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The problem is that Defender secondaries are 66% damage 125% buffs/debuffs, while Blasters are 125% damage and 100% buffs/debuffs.
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Ive seen you quoting other numbers like this in this thread. Im not sure but I dont believe these numbers are correct. I was under the impression that the way the scale works is that Blasters are at 100% dmg, everyone else is based off of that. If Blasters are doing 125% and Defenders are 66%, then Defenders are doing only about half the dmg of Blasters which I dont believe is correct.
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For FF at least, there is very little, if any, incentive to take it as a primary other than concept. The whole set works much better, more synergistically, with controllers and MM's.
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You know what? I think this is probably close to the crux of the whole Defender/Controller/Blaster issue. Controller Primaries/Secondaries synergize extremely well. There are *lots* of ways to use the powers together to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Defender primaries / secondaries (and Blasters for the most part) do not work together *nearly* so well. It is no coincidence that the Defender sets considered to be the strongest - like Dark and Rad - are those whose primaries best leverage their secondaries. And this is in large part because for most Defender secondaries the damage component is the only power function that can be meaningfully leveraged by primary powers. It is no coincidence that the Dark secondary - for example - is so much stronger for many primaries than the others. Powers like TT can work together with other Defender abilities to synergize in ways that no power in Energy Blast can manage. And the to-hit debuff stacks with many Defender buffs and debuffs better than anything in...say...Archery. Even Dark doesn't go nearly far enough to my mind, but it shows hints of the direction all Defender secondaries ought to go in order to bring Defenders as a whole up to par.
Blaster secondaries... I'll leave to a different discussion. That's a whole 'nother kettle o' fish.
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The problem is that Defender secondaries are 66% damage 125% buffs/debuffs, while Blasters are 125% damage and 100% buffs/debuffs.
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Ive seen you quoting other numbers like this in this thread. Im not sure but I dont believe these numbers are correct. I was under the impression that the way the scale works is that Blasters are at 100% dmg, everyone else is based off of that. If Blasters are doing 125% and Defenders are 66%, then Defenders are doing only about half the dmg of Blasters which I dont believe is correct.
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Actually, the developers have been stating for a long time that they didn't decrease everyone elses damage, they just buffed Blasters and Scrappers damage (ie. 125% damage.)
The problem was that Defenders had already been set to 66% before that.
I've seen several times where my Defender was easily only doing half the damage compared to an AR blaster, which I checked to see where moderate versus moderate damage.
Defender are actually doing about 1/2 the damage of Blasters before any external buffs/debuffs are applied.
Still here, even after all this time!
It's 65% of Blaster base damage, Futurias. This can *easily* be verified with an unslotted level 25 En/ Blaster and /En Defender. Costs for the same powers are the same and probably have been so since i4/i5. The availability of Aim and Build Up alters this, of course, as does slotting.
65% Defenders, 112.5% Scrappers, 100% Blasters, 80% Tankers.
Originally, EVERYONE BUT DEFENDERS hit weaker. However, Blasters were basically debt machines. So they went from 80% of their current damage to 100%. That brought defenders down a few notches (as did the various redutions to -res powers). Then Scrappers, Blasters, and Tankers all got buffed to their current levels.
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The problem is that Defender secondaries are 66% damage 125% buffs/debuffs, while Blasters are 125% damage and 100% buffs/debuffs.
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Ive seen you quoting other numbers like this in this thread. Im not sure but I dont believe these numbers are correct. I was under the impression that the way the scale works is that Blasters are at 100% dmg, everyone else is based off of that. If Blasters are doing 125% and Defenders are 66%, then Defenders are doing only about half the dmg of Blasters which I dont believe is correct.
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Actually, the developers have been stating for a long time that they didn't decrease everyone elses damage, they just buffed Blasters and Scrappers damage (ie. 125% damage.)
The problem was that Defenders had already been set to 66% before that.
I've seen several times where my Defender was easily only doing half the damage compared to an AR blaster, which I checked to see where moderate versus moderate damage.
Defender are actually doing about 1/2 the damage of Blasters before any external buffs/debuffs are applied.
