ClawsandEffect

So, really what you want is for mez to be removed from all enemies.

Everything you have posted has that underlying theme to it.

You speak as if being mezzed ONCE kills an entire night of enjoyment. I don't know why you have this problem being mezzed all the time, but a large number of people do not have the same problem.

So, since what you really want is for mez to not exist, why don't you just come out and say so?

My examples were to point out things that have been done by ATs without mez protection that ATs WITH mez protection either can't do, or have extreme difficulty doing. I have yet to see a scrapper that can handle the things an Ill/Rad controller can handle, assuming unlimited funds and equal player skill. A tricked out Ill/Rad is more powerful than a tricked out scrapper, of any kind.

My example with the controller and the tank is to illustrate WHY melee ATs have mez protection and ranged ATs don't. A tank with no mez protection is a sitting duck, due to the very nature of it's powersets. Tanks cannot sit back and pick off targets from range, they MUST enter melee and agro things. They will be hit with multiple mezzes in doing so. If they had no mez protection they would be screwed.

The controller, even without perma PA, can choose when and how a fight is started. And if played well, will never give the enemy a chance to mez them. They can avoid mezzes all day long, while not impeding their progress much.

The only way a tank with no mez protection can avoid being mezzed is to do NOTHING.

Any controller and most defenders can stop the mez from ever happening in the first place. Tanks and scrappers cannot do that, so they get protection from it.

Okay, this is a question for those of you that really want mez protection for squishies:

What are you willing to give up to get it? You don't seriously expect to be given something like that without giving anything up do you?

ATs that can prevent mezzes from ever happening AND be protected from them? Not gonna happen.

Are you willing to give up your ability to mez THEM at range?

That's what the melee ATs sacrificed to get their protection. A few do have mezzing ability. No melee AT in the game gets the ability to mez from range until level 41 at the earliest.

So, how about it? Are the squishies willing to give up their mezzing ability in return for mez protection?

Didn't think so.

Just turned 30 on Wednesday.

I'm right between the young'uns and the old timers in this thread it seems.

Also, the 2 slot bonus on most of them is 4% recovery, which is higher than anything but the uniques.

Okay, do it on an SR with nothing but proc'd out Brawl

(I'm actually going to try it when I get my Elec/SR high enough, and softcapped)

My softcapped BS/DA scrapper.

Before I got his build up to snuff he was good. Now he's almost completely unkillable.

Softcapped to all positions, minimum of 30% resistance to all damage types, with upwards of 50% psi resistance to deal with the non-positional psi attacks, and the best self heal in the game add up to one helluva strong toon.

My weakest is probably my fire/fire blaster. He puts out ungodly huge amounts of damage, but he doesn't survive very well.

My DM/Nin stalker is a helluva scrapper in a fight....but my scrappers are better.

My stalker can occasionally kill an EB in 6 hits (if I pop a butt-ton of reds first), my scrapper can't even dream of doing such a thing.

On the other side of the fence,my scrapper can consistently survive amidst overwhelming odds, which my stalker fails at more often than not.

My Claws/WP brute plays almost exactly like a scrapper with the same powersets, a Claws/WP stalker plays entirely differently, by design.

The only stalkers that can even come close to scrapper survivability are the defense based ones (Ninjitsu, SR, EA), once they're softcapped, survival is very close. Resistance or regen based is better off playing in the traditional hit and fade stalker style, because their lower hit points mean they can't take as much punishment before they drop.

Eh, I still think that would be too gameable or exploitable.

You could level as a character that is strong in the early game, and then spec into one that gets stronger in the late game.

Like leveling a Willpower tank to level 35 and switching to Stone. Or a Regen scrapper switching to SR at level 40.

Not all switches would be that broken, but there are a lot of them that would be kind of unfair to the players that leveled the difficult powersets without such a benefit.

What I have gotten out of this from the pro mez protection side of the argument is that being able to be killed is not fun.

What you have been saying, in a nutshell, is that the game is not fun if you cannot ignore the abilities of your enemies and lay waste to them at will.

Mag 3 mez protection will allow you to ignore 85-90% of the mezzes in the game that you will encounter while solo on standard difficulty. Standard difficulty is what the game is balanced around and always has been balanced around. If you cannot handle the mezzing capabilities of a mob at that difficulty without the ability to just ignore it, then, yes, you ARE doing something wrong.

"But, I just don't feel HEROIC getting mezzed all the time!" is one of the more common arguments I hear. Ever read a comic book? At all? The characters in them get mezzed all the frigging time. If they didn't, and nothing was ever a threat to them, it would be a boring comic book to read wouldn't it?

Take Superman as a prime example, would you have any interest in his adventures if he was beating down common street thugs in every issue?

Doubtful.

Why? Because the outcome is a foregone conclusion. There is no way in hell a group of common thugs with pistols is EVER going to pose a credible threat to him. That's why he takes on worldwide threats and things that can crush buildings by sneezing, because there is the possibility that he might fail at the task at hand. An outcome that is not certain retains interest much better than reading about how this indestructible guy pummeled a car theft ring.

All comic books are written with the same theory in mind. They can't make the title character too powerful or it gets boring fast. Threats are kept appropriate to the power levels of the character.

In this game, Statesman would be our Superman. The Freedom Phalanx are the heroes in the world everyone looks up to, the JLA or Avengers of this world.

We, the player characters, are more like the New Warriors, untested, inexperienced. Not NEARLY the same power level as the world saving heroes of this universe.

Okay, say you're a defender who uses a bow and arrow, otherwise a normal human. You're trying to tell me that a standard flash-bang grenade should have no effect on you?

A controller is not a physical fighter, it makes perfect sense that being punched by an energy wielder or super strong character would stun them. Imagine if someone were to hit YOU in the head with a hammer, would you be able to just shrug it off? Again, doubtful.

If Cyclops gets punched by Juggernaut, hell yeah he's gonna be stunned, if not out cold. Aside from his optic blast he has no physical abilities outside of human norms.

Being vulnerable to mez is what makes comic book characters interesting. How are they going to defeat an opponent that can disable them? What if they don't win?

I'm sorry, but I find anything where the main character is never in any danger and always wins boring. If you know he's going to win, why bother reading it at all?

Same goes for my video games, if there's not a significant possibility of me not succeeding at something, I lose interest very quickly.

It's partially the result of the society we live in nowadays, where no child is allowed to fail a grade at school because it would "damage their self esteem". In childhood contests of any kind, even last place gets a ribbon, the "everyone's a winner" mentality.

People growing up in this society are not accustomed to the possibility of failure at something. They assume that if they cannot win, it is the fault of whatever it is they are attempting and not a flaw in themselves, because they have been conditioned their whole life to assume that victory is a given, and should be taken for granted.

I see quite a bit of that mentality in this thread.