figured it was because my Presence was poor. Swapping mods out does confirm that IDF is scaling on all superstats... granted it does feel a bit disappointing that it only applies up to like 80 Flat Absorb at most.
Even so, I'd still like the other Auras to change to scale off All SS instead of just Presence.
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
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As it stands right now, the "benefit" of using IDF as a healer or as a niche support-tank is ignorable. On Cosmics, no DPS or Tank is going to notice a difference between blocking 5000 damage and 4925 damage. On normal content it would be better to take *Seraphim* of all things just cause the healing value you get is going to be better than the flat damage reduction. On TA/Eido OMs it's useless except for the offtank, who generally doesn't need it. On TT same as for the normal content, you'd rather have more healing strength (Harbinger comes to mind) than this.
If that's the planned future for "Passive Auras" then that's awful: with the exception of AoPM, none of them are out of line and don't deserve to be brought down to this kind of uselessness. I'd rather have a presence DPS or a tank healing themselves and the team instead of an "actual healer" if this is what's expected of the auras.
On a different note, Cold Snap (from passive and Active offense) should refresh when applied. Every buff refreshes itself when applied unless it's specifically stated it won't refresh. It also is a crucial mechanic to the tree and currently makes damage wildly variable when it runs out even though you're doing everything right.
Ice cage fix is great tho, thanks!
Also "Shield effect now takes into account resistances." wasn't it a flat damage reduction effect anyways? Don't those apply at the end of the calculation (and so already took resistance into account)? Or am I just missunderstanding something?
I think the passive description REALLY needs to make this abundantly clear somewhere, because right now, the scaling looks terrible, despite this effect being kitted out for 20 people.
Suggestion: Inertial Dampening Field
Your suggestion: Please consider making the description for this power explain that the absorption it provides applies to resisted damage, not raw damage. It needs SOMETHING to explain this so it isn’t shunned the moment it gets out of PTS. Additionally, I think IDF should apply a capped 2-3k shield on the caster whilst it is active.
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This power is a little confusing. Seems to benefit from bonus healing and all which is nice, but there are a few problems:
Bug: Shield Restoration
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: The shield effect this power provides does not actually absorb any damage. Please fix.
Also the placement of where this rune spawns is absolutely criminal for a support rune, particularly one that is meant to be specialised.
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power MUST deploy from caster in a PBAoE like Pillar of Poz and other runes. It should NOT be a target centric spawning rune. It will be DoA if it is.
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
Your suggestion: This power's VFX is identical to Gravitational Polarity. Please consider ripping the Magic Cage VFX from Resistance (Stronghold) Cell Block C and editing that down to a clean dome effect for this power's VFX.
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yeah ngl I was giga disappointed when I used shield restoration and it showed up on my target 100 feet away, it's kinda like why bother at that point.
Please keep the old Inertial Dampening Field as it was, a form, and use a different name for the new passive. It has niche usage and is being completely removed.
Your suggestion: Please NERF this power's SFX, it is FAR too loud. Please bring it more in line with Gravitar's ability SFX.
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Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Gravitic Ripple's base cooldown is 20 seconds. Not 10 seconds like advertised. Please fix.
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So now each of the Sorcery Auras has a 7 second duration that auto refreshes when the effect gets to 1 second remaining. I noticed that it was weird to see the other passive time out.
It is really nice to see their tooltips cleaned up! Particularly Aura of Ebon Destruction's!
Bug: Aura of Primal Majesty
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Hover over description on ally buff bar says "Boosted Damage". Please fix to "Boosted Stats" or "Enhanced".
Bug: Aura of Radiant Protection
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Hover over description on ally buff bar says "Boosted Damage". Please fix to "Boosted Resistance" or "Protected".
Bug: Aura of Arcane Clarity
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Hover over description on ally buff bar says "Boosted Damage" and uses Aura of Radiant Protection's icon. Please fix to "Boosted Cooldown, Perception and Cost Discount" or "Boosted Utility" or "Boosted Lotus Blossom"??.
(I'm not really sure what it should be described as but it definitely doesn't directly boost damage)
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I disagree on this point. If the power can only be cast from PBAoE, then the advantage associated with it that applies a Shield effect to enemies around it makes the alternative use just as DoA.
I think it actually has a unique application of being a way to prime targets for a Field Inversion FC without immediately aggroing them as it is. It is somewhat confusing that a power named Shield Restoration, categorized under 'Buff Targets', can be used as a debuff on enemies.
I have my own thoughts as to what can be done on this point, though:
Suggestion: Shield Restoration
- Extend the power's Rune radius from 15 feet to 20 feet. At present scale, it seems very likely that particularly large targets will prevent melee players and\or tanks from being able to benefit from the rune due to it's target-centric placement in certain encounters.
