BurningChick

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WTF? How has this survived forum clean ups.

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rednames preserve threads.

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That's not actually true -- threads have to be specifically marked by the mods to be saved.

And, sometimes, threads marked as "saved" get nuked anyway -- Statesman's post comparing FF to Sonic lasted for over two years, but is either now missing or my search fu has recently been nerfed.

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PVP: Darkest Night debuffs base damage rather than enhanced damage. A power that does a 100 base damage would do ~195 with 3 damage SOs. With Darkest Night, the damage would be debuffed to 145, which is a reduction of only ~26% instead of 50%.

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I don't think this is a bug since there seems to be a work-around of sorts already in place -- the PvP value of the power, 50%, is higher than the PvE value, 37.5.

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This one isn't a big deal, but this seems the place to post it. The redside 4th costume slot mish is a little disappointing. For those who may not know, it's kill 30 Carnies. Now in the context given it makes perfect sense.

The issue with it is it's a holdover from pre issue 7. Carnies spawn in Fortune's Wheel in the mid-30s and you can only get the mission once you are level 40. Basically you get to kill 30 grey and green mobs.

And this is perfectly fine is that is what you like, but the only common option for higher level Carnies would be paper missions in GV. Which quite frankly won't occur to many/most.

Short of Carnies spawning in GV, a simple text change in the mission briefing could help inform here.

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I think that this, and many of the other problems, go back to CoV being released without some of the spit 'n' polish that CoH had had from release up until I6.

Just IME, but I think that the intention was to fix up things like content gaps and sucky PPPs on the fly, but Cryptic's plans got blind-sided by the staff cuts around I6 / I7. When the game was just CoH, there was enough staff on hand to add trials, TFs, and new zones while working on CoV.

But I7 became, frankly, a cluster [censored]. My god, I sent more petitions and bug reports in the first month it went live than I did in the 2 years previous. And, from there, it took almost a year for Cryptic (now NCNC) to get something like its groove back.

Going forward, I see good things happening. And threads like this are simply a good way for Ex to get some feedback to give to the devs. It's good for the new devs to get a feel for what the players want to see.

But I still want more villains-only content /that I can run on my dom/. Specific content for VEATs? I dunno ... if I don't like the VEATs, it's content I'm unlikely to see.

Edit to clean a couple things up.

I haven't had enough coffee today, but I believe no one else has mentioned it ...

Heroes have a third trial, the Cavern (?) of Transcendence in The Hollows -- this also opens up before Villains get their first respec trial.

Just my $.02, but I generally like playing Villains more than Heroes -- I really like brutes, doms, and corruptors. But man am I ever burnt out of the content. The only new villain content ever added to the game was, IIRC, the Grandeville stuff and a new starting contact.

A couple SFs. Some mid- / high-level arcs in Sharkhead, PO, and Mercy ... and things will be much, much better in Villains.

And, honestly, I don't even care that much about PPPs anymore. Yes, there's more variety heroside (the different PPPs are awfully close to identical, with only activation and animation times being the big differences /em yawn). And yes the APPs have some Monty Hall laughers. But that's mostly a PvP concern, IME. And PvP just isn't /my/ thing, but I have been led to understand it's a big deal for others.

But, good god. I really, I really want some new villains-only content from ~25 to 45.

Oh.

And demons. I want demons.

Ummm ... no particular reason, mind you.

When threads start containing posts with the words "bend over", they've jumped the shark.

Please, CG.

Don't hold back; tell us what you /really/ think.



And for whoever was on the receiving end of CG's post: Some folks, and probably the majority in this forum, think defenders are properly played as Offenders.

There's a joke in here about being offensive somewhere, too.

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For those interested, I tried out the new Repulsion Bomb on test. It's damage is identical to unslotted Terrify damage. Damage type is smashing. It cannot be slotted for damage.

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You're late to the party -- it can be slotted with dual aspect enhancements to bump up the damage. The damage is also buffable by powers like Aim.

