Defenders balance


Aett_Thorn

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]

Level 6: Hover -- Flight-I(A), Flight-I(13), Flight-I(15)
Level 8: Air Superiority -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(15), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(19)
Level 10: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A), Jump-I(46)
Level 12: Dispersion Bubble -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(19), DefBuff-I(21), DefBuff-I(21)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I(A), Flight-I(23), Flight-I(23)
Level 16: Boxing -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(25), Dmg-I(25), Dmg-I(27), Dmg-I(27)
Level 18: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(29), Heal-I(29)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(31), EndMod-I(31)
Level 22: Tough -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(31), ResDam-I(33), ResDam-I(33)
Level 24: Weave


[/ QUOTE ]

10 powers, 9 of them pool powers.
Thats an issue when complaining about primaries or secondaries.

Heck, this build is just a step away from a MAN build at level 22.



@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I'd love to know what Ginat Monster you're soloing. I've never seen ANY character of any class solo a GM. I'm not calling shenanigans, but it IS very hard to believe, and if true hardly stands for typical behaviour.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not typical behavior for anyone to be soloing AVs or GMs. The forums are the place that most people who do those things generally congregate and share info.

However, there is no such thing as a Scrapper that can solo a GM, despite the fact that someone produced a build that can muster the DPS to put down a Rikti Pylon in a little over 4 minutes. Controllers, Defenders and Corruptors, however, all can do it, by debuffing the GM's regen and DR using those "force multiplication" tools people mentioned. (Oh, Masterminds can too.)

Now if they can do that solo, imagine what affect that has with a team with Blasters and Scrappers on it.

Giving Defenders and Corruptors a 1.0 damage scale would just plain be ridiculous, even when you consider that not all Controller/Defender/Corruptor powersets have the tools we're talking about. They still have other tools of tremendous benefit for teams. The devs won't ever do it. I wouldn't complain at some sort of buff, but I seriously do not expect one, and my common sense tells me that example of one is just broken.


Blue
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Red
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Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

So, Defender buffs don't have diminishing returns? I was under that impression, everything else in the game seems to work that way.

Most of those pool powers are requisites for future powers. The only one that I could displace would be either Air Superiority (far too useful to leave out) or Hover (also extremely useful for a squishy).

Stamina, essentially a required power, requires Health and Hurdle.
Weave and Tough are required for personal defense, since my own powers don't provide much, and that requires Boxing.

Fly is a travel power. While I could theoretically leave it out, I would then be relegated to running.

In any case, the ONLY power that provides me with defense and comes from my Primary is Dispersion Bubble, and it's pretty much useless until at least SOs (except for status protection). In other words, the character is actually well defended all things considered.

My experience of the early game is that Blasters are in good shape, Tankers are a little weak, but capable, Controllers are gods, Scrappers are capable, but have endurance issues, and Defenders have little going for them.

I don't know of any GM that can be soloed. If it's not that difficult, pray, illuminate us.

I've only ever seen Scrappers and Tankers stomping anything in this game. Certainly not Defenders. Saying it doesn't make it so. If you have something to back that up, I'd like to see it (note that I provided numbers directly from the combat log to support my claim).

Your example is of a team. The Scrapper took on a spawn intended for several heroes. When the team was there, they supported each other. None of this is in question.

If the Defender is able to make his team ridiculously strong, that's one argument. That he can't make himself even a fraction as strong is the problem.

I'm not feeling any sense of entitlement. I'm feeling there's a disparity between the ATs, or at least between power sets.


I think I'm willing to say that Defenders with debuff sets are able to provide adequate defense for themselves. However, even they suffer from unnecessarily low health. As for the buffing sets, they are operating at a severe disadvantage. If I could have used my bubbles on myself, I wouldn't have needed to take Tough and Weave. Perhaps this is the answer.

What would people say to increasing Defender health somewhat, then allowing Defender buffs to be used by the Defender himself, though subject to diminishing returns?


 

Posted

Note that Statesman said "best balanced AT", not "the most powerful AT". Statesman was very much an advocate of challenging gameplay. Defenders, as a broad AT, apparently reflect what he saw as the right level of challenge, which I think he viewed as "capable of getting through the content, but not able to sleepwalk through it".

Scrappers can sleepwalk through nearly all the content, which in Statesman's view was almost certainly not what he would consider well-balanced.


