Defender Inherent - Both against theme and often useless.

[Shin Magmus]

     I have a suggestion for a new Defender inherent.  I realize that Defenders are "strong enough" given how they get Tanker numbers on several powers and how Defender Sonic Blast is probably the single most over-centralizing set in the game, but I for one am sick and tired of Vigilance as it stands now.  It goes against the very design of a Defender.

 

Current Vigilance: provides a scaling dmg buff based on team size, 30% at solo / 20% at duo / 10% with 3 people / 0% with 4 or more people.  This part can remain unchanged.

Current Vigilance: provides a scaling Endurance Discount ONLY to the Defender themselves (selfish) and based on how much hp teammates are missing.  The bonus is largest if teammates die.

 

     Here are the 2 huge problems.  First and foremost this is an inherent that does nothing if your Defender is good and keeps teammate's topped off on health through amazing Buffs/Debuffs.  The inherent REWARDS BAD PLAY AND WORKS BETTER IF YOU LET YOUR TEAMMATES GET ABUSED AND DIE.  Additionally, the actual buff it gives only affects the Defender themselves instead of their team, making it very anti-support.  Second: the actual buff is useless in most realistic endgame situations.  Almost nobody is running builds that actually struggle on Endurance, and several Defender powersets give you INFINITE ENDURANCE: Kinetics, Cold Dom, Rad, Empathy, Nature, and even Time has a little bit in there.  Other builds are using Cardiac Alpha to run tons of extra toggles and be insanely tough, or using Ageless Destiny to fix the problem after the fact.  Needless to say I don't enjoy a useless inherent that only provides its useless buff if I build and play badly.

 

Here's my frequent suggestion for new Vigilance:

 

New Vigilance: provides the same scaling dmg buff based on team size, to help Defenders solo when forced to do so.

New Vigilance: provides a passive aura in a 25 ft radius around you, which affects yourself and the team with a 255 target cap.

 

     The radius is much smaller than Leadership auras which encourages the Defender player to stand closer to their allies, thus actually using their Defender ATO procs more often.  This means the Defender must actually be VIGILANT and fight near the team, instead of flying 50 ft in the air and wasting their ATOs.  This passive aura is always on and does not scale in effectiveness ever; it cannot be enhanced and is not affected by global enhancements or Incarnates.  The stat buff provided by the aura is BASED ON YOUR PRIMARY POWERSET, and is designed to provide what your chosen powerset lacks.

 

<> BUFF/DEBUFF SETS WITHOUT HEALS <>

Cold Domination,  Force Field,  Sonic Resonance,  Traps:

+75% Regeneration

 

<> SETS WHICH BUFF DEFENSE OR REDUCE TOHIT AND HAVE HEALS <>

Empathy,  Poison,  Storm Summoning,  Dark Miasma,  Time Manipulation,  Radiation Emission

+8% Resistance (All)

 

<> STRONG SETS WHICH BOTH HEAL AND BUFF RESISTANCE <>

Nature Affinity,  Pain Domination,  Thermal Radiation,  Kinetics

+5% Defense (All)

 

<> TA IS TRASH <>

Trick Arrow (If people seriously aren't going to fix this set)

All 3 buffs at the same time

 

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by ShinMagmus

[Outrider_01]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

 The stat buff provided by the aura is BASED ON YOUR PRIMARY POWERSET, and is designed to provide what your chosen powerset lacks.

Found the problem.  Turns out no other inherent buffs individual power sets.  Mess of coding, and turns out it would drastically make certain powersets more useful causing a huge shit towards one over the others.

 

75% regen aura?  Like the Health inherent or  like the Regeneration armor set, traps already has a 150 regen ground placement power so you are looking at 225% on decent recharge if its like Regen armor.  Forcefield, yeah +regen and pretty good defense bubbles if it was 75%.

 

8% resist? Dark and Radiation can already make the bad guy whiff at you aimlessly with -tohit so why try to reduce the incoming damage if they can't hit you. Time itself is a mishmash of random Defender sets with its effects, so regen or resist depending on the consideration.

