Miladys_Knight

Sonic/Ice is the best combination for soloing. It gives both excellent damage and excellent mitigation and it allows you to stack sleeps on an entire spawn (including multi boss spawns) giving you the time and freedom needed to survive and win.

I am indeed. It wasn't intended as a complete list just a demonstration of "many". I also neglected to include Transference in the endurance recovery section even though the power can take you from completely empty to 1.4% away from completely full in the 2.27 seconds it takes to cast it with +3 SOs alone.

My FF/Dark/Dark puts out enough defense (with manuvers) to soft cap the entire team even if they are totally naked as far as defense goes. All they have to do is stay inside dispersion bubble. Since I alternate Tenebrious Tentacles with Night Fall fast enough to double stack the acc debuff I can keep the team there even in a defense debuffing atmosphere like Cimerora. It also gives the team a bit of freedom to move around outside of dispersion bubble when facing non-defense debuffing mobs. The problem my defender faces though is that IO'd armored toons don't need my services at all and even squishies with partial defense slotting would be in just as good shape with the services of a /FF controller. The main point that I'm making is that IO sets allow anyone to completely dispense with the 2 most potent buff powers in the FF power set. The only things that the set bonuses don't grant is the secondary effects of the powers such as toxic resistance in the case of Deflection Shield and resistance to endurance drain in Insulation Shield. Secondary effects which even the forum's forcefield guru sometimes forgets.

Fulcrum shift is the most wildly broken power in the game. There is absolutely no IO set bonuses that allow you to replicate a power that can be double stacked and leave an entire team at the damage hard cap. IO set bonuses don't even come close to replicating this. Nothing in the game (save the Brute inherent) can give it any competiton. In my opinion one of the worst mistakes the original dev crew ever made was making it available to an AT that could pair it with a damage aura especially when that same AT has an Epic power that can prevent offensive toggles from being dropped due to mez.

Controllers bring so much to the table though. Their buffs/debuffs are nearly as good as defender buffs especially when combined with set bonus used by players. The only FF/ defender combination that can keep a team buffed nearly to the defense soft cap AND immobilize the spawn so that it's melee attacks can't be used is the FF/Dark. Every /FF controller can do this though. The FF/ Defender can only passively float/stand there and blast while his/her team is being shredded by a defense cascade failure. The /FF controller can halt that cascade in it's tracks by applying an AoE stun or hold.

It's been gnawing at me for several months now. My own IO use has shown me just how much the Defender has been dinged by set bonuses while at the same time this effect makes me so much less interested in playing my own defenders. The last defender I created was right before I14 went live and I haven't played ANY of my defenders since I16 was in open Beta. When I first started playing CoH the defender was my favorite AT even now defenders are third highest for me in terms of how many of a particular AT I have in my stable.

While I do not find much preferential treatment either the fact that I find any (beyond those n00bs that don't know any better) is a subject for both irritation and concern. I can see many things on the horizon that have the potential to further decrease the population of the lowest population, blue side, basic AT.

@Uberguy

/e facepalm

You are very very good at precision focusing on the minutiae while being oblivious to the big picture. Please feel free to continue gyrating on the head of your pin. I'm done playing catch with you.

Edit:

You picked up on the point I have been making all along. Congrats on "turning to the dark side."

That doesn't say all roles it says many. Shall we go over a few?

Knockback protection IOs - Increase density. Sure ID is better but how much better? For the majority of content -4 KB is enough. There are only a very few times and places that mag -10 from the defender ID is better (and slotting 4 of the -KB IO's is better, costs you not a drop of endurance, and its there 100% of the time even if you don't have a kin on the team that constantly refreshes it before it expires). In most of those same circumstances controller mag -8 or corruptor mag -9 are still suficient. (And before you say it, no, 1-3 extra slots are not a big sacrifice, since your other option (acrobatics) requires 3 powers (and taking a pool that you may not want) and is a constant endurance drain.)

Recovery bonuses - Unslotted defender values for Heat Loss +62.5%, Speed Boost +50%, Recovery Aura +200%, Adrenalin Boost 800%, Accelerate metabolism +30%. Numina's +/+ Miracle + and a few minor recovery bonuses can easily give you a boost of 30%. How much is needed? On my most endurance intensive toon (a blaster) frankenslotting powers for decent end red (cheap in terms of influence) with ED capped Stamina and Miracle + and Numina +/+ slotted in Health are enough to keep my blue bar topped off as fast as I can sling damage with only 2 exceptions, against endurance drainers (which aren't all that common), and if I forget to turn my travel power off during a long battle. That's it. That recovery bonus is there 100% of the time. There is no down time as there is with HL and RA or with SO slotted AB or AM (IOs let some defenders perma these, SOs do not). Even then recovery buffs from Base Empowerment stations and the Geas Accolade are sufficient against endurance drainers. Values higher than that are essentially wasted (hence overkill or obviated)

+Stealth - Steamy Mist -35 feet, Arctic fog -35 feet, Shadow Fall -35 feet. Stealth IO -30 feet. Stack with another form of stealth and you have PvE invisibility, in either case 5 feet is virtually unnoticeable and the IO goes where I do. I don't have to stay within 40 feet of a potentially erratic defender.

