Mezz Protection for All!

Sure. Give those melee characters the same control tools that Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators and Corruptors have available to them. Of course, that would pretty much remove any variety from the game and make every AT into a bland copy of every other. Which is kind of what this whole thread was about anyway.

And speaking of a lack of replies, the silence is quite deafening in response to the many posts in this thread pointing out how all of us have essentially no problem dealing with the 'OMG! Impossible!' status effect enemies while playing our squishy characters without status protection.

In fact, I noticed that you chose to ignore it completely when I called you out on your wild exaggeration that you can't solo a mission on Heroic without using a whole tray of breakfrees.

OK, I am seriously not doing this to try and say something snarky like 'lrn2play noob', so don't take it that way. I honestly cannot see how a Psi/Psi blaster can find Malta overwhelmingly difficult on Heroic. You'd have access to 2 knockback powers, 1 knockup AOE power, a ranged sleep, a ranged stun, and a ranged fear. On heroic where you would be facing nothing higher than a LT, you could completely lock down up to 3 enemies. Even if you got mezzed, under Defiance you have 3 ranged attacks you can use. Plus you have all that -rech in your attacks. For the most part, Malta have no resistance to Psi damage, while they do have good resistance to Smashing and Lethal. To be honest, Psi/Psi blaster vs. Malta on Heroic sounds like easy mode already to me. Certainly much easier than my AR/EM blaster, which I used to solo Crimson's Malta arc.

Beyond that, cherry picking one enemy group out of all the game to try and make your case that ALL characters should have status effect protection, doesn't really do much for boosting your argument.

Really? What mez ability does a Katana, Broadsword, Dual Blades or Fire Melee scrapper have?

They also fight in melee range, have higher inherent Threat values and attract a lot more agro. Your comparison falls flat on this point alone.

The soloing game is balanced around +0/x1 no bosses/AVs. Complaining that your Psi/Mental blaster can't solo +3/x8 mez-heavy boss-filled packs is foolishness. MOST builds can't solo +3/x8 Bosses-on Malta, at least without heavy IO investment. I know my Ice/Storm troller, Fire/Mental Blaster and WolfCrab Arachnos Soldier can't, and I got serious doubts my Claws/Regen scrapper, Fire/Fire Brute, or Ninja/FF mastermind could either (Three of the best soloing ATs in the game!). My BS/WP scrapper and SS/Shield Brute probably could if I got them more Defense IO bonuses but IOing out any build for the soft-cap could probably solo a lot of things they were never meant to- as it is, they can usually get a good start before the heavy -Def Malta tends to throw around starts landing and it slowly degrades into a mudhole stomping.

My Inv/EM can, but that's because Invuln is pretty much got the exact tools needed to deal with Malta and I sacrificed a lot of offense (No Build Up or Epic attack powers, IO emphasis on +Def frequently at the cost of damage) for more defense. It takes them longer then Conserve Power takes to recharge to clear an average x8 spawn. My Sonic/Kin can, but that's due to an AoE sleep they can fire off every 10 seconds that lasts for over a minute- sleep half a spawn, run away, sleep the other half and get to work- on TOP of 'lolKin.' (Seriously, Siren's Song is one of the most blatently overpowered soloing tools in the game, especially if you frankenslot it for Recharge, Range, Sleep, and Acc)

The problem isn't even the Mez protection- it's the fact that... it's a +3 8 man spawn of Malta. Even if you're immune to their stun guns and freezing bullets, that's still a lot of gun mowing you down. Without some good resistances underneath stellar defenses, a way to cripple that horde, or some fantastic damage output (or some combination of the three), that's going to kill you in a matter of seconds. Complaining a few IO'd out minmax'd outliers can solo that mess and you can't is completely asinine, especially when Devs have repeatedly stated the game is not balanced around soloing x8 spawns OR min-max IO builds in order to keep the game accessible to everyone, casual and hardcore alike.

Yeah, except he is complaining that he can't even solo a +0/x1, no boss spawn either without mez protection.

