I like the idea in general but in actual gameplay it is pretty useless as it is now. It is 'too little, too late' and it needs to kick in much sooner.
I have tested this on test and ran 5 missions. Defiance helped me in 1 battle and that was to take out a straggling minion I probably could have defeated without defiance.
Encouraging the squishiest (is that a word?) AT to remain low on health in order for their inherent power to kick in is suicide. I feel it should scale similar to the following...
90% health - Defiance gives +10% boost to damage +5% boost to ACC
80% health - Defiance gives +20% boost to damage +10% boost to ACC
70% health - Defiance gives +30% boost to damage +15% boost to ACC
60% health - Defiance gives +40% boost to damage +20% boost to ACC
50% health - Defiance gives +50% boost to damage +25% boost to ACC
40% heatlh - Defiance gives +60% boost to damage +30% boost to ACC
30% health - Defiance gives +120% boost to damage +50% boost to ACC
20% health - Defiance gives +240% boost to damage +75% boost to ACC
10% health - Defiance gives +400% boost to damage +100% boost to ACC
I've found it to be useful, sometimes, on my sonic blaster. for my level 50, it never even went up. I actually saw, at one point, the hospital screen pop up when my health bar was green and my defiance bar was empty. THEN the damage caught up with me and I fell down. I've been reluctant to post anything about defiance because the lag issues on test make it difficult to actually test the power. I don't think that it will be a major, all-the-time boost, nor will it be something to actively try. This power seems more like "I'm taking you with me" than anything.
I think it would benefit both AT's if this were switched with scrapper criticals. Scrappers would be more able to use defiance, and we could always benefit from a more consistant chance for double damage.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
I like that you all are trying to find a way to keep the blasters alive, kicking and more a part of the game. That being said, the Defiance thing just doesn't seem to be working it for me. I think by the time a blaster is down around 50 to 60% of health, they are beating feet elsewhere...not staying around thinking, "GREAT! Now I can do more damage as they kill me." I think Blasters in general might be better with a critical hit system (generically speaking), but their secondaries need to be looked at for other versions of defenses---a small / personal defense mitigator, a personal mezz & hold mitigator, some things that will keep them ALIVE not help them kill more as they're dying. By the time they're taking that much damage, it's already too late. Their damage output is great as it is...they just need to be able to stay and fight...and not aggro an entire screen's worth of bad guys. That being said, though...if I5 taunt changes go through...you KNOW where all those additional attacks (that a tanker can't hold) will be headed don't you?
~ Jonathan
I have been playing a blaster since I started. over 600 hours to level my blaster to 50. So, I would like to think I have an idea of what I am talking about.
Defiance is something I will not rely on. After testing it, I found I could not make use of it because my hp was too low by the time it kicked in and my shots were missing.
Blasters, IMO, don't need more damage, they need less aggro. In test, when I would fire something with a longer animation, the enemy in question had already turned and spotted me before the power even went off. (Not talking snipe here.) With snipe, they spotted me immediately after they got hit.
When I get hit by a ranged fighter, I usually have to look around to see who hit me. Enemies should have to do that too. Especially with a snipe attack. Unless I am in melee range with my blaster, I should not have instant aggro. I think that's something that will help blaster's survivability.
Defiance will cause new blasters to die more as they try to get that boost in damage (which can be accomplished well enough with Build up and Aim).
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
Defiance needs to start kicking in earlier. 60-70%. As many have said, at the upper levels the difference between 40% and dead is usually one or two shots. The damage increase should also scale a bit better.
Also, since the theme is defying the odds and blaster survivability, why not add more buffs to the defiance bar? Defiance should give a buff to damage, accuracy, defense *and* mez protection. Like a souped up Vengeance that only kicks in when youre about to die (heh, everyone else has been using the blaster corpse for Vengeance, now its time for the blaster to get the advantage!)