+Perception - O2 Boost +108.1%, Clear Mind +108.1%. Rectified Reticle Unique, +20%. What's a large enough value to allow you to see a stealthed mob in PvE? +20%.

+Recharge - Speed Boost +50%, Adrenalin Boost +100%, Accelerate Metabolism +30%. IO sets - multiple. It's not hard to get +30% from global recharge bonuses, +50% can be expensive but doable for alot of players, +70% and higher is usually going to be in the realm of the power gamer. Of those powers Speed Boost is the only one that can be applied to all team members 100% of the time with out the defender themselves having slotted IO sets and this power comes at the cost of a measurable amount of the defender's activation time. Accelerate Metabolism can be perma'd on a team with IO use by the defender. Adrenaline Boost can be made perma with IO use by the defender but can only be applied to a single target at one time. (I'm sure that you'll point out that more +rech is better and it is, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that pre-IOs the ONLY way to get those additional +recharge values was by including a buffer on the team. [Aside from accolades and base empowerment buffs that are still available today]. That's not the case in the post-IO game.)

+Defense - Force fields +15% (slotted 22%), cold shields +15% (slotted 22%), Fortitude 15% (slotted 22%). Set bonuses - Multiple. It isn't at all difficult to add 12% defense to all positions to any AT in the game and 20 to all positions is within the realm of possibility though it's more likely to be 25-30 to a single position (say ranged for a blaster) or to a couple types like smashing/lethal. Let's take the worst case scenario, a no/low mitigation blaster. +20% to all positions is all most the same as what is granted by the defender from using 2 powers on you (one in the case of Fortitude but this power can't be maintained on an entire team of 8 players.) A mere 7% defense to all postitions (easily achieveable with a few mid-priced IOs and some cheap sets) means that having controller buffs are just as good as what was previously available only from a defender. Additionaly 12% defense to all positions from sets reduces your need for healing and regeneration buffs by 25% as well as reducing the need for resistance buffs from Sonics (and Thermal when/if it gets ported to defenders). With an Armored AT like scrappers and tanks, where reaching the defense softcap with powers + Set Bonuses is possible, higher defender values are wasted (hence overkill or obviated). Plus defense set bonuses also reduce the value of accuracy debuffs. (I'm sure that you'll point out that more +defense is better and it is until you hit the soft cap, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that pre-IOs the ONLY way to get those additional +def values was by including a buffer on the team.)

+Damage - Fortitude +31.3%, Accelerate Metabolism +25%. Set bonuses - Multiple. While Fort levels are only in the power gamer range, a 10-20% boost to damage is not tremendously difficult to attain.

-defense -resitance. I mention these for a couple reasons. Slotting for accuracy set bonuses and the Kismet unique make defense debuffs less valuable additionally power sets such as the newly added Radiation for Blasters as well as Broadsword and a few other powers in other sets allow the slotting of the Achilles heel proc a debuff that prior to IOs you had to get from a debuffer.

To add insult to injury - grantable -rech/slow resitance which was prevously only available from Adrenalin Boost and Speed Boost is now available, not only in IO form (Winters Gift 20%), but from a non-defender power set (shields).

To add further insult to injury grantable Defense Debuff resistance which probably "should" be a defender only power effect is available ONLY from shields.

I don't know about you but that's enough set bonuses that affect buffer attributes to qualify as "many" to me. Since the defender is primarily a buffing/debuffing and team oriented AT it concerns me that the defender role seems to be shrinking steadily not just from IO set bonuses but from all the other sources I mentioned previously. It's the reason that I believe that defenders are over due for scrutinization and a potential revamp.

The only places that IOs don't significantly impact the buffer is resistances (since the values provided by IO sets are low) and in providing mez protection. Pre-defiance upgrade blasters were the biggest customer since the melee ATs have their own, other Defenders can have their own or can have powerful debuffs to reduce the likely hood of being mezzed and Controllers have those same buffs/debuffs available, have mez protection available in an Epic, and have access to AoE hard controls.

I'm not sure how many additional times or ways I can say this:

If I add a teammate we have to do it more than twice as fast for it to really be "faster" especially in terms of non-merit rewards.

If I add a third person to the team we would have to do it 3 times as fast, etc. I can assure you that with the possible exception of a kinetics that double soloing speed isn't possible and tripling certainly isn't possible no matter what combination of toons you use.

