Eisregen_NA

It's irrelevant. You're SKed, which means you're on a team. Any of Freezing Rain, Sleet, Tar Patch, Enervating Field, Disrupting Arrow, Acid Arrow or of course Fulcrum Shizzle plus a quick volley of regular AOEs will accomplish the same. But if everyone else is a Defender, they can do that AND add something useful beyond sheer damage to the team. Also, since we're waving AT dicks, Cold can use Heat Loss plus any regular Nuke and just keep on going because they've just managed to overcome the -Rec part under their own power.

Not every DeBuff is a toggle. Some of the most important ones for killing stuff faster (Tar Patch, Freezing Rain, Sleet, Sonic Siphon, Disruption Arrow) aren't. In fact, the only real culprits there are RI, EF and DN. Never mind that most people I know have long since stopped anchoring on Bosses, at least with Single Target builds. You usually want the Boss gone first due to concerns regarding spike damage.


And regarding the OP, he's woefully off. If anyone becomes redundant in the higher levels it's Tankers (might still want them for AV/GM fights) and Blasters (anyone can do appreciable damage at this point; Scrappers spike hard targets, Defender AOEs will deal with the chaff swiftly enough, Controller Pets do stuff). Granted, Controllers infringe upon Defenders in a massive way due to being 'good enough' Buffers/DeBuffers, but considering that both need the same amount of time to ramp up damage and Controllers then need one extra step to set up for dealing real damage and considering the presence of Defender AOEs, I've never felt redundant.

Moral relativism isn't about trying to justify anything. It's just an approach to understanding humanity and living with it. If people need to make up justifications as to why it's okay for you to overstep what they recognize as a moral boundary, then that's not moral relativism. That's just making excuses for doing things you recognize as wrong.

This isn't the same. Confusing the two would be like confusing Crowley/Lavey style Satanism with the anti-Christianity celebrated by black-clad children. Essentially, if you postulate a rule doesn't apply to you but recognize the rule, you're defining yourself via that rule and are still a part of its larger framework.

Someone who defines themselves as not being a vegetarian is still part of the vegetarian community, whether they want to or not. Someone who doesn't care about vegetarian diets altogether and just eats what they want to eat is a dietary relativist.


But, as I pointed out with the Turing example, different societies have different morals. Even nowadays, different corners of the world consider different things immoral. In one country it might be a moral affront to wear shorts while that's just peachy across the nearest border.

Now, if we take you at your word that morals are defined by the societies we live in, but different societies espouse differing morals (I can easily find more extreme examples than the one with the shorts, and have already done so), then we have proof that morality is not immutable. If it's not immutable, it can't be absolute. If it's not absolute it's at the very least relative instead.

Because it's impossible to prove a negative.

I have however provided evidence, even examples, that morality is subjective and therefore relative. Which, I'll note, you've ignore except for where you could actually think of ways to attack the argumentation.

Whereas others like to pretend it's there but are unable to actually provide proof or supportive argument of their point of view, other than desperately scrambling to try and poke holes in the other side's views. As far as arguing your point goes, this is a loser's gambit because you're not really arguing your point anymore.

You have a very limited idea of how social animals operate. Elephants make for some of the strongest examples here because they seem to have some of the most developed social traits, but they're not alone in their behaviour. Elephants have been recorded to provide food for animals who couldn't feed themselves. Even if it was from birth defects which would never allow for them to provide for themselves. They've also been recorded to show comfort to dying herd members, staying with the individual until it's passed.

The reason for this is emotional, quite simply. This is probably a step up on the cynicism ladder from denying the existence of absolute morality, but it also makes for even stronger conditioning. If you get a positive internal emotional feedback out of something, you're more likely to do it. The herd member with the birth defect might not be able to feed itself but it can provide gratitude for being fed. Gratitude, expressed in any number of ways, feels good to receive. Therefore it's in the other animals interest to provide triggers for the handicapped animal's gratitude.

