Jade_Dragon

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I wonder what majicj thinks of the change to Repulsion Bomb?

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Actually, I believe she already pointed out that with knockback reduced to knockdown, you will be unable to get it back up to its original 10.something magnitude with slotting. So I'm sure she'll say that this has nerfed the power for her as a Controller.

I'm not sure the disorient is going away, though, so it may still set up Containment. As low a chance as that is.

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But I digress. The Defender AT needs two things: an across the board damage buff and a version of Vigilance that works for the soloist.

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Well, I would say that the damage buff needs to be dependent on the Primary, not across the board. For one thing, starting with Sets that don't HAVE one would be a good start...

(Going off the topic, but I wonder if it would be possible to have an Inherent that somehow adapted to the Primary. Like for instance if you have a lot of offense like Kin, it gives you defense, and obviously with FF it would boost your damage. Maybe base it on what kind of powers you use. Just a thought...)

You're on the money about what is needed for the soloist, though. The Endurance issue is really the same as the damage one. Defenders use so much Endurance because their attacks are so inefficient. Plus, they have to use damage boost powers on top of that, which uses up even more Endurance.

On the other hand, lots of Defender Primaries have either Endurance regeneration or a way to recover Endurance.

Really, the biggest issue with Defenders is that more than any other Archetype, it is dependent on its powers. It has damage buffs that can make it do Blaster-level damage, so it has to have low base damage. It has lots of powers that enable it to avoid attacks and reduce damage, so it is very robust. It has powers that increase its attack rate and recharge Endurance, so it has to have a high Endurance cost. In a way, it's like Masterminds, that have to have weak base abilities to compensate for their henchmen.

The problem comes when you are missing some of those tools. Either because they aren't available, or because you didn't pick up that power. I wouldn't begin to guess how horrid it would be trying to solo a D3 without Tar Patch. (or even without Tar Patch 3 slotted for recharge)

I'm not sure there's a way to fix that without dramatically changing the Archetype.

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What did Defenders get? Vigilance. Translation: nothing. Other than some minor additions and/or changes to a few powers here and there (not all good, mind you -- some would be classified as a nerf), Defenders got nothing.

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I do agree that Vigilance is not sufficient when compared to other Inherents. So in that sense, yes, Defenders have not been brought back up to the same level as other Archetypes.

However, I'm not sure that the Defender Inherent needs to boost their damage. The Tanker Inherent does not boost damage. (In fact, it's the only one that doesn't, other than Vigilance) There are those who claim that Gauntlet is useless, or not enough, but I feel that it DOES do the job that is set for it, considerably better than any other Archetype can. So while it may not do what we want it to do as an Inherent, it does seem to be up to a level with them.

Vigilance needs something, but I'm not sure what. And honestly, there are deeper issues with FF (and other sets) that an Inherent can't solve. We want an Inherent to reduce imbalance between Power Sets, not increase it.

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So, sure defenders 'can' solo. but it's no fun to me. I like playing defenders in teams. I do have some of that 'add scrapper soloer' mentality, that's why my first 50 was a kinetic defender - she speeds up entire teams' play so I could play at the speed I enjoyed.

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Well, you do have to build somewhat for soloing, you can't just take a Defender build for team support and go soloing on Unstoppable. Likewise, if you build for solo, you might not be as good at team support. There are advantages, of course, chances are if you're build for solo that means you have damage buffs, and those buffs will boost your team's damage too. But they might not have the defense they'd have otherwise.

Then again, that's true of any Archetype. You can build a Tanker or Controller that is more support oriented. You might be able to solo on occasion, but you can still run into situations where you need a team. Even a Blaster can run into that problem, and that's with an AT which really doesn't have an option for team support.

On the other hand, it can be a matter of experience. When you solo a Defender all the time, you learn what it takes to solo. Your fingers begin to react automatically to situations you're used to. I've had real problems recently because I've started teaming on a regular basis, and the truth is, I just don't have a lot of experience with that. I often find myself flailing because my response to certain situations isn't instinctive yet.

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I have said on a number of occasions that although I think it's possible for any Defender to solo, it's an unrewarding and unpleasant experience for most, and wasn't always like this. Some combinations of sets are better at it than others, but I still don't think any are all that good at it, at least not enough that I find it fun.

