dr_bot

My experience with soloing empathy is that the game-changing power is Regeneration Aura. You're not unkillable while it's up, but you're a lot harder to kill.

The most important thing I'd do for a solo build is therefore to increase the recharge for Regen Aura. That typically for me means set bonuses and recharge slotting in RA.

As the mezzers get more frequent, you're going to need some defense up your sleeves. That, and using your own mezzes to eliminate mezzing threats, are your best defenses to being mezzed, so ranged defense would be the next set bonus I'd try for.

My emps solo less quickly than my blasters, but I'm perfectly happy soloing them. (The really fun thing to do is to duo empaths, though... Perma-AB Perma-fort is awesome.)

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As far as I recall, FF doesn't give psi defense at all. Granted, many psi powers are also ranged, melee, or aoe flagged so that's less of an issue. But back to the topic of not wanting buffs, there are legitimate reasons. RP can be one, and people aren't required to give a reason when they ask not to be buffed.

I know my WS once got an empath to go "WTF?!" when I asked not to be healed unless critical. They understood part way into the mission, but they still didn't understand me NOT wanting healing.

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FF has much less psi defense than every other type of defense but still has a decent amount in Dispersion Bubble. I believe the rule for whether or not a psi power is tagged with a positional type is whether or not it's in Mind Control (a glance over that powerset makes me think it has no positional tags, whereas psi blast always does.)

Perhaps there are legitimate reasons to not want buffs, but if you're just going to assert that there are legitimate reasons without giving any of them, I'll assert that there are legitimate reasons to give the buff even though you don't want it. And in those cases, a decent team leader would have a legitimate reason to kick one or both of us. While there's nothing requiring you to justify yourself when you ask for no buff, if I don't understand the request I'm much less likely to follow it. (As much as I've said that when I play kin I think you should SB everyone so they actually learn to control their toons, I will hold back on SB in cave maps that people find especially unnavigable. Then again, in a couple of those maps, their mistakes are disproportionately likely to result in death, unlike in most regular maps, where mistakes in placement might just reduce effectiveness a little bit.)

I can come up with a justification as to why you wouldn't want healing on a WS, but recognize that in refusing buffs, you're actually preventing someone else from playing their toon the way they're used to. And the reasons for them playing the way they're used to may be justified by RP as well. My emp is a little robot, and embedded deep in his programming is an imperative to heal allies who are injured.

Is your RP requirement more important than mine simply because yours runs counter to the usual play style people use?

In practice, I'll probably follow pretty much any request as long as I feel it's not slowing down the team. I honestly might find it hard to avoid healing in certain circumstances, although I manage to avoid healing certain tanks on my teams that I know can handle what they're doing, so I could probably manage it in this circumstance too. But getting away from empathy and kinetics and back to Force Fields, which was the subject of this thread, under my rationale, having increased defense will pretty much always speed up the team. And my bubbler is a lizard, who if I were to RP, wouldn't understand English particularly well, so he wouldn't understand your requests not to bubble him. (He'd magically gain some understanding if you uttered the word "migraine," because I don't like inflicting real-world discomfort on people, but I've never played on a team with anyone who claimed FF had this effect on them.)

In this context, why does some other player's RP trump mine? After all, mine is the one passing out bubbles; you've got a perfectly reasonable RP explanation for them being there.

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Does fort provide psi defense? If not, then ice tanks may honestly not get much use out of it... unless dealing with things that only do fire damage.

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As has been said upthread, fort is def(all). I find, however, that whether or not I need to use fortitude on a tank is more related to their slotting and tactics than what specific powerset they take. I've played with Ice tanks that don't need fort against anything, and I've played with Ice tanks that need fort against everything.

But psi is definitely a hole for most tanks.

I figure my job as an empath is to make sure that I mitigate anything that happens to the team's endurance or health bars. For the most part I do this with auras and fortitude rather than healing.

But did we hijack this thread away from the subject at hand? Fortitude is a pretty good proxy for bubbles, because its biggest effect is def(all), but a FFer can easily manage to bubble a whole team. My experience with fortitude tells me that generally isn't necessary, but if one of the critical people on the team (could be the tank, to bring this conversational thread back to the subject) was asking not to have fortitude/bubbles and yet was taking more damage than he regenerated, I would start getting annoyed at the tank that wasn't letting me do my job properly. (And if it was for some silly RP reason rather than some kind of health-related reason, well, then I'll RP my bubbles onto you.)

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That's an awful large leap to get that he must be soft capped. The far simpler solution is exactly what the quoted poster implies: the tank was dumb.

