Bait and switch Aegis Mez protection.
By
AddamsFamily,
Posted on: 2010-11-11 18:45 in Player Questions
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You can have a decent solo build that can also team well. You don't need to drop those buffs in order to solo, especially now that inherent Stamina has given you three extra power choices for your build. I've never kicked an emp because they didn't have their rez power. Mostly because I think that everyone should carry an awaken or two anyways. I don't know why you think that you can't solo and take those powers. Sure, it might be EASIER to drop those powers for more solo-friendly powers, but it's not like you have to do that.|
Originally Posted by hedgehog_NA
A melee at has about the same build solo or teamed and works fine. To give my emp the ability to solo i leave off heal other, fortitude, cm, rez, and ab. That build would get me kicked off a team in a second. To do the things that you refer to defenders doing(gm or av killing) you remove your ability to team. The number of tanks that wont take or use taunt is annoying. Yes, you get to choose your powers and play how you will. just dont expect those buffs you were wanting.
That tricked out defender soloing gm's? 1 stun and he is toast. The offensive debuffs like RI drop and you have to wait for them to recharge while big and ugly is pounding on you. The point is, as long as melee is completely self sufficient, speed ITF's will be an annoying reality. Melee seems to be ok with squishies having challenge but want none of it for themselves. |
Killing AVs/GMs on a Defender I have seen only a few builds do, and none of them would prevent that player from working well on a team. They use the same powers that they would when on a team, so why do you think they wouldn't have the ability to team? Also, not many GMs have any kind of ranged Mez power, so where is that Stun going to come from, eh?
Don't blame bad Tanks for your problems. A bad player of any type is going to make it hard for a team. A Controller who throws out a mass immob before the enemy group has centered on the Tank and his aggro aura? Aggro for the team. The Blaster who throws half of a spawn off a railing to come back to beat on the team? Aggro for the team. The Defender who puts an AoE debuff on a second spawn in a large room while the Tanker is already at his aggro cap? Aggro for the team. ANY AT can be bad in the hands of somebody that is incompetent, including melee ATs. That is not a symptom of the support ATs being broken. If you see a character being played horribly, you can either teach that player, or you can find a better team. Nobody is forcing you to play on bad teams. And this isn't even getting into whether Tanks need Taunt to hold aggro, given Gauntlet and their aggro auras.
If you really think that Melees have no challenge, then really, get a Tank up to high levels and Tanker for an 8-man team against Malta, KoA, or Carnies. With that much focus on you, without a good team behind you, you're toast (unless you are IO'd out to a point at which support ATs with the same investment would be fine, too).
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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I see. |
Originally Posted by hedgehog_NA
A melee at has about the same build solo or teamed and works fine. To give my emp the ability to solo i leave off heal other, fortitude, cm, rez, and ab. That build would get me kicked off a team in a second. To do the things that you refer to defenders doing(gm or av killing) you remove your ability to team. The number of tanks that wont take or use taunt is annoying. Yes, you get to choose your powers and play how you will. just dont expect those buffs you were wanting.
That tricked out defender soloing gm's? 1 stun and he is toast. The offensive debuffs like RI drop and you have to wait for them to recharge while big and ugly is pounding on you. The point is, as long as melee is completely self sufficient, speed ITF's will be an annoying reality. Melee seems to be ok with squishies having challenge but want none of it for themselves. |
So, I give an example of something a support AT can do that not a single melee AT can, and just because it lacks mez protection it is invalid?
Sorry, that is complete bull. It can be and HAS been done. Do you think a melee AT succeeds at soloing an AV every single time they try it? Not even close to accurate. From the way everyone here is talking, you'd think a melee AT can do anything they want with zero chance of ever being defeated, and that isn't even CLOSE to true. Anyone attempting to run at x8, or solo an AV will more than likely fail repeatedly before they finally pull it off.
Something you may not realize: A melee AT has to change their build to do different things too. Those AV soloing monster DPS builds? Yeah, they usually aren't that great at running x8, because a lot of them skip AoE attacks in favor of single target DPS. They generally suck on teams too, because AoE rules the roost in teaming situations.
