ClawsandEffect

Practiced Brawler
Unyielding
Indomitable Will
Plasma Shield
Integration
Obsidian Shield
Rooted

There's a bunch of powers that give you the same thing.

Not that Active Defense isn't a nice power, it is. Just that the powers I mention here are nice as well.

Go villain with it and take Soul Mastery.

Soul Mastery has NightFall (identical to the Dark Blast cone) and Soul Tentacles (a re-skinned version of Tenebrous Tentacles)

That would give you a total of FOUR cones, one of which is also an AoE immobilize, so you can keep them bunched up for more cone destruction.

You also get Dark Embrace, which is a pretty good Smashing/Lethal/Negative armor, and Oppressive Gloom , which will stun any minions that make it into melee range with you.

Oppressive Gloom will also give you more versatility, in that you can immobilize them with Soul Tentacles and hop into melee to fire Psychic Shockwave, which will stack with OGloom to stun even bosses.

If you really want a cone-based blaster, Soul Mastery is too good to pass up.

I already mentioned it, but this post brings it to the forefront again.

It's not that you can't use the powers on yourself, it's that you can't target yourself at all. If you could target yourself, you could use those powers on yourself already.

I don't know for sure, but I don't think it is possible with the game engine to allow self-targeting only in certain situations. Either it allows self-targeting, or it doesn't. They would also have to code entirely separate versions of every ally buff power in the game to have one version with the full buff and another version with a lesser buff. That's a whole lot of work that would need to be done.

It would also introduce the possibility of attack powers developing bugs that let you attack yourself as well. Those could be a pain in the butt to track down and fix if it happened.

Also, it would make enemy targeting more difficult. A lot of us use a bind to target the closest enemy. What would happen if the game engine decided that YOU were the closest target? It would probably be a bug, but it would force you to tab through enemies until you got to the one smacking you in the face.

I have the distinct feeling it is set up the way it is because the devs realized the host of problems that would develop if they allowed self-targeting, and just decided not to allow it to avoid all those problems at once without having to do a lot of coding.

No, you're absolutely right. Enemies should have no ability to actually defeat us. That will make the game so much more fun.

That's what we really need, a bunch of cardboard cutouts that will stand there and let us hit them.

You are drastically overstating the amount of mez a minion in the game generally has. The way you talk, every minion in the game has a mez, and a support AT hit by it is instantly defeated with no opportunity to do anything about it. Sorry, but that is not even in the same zip code as the truth.

I don't have a huge problem with mezzes, and anecdotal evidence suggests that not a whole lot of other people do either (since it is being argued about by a very small number of people, and I'm quite sure others have read the thread besides just us)

I get your point quite clearly. You think that either everyone should have the ability to ignore mezzes, or they should not exist at all. Because you don't think it is fair that some ATs that are built to withstand them should be able to withstand them better than the ATs that are not built that way.

True Metal makes a good point actually. The amount of mez resistance and protection available to support ATs through power pools is roughly equivalent to the amount of ranged attacks and mez available to a melee AT through power pools.

Combat Jumping has immobilize protection, and Acrobatics has hold protection. Health has sleep resistance in it.

Conversely, melee ATs get one single target mez, one single target blast, and maybe an AoE of some kind. Seems pretty fair to me.

Saying "melee gets mez in their APPs so support should get mez protection" is kind of silly, since support does have mez protection available in roughly equal amounts to what melee gets in mez. If melee ATs got the ability to lock down an entire mob like a controller through their APPs, I might agree that more mez protection was warranted. But since what melee ATs get in mez is so limited, it is perfectly fair that what support ATs get in protection is limited as well.

So, let's see if I got this straight. You admit that with no defenses you probably will not die on a mish set to normal difficulty. I assume you are suggesting this so I get an idea of what it is like to play a support character (which is pretty silly, seeing as how I regularly DO play support characters).

I also assume (since I don't recall you having explicitly stated it) that your Sonic/Kin corruptor has no undue problems soloing on the default settings.

Then you state that boosted difficulty settings will ruin your day.

