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Edit to add: I've also been in situations where a controller's healers are just plain superior to mine. I play a Dark Miasma defender, and the heals in question were kinetics. I know that Twilight Grasp has a pretty substantial heal and that Transfusion isn't far off from it. I'm not saying that there should never be an occasion when a Controller can outheal a defender, but it does seem that controller secondaries are very close to defender primaries in capability.
[/ QUOTE ] I think that transfusion, even a controllers tranfusion, should heal signifficantly more than a dark defenders. To be honest, I think a dark defenders heal should be weakened signifficantly. Why? Not only is it very powerful right now, and easier to use than transfusion, but dark servants ALSO cast it. A dark defender casts it, gets a good 500+ heal, then two or more dark servants cast it, huzzah, two or more +200 heals! Don't you think this is even a -little- unfair?
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I don't really see your point, why should Transfusion heal for more than Twilight Grasp other than "I think it should".
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Edit to add: I've also been in situations where a controller's healers are just plain superior to mine. I play a Dark Miasma defender, and the heals in question were kinetics. I know that Twilight Grasp has a pretty substantial heal and that Transfusion isn't far off from it. I'm not saying that there should never be an occasion when a Controller can outheal a defender, but it does seem that controller secondaries are very close to defender primaries in capability.
[/ QUOTE ] I think that transfusion, even a controllers tranfusion, should heal signifficantly more than a dark defenders. To be honest, I think a dark defenders heal should be weakened signifficantly. Why? Not only is it very powerful right now, and easier to use than transfusion, but dark servants ALSO cast it. A dark defender casts it, gets a good 500+ heal, then two or more dark servants cast it, huzzah, two or more +200 heals! Don't you think this is even a -little- unfair?
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I don't really see your point, why should Transfusion heal for more than Twilight Grasp other than "I think it should".
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As of right now, transfusion and twilight grasp heal for the same ammount (at least, I've heard. If not, they're damned close.) Seems fair at a glance, but twilight grasp is far easier to use to heal your team than transfusion. To heal with transfusion, allies have to be near the target, which for blasters and other ranged characters, is exactly where they don't want to be. To use twilight grasp, you need A target, but it doesn't have to be near allies, as the heal eminates from you as opposed to the enemy. It's far easier to position yourself for a good heal as opposed to positioning your enemies.
Secondly, not only is it easier to pull off the heal, but dark servants ALSO pull off the heal, meaning that there is a high chance to heal multiple times, as many times as you have pets out. It may be a weaker heal, but it is by no means pathetic. I teamed with a Lv40 dark defender last night who's heal was doing near 700points, while her pets did about 250 each. See where I'm coming from yet?
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That's hardly the point.
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No that's totally the point.
You're lucky in that you're Dark/*. Everyone else would be better off as a Controller. Yes even Rads.
I mean seriously... a FF Controller can cap out a Boss's ToHit and completely stop incoming attacks. Bubbled pets are almost indestructible and probably do more damage than the Defender could ever hope to.
A /Emp doesn't even need to heal if the mobs never attack. RA is so good that the nerfed recovery doesn't matter. Throw Fort on your pets and you're even doing more damage than Defender would.
Kinetcs? 400% is 400% no matter how you look at it. The difference in SB after Hasten is less than 5%. The recovery is high enough that the difference doesn't matter. Add in FS to cap your pets (OBSCENE damage) and SiphonSpeed to get even more pets (OMG!) and you've got the best secondary ever~
Storm? All of the debuffs with none of the scatter! What's not to love?! Oh, I guess you have to take Gale at level1. Pity that. 
Rad? How many Rad Defenders boast they can defeat any AV? How many Rad Defenders walk around The Hive soloing monsters? Rad is probably the most balanced Defender set... but you'd STILL be more powerful as a Controller.
I've played a Kin/Elec. Whenever I play my Dark/Rad I feel like I'm cheating. The difference is so big I can't even SEE the Kinetic set from where I'm standing. Why is Dark so good? Because it's like a Controller
Something really needs to be done. Every Primary should be as powerful as Rad. Controllers need to not suck pre-32... and then they need to have their secondaries gutted. It won't happen though, because according to this thread Defenders are fine and the best balanced of all ATs. Don't bother getting your hopes up. When I5 hits Controllers will probably get a pre-32 boost... then we can all reroll and actually be useful/powerful rather than overshadowed buffbots we're designed to be.
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Edit to add: I've also been in situations where a controller's healers are just plain superior to mine. I play a Dark Miasma defender, and the heals in question were kinetics. I know that Twilight Grasp has a pretty substantial heal and that Transfusion isn't far off from it. I'm not saying that there should never be an occasion when a Controller can outheal a defender, but it does seem that controller secondaries are very close to defender primaries in capability.
[/ QUOTE ] I think that transfusion, even a controllers tranfusion, should heal signifficantly more than a dark defenders. To be honest, I think a dark defenders heal should be weakened signifficantly. Why? Not only is it very powerful right now, and easier to use than transfusion, but dark servants ALSO cast it. A dark defender casts it, gets a good 500+ heal, then two or more dark servants cast it, huzzah, two or more +200 heals! Don't you think this is even a -little- unfair?
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I don't really see your point, why should Transfusion heal for more than Twilight Grasp other than "I think it should".