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I think this is the biggest issue, not that Defenders as an Archetype are unable to solo, but that specific POWER SETS are unable to solo. Or at least make it so tedious that it becomes a frustrating experience for the player.

By comparison, there are no Power Sets for Tankers or Scrappers that are unable to solo. They may have more or less capability than others, Regen may be considered uber, and SR somewhat slower to level, but your ability as a Scrapper is not that much changed by your Power Set. You can solo as a Scrapper because you are a Scrapper, not because you are a Regen Scrapper.

Likewise, when Controllers had trouble levelling to 32, prior to Containment, they ALL had trouble soloing to 32. No Power Sets specifically were easy to solo. Kin might have given you a bit of a boost, but with only weak attacks for Kin to boost, it wasn't really enough. You in essense had to build your Controller as something else, take attacks from the Power Pool and fight much like a Dominator, in order to solo. (And I can say this for sure because I did this)

Once Containment came out, it didn't give any specific advantage to any Power Set or another. Rad or Kin was the best choice for a soloing Controller, but Containment still provided the majority of the damage boost, and even an Earth/FF could solo. Maybe not well, but by using some of the tactics of the early days and picking up Pool attacks it could be done.

Now, Rad and Kin Defenders are NOT difficult to solo. I don't know where you could get such an impression, if that is in fact what you are saying. Dark can be somewhat slow, but I've soloed a D3, and I know it's possible. It's slow, but no slower than playing a Tanker. I've never played Storm, but my understanding is that it is VERY strong solo, possibly even stronger than it is on a team, because of the problems most teams have with knockback. Solo, you can use knockback to your heart's content, because the only person you have to make happy is you.

Trick Arrow, eh, if you want to call that hard to solo, then go ahead. I disagree, but then, I haven't gotten far enough to say one way or another. I suppose I don't have to have played Rad or Kin either, though, to believe those who say that they are extremely soloable. TA seems to have a reputation of being somewhat weak. But it did get a boost lately.

That leaves FF, Sonic, and Empathy. FF is what this thread is about. Sonic, IMO, is not really a soloable set, it has some strengths that FF doesn't, but it lacks some things FF gives you. My own experience found it tedious. I've never played Empathy, but my understanding of the set is that it's going to be fairly hard to solo. I've heard some people say they do very well with it, but they may be either overestimating the ease of it, or there could be something to do with the Endurance recovery powers which somehow compensates.

Now, I, personally, would like to see those three sets get buffs to make them more soloable. Maybe TA as well. But there are those who accept the role of those sets as "support only", including, according to some posts I've read, some of the devs. Maybe that'll change, and maybe it won't, but really, I feel that soloability should be based on Archetype, and not Power Set. All I can do is try and recommend changes based on that.

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What and the huh now? Defenders were the only ones not nerfed by i5 and i6.

This, really, is the reason that Defenders are the most powerful AT--they're still oldschool.

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Just to correct this statement, Defenders WERE nerfed by ED and the GDN. It just wasn't mentioned as upfront by the devs, so some folks may have missed it. All Defenders had their defensive buffs and debuffs cut by around half, though, just like everyone else. Force Field, of course, did get their Def cut in half. The debuff sets, I believe, got a smaller reduction, but they also got their Enhancements changed from the 100% schedule to the 60% one, so their slotted defense was reduced as well.

ED, of course, dropped the maximum for all powers from 6 Enhancements to 3 Enhancements. Buff and debuff powers were effected the same as everyone else.

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Yes, but nobody ever said that the Tier 9 power has to be the most powerful. Everybody just assumes that.

Just as an example, Foot Stomp is a very powerful attack, but going by Scrapper sets as a guide, you would find Knockout Blow in that slot.

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I'm not sure I understand your point. Foot Stomp get's its tier 9 status not because it does a lot of damage (it doesn't really), it's because it's the only AoE in the set, and is superior to powers like Whirling Hands in both damage, damage mitigation, and size of AoE.

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TAKING TIER 9s OF SCRAPPERS AS AN EXAMPLE, you would assume Knockout Blow would be the Tier 9. Obviously to a Tanker, an AoE attack doing massive damage and a strong status effect would be more useful for aggro management than a single target attack, and in fact that single target attack comes in MUCH handier coming earlier in the Tanker's progression, so he doesn't have to wait until level 38 to do reasonable ST damage.