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Considering how high the actual defenses of a Tanker can get, it's actually not that difficult to imagine, and it actually provides a decent explanation for his/her request. Even if the Tanker wasn't softcapped but was simply quite simply capable of surviving without any need for buffs, it's still applicable. Giving the Tanker extra defenses doesn't really serve much good outside of allowing the Tanker to do a little bit more damage. Giving it to a Blaster would not only generate more damage but the Blaster would also be getting more real effect from the +def. In my experience, once you hit the mid 30s, most intelligent Tankers (re: the ones that would actually be smart enough to say "I don't need this buff") are fully capable of taking whatever a mission can throw at them without need for outside help. For target selective buffs like Fortitude, it generally better serves the team to place it on a squishy in the un/likely event that the Tanker doesn't grab all aggro and some critter hate is directed towards said squishy.

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I've played with tanks that have requested this. (Not a surprise, if you've played an emp for over 4 years.) I tend to ignore this advice, and here's how that works: I start out by not buffing the tank. Generally tanks have the most control over aggro and ability to deal with such, and often times they have better defenses when surrounded by more enemies, so it's sometimes hard to gauge their performance, but it's not hard to build a tank that can handle most encounters without outside help from an emp.

If I notice that the tank needs healing on a regular basis, he'll end up as a fortitude target, regardless of whether or not he needs it. I've got better things to do than heal, and fortitude is my biggest tool there.

Sure, it's a bit more work to evaluate the team to determine where to throw buffs (especially on teams where the team composition changes over the course of a play session), but it's effective. The only issue I have with this technique is that on high-performance teams, it's sometimes non-obvious who needs it (since on some of those teams, both defense and to hit are unnecessary, and if there's a kin on the team, +damage doesn't do much good either.) But on those teams I'm happy to play my emp as a blapper, so it all works out.

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It's a mystery to me how people can play this game, with its flashing lights and bright colours everywhere, and be fine, but as soon as one little bubble/speedboost/ice armor shows up, it's migraine city and oh noes. Considering how hectic and chaotic the graphics are in a typical team battle, it's a wonder those folks don't die on the spot when someone fulcrum shifts.

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Because certain patterns bring them on and others do not. Sonic was pretty much a bullet straight to a migraine sufferer's nervous system which flooded you with nitric oxide. Instant migraine.

And yes, your smug post DID make it clear you believe we're all liars.

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For the most part, I agree with the original quoted sentiment. There just don't seem to be too many powers out there that cause real physical symptoms in the current game. (I'll mention here that I didn't make my sonic until after the set had been changed to solve the migraine problems.)

But if you have a problem with something because it messes with your costume, ruining your role playing, maybe you need to learn to role play better. Perhaps that role playing involves getting mad at people who buff you and losing out on being on teams with certain buffers (I actually do like the previous poster who planned on complaining about the cold defender freezing him down, so please don't read this as sarcasm.) Or perhaps that involves roleplaying the fact that when you're playing this game on a team, you're actually playing with other superheroes who have powers that are going to affect you.

And if you're going to complain about bouncing into walls, that's really one of the only things that will elicit a "L2P, n00b" response from me. I can believe that this is a potentially difficult skill to learn, but if getting a SB ruins your ability to line up cones, I think that's an excuse to SB you more so you get the practice you need. From my personal experience playing dark blast defenders, it's a lot of fun to get all that stuff to line up with the speed boost; when I'm on my kin/dark and Siphon Speed misses, I get annoyed because I can't move as fast.

I do think that it's possible to make allowances for unnecessary buffs ("I'm already at the defense cap!") or real limitations (some people still get migraines/motion sickness). But the latter seems pretty rare to me (I only think I've managed to play with one person in the last 4 years on anything approaching a regular basis who claimed to have a problem with one of my powersets.) And the former, while common enough, isn't as common as many people think: in the presence of certain debuffs or buffs, you actually want to get past the cap. It sounds, for example, like Madam Enigma doesn't need +recharge for her attack chain, but against enemies that do -recharge, some prevention of that effect can be useful. (That said, I am extremely doubtful that there is any build that exists that can't benefit from +recharge, so I'm a bit skeptical there too.)

But this is sort of a moot point for me anyway; I'm pretty bad at keeping SB up on the team, and so I find that I don't really enjoy playing my kin all that much. So I'll probably skip SBing you by simply playing another toon that I actually like...

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Please name one thing that the defender brings to the table that is not better brought by controllers?