That's because I've only presented one example thus far. The most extreme case. I can solo bosses (and elite bosses) too but honestly the rewards for time required to defeat aren't worth the extra time to defeat them. I've even experimented with defeating the spawn and moving on to the next spawn with the boss(es) in tow but all too frequently the boss(es) have taken so much damage so quickly that the run AI kicks in and it's only random chance if they run toward the next spawn or away from it. On glowie click or other objective type missions it's not a problem but on defeat alls the extra time to chase down and defeat scattered bosses isn't worth it. Bosses would be the only case where damage buffs "could" make the difference but then you have over kill on minions and lieuts and are spending the same amount of time finishing off bosses and not really speeding anything up.

As far as memorized maps go I've played enough of this game that I have the majority of the maps memorized (blue side I don't spend much time on red) anyway. AE gave the locations of all possible spawn and objective points and I vary the mobs I face depending on whim, character level, and choosen AT.

As far as solo being base line you are correct. It would have to be the base line since not solo means teamed and the maximum number of mobs can not exceed 8 players worth no matter how many players are actually on the team.

I'm sorry but that's not the case because of hard caps. Activation times are one type of hard cap, but there's also recharge, damage, defense and resistance hard caps and a target cap of 16 on AoEs and 10 on cones. I've been on teams where 2 AoEs and a couple single target attacks wipe out the spawns and those teams are limited more by spawn size, travel time, and team coordination than any thing else.

Missions and arcs that feature extreme foes are a not the whole game either. They are a tiny fraction of total content and I find extreme foes rather boring in any case. The game's mob AI is extremely limited. Extreme foes tend to come down to overcoming a huge bag of health or overcoming mob regen rates. The final mission of the blue side 5th TF is the poster child of extreme mind numbing boredom.

Why yes, yes they did. Prior to the defiance revamp, prior to no toggle drop on mez, prior to set bonuses, prior to combining insps, prior to the new difficulty settings, relying on outside buffs was the best way to survive on a blaster. Dealing damage was never a limiting factor when playing a blaster. Survival was. Defeat drops kill speed to 0.

I know this. I listed a large number of things above, which you may note is not even the total of potential concerns, it leaves relative buff strengths completely out of the issue. All these things contribute to the potential problem. IOs are a factor and defense for a no/low mitigation class is a huge benefit. Ignoring a contributing factor by taking exception to it does not eliminate it.

I simply point out that in some cases (possibly a statistically significant number) IOs allow some players/ATs to completely obviate the need for outside buffs/debuffs. When you consider that the defender AT is primarily a buffing/debuffing AT its not hard to see that the more situations where this becomes the case the fewer opportunites there are for the defender to team.

I don't. I know that it is happening in some cases. I don't have the tools available to know if it is happening in enough cases to actually be a problem.

I don't subscribe to the theory that the "casual CoH" player is sub optimal where numbers are concerned, in fact, I believe it to be just the opposite. The speed that the price dropped on Force Feedback procs post nerf and the speed at which the AE was swarmed at inception and then abandoned after being adjusted are 3 points that demonstrate that the casual CoH player is saavy where numbers and performance are concerned.

Outside the social aspect of teams, minimum performance optimality criteria may make a difference. Your point on defenders previously is the best argument yet. Are we at the point where the optimal team for a defender is a sub-optimal team? Shouldn't that be a cause for concern?

@StratoNexus
I believe that it's a function of 3 things. IOs and set bonuses, the ability to combine insps, and borked insp drop rates.

Set bonuses do several things. Increased recovery allows you to use fewer (or no) blue insps, accuracy/to hit set bonuses allow you to use fewer yellow insps, defense set bonuses allow you to use fewer purples, greens, oranges, and break frees which can make the difference between having enough and running out prior to finishing off a spawn.

The ability to combine insps means that you can tailor your inspiration tray to cover your own specific weaknesses. The set bonuses that you have means that the particular type of insp that you no longer need (or the surplus of those that you need fewer of) can be converted into those that you do need and defense set bonuses slow down the rate that you consume the rest of them.

Borked insp drop rates may have been done deliberately or may simply be a low/no priority bug. It's possible that if an insp is rolled and assigned to a player with a full insp tray that it is simply lost rather than only being rolled for a player that has a slot open for one. This could have been deliberate or it could have been an accidental oversight.

All in all I don't want the changes that have been made thus far reduced or eliminated. They are, in my opinion, all good and needed changes. It is my veiw point that the defender AT may be in need of a revamp to account for all of these changes and certainly needs to be scrutinized. I have made several posts with suggestions on possible ways to proceed.

Well it depends. On a primary with lots of slow activating powers (like Sonic and AR) you can get along without the fitness pool at all. On a high recharge build the same holds true. You may be burning up more end because you can activate more powers but once you get to the point that your actions are capped due to activation times more recharge just means that you have DP up more often.

As another poster said 1 end mod means you only have to hit 2 mobs. The other thing that's fun is that you can slot Miracle + and Numina +/+ here and boost your recovery to decent levels without ANY targets in range at all.

