Boosting Blasters was necessary, but I'm not sure this helped them, survival wise. As someone pointed out earlier, It's not often that a blaster below 40% is alive long enough to fire again at higher levels. Also, I think that at such a point, accuracy might be as important as damage. A friend suggested halving the damage boost, and giving an acc boost in its place.
Also, this encourages Blasters to tell people not to heal them, and to rush into combat before the Tanks. This isn't exactly going to help their survival either.
Anyway, I'm sure it's helpful at times, but they probably could have used some defense instead.
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I've read thru most of the posts and I echo what most of them have already said.
Defiance was a nice attempt. I appreciate the attempt.
Defiance overpowers blasters at lower levels. Blasters already excel at these low levels and do not need the extra damage boost. Yes, a blaster can stay around the 40% health mark at lower levels, but this changes dramatically as the blaster levels.
Defiance is pointless at higher levels. Hitpoints are too few. Mezz/Status effects on villian attacks are too many. Blaster defense is non-existant. And blaster aggro CAN overpower even the best tanker's taunt. Simply put, a blaster trying to stay at less than 100% health is virtually a dead blaster.
I would like to see multiple things added to make this power viable. First, it needs an accuracy buff added. Second, it needs a status resistance buff added. Third, the buff should kick in sooner and at a smaller bonus percentage--before blaster panic sets in. The accuracy buff and status resistance buff should increase as the blaster takes damage. The accuracy buff helps the chances that the blaster will actually land that finishing blow. The status resistance buff allows a blaster to come out of a status effect before it's too late to get that defiant shot off. Without a status resistance buff, a level 35+ blaster will rarely get to use defiance.
To clarify: In no way will a status resistance buff on defiance give a blaster any type of passive defense against attacks. All it does is allow a blaster to provide a last resort offensive blast that might defend him from otherwise certian death. All attacks that made against the blaster will still hit as usual. (Usual being the fact that everything hits a blaster anyways.)
I also agree with a few others, that this power should be given to all HEROES, not just blasters. This power is very heroic and defines the ability of a hero to always pull thru, even in the worst of situations. Please, seriously consider adding this to all heroes.
I would also like to point out that, regarding Statesman's tactics for blasters and defiance, a very detrimental play style has been recommended for blasters. I thought we were going to stay away from detrimental play styles. I don't think I have to do much explaining to show how detrimental those ideas are. Yes, they were creative ideas, but still, very detrimental to the current team environment.
Personally, as a blaster twice over, and as a healer, I would not team with any blaster who attempts to use this power detrimentally. If a blaster dips down into this zone on accident, I will gladly heal them. A healer NEVER lets any teammate get close to death.
I would also like to point out that a solo blaster might be able to use this power at levels 35+, assuming he doesn't get mezzed. As for a teamster blaster, use of this power will always result in death. A blaster running into a group of villians at high levels on a team of 5 or more will die on the first volley.
I hope this covers everything I can think of. I have tested all weekend. I hope to be rewared with some great feedback from the devs. Afterall, I spent my weekend on test and not progressing on live. My fire blaster has been Burned a lot in the past. I would like to see some compensations.
Thank you for taking the time to read such a long post. And please take it all in constructively too.
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The defiance bar is VERY confusing. Instead of being from 0.0 to 1.0 could we please have it changed to show the actual buff amount? Have it start at 0% and go to 500% in the bar. This change would be great to not only make it easier to understand but so players also no exactly what Defiance is doing for them.
Also at higher levels Defiance seems to be, well, not enough. It doesn't kick on soon enough since high level Blasters frequently go from full health to death in a heart beat. Any chance we could get the code to scale up? Maybe at lvl 40+ you get the 500% bonus at 10% health and the first buff starts at 50% instead of 40%.
I can't speak for higher lvls (as my only blaster is the archer one i just made) but in early lvls defiance is a nice ability. I has saved my character alot.
I can however see that this might not be as useful in high lvls since all squishies get 1 or 2 shotted. I would have to agree with alot of the other posters and say that it would help if it started earlier or if it was based on the damage u recieved from an attack.
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Because of the "display lag" affecting the HP and END bars, it's been difficult to test out Defiance as I would have liked, but here are my 2 cents so far:
First, the presence/absence of the Defiance bar should be customizable. I, for one, don't want to see the Defiance bar -- EVER. It's distracting, and it serves no useful purpose to a blaster who prefers to stay alive a good long while rather than do uber damage with his last 2 HP. Instead, Defiance should kick in based on how the HP bar changes color. For example, if my HP bar goes from green to yellow, I'll know Defiance has kicked in for me. This scheme would make the Defiance bar even more unnecessary, as all I have to watch now is my HP bar.
