You got one from me pal. You're suggesting removing the FUN from tankers and scrappers. There's got to be a better way.
First of all tankers shouldn't be able to herd that many mobs in the first place. There should be a limit. Say surrounded by more than 20 mobs....bam... your armor drops. Dead tanker, Dead team... problem solved. UNLESS he has a defender there to pull his bacon out of the fire. But why penalize EVERYONE because of an often exploited game mechanic? My scrapper dosen't herd.... so why should I Lose the one AoE I have?
You know the REAL reason why people aren't teaming that much in the late game?
THEY DON'T WANT TO. Changing game mechanics to FORCE teaming will definitely keep people from soloing though..... because they won't even be PLAYING coh.
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Jack, let me hit a nail on the head:
So long as ANY archetype can hit a resist or defense cap (or equivalent) on their own, merely by their own power choices and slotting, you will never achieve this goal.
I have no problem with melee ATs being tough in solo missions. That's fine. But adding a Defender, of any flavor, ought to make the melee player say "cool, I can now arrest mobs faster than if I was solo."
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Defenders can buff damage, defense, resists, endurance recovery, health regeneration, speed and recharge. They can also debuff villain accuracy, defense, damage, damage resistance, recharge, and speed.
Defenders aren't solely about resistance, defense, and healing. Adding a defender will make the mission go faster with all of these benefits. As I said in my first post, my scrappers can solo missions without a defender, but with a defender will finish them much faster. More damage, better defense, more endurance, and healing all combine to just make everything go more smoothly. The problem is that the benefits defenders provide aren't even always obvious to the defender - I've had empaths tell me that they were adding nothing to missions when duoing with me when we were, as a duo, finishing them in 1/4 to 1/3 the time I would do them solo. This already exists - the ability to cap resists or defense isn't really the problem (although the ability to cap resists and floor villain to-hit in one character may certainly be a problem).
I won't rate you one star for it, but I don't think the removal of AoEs from scrappers and tankers is at all likely - and blaster AoE sets are far better at the AoE damage than scrappers and tankers in general. I think spines/dark can approach a fire blaster, and fire tankers have their own thing going.
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First of all tankers shouldn't be able to herd that many mobs in the first place. There should be a limit. Say surrounded by more than 20 mobs....bam... your armor drops. Dead tanker, Dead team... problem solved. UNLESS he has a defender there to pull his bacon out of the fire. But why penalize EVERYONE because of an often exploited game mechanic? My scrapper dosen't herd.... so why should I Lose the one AoE I have?
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A real solution for herding: Make villains unwilling to travel more than a certain distance from their spawn points. It'd have to be fairly short, but it could be done.
My DM/DA would be crippled without her AoEs... Dark Consumption, Soul Drain, Dark Regeneration, Oppressive Gloom, Cloak of Fear...Okay, Shadow Maul's not a huge deal and Energy Torrent is more a bonus than anything else.
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I agree with a lot of stuff that has been said already.
Some of this stuff is mantra on the Defender boards, such as a lot of Defender Primary effects not being overly visible, aside from Heals and maybe damage buffs. I keep running into people who think Freezing Rain is simply an AOE DOT. When I tell them what it all does, they usually end up slack-jawed. Tar Patch, people get easier for the simple fact that the affected mobs get a red shield on them. A simple matter of updating graphics to always unmistakably indicate which buffs/debuffs are on an enemy would certainly go a long way to change the perception of Defenders.
Add to that (another mantra) that no Defender primary plays like another and you're expecting a very steep learning curve out of a certain type of player (ADD Blasters for example). Hell, I have met Defenders who were not even aware of what their powers all did. Kineticist tells me he feels like he's not pulling his weight. My answer is that I'd be happy for Speed Boost alone. He thought it boosted movement speed only. Better documentation and -again- more obvious power effects would go a long way here, too.
Now, the real problems as I see them. This is gonna take a while.
Yes, Defenders get the Dark Primary and the Dark, Rad and Psi Blast sets exclusively. But in overall function, both their Primary and Secondary are direct extrapolations of other sets in the game. Controllers and Blasters share a set list with Defenders and Tankers share one with Scrappers, but only Defenders share both set lists, making them -obviously- easier to replace on a team, even if a Controller's effects will be slightly weaker and they won't have Dark.
My solution to this issue would be... radical. Change the Secondaries of both Defenders and Controllers to be a bit more unique (maybe change Scrapper Secondaries while you're at it so that no set exists twice in the game, but I'll leave that to the Scrappers to decide).
