magicj

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By this definition, Mass Domination is a -Speed.

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Total Domination _is_ 100% -Speed. It's not at all uncommon on the Controller board to hear something like "Glue Arrow is really nice, but you don't need it when things are locked down".

But what seperates Force Bubble from powers like Total Domination is the effects aren't hard coded into the power. You're free to discover creative uses for that power. Herding is an example of something Total Dom can't be used for, at least not as well as Force Bubble is. Finding the last baddie hiding in some corner in a "kill all" mish can't be done with Total Dom. Nor can you use it to position baddies. And so on.

Edit:
The debuffs folks are suggesting are already available in other powersets. They're also already in FF, but not in obvious forms. But the effects Force Fields offers are not widely available. Replacing those effects with A) effects it basically already has, and B) removing effects not available elsewhere isn't making the set better, IMHO.

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Remember, this is our issue; that Force Field has too FEW effects, compared to other Primaries.

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Force Fields has few _direct_ effects compared to other primaries.

But it has many indirect effects, the kind that aren't listed in the power description. Basically duplicating -Speed, -Recharge, -Damage are only some. Repulsion Field in essence duplicates the benefits of Immobilize. Force Bubble with a little bit of creative movement and a small amount of control duplicates a Hold. And these are _toggle_ powers.

Personal Force Field lets you mimic a Tank, especially if you take Provoke, Aid Self, and any sort of halfway decent AoE control, including Repulsion Bomb. Force Bubble lets you herd every bit as well as a Tanker.

Repulsion Bomb, Force Bolt, and Repulsion Field allow you to perform chaos control that can only be rivaled by a Storm build. With the added benefit that you can turtle up in PFF and heal when needed.

I suggest the idea that the reason so many types of debuffs aren't in Force Fields is because they're already in Force Fields.

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+damage could work thematically, one of the buffs adds force/energy/ooomph to the allies attacks.

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You'll get no complaints from me for adding damage to FF, so long as the rest of its abilities remain in place. In addition to being useful, it just makes sense that when you're throwing things through the air they're going to take damage.

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Well, I don't want to scrap the Repel entirely, I feel it is very possible to decrease the diameter of the Repel, and thus make it much more useful, but stacking it with a Slow.

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This would hurt it's ability to be used with geometry for protection. It'd also hurt your ability to spread out the baddies, allowing the team to focus on one sub-group at a time.

In return, we'd get a -Speed which, in practice, Force Bubble already has.

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Actually Repel and -Speed are not the exactly the same thing. -Speed keeps the foe from getting into melee with you, while maintaining his distance from you.

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Or keeps him in melee with you.

If you want -Speed, there are already many options available to Defenders. There are no other options for a Repel like Force Bubble. And that Repel, used with geometry and a smiggin of Control, shuts down baddies argueably as well as any other power in the game. -Speed doesn't.

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-ACC, ToHitDebuff, -Spd, etc. all work for the power.

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And Force Bubbble, in practice, already does -Speed. It also does -Damage and -Recharge. It does these things through changes in the AI the baddies use while fighting the Repel of the bubble.

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This post is not endorsed by Magicj; the FF status-quo protector

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True. And here's why....

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-Swap the values of Dispersion & Deflection/Insulation; this would keep the value of defence offered by a FF the same for the team, but increase the survivability of the FF'er.

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Again, this makes herding easier. I'm not speaking for the Devs, but I can't see them implementing this change. Other than that, I have nothing against the idea. In fact, if the Devs want to make it easier for me to herd, I'm all for it.

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-Make Repulsion Bomb activate more quickly, and have a higher chance to stun enemies. Dark Pit is an example of how this power could look and work, with some tweaking of the duration or endurance cost to account for the knockback

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This suggestion makes RB _weaker_. Dark Pit doesn't effect multiple bosses in 1 shot. If you want Dark Pit, why did you roll an FF Defender?

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-Change Force Bubble into a -res, -speed PBAoE

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Are we talking about removing the Repel? If so, then once again I think this makes the power weaker. In it's current form Force Bubble is on par with Fulcrum Shift and Mass Confusion for it's ability to turn around a fight. -Res and -Speed aren't going to do that.

Or are we talking about adding -Res and -Speed to one of the better powers in the game because it's needs a buff?

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Now, as for WHY the nature of Defender Secondaries cause them to not mesh well with Force Field, well, you said it yourself, because they don't do enough damage.

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A damage buff to bring Defenders back in line with Blasters was one of the things I suggested, yes. But not the only one, and probably the least important.

Cleaning up Defenders cones and lowering the Endurance drain of their nukes to 85% rather than 100% seem more important to me.

The point being, it's things like this that were the reasons I dropped my FF Defender. It just doesn't stack up to FFers from other ATs, despite having, for the most part, better FF powers.

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Oh, yes, I don't disagree with this at all. And I never would have referred to herding as a way of "buffing damage", I was just using the language of the person to whom you originally responded.

