Playing my archer on test, i noticed several times that defiance actually saved me from death. It states that it kicks in around 40% health and grows as you take more damage. Could someone please explain how the Developers came up with 40%??? Seems like it could stand to be a bit higher, cause with just a sliver health was when it fully kicked in and at 40% i hardly noticed the differnece (asgain tho i am only a lvl 10 archer).
I have this to say about Defiance....
Above level 40, the rate at which one's hitpoints can drop from 40% to 0%(even with the I5 HP boost) is so fast, that Defiance really has little discernable effect.
I played my blaster at 22nd level and a first level for several hours now combined on Test.
Trying to capitalize on this power will lead to death. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. In my experimentation of those few hours it has resulted in more defeat than all of my Live blasters combined.
At best the power seems to be a background effect, nothing more.
At lower levels the damage difference is too low to really lower the current number of hits required to defeat an enemy, and at higher levels if you dally below 40% you are almost guaranteed to be defeated.
Additionally, an accuracy buff would be a good addition and might even outbalance the deficiencies at lower levels. There's nothing like having a 500% buff and missing that last mob three times in a row with your attacks only to be defeated. Only happened twice, but it was still annoying because I didn't have any health inspirationst o use.
does this power affect blizzard?, since build up doesnt and u cant use red's to increase its dmg i was just wondering if defiance did.
I agree. Playing a fire/fire blaster I found that that starting defiance at 40% becomes a question of diminishing returns.
It's not worth it for me to stand in the middle of an animation waiting for the next attack to go off while I could be instead moving or dropping an inspiration. The damage return for the health loss is marginal until it is LONG past time to heal or flee. I hunted DE, Crey and Nemesisisis for about 4 hours in Eden.
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Having played on test with both a level 50 eng/eng blaster and a level 10 elec/elec, I can say that the level 10 is benefitting far more from Defiance than the level 50.
At level 10, a blaster has enough hitpoints and the enemies aren't really doing all that much damage yet, so it's entirely possible for me to be fighting at a relatively low level of HP for some time and thus profit from Defiance. For my level 50 it is a different story. There is simply too much damage going on at high levels for Defiance to be of much use. By keeping my HP at anywhere short of maximum, I was risking a single hit defeat by a boss or a quick series of attacks by minions killing me and giving me debt.
I am also very concerned about the teaming aspects of this power. There are a number of posts on these boards lamenting how defenders will concentrate on healing other AT's before blasters because we die so quickly. The added HP helps some but at high levels it is still a matter of 3-4 hits killing me. I can do well when soloing, but in teams with larger spawn sizes I tend to take more damage and die more often. I am worried that my teammates will now have a REASON not to heal me and therefore I will be dying even more often. This is especially worrying with the potential changes to tanks aggro-holding abilities (such as the 5 mobs per taunt issue).
I do not think this power is the answer to blaster's woes. I will live with it if it goes live but I would much prefer to see something else.
Blaster Defiance works well in the low levels but becomes almost pointless at the higher levels as one's health drops so fast, it can not be used. Expecting a blaster to pop 3 or 4 purple insps at low health to make use of this power is also like playing russian rouletter, waiting for that 5% chance of being hit and dropping.
I believe it needs to kick in just a bit sooner and have an accuracy buff associated with it. Even a small acc buff would make this a lot better as a blaster power.
The Legion of Freedom
I have noticed a defiance bar underneath my HP bar and there have been many times when i am well below 40% and they bar does not move. When I am blinking red I start to notice a damage increase. My question is, "Is it 40% of the health bar that defiance should kick in?" and should bar/indicator start increasing once you hit 40%? I like to use as a gage as to how I use my inspirations. If I know I can blow away the mob in time and do not need a respite then that can be usefull. Usaully i have about 2 seconds or less to make that decision 
Thanks for the feed back
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I love defiance (mostly for concept), but it is a situational benefit at best. At worst, it will get you killed.
I've been playing with low level blasters for several days on test, and have found that using Defiance pre-level 10 can help you solo quite effectively. All you need is a pocket full of awakens.
However, after 10, I doubt if we will see much use of this power... as a purposeful part of strategy, at least. The benefit isn't worth the debt risk. I'm sure it will help turn the tide of battle once in a great while, and that will be just fine, but it won't "save" the blaster AT by itself.
Of course, it isn't intended too.
My only concern is that it will be misunderstood by the general playing population and overly-effect play style in groups... with defenders not healing etc...
I guess it will be up to the blasters to educate the rest of the player base that defiance is best if just forgotten about after level 10.
Even at low levels, this power seems to kick in a little slow to be much use.
Maybe more like it kicks in at 45-50%, and climbs a little bit faster?
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Lvl 28 Ice/Ice Blaster here.
Tried it on test, and came to the conclusion that the amount of time it takes to drop to 40% is great for me to stand there, but I use the little brown defiance bar to gauge where I am at for the extra damage.
