PhroX

While I disagree with the OPs reasoning - AT mods are a good thing - I definately agree with him that Corruptor's /Traps needs a buff. With the old poison trap, the set was roughly balanced overall. Much like /Psi Dominators, it was a bunch of weak powers being compensated for by one overpowered one. Unlike /Psi, when /Traps' overpowered power got nerfed, the rest didn't get buffed

It's long gone now, but my vote goes to the pre-nerf Posion Trap. When procced out, it'd render an entire spawn unable to act and kill most of them. And it crippled their regen (only noticable on AV/GMs really). And it worked on all ranks of enemy. I hate to admit it, but the nerf was completely justified.

I used to do similar things with my Fire/Trap Corruptor. With the pre-nerf poison trap, stealth, soft-capped S/L/E defense, the AoE capabilities of Fire and Aid Self for the little damage that occasionally got through, I could wipe out full 8 man spawns without breaking a sweat. Annoyingly, PT's recharge was too long, so I'd wipe out a spawn, go and help the team for a bit while it recharged, then run off and solo another one.

Then they nerfed Poison Trap, which removed much of my suvivabilty and damage

Benn playing My Fire/Traps corruptor again recently, and I've a few thoughts on improvements for the /Traps powerset:

Web Grenade: Make it a small AE (say, 10' radius)

Triage Beacon: Increase the regen by 50-75%, and either make it mobile (like FFG) or give it duration 30 sec, recharge 60 sec, so it'll be up most every fight when slotted.

Poison Trap: Either put the time between the chance to hold ticks back to it's original level, or increase the chance of it happening. AFAIK, this was nerfed back in the overpowered proc bomb days, because the devs thought that was why it was broken. It wasn't, but when they found the real reason, it was never reverted. These days, PT is really only useful for the -regen on tough opponents.

Time Bomb: Make it like the Omega Manuever. Still wouldn't be great, but at least it'd have some use. Ideally it'd be ripped out an replaced with something that actually helps protect the group - you've got enough offense in Trip Mine - but I can't see this happening

Just remembered another thing. Take the damn fear effect off of acid mortar.

I would say they're evil. Not because they create conflict, but because they revel in it. If they did it reluctantly, if they limited the suffering inflicted on others to the bare minimum, then you could argue that they aren't evil (as I agree with that quote from Martin). However, they don't. They love it.

When reviewing actual story arcs (as opposed to farms or challenges), I go roughly like this:

No stars: Never given one out, but I would for offensive content. Or maybe an arc with 5 kill all missions in Oranabega.

One star: Badly designed. No thought or effort put into telling a good story and/or making it fun to play. Pretty much irredeemable.

Two stars: Flawed. There's some worthwhile stuff in there, but overall it doesn't work. This can be down to bad writing, poor editing, or not thinking about the playability of the arc. Most of these could be turned into 3 or even 4 star arcs if the author was prepared to sit down and work with it.

Three stars: Solid. It does what it's trying to do without being exceptional. The kinda of thing I enjoy playing, but once it's done, I don't think about any more. The majority of arcs would fall into this category. Three stars doesn't necesarily mean that the arc could be improved and needs more work - I've played plenty of arcs (and dev content for that matter) which do all they set out to do, but would only get this grade, as the story they're telling is nothing exceptional.

Four stars: Very good. Must be well written, with a good concept behind it, and must also be fun to play. No overpowered foes, no non-sensically strong allies, no glaring spelling or grammar errors, no significant plot holes, believable characters and so on. All they're lacking is that spark of true brilliance.

Five stars: Exceptional. Reserved for the best of the best. Not only must the story telling and gameplay be of high quality, but it must be interesting too. A straightforward "Azuria has lost a magic item, help her find it" arc is almost never going to get this, no matter how well made it is, as it's too routine.

Incidentally, the majority of offical content would get 3-4 stars. There's probably only half-a-dozen I'd give 5 to.

One of the problems with making a defender inherent is there's such a variety of abilities and playstyles within defenders. Whereas one blaster or scrapper plays and performs it's role in a pretty similar manner to the next, a Empath is nothing like a Storm, and a FFer is nothing like a Rad. So you have to create an inherent which is beneficial to all defenders.

A "break free" effect would be good for, say, an Empath or Rad, but it would be of little use to a Sonic or FF - they have mez protection to start with, and on top of that, most of their protection will still be running even with them mezzed.

An ability which, through one method or other, gets stronger as fights go on (I'll include Vigilance in this) is of limited use to those defenders who do most of their defending before or at the start of the fight - FF and Sonic pre-buff, TA opens the fight with most of it's debuffs, etc.

My scrapper's a healer - she's got 6 powers that restore health, plus a rez.

Stone/WP Brute or vice-versa on a tank. Awesomely cool amounts of screen shaking, and the end to keep it going

IMO, if it reduces something, it's a debuff, if it stops something, it's a control

New ones are awful

Well, the angry one's not bad, but the others suck

See? The tongue one is dire.

Union mainly. Defiant was actually my original server, and I only started on Union when I ran out of slots, but I've come to enjoy the characters on the latter more.

None on the other two cos I don't speak foreign

My favourite newb moment, well, lets just say it involved the old MoG and Psychic Clockwork...

Ah, that makes sense. So, if it's a temporary RES boost, do something else until it wears off, but if it's a permanent high RES, then the debuffs are as good as always

That's a confusing title, but it's all I can think of. Anyway, I've seen some people saying that resistance debuffs aren't so good against foes with high resistance - say, some AVs - as the resistance resists the debuff.

Now, while I am aware of this effect - resisting res debuffs - I was always under the impression that, in practice, it has no effect on the strength of the debuff. I'll throw out some numbers to explain my thinking:

To be honest, even if corruptors and controllers are better than defenders, I can't see the latter being obsolete. Why? Player perception. If your average player is looking for a support character to keep his team alive, he'll go for a defender first, whether or not a 'troller or corr could do as good a job. It's like the whole "healer" issue. People will still think they need defenders, even if they don't.

1-12 - Drops
12-22 - DOs
22-late 40s - Either common IOs or Frankenslotting
late 40s - start looking at set bonuses

Basically, the only difference between KD and KB is the magnitude. IIRC, less than 1, it's KD, above 1, it's KB. Having more than one Ice Patch (or other KD patch), pushes the magnitude above 1 (same, as, say stacking holds on a boss), hence it becomes knockback instead.