Bill Z Bubba

I'm confused. Isn't that precisely what changing the inf/xp rate of certain factions would accomplish? Or is that too mundane? How does the game configure rewards when the difficulty is based on such a vast number of variables as vet lvl, IO slotting, potential buffs/debuffs, etc? ... dude, that AI would scare me.

Agreed. Strongly disagree. There are powersets within archetypes that are vastly superior to their counterparts as has been shown repeatably in a vast number of threads on these and the old forums. To me, roleplaying should be about flavor and not numerical superiority. Tanks shouldn't dish out more damage than brutes. Full stop. Currently, for AoE they absolutely do and do it with single target damage being way too damn close considering the mitigation they provide.

I'd have to argue that IO sets are NOT end-game because I can fully IO out a character at very low levels with the low end IOs. Also, the "level cap" increased with the level shifts from incarnate powers. All of my T4ed lvl 50s are functionally level 51 in normal content and 53 in incarnate content. (See post above in relation to how stupid that whole thing turned out to be.)

Defense CAN indeed ignore defense debuffs if the defense debuff misses. That is true. But there's ALWAYS at least a 5% chance that it will land. Want to see how weak defense is without DDR? It's simple to test. Take a shield using character into the ITF with the defense amp that grants mez protection and never click active defense. That shield user will get their ass beat into the ground in very short order. Not when you're running at x8 against enemies that lean on defense debuffs. Cascading defense failure is easily watched amongst several enemy factions. All you have to do is monitor your defense while fighting them. Ain't got DDR to protect you? You're goin down. No. Again, an easy test. My claws/sr brute with everything on is immortal against an aggro cap's worth of Cimerorans at max diff. If I turn off his 3 toggles, he's gonna faceplant in seconds. It's softcap AND DDR that grants him immortality. (Edit: AND his scaling resists AND his +regen AND his +HP from accolades and IO set bonuses.) A tank at 45% defense with No DDR is going to do the same if he's relying on the defense for his survival. Drop and die.

So why is my shield tank superior to my sr tank? I'll tell ya: it has more HP and more resists and when double stacking active defense it has nearly as much DDR. Shield > SR. Full stop. And no, I'm not happy at all with that. Same goes for invul at the high end. Massive resists AND HP AND defense AND good DDR makes it numerically superior. There *should* be balance amongst the powersets within a given AT and there *should* be balance between the ATs. There isn't. THAT'S what should be fixed and nerfing defense won't do that. A mastermind's teaming experience is vastly more affected by the fact that his pets are -1, 2 and 3 to the enemies and teams tend to run at higher difficulties than a mastermind would on their own. I don't have any masterminds. I find them a horrifically broken AT incapable of being remotely fun solo or on teams. I know that this opinion is not shared across the board. I also know that they have awesome pylon times because pylons are equal level to anything attacking them and thus are not an accurate test for masterminds in every other area of gameplay. Kill speed reduces the need for mitigation. That which is dead can't hurt you. I accept that heightened mitigation is a good counter that allows you to keep killing, thus my dead blasters have zero DPS statements, but a 5% nerf to defense, or a +5% tohit buff for critters, is not going to change how quickly BZB scrap can tear through DA repeatable missions getting 3 vet lvls per hour. More reason NOT to support your requested change. Bubblers should be changed. Sue Storms force fields provide damres. Why don't CoH bubblers? But if your change doesn't help the +defense support staff, inordinately screw over the defense based mitigation staff, then why ask for it when it doesn't solve the problem of power creep? If you change the HARD cap, popping a purple does precisely nothing, as you yourself stated in the post about bubblers. I'm unsure why you think the defense based sets are king. They aren't as I stated earlier with shield and invul. Mutli-layered protection is king. SR is freakishly awesome in the ITF because Cimerorans lean on defense debuffs and SR sits at 95% DDR. But stick that same SR user in a full spawn of lobsters and squids and it folds like anyone else while the shield user with its increased nrg/neg damres, defense AND ddr sits happy and safe.

Oh no, hell no on the WoW comparison. That's just awful and those of us that play CoH, if anyone wants that level of the divine triumvirate of healer/tank/damage can just go EABOD. My point was more that as it stands, while no AT is needed anytime for a team of 8 to get through anything this game can offer, it's been made even less so by the extra powercreep introduced by the Homecoming devs. I play my shield/em tank now and am left with the sensation that it's far too overpowered even for me. Course I still play it because it grants me vast rewards for a meditative experience. There's an alternative available but it takes shitload of work to make happen and that would be to rebalance the powersets AND archetypes so that a defender can still benefit a team while the scrapper can still do its job of being a boss killer rather than the current situation of X powersets in X archetypes don't need the benefit of anyone else to steamroll everything at max diff.

Couple thoughts on these two points. Tanks recently received a MASSIVE uptick to their AoE damage output and a minor uptick to their ST damage. And unfortunately for game balance, both are tough enough and do enough damage that when built correctly they have no need of a team to steamroll through content at max diff. Holding threat is a benefit when teamed but just isn't their primary role anymore and in the brute's case, never was. You don't run around with a 200% damage buff just from punching and being punched and not be a damage dealer. Remember, the faceplanted blaster is dishing out zero DPS. Random anecdotal point, my SG ran an all shield ITF that finished faster than the all corruptor ITF. That should NOT be but it was.

Technically, they did by granting all incarnate flagged critters a 13% tohitbuff. You can see it if you use the power analyzer on them. But they also hit harder, throw down more debuffs in general and I'd bet have more damres but I'm not in game to verify that. The problem is level shifts. I can clear out +4 incarnate baddies far faster than I can +4 regular baddies because I've got 3 incarnate shifts in DA vs only 1 in regular content. THIS was the stupidest decision by the former devs in regards to the incarnate system.

