As mentioned by Castle again they appear to look at things at a higher level because we are dealing with a system of systems (SoS) this makes more business sense and is much less difficult to accomplish the goal. This goal is making the Blaster AT fit in to it's niche in CoH. The Blaster AT itself is a System that must fit into the SoS of CoH blending with the other ATs and the bad guys. As shown again and again the players come up with unique combinations of powers that thwart the overall goal of a relatively balanced set of ATs (I use relatively in the sense that each can contribute roughly equally in the game). In order to counter that the developers must look at how all the systems perform together. They can not look at a single power, set or secondary else that new alteration will skew the equation in other ways. You can only model so much in a game or in real life before you run out of time or money. So IMO we are being a bit harsh to think that there is enough resources at Cryptic to devote to looking at the permutations of powers that make up the Blaster Set or any individual set. Datamining is great but it only gives you data not information. That takes some hard work to identify usable trends and work equals time. And time is limited.
Back to Defiance, this inherent is just another system that can be used to adjust the set compared to others without 'nerfs' to the major powers that would result in much teeth gnashing. As such it should not be a big factor in most play and could be used level out the difference of play between powergamers and casual gamers.
In my earlier reference to City of Blasters I was using an extreme example where the Blaster system was seemingly built in relative isolation from the system of the MOBs allowing Blasters to have an unintended advantage. I am sorry if I touched some Hot Buttons, but you missed the point of my message which is that we are in a game with a SoS. It seems we are looking at a single system and expecting it to do more than what the game designers want. I think they want to level the difference in advancement of the min/max powergamer and the casual, less experienced player. In building Defiance as it is they appear to us to reward bad play, but to them they make the playing field more tolerant and enjoyable to the inexperienced player but at the same time not hindering the experienced powergamer. Arcana's numbers seem to show that there is no significant difference overall between the damage classes (Blaster vs Scrapper) when it comes to inherents (Defiance vs Criticals). So why is there a need for altering these systems in the Blasters favor?
Just my 2 inf.
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The question, though, is how much better. For the cost of having to have three brain cells wired together in the right way to click a button, regen gets about twice the performance under ordinary conditions. For most players, those three brain cells are probably not a very high cost relative to the return, provided the average player doesn't play extremely intoxicated.
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Arcanaville, you are getting very close to my Complexity vs Reward Rate balance paradigm. I think I would state this as saying "Strategies that give above-average reward rates should necessarily be above-average in complexity". This is a balance metric that applies not only to balancing across sets, but also evaluating a single set in isolation.
In other words, if some set provides tools that require tricky strategies to use, but using those tools with those complex strategies does not provide better payoffs than just "carpal clicking" and brute-force type strategies, then that set is broken - it provides a negative return on investment, to use one metaphor, or offers false advertising, to use another.
- Protea
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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And that is why datamining for performance is, in my opinion, a bad idea. Data mining behaviors to find out behaviors makes sense. Data mining performance intertwines two separate components of performance - power strength and player tactics - that should never be balanced together, almost always addressed separately.
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I disagree. I think your idea ignores the possibility that the maximum potential of one powerset might be harder to obtain than the maximum potential of another powerset.
Now I know you disagree, but I think it's perfectly appropriate that Regen has more potential protective ability than SR since you have to decide when to use it. Your models just predict the ultimate potential of both sets, without determining if on the whole regen players are actually achieving that potential.
It seems to me that you need to look at the datamining to determine if, in practice, Regen and DA are outperforming SR 'on the street'. Because it they are not, then SR doesn't need a buff even if its theorhetical performance is weaker.
I shall now run since I have committed a foul sin and Arcana will now try to smite me. 
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, Arcana is usually talking about Marital Arts when she is Scrapping; I am a more likely poster to try and Smite someone...
I am also someone who understands that player skill can make something outperform its numbers, but I'm going to have to agree with Arcanaville on this one. You cannot balance with a metric based on average performance on the street. The street is inconstant, and without qualification (where, what, how many, Inspirations, etc...), it is a poor indicator of inherent set performance.
