Mezz Protection for All!

Actually what futurias presents is relatively accurate. I was a little surprised to find that it was so but I actually took the trouble to check with a high level freak map, the one from Unai and one of the RWZ missions. You can have spawns where there are just too many mezzers to deal with they can and do occur often enough that breakfrees are not a viable option. Whats more it dealing with them is not an issue of skill its purely a matter of do you have the insps. I personally feel this game has enough zero skill elements in it already.

Second

That is a position you are introducing without giving reasoning why it should be so. I would suggest thinking through the other possibilities and why they might be relevant.

Third

Hmmm we are talking about the same Positron ? The one that only has COT as a serious mez threat and most of their mez is knockback which you can have protection from ?

Finally

If you are going to make a vague statement based on the fact that I haven't completely agreed with or taken the position you felt is correct there is little I can say in reply. What I can say is that while my position on this is still forming, I am experimenting with maps and various ATs to see what the actual situation, it has not prevented me from recognizing people that were arguing exceptionally poorly.

If you find yourself agreeing with people only because they are agreeing with you despite the fact they are using nonsense arguments you might want to double check your position.

Actually, in my tests where I'm running with a scrapper and blaster, both without mez protection on high mez groups my blaster spends a lot less time mezzed than my scrapper. Further more, solo, I've found that few spawns have more than 1 mezzer with a garrunteed stun. Even Malta really weren't that bad, because there were tools the blaster had that the scrapper did not to ensure that problem mobs could be taken care of rather fast. Scrappers simply don't. Adding mez protection on top of that is not only not necessary, but also not helpful to ask for. At this point in the balance game there's not much that needs to be changed drastically, and maybe that might change with some of the difficult content in Going Rogue, but right now the game simply isn't hard enough to warrant such a huge change in the way the AT system works.

I haven't gotten around to running the scrapper portion of my tests. Mostly because the question is so damn complex I am still working through the blaster portion. Then I have to do the defender and the controller, I probably wont bother with villains in depth, though I may run a few through the wall to get measurements for a baseline.

The big problem with this thread is that it started with a really really bad question. Mezz protection for all ? in terms of the game its almost completely meaningless. Dominators have mez protection /traps anything have mez protection. If you take Leaping power pool you get mez protection. This makes everyone who shouts out and says "NO NO NO Its an I win button" Look a bit like an idiot. It makes everyone who that its vital and game breaking not to have it look stupid as well.


For my tests what I have are 4 maps 2 with mezzing enemies 2 with non mezzing enemies and I have been running two different types of blaster My arch/ment which has a high recharge build, and stepping up the difficulty settings by steps of 2 in the number of opponents faced and and 1 on the plus level. I have also been looking for possible ouroboro arcs to see if I can establish baselines at levels lower than 50. If it sounds like much effort it is. The problem is if you don't do it and you dont have any numbers just what your impression is, its not much to talk about.

The only things I can say so far about mez in the game is its handled very inconsistently that there are circumstances where its a no win situation that for me was very unpleasant to deal with and there are circumstances where you can deal with it tactically. Also if you have a high defense build you can pretty much ignore the bulk of Mez that comes your way because it just doesn't connect.

In any case its very dependent on the numbers and type of enemy you are facing. It would be nice if you could say solo and lowest level is what things should be balanced around but that just ignores the realities. It ignores the fact that people play in teams and some team mates are better than expected and others are worse than expected. It ignores the fact people view not being able to up the difficulty to similar extents on different characters as a flaw

So far the only thing I am certain of is that the people taking dogmatic positions on either side are just not thinking things through.

I don't even know how to respond to this. Apparently much of this must simply come down to a matter of perception. All I can say is that in over 18 months of playing, with my original & namesake toon being a blaster, I have NEVER ONCE encountered a status effect situation solo on base difficulty that cannot be overcome without resorting to excessive inspiration usage.

OK, you're the one making the claim. Give me one specific example of a spawn that has "too many mezzers to deal with".

Because anyone claiming that part of the game (status effects) is too hard to deal with, while simultaneously wishing to run on increased difficulty settings is being hypocritical. More to the point, several people in this thread advocating status protection for squishies have claimed or implied that it was difficult to impossible to solo even on Heroic (or 0/x1/no bosses under the new system).

Clockwork have sleep effects, Vahz have immobs & stuns, CoT have all of the above plus holds. And the primary reason most of those are fairly trivial on those speed runs that we both have done plenty of times, is due to running on base difficulty. Which applies equally to the rest of the game. On base difficulty, opponents with status effects are trivially easy to deal with in 95% of situations.

That was a cheap shot. It also seems to confirm my thought that you jumped into this thread without reading through it.