 

Posted

I'm not sure what you mean about diminishing returns. Almost nothing in the game has diminishing returns. Some things offer linear returns, which means that adding X more of it, always just adds X more, which might start to seem slow if the base value gets very large. Regeneration acts this way.

Other things in the game offer 1/(1-X) returns, where as X approaches 1, the returns become extremely large. DR and Defense buffs have this model of behavior. Strictly speaking, the effects themselves are linear, but the benefit to the character in terms of survival time is not.

Nothing has actual diminishing returns outside of ED's enhancement behavior or the new buff rules in I13 PvP.


Blue
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Red
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Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I've only ever seen Scrappers and Tankers stomping anything in this game. Certainly not Defenders. Saying it doesn't make it so. If you have something to back that up, I'd like to see it (note that I provided numbers directly from the combat log to support my claim).

[/ QUOTE ]

Look, you've got to be one of the the only people of your seniority on the forums who doesn't know this is possible. I'm not going to produce proof of my own just for you.

Go look for threads by Silverado, who's got screenshots of his adventures soling AVs with Corrupters and Defenders. He's got a veritable guestbook of signature characters he's soloed with no temp powers and no inspirations. He freaking soloed Infernal with a Fire/Thermal Controller, though it took inspirations. (If you aren't aware, Infernal has massive resistance to Fire damage.)

Edit: Here, try this thread.
Here he is soloing lusca on a Defender. Notice the litany of other AV and GM-class foes underneath it.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

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What would people say to increasing Defender health somewhat, then allowing Defender buffs to be used by the Defender himself, though subject to diminishing returns?

[/ QUOTE ]

My Defenders who already do just fine by either debuffing foes or buffing themselves want none of it.

They also want none of diminishing returns.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

If there is anything about this game that I would consider unbalanced, it would be this. Tankers don't critical hit, Scrappers don't recieve an endurance discount when teammates are low on health, Defenders don't do double damage on held or immobilized foes, Controllers damage can't fire thier tier 1 and 2 attacks while mezzed, and Blasters can't taunt without the presence pool. Rediculous, I tell you! When will the devs fix this in efforts to balance this game? The Scrapper in this game is the only AT designed from launch to be the "solo" AT. Why is the word "Balanced" wasted when someone can't figure out how another AT can't do it as well?


 

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Your Defender, whatever his power sets, will do less damage than any other class. I call that low offense. As for having low defense, I have already said that it does depend to some degree on the power set in question.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was going to read the entire thread, but I had to stop here to prevent myself from vomiting any more than you already made me.

if defender offense is too low for you, please, take your scrapper and solo a GM, can't do it? my Rad/Son certainly can. Why can I, by myself, hit the damage cap on my Kin? is that not high enough for you?

If defender defense is too low why can a FF do the RWZ challenge? also, why can my Storm, Dark, and Rad tank for 8 man teams?

Why is it that when I bring my Cold, TA, Emp, Force Field, Dark, Rad, Sonic, or Storm defender to a team that's been wiping every spawn the team doesn't wipe again?

Your entire argument is based on a terrible assumption, that every powerset should perform equally on all grounds. a FF/Energy shouldn't be able to solo as well as any scrapper because its primary is almost entirely useless solo, you also built poorly, something that I can determine when you said the best power you have is your tier 1 blast... You also most likely don't have other powers that could make you solo better. Repulsion Field, Force Bolt, Detention Field, all of these are excellent means to prevent incoming damage to yourself, I will assume you didn't take any of them. at 26 you get Repulsion bomb, which is another excellent way of preventing incoming damage.


No

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

I think you underestimate our fools, sir.

Why /duel is a bad idea

 

Posted

By diminishing returns, I mean the more of something you have the less benefit you get. That is, full effect from the first buff (enhancement, whatever), then less from the next and so on. I thought that was how it worked (made sense to me...), but I guess not.

Silveroach is a rad/sonic Defender. Those are both debuffing sets. Silverican is a Corruptor, and I really haven't played them much. It appears to be Fire/Traps. Traps has many powers that benefit the Corruptor. In other words, these are power sets that the Defender benefits from, which we've already established are not as disadvantaged (if at all).

Defenders that debuff their foes apparently do fine. I'm not sure I agree that they're fine, but they certainly do better than the alternative, Defenders that buff. Defenders that buff generally can't benefit from their own buffs. That seems to me to be a problem, if not THE problem.

