Rigel_Kent

Although I still think the range was reduced for PvP reasons, I admit the fact that it wasn't retroactively reduced for doms and defenders is hard to explain with that theory.

Maybe just whoever was proliferating in Issue 12 didn't like range?

Also, show me a blaster who's killing stuff from 160' away, I'll show you a character whose DPS and XP rate are a teensy, tiny, insignificant fraction of what Fire/Kins and Elec/Shields do up-close in equal safety.

But I Exemplar Well!

Defenders used to exemplar to very low levels a bit better than controllers did. A storm or kin defender had his complete primary on Katie Hannon Task Force; a /storm or /kin controller would be missing Lightning Storm or Fulcrum Shift.

Not so much the case anymore. Allowing powers up to Exemplar Level + 5 helped controllers out a ton when exemplaring in a team. The new Vigilance damage buff didn't help defenders out at all when exemplaring in a team. So much for that small, situational advantage.

Naughty Tentacles

Thank goodness defenders do have a few nice secondary blasts. Some are so nice, in fact, that Castle is afraid to give them to blasters or VEATs. The key is recognizing them, slotting them (esp. for cone range), spamming them, and hoping the controller or tanker on the team is doing his job with aggro. That's pretty iffy, though, on most PuGs.

Defenders Welcome Here

Actually, when looking for a support hero for a PuG, with no information other than AT, I'll choose defenders over controllers.

Why? Because many, many controllers build strictly for DPS and do not buff teammates. Fire/kins, I'm talking to you. Apologies to those in this thread who still think of controllers as a low damage AT, but fire/kin is still one of the top DPS builds blueside, and will again reign supreme if and when elec/shield scrappers get nerfed.

Defenders, on the other hand, are almost always in the AT they're in because of the buff/debuff, not because of the DPS. Not to say I won't ever bring a controller on board for a PuG, nor will I complain if I get an offender (see how I feel about defender secondary powers, above), but I'd like to know what a controller's power sets are in their search comment, to get an idea of what I'm getting.

Few quick pointers:

In some MMORPGs, there are three trinity roles (DPS, tanking, or healing), and to make game balance easier for the devs, the devs make non trinity roles (buffing, debuffing, mezzing) just about useless. Not true here. Buffs, debuffs, and mezzes work great in this game, as you'll find out when you're cycling well-slotted Fortitudes on 2 or more teammates, watching their DPS go way up, and the amount of hits they take go way down.

In some MMORPGs, players are expected to get a tiny edge in one of the three trinity roles by ignoring any and all other roles, including non trinity roles. Not true here. You've got a primary powerset and a secondary set. You're pretty darn good with both, whether you specialize or not. You've got enough power choices and slots to go around. Not much point specializing when you can do almost everything well: control from your primary, DPS from Containment, buffs and heals for others from Empathy, self-heals and self-regeneration for being able to take some hits also from Empathy.

Finally, don't fret if defenders have a higher "healing stat" than controllers. In this game, every AT has a multiplier for different effects. For "heal other" types of effects, you use the Ranged Heal multiplier. Controllers are x11, defenders are x12.5, and both increase in the same proportion as you level. So you're really not that far behind on how much you heal, and the recharge speed and endurance cost are identical.

Further, defenders and controllers have the exact same multipliers for regeneration and recovery and recharge buffs, meaning your Recovery Aura, Regeneration Aura, and Adrenalin Boost are identical to a defender's. Your Resurrect is also identical, since it recovers 100% health and endurance for your target no matter what. Your Clear Mind and Absorb Pain are arguably as good as a defender's, since the defender multipliers are pretty much overkill on these two powers.

That leaves just Fortitude, which unfortunately will never be quite as nice as a defender's. That's OK, your Fortitude is still pretty darn good, and you can lock enemies down better than defenders, so it's a wash.

I don't think dev logic was far off from that. Expanded range and radius was the explicit theme of the original defender blast set.

