Changed Defender inherent for i17

KB = mitigation, not defense, minor quibble, carry on with discussion.

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

Why should a set that can do that NOT be permitted to solo as well as some of the other sets? Especially since Force Field Controllers have exactly the same advantages as other Controllers when soloing.

I would also argue that Dark provides just as much protection as Force Field, albeit WITHOUT the ability to do this without "babysitting" them. But if the issue is the utility of the set, not its ease of use, then you will have to provide me with hard, conclusive proof that the protection of FF is vastly superior to every other Defender Primary. If not, then there is no reason why FF should be less soloable than Dark.

As for your claim that Scourge, while believed to be useful, is actually nearly ineffective, I must disagree with that as well. While the overall benefit is only around 5%, close to the effectiveness of Critical for Scrappers, that is in terms of damage done, NOT a measurement of the frequency of Scourge. While Scourge may not be doing as much damage as it could be, it is still defeating foes earlier than they would have been defeated otherwise. This means that:

1) Scourge provides Endurance efficiency for Corruptors' attacks when their foes are nearly defeated, when the need for Endurance is greatest.

2) Scourge speeds the process of defeat, reducing the amount of counter damage the Corruptor recieves. Particularly when the Corruptor would otherwise have to wait for a high damage attack to recharge before defeating a foe.

Neither is "useless", particularly when solo, and I think both are more important than the actual value of the increase in damage. It is not the increase in overall DPS, but the burst nature of the bonus.

Personally, I do agree that the idea that this buff is mostly a minor change, because Defenders are pretty much okay, is a valid one. Note, however, that while Defenders do have an Inherent that give them the equivalent of the Endurance efficiency I noted above, it does NOT give them the faster defeat. This would, just in a different form. As such, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

One other thing to consider with this buff though, is that it may be a relatively small increase for a level 50 "tricked-out" defender, its a much larger boost to the PRE-SO defender. And this is something that I think was very much needed for the AT.

Yeah, I think that's my thought. It's needed where it is needed. While it may still be helpful to the tricked out Defender that has lots of -Res debuffs, the way it's designed to be only available when solo helps keep that from being too much. And the bonus is very helpful to those who have no bonus at all.

There's still an issue with the team portion of Vigilance being too reactive in nature, but I wouldn't want to throw out this change in order to address that. And honestly, we can LIVE with the "Negligence" nature of the End discount, just as Blasters could live with the original Defiance. If Blasters had just been given the mez loophole but Defiance had kept working the way it did, that would be compariable to this.

Likewise, I would like to see FF's offense addressed before it gets ported to Corruptors, but this does help FF, as well as Empathy, in a similar fashion to the damage buffs that were added to Pain Domination. I've said that a universal, Inherent buff was NOT the solution to Power Set imbalances, but this addresses that issue specifically as it applies to soloing, which would be more of an Inherent attribute.

I don't really see this as an FF issue. And if it HELPS FF, why continue to justify the penalty? This isn't the type of game where classes are prevented from soloing in order to force them to team.

Except it doesn't scale that well until you already have SOs.

In all reality, this ends up closer to a 15% "base" damage bonus that pushes the Defender closer to the cap. It's not bad, but it's not all that too.

But 66% damage effectively boosted to 81% damage is still a slightly bit anemic. They probably could have just boosted the base all the way there and left it.

It will be noticeable if you're a low level defender sidekicked up.

Perhaps my math is completely off, but assuming no +damage powers like assault and no -res, this is what I figured;

SO enhanced attacks (+95%)
Old : 100% +95% = 1.95
New: 100% +30% +95% = 2.25 (which is 15.4% increase)

DO enhanced (+48%)
Old : 100% +48% = 1.48
New: 100% +30% +48% = 1.78 (which is 20.2% increase)

TO enhanced (2 ACC no +DMG)
Old : 100% +0% = 1.00
New: 100% +30% +0% = 1.30 (full 30% increase)


Did I miss something ?

Defender FF's is vastly superior to troller FF, probably moreso than any other shared set. Just how defense works. (well pre powerboost for the troller anyway).

I'm really not sure what you are talking about solo'ing a controller for, but suffice to say FF trollers tend to solo slower than other trollers for much the same reason defenders do, no offensive boosting powers. Maybe even more noticable on trollers as pets benefit from things like +dam and -res as well as you.

You can argue it, but you'd be wrong. FF defs can provide 90% mitigation before a fight even begins and mez protection. Dark may well be able to provide in excess of that, but it sure doesn't happen before a fight. You have to engage the enemy and risk defeat. Also darks powers have a cast time yes? How long does it take a dark to provide that mitigation? does it expose them to defeat before the mitigation is applied?

I can assure you that even though you (and others) don't assign value to proactive mitigation the devs definitely do.

I don't recall stating it was ineffective, that was you who just said that. I did state the expected value of it and why it is perceived to be more powerful than it actually is. That information is publicly available via Starsmans testing, which to date is the most indepth analysis of the power afaik.
1. True if you are running out of endurance every single fight. But I'd suggest that if that were the case a larger issue would be needing attention.

2. I'll let you learn more about scourge before ripping this apart. But for now I'll just say that scourge results in overkill very often, that is with the low damage attacks, which means you wouldn't have been waiting for a high damage attack anyway.

I realize it is a lot easier to argue against something that was never said when you have no position against what I actually said, but I think that is called a strawman. Where you are getting this "useless" tag from must be your own mind. The only time I've even come close to saying scourge was subpar was on dark blast and that is demonstratively true.

Nor should they have an inherent that gives them "fast defeat". Well, unless corrs get an inherent that gives them "super buffs" while teaming.

That said I really don't care that defs are getting this change, my defenders that I've built with the intention to solo already do it on par with my non-fire corrs and it doesn't make much of an actual difference to sets like FF and emp while solo'ing, so I'm sure they'll be back asking for more improvements down the road.

Unless you are using TO's in the 20+ game then yes. The buff starts at ~6% at lvl 1 and slowly scales up to the full 30 lvl 20 (iirc).

This "help" in the early game that people are citing is less than they believe, though still better than nothing.

I wasn't aware of the buff scaling from 1 to 20. If that is true, then the Devs missed out on a good opportunity to help Defenders in an area that was needed.

That being said, I have been on test lately and playing various newbie Defenders and it seemed that there was a difference greater than what you are citing, but I didnt record numbers and contrast them with Live. Guess I will have to do that.

Hmmm, well I am not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, but I would have liked it to help newbie Defenders more than that.

Level 12: 100% + 18% +32% (2 DOs) = 14% boost
Level 17: 100% + 25% +48% (3 DOs) = 17% boost
Level 22: 100% + 30% +95% (3 SOs) = 15% boost

That chart shows new vigilance in the worst possible light for low levels. The damage buff from vigilance is most helpful pre-25 and barely noticeable post-35.

There are three factors that make new vigilance feel better from level 12-25 than it feels from 25+.

1) Enhancements are not as strong.

2) Attacks are usually slotted less well pre-25. One attack may have 5 slots, 1 may have 4 and one or two may have 3. Many people slot two Acc. Many people just drop in whatever until level 22. While some attacks may only be getting a 15-20% boost, others are getting more because they are not as well slotted yet.

3) Enemy hitpoints have not started to ramp up as much as they do after level 25.

Hello Strato

I believe those factors are important as well.

To be honest, I didnt even know the effect scaled from 1-20.
All the defenders that I have tried on test, including my top two at 50 and 36 noticed quite a nice boost while solo. I didnt run numbers for comparison, just went by feel, and for ALL the defenders I tested it "felt" like a solid improvement (as was expected).