Miladys_Knight

Would not the Fire/Storm Corruptor be better in every respect in that case?

I was looking through mids for a Time/Dark for my wife. The +def and -tohit combine nicely to make a very survivable defender.

Time has a little bit of everything, slows, resistance debuffs, heal, regen and plays well in melee range. It is every thing that Trick Arrow should have been at range and isn't.

As Arcanaville is female, Miladys_Knight is male. (As in I am My Lady's Knight, I am @grandpa squeak on line. My wife is @grandma squeak)

Kind of the idea. I may have not stated it well but it does that, and it gives the devs tools to balance how much mez (and how long) it affects each arch type based on how the devs wish to do it. It gives tools to balance being mezzed much like defense and resistance do for incoming damage.

The other beauty of this system is that many defenders would feel useful again as EVERYONE, regardless of AT, would be at least slightly vulnerable to mez and no one would be entirely immune making mez a real threat to all arch types and making mez mitigation buffs valuable for everyone. (That break free that has sat in the lower right corner of the tank's inspiration tray for 6+ weeks might actually get used.)

It would make mez more of a curve on a global graph instead of a line.

I was thinking some about this. I don't think I like your proposed idea much and it goes against the devs response that any thing that only exists in x state is seen as a nerf in all other states. The blaster all ready gives up too much to get mediocre.

I do want to address the binary mez issue though. Why is it so binary? Why don't we work on fixing that? Damage isn't binary. Its quite spread out by the mechanics of the game. So why not do that for mez?

Against damage we have defense and damage resistance. Defense has a maximum effective level , no matter how much defense you have 5% of all attacks launched at you will hit.

So lets come up with a mechanism like that for mez and have it apply to ALL ATs. The devs can determine how much they want each particular AT to get mezzed and how long they should be mezzed for.

Instead of mez protection ALL ATS would get some amount of mez defense and mez reistance as part of the AT's inherent powers and current mez protection toggles (or clicks) would be able to slot both defense enhancements and resistance enhancements.

As an example, Lets say the devs decide that tanks should have 30% mez defense and 300% mez resistance for their inherent mez mitigation and that the tanker overflow value for mez defense would be 95%. They also decide that the tanker mez protection toggle would give 44% mez defense and another 300% mez resistance. Slotting 3, even level, resistance SOs and 3, even level, defense SOs in the toggle would yield (after ED) a total mez defense of 95.52% and mez resistance of 768%.

The .52% that exceeds the overflow value is not lost, instead it is carried into the overflow pool. Other sources of mez defense such as break frees, clear mind, dispersion bubble, etc would contribute to the mez defense value but anything that exceeded the overflow value would go into the over flow pool which would use a hyperbolic function of some sort so that the last few % points of mez defense could never reach a total of 100% no matter how much extra mez defense was added but at the same time the first few percentage points over 95% would not be hard to come by.

So lets say the tank in the above example is targeted by an AoE stun power with a 30 second duration that has a damage component. He has 10% defense to AoE attacks. The attacker rolls a hit for the grenade and the damage value is then modified by the tank's damage resistance. Now that we have a physical hit we check against mez defense to see if the attack mezzes the target. Any value less than 95% (plus what ever the pool over flow value turns out to be) means that the mez portion of the attack has no effect at all. If it is effective then it is checked against mez resistance value and modified from there. In this case the 30 second mez would last 3.45 seconds.

Additional mezzes of that type, that hit, would simply add mez duration after being modified by resistance values.

The devs could then add mez defense and resistance to all armor toggles for all ATs making adjustments for desired values based on AT. If that were to be done I would recommend that "epic power pools" be made AT power pools and unlock in the same way and levels that all other pools unlock but the devs could still reserve PPPs that would be better than the AT pools for later levels (and they could add a set of hero PPPs that would be different from the villain ones).

You are confusing mez protection and mez resistance. There is a huge difference similar to confusing defense with damage resistance.

I asked what it should be..... not what it all ready is

4 reasons.

1) The player is a Free player and can't use incarnate powers.
2) The player is a Premium player and can't use incarnate powers.
3) The player hasn't ground enough IXP and enough threads/merits to have it yet because it is part of the third tier instead of being in the Alpha.
4) The player abandoned the blaster prior to reaching 50 because they were mezzed and/or defeated too often.