You also chose to completely ignore my point about melee becoming progressively more useless on a team when you start adding more support ATs.
Melee does not bring as much to a team as a support AT does, it is a simple FACT.
A scrapper brings damage, and nothing else. A scrapper can not reliably lock down entire spawns like a controller, and cannot buff their teammates into gods like a defender OR controller. Sure, a tank can soak agro, but support ATs working together can quite easily make that pointless.
This entire argument is based in the idea that support ATs should not only be great on teams, but they should solo at x8 like the most tricked out melee can do. And that is a completely bogus argument.
Support should be able to have their cake and eat it too, while melee remains good at only one thing? No, I don't think so.
When melee brings as much to a teaming situation as a support AT, maybe then we can talk about support soloing better. Until then, no, you don't get to be good at everything.
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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. |
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Melee brings a lot to the team if built and played correctly. Sure all support teams can melt spawns very fast but it is still going to be less effective unless you have a capable melee (anything) that can lead the charge, take the alpha and begin clustering mobs.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
When melee brings as much to a teaming situation as a support AT, maybe then we can talk about support soloing better. Until then, no, you don't get to be good at everything.
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You do not need taunt or even a taunt aura to do this, just recognizing when the mob pack is finished and get to the next one.
Essentially, play redside brute style as all melee team characters if you have an abundance of support. This alone makes things many times faster having this additional capability that no support can do effectively.
But, this is difficult. And many tanks/brutes/scrappers/stalkers are timid at fighting for some time because they slot incorrectly and don't make use of their defenses.
Player skill and game mechanics issue pretty much. The game doesn't punish bad melee builds until they get into teams so they go back to soloing where they kill fast. Additionally, they do not develop skills that actually let them be useful on a team. Quite the bad situation to be in.
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And a well played Controller can ensure that the alpha strike you're so concerned about never even happens.|
Originally Posted by Savos
Melee brings a lot to the team if built and played correctly. Sure all support teams can melt spawns very fast but it is still going to be less effective unless you have a capable melee (anything) that can lead the charge, take the alpha and begin clustering mobs.
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| You do not need taunt or even a taunt aura to do this, just recognizing when the mob pack is finished and get to the next one. |
Here's something for you to try: Tag along with the Repeat Offenders sometime, and see what they do with teams comprised of nothing but support ATs. They run themed teams of all defenders or all controllers, or all characters with a specific powerset (which any AT it is available on is welcome to join), and they absolutely annihilate content. They generally don't invite melee characters, because the melee characters slow them down. I believe they have done Master runs of all the TFs you can do Master runs on, without a single melee AT in sight.
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| Player skill and game mechanics issue pretty much. The game doesn't punish bad melee builds until they get into teams so they go back to soloing where they kill fast. Additionally, they do not develop skills that actually let them be useful on a team. Quite the bad situation to be in. |
It is perfectly fair that the ATs that are specifically designed to be team players do not solo as well as those that are designed for it.
Here is the breakdown from most solo oriented to least, for blueside ATs:
Scrapper
Tanker
Blaster
Controller
Defender
Interestingly enough, the breakdown from most team-oriented to least goes:
Defender
Controller
Blaster
Tanker
Scrapper
....the exact opposite order. It is both sensible and fair that the least solo-oriented AT will bring more to a team than the most. And it is also fair that the most solo-oriented AT will bring less to a team.
Unlike a lot of people in this thread, when I play a defender, I understand and accept that it is not going to solo as fast as a scrapper. Defenders don't solo like scrappers because they aren't meant to.
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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. |
Shrug, support has no way to cluster enemies to maximize AoE potential.
Add someone that can cluster enemies and you take a steamroller team into steamrollerier. Sure you can wreck TFs and what not via 8 support, 8 melee or whatever, but when all the interactions with varying ATs occur is when the real destruction happens. 8 debuffing supports can do a lot of damage, but if you swap one out for a high damage scrapper you go from 8xcrazy damage damage to 7xcrazy and 1xabsurd damage. 2k+ tier 9s or even higher. Defenders and corruptors aren't going to hit that high.
