CDN_Guardian

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I really do get a kick when someone tries to tell me I don't know how to play a set because I say something derogatory about it. Tell me, what level is your Storm/Non-Sonic Defender, and how many levels did you solo through??


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Actually, my character is 41 and he's Storm/Dark and I soloed him for more than half of those levels.

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Now was this back in I1-5? Because after that and I'd have to call you a big fat LIAR. Or someone who enjoys pain and suffering.


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Go read my guide. Hell, post a new topic asking people if they can solo with their Stormers. Storm is one of the most solo friendly Defender primaries there are. The general mayhem and debuffs should be more than enough to protect you. Dark by the way, is probably the most synergistic combo with Storm out of all secondaries.

A I've already said, go read my guide or ask The Mighty Storm now that she's back.

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Then I guess I just picked the wrong secondary -- Electricity. Cause even at lvl 28 with 3 slotted Stamina, all attacks slotted 1 accy/3 damage/1 end (except Short Circuit which is 3 slotted for end mod instead of damage) I cannot defeat even heroic spawns. If I don't use any primaries and just attack I have just enough endurance to take them out, but I am left dead or nearly dead.

If I drop Freezing Rain on them, even with the -res debuff I run out of endurance before they're all dead. Same with Hurricane. I can keep them from attacking me and take little to no damage, but there is not enough endurance left over for me to kill them. And with 2 single target attacks, one AoE attack, and one PbAoE attack, it's just not possible to form a decent attack chain.

So basically I can protect myself, or kill them (with high risk of death), but not both. Which kinda puts a kink in soloing.

Ok, Mighty One, King of Storm... what the hell do I do?

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Elec is often viewed as the weakest secondary damage wise. It compensates through it's hold, pet, a ranged nuke and it's ability to drain endurance. This isn't to say Elec is bad, just that it synergizes better with some primaries than others.

While a lot of people think Elec synergizes the best with Storm thematically, in-game I believe Dark Blast complements it best.

Elec lacks the 1-2-3 single target attack chain of some sets and it's AoEs recharge in 16 and 20 seconds base. That's slow. Other sets have AoE's recharging anywhere from 8 to 20 seconds.

PM me your build and I'll try to help you with it.

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I really do get a kick when someone tries to tell me I don't know how to play a set because I say something derogatory about it. Tell me, what level is your Storm/Non-Sonic Defender, and how many levels did you solo through??


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Actually, my character is 41 and he's Storm/Dark and I soloed him for more than half of those levels.

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Now was this back in I1-5? Because after that and I'd have to call you a big fat LIAR. Or someone who enjoys pain and suffering.


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Go read my guide. Hell, post a new topic asking people if they can solo with their Stormers. Storm is one of the most solo friendly Defender primaries there are. The general mayhem and debuffs should be more than enough to protect you. Dark by the way, is probably the most synergistic combo with Storm out of all secondaries.

A I've already said, go read my guide or ask The Mighty Storm now that she's back.

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I really do get a kick when someone tries to tell me I don't know how to play a set because I say something derogatory about it. Tell me, what level is your Storm/Non-Sonic Defender, and how many levels did you solo through??


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Actually, my character is 41 and he's Storm/Dark and I soloed him for more than half of those levels.

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Storm has too many toggles and runs out of end too quickly. It also only has 1 high end cost resistance debuff power that can't be made perma, and typically doesn't last long enough to defeat an entire spawn. Oh, and no self heal or end recovery.

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Yeah, Snowstorm + Hurricane + Steamy Mist are crazy expensive to run. That was sarcasm by the way.

Combine it's AoE -res, -def, slow, knockdown and stacked -recharge, it's not terribly difficult to kill an entire spawn if you have a secondary that does good AoE. Add in Lightning Cloud and Tornado? It become that much easier. Oh yeah, there is that AoE disorient that will stun minions in case you need it.

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Trick Arrow only becomes viable after you get Disruption Arrow. Endurance isn't too much of a problem as you don't have any toggles, but with no self heal and the -resistance power late in the set, it's a pain. And let's not forget the sheer uselessness of Entangling Arrow and Flash Arrow, and the stupidly long time it takes to slap down Glue Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow, and Acid Arrow -- that is if you're not already dead halfway thru that chain.

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You realize they sped up the animation times right? Also, the main -res power is Acid Arrow; available at lvl12. With slotting it's up every 6-10 seconds. I agree the early levels can be difficult, but if you have problems clearing a spawn after Oil Slick and EMP Arrow become available, sorry, but you need to learn your set a little better.

