Bait and switch Aegis Mez protection.

I never knew that. I just went onto Red Tomax to check and at level 15 unyeilding provides:

and at level 50 is provides:

So you are right but still having nearly 8 mags worth of protection at level 15 (which is what I would have been) is still quite high.

http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/power...eilding_Stance

Member of GGRRR, a SG on Defiant - check out our website - GGRRR

Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

Hit 60% Fury? >.>



It's expensive to perma, true - but right now I think my Ill/Rad only has 2 purple sets with perma IW (hold + confuse). It didn't seem all that expensive, but I also had a lot of merits lying around and the confuse set was waiting since before she hit 50.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

If you want to play by those rules....let's see that brute Scourge.

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.

Umm, solo +2/x6 with only SOs with zero risk of dying (not "most of the time this works") pretty much no matter how bad of a player you are?

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

A Traps/Dark Defender with the Fighting Pool, CJ, Maneuvers, Stealth and Charged Armor (the Mu Mastery Version).

Soft Capped all 10 Defenses, mez protection, ~65% S/L Resistance, ~42% Energy Resistance amd a self heal. Slightly more vulnerable to spike damage than some melee toons but with Triage Beacon and Life Drain it should be ok. I think it would be hard to make a tougher character on SOs alone.

EDIT: Just to clarify, this post is mostly tongue in cheek. I'm not actually following the argument I just figured I'd post it for amusement purposes.

Even if you slotted all those powers to 99% you wouldn't be soft-capped (it's about 40%). The low damage, low HP, and sleep hole would be risky. But you're probably right that it could work.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

For a defender:
FFG: 13.3%
CJ: 2.5%
Maneuvers: 3.5%
Stealth: 2.5% Suppressed
Weave: 5%

If you slot them all for +56% defense (i.e. ED capped) you get a total of 45.7% Defense.

The low damage is technically not a concern except that it increase the change of the RNG killing you. The sleep hole is also not a huge risk, half of your defense comes from the FFG which is a pet and as such is not suppressed when you get mezzed.

Are you yanking my chain?

(13.3 + 2.5 + 2.5 + 5 + 3.5) * 1.56 = 41.808

Also, being soft-capped by itself is dangerous if you can't kill quickly. Being soft-capped helps, but the reason Elec/Shield is such a good farmer is because you kill things really fast. If you just stand around in a spawn or don't kill them very fast it's easy to be killed by them. My widow is soft-capped and it only takes a few seconds for her to die if I jump into a large spawn of +2s and don't kill them.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

No, I'm just being misremembering what I did. I was mucking about in Mids a few days ago working this out and forgot what I did. You need a Steadfast IO and slightly overslotted FFG to hit the softcap. Sorry for the confusion.

That's right, isn't it? The mez supression is a per power setting.

Mez still exists and it still sucks regardless of there being someone with protection on the team or not. 45 second and longer mezes have no reason to exist on players. If you have protection you never worry about them, even when diving into carnies or malta. End drain sure, that's a real problem, but not mez.

I've played a WP brute to 50 in enough situations to see that I never care about mez. Even vs. carnies or malta. They certainly can overwhelm status protection, however, they do not in practice enough of the time to ever be concerned with. Unless you solo at x8. Then it's your own fault.

Attempt playing a class that pulls a lot of aggro not related to damage but has no native defense or -tohit like Kinetics. Dive in and boost the melee or not, ranged mez like Longbow Nullifiers (god I hate them) just wreck your day. Or just an aoe happy blaster. See how much you get mezed even with a tank/brute/scrapper.

You have a serious bias towards solo play thinking that scrapper/brute/tank should and need to be able to solo x8 spawns otherwise they just die. Work in a team and this ceases to occur, even if it's only 4 people or whatever. You can still get mezed of course, but with the additional help they can't kill you quickly enough generally.

I like red side far more then blue because of the lack of a tank. There just is no need to be completely immune unless absolute catastrophic failure occurs and you can't disable one mob enough. Often times it isn't even needed.



Mez as it is now is just stupid. At 50 NPC mez lasts for ages, far longer then it takes to annihilate a spawn on a team. Melee has absolutely no regard for mez. None. Even your contrived situation provides limited actual mez during gameplay based on experience. Providing a bit less protection and this changes a bit and reduces solo at x8 potential, both good things in my opinion. Additionally, now that melee are no longer gods perhaps the base duration and mechanics of mez will get looked at to attempt and fix the absurd scaling that goes on because melee have too much defenses against the new more powerful mez that keeps getting introduced!

