Miladys_Knight

My "conclusions" aren't conclusions they are actual experiences that I recorded during beta testing for feedback purposes.

Its true that the gunner only hits a third of the time on the alpha, but that's for a single gunner in a spawn. About 1/5 of the time both the first 2 attacks are going to hit and leave you defenseless. In more than 33% of the cases 2 of the attacks are going to hit back to back and leave you defenseless either the first and second or the second and third. That's for a single hellion gunner. That means that you are defenseless in 1/3 of these encounters and are running about 6% defense in all but about 17% off them (where you actually have full defense).

It's not possible at this stage of the game to kill a single hellion gunner, (especially if it cons +1) since it's a lieutenant, before he gets off 3 attacks, especially if you have used extra slots for Active Defense. (You simply don't have the number of attacks available, the recharge, or the endurance to do so) Most of the time in the pre-DO range all my slots are all dedicated to accuracy and endurance reduction since missing and running out of endurance drops your damage output (and mitigation) to zero.

As far as purposely messing up slotting for low levels and respecing usually not (once when I created a character right before a free respec was given I did, but not before or since). Nor have I ever multi slotted rest for rech before stamina and respec'd.

When beta testing I try to play as if the account was brand new which means that I avoid using vet rewards (such as granted free specs and vet attacks) since new players will not have these things available.

My shield scrappers are the only scrappers I have ever had that were so weak and uncomfortable in the low levels. They played and felt exactly like blappers (which I have a great deal of experience with since an Energy/Energy/Force is my main which I play rather like a scrapper).

My shielders are the only scrappers I have ever had that could actually be killed in a hazzard zone by large numbers of defense debuffing -1s and -2s.

Without IOs Shields has the low mitigation levels of Firey Aura but combined with all the disadvantages of SR (vulnerability to burst damage and no self heal) with out any of the advantages of SR (Scaling Resists).

That's only true with PuGs. When forming TFs in global channels you get the full range of possible ATs even from players who are playing on other servers.

(ie: I can still see every thing going on in my Freedom globals even if I am playing on Justice at the time.)

I can switch to what ever hero (or villian) I want/they need for the ITF or LGTF.

Actually I ran a survey of exactly that type when I started marketeering seriously (I wanted to know who my customer base was going to be after all) this was around I10 I took spot checks after shields but it didn't really flex much even then.

The numbers I got blue side went almost perfectly on the 5s

Blasters - 30%
Controllers - 25%
Scrappers - 20%
Tanks - 15%
Defenders - 10%
Khelds - 1%

I realize that's 101% but that's a rounding error. The top 5 classes were all about .3% under the displayed values those fractional percentage points added up to give the Khelds their 1.2%.

Red side numbers at that time were:

Master Minds - 35%
Brutes - 34%
Corruptors - 15%
Domintors - 10%
Stalkers - 5%

with a 1% rounding error that went the other direction.

This was pre-Veats of course and I've never really been interested in playing most of the red side ATs. To me they were a bland, boring, homoginization of the existing Hero powers and power sets. Since I didn't play red side I didn't do any further spot checks. I just had a couple lowbie villians that I used for marketing research and to amass some cash should I ever find villians interesting (which "may" happen when GR comes out, Redeemed Corruptors may replace many of my current defenders).

As far as Hero side goes I haven't done a spot check post Mission Architect. I imagine that the number of new fire/kin farmers may have warped those numbers somewhat since my last spot check.

It really hasn't been of much interest to me as of late though mainly because I have all most all of what I wanted (and spares) from my marketeering and my time spent doing that has decreased.

That's not "quite" right. The attack does consider the positions for rolling hits when the power is queued but the knockback occurs from the position of the caster when the knocback resolves. This makes for some interesting effects of what gets hits and where it goes if you are kiting.

If you like tanks and scraps why don't you go red and try a brute? That would be different for you on many levels. If you don't like playing red side then try a Spines/Dark/Body Scrapper or wait until Going Rogue comes out and try a brute and switch sides.

There aren't too many things that can Knock you with 3 -KB IOs but the list includes Hami and Scirroco.

Eh, I turned off reputation on day 1, right after my first post on the new boards. It felt kinda "High School" to me and I've been out of school (including college) for quite a bit more than double the number of years that I was in (ie: I'm an old guy)

Actually Phil, Blasters are more popular than Controllers as you can see Here

What if your concept for your shielder isn't science? Alot of shielders are going Magic and Natural for concept/theme reasons some are Tech and the least thematic is Mutation.

Hmmm so a forcefielder should be able to PFF while slept (which will have no effect since toggles supress while mezzed and if it does have effect would make this vastly overpowered.)

