Force Should have Support Role

merlinmonroe · June 2014

Force has several abilities for protecting allies. For this reason, it should have a support role.

riverocean · June 2014

gradii wrote: »

um what? no powerset has any one "role"

if you're talking about the impulse AT, the whole thing needs a redo. even the stats are all WRONG.

The AT's in general need some tweaking. The game has changed some since they were introduced and only a handful of them are viable for Rampages and hard content. Which is sad really.

I'd like to see a new Support AT that focused on some other dynamic other than "healing". A bubble caster of some sort would be nice, provided the stats were done correctly.

bluhman · June 2014

riverocean wrote: »

I'd like to see a new Support AT that focused on some other dynamic other than "healing". A bubble caster of some sort would be nice, provided the stats were done correctly.

This could've been more of a reality if Redirected Force hadn't been a hamfisted gimmick to generate self-damage buffs (that are ridiculously short.)

I've said many times; it should've been a purely-defensive sphere ability (maybe even an attack that pushes enemies outside) that grants semi-block levels of defense to everyone within, but depletes energy whenever anyone is hit.

theravenforce · June 2014

bluhman wrote: »

This could've been more of a reality if Redirected Force hadn't been a hamfisted gimmick to generate self-damage buffs (that are ridiculously short.)

I've said many times; it should've been a purely-defensive sphere ability (maybe even an attack that pushes enemies outside) that grants semi-block levels of defense to everyone within, but depletes energy whenever anyone is hit.

THIS. RIGHT HERE.

I also said that. So. many. times. I BEGGED for an AoE Shielding ability and it was turned into Redirected Force.

Which turned out to be a major disappointment. If anything the way to improve Redirected right now, would be to make it a toggle ability which allows you to run a few other powers at the same time.

I'd have given it a pass if the percentage was still 50-60% to keep it as is. But the 20% defense simply doesn't feel as if it is enough to go on. (And that 20% it grants is meant to be outside of DR, apparently this is not the case...so...)

theravenforce · June 2014

merlinmonroe wrote: »

Force has several abilities for protecting allies. For this reason, it should have a support role.

The entire power set is based on a gimmick of knocking people around.

A gimmick which on the surface sounds and looks cool but pretty much falls flat on it's face when everything in game besides some objects have knock resistance stacks.

Like Crowd Control it's "three strikes and you are out!", so it's no surprise The Impulse AT was sub par at best.

It's signature passive has been broken since Beta and has repeatedly been breaking over the course of time and takes a fair amount of maintenance to uphold in combat, which lessens it's appeal.

The power set focuses waay too much on knocks and damage to allow room for creative force field usage in terms of team defense and shielding abilities. It's not like, giant AoE Force Fields aren't possible in CO, I've used them and cast them before and they are amazing. Hell even VEHICLES have large dome shields.

It's time that Force as a power set is looked at and given a new chance to be good without relying on Force Shield, Force Geyser and Force Cascade to be it's saving grace.

For what it's worth, I do agree that Force would be great to use as an alternative supporting mechanic, however it's so far limited to Protection Field, IDF and that power(aka Redirected Force).

The defensive/supportive elements of the set require PRE to be good in terms of shielding others (Protection Field), high energy (Redirected Force energy cost) and good stats (since the scaling is horrible for IDF), which is contrary to the nature of the rest of the power set, namely EGO for knocks and damage.

Combinations can and do work but not to the best of their ability, at least in my opinion. Just like CO, Force could be so much better if enough time and resources were on hand.

merlinmonroe · June 2014

Thanks for your replies.

What I should have said was that Force should have a Support Passive.

I made a force toon in order to shield allies. I was very upset when I found that PFF wasn't useable in Support Role, and Force didn't have any Support Passives.

theravenforce · June 2014

merlinmonroe wrote: »

Thanks for your replies.

What I should have said was that Force should have a Support Passive.

I made a force toon in order to shield allies. I was very upset when I found that PFF wasn't useable in Support Role, and Force didn't have any Support Passives.

If anything it would be nice if PFF could be used in Support Role but function differently (this is of course if they could find a way to do this which would make the passive benefit others more than the user) for example:

Normal Personal Force Field - Grants 5,679 Shield HP to self in Hybrid and Tank Roles.

Support Role Personal Force Field - You gain a powerful increase to your shielding abilities and this passive now grants - 60,009 Shield HP. However you now absorb the majority of the incoming damage from your allies who are within 50ft of you as your shield protects them.

Of course this sounds nice. But there are so many different issues such as:

* How would something like that be regulated?

-If at all possible have the increased shield number scale with how many people are being affected. So if no people are being affected the shield number would be slightly less than normal PFF (Support is excellent for healing so no need to make normal PFF invalid by granting it the same shield value). Support Passives affect people and there is an indicator which can mean:

-Increase Damage, Decrease Costs and CD's, Increase Stats, Provide % damage resistance, Grant Minor DoT Resistance and a HoT.

By following that same sort of indication system, the PFF would increase by a certain value with a max of X people affected by it at anyone time (since you can have multiple pets and players to "look after" with support passives). This idea however is a pretty far reaching idea.

* Not everyone who takes a Support Aura will use it for team purposes, so what is to stop them from exploiting this shield value?

- See Above.

* What about using this with Compassion?

- Compassion's affect on PFF is unnecessary IMO. It's a poor attempt to make the passive more desirable, bigger shield numbers do not combat the fact that the shield regeneration rate per 3 seconds is not only bugged but means that you'll still have an issue with PFF, it'll just take longer to get there. I'd personally remove it's affect on PFF and have it affect Protection Field and heals and Mindful Reinforcement only, but that's just me. I don't think that Compassion usage will impact this too much. Why? PFF has NO damage resistance to shield layer by itself outside of your gear, so unless PFF suddenly got a good look at, got fixed up and damage mitigation to shield layer was added in as I've been screaming about on forums for, for goodness knows how long, I can't see Compassion being -that- much of an issue. It doesn't increase shield regen per 3 sec. If it did or if that mechanic was fixed I'd be saying something else.

* This is a bad idea and is ridiculously OP.

- It's a bad idea because specifics have not been worked out and it would need extensive testing and may not even be possible when I think about it. PFF is already, for lack of a better word, a f**ked up passive and has been continually breaking since Beta, the likelihood of this idea being considered is simply NO. And even if it is, what is the hope of it being done in such a way that it's stable?

Back to what you asked about making a support passive for force....it'd be a really great idea and I'd love it and I'd love to have a say in the way such a thing would be carried out, but right now in CO, it has more things to worry about and to concern itself with than adding the most broken defensive passive (in terms of stability) in support role form to the game.

Right now, I'd say be content with a high PRE AoRP/ Protection Field/ Sentinel Aura/Sentry Aura build which utilizes both bubble abilities and perhaps Celestial or TK or Force powers.

Note: I love PFF to death and I've stuck with it since I was first able to try it out on The Impulse AT (and a little before that too) and I haven't parted with it since, nor do I intend to. It's an amazingly attractive theme in theory but it is fairly disappointing in practice, which is a shame. I'd love to see PFF fixed up properly and gain recognition as a great tanking passive like Invuln or Defiance, but right now, unfortunately I personally cannot see PFF being fixed up like it should any time soon OR there being a support version of it being released. PFF, without a certain level of micromanaging, is not an easy passive to get along with.

Force Should have Support Role

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