GuyPerfect

You remind me of those statisticians who draw the strangest conclusions by defining terms in careless ways, like the ones that say the bedroom is the deadliest room in the house (deaths per room) or that airplane travel is safer than car travel (deaths per year). It's easy to define a term, run some numbers, then draw the wrong conclusion or express the wrong idea...

Look at the following list and identify which ones you deem to be "defensive" in nature:

• Increasing one's damage resistance
• Putting the enemy to sleep
• Healing damage dealt to oneself
• Phasing the enemy
• Increasing one's hit points
• Debuffing enemy ToHit

According to my understanding of defensiveness (meaning to protect, as noted in any dictionary), you can define "defensive" in this game as "protects from enemy attack." Damage resistance does this. Defense as a game mechanic (avoiding or deflecting attacks) does this. Increased hit points does this. On the other hand, controlling enemies with mez does not do this. Debuffing enemy recharge does not do this. Preventing enemies from attacking--including defeating them before they can fight back--does not do this. These are all offensive tactics, as they aggressively affect the enemy and not oneself.

Your definition of "defensive" seems to be "higher percent HP retained over time," in which case defeating enemies more quickly certainly fits the bill along with a hodepodge of other two-fold strategies and maneuvers.

Your assertion is that that defeating enemies more quickly (thusly sustaining less damage during an encounter) qualifies as defensive activity. While I agree that deader enemies results in greater survivability than not-as-dead enemies, I do not regard a boost in damage to be defensive because it's aggressive and affects the enemy; not protective and affects self or allies. You said it yourself: it's offensive damage mitigation... that is to say, NOT defensive damage mitigation.

I'm building something just to screw around and enjoy playing the game with character concept, and I've always been a fan of the ice, so Icy Assault is my secondary. I'm skipping Jack Frost for preference reasons, and I'll be taking Ice Slick, Glacier and Flash Freeze. Like I mentioned, Frostbite will only be taken to slot Immobilize IOs for a Cold Resist bonus.

The character's only 22 so far, so I don't have a good sampling of what all the powersets are capable of, and Ice Sword Circle and Ice Slick have yet to be grabbed. I expect melee range will become much more useful after those two powers come into play.

One word: ???

It's like the people who say "hitting homeruns out of the park is easy" when they've never even held a baseball bat. I would highly suggest you observe some high-level Warshades before suggesting that they are not fast or safe and cannot play without their inherent power.

Incidentally, you've correctly omitted the serial comma in the thread title. The word "and" acts as a delimiter and an additional comma would have been obnoxiously redundant. (-:


What about "horse feathers," then?

I assure you that I am no weasel, and that I'm never one to use seemingly-polite language to deliver some auxiliary put-down. You question my motive, which is curious and, for all intents and purposes, unfounded. I generally avoid petty bickering on forums in favor of more productive things, but in this situation, something of the sort seems strangely appropriate. I won't hesitate to draw the attention of those whose names are red, if you catch my drift, so let's get this train wreck rolling...


Opinion is rarely the issue, as subjectivity is not something that can be quantified. Rather, my concern is your general attitude: one that traps itself behind a wall of its own self-righteousness and one that victimizes itself in light of criticism.

Perhaps I just never paid that much attention, but lately, you seem to be someone who expresses disappointment when the world you find yourself in lacks congruity with the idyllic one inside your head. You write up ellaborate and somewhat poetic posts about the way the world ought to work, then react with shock and bewilderment should someone make an observation to the contrary. If this puts you in a position where you are forced to defend your views, then you have only yourself to blame for that.

"Why must a Defender specialize in a non-combat role and be unable to solo at an acceptable rate?" you ask... "Defenders can solo just fine," someone replies, then you reiterate your initial point as though the person who replied simply didn't know what he was talking about. And here we are on page 7 with your most recent post doing the exact same thing:

At face value, this looks like a point, but when questioned about it referring to City of Heroes, you suggest that this is either a nebulous concept of game design or that your personal perception of "solo play" dictates--and indeed, even attempts to quantify--why or why not the question is even applicable. I suppose in City of Samuel, where the baseline measurement of acceptable solo play is that of the Brute, the Defender underperforms and is therefore not suitable for a player class.

Is it appropriate to belittle the perceptions of others based on your own preferences or observations? Are Defenders truly bad for soloing? Are the Rogue Isles truly void of life and color? Does Guy Perfect truly find joy in antagonizing people?

You may find that adjusting the way you regard your observations will yield a much better harvest of constructive responses than what you're doing now.


That's what I do for those whom I expect to make an attempt to understand my argument and are open to the idea that their own considerations may have room for improvement. For the rest, I generally state something profound and wait for them to figure out what it means.

If you had to have me tell you that there was yellow in the picture, then you're obviously only looking for things that support your argument and are ignoring everything else. Even reckless protesters do that, as do lawyers. You're nitpicking at hues, though color-wise the three images are nearly identical. There's nothing about the first two that's remarkably different from the third.

