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Just because you buff something doesn't mean you have to nerf something in return. Defender buff modifiers are fine as is, their damage modifiers however are far too low.
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Originally Posted by Folonius
This is it in a nut shell .... Defenders are not underpowered, they don't solo well. Increasing their damage and making them solo better is going to cause a nerf to thier buffs. That is why defenders will not get a damage buff. It'a against the grain.
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I hate to say this, but I think the problem with defenders is options.
If you want to play a toon that:
1) does massive ranged damage.
2) can dish out a ton of hand-to-hand and stay somewhat safe.
3) can survive damn near any conflict.
4) can shut down a whole spawn.
5) can make your whole team better at what they do.
What are your options?
1) Blaster
2) Scrapper
3) Tanker
4) Controller
5) Defender or Controller
Of all the ATs, the Defender is the only one that has a role which can be filled by a different AT, but that can't really fill the roll of another AT in turn. And that doesn't even include the red-siders. Once GR hits we'll have another two ATs that can replace us but that we can't replace. We only do one thing well, and there are three other ATs that do it pretty well.
Until the options for the others are limited (not going to happen), the options for defenders are extended (would take an entire rewrite of the AT to change their secondary type) or the difference in value within that role is made extreme, defenders are going to be replaceable and therefore are going to get replaced. Not completely, of course, but to the degree found by Phil's surveys.
It's not more damage that I think defs need. They'll never be able to compete with blasters or corruptors and they shouldn't be able to. What defs need is more extreme buff/debuffs. So much greater that when you want a buffer/debuffer on your team it's not even a question of "should we get a defender or something else?", it's a question of "which defender should we get?".
Tankers don't compete with controllers by trying to be scrappers. Scrappers don't compete with blasters by trying to be tankers. Defenders shouldn't try to compete with controllers by trying to be blasters!
Tankers compete by being the best tanks. Scrappers compete by being the best scraps. Defenders should compete by being the best defenders. Right now the degree to which we are the better defenders is not a sufficient competitive advantage so other ATs are winning out the war of attrition.
Robin
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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And it is part and parcel of AT balance. That is why different ATs have different scales on the same powers. And those different scales do affect how similar ATs are balanced against one another.|
Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
No need to analyze every specific power in every specific set because AT balance is never done like that (that's power balance lumi).
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You're welcome to PM Castle and ask him if he disregards power scales when he's looking at AT balance. You know he'll tell you the same thing.
And that effectively kills the entire rest of your post, because it's all founded on the assumption that powers don't matter, so I'm still waiting for someone to do a detailed comparison, combination by combination, of controllers and defenders to show what the average is for each AT, what the high end is for each AT and what the low end is for each AT, and prove conclusively, numerically, that defenders are not performing as well on average, at the high end and at the low end, as controllers.
Are you taking on that task?
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This is such a common misconception. All defenders do not buff. In fact, most defenders do not primarily buff.|
Originally Posted by Folonius
A defender buffs, a controller holds, ...
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Trick Arrow has no buffs, and one of the biggest area holds in the game. Storm Summoning has one heal, one buff and seven debuffs/attacks, two of which are pets. Dark Miasma is similar to Storm Summoning, but is almost a controller set with its hold, fear, immobilize and pet. It has a rez that doubles as stun. Radiation Emission has a few buffs, but the rest are debuffs or damage or hold powers.
Really, the only defender buff set is Empathy. The rest of the defender sets have the majority of their powers in the debuff, combination buff/debuff or attack categories.
This idea that defenders should buff and do nothing else is misguided. If you want to be on a team that totally steamrolls the opposition get a Trick Arrow and Rad defender. You don't need buffing or healing when all your enemies are dead, or held, or can't move, or can't hit you, or are bouncing up and down on fire, or do no damage when they do hit.
This misapprehension about the role of defenders is why so many people are hesitant to play them. They think a defender stands around spamming Healing Aura and yelling "Gather for AM!"