Edit: Link.

I keep a copy of my bubbler on Test with all FF powers heavily slotted, just in case of changes.

Fault does knockdown.

I can't think of many specific mobs it didn't work on for my brute, beyond things like EBs and AVs. Having RB do low mag knock down would make me take and six slot the power, 3+ second animation be damned.

/em shrugs

On big teams, I fire off Fault the second it's up since it's an OMG WOW!!!! good power. Lots of PuGs have remarked on how effective my popcorning of mobs with alternating Faults and Tremors is.

A QR for the 'troller:

Knock down is turned into KB quite easily by using KB enhancements. Lowering the mag of Repulsion Bomb's KB actually /increases/ the power's utility by letting players slot (or not, as the case may be) in order to achieve the desired effect.

Also: buried in this thread I dug up the CoD numbers for DF showing that 'trollers get more mag out of the power than defenders.

Howdy,
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The nature of having a 'fire and forget' primary that leaves you a lot of time to play with your secondary likely shouldn't be thought of as anything other than a variant of powerset interaction design. It's not good or bad, it's just a different choice, and the FF implementation and the general secondary implementations available have proven to be far from ineffective with this variant in play.

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I'm probably in the minority, but I think that having a "fire and forget" primary focused on three powers that don't benefit, at all, from heavy slotting is god-awful design and is an unintentional side-effect of the devs having [censored] up distance as damage mitigation.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Defender FF is too effective with too few slots and powers, but isn't effective enough with heavy slotting and heavy power choices. Every other defender primary gets demonstrably more powerful the more slots and power choices you throw at it. FF? Not so much.

Further: Defender FF doesn't suck up nearly enough endurance /because/ it's so reliant on so few powers.

I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the current implementation of Defender FF is not at all in keeping with the devs' design philoshophy, either now or at some random point in the past.

We know the history. We know Statesman's post(s) about FF. We know that Castle wants there to be tough decisions about what powers to take and how to slot all of them (although that post might have been in I12's beta boards). And we know that Castle mentioned FF's ability to get by with few powers.

Statesman's view was laughably out of touch. But I can't see Castle being very happy with the majority of FF defenders skipping the set's final three powers, and only taking 4 or 5 of the first 6. That's not in keeping with how he wants players to play, or even to think about, a set.

So ... Castle's looking at FF, and the first step (I think there'll be others), is to add raw damage to Repulsion Bomb. I don't think it'll be much of a benefit to defenders, mind you (lack of damage is /not/ the reason defenders skip the power) ... but there's still room for Castle to surprise us -- like having the power amp up its damage against AVs, an area where FF is traditionally weak.

But we'll see what happens.

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Also, With PFF, Taunt, and Aid Self, you can tank an AV (at least long enough for the Tank to get a Rez and get shields back up), which is not something a Kin or other Defender can do. That doesn't mean FF couldn't use a buff for AV fights in its more traditional roll of team support.

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I have /frequently/ eaten the alphas for the Psy King and Babbage on my 3D. I've also stood up to Dreck and a dozen buddies with my 3D while the tanker bit off more than he can chew.

/em shrug

You don't give enough credit to what other defenders can do.

Because ...

This thread is a list of possible changes.

My list of what's wrong (going back 3+ years):

The FF defender (NOTE: defenders, I don't give a rat's [censored] about controllers with FF) herself is under-protected compared other primaries. Further: all FF has going for it is protection; why is the bubbler so squishy compared to her teammates?

4 of 5 mob-affecting powers are useless in AV / monster fights. The fifth, detention field, is frequently resisted by AVs, and the rarity of caging powers means the effect is almost impossible to stack. This leads to the odd-ball situation where sets like kinetics can frequently out-defend bubblers /and/ provide other useful (de)buffs that make the fight faster. Note: I've got lots of experience with kin and dark against AVs; both are far better than FF in big fights.

