Damage output?

Hm, well, not sure what to say here.

I've been playing my FF/Nrg Defender (many of you will be familiar with my prior commentary about his defensive attributes) to some success. Now L39, he's actually become fairly survivable (due to pools more than his own powers, mainly). The problem now is that he can't do enough damage. It may be that he's had this problem all along, but I've seen it rather more blatantly tonight.

I was playing my World War 2 arc below, and came up against the Elite Boss, Catburglar. It was actually a pretty fair fight, except that I couldn't do any damage. I'd get him down to about half health, using an entire tray of blues in the process, and he'd heal back to full health. That was WITH Sands of Mu and the Nemesis Staff in use. I hate to think how little I'd have done if I didn't have those.


This leads me back to the seemingly endless debate about Defender damage output.

Certainly, it seems that my Defender has too little. Even stocking the tray half full of reds, half of blues, I did too little. However, simply boosting the damage thorugh the set could be unbalancing when it's paired with something like Sonic, that increases damage output (either directly or by reducing the target's mitigation).

If I had been able to carry on fighting, I may eventually have worn him down (unless he got that one hit in, as he was able to do over 800 damage in a single hit, against my 900 health - which is ludicrously unbalanced, devs!).

Certainly, Defenders are using too much endurance for their offense. That should be addressed. I think a damage boost across the board is needed, but I'm not sure how much is appropriate, or how it should be implemented. Any ideas?

What is the custom EB's sets ?
And at what settings ?

Haven't we done this enough times, Ultimo?

Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize

FYI I won't get into Ulitmo's issues.
After running the first mission in that arc (That is the right one?) the boss you are talking about is a custom character Claws/Ninjitsu (I think caltrops, defense, hide and a heal).

Yes, Claws/Ninjitsu (based on one of my Stalkers).

I appreciate that this has been brought up before, but not by me. Snide comments will not foster any kind of productive discussion, and I ask that you refrain from flaming and think about the issue I'm raising.

The issue was that I was facing a foe I could never defeat under normal conditions. That the game allows this to happen is a problem, as I see it. Note also that the fact it was a custom foe is somewhat beside the point. This Defender would have an even HARDER time taking on many of the regular EBs and AVs on his own. In the past, he has proved uncapable of defeating a Rikti Bomb on his own (though, that was at much lower level).

The lack of damage output has been discussed at length before, I'm just bringing it up again following one further example of the issue.

And what powers from Ninjitsu does he have?

No.

So your custom EB Claw/Nin stalker you cannot beat? This does not seem to be a problem to me, you made him that tough and your complaining that defenders are too weak. That means nothing to me and everyone else.

To you bomb you need to give us more detail then, I cannot defeat it at lower levels. A lot of ATs cannot solo a bomb at lower level of "X-1".

So for your calling on buffing it was brought up rationale answers and you just repeat and spin around changing this and that not listening.

Ninja Reflexes, Danger Sense, Hide, Caltrops, Kuji-In Sha(Heal) are the ones that I saw while fighting him. So 26% defense to all positions and a 600hp heal. And FYI it is a Boss not a EB.

How much do yall want to bet that Ultimo is still using a build that any of us would consider total garbage for soloing?

Same old tired line of thinking. Build for soloing or quit trying to solo. Those are your choices. Don't like them? Tough.

Ok, again, people are fixating on the example. I only described the situation so you'd have context, a reason why I'm posting this. The point is that the AT seems to have a problem doing damage. I started the thread to discuss THAT.

Rush Bolt:
The two threads you refer to were both about Defender DEFENSES. Comments about offense did come up, but that was not the point of those threads. I've commented on this in other people's threads. People have offered advice regarding defenses for my character, not offense.

Your first post wasn't a flame, but it was a snide comment. I was just trying to nip that in the bud so we can stay on topic and productive.

I'm very prepared to learn. However, I will admit I'm not easily convinced my own experiences are not happening. As I said, that situation is not exactly "normal" but it is something the game allows for, and as such should be accessible to everyone. Either way, it was merely the catalyst for the thread, not the subject of it.

