Drum roll please!

*Statesman reads whole thread. Nods his head. Shrugs.Goes to lunch.*

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*Statesman reads whole thread. Nods his head. Shrugs.Goes to lunch.*

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He should watch out for the Ninja I placed in the fridge *evil laugh*

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Drawing Aggro only applies in Teams. If you are teaming, try to get someone with Taunt to be on your team. So long as you aren't hunting +4's, Taunt should last long enough to mitigate this. As far as situational, that is by design.

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If the last three powers in Force Field being situational are "by design", why are Dark Servant, Recovery Aura, Regeneration Aura, Adrenalin Boost, Transferance, Fulcrum Shift, Choking Cloud, Clarity, Liquify, Tornado, Lightning Storm, Disruption Arrow and Oil Slick Arrow not situational? (Some of those Powers may still be classified as "situational" but I tried to eliminate all those that were obvious, like Inertial Reduction. The point is outside of FF, all Defender sets have at least one power in the last three which is useful in a general sense)

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Not true. Defenders do slightly more damage, unless the controllers Containment is in effect. Knockback is not a Debuff, and Controllers have the same modifier as Defenders for this.

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In other words, "Defenders do more damage -- except when they don't". See below.

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It is also arguable that they only have three powers worth slotting.

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You said yourself that the final three powers were "situational". That may not be the same as "not worth slotting", but I think that's the point that was trying to be made.

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No other Defender set provides the level of Defense as a Force Field Defender. The built in Status Protection is invaluable, especially with Scrapper and Tankers Status Protections reduced. Also, Defenders are more than Healers -- consider your 'Healing' the fact that your team is taking considerably less damage as a result of your protections. I do know that many of you will disagree with this, but short of rebuilding the powerset completely, it is not likely to change in the near future.

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This I feel is the big issue. Saying that Force Field has the most Defense is irrelevant. That's like saying "No other Scrapper set provides the same level of healing as Regeneration." Is that supposed to mean that Regeneration Scrappers are better at surviving than all other Scrappers? Of course not, they are supposed to be about equal.

It's not whether or not FF has more DEFENSE that is the issue, it is whether it has more DAMAGE MITIGATION. And what I and the other players of Force Fielders are trying to get across is that they DON'T. Any team with a Dark or Rad Defender will take considerably less damage as a result of THEIR protection. In the case of Dark, they can probably reduce that damage as much as we could. PLUS, they can HEAL on top of that.

If you can conclusively prove that a Dark Defender under normal playing conditions (and that includes all the complications of using anchored debuffs) cannot mitigate as much damage as a Force Fielder, then maybe I'll accept your point. But if Force Field is to compete with Dark and Rad then there should be NO QUESTION about how much damage it mitigates. It should be OBVIOUS that it is more. Because if Force Field is not to have the ability to heal, then it should mitigate FAR MORE damage to compensate for that. And if it is not to have the ability to boost offensive power, it should be EVEN MORE.

If we are even having this argument, then there is a problem. FF shouldn't compete with other defensive sets. It should leave them in the dust.

If that is an issue -- and I assume that it is -- then FF should be given more offensive capability, more damage mitigation of a different form, (not healing, but how about a damage debuff?) or both. Knockback is obviously a form of damage mitigation, but you said yourself those powers are situational. In the absense of knockback, what do we bring to the table?

Of course, I do expect FF to be somewhat better once the Def adjustment goes live. But anyone expecting that to be an overall change is going to be disappointed. The best thing that could be said about it is that at least FF will no longer just be ignored outright, if the foes are orange or red. They still have to compete with Rad and Dark, on equal footing.

As for Status Protection, an Empath should be able to easily match that protection. Or even a Sonic.

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Controllers AT modifier for Slows is higher than Defenders. I'll talk to geko to make certain this is by design.

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Here's my final point. Slow may be regarded as a control power, but it is technically a debuff. A -Recharge, for instance, is quite clearly a debuff, so since Slow can be interpreted as -Speed, it could be considered a debuff.

The problem, of course, is that since Slow effects movement, it is connected to a Controller's primary role, which is controlling the position of enemies. Now, back before I had any real information about what capabilities the ATs would specifically had, I made a guess, based on some examples we had (mainly Storm Summoning) on what would be the difference between Controllers and Defenders. Controllers, of course, have absolute control over movement, they can hold and sleep, preventing opponents from either moving or attacking. Like Professor X, their specialty would be the "hard" control powers, over large areas.