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The actual buffs, debuffs, and heals from the Defender primary? Controllers have support scalars of .75 whereas Defenders have a 1.0. A */ff controller with maneuvers will only be able to provide 33.345% +def. A ff/* defender with maneuvers will provide 44.46% +def. The difference between an FF troller and an FF fender is the difference between taking 33.31% of incoming damage and taking 11.08% of incoming damage. Defenders support better than Controllers.

Please try to actually learn the numbers before you make claims.

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If you add Power Boost from a Controller's epic pool, you can get that number up to 47.2%. And since Power Boost only takes 120s to recharge and you can cast three sets of bubbles for each usage of Power Boost, it's not hard to slot with enough recharge that you can have perma-power boosted bubbles for a whole team.

Defenders are able to get this defense number up to 59.2% with Power Build Up, but since PBU takes 240s to recharge, and it only lasts 12.5s as opposed to Power Boost's 15s, it's difficult to get boosted bubbles on a whole team. (Not that I've tried, my only 50 bubbler is the controller.)

(It appears to me that Umbral was assuming 56% enhancement for all defense powers. I only applied the boost from PBU or PB to the individual bubbles, not Maneuvers or Dispersion Bubble, because those powers will only be boosted while PBU or PB is active.)

So in the case of pure damage mitigation, it's possible to build a controller that can easily keep an entire team at the cap. He'll need to take an extra power compared to the defender that gets close enough, and if the defender wants to go overboard, he'll be able to provide a lot of extra defense, which might be useful in circumstances where teammates are straying far from the defender.

Whether or not you find the preceding analysis useful probably depends on if you're worried about level 50 content or if you're trying to get numbers while leveling. Clearly, defenders will provide much better defense until level 47. But a well-slotted */FF controller can be about as effective for a lot of the level 50 content. To answer the original question, defenders do a better job here, but it's possible for controllers to do it well enough (even if "well enough" requires hitting 45% defense.)

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Could be mistaken, but I seem to recall that it was Immobilizes, not Slows, that were once known as Snares... for some reason I have that in my brain. Are you sure it was slows?

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You were mistaken. See, for example, http://eu.cityofheroes.com/en/game_g.../enhancements/ . Last time I looked, some of the invention recipes that enhance slow powers were call "snare". Admittedly, I haven't checked this recently, so it could have been changed a couple issues ago and I wouldn't have noticed.

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But there are only so many times that you can hear things like, "slow down, guys, I'm not getting a chance to kill anything!" from a newbie scrapper after you and an SGmate have been cajoling him into speeding up.

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To be fair... I've been that guy. I was SK'd up to 49 from 35, on an issue 3 team of an old school Spine/Regen and an Empath, and badguys were going down WAY faster than I was used to.

Learning the "tab, tab, f,1,2,f, 6 " dance - or whatever I'm doing- to attack people is NOT intuitive and DOES take time to become part of your nervous system. I don't even know what I'm doing on a mechanical level any more. I just zip over to that guy and stab him, slide a little left for the AOE, etc. I don't know when I turn sprint on and off. I don't know when I'm toggling "follow" on and off. Last night I noticed myself toggling a melee attack, jumping over a badguy to tap him with it. I noticed because that's a Tank move (the cones don't end up pointed towards the party) and I was doing it on a Blaster. Quite automatically.

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Well, before I figured out how to do that on my scrappers, I had to watch other people do it. And honestly, we *were* in the Hollows, it's not like we were going *that* fast.

But isn't it fun to play a blaster like a tank? Lately, I've been finding that I'm playing my emp/rad as a blapper...

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there will always be noobs, sometimes i feel the same way "The_Player" but i always seem to find myself exemplaring down to the 1-15 range on my main more often then playing with people above say 35.

Yes, there are those stubborn people who just cant/dont/refuse learn how to play their powerset. Now i understand if some n00b scrapper doesn't know how a Dark/-- Defender works because hes a noob. And i only expect him to understand his own class for now. As time goes on and as he teams with more dark/-- defenders and as he plays alts, he'll start to get the idea of how each powerset works.

You cant expect some casual n00b to know EVERYTHING. yeha common sense is neccesary but agian. I don't expect a n00b X to know anything about class Y yet.

Patience. We don't want this game full of jerks (like some other MMO's i wont name) that dont help the n00bs but instead expect them to be "This" powerful and "That" knowledgeable before even considering teaming with them. Well how the hell do you expect them to learn if you don't communicate and help them yourself?

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Well, I think The_Player has mentored more people than I have (I'm pretty sure I even learned something from some of his previous posts... I'll refer you to, for example, http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....e#Post10337647) I think he's already exemplified at least as much patience as is reasonable to ask of someone.