For a Brute, however, who can pick up KO Blow at 8, the advantage of being able to get such a strong power early is obvious. Of course, the Brute must also wait until later to get Rage, so he won't get a damage boost until then. Either way, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that Foot Stomp is a better attack than KO Blow, or that given their choice, any Tanker or Brute would skip KO Blow and take Foot Stomp. So the "strongest" power in the set is not necessarily the tier 9.

Likewise, which is the better power, the old Moment of Glory (or even the new one) or Instant Healing? I'm just saying that you don't have to trade Force Bubble's place with some other power just because that power becomes "stronger" than it, or more like the click Tier 9s of other sets. Right now I think it can be argued that Dispersion Bubble is the major power in FF, not Force Bubble.

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They are? I just need more sleep then. :P Didn't see anything about the Shields suggestions so wasn't sure. (the defender able to use them on themselves, but PFF cancelling it) Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]Hi willnova. As PK said, that most likely wouldn't happen, especially since it's impossible using this engine to target yourself. But a suggestion has been entered to swap the +DEF values on Dispersion and the targetted bubbles, resulting in more DEF for the Defender, maintaining the value provided to a teammate within Dispersion, but lowering the value provided to a teammate outside of Dispersion. I think that suggestion is one you might agree with.

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My suggestion would be to introduce the extra +Def somewhere else. Or even in Dispersion Bubble. Just have the caster stack an extra 10% Defense or so on himself. There are other places it could be put, maybe making it a durational thing based on a click, but the idea is just to boost defense a but to duplicate the Deflection/Insulation shields.

I don't think it would make the FF Defender a "tank mage" in that there is already plenty of defense that a Dark or Rad Defender can provide for himself. In fact, the FF tendency to pick up Aid Self and Aid Other probably adds just enough damage mitigation to compensate for the lower defense. Aid Other is more of a backup for emergencies, while Aid Self is a major defense. Such a defense wouldn't be needed if the FF's personal defense was more balanced. (The same goes for any Pool power, such as Tough or Weave)

The FF's damage is already lower than any other Defender in the game, and I can tell you from experience, his defense is anything but tank mage level. And the defense does not have to be the full 15% of an Insulation or Deflection Shield, it can be 10%, as I suggested, or 7.5%, as long as it reduces the gap between the protection of Dispersion alone, and the protection of Dispersion plus the bubbles.

My own personal, preference, though, would be to get more damage. I think that I wouldn't need the protection if I had more of a balance towards offense, instead of defense. More defense WOULD help Defenders survive better in groups, though, which would likely help them more in the long run.

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FF has always been a better secondary than a primary. It's no coincidence that it didn't make it into CoV as a primary; they've learned that the current set isn't appropriate as a primary.

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Not for nothing, but no Buff-Debuff set made it into CoV as a Primary. Corruptors have Buff-Debuff Secondaries.

I believe you do have a point, though, that Corruptors don't have access to FF. I think this proves, more than anything else, that FF is not an appropriate set for a offensively oriented ranged character, and the devs are aware of this.

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And even if that is the case, then why make Force Bubble a Tier 9 power? Why not make it more of a toggle buff, and move it down, and make some other short duration click power your Tier 9?

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Because they will NEVER move powers around in established sets, nor change the core function of a power. This is A#1 taboo, as stated recently by Castle. So for now till the end of days, Force Bubble will be FFs tier 9, and it will always be some kind of AoE repel power. Any changes have to be made within that framework.

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Yes, but nobody ever said that the Tier 9 power has to be the most powerful. Everybody just assumes that.

Just as an example, Foot Stomp is a very powerful attack, but going by Scrapper sets as a guide, you would find Knockout Blow in that slot.

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[Repulsion Bomb] is for all intents and purposes a ranged version of Super Strength/Hand Clap. And when was the last time you saw a competent tank use THAT power?

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Very good point. And notice how much issue there is with the Thugs Bruiser continually using that power. Yet I consider it very unlikely the devs would make Hand Clap a knockdown power, because by dropping all the foes right at the Tanker's feet, you set up the potential for chained knockdown. The devs assumed it would be useful to knock foes away from you, but underestimated the impact of having to chase them down again and reestablish aggro, and aura powers such as Invincibility and Rise to the Challenge.

It's a Catch-22. You can't knock them down without making it too powerful, and can't knock them away without making it too weak.

