Arcanaville

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1) We see the "Defender" as someone who "defends" by mitigating damage, not by defeating foes. Thus, controllers are quite capable of achieving the ethos of defenders. My blaster doesn't care how you defend me against the incoming damage, just stop it as quickly as possible.

2) Defenders do not come even close to the damage output of blasters in terms of DPS. While they may have a better Risk vs. Reward curve, this is far overshadowed by the effeciency of blasters. Even more so, everyone expects blasters to die. Even blasters. So a defeat by a blaster isn't really seen as a sign of failure on the blaster's part. No one would choose a defender just because they are worried a blaster might get defeated. So that lower risk is arguably meaningless to anyone but the solo defender.


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In terms of teams, defender buffs/debuffs not only improve the defender's damage, but all other team mates damage as well. If a defender taken alone is worth maybe 65% of the net damage of the average blaster, but improves the average output of each team member by 15%, say, then in teams with three or more people the net damage contributed by the defender might exceed the blaster individually. Its also the case that the main reason why (some) teams are less destabilized by the loss of a single blaster's damage output is specifically because they have defenders improving the overall survivability of the team as a whole.

Its the other side of the equation that is much more shaky. Because controllers have similar buffing and debuffing capabilities in their primaries, even if the gap between the two is substantial in numerical terms, it might not be enough to counterbalance controller control and damage across the entire team. I.e. the "break even" point might be 10 or 11 team mates instead, which effectively means there is no break even point. And the main thing throwing off that equation is containment. When controllers had a good chunk of defender buff/debuff, and a lot of control, but low damage, you could argue that was balanced against defender better buff/debuff and higher damage overall. Containment changed that comparison to just buff/debuff vs control *and* damage, and that more significantly upset the balance between the two (i.e. less people cared if controller control was air tight, if they killed slower: above a certain point, control strength had diminishing returns).

Because containment is so dramatic in benefit (it would be almost like giving scrappers automatic criticals) its probably the case that the big question the devs should address is, on average, how do they see controller damage relative to defender damage (and blaster and scrapper and tanker damage). If they see controllers as deliberately designed to do more damage, it would be worth knowing why.


A cruel irony: containment was added because the devs felt "statue fights" were "boring" and therefore, controller control needed to be lessened. With lower control, controllers needed more damage to compensate, and in effect, controllers became much more closely aligned with blasters or corruptors than the original model for controllers.

Its too bad containment couldn't work like Hamidon resistances. The longer and stronger you're held, the lower your resistance to damage becomes, instead of just immediately getting double damage. That way, containment would be a bigger boost to solo controllers that have longer, more control-dominated fights, but be less of a factor in teams with faster, more damage and buff/debuff-dominated fights.

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Then we can stop right here, because I consider your various objections to the straight-line argument I've presented to be at best frivolous if not downright intellectually dishonest.


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You seem to be unclear about what "intellectually dishonest" means. Let me help you out.


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Fact: Defender secondaries are Blaster primaries.


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Is this being intellectually dishonest? No, that's just being factually incorrect. Only two defender secondaries are actually blaster secondaries. Unless you want to claim that having at least one means you can say that "defender secondaries are Blaster primaries" in which case its similar to:

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Fact: Defender secondaries function at 65% of Blaster primaries, across the board.


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which isn't factually inaccurate so much as its misleading, because they aren't at 65% of blaster primaries *across the board* - secondary effects are stronger for defender secondaries. At least, the ones that are shared as blaster primaries.


How about:

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Second, the number is not self-evident to me either. Of the nine FF powers, I'd say that:

PFF: defender better
DS: defender better
FB: questionable, arguably equal
IS: defender better
DF: questionable, default to controller
DB: defender better
RF: controller better
RB: controller better
FB: arguably equal

There is absolutely no question that PFF, DS, IS, and DB are better for defenders, which I'm assuming are the four you don't include. But it would be difficult to make a case that FB is in favor of controllers: knockback distance is not terribly relevant to the damage mitigation of KB in general. It would also be difficult to make a strong case for force bubble being significantly in favor of controllers, since it has a defense component.


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Which is why I said "as well as or better than". Kindly read for comprehension; you went to a lot of time and trouble to confirm precisely what I already told you.


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Well, this is related to intellectual dishonesty, but its really quoting out of context to make an irrelevant point, which is not the same thing. The above sequence was stated to specifically illustrate the thought process, something you seem unwilling or unable to do, believing all of your pronouncements to be self-evident. While the actual exerpt is an example of out of context irrelevancy, the fact that you didn't realize this is a separate issue: its evidence of demagoguery. But its not intellectually dishonest if its combined with self-deception, so they aren't directly related.


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For this argument to work, you have to believe that the significantly higher defense numbers in FF for defenders is basically immaterial, even though the numbers strongly suggest otherwise,


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Um, no. I have to believe that the somewhat higher defense numbers in FF for Defenders is more than offset by the additional damage mitigation a Controller can bring to the table via (a) his primary and (b) his equal or better effectiveness with more than half of the FF set.

