Savos

You can't solo a GM or AV. You won't die obviously unless you get one shot but there is no damage backup to actually kill things significantly faster. Sure you can AoE a lot more often but it's still a Defender AoE. Controllers could legitimately get ridiculous but then again they already have that capacity. Empathy for controllers would be ridiculous. Defenders (and to a lesser extent Corruptors) just don't have the damage to do much with all those self buffs.

The sets that already can solo AV/GM don't have anything really beneficial to self-buff with, they are all debuff focused. Providing some help to buff based characters wouldn't create absurd balance issues outside of empath controllers.

I already have Acrobatics and Combat Jumping. They provide an immense amount of extra survivability. Yet Stuns and Sleeps still exist and I can't do anything about them. I even slot the Steadfast -KB and +Def IOs. Everything to provide more durability. Currently working towards a build with about 36% S/L defense (which I'd expect will be nerfed at some point, but for now it is relatively cheap). Going higher will roughly triple the cost of the build and I do not wish to do that.

Taking those powers does nothing to solve the core problem of too long of a duration for NPC mez. If you don't die within about 5 seconds of a mez, it doesn't matter how long it is, you will probably be fine. Having durations easily 5x that or more doesn't provide difficulty, it provides "lol you thought you could press buttons now?!"

Quite stupid. Even if you could self target, all those support ATs would still solo slower and less efficiently compared to melee. Even with Empathy and Adrenaline Boost.

They don't have the damage to back it up, but they can take a hit or two.

And you also include a whole lot of potential technical issues that have no point. Those concerns have no validity in discussion of whether or not it is a good idea to try.

Power Pool, (same) Power Pool, and a different Power Pool. Everyone takes Stamina so Health is a given, but Super Jump is now forced and doesn't even provide all around protection or resistance. Melee get those for just picking (any?) APP/PPP assuming they want or need them.

Neither, Sonic/Kinetic instead.

Both (excluding knockback) AoEs are cones of course but they still do respectable damage, plus they both have a 15% resist debuff. Essentially, every button you press increases damage. By a lot. Single target is good, but pre-stamina you don't have a chain you can keep active to make use of the debuffs. It is possible to solo with this character, but not that fun to me. Much more fun to see 1,000+ damage hits from scrappers, brutes and such who are at the damage cap and beating on something with -45% resistance.

Next time you play solo, try this:

When you miss an attack with a recharge of about 10-15 seconds or so as melee, turn off all your defenses that you can for 45 seconds.

On a regular mission you probably won't die. Boosted settings are probably going to ruin your day though.

No matter how much accuracy there still is a chance of a miss. And if going against higher level you get less duration as well as being harder to hit them in the first place but the defense can be countered to an extent.

10-15 seconds represents recast time on my crowd control stuff. I don't know the timings for other sets but I'd assume they are similar. Any time you miss with that attack though means whatever you wanted to mez now has free reign to shoot back and stun/hold/sleep with impunity.

I certainly can have reasonable success at such accuracy but it is a far cry from anything approaching guaranteed. Additionally, if I attempt larger spawn sizes the chance is now more that a miss will occur on anything vital. With 2 mezing lieutenants, I have a ~90% chance with AoE to not get hit with return fire that may include a stun or anything. Add more and that percentage goes down even further. 10% of the time with a chance death with 2 stun/hold/sleep lieutenants. In practice this is a bit lower because mobs have only a 50% base chance to hit modified by level and may choose not to actually use it. With a boss, it's at least 10+ seconds to even consider mezing because no single application will do it.

Move to a team and my awe inspiring AoE sleep is near useless, leaving me with a single target stackable stun, which I use. Any team will cause multiple lieutenants to spawn so I can only lock down one while the other can shoot at whoever they feel like. Granted there's no real risk to dying in a team context, but I'm now on the sidelines for 45 seconds if the RNG picks me after trying to do the defender-y things I signed up for when making a corruptor!

10% exposure vs. 0%. The only thing I want is a way to reduce this mez equals death equation that you vehemently defend as a good thing. Mez as a mechanic is fine. Mez duration needs to be fixed.

Mez still exists and it still sucks regardless of there being someone with protection on the team or not. 45 second and longer mezes have no reason to exist on players. If you have protection you never worry about them, even when diving into carnies or malta. End drain sure, that's a real problem, but not mez.

I've played a WP brute to 50 in enough situations to see that I never care about mez. Even vs. carnies or malta. They certainly can overwhelm status protection, however, they do not in practice enough of the time to ever be concerned with. Unless you solo at x8. Then it's your own fault.

Attempt playing a class that pulls a lot of aggro not related to damage but has no native defense or -tohit like Kinetics. Dive in and boost the melee or not, ranged mez like Longbow Nullifiers (god I hate them) just wreck your day. Or just an aoe happy blaster. See how much you get mezed even with a tank/brute/scrapper.

You have a serious bias towards solo play thinking that scrapper/brute/tank should and need to be able to solo x8 spawns otherwise they just die. Work in a team and this ceases to occur, even if it's only 4 people or whatever. You can still get mezed of course, but with the additional help they can't kill you quickly enough generally.

I like red side far more then blue because of the lack of a tank. There just is no need to be completely immune unless absolute catastrophic failure occurs and you can't disable one mob enough. Often times it isn't even needed.



