Arondell

So how will you balance blasters into this now that you increased defender base damage by around 38% and corrupter damage by around 26%?

I noticed the "balancing" example you used with Sonic Resonance only reduces the capabilities of the two less popular powers. For that matter you actually increased the strength of Sonic Disruption. O_o

For me this fails the "laugh-out-loud" test. It all buff and no downside. A huge buff at that. Defenders are already very powerful in teams this is an increase to both their solo ability *and* teaming ability. Even more so for corrupters.

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Therein lies the problem. If you raise Defender base damage by any appreciable amount, then you have to do something for Corruptors too.

It's not a step that will be taken lightly.

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Unless someone can come up with a better reason then has been expressed in this thread it won't happen at all. Turning defenders into corrupter clones isn't going to make much headway with the devs.

As far as I can tell the general abilities and balance of corrupters are exactly what the people who are calling for more defender damage want. Actually thats not quite true. I get the impression that what people want is the same base damage as corrupters without any loss of buff strength and that certainly isn't going to happen.

If you don't like playing villans then simply wait for "Going Rogue" and that problem is solved. If you don't have all the same powersets then campaign for more proliferation.

Pushing to turn defenders into blue colored corrupters isn't going to work.

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I'm getting tired of explaining that ANY type of Defender can be just as effective, even more effective in most cases, than an Empath. I've been asked "Do u heal???"

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Join CoX. Now with new and improved farming so you can get from 1 to 50 in under ten hours. Yay. All the fun and none of the tedious learning-how-to-play-the-game junk.

Thats one way to get rid of the influence and power leveling sellers. Make them superfluous. I'm hoping NCsoft will start offering level 50 characters out of the box for a fee soon.

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All the ATs were designed for team play. The difference is that only Defenders are hamstrung in solo play. Tankers inherent is team only too, yet they have ample defense and damage.

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This is not true. Or at least not true in any meaningful way. I can just as easily say that all the ATs were designed for solo play and be just as correct. Especially since the base standard for soloing is the ability to solo on Heroic. The far better indicator is the powers themselves. Unlike tanks many of the defender primary powers are ally only.

On the flip side of the argument all defender teams are generally considered steam rolling juggernauts. Almost nothing slows them down and damage output is a distinct non-issue. Defenders excel in team environments more then any other AT.

I must admit that I don't understand why people who don't like defenders damage output don't simply play corrupters.

Frankly corrupters are effectively what defenders would be if they actually buffed the defender damage. At which point the corrupter forum would fill up with complaints asking why people should play a corrupter when defenders do it all better.

As for the solo issue. Defenders were designed as a team oriented AT. Its implied in the very name of the AT. Demonstrated pretty clearly by the abundance of ally only buffs and for the particularly intransigent metaphorically spelled out with an inherent that is team only. The only way it could be more clear is if they posted a big neon sign in Atlas saying "Defenders are a team AT." Complaints that they don't solo as well as other ATs either miss or deliberately ignore the point.

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In defence of this position, I probably will never make a defender if I can make a corruptor blueside (pending other changes, of course). The earlier access to attacks compensates for the later access to money powers, and about the only change I can see is that any /sonic I make will have to take Sonic Siphon. The rest of the gap in the buffs/debuffs doesn't make that big a difference to me.

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I have stated this before and I'm pretty sure others have made the point in the past as well. Not all ATs are to everyones taste. Even within ATs not everyone likes all the powersets. This is true for all sorts of reasons and in my opinion is a good thing. If you as a player are dissatisfied with the amount of damage your defender is doing corrupters are the obvious solution to your problem. Far greater individual damage potential with somewhat less buffing strength.

I myself have never been all that concerned with personal damage and have always liked the idea that I'm giving my team the strongest possible buffs in the game. Hence I like defenders over corrupters.

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Vigilence needs to be retweaked and I think correctly this thread has stated that soloing is very hard for many (not all) defenders.

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I must admit this particular complaint always leaves me bemused. The AT is advertised from the beginning as a team support AT yet I keep seeing people complain that not all variants can solo well.

I keep getting the impression that what people are thinking but are not quite willing to say is that they want blaster damage and defender abilities. Thats not likely to happen any time soon. In the mean time you can always go and play a corrupter. Soon you'll even be able to bring them hero side.

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Defenders contribute far too much to a team to act like their damage is such a crucial element of the class.

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Defenders have an entire secondary powerset specifically devoted to dealing damage. To say that damage for Defenders isn't important is like saying Scrappers don't need to use their defenses or Controllers don't need to use their buffs.

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Where did he say it wasn't important for the class? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but as near as I could tell he meant that individual damage wasn't the *point* of the class. Which is true as far as I can tell.

If you want high individual damage do something else. Defenders are not meant to simply be tougher blasters.

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...I just prefer FF and its elegance.