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Actually, I've found Empathy to be one of the better soloists, simply because of self healing and recovery buffs. If you don't have to worry about endurance, and can regenerate or heal all your damage, you can just go to town. You have little to no downtime between spawns like other Defenders do. Without debuffs taking on bosses can be tough, but if you stick to heroic you shouldn't encounter any. And a lot if it depends on your secondary. Some are better against bosses than others.

FF is kinda middle of the road. Having only 1 toggle keeps end costs low and provides a decent amount of protection, but unless you pair it with Sonic it's pretty slow. You won't run dry like you will with Storm, Dark, or Rad, but you won't move very quickly either.

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Not much to say here, I know lots of good players that solo their Emps and FF'ers.

You've made some good points about the FF set so far Poobah, but your points about Defenders not being able to solo are ridiculous. The only people who cannot solo as a Defender are the people that:
1) have no clue how to play their set and/or haven't given it time to develop
2) intentionally gimped themselves for soling by playing some "pure" support character
3) are ADD addled meatheads who can't handle anything less than the leveling speed of Scrappers or whatever FoTM build they get their jollies off of.

This is totally off topic, but any Storm or Trick Arrow Defender that can't solo probably has no clue how to play the sets. Those are two of the stronger soloing sets.

Quite honestly, the only primaries that might have issues soloing quickly are Emp and FF solely due to their inability to buff damage, but that said, their only issue is speed.

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Force Fields are not hard, in fact, they are more like a pushing force. As a reference, you can see that from the Fantastic Four movies, where the Invisible Girl (I don't know if that's her name, we get a dubbed version here :P) has force fields. They seem mostly to push things away, rather than "knocking" them away (as in, hard-hitting them).

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I've always thought the exact opposite. I picture force fields as being very solid; as solid as a steel wall would feel.

I see your point about the Invisible Woman in the movie, but that isn't how she's always portrayed in the comic. See in Civil War where Taskmaster shoots Mr. Fantastic and she crushes him with an invisible cylinder? It wasn't a push; it was a sudden impact of a solid object with a lot of force, leaving a crater with Taskmaster gibbled at the bottom of it.

This is why I see a disorient effect as being in-line with Force Bolt; a bolt of force, projected at high speesd would easily disorient you if the bolt was solid enough.

Anyhoo, just my perspective. You've got some good points.

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....

I think the reason that FF has gone so long with so many stinkers in the set is because the 4 powers that are good are REALLY good. And there are a ton of FF Defenders with just those 4 powers who prove it every day. The problem isn't that the set on the whole is underperforming, it's that it's BORING. You're basically an underpowered Blaster that has to stop blasting every 4 minutes to re-apply bubbles. Then it's back to blasting.

So where other Defenders can do cool things with all their nifty powers like Tar Patch, Speed Boost, Hurricane, and Oil Slick Arrow (just to mention a few), all you get to do is cast bubbles every 4 minutes, over and over and over again. Are the bubbles very effective? Sure are. But is the set fun and interesting to play? Uh, nope. Does it give you fun and nifty powers to use that make you feel like you're contributing in every battle (besides the trivial amount of damage your secondaries do)? Nuh-uh. Anything to help take the sting out of fighting EBs, AVs, or GMs? Not a single thing.

And that's the biggest problem with FF. There simply isn't enough meat in the set to keep it interesting and fun to play.

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Good post Poobah.. again. This is probably the longest post that has actually kept me interested the entire time. Thank God we have you to balance out the MagicJ-ackass (Hey! I figured out what the "j" stands for!).

I'll admit that I loved being able to blast as much as I did with my bubbler, but the truth is, after trying more active sets, like TA or Storm, FF felt boring.

Instead of having 4 or 5 cool primary powers to use in conjunction with my 4-6 blast powers, I had a toggle, 2 primaries, and 4 blasts to fill my time with. The two primaries only got use every 4 minutes as well.

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CDN_Guardian
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But both are fine at your basic crowd control.


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If you're going to quote me, use the whole quote.

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Hahahaha, you are such a [censored] loser it's pathetic. You edited that bit in after I'd already quoted and responded to you.

Edit: Ah, I see that now in the first post I quoted. Yeah, in one sentence you state that there isn't a significant difference in the level of control offered by Defender and Controllers and then add that both are fine at basic crowd control.

As I've already stated, I'd love to see the Defender that could even come close to , say, a Gravity Controller.

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CDN_Guardian
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Are you kidding me? You honestly think that a FF Defender, with any secondary, is going to have anywhere near the control of say, a Gravity Controller? Give me a break.


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I don't think that and didn't say that. I said an FF Defender can handle basic crowd control just fine.


