Shield Defence - The real issues
By
Archy,
Posted on: 2008-12-20 17:55 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Interestingly, Mids' Hero Designer says that there are three powers in Shield Defense which provide resistance to DEF debuff, giving a total of ~56% resistance to DEF debuff.
This is more resistance to DEF debuff than Ice Armor (~51%) gets, though less than a Super Reflexes scrapper's ~62% (not counting Elude).
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Anyone know if Ice tankers are having the same problem then?
I know my SR charecter doesnt have any problems, i understand that the new system theres no such thing as protection from debuff but resistence is working very much like all or nothing currently and with no options to increase it, its very much like running in against an army butt naked.
I havent tried it in all honesty, my shielder is currently at level 42 and as it stands I dont think she will be getting much higher, I love the charecter but it just feels broken beyond belief to play.
One minute your doing fine, next minute your eating gravel because you have so much -defence you might as well stick a bulleye on you.
There are 3 powers that give def debuff, the amount they give also scales with your lvl so will give a greater amount at lvl 50.
I have a shield brute and know a few much higher than me and tbh they have basically no issues whatsoever. To me mate, sounds like there need to be a few more tweaks to ya build as atm sounds like its more a slotting relational to lvl of foes problem here. imo /shields is a frankly brilliant set and I have a mids build planned that is frankly awesome - bring on the merits!.... oh wait I'm a villain... nvm....
I understand it scales with level, but vs heroic rated mobs on level 42 it has the same effect, i did try this myself thinking that was the issue.
First mob of pretorians with friend sked, so there were 5, white and yellow mobs, within a few seconds i was at -30% defence, not suffering as much damage because of one with the shield but you cant expect someone with all there powers to have to wait right till 50 just to tank anything especially when its there job in a team.
Thats like buying a load of guns but not having any ammo, in a team currently my tank feels very much like an ornament and cant be a main tank for anything at her level or above.
If this is the case and it drastically improves in the 8 levels i have left can anyone confirm this who has a shield tanker themselves?
I really do like the shield set, up until i come against something that debuffs and maims me and leaves me on someones porch.
As to tweaks with my build, I have every power in the shield defence set, slotted with resist and defence IOs, and combat jumping and i have capped defence when stood near one person.
Build wise I dont have any issues with anything other than mobs with debuffs so i dont see how thats relevant.
Speaking to a fellow shielder in the SG on level 48 he says hes still having issues too with defence debuffs.
If you're not having trouble with things that don't throw lots of DEF debuff around, I don't particularly see a problem. The 40s are full of things that badly hose one kind of character or another.
Also, one other thing: Do you have trouble tanking one spawn at a time with your teammates coming in right behind you to kill them?
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At level 46, you have:
16.5% RES(Def) from Battle Agility
20.625% RES(Def) from Active Defense
16.5% RES(Def) from Grant Cover
So that's 53.625% Resistance to -Defense. I'd imagine you should be able to see this in combat stats. Slotting won't make any difference to that, of course.
At the same level, an Ice Tank has:
16.5% RES(Def) from Frozen Armour
16.5% RES(Def) from Wet Ice
That's only 33%, though they can get an extra 16.5% from Glacial Armour, which still doesn't bring them up to Shield's level. Shield also has more resistance to common damage types.
Defense-based sets can be very hit and miss, and they are always going to be tough to use around DefDebuff mobs.
Could be worth monitoring though. Might be a bug.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
I got a lvl 47 shield scrapper, and can't say i have much trouble on her. Sure taking on a whole group set for an 8 man team who do nothing but -def will get me killed. But on the whole. I see no issues with shields. It's a strong set when slotted and shield charge is just plain awesome.
When you say "Praetorians"...I'm guessing you're talking blue clocks? Yeah, steer clear of those if you're defense based.
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Working as intended, I mean, hell.
Def Debuff's negating Defense? Next you'll be saying that Res based toons should shrug off -Res!
(and for the record, no, you don't need -300% Res to get shafted on a Res toon if you've got aggro - damn you lolbow!).
Stopped reading when I read "herding".
@Aubrey
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Anyone know if Ice tankers are having the same problem then?
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To a degree. Most -def powers need to hit you to take effect, so a high def offers some protection. However, if you face many -def attacks, chances are some will get though, causing more and more to hit you. This is what I refer to as cascade failure, it's an issue with all +def sets, and it can happen very quickly sometimes. Def debuff resistance doesn't stop it, it just slows it down a little.
However, the devs are aware of the issue, and this is why most +def sets have some kind of back up. Ice gets Chilling Embrace, Hoarfrost and Hibernate, Shield Defense a significant amount of resistance (which actually doesn't contibute much unless def is reduced) lots of +max hp, and a little -dmg. SR gets +res when at low hp etc.
It's something you learn to cope with if you want to play a +def set.
The AT I have that really suffers from -def attacks is my bane spider.
A def debuff resistance IO isn't a bad idea, perhaps as part of a purple def set. It wouldn't be a cure all though.
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It is to me at mo a slightly gimped set compared to other tanking sets "putting power pools aside" and a slightly gimped set compared to other tankers in teams due to the "more commonly found types of support" and the first part is probably because it works well with other shielders/players in melee. Another Shielder with Grant Cover could be the tier 9 to you at times.
Everyone will differ in perception for a variety of reasons. I could say "I have nps" when I fight +0s with a sonic and an emp in the team.
