Ben_Arizona

I can't help feeling like you're saying two opposed things here. Basically, there are two fundamental ways they can make a fight harder: require special tactics, or make the numbers bigger. The Hamidon raid requires specialized tactics, and as you say, once you've got the tactics together a fight like that isn't hard anymore. Bigger numbers is "mowing down purple-patched mobs", which you say you also don't want. What kind of challenge do you want?

As an aside, I think a consequence of this is that specialized-tactics fights are the only reasonable way they can possibly "challenge soft-capped characters" and still be remotely playable for non-bleeding-edge players. For all that people are saying "oh, softcapped characters aren't all that" to try to deflect accusations of overpower, a softcapped character without DDR is still about as surviveable as an SO'd character with it on top of whatever the actual AT/set features of the softcapped character are.

An Emp/Psy defender trades off a */Emp controller's internal synergy (pet buffing) for higher buff values, strengthening his team power at the cost of his individual power.

An MC/Emp controller trades off the team power (getting controllers' lower buff and heal values) but does not get the synergy in exchange.

Leaving other sets out of it, comparing the MC/Emp to the Emp/Psy you are comparing someone who gives up a lot of the buffing strength of the Emp/Psy for added control on the powers. Many players don't think that's a good tradeoff. That's all. Your assumption leaves out the AT modifiers on the powers' numerical effectiveness, but this is actually a pretty major factor that shouldn't be ignored.

.5 makes sense to me, but to tell the truth I'm not sure what magnitude values most enemies use. If they're mostly throwing out mag 1 on the assumption that player protection will be all-or-nothing than .34 is reasonable, but if mag 1 protection only saves you from the low-end business then .5 is fine by me, bearing in mind that I'm suggesting each one is specific to a particular mez type (hold, stun, sleep, etc.). It would also make sense to have different sets give different amounts of mag; it might make the lower-mag sets less popular, but could also make it less excessive to give antimez bonuses on a set with other good bonuses if their bonus needs to be stacked farther to work.


I can read the market forum, I just have no interest in doing so. When I sign into City of Heroes, I do it because I want to be a superhero and beat down supervillains (or buff other superheroes while they beat down supervillains, or whatever). Buying cheap and selling dear is very simple stuff but it is stultifyingly dull to me and I have no desire to extend it into my gaming.

This doesn't mean I'm terrified of stepping into WW's, but it's mostly to sell off whatever's dropped from the guys I'm fighting. Every so often I'll get the urge and start bidding on sets relevant to one of my characters, but "serious marketeering" is not for me. I appreciate that you mean well.

Yeah, see, 30 million is along the lines of "mostly clean out one of my higher-level characters' inf to fund this character". Now, granted, it's not like it's a terrible deal for a softcap build's benefits, but what calling it cheap communicates to me is "this guy is speaking a different language than I am". It's probable that people who are more steeped in IOs than I am could make builds for my characters that I could afford, but it seems that they rarely bother, because "cheap" to them is "more than I can afford" to me.

(It also doesn't help that there is no Mac version of Mids and the online character builders I've seen are several issues out of date. Softcapping my ice tanker was an exercise in pencil, paper, and crosschecking the wiki's "IO sets" page. What fun.)

I have two low-mid-level shield scrappers, a low-mid-level SR scrapper who stopped getting played due to out-of-game concerns, and an ice tank in the 40s - not exactly ancient expertise, but at least enough to get a sense of how defense works while leveling up the tank if nothing else. I softcapped the ice tank (one of the cheaper character builds to soft cap) and it still required gathering together influence from across my characters - I'm certain someone's going to say "oh, just play the market and it's trivial to get the inf together" but marketeering is just not at all fun to me. I don't think that people who enjoy playing the market are "playing the game wrong" or anything, but I also don't think that someone who doesn't want to play the market is playing wrong.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that with everyone hot to softcap their characters, the sets needed to do so have stopped being cheap by the standards of players in my inf bracket.

What "many times" are you talking about? A defense-based tank can't do it without IO bonuses, and they get the best values from their defense sets - even with Weave and Maneuvers you need IO bonuses to softcap an ice tank. One of my scrappers can get a softcapped defense, but that's because her primary is broadsword and she gets more defense from Parry than her entire secondary put together. Granted I haven't played with SR much, so if that can softcap without IO sets that makes one set which can do it - not exactly "many times".

(I do have one other character who's softcapped before IO sets - a bots/traps mastermind, who's softcapped as long as the Protector Bots keep a bubble on me. Of course, technically that character doesn't even have one of the "defensive sets" that scrappers/tankers/brutes use..)

Edit: As I type this long post I remember that Invuln can softcap with sufficient mobs in Invincibility range, so mea culpa on that one. I guess two sets counts as many?

