Force Shield (Engineers) needs a drastic buff.

[Flowman]

Force Shield: Kinda Sorta Useless

So I just reactivated my engineer this morning (Thank you STS Support! ) and was forced to respec my stats and my skills because activation turns on "Auto Level"...and I didn't like having 6 points in Revive . I like playing my engineer as pure support with the ability to stay alive. Obvious skills to max for support are Empathy, Transference and Protection, a point in revive, and then Decay and Pain for the stuns/debuffs. As support, I do not need to focus on single combat DOTs, so Whither and Leech are out. The other skills don't seem needed, so that leaves me with Force Shield. Do note that I am currently only lvl 37, so that is why my skills Don't have the remaining 4 points.


So what exactly is wrong with Force Shield?

• Before we can point out what's flawed, here's a look at what the skill actually does:
  
  
  *Force Shield has 2 primary effects; boosting armor and increasing the rate of mana regeneration for a period of 30 seconds, or until the shield breaks
  *At lvl 6, Force Shield increases armor by 120 and increases mana regeneration by 2 for a period of 30 seconds, or until the shield breaks

• The Flaws - Skill
  
  
• The damage required to break the shield is far too low
• The armor buff doesn't soften the damage enough
• The Mana Regeneration increase is too low
• The skill recharge time is too long
  
  
• The Flaws - Mechanics
  
  
• Low damage threshold of the shield defeats the purpose of having an armor buff
• 45 second recharge is way too long considering the shield breaks after basically one hit
• Healing skills cause aggro for engineers, and the shield then breaks instantly
• Offensive skills cause aggro for engineers, and the shield then breaks instantly
• Skill does not take increasing campaign difficulty into account

At lvl 6, it only takes 75 damage to break the shield. Now the +120 armor might soften to blow a little bit and in the lower leveled campaigns, the shield might last a little bit longer...but when you get to the harder campaigns, especially the new Hive maps, the shield drops down in a single hit. You could argue that this skill is meant to be used for long, open hallways so you can regenerate mana...but then why is there an armor buff? I feel as though this skill should be one or the other. Just seems like a waste to have both if one is utterly useless in combat. Engineers skills draw all aggro from mobs, especially the healing skills (Transference especially). Pain and Decay draw aggression should the pain stun not hold, so the shield goes right away should you have it up. There are also normal enemies with ranged attacks who can drop your shield in as little as 2 hits. While your armor total increases as the maps get harder, it doesn't do much at all as it seems enemies close to you in level (As in a lvl 40 running the Hive vs a lvl 5 running Red Sun) hit you very hard and for more than 75 damage at times. The 45 second cooldown is far too long considering the skill lasts for about 5 seconds.



My Solutions

• Make the mana regen buff last for the specified length of the skill (30 seconds) regardless of if the shield is up or not.
• Increase the overall threshold of the shield by either time (no damage threshold) or by a damage threshold equal to a percentage of your total HP
• Take away the aggressive properties of the engineers healing skills
• Severely decrease the recharge time of the skill while slightly buffing the damage threshold

As an engineer, you have limited skill builds for a support roll. I understand they're not supposed to be tanks with big damage, but this skill is nothing short of useless for the harder campaigns right now. You can easily just not use the skill...but I find less use in my build for some of the other skills, and I believe that there should not be a skill that is just useless on all levels. This is a skill that could severely effect the way engineers play and survive, as well as giving them a potential buff for PvP, where I understand they are lacking in power.

[Rittik]

well force shield is kinda usefull only for Mana+..tho if we seriously wanna look at PVP. ...atleast i dont use it..

[Flowman]

well force shield is kinda usefull only for Mana+..tho if we seriously wanna look at PVP. ...atleast i dont use it..

Pretty useless for mana regen when it lasts 2 seconds. Barely even regenerates the Mana used to cast it.

[bronislav84]

I agree with everything said, and good to know Flow uses the same build as me word for word.

[Deathpunch]

This hits the nail right on the head. Excellent breakdown of the skills flaws and good ideas on how to make it more useful.

I would, however, argue the point of the usefulness of Leech. After you max your necessary skills, it doesn't hurt to throw some at it to increase your own health regen and survivability and the lil cherry on top in the form of some DoT. That's a discussion for another thread, though.

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[Cahaun]

You said it perfectly

[Flowman]

This hits the nail right on the head. Excellent breakdown of the skills flaws and good ideas on how to make it more useful.

I would, however, argue the point of the usefulness of Leech. After you max your necessary skills, it doesn't hurt to throw some at it to increase your own health regen and survivability and the lil cherry on top in the form of some DoT. That's a discussion for another thread, though.

Leech is where I will put my last 4 points when I level to 41 from 37.

[PianoWizzy]

Remind me to thank this post later

Another major reason why this skill needs fixing is because most commandos are wusses, the cowards with major armor and HP hiding behind lines of operatives -- engineers are hence the secondary tanks.

Help us die less while doing so.

[TheRajX]

For Pvp purposes Force Sheild, however nerfed it may be atm is very useful.

However for the purpose you have stated, I can only see uppening mana regen with its use would be useful if anything in times of peach while in game. Hence I completely agree with you that it is sorta useless in a pve environment.

Still, in whatever case we happen to use it, whether pvp or pve, I would highly appreciate removing the threshold completely, or uppening it massively. I also advise you to still put points on those dots as they will greatly benefit your team.

Other than that I have to disagree on the rest of the points that the armor isnt enough or that regen isnt fast enough or that mana regen should be uppened more. They all sound nice of course but there would be some sort of imbalance if all these good things were implemented into just one skill.

