Wooden_Replica

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People do complain that defenders lose their role somewhere around the late 30s when the controllers now have access to all the defender's powers via the secondary (darkies excepted of course). One could argue that something similar happens to blasters at the same time, but I don't think it's as pronounced, due to the large gap between blaster and defender base damage. The gap between defender and controller buff/debuff sets are too close, and often non existant. Add to that the people who finally figure out around that level that the defender AT's name is misleading and that controllers can actually defend their teams better than defenders can, and the defenders start feeling neglected.


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While I agree that controller's secondary effectiveness is too close to that of defenders, many defenders are still quite solable up to 50, the same can't be said for blasters. Many defender primaries provide MUCH better defense than blasters have. Or to put it another way, a team of 8 defenders can take on any AV at the highest setting, a team of 8 blasters can't say the same thing.

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I think the problem is the big gaps. Defenders are definitally on their own in proportion to the other classes.

I think the biggest problem with the 'defenders not being needed' is honestly that they can't compare. They spend 1/2 their lives needed in most teams/missions but when they get to about 36 they aren't needed.

Lets use my experience as an empathy defender as an example:
Melee characters of the lower levels need empathy for buffing, Clear Mind and healing.

Past 36, Mellee characters have their own mez resistance, self heals (mostly) and some sort of super power for when they get in trouble

Controllers teaming with Defenders:
Before at the low levels, controllers needed defenders on teams to do the damage (when no damage dealers can be found) and support the controllers (heals and status protection).

After 36, controllers have a good handle on their summon and have phase shift/invis to save their [censored]'s.

My empath after 36 wasn't needed on teams (although I really didn't need a team). Everyone had full end thanks to stamina, and people have some sort of strategy/power to save their own arses.

I think the main problem is that 36 don't need as much support and the difference between the classes squishs out the need for defenders.

(Not sure of the numbers on this one)
I.e. Controllers defender 75% as well as defenders
Tankers do damage at about 20% less then scrappers
but Defenders do 40% less damage than blasters secondaries (from what I read.. I don't pay attention to this).

The problem is that a controller with it's summons and holds are more valuable to a team than a defender. The defender is mostly precieve as a buffing but nerfed blaster.

We don't do enough damage to be precieved as helpful to a team and a controllers 2ndary's (with summons) can do enough damage and just enough buff/debuffing that a defenders presence isn't missed.

As far as I can tell.... a controller is an ubber class @ 36+ compared to a defender which maintains it'd mediocrity.

The short version:
Controllers rule the roost for support. Their little buffing/debuffing is enough to make up for the loss of a defender.

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While I agree there needs to be somesort of of look here, I wouldn't descibe my rad/dark medicore, nor most Dark/*, Storm/*, or Kinetic/* . My Rad/Dark did quite fine, it's just that some primaries do better at this range than others. As I stated before, I think our fundimental problem is that controllers share too many powersets with us, Just looning at the disparity, my rad/dark( now 50) had no trouble with the issue 3 bosses, I actually liked that they were tougher with the extra xp, my wife's emp/rad on the other hand, can't solo a non-issue 3 boss, much less the issue 3 bosses. Rather than nerfing powersets, what i'd like to see is some sets buffed to the same lvl as others of the same AT( I'm not talking only defenders here, but classic examples such as Ice Armor, Mace, Dark Armor), rather than nerfing HO's( keep in mind the amount effort it goes into getting one), create more oppertunities to get HO's( lvl 50 content mish anyone with rewards = HO's), lord knows I can force myself only to a single hami raid once a week or two, since after your first few, its gets old.