Most of the level 50 blasters that I have seen (including myself) either have it, haven't unlocked it yet, or spent a crap ton of inf on a defense build so they could possibly select something else.

As far as acrobatics goes its because:

1. They don't know that it provides any hold protection.
2. Leaping does not fit their concept.
3. They can't afford the endurance drain of an expensive toggle that provides so little benefit because they want to use their endurance to inflict damage which is their primary role.
4. They've take Stealth so they can launch an Alpha in relative safety. They also take another power from this pool to unlock phase shift to use as a rescue power since they lack defense and resistances.
5. They've taken Medicine and used up 2 power picks to get a self heal and stun resistance since stun is a more common mez than hold.
6. They've taken Boxing, Tough and Weave for the defense because they have figured out that a mez that doesn't land doesn't affect them in the first place
7. They have taken Speed for Hasten to increase their recharge (and therefore their damage output) and Super Speed for travel and its built in stealth.
8. They actually want to take powers from their primary and secondary instead of skipping them for marginally useful pool powers.

Mez is actually quite common and shows up in the game as early as level 8 and most groups now have at least one type of mob that mezzes and some have multiple mobs that mez. It hits hard about level 20 and just keeps getting worse. Also I'm not sure what you mean by "handling them" since blasters specifically lack any tools to do so unless of course you mean a larger inspiration tray which all other ATs also have. Even the other squishy ATs do not rely as heavily on break frees as do blasters.

You don't have to go that high to have mez present a problem. From +0/4x (or +0/3x against several groups) you can run into multiple mezzers in a spawn. You might be able to mez or kill one before being mezzed but the other one will get you.

The other side of the coin is that it's pointless or too much of an endurance draw to use AoE powers on settings below +0/3x. It means you are ignoring yet another chunk of your primary and/or secondary powers or that you are using them and wasting endurance that you most likely can't afford on too few targets.

This may be true but those specific situations occur with startling regularity.

There are very few powers that grant mez protection to teammates. Those powers are frequently skipped especially by beginning and novice players. Those that do take them, frequently forget to use them, this is common for beginner, novice, and average players. Not only that, large balanced teams are not that frequent an occurrence, unless you are on a heavily populated server. Most of the teams that I see are 2-4 players

I'll agree that blaster secondary power sets need attention desperately. I'll also point out that blaster damage output is not all that shabby, IF the blaster has beefed up their defenses so that they last long enough to use them AND they are mez free so that those defenses don't suppress and so that they are not limited to 3 powers.

I'll admit that mez isn't the only problem that a blaster faces.... But it is the one weakness that eliminates ALL the blaster's strengths. Being virtually mez proof would fix that issue for Freems and Preems and it would let those of us that are ViPs take something other than Clarion instead of running into late game high mez situations that cause you to run out of break frees before you finish your mission.

I am focusing on what I know. I know that my blasters spend 2-3 times longer mezzed than any of my other squishies and 10 times longer than my scrappers and tanks. Since blasters are combat ATs (ie: damage dealers) I would "expect" those numbers to be 1/2 as long as my other squishies and 2-3 times as long as Tanks/scrappers.

By definition pool powers are not "tools provided." Tools provided are powers in the primary and secondary. Pools are supposed to be "a little extra help". Any AT that has to rely on pools is not properly balanced for the current game because the only way that you can take all the pool powers that you want is to skip primary or secondary powers to get them.

I've never seen anyone tell any AT but the blaster AT that they should be relying on pool powers.

While mez resistance may be valuable, mez protection is more valuable. (its better to be unaffected by mez than be less affected by mez) and the amounts of mez resistance a blaster can slot is not all that much. You get higher stun resistance by using Aid Self than you can by slotting an Aegis and 2 impervious skins.

I can also answer your question about what is more effective.

I have an Energy/Energy/Force build for +rech and KB (this blaster has perma hasten)
I have a Rad/Fire/Mace built for soft capped S/L defense, high melee defense and middle values of energy and ranged defense plus Clarion so that my defenses don't suppress and Hot Feet doesn't detoggle.
I have an AR/Nrg/Cold Blaster that is built for +rech and +range
I have a Sonic/Ice/Elec built for soft capped to ranged.
I have a Arch/Nrg/Munitions built +range and ranged defense.

