Semi Serious Suggestion 5: Force User Buffs

[TheRanger1245]

Just to clarify, by 'Force User' I mean saberless Jedi/Sith here.
So everyone knows that the Force User subclass is really cool yet quite unviable. I like the idea of swapping a regenerating shield for better support abilities, and force repulse is a very good power for this role. However, it is not enough to make the class much more than a meme. The ability lets the user keep saber rushers at bay and lets you completely lock down a dueling saberist. The ability is only barely usable against gunners and will get you killed 99 percent of the time in that situation. Honestly, I am fine with how the ability functions and I do not think it needs changing. However, I do think that Force Users deserve a bit more bang for their buck, as giving up a saber is no small sacrifice. After reading several posts about this, including Tempest's 'Force Affinity system' I want to propose 3 smaller changes that could make force user a lot more viable. Also, I do not think that Force User with sabers should get any of these changes, as the saber offers different solutions to the problems my fixes will tackle. Repulse should be optional here, only giving up your saber would qualify you for these bonuses. Only 1 of these changes should be implemented, not all or even 2. By descending order of practicality...

Free Combo Pushes: The issue: When Force Users use pushes and repulses to support teammates, they cannot actively fight themselves. The Solution: We could give Force Users free pushes when used as a combo with another power. Pull-Push Superpush, Lightning Push, and Grip Push would cost less FP to pull off. Pull-Push would only cost 20 FP instead of ~40. Lightning push is probably the one most people would be worried about. My main intent here is giving lightning Sith the opportunity to pace his lightning and kite enemies along. You could use a bit of lightning then retreat into cover and repeat without draining all your FP with the wasted pushes. I often get more kills with vanilla lightning 3 than lightning push using this tactic. Grip push is less likely to kill where other super pushes do, mainly relying on fall damage kills. This would give the Force User Sith more time to damage the enemy with grip before pushing the opponent into the air for a more consistent fall damage kill. Overall, this idea would allow Force Users to use kill moves while keeping their role as powerful supports. If too powerful: We could halve the push cost instead of nulling it.

FP On Kill: The Issue: Force users are barely better than defense 1 saberists when it comes to destructive force potential. The Solution: When Force Users kill an enemy they regain FP based on 75% the target's maximum HP (Not Armor). This FP gain can Overcharge and go over the maximum limit of 100 to a cap of 200 and slowly drains back to 100 if not used. The main implications of this are threefold. First, Force Users will be able to stay in active combat for much longer if the player is securing kills. Second, soldiers will get bullied less often as taking on hard to kill arcs, wookies, mandos, and SBDs yield big rewards. Third, killing multiple enemies with repulse or superpush allow Jedi Force Users to become eternally invisible speed melee phantoms and Sith Force Users to become lightning or grip monsters. The lowest bonus FP amount you would get would be 38 FP from soldiers, and the highest should probably be 150 for wookie, sbd, and deka kills. Overall, this idea would allow force users to be more active and give them their own power fantasy. High risk-High Reward glass cannons that mostly just flail around before dying. If too powerful: Reduce the FP gain to 50% of max HP, remove the FP Overcharge, or make it so getting kills just resets the Force user to 100 FP.

Timed Force Deflect: The Issue: Force Users have no protection from blaster bolts for the tradeoff of a very situational force power. The Solution: You all saw this coming. Ever since EA Battlefront people have wanted to give force users some kind of block. My take on this would function sort of how the KOTOR games handled this. When you press block in melee a sound effect plays and the Force User reaches out his/her hands that have a team-colored aura. This takes 0.3 seconds to activate and lasts for 0.8 seconds. If shot within 0.3 seconds after activation you accurately deflect, if hit after that you inaccurately deflect to a random direction. You can deflect 2 bolts per activation (one for each hand) and cannot reflect sniper class Bolts (Get sense 3 if you want sniper protection). On a successful accurate deflection the team colored aura flashes brightly, the block goes on a 0.2 second cooldown, and the player loses no melee block points. On a late deflection or if nothing is deflected at all the block has a 1.2 second cooldown and player loses 1/3 of the melee block bar. If the player blocks a saber hit within 0.2 seconds by actively touching the saber hitbox with their hands the saberist gets hit by the punch block counter. If blocking a later hit from a saber, the saber just reflects off the Force user, dealing no damage (think training dummy hits). Successfully blocking a saber also drains 1/4 of the melee block bar but has no cooldown. Blocking a melee wookie punch or SBD slap would push back those classes a bit for no Block bar cost. One final important aspect of this: Blocking while standing only protects the head/torso, and blocking while crouching leaves your head vulnerable. I think my blocking system is a bit more complicated than other's but has less overlap with the default system. Everything here is parry based and failing will just end up with you taking major damage. At least with this you can use skill to get out of situations that current Force User cannot deal with. If too powerful: Make the perfect parry window the only window of protection that the Force User has.

