Skipping the shields on FF

I've found this to be quite true at lower levels, but once you hit the mid-20s, early-30s this start to change. The Brute/Tanker is much better off getting their resistance buffed to 85% and or their defense buffed above the softcap than they are getting a heal. I've been in more than one group with my tanker (Fire/Fire), where I've found that the alphas hurts a lot and even with self healing and an Empath I was taking more damage than I could handle. When a bubbler or debuffer joined, the empath would get bored (or have more fun) because they would only use their buff powers, such as fortitude and clear mind, while having the rest of the time to kill enemies.

I have played an Empathy defender before and when it hit those late 20s early 30s, it really started to feel worse than my other defenders. My Dark and my Sonic defenders are far more fun, even if they don't have the healing capacity. Heck, I've even been in teams with my Dark defender where enemies have been debuffed to the point where I haven't even had to use a single heal.

So in my opinion:
If you have bubbles/debuff/heal that can benefit your team: USE THEM!

If you got a bubble set: Bubble up your team, then blast away at the enemies
If you got a healing set: Heal your team when they are injured, then blast away at the enemies
If you got a debuffer set: Debuff your enemies each combat, then blast away at the enemies

If you don't use the tools in your toolbox, you are one of the weak links in your team. Others in the group might be able to make up for it (since it's not unlikely that there's other team members with a buff/debuff set).

As a side note I'd like to add that the bubbler sets are very friendly on the user. Simply buff team mates once every 4 minutes (That is like 16 seconds used on buffing every 240 seconds) and then you can spend the rest of your time blasting away at the enemies. In comparison the healer 'wastes' far more time keeping up their team mates health. With my empath I've been in TFs where I didn't do anything else but heal and buff, only getting off a handful of attacks.

Feel free. I never said you had to agree with it. But that doesn't make you any less wrong.

So nice of you to speak for "pretty much everyone who plays the game".

Please, REAL arguments here. Not unprovable assertions in an attempt to bandwagon.

Yes, you still have people who are convinced of the "holy trinity" (Tank/DPS/Healer). I say again, THEY ARE WRONG IN THIS GAME.

Tanks are not "needed". Scrappers are not "needed". "Healers" are not "needed".

So yes, bubbles aren't "needed". Good thing I never argued this. What I said was that bubbling was a SUPERIOR OPTION to healing up damage after the fact.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I've got the same reaction to this as I do listening to a "New Earther". So wrong I just don't know where to begin, it's better just to move along.


So true. FF brings one thing - defense (2 if you count knockback, but I won't, and of course, partial mez protection) and if you can't bring that one thing, your team is better off with basically anybody else.

I just don't get the "hassle" of bubbling teammates, there's ways around the endurance issue, not the least of which is *gasp* using a blue insp. You could divide the team into 2 groups and every 2 minutes buff 3 or 4 teammates and 3 minions.

As for me, I've got Power Boost and on teams, 3 teammates or 3 minions get boosted bubbles whenever its up. Maybe I just lack imagination, but I really can't think of what my Thugs/MM could be doing to improve team performance than making sure teammates have defense buffs. By the way, it's not "all or nothing". Bubbling does not mean you can't simultaneously order pets around.

This might be one of the better insights here on this thread. People just get the wrong idea from experimenting in early levels. Then don't get, or haven't seen, what actually hitting the soft cap does for a team. They run even-con paper/radio mishes which go ok, so they think their build is fine.

It's been so long since I've actually teamed at lower levels, I hadn't thought about it that way. Thanks TV.

This is actually a very good point. At really low levels, healing is better than bubbles since damage is generally lower and bubbles aren't great with little to no enhancements.

But you know, for the rest of the game bubbles > heals.

You can fix end drain with heals? I never knew!

Ran Khan last night with a tam of trollers and a blaster and I put everyone near the soft cap. A team of squishies fighting 5 AVs and no one died. Then ran ITF with everyone near the soft cap. It makes a huge difference to be able to just stand there and beat up the AV rather than running around just trying to stay alive.

Bubbles are great. Soft cap is great.

But there's nothing wrong with not going that route. Mostly because teams don't need it. This is an incredibly easy game and the vast majority of missions are run with no bubbles at all. If an FFer wants to take attacks rather than little bubbles, it's not going to hurt the team any more than not inviting a bubbler at all would hurt the team.

No. You ignore end drain. It's done all the time. Most teams running Synapse, for example, have no bubbler. And they do just fine.

I love FF. I have 8 level 50 FFers and several lower level FFers. But I'm not under any illusion that teams fall apart once I log off.

You REALLY have a problem understanding what's being said to you don't you?

Nobody said the teams "fall apart". So please leave the hyperbole at the door.

At lower levels where defense is almost nonexistent, heals appear to be the better solution. At higher levels though, defense is the better option.

How much can you heal if your teammates are dead because the incoming damage outpaces your heals?

