Emberly

Ahh I gotcha and I agree completely, both regarding defeating mobs and knocking them down like ninepins.

Uh, ok! I'm not clear on where KB came in and it reads like snark but maybe I am wrong so if I am misunderstanding then sorry! I sure don't have an issue with KB and yeah things on their back are things I don't worry about too much, so yeah, I guess we are on the same page!

This is a case where the problem on paper ceases to exist in the game. RttC is just fine with AoEs, and things being dead is better mitigation than more regen. Besides, what can you do, the whole point is to defeat mobs so that's what's gonna happen. I can see where it might look like RttC needs lots of minions hanging around, and maybe in edge cases this might be so. For general gameplay it ain't an issue.

I am quoting this because yes, you should be mad that more folks haven't played Shadow Warrior. I am pretty mad about that myself.

is not what's going on when people show their frustration at you refusing to take instruction. You come in complaining about how FF isn't working as well as you'd like, people offer advice, you say "no no, I want to change how the powers work not how I use them." Then, to top it off, you claim they are going off-topic, which is ridiculous since from reading your posts the topic seems to be "Ultimo is bad at forcefields." It's no wonder that people are sick of your ****.

Except that, as has been explained over and over again, with great patience, knockback is a great defense that works very well for a lot of people. It seems clear you are not interested in learning better ways to play, ways that obviously exist because lots of us use them. I don't understand why you insist on acting like the problem is the powerset. Lots of people have spent (wasted?) time trying to point out that you are doing it wrong, but I guess you don't want to listen. So be it. Keep on being bad at forcefields and blaming the powerset. No skin off my nose.

Well, as long as we are citing anecdotal experience as fact, it's a fact that my ff defender has no trouble soloing, and if she did, I would lower the difficulty a touch. Sometimes I have to do so, depending on the villain group being fought. I certainly don't run myself out of end desperately trying to kill a minion. I've asked you these questions before, I think: do you not use insps? Do you insist on using the same difficulty settings for your defender as you do your scrapper? Do you have any vet powers? Do you take any pool powers to fill out any gaps? Please actually answer this and don't pretend I didn't ask.

Your difficulties soloing are not the fault of the AT, because I don't have those difficulties and nor do many others. That's a fact, not imagination.

Are you fighting things that are especially resistant to energy damage? I don't have this experience with rad blast. Sure, I use inspirations when needed but so what, they drop like candy and they are there to use. Are your attacks slotted with nothing but recharge reducers? Are they slotted at all? I can't understand why you are having such difficulty unless you are purposely gimping your performance to make a better case for yourself.

Apparently not because I don't have the problems you report. Seriously, you seem to just stick your fingers in your ears and shout LALA NOT LISTENING when people offer advice or point out flaws and inaccuracies. It looks like you've decided how you want the powerset to work and now any deviation form that idea is some great injustice, when in reality the powerset works fine, could use the odd tweak but it's certainly not the festival of fail you make it out to be. I don't know what it is about Force Bolt but you sure don't want to admit it's useful despite myself with a couple hundred levels of FF spread across fenders, a controller and two MMs telling you it is. Hell others with no doubt more experience than me have also come in and pointed out that you are flat out wrong about what it will and won't knock back but you just keep on arguing from a position of ignorance.

I would really like to see you answer my questions about how you play because I can't imagine struggling so much with the vast array of tools at my disposal. I could build an FF/nrg fender and jack up my difficulty too high and not take any pool powers and not use insps and not use vet powers and not slot my attacks well, and then maybe I would struggle the way you describe, but otherwise I just don't see it happening.

and yet, I rely on it as part of my defenses, and I find it both wise and effective. Knocking things into geometry while I tool the rest of the crew works like a hot damn for me, I have no idea why it doesn't for you. Hell, I slotted it up and wield it in anger pretty much every fight.

I don't use Detention Field in my build. I've had the odd fight where I've thought it might have turned the tide, but generally speaking I don't need it at all. Now with the new difficulty settings I haven't even given it a thought. Same with Repulsion Field, the power drains end way too fast and I just don't need a knockback toggle when I can spam Force Bolt all day.

Bottom line here is that I cannot understand why you think FF can't solo. Like, I literally cannot understand it, because it emphatically can and does solo. My own build has very few IOs, no purple IOs and not one complete set in the bunch. I am ff/rad and therefore gain some mitigation from my secondary (woohoo Cosmic Burst! woohoo Electron Haze!) but I would gladly trade for the mitigation of KB from energy blast, or tohit debuffs from Dark Blast, or the slows and holds of Cold Blast.

I use inspirations but I certainly don't empty my tray every fight, hell lots of fights I don't need insps. I have some pool powers and some vet powers. I use all the abilities at my disposal and I do not find that I am running the ragged edge of survival, so I don't see how you could be, with the same primary, a secondary that provides more mitigation, and similar access to other powers. I don't run at +4/8 dificulty, but I don't run at -1/0 either. I just don't see the problem, and I think that any of your suggestions would have to come attached to negative changes elsewhere because I don't believe defenders are underpowered.

Nothing except Force Bolt to knock people away from you, Dispersion Field to provide you with defense and status protection (a rare thing among the squishier ATs), Repulsion Bomb for reliable knockdown and some damage too, Detention Field to take one enemy right out of the fight, and of course, the be-all end-all, Personal Force Field, for when things have really hit the fan. Then you have a whole secondary, which might have tohit debuffs, knockback, -def, slows, -resistance, lord knows what else, all of which help you out solo and teamed.

Force Bolt: it keeps one enemy permanently out of the fight, barring misses, animation shenanigans, or poor use of the landscape/environment. If you're not using it to best effect, that's not a fault of the power.