Solo +0/xX/boss packs with X being bigger then 3. WP with common IOs can do it no problem. Corruptor, at least the Sonic/Kinetic one I have, certainly couldn't if there was a boss without taking 10 minutes per pack. Solo an elite boss. Outside MM, those are pretty hard without /Dark or /Rad. There is just too much incoming damage and mez to handle.

I don't really care about equal. I like the support classes like Corruptors. Other people like melee because they just solo at x8 and make scads of influence and get huge numbers of drops. The only thing I care about is running teams really. I'd like to actually make use of my abilities without getting punished ridiculously so because I don't have the uber sets. To that end I choose to pick up powers and IOs that have defenses in them to assist, but it still isn't enough, and in some cases doesn't actually provide any minuscule benefit despite the naming of the IO.

Ok...? I don't care that mez exists or doesn't. I care about the duration. 45 seconds is a long time to be doing nothing. And it doesn't disappear solo either with smaller spawns. The minions and lieutenants have them above 40. I like to press buttons to get digital rewards. Not pressing buttons and watching digital lights go off isn't as impressive.

^ This.

*I* have a bias toward solo play? Where did I say anywhere in this thread that a melee toon needs to be able to solo at x8?

What I said was:

Where did I say in that quote that a melee AT should solo at x8? I don't see that anywhere. I was referring to team play. I don't believe a team should require a tank, but if I invite one, I expect them to do their job, which is holding agro. If they have lower mez protection than they currently have, they will get continually mezzed because everything is aiming at them instead of the rest of the team. Only Invulnerability has a taunt aura that remains on when mezzed, every other set's aura shuts off. When that aura shuts off because it's mezzed, that tank loses agro. Tanks need the protection they have to do their job, which is taking agro for a team. I didn't say anything at all about solo play.


So, instead of using the tools you are given (breakfrees, proactive mez defense), you are saying the devs need to change the game to suit you.

Right.

When someone builds a building with metal studs, you don't demand that they tear it down and rebuild it with wood so you can use a hammer instead of the screwdriver they gave you. Refusal to use what you are given does not equal a design flaw.



Okay, so you have the best AoE mez in the game available to a non-Controller, non-Dominator character, and apparently are refusing to use it. I'm talking about Siren's Song. It is permanent with just SOs. You can sleep entire spawns, leaving you free to kill any bosses that may be there without the minions and LTs bothering you. When it wears off you can do it again because it is recharged already (I have 2 level 50 Sonic characters, I know exactly how effective this is).

Another little tidbit: Fulcrum Shift deals no damage, so it won't wake them up. You can FS and kill them much faster with your buffed damage output, and they will sleep right through it. You're a Sonic/Kin, so you should have no problem sleeping them, Fulcrum Shifting, killing bosses first and stunning them awake one at a time with Screech. With the buffed damage on your ST blasts, and high recharge you doubtlessly have, you should tear through that spawn in short order in relative safety.

Now, if you skipped Siren's Song and Screech, you have basically set yourself in a situation where mez is unpreventable by you. That isn't the games fault. Refusal to take and use powers that would be useful in that situation does not equal a design flaw.


Any AT with any powersets can solo an Elite Boss. Sure, it's easier for some than others, but anyone can do it. If an Empathy defender can solo one (which has been proven before), anyone can.

Obviously. What you want is for the devs to gimp melee classes and force them to ask support classes for help.

That is clearly a much better solution than using the tools at your disposal to make things easier on you.

/sarcasm


Minions and lieutenants have mezzes above 40? Yeah, I am well aware of that.

Wow. You get Siren's Song at level 18, 22 levels to get it slotted and learn how to use it effectively. That takes care of mezzing minions and LTs while solo. It baffles me that you're running a character that can handle minion and LT mez better than most and are still having problems.

And I find it exceptionally hard to believe that you run on teams and not a single member of the team can do anything about mezzes at all. Sounds like you need to run on better teams, to be perfectly honest.

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.

Not really. A tank needs to have consistent mez protection, because there is very little he can do to prevent mezzes coming in from outside melee range. If their mez protection were reduced to -3, they would run out of breakfrees after the first few fights.

