Shields: Let's discuss it

[Castle]

I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them. Here's what I am seeing:

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a Shields character with no allies within 8' compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

Additionally, Against All Odds is increasing the Shields characters damage output by scale 1 + scale 0.55 per enemy up to 10 within 8' radius. Grant Cover is granting a Team Defense Buff and the set comes with a built in attack.

I've played the set, in the ITF with a group, I've solo'd, and duo'd, and have not found it to be a bad set.

How do your experiences differ from our play testing, math, and experiences?
What areas should we be looking at in this equation to make the Shields balanced but not over powered?
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

Edit: Clarity

[Flame_Wrath]

I liked the numbers you posted. This is a completely different way to look at Shields, and it does make sense, but I have only played it to a relatively low level and a limited amount of time.

What many people might be looking for are comparisons to other sets, because that seems like what the main issue was, that they are sub-par 'comparing to'.

I'll let people with more Shield experience carry on. :D

Thanks!

[Talen Lee]

A lot of the comparison I've heard has been from... well, Billz, whose main complaint is that it doesn't solo as well as the other sets and that its team buffs are meaningless for solo performance.

I might be missing some nuance there, but I think that's his stance.

[PsychoDad_NA]

Admittedly I have not played with shields enough to state how over or under powered it is. But in the short time I have played with it I did notice one thing that makes the set void for me; the animations (or lack of).

What exactly is the point of the shield? When an enemy attacks my hero leans back (or throws up his right arm) just like a SR scrapper avoids attacks. Why is the shield arm not raising the shield to block the attack?

I know this is kind of a minor issue but it is a game breaker for anyone who wants the feel to be right. Which I would bet is a lot of us.

[Castle]

I should note, the above numbers are for Scrappers. Looking at Tanker values, I see some interesting differences. Perhaps, this is the part that I've overlooked.

Please note which version of shields you are playing when you respond: Brute, Scrapper or Tanker. It appears to make a large difference.

[VoodooGirl]

- on a note - I think the Dev's have a golden opportunity to dish out some more powersets to tanker/scrappers/brutes based on a variety of shield options - Electric Shield powerset? Fire Shield? Ice Shield? A lot of options for additional powersets there for gameplay instead of just aesthetics.

[Siolfir]

Personally speaking, I think the endurance cost factor is largely a part of what all else "needs" to get stacked with Shields to have the same feel of survivability.

The damage debuff from AAO is nice for the mobs in range of it, but not every mob is going to be in range. The lower defense numbers (relative to SR) mean you're more likely to get hit by secondary effects, which can often hurt performance more than simple damage that can be easily healed.

In addition, SR is much easier to tweak to the soft-cap on Defense. The set with similar positional numbers (Ninjitsu) has a built-in self heal and an Elude clone for a tier 9 and three AoE aggro-deflection tools in Caltrops, Smoke Flash, and Blinding Powder (which also has -to-hit to stack with the defense).

The rest of my Elec/Shield Brute's woes were most likely directly related to Hasten; on a SO build, even slotting for EndRed, you'll go through endurance quickly. But without Hasten Elec's damage performance against "hard targets" is somewhat meager, and I want LR and SC up as often as possible. But I had to stop to rest for either hit points or endurance multiple times on Villainous missions after the level bump to 50 (running patron arc missions against Longbow), something that my other Brutes haven't had to bother with since hitting level 20.

Just my thoughts on/experience with it.

Edit: since I just saw it requested (but it should be obvious), I was only using the Brute version of Shields in testing.

[K_Lamity]

[ QUOTE ]
I should note, the above numbers are for Scrappers. Looking at Tanker values, I see some interesting differences. Perhaps, this is the part that I've overlooked.

Please note which version of shields you are playing when you respond: Brute, Scrapper or Tanker. It appears to make a large difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been trying Shields for Brutes, but am not high enough to comment just yet.

I think you've just spotted one of the complaints about shields though; from what I've been hearing from other people the set doesn't seem like it scales up to proper "Tanker" survival levels as well as other sets. I'll have to try rolling one later.

[PsychoDad_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
I should note, the above numbers are for Scrappers. Looking at Tanker values, I see some interesting differences. Perhaps, this is the part that I've overlooked.

Please note which version of shields you are playing when you respond: Brute, Scrapper or Tanker. It appears to make a large difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to ask what kind of differences? Like is the scrapper version out performing the tanker? I have a shield/DM tank and MA/shield scrapper both <10 and I have not noticed much of a difference in defense so far.

[LtZerge]

Comming from a brute stand point, playing him up through the 20s. Shields works fine with other shields and melee toons, but as the soul dmg taker its very mushy.IMO you should look into upping the defense toggles defense debuff resistance a fair bit maybe fuse grant cover and phalanx fighting, and add a quick cool down crowd control kinda power?, but other that that shields does fill it's niche perfectly fine, my brute feels really STRONG and PRETTY and against all odds helps his SMASH, but once again, just mushy when not with other shields/melee toons. It doesn't solo great, on that note.

[Beef_Cake]

Ive personally been paying the Scrapper version of Shields.

I can say, I feel it is ok, not as good as the other sets, but the only thing I think would be a good start for the set is allow the Team Buff to be applied to the Shield caster as well.

Sort of like Mind Link, it effects you and your team. And now that I think of it, are there any AOE team buffs out there that does not effect its caster? I can't think of one.

As for the endurance, I would always feel more comfortable with a bit more, but for the most part I find it ok, I just find myself resting more with this set than any other.

[Dysmal]

My testing has been on an MA/Shield Scrapper. Endurance usage was problematic when Conserve Power was down, but that could have been MA's fault I guess. I was not using Hasten, and did have Stamina. All relevant powers slotted with 1 endurance reduction SO.

Maybe it really was MA. My MA/Dark Scrapper is also an endurance pig.

I did my testing solo other than one Ship Raid on test, so Grant Cover did nothing for me for most of my testing. For a solo character, I'd have hard time picking Shields over Regen or Willpower as a secondary. Maybe if the recharge on Shield Charge was lower, it would be a more attractive solo option.

Edit: Thanks for making the thread.

[Tyrokin]

Firstly, I've found Shields to be fun so far, despite being a relatively low level. I'm working at it, I'm working at it.

I love the idea of a team oriented set over solo, even if Solo is still possible.

I'm really not sure what the problem is with it.

Still. Castle, could you have a look at this thread?:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post12500361 (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12500361&an=0&page=0#Pos t12500361)

Just an idea.

I'll be honest with you Castle... I wouldn't want anything from Shields removed.

[JDub]

I think the biggest issue is Phalanax fighting 8ft radius is to small. Even on 8 man teams it is rare to have people that close to you. I realize for concept reasons it is suppose to be small, but I think increasing the radius to 10-12ft would make a world of differense.

The other issue is resistance. Not to sound rude, but it's like why bother? The resistance lvls are so low they serve no purpose. This might not be an issue for Tanks, but it is huge on Scrappers and even brutes.

Lastly, and this is just a personal beef, four toggles and no xtra endurance help....yuck. This is why I saty away from super reflexes. That's just me though. Anyways, thought I'd post my ideas for Shields. :p


MY Shield Set

[b][i]
1. True Grit - Passive that provides 10% boost to total HP and 4% resistance to all.

2. Deflection - This is a toggle power that provides 10.5% defense from Melee, Ranged, and AoE.

3. Against All Odds - Toggle power stays the same as it is now. (Buffs damage/Debuffs enemy's damage)

4. Active Defense - Remains a click power. Loses KB protection because you have paasive KB protection in Battle Agilty now.

5. Battle Agility - Passive power that gives 6% resistance to all and 2.5% defense to melee, Ranged, and AoE. Also provides protection from KB.


6. Phalanx Fighting - This passive power would have a larger AoE of 16 ft. It would give you 1.05% defense to melee, ranged, and AoE for upto 5 allies in range. Still a max potential of 5.25% defense.

7. Grant Cover Self/Grant Cover Others - You get to choose one of two powers here. You can either have this power provide 8.44% defense to all allies within a 16ft radius, or you can have this power give yourself an additional 4% defense to Melee, Ranged and AoE. Which ever you choose, they both also provide 16% resist to defense debuffs.

8. Shield Charge - This attack ROCKS! and stays the same as it is now....just more damage :) Oh, and PLZ make it do KD instead of KB.

9. One with the Shield - This power stays the same.

This adds up to.....

10% resistance to all.
13% defense to Melee, Ranged, and AoE If you choose to buff others (upto 18.25% with max from Phalanx Fighting)
17% defense to Melee, Ranged, and AoE If you choose to buff yourself (upto 22.25% with max from Phalanx Fighting)
10% boost to total HP
KB in your very first power which is a passive.
3 toggles instead of 4


Also, if deflection had a small chance to deflect ranged attacks back at the caster for damage...that would be a pretty neat aspect to add to the set.

[color=gray] EDIT* These would be numbers for Brutes, which I believe are the same as Scrappers....right? Obviously Tanks would have higher numbers.

[Dark Ether]

I've played this only on a tanker so far, with mace as a secondary. I was recently on a low level sewer party of all shieldies, though, with most being scrappers.

I found myself feeling more squishy with this team than the scrappers seemed to be, although many remarked that they felt more squishy than they did while running WP from the previous beta.

I've run invuln, ice, fire, stone, and wp tanks on live, and at lower levels this feels more fragile that most the others. On the others I'll usually not have the def toggle running at low levels because I need the end - I'll take the passive where possible. With the shield tanker, I was running the def toggle and it seemed more fragile than the others, to me.

[EvilGeko]

QR

I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

2) Remove the SM, LE resists from Deflection, add them to True Grit, up the values [only the Sm, Le] to 1.0 (10% Tankers/7.5% Scrapper/Brute)

This pretty much doubles the resists, but between the health and the resists, it should allow a Shield Tanker to feel more "sturdy" taking alphas, especially with the Tough and Weave that many will wind up taking. And in One with the Shield, the character should feel quite strong.


That seems roughly fair to me, without overpowering the set.

[Lemur Lad]

My own experiences in short:

I played solo on the 3rd setting with SOs, as a Mace/Shield brute. Overall I did well. However I tend to feel a portion of my success can be attributed to the mitigation provided by Mace (which is a lot more than other melee sets than I'm used to).

I did worst against larger groups of foes (two groups or group + ambush) with defense debuffs (longbow). However I did incredibly well in situations where I could cluster the foes tightly (again AoE potential of Mace+ the 7' range).

I faced down 3 elite bosses, Aurora Borealis, Numina, and a Longbow Ballista. I usually died at once in the process of clearing the surrounding low ranks. I could not stand up to the EB solo without purple inspirations, however overall I used less of those than I have in other characters, 2 at a time was enough to keep me from getting hit often.

I feel like I did alright, however I think about how I'd perform on a team against team sized spawns, and I just don't know how well it would translate upwards. I think about Vanguard or Cimerorans and I'm afraid. I think about IOs and I realize there's a lot of help I could get there, but I'm not sure that's how I should judge the set.

Thoughts-
I duoed in low levels with my girlfriend and we both had phalanx fighting. General impression is while the self buff is nice, the range is shorter than I'm used to being even when it comes to other melee teammates. If I duoed with one of her squishies, she'd never be that close, AoEs are just too dangerous.

Solution extend the range, or possible add a further buff to AoE def.

Mitigation- I got mitigation in my primary, and did ok, but there didn't seem to be enough in the set itself. Shield charge was ok but not consistently usefule based on locations.


As for real solutions I'm just not sure. I'm not enough of a numbers guy to say. I'm posting from my gut and saying I like the set but I'm not seeing it as a set I'd feel comfortable running on the highest difficulties solo or teamed.

I know the game isn't balanced around that, I'm just saying that the community tends to judge a set based on how well it handles Invincible and that may be where a lot of the dissatisfaction is coming from.

[Tyrokin]

Honestly though, why do we have to have a set power in each tier? Why can't we have a choice of powers in the same tier?

[BlackWhisper]

I am currently testing a Shield, Energy Melee Tanker. These are my observations up to level 16. At the low levels, before level 8, a tanker with a shield has a huge endurance use problem. I was running only one toggle, and basic cycling of attacks. This caused me to have to rest almost after every other fight. What is worse is the effect of how shield works.

Being a defensive power based on defense rather than resistance it just isn't effective enough to stop even white minions from hitting you regularly. You combine that with gauntlet's area taunt and you are making every minion around you want to hit you. Which they do consistently. That combined with little to no resistance to the damage caused me to face plant. A lot....

Thing changed for the better after level 8. At level 8 I took Against All Odds and that helped to mitigate the damage immeasurably. I found that while I suffered even more in the endurance use department, for running 2 toggles now, I could at least not get my shield rammed down my own throat regularly.

As I progressed through levels things got better, upon reaching level 12 I started to slot dual origin enhancements, with the main focus on Endurance Reductions. This allowed me to start functioning as a more realistic tank. I still couldn't reliably tank as well as a Willpower or Invulnerability tanker, in the area of survivability, but it was getting better. Once I hit level 16 I was finally able to get the AOE attack for Energy Melee. This power finally allowed me to be a real tank, albeit not a great one, but I could finally gather good sized mobs.

In summary I believe that once Single Origin enhancements and Invention Origins become available, along with health and stamina that AT will cover most of its problems. The real question is, is the AT good enough where you really HAVE to take another power pool to make it work?

What I suggest is raise the base defense bonus from the toggles or passives. They just simply are not good enough for a Tank to TANK. The Endurance usage I can live with, its a lot, but not to much so. I also think the power set needs some sort of a better taunt. Either increase the taunt in Against All Odds, or possibly change one of the other powers to also taunt.

[Phillon]

For shield tankers, i noticed that the damage resistance part of the set was a bit disapointing.

Sorry this isnt much of anything to go on concerning preformance numbers, i learned to draw in math class. regardless, it seemed that once i started taking damage, there was no recovering. Both in pvp and pve.

[Ballista]

Shield/Ice Tanker. Mostly solo'ed and duo'ed maxed out difficulty newspaper missions (Carnies, Council, Malta groups mostly). All toggles had 3 end reduction IOs, and all attacks had 1 end reduc IO, and only my powerset toggles were active during fights.

I was *consistently* out of endurance by the time I took out a "group" of 1 lieutenant and 1 minion, or three minions.

This was the biggest reason for what I considered "too much" downtime. I once suggested adding a +recovery buff into AAO that works exactly like the +dmg buff.

I also thought Phalanx Fighting should have some sort of a buff based on teammates, not just proximity (although it's not very consistent with the theme, it's just very challenging to have people consistently fighting right next to you).

[Lycanus]

[ QUOTE ]
Admittedly I have not played with shields enough to state how over or under powered it is. But in the short time I have played with it I did notice one thing that makes the set void for me; the animations (or lack of).

What exactly is the point of the shield? When an enemy attacks my hero leans back (or throws up his right arm) just like a SR scrapper avoids attacks. Why is the shield arm not raising the shield to block the attack?

I know this is kind of a minor issue but it is a game breaker for anyone who wants the feel to be right. Which I would bet is a lot of us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shields don't move much because a skilled shield user moves their shield by a measure of less than inches if they know their business.

Granted, most skilled martial artists don't kick over waist height either, but the martial arts set has always bothered me with its over-flamboyant kicks anyway.

[Catwhoorg]

I ran from 28 to 32 and died exactly once and that was my own stupidity.

The set is fine to go live as is. Maybe adjust come I15-I16 based upon wider playtesting

<edit>
scrapper set.

[Inquizitor]

get the impression this set is supposed to be more of a hybrid armor / Buff set than a purely a Armor set. To that end you have placed alot of restrictions on the Buff portion of the set.

If you open up the auras quite a bit, to say Leadership levels, Then you will have a strong supporting setthat would also work extremely well with each other.

Looking at it from that Hybrid point of view I would be much more willing to tolerate lower personal tanking potential if I could reliably increase my teams survival rate. Perhaps Just increase the range on the Tank version if not all of them.

[_Avid]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them. Here's what I am seeing:

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a Shields character with no allies within 8' compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

Additionally, Against All Odds is increasing the Shields characters damage output by scale 1 + scale 0.55 per enemy up to 10 within 8' radius. Grant Cover is granting a Team Defense Buff and the set comes with a built in attack.

I've played the set, in the ITF with a group, I've solo'd, and duo'd, and have not found it to be a bad set.

How do your experiences differ from our play testing, math, and experiences?
What areas should we be looking at in this equation to make the Shields balanced but not over powered?
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

Edit: Clarity

[/ QUOTE ]
Here's what I see being the problem. You are trying to mix too many types of small defensive abilities (defense, -damage, some resistance). There are no big areas that it does well in meaning that it doesn't defend well against anything but does have some minor ways to defend against most things. Basically, it's defensive abilities are spread out too much. You need to be in certain situations in order to have proper survivability. Other sets don't have to do that nearly as much, they are very self sustaining without having those special requirements. You're forcing people to play in certain ways to achieve certain levels of performance.

[Coldmed]

i cant say..i wasnt part of closed beta and got no lvl bump.

which is too bad..mostly i hear shield tanks are too squishey. the defense is really subpar

check the tank forms..its been discussed about its current underperforming there a few times.

[Dispari]

I like Shields, and I plan on making at least one Shield character on live. I've toyed with it and checked a bunch of stuff so far. There is some room for improvement though. My biggest two complaints about Shields:

1) Small radius for Phalanx. 8 feet is way way too small. Even though you reduced it to 3 people and made the buff bigger, it's still hard to squeeze people into that 8 feet. Unless they're a melee too, you aren't near anyone in a team. Even if you are, you have to be extremely close just to get the benefit. In a duo with a friend, I have my DEF monitored, and she can just barely step away to hit another enemy and I lose my buff. It should definitely be bigger than 8 feet, if not considerably bigger like 15-20. It's too much work trying to chase my allies around just to get my buffs. I want to chase badguys, not my friends.

2) True Grit. I don't know if the numbers on this power are good or not, but I hate how late it comes in the set. Up until this point, you have no bonus HP and no RES (except for a small amount to S/L). You have to wait until THIRTY-FIVE to get any other sort of boost, and it's exceptionally small. Very tiny RES to elements and an HP boost that's only half as much as Willpower gets (and WP even gets +regen to make it stronger). I recommend either making the stats of True Grit much better (especially since it's weaker than a power that comes at level 1 for another set... but at 35) or moving it MUCH higher in the set. I'd like to see it at 4, personally, but 28 is the latest I'd consider the power useful. By 35 your defenses should be done, not picking up a tiny little boost that could've been a big help a long time ago.

Also, small annoyance which isn't that important, but I hate when I have S/L resist that's LESS than my other resists. It bugs me a lot on my Crab Spider, because I should resist the most common damage types in the game, not the weird ones! Shield gets the S/L in its level 1 power that gives DEF. I can't easily slot for DEF, RES, and END in a single power, so I'd end up with True Grit's RES being higher than my S/L. I'd like to see the S/L RES put into True Grit, or True Grit adding even more S/L (since it's only like 3.5% anyway) on top of the existing amount. Like I said, not an important thing, just a little nitpick I have.

[Phillon]

also, what are the chances of lowing the recharge on shield charge from 1m30s to 60s ? for such a cool power, it would be nice if it were ready more.

thanks.

[Bionic_Flea]

Reposted from the patch notes thread:
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Your perception about Shields End Usage is quite valid. In full team support mode, you've got 4 toggles running. The only Recovery Buff you have is a minor buff in One with the Shield. The Broadsword/Shield Defense Scrapper I created in Close Beta has tremendous End problems. Having to Rest every 2 spawns solo or so. Only aggressive End Reduction slotts (i.e. 2 SOs) made the character semi-playable. Even with Stamina, and 1 SO End Cost in the attacks, he can burn through his End bar is I'm not careful.

[/ QUOTE ]

4 Toggles from Shields = 0.78 end/sec
3 Toggles from SR = 0.78 end/sec
3 Toggles from Inv = 0.728 end/sec

I don't see how endurance use is a problem here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Invulnerable isn't really a good comparison because that includes it's mez protection in unyielding, while SR and Shields have a 10.4 endurance click every 2 minutes to keep you protected. That adds up quite a bit over time.

Shields also has the endurance heavy shield charge (13.52 endurance). It's such a cool power, you want to use it every time its up and want it to be up often. But it's really difficult to slot optimally without IOs. It takes accuracy, range, damage, recharge, endurance, and knockback and I would want to slot it for everything but knockback. I think many players would share that sentiment.

SR also gives 30.4 defense to all positions with 3 defense SOs in each of its 3 toggles and 3 autos, while Shields offers 21.69 defense similarly slotted. Shields also gets 3-4% resistance to all but psi, some defense debuff protection (but less than SR), scaling damage buff with enemies in range and scaling defense with allies in range.

SR was seen as compartiviely weaker than the other sets so it was also given scaling resistance. Shields doesn't have that. SR also gives 70% more recovery in Elude than One with the Shield. Elude also softcaps defense by itself, stacking on top of the sets other defense. One with the Shield gives a moderate amount of resistance, which doesn't stack with its defense.

Lets not even talk about regen and willpower as both of those give generous amounts of regen and recovery.

Shields is weaker and more endurance heavy than any other set.

[/ QUOTE ]

Part of the problem, I think, is balancing the set for all the attack sets. When paired with broadsword or dark melee, the additional defense or -tohit adds a lot of survivability. But I think any attempt to balance the defensive set around the attack sets is ultimately fruitless. The attack sets with defensive bonuses give all the defensive sets an edge.

So then you have to consider balancing solo v. team play. Shields performs well enough on a team, especially with other shield scrappers. We ran a team of shield scrappers and tankers and steadily had 70+ defense so long as we stuck together.

But while these types of teams are common in beta and even a few days into issue release on live, even dedicated superteams break up as real life schedules lead to widening level gaps. I don't think its reasonable to balance a set assuming you will have superteams multiplying buff/debuff effects. If you are going to do that kind of balancing, your going to have to start with the buff/debuff sets shared by defenders/controllers/corrupters/masterminds.

SO that leaves us with balancing solo play. For that you have to compare it to how other sets solo. Having played regen and invul to 50, WP to 41, and a few levels of SR and DA, shields just seems a little weaker to me.

[Leandro]

There is one single reason why I won't play Shields on live: clickie mez protection. I know SR and Ninjitsu and I think some other powerset has it, but I absolutely hate it; I feel forced to put that power on auto, which prevents me from using the auto function for a power I'd LIKE to use it on (Hasten for example). All the other "weaknesses" of the set I can work around with pool powers and I'm sure buffs and tweaks will happen in the following months.

Playing with shield characters, I feel the radius of Grant Cover is very small at 15ft; I need to stay glued to the shield character in order to get the benefit. Increasing it to 25ft like Dispersion Bubble and the AoE heals would give me a lot more freedom of movement and also make more sense (as a bubbler/empath, I know that if they're in range for my bubble/heal, I'm in range for their defense).

[GrimTitan]

1. Castle, thanks a lot for making this thread. It kind of surprised me because I didn't expect any more changes to Shields before live, but it really shows you guys are listening. Again, thanks.

2. My experience (which is all with Brutes) is that Shields is trying too hard to be a moderate blend of many mitigation forms. That's fine when you're doing it with resistance as your foundation, but defense doesn't work like that. For a defense-based set, there are really only two ways to be viable: be within spitting distance of the soft cap, or add in copious amounts of mitigation in the form of heals and health bonuses. Moderate defense with a smattering of resistance ends up being utterly mediocre if not downright dismal, because while 3 + 1 may = 4 in a vacuum, there are too many other factors to consider (i.e. - debuffs, damage scaling, etc.).

3. I would offer a word of advice to the devs about being too cautious: We as players know you guys are extra cautious with new power sets for fear of them causing you the same headaches down the road that old familiars like Empathy and Radiation have, but don't be TOO tight-fisted. Invincibility may be out of the question, but your players do like to feel strong. This can be especially frustrating with defense sets, where one instant of bad luck can snowball into instantaneous death and leave you feeling like low-grade tissue in flu season.

In short: As someone who's been around since day 1, I think you guys are closer to achieving real balance in this game that at any time previous. If you can combine all that hard-learned experience with a smattering of the liberalism that made the old sets so powerful, I think Shields can be a fantastic set. But a word of advice: one must be strong on one's own before one can bring strength to a team.

[EvilGeko]

[ QUOTE ]
I ran from 28 to 32 and died exactly once and that was my own stupidity.

The set is fine to go live as is. Maybe adjust come I15-I16 based upon wider playtesting

<edit>
scrapper set.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you're l33t. We can't go by your experiences. Buff plz. :p

[GenericVillain]

Oddly enough, I played a bs/shields scrapper and had 0 problems with endurance. I had one end redux in all my attacks and no end redux in my shields, but it was enough that I didn't burn myself out.

Shields can get close to SR level defense with people basically hugging you, but SR has some serious advantages, namely that it's pretty easy to hit the defense soft cap with and that it has huge defense debuff resistance, which shields doesn't have. The tier 9 is pretty bad and is super infrequent (worse than strength of will by far iirc). Doesn't even give extra defense to stack on your other defense. Shields has no self-heal or regen. The damage bonus is nice, but you need a lot of guys around you to get it going high, and even then, a brute isn't going to get nearly as much from it. Grant Cover is nice, but the radius is super low.

How would I fix shields? I'd add in a ton of defense debuff resistance. I'd put some in phalanx fighting, I'd put some in deflection, I'd put some in true grit. When all is said and done and slotted, it'd have about 90-95% defense debuff resistance.

I'd also make the godmode defense based rather than resist based. Or at least some of both.

And finally, I'd add regen into the set to take advantage of the +max health better. Like 100-200% base.

[BlackMagic_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
QR

I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

2) Remove the SM, LE resists from Deflection, add them to True Grit, up the values [only the Sm, Le] to 1.0 (10% Tankers/7.5% Scrapper/Brute)

This pretty much doubles the resists, but between the health and the resists, it should allow a Shield Tanker to feel more "sturdy" taking alphas, especially with the Tough and Weave that many will wind up taking. And in One with the Shield, the character should feel quite strong.


That seems roughly fair to me, without overpowering the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd agree with this, except I'd add that when you take the S/L resistance from Deflection add in some Defense Debuff Resistance to Deflection. Maybe the same amount that you have in Battle Agility. I think at level 50 that gives around 44% defense debuff res which is still a bit less than SR at 50. Also would it be too overpowered to allow for the 5% defense in PF to be enhanceable.

I've played a tank for most of it and the set seems pretty squishy for a tanker set. I'm still only level 9 though so maybe that gets better. I have built 3 different Shield tankers and I learned that if I didn't take all of my defense powers right when they were available I was toast in the sewers.

This felt strange to me because I know on my other tanker sets I could skip a couple of defensive powers early on so that I could have an extra attack to help do some damage with. On my WP I put off Fast Healing and on my Invuln I put off the other passives. I'm not saying this means the set is squishy, but to me it felt like I was squishy cause I've never had to do something like this to survive at lower levels before.

I've talked to a level 50 tank and his biggest concern was for defense debuff resistance. Still after watching him the set seems like it will be one of the weaker tanker primaries. Especially with the awesome new buffs to Invuln.

I'm also curious as to what are the differences when you scale the set to Tankers? Are you showing that it looks weaker for Tankers?

[Siolfir]

<QR>[ QUOTE ]
2) True Grit. I don't know if the numbers on this power are good or not, but I hate how late it comes in the set. Up until this point, you have no bonus HP and no RES (except for a small amount to S/L). You have to wait until THIRTY-FIVE to get any other sort of boost, and it's exceptionally small. Very tiny RES to elements and an HP boost that's only half as much as Willpower gets (and WP even gets +regen to make it stronger). I recommend either making the stats of True Grit much better (especially since it's weaker than a power that comes at level 1 for another set... but at 35) or moving it MUCH higher in the set. I'd like to see it at 4, personally, but 28 is the latest I'd consider the power useful. By 35 your defenses should be done, not picking up a tiny little boost that could've been a big help a long time ago.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm probably going to be dragged over the coals for this by everyone that plans on making a /Shield character, but one suggestion would be to swap True Grit, Grant Cover, and Shield Charge around.

What I have in mind is True Grit available at tier 3 (lvl 4 as secondary), Grant Cover at tier 7 (lvl 28), and Shield Charge at tier 8 (lvl 35). Yes, part of my reasoning on this is the availability level of Lightning Rod at 32...the version that exists in the secondary shouldn't show up before the version in the primary.


[ QUOTE ]
also, what are the chances of lowing the recharge on shield charge from 1m30s to 60s ? for such a cool power, it would be nice if it were ready more.

thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]
See the above comment on Lightning Rod?

Yeah, not unless LR receives the same buff (which I've been requesting for a while, so it's not like I don't want it).