- Advantage that changes the method of the Rune's deployment from target-centric to a PBAoE effect.
- Alternatively to the above, add the ability (or an advantage) for Force Eruption to spawn the same Rune at the caster's position.
I understand where you are coming from but the base power is more important than the advantage.
Nothing stops you from using at least 3 or 4 other applicators of Power Shield in the set to achieve the same effect. You'll aggro them eventually anyway.
Additionally, nothing stops you from casting the power (if it was PBAoE) in melee range amidst a number of enemies.
My main issue with the rune is that aside from being bugged, the power seems to suggest that it should actively support your allies yet cannot spawn underneath them.
It might even be better to make it truly unique and make it a rune you can cast on others.
Whilst I doubt the rune will change at this point, from the suggested options presented via advantages, I'd have to say:
The innate ability (or advantage) for Force Eruption to spawn the same rune would be great.
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The wording used is a bit confusing.
Inertial Dampening Field
-This power is now a Support Passive
-Can only be slotted in Support role.
-Reduced shield effect.
-Shield effect now takes into account resistances.
-Increases Knock and Hold resistance.
--
With the above the "Shield Effect" referenced here is the ABSORB VALUE that IDF provides, not an actual shield (blue effect over HP) as the game defines them.
So this means that the overall scaling that IDF provided has been reduced. The reason for this is covered in the next point.
"Shield effect now takes into account resistances"
This means the Absorb element of IDF now works below your resistances from defenses, whereas previously it shaved off raw damage.
Unfortunately IDF is a bit busted at the moment so the amount it says it absorbs isn't actually the amount it is absorbing...
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...so uh, why would anyone take this passive? It's just an extremely worse AoRP with Knock/Hold resists.
Said somewhere earlier in this thread but, IDF feels kinda underwhelming. I think it needs some help but first some bugs:
Bug: Inertial Dampening Field
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: IDF does not absorb the amount it states it does on the tooltip. It is only taking into consideration Rank 2 of IDF. Not Rank 3. Please fix. Example listed below.
Bug: Inertial Dampening Field
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: IDF does not actually apply to team mates when appropriate conditions are fulfilled. Unslotting and reslotting does not solve this. Example listed below. (Wind 1 is team mate and was testing blue beams. IDF did nothing to support).
Bug: Inertial Dampening Field
Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: IDF places an stance animation lock on a character when it is slotted, like a "battle ready" pose. This is instantly removed when IDF is unslotted. Examples listed below.
Suggestion: Inertial Dampening Field
Your suggestion: At present due to aesthetics, wording and tooltip, this power feels very underwhelming for a support passive. Frighteningly so. I was going to suggest that IDF places a 2-3k max shield over the caster at all times, but with the access to shield options being greatly expanded, this might be a bit redundant. Maybe something to innately bolster damage resistance as well for the caster and half as much for others? Alternatively improve the scaling so rank 3 at least hits 100 points of absorb.
Note #1: As a general note, referring to absorb as "shield" is confusing. Much like referring to Crowd Control as "Mez". I think the confusion around IDF really highlights this.
Note #2: Regarding IDF again, I think the issue is that typically a slotted passive is meant to be a defining power for a character, so it has to hold some weight either to focus a DPS, focus a Tank, focus a support or focus a Hybrid build. On the surface, IDF just looks like it has gone from form to passive, been nerfed and had some knock rez and hold rez added to it. Due to the nature of Knock rez being quite RNG dependent, this doesn't feel very impactful in combat nor on paper. I personally have a hard time imagining someone levelling with this passive unless something else was added to it OR they had extremely early access to shielding effects. Whilst IDF may not be particularly focused for higher level content...in its current state it makes it a bit questionable as a pick.
Note #3: Whilst I am a fan of knock resistance being piled into Force specifically, I have to wonder if there will be some sort of adjustment to how Knocks work in order to make these changes and additions far more valuable? The RNG system we have at present leaves a lot to be desired when someone can stack 720 STR and still get launched through the air by "Henchie with a Shotgun".
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Where it happens: PTS (all ranks)
What happens: Fiery Form is dealing Mysterious Slashing DamageTM (0 slashing damage) to the caster in combat. Please fix.
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In its current state...I am searching hard to answer this to be honest. I think there's a severe disconnect between how valuable players see Knock/Hold resist vs the Dev Team. Because as a player, whilst it is valuable...it doesn't feel impactful enough to warrant sacrificing a passive slot for.
For example, in addition to current effects I'd maybe expect IDF to:
- Give me and allies Additional Resistance either via an innate shield (2k for me 2.5k for others) or DoT resist.
- Give me and allies some sort of damage boost for Physical Damage (XX% for me, XX% for others)
- Boost my shielding and healing innately by a small amount (5-10% boost)
I hate to say it but the passive looks like half of it is missing.