If nothing else though, at least toss in the mez protection as damage is dealt, because blasters tend to die most often when mezzed. For a high level blaster, hold = death, and all they can do is sit, watch, and moan as they get picked off with no chance to flee. With mez protection, the blaster might have a shot at fighting back or at least running when damage pushed the bar high enough to break out of the mez.
In short, like the concept, but think that its not going to make much difference to the higher level blaster unless more buffs then damage are added.
Sometimes the enemy is so swift and the path so treacherous that you can run no further.
It is then that you must turn and resolve to fight
and in all likelihood die horribly
but you never know when you are going to get lucky, so go for it!
- Captain Fwiffo
So far all I have noticed is a few extra points in damage from what I normally do when my health is in the red. That was with a low level sonic blaster, have yet to try my main. But to me more damage is nice and all, but shouldn't it also have maybe a small ACC buff? More damage is nice but when your health is in the danger zone already being able to hit the target is just as important.
Its good power when youre a lowbie but at 50 and trying to take any damage on purpose just to get a small boost will result in more deaths than victories. Blasters are too fragile for defiance to be effective at higher levels. The idea is good but could be great with a little tweaking.
Defiance itself is not a significant factor in my gameplay, so I have no overt objections to it unto itself. If anything, it is in fact a buff to my blasters with no directly negative effects, so there is a net gain so I'll be hard-pressed to scoff at it.
What does concern me is if Defiance is intended as "the Blaster Fix." It does not adequately address the problem of blasters surviving counter-alphastrikes.
Increasing blaster HPs does in fact help that, and it makes Defiance more likely to come into play. That, I wholly support. I can state from playtesting that the increased HPs feel like a godsend without Defiance factored in at all.
What disappoints me most, however, is the post that Statesman offered in which he directly encouraged defenders and tankers to not assist blasters and keep them "redlining" as much as possible. He suggested that blasters actively seek punishment from counter-alphastrikes and revel in their new beatdown powers.
I joked elsewhere that I'm going to whip up a Fire/Fire/Fire blaster with Vengeance and consider Rise of the Phoenix as a routine attack power. If I'm meant to "live on the redline" I may as well embrace the pain and earn XP twice as fast to offset permadebt's half-XP gain rate. 
To summarize: Defiance is fine, and with the increased HPs it may actually get some use. I don't think it's an adequate fix for blasters; I think AI behavior and powerset adjustments are required for that.
In the early levels Defiance can be utilized and gives some benefit. Even so, it's a risky propostion that all too frequently leads to a hospital trip. The point at which Defiance begins to have an impact needs to come sooner and it would be nice if, in addition to a damage boost, the power also slightly boosted accuracy (too many times my Defiance-boosted damage was wasted due to missing). I also discovered that some people assumed blasters don't want to be healed now because of Defiance. I hope this is just something that showed up on the test server because people wanted to actually see what Defiance could do. On live if that trend continues I can see Defiance causing more harm than good.
At level 50 I found Defiance was not effective. I couldn't rely on it. And trying to use it was far, far too risky. The number of situations where it could be used that didn't immediately lead to defeat were very, very small.
If this ability was meant to give blasters a boost across all levels, it fails. It does help the early levels somewhat but becomes meaningless at the high-end of the game.
Worthless in its current form.
Others have provided more than enough detail. I agree.
Replace the well-intended-but-misguided Defiance damage buff with some form of temporary mez protection. The worse off you are, the more important it becomes that you not be taken down by a hold or sleep. No blaster in his right mind wants to stay badly wounded for a damage buff, when the difference between wounded and dead is often a single attack. It needs to kick in a little sooner, though ... like +1 at about 60% up to about +6 at 10% ... and be effective instantaneously.
I don't recall innumerable blasters begging for more damage to solve our high-level survivability problem. Over and over and over, people beg for some form of mez protection. Not as good as the tank/scrap ATs, just something. Protection that kicks in when you're damaged is an acceptable compromise. A blaster with Defender backup (and the finally-rational 500% cap) is worth plenty of damage. It's that one huge liability, mezzing, that's leads to such rapid and brutal death against Maltas, Riktis, Carnies, etc (especially Maltas and their forever-stun grenades).
