Obitus

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No, they *really* did an exhaustive test of DPE and DPS and blasters ended up being very superior.

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Yeah, I got that. I fail to see where I tried to argue that point.

My point was simply that Mieux's damage number for Defenders is higher than it would be in practice because, in practice, Blasters generally don't walk around at 75% ToHit. Hence, when you objected to the 65% on the basis that his comparison didn't work with other, more exhaustive comparisons, you were getting a false impression.

Mieux's was a very simple calc, and I'd daresay it wasn't intended as anything more than that. Realistically, as you point out, there are going to be a great number of factors, some of which aren't quantifiable on paper.

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Because we've had several powers redefined due to their previous ability to intercede on other archetype's capabilities. Every -res power, every +dmg power, risks that.

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I understand that, but you're talking about specific powers, and I'm talking about a Controller using the sum total of his abilities to achieve a similar effect. In other words, while I can understand your concern about Controllers flooring opponent ToHit, and even agree with it on some thematic level, I think it would be dangerous to set the precedent that: "No character of X Archetype shall EVER, by ANY means, achieve a comparable effect as Archetype Y does with fewer powers."

I don't like the principle behind the objection, if that makes any sense. Of course, I've been accused before of concentrating too much on abstractions, so that may well be the case here as well.

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This number is off, Enervating field no longer debuffs 37%. It's 30% which is equal to Tar Patch -DAM RES.

65% * 1.3 = 84%.

So 84 * .9 = 75.6% which should be "identical" almost statistically blaster damage. This does ignore having to run toggles to do that and such.

As it was specifically made impossible for Defender to match Blasters damage due to debuffing, I think the 65% versus 100% blaster damage is suspect.

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Futurias, the reason the number looks suspicious to you is that he (Mieux) included the accuracy boost for the Defender -- which, while certainly relevant -- isn't likely to show up in the DPS/DPE comparisons you cite.

In most cases, both characters are going to have capped accuracy, or at worst the Blaster is going to have a 5-10% disadvantage. Targeting Drone will impact results, as will Build Up/Aim. That covers pretty much every Blaster, and so far we're ignoring the sizable damage boosts from Build Up/Aim.

Defender damage IS 65% of Defenders'. Realistically, no Defender will equal or surpass a Blaster's damage output, although you can get fairly close with certain builds.

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Obitus, the point wasn't to bring a rhetorical question to the table - I really do want to know how the two situations compare, and to be honest, I don't even know the base Force Field numbers anymore, nevermind those of Smoke. However, if a Force Field Controller can ever reach the same points as a Force Field defender, well, we've got a *big* problem.

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Why would we have a big problem exactly? I understand all the complaints about Controller effectiveness overall, etc. (I'm really not inclined to type out all of my various disclaimers again here.)

But, in principle, I do not understand why it would be wrong for a Controller, wielding Force Fields and some combination of primary and pool powers to reach the DEF cap. Could you expound on that a bit more?

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An Illusion/FF Controller, however, can use Group Invisibility, Grant Invisibility, Maneuvers, or some combination of stuff, and cap Defense w/ just a minor teamate's defense power like Combat Jumping. (Let's not even get into Spectral Terror, which allows accuracy to be floored regardless. Just looking at buffs here.) They can reach 40% Defense pretty easily.

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Well, if Spectral Terror (or some combination of ST and Group Invis and Maneuvers) really does floor opponent ToHit (which means anything approaching 45% ToHit debuff), then I think it'd be more appropriate to ask why an Illusion Controller would take FF as a Secondary at all.

Which speaks to a few different issues. Is Illusion just too powerful? Or does Force Field just need dramatic improvement in terms of its non-DEF capabilities?

I don't think your example addresses the debate on whether or not the Force Field powerset is actually better for Controllers, though. Maybe if you'd picked a different primary it would have been better. I think the problem here is that some of us are just arguing different things. I'm arguing that the Force Field powerset, by itself, is better in its Defender incarnation. You appear to be arguing here that Controllers are just better than Defenders, which may well be true.

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Well Concern and I made some points about FF's synergy with pet classes that I think are good. Heck, just having a built in target for those ally only bubbles would mean you would be able to use them a heck of a lot more, espcially with a Mastermind (or Illusion controller) who gets pets a lot sooner. Being able to raise your party to a defense cap doesn't do you too much good if you don't have a party. To put it another way, the simple fact that for most controllers and all masterminds the ally only bubbles can be used solo as well as on a team more than makes up for their lower DEF values. IMO of course.

