Defenders balance

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I want to keep this friendly, but as expected, someone ALWAYS has to start the poking jibes.

[/ QUOTE ]It's a jibe to let you know that your opinion is empty? I'm telling you why you're not making headway, why nobody is taking you seriously - because you're working from a foregone and erronous postulate.

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You dont know me, or my gaming experience, so dont insult me if you are able to prove a valid point.

[/ QUOTE ]'You're stupid' is an insult. 'You don't know what you're talking about' is an observation. And you don't know what you're talking about.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

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I want to keep this friendly, but as expected, someone ALWAYS has to start the poking jibes.

[/ QUOTE ]It's a jibe to let you know that your opinion is empty? I'm telling you why you're not making headway, why nobody is taking you seriously - because you're working from a foregone and erronous postulate.

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You dont know me, or my gaming experience, so dont insult me if you are able to prove a valid point.

[/ QUOTE ]'You're stupid' is an insult. 'You don't know what you're talking about' is an observation. And you don't know what you're talking about.

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Not to side one way or the other, but that "observation" is only an observation so long as it is accurate, after that point, it truly is an insult. And, obviously, Biospark does not believe that it is an observation. Therefore...

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Not to side one way or the other, but that "observation" is only an observation so long as it is accurate, after that point, it truly is an insult. And, obviously, Biospark does not believe that it is an observation. Therefore...

[/ QUOTE ]I can understand that, and since Biospark is not going to pay attention to the evidence or the existing culture of the game, he's not about to regard said observation as fair even if it is. Not a lot I can do for that, but hey - I'm trying here.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

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I want to keep this friendly, but as expected, someone ALWAYS has to start the poking jibes.

[/ QUOTE ]It's a jibe to let you know that your opinion is empty? I'm telling you why you're not making headway, why nobody is taking you seriously - because you're working from a foregone and erronous postulate.

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You dont know me, or my gaming experience, so dont insult me if you are able to prove a valid point.

[/ QUOTE ]'You're stupid' is an insult. 'You don't know what you're talking about' is an observation. And you don't know what you're talking about.

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Well, you are entitled to your opinion, just as I am.

Some people have valid points for their side... Like Umbral,
Your Candor and dismissive comments indicate that you have nothing to offer, but certainly enjoy demeaning a valid argument.

Again, if you care to join a discussion, I am all ears.
But if you just want to insult (Yeah I said Insult), then who should we take seriously ?

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Its very hard to convince me that 7 other people can enjoy HUGE rewards that I provide, but cannot also provide to myself.

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When you make a blaster on your team unkillable with bubbles, you ARE providing HUGE rewards to yourself.

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WHY then is it somehow balanced that he can do JUST THAT to 7 other people in a team.

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Some might say its not balanced.

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There is NO HARM in everyone soloing decently (Albeit at different capabilties) because TEAMING will ALWAYS be BETTER.

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This is demonstrably not always the case, there are aspects of the game where soloing is "better". Also, all defenders already solo "decently", although I agree there is room for minor improvement.

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So I REJECT your notion of SOLO (team-agnostic) or SUPPORT (Team-reliant) and say that it is simply a fact of Game genesis.

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I kind of like that there are some ATs that solo very well but only team decently, while other ATs team very well but only solo decently. The variety of experience is very nice. I like that there are powers that require a teammate to be useful, especially when those powers are as amazing as bubbles, Fortitude, and Speed Boost.

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Some people have valid points for their side... Like Umbral,
Your Candor and dismissive comments indicate that you have nothing to offer, but certainly enjoy demeaning a valid argument.

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I'm curious as to how you continually believe that you're argument is still valid. That's the crux of the disagreement. You believe that the ability for a defender to buff himself wouldn't completely throw the entire balance system of the game off simply because an FF fender would be able to get higher levels of defense than a defense focused Scrapper, Tanker, Stalker, or Brute, especially since they'd also be able to do so while granting massive amounts of support to their allies.

The flaw in your argument is that there is something wrong with defenders being able to contribute more to their allies than to themselves. That's their fundamental role. They're not particularly powerful themselves, but they act to make everyone else more powerful. They're support. Being able to support yourself to the same degree that it's possible to support one's compatriots is simply asking for a complete and total review of all support sets that have any ally only buffs simply because it would require them to be rebalanced to be less effective to account for the ability to be used on oneself.

A FF fender is quite possibly the worst solo toon in the game. This is fine by me. Someone has to be worst. What balances this out is that a single FF fender in common IOs (re: no sets) can perma-softcap everyone in his group for a pittance of animation time. That's quite possibly the best survivability support you can get from a single toon. 90% mitigation for everyone. It's also ignoring the fact that you're bringing ~16% +def(all) to yourself along with a suite of mez protections that also affect you. What's more, that's only factoring in 3 of the 9 powers in the set.