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that the other control-oriented powers in FF are all strongly weighted in controller's favor, even though thats not easily demonstrable,


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Not a necessary predicate for the argument. Thanks for playing.


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Besides being unjustifiably snide, its also bordering on self-contradictory. Adding the effectiveness of (a) in the first statement is illogical, because it falls outside the scope of the original comparison of the FF set for defenders and controllers. Deliberately shifting topics would be intellectually dishonest, but it can also be an example of irrationality. Discounting (a), which is out of bounds, the two statements become self-contradictory. I consider being self-contradictory to be proof of intellectual dishonesty in sufficiently intelligent people. I don't have sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion in this case.


But hope isn't lost:

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Define "marginal." My estimates suggest that controller bubbles admit something between 30% and 100% more damage than defender bubbles, depending on situation.


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Marginal, i.e., by some margin. I was not suggesting that the difference is negligible; that's your inference, not my implication.


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This would be an example of intellectual dishonesty, as most people would define it: explicitly or implicitly suggesting that one was unaware or not fully cogniscent of the facts, in direct contradiction to how they were originally used for effect.

"Marginal" does not mean "by some margin" either in standard english, or in any other colloquial common usage. Marginal, in virtually all cases and especially when used as referenced, means "barely within a lower standard or limit of quality" when used descriptively, and "of questionable or minimal quality" when used comparatively. It always connotates "small" or "lesser."

Its intellectually dishonest because its is obvious that you were fully aware of the connotation of "marginal" as used:

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However, despite the marginal superiority of the Defender's buffs, the Controller provides better overall damage mitigation through his marginally inferior buffs plus his superior controls.


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You would have to be basically brain-dead not to see that the use of the word "marginal" was meant to imply "lesser" to contrast with the "superior" controls. Therefore, it is well within reasonable extrapolation that you knowingly used the word in the way all normal people use it, fully appreciating the connotations it provides, and then attempted to invent a non-existent definition for the word in an attempt to manufacture an opportunity for irrelevant dissent. That would be a great example of being intellectually dishonest.


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I consider your various objections to the straight-line argument I've presented to be at best frivolous if not downright intellectually dishonest.


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I haven't actually seen an argument yet. As soon as I do, I'll be sure to comment on it. At the moment, I'm commenting only on your lack of an argument.


Dysmal reminds me that I forgot to include the two new sets (sonic and archery) so blasters and defenders share four, not two sets. That's not intellectual dishonesty either, that's just a really stupid mistake.

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Straight up, even on powers where supposedly defenders have an advantage, my controllers can typicaly get better synergy with their primary useing my primary as a secondary and thus are qualitatively better at useing the power even if they are quantitatively worse.


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I'm not sure that's putting it another way: that seems to be a completely separate issue. And I'm inclined to agree on at least broad terms: the net effect of buff/debuff on top of strong control has a tendancy to benefit teams more than simply stronger buff/debuff. The question is how to address that without nullifying the reason for controllers to exist: control by itself is a fairly strong team benefit, but its become much more difficult for it to have consistent results with recent changes.

This would be counterbalanced by overall better damage on the part of defenders if it wasn't for containment, and frankly while I appreciate containment as a controller, I do think containment has the unfortunate side-effect of dramatically altering the defender/controller calculus in a way I don't want to see for defenders. I.e. I didn't and wouldn't mind my controllers doing less damage than my defenders (at least on average) despite all the "damage is king" crap.

But since fiddling with damage too much creates all kinds of other issues, the best of all possible worlds would be to separate defender primaries from controller secondaries altogether. But since that would require grandfathering and large-scale set engineering, the more likely alternative is to start splitting the sets apart slowly, taking the shared defender/controller sets and slowly boosting the soft control options in them for controllers, and decreasing the buff/debuff components. That would strengthen the buff/debuff advantage defenders should have, while not eviscerating the sets completely for controllers. It would also reduce the direct synergy of buff/debuff on controller pets.

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I respect your arguments in many other areas, Arcanaville, but I honestly wonder if you know what you're talking about here. The clearest proof is this:
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FB: questionable, arguably equal


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Force bolt is *not* a damage power; and moreover, for any damage power in the defender primary, controllers will typically outdamage defenders with it. My /ff controller, when fulcrum shifted to the damage cap, does 12 damage or so with force bolt. (That's not a typo; I mean twelve points of damage). I'm assuming a defender would do 15 points of damage or so, then, or some similar multiple of 12. However, I use it after I blind them -- so I really do 12+12=24 points of damage, exceeding defenders. See how carefully _Castle_ had to phrase his statement to try to make it sound balanced?

Anybody who says that force bolt is better for defenders had better actually present that argument; it's a laughable claim otherwise. And others have pointed out your mistake re force bubble.

The argument that is being made is very straightforward. The proofs for each lemma may be a bit problematic, but the overall argument is clear (and the lemmata you quibble at are incredibly plausible -- you can quibble that back-of-the-envelope calculations aren't exact, but they're pretty darn good at getting the idea across).

