Mezz Protection for All!

Every AT can complete +0 x0 pretty easily. Mine can all complete +2 x0 with what I term "minimal difficulty" (very few deaths). More than that? I don't know.

No. I think tankers who are IO'd should be able to, with some difficulty, take on that kind of map, if only because if they're unable to, they cannot fulfill their team role. Tanks, and that's and AT I do have a lot of play experience with, take a long long long time to mature. For most of their career they are difficult to solo if only because their access to actual damage powers is so level limited, coupled with their lower (not low, lower) damage modifier.

That they are able to fight at increased difficulties does not mean more super. I guarantee you my trollers, and not just my fire kin, are taking on similar challenges and beating them FASTER. I don't have much of a problem with this.

Because of their team role Tankers, and to a lesser extent Scrappers, are able to take quite a beating because that is their role on teams. They can do damage, and I like that they do, but tankers need to reliably be able to mitigate an alpha even against damage types that they have no reliable means of protection from.

But let me throw that question back at you:

Do you think a team of 8 tankers should be able to complete a STF as quickly as a team of 8 defenders or controllers?

The first thing I do with my fire/NRG is run upto them and send them flying with a punch. By the time they stand up from that, its just in time for them to fall down.

Correct, IO sets and their bonuses are there to help characters deal with challenges. However, the devs decided that Mezes should be dealt with by using resistance and not protection. Except for KB, which doesn't really have a duration to mitigate, only a magnitude, which is why there are -KB enhancements and bonuses, and not KB resistance enhancements and bonuses. That one is more of a game mechanics issue.

You might consider investing in some Stun resistance if Longbow stuns are giving you that much trouble.

Perhaps this was you and perhaps it wasn't but I seem to recall someone loudly and repeatedly insisting that hover was just fine and continuously buttressing their argument by pointing at the devs decisions for hover and fly. That thread ended humorously when it turned out that the devs had re-evaluated their decision on fly.

Now while I find myself agreeing with your position on this thread. I can't agree with the reasoning you are using to reach it. Especially since it has been wrong in the past.

Ah, so your standard is that for two slots a squishy should have greater greater mez protection than a meleer gets from their powersets.
Gotcha.

You do realize that the magnitudes and effects of KB powers, and the powers that grant protection from them are mechanically set up very differently from other mezzes, yes?
If an IO that granted non-KB mez protection was added it would almost certainly grant magnitude 1 (or 2 at most) protection and most likely be unique. If it was added at all.


From Red Tomax: KB resistance reduces the magnitude, not the duration of KB, so melee sets with KB protection actually negate far higher amounts of KB than any other status effect, and 12 points of KB protection on a squishy has less much effect than the 10 points plus resistance that melee powersets grant.

Thinking that a mez protection IO for anything other than KB would grant comparable magnitude implies a lack of understanding of game mechanics and balance.

Yes, I agree with this. The variance between 0x4 and 2x8 is pretty high.

What broken and non-existent "meleer" has less than 4 mag mez protections? Tankers get 13, and everyone else gets 10, and they get it to all mezzes, not just one or two, for the cost of a single power.

My standard is that for two slots (one for stun, one for hold, just to be clear here) a squishy should get to have a gimped and limited version of mez protection that defence sets far outshine. Even those sets available to some squishies that have mez protection still outstrip the proposed IO solution.

The opposition to this proposition is starting to look rather irrational.

Given that they are played by a decent player who knows the AT and uses all the tools at their disposal? I think it should be fairly close, yes. I don't think that certain AT's should be able to completely ignore mez, while it cripples another.

Mez protection isn't an I win button, and anyone who says it is is just as guilty of exaggeration as anyone else. Mez effects in this game are a terrible mechanic: taking something out of the fight completely for a length of time. Controllers and Dominators both have primary control sets, and both have serious contenders for strongest all-around builds. When used against players, mez is just as absurd. Melee types get a free pass, though. That doesn't make mez effects less important, just means that the characters who already have low personal mitigation, can have their ability to fight or run cut off arbitrarily.

As for the team of 8, that isn't mez protection, it's buff/debuff. Which the devs have mentioned as a bad mechanic, and one that isn't going to be changed anytime soon. SHOULD stacking buffs and debuffs be changed? Probably. WILL it? Probably not soon.

What happens if the devs tomorrow figure out a way to change buffs and debuffs to not stack to absurd levels? Will that team of 8 defenders still be able to tear through content? Stacking buffs and debuffs are an aberration. I wish I could find that post with a redname saying so.

But yes. I think that baseline, a well-built character using all the powers at their disposal should have roughly the same performance at SO level. And I think tht when comparing 2 different characters, both fully IO'd out, they should still deliver similar performance. Mez protection for every AT, be it buyable as a power or as an IO, would help to narrow the gap, for a small opportunity cost or powers or slots. (That's what I'd be willing to give up, same as certain melee sets need to use a slot or power picks to gain KB protection- the choice between picking up that power/ IO slot or picking something else.)

This. ^^

The question is still just how bad is it. Some are saying its crippling others are saying you can ignore it.

