Luminara

12.5% chance for a Break Free on the defender when afflicted by Holds, Stuns or Sleeps, increasing by 12.5% per living teammate; +/- ?% Special (Defense Strength, ToHit Strength, +Resistance (not -), Heal, Absorb, Regeneration, Endurance, Recovery, -Recharge (not +)), scaled by both defender HP and team HP (multiply one by the other to determine final effect). No-one sleeping on the job can be considered vigilant. The purpose of the Break Free effect, though, is not simply to adhere to a word. Words can change. The name of the inherent can change. That's not what's important. What's important is that a defender who's doing nothing but watching is a defender who's not playing, not participating, not engaging, not contributing. We log in to play, not to count the seconds while watching a critter beat the green out of the green bar. There's nothing participatory or engaging about that. It's not even dramatic or fascinating to watch, the enemies don't suddenly go into incredible animations or stop to monologue as we crumble under their assault, like a movie, it's just frustrating. And we want our teammates to contribute, and we want to contribute when we're teamed. A mezzed defender contributes diddly squat, making more work for the rest of the team, not only forcing them to fight harder and longer to finish, but also to protect or resurrect the defender. The defender is there for a reason, that reason is not to freeload or put an extra burden on others. Note that this is not true status protection, and it doesn't nudge the archetype out of balance. The Hold/Stun/Sleep has to occur before the Break Free effect applies, which means enemy-affecting toggles still drop, go into recharge and have to be restarted, and self- and ally-affecting toggles still suppress momentarily. It's also a very small chance when solo, so it's not like defenders will be emptying their inspiration trays of Break Frees, but it is still a chance, and because that chance scales with team size, it gives players a better encouragement to team than a shitty Endurance discount. It's not status protection, it's a chance to not have to sit out 5-10 seconds of mez, a chance to persevere despite having been mezzed, a chance to do something other than scramble for the Break Free key or Rune of Protection or... whatever. We might still have our large intestines removed and used as garlands, but at least we'll have a chance to go down fighting. But that's not enough, because simply being capable of acting doesn't imply defending. I've advocated stuffing some +/- Special into Vigilance in the past, so there it is. It fits the thematic nature of defenders, but in this case, it's also beneficial in both solo and teamed environments. It should scale with both the defender's health and the team's health to make it work that way. That makes it at least somewhat useful solo, but gives it real impact on a team, and reflects what a defender is and does. The odds are against the team, the chips are down, things are starting to look grim, and the defender is stepping up with stronger powers and helping the team turn the tide. Making the Special affect both buffs and debuffs is critical, though. It has to be as good for that Force Fielder or Empathy defender as it is for the TA. As buffs and debuffs use whatever scales and modifiers are in effect at cast time (unless they're pseudo-pets), utilizing the bonus would require re-application of buffs/debuffs reactively, and that requirement provides the necessary restriction to prevent it from being unbalanced. But it also provides incentive to use the secondary sets. Blasting with /Dark would impose slightly stronger -ToHit, /Elecs would drain a bit more endurance or impose slightly greater -Recovery, sets with -Recharge would delay enemy attacks by another fraction of a second or longer, et cetera. +/- Special isn't perfect in the case of secondaries, as there are some with flaming bags of dog shit for a secondary effect (like Archery), but it would give every defender something, either in their primary or secondary, that benefits in some way. And, again, that's better than shaving a couple of points off of the cost of powers which defenders had no reason to use, or couldn't use because they were put in a time-out for existing. Essentially, everything a defender is doing should, in some way, reflect being a defender. This would take a big step toward accomplishing that. Furthermore, since the defender's enemy-affecting toggles have dropped, even if they're on a full team, when they've been mezzed, that creates an advantage for the enemies and gives impetus to the defender's immediate action. Those debuff toggles aren't going to be recast instantly, but every defender has something else he/she can do, and this gives him/her both reason to do it and the expectation that it will make a difference. Fall back to plan B, whether that's using another toggle right away, or blasting and relying on increased debuff strength, or whipping out that Aid Other you've been denying you had in your build. Whatever the defender decides to do, it's going to have more weight, and it helps buy time until they can lay down the stronger effects. I have no issue with Vigilance as it stands, though. I have no issue with defender damage being the lowest. I have no issue with toggles dropping. I have no issue with being mezzed for a week or carrying 20 Break Frees just to play a character. I have no issue with buffing defenders being restricted in a way debuffing defenders aren't. What I have an issue with is all of these things collectively applied to defenders and corruptors. By themselves, each individual restriction is reasonable. All of them together, they're repressive and detrimental to both archetypes, and to the players, and to the long-term health of the game. Making Vigilance more appropriately reflect the concept of defending, as it applies in Co*, could be sufficient to resolve most, if not all, of my complaints about the archetype as it exists in the current game, and that scaling +/-Special should go a long way toward improving the archetype for others in end-game content, where a lot of complaints have been seen. Taking defenders over the top has never been my goal, I just want the act of playing a defender to stop feeling like a punishment for selecting an archetype still saddled with restrictions designed for an entirely different game. And if you want to shuffle off the 30% +Damage at that point, fine. I'm not going to grab my crossbow, chainsaw and meat grinder and start looking for people. I wouldn't have to, because even one fewer Break Free in my inspiration tray is one more Rage I can carry if I decide I need a little more damage. I can live with that.