The one that is the most effective is the Rad/Fire and that is mainly because of the mitigation provided by IO defense set bonuses.

The term "Glass cannon" as we use it is actually an oxymoron. Glass is a mineral (rock) and tempered glass (like Pryrex) and silicon carbide are very hard. When I was studying engineering we had one of the ceramic engineering professors give a demonstration that included driving a nail all the way into a pair of 2 x 4 boards with an angled section of glass pipe, standing on, and bouncing up and down on his toes, on a piece of plate glass (ordinary window glass) supported between 2 stools, and heating a box made of ceramic tile to almost red hot temperatures without significantly damaging the contents.

Glass only shatters under special circumstances and when it shatters it does so at the speed of sound through that particular glass medium. The problem is that everyone thinks of glass as a fragile substance when the truth is only poorly manufactured (ie: full of microscopic bubbles) or cheap glass with lots of impurities is fragile.

A "real" glass cannon would be a ZOMG rock armor tank mage.

An "Offensive Juggernaut" is also an oxymoron as the term juggernaut means "a force that can not be stopped by any means". That infers shrugging off mez as if it did not exist and almost infinite defense and resistances. Mez stops blasters and damage stops blasters. Before we could become "offensive juggernauts" the devs would have to give blasters the juggernaut part which would mean that we would be ZOMG tank mages.

I would say this is entirely unlikely since currently what resistance and defense we have as blasters suppresses (by dev design) while we are mezzed. The exception is the passive power body armor which is not a toggle and costs no endurance and because it is a passive power its numerical value is quite small.

Unless you take a primary or a PPP (like Mace) that has an AoE immob you won't be able to fully leverage Burn and you'll get virtually nothing out of Blazing Aura since the avoid in Hot Feet will drive the mobs out of the area of effect of Blazing Aura before you can even get a single tick of damage out of it. It's end cost is insanely high and its radius is insanely small.

With that said the only primary that fits the bill is Dark/ however, cones and PBAoEs (which /Fire mostly is) do not play well together. In order to line up the maximum number of targets for Tenebrous Tentacles to leverage Burn and Hot Feet you have to back out of Hot Feet radius causing you to lose one or even 2 tics of damage from Hot Feet. The scatter from Umbral Torrent is likewise a potential issue.

The combination that I would recommend is one that you don't have listed, Rad/Fire/Mace.

Rad allows you to fully leverage /Fire's PBAoEs providing that you skip Electron Haze. Rad also allows you to slot Achilles Heel Procs which further boost the damage from your secondary powers. Web Envelope allows you to fully leverage both Burn and Hot Feet and it is relatively easy to soft cap S/L defense plus melee defense will be high (and with all those PBAoEs you'll spend almost 100% of your time in Melee range) and still have decent energy and ranged defense numbers.

Better yet you don't need to take or use the nuke as all those PBAoEs can put out almost as much damage in 1 iteration as Atomic Blast does in one click but without crashing your endurance or waiting 3 minutes for it to recharge.

My Rad/Fire/Mace is one of my favorite blasters.

PS. You'll want Alpha Cardiac as even with lots of recovery you'll use lots of endurance.

PPS. I went Void Judgment since it's another PBAoE.

PPPS and Clarion of course so your mitigation powers don't suppress and Hot Feet doesn't detoggle.

Except that we know that it does exist. That is why we were given defiance in the first place. The problem is that as the devs add mez and range to the mobs, the kludge that is defiance is no longer adequate.

Looking at my time mezzed/hours logged ratio I know that my blasters spend 2-3 times more time mezzed than all my other squishies. The blaster that has the highest time mezzed was created post defiance 2.0 which may tell us (and it may not) that defiance is keeping me alive while mezzed longer but at the same time it is telling me that I am locked out of all but 3 of my powers much longer and/or more often which is a sucky and unfun way to "not play" the game.

I would have to strongly disagree with this assertion since the game has morphed dramatically since release. Typically each and every negative change that has been introduced has affected blasters more than the other ATs the stacks of those differences now add up to put the blaster notably out of balance especially compared to other ATs.

