I posted this idea onto the blaster board as well...
The high level problems with defiance are valid. My L40 Eng/Eng blaster was sent to hosp three times fighting a red lt. solo. Each time, i played to wait for my defiance to kick in and got one-shotted. not good.
i think that if the Devs are going to keep with the diminishing HP strategy, then they should consider a couple of things.
1) put a delay in getting your defiance. say, maybe two or three seconds. enough time for me to pop a big green heal. right now it's either heal or attack. and without a massive +acc its suicide to not pick 'heal' because you won't always get a hit.
2) let defiance stack. if you get hit and it drops you to where you're below and you suddenly get a +40% and then get hit again and it drops you to +80% then you should have a +120%.
Obviously, if you're getting hit multiple times like that, you're probably being hit by multiple targets (which would kill you anyway if you were down to 5% HP).
2a - an alternative). Keep a running tab on the hits you take at -40% of your HP. if the first hit nets you a +40% to damage, then the first attack does +40%. if, in the interim, you get hit again and it knocks you down to +80%, then your second attack does plus 80%. please note that you don't have to attack immediately. you can pick your targets (give it like a three or four minute life before it goes away on its own).
Defiance is a great idea on it's own.I like it. it fits in well with the blaster philosophy of having to think and plan out your combat. it just needs a little tweaking.
CC
Cerulean Caver - L50 (+2) Energy/Energy blaster (been there since Day 1)
Darkest Echo - L29 Dark/Empathy controller
Ceiling Burner - L38 Fire/Fire tank
Doctor Boo - L50 Robotics/Poison MM
Evil Pixie - L45 SS/Invul Brute
Greetings,
While the use of defiance is something that is certainly nice in extreme situtions, the risk of death is far too great to ever even contemplate staying low enough to make use of it. At 40 percent, you barely see an increase, allowing your health to dramatically lower further makes it so going up against any enemy, whether it be minion, lieutenant or boss, silly to continue on, after all - with most enemies one hit will offer death when you are low enough to really benefit from defiance, and things happen so quickly, attempting to 'pop a respite' to keep yourself from dying and then proceeding to attack in order to remain within the 'red' and defiant stage is, in my opinion, not fun, and far too much of a risk, it's silly to even contemplate.
I mostly play solo, or with my husband, together we have a lot of fun playing our main blaster duos. While death and debt are part and partial of any game play, we enjoy the more 'smart' aspect of play, and really keep ourselves 'in the green' mostly, if we're bombarded with enemies, we have no shame in tucking tails and running like the hounds of .... were after us. 
So for a playstyle like ours, defiance is very much useless especially at the numbers it is currently at. Nice concept, but I generally feel it is not the answer blasters are seeking. Perhaps an increase in numbers would assist, but in all - staying at low health in order to do even more damage to multiple enemies, is a fool's folly. Combat happens far too quickly and you can go from 'in the red' health to nothing in the amount of time it takes to click your main attack when going against more than one foe.
Just my two cents.
I freakin' love this change. It's so comic-booky it's a wonder it wasn't implemented long ago. Nice job.
That said: I played in a three-person group last night (two def, one blaster) to try out the new powersets.
No matter how hard we tried, it seemed like we couldn't get our blaster hurt. We'd let him run in first, we'd make sure that our defs didn't throw any offense ... it was bizarre.
I know this is vague. I also know it may be chalked up to "shrug". But did someone tell the villains about the defiance thing and give them the idea that not attacking the blaster might be a smart move??
-RC
I don't like how the efect seems to be temporary - When I get taken below 40% Defiance kicks in and I see the bar go up. After some time, the bar drops. If I get hit again Defiance may go up to the same value it was before, but now I am at even lower health.
There is little reason to try and take advantage of this ability with it wearing off as quickly as it does.
I have to concur with what other have said on the list.
I made a new blaster and Defiance seems to work well at lower levels. At higher levels it seems worthless. I tried to get hurt with my level 50 blaster to see how the power would work out, but that just lead to a quick death. When I get down to 40% health, just one or two hits will send me to the hospital. I also tried this with a team, but I either stayed at full health or died too fast for the healer to save me when it got to the point that defiance would kicked in.
removed
I tried out the archery set and only got to third level but could see the Defiance make a difference in a few hits. At low levels that damage does not come in huge bites so you could survive long enough to get some benefit out of it. At higher levels the damage can come in pretty hard hitting and 40% starting point would mean that the ability will not be as useful.
