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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.
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Over my dead body. Leave us the Hell alone. We didn't ask for you guys to get Defiance. Don't push it off on us.
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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.
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Over my dead body. Leave us the Hell alone. We didn't ask for you guys to get Defiance. Don't push it off on us.
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Yeah, really. At first glance, it sounded like a good suggestion; but criticals have historically been associated in RPGs with melee users and not ranged-attack types (specifically, non-lethal damages); besides, the cat's out of the bag, so-to-speak. If scrappers had started with 'defiance' first, that'd be one thing (and I think it does fit, thematically). Hypothetically speaking, if they gave criticals to blasters as well, they'd really have to call it something else, such as 'vital strike' or something.
Criticals are a 'lock' for scrappers. Defiance, well, that'll need some tweakin'...
...seems like a whole lotta code and graphics going on in that little bar, considering what it does (or doesn't do).
Sorta like a long run for a short slide, dontcha think?
I think what both of you are obliquely saying is that Defiance is a stinker 
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I think what both of you are obliquely saying is that Defiance is a stinker
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When I first heard of the concept on the beta board, I suggested instead that the power work off of the current debt that the Blaster has, instead of their current health.
My name for it was the Debt Cannon.
As a sarcastic aside, I stated that, unfortunately, it would make all Blasters overpowered.
I'd have to agree that defiance is of limited value at the higher levels. It does work out to a huge string of "ifs" for it to help at all - i.e. if you happen to take damage to drop your HP down to the right level (without dropping too far) and if you are only facing one or two baddies and if you happen to have a power available in that golden moment before you die and if you actually hit the baddie. It's not that defiance is particularly bad, it just seems kind of pointless to put so much work into something that you would want to avoid using as much as possible.
The other part of this is something I think CoH is doing an increasingly poor job of - information to the player. It seems like we're getting too many things being represented to us visually that require us to take our eyes off of the main battle area. Why not change the sound of the attack when defiance kicks in? When you're flirting with death to begin with, glancing up to see where you defiance meter is can be a very bad idea. At least make some kind of change to the damage numbers onscreen. For instance, if the normal power would hit at 50HP and defiance added an extra 10, instead of just showing 60 over the baddies head, show 50 +10. Seeing concrete evidence of it's effect would help people to feel it's a useful power.
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That's just not true. Blasters were NOT given a bonus to damage, EXCEPT when close to death. In fact, Blasters' initial damage output has been reduced, making them weaker.
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I wasn't aware that Blaster damage had been reduced, however Scrapper damage has been INCREASED, which means that in a comparison of a Blaster to a Scrapper, the Scrapper still does more damage. About 21% more damage, to be precise, far more than the Blaster will be getting, on average, from Defiance.
I disagree that Defiance fits thematically with the Scrapper. The problem is that a Scrapper DOES have Defense, and thus has more control over his hit points. A Blaster has Defiance, more than likely, because he IS in extreme danger when low on hit points. A Scrapper, (other than SR) would be better able to exploit Defiance because he takes damage more predictably. (In smaller amounts due to Resistance, and less often due to Defense)
I think that one thing that needs to be done to "fix" Defiance is not to change how soon it activates, but to change its duration. Instead of having Defiance follow HP second by second, have it determined by the lowest HP has been for the last two to four seconds. So if you are hit by a massive attack that drops you into the red, FIRST you pop a Respite, and THEN you attack, knowing that you'll get the "benefit" of taking that hit for the next two seconds.
The other thing that needs to change is that Defiance needs to be based on total damage, not base damage, like Critical and Containment are. There's no sense in trying to compare Critical to Defiance when their damage bonus isn't even applied according to the same rules.
Way late on this but here's my take on Defiance. I am replying to the original post.
I have blasters ranging from levels 8 through 36. I have tested Defiance on all of them. After having done so, my conclusion is that the ability is essentially worthless. Now, there's no harm in it as you can easily ignore it and play as usual, but I honestly think the programming time and effort that went into coding it was a waste, it is just too situational for the minor payoff it gives.
A blaster than can stay alive will almost always outdamage a blaster that is defeated shortly after Defiance has kicked in and started buffing their damage.
I do not have any suggestions on how to improve Defiance, save to abandon the concept as one that doesn't work and to start over. Controllers get Containment, an excellent ability that allows for double damage and makes their solo life much easier, scrappers get criticals, which, while random, provide a significant damage boost without any special effort on their part and tankers get Gauntlet (punchvoke), the ability to keep the enemies on them and away from their teammates, perfectly dovetailing with their role on a team.