Solution 1: take some of the powers few /defenders/ take and retool them so the defender herself is better protected -- preferably in ways that don't bork up her ability to use her secondary.

Solution 2: AV-centric debuffs. And Castle considers AV fights significant enough to have nerfed AS in general gameplay so that it's much stronger against AVs.

Yup: cottages. But the set has /very/ specific weaknesses that will NOT be met with number-twiddling without either borking up stuff (i.e., more def is wrong, and increasing the mag of the KB powers to affect AVs would send minions into another time zone).

Further: the devs cottaged defiance.

Edit: added some bits to Solution 1.

Honestly, I don't get what this ...buff?... to RB is supposed to achieve. As of right now, Repulsion Bomb doesn't accept damage enhancements, so it would have to do, out of the box, a /lot/ of base damage to be considered a worthy apart of an attack chain ...

But that much base damage would make it /insane/ for a 'troller who can contain the KB, work the disorient to her benefit, and further boost the damage with containment.

Something from Castle: "Damage increase to Force Field Repulsion Bomb".

Hahahahahahahaha.

He's not addressing the power's real problems ... he's just going to make it do more than the current quarter of a brawl of damage. But, I guess, this would make the power a crapton better if you're a controller with a -KB immobilize.

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What we should present to the devs in the end is a list of 1-3 suggested power changes that we have some sort of consensus on.

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That's a worthy goal, but I'm not sure how feasible it is, mostly because the implementation of KB and repel as ways to improve performance is fundamentally flawed, at least in the case of defender FF.

At some point, if we want to improve some of FF's underachievers, we have to change what they do. Reducing Repulsion Bomb's animation time, for instance, doesn't change the fact that the power still does enough KB to be annoying most of the time. If the power did low-mag KB (i.e., knockdown), would that be a big enough change to remove the idea from the table? It might be ...

Changing Repulsion Field for the better would have wide-ranging ramifications because the power exists, in some form (the 7' PBAoE and the 10' teammate-centred version in Sonic), for a surprising number of ATs (Defender, 'Troller, Blaster, Corruptor, Stalker, MM) across a number of sets.

Detention Field is tricky. It /is/ possible to have power that hit through phasing, Hami now does it, so there may no longer be a tech barrier to making DF into a click / toggle. But this might have PvP ramifications -- i.e., players could be tagged through Phase Shift with the power, but could then subsequently break DF by leaving the toggle's range. Or Castle could make two distinctly different versions of the power, one for PvE (click / toggle) and one for PvP (current version). But ... would he go down that road?

Force Bubble is a tricky power, mostly because it /can/ be incredibly effective -- as anyone who's seen a bots / FF MM tear through mobs can easily attest to. But bots goes hand in glove with FF. The bots are mostly single target ranged mobs, so by design they're made for dealing with KB. The protector bots heal. And the assault bot does -regen. Most of the shortcoming of FF are fixed by pairing the set with bots. And Force Bubble /is/ popular with PvPing bubblers.

In order to make Force Bubble always viable for defenders and PvE, PvP would have to be a consideration ... and the set would probably have to be forked. And forking defender FF off from controller and MM FF is probably one of the last things Castle wants to do.

What this all adds up to, I think, is one big problem that can't be easily solved, hence the proliferation of ideas to fix FF.

And, no, "fixing" defender blasts isn't the answer. Making NightFall and Tentacles line up won't change the fact that Force Bubble removes melee toons from Dispersion Bubble and fugs up any number of other powers.

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It appeared, based on the discussion surrounding the time when the two ally bubbles were bumped to 4 minutes that the original intent appeared to be, as so many things were in the original conception for the game, that the bubbles were supposed to cost "just enough" in time and endurance to make you think about whether to apply them or not, rather than to monotonously perma them, so that the bubbles presented an actual tactical decision.

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/em scratches head

Isn't that what I said?
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The game plan seems to have been, "Buff whoever needs it, and watch out for who's taking what kind of damage. From 18 to 32, evolve away from buffing into keeping mobs out of melee for squishies and onto rooted tankers."

