Folonius

This is it in a nut shell .... Defenders are not underpowered, they don't solo well. Increasing their damage and making them solo better is going to cause a nerf to thier buffs. That is why defenders will not get a damage buff. It'a against the grain.

Generally, my trollers have very little in the secondary. I have an Ice/TA and I use TA to supplement my primary. IMO TA is the best controlling secondary for a troller. I have several Fire/Kin's, and I skip'd SB on one of them. I have a mind/ff which is control heavy, but the nice thing about FF is I only have to worry about shielding everyone every 5 minutes. The rest of the time is control. It's one of the reasons I love FF defenders. I can shield people, then essentially use the secondary to debuff the mobs. I don't bother even slotting FF defenders for damage.

While a controller can and should use buffs, I don't expect them to drop everything and put a buff up as quickly as they can. I do expect a defender to do that.

As I've stated, I don't slot defenders for damage, so if that's what your looking for from me, you'll be dissapointed. I use my secondary to KB, control, or debuff depending apon what my secondary is, I'm using all the tools my defender has, and damage just really isn't one of them. IMO what a defender brings to a team makes up for the lack of damage on some of the sets.

If I were one of those trollers, I would rarely look at life bars. Transference (cause I usually play kin trollers or trollers with no heals) would be used to benifit myself and anyone else near me, but I wouldn't have the team window open to see who it was I was healing. It's the way I play my trollers, and I've never had a complaint. My fire/kin's tank better than some tanks, and my trollers that I make to stay towards the back of the group do what they are supposed to do, control. A debuff to hit, resistance, or -speed is a type of control, so all a defender is that uses debuff is a specialized controller.

I have an Ill/emp that doesn't have heal other or absorb pain and only uses healing aura. He also has regen and recovery aura and uses them to benefit himself, and whoever MIGHT be next to him at the time. It's been awhile since I played him, but I might have skipped CM on him as well. A controller needs to be a controller first. Whatever secondary powers they might have I expect them to use, but it's only icing on the cake.

When I invite a controller, I know what I'm getting ... Their primary. When I invite a defender, I know what I'm getting ... Thier primary. There's no surprises, and thus, no fustration. I can picture you inviting a controller and going "What! No heal other! /kick" Defenders are the only toons with buffs and debuffs as their primary, and I've often found this a huge problem on the villians side. I was on a team with 3 corruptors, 2 masterminds, and 3 brutes. We team wiped 4 times in AE and someone goes "We need a healer!" and I quit and went back to the hero side. I will be looking forward to allowing defenders to go to villian side, and maybe the teaming experience will improve.

I'm not saying that 4 or 5 or even 8 controllers won't work, I love controllers, but I love them because they can hold things and stop mobs from attacking all together, not because they have super great buffs. That's the defenders job.

No ... A toon that is meant to control should control first and buff second. The reason I like having 2 controllers and 2 defenders though is because most defenders, as I've stated, have access to control powers. And a defenders secondary can be quite synergetic to it's primary.

What exactly do you mean by utility? Defenders have tons of utility attacks in their secondary.

Defenders most certainly do not have lack of utility .... Dark = -tohit, energy = KB, ice = -speed, PSI has alot of stuns, immobs, -recharge, and some other useful attacks, Rad has -def, and Sonic has -res. So that leaves Archer which is damage and Electric which is -end. Both of those I'll admit are a bit lacking. Archery is supposed to be high damage, but for a defender the modifier takes alot away from that set, and -end ... I don't even think -end does anything to mobs. So defenders, with the exception of Archery and Electricity, have more than enough utility attacks in their secondary.

As I've said, I would be fine with an increase in damage, but it would most likely be met with a decrease in modifiers to the secondary. If they made archery and electricity higher damage for defenders, that would probably be better, but if an increase in damage to all sets mean a decrease in debuffs, I'd rather leave debuffs the way they are.

If any of these suggestions cause a decrease in debuffs from the secondary, then I'm against it. If all that is done is an increase to damage, but nothing else is touched, then I'm all for it. I'm always pro buff but don't cry out that defenders are underpowered and ultimatly all that happens is a nerf to defenders.

IMO this is why I don't like that build.

No, the rest of the player base does not think that underplayed = underpowerd. They just don't want to suffer through playing a buff bot. When I look for a team, I want 2 defenders on my team because they offer the best defensive or offensive numbers to their buffs. I also want two controllers on my team, because they have holds, not because they have buffs. A defender buffs, a controller holds, and they are both good at what they do. I would never invite a controller to a team, expecting him to do nothing but buff, but I would invite a defender to a team and expect them to do nothing but buff while using their secondary to suplement their buffs.