It's not that it's needed at all. It's that you can make a steamroller team even better by adjusting to the team composition. In the case of 1 melee 7 support, you gotta move from damage to mob management on everything except AVs because all the other stuff just falls over. All melee on the other hand you just kill like you are solo.
I rather dislike solo, so I stick to teams. I can solo quite well now on my Corruptor after getting to the S/L softcap, but I'll die to any mez should it break through. The defenses that I have are primarily for opening with Fulcrum Shift and being able to survive the return fire. Playing like this turns anyone that is willing to get into melee into a damage machine pretty easily getting to the damage cap. That is fun. Consequently, I picked up a lot of IOs to survive the inevitable damage that comes back.
Can I solo? Yes quite well. Does it matter? Not really.
Regardless of this tangent, I was only responding to your feeling of being useless on high support teams. You didn't really attempt to make use of your defenses to prime the next set of mobs. A controller can certainly make an alpha not happen. But the cost of this is now the mob group is locked in place and not in the best AoE position.
Change this slightly to having melee take initial alpha with all their defenses (boosted to absurd levels from support) and begin the clustering. Now bring in any controls and let the AoEs rain death and destruction. Congratulations you have now reduced the clean up phase to just the bosses instead of bosses plus a few random lieutenants or minions.
Then you do it again for the next pack.
Thus begins redside steamroller and it is much fun.
Move to +4 and this becomes a bit harder but still doable.
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Wrong, right in the first line of the post. There are plenty of way to cluster enemies. You can do it with a toggle debuff, dropping a pet where you want them, physically moving them with something like Wormhole or Hurricane, etc.|
Originally Posted by Savos
Shrug, support has no way to cluster enemies to maximize AoE potential.
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Secondly, for the most part, if you're taking time to rearrange the enemies, you're WASTING time. Trashing them where they stand is the fastest method.
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Wrong. |
Originally Posted by Savos
Regardless of this tangent, I was only responding to your feeling of being useless on high support teams. You didn't really attempt to make use of your defenses to prime the next set of mobs. A controller can certainly make an alpha not happen. But the cost of this is now the mob group is locked in place and not in the best AoE position. |
Enough support ATs on a team can and will kill that entire spawn before a melee AT even reaches it.
I was on a team with 2 Fire/Something controllers, 2 defenders, and 3 blasters. Do you really think I had much of a chance to even attack before the spawn was destroyed and the team was moving on to the next? Not really, I went off on my own into another room because I got tired of using Head Splitter on dead enemies. While I was hitting ONE enemy, the entire group was down and the rest of the team was in the next mob already. I was completely and utterly useless on that team. I think I managed to kill maybe half a dozen enemies the entire mission, and I ended up quitting the team and soloing because I was frustrated with my inability to even attack, let alone kill anything.
Ironblade is right, incidentally. If you have enough support ATs on a team, killing them where they stand is much faster than trying to move them where you want them.
Look up what the Repeat Offenders' Green Machine all-Empathy teams can do. It's pretty sick, and usually made up of nothing but Defenders.
You keep saying that melee ATs are vital to an efficient team, and that is provably dead wrong. If you don't believe me, I'll post a Green Machine Empathy build and explain how it works.
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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. |
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Sure they do.|
Originally Posted by Savos
Shrug, support has no way to cluster enemies to maximize AoE potential.
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Grav trollers have wormhole which is quite good at this.
Sacrificing pets can do it too. Or not sacrificing them, Singularity and Animate Stone can both take a decent amount of damage. Animate Stone especially is good for tanking AVs or GMs because his attacks have a taunt component.
On x8 spawns are big enough that they're often clustered well enough within the range of AoEs anyway, there's no need to try to herd them. It would just be a waste of time that could be better spent cutting a path to the next group. With enough buffs, stragglers can just be ignored and they'll follow and get finished off by incidental damage.