Cast Deflection Shield on teammates that probably still have it on

and Cast Force Bolt which would actually be worthwhile.

TAs could do Entangling, Flash and Glue arrows. All potentially worthwhile.

Empaths would function for n00bs and lowbies pretty much like they function when not mezzed.

Stormies would be able to gale and and potentially affect an entire spawn.

Free other teammates from Mez with O2 boost while themselves mezzed

and cast an offensive toggle (snow storm) which should detoggle immediately after casting due to the mez.....


ok that's far enough. Me no likey and it's not close to balanced.

I believe that the shields thread from beta was copied over, stickied, and preserved from purging. You should take a look at it some time (if you haven't all ready).

The numbers I posted above are accurate and I haven't mis-represented anything. In the early levels with TOs, defenses on shieilds run in the 13.0% range and defense debuff resistance is 13.8%. Against Hellions at this level on heroic difficulty a typical mob is a gunner and 1 minion. These mobs can spawn at +1 level about 33% of the time. (Outside of missions in locations such as Atlas Park there are usually more than 1 minion with the gunner and frequently more than 1 gunner/buckshot)

The gunner has a little bit more than 7% defense debuff (more if it cons +1) and enough recharge to stack the attack twice. That's a 37% chance to hit you on the alpha which if he does means that he has a 43% chance to hit you on the second attack which will leave you with 1% defense (essentially defenseless). That's going to happen in 14.19% of the cases in the first 2 attacks and in far more than 1/3 of the cases by the third attack.

(During beta testing I was killed by a spawn of 10, -1 lieuts and -2 minions in Perez twice while attempting a story arc hunt of "defeat 15 Hellions")

DOs are only slightly better yeliding 14.6% defense. During Beta Testing I solo'd the Atta Mission on Heroic where a typical spawn has 1 or 2 Trollkin gunners. There were very few times during that mission where I was in combat and had defense numbers that weren't red.

3 Slotted active defense with DOs gives you a 14.7 second gap in your mez protection (Most players can't afford 3 Slots in Active Defense at these levels) and 1 Rech DO in the base slot gives you 52.9 seconds with out mez protection even if not affected by slows (which cold using Outcasts and Vahz have at these levels)

It isn't until level 22 when you have 2, +3 rech SOs slotted that you can actually have full time mez protection. At this point you have 4.8 seconds of overlap and a single cold or slow attack will open a hole right back up. No other scrapper secondary requires you to wait this long to get full time mez protection. The other scrapper secondary with click mez protection gives you Quickness at level 20. 2, +3 rech DOs in Practiced Brawler gives you a 7.83 second gap in protection. At level 22, 2, +3 SOs give you 16.37 second overlap and the 40% resistance to slows in quickness assures that a hole will not be opened. It takes 3, +3 SOs and Grant Cover at level 28 to give the shielder equivalent coverage.

During Beta Testing I took my Shielder up against a spawn of -1 and -2 Council in Striga Island and was killed there twice as well. The Council Marksmen were able to open a hole in my mez protection and I was stunned and KB'd.

At level 25 in Talos running against Warriors, Parry was the only thing that gave me a chance and 5% of the time it would miss and my defenses and then my scrapper would get shredded. The Mercedes Shelton Arc (Crown of Glory) which I also tested during that closed beta was particularly nasty at level 23.

As for the rest well I've posted the reality of what I experienced while testing above. I would much rather play my SO'd level 50 DM/Regen than even try to level another Shielder without IOs.

Of course, I've played it. I have 2, 2+ billion inf shielder builds, and I was in the Beta Test for Shields. Shields is designed in such a way that you are supposed to take all of the powers in the set.

(Originally ALL of the ATs were designed around the idea that you would take ALL the powers in your Primary, all the powers in your Secondary, and use 2 powers on a travel pool (you have to take a pool power at level 24 and at level 30). When they expanded the game to go from level 40 to level 50 they added 4 more power picks and Epic Pools that had..... 4 more powers in them.)

I've tried and tested every scrapper secondary using SOs only and shields is the only one that could actually be beaten by a hazard zone swarm of -1 and -2s prior to level 35.

On the ship raid that we ran during the Beta Test the shielders were consistantly face planting. At one point 3 Rikti Magus hit us with Stalagmites simultaneously and the only player on my team that was left alive was a Dark/Regen. (We had 6 shielders on my team 3 scrappers, 2 Brutes, 1 Tank. The other players were a Dark/Regen and a Fire/Pain Corruptor)

The debuffs I speak of are 1 on 1. On a team with a taunt Aura running (AAO) you will be the target of not 1 but multiple defense debuffers. I gave the best case scenario.

