Miladys_Knight

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The best you can actually get from scourge is about 20.7% bonus damage and thats while fighting the biggest of the biggest HP bags in the game: GMs. And this assumes you are soloing them, too, so also an inflated number.

The link to my experiment can be found here.

Depending what you are fighting, the bonus is minimal, against even level minions its just about 7%, note this may be better against higher level minions but it requires a lot of level jump for a minion to equate the Lt, who gets about 11% out of scourge.

The flaw with a simple formulaic analysis of scourge (as I attempted to describe in my guide) is that although you may get 21.25%, in practice, even the weakest of attacks will make your target jump from something like 40% to dead or 25% to dead, this makes the optimal scenario impossible to achieve against anything but GMs, or perhaps the new Reinchsman encounter, or extremely resistant foes.

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I'll concede to the burst killing factor of minions and lts.

However even without scourge factored in, corruptor still ends up being 4% to 16% higher damage when using the same sets. Toss in your 7% for scourge and we're talking a minimum of 11% to 23% that is including the +dmg/-Res debuffs factored in for both ATs. If the idea was that defender +Dmg/-Res is supposed to fill the gap some between corruptors and defenders in damage, it fails heavily.

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The only place it fails (if at all) is when solo and it is generally only by a few percentage points. The idea was never that stronger buff/debuff of defs would close the gap until they are producing equitable damage. The idea is that as a whole the stronger buff/debuff puts them into a similar degree of risk and reward. Defs tend to be slower, but more survivable.

Whatever balance gap may exist (very debatable) on teams those few percentage points evaporate when you have 7 other teammates benefiting from an additional 7.5% -res (EF) and an additional 5% +dam each, or being 10% less likely to hit due to stronger RI.
(7.5% x 7 people x 100 damage each = extra 52.5 damage that the corr has to make up for with scourge, this cuts into w/e gap may or may not exist in a straight up comparison).

We know forcemultiplication closes any gaps extremely quickly when the stronger values are applied, just look at how easy "support" classes catch up and exceed the "damage AT"s when they cross buff/debuff.

The problem is pretty much limited to where the devs have done a crappy job and haven't made a meaningful difference in the strength of defender powers vs corr/troller/mm shared powers.

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Except that much of the extra damage from the better buffs/debuffs are frequently lost in over kill. This is why in many situations lower % buffs/debuffs are just as effective as the higher defender values.

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How about:

e.) They are all redundant and you don't need any.

If Dominate, Confuse, Total Domination, Terrify, and Mass Confusion aren't enough you've done something wrong with your primary.

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None of these can pile a spread out spawn into a corner where a scrapper waits with Fire Sword Circle.

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On the contrary, Mass Confusion is an excellent way for mobs to self herd.

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On a Mind/Force Field Controller, if you were only going to take two of the three "repulsion" powers, which one would you leave out and why?

a.) Telekinesis
b.) Repulsion Field
c.) Force Bubble
d.) This is dumb. You really need all three.

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How about:

e.) They are all redundant and you don't need any.

If Dominate, Confuse, Total Domination, Terrify, and Mass Confusion aren't enough you've done something wrong with your primary.

Also any power that changes a mobs hit point total or position breaks sleep, which means that ALL these powers will break the sleeps in Mesmerize and Mass Hypnosis.

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If I were doing defender balancing (aside from a whole whack of individual power tweaks) I'd do something similar as mentioned here.
ie damage boost while solo that scales down relative to the number of teammates within a given range.
*Proly like a 10-15% boost while solo, down to 0% in a full team with everyone within a 60ft range.

But at the same time I'd give them a powerboost effect that scales up from 0 to x % based on the number of teammates.
*Like up to a 15% powerboost effect.

While a powerboost effect wouldn't benefit everything defs do it would cover a lot. In addition to a heap of power tweaks I'd personally do it would be more than enough to distiguish defs as superior buff/debuff and make it apparent that as team size goes up so does their ability to support them.

I generally shy away from changes that involve a buff in one state only to be removed in another. But defender team damage is more than adequate once you factor in their forcemultiplication, it is only solo they could use a bit more. Just as their buff/debuff is more than enough solo, but could use a bit more in teams to ensure they stand above other support AT's.

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I'm not in favor of any vigilance tweak that is based on what the team does, or it's size, or anything else that is outside the defender's control. Especially when it can conflict or be less or more useful depending on which defender power set it being played. That's one of the problems with the current inherent.

Take the case where you have a forcefielder on a team with an empath. The empath's heals aren't going to see much use, fortitude will be redundant except for the damage boost, RAs while nice aren't likely to be team making or breaking and Clear Mind pretty redundant except against foes that use sleeps.

What the empath is going to wind up doing is spend most of his/her time blasting and the more players on the team the less effective the empath will be.

