Frustration with the word "defend"

The power of Defenders have never been lost on me, but I've always disagreed with the non-blasting Defenders. The major problem I have is when people say because Defenders have the word "defend" in it, that means they should stand back and do nothing but buff their allies. Let me give some real life examples of why I disagree with this analysis.

In warfare, both of old (knights to present day), to protect their cause they not only showed their standing up for people under their watch, but to attack as well. Town watches and even police look over their populace to ensure that there are no threats, and if threats arise, they attack in order to drive their attackers away or neutralize that threat from their town. To be even more up to date, part of the reason that American troops are in Afghanistan is because we are defending our country by attacking.

Defenders goals are to protect the people first and stop the bad guys secondly and usually using the latter to accomplish the former. That same principle applies to police, who are here to protect and serve. Do they have SWAT and such to take out bad people with various tools? Yes, it's rather offensive tactics, but it protects people while still attacking those who are directly opposed to it (watch Cops and see them tackle a suspect to handcuff 'em). That's like a Radiation Blast Defender using Cosmic Burst on em. They can still move around a bit, but overall they are rather hampered from doing any more harm.

Defenders in CoH are similar, their main goal is to protect and serve their teammates and in raids fellow heroes. However, sometimes in order to ensure that their main goal is achieved to the maximum potential, aggressive tactics must be put in place in order to hamper the targets and help achieve the overall goal, which is to stop the bad guys. The blasts are there to help achieve both of these goals from both the damage aspect along with the secondary effect of the powers. Energy Blast -> several seconds of 100% mitigation, Radiation Blast -> easier to take down the person threatening the teammate, Psychic Blast -> Controls and Recharge debuffing to make the hostile actions reduced, etc.

The damage for a defender being the only a factor of what the power does makes little logic. A worth of a power is determined by the damage and secondary effect of it. This is also part of the reason why I can see the devs being very slow on bringing us Fire Blast, the secondary effect of it is extra damage, but defenders do less damage so their blasts do even less versus having the extra secondary effect, or at least at par depending the set. Fire Blast would be the only set that actually has no equal or greater component in its blasts. Not that I don't want Thermal on Defenders (in fact I think I'd love it), but fire blast would be rather upsetting to the populace as it wouldn't be even as equal as Corruptors in any way, shape, or form.

Defenders defend. How to maximize their ability to defend is utilizing all their available tools. Blasts are a viable tool to help the team achieve their goals via extra damage and secondary effects within them. Just because the Defender defends, doesn't mean he has to just stand there and do nothing but use buffs with dead time between buffs/debuffs. A blaster is cycling through all their primary and secondary, why can't a defender?

While i do agree that most defenders should also blast, I hardly ever do on my emp/psi. the reason being is that i'm always buffing, or topping off green bars. I have enough recharge on her that atlest one of her buffs are always up, and if i blast i miss out on a buff cycle, and to me, having the blaster fortituded up is more important then my low damage mental blast hitting something. Now, if i'm on a small team, and my buff cycle is short, then i blast as much as possible, keeping an eye on the buffs active, in order to keep those up, as those are my primary goal.

As long as the defender in question in contributing to the team efforts and isnt just rocking the PBAOE healing aura, i see very little issue with one that doesn't choice to blast. Now if theres nothing else to do, and they still refuse for one reason or another, then i start to question, but usually the team is move so quickly that the added damage of a defender isn't going to add much more, and their secondary is much more effective as a force multiplier.

I had to read thru your post twice Stormy to figure out where your thread was aimed, but think that I understand it now.

It really comes down to whether it would make sense to change some game mechanics, cast times, or buff durations. Also whether those changes would "break" the AT.

For instance, in my Empathy "solo quest", one of my conclusions was that Clear Mind being changed to a PBAoE buff like Acc Metabolism would pretty much make a huge improvement to the powerset.

1) It would grant self-protection to Empathy which is distinctly lacking in the set (only 3 powers usable to protect yourself). It would align Empathy more with Sonic and FF, which are also "buff-oriented" sets that can protect themselves from status effects.

2) It would reduce significantly the amount of "buffing time" on a team, because CM along with Fort are used "pre-emptively". I have been told that the developers have said this is not how these types of powers were intended to function, but that doesn't change how they are used by players. I am often on "squishy-heavy" teams (5 or more out of 8) and re-casting CM takes up alot of cycle time.

