Defenders vs Controller Disparity.
By
Adelie,
Posted on: 2009-07-20 04:50 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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- a domination like button where they build their 'defenderation' bar by attacking, then when activated gives an effect like power boost (how does this affect buff and debuff powersets then?).
[/ QUOTE ] No just no, we already been thru this with doms. We would end up with a bunch of elitist players who can stack defenderation 3 times saying that defenders are fine and dont need changing while the rest of us have piss poor damage because we cant afford a perma-defenderation build. Sorry not going to happen and if it ever did I would personally go to Paragon Studios and have a long talk with Castle for doing it and Positron for allowing Castle to do it.
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/agree. Click inherents are not the way to go and frankly neither is anything that involves the defender primaries since they are far too varied to find a common ground for an inherent.
An inherent based around defender blast sets and the debuffs attached to them would be a lot more reasonable, such as critical debuffs. Of course you would have to give some kind of bonus for AR and archery, and also tone down sonic's -res debuff some. Even so defender would still need a base damage buff from their current state.
I think Defenders and Controllers are fine, and I play both, and have both at level 50. I think people get higher level and then get pissed when they find out that a mix of blasts and support wasnt what they wanted.
For max teamy goodness, pick Control + Defense. For max damage pick Damage + Damage. For an intermediate jack of all trades role or for personal flexibility, pick Defense/Blast (Defender) or Blast/Defense (Corruptor) or Control/Blast (Dominator).
I think a lot of the complaints come from how the ATs are advertised. I'm sure most here will disagree, but that has always been my feeling.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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Woe unto the poor Defender, having to deal with mezzes just like Blasters, Controllers, Corruptors, non-Domination Dominators, and non-Dwarf Kheldians.
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Blasters can still attack when mezzed... its only t1 and 2 attacks, but its still something.
An excellent post that sums up the disparity and shows the weak spots between the 2 ATs. The other thing that I find discouraging for the defender is the soon to be Redeemed Corruptors showing up in Paragon City. Except for a few non-proliferated power sets there simply won't be a reason to play a Defender over a Corruptor (let alone over a Controller).
The majority of the blame lies squarely on inventions. (Don't get me wrong I love the invention system.) Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.
The defender's role keeps shrinking. When Going Rougue comes out most people will play defenders only for nostalgia unless defenders get a serious overhaul and update. With the possible exceptions of Forcefeilds and Empathy any other buffing AT will be a superior choice both for teaming and soloing.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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My thoughts: Defenders are all right. They function and can solo fine and team great. There's no need to buff them with that in mind. However, Dominators were fine too. Ignoring Permadomination, they did just fine solo it was only slower. Doms got buffed though even with that fact so I see no reason Defenders can't get the same treatment.
The *problem* with buffing Defenders, though? They are stuck between a rock and a place that just sucks.
-You can't buff their buff/debuff mod. You'd either hit a brick wall where more buff/debuff will not make a difference in normal play except in AV/GM fights or you could risk completely breaking the game with retardedly high buff/debuff values.
-You can't buff their damage too far. They are in a delicate balance with Corruptors and Blasters. Buff Defenders and now you have the same situation with Def vs Cont buff sets only with Corruptors.
If any changes are made, you'd probably need to shift around more than just Defenders, and that's the problem with buffing the AT. I don't think that should discourage a change but it won't be easy....but some ideas I had for it:
Vigilance- Alter it so it provides a slight endurance discount per teammate, whatever values would be balanced. Secondly, I'd add a sort of Furilance (Vigilance + Fury) mechanic that buffed the effectiveness of their primary as well as buff/debuffs in the secondary attacks so long as you actively use your powers. To balance this, I'd lower buff/debuff globally across all support ATs (Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, Masterminds and maybe EATs). Then buff/debuffs won't be so broken and yet Defenders can potentially still have them with relatively similar levels as now.
Damage- Shift Defenders damage up to where Corruptors are now, shift Corruptors up to 1.0 dmg mod and lower the recharge on some of Blaster's attacks. So Defender/Corruptors can do good damage and Blasters can do just as good but with greater frequency. Not sure how balanced that is but that's my suggestion.
Controller- It doesn't make sense to me that this AT has the damage it has. It doesn't have a set dedicated to damage and yet it has decent levels plus pets plus support. But I wouldn't want Controllers to be left out of the solo scene. I'd probably just change containment into a chance of double damage (like 10% on uncontrolled foes and 40% on controlled foes). Altering it to respect damage buffs/caps is probably not possible.
I'd actually suggest all of those changes together. If only one were changed you'd probably miss a balance point somewhere in there.