Some suggested giving it to scrappers in exchange for criticals. I have a high lvl SR scrapper who dodges shots an no resistance to damage. I can get dropped pretty quick sometimes with a few lucky hits so it may not be of interest to all scrappers.
Blasters would be much better suited gain access to criticals same as scrappers and Defiance should be given to all classes. Sometimes I run for a fight when the odds are overwhelming .. sometimes I try to hold the line to buy time for others. With so many "nerfs" hitting different groups giving blaster critical and everyone defiance might easy the pain. (I am sure there is some exploit for it if everyone has it but can't put my finger on it right now).
Celtic Fist - SR/MA
Tech Smith - AR/DV
I thought this was just about the best idea in I5, so far. I was glad to see an AT being given a unique, interesting twist. So, last night, I logged on my level 20 Ice Blaster, and gave it a shot.
My first test was the direct approach. I flew up as high as I could go, and dropped like a twig. As expected, I lost every hit point I had, save for one. And, my Defiance bar maxed out.
*WOO!* i cheered. I queued up a respite so that I could at least hit something before I died, and charged a group of baddies.
And, as *SOON* as i hit the respite (taking me to 25% HP + 1, still all sorts of below 40%), My bar cleared out to empty.
Dismayed, I grabbed a buddy for some teamplay action to see if i could make it happen again. For maximum pain to myself (to arrange for the bar to be as useful as possible), I had a good friend bring out his Illusion Controller.
Together, his mighty Illusion Blaster and my Mighty Ice Controller suffered through the mission, both being amazingly effective at things we should not have been effective at. I'm now a far better controller than my friend was, but he's doing double my damage (without slotting). This was, well, disturbing. In any case, we did still take a crapload of damage and undergo entire piles of death and debt. We went through several missions (mostly vaz), so there were plenty of times when i was at next to no health, very little health, half health, 40% health, a bushel and a peck of health, and any health arrangement you could imagine.
I never saw any noticible increase to my damage output, and throughout the entire thing no matter how damaged I became, I only ever saw my bar go up to .1 . Yes, thats right, one tenth of a point.
Maybe there's some secret trick to make this useful, but i even tried yelling "SHAZAM!", "SHAZBOT!", "NOT THE FACE, NOT THE FACE!!", and "Blatherin BLATHERSKYTES!!". I did nearly turn into Gizmo Duck, but my defiance bar remained puny and useless, much to my chagrin.
As mentioned- i think this is a neat, interesting idea to promote different ATs being, well, different. I believe it's been poorly implemented thus far, as in an entire night of low health it did me zero good.
I've got to say...
Feel-wise, yeah, woot! Take me down, you're going out too!
Gameplay wise, I'd rather see something else, esp. late game. More acc. Some PSI defense or something... otherwise you (or, well, I) can watch that pretty defiance bar go up with HOLD - SLEEPING - HOLD - SLEEPING alternating underneath (after popping all your BF's.)
Heck, let me get more RANGE so I'm not trying to figure out how to get past the various non-Sharpshooter, non-Comet baddies.
I know that the devs are eventually going to respond with "Thanks for all your comments. The devs are happy with the way defiance is working".
At any rate, I like definace (got to do 400+ damage with my blaster) and all, but the damage ramp is way way way to expodential. You don't get any major boost until you are within "oh crap" distance of 0 health, and at that point you pretty much just wanna heal yourself. I really don't recommend anyone run around with one hp novaing everything in sight unless you got some accuracy boosts going on too.
Anyways, I think defiance should be a linear boost starting from 50ish% health remaining. So from 50-(0%+1 health) you linearally go from your 40% boost to your 500% boost. That would make it a bit better. At the least, a secondary accuracy buff should be added to the damage buff so that you don't miss with your uber attack.
I'm also all for the idea of dropping this idea of definace and putting in a more or less "frenzy" effect into blasters where as they attack, they get more powerful and more accurate, although I think such an ability would be MUCH more suited for a scrapper.
I found Defiance on test to be somewhere between a cruel joke, and pointless. I don't know (or care) how anybody else plays their blasters, but the defiance damage bar doesn't even start to raise until WELL after I have withdrawn from a fight. I normally dont even let my life bar get into the yellow, and if it does, I'm already running. Even when my life bar was angry red, the defiance bar wasnt even at 20%.
