Heraclea

I'm not a huge fan of the Medicine pool for tankers, although that's a matter of personal taste. But I think that running Tough and Weave on a WP tanker without Stamina already in place would mean sacrificing much of the point of choosing Willpower rather than some other primary. It would take a fairly costly IO build to be able to omit the Fitness pool, and that wasn't my assumption going in.

That would be ... a bit of an exaggeration.

I would definitely say that Scrappers are characters whose chief purpose is dealing damage. But, they cannot contribute at full potential to one of the more difficult archvillains faced on the task force. The encounter is specifically designed to create problems for melee characters. Most conventional scrapper builds are set up to do damage in melee range.

I think it follows logically from this that just about any other damage dealing character would be preferable to have on a team than a scrapper for that fight. Claiming that the scrapper could use a bunch of inspirations or use a temp power ranged attack instead of his or her primary .... well, I think that makes my point for me, although it's apparently now established fact that I don't know what I am talking about.

I also think that many other ATs are more versatile than scrappers or tankers. In some ways we are like the guy whose only tool in the toolbox is a hammer, so everything looks like a nail. Speaking broadly, we don't face complex issues as to which powers from our powerset work best on the next spawn, an issue even my electric/mental blaster has to consider from time to time. An enemy? Hit it with a melee attack. A mob paying attention to a character that's less tough than I am? Charge it. This is what makes me happy.

I'm not entirely unaware of the problems that the Romans pose to a controller, or the problem that a loose War Wolf poses for a blaster. Then again, that's what Taunt is for. The challenge I like is to shepherd more delicate characters through the content and bring them out of the cave and into the sunlight safe and sound. The challenge I don't like is anything that does not allow me to take that role.

If I am playing a tanker there's at least something I can do without being in melee range. On a scrapper, there is nothing. At least, no one here has been able to come up with any plausible suggestions, even if pointing this out is not taken well.

Bear in mind that not every player is even going to have access to a Nemesis staff. Again, what exactly is a scrapper to do in a situation where being in melee range is counterproductive? It seems blindingly obvious to me, even if it's not to anyone else, that in a situation like that any other teammate rather than a scrapper would be preferable.

The tanker secondaries with inferior taunts are Dark Melee, Electric, and Dual Blades. Taunt in these sets has a shorter duration and smaller magnitude than taunt in others; it's a bug. I have seen nothing that indicates that it's been fixed.

Still, if you do nothing but taunt Recluse, and at least while the first two towers are up there's little you can do other than taunt him, you should still get enough coverage to keep him taunted if no one else is attacking him, even with one of the affected sets.

I entirely agree. On the other hand, a WP/DB that tries to tank is going to want Tough and Weave before facing the level 45+ content. Something had to be postponed; I chose to postpone the attack that wasn't a part of any combo.

The alternative would be to swap it with Strength of Will. But I find that SoW is important for survival before Tough and Weave are in place.

Judging from the things my dad does to his sometimes, this would appear to be a quite justified fear. Then again, I told him he didn't want Vista.

50 years old here.

What I'm actually saying is that I am somewhat unsettled by the apparent trend to add more of this "challenging" material. My perception, which I gather is not universally shared, is that some of the material seems to be squeezing out the role of melee DPS on teams.

I don't want to face a situation where scrappers are only for soloing, more than one tanker is too many, and if you want to run team content you need to get on a defender, controller, or blaster. And I understand, at least in part, the issues that defenders, controllers, and blasters have with a lot of the content. Even my higher level defenders, controllers, or blasters have to be very, very careful about enemy group selection if they're going to try to solo. They rely heavily on stealth, and hope their endurance holds out to be able to defeat whatever it is they have to. "Defeat all" is their bane.

They don't earn tickets in the AE, and don't earn merits outside of task forces (which, I admit, is the most efficient way). I just don't enjoy playing them that much, not in comparison. At least the blasters can now do something now when they get mezzed, so they're probably not my least favorite AT. I must admit that I struggled mightily to come up with a controller I could stand playing.

If further "challenge" is added, I want it to be creative, and less obvious than "huge sack of hitpoints and regen, so bring a rad or go make a pot of coffee", "let's cut defense/regen/resistance to shreds", "let's force everyone to stay out of melee range", or "let's give it a PBAoE self heal".

This is one of the many advantages of combining Invuln with Dark Melee: you do get Dark Consumption.

That was my understanding of what the tradeoff is supposed to be, myself. The problem arises when mobs are designed to discourage attacking them in melee, or deny melee ATs the self-protection they are supposed to have. More of this than already exists would be undesirable.

Ah. I need to have a tanker that blasts, a scrapper that controls, and a blaster that tanks. Gotcha. I may need more than 36 character slots per server at this rate, though.

What shocks and astounds me is that although there seems to be at least some agreement with the premises that

• debuffs and buffs are extremely powerful,
• ranged damage has significant advantages over melee damage, and
• the more "challenging" enemies that have been put in the game so far strongly favor debuff or control, to the point that these things are required to succeed at them ---

the conclusion that the role of scrappers on teams is being squeezed out by these "challenges" is so hotly resisted. It seems to me to be a reasonable conclusion from those premises. Instead, I'm told that I don't know how to play the characters I like best, that I'm inflexible or hidebound.

