Building a better defender

Defender Powerset Parity has been a personal concern of mine since I first began playing COH back in May 2004. After spending the last year on my main Defender (Biospark) and countless others before and after him, I am still very much of the belief that Defender powersets have the worst Parity of any group of powersets in the game. Say what you want about whether that is a concern that needs to be addressed, it is not a false claim.

Additionally, it is a commonly held belief that certain powersets which are poor soloists are the best team players and vice versa. This claim, for the most part, is true, but it is also my belief that Defender team contributions are much more balanced from a powerset parity standpoint.

So that just leaves us with the pitiful balance in the solo game. Let's explore this a little.

WHAT IS THE SOLO BASELINE

Powers available while solo

Dark Miasma -------- 9 of 9
Traps -------------- 9 of 9
Trick Arrow --------- 9 of 9
Storm Summoning -- 8 of 9

Radiation ----------- 7 of 9
Kinetics ------------ 7 of 9
Forcefields --------- 7 of 9
Cold Domination ---- 6 of 9

Sonic Resonance ---- 4 of 9
Pain Domination ----- 4 of 9
Empathy ------------ 3 of 9
Thermal ------------- 3 of 9

Notice how I seperated these into three groups. It is my belief that the balance point for Defender soloing is around 7 of 9 powers. Powersets that have 7 or more of their powers usable while solo, will most likely provide as much or close to the same benefit solo as they will teamed, with the reality that they can get a little extra power while teamed. This seems like a good median for these sets.

Those sets which operate well below the median are the "red-headed step-children" of the Defender powersets. As it would figure, these particular powersets are pretty "sub-par" as solo-ists when compared to other defender choices. Some will have you believe that they are some of the best choices for teaming as a means of balancing this sub-par ability while solo. Take another look. I see Kinetics much further up the list. Forcefields too. Seems like you can still use most of your powers solo AND be a top-requested team choice without un-balancing the game. So what happened to these powersets ? Can they be given greater parity without breaking the game ? My answer would be yes, and I will give some ideas for how this could be approached. I welcome discussion on how greater parity can be achieved for solo defenders from the community as well. I am only one player's worth of experience and can only comment on my own experiences in the game.

For what it's worth, the time and energy invested in my Empathy character, has (I feel) been largely wasted. That same effort, if applied to nearly any other powerset at or above the median point, would have yielded a character that I would enjoy more and still be able to provide great team support. This thread could be my last one on this subject. My unhappiness with the way in which my Empath has developed has made me question whether I am better off trading him in for a new choice which will allow better solo performance as well as my preferred team-support role.

So without wasting more time, here are some ideas to discuss. I will touch on smaller adjustments which could improve parity as well as major adjustments. In every case, please remember these are just ideas. Which, although I would love to see implemented, are not expected. Heck, even if just ONE major change like these was made, it would go a long, long way to making the basement dwellers more solo-capable.


BUILDING A BETTER SONIC
Issues: Very little self-protection, Major effect of the set can only be brought to bear while teamed. Unusually long recharge on a signature power.

Small Changes
Sonic Siphon: reduce cast time to between 1.67 and 1.87 (This will help it fit more smoothly into an attack cycle) Also add a -dmg debuff of 25% to bring it on par with similar powers like Siphon Power (Kinetics)
Sonic Dispersion: Increase resistance amount from 15% to 20%(Defender version) to further balance against Dispersion Bubble (Forcefields)
Edited: Add Sleep protection (based on Feedback in this thread)
Clarity: Add a Psionic resistance buff to the power on par with the resistance in Sonic Barrier and Sonic Haven.

Big Changes
Disruption Field : Change this from targeted Ally to targeted Enemy. Many Powersets have anchor debuffs, so there is no reason why Sonic cannot use its MAIN effect while solo.
Sonic Repulsion : Change this from targeted Ally to Self-centered Toggle like Repulsion Field (Forcefields) or Repel (Kinetics) It was an interesting idea, but not one which actually works very well. In fact all these types of powers should be re-evaluated. From my studies, these types of powers, if enhanced well, can simulate resistance with an effect around 50% (best performance), but the cost is extraordinary. I would (at the very least) remove the per-target endurance cost and call it a day.
Liquefy : Reduce the recharge. 10% base uptime !!! Come on ! Make it long enough to avoid double stacking but short enough that it can be up every fight if you invest over 200% recharge in the power. My instinct says this should fall between 120sec and 180sec. Any more than that and its not going to be available every fight on a mature build.


BUILDING A BETTER EMPATH
Issues: only 3 powers usable while solo, 2 of which have only a 60% up-time at 200% recharge. This is a very good team support arsenal, with unusually strong buffs. This, combined with an apparent "pacifistic" design make it the WORST soloer of all these Powersets.