That's foolishness. I can solo +0/x1 anything short of mezzing EB's with my Emp/Psi defender. If he can't solo with his Psi/Ment Blaster Build Up and built-in countermeasures to keep mez from completely shutting him down, there's something wrong, that is for certain. It's just the part of the equasion sitting in front of the keyboard.

Actually, I don't see anything in Futurias last post that makes any claims about what difficulty setting he could or couldn't solo, just that he has enough trouble against malta that they are not worth soloing.

All of that aside - yes, barring EB's/AV's/GM's pretty much anything else in this game is soloable - but the question is HOW hard should you have to work to solo something and how much fun you find soloing with a given AT. If I have to burn through half a tray of inspirations every single mission just to solo certain mobs even at heroic I am at least going to avoid those mobs - if I have to do that with ENOUGH mob types that I will probably just avoid that AT/Powerset combination totally. Likewise - even if I can solo without to much pain at heroic I am only willing to STAY at that level for a certain amount of the game before I find that myself becoming bored with my advancement speed, as soloing at heroic starts to really bog down once you are in the 30's and only gets worse at L40.

Currently I find the soloability of defenders and to a certain extent corruptors to be sad at best, totally sucky at worst. The fact that other folks can stand soloing them is nice - but at this point I would accept anything that would improve this as I DO have some character concept that best fit a defender or corruptor but so far can't stand playing them. ONE thing that would improve things would be way to get at least a minimal amount of status protection.

I honestly don't see how adding a couple points of sleep or stun protection to a tier 3 or 4 pool power or to an IO would impact the value of defenders or corruptors in a group but it would give those of us who don't like to group a way to handle mobs that sleep, stun or hold without having to carry around trays full of nothing but break free's. Nor would doing something like this impinge on the position of scrappers, brutes or MM's as the kings of soloing, since 2-3 points of status protection is NOTHING compared to what melee AT's get and is even pretty weak compared to defiance, which allows blasters to still attack under any amount of control.

Probably, except for the robots, which now launch their poison gas missle pretty frequently. Also, robots- resist psi damage pretty heavily. Since I15, they've changed up some mob AI to make them use their attacks more. this means that where once you could kite to keep them at a specific range, now they just blast you with their mez whenever tehy feel like it. How long ago did you run that arc?

-shrugs- malta are malta, and MOST characters find them annoying. Thing is, there are several groups that I habitually avoid on squishies, not because I can't deal with them, but because they're jsut tedious to solo. Malta tops the list, but Carnies are there, along with Rikti and Rularuu (holds on Lt's, and massively high accuracy to boot.) It's not that it cannot be done, as you have proven. It's that, soloing without mez protection, there are far more groups that just aren't worth going up against.

What mez ability does a defender, controller, or corruptor have when they're held or stunned? The main problem with mez effects is that they cause a cascading failure: you can't fight back, you can't defend yourself, and the situation will always get worse when you're mezzed. Either you have a crutch (breakfree) or you tend to get overwhelmed and unable to do anything about it. Being helpless isn't heroic, or even fun.

My blaster fights in melee, and can pull aggro from all but the best tankers I've seen. I'm terrified of Marauder, because he comes after me. In dozens of fights against him, I've seen exactly ONE tank who could keep his attention the entire fight. Every other time, I see rocks flying at me. Having a higher inherent threat mod doesn't mean that you'll automatically be able to hold aggro when your teammates are putting out a healthy dose of damage. And having a lower threat mod doesn't make you safe from splash damage, damage from additional groups, or damage when your damage output simply overwhelms the tanker's taunt values.

Katana does have their Defense buff (ie. not getting hit) while Dual Blades actually has a lot of possible debuffs with their chains.

Doesn't fire armor have PBAOE patch of fire (that makes NPCs generally run away?) That's a form of soft control

On my blaster, it was before the AI changes. I've ran into the new, improved Malta on my bots mm since then though, and they were about the only enemy group that ever gave her pause. I believe I actually had to lower my difficulty off of Ruthless for them. I still don't see one enemy group as being even a remotely valid argument for adding status protection to every AT though. If everyone feels Malta are that much of an issue (and it seems from this thread that most do), then the right answer is for the devs to address this one specific group.