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Just for the record, I didn't call it a damage buff, I said it's a way to increase damage. Technically, there's a difference.

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Wait a minute. Aren't you effectively contradicting YOUR OWN ARGUMENT? You were just saying that a Force Fielder is the equal of any other Defender, because he could buff his damage by herding. Yet here you clearly state that a Force Fielder CAN'T herd because to do so would expose him to too much risk, and result in defeat and debt.

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Well, what I said was an FF Defender can increase the damage from their powers by herding.

I also said that herding for an FF Defender isn't anywhere near as safe as herding for a FFer with a different set. This is because of the way Defender's nukes work, not because of how their FF powers work.

So no, it doesn't contradict my point. It _is_ my point. The performance of Defender's secondaries put the FF Defender at a disadvantage as compared to other FFers.

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There's other Defenders that can Herd a *lot* better than a Bubbler can... what's your point?

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Can they?

Storm can grab aggro as quickly, but can't protect themselves as well as FF while waiting for the herd to gather.

Toggle herding with Rad or Dark can be done, but it's slow. And, again, they can't protect themselves as well as FF while waiting for the herd.

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If you hit 5 guys at once, you are doing 5 times as much damage as you would be hitting one guy at a time with the same attack.

Thus, bubble herding "buffs" damage output.

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Correct.

Similarly, Force bubble provides -Speed -Damage, and -Recharge capabilities even though it applies none of those debuffs. It gets them through changes in baddie behavior.

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You missed my point. Boosting ALL Defender Secondaries is a boost to ALL Defenders, not just Force Field Defenders. The performance discrepencies between the FF Primary and the other Defender Primaries would be unchanged. Thus it doesn't address the subject of this thread which is improving the FF Primary.

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I understand your point. I simply disagree with it. Because it's unsafe to use a nuke after herding, the abilities of a FF Defender are greatly reduced. Because of the tiny scatter of Repulsion Bomb, the effectiveness of Defenders' blasts is greatly reduced. Ditto for Repulsion Field.

The strength of FF at herding is one of the better reasons to take the set. But that strength is effectively nullified by the behavior of the Defenders' nuke.

Repulsion Bomb is a fine control. There are very few AoE boss controls in the game. And there are none that I can think of that stop multiple bosses from attacking and recharge as fast as RB. Yet the effectiveness of this power is greatly reduced for Defenders because of the small cones some of their better attacks have.

Again, Force Fields works great in every AT except Defenders. It's probably not short comings in FF that are the reason for that.

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You're avoiding the question by trying to restrict the comparison to Force Field, though. I am comparing a Force Fielder that herds to ANOTHER DEFENDER. Like a Dark or a Rad.

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Ok. To me the question was can an FFer buff their damage. My answer was yes, especially solo, by herding. I don't think that a Dark or Rad herding is as effective as an FF herding.

Now, can an FFer directly buff damage? No. They're not supposed to. They trade away that ability for stong Defense.

For folks not happy with that trade-off, Storm offers many of the capabilities of FF, but with buffs, debuffs, and extra damage.

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1) Changing the Defender Secondaries does nothing to address the Force Field Primary. While FF characters would benefit, so would every other Defender Primary which does not solve the subject of this discussion.

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I understand where you're coming from with this, but I disagree.

If I herd with my Mind/FF and then "nuke" them with Mass Confusion, I'm not risking life and limb. Ditto for herding with a Bots/FF.

But if I herd with a FF Defender and nuke them, it's very close to a death sentence. Defender nukes don't kill anything _and_ leave you drained of Endurance. You're a sitting duck that's just herded several groups of baddies to your location.

Popping blues isn't really a fix for that because it's not something you can do over and over. You run out of blues.

Ditto with things like the "huge scatter" of Repulsion Bomb. That scatter is barely noticable to Controllers and Masterminds. It stands out like a sore thumb to Defenders because of how their cones behave.

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Whether or not it is "better" is not the question. Whether or not this actually increases the kill rate of the Defender is the question.

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And, for my experience playing Dark and FF and Rad, FF does increase the kill rate, whereas Dark and Rad toggle herding doesn't. Toggle herding is just too slow.

YMMV, of course. But I have a 50 Dark/Dark and have played rad to the mid 30s, so I'm at least basing this on experience.

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You might as well say that Tankers can kill faster than Scrappers

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I'd say no. This is comparing apples and oranges. Different ATs. In some cases different attacks. Different damage scales.

Comparing an FF who herds to one that doesn't is a direct comparison. Apples to apples.

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Fix Defense

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Looking at Arcanaville's sig, I'm reminded of something I actually _do_ consider to be a flaw in FF, and that's the performance of Defense against powers like Aim. Against certain PvP enemies, putting yourself in PFF is actually _worse_ than doing nothing at all, as they can hit you but you can't hit them.

Edit:
I'm not sure that it's Defense being underpowered. A Blaster friend of mine recently (issue 10) showed me how he could reliably hit _+16s_ (that's not a typo. Plus sixteens) with his blasts. It's not clear to me why this kind of bonus is ever needed in any aspect of the game.

