Set Bonuses on Armorpieces - A suggestion

Hello fellow DCUO-players, hello Dev-Team,

Now before I get started I want to explain why this thread was created in the testing feedback section: Because there isn't a thread in the Developer Discussion (yet) lol. Nope but honestly I think in Gotham City it will just drown in threads about "this is op", "nerf this", "support roles are vanquishing", "I got kicked because of reasons" and several Circe threads ( ).

I want to post a bit of constructive Feedback on why I think that the current Elite Set gear isn't worth chasing for and how slight improvements with already existing gear buffs and procs.

Now to get started, I first want to talk about the current effects and what I think of them in terms of usefulness and actual performance increase:

DPS Bonuses:

• 121 Might
  The first thing to notice is that this is only useful to an extent looking at all available Damage roles.
  The Advanced Mechanics of Earth, Celestial, Rage and Hard Light, maybe even Sorcery are only profiting from it in a very negligible way: Only initial hits of their powers benefit from the small might increase, but the combo-based powers are only really focussing on precision. Especially Hard Light - if it doesn't get interrupted - will only profit from it at the start of a very long chaining rotation.
  Pet based powers aren't really profiting from it either. Their pets damage is a fix base damage that won't increase from more might or precision, as of now the other way to do burst damage is by performing weapon combos/masteries.
• 2500 damage absorbtion shield for 6s every time you use a Damage BuffIt is decent. It will probably prevent one shots from time to time but apart from that it doesn't really help good players to increase their performance. Meleeing bosses is still not an option in many content, some requires max range and some can be done in melee range as long as you put distance between the bosses and you when they do certain attacks. Attacks you won't be able to survive even with the mitigation shield.

Controller Bonuses:

• 61 Vitalization
  As much as we all love stat increases even more Vitalization will not make the cut anymore. With DPSes using AMs we only need to power Tanks and Healers really. And almost every controller can do that solo without the Vitalization Buff.
• 2% Power Crit Magnitude everytime you use a debuff. Stackable 3xMy argument against it is the same like the previous one: We don't need higher crits when we can easily solo troll content anyways. A power crit chance would have been decent, but a higher magnitude isn't that beneficial really.

Healer Bonuses:

• 162 Restoration
  Same as the controllers. With the insane amount of restoration we have with 108/110 gear we don't need more to solo heal anything.
• HoT Aura when you use a priority heal.
  It might be decent but from what I've heard the heals are so slow and low you wouldn't even realize them

Tank Bonuses:

• 54 Dominance / effectively 108
  Dominance is by far not the only Tank stat and more importantly not as important to some tanks as it is to others. E.g. as an earth tank , I'd rather have more HP than 108 more dominance.
• Heal on Group Breakouts
  I don't think this is a buff all tanks can really utilize. The heals are small as well and what benefits do they have to a Rage Tank for example? Not really anything. As a Tank in general you should be able to survive a few seconds without having a healer, if not longer. The small heals aren't that much needed.

As I see it now personally, and I think many would agree, those bonuses for FOUR or EIGHT pieces of elite gear - gear that drops in a raid alongside multiple weapons, rings, trinkets and necklaces that aren't better than drops from regular raids - aren't really worth chasing for. You won't even realize the difference with having the bonuses and not having them.
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Now, what I do think would be more beneficial and would drag more people into Elite, are slight changes to the way our Sets should work:

1. Make set bonuses for having two or three, five and eight pieces of Set gear.
   The first bonus would be mere stats,
   The second bonus would be Proc 1
   The third bonus would be Proc 2
   The bonuses on 4 and 8 are not really encouraging. Resetting a Raid for 54 dominance won't make the cut. Nor would be resetting it even more for the final pieces. Small steps will make the gear look more attractive.
2. Stat bonuses should be more than just "one" main stat. The powers and roles are so different that only one stat will never benefit all power sets (that is true for mainly DPS and Tanks)
3. With the "bad luck rng" that we have there is too much dropping from the Raid. If Rings, Necklaces, Trinkets and Weapons are no different from regular raids, they should not drop, should drop as common loot or should drop as tokens. That way they will not interfere with the Elite gear we all want to have and would still be useful to our second roles or in case of the weapon - a token could also be a rare drop because we would actually have a choice then.
4. Utilize procs that are already there.