Edit: additional issue I noticed with Shields? It's very slot-hungry. Phalanx Fighting (3 def SOs), 2 defense toggles (1 EndRed, 3 def SOs each), an extra recharge slot for the clicky mez protection, Grant Cover is 4 slots (also 1 EndRed, 3 Def), Shield Charge is 6 (2 Acc/3 Dam/1 End), True Grit is 3 (3 Heal), One with the Shield is 6 (3 Heal, 3 Res), then throw on Tough and Weave (4 slots each)....
All I can say is that it's a good thing that you can take DB with it... you feel like a Kheld. :p

[OPTICAL_ILLUSION]

Castle,

Would it be possible to post the PvE and PvP combat attributes for all shield toons? I think looking at those numbers would be very useful overall.

[Shadowy_Dream]

Sorry to sidetrack....

Can we get a pvp changes version of this thread with rationals for each change and maybe some number examples of why you have what you have for DR using to hit debuffs or slows maybe?

[Tyrokin]

[ QUOTE ]
Reposted from the patch notes thread:
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Your perception about Shields End Usage is quite valid. In full team support mode, you've got 4 toggles running. The only Recovery Buff you have is a minor buff in One with the Shield. The Broadsword/Shield Defense Scrapper I created in Close Beta has tremendous End problems. Having to Rest every 2 spawns solo or so. Only aggressive End Reduction slotts (i.e. 2 SOs) made the character semi-playable. Even with Stamina, and 1 SO End Cost in the attacks, he can burn through his End bar is I'm not careful.

[/ QUOTE ]

4 Toggles from Shields = 0.78 end/sec
3 Toggles from SR = 0.78 end/sec
3 Toggles from Inv = 0.728 end/sec

I don't see how endurance use is a problem here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Invulnerable isn't really a good comparison because that includes it's mez protection in unyielding, while SR and Shields have a 10.4 endurance click every 2 minutes to keep you protected. That adds up quite a bit over time.

Shields also has the endurance heavy shield charge (13.52 endurance). It's such a cool power, you want to use it every time its up and want it to be up often. But it's really difficult to slot optimally without IOs. It takes accuracy, range, damage, recharge, endurance, and knockback and I would want to slot it for everything but knockback. I think many players would share that sentiment.

SR also gives 30.4 defense to all positions with 3 defense SOs in each of its 3 toggles and 3 autos, while Shields offers 21.69 defense similarly slotted. Shields also gets 3-4% resistance to all but psi, some defense debuff protection (but less than SR), scaling damage buff with enemies in range and scaling defense with allies in range.

SR was seen as compartiviely weaker than the other sets so it was also given scaling resistance. Shields doesn't have that. SR also gives 70% more recovery in Elude than One with the Shield. Elude also softcaps defense by itself, stacking on top of the sets other defense. One with the Shield gives a moderate amount of resistance, which doesn't stack with its defense.

Lets not even talk about regen and willpower as both of those give generous amounts of regen and recovery.

Shields is weaker and more endurance heavy than any other set.

[/ QUOTE ]

Part of the problem, I think, is balancing the set for all the attack sets. When paired with broadsword or dark melee, the additional defense or -tohit adds a lot of survivability. But I think any attempt to balance the defensive set around the attack sets is ultimately fruitless. The attack sets with defensive bonuses give all the defensive sets an edge.

So then you have to consider balancing solo v. team play. Shields performs well enough on a team, especially with other shield scrappers. We ran a team of shield scrappers and tankers and steadily had 70+ defense so long as we stuck together.

But while these types of teams are common in beta and even a few days into issue release on live, even dedicated superteams break up as real life schedules lead to widening level gaps. I don't think its reasonable to balance a set assuming you will have superteams multiplying buff/debuff effects. If you are going to do that kind of balancing, your going to have to start with the buff/debuff sets shared by defenders/controllers/corrupters/masterminds.

SO that leaves us with balancing solo play. For that you have to compare it to how other sets solo. Having played regen and invul to 50, WP to 41, and a few levels of SR and DA, shields just seems a little weaker to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

But what about other team play? It's unreasonable to balance around a full shields team, sure, but there ARE other teams out there, including PUG's (which can be quite fun for some bizarre reason). The set seem's better suited for Team Play than Solo (for now that is). But if things were changed and it was shifted toward solo, wouldn't it lose some of it's team elements that set the set apart?

I see Shields as similar to Dual Blades. DB added combo's. Shields seem's more team oriented. It's adding something fresh.

[MUplayer]

Shield/DM Tank & DM/Shield Brute- Played into upper teens. I have to echo what some others stated: The set didn't feel.."tank-ish". END was problem throughout. I think the set needs either more resistance to S/L, or perhaps some other way to mitigate damage. AAO made a difference, but the low def debuff resistance allowed enemies like Council and Longbow to shred me.

Speaking of AAO, perhaps a regen increase/Dull Pain-type power could be included, similar to WillPower? I think it would work thematically.

Overall, Shields worked rather well when teamed with other Shields. Without other shields...a noticeable difference. With my tank, I could tell that if he had to be the main tank for a group, he was going to NEED Tough. My Brute seemed to have more survivability, partly because he defeated foes faster, partly because he had a heal early, in Dark Melee.

I should note, these observations are without I/Os.

[Inquizitor]

The problem is It only plays well with a team in theory. The radius of the two important pwoers are far too small to be useful.

I have a feeling they are thinking 8' is a decent distance to go. Something 8' away is not at arms length in REal life. In game 8 ft is right in your face.

[Starjammer]

I played a Shield/Axe tanker up to level 8; that was the point where I got frustrated with it to the point of deletion.

I only solo'ed, so never took Phalanx Fighting. Deflection and Battle Agility did not seem to significantly mitigate damage. I ended more than a few fights with my HP bar flashing red.

On top of that, every fight floored my End by level 6. Not uncommon for low-level tankers, but level 6 is earlier than I've ever encountered it. I can't help but wonder how bad it would've gotten by the teens.

Against All Odds is pretty weak sauce as a tanker aura. It has no enhanceable effect beyond its taunt aspect, which limits the mitigation potential of the -Dmg effect.

In general terms, click defense for status effects just feels wrong for tanking. It may work for SR scrapping but I can very easily see a tank having problems if the power drops at the wrong moment. Its recharge time can be enhanced to perma and set on autofire, so why not make it a toggle?

I think your own statement pretty much hits the problem on the head: you designed a scrapper set and it hasn't translated well to a tanker set. I think you need to go back and redesign it as a tanker set then scale it back for scrapping.

[Vox Populi]

Click mez protection is kind of a pain for Tankers pre-SOs.

[Samuel_Tow]

[ QUOTE ]
When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a Shields character with no allies within 8' compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quick question for Castle - you begin with comparing admittance (which I assume is a one word vernacular for what the chance of an attack from an even con minion landing is), then continue on to factor in the damage debuff in Against All Odds. Are you factoring in Super Reflexes scaling resistance there? It has been my experience that they have a significantly significant (sic) effect on survival.

Beyond that, I'm afraid I can't give you actual playtesting results until such a time as a level bump occurs, if ever. Time and attention span impede my ability to reach a high level legitimately, and any observations I can make before 25-30 would be largely meaningless anyway.

[Castle]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you factoring in Super Reflexes scaling resistance there?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, those are most definitely taken into consideration in the numbers I posted.

[Samuel_Tow]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are you factoring in Super Reflexes scaling resistance there?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, those are most definitely taken into consideration in the numbers I posted.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gotcha! I wasn't sure from the original explanation, but that clears it. At this point, then, I must admit there is something about these numbers that I don't understand and it would be wise of me to simply stop sticking my nose where it doesn't belong.

If I do get some more testing or numbers done, I'll be sure to share, though, I promise :)

[Reiraku]

Also the amount of damage enemies do from outside of AAO's range as opposed to the amount they do from within? On average that is.

[Coldmed]

[ QUOTE ]
There is one single reason why I won't play Shields on live: clickie mez protection. ).

[/ QUOTE ]

for a tank this is a biggy ..make it a toggle plz.

[Titanium_Alloy]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Castle, thanks a lot for making this thread. It kind of surprised me because I didn't expect any more changes to Shields before live, but it really shows you guys are listening. Again, thanks.

2. My experience (which is all with Brutes) is that Shields is trying too hard to be a moderate blend of many mitigation forms. That's fine when you're doing it with resistance as your foundation, but defense doesn't work like that. For a defense-based set, there are really only two ways to be viable: be within spitting distance of the soft cap, or add in copious amounts of mitigation in the form of heals and health bonuses. Moderate defense with a smattering of resistance ends up being utterly mediocre if not downright dismal, because while 3 + 1 may = 4 in a vacuum, there are too many other factors to consider (i.e. - debuffs, damage scaling, etc.).

3. I would offer a word of advice to the devs about being too cautious: We as players know you guys are extra cautious with new power sets for fear of them causing you the same headaches down the road that old familiars like Empathy and Radiation have, but don't be TOO tight-fisted. Invincibility may be out of the question, but your players do like to feel strong. This can be especially frustrating with defense sets, where one instant of bad luck can snowball into instantaneous death and leave you feeling like low-grade tissue in flu season.

In short: As someone who's been around since day 1, I think you guys are closer to achieving real balance in this game that at any time previous. If you can combine all that hard-learned experience with a smattering of the liberalism that made the old sets so powerful, I think Shields can be a fantastic set. But a word of advice: one must be strong on one's own before one can bring strength to a team.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

And to add: How is it that the "Sheilds Set", that actually has you holding something from getting hit, have less defense debuff resistance than "Super" Reflexes??

Another thought: Shields took a lot of work from BaB and others for it to be just an "meh ok" set. I would think the amount of work alone would justify pushing the boundires.

It would be better to have people "here" playing Shields and interrested in the set then "other" places in the near future. . no??

TA

[Lohenien]

The most comparable set for a tank is Ice armor, and Ice would appear to be a fair bit stronger than Shields.

Shields gets ~28% defense slotted with SOs in the defense toggles and PF, Ice is at ~27% defense slotted with SOs. They diverge in terms of what the other powers offer the set.

EA grants another ~10% defense, and drops foes endurance.
Shields gets nothing exactly comparable, but for sake of argument we'll use Shield Charge. It's only up once a battle.

CE has -14% damage and -32% recharge. By comparison AAO is only ~-7% damage but a consistent 32% damage increase, sometimes more.

Hoarfrost is far stronger than True Grit and comes much sooner.

The tier 9 for ice is a wonderful reactive power that can save you in a bad situation. The shields tier 9 is only really useful before a potentially hard battle and will almost never save you.

Shields has no true reactive power to recover from a downhill scenario and its proactive tools don't make up for it.

If I had to take a stab at fixing the set, I'd make Shield Charge up more often but deal slightly less damage. Then I'd increase the resistances in the set to 7.5% . AAO should be made unresistable -damage and that improved to -10%. Finally I would remove the +hp component of the tier 9 and make it a 30% heal.

That would be a start to making it a better tank set.

[Venture]

I've been playing a MA/Shield Scrapper, bumped to 50 slotted with SOs. I may be able to get my main's inventions loaded onto him tonight, insofar as he can take them.

I do not feel that the set requires any major alterations. It absolutely does need more -def resistance. I would consider making Active Defense a toggle because click-based status protection doesn't really work well without Quickness' +rech and slow resists backing it up.

I have no idea why people are complaining about the END costs, which as you've noted are in the right ballpark. I can only assume they're all Regen/Willpower most of the time and spoiled. I think the bulk of the complaints are coming from people who just don't get that you really aren't supposed to be able to solo a Rikti pylon (something that, btw, my DM/EnA Brute now can't quite do because his damage isn't high enough, but he can tank it until the cows come home with the new set bonuses).

[Biidi]

I'd heard that the reason the mez protect was made a toggle is because of end issues. If the end cost on it were set to around the same as Combat Jumping it would come out to be roughly the same as it currently is now at 10.4 for 2 minutes. I would like to see it as a toggle also since I've got other things I need to keep an eye on or set to auto, such as Brawl for a brute.

Brute shields:
I've got a /shield brute at the moment around level 11 or so. So far I haven't had any problems other than normal end issues. I ran through Billy Heck's arc which contains a few EBs and didn't have too much problem with any of them. A /pain corrupter joined me for the last few missions and we steamrolled everything.

The numbers when solo seem a little low but I am running with only training enhancements. I suspect that things will look significantly better at higher levels with SOs and IOs.

No experience with tankers or scrappers using shields yet.

[Captain Fabulous]

[ QUOTE ]
Click mez protection is kind of a pain for Tankers pre-SOs.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to agree here. Why can't the power's recharge be adjusted so that it's permable out of the box, and then set it to ignore recharge buffs and debuffs? 22 levels without permable mez protection on a Tank really sucks.

[_Ilr_]

[ QUOTE ]
A lot of the comparison I've heard has been from... well, Billz, whose main complaint is that it doesn't solo as well as the other sets and that its team buffs are meaningless for solo performance.

I might be missing some nuance there, but I think that's his stance.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I'm willing to bet that pretty much everything come down to this. Pure melees get a set that's finally balanced with it's upper curves of performance based around Teaming, and they DO NOT WANT. ...like designing a Melee that relies on Teams is some kind cardinal sin in Massive Multiplayer Online RPG's. :eek:

HOWEVER If the team performance is not up to Par with say.... a Group of Sonic Resonance defenders running a Super-Team, Then perhaps Castle needs to go back and look at the Set's overall design. ...In particular: [u]Buff those things which make it easier to BUILD FOR TEAMING[u]

...A great example of this is VEATs who's inherents allowed them to focus on Team-Focused PowerPools without totally compromising their builds. ...Perhaps Shielders just need some kind of Conserve-Power effect added to one of their existing powers or perhaps a Recovery bonus for everyone affected by their team protection. As someone who's played a Paragon for a couple years now, I can see the resemblance between them and this new Shield Set. And the one thing that does seem to be missing which Paragons HAVE, but Shielders don't seem to have is superior [u]Energy Management[u] options when Teaming.

As for...Solo performance... who cares?? We have Dual-Builds now. USE IT.

[DrPermafrost]

So far the greatest thing that gives my pause about the Shields set is the click mez resist. This would make it the only tanker primary with a non-toggle mez resist. Combine this with it defense and utility powers and you end up with with something very much akin to a SR brute.

While I will not debate the power of the SR set, I do have one quick question. Would you honestly expect a SR brute to be the primary or only tank against AV and hard TFs? While this isn't an issue for brutes or Scrapper as far as the shields set is concerned, it is a big issue for tankers. Tankers are expected to be able to do these things, that is their job in a team and any set that doesn't allow them to is disappointing.

I think the set work very well for both scrapper/brutes, but as a tanker set the survivability is disappointing and the lack of toggle mez resist is crippling, a mezed tank can't protect the team and without slotting their is a great deal of down time in the mez resist.

[Monkey_King]

A thought that occurs to me, listening to the Shields discussion. Energy Aura has some real survivability issues until you pick up Dampening Field. Even 7.5% S/L resistance makes a difference, and takes the edge off those attacks that get through. I'm thinking maybe you should move True Grit down to a lower level, to give players more of a cushion as they're leveling up in a similar fashion.

[Shubbie]

I like the idea of merging phalanx fighting and grant cover and adding in the sheild bash for knockdown.

This would greatly improve survivability and reduce end costs.

Oh and increase that radius.. too tiny, 10-12' maybe.

Brute, end costs high, protection felt low, I was constantly out of end.

[Flarstux]

[ QUOTE ]
As someone who's played a Paragon for a couple years now, I can see the resemblance between them and this new Shield Set. And the one thing that does seem to be missing which Paragons HAVE, but Shielders don't seem to have is superior [u]Energy Management[u] options when Teaming.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paragon? From Guild Wars?

[_Ilr_]

...wouldn' that kinda make the new Phalanx Fighting more powerful than Dispersion Bubble though?

[Peregrine_Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you for starting this thread Castle. In this post I'll be referring strictly to Scrappers at all times, and whenever powers and/or enhancements are discussed I'm assuming even con SOs and nothing else.

[ QUOTE ]
Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

[/ QUOTE ]
Which is great and all except that my MA/SR has 2 EndRedux in every attack and 1 in each of the toggles and she still pops blues like candy. So from my pov that statement isn't much of a defense of Shields' end usage.

[ QUOTE ]
Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%)

[/ QUOTE ]
Average Admittance? I've never heard this term before and I suspect that I'm not the only one. Perhaps you could explain it to me sir.

I'll tell you what I do know. With Phalanx Fighting SA has roughly two-thirds the Defense of SR, far less resistance and the same lack of a self-heal. Super Reflexes' biggest weakness is that it lacks a self heal. You know this is true, it's why you gave one to Ninjitsu, and it's why you recently gave one to Energy Armor. So then you create yet another defense set with no self heal. C'mon man, what are you doing?

And why is True Grit a Tier 8 power? And why is Shield Armor's Tier 8 power weaker than Willpower's Tier 1 (High Pain Tolerance) power?

[ QUOTE ]
I've played the set, in the ITF with a group, I've solo'd, and duo'd, and have not found it to be a bad set.

[/ QUOTE ]
Try soloing without Broadsword as your primary. Parry alone is more powerful than two-thirds of the entire Super Reflexes powerset. Perhaps that's why SA isn't as good for Tankers as it is for Scrappers?

Don't get me wrong. I love the apparent idea behind the Shield set. Tools that benefit the team, even more so with others of your same set. It rocks. But 8 feet? That's way too short a distance.

[ QUOTE ]
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

[/ QUOTE ]
Both Willpower and Regen can run Quick Recovery and Stamina if they want, thus having absolutely no end issues. In doing so no one has claimed that this is in anyway unbalanced the game. Why must Shields also beat us over the head with Endurance Issues on top of having low survivability?

[Vox Populi]

The only problem with making Active Defense a toggle is that would give the set five toggle powers, which I think is too much.

One way this could be fixed is by adding Ranged and AoE Defense into Deflection and replace Battle Agility with Shield Bash.

[fallenz]

Castle, try running your tanker as main in a STF or LGTF/SF and tell us how it goes please?

[Shubbie]

I saw that post about what sheilds should be and I liked it, thats all.

One thing to remember quickness is a damage boost, since it lets you use better attacks more often.

another thing to remember, is SR is hardly the best set in the game.

here is the basics, it needs more oomph and needs to be more forgiving.

[DrPermafrost]

Vox, I think you are right about 5 toggles being too many toggles to really be expecting to run, but having a mez resist that is out of the box less effective than every other tanker primary is also a problem. So unless Active Defense has significantly better resist number that I am not aware of, it seems kind of silly for a tanker to take SD instead of any other set available.

[Fuzun]

[ QUOTE ]

1) Small radius for Phalanx. 8 feet is way way too small. Even though you reduced it to 3 people and made the buff bigger, it's still hard to squeeze people into that 8 feet. Unless they're a melee too, you aren't near anyone in a team. Even if you are, you have to be extremely close just to get the benefit. In a duo with a friend, I have my DEF monitored, and she can just barely step away to hit another enemy and I lose my buff. It should definitely be bigger than 8 feet, if not considerably bigger like 15-20. It's too much work trying to chase my allies around just to get my buffs. I want to chase badguys, not my friends.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this sums up my biggest problem with Shield Defense. When a players needs it the most, they don't have the buff especially after use Shield Charge. I've been thinking about how to improve Phalanx Fighting w/o bending it all out of shape. I can't really come up with anything except bending it all out of shape.

The power itself doesn't mesh well with the typical player tactics I see. Phalanx Fighting just doesn't seem to go well with Super Heroes/Viillains thematically. Hero/Villains when fighting more free form and not part of regimented formations. Phalanx Fighting goes perfectly with the Cimerorans thematically.

Solution: I think a power more suited for players thematically and practically would be a passive Def more similar to Invuln/Tough Hide. Just a passive amount of positional defensive. For lack of a name, lets call it Artful Dodger (I know, plain silly). The power would represent the character's overall dodging/blocking ability. IT would be smaller amount of def for more consistent performance at the expense of the possible peak of Phalanx Fighting. Artful Dodger (in place of Phalanx Fighting) could be swapped with True Grit. Treu Grit seems to be more useful at lower levels And Artful Dodger represents a honing of the character skill towards the peak of this career.

[Aett_Thorn]

History: Coming from both a high level Ice Tanker, and a High level /Ninjitsu Stalker. Played Shields up to level 23 so far as a Tanker. I have only used SOs or IOs lower than SO value.

My take on the set:

The numbers make it seem fine. However, there is something very off in how the set feels on a Tanker. For some reason, despite the numbers, I feel like I'm running my Ice Tanker without using EA to help my defenses. This is especially true whenever I'm fighting enemies with lots of -Def Debuffs. Coming straight from the Ninjitsu stalker, at level 23, I feel only slightly tougher in a solo situation than the Stalker. However, this is before I factor in my panic buttons that I get on the Stalker.

And I think that's my problem with the numbers versus feel. The numbers say it's fine, but on a Tanker, you're going to take a lot of hits in a row. I've seen it happen on my Ice Tanker even with EA up. However, on my Ice tanker, I have two panic buttons that I can use reliably: Hoarfrost and Hibernate. Now, I haven't gotten to the Tier 9 for a Shield Tanker, so please keep that in mind, but without a panic button, I feel very squishy in certain situations.

Is the set 'fine.'? Probably. But it just feels very weak, and I think it's because the defenses are spread around to so many different powers, and this makes it rough in the low levels. You have to take a lot of powers to get to the level that other sets get in fewer (except SR).

In short, there's something wrong with the feel of the set, and I doubt that everyone will share that feeling. In short, I feel that any of the following could be the problem, and a fix to one of them would probably help the set out a lot:

1) No panic button. When the fecal matter hits the oscillating unit, a Shield/ tanker has very few options to deal with that. This will cause a Shield Tanker to feel that they need more toggles and pool powers to compensate and to make sure that those times when a panic button is needed to a minimum.

2) Endurance usage. With this many toggles (and the potential problem of feeling like they need MORE toggles on top of it), endurance can be a problem. I feel that even minimal slotting at level 12 with EndRed DOs in my attacks helped this, but the problem came in the middle-end of a combat situation, when the Mez Protection power needed to be reapplied, and I didn't have enough endurance for it, or I did, but it dropped the rest of my toggles.

3) Defenses feel too spread. You've got your basic toggle, with decent +Def and some minimal +Res, another toggle for Ranged and AoE Def, a click mez protection power, an auto defense, and auto +HP and some more minor +Res in another auto power, some random -damage in the aggro aura, etc. It just seems like everything is too small individually, so you need to take everything. One powers doesn't protect you from a given situation enough, so you've got to take something else to help it out.

4) The spread of the set. Powers seem to come at odd times in leveling. The only three powers that seem to follow the general trend of other Defensive sets are the basic Defense toggle (tier 1), the Mez Protection, and the Aggro aura. Everything else either seems to come too early, or too late. True grit should be earlier to help with endurance issues in lower levels (since you've got more passive protection), the Ranged and AoE defense power could come a bit later. Shield charge can come a bit later, as can Phalanx fighting and Grant Cover. Save the utility powers for when they should be, but put the basic powers in the earlier levels.




These are my views on the set, at least.

[_Ilr_]

[ QUOTE ]
another thing to remember, is SR is hardly the best set in the game.

[/ QUOTE ]
...I dunno about that one. Right now I'm in the process of leveling up the Spines/SR that I created all the way back in issue0 as my very first character but abandoned it b/c SR was such a joke back then. But now(currently 32)... wow, It's really good. And I haven't even gotten serious about IO's yet.

Infact I'm almost tempted to go play him right now instead of watching this thread and I could probably be talked into rolling a DM/SR Brute too even though I have yet to actually play ANY brutes to date.

If Shields are *atleast* as good as Wolfspiders or SR in teams, then I really look forward to playing it.
(PS: I've also played an Ice Tanker since issue 6 who just reached 50 this year and an EA stalk that only made it to 32... the SR scrapper is definitely superior in almost every way so far)

[Catwhoorg]

[ QUOTE ]

Average Admittance? I've never heard this term before and I suspect that I'm not the only one. Perhaps you could explain it to me sir.


[/ QUOTE ]

a Typical amount of damage taken as a proportion of the attack strength

Maybe you have heard of total mitigation %, well average admittance is 100-mitigation.

[Clan_Jericho]

[ QUOTE ]
Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this seems about right.

~Gabriel

[Fasque]

From memory of playing up to level 6 and then after the bump at 50 -- Fire/sheild scrapper; eng/shield tank.

Prolly the closest analogs are sr and ice. Ice is gonna be perceived better because of the slows; sr because of the quickness and perception -- particularly the quickness.

Wp has a similar approach in decreasing "admittance" by more than one means, but is more user friendly, particularly in end use.

Both sr and shields have received criticism because of end. In shields, one obvious way around this is to avoid taking AAO -- I ended up respecing to remove it. I would judge that players perceive AAO as a dam power rather than a debuf power, and would therein judge the end cost not worth it in comparison to BU. This would be particularly the case for solo players, who find it more comfortable and more fun to manage crowd control through movement rather than situational debuffs. It is even more particularly the case with solo scrappers, who want to fire off their attacks without pause, kill stuff as quickly as possible, and, for that reason, tend to run out of end -- and be annoyed by it -- more often than tanks. I enjoyed the tank more than the scrap for that reason alone: the end devoted to def cutting away from my offense. The 50 scrapper was so annoying I ended up deleting it.

Similar perceptions and habits based on solo player devalue any power that requires teaming to function properly; that power is seen as wasteful and inefficient. If you choose a power, players want to be able to use it -- or have it be useful -- regardless of circumstances.

The clicky mez protection has its advantages (or had, in previous pvp), but, again, is perceived as requiring busy (unfun) work. The mez prot also comes later rther than sooner. Most players prefer sooner.

A couple have mentioned True Grit as needing to come earlier as well, and that's an indication of the kind of power players prefer -- fire (or buy) and forget.

SR and Shields virtually require a heal in order to maintain a consistent pace of play. Another strike against both in terms of fun and planning interesting char/power combinations.

Shield charge was fun but kinda superfluous. The tnine was adequate but hardly unique.

Overall, my perception was that shields was a clumsy sr set that was forced to play in groups, or to be surrounded by npcs, or to be in some other particular situation that may or may not be either common or desired. Without extensive play to counter that perception, that was it.

In short, the set seemed too clever for its own good. And it died quickly in pvp as well -- so theres that too.

[Benchpresser]

Ok, all my experience has been on a Shield/SS tank, started before the lvl bump to 50 in Closed Beta, so he's at 50 now. These are my observations:

1) End usage seems way off. Looking at your numbers, I'm even more confused. Looking at those numbers it seems balanced, but I am continually out of End after 3-4 mobs with 3-slotted Stamina and End reduxers in everything... not sure what to say.. but the numbers and the actual play experience doesn't seem to mesh..

2) Defense- I think some small tweaks are needed. Having a purely defense tank without a self-heal is a challenge, but you need slightly higher numbers or active mitigation to balance it. The set has good Mitigation in AAO and Shield charge.. however.. thats only half the equation.
The 2 Toggles plus the 5% from PF give my Tank 28.40% at 50 (with SOs)- but Thats it. I don't count the ally bonus from PF because the radius is too small.
Then add Grant Cover. I love the concept of this power- but the execution is flawed. Grant cover Should be a larger radius (Much larger, 15 feet only affects other meleers who usually don't need the added defense) and should grant the Shield user Something-

Now at first I thought more Defense, but when I looked at it, I'm not sure- adding just 5% unenhancible Defense in Grant Cover would put the shielder very close to the soft cap, and I'm not sure if you want that. So here's my suggestions-

1) Increase the radius of Phalanx fighting to 12-15 feet (would cover the fellow melee teammates)
2) Vastly increase the Radius of Grant Cover, and let the tank benefit in some way, say 5% defense (unenhancible)or a damage resist boost (say 7.5% for a tank... in order to protect others with your shield, YOU need to be behind it as well.. )
3) True Grit needs to be available sooner. Level 20 is a bit too late to see much benefit. Also, the damage resists are FAR too low, they were of no help. The HP boost was, but not enough either..

Finally.. MORE Defense Debuff resists!! Why is it that SR has a resist that scales up with level and the Shields doesn't? 48% is nowhere near enough! 80-90% would be acceptable (hell, even Invunerability gets more, and that set deoends on defense Far less) and comparable. I'd spread it out, and some to True Grit, and some to PF, maybe even Deflection.

The set is almost there.. its just.. missed the mark slightly on a lot of the powers. But all those slight misses add up to a huge failure in the role of a tank, which is agro management. It has the tools to keep the attention of the enemy, but NOT the defenses to deal with the attacks.

Oh, 1 last think... the Click Mezz protection is fine.. you just need to be more aware of it and any recharge debuffs... that should be the true achillies heel, the 1 hole that all sets should have.

[Starjammer]

[ QUOTE ]
The only problem with making Active Defense a toggle is that would give the set five toggle powers, which I think is too much.

One way this could be fixed is by adding Ranged and AoE Defense into Deflection and replace Battle Agility with Shield Bash.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with combining the effects of Deflection and Battle Agility. However, I'd move True Grit down to Tier 2 and add a Parry-like +Def click, call it Shield Block.