ANYTHING the game provides as a challenge to overcome must be accessible by everyone, regardless of AT or powers. It makes no difference if it's PC or Dev content. If something can't be overcome, then there's a problem somewhere. I concluded the issue was the offensive capability of the class, since at it's base level, it could not overcome this and other threats (I refer again to the Bombs). Further, it's been brought up by others before.
It was a while ago (somewhere in the 20s as I recall) that I was trying to defeat a rikti bomb and couldn't. It's also happened against other foes (such as Black Scorpion and such, though in those cases, they typically did so much damage that my damage was not an issue. Either way, this is all beside the point.

Mylia:
He spawned as an EB when I played, and was healing for over 1100 each time he used the heal.

Bill:
My build is still kind of beside the point. There's no build I know of using FF/Nrg that increases damage output. The only thing I might have that I don't is Assault, but those extra 2 points of damage are kind of irrelevant (I know, I exaggerate, but the point is it doesn't add much).
Either way, the fact remains that there seems to be considerable dissatisfaction with the damage output of Defenders.


Again, it's been discussed before that there's a problem with the damage output of Defenders, particularly those with no immediate buffs (eg. Kinetics) or debuffs (eg. Radiation). I'm just trying to start some discussion.

My contribution was that the discrepancy might start to be alleiveiated to some degree by reducing the endurance cost of the attacks. As it is, Defenders use roughly twice the endurance others do to inflict the same amount of damage. This means they run out sooner, having done only half the damage necessary. If they used less endurance, they could attack longer, doing the necessary damage, just over more time.

My question is, should the actual amount of damage be increased, and how much?

I feel like this should be said here:

EBs were never intended to be soloable. WAI.

EDIT: Also this has to be said: if the defenders (or some defender builds, rather) are the only AT this applies to, they appear to be the best balanced AT in the game.

/threadjack

Build and tactics aside, fact remains that defender secondaries work far from the "regular" ratio of efficiency for shared powers which at release pretty much was 75% across the board - except for defenders, getting shafted both in damage/endurance spent compared to this norm from their secondary and seeing controllers getting full "bang for the buck" for some powers in the shared primary. This has shifted even further since buffs to blaster damage, and also includes corruptors to some extent.

Personally, I consider it unfair that those with the weakest blasts also suffers the greatest endurance costs compared to any other shared powersets. Changing these across the board is easily accomplished with a straight multiplier to all endurance costs for defenders (End mod: (0.65/1.125)/0.75) = 0.7704) and corruptors (End mod: (0.75/1.125)/0.75) = 0.88889) respectively, and would in my opinion help improve quality of life for soloing defenders. Plinking away at a hard target would still require the same amount of attacks - but only costing a normalized amount of endurance.

Secondary effects may be great in some powersets (yeah, sonic) but the only factor giving actual rewards in this game is straight damage, which also is the primary purpose of a blast. That is why I consider it reasonable to normalize against that power aspect alone. Things may be functional as is, but am I the only one wanting the same efficiency per endurance point spent for my defender as other archetypes with shared sets get?

I have to agree with Bill here. This whole problem could be solved by grabbing and using a Shivan temp; you're trying to solo an Elite Boss with a subpar soloing AT (generally), set combo (more specifically), and build (very specifically). Defenders are force multipliers and/or team supporters. My Sonic/Elec Blaster, which can solo AVs, has a hard time tanking the ITF; does that mean it's the game's fault? My Rad/Ice Defender, which can solo AVs, has a hard time farming the wall; does that mean it's the game's fault?

I understand that your greater point isn't this one specific instance of your FF/Nrg vs. this specific EB; your point is that Defender damage, for the AT as a whole, is underperforming. However, you then state that both Kin/ and Rad/ characters don't have this problem. Therefore, the problem isn't with the AT as a whole. The "problem" is with specific powerset combos.

Within each AT, there are powerset combos (aided by smart IO slotting) which will allow you to "break the rules" of those ATs. If there weren't, Silverado wouldn't be soloing Giant Monsters with a Blaster. Iggy Kamikaze wouldn't be soloing the Master of the ITF following RWZ Challenge rules. Hell, I'm willing to bet either one of them could come up with a FF/Nrg build which could solo EBs with relative ease.