If we look at the defenders who are in the highest demand in the 40+, who incidently are the same ones who have the least problems soloing, they are
Dark & Rad. Kinetics are also in a fair demand, but do have notable defense issues, Storms I think would be in more demand if there was more storms in the 40+, as it is, among defenders, Storms are the ones people have the least idea to know what they do.
Giving Defenders the ability to use single target buffs on themselves would go a long way to bring them all up to Rad & Dark's lvl. Rad & Dark's BTW, I'd say are compariable to average scrappers, tanks, controllers in effectiveness.
Controllers as stated before, can benifit from single target buffs via their pets, where as defenders can't. And if you were to get down to it, what truely seperates the majority of controllers from the majority of defenders are pets. Controllers are generally picked for two reasons at the high end game, one is the debuffs/ buffs, the other is pets, with the red light-green light hold system with AV's, AV's holds are generally hard to come by, or to put it another way, if it was choice between an illusion and a mind controller, the illusion would win every single time, in terms of being picked( as a side note I really wish the <Search> function, you'd be able to search by primaries/ secondaries are at least they would be automatically be displayed). If for instance Voltiac Sentinal was made into a true pet, */electricity defenders would see a higher demand. The only other alternative I can see is giving defenders a 10th power, on their primaries that would be pets based on the dark servant model, can you imagine a Kinetic Servant spamming heals, speed boost, siphon speed/ power, & increase density?
The 2nd thing I see are mezes, in comics( DC & Marvel), the individuals that tend to have mez resistance would be closest to Defenders or Controllers in classification. I'm not saying to take away resistiance from the melees, but give it to the defenders as it was to the controllers in their epics, to be honest I'd much rather have mind over body to be essentually a Obsideon Shield clone and sacrifice the smashing/lethal resist. Also it seems the dev's idea's for making 40+ mobs tougher is adding mez effect after mez effect, which generally messes their primary targets( melee's), rather than that approach, have mobs that debuff hero's, for instance what if mobs were able to -regen, -resist( more so than now), or -defense instead of mezzing, I mean as much as I hate them, Sappers are a good example of an equal oppurtinity threat to all AT'swith their end drain.
The fundimental problem why some defenders have hard times finding teams in the 40's is that controllers have all but 1 of the buff/debuff sets and none of their own, a very different situation that you see among the melee types, in that despite both having access to the defense & melee sets, share only a single powerset. Had the situation been where they shared almost all of their powersets you would see a similier problem there, be it a Regen/ Ax tank or a DM/ Fire scrapper. Giving us two more unique primaries is a step in the right direction, and I would expect controllers at some point get their own unique secondaries. I'll agree with States that some defenders are where they should be( Rads & Darks), and some others aren't far of where they should be( Storms & Kinetics), but I think Storms, Kinetics, Bubblers, & Emps could all get to the same lvl if they could apply those single target buffs to themselves, and have that ability exclusive to defenders. And maybe in addition to that, make stacking debuffs/ buffs by mutliple defenders/ controllers, exclusive to defenders, that is, Fortitude( I'm not an expert here, but I think a single emp can stack fort on the same toon), only emp defenders would be able to stack it, or deflection shield only a ff defender would be able to stack it on another ff defender/ controller deflection shield, and two ff controllers would not be able to stack shields, RI, EF or whatever, granted this would require a big programming change in logic.
Or some other extra benift in defender primaries, ie a scrappers critical's, a controller's critical holds, or a tanks 90-95% dmg cap.

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Chickenchow, just so we're all clear here, you did the entire infernal mish solo, with this being a even level or + mish, and took down Inferno by yourself in 3.5 minutes, I have a regen as well, I'm quite interested how inferno and his posse managed not to overcome your regen rate, w/o anyone else there to provide crowd control or shotting down the portal of never ending behomoths. Also how you managed to get in that much dmg that quickly w/o being slowed down by his regen rate.

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Well, part of that is easy. I'm DM/Invul... not Regen.

I went in and beat up whatever was between me and Infernal's room. Then I aggro'd Infernal and everything else before stepping back to the enterance of his room. Minions streamed out of the portal and Infernal impressed me with his halitosis. They all stood around me at the door providing crazy +def and making me untouchable. With SoulDrain I maintained my damage cap for those 3.5 minutes and easily over-came his regen. He might even have a Negative Energy vulnerability... either that or Smash resist. I didn't really bother to find out.

And he was only +1. I tend towards Unyielding rather than Invinc.

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So do you think you could pull the same trick with the clockwork king or mother mayham?

