The Unrealized Power of the Defender

Not really, I moderate myself so I don't get banned. I could be a real ***hole if I were so inclined.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Did you just state an unverifable claim to intelligence on an internet forum ?

I guess so.

Question: Deviance IQ or Ratio IQ ?
Feel free to take the time to look it up if you need to.

The mere fact that you thing this is something to even post gives more insight into your 'intelligence' than an old and unverifiable number.

hahaha, actually yes.....

in fact, there are alot of recent thread posters posting Titles that arent entirely related or misleading to what is really a petty complaint about the AT..... but those Titles DO draw attention, and i think if the OP had nothing to contribute to the Defender community, they're just looking to be attention *horz.....

Rigel Kent is right about Diversification. EXACTLY the reason why i specifically run Twin Defenders, and not any other AT's, cuz ive tried it all already. Controllers DO come close but i find the mag of Defender's primary more important than a Controller's. But thats just me. Anyhow, i feel Defender's are the most diversified out of all the AT's. Really, they can do it ALL, and ive proven that w/ 2 defenders over and over, in different powersets. From tanking and leading in on AV's & GM's, to keeping a team alive for multiple Masters (and yes, ive got all 3 Masters on my current set as the main defs), and everything else under the sun. Ive got 2 defender twin sets that can take down GM's around 10-12min by themselves(Rad/Sonics & Cold/Sonics). With my Cold/Sonic twins, i took a frikkin tentacle off of Lusca w/o assistance. Lemme see see two other AT's try that one. Ive re-worked the Cold/Ice's builds to be more single target so they can tackle big game by themselves too....

IMO, the big difference maker is the mag of the Debuffs in their primaries. You'll see a big difference when big game hunting or general team survival w/ your buffs. Defenders ARE NOT underpowered, nor are they pidgeon-holed for one thing only....

The All-Defender Hami Raid hasn't succeeded yet. I think that in the last attempt we took out a couple of mitos--enough for proof-of-concept, at least--but people ran out of time, and participation dropped off below the minimum we needed (around 23-25 defenders, we estimated).

There was also an effort at one point to test what happened if you managed to confuse Hamidon, but we never achieved critical confusion mass.

Those are a bit esoteric, but they're still hurdles that haven't been overcome.

Actually I have. On any given day ending in the letter "Y".

Who would have thunk people figured out the force multiplcation theory after only 5 or so years of playing this game?

Welcome to 2004. Enjoy your stay.

I do not believe either of those have been soloed, although I'd be interested if you know of it.

If only English had parenthesization: to be more accurate, I should have said that FF/Dark Blast "provides no defense debuffs or resistance debuffs to the enemies." I assumed that since I was speaking of force multipliers the parentheses were obvious from context.

Obviously, FF provides defense to the team, but it doesn't act as a force multiplier for attacking the enemies the way that every other defender primaries and some defender secondaries do (i.e., increasing your damage or chance to hit). Also, since any defender can take the Leadership pool, its presence on a character says nothing about the qualities of the primary and secondary powersets.

Perhaps more relevant to this discussion is the currency of your experience with these powersets. Things are very much different now than they were in the past. If you provided 306% defense with your Dispersion Bubble and Maneuvers, I'm not sure how anything could have possibly hit you when you threw out a blast. But I have to admit I don't remember how defense worked back then.

What you can't do as a defender when playing on a large team is attack a large group first, or do anything that attracts aggro to you alone unless you have some kind of mitigation. You have to time your attacks properly while aggro is focused on the tanker, or other members of the team. So that means using area effect attacks is generally a bad idea for defenders, unless you have that mitigation (the knockdown in Freezing Rain, for example) or someone else is a bigger aggro magnet.

I started playing around I3 or so, and played defenders all the time, starting with Storm/Electrical and Empathy/Psychic Blast. I soloed them frequently the whole five years (it took two years to reach 50 on one, and four on the other). Though Empathy is kind of slow to solo, it's certainly possible. I can easily solo +1/x4 spawns with the Storm defender, and that's not a particularly spectacularly tricked out build (more is not harder, just time consuming).

