Combat

Quite simply, the difference between 0 and 70% DDR is less than 70 and 95% DDR, so SD is now closer to fire than it is to it's old self. That math may seem flawed, but going from 0 to 70% DDR only reduces the debuff by a little over factor of three, while going to 70 to 95 reduces it by a factor of 6. Therefore, assuming both have cascading defense failure, fire will have more resists and the second best self-heal in the game to fall back on.

To me it is very similar to the energy melee change a while back. It kills the spirit of the character; and for that spirit was consistency. He didn't rip through enemies as fast as an SS/FA or other AoE FotM, but he had very few actual weaknesses. Now he is weak to the most common debuff in the game. Maybe the nerf won't effect others as much as it has me, but it completely changes the feel of the character to me.

Heh, I probably would have stopped posting if people didn't contest every post I made.

This change affects top-end builds. End of story. Most of the characters I make eventually get a top-end build. I have an TW/Elec brute with a similar build, and a upcoming crab spider that will also be expensive. Influence is easy to get, so it doesn't bother me much.

And yes, only now I point out disparities between shield and other armors because that is how much I think a nerf to DDR affects shield . Before, shield was a top set for scrappers and tankers because you could have enough of everything; softcap defense, minor resists with a resist T9, some health, and added offense. Now it loses quite a bit of ground to other sets at the high end and at the lower end is already significantly less powerful because of the nature of defense and resistance in this game (40% is actually only half as effective as 45%, just like 70% DDR is only 1/6th as effective as 95%).

I know many people don't have the funds to invest in high influence builds. But this change won't affect those people because they probably couldn't afford HOs in the first place. Maybe you see me as a dirty exploiter who abused a cheating mechanic to gain power greater than normal players could see. I tell you that I did not choose DM/SD because it was the best powerset in the game. I could name at least 10 powerset combos than could do all my character could do and more. Having 95% DDR is no different to me than ElA having great end drain resist; defense sets should have very high levels of DDR.

If I wanted to exploit the game, I wouldn't have made a single target specialist that relied on large mobs to achieve the best levels of damage. An SS/Fire Brute, Bots/Traps MM, Crab, Ill/Rad controller, Mind/Fire dom, Sonic/Traps corrupter etc. could all exploit the game more than my scrapper ever could. This change is mostly just an annoying nerf, but unfortunately is enough to dissuade me from continuing playing a character. Luckily, I've already achieved most of my goals with that character. What is does is make HOs even less desirable for the only group of players that still commonly use them.

Put 20-30 billion into a fire build and the same amount into a /SD build, and the FA build will be tougher. You are comparing SD with defense softcapped to fire with no defense added, and yes, SD ends up on top at that level of investment. But if you add a lot of defense (usually smashing/lethal instead of positional) to fire, it becomes a much tougher set. This is part of the problem IOs have created; resistance sets can add tons of defense but defense sets cannot add similar levels of resistance. Before I would have agreed with you because any defense added to fire would be susceptible to defense debuffs while SD would remain at the softcap, but now that SD takes 5 times as much debuff the advantage is much less.


The point is that this game isn't balanced by how good a character can solo. Support in this game is crazy overpowered, but it is hard to say that having capped DDR is overpowered in comparison. I'll address the SD vs SR issue later, but remember that those sets do not exist in isolation.

My argument has always been personal, never general. I have less desire to play my /SD now, and I will have more fun making a new character with the funds I gained from scrapping my scrapper than I would trying to restore him. To be clear, all I am saying is that my enjoyment of my character has been affected by the change and that SD has lost quite a bit of ground compared to the non /SR powersets with this change.

This isn't about /SR vs /SD. I have level 50 characters for BOTH powersets. SR's problems aren't that /SD was better designed, it is that SR has an outdated design that happens to fit in poorly with the modern game. I have suggested ways to make /SR better in past as even with these changes it isn't the same as a good /SD (and it should definitely be as survivable as other sets that do little for offense, such as willpower and invuln). I want /SR to do better, but making /SD worse will not change the fact the SR is a one-trick pony with little going for it except how cheap it is to build.

What I mean is simple. Invuln, granite, electric, and dark are all solidly ahead of shields for survivability because they have much higher natural resists + healing, and when they are at the softcap they are much more naturally tough (but because they don't rely on defense, they can handle defense debuffs better). /SR gets immunity to resistance debuffs and passive resists, which makes it basically /SD level survivability with higher DDR. Ice and energy can both easily build enough defense to take a few debuffs and get healing and soft-control mitigation. Regeneration is regeneration; it requires a much more active approach but it still can be surprisingly survivable.

