Dersk

Aid self wins easily when you're looking solely at survivability. The cost of endurance and animation time is significant, though. I've gone through several iterations of builds in my inv/ss tank using passives, aid self, or tough/weave, and I absolutely hated the performance of the builds that just took the RE passives.

Given sufficient use of IO set bonuses, the RE passives aren't too bad, but there's no contest when the comparison depends upon survivability only.

However, I would suggest freeing up another power and pursuing tough/weave -which don't have to be run simultaneously- for any build, IO'd out or not.

You're right. I hear a lot of christians have a problem with the science origin.

Edit: If you don't think that was funny, you can go burn somewhere that will probably be censored.

... and those (de)buffs aren't terribly effective when the person that is supposed to apply them can't because he is mezzed while absorbing the alphastrike.

Whenever I'm stabbed by a sharp piece of ice, my first thought is how cold it is...

There is no slow effect on icicles.

There's a button for that.

I do so much prefer it when I'm assaulted without being hated at the same time. Why can't I be lovingly mugged?

1) Yes
2) Some builds aim for a defense closer to 50% to cover defense debuffs, but 45% is a good stopping point, especially if you're not restricting yourself from using inspirations.
3) Defense over 45% does nothing unless you're suffering from defense debuffs or your enemies have tohit buffs.

yeah, I completely misinterpreted that for some reason.

Bad idea. Outside of the interest portion, the options already exist to an extent, and this would mostly remove the -perhaps unintended- uses of market slots to hold excess inf. and base storage for actual goods. Improving the vaults that currently exist would be a better direction than a separate system.

Now, if someone wants to have a player-run bank (which I've seen in other games), it'd be interesting, at least.

Maybe one of us could write a program to funnel all of those fractions of influence into a separate bank account. Y'know, just like they did in Superman 3.

This wouldn't create any influence. The only way to add influence involves defeating enemies; everything else moves or reduces it.

edit: wait, is this supposed to be a player-run bank? I guess I wrongly assumed that. If this is a game-run bank then nevermind, hah.

Imagine perez park and faultline with 4 or more instances running. People weren't stuck with those missions because a lot of people didn't use the missions beyond those that gave powers like sands of mu and the (Area Effect) nemesis staff.

You are either paranoid or intentionally trying to sabotage any discussion of the issue. Congratulations.

The only elite boss that I've ever had to fight through an unstoppable crash was tyrant (and solo), and that was a long time ago long before IOs. Perhaps I've lost some context for fighting elite bosses without being level 50, but unstoppable didn't cause me the slightest problem against Ghost Widow, and it certainly wouldn't have quickened the death I read about in the OP.

While this statement seems horribly disingenuous, I can't rule out the possibility you've managed to avoid the thousands and thousands of completely incompetent players, or even the truly mediocre ones that get in too far over their heads. Even if I were to accept that at face value, it doesn't make defenders any less optimal anymore than all tanker teams prove, simply by their existence, that tankers are better or equal to scrappers.

I was not discussing need. Perhaps that was not clear? I was mentioning how defenders and controllers, heroside, are optimal over any other archetype until there is no more room for improvement. Countering that with the fact that teams without them exist and manage to complete missions is rather irrelevant to that issue. There is more to justify for beneficial changes than "this won't stop anyone else from playing."

Seriously, there is debate that the other archetypes are not outdone by defenders and controllers in a team? For years I thought this was common knowledge, evading only those who worship the all-powerful auto-healing-aura.

If you're spending a lot of time throwing around increase density, siphon speed, and siphon power, you're either wasting your time, or you'd benefit more than would be expected by replacing some of those team members with other other defenders/controllers because you're constantly fighting to keep the team moving (which I'm told doesn't happen once everyone knows each other's powersets). Siphon power is mostly a waste of attacking time once fulcrum shift is available anyway.

You can throw the entire primary of kinetics out besides fulcrum shift, and a kin defender will still be a greater addition to a team's damage abilities than a blaster. Yes, I'm well aware blasters can still blast without defenders. You're also capable of dropping the rest of the buffs and attacking, yet seem to choose not to.