I would once again have to strongly disagree since what has actually happened is that over time ALL other ATs have encroached upon the blaster role. Essentially painting us into a corner. Can't do this it would step on scrapper toes, can't do that would step on defender toes, can't do that it would step on controller toes, can't do ... tank toes ZOMG tank mage etc. All the tools are given to the other ATs and there are none left over for the blaster.

Again I have to strongly disagree except for blasters the highest DPS classes in the game also have the highest survivability.

Again I have to strongly disagree here. Giving the blaster mez protection (but nothing else) is exactly the way to go. Giving them more fire power without more mitigation will just make the problem worse unless you give the blaster enough fire power to 1 shot minions, 2 shot lieutenants, and 3 shot bosses which is far too much. Also as the game is now a good blaster can do enough damage to draw aggro from an average tank. Damage on the scale required to address the problem would allow even average blasters to draw aggro from a good tank and again that means the blaster will take not only the brunt of the incoming damage but the brunt of the incoming mez.

Except if you are mez free you can still do something about it. If you are mezzed you can plink at a mob and maybe kill it before it can kill you.... except if you are doing incarnate content where the mobs all out range you and can kill you with out you being able to give a response even with defiance.

I understand exactly what it would do to the pre-50 game. Fewer people would abandon their blasters pre-50. It might put the blaster on par with all the other ATs in regard to how much time they spend mezzed and we might get away from inane comments that don't solve the issue such as:

Just carry breakfrees (no other AT has to carry that many break frees), Just take Clarion (no other AT is locked into taking Clarion), Just take acrobatics, just take hover, just take the fighting pool, just take combat jumping, just take the medicine pool, just take Scorpion Shield. Know what? I have a better idea. Lets just fix blasters so that we don't have to take acrobatics, hover, fighting, combat jumping, medicine, and scorpion shield unless we want them and they fit our concept. If you are taking all that crap that is telling me that the AT is broken somewhere because too many of your primary and secondary powers don't do their job if you have to pool it.

My mez time/hours logged in include teamed and solo time on all toons so I can only assume that those ratios apply in both cases. The other thing to keep in mind is that I am an experienced player and do know the tools to keep my blasters from being mezzed as much as the game mechanics allow. However when I am playing on teams with my non-blaster characters (which gives me time to concentrate on what other team members are doing) I note that PuG blasters are always the first to die usually followed by defenders if there are more defeats.

I also note that there are few team powers in the game that provide mez protection to squishies and, frequently, if I am teamed with a player that has access to them, that they are not applied in any proactive manner. When playing my other non-blaster toons I frequently see blasters (and other squishies) standing in mezzed animation (some obvious like tesla cage) and toons that have the ability to do something about it blithely ignoring it. I'll frequently slip that player a break free or if my non-squishy has stimulant I'll apply it.

Now add in that the longer the game continues the more mez the devs add to it and what was not a problem early in the game is now a significant one.

Its not even an AT of choice per se. I play just about every toon in the game and this is a gaping hole in an ATs design that has been caused by the changes in the game environment without adequate changes in the AT to compensate. Blaster strengths do not balance their weaknesses. In fact blasters are designed in such a way that their greatest weakness eliminates all of their strengths.

This is not exactly true. The devs have not provided blasters specific tools to deal with mez at all levels. Any tools that exist pre-level 50 exist for all ATs and going back to my numbers again do not assist the blaster enough by a factor of 2-3.

The blaster is the only AT that by it's design is forced into being exposed to a maximum amount of mez and has the fewest way to avoid them.

As far as acrobatics goes there are 3 things to consider.

1) It's expensive in terms of endurance costs especially for what little mitigation is gained. Blaster's endurance should be used outputting damage.
2) It provides only a small amount of protection against holds and stuns are by far more common.
3) It provides a good amount of KB protection but costs 2 additional power picks

It is far more cost effective to use a single enhancement slot for a -KB IO.

Also keep in mind that with the release of Freedom their are now 3 tiers of players. 1 tier that can not use incarnate powers and a 2nd tier that can not use incarnate powers or inventions.

Blasters are a basic AT available to everyone. Any balance concerns and designs should be based upon the lowest common denominator. In this case SO only use.