Are you somehow surprised that increasing your difficulty settings make the game harder? The game is designed so that every character in it can solo at the default difficulty setting. It is NOT designed so that every character in it can solo on as high of a difficulty setting as you can have. (For the record, my Rad/Sonic defender CAN solo on higher difficulty settings, I just rarely do it because it takes him too long to kill large spawns due to his single target focus. He's built to be an AV/GM hunter)

Your stance seems to be that because some heavily IOed melee characters can solo at +4/x8, everyone should be able to, and if that's the case it's just silly.

I could just as easily say that because some heavily IOed support characters can solo a Giant Monster, everyone should be able to, and it would be just as ridiculous.

You ARE aware that there are controller, defender, and corruptor builds that can solo Giant Monsters, right? It has been proven on multiple occasions. I know of no melee character that can make the same claim. I have heard of some controller builds that are capable of soloing the STF, and I don't think a melee character has accomplished that feat.

Point of the matter is: Every character in the game is better at something than some other characters. I would cheerfully trade my melee characters' ability to solo at high difficulty for the ability to solo Giant Monsters.

And I'll reiterate the point that, if your character cannot do something, it is very unlikely that simply giving them mez protection will make them suddenly capable of it. (For the record, if you build for sufficient defense, your Sonic/Kin corruptor could probably solo a few of the AVs we have floating around at higher levels. You have the majority of the tools you need within the two power sets.)

Try a Katana/Dark armor. I have a beastly Broadsword/DA and Werner has an awesome kat/DA, so we can give advice on that if you like. (Because you can slot Broadsword and Katana identically, power for power)

With the advent of Physical Perfection in the Body Mastery APP (don't know if you noticed, but all the APPs have 5 powers now instead of the 4 they used to), a lot of Dark Armor's end problems have gone away. And with the introduction of the Theft of Essence Chance for +End proc, DA's biggest end hog (Dark Regeneration) can actually GAIN you endurance instead of costing a crap ton. That's because the proc checks to give you 10 endurance back when you use the power, and it checks for every target the power hits.

With Divine Avalanche, you can softcap melee defense pretty easily, and building for other defenses isn't too difficult (though it can get expensive). Defense on top of Dark Armor's already good resists and monster heal is just an awesome combination.

If you can run Attack Vitals-1kCuts-Attack Vitals,the Empower combos is going to break that.

Attack Vitals is Ablating Strike-Vengeful Slice-Sweeping Strike, and Empower is Nimble Slash-Ablating Strike-Blinding Feint.

Now, there is no way in hell you have Ablating strike recharging fast enough to put the Empower combo between that, since it is used in both combos. You'd need to have Ablating Strike recharging within the animation time of Blinding Feint to pull it off, and I don't believe it's possible.

Personally, I would just start the whole thing with Blinding Feint and be done with it. Blinding Feint-Attack Vitals-1kCuts doesn't need much recharge at all, and it should give you some really good ST and AoE in the same chain.

You make a good point, but I wanted to address this as being basically what I've been saying the whole time.

Most support ATs have multiple means of preventing a mez from ever occurring if it originates from a LT or lower.

I see people complaining about it on a somewhat regular basis, and the conversation goes like this a lot of the time:

"These mezzing minions keep killing me, and there's nothing I can do about it!"
"Well, can't you use the stun in your secondary to stop them from doing that?"
"Oh, I skipped that power. It doesn't deal any damage, so it's useless."

Most of the time, problems with mez would be solved by paying attention to what is in the spawn, and using your powers a little more intelligently.

Too many times I see people on teams complaining about something that is mezzing them, and they turn around and attack something else, leaving the mezzing mob to do it again.

"Oh, the boss is the bigger threat, so I kill them first"
"Well, the boss isn't mezzing you, wouldn't it make sense to kill the mezzer first?"
"No, I shouldn't have to do that, the devs need to give everyone mez protection so I don't have to think about what I'm doing."

(I am of course paraphrasing, and being somewhat sarcastic, but that is the underlying attitude of a lot of the complaints I hear in game)

And then there's the "Melee can solo at +4/x8 because they have mez protection" attitude. No, melee can solo at +4/x8 because they have defense and resistances designed to keep them alive. And not all melee can do it, you need an expensive build to pull it off on most combinations. If your Empathy defender can't solo on +4/x8 to begin with, giving them mez protection is not suddenly going to make it capable of it.

