On vigilances behalf the point of the defender AT is to protect others. Vigilance works well this way because the larger the team the less damage individuals need to take before it starts having a significant effect. So on a full eight man team it can make a big difference. On a two man team not so much.
So even if it *did* work solo if its going to continue to follow the point of the AT then it would probably mean that it still wouldn't be that noticeable until you had taken a lot of damage. At which point it probably wouldn't help much anyway.
As for the argument that its the only non-epic that can't solo with its inherent. Well its a team focused AT so its not like it doesn't make sense. Of course this doesn't mean you can't solo with one but soloing was not the intended purpose so it follows that the inherent wouldn't be useful for that.
Think of soloing with a defender as a much less severe version of a petless mastermind.(Talk about making an inherent useless.)
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Yet, if so much as one person died (hey, it's the teeens), I could do whatever I wanted and the blue bar would keep increasing.
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And thus was born the "death slave". 
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Defender with vengeance. One of the only times in the game as a defender where you actually WANT your teammates to drop dead.
I think they "balanced" the inherent of defenders around having vengeance, and a /fire blaster (preferably one with a "watch this guys!" attitude) on your team at all times.
I have to Disagree about Kin/ not being able to solo easily. I've got a Kin/sonic that burns thru mobs fairly quickly with Ir and Siphon speed I move around alot jumping over mobs and on top of things to stay healthy or hop in with transferance and hop out. It may just be my playstyle but I think kin/sonic is pretty good at soloing.
Champion.
Freedom.
We just coded it on a simple X-currentDate formula, so it nerfs itself automatically. -Babs on Accuracy Nerfs
Over 3 years, 1 - 50, whole lotta alt's, still having fun.
Dark/Rad solos pretty well.
My only 50 def is Dark/Rad, and I spent a fair bit solo-ing. The -def in the blasts helps, and Dark's debuff toolset is just as effective solo as it is in teams - no ally buff powers to reduce your options.
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
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the point of the defender AT is to protect others
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Honestly, I completely disagree with this.
I see the function of Defenders to be much more like lubricant. The presence of a Defender on a team should mean that things are easier and faster. That can come from added damage (both directly and through debuffs), less damage taken (and thus less time for resting), less endurance used or greater endurance recovery, or any of a number of other options Defenders have available.
Sure, a consequence of a Defender on a team is very likely to be a safer team overall, but I would never say the job of the Defender is to protect the team. I am no one's babysitter.
Kin and Storm are my two favorite sets, and I would never call Kin a good set at protecting a team. A very specific team can be protected, sure, but generic teams having trouble surviving are probably not going to get much help from a Kinetics Defender. That's not what Kin does.
Blah blah blah counterarguments about Transfusion being a massive AoE heal and Increase Density giving status protection and damage resistance. Further blah blah blah about Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift debuffing damage.
As far as protection goes, Kin pales in comparison to FF, Storm, Dark, and Cold, and it's also worse than Rad and Sonic, though not by as much. If it's a small team, Emp beats the crap out of Kin for protection, but large teams will see a smaller difference, though Emp still wins. I don't have any experience with TA, so I can't compare the two.
Does that mean Kin is a bad Defender set? Was it designed poorly? Should they change Fulcrum Shift to give a damage resistance buff instead of a damage buff? Over my dead body. Kin doesn't really make a team safer, but it sure makes things easier and faster.
Bad players need protection. They won't be getting it from me. I'll be too busy completing another all-Defender MoSTF...
Bye, everybody!
*Champion*
In my experience Vigilance is pretty good, but only if your primary allows people to get hurt. (Say empathy, where you can heal them back up again after)
If you play any kind of primary which prevents damage, such as force fields, Vigilance will rarely get used.
So its not entirely useless, I have had times where I could be running 4 toggles and spamming every attack I have and still not be able to fall below 90% endurance. However overall I agree, it should be changed to something else.
It should be something similar to a Controllers "overpower" ability I think, where buffs, debuffs and heals have a chance to critical for extra effectiveness.
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It should be something similar to a Controllers "overpower" ability I think, where buffs, debuffs and heals have a chance to critical for extra effectiveness.
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Has been suggested many times, and each time a half dozen people pop in to say why it won't work. Such reasons include: force fielders would continually reapply their shields waiting for a crit, and that defenders would be ridiculously overpowered if their buffs were any better.
The best player suggestion for a Vig 2.0 was to make it more like Defiance is currently, with using each power gives a short durration End Discount and/or Recharge buff.
I'm not sure if that would be feasible, but it's my current favorite for a new Vigilance.
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the point of the defender AT is to protect others
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Honestly, I completely disagree with this.
...<stuff>
Sure, a consequence of a Defender on a team is very likely to be a safer team overall, but I would never say the job of the Defender is to protect the team. I am no one's babysitter.
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This sounds like an issue of semantics and attitude. Nevertheless I stand by my original opinion. The purpose of the AT is to protect by making your team harder to kill or the enemy easier. Fulcrim shift actually embodies this. I would also highlight that *most* of the defender primary sets have at least one power that can only be used on allies. The extreme case being sonic with five.
This doesn't mean you have to be a "babysitter". If some nitwit goes wandering off away from the team then I'm not going to go chasing after him. Indeed with vigilance it might be a net positive. 