 

+5 defense?  Thats basically 2.5 percent avoidance, unless something changed even con minions where 50/50 (5% of 50 = 2.5%)chance to hit you and higher the level it just becomes smaller.  I could be wrong though about the chance to hit on your average minion if it did change over the years, but you have to stack defense with massive amount of IOs and such if you don't have self defense powers.  Sounds kinda useless.

 

Your suggestion is good, but its too wide spread since no other inherent that buffs individual powersets like that.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Outrider_01

[Shin Magmus]

5% Defense is actually likely the strongest of the 3.  Most players have builds that incidentally get between 20% and 30% Defense to all positions just from common IO's.  All Defenders worth their salt are running Leadership, and enhanced Defender Maneuvers gives 5.5% Defense.  That means that any Defender with that inherent is granting 10.5% Defense total to the team, and that puts regular people at a now total of 30% to 40% Defense.  This applies at roughly all levels as well, except extremely early level or builds without a lot of attuned IOs.  Now the 5% Defense is doing proportionately much more because of how it edges everyone closer to the soft cap.  Add in Support Hybrids or Barriers and people are soft-capped despite the Defender using a powerset that isn't supposed to have Defense buffs.

 

I expected most people to say 5% Defense was too much.

 

Edit: Remember that people are only shooting for 45% most of the time, and 59% in Incarnates.  Conversely, 75% is the resist cap for most ATs.  The inherent is 11% of the soft-cap Defense total and is only 10.6% of the hard-cap Resist total.  So yes the Defense bonus is actually stronger than the Resist bonus.

Edited November 11, 2019 by ShinMagmus

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

The inherent REWARDS BAD PLAY AND WORKS BETTER IF YOU LET YOUR TEAMMATES GET ABUSED AND DIE.

Only if you're a total [censored]head and and have the mental capacity of the average cabbage - and feel that you're less of a person unless you're getting an advantage from your inherent.

In other words, nah.  You're massively over-reacting.

[Indystruck]

It is disappointing that I only notice the inherent defender when soloing because I keep my team alive. I don't think wanting some sort of advantage from your inherent when, you know, basically every single other class in the game gets some advantage from their inherent, is too crazy an idea. The aura based off of your powerset though is probably too nightmareish to implement.

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

The inherent REWARDS BAD PLAY AND WORKS BETTER IF YOU LET YOUR TEAMMATES GET ABUSED AND DIE. 

 

Such negativity lol

52 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

It is disappointing that I only notice the inherent defender when soloing because I keep my team alive. I don't think wanting some sort of advantage from your inherent when, you know, basically every single other class in the game gets some advantage from their inherent, is too crazy an idea. The aura based off of your powerset though is probably too nightmareish to implement.

Could just view it as an inherent that helps those in need, i.e. the young/low level/newb Defender who doesn't have all their powers slotted or is just up against a bad enemy match up.

 

Unless it's to shore up the AT's weakness, I don't think Defenders need help to support better.  Even sets with no heals and only +def/res buffs, they tend to push a team's survival to the point they can take care of themselves with their own heals/regen/inspirations.

 

Personal opinion here, but I find the categorization of "selfish" kind of out of place.  In a combat situation, the medic shouldn't administer aid if they themselves are in danger.  Not all the time will you have a tank or CC or another support available to babysit you (the defender) when you're in trouble.  If the inherent is going to get changed, I'd propose ontop of a bit of END redux as a base (not dependent on hurt teammates), it should be something like Domination with a bar that fills up (as teammates take damage) and then a button that grants the user +def, +res, +Heal over Time and +mez protection.  The def/res wouldn't be much but the meat of the suggestion would be the mez protection which only a limited amount of primaries provides (FF, Sonic and Traps, I believe) and even then, having holes to sleep that can cause your support powers to toggle off.

 

This is taking into account the level up game.  I don't really care about incarnate.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Leogunner

[Vanden]

People have been complaining about the Defender inherent since before there was a Defender inherent. They only got the one they have because people complained that all the other ATs had some inherent. The fact is, Defenders work fine as an AT without an inherent, so if their inherent ends up doing nothing most of the time in teams, that doesn't matter.

[Razor Cure]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

The fact is, Defenders work fine as an AT without an inherent, so if their inherent ends up doing nothing most of the time in teams, that doesn't matter.

