Turbo_Ski

We're not debating FF's performance at protecting the team, we're debating it's contribution rapidly dropping when mitigation is moderate to high. You provide a scenario with a team with 2 bubblers. Already you have nearly fulfilled your +Def need with simply one, the 2nd bubbler adds significantly less contribution now because of the pressence of the first bubbler. The 3rd bubbler adds absolutely nothing. If we replaced it with any other support set the 2nd and 3rd would still be contributing via other stats like +recovery or +dmg.


as I said the 3rd bubbler in that scenario is contributing nothing from their primary.


it doesn't take much beyond the first FF to cap defense. If FF had more variety it would decay so quickly in contribution.

I said that in the first line of the paragraph you're responding to...

If mitigation is capped for empathy, then empathy still has a minimum value to the team in form of +recovery, +Tohit, +Dmg, and +Recharge. Comparatively under the same conditions, FF offers nothing. It should also be noted that it takes more than +Def capping off for empathy to get to this point, where as FF decays faster towards zero because of only +Def soft capping.

I think you missed some words there, I have no clue what you're trying to say.

It's the lack of variety in addition to only dabbling in mitigation that results the scenario that FF can contribute nothing.

(It's easier to think of a [y = -mx + b] graph when reading the following)
All support sets see a contribution reduction as mitigation increases, the rate of this decay is less the more varied they are in stats and the less the mitigation matches those stats. FF has the problem of only having +Def to work with and very high amounts of it, this makes for a very rapid decay. Because we have an 8man team cap, the amount of mitigation that can be added is finite and the more varied sets will never reach zero contribution, but will hit a minimum point above zero instead. However FF's decay is so rapid because of the focus solely on +Def it will have a guaranteed minimum of zero before mitigation reaches it's peak potential at the 8man team cap. The solution is to make FF more varied so that the minimum is higher than zero and relatively closer to the minimums of other sets.

In short, more variety added to FF would improve the set immensely, because as it stands it's habit of bottoming out far too soon makes it the weakest of the support sets for end game challenges. If you think I'm saying it's useless, I'm not, only that it's not as widely useful as every other support set at end game.

please go find a post anywhere in which I said "Force Field is always worse than Cold". You won't find it because I never said anything remotely to that extreme. You sound way too emotionally invested here and I don't think you're quite thinking clearly at this point as you're reading things that aren't there.




Lieutenants only take 1 mag 3 hold/stun to mez, that's instantaneous. Bosses take 2 which is also easily handled since 5/10 defender blast sets have a 10 second to recharge their ST control, 3/10 def blasts have 5 second recharges, and all of controller except for illusion have 4 second recharge with blind being 4.5 seconds. Late game when status ailments become more frequent defenders get access to an addition stun/hold in APP/PPP to stack right off the bat and controllers get it as soon as they get their AoE hold, in addition to critical holds happening.

On teams, letting scrapper/tanker/brutes/stalkers soak the Status AoEs and staying out of melee in general will avoid getting mezzed til you get the 5 to 10 seconds to lock the boss down. Same strat works against extra lieutenants.


Except it's pretty clear that it isn't. You took my comment about using a ST hold to mez a mezzer before they mez you as "Nobody needs status protection if you have a ST hold". Obviously Scrappers/Tankers/Brutes/Stalkers do need them since they get hit by both ranged and melee attacks, and there is a lot more melee mez than ranged. That's pretty much why they've had self status protection from day one.




have you tried reading beyond the first reply? Specifically from the 3rd post and down. FF was never mention beyond the first reply and controls were mentioned numerous times as a solution.



The positives for FF are pretty cut and dry. Superior +Def, AoE status protection, and minor click aoe knockdown. My case is about FF having no offensive powers and thus rapidly contributes less as mitigation increases until the contribution eventually reaches zero. No other support set does this and it's why FF is so undervalued at the endgame when mitigation tools are widely available. The only relation this argument has with Cold is as an example of a standard or design practices across all the non-FF sets to show what is lacking in FF.

I find it funny that you guys think I'm bashing FF. Bashing would be saying negative things about it without supporting evidence or logic. I've been stating my logic pretty clearly why I think FF underperforms comparatively with the rest of the support sets, it's just that some of choose to take that a personal attack and respond by taking words out of context or manipulating what I said to be radically different. The posts in the thread remain unchanged and truly speak for themselves in that regard.