And then there's the fact that the animal isn't possibly quite so useless. It might still be able to mind the herd's young while the others rove and forage for food. It might be able to assist in other ways. Just as with humans, specialization is not uncommon with social animals.

None of this is weighed down by any type of moral imperative.

Do we now? I could inundate you with a ton of things from the last ten years that were both illegal and morally questionable by mainstream mores, but were cheered by millions of people nonetheless. However, all of these would fall under discussing politics or religion, neither of which is okay.

You may not have noticed, but noone in the real world who's in their right mind ever claims they're evil. Everyone always claims the moral high ground for themselves, and honestly feel they have it, too. But of course, two conflicting ideologies can't both be morally right, can they now? Unless of course, oh, I don't know, morality was subjective maybe?

No we don't. We first define what is right and wrong based on our own ideas thereof. Then we follow the rules we ourselves made. The most basic of which, as I already pointed out, are also upheld by social animals. Not because they believe in morals for all we know, but because they are conducive to pack cohesion and survival.

I stand by my earlier Turing example. Fifty years ago, people 'knew' that homosexuality was an aberration of the worst kind and needed to be stamped out. Their moral imperative was to torture, humiliate and dehumanize anyone violating this ethical standard. A couple years earlier, people not only in Germany 'knew' that Jews were to blame for the great depression and many other ills and it was their moral duty to protect their children and eradicate them. These jokers as well as people in other countries practicing racial segregation 'knew' that mixed-race dalliances were immoral and needed to be discouraged, by force if necessary.

People have always held moral beliefs that we today might find ridiculous at best, monstrous at worst, and I presume coming generations will likely think similarly about us.


Seriously. There's a whole laundry list of moral ideas that became outdated as times changed. Morals are fashioned by the people, not the other way around.

Actually, by that yardstick we're worse than animals, also see Planet of the Apes. It is very rare for animals to kill members of their own species regularly. Yes, lions eat their young, but only in very certain circumstances and for an understandable reason. Understandable in Darwinian terms at any rate.

That's what we'd like to think. Complicating something is not the same as stepping beyond it.

Humans form packs and hunt together. Only that humans don't go for meat but resources and our packs are called companies. The basic idea however is the same.

There's a whole list of animal behaviours that are still strikingly apparent in human behaviour. Mating is a very obvious one. The way men and women find partners is not really all that different from how it works in the animal world. We just complicate things by throwing in random legal ages and silly dating games, but it comes down to the same, really.

Feminists, take heed. Most women want a man who will build a nest for them to raise their brood in and defend lavish them and their brood while they're at it. Most men want to spread their seed around as far as they can manage, and they want partners capable of actually having healthy children. Aberrations notwithstanding, this is still the norm.

The only human kind of behaviour I can think of that is very rare in animals is overindulgence. Granted, there's the thing with the drunk monkeys, but animal instincts seem to know when enough is enough most of the time.

By your definition.

Most everyone around these forums was raised in a country the legislature and culture of which was influenced by one of the Judeo-Christian religions. We've grown up with certain ideas of morality, reinforced by our parents, teachers and even the media. And most of us have been lucky enough to grow up in a time and place where people could afford to pride themselves on their morality and did not have to see it tested by a lack of basic necessities.

Some moral impetus is natural, yes, but it could be argued away as a survival instinct. Social animals generally fare better. The pack will cover for its sick for a time, coordinated hunting is more efficient and the pack can band together for mutual protection. Thus it is necessary to condition one's self to not stepping too far out of line with regards to what the pack agrees on is acceptable behaviour. If abandoned by the pack, your chances of survival decrease.

But the rest is just trained reflex. Indirect indoctrination. You grow up in a given culture, you take on some of its traits, it's just the way things work. Yet at the end of the day it's just someone's mental excretions forced into your brain.


