magicj

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I believe within the scope of this sort of challenge, a radiation defender could stand in the middle of overlapping spawns with RI and EF locked onto one of the targets, slotted CC holding most things below bosses, LR slowing things down dramatically, and RA healing whatever gets through, with EMP as the emergency panic button. I don't believe you'd even need any epic powers to replicate this level of performance in broad levels.

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Could be. It's always difficult to tell what a talented person could do with a set. But I've played most Defender sets, and until I see them do it, I'll be skeptical.

It's easy to say "I'll throw out Freezing Rain and Snow Storm and Tornado and I'll be just fine". It's a bit harder to actually do it.

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I've stated before that Forcefield is handily outperformed by multiple other competing sets, regardless of AT

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Put together a video of a Sonic soloing 3 groups of Nemesis at once in a 7 man unyielding mish and surviving for over 7 minutes without using anything but Sonic, power pools, no attacks, and an Epic shield and then I'll believe that some other primary can possibly _equal_ what FF can do.

As to suggestions, I've already made some. You can see them at the top of this page. I've also outlined the types of changes that I believe would hurt the capabilities of FF as well pointing to areas where folks could add their ideas for changes without worrying me. You can find that list on page 34.

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EDIT: P.S. This doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion about changing the FF Defender primary.

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Sure it does. These are more examples of capabilities I don't want to lose when (if) any changes occur.

And of course I used the Medicine pool when soloing 3 groups at once on a 7 man unyielding mish without using inspirations, temp powers, vet powers, attack powers, or my primary.

When we "fix" the "broken" FF set, I want to still be able to do that.

I've put together another video starring everyone's favorite FF heroine, WhisperWitch. This video uses no Mind or temp powers or inspirations. It demonstrates how to use chaos control and hibernation to survive a team wipe and was shot by running a 7 man unyielding mish solo.

Staying Alive With Force Fields Tutorial

I've created a video tutoral on herding with Force Fields. You can find it here.

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I had planned on updating this guide with several different ways of herding without a Tank. Unfortunately, due to the never-ending changes in CoH i've decided to leave the game and move on.

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Just curious... what brought you back two years later after you had made the statement above?

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I'm a forgiving soul.

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Here's an idea I had to add debuffs and damage to FF without changing existing functionality: combos. Use combos, like those found in Dual Blades, to add abilities.

Here's a few examples: The X -> Y -> Z notation means use powers X, Y, and Z, within the combo time to get the bonus. If you don't do it within the combo time, the powers work as they currently do with no bonus.

Dispersion Bubble -> Personal Force Field
Creates a PBAoE effect the size of Dispersion Bubble. Everyone within this effect is enclosed inside a Personal Force Field. Duration is 15 seconds.

Repulsion Bomb -> Force Bolt -> Detention Field
All baddies within the AoE of Repulsion Bomb are affected by a -Defense Debuff. The baddie in Detention Field suffers -Regen and minor DoT.

Force Bolt -> Repulsion Bomb
Doubles Repulsion Bomb's chance to Stun. Adds 40% chance of moderate damage to all affected by Repulsion Bomb.

Repulsion Field -> Force Bubble
Applies -Resistance and -Recharge to all baddies hit by both powers.

Deflection Shield -> Insulation Shield
Gives +Regen to target similar in power to Spirit Tree. Does not stack with self or Insulation Shield combo bonus.

Insulation Shield -> Deflection Shield
Gives +Recharge, +Recovery to target about 1/2 the strength of Speed Boost. Does not stack with self or Deflection Shield combo bonus.

All powers would need to be used against the same target throughout the combo to get the bonus.

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This is actually a VERY interesting idea. I think it may fall into the area of Cottages though, but that's for the devs to decide.

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I'll guess they won't consider it a cottage. I was involved in that thread where Castle gave the "cottage" statement. It was a discussion on Tanker's Ice Melee. Some folks wanted the Sleep of the tier 9 power removed. As I understood Castle's intent when giving the cottage example, he was basically saying a player shouldn't have a power that does X when they log off one day, log on the next and the power no longer does X, but rather does Y.

If I'm understanding him right then the idea of adding combos isn't a cottage because the powers can all work the same way after the change as they did before.

Here's an idea I had to add debuffs and damage to FF without changing existing functionality: combos. Use combos, like those found in Dual Blades, to add abilities.

Here's a few examples: The X -> Y -> Z notation means use powers X, Y, and Z, within the combo time to get the bonus. If you don't do it within the combo time, the powers work as they currently do with no bonus.