Or you can just rush in like a scrapper would. I recently led an all-defender static team to 50, doing lots of task forces and AVs/GMs along the way. On that one I'd usually just run in, because I had so many stacked defense and resist buffs that the alphas just couldn't hit me. That team absolutely melted AVs like they weren't even there, and the only TF we couldn't complete was Lady Grey because we lacked enough holds for the green mitos and couldn't outdamage their healing (that and Hami cheats and ignores most buffs/debuffs).
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You aren't far enough ahead. No matter how fast those support guys go, they still take non-zero time to kill stuff. After 1-2 AoEs drop (or even an AoE control) go prime the next pack. Make use of those ungodly defenses your AT has to prepare the next group for melting.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Bunch of whining about "useless" melee on teams.
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Pick up super speed or just ninja run or something. As a benefit of being ahead of them you get to use your AoEs too!
In short, go faster and stop lolly-gagging around trying to get super insane damage on the boss that will already be dead by the time your power animates.
So... this was about an IO at one point, right?
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Which is still bugged/awful.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
So... this was about an IO at one point, right?
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It's not bugged. Just awful. So don't use it.
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Originally Posted by Savos
Which is still bugged/awful.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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It's both.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
It's not bugged. Just awful. So don't use it.
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Bugged in that it behaves unlike any other proc in the game (even relative to itself!). Awful (in current implementation) only provides 20% resistance for 10 seconds when using click powers and is only 20% resistance.
So... DON'T USE IT. Or put it in a toggle. The devs will not change it just because you don't like it.
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just dont ask, dont ask for fitness to be inherent, dont ask for ferrys/trams to be one long line, dont ask for the ability to change characters without logging off, dont ask for sending inf through emails, dont ask...wait a min. people asked and they changed the game....
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Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint
So... DON'T USE IT. Or put it in a toggle. The devs will not change it just because you don't like it.
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Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
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Especially since compared to every other IO, the 10-second behavior seems quite bugged.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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So, in all this discussion about how unfair it is that support ATs have to depend on melee ATs, your suggestion to alleviate my frustration playing melee characters in support-heavy teams is to behave exactly like every bad scrapper anyone has ever complained about on a team? I mean, the most common complaint about bad scrappers is that they constantly run ahead of the team and agro stuff the team is not ready to fight yet. But you're saying that that is exactly what I should do. |
Originally Posted by Savos
You aren't far enough ahead. No matter how fast those support guys go, they still take non-zero time to kill stuff. After 1-2 AoEs drop (or even an AoE control) go prime the next pack. Make use of those ungodly defenses your AT has to prepare the next group for melting.
Pick up super speed or just ninja run or something. As a benefit of being ahead of them you get to use your AoEs too! In short, go faster and stop lolly-gagging around trying to get super insane damage on the boss that will already be dead by the time your power animates. |
That doesn't seem very fair to those support ATs that are so dependent on my melee character, does it?
Oh wait, I already covered that, they're NOT dependent on me. If your support characters can handle that spawn just fine without me, it kind of shoots the whole "they need melee to survive" argument in the foot, doesn't it?
Support ATs have been given multiple tools to deal with mez, between preventing it, removing it, and avoiding it. But that isn't good enough. In order for you to feel it is balanced, support ATs need to have passive protection from it.
I look at it this way: Melee ATs, for the most part, cannot mez their opponents reliably, and definitely not at range. Thus they cannot be mezzed. Support ATs, for the most part, CAN mez their opponents reliably, and at range. Thus they can be mezzed in return.
Anything our ATs can do to their opponents, their opponents can do right back. I'd call that both fair and balanced. But what you're asking for is to not only be able to reliably mez your opponents, but to be protected from any mez that might slip through. That is still like saying that because melee ATs can attack in melee range, their opponents should not be able to attack them back in melee range.