Powers and combinations of powers need to be analyzed and have their parameters set based on mathematical rules. It is not the fault of mathematics that its employers have a poor understanding of how to utilize it in complex scenarios. It requires a lot of work to become adept at mathematical analysis--talent is obviously key in fast learning, but, as with most endeavors, ultimately "sticktuitiveness" will win out in the long run over natural ability. I know first hand the anal-rententive attention to detail required to break down systems with large numbers of degrees of freedom and try to model them in a way that handles cases more complex than those of the first order. It ain't easy (a nod to _Castle_'s statement about not having the time to do things right [academically].)
The best solution that you have available is indeed to break out "the human factor" into a separate treatment that allows you to isolate the causes of its, at times, overabundant success. Many times players will break some nonpower-based mechanic (as with kiting) and gain an advantage with a particular power or combination of powers. We have to recognize why something is overperforming to react to it intelligently and effectively.
This is an important distinction based on your own reasoning. If we nerf power X in order to bring into line its effectiveness due to an unexpected synergy created by exploiting mechanic Y, then players "in the know" get balanced performance from the combination of X and Y, and players in the dark have what they consider an underpowered option in power X. That sucks, for both those players and for the game as a whole.
I would submit that broken mechanics need to be recognized and fixed, as a first response to exploits, over nerfing. Arbitrarily changing numbers on particular abilities or powers to fix problems often breaks the framework that sets of abilities and powers were designed to work within, causing greater problems down the road (e.g. Fiery Aura, the Tanker Primary).
All of that said, your point is valid that "on the street" performance does matter. The devs aren't insane for using it, BUT...but, it should be a means to determine if sets as a whole might need some love or further analyzed for behavioral trends to determine if they need to be toned down (that means reevaluated from a design standpoint, not randomly, numerically fudged).
Moral of the story: Mathematical models are like program code, in general--You end up getting exactly what you put together. When it's not what you expected, it is usually your fault.
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Arcanaville, you are getting very close to my Complexity vs Reward Rate balance paradigm.
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Actually, its as simple as (within certain limits) I'm in favor of rewarding skill.
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My solution to this problem is to do what a lot of mobs already do: every mob aggroed after #17 refuses to enter melee range, and fires at range from some random distance greater than five feet. That way, aggro is partially self-regulating. Tankers can grab all the aggro they want, but beyond a certain point, the benefit is all defensive (they stop shooting at your team mates) and not offensive (they do not all stand on a bullseye and say "shoot me").
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I have always thought that the herding phenomenon was fixed the wrong way, but then I've always thought taunt seemed like a meta-game AI exploit enshrined as a power.
- Protea
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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Arcanaville, you are getting very close to my Complexity vs Reward Rate balance paradigm.
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Actually, its as simple as (within certain limits) I'm in favor of rewarding skill.
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Wow. You stated in one sentence something I took around 3 pages of verbiage to express...
I've been pwnt.
- Protea
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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Wow. You stated in one sentence something I took around 3 pages of verbiage to express...
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry. I'll try not to let it happen again.
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Don't assume that because I chose herding as an example, I wanted it nerfed. I chose it as an example of something the devs wanted.
Here's some simple reasons that changing AoE limits early (like at release) would have been the most effective way to prevent herding at the scale it existed (which was what the devs really seemed to object to). Not th emost effective way possible, but the most effective way based on available time and possibly inventiveness.
*) AI changes are hard relative to quantitative power changes. It was over a year before AI would not pile in one spot.
*) Changing AI response to one player's character still leaves enterprising teams able to do things such as "multi pull" to get large numbers of foes in one place (performing an end-run around aggro limits).
Of course, presumably because only overall performance is reviewed, we get wonderful things like what we have today: compound, multi-pass changes that swing the balance massively in the other direction. Today we have all of the brute-force solutions mentioned above (aggro limits, AoE limits, AI bounding) and some additional ones, like reduced durability of the tough ATs. Of course all of those weren't neccessarily done to reduce herding, but certainly the perception that they compounded to do so massively is much alive among our players.