Dispersion Bubble -> Personal Force Field
Creates a PBAoE effect the size of Dispersion Bubble. Everyone within this effect is enclosed inside a Personal Force Field. Duration is 15 seconds.

Repulsion Bomb -> Force Bolt -> Detention Field
All baddies within the AoE of Repulsion Bomb are affected by a -Defense Debuff. The baddie in Detention Field suffers -Regen and minor DoT.

Force Bolt -> Repulsion Bomb
Doubles Repulsion Bomb's chance to Stun. Adds 40% chance of moderate damage to all affected by Repulsion Bomb.

Repulsion Field -> Force Bubble
Applies -Resistance and -Recharge to all baddies hit by both powers.

Deflection Shield -> Insulation Shield
Gives +Regen to target similar in power to Spirit Tree. Does not stack with self or Insulation Shield combo bonus.

Insulation Shield -> Deflection Shield
Gives +Recharge, +Recovery to target about 1/2 the strength of Speed Boost. Does not stack with self or Deflection Shield combo bonus.

All powers would need to be used against the same target throughout the combo to get the bonus.

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What type of close-minded loser takes it upon themselves to try and stymie a discussion because they are afraid of the result?

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The only "censoring" I've tried to do is suggesting we stop talking about the secondaries. We've all had our say, let's move on.

As to many of the suggestions being terrible, well... they are. Sorry, but it's the truth. Calling me names doesn't make them any better.

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What Magicj doesn't understand is that we see FF as a defender primary, and compare it to other defender primaries, rather than comparing FF in isolation across other AT's.


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I _have_ compared it to other Defenders' primaries. The only other Defender primary that causes havoc with secondaries the way FF does is Storm, which also provides ways of compensating for that. FF can't do that unless it's redesigned as a Storm clone.

As for me being here discussing possible changes to the set, I probably wouldn't even bother if so many of the suggestions weren't simply terrible _and_ have a pretty good chance of rippling through to the other ATs if implemented.

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Hmm... Not a FF Def, and not a FF Def. Irrelevant.


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Not at all irrelevant. Unless you just feel an overpowering need to play a Defender, why would you play a Defender FF when the other ATs work better with FF?

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So the answer to playing a FF Defender is to... not play a FF Defender?

Nice.

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I believe the answer is to fix real problems with the set. That the majority of the secondary is made significantly less effective by using many of the powers in your primary is a major flaw with the FF Defender.

It's _why_ FF Defenders don't take those powers, can see no use for those powers, and wonder what the Devs were thinking when they designed those powers.

Anyway, at this point I have to agree with Starfox. Argueing over this is getting us nowhere. The opinions of both sides have been extremely well documented. Let's move on.

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The Force Field set is sub-par compared to other Defender sets NOT because it's a heavy knockback set that causes it to not mesh well with the secondaries.

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I've already said, several times, I don't mind seeing FF getting a few buffs so long as those buffs don't break existing functionality.

But that doesn't change the fact that if your cone blasts are hitting very few baddies you're greatly hurting your offense. And that's exactly what Knockback does. I really don't see why I'm even having to argue this obvious, well known, point.

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I completely and utterly do not understand why you think this.

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Well, if you're not hitting the baddies with your blasts, you're going to be less effective. The Knockback of FF causes the blasts to miss many of the baddies due to a small amount of scatter.

This scatter doesn't effect Storm. Freezing Rain is large enough that it doesn't matter. Lightning Storm has the range to overcome the scatter. Tornado follows the baddies no matter where they go.

Edit: Similar reasoning applies to using FF in other ATs. Their attacks are designed in such a way that they can overcome the small amount of scatter FF causes.

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I also do not understand your fixation on the imbalance between FF'ers in different AT's

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It's the reason I don't play an FF Defender. For me to play an FF Defender it has to be "as good as" playing FF in some other AT. That doesn't mean "the same as" playing it in another AT. A Mind/FF and a Bots/FF play very differently, yet I play both. It just means that if playing FF as a Defender is noticable worse than playing in another AT, I'm going to play it in another AT.

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As in your post before this one, you've shown that FF is the odd man out. It's not the secondaries that are the problem, if they were, Storm would be having similar problems with it's plethora of knockback powers. Storm obviously isn't and that is not solely due to the powers in the Storm powerset that cause damage.


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Well, I edited that post while you were replying. Adding buffs to FF doesn't change the fact a Defender FF will still underperform an FF in any other AT. Fixing the blasts _does_ change that.