In comparision, Defiance is little more than a gimmick. I don't know what sort of inherent ability a blaster should get but for me Defiance is a non-starter.
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I have blasters ranging from levels 8 through 36. I have tested Defiance on all of them. After having done so, my conclusion is that the ability is essentially worthless. Now, there's no harm in it as you can easily ignore it and play as usual, but I honestly think the programming time and effort that went into coding it was a waste, it is just too situational for the minor payoff it gives.
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I agree. It also introduces a posionous element into play, where some defenders in a pug won't heal the blasters, because they want them to do more damage, or some blasters wrongly believe this is going on (when it isn't).
Blaster hits were upped, up blaster def as well in place of defiance. Better yet, just up blaster damage across the board by a low amount, like 20%, and forget about tying it to damage.
Partial Character List: http://www.warlock-inc.com/CharList.html
My understanding was that Defiance was initiated to reduce Blaster deaths. The realization was that Blasters were coming a hair's breath from defeating their enemies before dying. This was particularly obvious in Solo play.
What defiance has done, in my personal gaming experiance, is reward intelliegent play of Blasters in Solo situations with an approximately 50% better chance to survive an encounter that otherwise would have resulted in certain death.
This was not a "Get Out of Debt Free" card. This was just to even the odds a bit and create a more even playing field when compared to the other ATs. That's been my experiance with the ability and I've enjoyed that experiance a lot more than I was before.
Luerim
To be honest, my first thought when my health bar gets low isn't "Oh good, Defiance will kick in now," it's "Holy crap, do I have any heal inspirations?" or "FLY AWAY!!!"
There are simply too many mobs I face right now (doing a lot of Tsoo and BP missions) that can stun or sleep or hold me, and Defiance doesn't do a thing when you can't take any actions and an Ink Man is wailing away on you. I'm better off bailing or popping an inspiration than waiting for more damage to kick in -- it's the damage I'm taking that's the problem, not the damage I'm giving out.
I find the added damage given by defiance would have been delivered with much less risk (and debt) if I simply did the intelligent thing.
Got out of the line of fire, recovered, and came back to wipe the offending party out.
Blaster HP gains were more than balanced out by the gutting of the powers that gave Blasters DEF and Resistances in the first place- mostly the pool powers, but also Cloaking Device and the various APP shields.
And from my own testing at the top and the bottom, I find Defiance lacking. It doesn't feel organic to the character's play, unlike other AT-wide powers. A Controller does what comes naturally to benefit. A Scrapper does what comes naturally to benefit. A Tanker does what comes naturally to benefit.
A Blaster does what incurs debt (jokes aside, Blasters are not supposed to die when looked at funny) to "benefit" from a power that a modest buff from a Defender will replace.
Low HP is a reason to escape, not a reason to encourage a Blaster to keep shooting. If Defiance acted like a mez resist booster, I guarantee it'd benefit Blasters a thousand thousand times better than the current incarnation. People don't go into fights down on health to avoid a potential mez.
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In fact, Blasters' initial damage output has been reduced, making them weaker.
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What on earth are you talking about? Blasters haven't seen a reduction in their base damage, early-level damage or any such thing.
Defiance's increase in damage has only helped my blaster seemingly once. (and i went down with that troll) I've only had it go as high as 1/8 of the meter and I can't figure out how defiance is really all that helpful. Maybe if it kicked in at about 50% and incresed more quickly the longer you were under 50% or if the increase was greater with every consecutive hit on the blaster getting the defiance bar to maybe 50% or more, more often would be more what was expected from this power.
When I first heard about this power I was really excited. My vision was of a blaster cornered and fighting like some sort of wild animal and just reaping total destruction upon anything that came in range. However, that's not what I've really been seeing.
Maybe instead of just a damage increase it would be a recharge reduction and end cost reduction for all powers according to what percent of health had been lost (then with a percentage bonus when the bar turns yellow and another larger percentage bonus when the bar turns red. Allowing them to fire off more attacks before succombing or potentially surviving but being totally exhuasted for a little bit. This would allow as much as a 2x bonus (to overall damage yield) to the blasters attacks but achieveing that kind of bonus to attack would probably be only survivable for a few seconds at best. Because blasters are so soft they would still require healing and the "exhuastion" (kinda like a defiance debt that would have to be worked off with downtime and/or using the rest power) wouldn't hamper defiances climb to the 100% buff to damage yield. meanig that unless you rested for a considerable time your defiance would not be able to climb above say 50% of the potential damage yield after living through a battle at the highest damage potentials. The "exhuastion" would continue you to build up any time you fought and lost health.
ok to recap
1) increase the defiance bonus with more than just a damage buff that kicks in at 40%. make it so that its equal to the percentage of health lost.
