BurningChick

Your mileage may vary

Anyway ... something to keep in mind is that, with Shadowfall slotted for +def, Maneuvers, Combat Jumping and the +def unique, you can solidly be in the teens for defense. That's nothing to sniff at.

You can also go for leadership in a second build, so it's not really an either / or situation.

Good luck! My dark / dark defender is, hands down, my favourite defender.

Going waaay back to the game's first year, the devs used to say that "distance = defence". The reasoning is straightforward: the basic design principle is that all mobs save lieuts (snipers being the prime example) do less damage at range than melee. If you put together some of the pieces, you can find get a grand vision of how this comes together: AoE immobs coming early in control sets and recharging fast; tankers used to have lots of KB (the previous powers guy expressed surprise at how they didn't like effective damage debuff of having mobs at range); many defender primaries have slows; LOTS of KB and repel in FF and storm; Repulsion Field, believe it or not, is available to most of the game's non-Epic ATs.

Keeping mobs at range by any means possible was supposed to a massive benefit to survivability (FWIW, Force Bubble reliably reduces incoming DPS by 25% or so).

So, picture the beta-era FF with 3 ST +def buffs on 2 minute timers (versus 2 on 4 minute timers). It's impossible to keep 7 TMs buffed; 3 would probably be the max for anyone without Rittellin. So ... turn on Dispersion, turn on Force Bubble. Squishies huddle under the small bubble for mez protection and some defense. The bubbler fires off the ST buffs on the team's melee toons just outside the big bubble. Focus on ST powers, probably targetting through the tanker (remember: tanker taunt used to be ST). This game is tactical. It leverages distance for squishies. Spreads aggro out so that the tanker can focus on the boss.

It's an interesting game, but obviously flawed since squishies /also/ have the tools to nail mobs to the spot with any combination of slows, holds, mobs, and stuns so they can leverage AoEs and distance. And once mobs are nailed in place, they can be destroyed, safely, by massed AoEs for far more XP / second than the spread 'em out tactical route.

All the bonuses of using Force Bubble, none of the hassles.

Anyway ... the devs baked a couple ways into the game of leveraging distance, but the playerbase only uses one of 'em because it's easier to deal with AND produces huge piles of defeated mobs quickly. For most of the game, there's no reward to playing CoX with any tactics beyond stacking every non-KB/repel AoE you've got and zerging.

One way to look at I5's nerfs (defense, control, introduction of the AoE cap) is that the devs were explicitly trying to make the game more tactical ... but they failed miserably at it as folks mostly ditched FF and started to rely more heavily on unnerfed, similar-effect ToHit debuffs which required ... mobs to be clumped together.

He harps on end burn because it gets in the way of his concepts.

Last year, he tried to build a FF defender as something along the lines of a meat shield with tough and weave. He didn't want to deviate from his concept and his dream build, and he got rather testy when people threw back builds with soft-capped defense and no end problems ... because they weren't HIS build.

I.e., he didn't want things like balance and mechanics to get in the way of his vision.

My suggestion to Ultimo_?

Make your own game 'cause nothing's ever going to live up to your vision.

Just for giggles, the devs should revert one of the test servers to Issue 1, give all newly-created toons a billion inf, and turn on double experience.

And then folks can compare which is the better game

Howdy!

I've been back for a while, but haven't been posting much. But, like a moth to a flame, I'm drawn to Ultimo_'s posts.

FWIW, I don't mind the current end burn rate; it's one of the few mechanics in the game that forces me into making slotting choices. If end burn were dropped, my non-IOed attacks would be slotted something like 1x accuracy, 3x damage, 2x recharge. And the game would be become that much easier and duller.

This game is already an AoE-driven zergfest compared to anything outside of an FPS; I don't want to see it become even more-so. And if the game became even easier, it would also become less interesting. CoX, right now, has a pretty good balance between ease of play, speed, and challenge. Mucking up that balance would be, at best, detrimental.

