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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.
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There is a difference to me between not needed and not wanted and I think the real issue is asking what defenders bring to the table at higher levels and why what they have might not be needed/wanted.
#1: Progression: As each AT advances they become more not less self sufficent. You the developers did this by design, I mean afterall look at the epic power pools. If any AT can have their cake and eat it to then all AT's become meaningless.
#2 Someone does it better: Ok Now lets talk about defender sec. Well its obvious that they come in second to blasters in most regards. Now look at the primaries, well Controllers have these functions as well, maybe not as good AND bring a whole kit of controlling functions and pets that will make the defenders secondary offence look like nothing, especially when combined with the slightly weaker secondary.
So a team will always chose to take someone onto the team who brings the most to the team. To me that looks like a controller and if you really want the firepower you want a blaster.
Defender primaries just are'nt good enough in many cases in the high end world with heroes with epics to warrent them being needed/wanted.
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With a good high level Defender, you don't always need a Blaster.
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You have to be getting your damage from somewhere, and not all Defenders can substitute for a Blaster by any means. Maybe I'm weird but I would never pull a Defender onto a team if I were looking for a damage dealer, I'd get a Blaster or Scrapper. Or even a Controller depending on the levels we're talking about.
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Now that is what we're talking about with the perception problem. With tar patch, my dark defender can up total team damage by 30%, and, in long battles, by 60% with stacked tar patches. Do the math: the increase in damage by my 1 defender will be like adding 2 or 3 blasters if you're running an eight person team. And my DDD will be doing some other nutty things.
The only defender that can't increase damage is FF.
Just something to chew on. In large teams, blasters and scrappers are not the kings of damage. Defenders are through their buffs and debufss.
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Well the post indicated that a Defender could take a Blaster's place. I mentioned that not all of them could, and I stand by that. As you mentioned, a FF defender can't increase party damage. As an FFer that was my point.
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"Level 43 Storm Defender LFT"
...
...
"chirp, chirp, chirp"
...
...
"I guess only the crickets are out tonight. Time to go see what's on Leno." <click>
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...
"He He He" comes from the tanks, scrappers, and controllers hiding in the bushes. "He's gone, lets go lay the smack-down."
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Next night, in Perigrine Island...
"Level 43 Storm Defender LFT"
...
...
Level 8 Inv Tank sends tell "Will you PL me? Please?"
...
...
Replies "Sorry, I don't do that. Plus, don't you know that a defender can't PL anybody? We don't really do much damage."
...
...
"Maybe there's a good movie on HBO?" <click>
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All this mess about Defenders feeling unneeded at high levels... how? I don't have a high level defender, so I can not comment on it personally, but I mean... huh?
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Chris, this post says volumes. I'm not picking on you, in fact what you're saying answers your own question if you know how to read it.
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If I'm going against a tough AV, I'm going to want some Defenders with me - and since the last 10 levels are predominately AVs... Rad Defenders sure do make things die quicker, as do Kineticists, and Darks. Force Fields and Empaths allow the team to last longer... I just don't see why they would feel useless...
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As someone who doesn't play a defender, you may not know that Radiation, Kinetics, and Dark also allow the team to last longer, by way of Radiation Infection (Rad), Siphon Speed/Siphon Power/Fulcrum Shift (Kin), and Darkest Night/Fearsome Stare/Dark Servant (Dark). Empaths also have some ability to make fights faster via Fortitude and Adrenalin Boost. Note also the lack of any mention of Storm, which also adds killing speed and safety, especially in AV fights.
It's overly common that non-defenders don't fully understand what many defender sets do, especially the multi-faceted ones. In fact, your post is a perfect snapshot of what many of us experience: people have some idea of what we can do, but not the whole picture. This leads to not-entirely-correct generalizations about our capabilities and often exclusion from teams based on that misunderstanding.
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My only guess at the problem would be, that a Controller can replace a Defender with most of their secondaries... but, a Controller's primary focus is to Control the mob, not let it run rampant and just heal the team.
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And neither is it a defender's goal to just heal the team (generally speaking, though there are some players who do revel in this). Even many high-level empathy defenders, the most healing-oriented of the defender primaries, will tell you that their buffs are more important than their heals.