The best that you can possibly do with SOs and pool powers is 30.3% defense to all positions, 35.4% resistance to Smashing/Lethal, 17.7% resistance to all others save Psi which is 0%. (the 1/3 of the time that OWtS is up that will be 70.8% and 35.4% respectively)

That means that you get the Fighting pool, Leaping with SJ as your travel power, 3 of the powers in Fitness, and Manuvers and you give up 3 of your primary powers, can't have Hasten, your Epic, or Medicine and have only 31 slots total left to assign to your attacks and other powers.

You use .98 end per second on toggles and have a recovery that is 2.49 end/sec which means your attacks will be burning up more end than you recover and you will have gaps in your attack chain.

15% of all attacks are going to hit you. The first defense debuffing attack that hits you is going to increase that to almost 20%. That means that the MoBs that spawn on a 3 man heroic team are all that it's going to take to create a defense cascade failure in almost every encounter.

Fighting Council on 3 man heroic teams will open a hole in your mez protection almost every encounter and, since they like to stand at range and fight, Shield Charge isn't going to be a solution since by the time you get them herded they will have shredded your defenses, dropped your mez protection, and slowed you to a crawl. (Shield Charge with SOs won't kill all minions without build up and partially saturated AAO)

Shield Charge will be up every other spawn with maximum recharge slotting so that's not going to be a save you can use every spawn which means you'll be dying every other.

You don't have to agree but my premise isn't flawed.

Edit - I can and have played all the other scrapper secondaries with only SOs. I would not even consider doing so with shields.

Containment is only vastly overpowered when combined with kinetics. The rest of the time it's just about right. The real problem is that controllers have kinetics available to them as a secondary. That was probably the biggest, can't really be fixed now, developer mistake.

Yep. The imbalance is caused by the 1500 ticket per mission cap. Boss and lieutenant farms are generating more influence than drops when compared to regular content.

I started an Empircal study on content ratios being run (tick marks on a note pad file tallied at the end of play) and I gave up shortly after starting it (3 weeks) due mainly to frustration.

What I came up with in the short term (using broadcast and invites as a measuring stick) is that 97% of content being currently run is AE and 98% of that is farms (87% Boss, 11% Lieutenant). Only 6% of farms are being run up to the ticket cap and reset.

City Map 02 is the favored map (95%, City Map 02 (Ruined) 3%, All others combined 2%). On 8 man Boss Farms utilizing City Map 02 the ticket cap is reached when you have finished about 1/4 of it.

If my numbers are correct then non-reset, City Map 02, boss farms are producing ~440% more influence per drop than regular content (with similar percentages in the other outdoor maps and higher percentages in the cases of the City Map 02 (Ruined) )

Compared to regular content Tickets vs Merits and drops.

Tickets gold rolls are blowing Merits out of the water at a ratio of about 3 to 1. (More when you consider that merits can be wasted at a ratio of 10 to 1 on specific recipes where tickets must be random rolls)

Tickets are blowing rare salvage (with merits and drops) out of the water by a ratio of about 10 to 1 and tickets are specifically selectable where merits and drops are random.

Edit - Roughly 4 times the influence is being produced. Marketeers are hitting 1 billion in 1 week now instead of 4. Prices have gone out of control on the top end items (roughly quadruple on things that can be gotten through drops and merits, and still more on recipes that can't be gotten with tickets.)

Parry and Slash do almost the same damage (Parry does a tiny bit less damage but recharges faster and costs less endurance). The difference is that Parry provides a 15% defense bonus to you (which functions against all MoBs you are figthing) while Slash provides a 7.5% defense debuff (which can be resisted) against a single target.

If the choice is between one or the other then Parry is the way to go.

If you can afford the inf to soft cap you can afford to increase your global recharge speed. In this case you are better off skipping both of them since it will increase your DPS. (even with as much as a 1 second gap in your attack chain).

You can't soft cap shields without (usually expensive) IOs. The game is not designed around IOs it's still designed around SOs. Shields provides roughly the same damage mitigation as Fiery Aura (the lowest mitigation providing scrapper secondary) but is vulnerable to Burst damage, Defense Debuffs, and Recharge slows where Fiery Aura is not.

The best that you can do with SOs (not relying on Pool powers or IOs) is 21.5% defense to all positions, 17.7% resistances to all except Psi, 45% Defense Debuff Resistance, and 13.8% Slow resistance.

That means that more than 50% of all attacks are getting through and that those attacks are doing 83% of their damage.

45% defense debuff resistance means that a single defense debuffer (most MoB types have at least one) at 7% defense debuff (which is usually the minimum) Double stacked (which MoB recharge rates allow them to do with out any problem) will keep your defense in the 13% (or lower range) through out the fight.