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As of right now, transfusion and twilight grasp heal for the same ammount (at least, I've heard. If not, they're damned close.) Seems fair at a glance, but twilight grasp is far easier to use to heal your team than transfusion. To heal with transfusion, allies have to be near the target, which for blasters and other ranged characters, is exactly where they don't want to be. To use twilight grasp, you need A target, but it doesn't have to be near allies, as the heal eminates from you as opposed to the enemy. It's far easier to position yourself for a good heal as opposed to positioning your enemies.
Secondly, not only is it easier to pull off the heal, but dark servants ALSO pull off the heal, meaning that there is a high chance to heal multiple times, as many times as you have pets out. It may be a weaker heal, but it is by no means pathetic. I teamed with a Lv40 dark defender last night who's heal was doing near 700points, while her pets did about 250 each. See where I'm coming from yet?
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So Twilight Grasp is good for blasters, defenders, and controllers while Transfusion is good for Tankers, Scrappers, and Dwarfs. That defender you teamed up chose to slot for heal instead of accuracy debuff which is what I slotted for. I still don't see what you mean it's easier to get a heal off with TG than Transfusion since they both require accuracy. Not to mention, TG has a longer animation than Transfusion if i'm not mistaken.
This post is ridiculously long. The take-home executive bullet-point: the game is not challenging enough, especially at high levels, especially because of hasten, stamina, and SOs; make it harder and defenders become a great deal more necessary. Also, beware of enhancement caps and how they marginalize buffs.
My own perception, as a non-defender, is that they're generally useless to me. If I have a tank at high levels, they can take all the aggro and never take damage. If I have a controller, they can lock down groups in their entirety... if not just slaughter them wholesale with controls and pets.
Tankers: control aggro
Blaster: Great if they're AOE
Controllers: Lockdown, and buffs
Defenders: Buffs that I could get from a controller, and pitiful damage
Scrapper: decent single target damage, but not much otherwise.
So when I'm forming a group, I prefer AoE blasters to all other damage dealers. I prefer scrappers to single-target blasters, and single-target blasters to defenders. I like a tank or two for aggro control, and/or a controller or two for their immense control with a nice benefit of their buffs.
As I see it, there are several fundamental design issues plaguing the game and the AT balance, most of which stem from enhancements or powers that are wonky:
(1) Hasten. This power all alone provides a collossal 70% rech boost. Whereas speed boost would cut a 10 second rech time power from 10 sec to 7.7 seconds without hasten involved, with hasten involved, it cuts it from 5.88 to 5. That's pretty negligible. (I'm assuming here that defender and controller rech rate buffs are equal; I know some things like buffs/debuffs on damage and heals are not, but I think speed boost is, say)
(1.5) Stamina. Can you imagine how valuable accel meta, speed boost, and recovery aura would be without stamina in play? Good god. Kinetics would be king. As it is, only blasters and *maybe* scrappers ever seem to need to worry about their end at all, and it only slows down their dps a smidge.
(2) Enhancements. I have a controller with kinetics secondary. When you zoom in and drop fulcrum shift on a tanker in the middle of a huge pack, it can be impressive - I've had like 30+ buff icons from FS on myself. But the damage caps are meagre by comparison to enhancements. Look at a fire blaster. With targetting drone, their slotting is likely to be 6 damage (I have a 50 fire/dev, and that's what my slotting was; and I went 1-50 in about 110 hrs play time). That means that with 6 +3 SOs and aim, they are at +280% damage, or 20% short of the cap. What is fulcrum shift giving them? A 5% boost of their enhanced damage. Feeble. Because people generally build to solo AND group, they build conservatively - that is, so they are solo-effective, and that means not a lot of end-red or rech enhancements. Data mine the 30+ crowd and look for non-acc/non-dmg enhancements in their attack powers. Outside of things like the 9th-tier blaster powers, which many people slot rech in, you're unlikely to find much.
(3) In the high level game, it's a question of damage, not survivability. If you want to know what I'm talking about, datamine for L50 characters running Ghost Falcon's mission. Or I could post some screen shots showing a *tidal wave* of rikti swarming all around a fire tanker as he kills hundreds and thousands of rikti in the course of 90 minutes. Tanker: 10,000 - Rikti: 0. There's no defender here, just a bunch of people riding the PLing train and handing over purples. I'm not ranting against PLing, mind you - but what room is there in this equation for a defender when a tanker can slaughter hundreds of +2 rikti at a time? It's the same for a controller. The *only* group I've had trouble making mincemeat out of with my ill/kin is Rularuu, because of their insanely wide/huge AOE "shimmy blasts" and their ability to easily see through even superior invis. Everything else is a lamb to the slaughter. I have yet to meet an AV I can't solo (although I didn't bother trying with Mind Mistress; I hear the regen is too fast). Again: where do defenders fit into this equation?
By contrast, my emp/psi defender feels incredibly useful at lower levels. At 12, I'm in there with fortitude, resurrect, and all 3 heals, and I can keep a party alive and they often need it. 10 +2s is a serious threat to our tanker and just losing aggro on one or two can be a quick death for our blaster or controller. Just the fact that I'm focused and slotted for healing makes me good as gold.
Now, defenders CAN still be useful, but very unequally so. For example, a group light on damage will get great use out of the -res debuffs of a rad defender, and unless stuff dies instantly, so can any team. Kinetics and empathy offer very powerful end recovery boosts - but stamina is wrecking that.