Not sure that is a good reason for the Fender inherent to be crap, or 'less useful' at least. Other ATs could work fine with no inherent also..but that doesn't mean suddenly losing the power wouldn't hurt. Same as fenders actually getting something better would be nice.

[Shin Magmus]

I also just don't like the idea of their inherent being crap.  Why are they the one AT who has good numbers but a useless inherent?  I mean if that's fine why don't we just increase Brute damage by 200% and remove Fury?  We could buff every AT's numbers to where they "work fine without an inherent" and get rid of all the inherents.  But that hurts the game and makes the ATs boring and same-samey.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

First of all team mates being beaten up and even put down isnt bad play, nor a sign of a bad defender or of the player themselves. There is a very wide spectrum of build power and player ability, but just because a casual who doesnt build for the meta face plants more often doesnt imply any negative to them.

 

2nd every defender worth their salt has leadership. leadership and the defender inherent go hand and glove by design. at the same time they can invoke vengeance they are basically also free to spam their best powers at will, and not everyone builds for meta end recovery or meta soft def set builds. In fact if this games pop is at all like lives pop only a small percentage of players are using sets and build guides to optimize it.

 

Also soft def is shit, maybe the majority of set users build for it, but that doesnt make it the best it just shows those who lack understanding how unlike a  set like super reflex that is basically immune to the cascade def failure caused by debuffs, those who depend on set bonuses and pool powers for def tend to also be the players taht shy away from any mob types that can cut into them.

 

I frankly think you dont understand what a defender and more importantly an offender is capable of. Offender builds are the original solo GM slayers. That means theya re the king of the hill, the true kryptonian son, the dark pheonix, the power cosmic incarnate of cohverse. Killing an av or twelve at a time solo is always a good benchmark especially for scrappers. But its still no offender.

 

Teams that are good at surviving already dont need a defender,a  defender shouldnt want to be on such a team. They should be the AT favored by mentors and guides trying to help newer and more casual players get through content that would otherwise be a pita. Sure Ol berk here as a blaster loves him a kin def on the team it basically means I dont have to think and can play on auto pilot which is nice on TF runs etc. but on my scrappers, brutes, etc I dont really want a defender on my team they could be helping others far more in need then I of their powers.

 

Like any AT there are teams that simply dont need support AT, those who seek to support should find those who need to be supported. I expect in such teams face planting will happen no matter how hard you try and instead of avoiding a face plant use it to your teams advantage.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

3 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

I also just don't like the idea of their inherent being crap.  Why are they the one AT who has good numbers but a useless inherent?  I mean if that's fine why don't we just increase Brute damage by 200% and remove Fury?  We could buff every AT's numbers to where they "work fine without an inherent" and get rid of all the inherents.  But that hurts the game and makes the ATs boring and same-samey.

Since a brute almost never runs at a full 200% yeah taht would be game breakingly bad. Some inherents like a scrappers are so random one simply cant count on them. A blasters really only lets them use 3 powers, many players ignore slotting up, that let them fight on while CCd(which I love and always optimize those 3 powers on blasters personally)

 

I love the end reduction on defenders. i build with it in mind. I dont try to ever go 100% support mode, and dont fret a bit if someone goes down as it just lets me and the team go super man veng mode.

 

It only sucks for the handful of meta players only running on optimal teams, that the game does not need to take into account when factoring changes and balance. Its also nice when sucker punched by a sapper or pushing hard through hordes of carny folk.

[MetaVileTerror]

I think all of the Inherents could use a once-over, frankly, but I've always been against Vigilance for a lot of reasons.  I'm right there with ShinMagmus; Defenders should have something to reward Supportive play.  Vigilance, as it stands, would honestly work better on Tankers.  Defenders, I feel, would benefit from something which would work a little like Defiance, but for Support Powers instead.  It would be a lot trickier to suss out, of course, and I'm too tired to parse my ideas clearly . . . but I just wanted to let Shin know that they're not alone in their feelings about Vigilance not being fitting to Defenders.

[Indystruck]

5 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

First of all team mates being beaten up and even put down isnt bad play, nor a sign of a bad defender or of the player themselves. There is a very wide spectrum of build power and player ability, but just because a casual who doesnt build for the meta face plants more often doesnt imply any negative to them.

