Hanged_Man

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Those sets are designed to function in a game with both PvE and PvP elements. Energy Melee has strong single target damage but weak AoE. Spines has strong AoE and range, but costs a lot of endurance to power continuously.

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That's true, but IMO there's a problem in just looking at a Better for PvP/Worse for PvE balance, which is usually why EM is given a pass. What's important is [b]how much[b] better, and how much worse.

For EM, it's not that bad for PvE. Nobody ever said an /EM tank was gimped, just lacking in AoE when herding was the thing. But it's so superior in PvP that bringing any other set for a Tank is basically like not bringing a Secondary.

So is that balance? OK PvE, completely overpowering PvP? I'd suggest that's probably not appropriate. In the long run, more and more Tanks will be /EM Tanks, b/c they'll be adequate (at least) in PvE, but will dominate other Tanks in PvP.

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As I said, the only way to balance PvP is to enforce some level of sameness. Hell that's all balance is really. Enforcing some roughly equivalent level of damage or mitigation. You just like arguing against things I say.

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Current CoX attack powers:
10 damage, 1 sec activation, 8 second recharge.
10 damage, 2 sec activation, 8 second recharge.

One possible change:

10 damage, 1 sec activation, 8 second recharge.
20 damage, 2 sec activation, 16 second recharge.

I know the devs look at that and see "Golly, now everything's the same." I don't see it. I'd sure like to play an Energy Blaster instead of an Ice Blaster, though.

What Processed Meat Man said.

Don't forget Freezing Rain for the extra knockdown goodness.

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I'm Hami-Oed out, have Stamina, QR, Int, and IH in use in Siren's Call.

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Just curiously, why are you (playing a SCRAPPER) worried about Storm defenders in Siren's Call? Isn't that a little like my Mastermind whining that AS can one-shot me in Siren's Call?

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Sigh. Have Phase Shift.. Have Recall Friend. Have Fly. Team with people all the time. Have Mog, have to respec to use it cause it's "up there" in levels when I chose it. I know what MoG does. Know my powers...

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Know melee against a power that really doesn't allow melee to be used when it's on all the time.

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If you did team, use travel powers, use tactics, build well for PvP, you wouldn't be annoyed by Hurricane.

Just saying.

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If your criteria for a useful power is that you have to "notice" it, then we are on different wavelengths.

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This certainly explains things!

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Irony

Since you seemed to have missed it. . .

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Oh yeah.

They should also add a Temp Power that lets a Defender do 80% of Blaster damage in a PVP Zone and gives them native Mez Protection.

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These temporary powers all ready exist. They're called inspirations.

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*nod* In that case, every toon in the game has 95% accuracy against all targets, capped damage, unbreakable mez protection, infinite endurance and health, 90% damage resistance, and 95% defense against all targets.

NERF EVERYONE!

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The number of inspirations it takes to get 80% Blaster damage compared to the number it takes to get infinite health makes your comparrison a bit silly.

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Now you're just being obstinant. Four healths brings you to full health. Even w/ Aim, it'd take you 6 damage inspirations just to reach the Defender cap. Then you'd need to have a debuff or something to go [b]over[/]b the Defender cap to reach 80% Blaster damage. You'd have a much better shot at getting Regen health levels than getting Blaster damage w/ inspirations.

Not that any Defender can ever use Damage or Health inspirations, since you're bar is full of Break Frees. . .

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I think my comparison to RI and DN was a fair one. The primary purpose of the power has little to do with whether it is a PBAOE or a ranged toggle. Hurricane fulfills the same function on teams as RI and DN: that of heavy accuracy debuffing. To compare it to arctic air or hot feet is like comparing deceive and blazing arrow. They're both ranged attacks. That's pretty much where the similarity ends.

As you stated, the primary purpose of Hurricane is -tohit, and the other defender powers which provide comparable tohit debuffs are also autohit toggles.

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but the DN and RI use targets(anchors) which is the compromise for the usage. with hurricane, there is none. i avoided DN and RI comparison because of that reason.

that is why it is easier to compare to the other pbaoes that i stated.

