Captain Fabulous

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I'm a tolerant guy. I understand the nature of waiting in line to get into an event. However, I have to say that I'm not entirely satisfied by the manner the wedding event has been handled.

1) If you wanted us to line up in lines to enter the event then put in controls to direct the people. Rope lines, funnels, any sort of crowd control would be nice. I laughed like most when Castle KO'd people close to the Usher in Atlas. I even got him to laugh when I said it was like "Look! It's the WHO!" [that's an old person joke for all the folks under 30 based on a crowd stampede at a WHO concern years ago ]. You need better crowd control for events like the wedding.

2) The equity of the access to the event was lacking. Making it "whoever can click on the Usher through the effect of the Force Bubble" lacked balance. Why did this happnen? Not thinking through the methodology of accessing the event is why. Plan for orderly entry next time. The shotgun approach is a poor substitute for proper planning.

- B.

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Another way to do this would have been to put in multiple ushers, like 5 of them, either all in the same zone (spread out around city hall) or in different zones. This way you avoid everyone crowding around 1 NPC.

But on the villain side it wasn't too bad. The hero side was chaos tho.

I don't have a problem with letting anyone on my team, that is, until they've shown me they have no desire to be a TEAM PLAYER -- that is, they're only interest is to use their powers however and whenever they want, no matter how much it negatively impacts other players or the team.

If you want to be on a team, then you need to flexible enough to use powers that enhance the team while refraining from powers that harm the team. It's called cooperation. If you're going to use whatever powers you like whenever you like because you don't care how it affects the team, and have a hissy fit or attitude when the team leader politely asks you to modify your behavior and do what's best for the team, then you should limit yourself to solo play.

I give everyone the benefit of the doubt when putting a team together (unless I've teamed with that person before and already know they are difficult), regardless of their powersets. Hell, most of the time you don't even know their sets until after they've joined the team.

And if you think what I've written was a whine, you really need to get out more (and go visit some of the double XP threads in regard to the server caps). It's no more a whine than your posts are rants

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, and also believe that Storm's arrogance is disproportionatley large when compared to it's level of ability. (That's right, I said it. Fight me!).



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I won't fight you I will agree and support you. I can't stand storm people most of the time, I like my melee ATs, and they are always knocking them around out of my reach. Especially when I use my fire tank, totally ruins the effectiveness of my AoEs. Although I have teamed with a few stormies that knew how to work their build, and the team was very successful.

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Agreed. Having a Storm Defender myself, I often find myself teamed with other Defenders or Trollers with Storm, almost all of which think it's perfectly A-OK to have Hurricane running all the time. I've actually seen them drop Freezing Rain and then push all the foes out of FR with Hurricane.

I have an Ice/Storm Troller who once teamed with a Storm Defender who was running Hurricane all the time and was constantly pushing critters off of Ice Slick. I actually had to send her a tell asking her to shut down Hurricane unless she really needed it. Tho she didn't get nasty with me (as most do when I politely ask them to not use a power that's causing more harm than good), she was definitely perplexed, and couldn't understand why Hurricane wasn't meant to be on all the time since it's a toggle

Sigh...

But this problem isn't limited to Storm either. I was playing a DB/WP Scrapper over double XP weekend and was on a team where I was the only melee toon. And no matter how many times I politely asked for people to be mindful of what powers they used and when, and that as a WP Scrapper it's vital for me to keep everything grouped around me, the Ice/Devices Blaster was always firing off Ice Storm and tossing Caltrops right on top of me, the AR Blaster would open every battle with his M30 Grenade, and the Fire Blaster was always dropping Fire Rain. Oh yeah, and the two Peacebringers couldn't resist using their cone and AoE Nova powers and/or their KB Foot Stomp on the entire group of critters around me.

It got to the point where I just refused to chase things down anymore. I would hop into a spawn, sometimes get one attack off, and they would all go flying or running. And then I would just stand there doing nothing unless a critter came running within melee range of me.

I even suggested, repeatedly, that they let the Stone Troller lay down Stone Cages after I run in but before they attack, so they could use any power they wanted and wouldn't be able to knock things all over the place. I think they did that twice, and then couldn't be bothered anymore.

And then of course *I* start getting attitude cause I'm standing around doing nothing while everyone else is fighting.

Y'know what this game needs? Some kind of player rating system; kinda like a n00b meter. Some way of being able to see which players are experienced and which are total n00bs while you're in the search box looking for teammates. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

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I think you need to look into your emailers. I haven't changed email addresses since starting CoH nearly 45 months ago, and I didn't get a double xp mailer or wedding package/Valentines day mailer, either. I am not alone on this. Surprisingly, I did buy 1 Wedding package and got 2 emails, 1 verify the purchase and 1 saying my account was upgraded. Oh and if I thought it was really worth buying, I would have bought 2 one for my second account that's nearly 36 months old.