I'm for a lot of things to improve the quality of play of defenders, but increasing the damage mod to as much as 0.8 is not one of them.

edit: Since subtlety loses too much in debates: I do not think ATs should be constantly buffed so they compare favorably to the other, now more powerful, ATs. Some nerfs that have been needed for many many years, and no amount of buffing will change that.

If I need more damage, I can get a blaster or scrapper, or for a full team better yet to get a controller or defender...
If I need better survivability in my team I can get a tanker or perhaps a kheld, or better yet I can get a controller or defender...
If we can't hit through these tohit debuffs we can get a tanker to play punching bag while blasters shoot from range, or better yet get a controller or defender...
If we can't overcome this AVs regen when his damage resistance increases we... well, we're a full team already, so maybe we should kick someone and get a controller or defender...

Unless the team just picks up anyone that's available, the best choice isn't what archetype to get, it's which type of defender or controller to get. That only stops being true when the team is so horribly overpowered compared to the content that there's nothing more than can possibly be gained, so we might as well get a blaster that won't try to stop the team so he can buff everyone that doesn't need it.

However, if you actually invite tankers instead of forcefield defenders, or invite scrappers instead of radiation emissions controllers...

How much of your time do you spend activating fulcrum shift?

Don't ask me, I don't support that magnitude of team enhancement from an individual member.

• Not all defenders with 0.8 damage mod would be tied with tankers, nor would they have the lowest damage. Aside from soloing empaths and forcefielders, defenders would be well ahead offensively.
• I do not think defenders should have the lowest damage.

...the one you obviously don't think exists between those with force multipliers and those without.

Is that where you got the damage figures? Sorry, I don't use planners.

My FF/elec defender can solo ITF rooftops, and his damage is as slow as a J.R.Tolkien book. All that is required is hover and enough ranged defense to handle the minuscule cimeroran ranged DPS. But, yes, it isn't the fastest, hah!

It's the notion that force multiplying archetypes already trivialize the team role of others to such an extent that the only reason to not play one is due to soloability (except for those that can even solo GMs) and playstyle preference.

You want to magnify this divide and demean the intentions of those that disagree with your preferred methods. To that I say boo, and look forward to you realizing that defenders will never have tanker damage mods while they can also multiply that damage 2x~4x with a liberal application of certain (de)buffs.

That ship sailed a long long time ago.

The first day the Kahn TF (is that it's name?) was released I had a team of 8 that breezed through the entire TF until the reichsmanwhat'shisname started his unstoppable cycle. 4 tankers, 1 controller, 2 scrappers, 1 blaster. After over an hour the team was depleting faster than the AVs hitpoints. The ice/ff controller spent a lot of time AFK, but somehow I don't think that mattered.

Sorry, as the TF changed in the past few months?

I've seen a few teams of mostly tankers/scrappers unable to handle the regen of certain GMs, like jack-in-irons (%^&@#$ terror).

SQUIRREL!

Have you not seen alternative suggestions, such as reducing defender endurance costs rather than directly increasing defender damage (via vigilance alterations or AT-wide endurance modifications) or is increasing defender damage the only solution?

Have you not seen inter-AT balance issues caused by corrupters, who are already listed as a high damage AT, having a .75 damage mod while having weaker offensive buffs? (note: I am amused at tankers having a higher damage mod than corrupters).

Have you not seen mention of how a direct damage boost ignores intra-AT balance issues that are glaringly obvious when comparing, for example, rad/sonic (who often out-damage corrupter counterparts already) to ff/elec? I've never seen a request for a buff to rad/sonic, so does it simply get a boost because it's an easy fix?

All of that ignores the hyperbole of defenders not attacking on large teams because their damage mod is low, as if all defender teams heal their enemies to death.

If you ignore inter-AT issues, then there's really no need to even stop at 0.8. Just double defender damage to about 1.3. After all, damage isn't the issue, and we're not worried about people abandoning other archetypes. Because, if that's not true, then someone who disagrees with a straight damage boost might not do so out of a "shut up and heal" attitude, so to speak.

edit: to be more succinct, increasing defender damage mods demands either an appreciation for the current status of other archetypes, or the complete disregard of other archetypes. The latter is present in a proposal that only increases defender damage to 0.8, for example.