Just use the Find Contact button in the Contacts window. First and Night Ward contacts come up in that for everything I've played.

*issues @oedipus_tex parking validation voucher*

Steps 2 and 3 are the farmer's responsibility, you can't just foist that off on the riders, they could suffer exhaustion or something! Think of the children!

Talons of Vengeance are not Knives of Vengeance. You're most likely facing Knives of Vengeance in that mission. Go to the south end of First Ward or Night Ward and pick off some Talons of Vengeance there, see if your badge counter twitches.

Don't they already just stand there while the farmer does everything? What is it, two mouse clicks, one to exit the mission and one to enter, that's the sum total of effort they invest... and that's a hardship? Man, I feel sorry for those people. We really need to do something to help them. Maybe we can talk the HC team into randomly assigning a different AE building as the entrance for every mission. That would help them get some wrist and finger exercise so they'd be healthier and wouldn't be struggling with two mouse clicks. Our health is all we really have in this world, after all.

You specifically emphasize poor controller damage "outside of a few cases", meaning edge cases. Then you submit defenders using a 145s recharge power every 30s as your example of defenders being the superior damage dealers, but you're not getting to 30s on those powers without Ageless, Agility/Spiritual, perfect IO set slotting allowing perma-Hasten. Edge cases. This is pointing to the bottom end of controller play and comparing it to the top end of defender play. The comparison is invalid because you refute edge case controller builds and use edge case defender builds. At level 50+, with ~275% +Recharge from perma-Hasten and Ageless, and Agility or Spiritual, and maximal Recharge Reduction in the nuke... or an absolute shit-ton of +Recharge buffs from teammates and/or temp powers. But that's totally not edge case play, since everyone is doing it, right? That's not an example of extreme high end, top tier defender building which completely skews the comparison, right? Right? Yeah... If you didn't want people to play defenders solo, you shouldn't have allowed Cryptic to put them in the game before corruptors. Paragon didn't share your opinion. Not only did they have metrics to guide their decisions, they also had the forums, and you couldn't go three posts without someone pointing out that Vigilance was utter shit when it was just an endurance discount for wounded teammates. The buff was added in Issue 17, which means they started planning it no later than the launch of Issue 15, possibly as early as Issue 14. Vigilance itself was originally added in the third quarter of 2005, so they had 4.5 years of data about how the inherent performed, player commentary and defender metrics. They knew we hated it, and they knew it wasn't doing a damn thing for most of us, and they clearly saw a need to bump up defender damage in a manageable way, or they wouldn't have done it. Some defender primaries weren't available to corruptors when CoV launched, so the only way players could use those sets was to play defenders. I don't know about you, but I wasn't particularly keen to wait until Issue 16 to play TA, nor could I predict that it would be ported to corruptors at that time. The buff wasn't granted because defenders were slow, it was granted because they were slower than Paragon considered acceptable. Not because players were bitching about not being able to solo at +4/x8, but because the metrics had to have shown that they lagged significantly behind all other archetypes in leveling speed or reward acquisition. They didn't make changes like that without investigation, consideration and testing. They weren't haphazard or random in how they treated the game. You're attempting to make another faulty comparison, in which only the primaries and secondaries are used. That's an impossibility in this game. We have