[Vox Populi]

[ QUOTE ]
In short, the set seemed too clever for its own good.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think that's a good description. I give the devs credit for trying to spice up the set, but sometimes it's best to keep things simple.

Anyways, I have to get to bed, so I'll just leave with this:

Deflection: (toggle) Melee, Ranged and AoE Defense
Shield Bash: (click) Medium attack
True Grit: (passive) (Or possibly High Pain Tolerance)
Active Defense: (toggle) That's right, toggle
Against All Odds: (toggle)
Grant Cover: (toggle)
Shield Charge: (click)
Phalanx Fighting: (passive)
One with the Shield: (click)

[JDub]

I to hate click mez protection, but I doubt that will change so I didn't bother stating it earlier. Persoanlly, even if the defense/resistance gets buffed...the endurance issues and click mez will probably stop me from playing a shield character to 50. Which is a shame because the set looks awesome. Props to BAB and crew.

[PsychoDad_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Admittedly I have not played with shields enough to state how over or under powered it is. But in the short time I have played with it I did notice one thing that makes the set void for me; the animations (or lack of).

What exactly is the point of the shield? When an enemy attacks my hero leans back (or throws up his right arm) just like a SR scrapper avoids attacks. Why is the shield arm not raising the shield to block the attack?

I know this is kind of a minor issue but it is a game breaker for anyone who wants the feel to be right. Which I would bet is a lot of us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shields don't move much because a skilled shield user moves their shield by a measure of less than inches if they know their business.

Granted, most skilled martial artists don't kick over waist height either, but the martial arts set has always bothered me with its over-flamboyant kicks anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have a kite shield or something sure. But not a small round energy shield. If they attack high, you block high. Attack low, block low.

As for the game mechanics and graphics I am not even asking for dramatic shield blocks, just to actually have the shield contact and block the attacks. Keep the shield in front of the toon if you chose but have the hits strike the shield, not the hero/villain move away from the hits.

[_Ilr_]

What's wrong with Clever? ...is everyone planning to roll a Joe the Plumber clone for theirs or what??
Cuz that'd look pretty stupid unless it was a Brute teamed up with a Corr named "palin domination"

[Talen Lee]

[ QUOTE ]
What's wrong with Clever?

[/ QUOTE ]Extending that: What's wrong with something that requires the team to play according to it? When my defender teams with fire tankers, we work together to maximize his Burn patches. When my dominator teams with masterminds, we move together to maximize our mutual leadership. When my tanker teams with his blaster friend, he uses his fast ST attacks to maximize his gauntlet because she's doing the AE.

What is wrong with a playset that asks for a play style? There are so many that already do that.

[Shubbie]

Because it doesnt do anything great enough to warrant the extra effort.

So its easier and more effecient just to take something that actually pays off with the extra work or something simpler.

[Magpie_Mouse]

[ QUOTE ]

I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

2) Remove the SM, LE resists from Deflection, add them to True Grit, up the values [only the Sm, Le] to 1.0 (10% Tankers/7.5% Scrapper/Brute)

This pretty much doubles the resists, but between the health and the resists, it should allow a Shield Tanker to feel more "sturdy" taking alphas, especially with the Tough and Weave that many will wind up taking. And in One with the Shield, the character should feel quite strong.


That seems roughly fair to me, without overpowering the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

This looks good. Along with possibly increasing the radius of Phalanx and Grant Cover.

Endurance issues aren't that bad. Having played a BS/SR since the beginning, pretty much, I've learned to be prepared to manage endurance.

[Talen Lee]

[ QUOTE ]
Because it doesnt do anything great enough to warrant the extra effort.

[/ QUOTE ]For you, maybe.

[Head_Kracker]

I played 3 sheild charectors during the closed beta and I found that both my scrappers (a BS/sheild and a Fire/sheild) played nicely with SO's. I did find however that the pairing of BS along with sheild did drain my end quicker than the firey melee, this could be more the fact that BS is a higher end costing set than firey melee. I will also agree that the aoe self defence buffs radius is a might small when you consider that 8FT is not as likely to happen when you are on a small team or a mid sized team and that it does go against sheilds charges effect since whenever you do use charge you end up lowering your overall defence. I did feel that the resists that we recived were a might low if they were to cover us when out of range of the self defence buff and when being attacked by NPC's that are out of range of the attack debuff aura. And like others have said the lvl 35 power comes much to late to make much of a difference in surviveabilty, when you consider that at 35 you should be nicely slotted for soaking up damage rather than adding more resists at a time when you should be pretty set.

[Dr_Unholy]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been playing a MA/Shield Scrapper, bumped to 50 slotted with SOs. I may be able to get my main's inventions loaded onto him tonight, insofar as he can take them.

I do not feel that the set requires any major alterations. It absolutely does need more -def resistance. I would consider making Active Defense a toggle because click-based status protection doesn't really work well without Quickness' +rech and slow resists backing it up.

I have no idea why people are complaining about the END costs, which as you've noted are in the right ballpark. I can only assume they're all Regen/Willpower most of the time and spoiled. I think the bulk of the complaints are coming from people who just don't get that you really aren't supposed to be able to solo a Rikti pylon (something that, btw, my DM/EnA Brute now can't quite do because his damage isn't high enough, but he can tank it until the cows come home with the new set bonuses).

[/ QUOTE ]

This. In my testing this is all I've really noticed.

I think a bit more def debuff resistance would go a long way towards making the set fine.

[Riverdusk]

[ QUOTE ]


1) No panic button. When the fecal matter hits the oscillating unit, a Shield/ tanker has very few options to deal with that. This will cause a Shield Tanker to feel that they need more toggles and pool powers to compensate and to make sure that those times when a panic button is needed to a minimum.



[/ QUOTE ]

That's the one that surprised me, especially after for a long time now seeing ascendants use their panic button shield power that pretty much works similar to hibernate. I figured shield's tier 9 would be something closer to that, not a WP clone. You get in a jam and you hunker down behind your shield. Perhaps give it a much better resistance bonus at the cost of a speed and damage penalty. Recharge and duration same as now so it doesn't turn into a perma granite mode. Heck, if nothing else I'd rather see an old fashioned tier 9 like invulns, which I think would fit better thematically. Probably too late for any major changes now though I'm betting.

Most of the other suggestions sound good to me. Increase the radius of phalanx and grant cover, move true grit up, and more defense debuff resistance. Those are the ones I think I hear requested the most. I've run a spines/dark up so I am used to dealing with endurance issues, I don't see a big problem on that front.

[Virtual_Fighter]

[ QUOTE ]
Overall, my perception was that shields was a clumsy sr set that was forced to play in groups, or to be surrounded by npcs, or to be in some other particular situation that may or may not be either common or desired. Without extensive play to counter that perception, that was it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same feelings.

Shields has two powers that are almost specifically for teaming. One of which is the auto Phalanx Fighting, the other Grant Cover. I don't know if you remember all the post in the SoA forums crying and yelling at people, advising, to take TT: Maneuvers, but I sure do. It not only helped teammates but also the defense applied to themselves, just one toggle. Sure Dual Builds is nice for this, but I don't think a armor set needs two situational team powers, which are even more situational in teams being that only melee teammates are most likely going to benefit from Grant Cover, and Phalanx Fighting is just so...lame imo.

Seriously my largest gripe is I'm tying to think of Shields as "Super" yet the set comes off as "Spartan".

I really liked the suggestions that are in my sig because the Team Powers were merged into one power, one toggle. Which then would be more easier to fit into a build, and more likely to be taken by many non-forum going or those building their concept characters. Conceptually it just makes sense as well, and with the alternate naming of "Close Ranks" it doesn't come off as a 300 rip-off power.

Plus another attack which seems so wanted, Shield Bash, would add more flavor to the set, and some reactive mitigation. I'd actually like to see it as a pretty decent ST attack and disorient. For an extra oomph in boss fights, or any fight. The set's selling point could then be on damage, on attacks, something other sets like Ice or SR just doesn't even offer. SR's +recharge in quickness is it's only real flavor imo, letting you attack more often with your other set's attacks. Ice is packing plenty of little tools, while sets like Ninjitsu brings Caltrops for some decent damage, and Blinding Powder's Confuse. And I cannot wait to see Ninjitsu on other sets once it's proliferated.

Just those two things would go a far ways to making the set stand out imo. Apparently the numbers are there for you guys, survival wise, that it doesn't need a buff. But merging the two team powers into one toggle isn't necessarily a buff but a convenience factor for a set that seems to be really spread out. Also the renaming of it to "Close Ranks" or something similar, as well as the description Skarmory had for it seems pretty spot on.

Then Shield Bash might just shut up those crying for Shield Offense, as well as please many who aren't crying for it but would really appreciate a Shield Bash and don't plan on slotting up Brawl. :D Of course, just my suggestions to make the set more Player Friendly and have more of a unique Flavor to it. Just wait till Ninjitsu gets proliferated around and compared to Shields, I'd love to see that, hah. Let Shields have some breathing room and let us bash people in the face, please. :)

[JDub]

Maybe make a shield bash/ shield charge option where you can choose one or the other, but which ever one you don't choose gets greyed out. Might be fun to start putting in more optional power choices with the new duel build.

[Taallyn]

I've played around with a low level shield tanker on Test. However, my main problem with the set is the team dependent powers. As someone that solos a lot, having your set's survivability be dependent on having teammates is very contradictory. I can understand the idea, but in they way I and a lot of other players play the game, that kind of feature is not conducive to our playstyle.

[freonfreak]

I wasn't in closed beta, and my current sheild character is only 11.. its a shield/mace tanker. But I have a lot of tanks and my 50 is a ice/ice tank, so I feel I can throw in some comments.

First off End use, hey all tanks suck at end low.. so I am not bothered by that, at least its not the same as a dark tanker.

The defense numbers, I think they might be a bit lower than my ice, but not too bad. The main difference in it and ice is the slow that ice gets. I also am a bit concerned with the defense debuff. I have seen my def drop quite a bit even this early.

AAO is one area i am a bit concerned about, anyone else think its not that strong a taunt? I didn't see any acc adds, so its auto hit right? One of our teams was getting hit by a spread out mob, a bunch of shooters were out of range, so i ran by them to grab aggro, dropped behind a wall and got like two guys... where were the other three.. just standing there shooting everyone else. I worry its a taunt aura like willpowers.. and I don't really like willpowers taunt aura effect.. The damage buff didn't seem to noticable when i was the only one using it, but once there were around three or four of us on a big shield team. I think that it was really kicking in. So for the solo and you being only tanker teams.. not sure its a great help.

I have not gotten grant cover yet, should be tonight. I will take it, I like the concept, but they way it works, your teammates are protected but you get nothing but an end drain... why would a brute or scrapper do that? I think of dispersion bubble and it gives you some protection too.. I know it would be a big buff to give you that full hit, but maybe even a few points, 1-5... so you can justify that end cost.. (its helping my numbers), for the not so alturistic.

I like the Phalax bump of 5 base. That really helped the numbers for me. On a melee oriented team for this level i was plesantly surprised by the def, even though it fluxuated alot. I think the mitigation of the shield attack and whatever primary will make tanking minions not too hard. But AV... most of them dont like to be knocked down...

I also would say I like the order of the powers, and the concept, Its a bit different feel for a tanker really, but I like it. The shield designs are really great looking as well.

[BigMoneyHustla]

I gave my reasons for wanting resist end drain in another place, but i'll post them here. Shields are heavy (well most of them are, not quite sure how heavy an energy shield would be), and because of this, you would need considerable strength and stamina to keep it up for long periods, so you would be naturally resistant to draining of your endurance. One of the powers needs a resistance to end drain. One person here said they were consistantly out of end fighting carnies, malta, and council. When carnies die, they sap end. When you get hit by a malta sapper, you feel the full effect, that's probably half your end problems there, and without some form of resistance to -end, well you will run out pretty quick.

As for my playing, the amount of -def in the game, the set does need a higher resistance to defense debuff, for scrappers, probably not so much, but definitely for tanks. My shields/mace tank gets slaughtered when there's alot of -def, when comparing to an ice tank, ice can outlast it, and as a last resort if something goes wrong, hit hoarfrost, or hibernate. Shields doesn't have this luxury.

Lastly, if it came down to it, make grant cover a click power like Mind Link that affects everyone within range, small increase in defense to what it has now, but not stackable. Defense is this sets main focus, not resistance, so the lack of Grant Cover affecting the user makes me not want to choose it. Selfish? Probably, but it's not going to increase MY survivability, thus when I die, decreases the teams survivability. I could pick up an emp/bubbler/cold dom/thermal/sonic, which increases my survivability aswell as the whole team.

That's my rant.

[GrimTitan]

Aside from the previously mentioned suggestions (end usage, etc.), here are my thoughts (though I warn you that some people might find them a bit radical):

1. Make the team buffs affect the caster as well--similar to how VEAT toggles work. Then the Shield user is brought up to par a bit while still being useful on teams. (I also agree the radius should be buffed.)

2. Increase the resistance to 7.5%.

3. The set badly needs a heal. I thought about this, and then I also remembered that players have been asking for more ways to feel like they're using their shields to actually DEFEND themselves. So how about this power:

- Bulwark: You duck behind the unfailing protection of your shield to take a momentary respite from battle.

In effect, it could operate like a mini Hibernate. Maybe make it last 5 seconds or so, act as a phase, and during the active period you get a %1,000 regen buff, but for balance your global recharge is debuffed by %50 while the power is active. You could even give it Hibernate's Recovery bonus if you wanted to try and do something to help the set's end problems. That would add another layer of strategy, too: "Do I use Bulwark now as my blue bar's running low, or do I save it in case my health begins to drop?" Give it a long-ish recharge (I'm thinking 90 to 100 seconds) and it wouldn't be overpowered. Merge Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover (or Deflection and Battle Agility) and then stick Bulwark in at either L18 or L26.

The benefits of the above would be manifold:

- The survivability of the set would be greatly increased without becoming excessive.

- Shield users would still be beneficial/desirable to teams without being gimped solo.

- End usage would be brought more in line with the level of protection shields offer

- It would really add another layer of concept immersion to the set.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

Some more random thoughts:

The last powerset, Willpower, is one of the most powerful armorsets created. And now with Shields you're trying to justify its survivability by comparing it to Super Reflexes. Super Reflexes... the weakest of all the Scrapper secondaries (not counting IOs).

I guess what I'm saying is: Just because the numbers show that it's slightly better than the worst set doesn't mean that it's ok. Coming in 31st place instead of 32nd place does not make me feel better about the race.

Seriously Castle, play a Martial Arts/Shields Scrapper and see if your survival is the same as your previous tests.

[Ninelives]

i like merging phalanx fighting and grant cover because it will make grant cover affect the user. it is that or merge the melee and range/aoe armor to save on end.
and moving true grit around seems like a good idea but not to the first slot, that means brutes and scraps will have to wait till lvl 2 to use their shields! lvl 2!
I think shields need a heal, maybe a small one.

I also thought about making phalanx fighting a dual layered power, so the closer the team mate was to you, the more def it provided. like 1% per teammate if outside the original range and etc.
I would add a secondary to Against All Odds... something wild and different like a very low mag knockdown along with the -dmg.

[Siolfir]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe make a shield bash/ shield charge option where you can choose one or the other, but which ever one you don't choose gets greyed out. Might be fun to start putting in more optional power choices with the new duel build.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not to be difficult, but you can do a "shield bash" by teleporting to your own location (or binding it to ctrl-click and clicking at your feet).

[Leo_G]

No personal experience with the shield set here (so skip this post if you like), just monitoring feedback, reviewing numbers and looking into comparisons with other sets...

I think, overall, the set has relative performance with the other sets for what the set offeres, but for the protection it gives up and the narrow utility it has, I think it wouldn't be bad to adjust some things and maybe add little things too.

One cool thing I think would be nice and 'different' from the other sets -- give its taunt aura a wider range. Instead of 10ft, maybe 15-18ft. I don't see it breaking any sort of concept (AAO doesn't really have a strong concept link to holding a shield anyway) and would improve performance vs foes not standing right near you and help out the rest of your team via larger taunt/debuff radius.

Boost Grant Cover range to maneuvers range (or close) to make it easier for your team to take advantage of.

A utility that I think would be cool for the set: a 'conserve power' bonus, small enough to put in a passive but moderate enough to affect slotting/playstyle. Stick it in True Grit, that needs something if it will have such a low bonus for when you get it.

I'd also suggest reducing the recharge on Shield Charge a bit to make it a bigger deciding factor in the set's potential mitigation. Technically, all these changes don't improve the set's baseline solo performance but rather its utility and team viability. That could be the set's niche if it already isn't.

[Ninelives]

I like the bulwark idea.

i think that shields has some good powers and don't want to see them dropped, please merge 2 and add another non toggle power.

[Dispari]

[ QUOTE ]
A couple have mentioned True Grit as needing to come earlier as well, and that's an indication of the kind of power players prefer -- fire (or buy) and forget.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've been shouting for a buff to True Grit pretty much since we first saw Shields. There's a lot of supporters now, both to up the numbers and move it higher in the set.

It's not just about "fire and forget" powers. It's that True Grit is the prime example of "too little, too late." If you happen to get all the way to 35 and have toughed out your defenses, True Grit is a rather small bonus. It would be a lot more useful early on, pre-20, as a boost in your survival.

Right now, by 4 you get all the defense you're ever going to get. You get some -DMG at 16. Then you don't get an HP or RES boost until 35. 35! That's just 3 levels away from your "oh no!" power. I see a lot of math bouncing around for Shields, and it tends to take True Grit into consideration. What do we do until 35? We have no HP boost and almost no RES (just less than 4% to S/L) until 35.

20-35 are usually utility powers for most sets. You get powers you don't use all the time and don't particularly need to stay alive. Let's take a look.

Dark Armor: Cloak of Darkness, Cloak of Fear, Oppressive Gloom. These are good powers, but you don't need them to stay alive. There are instances where you might want one but not another. Darkness doesn't add much survival, Fear is way too much end, and OG drains your HP. Sometimes it's good to have them, but they're utility powers.

Fire Armor: Consume, Burn, Fiery Embrace. These powers contribute to your damage or endurance. They don't increase your survival, except for Burn making foes run off. They're very good utility powers. You don't have to take them if you don't want to.

Regeneration: Resilience, Instant Healing, Revive. Resilience is only S/L but it's higher values, and gives stun resist. It's also a full 15 levels earlier than True Grit. IH is a great power, but it's not always necessary. My regens almost never use it. Revive is a utility power just in case you die.

Willpower: Quick Recovery, Heightened Senses, Resurgence. QR and Resurgence are utility. They aren't required for survival. HS is a buff to your defenses though. But it comes at 28, not 35, which is why I say 28 is the absolute latest I would consider putting True Grit.

Now the last two Scrapper sets are Invuln and SR. Interestingly enough, both of these sets have powers in the 20-35 range that you need to take, and interestingly enough these are the powers that Castle is using to compare to Shields. All three sets have defenses that don't fill out until 35+ and all three sets have high endurance usage.

That's a long rant to say: True Grit needs to be in the 4-28 (preferably pre-20) and possibly needs a buff to its numbers. We don't need another set that takes a really long time to flesh out. I almost never see Invuln Scrappers and I never saw SR until IOs came around which allow them to soft cap. These sets take way too long to finally see your defenses filled.

Put Shield Charge at 35. It's a utility power. Put Grant Cover at 28. It's a utility power. Put True Grit at 20 or earlier. It's an important survival power.

[BlackMagic_NA]

<QR>

I could go with Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover being combined. I also made a suggestion for what I thought Shields should look like in another thread, and I really think it would be cool to have a defensive buildup power for shield almost like MoG that had some +def, +res, +end recovery and maybe some +regen (though I don't think I put it in the original idea). If it was made like MoG, it could be the Panic Button type power that people are looking for but also wouldn't be overpowered.

[gameboy1234]

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%)

[/ QUOTE ]
Average Admittance? I've never heard this term before and I suspect that I'm not the only one. Perhaps you could explain it to me sir.

[/ QUOTE ]

Admittance is the inverse of Resistance. Except he's using it as ... um, the complement think, and for Defense

Admittance (Y) = 1 - Defense

So if your Defense is 30%, then your Admittance is 1 - .30 = .70 or 70%.


Back on subject, I have no great experience with Shield Defense. However, reading the numbers, I'm concerned about two things.

First, the lack of debuff resistance will likely be a problem. It seems to be, especially for Tankers, that more debuff resistance will be needed. You can pretty much look at the change that were made to Invulnerability for this issue and figure SD needs much the same.

Second, while the Endurance drain is about the same as Super Reflexes, Super Reflexes gains a lot more Defense through passives. This seems to be the missing component of SD, imho. I'm sure there are ways to buff this, but it won't hurt to move the numbers on Defense up a tad, espcially if there's some passives you can tack it on to.


Also, status protection for Tanker should be a toggle. :p


I've only got a level 6 toon on Test, which plays fine, but at level 6 most things do. Can't say much more really....

[Riverdusk]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe make a shield bash/ shield charge option where you can choose one or the other, but which ever one you don't choose gets greyed out. Might be fun to start putting in more optional power choices with the new duel build.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not to be difficult, but you can do a "shield bash" by teleporting to your own location (or binding it to ctrl-click and clicking at your feet).

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, or just play dark melee. Shadow punch ends up looking like a shield bash (at least half the time). I so need to put a kinetic combat chance for knockdown in it for the true effect. :)

[PsychoDad_NA]

[ QUOTE ]
- Bulwark: You duck behind the unfailing protection of your shield to take a momentary respite from battle.

In effect, it could operate like a mini Hibernate. Maybe make it last 5 seconds or so, act as a phase, and during the active period you get a %1,000 regen buff, but for balance your global recharge is debuffed by %50 while the power is active. You could even give it Hibernate's Recovery bonus if you wanted to try and do something to help the set's end problems. That would add another layer of strategy, too: "Do I use Bulwark now as my blue bar's running low, or do I save it in case my health begins to drop?" Give it a long-ish recharge (I'm thinking 90 to 100 seconds) and it wouldn't be overpowered. Merge Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover (or Deflection and Battle Agility) and then stick Bulwark in at either L18 or L26.

The benefits of the above would be manifold:

- The survivability of the set would be greatly increased without becoming excessive.

- Shield users would still be beneficial/desirable to teams without being gimped solo.

- End usage would be brought more in line with the level of protection shields offer

- It would really add another layer of concept immersion to the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

Love this idea.

[Virtual_Fighter]

[ QUOTE ]
Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a Shields character with no allies within 8' compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just read all this again and found it a little funny. Let me recap:

So when you have 2 allies within 8' feet of you, hugging you essentially, and True Grit (way late in levels...), have herded all the mobs in range of AAO, making sure to keep your buddies on you to of course, debuffed their damage now..., "something odd happens," Shields actually becomes higher survivability wise than SR! :eek:

That....just sounds horrible to me. *shrug* Meh, if that's how you want to look at it and say it's balanced, that's fine. I think the line, "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining," is almost appropriate here. :D Joking, of course. :p

[Miladys_Knight]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them. Here's what I am seeing:

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a Shields character with no allies within 8' compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

Additionally, Against All Odds is increasing the Shields characters damage output by scale 1 + scale 0.55 per enemy up to 10 within 8' radius. Grant Cover is granting a Team Defense Buff and the set comes with a built in attack.

I've played the set, in the ITF with a group, I've solo'd, and duo'd, and have not found it to be a bad set.

How do your experiences differ from our play testing, math, and experiences?
What areas should we be looking at in this equation to make the Shields balanced but not over powered?
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

Edit: Clarity

[/ QUOTE ]

The shield powers conflict with each other and with standard teams.

Squishies don't get within 8' of melee toons especially those with taunt and taunt auras. That's calling a rain of pain down on your head in the form of (PB)AOEs.

Grant cover doesn't provide enough mitigation to risk getting within 15' of a shielder. Fireball and explosive blast have radius of 15' That means if you are in the range to get the benefit of grant cover you have increased your defense by ~13%. No matter what amount of defense you have 5% of attacks will always go through. Staying more than 15' away from a toon with taunt aura is much much higher mitigation.

So (intelligent) non-melee toons are therefore going to be out side the range of grant cover and will provide no bonus to the Shielder from Phalanx Fighting.

Phalanx Fighting directly conflicts with AAO. There are only so many sprites that fit into an 8' radius (~6) every ally within that range provides a buff to defense but at the same time that ally takes up a spot that would be filled by a mob being debuffed by AAO. What happens instead is that the mob then attacks from out side AAO radius and neither increases the sheilder's damage nor is debuffed by AAO.

The net effect is that the mitigation that your numbers say is there...... isn't. You don't get both on a team it's either-or, and while solo you get nothing.

I played the set from level 1 to level 26 prior to the level 50 bump. There is nothing that Sheild Defense excells at that other self mitigation sets do not. There are many situations that Shield Defense is inferior to all other self mitigation sets.

As far as buffing the team if my choice is a Shielder or a FF/ defender, /FF controller or Cold/ defender that sheilder isn't gettting the spot on my team. As far as dealing damage or controlling aggro any other tank primary scrapper secondary will be preferable.

I posted this elsewhere it's still valid....

Shield Defense Problems

1) Low defense values.
Slotting Deflection and Battle Agility with 3 def SOs, 2 end red SOs and Phalanx Fighting with 2 Def SOs (a third def SO in this power produces less than 1% additional defense because of ED) yeilds a defense value of 21.3%. This means that slightly more than 1/2 of all normal incoming attacks will hit and do damage. Having 3 allies within 8' of you will raise this slightly and can push you up to reasonable survivability levels but this is not typical behavior for most tanks, brutes, and scrappers and especially not for most PuG teams.

2) Lack of other layers of mitigation.
Deflection has a tiny bit of resistance to smashing and lethal in it (~3%) adding a damage resistance SO into this power brings it to ~4% which isn't worth the slot investment. True Grit slotted with 2 damage resistance and 2 Heal SOs adds ~5% resistance to the other damage types (save Psi) and 160ish extra hit points. That's it. There's no click heal, no click hit point boost, no Ramping defense ala Invincibility, no ramping resists ala Super Reflexes, no ramping regen ala Will Power. If your defense fails a +2 minion can kill you in 3-4 attacks.

3) Lack of Debuff resistances

a) The only Debuff resistance available in the set is defense debuff resistance. Battle Agility gives 13.84% defense debuff resistance and Active Defense gives an additional 17.30% resistance to defense debuffs for a total of 31.14%.

What that means to me is that instead of 2 even con minions with defense debuffing attacks reducing your defenses to negative numbers it takes 3 even con minions. Add in item 1 above and it only takes one, even con, defense debuffing, minion to start a defense cascade failure and there are lots of mobs and enemy types that have defense debuffs. (A single, even level, dark ring mistress can shred a shielder in seconds even when running One with the Shield.)

b) Active Defense is a click power. This means that it is stackable. When stacked it doubles it's value to mez and KB protections and increases Defense Debuff Resistance to just under 50%. This means that 4 even con defense debuffing minons are now required to reduce your defenses to negative numbers. It would take 233% extra recharge to double stack this power and get up to a reasonable amount of total defense debuff resistance. This isn't possible to do with Invention sets let alone SOs.

c) The set has no resistance to -recharge or slow powers. Active Defense is a click power. Slotted with 2 even level SOs you can get its duration to 1/2 second less that it's recharge. This doesn't give complete coverage since the power has a 1.5 second activation. This leaves the shielder vulnerable for 2 seconds. 3 slotting Active Defense with even level SOs gives a recharge of 102 seconds. ED prevents this number from being much lower. A single even con Council Marksman does a -30% to recharge. This means that a single Coucil Marksman is enough to reduce the ED capped recharge of Active Defense to the point that there are coverage gaps in it's protection. Because of item 1 above this is very likely to happen. Especially when coupled with 3a.

Super Reflexes, which is the other mitigation set that has click type mez protection, does not suffer from this problem since the Quickness power gives both a 20% bonus to recharge and a 40% resistance to recharge debuffs (slows).

d) There is no +to hit power or resistance to accuracy debuffs in the set. This means that mobs can easily floor the shielders accuracy. This makes it much more likely that the shielder will suffer a defense cascade failure and prolongs the battles increasing endurance expenditure.

4) Lack of self buffs.
There is no +recovery in the set. There is no +regen in the set. There is no +hit points power in the set except the small static amount in True Grit. Phalanx Fighting grants it's +def for each additional ally within 8' up to 3 times. This is noticeable but not significant and easily nullified by item 3a. Especially when combined with item 1.

The one self buff that Shields provides (Against All Odds) is not a buff to mitigation but a buff to damage. This damage buff is potentially too high. At level 50 against medium/large spawns of +2s I was able to one shot lieutenants with AAO + Build Up + Headsplitter. My headsplitter attack was slotted 1 Acc, 2 Dam, 2 end red, 1 recharge. All even level SOs. A critical with the above combination took more than 1/2 health from +2 bosses.