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While being able to bounce the bad guys around like a bunch of pinballs can be useful, effective, and fun I must admit that "elegant" wasn't one of the adjectives that came to mind.

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AE! From what I have seen, it has ruined the game imho!


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The implementation of AE was, IMO, poorly done. Anyone with half a brain *should* have seen the consequences of the initial implementation. Personally I was surprised they allowed full XP for player designed missions.

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Cold is not really rare, it's just as common as the other Defender Primary sets... that aren't Rad or Kin. >_>

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Or Empath.

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But Liquefy does cause -Recharge speed!

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Among several other effects. My point being to make clear the contrast. Without the slow in ice slick the mobs would tend to run out of the slick area fairly quickly unless they had a reason to stay in it despite the high knockdown chance.

Users of Liquify tend to use themselves as the lure to keep the mobs in the AoE since most mobs tend to want to get into melee range.

Edit : To put it another way the slow is a necessary component to Ice Slick to make it as effective as it is.

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Ice Slick provides only knockdown, with no other effects. Glacier is only available intermitently.

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This is incorrect. Ice Slick also slows targets. An example of an AoE knockdown without slow would be Liquify.

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I guess Mitigation =/= Control?

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I believe that is correct. Better to say not all controls mitigate damage. An immobilize for instance does not in and of itself mitigate damage unless the power has some other effect such as -recharge.

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That leaves Flash Arrow (which I'm not sure should count) and Entangling Arrow (single-target immobilize).

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Flash Arrow? While I can see the -speed in Glue Arrow as having some control like applications(Keeping groups bunched.) I can't see how Flash Arrow can possibly be thought of as a control. It doesn't hold or immobilize. It doesn't even slow. Its debuff with no control or even control like abilities.

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I'm still waiting for someone to request that pain domination be proliferated over to the hero side.

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Actually with the "Going Rogue" expansion coming that might just happen.(sort of)

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Like Rularuu for example, who have a ToHit bonus.

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This is probably the most common example cited as a +toHit bonus mob. This is closely followed up by the Devouring Earth eminators. These bonuses are both so high that they effectively nullify any two FF defenders. I can't name off hand any mobs with only a small or moderate +tohit bonus.

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Miraj (and a few others), for what it's worth, I think you were really rude to Kahlan_ earlier simply because you refused to accept a difference of opinion in definition. By saying "So you may disagree, but you're wrong," you are being incredibly arrogant and presumptuous.

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Its is neither inherently arrogant or presumptuous to state a belief that a particular persons opinion is wrong. Especially when you give particular reasons for a your belief in a clear manner. At worst I would consider it being blunt. It certainly wasn't an "assault."

If they had said something like "Your wrong because I've playing this game for five years" or "Your wrong because I've been playing this game longer then you." Well *that* would have been arrogant and/or presumptuous.

Maybe my view is just a matter of perspective. I also play EvE which has towering examples of arrogance and disdain where trash talking both in game and in forums are considered valid tactical and strategic methods by many. Sort of like the PWNZ forum but with nastier intentions.

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Damage Shield would protect by absorbing a set amount of damage before collapsing.

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I'm blanking on the name but doesn't one of the Ice Domination powers already do something like that except it behaves like extra hit points? Frostworks?

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Snippet:
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That's the nice thing about facts, they're not debatable.

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A philosophical quibble: facts are indeed debatable, and mutable over time. Might I comment that it was once an accepted fact that the Earth was flat.

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Actually its more like conclusions based on observed phenomenon are debatable. I believe the word "fact" is rather inadequate since it tends to have slightly different meanings depending on who you ask.

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I'm sorry, but you are in fact wrong.

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Again, I'm more than happy for people to disagree with me. It's statements like this that make me not feel like discussing it. Thanks for reminding me why to avoid the forums.

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Both gave reasonable reasons why they thought you were wrong. No harsh language was used. Whats the problem? Should they be more indirect when stating their opinion?

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IO set bonuses allow me to cap ranged and AoE defense. I hover out of melee range and use provoke. The mobs gather under me and shoot at me and it bounces off.

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It works pretty well unless you have an AoE Happy blaster on the team.

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Wait...So your not actually using PFF though your using the IO set bonuses.

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I was on a pick-up group with my empath when the leader asked me if I had preemptive heals set up. She said that preemptive heals anticipate incoming damage and then activate quickly to counteract the damage.

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There are no powers that preemptively heal as such. The closest is any buff/debuffs that prevents damage from occurring in the first place. If he was indeed referring to autofiring heal auras then he has a poor grasp of proper defending.

There are some weak points to this. Its highly likely that a mob will be able to get off a first hit before PFF activates. Also provoke has a duration depending how long it takes to kill the mobs it might wear off before the team can kill them all. Also it effectively removes *you* from the fight which might not be a very good trade off.

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Never thought Support would be such a rush!

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You want to *really* have fun get a team of eight defenders. Crank the difficulty too invincible and then wonder why everything is so easy.