And I don't have any problem with that suggestion. However, you appear to suggest this in conjunction with your agreement that there should be more defense debuff all over the place, which is something I have a problem with. Defense debuff resistance is not defense debuff immunity. It keeps the character from buckling under the first time an assault rifle comes out, but an enemy group heavy on defense debuffs will already be a problem for a non-softcapped defense-based character. If defense debuffs are made more common as you suggest, then non-softcapped defense characters, even with debuff resistance, are going to start feeling rather like paper. The only way I can see making defense debuffs more prevalent being a viable plan is if defense debuff resistance is also made significantly more effective.

Um. So what's the plan for those of us who play a defense set and can't afford to softcap it with IO sets? Do we get to just die over and over?

You can make a very strong case for Ice. I wouldn't say it's certainly better but Ice is a very strong secondary in mitigation terms and with stealth partly devalued by the +stealth IO Devices loses some ground.

Electricity I don't think is as good a mitigation/utility secondary as Ice/Devices, but since it's a mixed attack/utility secondary it'll appeal to a lot more people than Devices will and I have no question that it'll serve them just fine.

Yeah, I don't use the Defiance buff constantly because, frankly, it's not necessary. It comes out when I want a little more kick in my opening volley. If you'd have cause to lay down Trip Mines 100 times in an hour, frankly you're rolling through spawns sufficiently fast that it's not clear why you'd need the trip mines to begin with.

Regarding "The Blaster Way": Devices is, generally, a set that gives you defensive tools and utilities rather than DPS. What you seem to be saying is that the "correct" way to play a Blaster is to maximize DPS to the highest possible degree, and then if you can squeeze in other things around the edges, well, that's nice. In that framework, yes, Devices in general including Trip Mine performs below par, and I could see how in that framework you would feel that Trip Mine "needs two mines before you can do anything with it". Personally, I find the damage output from the primary sufficient on my /devs, and consider Trip Mine an occasional extra damage spike, battlefield-control tool, and utility for odd situations.

I don't really use Trip Mine all that often; I consider it nice for when I use it but not central to the set's playstyle in the way that Caltrops or the toggles are.

(Extra note since I've been posting a lot about /dev lately: I don't have anything against "raw damage" blasters; I've quite enjoyed fire/mm and sonic/energy. However, since this is a more popular playstyle, I rarely find it necessary to argue for its virtues. I do not claim that /devices is superior; my point is that it is not weaker than other secondaries but simply focused on a different playstyle.)

Oh, hoverblasters in general are great. It just seems to me that hoverblasting wouldn't synergize well with the glory of Caltrops; in general, enemies that don't have a path to you won't bother trying to run through the caltrops and will just open up with their guns (or javelins or whatnot), while enemies that know they could theoretically get to you will run back and forth on the caltrops all day instead of shooting at you. I could see the added utility in Web Grenade picking up some slack; are there any other hover/dev synergies I'm missing?

Bolded the problem part.

What are you trying to "get done" with Trip Mine? The things I use Trip Mine for (Defiance to make up for lack of Build Up, and a nasty surprise for anyone who gets past the caltrops) don't require two trip mines. If what you're trying to get done is a huge pile of damage at once, you would probably be better served looking in your blaster primary - Devices is not a secondary that will boost your DPS by as much as the others in general.

It depends on what you're doing. Maybe the players I've met have been insufficiently "pro" but on the ITF you'll regularly have overflow and the Roman Yell makes controlling them a pain. It's not unique to the ITF, either - enemies will get past the tank, and Caltrops is trivial to throw out and very effective at keeping them off.

It doesn't stop enemies from attacking, but it does stop bosses who have a particularly annoying trick from using that specific attack as often. (Rikti mezzers, Longbow Wardens, etc.) As you note EBs and AVs are a more valuable use of this, but it's not trivial on the more annoying bosses, either.

This is true insofar as on many groups all that is demanded of a blaster is MORE DPS MORE FASTER, and Build Up does make a difference in that regard. Trip Mine helps but does not fully substitute; I think Targeting Drone makes a more significant contribution between the possibility of just ignoring acc slots in your attacks (I use arch/dev, most sets will want more global acc before doing that I imagine) and GSFC Chance for Build Up.

Then again, as I noted, if you're not playing fire primary (or possibly sonic, I'm not sure of the maths) you've already ditched your chance for Ultimate DPS Perfection. Since any blaster is going to be dealing piles of damage, I tend to look over what else is brought to the table rather than which one can push you from ten thousand killpower to ten thousand and one. In terms of what else is brought to the table, Devices competes quite soundly (as do a number of other sets).