The two bubbles: just, no. You complain later on that Dispersion Bubble "has a fairly high endurance cost" but you want to convert these into toggles as well. Not very consistent. If we did convert these to toggles things would be pretty imbalanced all of a sudden. Also, you propose making them into something that as far as I know just doesn't exist,with this combo click/toggle. Programming time that is better spent elsewhere and as far as we know is not even possible. Apologies if I am forgetting some power that can be used as a targeted click or a toggle as desired.

Detention Field: if you are struggling as much as you seem to think you are, this power might actually be useful to you. Take something completely out of the fight for a bit while you chew up the rest. However I think you are overestimating your difficulties so you can push your agenda. If I can solo my ff/rad then you can solo your ff/nrg, especially with the added mitigation of kb on energy blast.

Dispersion Bubble: high end cost? You get defense and status protection. Not resistance, protection. What more do you want? TRT has a good point with the defdebuff protection but I think to put it in the shields as well as Dispersion Bubble would be overly powerful. Maybe add a chunk of defdebuff protection into Dispersion Shield only.

Repulsion Field: ok, so don't run it if the end cost is too high. I don't run it either.

Force Bubble: admittedly a limited-application power, but there are some neat tricks you can pull with it. Also, let's not tell outright lies; it doesn't push enemies out of the range of many of your powers, save Power Burst, and if you make use of Force Bubble regularly then maybe you ought to slot a range in there so you can use Power Burst from within Force Bubble. It also bumps them out of range of Power Push but then again that power is meant to push them away, so its job is done already by Force Bubble.

M_K, I agree that a major issue is that buffing fenders get the shaft where debuffing fenders do not. I don't think they need a pet but I don't know what else could be done.

Expand the power tray and make alt+<number> the key combo for shields? I thought everyone did this to be honest. I buff teams with my left hand only using shift+<number> to target the team member and alt+<number> for bubble (or other buff). So, Shift+1, then alt+1, alt+2, voila! Team leader bubbled. Continue for each member.

edit: I think I might have misunderstood your request so please forgive me if that's the case.

Any emp or pain set comes attached to one of: a blast set, a control set, a pet set. If someone joins my team with emp or pain, and thinks that their job is healing only, they are probably off the team and definitely noted and not invited back. Goes double for emps; one of the best buffing sets in the game, and yet I still run into people, five years in, that don't take Fort because it doesn't heal. In this game, support powersets are not ranked in order how how effectively they heal. The "most healing skills" simply means that's how your set mitigates damage; it's not better than the other means of making teams more effective and it's arguably worse. There's a reason the so-called "healing" sets include numerous buffs/debuffs; healing is a reactive borefest and requires that someone already be hurt to benefit from it. Some teams just don't need or want healing abilities, and those teams become more common as levels increase. That's when your blast set, or your buffs, or whatever need to come out and shine. Any time I join a team that thinks they need a "healer" it turns out badly, because needing a healer means the rest of the team is either badly built or not doing their job. My own opinion is that healing is for scrubs, and I say that as someone whose first 50 was an emp. I've run every blue TF in the game, including the ITF and the LGTF, with the only support being my forcefielder. Healing is completely optional and often the worst possible choice.

OP it seems like you arrived with some pretty fixed ideas for roles in MMOs, and they just don't apply here. Your healers (ugh, I feel dirty typing that) are also your DPS or your crowd control, your DPS is also your tank, your tank is also your buffer. The holy trinity of tank, healer, DPS just doesn't apply here, and trying to stick to it makes the experience boring. Have some fun. Think outside the WoW box. Grab seven other defenders/controllers and go do the shadow shard TFs. Form up an all-$archetype ITF. Spend some time getting into PvP, if that's your thing. This game emphatically is not about racing to level cap so you can participate in a series of raids that are practically a second job. In fact, most of the best times I have in this game are exemped down well below cap or simply levelling. I know it seems like after ten days the game has given up all its secrets to you, but it's not true. After five years I am still learning bits and pieces here and there, and there are still things that I haven't tried.

Not at all. There's no "healer" archetype. Such an archetype would be pointless from the get-go, because of the many and varied ways to mitigate damage in this game. Your posts genuinely sound like you are insisting that this game behave exactly the same as some other game. If you maintain that attitude, your experience here will be bad. Nothing anyone can do about that, though. Try playing a different powerset, one that doesn't heal like Sonic or Forcefields. It will make you appreciate the value of stopping damage before it starts rather than fixing it after the fact.

Yep, the worst of it I suppose is for the lowest tier of minions, but I look at them as a hitpoint buffer (thanks Bodyguard mode!) and source of bonus damage. Also, although their accuracy might not be the greatest, your secondary helps them out too, no matter what it is. I found that I got more mileage out of either slotting for other effects in my pets, or dropping slots from them altogether, than I get out of buffing the bejabers out of their accuracy. Although I mentioned tactics, I don't have it on any of my MMs. I keep thinking about getting it but then I realize that I don't need it and I am unwilling to give up what I have for an unnecessary power pick of dubious benefit.

I run my MMs on +0/3 difficulty usually, I am not interested in TEH UBER POWARGAMERZ so that's high enough for me. When I team, it's whatever comes up, of course, but still no troubles. I am with you 100% on the whole "easy enough" thing. Although I don't go for the easiest possible experience, I don't feel a need to make things harder than they have to be. The difficulty of 0/3 for me is the point where I get "enough" XP to feel like I did something, and I can be casual about playing and not worry that I am going to faceplant every spawn if I look away or have to help someone with APA citations or something. I too am here to enjoy the ride

Dual builds will let you do both! That said, I've never slotted more than one accuracy in any of my pets and I've never noticed a problem. I assume you don't have tactics? Also note that supremacy is a to-hit buff and not an accuracy buff, IIRC. Not sure if you considered that in your calculations.