siolfir

Yeah, when it was ported from Stalkers they added in +movement, KB protection, an endurance heal, and for Scrappers a lesser copy of Hide attached to a weaker form of the Stalker Assassination inherent - which is still stronger than the one that was provided to Widows and Banes. Because apparently an AoE placate-that's-not-really-Placate and Caltrops are too OP and the other ATs needed all of that to cope with having to use APPs and a temp power instead.

I’d recommend seeking out one if the countless squishy-focused players that have never needed RoP or Barrier to survive and asking nicely for tips. Or, building on this, continue to use RoP and either deal with the longer downtime or use it reactively. Or build for the usual defenses. Or just play a melee AT, since the only compromise there is the target cap, and even that doesn't apply for Tankers.

What about toggles, since they're permanent and don't require animation time? Sonic Haven: (Defender numbers) provides 20% resistance to Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negative. Conductive Shield provides 35% resistance to Fire, Cold, and Energy, and 20% resistance to Negative (Tanker numbers, because we're looking at Defender modifiers for the buff). Winner: Tanker, with 100% uptime and much higher values. I don't feel like cherry-picking the rest, but only one of the powers you listed is a single-target buff (the others were made into AoEs) and I agree that Fortitude does a lot of things and does them all well. But it, by itself, isn't going to be the make-or-break point for an Empathy Defender who has a low base damage and no in-set debuffs. Edit: and again, this whole conversation belongs elsewhere - maybe in the "End Game and Game Balance" thread?

Stalker Ninjitsu doesn't get one, either. Nor does Invulnerability. But I will agree that some sets have it easier than others: correctly timing Energy Drain or Power Sink can prevent a toggle drop if you use just as the crash occurs (so the cost is paid while you still have end, and the endurance gain happens after the crash due to the delay in when the power affects you), and Energize's global endurance discount really helps until the -recovery goes away. For Power Surge, you're going to want Energize right afterwards due to the hp crash anyway. If @Troo wants to debate the Fly changes then it can happen over PM, but it doesn't belong here. Suffice it to say that I disgree with the assertion that any use cases were lost.

It's totally off-topic, but Empathy Defenders already get "the Regeneration of Regen Scrappers", because Regen Aura is fully enhanceable to hit Instant Healing's +1000% for themselves and everyone around them. They also have a lot fewer hit points than Scrappers (or Blasters) with lower hp caps, and lower regen% caps than any melee (2000% vs 2500/3000%), so the actual hp recovery per second is significantly less. And with that said, the rest of the discussion should probably find its own thread.

A fair point when comparing between ATs as I was doing, but I was under the impression that this only occurred while Opportunity was active (from details here and here), in addition the -resistance would apply to all Sentinel blast sets, meaning that relative to the other options for Sentinels it's still only -9.6%.

I agree, but Siren's Song helps to set up a good Fulcrum Shift when solo, and if you have Fulcrum Shift then you either already have Dreadful Wail (which is PBAoE) or it isn't that far off. There are worse pairings, is all I'm saying (AR/Kin, for example).

I agree with the big problem being that the tier 9s do something that the rest of the set already does, and would prefer to flip them. Currently they really only provide an "Oh S***" button for heavy debuffs (on resistance sets), cascade failure (for Nin), or high +tohit mobs (SR). I even said that in my posts. But if someone is building on a budget and doesn't stack their build to soft-capped defense and capped resistance, then these powers have a use because the resistance sets will be pushed to caps on everything, Electric Armor also gets all of its Toxic resistance in Power Surge and suddenly has the highest magnitude KB protection in the game, and when it wears off the EMP has -regen and -recovery on the targets; the defense sets get less out of it because it's easier to softcap those but even there Nin and EA get some extra DDR, EA also gets a lot of +hp which isn't available in the rest of the set, there are recovery and movement bonuses... it's not that they provide strictly nothing, it's that the extra things they provide aren't worth the crash. A mid-range build that would want to take these powers to shore up holes can suddenly take them without worrying about having to deal with the toggle drop (and possible hp drop) at the end. A high-end build that's soft-and-hard-capped across the board still won't take them because they don't need them, but they become a viable patch which they currently are not. I was going for a minimal changes approach, because those are a) more likely to occur; and b) far less likely to create backlash from people who like the system how it is. All you have to do is look at the first several pages on the Fly buffs and how people were outraged that Afterburner's +maxspeed was rolled into Fly and another popup tray power was added to see how people will complain about anything even if it's a straight buff.