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Well like I said I could be off-base here, but I always thought the standard way of comparing AT dmg numbers, and that testing had born this out, was to use Blasters as the 100% baseline. In such a scenario Tankers are at 80%, Defenders 66%, etc. If the 66% is not "66% of Blaster dmg" then what is it 66% of? What you're saying is that Defender powers do only about half the dmg of their Blaster counterparts. I do not believe this to be the case.
Edit: Thanks for the confimation BlueEyed, thought I was going crazy there for a minute.
Not many people remember that Blaster damage was buffed in Beta because their Offense/Offense builds were debt machines and range wasn't the defense that the developers thought it was.
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It's 65% of Blaster base damage, Futurias. This can *easily* be verified with an unslotted level 25 En/ Blaster and /En Defender. Costs for the same powers are the same and probably have been so since i4/i5. The availability of Aim and Build Up alters this, of course, as does slotting.
65% Defenders, 112.5% Scrappers, 100% Blasters, 80% Tankers.
Originally, EVERYONE BUT DEFENDERS hit weaker. However, Blasters were basically debt machines. So they went from 80% of their current damage to 100%. That brought defenders down a few notches (as did the various redutions to -res powers). Then Scrappers, Blasters, and Tankers all got buffed to their current levels.
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Well, I know for a fact that my Dark Blast against Assault Rifle was 1/2, easily.
Just remember that the developers have sorta switched gears on how they describe the percentages. It used to be everyone was compared against the best as a percentage. Ie. Blasters were 100% and people were Tanks were 80%, etc.
This is *exactly* the same number ratio as Blasters being 125% versus someone that is 100% BTW.
They then changed things to describe the ATs that go bonuses on "what they do best" as 125% against the "base" level of 100%.
IIRC, Defenders were *already* at 66% of the prebuffed Blasters 100%, though I could be off a bit. Blaster were then buffed to 125% damage (as were scrappers.)
Tankers were later boosted, as their old damage of 75% (against 100% I believe) was too low.
Just two ways of looking at the same numbers, and it confused the issue.
We certainly aren't doing 82.5% of a blaster 125% though. No way is that matching any numbers out there.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Not many people remember that Blaster damage was buffed in Beta because their Offense/Offense builds were debt machines and range wasn't the defense that the developers thought it was.
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It still isn't, and even better, defenders don't even get to be ranged really, since so many defender primary powers are PBAOE.
If you're standing next to your melees to cover them with dispersion bubble or a PBAOE heal (which is all that some sets have) or use choking cloud or fulcrum shift/siphon power or keep your melees inside shadowfall or steamy mist... you're in melee range.
Even if range was a defense, defenders by and large wouldn't have it most of the time if they were doing their job right.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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For FF at least, there is very little, if any, incentive to take it as a primary other than concept. The whole set works much better, more synergistically, with controllers and MM's.
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You know what? I think this is probably close to the crux of the whole Defender/Controller/Blaster issue. Controller Primaries/Secondaries synergize extremely well. There are *lots* of ways to use the powers together to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Defender primaries / secondaries (and Blasters for the most part) do not work together *nearly* so well. It is no coincidence that the Defender sets considered to be the strongest - like Dark and Rad - are those whose primaries best leverage their secondaries. And this is in large part because for most Defender secondaries the damage component is the only power function that can be meaningfully leveraged by primary powers. It is no coincidence that the Dark secondary - for example - is so much stronger for many primaries than the others. Powers like TT can work together with other Defender abilities to synergize in ways that no power in Energy Blast can manage. And the to-hit debuff stacks with many Defender buffs and debuffs better than anything in...say...Archery. Even Dark doesn't go nearly far enough to my mind, but it shows hints of the direction all Defender secondaries ought to go in order to bring Defenders as a whole up to par.
Blaster secondaries... I'll leave to a different discussion. That's a whole 'nother kettle o' fish.
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Well thanks Star! I don't post as much (or as well) as you and BurningChick and CDN_Guardian, but I read every FF thread that comes along and I love thinking about stuff like this. To add to what I said above, I'd bet there's a darn good reason FF is in CoV as only a secondary, and only for an AT with pets: the developers now recognize that's where it belongs.