Now it just looks like hurricane is a power with no draw backs when you compare to DN or RI.

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What in the world are you talking about? Hurricane has an anchor - YOU!

You can debate endlessly whether Hurricane (centered on you) is more or less useful than RI (centered on a mob). There's drawbacks to each. Hurricane requires you to be in melee range and possibly muck up AoE attacks, Tanks, and Scrappers, and requires constant monitoring and action to debuff mobs. RI can be used from range, never interferes w/ anybody's attacks, and is fire and forget (literally, sadly, most of the time).

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In any event, FF gens make great anchors IME.


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Do we need any more to make a solid judgment on the usefulness of Mieux's experience?

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Permanent anchorless, sticky, debuffs are very powerful.

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Right.

Disrpuption Field! Oooh Noes! Too powerful!
Chilling Embrace? Ooooh Noes! Too powerful!
Cloak of Fear! Oooh Noes! Too powerful!

Or do you think a hero is an anchor, too?

Spectral Terror? Oooh Noes! Too powerful!
Caltrops! Oooh Noes! Too powerful!
Tornado! Oooh Noes! Too powerful!

*Brrrr! Take those bad, bad permadebuffs away! I'm skeeeeeeered!*

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Radiation can debuff defense to the point where accuracy enhancements are unneeded against purple-con mobs.

[/ QUOTE ] Right...right...and how many people do you know take out their acc enhancements because of it? Do you know any Rads that take out their acc enhancements because of it?

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What the hell? Try all of them, if they're knowledgeable and experienced. My Ill/Rad, for example, has exactly 2 accuracy enhancements, total - both in Flash.

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The +recovery is not meant to increase dps: its simply meant to balance the actual benefit a defensive-oriented defender confers to a team relative to an offensive one.

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Well, in that case it isn't what FF needs. FF needs some way to buff offense to compete w/ the other Defender sets. Without it, FF will always be that awesome set that Controllers and MM use so well. Even if FF gave mitigation that was better than every other Defender primary, FF would still be overall a worse set without some offense-boosting ability.

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I like that, although the idea of a +endurance toggle seems counter-intuitive.


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It would be, if it only boosted you; why bother when you can net it out. But an end recovery toggle that boosted everyone within the dispersion bubble does make sense, since its benefits would accrue to team mates as well.

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Which is why I like it.

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In effect, foe defense debuffs and foe resistance debuffs increase team dps and dpe. Ally defense buffs and ally resistance debuffs do not increase either; but in a sense, they increase dps as a percentage of the amount of time you can survive. They don't, however, increase dpe on an adjusted basis.

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Did you mean ally resistance buffs?

It takes a long time for +endurance to increase DPS much at all IMX. If that's the point of the +endurance power, I'd much, much, much rather just have +offense in some way. As you say, +offense helps DPE and DPS.

(BTW, I don't see "amount of damage before you die" is any meaningful measurement of DPS. IMO, dieing doesn't lower your DPS much on most teams, it just means somebody elses uses a rez. For Mutation (and Dark Miasma in terms of damage not mitigated, I guess) it might actually increase DPS for you to die.

Now granted, I haven't actually spend much time testing whether death and non-death teams do similar DPS. . . And I understand that POV, but I don't agree w/ it)

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Which brings up an interesting issue. Force field defenders trade defense buffing (which means more mitigation/longer lasting fights) for foe debuffing (which speeds up fights). In any situation where a defender trades more offense for more defense, one thing I think should definitely be looked at is endurance. In effect, FF defenders make fights last longer instead of faster: they should somehow grant a little more endurance to themselves and teams to actually last longer in the fight. It doesn't have to be large, but probably something significant (in dispersion bubble, perhaps?).

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I like that, although the idea of a +endurance toggle seems counter-intuitive.

