Corruptor/Defender team aid powers

Pretty sure a lot of people are going to decide to flame this threat but i would really like to see all the corruptors/defenders rally behind the idea of making their support powers be able to effect even themselves (Not just Ally, but themselves as well) i understand that support characters are designed to help others, but honestly be it solo or teamed, youre limited to buffing a second person (Which due to the population on the servers is getting kind of scarce) I love my Dp/Pain but being forced to use breakfree on myself when i have a perfectly good power is pretty wrong in my opinion this applies to pve and pvp, it feels very limited and constrictive to a support character, in a city where the entire world can be at your fingertips, can't help but feel like my hands are tied behind my back, anyone else feel that way about their support chars? (FF/Pain dom/Emp/Therm/Cold/player reliant powers)

You can do just that in Champions Online.

Don't care about champions, looking for CoH/V to do it. Champions will always be a failed game compared to this game, Freedom has always been the main key behind this games success and i feel that support characters have gotten the worst of the worst, and it's going to get worse as the population goes down. People are already aiming for Be all end all builds to do everyday things and it's sad have a game full of freedoms turn so monotone

There are several powers that already do affect the user. AOE Heals, Dispersion Bubble, etc. So we have at least some that work like you want.

I think you are correct in your sentiment, but I'm a concerned it would completely over-balance some power sets. Some buffing sets would become too powerful. My Bots/FF would probably be far too powerful, and I'd like to see that AT not get hit with a nerf stick later on as a result.

It's a MMO. That means you're supposed to play with other folks. Really, if you can't get even one other person to play with, then I think you are doing something wrong. That may not be a popular idea with you, but there it is. Surely you can advertise a bit and run some missions, put a team together, etc.

If folks are truly having trouble teaming, then I think there may be issues with population. "Looking for more" flag, better team search options, maybe even a temporary server merge (which should work like instancing a zone in reverse: when pop numbers are low, combine zones from several servers into one zone.) Stuff like that would be more fun, imo, than self buffs. I like having people to play with.

Play a support set without ally-only buffs.

Dark Miasma, Traps, Trick Arrow, Storm. All of those are powerful support sets without any ally-only buffs, with the exception of Storm which has o2 Boost, which is skippable anyway.

I'm just going to take a gander at this and throw out what I think is the most obvious reason we can't buff ourselves.

I'm pretty sure that it has to do with how buffs and debuffs work in this game. Since they're multiplicative, and not additive, being able to buff yourself in addition to others would be unbalancing. A single FF Defender can softcap an entire team, so if they could bubble themselves you're looking at a toon that can reach levels of high resistance and defense using only SOs. So you take a squishy AT and allow them to have massive levels of survivability and damage (if you include other buffing sets, such as Empathy or Pain Dom) and do this all on their own with little investment.

Not sure that allowing Emps to cast both RAs, CM, and stack Fort with AB on themselves is the way that buffing ATs should go. A team of buffers/debuffers is already strong enough to trivialize anything in this game. If anything, all I see a change like this doing is adding more "Be All End All" to the game.

Also, take the shields and use them in PvP. See what kind of returns they bring. It's laughable.

"So you take a squishy AT and allow them to have massive levels of survivability and damage"

I would normally be inclined to agree with you if we didnt already have examples of Tanking squishies/Farming squishies (We all know these squishies). Even in pvp youve got blasters tanking better than tank and dishing out dmg faster than the animations take to complete (those who dont pvp it's psi and fire go to pvp forums and tell me they suggest anything other than those two).Going to toss something else in the mix with Scrappers being Fireblasters that CAN crit, and often, who also have (almost always) regen or SR. People shout and defend that this is balanced "why shouldnt scrappers have ranged?" so why shouldnt scrappers have ranged right? i mean its completely balanced that an AT with regen can spam 80 ft ranged fire attacks with a 1-5 second recharge on it that can crit. I wouldnt have a problem with it if scrappers didnt bypass their primary powers just to spam epic PP

Well now I'm not so sure if this is about AT balance or PvP gripes.