Soph

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You need to correct your email with NC then, or *sign up for the emails* because it IS an option you can decline. You may have simply checked the "don't send me any info" at the outset. Go back and check for it, I'm not quite sure exactly where to look since I've always got those things coming in

Of course all you otherwise need to do is sign up for updates from places like MMORPG.com or wherever else that spams the same news 15 minutes later

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I'm signed up for emails but I haven't gotten this one yet. No, they don't usually go to my spam folder and I'm still getting responses from support when I /bug something.

I'm thinking of letting a little bit more time pass, till right around the 24 hour mark then letting Ex and the support guys know.

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I'm pretty sure e-mail correspondence you get from support, either for petitions or bugs, can be a different email address than the one in your account profile.

They are completely separate log-ins (support and account maintenance), and can have different e-mail addresses.

Can't hurt to check both to make sure they are correct, and that you are set to receive the newsletters.

I have two accounts, both with the same email address, and I only ever get one email announcement. Now this just may be their system seeing the same email address twice and sending it out only once. I'd have to change one and wait for the next mailing to know for sure.

Not bad ideas. I will have to do some copying over and prep work in advance, just so I'm ready

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Just so I'm clear on this... you want us to hang out in Pocket D, and then with a 15 minute warning we all need to race to the Atlas or Mercy usher hoping we can get in? Hmm... sounds... chaotic...

I see dozens of characters all swarming around the usher, clicking madly, in the hope of being one of the few that makes it in. And since it's being done so late in the day, the entire East Coast will be home from work, making it that much harder to get in.

Not to be a party poop, but I think a lot of people are going to get very frustrated.

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No need to hang in Pocket D. Hang in Atlas - I will be.

And, I get the impression that you click once, and you get a random CHANCE of being "in" or not. If not, you can't click again, until they reset the Usher ... which would happen when they send out that fifteen-minute alert.

The polite thing to do, if that is the case, is to click on the Usher, then step away to make room for everyone else.

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Agreed. But if that is indeed how it's going to work, then this needs to be spammed in the admin channel or something, so everyone knows that repeated clicking is futile, and once you've clicked you should walk away.

Cause I've been reading the forums, and this hasn't been made clear to me. How is anyone who doesn't read the forums going to know this?

Just so I'm clear on this... you want us to hang out in Pocket D, and then with a 15 minute warning we all need to race to the Atlas or Mercy usher hoping we can get in? Hmm... sounds... chaotic...

I see dozens of characters all swarming around the usher, clicking madly, in the hope of being one of the few that makes it in. And since it's being done so late in the day, the entire East Coast will be home from work, making it that much harder to get in.

Not to be a party poop, but I think a lot of people are going to get very frustrated.

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The one thing I question tho, he said they datamined how long characters were at certain levels. Could this info have been skewed by alt-itis? I know when I hit 22-27 range, I usually start another alt and run them for a while. Or even partake in a FOTM build.

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We have a "life at level" stat in seconds. This is how long a character spent at a particular level, logged in. While not a perfect indicator of levelling speed, it's an excellent starting point.

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I don't suppose that the "life at level" stat could be added to the Attribute Monitor at some point? That could be a handy reference.

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Don't the city terminals give you some kind of info like that? Or maybe it was clicking on NPCs whose names were a certain letter. Something like that.

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Almost every one of my characters is stuck in the 36-40 range, I'm really glad to see something like this get put in the game. I think it's an excellent change.

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I'm with you on this. I have so many characters stuck in their low to mid 30s, and one villain at 42. Part of the issue is leveling speed, which is being addressed, but another part of the issue not being addressed (especially on the villain side) is the lack of motivation for advancement.

Most characters have all their good powers between 32-38, and usually enough slots to make things work. Well what's there to work towards after that? Patron Pools and/or Ancillary Pools? Meh to both (especially the PPPs).

The post level-40 game is considerably more difficult than pre-40, as all critters start gaining some nasty abilities they previously never had (or you're now facing critters with nasty abilities for the first time) that are highly difficult to mitigate, often leading to utter frustration. And with nothing spectacular to look forward to on the road to level 50, I often don't see the point in playing those characters. Risk goes way up, reward goes way down.

In 3.5 years of playing I have only two level 50s, both on the hero side, one on each of my two accounts. And the only reason for this was to unlock Kheldians (that was actually something I saw as being worth the effort).

So while I commend the devs for the new XP curve that will indeed speed things up considerably (especially thru the teens, where just about no toon is fun to play), I'm really hoping they someday soon address the issues of the game between level 40-50. And I'm not talking about content. I'm talking about rewards. The ancillary and PPP pools *could* have been a compelling reward if they weren't all highly nerfed versions of powers already in the game (with very, very few exceptions).