So your example is a combo that gets 2 telenukes at high levels and a damage buff aura?

That particular combo does good damage, as does Fire/SS. But can a Stone/Ice do the same thing? Doubtful.

You can't use an outlier example to prove that an entire AT is good at something. That would be like saying that because a Fire/Kin controller deals good damage, an Earth/FF would deal the same.

So every single tank in the game can run +4/x8 mission fast enough to be useful for PLing and farming? I don't think so. Your Elec/Shield may be able to, but any random tank that is only using SOs will not get through it fast enough to PL anyone.

Gambit uses Kinetics, although it is in a different way most of the time. He has the mutant ability to shift kinetic energy into objects. He also has the ability to shift kinetic energy OUT of them as well, though that side of his powers isn't used very much in the comics.

The way *I* would explain an Ice/Kinetics corruptor is: You have the ability to control the movement of molecules in things. You can slow them down or speed them up, or even mash them together. So, you can slow down an enemy while speeding yourself up (Siphon Speed), slow down an enemies bullets or melee attacks while speeding yours up (Siphon Power, since velocity = striking power, it would explain the -dam/+dam nature of the powers). You can increase the strength of the bond between molecules (Increase Density) or decrease it (Inertial Reduction)

You also have the ability to slow down the hydrogen and oxygen molecules found in the atmosphere, and cause them to bond to each other, hence forming ice. Since all ice is is water in which the molecules have been drastically slowed down.

That help?

It's not that the power can't be used on yourself. Any power that you can cast on a teammate you could theoretically cast on yourself.

The problem is that you can't target yourself.

If you could, it would create huge problems with all kinds of sets.

Empathy defenders would suddenly become one of the strongest soloing sets in the game. Permanent Fortitude adding around 22% defense to all, and buffing your damage and to-hit, Clear Mind keeping you completely free of mez effects, and Adrenaline Boost increasing your regeneration, recovery, and recharge to ridiculous levels. Since Adrenaline Boost gives you a 100% recharge boost, if you could cast it on yourself it would be almost enough on it's own to make it permanent.

Force Field defenders, controllers, and masterminds would be able to softcap themselves with very little effort.

Thermal Radiation characters would be able to get good resists, mez protection, and a damage boost.

And so on. The ability to target yourself would make sets that are balanced around buffing others into some of the most powerful sets in the game. If such self-targeting ever happened, I would expect HUGE nerfs to any (currently) ally-only power to compensate for it.

The reason those powers are such huge buffs is because you can't use them on yourself. Adrenaline Boost is a prime example of that. A 100% recharge buff is great when it's a long recharge power that can only be applied to others. It quickly becomes overpowered when you can apply that 100% recharge buff to yourself, because it would counteract the long recharge it was given to balance the sheer power of the buff. It has already been proven that 2 Empathy characters with high recharge can keep Adrenaline Boost on each other permanently, meaning that it would be possible to keep it on yourself permanently if you could target yourself.

It would also cause other problems. What about a power like Absorb Pain in Empathy? It heals by a huge amount, but damages you and prevents you from being healed by ANY means for a short time. If you could use it on yourself, it would become a self-damage power and nothing more because of the way it functions. The inability to be healed would likely counteract the heal it gives, causing you to damage yourself and use endurance for no benefit at all.

Also, if you were a valid target for your own powers, any PBAoE would damage YOU as well. Blasters' Burn already does this, but that's a bug (it may have been fixed by now, not sure). If you were suddenly a valid target for your powers, the game engine might determine that you are going to be damaged by a PBAoE as well. I know you can't hurt your teammates with it, but if the "no targeting yourself" was implemented in response to a problem with PBAoEs changing it would recreate the very problem they were trying to fix.

So, in short, the ability to apply those buffs to yourself would be extremely overpowered. The value of an Empath to a team is in their buffs, not the heals like so many people erroneously believe. If they could apply those buffs to themselves, I guarantee they would be much less effective than they are currently.

