Vigilance change considerations!

Rather than posting this where it will get lost in the bowels of the "What the hell, let's buff Defenders" thread, I'm hoping to get more exposure here in the open. While pondering ways to fix Vigilance, I came across a slight revelation:

Almost all other inherent powers affect an AT's playstyle, and can be taken advantage of with the right strategy and finesse.

Blaster - Players need to put a lot of thought into their attack chain to maximize the usefulness of the Defiance damage buffs.
Controller - A good bit of strategy goes into setting up and maintaining Containment to maximize damage output while remaining safe.
Defender - The flaws and faults of Negligence are well documented...
Scrapper - Scrappers can focus bosses and lieutenants to maximize their Critical Hits.
Tanker - Punchvoking with Gauntlet is important for holding aggro and saving allies.
Brute - A good bit of strategy goes into maximizing Fury's usefulness, including: end usage, power picks, slotting, and situational power usage. Example: only using Shadow Maul when your fury bar is high.
Corruptor - By carefully picking off low-HP enemies, Scourge can be used to great effect, especially on higher HP foes like lieutenants and bosses.
Dominator - Players can maximize the effectiveness of Domination by carefully timing it when needed, be it for endurance, mez protection, or high magnitude mezzes.
Mastermind - Supremacy is a lot less playstyle-affecting than the other inherents, but encourages Masterminds to stay near and support their pets, and to use Defensive stance when appropriate.
Stalker - Proper utilization of "Stalker powers" (Hide, Assassin's Strike, Placate) is an important strategy consideration closely tied to the Assassination inherent power.

I believe that the best fixes to Vigilance will keep these mostly successful and beloved inherents in mind. Although an improved version of Vigilance should not completely change Defender playstyle, players should be able to maximize its usefulness with the right strategy and finesse! I know I'm not actually suggesting a fix, I'm just trying to help get the creative juices flowing in the community. Let me know what you guys think, and if anyone has ideas that fit this "model," feel free to post them here.

Peter

P.S. I also think it's very important to keep in mind that there is a LOT of variance between the different defender primaries, i.e. buff sets (FF), debuff sets (TA), and mixed sets (rad). As such, an inherent that relies on primary powers (like the previously suggested damage buffs when you use your primary powers) must be carefully balanced to affect all defenders relatively equally.

Another week, another let's change vigilance thread. We're going to need a bigger suggestion box!

Anyway, if Castle doesn't want to do anything ambitious with Vigilance (like most Vigilance suggestions), he could always go for something easy cheesy to code, like passive endmod/slow/debuff resistance.

It seems to me that basing an ability on letting your team mates die or come close to it is full of /fail to begin with. "Yeah I would help you but..well..if you get the crud kicked out of you some more I get better boosts!"

Yeah..I dont play defenders but the thought that some one would think this was a good thing kinda makes me sad. On top of this it doesnt even help if you play solo like most of the others do.

If its truly ment to help in a team situation it should randomly spike heals 20% of the time and 10% of the time reduce the cost of buffs. Or some thing like that.

Rigel, almost all of us can agree that it's broken, and the devs know it too. I'm just trying to help the community constructively discuss ideas toward a reasonable solution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent Anyway, if Castle doesn't want to do anything ambitious with Vigilance (like most Vigilance suggestions), he could always go for something easy cheesy to code, like passive endmod/slow/debuff resistance.

I agree that the solution can't be anything ridiculously difficult to code, but a passive like you suggested doesn't fit the model for inherents I outlined above (which I believe is the right way to steer these ideas).

Maybe Vigilance ought to somehow increase the power of buffs and debuffs in critical moments. Perhaps that instead of decreasing endurance costs dependent on the health of the party, Vigilance ought to increase buff and debuff power dependent on the health of the party(Defender included). Thus, the more the party needs defending, the stronger the Defender gets.

Any change to vigilance will, I expect, achieve one of two results:

1) players will still think it's not good enough because they will still feel the AT is "underperforming" or is "underrepresented".
2) players will realize the fact that the AT is "underperforming" or is "underrepresented" has nothing to do with the inherent but instead to do with the relationship between the defender and his/her role.

In the first case, they'll come up with something else eventually and the process will repeat itself until the second case is finally achieved. At that point they'll start actually looking at why the defender is not making the showing they could.

