Defenders are Obsolete.

Now before anyone starts to flame me I'm posting an honest oppinion and feel its something we have to discuss.

First, Defenders are not Obsolete, yet. Once the new expansion "Going Rogue" comes out we, the defenders, will be in competition with not only Controllers anymore for groups that require support. We will also have to compete with Corruptors and to a lesser extent, Masterminds.

Defenders are the only archetype that has "Buff" as a primary power selection. But at what cost? Extremely low damage (0.6 multiplier), poor soloing skills and a broken Archetype-power? Lets face facts people. Controller and Corruptors can do everything we can do and then some. Sure, their "Buff" powers have a lower multiplier but their damage is much better. Also, the Controllers have the ability to Hold, Confuse, and down-right stop the enemy from attacking the team in general, all the while having that lovely containment bonus. Corruptors are not that much better in the damage department but its still enough for them to out perform us. Masterminds also have supportive skills. They have Force Fields, the unique "Poison" power set and even a Healing set. So thats another contender for the support roll.

Over-all we're being phased out. If you had to choose between a Kinetic Defender and say, a Kinetic Controller who would you honestly go with for soloing, or even as an extra teammate. Once "Going Rogue" is available Masterminds and Corruptors will also be a notch above us. Masterminds bring damage and have better survivability and Corruptors have scourge. What do we have? An endurance discount?

Our Archetype-power (Vigilance) is almost worthless. First, most players pick up stamina, which greatly reduces the chance our Endurance will hit zero. Second, many primary power sets do not need the endurance discount. Kinetics has Transference. Empathy has Recovery Aura. Cold Domination has Heat Loss. Radiation Emission has Accelerate Metabolism. Force Field rarely needs endurance to operate. This leave very few Primaries that may actually have the need for it.

Another problem with Vigilance is that it rewards bad Defenders. If a Defenders team is dieing then they get the discount. If a Defender is doing their job very well then they don't get a discount. You simply cannot reverse this either. A Good Defender, with a team not in a crisis, would not need a Discount in the first place. A Bad Defender probably isnt capable of handling a Crisis with the Discount anyway. This is simply a bad design and doesnt help us Defenders out in any way.

Power Proliferation is something I really love and like to see but it is actually hindering Defenders. Dark Miasma and Cold Domination thus far are the only two primaries that Defenders have a monopoly of as of Hero Side. Agian, once "Going Rogue" comes out that will fade away. Corruptors have both and Masterminds have Dark Miasma. This wouldn't be a problem but once agian theres nothing that makes a Defender any better at Using Dark Miasma, Cold Domination and every other Primary besides a barely noticeable multiplier. To put it simply, we will no longer have "An Ace up our Sleeve"

Lastly, With Invention Sets and Set Bonuses, this allows many characters to "Balance out" their character, such as adding extra defense or resistance to a blaster. These bonuses make characters alittle more durable and unneeding of a pure support role at times. These characters are not completely support-proof but they do show that it is possible to get away without the use of buffs. The bonuses don't truly substitute for a good Force Field or a Sonic Barrier, but they do reduce the ammount of support needed in a group. sometimes a single Empathy-using Controller is all it takes for a Tank and a team of Blasters to handle a tough Taskforce. This is a small problem but it is still a hinderence on the use of defenders.

I would just like to ask the Developers what their future plans for the Defender are. So far our Coffin is ready for us, as Corruptors, Masterminds and Controllers can do their secondary job better than we can do our primary at times. I really do not wish to shelf my Defender, but at this rate, I may have to. Please help us, we don't want to become worthless.

Kay

Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize

I most certainly support this. I love the Defender Archetype and, while I dont have more than one past level 25, I love everything about them. The easiest means of fixing this problem would be to change our inherent to something mroe active. Perhaps a 'Critical Buff' or something, heck if I know. To the Developers, there are some smart people on these boards (granted, there are some dumb people too, but that's not the point :P) who understand the game's mechanics more than anyone who understand and/or have good ideas for Defender Inherent changes/replacements. Listen to them! Somebody has to have a good idea somewhere!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

Erm...no I don't agree. Vigilance could use a look-over, but Defenders still rock even with that inherent disadvantage.

Personally I love that we have a buff primary, it means you get the best buffs first. So if nothing else, we'll still rule the Sewers!


erm, and I'm new to the US boards but isn't someone supposed to say DOOOOM ?