That said, and while I don't disagree with what you said, I think the absolute crux of the issue is overlap. Overlap in AT purposes and overlap in powersets. It's the overlap with blasters that keeps Defender damage down, and it's the overlap with controllers that keep Defender control down. Defender powesets are mostly shared with Blasters and Controllers as well, making them at best difficult to balance and at worst redundant.
FF is very much, I think, an especially problem line, and one that I think simply cannot be saved without some major work. And I think we're just too far into CoH's lifetime to think that will happen.
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But the big three powers in FF will work twice as well as a Controller or MMs bubbles after I7 against bosses and AVs.
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They don't and they won't. The buff to defence against higher level foes works for everyone. Plus a controller is 80% as effective as a defender with regards to the def Buff. Which amounts to about a 4% difference, 8% when stacked, in the level of defence provided. So I'm not sure how you can come to your conclusion.
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In Issue 7, all mobs will have a 50% base to-hit chance while higher ranked mobs will get an accuracy bonus to their attacks. Take AVs. Their base to-hit now is 75%. In Issue 7 it will be 50% with a 50% acc bonus. With no defense that works out to 75% final to-hit. But defense comes in before accuracy buffs so here's how it will work for FF defenders and controllers in Issue 7:
Defenders bubbles three slotted give your teammates 39% defense to all
Controller bubbles three slotted give your teammates 29% defense to all
Put that into the Issue 7 formula for an AVs to-hit:
Defender: 50-39=11*1.5=16.5
Controller: 50-29=21*1.5=31.5
Or in other words a FF defender will defend against mobs 48% better than a Controller. It used to be that was only true for minions, now it's true for all mobs.
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After I7, FF Defenders will be able to cap defense to all damage types for their teammates with Manuevers. Controllers and MMs will be able to get them down to 15% or so (which works out to about 22% for AVs and such)
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Correction. They can't cap Psi or Toxic damage and the "capping" of defense, if you mean flooring their chance to hit, is only against minions.
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Umm... no. Deflection Shield gives defense to melee, SM, LE
Reflection gives defense to ranged, AoE, Fire, Cold, Eng, Neg
Dispersion gives defense to all
Are you really unaware that your powers were buffed in this way?
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Well like I said I could be off-base here, but I always thought the standard way of comparing AT dmg numbers, and that testing had born this out, was to use Blasters as the 100% baseline. In such a scenario Tankers are at 80%, Defenders 66%, etc. If the 66% is not "66% of Blaster dmg" then what is it 66% of? What you're saying is that Defender powers do only about half the dmg of their Blaster counterparts. I do not believe this to be the case.
Edit: Thanks for the confimation BlueEyed, thought I was going crazy there for a minute.
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They used to, but as CoV hit Beta and numbers were being thrown about, they changed to a 100% base and then ATs got "bonuses" against that base.
Ie. Controllers are 125% on control, Tankers are 125% self-buffs, Scrappers and Blasters are 125% damage and Defenders are 125% buffs/debuffs. Everything else (with notable exceptions of Defenders blasts) is supposed to be roughly 100% "base".
A lot of the CoV archtypes are listed doing things as 100% (like Corruptor or Mastermind secondariers at 100%.)
Scourge and Fury make determing "rough" damage base, but scourge seemed balanced at about 100% damage and fury (with heavy buffing) seems to end up at about 125% damage.
Still here, even after all this time!
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I respect your arguments in many other areas, Arcanaville, but I honestly wonder if you know what you're talking about here. The clearest proof is this:
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FB: questionable, arguably equal
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Force bolt is *not* a damage power; and moreover, for any damage power in the defender primary, controllers will typically outdamage defenders with it. My /ff controller, when fulcrum shifted to the damage cap, does 12 damage or so with force bolt. (That's not a typo; I mean twelve points of damage). I'm assuming a defender would do 15 points of damage or so, then, or some similar multiple of 12. However, I use it after I blind them -- so I really do 12+12=24 points of damage, exceeding defenders. See how carefully _Castle_ had to phrase his statement to try to make it sound balanced?