When I look at the third image, I see artistic architecture that's leaps and bounds above the rectangular prisms from the first two. There's a decorative lawn in front--notably green in color--with maze-like hedges and fountains of--get this--blue water. In the background, you can see the rusty orange pipe from Aeon's PTS, which immerses the area in the game lore; much in contrast of the woefully-repetitive copy/paste city layouts that came before it.

It is also well-lit and easy to navigate.

This thread has become a veritable showcase of Samuel Tow's opinion and how one must not contest Samuel Tow's opinion. I share this perspective not as an insult, but as a courtesy that these discussions might go more smoothly in the future. On the topic of game classes that specialize in non-combat roles to the point of being inadequate in combat by themselves, know that a commercial setup like this needs to make certain considerations so that everyone--including those with differing preferences from yourself--will be able to enjoy what it has to offer.

You mean City of Heroes? Sure, let's take a look at something other than grey and brown for some demonstrative contrast...


First, let's look at Peregrine Island with its lush, green trees and inspired architecture:




And then Founders' Falls, the vibrant, easy-to-navigate part of the game:




All over the place, actually. Like this one, with green, blue AND yellow all within the same three-mile radius!




Let's take a brief look at some of the more attractive tourist destinations in Paragon City:

• Faultline
• Dark Astoria
• Crey's Folly
• Kings Row
• Eden
• Boomtown

Clearly, City of Heroes is much more clean-cut and free of poverty and destruction than City of Villains. While on the other hand, I can think of like three places in Villains with trash, poverty or slums in general: The lower half of Mercy Island, the Scrapyarders' housings in Sharkhead, and the South Ward in Grandville.

You don't say?

What would they call such a setup? "Recluse's Victory"?

Sounds like you've said it twice too many times already.

I think a better approach would be to remove the "experience point" altogether and transfer character development into the realm of "playing" rather than "achieving." Applied to City of Heroes, this would be like being able to pick new powers after you've completed whatever story arcs; NOT after defeating a certain number of enemies.

To be frank, MMOs don't need to be about fighting. If your argument is that a game doesn't need to fit into some long-established mode of operation, then why pidgeon-hole games into fighting scenarios in the first place?

You got that right. When's the last time you saw a CoH advetisement?

Every time a powerset comes out that requires IOs to work well, Castle gets chewed on by crazed anteaters. Since I'm fairly certain Castle does not enjoy being chewed on by crazed anteaters, I can rest assured that any new classes will work perfectly fine without the Invention system.


The only way an enemy can make your toggles drop these days is if they drain your endurance. They don't deactivate when mezzed anymore.

Since we're thinking about mez protection, let me throw this one out there: Do melee characters really need mez protection? They're like ranged characters (who don't get mez protection), except closer. I think mez is paired more closely with defensive sets than with melee classes, so we could probably see a new melee-centric archetype without mez protection.

Then again, ranged fighters can drag enemies to their location rather than jumping into the middle of the fray, so perhaps mez protection is more closely linked to melee than I thought...

Ever since they changed toggles to NOT drop while mezzed, I've been having a lot of fun with my Peacebringer, who does like to stay in melee range.

For a melee/buff class, as well as Masterminds, I'm gonna have to say no to Fulcrum Shift. If Kinetics still sounds good after that, all the power to ya!

This is in direct contrast to my personal experience with each of the archetypes. I base my evaluations on builds slotted with Single Origin Enhancements and without Health or Stamina, and I'm still of the opinion that all combinations of powersets for all archetypes (Defender included) are perfectly suited for solo play.

Defenders deal less damage per attack, yes, but all that means is that they don't solo as quickly as, say, Arachnos Soldiers. But I've never seen an Arachnos Soldier nullify an aggro cap's worth of enemies by making them unable to use any of their attacks. I've never seen an Arachnos Soldier drain an Arch-villain of all its Endurance. I've never seen an Arachnos Soldier take on a Giant Monster and win. I have seen Defenders do each of these things. I don't believe that the argument of "more damage equals more power" is applicable in this situation.

If everyone had equal aptitude for dispatching their enemies (and thusly soloing the game content at comparable levels), then the only noteworthy difference between classes would be that secondary specialty. I strongly disagree with your suggestion that this would make the game more interesting. I'd much rather have a healer here, a tank there, and a damage dealer over there than have City of Warshades.

The original design considerations for City of Heroes may very well have been the three-fold axiom of online team play, but that vision has obviously changed since then and there are more options available for those who don't want to be forced into those roles. It all comes down to a matter of preference; there is no flaw in allowing people to choose their preferences.

Question... If you dislike being unable to solo, then why would you play a class that's not capable of soloing? Like the Defender powersets? Roll a Corruptor. Like the Tanker powersets? Roll a Brute. No one's forcing you to justify the existance of this thread.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see a suggestion for an un-soloable combination of powersets, regarless of which archetype it ends up being. In this game, I'm confident no one can find one.