I would suggest the Defender be given an inherit that boosts the Defender's Debuffs/Buffs when the team is in danger, and when the team is doing fine to give the Defender a good damage buff (about 50% if the team is doing fine).

Now let me explain it intelligently that also works conceptually for the AT. "Vigilance allows the Defender, when his/her allies are in ciritcal condition, to search within himself/herself for the strength to overcome the odds often resulting in more powerful buffs or debuffs, and when his/her allies are at full fighting strength the Defender has an empowering feeling of accomplishment giving more power to his/her attacks"

Basically if the team is gettin' hammered you get a sort of Power Boost effect to your buffs/debuffs, and when the team is doing fine you get a damage buff. Solo the scaling factor of buff/debuff to damage buff ratio would reflect on the Defender's own status.


Just a thought.

You're packin' a little too much doom.

Corruptors and MMs *already* compete with defenders on two major Taskforces (ITF, LGTF). And yet there hasn't been a wholesale movement to exclude defenders from these. Far from, defenders are usually most welcome.

I guess if you're really min-max oriented then sure, maybe you take the corruptor over that defender, but when you're cross buffing or applying stacked debuffs, even defender damage isn't anything to sneeze at. Also, I tend to like players (like many defender players) who think support/buff/debuff first, damage second...you don't want all your players to be like that, but it's nice having at least one or two on any serious taskforce effort.

Finally, I'd rather take the good player on the defender than a so-so player on a min-max corruptor/controller/MM. In fact, I'd rather take 6-7 good players brining any AT they wanted over a min-max perfect combination of ATs piloted by so-so players. I'm going to go on a limb and state that probably most of the player base is the same way.

Yep. That's why all the busy comparison threads. Forcefields is about the only Defender primary that won't suffer too much from GR. For the rest you'll be better off grabbing (or playing) a redeemed Corruptor or Mastermind.

If it gets THAT obviously bad, surely some change to Vigilance is waiting in the wings...

When I want a challenge I break out one of my Defenders.

Even the title of the thread disagrees with your second statement. No AT in this game is obsolete, even if Defenders become less popular they'll never be useless. Personally I think Tanks are going to have a problem with Masterminds overshadowing them.

This is quite possibly the most melodramatic thread I've ever read.

Fury is actually vmore Irate at me than at the idea it seems. Many Defender players agree though Fury, There many Threads concerning the issues i've stated. Including our near-worthless (if not totally worthless) Inheritant power. Our Lack of soloing skills. And Controller's ability to do their secondary roll better than we do our primary roll.

Face facts Fury, We're being phased out.

Controllers do what Defenders do and then some. (Besides Dark Miasma and Cold Domination)

Corruptors do what Defenders do and can solo a tad better.

Masterminds have supportive abilities, can deal fair sums of damage and have better survivability (thus better soloing in general)

Your also assuming that i havent played a Dominator and attacking my character, stay on subject, dont try to look like an expert on the subject by alienating what I have played and haven't, it makes you look like you know absolutely nothing to me.

Stop being a troll and just leave my Thread, you've stated your case now be gone. Unless you have something positive to post then your better off somewhere else.

I dont care if you post counter arguements but dont attack someone just because you dont like the theory.
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There. Back to the general public,

Anyway, Defenders of course will still be played but for the most part, its still unfair that Defenders are tougher to play as and have nothing special about their role anymore.

I'm not asking for a nerf to corruptors, masterminds or controllers because that won't solve our problems. We would still be bad at soloing and would still be left with a broken Inheritant power.

All I ask for is something that helps us solo and gives us an Advantage over Controllers and Corruptors in the support role. Boosting our damage isn't my primary concern. I'm more worried about our primary role.

To be honest, even if corruptors and controllers are better than defenders, I can't see the latter being obsolete. Why? Player perception. If your average player is looking for a support character to keep his team alive, he'll go for a defender first, whether or not a 'troller or corr could do as good a job. It's like the whole "healer" issue. People will still think they need defenders, even if they don't.

Look, I've said this before, but...

We can only guess what the effects of GR will be until it actually hits. And even if it does result in a knife in the back of the Defender AT in general... it will take (at a minimum) months of datamining before the Devs will notice, and start working on a 'Fix.'

Waving the "DOOOOOOM!" flag isn't going to accomplish anything beyond allowing you to say "I told you so!" IF it falls as you fear.