You are strongly underestimating how useful Caltrops are on a team. Obviously you don't throw them under the Scrapper and the Tank, because that would be silly and evaluating a set based on the potential for silly people to use it wrong does nobody any favors. You throw them between the back line and the front. When your ITF doesn't have enough tanks to keep all the ten million Romans focused away from the squishies, this is the power that does it for you at trivial cost and low cast time. Obviously it's not useful if nothing ever gets past the tank, but by that standard no mitigation power is worth taking on teams.

You similarly underestimate Web Grenade, although in this case the team's composition matters less and the enemies' composition matters more. A 50% recharge debuff is sufficient to be worth noting on anything reasonably nasty that survives long enough to get past its first shot - not just AVs, but EBs and even some particularly unpleasant Bosses. To a lesser degree, it's nice to be able to ground certain obnoxious flyers and it can help quite a bit with certain melee-focused enemies, but these are not the primary use of it on teams (especially given how extraordinarily good Caltrops is at the latter).

You're nearly right about Trip Mine and Time Bomb on PUGs or similar teams. Trip Mine does get used now and then, although it's hardly the focal power of the set on a mixed team, and Time Bomb is very niche on mixed teams to the point where most people won't miss it if they skip it.

Cloaking Device is nice if you don't use Super-Speed as your travel power, but I agree that if you are taking Super-Speed it's probably better to bite the bullet and save up for a stealth IO (and if you don't, buy one anyway to stack with Cloaking Device). It is worth noting as a spot for a LOTG, which can be annoyingly sparse on a blaster even with pools, but that's probably not worth the power pick on its own if you're a speedster.

"Devices is only good on all-Devices teams" or "Devices is too slow for regular group play" are common misconceptions. Devices is quite solid on a mixed team if you're willing and able to think quickly and evaluate the situation on the fly while you're shooting. You do lose the pure DPS from Build Up for the pile of utility powers, but guess what: if you're playing any primary except Fire, you're already trading pure DPS for other benefits.

(That said, all-Devices teams do rock. I've rolled with the Tech Knights once or twice and they've impressed the heck out of me.)

Correction: There's usually no reason to use it, not never. I know of two situations in which it's useful. The first is with stealth so you can double-toebomb as an alpha strike (lay down the time bomb, wait, then lay down the trip mine, time it so they both go off at once.) This is not really group-worthwhile, though.

The other is in the rare situation (again, with stealth) where lay a mine, then keep going so that when it goes off you're nowhere around - the only time I've ever used this was on a particularly strange run of the ITF, to soften up the crystals on a devices blaster. I don't see ever wanting Time Bomb on a defender, but it's not quite literally true that there's never any reason to use it.

I tend to find that minefields are more trouble than it's worth, and most groups won't wait around for it (unless you're in one of the awesome groups where everyone is devices or traps, that is), but I can see it being worthwhile when soloing a defender to help make up for defenders' relatively poor damage output.

As much as I love devices, this is not really true; the activation time involved means that time bomb is not a full-on substitute for BU, and the increased usefulness of the actual power itself means that Trip Mine is (in my opinion) generally a better option for Defiance pseudo-BU. I took Time Bomb and it has its uses, but they're relatively niche compared to Trip Mine.

It's a bit of a derail I guess, but my advice for the AR/Dev is to use Trip Mine for the defiance bonus before engaging a tough spawn - it's not quite Build Up, but it's a decent boost to the first few attacks you fire off and the damage if someone actually steps on the mine is gravy. Caltrops is the prime safety tool for /dev since enemy AI deals with it poorly, so if you position the Trip Mine so that it blows incoming enemies back onto the caltrops that's another bonus from it.

It's a little bit of a bugbear of mine - Trip Mine is a decent power, but the best way to use it isn't the obvious way to use it, and a lot of people dismiss the whole set because of that.

I'm glad you found a build you enjoy. I just want to note that the "setup time" aspect of /devices is only as significant as you want to make it; I've very rarely found the need for more than one Trip Mine while soloing, and usually not even that on a team. Webnade, Taser, the toggles, and most especially Caltrops are all extremely useful tools that don't have any particular setup-time element.

I'm not trying to put you off mental, since it's a great set (and, most importantly, one you enjoy), just trying to clear up a common misconception about devices. Devices is a strong set that suffers from people fixating on one or two spectacular powers rather than the bulk of its actual use.

I don't mind not being able to edit ordinary power pools so much, but strongly agreed on APPs. On squishies, your APP armor is more visible as part of your character's "look" than any of your other powers, and not being able to affect its appearance puts a major cramp in the usefulness of power customization. (With redside PPPs, my annoyance at this is subsumed into my general annoyance at your epic powers being automatically branded by some NPC.)