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

And your saying it doesn't make it so.

Folks aren't going to build teams off of what you or I say on a message board. They'll build them off what's the best fit from the players available. And pretty much every time at every level they'll take a healer over a bubbler.

Players like bubbles, but they _need_ heals.

I understand _exactly_ what's being said. You're peddling an opinion that almost no one in the game actually follows. An no matter how many examples that are presented showing you to be wrong, you'll go right on peddling that opinion.

The 99.99% of players who don't build teams based on your opinion aren't stupid. In fact just the opposite. Believe it or not, players have built their toons so that they actually work. They didn't need bubbles to survive. They don't even need them to be good at what they do.

If someone comes along and throws a bubble there way, great. But if not, they'll keep right on playing without missing a beat.

No, you clearly don't understand what is being said. No one is saying that bubbles are needed to survive, or be good at what they do, or function, or make cheese sandwiches or whatever.

Just that bubbles are more effective than heals in terms of mitigation.

You're also saying that people like bubbles, but need heals. Which is farcical, because whats actually happening is that people like bubbles and people like heals. Even if it were the case that they like heals more (arguably true) it has no bearing on whether or not heals are more effective.

Well, if that's what's being said, than I agree. Bubbles are more effective at mitigation. They would have to be since heals aren't mitigation.

But my understanding of the the discussion is that if someone doesn't take they little bubbles they're doing it wrong. And I'm saying they're not. There's nothing wrong with skipping them.

There is _never_ a level in the game where this isn't true. The idea that at higher levels teams somehow suddenly need bubbles more is simply wrong. Does a tanker in Granite need a bubble? No. Does my EM/Shields Scrapper need a bubble? No. But both need heals from time to time regardless of whether or not they have bubbles.

More importantly, this is a game. People aren't here to run spreadsheets on mitigation statistics or to follow someone's team composition and build philosophies. They here to have fun.

If you're having fun and the team is winning, you're doing it right. And if that means your FFer skips the little bubbles because it's more fun to blast, or because you want some stealthing abilities, or because you like playing your FFer as a tank, or you want chaos control powers for emergencies, then that's ok.

Not if they're buffed properly they don't. Their native regen will be more than enough.

But please, continue to hold your hands to your ears and chant "I'm Not Listening". All because it's on a message board.

Stop making claims you can't back up. You have exactly zero data to tell you "almost no one in the game" is or is not doing. And even if they ALL were choosing heals over bubbles, that doesn't make it any less incorrect of a form of mitigation.

It's a well known fact that 73.9174356% of all percentages quoted on boards are pulled from someplace dark and fecal-smelling. Please stop spouting numbers you have no way to back up. It helps your arguments not at all.

Simple proof that you DON'T understand what's being said to you.

I didn't say they need them to survive. I said that the additional defense they bring is superior to attempting to patch them up after the fact with heals. Reading Comprehension 101.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Then your understanding is impaired. There is no "right" or "wrong" in my arguments. There's "optimal" and "less than optimal". Taking a mitigation set then refusing to use 1/3-1/2 is "questionable" and decidedly less than optimal.

Please point out where I said there was.

Actually, depending on the team, no they don't. I've run on teams where EVERYONE'S defense numbers were triple-digit. The few times we actually got hit, we had fully regenerated before we were hit again. And we just steamrolled right over the top of everything in our path (including tower-buffed Lord Recluse).

Way to dismiss people who attempt to do the math (and indeed, enjoy it) for others in the game as "not having fun".

Giving people the data to realize a build in a manner OTHER than trial and error and allowing them to improve their survivability would be counted by many as "fun".

My FF/Archery Defender IS a tank (capped to E/N, Ranged, and AoE with high-30's in Melee, as well as high resists). And she regularly hauls in a supertanker of Whup*** during Rikti raids. While simultaneously keeping both her team and the green number cadre out of the Vanguard medical center. So don't tell me that I'm not having fun, or that I'm spending all my time keeping bubbles on 48-50 people.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

And I will continue to giggle to myself whenever I see someone trying to form a team and looking for a "healer" or a "tank". Healing is pretty much the least useful method of handling damage in the game, I'd much rather have a character with controls, defense or resistance buffs or even grab a kin and watch as spawns disintegrate (yes, I know kins have a heal, trust me that isn't why I like teaming with them). Similarly Tanks are nice to have and a good Tank is a joy to team with but I've yet to meet any content where a Tank was required.

Now I don't expect people to know this right out of the box, I think most people go through stages when they believe that attribute X is necessary for a good team, I know I did. However over time it's important to learn that the only really required attribute is competent players. Yes some things make the game easier but healing and tanking are not pretty low on the list compared to things like defense/resistance buffs, controls, -regen (for AVs), -resistance and most of the other buff/debuff types.

The amusing bit here is that you're the one insisting on a specific team composition (specifically the need for a healer).