As for the defender/controller comparison, I submit this: It doesn't take long to get the lockdowns in place; once that's done, there is plenty of time to throw around the secondary powers. My earth/kinetics controller happily applied controls to every fight and kept my teams in more buffs, endurance, and health than they knew what to do with. And, I provided a heck of a lot more safety (i.e., defense) than my kinetics defender ever could.
With friends, supergroup teams, and smart players who "get it," controllers and defenders don't exclude each other from group spots. But in the scary land of pick-up teams where groups are formed based on one person's definition of "optimal," it does become a problem. Many people prefer to have extreme amounts of safety plus buffs/debuffs/heals plus damage (via pets) that a controller can offer rather than buffs/debuffs/heals and damage. Speaking for myself, the most important attribute is the person at the other end of the keyboard, not anything coded into an in-game character. But I'm not the majority of the player-base, and so this discussion is taking place.
Then again, a lot of people expect my defenders of all levels to just heal (still using my power explanation macros at level 43) so maybe I'm putting too much thought into this.
Anyway, to answer your question of how defenders can feel unneeded at higher levels: It's a combination of a lack of specialty and a general ignorance of the capabilities of the sets.
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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.
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So a team will always chose to take someone onto the team who brings the most to the team. To me that looks like a controller and if you really want the firepower you want a blaster.
Defender primaries just are'nt good enough in many cases in the high end world with heroes with epics to warrent them being needed/wanted.
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This, sadly, must be rectified someway. I truly hope that some epiphany from above bestows the devs with the answer to this dilemma without causing undue angst among other ATs.
There are some extremely good suggestions in this thread and in others. My fingers are crossed...
The problem with the Defender AT is that it is stuck between blasters and controllers. If the devs make blasters less "squishy", then those blasters will "need" defenders less than they do now. If the devs increase controllers' damage in the pre-pet levels, then controllers will start to infringe on what was supposed to be the defenders' advantage over them, i.e. higher level damage. If the devs do both without taking defenders into consideration, then they have yet another balance problem on their hands. Defenders already share a large number of their powersets with more than one AT. The devs have to be very careful with the balance here or defenders will be over shadowed in all of their supposed roles by other ATs.
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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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Just speaking from a bubblers viewpoint, while I do allow other Archetypes to achieve levels they can't on their own, I
myself am unequipped to go along with them. With maxed out bubbles only, I can grant someone close to a 96% DEF but myself only about 40%. So while they are off happily taking on AV's, +4 and up villians, I'm still struggling with even level villians. This creates a imbalance, IMO, with the team dynamics because it then forces one of two situations. Either the team has to spend more time keeping me safe (Assumming I'm not one shotted, blasted by a AOE or killed before the villian can be pulled off of me), thus slowing down the rate at which the team can move through mobs and thus earn xp, or they ignore me for the most part and I spend alot of time makeing trips back and forth from the hospital. I suppose I could just stand there and just bubble while doing my best not to draw any sort of aggro, thus reducing me to nothing more then a buff bot like a sky raider shield generator or a DE emmantor. But since when is playing shield generator or emmantor fun?
It's also not very practical to do since I either need to be up with the Tankers and Scrappers giving them the extra protection they need or if I'm back protecting the blasters and controllers opening myself up to AOE attacks against them. Plus just what am I suppose to do when the AV or +4 villian comes charging towards the blaster I'm protecting. Simply sit there and watch?
In terms of not being needed, while I'm sure alot of it is just perception, let me give you an example of how that perception can happen. Running a mission the other day against an AV, Envoy of shadows, with a team of heroes. Things are going well, I'm bubbling and draining (elec Secondary) and the team is crusing through the mobs of COT. Get to the room with the AV and run into a bit of trouble. There's a bunch of Earth Thorn Casters along with the Envoy and suddenly everyone got's 6 or more quicksands stacked on them. Everybody slows to a crawl and between the AV and the Earth Thorn Casters myself and the blaster go down. With no way to be revived I go to the hospital and race as fast I can back to the battle, figuring the teams going to need my DEF buffing to see them through the fight. So I get back to the cavern where the battle is taking place and what do I find? All the Earth thorn casters gone and the AV nearly defeated.