For Defenders, take out two or three blast powers and replace them with comparatively higher Damage per End/Recharge melee attacks, or PBAOE. Why? Well, I fielded this idea on the Defender boards and while the thread was not a hot topic, basically everybody agreed that Defenders, more than Blasters, could actually put melee attacks to good use. Kineticists in particular would love that. Also, possibly add in another Mez or Root -yes, I know, there already are those in there, and I can get another one through an APP but both of these options only open up at higher levels, eg. Tesla Cage at level 28 for an */Electricity Defender, which equals 27 levels of anchors running away and aggroing faraway mobs- ideally a different one from the one already present in the set. Hell, */Ice Blasters get PBAOE sleep; an amount of control not achieved by any kind of Defender, except Dark/*.
Likewise, the Controller secondaries would need to get a little bit stripped of some of the niftier -or for them pointless- powers. Maybe make the 2nd power in the Controller primary a direct damage power so they get some low-level soloability, maybe add even more control of a different kind as a backup.
Radical, and potentially a bit of work (though at least for the Defender Secondaries, you could simply raid the corresponding Blaster Secondaries), but providing each possible character combination with a bit more uniqueness would in my opinion go a long way to enhance replayability and vary power choices.
On the note of power choices. How many characters past level 30 are in the game that have not both Hasten and Stamina? Well, I'm not planning to get Hasten on my Storm Defender or Stamina on my Kineticist, for different reasons. On a Blaster or a Defender with less toggles, though, I'd definitely always go for Hasten. And then Stamina, unless you have an End-generating power. Both together allow you to use your powers more often and for a longer time, resulting in finishing missions or just battles more quickly. Who doesn't want that?
Coupled with high-level damage output, particularly the AOE Blasters mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it simply means that particularly DeBuffs become less effective or pointless as the game progresses while Buffs become more effective since they last for more kills if mobs get killed faster.
My problem here is, I like Hasten and Stamina overall. I find it sad that they become almost necessary since they improve game and character progression so immensely. Still, if anyone can sacrifice those slots, more power to them. The only way I could think of to make Hasten a bit more balanced without 'nerfing' it would be to put it on the level 20 spot of the Speed set, replacing Whirlwind and putting up a different level 6 power in its stead.
I just don't really like that idea. either. One way to tackle the issue would simply be to make DeBuffs more effective than comparable Buffs. At the lower levels, it won't make that much of a difference -a lowly Dark/Dark Defender can one-shot pretty much anything up to a +2 Minion in a Tar Patch with Gloom, even if the DeBuff gets upped- but at the higher levels, it will make these powers more worthwhile.
One last consideration that's really only concerning those sets with anchor-based powers. Power Pools. We have a Tanker/Scrapperish set with Fighting and even two Defenderish sets with Leadership and Medicine. Some people have been clamoring for a Blasterish set, which might be nice, but what would really rock would be a Controllerish set to deal with those pesky anchors just running off when there's no Tank or Controller to keep them pinned (and sometimes even then)? This is, I stress again, just a minor point however.
Finally, thanks for starting this thread, States. While I love my Defenders and would play them even if I had more troubles finding teams (if all else fails I got a great SG to rely on, thanks CCCP), I really appreciate you guys looking at our stuff. I understand that fine-tuning a game such as this is an ongoing process, I'm just happy you're accepting that too.
Oh, and thanks to anybody who actually read this phone book of a post.
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
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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.
[/ QUOTE ] I never said every aspect of the set is overpowered. Most of them I think are fine as well, I'm just speaking about a few things I witnessed recently which have been a cause for concern for me, and I'm merely pointing a few things out. Even though your teamates may move while you're trying to cast it, the AoE around yourself isn't the only place where there's going to be the healing AoE. With DS's a little spread out, that area of a heal can -massive-.
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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.
[/ QUOTE ] As I said before, it's much easier to move yourself around as opposed to an enemy. While using my kinetic defender, I've found that whenever a squishy needs a heal, there's no enemy within sufficient range for the heal to reach it. The AoE range isn't huge. However, I'm sure the AoE range is the same as heal other/transfusion as it is on twilight grasp. The range may not be huge, but it's not small enough that you have to put yourself in a "death-zone" when casting it on a tanker or scrapper. I've thrown off healing auras close enough to a meleeist to reach them, yet far enough for me to be snagged in any crossfire. Not only that, I only have the defence boost of maneuvers to keep me safe from any AoE that does manage to reach me. Also, an accuracy SO and a tohit buff, such as tactics, can jackup the tohit % of both transfusion and twilight grasp high enough that the small accuracy bonus on transfusion is pretty much moot.
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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.
[/ QUOTE ] A pet who spams holds, heals and immobolizes is far more usefull than you make it sound. The array of powers may not seem huge, especially when compaired to fulcrum shift and transferance, but don't forget pets do all of that independantly. They can throw those out a hell of a lot faster than I can go through a chain of attacks with my kinetic defender. I'm not saying that TG should be nerfed down to the same healing power as healing aura or something of the like, but I think it should be looked into at least.