I use BotZ in it. Fly Speed and -KB. And if I have a spare slot I'll slap a Kismet in it.

Since the only characters I have that use Hover are using it to hoverblast with, that set up works beautifully for me. Keeps me out of melee, adds a little defense just from running it, and the 2 BotZs add some more ranged defense.

And Shockwave and Focus are also upset that they can't help me when the target is 60 feet away.

And Shockwave is particularly upset that it's not in my build at the moment. Something had to go, and the power that pisses off my teammates got the axe.

Not exactly. Traditional role be damned, I want tanks to keep some kind of role at all.

It's already been proven that a tank is not needed for agro control anymore, and hasn't been for a while now. If every AT were given mez protection, it would not be long before people figured out that inviting a tank actually HURT your team's performance.

Look at it this way: If a tank isn't needed to hold agro, and isn't needed to keep the team from getting mezzed, what purpose does a tank serve on a team? Why would you invite an AT that does low damage, and has no role to play on the team, when you could invite another blaster and kill stuff faster? The powergamers would figure it out very quickly, and it would trickle down to everyone else. And eventually anyone playing a tank would have to beg for pity spots on TFs because they are not only unnecessary, but actually unwelcome on teams. It wouldn't happen quickly, but in the era of the game we are in, the speed at which you can do things directly affects your rewards. If all ATs had mez protection, inviting a tank would just slow you down, because you could have filled that spot with someone who deals more damage.

So, I couldn't care less about tanks keeping their traditional role. I just don't want them to become completely pointless to play.

Yup. Fortunately, 25 candy canes and 1,000 inf are pretty easy to come by, so it's not like it's a huge chore to obtain.

(Hint: You can buy candy canes on the market, so you can get your 25 now and have them ready for when the event starts)

This.

If you look at other games who have raised the level cap, the only thing they can do anymore when they go to add new content is increase the cap again.

Currently, we have IOs and such that are considered the "best" you can get, Hami-Os as well.

If the level cap were to go up, all those things that are difficult to acquire and are the best the game has to offer, will quickly become obsolete.

Current high level content would no longer be high level content, and the devs would have to spend even more time coming up with new things for level 60s to do, which means we would stop getting new powersets on such a regular basis because everything would be geared toward coming up with new stuff.

There are many reasons not to raise the level cap, and no compelling ones to do it that I can think of.

Mez effects for support ATs are almost universally MAG 3, the same as a Controller or Dominator's ST hold. In almost all cases they will affect a lieutenant in one application.

The only exception to that I can think of is Dark Pit from Dark Blast. It is a MAG 2 AoE stun. Which works nicely in combination with Oppressive Gloom from Dark Mastery. If you combine them you will stun bosses (as they are both MAG 2, they will combine to beat a boss's MAG 3.5 protection)

In response to your other question that I didn't quote: My success rate with pre-emptive mezzing is in the neighborhood of 60-70% if I'm paying attention. If I'm just sleepwalking through a mission it drops to about 30%. There aren't really that many enemy groups that will throw more than 1 or 2 mezzers at you at a time, and when you do run across them, you generally have more than one option to work with.

With the customizable difficulty settings, and the ability to pre-emptively mez that support ATs almost universally share, MAG 3 protection would be sufficent to eliminate the threat of mez completely. If 2 mezzers are in a group, you can mez one and safely ignore the other, and you won't usually find more than that until you start cranking up your difficulty to insane levels.

You don't consider a stun to be effective at preventing a mezzer from mezzing you?

Every Corruptor primary except Fire Blast and Energy Blast has access to at least a stun, and many have holds available, some have more than one.

Ice and Electric Blasts have true holds in them, Ice has 2. Sonic has a large AoE sleep cone, and a stun, it also has a wide KB cone. Archery, Radiation, and Assault Rifle all have at least a stun in them. Dual Pistols has a stun that can be converted into a hold.

Energy Blast at least has KB on it's side, and at least one power is guaranteed KB.

Secondary wise, corruptors have a grab bag of tricks. Dark Miasma has a hold and a cone fear, not to mention Dark Servant, who also has a hold and a cone fear (and he can use them even if you are mezzed) Sonic and Traps actually DO get mez protection. Radiation can put their chance to hit so low you probably won't be hit by a mez in the first place.

