brophog02

I wouldn't say containment is it. One could say it is just as 'broken' for Doms.

And Enantiodromos has called the set nerf worthy nearly every day since the day he discovered it. The set does one thing really well, and that is AOE damage, but really lacks in other areas. It has one of the worst pets, nearly no single target damage, Spore Burst is at best a purple mule, and Spirit Tree's stationary nature makes it highly situational.

Plant isn't that great of a set for all secondaries. To really utilize the AOE killing nature, you have to pair it with the right secondaries. Put an /Empathy or /Thermal with the set and it is just an OK damage set with some good lockdown. It's nothing special with those sets. Put it with something that also aids damage, and that's when it is able to fully leverage its spawn killing capabilities.

I do both. On Masterminds, it is the teleport method and everything else it is the Superspeed method.

GREAT on Rikti invasions. I cast all of the debuffs in the center with my LS above, and run around the edge knocking everything back into the debuff field. No more annoying mentalists standing on the outside irritating everyone!

You play a Ninja/Storm in a chaotic fashion and you'll have a lot of dead pets. They just can't go toe to toe with much of anything that isn't debuffed.


Chaos is NOT how one plays Storm. Almost every power is either an AOE or benefits from packed spawns. Chaos moves enemies out of freezing rain, away from the snow storm anchor, loses benefit of Tornado and LS being mini-AOE's, away from a potential Thunderclap or Gale, and away from the debuffs of Hurricane.


Illusion/Storm is chaotic at times mostly because of the pets that you can't control. Ninjas you can control. Illusions pets are going to torrent where they feel like and in the direction that they feel like.

There is only a "suggestion" to eliminate knockback in the Suggestions forum monthly around here, much of which is directed at storm users.

Stormies get anything but compassion. It is a set that can be played 1000 times well, and be hated for the one time something screws up.

Electricity or Rad paired with /Fire are good PBAOE suicide candidates.

What time pressure does a Safeguard have? Run in, slaughter the hero, and do whatever.

It is very hard to screw up a Safeguard unless you have a team that can't follow the simple instruction of "Go to Bank".

Actually, if a differentiation were to occur, it would probably be to bring controllers secondaries down.

I understand where you're coming from, and in some sense IOs have made endurance no longer a huge balance metric. But then again, that's with taking stamina.......which at this point is almost automatic for most people.

With that idea though, you wouldn't necessarily have to do so. That may not seem like much, but imagine the possibilities of having potentially 3 power slots back. To fit in Stamina, Defenders generally have to forego either Leadership powers or powers from their secondary. Many don't mind this because too many have taken their role as buffbots and treat any damage as a bonus.

I'm not sure how 'domination' idea would work considering defender primaries are already borderline overpowered (with knowledgeable players and not buffbots one could say they are indeed overpowered at this point). Dominators function off of the idea that they start out with weaker primaries with low durations, and domination kicks everything up a notch. I'm not real sure Defender primary values can be moved up any.

Great Idea. A very logical change that would provide a great help. It solves what many see as multiple problems with the AT all at one time. It also eliminates the "bad logic" that inherents like the original Defiance and Vigilance represent.

I don't like this idea. Everyone wants mez protection, because it is the only thing in the game that really provides any sort of challenge. If the players had their way, a substantial portion would just get rid of the idea of mez altogether. And that, imo, is what is rather silly.

I also don't see it happening. The Blasters didn't get mez protection, but they did get an ability to use their weakest attacks while mezzed. The Khelds didn't get mez protection either, but they did get the opportunity to drop into Dwarf form (again denying them of what is usually their best attacks). If Defender inherent were changed at all to provide any sort of mez related assistance, it would likely be at a similar cost of functionality.

I'll throw in another. It was a thrill ride from start to finish and continues well past 50. The only problem is that on teams you'll kill so fast you won't get to use all of your cool powers.

Buy them flowers and candy. A good tank is not only a rarity (the AT is one of the hardest to play well) but makes life 1000% better for a blaster. Thank your tanks and add them to your friends list and it will dramatically improve your blasting experience.

Which is why I don't play it. It's boring. Very little challenges Bots/Traps, and what little does you have to go out of your way to find.

