Defenders balance

Never had a problem soloing Empaths, or being the lone Empath on 8 man Arena PvP teams. Empaths are just fine.

Garent:

Snow Storm DOES cause foes to scatter. Yes, they're not attacking you until they leave the storm, but the ones running the opposite direction of the anchor will be attacking you again soon enough while the anchor runs off to aggro other groups.
Because Defender damage is so low it simply does NOT provide enough time to "AOE foes to death."

Lightning Storm DOES do significant knockback, frequently knocking foes clear out of Hurricane range.

Hurricane is usable outdoors, but it still scatters foes. Controlling where they will be tossed is difficult at best, and the result is foes all around you. Hurricane indoors is MUCH easier to use, especially if you blow them into a corner with Gale first.

Again, I'm referring to soloing, as you say. In fact, most groups I've played my Storm Defender on tell me to turn OFF Hurricane because it scatters things (and they hate Tornado even more!).


Luminara:

I'm not going to address the first part of your post, as it's little more than a personal attack. However, I will make a list of threads where Defender issues are discussed, just for you.

My Force Field Defender didn't skip key powers. It skipped ONE power, Detention Bubble. It has all the other defensive powers, PLUS Tough and Weave. That means it actually has BETTER defenses than other Defenders. He's L29 now, and he has 23% Resistance (S/L) and around 14% Defense (I may have to check the Defense, it could be a little higher, even...). These are not bad numbers, but they're not good. Coupled with lower health and lower damage, and we have a character that solos very poorly.

Others were browbeaten down until they stopped posting. It's a tacktic used frequently here. Unfortunately, I'm far too stubborn to submit to that tactic.

Open Mids. Select TA. Select Acid Arrow. Slot for maximum Defense Debuff. Look at the values. -40.5% Defense debuff, -20% Res debuff (all).

Select Tough. Slot with three Resistance SOs. Look at the values. 23.4% (self).

I didn't think you were stupid, but I'm starting to wonder (see, I can be insulting, too).

Alright, fine. If you're going to constantly refer to Dark and Kinetics, let me provide you with an example.
An Empathy/Electric Defender has Healing Aura and at L26 Regeneration Aura to survive with. He still has less health than anyone else, meaning that if he takes larger amounts of damage, he doesn't have time to regenerate or heal. The reason is that he has low damage (his most powerful attack, not including Thunderous Blast, has only a 115.6 damage value at L50, fully slotted), and can't defeat foes quickly to stop them doing damage. Short Circuit can slow them down some, and Telsa Cage is useful against single targets, but that's the total extent of his mitigation. If he DOES get hit, he has no defenses at all. That's using ALL the primary and secondary powers.

It's as I said before. I could solo using only Brawl. It's a question of whether it's FUN or FAIR.

I try to respond to other posters. If someone is talking about damage boosts, I'll talk damage boosts. My position has never been one that those kinds of sets need help. I stated it clearly, but it might be a different thread (I'm posting in several similar threads...), so let me reiterate.

I THINK Defenders need a small boost to overall damage, on the order of changing the scalar from 0.65 to around 0.70 or 0.75. I think they should have more health, at least on par with Blasters. I think certain sets should have some of their powers adjusted so they can be used by the Defender on himself. An example is Force Fields. Empathy is another.

I also think some sets operate decently, such as Dark and Kinetics. I think some are borderline, like Rad and Storm. For them, the global damage increase and the better health total should be sufficient to make them more competetive.

I said some have defensive tools, and that does imply that others don't. However, I was under the impression that I was discussing with rational people. I didn't expect to have to go into minute detail with every statement. Obviously, I was mistaken. Thus, we have this whole sequence of posts where I have to explain the obvious.

An auto-hit power that strikes a foe resistant to knockback, or a foe that getting up after being knocked back, will often have no effect. Further, as all foes have ranged attacks, if they stay out of the field effects that cause that knockback, they can continue to attack a nearly defenseless Defender. Most minions get knocked around, but only if they choose to enter melee range. Otherwise, only Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb will knock them around. Ranged foes (such as those with shotguns, machine guns, laser rifles and so on) will still be smacking you around because they won't enter the bubbles. Of course, you could run TO them, but sometimes that's not feasable.