Most IO sets have decent end reduction built into them. If you are building with sets and you don't mind paying a bit of attention to endurance management you can get along with DP alone with few problems.

It's easy to sustain all you need is maps that have large spawns. Dark Astoria, alot of the BP missions, most of the Croatoa stuff, some of the Striga stuff. There are lots of arcs and missions that make it possible. Memorizing the maps make it even easier to do as does the new difficulty settings.

I started out fresh on Protector recently. I started an Ice/Fire blaster there and have been running the Croatoa arcs in flashback mode for drops and merits to flesh out that toon. I have 2% defense to lethal and smashing is all that is slotted on that toon so far. I've been playing on 1/x8 no bosses and actively using the inspiration cascade to succeed. I've been averaging 27 merits per hour from the arcs and usually come away with 4-5 rare salvage in that hour.

Inspiration cascade isn't all that hard to sustain as long as you have enough recovery to jump into the next spawn and keep attacking. The other nice thing about it is that even if it does slow down and drop out all you need to start back up is 2 purples. I find it's very easy to combine insps during a long activating power (Combustion works well for this).

I would. It lets me solo content set to 8 players without any buffs except insps. What exactly do I need a team and buffs for if I can do that? It's not only blasters. I can do that with any blue side AT except the majority of my defenders (I haven't tried on red side though I imagine I probably could.)

I don't care if there are other blasters doing this or not (I know that there are however). I get all the drops soloing and my story arc merit rate sits at 27 per hour on average. That's faster than TF speed for most folks. Why would I want to try fighting an AV with a toon designed to annihilate mass mobs? If I were going to solo AVs I'd set up specifically to solo AV's just like the folks in the scrapper forums. I can sustain it without PFF. PFF means I don't have to pop any purples to start I just use it to splash the alpha. Ice Epic means I have to pop one purple to start. The other epics require 2. Sure it may be faster with a defender but the important thing to note is that it's fast enough without one. The better question is, is it twice as fast with a buffing defender and the answer, from testing with my wife is, that it's not. (It may be with a debuffing defender I haven't tested that.) To keep pace with solo drops and rewards it would need to be twice as fast.

Just about anything actually. The only things that give me trouble are the things that blasters tend to be weak to anyway. Mez heavy opponents that prevent you from using most of your powers (like Rikti) and cascade defense failures from swarms of defense debuffers. Essentially the same things that any "squishy" AT has trouble with. Mez heavy opponents means that insps don't drop fast enough to keep the cascade going since you need break frees AND purples. Defense debuffers aren't as big a problem if you monitor your defense. Mass AoEs reduces the numbers of mobs fast enough to solve most of the problems.

While this is true the point is still that defender roles are being squeezed. Defenders more so than any other AT. DR in PvP, Coop content, Set bonuses, and the upcoming Going Rogue have put even more pressure on the defender AT as currently designed than just the standard lament about controller buffs being enough.

Sure and when I team I take them. It means that I don't have to touch my insp tray if the buffers on the team are decent, but that's not the point I'm making. If I can solo 8 player content other players can do so too. There are folks out there that are better at this game than I am. There may be lots of them out there. If I can do it I'm sure they can and they do. The more folks that can solo this way the fewer opportunity for teams for ATs designed specifically to team which on blue side has the greatest potential to put the hurt on the defender AT.

It may be a non-starter for you but it's mathematically significant and has the potential to affect the player base at large.

12% more defense reduces incoming damage (and successful mez attacks) by 25%. That means that if I needed defender level buffs to survive (or attack full out) before, then buffs that are 25% weaker are all I need to survive (or attack all out) now. That puts us squarely where the controller/defender debate has always been.

It's not at all hard or expensive to add an extra 12% defense to any build out there.

Ok, lets put all that aside then and go back to set bonuses replacing buffs.

Lets start with basics. The first question I have to ask you is as long as you have been playing this game have you never on any of your damage heavy toons gone into what I tend to refer to as cascade inspiration success?

I do it all the time. It's the point at which you pop inspirations and kill 4+ player even con mobs in less than 30ish seconds so that your inspirations carry you through and into the next spawn. A trick I learned a long time ago in Dark Astoria when I was farming salvage there. My AoE heavy blasters can do this with out even a shred of built in mitigation and pre +hit point and endurance accolades. As long as you have enough health to survive the alpha and enough recovery to sustain your attack chain you can combine blues, yellows, excess greens, and even awakens into purples. All I use when I'm doing this is a couple purples to start, any oranges that drop, and all the reds that drop. I eat the occasional green when things get sticky.

12% defense from set bonuses lets me do the same thing but only use one purple insp to start or I can bump my difficulty to +1 and +2 mobs and keep on with 2 purples to start. Other set bonuses let me increase my global damage and global recharge so that my damage stays up where it needs to be.

