Bait and switch Aegis Mez protection.

Just saying, if everything had mez protection there would be no point to enemies even having mezzes.

Quote:

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

People are going to keep whining about how unfair it is that melee characters get mez protection and resistance while support doesn't, no matter how much logic is thrown at them.

One last time: Support can prevent mez from happening, melee cannot.

Therefore, melee gets passive protection, and support does not.

It is balanced well enough, and it is NOT going to change just because a few people don't like it. The devs have been happy with how it works for 6+ years, and haven't gone to any great lengths to alter how it works. What makes you think they are going to change it now....just because some people complained in a forum thread?

ANY changes the developers have EVER made to how the game actually works have been the result of in-house research. I guarantee the developers have looked into the mez protection/resistance issue and came to the conclusion that they are happy with how it currently stands.

You can say "Oh, they gave us power customization after they said no." or "They merged the markets after they said no" all you want, but the fact of those things is: They do not affect the balance between the various ATs.

Giving mez protection or resistance to archetypes that do not currently have it will have an unbalancing effect on just about every aspect of the game. They will have to adjust the frequency and magnitude of every mez effect in the game so those support ATs can't just ignore the mezzes that they aren't supposed to be ignoring. That will change how missions, TFs and street sweeping all work.

You can't just say "Oh, hit a button and give support ATs passive protection or resistance." I don't know how it works exactly, but it can't be that easy.

Also, no one has yet suggested any way to actually give support ATs mez protection/resistance. If you think it should be an inherent power, that wouldn't be fair. Why should support ATs get something as an inherent auto power that melee has to spend a power pick and burn endurance to get?

The underlying point is that the whole thing is working as intended, and is highly unlikely to be changed just because a few people are bent out of shape about it.

I agree to giving mez protection to squishies when my Scrappers get debuffs comparable to Cold Domination or some other Defender set, preferably integrated into attacks. -500% Regen in Gambler's Cut, -20% Resistance in the rest and of course the -Def should be doubled. BU should also give me a 90 second duration Recovery boost.

As a player of most ATs I think the game is well balanced. I just dinged 50 on my Illu/Cold, and due to her debuffs (and PA) she can solo AVs safer and faster than any of my melee ATs. She has more Defense against the most common damage types (S/L/E) than a SR Scrapper with SOs, so mez protection is just about the only thing she is missing from having everything I could want.

Give squishies mez protection or lower that of melees significantly, and we'll have City of Tankmages.

In practice with just Acrobatics and 45% S/L defense, I would rarely ever get held. Carnies, Malta, sure.

Acrobatics is 2 protection (need a mag 3 hold to do anything, which mobs do not appear to actually have). Along with 45% resist means even if I do get held, the duration is very short. Other mez, not so much. Resistance plus protection is very good in PvE for mez. I don't care about PvP and as such should have no bearing on a PvE discussion.

Right now, melee only has protection which forces such high values.

10 is quite high, thats 6 holds all active at once. In reality you don't see all the same status effect on multiple mobs. Generally more like one guy with a stun, one with a hold and maybe one with both. Even at x8. Hardly a danger for something with 10 points of protection and a base 50% hit rate for the mob.

Designing a mob hold:
5 second recharge
Mag 2 (do normal mobs ever have 3?)
50% hit rate
10 second duration

With 6 mobs using only this hold, there is a 38.72% chance of hold in any 5 second interval (0.5 - ( (12c6) * (.5^6)^2 / 2 ) ).

Adjusting to account for a more normal multi hold power mob by adding an AoE one use hold for 6.4 seconds you get a slightly higher chance at the beginning (I don't wish to calculate, but I'd imagine it would be around 45-50%, tapering off to 38.72% after the initial 10 seconds.

What is a fair chance of getting mezed for making a mistake? Zero? 10%? 1%? Mistake in that "well that mob pack really was for groups, gosh".

Going further, stun would be slightly higher as the duration is longer compared to holds though even in this contrived situation, almost no mob actually has such a power capability nor an AI willing to use it to that extent and also ignores the chance of just killing or otherwise incapacitating one or more of these mobs for some duration.

Sleep is pointless to consider. You lose the whole stack if you are hit by anything.

The basic argument is that, at some point you have to be punished for taking too much on. Currently, melee mez protection is far above where I believe it should be.

The other thing to consider as well is that if you add some resistance to the lowered magnitude protection toggles, the numbers stay pretty close, but now the rate of application matters, not the duration. Duration can then be reduced globally while still maintaining the same (or higher) chance of being mezed in various circumstance.

