Rigel_Kent

TA's only problem is that many players have decided to stay in a distant little corner of gameplay, running only a tiny subset of missions and accepting only a tiny subset of buff/debuff sets for very narrow purposes.

Among players who experience the game to the fullest, TA's reputation is quite good, I can assure you.

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The "Standard AOE" primaries are archery, AR and fire for blasters. (We don't get Dark. Yet?)

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Not that Dark would be all that much of an AoE powerhouse anyway. It'll be okay, but just okay.

Radiation Blast, on the other hand...

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From what I can tell, the key to a Snipe is its range, yeah?

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I'm trying to come up with a more polite answer than "lolrange," but I'm afraid I can't think straight on an empty stomach.

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Considering the amount of +acc available and the fact it has an acc bonus to begin with not really.

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Insufficient. There are still plenty of instances in the game where autohit is desirable because tohit gets floored or nearly floored by cheating NPCs. There is also value in power variety (interruptible but otherwise vanilla 4th blast? yawn and skip), value in certainty, value in not having to slot accuracy, and the possibility that the sniper IO sets will get retooled to not suck.

Although my main design concern is still that interruptibility + 5-range-95 randomness = annoyance from too much uncertainty. Randomness has its place in RPGs, but sometimes, you really just need a Magic Missile.

Well, on the bright side, it's an easy game, so people won't kick your gimped concept build off pickup teams. And, like you say, soloing won't be too bad.

Sorry, but blasters aren't an AT for staying at range, and staying at range is a questionable strategy to begin with. A /psy defender sounds a lot more like what you're trying to accomplish. Not to mention a better character overall, both teaming and possibly soloing too.

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We kinda already have Melee/Buff with SoAs. Along with Ranged/Defense. They fill a pretty unique role in the game really, they're possibly one of the best designed ATs.

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Meh. If I wanted to play a branching RPG class, I can take my pick of any Korean MMO, tyvm. Neither innovative nor customizable enough to interest me.

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I should point out that the aforementioned sets that everyone has a problem with, Empathy and Force Field, aren't exactly sunshine and rainbows to solo on a controller either.

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Empathy is kind of crummy already for defenders, except in carefully engineered situations where its bundled buffs are used fully. I'd shudder to think what a nerfed controller version of Empathy would look like -- I'd rather see the numbers boosted for defenders and controllers left alone.

Additionally, I wouldn't say capping Lightning Storm to one summon at a time isn't a total impossibility, given the current design direction.

I don't mean to throw a slippery slope out there, just to show that this change is just part of a ongoing reduction of the role of recharge buffs in the game.

I still think interruptible attacks should be autohit. Interruptibility adds enough uncertainty, no need to impose the 5-range-95 tohit mumbo jumbo. And with autohit, snipes get a utility niche no matter where their DPS or DPA or DPE ends up.

Psi/Elec will do fine, especially soloing. Just remember that it's OK to favor your secondary with power choices and slot allocation sometimes. Also don't expect much in the way of AoE damage or utility unless you get real creative -- ST DPS is pretty much the only thing Psi/Elec does.

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I want Melee Attack/Buff

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If it's a non-epic AT, I agree with you 100%. One heroside, one villainside. And with Support and Assault sets overlapping with Melee, that opens up options in case the devs feel there's enough Melee already.

We're superheroes. All of us are elite. The "E" in EAT stands for "epic" which is code for "dev-written backstory." That's the only thing separating EATs from the core archetypes -- core archetypes get to write their own backstory from scratch without finger-waving away the dev-written one.

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An inherent power that has as much effect on defenders as Containment has on controllers is likely to be just as broken as containment is for controllers. How does "easily-attainable doubling of all final buff and debuff numbers" sound?

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Sounds like a good justification for Castle to double the recharges and halve the durations of all our good powers. Remember, Containment came at a cost.

I hope you're not coming over here from the "Psi Blast is overpowered" lolthread. Other than that, I don't see the connection between your "ranged fighter" concept with "pathetically weak primary pvpers whine about anyway."

Might I suggest something like Archery/Elec or Fire/Elec instead? Archery or Fire will do a good job thinning out minions at range, while /Elec can blap away what remains.

Or if you're looking for a pvp build, try the pvp boards.

If you include "pure healer" AE kiddies, all primaries other than empathy are rather uncommon. Cold in particular is definitely underused.

Which is kind of a shame, since pretty much nobody liked the change, and it was an admitted kludge to patch over some recharge related problem with AI attack chains. Of course, conspiracy theories abound since the majority of pets only have one attack.... including Lightning Storm....

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Empathy, for example, gives godly buffs that are limited by recharge. If Regen Aura, Recovery Aura or Adrenalin Boost are 3/4 strength, who cares?

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Sorry to inject even more gloom into this thread, but all three of those buffs are identical for controllers and defenders. Though if defenders got, ohh, maybe +625% base regen from Regen Aura instead of the +500% both ATs currently get, that may actually make a difference!

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I'm really not wild about the idea of a straight up controller nerf. If their damage takes a hit, any sort of hit, I'd insist on at least a partial rollback of the Issue 5 changes to their AoE mezzes (double recharge half duration, etc.).

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uncontrollable KB

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Myth: Storm has uncontrollable KB.
Fact: Most stormies don't know how to control their KB.