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Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
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Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I'm not sure that either "herding" or "quad-kiting" qualify as "above average tactics", honestly. In my experience, in both CoH and in EQ, every Tank or Druid (respectively) worth their salt knew how to employ the tactic. Only the truly, truly clueless didn't--and those were few and far between.
"Charm-kiting", on the other hand, was difficult and dangerous. Charms broke at extremely bad times. People trained their foes over charmed pets (causing a truly nasty aggro-tangle), or the charmed pets simply got too close to another foe's pathing. It was a steep learning curve; I got splattered all over the Plane of Nightmares as my mentor tried to show me how to master it, and it took a while.
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You don't know that, because I don't disagree. In fact, you'll see statements precisely to that fact for both Regen and DA in my scrapper secondary comparisons, with specific warnings about making a difference between knowing what the performance actually is (which the analysis shows), and what the desired performance actually should be, which is a separate issue.
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I'm about to start playing soon, but the last time I made that argument, you got all mean and told me Regen was super easy to play. I'm dealing with the emotional fallout of that with my counselor still. 
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The question, though, is how much better. For the cost of having to have three brain cells wired together in the right way to click a button, regen gets about twice the performance under ordinary conditions. For most players, those three brain cells are probably not a very high cost relative to the return, provided the average player doesn't play extremely intoxicated.
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But isn't that three more brain cells than is needed to turn on your defense toggles and click Elude when you want to own? Perhaps three brain cells is worth three times the performance? If that's the case, then in fact, as I've said before, Regen is underperforming.
BUFF REGEN! 
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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But isn't that three more brain cells than is needed to turn on your defense toggles and click Elude when you want to own?
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The blue bar under the green bar. Most of us have to watch that one, too.
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Fix: Why not make a mob AI that starts to Kite players once a player starts to Kite a mob?
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But isn't that three more brain cells than is needed to turn on your defense toggles and click Elude when you want to own?
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The blue bar under the green bar. Most of us have to watch that one, too.
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We have to watch it. That long blue line is very relaxing and zen. 
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.
Sorry, haven't read through all the posts so this might already be stated. But, am I remembering right that you said the defiance buff takes place as you activate the power? If so, than potentially, a blaster could get their health lowered while teamed to a particularly low number (hey we die anyway it's the nature of the game, rez and eat a break free that should be enough) activate a nuke other high dmg power and before the animation is complete recieve a buff (both health and resist dmg or defense) from a team member. This would then give the blaster both the defiance boost and a nice chance of surviving the inevitable alpha strike from the surviving members. I might have to look into this.
PS. I'm not saying that as blasters we die more, sloppy players/risk takers die more. Players of all AT's die at some point and that is what I was getting at. I mean the dev's didn't put in the debt badge to make blasters feel that smelling dirt all day was important to the game, did they? (lol, I kid, I kid!)
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The crux of that post is that a successfully balanced game should allow player to achieve higher reward rates by using increasingly complex strategies. Since not all strategies should be predictable in advance, this means that emergent strategies should be evaluated not only in terms of how high a reward rate they achieve, but also how complex they are.
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I submit that any strategy which can be consistently used to increase your rate of xp gain isn't really worth a reward, no matter how complex. What I consider worthy of increased xp gain is playing on the edge and using your abilities to the limit. A pre I5 tank herding was practicing a known and complex skill, but by no means pushing the limits.
I've never played EQ, but the 4-kite strategy as it is described above seems to me a trick tactic, while the charm kite strategy seems to be to push the limit. As described, it seems highly unlikely that charm kiting could generate a large and consistent xp boost over time. A power leveler would pick 4-kiting over charm kiting any day, simply because the former is repetitive, while the later requires adjusting your tactics to each situation. And tactics that need adjusting generally take time to think out and coordinate, and thus lessen the reward over time. Charm kiting seems to be more for the player looking for a challenge.
