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The Defender's secondary needs a buff. It doesn't offer anything I can't get in better form from other ATs that have FF.
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The problem with this logic is that it misses the one problem that FF has. The one problem that sets it apart from every other Defender set available. (except Empathy)
All other Defender Primaries GIVE their Secondary a buff. It's why Defender base damage is 65%. Pick any Defender Primary in the game but Force Field (and Empathy) and you boost that damage from 65% to 85%, 95%, or possibly even higher.
Conversely, if you GIVE Defenders more damage, that makes the sets that DO give an offensive boost even MORE powerful. To the point where you're doing more damage than Corruptors and maybe even Blasters.
[ QUOTE ]
The problem with this logic is that it misses the one problem that FF has. The one problem that sets it apart from every other Defender set available. (except Empathy)
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Yeah. It's a tough thing to do and retain balance.
But FF _can_ increase your damage, at least solo, by herding. Your nuke will be a lot more effective against a herd than against 3 guys.
As to damage increases for Defender secondaries, my idea was to clean up some of the wierdness like mis-matched cones, and to raise the number of baddies Defender and Blasters nukes can affect to 20-24, rather than 16. I also wanted to see Defender blasts retain their relationship to Blaster blasts now that Blasters have been given a damage buff. Edit: And to lower the Endurance drain of Defender (only) nukes from 100% to 85%, to give them a chance to at least do _something_ after their nuke goes off and most baddies aren't dead.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
[ QUOTE ]
But FF _can_ increase your damage, at least solo, by herding. Your nuke will be a lot more effective against a herd than against 3 guys.
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Are you kidding me? This is your logic? I guess then by this asinine logic, Defenders had unlimited damage when there were no limits on the number of targets out nukes could hit. Yeah, I remember those days, we weren't allowed to use our nuke because the game would implode in a cascade of Defender damage awesomeness.
I believe PK and the rest of the people in here can see why I told you to piss off. You come into a thread to discuss changes to FF and do nothing but state that FF shouldn't be "ruined" by people like PK. I may not agree with all of PK's opinions, but this is supposed to be a constructive thread, not a debate with some close-minded peon who's afraid their favourite set might get changed.
Oh wait, we aren't even talking about Controllers! I guess that means you should get the hell out of here and let us continue to discuss how FF might be made better for Defenders.
Please, feel free to go into the Controller forums and start your own thread titled "Make Your Reasons Not to Change FF Here".
[ QUOTE ]
But FF _can_ increase your damage, at least solo, by herding. Your nuke will be a lot more effective against a herd than against 3 guys.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's a minor advantage, somewhat akin to saying that FF lets you use your Sniper attack more often, because the chance you will get it off without being interrupted is much higher. While that may be true, it is hardly enough to compensate for the lower damage you do with the rest of your attacks.
Plus, there's no reason why Dark or Rad can't use the exact same strategy. They might be able to use it less often, Dark wouldn't want to herd a group that can stun or hold, for instance, but you're still talking about a specific strategy, not an overall boost that a Defender can use under all circumstances. Give me an example of something an FF can do to boost his damage THAT OTHER DEFENDERS CAN'T DO.
(So the argument that "You've got less to do, so you can fire more often" is nonsense as well. Any Defender can just stop doing whatever he's doing and fire, that's not an advantage, it's an implication that FFs have nothing to do but be buffbots)
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As to damage increases for Defender secondaries, my idea was to clean up some of the wierdness like mis-matched cones, and to raise the number of baddies Defender and Blasters nukes can affect to 20-24, rather than 16. I also wanted to see Defender blasts retain their relationship to Blaster blasts now that Blasters have been given a damage buff.
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Do you intend to give Corruptors the same buff? Because if you don't, that's completely unfair to Corruptors. They have only 75% of the defenses of Defenders (not to mention only 75% of their damage buffs) thus for balance they should do more damage.
[ QUOTE ]
As to damage increases for Defender secondaries, my idea was to clean up some of the wierdness like mis-matched cones, and to raise the number of baddies Defender and Blasters nukes can affect to 20-24, rather than 16. I also wanted to see Defender blasts retain their relationship to Blaster blasts now that Blasters have been given a damage buff. Edit: And to lower the Endurance drain of Defender (only) nukes from 100% to 85%, to give them a chance to at least do _something_ after their nuke goes off and most baddies aren't dead.
[/ QUOTE ]
Good grief.
You can still do stuff after you nuke. Eat a blue and presto! You have endurance again. Especially if you're a Kin with Transference, or dipped into some of the EPP powers.