Asking for Defenders to be better at supporting themselves when they're already incredibly good at it and almost all get a not-insignificant ability to support themselves anyway is a pointless argument from a balance perspective. Defenders are perfectly serviceable where they are at for what you are asking. Ignoring what they've already got (the worst of which is actually quite good) simply to make your argument seem more valid just makes you look exactly as Talen described you: ignorant.

The only change that I can see as actually having any pretense of applicability would be to increase Defender damage through whichever mechanism you chose, as long as it doesn't make Sonic Blast even better than it already is. The fact that Sonic Blast is so strong for Defenders is probably the biggest obstacle/argument with simply increasing the Defender ranged damage scalar outright (.70 would be fine by me).

Umbral,

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. You (and many others) cannot see my point. Just as I (as much as I try) cannot understand the stubborness against helping a few powersets out.

Let me try another example (and please, I accept that Buffs and Debuffs work differently in different situations):

Level 12 Radiation Defender throws up RI on a group of baddies and proceeds to stand in the middle of them and laugh. Their ACC is lowered much more than the baseline DEF of the FF Dispersion Bubble. Yes the FF can put up PFF and laugh as well, but the RAD defender can fight back in this mode. Additionally, the EXACT benefit he gains solo from RI is the EXACT benefit his team gains when he uses that same defense in a Team.

But the argument seems to be that thats OK for the Dark, Rad, etc.. Powerset, but somehow too much to ask when your talking about FF.

This is not ignorance, this is a VALID question

Also you mentioned how it would not be fair for a FF defender to have greater self defense than a SR scrapper. Well that would be a valid argument IF they also dealt the same amount of damage in a fight. Which they dont.

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Umbral,

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. You (and many others) cannot see my point.

[/ QUOTE ]We can, it's just wrong.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

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This is not ignorance, this is a VALID question

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It's ignorance because you're ignoring the fundamental difference between buff and debuff balancing: buffs are static values that don't change with levels.

The reason that RI is so strong is quite simple: it's a debuff. Try using RI against an AV and getting a bigger benefit from it. Try using it on a higher level enemy and getting that same benefit. Buffs are smaller simply because they're static values. Where it matters, debuffs can only get smaller. Sure, they get bigger when you're fighting a -2 enemy, but do you really think that you're going to need to use that debuff to kill an enemy that's already at that disadvantage? Debuffs have always been numerically advantaged because of this (and other) reasons.

Are you now seeing why we're repeatedly calling you ignorant? You're missing one of the biggest factors in power balance and effectiveness that the devs (and pretty much everyone else) readily pay attention to.

Hey StratoNexus

Glad you stopped in.
You mentioned some powers that you liked being group ally only. One thing I have come to believe over time is that there are only a few powers that really need to be altered to help sets like Empathy and Forcefields. Some people seem to think I am suggesting changing EVERY ally power. (Which I Do not Believe ).

Have you started your EMP/ICE character yet ?
How does that fair ?

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So I REJECT your notion of SOLO (team-agnostic) or SUPPORT (Team-reliant) and say that it is simply a fact of Game genesis.

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I kind of like that there are some ATs that solo very well but only team decently, while other ATs team very well but only solo decently. The variety of experience is very nice. I like that there are powers that require a teammate to be useful, especially when those powers are as amazing as bubbles, Fortitude, and Speed Boost.

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thats y they give you 2 builds now

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This is not ignorance, this is a VALID question

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It's ignorance because you're ignoring the fundamental difference between buff and debuff balancing: buffs are static values that don't change with levels.

The reason that RI is so strong is quite simple: it's a debuff. Try using RI against an AV and getting a bigger benefit from it. Try using it on a higher level enemy and getting that same benefit. Buffs are smaller simply because they're static values. Where it matters, debuffs can only get smaller. Sure, they get bigger when you're fighting a -2 enemy, but do you really think that you're going to need to use that debuff to kill an enemy that's already at that disadvantage? Debuffs have always been numerically advantaged because of this (and other) reasons.

Are you now seeing why we're repeatedly calling you ignorant? You're missing one of the biggest factors in power balance and effectiveness that the devs (and pretty much everyone else) readily pay attention to.

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No I am not missing your point. I specifically said I understand that Debuffs work differently under different conditions (specifically Higher level mobs, AVs)

But under TYPICAL SOLO conditions, there is a DIFFERENCE between what a RAD can do and what a FF can do.

I call this something to be improved on, you call it working as intended. Does this still make me Ignorant or just a person WANTING to improve a powerset in a SLIGHT way.

Seriously, why is this such an argument with people ?

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Have you started your EMP/ICE character yet ?
How does that fair ?

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I have. Level 5. Obviously, cake so far. Hard Drive is full, so I have to actually compress some video and make some new movies before I can continue because I want to try to video a bunch of the stuff until level 20.