Decay could have a -120 buff effect though - this would be helpful.

[Flowman]

For Pvp purposes Force Sheild, however nerfed it may be atm is very useful.

However for the purpose you have stated, I can only see uppening mana regen with its use would be useful if anything in times of peach while in game. Hence I completely agree with you that it is sorta useless in a pve environment.

Still, in whatever case we happen to use it, whether pvp or pve, I would highly appreciate removing the threshold completely, or uppening it massively. I also advise you to still put points on those dots as they will greatly benefit your team.

Other than that I have to disagree on the rest of the points that the armor isnt enough or that regen isnt fast enough or that mana regen should be uppened more. They all sound nice of course but there would be some sort of imbalance if all these good things were implemented into just one skill.

Decay could have a -120 buff effect though - this would be helpful.

I never said all of those should be put into the skill at the same time. Changing just one of them will benefit the skill, those are just the things that COULD be changed. Each new point was supposed to be read as an independent change, not as one big change.

An increase to the armor provided would soften the damage taken and let the skill stay up longer for more than 3 seconds, therefore increasing mana regeneration time.

An increase to the mana regeneration amount would actually make the skill useful enough to warrant using, even if the skill is only up for a few seconds. Make it something like...a +2 regeneration per second at lvl 2..., +3 and lvl 3, etc etc up until +6 and lvl 6. Since +6 over 30 seconds (should the skill actually last that long) is pretty high, I'd be content with the duration cutting back a few seconds if the initial regeneration strength were to be higher.

Having the mana regeneration last the entire 30 seconds would make the most sense. My commando has Kinetic Reservoir at 5 and get's an increase of 10 mana per second for 5 seconds. The recharge of the skill is 15 seconds (I think). This skill will ALWAYS last all 5 seconds. That's +50 mana over the 15 second recharge time, or +150 mana over the total recharge time of Force Shield, which at most would give me a +60 mana increase to my original recharge rate. Operatives gets +8 mana (not talking HP here, so leaving it out) Inner Focus maxed. That skill lasts 10 seconds, and will ALWAYS +80 mana over the 30 second recharge time, meaning I could use another Inner Focus for it's entirety before Force Shield is available, giving a net gain of +160 mana. Why do Operatives and Commandos get a guaranteed, fool proof method of mana regeneration with smaller cool down times? At the very least, let Force Shield's mana buff last for the entirety of the skill's 30 second window. A guaranteed +60 mana is really nothing in the big picture.

I don't use the DOTs because I don't have enough skill points yet. The bosses in this game are not hard and with these skills being single target, they're basically useless on MOST of the normal mobs unless you attack them before anyone else. I'm sure my team would rather me have all my support skills buffed up to the max to keep them alive rather than adding a couple extra damage every 2 seconds. Engineers are not meant to deal the heavy damage, nor are they meant to take it. I plan to spec force shield out of my build in place for points in Leech, followed by points put back into Force Shield as I continue to level. It seems that force shield provides less overall bonus than a few extra hp from leech every 2 seconds, which needs to be addressed.

I couldn't care less about PvP. There has to be a way to have the skills work differently in PvE and PvP. In fact, I'm pretty sure some skills already do. Take suppression or whatever it's called for Engineers. In PvE it stops all targets from moving and attacking correct? Well as far as I know from a while back, Suppression only stops movement in PvP and opponents can still return fire. However, Force Shield wouldn't even need to be changed for PvP because it has a god awful recharge time. Knocking off the current 75 damage takes like...1 or 2 shots on PvP (I'd assume, I don't pvp at the cap) and then you need to wait 45 seconds...or to die...to use the skill again. Meanwhile, Ops and Commandos can use their regen skills 2 and 3 times respectively. I don't know how much the engineers healing skills help in PvP, but I can tell you that my 30 Op slays engineers.

[TheRajX]

Yes I see things very differently because I focus more on pvp. But my build I find is actually much better than what most engis use for pve. If I don't utilize force shield, then I just have 5/6 extra skill points sitting around that are crucial.

You are very right about pvp skills working differently. A heal with a full int build, nova, and dodge gear yields approx. 26 hp for 3 times in pvp whereas it would heal about 92 hp 3 times in pve.

It would make sense to give us a better mana skill. After all our int build naturally gives us more mana than health (at least with dodge gear).I totally support the +6 second regen idea. Love it, I'm always jealous of how coms can just regen mana (with no caviats) in a couple of seconds. For one thing even 10 mana points is the difference between black and white within pvp. Even though it might not be as crucial in pve, force shield still needs to be better. Way better....

We all have a mutual understanding of this skill sucks, but its awesome that you developed it into a post.

Now to grab admin attention...

[akfury]

Very nice flow I approve +1

[Flowman]

*cough*

[Popular]

Gibberrr

Are you alive??


Pleae answer our questions and requests if you are

[jackaboo]

The only time I've ever used this skill is in pvp. Considering it breaks in three pistol shots and the buffs don't last beyond duration, the shield is pretty useless.

[Flowman]

Not a single STS post on the entire first page of the suggestion forum makes me wonder if these suggestions fall on deaf ears.

[Deathpunch]

Not a single STS post on the entire first page of the suggestion forum makes me wonder if these suggestions fall on deaf ears.

That's pretty much how it's always been. Seriously, I think we're all just barking at the moon here.

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NOTE TO READER: The above post should most likely be read in a sarcastic tone.

[Flowman]

*Forceful obnoxious cough*

[Zaonabiuibil]

*Forceful obnoxious cough*

*chucks a cough-drop*

[Deathpunch]

*finds moon*

*barks*

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