But the real issue is the duration overall. I believe it is far too long globally across mobs for no reason. In current gameplay, there are 2 results of a stun or hold in my perception: die in 5 seconds (you were going to die anyway sans very high defense) or you stumble around for 20 seconds. Very little in between.

This is what I want to remove.

Your understanding of mez protection is quite a bit faulty, which is causing you to come to erroneous conclusions.

Lets start with critters. Standard minions have base -1 to most mez attributes. This means it takes a mag 2 mez to mez them: mag 1 only raises their mez magnitude to 0. Mez magnitude must be greater than zero to be mezzed. Standard Lts have base -2, and Standard Bosses have base -3, and we all know it takes mag 3 to mez an Lt, and mag 4 to mez a Boss.

Players have base -1: they are like minions in that regard. That means it takes mag 2 to hold them. Acro has mag 2 protection: specifically -2. That lowers players to -3, which means like Bosses it takes mag 4 to hold them. You basically need one more mag than protection to overcome it.

Most holds are actually mag 3, not mag 2. Critter mez is similar to player mez: if its mag 3 for players, its probably mag 3 for critters. So critters with controller-like mez are usually packing at least mag 3, while non-controller-like mez is sometimes lower. Illusionist Blind is mag 3. Mesmerize is mag 3. On the other hand, green ink man barrage is mag 2 stun, and Stun (the attack) is mag 3 - just like it is for Energy Melee.

Mag 10 protection means it takes mag 11 mez to overwhelm it. Which is four mag 3 holds, assuming those holds don't crit (Illusionist Blind can critical hold just like Illusion Control Blind: Mag 3 with 20% chance of additional mag 1).


While there could be an argument to be made that mez resistances - which generally affect duration - could be made easier to acquire for squishies, that point is getting lost in your misunderstandings of mez protection, which are highly faulty. I would suggest learning more about the mez system before suggesting ways to overhaul it.

Mmm...

My crusade with regards to Mez protection has much more to do with the binary treatment of it.

Melee gets resistances, an unconditional form of protection
Support gets mez, and debuff, a conditional form of protection

Since conditional, is by definition "conditional" it implies that the support alt has to do something successfully in order to achieve the desired level of protection. It also implies the support alt has to do that something successfully and first.

My argument as of late has been with the odds of "successfully" and being "first".

Since I18 the use of Ambushes by the devs have remarkably increased, during these ambushes, by definition the support AT is "ambushed", in short they do not get to go first! This would not be bad, if the ambushing mobs did not open up with area mez and their continued spamming of it. Since the support AT has no unconditional protections, and was by game design caught flat-footed, they have no protections.

Addressing successfully with regards ok, we get to go first, it varies from AT support class to another, and then within AT types, and the variation is quite great.

Controllers, they have lot of neat holds and what not. Lets think about the requirements for success. If you do not keep them from taking an action, you are toast, for in their turn you will be mezz attacked and since you have no protections, the outcome is pretty much automatic. Arcanville did a wonderful job describing what it takes to mez a Minion, LT and Boss and also described what the Controller's mez MAG arsenal consist of. Now correct me if I am wrong, but the normal area mez has at best a MAG 2 potency, right? Sufficient to deal with Minions and have a chance at LTs, but definetely uncapable against anything at a boss or better level. Thus, one should be able to conclude that in the normal scenario, the Controller the odds are nicely stacked against them.

Defenders, they have neat debuffs, but they take time to accumulate, something they really do not have if trying to survive being mezzed. So they have to depend on Mez as well, but they are not mez especialists. The typical mez I see with Defenders are some rather nice "single target" effects, but as a whole they lack area coverage. I a way this shortfall makes sense, after all the Controllers' nitch should be respected. Now just like a Controller their MAG 3 mez is only effective versus minions, and potentially effective versus LTs, while ineffective against Boss or higher. Since most groups one would encounter are combos of minions, lts, and bosses the odds for success for a Defender are quite stacked against them as well.

So as a poster kinda observed, Melee has real protection and support has none. This is the binary effect I have been against for years.

Think of the great divide in protections, a melee can face-off with an EB and their protection against the EBs mez attacks are there for them to enjoy, where are the protections for the support types? We all know, but don't talk much about the EBs essentially being pretty much immune to a Controller or Defender's effects since their MAG resistance is set so high. Do note I mean single Controller for this purpose. Melee do not need groups of melee for their personal resistance to operate.

The above is the reason I have often asked for support to get some MAG Mez resistances, they clearly do not be as strong as a scrapper or tanker, but they clearly should not be at zip as is now either. In General terms, should we all not be at a minimum as tough as a boss?

In my opinion, it is less than heroic for a support character continuously rendered helpless by any mere minions; that just seems so wrong.

Stormy