None of this really changes with the membrane change, as SD outside of its T9 was still probably intentionally less survivable than those sets. The only difference is that now I would put it below fire, which has higher natural resists and a great heal. Again, this is at the very high end where every one has softcap and a ton of recharge, so that's how I am comparing sets. Before, I would have said that a consistentally being above 45% and having OwtS would be better than the extra resists and healing flame, but now the balance tilts more towards fire in my mind.

I'm done for awhile. After all, I still have to play the game.

I know it may sound like nerf-calling for /fire, but really I just find that resistance tends to be better for survivability than defense in today's game and that /fire is better for offense. On Brutes, /fire is by far and away the most common secondary, and there is a reason. It outclassed /shield in every way and when you add defense and recharge becomes very survivable (and SD characters can't use IO sets to make up the difference because of the way those sets work). Tankers have it a little better because they can cap resists while in OwtS, but outside of it they have the same problems; FE is better for damage than AAO by its nature and a base 119 damage power that hits 10 and recharges in 90 seconds isn't as useful as a damage aura and a attack that deal 107 base, hits 5, and recharges in 25 seconds. That, and the difference between resists + HF + added defense and just softcapped defense + resists.

On scrappers the case is harder to make because every statistic is skewed more towards SD (resists, resist cap, HP, etc. are all lower while AAO is higher). I'd still say that /fire is potentially better than a less consistent /SD, but the difference is arguable.

And yes, I know that diminishing returns should NEVER happen. But still, any combination of 8 defenders, controllers, corrupters, or VEATs is more broken by definition than any melee character can possibly be. Imbalance does exist between melee characters, but in general they will always be less valuable than a buff/debuff character by the rules of the game. My point wasn't that we should fix buff stacking instead of HOs but that sometimes exploits sometimes become features of the game. And fixing this particular imbalance was perhaps the main use for HOs, and only impacts overall gamebalance by nerfing SD slightly.

Oh, and I did forget that Ageless radial gives debuff resistance, but giving up 70 hps for that debuff resistance would be a hard trade to make. Maybe it would be worth it against PPD or other debuff happy critters though.

Well, removing the enzymes and membranes before they become practically worthless is just common sense. After that, I didn't see any reason for nostalgia to stop me from kiting out my next character.

The build was pretty simple. A little over 45% defense, perma-hasten, sustainable attack chain, and as many damage procs as I could fit in. I probably could still achieve those goals. But I still don't want to make the effort and spend the money to get a lower performance character, and he definitely would have lowered performance.

In my experience, the most common defense debuffs are around 10%, while many are quite a bit more dangerous than that. For instance, the two common cimeroran sword attacks deal 7% and 9% each, respectively. Tarantula mistresses use an attack that is closer to 20%, and many radiation and peacebringer blasts deal more 10%. To me, that is too great a weakness, especially considering that the my main reason for making this character was because he played at a similar level to most groups, so I could solo the most content.

What this does for me is make me much more apt to use fire as a secondary instead of shield. Burn > Shield Charge, FE + BA > AAO, and Resists + HF + added defense > SD's protection. FA is already a much better set for brutes and arguably tankers, and now I think it is arguable that FA may the be better set for all 3 ATs.

It wasn't "broken", it probably would still better than most melee characters even after the change if I reslotted. But considering the amount of effort and influence I spent on the build, it isn't worth it for me to try and rebuild. Scrappers and brutes in general can't break the game as well as a good defender/mastermind/corrupter/controller, and most defense sets have enough added survivability to make up for the lack of offensive tools. Shields doesn't give enough extra offense for me to justify the weaknesses (unlike fire, which can be made very survivable and is definitely better than shields on tanks and brutes for offense).

Red fortune gives 5% recharge and 2.5% to melee. Those both require significant slot investment, slots better used for other powers as they will both give more needed enhancement values and potentially better values for one or the other, such as purples. Reactive is decent for nonpositional defences, but is pretty crappy for shields, though aegis is decent for AoE defense (though it still uses way to many slots for a defense power). Again, first priority almost always goes to recharge and defense buffs in powers that needs multiple aspects enhanced, and defense and resist sets generally don't qualify. And if you think my scrapper was OP, I will tell you virtually any character could solo that TF with incarnate powers and a similar level of investment. Actually, my character would have considerably more difficulty now than many sets at the same investment level.

Shields has crap for resistance except in OwtS, and even then isn't "great". And yes, rebirth is better by leagues, but potentially barrier could be needed if defense debuffs were enough of a problem. Again, sacrifices I wouldn't even need to consider without the DDR reduction.