My verdict: enhancements and a few general powers break the game. Hasten is definitely the worst offender. Stamina is bad, but harder to get. But given both are nearly mandatory for almost every build... Data mine this: accounts open 60+ days, character played most on that account in the past 15 days. What powers are they most likely to have? I'd bet hasten in 90%+, and stamina on 85%+ of the L30+ crowd.
Meanwhile, you need to ask this question: if enhancements can cap a power, what is the point of defenders? You can say, "You don't HAVE to cap a power", but that's irrelevent. It *will* be capped if that's expedient. Sure, fortitude will still help a +res tank, but so? He's already nigh-invincible.
I think there's an opportunity here, however. I'd suggest considering a few drastic changes:
(1) Get rid of store bought enhancements entirely, and get rid of the tiers. The Diablo 2 method of doing drops would be IDEAL here. I have been pitching CoH to people for a long time, and I hate to say it: people want loot. All I hear is, "At least in Game X, I can look forward to a cool drop..." You have a level grind. You either get rid of the grind entirely, so it's story and you advance as quick as you want, or you put in entertainment along the way. Drops are that entertainment. I could talk about the gambler's psychology of MMOs in general and how the drop method fits it; or I could talk about how popular Hami raids are because people love powering themselves up with harder-to-get goodies. What you'd HAVE, however, would be differences in characters. Can you really keep that +17% damage, +8% accuracy enhancement in that slot when you find a +20% endrec, +24% rech, +5% dmg?
Whatever you do, it gives you room to make it harder to hit the ceiling on powers. I'd suggest that enhancements have the same percentage ranges, say, 5% to 25% for a given aspect. A training enhancement would be +1 thing. A Dual-origin would affect 2 things (+dmg, +acc), and an SO would affect 3 things (say, heal, endrec, rech). The percentages would be random but logarithmically tilted towards the lower end. (ie, it might be 5x as likely to get 5% as opposed to 25%) As you went up in level, you would be MORE LIKELY to get SOs, but the percentage (5-25%) and the logarithmic curve would never change. Whether enhancements would have the +3/-3 behavior, I'm unsure about. I want to say yes, since it lets people grind away at the high levels for loot.
It also gives you a chance to further balance out mobs. Instead of just changing xp values (And I've already complained enough about goofy stuff like fake nems being worth more than ACTUALLY hard stuff like overseers), you can change drop percentages. A typical mob might have 95%/4%/1% drops for training/DO/SO; but maybe rularuu are 90%/8%/2%. Maybe you're more likely to get damage from rularuu and endrec from council. I don't know. You're not paying me enough to design the whole system 
(but when you want to, let me know 
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(2) Get back to work on that skill system and find a way to make it gameplay-relevent, and make defenders useful for it. Example: your character has a hacking skill. You enter a council base for one of the endless "hack computer, plant virus" missions. Yes, you can hammer your way through killing everything. Alternately, you can hack a console you find only a little way in. It requires a hacking skill check, but a speed boost gives +hacking, and an O2 boost (due to enhanced brain activity) gives a bigger +hacking skill. Moreover, have enhancements that boost +skills. More loot.
(3) Go ahead and tie the skills system into the game with combat relevent skills as well. To help the scrappers and blasters who get hurt on the damage side when you scrap the current enhancement system, in come combat related skill trees: "Duelist" gives a +acc/+dmg boost in line with skill level when you're using a single-target attack and are only being attacked BY one enemy. "Battle commander" gives your team a modest boost (yes, this is now duplicating the leadership powers; trust me, they stink, there's room in the world for both).
(4) Rethink recharge times and endurance costs. As it is now, hasten and stamina help a lot of power selections become merely a matter of DPS patterns. That is, you discover that disembowel, headsplitter, hack, disembowel is better than hack, slash, slice, hack slice, slash; stamina keeps your end plenty high and hasten allows you to chain the high-dps attacks together a LOT faster. If you tweak things to the point where players are choosing between dps, endurance, or slot conservation, you're making room for defenders to come in and shore up the gaps. A player should be able to sustain their end level, only slot less than their full set of attack powers, OR maximize their dps. They should not be able to do all of the above. In other words, getting a cycle of your higher-tier attack powers should require rech enhancement; keeping your endurance up should REQUIRE some end red; but you could slot every attack with endred and neglect recharge and use the larger number of powers to compensate.
You've always said you wanted ATs to have roles to play. I like that, but the problem is: they're so good at their roles they don't need help any more.
Moreover, you've designed street hunting so it is inherently preferable to missions in terms of xp rate. It is easier to select a place to street hunt only specific mobs, AND to control their group sizes. For *most* level ranges, I know where to find endless on-the-street groups of almost anything you'd want, and to do it while avoiding "dangerous" groups - Malta, Lost bosses, Carnies, Rularuu... all the things that get heroes killed. Meanwhile, we'll stick with the easy stuff: council, skulls/hellions, nemesis, freakshow.
On the "do it now" list:
(1) Give hero corp analysts a call now button once you've met them. Make the charge even more nominal.
(2) Make missions droppable (non timed, anyhow).
(3) Make killing things in missions worth more xp than outside. Yes, I mean the same mob on the street only being worth 60%.