2) Add "exhuastion" to balance the new damage potential. Every time a player loses more that 30% of his health (and potentially gains a 30% buff to overall damaging ability) that player will begin to acquire "exhuastion points" that will limt the bonus the player recieves in the next fight due to defiance. These exhuastion points can only be worked off by resting and staying out of major combat.
Roxy On DA...Finally!
Simple post...
Defiance is a waste of time.
Everyone else has covered all the reasons above....I personally feel it's been put in as some sort of cynical attempt to pacify an Archetype hit heavily by the defence nerfs.
I could of course be wrong...but that's how I feel...and that's really all that's important to me.
I think that deficiance is a good idea, but implemented poorly.
It kicks in too late, for too little. I have yet to be in a situation where I was happy that defiance was active. I've never felt like "whew, glad I've got defiance, it really saved my butt."
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
I think the biggest problem is that we can't really see the effects of defiance. If the bonus damage showed up as separte, much the way Scrapper crits do, people would see the extra. Right now we get the benefits, but don't really see them. How many times do you look at your defiance bar and damage output in the middle of an upper level fight during normal play? I know I don't have that kind of time, if my health is going down I am looking for a heal, not how much more damage I am doing.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
I haven't had my account active for a long time, so I gave things a go over the free long weekend.
From what I can see I agree with almost everyone else, defiance does not appear to do anything. If your health is below 40% you are probably taking too much damage too quickly for it too help. If you are fighting correctly your health should only dip below 40% once and a while.
Mabe if it kicked in at a different % you would notice it doing something. OR if it was a flat high bonuse at at 40% it would do something you could see.
I just play as if it isn't there, it doesn't seem to improve or detract from my previous play style.
I would have to agree that the Defiance meter is nice, but when the bullets start flying then the first thing you are going to have your eyes pinned on is the action, and the second thing is your health meter. For the multitaskers out there, End might be the third thing. ^_^ What you probably aren't going to have time to watch is the Defiance.
There have been some good suggestions for inferring to the player that they are in 'Defiance mode' with more center-of-the-screen data. For instance, the 'blasts' that the player throws out could become visually bigger as Defiance kicks in. Obviously though, this is an art-related matter and could be more time and trouble to implement than is percieve worthwhile.
Certainly, I wouldn't mind seeing an addition next to the damage numbers getting reeled off. This second number would be the percentage bonus that Defiance is providing, and the size of the font (if such things are possible) could become bigger and more apparant as Defiance goes up. For those that have played Unreal Tournament, it's like the "Monster Kill" combo - you keep telling the player that they are racking up greater and greater bonuses: "Bang! 100%! Bang! 150%! BANG! 175! BAAANG!! 200%!" etc. etc.
(As a random aside, those that advocate switching Scrapper Criticals with Defiance might want to have a rethink. There might be a lot of players right now that are disgruntled with Defiance, but at least you know when it's going to kick in. Scrapper's appreciate their Criticals no doubt; but the random nature of the damn things all too often means either:
"Oh, hell yeah, I just took that minion out with one hit! Did you guys see that? One hit! Oh yeah, I'm a One Hit Wonder..." *starts singing*
and:
"Come on... come on! Gimme a Crit or this boss is going to toast me... Crit Crit Crit Crit Crit... come on, Crit... oh no..."
Debt: "HELLO SCRAPPER. GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN.")
Sorry this power does nothing to keep me from dying. Rethink it or just get rid of the thing. Plenty of other people can give you details. He is my gut feeling
Having an ability that you can only use when your near death ( when you should be popping a green) or has the side effect of people NOT healing you is worthless.
Defiance is too little too late, simply put. I have noticed it exactly 2 times. Once on my elec blaster in croatoa, I did a Havok punch on a Pumpkin boss to finish it with my meter about 1/3 up roughly. The other time I noticed it was with my lvl 5 sonic blaster. I did "bust Destroyer and his guards" in GC. I used the free hospitol bus ride to get back to the square with the no debt thing. First though, I went Kamikazee in the red zone park against a bunch of Vaz. Picked up over a tab while running in the red. I would however, never, ever, ever do this when debt was a factor. I hate debt, especially once you get into the high 20's and lvl rate really starts to drop off.
Also, my favorite has to be when you are fighting a boss, its a pretty even fight. You both are getting low on HP, your defiance meter starts rising....."oh man, my power burst is going to save my can!!.....come on!!!...."