The problem is that Ultimo_ wants this game to be HIS; he wants HIS vision stamped on it somehow. He's had a few pet projects over the last year or so, but his basic problem is that his capital V Vision, like Statesman's, doesn't do math.

And you can't do MMO or RPG design without some degree (and preferably lots) of mathematical balance.

Just IME, of course.

People would take you more seriously if you posted builds and used math beyond "more" or "less" in your arguments. You tend to be wildly non-specific, and you end up getting combative and defensive when people try to get you to narrow your focus.

You wanna be a big picture guy, but you don't seem to grasp many of the little details that go into balance and gameplay. The folks who generate the most respect around here when it comes to buffs 'n' nerfs and other gameplay changes are those who understand the game's mechanics, why things are the way they are, and then weave their knowledge into a convincing view of how the game is and what it should become. You're showing up at this particular ballgame wanting to hit balls out of the park ... without first having gone to batter's practise.

Ultimo_'s not a troll, per se ...

He's just /awfully/ convinced that he sees The Truth and tries to win his point, not with logic, but through sheer stamina and an astounding ability to endlessly restate what he's already said. He's kinda' like Statesman.

A genuine, bona fide troll is more along the lines of someone like "CC" who went into the defender forums a while back saying he had a great idea for a set that was ALL heals ... then started a thread in PWNZ that he had started said thread. And that it'd be a good one to watch.

Anyway ...

The most interesting thing to come out of his threads is, generally, a greater understanding of why the points he's championing are wrong.

I think a damage buff based on the number of mobs within Blazing Aura would be both entertaining and thematic.

On the other hand, Quebec has some of the best consumer protection laws on the continent -- I'm not sure that watering down those protections would be worthwhile just so that some people could have a (small) chance at winning some (small) prizes run by companies outside of Canada.

Well ...

If everything constantly got buffed to bring similar sets into line with outliers, Castle would end up in a never-ending arms race that ends in either one-shotting bosses or mobs being buffed in order to compensate for players being buffed.

It's generally easier (and, frankly, better) to nerf 1 set into compliance than buff 6 others ... and then watch as those buffs create underporming outliers elsewhere. I.e., if mobs were buffed 'cause scrappers were LoLZerging +4 bosses, certain defender and controller combos would be left unable to solo anything but The Fluffy Bunny Gang.

And the cycle repeats.

Balance is a ... errr ... balancing act. Some things go up, some things go down. Fortunately, Castle and the powers team good at their job (no, seriously, they are -- especially compared what we used to have). I can pick nits with some of their decisions, but the game is FAR better than it used to be in part because of how the devs deal with balance issues.

Uhhhh ... no.

I want to know how closed beta's going.

I've seen my spines / WP get down to the negative defense cap (boot?) (-100%?) against Romans and still walk away; it mostly comes down to have lots of layered mitigation (HPs, resistance, regen, and slows).

Also, the 45-50 snakes in Mercy can debuff defense quickly, especially if there's a bad pull in the final mission of the arc ... and you're suddenly facing a bunch of bosses

FWIW, I don't think squishies should /ever/ be able to soft cap defense; it does too much to trivialize melee sets (you don't need mez protection if the mez has a slim chance of hitting, for instance) and many of the tricks the devs use to make sure the game isn't a simple zerg to 50.

I think he got scared off.

Otherwise, if defenders really get a damage buff while solo, it means, IME, that I won't be so tempted to dual-box with a corpse.

I don't think FF is misunderstood. It's just that FF is overly-focused on damage mitigation in a game that is, frankly, easy.

^^^looks up at Fulmens' post^^^

The players that receive the most benefit from FF are those with the least amount of mitigation, blasters. After that ...

Ummm ...

Not really, no -- it wouldn't benefit all defenders equally. It'd be a FAR bigger deal for those with powerful, long recharge primary powers since those tend to be better than anything from the secondary.

I'm thinking of double-stacked Tar Patch or Acid Mortar v. Repulsion Bomb recharging in 10 seconds; I know which I'd rather have.