A good defender uses all her powers to defend team mates. Just about any set can be used for this -- you don't even need a heal or a buff. If a Force Field defender sees a controller stunned and getting clobbered by a Freakshow LT, she uses Force Bolt to knock it away. The Storm/Electrical would use Tesla Cage to hold the freak. The /Psychic Blast defender would use Telekinetic Blast or Will Domination or Scramble Thoughts. The /Energy defender would use Power Push or any of the other blasts, and odds are one of them will knock the Freak back or at least draw his attention.
There are lots of ways to defend your team, not just passively standing around buffing and healing the other players. The protective mindset is what makes a defender a good defender. That's what makes any team mate a good team mate -- they've got your back and help you out when you're in trouble. The worst players are those that concentrate solely on getting the enemy and ignore what's happening around them.
Tanks, controllers and blasters should be thinking the same way as defenders. The only exception is scrappers. By the time most scrappers get over to help an ally in trouble, some ranged character or the tanker's taunt will have dealt with the problem.
Finally, it's critical that a defender knows how defend herself. This is why all defenders should be able to solo and do decent damage. On a team, you should want your team mate to be able to do more damage to defend themselves and, incidentally, contribute more to the team.
The defender primaries have some of the coolest powers. There's only so many different ways to hit or blast something. But the profusion of fun and interesting effects in the defender primaries are what attract me to them.
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Why would anyone do that? Do you think an analysis like that is going to matter to a developer? I certainly would not take on an undertaking like that just to soothe you.|
Originally Posted by Luminara
I'm still waiting for someone to do a detailed comparison, combination by combination, of controllers and defenders to show what the average is for each AT, what the high end is for each AT and what the low end is for each AT, and prove conclusively, numerically, that defenders are not performing as well on average, at the high end and at the low end, as controllers.
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Are defenders fun for a large portion of the playerbase? Only the devs have the datamining to know that. All I can do is add a datapoint and a voice for my beliefs. Detailed power-power analysis are much more useful for intra-AT balance, but not very important when it comes to inter-AT power levels. The primary things that matter there are rewards earned/time and relative population. That is a massive undertaking prone to major error with our limited knowledge. Only the devs can know, without major time invested (and even they have to spend some time). All we can do is suggest they look and tell them why we think they should spend the time looking.
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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In no particular order:|
Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
I hate to say this, but I think the problem with defenders is options.
If you want to play a toon that: 1) does massive ranged damage. 2) can dish out a ton of hand-to-hand and stay somewhat safe. 3) can survive damn near any conflict. 4) can shut down a whole spawn. 5) can make your whole team better at what they do. What are your options? |
1) Blaster, Dominator, Corruptor, Mastermind, Crab Spider, Fortunata, Warshade, Peacebringer
2) Scrapper, Brute, Stalker, Dominator, Controller, Night Widow, Crab Spider, Bane Spider, Warshade, Peacebringer
3) Tanker, Brute, Scrapper, Mastermind, Night Widow, Fortunata, Crab Spider, Warshade, Peacebringer
4) Dominator, Controller, Tanker, Brute, Fortunata, Warshade
5) Defender, Mastermind, Controller, Corruptor, Crab Spider, Bane Spider, Fortunata, Night Widow
VEATs are a fraction of the team buffers that Defenders are. Yet when VEATs were introduced, suddenly everyone suddenly discovered the sheer power of stacking team buffs. Why? Because VEAT team buffs are a side effect of their core soloing powers.
Honestly, I think low Defender population has very little to do with their functionality as an AT. The problem with Defenders is that most people are selfish, and it takes a great deal of altruism - or at least a lot of enlightened self-interest - to create a character whose best powers can only be used to make other characters stronger, better, and more fun to play. The biggest problem with Defender design is that it flies in the face of human nature, especially in a recreational activity.
If City of Heroes is a sport, then playing Defender is volunteering to play goal - a vital position, but the whole point is to enable others to do flashy stuff, nobody pays attention to you or the job you do, and you're only noticed when you screw up. And god save you should you try to play alone in your goalie pads.
