New efforts!

[HEATSTROKE]

Trying to think how I survived on my Blasters..

cause I just dont remember faceplanting as much as other people are talking about doing on their blasters and I played all them to level 50.. and I played them a lot..

[worldweary]

Force Bubble was a great power.I used it to pin mobs,stop ambushes and keep runners from running.You could mostly do the same with hurricane but with Force Bubble it gave you more range.

[brothermutant]

I heard Telekinesis was good like that too, but was a major power piggy. Saw a tutorial online once on "the best ways to use it".

[Ankhammon]

On a tangent, the problem with conceptualizations like this is that to me it always seemed they could be used to justify anything for anyone.  Everyone wants their favorite archetype to be able to save the day, and its always possible to present a situation where archetype X faces any situation Y and has whatever ability is necessary to surpass it.  When you say mez resistance fits "the idea of the Defender" what idea is that specifically?  Is there any archetype for which mez resistance *doesn't* fit in exactly the same way?  If we replace "throw out a heal" with "throw out an AoE" or "throw out a control" is there any time it doesn't work?

Tangent all you want and what you said is true enough, every AT would like the last second maneuver to "save the day". The difference might simply be would those ATs be willing to trade what they do for this? Remember, this is just my idea of what felt like a defenderish way handling Vigilance.

The idea (for me) was as a replacement for the team aspect of vigilance. It seemed to me that an end discount that grows the more your team takes damage just never felt very heroic.

As an example, If your team taking 50% total health loss leaves your defender with say +100% resistance to hold, then a 10 second hold would last 5 seconds. If the defender gets free from the hold, then he can do something which will more than likely be to help the team. Not a guarantee, but a possibility.

So overall, I thought the concept worked for a Vigilance type power and would be hard to make into a power that can be leveraged for other than intended purpose.

[blacksly]

On a tangent, the problem with conceptualizations like this is that to me it always seemed they could be used to justify anything for anyone.  Everyone wants their favorite archetype to be able to save the day, and its always possible to present a situation where archetype X faces any situation Y and has whatever ability is necessary to surpass it.  When you say mez resistance fits "the idea of the Defender" what idea is that specifically?  Is there any archetype for which mez resistance *doesn't* fit in exactly the same way?  If we replace "throw out a heal" with "throw out an AoE" or "throw out a control" is there any time it doesn't work?

Exactly. Your Defender saved the day by fighting out of a mez and throwing out a heal? That's exactly the story that fits the mechanism of using a Break-Free.

[pinballdave]

Did that actually work on those? Did it stop giving Recluse the buff if they were "caged"? That would be a reason to get Detention Field/Bubble/whatever again.

It did work, and it really was a benefit to the tank, making him much more survivable, since the rest of the team would usually go for the blue tower (sometimes the red tower first) and the other one I would 'detain'. I didn't have detention field on my regular 'Pug/radio mission/signature story arc team' build.

[Codewalker]

You could argue that Widows dance on that line.  They get maneuvers, assault, leadership, and mindlink that are team buffs, and one of which is a direct team damage buff.  Not quite as strong as what I think you're getting at, but I think it is precedent setting.

Yes, I was keeping Widows (well, VEATS in general) in the back of my mind when I wrote that, knowing that someone would bring them up. I think those are about as far as would be allowed, and even the devs I think eventually realized that they were a tiny bit overpowered. Not overpowered enough to do something about it, but enough to be wary when designing something similar.

While VEATs are certainly stronger jacks-of-all-trades than say, Kheldians, they still don't come anywhere close to what a defender, controller, corruptor, or even mastermind can do to a team. Stacking VEAT and pool leadership is not an insignificant bonus, but you do give up a lot of power picks to make it happen. Mind link was explicitly designed to be impossible to perma. At the point where you're stacking widows and putting them on a mind link rotation, there are a ton of other options for making uber teams that work just as well.

Well, buff and defense are on the same "side" of the build ledger, so you're unlikely to ever get both as complete powersets.  But I could see a defender primary that had an analog to the protector bots in the mastermind primaries.

That's one thing if the set is balanced around it, and some of the sets were designed to give the user some amount of buff, like Time Manipulation, or even the AoE bubbles in FF and Sonic.

