Defender's bastion 4pc bonus: What if?

I actually think that these are reasonable bonuses. Sure, they're better than MOST of the bonuses you can earn through in game play, but not all of them. Granted, the person who goes through all the effort to slot all their purple sets and then buys these will still be ahead of someone who only slots all the purples, at that point I think the advantage will be insignificant.

And if I understand correctly, only one of these sets can be slotted per character. If we could slot the full five, an extra ~10% rech is significant, but many defenders can run the full set of lotg globals without much difficulty, in addition to some 7.5% rech in a hold, and there's a ranged damage set with 6.25% rech at five slots...

So while I agree that things purchased from the store shouldn't be better than what can be earned in game... I don't feel the +rech crossed the line here. The purple +rech bonus surpasses it, with less slot investment. Someone who grinded out or farmed enough to slot every purple +rech they possibly can is going to have more +rech than someone who didn't and just bought that.

However, it is a slippery slope. If there are a LOT of similar bonuses that build up, the line could be reached very quickly, but in most cases it's a matter of greater convenience instead of being strictly better.

Like the attuned IO's. I think we're still at the state where we're paying for convenience rather than superiority.

Is the time it would take me to get a purple set worth more than the defender AT set will cost me? Almost certainly. Is the AT set worth the point/money investment? Potentially.

Do I care that people willing to spend it have access to that much more rech than I do? No. Will I care when there are certain builds that are possible and work only through monetary investment? Yes.

It's a threshold thing.

Also let me start on an Optional Tangent

This is also a matter of perspective. It's very hard to argue with builds that use IO's are not strictly superior to those on SO's and HO's... yet many subscribers are okay with IO's being behind a pay/subscriber wall. Why? Because it's at a level of money we're willing to spend, and have been doing for quite some time. Am I okay with this? Yes.

Likewise, Incarnate abilities, although I would venture that Incarnate abilities are not as far above an IO'd build as a well-crafted IO build is above an SO build, Incarnate abilities are strictly limited to people who can pay every month. Again, a lot of people are okay with this, they had to pay every month to play at all for so long.

But a lot of people think that isn't fair, because people who pay every month have abilities that make them superior to people who have IO's unlocked forever and aren't paying every month, or people who pay less every so often to use IO's.

So where do you draw the line? Personally, and i'll admit this is horribly biased, I think that the VIP, the subscribed customer, should be where the balance line is drawn in terms of power available, even if the game is balanced around IOs. I think spending money on items in the store should offer equivalent or less power at greater convenience. I feel that's what the AT IO sets do. It's less than purples, but greater than the common IO set, and more convenient for some people to acquire than purples. Other people will find purples more convenient. Some people will get both, but it's not as though they just got an extra 45% recharge to their powers, 30% of which ignores ED.

From the perspective of lower tier Preems and freebs, this is completely a game where you are required to spend money or you're almost certainly inferior to the people who do, so the addition of the AT enhancements for money just puts the pinnacle of power that many more dollars above where they are currently.

End Tangent.

That said, I wish the +heal bonus was something else, like a +end or +recov or even a small global endurance discount would be more broadly useful. Of the people who will benefit the most, the emps, I honestly can't say I care that much about a little +heal on top of all the +heal I'll have from other sources anyway.

Since I can't find this information anywhere (it all seems to have been tactical nuke purged), what values does the Defender set actually enhance, and what're the values like?

I'm pretty sure the only way you could find out that information is by pigg diving, and that's against the EULA, thus why you can't find info on it on the forums.

I'm not really seeing the big deal here. I mean, if you don't like the bonuses don't slot the set. You're raging about one little set bonus. I understand that these will be things you pay for, but again if you don't like what the set brings for you, don't buy it. There are a lot of things that it makes a lot more sense to be upset about in this game than a set bonus that probably isn't even finalized on something that doesn't officially exist yet. If you need to be mad about something, join the Dominators and complain about lack of powersets. That's actually a more relevant and better founded concern than nitpicking set bonuses.

In addition to that, have you considered the possibility that proc in the Defender set has been coded to accept +Healing set bonuses?

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

Since no defenders have broad mez protection prior to lvl 50 and Clarion, and most don't have any at all (only Acrobatics and the minor hold being available across the board) maybe the heal should be replaced with a Lvl 2 (or lvl 3, I'm not sure where the sweet spot would be) Protection vs Fear, Sleep, Stun or vs Fear, Hold, and Sleep.

The reason not to include both Hold and Stun is to protect the unique level of protection FF, Sonic, and Traps enjoy, while still having value to all defenders.

And of course, FF, Sonic, and Traps would still benefit from the slightly enhanced Protection values.

Oathbound,

You're mixing things up -- you're holding up the controller set bonuses as an example of doing it right, but they apply only to /control/ aspects, not generic boosts, like +ToHit, that would exclusively apply to an Empath's secondary.

Unfortunately, there isn't a single (de)buff that's common to (de)buff sets. Not one. Healing is as universal as it gets. Further, there is, as far as I know, no set bonus that would buff FF's ability to buff defense.

Your example of the controller set merely demonstrates what the devs were trying to do with the healing bonus. And I'm simply pointing out that healing is as close to universal as it gets with defenders.

You're tilting at windmills.

For what it's worth (and speaking as someone who's main Defender is a Trapper) I like the set. As far as I'm concerned the proc in the set (minor PBAoE heal) balances out the +6% healing power bonus. It helps compensate for the main weakness of Traps (the lack of any sort of healing outside Incarnate powers) whereas it's going to be a lot less useful for any defender who already has a PBAoE heal. Given that it seems like a reasonable compromise to me, sets with heals get a set bonus to make them a little better and sets without a heal get a proc to help round them out.

I'll also note that when I look at sets I rarely pay much attention tot he first three set bonuses. the 5-piece and 6-pieces bonuses are the interesting ones, the others are generally filler and this is no exception.