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Its precisely because force bolt does practically no damage that its hard to say it favors anyone on the basis of damage. Certainly, I cannot understand how anyone can claim that the defense difference between FF defenders and controller is "marginal" but the advantage of force bolt for controllers is significant.

If I concede the error in force bubble, it still doesn't really change the argument substantially: to claim FF is significantly superior for controllers than defenders, you have to heavily marginalize the defense advantage of defenders, and thats very difficult to support, and then you have to suggest that most of the rest of the powers are better for controllers because of synergy with controller primaries, which is not something you can just hand wave as self-evident.

So I still contend it is not a simple straight line argument to say its obvious FF is superior for controllers than defenders. If it is, the degree of proof required is much higher than that.

Containment changes nothing. If containment allows controllers to significantly outdamage defenders, then outside of heavily stacked resistance debuffs, defenders will be unable to close that gap with any primary or secondary: if containment allows controllers to outdamage defenders - and that is unintentional - that has nothing specifically to do with issues of set by set effectiveness, and would have to be corrected outside of small tweaks to power effectiveness.

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Balance: Leadership Pool - Blasters should get bonuses at least equal to Defenders for Assault and Tactics as these are qualities that define Blasters. It seems to be preferental treatment that any Archtype should benifit more from a Power Pool power than other Archtypes. If this is to be the case then what Power Pool powers do Blasters benifit more from then other Archtypes? (submitted by Red_Zero)


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I don't believe that blasters specifically benefit more than any other AT for any power pool, but last I remember, scrappers actually benefitted from powers like tough and weave *less* than all others: i.e. less than blasters. I believe this is marginally related to stacking issues and scrapper/tanker comparisons, but everyone else was left alone because they don't have enough base resistance or defense for it to matter much.


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Wishlist: Range - Statesman has said our defense is range, yet range means nothing to an AT that can be outranged by the enemy & self-roots with our attacks. Make range mean something! And if we are ranged, why do so many secondaries have so many melee attacks? (submitted by LaughingBoy)


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Range has always been a component of, not a defining characteristic of, blasters. Blasters have been defined as fragile damage-dealers. Range has been claimed to be a situational advantage, that blasters can choose to use, or elect not to use when using the higher damage melee attacks. This might not be desirable, but it isn't specifically an AT definition issue per se.


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Wishlist: Blaster issue PvP: Why are blaster's toggle droppers melee oriented. Since we are blasters we should have a few toggle droppers that are not melee based for every power set. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)


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I asked this question long ago, and the direct answer was, as expected, balance related. A blaster that can detoggle a melee AT from range, outside of the range that the melee AT can counterattack, is unbalanced from the dev's point of view.


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Balance: Blizzard doesn't get any bonus from Aim and Build Up making it less effective then other Nuke-type attacks. (submitted by Icerian)


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This one is supposedly being addressed by the new buff changes coming which will allow powers like Aim and BU to buff blizzard (among other powers).

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Posted by Castle on January 31 on this thread
Charged Bolts is a bit over twice the Activation time of Dark Blast. Mental Blast is ~25% longer Activation Time than Charged Bolts. All do the same base damage. Mental Blast, however, does Psionic damage, which is among the hardest to defend against in the game.

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Posted by Castle on February 1 on the blaster board
The first is a tremendous amount of work, which should probably be done at some point. I'd guess it would take me a full 5 weeks to do. The second requires new design, new code and would probably mean a direct nerf to all Negative Energy, Fire, and Cold attacks, since those resistance types are less common than Smashing, Lethal, Energy and Psionic.

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As the second post shows, Castle is now placing psionics in the same category as Smashing and Lethal.

Castle, if you read this, please tell me that this was not a mistake and you looked into the arguments and see that many of us were right and that psionics is a very highly resisted damage type in the game. Cause if this is the case, then psionic base damage should no longer be used as a reason for not boosting some of Psychic Blast’s powers to the level they should actually be in regards to balance.

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You know, its possible Castle was thinking about two different things in those two quotes. The second comment clearly indicates Castle believes that psionic resistance is common in critters - the quote specifically is in reference to critters.

But the first quote is interesting because of wording: "which is among the hardest to defend against in the game." No critter finds it either "easy" or "hard" to defend against psi: critters either have, or don't have, psi defense or resistance. Its *players* who find it "hard" - they are the only ones making build decisions. I'm wondering if Castle was thinking critters in quote 2, and PvP combat in quote 1.

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I don't really see anything to respond to, here, Mieux. The devs expressly repudiated a free form, AT- and Origin-oriented, system that you and Arcana are essentially advocating for before the game was out of beta.


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Now I've lost track of what side I'm on.

But I'm not advocating: advocating would imply I was in favor of a change, or promoting an option. I'm not. I'm stating that the devs have, as far back as I can track, designed and balanced the game based on AT balance, not power set pri/sec balance. And far from moving away from AT-oriented balance, like you suggest, they have only consistently reinforced it. Their record on pri>sec is much more spotty, and if the past is any suggestion, its obvious that that rule of thumb does not supercede AT distinctions (such as controller control > defender control, or defender buff > controller buff).

