Dechs Kaison

Ladies and Gentlemen, our game is in a dismal state. Going Rogue is coming, and with that, archetypes will be able to cross over. What that brings, my friends, is the obsolescence of ATs. Steps do indeed need to be taken if we are going to save this game. Balance will need to be addressed.

Now, I've already made this suggestion in the proper forum, and having received positive feedback, I am proposing this to a larger audience. I have also cleaned up my presentation and fleshed out some of my arguments more.

The first AT in need of a re-balancing, and most obviously so, is the defender. Sure, nothing is better than a whole team of defenders, but what does that really say? It takes a whole team of them to do anything. They're already entirely useless blueside, as evident by the fact that no one plays them. Particularly in the post 38 game, you only see controllers. No one at all plays them. Seriously. No one. I mean, I ran a few TFs lately with some defenders that made them a cakewalk, but that's just a few! The problem will only be made worse by corruptors crossing over. They do more damage than defenders with the same powersets. On top of that, they get critical hits. Why would you want a defender on the team when you could get a corruptor that just crossed over to do the same thing with more damage? So here's what the devs should do: Increase defender damage to match corruptors, and add something to the inherent that gives them a chance for critical damage as teammate health drops.

While I'm on the topic of corruptors, this is the second AT that needs to be looked at. Their (de)buff values are way below what a defender can do, leaving the corruptor very much sub par. Controllers have comparable (de)buffs, but they have hard controls and pets. Why would you want a corruptor when you could have a controller or defender that just crossed over? The defender will either (de)buff better or the controller will bring pets and further safety through controls. This obviously needs to be fixed before people stop playing corruptors all together. To balance things out, the devs need to increase corruptor (de)buff values to that of defenders and add an extra power to each set which lets them summon a pet.

Maybe the defender need for re-balancing was obvious, but no need is more dire than for controllers. They don't do any damage! How can an AT expect to contribute anything to a team if they aren't doing damage? Dominators control like controllers, but they have assault sets. Corruptors and defenders have (de)buffs like controllers, but they do damage, and defenders are even better at (de)buffing. Masterminds have the same (de)buffs, but get more pets, even get to rename them, and do damage. Clearly, the devs need to buff controller damage output to balance them against corruptors, defenders, dominators, and masterminds. Increase the potency of their (de)buffs to balance against defenders and add a few more pets for balance with masterminds.

On the topic of masterminds: Have you ever played a petless mastermind? Forget that. Have you ever tried doing damage as a mastermind? The henchmen do inordinate amounts more damage than the mastermind can, which limits players who don't want to rely on the core of the AT. Even a defender does more damage than a mastermind, so this needs to be balanced. Why would you want a mastermind on your team when you can get a defender that crossed over and does more damage? Increase the damage of mastermind attacks to blaster levels, decrease the recharge, and increase effectiveness of their (de)buff values to match defenders. Then they'll be balanced.

I just mentioned blasters, which is what I'll transition to next. Blasters are the undisputed kings of damage, which is true enough, except that it's only incoming damage. Blasters have absolutely no means by which they can stay alive, unless you count playing smart and using the mitigation tools provided in both primary, secondary and ancillary powersets. They need something to rely on. I propose the devs just scrap the manipulation powersets and give blasters access to the scrapper secondaries.

Don't even get me started on the melee ATs. These ATs are so far imbalanced against each other it's not even funny. Tanks can hold aggro and stay alive all day, which is a good thing, because it'll take all day to kill something. Stalkers have the highest burst damage, but they have to wait eight seconds between attacks. Scrappers can crit like stalkers, but have higher HP and better mitigation. Brutes have the lowest base damage and no way of reaching their mitigation caps on their own. The fix: Port gauntlet and fury to all the melee ATs, increase stalker, brute and scrapper mitigation to tank levels and considerably boost tank and brute base damage. But that's not even the problem with them.

Brutes, tanks, scrappers and stalkers are all so severely gimped by one simple fact: They have to walk the entire way to the enemy to use their attacks! Have you ever heard of a hover-tanker? Of course not. At least they get mez protection and defenses to minimize the danger, but still, this is completely imbalanced. No team wants a melee AT that has to spend time walking to the enemy! Devs, I demand that you allow all current melee attacks for these ATs to have 60' range in the name of balance.

Mez protection! Crap, I forgot about this. Why is it only melee ATs have mez protection? That's way off balance. All ATs need base 10 magnitude protection to everything.

What about the so called "epic" ATs? These don't feel epic at all unless you "casually purple out your warshade." These ATs should be out of balance. I don't care that "epic" really means "tied in to lore." That's a load of bull. They unlock at level 50 (don't even bring up the new level 20 unlock, that's totally unfair. My friend is a 5 year vet who got his first 50 before IOs when debt was bad and my other friend had to spend all day broadcasting in Atlas "lvl 2 LFAE" to get his first 50. Everyone needs to put that kind of work into the game to get an "epic" AT), which is a nigh insurmountable grind that deserves a reward, not a challenge. I should be able to create one of these epic ATs as a level 50. I mean, I already played the game once, I shouldn't need to understand how a completely different AT works. I've seen this one other guy play it. They also need to have powers like "I win" and "I win faster" and "You lose now," otherwise, how can you call them "epic?"

