Turbo_Ski

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thats really helpful, but what about my question on how warshades handle single bosses or peacebringers attacked masses of enemies?

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PBs handle single foes better and WS handle multiple foes better. They perform about the same outside of their specialty.

EDIT: I'm refering to just general performance. I'll leave all the fine details to Justaris.

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Sets like Kinetics really show that you have no idea what you're talking about here. Defenders being better at support just isn't the case in the grand scheme of things.

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Maybe it's just me, but there's more than just one power set for Defenders. Maybe having a view outside of one particular instance could help. Then again, that might just be me *shrugs*

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Rad emittion is the closest to balanced set, and even that isn't favorable for defenders when compared to corruptors.

Check out my guide in my sig, it will help you with the cold dom powers.

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I believe defenders really need a damage boost because IMO they should be better ranged fighters. I am concerned that with going rogue the defender will become an afterthought for the Corruptor.

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Been done, and done, and done again. Honestly I'm sick of this discussion. Check every 2-3 threads that aren't based around builds and you can see multiple arguments on this very subject.

Some people are going to completely go over to Corruptors; while others, like myself, are still going to play Defenders and actually bring them over to Red side. For those strickly looking at actual and solo only numbers, sure Corruptors are probably what you want to play. If you like teaming a lot and having bigger force multiplier numbers, play a defender. That'd be my suggestion.

Corruptors are going to take over Defenders as much as Controllers already do. People like specific ATs because it fits their play style. If you like Defenders or want to play a Defender, play one. Complaining about the damage scale really isn't helping anything at all.

If you want full details on this discussion on a thread that didn't really need it, check out the FF versus Cold thread that I believe is still on page one if not page 2 of the Defender forums. It's 15+ pages of posts long of pretty much every Defender thread discussion expect when dealing with Empathy within it. There's a recent one of that if you want to swing on that one too.

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Sets like Kinetics really show that you have no idea what you're talking about here. Defenders being better at support just isn't the case in the grand scheme of things.

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what about pvp? I know PB's are good pvpers from my knowledge but what are Warshades like in Player versus Player combat? Also, how can PB's hold against larger groups of enemies or WS's vs. stronger enemies?

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lol pvp

Defenders need a 5% to 10% increase to base damage to really even things out for most builds. Sonic blast's debuff would really be the only thing that would need to be toned down, small price to pay to bring the other blast sets up to respectable damage output.

EDIT:
Defender ranged mod: 0.65
Corruptor ranged mod: 0.75
Defender support advantage: varies between 18% to 25% depending on the support set
Corruptor damage advantage varies between 20% to 28%
Keep in mind that corruptor damage cap is higher as well.

If anything Going Rogue is going to be the death of Kinetics defenders since there is absolutely no reason to roll one over a kinetic corruptor because fulcrum shift, speed boost, and siphon speed are identical for both ATs and corruptors have the higher base damage and higher damage cap.

with the difficulty slider changes coming in Issue 16, Warshades will be superior since you can get the maximum benefit of your variable buffs while solo.

Of course if you plan to keep with standard difficulty settings, PB is superior because it's more constant and not variable-based.

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The Reichsman fights are VERY different on each side. Blueside experience is useless for the redside fight.

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Yes, blueside it's just like any other AV fight just with a de-phase temp power. Red side you have to strategically use the 5 different temp powers (which you get depends on your AT) given to you and hope you don't wipe on the first attempt since the ambush will continue to spawn and chase you upon re-entry into the mission.

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Power names dont matter.


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What Philly doesn't tell you is how he really wishes Forcefields was called Bubblegum Domination.

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I think the only AT that would have serious competition issues would be the defender.

They need to get either stronger buffs that would be stronger than those of the other ATs in a meaningful way, or a dual purpose vigilance that boosts offense if the team's HP is high as well as boosting endurance if the team needs support.

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They already have stronger buffs than anyone else in the game. Every number counts.

Really, there shouldn't be that many issues with crossing over. I bet they'll even merge the markets (though don't quote me on that one). Both sides of the game use all the same Enhancements, Salvage, costume pieces, and whatever, I really don't see any issues.

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The problem is that the defender support numbers aren't balanced with their base damage like controller/corruptor are.

going from Corr -> Defender causes you to lose about a 30% damage advantage for a 20% support advantage. Despite what you might think, the higher +Dmg/-Res on some of the support powers don't come close to balance the 10% lost damage.

Keep in mind damage is naturally a form of damage mitigation as well since you're reducing the combat time with higher damage. Because of this support/damage imbalance, corruptors actually come out ahead as better overall support in actual play.

Either a 10% base damage increase for defenders needs to occur or the inherent needs to be revamped to either significantly differ the AT's playstyle or to compensate the number disparity.

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I16: City of Skittles
I16: Attention Deficit Disorder
I16: My Eyes! My Eyes!!
I16: Perma Bloom
I16: Light Bright, making things with light...
I16: Form of A Colorblind Bat!

I should actually draw these...