One thing that frustrates me more often than not on pick up groups is that even when you demonstrate an effective technique, sometimes they don't pick up on it (even after being hit on the head with a clue-by-four.) I've managed to lose my patience and insist on getting some sort of buff, or asking the team to position themselves in such a way, or let me manage aggro for the team (which I do more often on non-tanks than tanks). Usually, when this happens, things go well (if I'm annoyed and I want to prove a point, I'll prove it even if I have to rely on inspirations to do so.) But almost invariably, after that shining moment of glory, where superior tactics were demonstrated to all present, the team reverts to its previous strategies.

This is not to say that I've never seen evidence that people learn: it's one of the reasons that I still often play in the Hollows on my low level alts. (The other reason is that I'm sure I don't know all the good players on my server, and hopefully they occasionally run pickups too.) But there are only so many times that you can hear things like, "slow down, guys, I'm not getting a chance to kill anything!" from a newbie scrapper after you and an SGmate have been cajoling him into speeding up.

I remember what it was like when I first got on some teams that steamrollered through invincible missions. Once I got over my awe, I tried to figure out what they were doing that I wasn't doing. I get frustrated when other people don't seem to have the capability to do that. (Isn't the game better once you know how to play well? That was my personal experience...)

If I get annoyed at a noob because he hasn't learned something due to never being exposed to it, that's my own fault. But if I get annoyed at a noob because he hasn't learned something in spite of the fact that not only has he been exposed to enough information to figure out how to play it properly, but also been watching while someone else showed him how to do it and explained it to him, that's his fault.

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I'm biased. I love my Emp/Psi.

I don't ever feel like I can't get a team just because I am considered to be a

<.<

>.>

healer... by some. I actually get good time in to do my job and enjoy my secondary. A lot. Yeah, I'm biased. Empathy.

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My emp/psi just hit 50 last night. He's gonna be even more combat-oriented than my emp/rad (several people in my SG laugh at me because I enjoy soloing my emp/rad on invincible... I'm looking forward to getting my emp/psi slotted up so he can be even better.)

/Psi was much more fun to level up than /Rad. Then again, I think it's more because now I know how to effectively fight as an emp defender (Regeneration Aura ftw!)

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So, technically, according to the definition that seems useful to me, the buffs that a random hero gives you while passing by are possibly not preemptive (since in my experience, they're often given to targets who are just standing around, with no real expectation that the buff will be useful.)

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It's this that will never allow us to agree, which was the irony that I pointed out before. If there is never an agreement on the definition of a term, arguing over when it applies is just useless. Whatever you all decide on this topic is fine with me. I think I'm going to stop with this one. Deliberation has been achieved. Congratulations.

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It's interesting that you bold that bit (I was half expecting it as I wrote that sentence that someone would pick it out.) Any time a person uses a word that has multiple meanings (and there are quite a few that do), there's some question as to which meaning he is using. The one that actually fits is usually the correct one to pick. (For example, the word that ends that last sentence means "choose," and not "pluck a guitar string", in spite of the fact that "pick" when used as a verb has both meanings.)

From the context of my post, the meaning of "preemptive" has to be something like the meaning that I picked out. (Either that, or I'm using the word incorrectly. But since there is a definition of the word that fits the way I used it, that's not the case.)

These other meanings of "preemptive" that people are using to prove that healing can't be preemptive are often meanings that suggest that either nothing or everything is preemptive, which means that in the context of discussing the game, they're useless. I would contend that most of the people who use the phrase "preemptive healing" and believe that such a thing exists in CoH are using a definition similar to the one that I suggested previously.

The fact that there are other meanings of preemptive which suggest that "preemptive healing" doesn't exist in CoH is a bit of a distraction. And since I agree with you that under those alternative definitions of preemptive, preemptive healing doesn't exist, that's not a particularly interesting conversation. (I'd even go a step further and suggest that because, under those definitions, preemptive healing doesn't exist, that's not what preemptive means in this context.)

Further, I argue that the definition I pointed out above is not only useful in describing what happens in CoH, but also suggests ways to categorize powers in the empathy set, and suggest strategies that players might attempt to use. Given that, you're welcome to erroneously believe that it's not a valid definition of the word, but I think you understand what I mean when I say it, so it seems a bit silly to get bogged down in an argument on semantics. (Then again, it seems that you missed part of the point I was trying to make, and I enjoy silly arguments about semantics, so I don't mind getting bogged down. Isn't that what internet forums are for?)

If somehow you're able to come up with some explanation as to how some of these other definitions of "preemptive" are actually useful in the context of City of Heroes, then we might get somewhere in this discussion. I still might contend that the definition I've been using is the best fit for the concept I've been trying to convey, but it does mean that perhaps a different word choice is in order to resolve the ambiguity.