My immediate thought upon seeing that, "Oh. I guess they didn't need me after all."
Now I realize this is a somewhat skewed perception and that I did contribute to the fight, but its hard not to think that when you see things like this. In the big fight everybody wants to have something to cheer about, whether its the tanker saying "Did you see how I went toe to toe with that AV and he didn't even scratch me" or the scrapper "Man you should have seen how his hps dropped after my critical." or the blaster "Well you wouldn't have even got close to him if my AOE hadn't cleared out the room" or the controller "Not to mention that It's alot easier to hit something that's held in place" or the defender "Never mind that my buffs and debuffs turned you all uber".
However I think for some defenders, not all mind you, in the big fights or even some of the little fights they fell like all they have to say is "Well... I... face planted alot sparing you all from debt." or "I stood around and looked menacingly while you guys cleared the room.". After a few times of this its pretty easy to feel un-needed or useless. An while this is in no means unique to defenders, since I'm sure there are builds within each Archtype that have the same issue, I think defenders suffer more from this in the latter levels then others do. At least, that's the viewpoint from this bubbler.
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I was the 39 DM/DA scrapper at that particular fight, and hooo boy, it was interesting. After i noticed the earth thorns in the room, i ignored the AV until the ETC's were dead. Simply because they are so devestating, ETC's are now on the same level as sappers, because of their annoyance, although i think this is a good thing to an extent.
Part of the problem with FF bubblers is that you dont know the bubbles are their until they wear off, then all of sudden, oh crap, where are hte bubbles. And believe me synergy, as one of the gimpy scrappers, i love having an FF'er around, its awesome, it lets me not worry about dying.
Their are two types of defenders that i always welcome as a DM/DA, FF/*, Kin/*, and Emp/*, for the defense in bubbles, and endurance respectively. Dark is fine by me, means i get hit less, and can do more damage, and storm, eh, i can live without, nothing they do is very helpful for a scrapper.
I also play a kinetics defender. And even as the defender, other than speed boost, its tough to tell a buff is having an effect. Speed boost is Really obvious, and everyone knows when you ahve it, but, increase density, not so obvious. Making the defender buffs more obvious helps too.
Also, the buff lengths, 4 min is a long time. Makes doing your job much easier. But, that 4 min has no drawback, to make the game a little more interesting, and help balance it more, a couple of things that are ideas for overall game balance (dont know how doable some of these are)
I am thinking that all castable buffs and debuffs end when the defender dies or exemplars out of the level range.
But, some of the buffs speed boost and increase density (these are ones i know for sure) need to have their length increased, the 4 min number is thrown around a lot, because thats what bubblers have)
So, when your team defender dies, down go buffs and debuffs. This also effects the villain side too, so when a ETC goes down, so does his quicksand, same goes for madness mages, and death mages. So, this tweak cuts both ways, some semblance of balance.
But, with this, i think the defenders should get some self defense love, or in general, make them less squishy, to balance out them dying so fast, after all, Earth Thorn casters get rock armor, makes them a royal pain in the [censored] for any smashing/lethal heroes (read all scappers). Maybe, remove one, or many of the weaker blasts in the defender secondary, and replace with armor toggles, and/or mez toggles.
So, now, defenders get self defense, but dont have all the attacks that blasters have, futher differentiating the two. Then in the blaster secondary, through some defenses/mez protection in there, and suddenly the blaster secondary isnt a scapper set, and now the blaster also doesnt feel scared ******** when a enemy or group runs up to them.
Controllers - just need some damage pre-32 or something. i dont know. Maybe, in the controller secondary, throw a couple of low level blasts, like, take out the heals, give them even lower damage than defenders, but have the double/triple damage when held apply. This way, controllers get pre-pet love, but cant really outshine defenders too much, because they lose the buffage and especially, a lot of the heals?