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No, what you said was:

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there's not a huge difference in the control ability between an FF Defender and Controller

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Gee, where did I get you said that? You said nothing about basic crowd control. If you are going to change your tune, at least wait a few bars, not on the next chord.

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Knockback, Stuns, and Detention Field are all available to the Defender FF. That, and Controller AoE Holds are not that great (hint: I have Repulsion Bomb. I skipped Total Domination) means there's not a huge difference in the control ability between an FF Defender and Controller. Especially if the FF Defender takes a secondary and/or Epic with control.

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Are you kidding me? You honestly think that a FF Defender, with any secondary, is going to have anywhere near the control of say, a Gravity Controller? Give me a break.

The most controllery secondary is Dark. It has an AoE immobilize, an AoE Disorient, and an AoE knockback. Sonic has an AoE sleep and knockback. Elec has a hold. Energy and Psy have knockback. And let's not forget that you've stated, repeatedly that knockback breaks Defender secondaries, so those must not count as a form of control.

As for EPP, you must be referring to Psychic Mastery. It gives us an AoE Sleep, Hold and single target hold. Dark Mastery gives us an PBAoE disorient. Power has a single target disorient, same with Elect which also has a single target immobilize.

Now, I can see how a FF/Dark/Psychic Master Defender would have some impressive control but to broadly say there isn't a huge difference between the control abilities of a Defender and Controller is stupid. There are 28 different combinations of FF Defenders given secondary and EPPs and maybe 1 or 2 have the control to support your ridiculous statement.

Good posts Poobah.

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some of those communities have really proven that they can work well together to be able to prioritize what they, as a community would like to see happen

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I'll only add that telling people to leave the thread because their favorite toon is not a Defender, campaigning to have folks put on ignore, and in general dismissing concerns is in no way "working together".

This thread has, for the most part, been nothing other than a collection of bad ideas and various folks bullying others to try to get their favorite bad ideas implemented by the Devs.

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I took you off ignore so I could see your response to Poobah, and I already regret it.

Dismissing concerns? Do you not see what a pathetic hypocrite you are when in the next sentence you state that this thread is nothing more than a collection of bad ideas? Again, who are you to judge anything?

If you want us to work together, know what would really help? You shutting your mouth about how bad you think some of these ideas are. You honestly expect us to show you any consideration when you are completely unwilling to show any yourself?

Talk about bullying, you are one of the worst in the thread. You continually harp about the same points and continually call everyone else's ideas stupid, bad or terrible and then you have the nerve to complain about other people's behaviour.

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You can piss off too Dr. Phil.

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What did I do?

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Sorry PK, that was directed at Starfox. Due to both his statement that Magicj has done nothing wrong by intentionally trying to stop this discussion and defending the statement that some of these ideas are "terrible".

The arrogance of telling people that, and also telling us that we should focus the discussion according to how Starfox thinks it should be presented to the devs annoyed me. The more ideas the better I say!

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Magicj isn't doing anything wrong, really. We all have opinions. She(?) is entitled to hers(?). But just as she(?) says, the difference in opinion between her and most of us has been EXTREMELY well documented by now - lets move on.

If you have to ignore someone in order not to rise to the bait, by all means do so. But personally I have learned stuff from magicj's opinions and presentations (deftly ignoring the gender question by using the name here), so I'll continue to read - but perhaps not reply to - what she(?) has to say.

And yes, some suggestions are indeed terrible. To me, at least.

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You can piss off too Dr. Phil. You don't think trying to ruin a discussion because you are afraid something might get noticed by the devs is wrong? If that isn't one of the most selfishly childish acts I've ever heard of on these boards I don't know what is.

Yeah, some of these ideas are better than others, in my opinion as well, but the whole point in these brainstorms is to see all of the ideas and discuss what might and might not work; not to just sit there like some jerk off, bashing every idea and moronically repeating that "FF is fine! The issue is with the secondaries!" over, and over, and over....

Here I'll tell you one idea I think is ridiculous; trying to get a consensus on what changes we want for what powers. Good luck with that. If you've read through the previous pages, you'll see everyone's opinions are all over the map. The idea of a brainstorm is to put forth ideas, and discuss if they were implemented.

You want to try and moderate this discussion? Be my guest, but in the end you'll just end up pissing people off with talk of "that doesn't fit the theme" or "I've figured out how to use this wonderful power and I don't want it changed". Hopefully you realize both those statements should have "..in my opinion" added to them.

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As to many of the suggestions being terrible, well... they are. Sorry, but it's the truth. Calling me names doesn't make them any better.

