Mezz Protection for All!

for /psi don't forget to include TK blast in the list of solutions.

On my psi blaster thats been a key power for its control when levelling up.

Okay, soI figured, screw it,I have plenty of scrappers, tankers, blasters, trollers, defenders and whatever else at high level, I"ll do a test, a scrapper with no mez protection, vs a squishy with access to all the tools. My rules were simple, I ran at +1, x0, no bosses. The test wasn't perfect. My only scrapper whose mez protection isn't baked in with resistance of some kind was a my softcapped IO'd to the gills SR scrapper and my squishies, except for my fire/kin aren't nearly as IO'd out. I was fighting against carnies, and that was good for the SR scrapper as well because she's DB, and Carnies are weak against lethal.

With all of these advantages, the SR scrapper died twice, because she was golden until an illusionist came in and then she had no way to deal with the incoming mezzes. She nearly died twice against a single illusionist, and died three times against a MI lieuteant (which wasn't a surprise, MI's cause troubles WITH mez protection, so meh).

The blaster I ran with was energy/elec/elec, which meant that there were a good deal of tools she had to deal with to neuter spawn sizes of this size. The blaster was not once in danger until the MI lieutenant which she killed after 1 try. Thank you blasting while mezzed. THe blaster did have the advantage of fighting in a cave, which meant there were fewer enemies to deal with and less lines of sight, but on the other hand, she dealt with twice as many Illusionists.

For my controller I used an Earth/Storm/stone because she's not as IO'd out as my Illusion/Storm or my fire/kin, but still has a lot of tools...This felt like the perfect mission, because while she had no defense against carnies, she destroyed them with a vareity of mezzes that were generally up close. I have stealth which meant I could get in close, mez the problem mob, let stoney deal with the others that weren't so hard. Even the MI lieutenant was laughably easy. It was also in a cave, so it was very easy to get the drop on enemies with stealth.

My defender was a rad/psi, which I thought would have some trouble because carnies have a lot of def to psi. It didn't. There were a couple of Oh *#$% moments, but that's par for the course on that build because it's a team oriented build. I died once, against, you guessed it, an MI.

Then I did my tank. Stone/Axe. I chose her for two reasons. I couldn't use my Fire/SS because her mez protection is baked into her resist powers, and because I figured with 40% defense to psi she should operate fairly well against carnies, my shield/fire tank has no baked in way to offensively deal with mezzers other than killing them and the stone axe at least has knockdowns and knock backs, and char. She got destroyed. THat might be because the final boss was an MI and got really lucky on the first hit, held me and then I got chain knocked down from all the phantasms. Part of this is my fault. That character does not have crystal armor, but I suspect that on say, Malta, this character would have less of an issue becuase of her ability to pre mez and the sheer amount of HP she has. I had no issues until the MI.

Let me reiterate, I don't think this was a good test. There wasn't enough data, they were all different maps with different enemy spreads. I think that if there had been more illuisionists on my tank, for instance, I would probably have had more trouble. But Squishies have a LOT more tools to deal with mez without mez protection is my expereince here. Even blasters.

Teaming already IS beneficial to melee characters.

A mostly single target scrapper can solo huge mobs, but it takes a long time.

Same with tanks, but it takes even longer.

Teaming with ATs with more AoE damage potential and the ability to cut down incoming damage cuts down the downtime of the entire team, meaning everyone advances faster. The squishies can focus on dealing damage because the tank is keeping them from getting hit, and the tank doesn't have to spend an hour on one mission because it's damage output is low.

And you're still looking at a situation where melee ATs can no longer solo at all because their mez protection can be easily overcome, while squishies are in the exact same situation they were in before. Not being able to mez a Sapper from range, and running into more than one is almost a death sentence to a melee toon now, being mezzed with their first two attacks is a guaranteed death sentence.

I'm presuming here that you are saying that a solo melee AT should have less than mag 6 mez protection, which is what would be required to handle 2 standard holds hitting at once.

Also, "revitalizing teaming" means the same thing in this case as "make teaming mandatory to do ANYTHING"

A large part of the draw of CoH to a lot of people is that, unlike a majority of other MMOs, you do not NEED a large group of people in order to just play the game.

I'd be willing to bet, if this were implemented, a lot of the people who either enjoy soloing, or have to because they have a weird schedule or live in a different time zone would end up finding another game to play. All because a few people wanted things more "fair"

News flash, it already IS fair.

I'll say it One. Last. Time.

Melee characters have mez protection because they are unable to prevent mezzes from hitting them. That is PASSIVE mez protection.

Ranged characters can prevent the mez from ever being fired, so they do not need passive mez protection. That is ACTIVE mez protection.

All ATs have mez protection in some form or another, whether passive or active. Acting to prevent a mez from happening is protecting yourself from it

Here's the definition of the word "protection" again, in case you missed it:


pro·tec·tion (prə-těk'shən)
n.

1. The act of protecting.
2. The condition of being protected.

Main Entry: pro·tec·tion
Function: noun
1 : the act of protecting : the state of being protected protection>
2 a : one that protects b : supervision or support of one having less power <protection of endangered species>


In the first definition, the condition of being protected would obviously be passive mez protection.

But, the first definition is "the act of protecting". That applies to pro-actively using a power to prevent mez from happening, you have acted to protect yourself from it.

In the second entry, those two definitions pop up again, but there is a third definition as well. That would be "one who protects" or "supervision or support of one with less power"

In this case that would be "less power to prevent mez from occurring". I read that as implying that the entire tanker AT is mez protection in and of itself.