Pwnbringer's response is spurious at best.
The thread has been remarkably civil and, I think, productive. I hope we can refrain from any further pointless posts.


Anyhow, bedtime. I'll check back tomorrow as I get the chance.


 

Posted

Well, he wants proof. I was bored, so here it is to give: a demorecord of my level 26 FF/NRG doing just fine solo on a mission. Probably not my best run ever since I was rusty with the toon, having not played her in awhile due to Dual Pistols being announced (her concept is a FF/AR Defender, which, at present, isn't possible, but I'll settle for Dual Pistols too), but I do it without getting killed repeatedly and little trouble. Yes, I have to run and rest once, but stuff like that happens regardless of AT in the lower levels.

Anyway, link: http://www.savefile.com/files/2154940 It's about 2.3 megabytes.

I've never done a demorecord before, nor watched one, and I remember hearing the interface not showing up. So, if I just stand there dumbly for a few seconds at the start instead of showing the enhancement screen, here's her [u]solo[u] build. I doubt it's "optimum" for her level, but it works. Also, the power picks may or may not be in the right order.

+---------------------------------------------
+ Built with SuckerPunch's Online Planner
+ http://www.cohplanner.com
+---------------------------------------------
Name: N/A
Level: 26
Archetype: Defender
Primary: Force Field
Secondary: Energy Blast
+---------------------------------------------
01 => Power Bolt ==> Dam(1),Acc(3),Dam(3),Acc(7),Dam(9),EndCost(9)
01 => Personal Force Field ==> Rech(1)
02 => Power Blast ==> Dam(2),Acc(5),Dam(5),Acc(7),Dam(11),EndCost(13)
04 => Force Bolt ==> Acc(4)
06 => Hover ==> Empty(6)
08 => Detention Field ==> Rech(8)
10 => Power Burst ==> Dam(10),Acc(11),Dam(13),Acc(19),Dam(21),EndCost(23)
12 => Dispersion Bubble ==> DefBuff(12),DefBuff(15),DefBuff(15),EndCost(17)
14 => Fly ==> Flight(14)
16 => Sniper Blast ==> Dam(16),Acc(17),Acc(19)
18 => Swift ==> Empty(18)
20 => Health ==> Heal(20),Heal(21)
22 => Stamina ==> EndMod(22),EndMod(23)
24 => Aim ==> Rech(24),Rech(25),Rech(25)
26 => Repulsion Bomb ==> Acc(26)
+---------------------------------------------
01 => Sprint ==> Empty(1)
01 => Brawl ==> Empty(1)
02 => Rest ==> Empty(1)


 

Posted

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This is complete crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a pretty concise summation of Ultimo_'s entire posting history.

Different month, same tired old tactic of picking a combo that he knows he can force to perform poorly by not using half his powers and making bad power selections, trying to "prove" something so he can promote his idealistic dream of the game where he finally gets to dress up as Superman and one-shot everything by sitting on his keyboard and flexing his buttocks.

Why anyone falls for it these days, I'll never know.


 

Posted

All too true, Luminara.

Ultimo, please stop posting. You are insulting Canadians world-wide by your association with us.


 

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I'm told the Devs have described the Defender as the best balanced AT. I'm forced to wonder at this.

[/ QUOTE ]

say what now?


Positron's i13 letter: We are trying to make PvP more accessible to new players, while giving experienced PvP'ers the advantage that comes with formulating tactics around the new systems we're putting in place. PvP from now on will be on our priority list. If something isn't working out, we'll be in there tweaking it and making it work, for the entire future of the product, not just Issue 13.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]

+---------------------------------------------
01 => Power Bolt ==> Dam(1),Acc(3),Dam(3),Acc(7),Dam(9),EndCost(9)
01 => Personal Force Field ==> Rech(1)
02 => Power Blast ==> Dam(2),Acc(5),Dam(5),Acc(7),Dam(11),EndCost(13)
04 => Force Bolt ==> Acc(4)
06 => Hover ==> Empty(6)
08 => Detention Field ==> Rech(8)
10 => Power Burst ==> Dam(10),Acc(11),Dam(13),Acc(19),Dam(21),EndCost(23 )
12 => Dispersion Bubble ==> DefBuff(12),DefBuff(15),DefBuff(15),EndCost(17)
14 => Fly ==> Flight(14)
16 => Sniper Blast ==> Dam(16),Acc(17),Acc(19)
18 => Swift ==> Empty(18)
20 => Health ==> Heal(20),Heal(21)
22 => Stamina ==> EndMod(22),EndMod(23)
24 => Aim ==> Rech(24),Rech(25),Rech(25)
26 => Repulsion Bomb ==> Acc(26)
+---------------------------------------------
01 => Sprint ==> Empty(1)
01 => Brawl ==> Empty(1)
02 => Rest ==> Empty(1)


[/ QUOTE ]

Now THATS more like a soloing defender build. I note the use of both primary and secondary to boost survivability (detention field is a great tool solo).

