Would buff/buff AT be overpowered?

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Originally Posted by Siolfir Which means it's definately going in.

I see what you did thur!

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Originally Posted by Elprede I think the reason why this thread is still going is because it's such a controversial and interesting idea that there'd have to people that'd want to try to play something like this. Personally It seems like an interesting idea. I know support characters are very necessary on teams and I like playing them. Something that is THAT supporty? I wouldn't mind trying. buff people, put heal on auto watch tv for a couple minutes. Lol

...that's not how you derive logical conclusions!!!

Short version: a buff/buff AT would be similar to Smurphy's new avatar. Really cute, but ultimately helpless and ineffective

While not a buff/buff AT, in some ways Earth/Storm is a debuff/debuff AT, although it has decent damage in the secondary. I found Earth/Storm to be one of the more fun and survivable controller combos. It's very decent solo when you hit 50 as well, if you take the Fire epic. The pet is extremely resilient against most enemies, and has a much improved AI, and you can keep it alive with O2 Boost. The pet's hold is also very nice for stacking on bosses.

With Earth/Storm there's almost always some kind of debuff or control power ready to go. You can often lock down two, three or more spawns. It can be rather chaotic so you don't want to unleash the fury of Storm all the time, but when things start going south for a team (due to ambushes, unintentionally aggroing nearby spawns, etc.) an Earth/Storm controller can cut loose and save everyone's bacon.

But what happens if there's a teamwipe and you're the ony person left standing? You're completely helpless to do anything to defend yourself. And if there's a spawn standing over your teammates, rezzing them will do no good because they will die again before they can do anything.

A character with nothing but buffs is, quite simply, dead weight. I would not invite one to any team I was running because I don't like teammates that aren't self-sufficient in a pinch. Sure, that Empathy defender isn't putting out a whole lot of damage, but when the feces hits the fan it can at least do SOMETHING to defend itself. A Buff/Buff character would be completely reliant on it's teammates to stay alive.

I don't like inviting Empaths that only have 1 completely unslotted attack either. Everyone is at full health and all your buffs are applied, shoot something while you wait to be needed again.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Right, that jerk casting Fulcrum Shift ought to be using his Power Bolt instead and contributing some real damage.

One or two buff/buff characters in a group would be pretty powerful, but they would hit diminishing returns much faster than defenders do. Double-buffers don't themselves provide a substrate for being buffed (which is what I think people may be trying to get at with the misleading "dead weight" argument) so they enhance everyone else in a superior fashion but don't enhance each other, meaning that their value drops off dramatically with the number of other double-buffers on a team in a way that defenders don't. This makes it more complicated than "useless solo, overpowered on teams".

I would be amused by seeing a kinetics/dark miasma try to brawl to victory, though.

Well Claws is right. It would be dead weight, because a buff/buff toon can hit fulcrum shift and then go on buffing the team, the Kin Defender/Corr can hit FS and then hit the spawn with a myriad of attack powers helping to kill the spawn faster.

But you knew that.

"Dead weight" is an exaggeration, because the FS and buffs are contributing. Now, you can certainly make a case that it's contributing less than half the buffs + defender damage would be, but that's not cut and dried. A kinetics/dark miasma Double-Buff on a team packed with non-buffers (say, seven scrappers and a Double-Buff) will most likely add more team damage with Fulcrum Shift + Tar Patch than he would by hitting Fulcrum Shift and then starting to plink away with his blasts. On a team with plenty of buffers, the blasts would be better - but that's just what I said before, that you'll face diminishing returns faster with double-buffs than defenders.

Basic math follows. Don't keep reading if you're scared of math.

People like calling buffers force multipliers. Let's take a moment to think about the term "force multiplier" and what it means. We have two basic elements to the team here for this purpose, which I will call "buff" (including debuffs, as they function as buffs taken via another direction for this purpose) and "substrate" (the thing being buffed, in this case offense). Let us say that, for example, scrappers provide two substrate while defenders provide one and Double-Buffs provide none (as a scrapper has more to buff with a higher cap than a defender, who in turn has more to buff than a Double-Buff). Likewise, scrappers provide no buff, defenders provide one buff, and Double-Buffs provide two buff.

In this case, we multiply the amount of buff by the amount of substrate to get a relative sense of how much improvement the group has over the sum of its parts. For example:

Eight scrappers: 16 substrate x 0 buff, total 0. There is no synergistic improvement, and the killing goes about as fast with eight scrappers working together as it would with eight scrappers working separately. (Of course, given that scrappers kill things fast solo, eight scrappers separately can be pretty nasty anyway.)

