StratoNexus

But MMs get lots of force multiplication. The team you mentioned had tons of -resistance and -defense and -regen. They also had tons of -to-hit and -damage as well as lots of +defense and +resistance.

It is mind boggling to me that a team with 2 Darkest Nights, 2 Tar Patch, 2 Twilight Grasps, 2 Shadow Fall, Flash Arrow, PGA, Acid Arrow, Disruption Arrow, Hurricane, Steamy Mist, Freezing Rain, Anguishing Cry, Suppress Pain, World of Pain, Acid Mortar, PT, Seeker Drones, FFG, Triage Beacon, and 2 Dispersion Bubbles could have trouble with any AV fight, much less one that features negative energy damage.

That chart shows new vigilance in the worst possible light for low levels. The damage buff from vigilance is most helpful pre-25 and barely noticeable post-35.

There are three factors that make new vigilance feel better from level 12-25 than it feels from 25+.

1) Enhancements are not as strong.

2) Attacks are usually slotted less well pre-25. One attack may have 5 slots, 1 may have 4 and one or two may have 3. Many people slot two Acc. Many people just drop in whatever until level 22. While some attacks may only be getting a 15-20% boost, others are getting more because they are not as well slotted yet.

3) Enemy hitpoints have not started to ramp up as much as they do after level 25.

If the devs want to keep defenders from blasting too much by keeping the damage low, I cannot fault their decision. I do not agree, but I have no real argument against it except that I think people would find it cooler if the blasts were more potent.

I do not believe defenders were originally designed to not blast much and I do not believe they were originally presented that way and I do not believe they are currently presented that way. I do believe that they are currently implemented in a way which could be seen as such and I also believe that new vigilance will reinforce that concept.

I argue against the theory that they cannot increase defender and corruptor base damage because it would make them overpowered. I argue against the idea that increasing their base damage would make other ATs obsolete, less fun, or underpowered relatively. I can disagree with the call to emphasize their primaries (or secondaries in the case of corruptors) even more than they are already, but that is a subjective decision I can't really argue against.

There probably are numbers which are fun and numbers which are unfun.

Scourge and criticals generate fun numbers. A lot of people seem to like Big Orange Numbers. Watching tons of DoT numbers fly above an enemies head after using Rain Of Fire, Hot Feet, and Burn is fun to me. I assume most MMOs have damage and healing numbers above character's heads because they think the players will find that fun. Old defiance could generate a fair amount of damage increase and might have been viewed as more fun if it generated its own number visible to the player. A lot of people seem to have fun with the number 45 when it is applied to defense. 2,000,000,000 seems like an unfun number when applied to an IO cost for many, while for others it is a very fun number. I have fun with the numbers 8 and 144 for no rational reason.

Numbers themselves may not be the source of fun, but seeing larger chunks of an enemies health go away after shooting it is probably more fun than barely seeing the health bar move at all. In order to make that happen, somewhere, a number is likely to be changed. Finishing off an enemy (or at least seeing more impressive chunks of health removed) is probably more fun that shooting it 4 times to get it to half health and then the scrapper comes over, hits it once and kills it.

The dominator changes altered a lot of numbers.

I am fully aware that the numbers themselves are usually not where the fun comes from. But the numbers are often what needs to change in order to reach for a concept or definition that is failing to be met (or failing to be fun).

Defender damage is as high as it needs to be to do what? To make them meet the minimum requirements for solo speed? To allow most players to feel like they should take, slot, and use their secondary? To keep the population within whatever range is deemed acceptable? To allow most players to feel like blasting contributes to a team of 2? of 4? of 7? To make sure a lot of defender players barely blast on large teams?

Is corruptor damage high enough to ensure that their secondaries do not totally overshadow their primaries? Is it high enough after the buffs to doms and stalkers and the introduction of Veats? Is it high enough to fulfill their role as a specialist in dealing out massive ranged damage? Is it high enough that they should still be labeled as High damage?