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Agreed there, definitely. It all depends on how you frame the debate. Most often, when people bring up the lack of practical distinction in buff/debuff effectiveness between Controllers and Defenders, they're talking about team play. Perhaps erroneously, I proceeded with that context in mind.

Solo play is a little iffier a prospect. If you have pets, then undoubtedly you're in the best possible position to take advantage of the whole set. Of course, the devs most likely response to this would simply be to remove the ability to use FFs on pets.

Heh, I'm half joking. I don't know what the devs would do, realistically. The point I'm making is that FF isn't, at least to my eyes, intended to be fully usable in solo play, and thus, I don't think this particular angle is going to get the Defender contingent anywhere by itself. Still, it's a fair point.

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Knockback is more valuable with pets as well, the more pets, the more value simply because of the number of attacks able to be aimed at the mob while it gets up. In a set with so much knockback that's not a small advantage.

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Again, I think your complaint here is more about pets than it is about knockback. The notion that knockback is somehow more valuable when you have more people around to hit downed mobs strikes me as a bit specious, with all due respect. You could make that argument about any effect in the game.

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We mentioned aggro, which an FF defender has a very difficult time handling in groups or solo due to low personal defense. Controllers of any level will be much better off due to holds (and later, pets), and masterminds don't need to attack at all, thus avoiding aggro issues.

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That's a very good point.

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I don't think it's shady at all to include Controller primaries, depending on what's being discussed. If the question is whether or not Controllers are better at Damage Mitigation than Defenders, then we need to take the whole picture into account. If we're talking about FF, then perhaps not so much, though we probably should be talking about FF as part of a bigger picture (including controller/MM primaries and Defender secondaries) and not on an island by itself since that situation isn't really applicable to the game.

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Well, yes, of course. It's always good to keep the big picture in mind. I only used the word shady there because of the context of the conversation at the time. Centerfire was making an argument that FF was better on its own merits for Controllers, or so it appeared to me -- and apparently I'm not the only one.

He went through the set, power by power, suggesting that five of the nine powers were either as good for Controllers, or better.

The problem, for me, in discussing the big picture is that I honestly don't disagree with either of you about it. Thus, you're not going to get much of a debate out of me on, say, whether or not Controller Primaries synergize better, mechanically, with their Secondaries than do Defender powersets. You're not going to get any argument out of me that Defender damage is pretty pitiful.

You're also not going to get any argument out of me in terms of general Force Field beefs. I agree 1,000% that Force Field is an uninteresting set to play, and that's just for starters. I'm no great expert on the set, but I'd also likely agree that certain of the non-DEF powers in the set are poorly conceptualized.

The only thing that I wanted to comment on was this issue of the powerset's relative effectiveness for each Archetype, because it's been a reoccuring theme (and rightly so) on this board for so long. Issue 7 doesn't FIX force field. It doesn't fix Defenders. All I'm saying is that Issue 7 may very well render Force Field the one shared (controller and Defender) powerset that is most easily distinguishable as being wielded by a Defender.

People are going to notice the difference, largely because of Force Field's broken playstyle or feel. Being hit three times as often when a Controller is buffing you is not a small thing.

So I guess what I'm trying to do here, in too many words (as always), is point out a silver lining. I'm not defending the whole cloud.

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I hate to ask this, but has anyone bothered to draw out what happens when you compare Defender Bubbles + Manuevers against Controller Bubbles + Smoke + Manuevers (and another other +def or -tohit)?

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I haven't actually charted it out, but it seems pretty obvious that both situations are going to put you at the effective DEF cap.

I suspect you're asking a rhetorical question, though. If not, please correct me.

If you are asking your question rhetorically, presumably in an attempt to invalidate my prior points concerning Defender FF and Controller FF, then I will simply direct you to reread. I noted, quite clearly, that I wasn't making any arguments about overarching Controller/Defender issues, nor was I in any way attempting to trivialize or make light of the complaints about FF as a whole set.

I was simply pointing out that Issue 7 is a huge buff for Force Field, to the extent that Defender Force Fielders will find themselves in perhaps the MOST advantageous position in relation to Controller who share their power set.