 

2nd every defender worth their salt has leadership. leadership and the defender inherent go hand and glove by design. at the same time they can invoke vengeance they are basically also free to spam their best powers at will, and not everyone builds for meta end recovery or meta soft def set builds. In fact if this games pop is at all like lives pop only a small percentage of players are using sets and build guides to optimize it.

 

Also soft def is shit, maybe the majority of set users build for it, but that doesnt make it the best it just shows those who lack understanding how unlike a  set like super reflex that is basically immune to the cascade def failure caused by debuffs, those who depend on set bonuses and pool powers for def tend to also be the players taht shy away from any mob types that can cut into them.

 

I frankly think you dont understand what a defender and more importantly an offender is capable of. Offender builds are the original solo GM slayers. That means theya re the king of the hill, the true kryptonian son, the dark pheonix, the power cosmic incarnate of cohverse. Killing an av or twelve at a time solo is always a good benchmark especially for scrappers. But its still no offender.

 

Teams that are good at surviving already dont need a defender,a  defender shouldnt want to be on such a team. They should be the AT favored by mentors and guides trying to help newer and more casual players get through content that would otherwise be a pita. Sure Ol berk here as a blaster loves him a kin def on the team it basically means I dont have to think and can play on auto pilot which is nice on TF runs etc. but on my scrappers, brutes, etc I dont really want a defender on my team they could be helping others far more in need then I of their powers.

 

Like any AT there are teams that simply dont need support AT, those who seek to support should find those who need to be supported. I expect in such teams face planting will happen no matter how hard you try and instead of avoiding a face plant use it to your teams advantage.

 

This was a lot of words to not really address the topic at all.

[Shin Magmus]

Sure, I don't know anything about Defenders... especially since I have 3x lv50 Defenders, my first lv50 on live was a Defender, and Defenders are my favorite AT.  One of them is a Poison/Fire Offender with Musculature Radial who breaks all the molds.

 

My point: Current Vigilance is broken, and is often useless, not for all players but definitely for some.  It's especially useless on Empathy, the most played Defender primary on these servers.  They are the most likely to be under the effect of a super easy super high recovery buff from Recovery Aura: completely invalidating the supposed benefits of their Inherent.  Several other sets also have effectively infinite endurance from their kits.  Some people tried to address how new ideas for Defender inherents don't benefit all sets equally, but is that actually worse than the current situation where it does NOTHING for some sets?

 

Let's address that point and not sidestep it by talking about how Defenders are good enough anyways or pretending I have no Defenders.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

4 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

Sure, I don't know anything about Defenders... especially since I have 3x lv50 Defenders, my first lv50 on live was a Defender, and Defenders are my favorite AT.  One of them is a Poison/Fire Offender with Musculature Radial who breaks all the molds.

 

My point: Current Vigilance is broken, and is often useless, not for all players but definitely for some.  It's especially useless on Empathy, the most played Defender primary on these servers.  They are the most likely to be under the effect of a super easy super high recovery buff from Recovery Aura: completely invalidating the supposed benefits of their Inherent.  Several other sets also have effectively infinite endurance from their kits.  Some people tried to address how new ideas for Defender inherents don't benefit all sets equally, but is that actually worse than the current situation where it does NOTHING for some sets?

 

Let's address that point and not sidestep it by talking about how Defenders are good enough anyways or pretending I have no Defenders.

Try hard much?;) But seriously an inherent that works well over all isnt in some dire need of alterations. As my earlier example of blasters and their ability, if you dont invest in their first 3 powers, then their biggest advantage of the inherent is lost. A great many blasters Ive known at best invest in 1 of those 3 powers with slots and good sets. But I would argue in endless defiance of them changing how defiance works in any way because I use it the way it is all the time.

 

Considering an Empath basically is on its own an OP factor for anything but a team of casual clueless barmy bashers pugging content higher then they likely should be running, your demanding empaths need something, or just deserve it cus, comes off far more as QQ entitlement then anything else.

 

In fact your only in game examples seem to be well empaths are so good they end up not having enough to do etc, not any instance of oh man this keeps happening to my teams every time and this change would greatly improve the play experience for an under performing AT/Power set etc.

