Post by falchoin on Feb 8, 2011 5:19:05 GMT -5
What is a Hold?
A hold is an effect that prevents the afflicted target(s) from activating their powers. Some powers are specifically tagged to work while held, however the majority of powers are not useable while held. Enemy NPC's classified as 'Supervillain', 'Legendary', or 'Cosmic' are immune to holds.
All holds have health. The more health a hold has, the longer it lasts. This health goes down over time. When the hold's health hits zero, the target is no longer held and free to start beating you in the face. Mashing 'z', using hold breakers and taking damage while paralyzed (any hold that isn't a stun is a paralyze now) also does damage to hold health. Paralyzes have much more health than stuns, however stuns cannot be broken early except by specific hold breaking powers. It's also worth noting that EGO and STR have no bearing on breakfree damage nor the speed of which your character breaks out of paralyze type holds or roots, despite what the tooltips say.
Types of Holds:
Charged paralyze style holds have a 12 second base duration (tooltip, rank 1) and generally require a full charge (~2 seconds + activation time) to actually hold the target. Some powers like Tazer Arrow can proc a paralyze style hold on tap, but the chance is very low.
Maintained paralyze style holds are very similar to charged paralyze style holds except they immediately hold their target, excluding heatwave which requires 2 full seconds of maintaining before the hold. The longer the maintained hold is channeled, the more health the hold gets. If the target of a maintained hold breaks out of said hold while the hold is still being maintained the target recieves 1 stack of hold resist and is held again, assuming the target does not have 3 stacks of hold resist.
Stuns are holds that you can't break by mashing 'z', or by taking damage and are generally associated with the melee lunges. Stuns can be broken early by using hold breaking powers such as Immolation, Ego Surge, or Shadow Shroud. +Hold strength makes stuns last longer and +hold resist on the target makes stuns shorter just like with paralyzes.
Sleep type holds are very powerful as they hold targets that are blocking and have higher than average hold health, however sleeps break as soon as any damage is dealt to the sleeping target. Currently only the Ego Sprites power is allowed to deal damage to sleeping targets without waking them.
Hold Resist:
Hold resist affects the health of a hold. +Hold resist lowers hold health. The opposite is true as well. -Hold resist, like in Circle of Primal Dominion, means holds have more health. If a player is held and said player has +100% hold resist the hold has half as much health as normal. +100% hold resist gear occupies the primary utility slot and +50% hold resist gear occupies the secondary offense slots.
The hold resist buff that appears after a target has been held or stunned gives +100% hold resist. Each hold that ends while the hold resist buff is on a target refreshes the previous buffs and adds a new hold resist buff. Once a target has 3 stacks of the hold resist buff, they are immune to all paralyzes, sleeps and stuns until the hold resist stacks time out. The hold resist buff lasts 15 seconds.
Your role has an effect on your base hold resistance. Avenger role lowers your base hold resistance such that a 12 second hold will last ~14 seconds if no attempt to breakfree is made. Protector and Sentinel roles have +hold resistances such that a 12 second hold will last ~10 seconds if no attempt to breakfree is made. The Guardian and Brawler roles do not affect your base hold resistance.
Hold Strength:
+Hold strength means more hold health. Sentinel role gives +20% hold strength and there are some primary utility pieces that give +15% hold strength.
Ranking up paralyzes and stuns increases hold health. This includes powers that deal damage as well as paralyze or stun (mighty leap, ego choke, etc).
Estimating Hold Health:
By holding a player and having them mash 'z' to break free it's possible to estimate the health of a hold. For example, a charged hold lasts 3.9 seconds against a player and he deals 1264 breakfree damage. Since hold health drops the longer the target is held, breakfree damage can be seen as another measure of time. Therefore:
Since breakfree damage also equates to hold health we can assume each second a player is held equal to about 216 hold health. 216hp/sec duration of a hold is based off only a few samples, but it's enough to get an idea.
Thanks to @goodbyeclock, @soulstarisborn, isometry and @willblack for being my guinea pigs while testing.
2/28/2011 - Updated for the stun mechanic changes to allow hold breaking powers to end stuns early.
