Rework avoid incap

Rework avoid incap
This idea/suggestion is Open. You can respond to ask questions or discuss the idea and either vote it up or down if you believe it should or should not be implemented, respectively. Popular suggestions and ideas will be considered by the development team to become reality in-game.
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Rheasconstruct

Rheasconstruct

Proposal
Rework "Avoid incap" to be a long cooldown and short duration ability. 15 second duration. 2 Min cooldown. Reduce movement speed reduction to a 25% penalty as a trade off.
Justification
Avoid incap is far too strong in PVE Heroics. Currently it requires no skill and is sustainable for an unhealthy amount of time (Force Feed/Channel/Nimans).
Motivation
The suggested change would elimate the skill trivialising top tier heroics while repurposing it for a meaningful, healthy spot in the current game environment.
Good Day, Ladies and Gentlmen.

Today we are here to discuss the invincible elephant in the room. Avoid incap needs to be reworked.

For too long "AI" has been used to trivialise our hardest PVE content. Tanks rely on a single button press every 25-30 seconds, are then fed force or channel their way out of all damage/skill checks. It's time to make tanking great again.

I propose the ability be reworked to a short duration - high cooldown ability. I think a 15 second duration (half its current duration) and a 2 min cooldown on this ability is reasonable with a buff to the movement speed penalty moving it to 25% or so (open to this number being different). As the ability sits at the master box of Defender, I recognise it needs to be strong, have impact and feel rewarding. However, for too long this has become the solution to all problems in high end content.

I believe my suggestion would change the ability from being an overpowered one-size-fits-all button press to a tool that can be utilised when it is required. Effectively repurposing it to either give healers a break mid-fight or for use as a panic button if things head south fast, putting it in a much healthier spot for game balance.

This will obviously impact PVP/BH too as said changes will significantly reduce the consistency a MDefender can utilitise AI to stay alive. However, as most of the time it merely delays the inevitable, i think the impact should be minimal to outcomes changing. However, i do think that the movement speed penalty should be reduced to balance out the loss the ability would suffer in PVP/BH to help bring it to a healthier place.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, feel free to flame me in the comments below.
 
Upvote 13 Downvote
jcan0918 said:
This point has been raised and nobody wants to address it because it would mean
-The whole defender tree would need to be re worked to be able to handle the damage from nightmare modes
-Force armor would need a nerf , because as you pointed out , it is wild that a single line from Enhancer can match the whole Defender tree
instead they pivot to "But what about AI cheesing bosses"
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Apparently your ability to read is tied with your ability to make coherent arguments.

Force Armor is not capable of allowing you to tank nightmare without assistance from your team. It is a *team* effort. Go back to page 2 and read the post made there, I am not retracing my steps because you refuse to use your brain.

AI is cheesing bosses. Force Armor requires team coordination and careful management of resources to ensure success. That is the end of the discussion as far as comparing the two. You obviously have no experience utilizing FA to tank Nightmare, and you're speaking from ignorance.
 
jcan0918 said:
This point has been raised and nobody wants to address it because it would mean
-The whole defender tree would need to be re worked to be able to handle the damage from nightmare modes
-Force armor would need a nerf , because as you pointed out , it is wild that a single line from Enhancer can match the whole Defender tree
instead they pivot to "But what about AI cheesing bosses"
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Perhaps I misspoke.

It's been made clear to me too that Force Armor doesn't make you god tier either, but there's likely a balance between having force armor and balancing it with mitigation foods and overall strategy within your team too in regards to transferring force (not channeling) etc.
 
If defender is really that weak sure then it might need looking into, but generally this topic is about the actual gameplay element of AI right?
 
Harrowhark said:
Apparently your ability to read is tied with your ability to make coherent arguments.

Force Armor is not capable of allowing you to tank nightmare without assistance from your team. It is a *team* effort. Go back to page 2 and read the post made there, I am not retracing my steps because you refuse to use your brain.

AI is cheesing bosses. Force Armor requires team coordination and careful management of resources to ensure success. That is the end of the discussion as far as comparing the two. You obviously have no experience utilizing FA to tank Nightmare, and you're speaking from ignorance.
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Sooooo tanking in force armor while popping mitigation foods . staying in niman and having a jedi battery transferring force to the tank ...... THAT IS SKILL ???
oh wait that is team effort , but a tank with AI tanking while the rest of the TEAM contributes with dps that is not team effort , got it thanks for the clarification :unsure:
 
jcan0918 said:
Sooooo tanking in force armor while popping mitigation foods . staying in niman and having a jedi battery transferring force to the tank ...... THAT IS SKILL ???
oh wait that is team effort , but a tank with AI tanking while the rest of the TEAM contributes with dps that is not team effort , got it thanks for the clarification :unsure:
Click to expand...
You're obviously not seeking to contribute to the conversation.