(4) Make the hero corp analyst effect apply at the time the mission goes active, not when it is assigned by the contact. (It may be this way already, but my impression is that it is not; but if I get something at invincible, decide it is too hard, I should be able to relog or switch to another mission, then switch back, and
have my 'new' hero corp rating take effect)
(5) Add a "weaker" slider to the slider. It should be possible to fight -1s.
(6) Allow a team to set a "team level" or such. If we're a group that's 14-17, and we want to do the 14s mission, the cap on the level of the enemies should *not* be 16-17, but it is. We should be able to set it to be 19-20s to allow the 17s to be challenged and give the 14 motivation to sk up.
(7) I don't care what your reasons are. GIVE US THE CALL BUTTON SOONER. I want to run missions, not run to contacts. If I'm going to contacts, I want it to be for story reasons and I want it to be COOL.
More missions should be like mini trials. The best times I've ever had were doing stuff like the TV trial and the sewers trial. I want more opportunities to get a pickup group to run that sort of thing.
All these things help contribute to a general environment of challenged players. Challenged players need defenders. Players not already at capped defense/resistance/damage need defenders. Players that don't have a huge boost from hasten want defenders for rech time. Players without a huge boost from stamina want defenders for their end.
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So Twilight Grasp is good for blasters, defenders, and controllers while Transfusion is good for Tankers, Scrappers, and Dwarfs. That defender you teamed up chose to slot for heal instead of accuracy debuff which is what I slotted for. I still don't see what you mean it's easier to get a heal off with TG than Transfusion since they both require accuracy. Not to mention, TG has a longer animation than Transfusion if i'm not mistaken.
[/ QUOTE ] Like I said before, it's much easier to position yourself for a heal than it is to position an enemy. It's far easier to run up to tankers/scrappers and cast twilight grasp than it is to get controllers, defenders or blasters to run up to an enemy to cast transfusion. When blasters are getting hurt, they tend to run, rather than rush forward into more danger in hopes for a heal.
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So Twilight Grasp is good for blasters, defenders, and controllers while Transfusion is good for Tankers, Scrappers, and Dwarfs. That defender you teamed up chose to slot for heal instead of accuracy debuff which is what I slotted for. I still don't see what you mean it's easier to get a heal off with TG than Transfusion since they both require accuracy. Not to mention, TG has a longer animation than Transfusion if i'm not mistaken.
[/ QUOTE ] Like I said before, it's much easier to position yourself for a heal than it is to position an enemy. It's far easier to run up to tankers/scrappers and cast twilight grasp than it is to get controllers, defenders or blasters to run up to an enemy to cast transfusion. When blasters are getting hurt, they tend to run, rather than rush forward into more danger in hopes for a heal.
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I see your point now, thanks for clearing that up. I think your on the money that Twilight Grasp is better than Transfusion when slotted for heals. I think it's a little humorous that you think TG shouldn't heal as much especially when it's not really that gamebreaking to make it easier to heal. But like I said, I don't use it for a heal, but as a -acc and -dam debuff
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As to Statesman's 2nd Paragraph ... I think we ALL know what this spells out.
Controller Pets and Tankers getting NERFED at Late-Game.
And I say .....
It's about damn time.
Just make sure us Controllers get some REAL loving pre-32 
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You know, I don't really think pets are as much the problem. It's that the controller secondaries are almost as powerful as defender primaries once they have access to all the powers.
The largest benefit a defender has is that they get the powers earlier, but come level 40, a controller has all the same powers, fully slotted if they want, and almost as effective. There is a difference but it's just not enough to make a large difference most of the time.
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I disagree. The controller secondaries ARE less useful and notably so. The trick is:
(1) A lot of the buffs are negligible anyhow at high levels due to the huge power of hasten, stamina, and SOs.
(2) A lot of the buffs are simply unneeded. At L10-12, an emp defender is gold. At 40, an emp defender is good for using recovery aura to charge up the blasters real quick after they nova/inferno/TB. By contrast, at 12 a tanker is possibly useful, if they've taken taunt. At 40, a tanker is all you need to own missions all day long, hands down.
Then again, maybe you're right. Let's look compare tanker vs scrapper, and defender vs controller.
Defender heal: 100 points
Controller heal: 85 points
Tanker damage from an attack (capped res): 100 points
Scrapper damage from an attack (capped res): 250 points.
Effectiveness ratio for controller secondary: 1:.85
Effectiveness ratio for scrapper secondary: 1:.4
In other words, a controller secondary is over 100% more effective than a scrapper secondary.
The fact is, though, that the *real* issue is that the 'big 2' controllers (illusion, fire) and almost all tankers simply *do not need* defenders. My ill/kin controller will at most need to duo to beat 95% of AVs, and the other person can be any AT/sets. I fought envoy with a kin/psi defender, and Bile with an ar/dev blaster. I think with the change to speed boost I could probably solo both thanks to the ability to have barely-overlapping PAs.
That said, regardless of the relative value of the ATs, if people aren't taking any real damage, then defenders are only valuable for their non-res/non-def buffs. i.e., speed boost might be great, but disperson bubble will be useless. Does an invlun tank need dispersion bubble? Not by a long shot. (For that matter, does ANY post-22 tank? Probably not)
I must say yes defenders are pretty much perfect early on, never played too far as they are too boring for me to play somewhat, made a D3 and I love it. I too feel the pain of the huge crossover of the defenders primary powers and the controllers secondary powers, I actually hate the crossover its horrid.