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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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I'm sorry for coming off as if it's an easy task to pull this off, as I didn't mean to, but even so, it's easier to get into a position where you can heal them, be it perhaps after they stop moving or something. Blasters can have some lengthy animation times too. *Looks at AR blasters*
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I don't think it's fair to call TG overpowered because the fluffies use it.
[/ QUOTE ] For the dark defender, perhaps not, but for the fluffies... Well, it does add an unfair advantage. Multiple healing aura strength heals can be pulled off very closely togeather, while also debuffing an enemy. For a single dark defender, the arguement of the 3 second cast time I think is viable, but you can easily have 3 DSs out, it doesn't really matter, because the other DS's can easily be throwing out other powers while one of them takes the 3 seconds to heal.
Kali, it might be wiser for us to cary this on ingame as opposed to here on the boards. Judging from the lengths of our post, and the other discussion we had that one night, it'll end up being a long debate :P. Might as well talk to eachother ingame and get some general ideas going there so we can avoid any redundant posts here
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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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Um I have an Idea....
Go make a Storm/Psychic defender and play on the main public servers.
That will give you and all the other developers a quick view of what you are hearing about defenders.
In fact try to get in a task force of somekind....that will really let you see what the defender community is refering too...very quickly.
Of this i know too well.
Make sure the players dont know who you are either...or else the experience wont be very helpful.
Oh and make sure you appologize for your powers when you have to......other wise you wont stay in the groups long enough to hear people give you orders...and tell you not to use certain powers.
And also dont quit....play the entire task force if you can...no matter how many times you die.
Thats just a suggestion....infact keep the defender just online and see how many tells you get asking if you can heal or bubble people....
If they ask for your help make sure to tell them you cant heal very well or bubble....and see if they still want you.
Thats my suggestions for you Statesman and the developers.....that should give you some nice information to help you.
as a storm defender i dont have much problems finding a team. heck, there's level 50 teams or high 40's always sending me tells and asking me if i want to help them with archvillians. I believe defenders are still wanted in teams (my PoV on the freedom server).
my gripe is being perma suppressed when you use anchor debuffs. that needs to be fixed so you're suppressed initially but not permanently. there's nothing you can do about someone outrunning your leash when you cant even keep up with them
I think the root of the problem lies in Defender damage. 66% is just to low to put much effort into improving it. This means that most defenders put their slots where the power is - in their primary - which makes their effective damage even less. If more emphasis went into the secondary, defenders wouldn't be so similiar to controllers.
Of course, raising defender damage would make blasters feel even more useless, so it is not something to do lightly, and not a stand-alone change. But Tankers got more damage, so I can see defenders getting it too.
I do admit, however, that this may be more of a perception problem than an actual problem - if more defenders slotted their secondaries, their damage would increase, and 66% is still plenty useful.
When you see a defender wanting an invite, it is a lottery. You may get a damage-specced rad offender or a meek empath. When building a team, you usually know what you want - more control, tanking ability, more damage. But when adding a defender, you never know what you get or what role it is going to fill. This makes me reluctant to invite defenders I don't know.
Another issue is time during combat. Once my contoller has laid down her area controls, she has all the time in the world to apply buffs, heals, debuffs and other effects from her secondary (she is Ice/Kin). Wheras a defender is busy blasting, and prefers to do her buffing before and after fights. Thus controllers are perceived as better healers/buffers than defenders simply becuse they have more free time to do them.
This time-sharing problem is particularily achute for Empathy defenders, whose primary powers have to be used during combat. Heals have to be in combat, and the best heals have to be targeted. And Fortitude, on it's slow recharge, needs to be applied the moment it expires or it is working below expectations. This, more than the low damage, made my Healer respec out of her attacks - in big teams (where she was doing best), there was simply no time for her to blast in combat.
Also, I want to agree with what has been said in other threads. If mobs had more (and more powerful) debuffs and less mezzes, healers would become more useful. So what if the tank has maxed-out resistance - if he gets hit by Enervating Field he will still need buffs.
Finally, I want to add a word on an important quality-of-life issue for both controllers and defenders. TARGETED BUFFS SHOULD ALL HAVE THE SAME DURATION. I hate how Speed Boost and Density Increase have different durations, or Clear Mind and Fortitude. Or all of them and Grant Invisibility or Stimulant - though I can see why a pool should be weaker.
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I never said every aspect of the set is overpowered. Most of them I think are fine as well, I'm just speaking about a few things I witnessed recently which have been a cause for concern for me, and I'm merely pointing a few things out. Even though your teamates may move while you're trying to cast it, the AoE around yourself isn't the only place where there's going to be the healing AoE. With DS's a little spread out, that area of a heal can -massive-.