Another 10% defense and then the addition of Ice epic or Force Epic gives me all the extras I need. Ice epic lets me stack smash and lethal defense on top of what I all ready have from the set bonuses, any pool powers, and the buff pet. It gets me to the point that 1 purple insp before I wade in soft caps me to smash and lethal and has me in the 30s to any thing else. 2 purples softcaps me to everything and lets me bump my difficulty to +4/x8.

With Force mastery all I have to do is walk into the spawn with PFF up. Once the alpha splashes I drop PFF and that extra 20-25% defense from set bonuses is more than enough to carry me through to the end of the spawn with out using any inspirations at all even against +4/x8.

It works the same way on a team even with out a buffing defender. The aggro will be split up so it doesn't matter if you are only getting half as many insps.

So yeah set bonuses can obviate the need for a buffer. Back in the days of SOs only and no combining insps you needed the defender. You never had enough of the right insps drop so you used what did drop to supplement the buffs. Now in the days of combining insps and set bonuses it' just the opposite. Buffs supplement your set bonuses and inspirations. Defender buff values are overkill. Controller/Corruptor/Mastermind values are high enough.

I did define it. It's the point at which I get inspirations faster than I need to use them (this varies with AT and build BTW) and I didn't say that I no longer want one when I can get along with out one. I said that there's a difference between needing one and wanting one. To extend that further there's a difference between wanting one and getting meaningful benefit from one.

And you highlight my point (this is after all a thread about defenders). Why would I want a defender if the additional buff is meaningless? Why wouldn't I pick up a Corruptor for that team spot for increased damage and scourge? Why wouldn't I pick up a Controller who not only gives me adequate buffs but also several extra hard and soft controls? Why would I pick a defender when their inherent increases the chances that they will be sloppy about applying those buffs so that they can get an endurance discount?

You and I are in the same global channel on Justice. The folks there are highly skilled and heavily IO'd. My armored toons are occasionally at the HARD cap for defense and frequently damage capped on the teams that run in that channel. With the exception of my FF/dark/dark, and a certain spooky toon, I can't remember a time in the last 3 months that there was any other defenders on any of those teams. Controllers yes, Corruptors yes, Masterminds yes, extra defenders no.

Lastly those set bonuses allow my blasters, scrappers, tanks, and controllers to solo at speed with out defender buffs. What they don't do is allow my buffing defenders to solo at speed. Not even close to speed.

Well not to pick nits Uber but there is a difference between wanting a defender and needing a defender. Without going into the whole defender/controller buff debate again I go back to your own point of builds that are so bad that they need a defender being the worst of the non-optimal situations for defenders.

IO set bonuses take non-optimal toons or even ATs that usually lean on defenders into a new plateau where they have no need to do so. New difficulty settings are also partly to blame here. The -1 setting coupled with an increase in the number of mobs is almost like adding your own defense and damage resistance.

I don't NEED to softcap to dispense with a defender's services. All I need is enough benefit to hit what I tend to think of as the inspiration cascade point.

That's the point that I have enough mitigation and damage to pop/combine inspirations as fast as they drop. For me that happens on a non-armored toon in the neighborhood of 15% extra defense.

But you all ready know. You found a niche yourself. That recipe you got on bronze rolls that sold for 200,000 but crafted went for 10 times the amount. Now instead of using tickets to create the recipe. Put a few buy orders out for a stack of them. When those bids complete, craft them, and then list the finished product at a low enough price that it sells quickly but still at a good profit rate.

This takes practice at first but becomes second nature later. I find good niches accidentally while doing other things, jump in for a few sales, and then jump back out again. The market is always in flux expecially after game wide events like 2xP, the Halloween event, new issues etc. knowing how to take advantage of a change is the real gem.

For instance, prior to shields being released it was fairly easy to come up with some of the defense set IOs. With shields being a defense set and being on the horizon I bought up several batches of defense set recipes with good bonuses and hung on to them (recipes can be held in stacks of 10 crafted IOs use a full slot for 1).

Once shields were released I crafted them and released them at a huge profit. As a tip and a hint on upcoming game changes.....

Going Rogue will bring dual pistols and demon summoning. This means that there will be lots of new toons with pets and ranged attacks being created. A month or so before release start stocking up on pet and ranged damage sets. When GR comes out you can turn these around for a very tidy profit.

The Market Forum is one of the most helpful, while being the most cynical, forums on the boards. If you come in here with an open mind and ask questions you'll get overloaded with good advice. If, however, you come in here complaining about prices and your inability to purple out your warshade as a casual player, you'll get told to get off our lawns and get laughed back to S&I.

Difficulty setting on oro content makes no difference in merit rewards at this time. (This may change in the future.) It is just to challenge yourself.

