Finduilas

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This should be obvious but you never know what sort of idiots you may be playing with, but Don't pull with AOE attacks of any type. That includes Tanker taunts, Provoke, Fireball, Rad debuffs, Fire Rain, Grenades, Ball Lightning, etc.

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Taunt is useless for pulling a single mob out of a pack, but it still can be a very useful pulling tool, especially now that it has a 5-mob limit. I find it particularly handy in a big room with multiple spawns where entering the room might aggro more than one. A tank can use Taunt to pull a single spawn away from the others to be dealt with safely. Heck, I use this technique all the time when soloing to pull mobs at the entrance of a big room to me without aggroing others that might be lurking farther in.

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Also, you missed: If you are a meele type, do NOT, repeat, NOT charge into the mobs your blaster has just pulled one from using Dwimbles handy dandy techniques. You're not impressing anyone by spoiling a perfectly good pull.

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LOL. Works both ways. I can't tell you how many times I've been backpedaling after taunting a few mobs into a corridor, only to have someone run in and attack them when they're about a yard away from an unaggro'd group. Hmm, why do you think I was BACKING UP?

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plain and simple..your old if you saw the orginal star wars at the drive in's

*rasies hand* I DID!

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Hon, I was in *college* when the original Star Wars came out.

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HR Puffnstuff!!!! Holy socks batman. Nobody and I mean nobody know who I'm talking about when I reference "Witchypoo" and the golden flute

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Pfft! That's nothing! I'm so old that I remember looking down on my younger sister for liking baby stuff like HR Puffnstuf, and later, the Partridge Family and the Brady Bunch.

Liking the original, Adam West Batman series and the Monkees, now *that* was cool.

I was recently invited to a PUG for an AV mish where I was the second Tank. The other tank, who'd obviously been with the team longer, was a couple of levels above me. Now, I don't mind playing with another tank, but it is immensely helpful to have the roles spelled out beforehand.

Here's the surprising part; when I asked "So, what's the plan--what do you want me to do?" I actually got an answer a useful, reasonable answer. Team leader says, "Other Tank is lead tank, you follow and pick up extra aggro."

I nearly fainted on the spot in surprise. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a PUG leader how they want the battles to run and gotten the answer, "Just kill 'em!". Urgh.

My first brute, Arson Angel, is a lv 12 FM/EA.

I picked EA because I've already played Invul and DA and wanted something different. (I've also played a SR scrap extensively, so I don't mind Defense sets.) I picked Fiery Melee because it looked fun and I've never played it before.

I haven't quite worked out her bio yet, but I *am* certain Arson is a very bad girl who likes to set things on fire.

I wish I wasn't too lazy to learn how to post a pic, because she was created under the assumption that you don't have to look bad to *be* bad.

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I may have jumped the gun on Jonyu there a bit, but it does get irritating to have red names changing their tune at any time it suits the point they wish to make.

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Actually, I don't think he was being inconsistent. I think he just emphasized the least important part of the question - I don't think anyone is bothered that brutes, scrappers, and stalkers get status protection later than tankers.

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I agree. In general, these little reminders about the differences between the scrappers/brutes and tankers strike me as a huge red herring. We all *know* that scrappers and brutes get more damage and more attacks earlier and that tanks get stronger defenses earlier. And other than occasionally quibbling about the details, most people accept that as an reasonable trade-off between the ATs.

But Jonyu's argument seems to imply that that balancing somehow isn't enough--that scrappers and brutes need a 'bonus' penalty to balance their sets against tanker sets, and that's the justification for the disproportionately large Def debuff in UY for them. Does this strike anyone else as, well, bizarre?

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Ok here goes inv. offers way more smashing lethal dmg then any other set.


Run hero stats some time I would say it it atleast a 70% smash/lethal to 30% elemental from pve on aveage.

So you are resisting the dmg that you are getting hit with more often better then other defenses.

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Because it has relatively low levels of resistance to non S/L damage, and none to Psi, the total amount of damage mitigation that Invul offers is pretty much on par with the other sets. And in I7 the balance may skew toward the more Defense based sets since the scaling issue is going to be addressed.

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Next INV. has a auto defense for each attack (except psi) so when toggles get droped inv. has advantage over other sets.

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You mean for each damage type? Unless I'm misremembering, all the Melee sets that rely on def or res (Regen is a notable exception) offer either def or res passives against most damage types.

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Next inv. is immune to knock back with unyeilding... other sets only have resists.

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In practical terms, that's a very minor advantage. I can't recall ever having been knocked back through Practiced Brawler, for instance.

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I could go on ....

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If you're going to persuade me that Invul currently has significant advantages over the other Melee defense sets, you're going to have to.

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I can see it now... Statesmen reads your logical and well writen post, the wheels start turing... and, he comes up with it.... lets incress the tankers debuff to 7.5%, that'll make things more balanced... yeah, i can see it now...