I was more thinking about the various designs that occasionally got tossed around the suggestions forum, where someone would make a grab bag archetype by taking the buff powers from a set, removing powers like Repulsion Field or Sonic Cage, and putting in defensive toggles straight from a tanker set in their place. Or even more ridiculous things like turning O2 boost into an AoE heal and replacing Gale with a mez protection toggle. Clearly overpowered, and that's the kind of mess that leads you down the road to Champions Online...

Even allowing certain sets to self-buff would probably be too much. I'm mostly thinking about Empaths running around with power boosted fortitude on themselves, alternating between RA and AB, and self Heal Other with 1.5 second recharge. They would make launch scrappers with toggle Instant Healing look squishy by comparison.

Basically, the buff sets were allowed to be as good as they were because choosing them came with some downsides. The ATs that got to ignore mez entirely and wade into huge groups without having to think tactically were the 'selfish' ones that did not significantly improve the performance of anyone else on the team. At least until they unlock Destiny and throw everything out the window.

[Codewalker]

Particularly when you consider the damage cap for defenders that could be hit (or close to it) with some defender builds.

Defender cap is what, 400%? Same as controllers, tankers, dominators, khelds, and VEATs.

Assume 195% from base+enhancements, 18.75% from Assault, and oh... let's be generous and say 35% from a crapton of IO sets. Let's be extra generous and say you're running T4 Assault Core Hybrid with 3 stacks up for a total of +55%. That gets you to 303%.

I'm having a hard time imagining the +30% from Vigilance while solo would make a difference to anyone who isn't Kinetics. Certainly not while leveling, which is what the Vigilance change was targeted at improving. Yes, the cap is lower at lower levels, but so is everybody's (except Brutes, because Brutes need to be nerfed :P), and the Defender cap is within 10% of Scrappers at level 1.

Also, I never mentioned getting mez protection, just resistance. My thought was that it fit the idea of the Defender. On a team with you mezzed and the whole team is in the process of faceplanting. Then you (the defender) digs deep to resist the hold and can throw out a heal/debuff/buff just in time to save the day for your team.

Thing is, that probably wouldn't actually happen very often. Mez durations are inherently unpredictable in combat situations, so the odds that resistance would cause one to wear off at exactly the right moment are low. Just about as low as the mez running out naturally at the right time anyway.

What's much more likely to happen is that the resisted mez would fall off a split second too late, so that your teammate would die in the middle of the animation for your heal/debuff/buff, causing you to waste the recharge. Just extrapolating from what always happened with powers like Dull Pain. :P

A much more reliable way to save the day is to carry break frees, since they can be used on demand and have nearly zero activation time.

[Vee]

Mind link was explicitly designed to be impossible to perma. At the point where you're stacking widows and putting them on a mind link rotation, there are a ton of other options for making uber teams that work just as well.

Did they lower the recharge on it at some point or are you misremembering? Mind link lasted 90 seconds with a 300s base recharge. It wasn't all that hard to make perma even before the alpha slot came around.

[srmalloy]

One other time, I was interviewed by a guy who tried to use one of those stock brain-teaser questions, and he didn't even know the right answer (or how to explain it). After arguing with the guy for 2 minutes, I decided to just excuse myself. It was really hard to maintain a professional demeanor while basically walking out on the interview in disgust. I know someone is going to ask, so I'll answer ahead of time. The stupid brainteaser question was: Why are manhole covers circular? The correct answer is: because that's the only shape that can prevent the lid from ever falling through the hole (the lip below the cover has a diameter smaller than the lid, so the lid can never fit through regardless of its orientation). His authoritatively-asserted utterly-nonsense answer: Because the tunnels underneath are round.

No... Manhole covers are circular to reduce the number of decisions a sewer worker has to make when replacing the cover.

And it's not a sweeping absolute that manhole covers are circular; this page has examples of other shapes, including some odd ones.

Most manhole covers are circular to prevent them from being able to fall into their own opening, and of all the constant-width shapes (i.e., Reuleaux triangles), circular manhole covers are the easiest to manufacture and roll along the ground.

[srmalloy]

on rikti raids, I always found my own spot on the ship got us lots and lots of merits, usually I'd be surrounded by magus after a round or two of spawns, by tanking them I also took the brunt off the rest of the raiders so we got even more merits because of less hospitalization. good times.