Again, all of those characters either do not rely on defense or have other means of protection. I mean, if shields gets an additional 20-40% resistance to all resistances, or 100+ hps you may have a point, but as of now it takes only a few sword swings to basically lose my main protection. And resistance sets do not have to worry about incredible amounts of resistance debuffs because very few enemies have them; in contrast almost every enemy group has some manner of defense debuffing.

Shield has roughly the same amount of protection outside of defense as invulnerability has with its passives and tough. Do you consider that sufficient protection?

I don't feel particularly betrayed by this, and maybe it makes sense to make /SD a much less consistent defense set. It has made me lose interest in a character because of the level of effort required to make that character the same, but I have already scrapped him for later projects. However, with this change HOs are even further reduced in usability, and that is concerning for both nostalgia reasons and for game balance reasons.

Yes, they are horrible. They don't give defense bonuses or recharge bonuses in general, and those are the most common build goals. It isn't that 4 slots of luck of the gambler aren't better than 2 enzymes (I usually use 1 +7.5% lotg and an enzyme actually), it's that those 2 slots could better be used other powers, which are usually give better set bonuses.

Doing something like this isn't as simple as changing all my enzymes to LotG: defenses, and even that looks like it would cost half a billion with the rapid inflation they have had in the last few days. I would probably have to invest in either cytoskeletons or more purple IOs, and would certainly have changes elsewhere. If I switched to agility (I have cardiac now), I would have to rework everything to maintain a sustainable attack chain. Then again, I might want to go with barrier over my current rebirth, in order to gain protection against defense debuffs, and... etc. etc. Hours of effort, tons of rethinking, and no way to make up for the lost DDR, even if everything else remains the same.

Energy and ice actually have comparable levels of DDR to shield without grant cover, which many view as the most skippable power in the set. Every single set has options for mitigation outside of their defense except SR and SD. Ice has hoarfrost for healing, hibernate as an escape, and energy absorption to gain a little extra defense at will. Energy has energize and energy drain to sap and restore/buff defense. Invuln has good resists and dullpain, and has 50% DDR, which is comparable to shield without GC. Stone of course has granite, and earth's embrance/rooted for regeneration. Willpower has excellent defenses and resists along with its defense.

What does shield have? 17% resists to all outside of tough and OwtS, and some minor -damage from AAO. That is basically nothing. On top of that, it is much harder to put defense on a shield user compared to an EA or ice character. With this change, shield drops in my eye down to probably the worst overall set for survivability, or perhaps slightly above /fire for scrappers. Maybe that's where the devs intend for them to be, but I see no reason for me to try to fight the changes with influence in time when I can simply scrap him and make something else that is more survivable and deals more damage.

Enzymes were just an annoyance, and will just result in me using +5 LotG: defense instead. Membranes are the big nerf. Like I said, the difference between 70% (50% without GC) and 95% DDR isn't tiny. It means any group with defense debuffs will be at least 5 times deadlier. That's an 80% drop in survivability, not a 1%. And shield has none of the tools other defense sets without 95% DDR have except for OwtS.

I've played other defense sets to 50, and I know what they have in compensation for a lack DDR. Energy and ice can easily get their defense high enough to blow off a defense debuff or two (and get heals to keep them up if they do get debuffed), and willpower, invulnerability and stone both have amble resists/regeneration to make up for their lack of debuff protection. Shield has nothing except a godmode that will not always be available. Given the commonness of defense debuffs, that means a shield character is now much more susceptible to losing their defenses (even with 70% protection, it would only take a few hits to lose all their defense), and at that point they basically have the defenses of a squishy without epic shields.

I think I have the option to feel strongly about my character. This is the character I have soloed TFs with, done every level 50 storyarc at /x8/AVs, and soloed almost every GM. I invested billions into him. If just enzymes were changed, I would simply change my slotting and perhaps give up some damage procs to maintain 45% to all. But the membrane change means that I cannot never be nearly as strong, and would either have to forgo large amounts of +recharge and damage procs in order to build more defense or have a much larger drop in survivability in order to get a character that cannot achieve what my old character did. And given how nicely my other projects are going, I cannot justify spending billions more and hours rebuilding him because of this change.

Defense and resist IO sets are horrible, which is why I always try to avoid slotting them except for the uniques. And the LotG: Defense has already shot up drastically. Enzymes allowed builders to avoid putting more than 2 slots in most defense powers, allowing us to focus on areas that give much great band for our buck. If we had a defense/resist purple set, enzymes would never have been needed.