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Believe it or not, on test it was originally 12.5%! And I think that was for both tanks and scrappers.

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How it is balanced

Tanks defense

Brutes scrappers offense.

Tanker vs Brute

Brute has fury... this makes a big difference in dmg out put.

Thus a brute can kill an opponet faster then a tank, so in a very real way they have a defense through offense ... a dead mob cannot do dmg.

In a mob of 10 my brute will kill 3 mobs when tank kills 2.

I will kill 8 mobs due to fury by the time a tank can kill 5.

This means a tank is taking a reduced dmg from 3 mobs where I am taking 0 dmg thus 100% resist becuase mobs are dead.

Apply this to stalkers too.

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Isn't *that* particular balancing equation (defense vs damage) already done by the fact that Brutes and Scrappers get 75% of Tankers Def & Res?

Are you saying that the devs are *intentionally* trying to further reduce S/B defenses by giving them a proportionally higher def debuff in UY? A "you guys are so good we're going to kick you again!" prize?

LOL. I guess it's *possible*, though the reasoning strikes me as a bit...convoluted. Wouldn't a simpler solution be to just up Tanker damage or reduce the % of res and def that scraps and brutes get to say, 70%?

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I think the main difference would be that they are TANKS!

Eating damage is their forte. Other ATs just pretend to suck it up, so of course they are at a disadvantage when compared to the AT designed for it.

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I think that reasoning justifies why the powers in the Tanker version of invul have higher base values than Scrapper/Brute invul, but how does it explain why Scrappers and Brutes are disproportionately penalized by the def debuff in UY?

Foo, I've been following most of the arguments in the Tanker and general forums, and IMO none of them have provided an understandable justification for either the def debuff in general or specifically why the S/B debuff is the same value as it is for Tankers.

Statesman says that it is there 'for balance'. What then, *is* it "balancing" that hasn't already been slashed to a level well below what it was when the debuff was first put in place? Even mez protection levels have been reduced recently!

And if the fact that the debuff is the same level for scraps and brutes as it is for tanks is, in fact, intentional and not an oversight, that suggests to me that it is 'balancing' something that all three ATs receive equally. But I'm damned if I know what it could be, except perhaps Dull Pain.

Bottom line, if the devs are going to adhere to the balancing argument, I'd like to know what extraordinary benefit of the Invul powerset it is 'balancing', and why it is applied equally to all three ATs when very few of the Invul powers have equal values for all three ATs.

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Hey guys,

I wanted to take a couple minutes to let you know that we aware of this issue. We want people to at least know where the PvP zones are and how to get to them. We don’t want players to feel forced into PvP combat. To address this issue we are going to take several steps. Players will be sent to liaisons that will be outside the PvP zones. They will explain that there is mission content available from a contact within the zone but will not, I repeat will not, force you to that contact. If the player wishes to go in the zone and find the contact they are free to do so. Just like a Task/Strike Force contact, PVP contacts don’t need to be introduced. As soon as a player clicks on them, they will offer mission content.

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As one of the chief complainers about this recently, THANK YOU! That sounds like a *much* better set up, and less likely to annoy the non-PvP inclined.

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All these things are wonderful points, if they were expressed in the mission write up. But they aren't. The end result is a mission statement that says go INTO the PvP zone. It doesn't say, there is a safe zone, There is a safety timer, It certainly doesn't say where the contact is, or this is Intro to PvP 101. Plenty of "Go talk to So & So" missions in this game simply give you a mission when you talk to the aforementioned So & So without asking further (a la Security Chiefs).

I'm glad you all provided this info, but its still a sore point in how its being presented.

They want to elucidate on the fine points of PvP to me, put a contact outside the PvP zones that can answer all my questions, not inside. I have a bad taste in my mouth from more than one game with PvP done wrong. My reaction is going to be strong. And if they want to show me the benefits, dont give me limited information and a shove, and a "You MUST go into this place to learn about it". Its poor design when it comes to presenting a completely divergent gameplay experience that has such negative history and connotations.

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File a petition or bug report describing this. Maybe PM a dev about it. You've already started a thread.

I agree - the mission text should be crystal clear, because otherwise people assume the worst and get angry.

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As I mentioned elsewhere, I ran into this last night. Even though I was fully informed about how the Siren's Call contact worked, I can see why people get so hacked off about it. Not only was there no information about the contact being in a supposed 'safe' zone or that you don't have to complete a mish there, but also:

1. There was no alternative mission from that contact, so it was pick the PvP mish or lose the contact.
2. I didn't get the red "this mission is in a PvP zone" warning until AFTER I selected the mish.

IMO, that's just piss-poor design and I'm not the least surprised that people feel tricked or coerced into entering a PvP zone when they don't want to.