The Defenders, on the other hand, I felt would have "soft" control powers, although again over a large area. They couldn't stop them from moving, but they could slow them down, they couldn't stop them from attacking, but they could slow them down. Slows and Knockback, I felt, would be the Defender's specialty, Slow because it really is nothing but a debuff, Knockback because, while it is a control power, is more chaotic and hard to control than a mez.

While I certainly agree that Controllers should be better at Control, as others have said, they have plenty of that in their Primary. A Secondary is supposed to be 75% of a Primary, that's the definition of it, and so even though the Controllers SHOULD get a boost, it should really be no more than enough to match the 75% reduction. At least in the areas of Slow and Knockback, and maybe even Disorient and Immobilize, I don't see why a full strength Buff/Debuff Primary should not outperform a Secondary version.

Now, of course maybe that's not possible. You often use AT modifiers to set the relation between the Primary and Secondary and not base values. Knockback is already the same for Controllers and Defenders, I think that you could make Slow the same, as well. It's the overall Set that should be 75%, not one individual power. But then, if a set is primarily control, like Trick Arrow, or even FF if you consider its Knockback to be a large part of its usefulness, then how DO you keep it from being just more suited for Controllers than Defenders? (Or even Corruptors)

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I think the most distressing thing we've learned here is that our Primary Power sets are not actually better for Defenders, even though we are the best at debuffing. That's because debuffing isn't really the mainstay of all of the power sets.

Even heavy debuffing sets have a fairly large amount of crowd controls that is equaled by anyone else using the power sets or is surpassed by Controllers.

With a (crippled) sub-par secondary damage and no defining "we really are best" at what we do, Defenders are the red-headed step-children of the CoX family.

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Which is the huge ol' problem for Defenders.

As of now, it's hard to see how any Defender debuff primary is better than a Controller secondary. A Controller's secondary mez effects are better, slows are better, and knockbak is equal. That leaves the accuracy/resistance/-accc/-resist debuffs, and the effective difference between the two is already negligible.

Defenders=Empaths. That's the CoH being presented.

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Yes, it does appear that Defenders don't get a full 125% "buffing" benefit over controllers, even there. It's closer to 114% to the base 100%. Probably a good thing that Empathy isn't a Corruptor/Master Mind set.

Now that we've defined the problem, we need to look at possible solutions.

Unfortunately, I can see only a couple of ways to do so. Revamp Defender primary sets so they always have 6 to 7 out of 9 powers having a significant buffing/debuffing ability and remove most crowd controlling ability, so that it sticks out better (highly unlikely), revamp Blaster secondaries with better buffing/debuffing and crowd controls at 100% effectivness so that Defender Secondaries can then be raised to 100% effectiveness without crowding out Blasters.

As a 3rd suggestion perhaps, set Defender "controlling" ability at only one step behind Controllers 125%. Perhaps at 115% as that seems to be our Primary power sets "secondary" purpose.

Any other ideas?

Still here, even after all this time!

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All Buffs and Debuffs throughout the game are applied to the Base effect, not the Enhanced Effect.

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This kind of bugs me. It basically makes damage debuff powers very ineffective in pvp, with crits, aim and buildup powers almost completely negating the debuff. They basically only work against other squishies that don't have massive damage buffs.

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All Buffs and Debuffs throughout the game are applied to the Base effect, not the Enhanced Effect.

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This kind of bugs me. It basically makes those powers very ineffective in pvp, with crits, aim and buildup powers almost completely negating the debuff. They basically only work against other squishies that don't have massive damage buffs.

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But everyone has massive damage buffs through enhancements.

I'm also not so sure about the whole "all debuffs work off of base damage" deal. Defense debuffs? To-hit debuffs?

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Any other ideas?

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Sorry to be a complete pessimist, but considering how low priority the small changes seem to be, I don't anticipate any large changes to the AT in the foreseeable future. In the short term, I'd say if you're having fun with your defender, by all means play them and enjoy them as they are. If you're dissatisfied with the inequities between defender/controller powers, PvP performance, etc... Then now might be a good time to roll up a controller.