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Please, everyone join me in adding Magicj to our ignore lists so we can continue this discussion without her asinine input.

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As for me being here discussing possible changes to the set, I probably wouldn't even bother if so many of the suggestions weren't simply terrible _and_ have a pretty good chance of rippling through to the other ATs if implemented.

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I'm trying really, really hard to be polite to you, but since you are starting to behave like a dink again, I'll iterate my earlier sentiment:

Piss off.

Who the [censored] are you to say that any of these suggestions are terrible? Quite being such a jerk off and trying to preemptively strike down these ideas since you are so afraid they might be implemented. Do you you seriously think the devs will read this and spontaneously change the powers according to what we've suggested? Good grief. What an [censored] hole. What type of close-minded loser takes it upon themselves to try and stymie a discussion because they are afraid of the result? Go censor some other poor saps if your entire objective is to stop this discussion.

Again, piss off.

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Fixing the blasts _does_ change that.

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I completely and utterly do not understand why you think this. If this were true, as I've already stated, Storm would be having the same problems; it isn't. Saying the powers in Storm's primary that do damage are the sole reason Storm doesn't have this problem is false as well. On outdoor maps, it's very easy for mobs to be knocked out of range of the damaging primary powers.

I'll iterate and say that it's the variety of effects Storm can apply to enemies that allows it to contribute in every fight.

I also do not understand your fixation on the imbalance between FF'ers in different AT's; this has little relevance when we are speaking about one specific AT. It's in the nature of the other AT's that their primaries work better with FF, but this obviously has no relevance to a discussion of FF as a primary or any relevance to a discussion of Defender secondaries.

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Hmm... Not a FF Def, and not a FF Def. Irrelevant.


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Not at all irrelevant. Unless you just feel an overpowering need to play a Defender, why would you play a Defender FF when the other ATs work better with FF?

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Because Defenders are fun and the combination of Buffing/Debuff & Blasting is what some of us prefer to do.

You're making the assumption that people should choose to be a FF'er first, then should find the AT with the powersets that the set best meshes with. I choose to be a Defender, and picked my powersets according to what looked interesting. I'd say that most people also do this, not the former. I'd also say that it's a demonstration of incredibly bad design if the former is necessary for a powerset to work well.

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Exactly. Adjust the FF Primary, not all Defender Secondaries.

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So let's look at some of the options for doing that....

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See, now you're on track. As in your post before this one, you've shown that FF is the odd man out. It's not the secondaries that are the problem, if they were, Storm would be having similar problems with it's plethora of knockback powers. Storm obviously isn't and that is not solely due to the powers in the Storm powerset that cause damage.

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Changing the secondaries does nothing to address the discrepancies between FF and the other primaries.

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This simply isn't true. The only other Defender primary that knocks things around like FF is Storm and Storm provides extra damage powers that aren't hurt by the Knockback. You're not left with killing things for 50 levels using only single target blasts with Storm.

FF doesn't provide that kind of compensation for making your secondary almost useless. And it _can't_ provide it unless the powerset was almost completely reworked to make it a clone of Storm.

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Sorry, but this simply IS true.

It's not the damage component that balances Storm out to compensate for the knockback; it's the multitude of other effects at Storm's disposal.

-Res, slow, -def, -to hit, -recharge, damage and knockdown all provide other ways for Storm to contribute on top of the knockback.

Implementing some of these effects into FF could easily improve the contributions a FF'er could bring to a team beyond the defence, status protection and knockback.

FF does not make our secondaries useless. Why you continue to focus on this is beyond me. Continuing to harp that our secondaries require changing is pointless; the secondaries work with every set, even FF. Even if you are right, that is one primary out of them all that there are issues with.

Which is easier? Changing that single primary? Or every single secondary? I also see that you failed to respond to my earlier post asking how any proposed changes will affect the primary/secondary relationship with other Defender primaries.

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There was a post in the past, i'm sure it's been removed, that had come up with a lot of great idea. If memory serves me correct it was posted atleast 6 Mos prior to CoV's release. Many players drew the conclusion that the power changes and ideas are what the Cold Corruptor Secondary was based on. Maybe we can look at the Cold Secondary and see if there are aspects of that secondary we'd like. I for one would love to trade Repulsion Bomb for a Frostworks-Like Shield. I'd even settle for changing it to a Location AoE -ToHit similar to Liquify. Something to increase the damage of our Secondary. I understand that FF's are about Defense, but Sonic gets a -Tohit/ -Def debuff when it's primary ability is -Resistance Debuffs with +Damage Buffs. I don't think a -ToHit Debuff in a +Def set is out of place.