In my experience, the things that reward skilled players over unskilled ones are more subtle than trick strategies. Skilled players are able to pull of basic tactics much better, and that's the real difference. A team of players who have played a lot together develop an intuitive sense of tactics and what their friends will and won't do that go beyond mere root training, and that's where I find the true advantage lies - and should lie.
When I go over my argument if find that the distinction between trick strategies and genuine skill is not easy to make. Some trick strategies (charm kiting) take "genuine" skill to pull off. Some (pre I5 herding) require only "root" skill. And a "genuinely" skilled team would still be better at using them. This muddles my argument - I hope some of you still get my drift.
What I find myself saying above is that any strategy which consistently increases xp shouldn't, which comes out as more categorical than I want to be. I also think that no matter how you design your game, there will always be farming - repetitive ways of garnering rewards. The only question is how much faster these farming techniques are compared to "standard" gameplay. As long as farming awards are not outrageous, I don't really see an issue and don't think too much time should be spend on filling the holes. Basically, we all play to have fun. If people are having fun power-leveling, why should I care? My answer is: if their rewards make mine seem insignificant. Where that point lies is very, very subjective. I have no problem with were it is now in CoX.
However my objection to the quote above still remains: a power set that performs better when used with trick tactics should not be better "on average" than one which doesn't. Over time, the skill of the players using each set can be expected to develop just as much, which means each set should be as rewarding on average. Some sets might be harder on new players, or players whose talents do not fit the methodology of the set, but on average each set should perform the same. Some players like the rush of risk in regeneration; others like the relative consistency of super reflexes. Weirdly enough regen might require better reflexes on the part of the player than super-reflexes does, but that does not mean it should perform better on average. It does mean that there may be a wider spread between the performance of a regeneration players because of their reflexes than between super-reflexes players. On the other hand, super-reflexes require other skills which can vary just as much.
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As an aside, I am honestly curious whether Cryptic considered Warburg temp powers and Shivans when designing the LRSF. I don't really expect an answer on this, but one can always hope...
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Very much afraid they did, and I hate that. Balancing PvE content around rewards that can only be found in PvP zones sucks. Shivans and nukes are just to powerful, balancing the opposition around them creates imbalances in and of itself. The worst thing is that it drags people who do not want PvP into PvP zones, with predictable results.
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I submit that any strategy which can be consistently used to increase your rate of xp gain isn't really worth a reward, no matter how complex. What I consider worthy of increased xp gain is playing on the edge and using your abilities to the limit.
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I understand your point, but I still believe that "playing on the edge" (which equates very closely with "risk" in the risk vs. reward system) is only one kind of complexity. Another kind of complexity is managing teams, and I believe the devs back-handedly supported my premise when they made team XP scale in a nonlinear fashion.
I would also submit that anything you can do repetitively on autopilot becomes non-complex. There are skills in the game that require memorizing patterns, and those are arguably more complex the more complex the pattern, but the complexity I'm really talking about requires reacting to the environment and your team build in a dynamic fashion. In short, I think we agree.
Bringing this back to the original topic, I would like to examine the following hypothetical model for blasters:
- New player starts blaster, decides to ignore Defiance because of all the other new things to learn; achieves XP rate W
- Player gets better at staying alive by managing aggro etc, and achieves XP rate X
- Player decides (s)he is comfortable with the other mechanics and begins to actively manage Defiance, achieving XP rate Y
- Player undergoes new learning curve w.r.t. Defiance and finally tops out at XP rate Z
In examining the "complexity/reward rate" balance of this particular Blaster, we should ask, what is the relationship between W, X, Y, and Z?
If the set is balanced, then ideally:
W < X < Y < Z <== yay, balanced
But given that Defiance leads to easy deaths, I suspect the curve *actually* looks like this:
Y < W < X ~= Z <== boo, unbalanced
In other words, Blasters who actively manage Defiance well achieve only slightly better performance than those who do not manage it at all - the increased damage is offset by increased debt. This already looks bad, but in addition, those who are starting to dabble with Defiance, managing it actively but poorly, actually do *worse* than those who don't manage Defiance at all.