I also dont get where you guess think that pets are like this uber l33t damaging destroying power and I can just cast and take a nap. Try taking over 15 min's to kill a group of -2s i think there were 10 of em, DE's, with two bosses, and a few lts and some minions, thats right it took over 15 min's to kill that not to mention it took three extremely kind defenders flying overhead to help me out, i couldnt have survived the first 5 min w/o them forting, CMing, RAing, and ABing, without all that i would have died extremely quickly. Pets arent as powerful as they seem just because they attack doesnt mean they blast left and right as fast as a player would. Defenders by far are way more solo friendly than controllers are, speed wise. You actually get to do damage that is noticeable i get to hold something to death, wooooo, ya know how long that takes it take forevarrr. Ive hit 36 recently on my ice/storm, and i still dont see why everyone makes such a fuss over controllers they suck big time the only reason i keep him is cuz hes at a high level and has the potential with a good team to get to 50 before Im 50.
I see where he's coming from defenders are a work of art they're perfect in my eyes, i dont want to see them changed, except maybe FF but thats it. Kinetics is perfect you get everything in one set, buffs, debuffs, end drain, heals, speed for yourself, a -recharge power Siphon Speed.
P.S. You kineticists are sneaky little mf's you guys get us addicted to your speed boost then leave and bammm Im a speed boost junky now, i even started twitching when the kinetics left my team last week, i almost cried like a little school girl. And you empaths and your fort, you darks and your fearsome stare, you FFers and your bubbles, you radiation and your AM, you stormers and your ummmm, hrmmm, uhhhhh O2 boost o_O hehe, yeah your O2 boost thats it!
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So Twilight Grasp is good for blasters, defenders, and controllers while Transfusion is good for Tankers, Scrappers, and Dwarfs. That defender you teamed up chose to slot for heal instead of accuracy debuff which is what I slotted for. I still don't see what you mean it's easier to get a heal off with TG than Transfusion since they both require accuracy. Not to mention, TG has a longer animation than Transfusion if i'm not mistaken.
[/ QUOTE ] Like I said before, it's much easier to position yourself for a heal than it is to position an enemy. It's far easier to run up to tankers/scrappers and cast twilight grasp than it is to get controllers, defenders or blasters to run up to an enemy to cast transfusion. When blasters are getting hurt, they tend to run, rather than rush forward into more danger in hopes for a heal.
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I see your point now, thanks for clearing that up. I think your on the money that Twilight Grasp is better than Transfusion when slotted for heals. I think it's a little humorous that you think TG shouldn't heal as much especially when it's not really that gamebreaking to make it easier to heal. But like I said, I don't use it for a heal, but as a -acc and -dam debuff
[/ QUOTE ] No problem. Sorry I wasn't more clear on it before
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There are certainly issues with individual sets and powers - and those we're always looking at.
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I know it's probably to much to ask, but could you be *slightly* more specifc with this?
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Every Archetype should be extremely happy when the Defender provides a resistance or defense buff...
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So stop making a couple minions void my primary line please ( earth thorn casters come to mind, woot stacking quicksand ). Or even better give me more then just a one trick pony, stratch that, a one trick GAMBLING pony to keep my group alive with. Health buffer? Please?
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I staunchly disagree with this mentality. Defenders aren't needed, that's the way it should be. No team should HAVE to get a defender to be successful, defenders should just make the battles safer and/or faster, which they do.
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I strongly agree, no team should "need" a defender all the time but they should "want" a defender on their team. The same should apply to any archetype.
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So Twilight Grasp is good for blasters, defenders, and controllers while Transfusion is good for Tankers, Scrappers, and Dwarfs. That defender you teamed up chose to slot for heal instead of accuracy debuff which is what I slotted for. I still don't see what you mean it's easier to get a heal off with TG than Transfusion since they both require accuracy. Not to mention, TG has a longer animation than Transfusion if i'm not mistaken.
[/ QUOTE ] Like I said before, it's much easier to position yourself for a heal than it is to position an enemy. It's far easier to run up to tankers/scrappers and cast twilight grasp than it is to get controllers, defenders or blasters to run up to an enemy to cast transfusion. When blasters are getting hurt, they tend to run, rather than rush forward into more danger in hopes for a heal.
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I see your point now, thanks for clearing that up. I think your on the money that Twilight Grasp is better than Transfusion when slotted for heals. I think it's a little humorous that you think TG shouldn't heal as much especially when it's not really that gamebreaking to make it easier to heal. But like I said, I don't use it for a heal, but as a -acc and -dam debuff
[/ QUOTE ] No problem. Sorry I wasn't more clear on it before
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also, Twilight Grasp has an end cost of 15 while Transfusion only costs 7.5. So I don't think we're getting off scot free here
I think some of the defender jealousy concerning controller damage misses an important point: controller damage is mostly unfocused and random. While Ill and Fire controllers especially put up impressive damage numbers as applied to a group of enemies over time, that damage is not necessarily being applied to the enemies who really need it -- the bosses, sappers or mezzers for example. Pets are stupid and random, even with all the little tricks controllers can use to try to lead them in the right direction. There is little subtlety or tactics to it, even with the most careful attention paid to positioning and approach you pretty much just lead your gang into their gang and hope for the best. Defenders get to apply all their damage exactly where it needs to be.
