Floyd 'Castle' Grubb delivers the goods on CoX power changes
As the wait intensifies for City of HeroesIssue 13: Power and Responsibility to go into closed Beta, powers guy Floyd 'Castle' Grubb has provided a breakdown of some of the main PvE powers changes. None of the Villain Patron Powers or Hero Ancillary Powers are mentioned yet: the powers changed are meat-and-potatoes stuff, which will affect low-level characters as they work their way up.
The most striking change is half way down. Non-hostile player toggles, such as the Kheldians' shapeshifting powers, will no longer drop when a player is held, slept or stunned. This is such a big deal that it demands a visual analogy. Imagine being a floating, tentacled weapons platform capable of delivering a payload of purple death to whole crowds of bad guys. Now, imagine suddenly plummeting out of the sky, transformed to a little slumbering human, complete with 'zzz' emerging from your head. That is what being mezzed does to a Warshade in squid form.
We're not sure yet whether this change is PvE only or also applies to PvP: frankly, the PvP consequences of toggles no longer dropping when a player is mezzed are too radical to contemplate in just one article.
It's clear that Castle has taken a long hard look at the powersets the players hate, and has smartened them up. Energy Aura, long considered the lame duck of Brute sets, has gained Toxic damage resistance and a self heal, which just catapulted it out of the bargain bin and back on to the shelf. Invulnerability has finally lost the Defence debuff it has had for far too long, and even War Mace has seen some love.
Although the usual disclaimer applies - these changes have to be tested, and aren't final - we think CoX players will be impressed. The Hero Epic ATs in particular had been derided, not without some justification, ever since the Villain Epic ATs came on the scene. These changes should make Kheldians far more appealing to the player base. If nothing else, it'll be great not to be shot out of Nova form by those wretched Quantum weapons.
