halfflat

I recently respecced out of my nuke on my kin/psy defender.

The nuke is fun! And it can be a good emergency power. But I found that solo, even with mass hypnosis and fulcrum shift, it was a hassle to use. Had to carry around endurance inspirations to recover with (before popping transfusion), and the damage is not really good enough to justify it.

A fulcrum shift, siphon power and psychic wail isn't enough to reliably take out even all the minions. As said above, it is better as a finisher than a starter. You still drop toggles and have to recover endurance and all that, and on a team, it's probably better to keep up the leadership bonuses, buffs and whatnot.

I've been now having much more use out of now two AoE attacks (I swapped the nuke for psionic tornado.) Let me say again though: the nuke can be a huge lot of fun in an unfortunately limited number of situations.

Luminara, I have not made up a thing. I've been polite, and answered your points with deliberation.

You, on the other hand, have been rude, dismissive, and have changed your argument at whim in order to try and score points.

My simple claim: soloing the scrapper was much, much easier than soloing the defender, and at level 50, my kin defender, while fun, struggles much more often than my scrapper.

For the record, the +1 boss I refered to in the AE mission was not some custom ubercreature, but simply an Arachnos boss.

I did not quote you out of context; you stated that it was never the case that soloing a defender was much more of a struggle than soloing a scrapper. The quote is in my previous post. And yet you have not played a scrapper past the 20s. I don't know how you can really defend that point.

I'm happy that you have a lot of success with your defender. I know I enjoy playing mine (at least now that she's a mini-controller at level 50). But a debate about solo ability of ATs is not an attack on you personally.

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And you're still only level 6! Minions are defeated by sneezes at level 6!


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No one (I hope) cares about level 6. Every AT is more or less trivial up to level 10. The hard times start in the teens and extend through to the early 30s or 40s.

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Your narrow outlook on Kinetics based on your experience four years ago isn't relevant, or even correct, today.


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You accuse me of not using powers such as siphon speed, and as such, am incompetent; I explain that this wasn't relevant. There's nothing more to it than that.

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You can't survive the first 15s of combat solo in many situations: any of a number of EBs will crank you in that time;

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I survive the first 8-15s against AVs and GMs with my Kinetics scrapper.


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This whole discussion revolves around solo play.
I was effectively one-shotted the other day, by a +1 boss in an AE mission, after the fulcrum shift debuff.

Some GMs are fine: no one attack does enough damage (especially after debuff) that transfusion can't fix up. But it's not the point. Other foes will quite happily gank a defender.

More pertinently, you were claiming that it was fine to spend 8 to 15 seconds not engaged in damage mitigation. When I call you on this, you state that 8 to 15 seconds are perfectly survivable ... if one takes measures to mitigate damage. Gaah!

But ...

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The only applicable argument is the mezzer statement, and that's a fact of life for every defender, not just Kins. You deal with it or you die, it's that simple.


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and it dramatically affects the abilities of defenders to solo, which is Ultimo's point.

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Mental Blast - 37.5% -Recharge, 36.1 base damage
Subdue - mag 3 Immobilize, 47.7 base damage
Psychic Scream - 62.5% -Recharge, 37.6 base damage

Damage (defeated foes deal 0 damage), enough -Recharge to floor attack speed, an Immobilize which prevents foes from closing to melee range (and thereby restricts them to using only ranged attacks, which, again, typically deal less damage than melee attacks), I'm seeing quite a bit of mitigation in the low level attacks.


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Recharge reduction does nothing against alphas, and only affects foes once they finish running through their available attacks. It's only significant in drawn out battles. Immobilize is not great mitigation (often better than nothing, sure) but Subdue doesn't even guarantee that.

And after all this, you haven't played a scrapper past 20. So when you said in reply,

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Playing the two were like night and day. It shouldn't be the case that Defenders, having a more interesting gameplay, should be so much less effective solo.


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That isn't the case. It never was.


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you were basically just making stuff up. It's hard to take you seriously.

Admittedly, I had already hit level 50 before the Siphon Speed changes kicked in. Before that, Siphon Speed was basically a debt-magnet travel power.