Secondly, some cones, and I believe you are referring to Dark Blast, since I remember this stupid idea from your previous troll attempts, have different purposes.
Tentacles is and immobilize and damage power. Nightfall is a damage power. Tentacles has a wider but shallower cone, hence, more enemies can be immobilized. Nightfall is deeper but narrower, so it is easier to line up who's going to get hit and gives us longer range to do the damage with.
Is it clear what I'm saying? Different size cones for different purposes.
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That's a minor advantage, somewhat akin to saying that FF lets you use your Sniper attack more often, because the chance you will get it off without being interrupted is much higher.
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Well, if your usual spawn has 3 baddies in it and you can herd that up to 9, it's a +200% increase in the damage your going to do using your powers. That's a pretty nice increase from a set that isn't supposed to be able to increase your damage.
[ QUOTE ]
(So the argument that "You've got less to do, so you can fire more often" is nonsense as well. Any Defender can just stop doing whatever he's doing and fire, that's not an advantage, it's an implication that FFs have nothing to do but be buffbots)
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Well, from what I've seen, it's the way FF is often played. Bubble players, turn on Dispersion Bubble, done. When you play that way, the only thing left to do is blast. And the blasts are wanting, IMHO.
I _do_ agree that FF can be used for a lot more.
[ QUOTE ]
Do you intend to give Corruptors the same buff? Because if you don't, that's completely unfair to Corruptors. They have only 75% of the defenses of Defenders (not to mention only 75% of their damage buffs) thus for balance they should do more damage.
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I haven't played Corruptors, so I can't speak for them. But if they're in situations where they're firing off nukes, draining themselves of Endurance and nothings dead, yeah they should get some sort of a buff. Be it a damage buff or less of an Endurance drain.
Edit:
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Plus, there's no reason why Dark or Rad can't use the exact same strategy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Darks and Rads are no where near as good at herding as an FF.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
[ QUOTE ]
You can still do stuff after you nuke. Eat a blue and presto! You have endurance again. Especially if you're a Kin with Transference, or dipped into some of the EPP powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
True. It's also true you can run around the map trying to make your mismatched cones work together.
But in other sets you're not stuck popping blues because your nuke killed nothing or running all over the place because your blasts don't line up with each other.
As I said, Defender's secondaries aren't terrible, and they hardly need a fix the way Stalkers in PvE need a fix. They simply don't measure up to what's available in other sets that have FF.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
[ QUOTE ]
Darks and Rads are no where near as good at herding as an FF.
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We're talking about CoH, right? If so ... the dark defenders you've seen in action have had some build issues.
Corner pulling 3 or 4 spawns onto Tar Patch with Darkest Night is pretty basic dark defendering. Dropping Fluffy onto the herd and following up with Fearsome Stare or Howling Twilight is just gravy.
Actually Rad has the same cone/AoE positioning issue. Try using Electron Haze and Irradiate. It takes some hopping around to use those to AoE in conjunction. So dark is not the only defender secondary that requires manuvering.
All defenders can herd or even get a tank to herd for them you can not claim herding as a power/advantage or damage multiplier for FF. If other Defenders were not able to hit multiple herded targets with AoE then you might have a point. Force field just being able to herd better can not compare to the -30% resistance debuff or +Recharge and +End of other sets.
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Darks and Rads are no where near as good at herding as an FF.
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We're talking about CoH, right? If so ... the dark defenders you've seen in action have had some build issues.
Corner pulling 3 or 4 spawns onto Tar Patch with Darkest Night is pretty basic dark defendering. Dropping Fluffy onto the herd and following up with Fearsome Stare or Howling Twilight is just gravy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but toggle herding is no where near as fast as herding with Force Bubble. I've herded with Darks and Rads and FF. Unless I'm doing something _very_ wrong with Dark and Rad, FF is clearly much better.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
[ QUOTE ]
Imagine a team that can complete missions without suffering deaths on Invincible. I see them from level 22 onwards, so it shouldn't be too hard to conceptualize. Now present an argument for why that team should consider a FF defender equal in worth to ANY OTHER HERO THAT CAN BE BUILT.
[/ QUOTE ]
Poor argument. If they can already complete missions on Invincible without suffering any defeats, it doesn't matter WHAT they add; they will still do just fine.
Don't read into this that I think FF is fine as is; just that particular line of reasoning always bugs me.
Hey, it's a red name!
In the Defender forum!
Woot!
[ QUOTE ]
Hey, it's a red name!
In the Defender forum!
Woot!