Ice Blast provides a couple of de-KB powers if you're into that. Freeze Ray and Bitter Freeze Ray grant immunity to knocks. But really, those kinds of powers are optional. A well played Storm/Dark defender (or Dark/Storm corruptor or Grav/Storm controller) will keep enemies well controlled, with knockback usually resulting in better positioning, not worse. When everything's immobilized, anything that gets knocked the wrong way can be easily repelled or knocked back into place. Remember, Tornado is aimable, and when enemies are immobilized, its behavior is more predictable.

Defender storm buffs and debuffs aren't a whole lot different between ATs. Controllers get a slightly better Thunder Clap. Corruptors and masterminds get kind of crappy slows from Snow Storm. All the other ATs get slightly weaker healing and demez magnitude from O2 Boost, slightly weaker damage and end hose from Lightning Storm, slightly weaker debuffs from Hurricane and Freezing Rain, slightly weaker buffs from Steamy Mist.

Of all the places to find a new defender issue, I wasn't expecting it to be a popular power from one of the original launch sets! Yet here it is.

Kinetics

Balance issue: With Fulcrum Shift, only the single buff pet summoned at the user grants a higher damage buff for defenders (50% instead of 40%). The mass buff pets summoned at the targets grant the same damage buff (25% for all ATs).

Can someone double-check my numbers to confirm this?

The nice thing about the defender dilemma is that there are multiple ways to fix it. We don't excel at damage, we don't excel at survivability, we don't even particularly excel at support -- but fix any one of the above, and the problem's fixed.

For my money, I'd like to see the AT modifiers tweaked to be the undisputed champions of buff/debuff. Defenders should blow controllers, corruptors, masterminds and VEATs away at everything from +recharge buffs to -recovery debuffs -- isn't buff/debuff the point of the defender archetype? Yet we don't.

Even the buff/debuff types Defenders do have a numeric advantage on, the advantage is marginal. -35% instead of -30% resistance on our Freezing Rain? Big whoop. Radiant Aura heals +134 base instead of +118? Big whoop. Fulcrum Shift on a spawn of 10 buffs damage +300% instead of +290%? Big whoop with extra bitter bitterness.

Though of course I won't let my opinion stand in the way to a change to Vigilance. My Defender inherent idea hasn't changed: recode basic inspirations to be 25' PBAoEs, affecting self if user is not a defender, or affecting self and allies if user is a defender. Voila, Defenders have a huge niche as the biggest healing/endrestoring/buffing/demezzing dynamos of the game, bar none.

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Since coming back I have seen a grand total of zero earth controllers and pretty much no earth advice or discussion as of late and it's hisheartening, has it received a nerf?

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Yes, Issue 5. From the patch notes:
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* Controllers have a new Inherent Ability called Containment. All Controllers will do double damage (+100% unenhanced base Damage) to a target (non pvp) that is Immobilized, Disoriented, Slept or Held. Increasing the non-Pet damage potential of all Controllers. This change is intended to give them a more balanced and even game-play experience throughout all of their levels.
* Controller AoE Holds, Disorients and Sleeps (and a few others like Quicksand and Ice Slick) recharge times have been increased and duration reduced, to balance the new increased damage

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In particular, Stalagmites (your AoE stun) takes twice as long to recharge and has half the duration. Your Stone Cages are capable of doing double damage, though.

So Controllers typically build for damage these days, and aren't particularly interested in control. They pick damage heavy sets (like Fire control and Kinetics) and don't care much for the control heavy ones (like Earth control and Trick arrow). That's the general population, of course -- forumgoers are usually good at both, but we're sadly the minority.

Earth Control is as valuable as ever on experienced teams, though. So I hope you don't get discouraged. We really need more support builds in the game, and fewer DPS-centric farm builds.

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Sorry about the long post, and I don't intend to derail the thread, but I just wanted to mention something to illustrate how the metagame has changed for controllers. If I'm looking for defense/support, I don't recruit controllers into my pugs anymore, unless they have something like "earth" in their LFT message. I only look for defenders who are clearly not "pure healers" (debuff defenders are great!), and controllers who are clearly not "pure DPS" (earth ice and mind controllers are great!). Because otherwise there's a big chance the pug is going to be "supported" by a rock-the-aura pure healer or all-damage-no-control controller. Hilarity (and debt caps) ensue.

Worse, I get the feeling that a lot of the general population have forgotten that controls and debuffs are among best defenses in the game. Architect farm teams rarely, if ever, look for controllers. They just want tankers and healers. It's like the gamebase has forgotten all but those two forms of defense in this game.

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I know it's for balance.

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The only balance concern I can think of is a metagame one. If 10% more of the CoH playerbase were enticed into playing defenders, the game would get way too easy for everyone.

Could also be set choice. Rad is hmmm so-so on single target damage, but the way I play it is to constantly throw AoE after AoE after AoE. A long range AoE to soften things up with a nasty -defense debuff (check out the duration!), a wickedly fast animating PBAoE, and a basic hard-hitting cone. Throw in Achilles' Heels and all those AoEs start to feed into themselves nicely.

My guess is Statesman/Geko (whoever was in charge of powers at launch) added the 3 seconds of interruptibility time to the 12 seconds of recharge, and balanced snipe damage off the total of 15 seconds.

"Them?" It's just one guy (spoofing several "different" RMT websites) doing all the spam in the game. Maybe two, three guys, tops.