Small Changes
Healing Aura : Casting time of 2.03sec can seem like an eternity when solo, especially when you have no "tiered" protection from pool powers or IO bonuses. You can literally take damage in excess of the amount healed DURING the activation time. Reducing the cast time on this power and others like it to 1.67 to 1.87sec can help. This is a minor fix, but one that would help considerably.
Absorb Pain : I really like how Share Pain (Pain Domination) has a BUFF and a DEBUFF associated with it. Empathy could stand for something along this line, but being a pacifist, the buff should probably be something like +recharge (30%). This would make all empaths re-think taking this power.

Big Changes
Clear Mind : Change to a PBAoE Toggle which protects the Empath and all nearby team-mates. Yeah I am trashing the "cottage rule" here. If an empath is meant to be a "heal-oriented" powerset and only gets barest minimum of self-useful powers, then this one change would make the most sense in staying with a "pacifist" theme, while vastly improving their ability to solo. Plus it reduces the amount of click buffing that is needed while on a team.
Fortitude : Due to feedback in this thread, I am not recommending a change to this power. Changing Clear Mind above makes a "solo parity" improvement that also accomplishes a reduction in team "buff-cycling". My previous suggestion on Fortitude actually made no improvement to "solo gameplay". Hence the retraction. Thanks folks
Recovery Aura and Regen Aura : These two powers, once upon a time, could be made not only perma, but had small windows of over-lap. Prior to ED they had their Recharge lengthened considerably. But after ED, they did not get re-adjusted. I recommend that we make these able to be made perma, but NOT stackable. Currently, if you have 200% recharge in them, you will have 90secs of buff followed by 60sec of no-benefit. This is very much a Dr.Jekhyl and Mr. Hyde scenario. Lets make the recharge 240sec but lower the effect to be equal to the average of the current effects. This would be 120% recovery and 300% Regeneration. This still places a great deal of importance on recharge for an empath, but removes the Jekhyl and Hyde effect as well as preventing abuse from STACKING these effects.


Pain Domination and Thermal are two powersets that I have considerably less experience with, so I hesitate to make alot of suggestions for them, but here are a couple ideas which would seem worthy of consideration.

PAIN
This powerset has one more power usable while solo than Empathy, but has some similarity as well. Which means that Mezz effects will be a serious concern for this powerset while solo.

Anguishing Cry : Add a Mag 2 Stun to this debuff. One of the best counters to mezz effects is having your very own mezz. Stuns would stack well with many blast sets and also one ancillary power in particular (Oppressive Gloom).


THERMAL
This powerset blends Empathy and Sonic and seems to have the same weaknesses which would plague Empathy and Pain. Typically Fire is about additional damage, so something which shores up the powerset solo in the mid-game and provides additional damage would be thematic. It also suffers more than any other powerset regarding when powers are available solo. They get a heal at level 1 and then the next powers usable solo are levels 35 and 38. It seems that Thermal (Cold Dom as well) could stand for a little shuffling of power order at the very least.

Forge : Change this to a PBAoE toggle that provides its benefit to the defender and all nearby teammates. In addition, add resistance (not Protection) to Hold/Disorient/Sleep and Immobilize similar to Accelerate Metabolism. If you really wanted this power to be unique, give the ACC buff but make the added damage occur as added fire damage to every attack for everyone being buffed. Or it could have a damage aura effect, so that the defender could still deal some damage while they are actively using buffs and heals on their teammates.


The changes suggested would have the most dramatic effect on Sonic, which would go up to 6 of 9 usable powers while solo, while the other powersets at the bottom of the scale would all sit comfortably at 4 powers. These 4 powers would all improve the solo prowess of their powerset without making their team contributions increase to unreasonable proportions. Edited based on feedback

let's hear some more ideas on ways to reach greater parity. Also if you have ideas on some of the other powersets that live above the median, feel free to talk about those as well. I know that I have alot of ideas for Kinetics (a set that I have used considerably over the years).

Just want to point out that Dispersion Bubble doesn't protect against sleep. Otherwise some interesting ideas, although I don't necessarily think changes are needed.

It's definitely not true that the worst solo primaries are the best team primaries. Moving on from that and on to specific suggestions...

On healing aura: "You can literally take damage in excess of the amount healed DURING the activation time."
This is how the game works. Preventing damage intelligently is better than trying to heal through it with brute force. If you're taking damage, take measures to stop it from incoming, and THEN heal yourself. Better yet, do both at the same time. The power doesn't root you, so dash behind a wall and heal yourself at the same time.
Your fortitude change as suggested is actually a gigantic nerf to the set. Only a few people on teams will be taking the brunt of abuse. The empath's biggest strength is being able to specifically buff those people who need it with one of the most powerful buffs in the game instead of spreading it out among everyone.
Clear mind: Go for a click PBAOE instead of a toggle.