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The main problem I see is that their primaries are not fun. Forcefield is an awesome powerset - but it is incredibly boring to play. The empathy auras and fortitude are great - but I doubt anyone's idea of fun is giving out auras and fortitude buffs.
Defenders have these nifty attacks in their secondary that they can use a lot - but they aren't very good. You can't buff them or controllers become corruptors.
I don't think defenders aren't good enough. The problem is they are force multipliers - on 8 man teams they are the best characters. Solo they suck. You can't balance this without changing how buffs/debuffs work in the game.
So you have a class that is boring to play in what it is good at, and that is uber on large teams and lousy on small teams.
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Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.
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Hmmm. While SOs are the more important balance point in my head, I have just started to IO out my FF/Nrg. Since endurance issues are a big concern for me, I wonder how much of an effect the expensive +Recovery IOs may have. Also, I end up with a lot of people at slivers, so maybe some +Damage set bonuses could be very useful (one less attack per kill not only speeds up kill rate, it reduces incoming damage and lessens endurance strains).
I guess seeing the effect of IOs on my FF/Nrg defender while solo will be the next experiment I run.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
I had a crazy thought... what if Defenders buffs worked on themselves? Possibly at a lesser value. That would help their solo ability a lot. Controllers get an added benefit that they can buff their pets. Why not allow Defenders to buff themselves.
It would help Force Field be this weird no damage dealing tank thing. I alway thought Iron Man was a Defender, but his defense was wrong. Most of the toons with Force Fields in Comics were really hard to knockout, but had little damage.
For the most part the buffs associated with Defenders do not add a lot of damage, so it wouldn't increase their killing speed. But it would make them better at soloing, and allow them to do their roll a little better.
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Controller- It doesn't make sense to me that this AT has the damage it has.
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I disagree. I can see how people get upset on containment with the one epic AOE but at that point in the game, ATs are supposed to get access to things they otherwise wouldnt. Defenders get all kinds of flexibility in the 40s also. The damage otherwise even with containment isnt that awesome. I found Defenders much easier to solo. I think it is the outlying sets (Fire/Kin mainly) that make the perception that the damage is too high a bit of a perception problem.
I dont know what the numbers are behind the scenes, but I'd rather solo a Force Field/X Defender than most controller options, at least before they get pets. I think soloing Defenders is even more fun than controller sets with actual attack chains, and the attacks are much more versatile and fun for Defenders. Cones, explosions, multiple single target blasts, etc.
If you want to blast AND provide team support, defenders are more fun. Tho personally I'd be fine with boosting damage on defenders, AND on blasters. I think blaster damage sucks compared to the near-absolute lack of mitigation they have.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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I had a crazy thought... what if Defenders buffs worked on themselves? Possibly at a lesser value. That would help their solo ability a lot. Controllers get an added benefit that they can buff their pets. Why not allow Defenders to buff themselves.
It would help Force Field be this weird no damage dealing tank thing. I alway thought Iron Man was a Defender, but his defense was wrong. Most of the toons with Force Fields in Comics were really hard to knockout, but had little damage.
For the most part the buffs associated with Defenders do not add a lot of damage, so it wouldn't increase their killing speed. But it would make them better at soloing, and allow them to do their roll a little better.
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Only two problems with that logic is that you can't target yourself in this game and there are quite a few long recharge ST ally buffs that would kind of defeat the purpose if a defender always selfishly used them on themselves.
So I was going to kneejerk with a "SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW" reply, but you put so much effort into the post that I slept on it.
I think the root of the problem is this: the devs hate crowd control, but love damage. They want control powers to suck for as many ATs as they can get away with, but want all ATs to be able to deal damage. Result: Control powers are artificially sucktastic for ATs such as defenders, while controller damage only sucks for the 2 seconds it takes for Containment to kick in.
This suggests one way to fix it: Share the team-role bending love. Subdue could be a 100% mag 4 root (like controller roots), Will Domination could be a 100% mag 4 sleep (like Mesmerize), Petrifying Gaze Stunning Shot Bitter Freeze Ray Screech and Scramble Thoughts could recharge faster and deal decent damage, Freeze Ray and Tesla Cage could deal better damage (like controller holds), Howling Twilight Dark Pit Repulsion Bomb and Thunder Clap could be mag 3 stuns (like controller stuns), and ZOMGTRICKARROW. This is just defender changes, so it's not exactly how I'd fix it if I were king, since I'd also get to adjust Containment if I were king, but it's close.
Doesn't help all the defender sets, true, but some defender sets have issues with or without comparing them to controllers.