I do not think the devs need to reevaluate the archetype definitions for defenders or corruptors. I do, however, think that a few of the numbers currently assigned to some of the AT mods are failing to fulfill those definitions as presented to the players. The definitions seem to make sense. The gameplay does not always seem to match those definitions for a lot of players. I cannot say if it is enough players to warrant any change. Perhaps simply increasing a defender's solo speed slightly will have a big impact on player perception.

I can see that. Obviously, on large teams, having 2 or 3 defenders is a huge boon. Would 2 or 3 MMs on large teams be the same kind of boon? Possibly not. So a big team with a few defenders could perform better than a big team with a few MMs. That could even happen quite regularly.

Thus the stance that defenders should not be buffed on bigger teams.

That being said, is it FUN to have anemic blasts on a large team?

So which of those two cases does a larger buff to defenders or corruptors run into?

I find it hard to believe that a real increase to defender (and corruptor) base damage would ramp their outlier performance up beyond any guard rails, considering what outliers already exist. My sarcasm in previous posts comes from this belief. Considering what MMs (controllers, brutes, scrappers) can do as an outlier, it is hard to believe that defender base damage cannot be increased without ramming into a guard rail.

It is possible the average may be increased too far, but I find that hard to buy, since defenders are already regularly improving damage levels with much higher values. When you consider that many defenders are likely to be spending a lot of time not blasting, I do not believe increasing their base damage mod is going to have a large impact on team's speed through missions, because scrappers and blasters (as well as doms, brutes, and stalkers) will still be contributing the most direct damage (with defenders and corruptors increasing that through buff/debuff). I do think it would make the blasts not anemic and more appealing.

But, considering the thought process of a large team with two or three defenders/corruptors as opposed to two or three MMs, I concede it is possible it is not the edge cases that may be seen as problematic, but rather the average or typical case instead that causes concern over higher defender/corruptor damage mods.

Is the average or outlier "performance" of defenders and corruptors likely to be so high with increased base damage mods that it trumps fun blasts?

This seems like Castle's call, based on many of his previous comments. Obviously he collaborates with his co-workers, but this is his area of expertise and I'd expect him to have the main voice.

I really invested far more energy into this than I should have, considering the fact that even if no change is made to defenders at all, they will still be great fun and highly desirable to me (both to play and to team with). I love defenders and corruptors that blast even at their current damage mods and I find blasting to be fun.

I still think the current vigilance change is the wrong way to go.

Right.

It strikes me as odd that they are concerned about top end, edge case performance when it comes to possible improvements for defenders and corruptors and yet when releasing a new set for an AT that is top end and edge case already, they feel free to dance on that edge with abandon.

Somewhere between, "we have endeavored to make improvements that are useful in as general a case for Defenders as possible, without adding to their already strong effect when combined with multiple Defenders," and adding a MM set where the primary has force multiplication on top of whatever force multiplication MM secondaries add.

Its a good thing MMs can't team like defenders.

Base damage + Fort + Assault + slotting = 245% damage

Adding a 20% damage buff to that is an 8% increase in output.

My favorite part was the quotes put around certain phrases. I couldn't help but read it in a sarcastic, dismissive tone.
It was probably not intended to be dismissive and condescending, but it can be read to sound like, "There is no "real" problem with defenders, however, to quiet complaining, we made the most meaningless change possible that we felt would fool the most people possible."

But I might be bitter about this issue.

Unless you team. Teaming with a Plant controller got pretty you some crazy end discounts, IIRC.

Technically, there is a change to how Vigilance works with the end discount. Currently, Vigilance counts pets, Dark Servant, Acid Mortar, teammate's pets, etc. This little loophole is closed once I17 comes out.

I do agree that Martial Arts would need a few tweaks to be a good blaster secondary, but I disagree with your assessment of current blaster melee prowess.