They should be tier-10 level powers, not severely underpowered versions of other AT's tier-2 powers. Make them powers I *must* have, and I'm more than willing to work for them. Keep them as crappy useless powers that by and large do nothing for me, and I have no reason to continue.

And that kinda sucks.

I would HIGHLY recommend putting this in the updater and/or /gmotd so that players who don't read the forums will know what's going on if a server is greyed out.

Also, too bad there is no way to transfer a character to another server once the server is locked. Personally I wouldn't want to pay the $20, but I'm sure some people would, especially if they don't have a lot of alts or REALLY want to play a particular character.

Any chance of locking the "enter game" button instead of the server button, solely to allow transfers?

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Great story Jack, I like all the stories you write, you've got a great gift. I couldn't help but laugh when I read

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"Why Scrapper! I stand back here and heal you, for if I did not you would surely die!"

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Not because of what you wrote, but because in the back of my head I could imagine the defender saying "I'm a sidekick what do you expect!"

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Wait... did he just call Defenders sidekicks?

/em ducks and runs for cover...

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When the City was young and the Great Progenitors still walked its streets, there was a land at its borders of high mountains and many caves. Within these caves grew the Kora fruit, which has power to give strength to a Child of Stateman. Each day as meal time approached, Defender would send some of her children to these caves to gather fruit. An offering of chopped fruit is still, to this day, considered an honorable offering amongst the Children of Defender. In those distant days when the First Children of Defender were still young, they would compete to be the first to return with the best fruit.

First in these contests was Kin, who was gifted with great speed. Last was dour Darkity, who was slowed by a black sheep she was required to care for in her travels, but that is different tale. In this tale it is Darkity, last and slowest, who is first to make a great discovery. In the deepest part of the deepest cave in the furthest mountain she came upon a wonder. Darkity found two great and shining fruit, one of silver, and one of gold. Resolving this time to be first back, she secured her sheep in a safe place and ran as fast as you could manage towards her home. Wreathed in dark clouds and vapours, she did not escape her brother's notice.

Running towards his sister with all his great speed, Kin saw the two great fruit and desired greatly to take them home himself. So when Darkity came to a narrow bend on a high pass, he reached out with his gifts and greatly increased her speed. Darkity hung, startled, in the air for a moment before Gravity took notice and flung her down. In that instant her brother rushed past and stole the fruit.

Now the game was on.

Pulling herself up from the ground, Darkity reached out with her own gifts and set before Kin a great patch of clinging darkness. Some aura of the fruit must have enhanced her strength for as Kin reached it he came to a sudden stop and fell flat. The fruit arced through the air shining brightly in the City light, and Darkity ran towards them, her arms out stretched. She was almost within reach when Kin freed himself at last. Kin reached out with his gifts again to slow his sister. He too must have gained strength from merely holding the fruit, for his sister was slowed as if time itself had nearly stopped, the fruit balanced gently on her fingertips. Again Kin rushed past and stole the fruit.

Darkity released a clouding darkness as she had done in the past to hide herself and her friends from harm. She hoped that she might obscure her brothers way, and he might trip in the darkness, but again the presence of the golden and silver fruit seemed to greatly enhance her power. A great all consuming darkness spread forth for miles around till all that was visibly was the twin glowing orbs clutched close to Kin's chest. He stopped, unable to see his path before him, but Darkity was daunted by no darkness and it was her who this time rushed past and stole the fruit.

And so the chase went on, one sibling tricking or thwarting the other as their strength grew and grew under the influence of the fruit. Soon they began to discover skills they had never known before. Darkity found the gift to draw strength from the life around her, and to protect herself with dark auras. Kin found mastery of his own strength such that he could focus and conserve it as never before. The contest became a series of ever greater bursts of light and dark until the very mountains about them began to shatter and drift into the Outer Void, and Statesman himself took notice.

Statesman caused a great weariness to come upon the two Children of Defender and they soon fell into a deep slumber, Kin clutching the golden fruit and Darkity the silver. He then took the fruit and set them in sky above the City, where they continue the chase to this very day. In time all would benefit from their invigorating glow. The children Statesman returned to their mother, who was most displeased. For Darkity had lost her sheep.

- Jock Tamson, Mythologist

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Sounds like an epic, uh, ancillary tale...

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My bad.

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No kidding.

Poobah, I think I've found your problem with Defenders.