This, in my opinion, is a broken mechanic. In Arcanaville's wording, it *punishes* skill rather than rewarding it, at least for a non-negligible portion of the learning curve.
This, of course, is a hypothetical - I don't have hard numbers to punch in for W, X, Y, Z. But I think it is a very reasonable argument for Blasters to make, and given that most other inherents have very obvious benefits with no such glaring downsides, Blasters can make a very strong case for improving their inherent.
Incidentally, I believe a very similar case can be made for Vigilance.
- Protea
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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n short, I think we agree.
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This does not seem to be an unreasonable assumption. 8) We are just showing different angles of the same issue.
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W < X < Y < Z <== yay, balanced
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This is very rarely how it works. There is almost always a "rote" method better than Z (where Z is the most complex, skill-demanding method). If there isn't, it is certainly possible to find some even harder trick, something so chancy it is never profitable, and call that Z. Somewhere there is a line between ambition and sheer lunacy. And that was pretty much what I was saying in my last post.
Perhaps this reward balance is not even desirable. Lets take difficulty as an example. It is undeniably so that playing on Invincible is more demanding than playing on Rugged. If you play as fast on Invincible as you do on Rugged, you'll definitely get more rewards. Yet most pick-up groups will earn more rewards over time on Rugged because they cannot really manage Invincible and not slow down. These teams will play closer to their potential on Invincible, yet earn slimmer rewards. They might learn more new skill and have more fun, tough, and that's just as important.
This was probably a design goal for the difficulty slider - very few teams should consistently benefit from an Invincible setting. If most teams did, Invincible is to easy as there is no setting challenging to the really good players.
In your defiance example, the player who has truly mastered Defiance will consistently earn more xp. But it is debatable whether it is possible to truly master defiance and whether you'll ever pay of the debt you got learning the skill. I would say Defiance mastery is a skill with little payoff. Yet it is fun for an advanced player, and maybe that is the greatest payoff of all. I've only recently started using Defiance, and I've done it not because I expect it to pay off in xp, but to challenge myself and see how much I can take.
And yet, over time, these Defiance skills will add to my general skill level, giving me a wider palette of tactics to use with "true" skill, which in turn gives me a (slightly) increased rate of xp gain overall - without using any repetitive "trick" tactics. So even tough a repetitive use of defiance might not pay off, the ability to use it in the few situations where it is appropriate certainly can.
Thus "W < X < Y < Z <== yay, balanced!" might not be true, but the ability to use tactic Z might still pay off if it is not (ab)used consistently, only used as the situation naturally pops up.
Whether this has a bearing on the merits of Defiance is a completely different story. I'm not trying to argue for or against Defiance, i'm arguing about what "true" skill and "root" skill means in the game and what the rewards of these are.
Might have already been said, but the info in this thread explains why we don't see 'Defiance' above blaster shots like we see 'Critical' and 'Scourge'.
Every shot is a 'Defiance' shot.
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As for Blasters and Defiance, again, Blasters might be 'fine' on a macro level, but that still doesn't mean that Defiance is a fun mechanic. I certainly believe Arcana's conclusions, but that still doesn't mean that it's fair or fun for Blaster to have an inherent that unusable if you know how to play.
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That's a good point.
Even assuming defiance is working as intended (which it's not, I constantly have a persistent 10 on my defiance bar in Talos even if I'm at full health, screenshots have been posted before showing this), it's not a fun 'power'.
The blaster community, virtually as a whole has stood up and said they don't like it. The posts stating they do are more often than not placed to inspire further outbursts from the haters or someone who's experience is limited to the under 20 level range.
The bottom line is wether or not it's working, it's not fun and a great many (I won't say most since the forums hardly represents a large population of players) blasters who post here have made it clear the truly don't enjoy the power and find it pointless. So mechanics at that point is moot since people don't like the damn thing.
All that aside, great OP.