Chickenchow, just so we're all clear here, you did the entire infernal mish solo, with this being a even level or + mish, and took down Inferno by yourself in 3.5 minutes, I have a regen as well, I'm quite interested how inferno and his posse managed not to overcome your regen rate, w/o anyone else there to provide crowd control or shotting down the portal of never ending behomoths. Also how you managed to get in that much dmg that quickly w/o being slowed down by his regen rate.

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I was pretty excited when they announced a couple of epic Archetypes for the game. I figured they would probably be a great oprotunity to play some of the more powerful heroes I designed. Me and mine spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what they would be. Then I read Statesman's description.

Kheldians: Warshades and Peacebringers.

So, uhm. These aren't archetypes, these are straight up classes. An archetype is a general model or pattern from which all similar things are copied or based. The current five archetypes, ARE indeed archetypes. You can fill voluminous lists with comic heroes that fit Balster, Tank, Scrapper, Defender, Controller. More than that the five current archetypes model their comic counterparts pretty well. (Except of course Tanks, all they do is serve a nerd game purpose, they are nothing like the comics, but 4 out of 5 is pretty good!)

Now we get Warshades, Peacebringers. Ok, so, these are the archetypes for all those dozens of your favorite super powerful comic book heroes who are from another planet and draw power from the number of people around themselves? I mean a facet of the class is that they are aliens? That should be left to origin, not be inherent in an archetype. The description of these things is actually kind of too specific for a class, let alone trying to pass it off as an archetype.

I was hoping for actual missing comic book archetypes, maybe along the lines of Powerhouse (big guys who can also do damage), Mastermind (Lex, Joker, etc... smart guys the type everyone has to make scrappers or controllers now) and Sentinel (maybe along the lines of Defender but with melee damage).

Nope, Warshades. Peacebringers.

"You know like those comic book staples, uhm... You know the ones, there's that guy."

"Which one do you mean? There's SO many that have the integral traits of coming from an alien planet and drawing power from the people in their proximity. I just don't know where to begin."

And before someone yells out Manhunter or Superman or something... yes they are aliens. We don't need an archetype for superpowerful aliens, we have a science origin. In the above examples I gave Manhunter could be a Science Powerhouse. There's not, and probably never will be (hopefully) an archetype that you can fit Clark in.

Pretty disappointed. Kheldian's not an origin, it's a race. Warshade and Peacebringer aren't archetypes in comics, they're classes in a nerd game. And not only that they seem to be extremely specific classes. Like tanks, they aren't designed to specifically fit in and be part of the genre but to serve a logistic purpose, make teaming more common.

I suppose this wouldn't have been such a big issue if Cryptic hadn't sworn up and down, left and right, that this game would never, ever have the pigeon holed classes of other games. Well, then again they said they wouldn't have dance emotes and dance clubs either so... Lame.

All that being said, we don't know much about these things so I can't give up hope yet. Cryptic has surprised me in the past, maybe they will here too. I sure hope so!

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Actually pick up the Twilight Project by Wilstorm, both of the heroes( and the villian in it) strongly resemble human form kelds( both PB & WS)

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FYI

Jack (i.e. me) has a BA in Classical Civilization, a MA in Ancient History and a MA in Greek & Latin. My specialty: ancient religion. I know ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German, some Aramaic, Coptic, etc.

Basically, I'm EXTREMELY picky with mythology. Trust me on that.

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This begs the question, how did you go from that to Cryptic? There has to be an interesting story here.

Nope, what was happening before with defense powers( fire shield wouldn't apply since its a dmg resist), was that if an attack had two dmg types applicable to the defense, the defense bonus was stacking, for example Rock Armor which is smashing/ lethal defense( not resist) with 20% defense, would have defense vs. either smashing or lethal seperately of 20%, but if used together of 40%.
Just remember there is Defense( ie the tanker primary) and defense( ie resist x% of some damage type)
-Generally defense is the chance to avoid( SR scrappers can eventually get to the point where they can avoid
75% of attacks, but take full dmg when hit)
-Resist is the dmg mitigation( an Inv scrapper with 75% resist vs. smashing/ lethal, if hit for a 100 dmg smashing. lethal attack
would actually only take 25 dmg, and this is how fire shield works against its dmg types)