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An excellent post that sums up the disparity and shows the weak spots between the 2 ATs. The other thing that I find discouraging for the defender is the soon to be Redeemed Corruptors showing up in Paragon City. Except for a few non-proliferated power sets there simply won't be a reason to play a Defender over a Corruptor (let alone over a Controller).
The majority of the blame lies squarely on inventions. (Don't get me wrong I love the invention system.) Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.
The defender's role keeps shrinking. When Going Rougue comes out most people will play defenders only for nostalgia unless defenders get a serious overhaul and update. With the possible exceptions of Forcefeilds and Empathy any other buffing AT will be a superior choice both for teaming and soloing.
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Except one thing. a lot of us who play defenders and corruptors p[lay them not because we want to be omghax, but because we find them far more fun than playing "teh best!!!!!!1!1!"
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
How about a change to the inherent where the more teammates you have, the better the primary performs, and the less teammates you have the better the secondary performs?
Say the base is a team of four. Defender operates just as it does now. Increase the size of the team to 5? Boost the effects of the primary by 3%*, decrease the secondary by 3%. Increase to 6, buff the primary another 3%, decrease the secondary another 3%.
Move down to a team of three, decrease the primary by 3% but give a 3% bump to secondary's damage. Step them the same for a team of two, and solo give three bumps to damage (important solo) and three drops to the primary (not always as important).
* just given for illustration...the numbers would need to be balanced obviously. And maybe the "equilibrium" would be a team of five and not four. Just throwing out an idea.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.
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Hmmm. While SOs are the more important balance point in my head, I have just started to IO out my FF/Nrg. Since endurance issues are a big concern for me, I wonder how much of an effect the expensive +Recovery IOs may have. Also, I end up with a lot of people at slivers, so maybe some +Damage set bonuses could be very useful (one less attack per kill not only speeds up kill rate, it reduces incoming damage and lessens endurance strains).
I guess seeing the effect of IOs on my FF/Nrg defender while solo will be the next experiment I run.
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Just from my experience. I've done the RWZ challenge with my Energy/Energy/Force Blapper and with my FF/Dark/Dark Defender.
With the blaster it was fun, it was furious, and I was riding the fine line between victory and defeat the entire battle. It took me about 5 minutes.
I accomplished the same thing with my defender. It was slow, boring, and the only time I was ever in any kind of jeopardy was when I missed the Chief Mezzmerist with Forcebolt, Repulsion Bomb, or Torrent and he hit with his sleep and supressed my toggle defenses. Fortunately one of the other Rikti was always kind enough to wake me up and restore my defenses.
I was always on the verge of end bankruptcy (I have Numina +/+, Miracle + slotted in health and 2 End Mod IOs and Per Shifter proc slotted in Stamina, and all powers have the equivalent of 1 1/2 - 2 SOs worth of end red. The build does not run hasten) as solo Vigilance gives nothing and teamed it gives only slightly more than nothing.
The RWZ challenge took me 22 minutes on my FF/Dark/Dark. The tier 1 blast is barely enough to keep up with +4 Boss level regen.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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An excellent post that sums up the disparity and shows the weak spots between the 2 ATs. The other thing that I find discouraging for the defender is the soon to be Redeemed Corruptors showing up in Paragon City. Except for a few non-proliferated power sets there simply won't be a reason to play a Defender over a Corruptor (let alone over a Controller).
The majority of the blame lies squarely on inventions. (Don't get me wrong I love the invention system.) Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.
The defender's role keeps shrinking. When Going Rougue comes out most people will play defenders only for nostalgia unless defenders get a serious overhaul and update. With the possible exceptions of Forcefeilds and Empathy any other buffing AT will be a superior choice both for teaming and soloing.
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Except one thing. a lot of us who play defenders and corruptors p[lay them not because we want to be omghax, but because we find them far more fun than playing "teh best!!!!!!1!1!"
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That simply puts you (and me since I'll still be playing my defenders though not as much) in the nostalgia camp.
Other than Kheldians, Defenders are the least played blue side AT. The Defender secondary is shared with the most played AT as a primary (blasters) and the Defender primary is shared as a secondary with the 2nd most played AT (controllers). This tells me there is either something wrong with the inherent, something wrong with defender Primary/Secondary synergy, or something wrong with the AT in general (concept, execution, balance, dev vision).
When Going Rogue is released the number of new defenders being rolled will decrease yet again as the majority of the CoX popultaion realizes that there is nothing from a numbers standpoint that makes the defender superior and several things that cause the defender problems that no other AT suffers.
While the Defender as a whole may not be extinct I would say that GR will definately put them on the endangered species list.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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I was riding the fine line between victory and defeat the entire battle. It took me about 5 minutes.
