Please replace Vigilence inherent with something that lets us slot intelligently
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-01-16 08:55 in Defenders
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I think the complaint with Vigilence is:|
Originally Posted by Garent
QR
The basic suggestion of making defenders an archetype that has near infinite endurance is cool, but as usual I disagree with the reasoning behind the complaints with current vigilance. In this case the reasoning seems to be: "It's cool having infinite endurance when my team is in trouble, but when everything's going fine I don't seem to have enough" To rephrase this, this is basically saying "I want to do better in the situations in which my team is untouchable" I think in this case the complaint is one of general annoyance, and not of archetype balance. If that's the case though, then it needs a solution that reflects it. If enough people are annoyed by the binary nature of vigilance going between doing nothing and making it so you can spam all your powers, then the solution is to make the curve smoother. Have vigilance give a small boost based on number of teammates and max out at a significant, but not ridiculous, value if a teammate is dead. |
1. It does nothing solo
2. It feels like a non-power because its not something you can plan around
3. Most Defenders are slotting endurance reduction anyway, so the bonus from Vigilence is almost non-existant. If I already have enough endurance, the extra endurance that Vigilence gives often just sits in the tank and gets unused.
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The highlighted part of your post is the problem with vigilance. The defender has absolutely no control what so ever over their own inherent. That is one of the things that is so very annoying about it.|
Originally Posted by Garent
QR
The basic suggestion of making defenders an archetype that has near infinite endurance is cool, but as usual I disagree with the reasoning behind the complaints with current vigilance. In this case the reasoning seems to be: "It's cool having infinite endurance when my team is in trouble, but when everything's going fine I don't seem to have enough" To rephrase this, this is basically saying "I want to do better in the situations in which my team is untouchable" I think in this case the complaint is one of general annoyance, and not of archetype balance. If that's the case though, then it needs a solution that reflects it. If enough people are annoyed by the binary nature of vigilance going between doing nothing and making it so you can spam all your powers, then the solution is to make the curve smoother. Have vigilance give a small boost based on number of teammates and max out at a significant, but not ridiculous, value if a teammate is dead. |
If you want to be "realistic" about it, a DEFENDER, that lets a teammate DIE, has failed at being vigilant and should actually get a penalty of some sort.
Vigilance needs to be decoupled from team size and team health and control of it needs to be put into the hands of the defender.
All a tank has to do to get benefit from their inherent is hit with an attack. It's easy to use and the benefit is linear.
All a scrapper has to do is hit wth an attack. It's easy to use and the benefit is consistant.
All a blaster has to do is attack. A nice attack chain can be planned so that the blaster gets maximum benefit from the inherent. There's a bit of thought involved and it's a nice change of pace from other inherents.
All a controller has to do is their job and control things. Containment damage occurs anytime a mob is contained and they actually benefit more when other controllers or team members are present and using controls on the mobs.
A defender on the other hand needs to be on a huge team and fail miserably at their intended team role for maximum benefit?!?!?!?! That's totally messed up.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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As others have posted, this is more about making the inherent usable for the AT all the time, as opposed to being active only when on a team, and active when a team plays well, as opposed to just when they play poorly.|
Originally Posted by Garent
The basic suggestion of making defenders an archetype that has near infinite endurance is cool, but as usual I disagree with the reasoning behind the complaints with current vigilance. In this case the reasoning seems to be: "It's cool having infinite endurance when my team is in trouble, but when everything's going fine I don't seem to have enough" To rephrase this, this is basically saying "I want to do better in the situations in which my team is untouchable"
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That's also why I suggested that the Vigilance bar be advanced as a result of the use of offensive powers. That way it builds up most when a player is soloing.
Your point about this change benefiting overpowering teams doesn't really apply. If the defender is on a team that has overmatched their foes, neither the end bonus nor the status protection is going to produce any notable effect on the outcome.
So this is a way of enabling Defs to solo better, to be more active and effective in team play, without actually increasing their power or damage output. It's a reward for developing their secondary.
The trick is that if they don't throw some offense, their Vigilance bar won't move, and they won't benefit from the power.
I don't believe this really penalizes those who go purely with the primary set, since if the player isn't building out the secondary they'll have plenty of slots for end reduction and recharge on +end/+recovery powers.
Also, those players who focused on the primary set probably weren't ever seeing any benefit from the old Vigilance anyway.
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Can we change it so that it does penalize people who only take their primary? Pretty please?
