Peacebringer: Stated versus Apparent Design

Joe,

Would you agree that increasing the PB damage modifiers would have absolutely zero affect on those that choose to build toward control now?

I could be a claws scrapper, take darkness mastery and slot for KB and dump every slot I could into the APP powers and call that control based by your statements.

But it would still be a damage based archetype, correct?

I think Peacebringers are a bit too diluted - they need a clear focus.

I did an ITF a couple of days ago, I took my SoA Huntsman, everyone on the team said 'Yay a Huntsman'.
Another player turned up with a Peacebringer, the leader said 'Errgh, do you have somthing else?'
Nobody said 'Yay a Peacebringer'

So a Peacebringer only really benfits a team of 3-4.

Any larger team and its likely to have a tank/brute/crab/scrapper or enough defenders or controllers to not need a tank and enough blaster/doms/SoA/firekins ect to not need a second rate blaster.

As much as I dislike the whole notion that PB's are damage dealers only, I'd like to see this thread stay on topic and the perception of PB's as gimp stay in other threads. This thread is quite an interesting discussion, revealing more about the different players who play PB's rather than PB's themselves.

Like Joe, I'll never say no to an increase in PB's overall damage, but it seems to me that when the Devs designed Kheldians, WS's were designed as a excellent soloist Control/Damage AT and PB's were designed as a wonderfully adept team-player Mitigation/Aggro-Magent/Damage AT. I therefore think that while increasing the damage output of PB Human-form attacks is definitely a step in the right direction, it is just the first step, and the overall direction is not and should not be focused on pure damage alone, survivability both in solo and team situation is quite important.

I must admit I'm finding the notion that the defense debuffs present in PB attacks are enough to push anyone into thinking that PBs are anything more than damage dealers with a few extra tricks.

Every broadsword attack has a 7.5% defense debuff on it. Same for katana. Less than the PB attacks? Sure. But still stackable. Are we are calling those two sets debuffers?

Now IF half of the defense debuff was nuked and an appropriate amount of dam-res debuff was added in its place, I'd probably change my tune. Or if each blast had a different debuff attached. Either way.

As it stands, I build for hitting 95% of the time as soon as I can after SOs. I may be in the minority there, but I don't see a bunch of NPCs packing the kind of defense that the arguably overkill to the point of silliness PB defense debuffs would be needed to hit regularly.

I guess I need some more info, because I'm still failing to see how a PB is anything but a damage dealer with a situational tank form.

Knock = Mitigation
Defense Debuffs = More efficient termination of foes

Claws scrappers get 100% knock with both focus and shockwave.

Bill, nuking the Def debuff in favor of a damres debuff is exactly what I would like to see happen. Nail on the head. It would increase our damage by roughly the same amount as increasing the damage modifier, and would have the added benefit of decreasing those resistances we PBs are always banging our heads against.
EDIT - It would also increase our value to a team, allowing us to be off-debuffers just like we're off-tankers now. I've never liked -def debuff and never will. enemies are easy enough to hit as it is.

With regard to Broadsword and Katanna, 7.5% defense debuff is nothing to sneeze at, but keep in mind that Gleaming Blast, Glinting Eye, Solar Flare, Dawn Strike and Bright Nova Blast all debuff defense at 18%, which is more than double anything the weapon sets have to offer. Devoting just two slots of common IO's to defense debuff at level 50 brings that amount up to (if my math is right for a change) 36.5%.

For comparison, a Rad Defender's Radiation Infection debuffs defense (unslotted) at 31%, and a /Rad Controller's Radiation Infection is debuffing at 25%. So, while not superior to those two, it's about as comparable debuff-wise as the damage is comarable to that of a scrapper or blaster.

That's just under half of the PB's arsenal that debuffs defense, with the other five debuffing at 9%, which is admittedly not all that much higher than 7.5.

The problem - playing devil's advocate with myself - with nuking the defense debuff in favor of resistance debuff is invention sets. There are two IO's I can think of that are commonly slotted in PB attacks from def debuff sets, both of them procs - Achilles' Heel's chance for damres debuff and Touch of Lady Grey's chance for neg energy damage. Some sets like Touch of Lady Grey and Undermined Defenses can give +damage and AOE defense, and some folks may have those slotted as well.

While respecs have been awarded before for IO conflicts, I worry that it's unlikely that Castle would force people to divest themselves of an entire class of IO's.

Oh, well. To get back to your suggestion, if you haven't guessed by now, while I will disagree with your view of a Peacebringer's role, I will happily /sign off on an increase to the PB human form damage scalar, with the added suggestion that the smashing component of our attacks be removed, making our attacks 100% energy damage.

And I do agree with this:

The is nothing the make Peacebringers desible to a big team - the are the TF leaders girl friend of Archtypes.

Eh. Maybe English isn't Star_Seer's first language. I understood what he meant, even if it did take a minute.

And my experience with Peacebringers on TF's verses Warshades is comparable to yours, but then I"m not the best Warshade driver, either.

Great post. Th reason I want a human form buff are silly, and selfish. I spend a ton of time on my costumes, and I want to see them.

This is well written, and thought out. I do hope Castle takes a look at it. I feel that the desires of the PB community have been ignored for a long time. The excuse that "Epic" meant epic story were blown out of the water with the introduction, and power level of the VEAT.