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city of skittles would be awesome.

Also Domination simply just means control over something or someone and it would have been more confusing to call the set Cold Control. Also there is already a Cold Mastery set in the game as an epic pool, so that was out of the question as well.

before they smoothed out the leveling progression, I could understand PLing through rough spots. However in the game's current pace, it's just stupid to rush to 50 since we're now naturally going at the same xp rate as werewolf and dreck farms were back in the day.

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so far we have... indifference, sarcasm, and "stupid" ... i was hopeing for something a bit more constructive from the Def forum

[/ QUOTE ]There is an archetype called the Dominator. The archetype has an inherent power named Domination. It has two powersets that relate to cold and ice. Neither are 'cold domination.'

This name has been stupid for years. It is not going to get fixed just now because of perceived 'heroicness,' especially because you have a narrow definition of what flavour is and isn't okay.

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Do you feel the same way about Thermal Radiation?

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Splitting someone's head doesn't sound very heroic, either. Much less getting a critical on it. Or how about infecting someone with radiation or making them spontaneously combust?

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or setting them on fire.

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I16: So, um... we lied?

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Who lied? You are aware that Jack who works for CRYPTIC now owned by ATARI is the one who said it could not be done...

And Cryptic no longer owns City of Heroes/Villains it was Sold to NCSoft... a few months ago...

NCSoft is leasing the Cryptic ENGINE, but other than that the LIARS are from CRYPTIC... and they, thank god, have nothing to do with this game anymore.


But who lied?

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more like Emmert said it couldn't be done with the amount of staff they had.

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All i'm asking for is a change to the power set name for heroes. Something that is more in line with the nature of heroes. Domination is not a heroic trait. The dev's clearly saw that Empathy was not a villainous trait and instead gave them Pain. They even worked out new powers of a similar function for it. I dont want any change to the powers of the set, they are perfectly fine as is. I just think that the term "Domination" does not belong and needs to be changed to reflect a more heroic trait or at the very least changed to something more nuetral. Cold Shapeing, is the most neutral term i could think of atm. I've spoken with every other CD/* def that i've encountered in the game, and they have all agreed with me on this. Now i bring it to the official Def forums for a much wider view on Def opinions. So, what do you think ?

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Assault Rifle is too violent, change it to Multi-Purpose Rifle

Dark Blast, Dark Miasma, Dark Melee, and Dark Armor is too racist. Change it to Shadow Blast, Shadow Miasma, Shadow Melee, and Shadow Armor.

Shield defense totally is too heroic for brutes, change it to Smashboard.

/sarcasm

White colored Dark blasts are crashing my game client!

Here are my thoughts on Sonic:

Sonic Siphon: I recall this was an AoE when Issue 5 was being tested but in one of the patches that moved powers around it got made into a single target effect. Honestly though it wouldn't hurt to have it as a small AoE like Acid Arrow is and you wouldn't really need to change any numbers with it.

Sonic Dispersion: only thing wrong with this is that the corr/troller version's support loss doesn't match the loss on the shields. The Corr/Troller version could stand for a light buff to bring it in line with how the ally shields transition between primary and secondaries.

Clarity: Psi resist would make sense here as others have said.

Disruption Field: make the -Res effect linger and increase the -Res value to compensate for the handicap of it being an ally toggle and to increase the set's total -Res debuff contribution.

Sonic Repulsion: change this into a click power that knocks everything around you away and has a low end cost and fast recharge. You could also add a lingering slow effect and reduce the knockback distance to make it more surgical so that you can aim foes back into the herd if need be.

Sonic Cage: make all these intangible effects wear off prematurely after a set number of actions are made so that fast paced teams aren't completely halted by them. Something along the lines of that the chance for it to break intangible increases as the number of actions "IMMUNED" increases.

Liquefy: Bring the defender version down to 30% on the debuff values (since it's way over the top compared to what corr/troller values are). Also reduce the base recharge time for all versions to 180 seconds (same as oil slick arrow)

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Every archtype has their own thing going for it that I think preserves its usefulness on its own.

Blasters/Corruptors/Controllers/Dominators/Defenders

Blasters are all offensive
Corruptors are offensive with some support
Controllers are mezzing with a support role
Dominators are mezzing with a more offensive role
Defenders are light on damage but great at support.

Each of those lends itself to a certain play style. Some people are all about damage. Some people are all about control. Some people are all about support. Then there are ways to blend those pretty well too.

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Well here's the problem. Corruptors aren't just "some support", they're close enough to Defenders in their effectiveness at support to seriously threaten to steal a Defender's group role.

I can tell you that my Dark/Rad Defender and Rad/Dark Corruptor play exactly the same. Really, the only noticeable difference is that my Corruptor deals a lot more damage. The difference in support effectiveness is as good as negligible. It's certainly not noticeable.

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I second this from a Cold/Ice defender vs Ice/Cold corruptor perspective.