I don't bother with the follow bind, I just have one for targetenemynear (X), targetenemynext (C), and targetenemyprev (Z) and then scroll in either direction from nearest.

With IOs, you don't need any of these powers. And that's a build choice that everyone can make for themselves. Just like you could take the nukes - which did more damage than they do now when they had crashes - but people were skipping them because they didn't like being useless right after using them. It would make the powers more attractive for less expensive builds or those that focus on other bonuses than +def, +res, and +recharge, and the way the sets are designed (with defense sets getting +def tier 9s and resistance sets getting +res tier 9s) means that you would have to flip the effects to get layered mitigation out of them - which I would prefer - but that still wouldn't make you need them, a concept that I am against in the first place. The only way to make them needed is to nerf the hell out of the sets that they are in.

15% for Corruptors, and Kinetics is one set that (IMO) works better on Corruptors as long as you still have Fulcrum Shift available because the stacked buff is common enough that it doesn't matter if it's +20% for Corruptors or +25% for Defenders, the team is likely going to hit the damage cap quickly either way, and since Corruptors have a higher damage cap than Defenders do they get more out of it themselves. Sonic Blast in general (as opposed to the combination with Kinetics) is better on either Defenders (better team support/damage due to higher -res) or Blasters (better personal damage, "close enough" -res) than Corruptors, though. Sentinels only get -9.6% res per blast, so they're behind everyone else.

Honestly, I would rather see some of them flipped around - the extra defense rarely helps SR, the extra resistance doesn't help Electric Armor - but that's likely off the table. In that case, I'd say these changes would boost them without changing a huge amount: Eliminate all hit point crashes (Unstoppable, Power Surge) Powers with a full endurance crash will only crash 50% instead (this is what Strength of Will currently has). Remove -recovery from all that have it. Optional: Power Surge can keep the (self) -recovery because it crashes with an EMP, which has a recovery crash in Radiation Emission. Note that I'd rather see the (self) -recovery removed from all forms of EMP. Get rid of the endurance crashes in One with the Shield and Strength of Will, or cut them in half (to 30% and 25% respectively) if you have to keep them. This way the uptime and effect of the powers is not diminished, but the crash becomes easier to deal with and, for Unstoppable, isn't practically a death sentence (I'd include Power Surge there too, but the EMP during the crash has saved me back in issue 8 when I had it on an SO build and hit Build Up just before it dropped).

Not in a position to check, but I would assume that they will. As for the protection, as it behaves like Repel, only backwards, I would think that Repel protection would cover it. Repel protection is far less common than KB protection, though.

1. Yes. This is the same as [Ninja|Beast|Athletic] Run, though. It's basically Athletic Run, plus a stealth radius and out-of-combat defense, in a less-expensive, slottable power. 2. Since the other travel powers raise the respective caps that used to be the default for everyone and it no longer scales with level, the caps for Infiltration would be the previous caps, so 92.5 mph running, 78.2 mph jump speed, and since I didn't see anything about a jump height boost for Super Jump, 200 feet jump height. The issue with it is the stealth radius: because it has one it still counts as one of those "can't stack with other forms of stealth" powers, it means you can't stack it with things like Shadow Fall or Arctic Air like you can with, say, Super Speed (which also provides stealth but works with those powers). I personally think that's a failing in the power and that it should stack, because there's already a precedent travel power that does, and that the stealth and defense on it should simply suppress the same way that Super Speed's stealth does.