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Slotting Siphon Power with a single Recharge Reduction training enhancement and using Siphon Speed gets the recharge time of Siphon Power down to just above 15s. So by level 6, one can have the -Damage applied to two foes within 15s. That leaves only two of your theoretical four enemies at full damage.


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And you still have made a difference of only 12%! Do defenders get only 12% fewer hitpoints than scrappers? Of course not. I'm not claiming Defenders should have the same hitpoints as scrappers; I'm just saying that the siphon power debuff doesn't equalize things.

[Skipping lots of stuff regarding siphon speed. Sure I use it now, but it just wasn't an option before issue whatever.]

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Combat is not a static event, and Kinetics is not a static powerset. Any Kin defender can maintain multiple -Dam (and -Recharge/RunSpeed) debuffs on multiple targets and survive that first 8-15s of combat without any trouble, unless they're scrapperlocking.


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You can't survive the first 15s of combat solo in many situations: any of a number of EBs will crank you in that time; any mezzers will mezz you in that time; depending on level and foe, 4 +1 minions can bump you off in that time. These aren't the majority, but they constitute a significant minority.


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You can attack 5 times in 10s with no Recharge Reduction enhancements or global recharge boosts (including SSpeed).
[analysis omitted]


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I was thinking of real life play, not an optimized attack chain. Unless your foes are locked down somehow, or you are on a team, you don't get to spam fast attacks in a row - it's asking for a trip to the hospital. As you say, Kinetics is a dynamic set. And damage mitigation is found in attacks like TK and WD, not the fast low level attacks.

And please, spare the personal barbs. Have you compared solo kin play with solo scrapper play? Are you really saying that they are comparable experiences? I'm not even saying here that they should be; I'm just amazed that you won't acknowledge this.

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That wasn't the experience I had, and I was playing a Kin without using the blasts, relying on Flurry and Air Superiority instead. I soloed Terra and fought Adamastor to a standstill, with Kinetics, AS and Flurry.

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25%, stacking, isn't sufficient? Getting it up to 75-90% (10% being the floor) isn't enough?


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It's of course 25% (or less) on one target. One on one, if the opponent does not have a strong resist to its damage type, the siphon power debuff is effective. For a spawn of 3 to 5, it simply doesn't make much difference. With four opponents, for example, one application reduces incoming damage by a whopping 6%.

Indeed one-on-one, kinetics is fine, no real problems. (Melee range mezzes versus transfusion's radius though is a particularly delicate balance.)


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And as often as not, a critter with resistance to one damage type will be using a different damage type.


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I'm really not sure this is true. I often noticed that for example, bosses with a Smashing or Lethal attack also often had a significant Smashing and Lethal defense.

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and doesn't last long,

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30s isn't long enough? The recharge time is only 20s...


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No, not really. In 30s, might get off five or six attacks (before global recharge bonuses from IOs start helping at high levels.) With a 25% damage boost, that's equivalent to six to eight attacks. By doing something else other than siphon power, the difference is at best one extra attack. Attacking early with a damage attack mitigates damage faster (foes reduce in number more quickly) and allows side effects to help mitigate damage too (eg TK knockback or WD sleep.)

Honestly, give it a try. If you have 3 or more opponents soloing with kinetics, I find Siphon Power not really worth the effort, unless I get to use APP powers like Dominate or Mass Hyp. to avoid the aggro.



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Playing the two were like night and day. It shouldn't be the case that Defenders, having a more interesting gameplay, should be so much less effective solo.

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That isn't the case. It never was. You chose not to utilize your powers effectively. That doesn't indicate a problem with the AT, with Kinetics or with Psychic Blast. Or, for that matter, whether or not defenders are "as good" at soloing as scrappers.

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I think it is entirely unfair to state that my experience is due to "not using my powers effectively". Don't think I haven't tried a variety of play styles to make my defender a better soloer. Have you compared solo kin defending with scrapping? I'd be amazed if you found the former in any way comparable with the latter in terms of speed or survivability.

I have to add my two bits.

I play a kin/psy defender - first character to 50 - and a claws/regen scrapper, also at 50.