Well, I was quite fond of my DM/SD, and had spent many, many hours and billions of influence to get a top-level build. I liked how consistent he was; anything without auto-hit endurance drains or +tohit wasn't horribly dangerous. Now I am left with lots of worthless enhancements and a horrible weakness to the most common debuff in the game. I played that character enough without that weakness that forcing him to play with it isn't worth the effort, and neither is spending billions to remake the build (which will still be worse at nearly everything).

Defense debuffs are ridiculously common, and now a single one will double incoming damage and start cascading defense failure. Other defense sets either have enough defense to protect themselves, like ice or energy, or alternate means of protection, like willpower. With this change SD is weakened in a way completely changes the way I would have to play the game and is not something I can build to change. Therefore, I've decided it isn't worth the effort.

Ah, guess if thats what you meant I can accept it. The forum had eaten that post a couple times, and the original said "Calling this an exploit isn't really true. I used it, but really it I only used those HOs because they were the only ones that had any use to me."

Curse me and my revising mind!

Haha to you maybe. I scrapped the character that used it the most (which has paid for my next character), and my current character doesn't use it at all. It is an inconvenience that makes the game less fun and doesn't effect balance much, but I am more concerned that HOs have lost most of their utility because of this. As it stands it is hard for me to justify using HOs in my builds at all because their cost is not even close to their utility.

Perhaps in the future you too will have a "fix" that makes a main character less fun to play without greatly effecting game balance. I'm guessing you are new around here; we don't buff/nerf cyclically to make different classes popular like the competition does, and we don't make a point of laughing at people when their OP characters go down in flames. And SD is hardly OP compared many non-melee classes and for brutes at least is just a poor man's /fire (I have 2 shield characters at level 50, a SS/SD brute and a DM/SD scrapper).

You want to know what real exploits look like? Limitless buff-stacking is a 1000 times more exploitive and imbalancing than these HOs were. Would I laugh at you if the devs tried to fix that and made your characters less fun to play? NO! I'm better than that.

I have a shield user, and shield is much more fun with capped DDR. I also have a level 50 SR brute. This change does not make me want to play my SR character any more than before, but has significantly decreased my desire to completely rebuild a build that cost me 10s of billions to make and hours to plan. I have suggested solutions to the SR/SD imbalance that wouldn't rely on a "fix" to SD, so I am not being a hypocrite.

Welcome to our community, but if something you like is "fixed" like this you shouldn't feel bad when the community has no sympathy for you. This change is much like the Energy melee change to me. It makes the set less fun and nothing else.

Yep. And the hundreds of millions you spent for said enzymes will likely be wasted as enzymes plummet in value. It also makes shield defense 4-5 times weaker to defense debuffs (5% to 20-25% effectiveness).

Well, here's a list of Synthetic HO prices today:

Synethic Centriole:
75,075
75,075
75,075
75,075
75,075

Synthetic Cytoskeleton:
225,000,000
212,345,678
212,345,678
212,345,678
212,345,678

Synthetic Endoplasm:
3,333,333
3,333,333
3,333,333
1,111,111
5,000,001

Synthetic Enzyme:
11,111,111
11,111,111
11,555,222
11,555,222
11,555,222

Synthetic Golgi:
30,000,000
25,000,000
25,000,000
1,800,018
15,000,000

Synthetic Lysosome:
10,000,000
1,250,000
6,736,383
1,250,000
1,250,000

Synthetic Membrane:
107,510,000
190,000,000
170,000,000
170,000,000
107,510,000

Synthetic Microfilament:
211,010,000
355,555,555
333,333,333
350,000,000
350,000,000

Synthetic Nucleolus:
50,000,000
77,000,000
50,000,000
80,000,000
80,111,111

Synthetic Peroxisome:
1,000,000
666,666
75,075
1,000,000
75,075

Synthetic Ribosome:
228,228,228
227,500,000
227,500,000
300,000,000
300,000,000



Quite a few are worth very a little. Most of the big money ones will become much less valuable after the change, leaving just the movement/endred (also known as the PvP HO), and the res/end as expensive, and dam/acc as semi-expensive. And the cost is not related to their utility, but to their rarity. I personally have sold my membranes and enzymes because they are now worthless to me, and I believe that these are probably the majority of HOs used (I certainly haven't used any others because IO sets are better, more easily available, and cheaper).

Why do you say that? I personally I sold all my defense HOs already, and see no future use for them in the future. Literally, none.

What will, and already has, been boosted is defense IO sets.

Again, HOs only have a future if they are boosted to higher levels of enhancement value. As they are now, they are basically cheap IOs with slightly better enhancement values than non-purples and much harder to obtain. Heck, at this point I wouldn't even be mad if HOs no longer dropped, as I wouldn't use them.