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Originally Posted by konshu
I don't believe this really penalizes those who go purely with the primary set, since if the player isn't building out the secondary they'll have plenty of slots for end reduction and recharge on +end/+recovery powers.
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This right here is exactly correct. Vigilance is garbage and this is why. Just about anything would be better; a sliding scale where when nobody is hurt the defender gets a damage bonus and when the team is hurting the defender gets a +special bonus (+def, +resist, +heal, whatever your primary happens to do, you do it better) would be neat. The OP's idea would be cool too. Anything is better than what we do have. |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
A defender on the other hand needs to be on a huge team and fail miserably at their intended team role for maximum benefit?!?!?!?! That's totally messed up.
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Having said that I love my defenders and as far as Vigilance goes, I just assume it doesn't exist and plan accordingly. I just wish that my favourite AT had a decent inherent.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Can we change it so that it does penalize people who only take their primary? Pretty please?
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Losing a teammate isn't a penalty?|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
If you want to be "realistic" about it, a DEFENDER, that lets a teammate DIE, has failed at being vigilant and should actually get a penalty of some sort.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
The defender has absolutely no control what so ever over their own inherent. That is one of the things that is so very annoying about it.
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Well, since when they die you get Vengeance and then you rez them and make progress on your rez badge ... it's not so bad. |
Originally Posted by Garent
Losing a teammate isn't a penalty?
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(BTW, so far as I know there isn't really a rez badge.)
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THIS !! Never could have said it better myself Miladys !|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
If you want to be "realistic" about it, a DEFENDER, that lets a teammate DIE, has failed at being vigilant and should actually get a penalty of some sort.
Vigilance needs to be decoupled from team size and team health and control of it needs to be put into the hands of the defender. All a tank has to do to get benefit from their inherent is hit with an attack. It's easy to use and the benefit is linear. All a scrapper has to do is hit wth an attack. It's easy to use and the benefit is consistant. All a blaster has to do is attack. A nice attack chain can be planned so that the blaster gets maximum benefit from the inherent. There's a bit of thought involved and it's a nice change of pace from other inherents. All a controller has to do is their job and control things. Containment damage occurs anytime a mob is contained and they actually benefit more when other controllers or team members are present and using controls on the mobs. A defender on the other hand needs to be on a huge team and fail miserably at their intended team role for maximum benefit?!?!?!?! That's totally messed up. |
And I also think it should do SOMETHING while solo, even if its just a small something.
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I'm that rare oddball nutcase who actually likes Vigilance since I try my hardest to avoid the Fitness pool if I think I can get away with it. I'm also that 0.1% of the playerbase who actually likes Dimension Shift. With that...disclaimer...out of the way, I do have ideas since I feel it can be improved.
Sticking with some of the current implentation, keep the endurance discount per team member added. However, instead of making it so that teammates actually have to take damage for the Defender to gain an endurance discount, make it so that any attacks made against the team, hit or miss, increase the endurance discount. This will also count the Defender themself towards the total so that it can be used solo. Furthermore, as the Vigilance buff builds, the Defender gains an increasing amount of mez resistance and mez protection.
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After the sentence you quoted in that very same post:|
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Outside of fire controllers this is certainly not a given.
Last time (or maybe the time before) we had this debate I did the numbers for a ice controller versus a /ice defender. The Defender easily came out ahead, even without factoring in the larger buffs from the primary. |
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
i suspect that on average that Controller and Defender damage aren't that far apart, from what i recall Defenders on average can actually put out slightly better damage, but Controllers can use their damage with far greater safety, which means they can deal far more damage for the risks they take.
i've played both Defenders and Controllers to 50. My Controllers overall solo faster than my Defenders, and both do about equally on teams. |
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Albeit nitpicky of me, I feel I have to comment on this line. Just what, exactly, constitutes "correct" slotting? Unless people are going out of their way to be annoying, or ignoring things like ED Caps... well, I just don't see a "wrong" way.|
Originally Posted by Talionis
But even worse it makes it impossible to slot correctly.
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In fact, many somewhat unconventional slottings can be justified. So, I guess I just don't know what you mean.
I don't even need to quibble on your use of an absolute like "impossible;" that word alone kills whatever point you were going for in the above statement.
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Not according to a certain corruptor that trolls the defender boards. According to him that's the ideal situation. You just use vengance on the lame-o that couldn't keep himself alive, have all the endurance you can burn, and boost the team's damage by more than the Leroy would have contributed. All while providing the team with extra defense and status protection.|
Originally Posted by Garent
Losing a teammate isn't a penalty?