The devs have never accepted the pri/sec argument *alone* as a reason to change something; there are always AT-specific concerns that usually are equal or overriding. For example, they've never bought the argument that is periodically brought up that scrapper melee attacks should be stronger than blaster melee attacks just because blaster melee is in a secondary set and scrapper melee is in a primary set. Blaster melee isn't balanced against scrapper melee; scrapper melee is irrelevant. Blaster melee is balanced against blaster defense: clearly an indication that internal AT issues override pri/sec comparisons. On the other hand, they did buy the notion that defender end drain should be higher than blaster end drain, even though the electric blast set is a blaster primary and a defender secondary. The notion that there were extenuating circumstances doesn't mesh with the fact that the devs suggested that that was the primary, possibly sole justification for altering end drain as they did.

In every case where AT concerns were in direct opposition to the pri/sec rule, AT concerns came first. This is nothing new. Need more examples? Tanker taunt vs scrapper taunt. Scrapper taunt is in the primary, tanker taunt is in the secondary. But AT concerns come first: tanker taunt is designed to be more effective than scrapper taunt.

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On the contrary, it's a very straight-line argument.

(1) Controllers always control better than Defenders, regardless of whether a power comes from primary or secondary.


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You have me so far.

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(2) Thus, five of the nine FF powers function, in the hands of a Controller, as well as or better than they do in the hands of a Defender.


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Stop.

Two problems already. First, without any further comment, if controllers are better or equal in five of nine, then defenders are by your own admission unequivocally better in four of nine. If even one of the five of nine is close to equal, this is not a strong statement at all.

Second, the number is not self-evident to me either. Of the nine FF powers, I'd say that:

PFF: defender better
DS: defender better
FB: questionable, arguably equal
IS: defender better
DF: questionable, default to controller
DB: defender better
RF: controller better
RB: controller better
FB: arguably equal

There is absolutely no question that PFF, DS, IS, and DB are better for defenders, which I'm assuming are the four you don't include. But it would be difficult to make a case that FB is in favor of controllers: knockback distance is not terribly relevant to the damage mitigation of KB in general. It would also be difficult to make a strong case for force bubble being significantly in favor of controllers, since it has a defense component.

You can argue the points, but you cannot suggest that the numbers are obvious.


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(3) A Defender has access to marginally superior +def buffs through the other four FF powers.


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Define "marginal." My estimates suggest that controller bubbles admit something between 30% and 100% more damage than defender bubbles, depending on situation.


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(4) However, despite the marginal superiority of the Defender's buffs, the Controller provides better overall damage mitigation through his marginally inferior buffs plus his superior controls.


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But this has nothing to do with the force field set. And its also not universally accurate. Many defender secondaries have significant damage mitigation in them, such as dark and psi. Meanwhile the damage mitigation in a set like illusion isn't necessarily consistently superior.

For this argument to work, you have to believe that the significantly higher defense numbers in FF for defenders is basically immaterial, even though the numbers strongly suggest otherwise, that the other control-oriented powers in FF are all strongly weighted in controller's favor, even though thats not easily demonstrable, and then above that you have to amplify with synergy problems. I consider that quite a few hoops, actually, especially since ignoring the defense numbers and sidestepping knockback mechanics are already two that won't slide past me easily.


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No hoop-jumping required. If I wanted to nail the coffin closed even more convincingly I could mention that with Containment active, the Controller outdamages the FF Defender, too.


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Containment certainly helps controller damage, but that's not strictly speaking relevant to whether or not the controller FF set outperforms the defender FF set.

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Arcana - the reason it amuses me is because regardless of what happens to -recharge/-speed powers between the two ATs, the fundamental fact that according to Castle's post, defenders being a vastly inferior AT to controllers is, de facto, by design.

It's intended for controllers to use a large number of defender powers equally as, or more effectively than, defenders.


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I agree with the latter, but not the former. I'm not saying it isn't true, necessarily, just that it isn't intentional. Consider the significant hoops that have to be jumped through to claim that force fields "might as well be" better for controllers than defenders. That isn't a straight-line argument.

What I mean is that arguments centered on individual powers are not likely to be convincing of the contention that controllers are in all respects better than defenders. It might take a significant amount of effort to convince the devs otherwise, but I honestly believe if you could construct a significantly convincing argument that *on the whole* controllers completely supercede defenders as a class, you could convince the devs to make a change. And Castle did indicate that the devs are seeing a piece of the problem:

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As they should. Controllers are better at control type powers. The point you want to make here is that a Controller Secondary power is outperforming a Defender Primary power. We are aware of that and want to correct it at some point in the future.


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What I read from that is that the devs have two imperatives here: controllers should be better at control powers than defenders, all things being equal, and primary powers should be more effective than secondary powers, all things being equal. It seems that the former has precedence over the latter, but the latter isn't being ignored: it just requires a solution that doesn't immediately reverse the former.