Seriously, as I read through this, I'm actually kind of glad that my Rad/Dark defender is 50, my Kin/Rad defender is on the verge of retirement already, and my new main is a controller. As a long-time defender-a-holic it's a shame, but as CoH has changed (nerfs, PvP focus, etc...), defenders have been mostly left behind... So if I'm going to enjoy the game as it currently stands, I think I'm sticking with controllers for a while.

Just imagine if you will... a controller with a Dark Miasma secondary. *SHUDDER*

-River

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Just imagine if you will... a controller with a Dark Miasma secondary. *SHUDDER*

-River

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Storm, Rad and even Trick Arrow secondaries can be controlling and debuffing monsters. Dark would be scary, but only a little bit more so than what already exists.

This is disheartening and demoralizing, to say the least.

_Castle_, I appreciate your honesty even if I don't like your answers.

FF/Psy is where I have the most experience so this is the only part I will address directly.

When enemies had their ranges greatly increased the +Range in Psy stopped being a benefit. Psy damage is not widely defended, but not many PvE enemies have Defense buffs at all. Many enemies are resistant to Psy damage. When they are resistant they are greatly resistant to the extent that if I'm on a team it's more efficient DPE to let the rest of the team do the actual damage while I focus on CC through my EPP.

Focusing on the resistances of enemies in the early game is not valid for me simply because it's faster to go from level 1 to 35 than it is to go from 35 to 50. More time is spent in the upper levels than the lower levels.

Knockback and Defense are all that FF has. We're better at Defense, but not greatly so. We're no better at KB, though. This is hardly fair.

Toss on that FF already takes it on the chin when it comes to the versatility of the set, particularly the fact that many things are either highly resistant or even immune to knockback reducing the usability of a set from 9 powers to 5 in a heartbeat. The toughest enemies in the game are completely immune to almost half the set. How is this fair?

The entire secondary powersets for Defenders in general is already low. When Containment is brought in many Controllers already outshine Defenders in the damage department.

This is one disappointed fuzzy chainsaw. Dark times for Defenders.

Does anybody have a good reason to play a Defender now? Anybody?

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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. 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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Bolded the part that makes me say, "Who cares?"

I mostly solo, and I don't have Maneuvers. I don't think it's too much to ask that my primary be more than a bag of atrocious crap that forces me, when I do team, to be nothing more than a buff-bot.

Quick notes:
We've reproduced the Knockback bug (thanks, folks!) and sent it to the programming team to deal with. So, it's on the list as of today, though I expect it is not very high priority.

Freezing Rain: Well, the POWERS were right. The problem was the Defender version was calling the Controller Rain, while Controllers were calling Defenders. My bad...it's fixed in I7.

I've not read most of your responses in this thread yet (I've been busy dealing with the deluge of PM's I got today -- a new record!) but I'll get through them by the end of the day.

_Castle_, first a big thank you for taking time to go through the the defender list and provide feedback on all the issues. I'm sure it was a big investment of time and your efforts are appreciated and welcomed.

However, I am more then a little frustrated, over the reponses to the Force Field set issues. First of all the whole damage argument with regards to Force Bolt/Repulsion Bomb is just plain silly. You're talking miniscule amounts of damage to begin with and your splitting hairs to somehow justify it not being the same for controller and defenders. Second, while I can understand the need for controllers to control better and defenders to buff/debuff better, I can't understand why the force field set only has only 4 powers that debuff/buff. To me that just doesn't make sense. Why build it at all as a defender primary if most of its abilities don't play to a defenders strenght, buffing/Debuffing. That's like making a controller primary a blaster primary and expecting blasters not to have issues with it. If at all possible could the dev's please look at adding some more buffs/debuffs to some of the other FF powers. I would like to think there's more of a difference between me and my controller cousin then just a 5% defense buff.

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Any other ideas?

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Sorry to be a complete pessimist, but considering how low priority the small changes seem to be, I don't anticipate any large changes to the AT in the foreseeable future. In the short term, I'd say if you're having fun with your defender, by all means play them and enjoy them as they are. If you're dissatisfied with the inequities between defender/controller powers, PvP performance, etc... Then now might be a good time to roll up a controller.

Seriously, as I read through this, I'm actually kind of glad that my Rad/Dark defender is 50, my Kin/Rad defender is on the verge of retirement already, and my new main is a controller. As a long-time defender-a-holic it's a shame, but as CoH has changed (nerfs, PvP focus, etc...), defenders have been mostly left behind... So if I'm going to enjoy the game as it currently stands, I think I'm sticking with controllers for a while.