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When you say -special vs bosses I'm assuming you are talking about his outgoing mez (because so few of them use any other things that fall under that debuff). I'd sincerely hope someone doesn't rely on the reduced mez duration to keep them alive vs a +4 boss.

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Benumb debuffs
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Stun/Sleep/Hold/Immobilize/Confuse/Fear Duration
Mez Protection Magnitude
Mez Resist (Acro/AM/Vengeance)
Defense Buffs/Debuffs
ToHit Buffs/Debuffs
Heals (Direct heals only, not +regen or -regen)
Endurance Drain and "Heals" (Direct +end from powers like Transference, not +recovery)
Run/Fly Speed
Run/Fly Speed Resist
Movement Slow Powers (Not -recharge)
Knockback Mag


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So you're claiming you can't find many bosses with ToHit and Def buff/debuffs and knockback abilities? Also it takes 6.17 seconds with 3 recharge SOs to get 2 ST holds off, that's plenty of time for a boss to hit a controller hard for -50% damage debuff from benumb to be worth it.

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You miss the point. Tankers hit for significantly less compared to brute than they gain in damage mitigation over brutes.

Tankers have a 25% damage mitigation gain over brutes but with brute's fury only at 50%, a brute has a 29% damage advantage. At 90% fury it's going to be 44.5% damage advantage.

As I said the damage vs damage mitigation doesn't quite balance out here and setting up a Tanker damage buff scale that increases the more they are hit would balance this. Ideally at 50% and 90% of each bar, tankers would maintain their 25% mitigation and brutes would maintain their 25% damage bonus.

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Of course, if you're going off of base numbers rather than buffed numbers, the Tanker is actually going to start off with an innate survivability adavantage simply because Tankers start off with 25% more hit points which, when increased by their 25% greater innate mitigation, actually maintains the survivability to damage advantage when ignoring outside buffs.

Now, when you actually bring in outside buffs, Tankers lose out rather quickly because, thanks to their caps, Brutes are capable of getting huge quantities of damage and easily closing the gap where survivability is concerned because they have such a huge +dam cap (750%) and the same survivability caps as Tankers. Normally, Tankers don't get much benefit from survivability buffs mainly because they've already got such substantial survivability buffs on their own and there isn't much point to increasing their damage because their +dam cap is only 300% and it's pretty normal for a third of that to be already in the hands of the Tanker thanks to simple slotting.

Brutes are not imbalanced when it comes to basic solo functionality (except where compared to Scrappers wherein they maintain virtually identical damage while maintaining a significant survivability advantage thanks to the insurmountable issue of higher base hit points). Brutes only become noticeably imbalanced when their caps are actually considered because they're capable of overshadowing or equalling both Scrappers and Brutes in every single way at the same time.

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I was avoiding talking about a fully buffed brute since that's a highly uncommon scenario.

The Equilibrium point where tankers have 25% mitigation advantage and brutes only have 25% damage advantage is at 42% fury. Having a brute regularly above that 42% mark is very common though and tankers should get some kind of scale to not let their damage lag too far behind the more foes they fight.

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Stalker - Assassination - not so much the inherent but more of the base survivability of the AT here. It's a pretty sick joke to give them blaster base hp and hp cap and then give them regeneration as secondary.

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Why even comment if you're not going to talk about the inherent?

The reason Stalkers have less HP is to balance the fact they have passive stealth, less aggro grabbing abilities and higher critical hit potential. Seriously, they have 2x the crit chance of scrapper with the potential to ramp it up to over 6x the crit chance on teams plus 1-2 controlled crits as well. 50% crit chance on AoEs already cements the fact that Stalkers trade HP for crits. It's a fine trade IMO.

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The HP cap is way too low for a melee AT with access to HP buffs. It only takes 33.33% of an HP buff to cap off stalkers and then they are given a set that has a heal slottable power that gives 40% hp buff at base value. Also keep in mind regen's effectiveness is directly related to base hp.

Scrappers (80% hp buff needed to cap)
base hp: 1338.63
hp cap: 2409.53

Stalkers (33.33% hp buff needed to cap)
base hp: 1204.76
hp cap: 1606.35

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You write as if Tankers are somehow in need of buffing for buffing's sake. I stopped reading at that point.

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compared to brutes,

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You miss the point. Tankers hit for significantly less compared to brute than they gain in damage mitigation over brutes.

Tankers have a 25% damage mitigation gain over brutes but with brute's fury only at 50%, a brute has a 29% damage advantage. At 90% fury it's going to be 44.5% damage advantage.

As I said the damage vs damage mitigation doesn't quite balance out here and setting up a Tanker damage buff scale that increases the more they are hit would balance this. Ideally at 50% and 90% of each bar, tankers would maintain their 25% mitigation and brutes would maintain their 25% damage bonus.

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You write as if Tankers are somehow in need of buffing for buffing's sake. I stopped reading at that point.

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compared to brutes, they do in the damage vs damage mitigation area. tankers could use some damage buff via inherent to help balance it out but still keep the two ATs different.