-FCM
Please try MA arc ID 351455, "Shard Stories: Scavenger's Hunt." Originally created for the Dr. Aeon contest, it explores the wild potential of one of the City's most concept-rich but content-poor settings: the Shadow Shard.
Yup, it can't be effectively used, thus does not fix any of the problems.
Maybe it should be reversed, instead of it giving you extra damage you get huge boosts in defence, this will add to over all survivability.
I agree with Furio's assessment.
Defiance is a good idea, but it's implementation and visual support are a bit lacking.
#1: If Defiance had a countdown timer to give the Blaster the buff even after they are healed from the "danger zone", it would make the power a viable resource to be used after "paying the price" of almost faceplanting. BUT, in order to not abuse this "Click-type" buff, the HP range in which it kicks in needs to be dropped to approximately 30%. The buffs will be greater, but the buffs will last for [insert time].
#2: Also, in addition to the timer for the buff (which I think should be around half the time of Aim or Build Up), there should be a timer for the cooldown.(approxiamtely 2X or 2.5X the time of whatever time is picked for the buff from Defiance) so that yo-yoing doesn't become a normal part of gameplay.
#3: The Visual interface needs some help. If the previous changes were to be made, then the buff will be a bit higher when it does kick in, so seeing it on the Defiance Bar will be a bit easier, but the colors definately need to be changed to a red or a yellow.
#4: Also, as an added bonus, the timer effect coupled with a new interface would tell the blaster where they stand within Defiance so they can decide if the bonus they did get is enough to keep them in the fight without a viable source of healing.
The alterations that I'm suggesting are based completely off of how many Hit Points you have when you enter the target zone. I.E. if you get hit by a minion and go in, then the buff you receive will likely not be as high as it would be if a boss hit you and you almost die.
Let me know what you players think, becasue if we don't show some solidarity to these changes then we wont send a clear message.
Thanks.
Defiance to a upper level blaster is a total and complete waste. As has been stated several times 40 percent is to low a starting point when mobs do 200+ points of damage per attack. Also when that last ditch shot comes around, when your missing it means nothing to have enhanced damage. First i would say a gradual increase in accuracy should accompany the damage. 5-10 percent maybe as you take damage. And i would much rather see the overall buff lowered and it start at higher HPs.
As it is now, its great for my new sonic blaster i basicly let the first mob use me, and then fight at way better damage, against +2-3. And if they kill me so what, i get no debt till level 10 now. But on my level 50, its barely noticable. I even went in the arena, and one on one against a scrapper, it didnt provide enough of a benefit as my health went down to do anything. I think i got 1 point, most times by the time i was doing significant damage, i was 1 hit from death and the scrapper was at 75-90 percent health.
To little to late, is my best opinion. And in comparision to the buffs to scrapper damage, does very little to give any benefit in the arena. Basicly the divide still exists scrappers get critical and damgae boost for doing nothing, we have to be on life support to get anything. And now with scrapper damage buffs, actually probably do get knocked definately to the lower damage class, with out the defenses to justify it. Risk v reward seems to be getting very blurry.
My main is a level 38 Ice/Energy blaster. Glacial Bane. That's her as my avatar.
Here is my take.
Most (not saying all) blasters slot for damage anyway so giving a full 500% boost at 5% health is a waste because most run damage at 200%-266%, that's the base with 3 to 5 damage enhancements. */dev can run a full 6 Damage. I run 233% (4 dam) with an 33% ACC and a range boost. So, we only need 233% more to top ourselves out at the damage cap on the high end. All the extra damage that could of been is loped off. And even with the HP boost we are just one shot from death at that point (5% HP) as most villains can hit at range for about that amount very easily.
I've also noticed that when it's coming down to the wire and you start seeing defiance kick in you are most likely fighting a boss that is +2 or more above you, not a few +0 minions. They have a better base chance of hitting you and they pack a wallop when they do. They also have a higher defense to over come so you will miss a bit more than youd like. So, again the 5% HP for 500% boost is not even a factor as you will most likely miss and he will hit you. At higher levels. Now you could pop a few lucks but, by the time the boss is standing alone, I have already gone through most of my lucks. But, that might be just me.