Second, Defiance is not a power which I would EVER attempt to use strategically. I tried "playing the numbers" twice, and I died twice. So, for me, Defiance is always going to be nothing more than a tush-saving feature that will be activated through no intentional planning on my part.
Third, while Defiance is a cool ability, why not just give blasters the ability to Critical like scrappers have? I can think of one reason -- blasters having Defiance and scrappers having Critical keeps a firm distinction in place between the two archetypes. However, it's becoming clear from the forum responses that Defiance just isn't that good an ability at higher levels (due to very infrequent activations of the power) whereas Criticals are something that are good from 1 to 50 (due to the fact that a Critical can happen for any scrapper at any level, any time). So, my advice is just give the Critical ability to blasters as well, and then I think most low-lev and high-lev blasters will be happy.
NewScrapper
From levels 1-30 this power is better than sliced bread! It is caable of driving a blaster, solo, through every level he has! After 30, this power will face-plant anyone who can't change their tactics. It sets a bad habit for both blasters and healers. The blaster will keep himself dangerously low in the red for the damage increase, but so will the healer f they are new and do not know any better. After level 30, there are too many enemies who can mez a blaster too easily for this power to be effective. As a 50, if I am flashing in the red (a great damage boost), I am usually defeated before the animation for my next power can fire. With tankers no longer able to Tank enemies, this just puts a bigger cross-hair on Blasters.
Recommendations: Raise it a little to be opposite of health. at 95% health, you get a 5% boost. 90% = 10%. At 75% Health, double it. 75% = 50% boost. 70% = 6-% boost. At 50% health, tripple it. 50% = 100% boost. 40% = 180% boost. At 25% health, quadruple it. 25% = 300% boost. At 10% you have a whoping 360% Boost... That makes a 396% boost with only 1% hit points.
Defiance would be better if it also took into account the HP of teamates within assist range (like the Kheldian teammate bonuses). Of course, the bonus for teammate HP being low would be less than if your own were low, but comic-booky blasters DO sometimes go all out to save people other than themselves.
I would really like a little more background and story on the reasoning for giving Blasters an ability like Defiance (good call on the name change).
The way I see it is that this power will be more useful to early level blasters who will take damage in smaller increments than late level blasters who will take damage in larger increments. At early levels, any buff is very significant to damage, and at late levels, the buff will not be as significant and will cap out before its full effect is felt.
As one of the chief concerns of Blasters was damage scaling in the 35+ levels and that damage was fine below level 35, I see this as rather backwards, logically speaking. I do not see this as addressing this concern.
Also, I see this as more of a Scrapper-esque ability than a Blaster ability.
Finally, it is very much a double edged sword in that it can cut both ways. It can help you defeat your enemies but in turn you are at a very risky point. Weilding it without caution will cut you. I do not see this as being very promotional of increasing Blaster suvivablity in the later levels.
As it is now, I can take it or leave it. But if I had the choice to trade this ability for something else, I am very much opened to discussion and will gladly put this on the table.
I do not plan on using this ablility intentionally, and only as a last resort. Blasters play with enough fire as is.
i would say, that defiance could start at perhaps 60% and perhaps hit the cap 500% buff cap around the 20% mark. i think that might make it a little more usefull
or
keep it the same as it is now and add and equal acc buff
"Defiance" has great potential, but I don't see it deserving the name "defiance", yet (and no, I'm not suggesting a name change).
I have both a lvl 48 eng/eng blaster and lvl 9 archer/fire blaster on the test server.
With the low lvl blaster i noticed that i could achieve full defiance when I was trying to (making a consertive effort to lower my HP so as to maximize my defiance meter). Out of 10 tries I would usually reach full defiance 4 times and survive the encounter twice out of those 4 times. However, that still equals 8 deaths (thank god for no debt untill lvl 10). This was while soloing. While in a team, the number of times I reached full defiance without dieing was so few that I would not be able to put it in reasonable statistics.
While soloing as my lvl 48 blaster I never once reached full defiance. If I attempted to play the system and tried to get my health low enough for the meter to start moving (which seems to not be working right, but i'll comment on that in a sec), the next shot would usually end in my death.
