Devs.. a little Defender luvins plz?
By
Anti_Proton,
Posted on: 2009-08-17 23:02 in Suggestions and Ideas
I think the difference in implementation is pretty major. Currently the math is very simple. You take the total of all the max hit points on the team and compare that to the total of all the current hit points on the team. The percentage difference is used to determine the endurance discount.
Doing a bar based on when anyone on your team gets hit would require a lot of checking and some pretty massive calculations. When the brute gets hit or hits, it's only relative to one character. What you're suggesting would require that the server tracks it for eight people and applies that tracking to however many defenders are on the team. On a full team of defenders that would cause roughly the same server load as having a team of 64 brutes, as far as the inherent goes. And that doesn't even include the healing part of it.
Further, that would aggravate instead of mitigate the problem of having it benefit different defenders to vastly different degrees. Healers would still heal the team and drop the bar more quickly than shielders, for instance.
I agree, however, that something needs to be done. There are a few threads on the defender AT forum that are trying to come up with some solutions. I'm fairly certain a real solution would require a change to the AT, not just the inherent.
Robin
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
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I'd just like Vigilance to take the defender's own health into account. A slight boost while teamed, would throw Force Field defenders a bone (as the least well-protected member of the team, they're usually the only one taking significant amounts of damage), and would make Vigilance useful solo.
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Part of the problem with defenders is coming up with a consistent way to buff each avatar with a single base AT buff. One of the suggestions I hear often is for Defenders to have some way to buff their heals...
Only, Force Field, Sonic Resonance, and Trick Arrow don't get heals. Cold Dom, Dark Miasma, Kinetics, Radiation Emission, and Storm Summoning do get a single heal each. But it's either a really weak heal to begin with, or it's a stat buff with a heal attached. Basically, in the current defender lineup, only the Empath would really benefit from a base AT boost that powers up heals.
One of the solutions to Negligence that I've seen is for a Dominator styled buff / debuff power. Unlike Dominators, it's not tied to attacking, but tied to using your buffs / debuffs. As you use buff / debuff's, your Power Bar raises. When it fills, you can activate a Defense! power and effectively double the power of your buffs and debuffs for a limited time.
Only... the Defenders already get Power Boost as an epic power... And most defenders take the Power Mastery set just for that reason. Yeah, it's got a 2 minute recharge for a 12 second power if you push the recharge into ED... but so what... it's a killer buff.
Reworking the Defender base AT to do what Power Boost does as an inherent would be great. It would mean Defenders could be a little bit more flexible in what Epic Powers they took.
yet, the devs would have to deal with a metric ton of whining from people who already have built and specced their defenders around Power Build Up for the past 4+ years.
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/Dark Defenders debuff with every attack. /ice slows with every attack. Would that count towards the "using buffs/debuffs" for the power bar?|
Originally Posted by je_saist
One of the solutions to Negligence that I've seen is for a Dominator styled buff / debuff power. Unlike Dominators, it's not tied to attacking, but tied to using your buffs / debuffs. As you use buff / debuff's, your Power Bar raises. When it fills, you can activate a Defense! power and effectively double the power of your buffs and debuffs for a limited time.
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Do you see a pattern forming here?
There is only 1 inherent that I rely on in CoH/V and that is Fury. All of the others may or may not help at a crucial point. If I rely on them, they'll most likely fail me.
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I forget who actually came up with the idea, so I'm a little fuzzy on what the actual proposal involved.. but as I understood it, the idea was to build a Power Bar based off all primary powers that have buff / debuff components|
Originally Posted by Twisted_Toon
/Dark Defenders debuff with every attack. /ice slows with every attack. Would that count towards the "using buffs/debuffs" for the power bar?
Do you see a pattern forming here? There is only 1 inherent that I rely on in CoH/V and that is Fury. All of the others may or may not help at a crucial point. If I rely on them, they'll most likely fail me. |
Quick Buff Powers, like O2 Boost, Clear Mind, Clarity, Speed Boost, Increase Density, are worth only minor amounts of charge.