Let's start here. Are you actually requesting a soft cap of 40% rather than 45% or are you asking for a hard cap of 40%? Lowering the soft cap would actually mean altering the tohit/defense equation. Making it a hard cap would grossly nerf defense based sets while barely touching sets based on healing or resistance. This is a ridiculous and unbalanced change with regards to the game's overall power creep, which, by the by, I absolutely agree has occurred over the years. Untrue. Any power creep that affects any powerset affects ALL players that use said powerset, regardless of whether they are teamed or not. Speed of killing is determined by overall DPS. Nerfing our ability (again, overly nerfing defense based sets compared to healing/resist sets,) to mitigate damage won't slow down our ability to defeat enemies. I have to spend a half-second to click a respite? So what? I'm still slaughtering the masses by the thousands an hour. If your concern is solely based in kill speed, you should be requesting that the damage mitigation provided to enemy factions be buffed. Again, if you somehow cap defense at 40%, making it the new hard cap, you'll then be making all defense buffs completely useless for everyone that manages to hit that 40% without outside help. Force Field defenders ain't gonna like that one bit. If you really want everyone to lose 5% defense without affecting caps, just give all critters a +5% tohitbuff as they gave incarnate critters a +13% tohitbuff. This is why the defense soft cap against incarnate critters is 58%. Cussing is always involved. Couple things here. Since Cyberpunk came out, when I get on CoH, it's to team with my SG and no, not a one of them I would consider a "casual gamer" as is described by so many, and I say that because they're all damn good on any character they choose to play, fully kitted out or not. We don't care if someone brings a lowbie to an max diff ITF because there's probably a couple of us that can keep the ball rolling and faceplants are just another badge. But before CP, I would hop on PUGs when the mood suited me (yes, a change since before the snap) and I saw the same thing there. Far more IOed up characters than not unless we were all running lowbie TFs and even then, there was usually a few exemplared and heavily IOed folks around. My point to all of this is that you're looking in the wrong place if you want to readjust the game due to all the powercreep. Nerfing defense is a non-starter and that partially so because defense without DDR ain't shit in a lot of areas of the game where resist and healing always function. (Yea, yea, except against Hami.)

It wouldn't. It would just be a completely useless nerf that grossly affects defense based sets. You do understand the difference between the soft cap and hard cap when it comes to defense, right? Are you aware that the actual current hard cap on defense is between 175% and 225% depending on AT? What would warrant such a nerf?

Much like ROUS, I don't believe they really exist.

1: It doesn't matter, it's a nerf and a silly one. 2: Someone else can come in with the math stating exactly how much less mitigation 5% defense is when dealing with CoH ToHit mechanics, but I will state this as a very long time Super Reflexes junky... it's a ridiculous nerf to ALL powersets that rely on defense.

This right here is the kind of post that can alter an opinion. I recant my request for mez protection for squishies beyond what we can already access in game.

And here's the problem. MMO does not mean that one must team. It means that one is ABLE to do so. Soloing deserves no nerfs. Ever. Which is precisely why the buffs I would like to see for the more squishier archetypes are buffs, rather than nerfs. Now I completely understand those that enjoy the added difficulty just for playing certain ATs. As a matter of fact, it makes me debate wanting those changes. But nerfing soloability? Bad move for player retention. Very bad move.

Just wanted to thank the Mids devs for removing the prestige sprints from the default page.

This. Tanks are absolutely the best for absolute survivabilty and damage output when ignoring enhancements and being a lowbie. Which, ya kinda gotta do just due to the way slotting works as you level up. A 6slotted brawl with SOs after all, (just an example, don't do this unless you're Houtex on his Brawling Humilator,) is far better than a single empty slot. Edit: And as soon as I hit save on this post, my brain went "oh, but fury damage in lowbie levels....."

Fair enough. On my wishlist would be the ability to have a aggro cap's worth of enemies in every spawn.

What you're doing is continuing to insult the rest of us by stating all some want are more rewards and it's all about that while ignoring that you're flatly wrong. I'll put it in smaller words for you. Asking for higher diffs with rewards is not the same as just wanting more rewards. What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?

Wrong again. Willfully being insulting is nasty. I should know since I've gotten a couple 3day bans for being willfully nasty.

Yes, rude. You incorrectly and malignantly state that those asking for more challenge are only doing so for more rewards. It's a false statement. An incorrect statement. The truth is that I want higher diff settings because it will be both more challenging and more rewarding. What I don't want is more challenge without corresponding rewards. That's why I don't run around with enemies buffed, player debuffed and no insps set all the time. If there were corresponding rewards for doing so beyond "can I do it," I would do it more often.

Focus and Shockwave from Claws beg to differ. That said, I'd love to see an assault/debuff AT where the secondary is mostly PBAoE-centric and acts as armor.

I rather enjoy knowing there's always a power to skip in my SR builds. Especially since the other 8 are not optional.

Why? What's the difference between being geared up to handle +0/x1 versus +2/x2? My rewards go up then, why shouldn't they for +6/x10? And how, exactly, do you stop the increased inf/xp gain and drop chances from having more enemies to defeat?

That's rather rude and wrong. Just so ya know. If I want a challenge without rewards I can turn off enhancements. This is a game. With greater difficulty comes greater rewards. That rule wasn't changed when we went from the old diff settings to the current, why would it need to be changed if more diff levels were added?

Why shouldn't rewards match difficulty?