I like the idea of this innate ability and think it just needs to be bumped up a bit. I really like the idea of scaling the % bonus as you get higher in lvl. I have heard mention of increasing accuarcy as well when your health starts to drop. This is also a good idea. One other that I would suggest is even a defense bonus when your health gets really low. This could possibly help with holding on to that last small bit of health long enough to give you time to get that game winning shot off. It is a really frustrating thing to see your defiance bar max out but to be at the ending of one attack animation and know that it will take you just a little too long to get that next attack off.
Also, as I mentioned before, I'm not sure if this is bug or if this was just a lag problem, but most of the time I would not see my defiance bar move untill my health reached 1/3 of full. I have been experiencing very bad lag throughout the entirity of all my testing so this might not be a bug or a mistake, just a slow graphics problem.
Here is a summery of how I would like to see Defiance work:
lvl 1-19
<40% health = + 40% DMG
<30% health = + 80% DMG
<20% health = + 160% DMG
<10% health = + 320% DMG
<5% health = + 500% DMG
lvl 20-29
<50% health = + 20% DMG
<40% health = + 40% DMG
<30% health = + 80% DMG
<20% health = + 160% DMG +25% ACC
<10% health = + 320% DMG +50% ACC
<5% health = + 500% DMG +100% ACC
lvl 30-39
<60% health = + 10% DMG
<50% health = + 20% DMG
<40% health = + 40% DMG +5% ACC
<30% health = + 80% DMG +15% ACC
<20% health = + 160% DMG +25% ACC
<10% health = + 320% DMG +50% ACC 25% EVA DEF
<5% health = + 500% DMG +100% ACC 50% EVA DEF
lvl 40+
<70% health = + 10% DMG
<60% health = + 20% DMG
<50% health = + 40% DMG +5% ACC
<40% health = + 80% DMG +15% ACC
<30% health = + 160% DMG +25% ACC
<20% health = + 320% DMG +50% ACC 25% EVA DEF
<10% health = + 500% DMG +100% ACC 50% EVA DEF
The defensive bonus would be an evasion style bonus to allow us to dodge one or two shots long enough to get another attack off once we reach that low of health. Also, keep in mind, I'm not real keen on the inner workings of defensive bonuses so I'm not sure if the % I lsted are realitic/pathetic in comparison, but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to suggest.
peace
Defiance, as many have stated before me, is pointless after level 10.
It needs to be rethought or scrapped altogehter for something else. I applaud the effort but doing more damage doesn't mean more survivablity at all.
Blasters never had a problem with damage, especially after level 22 when the SOs come into play.
Please don't believe Defiance fixes anything. All it has done for me is make defenders start thinking twice before healing me, and now I die more.
On a side note, all blasters getting a self rez power might be an alternative solution. I'll tell you what, getting Rise of the Phoenix at level 47 was one of the greatest days in my Blaster's life.
I love the idea of having defiance on my blaster, but there are a few things that are frustrating.
1. The "Defiance" bar. It's weird to read this. someone mentioned earlier that it scales 40% to 500% over 0->1.0. This makes it look like you are basically getting nothing.
2. Accuracy. Quite a few times, I've found myself with Defiance at full throttle, only to launch an attack and have it miss. It's very frustrating. Maybe we could have an acc boost that is similar to the acc+ from "build up"? Just a thought, though, as any acc buffs would be appreciated.
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]I couldn't have said it better myself. So I won't. I'll just quote you. 
A few additions, though.
Instead of boosting damage, why not boost damage RESISTANCE. That sounds more like "defiance" to me, and would actually increase survivability. It also wouldn't tempt players to play Russian Roulette.
As it stands, it's easy to take advantage of. Fly to the skycap, drop, then Fireball a group of mobs while you're doing +500% damage...
[ QUOTE ]
Originality: 10/10
Fun: 5/10
Usefulness: 1/10
[/ QUOTE ]
That about sums it up.
I found the best way to use it was to fall from a great hight until your on virtually no hp, and it kicks in, then drop into a pack of orange critters (16 or less) and then nova.
Which I actually found hard to do, I have 6 slotted health and my regen brought it down halfway before nova went off.
Too much hassle if you ask me, so I won't be aiming to try and use it, and if I'm in a group with any form of healing then I doubt it will come into play, unless it's a wipe in which case I might drop the odd extra mob before I faceplant.
I make the following observations as a blaster. Normally when my hitpoints gets under 50% I am going to die almost immediately anyway. So I think defiance as it stands will be something people ignore completely, OTHER THAN :
Attempting to keep their hitpoints low artificially to increase their damage to better facilitate power levelling. With the proposed nerfs to blaster's ability to defend themselves, I can't see how any of this can help really.