Toggle Debuffs are worth the least amount of charge, but they charge on a constant per second basis. So the longer you are debuffing a Giant Monster or AV, the more likely you can lay on a power boosted level debuff
Medium Attack Debuffs, like the Storm's Snow Storm, or Trick Arrow's Oil Slick, are worth a medium recharge.
Long Term Buffs, like Accelerated Metabolism and the Empath Auras are worth the most.
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Secondary Powers don't add or build to the Power Boost bar.
The given reason for this is that one of the Defender attack sets include no debuffs... at all. The Archery attack set. So, if the Power Bar was tied to secondary sets, there would be a clear advantage to taking any other set but archery.
Well, in reality there is a clear advantage to taking any other set but archery. Defenders attack strength is ruddy low when compared to the Blasters high ranged damage, on the order of 60% to 50% lower per attack. Personally the developers need to go and relist the Defenders attack Strength as Low in the Character Creation system, since the medium to high notations generally indicate only a 30% difference for all other AT power classifications. Either that or the developers need to just boost defender attacks 30% across the board for all non-nukes to bring the reality of their powers in line with the description of those powers.
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Cold Domination does not have a heal. Frostwork is just +Max HP, not a heal as well like Dull Pain/Hoarfrost/etc.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
Only, Force Field, Sonic Resonance, and Trick Arrow don't get heals. Cold Dom, Dark Miasma, Kinetics, Radiation Emission, and Storm Summoning do get a single heal each. But it's either a really weak heal to begin with, or it's a stat buff with a heal attached. Basically, in the current defender lineup, only the Empath would really benefit from a base AT boost that powers up heals.
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Also, Dark and Kinetics are tied for the best AoE ally heal in the game. (And Twilight Grasp/Transfusion are over 90% of the strength of Empathy's Heal Other)
Also also, Dark Miasma sort of gets 2 heals, since both the player and Dark Servant have Twilight Grasp available.
Also also also, Dark Blast characters can pick up a self heal if they so choose (Life Drain)
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Vigilance discounts endurance for all powers used, not specifically primary powers or specifically secondary powers. Any replacement should do no less. It's all or nothing, not "let's reward defenders who buff/debuff and screw those who blast" any more than "let's give defenders a damage buff and screw those stupid jerks who use their buffs/debuffs". A defender is a combination of two powersets, a sum which is greater than the parts, and both of those parts have to be considered, not one specific part to the point of ignoring the other.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
Secondary Powers don't add or build to the Power Boost bar.
The given reason for this is that one of the Defender attack sets include no debuffs... at all. The Archery attack set. So, if the Power Bar was tied to secondary sets, there would be a clear advantage to taking any other set but archery. |
Furthermore, restricting the inherent to only being functionally "built up" by primary powers would artificially penalize some primaries and artificially reward others. A TA with no targets would be incapable of building up Vigilance prior to level 26 (at which point he/she could exploit OSTarget to do it), whereas an Emp with HA on auto would easily build up Vigilance. A FF could build up a full Vigilance bar just by playing normally on a team, but find it extremely difficult to leverage it solo. Et cetera.
It's not balanced, it doesn't reward all defenders equally and it's wide open for exploitative behavior. Try something else.
See the problem here is every Defender primary isn't created equal. Are the Heals and buffs applied by one type of primary comparable to the debuffs of another? If the objective if a dead target with minimal casualties, the proportions should be about equivalent. Sady, this is not so.
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Most that played a Defender have likely had a love/hate relationship with Vigilance. While at it's best the endurance discount can be amazing (especially with a dead team member), the downside is that defenders are penalized more and more the better they perform at keeping their team healed/buffed/alive.
So what if Defenders were given a Vigilance bar similar to a Brute's Rage bar. The bar would fill as the teammates take damage, and empty more slowly as the team is healed. This would at least give Defenders a more consistent endurance discount.
Maybe smaller discount could even be given to solo Defenders in the manner.
Thoughts?
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