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Well, sort of. It's not really advantageous to slot the heals in Dark Servant. if you have three out in a clump, then you'll get effectively a fully slotted heal every eight seconds or so (if they use it consistently) or if they're spread out, they'll top off your health and help a bit. If you're in over your head, they won't necessarily save you.
Three fluffies and the DM defender in one spot can create quite a nice healing blanket, provided people stay nearby.
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As I said before, it's much easier to move yourself around as opposed to an enemy.
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Yes, and as I responded, it is next to impossible to move your teammates around or keep them from moving when they're taking damage. Because of Twilight Grasp's long activation, I think this is really a wash between the two.
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While using my kinetic defender, I've found that whenever a squishy needs a heal, there's no enemy within sufficient range for the heal to reach it. The AoE range isn't huge. However, I'm sure the AoE range is the same as heal other/transfusion as it is on twilight grasp. The range may not be huge, but it's not small enough that you have to put yourself in a "death-zone" when casting it on a tanker or scrapper. I've thrown off healing auras close enough to a meleeist to reach them, yet far enough for me to be snagged in any crossfire.
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And Empathy heals don't draw aggro.
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Not only that, I only have the defence boost of maneuvers to keep me safe from any AoE that does manage to reach me. Also, an accuracy SO and a tohit buff, such as tactics, can jackup the tohit % of both transfusion and twilight grasp high enough that the small accuracy bonus on transfusion is pretty much moot.
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That's arguable, and there's still the double endurance cost and triple activation time.
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A pet who spams holds, heals and immobolizes is far more usefull than you make it sound.
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I didn't say it was useless. I said it was unfair to demand a nerf for Twilight Grasp on the basis of Dark Servant, and I pointed to some things kinetics does that are fairly potent at high levels as well.
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The array of powers may not seem huge, especially when compaired to fulcrum shift and transferance, but don't forget pets do all of that independantly. They can throw those out a hell of a lot faster than I can go through a chain of attacks with my kinetic defender. I'm not saying that TG should be nerfed down to the same healing power as healing aura or something of the like, but I think it should be looked into at least.
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You're focusing on one aspect of dark miasma that's actually not overpowered - the healing - and asking that it be nerfed. Fearsome Stare? Sure, that's definitely overpowered. Tar Patch? It's arguable. At first, I would've said yes, but the recharge and the fact that debuffs scale according to relative level makes it much less potent than it might appear on paper. Dark Servant? Well, it throws out Pet. Gaze, Twilight Grasp, and Tenebrous Tentacles. It does practically no damage (Chill of the Night is very minor, if autohit, and fluffies don't like to go into melee range anyway. TT doesn't really do enough damage to be noticeable when they use it). The main thing they do is lock down random villains and spam heals...which makes it easier for a DM defender to blast more rather than focus entirely on defending. However, due to the fact that you can only suggest where fluffies go (by going there yourself) and the fact that you really can't afford to slot the healing over recharge, which means the heals aren't that big comparatively, I don't think it's out of whack. Maybe there needs to be a minimum damage you can debuff to, which would limit fluffy effectiveness against AVs and monsters, but the heal aspect itself? It's not overpowered.
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I'm sorry for coming off as if it's an easy task to pull this off, as I didn't mean to, but even so, it's easier to get into a position where you can heal them, be it perhaps after they stop moving or something. Blasters can have some lengthy animation times too. *Looks at AR blasters*
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Yes, but again... It's not easy to heal people who immediately run from you as soon as you start the TG animation, because they don't realize you're there, or that you're about to heal, or they're trying to get away so that next shot doesn't drop them. Heck, if they're taking fire, you are risking taking aoe damage as a consequence.
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For the dark defender, perhaps not, but for the fluffies... Well, it does add an unfair advantage. Multiple healing aura strength heals can be pulled off very closely togeather, while also debuffing an enemy. For a single dark defender, the arguement of the 3 second cast time I think is viable, but you can easily have 3 DSs out, it doesn't really matter, because the other DS's can easily be throwing out other powers while one of them takes the 3 seconds to heal.
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I think "unfair advantage" is an extreme overstatement here.
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Kali, it might be wiser for us to cary this on ingame as opposed to here on the boards. Judging from the lengths of our post, and the other discussion we had that one night, it'll end up being a long debate :P. Might as well talk to eachother ingame and get some general ideas going there so we can avoid any redundant posts here
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Well, I think you should try playing Dark Miasma and get a sense for how it plays. Where it's powerful is not necessarily where you think it's powerful.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
I agree very much with Kali. Healing is not what Dark Miasma is about. When I'm on a team, I don't pay attention to who's around me, or other teammates's health unless they're seriously in trouble. I'm all about debuffing accuracy and damage and dropping Tar Patches.
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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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Yay! <ducks the nerf bat yet again 
>
Anyways, this is my opinion on the state of Defenders.