Kheldians and half of the Stalker inherent. |
Khelds have other advantages and personally I dislike stalkers intensely, besides which everyone knows that the "devs hate villians."
What I will say is the same thing that Castle has said before, anything that is a buff in "x" state is seen by the player base as a nerf while not in "x" state and powers/buffs of this type have been avoided for the most part by the devs.
Vigilence is a classic example of a power that needs changing due to that since the buff is only received by "reactive h34l0rs" and poorly played defenders. Playing a defender well costs you your buff from your inherent. It's the only AT where that is true.
EDIT - In all seriousness regarding Khelds, the kheld is a shape shifter. I would have tied the Kheld inherent to shape shifting (ie: a buff of some type when ever you change forms). The devs did that somewhat when they allowed a breakfree effect from switching into Dwarf.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Couldn't agree more with you Miladys Knight. For the 3+ years I have played this game I played almost exclusively as a Controller or a Dominator. However, after running out of primaries to try I switched to a Dark Miasma defender who stalled out in the thirties and a Trapper sitting at 45 who I love thoroughly. I honestly feel that in terms of protecting a team that Controllers come out ahead with the combination of their primary control and defender primaries as a secondary, defenders just can't compare to that much mitigation. With the addition of containment to controllers that damage gap that seperated Defenders and Controllers shrunk drastically without effecting the advantage in safety a controller has. Containment is always noticeable, on teams, solo, whenever you meet the condition for it to occur where as on my defenders to even notice Vigilence on my Trapper I'd have to not use Seeker Drones, not use poison gas trap, desummon my generator, and turn manuevers off and let my team mates start dying just to notice Vigilence. There's a certain feel depending on what powersets you're playing as a defender sure but I believe that overall there's no in inherent power that links defenders together as an AT at the moment what with the way vigilence is.
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The problem is that there are 2 different types of defenders, buffers and debuffers. (H34l0rs are actually buffing defenders) the inherent needs to benefit all defender ATs equally or at least equitably. Current vigilance doesn't do that nor does your suggestion since FF/ and Sonic/ defenders get mez protection and grant it to their team.|
Originally Posted by Zamuel
I'm that rare oddball nutcase who actually likes Vigilance since I try my hardest to avoid the Fitness pool if I think I can get away with it. I'm also that 0.1% of the playerbase who actually likes Dimension Shift. With that...disclaimer...out of the way, I do have ideas since I feel it can be improved.
Sticking with some of the current implentation, keep the endurance discount per team member added. However, instead of making it so that teammates actually have to take damage for the Defender to gain an endurance discount, make it so that any attacks made against the team, hit or miss, increase the endurance discount. This will also count the Defender themself towards the total so that it can be used solo. Furthermore, as the Vigilance buff builds, the Defender gains an increasing amount of mez resistance and mez protection. |
I'll say the same thing that I have said before when this comes up. Vigilance is the quality or state of being wakeful and alert a degree of wakefulness or responsiveness to stimuli.
To me that means that it should work the same no matter how many teammates you have (actually it should work better on smaller teams where you have less to watch out for) or even if you have none at all.
Vigilance's benefit shouldn't be anything that would benefit one particular defender power set or other. With that in mind I have always said that vigilance should give the defender a 5% global reduction in endurance costs and a 5% increase in global recharge each time the defender activates a primary or secondary power. The vigilance buff should stack up to 5 times and each 5% buff should last for 10-15 seconds.
That doesn't give any particular defender Power set a distinct advantage from vigilance it's fairly even across the board. The more aware you are and the more you buff and blast the better and more vigilant a defender you are.
The net effect is that defender will get to use their high powered long recharge time buffs a little more often but with out increasing the buff values and making the buffs over powered. It means that the defender does a little more damage by being able to cycle their harder hitting blasts a little more often with out actually increasing the defender damage modifier or defender DPA. It adresses the defender DPE issue and best of all it works the same no matter what team size you are on (even solo!), no matter what type of slotting you have chosen be it, TOs, DOs, SOs, generic IOs, or IO sets, and it provides that reward for doing your job well instead of penalizing you for doing your job well and rewarding failure.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
In the context "correct" slotting can be defined as "the slotting that someone determined to get the most out of his slots would use". In this case the goal is to slot enough endurance reduction that you aren't panting for breath but not so much that you're hurting the rest of your power through a lack of slotting. In the case of vigilance you can't really account for it in your slotting since it is so situational so therefore you slot enough endurance reduction not to need it and consequently you get no real benefit from it. A well slotted defender will have sufficient endurance regardless of the health of his teammates (baring rare cases like malta sappers).|
Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
Albeit nitpicky of me, I feel I have to comment on this line. Just what, exactly, constitutes "correct" slotting? Unless people are going out of their way to be annoying, or ignoring things like ED Caps... well, I just don't see a "wrong" way.
