Werner

I enjoy number crunching. Some people enjoy leveling as fast as possible. Some people enjoy speed running task forces. Some people enjoy being able to buy all the best equipment and then retire the character. I don't think anyone but gold farmers are doing this as a job. We're all here to have fun. We just have fun in different ways.

Unfortunately, when someone who's fun involves speed running a task force gets on a team with someone who's fun involves reading all the dialogue and role playing, there's GOING to be a problem. Best people can do, I think, is be clear about what BRAND of fun they enjoy if their brand of fun is anything other than the vanilla, "Eh, whatever. I just like teaming up and running around and doing missions and beating things up and chatting and..."

Hmmm, well, I do want to keep the soft cap. I don't want it to require any more endurance. I could give up a few hit points. I could give up some resistance. I could probably give up a little recharge, because the purple set comes with enough recharge for Gambler's Cut. I could give up my travel power, but I don't want to give up my knockback protection, and I suspect that I can't do any better than Blessing of the Zephyr with the slots.

I think the big sticking point is the endurance. With me using Gambler's Cut every other attack, and the purple set having poor endurance reduction, the swap would give me a big endurance debt to pull myself out of.

So as a quick example, I could probably lose the Shield Wall +3% resistance and a couple Luck of the Gambler globals. I could then slot Eradications in The Lotus Drops instead of Sciroccos for a little extra ranged defense, and have a couple slots free to improve endurance recovery. But even if it handles the endurance, which is questionable, it leaves me with 2.5% ranged defense that I need to get from somewhere, and I'm not seeing where. But I haven't put in a whole lot of time. Surely there's a way.

Anyway, here's the slight modification with the 42.5% ranged and I suspect endurance trouble, in case anyone spots something.

A horrible mistake that we can only hope the devs will address soon.

I've mostly only used cheap stuff and SOs for leveling, though at this point, I've stuck a bunch of Steadfasts, Kismets, Knockback Protections of several types, Miracle uniques, Numina uniques, and Performance Shifter procs in the base. Those are good for leveling. But really, most characters level with just a Steadfast and a Kismet. Frankenslotting in the mid 30s is fairly typical as well, generally to address endurance problems as I stack on the toggles. Total influence spent is probably in the 10-20 million range for my average leveling build, which is less than I earn while leveling.

That said, once you get the hang of it, making influence is easy. Just playing on your 50s gives you a lot of influence. Farming speeds that up a lot. And of course you can play the market, and the high end marketeers earn 2 billion or more per week.

OK, maybe I see what's going on here.

The point I thought I was arguing is that even on the cheap, late game Shield Defense survivability is very good as long as you build it right and make use of purple inspirations for extra-tough fights. It was a complete diversion from the original topic of the thread, and not, in my mind, about Super Reflexes at all.

The point I now think you are arguing is that on the cheap, late game Super Reflexes is at least as survivable as Shield Defense, as long as you build it right and use a similar number of inspirations (greens are good) for extra-tough fights.

These are not mutually-exclusive assertions. They're two different topics. So we're not even arguing with each other. We're just talking past each other.

I'll address your topic first. You're right! There, that was easy. Or at least I personally feel that late game Super Reflexes on the cheap and built right is at least as survivable as late game Shield Defense on the cheap and built right. I probably could even be convinced that it is more survivable if you were trying to make that additional point. SR should be sitting at the soft cap, even on the cheap, which is a gigantic lever with which to make good use of green inspirations to stay alive in horrible situations. Shield Defense is still a purple away from the soft cap, which is easily addressed for emergencies, but not on a continuous basis. Bigger load of inspirations for similar survivability = survival advantage for Super Reflexes. But that line of reasoning neglects damage output and its relationship to survivability. I believe Umbral is claiming a 25% survivability advantage from increased damage output on Shield Defense. Me, I've never included damage output in my survivability calculations because I want indefinite survivability, not 30 second or 60 second survivability. But 30 or 60 second survivability is probably more relevant to a discussion of late game play on well-made but cheap builds. Still, if you're teaming, the difference doesn't seem likely to be nearly so large as the proposed 25%, as your survivability probably depends more on the damage output of the whole team than of you personally. But if you're teaming, all bets are off, because team buffs are probably an even slipperier slope than inspiration use. And both team buffs and 30 to 60 second survivability are outside of my area of expertise, so I'll just shrug my shoulders for now.

Now back to my topic. What I'm claiming is that even on the cheap, late game Shield Defense survivability is very good as long as you build it right and make use of purple inspirations for emergencies. Built right, you'll have 32.5% defense or higher, even on the cheap, at least in the late game. That's one small purple from the soft cap. The difference between 32.5% and 45% defense is taking 2.5 times less damage. So when the chips are down, like in a double pull, a single purple should make it about as easy or easier than a normal spawn. And even 32.5% defense is quite a bit, and makes a noticeable difference in survivability. My point, basically, is that Shield Defense on the cheap isn't doomed to face planting regularly. It's actually quite good. There may be better Scrapper choices for cheap survivability (like arguably a soft-cap SR popping greens in emergencies), but Shield Defense even on the cheap is very solid with a reasonable build and reasonable use of inspirations.

Now, DO you think Shield Defense sucks even with a good late game build if that build is cheap? Or were we simply not on the same topic, as I suspect, and thus arguing over nothing? Or am I still way off base on what YOU were trying to say, and also thus arguing over nothing?

Well, yes, obviously it's a mere distraction to talk about the value of using a particular inspiration if I don't have a chart of the opportunity costs for ALL inspirations. I have no such chart, so I'm sorry to have wasted your time.

So you don't think you can even make a reasonable guess as to which of these alternatives is most likely representative of normal inspiration use?