(I think I actually prefer the word "proactive" personally, but whether or not that word applies depends on your perspective, and therefore gives rise to the same sorts of semantic issues.)

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At any rate, I agree with you that a good definition of "preemptive" is worthwhile in this discussion. For the purposes of my earlier post, I used a pretty expansive definition of "preemptive": as long as you take an action (and usually I consider this from the user's perspective of activating/queuing up a power, rather than the hero's perspective of when a power takes place) before the effect you're using is necessary, you're preemptively doing something.

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Technically, that's not the definition of preemptive. I took a look at a few definitions and none of them include anything about the result, reason, or necessity of a preemptive action. They are all about doing something first, and that's pretty much it. Using a past example from this thread, tossing a heal to someone that just jumped into a large group of mobs isn't preemptive. You healed as a result of seeing someone do something many CoH practitioners consider stupid or deadly.

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One definition I found just now:

preemptive - designed or having the power to deter or prevent an anticipated situation or occurrence;

This matches with what I think is a useful definition of preemptive in the context of CoH (in the sense that other definitions tend to sound like they either don't apply or describe things that aren't worth talking about.) Under this definition, you're doing something first, sure, but you're doing it in anticipation of some other thing happening. The expectation that this other thing is about to happen is critical to it being a preemptive action: usage of a power isn't preemptive unless it preempts something.

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But from the player's perspective, you can use them preemptively: any time you're anticipating something, you're using a power preemptively. And I think the strongest case that "preemptive heals" exist is the last one that I made, that Regen Aura and Adrenalin Boost are preemptive heals. I don't think in this case that "preemptive" is used controversially; the controversial usage there is "heal", but as a player, that's how I think of the power: I use RA and AB in place of using direct healing powers.

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Now this is extremely nit-picky of me, but looking strictly at the definitions that I found, technically the buffs given at the beginning or mid-mission aren't proactive either. When the team first walked through the doorway to the mission, it was expected that damage would come soon after. There was a reason for the buffer to give those buffs before he/she gave them, so the subsequent buffing wasn't done first. The only preemptive things here are the buffs that some random hero gives you while passing you on the street (a debate on that is also possible though).

Can't believe I'm sitting here at work breaking this word down! This is not important... like... not at all, lol!

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I'm not entirely sure where you're going with this argument, because it sounds like you're arguing that if there's a reason to give buffs, it's not a preemptive action. That doesn't make sense to me, since my understanding is that an action is only preemptive if it is taken to proactively counteract a potential future event.

So, technically, according to the definition that seems useful to me, the buffs that a random hero gives you while passing by are possibly not preemptive (since in my experience, they're often given to targets who are just standing around, with no real expectation that the buff will be useful.)

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..."Facts" are things that are true...

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I don't think that this is the dictionary definition of the word, nor the scientific version. I'm also thinking that no one has really included that in their posts. Not trying to flame anyone, just sayin'. That's probably not the best starting point for discussion.

How about we leave the term "preemptive healing" out of it and start with a dictionary definition of "preemptive". That being a word that is probably much older and more recognized than the term, it sounds like a better jumping off point. Otherwise, we just might be doomed to the irony of naming an opinion as fact when the owner of said opinion doesn't have a clear definition of the word "fact" anyway.

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Yeah, well, that little bit about what "fact" means was meant to be illustrative that questions of semantics often short-circuit discussions like this. The actual discussion of whether or not "the Earth is flat" is a fact isn't all that interesting, but if the only definition of "fact" I'm willing to accept requires that facts be true (which I would contend is *one of* the dictionary definitions, and the scientific definition requires that a fact be something that is "actual or observable" which seems compatible to me), then we're not going to have a very interesting argument.

I also wonder if I was intended to be the target of that "the owner...doesn't have a clear definition of the word 'fact' anyway." Sure seems like it, and I think that's a rather odd statement to make, since I actually went out of my way to define what I meant when I used the word.

At any rate, I agree with you that a good definition of "preemptive" is worthwhile in this discussion. For the purposes of my earlier post, I used a pretty expansive definition of "preemptive": as long as you take an action (and usually I consider this from the user's perspective of activating/queuing up a power, rather than the hero's perspective of when a power takes place) before the effect you're using is necessary, you're preemptively doing something.

From the hero's perspective, healing powers are reactive, because pretty much any instantaneous power is reactive: from the hero's perspective, it takes effect as soon as the hero wants to do something.

From the effect of the power, healing powers are reactive: damage needs to be taken before healing can happen.