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I wouldn't give up *quite* yet. Once players have pointed out some glaring problems, the developers have looked into it (verifying) and then looking at possible options to fix it.

Sometimes it's just fixing a particular power, other times it's required a bit of revamping entire ATs. Now that the players understand what is going on, we can articulate better the problems we see and ideas to possibly fix it.

They might not agree with our points, but they generally are willing to communicate and try to understand our side.

Still here, even after all this time!

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I've not read most of your responses in this thread yet (I've been busy dealing with the deluge of PM's I got today -- a new record!) but I'll get through them by the end of the day.

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Castle, you rock. Thanks for your continued attention and willingness to DO something.

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Freezing Rain: Well, the POWERS were right. The problem was the Defender version was calling the Controller Rain, while Controllers were calling Defenders. My bad...it's fixed in I7.

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Allow me a brief, smug 'we told you so' here. Thanks for taking another look. Knowing how other Devs have handled similar issues in the past, it's really good to know that someone is actually willing to give the avid testers around here some credit.

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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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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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Quick notes:
We've reproduced the Knockback bug (thanks, folks!) and sent it to the programming team to deal with. So, it's on the list as of today, though I expect it is not very high priority.

Freezing Rain: Well, the POWERS were right. The problem was the Defender version was calling the Controller Rain, while Controllers were calling Defenders. My bad...it's fixed in I7.

I've not read most of your responses in this thread yet (I've been busy dealing with the deluge of PM's I got today -- a new record!) but I'll get through them by the end of the day.

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Thank you for your efforts on our behalf, much appreciated, Castle.

Thank you very much for looking into the Freezing Rain bug.

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Allow me a brief, smug 'we told you so' here. Thanks for taking another look. Knowing how other Devs have handled similar issues in the past, it's really good to know that someone is actually willing to give the avid testers around here some credit.

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Should we go give the Controllers their rain back?

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Allow me a brief, smug 'we told you so' here. Thanks for taking another look. Knowing how other Devs have handled similar issues in the past, it's really good to know that someone is actually willing to give the avid testers around here some credit.

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Should we go give the Controllers their rain back?

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It's only fair and just, isn't it? We couldn't keep what's rightfully theirs.

So let me see if I get what is being said in Castle's post correctly.
When it is said that controllers use defender primary powers at 80% of a defenders effectiveness, what is ACTUALLY meant is that the controllers have 80% of the base debuff power, possible 80%? of the base damage/healing? and 150+% of any base control aspect? But other than that the powers are identical between both ATs.

This would explain why I found the corruptor versions so bizzarly weaker then the defender versions despite the fact that 80% usage for controllers does not seem that far off from 75% usage for corruptors. The corruptors are also getting effected by their ATs lower base control effect on the defender powers.

Sooooo It looks something like this than?
(using a defender as baseline)
AT ...............Debuff........... Control............ Damage
Defender:.....100%...............70%................. 66%
Controller:.....80%..............100%..................50%(+s pecial)
Corruptor:.....75%..................?.....................77 %
Master Mind:...?....................?.....................50%

Since I think it would be hard to argue that control or damage are superior to debuffs, so defenders get out right hosed. Even compared to the reasonably built (IMO) corruptors.

Controllers are in actual fact functionally more powerful than a defender with any defender power that relies on control more than debuffs or healing to defend a team. So not only are certain defender powers just strangely better for controllers but in fact entire defender powersets are vastly superior(force fields, storm, sonic? trick arrow?, and theortically dark) despite the "80%" reduction in effectiveness. I am guessing alot of the strange numbers and discrepences that crop up on occasion with controller secondaries are because the Devs have been hand "tweaking" them to bring them "more in line" porobably meaning that the 80% difference is little more than a paper tiger.

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Allow me a brief, smug 'we told you so' here. Thanks for taking another look. Knowing how other Devs have handled similar issues in the past, it's really good to know that someone is actually willing to give the avid testers around here some credit.

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Should we go give the Controllers their rain back?

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It's only fair and just, isn't it? We couldn't keep what's rightfully theirs.

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They'll thank us for it, I know they will.

Conspiracy theory of the day:

Statesman supposedly really likes to play Controllers.

Ah, figure it out yourself.