 

Yes thier inherent wont be useful to EVERY build, thats nothing new for any of the ATs. From tankers who just want to fight and not care about the team, to petless masterminds, the wide range of build options taking ATs outside of their box mean trying to make a perfect universally useful inherent for every possibility is beyond ludicrous, it might even be dangerously close to going plaid.

[Leogunner]

5 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

My point: Current Vigilance is broken, and is often useless, not for all players but definitely for some.  It's especially useless on Empathy, the most played Defender primary on these servers.  They are the most likely to be under the effect of a super easy super high recovery buff from Recovery Aura: completely invalidating the supposed benefits of their Inherent.  Several other sets also have effectively infinite endurance from their kits.  Some people tried to address how new ideas for Defender inherents don't benefit all sets equally, but is that actually worse than the current situation where it does NOTHING for some sets?

 

Let's address that point and not sidestep it by talking about how Defenders are good enough anyways or pretending I have no Defenders.

My issue is that your suggestion is that it doesn't actually do anything interesting.  A passive buff is boring.  Supporting a team more when you're already at the top of the charts is also boring (I know you Defender healer purists out there get off to doing nothing but support but that isn't the only thing you're supposed to be doing lol).  If a change were being considered, something more active would be great especially since support sets tend to have a degree of passiveness (and compared to a dominator or controller, defender is pretty passive, even moreso for bubble sets).

[Dragon Crush]

While this wouldn't be all that useful for kins, how about when your team fills up, that damage bonus goes to them to a lesser degree?  Have small team-wide damage bonus starting when you get a partner and scaling up to full team, perhaps maxing at 8%. Not much, but it'd be something that groups without kins could appreciate.

 

Or maybe team wide debuff resistance, starting out at 2% -rech/-movement/-def/-tohit/-perception resistance and capping at 14%? While some sets might offer resistance to one or two debuffs, I don't think any offer DDR, not even FF.

[FDR's Think Tank]

I was fully against this until you gave Trick Arrow all three of the arbitrary buff sets. That's the part that makes this click... and made me think that maybe the defender shouldn't be trying to get his teammates killed. That fits more with a Corrupter, if you think about it, but they get Scourge instead. And the Archetypes aren't confined to Hero or Villain anymore, so that doesn't even matter much.

 

Making a change over the whole Archetype is tricky, especially when you have and entire power set of that Archetype which is universally recognized as not functioning well.

 

As far as complaints about activity/non-activity... I am NOT so sure giving Defenders another thing to manage (I.E. a combat charge bar with click activation benefits when full) would solve the aired grievance that some Defenders focus too much on one role of the class (Buffing/Healing) and ignore other contributions to the team. However, you can't FORCE people to play in a way they don't want.

 

~However~

What you can do... is similar to the Uber Employee Encouragement system... You HIGHLIGHT various targets and give a charge/minor buff for using a power on the chosen target. You could get even fancier and specify the power to be used (Provided it follows the Heal/buff for allies and Attack/Debuff for enemies dynamic.) The system could choose critical targets, or choose randomly, or have some other dynamic.... It would take a bit of coding, either way. The Defender would then see either an ally or an enemy highlighted, also highlighting a specific power to be used on the target. TO be fair, this is a lot like Offensive Opportunity, but it DOES reward a VIGILANT player since the key difference is Offensive Opportunity is more flexible about who it is activated on and when it is activated. The nice thing about this is that for a defender with no buffs or heals, like a Trick Arrow Defender, the mechanic basically works the same as it does for all the other defenders. The Vigilant Defender has to play a bit of DDR with his targets and powers. Or he can ignore it and do what he thinks is correct.

 

In the end, I don't think Defenders are really losing anything they will miss. After all, I hardly see people defending the current model.

 

 

[Zepp]

I've read through this thread, I've also played Defenders, and I am just not feeling the need for a change. Yes, the inherent's latter half is only good when the team is playing at the edge of its ability, but just because it is situational does not make it bad/useless. It also supports the Defender fulfilling "their role" when they are the most needed. Controllers have a bigger issue with their inherent and primary being fairly useless against a lot of end-game content and should likely get love before Fenders. Sentinels, also need love (but that seems to be in the works). Kheldians need an aspect to their inherent that works sans team. In terms of fixing inherents, I would likely put Fenders about fifth or sixth, basically tied with Tankers. Maybe even lower if you want to talk about a possible minor nerf to Domination...