That was one of the things I enjoyed about taking my AR/EM/Mun Blaster on mothership raids; I could park her down in the middle of the bowl and use Boost Range and Full Auto to aggro mobs down from the rim of the bowl; her Snipe, with Boost Range up, was in excess of 240 meters, and LRM Missile, with three Dmg/Rng HOs, could reach out past 270 meters.

[srmalloy]

This is a pretty understated point. Blasters, with their high AoE damage and weak defenses, are the best trash-mob killers in CoH. And while it may not be glamorous, killing lots of mobs that aren't high level above you IS a useful function to perform.

One of the metrics that I used was being able to run my AR/EM Blaster in stealth up near a spawn of Nemesis on Peregrine Island, hit Boost Range, Build Up, then Full Auto and Flamethrower, and wipe out the entire spawn of 9-14 minions. Then I'd hit Rest, and recover from being down half my hit points, and proceed to the next group. A +1 spawn would take somewhat more, a -1 spawn somewhat less. It was a pretty constant result, and the 'Nemesis spawn' became a metric that I would use to compare how tough other NPC groups were.

[srmalloy]

Blaster Life for me.. was fun.. liked living on the edge.. Loved moments like this...

Nrg/Nrg on BAF..

Im onthe North Side Team.. going for the Master Badge.. we have a runner.. on the south side.. no one can get him... Someone get him !!!!

Me: I can see him.. Ive got him.. Your too far away..

Build Aim Boost Range.. SNIPE BAM.. Dead...

WTH... how did you get him from over there...

Me.. three damage range Hami's in every attack and Boost Range son..
No one gets away from me...

I never went that far with my AR/EM Blaster; I only had three Dam/Rng HOs in LRM Missile. But I used to amuse myself while waiting for an ITF to start by sighting down on the mobs in the courtyard over on the far side of the valley and using Boost Range, Build Up, and LRM Missile to shake things up. Even with just Snipe, which had about a 30m shorter range, I could shoot someone out at extreme range in the middle of a spawn, and I'd be so far away that the spawn wouldn't aggro -- I'd have to take a second shot before they'd scatter and come after me.

[srmalloy]

When I was discussing the I24 Blaster changes with Arbiter Hawk, I did a lot of brainstorming about a lot of ideas that I don't recall anymore, but one idea that I was reminded of during these discussions was something you could have added to the Defender "inherent" that I called "resonance."  Resonance would be a feature of some ally-only powers that, depending on the number of allies you hit with the power, would reflect some of the buff back to the caster.  There could be a duality to the effect, so that predominantly defensive effects scaled upward with number of allies: the more allies hit, the more self-buff you got.  Maybe 1% defense to self for every target hit with insulation shield.  But for predominantly offensive effects, the reverse would happen: the effect would be greatest when solo, and decrease the more allies were present.  In effect, solo damage would rise, and self defense would rise in teams to keep you alive to keep buffing the team.

That was the one thing that bothered me most about the Defender inherent -- that it would benefit the Defender only if they weren't doing their job properly; if you were spreading your buffs and debuffs around correctly, your team wouldn't be getting into the state required to bring the end reduction up to a noticeable level.

[brothermutant]

First off, I think a better Defender inherent could have been on a team of 6-8 with only one Defender, if all of the team was mezzed, the solo Defender dug deep and broke out of the mez effect, allowing them to help save the team. Ok, I just wrote that and already don't like it.

Secondly, I always felt the VEATs (and HEATs to a lesser extent) were the end-all-be-all ATs with only one minor exception. Think about what each of the EATs could do.
-Bane Spider and Night Widow- Great as Stalker/Scrappers.
-Crab Spider and Fortunata- Great defense/resistances for a Blaster-esque type of toon.
-Peace Bringer and Warshade- With the ability to "load" more than one build, you could be a Tank or Blaster or Scrapper pretty easily.
-All VEATs had great team buffs and several had decent debuffs (Venom Grenade/Poisonous Ray/Shatter Armor/Darkest Night/etc).
-Missing your Controllers? Many of the EATs had various control powers in them (Wide Area Web Grenade was a fine example of awesome sauce).
-Crab Spider (and Bane Spider to a lesser extent)- Like pets? Here ya go.

This last point was really the only reason I didn't like the VEAT set up; MMs were, as far as I can tell, the only AT that wasn't completely represented by the EATs. MMs were the only class (until Lore Pets came out) that could actually CONTROL what their pets did! If Crab or Crab and Bane Spiders had that ability, they would have been by far the best class IMHO.