Just to clarify something:

On a sizeable team, that mitigation will ALWAYS be there, either in the form of control, debuff, tanks, or just dispersed mitigation (which is what all-blaster teams will do, rather than one take the alpha, the team disperses it across multiple parties).

Poor aggro management on your part is never a reason not to utilize an AOE attack as a Defender. Even a newbie Fire blaster, loaded with AOEs, soon figures out how to time it so that things die rather than drawing aggro.

People are entitled to a pacifistic toon come hero in my eyes and it's upto the people around them (that they come in play with) to be satisifed or unsatisfied with them as a team mate. Some players need their own personal healbot so you'll never be short of some mates no matter what route you take.

I find teams where you can't squeeze a shot off, albeit AoEs, Debuffs or Controls alarming. I have characters that do have to react fast, that fast that, should I be locked into the cast time a clearmind buff I'd be too late. The damage I'd deal would not be worth the loss of someones character and I proactively buff, other players liking fun and go extra nuts. My vigilance (could be choosing not to blast incase) is to support their fun. Some people are happy doing that all the time. I am not.

To me not having time to squeeze attacks out is often down to being in a team that is a mess. Team dynamically clueless. Given the strength of your buffs and the flexibility of support people may feel that they can go nuts. You may get a sense that they're enjoying themselves and so enjoy your character for it. That maybe where your enthusiasm comes from.

Teams could be good enough to cope with the support of any single defender balanced by their primary and secondary but we know that's not always true. Whether or not you enjoy the fact that other players can be manic with you is down to you and in those teams you can well be offering a lot cos as eggs is eggs the moment you went to blast something someone gets mullered.

Other people can afford to attack with their defenders because the other players either have solid builds or a more solid team dynamic that doesn't compromise eachother badly. Some people will attack expecting other players to not need them that badly.

I am a big believer in concepts and no cookie cutting. I like to see certain powers on defenders. When I don't see them it's not always the end of the world. It is when a defender has powers and I don't see them in use then the end of the world is nigh! (actually rockin the aura does my head in).

You weren't chucking a blast in within the first few secs of the teams fight duration was you? Because that's when it is most likely that not everything would be controlled.

I don't have a source or link for it, I just seem to remember something about that happening when the TF bug that allowed the Phalanx and Arachnos Elite to spawn as level 49 was in effect early this issue, but that might not count.

Of course, I could be wrong. I'm not stupid enough to think I know everything about CoH, even if I've been here for a while now.

If less than 3 people do it I want to know because then I would be thoroughly impressed.

STF Duo report

DOH
lmao

Colour me not impressed (although it's cheeky) as that's between the 17th of September and the 30th of September and prior to this patch note:Issue 16 - 30 September 2009 [Live]

Tasks

• Added teleport protection to the Mitochondria in the Lady Grey Task Force.
• Level 54 Archvillains / Heroes should now appear in Task / Strike Forces again.
• Added restrictions to prevent player difficulty from affecting Task / Strike Forces.

I guess its possible they beat it without facing level 54 AVs, I hadn't thought of the difficulty settings thing when I first read it. Now I am sad.

An Ill/Rad Troller on Pinnacle has soloed the STF. Duos have happened a few times.

No one I know of has ever pulled off the LRSF solo.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I was asking a Forcefield defender that.

It's still cheeky

Evidence of time and dates? I know of two players who (one must of been an Ill/Rad) who got as far as LR but that's it.

I would think that a FF Defender's Defense would actually be just as high, if not higher, than mine, and thus wouldn't have any problem opening up with AoEs first on large teams.

Soloing the STF? I'm kind of skeptical on that claim. And it isn't soloing it to be using a glitch like '-1 to level' incorrectly spawning the final AVs... I've personally been in a trio of the STF and haven't attempted a duo at all but soloing... I'm not buying that.