Anyway, hi synergy, the AV wasnt too bad, its sucks he was two levels below me, otherwise, i love your bubbles ^_________^
signed - Morte
edit: another idea - also, how about making the damage cap from only yourself, then outside players can increase someone beyond the damage cap. This is already in effect with dark defenders and rad defenders. The -30% resist debuff makes an attacker at the damage cap, go effectively above the damage cap.
Maybe things like fortitude, and fulcrum shift will allow other players to go beyond the damage cap. This presents a problem with say, 8 person emp defender teams or 8 person kinetics, but, instead put another cap on top of that, something like another 100-150% damage cap on outside buffs? such that the buffs cant be exploited too much, but, that 100-150% will definately make the defender desired.
Storm does a few nice things for a scrapper:
1: a heal that provides end drain resistance; just what you need before heading
into battle with a Sapper. (unless you are Claws, then you can hit the Sapper with
Focus)
2: Steamy mist is still more defense granted you. Of course, certain scrapper builds
feel nigh-invulnerable anyways, but you might be able to face mobs of 1 higher
level with this running, as you would with Maneuvers present
3: Various Storm powers are good at clearing mobs from a doorway, so you can
get inside to do your area-of-effect thing
4: Blast your foes.
On Bubblers, issue 4 added this change:
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Dark Armor/Murky Cloud, Stone Armor/Rooted, Storm Summoning/O2 Boost, Radiation Emission/Accelerate Metabolism, and Force Field/Insulation Field now offer resistance to Endurance Drain effects.
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Now, I've mentioned O2 boost a few times of course, but do you notice that
Force Field/Insulation Field is in there?
So, unlike the 30-second timer on O2 boost, FF Defenders can give 4 minutes of
Sapper-immunity at a shot.
Of course, this just means the FF Defender gives the fire/fire tank a bubble, then
sits at the front door to the mission for the 2.5 minutes it takes the fire/fire
tanker to herd and Burn the entire level. 
The weakness of the FF primary does allow one cool thing tho: the FF Defender is
freed to be an Offender, and can heavily slot his secondary. Once the fire/fire
tanker has started the burn herd, the FF Offender can reduce the 2.5 minutes
to 2.45 minutes with a well-placed nuke.
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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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I'm concerned about the "aren't needed" comment here Jack. You yourself have said that every archetype should be able to solo and the idea that a defender should be "needed" kind of flies in the face of that ideal.
On teams I can understand the "need" for each arcehtype. I myself prefer to run in pentads that way everyone has a job, knows their job and no one is stepping on anyone else's toes. I've found that these kinds of teams quickly find their rhythm and as a result are usually great fun!
Maybe adding the pentad to PVE might go a long way toward making all of the archetypes feel needed. Add a small XP bonus for pentads as incentive and see what happens. This would probably be a much more popular resolution than changing powersets. Just a thought....
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
I really don't have much to say on the subject aside from the fact that as a group leader, I tend to pick Defenders over Controllers, and as a Defender I've never had a hard time finding a group, at level 31 now, and I have been sk'ed onto teams in the 40-50 range. Rads especially. The Controller version of Accelerate Metabolism is a bit of a joke compared to the Defender one.
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Controller pet powers are just so much more powerful than their other powers that it becomes a must have. It's not good for a power set to have one amazing power and eight luke-warm ones, and that's the way that many view the controller power sets.
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You couldn't be more wrong. The lockdown powers are where it's at. Without them backing up the pet, the pet would be pointless.
Lewis
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Could we please stop perpetuating this myth? Pets don't just die Instantly if we don't hold everything. Most of them seem to survive better than multiple Blasters infact. They also spread the aggro out because there's more than 1 of them and with the right heals and buffs, can tank as long as your endurance holds up. Locking down mobs just means more damage because the pets aren't chasing mobs in circles and attacking so randomly or being held/knocked down by the mobs attacking back. But when you look at most of the pet powers, you see a stronger trend for CONTROL, not damage. However that's the last thing Pet-Herders in the Controller Forums are slotting them for, and it's the last thought on their mind when they're locking down mobs and hitting fulcrum shift/EnervatingField.