I'm surprised you all are still wasting time with this character. It is painfully obvious that Ultimo has essentially zero actual in-game experience with any of the Defender powersets, and is simply making wild assumptions based on looking at powers in Mids'. Outside of his one super gimped FF build, I doubt he has ever actually played any Defenders at all.

Grasping the concept of the Defender AT is clearly beyond his ability, and nothing anyone can say here is going to change that.

Ultimo_,

You need more time playing defenders and less time playing with Mids. Simply put, you don't have a firm grasp of how defender sets work outside of limited theory-craft.

I don't think you've even thought through what happens to Regen Aura (and don't some heals work off base HP, also?) if defenders get more HPs.

A suggestion: put together The Defender Spreadsheet, along the lines of the ones Aracanaville and Starsman have done for damage mitigation and melee sets. Some things to remember: The Purple Patch (shortens duration and strength of debuffs); click w/ accuracy v. autohit click v. toggle debuffs; team size (a bubbler has an easier time keeping its ST buffs on a big team than a kin or empath do); team makeup (blasters benefit more from FF than ice tankers, for instance); interactions with blasts; teams with multiple sources of (de)buffs (i.e., the higher your damage multiplier, the more damage -resistance adds); time spent using primary v. using secondary; and lord knows what else.

Put all this data into the blender and start pulling out tidbits like, "Empathy is OK / poor solo, but in a duo shines by turning one Blaster into Superman. Empathy is then near the top of the pack through teams of 5, but drops off afterwards as it becomes impossible to keep everyone in ST buffs." Or, "FF is poor solo, but does increasingly better as team size moves up (assuming everyone remains under Dispersion Bubble). Team makeup, however, affects how effective the bubbler is; on Tanker-heavy teams, FF ranks poorly, while on Blaster-heavy teams, FF shines."

But, until that happens, what you're doing amounts to giving a tour of the Louvre ... without ever having stepped foot in the building. Sure you can pick up some tidbits here and there, but you won't have the same depth and breadth of knowledge that the tour guide who's been there for 20 years has.

Just IMO and all that.

I just tested it. Snow storm does not cause enemy scatter.

Catwhoorg:

Again, not being a Kinetics user, I didn't know it was that easy to stack Siphon Power. In that regard I stand corrected.

As for the time it takes to defeat foes, yes, sometimes it does take a rather long time. In the case of Rad, it's been over a year since I played my Rad/Rad Defender. As a result, I'm more influenced by the Grav/Rad Controller I've been playing lately. Perhaps it takes longer for the Controller than the Defender?

Burningchick:

The ability to turn your team into gods is useless to you when you don't have a team. All I'm trying to find is a way to improve that situation so it's more balanced.

Garent:

You put the Snow Storm toggle on someone and none of them moved? EVERY SINGLE time I use it, the enemy starts running in all directions.

Panzer, Talen:

Panzer makes claims about me without ever having met me. Saying understanding something is beyond my ability is an attack on ME, not on what I'm saying. It's a personal attack. His post said nothing about my argument, but instead focused on ME. Thus, it's merely an ad hominem argument.

Saying his comments are true does not make them so. Calling me al liar is a personal attack, and an insult besides. There's no "fact" involved, it's simple name-calling and defamation. I have neverdeliberately made a false statement on these forums, or anywhere else, and I take serious umbrage at the suggestion I would do so. You don't know me so don't presume to judge me.

You're free to disagree with me; but you are not free to insult me.

That I don't know what I'm talking about is your opinion. You're wrong, but you're entitled to hold whatever opinion you like. The "proof" you speak of is dubious, as I've rebutted Luminara's comments where appropriate, and agreed where appropriate. When I've been shown to be in error, I readily admit to it. I don't pretend to know EVERYTHING, but I do know something of what I speak, or I wouldn't say anything at all.

I do call your accusations a personal attack, because that's what they are. There's nothing ironic at all about that.

I find it interesting that you snipe at me for commenting in your rep, when others here have done the same to me, and with more vitriol and insults. It's why I turned off reputation, after all.