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I understand the logic that something that "reduces" is debuff, and something that "eliminates" is mez; do we want to stick with that definition permanently?


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Do we want to? It sure wouldn't be my preference. But are we likely to? Yes. In which case why differentiate "control" vs "debuff" via more complex definitions when the current game implementation already encapsulates a pretty clear one.


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Its pretty clear, but not 100% clear. Just to play a minor devil's advocate for a moment, how would you classify -regen: it doesn't reduce, it stops. Special case? Lots of end drains also seem to (temporarily) stop end recovery, not slow it. Another special case?

Just to be clear: I consider both of these to be obvious debuffs. Its just that it appears that the rules for classifying a debuff do have some arbitrary twists, even in the current system.

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Even though I'm guilty of it myself... I'm kinda amused that we've spent so much time and effort splitting hairs over whether or not -speed and -recharge count as control or debuff.


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This started with the devs saying controllers are better at slows and me saying defenders should at least be better at -recharge since -recharge is obviously a debuff, and not a control, even though -speed can be argued to be a form of soft control. Somehow that got turned into me attempting to defend why -speed is even soft control at all, something that actually is not a critical element of my original point, which was that -recharge definitely *is* a debuff, and shouldn't be stronger for controllers than defenders.

And something that outside of this particular context, few would have even considered questioning (that -speed is a form of soft control).

Clearly, making controllers better at *all* slows is an error: I think everyone is in general agreement there. To be consistent, defender debuffs should be stronger than controller debuffs, and anything with -recharge is unquestionably a debuff. -Speed is a grey area, but I'm not sure its really a terribly important grey area: if the devs make defenders better at -recharge and controllers better at -speed, I doubt many would really complain, and if the devs made defenders better at both, controllers could simply ask for their -speed powers to be turned into immobilizes if the -speed in their powers dropped too low to be useful.

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To my mind, controls are "binary" effects. You're either hit with it fully or not at all.


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But doesn't that mean that (for those of us that have been doing it) arguing that mez effects are "too binary" has been, in effect, totally nonsensical?

I understand the logic that something that "reduces" is debuff, and something that "eliminates" is mez; do we want to stick with that definition permanently?

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Please tell me you're kidding. Speed boost is an ally buff; it in no way impairs the target

[/ QUOTE ] lol...it's a rhetorical question Arcana. It exposes the weakness in the logic that slowing movement is a control because then speeding up movement should be a control too.


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Ok, so you weren't kidding. Good to know.


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Movement slow (-speed) as a foe debuff is a form of control because it functions similarly to an immobilize.

[/ QUOTE ] Not at all in how they are treated by this game. Immobilizes are resisted by status protection. Slows are not. Slows and Immobilizes are completely separate effects. The fact that you want to argue some sort of intensity association with being slowed and being immobilzed is not compelling, nor is it consistent with the game. -speed often works wehn Immobilze doesn't.


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Totally irrelevant to the point. What I said was that they conferred similar benefits, not that the mechanics are totally the same. That's a ridiculous straw man. Let me erect a better straw man for you: -fly and -jump are not resisted by status protection also, ergo they must be debuffs just like slows.


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An immobilize serves a single purpose in combat: to keep the foes in one place. This has the net effect of preventing them from getting into melee range, scattering, or gaining any other sort of combat advantage by moving. A movement slow serves a similar purpose, to a lesser but qualitatively similar degree.

[/ QUOTE ] You can make the same qualitative argument about knockdown.


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Yes, I can.


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In neither case does movement slows or immobilizes reduce villain damage output, short of preventing them from using melee attacks.


[/ QUOTE ] Which means they reduce damage hunh? In fact, -speed is much better at reducing dmg than Immobilize....why? When the AI switches to melee mode, the mobs will continue to chase your around if you are in close proximity. If you immobilize them, some will immediately switch to ranged. A -speed debuff also allows me greater ability to manipulate them as their intended target. Immobilize doesn't. But that is irrelevant.


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You're saying that you consider slows to be a form of damage debuff because they prevent foes from entering melee range? That would make immobilizes damage debuffs also, and a stronger one. And it would make damage a damage debuff also, since death is the ultimate debuff.


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-Speed reduces someone's speed in the same way -Recharge reduces someone's attack rate. It does not "control" them. If one is controllerish, so is the other.


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This suggests you have no idea what soft control means. Also, all an immobilize does is reduce movement rate to zero. Does that make immobilize a debuff also?


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Recharge slows reduce damage output; they function within the same class of debuffs as damage debuffs, or accuracy debuffs. That places them in completely different classes of net overall effect.

[/ QUOTE ] What a completely biased view. -Speed is in the same class as debuffs as it can reduce damage by preventing the foe from reaching a moving target to do melee damage. Nor is -speed affected by Break Frees or resisted by ANY status protetion powers like PB, Int, Uny.


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I never said slows were a status effect, so that's irrelevant. You seem to be suggesting that anything that can wildly claim to reduce damage and isn't explicitly a normally resisted status effect is a buff or debuff. Like, say, repel.