5) Lack of enemy debuffs.
The only debuff in the set is Against All Odds. This power debuffs enemy damage by 7.5%. The power is an 8' PBAoE that affects up to 10 targets. In practice it is impossible to get 10 enemies within 8'. Even if it were possible to do so 2-3 defense debuffing minions can eliminate all of your defenses and 4 melee attacks is all it takes to defeat you. Additionally the majority of mez/status effect and defense debuffing attacks are ranged which is where the mobs that use them prefer to be. Mobs that are outside of melee range aren't debuffed. An equivalent amount of resistance would be much much better than the debuff in this power.

6) Team buffs that aren't useful to the team.
Grant cover provides 8.44% defense to all positions and all types except Psionic to each teammate within 15'. With 3 even level defense SOs this is 13.67% defense but none of this is applied to the shielder. Shield ATs are Brutes, Scrappers, and Tanks. People playing these ATs take the aggro from the mobs to limit the damage the rest of the team takes. Most players that do this do so at a distance of more than 15' from their teammates to prevent AoE splash damage. Aggro management in this way is 100% mitigation for the team as compared to 13.67% additional AoE mitigation. Most players I have seen in Closed Beta (myself included) have skipped this power since the .16 end cost per second provides no benefit to self and is too risky for teammates that lack defenses to attempt to take advantage of. The only players this really benefits is armored melee type toons that extra defense is, for the most part, redundant for.

Using the Shield Charge power eliminates all the defense bonuses that Shield Defense provides for both the shield weilder and teammates.

Many of the shielders I have seen have taken manuvers instead of this power. Manuvers has several advantages over Grant Cover. It is radius 60', it provides benefit to the shielder as well as the team, it provides defense to Psionics. These benefits out weigh the increased endurance cost and lower values and make Manuvers a better power choice than Grant Cover in many situations.

7) The Tier 9 Power doesn't add enough survivability.
One with the Shield has a 2 minute duration, a 6 minute recharge, and is unaffected by recharge buffs. Slotted with 3 even level resistance SOs and 3 even level heal SOs the power gives an additional 523 hit points, 35.1% resitance to smashing/lethal, and 17.55% to all other types except Psionic. As a comparison the tier 9 when active coupled with all of the other defensive powers in the set gives less mitigation than unslotted granite armor. In regards to other scrapper defensive tier 9s the total mitigation provided by Shields with OwtS and all other defensive powers active is much less mitigation than Elude, or Unstoppable (both of which have a 60 second longer duration) and is similar to the values granted by Strength of Will but lacking the Will Power set's regeneration. OwtS is actually poorer mitigation than the Blaster Epic, Force of Nature which has the same duration but provides (when 3 slotted for resistance) 54.6% resitances to all but Psionic and 60% greater endurance recovery.

The only advantage that OwtS has is the endurance depletion at the end of it's duration is 60% rather than 100%.

To give you an idea of what OwtS does for you. If you 2 slot it with even level resistance, heal, and end mod SOs you get:

Smashing and Lethal = 31.5% (that's 1.5% more resistance than 2 medium orange insps)
All other damage types excuding Psi = 15.75% (that's .75% more resistance than 1 medium orange insp)
Extra Hit points = 444 at level 50 (a single medium green heals 441.87) [Since there's no regen in the set that's all you get except for a tiny bit from base regen] with the resists that's 2 or 3 more hits you can take over the 2 minute period.
Extra endurance gained = 99.6 - 60 end lost at the end of the 120 seconds = 39.6 endurance (a single medium blue insp gives you back 33.3 endurance)

Average it out and its little better than popping 3 medium oranges, a medium blue and a medium green over the span of 2 minutes.

A few other final bits of information.

Shield charge is a very fun power but Teleport + any mid-high damage PBAoE is better. Shield charge can't be used while flying/hovering, teleport can. Shield charge doesn't benefit from AAO since the damage is applied before AAO updates. Sheild charge has an extremely long recharge for the damage that it does. Teleport + any mid-high damage PBAoE is available to use much more frequently and will do more damage.

Endurance consumption is too high on BS/Shields. On my main build I have all primary powers except slash and confront. All the damage powers are 6 slotted, 1 Acc, 2 Dam, 2 end red, 1 rech. All end using toggles have 2 end red enhancers in them.

Any prolonged battle (boss + minions, spawn with acc debuffs/adds/ambushes, hazard zone spawns) uses 1/2 a bar of endurance even with 3 slotted stamina. EB, GM, and AV fights won't be possible without outside buffs/heavy inspiration use.

On one of the dual builds I experimented with I took all the shield powers except shield charge. Only Deflection and Battle Agility got 5 slots, Phalanx Fighting, Active Defense, and Against All Odds were 2 slotted and all the tier 6+ powers got only the base slot. The average number of defeats I suffered with this build was no different than the average number of defeats suffered with maximum slotting of the Shield power set. (ie: most of my mitigation came from parry, caltrops, the KU in Disembowel, and the KD in Headsplitter or from inspirations)

[Miladys_Knight]

Thematic buff to shields (scrapper numbers)

There are many options to make the set survivable, some things are thematic some things are not.

1) Increase personal defense values - This is very thematic since shields are used to deflect/block attacks.
2) Add resistances - This is very thematic as well. Ancient shields were wood covered with metal. Medeval armor had padded cloth or leather underneath. High tech and modern polymers do the same thing with shields in this day and age.
3) Increase recovery - this is not thematic.
4) Reduce endurance costs - this is thematic. Phalanx fighting techniques and training allowed the soldier conserve his own strentgh by relying on his comrades for some of his protection.
5) Increased health - only very slightly thematic. A small amount might be gained owning to the soldier's training.
6) Adding a self Heal - This is not thematic.
7) Increased defense debuff resistance - This is very thematic. Reinforcing a shield so that it can take more punishment is a common tactic both in medeval times and today.
8) Reistance to slow and -recharge - this is not thematic.
9) Resitance to accuracy debuffs - this is not thematic.
10) Active mitigation - Using the shield as a weapon to knock a foe (or foes) back, down, or off balance is a common practice and very thematic.

Numbers that I will be keeping in mind.

AoE radius - Powers like Fireball and Explosive blast are radius 15' to make grantable protection usable to non-armored teammates the radius of these type powers should be at the very least 20' but a more reasonable number would be 25' (a good example is dipsersion bubble.)

Team composition

The break down of "standard teams" (pulling some numbers from my admitedly grandfatherly memory and some personal past research) is roughly:

Blue Side
2 blasters
2 controllers
2 scrappers
1 tank
1 defender

(3 melee - 2 scrappers, 1 tank)

Red Side
2 brutes
3 masterminds
1 dominator
1 corruptor
1 stalker

(3 melee - 2 brutes, 1 stalker)

That means that on each side an 8 man team will have 3 melee toons, a 4-5 man team will have 2 melee toons and smaller teams may have only one or none (but we will assume one since we are talking about a sheilder).

Currently the Powers Order for Shield Defense is:

Deflection
Battle Agility
Phallanx Fighting
Active Defense
Against All Odds
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
True Grit
One With The Shield

I propose this order, with these changes:

Deflection - increase base resistance to smashing/lethal from 3.5% to 5%.

Battle Agility - increase defense debuff resistance to 30%

Phallanx Fighting - Since a full team will typically have 3 melee toons, a medium team will have 2, and small team/solo the shielder will be on their own. increase base defense to 5. Ally granted defense should be base of 2.5 with a maximum of 2 additional buffs. (The shield weilder's own shield grants the majority of his defense to himself. A single ally on either side would grant about 1/2 that amount [this is the same amount of defense provided by the power with 3 teammates just rebalanced to around actual team make ups). Increase range to 12' (an arm's length and a half step. [Not as thematic but closer to the reality of what happens in CoX). Add to the power the amount of hit points granted by the removed True Grit. Also add Phalanx battle training. A 23% global endurance reduction (very reduced version of conserve power but always on and unenhanceable) with an additional 7% reduction for each ally within 12' maximum of 2. This is like having an extra SO of end reduction in all powers on a full team but since it comes in the back door it by passes ED. Players that wish to 2 slot attack/toggle powers with end reducers could conceiveably skip stamina this way and this helps to cover the increased cost of making active defense a toggle instead of a click.

Active Defense - Change to a toggle (thus making it "active") with a cost of .21 end per second. Increase the defense debuff resistance to 20%. Add in the resistances from the removed true grit and add in as resistance the removed enemy damage debuff from Against All Odds. Have this apply to all damage types but psi (thus giving a thematically larger increase to lethal and smashing resistance). Total base resistance in this power would be 11.25%. This is actually a little more resistance than AAO's damage debuff applied since it is enhanceable here and applies to damage from enemies at range. This along with the change to Grant Cover's defense should provide the extra thematic layer of protection so badly needed by this set.

Shield Bash - Use the shield bash animation currently used by shield defense "brawl." Power effects should be identical to /electric blaster's Lightening Clap except reduce KB magnitude to .67 and decrease chance for knockdown from 100% to 50%. This would be the other layer of needed mitigation.

Against All Odds - remove the enemy damage debuff and decrease damage buff to 10% per target maximum 10 targets.

Grant Cover - add 3% defense (unenhanceable) to self. Increase range to 25' This power isn't really thematic since a shield should grant much more defense to it's user than to teammates. In the CoX world though doing this should solve most of the problems related to taking and using this power.

Shield Charge - Shield charge has the same base recharge as build up. It seems to me from looking at the numbers that it is intended to "sync up" with this power. However typical slotting for Build up is 3 recharge SOs and typical slotting for an attack is 1 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 rech, 1 end. This means that the 2 powers no longer sync up when enhanced. Reduce the base recharge of Shield Charge from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. This will allow the 2 powers to sync up with standard slotting and will remove the "clunkiness" of trying to use Shield Charge as an opening attack.

One With The Shield - add 25% resistance to defense debuffs

These proposed changes should add in the missing mitigation, balance out the large team/small team/solo problem, all while retaining the theme (and possibly making it more thematic) of the set.

[Stormbilly]

The main problem I see with shields is it's very low defense debuff resistance. The prevelence of defense debuff powers in the game, combined with the moderate defense numbers, makes this set really take a dive in surviveability. Especially since it seems like virtually every villian group has defense debuffs.

I actually like the set and think the numbers are fair. The problem is that these numbers are seldom the defense numbers that are actually being used due to the debuffs.

[Tempest_56]

From the perspective of an Axe/Shield brute:

1) The powers are definitely out of order. EvilGeko has it right - True Grit needs to be a LOT earlier in the progression. It plays an important role and, to be blunt, as a tier 8 power it kinda sucks. Tier 4 at the latest.

2) The click mez protection just doesn't work. Particularly in a set with no ability to resist -recharge debuffs and poorer defense than similarly click-reliant sets (particularly SR). On a tank, this is just begging for trouble.

3) The buff radius of Phalanx Fighting is just far, far too small. Even other melee ATs aren't going to consistently be within range - in realistic situations, the idea of having 2-3 other players within 8' is highly uncommon at best. It also translates to the set having a defensive yo-yo - one of your teammates wanders a even a little, and suddenly your defense plummets. I'd boost it to 15', making it equal to Grant Cover. (That would additionally help teammates know when they're out of Phalanx range - keeps them more aware.)

4) The -damage on AAO is just too small. By comparison, Chilling Embrace has double the -damage - the -recharge and +damage more even each other out. There's just no need for it to have half the strength of a similar toggle.

The set's got a lot of potential, but several of the aspects just don't pan out the way they need to in action. Looks fine on paper, but is brought downwards by several quirky limitations.

[Dispari]

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I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

2) Remove the SM, LE resists from Deflection, add them to True Grit, up the values [only the Sm, Le] to 1.0 (10% Tankers/7.5% Scrapper/Brute)

This pretty much doubles the resists, but between the health and the resists, it should allow a Shield Tanker to feel more "sturdy" taking alphas, especially with the Tough and Weave that many will wind up taking. And in One with the Shield, the character should feel quite strong.


That seems roughly fair to me, without overpowering the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

This looks good. Along with possibly increasing the radius of Phalanx and Grant Cover.

[/ QUOTE ]
I fully endorse this. Reorder the powers so defenses are done sooner (by 20) and utility powers come at 28-35 with your uber at 38. Adjust the way the resists are given (RES and DEF in the same power is hard to slot for) and give slightly more S/L resist because they're the most common damage types. POSSIBLY give True Grit higher values for HP and the other stuff. Give Phalanx a larger radius.

I'd be very happy with the set given those changes.

[Clan_Jericho]

[ QUOTE ]
The main problem I see with shields is it's very low defense debuff resistance. The prevelence of defense debuff powers in the game, combined with the moderate defense numbers, makes this set really take a dive in surviveability. Especially since it seems like virtually every villian group has defense debuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also a damned good point.

~Gabriel

[Virtual_Fighter]

Nice post M_K.

[ QUOTE ]
7) The Tier 9 Power doesn't add enough survivability.
One with the Shield has a 2 minute duration, a 6 minute recharge, and is unaffected by recharge buffs. Slotted with 3 even level resistance SOs and 3 even level heal SOs the power gives an additional 523 hit points, 35.1% resitance to smashing/lethal, and 17.55% to all other types except Psionic. As a comparison the tier 9 when active coupled with all of the other defensive powers in the set gives less mitigation than unslotted granite armor. In regards to other scrapper defensive tier 9s the total mitigation provided by Shields with OwtS and all other defensive powers active is much less mitigation than Elude, or Unstoppable (both of which have a 60 second longer duration) and is similar to the values granted by Strength of Will but lacking the Will Power set's regeneration. OwtS is actually poorer mitigation than the Blaster Epic, Force of Nature which has the same duration but provides (when 3 slotted for resistance) 54.6% resitances to all but Psionic and 60% greater endurance recovery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Concerning the Tier 9, why not just rename it to "Last Stand" and give it a +heal component to it as well? It's not up that often, but when it's needed it will let you have a reactive heal. It'll have a shorter, sweeter name and provide a heal for the set, one that definately couldn't be considered OP'd.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Hey, Castle.

Shield Characters:
EM/Shield Brute - At 40. Played quite a bit the night of the level bump to 40.
Mace/Shield Brute - Was 28 when I logged in. Leveled to 50 and took all Shield powers but Grant Cover. Purchased SOs in Grandville. Without any enhancements, I have 3.75% Positional Defense as per the combat monitor.

After slotting Phalanx Fighting with 3 lvl 50 Defense Enhs, I still have 3.75% Positional Defense. My bad for slotting defense in a power when the self-buff part of it isn't enhanceable. Perhaps the text should be fixed on that.

Slotting Deflection and Battle Agility with 3 Def each pushes my Positional Defense to 21.3%.

Adding Weave and Combat Jumping, both 3 slotted for Defense, I'm now at 30.07%.

Tough puts me at 21,3% DR to S/L, other damage types still at 3.75.

Run into 2 orange LTs and a yellow minion. At 25% end before they are dead. Health was fine. Opened with Shield Charge. All attacks have 1 end-red. Tough/Weave both have 2 end-red.

Fight red LT. Back to 50% end.

Endurance Consumption with 6 toggles is .92%/sec. Recovery is 2.48%/sec.

All attacks have 1end-red except Crowd Control and Shield Charge which have 2.

Another red LT. Down to half end before he's toast.

Anothe red LT. Eclipse Nightwolf Champion. Down to 25% end before he's finished. And I did open with Buildup.

Last floor. Decide to herd it. I get 1 yellow minion, 3 orange LTs and 1 red LT. I die. Active Defense Crashed and before it could recycle (2rec-reds) I get stunned. It didn't auto-fire because I was in the middle of the shield charge animation.

Head to hospital and back to mission. I make sure that Ad is recharged first before grabbing 4 of the above 5. I had managed to kill the minion. I fight normally after getting the remaining four together. By the time they're dead, I'm at 1/5th end and 1/3rd health.

From 4 enemies. And that's with all the knock from Mace and Shield Charge.

Next spawn is 1 orange LT and 4 yellow minions. Stay above 4/5ths healt, down to 1/4 end.

I'm unsure how you can call the endurance usage of Shields comparable to SR when part of the set is a high end usage mitigation tool in Shield Charge.

Enough with the easy mode stuff. I head to the Fab. Only fighting level 50s. All minion bane Spiders. I take them out, but low on health and end. I pop One with the Shield and hit a spawn of 49s with a Bane Spider Executioner. I manged that as well but still suckign wind on the endurance front. With OWTS up.


Castle, is it possible that Against All Odds is applying its end cost for every enemy in range?

Take on some level 50 Crey. 1 orange boss. 5 Crey Tanks. I have to eat a green to survive. Even then, I'm at a shred of health and end by the end of the fight.

Remember, this was all done with tough and weave running.


So. IS the set weak? Certainly feels that way. I get hit too much and too hard. If we're going for the 1 hero = 3 (+3) minons rule, then shields is fine.

It's a fun set, Castle. I really like shield charge. But the set feels weak. Having to add 3slotted CJ/Weave just to get it to the defense level of SR without CJ/Weave seems a bit much.

I don't believe that the damage debuff and minor health buffs are enough to get past that.

I can't imagine playing shields without massive primary-granted-knockdown. Because of that, I don't even want to train up the aforementioned EM/Shield.

EDIT: Just tried to take out 2 level 50 Bane Spider Executioners. With OWTS up. I took out one before the other killed me.

[UberGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
The buff radius of Phalanx Fighting is just far, far too small. Even other melee ATs aren't going to consistently be within range - in realistic situations, the idea of having 2-3 other players within 8' is highly uncommon at best. It also translates to the set having a defensive yo-yo - one of your teammates wanders a even a little, and suddenly your defense plummets. I'd boost it to 15', making it equal to Grant Cover. (That would additionally help teammates know when they're out of Phalanx range - keeps them more aware.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to say I agree with this as a player of mostly non-tankers. I'm almost never up next to the Tanker on anything I play. I realize there are some powersets that are most effecient when played that way, such as Kinetics. However, there are plenty of others where the last place you need to be is rubbing hips with the Tanker, who's soaking up all sorts of attacks, many of which are likely to be AoEs. Even on a character that can take that heat, it's completely normal for me to be running interferance against foes that aren't aggroed by the tanker, etc. I would normally be sure to be up with the tanker on some sort of EB/AV fight or if there was, effectively, herding going on for which I wanted to pile on.

[Alyiah]

Some powersets have different powers depending on the AT (stalkers don't get quick recovery, etc). Can the same be done for shields?

For scrappers, replace Phalanx Fighting with a passive +DEF all with a scaling resist similar to Super Reflexes and defense debuff resistance, and replace Grant Cover with a click power on a long recharge that maybe grants +recovery and/or +regen, while giving -recharge and -speed (you slow down and hide behind your shield to catch your breath).

For tanks, the range of Phalanx Fighting can be increased and Grant Cover can be changed to include the caster in its protection.

I'm not sure which would serve brutes better, because that largely depends on personal playstyle.

[_Ilr_]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Because it doesnt do anything great enough to warrant the extra effort.

[/ QUOTE ]For you, maybe.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, and it needs to be Noted that Shub is an admitted Defender-Phobe, atleast as far as TF teaming requirements go, LoL. I like ya Shub, but ya gotta get over that Anti-ForceMultiplying bent yer' on

[JayboH]

[ QUOTE ]
- Bulwark: You duck behind the unfailing protection of your shield to take a momentary respite from battle.

In effect, it could operate like a mini Hibernate. Maybe make it last 5 seconds or so, act as a phase, and during the active period you get a %1,000 regen buff, but for balance your global recharge is debuffed by %50 while the power is active. You could even give it Hibernate's Recovery bonus if you wanted to try and do something to help the set's end problems. That would add another layer of strategy, too: "Do I use Bulwark now as my blue bar's running low, or do I save it in case my health begins to drop?" Give it a long-ish recharge (I'm thinking 90 to 100 seconds) and it wouldn't be overpowered. Merge Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover (or Deflection and Battle Agility) and then stick Bulwark in at either L18 or L26.

The benefits of the above would be manifold:

- The survivability of the set would be greatly increased without becoming excessive.

- Shield users would still be beneficial/desirable to teams without being gimped solo.

- End usage would be brought more in line with the level of protection shields offer

- It would really add another layer of concept immersion to the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is awesome. /signed x 100, and it's unique.

[WynterPhrost]

My experience with a Shield Tanker (lvl 50, fully SO'd) was positive when soloing, on Heroic, and Unyielding. However, I increased it to Invincible and brought a teammate with me this time. I had all 4 shield toggles running.
I had a council mission, and decided to test myself with a couple mobs at once to see how well I "herded". More to the point, to see how well my defenses stood up against tough enemies for TF situations, and to push myself to the limits.

I ran into a room of Council, again on Invinc' with me and one other person. I pulled 2 mobs, and gathered them to one spot.
I expected to have a hard time, considering the situation, but I died rather quickly with the archon's dark damage and the wolf's burst damage.

Second attempt in a similar situation, I hit One with the Shield first and was taken down to 1/4th health.

So, I took that as a lesson learned and moved on. I figure every set has its weaknesses, and figured maybe Shields aren't so much a "herding tank" set, but this is something my ice and wp tanks can do.

As a side note, the tanker I was testing with had stone melee, and I had designed my build with 1 or 2 endurance reducers on each toggle/attack with the specific power's end usage in mind... and I have to say I barely notice any endurance problems. I don't know what people complain about when it comes to endurance and Shields. I haven't seen this problem.

[Riverdusk]

[ QUOTE ]
Some powersets have different powers depending on the AT (stalkers don't get quick recovery, etc). Can the same be done for shields?

For scrappers, replace Phalanx Fighting with a passive +DEF all with a scaling resist similar to Super Reflexes and defense debuff resistance, and replace Grant Cover with a click power on a long recharge that maybe grants +recovery and/or +regen, while giving -recharge and -speed (you slow down and hide behind your shield to catch your breath).

For tanks, the range of Phalanx Fighting can be increased and Grant Cover can be changed to include the caster in its protection.

I'm not sure which would serve brutes better, because that largely depends on personal playstyle.

[/ QUOTE ]

No thanks. You know maybe some of us like the idea of one scrapper powerset that has some powers that help the team? Something different from the standard? I'm all for them helping me too and am for that change, but I like the idea of having a team buff power without having to play a defender/controller all the time.

The problem is just these are just too small of a radius to actually help very much. They did it right with the VEATS, not sure why they couldn't quite hit the mark on this set.

[_Ilr_]

[ QUOTE ]
And now with Shields you're trying to justify its survivability by comparing it to Super Reflexes. Super Reflexes... the weakest of all the Scrapper secondaries.

[/ QUOTE ]
LMAO WUT?

This sounds like a Plea for Energy Aura to be Prolif'd to Scrappers ;)
Whatya say Castle? We know they're beggin for EM/Ninjitsu and SS/Ice...
But how about you just give 'em ElecMelee / EnergyAura next issue, muhahaha

[Lemur Lad]

I wanted to make a general commentary on what I think the design theory behind the buffs was, and how it fails when we run into 'the way people play'

Theory- Historically shield users are clustered tightly together to gain maximum benefits. The buffs reflect that.

Practice- CoH players only cluster tightly when absolutely necessary. Not every foe has AoE, but there are enough of them that a sort of behavior like gas laws becomes pretty common practice. It just makes it easier to see what's happening, see where aggro is being distributed, and forcing foes to run from one player to another ends up becoming a kind of damage mitigation.

The other part of that is the Ranged NPC AI means without herding techniques and breaking line of sight, NPC groupings end up standing far apart and staying there until the players go after them. Meleers are built to run up and hit things, and if you have 3 shielders going after 3 ranged attackers they nearly always lose the PF buff. This may change once people get more used to the melee range buff but i don't think it likely and I can't count on that for my survival on teams. :)

So how do we change this? Well the theoretical design breaks down because it's at odds with normal teaming practice, and doesn't reward breaking that habit. The most common suggestion so far has been to A) extend the range and/or B) combine Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover. There's obviously issues with that being overpowered too easily.

As a thought experiment, let me suggest one thing. Grant Cover could be merged, but changed at the same time. Instead of being a pretty generic buff to All types, why not make it a more substantial buff to AoE defense, which is the bigger team killer when clustered. Reward teammates for getting close enough to the Shielder to buff their defense and get safety while they are there.

That's just thinking out loud about how functionally things are shaking out. I have only a little time on teams to back it out, but on the Rikti Ship raid it did seem applicable.

[Riverdusk]

[ QUOTE ]
As a side note, the tanker I was testing with had stone melee, and I had designed my build with 1 or 2 endurance reducers on each toggle/attack with the specific power's end usage in mind... and I have to say I barely notice any endurance problems. I don't know what people complain about when it comes to endurance and Shields. I haven't seen this problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

All I can figure is too many are use to /regen and /wp. If I can make a spines/dark to where endurance isn't really an issue, shields should be a breeze.

Edit: Just thought of one caveat though, this set doesn't have endurance drain resistance like dark armor does, so I could see it a problem when fighting certain foes.

[Lemur Lad]

Notice that most people having issues are Tankers with quicker cycling attack sets. Tanks take more hits to make kills than Scrappers or Brutes. Brutes are noticing issues for the same reason any brute notices issues... Fury is a harsh mistress.

[blue_bandana]

[ QUOTE ]

No panic button. When the fecal matter hits the oscillating unit, a Shield/ tanker has very few options to deal with that. This will cause a Shield Tanker to feel that they need more toggles and pool powers to compensate and to make sure that those times when a panic button is needed to a minimum.

[/ QUOTE ]

My Shield/Martial Arts scrapper is only level 10 or 11 now. My comments are from watching others play at higher levels and examining the numbers.

I agree with Aett_Thorn, above, about a panic button. A heal is a nice idea, but on the live servers just the other day I was doing the ITF again. This time I was fighting them with my tank, and I noticed that when the lieutenant-grade soldiers were in trouble, they would let out a war cry, increasing their defense and their allies'.

It's a beautiful power. I would love something like this to use as a panic button. Maybe add a bit of a heal to it to increase survivability. I would even (dare I say it?) trade in Shield Charge for this instead. :eek:

[Atomic_Toy_Guy]

[ QUOTE ]
...wouldn' that kinda make the new Phalanx Fighting more powerful than Dispersion Bubble though?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not if you factor in the area of effect. The area of effect on the "team" based powers in this set are down right pathetic.

Grant cover should cover an area just as large as the VEAT powers, and the Phalanx power should be a minimum of 20ft, I would make it at least 30ft if it were me. They can't seriously be basing the radius on these powers on reality, because the whole thing makes no sense to begin with when compared to reality..

As a tank, I wouldn't want anyone on the team that isn't a tank or a scrapper to be closer than 15ft from me.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And now with Shields you're trying to justify its survivability by comparing it to Super Reflexes. Super Reflexes... the weakest of all the Scrapper secondaries.

[/ QUOTE ]
LMAO WUT?

This sounds like a Plea for Energy Aura to be Prolif'd to Scrappers ;)
Whatya say Castle? We know they're beggin for EM/Ninjitsu and SS/Ice...
But how about you just give 'em ElecMelee / EnergyAura next issue, muhahaha

[/ QUOTE ]
It's nothing of the sort.

The simple fact is that without IOs of any sort Super Reflexes is the weakest of all Scrapper Secondary powersets. Period.

Or at least it will be until Shields hits live.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Castle,

Followup post.

I decided that there is some likelihood that IOs have clouded my perceptions when it comes to set performance.

In light of that, I took my main claws/sr scrapper to PI and replaced ALL of his enhancements with SOs.

I have 39.19% positional defense and 17.55 S/L DR. SR+Tough, Weave and CJ.

Standard SO slotting. Attacks are 1acc/1rec-red/1end-red/3dam except Followup which is 2acc/2rec-red/1end-red/1dam

All toggles have 3def/DR and 1end-red except tough which has 2end-red.

All passives have 3def as does combat jumping.

I head to the RWZ.

I find a spawn of level 50s. Well... tried to... found some 51s. 2 bosses, 4 LTs, 2 minions. Attacked.

Complete toggle drop due to running out of end. Popped a green and a blue instead of kiting the last boss. Was down to a maybe 1/10th health and end by the end of the battle.


The answer to the question that started this post is yes. My perceptions of sets has been thoroughly farked because of IOs.

Specifically on end usage. Shields does seem comparable to SR.

Logged off Bill. Logged back on the mace/shield brute. Went to RV. Found a level 51 spawn. 2 bosses. 2 LTs. 2 minions and a comm officer. He got the portal off and 4 orange conscripts came out. I died before I even got the comm officer down.

However, I'll right that off as an overspawn due to the portal's conscripts.

Hosp, find a level 50 spawn. 1 boss, 4 LTs, 1 minion. Death from toggle dropping due to endurance bottoming out.

Attempt 3. Level 50. 1 boss, 1 lt, 3 minions, 1 comm officer. Killin comm first. Success. Used one blue insp. As with Bill, I still had to sit around doing nothing while end rebuilt so that I could attack.

Attempt 4: Level 51. 1 boss, 5 LTs, 2 minions. Failure. I managed to kill the two minion guardians.