Think about it. A tank's job is to redirect enemy attacks onto himself to protect his teammates from them. That includes any mez effects they may have. If he jumps into a spawn that has multiple mezzers in it with only -3 protection, he will be quickly overwhelmed by the mez and he will lose the agro of the enemies he is fighting.

As I mentioned, there is only ONE set with a taunt aura that remains active when mezzed. All others either deal damage, or affect the enemy in some way (RttC's to-hit debuff, AAO's damage debuff, the various damage auras). Only Invincibility does not toggle off when you are mezzed, because it only affects you. If a mez breaks through for even a second, that taunt aura drops and there is a very good chance the enemies will peel right off of him, especially if there is a character on the team doing a lot of AoE damage.

I was referring only to primary and secondary powersets, because APPs/PPPs are completely optional. Before level 41 no melee character even has the option of a ranged mez power. And even after level 41, a tank only has the option of a single target mez. That would be fine for one mezzing enemy, but what about the other 5? (Note: This is assuming that a tank is tanking for a team and has no say in how many enemies he will be fighting at once)

If every melee character were forced to take an APP your point would be more valid, but you don't have to take one at all if you don't want to.

If you decide to roll a Claws/Regen/Body scrapper like the one I have, you have zero means of reliably preventing a mez. If I didn't have any mez protection, or if it were reduced to -3, I would be hard pressed to finish a mission that contained any mezzing foes at all.

On the other side of things, there are very, very few support powersets that don't have some form of mez ability available to them. Off the top of my head, only Fire Blast and Energy Blast don't have a reliable mez power, everything else does.

It's a simple case of Active Protection versus Passive Protection.

Support ATs have Active Protection, meaning they have the ability to stop the mez from ever being cast in the first place. If that mezzing foe is mezzed themselves, they cannot mez you. And if your mez misses, you have breakfrees.

Also, and this is something people either don't know or keep forgetting, a breakfree will prevent mezzes if it is used pre-emptively. It is not just a reactive measure, it can be used proactively as well. A breakfree frees you from mez by granting you protection from it. The mez is still there, but the protection granted by the breakfree counteracts it. All 3 sizes give you the same protection (IIRC), it's just the duration of that protection that differs. A small one gives you mez protection for 30 seconds, a medium for 60 seconds, and a large for 120 seconds (that's why when you level the breakfree takes longer to wear off than the rest of the inspirations that are cast on you)

A melee AT, on the other hand, has Passive Protection. They don't have any inherent ability to prevent a ranged mez from occurring, so they need passive protection from it. Without passive protection, a level 35 tank/scrapper/brute is a sitting duck to an enemy with a ranged mez. And even after level 41 (if they chose to take the mez in an APP), they will be a sitting duck to more than one at a time (which will happen quite frequently on a team)

A number of melee sets have melee range mez powers, but that doesn't help them when the problem mob is 60 feet away. Since the game engine cannot differentiate between a ranged mez and a melee mez (as far as the mez effect itself is concerned, the game doesn't see "melee hold" or "ranged hold", it just sees "hold") , they have to be given protection to it regardless of where it's coming from*.

(*This is common sense based on the fact that mez protection toggles and click powers make no mention of the location of the mez they are protecting from. I don't actually have verifiable knowledge of the game engine's capabilities)

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.

Very well stated, but I disagree with some of the value judgments you make. Also, as you pointed out, breakfrees can be used as passive protection, so your argument that they aren't good enough for a melee type because they aren't passive seems to have a hole. Also, all of your arguments seem to be from the perspective of, the main tank of a group must have x level of protection. And that I can almost see and agree with, but those arguments don't extend out to any other melee types. And yet other melee types get passive mez protection. So that really supports the argument that somewhere (even if only in most APPs/PPPs) support types ought have some passive mez redress.

Also, since you bring up the differences between passive and active defenses, the same hold true for melee types. I'll point out that the best way to deal with those pesky mezzers at range that melee types have to face, is to close before you get mezzed. Or taunt, which forces them to close by dropping their range. Granted, this can't be done if the melee-AT in question were already mezzed (unless he used a breakfree).

But, this brings me to the value judgment you made that I think most questionable. So what if the tank (or any melee alt) gets mezzed, and can't do their job, and doesn't have a breakfree along to get free. How is this different from any other AT (except to an extent Blasters). Nobody can do their job when mezzed and out of breakfrees (except maybe sorta blasters). So why is it SO much more critical that melee types never (or vary rarely) get mezzed and have to stop doing their job, but it is OK for every other AT?