Epic thread isn't quite epic enough yet.

All these doom posts, I just don't understand them or why they've been so prevalent lately...

Perhaps it has something to do with that lone crow the onion was talking about...

Worrying about being obsolete in this game is just silly. Outside of hamidon, I can't think of anything I haven't been able to do with a core team of 3 people, and several times that group of 3 has included a defender (and not just /sonic ones). You hardly need a team to composed purely of the optimal builds to steamroll anything in this game. This game is fun, but this game certainly isn't hard and hardly requires any magical combination of blessed builds to play.

My defenders have had no trouble finding ITFs, LGTFs or AE RWZ teams despite their 'inferiority' to corruptors and controllers. And furthermore, I would hardly consider my defenders 'burdens' or 'mooches' on those farming or speed-tf teams, especially since there's usually 1 or 2 poor players who are underperforming and presenting more of a burden than a supposedly suboptimal defender, regardless of their build type or AT.

You can always argue that one AT/Powerset makes another obsolete. Granite and cleverly built WPs can be argued that they out-tank all other armor sets in the game, yet there are plently of flavors of tank out there and all just as effective. To go even further, scrappers can be argued that they make tanks and some brutes obsolete because a super maxed scrapper will outperform both damage-wise and be just as indestructible, especially when combined with a support AT, yet there are still many tanks and brutes around and they have no difficulty finding teams. MMs can pretty much make every AT unneeded, yet there are still plenty of everything around redside and purpleside. And then to take it to the extreme, there's my buddies and their 2 AR/MM blasters that are IOed in such a way that it pretty much makes everyone feel obsolete with their destructive capabilities coupled with their being nearly indestructible.

Now, I will agree that the defender inherent is kind of lame. But, this is likely influenced by the fact I tend to play more proactively than reactively and end up getting little benefit from it, so my opinion of it is definitely skewed. That said, I wouldn't mind a little change to it. Perhaps instead of being only an endurance discount when you've been slacking and your team is dying, it could be a damage modifier boost on the other end of the spectrum. So when your team is doing well, the defender damage scalar goes up, and when it's doing poorly, you get a boost to endredux. The damage boost could go down while the team is dying and the end redux remain as it is now. Odds are, if your team is dying you're not going to be shooting stuff in the face and when it's doing well, odds are, you will be shooting stuff in the face (unless you're one of those useless "healer" players).

But, then again, heroes in generally don't really depend all that strongly on their inherent to do their jobs, they help, but aren't as core to the AT as the villain inherents are. Of course, I personally feel that scourge is highly overrated. The only toon I've ever had that I felt got any real use out of scourge was my rad/cold because x2 dmg newt bolt was actually helpful for finishing stuff off. My ice, fire, sonic corrs found it to generally be useless because by the time it reliably kicks in, x1 dmg would have killed the critter anyway. And my dark blast most certainly found it to be totally useless as scourge doesn't work for %@#$ on nightfall, gloom or TT (not to mention scream, irradiate or any other of the quick DoT powers).

The difficulty I see with buffing defenders is it's a very slippery slope, several solo defender builds out there already laugh at the game's content with only moderate budgetary cost and many competent defender duos with just SO slotting can easily laugh at 99% of the game's content. Heck, my FF/Elec with a build primarily focused on teaming has no problem soloing most EBs and he's hardly an optimal soloer, he doesn't even have aid self.

I agree that interchangability with Corrupters will probably cause a drop in Defender numbers.

Masterminds and Controllers both play differently enough for me to still roll Defenders - since most of my character concepts fight by themselves rather than using an elemental proxy or bunch of lackeys to do so.
Corrupters fill this role nicely though, and offer a cool inherent and better damage. And I'm sure they will get Force Fields eventually.

I dont think that the relative numbers of each archetype matter though.

What does matter is the Defender population drops, how will the remaining die-hards be seen? Shunned on teams for their low damage, or welcomed for their support focussed attitude? I reckon option B myself. It's more common to find a team that could use some more support than one that could use some more damage.

OP said

Bah you guys worry to much. Since defenders have buffs, heals, debuffs and what not as their primary they should be top dog at least till lvl 38.

Plus the vigilance buff comes in handy unless the team never goes into the red...and if that is so your diff rating is to low...or either you're on an amazing team...and i will tell you it's RARELY the latter.