Compare Forcefields versus Kinetics and you can see some of what I am referring too. Forcefields has 3 powers that form the core of its team protection, 1 of which is a toggle and the other 2 last 4 MINUTES. This allows a FF defender alot more active (offensive) approach to teaming. My last Kineticist OTH, barely got a shot in during most fights and it was usually limited to AoEs AFTER Fulcrum was used. Between ID, SB, Transfusion, FS, and siphons, I could spend an entire team event re-casting powers that seemed like I JUST cast them 10 seconds ago.

How would this all be changed without breaking the game???? I dont know for sure. Most of my past Ideas have been shot down in flames, so I hesitate to suggest things on the defender front these days. But I think the biggest areas to put a magnifying glass on would be A) disparities in defender "self-protection" between primaries. and B) disparities in cycle-times spent using primary powers versus secondary powers.

Then go from there on a case-by-case basis.

A defender who neglects their secondary is a bad defender.

Look, I give Tankers and Defenders a lot of stick for having low damage. But the fact is, if you're not using both your primary and secondary, you're not contributing to your team as much as you could or should. The argument that a given set (like kin or emp) is busy so you have little to no time to blast doesn't hold water IMO. That just means you're unwilling or unable to properly prioritize your powers.

Kinning, Emping and Therming are all very busy. That doesn't mean you shouldn't blast, I just means that you should ensure the blasts you use are the ones that count.

I've never agreed with people who delve too deeply into Archetype names, like the people you mention at the top of your post, Stormy.

I see the AT labels as a purely game term. I don't imagine my characters saying "Hello, I'm a Defender" any more than they'd say " I can do 100 points of damage with my Cosmic Burst!"

For example, Defenders and Corrupters are equivalent in what they do, but the literal meanings of their names mean radically different things.

As for Fire Blast, I'd say just proliferate it.
Some sets already work better for some archetypes. e.g. The low damage/high control sets (Earth, Ice, Elec) suit Dominators better than Controllers. The higher damage sets (eg Mind, Gravity) work better on Controllers than Doms, since Doms have no need for Propel or Levitate with their Assault secondaries.

As those who know me can attest, I play a mean Empathy Defender. Some of that is due to how well IO'd he is. But, a large part of it is my mentality behind the character.

Personally, I enjoy being on a team as much as I can with him. This is NOT because he has no attacks -- in fact, he has 4 well-slotted attacks that do phenomenal damage even without Vigilance buffing it -- it is because I enjoy watching the buffs and heals do their job turning my teammates into the killing machines they should be with a GOOD Defender behind them (or any other class that buffs/debuffs/heals). In fact, on a large team, I do have a buff cycle that I try to maintain. Thus, on large teams, I am less likely to be attacking. Some of this is unfortunately because my buffs seem to have a short duration compared with the effort of maintaining them (cough Clear Mind cough).

However, like I said, my defender has 4 well-slotted attacks that actually pump out quite a bit of damage. My philosophy is that, while I dislike soloing if I can avoid it, I do believe that I should have the capability to solo (and abuse the 30% dmg buff from Vigilance) when I need/choose to do so. Plus, if I am on a great team and not needing to do much more than cycle a few buffs, my attacks allow me to contribute and not be bored (though, admittedly, laziness does sometimes kick in!).

The difference, though, is that Defenders seem to be one of the only classes who are expected to take, slot, and routinely use all 9 powers of their primary powers; take few attacks; and take power pools which help them do their supportive role more efficiently -- usually, means taking Flight for safety, Leadership for more group buffing, and anything else that would help support a team. Whereas, other classes seem to take powers that would either help them survive and/or do more damage.

Unfortunately, defenders are in that situation where you are expected to think of others before yourself in power selection. But, do make sure you can take care of your own needs as well.

The irony is that they were soooo owrried about tank-mages early on in the game but failed to realize that making scrappers so self sufficient, that it was mostly a moot problem.

There should never have been a defender AND blaster class. Just a combination of the two: Ranged attack and Buff sets with damage somewhere in between. You wouldn't have had the sterotypes that exist and the damage levels would have been easier to balance. Oh well. It's still a great game... just wish they could go back and redo certain parts.

Exactly! They should have had corrs with a slightly higher damage multiplier right out of the box. No blasters, no defenders and things would have been so much better. Actually all the villain ATs tend to really benefit from their experience with the game. They learned that everyone wants to feel heroic at times and needs to be able to defeat foes in a reasonable amount of time.