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Seriously, why is this such an argument with people ?

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I think I can tackle this one...

Part of it is a bizarre need to be right, and part of it is a bizarre need to inform you of their knowledge, and part of it is the fact that they ARE right in this case.

I don't think any of the arguers above will refute the fact that some defenders seem to solo painfully, and others can solo, well, admirably... and that using those same sets on a controller can enable the soloing of AVs and GMs. Where the issue comes in is that you are trying to make a Defender do something that a Defender is not meant to do. Defenders are designed as force multipliers, NOT as forces in and of themselves... if they become both, it shoots other ATs in the foot.

Do I personally totally agree with this? No. I think there is a small latitude of improvement that can be eeked out for Defenders and still keep them in acceptable levels. Just as I believe, to a point that Mr. Butane's insane Tank rants have an ounce of truth to them... just not as much as he claims.

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Seriously, why is this such an argument with people ?

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I think I can tackle this one...

Part of it is a bizarre need to be right, and part of it is a bizarre need to inform you of their knowledge, and part of it is the fact that they ARE right in this case.

I don't think any of the arguers above will refute the fact that some defenders seem to solo painfully, and others can solo, well, admirably... and that using those same sets on a controller can enable the soloing of AVs and GMs. Where the issue comes in is that you are trying to make a Defender do something that a Defender is not meant to do. Defenders are designed as force multipliers, NOT as forces in and of themselves... if they become both, it shoots other ATs in the foot.

Do I personally totally agree with this? No. I think there is a small latitude of improvement that can be eeked out for Defenders and still keep them in acceptable levels. Just as I believe, to a point that Mr. Butane's insane Tank rants have an ounce of truth to them... just not as much as he claims.

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Thank You Thirty_Seven, well stated comment.

I would add for my own self defense, that I dont think in real life I am an unreasonable person or one that always needs to be right (Geez! I hope thats not me). Or that I spend my time ranting or raving. I am just a person that started playing this game one month after launch and rolled a FF/Rad Defender as my first toon that wonderful day in MAY. I was severely disappointed when my RL Brother, also playing for the first time was not experiencing the same trouble on his DM/Regen scrapper. So you know what I did next, rolled a MA/SR Scrapper If I knew then, what I know now Hehe

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Level 12 Radiation Defender throws up RI on a group of baddies and proceeds to stand in the middle of them and laugh. Their ACC is lowered

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Their ToHit is reduced. The only thing that reduces Accuracy is Elusivity.

Critters don't get Elusivity.

</nitpick>

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much more than the baseline DEF of the FF Dispersion Bubble.

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Lieutenants have 10% resistance to -ToHit. Bosses have 20% resistance to -ToHit. AVs (and EBs scaled down from AVs) resist ToHit by scaled amounts, from a minimum of 60% to a maximum of 87%.

Additionally, all critters gain resist debuffs by level. A +1 critter, regardless of rank, has 10% resistance to all debuffs. A +2 critter resists debuffs by 20%. +3, 35%. +4, 52%. +5, 70%. Et cetera.

That's the price debuffs pay for being usable for solo play. That seemingly strong -ToHit becomes progressively less impressive the higher the rank and/or level of the foe(s). Buffs only have to deal with corresponding buffs on the enemies, like the scaling +Acc that critters get for being +X to the character, and buffs pay for that by being more limited for solo use.

Furthermore, that RI that you used as an example provides 0 protection versus status effects. Darkest Night, 0 protection versus status effects. None of the ToHit debuffs protect against status effects. One Hold or Stun and it's toggled off, providing zero -ToHit. That's another penalty debuffs face, very few of them are "sticky", and the ones which are tend to be in powersets with no self buffs and significantly weaker than buffs which perform the same function. The defender using Dispersion Bubble isn't dealing with that, he/she is really only vulnerable to Sleeps, and his/her protection turns back on by itself when the Sleep is broken or expires.

So yes, Dispersion Bubble has a lower base Defense than the -ToHit provided by a few debuffs in other defender primaries. It also isn't double-dinged, it doesn't drop as easily or as often and it resumes full function much more quickly and with less input than the debuffs.

And the FF isn't limited to only Dispersion Bubble for personal safety, he/she does have other powers which can be used solo, potentially more effectively than all of the -ToHit in any debuffing primary. After all, a critter which can't stay on its feet can't shoot/hit at all and therefore is even less of a risk than a critter which is still attacking but limited to a 5% chance to hit.

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Also you mentioned how it would not be fair for a FF defender to have greater self defense than a SR scrapper. Well that would be a valid argument IF they also dealt the same amount of damage in a fight. Which they dont.