But of course using those powers to prevent the mez from landing is apparently too much to ask. Do people really want the game dumbed down to the point that they don't even have to think about what they are doing?

When I play my support ATs, I keep an eye on what I'm fighting so I can be ready to pre-emptively mez whatever the biggest mezzing threat is in that particular spawn. Or if there is more than 1, I pop a breakfree before I go in.

Conversely, my main is a Claws/Regen/Body scrapper. He doesn't have the option to pre-emptively do anything at all to protect himself from mez, and has to trust that his mez protection toggle will see him through. Most of the time it is effective, but some things can punch through it, and fighting Malta or Arachnos are going to guarantee his toggles drop at least once or twice in the mission.

Question: If mez protection is so desired by support ATs, why is Psychic Mastery for Controllers not by far the most popular APP, since it has one of 3 sources of true mez protection available to Controllers in it?

Out of every 10 builds I see in the Controller forums, maybe 1 took Psychic Mastery, and maybe 1 or 2 took Cold Mastery. The rest of them all took Fire or Stone.

If mez protection for support ATs is so damned important, why is every controller in the game NOT using Psychic Mastery?

I'll answer the question with a question: Maybe because it's not as big of a deal as some people would like to make it out to be?

What happens if the main tank drops and a brute or scrapper is forced to take over the role? If they didn't have similar mez protection it would have a similar result as hiding behind a cardboard box to avoid gunfire.

What about those annoying enemy groups, like Carnies, that have many, many mezzers in them? The only sets that have significant Psionic defense are Stone Armor and Willpower. Anything else will have Illusionists hitting them with Blind pretty much at will.

A huge problem with that, that involves one set in particular. How exactly is a Stone tank or brute that is in Granite form supposed to close with a ranged mezzer? Especially if they are also running Rooted.

Also, the vast majority of mezzing enemies will fire their mez attack the second they are agroed, unless they are mezzed first. If there is more than one in a spawn, your melee character is going to take 2 or more mezzes to the face before they can close the gap enough to do anything about it. Remember, melee ATs don't get reliable ranged mezzes until after level 41 (and they are optional). Without that mez protection, any 2 mezzing foes will stop you in your tracks before you get anywhere near them.

Because part of a tank and brute's job is to keep their teammate's free of mez effects. It's no different than an Empath or Thermal giving them Clear Mind or Thaw, just a different method. Instead of granting their teammates protection from it, they redirect it to themselves. If they cannot take all those mezzes they are redirecting to themselves, it becomes an exercise in futility, because they now have to rely on the teammates they were protecting from the mez to save them from it.

A scrapper or stalker is a different animal altogether. They aren't designed to take agro for a large team. They have good survivability and mez protection in order to take some of the strain off the support ATs. Every scrapper you have on a team is one less person an Empath or other support character has to worry about, freeing them up to focus on the teammates that DO need their help.

It's not so much a matter of protecting the tank's spot in the old trinity. It's because tanks are a low damage, high defense AT. Without the role of agro soaker to play, they become completely redundant and easily replaced by an AT that deals more damage. Who invites a tank to a team for the damage they do? No one I know of, people invite tanks to teams to soak agro, which is what they are built to do. Take away their ability to do that and no one will have any reason to ever invite one to a team.

If every AT in the game were completely self-sufficient the tank would have no role to play at all on a team. In the age of IOs, where any AT can get defense and recharge bonuses up the wazoo, tanks are less relevant than they used to be, and not even necessary on most teams. The only thing they still do, and do well, is protect their non-protected teammates from being mezzed by eating all that mez themselves. If you were to give all ATs in the game mez protection tanks would be even less useful, and would quickly begin the slide toward complete extinction in the game.

I'd rather not see the tanker getting pity spots on task forces because no one needs the service he provides any more.

The funny thing is, I'm not even that much of a tanker player, I've never had one higher than level 30. But I appreciate what they contribute to a team, and I don't want to see what little relevance they still have taken away from them.