Who would ever use such a power? Yeah, you could co-ordinate and keep your life super low on a team or something weird but really, I barely noticed the damage increase when I was in the red, when I tried to stick it out. I'd rather stay at full health and zap with confidence.
I can think of one friend who would fine this useful and use it regularly, and he plays every AT like a scrapper.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
1) I see few posts that address Statesman's encouragement of blasters to be reckless. Who on any team with a tank wants yet another blaster that thinks they should open up combat? Kick...
2) When there are overwhelming enemies and incoming fire, the thing that would help a blaster would really be to increase recharge times and reduce animation times. (Ask me if I care about the difficulty of this...) If there are 4 enemies coming at you, when both yourself and they are all within one shot of defeat, you don't care if you do more damage. You would care if you can actually pull off all 4 attacks in enough time to get them before one of them gets you.
Visually... and even viscerally... it would be more impressive to have a blinding flurry of attacks defeat enemies instead of the usual few attacks doing some higher numbers floating above mob heads. I'm thinking Death Blossom here... from The Last Starfighter.
Yep, I've invoked the Death Blossom... this post cannot be ignored!! ....Maybe a lizardlike NPC named Grig could teach blasters to do this hehehe
Defiance is a nice idea, but it's too little too late. By the time I'm down in HP enough to use it, I can be easily one-shotted. Maybe it should start at around 50% HP? That lil damage boost a blaster gets from it around 50% might make the difference between living and dying.... because they might be able to take the next hit and live while they are attacking, esp. so for those locked into long animation times.
"Looks like we arrived in the nick of time. What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just."
-Mal & Zoe, "Firefly"
Found it fun and useful for my lower level archery and sonic blasters. Exactly when blasters don't need any help and are over prevalent as is and completely useless and unusable on my level 50, who will be dropped though the entire defiance range before it was useful. Also trying to use it was making me play my blasters like an unskilled Noob, and rewards stupid behavior.
It's a neat idea, and it's better then nothing, but I think it would be best for everyone if it was given to another AT; either the poor over nerfed tanks or to the defenders to keep them happy (and to stop them from whining about our much needed HP increase).
I determined that while Defiance was useful for my L1-4 Archery and Sonic blasters, it wasn't discernibly worth the risk of utilizing at L41. Each time my Ice blaster's health redlined to flashing, I had to immediately decide whether to use a heal inspiration before my opponent's next blow landed or visit the hospital; I chose the inspiration.
In its current state, Defiance won't benefit my blasters beyond lower levels.
This helps out supremely low-level Blasters. And only them. They can afford to be in that Hit Point range to get benefit, particularly when they don't have Build Up or Aim, likely no or few external buffs, and no SOs. It won't quite help out high level Blasters, even when they're in dire straits. Why? Because odds are, if they're in the process of dying with enemies coming at them, they've already used up their big attacks, and now have only their pitiful fast-recharge, low-damage attack to cycle through. And they'll get to use it once, maybe twice before dying. We already can't rely on Tankers to keep the enemies at bay, as our attacks vastly override even Live-state PBAOE taunts and Punchvoke, and sometimes even Taunt, coupled with Test making them unable to not only tank many enemies, but even make the enemies turn toward them with their low-enemy-effecting taunts. Nor can we rely on Controllers and Defenders debuffing the enemies or preventing the enemies from attacking, what with the inability for them to affect many enemies at once. Heck, even if we have a swarm coming after us, with the limited amount of enemies our AOEs can hit at once, we'll still die.
Plus, of course, Defiance won't work on Trip Mine, Voltaic Sentinel, Ice Storm, Blizzard, Rain of Fire, Time Bomb, Auto Turret, Caltrops, etc. etc.
Not only that, but stupid Defenders and Controllers (and boy, are there many in the 'average players' set) will decide to never heal the Blaster so it puts out more damage. I mean, hey, if the Blaster dies, THEY'RE not getting debt, right? Only the Blaster. So it may as well die, and kill an enemy faster, and lets you ignore their health bar.
The Hit Point increase is nice, quite nice. So is the damage cap buff. But I see this Defiance as a very crappy, likely never useful post level 10 'buff' to Blasters, that the Developers will use in the future to say "Hey, we buffed Blasters, we won't give them anything better for a year." I don't want that. No Blaster does.