I'm neither saying that the inherent needs repair, nor that it couldn't be more appropriate. I am simply saying that there is a lot of overselling of a minor problem that isn't even near the top of its category for areas in need of love...

[Sailboat]

On 11/11/2019 at 12:26 PM, Outrider_01 said:

it would drastically make certain powersets more useful causing a huge shit towards one over the others.

Forgive me for pointing this out, but this typo was hilarious.  🙂

[Replacement]

I think it's really worth pointing out there's an implicit bias in that second half of Vigilance that enforces the very thing Defenders are not: healers.

 

It's very clearly meant to read like "you have an edge in delivering Clutch Healing" but most sets aren't heal-based.  It enforces a paradigm that most Defender players dislike (and I'm drawing a distinction here between the Defender players and Empathy players).

 

Whether or not Defenders actually would let allies die for an asinine Endurance Boost really isn't the point: it's that the game has told you that's an optimal path.  An optimal path for a context (healer) that does not make sense for the vast majority of Defender Primaries.

 

I think picking apart the OP's numbers is besides the point -- that's what balance testing is for.

 

Separate the issue from the suggestion.  The issue is valid, and I support changing it up.  I'm ambivalent to the suggested fix, but I've come to realize the best thing a community can do for developers is explain the problems; not present the solutions.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Replacement

[Leogunner]

33 minutes ago, Replacement said:

I think it's really worth pointing out there's an implicit bias in that second half of Vigilance that enforces the very thing Defenders are not: healers.

 

It's very clearly meant to read like "you have an edge in delivering Clutch Healing" but most sets aren't heal-based.  It enforces a paradigm that most Defender players dislike (and I'm drawing a distinction here between the Defender players and Empathy players).

 

Whether or not Defenders actually would let allies die for an asinine Endurance Boost really isn't the point: it's that the game has told you that's an optimal path.  An optimal path for a context (healer) that does not make sense for the vast majority of Defender Primaries.

 

I think picking apart the OP's numbers is besides the point -- that's what balance testing is for.

 

Separate the issue from the suggestion.  The issue is valid, and I support changing it up.  I'm ambivalent to the suggested fix, but I've come to realize the best thing a community can do for developers is explain the problems; not present the solutions.

Well I don't think the point you're highlighting isn't so much an issue as it is a circumstance you've decided to antagonize.  You yourself paint this antagonistic circumstance as being disliked and detrimental and useless BUT frame it as optimal?  That makes no sense.

 

At best, putting it into my own terms, it's not about clutch healing or setting up a contextually detrimental playstyle at the expense of the poor min/maxers that can't utilize every decimal to their upmost advantage.  It's just unshackling a certain burden to be used as the defender sees fit.  You don't have to use it.  You don't need to use it.  It's merely there to allow the defender to fight back even when in dire straits.  This doesn't have to be at the expense of good play (in fact, it allows risky play. Ask a player to get as-ploded so the defender can Veng+whatever other rez boon card they are holding) but it could merely be a bad pull or even the Defender itself tanking but got carried away and got taken down for a short moment.

 

I'm not saying Vigilance is perfect or even great but then I do have words with framing things purposely to strike down afterwards with a shoddy argument.  It's hard for me to support a suggestion that makes assumptions or jumps to conclusions for no reason but to make their statements look good.  

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

Well I don't think the point you're highlighting isn't so much an issue as it is a circumstance you've decided to antagonize.  You yourself paint this antagonistic circumstance as being disliked and detrimental and useless BUT frame it as optimal?  That makes no sense.

I think you're weighting my use of the word "optimal" heavier than I'm implying, here.

 

It's simple: if the game says "here is a thing you can do to increase numbers," then they are implicitly stating "it's a valid tactic."  It's simply a weird mixed signal.  I really don't believe most players would do this, but the optimizers in us see this and it makes us squirm.

 

I'm reminded of an argument in Warframe, where there was a character that had a repeating-aoe that kept getting larger and doing more damage the longer they stayed still.  They could be built in such a way that they could do this so long that they would be booted from missions as AFK.  