How to my suggestion.
Let the max damage boost you can get be only 200%. Cause if I'm at that level of HP I would also start using build up or aim to give that last boost to reach the cap with out the lower health. Then start with a small ACC boost. I won't say how much cause, I have know idea about how to keep it from becoming over powered. And maybe, near the end, put a slight DEFENSE boost to off set the that he is fighting for his life and as such would be taking some effort to prevent more incoming damage. Or he doesn't care about the damage that's in coming and give a small RESIST to the damage. Nothing like a scrapper but enough that would make him able to finish the fight. Yes I know the last one could turn the blasters into a tank-mage but like I said I don't know how they have it balanced right now so I have not given any numbers, just ideas.
I've played with it enough to know that you can not ride the edge for long, 'cause you will fall. This power is a last stand where you may have a chance to win and popping a respite would be good to give yours self a little cushion.
But I like the idea and would like to see it be the power that it's intended to be. One that is used when the chips are down and you might have a good chance to win if you push it alittle and stand 'n fight and this will help in pulling/pushing into your favor.
Hope some one finds this useful or good for anything.
As I would like to see some help given to blasters and this looks promising.
Regards,
The Defiance power is not useful. It is non-noticable. I will never plan on using it, I will probably never notice it coming into effect. It is a non-power. I have no suggestion on how to make it better, because it's just something I don't want and cannot see as an aid to Blasters' current problems.
I'm going to state my opinion again that what blasters need most is reduced aggro. If it becomes easier for tanks/scrappers/pets to take aggro away from blasters, then blasters will thrive in the high-level game. Blasters solo fine in my opinion, it is in teams they need the most help.
Note also that a chaotic game environment -- the environment that Statesman claims to desire -- is unfun and lethal for an archetype with few defenses and great aggro-generating abilities. Players value dependability. Defiance is undependable and makes gameplay more random -- not skill-based, *random*. But then most of the changes made in I5 have the same effect.
...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Defiance while a nice idea, fails in the upper echelon of the game.
HPs fall too fast to make any use of this power. The buff kicks in as defeat is eminent. All this does in its current form is encourage sloppy game-play by incentivizing blasters to stay in a bad situation till death.
It should kick in sooner than 40% health and have some type of to-hit bonus in it.
I'm so angry I'm going to cancel my SWG... wait... wrong thread...
My wishes for Defiance:
Please use text popups for defiance damage, like Scrapper crits. I suggest the following format:
Defiance +5%!
Defiance +10%!
Please add an accuracy buff to defiance.
Please 'unsquish' the defiance bar from the existing status bars. Redesign the layout off all four bars hp, end, def, and exp.
Alternatively, give players a '/hidedefiancebar' command to restore the original UI.
At high levels, most players will die under fire even with a successful defiance check. I beleive that the 'kick in' for defiance is too late. My suggestions is that players should be getting +5% to damage with 70% health.
I'm perfectly willing to have the 500% damage buff be a 'dying shot' only type thing, but having it kick in earlier at lesser levels of damage would mean that it would be more useful and more likely to keep blasters from dying.
Please publish details of how defiance is calculated and what it means when the bar is brown, vs. black, vs. clear. Does it work with Build Up? Aim? IE, when I'm very low health, should I bother wasting seconds popping those?
Please remove the 'defiance' buff icon from the tray. It's not really that helpful (You're either a blaster or your not) and is easily confused with some other status effects, especially detrimental effects, such as 'Full Auto'.
Without reading the rest of this thread, things I'd change about Defiance:
1. Make it kick in faster. Upon reaching 40%, before Defiance builds to +40%, you're already down to 30% health. The bonus should be immediate.