I've played an Empathy Defender to 50 and I also have a 38 Dark and a 22 Force Fielder. Defenders are my favourite AT. 
Empathy - Generally fine the way it is. There are a few issues and bugs with some powers but overall they're pretty useful throughout the game. Empathy Powerset (Minor) Issues
Force Field - In my opinion, Force Field needs a boost.
They are now the only Defender set with no way to increase team damage.
They have a weakness to Sleeps and Psychics.
And some of their powers aren't very useful. Repulsion Bomb, I'm looking at YOU!! 
Radiation Emission - A very good powerset. Fallout/Choking Cloud are of dubious value but the rest of the set more than makes up for it.
Kinetics - A great offensive powerset. There are still some issues though.
Speed Boost/ID could have their durations increased. ID has a few holes in its protection and I don't see any reason why its on a painful 60 second duration.
Also, there are a few bugs with Transfusion and casting it on a nearly dead enemy. Kinetics needs love
Dark Miasma - A very good powerset. No complaints.
Storm Summoning - A few simple tweaks would make Storm a lot more team-friendly. In my opinion, the biggest issue with Storm is Freezing Rain.
With skill, the Knockback on other powers can be managed and can even be very useful. The scatter on Freezing Rain cannot be negated by most Storm Defenders. The only ones that can 'control' Freezing Rain are Storm/Dark and Controllers. Tanks cannot control the scatter either, so basically one of the premier Storm debuffs is usually more harmful than helpful.
A simple solution would be to remove the damage and fear components from Freezing Rain.
Summary
Empathy, Dark, Rad and Kinetics all work well and have a 'role' to fill. Empathy is a great buff/heal powerset. Kinetics is a great offensive buff set. Rad is a great offensive debuffer. Dark is a great defensive debuffer.
Force Field is a great defensive buff powerset but that's all it does.
Its defense has holes. (Psychic, Sleeps)
Also, some of its powers are not very useful.
On paper, Storm should be a great all-rounder similar to Dark and Rad but more often than not it can't realise its potential due to the counter-productive scatter caused by most of its powers. A few small fixes would make a world of difference.
first i'd like to thank you States for coming over here and showing us that you do care. having played a Force Field Defender and a Fire Controller i know very well the delimma that Defenders face. In the later levels of the game my Fire/Rad controller is much more valuable to my team mates than my FF/Psy defender. to be sure that i wasn't paranoid i did 3 missions (AV's Battle Maiden/ Chimera/ Maurader) with my Controller. on each encounter my buff (AM) and debuffs (smoke/radiation infection/enervating field/EMP) were much more valuable to my team. i didn't need to do damage because the debuffs amp'd the damage done by my team mates. we took very little damage because of the 3minute hold i was able to place on the dozens of minions every 2minutes. in the end my imps contributed to as much damage as the scrappers/blasters/and tanks on the team. i then logged on my Defender, and using a friend's AV's we did the same 3 AV's. during the mission battles the buffs (insulation/deflection/dispersion bubble) i had were all i had to bring to the battle. my damage was sub-par to the blasters on the team, though as a defender i expected that. my defenses weren't enough to keep me from taking significant damage, dispite having MoB and Dispersion bubble (with 2HO's). i had limited ability to controll the mobs because i had few holds at my disposal. overall....i felt useless. whenever my SG decides to team up for "difficult" mission my controller is chosen over the defender. everyone loves the bubbles no doubt, mainly because i increase their already impressive defenses.
i readily admitt that not every defender feels useless and some are even sought out for team. however, the usefulness of defenders at the higher end of the game seems to be 60%. compared to a controller who's usefulness is well above 90%. when you have the choice between a Defender and a Controller who share the same power (secondary/primary) many option for a controller because the defender tend to be dead weight at times.
now you say that every AT should be extremely happy when a Defender provides a buff/debuff/ or resistance. this is true any AT is happy for this, however, in the late stage of the game, there isn't a noticible difference between a Defender or a Controller aside from obvious signs, i.e. primary power and that pretty blue shield.
i don't care if an Empathy/Nrg Defender or a Grav/Empathy give me a fortitude because the buff doesn't "feel" different. Bubbles from a controller don't "feel" weaker, nor do bubbles from a Defender "feel" stronger. i simply can not tell the difference.
Defenders NEED some attention. i'm not talking about "overall" i mean individual powers sets need to be addressed. if you guys are aware that such issues exsist why do you persist in keeping us in the dark for so long. i hate to point fingers, but scrappers, blasters, tanks, and controllers have all gotten "official" threads in some way, shape, fashion, or form. why not defenders? where is the "official Force Fields" thread with a dev name attached to it?
i love this game States, but my chosen AT is becoming less and less heroic. the introduction of new power sets is really appealing, but it's hardly a good substitute for the lack of playability of the powersets i spent 892hrs on.
