Arondell

Actually as a bubbler if I'm going to use a slot in the medicine pool I would be far more likely to get Aid Self then Aid Other. Since in most teams I'm likely be the one with the least amount of defense. I also tend to use Clarity preemptively(Assuming I know I'm facing foes with sleep.) and I certainly don't want to be sitting around over twice as long to use Aid Other and potentially risk being interrupted to boot.

Anyone who would choose Aid Other over Clarity in relation to mez protection is...not thinking to clearly. Not that Aid Other even offers any mez protection.

Ironically long ago, before it got changed over to enemy targeted, Repulsion Bomb was a guaranteed stun. With proper slotting it wasn't hard to be able to perma stun bosses. I believe the devs stated reason for Clarity is to cover the sleep defense hole in Sonic Dispersion. Its less of a problem in Force Field since Defense prevents secondary effects from hitting in the first place.

Perhaps but were certainly not so few that we don't effectively exist. My main is a sonic and yes I do like the set more or less as it is. I find even sonic repulsion useful on occasion.

I thought even backhanded compliments of Vigilance were banned on the Defender forums.

Heh reminds me of an incident in another game called Planetside. An enemy cloaker forgot to activate his stealth suit and was slowly crouch walking up to our base door. The funny part was that everyone in the vicinity didn't shoot him outright. Everyone just kind of stopped and stared at him as he was crawling up to the door.

Heh...Whether in game or real life the truly skilled people make it so the bad stuff doesn't happen in the first place. Then idiots go around saying they aren't doing anything useful because they obviously didn't fix anything.

The only sets I can think of that maybe should not be ported between defenders and corrupters is Empathy/Pain Domination. I seem to have a vague memory that the reason for Pain Domination being made in the first place was that devs felt Empathy wasn't an appropriate set for villains. Have the devs abandoned that reasoning?

That sounds not so much like a complaint about defenders as such so much as a complaint about the framework in which all the ATs have been made.

Sonic Blast is generally considered to be the best of the damage output sets for single target damage. It does have one cone attack though. Those -res debuffs can stack up quickly for some very nice damage numbers. It also has some useful utility powers like a single target stun and a cone sleep.

I think its been something the devs had been thinking about for a long time. I have a vague recollection that Statesman way back said something about not really liking how the the whole endurance/stamina thing had panned out.

This tells only one side of the story. The flip side to the ally only targeting was that it had a fast recharge, 10 seconds I think, and a 100% chance to disorient for seven seconds. This meant with minimal(2-3) slotting you could easily use it to perma disorient bosses. As I recall the reason they changed it to ally targeting wasn't because the devs thought it sucked but because on *masterminds* this was an overpowered ability. If the old version had been knockdown rather then knockback it would have been an awesome power. I still thought it was pretty good.

[Edit 1]The people who argued to prevent the change weren't complaining for the sake of knockback. More like they hated loosing the powerful disorient and the huge recharge nerf. On a team you could reduce the incoming damage a hell of a lot more with the old version then with the new version.

Minor correction. Liquify doesn't have any -recharge effect. It does have a -defense effect.

Its more then just 15% damage across one toon though. Its across all the toons on the team your on. When leaderships start stacking across a team(e.g. 2-4 assaults/maneuvers) it really highlights that point. On the other hand if you solo most or all of the time Assault isn't all that attractive IMO.

I believe when scourge comes into play corruptors pull way ahead. That mostly only applies to tougher foes such as bosses and up. Also when your playing against higher level mobs such as +3s or higher.

I had the impression though that any time scourge kicked in corruptors would pull way ahead of defenders in damage output. Though that really didn't apply very much to a lot of the weaker enemies your likely to face.

Since Flash Arrow is a AoE -To-Hit debuff the kind of defense *toggles* that are most like it in effect are AoE defensive toggles. I at least thought it was a logical comparison.

As for the other things that Shadow Fall/Steamy Mist do I would certainly hope it does more given that over the sixty second period flash arrows debuff lasts those two powers use almost four times the endurance.(Radiation Infection also for that matter.) Given what it does and *how* it does it I think Flash Arrow is a pretty good power. I view a targeted AoE debuff as being more flexible then a PBAoE. Especially when it has a fairly fast recharge so you can spread the effect around reasonably quickly.

Well....To compare you would probably have to compare it to Primary AoE defensive toggles since those are the closest in practical effect.

So in increasing order.

Maneuvers : 3.5%(Not a primary but a lot of defenders controllers take it.)
Arctic Fog : 5%
Shadowfall : 5%
Steamy Mist : 5%
Flash Arrow : -6.25% To-hit
Dispersion Field : 10%
Force Field Generator : 13.3%

So against most AoE defensive toggles Flash Arrow stacks up rather favorably from a purely +defense standpoint. Now most of these powers do other things then just +Defense but then again so does flash arrow.

Off topic I do kind of wonder though if Traps had started as a defender set rather then a master mind set if it would have had such a high defense rating.

Yes I was refering to the team potential not the personal defense with IOs. For that matter Traps seems to have a better foundation for getting to the personal softcap with Melee, Ranged, AoE.

I think the point is that Traps defenders can't get close to the defense softcap. Well slotted shield drone will get about a 20-21% and throw in maneuvers and you'll get to about 25%. The seeker drones can help out a little with some -to-hit/-damage but they are more limited in scope then a straight defense buff. You also could use the web grenade to slow enemy recharge a bit. A teammate would have to have at least an extra 10-15% defense against a variety of types(e.g. melee, ranged, AoE) to then get the total advantage a force field defender can give on defense without maneuvers. On the other hand traps has much more offensive potential with the -def/-resistance/-regen debuffs.

Actually I'd say that is a bit of a toss up. If your talking a pickup team a 4/4 defender/blaster team *might* go faster then an all defender team. If you actually pick and choose the defenders on the team though I'd put money on the all defender team far out performing the 4/4 team. All defender teams already have a bit of a reputation for being able to handle very difficult things quite easily.

Pistols still has the -12.5% defense debuff when using standard ammo. A point that kind of puzzles me. Why have the standard debuff but not the alternate debuffs? Then again Dual Wield doesn't get a defense debuff but gets the alternate debuffs and looses the knockback. Some of the reasoning seem kind of arbitrary.