[/ QUOTE ]
Boo-yah!
I got my fancy title, I somehow managed to get this thread stickied, and now this? Somebody up there must like me. 
Thank you Castle, Ex Libris, forum mods and all the other employees of NCSoft for showing that you really do care. Even if you have to be cryptic when you do it. 
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I would just like -regen. Granted I have no idea how that could fit into the theme of the powerset...
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It couldn't. It just makes no sense thematically. It's a popular request though, that's for sure.
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It kinda could thematically - as well as address the AV issue... Put a -10% UNresistable regen in force bolt. Make it last for 5 seconds or so... You are slamming a focussed force field INTO someone's body, and don't see that as a possible diruption of their functioning? they aren't regenning because they are trying to re-align EVERYTHING internal... :-)
I would also like to see for ALL cage power, but FF specifically, an obvious graphic while it's up - which blinks/flashes/changes color for the last 5 seconds! Make it go red, for instance. Then the entire team can see that the cage power is about to drop, and know that the mob will be available in 3, 2, 1...KILL!
[ QUOTE ]
Poor argument. If they can already complete missions on Invincible without suffering any defeats, it doesn't matter WHAT they add; they will still do just fine.
Don't read into this that I think FF is fine as is; just that particular line of reasoning always bugs me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for taking a look at this thread. I think the point of that argument was not that FF was any worse than other Defender set in adding survivability to a group that needed no more but rather that most (all really) of the other defender sets could increase the speed of arrests. In other words, all the other sets offer a tangible benefit other than increased survivability for the team. FF does not do this really and seems to be alone in this respect.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Imagine a team that can complete missions without suffering deaths on Invincible. I see them from level 22 onwards, so it shouldn't be too hard to conceptualize. Now present an argument for why that team should consider a FF defender equal in worth to ANY OTHER HERO THAT CAN BE BUILT.
[/ QUOTE ]
Poor argument. If they can already complete missions on Invincible without suffering any defeats, it doesn't matter WHAT they add; they will still do just fine.
Don't read into this that I think FF is fine as is; just that particular line of reasoning always bugs me.
[/ QUOTE ]
The classic version of this argument is idiotic. However, there is a variant that has an interesting aspect to it.
The variant argument is that at some point, most "steamroller" teams acquire so much offense that it doesn't take very much defense to make them immortal, because outside of an AV fight, everything is dropping dead in seconds anyway. Now, under those circumstances, there is probably a lot more offense *and* a lot more defense than you need: both are in serious overkill territory. Some people presume that more offense is always better, without acknowledging that offense can saturate just as easily as defense in strong teams.
But there is a strong psychological slant towards offense. Its a form of "firing squad" situation in reverse. There are eight guys shooting, but you hardly need more than three or four to kill every target in the spawn most of the time. But no one is entirely sure *which* three are killing any particular target, so everyone can choose to believe their damage is specifically valuable. Its the opposite of the situation where a firing squad is given some live rounds and some blank rounds, so everyone can choose to believe they were unlikely to be the one that fired the lethal shot.
However, once people stop taking damage, you can't really convince yourself that your bubbles stacked on top of the other bubbles, fortitudes, maneuvers, and radiation debuffs were especially important. That annoys some people who want to believe their team contribution is critical to the team's success (and furthermore, that believe what they see as their specific strength should be the most value aspect of their contribution in every single case).
Basically, redundant damage is easier on the ego than redundant defense. That's evident when the exception proves the rule. When a team acquires so much AoE damage that carpetbombing AoE is wiping everything out, the players with nothing but single target attacks, slow attacks, or situational attacks are the first to complain, because its much more difficult for them to convince themselves that their one shot made any difference when fired into a maelstrom of mushroom clouds.
I'm not saying I would bend over backwards to placate this psychological effect, but its probably worth acknowledging when game balance and design diversity is not otherwise an issue.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
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[ QUOTE ]
Fix Defense
[/ QUOTE ]
Looking at Arcanaville's sig, I'm reminded of something I actually _do_ consider to be a flaw in FF, and that's the performance of Defense against powers like Aim. Against certain PvP enemies, putting yourself in PFF is actually _worse_ than doing nothing at all, as they can hit you but you can't hit them.
Edit:
I'm not sure that it's Defense being underpowered. A Blaster friend of mine recently (issue 10) showed me how he could reliably hit _+16s_ (that's not a typo. Plus sixteens) with his blasts. It's not clear to me why this kind of bonus is ever needed in any aspect of the game.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
[ QUOTE ]
I think FF is fine as is
[/ QUOTE ]
He said it; they're never going to improve FF. 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think FF is fine as is
[/ QUOTE ]
He said it; they're never going to improve FF.