As for low value recipes:

Market slots are a limited commodity. Yours are valuable. Once they are filled with low value and sluggish goods your ability to make inf has stopped or slowed to a crawl. As far as cheap recipes go check how often they sell by looking at the last 5. If they are cheap but tick over every day go ahead and throw them up there at about 70% of going rate. They should still tick over and empty out the slot quickly. It's better than wasting the recipe at least until you get all your slots filled with high value goods. At that point you'll scoff at a mere 200,000 inf.

Actually hasten on an SR is a playstyle choice. My wife has a softcapped Claws/SR that has more than 70% global recharge without hasten. It's softcapped for AoE defense and a little over the softcap on Ranged and Melee to account for things that are auto hit defense debuffs (Like quicksand).

Her travel power is Quickness+Swift+Sprint+Combat Jumping. CJ is 6 slotted. 3 pieces of zephyr, 2 pieces of LotG, and a Winters Gift. Any thing she can't jump over with that she just turns her raptor pack on for a second to handle. I team with her on my toon that has super speed and hurdle. On the ground she's just slightly slower than unslotted super speed (mine has the base slot with a Celerity +Stealth) and she flies quite a bit faster with her raptor pack than I do with mine since Swift and Quickness both enhance flight speed.

She's happy with her total recharge and she has a seemless attack chain which is all she needs to feel good about the toon. That particular toon is a tribute to our recently deceased 25+ year old family cat. She designed the toon as a remembrance but still plays it because its alot of fun for her.

Story arcs award 8 merits an hour (this has been recently adjusted again) so the mean time to complete would have been 4 hours 38 minutes but with practice you should be able to run this much faster.

For AE missions perfectly suited to your character and play style? Create it yourself. Pick large outdoor maps or office maps with suitable large rooms. Fill them with things that you prefer to fight and grab yourself several fistfulls of tickets. Done and done.

While that's true I can't ever recall a time playing any of my /Fire blasters when a mob with full health made it to melee range. They always have taken some damage from one or 2 AoE attacks by then unless I make a rare tactical error and land next to them before I see them. I use Fire Sword as a finishing move on damaged mobs that make it to melee range. It either finishes the mob in that one blow or drops their health to the point that my next AoE/PBAoE will finish them. In either case it's effective for the purpose I use it for.

I'm not adverse to a bit of endurance inefficiency since I tend to use IO sets for additional recovery. In fact in my experience /Fire is tremendously endurance inefficient for a low/no mitigation AT. Blaster mitigation is "killing them before they kill you" long DoTs tend to run contrary to this design.

You may have dealt more than enough damage to kill the mobs when the long DoTs are taken into account but failing to finish them before the damage resolves may result in your own defeat. "Wasting" extra endurance on additional attacks to "kill them now" is a viable strategy if you have the extra recovery to do so.

No, Castle didn't say why and there could be many reasons.

They didn't say but I'd guess that it's some of both.

While that may be true it should be brought up and at least discussed by the dev team. To use a driving metaphor if you are driving on the Freeway at 70 MPH and there is a traffic jam or accident ahead it may not affect you this very second but it will affect you in the future. It's best to be prepared to handle the situation.

While this too may be true it does make the 45% that the FF/ defender can provide no more valuable than the 30% that the /FF controller can provide. The defender's strength and team role is providing better buffs. IO set bonuses mean that the defender advantage is completely lost in "overkill".

Exactly which is why I suggest that the Defender AT get a revamp. The game has changed tremendously the Defender AT is due for an update. Blasters have been buffed recently. Dominators were revamped. In my opinion Defenders need looked at in the same way.

Unfortunate if true but we also know that the devs don't balance entirely on SOs they keep what can be done with IOs in the back of their minds when planning things. Shields is an excellent example of this. If Shields had been released into the pre-IO environment it would never have made it out of Beta the way it did. It's a pretty good example of the devs balancing around what can be done with IOs rather than balancing purely around SO use.

As examples: Carnies and Banished Pantheon are weak to lethal Damage. Devouring Earth are weak to Smashing.

Culex's spreadsheets give lists of mob resistances if you are interested in digging deeper.

As far as story arcs go. Madeline Casey's arc "To save a soul" features mostly Carnies with some Devouring Earth and Rikti. It's 8 Door Missions (2 Defeat All), 2 Hunts, 6 Talks and pays out 37 merits at the end.

(My archery/devices blaster runs this one set at -1/x8)

Much of choosing an arc depends on your particular build and play style. Find one that you like and can do relatively easily.

-1/x8 is just short for saying.

-1 level mobs.
equivalent to 8 standard heroes
no bosses
no Arch villians

That's the best setting for an AoE heavy toon that can survive that many mobs at once. The best advice is to try it out at -1/x4 and increase the number of heroes you are equivalent to if you can handle that setting.

Actually it is relevant and Castle and perhaps other devs are aware of the situation. The other thing is that as time goes on more and more loot is generated. This means that favored or main toons will eventually accumulate every thing needed for top line builds even for casual players.