You should be able to tank Praetorians with it, but, not always in the same way. I wouldn't "design" teams by having certain sets filling the holes and so would have more than one way of going about things and would hopefully be allowed to use them as with teams. Situations and dynamics can be imposed upon you.
I hate the recharging mezz protection, the weak aura, but grant cover kind of makes up for the aura for other ATs and I probably feel that 5% more resistance would be nice. You put aid self on it tho and it's got a good chance of accomplishing most things one way or another even as an only melee set in teams. I been badging too much to finish leveling mine.
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I was in a team with my fire tanker the other other night and was amazed at how fast a shield tanker was getting creamed. I know fire tankers are not the most rugged of tankers, but the shield tanker was getting eaten alive and we were fighting level 43-45 Rikti.
It's difficult to draw any conculsions without knowing what the build was though. Any tanker with a bad build would get creamed.
They might, for example, skipped PF for Tough and Weave, which would make them more vunerable to Psi, and a little more vunerable to energy. Or the may not have slotted TG, etc.
It's new, it's not suprising if people haven't learned how to get the best from it yet.
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So what's the conclusion? The real 'issue' with Shield Defense is that it 'feels' weak?
Personally, I could say this about all Defense sets, from my own limited experience (level 37 Super Reflexes) with them. But I know they're not actually weak.
Still won't see me playing anything more defense based than Invulnerability though, most likely. But that's just me.
Isnt it odd that def sets (ice particulary) has recharge debuff resist, gets -def resist, while resist sets get virtualy nothing?
Both recharge and def debuffs of most attacks needs to hit, on def sets this less likely to happen and if it does, it will be at a 'lower' rate.
resist debuff however resistsets can defend against, along having no def debuff resist, it will basicly always hit. I remember my fire tank getting trashed by those council ice shots, putting my recharge to a nearly complete halt. Since fire tanker only can rely on healing flames, death was quite nearby.
As for shields, i stick to my point, it never is and probably never will be a proper tank set.
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Well, Fiery Aura has -recharge resistance now. Though, you were going up against one of your powerset's particular weaknesses, so why complain?
And numerically I still fail to see how Shields is any weaker than other currently existing Defense sets. "Probably will never be" is just plain stupid.
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Well, Fiery Aura has -recharge resistance now. Though, you were going up against one of your powerset's particular weaknesses, so why complain?
And numerically I still fail to see how Shields is any weaker than other currently existing Defense sets. "Probably will never be" is just plain stupid.
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I was wondering why defence sets get -recharge resist, while imho resist sets would need it more. Where i fail to see the link with your post, since every group of mobs have a 'weakness attack' one way or another. (may it be drain, recharge debuff, tohit debuff or any form of it). Fiery is only one of many that cant counter recharge/slow debuffs.
As i said earlier about the set (tank topic), pure defence wont cut a cooky, it is the set as whole that makes it not viable. (try to keep up your mezz toggle while having the -snowstorm toggle on your butty).
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Fiery is only one of many that cant counter recharge/slow debuffs.
[/ QUOTE ]You mean except for the passive recharge/slow debuff resistance that the powerset has?
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Fiery is only one of many that cant counter recharge/slow debuffs.
[/ QUOTE ]You mean except for the passive recharge/slow debuff resistance that the powerset has?
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A change that has been added just recently, justify the ages it did without? Added, it wasnt done because they needed it, was merely because temp.protection was plain lousy as power to pick.
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Isnt it odd that def sets (ice particulary) has recharge debuff resist, gets -def resist, while resist sets get virtualy nothing?
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Resistance automatically resists resistance debuffs. [If you have 50% resistance, and get hit by a -10% resistance debuff, that will be reduced to a -5% debuff before being applied].
Ice gets lots of slow resistance as part of being uber-resistant to cold damage, which usually has slow as it's secondary effect. It's thematic.
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Isnt it odd that def sets (ice particulary) has recharge debuff resist, gets -def resist, while resist sets get virtualy nothing?
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Resistance automatically resists resistance debuffs. [If you have 50% resistance, and get hit by a -10% resistance debuff, that will be reduced to a -5% debuff before being applied].
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Hm, does this apply in PvP too? I did a match against a sonic not long ago on testserver, my atrib window showed my SL resist dropping to just above 55%. Based on a 90% (thus 35%), it would mean he did a 350% resist debuff? o.0
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Probably, it's a feature of how the engine works. They could get round it by flagging the debuff as unresistable, or simply cranking up the debuff for PvP.
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This is just a post to see what everyone is thinking the real issue with shields being underpowered is.
My own personal view is that for a tanker set, it plays useless when faced with any form of defence debuff and the *ahem* 'protection' to defence debuffs we have is none existant.
Malaise alone can hit you -300% in one go, and tanking pretorians just doesnt happen, each hit at -10% and the speed they fire means your under -100% defence before you get back to your herding spot.
For a defence based charecter to not have any resist at all to a debuff that so many types carry is just wrong. If the debuffs werent so bad for stacking then it wouldnt be so bad.
Resistance based charecters never have -300% resist in one go from any mob as far as i know. Even sonic doesnt have that magnitude debuff so why do defence get shafted when they already have a massive weakness of being able to be hit with any form of +accuracy?
My suggestion for a solution is:
Add +defence debuff protection IO's, make it so shields can slot for defence debuff or give them some more protection to it, because as it stands, its much weaker than my scrappers when it comes to tanking.