to take some pool powers. Even if someone doesn't want to take pool powers, he/she has to take some in order to continue leveling. Refusing to do so means they can't level up, because there's no "I don't want a power this time, just give me my next level" option. Hasten is not part of any controller or defender primary or secondary, but you obliquely reference having it when you mention 30s nukes, so clearly, some pool powers are on the table, and if some are, all are. And you're implying that these hypothetical defenders and controllers are restricted to ranged attacks, and since one of those has secondaries with Blast in the name, clearly, that has to be the better of the two, but in that implication, you've ignored every other possible source of damage, such as pool powers, pets, *PPs, and discounted the massive impact of Containment on controller damage output when those other damage sources are added to the equation. Doubling a pitiful 0.55 scale does wonders, even with limited damage capabilities. A controller using Cross Punch (Boxing and Kick buffs applied) on mezzed foes, and ignoring every -Res power available to him/her, can deal 10x more damage in 40s than a defender nuke fired on critters with 60% -Res, and do so in complete safety if the mez was a Hold or Stun (which all controllers have), whereas the defender may still be at the mercy of critter hit rolls or massive incoming damage because those enemies are still free to act. Yes, that defender nuke will hit 3x as many targets in one shot, but that's one shot, whereas the controller is hitting again, and again, and again, 20 times before the defender can nuke again. 5 * 20 > 1 * 16. Having blast sets doesn't make defenders better at dealing damage when Containment is a factor, and Containment should always be a factor in a comparison to controllers, since control is what they do. Controllers are only slow if you play them that way. Controllers only have to stay at range if you don't move them forward. Controllers aren't restricted to one single-target Hold and single-target Immobilize for dealing damage. And controllers aren't denied access to the same powers you use to increase defender damage output, like perma-Hasten, Ageless, Agility/Spiritual to get those nukes' recharge times down to something playable. That may be how you choose to play controllers, but it can't be how you compare defenders to controllers because it's not transparent. It's not accurate. No matter how you spin it, Containment, being a natural side effect of them doing what they do, gives controllers a massive boost in damage output, pool powers/*PPs are always part of the package, and you have to give controllers the same edge case options that you give defenders if you're going to make a reasonable comparison. Controllers were given Containment because leveling them was absolutely grueling. Defenders were given the 30% +Damage solo buff for the same reason. Whether you or I had the patience to level something like TA the slow way is irrelevant, because we don't represent the average player. The average player doesn't have that kind of patience, or dedication. The average player isn't making an Emp/whatever with the Medicine pool, or FF/whatever and soloing, or TA/A back on the original servers, the average player was looking at defenders and saying, "Why?", before clicking on something that could move at a pace faster than a glacier. Yeah, I could show the average player how to build a defender capable of dealing more total damage than a blaster, but when that player sees that it takes 10s to do it, and the blaster can blitz the same spawn in 3s and move on to the next, he/she is almost always going to pick the blaster. That's why Vigilance's +Damage was added, so those people wouldn't spend ten minutes playing a defender and give up, make a character in any other archetype and forget defenders exist (other than to bash them on the forums). It's just there to ease the leveling process for the average player.

