NotBurningChick

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Some of the best teams I've encountered in PvP are the ones who manage to manage to keep their Defenders safe. As soon as their Defenders start taking hits from a given player, guess who suddenly becomes a prime target for counter-attack?

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Flamer,

Were you there in SC when CT and I were double-bubbling the Carls (and related affiliates)? I'm not sure if the non-bubblers noticed it so much, but the other team(s) had basically stopped trying to attack you and the 6 double-bubbled folks and were instead racking up a surprising number of kills against the bubblers.

The problem boils down to this: even if a team has two buff [censored], the buff [censored] will always be squishier than their teammates and, therefore, will always be the first and easiest targets to take out.

At least against organized opposition.

That ice corruptor was shredding your bubblers. If we were both dropped, and you guys didn't have two DBs giving you strong mez protection, well ...

Defenders are funny. It takes, from what I've seen, 3 or 4 to hit a critical mass of buffs and debuffs to keep each other safe. Once you get 6 or 7, it's just insane. I keep coming back to the SC's event in CoV. With 7 or 8 defenders, we could take on 20+ villains without breaking a sweat. 3 dispersions + clear mind meant there was 0 chance for us being mezzed en masse. With repel and repulsion field out, no pets could get near us, AS was nearly impossible to get off, melee toggles would get dropped, we had enough +end buffs to never run dry, enough heals to mitigate any lucky hits, 2 sonics meant we took nearly no damage, and 7 tactics meant we could see everything.

But the instant one of us left the "death bubble", he was dropped.

It's kinda like defense. Adding 6% defense to someone who has none isn't worth much. Adding 6% to someone who has 39 already means a lot. I kinda' see defenders as being that 6% ... the first one is better than a boot to the head. But the eighth turns the team into gods.

And that's kinda' the problem; defenders stack very, very nicely. If they were any better on their own, they'd be unkillable in groups of two or three, and groups of eight would simply be gank-fests. Consider having 2 stormies, 2 bubblers, 2 sonics, and kins on a team. That'd just be ... nuts.

And, once again, I'm at a loss for how to fix defender squishiness ... but, also, I'm pretty sure that defenders weren't meant to come in pairs since we can only log one toon in at a time with our accounts.

An ice / dark corruptor is an entirely differenct beast than a dark / dark defender -- especially when you consider that, three of the powers you highlighted, by and large, work the same across all three sets that have access to dark miasma. The slow (and maybe movement penalties in general) in tar patch is classified as a control and not a debuff, and so defenders do not get a bonus while using it. The fear in fearsome stare is also a control, so no AT bonus again for dark miasma. Pet. gaze is, of course, a straight-up hold and is, once again, another power for which defenders get no bonus.

The best PvP powers in dark miasma don't work any better as a primary than they do as a secondary. The powers that do work better for defenders are the debuffs, particularly the layered accuracy / to hit and damage debuffs that are the real mainstay of a dark defender's arsenal. But those are the same powers that don't work well in PvP because debuffs only work on base values, not enhanced + buffed values; the debuffs don't scale. The more accuracy and damage your opponent has, the less noticeable the debuffs become.

The real difference between DM corruptors and defenders comes down the blasts. Ice is a good PvP set because of its combination of controls + single target damage. There is nothing comparable available to defenders. An ice Corruptor gets higher starting damage and better PvP utility than any defender can possibly get from her blasts.

An ice / dark corruptor is a significantly larger threat than a dark / anything defender.

Controls trump debuffs in PvP, plain and simple. Debuffs are very, very easy to work around, but controls are trickier. If you can layer a bunch of controls, you're far better off than if you can layer an entire set's worth of debuffs.

Anyway, I don't have any solutions; I'm just offering up my experiences. Ice corruptors are just plain nasty in PvP, regardless of their secondaries. Single defenders on big teams are cannon fodder.

FWIW, my all-time best experience doing PvP was the Siren's Call event in CoV beta. I re-made my bubbler and joined a defender-heavy team with a couple kins, a couple sonics, my bubbler, and a couple empaths. We were nasty; nothing could stop us. We had something like 5 defeats and a 100 kills. Hereos would hover near us for buffs, and villains would move to the other side of the zone.

But something tells me that it wasn't the devs' intention to have defenders come in pairs (so they can keep each other safe), what with single accounts allowing you just one toon logged in at a time.

PvP is a fun diversion, but ... that's just it. It's not a common thing for me to do because, in the end, it's no fun seeing my favourite toons getting ganked. Over. And over.

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I wonder who's ahead: doms or defenders.

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I'd guess perhaps defs, with their ability to use +Dam or -Res to boost their damage. Though as I said in a thread about something being better than Trick Arrow, being faster than a three legged dog isn't anything to get excited about.

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It's damn near impossible for my bubbler to do anything in PvP other than buffing teammates or hiding in PFF. With a build twinked for PvP, I can honestly say that Defensive Chick has racked up 2 or 3 kills and several dozen defeats. She's a good benefit to her teammates, but I've always wondered if the benefit of having her (basically, the def bubbles + force bolt) is outweighed by having such a fragile, low damage teammate.

But don't get me started about my dark defender, "KK, can you stand still for 10 seconds while I whip out my debuffs? I'll just debuff your base accuracy and damage, so you might not even feel it if you have any buffs going."