13.8% slow resistance means that, even with Active Defense 3 slotted for recharge, a single Coucil Marksman (10% recharge slow that is easily double stacked) can open a hole in your mez protection (which incidentally drops your Defense Debuff Resistance to 27.7% while your mez protection is down).

Fiery Aura has 20% slow resistance in Temperature Protection and doesn't have the worry of losing it's mez protection from being slowed.

Active Defense being a click also costs the Shielder some DPS by interrupting the attack chain.

That's where I get low mitigation from.

Castle says that Shields provides the same average mitigation as Fiery Aura (including the heal). On paper (and spread sheets) it probably does. In game where various status effects have a higher negative effect on Shields, I'd have to argue that Shields fairs measurably worse.

Shields only saving grace is that it can be soft capped using IO sets. Which gives the IO'd Shielder time (that the SO'd only Shielder lacks) to use AAO and Shield charge to turn the tables.

This was very similar to what we heard during the defiance change for blasters and it was coming almost exclusively from highly experienced blasters (and jealous and fearful Stalkers). The reality of the situation was while highly experienced players could do this the New and Average player could not.

The reality of the situation is that most defender players have difficulty in the early levels and solo. The exact same reasons controllers got containment.

Sure you "can" build a defender to solo (a Rad/Sonic for example) but those are outliers just like the the Fire/Kin controller is. The defender is also the only AT (other than Kheldians) who have absolutely no control of their inherent (unless you have a heal in which case you self nerf your own endurance discount) and whose inherent gives them benefits that range from nothing when it's needed most to the ridiculous when it's not needed. It's also the only inherent in the game that functions differently (and not in a good way) depending on the Power Set combo you have choosen to play.

I'd actually like to see some mid-high level non-PvP Ranged Damage Sets that actually have some Range in the aspects that they enhance. New Defiance is nice except when the mezzer is standing there at 100+ feet holding you to death because your tier 1 and 2 primary only reach 80 feet and your tier 1 secondary only reaches 50 (ie: anything that's not /Mental).

Hmmmmm why not just add a pet to the Epics? Though I do see your point about the low levels. How about a compromise? 50% of the HP buff that you suggest and add a single "fire imp style" (a single attack, Brawl only) buffable pet at level 41 to the Epics.

The minor HP increase helps in the low levels and the pet in the Epic helps soloing in the high levels when you have most of your buff powers that can't be used on yourself.

I have always been a proponent of the following and have proposed these things in the past.

1) Rework Vigilance. The defender inherent should benefit the defender for actually doing their job of defending the team. The current version gives you a higher reward for failing in your role and it disproportionately rewards reactive "healing" sets while simultaneously giving little to nothing to sets that defend by preventing damage in the first place whether through buff or debuffs. It should also work while solo (last time I checked the defender was a part of the team especially when that team is a team of 1.)

My idea for a Vigilance rework has always been a 5% buff to recharge and a 5% reduction to end costs every time a defender uses a power from their primary or secondary. That buff should stack a maximum of 5 times and each buff should last ~10 seconds before expiring. That's just a base line goal.

What I'm looking for is about 1 SO's worth of extra recharge and 1 SO's worth of extra end reduction free for the defender once they reach their Vigilance "cap" which should take them about 8 seconds to do.

The advantages are that it rewards the defender for taking an active role in defending the team, whether that defender power set combination functions best by buffing, debuffing, or blasting, while at the same time not rewarding the defender for failing to do so. It doesn't punish the defender when they are on small or skillfull teams (even if the team is a team of one), encourages them to do their job on the team instead of failing on purpose for the end discount and to use teammates as Vengance bait, and it increases damage slightly by allowing the defender to cycle their more damaging attacks a little more often. It's going to be the most useful in long drawn out battles which are also typical of the soloing defender.

2) Add a pet to the Epic at level 41. This will allow the defender to use all those teammate only powers even while they are solo.

Want the pet earlier? Make it part of the inherent. A long recharge click (1000 seconds or more) that is affected by outside recharge (like Domination) but isn't slottable (like Domination). It's then up to you to keep your pet alive with your buffs, debuffs, and blasts. The pet should be a brawl only pet so all defender pets would be identical in powers but it could be set up to use ANY pet sprite available in the game (within reason) just make the pet 1/2 the normal size so that teammates can tell it's the defender version. This would give the defender those extra hit points that you want and could be made available from level 1.

3) Proliferate the Ice Epic from Blasters to Defenders. Like Amy I've noticed that this is a glaring hole in the Defender Epics. We have a Cold Primary, an Ice secondary, but no Ice Epic? WTH?

This. Skipping Tornado on a Fire/Storm because you don't like the KU, is like skipping Seeds of Confusion on a Plant/TA because you don't want to lose any experience.