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I was actually going to use "tactical" as an adverb in my post, but I couldn't wrap my head around the spelling this late at night.



And another FWIW: I think combat was supposed to be much more interesting and dynamic than it turned out to be. Tactical bubble buffs. Rooted tankers. Ice tankers requiring mez buffs. Burn patches for containing 'n' herding mobs. I wonder what other things the devs were unable to pull off?

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I think I can make the argument that FF has the advantage in defense, although no defense (i.e. mitigation) situation is ever "obvious." But I don't know that I believe it has enough of an advantage.

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I think this basically sums up what Jade 'n' I have been saying. If you're going to do one thing (in FF's case, damage mitigation), you should /always/ be the best at it. This isn't the case. And it has very, very little to do with FF's defense buffs. The Big Three are good bordering on broken, but there are situations where something more than def is needed, and those are typically situations where FF's other mitigation powers come up short, either by being ineffective or simply not gelling with "ranged" or AoE powers.

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Even if it does [have enough of an advantage], I think that's both a blessing and a curse in terms of how the set functions overall, which is why I think it still has design issues. But I don't think blatant underperformance is its problem. I think the problem with the set is more subtle than that, separate from the issues many (but not necessarily a majority) of players have with the way the set seems to play.

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FF is just an oddity. It seems to have been designed at a time when "distance as mitigation" was an integral part of the game design. When that equation slipped away, the devs systematically started improving The Big Three (well, Four, when FF had 3 single target buffs), with a significant detour at the GDR, to the point where the original vision of the bubbler* got lost. And that's a shame since I think the KB and repel in FF were intended to be a huge advantage to the bubbler herself.

And, from one of your previous comments:
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The FF set itself doesn't have a lot of offense, but you'd think a defender that only took three powers in the primary (and they are all good powers), had nothing but 4 minute cycling clicks, and very low endurance burn rate when operating at full efficiency would have a lot of room for offense.

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What's interesting here is that my bubbler has 7 or 8 of her secondary powers, heavily slotted. She always has an attack to click. But she's s-l-o-w to solo, far slower than my dark defender who has /5/ attacks, one of which is a snipe. My bubbler works against the regen rates of lieuts and bosses; my dark defender doesn't. That alone makes a difference.

FWIW, I think FF needs a slot sink, perhaps something in the early levels, something so good that it makes the defender have to make a decision about when to slot the two small bubbles. I dunno what that power should be like, but I'm pretty sure it should be there.

* a brief history lesson, for anyone who bothers to read what I write. FF had 3 single target bubbles on 2 minute timers in Beta. I.e., it was pretty much impossible to keep a full team buffed. The game plan seems to have been, "Buff whoever needs it, and watch out for who's taking what kind of damage. From 18 to 32, evolve away from buffing into keeping mobs out of melee for squishies and onto rooted tankers." As Empathy moves from healing to more general purpose buffing, so to would FF evolve from buffing to throwing. That ... didn't work out.

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However, once people stop taking damage, you can't really convince yourself that your bubbles stacked on top of the other bubbles, fortitudes, maneuvers, and radiation debuffs were especially important. That annoys some people who want to believe their team contribution is critical to the team's success (and furthermore, that believe what they see as their specific strength should be the most value aspect of their contribution in every single case).

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At the very least, Dispersion Bubble's doing something.

But that's not really the point. The /real/ point of this thread is that precious few people see much value in FF past The Big Three and, depending on taste and awareness of the set, one or two other powers.

A tangent: FF is a balance issue in part because it has so few effects worth slotting for. On my current FF build, I have something like 9 or 10 slots spent on all of FF. That's about the same as my kins have in just Transfusion and Transference.

FF is a big ol' pile of bad design decisions going back to, I'm guessing, "the guy before Geko."

Hey, it's a red name!

In the Defender forum!

