Rework avoid incap

ornj said:

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.

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If we're to choose from a small change that can be quickly implemented, 30 second invuln window, 2 minute cooldown is the most fair.

4. Literally just makes it a FA clone, and will, as mentioned in previous pages, lead to a death spiral, due to draining your resources even faster than FA.
3. Would still need a long CD as well, to at most allow it to be used twice back-to-back in an emergency, and then you have either stabilized or you will die.
2. This is basically how 1. would function anyways, unless you mean the window for it activating is incredibly short. With misses/blocks/ etc in the game, you might just die because you managed to dodge an attack that would've proc'd the buff. Not necessarily in favor of that.

Harrowhark said:

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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That is a HUGE difference.

ornj said:

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.

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I think option 3 could be kinda fun if its balanced well? Like every use of the ability gives you a stackable buff that prevents the next time you would fall over but every time you press the ability it costs goes up like 25/30/37/50/75%.

It would need to be only usable in combat so you couldn't prestack and then regen all your force and in pvp you could still at least remove stacks with breach?

Derpyh said:

That is a HUGE difference.

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How. What you're saying is instead of it being something that someone needs to press *WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT* you remove that element of skill and just have a buff that procs when they would've died.

How is that adding something that is engaging. If anything you're just encouraging the brain dead behavior that AI already promotes.

Harrowhark said:

How. What you're saying is instead of it being something that someone needs to press *WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT* you remove that element of skill and just have a buff that procs when they would've died.

How is that adding something that is engaging. If anything you're just encouraging the brain dead behavior that AI already promotes.

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Because the "skill" isn't worth the cost, time, or Master ability slot.

Basically your just telling them to drop the class for another and deleting MDefender. It doesn't even have a strong heroic set.

ornj said:

Permanent uptime but any time you would be incapacitated, it removes 500 from your max health pool for 5 minutes (when you're at 0 you die for real)

(with some sort of buffer so you don't just die to 6 quick hits anyway)

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It would either need a 10 second Internal cooldown (because you can be hit by multiple sources several times a second) or the debuff be 100 and 30 seconds. 5 minutes in SWG is a very long time. Your basically just telling the Jedi to force run 3 away because it's not worth fighting or staying if it de-buffs them too much.

It could also be more fairly based on the damage dealt to you.

Like half the damage dealt is debuffed.

You could also make it give you wounds instead of damage and allow you to go incapacitated if you have 1/1 health.

10 seconds ICD when people have average hp pool of 6k just means perma uptime in all pve content lol

Also the only thing I can imagine that is going to kill you the quickly would be if you're ignoring the mechanics on first boss EK

I'm still in favor of what others have said for the ability rework -- Increase healing received, decrease damage taken, maybe put decrease outgoing damage on it as compensation for the increased survivability. It's an ability about avoiding dying, so anything that really aids that theme should be considered.

Increased block chance, an inherent 2nd chance buff for the duration, a decrease to damage received from spike damage (though I'm not sure how feasible something like this is for the game, just spit balling ideas).

Derpyh said:

Because the "skill" isn't worth the cost, time, or Master ability slot.

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Nothing that you've said has made it worth the cost, time, nor master ability slot either.

ornj said:

Permanent uptime but any time you would be incapacitated, it removes 500 from your max health pool for 5 minutes (when you're at 0 you die for real)

(with some sort of buffer so you don't just die to 6 quick hits anyway)

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If it healed you to full after the "incapacitation," sure. That allows for people to adjust to you almost dying. But with the spike damage from NM raids that might also lead to you dying quite quickly.

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?.

Out of those choices #4 would be my vote since if it is fair and it should be balanced between pve and pvp.

Nidums said:

10 seconds ICD when people have average hp pool of 6k just means perma uptime in all pve content lol

Also the only thing I can imagine that is going to kill you the quickly would be if you're ignoring the mechanics on first boss EK

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So your doing content in 120 seconds?

I frankly suggest it just be a different ability entirely.

Something like Ignore Pain, where 50% of the damage you receive is healed (for threat gain) and the other half becomes wounds.
15 second CD, decent force cost, 15 second cooldown. Lasts forever but eventually you will run out of health as it becomes wounds.

Derpyh said:

So your doing content in 120 seconds?

I frankly suggest it just be a different ability entirely.

Something like Ignore Pain, where 50% of the damage you receive is healed (for threat gain) and the other half becomes wounds.
15 second CD, decent force cost, 15 second cooldown. Lasts forever but eventually you will run out of health as it becomes wounds.

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Until... a MHealer heals you once and removes all of your wounds? Because Blue Buff exists???