[/ QUOTE ]
H4X! Lol.
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Yes, but toggle herding is no where near as fast as herding with Force Bubble. I've herded with Darks and Rads and FF. Unless I'm doing something _very_ wrong with Dark and Rad, FF is clearly much better.
[/ QUOTE ]
Whether or not it is "better" is not the question. Whether or not this actually increases the kill rate of the Defender is the question.
Considering that most Defenders have at most three AoEs out of their nine attacks, including the nuke, you will STILL be doing the majority of your damage one foe at a time. So you will still be defeating foes slower, since you do less damage. The amount of damage it takes you to defeat a foe doesn't vary between whether you take him on one on one, or herd him.
You might as well say that Tankers can kill faster than Scrappers because they can herd foes into a group and then kill them with AoEs. Which might have been true before the number of AoE targets was capped, but it isn't true any more. Even a Fire/ Tanker isn't doing enough AoEs to raise his damage from 80% to 112.5%.
[ QUOTE ]
However, once people stop taking damage, you can't really convince yourself that your bubbles stacked on top of the other bubbles, fortitudes, maneuvers, and radiation debuffs were especially important. That annoys some people who want to believe their team contribution is critical to the team's success (and furthermore, that believe what they see as their specific strength should be the most value aspect of their contribution in every single case).
[/ QUOTE ]
At the very least, Dispersion Bubble's doing something.
But that's not really the point. The /real/ point of this thread is that precious few people see much value in FF past The Big Three and, depending on taste and awareness of the set, one or two other powers.
A tangent: FF is a balance issue in part because it has so few effects worth slotting for. On my current FF build, I have something like 9 or 10 slots spent on all of FF. That's about the same as my kins have in just Transfusion and Transference.
FF is a big ol' pile of bad design decisions going back to, I'm guessing, "the guy before Geko."
[ QUOTE ]
Whether or not it is "better" is not the question. Whether or not this actually increases the kill rate of the Defender is the question.
[/ QUOTE ]
And, for my experience playing Dark and FF and Rad, FF does increase the kill rate, whereas Dark and Rad toggle herding doesn't. Toggle herding is just too slow.
YMMV, of course. But I have a 50 Dark/Dark and have played rad to the mid 30s, so I'm at least basing this on experience.
[ QUOTE ]
You might as well say that Tankers can kill faster than Scrappers
[/ QUOTE ]
I'd say no. This is comparing apples and oranges. Different ATs. In some cases different attacks. Different damage scales.
Comparing an FF who herds to one that doesn't is a direct comparison. Apples to apples.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
[ QUOTE ]
Basically, redundant damage is easier on the ego than redundant defense.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, except when the redundant damage is coming from someone who "shouldn't be doing damage". But that's another argument.
I think personally the problem is not that FF's are not needed on teams, rather, it is that the struggle of trying to solo them, as well as the impression that there is little to do except be a "buffbot", and fire off knockback powers at random is especially tedious to the player. This results in a number of players giving up on FF long before they would be of any use to a team.
Ironically, FFs may be so well recieved on teams because they are so RARE, and they are hard to find. So the fact that FFs perform well on teams and find teams quickly may not mean that there is not an issue. If the datamining also shows that numbers of FFs is low. (Or most FFs are a combination with Controller or Mastermind Primaries, rather than Defenders) then there is a problem.
OK, Mack's opinion here.
1) Changing the Defender Secondaries does nothing to address the Force Field Primary. While FF characters would benefit, so would every other Defender Primary which does not solve the subject of this discussion.
2) In my mind (which knows nothing about how the game is coded) adding a few additional effects to the underperforming FF powers would be the most straightforward way of strengthing them without overpowering them either. Ideas like adding a -Slow component to Force Bubble, or increasing the Stun effect of others, are reasonable, should be easy to implement, and would be difficult to abuse.
Personally, I only want to see some minor adjustments for the simple reason that they are much more likely to occur.
[ QUOTE ]
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The difference in Det. Field's mag might be why 'trollers report greater success in caging AVs than defenders.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, if that's true, _that's_ a change to give to FF Defenders to buff them up.
[/ QUOTE ]
That can't be done since 'trollers 'trol better than defenders. The AT modifiers are among the last things the devs will [censored] with.
[/ QUOTE ]
Bummer. Well, for what it's worth, speaking as an FF Controller, I wouldn't mind seeing FF Defenders get that buff.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage