Defender Primary Balance Suggestion


Amy_Amp

 

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Originally Posted by Garent View Post
Ah! Great idea. Years ago, -range occured to me (or someone else mentioned it and I stole it) but I didn't recall it during our brainstorming. Thanks for the feedback on TA from you and other people. I gave out the call for help in improving that area and you guys did not disappoint.
Agreed. The TA suggestions are great... This is exactly what we were hoping for.


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
I hadn't seen this thread. I'll read it over and see if it matches our goals.
I looked over at http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=258072 about Poison, and they seem to be making a list of all possible ideas, even to the point of buffing powers that are already decent enough (Elixir of Life and Antidote, which are both as good as equivalent powers - Antidote is actually one of the better st mez protection powers in the game). They have some good ideas we can use, as well as some that we can't because of our rules.


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Actually -Range has come up with TA before, and I think the reason most people rejected it (in that unofficial "board consensus" way) was that TA is also available to Controllers. If you could debuff Range without being seen and then just cage everything you could fight without enemies having any chance of retaliating starting at level 4.


 

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Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
We're talking about the self -recovery, not the endurance drain on the target. And we won't get this power's recharge dropped, not when control aoe holds are 180 seconds.
Defender EMP Arrow

Self
  • Recovery -10 for 15s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
Target
  • +22.35s Held (mag 3) PvE only
  • +22.35s Held (mag 1) (50% chance) PvE only
  • +2s Held (mag 3) If target is a player
    Suppressed when Held, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
    Suppressed when Sleep, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
    Suppressed when Stunned, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
    Suppressed when Immobilized, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
    Suppressed when Terrorized, for 15 seconds (WhenInactive)
  • Endurance -0.55 PvE only
  • -20.838 Endurance If target is a player
  • Regeneration -10 for 15s PvE only [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
  • -12.975 Regeneration for 15s If target is a player [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]
  • 59.28 Energy damage If target is Electronic

=====

If all we're talking about is finding an alternative to the Recovery -10 for 15s to Self, then one that readily comes to mind is something that ought to be game mechanically possible, although I've never seen it done before for anything else.

A lot of Nuke Powers will either drain Endurance directly (END Crash), or drain Recovery directly (Exhaustion effect) for a short time ... or both (in a lot of cases) ... but I've never seen one use as its "penalty" a (temporary) drain on Max Endurance.

The Endurance Drain/END Crash mechanic makes it, by its design, highly likely that the character will be left drained of ALL Endurance (to zero) ... which will of course cause Toggle Powers to detoggle (almost) immediately, by default. Recovery Drain, like we see here in EMP Arrow, is designed to simply crash your Recovery Rate, so that if you keep using your powers (heavily) after use of EMP Arrow, it is *likely* you'll spam yourself to Zero END and drop all your Toggles.

A (temporary) reduction of Max Endurance, however, would be a very different mechanic. It would mean that if your Blue Bar is "full" you'd be "losing" a lot of Endurance ... but if your Blue Bar is (close to) "empty" you'd be "losing" relatively little Endurance (or possibly, none at all). Furthermore, by debuffing your own Max Endurance (especially if by a large amount, such as -75% for instance), a pretty severe debuff to Recovery is also concurrently imposed, simply by mathematical "throughput" of how the formulas work. The net result is similar to a combined END Crash and Recovery Debuff ... except that the effect is to leave the character with a high probability of a (much) smaller Endurance Pool that is not, by default, brought to Zero (which thus triggers De-toggling). The character is "weakened" ... but not pushed into a position where their Toggles "automatically" drop, and they are still able to perform some critical functions of their character, as the situation demands, but at an increased risk of crashing Endurance through their own (continuing) actions during the Debuff Duration.

This is very much a Glass Half Full vs Glass Half Empty sort of difference ... except that there's a BIG DIFFERENCE in "which end of the glass" you're trying to drink out of, as to whether you're sucking water, or sucking air (as it were).

Same Effect ... Different Means ... VERY DIFFERENT Implications.

Anyway, if the Powers Team decides that some sort of "Nuke Penalty" is in some way "required" for EMP Arrow to balance its effectiveness, then I propose the possibility of using a Max Endurance Debuff to Self, rather than a Recovery Debuff to Self as an alternative game mechanic to achieve the same "result" by different means.

The only real downside I can see to any sort of Max Endurance Debuff like this is that using it will make the GUI look like you have a much "fuller" Blue Bar than you actually do during the Debuff Duration. It will look like your Endurance Bar suddenly goes from (say) half empty to totally full ... which could be deceptive ... and then when the Debuff Expires, it'll look like your Endurance Bar goes from being somewhat/mostly full to MOSTLY EMPTY ... which, again, could LOOK very deceptive. There are of course, ways around that sort of GUI information misidentification of what's ACTUALLY going on (such as turning on the numeric values for Green and Blue Bars, so as to get Absolute, rather than just Relative values on the Empty/Full scale), but most players are not using that option by default, so it is something to consider when conceptualizing the entire playing experience.


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Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
I looked over at http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=258072 about Poison, and they seem to be making a list of all possible ideas, even to the point of buffing powers that are already decent enough (Elixir of Life and Antidote, which are both as good as equivalent powers - Antidote is actually one of the better st mez protection powers in the game). They have some good ideas we can use, as well as some that we can't because of our rules.
Yes well poison is pretty gimp you could buff every power and it would still be far behind traps, dark, and storm.


 

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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
Actually -Range has come up with TA before, and I think the reason most people rejected it (in that unofficial "board consensus" way) was that TA is also available to Controllers. If you could debuff Range without being seen and then just cage everything you could fight without enemies having any chance of retaliating starting at level 4.
The easy counter to this is to rationalize any sort of Range Debuff on the Controller/Dominator version of the power as being weaker than on the equivalent Defender or Mastermind version ... simply because Controllers/Dominators don't "need the help" anywhere near as much as Defenders and Masterminds do (ie. they've got way more toys in their toolkits).

Just to put illustration numbers to what I'm talking about, for clarity (if not for actual proposal):

Defenders: -75% Range for 15s
Masterminds: -50% Range for 15s
Controllers: -33% Range for 15s
Dominators: -33% Range for 15s

All I'm saying is that this sort of "skewing" for a Range Debuff from Flash Arrow is perfectly *possible* to do, if "giving Controllers/Dominators too much of an advantage" is determined to be a problem.

Likewise, it's also possible to "skew" the effectiveness of Flash Arrow (as I'm proposing to modify it here) such that Controllers and Dominators don't get any Range Debuff at all out of the power, and instead have an increased chance to Placate affected targets (50% chance of +14.5s Mag 3 Placate after 0.5 sec, instead of 33% chance of +14.5s Mag 3 Placate after 0.5 sec).

So if the "real" problem with applying a Range Debuff to Flash Arrow is how that plays out in the hands of Controllers and Dominators ... there are ways to finesse that issue. You just have to be clever about it.


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Posted

The problem with debuffing max endurance is that you can't eat a blue pill to counter act it, or receive endurance from other ways, like you can currently.

Also, I think you mean corruptors?


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
The problem with debuffing max endurance is that you can't eat a blue pill to counter act it, or receive endurance from other ways, like you can currently.
Exactly ... which means that as a Balance Point, the debuffing of max endurance doesn't need to be as crippling as some of the other options in order to achieve the same "penalty level" for a power. So, by way of example, a Nuke power that does -100 Current Endurance as its penalty, might be balanced by applying a -50 Max Endurance debuff instead. You see where I'm coming from?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
Also, I think you mean corruptors?
Probably. There are entire villain ATs I've never gotten around to playing yet.


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Posted

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Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
I explicitly said non-stackable. It'd never be more than 20% -Resist.
Hmm, clearly my comprehension skills need improvement. I guess I just assumed since some of the changes you are recommending are to make non stackable powers stackable, that you wouldn't introduce another non-stackable power.