Is perma-Hasten an inherent power for defenders now? Or did they lower T9 recharges to 30s? You qualify controller damage output as being meaningless "outside of a few cases", but point to the outside cases of defender damage output as proving that defenders are superior across the board. There's no parity. You moot your own argument with that approach. To address the question at hand, yes, defenders did need the solo 30% Damage buff added to Vigilance. They needed that because defender blast sets were designed with the understanding that some defender primaries had powers with -Res. Some, but not all, and in fact, the defender builds which lacked -Res tended to find soloing a tedious and unpleasant experience. That, that poor experience, is exactly why the solo buff was added. Neither Cryptic nor Paragon had any intention of creating or enforcing a "team-only" archetype or power set, they always wanted players to have the option to log in, play by themselves and log out with the feeling that they'd made progress. People playing defenders, on the whole, were not getting that out of the game, and they needed some kind of improvement which would impact all defenders without grossly overpowering the top end. A simple +Damage was the easiest and least objectionable solution, because that +Damage counts toward their cap and it was made variable according to team size. Solo experience better, high end not creeping higher, and team experience unaffected. Job done. If you have a superior, and preferably, as mechanically simple method of making the experience of playing a defender solo more enjoyable, by all means, lay it on us. But if you simply dislike that defenders have the equivalent of a single -1 Damage SO added to their powers and pushing them closer to their already low damage cap (400%, of which the base 100% of an unenhanced attack is counted, leaving only 300% head room. ~95% of that is achieved by enhancing (Damage SOs/IOs), so before they've used a single power to buff their Damage, they're already halfway to their cap), try soloing a FF/notSonic or Emp/notSonic with only two Damage SOs in each attack and see for yourself what a ponderous crawl it really was. Even with the Vigilance buff, playing a defender is an exercise in patience and perseverance for most people, because their damage output doesn't become impressive until they've spent the extra time necessary buffing/debuffing before going into battle. And no, we can't simply decide that some sets "aren't solo sets" and remove the 30% buff, because that's contrary to the intent and design of the entire game. All archetypes and all sets have to be capable of soloing and the experience of doing so not similar to rubbing a cheese grater across one's forehead. That's what Cryptic decided when they created the game, that's what Paragon decided to stick with and that's what the HC team is continuing to promote. No-one is forced into a team-only role in Co*. The player can choose to only play on teams, but the game has to continue to give them the option of going it alone and making that experience enjoyable. That's one of the core philosophies of the game. And this brings us back around to the original topic. Reducing the debuff scales and modifiers to controller values doesn't just slow debuff-focused defenders down in combat, and it sure as shit doesn't impose anything remotely resembling balance, it utterly negates their purpose, their reason for existing. There's no point, at all, taking a controller-scaled TA defender on a team when that team could take a */TA controller instead and have comparable or better damage output, superior damage mitigation from the controller's primary, and identical debuff stats, to make one example. This kind of change wouldn't just put a dent in defender play, it guts it for all debuff sets. That's half of the entire archetype excised in a single stroke, and numerous hybrid buff/debuff powers which would have to be revised or replaced to compensate That's the net effect of nerfing defender debuff scales. Debuffing defenders would be relegated to solo-only play, or pity fucks by players who feel sorry for the idiots who selected debuff sets. I lived through the result of having impoverished debuff numbers when I was playing TA on the original servers, being a debuffer with jack shit to offer teams, I know how it would play out. As I said in my first response in this thread, it's a bad idea.

Purse attack with mag 50 Avoid and Haunt taunt = angry women chasing purse snatchers all over Atlas Park. @Mike Morbid - there's at least one belt with a large pouch attached to it (on the rear). If you're asking for Bags of Holding to increase salvage storage, several auction house badges grant increased storage, and you can also use Vanguard merits to bump it up another 10 (one time purchase). And this thread should be in the Suggestions & Feedback forum.

During the Troll Rave event, yes. The Supatrolls who aren't defeated or droned eventually run to a door and go inside (how the game despawns them), when the event ends.

Refers to player interaction with other players. Not to bad guys written to be bad guys and making comments about other bad guys. Cole isn't addressing you, your character, your teammate, your pet/hench, your employer, your family members or anyone else in the real world. The content guidelines don't apply to this situation, no matter how hard you bend and twist them.

