Lakanna

The buffs for snipes is a buff to all versions of the snipes, and as Oathbound says, it actually benefits Corruptors and Defenders more than Blasters. I -think- the minimum range change is the same, and is a wash for bringing blasters more in line with other AT's. It should certainly raise the baseline, but it does nothing to close the gap.

The survivability changes are gonig to have to be tested. My gut tells me that adding +regen and +recovery aren't going to be enough when a boss can easily hit for half a Blasters max HP. The Absorb may or may not be better, but I still have the feeling that without a reliable way to break mez, blasters are still going to be face-to-floor far more often than anyone else.

Congrats, this is probably what happened. Like you, I've been on the other end of this often enough to double-check my bids now. Never been on the receiving end of this, though.

That sounds interesting. Can't wait until this actually comes about and I can go back to ignoring the market as a necessary evil.

Agreed here. My brute also uses a high-recharging shadow punch with proc to deal most of his damage. A change from static proc chance to PPM pretty much invalidates builds meant for high recharge + procs. It would require a complete overhaul of any character built to take advantage of what WAS a perfectly valid option.

Not surprising on the effectiveness. I run Earth/Rad Controllers on Infinity and am levelling another on Freedom. I ignored the advice t not take Choking Cloud, and between CC and VG, each with the Lockdwn proc, her single-target holds, Stalagmites, Stoney throwing his hold, and Earthquake, nothing gets to fight back. She doesn't do a lot of damage on her own, but she has "team support" in excess.

Because farming toons are, by definition, very limited ni scope. Nobody farms 5 different maps with 5 different enemy groups. A farm is almost by definition a very specific map. In order to figure out who the "best" farming toon is, you need to also specify what they're farming.


Incidently, I farm the fab and AE missions with my dark/dark/energy brute. AoE is a bit weak, but he can survive almost anything. And what he doesn't survive, gets hit with a mag 30 stun when he stands back up.

Scrappers do perform well on teams, just not every team. Blasters may have higher damage, but most of them aren't going to be in the middle of the fight when fulcrum shift goes off. Blasters make rather bad targets for the AoE sonic debuff, while scrappers and tanks are perfect. And I brought up the stacking buffs and debuffs just because of that argument. It's a bad mechanic, the devs are aware it's a bad mechanic. You really can't use it to keep another bad mechanic in the game.

I honestly think of mez as the sapper problem. Way back when, sappers weren't limited to one per spawn solo. It used to be possible to run into a spawn of 3 minion-level sappers in a malta mission. Which meant that, no matter how well you played, no matter how perfect your strategy, you were rolling dice and seeing if you won. If they hit you, you got to do, well, absolutely nothing. No END means no toggles, no offense, and no way to get away. It really wasn't fun: it was doable with certain builds, but massive END drain has been dialed back because it's frustrating and unfun. No more multiple sapper spawns.

Now, with the situation above, everyone got to experience the frustration equally: scrappers and tankers were just as prone to it as squishies. I understand that mez is a weakness for squishies, and supposed to give them a challenge. But it's a huge, glaring weakness. It isn't Kryptonite, which pops up once in a while, it's being deathly allergic to water: common, debilitating, and not very much fun to deal with every single second.

Given that they are played by a decent player who knows the AT and uses all the tools at their disposal? I think it should be fairly close, yes. I don't think that certain AT's should be able to completely ignore mez, while it cripples another.

Mez protection isn't an I win button, and anyone who says it is is just as guilty of exaggeration as anyone else. Mez effects in this game are a terrible mechanic: taking something out of the fight completely for a length of time. Controllers and Dominators both have primary control sets, and both have serious contenders for strongest all-around builds. When used against players, mez is just as absurd. Melee types get a free pass, though. That doesn't make mez effects less important, just means that the characters who already have low personal mitigation, can have their ability to fight or run cut off arbitrarily.

As for the team of 8, that isn't mez protection, it's buff/debuff. Which the devs have mentioned as a bad mechanic, and one that isn't going to be changed anytime soon. SHOULD stacking buffs and debuffs be changed? Probably. WILL it? Probably not soon.

What happens if the devs tomorrow figure out a way to change buffs and debuffs to not stack to absurd levels? Will that team of 8 defenders still be able to tear through content? Stacking buffs and debuffs are an aberration. I wish I could find that post with a redname saying so.

But yes. I think that baseline, a well-built character using all the powers at their disposal should have roughly the same performance at SO level. And I think tht when comparing 2 different characters, both fully IO'd out, they should still deliver similar performance. Mez protection for every AT, be it buyable as a power or as an IO, would help to narrow the gap, for a small opportunity cost or powers or slots. (That's what I'd be willing to give up, same as certain melee sets need to use a slot or power picks to gain KB protection- the choice between picking up that power/ IO slot or picking something else.)

Which is both hilarious and terrible. I'd +rep you again if I could, and I'm seriously thinking about moving my plant/rad to your server and finding you for a Posi run. I actually got a -rep for "cares about rep." Irony, meet hilarity.

If you think that low-grade mez protection is an "I win button" then you aren't going to understand. It isn't an "I win" for scrappers, it isn't an "I win" for tankers, it isn't an "I win" for VEATs, and it isn't an "I win" for defenders.