And I stick by that statement. You may well argue that Controllers can EQUAL the damage mitigation offered by Issue 7 Defender FF, and I certainly won't disagree. Hell, I'll even concede that Controllers can surpass it given the right build and/or great play. That isn't the point, though. The point is that the powerset itself is far far far far better in the hands of Defender, irrespective of other factors.

And if you want to include other factors, which is fine -- although it isn't terribly pertinent to the conversation into which my previous post was meant to intrude ( ) -- I have to ask you a somewhat rhetorical question of my own: After one has managed to provide ~90% mitigation to an ENTIRE TEAM, does it really matter if a Controller who uses more powers can achieve the same or even a superior result? I'm not speaking in terms of equity here; I'm just speaking in terms of practical effectiveness. Because, to me, once you've approached that 90% mitigation mark, anything beyond that is purely theoretical except in the most extreme cases.

Force Field is a bit of a special case among Defender Primaries/Controller Secondaries, because the buffs are at once so very crucial to the set's performance, and so very tightly focused in function. If you were to compare, say, Controller Empathy buffs with Defender Empathy buffs, the disparity isn't so pronounced, because the buffs are far more varied. The DEF difference in Fortitude isn't as noticeable because you probably also have +500% or more in Regeneration buffs on top of it, not to mention assorted heals and a huge end buff.

With Force Field, under Issue 7, it'll be practically impossible not to notice a huge difference in the DEF values. Again, that isn't to say that Force Field is a better SET than Empathy. It isn't. I'd argue that it's worse, in fact, for several reasons -- many of them qualitative.

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I mean, surely that's the standard we should go by, if we're relying on Radiation Emission Defenders as the ruler against which we measure the equality of our secondaries to Blasters, surely we must note what the maximum situation for Controllers is.

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I quote this because it's what leads me to believe you were framing your question rhetorically. If your post was addressed to me, then the Blaster comment is wholly irrelevant. I didn't mention Blasters once in my prior post, nor have I ever tried to argue that the ratio of Blaster to Defender damage is equitable.

If you were addressing me, then it appears you were projecting a bit. I can definitely understand being a bit bitter about the plight of Defenders.

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I find your argument to be not marginally dishonest.

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It's always great when trolls self-identify; makes it easier to add them to my /ignore list.

*plonk*

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As others have pointed out, he was supporting you, Centerfire. Ironically enough, he was using the definition of "marginal" that you defended earlier, while you apparently put him on your ignore list based on the definition Arcana used.

What's interesting about this FF thing, to me, is that FF appears to be the Defender set with the CLEAREST advantage over the Controller version, in Issue 7. It's arguably the one set in which the "somewhat" (your word) better base values on certain buff powers provide a benefit for which the Controller counterpart cannot compensate easily -- or possibly even at all.

FF Defenders in Issue 7 will be able to essentially put an entire team at the DEF cap if they take Maneuvers. Controllers will get nowhere near the DEF cap. Their Forcefields are still good, but it's going to take a fair amount of Primary-powerset-sweat to provide an entire team with the same amount of mitigation that the FF Defender bestows simply by handing out buffs before a fight.

Granted, the whole buff-and-forget playstyle isn't appealing to many (myself included), and granted, there are still a number of overarching issues with regard to the Defender/Controller/Blaster love/hate triangle. I understand the notion that Controller powersets tend to synergize much better than do Defender powersets (mechanically, not thematically). It's a fair point.

It's also a fair point, perhaps, that certain of the non-DEF FF powers are poorly balanced or even poorly conceived. I'm not arguing with any of that; nor, do I believe, was Arcanaville.

Arcanaville's point (at the risk of putting words in her mouth) was simply that your contention (and others') that FF is superior for Controllers, is not as clear-cut as perhaps you might like to think. From my perspective, you haven't addressed any of her objections in a logical manner. Can you explain how exactly the Controller version of FF is superior, despite that the Defender version will be providing more than 40% more mitigation through DEF? Even if you DO include Controller Primaries in the discussion, which is a bit shady, that's going to be a hard case to make.

It's not clear to me, despite having read this entire thread, where or why the exchange between the two of you became so acrimonious, but it seems a shame, given the apparent triviality of the issue over which you disagree.

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Great, so that means Super Reflexes has a further achilles heal (not mentioned before) in that every fourth attack from NPCs will effectively 'auto-hit'. Sorry, but I gotta then ask in light of all this why Devs consider 'Elude' to be so powerful.