That is all I have to say for the most part. I do not expect much of this to be feasible and I only intend this post to start discussion. Please tell me how wrong I am below.
(Why doesn't repulse work on Wookies and rolling Dekas btw? Plz)

 

[Jay Brando]

fp regen would be cool but if it was allowed on forcewhores with a saber then I would only be exiting mindtrick to slice an enemy.

good thing you suggested it has to be melee whores, but even then a mindtrick and speed3 jedi or an infinite lightning sith would be so cool, there'd definitely have to be some limits though because otherwise I would just jump into a group of gunners with only lightning

 

[Eazy E]

Just to clarify, by 'Force User' I mean saberless Jedi/Sith here.
So everyone knows that the Force User subclass is really cool yet quite unviable. I like the idea of swapping a regenerating shield for better support abilities, and force repulse is a very good power for this role. However, it is not enough to make the class much more than a meme. The ability lets the user keep saber rushers at bay and lets you completely lock down a dueling saberist. The ability is only barely usable against gunners and will get you killed 99 percent of the time in that situation. Honestly, I am fine with how the ability functions and I do not think it needs changing. However, I do think that Force Users deserve a bit more bang for their buck, as giving up a saber is no small sacrifice. After reading several posts about this, including Tempest's 'Force Affinity system' I want to propose 3 smaller changes that could make force user a lot more viable. Also, I do not think that Force User with sabers should get any of these changes, as the saber offers different solutions to the problems my fixes will tackle. Repulse should be optional here, only giving up your saber would qualify you for these bonuses. Only 1 of these changes should be implemented, not all or even 2. By descending order of practicality...

Free Combo Pushes: The issue: When Force Users use pushes and repulses to support teammates, they cannot actively fight themselves. The Solution: We could give Force Users free pushes when used as a combo with another power. Pull-Push Superpush, Lightning Push, and Grip Push would cost less FP to pull off. Pull-Push would only cost 20 FP instead of ~40. Lightning push is probably the one most people would be worried about. My main intent here is giving lightning Sith the opportunity to pace his lightning and kite enemies along. You could use a bit of lightning then retreat into cover and repeat without draining all your FP with the wasted pushes. I often get more kills with vanilla lightning 3 than lightning push using this tactic. Grip push is less likely to kill where other super pushes do, mainly relying on fall damage kills. This would give the Force User Sith more time to damage the enemy with grip before pushing the opponent into the air for a more consistent fall damage kill. Overall, this idea would allow Force Users to use kill moves while keeping their role as powerful supports. If too powerful: We could halve the push cost instead of nulling it.

FP On Kill: The Issue: Force users are barely better than defense 1 saberists when it comes to destructive force potential. The Solution: When Force Users kill an enemy they regain FP based on 75% the target's maximum HP (Not Armor). This FP gain can Overcharge and go over the maximum limit of 100 to a cap of 200 and slowly drains back to 100 if not used. The main implications of this are threefold. First, Force Users will be able to stay in active combat for much longer if the player is securing kills. Second, soldiers will get bullied less often as taking on hard to kill arcs, wookies, and mandos yield big rewards. Third, killing multiple enemies with repulse or superpush allow Jedi Force Users to become eternally invisible speed melee phantoms and Sith Force Users to become lightning or grip monsters. The lowest bonus FP amount you would get would be 38 FP from soldiers, and the highest should probably be 150 for wookie, sbd, and deka kills. Overall, this idea would allow force users to be more active and give them their own power fantasy. High risk-High Reward glass cannons that mostly just flail around before dying. If too powerful: Reduce the FP gain to 50% of max HP, remove the FP Overcharge, or make it so getting kills just resets the Force user to 100 FP.