The other myth is that controllers have no damage until pets. Bull, it's just damage at the cost of control but most controllers want to stay spoiled. They don't want to go into a power pool or slot some single-target holds to do the damage themselves, they want complete lockdown, full slotting on Damage/Defense buffs, and only 4-6 slots set aside in the entire primary(pets specifically) for actual damage. ...damage which in some zookeeperish cases, outdamages defenders by whole integers, not just percents making it Uber indeed. ...What else do you call FREE DAMAGE? Pets have no endurance Bars, keep that in mind because the biggest second factor to any Defense of Damage comparisons are directly factored upon by Endurance. If it wasn't, Stamina would only be taken in this game for character concept 
Sorry if I repeat someone, everytime I went to read this thread it got longer.
I hadn't thought to notice it, but most of the people I've seen in the 40+ range are controllers, scrappers, and of course tankers. Tankers are so powerful now that many don't need anyone. Do some datamining on what level of what AT's are doing all of the killing in misisons like the portal mission Dreck and you will see it's almost entirely tankers. Most of the PLing I've seen and "bridging" is done so that the tanker is doing all or most of the work.
The biggest problem as I see it are the post pet differences between controllers and defenders. Prior to level 32 I have no problem, the complementary sets to the buff/debuff sets work well. But once pets come into the game most controllers can dominate everything and anything.
I put over 400 hours into my force field defender and got to 37 with a lot of help. I put 250 into my controller so far and got myself to 44. Post pets nothing can touch me unless I make a big mistake.
The problem with the defender/controller relationship is the same as the tanker/scrapper relationship. It's always there it just becomes much more noticeable in the late game.
After pets, controllers get all or more of the damage a defender can do, plus they get expendable teammates, PLUS buffs that are virtually indistinguishable from a defenders. You overhauled tanker and scrapper powersets to differentiate them, now it's time to do that for defenders/controllers(and give blasters some hitpoints and some survival skills in their secondary, how many blasters use melee attacks?).
My suggestions:
Defenders first and foremost need a way to be clearly better buffers/debuffers than controllers. CONTROLLER HOLDS ARE THE BEST FORM OF DAMAGE MITIGATION! If a defender can't surpass the protective abilities of controller holds, he cannot contribute as much to the team as a controller.
-Defender buffs need to be more powerful, the 80% difference isn't sufficient for anyone to notice.
-Much as I hate suggesting this idea, defenders need to be able to survive just as long as the buffed teammates in order to ensure the safety of the team. Adding the ability to self target would be an incredible boost to defender sets like EMP, FF, Storm, and Kin. This would be a defender only ability and would bring these sets further into line with the capabilities of rad/dark.
-Defender secondaries need to be more effective. Not in terms of damage control or we usurp blasters but in terms of the buff/debuff effects. Rad should debuff defense substantially, dark should dramatically affect accuracy, psy should slow recharge to a crawl, not just a slight effect.
-For the love of god, change all knockback in all powers to knockdown, and let us slot for knockback IF WE WANT IT!! Tankers can customize this, why can't defenders?? FF and storm powers would get a huge boost from this. This is why controller storm is superior to defender storm.
Giving defenders just these options would greatly ensure our survivability.
And let me echo Ninjamonkey and ask what the reasoning was behind giving dark a resistance debuff? The sets NEED to be somewhat different, you just made dark the uberset. Pets, holds, heals, mass rez, AND resistance debuff. All it's missing from the entire set is an endurance recovery boost, seriously, that's the only thing missing.
Anyway, I'm on my controller now and loving it, so do your thing. Do controllers need help pre-32 yeah definitely. But blasters and defenders need to feel as heroic to play as tankers, scrappers, and controllers do in the late game and they fall drastically short.
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-Much as I hate suggesting this idea, defenders need to be able to survive just as long as the buffed teammates in order to ensure the safety of the team. Adding the ability to self target would be an incredible boost to defender sets like EMP, FF, Storm, and Kin. This would be a defender only ability and would bring these sets further into line with the capabilities of rad/dark.