I can attempt to answer that question myself. Because if the tank goes in first and takes all the mezes that are incoming, then everyone else is free to act. But this seems to be arguing the need to keep the mez situation as is only to protect the tanks' (/melee type in general) protected spot in the old trinity. And as you point out, this game prides itself on not catering to that standard trinity.

What happens if the main tank drops and a brute or scrapper is forced to take over the role? If they didn't have similar mez protection it would have a similar result as hiding behind a cardboard box to avoid gunfire.

What about those annoying enemy groups, like Carnies, that have many, many mezzers in them? The only sets that have significant Psionic defense are Stone Armor and Willpower. Anything else will have Illusionists hitting them with Blind pretty much at will.

A huge problem with that, that involves one set in particular. How exactly is a Stone tank or brute that is in Granite form supposed to close with a ranged mezzer? Especially if they are also running Rooted.

Also, the vast majority of mezzing enemies will fire their mez attack the second they are agroed, unless they are mezzed first. If there is more than one in a spawn, your melee character is going to take 2 or more mezzes to the face before they can close the gap enough to do anything about it. Remember, melee ATs don't get reliable ranged mezzes until after level 41 (and they are optional). Without that mez protection, any 2 mezzing foes will stop you in your tracks before you get anywhere near them.

Because part of a tank and brute's job is to keep their teammate's free of mez effects. It's no different than an Empath or Thermal giving them Clear Mind or Thaw, just a different method. Instead of granting their teammates protection from it, they redirect it to themselves. If they cannot take all those mezzes they are redirecting to themselves, it becomes an exercise in futility, because they now have to rely on the teammates they were protecting from the mez to save them from it.

A scrapper or stalker is a different animal altogether. They aren't designed to take agro for a large team. They have good survivability and mez protection in order to take some of the strain off the support ATs. Every scrapper you have on a team is one less person an Empath or other support character has to worry about, freeing them up to focus on the teammates that DO need their help.

It's not so much a matter of protecting the tank's spot in the old trinity. It's because tanks are a low damage, high defense AT. Without the role of agro soaker to play, they become completely redundant and easily replaced by an AT that deals more damage. Who invites a tank to a team for the damage they do? No one I know of, people invite tanks to teams to soak agro, which is what they are built to do. Take away their ability to do that and no one will have any reason to ever invite one to a team.

If every AT in the game were completely self-sufficient the tank would have no role to play at all on a team. In the age of IOs, where any AT can get defense and recharge bonuses up the wazoo, tanks are less relevant than they used to be, and not even necessary on most teams. The only thing they still do, and do well, is protect their non-protected teammates from being mezzed by eating all that mez themselves. If you were to give all ATs in the game mez protection tanks would be even less useful, and would quickly begin the slide toward complete extinction in the game.

I'd rather not see the tanker getting pity spots on task forces because no one needs the service he provides any more.

The funny thing is, I'm not even that much of a tanker player, I've never had one higher than level 30. But I appreciate what they contribute to a team, and I don't want to see what little relevance they still have taken away from them.

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.

You make a point, but you said "If there is enough", do you realize how much, really how much it does take to be enough?

You said melee "needs it" mez protection, I can not disagree with you, but what makes you think support do not need it any at all as well? After all can't melee pop break-frees too? Please consider mez is now very far ranged, and players' ability to mitigate the use of such mez is hardly fool proof such as melee's unconditional protectin is.

A great point you made was why would a tank would have to depend on a defender at all for mez protection? Yet you are comfortable with a Defender having to depend on a Tank for everything? Is this concept of balance, acceptable to you?

You also made an interesting point, a group would not last long if the tank goes down. That is not entirely true either, tanks and melee are not indispensable; their presence do make life a lot easier though :<) Also it would be a weaker point if the mobs would not area, range, melee spam mez as well, or support were not 100% vulnerable, even minions are not 100% vulnerable.

With regards to Stalkers they need even more resistance, not less, besides their 1 big hit, after that they are wanna be Scrappers; when engaging large groups, its going to take them much longer than a Scrapper to deal with the group, and thus exposed to more mez attacks over time.