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But that's exactly what they DON'T want us doing -- hiding in PFF with all our other toggles running, dropping it every 4 minutes to refresh teammate bubbles. It's the same reason they made drastic changes to the MM version of PFF, like the super long recharge and inability to control your pets.

I think you've got one of two options with PFF -- either leave it the way it is or drop the defense to Deflection/Insulation Shield levels and let you attack normally.

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Yeah, but therein lies the rub. PFF has a huge penalty that Controllers and Masterminds can get around. The devs can nerf it in individual Power Sets if they want, but that doesn't change the fact that Controller and Mastermind pets can attack through PFF, when Defenders, for the most part, do not have that capability.

In order to equalize that imbalance, you've got to either assume the protection is emergency only, on the part of the Defender, or as you said, completely change PFFs defensive capability and purpose. Which, while it will certainly help the FF Defender solo, it will probably interfere with Blasters or Controllers that use the power for its stated purpose of staying alive when HP hits the red. And eliminate that use of it for Defenders as well.

It's almost like FF needs two defensive powers, once that can be used normally, as a weaker version of Insulation/Deflection, and one that is still available for the emergencies. Making PFF do both is nearly impossible, and from the changes it went through during Beta, I feel the devs have already done their best to try and make it both.

Ultimately, I have turned my attention elsewhere. I just haven't abandoned the suggestion or the possibilities that it represents.

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So we do about half the damage of Blasters due to Defiance (even though it's supposed to be 65%), and Controllers who share our powers only get the lower % they're supposed to on non-mez effects.

Wow... and the devs see absolutely nothing wrong with this double standard? No wonder why so many people (myself included) have virtually given up playing Defenders. Why would you play an AT when other ATs can do nearly everything you do significantly better, not to mention a crapload of things you can only DREAM of being able to do.

JUST...NOT...RIGHT...

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Well, keep in mind that you're comparing three things here. You're comparing Defenders to Blasters, Controllers to Defenders, and Blasters to Controllers. Each of these, in theory, specializes in one of three areas, damage, defense, and control. Blasters are supposed to be good at damage, not so good at defense, but still have some control. Controllers are supposed to be good at control, not so good at damage, but still have some defense. And Defenders are supposed to be good at defense, not quite so good at control, but at least have some damage.

The problem is that for most Defenders, you're talking about damage that can be boosted by their Primary. So rather than doing 65% damage, or 50% of a Blaster's damage, they can do like 85% of the base modifier, or (surprise, suprise...) 75% of a Blaster's damage. FF doesn't get that option. But for those that do, they're doing 75% of a Blaster's damage, when a Blaster doesn't have anywhere NEAR 75% of a Defender's defense. (maybe a solo FF Defender's defense, but not a Rad Defender's defense)

The problem is, that while a Defender can use his buffs to increase his damage, a Controller can, too. And Controllers have Containment, as well. Really, Controllers needed containment, you need damage to be able to solo. But it messed up the balance. Controllers now have okay damage, okay defense, and really good control. There's no longer a big gap between the damage a Defender can do, and what a Controller can do.

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There is a certain amount of logic here tho. Most Defender tier 9 powers are short-duration, long recharge click powers, making them "situational" by that nature.

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Well, I think the point is that while there are some more "click based" Tier 9s, there are also some that are much more generally useful. Dark Servant, for instance, while it may be a click power and may have a long recharge, I don't think you can say that the Dark Servant is a short duration effect to be used situationally. And even powers like Adrenaline Boost and Fulcrum Shift you are very likely going to want to use them as soon as they become available, you won't be standing around waiting for an emergency before you try to use it.

And even if that is the case, then why make Force Bubble a Tier 9 power? Why not make it more of a toggle buff, and move it down, and make some other short duration click power your Tier 9?

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Datamining probably shows that the set performs well compared to other sets for all ATs that can take it, and therefore doesn't need any adjustments. Unfortunately datamining can't tell Castle just how boring the set is to play. And I fear no matter how often we tell him, it's not gonna make a difference.

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Well, there is datamining that can demonstrate that there is a problem, even if the performance of the set seems up to par. First of all, there is the number of characters of that power set available. Whether or not Force Field performs great or not really isn't important if teams can't find FFers because no one is playing them. Plus, it should be extremely easy to determine if a character levels extremely slowly solo when compared to on a team. That should be a warning flag, or if it isn't, the devs should change their attitude so that it is considered one.