Fair enough. When I first went up against Carnies, I hated them too. But rather than get frustrated about it and throw up my arms in defeat, I looked at them as a problem to be solved and altered my tactics to deal with them. Now, they don't worry me too much at all. As you said, there are many groups out there that are easier to deal with, for those who find these to be too much of a challenge, or too frustrating to deal with. What is wrong with that? I just don't get why it is so much of a problem that there are a few (and they really are a minority) enemy groups that can be difficult for a solo player using certain AT's & powerset combinations. I certainly do not expect to be able to handle the same situations solo on my FF/Rad defender as on my fire/shield scrapper. It is extremely unrealistic to expect every AT and powerset combo to handle all content with the same ease, whether solo or on a team.

Another outlook I just don't get. Inspirations are designed to carry you through difficult or unusual situations, or just plain ol' bad luck. I really can't understand the apparent aversion to having to use an inspiration every once in a while. OK, I'm on a controller (or whatever AT) and because of bad luck, timing, whatever, I fail to neutralize the annoying enemy mezzer using my powers and I get mezzed. I pop a BF (if I have one) and get back to it. I personally don't find myself put in that position often enough to even make a point of carrying breakfrees on a squishy. But if I did, I would be sure to carry them. I make sure to carry greens on my shield scrapper because even with capped defense, with bad luck or enough enemies attacking at once, I may need them. I don't feel like a less adequate player because I might have to use an inspiration every once in a while.

Any fellow blapper gets points from me!

I've pulled agro plenty of times on my blaster too. That does not alter the overall fact that scrappers and tankers are expected to get a majority of the agro and are designed to fight in the thick of things. This is why they have defensive powers, including their status protection.

None of which are mezzes. Status effect=hard control. Stuns, sleeps, holds, fears are hard controls.

playing devils advocate but soft controls like slow and immob. and secondary buff/debuff effects do not really count as Mezzing powers.

/Signed.

QFT.

"Alien"

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

Except they have to actually get to the enemies to use theirs, so the point is invalid. Melee ATs have mez protection because otherwise they couldn't get into melee.

Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?

Well lets look at it from a historical perspective, in the context of CoH's.
In the early days of CoH's most of the time you could ONLY run a single toggle, this usually ment melee people had to choose between mez protection and any other protection. So...It was pretty fair in comparison to everyone else.

Fast forward abit and now you can have toggles stack, etc. My belief is that due to toggles dropping if you get mezzed ((non-combat ones do not anymore, so hardly a point.))
In this game Melee damage is FAR greater then ranged, if your toggles are down you will die as a melee'r in the latter game, again a generalization but you get my point.

As the game mechanics work now, toggles only get suppressed if you get mezzed, while not as bad as being dropped, you do lose a considerable amount of mitigation you may have from toggles.

Another thing to keep in mind is threat level. All Melee AT's have a MUCH higher threat level then the squishy ATs. This causes enemies to pay attention to those at's attacking them before others. In effect if melee'rs did not have mezz protection, they could not tank properly and would be faced with ALOT more mezzes then blasters/trollers/def/corr/etc.

Ranged AT's and others without mezz protection don't have it because they don't need it.
I survived quite well on my squishies, I learned how to handle mezzes, pull individual badies who would cause my problems, etc. Now I can use IO's to get high enough defense to pretty much null out the issue of mezzing in most cases.
((Carnies being a notable exception due to their mezzes being positionless, some others are like this but I do feel its a minority.))

Its just a matter of learning how the game works and finding a way around it. Everyone having mezz prot. would just make this fairly easy game even more trivial.

That's not a bad idea. While we're at it, we should totally buff tank damage while soloing. I mean, why should my tanker spend two minutes to kill an even-level spawn? It's not even a threat! Why should I suffer through watching these weaklings pick at my armor just because my damage is bad? It makes soloing painful and boring and I don't see why everyone else can plow through even-level minions at a crazy pace while I'm stuck whittling targets to death.


This is the arguement you're presenting, repackaged in another flavor. I'm sure you can see why the logic does not work. And just like a tanker's bad damage, there are options out there for those wanting mez on squishier toons.