You know what? Drop Defiance, or keep it, whatever. Keep the Hit Point increase. But give us Criticals. Or buff Defiance by a LOT (good examples in the other posts, for lower Recharge rates, or higher Accuracy, or it scaling up much quicker). Give us a small Damage buff overall, like Scrappers.
Defiance will be used as an excuse to not help Blasters be more playable in the future. Defiance will be used by teammates as an excuse to not heal Blasters. Defiance will very rarely help any high-level Blaster. Defiance does not give a significant boost if one has Build Up, Aim, SOs, or buffing teammates for the risk involved.
Risk vs. reward. Doesn't scale right. The risks are extremely high for piss-poor rewards until we're essentially dead, anyway. And has almost zero rewards for those of us with slow recharging attacks, long activation times, cones and AOEs (as they wouldn't hit everyone), or use summons for damage (like uh...Assault Rifle, for ALL of the above).
Enemy Resistances - Damage, Mez and Defense
Enemy XP Mods
(Drag my avatar into your mp3 player!)
I normally play a lvl 40 Empath.
Statesman Sez:
[ QUOTE ]
A grouped Blaster can use Defiance even more effectively. If you have a healing Defender in your group, you should ask them to not heal you unless you are in imminent danger of being defeated.
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay, Jack, I'm going to take this opportunity to point out that one of the reasons you wanted to change the old portal missions was because it was anti-genre for heroes to stand by and let demons spawn on purpose so they could get more XP.
I *totally* agreed.
But lets picture how Defiance would go in a comic book...
Human Torch: "Wow, I really feel hurt, Reed. Can you use that device to heal me please?"
Mr. Fantastic: "Sorry, Johnny, you're more effective when you're hurt and desperate. You've got a little blood on the corner of your mouth there, by the way."
Or how about this exchange...
Dr. Strange: "Well, that was almost too close, Dazzler. I thought you were going to be defeated there for a second. I'm glad I was able to cast a healing spell in time. Now you are in perfect health again."
Dazzler: "You stupid idiot! I need to stay injured to fully use my powers!"
Very heroic.
Statesman Sez:
[ QUOTE ]
Stay out of range of the Area Heals once you are in Defiance range to ensure your damage buff stays around.
[/ QUOTE ]
Arg! Do you have any idea how much time and effort I spend trying to get the blasters to stay inside area heals?
If there are 2 or more blasters, each requiring their own single-target heal "in the nick of time," because I don't heal them "unless [they] are in imminent danger of being defeated," then one or more of them is kissing pavement.
Stay outside the healing on purpose? Ask the Defender not to heal you?
Regardless of whether you think the power works well mechanically, please take a step back and think about that in context of the genre.
It simply does not work AT ALL.
Blasters need something to help them survive and stay in the fight, but I don't think this is it. Surely it's wrong if a hero does something as backwards as asking not to be healed by their teammate.
Thanks,
BB
removed
Defiance is good for solo blasters. This is not good for teamed blasters. They still remain squishy - even after their hitpoint buff. They can still be one or two-shotted.
As an empath, my job is to keep you alive. Now blasters will be crying to let their health stay at dangerously low levels for that extra damage. Fine. Load up on your green inspirations, hero. I'll be healing the tanks and controllers. They need it now - more than you, squishy.
I like this ability. I have had it make the difference on several occasions with my Archery blaster, but he is still fairly low level.
I am concerned that it kicks in a bit to late, by the time it does actually kick in you really cant sustain more than one to two more hits. It would be nice if it kicked in around 60% and still maxed out at 500% just spread it out a little more. Also It would be nice to gain either a Regen boost at that point (that would go away one we were back above the lowest % of a desperation bonus 40% currently) or a small boost in resistance to make us last one extra hit.
All in all I like the power though, it definatly adds the comic-booky flavor of the blaster giving it his all at the last moment.
Be a hero!!
Only been playing solo, so I can't really say how this works for a team setting, which I'm sure Defiance is really meant for as the game seems to be more and more itself.
Sadly, I have to say... Defiance for a level 30+ blaster going solo means little. In fact, the few times I read that Defiance was any good for anyone was in the very early levels, or against one Lt or Boss in a ***very situational*** circumstance.