I deleted a Fire/Dark Corrupter for the same reason. The combo is doused in Awesomesauce and I gagged on it.

I was hoping someone would bring that up. The problem here is now, anywhere the knockback is useful Storm is now more useful than FF. In the situations that resist the debuff of Storm, knockback is usually resisted as well. Now we're back to just defense where things like IOs cut into FF's territory, and those situations are usually ones in which a FF user doesn't have the damage to move beyond a stalemate.

FF is a one trick pony. It does that trick VERY WELL (and I happen to enjoy that trick) but it isn't the toolbox that the other sets are. There are a few situations where I'd still rather have FF than anything else (Raid type situations, for instance) but for the most part a set like Traps, Storm, or Dark can do what it can and a lot more. That's why those sets are more popular than FF.

The problem with FF's is that it is no longer a game where the cost of giving up offense is worth the massive defensive benefit. It is far easier to get defense through other means than more offense. With a set like Traps, everyone can turn themselves into defensive juggernauts AND have great offense whereas you can't add offense to a set that doesn't really have any. But you sure can add defense to a set that doesn't have any, and that's what really harms FF.

The knockback is very handy, and this is coming from a guy that flocks towards the knockback sets like candy, but if I want knockback I'd rather use Storm and get a lot of offense to go with it. If I were fixing FF, I'd continue what they started to do and that is add more offense. That helped a little when Repulsion Bomb got some added damage, but it is not enough. A small team damage buff would help enormously.

FF is the only Mastermind secondary that doesn't either include a damage buff or resistance debuff and the benefit of defense (either passive or active) is not enough with the way the game is now structured.

With a Ninja/Storm.......at least in my opinion............it isn't so much bodyguard or not, it is Hurricane or not. The difference between the tohit debuff and no tohit debuff on the survival of the pets is absolutely enormous.

Defenders always get more invites, because the community sees them as buffbots. They also get a lot more tells concerning their powersets, for the same reason.

I've seen empaths who didn't hit a button all night get praise on a team, just because no one on the team died.

The reason Luminara is making this assumption is this stuff happens all of the time in this game.

Communication, not knockback itself, is usually the problem with teams.

That's essentially why Traps is more popular than FF.

A few of the Defenders are even finding this out. There are some amazing Traps builds already appearing. It's only a matter of time before it becomes a popular AV soloer as well.

FF, like Blaster devices, is a set that didn't translate post IOs well. Too much of what FF does is now done through IOs.

I loved Forcefields when I started, and it felt needed back then. The game is just too easy now for FF. Even if you do happen to die there is now no punishment. Debt is almost non-existent, and inspiration matching has made the hospital almost rhetorical for teams.

You're probably not imagining it. Most of the AT boards have exhibited slower behavior in recent months.

Agreed completely.

I never denied that the sum total of Electric did more damage........I was very specific in what I said.

If you are going to quote someone and disagree with them, then you have to actually take into account what they said. Otherwise, there is no use because you're not really disagreeing with them, but with something else entirely. It's confusing for everyone and has taken me several posts to unnecessarily clarify because you're making a different statement, entirely.

When you try to disclaim what I said, you certainly are........since I am counting all of the melee attacks together. If you are going to disagree with that statement, then you have to actually consider the statement you are disagreeing with. Otherwise, there is no point referencing it.


The sum total of TF+PT would still be similar in that event to the total of TS+SG, provided neither SG nor PT is slotted for damage.

The other two attacks in each set are a wash, as they are essentially the same attacks.

This is how the sets are balanced. They are made to be similar sets, from a total damage standpoint. TF is higher than TS, but PT is lower than SG.

I posted why I like /Elec over /Energy, based on how the damage of the four attacks is distributed. The flipside of that is some people may not like SG being a DOT due to the possibility of "wasted" damage. There are a lot of factors to consider in how this plays out. That shouldn't change the actual numbers, though.

You're leaving out power thrust, which is what makes up the difference. Elec's 4 attacks beats out Energy's 4 attacks by a very narrow margin........which makes sense, considering two of the attacks in each set are essentially identical.

Now, if you want to count in things like lightning field, then that's a different story.