In fact, many somewhat unconventional slottings can be justified. So, I guess I just don't know what you mean. I don't even need to quibble on your use of an absolute like "impossible;" that word alone kills whatever point you were going for in the above statement. |
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Vigilance's benefit shouldn't be anything that would benefit one particular defender power set or other. With that in mind I have always said that vigilance should give the defender a 5% global reduction in endurance costs and a 5% increase in global recharge each time the defender activates a primary or secondary power. The vigilance buff should stack up to 5 times and each 5% buff should last for 10-15 seconds.
That doesn't give any particular defender Power set a distinct advantage from vigilance it's fairly even across the board. The more aware you are and the more you buff and blast the better and more vigilant a defender you are. The net effect is that defender will get to use their high powered long recharge time buffs a little more often but with out increasing the buff values and making the buffs over powered. It means that the defender does a little more damage by being able to cycle their harder hitting blasts a little more often with out actually increasing the defender damage modifier or defender DPA. It adresses the defender DPE issue and best of all it works the same no matter what team size you are on (even solo!), no matter what type of slotting you have chosen be it, TOs, DOs, SOs, generic IOs, or IO sets, and it provides that reward for doing your job well instead of penalizing you for doing your job well and rewarding failure. |
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One difficulty with your proposal is that it doesn't appear to consider toggles. Let's say I'm a storm def with Steamy Mist. This is a protective shield, so long as the team is near me. But I only turn it on once.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Vigilance's benefit shouldn't be anything that would benefit one particular defender power set or other. With that in mind I have always said that vigilance should give the defender a 5% global reduction in endurance costs and a 5% increase in global recharge each time the defender activates a primary or secondary power. The vigilance buff should stack up to 5 times and each 5% buff should last for 10-15 seconds.
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I prefer the adaptation of Dom. The coding is already there. Just modify it so that as Vigilance it gives status protection instead of higher magnitude holds.
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Actually it is a form of compensation for the buffer since most of the buffing sets have powers that they can't use while solo because they can't be used on the caster. Also some of the debuffing ATs have area targetted debuffs, like Disruption Arrow, Tar patch, Sleet, Freezing rain etc, that could be used this way.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
In the context "correct" slotting can be defined as "the slotting that someone determined to get the most out of his slots would use". In this case the goal is to slot enough endurance reduction that you aren't panting for breath but not so much that you're hurting the rest of your power through a lack of slotting. In the case of vigilance you can't really account for it in your slotting since it is so situational so therefore you slot enough endurance reduction not to need it and consequently you get no real benefit from it. A well slotted defender will have sufficient endurance regardless of the health of his teammates (baring rare cases like malta sappers).
Kinda like Defiance for Defenders. I like this idea, the numbers probably need tweaking a bit but I like it. It is slightly imbalanced in favor of buffers since they can use spammable buffs (particularly AoE heals) to build up Vigilance in between combat in order to help recharge their long recharge buffs but overall I don't think that's a major problem. My only concern is that high end Defender IO builds are going to be nasty. A 50% global recharge bonus while in combat is pretty good. |
For example Empathy's healing Aura with ED capped rech slotting and cast time is about 6 seconds. The best an empath could get from rocking the aura would be 2 buffs, maybe 3 on a high recharge build. So keep in mind while figuring that even buffers won't be easily able to maintain a full set of 5 buffs, and the resultant benefits outside of a combat type situation.
High end defender IO builds all ready are nasty. This doesn't make them that much nastier and still pales in comparison to a high end IO'd Scrapper, Brute, Tank, Dominator, or Blaster.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Actually it does. You get the benefit for 15 seconds after you activate the toggle. So Dark defenders, Rads, FF etc. get that benefit every time they turn the toggle on. After it's on they can still activate other powers to stack the buffs and the 5% end reduction from activating other powers make the toggles cheaper to run.|
Originally Posted by konshu
One difficulty with your proposal is that it doesn't appear to consider toggles. Let's say I'm a storm def with Steamy Mist. This is a protective shield, so long as the team is near me. But I only turn it on once.