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the only time I was ever in any kind of jeopardy was when I missed the Chief Mezzmerist with Forcebolt, Repulsion Bomb, or Torrent and he hit with his sleep and supressed my toggle defenses. Fortunately one of the other Rikti was always kind enough to wake me up and restore my defenses.
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The RWZ challenge took me 22 minutes on my FF/Dark/Dark.
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Good to know. I'll probably never be patient enough to do the RWZ challenge with my FF/Nrg (aren't Rikti resistant to Sm and En damage anyway?), but I may still have end trouble with +2s, which is more my concern. It will be interesting. I may run the Gaussian arc on Unyielding with no temps/no inspires as a good test though, I really like that arc anyway.
The added safety of the FF seems like a good trade over the course of a mission so far, with the exception of my endurance troubles.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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I was riding the fine line between victory and defeat the entire battle. It took me about 5 minutes.
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the only time I was ever in any kind of jeopardy was when I missed the Chief Mezzmerist with Forcebolt, Repulsion Bomb, or Torrent and he hit with his sleep and supressed my toggle defenses. Fortunately one of the other Rikti was always kind enough to wake me up and restore my defenses.
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The RWZ challenge took me 22 minutes on my FF/Dark/Dark.
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Good to know. I'll probably never be patient enough to do the RWZ challenge with my FF/Nrg (aren't Rikti resistant to Sm and En damage anyway?), but I may still have end trouble with +2s, which is more my concern. It will be interesting. I may run the Gaussian arc on Unyielding with no temps/no inspires as a good test though, I really like that arc anyway.
The added safety of the FF seems like a good trade over the course of a mission so far, with the exception of my endurance troubles.
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Yep and I believe that Rikti are weak to negative as well, which should mean that the Dark secondary is one of the better ones for the RWZ challenge.
The only thing that made it doable in that kind of time was having both Soul Drain and Dark Consumption in the Epic. Every 60 seconds I was able to boost my damage and every 5 minutes or so I could refill my blue bar and attack at a reasonable speed before end issues made me go back into power conservation mode. When Soul Drain was up and I had Dark Consumption available for an end refill I made decent progress. The rest of the time I was doing little more than countering mob regen rates.
The devs have since decided that Soul Drain for Defenders was overpowered and needed it's recharge rate doubled. I doubt I'll be attempting the RWZ challenge again (I've done it twice with this defender, once before no toggle drop and once after) with this defender.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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I had a crazy thought... what if Defenders buffs worked on themselves? Possibly at a lesser value. That would help their solo ability a lot. Controllers get an added benefit that they can buff their pets. Why not allow Defenders to buff themselves.
It would help Force Field be this weird no damage dealing tank thing. I alway thought Iron Man was a Defender, but his defense was wrong. Most of the toons with Force Fields in Comics were really hard to knockout, but had little damage.
For the most part the buffs associated with Defenders do not add a lot of damage, so it wouldn't increase their killing speed. But it would make them better at soloing, and allow them to do their roll a little better.
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Only two problems with that logic is that you can't target yourself in this game and there are quite a few long recharge ST ally buffs that would kind of defeat the purpose if a defender always selfishly used them on themselves.
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I can't help with the system not allowing you to target yourself, but by what I said before the buff could be less to yourself incentivizing you to cast it on allies for a greater effect.
Sonic Primary has that toggle you cast that grants PBAoE -resistance aura to an ally. I'd have rolled a Sonic a long time ago if that power worked solo.
My favorite Defender is a Trick Arrow/ Dark Defender. Trick Arrow has no wasted buff powers. Everything hurts enemies, so it works even if you are solo.
Most the other builds I felt like a buff-bot. I don't want to feel that dumned down.
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Controller- It doesn't make sense to me that this AT has the damage it has.
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I disagree. I can see how people get upset on containment with the one epic AOE but at that point in the game, ATs are supposed to get access to things they otherwise wouldnt. Defenders get all kinds of flexibility in the 40s also. The damage otherwise even with containment isnt that awesome. I found Defenders much easier to solo. I think it is the outlying sets (Fire/Kin mainly) that make the perception that the damage is too high a bit of a perception problem.
Lewis
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You're probably right. But to me, Controllers have no primary or secondary that is damage with the exception of pets. And yet, they are granted what they lack. If Controllers get what they lack it's really only fair to do the same for everyone else, but would that even be balanced?
They're not weak to negative, merely not resistant to it.
The best I've done was a +3 group of Rikti with 2 bosses, 3 LTs and a scattering of minions on my Dark/Rad Defender. It took him 7 minutes to do. That was done while the new RWZ was still on test, so I could probably do better if I really IOed him out these days.