Personally I'd have left sniper blast to later, but thats about it.



@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

 

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[ QUOTE ]
Why anyone falls for it these days, I'll never know.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's been a slow week in the Defender Forum, so some of us decided to feed the troll

But, in this case, the troll appears to be a li'l headstrong, even by troll standards.

Or possibly insane.


 

Posted

I believe Ultimo is well-intentioned. If he is really a troll, he deserves some sort of reward for both perseverance and presentation.

However, he very consistently presents with an almost perfect storm of being all of: (a) seemingly perpetually inexperienced, (b) strongly opinionated, and (c) deeply concerned about game balance.

Unfortunately, (a) and (c) mix incredibly poorly, but (b) ensures he brings their mixture here to us regularly.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

I don't think he gets the nature of stacking (de)buffs, and how -damage reinforces +resistance, or how - resistance works with +damage. &c..


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
By diminishing returns, I mean the more of something you have the less benefit you get. That is, full effect from the first buff (enhancement, whatever), then less from the next and so on. I thought that was how it worked (made sense to me...), but I guess not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I drop one tar patch, -30% resistance. My teammate drops a second, -60% resistance. My team's damage (in a resistance debuff free environment with no resistances) goes up by 30% on the first one, but only +23% on the second one (1.6/1.3 < 1.3/1.0).

No, there aren't diminishing returns, there are things like caps (45% softcap to defense, 300% to -resist, 300% to +dmg for most AT's) that you move linearly toward. You might get 'less' of a relative bonus because you started at a higher point, but the debuff/buff itself does not decrease in potency. Two FF shields will stack with identical numbers, except that with 2 half knowledgeable FF players you're well over the cap by then.

[ QUOTE ]
Silveroach is a rad/sonic Defender. Those are both debuffing sets. Silverican is a Corruptor, and I really haven't played them much. It appears to be Fire/Traps. Traps has many powers that benefit the Corruptor. In other words, these are power sets that the Defender benefits from, which we've already established are not as disadvantaged (if at all).

Defenders that debuff their foes apparently do fine. I'm not sure I agree that they're fine, but they certainly do better than the alternative, Defenders that buff. Defenders that buff generally can't benefit from their own buffs. That seems to me to be a problem, if not THE problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let me paraphrase: "DEFENDERS DO FINE. Except the one I'm playing right now. This AT is broken!"

I am likely in full agreement with you that defenders should be able to self-target with buffs, I never understood that design decision - but the defender AT doesn't suffer much for it outside of solo, and bring incredible value to a team.

[ QUOTE ]
Pwnbringer's response is spurious at best.
The thread has been remarkably civil and, I think, productive. I hope we can refrain from any further pointless posts.

[/ QUOTE ]
*sigh* Your posts have been pretty pointless. Go do some research. It amazes me you didn't know about GM and AV soloing. It shocks me that you think defenders are weak, except that you are clearly trying to be a solo powerhouse on a team oriented character.

You have a terrible solo build on a primary that is terrible for solo on an AT that is team-oriented. The AT that is the best stacking AT in the game and melts content when you get a few of them together. The AT that Castle claimed made difficult content look game breakingly easy in reference to some of the things Repeat Offenders have done.

Really... there is not a lot to say. Start teaming on your FF so you don't have two wastes of power picks in your shields, or respec and drop them for better solo skills, or pick a new char to solo with. Stop trolling for defender buffs on the basis that you don't know what you're doing with yours.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]

I am likely in full agreement with you that defenders should be able to self-target with buffs, I never understood that design decision - but the defender AT doesn't suffer much for it outside of solo, and bring incredible value to a team.


[/ QUOTE ]

30% def all (perma) hits the Soft cap with PowerbuildUp
900% regen (perma with hasten) Plus anoth 900% almost perma
1000% recovery boost
13 Mag mez resist (perma)

Plus a damage boost that brings damage scale up to 1.

