Panzerwaffen

I used a few different difficulty settings. 0/x1 boss, 0/x2 boss, 0/x1 no bosses and 0/x3 no bosses.

Ah. Good question. I should have anticipated this and posted it earlier. I don't have exact numbers, but the only inspirations I used were an occasional small or medium green the couple times I took some good hits. I did not, for example, stack defense inspirations to avoid being hit.

Whether they are 'fun' or 'not fun' is a pretty subjective determination. Obviously you find having to deal with status protection effects 'not fun'. I don't feel that way at all. I don't know if I would go so far as to say I find them 'fun', but I do enjoy the challenge they can provide.

Again, whether something is 'fun' or not is very subjective.

I don't think bringing up perma-dom builds really has any place in this discussion. What an AT can achieve while heavily IO'd out is pretty irrelevant here.

It seems, when we really drill down to it, the only potential issue here is with Defenders and possibly Corruptors. Perhaps the answer is to give them access to Indomitable Will. They would get an option to get status protection, it would not be perma, outside of heavily IO's recharge builds, and would require them to make some sacrifice by not taking one of the other pools at that level.

We've been down this road before. Let me ask you a question: Have you actually tried running any missions on a scrapper with status protection turned off? If not, go ahead and try a few against mezzing opponents, then come back and tell me how that compares to running them on a squishy.

I ran my kat/regen on my little Malta Gunslinger mission and what I found was just about what I expected. I first ran the mission against Gunslinger bosses downgraded to LT's, and used superspeed so I had the initiative on every attack. I had a 100% success rate of being able to defeat them without using breakfrees. I then tried the same downgraded bosses without using SS and just normally approaching them. 100% success rate again without using breakfrees. However, even only going up against these as downgraded bosses, I came extremely close to being defeated several times and ended each encounter with seriously reduced health. On top of that, and this may be more of a perception issue than anything, it seemed to me that when engaged in melee, the Gunslingers were more likely to use normal attacks before their Liquid Nitrogen Rounds and Narcotic Darts, than they were when engaged from range.

Finally I went up against normal boss Gunslingers, using superspeed again to get the initiative. Here is where the difference became readily apparent. Every boss encounter required breakfree usage to avoid defeat. The only exceptions were if I was able to pop Instant Healing prior to being mezzed, I could sometimes make it through the encounter successfully with a bare sliver of health remaining without resorting to a breakfree. There were also several times where even Instant Healing could not save me from defeat.

Now, let's compare that to my doing the same thing on a blaster.

Blaster vs. downgraded bosses: 100% easy mode. All enemies defeated with little to no damage taken.

Blaster vs. normal bosses: 80% success rate without breakfrees. Challenging, but not impossible.

Scrapper vs. downgraded bosses: 100% success rate without using breakfrees. Significant damage taken on every encounter.

Scrapper vs. normal bosses: 0% success rate without using breakfrees, unless I was able to activate my most powerful healing ability prior to entering combat. Even then, success rate was 50/50, with barely any health remaining.

Just for amusement, I went ahead and ran my Fire/Energy blaster through the same mission with downgraded bosses. I didn't use any tactics at all and never used a single shred of mitigation. I simply ran up to every spawn and begin spamming primary attacks. Guess what? 100% success rate. No breakfrees needed. Burned down every mezzing opponent in seconds, including spawns with multiple mezzers.

BTW, if anyone wants to play around with it, the arc is up in the AE currently titled "Gunslinger Challenge". It's an extremely simple mission, on an indoor map, only requiring you to defeat all the boss groups.

"A lot of people"? Where are all these hordes of people supporting your proposed change in this thread? I only see two of you. I see a much larger number of players in this thread that have stated they have no issues dealing with status effects at all.

Why don't you ask the devs for an "I WIN!" button too, while you're at it?

Few squishy powerset combinations have zero access to a ranged control ability, Defenders included. The only Defender secondaries that don't are Energy Blast and Dark Blast. Actually, Dark Blast does, but it is only a mag 2 power, so I am not counting that. You seem to be implying that the Defender AT overall has no access to control abilities.

Sorry, but once again I need to correct false information being thrown out by those advocating for this change. Neither Hurl from SS or Hurl Boulder from Stone Melee have any stun component to them. They have the following effects:

72.96 Smashing damage PvE only
+7.789 Knockback (50% chance) PvE only
-1.6 Fly for 15s
+13.5s Taunt (mag 4) Raid mob (like Hami), Must hit at -20%
+13.5s Taunt (mag 4) PvE only, not Raid mob (like Hami)

Well said! I could not agree more.

UNPOSSIBLE! Haven't you heard? The servers are dead and there are no teams!

You cannot discuss AT and powerset balance based purely on solo ability, without taking their team roles into consideration.