Alan Turing's case made the news a day or two ago, and it's hideous. The man was found 'guilty' of being a homosexual and chemically castrated, prompting him to commit suicide in 1954. A mere 55 years ago, within the lifetime of most players parents and/or grandparents if not their own, this was considered 'moral' while his behaviour was considered 'immoral'. Not just the opinion of a few bigots living behind the moon but apparently generally accepted ideas of decency. It took another decade for homosexuality to become 'legal' in the UK.

Absolute good and evil? Hardly.

Problem here: That's not a moral villain. Morals are not the same as ideologies or independent beliefs. A moral villain is the guy who travels back in time to put a bullet in the skull of innocent baby Hitler in an effort to save millions of lives. Moral villainy almost exclusively aims at justifying destructive actions with the greater good. World War 2 is full of examples of this, by the by.

Recluse could be seen as moral because his actions are beneficial to people. Granted, in his case it's not a lot of people they're beneficial to, but here you go: In the Rogue Isles, anyone possessing the will and fortitude to succeed can do so. You just need to grit your teeth and be willing to step over the corpses of your friends to get what you want, and it can be yours.

This creates unbiased opportunity for everyone. It doesn't matter who you were or where you came from, in the Isles you can be whatever you want, provided you have the balls. You say it's Social Darwinism, I say it's the American Dream post Capitalism. Neither side is wrong.

And yet some utterly disagree on just what that objective moral truth should be. Which, you know, kind of scores a point for moral relativism.

So that's why Statesman is portrayed as an overbearing tyrant while Recluse's nation-state is all about the expression of personal freedom? Cause States is the moral one and Recluse the monster? Somehow fiction and in-game reality don't add up there.

I'm pretty positive there's a high-speed rail line going from the airport to the inner city, but it's been a few years, and I've always just driven to Amsterdam (then got a hotel on the city's outskirts and used public transport from thereon, cause really, the inner city is not meant for driving).

Don't be a retard, retard. Multi-quotes are useful to show which part of an original post you are replying to. It helps keep things structured and orderly and it allows other people to put your replies in perspective. As you may have found out.


One of these things is not like the other: One has very good melee attacks and the ability to survive in melee range. One has insanely good melee attacks and very little ability to survive in melee range (other than through very little crowd control and killing stuff quickly). If Scrappers had ranged attacks instead of defences, they'd be a different AT.


There is no ************* Healer AT in the ************* game. Use of the H-word is usually the first indication of someone not knowing what they're talking about. Never mind the part where everyone does damage (I've been very successfully blasting with my Defender) and the whole AT balance is very heavily skewed towards Buff/DeBuff sets and Crowd Control render everyone else virtually useless in a pound for pound comparison.


I think you're getting hung up on the names over the in-game dynamics. Any Primary can build a full Single Target Attack Chain and most can also achieve a solid AOE rotation. What else should there be in the Secondary? If you add more ranged attacks you'll wind up with a lot of redundancy. If you add more DeBuffs, Self-Buffs and Crowd Control, you're fast approaching the point where Blaster Ranged Damage would need to be neutered to achieve AT Balance.

And for the record, you'll notice that most ATs have Powersets or possible setups that completely break the mold. Blappers and Scrankers are one example. Fire Tanks deliver extra damage and Ice and Dark Armour add Crowd Control. Illusion is extremely light on hard Control but offers Utility, extra Damage and Pocket Tanks. Storm Summoning essentially forces you to advance past any Tanks (should you decide to burden yourself down with one) for maximum efficiency, and Kinetic and Cold deliver the most bang for the buck in melee as well (who doesn't love being able to Nuke and regen Endurance right away under their own power?) in spite of being 'Healer' sets. My favourite (in fact only) Blaster is a Claws/SR Scrapper employing mostly Focus and Torrent, and occasionally Spin or Follow-Up.

It's not as simple as you want to paint it. There aren't just 5 flavours of ATs, there's a myriad of legal roads you can take to fine-tune your playstyle to your preferences.


Sorry, but maybe you should go out and get a better grasp of the underlying game principles before you come in here and state 'facts' that only show you to be ignorant of how the actual game works.