Its just not worht the risk for me to wait around. The defence/resistance I have to the anmount of damage I am taking just isn't enough for me to get more than 1 shot off. So its either take that last shot and take down the one target (granted...I'm Ice) and get the debt, or run back, pop a heal, and I'm able to stand toe to toe again with the rest of the mob as well, negating the defiance. I just found myself not willing to take the risk.
It feels like this should be an "Oh crap" power, rather than a power to give blasters the "edge" they need. I rely on it too much.
I was always a big fan of "The closer the blaster is, the harder they hit". This just seems like playing Russian Roulette with my blaster.
I've been playing around with this on my main (see sig), and I have to say it really doesn't do anything for me.
First off, the bar itself needs more of a visual pop. The fact that it turns black when it's finally full is counter-intuitive And the amount of health (about on pixel left of hp) to get to full is a bit excessive. Maybe it's my 6 slotted health working against it, but by time my hp regen tics once, it's dropped off to 1/2.
It works, and is marginally useful solo. I've still faceplated plenty using it though, since it's just a damage boost. I've wiffed more than a few times when I managed to get the bar full or nearly so, which would likely finished off the enemy, only to survive long enough for the boost to drop off significantly, get in a hit and have the mob procede to waste me. It really needs an acc boost to go along with it.
However, in a team, by the time it actually kicks in, I get healed, or I get dead. Maybe shift the hp percentages it kicks in up a bit, and scale the damage boost down a bit.
Ideally, instead of having it act like a toggle, keeping a level of buff as long as you're at a certain hp, make it more clicky. IE you hit a hp threshold, it kicks in, and stays active for a set duration, regardless of subsequent hp. That would really help blaster survivablity. In it's current implementation, it's a mechanic that I'm going to avoid.
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With my Ice/Ice, I noticed that it was at times hard to keep onesself in the sweet spot for super-uber damage. My Fire/Fire Blaster was loving it. It took a little while to adapt, but running from small group to small group annihilating 5th Council and Crey was great!
What I like about it is the risk vs reward aspect. You risk death, but you may be rewarded life. 
It will require good tactics and team help to keep a Blaster in the <40% HP range. To stay there by oneself solo, can mean an easy trip to the hospital.
EDIT I forgot to add, I was unable to test the Rains for Ice Blasters. I'm assuming since neither of these skills can be buffed in any way, they are not affected by Defiance. It might be time to start looking at these skills, same with /Dev 'pet' skills.
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I tested out Defiance with my lvl 50 Blaster...
Usually I'm dead before I can get in two shots with a Defiance boost.
I think a better system would be to have Defiance's damage boost directly inversely tied to health, so that 99% HP= +1% damage. That way no matter what a blaster's health is, if the hero is under attack, he's feeling Defiant.
Due to the scaling of the bar (0 -> 1.0), the Defiance bar is very unintuitive. Since it scales from +40% - +500%, the bar always looks mostly empty.
I'd suggest a linear scale for it. Five notches, evenly spread across the bar for each level of defiance (also with a tooltip that states at what level of health the ability kicks in).
Aside from that, the usefulness of an ability that encourages a Blaster to spend more time in battle once in the <40% HP range is a bit suspect. I didn't find that it helped any more than popping an inspiration for me.
Perhaps starting the effect earlier, or adding a minor amount of DEF at the <10% mark would make this more viable?
The problem with late-game Blasters in my eyes is that almost everything fired at them hits them, almost every attack carries an undefendable status effect of some sort, and if they're unlucky a few attacks will kill the Blaster before they have time to use a Respite.
Since the current Defiance meter is slow to react and only does so at certain HP levels, Blasters trying to capitalize on it (as Stateman suggested in the previous thread) become even more flimsy. Blasters that are under fire will be dead before the meter even charges.
Defiance is a very nice early game addition, having played a newly-rolled Blaster on Test. Late game characters recieve little benefit however.
This will cause Blasters to fly through the early game quicker than ever, will slow them down at the same point in the 20's, and will cause them to hit the wall at the exact same point in the late 30's.
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Level 50 Ice/Ice Blaster Here.
This is probably the most creative fix in the game in I5. As I play with my Sonic/Energy blaster I have to say at low levels this is functional when soloing. When in teams I find that I have to specifically ask to be healed.
I have to say defiance is extremely disfunctional at the high levels as I go down to fast for the bar to grow. In missions I find my self at 40% and then at 0% in an average of 3 hits. The only way to avoid this is using a huge amount of of purple inspirations and ofcourse in a mission this can only be done once. I would rather get healed than try to get my defiance bar up.
Two Points:
1) Defiance works pretty well, but is very dangerous for a blaster. I recommend switching scrapper criticals and defiance around. It really sounds like something for a scrapper; and scrappers loose health slowly, where blasters loose it fairly quickly.
2) Add some kind of aura or something that tells us when it is on. I was thinking the aura from DM Soul Drain in a different color would look cool.
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Still wondering why an additionnal source of offensive power was added through defiance when blasters said since they pointed out their lack of survability that more offense wasn't the solution.