Because of timezone issues, when I get to play CoH, it's usually hard even to find a PuG, let alone a good team, so both characters have played a lot of solo content.

The defender had a real struggle. Before difficulty levels were introduced, there were multiple missions where I had to beg for assistance, because they were simply impossible, even with inspirations.

Kinetics before fulcrum shift doesn't have a good self-buff (the time spent using Siphon Power is better used just hitting the opponent again; the debuff is insufficient, is resisted by damage resistance, and doesn't last long, while the buff is not large enough for long enough to make a significant difference solo.) Even after Fulcrum Shift, the damage debuff is not sufficient to significantly help solo survivability.

In fact, what makes kinetics at all survivable at low to mid levels is Transfusion.

Psychic blast is also a bit of an underwhelmer. TK blast does good damage, but the knockback is not reliable. Will Domination's sleep side effect is very useful, but still has a 20% chance of not triggering. It's not until Scramble Thoughts that my defender had any hope of surviving an encounter with two mezzers.

What made the character viable was the EPP. Mass Hypnosis and Dominate made her a pseudo-controller, and suddenly she was able to survive most missions with little trouble. Only robots really give trouble now, being 50% resistant to psi, and unable to be slept.

So, after 44 levels, and basically becoming a controller-lite, the defender could start soloing without gnashing of teeth and begging for assistance.

My claws/regen scrapper has never had any trouble, except for once in a Vanguard mission. Once. Claws was even regarded as being fairly underpowered, but seriously, it was like easy mode.

At level 50, the defender can solo most missions above Heroic, is only occasionally frustrating to play, but moves very slowly in solo missions. At level 50, the claws scrapper races through solo missions, and has never really seen any grief.

In team missions, both are good characters. The scrapper does a good amount of damage, and can take a fair amount of aggro. Knock-down and knock-back provide some control. The defender though spends a quarter of the time applying speed boost, and while fulcrum shift is great for tankers and scrappers, blasters pretty much just ignore it because their nukes are good enough already. Dominate from the EPP is very useful in a team situation too, of course.

Playing the two were like night and day. It shouldn't be the case that Defenders, having a more interesting gameplay, should be so much less effective solo. It was so frustrating playing the defender, that I stopped playing for months (and when I came back, I started with the scrapper.) I play both now, and both are fun, but I can't see why we need such an imbalance.

The bosses changes for me were a huge headache. Despite being in debt all the time, I don't like it, I haven't got used to it, and it's dreary. I'd like to advance, get new powers, all that stuff; not sitting around at half experience and constantly running back from the hospital. A defeat here and there is to be expected, but perpetually being overcome by random villains doesn't make for a very heroic feeling at all, does it?

So when Statesman said the changes were going to be rolled back, I was very happy! Honestly, I was going to cancel my account I was so frustrated with the game. But that was ... 2 weeks ago? Subscription fee time has come and gone, and we're still looking at major frustration.

So, Statesman, WHEN are they going to be rolled back? Should I bother hanging around?

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There has been a plethora of research done in regard to what people get out of RPGs. One of the papers that sheds some great light on MMOs is actually a paper about MUDs - Click Link Here!

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Its kind of a gamer personality type – most people have a primary types, but will do other types of gaming to achieve the goals of their primary type.

There are Achievers, Killers, Explorers, and Socializers.

Achievers want to level.
Killers want to impose themselves on others.
Explorers want to see/do everything.
Socializers want to talk about it.
[...]


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Nick Yee (who has been referenced earlier in the thread) has a new article on this topic just recently published on gamasutra.

One thing to note is that Bartle's types are not robust under factor analysis. In particular, the Explorer class so categorised doesn't really constitute a distinct class of player.

It's a really good article, well argued, with pretty graphs and everything. If interested in MMOG design, it's definitely worth registering and reading!

To be honest, I never understood why Invincible is in the Invulnerability line rather than the Super Reflexes line.

I say, give SR Invincible and some toggle damage resist; take Invincible out of Inv and give it something else to compensate, and while there, change Unyielding Stance so that it is mobile without using teleport.

Not holding my breath though ...