Again IOs have no value in a discussion of balancing powersets. Castle has said himself in the past they don't consider IOs when designing or balancing powers. It's an optional and massive time and money sink that yields rather consistent benefits across the board for all sets. I stopped IOing characters after fully IOing two, a lot of people like me don't find it to be worth the trouble when the sets function fine with only SOs.

I didn't make a comparison between builds. I just said it was irrelevant both Elec/FF and Elec/Cold are already powerful mitigation combos to start with and shoving IO bonuses into each will have the same effect and still be totally irrelevant in the balance design of the sets because of the money and time sink required.


Statis Field is an AoE sleep that can be easily be kept perma, if you've played a Mind Controller you would know that sleep let you pick off more difficult foes like mezzer one at a time or setup other AoE controls without the damage of getting hit with an alpha. A controlled mob isn't dishing out any damage or mez, and is in itself mez protection in a way.

Clearly you must be since ST hold/stuns have protected many of my blasters/controlers/dominators/defenders/corruptors from status ailments since day one. Rularru and Boss/Lt widow/fortunatas are the only mobs I've encounter where this isn't reliable against.

there is a thread on the front page of this forum that proves I'm not the only one that thinks ST holds/stuns are reliable forms of status protection.

The Seer and Mistress all have boss level mag protection built into them innately, I've experienced this on both on my dom and corrs first hand even though Mental Training only lists status resistance

No one but you implied they would be used together. AoE sleeps mainly there for surgical work solo or mitigating ambush or double pulls on teams.

I don't recall saying Elec/Cold was better than Elec/FF or vice versa. I think you've perceived something that wasn't there in the first place.

I've said it numerous times in the thread, I don't have a problem with FF being king of protection, but I do have a problem with it being the only thing it brings. That said, the transition between cold corr and cold def is fine, I prefer corr personally but the vigilance change has kept them balanced without overstepping the other's expertise. Though I don't know why you bothered bringing that up since it had nothing to do the topic at hand.

We're talking team compositions here, obviously any team with more than 2 tankers is not optimal in the same regard as more than FF users is. The key difference is that Tankers also fill the role of aggro management and positioning the mob when necessary, a skill that serves to mitigate the rest of the team's damage and to cluster foes up in AoEs so they dies faster. Adding more tankers just means you can handle more mobs at one time and group more up, not so bad since tankers have some pretty hard hitting AoEs on short recharges (better than defender Aoe damage that is for sure). Adding more FF defenders past 2 doesn't work out the same way since Force bubble are no where near as surgical as simply taunting and draging mobs to a corner nor is their AoE damage sufficient to handle that add load.

My argument is that FF is the only support set that deteriorates to zero value as the amount of damage mitigation increases in the team. You were responding to my post where I was pointing out the how extremely unlikely to find a team composition with very little damage mitigation. Blaster APP/PPP shields are a form of damage mitigation in addition to a blaster's higher base damage to end the fight faster.

Like I said to Westley it barely does more than the average non-pet defender aoe blast and has double the cast time and recharge time. That's 7 times less than OSA's damage, 3.5 times less than trip mine, and 5 times less than Time Bomb. That doesn't even come close to categorizing it as massive damage and it's damage is about the same as Sleet just without the damage multiplying feature.

You didn't answer the question, explain how +Res shields aren't a form of damage mitigation.

Sorry to be a killjoy, but toxic damage isn't any more special than fire damage in regards to PvE. Most foes have zero resist to all dmg types and relatively evened out on the ones that have toxic, fire, and cold. Personally I would say Fire all the way once you get Benumb and SupFire.

Unless you're fighting Rularru or Fortunata Mistress/Night Widows, I can't see the situation where a well placed ST hold wouldn't get the job done.


It doesn't have to mitigate the alpha, that's what the +def shields, fog, and sleet knockdown is for. It does provide significant time for the -res and your teammates to melt their faces before the 2nd volley and keeps them nice and clustered up in one spot. Where as with FF you would probably get hit with twice as many attack attempts, which is balanced by the higher Def value. Again the primary difference between the sets is the lack of offense on FF's part, the mitigation balances out pretty evenly.

for a elec/cold troller build? I would take the Seer instead as a pet since it comes with innate status protection and Dark embrace for more rounded self resists (fire/nrg/cold/s/l/neg/toxic) which would stack nicely with the regen aura and controls for mitigation. Wouldn't really have to worry about mez on me because of Static Field can be thrown out of line of sight followed up by laying on a chain confuse or simply tesla caging the annoyances. Why bother even factoring in IOs since that's a powerful combo with just SOs from the get go.