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Even if it doesn't stack? -20% isn't a huge amount. My reason for something besides -ToHit and -Damage is that these are defensive debuffs and Forcefield already has the defense side of things down pat; when it comes to helping the team offensively it has very little to provide (Repulsion Bomb is really it).
Even if it doesn't stack, 20% still feels like a lot, and the -res doesn't make sense thematically to me. I'm all for increasing the damage of force bolt or repulsion bomb, but adding -res just seems sort of arbitrary.

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It might've been the original paradigm, yeah, but that was six years ago and experience has shown that the original paradigm (if that's what it was) didn't work out so well.
Personally, I'm not convinced that the new paradigm has been implemented correctly. It's my personal belief that cold was balanced around the fact that villains didn't have access to defender level modifiers or any of the hero buff sets to compete with, and that when it was proliferated it became too powerful. This would appear to be supported by the lack of a defender modifier version of sleet, but it is the same across all ATs. Like I said before, I think trying to make the sets comparable to cold is a mistake.


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Posted

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Originally Posted by Draggynn View Post
Hmm, clearly my comprehension skills need improvement. I guess I just assumed since some of the changes you are recommending are to make non stackable powers stackable, that you wouldn't introduce another non-stackable power.
I would basically have to, given the recharge of the power.

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Even if it doesn't stack, 20% still feels like a lot, and the -res doesn't make sense thematically to me. I'm all for increasing the damage of force bolt or repulsion bomb, but adding -res just seems sort of arbitrary.
It makes about as much sense as Tar Patch causing -Resistance. More, in my mind, in that Repulsion Bomb is a large burst of energy that could mess with the targets' defenses in a similar manner to Sonic attacks.

Quote:
Personally, I'm not convinced that the new paradigm has been implemented correctly. It's my personal belief that cold was balanced around the fact that villains didn't have access to defender level modifiers or any of the hero buff sets to compete with, and that when it was proliferated it became too powerful. This would appear to be supported by the lack of a defender modifier version of sleet, but it is the same across all ATs. Like I said before, I think trying to make the sets comparable to cold is a mistake.
A lot of the villain specific sets were made with the specific villain AT in mind (see Electric Armor, whose Energy Resist is specifically such that Brutes can only just reach their cap, and now that it is proliferated to other ATs, they all wind up with far too much energy resist).

Cold, by the way, I don't consider nearly as powerful as Storm, Rad, or Dark (the latter two of which were available to Corruptors from the beginning).


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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diellan_ View Post
It makes about as much sense as Tar Patch causing -Resistance. More, in my mind, in that Repulsion Bomb is a large burst of energy that could mess with the targets' defenses in a similar manner to Sonic attacks.
I meant thematically in terms of powers in the set. I consider Dark to generally be a debuff set, so it makes sense to see -resistance in Dark. It just doesn't make sense to me in Force Fields. I'm also not certain I buy the argument that Force Fields needs to have something to contribute in offensive situations. We do have an entire secondary after all, so it's not as if forcefielders are sitting around doing nothing.

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Cold, by the way, I don't consider nearly as powerful as Storm, Rad, or Dark (the latter two of which were available to Corruptors from the beginning).
**shrugs** depends on the situation. As an obvious proponent of Storm, I generally consider Cold to be more powerful, especially for equal amounts of effort. Played smart, Storm can perform better against groups on account of Hurricane and LS (and to a lesser extent Thunder Clap). Against hard targets though, Cold pulls miles ahead thanks to benumb and shields not being susceptible to the purple patch. Not to mention that cold gets the joys of endless endurance which opens up more slotting and incarnate options.


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Posted

Storm is my main set, so I'll make my one suggestion here.

The set is phenomenal in general PvE, but falls short against AVs. The reasons being:

  • AV immunity to knockdown or knockback. Knocking is one of the prime mitigation methods and is present in more powers than not in the powerset: Gale, Freezing Rain, Hurricane, Tornado, and Lightning Storm. Gale in particular is utterly useless against AVs since the knockback is the only thing it does aside from negligible damage. This also applies to the stuns in the set (Tornado/Thunderclap) -- impossible for a Storm to stack enough stun to overcome the purple triangles.
  • Lack of good debuffs against AVs. The best debuffs against AVs are -damage, -resistance, and -regen. The first two are exempt from the very high AV debuff resistance, and the last one, though resisted, usually is in high enough values to get -100%. Storm only has one of those debuffs: the -resistance. It is unique in that it has two sources of solid direct damage (Tornado/LS), but the damage they bring to the table pales in comparison to the total amount of HP prevented from regenerating by Kins, Rads, Colds, and Darks. In addition, the lack of -damage really hurts when you consider:
  • No (meaningful) buffing at all, plus the weakest ally heal in the game. O2 Boost's heal is far inferior to Heal Other, Soothe, Cauterize, hell, even Aid Other and the Peacebringer Heal (granted, not by much) are stronger. Of course, this is to balance the buffs it also gives. Unfortunately, only one of these buffs has any relevance in 99% of AV fights -- the stun protection, and then only for squishies. Sleeps are easily countered, end draining AVs is rare, and perception is utterly worthless. Combine this with the only defensive debuffs (Hurricane's tohit and FR/SS's -recharge) being resisted to hell and back, and you've got one of the weakest sets against AVs.
Since Storm's problems are only against AVs, I'd really only ask for one suggestion, as not to overpower it against everything else:

-Regen in Tornado.

I can deal with it being not too great defensively as long it bring a massive offensive punch. -Regen plus the direct damage would make it a monstrous damage multiplier against AVs.


 

Posted

Most if not all the stuff on TA has been suggested before and I am inclined to think that TA has since been looked over and tweaked.

I doubt Devs sit there and compare one power from one powerset directly to another power of another powerset. They're not there to make the same thing just with arrows or with pole arms.

There is a team dynamic required for each defender type and also scenarios, enemies against in which each type brings more than all the others. If the defender meets the requirements of its preferred dynamic then I bet its fine. If the player base fails to play to find and play to that dynamic and effectively says "well Dark can res the whole team in a team wipe, why can't Trick Archers do that?" then that's tough.

We could all be thinking of how our toons fail on Speed runs whilst Cold exceeds, it could be that cold is designed with speed runs in mind whilst other sets have other situations in mind. Not saying thats true.

I know some toggle debuffs look great compared to TAs debuffed but the amount of times the anchor gets killed first is unreal, this means that on average the potential of the set isn't achieved and survivability or debuffs/time comes down from the on paper levels. What's balanced against those high debuff toggles is the fact that Mr Anchor Killer keeps whacking the anchors first on time everytime. The Rad is then great with AVs for example but in fighting all them spawns getting to that AV you could of all done with something else purely because people don't play right.


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Traps

Triage Beacon: Reduce its recharge to 90 seconds so that it can be kept up at all times and so that, with recharge enhancements, the user can replace it whenever the group moves. The pet should not be allowed to stack - like Voltaic Sentinel, resummoning it would cause the previous one to die.
I didn't read the rest of the post, or the rest of the thread:

NO THANK YOU.
My trapper can double stack Triage, and I perfer it to stay that way.

THAT IS ALL.


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I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...


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Originally Posted by Draggynn View Post
**shrugs** depends on the situation. As an obvious proponent of Storm, I generally consider Cold to be more powerful, especially for equal amounts of effort. Played smart, Storm can perform better against groups on account of Hurricane and LS (and to a lesser extent Thunder Clap). Against hard targets though, Cold pulls miles ahead thanks to benumb and shields not being susceptible to the purple patch. Not to mention that cold gets the joys of endless endurance which opens up more slotting and incarnate options.
Yep. Cold is Storm for Dummies. I still have a love/hate relationship with Hurricane. I think Cold more than holds it's weight against Storm and that's not even with the ease of use factor either.


 

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Originally Posted by Vice_Virtuoso View Post
-Regen plus the direct damage would make it a monstrous damage multiplier against AVs.
Exaclty, which is precisely why Storm doesn't need a change like this. Yes Cold gets our same MASSIVE ammount of -res (a well built Storm or Cold defender with a little bit of luck can often triple stack sleet/freezing rain) and -regen, but that doesn't mean that Storm Defenders should as well. Against an AV a storm defender has the potential to bring:
35-105% -resistance, (depending on how lucky you get)
9% to-hit debuff
about 25% -recharge (with double stack FR)

But more importantly, that little bit of dps you were talking about...a Storm Defender built for recharge can get perma 2 tornados and perma 2 Lightning Storms. If the AV has no resistance that works out to be:
44.49*1.95*2/5+6.67*2*2*1.95 = 86 damage per second (without -res factored in)
That's the equivalent of 90% -regen. Granted things often don't work out quite this well because AV's have resistances and if you don't have someone to immobolize them, they can run. And this isn't out of the box, but requires slotting heavily for recharge (although not that heavily with hasten)

Now imagine a Storm Defender being given a -regen component on top of all of that in a power that is autohit (benumb, lingering radiation, twilight grasp, EMP pulse, EMP arrorw, and transfusion all require to-hit checks. Howling Twilight doesn't, not sure about what traps and poison have) , it quickly becomes too much.


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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp View Post
I think Cold more than holds it's weight against Storm and that's not even with the ease of use factor either.
You won't find me arguing against that.


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Posted

Lol Cottage Rule. I will continue to point out that it is a lazy-man's attempt to justify not changing something that obviously needs changing. If something is completely unfixable with it's current stats, replace it with something that is. Of course, 99% of the time something is fixable though.

As for poison, I'd really really really like to not see another heal added to poison. It's called Poison for a reason. I'd personally like to see either a Chocking Cloud clone or some kind of toggle. I'd like to see poison be a more control-ish set but thats just my bias opinion; take it with a grain of salt.

Trick Arrow's numbers seem low for similar powers like you said in the original post Diellan. While Trick Arrow doesn't need an over-all buff, it's earlier powers certainly need some love. I like the idea of giving Acid Arrow an extremely minor energy component so that the set has a way to ignite Oil Slick without outside help.

Flash Arrow could use a chance of mag 2 disorient, say, 50%? That would make the power more spammable in the middle of a fight and give trick arrow slightly more mitigation on top of it's -damage Poison Gas Arrow.

Recharge on Ice Arrow I feel is fine considering how many other toys Trick Arrow needs to use. Ice Arrow needs significantly higher -Recharge. Mids is saying it only gives 12.5%

Kinetics. After playing kinetics for 5 years on my defender, the only major change i'd like to see is change Repel's Knockback to actual Repel... That will never happen due to lazy devs but it always seemed dumb to have 'Repel' not actually repel.

Siphon Power is greatly underpowered in comparison to Fulcrum Shift. Naturally you get it lower level and it still provides -25% dmg to your target. I'd like to see it give the +25% damage component to all allies near you AND your target. This should make it slightly more useful in the higher levels.

Traps: Can we just delete Timebomb/Detonator? If any changes are done to Timebomb, it will just be a glorified Trip Mine (oh wait). Perhaps make it a pet that follows you, then you can command it to suicide on a target of your choice causing high AoE damage. It would be like Dark Miasma's Fluffy except it would explode on enemies. Like a super Seeker Drone.. without the nice debuffs.


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Cold, by the way, I don't consider nearly as powerful as Storm, Rad, or Dark (the latter two of which were available to Corruptors from the beginning).
yea it's not like cold has the potential to have double the -res of all those sets, deletes any issue of end problems, makes -recover from nukes a nonissue, has the only power in game that makes powers like unstoppable, elude, ect. as effective as fortune buffs, and the ability to give every teammate 30% defense

you lost all credibility here dude


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Originally Posted by Test_Rat View Post
My trapper can double stack Triage, and I perfer it to stay that way.
Noted. Ideally, I want to make the power better out of the box without impacting its high end effectiveness.


 

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Originally Posted by Garent View Post
I completely agree with you that empathy should have status protection of some kind. It's an (almost) completely reactive set that needs to be unmezzed and capable when things go bad. However, we had to limit ourselves to things we knew the devs at least had a chance of accepting. Black scorpion recently said that he doesn't think that the single target mez protection powers should be given AoE power. Not something I agree with, but that's the end of the debate right there.

As for regeneration aura, it's actually an EXTREMELY powerful buff. It's pretty much instant healing, except it doesn't have reduced power from healing enhancements like instant healing does. I'm sure a lot of people would like to have it be a less powerful, but perma, buff, but the developers are really mindful of removing functionality that players are used to, and I think a lot of people would miss the ability to have god-mode regeneration aura for a small amount of time.
Thanks Garent for the response,

Let me try harder in keeping with the spirit of your thread.

What if.... Healing Aura was able to be cast while under status effects.
The Empath could attempt to heal thru a bad situation on teams and (especially) while solo, without changing ANY of the other powers.

I have also felt that Healing Aura should have its cast time reduced somewhat. When you are in your teens and twenties, you can use this power to heal and lose as much health during the cast time as the amount that gets healed back.


 

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Originally Posted by WarMage View Post
I have also felt that Healing Aura should have its cast time reduced somewhat. When you are in your teens and twenties, you can use this power to heal and lose as much health during the cast time as the amount that gets healed back.
I'm not sure that the solution to buffing empathy is to encourage greater rocking of the aura


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Draggynn View Post
I'm not sure that the solution to buffing empathy is to encourage greater rocking of the aura
Yeah, I know how much people feel that is a sign of a bad Empath, but...
Healing Aura is pretty much all you have solo when the Auras are down, and it would be an alternative to lending status protection to the set.


 

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Originally Posted by WarMage View Post
What if.... Healing Aura was able to be cast while under status effects.
If vigilance hadn't been recently buffed, I would be rallying for the new defender inherent to be the ability to cast certain powers while mezzed and/or for toggles to continue working while the caster/teammates are mezzed. The plus is that it would make the defender's playstyle unique from the corruptors. The minus is that the inherent is already bloated and complicated, and adding another portion to it would make it even worse. Not to mention that the inherent would inevitably favor certain powersets over others (though arguably, any inherent would do that because of the variety of the powersets).

I think you're on the right track though. It mez protection isn't possible, then fake mez protection like blasters have is the only other option aside from no mez protection.


 

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Originally Posted by PC_guy View Post
yea it's not like cold has the potential to have double the -res of all those sets, deletes any issue of end problems, makes -recover from nukes a nonissue, has the only power in game that makes powers like unstoppable, elude, ect. as effective as fortune buffs, and the ability to give every teammate 30% defense

you lost all credibility here dude
For one, Poison has Weaken, which does the same thing as Benumb.

For two, you could actually ask why I think the way I do instead of simply writing me for having an alternate opinion. You didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway:

I'm thinking about the sets on a much more global level, in all situations, with the current metagame in mind. Solo, the shields and Frostwork have no usage whatsoever (unless you get a pet from your epics or decide to buff your Lore pets or something), while Hurricane provides fantastic damage mitigation that includes yourself. Freezing Rain actually has a greater -Res than Sleet (-35% vs -30%). Heat Loss, while amazing, only applies the debuff portion for 30 seconds (compared to the buff portion, which is 90 seconds), giving it a horrible up time (8.33% unslotted). Meanwhile, Lightning Storm does amazing damage, and you can have 3 of them out with effort, and Tornado can provide fantastic damage and mitigation on top of it (I've watched Garent solo AVs with his Storm Defender, back before it was ridiculously easy to cap your own defense with set bonuses). Benumb is great and unique, and Infrigidate has some great debuffing, but they're both single target only, rendering them pointless for most of the game. On top of that, Infrigidate's usefulness is hampered by the fact that it exists in the same set as Sleet, which provides as much -Defense without any of the worry about missing with the power.

I'll give you the bit about Cold being easier to utilize than Storm. Hurricane is a magnificent power, but few people know how to "tap" foes with it for the ToHit debuff without scattering them.

I personally feel Storm is a more powerful set, but that doesn't mean I think Cold is weak, because I don't. I really don't.


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