In my humble opinion.. defiance should trigger at 65 % HP, and have the following effects :
10% increase defense
10% increased resistance
65% increased damage
and lasts for 20 seconds
It should be a buff that is cast on self and dissipates after the 20 seconds, and is only slottable for endurance reduction. It should have about 5 minutes between effect dissipation and recast.
If the developers intend for Defiance to be an absolute last stand flash of glory, the damage should be 300%+ and drain all endurance/detoggle/disorient after the effect has dissipated.
Then again.. I'd prefer Blasters had adequate defense so they could stand behind the Tanks safely. Who are also getting nerfed. Damn.
I would still prefer to just give a buff at full health and have it wear away after taking damage, roughly the reverse of defiance but with a smaller buff.
I am going to join in the chorus of people who are likely saying:
A blaster, if he finds himself below 40% HP, is likely losing HP at such a rate that he will not be able to attack more than 1 or 2 times before defeat, and that time would have been better spent escaping, resting, and returning to battle.
Defenders should NOT be encouraged not to heal a blaster: The fact that many Leutenant and Boss attacks deal more that 40% of a blaster's HP value mean that being at full HP before a hit lands is one of a blaster's biggest defenses.
That said, I don't have "a problem" with defiance, and it's existance in the game, at worst, will go unnoticed by blasters who are mysteriously always at full HP.
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I love the idea and concept of the power, but in testing, it's rarely used.
How I mean is, the problem with blasters is still the same problem with blasters. We die to fast from "alphas" to use defiance. Basically defiance forcers us to be a single target blaster (the scrappers job) in order to use it...otherwise we die immediatly. I've tested it a lot on test, and it's very very difficult for a defender to hold us at 40% or less health and still keep us from hitting the ground.
So, the options here. Yes, as an additive little 'here yah go' present, it's nice, but not really usefull, nor does it fix the problem with blasters. We still go down first in a fight (unless the regeners fall first), and we still are the debt machines. Only now, we can't AoE because the tanker/controller "nerfs" have made it essentailly suicide.
So possible fixes. Make the damage increase scale from full health down.
For each % of health we lose, we gain a % of damage up to 200%. That way, as we're getting closer to death, we do more and more and more damage. Having the increase start early should help us stop the insta death before it happens...at least a little bit.
Other possiblity, keep it at 40%, but add a defensive buff to it, equel precentage to damage buff. So that we have something actually trying to prevent the dirt nap.
I appreciate that your looking into blasters, but bottom line, defiance as a stand alone power (meaning if you threw it on live without adding all the other nerfs) would be an extremly usefull power as it is. (although I don't like the idea of a defeder purposfully not healing me...makes me feel more like an expendable commodity (which is how I"m sure most of the community will treat it) then a hero.) Unfortunatly though, with the defense/tanker/controler/scrapper changes, (and defenders since they are now A LOT busier), defiance is kinda too little too late.
removed
I did some testing, and it appears that Defiance was of some use to my lvl 5 archery/devices blaster. Due to the lower damage output of enemies at that level, he could remain "in the game" for longer and make use of the higher damage output of Defiance.
Much less so for my lvl 34 ice/ice blaster. With this character, most hits did too much damage for me to "maintain" my health level at the <40% level; it just wasn't practical, and resulted in multiple trips to the hospital. I was able to enter into one controlled situation where a Crey mob specialist followed me around and beat my health bar down to a sliver. Unfortunately, Defiance still only seemed to grow a tiny sliver, despite the fact that I had to be at something like 10 or 15% health.
It's also not 100% clear when Defiance is working. Unless I missed it because I was staring maniacally at my health and Defiance bars, but I didn't see any visual cues that I had extra damage, and it seemed like the bar itself was drastically reduced in length every time I got a tick of health back.
Lastly, how is the scale of Defiance intended to work? The bar goes from 0 - 1.0. If the damage scales as high as 500%, are we supposed to assume that 0 is nothing, 0.5 is 250% and 1 is 500%? If so, I would lobby for some other numbering system. Perhaps it could be 0-10, or have some "label" like:
0-100% damage output: "Angered"
100-200% damage output: "Enraged"
...
400-500% damage output: "Defiant"
That way, you'd have a better idea of how much benefit you're enjoying. As it is, I cannot tell precisely what sort of benefit the inherent power is providing.