WHIFF!!!!!!! IT TOTALLY MISSES!!
Why isnt acc upped at the same rate as this dmg increase? A whole lot of freeking good it does to do 400% dmg, when the bolts shoot straight into the air into the ceiling, and the tsoo boss grins at you and then runs you through sending you to the hosp. I would be better off saving build up to when I might die just so I get the acc bump. Of course, the dmg bump is overlap and totally wasted by then.
Mostly, I dont like it. I am glad they added some various mez protection to some of the pools, I am glad they raised the HP. Defiance could be useful, but the ramp on the dmg curve needs to be flattened out by a lot. Add an acc boost to it, and it might pass for an inherent power. It needs to be more reliable.
Liberty server
Eldagore lvl 50 Inv/ss, co-founder of The Legion of Smash
3.5 servers of alts....I need help.
May the rawk be with you.
Arc #'s
107020 Uberbots!
93496 A Pawn in Time
To me, it seems extremely useless. I have a lvl 27 fire/fire blaster, and at that level he is too busy (a) hitting greens to get health if soloing, (b) begging my doc for a heal, (c) running screaming like a little girl. Its not worth the risk of debt for that iffy chance of hitting 1 megablast.
Now I have a belief if you are going to complain about something, bring a solution to the table. Here is what I think -
Its my understanding that the defiance is kind of a "oh? well, I am NOT going down like that..." and he pulls from down deep a bit of "ticked off" to increase his damage. What if all blasters had an inherant power that only became active when their health dropped below x%? In this instance, I would actually think of lowering the %, maybe 30% instead of 40%, but then the dipping down that low activates the inherant power. Then if you get a heal, you have a 1-time damage increase blast to be used when you wish. A few simple guidelines - it doesn't stack - if you dip down again before you use it, you still only have one. It also would void out when you leave the mission you are in or if you revive in the hospital it's gone. The amount of increase would needto be worked out... maybe it locks in the the % increase at the lowest point you hit before receiving health? say if the increase at 10% is +50% to dmg, and you hit 10, then pop a green or take a heal, then your one-shot power increase is activated at that percent of increase, while if you hit the green at 25% health, then its locked in at the % of increase for that?
This also will help with the ACC, because if you can control WHEN you use the defiance blast, then you can pop a yellow for an ACC increase beforehand.
Just throwing an idea on how to make defiance actually work to a blasters advantage.
I friggin love Defiance....but of course I am at the Debt Cap :-) Seriously tho, I can see why a lot of blasters don't like it. I spent all weekend playing around with it and discovered that you truly can't rely on it.
I decided that I didn't care about debt untill I could use Defiance effectively. In a solo environment it actualy works very well against even cons. You can one shot Lts. The real problem is that you have to expect to die if you want to use it.
I used defiance to Solo the keep 30 fir blogs from entering door mish. I wouldn't have been able to do it without it, however I died 4 times.
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Now I have a belief if you are going to complain about something, bring a solution to the table. Here is what I think -
[suggestion deleted for space]
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I've made that suggestion myself, and I think it's a reasonable addition to the concept. In the game "Monster Rancher", there's a concept called "Power", which randomly kicks in if your monster gets below 10% health. It lasts a considerable amount of time once it kicks in, enough for three or four attacks, and it gives you a last ditch chance to turn the fight around. Which I believe is what this "Defiance" is supposed to be.
The duration is something that can be balanced out with testing, but the basic concept should have a number of advantages over the current implementation. First of all, there is a visual indication that you are in "Defiance mode", even if it's just the word "Defiance!" appearing above you as in a Critical. You then have several seconds to react, whether it's using Accuracy Inspirations, setting up a massive attack, or getting an ally to heal you while you get ready.
The problem with Defiance is that if you deal rationally with the situation that got you into Defiance, you lose it. Whereas if you could deal with the situation and still have the Defiance, it would be far more useful. In some cases, I've even had the regeneration from my character's normal healing rate cause Defiance to disappear before I can even get the chance to use it.
Of course the other advantage of making it more random is that you could standardize the bonus to a single value, double damage. You would then be less likely to go into Defiance if you had more hit points. OTOH, it would work just fine to have Defiance levels of 40%, 80%, 100%, and so on just as with the current system. It's just once Defiance "kicks in", you are guaranteed to have it for a sufficient amount of time to use it.
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I will also add that even before Defiance was suggested, I had an idea for what I called an "Anti-Critical". Instead of being triggered when you attacked, it would be triggered when you were HIT. Your next attack would then be double damage. Except for the restriction that the attack has to put you below a certain hit points (and obviously there would be a very low random chance of it happening in my old system, while in yours its automatic) the two ideas are pretty much the same.