That's sort-of being addressed in this page, but it was in the "other powers" section, not the travel powers-specific part. To summarize, Rooted won't mess up your movement but Granite still will. If you want to provide more feedback on that, the thread's that way (link to most recent patch notes within it here).

I doubt it will be shelved indefinitely; a lot of the travel power changes were reverted in page 1 and ended up in page 2 along with new items (like higher speed caps). Without having any insider knowledge I feel that it's a "back to the drawing board" situation instead of an "oh well, so much for that idea" one.

I haven't specifically tested it but think it is likely to still cause mobs to flee, like Burn which doesn't have a fear effect and it still frequently scatters mobs simply due to threat generation from DoT unless there's an active taunt effect on them - which is why I think the parenthetical note about the mobs possibly still fleeing is there. If I'm wrong on that someone that has been testing it can correct me; as I said I'm posting about it based on how other powers behave. I personally would rather it didn't immediately scatter enemies as, unlike other powers that have the avoid/fear effect (Rain of Fire, Caltrops, etc) it does not have a slow to keep mobs inside it. But I get where you are coming from; Caltrops is incredible mitigation for my Traps characters because of how much the "afraid/avoid" mechanic messes with mob AI. Count me as one of those glad to see the burst absorb back in Spirit Ward; the endurance cost is higher than Sentinel Instant Regeneration (and the effect not as strong) if you're looking at it as an always-on buff, but the quick boost on activation and having the ability to move it around make up for that IMO. I'm still seeing a Sword of Damocles hanging over Arcane Bolt in the future, but right now it's in a great spot. I said in the last thread that I think this is probably about as good as we're likely to see Rune as a balancing point if we're limited to a 33% uptime; the 40/120 duration and recharge is likely better for those who only ever used it reactively but the longer duration is good for those using it proactively. A fixed recharge power reduces the slotting requirement, and the improvement to the rest of the pool reduce the opportunity cost. I wouldn't take the Sorcery pool for it, and it's certainly not worth making a build around, but if I were already invested in Sorcery for other reasons it's a good pick.

Yes, but Fire Blast (the power) is the weakest T2 for DPA because of the animation time was normalized to 1.67 seconds but the recharge (and damage) is that of a T1. The rest of the set makes up for it, though. I do think that it's a good buff, but was also thinking that it's likely going to be nerfed based on the numbers with Arcane Power active and would rather have an easier-to-test consistently good power.

I will admit, using the strict definition, it falls into that category. I will also say that if you are strictly using that definition, there are so few powers that are not force multipliers in this game that the term loses its meaning, thus I was referring to the colloquial definition of "greatly assisting your team's [combat] potential" as opposed to "greatly assisting yourself." Because being "force multipliers" is the oft-stated balancing mantra about why squishies aren't supposed to get any mez protection, and pretty much every power in an armor set counts when you're talking about your own combat potential. Edit: The second part of the paragraph you responded to wasn't about it being a force multipler or not, it was about your listed point #4, where you stated that "it boiled down to 'Are you having mez problems? Take RoP!' 'Are you a squishy? Take RoP!' 'Are you already defense softcapped, with max recharge, but want more surviveability? Take RoP!'" and "it was a catch all power that was abused repeatedly, and allowed entire aspects of the game to be ignored for ATs that shouldn't have that immunity." Clearly it was not as widely-spread and abused as you contend. But that could have been more clearly worded that I was separating which point I was addressing, since they were both in the same paragraph.