Anybody who says that force bolt is better for defenders had better actually present that argument; it's a laughable claim otherwise. And others have pointed out your mistake re force bubble.
The argument that is being made is very straightforward. The proofs for each lemma may be a bit problematic, but the overall argument is clear (and the lemmata you quibble at are incredibly plausible -- you can quibble that back-of-the-envelope calculations aren't exact, but they're pretty darn good at getting the idea across).
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Its precisely because force bolt does practically no damage that its hard to say it favors anyone on the basis of damage. Certainly, I cannot understand how anyone can claim that the defense difference between FF defenders and controller is "marginal" but the advantage of force bolt for controllers is significant.
If I concede the error in force bubble, it still doesn't really change the argument substantially: to claim FF is significantly superior for controllers than defenders, you have to heavily marginalize the defense advantage of defenders, and thats very difficult to support, and then you have to suggest that most of the rest of the powers are better for controllers because of synergy with controller primaries, which is not something you can just hand wave as self-evident.
So I still contend it is not a simple straight line argument to say its obvious FF is superior for controllers than defenders. If it is, the degree of proof required is much higher than that.
Containment changes nothing. If containment allows controllers to significantly outdamage defenders, then outside of heavily stacked resistance debuffs, defenders will be unable to close that gap with any primary or secondary: if containment allows controllers to outdamage defenders - and that is unintentional - that has nothing specifically to do with issues of set by set effectiveness, and would have to be corrected outside of small tweaks to power effectiveness.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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Futurias: The "65%" number isn't something that primarily comes from the Devs; it's something that comes from the players, testing Energy defenders vs. Energy blasters, Electric vs. Electric, and so forth.
Dark vs. AR is not really a good test; Assault Rifle's attacks don't have the same brawl indexes as the other Blaster sets. [3.0 BI on Burst vs. 2.7777 for every other first-line power, for instance.]
If you have specific enemies and numbers [Their snipe did 400, mine did 200, vs. an even-con red lectroid minion] please bring them up and we can try to figure out what happened. (Vazh are slightly weak to Lethal,for instance.) Otherwise, there are too many possible sources of difference.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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In Issue 7, all mobs will have a 50% base to-hit chance while higher ranked mobs will get an accuracy bonus to their attacks. Take AVs. Their base to-hit now is 75%. In Issue 7 it will be 50% with a 50% acc bonus. With no defense that works out to 75% final to-hit. But defense comes in before accuracy buffs so here's how it will work for FF defenders and controllers in Issue 7:
Defenders bubbles three slotted give your teammates 39% defense to all
Controller bubbles three slotted give your teammates 29% defense to all
Put that into the Issue 7 formula for an AVs to-hit:
Defender: 50-39=11*1.5=16.5
Controller: 50-29=21*1.5=31.5
Or in other words a FF defender will defend against mobs 48% better than a Controller. It used to be that was only true for minions, now it's true for all mobs.
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<sigh> You're right on the base to hit stuff. Forgot about that until I scoured the archives to find castles post. Thanks for the reminder.
For what its worth, Controllers are 80% as effective as a defender so if a defender provides 39% then a controller will provide 31.2% not 29%. So the numbers work out like this:
Defender: 50-39=11*1.5=16.5
Controller: 50-31=19*1.5=28.5
Which makes the defender version roughly 43% better.
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Umm... no. Deflection Shield gives defense to melee, SM, LE
Reflection gives defense to ranged, AoE, Fire, Cold, Eng, Neg
Dispersion gives defense to all
Are you really unaware that your powers were buffed in this way?
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For what its worth, the patch notes have the buffs in this order.
Force Field/Insulation Field now also buffs defense to AoE Attacks. Dispersion Bubble now also buffs defense to Melee and Ranged attacks.
Assuming the notes are correct, which I did, means that neither Melee, Range or AOE are capped. An thus by default PSI and Toxic are not either since FF doesn't have Toxic DEF and only Dispersion bubble offers PSI DEF.
Synergy Lvl 50 Def FF/Electric/Psy - Protector
Cimarron - Protector Mascot
My DA Page
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... don't know if the game could support this...