I'd do Martial Manip as follows:
. 1- Thunder Kick (change damage to 0.8 DS, recharge to 6s, end use to 6.864, add 100% scale 8 KB, remove stun)
. 2- Storm Kick (change damage to 1.96 DS, end use to 10.192, and recharge to 10s)
. 4- Dragon's Tail (I'd change the radius to 10 feet, which will require changes elsewhere (either less damage or more recharge and end use).
10- Crane Kick (change damage to 2.6 DS, end use to 13.52, and recharge to 14s)
16- Focus Chi
20- Quick Recovery
28- Cobra Strike
35- Crippling Axe Kick
38- Eagles Claw (leave the critical chance in this power)

For comparison to current secondaries:

Melee attacks for damage
Fire - 6 (or 7 if you include Consume)
Martial - 5 (or 6 if you include Thunder Kick)
Electricity - 5
Energy - 3 (or 4 if you include Power Thrust)
Ice - 3
Mental - 2 (3 if you include Telekinetic Thrust)
Devices - 0 (although Caltrops, Trip Mine, and Time Bomb might be counted by some)

Melee (or near melee) utility
Martial - 5
Electricity - 4
Ice - 4
Fire - 3
Mental - 3
Energy - 3
Devices - 1 (although Caltrops, Trip Mine, and Time Bomb might be counted by some)

Total Powers that are effective in melee range
Fire - 9
Martial - 9
Electricity - 9
Energy - 8
Ice - 8
Mental - 8
Devices - 6 (8 with full invis)

Total Powers that can be effective out of melee range
Martial - 2
Electricity - 2 (or 3 if you count Lightning Field)
Fire - 2 (or 4 if you count Hot Feet and Consume)
Energy - 4
Ice - 4
Mental - 4 (or 5 if you count Drain Psyche)
Devices - 8 (or 9 if you count Taser)

Mezz protection supports both damage and defense. It does not seem like a niche ability for a class based on both damage and defense. Perhaps you should have chosen Build Up for your analogy, but even that power has a considerable use for defense, as it is often used to take out the most threatening enemy in order to mitigate damage.

Scrapper taunt may be a good choice for your analogy, it is a niche concern for that AT, yet all scrapper primaries have it as a choice.

Boost Range only supports ranged damage and even then it does so in a limited way, since ranged damage already has range without Boost Range. I agree that Boost Range can be nifty and you are obviously devoted to that niche. That does not make it a good choice to be widespread for an AT that is designed to operate best at about 40 feet, dropping in and out of melee with enemies.

Boost Range seems like it would be a niche choice for an AT designed around ranged damage AND melee damage.

I think AE has been one of the greatest and most fun things added to the game since launch.

It has the potential to be that for a lot more people, if they ever get the player UI (not author UI) and search features better implemented. That is more important than adding new tasks, maps, critters, critter-customizing, or anything else you can think of (except closing exploits, because exploit PLing makes people quit sooner because they find the game boring much quicker than people who just play or regular PL).

The key error in AE's implementation, IMO, has simply been the dev's allowing their desire to give us super-cool, vast customizing options in critter creation to override their concern about exploits. IMO, they should have been very restrictive with how we could design critters and then gradually opened up more options after release. Instead they gave us huge options at release and then quickly added tons more options.

So many options made it much more likely for exploits to be hidden in the system, sadly.

I am an eternal optimist though. I believe we are very close to seeing AE become more popular for regular play / teaming / and normal farming instead of exploiting.

I agree. I was not saying that 8 FF defenders are top tier. I was only countering this:
8 FF defenders would be good. They would not be mind-blowing amazing, but they also would not be anywhere near bad (with reasonable power selections). If built as a team instead of just 8 PuGs, 4+ defender Assaults will put them into very good territory.

1) 60 foot attacks are reduced to 24 feet, not 37.5 (that would be a -40% debuff)
2) 80 foot attacks are reduced to 32 feet, not 50 feet.
3) 40 foot attacks are reduced to 16 feet, not 25 feet. These include not just cones, but also some of the harder hitting ranged attacks.
4) Enemies hit by the hurricane tend to get repelled away from you, thus ensuring that they will eventually be at a range where they become more limited in their ability to attack. The debuff is sticky and lasts for a bit after they are out of the hurricane.