If players are getting frustrated with Force Fields and this is having an effect on the game, then that should be verifiable by datamining.

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Let's try that logic with PFF: Tenebrous Tentacles on a large spawn, pull aggro, turn on PFF, get wailed on by a bunch of +2's for ten seconds before anything happens. NOT COOL.

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Hey, you already have to deal with that with stealth powers. It's not a big deal, it just requires thinking ahead. If you want PFF to go up, then you make sure you aren't attacked for ten seconds. Of course, that makes it less useful for "turtling up" so you can play psuedo-Tanker for the team, but that's sort of the point. Instead of using the power to do something your Archetype is not really designed for in emergencies, you can use it to protect yourself considerably better the rest of the time.

This is not to say that I support making PFF a suppressable defense power, but you're ignoring what you could gain because of what you don't want to lose.

Personally, I would rather PFF allow me to defend my team with it up, even if I can't shoot anything. If it suppressed when I fired, but allowed me to use Dispersion Bubble even with it up, I'd certainly spend a great deal of time with it at full strength.

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Unfortunately this also creates an unwanted side effect that you're ignoring. [...] Repulsion Bomb has a KB MAG value of 10.386%. Your suggestion lowers that MAG value to something like 0.5 (same as Ice Slick). No amount of KB enhancements is going to bring the MAG value back up to 10.386%.

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I'm not ignoring the effect, but I am saying that in the absense of a power that lets you reduce knockback, if you want knockdown, you have to start with it. And I think it can be argued that more people think Ice Slick is a useful power than Repulsion Bomb. This change may make Repulsion Bomb less useful against Bosses and AVs, but it would be more useful against Minions, and since the power is not single target anyway, you could say that that is its purpose.

But what about a power that, instead of subtracting from Knockback magnitude, reduces its magnitude to something like 10%? This would not have the problem of lowering Knockback below zero, since it is a percentage of the Knockback and not a constant. And if you apply it AFTER the resistances of the target, then a Boss or AV could still be effected by the knockdown, but be knocked down instead of knocked back.

It would require adding a new calculation to the game, which probably means changing the game engine, but it would solve the issue you refer to, which is that knockdown powers, however slotted, can't generate enough magnitude to effect resistant foes.

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Not picking a fight with you but this inspired me to look at all the Tier 9 'situational' defender powers as the Devs call them:

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It's not my terminology, it's the devs that have said that the FF knockback powers are "situational", and they prefer them that way.

It seems to me as well that other Defenders have Tier 9 powers that are more generally useful. Without being limited to an indoor mission with lots of corners in it. (And PvP means nothing to me)

Let me put it this way, is there ANY reason that you can think of to have your Force Bubble up constantly? Is there any reason you can think of NOT to have Dark Servant up as often as possible? Can you think of any reason not to fire off EMP Pulse? (Other than the number of foes would be too small to merit it)

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But what WE think MIGHT make it happen. Remember, it's a whole new ballgame now, anything is POSSIBLE because of the sole ownership of the game now and the new resources.

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Well, certainly we want to do our best to make the devs reconsider their position on whether certain Force Field powers should be situational, or more generally useable. That's why I agree with you, the main problem with many Knockback powers is they do not demonstrate the behavior that they were originally designed to emulate. They are both more disruptive than the devs originally intended, and more able to cause permanent disabling of a foe through chained knockback.

I think the devs are aware of that, they just don't know how to resolve it. I'm not sure that I do, either. Hopefully by talking about it we can get a new perspective on the issue, though, and perhaps make the consequences of allowing more chained knockback seem more acceptable.

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That and Emmert's gone. I think he was the #1 thing in the way of giving FF any love.

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I wish I could believe that. Unfortunately, Statesman was not the only dev to comment on Force Fields.

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Only being able to use it every 2 or 3 minutes is a negative consequence that I think we all could live with to have this functionality... wouldn't you agree?

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That's just what I mean. That's obviously not enough for the devs. They require that you have to disrupt your meleeing allies and position yourself for the least amount of negative effect for you to be able to use it.

Obviously we would like it better if Repulsion Bomb, Force Bubble and so on were more consistently useful, and not situational. And yet every time we've brought it up the devs have insisted that they prefer the powers as situational. What I would think of the change isn't going to make it happen.