Which brings me back to how diverse the game has gotten in power choices that even without IOs you can make a beastly build can barely be killed at the endgame. Overspecializing a support into only defensive abilities makes no sense when every other set has at least some form of offensive and some form of defensive abilities mixed in. Trick Arrow is easily the most offensive support build but still offers some mitigation debuffs, FF should be the polar opposite of that in design and not completely be without offense.

As I previously mentioned, status protection is no where near as valuable as it used to be and personally I find controls the better option since not having it fire off in the first place is always the better option.

Sorry but why was your dominator dying to mezzes? ST hold/disorients in blast sets kept all corruptors/blasters/defenders relatively mez-free throughout the game and with inspiration conversion I rarely run out of break frees in mission for when I do get hit. It's even less likely on my dom and controller because of AoE holds stacking on top of ST holds right from the start.

-Recharge and -Res/-Def makes for less attempted attacks in the first place, it's a very effective combo when combined with cold's shields and fog and isn't something you're taking into account. It's not as significant of a difference in protection as you would like to believe.

+res team effects are a lot more rare than +def/-Tohit. But that's just getting side-tracked again, the point is that FF is the only set doesn't offer a buff/debuff mitigation variety and the only set that can completely bottom out in utility if there is already moderate to high amount of mitigation on the team. Again it's needs to be buffed to be more offensive so it as at least has a minimum contribution that isn't zero.

I'm not seeing massive damage or -Res/+dmg associated with Repulsion bomb. Only slightly higher damage than defender non-pet AoE blasts for double the recharge and double the cast time.

Oedipus, I must say I gotta give you credit for being reasonable and presenting a compelling argument even if I don't agree with it. I will say though, you almost had me convinced you were part of the "cult" when you made that comment about TA, but you've been rather straight throughout.

and back we go to the debate
Sonic has some serious flaws, some being similar to FF's such as how detention/cage work mechanically and the Repulsion powers. I will point out that doesn't fall into the pitfall that FF does by focusing only on protecting the team. Sonic is almost equally undiverse but it's only saved by Liquefy getting all the diversity wrapped up in one power to compensate. I do think thermal ends up being a better set compared to sonic because of the heals, but sonic could be compensated with a regen component to dispersion or non-toggle click regen/rechg buff to replace repulsion. I just think FF has it worse with it's purely defense goal, as the game becomes increasingly more diverse with every update.

There are a lot of components that contribute to survivability, I'm not saying it's a given, but it is a very common in this game. Most of the time when people wipe in the presence of an attentive Tanker/Defender/Controller (got tired of listing CoV types), it's usually because of (A) their own idiocy, such as attacking things on their own, (B) going afk or disconnecting, or (C) a special challenge that requires more than average support, such as STF, Ship raids, etc.

I mentioned earlier that it is highly unlikely to have an 8man team without any additional mitigation beyond the lone FF user. Also as I said before, FF is the only set that suffers in performance the higher the mitigation is on the team. Part of my problem with this effect is that it happens rapidly because of how diversified this game's mitigation is. It really only takes a 1-2 other defender/controllers or a solid tanker to put a FF on the path of being just weak blaster. Sure, you're still contributing at that point, but it's very little that you're actually adding to the team to the point it would have been better to invite another dps, and it only gets worse the more of those ATs are added. Of course, some might say, they have contributed on such teams on a support level, but I would have to ask you if you sure you weren't just idiot-proofing an already bad team players that would have more in common with Leeroy Jenkins. I believe you used the word, Stability here, but I perceive it as idiot-proofing, and I don't see that exactly as a shining achievement in FF's favor to compensate for it's lack of offense and variety.

No, I think people get upset in the same fashion as the Kheldian forum did prior to them getting buffed and the status-toggle change. It's a cult-following mentality where fans are unwilling to acknowledge any flaws in a set they are totally engrossed in, for they perceive that any slight made against the set is a slight made against them. The rebuttals tend to be overly exaggerated and usually not even responding to what was posted but how they perceived what was posted. A real world example of this behavior would be Scientology and its followers, and all the mudslinging that ensues when someone makes fun of their religion.