My concern is that if you only use it with Arcane Power up the cooldown might not be as long as you (the devs) expect based on some feedback about how frequently Arcane Power is triggering, meaning that it's already in the "too strong" category while it's up in those exact same situations, and that reducing the random chance of Arcane Power triggering as a balancing act is likely going to be difficult if it continues to trigger off of any power activation because of how spammable some powers are compared to others. Also, haven't checked the formulas again but is there an endurance penalty in play for pool powers? I'm not in a position to log on currently but CoD2 shows the endurance cost at 9.62 for a 7 second recharge instead of 7.696 (comparing to a similar power like Hydro Blast, which doesn't follow the Defiance 2.0 standardized T1/T2 1/1.67 4/8 animation and recharge). I was specifically asking about a T3 recharge (10 seconds) in my original post because they aren't standardized for animation time, but a 1.73 second animation would be worse than most blast set tier 2 powers even with a matching 8 second recharge because the standard animation is 1.67 seconds for the same damage.

It will change, it was confirmed as a bug that it's taking recharge slotting currently earlier in the thread (I think page 2 or 3). Regarding these points: it is not a "force multiplier", let alone a "HUGE" one. It's a very strong defensive ability that only affects one person. Claiming it is a force multiplier is like stating that Build Up is a force multiplier, so I guess all of the melee builds are force multipliers and should be vulnerable to mez as well? The scarcity at which it is taken is directly contrary to your point about having an option - if you build a character around it - not encouraging build diversity that I have to wonder if you saw that it's taken by, at the highest rate of any AT, 11% of Corruptors. Yes, such a catch-all power that everyone was using. /sarcasm The changes to RoP in this build, which leave its peak performance (to clarify what I mean by this: how strong the boost is at any one point while it's active) alone, reduce its effectiveness as a proactive boost by reducing duration and limiting the uptime to a fixed value, while increasing the effectiveness as a reactive option by effectively recharge-capping the old recharge. Others have suggested a 60/180 duration/recharge ratio, and that might be a good balance point, but only because a fixed recharge means that it's actually a reduced investment in the power as no slotting needed. Yes, damage formulas dictate base damage, but... ...if this is why can't it just have a longer recharge, then why? I mentioned early in the thread I'd rather have a dependable, longer recharge version specifically because it would be useful as part of an attack chain rather than situationally useful. Situationally good powers, because you have to meet the condition, are only as good as the situation comes up. Arcane Bolt's shorter animation time makes it "meh" without the boost, and really good with it, so it might be worthwhile either way depending on your build, but for the most part powers that scream out "I have this really great trick! But I can only do it once!" are either left off of builds or used as mules for set bonuses and/or globals (see: Vengeance, Fallout, single-target rez other powers, and, for me, Rune of Protection - the uptime was just too limited without an entire build based around it). Every power pick on your build is displacing another power you could have taken, and the "primary is better than secondary is better than pool" design principle for the strength of power order is flawed since the actual strength of the powers is based on formulas and AT modifiers - which is why nearly all Defender blast secondary effects are stronger than than a Corruptor's despite being a secondary for one and primary for the other, and the same blast powers will do more damage on a Dominator (from their secondary) than a Corruptor (primary). The "weaker" part on pool attacks was a conscious choice to have long animations and low recharges, which is why they're generally considered bad across the board, but APP/EPP attacks are generally considered good. Even in general utility powers there are exceptions - Widow secondary Vengeance is identical to power pool Vengeance, except that you can't get it until much later in your build. The overall discussion on that is, as has been pointed out earlier in the thread, far beyond the scope of the sorcery changes, but it is relevant in the ask of simply tacking a longer recharge on Arcane Bolt and following the design formulas instead of trying to balance a seemingly-abusable mechanic for a gimmick that makes it better (when active) than the longer recharge would boost it to.

I had a dummy character that still had it on a build I never use with just 1 SO slotted (it was the character that I was testing it with), so that makes more sense than Hasten being active and messing it up. That said, I thought that clicking the link from chat would ignore my current slotting, and later clicking the same link showed 2 minutes, so whatever. Edit: after very brief testing, count me as voting for "rather have a click that hits peak immediately" for Spirit Ward rather than the more limited sustain.

Bug? Or issue with the patch notes? 90 second recharge gives you a much better uptime ratio.

Exactly.