What I could go for along the lines that you are suggesting is making vigilance a toggle power. When it's toggled off it's a 33% reduction in endurance costs for the defender and when it's togged on it's a 33% damage buff instead. (That's one SO's worth in either direction)

That would allow the defender to slot their powers in what even manner is best for that player/power set combination and it's can't be seen as a debuff in any particular situation since it is entirely under the defender's control.

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Why are Practiced Brawler and Active Defense click powers, where all other mez-protection powers are toggles? The click seemed like a disadvantage before, but now that toggles don't drop while mezzed, it seems even more egregious. Can anybody explain this?

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In the day I always held PB up to be the gold standerd of mez protection. It was near complete, double stackable, and could never be dropped.

Now a days, i still think its exellent, and still has some nice perks, Double stacking, no suppression, and cost less end.. but it's lost it's luster a bit with no toggle mess protection droping when held. I think if they made it work like a brake free... for the few times it cycles up when you are held, that's be a nice perk... it wouldn't happen all to often, as you'd need to be held, a rareity in pve for any melee, at the moment it recycles, and have the end to pull it off.

So in other words, it wouldn't happen all that much, but when it does, it's be a nice "bonus". Thats my 2 cents.

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It should do that anyway, not for the high level game, but for the low level game. The low level game is the roughest for the defense based power sets that have click mez protection.

That level 2 hellion gunner's defense debuff is 7% at level 2 same as it would be at level 50. In most places defense based mitigation sets have none (because it's debuffed) until they have 15% or more. This usually doesn't happen until the late 25s and the early 30s.

At the same time that defense based sets are dealing with this they also have only partial mez protection because the duration is shorter than the recharge on PB and AD. While toggle based mez protection users enjoy full protection as soon as they get the power.

Having PB and AD work as a breakfree would be a boon in the low levels that are all ready hard enough on defense based sets.

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Ok, so we know that Vigilance sucks. Everyone's known this ever since it was first introduced. Even the people who will come into this thread, quote those first two sentences and say that they like Vigilance actually secretly hate it.

So I propose a new inherent, an inherent that everyone can love, an inherent that helps us when solo, and an inherent that's probably ridiculously overpowering. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Defendilibrium.

Imagine you're an Emp/Rad. Wouldn't it be nice, every time you cast Fort on someone, to get a damage, accuracy and defense buff on yourself, too? Wouldn't be even nicer to get a defense buff every time you debuffed someone's defenses with Rad Blast?

All single-target buff powers in our primaries and secondaries would be changed to apply a smaller version of the buff to the caster. The small buff should be 20-40% of the strength of the original buff and have the same duration as the original. These self-buffs would not stack from the same power (no spamming speed boost or shields). These buffs would be affected by enhancements.

All debuff powers (again including only our primaries and secondaries) would give the opposite buff to the user. -Def powers like Rad Blast would give +Def to the user. -ToHit powers would give +ToHit to the user, etc. The buff should be around 10% of the value of the debuff (debuffs tend to have higher values than buffs) and last the duration of the debuff. They, too, will not stack from the same power. These buffs would not be affected by enhancements (the enemy's debuffed, what more do you want?).

Special cases must be made for powers that do not give buffs or debuffs. For instance, Energy Blast doesn't buff or debuff, and neither does Archery. Using a bunch of Energy Blast powers to get yourself some KB resistance sounds kind of lackluster, so we'd have to think up something.


Thoughts?
Ideas?
Calling me a moron?

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I'd never play anything but a Rad/Sonic/Elec defender ever again.

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Yes, it was meant to appease those who hated the sweeping nerfs on all AoE controls that also came in I5.

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Do you have a reference? To my recollection, the AoE control nerf happened at the same time but was a separate issue and came with no balancing counter-buffs whatsoever.

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From the I5 patch notes (emphasis mine)
[*]Controllers have a new Inherent Ability called Containment. All Controllers will do double damage (+100% unenhanced base Damage) to a target (non pvp) that is Immobilized, Disoriented, Slept or Held. Increasing the non-Pet damage potential of all Controllers. This change is intended to give them a more balanced and even game-play experience throughout all of their levels. [*]Controller AoE Holds, Disorients and Sleeps (and a few others like Quicksand and Ice Slick) recharge times have been increased and duration reduced, to balance the new increased damage [*]AoE Immobilize and Phase Shift powers were not affected. [*]Volcanic Gasses duration was not affected.

Reference

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I was riding the fine line between victory and defeat the entire battle. It took me about 5 minutes.


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the only time I was ever in any kind of jeopardy was when I missed the Chief Mezzmerist with Forcebolt, Repulsion Bomb, or Torrent and he hit with his sleep and supressed my toggle defenses. Fortunately one of the other Rikti was always kind enough to wake me up and restore my defenses.
...
The RWZ challenge took me 22 minutes on my FF/Dark/Dark.