Eight Double-Buffs: 0 substrate x 16 buff, total 0. Everyone is multiplying each other, but there's nothing to multiply. They're hitting with the most amazing Brawls conceivable, but... it's still Brawl. There is no noticeable synergistic improvement.

Eight defenders: 8 substrate x 8 buff, total 64. If you've seen eight-defender teams in action, you will appreciate the massive synergistic improvement that goes on there. Their individually weak substrate becomes a wrecking ball.

So far so good and it matches up largely to real-play experience. (Worth noting is that it's not perfectly accurate: scrappers do provide a small fractional buff value from secondary effects, RttC/AAO debuff, and so on, while double-buffs would provide a small fractional substrate from Brawl and Air Superiority. This does not significantly affect the demonstration of principle.) However, when we are talking about a few defenders or buffers on a team of scrappers, we see something else:

Six scrappers, two defenders: 14 substrate x 2 buff, total 28.
Six scrappers, two double-buffs: 12 substrate x 4 buff, total 48.

This is why I predicted that double-buffs would be very powerful in groups with small numbers of buffers but reach diminishing returns much more quickly than defenders would. When we are talking about multiplication (and buff/debuffs are, in a fairly literal sense, force multipliers), the way to get the highest possible result from a given quantity of input is to equalize the inputs as much as possible. For a group already skewed towards substrate, this means that the highest effect comes from adding characters heavily skewed towards buffs. Because there is no set currently as heavily skewed towards buff as scrappers and blasters are skewed towards substrate, the Double-Buff would be an improvement in such situations but the advantage becomes less dramatic as the number of buff sources increases.

One other exception worth mentioning: due to buff/debuff caps, you will inevitably hit a point of diminishing returns. One force-fielder is a huge boon to team survivability compared to none; three is not much of a step up compared to two. The previous numbers presume full "stackability" which is not guaranteed in the case of groups with multiple buff/debuffers of the same type. Redundancy is likely to increase in the case of double-buffers, since there is a limited variety of buff/debuff sets available and this would increase the number of buff/debuff picks present on a given team.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

If only someone had raised this issue about the diminishing returns of the proposed double-buffers before this very moment.

The same thing a scrapper before his mez protection does under the circumstances: Pray, get out your throwing knives, and wonder when the Council started using web grenades.


To clarify something: I don't think this proposal is a good idea, because I don't think an AT with two of the same set class is a good idea. I'm mainly raising objection to the premise that someone who doesn't spew out orange numbers is "dead weight".

Your super cool wall of text hinges on the idea that your buff/buff AT = 2 defenders.

Going off of what the current AT norms are, thats obviously not true.

If the defenders remain the current strongest buffers as this AT was introduced we would conclude their primary would have controller/corr numbers. And by that amazing deduction, their secondary would receive even lower buff/debuff numbers being as it is their secondary.

This would conclude that buff/buff would not equal two buff/attack ATs.

Neat, see how I did that.

It is also not the case that a defender will output exactly half as much damage as a scrapper, or that a scrapper contributes no buffing elements. What I was describing is an illustration of why a force multiplier is strongest when mixed in even ratio with substrate, because people seemed to have great difficulty grasping the concept of why an AT might be weak at both extremes of "too many on the team" and "too few on the team" but very powerful in a range between those. I'm also not sure why you think a double-buffer would get corruptor/controller buff/debuff values (you know, the ATs that have those sets as secondaries) in their primary. The suggestion of lowered values for their secondary seems likely, but it would seem more likely to me that they would have defender values in their primary and corr/troller values in their secondary.

TL;DR: It does not "hinge on" a precise 2:1 value, but using nice round integers makes it easier to illustrate the principle at work.

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Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona If only someone had raised this issue about the diminishing returns of the proposed double-buffers before this very moment. The same thing a scrapper before his mez protection does under the circumstances: Pray, get out your throwing knives, and wonder when the Council started using web grenades. To clarify something: I don't think this proposal is a good idea, because I don't think an AT with two of the same set class is a good idea. I'm mainly raising objection to the premise that someone who doesn't spew out orange numbers is "dead weight".

A Buff/Buff Archetype -is not- dead weight in my opinion; in the same way "Boyfriend Arm Pillow" isn't exactly dead weight...

You mean like my Stone/Kin troller? I'm as capable of soloing as i would be of slitting my wrists with a spork - which I would only try if someone forced me to solo with that character.

He didn't say all characters solo'd equally well just that they could. Admittedly Stone/Kin is pretty low on the list but not impossible. It just relies on keeping enemies mezzed while going up and using Fulcrum shift to boost the damage of the few attacks it has, and of course post 32 it has a Animated Stone.