I love the hp boost but with defiance...where to start?
Some people say blasters should quit whining when the Devs gave you something, and you didn't get hit by all the nerfs like the other ATs.
Nerfs-
-AoE (blasters have the largest amount of damage AoEs)
-defense (now power pools are of questionable benefit)
-resistance (APP got hit)
While there were no direct nerfs to blasters, we did get hit by several of them.
2nd defiance doesn't address what I see as the main problem of blasters. We don't need more damage. We need a way to survive when we start taking damage, because the <@#$%> hit the fan.
We need upped accuracy with defiance as is, or mez protection, or an added defense bonus (<30%).
NOT more damage which was drawing all that attention to us in the first place.
My main problem with defiance is it didn't help blasters much, and I can see the devs using defiance as an excuse not to work on the blaster AT because of it.
BUT if defiance remains the same allow it to record the total % of hitpoints lost over the last 30-60 sec.
for example a blaster with 1000 hp
example battle
-hit for 600 damage 60% damage (buff kicks in)
-healed for 500 (2 sec)
-hit for 400 (5 sec) 100% damage (maybe 250% buff)
-heal self for 600 (19 sec)
-hit for 500 (20 sec) 150% damage (400%?)
use similar values for the defiance buff but allow healing to take place. Don't force an AT with low tolerance for damage to live at deaths edge. Make it so Defiance rewards you for helping out your team when heavy damage is coming in WITHOUT requiring you to get close to death (almost impossible) and stay there.
No other Inherent power penalizes you for taking powers that help protect you like Defiance does.
Let me share with you what happened to me while on the test server trying out several different builds with my blaster on a freak mission.
I was fighting a boss one on one, on this build I had Tough.
I attack chain boss. Boss is down to about 60% health.
Boss hits me, takes me down to 45% health in one hit.
I attack chain boss. Defiance helps do a bit more damage, Boss is now at about 10%-20% health.
Boss hits me once again, dead.
Same fight, same mission, different build. This time I have Health 6 slotted and no tough.
I attack chain boss. Boss is down to about 60% health, again.
Boss hits me, takes me down to about 20% health in one hit.
I heal to much damage, so when I attack chain next, I dont get much if any defiance boost, about the same as I did in the previous example so the boss health is now about 10%-20%.
Boss hits me a second time, im dead, again.
Final test run, this build doesnt have either health or tough, or any other self improvement buffs running.
I attack chain boss. Boss health at about 60%, as expected.
He smacks me again, as expected, im down to about 20% health.
Defiance kicks in, and pretty much remains so since I dont have health 6 slotted anymore. I attack chain boss, and take him out with my buffed attack chain.
Now, the reason this even struck me odd, was because of the manner in which the events happened. Let me explain.
All three test fights out of sheer coincidence ended up being re-enacted identically out of dumb luck. So when I saw the effects of what happened in all three situations, and how having self buffing powers was actually a HINDERANCE, then I knew something was terribly wrong with this. This power should NOT make you weaker for having self improvement powers.
In fact, if I were to repeat this test over and over, about the only way that the events would turn out differently is if either the boss or myself MISS an attack.
But if you were to duplicate the series of attacks and if each of us managed to land every attack, then you will see that NOT having self buffing powers is actually BETTER than having them. That seems like the wrong way to go about adding an inherent power to an AT, it should NEVER be a hinderance to you, at the very least it should just be a useless effect, but when it's actively making you weaker in certain instances, then it's broken and needs to be fixed.
Just my observations, take them as you see fit.
"All that crap is grey to me, no XP." - Positron 5/15/05 8:36am . . . The world stopped and silence ensued except for the sound of a crying infant off in the distance.
"Everyone needs to chill the hell out." - BackAlleyBrawler 11/13/08 3:26pm . . . Geeks around the world stopped and blinked.
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Why am I not surprised to see people actually complaining about this bonus damage Blasters were given without anything having been taken away? Keep in mind Blasters also got a nice health bonus as well, so being below 50% isn't quite as dangerous as it used to be.
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That's just not true. Blasters were NOT given a bonus to damage, EXCEPT when close to death. In fact, Blasters' initial damage output has been reduced, making them weaker.
The extra HP is smoke up a Blasters rear, they're still squishy as ever. Increase their DEF if you want to see the extra HP make a worthy difference, and I'd rather have no Defiance at all if it means more damage output initially again.