You want to solo with mez protection, roll a toon that has a set that has mez protection. 13 of the 14 ATs have an option that grants them this- you want to play a Defender but hate getting held? Force Field, Sonic, or Traps defending is for you, my friend! Controllers get FF and Sonic. Corruptors get Sonic and Traps, Masterminds get Force Fields and Traps. Dominators have Domination. Only blasters are SOL, and they have Defiance and the ability to pretty much murder a difficult target at will, negating Mez problems from 95% of all enemy types (Tsoo and Malta, you carry breakfrees or just avoid them. If you want to complain about how you have to cherry pick mobs, you will want to complain to someone other then an Invuln tanker player of 16 issues, at least 5 of which required exactly that). Even then, you can still get Immobilize, Hold, Sleep, Taunt, Placate, and Stun Resistance or Protection from your power pools. These powers get in the way of your main build? No problem, that's why we get two- use one for your solo build, and one for your team build! Sure, getting Health, Acrobatics, Aid Self, and Assault on the same build is eight picks minimum and lock you in the Leaping travel pool, but many melee builds feel like they're locked into as many pool choices anyways- one of my favorite things about playing a squishier AT is that I don't feel anywhere near the need to go into the Fighting or Leaping pools just to perform my primary role better on top of Fitness for the ability to stay in a fight long enough to be sure it gets done.

Not everyone is challenged equally by solo content because City is balanced around team play and a variety of tools available to each player. Some tools work better in solo play, and giving some sets tools like Mez Resistance would completely break the game's balance. Giving Mez Resistance to a poor-performing pair like Psi/Mental or AR/Devices is almost fair. Getting Sonic/Energy or Ice/Elec blasters access to that same benefit would be nuts. You want to give my Sonic/Kin corrupter Mez protection? Thank you, you just got her past the only hurdle keeping her from soloing many of the game's AVs. Getting mez resistance to the squishy ATs would be catastrophic for game balance, even just in a soloing environment- you think most of our market recipes come from people running full teams of 8, or Fire/Kins milking Freakshow missions? You have options. You have choices. You can see what every power does in both your primary and secondary power sets at character creation. If you do not have mez protection and you want it dearly, and you do not pick a set that can give it at character creation, it's your own damn fault.

Oh please, anyone can run into melee. It's very easy to do with our without any sort of stealth power or mez protection. My Corruptor spends most of her time in melee because that's where she's best. The only time she'll die is when she's mezzed. It's a magic bullet.

She can solo +0/x8 easily against groups that don't mez much (like Council), but I have to drop the difficulty significantly against anything with a lot of them (like Rikti) or else breakfrees turn into a crutch, consistently being the only thing keeping me alive in every fight.

This is why I call things with a lot of mezzes "difficult". It's not that they're hard enemies, they just have a cheap shot that I absolutely have to respond to with a crutch. Use your crutch or die. That doesn't happen with anything else in the game.

There you go again... Making stuff up. "Everyone" does not find it "tough and annoying" to deal with enemy mezzers on AT's without status protection. Did you miss every single one of the posts in this thread where that was stated? Or are you simply ignoring all of those to be stubborn?

Nearly every one of your posts so far in this thread have contained wild exaggerations or flat out false information. Yet you feel it appropriate to advocate an across-the-board change to a basic game mechanic?

Bottom line is this: Your idea is terrible, it lacks any merit whatsoever and should be consigned to the garbage heap of eternity.

That's not really true. The majority of powersets that had mez protection toggles could run them concurrently. Several powersets had penalties baked in to running that toggle, such as Invulnerability's Unyielding Stance rooting you in place, and some had to run multiple toggles, like Firey Aura (and it didn't get sleep protection without a Burn patch). The only powersets which had exclusive toggles were Stone and Dark Armors.

Not being able to solo on x8 is not a basis to ask for status protection.

OMG! I can't just mash buttons and win! The game is broken and the devs hate me!

Yes, because any part of a Rad/Dark corruptor is just mashing buttons. No, the problem I have with it is that no amount of smart play can get me around it. I absolutely have to resort to the crutch.