Go dribble on yourself elsewhere, the adults are speaking.
 
jcan0918 said:
Sooooo tanking in force armor while popping mitigation foods . staying in niman and having a jedi battery transferring force to the tank ...... THAT IS SKILL ???
oh wait that is team effort , but a tank with AI tanking while the rest of the TEAM contributes with dps that is not team effort , got it thanks for the clarification :unsure:
Click to expand...
Have you seen any other MMO where a tank can tank the highest tier content with 0 heals or support from their team? Much less not even having to use any consumables or buff items?
 
Nidums said:
If defender is really that weak sure then it might need looking into, but generally this topic is about the actual gameplay element of AI right?
Click to expand...
This is what I gathered too, I suppose it's possible too to dip into force armor with Mdef, but you would be sacrificing all of your escape tools and some heals too.
 
Randolo said:
I want to ask an honest question without triggering anyone here.
I'm seeing 2 things here in regards to Nightmare tanking
"Force armor is what's needed from Enhancer along with 2xxx defender for the taunt"
"AI is needed to tank at master defender" (and peoples opinion on whether it's cheese or not is being debated)

Does anyone have an account of a Master Defender able to tank nightmare without AI? It seems crazy to me personally that an entire tree about defense and mitigation gets outclassed by a single line in enhancer for mitigating damage. Maybe that exposes a problem with either Defender as a whole and not *just* AI, or with how some of the nightmare contents damage ranges may be tuned?

I think there's other angles to look at to make this a productive discussion.
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Yes, Master Defender can tank nightmare without AI or FA2. It will likely require 2 healers for certain fights.

The matter of FA2 is less about how the skill works and more about how few skill points you have to spend to gain that skill. I like the idea of a skill that uses your force bar as your defense. But, if it stays exactly as is, then FA1 should be moved to x4xxx and FA2 should be moved to the master box.
 
Defender tree is quite bad as it really doesn't offer much outside of turning you into a stat stick and when you're generally picking either mEnhancer or mDefender for your tree seeing as you don't really need more than 2xxx in mHealer unless you're a healer(I know there is cases of taking xxx4 for bubble in pvp).
 
jcan0918 said:
but a tank with AI tanking while the rest of the TEAM contributes with dps that is not team effort
Click to expand...
Oh yes, because when designing heroics, the devs clearly thought "lets just make it so that one specific build can sit on the boss on any difficulty and put literally no effort into tanking in while the rest of the team can freely ignore all damage related mechanics"
 
Learning Tank Here,

I get what youre saying, but I also think until the harder modes of heroics themselves are balanced for new players AI is a pretty good way for them to circumvent the barrier to enter all levels of content. I personally would maybe rework it to a massive dmg reduction buff, at that point the elitists would stop looking at it as pure cheese and it would still give a new player a fighting chance in all content. Complexity, difficulty creep and elite gatekeeping is the reason many modern MMOs struggle to keep new players.
 
Nobody is gate keeping anything, we just don't want 1 button immortality. Yes a good healthy damage reduction buff that has a good cooldown would be a lot better option.

Make it like 99% damage reduction for 30 seconds then after 30 seconds the next 30 seconds is like 50% increased healing received then slap a 2min cooldown on it. I'm fine with making a master box ability stupid strong especially on jedi, just not something that is iinherently turning one side of the game into a joke.
 
JackNightmare said:
Learning Tank Here,

I get what youre saying, but I also think until the harder modes of heroics themselves are balanced for new players AI is a pretty good way for them to circumvent the barrier to enter all levels of content. I personally would maybe rework it to a massive dmg reduction buff, at that point the elitists would stop looking at it as pure cheese and it would still give a new player a fighting chance in all content. Complexity, difficulty creep and elite gatekeeping is the reason many modern MMOs struggle to keep new players.
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Not every difficulty should be balanced for new players.

Intermediate and vet players should also have challenging content otherwise they too will go elsewhere if everything is baby goo goo mode and can be cheesed.
 
Mace said:
Not every difficulty should be balanced for new players.

Intermediate and vet players should also have challenging content otherwise they too will go elsewhere if everything is baby goo goo mode and can be cheesed.
Click to expand...
You're right, I probably should have been more clear on what exactly I meant by balancing, just didn't want to pitch a novel on MY opinion on how to fix it, when that's not really what should be being discussed. In short, I just don't think a CL80 new player tank or jedi should be getting basically getting 1 shot by bosses. Other mmos have things like complex mechanics to make them challenging and have more options for tanks as far as PVE mitigation/dmg reduction. I understand that those may not be a readily available option here, and just think that AI feels like an attempt at a solution to a more systemic problem. For the record, I agree it needs to be changed and heroics(end game content) should be balanced in favor of the end game player. Was just pointing out "baby goo goo mode" is where we all start and ignoring that isn't great for player retention.
 