But from the player's perspective, you can use them preemptively: any time you're anticipating something, you're using a power preemptively. And I think the strongest case that "preemptive heals" exist is the last one that I made, that Regen Aura and Adrenalin Boost are preemptive heals. I don't think in this case that "preemptive" is used controversially; the controversial usage there is "heal", but as a player, that's how I think of the power: I use RA and AB in place of using direct healing powers.

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That's the nice thing about facts, they're not debatable.

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A philosophical quibble: facts are indeed debatable, and mutable over time. Might I comment that it was once an accepted fact that the Earth was flat.

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It's interesting to me that much of this thread devolved into an argument about semantics. To continue that...

"Accepted fact" does not equal "fact". "Facts" are things that are true, not necessarily things that are thought to be true. The only facts that are mutable over time are pieces of information about things that are changing over time. I'll concede the point that "facts are debatable"-- people debate over facts all the time. That doesn't mean that it's objectively possible to prove that the facts are on one side or the other: it was never objectively true that the Earth was flat, and therefore it was never a fact.

To return to the topic of this thread, it's difficult to debate whether preemptive healing exists in CoH unless we agree on the definition. There are at least four reasonable definitions I've seen in this thread:

* Preemptive healing is like what you see in WoW, a heal over time. While CoH has damage over time, I can't think of any powers that have heal over time. (Well, unless you think of Amy casting a few Healing Auras while she's out.)

* Preemptive healing involves activating any healing power (even one that takes effect at a single instant) before damage is dealt. It's preemptive in the sense that you have to do something before damage comes in, but reactive in the sense that the heal only does any good if damage is dealt for the heal to do any good. That seems to me to be the only counterargument that this tactic isn't "preemptive healing," and the argument applies equally well to WoW-like heal over time effects. So I'm happy calling this "preemptive healing." It takes practice (and a non-laggy connection) to pull off, but it's definitely preemptive. That said, it's likely not what the team leader the OP wrote about had in mind. (I would also argue that if this skill is continually useful, a change in slotting or tactics might make the game a bit easier.)

* Healing Aura on auto. It's something that you "set up" ahead of time, and provides healing over time. One can reasonably call this "preemptive healing" by the definitions of those words, and so this is likely (in my opinion) to be what the OP's team leader was referring to. It's also one of the least efficient ways to mitigate damage that I've personally used, so my personal recommendation is to ignore the possibility. (Except when you're going AFK.)

* The last one is a bit more of a stretch, but regeneration is an effect that increases the rate of hit point gain. Increases in hit points can plausibly be called "heals", even if they're the result of regeneration. So increases in regeneration rate that are used prior to taking damage might be considered "preemptive heals." Empaths have Regeneration Aura and Adrenalin Boost to accomplish this effect (and when slotted up can regenerate enough hit points to be competitive with more conventional heals.) When I'm thinking about emping (and my primary is an emp, so I've thought about it a bit), I think of Regen Aura as a preemptive heal; the distinction between "regen buff" and "preemptive heal" is more a question of game mechanics than anything else. (How I think of it: Regeneration Aura is a "preemptive heal" that operates through the game mechanic of buffing regeneration.) This last one is the form of preemptive healing that is easiest to use and most generally useful in the game.

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I think FF is actually a much worse powerset for Controllers than Defenders, if all you're looking at are the bubbles. At least on the Defender, you give as much defense as possible, and when you're done bubbling, you're free to blast away.

On a Controller, not only are your bubbles not as strong, but once you buff the team and control the mob, then what do you do? Hold them again? Admire all the cool looking animations everyone else is using to actually accomplish something in the fight? I would go bored out of my mind playing like that.

If that's what is important to you and that is how you want to play, then I encourage you to pursue it. Me? I'll be taking all the powers in FF (except maybe Detention Field; I never have like intangibles), because they are all good, and I like them.

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I find the hate for controller bubbles on these boards funny. If you care about maxing out defense, it's still possible (the key is to make sure to take Power Boost).

So it all depends on what else you're planning on doing with your time.

My Ill/FF is actually a bad example, but then again, I built him to dual box. I would never recommend his build for someone who wants to devote their entire attention... That said, every Master of Statesman Task Force he has been on has been successful. (In places where FF doesn't make things easy, Illusion often does.)

I do have a couple of other Ill/FFs in my SG, though. They are both built for a more active play style, and I'd have to say that I'm never upset to have them on a team. (And one of them explicitly built his toon to be as annoying as possible: PFF-herding mobs back to the group that they might not be able to handle, Detention Field at inopportune times... All that said, when he's not playing to piss people off he's good to have on a team.)