The other thing that is important to consider is total defense set bonuses available. It is not at all expensive to gather up set bonuses that grant an additional 12-15% defense to all positions. For an un-armored AT an additional 15% defense cuts incoming damage down by 33% that's pretty significant for an AT that previously had to use inspirations to do that.

For an armored AT that means they go from a challenge to virtually unkillable unless a mistake is made. That 15% defense is also pretty much the difference between fully enhanced /FF controller buffs and fully enhanced FF/ defender buffs.

As far as getting things changed I'm not really interested in changing inventions. I like all the levels of character customization available. First it was costumes, next it was enhancements, and finally it is power effects. These are all good things.

The problem is not the availability of individual customizations, the problem is that the original defender concept no longer fits well in the game as it has evolved. The near future will bring even less need for defenders unless defenders are revamped to accomodate the changed game environment. That is actually what I am more interested in and I have proposed several things including a different defender inherent.

What constitutes a good one depends a lot on what type of character you intend to use and what your strategy is. If you are wanting lots of merits and fewer drops find a mission arc with few or no defeat alls and just defeat what you have to to accumulate merits as quickly as possible. The best thing to do is to pick mobs that either are weak to the type damage that you deal or to pick mobs that deal damage types that you are most resistant too. That again depends on what type of toon you are using.

If you want merits AND lots of drops set your difficulty to -1/x8 and wipeout every thing on the way to all your goals. In this case the mertis are a bonus for completing the story arc.

For ideas on what story arcs to select check out the story arc information on Paragonwiki. For more ideas on how to use the market to accumulate wealth check the stickied threads at the top of this forum.

So much for trying to respond to reason.

First of all you've changed the conditions of my statement completely in a futile attempt to make a point. What point is not clear, nor is why.

So let me clarify my points for you since you seem to have failed at picking them up.

1) Defenders have a crappy inherent.

You didn't contest any part of this statement.

2) Defenders that have ally buffs tend to solo slowly.

You didn't contest this either.

3) You must be taking exception with the part that goes "Many roles that defenders are designed (ie: supposed) to fill on teams are now done as well (or better) by IOs and set bonuses."

Then you come up with lots of exceptions and why the IOs and set bonuses shouldn't count in the statement. Ridiculous.

I can build a Tank with IO sets, both a cheap build, and an expensive one that can solo +4/x8 without any defender buffs (I have a fire/fire/pyre built this way). I have absolutely no need for forcefields, sonic buffs, heals, FS etc. I can solo fine, at a reasonable speed, against a full team's worth of +4 mobs.

I can build a Scrapper with IO sets, both a cheap build, and an expensive one that can solo +4/x8 without any defender buffs (I have a BS/shield and a dark/regen/body built this way). I have absolutely no need for forcefields, sonic buffs, heals, FS etc. I can solo fine, at a reasonable speed, against a full team's worth of +4 mobs.

I can build a Blaster with IO sets, both a cheap build, and an expensive one that can solo +4/x8 without any defender buffs (I have a Arch/Energy Hover blaster soft capped to ranged and with good AoE defense and an Energy/Energy/Force blapper built this way). I have absolutely no need for forcefields, sonic buffs, heals, FS etc. While a bit more mez protection than defiance provides MIGHT be useful I can combine insps faster than they drop to keep me in all the break frees I need. I can solo fine, at a reasonable speed, against a full team's worth of +4 mobs.

I can build a Controller with IO sets, both a cheap build, and an expensive one that can solo +4/x8 without any defender buffs (I have a Fire/FF, a Fire/Storm perma stunner, and a Plant/TA/Fire built this way). I have absolutely no need for extra forcefields, sonic buffs, heals, FS etc. While a bit more damage than containment provides MIGHT be useful I can survive just fine and take all the time I want to kill the mobs. I can solo fine, at a reasonable speed, against a full team's worth of +4 mobs.

I can't say that exactly about my defenders especially those that are buffers. I have a FF/Dark/Dark that is soft capped to every thing but melee. I have every extra bit of recovery and end reduction possible, and all +max end accolades, but I can easily bankrupt myself on endurance while soloing and I don't even have hasten to make the end gurgle away faster. Because I provide soft capped defenses to the team I don't get an endurance benefit even teamed though I don't have to kill all the mobs by myself.

My TA/A is in the same boat. I can keep the mobs out of melee fairly easily. I don't have soft capped defenses and I simply don't do enough damage fast enough to kill the mobs fast enough for insps cover the holes. I also have end problems especially near the end of most fights.

The bottom line is that defender roles are getting smaller and smaller all the time. IO set bonuses mean that defenders are less needed on experienced teams especially those teams that have heavy IO use.

Defender roles in PvP have virtually been eliminated due to diminishing returns. What was a team focused part of the game is now designed more for a bunch of soloers. Base raids where defenders would have had at least some type of decent PvP role have been turned off since the travesty that is I13 PvP was foisted off upon us.

