Force Fields and Defense Debuff Resistance

Why don't Force Field powers provide defense debuff resistance like other defense based sets? Would such an addition make it overpowered?

Because

There are only three powers that provide ally defenses. If you're really having problems with defense debuffs, try using any of the other 6 powers to keep your team alive.

I dont think it wouold overpower Force Fields to provide some Def debuff, even if its just 50% once slotted in Dispersion Bubble.

I've never been a big fan of the way the bubbles pop against certain enemy groups, Earth Thorn Casters being the worst example.

You've given up your whole primary to providing team defence, it would be nice if it worked more consistently against common enemy groups like CoT at all ranges.

That would still leave To Hit buffs like Devouring Earth emanators, but they're more localised and easier to neuter, since they belong to leiutenants rather than minions.

None of the other six powers provide offensive force multipliers.

My point was:

In choosing Defender over say Blaster, you've opted to take a lower base damage.
In choosing FF over, say Sonic, you've chosen a set that multiplies only the defensive abilities of your team rather than the offensive abilities.
It then sucks IMO to have most of that defence removed by a common enemy group (even within limited level ranges) due to something that may have been an oversight. Force Fields initially launched with an oversight that made it only give typed Defence, thus benefitting some allies (eg Ice Tank)more than others (SR scrapper). This has been fixed. Is the lack of DDR oversight or design? I don't know.

Westley, as our resident Force Fields guru, do you think the set would benefit from DDR? Would it overpower it? How would the added DDR to allies affect other defense sets with low DDR such as shields?

Oh, you meant defense in the general sense. I thought you meant it in the specific sense of the attribute that exists in the game mechanics. Nevermind then, carry on.

That being said, FF has only two weaknesses, Sleep and a lack of Defense Debuffs. Considering how weak other sets are to a VARIETY of different damage/attack types, I'd say our two few weaknesses are just fine, especially considering that we have other tools at our disposal that can help reduce mobs from using defense debuffs and sleeps, like... say... knocking them on their *****.

I still would like a "Reduce Knockback Magnitude" enhancement that would give the player the option to choose to turn knockback into knockdown by slotting for it. If they can accomplish power color changes, they can surely accomplish this. I think it's well overdue for us to give us the choice about just how much "force" we want our powers to have. And it makes sense thematically as well... shouldn't force field masters have CONTROL over how much force they spew out?

One of FF's lesser powers should've been a conserve power-ish, errrr, power. Thematic and always useful.

Force Bubble should've been a PBAoE -movement, -damage power. Like mobs are moving through Jell-O. Same overall effect as the current Force Bubble (keep mobs away from me, reduce incoming damage), but without the annoying bits like removing melee from Dispersion Bubble and fugging up AoEs.

At which point, discussions about def debuff and FF would disappear. Much as they never show up for other (de)buff sets that also have +def ... and more versatility.

FF does have an active AOE damage power (fireball-scale damage) that also does knockdown. I know, it's not a LOT of additional damage, but it exists, and it was more than I asked for.

My "break-the -cottage-rule" power would be something similar to Sonic Dispersion that you couldn't run at the same time as Dispersion Bubble- that is, give the team the choice of capped DEF or good DEF and some RES.

So I'd like to improve Force Fields, yes. But I find "one person defense-caps the whole team, reliably" to be a considerable benefit in a variety of situations, and I don't think cascading defense failure is too high a price to pay for that. (I still have a secret belief that the Devouring Earth quartz was a typo on the level of Smoke Grenade, back in the day, but it's got six years of history behind it now.)

The simply reason is because no buff that affects other players provides DDR. You're already providing a massive amount of survivability to your party members. Allowing them to partially or fully mitigate one of the few effects that your buffs don't allow them to largely ignore (because, remember, defense acts as debuff resistance by allowing you to dodge attacks).

The only powersets that provide DDR are personal survivability powersets that operate using some degree of defense (Invuln, SR, Shield, Energy, etc). The only powers that provide DDR are powers within those sets and the only power that I can recall that allows you to give it to your allies is Grant Cover. The reason for this is simple: defense based sets need DDR in order to prevent a defense debuff cascade. Buff sets are already designed to provide more than the targets have normally, so there is no need to provide them with any degree of resistance to the defense debuff cascade. If FF did provide DDR, you can be reasonably confident that it would be even more overpowered than it already is (and, yes, though it gets a bad rap, FF is one of the single most powerful sets out their based on animation time consumption and overall contribution).

The only thing I could get behind would be 50% DDR in Dispersion that only affects the Bubbler. Since Dispersion is the only defense the bubbler gets unless they use IO sets and other defense granting powers.

15% defense for self for the defender (12% for the controller) isn't much. The first mob with a machine gun drops that to 8% or less.