Some people repeat the mantra that CoH is supposedly all about the AoE over time damage, and in some situations with certain teams that is true. But in other situations it is very important to concentrate fire on certain enemies. Speaking as a controller, I was thrilled to finally get a single target blast with my APP to help pick off certain enemies first or nail an enemy with a sliver of health so my pets moved on to something better, and as several varieties of defender I fully appreciate the ability to blast some baddie directly instead of waiting for my pets to finish dealing with insignificant minions and get to the dangerous guys.
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I strongly agree, no team should "need" a defender all the time but they should "want" a defender on their team. The same should apply to any archetype.
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I'm going to somewhat disagree. There should be a certain point when your team size is enough that you should NEED one of the particular ATs to fill in the gap of what you can't do. In general however I think you should always WANT a defender on your team because they make your team much better than if you didn't have them present.
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I think that transfusion, even a controllers tranfusion, should heal signifficantly more than a dark defenders. To be honest, I think a dark defenders heal should be weakened signifficantly. Why? Not only is it very powerful right now, and easier to use than transfusion, but dark servants ALSO cast it. A dark defender casts it, gets a good 500+ heal, then two or more dark servants cast it, huzzah, two or more +200 heals! Don't you think this is even a -little- unfair?
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Well, if it were auto-hit, and everyone who's standing near me when I start using the power gets the benefit of the heal, then, yes, it'd be unfair. However, it's very easy - and common - for people to run away during the three-second cast, which means I've just spent three seconds spending endurance and not accomplishing anything. Never mind, of course, the number of times that I've been defeated in the middle of the animation because I can't stop to do something else, like get away.
Of all the things one might point to in Dark Miasma as overpowered, Twilight Grasp is close to the bottom of my list. There's no need to reflexively insist that every aspect of the set is overpowered.
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BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed" and thus "can't find a team" at high levels. Defenders should fill a valuable role at ALL levels and help Archetypes achieve levels that they can't reach by themselves. After all, Defenders are all about buffs (and debuffs). Every Archetype should be extremely happy when the Defender provides a resistance or defense buff...
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This has got to be perception and perception only. I made my Empathy Defender at about the same time as my level 50 Scrapper. I levelled them evenly up until about level 25, right before I2 came out and I started making newer characters and playing my Scrapper more, because I ended up soloing more.
Yes, I soloed more with my Scrapper, because that's what I was told I was supposed to be able to (by the manual, by other people). But had I designed my empathy defender more for soloing (as in not only not taking Fortitude, Adren Boost, Ressurect, and Heal Other, but certianly not fully slotting them and also taking more than a couple attacks, and probably more AoE/Cone or mez attacks), I might've soloed just as well. Since my intent was never to solo him, and to use him for groups, I didn't care. So, at lower levels, yes, it's possible for a Defender to solo just as well as a Scrapper.
So what happens when a Defender reaches a high level? Maybe people they're feel inneffective then, because they can't solo, although I have my doubts that certain Defender primaries slotted right can't solo anything a Dark Armor or SR Scrapper can.... One problem is solo strategies can end up clashing between Defenders and other players, just as solo strategies clash between energy blasters and aoe scrappers. Good players realize this just needs a little working out, and if you're high level without being a good player, something's wrong.
As I played my SR Scrapper into the higher levels, I found that I most definitely wanted a Defender on my team. Back in I3, all Defenders other than FF could help me recover endurance after an Elude drop, if I needed to use it. FF Defenders would make it so I wouldn't even need to use Elude.... So, instead of suddenly being toggless and defenseless except for my autos, against an AV or Monster, Defenders were the best people to call on (Controllers only used it in their secondary and never really reached the power of a Defender that way). I guess now that Elude's changed, I don't need the Defenders for the Adren Boost, but I definitely need them for the healing and/or acc debuffs on the bigger mobs (sometimes including same level bosses). Certainly, I'd rather duo with a Defender than a Controller, although a high level Controller could probably go off and solo the entire mission while I waited at the entrance....
So, what's my point? If people feel Defnders are weak or unneeded in high levels, its all perception. They recognize that if they build themselves to help a group more than to help themselves solo, eventually, they can't do the solo stuff that solo oriented characters are doing. So, in a small 2 or 3 person group, when the Tanker runs off from the group to show what he can do solo (mostly herd things into a big bunch), and the Scrapper or the Blaster runs off to show he can take entire small spawns one by one, and the Controller runs off and shows that he can hold a small group or two or tht his pets can just charge through them, the Defender sits there wondering why everyone left! The other characters built themselves around soloing builds. Again, the Defender, imo, could've done the same, but even though he didn't he very likely has built himself so that he can support these other people's ATs in doing whatever it is they do. In fact, I've noticed as the groups get bigger, the most innefective groups tend to lack Defenders, no matter how much people try to brag about how they can solo stuff without Defenders (I can immediately think of a specifc player who claims that defenders, especially empathy, aren't necessary who I persoanlly have witnessed die multiple times in a single mission without one)....