1. No inspiration use
2. Some use of dropped inspirations as appropriate to the situation
3. Farming kora fruit and mailing inspirations to your no to low defense toons to stack purples as required to soft cap

Or as seems more likely to me, you DO have a guess, but your point is that since we don't know for certain which is normal, that... well, to ignore inspirations is to assume #1, which we don't know for certain, so that's out. So how are we treating inspiration use? Or are you saying that there's simply no point to debate, because only the devs have the information necessary to make any reasonable comparison? In which case, this is just an agree to disagree situation. Have a nice day and all that.

What I said wasn't just theorycraft. It was what I did while leveling my Fire/Shield and playing dedicated small team tank. I tended to have enough survivability most of the time with my 32.5% defense or so. And plenty of purple inspirations dropped for those times when that WASN'T enough defense.

If you think you can have just as much survivability (and fun) with 0% defense, farming kora fruit to mail to yourself, and constantly popping purples, have at it. But I hope you can see that the comparison is rather extreme, yes?

Look, I admit that inspiration use is a slippery slope. But that doesn't mean that inspiration use is irrelevant to a balance discussion or to the capabilities of a set in normal use. Normal use of inspirations is relevant to a discussion of the set in normal use. Does that not make sense?

OK, yes, "learn to play" might be insulting. But really? You think Eva is LYING to make a point? Look, Shield Defense has a lot of DDR even when it isn't capped. It'll slow down the cascade and lessen its impact significantly. If you have the reflexes to deal with, say, Regeneration as a set, then you have the reflexes to deal with cascading defense failure on a Shield Defense in most situations, IF you have the purples to do so. In fact, I recall only a single death on my Katana/Regen that can be attributed to cascading defense failure (Edit: Oops! No. I tried many times to beat Silver Mantis. Pretty much all those deaths were cascading defense failure.), which was when I got separated from the pack on an ITF, said "**** it" and charged. I've had a lot of cascading defense failure deaths on my Katana/Dark, but I was experimenting and practicing, pushing my way through a +4x8 Cimerorans (more deaths than spawns defeated), or +4x8 Arachnos (a few deaths per mission). But either can farm the wall just fine, and that's with 0% defense debuff resistance.

So I have no reason to doubt that even a passably-skilled player can manage cascading defense failure on a Shield Defense character IF they understand how. One VERY important piece of doing so, in my opinion and as stated by Eva as well, is to take advantage of the real numbers to monitor at least your base defense. When it goes red, you're debuffed, and you can quickly see how big the problem is and how big your response needs to be. Respond quickly, either by popping purples or running.

Since monitoring and just paying attention seem, to us at least, all that is required to avoid dying from cascading defense failure on a Shield Defense character, the "learn to play" comment is just a rude way of saying, "I suggest, if you're having problems with cascading defense failure, that you monitor your defense and if it starts dropping, eat a purple to stop the cascade". Problem solved, I would hope.

This thread is an EXTREMELY poor representation of how the Scrapper forum normally looks. You ARE right that there's a lot of ego flying around in the Scrapper forum, and I'm as guilty as any. But most of the time, our opinions are aligned, so there's a whole lot of agreement, and very little arguing. We spend most of our time being helpful.

Shield Defense, and whether or not it is overpowered, just happens to be one of our favorite arguments. It also looks like we're getting some outside help from more than just the usual suspects this time, helping to keep the argument heated.

I've spent literally thousands of hours playing Scrappers. A good portion of those hours are on hard-core optimized multi-billion influence level 50 builds. And I am not unusual in the vocal Scrapper forum crowd. And we're often striving to outdo each other's solo accomplishments, though as I've said in the past, we play a game of king of the hill where the goal is to get as many of us as possible at the top of the hill.

Would you prefer that we pretend we're REPRESENTATIVE of the player base? If not, we have to refer to the bulk of the player base in SOME way when having these discussions. If "average players" doesn't suit your palate, which term would you prefer us use to not offend you?

Yeah, that's annoying. It's like we're being told that our opinion would hold more weight if only we knew LESS about the game mechanics, less about powers, less about IOs, less about how to play the AT, and had less practice doing so. If only we were just average players, THEN we could give opinions on Scrapper intra-AT balance that MATTERED!

LOL! You just made my day.

Correct. (Edit: And yes, damage enhancement in the power counts.)

Why do people still think this? How are you building your Shield Defense characters? It has GREAT survivability without heavy IO investment if you build it right. The right powers and a Steadfast Protection get you one small purple from soft cap. Combine that with your faster kill speed and you're mostly immortal at that point in normal play. Everything else is gravy.

Now if you don't want to make that sort of power and slot investment in survivability, that would have an effect. If you refuse to take inspirations, that would make a big difference. Maybe other sets can get the same survivability for less investment - I'm not sure, because I ALWAYS invest in my survivability. But Shield Defense does fine if you treat it right.

That said...

Will the average player treat it right? Eh, probably not. The average player is going to think Shield Defense is squishy. The average player is also going to think that Super Reflexes is squishy, because they won't soft cap it. Actually, they probably won't think either is squishy, because that will just be their normal expectation of survivability.

Partially agree. The enhanceable DDR in Active Defense only affects those very same min/maxers. It probably won't affect 99% of players.

The only other main proposed nerf I'm remembering from the thread is reducing the damage buff from Against All Odds. Yeah, that'll affect Joe Average, but it won't be a huge affect. Joe Average might not even notice. It's again probably mostly the min/maxers that pay close attention that will notice and care.

Yes! Buff Dark Armor! Yesssssssssssssssssss. *rubs hands*

(OK, yes, I know I'm bringing Divine Avalanche and 8 billion in IOs to the table too. On its own, Dark Armor is just decent, and plugging holes is annoying. Overall, I have no opinion on this one.)