I prefer the adaptation of Dom. The coding is already there. Just modify it so that as Vigilance it gives status protection instead of higher magnitude holds. |
Also granting status protection isn't the way to go. Taking the sleep hole out of FF/ or Sonic/ would run contrary to dev history. Adding status protection to vigilance provides no benefit to the FF/ or Sonic/ which all ready have grantable status protection that is useable on self. Vigilance needs to benefit all power sets at least equitably.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
The way I see it is that Vigilance is just a tacked on power so that all Archtypes would have an inherent and nobody could complain that their favourite Archtype didn't have one.
Vigilance is a placebo.
I would change it to a flat 15% endurance dicount on the secondary powerset.
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Then don't account for it. Pretty simple. It is pretty amazing a controller would say "you know, I have containment, so I won't slot damage in an attack." Or a scrapper saying "well, since I will crit every so often, I will only put one or two damange enhancements." |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
In the context "correct" slotting can be defined as "the slotting that someone determined to get the most out of his slots would use". In this case the goal is to slot enough endurance reduction that you aren't panting for breath but not so much that you're hurting the rest of your power through a lack of slotting. In the case of vigilance you can't really account for it in your slotting since it is so situational so therefore you slot enough endurance reduction not to need it and consequently you get no real benefit from it. A well slotted defender will have sufficient endurance regardless of the health of his teammates (baring rare cases like malta sappers).
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You have an END issue, slot end red or use other ways (aka IOs/sets) to decrease END use/increase END recovery. If any thing else, you have DUAL builds now. You want to depend on vigilance for teaming and END use - build 1. Team breaks up and you want to solo for a while - build 2 with more END red.
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Oh, so it is the defender messing up. Not another playing pulling too much aggro, or a player AFK, the team is split up, etc. That's messed up.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
A defender on the other hand needs to be on a huge team and fail miserably at their intended team role for maximum benefit?!?!?!?! That's totally messed up.
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Defenders don't have to be "failing" for vigilance to work like you have stated in your posts.
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You naturally recover Endurance, you don't naturally recover Damage.|
Originally Posted by PennyPA
Then don't account for it. Pretty simple. It is pretty amazing a controller would say "you know, I have containment, so I won't slot damage in an attack." Or a scrapper saying "well, since I will crit every so often, I will only put one or two damange enhancements."
You have an END issue, slot end red or use other ways (aka IOs/sets) to decrease END use/increase END recovery. If any thing else, you have DUAL builds now. You want to depend on vigilance for teaming and END use - build 1. Team breaks up and you want to solo for a while - build 2 with more END red. |
Endurance is very different from Damage. More Damage is always good. More Endurance is not always good.
When Vigilence gives me Endurance if I don't use that Endurance, I've wasted it, because I would've recovered Endurance anyway.
In other words Vigilence gives me too options:
1. Slot for Endurance and manage my Endurance like Vigilence isn't there. Having too much Endurance when Vigilence kicks in. Thus Vigilence really does nothing.
2. Don't slot for Endurance and only have enough Endurance when Vigilence kicks in.
As to all those players hoping to get a damage buff or Mez protection. I doubt Defenders would get it.
Someone said the Devs think that Defenders are one of the better balanced toons in the game. I disagree only in that I think the differences between Defenders and Corrupters is small and I think with Going Rogue coming out, many players will choose to make Corrupters instead of Defenders simply because their inherent does something.
Mez is part of the game and like it or not, Defenders were "balanced" to be one of the Archetypes most effected by Mez's. I think the best we could hope for from our inherent is the one quick Break Free when you pop your Vigilence power like I've proposed. I'd love to see more than that, but Maladys Knight has said it right it wouldn't be fair to Sonic and Forcefields to give any more than that.
On the Damage end, while I would love more damage for my Defenders again, someone poinnted out that the Dev's think that Defenders are properly balanced. Most defenders get some form of Damage increaser in the Primary, Force Fields obviously doesn't.
I really do think that only thing the Dev's would look at Vigilence for would be to have it primarially do the same thing it already does, just in a better way. This would help solo toons because with less Damage it takes more Endurance to kill enemies.
I would be happy with any mechanic that changes Vigilence from being balance upon the life totals of the team. I feel like anything is better than the current Vigilence which really does nothing.
Have defenders ever had a damage boost? Every other heroside AT has had their damage buffed in the past - scrappers got criticals and a 12.5% boost. Tankers were boosted from .7 to .8 scale. Blasters got the same 12.5% that scrappers got. Controllers got their inherent.
I'm just thinking that this and Vigilance have an impact on how fun it is to play a defender. I don't think they need a power boost, but I think they could use a bit of a review.
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