And if you want to say "But, we're superheroes!", flip through a comic book sometime, I'm sure you'll see a number of instances where a superhero gets mezzed. They aren't a hero because they can ignore mez effects, they are a hero because they succeed in spite of them.
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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. |
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The odd thing is that some support ATs do have mez protection. Force Field for instance gets mag 8-ish Hold, Stun, and Immob protection in their big bubble. They're still vulnerable to sleep. Also knockback, but several melee sets have that hole as well and it's easily plugged by IOs. Traps gets the same power, but from a pet (so it doesn't suppress if you do get mezzed, but can be killed early by an enemy).|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Support ATs have been given multiple tools to deal with mez, between preventing it, removing it, and avoiding it. But that isn't good enough. In order for you to feel it is balanced, support ATs need to have passive protection from it.
I look at it this way: Melee ATs, for the most part, cannot mez their opponents reliably, and definitely not at range. Thus they cannot be mezzed. Support ATs, for the most part, CAN mez their opponents reliably, and at range. Thus they can be mezzed in return. |
Powers like Clear Mind Increase Density can't really be viewed as an equivalent, because they (1) can't be used on yourself, and (2) the duration is so short it's not really practical to keep it up on an entire team 100% of the time. ID is particularly bad. Because of its long cast time, it takes nearly 16 seconds to buff 7 people, and that's assuming they're all in range and you queue it perfectly. The buff only lasts for 60 seconds, so by the time you finish buffing everyone, you don't have very long to do other things before you have to start buffing again. CM is a little better but it still falls off rather easily. Thaw is somewhere in the middle, it has a longer cast time than ID at 2.4 seconds, but the 90 second duration of CM, and Clarity is a bit better.
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You seem to be under the impression that those powers need to be cast on the entire team. They don't. Except in high-level missions with a lot of Mez powers, the Tankers and Scrappers probably don't need CM, but the Blasters, Defenders, and Controllers might if you have a bad Tanker on the team who causes aggro spill-over. If the tanker is the focus of all of the attacks, then few people on the team should need CM at all. |
Originally Posted by MTS
The odd thing is that some support ATs do have mez protection. Force Field for instance gets mag 8-ish Hold, Stun, and Immob protection in their big bubble. They're still vulnerable to sleep. Also knockback, but several melee sets have that hole as well and it's easily plugged by IOs. Traps gets the same power, but from a pet (so it doesn't suppress if you do get mezzed, but can be killed early by an enemy).
Powers like Clear Mind Increase Density can't really be viewed as an equivalent, because they (1) can't be used on yourself, and (2) the duration is so short it's not really practical to keep it up on an entire team 100% of the time. ID is particularly bad. Because of its long cast time, it takes nearly 16 seconds to buff 7 people, and that's assuming they're all in range and you queue it perfectly. The buff only lasts for 60 seconds, so by the time you finish buffing everyone, you don't have very long to do other things before you have to start buffing again. CM is a little better but it still falls off rather easily. Thaw is somewhere in the middle, it has a longer cast time than ID at 2.4 seconds, but the 90 second duration of CM, and Clarity is a bit better. |
Increase Density is nice for Defense-based Tanker and Scrapper sets, giving them another layer of protection, but the support characters that aren't getting hit don't need it.
Powers like that aren't meant to be used on all seven other players on your team. Use them accordingly, and they take much less of your time.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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No, I only use them on an occasional as-needed basis (except for my fire/kin pair, but that's just a keybind to mash in between spawns).|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
You seem to be under the impression that those powers need to be cast on the entire team. They don't. Except in high-level missions with a lot of Mez powers, the Tankers and Scrappers probably don't need CM, but the Blasters, Defenders, and Controllers might if you have a bad Tanker on the team who causes aggro spill-over. If the tanker is the focus of all of the attacks, then few people on the team should need CM at all.
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I was referring to earlier in the thread when someone compared those powers to a melee AT's toggle-based mez protection, and was trying to make the point that they're not the same thing at all. I should have quoted the exact post to make it more clear. Now that I look back I see that it was all the way back on page 1.