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Not as much of an inconvenience is an understatement. Must I go to Scrapper and Tank forums and quote the posts of "OMG SS IS TEH 1337", "MA OWNS!", etc? It's fact that their ability to mitigate damage overcomes any resistance mobs may have to their damage type. I'm not unfamiliar with melee ATs with lethal/smash - I'm quite experienced with them and know from personal experience it's a not an issue.

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The sheer quantity of smashing/lethal resistant enemies has been a tanker and scrapper complaint since the game launched. The fact that scrappers and tankers have defenses doesn't necessarily mean that they are immune to defeat ever, especially when fighting something that is very difficult to damage (CoT spectrals, for example, which exist well into the 30s).

This isn't a binary issue, where it's a massive problem for ATs without defenses and not a problem at all for ATs with defenses. I mean, I realize that it's popular to post as if scrappers and tankers are Chuck Norris or Vin Diesel at all times, but I think that's a highly idealized perspective mainly intended to magnify blaster problems.

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Its not a binary issue in more ways than one. I'm pretty sure the devs have suggested in the past that one of the balancing points between blasters and scrappers was the fact that, on average, blasters have less-resisted damage than scrappers. That would lend credence to the notion that AR is worth looking into, but conversely, the question isn't whether scrapper damage is heavily resisted, because its supposed to be. The question is whether its *too* heavily resisted, and also whether the smashing and lethal resistances are relatively even, or explicitly supposed to be uneven for other balancing reasons (i.e. does headsplitter and golden dragonfly hit harder than eagle's claw because - and I don't know this for a 100% fact - lethal is more resisted on average than smashing?).

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While it's somewhat tangential to the question of "is a slow a control or a debuff", I think it can be used as evidence that its not critical to the function of Controllers that they be the best at slows, because of all the related "controlly" effects, its the one they specialize in the least.


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Actually, I was offering a possible suggestion as to why the devs originally set controllers to be stronger with slows than defenders (the -speed component being the controllerish half that was being synonymized with "slow" even though not all slows function totally that way), and also a counter-proposal that would make defenders always stronger at the recharge debuffing component of slows that have it.

The fact that that is being at least partially interpreted as possibly supporting the original statement that "controllers should be better at slow" is interesting meta-feedback.

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I agree with Mieux - -Speed/-Recharge should be defined as a debuff, not a control.


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Then that creates a problem. Like you, I'm in favor of softening control overall; adding more "soft" control and less "hard" control. This definition of control, if it was adopted by the devs, would force me to reverse my position on soft control. If movement slow is a debuff right up to just shy of immobilize, and then immobilize is suddenly considered control, then the line between debuff and control in general is being drawn in such a way as to make any attempt at implementing softer control a form of controller assassination.

How we handle slows is a leading edge indicator for me, in the same way blaster range, pool stacking, and variable criticals have been for me in the past. In this case it tells me where I should side on control modification, and right now its strongly suggesting that I'm currently on the wrong side.

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Really, the only thing that matters is how -speed is considered since we agree on -recharge. My point is that there is no logical reason to put -speed in the domain of controllers. As I stated above, slowing someone down is not "controlling" them any more than speeding someone up is "controlling" them. . Are we going to make Speed Boost be better speed for controllers?


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Please tell me you're kidding. Speed boost is an ally buff; it in no way impairs the target, which means its not a means of control. Movement slow (-speed) as a foe debuff is a form of control because it functions similarly to an immobilize.


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The argument for "Slow" being controllerish stems simply from the idea that being hit with -speed is thought of as a physically or mentally imposed restraint similar to a hold or immobilize.


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That is not the basis for the arguement. Physical restraint has nothing to do with anything. An immobilize serves a single purpose in combat: to keep the foes in one place. This has the net effect of preventing them from getting into melee range, scattering, or gaining any other sort of combat advantage by moving. A movement slow serves a similar purpose, to a lesser but qualitatively similar degree. In neither case does movement slows or immobilizes reduce villain damage output, short of preventing them from using melee attacks.

Recharge slows reduce damage output; they function within the same class of debuffs as damage debuffs, or accuracy debuffs. That places them in completely different classes of net overall effect.

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That's an inconsistent approach to the topic. If you are going to argue that a Slow is a type of control, the same logic would apply to a -Recharge. Both effects are the technical implementation of a "Slow." There are no "Anti-Recharge" only powers in the game. Psi Blast does have a -recharge component with no Slow, but IIRCC all powers that list a "Slow" slow both movement and recharge.


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As others have already pointed out, thats not true. What we colloquially call "slow" is really sometimes -recharge, sometimes -movement, and sometimes both.

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The perfect gimp storm


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AR/dev is gimp? When did this happen. Did I miss a memo?

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... don't know if the game could support this...

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I'm almost 100% sure gravity powers' secondary effect is -speed, but no -recharge.