Timed Force Deflect: The Issue: Force Users have no protection from blaster bolts for the tradeoff of a very situational force power. The Solution: You all saw this coming. Ever since EA Battlefront people have wanted to give force users some kind of block. My take on this would function sort of how the KOTOR games handled this. When you press block in melee a sound effect plays and the Force User reaches out his/her hands that have a team-colored aura. This takes 0.3 seconds to activate and lasts for 0.8 seconds. If shot within 0.3 seconds after activation you accurately deflect, if hit after that you inaccurately deflect to a random direction. You can deflect 2 bolts per activation (one for each hand) and cannot reflect sniper class Bolts (Get sense 3 if you want sniper protection). On a successful accurate deflection the team colored aura flashes brightly, the block goes on a 0.2 second cooldown, and the player loses no melee block points. On a late deflection or if nothing is deflected at all the block has a 1.2 second cooldown and player loses 1/3 of the melee block bar. If the player blocks a saber hit within 0.2 seconds by actively touching the saber hitbox with their hands the saberist gets hit by the punch block counter. If blocking a later hit from a saber, the saber just reflects off the Force user, dealing no damage (think training dummy hits). Successfully blocking a saber also drains 1/4 of the melee block bar but has no cooldown. Blocking a melee wookie punch or SBD slap would push back those classes a bit for no Block bar cost. One final important aspect of this: Blocking while standing only protects the head/torso, and blocking while crouching leaves your head vulnerable. I think my blocking system is a bit more complicated than other's but has less overlap with the default system. Everything here is parry based and failing will just end up with you taking major damage. At least with this you can use skill to get out of situations that current Force User cannot deal with. If too powerful: Make the perfect parry window the only window of protection that the Force User has.

That is all I have to say for the most part. I do not expect much of this to be feasible and I only intend this post to start discussion. Please tell me how wrong I am below.
(Why doesn't repulse work on Wookies and rolling Dekas btw? Plz)

Force-Whores are a meme class, repulse made them even more of a meme, pre-v1 required a bit more skill.

For defending, sense works fine they don't need further buffs against gunners who are already fucked. If a Sith gets close to melee distance and uses lightning, Soldiers and ETs are completely fried (with no chance at all in 1v1 of surviving, its' literally impossible without some kind of obstruction from the lightning being conveniently nearby).

One thing I would like to see is have grip reset if you take physical damage while trying to grip someone (so force whores who get shot while attempting to grip get their grip progress reset).

The buffs FW does need, perhaps, would be against Jedi and Sith, I already covered this in a previous post back in 2018 but devs shot it down. To use force powers on mid-tier Jedi/Sith requires the most immaculate timing possible. If they do a kata or jump they will immediately hold block as soon as they do making them immune to push/pull (the most common force powers) meaning you need to time your use of push/pull to be used as soon as they start the jump/kata but before they hold block (for any good player this is like a 100ms gap), something that is do-able with a ton of practice but in a lot of cases requires careful prediction and a ton of luck.

The fact that simply holding right click makes you completely immune to push/pull while doing DFAs, Katas, Jumping even with 0BP and with all your FP drained etc... Is not good game design. You can claim that "well holding right click makes you jump slower" as people did back in 2018, but as they conveniently ignore, that isn't true if you jump while not blocking and then hold it as soon as you take off (once again 100ms gap), there is literally no downside to it.

I'd recommend they make it so you should be vulnerable to Force Powers, even if blocking, if your BP is low alongside your FP, based on Saber Defence. At Saber Defence 3 being below 25BP or so you should be vulnerable to force powers (if running/jumping while blocking you should be able to get pulled/pushed). The argument against this is that jumping drains your BP. Even if you jump as high as possible with Jump 3 from 100FP to 0 as a Jedi/Sith you only lose half your BP, so as long as you start the jump at full BP you'd still be immune as long as you're blocking, no matter how high you jump.

That's the only problem I currently have with how force users are designed, any other buffs to them would just be unfair to gunners.