Obviously a perception issue what may bother me may not bother you. I have seen you hit situations where you have taken a defeat from excessive mez.

I did in other posts several times. You can have Freak and Rikti spawns that are 75% or 100% mezzers. There are probably more but those are the ones I have documented.

As I said that statement needs to be thought through. Is it correct that mezzers become difficult for one particular type of toon but not others as the level difference increases or the numbers go up ? The question just isnt as simple as you made it out.

Actaully in my case its very easy because I built my positron runner to have a high ranged defense at that level. I did that by using sets that would still impart their bonus at that level.

Immobs are not an issue, sleeps are not either as the moment you take damage they are gone and neither of our toons run those with offensive toggles. The only issue is the cot holds and Cortex's confuse. Which oddly enough has killed me even though I had a breakfree by you fireballing me.

I once was in a cave with that intersection where there are two spawns very close to each other. I tried to pull one spawn so I could separate them. Each spawn had 1 Headman Gunmen and 2 drones. Even with just a Headman Gunman and 2 drones things can get nasty with their stuns and Knockdown. Since drones have +perception, I failed to split the groups. It got ugly fast.

Common? Eh, I'd say more often than not spawns will be easier to deal with than that. Rare? Not rare either, it happens. Malta spawns with 1 Ops officer and 1 Tac minion stun a lot. Gunslinger + Tac can stun, hold, and sleep. Carnie storngman and an Illusionist, Hold, Stun, and KD.

There are pretty many examples in game where a spawn can exist that has "too many mezzers to deal with", normally inspires can carry you through. Those "harder" spawns are not every mission, but probably every other mission will have something that can get nasty fast due to mezzing.

Yep. And I don't run on base difficulty either. Nor did I come here and post a thread asking for inherent status effect protection.

75% or 100% sounds impressive, except for the fact that on base difficulty you'd be talking about 2 or 3 enemies, none of which would be higher than a LT. That doesn't equal "too many mezzers to deal with", in my book.

Whoops. Did I do that? *whistles innocently*

Actually there is a very large section of time you do run on baseline, If you think about it I am sure it will come to you. And btw seeing as I have to keep repeating this, neither did I ask for an inherent status protection. Please look up to my post in response to clouded to see exactly how much my position is formed. It pretty much boils down to the idea that mezz is not handled consistently in the game and it may be possible to do better.

You mean the map I can happily routinely run with my blaster set for 3-4 with minimal issues ?

Admittedly he is an archer, so rain of arrows is a big part of this, but defeating foes is the #1 way to avoid mez.

Actually, the Heroic difficulty setting was brought up by the OP, along with an overly exagerated need of Breakfrees to complete a mission. As you can see by the following quote.


So, I would suggest that you actually read the entire thread, then comment about the relevancy of certain positions posted in the thread.

Sorry, Clouded. I did try...sorta.

So, what do you call a leper in a hottub?

A ruined hot-tub?

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

First what are minimal issues ? I don't want to be nit picky here but this thread has gotten to the point where its revolving around exactly what is being said and what people's personal thresholds are.

What is your archer built for ?

A blaster built for defense should have no trouble running that map at least up to 5 if not 6 or 7. I know my fire/ment is more than capable of that.

My Archer which is built for recharge not defense starts to have significant issues at about 4. By significant issues I mean the overall kill rate drops significantly and she is getting mezzed very often.

Note both the above tests were run without using inspirations. The purpose being to determine what was happening. In the archers case two tactics were employed to deal with the mezzer and they were alternated.

1. For spawns with only 1 mezzer the mezzer was targed a rain of arrows launched at the spawn, a shocking bolt fired at the mezzer followed by either a psychic scream or a fistful of arrows.

2. With spawns of more than 1 mezzer Rain of arrows followed by alternatingly psy scream, fistfull of arrows or explosive arrow.


By way of significant issues
1. Mezzers that would revive, aggro and stun while the next spawn had been engaged but before they had been killed.

2. Spawns with a high percentage of mezzers that that would get in and start mezzing before they could be killed.

You're using logic, macskull. After reading this thread, logic seems to have no place here.

I concur

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Futurias On a full team while I'm in melee? Pretty normal actually. No matter what Controllers think or wish, their days of solo locking down full teams is a mere memory.

Sorry to be so late to the party and respond to this after so many posts, but, You were the one who mentioned more than one Controller, and when you've got two Controllers, they can work together to lock stuff up faster then you should rush into melee-range for. That's what I meant by strategy.

It's not the Dev's fault that you choose to go to melee when you could hover/blast from range, and close to melee when stuff is locked-down, Dominators do it all the time, and since you do have access to Dwarf form but chose to exclude it, that's one decision you have to live with.