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Knock down is turned into KB quite easily by using KB enhancements. Lowering the mag of Repulsion Bomb's KB actually /increases/ the power's utility by letting players slot (or not, as the case may be) in order to achieve the desired effect.

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QFT

I would love it if they just made a blanket change to the set and turned down ALL the KB numbers by default to just under 1 so that they are all KD by default. Then guess what? You slot in one KB enhancement or not, and it acts like a "switch" that turns it into knockback or not.

I REALLY think that this idea more than anything would make the set infinitely more playable to the average player.

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QQFTFT

"Anti-knockback" apparently isn't an option since it equates to giving knockback resistance to your foes. However, simply not doing knockback in the first place and doing knockdown instead gives you the option to do knockback if you want.

I can only assume that the devs have given this capability to meleers but not to Force Field because it is simply TOO powerful, and would make FF's knockback powers TOO useful. Repulsion Bomb particularly. They would rather add a slight chance of disorient and some damage than make the power able to reliably disable all foes with no negative consequences.

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But this same reasoning can also be used with Blasters too. Fire/Fire Blasters are notorious for their damage output, whereas Assault Rifle/Devices are notorious for their lack of overall damage. So when trying to balance Blasters, do you factor in Build Up? Aim? BU + Aim? What about those Blasters that don't get BU? Or those that don't take it?

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Actually, the comparison that you make here is a very applicable one to FF's problems. Assault Rifle is the only Blaster Primary that does not get Aim. And Devices is the only Blaster Secondary that does not get Build Up. And those are not even significant damage boosts over the duration of an entire fight, I think it was calculated that this was a 10-12% boost to overall DPS, when applied to fully slotted attacks. A Rad Defender is able to get at least a 30% damage boost through most of the duration of a combat, more than likely even more since he can stack AM's damage boost on top of EF's resistance debuff.

I would actually compare it more to a Tanker or Scrapper's status protection powers. Defense sets have status protection powers because meleers are more likely to be attacked, and they need to keep their toggles up in order to survive melee damage. They aren't given a base 30% or 75% more resistance to damage just for being meleers, they need powers to give them that defense. If you were to take a defensive power providing about 30% of a Tanker or Scrapper's power away from him, or take away the status protection power, no one would say, "Well, Tankers are broken, because they don't have enough innate defense". They would obviously point out that that particular Tanker has 30% less damage mitigation than the other sets. (Or loses his toggles all the time, which is definately losing more than 30% of his damage mitigation)

Likewise, if someone were to take a Blaster's Burst or melee attacks away, and replace it with an ally targetted support powers, that set would rightly be called "broken". Blasters are balanced with having the ability to do a certain amount of damage in mind, and if you take that ability away, you break the balance.

And considering that this is ONE set that is causing all the trouble, it's rational to conclude that it is the set that is the cause of the problem. Because this isn't a game about base stats, this is a game about Powers.

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I've always thought the exact opposite. I picture force fields as being very solid; as solid as a steel wall would feel.

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I personally think of Jade Dragon's power (my main FF Defender) as being very "soft". Rather than making bubbles around people, he instead has a field of vaporous energy that he can expand into a cloud. Which is why I never took the ally bubbles until I was well into my 30s. Not just because I was always solo, but also because I saw his force fields as being "diffuse".

I'm the exception, though, not the rule. When I think of Force Fields in general, I think of "walls" of energy. They don't gently push you out of them, it's like hitting a steel wall. Or that's the concept, at least. They can't really be that solid, you can attack through them. (Maybe they open up "windows" to let punches or shots out, but not to let them in)

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This is why I see a disorient effect as being in-line with Force Bolt; a bolt of force, projected at high speesd would easily disorient you if the bolt was solid enough.

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Being hit in the head with a sphere or cylinder of force as hard as steel would definately daze you.

I see the disorient as being more getting knocked around and not quite knowing where you are. You take a second to get back your bearings.

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Force Fields are not hard, in fact, they are more like a pushing force. As a reference, you can see that from the Fantastic Four movies, where the Invisible Girl (I don't know if that's her name, we get a dubbed version here :P) has force fields. They seem mostly to push things away, rather than "knocking" them away (as in, hard-hitting them). There might be other references, but that's the only one I can think of at the moment.