So, out of curiousity, do your invuln tanks "not get XP by slotting for resistance," your ice tanks "not get XP by slotting for defense," and your scrappers "not get XP for stabbing things in the head with a big sword until they stop moving?" I'm guessing you don't have problems with that last one, but I've seen people who do ("Why is my Scrapper so weak, I fully slotted all my armors!").

Similarly, it might work better for you if you did try to debuff things to death. It works quite well for most people. (I recently saw a Storm/Psi solo half of an 8-man mission in the Citadel TF because he got bored of waiting for a couple of people to come back from a bio break...)

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What could I have been thinking... the problem with soloing my Defenders isn't that it takes some of them 2 minutes to kill an even level boss, it's that I'm just not slotting their debuffs enough.

Now if I got XP while standing there with a boss locked in a corner with slotted up Hurricane, then I would agree with you. But I don't. I only get XP when I *defeat* that boss. Slotting up Hurricane won't make me defeat him any faster, it just reduces the number of inspirations I need to survive the battle.

Even if I did move slots around I might take a lot less damage using Hurricane, but it won't make plodding thru missions any faster or more enjoyable. It'll still be a slow, laborious trod with me constantly having to stop and recover endurance between spawns for piddly amounts of XP. Not my idea of a good time.

Now if we could slot up -resistance debuffs and I were stupid enough to not do that, then you might have a point.

You are correct in that slotting up Hurricane would allow my Storm/Electric Defender to mitigate more damage. I won't argue that. But it won't make her defeat things faster.

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So... You dont have 'cane slotted up, and your complaining about your survivability?

I can understand the lack of damage (even though your stormy can buff his damage where my FF cant) but with a few slots of investment you can pretty much make yourself unkillable by a single boss.

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I apologize, I wasn't aware we gained XP for debuffing things to death. My bad.

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I'd suggest changing Force Bubble... I'm afraid to because there are some hard cores out there that dig pushing enemies around and there's tons of people that resist any and all changes to the game... They like having useless powers, unbalanced ATs, inherents that are useless... what are these people? Masochists? ... Or as they're called in game "PvPers".

Well here goes anyway. How about instead of force bubbles repelling enemies, it be turned to a big mobile debuff. Enemies within it suffer a reduction to their accuracy, slowed movement, and every once in a while, get knocked down. This would cause a lot of aggro onto the force fielder though... maybe it could give the guy a 10% defense/resistance bonus to make up for it.

Keeping enemies at range is not a defense at all. Many enemies don't even try to use their melee attacks and all of them have a range greater than the diameter of the Force Bubble. This is a throwback from the days of Stateman's dream that keeping enemies at distance is a form of defense which... doesn't work!

I remember building my earth/storm controller. I resisted for the longest time taking my mass immobile until I finally gave in and took it so I could out damage defenders by giving my enemies knockdown immunity and unleashing tornado and lightening storm on them. Well I hardly ever use it unless I'm on a very defensive team. I could either have earthquake and freezing rain knocking them down and rendering them helpless or I could use stone cages... and DIE!

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Yeah, Stone Cages does seem to annoy critters a lot worse than other AoE Immobilizes do. Not really sure why. Trick is to let the tank grab aggro BEFORE you stone them.

I have a Stone/Sonic troller and a bunch of months back I was on a team with another Stone troller who insisted upon opening every battle with Stone Cages before the Tank ran in and grabbed aggro. And he died. Every single time. Like 10x in a row. Now I know stone tends to be *dense*, but this was just a bit ridiculous.

He also had a nasty habit of using Stone Cages on top of my Earthquake. I sent him a tell kindy asking him to wait till Earthquake had run out before stoning them, as it renders Earthquake useless. He responded very irately that this was his favorite power, and if he didn't use it he'd have no other good powers to use. He was level 22 btw.

Sigh...

Yes, but the children of Defender are children of the light... brightly-glowing Radia, Empathy's warm gentle auras, Storm's crackling flash. Even the mimic Trick can bring forth a burst of pure white light from his arrows.

But they are trapped in a land of darkness, where only their goth sister Mia thrives, patiently waiting for night to end and the sun to rise and restore them all to glory.

Such is the way of balance; and this they understand and continue to be patient. But even patience has its limits, and the current Guardians of the City, controllers of day and night, light and dark, and the great pendulum of balance, would be wise to take heed of their growing impatience.

- Mystic Poobah, feeling dramatically more Mystic than Poobah this evening.

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The key isn't damage via an attack chain, its short circuit.

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Well, not for nothing, but this is an example of, "A Defender shouldn't rely on his Secondary for something his Primary should give him." If you say things like, "Well, my FF does fine because I use my Electric Blasts to do X", well, anyone who doesn't have Electric Blasts obviously can't do X.