Alternatively, if one of your Controllers has an AoE-stun power, you could help them by sneaking into melee and using Pulsar together with the Controller and his/her AoE stun to lock down everything around you, including Bosses.

These tactics work well for an All Kheldian Team, without force-multiplication and solid self-sufficient crowd control unless people are working together... so essentially, with all due respect, you do seem to be playing in ways that emphasize your weaknesses rather than display the strengths of the AT/power combination available to your team.

1) no deaths and I don't recall being mezzed but could for sure that I wasn't

2) mainly recharge so rain is up asap, but has some ranged defence


Tactics are simple, target an Lt near the center of the group. aim+BU+Rain kills the minions, then single target to whittle down the Lts.

So far Rularru are the easiest villains I've found which was...surprising, considering my experience running the TF's were so much worse than what I'm currently fighting. But then again, it's probable that Rularru are only bad in huge groups, where you end up taking the full alpha every time because they're so freaking accurate.

But heroic and +2 with no bosses I am having no trouble without mez protection on any AT. It generally takes me between 5 and 10 minutes with my troller and scrapper doing it in the least time, and my blaster and defender taking the most time for opposite reasons. My blaster had to retreat more than once, but that was for damage taken reasons and not mez reasons, and my defender because she had to be more careful the other AT's while soloing, but that's not surprising.

Actually while I do agree the scrappers with mez protection scale better with the higher difficulty settings, I don't think every AT as a whole should be capable of the different options. I certainly don't bring my scrapper when a hard TF is wanted, or a particularly hard AV.

Scrappers have to be great at something and if it means they can solo better than any other AT that's all well and good. But it isn't just because of mez protection that they're able to. And it isn't becuase of the lack that blasters can't. I'd also like to reiterate that many scrappers CAN'T scale well to big spawn sizes.

And that is a great way to sum it up Blue Morning, especially the last sentence.

In my experience for the last 63 months with evey AT (inculding many of them with no mezz protection), the ones without the protection are capable of so much more, but something like being mezz holds them back. I have noted a few times like my fire/rad corruptor not worrying about toggles dropping and using damage to defeat mobs. This could be balance put in by design.

The one with protection fall *generally short* like scrapper, stalkers, tanks, brutes. Of course, there are exceptions like spine scrappers (or even a widow like mine which I run at +2lvl/8man).

I also have experience on all MM, all corr, all def, all dom, all controller, and all blaster teams/S/TFs. Finished them all even one STF with no mezz protection (only dark and storm defs) except those given by those 2 sets (fear, confuse, disorient/sleep via O2 boost).

I just read here that you were responding to me. My tests aren't great, but I'm at least playing and paying attention. I don't feel that any AT should expect to play at any other difficulty than +2 x1 (or even x2). Anymore than that is gravy and SHOULD be difficult. Hell, we couldn't even get a greater difficulty than that until 1 month ago, and now everyone thinks everyone should be able to solo on that. Seriously?

Those settings are not more XP mode, and I don't know if you believe that those settings should be available to most people, but I strongly disagree with you. I have trouble on my kat/dark on anything more than +2 x4, and maybe that's because I suck at playing kat/dark, and maybe that's because I enjoy fighting carnies and Rikti. But I'd also like to point out that my fire/kin, Earth/Storm, Ill/Storm, and every single one of my tanks can fight on bigger maps than any of my scrappers can and frequently do. Two of those AT's are without mez protection.

So there BL - my description of what I expect people to mean by solo is +2 x1 (or 2). What's yours?

That statement is (probably unintentionally) misleading. There are few scrappers that don't scale well to big spawn sizes. Most scrappers will do fine with large spawns. Heck, with inspiration use, all scrappers should do fine vs. large spawns, but a few might have trouble with +levels.

All scrapper sets can do exceedingly well vs. large spawns and +levels once IOs are introduced.

No

I think the point was more that they don't have the AOE output of other ATs, especially Blasters. Scrappers can do well in a variety of situations, but they do have balance points. If you're on a team and find yourself in need of damage, you're far better off getting a Blaster than a Scrapper. Even Scrappers that are good at AOE aren't going to put up the same numbers for the team.

If you just look at the numbers, of course. I've yet to find a team makeup that can't work on story arcs and most TFs, and just pick up whoever wants in. Hence my thinking that arguments about "this AT is going to supersede this AT" is bunk.

Same thing here. Any AT can solo and do fine. The problem comes more from what people define as soloing. +1/1 is not bad (the old heroic setting), but there are a lot of people that think every AT should be able to solo at higher levels than that, which is where the problems come in.