One thing I beg, do not make it so every single group NEEDS a Defender. Right now, a duo is missing 3 of the 5 ATs from a Pentad. Please do not make it so all duos need that second person to be a Defender. Even in a group of 5, chances are one AT will be doubled up and another missing. Please do not make that group of 5 require a Defender so that everyone else ends up getting shafted from groups, to ensure that Defenders can get in.
In short, Defenders are fine. Scrappers are fine. All ATs are fine the way they are. If any AT has a problem with being not needed in groups, it's either Scrappers or Blasters, since the one and only thing they do for groups is damage more than they get damaged, and that role is already taken by Tankers with more +res, Defenders with more debuffs/buffs, and Controllers with more holds/pet agro.
Don't believe me? Take a Controller, Defender, Tanker, with any primary and secondary powerset combination you want, and you can probably take on any even level AV without any deaths. But, if you have a Scrapper, Controller, and Defender, you're gonna start to have to worry about the powersets used and the AV yoiu go against.... Switch out a Blaster or Scrapper for the Controller, Defender, or Tanker, and you'll find you always have to worry about the powersets and the AV. Well, that is ignoring Ice Tankers, at least....
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As of right now, transfusion and twilight grasp heal for the same ammount (at least, I've heard. If not, they're damned close.) Seems fair at a glance, but twilight grasp is far easier to use to heal your team than transfusion. To heal with transfusion, allies have to be near the target, which for blasters and other ranged characters, is exactly where they don't want to be. To use twilight grasp, you need A target, but it doesn't have to be near allies, as the heal eminates from you as opposed to the enemy. It's far easier to position yourself for a good heal as opposed to positioning your enemies.
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Transfusion has a one-second activation time, has an accuracy bonus, and costs 7.5 endurance. Twilight Grasp has a three-second activation time (reduced from its former four-second activation), has no accuracy bonus, and costs 15 endurance. It's my experience that it's easier to get a heal on someone with Transfusion because you can hit the villain closest to the characters who need healing and the heal will go off very quickly. With Twilight Grasp, as I mentioned before, if someone runs out of your radius (it happens to me all the time, with experienced players who know how Twilight Grasp works) they don't get healed. Further, if I need to heal the tanker (something that does happen), I have to get very close to melee range with a lot of dangerous evil. My darkest night is handy, and does mitigate a lot of damage, but I have been defeated trying to heal tankers before and probably will be again. So. no, it's not necessarily easier to pull off the heal. Having played both Kinetics and Dark, I'd say both have drawbacks.
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Secondly, not only is it easier to pull off the heal, but dark servants ALSO pull off the heal, meaning that there is a high chance to heal multiple times, as many times as you have pets out. It may be a weaker heal, but it is by no means pathetic. I teamed with a Lv40 dark defender last night who's heal was doing near 700points, while her pets did about 250 each. See where I'm coming from yet?
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On the other hand, Kinetics can instantly refill an entire team's endurance bars and use the final power to put everyone at the damage cap. I can summon some pets who spam random heals, holds, and immobilizes. While they're helpful, I don't think it's fair to ask that the set's basic heal be nerfed because of the set's final power. You're approaching this as if everything else is equal, and everything else is not.
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BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed" and thus "can't find a team" at high levels. Defenders should fill a valuable role at ALL levels and help Archetypes achieve levels that they can't reach by themselves. After all, Defenders are all about buffs (and debuffs). Every Archetype should be extremely happy when the Defender provides a resistance or defense buff...
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I haven't checked if this has already been stated or not (no pun intended), but:
Defenders are hybrid classes, and as such have a diluted role.
Do you need to debuff the bad guys? A Controller can do that, and more. Do you need buffs? A Controller can do that too. Do you need to shoot things? A Blaster can do that very well.
It's true that Defenders' primaries are more effective than the secondaries of Controllers, but the difference in potency is not as dramatic as the simple presence or absence of an ability.
"Can you heal?" is more pressing than "Can you heal more than that other guy?"
"Can you rez?" is more frequent of a question than "Did you earn the ability to rez early in your build?"
People cheer for receiving "bubbles" just as often, no matter if they're coming from a Controller or Defender.
I won't even bother offering examples of how Defender secondaries pale in comparison to Blaster primaries. It's pretty evident.
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So what makes a Defender special? Well, hybrid characters are desirable to some people. They can usually solo pretty well, for instance. You can have a team of nothing but Defenders and get along fine.
Defenders' secondary effects ("procs") on their attack powers are more potent.... but that's really not that big of a deal. "Oooh, you knocked that guy back pretty far" or "That electrical endurance drain depleted a few more pixels" just isn't impressive.
In PvP, Defender debuffs can't be resisted. Neat if you're not Empathy or Forcefield and are into PvP, I would suppose.
Team buffs from pool powers are more potent from a Defender; that's neat, but again nothing earth-shattering. Controllers are almost as effective in this venue too.
Defenders get psionics as a secondary, and no one else does. Same with radiation and dark blasts. The diversity is good, but not really important to a team. Tho debuffs from those attacks can be replicated by Controller powers in AoE form very readily.
.... So there are some good points to playing Defenders, it's just that none of them really define the role enough to generate mass appeal.
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On a personal note, I realized about seven months ago that out of all 24 slots taken up on my three servers of interest, I had made only three Defenders. Two of them have since been deleted to free up slots for more appealing alts.