Of course, there is some amount of overlap, one of the strongest features of Radiation Blast is the disorient in Cosmic Burst, and other sets have their status controls, too. I'm not saying that Defenders shouldn't be allowed to use or rely on such powers, it's just a slippery slope when you start trying to judge a Primary based on synergy with a Secondary.

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But there is something to be said with that kind of synergy. Had I chosen Dark as a primary, I could stack the Petrifying Gaze with Tesla cage and hold a boss. Or Storm with Dark and do the same trick with Thunder Clap and Dark Pit (Psi, Sonic, Rad, and Archery have single target disorients as well). Dark and Rad work well together -- one debuffs accy and resistance, the other debuffs defense.

It just irks me that the unnatural pairings seem to synergize better than the natural ones do. Dark/Rad is a much better combination than Dark/Dark, IMO. And Storm, with which you think Electricity would be the perfect match, isn't. They are both long on control and short on damage. Storm is better paired with Archery, Energy, or Psi -- sets that are more damage-oriented.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

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And there is no way I could mitigate boss damage for 2 minutes, even if I threw in Snow Storm, Steamy Mist, and Hurricane. Yeah I could keep him off his feet most of the time, but I only have 638 HPs and no self heal. And what is that for a boss? 3-5 hits?

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I've been pinning an even con crey power tank (35) using nothing but hurricane and steamy mist for over 5 minutes now, and so far i've regenerated to full health between each of his hits, since they're so far apart. It seems when I use snowstorm he runs away

But yeah, it did take me over a minute to kill him using charged bolts, ball lightning, and sand of mu.

+1 Vortex Cor Leonis Archon. Nope, he can't kill me, even though he got a crit on me before I tagged him with hurricane.

+1 Tank Smasher. Nope, he can't kill me either. He might be able to on the off chance that he could get in range to hit me with handclap (and it not miss).

+1 greater devoured. Nope. Though I did find the swarms entertaining.

If you're using more powers than I am at a lower level and dying where I am constantly at full health, I think your analysis is lacking something.

Either you're embellishing the truth, or you haven't slotted hurricane. That's how it appears, that is.

edit: I'll add that being mezzed completely ruins storm, but that's true for any defender, and not what you're alluding to in your statement.

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Ok, so where exactly should I get those extra slots for Hurricane from? Pull them out of my [censored]? Even if you don't count the extra powers you have 11 more slots than I do. The only powers that have extra slots are Freezing Rain, Hover, Fly, and the four attacks, 3 of which are 1 accy/3 dam/1 end, and Short Circuit with 4 EndMod set IOs. Oh, and Stamina, that has 2 extra slots. I could replace the end reducer with a tohit debuff, but that would only make my end problems worse.

And honestly, I don't see how pinning a boss against a wall and chipping away at him for 2 minutes is even remotely considered "fun". Electricity is just not a very good damage set. Where other sets get a "high" or "superior" short range single target attack, Electricity gets Tesla Cage (useless against a boss). And instead of a nice moderate damage cone attack we get Short Circuit, more of a debuff than a damage power.

I have never had Voltaic Sentinel, so I don't really know how much of a help it is for a Defender. I guess I'll find out someday.

The funny thing is, Electricity is really harsh for a Defender, but it works really well for a Blaster. The very first character I ever created is Electric/Electric. Now that's a pretty fun combo, even though I'm not big on Blasters.

I might just take this Defender back over to the test server and tweak her as a team-only character and leave it at that. No sense in driving myself crazy over it. That's pretty much the way all of my Defenders are going. I really prefer to have a balanced build, but it's just not worth the frustration.

Wanna know the other funny thing? I have an Ice/Storm troller who seriously ROCKS.

Just only one that sucks is the Defender.

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So, the point is that rad does indeed pwn all else

excellent timing, Jock.

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Too bad Radia, Storm, Trick and the rest of Defender's children are all stuck in Pug land, waiting for that damned pendulum to swing back to the center.

Were she here with us today, Defender would surely hang her head low in shame. How far her children have fallen...

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The only way it can be done is by using massive amounts of inspirations. And I shouldn't have to eat my entire tray just to defeat a single even level boss.

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I think that's the thing that gets me. I can do somewhat better than that, about half the time it works okay. But that half the time I find that I'm completely without any alternative but to go buy a tray of Lucks, I have to say, "What is going on here?"

I expect that for an EB, not an even level Boss.

The thing is, I think that although every other AT can deal with that situation fine, being forced to resort to Inspirations is what the devs WANT. I suspect that's what they mean when they say Defenders are "balanced".

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I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now, as they are working on other ATs right now. I'm hoping once they're done with Stalkers and Blasters a good hard look will be given to Defenders.