Call it support, protection, *defending* or whatever. Different sets achieve this in a myriad of ways but its a universal theme within the AT.
Edit : Without having seen a specific comment by a dev I'd say the current implementation of vigilance was to make the point that defenders, as designed, were intended to be team oriented.
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Edit : Without having seen a specific comment by a dev I'd say the current implementation of vigilance was to make the point that defenders, as designed, were intended to be team oriented.
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That is a given. But, then again, so were Tanks and Controllers. Blasters may have been, too. And they can all solo quite well. Controllers and Blasters have Inherents that help them no matter their situation; Tanks aren't quite as lucky, but some of them can still make good use of Gauntlet when Solo.
Defenders do not. Defenders have an inherent that almost never triggers when solo, and (at least in my experience) has very little effect when in teams.
I honestly like the AT, but it just doesn't ever really feel 'super' to me. And I think that changing the inherent would be the way to go.
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I honestly like the AT, but it just doesn't ever really feel 'super' to me.
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Wow, really? Have you ever played a Storm Defender?
Bye, everybody!
*Champion*
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Wow, really? Have you ever played a Storm Defender?
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Honestly, no. Or, at least, not one long enough to get to the really fun powers. Part of that may have been my choice of secondaries - Electrical Blast. I ended up deleting that one by level 8, out of sheer the frustration at dieing more than 12 times in a single mission.
Of course, this happened over a year ago, which was the same time frame where I witnessed people refuse to team with Defenders, sighting that Controllers are superior in every way.
Also, keep in mind that my perspective is going to put a lot of emphasis on solo ability. I get maybe 2 hours of play time on any one day, usually less. I suck at building teams myself, and don't want to just wait around to play. From this perspective, having an AT that feels penalized for not being in a team is a problem.
I LOVE most of these powers. They are the kind of things that really say 'Super' to me. And yet, they feel flat and weak when I actually use them. And Corruptors are only slightly better off.
So yes... this may just be me. But I really think these ATs need some kind of boost to aid in solo play... because they are going to be used for solo play.
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Wow, this is still alive?
As a little update, I flew from 6-14 today in teams. I usually go solo, but I felt like trying support for once...
Honestly? Easier than I thought. I did my fair share of damage (Just got Sands of Mu, and HOLY CRAP!), threw Twilight's Grasp as needed, and took Howling Twilight late because I didn't need it (Though, I've learned, better to be prepared, so I took it anyways). Tossing Tar Patch on a massive crowd is satisfying as all hell, then following it up with Darkest Night on the Boss for insult-to-injury.
Fun times, and I was definitely proud of the fact that I was holding the team up. A Empathy/ took over primary healing later, kinda made me jealous, but I switched gears to debuff mode and went full-throttle into combat.
Never thought Support would be such a rush! I definitely like that feeling of being in the fray keeping the party alive, where seconds can make the differance between life and death. Now if only the party would stay close, this thing's got a range limit y'know!
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
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As a very rough comparison of damage, given the same power, slotted the same way, on the same level toons:
Blaster: 100% damage
Corrupter: 85% damage
Defender: 66% damage
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Um... actually, it's more like this:
Blaster: 112.5% damage
Corruptor: 75% damage
Defender: 65% damage
However, that's not quite a fair comparison, because Corruptors and many Defenders have something Blasters do not; a way to boost their damage. Part of the time or even all of the time, they can either buff their own damage, or debuff the foes' damage resistance. And since Defenders do this better than Corruptors, this kind of balances out their damage.
With a scale -3.0 debuff to the foe's damage resistance: (such as provided by Enervating Field - this would be 30% for a Defender and 22.5% for a Corruptor)
Blaster: 112.5%
Corruptor: 91.875%
Defender: 84.5%
Or normalizing Blasters at 100%:
Blaster: 100%
Corruptor: 81.67%
Defender: 75.11%
And note that a Rad can stack a 25% damage boost on top of that with Accellerate Metabolism. The more the damage boost, the closer the others come to the Blaster, and the closer the Defender comes to the Corruptor. (Which is why Sonic Assault makes such a good Ranged set)
Of course it takes time to stack all those effects, and so of course the Blaster will do the most damage with his first shot, then the Corruptor, and finally the Defender. The Corruptor will also likely do the most damage with his last shot, too.
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Never thought Support would be such a rush!
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You want to *really* have fun get a team of eight defenders. Crank the difficulty too invincible and then wonder why everything is so easy.
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Never thought Support would be such a rush!
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You want to *really* have fun get a team of eight defenders. Crank the difficulty too invincible and then wonder why everything is so easy.
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truth. One of my friends was talking to me in pms the other week and was shocked at one point when he realized they had pulled all 4 AVs in the final mish and hadnt even noticed it.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
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I do agree that having it do nothing solo is kind of uncool. It would be nice if it worked off of your hp too.
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I honestly don't think that's too much to ask for. As it stands, you are required to team in order for the AT to have any unique capability. A Defender's HP should effect Vigilance, because frankly if you go down it is a massive blow to the team. Aside from Epics, I can't think of any other AT that can't use it's inherant solo.
And since I'll likely be soloing more often than not, Vigilance will be quietly ignored. I'm satisfied with the way my chosen sets play, so I'll be satisfied forgettting the inherant exists.
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.