A blaster start to sweat when under 70% of his hp, because he can easily two-shooted, if not one-shooted since lot of villains got criticals component in their attacks, even minions (pointed out since criticals were introduced, despite Positron saying it should only be a bug at this time, and each issue had an additionnal load of villains with criticals, latest being the infamous Paragon Protectors).
Not speaking about the fact they are outdamaged and outranged in late game. Even a long range attack like sniper blast is outranged by a minion (nemesis, maltas, tyrant army, ...)
Of which use Defiance will be to blasters ? Having them to be at under 40% of their HP is like asking them digging their own tomb, especially in late game.
Giving more firepower to blasters won't help, they are already able to take aggro from well played tankers.
Btw, an empath is not able to keep a blaster alive when under heavy fire in late game.
The most intrigate thing here is the fact blasters already have all they need to survive :
range, damage, single target hold, even nice resistance armor through APP.
But all of those is of no use, for only one reason : lack of status effect protection.
Drop a stun grenade, drop a sleep, drop a hold, the blaster is helpless. He can't attack, he can't hold, he can't move, he lost all the protections he have. What's the purpose of, if it was possible, being able to oneshoot an even boss if the blaster is helpless ?
With the actual late game, post lv35, all villains, starting with minions, have status effects attack, and it become galore post lv40. Even the simple ranged attack of a carnie has a disorient effect in (or had, didn't check this in particular since issue 4 was out). Not speaking about maltas grenade with a 40 sec aoe stun duration.
Just for his own survability, a blaster have to use a complete load of break free inspirations, and it sometimes not enough for a single mission. First, it's completly insane, and second, such behavior shouldn't be a mandatory. Inspirations are here to help you when things are getting bad. If at each encourter, things are bad, there's a real problem somewhere.
You want to solve the blaster lack of survability ? Dump the defiance attack boost, give them mag6 status resistance to resist 2 status effect attacks, you'll see the result.
And do the same for defenders and human kheldians, they deserve and need it.
I like it, though I agree that at the higher levels the precipitous drop from 50% to 0% hit points happens too fast to make this worthwhile.
We had a blast (no pun intended) with it doing mid-20s missions, though. I had a friend who kept seeing how close he could get it, I'd try and taunt them off him after he got very close to 0. He died a couple of times, but the new debt rules helped there. Had my bacon saved twice when Blasters unleashed at very low hit points (though one died in the exchange).
Scorus
Defiance can be exciting and useful sometimes, but it's far from being as useful in practice as it is in theory.
First of all, I strongly disagree with Statesman's posted 'tactic' of using defiance. I tried a few times to use it that way, but it tends to lead to early death, particularly from missing the enemies that have been pounding on you. Couple that with the way the health meter updates currently on test (which I hope is fixed/rolled back), which doesn't let you see exactly where your health/defiance is as quickly as you need it, and it's just a bad idea.
Defiance does, however, work well as a passive ability. While keeping your health up as best you can, it kicks in when you don't have any other other recourse left, and it's exhilirating when literally backed into a corner, flashing red, and have one chance for a final gambit.
In this vein, however, I don't believe defiance kicks in soon enough. While, by the numbers, it does kick in at 39% or so, it seems like it is much lower before kicking in, and, realistically, I think what I call 'Blaster Panic', where you're worried for your continued well-being, hits more around 60% or so. Even with the increased hit point total, Blasters are frail and seeing something as significant as losing almost half your hit points is cause to at least start popping more inspirations, and, I feel, a more logical point to give the starting defiance boost.
To summarize, Defiance seems best used passively, not actively, and the threshhold currently seems to be set too low.
Otherwise, and excellent addition to the blaster archetype, and the overall comic-book feel of the game.
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Defiance has been useless for me the past 3 days on Test, both as a level 50 energy/energy and as a brand-new lowbie Archery/energy. It doesn't save you from death, and the fact that accuracy also doesn't increase means that I spend most of the lowbie's defiant points missing the mob.
I was fine with my blaster as she was, so Defiance is just neutral for me.
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Something someone figured out rather quickly, is that you can throw yourself off buildings, take lots of damage, and get defiance as a result. It seems that falling damage was reduced in I5, which means we shouldn't actually see City of Lemmings, but still, near miss there...
Also, rather than making it your health, maybe make it damage taken in the last 60 seconds? So, if you threw yourself at some -3s, got battered down to 10% health, then wander off to fight your real target, it won't work. However, if you're in combat and taking heavy fire, it'll be great, and the healer doesn't have to avoid you!
Blaster defiance would be better served if it kicked in at 70% with a consumately lower bonus, say around 40%. this would allow blasters to use it tactically, particularly at lower lvls.
Though such a useful power requires some element of risk, the current setup requires more leeway in order for that risk to be acceptable for many.
When a Blasters health drops below 40%, they will begin to see an increase in their damage output. A small increase at first, but the lower their health gets, the bigger the increase becomes.
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