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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! ".
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I think this also sums it up, my main is a 50 stone/axe tanker. I'm pretty much invulnerable, but slow and don't do much damage due to granite armor. My effectiveness is increased hugely by most forms of defender. Yes it would be improved nearly as much by a controller with the defender primary as their secondary, but I would rather team with the defender, as you don't have the problem that the phantom army takes aggro from you (usually after the phantasms have knocked the mob back), drops and a load of squishies get smeared before you reassert control.
Also I play in a group in which all the players play the same toons one evening a week, and these toons are never played outside these times. We're level 29 now and I play the bubble def (dark secondary). Having a fire tank and an invul scrapper (both resist based) makes the 3 basic FF bubbles and maneuvers gold dust. It also means that the rest of the party don't have to slot any defence in combat jump or the like. Having had a slight accident with the difficulty on the citadel TF we found that we were facing +5s to +7s at level 26-27ish. The remainder of the party was a grav/kin cont, ill/rad cont and elec/dev blaster. We found we could slowly and indebtedly work our way through the mission. We turned the difficulty down, restarted and breezed it with +3s-5s as the opponents.
If you go in for TFs or street hunting (where you can meet stuff at +4 or more) is where the defenders really earn their corn. Again I did Synapse with a level 16 and 4 level 17s, we completed it easily. There was a kin def and a rad def on the team (+ tank, scrap, blast), without their buffs/debuffs we'd never have hit anything.
Note that these examples are in the early/middle game.
I think that part of the problem is that SOs are too good and it is too easy to get close to the various caps using purely enhancements. One way round this would be to tinker with the caps such that there was a limit to how much you could achieve with buffs and inherent abilities, but further enhanceable with debuffs to your opponents.
eg: cap tanker damage resist at 7% damage taken, but allow the damage debuff put on the opponent to reduce this to 4 or 5%.
or minimise your chance to be hit at 8% from your defence, but let it be debuffed down to 5%.
A cautionary tale: With a defender probably more than anything else, you need to decide whether you're going to try to solo or play in a team. I played with a FF/energy def who was built to solo. He had all the repels and energy knockback, so he could solo, but kept dying when duoing with my scrapper (this was level 40+) as he'd knock the larger groups back and they'd toast him at range.
My FF def who is completely team orientated has bought none of the repels as the melee types hate them, and this allows him to have a decent number of attacks and leadership powers. This means that he puts his toggles up, bubbles the party, and then plays (poor man's) blaster and debuffer at the same time with his dark attacks till it's time to bubble the party again.
Another thought, if you're going to play a kinetics def, because you need to be close to the rest of your party and the monsters, how about a melee based secondary set as an option a bit like some of the blaster secondaries, or if that's a step too far, a distinctive set put together from the blaster primary/secondary pools. Non kin defenders would still stay at range so this would need to be an extra option rather than a replacement.
Btw the controller complaining that it took him 15 mins to solo a group with his pets was an ice controller, and having a 34 one of those myself, ice pets are pretty poor compared to illusion or fire who would probably have taken less than 2 mins.
Mr Minotaur 50 stone/axe tank Freedom
Toxic Texan 44 DM/regen scrapper Infinity
Psycho Clown 40 Ill/kin cont Freedom
TheoPWildebeest 40 en/en blast Freedom
Ms Blizzard 34 ice/storm cont Freedom
RollingDoughnut 29 FF/Dark def Freedom
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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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.
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I don't have firm numbers on this, but I have extensively played a Dark Defender and a Kinetics Controller.
A couple of observations:
1) A Kinetics Defender's Transfusion is much better than a Kinetics Controller's Transfusion.
2) A Kinetics Defender's Transfusion is somewhat better than a Dark Defender's Twilight Grasp.
Never really been able to compare my Kinetics heal to an equally levelled and slotted Dark Defender though.
Here's why Transfusion gives a bigger green number though:
It's more difficult to use.
Why is this?
1) If the target dies while the power is being activated, Transfusion will not work. This is not the case with Dark Miasma.
2) Transfusion works only around a target, whereas Dark Miasma works about the character, making it easier to target.
3) Dark Miasma debuffs more on the target than Transfusion does.
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
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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.
BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed"
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Ok so Defenders are fine except for powers, power sets, and the feeling of not being needed.
.
How are they fine again?