@SPTrashcan
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Quote:
Unfortunately Dave, I bet you are running those defenders with IO sets. That Fire/Ice blaster will still be fine w/o IOs. That Son/Son w/o IOs will not get the ranged defense and while possible to get capped S/L/E resist, will start sucking the endurance bar as soon as you start attacking. The defender issue must be looked at w/o IOs and set bonuses as the Devs state SOs are perfectly fine for all Dev content in the game. Most defender combos will not be even close to safe while solo'ing w/o heavily investing IOs. And again, Sonic blast is the top tier defender attack set; Dark Miasma is a top tier defender primary.
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Originally Posted by dave_p
Disagree with this somewhat. My blasters can stay safe by increasing their DPS, but this only works so far. My Fire/Ice stays a lot safer by using Ice Patch & Freezing Touch than throwing more Fireballs, though of course a combination of both works best.
My Son/Son defender has near capped resists for S/L/E, like 40% ranged def and mez protection. He has zero fear of most enemies in the game, no matter how long they stay alive. Even w/one of the better damaging secondaries, it takes him forever to kill stuff, esp bosses. Likewise for my Cold (capped ranged def) & Dark (debuffs & controls aplenty) defenders who can bring enemies to their knees while I slowly tick away at their health. Yes, that perception of "forever" and "slowly" is biased by the fact that my high level blasters/controllers/scrappers mow through solo missions (bosses & all) like butter, and my tanks not much slower. Still, perception is what drives the lower populations for defenders, so it must be addressed all the same. |
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What do you think Castle is more likely to take seriously, a handful of people shouting and arguing over a completely unproven and utterly biased (admit it, everyone who plays defenders and comes to these threads to argue is biased) theory, or a spreadsheet showing a legitimate discrepancy?|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Why would anyone do that? Do you think an analysis like that is going to matter to a developer?
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| I certainly would not take on an undertaking like that just to soothe you. |
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| Detailed power-power analysis are much more useful for intra-AT balance, but not very important when it comes to inter-AT power levels. |
If, for example, it is proven that controllers deal, 12% more damage overall and maintain a 9% higher safety margin, then one could take that evidence to Castle and make a reasonable argument for buffing the defender AT to bring it to parity. Or if the analysis showed that the average is within 1-2% of equal for both ATs, and the highs for each AT are also similarly close, but the lows for controllers are more emphasized, then Castle would then be looking at low controller performance and looking for ways to improve it.
If all that any of you are willing to do is bicker pointlessly, conduct brief sojourns into the servers to take a quick sampling of the players who aren't in /hide and present base AT scale values as "evidence", then you're the ones fooling yourselves with the belief that Castle is going to jump to buff defenders based on your opinions and halfhearted "examinations".
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Powers do matter for Power balancing but not AT balancing. AT Balancing relates to modifiers and inherents and doesn't look at any power scalars. Power balancing focuses on the scalars and how balanced they are amongst themselves using the common modifiers derived from AT balancing.|
Originally Posted by Luminara
And it is part and parcel of AT balance. That is why different ATs have different scales on the same powers. And those different scales do affect how similar ATs are balanced against one another.
You're welcome to PM Castle and ask him if he disregards power scales when he's looking at AT balance. You know he'll tell you the same thing. And that effectively kills the entire rest of your post, because it's all founded on the assumption that powers don't matter, so I'm still waiting for someone to do a detailed comparison, combination by combination, of controllers and defenders to show what the average is for each AT, what the high end is for each AT and what the low end is for each AT, and prove conclusively, numerically, that defenders are not performing as well on average, at the high end and at the low end, as controllers. Are you taking on that task? |
You don't however look at fulcrum shift or enervating field and base the modifier around such powers existing. Such an act is working backwards and utterly destroys any hope for balance.