I was giving Vigilance some more thought. Maybe the whole idea of basing it on some constantly changing value isn't such a good idea. I would say the biggest problem with Vigilance is that it's inconsistent. Sometimes you get a huge buff, and sometimes you get nothing, and you often have no control over it. This makes it very difficult to build a Defender. It's frustrating to be on one team and never run out of end, and the next day be on another team and always running dry. How can you possibly hope to manage your endurance if it's always changing?

So then I thought, well what if Vigilance was just a flat out endurance reduction, like an auto Conserve Power, giving you a 50% reduction of all end costs. And that's it. No fuss, no muss. This way you're always burning endurance at the same rate and don't have to constantly be concerned with whatever conditions are necessary to make the power useful. I mean, health and endurance are really the 2 most important attributes you have. And not being able to effectively manage them can be a real headache.

Not only would this provide a stable buff, but it indirectly could improve Defender damage output without actually having to give them more damage. A 50% end reduction is equivalent to 1.5 SOs. So if you normally slot 1 end reducer in a power, you could replace it with something else and still come out ahead. And if you were able to replace the end reducers in your attacks with recharges, you'd be able to attack more often using less endurance. Faster attacks = higher dps, without any change to the powers or the AT damage modifiers.

And with a constant and consistent buff you can have one solid build that works well with large teams, small teams, and solo.

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This whole argument about whether Defenders need more damage being broken down into semantics is mind boggling to say the least.

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...Yeah. I agree that Defenders could use a bit more damage, but expecting them to solo as well as *anything* else, even post-GDN Controllers, is something I don't agree with. (Previously, I'd have said that Controllers should have been worse, and sometimes they were.)

I think Vigilance should give you endurance reduction (and maybe even a small +Damage) when your team is at HIGH health. That would be both functional and logical, unlike the current (what am I going to do on my FF, "Bubble Faster?" Or is Force Bubble supposed to have prohibitive endurance use?). Still, as it currently, is, I consider that Negligence probably wasn't intended to be useful, and is therefore doing its job nicely.

(Now I'm just trying to figure out how Storm/Elec is having trouble with bosses. Shouldn't the whole "knocked down in a corner with no accuracy or endurance" thing help with that? I'm no fan of Elec for Defenders, but other than being slightly slower than other sets it's not THAT weak.)

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It comes down to not enough damage, not enough endurance, and a horrible attack chain. If I use the debuffs, I run out of endurance before they're dead. If I skip the debuffs, it's a race to see who can kill who first (sometimes I win, sometimes they win). Bosses pose a particular threat because I only have 2 single target attacks, 6 second recharge on one, 10 second on the other. The best attack chain I can create is

Lightning Bolt
Charged Bolts
<wait 4 seconds>
Charged Bolts
Lightning Bolt
<wait 2 seconds>
Charged Bolts
<wait 4 seconds>
<repeat>

That's only 5 attacks over 20 seconds. With 3 damage SOs it comes out to 255.6 damage over 20 seconds, or 12.78 dam/sec. With 1 end redux SO, total end cost over 20 seconds is 24.5, or 1.225 end/sec.

If I drop Freezing Rain beforehand it increases damage to 407.4 damage over 22 seconds, or 18.64 dam/sec. End cost per second increases to 1.734.

Beginning to see the problem? Even with FR's debuff I can't do enough damage fast enough. And it's not sustainable. I'd basically do one chain with FR, then another without, repeat.

Since your garden variety lvl 28 boss has between 1000-1200 HPs, it would take me about 2 minutes to defeat him, factoring in his regen.

And there is no way I could mitigate boss damage for 2 minutes, even if I threw in Snow Storm, Steamy Mist, and Hurricane. Yeah I could keep him off his feet most of the time, but I only have 638 HPs and no self heal. And what is that for a boss? 3-5 hits?

I'd be lucky to last 30 seconds.

The only way it can be done is by using massive amounts of inspirations. And I shouldn't have to eat my entire tray just to defeat a single even level boss.

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This whole argument about whether Defenders need more damage being broken down into semantics is mind boggling to say the least.

There is no doubt that the amount of damage defenders do, especially at lvl 50, is painful to deal with to say the least. That said, it is very hard to determine how much damage is enough.
Should an empathy defender be able to 1 shot an even con minion with a basic tier 2 attack? Probably not. (I chose empathy for the lack of self damage buff and lack of enemy debuff).
Should they be able to solo at the same clip as a blaster? I honestly cannot decide, but lean towards no. The reason being that if the kill potential is as great for both ATs, why ever team with a blaster? I can instead pick up a defender for de/buffs and damage.