Just to point something out ...

To hit debuff enhancements were nerfed so that the debuffs' overall level of effectiveness in I7 would be (somewhat) consistent with with the I6 level.

With that in mind ... how many folks expect FF's def bonus to remain the same?

The small bubbles at ... 12.5 ... or even 10? Or Dispersion bubble at 7.5? Much lower than 7.5, and it becomes debatable whether or not DB's worth slotting.

Just something to ponder.

Do the debuffs from TG and FS stack?

If so, those recharges folks put into FS for stacking the fear component (the debuff lasts longer than the fear) are making dark into an even bigger monster. And if, like me, you also slot TG for recharge ...

Folks in the know have sought out DDs for AVs ever since dark miasma became playable. There often isn't time to get everything out when a team is mowing down minions and lieuts, but the longer a fight goes, the more powerful dark gets.

Edit for clarity: do FS and TG stack with themselves? I.e., can 2 FSes stack?

Ummm, Quizzles, re-read my quote. I said that many folks don't bother six-slotting TG; no mention of slotting Fluffy, at all, for heals. And yes, I slot TG 2 accuracies, 2 recharges, and 2 heals ... 'cause sometimes spamming a stackable single target debuff is really, really useful. Like those times I tanked Babbage and the Psy King.

FWIW, posting as BurningChick, I was the first person to suggest on the boards that we should slot Fluffy for to hit debuffs instead of recharges when the I5 nerfs hit. Most folks, if they recognize me at all, know me for [censored] about FF; but, at the time, I was in full DDD mode.

But no one listened to me 'cause I'm apparently not an authority on dark Well, that and how folks were too POed about losing their army of Fluffies to figure out how best to use one.

As NM says above, sometimes old habits die hard.

*smiles*

And, in a team with dark and FF defenders, one set will cover the other's holes.

The way it's supposed to be.

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This also does not include things as balance such as mezzing. If Dark Night/Shadow Fall are "equal" with the three forcefield bubbles, where is Dark Miasma's *real* mezz protection?

Debuffs garner aggro. Usually a lot, but the person grabbing that aggro is incapable of wistanding *one* minion mezz which can knock of toggle, then leaving themselves (and their team) unprotected with all the angry mobs.

Yay! We are now imbalanced to ForceFields because of a shortsighted "numbers" fix.

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*cough*BS*cough*

First, a FF defender might have mag-based mez protection (with a sleep hole), but she only has 16% def from DB. The bubbler will be mezzed more often because Fluffy, DN, and TG debuff accuracy to a far greater extent than DB buffs defense with no stanking sleep hole. Not getting hit in the first place is superior to having low mag mez resistance.

Second, Fluffy grabs aggro and heals. When a 32+ dark defender is mezzed, Fluffy is likely to pull some of the aggro of him, and can break sleeps with a heal. Hell, Fluffy's heal alone can help a dark defender ride out a lot of mezzes.

Next up, dark has a perfectly good heal that is, in fact, so good that many dark defenders don't even bother six-slotting it. Dark miasma's heal provides a truckload of damage mitigation, and it's a very, very potent single target debuff. And did I mention that Fluffy has the same heal?

Oh ... and dark also has a hefty damage debuff in darkest night. Which Fluffy also casts. Ummm ... and dark also has high-level resistance to neg, energy, and PSI ... in a PBAoE stealth.

And dark's AoE disorient doesn't toss mobs to the winds, has a longer duration, and has a better chance to disorient.

You can, under I7, legitimately argue that FF provides better "can't hit me protection" than dark to teammates, but dark has far more powers that are of direct and substantial benefit to the defender herself. Every single power in dark is a potentially good power for soloing. Except the AoE phase, that is. That power sucks [censored].

Cripes. Some of you guys are as flakey crying dark's gimpitude as Erratic was crying rad's gimpitude.

FF boils down to its Big Three defense buffs. Force bolt is nice, and is clearly the best keepaway power in the set. Detention field has its advocates. PFF is a lifesaver (at your teammates expense). And the rest of the set is laughably bad. Errr, "situational." As _Castle_ called those powers.

But please, go back to bashing the devs.

FWIW, my bubbler (L37) dates from I1. She was in her low 20s, I believe, when badges were released. She consistently got her mez badges at lower levels than my 43 DDD -- even though the counters started ticking for her at a much later level. And I've spent much more time soloing my DDD.

PS -- you can regain the a big chunk of the to hit debuff numbers by slotting fearsome stare with accuracy debuffs. I'm not, however, defending the devs over the Schedule A / B nerf. They're clearly goofy.

I'm just sayin'.

Hiya Statesman,

Ya'll should really have a proper dialogue with defenders about "the vision" for defenders, clear up some long-term issues, and, in general, reassure us.

_Castle_'s "Drumroll please" post was a step in the right direction, but often went from dismissive, "working as intended", to patronizing, telling bubblers to grab someone with taunt in order to make FF's Final Three less dangerous for the defender. It almost raised as many issues as it adressed: why is -speed a control, but +speed is a buff? why are "control" powers in defender primaries weaker than they are in controller seoncdaries? if FF's final three powers are situational by design, how does that jive up with your telling us last year how great they are -- for general purpose use?

Some of these concerns have been rattling around since CoH beta, but have never been adressed.

Just some thoughts.