Out of the three of us, I am the only one with a "boring" build, and after my most recent respec, it's not as boring as the original build was.

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the player has little influence on its effectiveness. All you can do is buff shields and try to keep dispersion on everyone.

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*double facepalm*

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What, didn't you know? FF only has 3 powers.

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A well-played Empath (especially if you can get a Kin speed boosting you or a second empath which you trade adrenalin boosts with) does not need Heal Other. Absorb Pain is a complete no-no. An Empath should be buffing others, shooting their regen through the roof, not spamming their aura and Heal Other.

You should be slotting for massive recharge once you start doing sets. Making your RAs perma (with the help of an adrenalin boost or SB) is what will make you the most awesome team-support Defender ever. If you can trade adrenalin boosts with another Emp, you'll be able to tank, blast, and do team support without feeling overworked.

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Recharge is great for emps.

But you can't make RAs perma (it requires >500% recharge to do so, and the cap is 500%.) The only way you can have "perma" RAs is if you've got a second emp on the team, in which case you really don't need much recharge at all. (Especially if the two of you are also swapping Adrenalin Boost.)

And if you've got perma-AB and RA, you likely won't need much Healing Aura; you'll be regenerating as much as a regen scrapper, so heals aren't really necessary in most cases except for the teammates you missed with your Regen Aura.

The funniest part of this post was "if you can trade adrenalin boost with another emp, you'll be able to...do team support without being overworked." With good strategy, a single emp can do team support with plenty of time to blast and not be overworked. With a second emp, as long as it's not a rock-the-aura h34lz0r, it should be easy. (Among other things, decent use of fortitude in this case should max out the defense of just about anyone on the team who needs it; between that and judicious application of regen aura, heals should be unnecessary.)

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Wow! I didn't realize "healer" was such a naughty word. My bad. I shall never utter that word again. Mea Culpa. I guess I just don't take the make believe world of CoX that seriously.

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Welcome to the defender boards.

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Devices = no build up.

That is an enormous loss in sustained damage for a blaster. In the old days, before ED, devices made up for this by allowing blasters to 6 slot for damage with targeting drone. Because that is no longer a viable strategy, you sacrifice build up and get very little in return. Yes, devices has some neat powers like cloak and the mines, but overall I'd say it's lacking.

As in all things ever, YMMV.

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I wouldn't call it an "enormous" loss. Buildup was only good for 10 seconds out of, if you slotted it very well, 30 or 40 seconds. It boosted overall damage while it was active by what, 50%? In reality, if you used it every time it was up, your overall damage output would be increased by 10 to 15 percent. It's not a make-or-break power choice.

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Build up gives +100% damage for 10s every 90s.

If you take those numbers in a pre-ED build with permahasten, and 6-slot Build Up, you can get +100% damage for 10s about every 25s. +40% damage.

In a post-ED IO build, you need +125% recharge to get it up every 40s, which isn't hard if you're slotting for a few recharge bonuses. In that case, it's overall a 25% damage buff.

And if you're using it well, you're using your high-impact attacks when it goes off and using low-impact attacks while it recharges, so the numbers are probably slightly better than that anyways.

Even without hasten, and only using 2 slots, it's pretty close to 50s recharge. Which would be a 20% damage buff.

Build Up's better than you think it is.

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I beg to differ, using your sample. There is code, albeit generic, that reads the data from power blast; this code could be tangled with other code.

I also would point out, that evidence tends to speak out for itelf. Look at the bizarre malfunctions when the game gets an upgrade. For instance, remember the trade function was borked when I13 was introduced? If you think about it, what did the tray window functionality had to directly do with crafting, once more using your example of power blast; should it not be some standard code that provides the trade functionality and then look up tables for the items traded? So while I could see errors in the database due to inception of more things that can be traded, I can not really see why the main trade functionality code would be impacted. The chat issue where colored chat went away during I12, what did that had to do with what was done with I12? Once you look at the body of observables, its hard to not believe CoX is suffering from spaguetti code at some level of borkness. Considering that the errors are not by the droves but in limited quantities, the code can not be too borked and a couple of months of clean-up should remedy this situation.


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Without looking at the codebase, I don't think it's fair to say a couple of months of clean-up would be enough: this game has been around for years, and it's pretty clear that in some cases they're adding new features on top of old ones. I don't know if you've ever done a rewrite of a complex software system before, but I have, and what you're suggesting doing (rewrite, and in the process fix the most egregious known bugs without introducing any new ones) is pretty near impossible. (I had to rewrite an analytics system such that the new version generated the same billing numbers as the old version. While the old version was unable to scale to the load that we were experiencing. When I fixed bugs, I actually had to justify why the new numbers were different than the old ones. It was the second most stressful time in my professional career.)

