Panzerwaffen

None of which are mezzes. Status effect=hard control. Stuns, sleeps, holds, fears are hard controls.

On my blaster, it was before the AI changes. I've ran into the new, improved Malta on my bots mm since then though, and they were about the only enemy group that ever gave her pause. I believe I actually had to lower my difficulty off of Ruthless for them. I still don't see one enemy group as being even a remotely valid argument for adding status protection to every AT though. If everyone feels Malta are that much of an issue (and it seems from this thread that most do), then the right answer is for the devs to address this one specific group.

Fair enough. When I first went up against Carnies, I hated them too. But rather than get frustrated about it and throw up my arms in defeat, I looked at them as a problem to be solved and altered my tactics to deal with them. Now, they don't worry me too much at all. As you said, there are many groups out there that are easier to deal with, for those who find these to be too much of a challenge, or too frustrating to deal with. What is wrong with that? I just don't get why it is so much of a problem that there are a few (and they really are a minority) enemy groups that can be difficult for a solo player using certain AT's & powerset combinations. I certainly do not expect to be able to handle the same situations solo on my FF/Rad defender as on my fire/shield scrapper. It is extremely unrealistic to expect every AT and powerset combo to handle all content with the same ease, whether solo or on a team.

Another outlook I just don't get. Inspirations are designed to carry you through difficult or unusual situations, or just plain ol' bad luck. I really can't understand the apparent aversion to having to use an inspiration every once in a while. OK, I'm on a controller (or whatever AT) and because of bad luck, timing, whatever, I fail to neutralize the annoying enemy mezzer using my powers and I get mezzed. I pop a BF (if I have one) and get back to it. I personally don't find myself put in that position often enough to even make a point of carrying breakfrees on a squishy. But if I did, I would be sure to carry them. I make sure to carry greens on my shield scrapper because even with capped defense, with bad luck or enough enemies attacking at once, I may need them. I don't feel like a less adequate player because I might have to use an inspiration every once in a while.

Any fellow blapper gets points from me!

I've pulled agro plenty of times on my blaster too. That does not alter the overall fact that scrappers and tankers are expected to get a majority of the agro and are designed to fight in the thick of things. This is why they have defensive powers, including their status protection.

Yeah, except he is complaining that he can't even solo a +0/x1, no boss spawn either without mez protection.

Right. Which explains why when I put up a particular IO for 1,555,555 it consistently sells for anywhere from 3-6 million.

OK, I am seriously not doing this to try and say something snarky like 'lrn2play noob', so don't take it that way. I honestly cannot see how a Psi/Psi blaster can find Malta overwhelmingly difficult on Heroic. You'd have access to 2 knockback powers, 1 knockup AOE power, a ranged sleep, a ranged stun, and a ranged fear. On heroic where you would be facing nothing higher than a LT, you could completely lock down up to 3 enemies. Even if you got mezzed, under Defiance you have 3 ranged attacks you can use. Plus you have all that -rech in your attacks. For the most part, Malta have no resistance to Psi damage, while they do have good resistance to Smashing and Lethal. To be honest, Psi/Psi blaster vs. Malta on Heroic sounds like easy mode already to me. Certainly much easier than my AR/EM blaster, which I used to solo Crimson's Malta arc.

Beyond that, cherry picking one enemy group out of all the game to try and make your case that ALL characters should have status effect protection, doesn't really do much for boosting your argument.

Really? What mez ability does a Katana, Broadsword, Dual Blades or Fire Melee scrapper have?

They also fight in melee range, have higher inherent Threat values and attract a lot more agro. Your comparison falls flat on this point alone.

BRILLIANT!

Sure. Give those melee characters the same control tools that Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators and Corruptors have available to them. Of course, that would pretty much remove any variety from the game and make every AT into a bland copy of every other. Which is kind of what this whole thread was about anyway.

And speaking of a lack of replies, the silence is quite deafening in response to the many posts in this thread pointing out how all of us have essentially no problem dealing with the 'OMG! Impossible!' status effect enemies while playing our squishy characters without status protection.

In fact, I noticed that you chose to ignore it completely when I called you out on your wild exaggeration that you can't solo a mission on Heroic without using a whole tray of breakfrees.

Are Taskforces not an intended part of gameplay? Any player can acquire ANY recipe in the game doing nothing more than running TF's, and that includes purple recipes. They can either use the merits that they acquire to directly purchase the recipe they want, or in the case of purple recipes, they can easily convert those merits to influence by buying a high value recipe with merits and selling it on the market.

The first 6 months I played City of Heroes, I did not farm for purples, there were no merits or tickets to make random rolls with, and I did not play the market other than selling drops and buying recipes to actually use. Yet by the time my very first character got to level 50, I had nearly every power slotted with IO sets, and some nice bonuses. Sure, I didn't have 5xLotG, a Miracle & Numina unique and 5 sets of purples. But your statement that items are out of reach of those who "play as intended" is 1000% at odds from my own experience as a new player.

Every single one of these threads comes down to the same basic point. Some portion of players want pretty much everything to be available with little to no effort on their part. That would destroy game balance in this game, or just about any other. It is a balance issue going back to the origin of RPG games. Look up 'Monty Haul Campaign' if you are not familiar with the term.

It doesn't matter what mechanisms are put in place to appease this subset of players. They will never be satisfied. They will always cry that it is too hard, out of reach, unobtainable, etc. In effect, what they want seems to be the ability to get their ultra-rare uber loot at character creation and walk out of the tutorial at level 50. That does not sound like a game I would want to play.