The later is why I think people shy away from defenders. They don't like the underdamaging support toon even though their buffs are higher.

My Ideal team is 2 controllers, 2 defenders, a tank, and 3 damage toons. A defender is one of those toons that are great to have on a team, you just don't want to be the one playing them. Adding damage will make them more soloable, but it may have the potential of diluting them so players think of their defender more like an offender, and I hate offenders. I would still suffer through a damage increase to defenders though just to make more people like them.

Ok, if you think they are underplayed because they are underpowered, do another survey. Ask each defender online what they're primary is, and tally that up. If you don't want to do it, I gladly will. I have a suspicion as to what the outcome may be. I predict Emp first, followed by Kin then Rad. The other primaries won't even come close. That doesn't mean they are useless, it means that people are not knowledable to what the other sets do. All people want when they play a defender are green numbers, and not all defender sets give that.

I'm not opposed to bumping their damage, I just don't agree that underplayed = underpowered.

I'll lol if someone gives you inf.

This please.

If you just want to make inf quick, roll 10-14 bronze rolls, keep all steadfast recipes, karma -KB, all orange recipe rolls, delete everything else, and list them all for 1 inf. Minimal work involved, and you'll make many people happy. You should be able to make at least 50mil from 9999 tickets. It's a casual gamers dream. You could probably do the same thing with 45-50 bronze rolls, but they cost more tickets than 10-14.

Aw, but Alt can be funny sometimes. How else would I get my lolz in if he didn't post his craziness.

Energy Primary for blasters needs a complete rehaul IMO. The secondary effect can be extremly annoying if used in the hands of a new player, and sometimes people just don't understand how to use KB effectivly. Bring Power Push up a few notches to an earlier tier, or add more damage, or just change the effect to KB + Stun. Remove KB from some of the powers, or make them KD instead or as suggested, just add more damage.

It's rather unbalanced from other sets, and I tend to avoid taking energy blast on blasters. On a defender, it's not that bad. A person tends to play more defender oriented and uses the KB as it was intended. Putting a control power on every power in a blaster set is just dumb.

1) It's broke

2) /bind (insert key) "$$powexec_name teleport"

3) You can farm AE, but don't exploit. Boss farms, and making bosses that have attacks vs. your strengths as far as I can tell is ok. I have an Ice/SS tank with 60% defense to smashing, lethal, and energy and well over the 90% resist to cold that I use to farm custom bosses with ice attacks. I could go AFK and foot stomp my way to 1500 tickets.

A good example of an exploit are the green hami mitos which didn't attack when they were level 49. They were removed. Chances are, if it's an exploit, it will be removed quickly so you won't really have to worry to much about exploiting AE.

4) Visit the Market Forums. If you play on Virtue, I'd be happy to help you out in getting started, and showing you how to make influence via the market and through AE. If you use AE, you can use tickets to get SO's. If you want to maximize your character, I recommend mids. It's starting to get a little out of date, but it still is decent to get an idea on which direction you should head. I would recommend trying to get ranged damage defense to 45%. Since your a blaster, I would try to keep distance between yourself and what you are attacking.

5) I like Pepsi

Nevah!

I run TF's all the time. I play on Virtue. I run SF, the reiksman, ITF, Lady Grey, and occasionally Positron the most out of all the TF's.
Like Stirga? I had an 8 man team in Stirga last night. I don't see any of this stuff, and IMO people complain just to hear themselves.

huh? All my new toons use the sewers still. Playing a level 1 in AE is a horrible experience.

That's what happens when we have a large increase in subscriptions. Get a faster computer or post a suggestion for server upgrades to handle all the new subscriptions. Don't ask to change the thing that is the primary cause of new players.

Teach them. If someone asks questions, answer them, or make advice as to someones playing style. On the team in Stirga, we had a newbie blaster who was eng/eng level 25. After a mission or two, I asked him to try and use KB towards the tank instead of away, and he said ok. Not hard to educate them.
Ignore is your friend, use it. Don't worry about not being able to hear people. With the amount of RMT spam in the email, they will be off your list in a few weeks.
I don't see this. What server do you play on? Start your own sewer team.

Can I haz ur stufz?