Harrowhark said:

Until... a MHealer heals you once and removes all of your wounds? Because Blue Buff exists???

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Still has a cost, still can be incapped.
Requires healing to fix.

Your issue is ...what? I also don't think it heals all of your wounds at once unless it's changed again.

Derpyh said:

Still has a cost, still can be incapped.
Requires healing to fix.

Your issue is ...what? I also don't think it heals all of your wounds at once unless it's changed again.

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It's BORING, is the problem. And will also lead to you dying incredibly quickly if you're taking *50%* of all incoming damage as wounds you will run out of HP in approximately 5 hits in NM heroics.

The idea in of itself has no gameplay benefits to the tank behind it, it just adds more pressure to healers, and is actively a huge nerf to the survivability of the Defender, after thinking about it for 3 seconds. Did you consider the amount of damage people are taking in these runs?

Harrowhark said:

It's BORING, is the problem. And will also lead to you dying incredibly quickly if you're taking *50%* of all incoming damage as wounds you will run out of HP in approximately 5 hits in NM heroics.

The idea in of itself has no gameplay benefits to the tank behind it, it just adds more pressure to healers, and is actively a huge nerf to the survivability of the Defender, after thinking about it for 3 seconds. Did you consider the amount of damage people are taking in these runs?

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Ignore Pain was one of the most fun warrior mechanics in WoW when I played. There is another version that gives you constant max health and reduces damage by 50% basically giving you big shields and the cooldown lowered the more damage you took.

It also built up good threat because it prevented damage.

Isn't your idea of ignore pain just force armour with extra down sides?

Nidums said:

Isn't your idea of ignore pain just force armour with extra down sides?

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No, because Force Armor does nothing for threat and it also would have a smaller force cost overall because the bigger cost would be your health from wounds.

As I said, it would be a new ability, it wouldn't have the same cost as AI because it doesn't prevent you from dying anymore. It would be an entirely new ability.

Threat is a non issue with guardian strike in the game, wounds do nothing with a mdoc in group

Nidums said:

Threat is a non issue with guardian strike in the game, wounds do nothing with a mdoc in group

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Guardian Strike only puts you at a higher order in the list, it doesn't build threat, what builds threat for tanks especially AI tanks is the Lightsaber set that reflects tons of damage back.

ornj said:

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.

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There is quite a lot to unpack in this whole thread so I'll start with my views from someone with a MDef.

First off, the way AI functions to allow us to completely avoid Boss mechanics is BUSTED without a doubt. I find it boring to play but it certainly is the easiest way to carry a group and when playing a Jedi tank that is supposed to soak up damage with limited lives it is a great security blanket to have AI. That said, staying at 0HP indefinitely just seems wrong and it's boring.

I think in order to fix it, we first have to understand the intent of the ability and then figure out a way to get there without breaking anything else. The ability states "This ability allows a Jedi to prevent themselves from going into an unconscious state. Due to the intense concentration this ability uses, the Jedi's movement speed shall be severely reduced. This power only lasts for a short time and can quickly deplete a Jedi of Force power if they try to remain conscious for a lengthy period of time."
So we need an ability that:
1. Prevents an unconscious state (You don't die)
2. Severely reduces movement speed (Heavy Snare)
3. Lasts for a short period of time (30sec buff)
4. Can quickly deplete a Jedi of Force if trying to remain conscious. (Uses a set amount of force every 25-30sec when chaining)

The only issue I see currently is HOW the ability uses force and not so much with the ability itself. In order to address this and get rid of the "cheese" use of AI here is what i think would make the ability better.
Option A: Keep the ability as is but make it relatively cheap/free to cast. Make it instead use a heavy chunk of force each time you hit 0HP and would be incapped. This would allow you to apply the buff, snare yourself and only use force to prevent incapping which would mean healers still need to keep you healed or risk burning through force but would help to avoid large damage spikes while you have it up and can still chain it if desired.

Option B: Make the ability into a reactive heal similar to the GCW buff. Again I like the idea of this not using force to cast but instead using force when it triggers to prevent people from applying before a fight and then regenerating force. (Perhaps stackable up to 3 times?)

Edit: Only downvoted because i am not in favor of your specific change, NOT because i don't agree that it is broken and needs changing. The issue with extremely short defensive abilities in this version of the game is there are only a very small amount of telegraphed boss damage abilities. (AK Prime/HK47 Fire bomb, ISD Jesus Beam, The Binary droid in IG) If more bosses had telegraphed moves like raids in other games i would be in more favor of short term defensives.