The "why" of it, in my opinion, is this:

The defender serves two roles, the first being mitigation/multiplication and the second being damage. They have one power set for each role. Their primary power set is the best for their primary role, their secondary power set is paltry for their secondary role. In the defender's secondary role they can't (and shouldn't be able to) compete at all with those ATs that have damage as their primary role. The problem that needs to be addressed lies in their primary role. The controller has two power sets devoted to mitigation/multiplication. All control primary effects are mitigation (whether that's their main purpose or not, their primary effect does cause mitigation) and a number of the secondary effects either cause more mitigation or multiplication. And then they get a slightly reduced mimic of the defender primaries as their secondaries. When taken as a whole, the controller makes a much, much better mitigation/mulitplication specialist than the defender. Therefore the defender is relatively very weak in their secondary role and relatively slightly weak in their primary role. Other than a desire for a specific theme, why would people ever play a defender?

There are two possible ways to fix this that I've been able to see:

1) change the relationship between the AT and its primary role.
2) change the secondary role entirely.

Short of getting rid of the primary competition for mitigation/multiplication (i.e. controllers), there's no way to make defenders the singular, undeniable rulers of that role while still maintaining any semblance of power balance. Since getting rid of controllers would be even worse, IMO, than mangling defender balance, I would think option two would be the way to go.

While considering changes to the secondary role of the AT, one should keep in mind that the reason for needing this change is that the AT is in competition with two others. None of the other ATs really compete on two fronts like that. Whatever their new secondary role is it should not repeat that mistake by making them compete with another AT for that secondary role, or at the very least their secondary role should not compete with another AT's primary role.

That's my addition to the "food for thought" element of this thread.

Robin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha ...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...

Instead of being rewarded for being bad at your job, why not have a "fury" bar of Endmod? The more you use your primary attacks or the more time your teams stays in the green the more end mod you get to keep on doing that. If your team is dieing and your spamming heals/buffs/debuffs what-not, you get end-mod. If your team is in the green and your not spamming primary powers, its not as great of end mod but its still there. Primary powers make it go up more.

Just a thought, because any inherit ability that rewards for failing is failing.

Here's how you fix it. Give them domination...the old one, as Rodion said. Increase damage, give them mez protection and longer mezzes. So, in a pinch, a defender can actually defend better, by killing faster, fearing or holding key enemies or maintain high endurance toggles. My two cents. Not worth much, but you need it for sales tax .

One of the problems with making a defender inherent is there's such a variety of abilities and playstyles within defenders. Whereas one blaster or scrapper plays and performs it's role in a pretty similar manner to the next, a Empath is nothing like a Storm, and a FFer is nothing like a Rad. So you have to create an inherent which is beneficial to all defenders.

A "break free" effect would be good for, say, an Empath or Rad, but it would be of little use to a Sonic or FF - they have mez protection to start with, and on top of that, most of their protection will still be running even with them mezzed.

An ability which, through one method or other, gets stronger as fights go on (I'll include Vigilance in this) is of limited use to those defenders who do most of their defending before or at the start of the fight - FF and Sonic pre-buff, TA opens the fight with most of it's debuffs, etc.

...

Coyote, the problem with your little idea is... what else is there?

When you boil it all down, there are only two roles in this game. "Damage" and "Support."

Blasters, Scrappers, Brutes, & Stalkers hold only a "Damage" role.

Controllers alone hold only a "Support" role.

Every other AT is a mix of Damage and Support.

So what would you suggest? Making Defenders only a Support role, too? And how would you go about this change?

No. There is no reason for it, and the Devs certainly aren't going to go for it.

There IS an issue with the Defender's role, but it's not that they have a Damage role... it's that the damage role is trivialized. Either by the Defenders themselves ("I'm a Healer only!") or by their teammates ("Why the heck do you bother blasting?")

Do Defenders need to do more damage? Probably... but it's a slippery slope to get the right balance. Because you are partially right, Defenders should not be the go-to AT for a Damage role. It's just that right now there seems to be an overwhelming opinion that Defender damage is insignificant - and it shouldn't be that way.

Does Vigilance need to be revamped? Oh, certainly... simply because it IS that poor. Would it solve the Defender's problems? That depends a lot on what Vig v2.0 is... but I somehow doubt it.

What the Defenders need the most is an attitude adjustment... an overall reminder that they have two roles and it is okay to do both. No, scratch that - they should be EXPECTED to fill both roles! But that's one thing the Devs can't just change. An overhaul of Defenders would help, but if the general player opinions don't change, then Defenders will continue to under perform, regardless of any changes.