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Good call on this one. I forgot about that until you mentioned it, but I do remember someone advocating a power to effectively add health to whatever player buffed by the power. Lo and behold, Cold Corruptors get Frostwork.

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You suck jerk face!

I have nothing to add to this discussion, just wanted at least one post in this thread full of lawl.

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Hey, get out of our thread you smelly bum!

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Can we please get into how we can improve these powers? Argueing over strategy and tactics isn't going to get us what we want. The DEVs have said before that they are satisified with how Defenders perform. We know from the past that they will change the way individual powers to perform better. Maybe we need to look at these underperforming powers and brainstorm ways to improve them to work more effectively for the powerset as a whole.

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Exactly! Thanks G, for getting this back on topic. If I get a chance after work, I'll try and go through the thread and summarize the proposed changes so this discussion can get going again. I'll be sure to omit any of the asinine tangents posted by some people.

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That's right. But it doesn't change basic manners.

And while we're on the topic, stop trying to deny me the right to express my opinion and we'll get along just fine.

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Who are you to talk about manners, hypocrite? You tell PK to "piss off", same as I told you to do. You come into a discussion about what changes people might like to see in the FF set and for 4 pages, contribute nothing more than your opinion that Defender blasts are lacking and don't mesh well with FF. Do you think if you say it enough times people will agree with you?

Here I'll take a stab at explaining this to you. I'll type slowly so maybe you can figure it out. Defender blasts are fine; they work very well with every Primary. You say Defender nukes are broken? How's that? Only if you are stupid enough to use them as an opener rather than a finisher in which case you end up in the middle of the fight, with half dead enemies all agroed onto you. The problem is that you obviously have no clue how to blast as a Defender.

You honestly think giving all blasts the exact same characteristics in terms of range and area affected is going to magically fix them? Why? You've mechanically repeated your opinion that Defender blasts are the problem like some OCD addled child, and yet have offered no points to back that up.

When people ask you about how changing the blast sets would affect other Defender primaries, you have no answer.

Let me ask you a simple question Magicj; which would be easier? Changing 7 Defender blast sets, which work well with 7 out of 8 Defender primaries, or changing the 1 Defender primary that has issues? Bear in mind, this is your position. I don't believe that FF's issue stem from the secondary. In fact, that is one of the most ludicrous ideas I've read since I've seen every single Defender blast set perform well with every single Defender primary.

Let's see if you have some answers for us. You call other people's ideas "stupid" when suggestions are made for tweaking FF and yet you put forth garbage like this. You state FF has secondary effects inherent to the powers because they change enemies behaviours? Good grief! Please spare us this garbage.

Freezing Rain causes -speed, -resistance, -defence, knockdown and has a fear component. Uhm, let's see, what other imaginary effect can I attribute to that? Enemies are running away from me, and aren't attacking me...I know! I'll tell everyone that Freezing Rain is a hold with a -dmg component since I take less damage when I use the power!

See how silly that is? Secondary effects are direct attributes of powers; not some imaginary tertiary effect.

I'll iterate what I said earlier; piss off if you have nothing more to contribute other than "Defender blasts are broken and don't mess with my favourite set". The likelihood of any changes being made are slim, as threads like this have been made since 2004. For your information, there was a collaborative report submitted in 2005 from all the active FF'ers on the forums. Nothing was changed then, and it's likely nothing will change now.

Quite honestly, all you are doing is stunting the discussion. I for one enjoy reading people's creative attempts at fixing the set. Who knows, something might pop up that everyone likes. But to be the person who repeatedly states "No! This is stupid don't change my set" has got to be the some of the most arrogant, ignorant, childish and quite honestly, stupid behaviour I've seen on these boards.

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+acc powers can shred defence

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Wrong. +Tohit shreds defense, +Acc does very little to defense.

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Whoops, my bad, you're right. I mixed them up.

Good points Jade. I should have said that I'd scrap the repel effect of Force Bubble and swap it with a slow effect. The only problem with +dam is that at some point, a cap is reached; -res isn't as likely to reach the resistance debuff cap.

I don't have a hard time rationalizing it; as enemies are fighting their way through the Force Bubble their ability to defend and fend off attacks is reduced. Your attacks now do more damage to enemies affected by the Force Bubble.

Edit:

Someone please inform Magicj that Dark Pit is part of Dark Blast and therefore not mutually exclusive with FF powers. It was also an example of an animation and effect Repulsion Bomb could become more similar to. For someone who harps about Defender secondaries, Magicj has demonstrated limited understanding of how they work.