Damage output?

If we allow that the AT is to solo 25% slower, shouldn't they have 25% more endurance (or equivalent) so they can last long enough to go slower?

It generally takes fairly little time for any of my fully slotted, though not necessarily set IO slotted, Defenders to recover full endurance when not attacking. (This is generally by level 30+ or so.) Then the endurance usage of Assault becomes irrelevant at that point until combat starts again. Most missions consist of isolated battles in hallways interspersed with several large rooms of nearly non-stop combat. In practice i find this works out to either nearly continuous fighting where Assault would be optimal or combats with enough downtime in between to start at full endurance, making any endurance usage by Assault in between academic, so i tend to leave Assault toggled on even if it does reduce my theoretical efficiency.

QR

you're FF primary, that's not any damage assistance at all. That would be why you couldn't do a thing against the guy.

Say, traps? That'd tear up an EB. My traps/dark defender can solo game EBs, but that's with Insps

My two cents:

One of my SG-mates nearly broke his keyboard out of frustration trying to play a FF/NRG defender.

You can create some really broken enemies with the custom enemy maker in AE.

I like Arcana's idea of reducing END costs for defender secondaries. The additional debuffs relative to Blaster/Corruptor's primary attack debuffs just don't cut it. It does feel the Defender gets short changed somehow. Buffing damage seems like the "easiest" way to buff the class where the primaries vary too much. Also when you have the Corruptor class, which is a re-working of a Defender, the idea of "Defender damage = Corruptor Damage - Scourge" doesn't seem too out of line with the changes to Khelds, Blasters, Stalkers, and Dominators.

Here's the thing about Defenders: The class is showing it's age and by that I mean the idea of a "pure support" character. It's nice to be the force multiplier and I've heard the lament of "We need a Healer" more times than I care to remember, but I think there are more people who want to be more "Proactive" than "Reactive" in their gameplay. Sure being able to buff is nice, but the feeling that your attacks amount to no more than a ranged taunt is kind of a buzzkill.

Just going by the inherent: It's inherent is too situational, it requires a team and that team to perform poorly and even then the utility of the inherent is questionable even then. You could leverage Defiance 1.0 although it require a lot of skill to do, Vigilance... not so much.

I have a some questions for those still following this:

Could you do what "Repeat Offenders" do with a team of Corruptors built along the same lines?

When GR comes out and mixed teaming (ATs if not faction) is commonplace, will there still be a place for a Defender if you can get a Corruptor?

To be honest I would like to make the defender more... defensive or at be able to self buff to a degree. Something that doesn't make the defender the automatic "weakest link" in team PVP. Yes, the Defender can make the team fairly awesome but can be taken out almost as an afterthought at times.

Go nuts... Turn PFF into something other than a "phase, but not really". How about the idea of getting rid of "only affecting self" for "-9999% damage" similar to what happened to rage. They'd at least be able to provide teaming buffs or debuffs.

Sometimes progress requires the slaying of sacred cows.

r u callin me a cow?

I really like the idea of turning PFF into a major damage debuff instead of only Affecting Self. With a few qualifiers.

It would also have to neutralise Knockback though, Force Bolting with PFF up seems too good.

I'm not too sure about mezzes either, should they get reduced duration through the PFF?
Having a FF/Rad/Dark being able to stun a boss and his minions with Oppressive Gloom and Cosmic Burst with their PFF up all the time is too much.

It would have to apply its debuff to Sands of Mu vet power. Using this during the Rage crash isnt a killer, but using it with +67% Defence is out of balance.

It would have to neutralise Dispersion Bubble. The team oriented FF-er shouldnt be able to run around with their PFF up without impunity.

Come to think of it, I'm not really sure what you should allow through. Just debuffs maybe? Even that could be overpowered. The more I think about the details, the less I like this idea.

Just imagine Mike, PFF that you can "act" through + Repulsion Field.

You'd be the ultimate team saver by running all over like a pinball knocking everyone all over. *drools*

I definitely think you're on to something, Raithnor.

I've played a FF Defender who was softcapped to Ranged/AoE and Psi and at about 38% vs Melee, and I've got to say I loved the combination of medium-low damage and medium-high defence.

It wasnt overpowered or underpowered, it's a very common concept for superheroes, and it was fun to play. Unfortunately, I had to get to the mid 40s and spend millions to realise it.

I wouldn't take away PFF as it stands - its a pretty unique game mechanic that forces you to make decisions. I'd maybe add some more personal protection into some of the other FF powers, eg +Melee Def in Repulsion Field and +Ranged/AoE into Force Bubble.

I have always viewed Defenders as the flip-side of Blasters much as Tankers are the flip-side of Scrappers. So my biggest issues playing defenders have not been about damage per-se, but about being able to to blast with more survivability than blasters and not run out of endurance doing so.

If anyone should be running out of endurance it should be Scrappers and Blasters (rabbits), while Tankers and Defenders would be more like the tortoise versions that just keep plodding along and never get winded.

I would agree that defenders overall would be much more appreciated if they had a damage boost, but in all honesty defenders are meant to support the team first, and sometimes with the right sets that support can increase your damage for example... Kinetics obviously will have a nice amount of damage with fulcrum shift. Then you can move on to see that almost any debuffer can do some massive damage. That is just your primary and how it affects it and then you move to your secondary it really comes down to do you want AoE or single target damage, I know that I LOVE AoE damage, therefore my defenders are all /ice or /archery.One /Ice has the same blizzard that blasters have same numbers and all, check it out you'd be impressed when its slotted correctly. While for /Archery for RoA (Rain of Arrows) and blazing arrow for my single target runaways. I play my cold/archery and its nasty the damage I can output with sleet and RoA coming up at almost the exact same time. Sleet (25s) RoA (28s) my RoA is currently slotted with 5 positrons blasts but I know with Ragnarok's the damage could be over whelming. Just look into those two sets, paired with debuffs or without. If you want to branch out on secondaries pick a primary that has some decent -res/-def. Defenders over all are NOT damage dealers but if you want them to be they can be built to do so.

There have been alot of comparisons drawn between Controllers and Defenders, and IME there never was an issue until Controllers got "containment". Basically, prior to "containment", Defenders had higher buffs AND higher DPS, but controllers were "safer" solo, although much slower until mid-30s (set-dependant of course).

"Containment" brought the controller a MUCH-NEEDED boost solo and (to me) a greater focus on their primary powers that were not pets. A lot has been said regarding the Controllers huge dps abilities now, but if you look closer I think that you will see that Defenders have more powers which deal single target damage, more AoE damage powers and that even with Containment, the average DPS for controllers rose to be more in line with Defenders.

Obviously there are Controller builds/combos which can seriously create some DPS, but they achieve it the same way that the best Defender builds do (RAD, KIN).

So... what then is the problem ? Well, this is just my opinion, Controllers REMAIN (just as in the begining) much safer solo than defenders and now command comparable damage (I am not saying greater, notice). It would make sense then, to either make Defenders deal more damage either through base mod or recharge, or... make them safer personally. This would balance them somewhat with Controllers.

There are alot of ways to look at it, and as we all know, just as many ideas to fix it.