Not much I can say in response here. It has become increasingly obvious to me that we seem to play two different games, at least in perception. I have never held back on a team while playing a squishy, nor have I ever felt the need to. In fact, I find the exact opposite to be true. When I'm on a team playing a blaster, the team tends to reduce the level of attention I need to pay to my own survivability, allowing me to go into absolute, 100% pure, no holds barred, offense mode. Same applies to status effects. When teamed, I rarely have had any issues with being mezzed. Certainly far less than when solo.

My blasters are always doing damage, whether mezzed or not. And again, I'll say that in my experience, status effects are rarely, if ever, an issue when teamed.

OK, so if controllers can solo safely, and blasters already have inherent mez protection (Defiance), then the only AT's remaining that any argument for some type of status protection/resistance could possibly be made for would be corruptors and defenders.

"Entire groups"? Come on, now... A solo player will be up against groups of 3 minions, or a minion and a lieutenant. The times a player would run into a mezzing LT and minion together are going to be very rare. Off the top of my head, the only ones I can think of are Malta. It is not uncommon for Sappers and Gunslingers to spawn together. When I was doing my testing against all those Gunslinger bosses, I had to be cautious of groups with a boss level Gunslinger and a Sapper, and be sure to separate the two.

I agree with you here mostly. I think a lot of it comes down to balance between solo and team abilities of the various AT's. Scrappers have amazing solo performance, but they lag behind other AT's in what they bring to the table on a team.

First off, I never stated that every possible powerset combo had a ranged mez power, but your comment is a fair one anyway. Remember my AR/EM blaster I used to take out all those boss level CoT mages, Dark Ring Mistresses, Master Illusionists and Gunslingers? I used Power Thrust (melee knockback), Total Focus (melee again) and Bean Bag (ranged). I fought every group as a blapper, using Energy melee attacks.

My advice would be to examine how you look at and approach your powers, and maybe think 'outside the box' a bit more.

Did you miss my points earlier when I addressed this? Those defenders, blasters and controllers can utilize almost all of their control powers from outside the perception and agro radius of their foes. What good does Touch of Fear do for that DM scrapper when she gets mezzed before she can ever reach her foe to use it?

I addressed several of your responses to Claws in my last post. Beyond that, I don't feel the need to defend what another poster says. I also do not believe any of my posts have contained any exaggerations, omissions of pertinent information, etc.

To each their own. I think your statement here, in a way, illustrates why this whole thing is a non-issue.

Some players, and I include myself here, look at these type of things as a problem solving exercise. "This thing is a challenge for me. How can I best use my characters abilities to overcome it?"

Other players would rather throw up their arms in frustration, give up and ask that the game be changed to accommodate them. Not much different than the 'casual' player posting a rant about not being able to purple out their warshade.

OK, this thread has gone into full silliness mode. The ability of certain posters to selectively ignore how AT's actually perform and function in-game is truly impressive. Question for you, Lakanna: What happens to the team that is depending on that tanker to hold agro when he gets mezzed, all his defensive toggles get suppressed, and his taunt aura gets completely detoggled? Can you say 'teamwipe'?

If you call using tactics, problem-solving ability, and proactive use of your AT's powers 'changing the way you play', then I guess you do have to change the way you play if you want to successfully deal with mezzing opponents. Give it a try.. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Could it perhaps have something to do with the fact that tanks are designed to defend their fellow team members by taking & absorbing enemy attacks (including mez attacks) so that the team does not have to? Nah. That'd make WAY too much sense for this thread.

I had a very nice all Rikti LT farm mission (not the infamous Comm Officers) I used to run on my fire/rad controller. I had very little problem dealing with large groups where every single enemy had a mezzing attack. Dealing with any enemy group that does not contain bosses is mostly trivial for a controller. Single bosses are also generally not much trouble.

Which describes the exact situation nearly every AT combo out there will encounter when solo. Why do you insist it is so difficult for that squishy without mez protection to neutralize a mezzing enemy?

No hassle for me.

There are many things other AT's can do that scrappers can't, or situations where scrappers are less than optimal. Scrapper envy seems to be a common theme in any AT balance discussion that comes up on this forum. Folks seem to miss the point that for all the advantages scrappers have solo, as an AT, they bring the least overall benefit to a team. Trying to use the solo ability of a scrapper vs. a defender to justify buffing squishy AT's is especially silly. A defender brings far more to a team than a scrapper does.

You and Futurias sure seem to be cut from the same cloth. You both either have a less than stellar understanding of AT powers or you deliberately misconstrue how those powers function in a blatant attempt to justify your position. Energy Blast has a 100% knockback power: Power Push. Energy Manipulation has two powers with a 100% mag 3 stun: Total Focus and Stun (what a shock!). On top of all that, EM has access to Power Boost! Now, what was that about not having any personal mitigation?