* Mentioned in the set description in character creation.
* 100' range on the single target non-snipe blasts, including the Tier 3 (Will Domination) and the targeted AoE (Psionic Tornado) and the beanbag (Scramble Thoughts).
* 175' range on the snipe (Psionic Lance), longer than any other snipe except Moonbeam (whose 175' range I suspect may itself be a copy-paste error from Psionic Lance).
* 60' 30 degree cone (Psychic Scream), longer than Fire/Ice Breath, Tenebrous Tentacles, wider than Night Fall.
* 20' radius targeted AoE (Psionic Tornado), larger than Fire Ball, Ball Lightning, etc.

I think this theme was given to the set because of its lack of other consistent themes (damage type doesn't count)... it had a lot of -recharge, but only on 5 out of the 9 enemy targeted attacks. Compare to, say, Radiation Blast, that had -defense on 8 out of 8 attacks, Electric Blast with -end and -recovery on 8 out of 8, Energy Blast with knockback on 8 out of 8, Dark Blast with -tohit on 8 out of 9.

So this leaves the blaster version of the set without a consistent theme. Only 5 out of 8 attacks have -recharge. Standard 150' on the snipe, standard 80' on the other single target stuff and on Psionic Tornado, but at least blasters got to keep Tornado's 20' radius.

Here's hoping Corruptors get the Defender version. The score so far:

Extra range theme: Defenders (I0), Controllers (APP) (I3), Dominators (I6)
No extra range theme: Widows (I12), Blasters (I12)

Lawyers Are Expensive, GMs Are Cheap

Unfortunately, it's too expensive for NCI to hire intellectual property attorneys for hourly game master duties. This means the EULA has to carry an extremely simplified definition of third-party rights violations, which by necessity errs on the broad side, not the narrow.

Think of a Venn diagram with a small circle for "copyright infringement under U.S. law" and a large dotted-line circle all around it for "third-party rights based EULA violation". The dotted-line shows that the boundary for EULA violations is indistinct, for complex reasons that I'll just lightly touch on below.

The One-Eyed Man Is King

Instead, the copyright enforcement we see is molded by what GMs -- who receive some training and guidance, but are not intellectual property or contract lawyers -- think what the EULA says and which rights holders are likely to sue, NCI's DMCA safe harbor status notwithstanding. Also, since the enforcement is dependent on player reports, it's molded by what the player base -- who are definitely not lawyers -- think what copyright law and the EULA says.

So we see inconsistent enforcement. Having a Superman costume and character is immediately seen by the player base as a EULA violation. Making a gentle parody of Playboy magazine, even with a (poor) celebrity likeness and critter costumes similar to a registered trademarked service uniform, as a 1-mission MA story arc, is not seen as a EULA violation.

The Superman avatar seems to be inside the dotted line, the Playboy mission seems to be outside it, and it's anyone's guess why. Maybe players think comic books are entitled to greater rights protection than adult magazines (wrong), or that one publisher is more likely to sue than the other (wrong), or that a player avatar is more likely to be a rights infringement than an MA arc (wrong).

Your Next Steps

Because it's tougher to predict enforcement based on the player base's wrong ideas, there are only two feasible ways you, as a content creator, can figure out where the boundaries lie.

1) Look around at what other arcs have done, as far as tributes, parodies, etc. If they've been around a long time, that's a good indication they're not seen as EULA violations by the playerbase and/or the GMs.

2) Test the boundaries yourself. Best case scenario, your arc will be just fine, along with the many other tributes and parodies already published. Worst case scenario, the GMs will let you go through a re-edit/re-publish process if they see anything they don't like.

Carnies all have psi defense. Power analyze 'em, see if you can wipe that defense out completely, or if there's no difference from unslotted Benumb.

Kin/Sonic is excellent. More than any guide or build, though, the #1 thing you need is to learn how to joust. (If you don't know already.)

