Does super reflexes have to be such a pain pre-30s?

Well, don't pretty much all enemy groups have some amount of S/L? In any mission, which is the granularity of success that usually matters, tough will be relevant.

In PvP, you could go an entire session without being attacked by a player using a meaningful amount of S/L. And, in fact, if Tough didn't affect every type there, that would encourage PvP focused players to use powers that lack S/L components.

It's an issue of enemy composition. The devs control the composition of PvE content (AE aside), whereas the players competing control the composition of PvP zones and arena play.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

If you're looking to demonstrate that Tough's usefulness is degrading, this would be a good time to revisit a damage type analysis and see what exactly is happening in the newer groups, then compare it to older groups.

Because if we're just going off of subjective experiences, I'm feeling like I'm getting hit for a lot of S/L in PvE still.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

We're getting inherent fitness because Christmas came early this year. Otherwise, replace every instance of "need" in my post with the phrase "requires within reasonably conventional builds when played by players of median skill levels to satisfy the balancing requirements of gameplay performance within the design-significant regions of datamined performance metrics within the limits of tolerance specified by the design team."

In other words, if you can't solo without tough, and your skill level is average or better, or if you can demonstrate your ability to earn rewards is substantially less than the average player for a significant region of gameplay without it, then you have a case that your defensive powerset is probably lacking in smash/lethal resistance. Otherwise, nope. You can ask. You just won't get.

Well, if you start asking now, maybe in 2016 the devs will add inherent fighting. It still doesn't get you non-s/l resistances in tough, though, it just gets you tough for free.


The short answer is: the devs decided it was too much work to figure out a solution to the fundamental problem of critter vs player design differences. In particular, player defense is designed to deal with an average of all the critters out there, and the critters are slanted towards smash/lethal damage overall. Players, on the other hand, are not. So player defenses are designed to work against critters in the PvE game, but aren't designed to be fairly balanced against other players in PvP. For that matter, PvE is balanced around averages and PvP definitely is not.

In fact, you can pretty much open the dictionary and put random words into the Mad Libs sentence Player [X] is balanced around critter [Y] on average but not against player [Y] and it'll probably be true. That's a highly involved discussion in and of itself.

Now, as to your point about non-smash/lethal "spikes" showing up in new critters, that's true, but its still overwhelmingly true that the game is designed around smash/lethal damage being the most prevalent and "conventional" damage around which other damage types are balanced around. No one is weak to smash/lethal. Anything that is resistively or defensively strong against anything is either specifically strong against smash/lethal, or specifically strong against something else with smash/lethal a close second. Because being specifically weak against smash/lethal is basically fundamentally broken in this game for players.

Note: critters can be weak to smashing or lethal damage, and some are.

So basically tough lets any character buy some protection against the most common forms of damage in the game. But the more exotic resistances have to be acquired from your primary or secondary powers (or epics, when you get that far, and even then smash/lethal shows up more often than any other).


I don't consider it a case at all. I consider it a request. I've made plenty of requests purely on the basis of want not need myself. But I recognize that makes it about as low a priority item as priority gets. The last time I got a want to have but not need to have, CAK got a token defense debuff - and its not even slottable for invention sets. The last time before that was... uh... let me think... no, that was a need to have for balance... and that was more of a mechanical requirement... ah, I remember now: Gift of the Ancient: +Run Speed became non-unique three and a half years ago during I9 beta. Yay?



PS: the fact that these days the forums seem to have the memory of Leonard Shelby is starting to get annoying. Seriously, the "remember me" checkbox is becoming a sad joke.

I'm having to log in twice a day. As far as I can tell, the 'remember me' checkbox doesn't do anything.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

I've seen double-Quarts spawns semi-frequently, but that was when I played at -1x3. I eventually conceded that that was probably harder than +0x2 and Incarnate Shards would probably still not drop for -1s, so I haven't seen that since I returned to +0x2. These rarely give two-lieutenant spaws, much more rarely, anyway.

So, I guess that gives Elude's MASSIVE defence buff which goes FAR above the cap a point, huh? I had been wondering.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'd say Tough only gives S/L resist purely on a RP reason. Fighting, you're working out, you get the muscles, yeah, taking punches and some lethal force a bit easier, but damn, that fire still hurts the same!

I would think the better question would be, why isnt Tough better for the squishie ATs, and weaker for the melee, who get it naturally? As something designed to fill holes in builds...I would think they'd be higher numbers for Blasters for instance.

Weave got the changes it did, purely for the reasons Arcanaville mentioned. It wasn't stacking.

Tough really doesn't need the extra resists to everything (not that I wouldn't mind if it did), and the only reason it got the bonuses it does in PvP zones, is because people complained.

/SR's (and rather defense in general) weakness (as this thread points out originally) is +Tohit. It had this weakness in PvP zones and people complained.

Why? Because everyone was taking +to hit powers. In a game where it's hit and run PvP, it only makes sense. You want those hits to land, so you're going to grab those powers that allow you to hit, so the enemy doesnt run away and come back at full health. Instead they'll die, go to the hospital, and then come back at full health

that said, when most people consider PvP a joke now anyways, even those who keep PvPing, why would you use what's going on in pvP zones as an example of what to do for PvE? It may change when it gets looked at again (possibly? maybe? hopefully? sigh) later.

Also, while every melee toon you make has tough, I wouldn't call it as common as Fitness was.

Yeah, I hear about builds without Stamina on the forums. In game time however, the ones I see without stamina, have been new players who didn't know to grab it and instead just complained about their endurance (and as a vet, i'd suggest end red enhancements, using blue skittles and getting the fitness pool).

I can probalby count the builds without stamina that I've seen on both (if not just one) hand, when played by any player with a bit of experience.

Fighting on the other hand, I see lots of melee builds skip it. I see even more of the other ATs skip it.

Me? I take it on almost every toon (not all, but almost all, couldn't fit it on my Dom ). I wouldn't call it as common as fitness was. I'd even put money on Hasten being more common than the Fighting Pool (and I tend to skip Hasten myself).

Wait. so it's NOT just me?

it's everyone.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Big problem with that Bill.

How many SR scrappers would that completely break?

They can't do it for the same reason Electric Armor Brutes and Stalkers didn't get Energize earlier like tanks and scrappers did.

What would happen if they put that change through and suddenly a bunch of level 25 scrappers had a power that they shouldn't be able to take until 35? (Quickness)

If they can come up with a solution, sure. But just swapping around the powers without addressing the inherent problems will break probably thousands of characters in a bad way.

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.

See Here.

Carry on.

Thanks for that. I thought the devs and mods were trying to give me a hint!

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.