Vel_Overload

what if it doesn't come tomorrow? Personally, I'd kill myself via bullet-to-head syndrome. But sadly, I wouldn't be able to due to the fact that Assault Rifle wouldn't be proliferated to Defenders yet... ohhhh the Irony..

Yes, I am 100% aware of the all defender STF. infact, it was the first all-same-AT-type run of STF. But now with IO's we are seeing Tankers do it, scrappers can do it. Anybody can do it.

IO's really ruin our ability to stack our effects. Since everybody can practically soft cap their defenses now (for example), FF isn't exactly loving that idea. Niether is Empathy enjoying the fact that Tankers can fill the gaps in their armor set's weaknesses. Such as Invulnerability being able to actually defend agianst Psionic attacks etc.

But now we do not benefit as much as we use to from teaming with ourself. This is a good thing actually, we shouldn't be the best at only buffing ourselves and other Defenders. We should be the best at buffing others. Sadly IO's are stealing our thunder in that department.

Examples:

1. People are able to hit such high +recharge numbers that things like AC, RA and Speed Boost are no longer sought out for their amazing +recharge numbers. (unless your an Ill/Rad, but then you wouldn't be a defender now would you?). Kinetic Defenders get hit hard by this, as Speed Boost is one of our beloved gems that we boast about.. see sig.

2. With the ability to soft cap defense on practically any toon and AT (more easily done on Tankers and Scrappers), Force Fielders, And partially Cold Dominateers, Sonics and Empathies are feeling the hurt as mitigation sets. You don't need the protection from a Force Fielder anymore now with IO sets. Empathies have nobody to heal and 3 of Sonic's key powers are less important to the team. Cold also has 3 powers that really affect the team's surviveability.

3. Also concerning +Recharge and +Damage, this hurts Radiation. Radiation's toggles aren't considered practically "required" on tough taskforces such as STF. Like I said earlier, an all tanker STF was completed. This just shos that even tankers can now hit high damage numbers. Lingering Radiation is starting to even feel the hurt of IO's. Also, their other anchor-toggles aren't even seeing the light of day as enemies drop faster and faster as people are able to completely empower their attacks with powerful IO sets. Not to mention the -Damage and -tohit not being required due to Defense Soft cap.
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Defenders benefit the most from being with each other is simply because we have nothing.
To clarify: We have zero resistance other than epic shield, we have zero defense, zero mez protection and minimal damage. So any buff on us is an increase to that particar stat infinite fold. +22.5% Defense form forcefield is a blessing to a defender. To a scrapper or a Tanker, they don't feel it as much. Same thing can be said for Resistance or +Damage. We don't have a "nitch" in any of those particular areas thus we are perfect candidates for our own buffs. Thats the only reason we synergize with ourselves more than any other class. But to say that Defenders should only group with Defenders is insane and thats not how the game was ment to be played. We were ment to fill in the holes of other AT's with our abilities but, sadly, this "art" is being spread around the masses in the form of not only IO's but also by given to other AT's.

Other AT's having our primaries wouldn't be a problem if we have something that made our Primary outshine their Secondary (Corruptors, Masterminds, and Controllers). Our primary multiplier is fine where it is, but there is little difference in a Defender's "Healing Aura 13.2%" compared to a Controller's "Healing Aura 11.6%". When have you ever said to yourself, "Jee, I wish this Empathy controlelr was a defender so his/her heals would be stronger?" You also have to consider the fact that healing isn't even the controllers job. It's "controlling" so it makes you wonder why their "Healing Aura" only heals 1.6% less of their allies' maximum health. It simply isn't fair.

Edit: I know you weren't trying to be mean, its simply a debate

yes, like I said in an earlier post, my first post was very "doomy" and no longer feel that way.

I looked up that thread you mentioned and I wish him the best of luck in his solo empathy quest. Alot of people know its tough and that proves that alot of people know that the defender has much more difficulty soloing than anything else. You'll never see something similar to that in any of other class' forums. Possibly Corruptor, but as you said, they do, infact, play and feel differently. This is probably because they obtain their blasts quicker and have the almighty Scourge.

I also noticed the thread concerning a D3 wanting to solo AV's. Everybody is pretty much in a "lol Good Luck" state of mind. I truly hope he can do it. That would be awesome.

Vigilance 100% seriously needs a review. It just doesn't fit our concept nor does it help many of our primaries due to some of them having some form of endurance recovery anyway.