2. Give it to every archetype. This isn't something only blasters should benefit from, especially if the logic behind it is how heroes in comic books unleash hellish powers near death. That's almost like saying blasters are the only true heroes. Give this to every archetype in some form or another to balance us all out again. Tankers should recieve a regen bonus, scrappers a recharge bonus, controllers a hold bonus, and defenders a major buffing bonus. Kinda' like how when a popular hero dies in the heat of a battle, their friends become monstrously more powerful. I know, we have Vengeance for this, but who honestly takes it considering how slight the buffs from the rest of that pool are?
Also, I disagree with a lot of people on how well it affects blasters at what levels. In low levels, you lose life so slowly, it definitely helps. And that's good. It allows blasters to solo more effectively (like we needed it) before getting a plethora of attacks. But in the late game, with APPs, my blaster is capable of holding his Defiance inbetween 5% and 40% for a little while, and with Force of Nature, I can almost ensure having it for close to a full minute.
Definitely a beautiful new feature that a lot of people are missing out on.
I would have much rather had reduced aggro, even lowering it by 20%, than Defiance.
Defiance is a great idea. Love it. But it doesn't work in practice. It really is almost a random effect as I hope to get a shot off that kills whatever is about to kill me first and chances are I could have killed that "normally".
I will take a 10% aggro reduction over this ability.
I would like a 20% aggro reduction over this ability.
What I really think we need is an aggro reduction that brings our "aggro damage" that's just above that of a defender's.
Just my two cents.
I have found, playing my level 30 Elec/Elec and my level 50 AR/Dev/FF Blaster, that it is not very difficult to manage your health so that you have some Defiance boosting, though I'm only talking of the effect between 30-40% of health. (After that, at higher levels, you are taking way too much risk for any kind of systematic reward.)
I am concerned that the Defiance Bar seems to have a bit of lag when comparing it to the health bar over the toon's head. Further, the decimal is not entirely intuitive. I do know that when the bar is full your damage goes through the roof. Definitely got me out of trouble a few times! Any chance we could get an icon or something that gives the damage boost as opposed to a decimal representation of your health? Personally, I would prefer a vertical bar labeled with the damage increase percentage.
Defiance certainly appears to be something to be used while clearing out minions ind lieutenants. I would not want to have to rely on it while soloing a boss, though it would be (and has been) kind of nice at the last second. (Never let yourself get surrounded by four or five +1 Tuatha'an minions. I barely made it out and only because of Defiance spitting out the uber damage.)
I like the fact that Defiance is not something that should be used in every conflict. Though I would like to see some increase at the high-end of the health threshold, I would not make the increase very much, maybe +10% at 40% and +20% at 30%.
Overall, I am happy with the mechanism, though I do find myself staring at that lagging Defiance Bar much more then is healthy.
A summary of my testing.
My lower level blasters(<15): Love it
My higher level blasters(>20): No noticable effect
It needs to kick in sooner. Say around 60-75% and/or provide other types of mitigation (resistances (say capping at 35%), recharge, defense (against capping at like +25%), more accuracy(Yay! I'm doing triple damage I've got 10% health I might just win...miss...dead...oh well).
I did find that even with my low level blasters who could feel the effects I was much happier with a full health bar than better damage.
BTW, if you can't tell. Love the idea but the numbers need some tweaking.
Enjoying every AT in the game.
Remember the Golden Rule: Skill > Build
Leader of the True Blues on Liberty
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
Amazing Spiderman #33
This power is sposed to be the equivilant of a blaster reaching inward for inner strength to complete a task. It adds character and fun to the class. I dont think it was meant to make us more powerrful, just more interesting and Heroic. I love it!!
As a % buff applied towards our cap, this makes it inordinately powerful in the early levels [where we didn't really need it to be] and nothing special later on [if we actually live to see it kick in]. Nice gimmick for atlas park and the hollows, where we're already considered on the 'overpowered' side of things (only because we're the only ones slotting our attacks that early), but certainly nothing to try and make use of later on where we're sub-par... even crits would be more reliable...