Would it be better just to add a +offense power? One of the downsides of the FF set is that it (alone, now) adds nothing to DPS, and +endurance wouldn't help that. It'd be nice, but things would die just as slowly. It might be +offense would track better w/ Dark, (both being defense-only at launch) and Sonic (the resistance side of FF). Force Bubble could add a +damage buff, or Repulsion Bomb -resistance or -defense instead of KB (or in addition to).

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If I understand the I7 defense changes correctly, that 40% figure is the relative difference, not the absolute difference. In absolute terms the Defender's shields floor enemy to-hit, while the Controller's shields get enemy to-hit down to about 15%. So as a practical matter the Defender's shields are only mitigating about 10% more of the absolute incoming damage than a Controller's. That's a difference, sure, but it's hardly this earth-shattering, orgasm-inducing one.


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That's not a proper way to look at mitigation. The difference between the scrapper resistance cap and the tanker one is only 15%. The difference between I7 SR defenses and perma-elude is only 17%. Its very easy to notice the difference between those two. Looking at it the way you do trivializes the difference in a way that bears no resemblance to the true overall effect on survivability.

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IMO you can't look at FF the way you analyze it. Unlike Tank and Scrapper sets, FF doesn't live in a vacuum, ever, and so it's not really useful to look at it that way. The normal analysis of mitigation, focusing on the huge mitigation change marginal, near-cap changes make are almost irrelevant.

For instance, looking at getting an Inv Tank to 90% resistance v. an Inv Scrap to 75% is a useful comparison. They largely depend on their own buffs to get there, and looking at constant inspiration use and other stuff isn't helpful.

FF doesn't work that way at all. It's only useful as a buff to other heroes. What's more important is that most every character has some small amount of defense. And if they don't, it's likely that somebody else does have something to contribute.

As a practical matter, bringing defense to 45% v. bringing defense to 40%, for FF, doesn't really matter that much. Many Scrappers have weave, if not out-right defense powers. Every Blaster has CJ or Hover (seems like at least). Most characters have stealth. A Dark or Storm Defender will provide low-level defense as a matter of course. Don't you think you'd have to try really hard to build a team that didn't have a spare 5% defense wandering around for each hero?

Hence the problem w/ FF. Yes, the numbers from the bubbles, standing alone, look great compared to a Controller. However, the numbers, as actually used? Not so good.

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I was being partially facetious. My point was that, if what you said was true -- and I have no idea what the value on ST or any other Illusion power is off the top of my head -- then the Controller in your example could achieve floored ToHit on opponents without touching the Force Field set.

That strikes me as broken, and not terribly relevant to Force Field. But sure, if we ignore ST entirely, then I see your point, even agree with it. The problem is, as stated above, that what you're really asking for is a revamp of the 5 non-DEF FF powers into something more appreciably useful, am I correct?

And that has very little to do with a Controller's Primary.


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No, I'd ask for something completely different.

As for ST . . . it's a whole nother ball of wax. If you think it's overpowered, you should use it a little.

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An Illusion/FF Controller, however, can use Group Invisibility, Grant Invisibility, Maneuvers, or some combination of stuff, and cap Defense w/ just a minor teamate's defense power like Combat Jumping. (Let's not even get into Spectral Terror, which allows accuracy to be floored regardless. Just looking at buffs here.) They can reach 40% Defense pretty easily.

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Well, if Spectral Terror (or some combination of ST and Group Invis and Maneuvers) really does floor opponent ToHit (which means anything approaching 45% ToHit debuff), then I think it'd be more appropriate to ask why an Illusion Controller would take FF as a Secondary at all.

Which speaks to a few different issues. Is Illusion just too powerful? Or does Force Field just need dramatic improvement in terms of its non-DEF capabilities?

I don't think your example addresses the debate on whether or not the Force Field powerset is actually better for Controllers, though. Maybe if you'd picked a different primary it would have been better. I think the problem here is that some of us are just arguing different things. I'm arguing that the Force Field powerset, by itself, is better in its Defender incarnation. You appear to be arguing here that Controllers are just better than Defenders, which may well be true.

