Turbo_Ski

did you ever read beyond 2 posts in that thread? I'm not the only one that thinks ST holds/stuns handle mezzes quite well.

Trial and error is a natural element of any game. You're making the assumption that players are wholly ignorant and incapable of learning from their mistakes to attempt to make mezzes seem far more dangerous than they actually are. First time I ever encounter a sapper, I died, but I've never died to one ever again as long as I have an ST mez hit them with.

-dmg will stack with other -dmg debuffs yes.

My experiences are far different amongst my defenders/corruptors/blasters/controllers/dominators. It's pretty rare for me to get mezzed against even malta and carnies, since it only takes 5 to 10 seconds to lock down a boss or 2 Lts. In the very rare situation I do get mezzed, I always can use break free or convert inspiration into break frees to use. Mezzes aren't any where near as dangerous as they used to be and are pretty easily handled if you play smartly.

Detention Field is worth taking for STF on the recluse towers or for solo or small team purposes. It's not ideal but it has a (limited) function.

You're disregarding the use of Char, Flashfire, Cinders, Block of Ice, Glacier, Ice Slick, Tesla Cage, Jointing chain, Syn Overload, and Paralyzing Blast in that scenario. All powers I would consider firing at least one of prior to any other action. Static Field and Flash Freeze are also relevant if we're talking solo or small team, also bonfire in some extreme situations though I wouldn't recommend it most of the time. Also you seem to disregard that Arctic Air is an AoE confuse. I mean you assume the player is standing around waiting to get mezzed to support your argument at this point instead of actively preventing it.

OP was looking to have a "feel" for the set, OSA imo the core of the set. It makes the set work dramatically better the moment you get it.

Point out this mystery power that instantly kills any foe in the game, and I might take that comment seriously.

Again you're thinking in black and white where as I'm thinking through the entire spectrum of greys in between. When I say mitigation is common, I'm referring to all forms of mitigation from tankers soaking damage to buffs/debuffs to controls to even damage reducing the number of enemy attacks. All of those work as a whole and to focus only one very specific aspect hampers a set like FF the more diverse the scenario gets.

It matters when talking about whether a set underperform, is fine or is overpowered. If Castle up and decide to nerf the powers of say DM/Elec brutes because he found a specific IO build as overpowered, you would end up with both DM/ and /Elec vastly inferior at a base level without IOs. Also as I said, IOs aren't freely available as SOs are, they level specific and require a massive amount of time and money to see benefits and are purely an end-game goal. A lot of players won't level something to 50 unless they find it powerful on the way there to begin with.




Fire you might have a point as Bonfire isn't no where near useful like Ice Slick and Static Field are at safely firing off a AoE melee hold. But even that is a reach when most mezzers in this game are lieutenants mezzable with Flashfire and usually there is only one or two per mob solo with higher team mob count being offset by said teammates. That said, I still never had a problem handling mez bosses on my first 50 which was a fire/empath, nor did I ever feel the need to take IW.




End Drain resist requires foes with end drain to be relevant, and such foes are rarely encountered. In addition to +end/+rec and End discount powers being very common and often taken, it tends to make end drain resist rather insignificant.

You have two very strong AoEs available later on. It's something I would take and drop later pretty much since it's inferior to the last 2 AoEs and you really don't need 3. I feel the same about Frost Breath.

Heals are reactive to damage and have no cap to speak of. You can't quantify the damage intake without quantifying the total mitigation at that point and standardize the amount of constant damage being put out. That said it's assumed the heals decay as the team takes less damage via mitigation.

Controls are binary, they are either 100% protection or zero at any given point. They decay the same as heals as buff/debuff mitigation increases and they aren't as needed. Controls do trump all mitigation though when they are in effect.

2 of those people were already on my ignore list prior to this thread if that says anything about the quality (or lack there) of their past posts.



I've been talking more of the path between 0% to 100% mitigation and the decay that occurs along the way. I've not once said that 100% mitigation scenario was common, only that mitigation in general was common.

my reasons for saying IOs, Mez Protection, and End resist are irrelevant were pretty clear. IOs aren't considered when balancing sets because of the money/time sink cost and them being a constant across all sets. Mez Protection is equivalent in value to an ST hold, since they both are quite reliable at preventing mez. End resist has little weight by 50 since there are a ton of +end/+rec and end discount powers flying about and it's a common for players to already have their end managed via slotting and/or previously mentioned powers.

That's not quite descriptive enough.

Except they aren't. Since you're so hung up on empathy, we'll use it in this comparison model.

Support power decay model


I can add more supports sets if you're not convinced.

So you're saying FF doesn't rapidly decay in utility if you play worse? You're not presenting a very strong argument if the only thing you can come up with is "FF is great for idiots" as a contribution on teams with already high mitigation.


2 Cold or 2 FFs will cap the team's +Def, with the 2nd only adding a partial contribution on the +Def since it is the one that caps it off the rest of the way. The difference is that 2 Colds are bringing heck of a lot more than 2 FFs are at this point because of the wider variety of effects. The gap only increases more when we compare 3 cold to 3 FF since FF has reached it's minimum by this point where as cold can still contribute more through +Res(nrg), -Res, and more targets to infrig/benumb. That's only an example, the same would be true when comparing 3 kin to 3 FF or 3 rad to 3 FF and so on. FF's rapid contribution decay is directly caused by it's lack of variety.

1 FF is about all I'll invite to a team if I'm doing something like STF or LRSF, any more would be redundant since I would be bringing other support sets as well. Any other set I could fill the entire team up with and not be worried too much whether I have all my bases covered since all except FF brings a wide variety of stats to buff/debuff. Sure FF is wanted on teams with little to no mitigation, but when most of your team is tankers/controllers/defenders/corruptors/mm/dominators/veats/brutes it's nowhere nearly as desirable as other support sets.

You say overstate, I would say thoroughly state. We seem to be in agreement then based on your understanding that 3+ FFs really doesn't bring much to a team beyond the first 2 FFs and the statement above.

In a vacuum, FF works fine and does a great job at protecting the team, it only underperforms in comparison to other support sets when more mitigation is added. Again this is due to it's lack of variety.