A hold is an effect that prevents the afflicted target(s) from activating their powers. Some powers are specifically tagged to work while held, however the majority of powers are not useable while held. Enemy NPC's classified as 'Supervillain', 'Legendary', or 'Cosmic' are immune to holds.
All holds have health. The more health a hold has, the longer it lasts. This health goes down over time. When the hold's health hits zero, the target is no longer held and free to start beating you in the face. Mashing 'z', using hold breakers and taking damage while paralyzed (any hold that isn't a stun is a paralyze now) also does damage to hold health. Paralyzes have much more health than stuns, however stuns cannot be broken early except by specific hold breaking powers. It's also worth noting that EGO and STR have no bearing on breakfree damage nor the speed of which your character breaks out of paralyze type holds or roots, despite what the tooltips say.
Types of Holds:
Charged paralyze style holds have a 12 second base duration (tooltip, rank 1) and generally require a full charge (~2 seconds + activation time) to actually hold the target. Some powers like Tazer Arrow can proc a paralyze style hold on tap, but the chance is very low.
Maintained paralyze style holds are very similar to charged paralyze style holds except they immediately hold their target, excluding heatwave which requires 2 full seconds of maintaining before the hold. The longer the maintained hold is channeled, the more health the hold gets. If the target of a maintained hold breaks out of said hold while the hold is still being maintained the target recieves 1 stack of hold resist and is held again, assuming the target does not have 3 stacks of hold resist.
Stuns are holds that you can't break by mashing 'z', or by taking damage and are generally associated with the melee lunges. Stuns can be broken early by using hold breaking powers such as Immolation, Ego Surge, or Shadow Shroud. +Hold strength makes stuns last longer and +hold resist on the target makes stuns shorter just like with paralyzes.
Sleep type holds are very powerful as they hold targets that are blocking and have higher than average hold health, however sleeps break as soon as any damage is dealt to the sleeping target. Currently only the Ego Sprites power is allowed to deal damage to sleeping targets without waking them.
Hold Resist:
Hold resist affects the health of a hold. +Hold resist lowers hold health. The opposite is true as well. -Hold resist, like in Circle of Primal Dominion, means holds have more health. If a player is held and said player has +100% hold resist the hold has half as much health as normal. +100% hold resist gear occupies the primary utility slot and +50% hold resist gear occupies the secondary offense slots.
The hold resist buff that appears after a target has been held or stunned gives +100% hold resist. Each hold that ends while the hold resist buff is on a target refreshes the previous buffs and adds a new hold resist buff. Once a target has 3 stacks of the hold resist buff, they are immune to all paralyzes, sleeps and stuns until the hold resist stacks time out. The hold resist buff lasts 15 seconds.
Your role has an effect on your base hold resistance. Avenger role lowers your base hold resistance such that a 12 second hold will last ~14 seconds if no attempt to breakfree is made. Protector and Sentinel roles have +hold resistances such that a 12 second hold will last ~10 seconds if no attempt to breakfree is made. The Guardian and Brawler roles do not affect your base hold resistance.
Hold Strength:
+Hold strength means more hold health. Sentinel role gives +20% hold strength and there are some primary utility pieces that give +15% hold strength.
Ranking up paralyzes and stuns increases hold health. This includes powers that deal damage as well as paralyze or stun (mighty leap, ego choke, etc).
Estimating Hold Health:
By holding a player and having them mash 'z' to break free it's possible to estimate the health of a hold. For example, a charged hold lasts 3.9 seconds against a player and he deals 1264 breakfree damage. Since hold health drops the longer the target is held, breakfree damage can be seen as another measure of time. Therefore:
- 1264 breakfree = 9.75sec - 3.9sec (9.75 sec was the average a hold lasted in my testing against a player in Protector role not attempting to break free)
- 1264 breakfree = 5.85 seconds
- 216 breakfree = 1 second
Since breakfree damage also equates to hold health we can assume each second a player is held equal to about 216 hold health. 216hp/sec duration of a hold is based off only a few samples, but it's enough to get an idea.
Thanks to @goodbyeclock, @soulstarisborn, isometry and @willblack for being my guinea pigs while testing.
2/28/2011 - Updated for the stun mechanic changes to allow hold breaking powers to end stuns early.