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We're talking about heroes prior to GR which I mentioned later in my post. The "epic" ATs are specifically created to be JOATs and are massively irrelevant because they're not available until after you get a 50 which lets out the vast majority of the player base. Since the point of my post was competition for players (which ATs get the most), we can discount those ATs which cannot yet compete as well as those who's competitiveness is limited by the necessity of unlocking content. Further, the standard is SOs, not IOs and especially not IO Sets because, as has been mentioned, that's the standard set by the devs.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
In no particular order:
1) Blaster, Dominator, Corruptor, Mastermind, Crab Spider, Fortunata, Warshade, Peacebringer 2) Scrapper, Brute, Stalker, Dominator, Controller, Night Widow, Crab Spider, Bane Spider, Warshade, Peacebringer 3) Tanker, Brute, Scrapper, Mastermind, Night Widow, Fortunata, Crab Spider, Warshade, Peacebringer 4) Dominator, Controller, Tanker, Brute, Fortunata, Warshade 5) Defender, Mastermind, Controller, Corruptor, Crab Spider, Bane Spider, Fortunata, Night Widow VEATs are a fraction of the team buffers that Defenders are. Yet when VEATs were introduced, suddenly everyone suddenly discovered the sheer power of stacking team buffs. Why? Because VEAT team buffs are a side effect of their core soloing powers. Honestly, I think low Defender population has very little to do with their functionality as an AT. The problem with Defenders is that most people are selfish, and it takes a great deal of altruism - or at least a lot of enlightened self-interest - to create a character whose best powers can only be used to make other characters stronger, better, and more fun to play. The biggest problem with Defender design is that it flies in the face of human nature, especially in a recreational activity. If City of Heroes is a sport, then playing Defender is volunteering to play goal - a vital position, but the whole point is to enable others to do flashy stuff, nobody pays attention to you or the job you do, and you're only noticed when you screw up. And god save you should you try to play alone in your goalie pads. |
Given the discounting and other than mine, your list is:
1) (nothing)
2) Controller, which is not hand-to-hand which therefore means it doesn't apply
3) Scrapper, which is highly arguable when discussing the general capabilities as opposed to specific builds.
4) Tankers, which don't "shut down" anything. The best the Tanker does is occupy the spawns while the spawns continue to attack. Again, we're talking about general capabilities and not specific builds.
5) (nothing)
Worst of all, even in your greatly enhanced list, you STILL don't include defenders in ANY other roles. Thank you very much for proving my point so dramatically by seemingly trying to argue against it.
Please keep in mind, however, that to some large extent I agree with your point that selfishness must be considered when determining if the AT is going to be enjoyable to players. That is, indeed, a large part of why this AT is under-represented. It's that exact fact I am suggesting we have to find out how to solve.
Robin
PS: Huge bonus points for knowing what "enlightened self-interest" is and how it applies to the current discussion. Very nice.
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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Quote:
To elaborate on Turbo_Ski's very salient point:|
Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
Powers do matter for Power balancing but not AT balancing. AT Balancing relates to modifiers and inherents and doesn't look at any power scalars. Power balancing focuses on the scalars and how balanced they are amongst themselves using the common modifiers derived from AT balancing.
You don't however look at fulcrum shift or enervating field and base the modifier around such powers existing. Such an act is working backwards and utterly destroys any hope for balance. |
We're not talking about how this particular action/power/combination/set relates to the balance of the AT and how the balance of this particular AT relates to the balance of another AT. We're talking about why this AT is so horribly under-represented across all servers at all times. As Trashcan wisely pointed out, it has at least something to do with human nature. That human nature is directed against filling only the role for which Defenders are most well adapted. When one can fill both that role and another, one is going to do so. No analysis of powers is going to change that. It's the role and how the roles interact that are at issue. We can discuss numbers from here to Recluse's Victory, but those numbers aren't going to accomplish anything unless we can very clearly state that the role of Defender is one that needs to be addressed for the simple reason that players think they can fill that role without playing a defender.
