Pathless Paragon Feats

eiagra · April 2014

So, random thought here, and I'm sure someone else has suggested this as well, but...

One of the things I'm noticing is a lot of "useless paths" for the Paragon Feats. There is basically "one way" to effectively play each class. That may be more a case of "this is most bang for the buck" than anything, but it does mean that other paragon feats get left by the wayside.

So, I wonder, what would happen if there were no paths, just paragon feats? Some of the feats might need to be moved around for balance, but it might allow for some more interesting dynamics. No longer would one have to chew up points with feats that are barely adequate at best, and outright worthless at worst.

There might still be some feats tossed away due to lack of potency, but it would greatly open up choice possibilities and give players a greater feeling of agency.

Of course, that also means the developers would have to consider All The Things when balancing, and that may be more workload than they want to do.

Still, it does make me kinda wonder. Would it be viable?

Any way it could be temporarily swapped out as a test function? (i.e. instead of unlocking the next feats in one path, unlock the next feats in all paths) Just to see what impact it has on balance with the feats in their current positions?

frznvimes · April 2014

I don't think it would make much of a difference unless they changed the feats themselves, you'd still end up everyone taking x set of feats to do the most damage (pve) and y set for the highest survivability (pvp).

vorphied · April 2014

It's an interesting idea, but I think the tree organization is too convenient from a balance perspective for them to abandon. By the time they got all of their desired prerequisites applied to prevent players from selecting only the most powerful of feats and combining the best feats from different trees in ways that upset game balance, we'd probably complain that the new system worked about the same as the old one.

Going over the existing trees would be a nice start and less labor-intensive than redesigning the feat selection process. For example, they need to ditch or seriously rework the threat reduction feats. They are useless. You know threat reduction is not a thing when DCs have a class feature that massively reduces threat generation yet is never used, at least not by anyone who knows the game. If the Battlewise feat did something like cause all aggro against the character to be wiped clean under a specific condition and with a reasonable cooldown, then we could say that it at least did something.

On the topic of threat management, they should also rework feats that are primarily about threat to have some alternate function or secondary feature that doesn't make them completely wasted in PvP. Guardian Fighters have such a huge issue with this that players basically need to ignore PvE friendly feats if they want to be viable in PvP. No class has been more sorely in need of a dual spec than the poor GF, which is in need of a lot of love, period, as far as PvE goes.

eiagra · April 2014

Yeah, I have both a Guardian and a Cleric that I play predominantly, and threat has never been an issue. In the case of the GF, standard abilities are generally sufficient. And my understanding is that clerics should embrace threat, as they may need to off-tank. And if the rest of the party is doing their job, clerics shouldn't end up pulling mobs off of the tank anyway. It generally becomes more useful to generate more damage (either directly or through buffs and debuffs) than to worry about threat-based abilities and feats.

Looking at the PvP campaign, there's kind of a big issue I'm seeing that's related here. Getting kills and double-kills are something Guardians and Clerics aren't really so hot at. That's just not where they shine, even when they are specced for DPS. Even when my team is winning, I'm often in last place on the roster because I am playing support roles. I'm either running interference, buffing/debuffing, burning HP with DoT, or being a distraction ("Lookit me, I'm a Cleric, don't you want to stab me??") so that my teammates can be more effective. It looks almost like the only way to get these is to get into a group where you are purposely on opposing factions and letting your friends stab each other to build up points.

And I understand that building up EXP to spend on powers is gonna help somewhat, but it's not the full fix here. Many powers are left by the wayside because they aren't as effective if they aren't feated. And they don't get feated if you don't follow the correct paragon feat branch. Meaning, even if you buy the powers, they're still suffering sub-optimal usage because you went with what was mathematically calculated and tested to be more effective in general PvE/PvP.

Too bad we can't buy feats as well as powers with extra EXP.

Pathless Paragon Feats

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