Kin/Elec doesn't need jousting, and is well suited to hovertankfending, thanks to Short Circuit's large radius. Tesla Cage, in addition to being a solid all-around hard mez, is a nasty recovery debuff for 10 seconds, same as Short Circuit's recovery debuff, ensuring an endurance drained boss stays really really drained, even if the hold doesn't stick.

Minions' power comes from numbers. Don't give them a head start in the power department, or else they'll be stacking buffs/debuffs, heals, mezzes, or other kinds of nastiness. Save the juicy stuff for bosses or (if it's not too juicy) LTs, to reduce stacking.

Another option for reducing stacking of buff/debuff/heals/mezzes is to set the mezzing custom minion to not autospawn, then load it as a Boss detail. There'll be just one per spawn. See mission #2 of the arc in my sig for an example of no-autospawn custom buff/debuff LTs loaded as Boss details. Imagine how annoying the mission would be if multiples of those LTs were showing up in every spawn! Keep in mind the Boss detail only accepts minions and LTs if they are custom critters.

Go light on defensive/heal/support powers, including defense and damage resistance. The custom power calculations give very little extra reward for those powers, but they'll slow players down significantly if they're high. Especially watch out for Unstoppable type powers, which will stack with all other defenses, and some critter types have a 100% resistance cap. Regeneration on a high ranked critter is pretty much the same. If you're going to do an "unkillable critter" gimmick, set that critter as an optional objective, make it clear it's optional and not intended to be killable, and give players a chance to avoid it.

Theoretically, if you could get heal (Golgi), to-hit/defense (cyto/membrane/enzyme/lyso), mez (endo), or runspeed/flyspeed (microfilament) enhancements into Benumb, it should improve Benumb's various power drain (de-enhancement) abilities.

In practice, I have yet to confirm this. But remember, there is a reason Castle hates this power, and I think this is it.

I get a little cross-eyed looking at detailed builds, so I'll just give you some general guidelines.

1) Numbers as requested. There are 5 "uber" to-hit debuffs in the game. Radiation Infection is #4 with -31.25% to-hit (all numbers are defender versions), and not really that far behind #3 (Liquefy, -35.7%), #2 (Hurricane, -37.5%) and #1 (Blackstar, -62.5%). (#5 is Dark Servant's Chill of the Night, -30%.) At the ED firmcap (+56.99% enhancement) Defender RI doesn't need any additional defense to to-hit floor even level opponents: -31.25% * 1.5699 = -49.06%. Any defense on top of that is useful for flooring higher level opponents.

2) Besides -to-hit/+defense, you also have another combo: damage debuffs synergize with resistance debuffs. Enervating Field debuffs damage by 25%. Not much, but it also debuffs resistance by 30%, bringing the damage debuff up to 25% * 1.30 = 32.5%. Start adding sonic debuffs at 20% a pop, and you get damage debuff numbers like 37.5%, 42.5%, 47.5%, depending how many sonic debuffs you have stacked. This will be your defense against AVs, GMs and other to-hit debuff resistant targets.

3) I'm not a fan of self-heal procs in single target attacks, especially when you've already got a fine self-heal in Radiant Aura. Think about 5x Decimation in Shriek and Scream instead of Entropic Chaos.

4) You may not need Stamina. AM gives you 58.5% recovery at the ED firmcap, you'll be intentionally blowing your end bar every 3-4 minutes with a nuke, and for 90 seconds of those 3-4 minute periods, you'll have Conserve Power keeping you in the blue. So, if you think you can go the 2 minutes between CP wearing off and your next nuke, with just AM and not Stamina, then you don't need Stamina.

5) You don't need Health. No matter how much regeneration you stack, it'll pale in comparison to your awesome self-heal, Radiant Aura. You don't need regeneration set bonuses for the same reason. If you're keeping Stamina and need Health only for that reason, take some of those slots out of Health and give them to blasts. 3x Far Strike in Scream is making many sad defender board pandas.