Ok, I just did back to back LGTF runs.

For the first, I kept the entire team near the defense cap. For the second, I never gave out any bubbles and for fighting those rikti war bots I turtled up in PFF so no one was even getting dispersion bubble.

The result: No difference whatsoever in the performance of the two teams. None. In both cases the teams health bars were at 100% the entire TF (except for hammi).

Sorry folks, but little bubbles aren't needed. The entire FF set isn't needed. Not at low levels. Not at high levels. And I didn't see _any_ evidence that mitigation out performed healing. In fact, it didn't even equal it, since not giving out bubbles meant I could spend my time attacking (which actually accomplishes something).

There's a reason why teams look for healers and not bubblers.

No. I'm just pointing out that this what teams do. They look for healers. And there's a very good reason why they won't run missions without healers, but will run them without bubbles (or any other kind of buff).

That reason is teams with healers tend to succeed, whereas teams without healers tend to fail.

The question of whether or not FFers should take the little bubbles is the topic of this thread.

*points to thread title*

Just refresh memories, here's a quote from the original post:

It's a very interesting question, if for no other reason than many folks on these boards would insist such powers should be mandatory.

But the OP answered his own question with next sentence:

In fact, he's come to pretty much the same conclusion that I did: teams don't need the little bubbles even a little bit. The only difference seems to be that I'm willing to give this unknown FFer credit for contributing to damage and not wasting time bubbling teamates that didn't need it.

I think either I didn't explain myself well enough or you misunderstood. Basically I do have the shields, but even after getting myself to defense cap and even my pets it still does not seem good enough.

7 teammates and 6 pets X 2 bubbles = too much time wasted.

Basically this is one time where being at defense cap just does not equate to being at defense cap with my Traps toon. I'm basically capped but there is little else I can do. I think I was a bit short sighted with this build.

I am starting to think that maybe with a robot ff you need cap the pets and have enough tools to keep the pets alive and stay in the background. So getting repair and aid other and some holds as well might be in order.

Would have to agree.

I can say that on my bots/FF, I don't bubble the bots at all on teams unless there is something particularly difficult that we're fighting. Otherwise, I'll only bubble teammates, and even then I'm not religious about it if the team seems to be doing fine.

Edit:
Would highly recommend it. Repair not only heals the bots, it replenishes their endurance. This enables them to kill faster during long battles. It also has a range that's better than Aid Other and can't be interrupted the way Aid Other can. On the other hand, Aid Other can be used on teammates and NPCs you're trying to keep alive. I have both on my bots/ff.

Another thing to keep in mind is you have dual builds. All my FFers have a "canonical build" that includes the little bubbles and power boost. But they also have other builds I like. When the "canonical build" is the right choice, that's what I use. But usually teams don't need it and I use my other builds.

That proves that one team you were on did not need the bubbles. As a counter-point I ran an ITF once where we had a FF on the team who did not use his little bubbles and people were dying left, right and center. Anecdotal evidence is rarely useful, you can produce an example that "proves" one thing and I can produce an example that "proves" the opposite.

Yes some teams derive little benefit from having a Force Fielder on the team because they are deriving sufficient damage mitigation from other sources (IOs, other Support Sets, or just Melee Armor sets). This illustrates what I consider the fundamental design problem with FF, it's either wonderful (if the team has few defense buffs already) or damn near useless (if thye already have plenty)

Actually this has nothing to do with the effectiveness of powers but with the perceived effectiveness of powers. The effects of heals are much more visible than the effects of bubbles so people assume that heals are more effective. This is further reinforced by the existence of other MMOs where heals are more effective.

Actually it's a case of teams with well rounded support tending to do better than teams without. A lot of the better support sets have a heal (for example Dark and Rad) but in most situations a team with one of these sets present would do almost as well (if not as well) if the character in question never used their heal at all.

Traps is an excellent example of this. At higher levels a well played Traps character can carry a team and yet the set is not dependent on a heal. A personal anecdote I like to use to illustrate this is one a team I was on with my Traps/AR farming Master Illusionists in Radio missions. I turned left but for some reason the rest of the team turned right instead of following me. Anyway, long story short I finished off my group and went back to scrape them off the floor.

Learn something, something about how statistical sampling is done. Maybe check out a wiki page. To say "I did 2 of a thing" is far from sufficient, regardless of what the "thing" may be.

Again, it's not "I did two of a thing". This is the way teams are run. They look for healers, not bubblers. You may not like the idea, but it's what the vast majority of teams do. And they do it because doing so brings success. Again and again. Everyday on every server, regardless of team composition or mission.

And since we're giving out math lessons, learn the importance of relevance. Simply stating the effects of a power has _nothing_ whatsoever to do with whether or not that power is needed by a team. No one is claiming the little bubbles do nothing. The claim is that what they do is not needed by the vast majority of the teams out there.

In most situations, they're a waste of time.