So, basically, no-one's the "boss of you", you aren't obliged to explain your reason for asking that something be changed, it just needs to be changed because you said so and that's that. Okay, who's taking bets on how long this one remains unlocked? Anyone? I have a tenner that says it won't make it to 8 p.m. EST.

Fuel prices have doubled in the last couple of months. There's talk of a new Cold War, and even WW3. And someone's up in arms over a dystopian dictator's internal monologue in a video game. Personally, seeing number three on that list gives me great comfort. As long as people are contriving reasons to be offended, they're too distracted to make the serious problems worse and I'm not likely to be vaporized in my sleep by nuclear warheads, starve to death because I spent all of my money putting gas in my bike or have to resort to cutting down my forest to cook. I'm going to go buy some ice cream. A Dove bar, not one of those shitty $0.50 ice cream sandwiches. Woo!

Defenders Modifiers (at level 50) Melee Ranged Damage Scale 0.550 0.650 Defense Buff 0.100 0.100 Damage Buff 0.100 0.125 Max HP Buff 0.100 0.125 ToHit Buff 0.100 0.125 Defense Debuff 0.125 0.125 Damage Debuff 0.125 0.125 ToHit Debuff 0.125 0.125 EndMod 1.250 0.125 Fear 1.490 1.490 Heal Other 133.862 133.862 Heal Self 101.735 Immobilize 1.490 1.490 Knockback 2.077 2.077 Damage Resist 0.100 0.100 Sleep 1.490 1.490 Slow 1.250 1.250 Stun 1.490 1.490 Taunt 1.030 1.030 Threat Level 1.0 1.0 Corruptors Modifiers (at level 50) Melee Ranged Damage Scale 0.750 0.750 Defense Buff 0.085 0.750 Damage Buff 0.085 0.100 Max HP Buff 0.070 0.100 ToHit Buff 0.085 0.100 Defense Debuff 0.075 0.100 Damage Debuff 0.075 0.100 ToHit Debuff 0.075 0.100 EndMod 1.000 1.100 Fear 1.192 1.192 Heal Other 96.381 117.799 Heal Self 107.090 Immobilize 1.192 1.192 Knockback 2.077 1.662 Damage Resist 0.075 0.075 Sleep 1.192 1.192 Slow 1.000 1.000 Stun 1.192 1.118 Taunt 1.030 1.030 Threat Level 1.0 1.0 It goes a bit deeper than a simple flip of the primary/secondary.

Corruptors use the same buff/debuff scales as controllers. Defenders have no Scourge, no Containment, and 0.65 Ranged Damage scale and 0.55 Melee Damage scale. Their buff/debuff scales are the only thing they have going for them. Bad suggestion is bad.

That's not a bank, that's a Buried Accounts & Numismatics Keep. If you're sent to one in a cemetery, don't go. That's the Buried Accountants & Numismatists Keep, and they're touchy about being bothered when they're tabulating and sorting.

Then your original sentinel plan would be fine. Dark/Invuln would be a good pairing, with Dark's -ToHit complementing /Invuln's Defenses. Throw in Darkest Night from one of the Dark *PPs and you probably won't have much need for resistance buffs.

Phantasm doesn't like sewer maps. I believe I left a shouty post somewhere around here about that. Phantasm and Singularity both fly. Might be flight pathing. Someone give @Faultline a recipe for floating bacon.

Sentinels have no aggro management tools, and sentinel damage output isn't sufficient to overcome the aggro generated by most other archetypes even with the higher Threat modifier, so you'd have to invest in the Presence pool. Without that, you wouldn't be able to pull a -1 underling off of a "healer". Also, sentinels have good damage mitigation and status protection. They can handle melee combat very well, and some of their secondaries and *PPs include PBAoEs which would help with aggro management once you have a Taunt. Staying at range would be a gross underutilization of sentinel capabilities for this project. You'd be better served by any other archetype if you're insistent on range tanking.