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I know a lot of people might roll their eyes at this one, but I've been playing a lot of GuildWars where all Monks and Mesmerists are allowed to use Party Buffs on themselves as well(You simply target an enemy or pick no target at all and the buff is automatically targeted at yourself instead of a teammate). It's actually a lot more balanced than you'd expect and the only questionable ones are the Self-Heals. But then self-healing is actually something CoH already shares with GW.
They should just let us buff ourselves and be damned with the consequences.
The only set that'd get really crazy would be Empaths and they'd still be no more powerful than Dark Defenders are now. And their damage would still suck.
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They should just let us buff ourselves and be damned with the consequences.
The only set that'd get really crazy would be Empaths and they'd still be no more powerful than Dark Defenders are now. And their damage would still suck.
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An Empath with self-Fortitude, self-Aid Other, self Adrenaline Boost, and self Clear-Mind.... Would be freakin scary. Can't buff their own damage? Have you seen what a combo of AB and well-slotted Fortitude can do to somebody's offence?
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They should just let us buff ourselves and be damned with the consequences.
The only set that'd get really crazy would be Empaths and they'd still be no more powerful than Dark Defenders are now. And their damage would still suck.
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Empathy would be a bit overpowered.
Adrenaline Boost - Endurance worries are a thing of the past. +Regen and +Recharge as well.
Clear Mind - A near 'Practiced Brawler' level of mez protection.
No Knockback protection but that can be remedied by Acrobatics.
Fortitude - A very high level of defense and also a nice accuracy and damage boost.
With only those 3 powers, I'd bet Empathy would become a new FOTM. 
What's the huge difference between that and how Dark is now? All you're doing is swapping your massive -90% damage for some really good +regen and +recovery.
Running the numbers... it's really not that impressive. It's sort of like SR + Regen with much less HP and much less damage.
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CONTROLLER HOLDS ARE THE BEST FORM OF DAMAGE MITIGATION! If a defender can't surpass the protective abilities of controller holds, he cannot contribute as much to the team as a controller.
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This is just to good, it hits the nail on the head (imho). A held foe is the ultimate defence. A debuffed foe still has a chance to hit. My defenders when not in the presence of a tank can draw so much aggro its almost instant death, by comparison my controller can drop in a phantom army, flash and throw down an enveration field and wave bye bye to her targets. The strength and "absolutness" of controller primaries more then makes up for the fact that their secondaries are supposed to be weaker then defenders.
I think that Defenders should be able to self-target with buffs and heals. I don't feel that this would cause a 'tank-mage' situation, as it doesn't seem to have been a problem for the Defender sets that already can use their buffs and heals on themselves, such as Dark and Radiation. (Unless they are considered 'too tough.' But I don't see that. I just see them as being able to make personal use of their powers, unlike an Empath or Force Fielder, saddled with a large number of powers that are absolutely of no use to them solo.)
For the Dark and Radiation sets, nothing would change.
For Storm, they could use O2 Boost on themselves.
For Force Field, they could use Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield on themselves.
For Kinetics, they could use Speed Boost and Increase Density on themselves.
And Empathy would make out like a bandit, being able to use Clear Mind, Fortitude and 'Heal Other' (which would need a name change, to Direct Healing, perhaps). Absorb Pain would still only affect others, since that's it's definition, absorbing pain from another source (absorbing pain from oneself wouldn't make much sense, logically).
Other Defender-related tweakage I would like to see;
The 'barbell' effect of Fulcrum Shift being applied to Transfusion and Twilight Grasp, allowing a Kinetic or Dark Defender to heal both in an area around the target mob (good for Scrappers and Tankers, up there in the mobs face) *and* in an area around the Defender (good for any Blasters and Controllers hiding in the back). (Just have those people in both areas of effect, say if the Defender happens to be in melee with the mob he targets, only be affected once. No double-healing need apply.)
I'd like for one Resurrection effect to be usable when 'defeated' like Rise of the Phoenix. Empathy would be my first choice, since the Empathy ress doesn't come with the advantageous side-effects of Dark or Radiation, but Dark and Radiation are also equally appropriate for various other reasons.
I agree that self buffing wouldn't really make defenders overpowered. It would bring the weakest soloing sets in line with the most powerful ones.