So. Shields much weaker than SR. Use about the same endurance. (Too much. How the hell did I ever play without IOs? Chew through blues all the time?)

[Atomic_Toy_Guy]

[ QUOTE ]
I wanted to make a general commentary on what I think the design theory behind the buffs was, and how it fails when we run into 'the way people play'

Theory- Historically shield users are clustered tightly together to gain maximum benefits. The buffs reflect that.

Practice- CoH players only cluster tightly when absolutely necessary. Not every foe has AoE, but there are enough of them that a sort of behavior like gas laws becomes pretty common practice. It just makes it easier to see what's happening, see where aggro is being distributed, and forcing foes to run from one player to another ends up becoming a kind of damage mitigation.

The other part of that is the Ranged NPC AI means without herding techniques and breaking line of sight, NPC groupings end up standing far apart and staying there until the players go after them. Meleers are built to run up and hit things, and if you have 3 shielders going after 3 ranged attackers they nearly always lose the PF buff. This may change once people get more used to the melee range buff but i don't think it likely and I can't count on that for my survival on teams. :)

So how do we change this? Well the theoretical design breaks down because it's at odds with normal teaming practice, and doesn't reward breaking that habit. The most common suggestion so far has been to A) extend the range and/or B) combine Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover. There's obviously issues with that being overpowered too easily.

As a thought experiment, let me suggest one thing. Grant Cover could be merged, but changed at the same time. Instead of being a pretty generic buff to All types, why not make it a more substantial buff to AoE defense, which is the bigger team killer when clustered. Reward teammates for getting close enough to the Shielder to buff their defense and get safety while they are there.

That's just thinking out loud about how functionally things are shaking out. I have only a little time on teams to back it out, but on the Rikti Ship raid it did seem applicable.

[/ QUOTE ]


I like this idea, though it would still make for complex teaming, and would require lots of explanation.. heck Radiation Infection has been around for how long, and I still have to explain to people why the glowing green man is the least of their worries..

i hate things that require complex strategies. Because it seems like too many people just don't care enough or are just too darn dumb to learn them.

[Tenzhi]

I was playing as a Shield/SS Tank. I'm not to 20 with it yet, but thus far the set has seemed quite fragile. There was a point at which I picked up Against All Odds rather than Phalanx Fighting wherein it seemed defensively weaker than Scrapper sets I've played through those levels. When the next power selection came along and I got PF the character began to feel defensively on par with Scrappers I've played in those levels. Not good for a Tanker.

And it didn't help when I was doing my best to keep some enemies occupied when all of a sudden I was stunned despite supposedly having Mez protection, which leads me to agree that click-mez protection is a bad thing. Since it generally gets put on auto-fire anyway and works out to about .09 End/s just make it a toggle. Tanks need the reliability.

A better, though probably not possible, option would be to just give Shields a single toggle and a bunch of auto powers that modify that toggle. That seems more befitting the concept.

And looking ahead to Grant Cover, I'd say that it should grant some sort of bonus to the user. Common suggestions along that line have been to give it a Perception or Recharge bonus.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
The simple fact is that without IOs of any sort Super Reflexes is the weakest of all Scrapper Secondary powersets. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

With out without pool powers? Without I would agree. With? See last post on my mitigation values. And that was without factoring in SR'S PSDR.

[Ironik]

I think I've only made Tanks, and they're all low level at that. But to me, the set feels a lot like SR in that it has some really weak spots. Early on in the sewers there wasn't a problem, but as we leveled it seemed like our defenses were actually getting weaker.

In some fights we were fine, but sometimes the team gets wiped out. Which is really odd, given a team of 8 comprised almost entirely of Tanks with a couple Scrappers for variety. Thinking back on it, the times when we had the most trouble were when we got spread out, either because foes were running or through the natural ebb and flow of battle. If the buffs drop quickly, that would explain the multiple deaths we experienced.

Browsing through this thread makes me think that the issue is with the team buff being of too short a range. There's definitely something weird going on with the XP range -- we noticed time and again that the team had be practically standing on top of a dead teammate in order for them to get any XP. Was this changed intentionally, or is it a bug? Does it go hand-in-hand with the shield defenses?

[Sarrate]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them. Here's what I am seeing:

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a [u]Shields character with no allies within 8'[u] compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

<snip>

[/ QUOTE ]

There's something fishy going on with either your numbers or mine. I just put Shield into v5 of Arcana's spreadsheet (why re-invent the wheel, right?) and I came up with a 60s survivable 101.01 dps for a Shield Scrapper with 3 people in Phalanx Fighting. With 0, that drops to about 64 dps.

It doesn't look like an input error on my part, since comparing damage admittance I was within 1-2% for each data point you listed. The difference may be coming from a slightly low dmg debuff for AAO. I'm using 7.5%. (That's what I tested it to be on Test, but the target may have had some resistance.)

If you'd like to check to make sure my numbers are valid, I've uploaded the modified spreadsheet here (http://www.zerofold.com/doomshift/coh/test/a4a-v5-SHIELD.xls). Shield is in the sandbox collum. A couple notes:
Cell AD 19 - This is the number of targets in Phalanx Fighting.
Cell AD 20 - This is for One With the Shield. 0 = off, 1 = one.
Cell AD 33 - This def debuff is to cancel out PF's unenhanceable buff that is included in AD 23-25. [edit: There's no place to put an unenhanceable def buff, so it's a bit of a hack.]


I'll try to formulate my thoughts tomorrow, I don't have the time to hash it out tonight.


[edit: My character on Test is a Shield/EM Tanker. I'll say it again when I post my complete thoughts.]

[edit: Updated the spreadsheet. The OWTS and PF fields are next to one another and labeled. Heh, no time to formulate my thoughts, but I'll sit here and fiddle with a spreadsheet. Figures.]

[Nasmodok]

[ QUOTE ]
How do your experiences differ from our play testing, math, and experiences?
What areas should we be looking at in this equation to make the Shields balanced but not over powered?
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

Edit: Clarity

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not to interested in everyone's reasons for hating on the set.. But I thought you should know, Castle, that I've played the set at 50 and at lowbie levels, and I think it rocks. I think it's well balanced and I love how all for one works. It might be endurence heavy if you slot it out for large teams, but testing with SO's simply leads me to beleive you can assist that issue with IO's if you want to play that way.

It's reassuring to me to see the numbers you've posted, because it only reaffirms the statements I've been making about it on other threads. Just remember that those who love it, tend not to be here on the forums. People who have issues tend to be here more. (Even I was only brought here because I was concerned about the Patron powers, check out my staggering post count) ;)

Anyway, love the set as is. Can't wait to play it. Keep up the great work as always. And thanks again for the numba's. :)

[Web_Death]

While playing The Tank version of Shields, the set as a whole feels squishier then I would have expected it would have been. I'd have expected more defense and resistance from a Tank version then a scrapper.

Brute also felt abit squishy. But since it uses similar to scrapper numbers, I suppose that is how it's supposed to be?

When it comes to endurance drains, where I feel the biggest endurance drains are in larger scale mobs. Especially with Against All Odds. It feels like every enemy in the mob makes the power cost more. (Which I think is how it's supposed to be?)

Grant Cover also doesn't feel like that worthy of a power. Why take a power that doesn't benifit you when you can just dip into the leadership pool for Maneuvers? Sure it might not give as much of a defense buff, but at least it's affecting you and not just your allies.

The last two powers, Shield Charge and the Tier 9 One with the Shield are good powers. I like them alot. Especially One with the shield's End crash only. (Unless that got changed since my last time on my Shielders)

Maybe there just isn't enough of a resist damage factor on the shield set as a whole? I'm not saying it could use that much more.. But it feels squishier then SR usually does. Unfortunately numbers are not my speciality. I can only tell you how things felt in my experience so far.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The simple fact is that without IOs of any sort Super Reflexes is the weakest of all Scrapper Secondary powersets. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

With out without pool powers? Without I would agree. With? See last post on my mitigation values. And that was without factoring in SR'S PSDR.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry Bill, I should have been more precise. I was talking specifically about the powerset itself. Without IOs, pool powers or anything else. Just straight comparison between the powersets.

BTW, thank you for your pure SO test. I've been trying to tell people for over a month now that SR is an End-HOG and that Shields will be weaker than SR. Your test just confirmed that. I'm fairly certain that a large number of forum posters are convinced that I'm a moron, so hopefully they'll believe what I've been saying about Shields now that you've said it.

[Dispari]

[ QUOTE ]
Grant Cover also doesn't feel like that worthy of a power. Why take a power that doesn't benifit you when you can just dip into the leadership pool for Maneuvers? Sure it might not give as much of a defense buff, but at least it's affecting you and not just your allies.

[/ QUOTE ]
Grant Cover is one of the unique powers of Shield. Granted, it'd be nice if it buffed you too, but this is purely an optional power. If you don't care about everyone else on your team or mostly solo, you don't have to take it. I personally like the idea of the power and would want to take it.

And for comparison sake:
Grant Cover: 8.44% DEF, 0.16 end
Maneuvers: 2.28% DEF, 0.39 end

GC could use a larger radius though.

[The_Godchild]

Just to point out the issues with click-based mez protection, here's the experiences from a SS/SR brute, Claws/SR scrapper and dark/nin stalker perspective.

Overlap: it's possible to perma a click-mez by 17 with 3 IO 20 recharges, only about 5-10 overlap though so mid-battle this can be somewhat of an issue. 3 IO 25 Recharges set a much more manageable overlap, though continual upgrading is always recommended to increase the overlap more so (so prolonged battles don't leave you unprotected before you realize it). SR does get the 20% global bonus from quickness, and it does make a noticeable difference when compared to Ninjitsu's mez recharge without it.

Endurance: As a click power, you only have to cop out the endurance cost once for the powers duration yes, normally that would seem appealing compared to the constant eps upkeep from multiple toggles. But eventually when the power's overlapping with itself, the appeal looses much of its flair and becomes more of a mid-battle burden depending on your attack set. My SR brute already has to deal with the crash from rage (20% end), along with Super Strength's high end costs and SR's multi-toggle upkeep which pushes my recovery to the limits. Adding in a vital power that cycles every minute and a half usually results in me having to give up all my defense toggles to cycle my status defense mid-battle.

Overall Impressions: It depends more on what AT's using the power IMO. For scrappers and stalkers who tend to draw less aggro compared to brutes and tanks, a click-resist power works out fine. My SR scrapper has no real issues with Practiced Brawler, my Nin stalker's much the same. As a tanking brute, my SS/SR suffers because of PB's cycling upkeep, I can only imagine what it would be like to try and tank with a setup that required me to watch my status protection to make sure I don't accidentally attack myself into being held, in addition to maintain aggro control. Would it be possible to set tanks and brute's to have a toggle version of the power instead of a click? Or would that require all forms of Active defense/Practiced brawler to be redone?

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The simple fact is that without IOs of any sort Super Reflexes is the weakest of all Scrapper Secondary powersets. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

With out without pool powers? Without I would agree. With? See last post on my mitigation values. And that was without factoring in SR'S PSDR.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry Bill, I should have been more precise. I was talking specifically about the powerset itself. Without IOs, pool powers or anything else. Just straight comparison between the powersets.

BTW, thank you for your pure SO test. I've been trying to tell people for over a month now that SR is an End-HOG and that Shields will be weaker than SR. Your test just confirmed that. I'm fairly certain that a large number of forum posters are convinced that I'm a moron, so hopefully they'll believe what I've been saying about Shields now that you've said it.

[/ QUOTE ]

In comparison to WP and Regen... hell, even FA and EA, the sets without some kind of end management in them are all pretty damn painful on the blue bar.

I honestly had forgotten just how bad it is for those sets.

For the record, every new alt I create gets a performance shifter chance for + end slotted as soon as they are able on top of 3 slotting in stamina/qr.

[Alpha_Zulu]

[ QUOTE ]
For the record, every new alt I create gets a performance shifter chance for + end slotted as soon as they are able on top of 3 slotting in stamina/qr.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dont' go for sets in stamina/QR eh?

[GrimTitan]

Another fun power thought I had:

What about a reverse Build Up/Aim power? All the stats could be the same: 90s recharge, 10s duration, shows up around L20, etc. But instead of giving you a big damage/to-hit boost, it could be a 10-second boost of 70% resistance and a moderate heal. Call it "Hunker Down" or something.

[White_Magician]

I was just testing a couple hours ago with a MA/Shield scrapper and noticed a couple of things.

I compared 3 other builds (MA/Willpower; MA/Invulnerability; and MA/Super Reflexes). Note: all builds were unslotted.

soloing levels 1-10:

I felt more squishy compared to the other powersets mainly due to the mobs I was up against. Most of the mobs in this range have Defense Debuff due to the firearms which dropped me down to -4 to -8% percent at times. (This is with Deflection; Battle Agility and Phalanx Fighting on giving me an initial 15.00% in Melee/Range/AoE Defense).

Same scenario with the other builds had Invulnerability and Willpower survivrability higher due due to the Max HP increase and damage resistances given. Invulnerability also has a much higher Defense Debuff resistance than Shield Defense (25.00% in Resist Physical Damage) within these levels, and Willpower had Fast Healing which helped recover faster from the attacks. Super Reflexes have Debuff Resistance in all the first 3 tiers that stack up to 15.00%.

Since Shield Defense doesn't have a Max HP increase till it's tier 8 power and Battle Agility's Defense Debuff Resistance is only 6.80%, the following attacks unfortunately shredded me after the initial drop in my Defense from the mob machine guns. With Active Defense at Tier 4 it brings my Defense Debuff Resistance up to about 14.30%, only slightly lower than Super Reflexes at the same level but missing the resistances gained from Agility.

Another one to tear me up was against any energy/fire/cold etc attacks due to a lack of resistances from those attacks within these levels. (Also have to wait for the Tier 8 power). An outcast Volt would hit me at full strength after my defense was lowered from the other's machine guns. Invulnerability had a similar issue up till it's tier 4 power is earned. Willpower has both earlier resistances, Max HP increase and regen from Fast Healing & with Super Reflexes having the stacking resistances of Agility at Tier 4 as well.

---

Next test was with Phalanx Fighting with a teamsize of 4. I've found that the Defense buff a little misleading in its benefits cause when the team was huddled that close, the aggro inherently disperses between all of us causing the attacks toward me to be less. The rolls made by attacker still hit and missed at the same rate as if I were solo, so there wasn't a noticable difference there. Only really saw the difference from that most of the attacks weren't directed towards me in first place.

I'm still gonna keep testing these builds through to level 50, though from this initially, I'd wish that either I had a higher Defense Debuff resistance in the earlier levels, or a higher initial Defense output to keep from going into the negative numbers from machine guns. Might also like some Energy Resistances earlier.

Also, I think the effectiveness of Phalanx Fighting is a little misleading as aggro mitigation between all the teammates being so close together inherently brings less attacks to me causing me to survive longer.

[freonfreak]

I love the bulwark idea as well, when i first heard sheilds i thought of something like that, kind of a hibernate clone type power. I say drop true grit and put it there. the little bit of resists could be put on a diff power if you wanted to keep it for people, and the +hps... well, I would perfer the bulwark safe heal to it. Great idea.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
In comparison to WP and Regen... hell, even FA and EA, the sets without some kind of end management in them are all pretty damn painful on the blue bar.

I honestly had forgotten just how bad it is for those sets.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah well... most of my characters do not have IOs at all. I think I have like 3 characters total that have any set bonuses, and those are purely accidental as I was simply frankenslotting.

I'm not one of those guys that thinks that end should be deleted from the game, nor am I one that screams "make stamina an inherent already!" I am fine with having both bars and the limitations thereof. But I can see the difference between a limitation and "ZOMFG!!! We're gonna beat you over the head with this game mechanic until you're [censored] sick to death of it!!!!!!!!!!!"

And they have won. I am indeed sick of being beat over the head with my blue-bar. I'd just like to play the game already... can I just play the game? Do you really have to keep beating me over the head with that blue-bar? C'mon now, you're gonna put an eye out with that thing.

So yeah. Yet another set that's gonna beat me over the head with that blue-bar. Only this one is a little different! This one's gonna suck in the survival department as well!! Just to be different I suppose. Well, since I don't quad-box, which means I won't have other 3 Shield Scrappers on auto-follow I guess I'll be sticking with Willpower. Thanks anyway...

[Talen Lee]

[ QUOTE ]
can I just play the game?

[/ QUOTE ]Since the blue bar is part of the game and you don't want to acknowledge it, I guess not.

[GrimTitan]

I appreciate very much the positive feedback everyone has for my "Bulwark" idea. I would like to say, however, that I think it's important that heal powers (especially if there's only one in a given set) be placed no later than 28--preferably more around 20. It's a pretty imperative thing that you be able to heal yourself as a melee'er in this game, and putting it off till the mid-30's is an exercise in frustration.

[_Ilr_]

[ QUOTE ]
As a tank, I wouldn't want anyone on the team that isn't a tank or a scrapper to be closer than 15ft from me.

[/ QUOTE ]
I would, but only really annoying people. ...and only after I Taunted every Nemesis Comet in sight...
(Perhaps Grant Cover needs to give really high AoE defense to make it more Compatible with Turtling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_(game_term)))

[_Ilr_]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The simple fact is that without IOs of any sort Super Reflexes is the weakest of all Scrapper Secondary powersets. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

With out without pool powers? Without I would agree. With? See last post on my mitigation values. And that was without factoring in SR'S PSDR.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry Bill, I should have been more precise. I was talking specifically about the powerset itself. Without IOs, pool powers or anything else. Just straight comparison between the powersets.

BTW, thank you for your pure SO test. I've been trying to tell people for over a month now that SR is an End-HOG and that Shields will be weaker than SR. Your test just confirmed that. I'm fairly certain that a large number of forum posters are convinced that I'm a moron, so hopefully they'll believe what I've been saying about Shields now that you've said it.

[/ QUOTE ]

In comparison to WP and Regen... hell, even FA and EA, the sets without some kind of end management in them are all pretty damn painful on the blue bar.

I honestly had forgotten just how bad it is for those sets.

For the record, every new alt I create gets a performance shifter chance for + end slotted as soon as they are able on top of 3 slotting in stamina/qr.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hate to jump back in the middle of this, but I played my SR to 30 without Stamina. ...Spines/SR, LoL.
I'm not saying it's easy, but I made it pretty quickly... on teams... very few rest breaks.
Sure I had to load up about 9 CaBs between every mission but that's because I also had Medical and was healing or rezzing everyone on my team while fighting... so lots of extra end usage.

Could both of these sets be played without IO's? Sure, I know they can...

But if this is to be a fun set for Teaming atleast, I think all this discussion really is bringing us right back to the first post I made: ...If this powerset is going to rely on Teams, then it needs [u]real Energy Management options[u] when Teamed. VEATs got it(REC bonus multipliers), Paragons get it, Defenders get it, Rad & Emp SuperTeams get it.... why the hell aren't Shielders getting it? ...seems to me this is the issue Castle will still have to deal with before moving on to anything else.


>.>
Though the Bulwark (mini Hibernate) idea could also be part of the solution, especially if it's given the same slotting options as Hibernate has.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
can I just play the game?

[/ QUOTE ]Since the blue bar is part of the game and you don't want to acknowledge it, I guess not.

[/ QUOTE ]
You obviously did not read my post, or you didn't comprehend it.

I specifically said that I have no problem with occasional endurance issues. I do have a problem with running out of endurance in the middle of almost every single fight throughout the entire game. Which is what used to happen to my MA/SR prior to my slotting for even more EndRedux.

Like I said, I have no problem with occasionally running out of endurance. I do have a problem with being beat over the head with endurance issues from 1-50. That's just way too aggravating for me. YMMV.

[Blackdragon1686]

[ QUOTE ]

But if this is to be a fun set for Teaming atleast, I think all this discussion really is bringing us right back to the first post I made: ...If this powerset is going to rely on Teams, then it needs [u]real Energy Management options[u] when Teamed. VEATs got it(REC bonus multipliers), Paragons get it, Defenders get it, Rad & Emp SuperTeams get it.... why the hell aren't Shielders getting it? ...seems to me this is the issue Castle will still have to deal with before moving on to anything else.


[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo... this is what I've been wondering the whole time. Why not add an end recovery component to either AAO or even PF? It doesn't have to be huge but something. It feels rather odd without, seeing as how the two more natural defense sets (WP and Regen) both have end management powers. And no, I'm not saying give shields QR.

[NeoSaturn]

How about adding as Endurance discount for everyone teammate buffed by Grant cover like Defenders vigilance.

That way team get def, you get mini conserve power.

[bAss_ackwards]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Click mez protection is kind of a pain for Tankers pre-SOs.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to agree here. Why can't the power's recharge be adjusted so that it's permable out of the box, and then set it to ignore recharge buffs and debuffs? 22 levels without permable mez protection on a Tank really sucks.

[/ QUOTE ]
The other click status protection powers (from Ninjitsu and Super Reflexes) will also be having this problem, when (if ever) they get ported over to Tankers. I really dislike having click status protection. Any pause in my combat makes me grind my teeth. It's why I've strayed away from my once-upon-a-time main character of Katana/Regen to more Willpower characters (3 of them at 50 now.)

[DarkMaster]

Personally, I think that shields lacks some "special" types of protections. Such as protections from end drains, slows, -rech, -speed, -regen, -recovery, fears, confuse, tp foe, etc. Now I'm not suggesting that it get "all" of those, but a small mix of a couple of those would be very very nice. Shields also lacks any sort of true +heal, +regen, or +endurance powers, all of which go a long ways towards overall survivability.


Furthermore, I think shields is trying to have alot of "minor" protections from several different things but does not really "major" in any area. As EvilGeko stated, this works ok for resistance based sets and even regen based sets (<---WP) but not so well for "defensive" based sets. Because of this, things need adjusted. I do feel that unless we are given a couple strong "niches" to certain things, that all of our values will need to be slightly tweaked "up" in order to bring us up to par with other sets in "real" playtesting.


Now, I realize that the "number crunching" suggests differently, and that Shields "should" be performing as good if not better than some other sets, but Castle, you and I know all too well that sometimes "in-game" experience does not reflect "number crunching results" all the time....and I think this may be that case.


Also, another thing I liked about EvilGeko suggestions, is to have the powers order "resorted" somewhat.

[ QUOTE ]
1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

2) Remove the SM, LE resists from Deflection, add them to True Grit, up the values [only the Sm, Le] to 1.0 (10% Tankers/7.5% Scrapper/Brute)

This pretty much doubles the resists, but between the health and the resists, it should allow a Shield Tanker to feel more "sturdy" taking alphas, especially with the Tough and Weave that many will wind up taking. And in One with the Shield, the character should feel quite strong.


That seems roughly fair to me, without overpowering the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually LOVE his ideas for powers order re-org. In fact, it's exactly what I had in mind, so I totally support it. I even like his idea with removing the +res to smash/lethal from Deflection and just placing them in True Grit, it'd make alot more sense and help towards making us feel more "sturdy."


I also liked the idea sprouted by Beef_Cake:

[ QUOTE ]
Sort of like Mind Link, it effects you and your team. And now that I think of it, are there any AOE team buffs out there that does not effect its caster? I can't think of one.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like this too, it'd be a nice little "boost" to us and our allies. What if, to keep it balanced, they changed Grant Cover to a "clickie" like Mind Link, instead of a Toggle? This way, we could only have it up ever so often, and it'd be viewed more of a bonus "boost/buff" to ourselves and our teammates than a permanent "toggled" defense increase. I'd like that idea ALOT actually.

I also liked Jacobi_Law's suggestion:

[ QUOTE ]
I think the biggest issue is Phalanax fighting 8ft radius is to small. Even on 8 man teams it is rare to have people that close to you. I realize for concept reasons it is suppose to be small, but I think increasing the radius to 10-12ft would make a world of differense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. I think that for "balance" reasoning, Phalanx Fighting should have a larger buff radius. I suggest a range of 12 feet for the buff to take effect. On teams, it can be pretty tough to keep more than even just a couple teammates less than 8 feet away from you, increasing this range to 12 feet would really help patch up that little problem on teams.


That's basically all I got. If those changes were made, I think Shields would definately be brought in line more with the other sets. Of course, this would still not address Shields failure in pvp.....(it needs ALOT of work there...)....but I guess at least the pve side of it would be better ;)

[BlackMagic_NA]

<QR>

I don't think SR will ever get ported over to tanks...

Right now for scrappers the set gets 19.5% defense to Melee, Ranged and AoE. When that's slotted with 3 Def SOs it's about 30% defense.

If I remember right scrapper number are 75% of tanker numbers. So for a straight port over to tankers the numbers would 40% defense to melee, ranged, and AoE. Again this is if my math is right and if it is I just don't think the devs would do that.

[Ashlocke]

Thanks for taking the time to hear us out Castle.

Alrighty, since I'm not much of a mathematician, I will instead just point out some obvious things that I noticed while playing my 4 versions of shield characters as follows:
Tank: Shield/War Mace
Tank: Shield/Ice Melee
Scrapper: Fire Melee/Shield
Scrapper: Broadsword/Shield

In your OP you used Super Reflexes to compare with Shield. Maybe I missed it, or you did include this in your assessment, but on my SR Scrapper, he has his defense versus the mobs no matter where he is in the fight. My Shielders lose a good amount of damage mitigation if they aren't in melee range to benefit from their -damage debuff toggle.

Now, to give a brief summary of my experience with each. All of them were tested using lv 50 SOs. Since on live I exemplar more than actually play at level 50, I tested fighting lv 50-53 foes as well as Flashbacked to fight lower level foes of various lv ranges.

In order to fully appreciate where my comparisons come from I should tell you what comperable characters I have on live, characters as follows:
Tank: Invuln/Energy Melee
Tank: Will Power/Dual Blades
Scrapper: Super Reflexes/Dark Melee
Peace Bringer: (Tossed this onto this list because I play the dwarf form heavily in a pseudo-tank roll often)

The two Shield tanks I played were very similar in most regards, I would say they had average survivability. If they go to live as is, and I were to rate my two live tanks along with these from best to worst in terms of "fun to play" and "survivability" I would list them as: 1)WP/DB, 2)Invuln/EM, 3)Shield/Ice, 4)Shield/War Mace.

The reason I put Ice ahead of War Mace is because ice has a really good knock down damage mitigation power in the form of Ice Patch. War mace comes in last simply due to a lack of any damage mitigation to help Shield's survivability.

The reason I added in my PB's Dwarf form is to mention something about survivability. I Honestly felt that my PB can survive just as well (strictly in Dwarf form) as my two Shield tanks. I attribute my Dwarf's survivability not from it's resistances but more so from having a modest self heal that recharges at a decent clip.

I don't know if thematically shield could use a self heal, but if you did decide to give it one, I think I would rather see you avoid giving it a Dull Pain clone, but rather a faster recharging self heal like the Dwarf has. Again, I don't know if it would fit thematically, but it would help their survivability and you wouldn't have to change any of their defense/resistance numbers from their current values.

That sums up the tankers, now to touch upon my two scrappers.

I honestly have anything negative to say about them, they are more in line with what I expected for scrapper survivability, at least compared with my DM/SR scrapper on live. I do have to say that the broadsword's parry put that alt considerably ahead of the fire/shield alt in terms of survivability, but not so much that I felt he was overpowered. At no time did I feel any of my 4 Shielders were overpowered in any way.

Lastly, I wanted to mention something I found kind of silly.
I love the shield charge, but, I found myself never using it as intended, because it was the worst way to use it. Instead of using it to charge into a spawn of mobs, which would do base damage, I would instead run into that group, let my +damage aura buff up my damage, THEN I would do a shield charge to my current location, essentially just using it as a PBAoE attack, which would do considerably more damage than had I used it as "intended". Admittedly, this isn't "broken", it just sort of defeats the theme or spirit of the idea behind this attack's intended use, at least for me.

That concludes my summary.

On a personal note: I tend to play solo a lot more often than not. At least 80/20 to give you a rough percentage of my play time solo/team. I think it's cool that shield has some neat teaming powers, but I really wish the set ends up going to live with the ability to solo decently. If you can deliver upon that, then anything extra it does for team buffs is just icing on the cake. Also, in response to the "Just use multi-builds" mantra, I just want to point out that not everyone plays the market or wants to farm in order to be able to afford slotting just ONE build, let alone two.

Thank you for reading, sorry about the longwinded post, it got away from me at some point, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present my opinions.

[SkarmoryThePG]

[ QUOTE ]
IMO you should look into upping the defense toggles defense debuff resistance a fair bit maybe fuse grant cover and phalanx fighting, and add a quick cool down crowd control kinda power?

[/ QUOTE ]

*points to second link in sig*

[Alpha_Zulu]

[ QUOTE ]
(from Ninjitsu and Super Reflexes) will also be having this problem, when (if ever) they get ported over to Tankers

[/ QUOTE ]

Ninjitsu on a tanker is like shields on a stalker. It just doesn't work.

[Blitzwing_NA]

Been having a blast on my Shield/SS Tanker since Closed Beta...endurance management is a bit of a pain, but I've about got it worked out....