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I'm almost 100% sure gravity powers' secondary effect is -speed, but no -recharge.
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I was thinking of things like lingering radiation, and other slows shared between controllers and defenders, but if gravity's slows are all -speed and no -recharge, that would reinforce the notion that controller slows should (in general) be weighted more towards -speed and less towards -recharge, while defenders should get the reverse, rather than having the full combination of -speed/-rech be stronger for controllers than defenders (which doesn't seem to make sense to me regardless of where the powers are located).
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Gravity does have -Slow component as a secondary effect for those mobs who are resistant to our holds or require multiple holds to fully mez. Ie: I cast Gravity Distortion on Ye Olde Fake Nemesis. This scares said Fake. He starts to run away.... at a really SLOW speed... until I stack another hold on him at which point he does the floaty nemesis baloon dance. 
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
Couple things:
While I do this on my lunch break for the most part, I also do it in between "Get all" and running data generation scripts. It *is* part of my job -- the only difference here is I do part of it while at lunch to keep myself from getting bored, and the fact that I share info with you guys. Plenty of folks here read the boards and deal with issues; they just don't spend much time reporting on it.
So, while I appreciate the praise, don't let it degenerate into disparaging the other folks here and the work they do.
First off, _Castle_, let me say thank you for looking into these issues. I'm obviously not alone in the defender community when I say thank you for at least addressing some of our concerns.
That said, I do have one issue with your post. Throughout your post, you mention powers (with status effects primarily)that work as well if not better in a controller's secondary than in a defender's primary set as being working by design. While you do give the defense that the damage component of some of these powers is higher for the defender than it is for the controller, I think you're failing to realize the reason most people take the power in the first place. It's not for some minor damage component - it's for the status effect the power gives.
Now, admittedly, controllers should certainly have a vital role in subduing mobs and otherwise taking them out of combat. However, I urge you to note that those status effecting powers were given to defenders for a reason - they do mitigate incoming damage, which is crucial for the sets that are not so heal intensive.
My problem, I guess, is that the design team has been very careful to make sure that defenders don't step on a controller's toes, but I want to ask - who is making sure the reverse isn't happening? With so many defender primaries shared as controller secondaries, this problem has been resurfacing time and time again as this sharing has blurred our role in a group. Obviously, removing the shared primaries/secondaries is not an option - especially at this point in the game, but I'd like to ask you to take another look and see how powers and power sets can be differentiated between defenders and controllers so that each archtype (both defenders and controllers) can bring something useful, different, and easily distinguishable from the other archtypes.
As a final note, I want to go on record saying that I'm NOT calling for a nerf to controllers by any means. I would, however, like to see the effects of powers that, for example, a storm defender uses be appreciably different than the effects of powers a */storm controller uses.
For example, if the devs have decided that controllers should be better at any status effects of some powers (like, say, thunderclap) than defenders, that's all well and good, but maybe defenders should get some sort of buff or debuff to their version of the power to make up for the reduced status effect.
Just my thoughts. Thanks again for your time, _Castle_.
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Eventually the devs/_Castle_ may make a pronouncement on -speed. What do you think -fly, -jump, and -tp qualify as? Are they controls or debuffs?
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I'm of the mind that a...
Control power is something that prevents you from doing something.
Debuff power is something that inhibits the results of your actions without preventing those actions.
A Hold is control. A -Dmg power is a Debuff. The Hold prevents you from "doing". The -Dmg reduces the results of your actions.
Some power effects are both. Slows for instance (-Speed & -Recharge) actually do both. -Speed prevents you from running up and smacking your target. -Recharge also stops your ability to attack, cimilar to but not exactly like a hold.
At the same time, -Speed still allows for movement. It's not preventing you from attacking, just making it more difficult. Sounds like DeBuff to me. -Recharge is a DeBuff. It quite clearly prevents you from attacking as fast but in no way prevents you from attacking if you have an attack ready.
The problem I see is that some effects are both Control and DeBuff while the two main users of those sets do NOT have equal modifiers for usage of those effects.