Contrary to what some of these "cultists" think, I don't think Cold is without flaws or the best set or anything like that. Those that have followed my posts in the past, would know this to be true with my absolute hatred with how Frostworks works mechanically and how it's hindered severely by HP caps. That said, I refuse to deny or ignore obvious flaws in any set, no matter how I or others feel about it overall.

I didn't say IOs devalue FF. I said they were irrelevant when talking about balancing sets since they require a long time/money sink to see any effect and the benefits are equally available and rather consistent amongst all sets.

What devalues FF is it's lack of variety since day one when the game has changed dramatically since. FF would have been considered fine in it's current condition if we were back in Issue 2, but we've added so many new sets and improved old ones since that the set has become outdated by comparison. We have more sets now that bring -Tohit/+def in addition to other forms of damage mitigation that FF's "no offense, only defense" design philosophy hinders it greatly.

Cold is easiest to relate because they are so similar here, and while some people get oversensitive and immediately assume I hate FF and just needlessly bashing it, I'm not. I'm looking at this from a logical perspective, after having played every other support set except traps past 40, and FF is the only support set completely lacks offensive abilities. Damage mitigation is common, when I say that I speak of everything from +Def/+Res buffs to controls to tanks and MM pets soaking damage. The more mitigation that accumulates in a team the more survivable that team is, and the more survivable the less value FF offers. The same thing happens to every support set, but the difference is that having offensive abilities (-res/+dmg/+tohit/-def/+rchg/+end/+rec) sets a constant minimum value of utility for the set, where as FF just skyrockets down to zero utility.

As I said early in the thread, my opinion of FF won't change til it has either a massive damage AoE (like OSA) or an AoE -res or +dmg power to bring it up to the standard of every other support set. It's the major gaping hole that is hold the set back from being on par with rest of the support sets. Til then, it's easily the worst support set because of that, that's not a statement that it doesn't do it's job.

You're only looking at FF being able to get up to 45% def and saying it's somehow more reliable because it excels in that single category. Where as every other set does a multitude of buff/debuffs to damage mitigate. Case in point Cold brings 40% def in addition to -102.5% recharge AoE debuff, 20% unslotted res to energy, 30% unslotted res to fire, 45% unslotted res to cold, -30% def AoE, -30% res AoE, and an AoE knockdown patch in sleet. Explain to me how all that AoE damage mitigation is inferior to a 5% def difference and status protection FF offers. A 5% +def/-tohit difference that is easily covered by multitude of sets, including a defender's dark blast.

You're back to saying that FF is reliable, but Rad, Dark, Cold, Kin, and Storm are reliable in the same regard as for protecting the team from dying and they bring damage multiplying abilities. You wouldn't see any significant difference in the team's survivability if you replaced your 1 FF with any of those sets. The problem remains though that FF is the only support set that rapidly gets completely devalued as the amount of buffs/debuffs/controls/MMs/tankers/brutes increases in the team. If it had some sort of massive damage power like oil slick or some form of -Res/+dmg to spread around it wouldn't have this problem. That said, I don't see FF being any more "reliable" than any other support set, in fact I see it as only "reliable" in a vacuum.

Explain to me first how +res doesn't make blasters less squishy since I wasn't even referring to +Def specifically in that rebuttal but damage mitigation as a whole instead.

That's the thing, a lot of support sets can lay on the damage as good as a blaster can and tank stuff tankers can if you build and play them right. Dark/Dark/Dark defenders has for a long-time been a popular choice because of this versatility.

Have you played a Trick Arrow? It's compliments a controller quite nicely on a team by providing additional control with OSA, Ice arrow, and EMP, additional damage mitigation with PGA and Glue, and better target painting than Rad with OSA and Acid arrow. That's in addition to the massive damage OSA puts out when lit.

What does FF bring to compliment a controller's controls? Only +Def and status protection, the latter being pretty easily covered by a controller's ST hold.

That's not even mentioning how all those sets I mentioned previously stack better with whatever the controller's support set is than FF does.

in other words, running on the heels of tribes is what you're saying.