Laughs off damage that would have my Invuln/Energy Tanker on Live considering an escape route...and I solo 95% of the time, anyway, so I've laid off the group-buff powers....

All in all, I love it so far! :)

[Minotaur]

[ QUOTE ]
Castle,

Followup post.

I decided that there is some likelihood that IOs have clouded my perceptions when it comes to set performance.

In light of that, I took my main claws/sr scrapper to PI and replaced ALL of his enhancements with SOs.

I have 39.19% positional defense and 17.55 S/L DR. SR+Tough, Weave and CJ.

Standard SO slotting. Attacks are 1acc/1rec-red/1end-red/3dam except Followup which is 2acc/2rec-red/1end-red/1dam

All toggles have 3def/DR and 1end-red except tough which has 2end-red.

All passives have 3def as does combat jumping.

I head to the RWZ.

I find a spawn of level 50s. Well... tried to... found some 51s. 2 bosses, 4 LTs, 2 minions. Attacked.

Complete toggle drop due to running out of end. Popped a green and a blue instead of kiting the last boss. Was down to a maybe 1/10th health and end by the end of the battle.


The answer to the question that started this post is yes. My perceptions of sets has been thoroughly farked because of IOs.

Specifically on end usage. Shields does seem comparable to SR.

Logged off Bill. Logged back on the mace/shield brute. Went to RV. Found a level 51 spawn. 2 bosses. 2 LTs. 2 minions and a comm officer. He got the portal off and 4 orange conscripts came out. I died before I even got the comm officer down.

However, I'll right that off as an overspawn due to the portal's conscripts.

Hosp, find a level 50 spawn. 1 boss, 4 LTs, 1 minion. Death from toggle dropping due to endurance bottoming out.

Attempt 3. Level 50. 1 boss, 1 lt, 3 minions, 1 comm officer. Killin comm first. Success. Used one blue insp. As with Bill, I still had to sit around doing nothing while end rebuilt so that I could attack.

Attempt 4: Level 51. 1 boss, 5 LTs, 2 minions. Failure. I managed to kill the two minion guardians.


So. Shields much weaker than SR. Use about the same endurance. (Too much. How the hell did I ever play without IOs? Chew through blues all the time?)

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this highlights part of the problem. SR interacts much better with pool powers than shields so in the real world is a lot better. Add tough, weave and CJ to both /SR and shields and rerun your numbers. It gets worse when you throw in a little minor IOing although I know you don't balance around IOs.

If you're say 20% from the 45% soft cap or 15%, then an extra 8% def has a much bigger effect on the latter in terms of what fraction of damage it cuts out.

Also - needs more defence debuff res

[Night_Fyre]

My opinion: Less Sparta, more Cap (you know who I mean :)) Cap uses the shield very offensively to keep from face-planting, he doesn't rely on other people (who are also carrying shields) being close to him.

1 - Raise the Def and Resist numbers slightly
2 - Add a little more Defense Debuff Resist
3 - Combine a couple of the current powers into 1, and add a PBAoE knock-down with minimal or even no damage, but a decent recharge. This would make a really unique, active, and fun set.

Thanks for making this thread.

[Tenzhi]

[ QUOTE ]
3 - Combine a couple of the current powers into 1, and add a PBAoE knock-down with minimal or even no damage, but a decent recharge.

[/ QUOTE ]

It'd be even better, IMO, if one of the defensive powers automatically had a chance for knockdown on any enemy that missed you. Aggressive Deflection.

[Starhammer]

[ QUOTE ]
- on a note - I think the Dev's have a golden opportunity to dish out some more powersets to tanker/scrappers/brutes based on a variety of shield options - Electric Shield powerset? Fire Shield? Ice Shield? A lot of options for additional powersets there for gameplay instead of just aesthetics.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would make for a neat series of IO sets intended to be used on shields. Have different sets designed to provide a particular buff leaning towards one element or theme only. There's no real way to enforce that the person using the Ice Shield IO Set is doing so on a character using the Ice Shield costume (well, maybe you could make it related via unlocking, but I think that's a bad idea because it would be taking the shield away from everyone who doesn't use it), but in the end, that doesn't matter so much as giving players a way to put a touch more "oomph" on their concept.
__________________________________________

Now as to how shield perform in my experience: They feel a bit weak, but I solo alot. Unfortunately in my team experiences using shields, I've either not been getting any agro, because just about everyone else on test is playing an agro magnet also. This means that most of the time, I don't have anyone attacking me consistently enough to judge whether Shield Defense is really helping me or if I'd be better served by turning it off to dedicate more endurance to attacks.

On the other hand, when I do get the undivided attention of the badguys, they whomp all over me, and I go down for the big dirtnap with a quickness. Especially when my Tanker activates [Against All Odds]... man, that gets me killed every time.

I think shields would benefit from scaling damage resistance like what Super Reflexes uses. That way, when we do start taking damage, it's not quite so overwhelming so quickly. Furthermore, on a purely psychological level, if it were added to [Phalanx] and [Grant Cover] that might help some players to feel like they were getting a bit more out of having those powers even when they are in predicaments (like being 9' away) where those powers don't currently do anything but take up a slot that could have been used by [Tough] or [Weave]. Of course I'm sure some other players would equally rail against having their solo toons "forced" to take useless team powers just to get the self effect :eek:

I'm also not fond of having the click based mez resistance power. I know there are many that swear it's superior to a toggle, but frankly, I just forget to use it until it's too late, because I'm used to the toggle ones. I bet I would find it much more dynamic, interesting, and downright tolerable if like [White Dwarf], I could now also use it when mezzed. With it's recharge time, that would leave me with having to make a choice if the mez I had now was enough to warrant using the power when I might need it more a minute later, and if I forget to use it until mezzed, I'm still suffering the mez effect until I get it to go off. So I don't think that would be game-breakingly powerful, especially when you consider that all the hard core PvP types who swear by it as is are the ones who never forget to use it how and when they get the most out of it. JMO

[Stele]

As everyone has mentioned the click status is a problem. And this isn't SR, there's no +recharge power to help it recharge faster.

Since Castle pointed out that the toggle cost is equal to SR, yet the pre-SO game is really hurting people on endurance, I'd say make the status protection a toggle as well. Yeah that's another toggle. But keep the combined cost of all toggles equal to what it currently is (or even a smidge less, matching invuln?).

That would mean reducing the cost on the first two def toggles, which would help immensely pre-stamina.


When I make a willpower brute or scrapper, I actually run without MOB toggle until 22, after QR. Fast healing and HPT let me survive until RttC at 16, and that lets me make it to 22 before finally grabbing MOB. Yeah it sounds weird, but having so many toggles in that early game makes it so you can't attack. Shields has this problem, yet also doesn't have the passives to rely on.

As has been said repeatedly, true grit does not belong at 35. It's too little, too late. Put it in the first 10 levels so we can really use it to help us before SOs. And maybe consider making it a little better, since HPT clearly kicks the crap out of it currently.

[Talen Lee]

Um

You do know that endurance costs are related to the other values? And that the end cost of click mez protection is lower than that of a toggle?

[Haggard4Life]

I've been playing around with a 50 Fire/Shields Scrapper and I have to say I really like how it is right now. It plays a lot like my main Live character, a 50 MA/SR Scrapper, only I run out of endurance on the SR more frequently then on this Shields character.

I'm not a numbers guy, so I've just been playing my Shields character like I would normally play and I think he handles everything pretty well. I've done radio missions, Vanguard missions, Cimerora missions and Safeguard missions all solo. And I've been having just as much fun with him as I have with my SR.

I don't really see what everyone else is having problems with, but maybe that's because I didn't get a chance to play much before the level bump to 50. Maybe the lower levels are harder than the lower levels of SR, I don't know. I think I'll start a new Shields character to test that.

A lot of the suggestions in this thread sound way too extreme to me. Right now, I could go along with some buffs to the ranges and whatnot. But, in my opinion, Sheilds is a fun set right now and doesn't really need much.

Oh, and I absolutely LOVE Shield Charge. Love it! It's my favorite thing right now. I get giddy when I see a large mob that I can plow through. It's a really fun power.

[Haggard4Life]

Oh and I forgot to mention the team buffs. The few times I've teamed, they seemed to be doing what they're supposed to do. During big battles I noticed the buff icons in my bar and the team bars. There are some situations when my teammates got out of reach of the buffs, but Grant Cover seemed to buff them more often than the forum speculation said it would.

[_Mojo_]

Was your testing SO or IO based? Also, I can't get on right now, what exactly are the def debuff resistance numbers of shields?

[Haggard4Life]

[ QUOTE ]
Was your testing SO or IO based?

[/ QUOTE ]
Mine was based on SOs only. But my SR on Live has a few IOs so maybe I'm not comparing the two accurately. But, even if that's the case, my Shields character with only SOs seems to perform a little better than my SR with a couple IOs in it (at least endurance wise).

[_Mojo_]

And that's with the same toggles outside of your secondary? Interesting to hear someone say that Shield is more survivable than SR, in terms of endurance, especially when the secondary toggles add equally (for the most part).

Then again you might have mentioned it's just perception, but I'm just interested to see if your /SR has an extra focused accuracy or some other toggle running.

[Haggard4Life]

Yeah it's mostly a perception thing with me. Like I said, I'm not much of a numbers guy and I'm not sure how helpful my feedback is to those who are. I just know that this Shields set feels fun to me.

As for toggles, you might be right about that being the cause of my SR's end problems. I'm in the habit of leaving my SR's Super Speed toggle on during a fight but I don't leave the Shields' Flight toggle on. And I have Body Mastery on both and use Focused Accuracy more on the SR than I have for the Shields character. I use Conserve Power on both and I also have Stamina on both.

[EvilRyu]

The main thing I dislike about the set is how the first power is a split of defense and resistance. Its not like you are going to be able to fully enhance both aspects of the power. As many folks have said the endurance useage is horrible, so in a sense you forced to choose endurance reduction, defense or resistance but no way to enhance all 3 fully until you can slot HOs.

[EvilRyu]

[ QUOTE ]
get the impression this set is supposed to be more of a hybrid armor / Buff set than a purely a Armor set. To that end you have placed alot of restrictions on the Buff portion of the set.

If you open up the auras quite a bit, to say Leadership levels, Then you will have a strong supporting setthat would also work extremely well with each other.

Looking at it from that Hybrid point of view I would be much more willing to tolerate lower personal tanking potential if I could reliably increase my teams survival rate. Perhaps Just increase the range on the Tank version if not all of them.

[/ QUOTE ]I have to disagree. I could careless about the team buff aspect of the shield set. Tanker survivability is a must without it your team is more likely die once you die. Tankers must be the first line of defense for a team.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For the record, every new alt I create gets a performance shifter chance for + end slotted as soon as they are able on top of 3 slotting in stamina/qr.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dont' go for sets in stamina/QR eh?

[/ QUOTE ]

Generally 4 slot with perf shifter as I can. But getting the perfshifter proc in there takes priority.

[RoostersEatGrubs]

5 slots, 3 shifters 2 adapters.

good hp bonus.

bill you're a baddo/

[BlackMagic_NA]

Ok, another possible suggestion I'm thinking of while bored at work. This still goes along with a lot of EvilGeko's suggestions...

1: Deflection - Remove the S/L resist and Defense Debuff Resist to this power.
2: Battle Agility - Keep the Same
3: True Grit - Add S/L resist, boost resist from 5% to 10%, and add endurance drain resist (I can't remember if the set already has this or not).
4: Active Defenses - Change to a toggle or keep the same, if you keep it the same though I'd say add some slow resist somewhere.
5: Against All Odds - Keep the same
6: Phalanx Fighting - Allow the 5% defense boost for solo to be enhanceable with Defense Enhancements.
7: Shield Charge - Keep the same.
8: Grant Cover - Keep the same.
9: One With the Shield - Keep the same.

Assuming you can enhance everything fully. It's about 32% defense and 16% resistance for tankers. Then if you give the set enough defense debuff resistance, I believe SR has about 60% so maybe somewhere around that number the set may work out for both tanks and scrappers. The theme would be to make the set more reliable, the defense numbers don't have to be the highest but for the most part you can depend on them to be there.

Actually the more I think about it the more I like the idea of Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover. This is just my assumption but I think these powers are made with the mindset of benefiting meleers. Most teams aren't melee heavy because the buffs defenders and controllers give are so helpful for survival. With the Shield set though you kind of become that boost on a melee heavy team.

For instance say you had a team taking on an AV with 2 tanks, 3 scrappers a blaster and a defender and you're a shield tank. You can help relieve that solo defender. Maybe tell the other meleers to follow you in to take the alpha. With PF your defense should be great and with Grant Cover they should be a bit tougher as well since they all will be huddled around the AV with you.

Just thinking out loud. I guess I should go do some work now.

[Heraclea]

I think I understand what the set is trying to do here. I've played it on tankers and scrappers on test, none to high levels. Multiple melee characters on teams can be redundant, especially with tankers; there's only so much aggro to go around that needs controlled. So we make a set where having more than one buffs the rest.

Not a bad idea in theory. As currently implemented, though, it has problems. On a team heavy with defenders, controllers, and non-meleeing blasters, the utility of the set drops substantially. It also derives not enough benefit from scrappers and stalkers who often act independently or pick off individual stragglers rather than wading into the center of the spawn like a tanker typically does.

The solution I see is to substantially enlarge the radius of the teammate buff. 8 feet requires a very dense formation. It is in fact hardly larger than the melee range on Test. I understand that having multiple shield characters in close formation looks really cool, but from the perspective of mechanics it may not be optimal for the rest of the team, especially since one of the core functions of tankers and scrappers on a team is to intercept a vagrant mob that's heading for the back ranks. Even 16 feet would not guarantee that every blaster or defender would be in range of a tanker to apply a buff.

The set, as you note, also relies on health and regeneration increases. This creates problems with alpha strikes, which tend to be compounded by the different mechanic of defense versus resistance.

[Keen Stronghold]

[ QUOTE ]

The shield powers [u]conflict with each other[u] and with standard teams.

Squishies don't get within 8' of melee toons especially those with taunt and taunt auras. That's calling a rain of pain down on your head in the form of (PB)AOEs.

Grant cover doesn't provide enough mitigation to risk getting within 15' of a shielder. Fireball and explosive blast have radius of 15' That means if you are in the range to get the benefit of grant cover you have increased your defense by ~13%. No matter what amount of defense you have 5% of attacks will always go through. Staying more than 15' away from a toon with taunt aura is much much higher mitigation.

So (intelligent) non-melee toons are therefore going to be out side the range of grant cover and will provide no bonus to the Shielder from Phalanx Fighting.

[u]Phalanx Fighting directly conflicts with AAO[u]. There are only so many sprites that fit into an 8' radius (~6) every ally within that range provides a buff to defense but at the same time that ally takes up a spot that would be filled by a mob being debuffed by AAO. What happens instead is that the mob then attacks from out side AAO radius and neither increases the sheilder's damage nor is debuffed by AAO.

The net effect is that the mitigation that your numbers say is there...... isn't. You don't get both on a team it's either-or, and while solo you get nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thoughts as well.

Also, making a blunt comparison between Shields and SR's Defense Debuff Resistance, it makes sense, even thematically, that SHIELDS should have [u]more DEF debuff resistance[u] than SUPER REFLEXES.

Reason: when a SR character is hurt by a def debuffing attack, his maneuverability to dodge next attacks is affected. When a Shield character is hurt by the same type of attack, it still affects how he maneuvers his shield to deflect the next attacks, but to a LESS extent than SR's maneuverability. It's only a Shield getting positioned, not the whole body, like SR's evasive moves that are the basis of the set.

[Frozen_Northman]

I was able to make an Axe/Shield brute at the tail end of the Closed Beta, which got the benefit of the level bump to 50. I don't recall the precise build, but I believe that it took close to all the powers in both the primary and secondary, no Patron Pool powers, Stamina, Tough, and Weave.

I also made sure to put a single SO endurance reduction in all the Axe attacks, in all of the Shield toggles, as well as in Tough and Weave. (Not sure how Tough and Weave skewed my experience, or how much I should have slotted them for endurance reduction.)

Nevertheless, I played this guy soloing through some newspaper missions. He was regularly low on Endurance after handling two Villainous spawns, sucking wind like a vaccuum cleaner in heat.

So that's my anecdotal evidence. I'll note that I've had more fun playing my Ice/Axe tanker or my Dark/Dark Brute, in part because those powerset combos both have additional means of getting endurance back.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
My thoughts as well.

Also, making a blunt comparison between Shields and SR's Defense Debuff Resistance, it makes sense, even thematically, that SHIELDS should have more DEF debuff resistance than SUPER REFLEXES.

Reason: when a SR character is hurt by a def debuffing attack, his maneuverability to dodge next attacks is affected. When a Shield character is hurt by the same type of attack, it still affects how he maneuvers his shield to deflect the next attacks, but to a LESS extent than SR's maneuverability. It's only a Shield getting positioned, not the whole body, like SR's evasive moves that are the basis of the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was brought to my attention once that SR's DDR is so high specifically because each set's specialty should be what it defends against most.

Fiery Aura should have more Fire DR than any other set.
Ice Armor should have more Ice Def/DR than any other set.
Invul should have more S/L DR than any other set.
And so on.

SR gets the highest DDR because it is SR.

Regardless of that, I do think any set that depends so heavily on defense for its mitigation should have substantial DDR.

[Spiritchaser]

Experience with scrappers:

First note: I’m well aware that the general sentiment is that sets should not be balanced primarily around IOs, I’m not making any judgement on that here, I’m just describing what I found.

After the first bump, I found shields without IOs to be more than a little lacklustre. At first I took fitness and leaping (cj) but not boxing tough and weave. Health got 3 slotted early, and cj got it’s base slot used for a def enhancer. I found the set playable with inspiration use, but it wasn’t anything special. I didn’t have any endurance issues of note, my problems were entirely based on green. Still, it did look good. I’m not a big fan of clicky mez protection for PvE, and while I think it’s great for I12 PvP, I’m not sure how things will shake out in I13 PvP. Time will tell I suppose. Comparing to my SR, I did like that it was easier to get key defence powers in the set (fewer powers required and they’re available at lower levels) but I disagree with any implication that real game builds of shields are ever going to be competitive with SR for durability. Defence resistance is just way too big a deal.

Getting into IOs? SR starts closer to the soft cap, so it gets more from each little increment. Sure it’s easier to put the steadfast+3 into Shields, that’s a good thing, but I don’t think it’s anything like enough compensation. Still, Shields CAN get to the soft cap with enough effort. Even if it doesn’t get all the way, getting to 35-38% def is reasonably easy, and that’s enough. Compared to SR, a shields scrapper with that much def is giving up substantial slotting options elsewhere, while the SR can have more room for other things. Again, that defence resistance in SR is huge. I can’t stress that enough.

Now the good part. After the level 40 and 50 bumps I set up for very solid IO’d def, and tried to work the best about the set. The +damage. Comparing to that SR again, my shields scrapper had to work much harder to get solid protection, and he had to give up a great deal of slotting opportunity that could have been used for other things, but… on the other hand, without heavy inspiration use, that SR scrapper could NEVER solo buff to the + damage that the shields scrapper gets from their toggle, with ANY degree of IO slotting. To max this concept out I also took assault. This weekend I may have time to tweek the IOs again for as much + damage as I can squeeze in there, I should be hitting about 70-90% most of the time. Even as is, it’s good. I think this setup has more +damage in the middle of a spawn than any other scrapper build I’ve ever seen, it’s really quite dramatic, and it feels great to be one-shotting things. To me this is the beauty of the set, and the only reason to build a shields scrapper. The team buff is just too small a radius to interest me, I might even consider dropping it from my build if it isn’t buffed somehow.

Considering IOs: I’d say that, for a scrapper WITH IOs, there’s a place for shields. If you want to be able to bisect someone from cranium to crotch with a single swing of your GFS or just one headsplitter, well now you can, without a crit, and with buildup down. Hell, I think I’ve even done it with incinerate, (chew on that Nightwidows!) though a proc might have been involved there. Just build in enough survival, jump into the middle of a spawn and let your buffs stack. Oh... and Buildup-shield charge-FSC is pure gold. If they ever give scrappers fireball from the pyre mastery this is going to become a favourite. The energy shield in an orangey gold color looks particularly good with the fire swords.

Without IOs? Unless I was going to run with a team of friends who I know and trust (well trust their game skills) I just wouldn’t bother. In a lot of ways this reminds me of /EA for brutes, and I’d suggest it to the same kind of players. It lacks critically in the protection department, and compensates with other benefits. If you’re willing to build to make up for the survival shortcomings, either with pools or IOs or both, then you have access to the benefits you couldn’t get with other sets. With EA its endurance (for a brute that means damage). With shields it’s just plain damage. If, on the other hand, you’re not willing to do the math, take the pools and buy the IOs… well you’d better hope you can find a team with the right buffer, or that those skilled friends of yours are online.

[Myrmydon]

[ QUOTE ]
Shield charge was ok but not consistently usefule based on locations.


[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly does this mean? Is it the knockback instead of knockdown that causes your issue, because A Shield Tanker can use the KD of Shield Charge very effectively.

[Starsman]

[ QUOTE ]
QR

I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't always agree with EG but i for sure agree in the True Grit point: that power should be available much earlier, preferably one of the first 3 powers in the set. That would go FAR into making Shields feel more survivable during leveling, instead of just feeling strong once it's fully leveled.

This may be a big factor on why people perceive the set being too week in their short play testing, as they are leveling from the bottom and taking a long time to get all the way to the top.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
This may be a big factor on why people perceive the set being too week in their short play testing, as they are leveling from the bottom and taking a long time to get all the way to the top.

[/ QUOTE ]

That wouldn't account for the direct SO to SO at level 50 comparison I posted earlier, Starsman.

[Lemur Lad]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Shield charge was ok but not consistently usefule based on locations.


[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly does this mean? Is it the knockback instead of knockdown that causes your issue, because A Shield Tanker can use the KD of Shield Charge very effectively.

[/ QUOTE ]

The area you're in, the placement of foes and/or teammates, size of the AoE, etc.

The current version is ok, but most times best used as a pseudo PBAoE.

I know it was problematic, but I kind of miss the original cone/line version. I could draw a line between my location and destination and hit several foes along the way, stopping both melee and ranged attacks. Now I'm sort of forced to choose one or the other and not get as much benefit unless I hide befind something, pull them to me, and P-PBAoE.

Is the power more user friendly? Yes. It it as good a mitigation tool? No.

[Starsman]

I didn't say it was the only factor.

But do keep in mind that given the set's tools this set SHOULD be weaker than SR.

[Shard_Warrior]

[ QUOTE ]
Experience with scrappers:

First note: I’m well aware that the general sentiment is that sets should not be balanced primarily around IOs, I’m not making any judgement on that here, I’m just describing what I found.

After the first bump, I found shields without IOs to be more than a little lacklustre. At first I took fitness and leaping (cj) but not boxing tough and weave. Health got 3 slotted early, and cj got it’s base slot used for a def enhancer. I found the set playable with inspiration use, but it wasn’t anything special. I didn’t have any endurance issues of note, my problems were entirely based on green. Still, it did look good. I’m not a big fan of clicky mez protection for PvE, and while I think it’s great for I12 PvP, I’m not sure how things will shake out in I13 PvP. Time will tell I suppose. Comparing to my SR, I did like that it was easier to get key defence powers in the set (fewer powers required and they’re available at lower levels) but I disagree with any implication that real game builds of shields are ever going to be competitive with SR for durability. Defence resistance is just way too big a deal.

Getting into IOs? SR starts closer to the soft cap, so it gets more from each little increment. Sure it’s easier to put the steadfast+3 into Shields, that’s a good thing, but I don’t think it’s anything like enough compensation. Still, Shields CAN get to the soft cap with enough effort. Even if it doesn’t get all the way, getting to 35-38% def is reasonably easy, and that’s enough. Compared to SR, a shields scrapper with that much def is giving up substantial slotting options elsewhere, while the SR can have more room for other things. Again, that defence resistance in SR is huge. I can’t stress that enough.

Now the good part. After the level 40 and 50 bumps I set up for very solid IO’d def, and tried to work the best about the set. The +damage. Comparing to that SR again, my shields scrapper had to work much harder to get solid protection, and he had to give up a great deal of slotting opportunity that could have been used for other things, but… on the other hand, without heavy inspiration use, that SR scrapper could NEVER solo buff to the + damage that the shields scrapper gets from their toggle, with ANY degree of IO slotting. To max this concept out I also took assault. This weekend I may have time to tweek the IOs again for as much + damage as I can squeeze in there, I should be hitting about 70-90% most of the time. Even as is, it’s good. I think this setup has more +damage in the middle of a spawn than any other scrapper build I’ve ever seen, it’s really quite dramatic, and it feels great to be one-shotting things. To me this is the beauty of the set, and the only reason to build a shields scrapper. The team buff is just too small a radius to interest me, I might even consider dropping it from my build if it isn’t buffed somehow.

Considering IOs: I’d say that, for a scrapper WITH IOs, there’s a place for shields. If you want to be able to bisect someone from cranium to crotch with a single swing of your GFS or just one headsplitter, well now you can, without a crit, and with buildup down. Hell, I think I’ve even done it with incinerate, (chew on that Nightwidows!) though a proc might have been involved there. Just build in enough survival, jump into the middle of a spawn and let your buffs stack. Oh... and Buildup-shield charge-FSC is pure gold. If they ever give scrappers fireball from the pyre mastery this is going to become a favourite. The energy shield in an orangey gold color looks particularly good with the fire swords.

Without IOs? Unless I was going to run with a team of friends who I know and trust (well trust their game skills) I just wouldn’t bother. In a lot of ways this reminds me of /EA for brutes, and I’d suggest it to the same kind of players. It lacks critically in the protection department, and compensates with other benefits. If you’re willing to build to make up for the survival shortcomings, either with pools or IOs or both, then you have access to the benefits you couldn’t get with other sets. With EA its endurance (for a brute that means damage). With shields it’s just plain damage. If, on the other hand, you’re not willing to do the math, take the pools and buy the IOs… well you’d better hope you can find a team with the right buffer, or that those skilled friends of yours are online.

[/ QUOTE ]

^ This.

I would agree with most of what was pointed out in the above post. I would add that it seems to me that shields is designed to be "a little bit of everything" kind of defense set, which hurts it overall. It does not have great defense toward any one thing in particular, instead it has a little defense to everything and some minor team buffs. At least IMO, this is not something to do with a melee set. Less survivable ATs that may be teamed with you are jeopardized by having to remain so close in range you in order to benefit from the buffs. I can understand the idea of what you are trying to accomplish with this, but it does not "feel" right if that makes any sense.

Another thing to note is that this set does not blend well with every primary set. Having tried both a BS/Shield and MA/Shield scrapper, I have to say that the BS version clearly outperformed the MA version. I don't know if you would consider this a problem with Shields or the primaries being un-balanced.

Overall I thought this was an OK set. I'll probably make one once i13 goes live, but there is still some room for improvement. IOs do help the set quite a bit, but that should not be required since it has always been said that the game is not balanced around IOs.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

[ QUOTE ]
Having tried both a BS/Shield and MA/Shield scrapper, I have to say that the BS version clearly outperformed the MA version.

[/ QUOTE ]
See, this is my major concern. It is my belief that much of Castle's datamining is being contaminated by Broadsword. You've got to realize that with the right SOs slotted Parry by itself is almost as powerful as the entire Super Reflexes powerset.

If Shields is specifically designed to only work well with Broadsword then hopefully Castle will just come right out and tell us that. But if that's not the design intention then it has to get a buff. It's just that simple.

[gameboy1234]

[ QUOTE ]

Shield Defense Problems

1) Low defense values.
Slotting Deflection and Battle Agility with 3 def SOs, 2 end red SOs and Phalanx Fighting with 2 Def SOs (a third def SO in this power produces less than 1% additional defense because of ED) yeilds a defense value of 21.3%.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was a pretty good, complete post. Reading it I had some random thoughts about Shield Defense.

1. Everybody keeps complaining about the low (apparent) numbers on SD, as well as the lack of debuff defense in general (slows, end-drain, defense, etc.). How about if we gave SD very high resists vs. defense, and left the other debuff defenses alone?

That would allow SD to keep the (relatively meager) defense it has, while still allowing a "hole" for the other debuffs. I don't think this is unprecedented. My /Electric Armor Brute has 90% resistance to End Drain. It's kinda fun being immue to one type of damage/debuff.

This would preserve some of the unique character of SD. It'll have different holes than other defense sets. While still allowing it to be "viable" because you won't lose the defense that you do have. Obviously, this Defense Debuff Resistance will have to come fairly early. I'd like to see all 90% before level 20.




[ QUOTE ]
3) Lack of Debuff resistances

[/ QUOTE ]

See above... I'm trying to make SD unique and still make it viable.


[ QUOTE ]
b) Active Defense is a click power. This means that it is stackable. When stacked it doubles it's value to mez and KB protections and increases Defense Debuff Resistance to just under 50%

[/ QUOTE ].