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I was thinking of things like lingering radiation, and other slows shared between controllers and defenders, but if gravity's slows are all -speed and no -recharge, that would reinforce the notion that controller slows should (in general) be weighted more towards -speed and less towards -recharge, while defenders should get the reverse, rather than having the full combination of -speed/-rech be stronger for controllers than defenders (which doesn't seem to make sense to me regardless of where the powers are located).

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Brasswire, Arcanaville, and everyone else :

Can we stop argueing apples and oranges? With the exclusion of Tornado, not a single one of these defender issues is talking about a power even remotely similar to Short Circuit

Why?

Because Short Circuit has (currently) two valid effects. You can slot for damage, and kill every minion around you in two shots, or slot for end mod and drain every enemy around you in two shots. BOTH of those are VALUABLE effects.

Most of these powers don't have two valuable effects. They have a control, and that's it. There's no useful part of them that performs better for Defenders rather than Controllers.

Again, I don't expect the balance mechanism to change - for some whatever reason, controllers seem to have some sacred ground where none may tred, and as a result, anything considered a mez or soft control they get a bonus on. Fine. I don't expect to change that.

But let's try to make it so that an entire power perform subpar as a primary rather than a secondary? Cause this arguement sure as hell isn't helping that.

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I'm not arguing apples and oranges. Lets just toss out all the apples and the oranges. I believe that defenders and controllers overlap more than they should for healthy AT distinction. Unfortunately, that problem is unlikely to go away any time soon. However, I stand firm on the notion that when defenders get control-oriented powers, those powers should on average be less powerful than controller control powers, and controllers vice versa should have less effective buffing and debuffing, and I could care less whether they show up in a primary or secondary. My position is that whether a power shows up in a primary or secondary set is less important than which AT is wielding it.

Slows are an interesting case, because actually, slows have *both* a debuffing and control aspect. The movement slow is much more of a control aspect than a debuffing aspect (unless you want to claim that an immobilize is a movement debuff to zero). But the -recharge is a clear debuff. I don't know if the game could support this, but I believe that controllers should get stronger -movement out of slows, and less -recharge, and defenders should get the reverse, to distinguish them. And once again, I don't care if they show up in primaries or secondaries; I care that defenders have the stronger debuffs, and controller have the better control. I think that is the overriding concern - *especially* if you are concerned about the overlap in defenders and controllers.

How we decide to balance things - either by being more concerned about primary/secondary distinctions, or by AT distinctions, can have consequences for balancing sets like trick arrow, which have a little of both. Should trick archery be "weaker" for controllers than defenders in *all* respects, just because its a secondary for controllers and a primary for defenders, or should trick archery have stronger control for controllers and stronger debuff for defenders, regardless of the primary/secondary distinction? I'm heavily in favor of the latter over the former.

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But as I said, the rosetta stone is electric blast drain. If my view is correct, defenders should have higher end drain for electric blast than electric blast blasters. If yours is correct, then electric blast blasters should have higher end drain than electric blast defenders. Which one do you believe is proper, and which one do you believe best reflects the devs intentions?

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Defenders are supposed to be the best at buffing/debuffing, so it makes sense in that portion, but the -end in electric blast is a minor secondary effect when compared to the main purpose of the powers (damage).

Blasters do 1.5 times as much damage as defenders do, and their blasts cost a bit less. Overall, I'd say that more than balances out the higher endurance drain that defenders get.

What we're seeing here is when a power's primary function is control, and it's being done better by another AT's secondary.

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As I said previously, I believe Controller Control > Defender Control trumps Anyone Primary > Anyone Secondary. But lets assume the reverse is true and look for other instances.

I believe electric drain is pretty relevant, but I will concede one could claim that the end drain is allowed to break the rules because the counter balance is the higher damage of the blaster version (although you snuck in "Defenders are supposed to be the best at buffing/debuffing, so it makes sense in that portion" which undercuts your own argument, since replace "Defenders" with "Controllers" and you contradict your contention that Primaries vs Secondaries is more important than Defender vs Controller).

So lets take a look at debuffs in powers primarily debuffing in nature in controller primaries. Smoke, for example. Smoke is a controller primary: should its debuffing effects be larger in magnitude than all other debuffs in all other defender secondaries? Would you consider that a mandatory balancing requirement?

Ice control is loaded with slows. Should they be stronger than all other defender debuffs not in defender primaries?

I believe if you are going to have ATs and AT distinctions at all, your first loyalty (as designers) has to be to the ATs distinctions, and not to the happenstance of the sets that were classified "primary" and "secondary." And in fact the game as currently implemented is designed around ATs not power sets individually. Suggesting that a particular power set should be inherently weaker than another simply because its classified as "secondary" sounds suspiciously to me like suggesting that one AT should be weaker than another because its classified as "support."


Going back to electric blast: defenders are on a lower damage scale, this is true. But a significant chunk of that damage scale difference is counterbalanced by foe debuffs in a lot of sets. And while blasters get an endurance cost reduction for blasts, that margin is significantly reduced in the case of electric blast, because electric blasts were changed to transfer end, not simply drain it, so electric blast defenders do not have the same end cost calculation as other defenders.