Not really. A tank needs to have consistent mez protection, because there is very little he can do to prevent mezzes coming in from outside melee range. If their mez protection were reduced to -3, they would run out of breakfrees after the first few fights.

Think about it. A tank's job is to redirect enemy attacks onto himself to protect his teammates from them. That includes any mez effects they may have. If he jumps into a spawn that has multiple mezzers in it with only -3 protection, he will be quickly overwhelmed by the mez and he will lose the agro of the enemies he is fighting.

As I mentioned, there is only ONE set with a taunt aura that remains active when mezzed. All others either deal damage, or affect the enemy in some way (RttC's to-hit debuff, AAO's damage debuff, the various damage auras). Only Invincibility does not toggle off when you are mezzed, because it only affects you. If a mez breaks through for even a second, that taunt aura drops and there is a very good chance the enemies will peel right off of him, especially if there is a character on the team doing a lot of AoE damage.

I was referring only to primary and secondary powersets, because APPs/PPPs are completely optional. Before level 41 no melee character even has the option of a ranged mez power. And even after level 41, a tank only has the option of a single target mez. That would be fine for one mezzing enemy, but what about the other 5? (Note: This is assuming that a tank is tanking for a team and has no say in how many enemies he will be fighting at once)

If every melee character were forced to take an APP your point would be more valid, but you don't have to take one at all if you don't want to.

If you decide to roll a Claws/Regen/Body scrapper like the one I have, you have zero means of reliably preventing a mez. If I didn't have any mez protection, or if it were reduced to -3, I would be hard pressed to finish a mission that contained any mezzing foes at all.

On the other side of things, there are very, very few support powersets that don't have some form of mez ability available to them. Off the top of my head, only Fire Blast and Energy Blast don't have a reliable mez power, everything else does.

It's a simple case of Active Protection versus Passive Protection.

Support ATs have Active Protection, meaning they have the ability to stop the mez from ever being cast in the first place. If that mezzing foe is mezzed themselves, they cannot mez you. And if your mez misses, you have breakfrees.

Also, and this is something people either don't know or keep forgetting, a breakfree will prevent mezzes if it is used pre-emptively. It is not just a reactive measure, it can be used proactively as well. A breakfree frees you from mez by granting you protection from it. The mez is still there, but the protection granted by the breakfree counteracts it. All 3 sizes give you the same protection (IIRC), it's just the duration of that protection that differs. A small one gives you mez protection for 30 seconds, a medium for 60 seconds, and a large for 120 seconds (that's why when you level the breakfree takes longer to wear off than the rest of the inspirations that are cast on you)

A melee AT, on the other hand, has Passive Protection. They don't have any inherent ability to prevent a ranged mez from occurring, so they need passive protection from it. Without passive protection, a level 35 tank/scrapper/brute is a sitting duck to an enemy with a ranged mez. And even after level 41 (if they chose to take the mez in an APP), they will be a sitting duck to more than one at a time (which will happen quite frequently on a team)

A number of melee sets have melee range mez powers, but that doesn't help them when the problem mob is 60 feet away. Since the game engine cannot differentiate between a ranged mez and a melee mez (as far as the mez effect itself is concerned, the game doesn't see "melee hold" or "ranged hold", it just sees "hold") , they have to be given protection to it regardless of where it's coming from*.

(*This is common sense based on the fact that mez protection toggles and click powers make no mention of the location of the mez they are protecting from. I don't actually have verifiable knowledge of the game engine's capabilities)

So you're saying that someone using devices far beyond real world technology, such as the Traps or Devices powersets, is actually Natural. Even though they wouldn't have those abilities without the devices they use?

You kind of missed my point.

Incarnate abilities don't change your initial abilities. Without them, you are still just as super as you were before. They simply give you new abilities.

If my cyborg Claws/Regen scrapper gets a shot of magic, he is still technology origin, because if you take that magic away he will remain a cyborg. He does not suddenly become a magic creature just because he got some extra powers from another source.

Your statement I quoted was implying that if someone uses magic, or gains something from magic, it irrevocably changes the origin of the powers they had before. I was pointing out the fallacy of that statement, but doing it in a tongue in cheek way.