That elaboration might have not been very coherent. Turbo, feel free to give me a "quit helping" exasperated command on par with Buffy telling Xander to shut the hell up.
Robin
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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Vacuum balance logic. All ATs have powers and are required to use them in order to accomplish anything. If no AT is using powers, no AT is progressing at a rate any greater than zero. How any given character within any given AT is a measurable function of the sum of both the AT modifiers and the powers used. You cannot balance anything without accounting for everything.|
Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski
Powers do matter for Power balancing but not AT balancing. AT Balancing relates to modifiers and inherents and doesn't look at any power scalars. Power balancing focuses on the scalars and how balanced they are amongst themselves using the common modifiers derived from AT balancing.
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| You don't however look at fulcrum shift or enervating field and base the modifier around such powers existing. Such an act is working backwards and utterly destroys any hope for balance. |
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Neither. He will take his own information seriously, and perhaps we can influence where he looks. So much of the analysis of defenders is far too subjective to use numbers as evidence of anything. Armored AT mitigation is much easier to calculate. Attack chains when you have just one set are easy. What is the difference in mitigation of Radiation Infection and Dispersion Bubble? What about if the FF defender is about to use a cone? What about in a big room with the spawns spread out? Which is better, Fortitude on the two blasters or a Stormy herding a room together with 'cane? Which is 7% better? What does 12% more mitigation mean in those situations?|
Originally Posted by Luminara
What do you think Castle is more likely to take seriously, a handful of people shouting and arguing over a completely unproven and utterly biased (admit it, everyone who plays defenders and comes to these threads to argue is biased) theory, or a spreadsheet showing a legitimate discrepancy?
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Luminara
If all that any of you are willing to do is bicker pointlessly, conduct brief sojourns into the servers to take a quick sampling of the players who aren't in /hide and present base AT scale values as "evidence", then you're the ones fooling yourselves with the belief that Castle is going to jump to buff defenders based on your opinions and halfhearted "examinations".
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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 like playing both defenders and controllers. I have taken 4 controllers and 3 defenders to 50, as well as 1 corruptor. They have different play styles and I may feel like playing one or the other depending on my mood. I do feel the difference in the higher defender buff/debuff values. I find defender soloing too slow (not harder or less safe) and find it more enjoyable to solo my controllers. That said, my Storm/Rad defender has no problem running the wall in Cimerora.
I agree that defender damage modifiers are too low. The devs have a bit of a Catch 22 here, since if they raise defender damage they have to raise corruptor damage as well. If defenders go from 0.65 to 0.75, corruptors need to go to 0.85 or 0.90 (not a bad thing in my view). From an AT standpoint, defenders have more AoE damage available to them than do controllers, so I think the modifier difference becomes less important if these attacks can be leveraged.
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I think you missed the part where I was agreeing with you. Thank you for noticing, regardless.
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Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
Thank you very much for proving my point so dramatically by seemingly trying to argue against it.
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@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
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I think the word "missed" is an understatement. That fact went so unnoticed as to have left me blind in my left eye. Sorry about that. :S
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Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
I think you missed the part where I was agreeing with you. Thank you for noticing, regardless.
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--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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A defender can do all those except melee and melee isn't even on the list of concerns for a defender.
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Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
I hate to say this, but I think the problem with defenders is options.
If you want to play a toon that: 1) does massive ranged damage. 2) can dish out a ton of hand-to-hand and stay somewhat safe. 3) can survive damn near any conflict. 4) can shut down a whole spawn. 5) can make your whole team better at what they do. What are your options? 1) Blaster 2) Scrapper 3) Tanker 4) Controller 5) Defender or Controller |
To expand on the hyperadaptation issue: almost all hero ATs started out hyperadapted to their roles, by design. Blasters were DAMAGE and nothing else; Tankers were SURVIVAL and nothing else, and Defenders were SUPPORT and nothing else - thus forming the "MMO Holy Trinity". Scrappers combined Damage and Survival and became popular soloists; Controllers combined various degrees of Damage, Survival, and Support and thus quietly slid into the role of universal AT.