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Darks and Rads are no where near as good at herding as an FF.

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We're talking about CoH, right? If so ... the dark defenders you've seen in action have had some build issues.

Corner pulling 3 or 4 spawns onto Tar Patch with Darkest Night is pretty basic dark defendering. Dropping Fluffy onto the herd and following up with Fearsome Stare or Howling Twilight is just gravy.

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Yes, but toggle herding is no where near as fast as herding with Force Bubble. I've herded with Darks and Rads and FF. Unless I'm doing something _very_ wrong with Dark and Rad, FF is clearly much better.

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You can still do stuff after you nuke. Eat a blue and presto! You have endurance again. Especially if you're a Kin with Transference, or dipped into some of the EPP powers.

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True. It's also true you can run around the map trying to make your mismatched cones work together.

But in other sets you're not stuck popping blues because your nuke killed nothing or running all over the place because your blasts don't line up with each other.

As I said, Defender's secondaries aren't terrible, and they hardly need a fix the way Stalkers in PvE need a fix. They simply don't measure up to what's available in other sets that have FF.

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That's a minor advantage, somewhat akin to saying that FF lets you use your Sniper attack more often, because the chance you will get it off without being interrupted is much higher.

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Well, if your usual spawn has 3 baddies in it and you can herd that up to 9, it's a +200% increase in the damage your going to do using your powers. That's a pretty nice increase from a set that isn't supposed to be able to increase your damage.

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(So the argument that "You've got less to do, so you can fire more often" is nonsense as well. Any Defender can just stop doing whatever he's doing and fire, that's not an advantage, it's an implication that FFs have nothing to do but be buffbots)

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Well, from what I've seen, it's the way FF is often played. Bubble players, turn on Dispersion Bubble, done. When you play that way, the only thing left to do is blast. And the blasts are wanting, IMHO.

I _do_ agree that FF can be used for a lot more.

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Do you intend to give Corruptors the same buff? Because if you don't, that's completely unfair to Corruptors. They have only 75% of the defenses of Defenders (not to mention only 75% of their damage buffs) thus for balance they should do more damage.

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I haven't played Corruptors, so I can't speak for them. But if they're in situations where they're firing off nukes, draining themselves of Endurance and nothings dead, yeah they should get some sort of a buff. Be it a damage buff or less of an Endurance drain.

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Plus, there's no reason why Dark or Rad can't use the exact same strategy.

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Darks and Rads are no where near as good at herding as an FF.

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The problem with this logic is that it misses the one problem that FF has. The one problem that sets it apart from every other Defender set available. (except Empathy)

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Yeah. It's a tough thing to do and retain balance.

But FF _can_ increase your damage, at least solo, by herding. Your nuke will be a lot more effective against a herd than against 3 guys.

As to damage increases for Defender secondaries, my idea was to clean up some of the wierdness like mis-matched cones, and to raise the number of baddies Defender and Blasters nukes can affect to 20-24, rather than 16. I also wanted to see Defender blasts retain their relationship to Blaster blasts now that Blasters have been given a damage buff. Edit: And to lower the Endurance drain of Defender (only) nukes from 100% to 85%, to give them a chance to at least do _something_ after their nuke goes off and most baddies aren't dead.

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The difference in Det. Field's mag might be why 'trollers report greater success in caging AVs than defenders.

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Well, if that's true, _that's_ a change to give to FF Defenders to buff them up.

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That can't be done since 'trollers 'trol better than defenders. The AT modifiers are among the last things the devs will [censored] with.

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Bummer. Well, for what it's worth, speaking as an FF Controller, I wouldn't mind seeing FF Defenders get that buff.

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The difference in Det. Field's mag might be why 'trollers report greater success in caging AVs than defenders.

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Well, if that's true, _that's_ a change to give to FF Defenders to buff them up.

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I mean, do you want the powers to all be identical for all archetypes, except the numbers?

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So then you're basically saying yes to this, which means we probably won't agree to anything. We don't want to touch your precious Controllers. Please move along and let us have our fun.

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Who are you quoting and why are you telling me to shut up?

No offense PK, but you're ideas about FF have stood out on this thread as the dumbest in a collection of dumb ideas. I don't want to see my favorite set ruined by you.

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Are you opposed to the differentiation of the same powerset among ATs magicj?

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Depends. There shouldn't be major differences in powers sets between ATs. If Force Bolt has a Stun as a Defender, it should have a Stun as a Controller.

There _are_differences already in ATs for FF. Controller bubbles are weaker than Defenders, MasterMinds can't get PFF till (I think) level 18, etc. But in all cases I know of the differences basically amount to minor nerfs to the set for all non-Defender ATs.

Anyway, the talk of changes to either FF or Defenders secondaries aside, FF can be played very well as a "lazy man's" set. For folks who want a little more action, FF offers a very good foundation for playing that way as well. I'd personally recommend learning how to use the set for chaos control and tanking.