Then again, as some have speculated, if this is what the future of support looks like...we healers are not going to be as...altruistic as we are now. Because we are all going to have to take care of ourselves first before anyone or anything else.
Because with a passive like this, you could literally just run a DPS/Support build and slap on IDF as a boost.
Also, it might be prudent to ignore: AoRP/AoPM/AoAC/AoED and instead compare this aura to something like:
- Harbinger
- Hearth
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Suggestion: Force Eruption's Gravitational Polarity
I would suggest to make the new version a separate advantage because it is a downgrade from the old one. The energy gained is very small. The dmg boost from the old one was more useful.
The old animation's particle effects looked much better to because the area around you was surging with power. The new one is just a decent looking circle. I am pretty sure someone can make use of the new one it just shouldn't come at the cost to the people who really liked the old one.
IDF already at live counts resistances. So the value is just lower.
And yes Harbinger/Seraphim/Hearth are unimaginably better than 100 flat damage reduction as a passive.
Otherwise, I rather enjoy the force power changes. The new Singularity Bomb combos nicely into Force Detonation and Force Cascade, and I think really helps bring the set together in terms of making use of the powr fields.
I think some kind of self-cast for Shield Restoration would also be good, even if it's single target and puts the heal over time powers on cooldown, I think it would be quite thematic.
I'm not sure if this is intended. I did test it with a passive shield (Bad Sector) and re-read that the advantage specified it has to be a direct shield, so I tried it with Protection Field and Mindful Reinforcement, which are both powers that have to be hard cast with only one shield effect, which seems like an aforementioned "Direct Shield" effect to me, so I was confused when they weren't consumed for the Field Inversion. Only the Force Blast shield did it.
Sorry
Based on how it worked, I saw it always applying first. So before resistances, so the resisted value would be quite different. But I always assumed that's because its not a shield. Hmm.
Maybe I need to do more testing.
Not gonna lie, as I've said it does feel kinda pathetic in its current state.
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IIRC, it used to be :
HP after taking damage = Current HP - ((base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer))) - Shield amount)
Now I wonder if its either something like:
1. Shield amount after taking damage = (Current shield amount - (base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer)))
2. HP after taking damage = (Current HP - (base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer))) - Shield amount after taking damage)
or
HP after taking damage = (Current HP + Shield amount) - ((base damage / ((1+resistance layer) * block layer)))
tl;dr : I'm wondering if shields have their own pass of damage mitigation, or if they act as bonus HP
Most shields do not take into consideration damage resistance so they layer over everything (bar absorb and dodge/avoid).
Exceptions are: Bastion, Defensive Combo Shields, Personal Force Field & Field Surge. However Field Surge is an odd one in this line up because whilst it does appear to take into considerations defenses...the status as an active defensive makes it layer over other shields like Protection Field.
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This is on live with a tank. First part is IDF off and second part is IDF on. The damage varies exactly what is written in IDF, meaning it's post damage negation. And it has always been like this even Invul's FDR (flat damage reduction).
If it didn't work like this it wouldn't make any sense. Every game does FDR like this.
For reference if I take 12k damage and reduce it to 6k by resistances, if I then take the same 12k but now have a 5k shield it first reduces the damage to 7k (12k -5k), then my resistance reduces the damage to 3500. So that "5k shield" actually only reduced damage by 2500 (difference between 6k without shield and 35000 with shield). So you can notice because my resistance halves damage, the 5k shield only matters for half of its value too (which is not to say that resistances are bad, but that "Normal" shields that don't count resistance are terrible, especially when you block: the more resistance you have the less those shields do anything for you).
So if IDF/Invul and other FDRs didn't count resistance, the damage difference between unequipped and equipped in practice should *never* be the same as is being told. So the fact I took exactly 132 less damage shows that it does count resistance.
While not a advantage, Singularity Bomb does give great utility and combo ability to force as a set
and it functions to bring enemies into a group.
Suggestion
Make the SFX that hits the target a large inverse to the charging animation in the palms when it hits with the particles, when it does not have the stun advantage
Internal Dampening Field in its presented state does not do anything that would work from a solo perspective. I will miss it as a toggle but I have a suggestion to split the difference of the utility
Suggestion
Turn IDF into a Active Defense/support that greatly increases resistances of shields on you and a group around you with the benefits of knock and hold resistance scaling with superstats, within a range.
Advantages for the power does the following:
Also I still think Power Shield needs a way to refresh refresh of Power Shield
Suggestion If the current version is not just bugged
Add an internal cool down for energy generation effect of Power Shield like the recharge advantage mechanic but allow for refresh of the effect that are consumed
Also, if possible, remove the shield overlay on the enemy heath bar since it does not protect them from damage