It would be nice if folks would use my Empath more often. You see, by the 40s, folks don't mind hitting yellow or even a touch of red once in a while. I'm not sure if folks become numb to it or that they are so tough that the yellow and red are simply a temporary situation in a battle. As far as being blue goes, well, they simply slow down a bit or pop an inspiration and that ends that. Yep, I'm kind of convinced that folks know their AT so well by the 40s they have found the proper way to push them to the limits of endurance and health. I am glad for them, but, it hurts to find a good team for my empath. I would like to suggest that the answer may be for empaths, late game (like starting at level 38), to "learn" that their primaries can also "hurt" an enemy. Maybe our RA would also slow their endurance recovery or health recovery? Our Clear Mind could have a chance to disorient? Something like that? This would give empaths a chance to at least solo effectively and make it to 50 with honor and not be some self esteem deprived looser who made it only by being a team middle or some lucky soul that had wonderful friends and a great supergroup.
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The thing is most people tend to overlook what defenders add to team because most the credit goes to tankers. I have tanked TFs where the only thing that kept me alive was the defender but people though it was me holding the aggro that was doing all the work I am glad to give credit when it's due so I say it's not me. Since I play a dark defender it's much harder not to get noticed with those loud tentacles but the buffs are not as noticable unless I mention it. The fact is I don't think that defenders are not needed or wanted late game they are since they are pretty hard to find at least on my server it's just that people don't give them enough credit.
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Controllers are NOT as good as defenders at defending. Not only is there the matter of strength of powers, there's a different mindset. Just as defenders normally start with their buffs/debufs then worry about maybe blasting some things, controllers first worry about getting all the bad guys mez'ed then worry about maybe buffing/debuffing some folks.
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You've stated my point exactly, though not the point I think you intended to make. Controllers aren't as good as defenders at defending. They're better.
There is absolutely, positively no better defense than completely incapacitating your enemies. Once I get the bad guys locked down and not attacking at all, what other defensive action can possibly improve on that?
A lot of people say that because controller secondaries aren't as effective as defender primaries, that defenders can "do the job" better. It's my considered opinion that crowd control adds far more than the power level differential of the shared sets takes away.
Now, I'm not saying controllers are inherently better than defenders. I play several controllers and defenders and enjoy them all. They have different playstyles. What I am saying is that a group looking for defense will often do better with a controller than a defender.
Defenders just don't have their own niche, since they share many primary and secondary sets with other classes. I rarely see teams advertising for a defender; nearly always they want either "healer" (a term I don't believe truly belongs in this game, but that's a whole 'nother topic) or "defender/controller."
So what's the solution? I don't know. I'd hope it is something that does not involve scaling back the capabilities of other archetypes, but does involve each defender primary having something unique and useful to bring to teams that nobody else can.
Please, Statesman, do something about FF.
The final three powers of the set are all about keeping mobs away, an effect that is of limited use throughout the game.
Repulsion Field: keep mobs away, power centred on self, can cost an insane amount of end if used on mobs that resist the effect (I'm looking at you, swarms!). Does nothing different than kinetics : repel, even though FF is, frankly, all about knockback / repel ... and RF is a seventh tier power while repel is one of the earliest kinetics powers. And it is completely replaceable by force bubble. You have said yourself that higher tier powers should not replace lower tier powers entirely, but force bubble certainly fits the bill here.
Repulsion Bomb. Long animation, low magnitude stun and knockdown. It's supposed to be, as far as I can tell, a panic button to get mobs off a squishie ... but it really only works on minions. And minions are of no consequence to a bubbled teammate. And this power can only be used on a teammate (or, *cough*, pet). It's the worst panic button in the game. By the time the animation is up, I can, in theory, have jumped over to the teammate in distress and fired off force bubble. Again, one power can be entirely replaced by a later power.
Force bubble. Love it or hate it, it's the biggest end-sucking toggle in the game. It uses more end the my fire tanker's armours + blazing aura + burn + tough + combat jumping with only a tiny fraction of the useful benefit. Speaking of tankers, it draws more aggro due its size and effect than any tanker can generate. And the only thing it does is push mobs away. And distance does not equal defense. A repelled mob can still attack while being repelled, and virtually all mobs in the game have some form of ranged attack. And some villain groups, like Ritki, are more dangerous to bubblers at range (psy and sleep) than they are close up (mostly s / l / energy). At best, force bubble is a 30% damage debuff (the rumoured difference between a melee mob's melee damage versus ranged damage). Compared to the other ninth tier controller, defender, and blaster powers, it's laughably bad. And it just doesn't jive with sets that require clumped mobs for debuffs, AoE attacks, or aggro management. And that is almost every single toon in the game except for some single target scrappers and blasters. Of course, single target scrappers and blasters probably aren't that profficient at keeping aggro away from a bubbler (with a fraction of her teammate's defense), so ...
I just don't get it, Statesman. Are the defensive bubbles so good that the rest of the set can range from "awful" to "meh"? What's a bubbler supposed to look forward to after dispersion bubble at 12?