Because whether on a blaster, scrapper or controller, the various fire powersets have always sacrificed protection/utility for damage. Blasters already essentially have inherent mez protection. It's called Defiance. I have burned down countless foes while mezzed on my Fire/EM blaster, especially while running solo Posi TF's.

You can consider it an insult, but Claws is 100% spot on with his comment, in my opinion. Those in this thread advocating hardest for this change have made a habit of using wild exaggerations as well as, intentionally or not, ignoring or omitting information about how powers actually function. It has, frankly, turned into an almost comical example of grasping at straws.

My personal opinion is that those asking for this change don't really have nearly as much trouble dealing with status effects as they imply in this thread. However, for those that do, I will be more than happy to create an AE mission with any enemy groups desired and assist any player who wishes in developing viable tactics for dealing with those enemies. I'd even be willing to create new toons on servers other than my home server, Protector, for this purpose.

Oh, and I did end up throwing together a simple AE mission that consists of defeating a series of the infamous Malta Gunslinger bosses. Again using my AR/EM blaster, I had a 100% success rate against them when they were bosses downgraded to LT's, with zero breakfrees needed. Once they were bumped up to normal bosses, I dropped down to an 80% success rate against them without needing breakfrees.

Don't know what to tell you.. I logged on to Protector earlier tonight for just a few minutes to check on a couple things and saw a villain SF forming, a Synapse TF and a Master of Statesman TF forming. All in a span of about 20 minutes or so. Doesn't seem to be a lack of activity going on to me.

I refuse to team with tools like this, so I would have quit immediately after this tell, player noted and one-starred this loser.

You know what they say: You can lead a horse to water....

I'd like to address this red herring claim of melee AT's not needing their status protection. It comes down to two very simple points.

• The majority of Scrapper and Tanker attack sets do not have any hard controls at all.

• Of those that do, every one of them is a melee attack (7 foot range). Those Scrappers and Tankers would never reach melee range to use their controls. Perception radius for a minion is 45 feet; a lieutenant is 50 feet; a boss, EB or AV is 54 feet. The squishies have the advantage here, as their controls are ranged attacks that can be applied from outside of perception range before the spawn has even agro'ed.

In all fairness, your Emp/Energy Defender does have a 100% knockback power, Power Push. Having said that though, without also having a hard control power available to use as well, I would not want to use that combo to solo at all.

Every one of those downgraded bosses can be 100% neutralized with the application of ONE single control power. LT level opponents only have mag 2 status protection. Every squishy AT has at least one mag 3 control power available. The only thing preventing you from locking them down is if your attack misses. With proper accuracy, that will only occur 5% of the time.

Tactics, mate. Don't charge around a blind corner.

*sigh*

Unfortunately, I am heading out the door for work right now, so I won't have time to do this right away, but I will be more than happy to run any number of Malta missions using a squishy and see how far I can get without using any breakfrees.

Better yet, maybe I'll just go make an AE mission with NOTHING BUT mezzing opponents.. Hmm. That almost sounds like it might be entertaining. Spawns of nothing but Malta Gunslingers, Carnie Dark Ring Mistresses, Madness Mages...

No, I answered your question directly. The only avoidance in this thread is being done by you, ignoring the multitude of posts from those of us who have no issues dealing with mezzing opponents on AT's without status protection.

"Over-reliance"? Would that be the same over-reliance where I ran repeated back-to-back missions against CoT and Carnies on my Blaster and only needed to use breakfrees once while defeating 13 boss level mezzers that a player on 0/x1 would only encounter as downgraded LT's? And that one exception was going up against 2 boss level mezzers in the same spawn.

Or would it be the "over-reliance" where you, yourself implied you could handle 75% of missions without relying on breakfrees?

You keep falling back on wild exaggeration to try and make your case, despite being called out on it many times in this thread. No one's buying it.

Neither, because the current system is balanced, and works well for the vast majority of players.

Katana has much better AOE damage than Broadsword as well.

Nah... Nerdrage is so much easier and entertaining!

Everyone is not intended to be able to afford whatever they want. That is a basic design mechanic of the game and its rarity system. If every player could have everything they wanted with no effort at all, the game would be broken.

Not being able to solo on x8 is not a basis to ask for status protection.

OMG! I can't just mash buttons and win! The game is broken and the devs hate me!

There you go again... Making stuff up. "Everyone" does not find it "tough and annoying" to deal with enemy mezzers on AT's without status protection. Did you miss every single one of the posts in this thread where that was stated? Or are you simply ignoring all of those to be stubborn?

Nearly every one of your posts so far in this thread have contained wild exaggerations or flat out false information. Yet you feel it appropriate to advocate an across-the-board change to a basic game mechanic?

Bottom line is this: Your idea is terrible, it lacks any merit whatsoever and should be consigned to the garbage heap of eternity.