Thats a self-targeting empath right there, which explains why you can't self target those buffs.



@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I'm told the Devs have described the Defender as the best balanced AT. I'm forced to wonder at this. Consider the following.

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, you're right insofar as the devs, at one point, having said that they believe that Defenders are the most balanced of the ATs. Keep in mind that this was when the game was run by Jack Emmert and Cryptic Studios and it was said in reference to why Defenders got such a wholly craptastic inherent power.

Secondly, comparing Defender performance while solo to Scrapper performance while solo, especially when you're using a Defender powerset that is designed to be a teaming powerset, will never be a legitimate argument. All the devs guarantee for soloing is that it is possible. It's not "can solo at least this well". It's "can solo, on heroic, if played with a modicum of intelligence". You've tried to use this same flawed argument in multiple places and been told the same thing by many of the same people every time: you're comparison is flawed, you can't play a defender solo the same way you play a defender teamed, and your build is atrocious.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I drop one tar patch, -30% resistance. My teammate drops a second, -60% resistance. My team's damage (in a resistance debuff free environment with no resistances) goes up by 30% on the first one, but only +23% on the second one (1.6/1.3 < 1.3/1.0).

[/ QUOTE ]

Just to expand on this, because I think it can confuse people...

As mentioned earlier, most things in the game work as linear increases. If you've got a base of 100 of something and add 30 more, you get 130, or 130% of your base.

If you add 30 more, you get 160, or 160% of base, or 123% of what you had at 130. In the limit, as you keep adding more and more, the percent increase of adding another 30 becomes less and less.

However, just to be really clear, that's not diminishing returns, though some people refer to it like that. (I know G_Tanker wasn't saying that.)

Actual diminishing returns would be that you start with 100, add 30, and get 130. You add 30 more and get, say, 145. Add 30 more and maybe you get 152.5. In a diminishing returns regime the more you have, the less each point you add actually contributes to the total.

It's worth noting that the idea of adding diminishing returns to the game is hardly new, and debates about it come up every few months. Castle did weigh in on this. In essence, paraphrasing his post as I interpreted it, doing this would be a sweeping rebalancing of the game. While it would provide the devs headroom they currently lack, the current state of affairs doesn't tie their hands all together (clearly), and people are enjoying the game as it exists now. Performing that sort of rework of the status quo was deemed unlikely, presumably because the overall benefit was not deemed clearly worth the cost.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
It's worth noting that the idea of adding diminishing returns to the game is hardly new, and debates about it come up every few months. Castle did weigh in on this. In essence, paraphrasing his post as I interpreted it, doing this would be a sweeping rebalancing of the game. While it would provide the devs headroom they currently lack, the current state of affairs doesn't tie their hands all together (clearly), and people are enjoying the game as it exists now. Performing that sort of rework of the status quo was deemed unlikely, presumably because the overall benefit was not deemed clearly worth the cost.

[/ QUOTE ]
Going Rogue might just be that opportunity.


 

Posted

I'm not sure why you'd think that. Cross-pollinating the ATs is vastly less disruptive to the status quo than reworking all powersets that provide stackable buffs or debuffs.

Note that, unless I missed something, GR is not being billed as a "stand alone" expansion the way CoV was. If so, it's not as if players of GR are going to be people who don't also experience CoH/V.

The "cost" I was referring to is not (just) man hours invested in development and testing time, though I believe that would be significant to do the change right. It's also the community and potential subscription impact of disruption of existing playerbase's experience.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I am likely in full agreement with you that defenders should be able to self-target with buffs, I never understood that design decision - but the defender AT doesn't suffer much for it outside of solo, and bring incredible value to a team.


[/ QUOTE ]

30% def all (perma) hits the Soft cap with PowerbuildUp
900% regen (perma with hasten) Plus anoth 900% almost perma
1000% recovery boost
13 Mag mez resist (perma)

Plus a damage boost that brings damage scale up to 1.

Thats a self-targeting empath right there, which explains why you can't self target those buffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, but I mean the original design decision. Had the powersets been originally designed and balanced with the idea that the empath can self-target buffs, I think gameplay would have been drastically different and buffs/debuffs weaker - not quite the insane powerhouse they are now. That said, I very much enjoy the insane powerhouse they are now