A general suggestion: when the new manual comes out, please have your writers include snippets on how each set is intended to work. Example, it's not explicitly clear in any of the descriptions of kinetics or its powers that it works best for melee -- SB for stone tankers, heal centred on targetted mob, etc.. It's also not explicitly clear that FF is focused on keeping blasters safe (at least, that's the conclusion I get from all the knockback powers).
Statesman: how is it that Defenders "aren't needed" at higher levels? Emp Defenders maybe, but a Defender is a vital part of any archvillain-hunting team. I've never run into any trouble finding groups with my Dark/Dark...
Well my 2 cents give or take. as a PURE emp defender lvl 42 , IE no dmg powers at all , with a maxed out leadership pool i only have issues finding group during times that there are not many peeps on. i do not have or need for that matter hasten. my stam on the other hand is maxed.
THO this may be due to my rep on virtue .
as for the perception i would say it does exist. i find myself in many groups where people other then the person that invited me are wondering why i am there. after about 5 min or less of playing with me the find out why both RA's plus adren boost alone make me a catch. add the fact i have the leader pools , heals , TP friend and fly. i can easily double a groups effectivness .
i personally think alot of the perception comes from the fact there are alot of half-hearted defenders out there. finding people whose main is a defender is rare. finding people that enjoy playing a support class and can do it well is even more rare. that and the fact many defender powers go unnoticed hurts as well.
we are quite useful and really do not need any dev loving. defenders having a hard time finding groups at the upper lvl need to either check their play times or look at thier play style.
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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)
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Probably because of so many times a defender showed up on a team with any slots in their secondary at all, and the resulting outcry as if the Almighty had reached out and pinky-slapped a kitten's head clean off. As you say, hardly mind-boggling.
Fire Imps: Summon Fire Imps will now spawn one Imp. The Imp melee attack was never intended to do damage, and has been replaced with emotes. Your summoned Imp will now alternate between /em teabag, /em backflip, and /em getsome.
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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.
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I'm not the poster you're questioning, but I have a mid-high kinetic and know what he means.
The drawbacks of a kinetics Transfusion is that you have to target a mob that's standing in melee range of the person you want to heal. Frequently what happens is that a scrapper, or someone else in melee range kills the mob before your power activates. Kinetics heals will cancel if the mob died before the animation finishes... unlike Twilight Grasp, where the the heal still triggers, as long as the mob was alive when the animation started.
A dark/* defender can also tap a mob that's at no risk of being killed, even that's out ot combat, since the heal activates around _the defender_. Unless the attack misses, my dark/elec defender never misses a heal. In the thick of battle, my kinetic might miss 1 in 4 from people killing the target before the animation completes.
Add in fluffies, and a dark defender can be a better healing in many situations. They can easily heal blasters and back-rank characters, while still having sufficient defenses to run up and heal the scrappers and tanks as well. A kinetic has a very, very difficult time coaxing a blaster within melee range to receive a heal (don't blame them either, it's not the safest place to be!)
All that aside... not sure that I consider Kinetics heals underpowered...
Eisregen makes some very good points, and i think the devs need to bite the bullet and really look at the secondary powers for both defenders and controllers. Solving defender problems by simply adding to their powers doesn't help it only increases the need for more powerful, bigger mobs with more sneaky tricks to challenge the players. Then we're right back where we started from.
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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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Jack, let me hit a nail on the head:
So long as ANY archetype can hit a resist or defense cap (or equivalent) on their
own, merely by their own power choices and slotting, you will never achieve this
goal.
I have no problem with melee ATs being tough in solo missions. That's fine. But
adding a Defender, of any flavor, ought to make the melee player say "cool, I
can now arrest mobs faster than if I was solo."
Here's an interesting balance idea from our SG's think tank:
Take away ALL AoEs from Scrappers and Tankers.
That will instantly make Blasters wanted in the 35+ game, make Defenders and
Controllers wanted in order to keep Blasters safe, and make Defenders wanted
for the increase in arrest speed they bring to Scrappers and Tankers.
(end of short suggestion. beginning of anecdotal section.)
And here's one anecdote of why that'd be good:
As a 32/33 Controller, I SKed along with our SG's inv/ss tanker and ma/regen
scrapper on their road to 50.
so, 40ish wolf mission most people farm. maybe 45.
Tanker herds 100+ wolves (over half the map of this instanced outdoors mission)
and calls for us to come visit.
I watch as the inv/ss tanker, with double-rage (recharge SOs + Hasten) uses
1 acc/5 dam Foot Stomp to ARREST THEM ALL.
One power activation. Already at the damage cap from double-rage.
Damage cap should *require* other teammates to be reached. Reaching it on
your own (except maybe for blasters/scrappers) should not be possible.
This is a TANKER doing this.
I know you gave tankers a little melee damage love, but this is too much.
Let's see how many forum 1-star ratings I get for suggesting all AEs be removed
from Tankers and Scrappers...