Its use, due to the blaster survivability problem [those who took no defense-improving powers whatsoever, or only had hasten saw an increase, but most others saw their defenses all but completely eliminated (we still have hover at 2.5%)] is rather questionable at best in later levels:
*Defiance means nothing when mezzed (the loss of defense once again means an overall increase in mezzing: they don't miss that first shot as often)
*Defiance means nothing when the point at which it kicks in can be 'crossed' [ie from 40% to hospital] in less time than it takes to fire your attack ("volley-deaths" have increased for many of us thanks to the eliminated defenses). This means that with current aggro-management changes, it may never even show up when teaming. Is this the sort of encouragement to team you're looking for?
*Defiance means very little if it randomly causes missing-streaks upon activating as was complained about.
[I've yet to experience this, though in my experience 95% means 85% at best, plus the occasional 100% whiff of an AoE...]
Obviously its not defiance itself causing our problems, but rather the old blaster issues once again. We needed a late-game survivability/utility increase, rather than an early-game damage buff.
Suggestion:
Instead of the current method, how about this... When firing, our defenses increase [your blast fried one of those slugs coming at you], effectively an AT-wide parry. The more we churn out, the greater aggro we're taking, BUT the safer we might actually be [let it stack a handful of times]. Rewarded for taking the risk we already take.
This would allow us to actually be defiant, and stand against said foes, rather than getting "bullsh**" called on us [quite sucessfully I might add] whenever our blaster defiantly claims that being cut down will only make him more powerful. Not only that, but it re-establishes blaster defenses to what they were, which combined with the HP increase finally means an overal survivability boost. This is a good thing.
This could easily be balanced [if need be] by extra limits
preferably not all at once...)
* when HP is below a certain point [like defiance now, except with a useful effect]
* the %/blast being dictated by levels [1%/blast at levels 1-10 for 5 seconds, 5%/blast at levels 45-50 for 5 seconds?]
* Affecting ranged attacks only [you melt the incoming bullets but all you did for that swiper claw was make it glowing-hot as it tears into you... ow!]
* Reducing defense or resistance vs melee [see the above reason] equal to what you're gaining against range (blasterlock? a good reason to keep the buggers away if you're firing?)
And that's just off the top of my head [many of us have suggested the firing/parry idea in many forms, so I'm not taking full credit for this.] Sorry its so long but I wanted to make sure to explain my points...
Edit:
Here's another suggestion: as a guy in a further page stated; the blastert types tend not to miss in critical situations. Actually they tend not to miss at ALL except against supervillains of their calibre or better.
What if we had up to 100, rather than 95% accuracy against minions and lt's [base so that lt's with forcefields,etc can lower that chance]? Of course the streakbreaker coding would have to be looked at, since 95% seems to mean anywhere between 80% and 90% against +0 minions or lower... And the idea is that there WOULD be no missing if we capped our accuracy out, against those...
That way we would have RELIABLE damage, that gets the little guys out of the way efficiently. If we're going to be minion-cleaners, we should at least be the best at it... we don't do that with more damage, we do that by hitting them!
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
I second
Not useful, imo, but thanks for the extra hit points.
I still die too fast to make use of this, and the one time I ever got it in a range that it would've saved me and been a huge use, the mob turned and shot me and it was over.
I should've just ran (like I normally would) instead. If this was intended to help give higher level blasters (or even average level) a boost in some way, then it has fallen far short imo.
To all the healers out there: Just heal me instead, it's far more reliable, and my constant dps will be of much more use than relying on some sort of luck to hope a mob drops me into a useful level of hit points so I can take advantage of Defiance without going over (ie. killing me), and hope that I'm then lucky enough (again) to get a shot off before something sneezes near me. In other words, having to be double lucky to succesfully make good use of something is not my idea of something useful.
10% of my hitpoints at lvl 35 was ~95 on test. Guess how much mobs hit me for (even from range) at that level...
I'll give you a hint, it's much higher than 10% of my hitpoints... and now to boot, you took away most of any of the added defense I had.
-Azure