I don't agree with this change because:
1) Jedi is getting a rework in the future. The trees and skills should get reworked then along with class balance changes.
2) It makes a skill people have fun with completely worthless.

You might as well delete the skill. I am concerned because your taking something fun and replacing it with garbage, it feels fun to use and if your going to revamp it it needs to be something equally as fun to use or change and a new skill added that is.

I agree that it's overpowered, but it's also their only real master skill.

The other might as well be a Lightsaber Skill, all it does is build threat. That isn't a master skill and you won't convince me it is.

If the PV was asking for it to be changed because it's too powerful I would upvote, but not this.


There are tons of small issues with Jedi Balance atm, like Force Armor costing way more force than it did before in PvE because we don't have the defenses we did in the past. Where before the attack would miss you, it hits you instead.

If you think about Force Powers themselves, Force Armor should be in the Defender Tree and Battle Meditation should be Enhancer. However, these can all be addressed in the future *revamp*.

The only way to make it viable with these suggested changes is to make it simply a permabuff that triggers when you go incapacitated that is 15 seconds long and then the 2 min CD comes up. Aka: A Death Prevent.
 
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Scrubs don't deserve to run NM heroics. Thats end game content. Get better (level up from scrub) and profit. Cheese mechanics and skills must die.
 
We are planning on making some changes to Avoid Incap in the short term, so yes we are looking for some consensus on what the right direction for it to go would be. My highest priority (apart from fixing the balance issue for Heroics) is really just that we make sure it is fun and unique, and not too similar to other abilities. It also should be something that feels good alongside other Defender abilities (like Saber Intercept).

A few directions we can go:
1. Raise the cooldown and change the penalties, as suggested. Simple, solves the problem, but kinda boring.
2. Change it into a proactive "prevent" ability that you either have to time really well (short duration). Would be good in PvP, but not sure how viable in PvE.
3. Change it into a proactive "prevent" ability that's really expensive but could be applied or stacked ahead of time. Could be fun and strong but might still break PvE.
4. Drastically increase the Force costs so that it's impossible (even with Channel degeneracy) to keep up forever. Feels a bit more similar to Force Armor or Cloak, but also feels the most fair?.

Anything bigger will have to wait. We've long wanted to give Defender more toys and make the playstyle more fun, but haven't gotten around to it, and can't prioritize that yet either.

Let me know which direction sounds most interesting.
 
Derpyh said:
I don't agree with this change because:
1) Jedi is getting a rework in the future. The trees and skills should get reworked then along with class balance changes.
2) It makes a skill people have fun with completely worthless.

You might as well delete the skill. I am concerned because your taking something fun and replacing it with garbage, it feels fun to use and if your going to revamp it it needs to be something equally as fun to use or change and a new skill added that is.

I agree that it's overpowered, but it's also their only real master skill.

The other might as well be a Lightsaber Skill, all it does is build threat. That isn't a master skill and you won't convince me it is.

If the PV was asking for it to be changed because it's too powerful I would upvote, but not this.


There are tons of small issues with Jedi Balance atm, like Force Armor costing way more force than it did before in PvE because we don't have the defenses we did in the past. Where before the attack would miss you, it hits you instead.

If you think about Force Powers themselves, Force Armor should be in the Defender Tree and Battle Meditation should be Enhancer. However, these can all be addressed in the future *revamp*.

The only way to make it viable with these suggested changes is to make it simply a permabuff that triggers when you go incapacitated that is 15 seconds long and then the 2 min CD comes up. Aka: A Death Prevent.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm sure people have "fun" brainlessly pressing a button every 29 seconds and not paying attention to any mechanics within the raid/pvp.

The master skill for Defender also ensures that you will never lose aggro of whatever you're tanking, or any auxiliary targets either, no matter how much AoE is going out from your team. To pretend that this is not* something that far outclasses the capabilities of another tank without that ability is silly.

Defender is about holding aggro and survivability. It does both jobs well.

"If the PV was asking for it to be changed because it's too powerful I would upvote, but not this."

It's literally asking for it to be changed because the ability is too powerful and allows you to entirely avoid mechanics in PvE, and delays the inevitable in PvP by a ridiculous amount of time. Did you even read the post, Vryka? You then went on to state as your conclusion the exact mechanics the PV suggested it be, only adding that it be a permanent buff which will trigger upon incapacitation.
 
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