Is Potency and potentially Tenacity a problematic stat for SW:GOH?
May 14, 2016 6:58PM
edited May 2016
I've been thinking on how to address some characters who are considered woefully underpowered and/or are severely under-utilized in the game. I believe that the most common issue is "his/her/their potency sucks (at least until gear 11)." There are many characters like this: Asajj, Boba Fett, Clone Sergeant, Coruscant Underworld Police, Darth Sidious, Grand Moff Tarkin, Lobot, Magmatrooper, Plo Koon, Poe, Resistance Trooper, Tusken Shaman, and more. Many of these characters, if they could reliably implement the effects described in their abilities, would be pushing their way into the mainstream (while others are just garbage and need more help).
And even more stangely, there is a list of characters that have very good potency, but have no abilities that use it. It's just bizarre.
Given this information, and how more potency would help a wide range of characters move towards viability (or at least not make someone feel like they've wasted a month), I would say the easiest solution would simply be to remove Potency from SW:GOH. Give all abilities the same base chance to apply or be resisted. I would personally be fine with Tenacity remaining as a defensive stat, but that could easily go as well, leaving the only alterations as leader abilities and in game buffs from sources such as Luke, Kit Fisto, and Yoda. Characters should be compensated for the loss of stats on their gear, which would lead to a likely net buff of many characters, which would further help make new characters viable in Arena/GW/Raids, or some aspect of the game. This is ignoring the issue of piles of special damage and special crit on characters who have absolutely no use for it, which should be looked at as well, but this would be a great first step towards roster and team diversification, if that is indeed something that EA wants for the game.
Let me know what you think!
And even more stangely, there is a list of characters that have very good potency, but have no abilities that use it. It's just bizarre.
Given this information, and how more potency would help a wide range of characters move towards viability (or at least not make someone feel like they've wasted a month), I would say the easiest solution would simply be to remove Potency from SW:GOH. Give all abilities the same base chance to apply or be resisted. I would personally be fine with Tenacity remaining as a defensive stat, but that could easily go as well, leaving the only alterations as leader abilities and in game buffs from sources such as Luke, Kit Fisto, and Yoda. Characters should be compensated for the loss of stats on their gear, which would lead to a likely net buff of many characters, which would further help make new characters viable in Arena/GW/Raids, or some aspect of the game. This is ignoring the issue of piles of special damage and special crit on characters who have absolutely no use for it, which should be looked at as well, but this would be a great first step towards roster and team diversification, if that is indeed something that EA wants for the game.
Let me know what you think!
Is Potency and potentially Tenacity a problematic stat for SW:GOH? 65 votes
Yes, Potency/Tenacity are both problematic and unnecessarily make certain characters much worse than they could be.
43%
28 votes
Yes, Potency alone is problematic and unnecessarily makes certain characters much worse than they could be.
15%
10 votes
No, Potency/Tenacity are fine and simply giving underused/underpowered characters more of it will be enough.
40%
26 votes
No, I don't care about characters who are underused/underpowered on the basis of Potency.
1%
1 vote
0
Replies
I'm being a bit facetious, but has no one else really ever thought about this?
Those are the toons I really want to see buffed.
There's another game I play where there is no resists unless you equip certain things, and it can only resist certain debuffs at 20% it is still ridiculous.
This, however, comes to one issue: AI proc rates. AI routinely lands debuffs and resists far more often than players. Fix this, and then it may be fine.
the numbers listed in stats don't matter because EA use a different set of numbers when AI is in control.
Heroes that rely on inflicting negative or removing positive effects as the cornerstone of their package should have better Potency at G7+. Especially for non-AoE effects.
I think the game doesn't take advantage of it. Characters with low potencies debuffs should be worth the fact that they don't apply often.
Some toons are head scratchers, though.
I think in the cases where toons have inexplicably low potency, it is perhaps because the devs found squads that were overpowered. So while the toon might look broken, there may be a good reason.
Tarkin is a disappointment, and I have him. But again, I'm reserving judgment. The guys with full empire teams find him useful as is. After I have a chance to add some more toons, I will see for myself.
To fix him, he needs either:
- a big damage boost befitting of his glass cannon health, slow speed and low potency;
- a ton more health AND a speed boost; or
- a potency bump of 40-50%.
Guildies and I have been laughing at the amount of characters that need a Mk7 Nubian Scanner (+40% potency) at Gear9 and 10, that don't actually have any abilities that use potency - whilst toons like Tarkin max out at 39% Potency, barely able to land one debuff on his specials.
Poe is another example who got crippled by the nerf a few months ago, and hasn't recovered. Since TM reduction was made resistable, neither his expose nor his TM reduction will hit more than 2 out of 5 toons on average, and it's often much worse. His Offense Down is usually resisted, also impacting his usefulness. You can argue about whether the initial nerf was justified or not, but now it's swung further in the other direction, and between his low-middling potency (maxed at 60%) and the % chance to apply both his Offense Down & Expose, he is barely more useful than Chewie. His Tenacity, even with the adjusted unique, isn't that great either.
That's just two examples listed above, there are many more. My two suggestions would be to:
- assign potency gear to characters that actually need it, don't make players spend time and effort (or in some cases, actual cash) acquiring gear that does nothing for the character
- consider that the % chance to act on some characters is a throwback to when the game was different, and adjust/remove it.
My guild has had a couple short communications on chat about RNG toons (ones dependent on the potency/tenacity dice roll) in general. I have been avoiding them intentionally as no matter how powerful they are they are unreliable (Dooku lead, Old Ben, Daka, stunners not named RG, etc.). They can dominate or they can be worthless. (Even our not to be named best member agrees with the premise).
In my opinion, something needs to be done about it. There are too many toons that are dependent on this double dice roll and many, as you mentioned well in your OP, are not nearly as useful as they appear in their skill descriptions. Toons with what appears to be 100% ability proc almost never proc because of low potency and some with much less chance proc way more often because of high potency.
I chose to say both are a problem, but I like your suggestion
I would like to see potency as a stat go away. Then the proc chance is as stated in the skill description and either tenacity goes away or is re-worked to be a 10-20% chance to avoid or some thing like that.
I originally wanted to run an empire team that looks killer until you realize the actual chances of any of their skills actually 'working' is horrible.
There's no reason a character with no special attack in their kit should have gear that moves them to 3000+ special damage rating, or that a character that uses Potency for nothing should have 92% Potency. It's just totally inexplicable, I would love to know what the devs were thinking when they came up with what characters need which gear. Removing potency and replacing it with relevant stats for characters would be an easy fix, but the insanity of the gear system as a whole is the underlying problem.