By contrast, villain ATs tended to combine roles in roughly equal measure; the main exception, Dominators, who had survival through control but lacked offense, were recently buffed to bring their damage to par. There is no villain AT lacking in damage, and all have either commensurate survivability or commensurate support - Masterminds have both, making them the villain universal AT provided one can manage their fairly complex playstyle.
Meanwhile, on the hero side, Blasters were given tools that allowed them to leverage their superior damage as a form of survivability. The last two squeaky wheels on the hero side are Tankers, whose superior survivability rarely comes into play solo but who can nonetheless trundle along as somewhat slower Scrappers, and Defenders, whose superior support capabilities are all but useless without teammates to leverage it.
What this means is that in order to want to play a Defender, you have to fall into at least one of four categories:
1. Naive. You don't know or don't care about any of this, and just want to play a Defender because they have the powers/concept you're interested in.
2. Altruistic. You enjoy helping others and don't really care about your own capabilities.
3. Enlightened Altruistic. You create or join teams using your strong buffs as a foundation and benefit from your teammates' increased power.
4. Repeat Offender. You and your friends consciously plan to use Defender cross-buffing to turn yourselves into tiny gods.
Apparently the number of people for which any of the above are true is simply less than the number of people who prefer to have good solo performance. I'm not sure if Defenders need to be changed for these reasons - they're doing quite well as is for the sort of people who play them - but it does go a way toward explaining why more people don't play them.
Unfortunately, I don't see a way to change Defenders to fix any of this. Making their team support stronger would only pigeonhole them more; increasing their damage would obviate Corruptors; and increasing their damage while decreasing their support would turn them into Corruptors.
@SPTrashcan
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Quote:
In an average day, Castle is looking at, creating and fixing numerous powers, designing one or more powersets for future use, attempting to address problems that he's uncovered by data mining ATs, reviewing power changes such as the I13 PvP revamp, collaborating with the other developers on changes, creations and reviews, managing his team and trying to keep up with the volume of PMs he receives from players.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Neither. He will take his own information seriously, and perhaps we can influence where he looks.
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So when you go to him and say, "It doesn't feel like my defender is as powerful as my controller", and give him nothing more than that vague opinion, what do you honestly expect him to do? Do you really think he's going to drop everything and go on a three month spree of brainstorming improvements for defenders, improvements which wouldn't be detrimental to the game, the AT or the balance between ATs?
Think about it. Seriously. If you want to make a point and show him that a problem really exists, you need to prove it with more than complaints and a five minute server population survey conducted with the /search tool (which excludes players using /hide or not currently logged in), rather than expecting him to clear his schedule and desk to placate a handful of players who insist that an entire AT should be buffed.
Doing the work beforehand saves him time and gives him a much, much clearer understanding of where you think the problem lies, and gives him an idea of how to proceed. It cuts the amount of work he has to do by half or more.
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| So much of the analysis of defenders is far too subjective to use numbers as evidence of anything. |
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That can be simplified down to say that if you play a defender you don't care that much about solo play.
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Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
What this means is that in order to want to play a Defender, you have to fall into at least one of four categories:
1. Naive. You don't know or don't care about any of this, and just want to play a Defender because they have the powers/concept you're interested in. 2. Altruistic. You enjoy helping others and don't really care about your own capabilities. 3. Enlightened Altruistic. You create or join teams using your strong buffs as a foundation and benefit from your teammates' increased power. 4. Repeat Offender. You and your friends consciously plan to use Defender cross-buffing to turn yourselves into tiny gods. |
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Not quite. See category 1. Which I should expand into two categories, really: Don't Know and Don't Care. Some folks like soloing Defenders just as they are, despite (or even because of) the issues therewith, and who am I to stop them?
