Turbo_Ski

specific build combinations are irrelevant if the average defender solos incredibly slowly compared to the average build of every other AT. Defenders however are so far behind in damage that corruptors and controllers bring more team support simply by their damage advantage completely outweighing the support value loss (damage is a form of support in and of itself).

Unless you're suggesting to make Enervating Field an inherent for all defenders and corruptors and controllers, I don't see how that is relevant to balancing damage modifiers. You can't include anything that isn't available to all sets at lvl 1 thru lvl 50 when balancing damage modifiers, unless it's a recurring consistent theme like Assasin's Strikes/Placate/hide for stalkers. -Res/+dmg support powers aren't consistently the same value or available at the same levels or even available at all for some sets.

You could include -Res/+Dmg on both sides and corruptors would still be ahead in damage vs support. However AT base damage is never balanced around around the presence of -res/+dmg powers in support powersets, that is something to be left for power balance not AT balance.

I second this. It's a lot easier to level any other AT solo than it is to level a defender solo, including EATs here.

Damage advantage gained through -res/+dmg powers is irrelevant to the discussion since those aren't available in every set, and a 25% advantage in a -res/+dmg power doesn't translate into a 25% damage advantage. We're talking about base+inherent damage here, a subject that covers every level range and isn't balanced around when you finally get that special -res/+dmg power from whatever set you chose, if there even is one.

There is a difference between Power Balance and AT Balance. Stalkers, Dominators, and Kheldians all received massive buffs at no cost. There is no rule that says you have to nerf something just because you buffed something else.

There would be no reason to nerf them just because you buffed them. There is no past evidence to even support that claim.

The best solution for making empathy more solo-friendly, is to add a self-only fortitude buff into Recovery Aura and a self-only adrenaline boost buff in regen aura. Yes it's a really strong and late-blooming combination but Healing Aura is the only other power you could even use while solo and it certainly would help empaths out in teams higher than 5 people.

Which is why it's not uncommon to find MoSTF teams looking for a dedicated healer for a granite tanker specifically for the tower phase.

You're misinterpreting the context here. We're comparing Defenders to Corruptors and Controllers, both of which defenders are inferior to in team support when you look at the AT as a whole. Corruptors achieve this superiority through the rather large damage gap between them and defenders. Controllers achieve this both through damage and the fact that their primaries are all about mitigating damage. Defenders support numbers are supposed to make them superior to corruptor in overall team support but that's not going to happen unless you buff defender base damage some to lessen the corruptor/Defender damage gap so their 25% support advantage can catch up to the corruptor damage gains.



The stacked TF examples are irrelevant since a team of 8 controllers is always going to be better than a team of 8 corruptors, and a team of 8 corruptors is always going to be better than a team of 8 defenders. All of those combinations however can complete any "Master of" challenge without breaking a sweat. Having the lowest base damage amongst all ATs and a low damage cap only limits defenders when 8-stacked since once all mitigation buff/debuffs are laid down it all comes down to base damage output.

Of course, simply having a good tanker causes defenders the same issue as support stacking since the tanker is damage mitigating through his shields, making damage mitigation from support sets rapidly less valuable and damage capability rapidly more valuable.

actually, TA honestly doesn't have much. The debuffs as a whole aren't that much stronger than Kin's debuffs but it's the in-set heal that helps kin out more defensively than TA. Frankly I see this more of an issue with Flash+PGA+Glue still not being very fluid or potent. Adjusting flash's -tohit a bit higher (not too much) and making PGA's sleep more reliable would make TA's mitigation less spotty without being higher than rad's.

12% is the average buff against minions/lts/boss taken from extensive data simulations by Starsman. This data factors in overkilling, without factoring in overkill you end up with a number like 21.25%.

nevermind that controller and corruptor fulcrum shift are currently using defender values. Also Kinetics completely gets screwed going from corr/troller <-> defender even if fulcrum shift functioned as it was intended. The Transfusion and Transference powers are appropriately higher but heals and +end are rather meaningless upgrades in value when overhealing and overending are frequent. Siphon Power and Fulcrum shift are the only other powers that differ and have meaning (when the difference is there as it currently isn't for FS). Speed Boost and Siphon Speed are indentical on all ATs.

Defender support advantage is 25% the majority of support powers at the moment mainly because most look directly at the ranged buff modifier (1.25 for defenders compared to corruptor's 1.00).

Corruptor's scourge benefit against minion/lt/boss is a 12% damage buff for corruptors. On top of their 0.75 damage modifier it comes out to really be a modifier of 0.84. That's a 29.2% gain over the defender modifier (0.65). Keep in mind that -Res/+Dmg debuffs/buffs in support sets are part of that 25% defender gain and don't contribute to the damage difference because they aren't consistently found in every set, thusly are irrelevant when talking about base+inherent damage balance.

tldr; it's 25% defender support gain vs 29.2% corruptor damage gain at the moment.

If you read the OP's post you would know that he is saying to raise defender to be balanced with the support<->damage trade off with corruptors and corruptor damage to be balanced with what controllers put out under containment. Corruptors would still deal 25% more damage than defenders and defenders would still have support values 25% higher than corruptors.

No, it wouldn't since they are underperforming compared to all other ATs

Controllers are dealing appropriate damage compared to every other AT except defenders.

Funny because tankers, scrappers, brutes, and dominators also are popular amongst farmers.

I already did here

It's funny that you hate controllers with such a passion and calling for nerfs. Are you going to call for the same when Corruptors greatly outweigh defenders in GR too?

You have bias with no logical reasoning to support it. You refuse to look at or understand the numbers behind the ATs and instead go on what you feel is right. That's not thinking, that's believing.

So how would a damage buff hurt you? You seem adamantly opposed to the whole idea and yet don't state how you are going to suffer because of it.

you totally forgot khelds

Controllers could solo missions in complete safety before Issue 5 but it took 20 times longer than anyone else to do so. Just because you can eventually complete a mission or challenge via damage mitigation, doesn't mean that the damage output is acceptable.

Seismic Smash only deals 79.52 at base, 159 is actually the damage after containment.

It does when their damage (the most common thing amongst all ATs) is far too low compared to other support ATs. This is a recurring thing with AT balance, if an AT can't deal damage reliably like it's fellow ATs it gets buffed, they did so with stalkers, doms, and khelds in the past.

HP is not the issue with defenders and corruptors. Both ATs have quite a wide variety of tools to survive in both blasts and support sets. Also changing HP count directly effects all team/ally heal effects which already have support values balanced around the idea that Corr/Def/Trollers all have about the same base hp (1070/1017/1017 respectively). Any dramatic shift such as to 1204 (blaster hp) or 1338 (scrapper hp) would severely hurt this balance. HP caps are a completely different story and IMO should be raised significantly across all ATs.

Current damage mods for corruptors and defenders are 0.75 and 0.65 respectively. With scourge the corruptor damage modifier might as well be 0.84 against standard foes (minion/Lt/boss) using Starman's quantified data. This is a 30% damage advantage for Corruptors versus about a 25% defender support advantage. A defender modifier of 0.67 would balance it at 25% to 25%, but defender damage would still be too low compared to other ATs. Controller damage modifier is 0.55 but since containment is easily achieved and doubles, it's actually 1.10. Let's assume corruptor damage should equal 1.10 after scourge, we would need to increase both defender and corruptor modifiers by 31%. That would come out to be 0.98 for corruptors and 0.87 for defenders. If controller mod was lowered to 1.00 you would have corr/def mods of 0.9/0.8. So it should really be lower controller mod from 0.55 to 0.5 in addition to increasing corr from 0.75 to 0.9 and defender from 0.65 to 0.8.