 

[TheRanger1245]

Force Users already lose FP from being shot. I play Grip User a lot and the matchup is pretty balanced. Up close the sith basically gets a kill based on a hitscan system where they compete with the gunner's aim with the matchup being slightly better for the sith. They either run and you super push them or grip them and try to kill them by chucking them over the edge or with fall damage. It doesn't take more than one or two shots to stop the grip AND the sith has to be up close up for this to work, so I think it is decently balanced there.

Any gunner worth his salt will see what you are doing and walk around you, and in that case lightning push is a direct downgrade from lightning. You waste more FP and if they walk it pushes them back so far that you cannot actually hit them 90 percent of the time. "But you kill them when they run!" Yeah, and you can do it from slightly more range+against more people than non-Force Users, but if the gunners are running around anyway and you want an instant kill you can just ambush push and saber with Saber defense 3????? None of your complaints with the gunner matchup are about force user, they are about raw lightning 3. If you want that reworked, it would take little community outcry to remove the stun from lightning. Also notice that one of my suggestions makes targeting soldiers and ET/COs less rewarding. Consider than lightning spamming Sith are usually left with no FP and just die anyway.

I honestly think you do not know how to fight jedi/sith as a Force User, as they are the only targets that you are usually on equal footing in a 1v1. If you aren't killing them mid-duel with repulse or superpushing them down when they have low FP, most of the advanced force powers let you fight Saberists pretty well. Lightning: Lets you zap jedi on knockdown for a ton of damage, or lightning push lets you knock them down for a realy long time = free punches. Grip: Probably the worst option, but you can use it to bait out pushes for FP waste to a potential superpush kill. Speed: Knock them down then crouch and speed punch. Mind Trick: You can MT them then either run away or easily outmaneuver them.

Jumping blocking Saberists can be repulsed btw. Also if they jump you can run under them or duck? You can also do the force focus kick into pull or lightning push trick. It is really not a problem. BP loss = Force vulnerability would make force powers way better in duels, and force powers in duels are in a good spot right now.

 

[TheRanger1245]

For defending, sense works fine they don't need further buffs against gunners who are already fucked. If a Sith gets close to melee distance and uses lightning, Soldiers and ETs are completely fried (with no chance at all in 1v1 of surviving, its' literally impossible without some kind of obstruction from the lightning being conveniently nearby).

One thing I would like to see is have grip reset if you take physical damage while trying to grip someone (so force whores who get shot while attempting to grip get their grip progress reset).

The buffs FW does need, perhaps, would be against Jedi and Sith, I already covered this in a previous post back in 2018 but devs shot it down. To use force powers on mid-tier Jedi/Sith requires the most immaculate timing possible. If they do a kata or jump they will immediately hold block as soon as they do making them immune to push/pull (the most common force powers) meaning you need to time your use of push/pull to be used as soon as they start the jump/kata but before they hold block (for any good player this is like a 100ms gap), something that is do-able with a ton of practice but in a lot of cases requires careful prediction and a ton of luck.

The fact that simply holding right click makes you completely immune to push/pull while doing DFAs, Katas, Jumping even with 0BP and with all your FP drained etc... Is not good game design. You can claim that "well holding right click makes you jump slower" as people did back in 2018, but as they conveniently ignore, that isn't true if you jump while not blocking and then hold it as soon as you take off (once again 100ms gap), there is literally no downside to it.

I'd recommend they make it so you should be vulnerable to Force Powers, even if blocking, if your BP is low alongside your FP, based on Saber Defence. At Saber Defence 3 being below 25BP or so you should be vulnerable to force powers (if running/jumping while blocking you should be able to get pulled/pushed). The argument against this is that jumping drains your BP. Even if you jump as high as possible with Jump 3 from 100FP to 0 as a Jedi/Sith you only lose half your BP, so as long as you start the jump at full BP you'd still be immune as long as you're blocking, no matter how high you jump.

That's the only problem I currently have with how force users are designed, any other buffs to them would just be unfair to gunners.

Forgot to quote you, read post above lol

 

[Jay Brando]

Force Users already lose FP from being shot. I play Grip User a lot and the matchup is pretty balanced. Up close the sith basically gets a kill based on a hitscan system where they compete with the gunner's aim with the matchup being slightly better for the sith. They either run and you super push them or grip them and try to kill them by chucking them over the edge or with fall damage. It doesn't take more than one or two shots to stop the grip AND the sith has to be up close up for this to work, so I think it is decently balanced there.