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Only if the opponent in question has a modified ToHit value between 60% and 80%; that is to say, AFTER your DEF is accounted for. And if that's the case, then you're pretty much screwed regardless of the streakbreaker.

The way I read it -- and granted, I'm no math guru -- the streakbreaker can have a small adverse effect on DEF-based characters. But I think you're overreacting.

Hm, actually, there's a strong possibility he's talking about the ranged component of Invincibility, while we're all talking about melee ...

In Issue 4, the ranged component of Invincie was just over half as effective as the melee component (120 melee/68 ranged).

I find it hard to believe that our testing on Invincie has been off by that much. I've personally been involved in 4 different tests, with admittedly small samples. I've also sent a 5,000ish attack demo to Circeus for him to do his counting magic on.

The result? Every result has been in the 3-4% range, at base. The demo test actually yielded a ~9.2% per mob bonus for a fully slotted (+3 SOs) Invincibility.

Furthermore, all the anecdotal evidence I've seen both here and on the test server tend to hold with the tested values. As someone previously pointed out, if you get 6-7 mobs in melee range with a slotted Invince, you're more or less capping even cons. It's extremely unlikely that people are confusing a net ~25-30% opponent to-hit for a net 5% opponent to-hit, even if they aren't testing scientifically.

I think that either States is mixing something up, or someone put the wrong value in the code by mistake. No blame assigned here; I know that States has a lot on his plate, and that the numbers aren't his speciality. I just don't see how his values could be the correct ones on the current version of I5 on Test.

Suffice it to say that the outlook is even bleaker than I imagined. Even with Invincibility at its apparent ~3.5% base value, Invuln Tankers were hardly tearing up the charts. I'd hoped that the Ice numbers were wrong, and that they'd see improvement. But sadly, it looks like Invincie's just in for another reduction instead.

On the plus side, I'm wondering what the deal is with the raised DEF cap. 2.5% instead of 5%? That'd be pretty sweet, although we'll need like 3 Defenders to reach it consistently.

I think the biggest concern a lot of people have with this change is that SS's damage potential *appears* to have been balanced around Rage. The numbers I've seen on this board seem to indicate that. Although it could be completely untrue. It'd be nice to see a dev make a comment on that.

If SS's damage is, indeed, on par with other Tanker (mostly single-target) secondaries, then please consider just giving SS build up in Rage's place. While Rage is a cool concept, it seems like you're trying to reinvent the wheel here. If you're dead set on giving Rage a huge trade-off, then no matter how you slice it, the other sets -- the ones with just plain ole vanilla build up -- are going to be much better off.

If I assume that the accolades provide a 10% bonus to end recovery, I'm getting a base value of 2.2 EPS (or 132%) for MoG -- using your numbers.

If I use the numbers for the accolades provided earlier in the thread (a double bonus of 20% in this case), then I end up with a base value of 2.033374 EPS (or 122%) for MoG.

Either way, that's really good. It would be wonderful if someone could test the Unstoppable regen times. I've heard that Unstoppable's end recovery buff is much weaker than MoG's, but it'd be nice to see by how much.

The only point I'd like to make here is that Cryptic managed to make the TV trial fun and challenging for a full group WITHOUT tossing 300 mobs at them. (Ignoring for a moment all the arguments about whether a challenge for the respec trial is appropriate)

Higher cons, and more bosses/lieuts solve the performance issue admirably. Say what you will about it; the TV trial certainly FELT superheroic to me.

It may be an illusion, but I have to agree with others who want a demonstrable rise in relative power as a character gains levels. Yes, I know every other MMO out there treats an even con the same way throughout the game. Personally, that's what set CoH APART for me.

I really hope that if Cryptic pushes this huge change through, that they also consider rebalancing missions to give us some of the old 'feeling' back. For instance, throw a bunch of green minions at us, and a few tougher even level cons. Nothing makes you feel like a superhero quite so much as plowing through hordes of minions.

IMO, of course.

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Renjiro, the problem with your argument is that Blasters will
always solo faster than any other archtype, simply because they
are the archtype that does the most damage... [snipped for brevity's sake]

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That is probably the single most insightful post about this game that I have read. Kudos RSRobinson. Agree 100%.

(Just for emphasis, mission bonuses should be increased)

And my main is a scrapper.