I'd like to see the debuff resistence work all the time. I.e, make it passive. If AD want's to add a bit more, on a click, no worries.


[ QUOTE ]
Super Reflexes, which is the other mitigation set that has click type mez protection, does not suffer from this problem since the Quickness power gives both a 20% bonus to recharge and a 40% resistance to recharge debuffs (slows).

[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure here, but a lot of folks seem to be complaining about End usage. If this continues after level 20, I'm going to be slotting attacks for EndRedux instead of Recharge. So a bit of global recharge might help out SD. Just saying...



[ QUOTE ]
Using the Shield Charge power eliminates all the defense bonuses that Shield Defense provides for both the shield weilder and teammates.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been thinking about this. It might be neat to give Shield Charge a quick shot of +5% defense for just a brief time. Say 5 to 10 seconds. Just enough to take an alpha and let your teammates catch up with you. This would "mitigate" the disadvantage of being out of range of your team and also make it easier to use this power. I picked +5% because that's the same number Super Reflexes has on it's passives (for a Scrapper). Tankers should get a bit more than +5%. Make this un-enhanceable if you like, I think SC will be slotted for other things anyway.



[ QUOTE ]
Shield charge is a very fun power but Teleport + any mid-high damage PBAoE is better. Shield charge can't be used while flying/hovering, teleport can.

[/ QUOTE ]

SC can't be used in flight? OK this must change. I can see supressing flight for a short time *after* using SC, but please let me swoop down on my enemies and bowl them over from high above. It's just too cool not to do.


[ QUOTE ]
Endurance consumption is too high on BS/Shields.

[/ QUOTE ]

Adding some global recharge will allow me to fix this by adding more EndRedux. Just saying...



OK some of these thoughts were just some out-of-box thoughts that I had. Hope they were useful to someone. I espcially like the +Def to Shield Charge and the really high Defense Debuff Resistance. Should help the set a lot.

[BackFire]

Looks like I'm late to the party, but here's my experience.

Broadsword/Shield Scrapper

After the level bump to 50 I went to Cimerora and ran the walls. My previous scrapper (Dual Blade/Willpower) could zip back and forth thru it without blinking and without using Strength of Will (often). I wanted to see how /Shields compared.

My shield scrapper was SO'd out. He took Health & Stamina and all the shield powers. He couldn't get past group #1 without using One with the Shield. Without OWTS, it was faceplant city over and over.

I respecced into Tough, Weave, and Combat Jumping and found that survivability was better, but end usage was off the scale (yes, I still had Stamina, yes I 2 slotted each with end red), and survivability still wasn't up to par with my DB/WP.

Looking at what powers I had to take to get a scrapper that still couldn't perform as well as my DB/WP, I decided it wasn't worth it.

I was lucky, I had a level bump. Can you imagine how un-fun it would be to grind thru Swift/Health/Stamina AND Tough/Weave before you could begin completing actual primary and 2ndary powers? Ugh. And when you're all done, to still have a scrap that's sub-par?

I think /Shields could benefit greatly from some added +Resistance. That seemed to be the key in my survival.

[Sorciere]

I have three specific problems with the set, all of which are directed at tanking (I note that you, and most other folks, talk specifically about scrappers). But since I'm more interested in tankers than scrappers, here's something about their situation.

1. Mez protection (or lack thereof).

Active Defense is not a toggle, it is click power with duration < recharge (unenhanced). That means that generally, unless enhanced, there will be a gap where there is no mez protection. Even if enhanced, -recharge debuffs can easily counter that. Incidentally, it appears that if you get mezzed as a Shield tanker, Against All Odds will drop entirely, even though the rest of your toggles stay up (that may be a bug -- I'm not really sure how it's supposed to work).

I note that while Super Reflexes has a similar mechanic in Practiced Brawler, it (1) isn't a tanker set and (2) has a +recharge in the set and protection against -recharge.

As a practical example, I do not look forward to doing the Faultline arcs with a Shields tanker. Not only do the mobs (specifically Lost and Arachnos) have a lot of mez powers, but these come with psi-based -recharge debuffs, against which Shields don't have any defense, meaning that you'll typically eat a fair amount of them. I also don't think I'd enjoy fighting Ice Mistral or Cabal sorceresses a whole lot as a shield tanker at higher levels (unless my math is wrong, -35% or more -recharge will start to create gaps in mez protection with three even level +recharge SOs).

I suppose that Active Defense was made a click power so that it didn't kill a shield tanker's/scrapper's/brute's endurance balance, but I don't think I like the price that was paid. Other than that, I really have no clue why the power isn't a toggle in the first place. I would really like to hear what game design concerns caused you to make this choice.

On a practical note, if I make a shield tanker on live, I think that I'll put six slots in Active Defense to get SO-like recharge enhancements, then respec out of that at level 22. I don't think a set should be designed around the opportunity to respec, though.

My personal recommendation -- assuming that it's left as a click power -- would be to have the duration overlap with the recharge out of the box and to not have the effect stack from the same caster (to make sure that a heavily IOed, perma-hastened shields tanker or scrapper doesn't run around with consistent double-stacked mez protection). Or, even better, to just make it into a cheap toggle, as I don't really see why the power should be a click power at all.

2. Alpha strikes.

The tools that Shields have to deal with alpha strikes seem, to put it mildly, lacking. I note that all other tanker sets that primarily rely on defense for surviving an alpha strike (Ice, pre-Granite Stone, Invulnerability vs. exotic damage) have emergency powers to deal with a sudden health loss (mostly self-heals, but also Hibernate). In an alpha strike situation, it does not matter much how much sustained damage you can take, it matters that you can take the damage.

A shields tanker has comparatively poor defense for a defense-oriented tanker set (unless you manage to stage a coordinated attack with other melee characters to exploit Phalanx Fighting for a little more), poor resistances, and a -DMG debuff that doesn't seem to do a whole lot (I've been trying to measure it, but either my math skills have left me or there's some variation to it -- at any rate, the -DMG effect on Against All Odds seems to be less than 10%). And on top of that, there is no reactive power that one can use in case you have taken too much burst damage when the random number generator hates you.

3. Phalanx Fighting / Grant Cover

Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover have perverse incentives built into them. They encourage you to fight in close proximity (and with an eight foot radius, that's REALLY close) to other characters. However, in CoH, such a fighting style is generally suboptimal. CoH characters are not Roman legionnaires and they aren't fighting foes against whom such a style is necessarily effective.

Assume, as an extreme case, that you are tanking in a team where everybody but you is primarily ranged. You could theoretically try to fight close to the ranged characters, but is the benefit from Grant Cover really worth exposing them to, say, a Tarantula Queen's psychic wail?

Part of the benefit that a tanker brings to a team is positional control, yet these powers require you to sacrifice them.

Even when you're in a melee-heavy crowd, the benefit of these powers is often questionable. Consider, for example, that you're running with two shield tankers. It would generally be downright stupid for either to play in the close vicinity of the other -- you'll have less aggro control for scattered spawns and you will both eat all the AEs (rather than splitting AE damage between the two of you). Tankers can provide a degree of stackability by having one of them "bat clean up", so to speak. Two tankers vying for aggro over the same mobs are rarely maximizing their potential.

In general, there is a reason why pen-and-paper RPG players joke about "fireball" and "lightning bolt" formations where everybody is perfectly lined up for the enemy's area effects.



In summary, while I don't think the set is exactly horrible, it does feel like a scrapper set that was poorly ported to tankers and thus comes up short. I think it could be very nice for a team-oriented scrapper who wants to bring more than just damage to a team. But it seems to miss a lot of the qualities that are par for the course for tankers.

Disclaimer: I don't have a high-level shields tanker (yet). This has a lot to do with the set looking unappealing to me, but also with the non-standard team composition you are likely to encounter on the test server (which seem to have a lot of shields tankers and scrappers at lower levels), making me doubt that whatever I experience there will translate well to the live servers.

[Arcanaville]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them. Here's what I am seeing:

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a [u]Shields character with no allies within 8'[u] compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

<snip>

[/ QUOTE ]

There's something fishy going on with either your numbers or mine. I just put Shield into v5 of Arcana's spreadsheet (why re-invent the wheel, right?) and I came up with a 60s survivable 101.01 dps for a Shield Scrapper with 3 people in Phalanx Fighting. With 0, that drops to about 64 dps.

It doesn't look like an input error on my part, since comparing damage admittance I was within 1-2% for each data point you listed. The difference may be coming from a slightly low dmg debuff for AAO. I'm using 7.5%. (That's what I tested it to be on Test, but the target may have had some resistance.)

If you'd like to check to make sure my numbers are valid, I've uploaded the modified spreadsheet here (http://www.zerofold.com/doomshift/coh/test/a4a-v5-SHIELD.xls). Shield is in the sandbox collum. A couple notes:
Cell AD 19 - This is the number of targets in Phalanx Fighting.
Cell AD 20 - This is for One With the Shield. 0 = off, 1 = one.
Cell AD 33 - This def debuff is to cancel out PF's unenhanceable buff that is included in AD 23-25. [edit: There's no place to put an unenhanceable def buff, so it's a bit of a hack.]


I'll try to formulate my thoughts tomorrow, I don't have the time to hash it out tonight.


[edit: My character on Test is a Shield/EM Tanker. I'll say it again when I post my complete thoughts.]

[edit: Updated the spreadsheet. The OWTS and PF fields are next to one another and labeled. Heh, no time to formulate my thoughts, but I'll sit here and fiddle with a spreadsheet. Figures.]

[/ QUOTE ]

I sent my updated version of my spreadsheet to Castle to review. I haven't released it publicly yet because I added a ton of stuff that I haven't validated as working yet: besides Shields I also added a row for Kheldian ally resistance buffs (and added a pulldown to change it), another row to look at the impact of defense debuffs on all the sets (but I haven't added all the debuff resistances to all the sets yet, nor have I decided if I'm going to add a level-scaler for them: debuff resistance increases with combat level), a pulldown to turn Diminishing Returns off and on for all strength, bur, and res attributes (I *think* that's working), a PvP mode pulldown to add PvP global resistances to everything, a better implementation of purple patch scaling, and I cleaned up the reference tables (now on the bottom, not the top). Its probably honestly about as complex as you can get and still be usable: past this point if I continue to add stuff it will probably collapse under its own complexity weight.

FYI, one difference between my numbers and yours: the numbers I have for shield defenses are 1.5 scale + 0.3 per target for PF, not 2.0. The numbers I have are (these are the scrapper numbers, which I'm using for reference to the entire set):

Deflection: scale 1.5 defense to melee, scale 0.5 resistance to smash/lethal
Battle Agility: scale 1.5 defense to ranged/AoE
Phalanx Fighting: scale 0.3 defense to Melee/Ranged/AoE per ally hit to maximum of 3
True Grit: scale 0.75 +MaxHealth, scale 0.5 resistance to fire/cold/energy/negative/toxic

[Zen_Concern]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a feeling they are thinking 8' is a decent distance to go. Something 8' away is not at arms length in REal life. In game 8 ft is right in your face.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am sure they think 8' is a decent distance in the game, I mean, just look at Acid Arrow from Trick Arrow. :confused:

[Sarrate]

[ QUOTE ]
I sent my updated version of my spreadsheet to Castle to review. I haven't released it publicly yet because I added a ton of stuff that I haven't validated as working yet: besides Shields I also added a row for Kheldian ally resistance buffs (and added a pulldown to change it), another row to look at the impact of defense debuffs on all the sets (but I haven't added all the debuff resistances to all the sets yet, nor have I decided if I'm going to add a level-scaler for them: debuff resistance increases with combat level), a pulldown to turn Diminishing Returns off and on for all strength, bur, and res attributes (I *think* that's working), a PvP mode pulldown to add PvP global resistances to everything, a better implementation of purple patch scaling, and I cleaned up the reference tables (now on the bottom, not the top). Its probably honestly about as complex as you can get and still be usable: past this point if I continue to add stuff it will probably collapse under its own complexity weight.

[/ QUOTE ]

Won't derail the thread, but there's some good stuff in there.

[ QUOTE ]
FYI, one difference between my numbers and yours: the numbers I have for shield defenses are 1.5 scale + 0.3 per target for PF, not 2.0. The numbers I have are (these are the scrapper numbers, which I'm using for reference to the entire set):

Deflection: scale 1.5 defense to melee, scale 0.5 resistance to smash/lethal
Battle Agility: scale 1.5 defense to ranged/AoE
Phalanx Fighting: scale 0.3 defense to Melee/Ranged/AoE per ally hit to maximum of 3
True Grit: scale 0.75 +MaxHealth, scale 0.5 resistance to fire/cold/energy/negative/toxic

[/ QUOTE ]

Phalanx Fighting has an always on, unehnaceable 0.5 scale defense buff, which is where I'm gettin the 2.0 scale def from. (Since I know it's unehnaceable, I added a 0.28 def debuff in the Unyielding field to compensate for the extra enhanceable def putting 2.0 in caused.)

All the numbers you cite match what I inputted into the spreadsheet. The only thing I may have fudged is AAO's damage debuff. (I'm using 0.075.)


In general: I've tried to write up my thoughts twice already, but I haven't liked the format in either post. Back to the drawing board.

[Lemur Lad]

<QR>
One tidbit to consider: the new melee range is 7' that's only 1 less than the range of PF, but it's a change that is going to trend to a further distribution of players I think.

[Venture]

Just remembered something else that was bugging me...a substantial portion of what -def resist Shield does get is stuck in Active Defense...where it can't be enhanced.

[Haruu]

[ QUOTE ]
...When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds...

[/ QUOTE ]

This statement bothers me (and statements like it). Here is some simple math, we get 24 power picks total (includeing the 2 at lvl 1). To get every primary and secondary power you use 18 of those 24.... leaving 6. Very nearly everyone gets at least 1 travel power, which uses up 2 more picks, leaving 4. Now heres the kicker, it is widely agreed that for any toon to work, you need Health+Stamina, which is 3 more powers, leaving you with 1 power. Sure you can decide to not get all primary and secondary powers, but those powers were put there for a reason. I will admit i opt to get a second travel power, and recall friend usually, but this annoys me.

If the dev's are balancing the AT with Health/Stam, why not just throw out the pool and give everyone a higher natural regen/recover rate? Newbies don't know that these two powers are mandatory, and their AT was balanced with those in mind. When I was new i didnt realize i had to throw out 3 power slots to be playable. Look in the forums at people's builds, every one that doesnt use fitness is told how bad it is to go without.

I know this is a little off topic, but if BaB is playtesting and balancing shields around Fitness, that says to me it needs more regen/recovery built in so its more playable without. Also does Shields offer drain resistance? I havn't gotten to toy around with shields yet, but my wife plays a SR that has every SR power 3 slotted (except quickness) with parts of sets. She doesnt have elude (she hates the crash at the end) and watching her, at lvl 50 she tanks lvl 52 AV's without a healer, and w/o a problem. I have taken her on every Task force commander task force, and she can solo them all (except the AV's which she stalemates) without us. I think she dies once a TF right now, and rarely uses and blue insp for end (about 1 small a mish) with all her toggles on. So to compare shields w/ SR I would like to know about how a lvl 50 shield toon does in all the TF's, not just ITF.

The benifit of SR is it tanks for teams as well as solo very well. Shields depends on others, but sounds like it needs alot of down time. Down time is for us /Dev blasters that need to setup for the next spawn, not for most teams. Teams like to keep moving, keep the Xp/min high.

I would love to hear from BaB's about his posi runs, or his synapse runs, or from people that don ever take fitness and compare it to other scrappers what dont use fitness.

$0.02

[Dispari]

[ QUOTE ]
The main thing I dislike about the set is how the first power is a split of defense and resistance. Its not like you are going to be able to fully enhance both aspects of the power. As many folks have said the endurance useage is horrible, so in a sense you forced to choose endurance reduction, defense or resistance but no way to enhance all 3 fully until you can slot HOs.

[/ QUOTE ]
Definitely still agree with this. Ideally an armor should be slotted for the thing it enhances and endurance. I can't slot for DEF, RES, and END in one power when DEF needs to be +60% and END needs to be +70% ~ +100%. In a set that needs all the help it can get, not being able to slot for RES is a pain. I recommend moving the RES for S/L to True Grit and possibly upping the value (of S/L only) to help round out resistances a little better.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
QR

I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't always agree with EG but i for sure agree in the True Grit point: that power should be available much earlier, preferably one of the first 3 powers in the set. That would go FAR into making Shields feel more survivable during leveling, instead of just feeling strong once it's fully leveled.

This may be a big factor on why people perceive the set being too week in their short play testing, as they are leveling from the bottom and taking a long time to get all the way to the top.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree on this, including the power order. It's EXACTLY what I believe Shields should be. The utility powers come at the end, and you mostly round out your defenses earlier.

I had a lot of issue trying to level a lowbie shield because besides DEF I had nothing to fall back on. No bonus HP, no resistance, no debuffs. And DEF is cut through very easily at low levels because every enemy has a gun or an axe to reduce your defense. And you more or less have no debuff resistance.

Having True Grit available much earlier to give me at least some HP and RES to fall back on would help quite a bit. Instead of a small tweak when you're almost done with the character, it's a boost to carry you along through all the levels.

[Rodion]

[ QUOTE ]
The only problem with making Active Defense a toggle is that would give the set five toggle powers, which I think is too much.

One way this could be fixed is by adding Ranged and AoE Defense into Deflection and replace Battle Agility with Shield Bash.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it? Dark Armor has seven toggles, and it's a tanker set. But, yeah, you probably don't want a repeat of that...

Perhaps the status protection can be distributed among the other toggles, in the same way that Fiery Aura does.

Put Sleep, Disorient, and Knockback protection on Deflection.

Move Battle Agility to tier 4 or 5 and put Hold, Immobilize, Repel and Defense Debuff on it.

Put Fear and Confusion protection on Against All Odds.

Remove Active Defense altogether and replace it with a Shield Bash that does knockdown or disorient.

[Baron_Impossible]

disclaimer: i havent played shields in beta but i have extensively read forum note on it as i'm very interested in the set. while i cannot comment accurately on the feel of the set, i don't believe the "doooom" because the numbers look like they should add up, meaning a few minor tweaks should be sufficient to make this solid

my 2 cents, for what it's worth:

make Grant Cover an auto, let it buff the caster too and put its def#s at Tough Hide levels

increase Phalanx Fighting radius

move Sm/Le res from Deflection to True Grit, give it HPT #s and switch its tier with Phalanx Fighting. this'll increase early survivability and become more slot-efficient for the set

add slow res to Active Defense to keep it a click

sprinkle def debuff res onto all the toggles

bump -dmg of Against All Odds to Chilling Embrace levels


all in all, moderate increase to each method of mitigation, down to 3 toggles, improves solo-ability (and desire to get Grant Cover for solo players) and doesn't cause major changes to the set.

thanks again for giving us an opportunity to communicate with you

keep up the good work. we all appreciate it

[mightyhyperion]

Well I will throw in my two cents worth. I've played a MA/Shield scrapper up to 20 so I can only speak as to those levels of play. Having said that I had no survivability issues at all. I played solo, teamed, and some duo all with the same results.

As far as end usage, it wasn't an issue at those levels anymore than it is with any other scrapper set other than regen. I'm aware that I didn't have all of the toggles yet so take this as you will.

I will say this, I think a lot of the problems come from the fact that regen and will power both have powers in the set to increase end regen and I think we have become a bit spoiled with this. Personally I'm glad to see variety in sets. Just because it's a new power set doesn't mean that it has to be better.

[Mafalin]

[qr]

Didn't read the whole thread, but I think some of the negative posts about shields come from players who are simply not used to playing lowbie/non-IO characters anymore. It just reminds me of the "accuracy nerfed?" threads popping up after each issue, and the occasional posts from players trying a new combo and complaining about endurance costs.

[Shard_Warrior]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Having tried both a BS/Shield and MA/Shield scrapper, I have to say that the BS version clearly outperformed the MA version.

[/ QUOTE ]
See, this is my major concern. It is my belief that much of Castle's datamining is being contaminated by Broadsword. You've got to realize that with the right SOs slotted Parry by itself is almost as powerful as the entire Super Reflexes powerset.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep... that's why I mentioned previously that Shields does not work well with certain primary powersets. Right now, it seems very limited indeed, especially since shields are already limited in primary selection.

Running around in Cimerora, the BS/Shield scrapper I made did ok, the MA/Shields scrapper got annihilated. It really was like night and day.

The more I think about it, the less I am liking the team buffs with the set too. IMO melee ATs aren't there to provide team buffs... that's what buffing sets are supposed to do.

[Ashlocke]

Just a quick post because I wanted to throw this out there.
I see a common issue of the Tanker Shielders worrying about being hit by the enemy alpha strikes when initially engaging a large spawn. Since you can't easily address this problem by simply buffing shield with a higher defense or resistance or even health regen or a flat out heal power without throwing the set a bit out of whack and possibly making the set "too good", a really neat idea hit me.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the shield charge doesn't lend itself well as designed for the player to *want* to use it as designed, it works better as a PBAoE attack once you have already engaged a spawn.

How about you add an unenhancable abblative defense quality to shield charge?
Let me elaborate. When you activate shield charge from a distance into a group spawn, it grants you a temporary defense increase (or resistance or some combination of the two). The idea behind this is that a shield works best when it is between you and all of your foes, since you are charging at a group, all of your foes should be to one side of you. Once you have engaged, the foes begin to spread out and surround you, so your defense drops.

Mechanically, the power would grant you an instant boost to your defense (for the sake of argument, say 15% defense) for say 30 seconds, and each 5 second tick therafter you lose some defense until after 30 seconds when your extra defense the shield charge provided is gone.

This would go a long way to making me *want* to use the power as intended, to charge a group from a distance rather than as a ghetto PBAoE.

Due to Shield Charge's long recharge, this extra defense can't be made permanent. You only have it when you really need it, and you are under some time constraint to take advantage of the extra defense because it doesn't last too long.

[JuliusSeizure]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds...

[/ QUOTE ] If the dev's are balancing the AT with Health/Stam, why not just throw out the pool and give everyone a higher natural regen/recover rate?

[/ QUOTE ]

He's referring to the +max HP available to the set, not the skill Health.

Specifically, +max HP produces more HP returned per tick, which is greater regeneration.

[Dysmal]

[ QUOTE ]
[qr]

Didn't read the whole thread, but I think some of the negative posts about shields come from players who are simply not used to playing lowbie/non-IO characters anymore. It just reminds me of the "accuracy nerfed?" threads popping up after each issue, and the occasional posts from players trying a new combo and complaining about endurance costs.

[/ QUOTE ]

On the otherhand, my negative impressions come from a level bumped level 50 Scrapper, and my scrappers on live have no IOs. I don't think this is really a big part of the impressions.

[Mafalin]

I like your suggestion (it would be exactly what is needed IF the set is indeed underpowered, of which I have yet to be convinced), but 30 seconds is a lifetime for a situational buff like that. Think MoG timeframes instead and the idea sounds much more reasonable. How about 7,5% (enhanceable to 11,25%) for 5-10 seconds? (and yes, I know you said "for the sake of argument", but as I understood you that was only for the def figure).

[LifeGuardian]

I apologize if this breaks the rules, to link to a post I just made, but I just posted a suggestion of Shields on the test forum "Shield Defense - Feedback" thread which might be more appropriate to discuss here.

Here is the post (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12506055&page=0&vc=1&PHP SESSID=#Post12506055) and my proposed changes. If this is unpermitted crossposting, I'll edit to remove the link. Just wanted to make sure this was seen by Castle if this is the thread he's looking for more feedback on.

[Mafalin]

Noted. I just threw it out there as a possible source for "data corruption"; I don't really have a personal opinion on the set yet (which of course doesn't keep me from gleefully joining in the forum arguments :) ).

[Lemur Lad]

[ QUOTE ]
[qr]

Didn't read the whole thread, but I think some of the negative posts about shields come from players who are simply not used to playing lowbie/non-IO characters anymore. It just reminds me of the "accuracy nerfed?" threads popping up after each issue, and the occasional posts from players trying a new combo and complaining about endurance costs.

[/ QUOTE ]

This discussion began in earnest after the first level bump in Closed Beta. I play plenty of lowbies and always account for the lowbie blues when making my assessments of those levels. The claims are post-SO and well slotted builds in many cases.

Endurance is an issue for some reason. Either Tankers who have to swing more times to kill, or high end usage in primaries like Mace, or something in Shields itself. I'm not trying to pin it down because it's happening to more people for more reasons than just "we don't play many lowbies"

There isn't a simple blanket answer. So there isn't going to be a simple blanket solution.

[White_Magician]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd like to see the debuff resistence work all the time. I.e, make it passive. If AD want's to add a bit more, on a click, no worries.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll agree with this one. To get this one to stack, a person would have to slot specifically and probably pick up hasten, just to get up to 50%.

[Fasque]

Post deleted by Fasque

ah, something in the forum works

i will try double posting now

[NeoSaturn]

From reading and my own experiences,
This is what I think a minimum need to be done.

1. True Grit earlier at Lvl 20 or 28 Add S/L res to it and up it base resist and HP to standard lvls (On par with willpower's HPT)

2. Remove the S/L resist in the first shield power replace it with defense debuff resist.

3. Make Phalanx fully enhanceable with the ally buff the part that is not.

4. Make one with the shield have a heal component with it like dull pain not just an HP boost. And an fixed Def boost.

[Haruu]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds...

[/ QUOTE ] If the dev's are balancing the AT with Health/Stam, why not just throw out the pool and give everyone a higher natural regen/recover rate?

[/ QUOTE ]

He's referring to the +max HP available to the set, not the skill Health.

Specifically, +max HP produces more HP returned per tick, which is greater regeneration.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh, the differance between proper nouns, and regular nouns. I read the uppercase H in the middle of a sentance Health as a proper noun and therfore it read as "When you then add in the <name of a power from fitness pool> (and commensurate Regeneration increase) <which is what Health give you>..." I make that error at times too, but the need for fitness still irks me. I would love to see BaB's build, IO's and all. Still want to hear about him running other TF's. Nothing in my arguement really has changed, except that i may have been wrong in the way i read his post, which means that most of my post should be a thread of its own.

JS, thanks for pointing that out to alleviate the mag 3 confusion i was subject to.

[Split_Light]

My biggest problem with the set is simply that your at your greatest defense when you are near your allies. My tankers are rarely near their allies. As a tanker my job is to run in first and take the blast, or to hold off the incoming horde while the blasters and defenders stand back and blast and defend. I don't want to have to tell my blaster to please come stand next to me while the alpha strike unloads so that I can take it.

I don't often team with other scrappers or tankers. My usual group ends up with my tank, and 4 to 6 ranged people. The group can wipe most spawns in a matter of seconds, but somebody has to get in and absorb the alpha.

[Haggard4Life]

QR

I played my Shield Scrapper a bit this morning and ran into a problem. I was playing the repeatable missions in Cimerora. I was doing great and completing the missions in good time until I did the shadow crystals mission that has 3 Shadow Cysts that spawn Unbound Nictus. I completely the first one okay, although my health went down pretty low. On the second Cyst, I don't know why but I kept dying. The combined attacks from Cimerorans and Nictus got my health down surprisingly face. I was running Deflection, Battle Agility and Against All Odds like I normally do. I tried unsuccessfully to beat that Cyst a couple more times before having to log out for lunch.

Is that like what some of you guys have been complaining about with this set?

[MollyRoger]

ok, I'm not a numbers person. Numbers make me break out in hives. But I'll tell you this...

with a lvl 50 MA/WP scrapper or lvl 50 MA/Regen scrapper, I would think nothing of soloing an Orange Herculeas Titan. I would pwn it in seconds.

But this morning I took one on with my lvl 50 MA/Shield scrapper and he ate me for lunch.

You'd think with the same primary, I'd be able to play the character the same way, assuming my secondary was doing it's job. Clearly, my secondary on test was NOT doing it's job.

I can't give you numbers or reasons why... all I know is that a mob that wouldn't even cause me to break a sweat on live completely trashed me on test.

[ArwenDarkblade]

Ok, I'm not a number cruncher. My feedback is simply based on how much fun something is (or is not) to play.

I have a BS/Shields Scrapper on Test. She went through two level bumps, so I don't have a lot of feedback in the lower level game. I can say, however, that in the 40+ game, this Scrapper is on par endurance wise with my level 50 Claws/Invuln and my level 46 DB/WP. And I have no had any more faceplants than usual, either. I mostly die when I do something dumb.

All in all, I'm not getting why there is so much controversy over the shields sets, or why people are clamoring to say they are under performing. I have so far been very satisfied with how they play.

[White_Magician]

[ QUOTE ]

... I was running Deflection, Battle Agility and Against All Odds like I normally do. I tried unsuccessfully to beat that Cyst a couple more times before having to log out for lunch.