The difference between a common level 30 damage IO and a level 40 is a whopping 3.8% increase. A set IO triple enhancement, like Touch of Death D/E/R? 1.9% per attribute. Once ED is taken into account, I personally feel those small amounts have very little practical in-game effect, especially when compared to set bonuses.

There is one. Every zone and every auction house has a merit vendor. You can buy any IO recipe in the game for a fixed cost at those vendors, with the exception of purple recipes.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Oh. Wait. You're serious?

OK, just for the heck of it, I ran a few scanner missions in PI against Carnies and Circle of Thorns. Then I went and ran about half of Madeleine Casey's To Save a Soul arc. (I stopped when I got to the hunt 45 carnies mission.) I did this on my lvl 50 AR/EM blaster. I only have two tier one powers usable under Defiance: Power Thrust (low dmg, knockback, melee) and Burst. All my other single target attacks are melee.

I started on 0/x1, with bosses enabled. Then went to 0/x2 with bosses because on x1 I was only getting one boss per mission. I then went to 0/x3, no bosses which still spawned the boss mezzers but at LT level.

At boss level I defeated:
2 Death Mages
7 Dark Ring Mistresses
4 Master Illusionists
Along with a large number of standard Illusionist LT's.

I used no breakfrees for any of these with one exception. When I went to 0/x2 I had a mission that spawned a Dark Ring Mistress and a Master Illusionist together next to the mission objective, and they spawned at +1 level, conning red to me. Needless to say, this was a challenge. I did have to use a few BF's here (but not a whole tray, nor even half a tray ), and I also suffered my only defeats here as well. Of course, two bosses will never spawn together on base difficulty settings, so I really don't consider this a 'fair' fight exactly.

When I went to 0/x3 with bosses spawning as LT's it became almost trivially easy. I defeated 3 Master Illusionists at LT level with no effort at all.

Now, I consider myself a fairly average player. I was able to overcome every one of these challenges using the powers available to my character with one exception that required inspirations. On base difficulty settings a player will not be facing anything but LT level enemies. In that case, every one of those that mez can be 100% mitigated by the use of a single control power. If facing boss level mezzers, they can be taken out of the fight by stacking two control powers on them as well.

As far as Malta go, I didn't run any missions against them here, but I did solo Crimson's World Wide Red arc on this same blaster in the past. Can Malta be a challenge? Yes. Are they an insurmountable challenge? No. Maybe the devs should take a look at Malta. Then again, maybe it is not such a bad thing having a group that can be difficult and might require a player to grab some team mates for help.

Do you need a whole tray of breakfrees to solo a heroic mission? No one I know does. I call 'em like I see 'em. Sorry if that bothers you...

Yay! More over-the-top exaggeration! Please, for entertainment, explain how you cannot complete a solo heroic mission without using "a whole tray of breakfrees".

Holy e.e. cummings post, Batman!

To be blunt here, he is right. If the majority of us have essentially ZERO issues dealing with status effects, using the wide array of tools available to our characters, yet you find them to be insurmountable, then I submit that the problem is not with the game, but with you.

In 18 months of almost daily play, the ONLY times I have ever found status effects annoying or frustrating were when I was on a scrapper dealing with a mezzing boss prior to having my status protection. Reason: Scrappers have few or no tools for proactively dealing with those effects. They rely almost solely on their status protection power. All the 'squishy' AT's have numerous ways to deal with them. Yet I was still able to deal with those bosses through the use of an already existing in-game tool: inspirations.

Heck, there is already status effect mitigation available in power pools as it is.

Combat Jumping: Immobilize
Acrobatics: Knockback & Hold
Health: Sleep

The game is not intended to be equally easy for all AT's and powerset combinations under all circumstances. Some will excel in areas where others struggle, and vice versa. Dumbing down the game and making every AT essentially the same is not an improvement.

Well said. Yet this seemingly simple concept seems as difficult for some to grasp as quantum particle physics.

Using an exaggerated example to try and make your point only makes the argument for mez protection look even more silly than it already is. No one faced 8 enemies solo prior to issue 16 and no one will face 8 enemies solo currently unless they intentionally increase their difficulty. A basic solo spawn will consist of 3 minions or one minion and a LT.

Except the frequency is not even remotely close to what you are exaggerating it to be.

Number of foes is only going to increase if the player ups their difficulty or they are on a team. If they're on a team, then they are only facing a fraction of the enemy group's attacks. Generally even less than they would solo.

I can't recall a single time EVER on a team where I was mezzed anywhere even remotely close to 25% of the time, while playing an AT without status protection. More like 5% of the time.

Please keep coming up with more of these exaggerated examples to try and support your argument. They're entertaining at least.

How odd. I have bought several full purple sets on the market since I've been playing, and I have not and would not ever go near RMT. I've also gotten probably close to 2 dozen purple drops along the way. Frankly, it sounds to me like you want all the best gear without putting in the required effort. That's the whole point of ULTRA-RARE gear. Sorry, but you are not going to be able to purple out all your toons playing a couple hours a week.

Regular set IO's are very affordable and accessible to any player putting in a decent amount of effort. All you have to do is play the game, use the market intelligently, and you should have no trouble acquiring set IO's.

Maybe if you mean ridiculously trivial and easy to deal with. I really cannot understand the problem some people seem to have with these. Why is it I can play the game using any of my blasters, controllers, doms, or masterminds and get by just fine fighting opponents that use status effects? I never buy breakfrees, and usually even forget I have them in the tray, yet I can still manage. It's not that hard folks...