Defiance is a nice thematic ability for a superhero. For any superhero, not just the 'blaster' superhero. But it completely fails at addressing the problems that the blaster AT faces:
<ul type="square">[*]Defiance actually increases aggro, by doing more damage, at the time when the blaster can least afford to be the target of additional attacks.[*]Defiance offers no damage reduction or defense, so mobs that one- or two-shot a blaster at 40% health still do so. This is nearly every mob past L30.[*]Defiance offers no status protection, so being chain-mezzed until death is still an issue. Nearly every boss (and some minions, such as Malta with Tasers) can do this past L30.[*]Defiance offers no accuracy boost. If you miss the mob, increased damage is useless.[/list]My thoughts on a solution are this. First, keep Defiance as it is mechanically, but give it to every AT. Just like other offense powers, the amount of damage increase should be greatest for blasters, then scrappers, then defenders, etc. Defiance is a great power conceptually. (But remove the icon from the buff bar except when Defiance is actually active, it's not needed and is distracting.)
Second, add a new blaster ability that actually addresses the issues that exist with the AT at higher levels. My suggestions (in order of desirability):
<ul type="square">[*]When a blaster drops below 50% health, give her enough status resistance to resist one mez effect from a boss (not sure exactly what magnitude that is). When she drops below 25% health, double that resistance.[*]When a blaster drops below 50% health, reduce her aggro by half. By this I mean reduce the count of damage dealt that the mob AI is using to decide which hero to attack. If the blaster has done 500 damage, count it as only 250 in the mob AI aggro formula, so that other heroes (such as a tank or scrapper) are more likely to get the aggro from that mob. At 25% health, same but reduce by 3/4 instead of 1/2.[*]Give blasters an inherent ability that gives mez resistance of one boss-hold per two teammates (of any AT). This would require teaming to work, obviously, but allows the blaster to team with any AT instead of needing to look specifically for a teammate with mez protection.[*]Same tie to teammates as above, but give defense and accuracy instead of mez resistance.[/list]Note that the most desirable suggestion would be useful in both solo and group play. The others would only be useful in teams. Also note that I did not suggest changing Defiance to either do more damage at higher health % or to raise the amount of health at which it kicks in. That change would only lead to people attempting to exploit it.
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[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
Very good idea. Though in that case the effectiveness of criticals might need to lowered a bit since blasters generally do more damage than scrappers--and you might want to preclude the level 32 "nukes" from having criticals at all to avoid them being overpowered. But it could work technically *and* make sense.
Otherwise I'd be wary of relying on defiance as a blaster. When your health drops low, your best bet is to avoid the enemy unless you have an Empathy defender watching your back, or someone else can grab agro. Sticking around to fire off a few more shots, no matter how much improved, will likely get you a faceplant in 1-2 more shots, especially as you rise in level.
And defiance, as pointed out previously, does nothing vs. status attacks. As before, your only protection is to get them before they get you--something defiance does not address.
On another note, I find Monday's update about defiance very disturbing. First, the heavy emphasis on teaming (which I5 seems designed to force*). Second, and worse, the update presents it as a fait accompli regardless of the feedback we provide here.
*I enjoy teaming--the interaction with other players to me is the best part of the game. But I don't my option to solo taken away, and many of the changes I5 presents on the test server seem to favor teaming at the expense of soloing, *and* force players into class-roles all too similar to other MMOs. But that's a topic for another thread.
I personally feel that blasters defense should rise in addition to damage with defiance. Thematically, the range fighter guys are quicker and get hit less often.
As Statesman as said below....
[ QUOTE ]
=>40% Health: no buff
< 40% Health: +40%
< 30% Health: +80%
< 20% Health: +160%
< 10% Health: +320%
[/ QUOTE ]
These numbers seem fine on paper but when you are on the game playing, at 40% life, most bosses and or Lts can kill you in 1 shot.
I love the concept of this power, but I feel what should have been done was defiance kick in as soon as you started taking damage, meaning use the numbers you have but also make it for example.....
< 70% Health: +5%
< 60% Health: +10%
< 50% Health: +20%
< 40% Health: +40%
< 30% Health: +80%
< 20% Health: +160%
< 10% Health: +320%
That way with my numbers above, you still get the effect of defiance but with a decreased damage buff, that way the blaster isnt risking his neck just to get in the red to do more effective damage. basically increasing the ramp size of the defiance damage buff.
But thats just how I think it should work, because as of right now, I played for 7 hours today on test with the defiance and Im not impressed with how it works. The damage is nice if you can get that last shot off before the mobs do
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