6) The usual slotting for Radiant Aura is 5x Doctored Wounds, for the recharge set bonus. Miracle's not bad, with a max health bonus, but most Rads prefer perming Hasten and AM or getting as close as possible. That takes a lot of recharge bonuses.

7) On the subject of Recharge bonuses, multiple copies of the +7.5% special Luck of the Gambler is a staple of rich endgame builds, especially ones that are trying to perma Hasten and AM.

8) Don't forget to make a team build too! Vengeance-Fallout-Mutation never stops being fun. Ever.

It's pretty easy to avoid idiot choices on Dark/Elec. Dark Miasma is packed full of must-have, game-changing powers.

Twilight Grasp and Darkest Night will turn AVs into kittens. Tar Patch will make every fight faster and easier. Shadow Fall is stealth on steroids. Howling Twilight is an autohit minion stun plus nasty recharge debuff. Fearsome Stare is frickin' Fearsome Stare. Dark Servant is a targetable pet so will take hits for you.

That leaves Black Hole, which almost all players skip, and you should, too, unless you really like phase shifting. Taking Phase Shift from Concealment pool will let you go after phased enemies if you don't want to wait for them to unphase. That also leaves Petrifying Gaze, which almost all players skip, and you should, too, unless you really like hold stacking with Tesla Cage and can't be bothered to use Tesla Cage twice.

On the Elec side, there are some powers which are stronger, some are weaker, but all are damage, thus there are no truly bad choices. Skip Zapp if you don't want a sniper attack. Skip Thunderous Blast if you don't want a nuke. I wouldn't skip anything else in the set without a good reason.

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Overall, as a dark miasmist, you should be more concerned with getting practice than with getting a perfect build. Picking a good anchor, setting up a fast clickbind for Tar Patch, aiming Fearsome Stare's cone to get the whole spawn... player skills like those are worth more than any IO or set bonus.

I actually had to edit my post, as the first version implied that a healer should take Vengeance and put it on auto. Which may have caused confusion, since putting Vengeance on auto is strictly pro.

Depends on team size and whether you have Hasten. The bigger your usual team size, the more important recharge becomes. I usually get stuck on 8-man teams, so even though I have Hasten, I still give up some defense for recharge. (Currently slotted 1 def SO, 2 rech SOs).

If you typically duo or trio, of course recharge goes right out the window and you can slot only def DOs/SOs.

Unenhanced Fort will softcap teammates' tohit against almost all targets. I don't bother slotting tohit until I get Hamidon membranes, and even then, it's just a nice side effect that's included with the defense and recharge I want.

If you have some influence to burn, uncommon (yellow) Def/Rech IOs can solve the dilemma for you at a reasonable price. Assuming you're level 13, you could craft a level 16 Karma Def/Rech IO for under 25k inf (recipe and salvage included). Kismet Def/Rech.16 IO about the same. Gift of the Ancients Def/Rech.16 and Serendipity Def/Rech.16 IOs perhaps 75k each.

Revisiting thread, taking a fresh look at the original post and original question.

Game's overdue for an information cascade. Get enough people to believe de/buffs are more important than heals, and the wall comes crumbling down. Sometimes, the solution to humans blindly conforming to bad ideas, has to be humans blindly conforming to the simple opposite. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the formation and popping of the real estate bubble, American offshore oil exploration being banned, no allowed, no banned, it's the same underlying group psychology. Remember, groups think differently than individuals!

Fine in theory, but how do we get the snowball rolling? By being just as bad as the trinity types. When you advertise LFM, say something like "do not want healer, healers are crap, want buffer debuffer or blastfender." When you advertise LFT, say something like "skipped worthless heal powers, I have the buffs and debuffs and blasts that actually help." Even though it's not true. Even though you know it's wrong. Replacing entrenched disinformation with new disinformation is the name of the game. Sure, you'll scare off a good empath now and then, but shed no tears, empaths never have trouble finding teams.

I'm sure there'll be enough concept types who are hellbent on playing a healer to ensure a good mix of buffers, debuffers, offenders, and healers after the cascade.