I should see how my Rad/Dark Corruptor does with it. Probably won't take 7 minutes.
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How about a change to the inherent where the more teammates you have, the better the primary performs, and the less teammates you have the better the secondary performs?
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In some suggestion types of forum threads, I pooh-pooh other people's ideas just because I like my own idea better. With Vigilance, everyone's ideas sound great to me, even better than the last. Says a lot about Vigilance doesn't it?
Re: Miladys
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While the Defender as a whole may not be extinct I would say that GR will definitely put them on the endangered species list.
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They're not already?
I see GR as being a bigger problem for Tankers than Defenders. Defenders have the nostalgia crowd plus the "need healer" crowd that Corruptors won't touch. With Tankers, though, I think it's just the nostalgia crowd -- I'm not sure the AE permanewbies will "need tanker" since Brutes often do just as well. (Though I do doubt AE permanewbies will figure out how to use masterminds for tanking, that's some good news for tankers. 
)
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As the game has evolved, many things have changed. Epic power pools were introduced, inherent abilities were added such as Containment, which was intended to appease angry players after the multiple-pet nerf.
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In the interest of accuracy...
Containment was first added in PvP only, to compensate for PvP mez suppression. Controllers were only able to deal damage safely when their enemies were helpless, and since they could no longer keep their enemies helpless as much of the time as before, they needed a way of doing more damage during those occasions.
Containment was added to PvE after that, but simultaneous with the multiple-pet nerf as part of a two-pronged change to distribute Controller damage output better across all primaries and level ranges rather than allow them to remain whirling maelstroms of XP-spewing fury...but only if you were Fire or Illusion and over level 32. Containment was not added after the pet change and was not added to appease those who hated said change.
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ii) If containment is double damage, then why do all Controller primaries have a 20% chance to crit? Is this just another perk?
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The 20% chance for extra control strength has always been there. It predates the notion of making it standard practice to have highly-visible, named, distinct mechanical differences on every AT. "Overpowering" did nothing to address the balance issues that the devs tried to fix with Containment, so they didn't declare, "it's good enough, so that's all you're getting". There was also no objective reason to remove it, so they left it in.
EDIT: Expanded, added Overpower note
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As the game has evolved, many things have changed. Epic power pools were introduced, inherent abilities were added such as Containment, which was intended to appease angry players after the multiple-pet nerf.
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Containment was first added in PvP only, to compensate for PvP mez suppression. Controllers were only able to deal damage safely when their enemies were helpless, and since they could no longer keep their enemies helpless as much of the time as before, they needed a way of doing more damage during those occasions.
Containment was added to PvE after that, but simultaneous with the multiple-pet nerf as part of a two-pronged change to distribute Controller damage output better across all primaries and level ranges rather than allow them to remain whirling maelstroms of XP-spewing fury...but only if you were Fire or Illusion and over level 32. Containment was not added after the pet change and was not added to appease those who hated said change.
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Yes, it was meant to appease those who hated the sweeping nerfs on all AoE controls that also came in I5.
Post deleted by Corebreach
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I don't consider this really a controller problem here. It's completely a defender problem since the support sets get the proper numerical bonus across the board
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Not really. Secondaries that are used as a primary on other ATs generally are playing at 75% of the primary. Controllers walk all over this.
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That's really only true for armor sets. It's not true for anything else. The AT mods, which are set where the devs think that AT should perform, govern everything else.
Examples:
Blasters - Secondary melee attacks perform at the Blaster's 1.0 melee damage modifier
Tankers - Secondary melee attacks perform at .80 melee damage modifier
Defenders - Secondary ranged attacks perform at .65 ranged damage modifier (substantially weaker than Blaster's 1.125 ranged mod.)
The 75% thing came from a long ago discussion with Statesman about the relative difference between primary/secondary/pool. No matter how many times it's been disproven since, people still instinctively feel that primaries should be better than secondaries.
Personally, I don't agree with that or the OPs analysis. Controllers are better at supporting a team than Defenders. As stated the combination of control + buff/debuff is more powerful that buff/debuff + blast. Always has been, probably always will be.
I don't think that Defenders are too bad off. IMO, there's more of a problem with individual sets like FF and Sonic than global problems with the AT. More damage certainly isn't going to fix Defenders vis a vis Controllers. I would much prefer that a defender change revolve around giving Defenders something unique. Something like giving all Defenders substantial offensive debuffing ability, even where it doesn't exist in their primary. Like if Vigilance was a PBAoE Surveillance or something like that.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.