Yes. Now imagine an entire AT where even the best soloing combination is worse than what you just described. Every Archetype can solo. You can choose powers that increase or decrease your solo potential, often in exchange for teaming potential. Imagine an AT where soloing simply isn't an option, no matter what you pick. Plus, I'm sure you've soloed before. Never cranked down to -1 to run a mission real quick like your costume mission? Did you start off teaming at level 1 coming out of the character maker? Or hey, did you have to Brawl your way through Outbreak because you have no attacks and never will?

I already would rather Corruptors over Defenders because the point where having more mitigation is pointless is rather low. Corruptors do more than just support though, since they contribute good damage.

If my team had 4 Corruptors, I get 4 levels of mitigation (which is almost always more than enough to go around unless you're talking certain sets like TA), as well as +300% damage (0.75 damage scale x4). Even if we only needed half as many support toons because of this new buff/buff AT, and we filled those other two slots with Blasters, you now have the same level of mitigation but only +225% damage (1.125 damage scale x2), as the buff/buff ATs contribute basically no damage, and two Blasters can't make up what four Corruptors do. In fact, even if you were using Defenders, four of them would make up +260% damage. And if we used Controllers instead, we'd get the same double-layer mitigation (mez as well as buff/debuff), but also some damage and pets.

So congratulations, taking a buff/buff AT makes your team weaker than just using the existing ATs. Plus it would re-enforce the whole "we need healer/tank/DPS" that people come in from other games saying, and give them "proof" that the game is meant to be played that way.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Bet you would solo better than an Emp/Force Field Buff/Buff AT

And that matters why exactly? The statement was made that all ATs can solo, and while technically true, it's also meaningless. Some of them solo so pathetically slowly that taking a break and shaving my back would be more productive if a group were not available.

Pointing out that .0001% leveling speed is better than 0% leveling speed is silly, because no sane person is going to do either.

There are decent arguments that can be made against this being an effective character, but "you can't solo" isn't one of them, because in a functional sense it applies to many character types that exist in the game right now.

That perfectly describes playing the above character - or did you think that 2-4 damage every minute from a hold contributes significantly to damage above and beyond brawl.

And what was the point in adding "never will" to that sentence? How would the idea that I would get a damaging power in 31 levels make me not have to rely on brawl for Outbreak? Did you try to change your point half way through the sentence and fail at it?

I was going to put this politely and without snark, but you've proven yourself irredeemably ignorant anyway.

Hey moron, have you tried slotting your "hold" for damage? Have you even noticed that it does damage? The single target immobilize does damage too. The AoE immobilize does damage to several targets. You can slot them for damage! You also get containment damage bonuses. You even have siphon power for crying out loud. I've soloed a grav/force field controller and an empathy/psi defender, which are far worse than what you've described.

You're doing it wrong.

An earth/kin is perfectly capable of soloing, despite your inability to figure out how. A force field/kin cannot solo. A dark miasma/empathy cannot solo. No combination of buff/debuff sets can solo. They cannot slot damage in their attacks that don't exist. Without damage, you cannot solo and you cannot contribute.

2-4 damage every minute?! What kind of Controller are you playing? I've played tons of them, including Earth, and your hold at level 1 tends to do half a minion's health. If you hit them with an AoE immobilize first (which you can grab at level 2), you can kill them with a Containment hold. And the hold recharges in 8 seconds, not "every minute." I've never had any problems soloing a Controller through Outbreak, or for the first 10 levels of their career.

In fact, if you look at a Dominator, the Earth hold does 52.8 damage. Want to know how much damage most of the Dominator tier 1 ATTACKS do? 52.8. It only does about 30.6 for a Controller (at high level; at low level the modifiers aren't in play yet so you still do pretty great damage), but with Containment that's over 60 damage. Plus, as indicated, you also have a +DMG boost power.

AT numbers don't kick in at low levels, and at low levels Controllers are extremely capable of soloing. Once you get into the mid and high levels you'll have more powers, and a pet, who can all contribute damage. A buff/buff AT would never have any powers that deal damage, and likely wouldn't have a way to increase their non-existent damage like Containment, which allows a consistent double damage. Controllers aren't the best soloers, but at base you have an ST hold, an AoE immob, and a pet who can all contribute damage, as well as an easy way to double damage (giving you a damage scale of 1.1 -- almost Blaster level). Controllers are held back by only having a small handful of offensive powers to work with. A buff/buff AT would have NOTHING.

If you can't solo a Controller through Outbreak, you're absolutely doing it wrong.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.