Mez as it is now is just stupid. At 50 NPC mez lasts for ages, far longer then it takes to annihilate a spawn on a team. Melee has absolutely no regard for mez. None. Even your contrived situation provides limited actual mez during gameplay based on experience. Providing a bit less protection and this changes a bit and reduces solo at x8 potential, both good things in my opinion. Additionally, now that melee are no longer gods perhaps the base duration and mechanics of mez will get looked at to attempt and fix the absurd scaling that goes on because melee have too much defenses against the new more powerful mez that keeps getting introduced!

Solo +0/xX/boss packs with X being bigger then 3. WP with common IOs can do it no problem. Corruptor, at least the Sonic/Kinetic one I have, certainly couldn't if there was a boss without taking 10 minutes per pack. Solo an elite boss. Outside MM, those are pretty hard without /Dark or /Rad. There is just too much incoming damage and mez to handle.

I don't really care about equal. I like the support classes like Corruptors. Other people like melee because they just solo at x8 and make scads of influence and get huge numbers of drops. The only thing I care about is running teams really. I'd like to actually make use of my abilities without getting punished ridiculously so because I don't have the uber sets. To that end I choose to pick up powers and IOs that have defenses in them to assist, but it still isn't enough, and in some cases doesn't actually provide any minuscule benefit despite the naming of the IO.

Ok...? I don't care that mez exists or doesn't. I care about the duration. 45 seconds is a long time to be doing nothing. And it doesn't disappear solo either with smaller spawns. The minions and lieutenants have them above 40. I like to press buttons to get digital rewards. Not pressing buttons and watching digital lights go off isn't as impressive.

This is what I meant. This is also the reason why scrapper, brutes and tanks can just solo huge spawns without much effort. Most support sets provide additional mez protection as well, so if more is needed it is practical to get.

With just acrobatics against mobs with holds I mostly ignore them anyway. Even on teams with lackluster aggro control post Fulcrum Shift or first strike.

Giving -10 is way too much.

Those that work for a limited time say they are limited in duration after using. And they last 120 seconds.

10 seconds and not listed at all is quite different from the expected, by the wording, permanent bonus a la the 3% psi resist *ON THE SAME IO*.

I read the IO and it says "Reduces mez duration by 20%" (*). In reality I get zero effective reduction when slotting into click powers.

* - I'd accept either 83.33% duration or 80% duration depending on the way the buff is calculated.

It's semi-bugged, but overall just just awful all around. It works, but it only works for 10 seconds after using the power. I was expecting a full time buff a la Steadfast 3% and -KB, but instead got something totally pointless and ineffective.

I'd say that qualifies.

Such a random mess of how this thing works. Nothing in this thread represents current behavior.

Current behavior is this (as of I18/GR):

Click powers: *DO NOT SLOT WITH THIS IO* The 3% psi resist applies constantly. The +20% status resistance only applies for 10 seconds after you use the power. It does not stack, if you recast the power it turns of existing buffs and then reapplies it. Combat monitor reports 83.33% duration as expected based on the 1/(1+0.2) formula but for only the 10 seconds after using the power, Increase Density in my case.

Toggle/Auto powers: Presumably works correctly.

It now appears to give one bonus instead of the previous 5x4% or 5x5% stacking bonus listed previously. Presumably this was a way to implement the power in auto/toggle powers as the rule-of-five would take care of any stacks above 5.

However, the new implementation is pretty much worthless for non-toggle/auto users. Both Steadfast procs work correctly in Increase Density and do not require casting of the power to gain the benefit.

Which is precisely what occurs.

Please read. The resistance is not applied, even negligible amounts of it as you infer. It only lasts 10 seconds, then mez duration goes back to 100% in combat monitor. Aegis Mez protection lists 20% resistance bonus, 1/(1 + 0.2) = 83.33% duration. This would be a significant help for a support class that is frequently in melee regardless of any other considerations. Ideally, this would be protection, but given the complete lack of options, this is the best I could find.

It should provide resistance (i.e. shortening the duration of mez effects). This is what the use of the IO is intended as it is named "Mez resist" shockingly enough.

In a click power the status resistance buff is only applied for 10 seconds after the power is used. The 3% psionic resistance is applied at all times.

The IO is useless in a click power for the primary purpose, yet the secondary use is still functional.

Additionally, the potential powers to slot this IO into are not suitable for the likely users who would desire this capability. 4 out of the 12 sets for C/C/D/MM have powers to slot this IO in without the need for Tough or a APP/PPP shield in order to make it work correctly.

It is a terribly designed piece of junk as it is now.

Functionally, it is as if you had a 4 slot Kinetic Combat, but you only gained the 3.75% Smash/Lethal defense for 10 seconds after using that power it is slotted in.

Status resist is only good because there are no other options. Melee ignore it completely, but since the developers seem to think that adding duration makes it harder it just screws over not melee, especially at the high levels.

If there was something else I could grab other then Acrobatics, I'd get that. I already have the really pathetic -2 Acrobatics, but that gets overwhelmed constantly as well.

At least if the status resistance worked that would provide something to get away from the ridiculous mez durations. But no. It doesn't work.

Such a ridiculously contrived set of circumstances. In practice it's whoever responds first, especially red side. Blue side has other problems and stalkers don't fit all that nicely into blue teams. And for Positron, I'd go with the stalker to be honest if forced to actually choose. Killing Mortifcators early on is vital to prevent the Embalmed Abominations from coming back.

This is really dumb.

The truth is that during leveling any AT is preferable to nothing which is often the case. It's never an either/or situation, you can have the scrapper (assuming they aren't soloing like always) and the stalker (assuming they aren't soloing missions like always).

External concerns do skew the effectiveness though, as most stalkers are the assassin strike every 8 seconds and don't do anything else new (or bad) players make up a significant majority of the population of the AT.