This irks me. Get over it. People think they can judge other peoples play style, and say that their way of doing things is wrong and your right. If this is your stance to how other people play, then I will happily take out the popcorn, and drink your tears. If these are the type of people leaving this game, then overall, the game is a better place. I would take a newbie that has no enhancements over you any day. At least they would listen to advice while your so stuck up in your ways would probably /ignore or have a little tantrum because I told you how to do something better.

Please, don't come back.

And here, we have an example of you suggesting to other people to break forum rules.

How bout 0% .... People report bugs which cause the dev's to fix these bugs. Imbalanced game mechanics cause nerfs, not farmers.

Since my niche is 10-14 bronze rolls, I'll have to agree with you that many procs have dropped in price, but what about doctored wounds. That used to be a niche of mine (still is) when the market came out. Buy the recipes for 500-1.5mil and resell for 3-4mil crafted. Now I buy them for 5mil and resell for 20, and that's a common recipe drop (bronze roll).

You can turn off your xp gain under options.

I think this went over your head. If there was such a large issue with MA, it would be fixed. Obviously, it isn't that large of a problem, so it's staying the way it is.
I think I will give this one to you. I'm in agreement that MA is causing inflation. Let me give everyone an example of how this may occur.

Lets assume we are farming bosses, maniacs, and we are running the farm on City 02 map. As we all know, ticket drops are capped at 1500, and this cap is extremely easy to hit. After about 10 groups, everyone on the team now has at least 800 tickets. At this point, ending the mission will give everyone another 700 tickets, putting everyone at the 1500 cap. Let's assume the don't end the mission, and they continue to fight the addition 22 spawns (you can have up to 40ish or more spawns on this map depending how it's made) and clear the map. Well, now what you have is everyone made tickets (which is essentially MA's version of salvage and recipes) and influence in the first 10 minutes. After those first 10 minutes, everyone just made influence. There is a desparity in influence and tickets which is putting more influence on the market, and less rewards. The only fix for this is to remove the ticket cap, or when someone hits 1500 tickets, they also stop earning influence. I wouldn't be opposed to either.

Alt's version of debate is "Your wrong!" /ignore. That's why he's always taken for granted.

Huh? Alt is out of his mind. He only cares about his play style and listens to nobody else.

This link is a great example of what Alt preaches.

Your assuming that more players will leave because they consider beating the game getting to 50, and they don't bother with end game content. I don't know anybody that plays like that.

New players getting to 50 in under 10-20 hours of game play isn't impossible, but have you been on some of these newbie teams in AE? They think they can take on the hardest groups, and team wipe and everyone quits. I very rarly play any toons in AE that are under level 22 unless it's with some higher level friends.

As for new players getting to 50 in days, that can be accomplished in regular game play. I made a level 50 in 2 weeks of game play, and it was my second toon in Co*. Excluding the Comm Officers and Bubbles, getting to level 50 in AE is still difficult. If you play missions similar to those in regular content, the pace is slower. If you play the hardest missions in AE to gain the greatest rewards, the team wipes. There will always be outliers to this, but you have those same outliers in regular content.

IMO, the long term outlook is fine.

The nerfs need to come. Did you expect them not to nerf bubbles or comm officers even if nobody farmed them? The problem is, people blame farmers for nerfs when they should be blaming the dev's. A balance needs to be maintained, and if there is an imbalance in something, then it needs to be fixed, not ignored and pretend it doesn't exist. It's like throwing a rotten piece of fruit in a basket. The entire basket will go rotten if it's not removed/fixed.

The dev's are the one who maintain this balance, and if they mess the balance up, they are the only ones that can be blamed, not the people paying their bills.

This is opinion.

This is opinion

This is opinion, no proof that this is what is or will happen.

This is opinion, but I would also call it false. Proof of the success of AE can be found in Atlas and all the new subs running around. Your just crying doom. AE is a blazing success due to the number of people constantly in the AE building, maybe to much of a success, but a success nonetheless. This little tidbit is factual, and I dare you to prove it wrong.

Why get rid of something that is a benefit to the game?

the points? you mean your opinions? Why do we need to explain away someones opinion?
BINGO! It's opinion vs. opinion. The only fact that I can present is the amount of Atlas broadcast and new subs I've seen. Everyone can see the increase in Atlas broadcast, and everyone can see the increase in "annoying noobs" as the anti farmers call them. Personally, I call them Co*'s future.

Bring something that is factual to the table instead of opinion. Until then, I doubt you will ever change anyones mind. The funny thing is, no matter how many facts the farmers bring to the table, it doesn't change the anti-farmers mind, but it does change the minds of people who don't care either way. This is why the hardcore anti-farmers are hated on these boards.