Now I want to come to the bonus procs I mean:
Sparc-Procs and FoS-Procs

• Each time you attack an opponent, you have a chance to gain X Supercharge over Z seconds
• Each time you are hit by a beneficial superpower, you have a chance to increase your maximum power pool by X for Z seconds
• Each time you attack an opponent, you have a chance to gain X% Critical Power Chance/Magnitude for Z seconds
• Each time you attack an opponent, you have a chance to gain X/Y Precision/Might for Z seconds
• Tank: % chance to absorb damage to yourself when attacking enemies. Allies not in Tank role will be detaunted. (slightly altered Tank sparc proc)
• DPS: % chance to create a damaging aura on targeted enemy that damages them and enemies nearby over time for X seconds (slightly altered DPS sparc proc).
• Controller: % chance to restore power over time to you and 3 allies over X seconds when attacking enemies. (slightly altered Controller sparc proc)
• Healer: % chance to create a protective aura around you and 3 allies for X seconds that heals them when they drop below 50% health. (slightly altered Healer sparc proc)

Those are just the examples I found on items that are already in the game. One could also alter those procs for different roles or even alter things like weapon/necklace procs from Home Turf mods to benefit other powers in similar ways.
A three-part set bonus could look like this:

1. (2 Pieces)
   X Might and Y Precision for DPS
   X Health Y Dominance for Tanks
   X Vitalization Y Dominance for Controllers
   X Restoration Y Power for Healers
2. (5 pieces)
   Chance to increase Crit chances and magnitudes
   - for Healers on Priority Heals
   - for DPS on weapon attacks (AM players can utilize ranged taps)
   - and Controllers on PoT-Ticks/casts
   Increasing Health/Defense for Tanks possibly on successful counters
3. (8 pieces)
   Procs on Attack Buffs/Debuffs/Group Shields/Group Breakouts
   Those should however be more beneficial than the current ones.
   For example: The mitigation shield would be waaaaaay more beneficial if it would be on Tank Set gear

One could also make SCs beneficial again on giving them cool procs with the set gear. Healer and Controller SCs are still present but Tanks are more often better off with an additional breakout/immunity skill and DPS are better off just doing their rotations - almost everything used in a AM will do more damage than the average Supercharge.
These are of course only suggestions and ideas on how Set gear could be more appealing.
As it is now I don't really know why I should get it. None of this is mandatory of course (lol) but I wanted to point out that there are still old and unused cool effects out there that can be used again without reinventing the wheel
I hope this thread might get some attention by the right people and/or could be filled with more ideas/suggestions about Set gear (that will soon be available through the vendor as well) throughout the new releases of more sets.
Best regards
Schimära

Its a lot of text honestly. It looks like you put a lot of thoughts in this topic. By just overviewing the text, my opinion is, that its intersting and would make it more effortable to run the HH elite Raid.

I agree with your suggestions. Set bonus effects right now are as useful as Toughness in PvE. I think too that there should be effects for lower steps. In ESO there are gear sets that grant additional effects with 2, 3, 4, 5 pieces which I think is very motivating. Just getting one more piece will unlock a new effect - you don't need to grind out 4 pieces to get a bonus in the first place and you don't need to collect another 4 pieces to get the second one.

I know its kind of a meh thing but hey it works.
I think set bonuses atleast the higher piece bonuses should have a unique bonus if the devs think outside the box and make some simillar effects the same way sets work in diablo 3 for example it would open up build diversity.

We could have powerset specific sets that would encourage rather neglected powers to be more of use... or make some powers within a powerset stand out due to the set bonus.
They could tie styles and other cosmetics like auras to those as well.

Another thing to keep in mind is that certain powersets especially tank powers benefit from more than one stat and as far as thats concerned resto is a tank stat as well.
Crit heal chance can work nicely for fire 25 to 50% seems reasonable.
A flat amount shield as an addition to the amount absorbed for ice and earth.
Rage could have a duration increase on rage crash



Just throwing in my 2 cents even tho most of it will never come to fruition

2, 4, 6, 8 would be a better scale for set bonuses.

Yes it would but they will have to get pretty creative with the bonuses.
Hopefully atleast some of the ideas and suggestions here will be considered.