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Originally Posted by SkeetSkeet
That can be simplified down to say that if you play a defender you don't care that much about solo play.
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@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
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There really isn't an issue outside of solo play. Even narrower than that, the only "issue" is the speed at which you can level a solo defender. If speedy solo leveling happens to be important to you then sure, it's a big issue.
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Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Not quite. See category 1. Which I should expand into two categories, really: Don't Know and Don't Care. Some folks like soloing Defenders just as they are, despite (or even because of) the issues therewith, and who am I to stop them?
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Leaving for work in a moment, but I wanted to emphasize this point.|
Originally Posted by Luminara
Vacuum balance logic. All ATs have powers and are required to use them in order to accomplish anything. If no AT is using powers, no AT is progressing at a rate any greater than zero. How any given character within any given AT is a measurable function of the sum of both the AT modifiers and the powers used. You cannot balance anything without accounting for everything.
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Defenders have lower AT damage scalars than blasters because they also have access to tools which improve their damage output more than the tools improve blaster damage output. Defenders have access to multiple +Damage buffs and even more -Res debuffs, as well as high -Def and +ToHit tools, all of which can be used to improve their overall damage output. That some of the primaries trade off some of these tools for others is not relevant to the AT as a whole because the AT itself is a collection of all of the powers available to it.
The entire design of the defender AT is balanced around the availability of certain types of powers, and thus, any discussion of defender balance must account for the powers used. Ignoring those powers is not possible when balancing the AT against any other AT because they are part and parcel of the AT as a whole. So in order to show that the AT as a whole is performing below a predetermined level, one must provide evidence that the majority of the parts which collectively comprise that AT are performing under that level. And that means doing a complete rundown of the bottom, mid and top levels of performance for every combination of powersets and making an unbiased comparison to whatever that predetermined performance level is (in this case, controllers, again on a powerset combination by powerset combination appraisal which displays the lowest, mean and highest levels of performance).
Anything else is just opinion and theorycrafting, minus the crafting.
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What a defender "can" do and what a defender is competitive in doing are completely different.|
Originally Posted by SkeetSkeet
A defender can do all those except melee and melee isn't even on the list of concerns for a defender.
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If you're forming a team and decide you need a melee damage dealer, do you think "hmm... should I get a scrapper or a defender?" If you need someone to occupy the spawns while the others do damage, do you think "should I get a defender or a tanker?" If you need raw damage output, do you think "should I get a blaster or a defender?" If you need someone to lock down your enemies, do you think "should I get a defender or a controller?" In all likelihood you, as everyone else, does not. You think "I'll get a scrapper/tanker/blaster/controller" respectively.
But if someone needs a buffer, they'll quite often have to think about whether they should get a controller or a defender. In fact, the deciding factor is often whether or not they already have a controller on the team. That's the problem. Not "can this AT do this" but "is it worth it to replace this AT with this other one". People often consider it worth it to replace the defender with a controller when doing their recruiting.
Mind you I'm not saying they kick the defender when a 'troller starts LFT. I'm saying before doing the inviting, they look at what's available and say to themselves "should I get that defender who buffs and might add a small touch of dps, or should I get that controller who does pretty good dps, locks out the spawns and can buff nearly as well as the defender on top of it?"
The people who care about soloing aren't really at issue. It's the people who love to team but hate to start/lead teams. Those are the ones that are thinking they really need to be playing something else. That cuts down the number of people who would otherwise be playing defenders.
Robin
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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Note, "better able to solo" doesn't mean safety. Most defenders can solo stuff in perfect safety and yes, you can even solo AVs and pylons with an IOed out defender. Most ppl don't want to solo safely. They want to solo quickly. Defenders need a way to increase their kill speeds while solo (as a force multiplier, they increase team kill speeds plenty).
This is it in a nut shell .... Defenders are not underpowered, they don't solo well. Increasing their damage and making them solo better is going to cause a nerf to thier buffs. That is why defenders will not get a damage buff. It'a against the grain.