Is that like what some of you guys have been complaining about with this set?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, the set doesn't have comparable energy/neg. energy resistances as the other sets. Doesn't come till the Tier 8 power is available as well.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Arwen,

Do you use Parry?

[Mr. DJ]

[ QUOTE ]
with a lvl 50 MA/WP scrapper or lvl 50 MA/Regen scrapper, I would think nothing of soloing an Orange Herculeas Titan. I would pwn it in seconds.

[/ QUOTE ]

you mean Zeus Titan right?

[Talen Lee]

[ QUOTE ]
You'd think with the same primary, I'd be able to play the character the same way, assuming my secondary was doing it's job. Clearly, my secondary on test was NOT doing it's job.

[/ QUOTE ]You would think wrong.

If the secondaries all perform the same way there's no point to having different secondaries at all.

[Haggard4Life]

Why did you expect it to perform the same as WP and Regen? Do you expect the same from Fiery Aura and SR?

Sometimes you need to alter your playstyle depending on which set you're using.

[ArwenDarkblade]

[ QUOTE ]
Arwen,

Do you use Parry?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

[Wulfman]

Having tested all three (tankers, scrappers, and brutes) at level 50, there is a remarkably different feel to them. As for my own experiences, I can agree on many of the things that have been posted about the set in general, and I tested the shields paired with the dark melee set in all three cases to get a comparison feel.

The scrapper was actually an enjoyable toon, and it would depend on my primary powerset (and the amount of damage or mitigation I could get out of it) as to whether or not I'd feel the need for the Fighting pool. On a Dark Melee primary, the self heal in Siphon Life (thank you for that change!!!) as a regular part of my attack chain made it very playable, and the -tohit debuffs stacked very nicely with my defense. As such, I didn't need the Fighting pool, and by using Dark Consumption when it was up, I didn't have huge end problems.

On a brute, I began to notice problems. After all, the way to increase your damage is to build and maintain your fury, meaning that you have to constantly move and attack to get the best benefit. Unfortunately, when I went at that kind of breakneck speed, I found I had to take a knee after every 3rd or 4th group at least, and if there was a boss, after every other group. This means great fury for short bursts, then taking a knee and losing it all. That aspect was a bit underwhelming. Also, when on a team where I was expected to get the aggro, the set really couldn't hold up without the Fighting pool, which began to cause even more significant end problems.

On a tanker, it just did not feel like a tank at all without the Fighting pool. I was getting hit far too often, and taking an inordinate amount of damage in the process. Again, because I was on a dark melee, I could mitigate the damage taken. But even the -tohit didn't stack enough to be able to really "tank" without running CJ, tough, and weave. And, of course, with the diminished damage that tanks do, this meant that a good-sized mob would likely make me use Dark Consumption mid-fight, and then have to take a knee afterwards. With Conserve power I could make it work, conceivably, but it strictly limits your alternatives in the patron sets. The only time I really felt like I could let go and tank was with the Fighting pool and a kinetic on the team to cover my end problems.

Conclusions:

* The scrapper set is pretty functional as it is. A tweak or two, like the ones suggested in this thread, would make it even more enjoyable.

* The brute set is average, at best, primarily because it forces you to either maximize getting the most out of being a brute, or to be able to play effectively with minimal downtime. Some endurance help would go a long way here.

* The tank set is less than adequate as it currently stands, and without some serious tweaks to either the end cost, base defense buffs, and/or resistance buffs (other than in a tier 9), it is going to be an extremely under-used powerset, as toons are simply far more playable (as tanks) with an alternative set.

[Talen Lee]

[ QUOTE ]
Why did you expect it to perform the same as WP and Regen? Do you expect the same from Fiery Aura and SR?

Sometimes you need to alter your playstyle depending on which set you're using.

[/ QUOTE ]Again, so far it sounds like a lot of people are soloing or saying 'my other tankers couldn't make use of this power.'

I'm not saying that Shields are perfect. I am seeing a trend in the feedback.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Arwen,

Do you use Parry?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

That explains it.

There's considerable difference between running around at 21% defense versus 36%. And that's without slotting defense in parry. And single stacking it. Yes, that's only buffing melee and lethal, but a melee character is predominantly getting hit with melee attacks.

If all attack sets buffed melee defense by 15- 23%, there'd be a lot less cussing about shields.

[MindGame1]

My experience is a bit lopsided. So far in all the test groups I have played in I have only had a defender on one team. Once I was on an 8 man team of all shield scrappers and tanks. Typically we had several deaths per mission.

It may be that when a new issue hits the test server mainly the new sets are played. For villains its not so bad since they have a new pain domination set but for heroes finding anyone playing that isn't playing a shield character has been difficult. This affects the perception of the power set as the groups tend to be a bit unbalanced.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why did you expect it to perform the same as WP and Regen? Do you expect the same from Fiery Aura and SR?

Sometimes you need to alter your playstyle depending on which set you're using.

[/ QUOTE ]Again, so far it sounds like a lot of people are soloing or saying 'my other tankers couldn't make use of this power.'

I'm not saying that Shields are perfect. I am seeing a trend in the feedback.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't follow what you're attempting to point out, Talen.

[Shard_Warrior]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Arwen,

Do you use Parry?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try MA/Shields and see if there is any comparison to your BS/Shields toon. You'll see a big difference.

[Ashlocke]

[ QUOTE ]
I like your suggestion (it would be exactly what is needed IF the set is indeed underpowered, of which I have yet to be convinced), but 30 seconds is a lifetime for a situational buff like that. Think MoG timeframes instead and the idea sounds much more reasonable. How about 7,5% (enhanceable to 11,25%) for 5-10 seconds? (and yes, I know you said "for the sake of argument", but as I understood you that was only for the def figure).

[/ QUOTE ]
Everything I post is always "for the sake of argument" since I am not a programmer, nor a mathematician, nor the power's guy on the Dev team. All of my numbers are and should be subject to change, what is important is the idea and concept I present, not the specific numbers. If a more MoG like mechanic is better, then by all means, make it so! :)

But there is one point I would be against, you added in an "enhanceable to 11.25%", I am specifically against making it enhanceable because it's already strapped for slotting. If you made it enhanceable a player would either slot it as an attack, thus getting very little benefit from the defensive potential of this power, or slot it for defense, and feel underwhelmed whenever using it because it's damage stinks, thus use it less and less often, neither of these scenareos is what I wish to see happen, I am trying to make the power MORE desirable to use, not less.

[NeoSaturn]

I played a fire/Shield scrapper wanted to try something with little dam migration in the primary. I also played a set with heavy dam migration Shied/Ice tank.

My impressions are scrapper and brute set feel slightly under powered but not bad. The thing Is have to kill faster then the mob can kill me. On a brute this is business as usually, Scrapper not a problem, however on a tank the endurance tends to run dry before hand. Now this is solo I know but what I notice.

[Genesis Man]

A summation of the problems that I've seen in open beta and here in this thread:

1) Low(er) defenses (especially solo) with little defense resists makes for a squishy melee character. Though the set does have -dmg, lite resistances and kb to help mitigate some damage, the set is mostly a pure-defense set, which can be neutered very easily as is.

2) Click mez protection is detrimental to a melee-centered character (especially tanks) without slow resists.

3) Very little to no alpha/damage spike management powers.

4) True grit comes too late in the build to be useful.

5) The Tier-9 does not provide much of a benefit.

6) Phalanx Fighting's radius is too small (if 7' feet is the new melee range, 8' really is a very tiny radius indeed).

Recommendations:

1) Add a little defense resist to each toggle so that Shield wielders can rely on their defense more consistently.

2) Active Defenses needs to have an out-of-the-box overlapping recharge time (unstackable effects) OR give AD the SoW treatment and make the recharge duration of the power only slightly SHORTER than the duration of the power's effects.

The overall effect of either suggestion would be that the power would be always available (especially important to tanks) without making the power itself overpowered.

3) Add a little defense (to all positional) in Active Defenses that only lasted for 30 seconds. This would provide ways to handle alphas or damage spikes respectively.

4) As another poster mentioned, change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's [his] suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

5) With the above changes, no real change would be needed to the tier-9, though a small defense boost might be nice to push the defense up to or just slightly past the defense soft cap.

6) Likewise, providing the above changes, PF shouldn't need any tweaking, outside of extending the radius a hair.

[Castle]

Ok, I found a couple problems with my numbers and have read the thread. Here's the plan:

1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[SpittingTrashcan]

Between 4) and 5), you've turned Grant Cover from a power that soloists can skip into a power that soloists have to take, yet get reduced benefits from. I don't think this will go down well.

[Doc_Wormwood]

I don't know if this is even possible, but I would love a shield defense toggle or three to be based on targets.

Basically, a toggle that protects you a great deal from one target and those near him.

Not sure how you'd do it... targetted aoe to-hit debuff but only toward you? Um.

This would allow you to really bump the defense (and maybe also damage resist?), but only toward a small group, reflecting the limitations of shields.

[Tannim222]

I wonder if the reason endurance usage feels more costly with this set comes from active and continual use of Shield Charge? Considering that all the toggles add up to be on par with SR that is the only outlying endurance cost effect that Shields has over SR.

Castle, what you may be seeing here is something along the lines of play style preferences or differences. You said:

[ QUOTE ]
I've played the set, in the ITF with a group, I've solo'd, and duo'd, and have not found it to be a bad set.

How do your experiences differ from our play testing, math, and experiences?

[/ QUOTE ]

What I think players are saying is that this isn't necessarily a bad set, its mechanics aren't quite fun. In order to leverage the best results from Shields, the user needs to adjust the play style they are typically accustomed to using wither other defenses power sets.

[ QUOTE ]
What areas should we be looking at in this equation to make the Shields balanced but not over powered?
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

[/ QUOTE ]

The simplest change that could be made is to address the play style mechanic that this set is based around: aura ranges.
Between Phalanx Fighting, Against All Odds, and Grant Cover, the Shield cannot maximize the potential of the power set due to the limiting range of these auras. Only so many hit boxes / models can fit into the area of effect of these powers.

So while in paper, the set can turn out decent survival rates, in actual game play those rates cannot be achieved. Increasing the radius of these powers would go a long way into making the set actually perform in actual play along the lines of the paper math.

Next, there is a problem with Active Defense. A click status protection power is only good if the power set offers some type of - slow protection. Without that, the Shield user is going to experience gaps in status protection that will cause difficulty in play.

Either add slow resistance to the set somewhere, or take the status protections from Active Defense and add them to Deflection and Battle Agility. Also move AD def debuff resistance and add it to Deflection. *more to come later on a possible replacement.

Another issue is with True Grit. This power becomes available far too late. After removing Active Defense place True Grit in the 2nd tier slot, pushing Battle Agility to 3 and Phalanx Fighting to 4.
Also remove the resistance from Deflection and add it to True Grit.

The final issue with this Shields is that it really does lack an emergency power. Previously I suggested removing the effects of Active Defense and switching the placement of True Grit.
I suggest new effects should be added to Active Defense:

Active Defense: click, affect self +20% heal, +25% regeneration, +15% recovery. Endurance Cost: 12% Duration: 30 seconds Recharge 90 seconds.
(heal and and regeneration values are at Tanker levels)
Place AD in the Tier 6 slot.

This isn't meant as a consistent heal power to assist in general survival, but instead as an emergence use to help the set get through a tough encounter.

I added a recovery bonus in order to address the perceived endurance issues with this set. As I said earlier, I believe it may have more to do with Shield Charge. However, adding power that could be used as an emergency heal or recovery tool (or both) would go a long way in assisting this set in remaining on par with other sets.
The new order of powers would be:

Deflection
Tue Grit
Battle Agility
Phalanx Fighting
Against All Odds
Active Defense
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

With the changes I suggest, you will not that I do not advocate adding additional def debuff resistance. Also I think that with the changes I have suggested, the true weakness to Shields would end up being -recharge effects. Which is ok. The set would be a little stronger vs. non-positional psi and toxic attacks.

[Lemur Lad]

I think that's a solid list to test from. Batten down the hatches because I think ardent soloists will complain about change #5, but I'm willing to try it, since one of my builds already has GC and it wasn't soloing appreciably worse.

[Zacharias_NA]

[ QUOTE ]

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is your major problem. If it's on par with SR, then it is too end heavy. That (along with its low functionality as compared to resistance based sets when you fight over your level) is a big reason why fewer people play SR than WP, regen, or even invuln as scrappers.

[BlackMagic_NA]

[ QUOTE ]

3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it not possible to put the resistance values into True Grit instead Battle Agility? I'm not sure I understand fully what's going on here.

Does this mean that both Battle Agility and True Grit would now give +res to those different damage types or you would increase the the S/L and defense debuff res in Deflection and Battle Agility?

[LifeGuardian]

Castle, I like all 5, but one thing -- can the debuff resistance in Grant Cover be passive, whether you're running the toggle or not? It seems enough to take the power to get the debuff protection, especially playing solo, than to have to run a power that's *only* providing you defense debuff resistance when solo.

That, or, even better, give Grant Cover the PF treatment and add an unenhanceable defense bonus to the caster.

[Bill Z Bubba]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I found a couple problems with my numbers and have read the thread. Here's the plan:

1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[/ QUOTE ]

1: Cool.
2: Cool.
3: I'm good with either. I can't grasp the variations of one choice over the other right now.
4/5: Interesting. A toggle that provides the user nothing but DDR. That'd be a first. I'd rather you leave GC as is and put more DDR elsewhere. Yes, I'd rather this because of obvious reasons. I'm fine with Grant Cover not affecting self.

Thanks for taking another look, Castle. It's appreciated.

[EvilGeko]

[ QUOTE ]

3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?


[/ QUOTE ]

Everything else you wrote was pure win.

But here. When you say add scale 1.0 to Battle Agility, did you mean True Grit?

Because you talk about toggles in the next sentence and Battle Agility is a toggle. Also is the choice (using Tanker numbers for simplicity):

Choice 1:

True Grit: 10% resists to all but psi, 10% HP
+
5% resists to Sm, Le in Deflection (it wasn't clear if you're removing the resists from deflection or not)

or

Choice 2:

True Grit: 10% health + 5% resists to Fire, Cold, Energy, Neg, Toxic
+
15% Sm, Le in Deflection (since that's the only toggle with resists now)



Basically, I'm confused on that third bullet point. The rest are crystal clear. I think I want the passive defenses no matter what. 10% passive defenses would be cool.

[Genesis Man]

Between #4 and #5, I guess the question is, which does the set need more, defense debuff resistance, or actual defense? I'll second Bill's request that the 'DDR' going into another location would be preferred over putting it into a team-oriented power.

[Goliath Bird Eater]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I found a couple problems with my numbers and have read the thread. Here's the plan:

1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[/ QUOTE ]

That looks like a good place to start. Moving True Grit up likely have the largest effect in perceived survivability. And as for #3, I really don't have a preference for one change over the other; I leave it to you. I have an issue with 4 and 5, mostly because of the highly situational nature of the power, given the natural tendencies of squishies to be away from the Tanker during combat as well as the newly-extended maximum range for melee attacks.

If, however, Grant Cover is the only place where you're willing to add to the set's DDR, then I don't have a problem with just the additional Def Debuff Resistance going to the user. I've always been of the opinion that piling on more Def wouldn't be necessary if the powerset had (A) enough Debuff Resistance to keep from being obliterated by any foe capable of Debuffing Def, and (B) sufficient layers of secondary mitigation to help pick up the slack if a Defense Cascade does indeed occur. And besides, I'd take the power anyways in order to buff my teammates.

Now, if I may make a suggestion: What about the possibility of increasing the Dmg Debuff in Against All Odds, perhaps even in place of changing the existing Resist levels? As it stands, It's around 7% and some change for Tankers; would increasing it to 10% for Tankers and 7.5% for Scrappers and Brutes result in serious balance issues?


Added:
[ QUOTE ]
Between #4 and #5, I guess the question is, which does the set need more, defense debuff resistance, or actual defense? I'll second Bill's request that the 'DDR' going into another location would be preferred over putting it into a team-oriented power.

[/ QUOTE ]

Between the two? Definitely DDR. And I do agree that I'd rather have it someplace else than in Grant Cover.

[BlackWhisper]

Looked them over and here is my $0.02.

1) Cool, great
2) Even cooler, great
3) I'd prefer it if you increased them across the boards, as opposed to lumping them in one.
4) Great!
5) I retract my Great from #4. :( Seriously, unless this toggle costs next to nothing in END it'd kill me to run it, but I would be foolish not too. The panda would cry I tell you.

Thanks for looking into the set Castle, I'm really looking forward to playing a shield for the concept alone, but its nice to see commitment to getting it good from the start on Live, as opposed to putting out some half finished under performing set.

[pmgunnerxx]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I found a couple problems with my numbers and have read the thread. Here's the plan:

1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Castle,

First let me thank you for starting this thread. Changes 1-3 look good and I do believe they would be a help. Changes 4 and 5 are a toss up. I understand the defense debuff is being added due to our feedback and adding it to grant cover gives even a solo player a reason to take GC. As a player that mostly solo's I would still skip GC but this change might just be enough that other solo players will go for it.

I would like to ask if your still reading is there any possibility of having Grant Cover and Phalanax Fighting (the version of those powers on test now or the updated version your suggesting) combined into one power and maybe have a weaker version of Mog added in. Mog without any resistance but keep the defense and endurance portion of the power and add a predefined recharge time that could not be effected by + recharge powers. Sorry if its a dumb idea but its something I've seen kicked around since closed beta that I thought was pretty good.

[Lohenien]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I found a couple problems with my numbers and have read the thread. Here's the plan:

1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[/ QUOTE ]

1 and 2 are great.

Idea 3 is odd, it looks like you are considering upping the total resistances to 15% to all besides psi. I would handle that by making True Grit 7.5% resistance to all but psi, Deflection 7.5% to sm/lthl and BA 7.5% to f/c/e/n/t.

Idea 4 is good but still bad. The idea that Grant Cover is skippable is a good idea, however adding any self survivability to it would make GC "required". Putting the debuff resistance into something else is probably a better idea.

[GrimTitan]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[/ QUOTE ]

1 and 2 sound great.

3 seems like a band-aid fix to me. The fact is that there is a FUNDAMENTAL flaw with trying to stack moderate defense and minor-to-moderate resistance for comprehensive protection. While it may sound nice on paper, it just doesn't work in implementation. With moderate defense levels, too much damage gets through, and modest resistance doesn't do enough to hold that off. If you want to go the "survivability through moderation" route, the set MUST have a considerable self-heal. If it doesn't, everything else is ephemeral protection.

4 and 5... leave me cold. It means both soloists and teamers MUST take the power, even though what it offers is only moderately beneficial to either.

Look at the beloved/respected sets in this game: Fire, Empathy, Regen, Super Strength, Elec Armor, Cold, Stone, etc. What do they all have in common? They all do one thing REALLY well, and then have little bonuses sprinkled on top. Now look at the sets that have gone through lots of trouble over the course of the game's lifespan: AR, Arrows, Martial Arts, Dark Armor, Mace, Energy Aura, Katana, etc. They all do a few things moderately well. Well right now, Shields falls into the Martial Arts/Energy Aura crowd. It'd be sad to see something everyone clamored for for so long go that route.

[BackFire]

You rock, Castle.

as for #3, I'm not a number cruncher but the scale 1.5 resist sounds good. (bigger is better, right?)

Look forward to testing it!

[Starsman]

(QR)

Crazy thought:

Merge Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover into one single power

Give the set an additional power. Perhaps a shield bash that stuns and knocks down (better would be to get a shield toss but you guys seem against it, not sure if just for copyright fear or just plain and simple technical issues.)

This makes sure the set only has one power that relies on team mates to do anything, and it also gives the set a mitigation tool to help the team with. I bet sets with little mitigation like Fiery Melee would welcome access to a stunning Shield Bash.

[Sylph_Knight]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking at Shields since so many folks seem unhappy with them. Here's what I am seeing:

Endurance cost is on par with Super Reflexes, and is cheaper if you only consider personal defense, rather than group defense.

Using SOs, and taking Phalanx Fighting, average admittance is roughly twice that of Super Reflexes (48% vs 30%) if you have no allies near you. With 1 ally within 8', admittance drops to 42%, and with 2 allies within 8', admittance drops to 36%.

When you then add in the Health (and commensurate Regeneration increase) coupled with the Damage debuff on enemies in the Against All Odds radius, then look at the survival time measurement something odd happens: Despite having worse Admittance values compared to SR, the survival line for Shields is actually higher -- for a 60 second period, it would take 104.99 dps to kill a Shields character with no allies within 8' compared to 93.7dps to kill an SR character.

Additionally, Against All Odds is increasing the Shields characters damage output by scale 1 + scale 0.55 per enemy up to 10 within 8' radius. Grant Cover is granting a Team Defense Buff and the set comes with a built in attack.

I've played the set, in the ITF with a group, I've solo'd, and duo'd, and have not found it to be a bad set.

How do your experiences differ from our play testing, math, and experiences?
What areas should we be looking at in this equation to make the Shields balanced but not over powered?
What would you do to keep Shields balanced and not overly powerful but also reasonable for endurance?

Edit: Clarity

[/ QUOTE ]

First of all Castle, let me thank you for making the effort to take this opportunity to talk with the community in spite of being in Crunch Time for Issue 13's release. I feel it is a boon to the commitment of the Developer Team to make the connection with the players' perspective and ensure mutual happiness.

My first major point with the Shield Set is that, like many issues of the game, looks good on paper yet in operation it feels somewhat lacking. This effect is heavily psychological and not statistical in origin. I don't know how many of us here are actually familiar with Super Reflexes (I know I never touched the set), so playing a Defense-biased set feels unorthidox as the amount of incoming damage is much heavier than traditional damage sets (bar Regeneration) are used to noting.

What hurt Shields for me was when I was attempting to farm Rularuu for the Rularuu Shield. I was going against groups of -3s, -4s and -5s in the Chantry section of the Shadow Shard (the large groups of flying enemies near the entrance you come in from the Firebase Zulu warp point). Without adequate amounts of Resistance, Healing, and outside of a controlled combat environment (fighting with Shields in mid-air is no where near as smooth as doing so on my Invulnerability / Super Strength Tanker) proved to show the set as painfully underequiped to handle encounters where the enemies are not behaving within the Player's direction. While that is only one example, I have found that after running through missions and testing shields in a variety of normal environments, I have found Shields to be painfully inadequate when fighting against enemy groups that are not being manipulated by the player. Rather, Shields feels like it was designed to operate under a very specific style of gameplay: grabbing aggro, pulling enemies close together, Shield Charge, terminate before they can get back on their feet.

The problem with shields isn't preventative means: it's combat recovery (Health and Endurance) means. I know that is Willpower's territory, but Shields need to have the expectations put into broad daylight: This Power Set is designed to operate with Support. From a glance, Shields can be menacing with even one Support member on the team, or even another / Shield / user from any archetype due to the nature of their "Cross-Shielding" benefits. However, the set is horribly underequiped to handle consistant and/or large values of damage intake simply because it has no means of Damage Recovery, with emphasis solely on Damage Prevention (and Resistance, from my gameplay experience although perhaps not by numeric calculations, is more useful against consistant and heavy damage, while Defense has always worked more in my favor for keeping smaller portions of damage at bay).

My perspective comes from being a dedicated Invulnerability / Super Strength Tanker. I claim no expertise in the realm of Shields or Defense-biased sets akin to Super Reflexes. I do know, however, that Shields simply "feel" uncomfortable. There's a psychological element to the Power Set that numbers just can't explain. I feel like Shields is a gamble set: you risk everything in that first charge, because there is no way to recover what is lost in combat.

[Spiritchaser]

[ QUOTE ]
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)


[/ QUOTE ]

My problem with grant cover is largely it’s radius… It’s just too small for me to find it useful in most cases. I remember a rwz ship raid where we couldn’t really use shield charge, because we’d break out of our tight groups and get creamed. If the conceptual rule is that it has to be a close in power, (and it really is at this point) then I’d want it to either:

Be strong enough to stand entirely on it’s own in it’s benefit to me. That means if all I’m getting is defence resistance, then it had better be a very solid amount. Or Be a very, very strong ally buff indeed.

I’d much rather have the radius increased, but I understand that might be immersion breaking.

How about dropping grant cover entirely and giving us a pbaoe mez protection or mez resistance clicky like those cimoreans get? Heck, throw some defence resistance in there so there’s some self benefit. At least the buff would be able to be a large enough AoE to be usefull, it wouldn’t break immersion, and it would grant the player something they needed.

Also: I’m definitely in favour of either giving the set slow resists or changing the mez resist clicky to a toggle. Any chance of either of these?

[Genesis Man]

Currently, Ice Armor's Chilling Embrace has -14% damage. The set also has better defensive values and a powerful slow to mitigate incoming damage. I would also like to see an increase in the damage debuff, if at all possible.

[Doc_Wormwood]

Another thought about basic concept.

Shields were not particularly a 'group defense' sort of thing, historically. Yes, there's the Phalanx, and shields definitely leverage formation fighting a lot, but a lot of folks used shields in no particular organized way.

Nothing like having a wall of steel between you and an opponent.

Shields are also more valuable in melee than against ranged attacks, though turtling up is definitely a valued defense.

To that end, maybe just one group power, for Phalanx, and have a 'take cover' option with limited aoe range that mainly benefits the Shielder against ranged attacks. More melee defense.

The other advantage of shields is a rather offensive element, the ability to parry/turn weapons, actively block into attacks, and bash the opponent.

Maybe have a passive defense/resist against melee?

Shield bash attack that has chance of disorienting, maybe also (or another power) gives -recharge to reflect battering a weapon away.

Maybe more of the defenses act like pbaoe -tohit, turning the defense power inside-out; the shield makes it harder for people near you to hit, because you keep battering their weapons away?

(just brainstorming; other folks have the brass tacks down)

[bAss_ackwards]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I found a couple problems with my numbers and have read the thread. Here's the plan:

1) Move True Grit to earlier in the set. This should help low level performance a bit.
2) Increase +Health in True Grit from scale 0.75 to scale 1.0
3) Add Scale 1.0 Resist to Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold and Toxic damage to Battle Agility or increase the resist values in the toggles from scale 0.5 to scale 1.5. Opinions?
4) Make Grant Cover affect the Caster, except...
5) Add additional Defense Debuff Resistance to Grant Cover. This is the only aspect of the power which would apply to the caster -- the Defense only applies to allies still. (Making the Defense from this apply to the player seriously crank up their survivability beyond other sets -- not an option, without a huge decrease in values.)

[/ QUOTE ]
1) A great decision.
2) Another great decision. Without a self heal or dull pain type HP recovery in the set, having more +HP will help take off the edge on attacks that do make it through.
3) Since they are minor enough I would suggest making all of the resists go under one power. Currently to enhance S/L and E/NE/F/C/T resists you would need to use at least two slots for the two different powers that house them.
4) So far so good...
5) Really depends on how much Defense Debuff Resist is applied to the caster. It does provide the +Defense for anyone within range, but melee characters are rarely hanging around others unless there are other melee characters duking it out on the team. Solo play characters will only be seeing the Defense Debuff Resist and depending on how large the resist is will find it worth the endurance drain. Grant Cover and Phalanx Fighting are still largely for AVs (where team mates usually gather together on said AV) and melee-oriented teams.

[BackFire]

[ QUOTE ]
Idea 4 is good but still bad. The idea that Grant Cover is skippable is a good idea, however adding any self survivability to it would make GC "required".

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree, making Grant Cover skippable is not a good idea. It goes against the entire concept of the set. Posi said in the Boomtown interview that the aim of Shields was to make it team-friendly.

[ QUOTE ]
Matt Miller: The ability to protect not just yourself, but your teammates, has been the major design goal of the Shields set.

[/ QUOTE ]

Making Grant Cover no longer skippable is a move in the right direction. Having it benefit BOTH the individual and team stays true to it's basic design concept.

[Mr_Blaze]

Thank you for this thread Castle!

I like the ideas you posted.

The only thing I would add is a small End buff in AAO for each critter in range.
Thematically it would go along the lines of the more critters fighting you the more you get your adrenaline up. (Yeah yeah that’s sort of Willpower’s gig, but it applies to .. Capt. A.. Well you know who gets tougher the more the baddies pile on!)
But not up enough to warrant a crash.

Perhaps I am spoiled from WP and Regen and even IO’s.
But my biggest issue with the set was that my 2 tanks (SS, Mace) and Scrapper (MA) where just popping blues like crazy to keep up an active fight.
Yes all had a lot of end redux's in there and both tanks had tough and weave 2 slotted with end redux. (All level bumped to 50)
And Stam 3 slotted. SO’s all around.

Conserve power went a long way to improve my Scrapper. But yikes 41 levels is a long time to wait for that power.

Granted my Kat / SR scrapper is an end hog as well, but that combo just plays stronger because I guess the stacking parry power helps a lot in survivability?

Or maybe quickness helps me get them before they get me.

By 2 end reducing a number of powers I was able to get things under better control up to setting mission difficulty to rugged. Over rugged my bigger challenge became the end issues over the health issues.