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It's a valid point regardless of how much damage is dealt because the scrapper doesn't provide protection to anyone but him/herself. The scrapper won't turn seven other players into juggernauts of destruction, but the defender will. It goes back to that "force multiplier" thing that's been pointed out numerous times in this thread. A defender, alone, is capable, but usually not impressive. Two defenders together can be safer than and almost as deadly as two scrappers. Four defenders together are as powerful as any team of eight scrappers. Eight defenders... well, you'd need two or three teams of scrappers and voice comms to match their speed and survivability.

That's why we have limits on what we can do as defenders. The only way those limits are ever going to be altered is if the very nature of how buffs and debuffs work is altered, meaning, no more stacking, no more force multiplying and no more RO-style all defender steamroller teams brutally destroying AVs in 17s flat.

So don't expect to see defenders getting an increase to their damage scales. Don't expect to see defender blasts or APP attacks buffed. It's not going to happen because defenders are the most potentially powerful AT in the game already.

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Seriously, why is this such an argument with people?

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Defenders are treading somewhat unexplored ground in game design. Buffing and debuffing as the main team role, as opposed to a slight bonus on top of (ugh) heals, HoTs, and a token high MP cost nuke. ("Bright light, shine down on bloody impurity! Holy!") We can't just say, oh, let's try what this-or-that other RPG did with their defender-like class. Instead, we have to come up with lots of fresh ideas. Lots of fresh and unique yet mutually incompatible ideas.

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And you're still only level 6! Minions are defeated by sneezes at level 6!


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No one (I hope) cares about level 6. Every AT is more or less trivial up to level 10. The hard times start in the teens and extend through to the early 30s or 40s.

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Your narrow outlook on Kinetics based on your experience four years ago isn't relevant, or even correct, today.


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You accuse me of not using powers such as siphon speed, and as such, am incompetent; I explain that this wasn't relevant. There's nothing more to it than that.

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You can't survive the first 15s of combat solo in many situations: any of a number of EBs will crank you in that time;

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I survive the first 8-15s against AVs and GMs with my Kinetics scrapper.


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This whole discussion revolves around solo play.
I was effectively one-shotted the other day, by a +1 boss in an AE mission, after the fulcrum shift debuff.

Some GMs are fine: no one attack does enough damage (especially after debuff) that transfusion can't fix up. But it's not the point. Other foes will quite happily gank a defender.

More pertinently, you were claiming that it was fine to spend 8 to 15 seconds not engaged in damage mitigation. When I call you on this, you state that 8 to 15 seconds are perfectly survivable ... if one takes measures to mitigate damage. Gaah!

But ...

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The only applicable argument is the mezzer statement, and that's a fact of life for every defender, not just Kins. You deal with it or you die, it's that simple.


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and it dramatically affects the abilities of defenders to solo, which is Ultimo's point.

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Mental Blast - 37.5% -Recharge, 36.1 base damage
Subdue - mag 3 Immobilize, 47.7 base damage
Psychic Scream - 62.5% -Recharge, 37.6 base damage

Damage (defeated foes deal 0 damage), enough -Recharge to floor attack speed, an Immobilize which prevents foes from closing to melee range (and thereby restricts them to using only ranged attacks, which, again, typically deal less damage than melee attacks), I'm seeing quite a bit of mitigation in the low level attacks.


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Recharge reduction does nothing against alphas, and only affects foes once they finish running through their available attacks. It's only significant in drawn out battles. Immobilize is not great mitigation (often better than nothing, sure) but Subdue doesn't even guarantee that.

And after all this, you haven't played a scrapper past 20. So when you said in reply,

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Playing the two were like night and day. It shouldn't be the case that Defenders, having a more interesting gameplay, should be so much less effective solo.


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That isn't the case. It never was.


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you were basically just making stuff up. It's hard to take you seriously.

The very fact that your using an AE mission with enemies you may of created could be something. I find the missions outside of AE, dev created, are made to be more balanced to all ATs than the ones in AE. Not that I do a lot of AE to know because I hardly do any.

Edit: missed a word.

Luminara, I have not made up a thing. I've been polite, and answered your points with deliberation.

You, on the other hand, have been rude, dismissive, and have changed your argument at whim in order to try and score points.

My simple claim: soloing the scrapper was much, much easier than soloing the defender, and at level 50, my kin defender, while fun, struggles much more often than my scrapper.

For the record, the +1 boss I refered to in the AE mission was not some custom ubercreature, but simply an Arachnos boss.

I did not quote you out of context; you stated that it was never the case that soloing a defender was much more of a struggle than soloing a scrapper. The quote is in my previous post. And yet you have not played a scrapper past the 20s. I don't know how you can really defend that point.

I'm happy that you have a lot of success with your defender. I know I enjoy playing mine (at least now that she's a mini-controller at level 50). But a debate about solo ability of ATs is not an attack on you personally.