While I am sure many can argue (and successfully I am sure) that the debuffs/buffs/heals were way better on other classes (yes, PBs at least got the teammate and self heals), you had to agree that a team of 4-8 EATs of various ATs/playstyles could have been truly epic, assuming experienced players and not AE babies.

[brothermutant]

Which reminds me, who here wants to help me roll an ALL EAT SG (hero/villain I don't care which side)? Only requirement would be you have to be an Epic ArchType. No inviting your non-EAT alts. I would love to see an all EAT SG tear up game content on either side (although I hear that Villain side missions SFs were harder than Hero-side ones).

Also, while on the subject of odd power pool combos, who here tried using both Blaster and Tank powersets on their AE baddies? I hear you can combine any two Powersets the game had to offer, always wondered what weird combos people came up with.

[Codewalker]

Did they lower the recharge on it at some point or are you misremembering? Mind link lasted 90 seconds with a 300s base recharge. It wasn't all that hard to make perma even before the alpha slot came around.

Sort of. I was misreading the power def and confusing it with Strength of Will -- the latter is the one that is unaffected by global recharge. Mind Link is just immune from having its defense buffed by things like power boost.

But while it's possible to perma mind link, it still takes quite a bit of work since you can't slot recharge into it directly. You have to backdoor it in using dual and tri-aspect IOs and/or get a ton of global recharge. I'd have to double check but I don't think the alpha slot works on it.

[Pyromantic]

Sort of. I was misreading the power def and confusing it with Strength of Will -- the latter is the one that is unaffected by global recharge. Mind Link is just immune from having its defense buffed by things like power boost.

But while it's possible to perma mind link, it still takes quite a bit of work since you can't slot recharge into it directly. You have to backdoor it in using dual and tri-aspect IOs and/or get a ton of global recharge. I'd have to double check but I don't think the alpha slot works on it.

Keep in mind it matters which build you're talking about also.  A little more effort on Fortunata, but it's almost trivially easy on Night Widow due to the shorter recharge and access to Mental Training.  Frankenslotting def/rcg IOs isn't at all difficult, and is an ideal way to enhance anyway.

[Ankhammon]

Defender cap is what, 400%? Same as controllers, tankers, dominators, khelds, and VEATs.

Assume 195% from base+enhancements, 18.75% from Assault, and oh... let's be generous and say 35% from a crapton of IO sets. Let's be extra generous and say you're running T4 Assault Core Hybrid with 3 stacks up for a total of +55%. That gets you to 303%.

I'm having a hard time imagining the +30% from Vigilance while solo would make a difference to anyone who isn't Kinetics. Certainly not while leveling, which is what the Vigilance change was targeted at improving. Yes, the cap is lower at lower levels, but so is everybody's (except Brutes, because Brutes need to be nerfed :P), and the Defender cap is within 10% of Scrappers at level 1.

Thing is, that probably wouldn't actually happen very often. Mez durations are inherently unpredictable in combat situations, so the odds that resistance would cause one to wear off at exactly the right moment are low. Just about as low as the mez running out naturally at the right time anyway.

What's much more likely to happen is that the resisted mez would fall off a split second too late, so that your teammate would die in the middle of the animation for your heal/debuff/buff, causing you to waste the recharge. Just extrapolating from what always happened with powers like Dull Pain. :P

A much more reliable way to save the day is to carry break frees, since they can be used on demand and have nearly zero activation time.

Adding to your list of damage potential for Defenders is one of the best epic damage boost powers in Soul Drain. Also several Defender sets could add damage (Rad/ NAff/ Kin/) and that damage could be made semi or perma.

I can set up a NAff/ defender who can reach cap with Soul Drain and Overgrowth.

And all that's just for damage improvements saying nothing about the de-buffs or other buffs available. So with all the possibilities of adding damage (and other goodies) it becomes a "meh" for me that there is a 30% added through Vigilance.
It's not even that great early on simply because defender blast sets are the secondary and so the added damage doesn't really shine with so few powers available.

As far as the mez resist thing, I get that it would definitely be challenging to pull off and maybe impossible. It was just a musing.

[hurple]

Geez, people, with IO's it became pretty easy to build a survivable, solo-able blaster.  It just too careful choices and tricked-out IO's.   ;D