Any gunner worth his salt will see what you are doing and walk around you, and in that case lightning push is a direct downgrade from lightning. You waste more FP and if they walk it pushes them back so far that you cannot actually hit them 90 percent of the time. "But you kill them when they run!" Yeah, and you can do it from slightly more range+against more people than non-Force Users, but if the gunners are running around anyway and you want an instant kill you can just ambush push and saber with Saber defense 3????? None of your complaints with the gunner matchup are about force user, they are about raw lightning 3. If you want that reworked, it would take little community outcry to remove the stun from lightning. Also notice that one of my suggestions makes targeting soldiers and ET/COs less rewarding. Consider than lightning spamming Sith are usually left with no FP and just die anyway.

I honestly think you do not know how to fight jedi/sith as a Force User, as they are the only targets that you are usually on equal footing in a 1v1. If you aren't killing them mid-duel with repulse or superpushing them down when they have low FP, most of the advanced force powers let you fight Saberists pretty well. Lightning: Lets you zap jedi on knockdown for a ton of damage, or lightning push lets you knock them down for a realy long time = free punches. Grip: Probably the worst option, but you can use it to bait out pushes for FP waste to a potential superpush kill. Speed: Knock them down then crouch and speed punch. Mind Trick: You can MT them then either run away or easily outmaneuver them.

Jumping blocking Saberists can be repulsed btw. Also if they jump you can run under them or duck? You can also do the force focus kick into pull or lightning push trick. It is really not a problem. BP loss = Force vulnerability would make force powers way better in duels, and force powers in duels are in a good spot right now.

I think you're wrong when you say forcewhores are on equal footing to saber users because it takes a damn long time to force focus a saberist using force block 3, and even then like eazy-e (who i think is stupid asf but typed some alright thoughts) said the jedi can just hold block.

also I believe that if you are jumping and blocking with a saber you are immune to repulse.

 

[Eazy E]

Force Users already lose FP from being shot. I play Grip User a lot and the matchup is pretty balanced. Up close the sith basically gets a kill based on a hitscan system where they compete with the gunner's aim with the matchup being slightly better for the sith. They either run and you super push them or grip them and try to kill them by chucking them over the edge or with fall damage. It doesn't take more than one or two shots to stop the grip AND the sith has to be up close up for this to work, so I think it is decently balanced there.

Any gunner worth his salt will see what you are doing and walk around you, and in that case lightning push is a direct downgrade from lightning. You waste more FP and if they walk it pushes them back so far that you cannot actually hit them 90 percent of the time. "But you kill them when they run!" Yeah, and you can do it from slightly more range+against more people than non-Force Users, but if the gunners are running around anyway and you want an instant kill you can just ambush push and saber with Saber defense 3????? None of your complaints with the gunner matchup are about force user, they are about raw lightning 3. If you want that reworked, it would take little community outcry to remove the stun from lightning. Also notice that one of my suggestions makes targeting soldiers and ET/COs less rewarding. Consider than lightning spamming Sith are usually left with no FP and just die anyway.

I honestly think you do not know how to fight jedi/sith as a Force User, as they are the only targets that you are usually on equal footing in a 1v1. If you aren't killing them mid-duel with repulse or superpushing them down when they have low FP, most of the advanced force powers let you fight Saberists pretty well. Lightning: Lets you zap jedi on knockdown for a ton of damage, or lightning push lets you knock them down for a realy long time = free punches. Grip: Probably the worst option, but you can use it to bait out pushes for FP waste to a potential superpush kill. Speed: Knock them down then crouch and speed punch. Mind Trick: You can MT them then either run away or easily outmaneuver them.

Jumping blocking Saberists can be repulsed btw. Also if they jump you can run under them or duck? You can also do the force focus kick into pull or lightning push trick. It is really not a problem. BP loss = Force vulnerability would make force powers way better in duels, and force powers in duels are in a good spot right now.

Jump blocking saberists can't be repulsed. I did not complain about Jedi or Sith being weaker than Gunner, I literally said they're considerably stronger and don't need buffs. I only said that holding block with 0 bp and fp shouldn't make you immune to push/pull.