Make Buffs Toggle Rather Than Duration

[Soulrift]

Buffs like Saryn's contagion, which adds poison damage to weapons, should be things you toggle on and off and drain energy while on rather than cast & duration. There could be an extra cost when first turned on to discourage rapid toggling on and off if needed, but the duration should be controlled by the player so it doesn't cut off mid-combat when you still have lots of energy left over.

[Fonola]

no

[Mythrex]

Yes.

[r3dzer0]

the problem with toggling, we'll take a good example: Rhino's iron skin.  Imagine how great it would be if you could kill your armor and refresh it.  wow now you really are invincible.   that's why they won't toggle.  Nyx's chaos? same thing. can just recast it when you want willy nilly and now every enemy again is shooting eachother in some slapstick comedy entertainment. 

 

Toggling even though it would be nice will break the game even more and make being certain frames a necessity, which we already have a problem of.  i would prefer rebalancing over a toggle.

[r3dzer0]

and now that i have read your post again i realize that you are referring to buffs and not debuffs.... and with an energy drain haha.  I still think that it will provide the same problem as what i mentioned.

[Casardis]

This could be a nice change and will keep the flow of battle a lot better. Also, using Contagion as an example, the visual effects can seem really minimal in the midst of battle, so sometimes, people like me won't notice if it's already gone (unless I know the time it takes for it to wear off approximatively). With this change, this little issue may be taken cared of.

 

However, they will have to program how you gain affinity from this. Currently, every time you cast a power, affinity is given, but if it's a toggle option, the same thing won't work.

 

Another issue may come into play. You can use both Continuity and Constitution to increase the duration vastly. It helped with energy economy and general effectiveness. It will render these mods useless for these skills if your suggestion is applied, unless they change Power Duration effect to slow down the drain for these powers.

 

This brings to the next issue. They will have to determine a good energy drain ratio, because you may lose more energy than it's actually worth it compared to the static energy use with duration, if they make the drain too high. On the other hand, if they make the drain too slow, it will be pointless because Energy Syphon (especially stacked) would prevent the drain, hence making you keep Contagion at all time. Even more ridiculous, think about how you can keep Rhino's Roar at all time because of 4 Energy Syphon. No need to recast it, and no need to be in range afterward if you've already been buffed.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Casardis

[CaptainohCaptain]

This could be a nice change and will keep the flow of battle a lot better. Also, using Contagion as an example, the visual effects can seem really minimal in the midst of battle, so sometimes, people like me won't notice if it's already gone (unless I know the time it takes for it to wear off approximatively). With this change, this little issue may be taken cared of.

 

However, they will have to program how you gain affinity from this. Currently, every time you cast a power, affinity is given, but if it's a toggle option, the same thing won't work.

 

Another issue may come into play. You can use both Continuity and Constitution to increase the duration vastly. It helped with energy economy and general effectiveness. It will render these mods useless for these skills if your suggestion is applied, unless they change Power Duration effect to slow down the drain for these powers.

 

This brings to the next issue. They will have to determine a good energy drain ratio, because you may lose more energy than it's actually worth it compared to the static energy use with duration, if they make the drain too high. On the other hand, if they make the drain too slow, it will be pointless because Energy Syphon (especially stacked) would prevent the drain, hence making you keep Contagion at all time. Even more ridiculous, think about how you can keep Rhino's Roar at all time because of 4 Energy Syphon. No need to recast it, and no need to be in range afterward if you've already been buffed.

Why not? We still have energy drain and still have a formula of 1 energy cost = 1 affinity point (Exception for Volt's Speed, it gives 2 ap per 1 ec).

[Lord.Finster]

Speed and Roar shouldn't be able to be toggled because your teammates can plan with it.

If I use Roar, my team knows they have about 10 seconds to hit really hard and will react accordingly.

However, if I toggle and untoggle at will my team will be hard pressed to make advantage of it.

 

So, toggle is best applied to personal skills like Contagion and Overheat. Invisibility could also work like that (it does in fact in AVP).

 

Still, I don't see aproblem pressing a single button in the midst of a fight to renew my abilites.

Most frames only have one ability they need to refresh anyway.

[Casardis]

I'm all for this idea of course. It's just how they implement it that has to be considered. I hope we do see this one day, at least for personal skills since team buffs may cause more issues.