While I do not propose that ranged ATs have as good mez protection as melee, a zero protection is not right either. Please consider that melee's protection is high and unconditional, it always work they don't have to hit, and then hope to affect the target for some sort of protection, its there, it works, it does not matter if the attack was from an Av or minion. Contrast that with say a corruptor, they don't have holds, what is their mez mitigation ability? Range? a 5% acc debuff? Present minions have long range attacks with seconday effects that are mez attacks, at no protection for the support class, the minion is guaranteed 75% chance of success, if the attack came from a LT or Boss, the Corruptor is automatically defeated. Frankly I fail to see how a supoprt AT can be considered "heroic", when they are so vulnerable?

Stormy

You don't consider a stun to be effective at preventing a mezzer from mezzing you?

Every Corruptor primary except Fire Blast and Energy Blast has access to at least a stun, and many have holds available, some have more than one.

Ice and Electric Blasts have true holds in them, Ice has 2. Sonic has a large AoE sleep cone, and a stun, it also has a wide KB cone. Archery, Radiation, and Assault Rifle all have at least a stun in them. Dual Pistols has a stun that can be converted into a hold.

Energy Blast at least has KB on it's side, and at least one power is guaranteed KB.

Secondary wise, corruptors have a grab bag of tricks. Dark Miasma has a hold and a cone fear, not to mention Dark Servant, who also has a hold and a cone fear (and he can use them even if you are mezzed) Sonic and Traps actually DO get mez protection. Radiation can put their chance to hit so low you probably won't be hit by a mez in the first place.

But of course using those powers to prevent the mez from landing is apparently too much to ask. Do people really want the game dumbed down to the point that they don't even have to think about what they are doing?

When I play my support ATs, I keep an eye on what I'm fighting so I can be ready to pre-emptively mez whatever the biggest mezzing threat is in that particular spawn. Or if there is more than 1, I pop a breakfree before I go in.

Conversely, my main is a Claws/Regen/Body scrapper. He doesn't have the option to pre-emptively do anything at all to protect himself from mez, and has to trust that his mez protection toggle will see him through. Most of the time it is effective, but some things can punch through it, and fighting Malta or Arachnos are going to guarantee his toggles drop at least once or twice in the mission.

Question: If mez protection is so desired by support ATs, why is Psychic Mastery for Controllers not by far the most popular APP, since it has one of 3 sources of true mez protection available to Controllers in it?

Out of every 10 builds I see in the Controller forums, maybe 1 took Psychic Mastery, and maybe 1 or 2 took Cold Mastery. The rest of them all took Fire or Stone.

If mez protection for support ATs is so damned important, why is every controller in the game NOT using Psychic Mastery?

I'll answer the question with a question: Maybe because it's not as big of a deal as some people would like to make it out to be?

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.

I have Psi Mastery with one of my controllers incidentally, but it is not that effective a Rikti Boss stills takes me out in one mez shot, its very difficult to make it perma as it is for melee, etc; In short the powers sound better than what it truly is, the power is all bark and no bite.

You made good points with regards to secondary effects and powers corruptors get, but again they seem daunting on paper. Yet what are their MAG potencies? I bet they are lucky to be a 2 for a single target and a 1 for area; otherwise why have Dominators or Controllers? Given their area and single potency MAG values, what are their "real" chances to affect a Boss or above? What are their real chances to affect a minion or LT, all given in one application, after all it only takes one application from a minion to lay a support down.

You did spend a lot of time explaining how Controllers and Dominators, could use their powers to be protected from the abusive use of mez. I also appreciate your "pre-empt mez" concept (good concept incidentally), question how good did it work? I find my pre-emptive mez only works effectively about 25% of the time, and they are heavely slotted for the job with IOs no less (but IOs do not raise the mag potency of my attack, only duration or chances to hit). When looking at a player MAG potency attack and MAG resistance from mobs; If a Controller/Dominator your MAG 2 area pre-empt mez has at best a 25% chance to pre-empt a boss, so you may get lucky and mez him, the other 75% of the time, you are in trouble, the same area mez, does have a 50% chance to take a LT down, which means 50% of the time one of those LTs is not going to be impressed, and finally you do have a 75% chance to pre-empt a minion, if you have 4 of them, it is statistically likely one of them is gonna get lucky and roll under a 25% and resist your effort, I suspect the game fudges too :<).

Thus what are the statistical chances that on one MAG 2 area mez application: You are going to mez 1 Boss, +2 LTs, +4 Minions? Incidentally it does happen, I done it before, but all too seldom, frankly it was a feat of extraordinary luck.