In a nutshell, the effects that are both Control & DeBuff need to be used at the same effectiveness modifier for BOTH Controllers and Defenders.
On top of this, I would posit that if I was a Storm/, that my primary powers would be 20% more powerful across the board than they would be if I was /Storm instead. I used to believe it was this way. What I'm seeing in this thread is that this belief is grossly incorrect. My primary purpose / powerset should be more powerful than the SAME powerset used as a secondary.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
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Two problems already. First, without any further comment, if controllers are better or equal in five of nine, then defenders are by your own admission unequivocally better in four of nine. If even one of the five of nine is close to equal, this is not a strong statement at all.
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I'm not sure how you can say with a straight face that this is not a strong statement. Fact: Defender secondaries are Blaster primaries. Fact: Defender secondaries function at 65% of Blaster primaries, across the board. Fact: Controller secondaries are Defender primaries. Fact: More than half of at least one Controller secondary functions at 100%+ of Defender primary.
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Second, the number is not self-evident to me either. Of the nine FF powers, I'd say that:
PFF: defender better
DS: defender better
FB: questionable, arguably equal
IS: defender better
DF: questionable, default to controller
DB: defender better
RF: controller better
RB: controller better
FB: arguably equal
There is absolutely no question that PFF, DS, IS, and DB are better for defenders, which I'm assuming are the four you don't include. But it would be difficult to make a case that FB is in favor of controllers: knockback distance is not terribly relevant to the damage mitigation of KB in general. It would also be difficult to make a strong case for force bubble being significantly in favor of controllers, since it has a defense component.
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Which is why I said "as well as or better than". Kindly read for comprehension; you went to a lot of time and trouble to confirm precisely what I already told you.
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Define "marginal." My estimates suggest that controller bubbles admit something between 30% and 100% more damage than defender bubbles, depending on situation.
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Marginal, i.e., by some margin. I was not suggesting that the difference is negligible; that's your inference, not my implication.
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For this argument to work, you have to believe that the significantly higher defense numbers in FF for defenders is basically immaterial, even though the numbers strongly suggest otherwise,
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Um, no. I have to believe that the somewhat higher defense numbers in FF for Defenders is more than offset by the additional damage mitigation a Controller can bring to the table via (a) his primary and (b) his equal or better effectiveness with more than half of the FF set.
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that the other control-oriented powers in FF are all strongly weighted in controller's favor, even though thats not easily demonstrable,
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Not a necessary predicate for the argument. Thanks for playing.
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and then above that you have to amplify with synergy problems.
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Synergy problems are not unique to Controllers; they're suffered by both ATs, and are therefore a wash. Thanks for playing.
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I consider that quite a few hoops, actually
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Then we can stop right here, because I consider your various objections to the straight-line argument I've presented to be at best frivolous if not downright intellectually dishonest.
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In a nutshell, the effects that are both Control & DeBuff need to be used at the same effectiveness modifier for BOTH Controllers and Defenders.
On top of this, I would posit that if I was a Storm/, that my primary powers would be 20% more powerful across the board than they would be if I was /Storm instead. I used to believe it was this way. What I'm seeing in this thread is that this belief is grossly incorrect. My primary purpose / powerset should be more powerful than the SAME powerset used as a secondary.
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QF being exactly what I think. 
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I think we can all agree that Hard Control is an absolute sort of deal. You can not move at all, attack at all, hurt at all. Those are all hard forms of control. Soft control is fuzzier mostly because it is intentionally more vague hence the soft part.
I would argue that all debuffs, and to an extent many buffs, are in fact to one degree or another soft control. That said it is the METHOD in which the power is employed that determines if it is really a debuff or a control effect. Conrol efftect should, to me at least, control the flow of battle. So aside from hard controls anything that provides area denial(ground effects), inteferes with targeting(mass stealths, pets), force some one to attack a target of your choice(taunt), or not another target of your chioce(placate.)
This is NOT to say that the stalker placate power is really some major soft control effect because it does not effect the over all flow of battle. If someone had could put placate powers on other people at will then that would definatly be a form of soft control.