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Well, when Invisible Girl (yes, that's right ) uses her force fields, there can be situations, according to the plot, that give her a big advantage in doing that. For instance, she can slam a foe into a wall and knock him down. Or, she can "fold" her force field around someone and pick them up and fling them. Or, contain someone so they can't get away. She doesn't have to always cause the person to be knocked in a trajectory of an arc away from her person, she can push or hold objects in any number of ways to manipulate them.

In a video game, though, a power can only do what you program it to do. And in this game, Knockback is programmed to cause your foe to fly away from you. While this is useful for a ranged fighter, who might want his foe further away, it's an annoyance to a meleer. When Invisible Girl constrains a foe and knocks him into The Thing so he can clobber him, that's a good thing, but if she knocked the foe out of his range so The Thing had to keep running after him that would be bad.

The problem is that you can't control the distance or direction of the knockback. If Super Strength was real, you know that you could just punch somebody to cause him damage, without causing him to fly away from you with every punch. You just wouldn't punch that hard. Yet, if you wanted to, if you needed to, you could punch him into the nearby building. In this game, you can't control it to that degree, either an attack will cause knockdown, at which time it won't do knockback, or it will do knockback, at which time it can't just knock the guy down where he is.

Disorient was an attempt to add another effect to Repulsion Bomb to make it more useful. First of all, in its original design if it was used on a meleer with Invincibility, it could cause him to lose all of his defense because that depends on the number of foes in range. It could also cause him to lose aggro, resulting in the foe charging at weaker teammates. This was so disruptive to a battle that many FFers wouldn't even use the power. At least now with a Disorient there is a chance the foes will stagger around until the Tanker can gather them up again. (And you don't have to fire it at an ally, you can just use it as a regular AoE knockback)

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Based on the short in-game description, the EXPECTATION I had for [Force Bubble] was that it would push enemies away from me (as it does), and that it would continually knock them down along that perimiter -- similar to how ice slick knocks foes down. Instead, it just pushes them back and let's them all kill me!

Clearly the power is supposed to have a knock down component to it. Right now it appears to knock down enemies once every minute or two (I stood among a group of level 20 enemies for a while). It should CONTINUALLY knock them down.

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The problem with Force Bubble is that it pretty much nullifies itself. It is only possible to put a debuff on a foe that is WITHIN the area of effect of a power. But Force Bubble's sole purpose is to push foes OUT of its area of effect. Once they are out of the area of effect, they aren't effected by it any more and thus can stand up and shoot at you. (Which they will, since they will have gained a huge amount of aggro from you)

At one time, Force Bubble had a -Acc component associated with it. Most people believe this was removed because it made it too hard for foes to hit you, it was too overpowered with FF's Defense. However, it's my believe that the effect was removed because it never worked, foes that entered the field and got the -Acc applied to them were flung out, and the -Acc immediately wore off.

The only way people who support Force Bubble and encourage its use are able to use it to keep foes down is by taking advantage of terrain features. They trap the foe in a corner or against a wall and then move forward so their Force Bubble continually tries to shove them into the wall. The foe is continually knocked off his feet and is unable to fight back.

Truthfully, Force Bubble IS useful when you use it that way. The problem is that it's situation, you must either wait for a wall or corner in a mission that you can use in this way, or actively seek out such terrain. In other words, you seek out missions that have walls, and attempt to herd your opponents so they can be trapped against walls.

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This is a cottage change. It's also giving a pet to a non-pet AT.

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Note that this "non pet AT" can have Dark Servant, Tornado, Lightning Storm, and even Voltaic Sentinel. This is not to say that I think FF needs a pet, but there are definately Defenders that DO have pets.

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Dispersion Bubble -> Personal Force Field
Creates a PBAoE effect the size of Dispersion Bubble. Everyone within this effect is enclosed inside a Personal Force Field. Duration is 15 seconds.

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You know, this is actually not a bad idea. One issue with PFF is that in order to use it, you have to "abandon" your allies, who can no longer be protected by Dispersion Bubble. In this case, they would all be given a 15 second PFF of their own which they can use to retreat or help you to recover.

The only problem I see is that some players might not want to suddenly find themselves unable to attack.

Overall, this is a pretty clever way of adding some new functionality to an old set. Maybe not those specific examples, but definately it's an interesting idea.