Understand now?

Challenge is fun and good. Being unable to react to a situation because of a bad random roll is not. Imagine if melee characters had no immobilize protection. Not stuns and holds, just immobilize. Then imagine that the enemy AI was designed to immobilize and kite. Frustrating, huh? There's a difference between "challenging" and "cheap."

Tsoo Ink men in a pack of 3? Even better, 2 ink men and a sorceror/spirit? Sappers? (remember when they weren't limited to 1 per spawn? Got changed because, surprise, people hated being out of END- unable to play their characters...)

Mostly agreed. The game isn't hard. It's even easier if you're playing an AT with defense, offense, and mez protection. Take any of those away, and it doesn't make things harder, just slows things down. Without defense, you're succeptible to being defeated a lot. Without offense, you advance glacially slow.

And without mez protection, you get annoyed. A lot. And it gets you defeated if you don't have the crutch the devs provided instead of actually fixing mez to make it less ridiculously broken (and yes, it's broken both ways - remember, nobody likes fighting statues, and nobody likes BEING statues.)

And edited to add: Thanks for the -rep and the absurd comment about mez protection being an "I win" button, to whomever anonymous sent it.

Only in specific cases. A tanker, IO'd or not, is likely not going to be able to solo the ITF: not enough damage. A fire blaster has the damage, and IO's give them the ranged defense to be able to avoid the worst of the hits. An ice blaster would likely not be able to do it even with IOs. AR or archery are questionable, but I think doable.

And as for not knowing how the game works, the point I've been trying to make all through this thread (and I did read it all, thanks) is that grouped, not having mez protection isn't a big deal most of the time. A few points would go a long way towards letting blasters and defenders do THEIR jobs, though. My main concern is soloing, where mez protection is literally the difference between living and dying in far too many cases.

Break Frees are wonderful things, but they are a fix, not a solution. Defeating mezzers first is a solution, but an incomplete one in many cases: a miss, and you're in trouble. In fact, anything other than perfect, instant first-strike capability means trouble. If they have a chance to hit back, mez is often the first thing they use in return. When a spawn contains 2 mezzers, then you are forced to rely on the RNG for survival. Will it hit me? Will it mez me? Will they kill me while I stand around unable to act?

A single mez is an annoyance. A single mezzer is an annoyance. Mezzers in every spawn, each of which must be dealt with first, and have to be taken out perfectly, is frustrating. Sooner or later, you will miss. Then, they take away your ability to play the game and curb-stomp you. I like challenge, I enjoy it, but that isn't challenging: it's win or lose on a random roll of the dice.

And what happens when the melees fail at their "job" of keeping aggro? Who dies first?

Scrappers, brutes, tankers, MM's, controllers all have the tools to be completely self-sufficient. They can control a solo fight and/or have the survivability to take a few hits. Blasters, defenders, and corruptors don't have the tools to deal with mez whatsoever, with ice blast being the obvious outlier.

So how, really, is it different in melee or ranged? There are still plenty of ranged mez attacks from enemies, and they still completely take a character out of the fight. It isn't a one-shot kill, but for however long the mez lasts, that character is not contributing to a team. If solo, they can't defend themselves or fight back. (blasters get their tier 1 and tier 2 attacks- better than nothing, but not enough when you're already being overpowered.)

Squishies want mez protection for the exact same reasons its invaluable to melee characters. Solo, the "job" of both is exactly the same: defeat the enemies before they defeat you. Melee characters can do this easily. Squishies have the deck stacked against them with significantly less survivability to begin with. Lack of mez protection was always a bad idea considering the frequency and power of mez effects in this game, especially at 30+.

They COULD do this, but you're right: it would simply be cosmetic.

More and better INF sinks would help, as would cutting down INF rewards, including vendor prices for common IOs. This increases the value of INF somewhat, but I think that it won't work nearly fast enough: there's too much INF stockpiled across too many characters and servers. Any changes made to the INF supply would have to be massive in scope.

To drop the price once and for all, they could simply increase supply, which would cut intot he earning power of those that sell on the market (crafters, flippers, and everyone who puts their drops on the market.)

Mostly agreed. A tweak to team drop rates would have to be big enough to notice, but not big enough that it feels like a penalty for soloing. I advocated using the XP modifier for team drop rates as well: on an 8-person team, the drop rate would be 2.5x what it would be soloing, and then those drops get split among all team members. I -think- this would be a good number: high enough to notice, but still far lower than a solo players drops.

Also, with the new difficulty settings, sol is generally faster XP and INF as well. The only time teaming has a real advantage in tangible rewards is doing TF's for merits. The merits are he reward, and I see teams all the time wanting to do a "quick TF" where INF, XP, and drops are all just bonus. People are speeding through the TF, getting their merits as fast as possible, then going back to more rewarding solo content. I don't know if there's anything wrong with that, but it's certainly a noticeable way that things have changed.

Seems to me that people don't just form teams as much anymore. they form a team for a specific goal, and disband as soon as possible afterwards. Mostly. I know I personally solo most of the time, I join TF's once in a while, and run with a small group of friends. Runnign in a PUG can be fun and rewarding personally, but running solo is what you do if you want to see the rewards that make a difference in your character's performance.