For most of my toons, I think I play best when I do most often with the toon what that toons does best. Any time and effort spent trying to count kills with a Granite tank is not time well spent, either on teams or interminable soloing. Any time spent trying to farm with a Dark Melee scrapper is probably not going to be a productive as that same time spent with any number of powersets.

For defenders, probably more that any other AT, the secondary is very secondary. The defender blasts are VERY weak, almost annoyingly so. If my buffs and debuffs weren't so godly in this game, I'd probably complain. It didn't take me long to realize that this game is not about damage and defenses; it's about buffs and debuffs. Teams of eight defenders absolutely mow through everything and it's not because their blasts are so potent. They rock because that many defenders can buff their defender attacks to actually decent level and debuff enemy defenses to nearly nil. I was on an 8-man rad defender superteam that did Lusca in 6 minutes... without even trying to speed through it.

Perhaps a defender -as it exists in this game- shouldn't be called that. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a Protector, which probably more accurately describes what it does while still conveying the element of offense purported by the OP.

This just reminds me of yet another why don't defenders use their primary and secondary lament. I believe Adeon Hawkwood summed it up well, most good defenders do.

Every AT has a secondary that is different from its primary in terms of its use, which, employed correctly imrpoves the viability of the primary.

Scrappers and Stalkers have armour secondaries, which helps them scrap or stalk better, they could run without them, but its foolish.


tankers have melee secondaries which can help generate agro, deal daamge, or do some utlity stuff, again, you could go without it, but it stilly.


Each AT is like that, should we change the name of Dominator to Dominator & Smashy, a controller to "Controller and Buffer" no its silly, and its made apparent thats the case with any interaction with the AT at all.


So should defender be changed to "Defender/Buffer/Healer/Debuffer + damage and interesting utlitity sometimes" probably not, as its a bit silly but it does cover all the bases, which is what you want right?

Trust me when I guess wildly that most people except very new players know that the defender has more up its sleeve than just its primary, that they choose to only utilise that on a build is up to them.

I personally have some very aggressive defenders, and a dual build emp, one where he is "pure emp" which I use(d) soley for doing higher level TFs with friends and SG mates where the loss of damage output wasnt too important, nor was the loss of my utlitiy, vs the benefits of leadership etc etc. and the second build for general teaming, where most things suddenly find they lack the recharge to throw out their attacks, and when they do throw them out, my team is healed or buffed up quite quickly after.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

It's really just people's lack of considering offense and use the fact that it's called defender for a reason to not use their secondary that bugs me.

Also, controls are a secondary effect to me, even if it only does 9 damage.

>.>

I have to admit on the very first toon I created about 4 years back I created a Defender just because the name sounded cool
I was soOOooOooo new to MMO-stuff that I just learned a LOT thru trial and error back then.
Once I realized that the toon didn't pack all that much punch for my tastes, I started tinkering with other ATs.

That being said..... I created an Empathy/Dark Blasts/Dark Mastery Defender a few months later and got it to 50.
I have solo'd your average mission from time to time, realizing that the main purpose of the toon is buffage, healage and keepin others alive at all times.
But with the dark blasts and mastery it has I am proud of the offensive punch it has.
Between the Tenacious Testacles as I like to call them (Tenebrous Tentacles) to the debuffs it sends out.... it is one of the more versatile toons I have ever had.
Plus with allignment switching I am gonna make it a villian for a short time so I can delve into the Ghost Widow Patron Powers to have those options to tinker with too

All I want, is for Defenders and Corruptors to have a little bit more damage output. I know a lot of you may not agree with me, but the damage out put on these two archetypes just seem to be to low. I don't expect them to be blasters. I am aware they are ment for teams. I just think that ever archetype in some way shape or form wants to feel powerful and not just be in a class/archetype.

Thats my two cents

Still love the game, always dream change

lol arghhh...
how do we get suckered into a another Bellyaching/Complaint thread?

Even as a n00b, never got harassed about attacking too much. Mebbe cuz i took care of business first w/ the Primary powers, as expected by your teammates upon hire....

Take care of business w/ your primary powers first, get you name out there as a reliable defender, and you wont have issues no more - simple as that. Tired of n00bs complaining about AT expectations....

I mean.... COMEON! Those who have played with my twin defs know they can tank and blast, and usually more effective than those who fulfill those roles. But as a defender, i take pride in fulfilling my end of the bargain and maintain my teammates ice shields up and keeping them standing before i take an offensive role. Thats just being responsible with the AT you play... If you got that squared away, there wont be any complaints about you attacking