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I am aware of those powers. That's why I added the phrase "for the most part". Some support AT powersets do indeed have mez protection in them, I suspect to make up for the relative lack of ways to prevent them inherent within those sets. Traps is a bit of an odd one, since it has several ways to prevent them as well as having protection. The catch there is you have to make sure you don't outrun your FFG or you'll find your protection disappeared at a bad time. |
Originally Posted by MTS
The odd thing is that some support ATs do have mez protection. Force Field for instance gets mag 8-ish Hold, Stun, and Immob protection in their big bubble. They're still vulnerable to sleep. Also knockback, but several melee sets have that hole as well and it's easily plugged by IOs. Traps gets the same power, but from a pet (so it doesn't suppress if you do get mezzed, but can be killed early by an enemy).
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Also, you left out Sonic Resonance. It has the same ability in Sonic Dispersion, which is more or less identical to Dispersion bubble, only it gives resistance instead of defense.
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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. |
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Gah, you're right. Can't believe I forgot to write that one. The worst part is, on the defender team I mentioned, I played a sonic. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Also, you left out Sonic Resonance. It has the same ability in Sonic Dispersion, which is more or less identical to Dispersion bubble, only it gives resistance instead of defense.
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| Traps is a bit of an odd one, since it has several ways to prevent them as well as having protection. |
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The phrasing implies Force Field's Big Bubble's Mez protection gets suppressed on a successful mez - it doesn't - only the defense does.
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Originally Posted by MTS
Traps gets the same power, but from a pet (so it doesn't suppress if you do get mezzed, but can be killed early by an enemy).
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Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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I give up. Attempting to reason with you is just as productive as arguing with a brick wall.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
But what you're asking for is to not only be able to reliably mez your opponents, but to be protected from any mez that might slip through.
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Protection does not nor should it ever equal resistance (or shorter duration).
Understand that for once please!
I have been saying from the beginning of this thread that support ATs are just fine the way they are, not because I feel they should be dependent on a melee AT, but because I have not seen anything to suggest that they actually ARE dependent on a melee AT.
If support ATs were TRULY dependent on melee ATs to survive, it would be flat out impossible to solo one. It is not. Myself, and thousands of other players solo them all the time. If they were completely dependent on melee ATs, as you assert they are, none of us would be able to do that.
Sure, some melee characters can solo on x8, but not every single one with any build. A smaller number of them can solo AVs.
On the reverse side, a number of support ATs can solo AVs as well, many of them can do it even faster than any melee AT. Yes, it requires an expensive build to do, but you don't really believe melee ATs are doing it on SOs, do you?
Additionally, some support ATs can solo Giant Monsters, due to the amount of debuffs a lot of them are packing. I have YET to see a melee character of any AT at all that can make the same verifiable claim.
Do you know WHY Generic Scrapper solos better than Generic Defender? I do, it's because Generic Defender brings more to a team on SOs than Generic Scrapper ever will, even with the most expensive build possible. You want Generic Defender to solo better? You should be campaigning to have Generic Scrapper become more useful to a team. Because it isn't fair to ask for better soloing for support ATs, while they retain the same amount of team support. If support should solo better, melee should bring more to a team.
A team comprised of Defenders, Controllers and Blasters has no need or use for a Tank or Scrapper, and in fact will make either one pretty much redundant. I speak from experience on this. I was the sole melee AT on a team with exactly that composition, and I have never felt more useless on a team before or since. The Controllers locked the spawn down, and the Defender buffed Blasters melted it before I even got close enough to attack ONCE, let alone actually kill something.
So, melee ATs get more ability to solo because the more support ATs you add to a team, the more useless melee gets.
That tricked out defender soloing gm's? 1 stun and he is toast. The offensive debuffs like RI drop and you have to wait for them to recharge while big and ugly is pounding on you. The point is, as long as melee is completely self sufficient, speed ITF's will be an annoying reality. Melee seems to be ok with squishies having challenge but want none of it for themselves.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
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