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Even assuming defiance is working as intended (which it's not, I constantly have a persistent 10 on my defiance bar in Talos even if I'm at full health, screenshots have been posted before showing this)
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Didn't the OP show that the BAR was bugged, but Defiance was actually kicking in immediately, regardless of what the bar might currently be displaying?
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We need more control sets without pets.My characters are not "toons".
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I submit that any strategy which can be consistently used to increase your rate of xp gain isn't really worth a reward, no matter how complex. What I consider worthy of increased xp gain is playing on the edge and using your abilities to the limit. A pre I5 tank herding was practicing a known and complex skill, but by no means pushing the limits.
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Separate from the specific issue of how this thought might be applied to defiance, I do not agree with the general principle. For example, there are several ways to attack a group with single target attacks: fire every attack as it recharges, or fire the most efficient attack, which sometimes requires waiting for the right attack to recharge (you can also spread attacks among many targets in a pattern which allows you to fire most attacks as they become available).
I would say someone that uses more skill in deploying their attacks will gain XP faster on average than someone who doesn't, and that increase in XP speed is reasonable for that use of skill. There are lots of other examples where XP rate can be consistently increased, with no measurable increase in risk of death, where the commensurate reward increase is nevertheless appropriate.
In fact, I'm not sure its even laudable to attempt to control this form of skill reward.
So I think that the main issue I have with your statement is that "and" should really be "or."
"What I consider worthy of increased xp gain is playing on the edge OR using your abilities to the limit." Using your abilities to the limit doesn't necessarily presume "playing on the edge." It generally does, in the specific case of defiance, but it doesn't have to.
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Even assuming defiance is working as intended (which it's not, I constantly have a persistent 10 on my defiance bar in Talos even if I'm at full health, screenshots have been posted before showing this)
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Didn't the OP show that the BAR was bugged, but Defiance was actually kicking in immediately, regardless of what the bar might currently be displaying?
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Under test conditions, yes. Its obviously much more difficult to test this under realistically complex lagged conditions, although lag is usually going to affect client visual elements more than server-side effects anyway.
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
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But isn't that three more brain cells than is needed to turn on your defense toggles and click Elude when you want to own?
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The blue bar under the green bar. Most of us have to watch that one, too.
[/ QUOTE ]
We have to watch it. That long blue line is very relaxing and zen.
[/ QUOTE ]
The blue bar is me?
*Looks down*
Hmm, I am long.
I was thinking about the "Sliver of Life" dilemna when it occured to me how it wraps into the Mechanics of Defiance.
Damage can be represented in blocks of damage representing each attack. As every mob-foe can be expressed as having a set of hitpoints "X". "X" is the total amount of hitpoint in damage that must be delivered to defeat that foe, including the damage that is mitigated by damage resistance.
Pre-ED, Blasters would do significantly larger blocks of damage to defeat foes with "X" hitpoints. These larger blocks of damage helped ensure that the Blaster could reliably blow past the defeat point with fewer attacks, thus avoid the "Sliver of Life" problem more reliably, as damage from attacks subtract wider bands from the life bar spectrum. A blaster could more reliably predict with more certainty, what attacks he/she would use to defeat a mob-foe or group of mob-foes, and how to chain and branch attacks.
Post-ED, Blasters now do smaller blocks of damage. The smaller blocks of damage subtract small chunks from the life bar spectrum, making the chance of leaving a "Sliver of Life" greater. This also means that more attacks must be made to take more chunks out. This adds more time and leave the Blaster at longer exposure to danger granting more risk, and the increased chance of a "Sliver of Life" remaining also grants more uncertainty.
Now, how does this wrap into the Mechanics of Defiance? It does so two fold.
With the increased time required to defeat mob-foes, granting longer exposure to danger, a blaster will loose more hitpoints in the process Post-ED than Pre-ED. Now according to Defiance, the fewer hitpoints a Blaster has remaining, the more damage they can do. At first this would seem to balance out. That the increased time and longer exposure to danger, and thus greater chance for loss of hitpoints, would be mitigated by the subsequent increase in the block size of damage due to Defiance, thus balancing out the risk vs the reward, and finding some kind of parity. To that end there was a small increase in hitpoint totals, granted to Blasters in order to better enable that.