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No, that's not what I'm arguing at all. There's no way to go from "Controllers get just as much effective defense from FF as Defenders" to "Controllers>Defenders." They're related, but not dispositive.

I'm trying to understand how can you even figure out if FF is better for Defenders than Controllers without seeing what the Controller does with it. Powers don't exist in isolation. They are used. The issue is what happens when that power is used.

By saying this just shows that "illusion controllers are too powerful," you're ignoring why Illusion Controllers are better than Defenders with the FF set. It's because, effectively, they are getting the same defense out of the FF set - enough to floor accuracy w/ other powers. Several other Controller sets can do the same thing, I'm just more familiar w/ Illusion.

And this comparison also shows what changes will and will not help the FF Defender. More Defense won't help the Defender. Less Defense for the Controller won't help much - it just demands another pool power. So changing those aspects of the Primary are irrelevant.

And no, I'm taking ST out of the equation. Illusion Controllers don't need ST to floor accuracy w/ FF. There's a host of reasons you might not want or take ST.

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But the big three powers in FF will work twice as well as a Controller or MMs bubbles after I7 against bosses and AVs.

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They don't and they won't. The buff to defence against higher level foes works for everyone. Plus a controller is 80% as effective as a defender with regards to the def Buff. Which amounts to about a 4% difference, 8% when stacked, in the level of defence provided. So I'm not sure how you can come to your conclusion.

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In Issue 7, all mobs will have a 50% base to-hit chance while higher ranked mobs will get an accuracy bonus to their attacks. Take AVs. Their base to-hit now is 75%. In Issue 7 it will be 50% with a 50% acc bonus. With no defense that works out to 75% final to-hit. But defense comes in before accuracy buffs so here's how it will work for FF defenders and controllers in Issue 7:

Defenders bubbles three slotted give your teammates 39% defense to all
Controller bubbles three slotted give your teammates 29% defense to all

Put that into the Issue 7 formula for an AVs to-hit:

Defender: 50-39=11*1.5=16.5

Controller: 50-29=21*1.5=31.5

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True!

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Or in other words a FF defender will defend against mobs 48% better than a Controller. It used to be that was only true for minions, now it's true for all mobs.

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Sadly, arguable.

The problem comes from looking at various powers, and not an AT as a whole. A Defender can scrap on Maneuvers or GI and cap accuracy. That's as good as defense can get for them.

An Illusion/FF Controller, however, can use Group Invisibility, Grant Invisibility, Maneuvers, or some combination of stuff, and cap Defense w/ just a minor teamate's defense power like Combat Jumping. (Let's not even get into Spectral Terror, which allows accuracy to be floored regardless. Just looking at buffs here.) They can reach 40% Defense pretty easily.

It's harder for an Illusion controller to do, admittedly, and takes more powers and more time. But the net effect is that Illusion/FF provides as much defense as FF/Dark.

So why play a FF Defender? Before we even get into how much buttar a Controller kicks in non-FF ways, things look grim for a Defender. Except for the buffs, the FF powers work the same or worse for the Defender than the Controller. Your damage is arguably inferior (at best slightly better), you certainly don't get pets, you lack all/most of the Controller's status effects, and you can't take Indominitable Will in the 40's.

So there's a problem here. Controller secondaries probably can't be nerfed much, if at all, or they'd become worthless. Defender primaries can't be buffed much b/c it just doesn't matter. Adding 20% to FF's defense numbers just let's them avoid Manuevers to cap accuracy, hardly much of a benefit.

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Its too bad containment couldn't work like Hamidon resistances. The longer and stronger you're held, the lower your resistance to damage becomes, instead of just immediately getting double damage. That way, containment would be a bigger boost to solo controllers that have longer, more control-dominated fights, but be less of a factor in teams with faster, more damage and buff/debuff-dominated fights.

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OT -

This was one of about a gazillion suggestions Controllers made to replace Containment, which nobody really liked. Other good ones were adding a low DoT to all Controller mezzes and adding an "arrest timer" so that so many seconds of mezzing=arrest.