Everyone said that's "working as intended, don't use such a scummy tactic if you don't want booted."  But the designers told the players to stand still and play that way.  The player is not the jerk for simply doing what they're told and optimizing it.

 

EDIT: Leo, I'm reading the rest of your post thoroughly several times over.  There's a disconnect between us, here.  You're saying I'm saying things I don't think I'm saying?  Can you maybe elaborate on what I'm doing that is essentially stacking up such a strawman and knocking it down?

Edited November 14, 2019 by Replacement

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

I think you're weighting my use of the word "optimal" heavier than I'm implying, here.

 

It's simple: if the game says "here is a thing you can do to increase numbers," then they are implicitly stating "it's a valid tactic."  It's simply a weird mixed signal.  I really don't believe most players would do this, but the optimizers in us see this and it makes us squirm.

There are sets with rezzes and self-rezzes in them.  I personally don't think that's sending a message to turn off your toggles and go get blasted on cooldown.  You CAN, but frankly, I feel it's a waste for when you DO need that rez and it's on cooldown.

 

If you're making the argument that people try to min/max Vigilance to the peril of their teammates, I'd ask for some evidence.  It's possible that new players might try it but once they discover what the bonus actually grants, they'd probably stop bothering...I'd even go so far to say said new players likely get a good amount of use out of the inherent because they are learning what they're doing.

 

I don't think it's quite the parallel of your other example because the bonus Vigilance provides is nowhere near as effective.

 

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

EDIT: Leo, I'm reading the rest of your post thoroughly several times over.  There's a disconnect between us, here.  You're saying I'm saying things I don't think I'm saying?  Can you maybe elaborate on what I'm doing that is essentially stacking up such a strawman and knocking it down?

The strawman is framing Vigilance as a boon worth sacrificing your team for (as it being some sort of optimal path the game is pushing you toward) but fully acknowledging it's limited use.  Perhaps it's linking two trains of thoughts in your post that run separately and putting them on the same track but that was the jist I got from your post.

 

I'm somewhat in agreement with @Bentley Berkeley in that Defenders really don't need anything added to them to make them better.  They already do the most buffing, they get a leg up on secondary blast effects and solo, they get put at the same damage standing as a Corruptor before Scourge.  But at the same time, I don't like the current Vigilance and wouldn't mind trading it in for something else.  My stance on the topic leans more toward aspects people have complained about in that a Support AT's premiere buffs don't affect the user and at one point during live, I suggested Vigilance giving the Defender some limited version of their buffs castable on themselves (before the whole AoE buff bubbles was a thing) but now I know it's likely too strong.  I also don't think just giving them "alternate Leadership aura" does much except make a Defender player feel special.

 

To reiterate my suggestion: Trade old Vigilance for an alternate version of Domination (build-up bar and a clickie).  Passively, the inherent gives them some minor END redux, the bar fills up as teammates or yourself get hurt (builds faster with fewer teammates) and the button just provides mez protection and maybe another self buff.  Balance it so that the duration isn't long but the recharge is also short (fyi, I dislike perma-dom and wish they'd give it the same treatment, but that would be a nerf) with the choke point being you'd still have to build the bar between uses.

[Replacement]

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

The strawman is framing Vigilance as a boon worth sacrificing your team for (as it being some sort of optimal path the game is pushing you toward) but fully acknowledging it's limited use.  Perhaps it's linking two trains of thoughts in your post that run separately and putting them on the same track but that was the jist I got from your post.

This, of sorts.  I have 2 issues with Vigilance:

1. Bad incentive structure. And I should mention my bias here: I do not like vengeance sacrifice tactics. To me, that's the logical conclusion of what would happen if the low hp benefit was actually good.
2. The payoff mostly applies to healers, at least in theory. Ostensibly, the reason for the endurance discount is to help save the low-hp ally. But that context doesn't make sense for most defenders. If you're instead using it for, say, tar patch, then you're back to the poor incentive structure from point #1.

Honestly, I can forgive #1. I want to be clear that it's "a thing that is weird" and this isn't causing me great grief.

But it would be super if their passive was a little more accurate to their role. And if you clean up point #2, you may as well fix #1 while you're there.

 

Edit: I'd be really curious to know what it would take to kill permadom. I would love to see it become less mandatory. But that is certainly worth it's own thread.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Replacement