You don't gotta. Just keep your eye on the original AV Aeon, and focus all attention entirely on him. Don't do anything that's going to scatter the EBs or make them move away from whoever's tanking Aeon. But target the one who spawned originally, and don't move from that target. When AV Aeon goes down, you win.

The thing I remember most vividly about the WoW loot treadmill was that a set of predictable minor nerfs would eventually be handed out a few weeks after a raid dungeon was introduced. The gear made you stronger; the nerfs put you back where you were before. It was a Red Queen's race with the devs.

True. And when those things drop, I will see if I already have the salvage, and if so make them off and slot them. But I don't really bother buying stuff for the defenders or controllers I have. The merits they make are spent on other characters. I don't fuss at making IO set builds for them. Mostly they are slotted with generic IOs made in the process of badging. This is what I meant.

This is their subsidy; they don't solo in AE either, so they have no tickets.

Blasters are an in between thing. I don't dislike playing them, but I don't solo them either. I do tend to think of team support when building a blaster; most have stealth of some sort and teleport friend.

I'm starting to think that buffs and debuffs ought to get their own equivalent of the GDN. The problem is that almost all the content seems to assume them, and everything takes five times too long in their absence, and some enemies are incredibly frustrating if not impossible. Dozens of encounters would require revision.

But this is the flip side of the same issue I was trying to raise here. I obviously did a poor job communicating.

While I have dutifully made those characters for the sake of the team, the power sets and builds don't really interest me. I played them, but they seem annoying or idle before you run into the next named boss, and it feels like they were powerlevelled regardless of how much they actually contribute in fact. They also sit at the bottom of the feed trough when set IOs are passed around.

I prefer to be a participant rather than a spectator. My purely subjective impression is that the game is developing a bias against characters with an active play style. Recluse, Ghost Widow, Romulus, Reichsman, Lord Winter .... I see a pattern here. I'm probably going to be told I'm hallucinating here again.

Lady Jane also brings to mind the Rolling Stones song of the same title. And Lady Grey also reminds me of the Grey Ladies, which are one of the commonest varieties of ghosts that inhabit a large number of haunted milieux in the British Isles, including Glamis Castle. One of the resident ghosts at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books is a Grey Lady; there are many others. White Ladies are also common, and appear in the USA as well; probably the most widespread White Lady ghost here is La Llorona.

My experience with gimmick fights in other games is that melee DPS classes tend to be disfavored by the gimmicks. As I noted, at least among people I play with regularly, scrappers are disfavored on the STF; buff, debuff, and ranged damage have priority. This may not be the case elsewhere. Fine.

This makes me concerned about the prospect of more such gimmicky content here, and hoping that nothing important is gated behind the gimmicks. I'm still wondering why these observations brought forth such a torrent of unpleasantness.

The Vanguard were just brought in as a further example. I suspect that the Vanguard content was simply not meant to be played by melee ATs.

I think I am coming around to support the Restructurists. That would be convenient.

I feel an AE story coming on .....

If you're asking me whether mez is overused in this game or not, you will get no argument from me. This is probably the chief reason why I prefer tankers and scrappers. I have far fewer blasters, controllers, or defenders, and since I find them frustrating to solo and less enjoyable to play in general, I don't try to solo them and don't build them to try.

I admit I was a bit surprised by the BotZ thread, that apparently people were trying to build squishies with range defense capped. I can see how that's a good idea, especially since mez is indeed annoying. I can only assume that they were using these as solo builds, and can see how their builds would be spoilt by that change. I do think that immunity should be available to all characters for other kinds besides knockback.

If some characters aren't as helpful as others, then .... those characters don't help as much? Are you with me so far?

And if certain characters don't help as much, then some other characters would help more? Are you following me this far?

When you decide to put together a team, which would you rather have on it: characters that help more, or characters that don't help as much?

Maybe, as soon as I get over being amazed at the ability of people to simultaneously

• maintain that all characters are potentially equally helpful on all content and will always find a place on teams looking to run it, while
• out of the other side of their mouths they acknowledge that at least one mission arc is designed to be deliberately hostile to some character classes.

I just don't see this going both ways. If there is content where some characters bring less to the table, and you like to play those characters, you won't get to play it on the characters you like all that much.

This concerns me, and I think it ought to concern you as well. And if that is an issue with character that is somehow important, unlocking accolades or further story lines, you will be left out. Just as I'm left out of Dark Watcher due to my distaste for the Gaussian arc, and get told to bring a blaster or debuffer if I want to get in on a STF on a scrapper.

Rather, logic tends to be inflexible.

Insult me if you feel the need to, but at least bother to include an explanation of how a tanker is supposed to contribute to a team's success here. Tell me how and why it's even desirable to have a tanker on a team running this. Explain how it's not the case that any other character would be helping more.

What this means to me is that there really isn't a purpose for having a tanker on the team if you want to run this content. The tanker is only there as a favor. The team would be better off if the tanker were replaced by another character who brings something that actually helps.

Q. E. D.