It's just that when I get the hankering to play a support character, a Controller does everything I need. If I want an aggressive character, Blasters fit that bill just fine.
Mind you, my wife has three very active Defenders because she happens to prefer the hybrid primary-support/secondary-assault style of gameplay.
I'd say it's a chick thing, too. Most women seem to prefer the Controller playstyle (support + pets = nurturing) and consider Defenders as their "down and dirty" heroes because they actually possess the ability to hurt things.... as well as help friendlies.
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My suggestion? Make Defenders dramatically unique amongst the archetypes.
How? No idea yet. Sorry. But I wholeheartedly agree that something should be done.
Hello Statesman,
I started reading the answers to your post, and I think I'll add mine as well.
I sometimes have the impression the people posting in the forums are a little community, compared to the whole of the CoH population, but a very vocal one.
Only thing is, their opinions are often a little off.
The idea I have about Defenders in the late game is somewhat different than that of most of the posters.
Simply put, it's never happened to me, in the game, that anyone felt that adding a defender to the team was superflous.
I play a tanker, and G*d knows I rarely NEED the heals or the debuffs, but I'm always VERY happy when a Def pops in. Dammit, me and the people I regularly team with always go "WOOT" whenever we see the little blue shield in the team box.
Defenders always enable us to win battles better, faster, safer. Sometimes just thanks to them only.
And don't even get me started about Psi damage and Dark defenders.
So, shortly and more accurately.
I never heard anybody yell " We do NOT need a defender" in team chat. I always hear "Yes! A defender! ".
Just so you know.
Flame away now. I'll resist 85% of it.
Bye all.
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Like I said before, it's much easier to position yourself for a heal than it is to position an enemy. It's far easier to run up to tankers/scrappers and cast twilight grasp than it is to get controllers, defenders or blasters to run up to an enemy to cast transfusion. When blasters are getting hurt, they tend to run, rather than rush forward into more danger in hopes for a heal.
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If only this were completely true. Like I said, I often have blasters running away from me as soon as I run next to them and start casting. When the animation ends, they're either defeated or far away and resting when they could have easily refilled a significant portion of their health bar just by not moving. The same problem with transfusion seems to apply here, at least in my experience.
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also, Twilight Grasp has an end cost of 15 while Transfusion only costs 7.5. So I don't think we're getting off scot free here
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I think if the two are healing the same amount that they're pretty much balanced. Paying twice the end cost for a damage + accuracy debuff vs. Transfusion's endurance drain seems fair to me.
I don't think it's fair to call TG overpowered because the fluffies use it.
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Many times in the teams I've been on people have asked for a Rad Controller. When I've said how about a Rad Defender, you know because they DeBuff more, they've said they'd rather have someone who can do actual damage. It's mind boggling but it happens.
[/ QUOTE ]It's not mind-boggling at all. This is the natural consequence of so very many defenders choosing to totally neglect their secondary powerset. You simply cannot count on the average defender being able to do any damage whatsoever. Anecdotal case in point, I picked up two high-30s defenders off LFT last night and between the two of them they had seven slots in offense. Total. The potential for defenders to do damage is there, far more damage (and more intelligently directed) than any controller pet can hope to deal, but very rarely is that potential met.
There's not much you can do design-wise when the root of the problem is that the players are intentionally neutering themselves instead of taking the tools available. (IMO, this is also the problem Blasters have, as a whole they ignore their control and high damage powers and then wonder why they're fragile and deal lackluster damage)
'course I'll be the first to agree that storm, FF and empathy could use some basic improvement (storm needs BUG FIXES more than redesign) to actually meet the goal of full team defense + force multiplication, but that's more a sideline rather than the main issue.
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Some one PM'ed me about this issue - and I've talked about Defenders a bit at conventions - so I thought I'd at least post something on them.
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.
BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed" and thus "can't find a team" at high levels. Defenders should fill a valuable role at ALL levels and help Archetypes achieve levels that they can't reach by themselves. After all, Defenders are all about buffs (and debuffs). Every Archetype should be extremely happy when the Defender provides a resistance or defense buff...
Anyway, just wanted to post our view on Defenders right now.
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Sheesh statesman people are barely teaming in the late game at all. they're farming portal mission and hammi-o's
and it's not because they don't feel needed. it's because there no freaking late game content. none zilch zero nada. You can only kill the same archvillan so many times man. new zones that don't require freaking geysers to circumnavigate would be nice.
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Jack, unless people see a *visible* sign that you are helping, they don't realize the Defenders benefit.
As a high level defender, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what I can do, but it's basically invisible to most people. They see a blob of green or black and don't relate that to the archvillian not hurting the entire team.
Unless you can turn on exactly what a lot of defenders do into some sort of visible phenomonia, your average player may not really understand.
I'd really like an option that would put a visible "blocked" or "$damage reduced" on peoples screens in a unique color. Then they'll realize that the defender *are* doing their job, even when the green numbers aren't flying above their heads.
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I couldn't agree with this more if I wrote it myself. People understand numbers flying above mobs' heads. People understand numbers flying about their own heads. They understand some really obvious PC buffs like Clear Mind.
They don't get a lot of the others simply because there's no real indication of what they do or how well they're doing it. Heck, even the defenders sometimes sit there wondering if their stuff is actually doing anything.
Some sort of indication of a successful defense contributing to a player somehow would be spiffy.