Woot!

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Darks and Rads are no where near as good at herding as an FF.

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We're talking about CoH, right? If so ... the dark defenders you've seen in action have had some build issues.

Corner pulling 3 or 4 spawns onto Tar Patch with Darkest Night is pretty basic dark defendering. Dropping Fluffy onto the herd and following up with Fearsome Stare or Howling Twilight is just gravy.

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The difference in Det. Field's mag might be why 'trollers report greater success in caging AVs than defenders.

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Well, if that's true, _that's_ a change to give to FF Defenders to buff them up.

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That can't be done since 'trollers 'trol better than defenders. The AT modifiers are among the last things the devs will [censored] with.

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But in all cases I know of the differences basically amount to minor nerfs to the set for all non-Defender ATs.

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Repulsion Bomb's stun duration is superior for 'trollers as is the mag of Detention Field. For MMs, all non-buff powers in FF are /identical/ to the defender equivalents.

Numbers:
RB: 14.9 second stun duration for 'trollers; 11.92 for defenders.
Det Field: 5.96 Untouchable to Target for 30 seconds for defenders; 7.45 Untouchable to Target for 30 seconds for 'trollers.

The difference in Det. Field's mag might be why 'trollers report greater success in caging AVs than defenders.

Edit for some clarity.

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Secondly, as usual, I agree with BurningChick.

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At least someone does!

FWIW, what would be a thematic way, I think, to add damage to FF is to give one of the powers a buff that gives a proc to one's teammates for a chance to do energy damage and / or low mag KB (i.e., knock down).

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Force Field is actually one of the strongest buff/debuff sets against an AV. First, because we can actually cage them (though maybe not all). Second, because we buff teammates rather than debuff enemies - and AVs have around 50% debuff resistance. So when Radiation Emission, Trick Arrow, or Dark Miasma bebuffs their accuracy, they do so at only half effectiveness - while FF still has its full effect.

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It's true that AVs resist -ToHit debuffs heavily, but they do not resist -damage particularly well, and this is where things start to get a little odd.

Everyone knows that kin is good at -damage, but not so many know that Dark Miasma is as well, especially against single targets. Darkest Night, which most people think of as -ToHit also has a 37.5 damage debuff. Further, Twilight Grasp has a 12.5 damage debuff that, AFAIK, stacks with itself with a base 20 second duration and 8 second recharge.

Further, Fluffy throws out Darkest Night for another 30 debuff, and his Twilight grasp is a 10 debuff. I've never been able to wrap my head around the fuzzy dude's AI and The Purple Patch working together, but it probably averages out to something like a 15% debuff.

In other words, a DD is probably debuffing an AV's damage by 35ish% on top of a hefty ToHit debuff. That's a massive decrease in damage /for the entire team/. Throw in a big AoE heal, -regen, and -resistance, and Dark Defenders are largely unfair to AVs, especially if the AV does neg, NRG, or psi damage.

Dark Miasma takes a layered approach to team protection and performance against AVs, while FF is leaning very, very heavily (if not exclusively) on The Big Three. In protracted fights, hits get through to a bubbled team which adds up to a lot of damage taken over time. This is especially if the bubbler hasn't taken Maneuvers.

This is, largely, why I think FF needs a wider variety of tools for keeping teams safe.

And, yes, I'd be OK with a nerf to the small bubbles to see this happen.

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I'm not clear on what situations Kin has better damage mitigation...maybe you could explain that to me.

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Lt. Sefu (Longbow hero in RWZ) in particular, and many (most?) AVs in general. In a nutshell, I had to swap my FF defender for my fire / kin corruptor because Sefu was mopping the floor with us, and we couldn't dent his regen.

-Damage, a big AoE heal, and the rest of the goodness kin brings meant Sefu dropped in a couple minutes with no one's health dipping past green for long. Boy, did that encounter make me bitter FWIW, Castle responded very nicely to my late night rant about that one.