Issue 13: Power and Responsibility includes a whole host of new developments. Not only are there significant new features, but there is also ongoing development to the existing game. A big part of the game is the balance of all the Archetypes, their respective power sets and how they compare to each other. Maintaining a level of equity between everything is also a continual goal. In this article, NCsoft NorCal Senior Designer Floyd “Castle” Grubb gives us the scoop on some proposed powers changes that will be in testing with Issue 13.  Please keep in mind that there is still the entire testing and revision process to go through with these changes. The team is excited to see how these refinements stand up to player feedback, datamining, and the beta process!


Introduction
For Issue 13, we have a rather wide selection of PvE (Player vs. Environment) related powers changes. These changes focus on either Quality of Life concerns or on powers which were not quite in balance with others. Below is a breakdown of what we are doing, with the aim to provide insight into the thought processes behind our ideas.


Energy Aura
Let’s start with Energy Aura for Brutes and Stalkers. Energy Aura has had a poor reputation from the start. While it is “balanced” with the other protective powersets using the original metrics, it has been shown that those metrics did not take certain key factors into consideration - namely Regeneration and Healing effects. Energy Aura lacked any sort of mechanic which could increase the Health or Regeneration Rate of the character and did not have any active method of restoring Health to the character using these powers. Additionally, the set had more protection holes than others. To address these issues, the following changes are being made:

• Energy Protection: This power gained a 1.25 scale Toxic damage resist attribute for Brutes and a 1.00 scale Toxic damage resist attribute for Stalkers. Energy Aura, being a typed defence set, had no protection against these types of attacks unless they were ‘packaged’ with a lethal attack of some sort.
• Energy Drain: Added a 2 scale self heal to each target affected by this power. Un-slotted, the player will recover 2% of their maximum HP per target affected.  This can be enhanced to up to about 4% per target. This change was made to offer the power set some minor healing abilities to increase their survivability but not offer an overwhelming heal.

Invulnerability
Invulnerability has a few issues, mainly stemming from lack of special resistances and “weak” power choices. Here are the changes that are being made:

• Unyielding: We removed the Defence Debuff from this power. While we still believe it fits thematically, the impact on low level characters was more severe than desired.
• Invincibility: Reduce per target Defence Buff to from scale 0.15 to scale 0.1. The overall result of this and the Unyielding change is, if you have the maximum number of targets in this power’s radius, you have the same protection as from Issue 12. However, if you have fewer targets, your net defence is higher.
• Resist Physical Damage: Added 25% Defence Debuff Resistance. Increased damage resistance scale from 0.75 to 1.00.
• Tough Hide: Added 25% Defence Debuff Resistance.
• Resist Energies: Added 25% Endurance Debuff Resistance. Increased damage resistance scale from 0.75 to 1.00.
• Resist Elements: Added 20% Movement Slow Resistance. Increased damage resistance scale from 0.75 to 1.00.

Kheldians
Peacebringers and Warshades, as Archetypes, have an interesting history and reputation among players. It seems as if no one is neutral about them—they are either loved or hated. This isn’t much of a surprise; they were always meant to require more player decision making and compromise than the base Archetypes. However, certain technological restrictions combined with the “facts” of high level play ultimately proved that the Kheldians were even harder than originally expected. With Issue 12’s introduction of the Villain Epic Archetypes, we took some time to re-evaluate where the Kheldians were and what we wanted to do with them. Here is what we are planning:

• Cosmic Balance: This power now functions while shapeshifted—Dwarf and Nova forms gain the same benefits as human form.
• Dark Sustenance: This power now functions while shapeshifted—Dwarf and Nova forms gain the same benefits as human form.
• Gleaming Bolt, Glinting Eye, Gleaming Blast, Luminous Detonation, Shadow Bolt, Ebon Eye, Gravimetric Snare, Shadow Blast and Dark Matter Detonation: Increased base Range to 80’.  This makes Human form Kheldians ranged capabilities more useful overall.  The 80’ range meshes more evenly with other Ranged AT’s capabilities.
• Peacebringer AT Multipliers: increased Human form Melee Damage multiple to 0.85, increased Human form Range Damage multiple to 0.8 and increased Dwarf Form Melee Damage multiple to 1.0.
• Warshade AT Multipliers: increased Human form Melee Damage multiple to 0.85, increased Human form Range Damage multiple to 0.8 and increased Dwarf Form Melee Damage multiple to 1.0.
• Dwarf Form: You may now shift into Dwarf Form even while Held, Slept or Stunned.

Toggle Powers
One important additional piece of development to mention that is especially relevant to Kheldians and their toggle powers is: in Issue 13, toggles are no longer shut off due to Hold, Sleep or Disorient effects. This is a major gameplay change, and it is not restricted to Kheldians, but instead applies to all non-offensive player toggles. As part of changes in Issue 13, when a player is affected by a hold, sleep or stun, any toggle power they are running will continue and will still draw endurance from the character. However, some or all of its effects may be suppressed until such time as the hold, sleep or stun is removed. For example, if you are held while in Black Dwarf form, all of your Damage Resistance values, your recovery bonus and knockback protection are suppressed, while your hold, stun, sleep, immobilise and confuse protections remain in effect. Monitoring your stats with the “Real Numbers” tool is a good way to check which aspects of a toggle are suppressed and which are not.


War Mace
An ongoing project over the last several issues has been bringing War Mace up to performance par with other powersets. The last set of changes got us close, but still not to where we want to be. Here are the new changes:

• Clobber: Reduced Recharge Time to 16 seconds and altered damage scale and endurance costs to match using the standard formula. This now means it is a pretty hard hitting attack, with a damage scale of 2.29 and a base endurance cost of 15.18. Since this is now classified as a Damage power rather than a control power, the base duration of the Stun effect was reduced from scale 10 to scale 5.
• Shatter: Reduced Max Targets Hit from 10 to 5.
• Crowd Control: Increased Max Targets Hit from 5 to 10.

Misc
There are numerous smaller changes going into Issue 13. While you will all get to see the final details in the patch notes, there are a few other changes I want to let you know about now.

• Fiery Aura Temperature Protection: Now provides 20% movement reduction protection.
• Dark Melee Midnight Grasp: This power has been rebalanced to provide the majority of its damage as a front loaded sum (scale 2.21), followed by a shorter, small damage DOT. Overall damage has increased, as has the amount of damage done on a ‘Critical.’
• Energy Melee Barrage: We have increased the effectiveness of this power by increasing Damage per Activation. We increased Recharge time from 2 seconds to 6 seconds and changed the damage and endurance costs accordingly. The smashing component of the damage is now 2 hits of scale 0.5 damage, and the energy portion is now 2 hits of scale 0.16 damage for a combined scale 1.32 damage.

These are the highlights, and there are several other changes which are still in a state of flux (stalkers Claws, for instance). I hope you all like the changes. We are really looking forward for this all to hit the Training Room so you folks can bang on them and tell us how the changes feel! Your feedback is, as ever, critical for these and other changes that we make to the game. 
Floyd ‘Castle’ Grubb