Going Rogue is going to make it worse yet as redeemed corruptors replace many defenders with only the few exceptions of those power sets unavailable to Corruptors. This too may change as more power sets are proliferated.

Why do I mention all this? In another thread Castle recently mentioned that he knew that there were too many defense set bonuses in the game (he also mentioned that there are no plans to change that).

If you were around for Issues 3 through 6 you will have seen something familiar in all this. Defenders had little team role to fill, especially in the higher levels, because there was too much defense and resistance (tanks also did too much damage) and 6 slotting made the game ridiculously easy. A tank could go into a mission, set hand clap on Auto, and go AFK, then come back a few minutes later to an empty map and completed mission.

The result was that defenders complained about having no real role on high level teams. The dev team that we had at that time listened and "fixed" it by making defender buffs needed again. The fix that they slapped on us was known as ED and the GDN. It made defender buffs a more integral part of the game.

IOs have the game straying back to pre-ED and GDN levels again. The defender role and concept is once again being squeezed. While defender buffs may be a nice to have the defender role is no longer integral on a team. The lower powered buffs from Controllers, Corruptors, and even Masterminds are more than adequate for most mid-experienced teams with cheap IOs and are almost with out exception totally unneeded for experienced teams with heavy IO use.

So let me just close with this last bit. I like my defenders just fine, since you made it clear that you don't get that, but my reasons to bring them on to a team (and the fun provided by doing so) has been dwindling ever so slowly but ever so steadily over the last 7 issues, not because I'm doing any thing differently but because IOs are filling in the gaps of those better defender buffs. Sure there is content out there like the MoSTF or a Hami or Ship raid where they are still needed/desired but that's not the case for most of the content in the game.

As far as the manure stench and personal attacks go, they are coming from your direction, not mine.

LostHalo has nailed it. The real problem with defenders lies in a crappy inherent, slow soloing speed (specifically for those sets with single target ally buff powers), and the AT's concept in the day and age of IOs and loot.

Many roles that defenders are designed (ie: supposed) to fill on teams are now done as well (or better) by IOs and set bonuses.

With Frankenslotting you should be able to do both.

Just a few notes in general on blappers.

/Elec or /energy are good ways to go if you want single target melee damage. It's more of a play style choice than anything else.

If, however, you want lots of AoE melee damage then /Fire would be the best choice.

If you can afford to slot lots of defense sets then Rad/Fire would be better yet, especially in the high levels when you have your epic power.

Barring expensive defense sets Ice/ slotted for mitigation is a good pairing with any of the 3 above mentioned secondaries.

I've found that it's easier to use AoE/PBAoE powers than cones as a blapper and tend to prefer them. If I have a nice cone power I'll activate it as I'm heading towards melee range but I often find that to be clunky.

Rain powers are good for blappers if you drop them where you are blapping. In the case of Ice/Fire slotting an appropriate amount of slow movement in Ice Storm and Hot Feet will keep even +4s at the -movement cap whcih provides good mitigation for this combination.

For epic pools for blappers I prefer Cold Mastery or Force Mastery.

Ice gives you good defenses vs. Smashing and Lethal that can be further enhanced with set bonuses and it gives you an occasional "oh crap power" in Hibernation.

Force Mastery gives you a consistant "oh crap power" in Personal Forcefield. This power can also be used to splash alphas and will be recharged again and can be used to turtle up for a quick Aid Self after your alpha or in the case of /Fire while you wait in relative safety for the long DoTs to finish burning up the fleeing mobs.

Force Mastery also gives you Force of Nature that you can use with "intent" when facing large numbers of, or especially tough mobs.

Just as a method to make your current tactics generate more wealth....

1) Get out of AE. The only thing it is really good for at this point in time is generating tickets for bronze rolls or specific rare salvage if the price has spiked too high. Regular content is much better for wealth generation at this point.

2) Find 2-3 story arcs (or more) that you like to run or that can be run easily with your play style and character. Preferably 1 arcane based, 1 tech based and 1 that drops both types of salvage.

3) Flashback and run those arcs. Choose a dificulty setting that suits you. More mobs means more chances for salvage drops and for pool A recipes.

4) Take the merits at the end of the arc and roll random Pool Cs. Sell (or craft and sell for more cash. Check crafted prices first though) the stuff that you don't want, craft and slot the stuff that you do want.

5) Once you get to the point that you have almost all the IOs slotted that you want you can change your approach.

a) Use the influence that you earned selling the stuff you didn't want in 4 above to bid on, and purchased the stuff that you do want, but don't have yet.

b) Keep playing but allow your merits to accumulate. While you are doing this check on your bids. When you have enough merits to purchase all the outstanding but unfullfilled bids, cancel those bids, buy the recipes out right and complete your build.

c) Once this is done you can continue to play this toon for fun and to earn merits/inf for any alts that you may have. You can start over again at step 1 but this time with a fully equipped character to supply the alt.