This is why the rep system is stupid.

anyway, look me up anytime at @Omicron Vice
I'm usually playing my Dark/Willpower Brute but I'm always happy to exemplar down on my main for some fun!

cute way to start your counter points.

Thats the problem, other classes gain more benefits from the IO sets bonuses because their primary/secondary actually benefit from stats such as "+3.13 Def to X" or "+Recharge", Our primaries for the most part don't see these as a major help. Sure, some primaries do enjoy the benefit from +Recharge or +Accuracy but there are no IO Set bonuses that improve our primaries such as "+Defense on Buff skills" or "+Tohit Debuff" The clossest thing we get is the "+Heal" that affects all of our heals but, as we all know, not all Defenders are healers. This leaves a FF or even a Sonic Defender with a ton of influence sinked into his build not seeing a huge difference in his over-all role compared to a Scrapper who did the same thing.

Of course any difficulty change is doable but your evading the question. How much harder is it for a Defender after he raises his difficulty to +2 compared to a scrapper that does the same? Note that it doesn't matter about the performance at +2 difficulty as that is very difficult to balance around but it gives us an idea of how much extra effort a Defender puts into soloing compared to other classes even on Heroic.

You agree with me that Vigilance is worthless solo, although, Tanker's ability is also useless solo, but Tankers are capable of soloing fairly easily. They solo Slower, but they can solo safely and with little difficulty.

And yes, the Defender does infact have that problem of "increasing difficulty to a point where things aren't too difficult". But since you don't agree, then please enlighten me as to which one you think it is. Dominator? no, they've been buffed. Corruptor? Possibly, although they actually have an inheritant that actually helps them, also a slightly enhanced damage modifier.

If your going to say "no it isn't" then please say which one it really is.


Any situation to be honest. Soloing, Team play, etc. Cetain primaries have it easier, Rad, Kin at times and others. But for you to even ask "Whats the Situation" is simply playing dumb. You could have asked yourself "what about soloing, or on a small/large team". So your evading a question.

No, you have it backwards and I must apologize if i made it seem that way. Here is how it works:

A scrapper can bump his difficulty almost immediately after he starts playing, certain powersets doing better than others, but as a whole, the scrapper class and even the tanker and occasional controller and blaster can bump their difficulty almost immediately with very little difference in DPS, kill rate, deaths, and so on. The Defender can do the same thing....
Although he/she will see:
1) a reduction in DPS almost immediately, as the Defender has zero form of mitigation from levels 1-10 for the most part, having to rely on primary abilities to either heal, run away and rest, weaken our enemies so they can't kill us in 3-5 seconds or fix our endurance problem. While we're using our Priamries to keep us alive, we aren't dealing damage, thus everything goes slower. The controller has the Same mitigation as we do from their secondaries, as well as Holds, Immobs, etc, in the form of DoTs. Scrappers and Tankers have toggles so they only have to turn them on once then leave them alone. And the Blaster already has a complete attack chain for the most part and has Defiance as well as the Best Damage-To-Endurance ratio.

2) Due to terrible Damage-to-Endurance we have to rest and wait more often than other classes for our endurance to recover. No matter what difficulty we're on. As we level our endurance problem is slowly fades away due to (Endo-Redux and the almighty Stamina) but the new problem lies within not having any resistance/defense and low HP. But I digress. In short: We defeat enemies slowly -and- have to pay a large endurance cost for it. I wouldn't mind one or the other but not both.

3) Our low HP and lack of any form of Mez control makes us dread fighting many many enemies. In the low levels we rarely ever see bad guys with mezzes but as the levels increase, it seems almost every villain group has something that will immediately shut us down. If you wish I'll make a list, because its quite large. Examples are Freakshow with their sleeps, stuns and their occasional Ressurect which really hurts our endurance. Council with their Grenades /w knockback and disorient, Cryo Bullets (which wouldn't be a problem but we have so few attacks), Tsoo with Hurricane (everybody has trouble with them though), their Spirits with their Disorient, Arachnos with Widows flooring our Recharge and Mu sapping our Endurance, Crabs with disorient etc. The list goes on. And it only gets worse as the Difficulty increases. Controllers can hold enemies that do that and have a Pet later in life that can absorb some of the hate. Blasters have Defiance and once agian just go for "I can out damage you" approach and naturally Scrappers and Tankers have mez protection. We have the occasional knockback from FF and /Energy. -tohit from Dark and Clear Mind.. oh wait we can't use that on ourselves. A simple stun is the equivalent to a hold. A sleep is another way of saying "Free hit on the Defender" which we really can't afford most of the time. Many of our Defenses (which there aren't many of in the first place) are reactive not Proactive and thats the core of the issue here.