However, the increase granted by Defiance is chaotic and variable. A Blaster by concept, has no direct form of defense for damage mitigation. There is a very narrow window between mob-foes that miss a lot and do little damage to the Blaster's life bar spectrum, thereby ensuring that a Blaster has a portion of life left or even a "Sliver of Life" themselves, and mob-foes that hit often and do large chunks of damage to the Blaster's life bar spectrum, thereby making it likely that a Blaster will not have a "Sliver of Life" left if they are low on hit points.
The the first type of mob-foes who hit less and do less damage are typically easily and rapidly defeated. The second type of mob-foes, who hit more often and do damage in greater chunks, are typically harder to defeat and take longer. Somewher between those two types of mobs is a golden window where Defiance should optimally work out.
However, what happens with Defiance through the course of the game is interesting. At the start of the game, a Blaster player will probably find that golden window and get use to it as most mob-foes are still relatively weak. As the game progresses, that golden window is going to get narrower and narrower as mob-foes progressively get stronger. This could get increasing frustrating as what looked great at the begining, gradually looses its luster, and slowly becomes more awkward. Towards the end of the game, mob-foes are typically much stronger, and that window can become typically closed all together on average, meaning the Archtype has pretty much lost general use of their Inherent Power. A player must gradually increase the size of the band in thier life bar spectrum that they must retain to be able to survive the next attack when it comes and still be at at least a "Sliver of Life", thereby working against what ever advantage Defiance may give them.
Defiance, from Level 1 to Level 50, progresses from Above Parity (working excessively in the player's favor), to Parity (helpful in general, but not overly so), to Below Parity (not useful the majority of the time.)
This, as has been mentioned before, is the inverse of what was requested and stated by the majority of the player base. That the early and mid game was fine, it was the late game that the Blaster Archtype needed a boost in.
Also, it is painful to see other Archtypes that can rely consistantly on the performance of their Inherents evenly through out the game, even ones that are chaotic like the Scrapper "Criticals" which do a highly noticable burst of damage, and is not tied to how poor thier health bar is.
Also Defiance creates conflict with a player's thinking if they are trying to factor it into their stratagy. The base typical stratagy for almost every other game I've played it to minimze the amount of damage you sustain and retain as there is no benifit to defeat, and that full health should be obtained when ever possible, barring the need for conservation of resources. Defiance works against that, introducing the desire for that "Sliver of Life", but that desire creates extra risk in a already risk adverse Archtype.
You must work against your Inherent Power to survive, but you must work against your better health to thrive. <-- This is the internal conflict that does not leave players with a good feeling, and that which creates internal conflict is unbalanced.
This would make a much better Tanker Inherent if combined with Gauntlet, since Tankers, by definition, are typically stereotyped as some-what masochistic.
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Like on your herding list. One should be able to agro unlimited amounts of mobs. Because to tell you the truth I find it really stupid for me to fight a mob and 5 of their friends are just sitting there doing nothing. The only thing agro cap created is that I wont be getting hurt as much because the agro cap simple prevents the extra mobs from attacking me then and there. The moment their buddies drop they all jump into the fire and die. It actually helps the survivability of a herder. One should also be able to hit as many targets as those in range and line of sight as a given power indicate. The problem was collition checks. If mobs had good collition checks then they wouldn't stack. That would automatically prevent said AoE from hitting 100 targets because only a certain few would be in range and or in line of sight.
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My solution to this problem is to do what a lot of mobs already do: every mob aggroed after #17 refuses to enter melee range, and fires at range from some random distance greater than five feet. That way, aggro is partially self-regulating. Tankers can grab all the aggro they want, but beyond a certain point, the benefit is all defensive (they stop shooting at your team mates) and not offensive (they do not all stand on a bullseye and say "shoot me").
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
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