Empathy would be best off but kinetics wouldn't be too far behind with self speedboost and self increase density.
Mostly what would happen is that at lower levels, defenders would be a lot better. Perhaps unbalancingly better compared to other ATs before level 22. But it would even out at high levels, especially at level 35+.
Maybe just make it scale - at level 1 you can self-buff at 50% effect, but it scales up to level 32 (the controllers' "magic level") where you can self buff to 100% effect.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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They should just let us buff ourselves and be damned with the consequences.
The only set that'd get really crazy would be Empaths and they'd still be no more powerful than Dark Defenders are now. And their damage would still suck.
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Empathy would be a bit overpowered.
Adrenaline Boost - Endurance worries are a thing of the past. +Regen and +Recharge as well.
Clear Mind - A near 'Practiced Brawler' level of mez protection.
No Knockback protection but that can be remedied by Acrobatics.
Fortitude - A very high level of defense and also a nice accuracy and damage boost.
With only those 3 powers, I'd bet Empathy would become a new FOTM.
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by that token, apparnetly, kinetics would as well, and a couple of powers become redundant
speed boost - siphon speed is now more or less worthless, slowing the boss isnt the reason i cast it, its just a hella-nice side effect.
Since i would be able to self cast, bam, no more endurance woes, and possibly no need for hasten.
Increase density - smashing/energy resists, hell yeah, knockback, disorient, and other stuff, kick [censored]
well, thats the only two are self cast. But those are hella nice.
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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.
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I have a 50 Tanker. From about 35 to 50, I didn't need or really want Defenders on the team, with the exception of 8-person Trials. Nothing was going to kill me, and any of the other 4 ATs would add more damage and end the fight quicker. AV fights are 99% about overcoming their (stupid high) health regeneration, not withstanding their damage. While a -regen Defender can help in that regard, a Blaster, Scrapper, or Controller would have a much bigger impact in the long run.
I have a 49.9 Blaster. From about level 1 to level 50, I would have traded 7 Defenders for 1 Tanker in a second. Defenders made me safer, but Tankers made me safe. Even without aggro management, I would take a Scrapper over a Defender in any duo or group situation. The Defender debuffs and heals are never as important as having a "front line."
Do I have suggestions to help Defenders at high levels? Not really. Many things would need to be overhauled. I think that Dark and Radiation stand out currently as the premier sets and are the bar to which the others should be raised. Kinetics isn't totally broken because of its offensive potential, which is far more important than defense in the high level game. Force Field and Empathy, while good at "what they do," become less desirable simply because "what they do" is so limited and because they do not increase damage noticeably. Storm is the redheaded stepchild. Many of its knockback/scatter powers aren't just unimportant, they're unwanted and anger your teammates when you use them!
(Please note: No, I don't discriminate against Defenders when I play. I'll take anyone of any AT, because interesting combos make CoH more fun. I'm just stating my perception of what is needed, wanted, and important on teams at high levels, and hoping Statesman doesn't consider Defenders a finished work.)
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speed boost - siphon speed is now more or less worthless, slowing the boss isnt the reason i cast it, its just a hella-nice side effect.
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Use siphon speed on an AV and you will never look back. It's the only debuff that actually works on them anymore. Plus can you ever have too much hasten on some of those long recharges and nukes? Kinetics, emp, storm, and FF would all make out like crazy(assuming the knockback to knockdown change was also put into effect). And finally there would be some equality between rad/darks and the other 4 sets, as well as defenders superior at defending and controllers superior at controlling. Both of whom could then solo well.
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If that tanker has Focused Accuracy or Build Up, even the "super bubbled" friend is easily hit.
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As it should be. Third party buffs should never be as good as an entire primary or secondary powerset (Ice for Tankers and SR for Scrappers).
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But adding defense to your team is the "primary" focus of a "primary" Defender set. The defense FF defenders grant teammates is much higher than the defense we can give ourselves. How is it that our "primary" purpose should be completely negated by a "secondary" (Build Up) or even an "ancillary" (Focused Accuracy) power?
Savant
Level 50 Defender - Force Fields/Psychic Blast