Forge is fine as it is. If you really want to buff thermal and pain domination, rebalance their resistance debuffs so that they are in line with the drop resistance debuffs in other sets. In order for this to happen, anguishing cry needs to drop to a 60 second recharge, and melt armor needs to be 80 seconds. This gives them a 50% up time without enhancements, the same that tar patch has (and freezing rain sort of has).

Pain domination is already a pretty survivable set, and a mag 2 stun in anguishing cry would do very little to improve what they have.

Everything else are things I either emphatically agree with or don't care too much about.

Some good points there, Biospark. Support sets are always going to be the hardest to balance since they're the most diverse in effects

I agree with pretty much everything you say on Sonic Resonance there. Sonic should be the king of -Res effects, and currently it isn't. Sonic Repulsion does indeed come across as a failed experiment and nothing more, whereas Repel and Repulsion Field are actually quite useful.
Psi res in Clarity is a great idea. Having a hole to Psi that's shared with half the armour sets is a bit silly in my opinion.

I would also close the sleep hole on Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion. It makes little sense, and these sets give up a lot for mez protection. Its also incredibly dissappointing to get slept by Carnie Illlusionists (since Blind packs a little sleep there too)

I don't like your suggestion for Fortitude. In principle, I like the idea of Empathy playing differently - that its the set where you spoil a few favourites rather than dishing out the buffs to everyone. In practice, I agree that the syncopated buff cycle is a pain to play and requires too much memory of who was last, attention to your power bar for Fort coming up, and so on.
Limiting Fortitude to 3 to 5 people is cool, not being able to go into buff-mode and then blast-mode mentally is not.
If there was a way to fix it besides recharge, I'd be all for it, eg every 2 minutes you can Fort 3 people one after the other. But that's messing with the game mechanics too much I think.

Your ideas on Recovery Aura and Regen Aura are cool. Especially Recovery Aura - having too much end to eat and starving the other half of the time is plain annoying.
Regen Aura I'm less convinced though - having a team god-mode here can be useful since you can easily get into situations where you need that amount of Regen (unlike Recovery Aura, where you neevr need that much end). Being able to pick and choose when the team or just you) get that is maybe a good thing.

I've played Pain Dom a bit, and the aura-rocker power Soothing Aura, is actually fantastic as a no-animation time heal, both on teams and solo. Empathy could really use something like this, so thats an argument for adjusting the recharge/intensity of Regen Aura I guess.

Forge needs a better damage buff. +40% is less than a medium red pill. Its +20% net damage if you're slotted, ie less of a boost than Sonic Siphon. And its limited to a few team members. It could do with +80% at least.


One final suggestion - cut the end cost on ressurections. They're emergency powers. It sucks not being bale to use one at the right time because they cost half an end bar. Its not a big deal, but its one more reason why i tend to skip them.

I agree with you on forge and resurrections. Power of the phoenix actually costs almost twice as much as other rezzes do and recharges in almost twice the time. Power of the phoenix is definitely much better than most other rezzes, but 49 endurance is pretty serious (it costs even more for masterminds). It always seemed to me like thermal had purposefully nerfed later powers, under the rationale that resistance buffs + healing was a really good combo and the rest of the set's buffs/debuffs would need to be weaker to compensate.

Thanks for your Input Dr.Mike,

Its nice to know my impressions from playing Sonic match with yours, since I know you also play one. It really does need alot of help as a powerset.

Truth be told, I love Fortitude, but like you I really dislike the "buff-cycle".
With yours and Garent's input, I think just changing Clear Mind to a PBAoE buff would make the "buffing" duties ALOT more simple and less distracting during team play.

So you have convinced me. Clear Mind for the win !

As far as Pain's healing Aura, this is one of the reasons that I feel empathy could stand to make the RA auras permanent. But due to how strong they are, I think its important to consider "stacking" issues. Also, I don't see an issue where reducing the regen would drastically change how tough encounters play out. As far as I can tell, Regen Aura simply manages to top off anyone who is taking periphery damage, while anyone taking the full brunt of an AV or GM is going to need more healing from me anyway. Additionally, I am not suggesting that the 300% regen is not enhanceable, just not "stackable".

I would hate clear mind as a PBAOE.

Why should I run into danger to free someone from mez, when i can happily do it right now from over there ?

