Defender's Vigiliance: To team and solo with

Defenders are the classic supportive hero, their superior power to heal, buff and debuff combined with their decent ranged powers makes them a great force multiplier on teams. However when a Defender is all by themselves, they're stuck at a disadvantage.

Their inherent, Vigilance, gives the Defender an increasing endurance discount to all their attacks as the team's average health declines. This is all good for a defender in a team because they can have tons of toggles and blasts and not have to worry too much about exhausting themselves too quick. But when the Defender's alone, their inherent doesn't have any team-mates to go by so the power itself is non-existent. Out of all the ATs available in the game, there is not a single AT that can't use their inherent when soloing, except the defender.

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At first I thought that maybe the Defender should take part in their own inherent, their health decreases to gain more endurance discount or some other beneficial effects. But then I am reminded of the Emo period of Blasters jumping off of buildings to gain the maximum amount of damage and ToHit buffs and I don't think having a Defender variation of the inherent would be any better.

But what statistic, condition or value would actually help Defenders while they're soloing, and what effect would make them easier to solo with?

The Inherent's description reads as "The Defender's primary focus is to protect the team. When his allies are in danger, the Defender is able to look deep within him or herself and rise to the occasion." So although the current inherent is talking about the team, what if the Defender could look into themselves and rise against the odds?

Then I looked at other ATs Inherent powers for inspiration, I looked at the Dominator's with the description of "When your Domination bar is over 90% you can activate this power to unleash his true potential.". And then it hit me, maybe the Defender's soloing ability could be a triggerable burst of power to rise to the occasion?


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And so I come to my suggestion.

Defender's should get a Domination-style bar that builds during a combat situation, and when the bar reaches +90%, the Defender can trigger their inherent power to give them a boost to their secondary effects and powers. Giving their blasts increases soft-control and debuff values (Knockback, ToHit-debuff...etc) and the oft-forgotten Healing Bonus. Maybe even providing a full endurance recovery (as no team-mates will give you no discount)

Although this would be kind of porting another AT's inherent to another, it's definitely way better than porting an older style of another's AT that was changed because they were becoming suicidal to min-max. Because the fact this suggestion involves a building burst-buff, it would mean that the current critical health buff given by team-mates might need to be revised or even incorporated somehow into the idea.

Maybe the condition to build the guage starts slow by yourself, and then is easier and quicker to charge as team-mates are in critical condition? That would be a good adaptation of the current inherent to the new?

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I'm keeping the suggestion a little vague to give room for other users input, like how would the Defender's gauge build, what effects would releasing the power be and how much and whether the current team-mate critical discount will have to be removed or tweaked.

What do you people think?

I thought Kheld inherents were tied to team, and not sure what use is Tanker's when solo.

Anyhow, I like the current form of the inherent. Yeah, I know I am a minority.
Defenders are a team-based AT and it makes sense their inherent would be of the same flavor.
No one has yet to show defenders can't solo. I have 4 of them at 50 and can solo just fine. Are they the most efficient? Of course not. Want a better soloer, you could roll a scrapper for example.

It is never clear why this need to make defenders better soloers via their inherent.

And lastly, I believe the devs work with balance in mind. It was said at the recent convention that the devs consider the defender the most balanced AT (I don't have the audio/video on this but seen enough on the boards it referenced). If defenders can't be shown not working as intended like how blasters or doms were envisioned, why would defenders get a free buff? IMO only, I feel they would be balanced out for soloing by what they can do for teams.

As I recall, Domination gives Dominators protection and breaks them out of mezzes when they trigger their inherent, I left that part out for the Defender's new inherent suggestion to avoid stating overpowered traits (which people can really dig into you for). But having the inherent break out of mezzes would be useful and fair. Dominators can control opponents just as well as Defenders buff.

As for Power build up, I didn't mean to imply the +DMG +ToHit kind of build up, but the kind of inherent that boosts the buff/debuff/soft-control aspects of the Defender's powers.

Vigilance or not, defenders are already a solid AT. If their inherent was to be changed, it would have to be a change in cool factor without significantly increasing power level, and what you're suggesting here is clearly a major power level boost.

I'm thinking out loud on this so feel free to discuss and/or disagree.

Mez protection on a Defender would be several shades of broken on a team. However, considering the description of Vigilance I'm wondering if a stacking mez resistance bonus as your team takes damage would be feasible if it had limits. Essentially,

• Connect the amount of resistance to the current Vigilance endurance buff
• This buff operates at a lower value if teamed with other Defenders, specifically countering all Defender shenanigans that would likely be overpowered
• Limit the resistance to holds, stuns, and sleeps

A lot of people say that Defenders are balanced, even 'perfectly so', and then they go to say that Defenders are great and balanced on teams.

On teams.

But what about solo? Their inherent ceases to function, their damage is moderate and their buffs can help them recover lost health, but it doesn't change that when they start going up against Elite bosses alone, they'll have some trouble beating them down in comparison to other ATs.

Regardless of the suggestion in the thread, the simple fact is, Defender's inherent do not work solo, while every single other AT can, even the other 'team-oriented' ATs can still use their inherent solo like the Corruptor and Controller. The only other AT that can make their inherent useless is a Minion-less Mastermind, and even then it's a choice on the character's part.

See my opinion is that balance should mean "a constant level of challenge". A team of X players should experience the same level of challenge regardless of team composition (obviously you can't do this perfectly but it should be the general goal IMHO) the only variant should be the tactics required for them to do this. I realize that CoH (and most other MMOs) were not really designed this way but I've just never unstood the philosophy that balance means "you're awful in one setting and a god in another".

One fo the reasons I like the VEATs is that they seem to be an attempt to do this. They have plenty of personal power but also a number of skills that benefit teams they're on.

I thought Adeon's suggestion had an interesting aspect to it. Where the number of team-mates affect the sliding scale of inherent effects on a Defender.

Since Inherents are usually tied towards the primary powerset an AT, maybe it would be something that boosts the effects of their primary powers. And like I mentioned before, maybe whilst solo, the effects of primary and secondary effects are boosted at some critical point.

I never said that Defenders can't solo, as I myself have managed to solo decently at times on my main hero defender. All I'm saying is, Defenders don't get any benefit from their inherent whilst solo while every other AT can, how is that fair? Defenders use their inherent to defend the team, why shouldn't Defenders use their inherent to defend themselves?