Sadly i must use small examples of pvp for more obvious balance issues vs pve due to the fact that in pve you dont need to be a specific role in order to get through missions/TFs you just need bodies. Team wise the game breaks boundaries because anyone can have fun, but solo you find a lot of problems in balance and pvp. with the community as it is your teams are limited dramatically due to AE farmers and regular Farmers (Hero side) villains have TV farms but they are no way as good or as advertised as hero farms. And in a farm you can go from 1-50 without ever having to IO out because youve got a Fire/kin or Elec/shield that can take on level 54 battlemaiden mobs in seconds. If the game had the community it did fine i would agree teaming would be idealistic, but it doesnt

Not anyones fault that it doesnt (contrary to popular belief) the game is just getting outgrown, it's still a huge favorite of mine and i only want to see it succeed, but this balancing act of ATs holding some ATs down while others are allowed to run out of control is a bit of an annoyance, im not asking for super overpowered I win buttons, just allow everyone to use their powers to their full extent and not be limited because youre support.

Heck even in WoW (hate to bring it up and hate the large company it has become) but even in WoW support can hold their own and not be limited, just imagine if a priest could only heal other people and not themselves how completely weak they would be.

That's what I'm saying, that support characters are far from limited.

All of the support characters/ATs can solo. Granted, some better than others. That's why I said go for one of the support sets that are more geared towards general support, not one more ally-buff based.

Some of the most powerful characters in this game are support.

Bit of a contradiction to say "They are not held back" yet say "If they were allowed to they would be nerfed" as i said before you have a lot of ATs that can run wild and have run wild doing things they are not supposed to in the first place and all of this has become the norm now, yet most support players are held down (and i am speaking about solo/Pvp again for the reason that noone is important in team play and all you need is bodies) let support have their powers and not be limited to 2-3 powers. Thought it was City of Heroes/Villains not City of Sidekicks when playing a defender/Corrupter. I enjoy the Corrupter/Defender ATs but not when i'm all but 3 powers are available for solo play.

Now you're just being obtuse.

It's already been pointed out to you that there is a whole slew of sets whose powers are all useable solo.

None of the sets I mentioned have any ally-only powers. Dark and Traps are two of the most powerful support sets in the game, neither single one has an ally-only power. Storm only has 1 and its skippable.

City of Sidekicks nothin'.

Edit: whoooops

Radiation has 2 ally-based powers.

But yeah, self targeting would blow stuff away. An emp that can clear mind/heal other (self) adrenelin boost and clear mind themselves? A kinetic that can speed boost/ increase density on themselves then fulcrum shift/siphon speed/siphon power? A sonic resonance that can give themselves all their shields, then put their -res toggle on themselves?

There goes any AT BUT support AT's.

Heh, fixed. Thanks for catching that, Seldom

My point still stands for Dark and Traps

As an experiment, I ran my Patron arc a couple of days ago on my Dark/Pain (not a strong soloer). To be fair, she's on Freedom, but after a bit of advertsing I got an MM to join me and we did the first mish. Then a Brute showed up, and before I could get to the next mission I had a full team, and we did the whole arc. Fun times.

So at least partially I think population may have something to do with it. It's definitely easier to run a team on Freedom when you're recruiting in Grandeville, than say Port Oaks on Champion.

However there are still options. Join a global chat channel and offer to run the team. Lots of folks would rather have someone else run the missions than do it themselves. You get merits too if you run your own arcs, so I consider this to be a benefit for folks who are willing to run the teams.

Just tossing my 2 inf too and others have said much the same in different ways.

Krogoth gives a great example. It is not a contradiction that those buffs would be nerfed greatly because those same buffs make others much greater. Allowing those toons to buff themselves and others would make the game so ridiculously easy, it will get boring real fast. (Emps never worrying about status effects since they CM themselves? Kins SBing themselves? Therms/Colds with shields? Etc.)

The other thing you don't seem to be considering are ATs that share those powers - controllers, MM's. All those players would be screaming on the forums for the same treatment if corrs/defs get self buffs.
For example, I have a thugs/PD MM. How great it would be for me to buff myself with Enforced Morale and Paingiver. This toon already solo's AVs and can run at max diff against a number of types of mobs.

Also, another set of players would be crying foul - debuffers. What do they get? You would buff things like emp or FF with self buffs, but what about my D3 def?

To make a completely unhelpful suggestion, just make a Corr with some set other than /pain. While they make good support - I have quite a lot of trouble soloing them because of a lack of debuffs or self-buffs. Keep your DP/Pain for teams, but try something else if you want to solo. Dealing with Mez on a Corr (and other squishies) is just part of the experience (seriously, I can barely solo in RWZ with my fire/rad for all the danged LT-level Mesmerists putting me in near perma hold).