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However, I stand firm on the notion that when defenders get control-oriented powers, those powers should on average be less powerful than controller control powers, and controllers vice versa should have less effective buffing and debuffing, and I could care less whether they show up in a primary or secondary. My position is that whether a power shows up in a primary or secondary set is less important than which AT is wielding it.

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Then Defenders will always be worse than Controllers.

Look at Storm, for instance. A Defender two powers, O2 Boost and Steamy Mist, that are stronger than a Controller version of the power all around.

Two powers, Hurricane and Freezing Rain, that have a debuff (-accuracy and -resistance) that are stronger for a Defender, and the rest are stronger for a controller, or the same. But let's say those are better for a Defender overall. It has two more powers that do damage, LS and Tornado. For mechanical reasons, even if they do more damage per tick for a Defender, both of those powers will do more damage overall for a Controller. They both have secondary effects that are stronger for a Controller. Let's say those are even, overall.

Then it has Gale, Snowstorm, and Thunderclap, that are stronger for a Controller.

A Controller has 3 powers from the Storm set that are stronger than a Defender version, 4 powers that overall roughly balance out (let's say, IMO 2 of those are better for Controllers), and 2 powers that are stronger for a Defender.

It's hard to look at that set and see how the Defender version is better than the Controller, let alone 25% better. If "control" aspects of powers are going to be stronger for a Controller, this set will never be significantly stronger, if it's stronger at all, for a Defender. It will make it virtually impossible to make many Defender sets equal to a Controller's version, since the buff/debuff powers would have to be enormously better - and incredibly unbalancing - to get the set 25% better as a whole.

I don't see how that can work.

Does anybody have a good reason to play a Defender now? Anybody?

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Dark Defenders and Rad Defenders are better against AVs, but their debuff toggles are a PITA to use with teams who don't know what they are doing. A bubbler's bubbles are working whether you have an anchor or not.

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So the primary advantage of FF is that it works better with the unskilled and inexperienced? That's a fair tradeoff for Rad and Darks healing, offensive prowess, utility powers, and ability to protect themselves? Wow. Now that's a great way to sell a set....

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I think the most distressing thing we've learned here is that our Primary Power sets are not actually better for Defenders, even though we are the best at debuffing. That's because debuffing isn't really the mainstay of all of the power sets.

Even heavy debuffing sets have a fairly large amount of crowd controls that is equaled by anyone else using the power sets or is surpassed by Controllers.

With a (crippled) sub-par secondary damage and no defining "we really are best" at what we do, Defenders are the red-headed step-children of the CoX family.

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Which is the huge ol' problem for Defenders.

As of now, it's hard to see how any Defender debuff primary is better than a Controller secondary. A Controller's secondary mez effects are better, slows are better, and knockbak is equal. That leaves the accuracy/resistance/-accc/-resist debuffs, and the effective difference between the two is already negligible.

Defenders=Empaths. That's the CoH being presented.

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I grabbed a copy of the "Defender Issues" post a couple weeks ago and am working through it in my spare time. Considering the length of it, I will probably have gotten through it sometime in Janurary.

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Just a quick update: It's probably going to take longer than expected for this. I'm sorry, but things are busy, busy, busy here. I'm pretty much booked solid, but I'll find time to get through this as soon as I can.

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Cool, tx for looking into it.

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Here's a question for you, Futurias. Why are you engaging a +4 AV? I mean honestly, that doesn't happen much, and I don't know if I recommend anyone do much of anything to a +4 AV. I would say no one should be tossing effects on anything above, say, a +2 AV unless they are willing to risk getting seriously squished.

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It happens all the time IMX. I'm at -2 to the mission, at highest difficulty and 5+ teamates. +2 AV to the mission holder, +4 AV to me. If you fight on big teams, that happens a lot IMX. If you don't fight on big teams, or don't fight w/ mixed-level teams, it doesn't happen much at all.

But IMX the double-whammy of the purple patch starts hitting debuffers at +2.