Trust me, as a player that plays support ATs as well as melee, there is much we can do to mitigate the obvious and designed vulnerabilities into support ATs to mez by devs; yet because we work hard at it and experience success the majority of the time, it does not mean there is not a problem with the class and the binary set up for mez (you have lots of protection or absolutely none), in fact could it be possible because we do have to work so hard, that it may be indicative of a problem as well.

I can agree with your point over the Scrapper's inability to pre-empt, on the other hand he does not need to do so at all, his unconditional protections will see to it (unless he set up at +4/x8/Y/Y Carnies or Rikti). While a support AT has to 100% succeed in the pre-empt or suffer the dire consequences, that means the one boss, 2 Lts and 4 minions have to be neutralized in the very first try, for in the next round, they will go first and they will mez you, after all what part of "zero" mag protection we don't get?

Its not like in the I3 days that only Bosses had mez and were limited to melee, today's mobs as lowly as minions has near sniper range attacks with mez side effects, so I agree with you that in most cases, you get to pre-empt, but player mez is hardly 100% effective. Also the player's mez range is in general inferior to the range attacks of mobs, which have secondary mez effects, that means a player has to get within mob "ranged attack" range, in order to try the the area or single mez; thus range is not quite the unconditional protection we may think it is advertised to be. Also consider, you can't pre-empt an ambush that insta-spawn on top of you, you are actually by mission design being pre-empted; how fair is that? a Melee is ok with this, after all their protections will work, but it goes so much harder on the conditionally protected ATs; it feels like support ATs are getting picked-on, and frankly no matter how good a player you may be, you got owned, and there was nothing you could have done; for it was a sucker punch by any other name by the devs.

I also want to make one observation, you say, if there is more than one mob to pre-empt, you pop a break-free in advance ( you already know, that the pre-empt attack is not going to work very well). You indicate you "have to" use an inspiration for a regular not stressing comfrontation! I don't think a melee has to pop a "luck" to engage a boss, 2 lts, and 4 minions in normal difficulty setting? Heck, when I go with my Elec/Shield Tanker, I take on +4/x8/Y/Y and never come close to even need an inspiration! That includes EBs as well! So why would one think it is ok, for a Controller to have to use a break free in advance to fight a regular group at standard setting?

Once again, I am asking for some unconditional mez protection for support ATs, MAG 3, the same as a boss. I do not think its dummying down the game at least not significantly. It is only making the dangerousness of mobs more in line, to what they should be. Why should a minion be given an "I Win" botton against Support ATs? Consider that 3 minions to Mez gang on the MAG 3 resistant Defender with ranged attacks' secondary effects, would have a 50% chance for the Defender to go down! Put the standard 4 which comes in the average mob size and the Defender's chances to resist the mez unslaught is only 25%, and that is normal group size at standard difficulty! It gets worse for the Defender if a single LT adds its MAG 2 or a Boss its MAG 3 potency. If you really do the statistical math, MAG 3 protection for Support is really not that much, and a good player such as yourself could use good practices to be able to overcome quite a great number of arbitrary attacks in which no amount of inspired playing could help you before.

Stormy

You got that right!

I see Claws response, but a tank must have continuos protection, maybe he can eat a break free in advance too as he suggested for Controllers :<)

Hugs

Stormy

Mez effects for support ATs are almost universally MAG 3, the same as a Controller or Dominator's ST hold. In almost all cases they will affect a lieutenant in one application.

The only exception to that I can think of is Dark Pit from Dark Blast. It is a MAG 2 AoE stun. Which works nicely in combination with Oppressive Gloom from Dark Mastery. If you combine them you will stun bosses (as they are both MAG 2, they will combine to beat a boss's MAG 3.5 protection)

In response to your other question that I didn't quote: My success rate with pre-emptive mezzing is in the neighborhood of 60-70% if I'm paying attention. If I'm just sleepwalking through a mission it drops to about 30%. There aren't really that many enemy groups that will throw more than 1 or 2 mezzers at you at a time, and when you do run across them, you generally have more than one option to work with.

With the customizable difficulty settings, and the ability to pre-emptively mez that support ATs almost universally share, MAG 3 protection would be sufficent to eliminate the threat of mez completely. If 2 mezzers are in a group, you can mez one and safely ignore the other, and you won't usually find more than that until you start cranking up your difficulty to insane levels.

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.

Shockwave and Focus say hi, and told me to tell you how hurt they were that you forgot all about them.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.