Allow me to further extend what I am trying to say to a more practical situation. Lingering Radiation is NOT a soft control power -speed be damned. It very little stratgic implications. The entire power is a straight up debuff. Conversely Mud pots, ice slick or tar patch, IS a soft control power. Both of those powers make one piece of real estate very very unfriendly, so much so that you can (sort of) control where the other guys will attack you from. Sure they could cross the patch but it is hard to do so thus most people will avoid it and thus you (soft)control their avenues of attack. Artic Air and in a way force bubble is the same sort of deal, it makes the area around the player very unfriendly and thus makes people choose to shie away giving you more control over the battlefield.
Lingering Radiation has no such effect it is a straight up, aww man I am screwed power, it inhibits the enemies ability to fight but in no way prevents them from choosing how to fight. Well at least no manner that 90% damage wouldn't have the same effect.
For the most part powers that inhibit strategy are soft controls. It does seem that the devs have made all the soft control powers more favorably to controllers, which is insane since many of the defender primary powers are in fact soft controls. Yes, yes some are debuffs as well but still they are acheiving damage mitigation via soft control.
I guess there is no point quibbling over what or what is not soft control because either way one side is is going to pay a much to heavy price to other. I suggest another method be found to resolve the issue something perhaps something less definative.
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then why play a Defender at all
[/ QUOTE ] This is a different subject all together. But...I think the answer to this questions is more accessible following the AT modifier method than the Primary>Secondary philosophy. In other words, I'd rather defender superiority be achieved through our AT modifier than the fact we have it as a primary and they have it as secondary. I can't give you anything substantive to base this on so I know you'll accept it as gospel postehaste.
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I would actually agree with this. I think the Defender's problem is simply that their declared "speciality" is not nearly common enough in their own powersets.
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Bingo.
See, Mieux, this is why much as I'd like to, I can't accept it as gospel, posthaste. We play the game we have, not the game we'd like to have; and in the game, Defender primaries are thick with powers the devs consider control (see Eisregen's list).
If Defender primaries were significantly more buff/debuff-oriented, with the occasional control power thrown in here or there, then I wouldn't care if Controllers got equal or better mileage out of that occasional power (just as I'm sure Blasters don't really care that Defenders get equal mileage out of Aim). But that's not the case; our specialty, as Starshield points out, isn't nearly common enough in our own power sets.
Similarly, if buffing/debuffing offered significantly better aggregate damage mitigation than alternatives, then I wouldn't care if controllers got equal or better use out of some of our powers. But that's self-evidently not the case: Controller-level buffs and debuffs combined with Controller control provides equal or better damage mitigation in virtually all cases.
So we get it coming and going. We have comparatively few tools that take advantage of our specialty, making that specialty comparatively worth less than other ATs' specialties; and Controllers are at least our equals, if not our betters, in the service of damage mitigation.
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Couple things:
While I do this on my lunch break for the most part, I also do it in between "Get all" and running data generation scripts. It *is* part of my job -- the only difference here is I do part of it while at lunch to keep myself from getting bored, and the fact that I share info with you guys. Plenty of folks here read the boards and deal with issues; they just don't spend much time reporting on it....
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... as noted in the comprehensive Known Issues area and patch notes mechanism in place, right?
Gosh darn it, _Castle_, you're so awesome.
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Just having a pet allows controllers to use Defender powers to greater effect than any defender could. Speed Boosted Singularity, Animated Stone, Imps, or Phantasm. Or any other buff other power.
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QFT.
The presence of pets does wonderful things to someone with the FF set for example. All of a sudden you have built in teammates to use your "bubble other" powers. Or for the previous version of Repulsion bomb.
If a FF defender knocks back a mob, he might get two attacks on that mob before it gets up. With pets he might get three times that. Note that can apply to Force Bolt, Repulsion Bomb, and Repulsion Field.
As mentioned those same pets can possibly help deal with aggro generated by Force Bubble.
For MM's at least, pets can be told to leave a detentioned enemy alone, something that's much more difficult for a Defender to do.
For FF at least, there is very little, if any, incentive to take it as a primary other than concept. The whole set works much better, more synergistically, with controllers and MM's.