mgerber

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Last night I noticed my framerate was very staggered and choppy.

I tried to figure out what exactly might be causing it, and from what I could tell it only happened when the team I was part of was in combat. I couldn't manage to narrow it down to what the exact cause was, however. We had a warshade who was running orbiting death very frequently, and I noticed a considerable dip in performance whenever he got near a vertical surface.

We also had a few energy melee tankers and energy manipulation blasters on the team, and for some reason whenever they launched a melee attack such as bone smasher or energy punch, I noticed that the game would very briefly pause as soon as the sound and graphic effect was displayed.

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Several members of a team I was on last night, including me, had the same issue. After some experimentation, turning sound all the way down seemed to eliminate it for me, but I'm by no means certain about that (we didn't really test under fully similar conditions after).

We know the sound engine's been changed because they've made an attempt to fix the looping sound bug with many overlapping sounds, so it's rational that many overlapping sounds could be causing a new problem.

It may be worth experimenting with, and if it has an effect, updating sound drivers to see if that helps.

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A while ago, peoople have requested something be done. Well, we've done a bunch of work and done this. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless of their rank or level. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense.

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Halleleujah.

Will this also benefit Force Field?

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Basically, we've already committed to looking at several Archetypes and builds for I5 and afterwards, but I've said nary a word about Defenders. Why? Because of all the Archetypes, we're happiest with them. There are certainly issues with individual sets and powers - and those we're always looking at. Defenders, however, don't have any overarching problems.

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Really, I don't have that many problems with feeling useless, at least with my FF Defender. The temptation to ignore her usually goes away when I politely ask how often the green bar just doesn't move for an entire battle without her there.

(Yes, a Controller can do most of this. If he does, that's at least 15 slots he's not putting in his control powers. 20, if you factor in Maneuvers.)

That said - Defenders are supposed to have a moderate ability to do damage. Significantly less than a Blaster or even a Scrapper, but not something to sneeze at. The 66% base damage level cripples that pretty badly. Forget pet controllers - a decently slotted Spectral Wounds does more damage than some of my main attacks!

I don't think this is a problem with Controllers; most of them need more damage output pre-pets, not less, with Illusion the arguable exception (and the only faintly soloable Controller set right now). I know why the original nerf to Defender damage was made, and the reasoning was understandable. But after Blasters are fixed could bumping the base damage for Defenders back up to 75% be looked at?