I personally would like to play a Defender FF, but I'm not going to do it when that choice gimps me right out of the box.

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And this _isn't_ an argument against adding buffs if they're needed. It's just pointing out that adding those buffs doesn't change the imbalance an FF Defender suffers compared to FF in other ATs.

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Hmm... Not a FF Def, and not a FF Def. Irrelevant.


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Not at all irrelevant. Unless you just feel an overpowering need to play a Defender, why would you play a Defender FF when the other ATs work better with FF?

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Exactly. Adjust the FF Primary, not all Defender Secondaries.

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So let's look at some of the options for doing that.

* Add damage to FF.
___I'm all for it. I don't think the Devs are, but I certainly am. But this type of change would need to go across all ATs, leaving us right back where we are now: no compelling reason to play FF as a Defender.

* Add damage buffs to FF to make up for the FF Defender having to use mostly single target attacks.
___This doesn't really work. A damage buff needs some damage to buff in the first place. Solve the problem of Defender blasts and Knockback, however, and this becomes a nice option. But this would need to go across ATs, leaving no compelling reason to play an FF Defender.

* Remove the Knockback from FF.
___This would be a "cottage" change to the set, which the Devs have already ruled out.

* Add some other form of +Pie to FF.
___I'm not against this, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem. And again, it would need to go across all ATs, leaving no compelling reason to play an FF Defender.

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Changing the secondaries does nothing to address the discrepancies between FF and the other primaries.

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This simply isn't true. The only other Defender primary that knocks things around like FF is Storm and Storm provides extra damage powers that aren't hurt by the Knockback. You're not left with killing things for 50 levels using only single target blasts with Storm.

FF doesn't provide that kind of compensation for making your secondary almost useless. And it _can't_ provide it unless the powerset was almost completely reworked to make it a clone of Storm.

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Dude, changing the secondaries has zero effect on the relationship between the primaries. Nada, zilch, zero. If XYZ primary was better than FF, then it will remain better regardless of changes to the secondaries.

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*sigh* If Knockback reduces the effectiveness of your secondaries, and other primaries don't cause that Knockback, FF will reduce the effect of your secondaries. It's that simple.

If you play a Bots/FF, the bots will still hit despite Knockback. If you play a Mind/FF, Terrify will still hit with Knockback.

If you play a Rad Defender, there is no Knockback to hurt your secondaries. Ditto with Kin. And Dark. If you play Storm, Storm works with Knockback.

The odd man out is the FF Defender.

Valeria, I've played FF in the Defender and Mastermind ATs as well as Controllers. When I'm speaking of the flaws with Defenders secondaries combined with Knockback, it's based on experience. Even if it weren't, it's no great mystery that Knockback messes up blasting.

CDN_Guardian
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FF does not make our secondaries useless.

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You're right. "Useless" is too strong of a word. "Less useful" or "Not up to par with what's available to FFers in other ATs" is a better way of saying it.

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Which is easier? Changing that single primary? Or every single secondary?

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I'd assume changng the secondary is easier simply because it requires very few tweaks. Changing the cones to match the cone of TT and reducing Endurance drain of nukes to 85%. Done.

But A) it's probably better to let the Devs decide such things, and B) taking the easy road isn't justified if it ignores the underlying problem.

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I also see that you failed to respond to my earlier post asking how any proposed changes will affect the primary/secondary relationship with other Defender primaries.


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Well, you and I have had some discussions on that. I'd like to see those changes made independant of FF, even though I feel they're particularly relevant to FF. There's a reason my level 50 Dark/Dark sits on the shelf and my Mind trollers get played. That reason is the Defenders' secondaries.

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Implementing some of these effects into FF could easily improve the contributions a FF'er could bring to a team beyond the defence, status protection and knockback.


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And as I've said, I don't mind seeing FF get some of those things. I _don't_ want to see existing capabilities hurt because of them. In the list of concerns I posted I tried to make it clear where I thought adding such things would hurt FF and where it would not.

EDIT:
You can find my list of concerns on page 34.

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Changing the secondaries does nothing to address the discrepancies between FF and the other primaries.

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This simply isn't true. The only other Defender primary that knocks things around like FF is Storm and Storm provides extra damage powers that aren't hurt by the Knockback. You're not left with killing things for 50 levels using only single target blasts with Storm.

FF doesn't provide that kind of compensation for making your secondary almost useless. And it _can't_ provide it unless the powerset was almost completely reworked to make it a clone of Storm.