I found myself looking for some good to Defiance as I was getting eaten up and chewed out by minions. Found myself dead several times before it was even of any use. I was lucky enough in several circumstances to OVERKILL a minion who had a slither of life left as I was wasted upon by the others around him. Haven't had the chance yet to use flamethrower under Defiance, which I'm sure would... pull my fat out of the fryer so to speak with said gaggle of minions.
All in all, I'm finding Defiance not very helpful or applicable to a blaster in what he needs most. I don't think the increased damage is what a blaster needs when his health hits red. He needs defense. I think Defiance is a fine idea just applied in the wrong way.
Health goes down to those extremes, a blasters hits his "zone"... becomes defiant and his defense increases. All that increased damage is no help, if your dead the very next few seconds after you get that one kill. I'd rather get a defense bonus with defiance, fire off a few shots, under normal damage and be more effective that way. This enables my blaster to survive long enough to get healed by the defender, while getting in a few more good shots.
Defiance as it is now... is nothing but a faster way to end up dead, with loads of debt and a party very frustrated at you for making poor decisions and putting the defender in an awkward position of saying he didn't heal you because he wanted your Defiance to take effect. In fact, I think this is going to cause a HUGE rift between blasters and defenders and is going to cause a lot of problems on teams.
Please retool Defiance to work as a defense buff. Its just a much better idea.
RTT
I think the idea is great. Blasters really need something like this, but the power doesnt come into play often enough at the 40% mark, and at such a low HP level, it is hardly usefull at all. It is too risky for a blaster, who somtimes has to worry about being 1 shot to begin with, to allow himself to hover close to death for extra damage, which can be attained by stacking red pills and aim + buildup.
First off, It would be nice if we got a base increase in damage output regardless of our current hp.
Secondly, if you insist on making defiance linked to HP then perhaps making it a direct recipricol or ratio effect would work better. If A blaster has 90% hp left, then he does 10% more damage, and so forth.
This would make it more fun and challenging to allow ourselves to get hurt for the damage output.
Additionally, I think a Defense bonus as part of defiance would be nice too. I've noticed that Paragon Protectors seem to get almost impossible to hit when they have only a sliver of their hit points left. Blasters should get a similar effect, something that keeps us alive the more hurt we are. Something that makes the final takedown a bit harder, though still possible.
Thank you for your time and attention. I really appreicate you reading this.
Final analysis of Defiance from me:
Bad Idea.
Sorry, Statesman, but this 'special ability' places Blasters in more jeopardy (risk) with no compensating reward. That's right: NO reward.
You already know why: because it demands we violate good Blaster gameplay tactics. It's a debt magnet waiting to happen. It will piss-off all the 'healer' heroes/heroines amongst us.
The ability activates when the Blaster is already in the danger zone. There is no time to 'weigh options or consider choices'. When you are at the point where this power activates, you're already dead, you've already pissed-off your team and you're sucking asphalt or soon to be. Oh, did I mention you've already pissed-off your Healer, as well? Who in their right mind is going to piss-off their Healer???
Whoever conceived this ability obviously has never really played a Blaster from 0 to 50. There's no way you can convince me he or she has. If they had, then they'd know that you don't have time to make any other decision but this one: fly/run/jump/port away or die.
Jack, this is a waste of coding resources and time. It doesn't address a single one of the issues we Blasters have brought to your attention for the last four months. I'm astonished at the lack of response to our issues and HOPE you've got something better up your sleeve.
thanks for trying, though.
Cal2
I think the "Blaster Fix" is more the raised damage cap, not Defiance. Personally I see Defiance as more of a freebie. Something else that helps us out, but not meant as a great cureall for Blaster woes.
I'm in support of Defiance, and most Blaster changes. (the exceptions being AoE, and I've commented in the other thread on it)
Having only tested this with Ice. Archery and Sonic...
My opinion is that the high tempo sets like Ice and Archery are more likely to bail out of a fight due to low Endurance instead of loe Health. The other sets will get more use out of the power. With Sonics, by the time Defiance kicked in, I was able to mow through red cons with the Sonics high damage multiplied by Defiance.
I think I'd like to see Damage scaled back and an increase to Acc to compensate. I think that will help balance Defiance for other Blaster sets as, when you're down on END you really need your one shot to hit.