I agree there's some disparity, but I think some of the changes are a little off the wall. I'm particularly focused on Sonic Resonance, which I have a love affair with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biospark BUILDING A BETTER SONIC Issues: Very little self-protection, Major effect of the set can only be brought to bear while teamed. Unusually long recharge on a signature power.

I would actually argue the other support sets have too much self protection before I'd argue any are lacking. Self-protection and support aren't supposed to be the same thing.
I'm not sure if you accounted for the fact that Traps, FF, and Sonic are the only ones with self-mez protection. That's pretty significant, IMO.
I'll get into Liquefy later, but no, it does not have an unusually long recharge.

Quote:

Small Changes Sonic Siphon: reduce cast time to between 1.67 and 1.87 (This will help it fit more smoothly into an attack cycle) Also add a -dmg debuff of 25% to bring it on par with similar powers like Siphon Power (Kinetics)

Sonic Siphon + Disruption Field gives Sonic the most -res on a ST of the sets, IIRC. It's a 50% bigger debuff than second place (Trick Arrow) and about double all the other major contenders (Rad, Thermal, Storm, Cold, Traps, and Dark).

Since it doesn't self stack, I could care less about its recharge being better. I would love to see it as a small AoE (5' radius?) with a slightly larger recharge. That is all. I suppose a lower recharge would help you spread it around, but simply making it a non-self-stacking AoE would make Sonic's lead on -res solid, and not make Sonic into a busy support set.

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Sonic Dispersion: Increase resistance amount from 15% to 20%(Defender version) to further balance against Dispersion Bubble (Forcefields)

This is one change I agree with, and honestly, I think it really should have happened already. Force Field's version offers 33% more damage mitigation. What the heck!?

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Clarity: Add a Psionic resistance buff to the power on par with the resistance in Sonic Barrier and Sonic Haven.

I'm not opposed to this, but it isn't going to happen. Sonic is also secretly awesome at mez protection, containing bother Dispersion and Clarity. It doesn't come in handy much, but it can.

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Big Changes Disruption Field : Change this from targeted Ally to targeted Enemy. Many Powersets have anchor debuffs, so there is no reason why Sonic cannot use its MAIN effect while solo.

I absolutely hate this idea. Disruption Field is on all the time, you do not need to even see what you're debuffing before you're helping, it helps Tankers and Brutes hold aggro instead of stealing it, it requires a minimal commitment (activating one times + once for each elevator ride rather than every mob), and it fits with Sonics not-so-busy nature. The only problem I have with Disruption Field is that Controllers can hook it to pets, while Defenders and Corruptor's only available pets are crappy ranged ones.

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Sonic Repulsion : Change this from targeted Ally to Self-centered Toggle like Repulsion Field (Forcefields) or Repel (Kinetics) It was an interesting idea, but not one which actually works very well. In fact all these types of powers should be re-evaluated. From my studies, these types of powers, if enhanced well, can simulate resistance with an effect around 50% (best performance), but the cost is extraordinary. I would (at the very least) remove the per-target endurance cost and call it a day.

Removing (or reducing) the per-target cost would be nice. I prefer Sonic Repulsion to Repel, etc, and yeah, I use them. The reason is, when someone's overwhelmed, or I notice a squishy getting snuck up on, I simply pop that on them for a bit and it can drastically increase their survivability. In longer fights or when prepping for an ambush, I put Disruption on the lead, Repulsion on a ranged character, and stand behind him or her. That works very well. It can also handle nasty things that have placated your friends, like Banes.

Quote:

Liquefy : Reduce the recharge. 10% base uptime !!! Come on ! Make it long enough to avoid double stacking but short enough that it can be up every fight if you invest over 200% recharge in the power. My instinct says this should fall between 120sec and 150sec. Any more than that and its not going to be available every fight on a mature build.

The problem with this is it shares the recharge with the other support AoE Holds: EM Pulse and EMP Arrow. Moreover, the other Tier 9s that aren't a toggle or pet take 300 or 360 seconds to recharge. The exception is Fulcrum Shift, which everyone knows is awesome sauce. Liquefy is ridiculously good as it is. For Defenders, one -ToHit SO means -42.5%! That's on top of a huge -defense, knockdown, slow, and hold. It's damage mitigation's version of a nuke. If you picked up a res shield in your epic, the layered res with its -defense means you can handle almost anything. If Liquefy's recharge was knocked down it would have to be seriously gimped to compensate.

With dual builds available, I'm able to have a team build, and solo based builds for some of my defenders which allow me skip buffs and take more powers that are beneficial to me. As such, I'm not sure I'm agree with this whole parity thing.