The evidence also suggests to me that rather than being caused by spaghetti code, some of these bugs could be caused by code that's too simple, the opposite of spaghetti code. Some of the suggestions I've read to fix some of these problems sound to me like they'd be introducing lots of conditionals into the code (which is one thing that you might consider would make something spaghetti code). The tack the devs seem to have taken is to fix these things up by changing the data associated with powers rather than adding lots of additional code. It's an interesting choice, and one that (in my experience) leads to more maintainable systems, because you don't have to be a programmer to fix problems with the data.

So anyhow, without looking at the code, I'm guessing that what you're suggesting is much harder than you think. And I, for one, would rather they keep adding fun stuff to the game; even if they do try to clean it up, all that would mean would be a new set of bugs to complain about.

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Oh yeah, Dark Servant slotting. That reminds me.

Dark Miasma

Dark Servant is a damage dealing pet, but does not accept damage enhancements or Pet Damage invention sets.

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It doesn't accept Damage Enhancements, thus no Pet Sets.

(Why no Damage Enhancements? Don't ask me)

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I think that was the point. It doesn't make sense that Dark Servant doesn't take Damage Enhancements or Pet Damage sets, since it deals damage. Therefore, this probably belongs on the current issues list.

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Uh...huh. Fluffy has two powers that can cause minor damage. One of which is a PBAoE, the other is Tenebrous Tentecles.

You REALLY think Pet Damage sets are going to improve Dark Servant? More than, say, slotting for To-Hit debuffs, Heals, Immobilizes, of Holds? You know, those things that he's actually throwing around, that occasinally have a secondary effect of damage?

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I'm not sure that I thing that I would ever slot one, but sometimes it's nice to have extra flexibility for set bonuses. And I'll make the observation that Dark Servant does a lot more damage than some damaging powers defenders can take that do take damage sets.

Chill of the Night alone from a Dark Servant has the potential to do many times more damage than the early blast powers. And that's before even counting Tenebrous Tentacles. I could imagine that a Dark/Sonic trying to maximize damage output might actually want to buff even relatively small damage output powers.

And even without slotting for damage, I can imagine that some people might want to slot additional defense or resistance into a Dark Servant to make it more survivable, using the sets.

Then again, I think I probably hold an extreme viewpoint on this sort of thing. I also think it would be great to be able to slot slow enhancers in blaster's Rain of Fire.

I wouldn't argue that any of the above would necessarily be a good way to slot these powers, but one of the things I really like about this game is that the enhancement system provides some interesting ways to customize our powers and abilities. The game is better with more variety.

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Oh yeah, Dark Servant slotting. That reminds me.

Dark Miasma

Dark Servant is a damage dealing pet, but does not accept damage enhancements or Pet Damage invention sets.

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It doesn't accept Damage Enhancements, thus no Pet Sets.

(Why no Damage Enhancements? Don't ask me)

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I think that was the point. It doesn't make sense that Dark Servant doesn't take Damage Enhancements or Pet Damage sets, since it deals damage. Therefore, this probably belongs on the current issues list.

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Defenders used to only be able to use 5% of their power's debuffing ability, after I9 they'll be able to use 15%. Let's use Enervating Field for an example... it can debuff -30% of damage resistance. Against the old 95% debuff resistance, that means the power could only reduce a foe's damage resistance by -1.5%. Now the new numbers. Out of 85% debuff resistance , the power will reduce a foe's damage resistance by -4.5%. Yes, this is 3 times the amount previously, but look at how small the numbers are. So say a critter's damage resistance is 90% for example, before I9 a debuffer will reduce the critter's damage resistance from 90% to 88.7%; after I9 from 90% to 86.1%. It's hard to see how this will make any sort of meaningful impact on debuffers.

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Not hard for me to see. Consider the above debuffs applied to an AV, and then a blaster attacking with something that does 100 points of damage.

In both your i8 and i9 examples, the blaster's attack will do 10 points of damage in this situation to an un-debuffed AV.

In the first case (the i8 numbers in your example) the blaster's attack will do 11.3 damage. A 13% increase in damage, not so bad, by my thinking.

But in your i9 example, the blaster's attack will do 13.9 damage. A 39% increase. Do you honestly think that a 39% +damage buff is "hard to see"?

In cases where enemies don't have such high resistance, yeah, these effects will be hard to see. But in cases where enemies do have high resistance, they will have very visible effects.