So that will fix all the balancing issues, but that's only the start. The City has cancer and I just laid out a cure for the cold. To get straight to the point, we need to merge the servers. I did a simple experiment to prove my point.

First, I set up a macro that would broadcast my level, my AT, and appended by "LFT". Then, I traveled by foot from zone to zone on the Freedom server, clicking this macro ten times a minute. I didn't get any invites. Why? Because the server is obviously dead and no one plays.

Then I went to the Guardian server, got on the general chat global channel and said "Hey, I'm starting a level Xish radio team. Send a tell if you're interested." and had a full team in minutes. Looks to me like everyone's playing on Guardian, so we need to merge all the servers together so people on Freedom can find teams.

There you have it, everyone. These are the simple steps that need to be taken to save the game.

I'm not sure what the key to success is, but I know that the key to failure is setting out with the intention of making everybody happy.

/bind [key] petcomall goto defensive

Spam this at your feet. That's what I do.

Hate to do this as a self plug, but give this a read.

It goes through my experience as a TriFormShade, and later are some very nice builds from several people, many of them perma-eclipsed.

I've seen a lot of this going around. Going Rogue is coming, and with that, the obsolescence of ATs.

First, and most obviously, is defenders. They're already entirely useless blueside, as evident by the fact that no one plays them, and you only see controllers. No one at all plays them. No one. Seriously. This will only be made worse by corruptors crossing over. They do more damage than defenders and have the same powersets. So here's what the devs should do: Buff their damage and change the inherent to something that gives them a chance for critical damage as an enemy's health drops.

Speaking of corruptors, their (de)buff values are way below what a defender can do, which is totally gimped. Furthermore, why would you want a corruptor when you could have a controller that just crossed over which has comparable debuffs but gets controls and a pet? This obviously needs to be fixed. So here's what the devs should do: Increase corruptor debuff values to that of defenders and add an extra power to each set which lets them summon a pet.

Holy crap, and if you want to talk about gimped, look at controllers. They don't do damage! Dominators control like controllers, but they have assault sets. Corruptors and defenders have (de)buffs like controllers, but they do damage, and defenders are even better at (de)buffing. Masterminds have the same (de)buffs, but get more pets and do more damage. Clearly, the devs need to buff controller damage output to balance them against corruptors, defenders, dominators, and masterminds. Increase the potency of their (de)buffs and add a few more pets for balance with Masterminds.

On the topic of masterminds: Have you ever played a petless mastermind? Forget that. Have you ever tried doing damage as a mastermind? Your pets do way more damage than the mastermind can, which is completely gimped. Even a defender does more damage than a mastermind, so this needs to be balanced. Why would you want a mastermind on your team when you can get a defender that crossed over and does more damage? Buff the damage of mastermind attacks, decrease the recharge, and increase effectiveness of their (de)buff values. Then they'll be balanced.

Don't even get me started on the melee ATs. These ATs are so far imbalanced against each other it's not even funny. Tanks hold aggro better than any of the others. Stalkers have the higher burst damage than the others. Scrappers have crits like stalkers, but have higher HP and better mitigation. Brutes have the lowest base damage. The fix: Port gauntlet and fury to all the melee ATs, increase stalker and scrapper mitigation caps to brute/tank levels and considerably boost brute base damage. But that's not even the problem with them.

Brutes, tanks, scrappers and stalkers are all so severely gimped by one simple fact: They have to walk the entire way to the enemy to use their attacks! At least they get mez protection and defenses to minimize the danger, but still, this is completely imbalanced. No team wants a melee AT that has to spend time walking to the enemy! Devs, I demand that you allow all current melee attacks for these ATs to have 60' range in the name of balance.

Mez protection! Crap, I forgot about this. Why is it only melee ATs have mez protection? That's way off balance. All ATs need base 10 magnitude protection to everything.

You know what? I have a better idea. Let's make it so there's just one AT, it will have all the inherents rolled into one, and it can pick any power at any level. And we need other travel powers like swinging and burrowing. Then we should merge all the servers into one big one.

Yeah, then everything will be fixed.

If I were you, I'd just run radio/safeguard missions in PI. Tone up the difficulty after every mission you don't have a problem with.

Go up to +0/x3 for starters. If that's easy, try +1/x2. If you can do that, go up again to +1/x3.

If you seem better at large groups, add more people. If you seem better at small groups of tough enemies, go up in level, but keep the number of people small.

Also, welcome to the forums!