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Good to know. I'll probably never be patient enough to do the RWZ challenge with my FF/Nrg (aren't Rikti resistant to Sm and En damage anyway?), but I may still have end trouble with +2s, which is more my concern. It will be interesting. I may run the Gaussian arc on Unyielding with no temps/no inspires as a good test though, I really like that arc anyway.

The added safety of the FF seems like a good trade over the course of a mission so far, with the exception of my endurance troubles.

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Yep and I believe that Rikti are weak to negative as well, which should mean that the Dark secondary is one of the better ones for the RWZ challenge.

The only thing that made it doable in that kind of time was having both Soul Drain and Dark Consumption in the Epic. Every 60 seconds I was able to boost my damage and every 5 minutes or so I could refill my blue bar and attack at a reasonable speed before end issues made me go back into power conservation mode. When Soul Drain was up and I had Dark Consumption available for an end refill I made decent progress. The rest of the time I was doing little more than countering mob regen rates.

The devs have since decided that Soul Drain for Defenders was overpowered and needed it's recharge rate doubled. I doubt I'll be attempting the RWZ challenge again (I've done it twice with this defender, once before no toggle drop and once after) with this defender.

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Try playing both with SOs only and you'll see what I mean.

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I did when it was on test. Took my main over, respeced back into his SO build while dumping all his enhancements in the trash for inf(man did THAT feel weird) and reslotted with SOs.

At that point I had a mace/shield brute at 50 with SOs and a claws/sr scrapper at 50 with SOs.

I ran them both through the paces in the RWZ. At that time, I found that SR beat SD by exactly as much as I would have expected it to due to the extra damage output that SD offers.

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So did I and I read your posts during that closed beta. With out IOs SR is a superior secondary. If IOs hadn't been introduced and Shields didn't look as cool as they do I'm fairly certain there would be far fewer of them out there.

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An excellent post that sums up the disparity and shows the weak spots between the 2 ATs. The other thing that I find discouraging for the defender is the soon to be Redeemed Corruptors showing up in Paragon City. Except for a few non-proliferated power sets there simply won't be a reason to play a Defender over a Corruptor (let alone over a Controller).

The majority of the blame lies squarely on inventions. (Don't get me wrong I love the invention system.) Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.

The defender's role keeps shrinking. When Going Rougue comes out most people will play defenders only for nostalgia unless defenders get a serious overhaul and update. With the possible exceptions of Forcefeilds and Empathy any other buffing AT will be a superior choice both for teaming and soloing.

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Except one thing. a lot of us who play defenders and corruptors p[lay them not because we want to be omghax, but because we find them far more fun than playing "teh best!!!!!!1!1!"

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That simply puts you (and me since I'll still be playing my defenders though not as much) in the nostalgia camp.

Other than Kheldians, Defenders are the least played blue side AT. The Defender secondary is shared with the most played AT as a primary (blasters) and the Defender primary is shared as a secondary with the 2nd most played AT (controllers). This tells me there is either something wrong with the inherent, something wrong with defender Primary/Secondary synergy, or something wrong with the AT in general (concept, execution, balance, dev vision).

When Going Rogue is released the number of new defenders being rolled will decrease yet again as the majority of the CoX popultaion realizes that there is nothing from a numbers standpoint that makes the defender superior and several things that cause the defender problems that no other AT suffers.

While the Defender as a whole may not be extinct I would say that GR will definately put them on the endangered species list.

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Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.

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Hmmm. While SOs are the more important balance point in my head, I have just started to IO out my FF/Nrg. Since endurance issues are a big concern for me, I wonder how much of an effect the expensive +Recovery IOs may have. Also, I end up with a lot of people at slivers, so maybe some +Damage set bonuses could be very useful (one less attack per kill not only speeds up kill rate, it reduces incoming damage and lessens endurance strains).

I guess seeing the effect of IOs on my FF/Nrg defender while solo will be the next experiment I run.

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Just from my experience. I've done the RWZ challenge with my Energy/Energy/Force Blapper and with my FF/Dark/Dark Defender.

With the blaster it was fun, it was furious, and I was riding the fine line between victory and defeat the entire battle. It took me about 5 minutes.

I accomplished the same thing with my defender. It was slow, boring, and the only time I was ever in any kind of jeopardy was when I missed the Chief Mezzmerist with Forcebolt, Repulsion Bomb, or Torrent and he hit with his sleep and supressed my toggle defenses. Fortunately one of the other Rikti was always kind enough to wake me up and restore my defenses.