Also as has been brought up, soloing is a very different affair depending on primary. Soloing on rads, kins, darks, TAs, and even storms isn't undoable. However, emps, FFs and sonics all have nightmarish times. This is almost entirely based on whether the primary power pool is buffs or debuffs. What always interested me about the concept of being able to solo as a defender, the two "strongest" blaster primaries are not available to defenders. I often wished I could go around causing havoc with a Kin/Fire or Rad/Ice defender, but these options aren't even available. This makes me think that it was always designed to keep defenders from becoming too offensively potent.

As how to fix this, it has to be a vigilance chance. Frankly if it added both endurance and damage in a manner of some team defiance, that would be one option. But then again, it doesn't reward a well built team where no one is at risk of dying. I would prefer a sort of power build up defiance, where every attack gives a slight boost to secondary effects other than damage. Or, as has been mentioned, the opposite. Buff/debuff/heal powers cause a boost to damage, as if you were feeding off the powers you were giving to others.

I think some sort of change like that would greatly help the oft neglected secondary power pools of defenders. Yet, I do resist complaining too much, as I rarely have issues finding teams that wouldn't love to have a defender along.

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I've addressed a lot of your points, and I share much of your sentiments.

No, I don't think a Defender should solo as easily as a Blaster. They never could; they never should. I also don't think they should solo as well as a Corruptor -- again, with Corrs having blasting sets as a primary, buff sets as secondaries.

*BUT* that doesn't mean that Defenders have to be at the bottom of the list. They should be *slightly* less effective at soloing than a Corruptor, just the way a Corruptor is *slightly* less effective as a buffer/debuffer than a Defender is.

And Defenders should solo at least as well, if not slightly better, than Controllers, considering Defenders do get a Blast set. The fact that a Controllers' Control set does vastly more damage than a Defender's Blast set due to Containment means there is a problem.

I dunno. Maybe the devs just opened up a huge can of worms with AT inherents and Defenders got shafted because they are 1 of 2 out of 11 ATs that didn't get a damage buff. So it now becomes a balancing issue -- do they stick to the tried and true AT modifiers (which, btw, have been altered in the past, namely for tankers when it was shown their damage output was too low) and ignore the inherents, treating them as just a class-specific bonus? Or do you factor them in to the balance equation, even if it means having to adjust the AT modifiers in a way that doesn't look right on paper, but performs right in the game?

Y'know, I just don't know. I'm not a dev, I don't have all the answers (hell, I don't even have most of the answers). But I *do* play the game, a lot, and have been doing so for 3 1/2 years. And I've played every single AT the game has to offer, and have enough alts that cover nearly every power set in the game.

And while it's only my opinion based upon my own experiences over the past 3.5 years, but I can say without a doubt or any lack of certainty that Defenders right now are gravely underpowered in the Blast department. The .65 AT modifier just ain't cutting it anymore.

And I don't know how else to say it. If the devs think that Defenders are exceptionally well-balanced, it's very clear they haven't played enough of them solo. No one in their right mind would ever try to say that Defenders are capable soloists, at least no one that has played them. And just because they *can* solo on heroic is simply not enough. If the pace is so slow and laborious that it feels more like a chore instead of a fun game, well then that right there should be your benchmark.

IMO any character should be able to solo on heroic, and it should be a BREEZE, not a chore nor a challenge. Heroic should be the setting for the days you just want to plow thru things mindlessly without having to strategize, or stock up on inspirations, or worry about needing teammates to help with the final boss (or lt). But you simply cannot do that with most Defenders, not even on heroic.

I've said it before, I'm not really in favor of changing their inherent from an endurance discount power into a damage buff. It's not what Defenders are supposed to be the best at. But they do get a Blast set for a reason. And Blast sets should do more damage than Control sets.

Get Vigilance working right so it's usable by all Defenders, both solo and in teams, regardless of sets (basing Defiance off of health was never a good idea; it's no better an idea on Vigilance). This will alleviate much of the endurance issue they face due to such low damage attacks. Then raise their AT damage modifier to just a hair under a Corruptor's.

Defenders and Corrupters are not really all that different in principle. One should get slightly more damage, the other slightly better buffs. But right now one gets a lot more damage, while the other still only gets slighty better buffs.

You could make a similar comparison to Brutes and Tanks, as they are structured much the same way. Brutes inherently do more damage than Tanks, but get slightly less protection. And Brute Fury allows them to do a LOT more damage than a tank, but they have to work for it. And that's fine. Cause Tanks have excellent protections that make them extremely valuable on a team, but they also do more than enough damage to solo efficiently despite having an inherent that doesn't buff their damage (some have endurance issues pre-stamina, but so do a lot of Scrappers and Brutes). So we know having a damage buff inherent is not a necessity to be able to solo. And when the devs realized tank damage output was sub-par (after many months and a few thousand forum posts) they adjusted the AT damage modifier for tanks so they did more damage across the board, and didn't have to mess around with their inherent.