Then should all AT's have similar performance levels on teams as well, and not just solo? And if that's the case, how do you bump scrappers up, add huge non-stacking debuffs to IO's as well? Adding mez protection in to IO pools "because scrappers get it" is a huge slippery slope.

That's the problem that people don't seem to be seeing. yes, squishies are not as good solo, but scrappers are not as good on teams. If squishies are as good solo as they are on teams, wouldn't scrappers and to a lesser extent tankers be totally unwanted on teams? I mean on high performance teams they're already pretty unwanted.

Just so I hope everyone knows where I am, I don't think you should ignore it, but I don't think every challenge solo for a squishy AT that performs extremely well on a team should be negligible either.

What aspect of Hover's previous design are you referring to? The fact that it totally negated KB, or its slower that running speed?

The KB issue was a bug. I agreed with the Dev's fix for that.

The Speed issue was a non issue for me. I never used Hover for a travel power.

My stance was that I didn't think that Hover's speed needed to be changed, but I wasn't going to complain if it was changed.

My stance here is, I don't think that squishies need any mez protection since they multiple tools to deal with mezzing foes that most Meleers do not have.

A few points of mez protection is not the line between "need Tanker" and "don't need Tanker". A Tanker will always have higher health than a squishy. A Tanker will always have higher resistances and defences. And a Tanker will always have more mez protection, even with a few IOs added to the mix. Most importantly, the Tanker will always have better aggro management tools than any squishy.

And Scrappers are just fine on teams. A team of Scrappers is a terror to behold.

A secondary issue nobody seems to be interested in addressing is the degree to which squishies *ALREADY* trespass on melee territory late game, thanks to the huge number of defense IO set bonuses. Not only do these provide enormous damage mitigation, but they also provide a layer of avoidance against mezzes. The survivability difference between squishies and melees is already arguably too small at the extreme challenge/extreme power end of the spectrum. IO's dont provide nearly as many options for melees to infringe on squishie territory by gaining buff/debuff or control abilities they formerly lacked. This may be a significant balance argument against adding mez protection to squishies beyond what's already available - it's about the only thing left that melees get that squishies don't, that and a health bonus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eiko-chan Most importantly, the Tanker will always have better aggro management tools than any squishy.

Oh really? Go make a Plant Controller/Dominator and tell me if you even need a Tank after Lv8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eiko-chan A team of Scrappers is a terror to behold.

That's not saying much because so is any super-team of squishies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jabbrwock A secondary issue nobody seems to be interested in addressing is the degree to which squishies *ALREADY* trespass on melee territory late game, thanks to the huge number of defense IO set bonuses. Not only do these provide enormous damage mitigation, but they also provide a layer of avoidance against mezzes.

Shhhhhh, you be quiet there, we don't need the Devs knowing all our secrets now!

Castle is quite aware of the situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba Castle is quite aware of the situation.

As long as the game is balanced around SO's, I'm not worried, hence those little smiley icons I put in my post.

Scrappers do perform well on teams, just not every team. Blasters may have higher damage, but most of them aren't going to be in the middle of the fight when fulcrum shift goes off. Blasters make rather bad targets for the AoE sonic debuff, while scrappers and tanks are perfect. And I brought up the stacking buffs and debuffs just because of that argument. It's a bad mechanic, the devs are aware it's a bad mechanic. You really can't use it to keep another bad mechanic in the game.

I honestly think of mez as the sapper problem. Way back when, sappers weren't limited to one per spawn solo. It used to be possible to run into a spawn of 3 minion-level sappers in a malta mission. Which meant that, no matter how well you played, no matter how perfect your strategy, you were rolling dice and seeing if you won. If they hit you, you got to do, well, absolutely nothing. No END means no toggles, no offense, and no way to get away. It really wasn't fun: it was doable with certain builds, but massive END drain has been dialed back because it's frustrating and unfun. No more multiple sapper spawns.

Now, with the situation above, everyone got to experience the frustration equally: scrappers and tankers were just as prone to it as squishies. I understand that mez is a weakness for squishies, and supposed to give them a challenge. But it's a huge, glaring weakness. It isn't Kryptonite, which pops up once in a while, it's being deathly allergic to water: common, debilitating, and not very much fun to deal with every single second.

You are vastly overstating the difference on a team between a scrapper and say, a defender or controller. But ignoring that -

Stacking buffs/debuffs exist and there are no plans to get rid of them in the game at large. Even if they are eliminated for GR, that's still two other whole freaking games from 1 - 50 where stacking buffs and debuffs exist.

So I'll ask you again:

There's a huge gap between what a scrapper brings to a team and waht a defender/controller brings to the team. WOuld you want to narrow that gap if you introduced complete mez protection, even up to mag 4 mez protection for all squishies? If you don't, are you just going to say "They're close enough to not introduce that mechanic to scrappers."

To which I say to the solo mechanic "They're close enough not to matter very much."

Seriously, this question only really really matters if you're soloing on anything above x2 or +2. You're not going to get much sympathy if you're asking it to be easier to min/max on characters that are already capable of some pretty rediculous performance by min/maxers.