Lockdown

Having the same issue. Even deleted a character but that slot also was suddenly "Unavailable."

Always been my experience that there is a magnitude limit for Detention Field. It does not seem to work on Elite Bosses or even deep purple bosses. Its not an accuracy issue. I have the power slotted for accuracy and there is no report of the power missing in these circumstances.

So I agree with you -- up its magnitude a bit and it becomes very useful. I also am among those who think the graphic needs to be made more obvious. That's all I really want changed to the power myself.

"Fixing" FF is a difficult problem because its not exactly broken. I mean the big 3 powers are REALLY effective. The problem is that this makes fixing the set harder rather than easier.

Most of my list of changes (way back on page 1 I think) were more quality of life types of things. I almost prefer soloing my bubbler because then I can use all my powers. In a group, I really cant use half of them or at least not nearly as frequently or effectively. And suprisingly, she soloes okay -- just very very slowly.

[ QUOTE ]
I do think Defenders should get a slight boost to damage. But _that_ is genuinely not linked to FF.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this. I just view it as a problem independent from FF and thus not sure why its an argument against adjusting a few of the FF powers.

Even so, those changes would help FF defenders solo herd. But I am not sure many FF Defenders want that playstyle. All the group problems would remain. Plus you would have perhaps overpowered non FF defenders (though I am not sure thats the case --- but + damage might create some issues with certain debuffing sets). I keep coming back you your point of view is based on a a solo herding playstyle that is not shared with the majority of the posters here as far as I can tell.

It seems that Magicj's perspective is based on what appears (and this is just an appearance - I have no idea) to be a playstyle that focusses on FF as a controller secondary, who solos, and who likes to herd. For example, in your video you tout the purpose of Force Bubble is for gaining aggro on you when you herd. I am not sure that most defenders would see that as its main virtue though they might agree that it serves that function. Similarly, your video indicates that the two personal bubbles are not that important though, in context, you might have just meant that they are not important for herding. Certainly, they are cornerstone powers for most defenders.

The problem is that a lot of the powers that are good for solo herding (if you have the mind primary to handle the herd once they are gathered) are not good for defenders in groups and, further, defenders are not really capable of herding like that. So we get all the faults of the set and few of the corresponding benefits. First, most of those same powers create problems in groups due to scatter and disruption of your teammates powers (most of which rely on clumping). Second, while a FF defender could gather the herd, we do not have the tools to deal with it once gathered and thus the herding techniques just aren't that useful to a solo defender in the same way they are to a mind/ff controller. Third, I believe that Defenders on average like to team. Not exclusively mind you but as a general statement they want to be able to both solo and team effectively. Heck, 2 of the "big 3" powers cant even be used when solo.

Given that its a Defender primary and a controller secondary, I believe that FF ought to work at least as well for defenders as it does for controllers. If that cuts somewhat into the ability for mind/ff heros to solo herd maps, thats unfortunate but I am not sure it ought to prevent some changes.

I want to add that I really enjoyed watching the video and seeing you at work. You have obviously developed some good and fun strategies for your character and I can see why you view FF as mostly fine. However, even you seem to have found the situation quite different when you played your defender.

[ QUOTE ]

Poor argument. If they can already complete missions on Invincible without suffering any defeats, it doesn't matter WHAT they add; they will still do just fine.

Don't read into this that I think FF is fine as is; just that particular line of reasoning always bugs me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for taking a look at this thread. I think the point of that argument was not that FF was any worse than other Defender set in adding survivability to a group that needed no more but rather that most (all really) of the other defender sets could increase the speed of arrests. In other words, all the other sets offer a tangible benefit other than increased survivability for the team. FF does not do this really and seems to be alone in this respect.

[ QUOTE ]
The only one I disagree with is this:


And I'll give you the simple answer. If they were to decrease the size, enemies could EASILY "push" into the field, so it might as well not be there. Use it a few times in your own missions and you'll see what they did there. The power of the Repel effect with the SPECIFIC diameter that they put into the power means that JUST as an enemy gets close enough to you to do one attack, they get pushed back. If you decrease the size, they can get in left and right and the Bubble might as well not be there.

I know it's a really popular suggestion to decrease the size, but I don't think it's practical. I think it would actually "gimp" the power. Now if there was some way that they could increase the power of the Repel effect so that enemies COULDN'T "push" in as easily, then we might be able to make it smaller, but I just honestly don't know how hard that would be to do, if it even was possible.

I love all the other ideas though.

[/ QUOTE ]

If this is the case (and I can see that it might be) I guess I would suggest either increasing the "magnitude" (if thats the right term) of the repel or perhaps adding a slow component to achieve much the same effect. Either should allow for a more managably sized bubble. And if there are a few super fast or super repel resistant mobs that can get through -- well no power is useful against everything all the time. I truly believe a smaller bubble would be more useful though I know there are a few specific TF situations where the big bubble is handy plus it does have some WoW! factor to its size.

I mostly enjoy playing the FF set and believe its pretty effective at what it does. But there are a few powers that are hard to use, particularly in group play, without sometimes creating a new set of problems to replace the one you were trying to solve with the power. My changes are therefore not really that drastic or different from yours:

1. FORCE BOLT: Fine as is.

2. BIG 3 BUBBLES: Fine as is.

3. DETENTION FIELD: This skill would be highly useful if it did not confuse and annoy teammates. To deal with this we need either a means to turn it off (toggle perhaps) or some other way to discourage teammates from attacking a detained target. The placate idea seems complicated and, if I understand it correctly, might take away from people the ability to control their own chars (which always is unpopular). I think the simplest fix frankly is to change the graphic to where its super super obvious that thing has been detained. Stick the mob in side a glowing Iron Maiden or something . . . or something thats not as dorky as that but you get the idea.

4. REPULSION FIELD. Should probably leave alone. Its a situational power but Kinetics has much the same thing and seems to live with it.

5. REPULSION BOMB. The least popular power for good reason. First, its animation time needs considerable shortening to be useful. Second, it seems to me that it should either just be switched to a 100% stun (ala Dark Pit or Thunderclap) or a knockdown instead of knockback. Then it could be used in the typical group and nuke tactics of the typical PuG without driving people crazy. If this means increasing the recharge or the end cost, I could live with that in exchange for it being reliable control.

6. FORCE BUBBLE: Make it the same radius as Dispersion as its frankly too big as it is. This change alone would make it much easier to use. Adding some defense to the defender would be nice too since otherwise you pretty much have to pair it with a purple if you are trying to save the team from anything thats actually threatening. But I honestly could live with just making it smaller as this would make it a more precise tool, less likely to cause unwanted aggro, and less likely to knock things out of attack range if you do not have a corner handy.