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The devs have always said

Primary>Secondary>Power Pool

And let's put it like tihs: Controller secondaries *should* be working at 80% of defender primaries instead of somewhere between 80 and 110%.

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Basically it boils down to buffing/debuffing (which includes heals, BTW) are 100% for controllers (and Corruptors/Masterminds, I think) while 125% for Defenders *BUT* Controllers are always at 125% for any mezzing power, no matter if it is primary or secondary, while Defenders (and MM/Cors) will only ever be 100% as effective.

So for power sets with decent mezzing ability, they are effectively a second primary for controllers, just slanted towards mezzing more.

There is something very wrong when any secondary can outperform a primary only based on AT.

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I don't follow this. You're saying defenders have 100% mez and 125% buff/debuff, while controllers have 125% mez and 100% buff/debuff, and then jump to saying that (I think) at least some controller secondaries (ones with mez?) will always outperform defender primaries.

Controller secondaries with "decent mez:"

Really, all I can think of is storm, and radiation if you count EMP. That's one set and one additional power.

On the flip side, there are defender secondaries with buff/debuff that give defenders "effectively a second primary" in the same sense you're suggesting. More of them, actually:

dark blast (accuracy debuff)
electric blast (end drain)
radiation blast (defense debuff)
psionic blast (slow)

Actually, all of them except energy blast.


I think I'm missing the specific point being made here.

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The devs have always said

Primary>Secondary>Power Pool

And let's put it like tihs: Controller secondaries *should* be working at 80% of defender primaries instead of somewhere between 80 and 110%.

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They've said all things being equal Primary>Secondary>Power Pool. When the primary is a defender primary and the secondary is a controller secondary and the power is a controlling power, all things are *not* equal.

But as I said, the rosetta stone is electric blast drain. If my view is correct, defenders should have higher end drain for electric blast than electric blast blasters. If yours is correct, then electric blast blasters should have higher end drain than electric blast defenders. Which one do you believe is proper, and which one do you believe best reflects the devs intentions?

To be consistent, anyone asking for defender primaries to have stronger control than controller secondaries solely on the basis of the primary>secondary theory has to believe that blaster end drain should trump defender end drain.

Keeping in mind, its entirely possible for a defender control power to need to be stronger for set balancing reasons having nothing to do with the primary>secondary rule. Such a position would be reasonable if the justification is reasonable: I'm not suggesting any particular power is necessarily balanced at current values. What I'm saying is that the primary>secondary rule in this case has no value.

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Thank you very, very much for looking at these things Castle!

I do have a concern though; more of a rant, really.

In my opinion, there is no way a secondary set of any AT should outperform ANY aspect of a primary of mine, even if their main focus is 'controlling.' It's a secondary powerset -- by default it should not be as good in any aspect as someone's elses primary.

Again, thanks for looking at it for us! We all appreciate it, I'm sure!

-River

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This is nothing personal directed at you, but I so strongly believe this idea needs to die, that I believe the time has come to rename them "Alpha Sets" and "Gamma Sets" just because it seems it is impossible to break this notion.

There is absolutely no reason for one AT's primary to have any direct relationship of any kind to another AT's secondary: the actual ATs themselves should have a much greater impact in distinguishing the sets first, and then the internals of the sets should come second, and somewhere on page six hundred and forty five, item number ninty three thousand seven hundred two should be "oh, and maybe other people's secondaries shouldn't be stronger than my primaries."

Scrapper secondaries should have more damage mitigation than most other people's primaries, except tankers. Tanker primaries are more effective than scrapper secondaries because they are tankers, not because the set is a primary. If scrapper defenses were primaries, and damage was secondaries, and tankers were similarly reversed, tanker defenses should still be stronger than scrappers.

Blaster damage in the secondaries should be stronger than most people's primaries, because blasters in general are more damage-centric. Energy punch alone out-does most all controller attacks in controller primaries, and that's both appropriate, and logical.

In general controllers should have stronger control than defenders, and defenders should have stronger buffing/debuffing than controllers, regardless of where those powers are in the sets, as a general rule, all other things being equal.

The whole notion that "secondary" means "lesser" fails in a lot of areas. Scrappers are not "primary damage dealers, with a little bit of defense." By the devs own direct statements, scrappers are supposed to be balanced damage/mitigation ATs - meaning they really ought to have two "primaries." But the way the power trees work, something has to be primary, and something else secondary. Corruptors appear to have a similar balance; they are flipped defenders of a sort, but much more balanced in the buff/debuff and damage roles, similar to scrappers in that sense.

Kheldians are another good example where the primary/secondary distinction breaks down. It is not obvious that kheldians are meant to be "whatever is in the primaries first" and "whatever is in the secondaries second."

The *strongest* case, though, is electric blast. If all primaries should be stronger than all secondaries, then you'd basically be advocating that electric blasters should have stronger end drain than electric blast defenders, and I'm not sure you'd agree with that.