For Sonic Resonance, I would suggest one slight change, though. I'd add some sleep resistance (not protection) to Sonic Dispersion. Clarity already has it, and it fits thematically with Sonic Blast's sleep power Siren's Song. That way, if you do happen to get put to sleep, it doesn't last as long.

Forcefield's toggle is 2/3rd's the Defense of the shields (10% vs.15%), whilst Sonic's is 3/4ths (15% vs. 20%), so I wouldn't fiddle with that. Sure, defense is worth more than resistance in mitigation terms, but there's more pool powers that give defense, so I think it evens out.

I've thought about Sonic Repulsion including a chance of -res effect, but I've no experience of the power, personally or from a team, so I've do definite suggestion there.

Depending on how I like the new animations for Sonic Blast, I may have another attempt at a Sonic/Sonic.

Let's keep Sonic Blast and Sonic Resonance separate, since they aren't in any way linked in the game mechanics.

Sonic Blast is hands down the best Blast set for Defenders, capable of generating equivalent -Res to any primary on its own, without you having to spend one iota of endurance or animation time to do so.
I've always felt that some of Sonic Resonances problems may have been overlooked early on because it often got thematically paired with Sonic Blast, which made it feel better than it really is in testing.

To reply to one of Gilia's point, Sonic Resonance does potentially do more -Res than other sets, but it comes with caveats.

1) The peak values are for single targets. It's -60% to the boss, -30% to everyone else, compared to Trick Arrows -40% to several targets, or Storm/Cold's -35% from Freezing Rain/Sleet.

2) Both the -Res powers do absolutely nothing else. Some other -Res powers apply -Def too, or knockdown or damage or whatever. Sonic's don't - you're spending animation time and endurance to just get -Res.

3) The AoE -Res needs a teammate. This means solo you're stuck with just Sonic Siphon - a long animating attack that eats into your endurance and animation time, thus not always improving your DPE or DPS by applying the -Res like it should. If the -Res of Sonic Siphon lets you use one less attack to finish off an enemy, it wasn't worth using.

Sleep protection in Dispersion would make my day.

I don't like it, but I know you're right about the need to minimize nerdrage :P.

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Originally Posted by Biospark I appreciate your additional feedback, on Sonic in particular, but I have to ask what you feel would bring Sonic closer to solo Parity with other Defender Powersets ?

I would definitely start with Sonic Siphon, but before I throw s'more 2 cents at what DrMike offered, I have a couple other ideas.

I agree with your assessment that Dispersion needs to be upgraded a bit to balance with Force Field. A 33% increase in the resist values would do the trick.

Give Sonic Cage -regen and possibly -recovery, so when you time out somebody they stay where they are until you get back to them.

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Originally Posted by DrMike2000 1) The peak values are for single targets. It's -60% to the boss, -30% to everyone else, compared to Trick Arrows -40% to several targets, or Storm/Cold's -35% from Freezing Rain/Sleet.

You aren't actually restricted to just Siphoning the boss. Granted, I would bet the numbers suggest you have to be on a close to full team or an already high damage team for continual applications of Siphon to be worth a lot more than the equivalent animation time and endurance of a good ST attack.

That's why I'm fully behind making it an AoE. Reduce the accuracy to 60% or 67.5% (from 75%) and give it a 5' radius. All of a sudden it's worthy of some slotting attention, competes with Sonic Blast for -res, and puts Resonance on top of the -res game.

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Originally Posted by DrMike2000 2) Both the -Res powers do absolutely nothing else. Some other -Res powers apply -Def too, or knockdown or damage or whatever. Sonic's don't - you're spending animation time and endurance to just get -Res.

This is too true. I'm a little less worried about it than I probably should be, tbh. I think part of the reason is that Sonic Resonance has strong proactive damage mitigation in the form of Dispersion and the Shields. The other sets depend on less reliable and reactive damage mitigation. I'd be curious to know if they ever do any datamining on the subject.

At any rate, I've actually gotten folks killed with the Disruption Field. I could get behind some mitigation there, for when you throw it on a pre-IO Scrapper or Stalker. The occasional knockdown or a -dmg debuff would do the trick.

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3) The AoE -Res needs a teammate.

Like I implied before, I like this. There's many advantages which I feel more than outweigh this draw back and it accounts for the most unique part of Sonic Resonance.

If they incorporated some way of using the team anchored powers while solo, I'd be all for that. Each of them could unlock an enhanceable power with a 30 second recharge that disables the toggle for 30 seconds when used. The duration would be 30 seconds as well. I just wouldn't want to see the current mechanics removed. Being able to enhance the tank's ability to tank while increasing the survivability of the DPS squishy without ever dedicating animation time mid-battle is part of why I love S Resonance.