So should FF, Sonic and Empathy feel repetitive?

Lets introduce FF herding into the equation since I haven't seen a FF or a Storm herd in a very long time.
Now you may have someone in your SG that can herd like a master. What other tricks can this FF/Storm do that other FF/Storms can't do or more clearly, what can they do that a new FF/Storm can't do? I am in -no- way questioning this FF/Stormer. I'm questioning how much time it took that FF/Stormer to learn to Herd and how effective herding actually is. How much time would it take a competent FF/Stormer to figure out that Force Bubble and Force Bolt/Hurricane is capable of knocking enemies into a wall indefinantly. I hate to admit it but a Kinetics can herd. We have Repel. any /Energy defender can herd. Infact, I'm both a Kin/Energy and you know what I do? I herd. So Force Field/Storm and Kinetics can herd. Don't Forget Storm and Kinetic Controllers too. Oh, and Sonics Resonance with Sonic Repulsion.

I'm sorry if i seem harsh but the way you put "Herding" is as if you thought this would be a magical ability that only an amazing FF was capable of.

To answer Gaymer:

Defenders have a damage multiplier of 0.6 and a buff multiplier of 1.0? I haven't seen the buff multipliers in awhile but i think it was either 1.0 or 1.2. I'm leaning on 1.0 though.

Corruptors have a damage multiplier of 0.7 and a buff multiplier of 0.75. While it seems like a downgrade numerically, the Corruptor has Scourge with is able to double his damage naturally. but you knew that already

Developers have some explaining to do.. RITE NAO!

because.. these are 100% legitimate questions! I demand answers!

NOTICE: I WAS TIRED WHEN I WROTE THIS, IT MAY SEEM SLOPPY, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. PLEASE SEE TL: DR AT BOTTOM.


I don't seem to have trouble finding groups on my defender, and im on Liberty server. But yes, our population is dwindling but thats normal.

But yes, my concern is also solo-play. it is my #1 problem right now.

I like to propose a question to the community:

How much benefit do you get to "pimp out" say.. a blaster or a controller? quite alot right? decent survival buff, some defense and some resistance. and a boat load of recharge if you build them that way. Now ask yourself, how much benefit would I get "pimping out" a Defender? Could I solo AV's at a steady rate? could I handle the maximum difficulty with little to zero problems?

When you compare the defender to other ATs you notice that the defender is the hardest archetype to get to a point where increasing the difficulty won't make the game too difficult. A scrapper can bump his difficulty to +2 almost immediately, so can tankers, controllers and the occasional blaster. Defenders can't do it. Archetypes aren't suppose to be balanced around the difficulty increase(and they shouldn't be, but they give us an idea of how easy it is to solo with other archetypes) but you notice that it's very difficult to play a Defender better than the average Joe.

Can you honestly say that your purpled out FF/Dark Defender can out play the same FF/Dark defender that is relying on SO's? No. And thats a problem. Once again it shows that there is no learning curve to most of our primaries thus there is no reward for playing your defender "Forever and Ever" such as myself. Unlike a scrapper who, after playing "forever and ever" has purple IO sets or even none at all but has the stat totals and all the goodies that improve his effectiveness in a group.

Sorry if my composer is off, I just thought of all this and it's late. So I'll make a TL: DR version:

1. IO sets do not give the Defender enough of a boost to make it worth the time and energy spent obtaining those IO's for the bonus, unlike other Archetypes who change their complete build for optimization and to synergize with the IO sets they complete (Fire/Kin | Illusion/Rad | Spines/Dark | Stone/SS | etc.

2. As te number of players on servers go down, the difficulty of playing a Defender increases, as finding teams becomes tougher.

3. An example of the Defender's ability to solo can be gauged agianst other Archetypes simply by seeing how much extra skill is required once you raise the difficulty. A scrapper can boost his difficulty by +1 and see littel to no change in his pattern of play. But a Defender can have a difficult time with just a few more mobs. Certain Primaries are effected differently but as a whole the defender has much more trouble as the difficulty goes up comapred to almost every other AT.

4. Sleepy Time.

its because we're offenders. We're all defenders but as offenders we are descriminated agianst...