I'm just seeking the same kind of balance for Defenders. If the current modifiers are .75 for Corruptors and .65 for Defenders, raising it to .7 or even .725 still keeps them below Corruptors but increases Defender base damage by 11.5%. And even though the modifiers would be very close, Corruptors are still going to do a lot more damage due to Scourge. Get Vigilance working right so even a solo Defender can get a useful benefit from it (base it upon the # of foes near the Defender, not theirs or their teammates health), and the combination of slightly more damage and better endurance management should make Defenders much more capable soloists without having any kind of significant impact while teaming. An 11.5% damage buff + better endurance management is in no way going to make a Defender uber. But the combination will surely make them better balanced and allow much more variety in how they can be played.

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This is why you no longer get bosses on heroic, because after critters were buffed many Defenders and some Trollers couldn't solo a single boss.


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Maybe im having a bit of a disconnect here, but are you saying that FF Defenders cant solo bosses well?

I dont know about you, but since I picked up force bolt I have had very little trouble with bosses, other than the time it takes to kill them.

About the only ones that give me fits are the carnie Master Illusionists, and last time I checked they tend to give everybody a bit of trouble.

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So just because you've had no trouble with bosses since you got Force Bolt, that means all Defenders of any pairing of primaries and secondaries at any level shouldn't have trouble soloing bosses?

Cause if that's what you're saying, let me introduce you to my lvl 28 Storm/Electricity Defender, who is lucky if she can kill an LT, let alone a boss.

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There is no way you can even consider that to be fair and balanced. Fix this imbalance and I won't give a monkey's fart if Controller's get Containment damage from Defender powers. Just as long as it's fair and balanced. That's all I'm asking for.


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Sorry, but the devs don't work for Fox News.

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Apparently they do if they think what we have now is fair and balanced.

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I wanted to chime in my opinion that solo play should be a secondary consideration when considering modifications to the powerset with team play being the primary.


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Again, there is an AT that is, or was, primarily for team play, but it wasn't Defenders. In changing Controllers, an AT so team oriented that it didn't even have a damage set, the developers of CoH demonstrated that the ability for every AT to solo effectively is a major concern to them. So much of a concern in fact that the devs took away some of the major ability of Controllers, referring to control, so they could justify putting in containment so that Controllers of all levels could solo much more effectively.

So while you may feel that Defenders should only be considered in a team setting, the treatment of Controllers shows that the solo ability of Defenders is a legitimate concern. And while you may feel that the ability to solo rather than the ability to solo effectively is good enough for Defenders, the treatment of Controllers shows that the developers recognize the latter as a legitimate issue.

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Very well said. My hockey analogy obviously failed, due to not enough people having the good sense to enjoy a fun sport I guess, but I digress.

So many of the positions stating that Defenders shouldn't be expected to do decent damage and/or have solo capability are starting from the premise that how the game is now, is how it's always been.

As we've already shown, the original team-support AT was the Controller. The nerf to their control powers and addition of containment is what gave rise to the current FoTM, powerlevelling, farming, uber-duber characters we have today. Defenders now asking for their ability to solo be improved are no different than the Controllers who campaigned for the same change pre-containment.

Do I think it's necessary? Not really, but if the change was made, I know I'd like it.

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Actually the Controller story is the other way around. Controllers didn't lose their control abilities so that they could be given Containment. Controllers lost their control abilities because Jack Almighty deemed them overpowered in his new GDN and ED world. He didn't like it that a single Controller could hold an entire 8-man team spawn for longer than it took the team to defeat them. To use his terms, no risk.

And even though Trollers were very difficult to solo up to level 32 (about as difficult as soloing a Defender is now... except Defenders don't magically get better at some point), after they got their pets they were gods. You'd hold the entire spawn and let your army of pets flatten them. Soloing was a BREEZE. Again, no risk.

After controls and pets were nerfed to hell, now there was no way for a Controller to solo at all. Your mez powers didn't last long enough for you to attack with impunity, and you were now limited to 1 moderate damage pet. Giving them a damage buff was the only way to salvage the AT. A side-effect of this was that Trollers became better soloers across all levels, not just after getting their pets.

But this was never a priority, it was merely a side-effect. Prior to all the nerfing, Jack had no issue with the way Controllers were. It was a struggle to get to 32, and then you got seriously rewarded for your diligence. It had nothing to do with Containment. Containment was put in place because Controllers were left un-soloable after all the global nerfs. And one thing that Jack always insisted upon was that every AT should be able to solo on heroic. This is why you no longer get bosses on heroic, because after critters were buffed many Defenders and some Trollers couldn't solo a single boss.

Nice to see not much has changed, at least for the Defender.