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Changing the secondary won't make FF any more attractive to prospective defenders

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It would to at least 1.

If your AoE blasts and nukes don't mesh with your primary, you're left soloing with single targets. I don't need to do that with an FFer in any other AT. This isn't just a small nit pick. Soloing with an FF Defender is much slower than with another AT.

I'm not going to play a build that forces me to spend 50 levels killing things with single target attacks despite the fact the build is one of the best herding builds in the game, has AoEs blasts, and a nuke.

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The argument for not changing FF powers comes from the fact they work so well.

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Not for Defenders. If they did, we wouldn't have a 18 page thread.

Again, you're thinking of other AT's, not Defenders.

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Although I think I disagree _greatly_ with most posters on this thread as to the extent FF doesn't work for Defenders (I don't think it's bad, just not as good as FF with other ATs), I do recognize that Defender FF could use some Dev lovin.

I'm not trying to take away your +Pie. I just want to A) make sure FF isn't given a feature that is +Pie for Defenders and -Pie for other users of the set, and B) give my own suggestions on changes that would lead me to play FF as a Defender.

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However, I think that there's simply a user-friendliness problem in Force Field (and other powers such as Speed Boost) in that you have to continually re-apply your Force Bubbles.

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/signed for both bubbles and SB.

SB is the _only_ reason I won't play a Kin in any AT.

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QUOTED FOR FREAKING TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Something we can all agree on. Devs, fix the text please.

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The problem here is the same as with the idea to change FF for Defenders only.

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It could be the Devs would view the idea to lower Defender Endurance drain on nukes that way. I don't. Scaling is something that's commonly done to a powerset when its moved to another AT. For example, Dark Misma's heal has a smaller AoE for a Mastermind than a Defender. Mind control powers have a shorter duration for Dominators than Controllers. Things like that. I see lowering the Endurance drain for Defender nukes as scaling. The damage has been scaled down from Blaster damage, the Endurance drain should also be scaled down a bit.

Also, any scaling types of suggestions for FF I think could be made for Defenders only. Change the recharge time on power X. Lower the Endurance cost of power Y. I don't have a problem with _any_ of those types of ideas. It's only when folks talk about adding effects or completely changing a power that I get worried.

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I do think Defenders should get a slight boost to damage. But _that_ is genuinely not linked to FF.

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I agree with this. I just view it as a problem independent from FF and thus not sure why its an argument against adjusting a few of the FF powers.

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It's not an argument against adjusting FF powers.

The argument for not changing FF powers comes from the fact they work so well. That doesn't mean folks shouldn't suggest improvements, but the improvements need to make the set better. That's not going to be as easy as it first may seem. FF genuinely isn't broken.

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Plus you would have perhaps overpowered non FF defenders (though I am not sure thats the case --- but + damage might create some issues with certain debuffing sets).

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I'm not suggesting any +Damage changes be made to fix FF for Defenders.

I do think Defenders should get a slight boost to damage. But _that_ is genuinely not linked to FF. Nukes basically not being useful solo and blasts being greatly hurt by FF's Knockback are linked to FF, in my view.

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Turning Detention Field into a reverse PFF and giving it the ability to work on friends and foes, assuming the code supports that, accomplishes that while also leaving the core functionality of the power in tact, keeping trouble foes out of the fight until your ready for them.

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I do like the idea that the power leaves the existing functionlity alone. That way, folks who don't like the new feature don't have to use it.

But the new feature seems a bit flawed to me. As examples, consider:

* FFer wants to rebubble team during AV fight. Hits Detention Field by accident, caging the team's Tanker.

* FFer sees Blaster is running low on Health. Cages Blaster just as he click Nova.

I'll also point out that FFers already have a similar, probably better, ability if they take Provoke. Taunting the baddies attacking a teammate and raising PFF gives basically the same benefits as this idea without the drawbacks. Provoke has the added advantage that it can be used in other situations as well.

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Do you think these changes realistic?

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I think them to be far more realistic and far more useful than the majority of the changes to FF I've seen suggested here. IMHO, this is because they solve actual problems, rather than just throwing +Pie on everything and hoping that somehow makes it better.

As to changes to Blasters and Corruptors, I never suggested that. If there's no problem, no fix is needed. Blasters should absolutely have 100% Endurance drain. Corruptors I've not played, so I don't feel comfortable giving a number for them. But because they do more damage than Defenders, I'll just take a guess that their Endurance drain should be somewhere between 95% and 100%.