I was always on the verge of end bankruptcy (I have Numina +/+, Miracle + slotted in health and 2 End Mod IOs and Per Shifter proc slotted in Stamina, and all powers have the equivalent of 1 1/2 - 2 SOs worth of end red. The build does not run hasten) as solo Vigilance gives nothing and teamed it gives only slightly more than nothing.

The RWZ challenge took me 22 minutes on my FF/Dark/Dark. The tier 1 blast is barely enough to keep up with +4 Boss level regen.

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One point that might be skewing perceptions is that you can instantly SEE a shield on a Shield Scrapper, even in the distance. You have to examine the powersets of a Super Reflexes Scrapper (or happen to be nearby when Practiced Brawler animates, hoooo-ah!) So the OP is seeing every Shield Scrapper in range and likely missing a bunch of SR Scraps.

IMHO one way to keep SR balanced against Shields is to prevent Active defense from stacking defense debuff protection. Just make it "does not stack from same caster." That way SR would be the only practically un-debuffable defense set (heroside) and it's fair, since it has little else. SD would have middle-of-the-road defense debuff resistance, but it gets baseline resistance, extra hit points, and damage (!) to help mitigate.

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SR is balanced and works quite well with SOs. Shields can not make that claim. Don't be calling for nerfs to a power set that only becomes good when IOs are added into the mix.

Try playing both with SOs only and you'll see what I mean.

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Bonfire is a crappy power--for dropping in the middle of a spawn to do damage. Bonfire is a great power for area-denial and other situational uses.

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Only if you are careless. I find that dropping Bonfire in the middle of a mob that has -kb applied to them from Cages to save me about 5 seconds on minion only mobs and 10 seconds on mobs that have multiple lieutenants. For a Fire controller that isn't a /kin that's a respectable savings in both time and reduced incoming damage.

An excellent post that sums up the disparity and shows the weak spots between the 2 ATs. The other thing that I find discouraging for the defender is the soon to be Redeemed Corruptors showing up in Paragon City. Except for a few non-proliferated power sets there simply won't be a reason to play a Defender over a Corruptor (let alone over a Controller).

The majority of the blame lies squarely on inventions. (Don't get me wrong I love the invention system.) Players can now fill in weaknesses (with only a few exceptions) with inventions that Defenders (and teams) were required/desired for during the days of post ED, SO only builds. The converse is not true. There are no IOs that replace the team for the defender.

The defender's role keeps shrinking. When Going Rougue comes out most people will play defenders only for nostalgia unless defenders get a serious overhaul and update. With the possible exceptions of Forcefeilds and Empathy any other buffing AT will be a superior choice both for teaming and soloing.

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I believe defenders really need a damage boost because IMO they should be better ranged fighters. I am concerned that with going rogue the defender will become an afterthought for the Corruptor.

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0.550

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Damage_Scale

Defenders will become an after thought once Going Rogue comes out. Except for a few non-proliferated sets like Empathy and Forcefields, defenders will be replaced by redeemed Corruptors.

It's not just the damage scale that will cause that. It's the crappy Defender inherent.

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so far we have... indifference, sarcasm, and "stupid" ... i was hopeing for something a bit more constructive from the Def forum

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How about I add a 4th category? "waste of Dev Time"

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ok, what the heck does "blapper" mean ?

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Blaster + Scrapper = Blapper.

It's a blaster that lives in melee range and focuses mainly on their secondary powerset, specifically the melee attacks, or "the blaps."

It's toally awesome. All the defense debuffs in earth and those in TA mean that you are going to hit reliably with your vet powers.

Take an attack from your travel pool and you are golden until you get stoney at level 32.

About the only place I could see it happening is Corruptor/Defender but until Corruptors have all the same power sets proliferated to them that defenders have I don't see it happening completely.

There will still be a few "evil empaths" (sheesh what an oxymoron that will be) roaming the isles.

The game has run out of Rikti.... Too many were killed during the Meow farms.

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And if there's a penalty involved in doing this solo...guess where the farmers will end up again?

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IF there's a penalty, I expect it to be in the form of some limit, decay or other impact to an individual's rate of reward. Doing so in this way would ensure that it doesn't matter what size team you're on, or where you farm or PL. You won't exceed target return rate limits.

Note that I do not want such a feature and would not ask for it. But if I was tasked with implementing it, that's what I'd do.

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Naw, they wouldn't do any thing like that......

that would be totally wrong..... like putting a Ticket cap on AE missions.....

Oh, wait........

All pets lost the ability to be buffed for recharge with the I14 patch.

My perference for a secondary is /TA. Long term area debuffs combine quite nicely with all things plant.

Yep my FF/dark/dark did it before the no toggle drop. It just took a loooong time.

I'd reroll as a Rad/EM. The animations, blast graphics and secondary effects would all be more thematic.

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Or you can just roll a defender...

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Scourge > Vigilence.