As many of you Champions know, when your Passive defense fails, you fail! This thread is about some ideas that I have come up with over time playing as a Melee based Champion, (Swords, martial arts etc) a Tank based Champion, (Might... that's about it.) and a Ranged based Champion. (Guns, arrows... power armor, ego,etc.).

Ok, first I'd like to say that Champions Online is an amazing game. It has so much it could be able to reach, we just have to wait and let it develop! I personally really like this game, it's just I want MOAR... Mostly a new area and the west side of MC to get fixed, but anyway...

First, I'll start with what I'm getting at:

With out a passive defense on CO, you're screwed. It makes sense because you're a SUPER HERO, you have a super power so you can fight other things that would defeat a person without it. The thing is, in CO, there's nothing known as a Natural Defense.

What is a Natural Defense? I'm glad you asked! A natural defense is a character's second, but not nearly as effective, defense. "Why have it then if it sucks?" Because it's your last line of defense if your passive defense fails, like personal force field. Also, it evens out the game. How? Please read the next section.

Imagine that you're level 20, and fighting some level 18s. Usually if an enemy is your level or lower, you can take on 3-5 enemies at once. Since there's no Natural Defense in CO, (other than the constitution stat, but that just gives you more health) you get hurt quite a bit, even from something 2 to even 3 levels below you. Everybody has had an instance where they have got hurt a considerable amount by enemies that aren't even a higher level than them. I've seen an extreme case of this before: Grond. He was fighting cowboy robots in the desert, and dieing. He's a level 26 cosmic. He has over one million health. And he was getting beat up by level 20 minions.

If my version of Natural Defense would be added into this equation though, this would be the outcome: Grond is a level 26 cosmic, he is a higher level level than the Robot Cowboys, so he has a higher natural defense than the Robot Cowboys. The robot cowboys are a much lower level, so they have less Natural Defense than Grond, so they can't go toe-to-toe with him even in a mob, because they take more damage from their lower level. WHICH MAKES SENSE!

How would Natural Defense be added into CO and increase?

Natural Defense would be added into CO like a Super Stat! Right at the beginning of the game, you would have a Super Stat called: Natural Defense, or something. Every level it would increase your physical and energy defense to a certain number. This combined with your passive defense would make super heroes, super, and would make other enemies without passives, (gang members, zombies, etc) easier to kill, because they don't rank up to a super hero, except if they're in groups. This way, anything less of a level than you has less defense than you, so they take more damage, which they should because they're much weaker. At the same time, enemies that are your level or higher would have the same or more defense than you, making them tougher, because they're a higher level, which makes sense. Another addition would be that minions could have a different stat range than higher enemies, like villains and super villains, for example: minions would get a smaller natural defense than the villains because of their rank.

This is also good for all players because:

1. Ranged heroes have a defense that isn't ego or dex based.
2. Fast attacking close range heroes (martial art based for instance) would have more defense, instead of dieing when they want to have more offense.
3. Ranged heroes would be more balanced, by giving them a way to live longer, other than increasing their damage output.
4. PvP could have more heroes competing because it doesn't matter extremely on what passive defense you chose, or what powers you have.
5. Realism. Heroes beating on low level minions and having no trouble would make the game more realistic.

Another idea is to add defense points to stats. If you have a higher ego, you take less energy damage, a higher strength, you take less physical damage, a higher constitution, you take less physical and ego damage, but it is less gives a lot less than the other two, because it also gives max hp and would give two stats rather than one. This way: tanks can be more effective, by increasing ego, str, and con, and getting added def bonuses with it. The problem is that it wouldn't be as equal as a super stat given defense.

That's basically the idea, if there's any questions/ideas/whatever, post!

I'd also like to address the issue of Dodging, when you dodge, shouldn't you not take damage? I'd like if super reflexes would make damage not happen some of the time, rather than taking less damage. It could be made like power armor; you aren't affected by attacks of a certain number of damage and lower, but, it would only happen in conjunction with how often you dodge. So when you do dodge the attack, you take no damage. (It would negate all damage, and not allow damage to happen above a certain point.)

Thank you for reading!

I am? Well *censor* I am doing something wrong again. ><

Um...incorrect.

My natural defense is i kill bad guys faster than they can hurt me, its called Offensive Passive. So i'm like passively offensive, kind of, i think....

I get the feeling the op either was horribly wrong like you both stated, or that they were including passives and energy forms rather than just passive defensives.

I like to say "Just because you can't get something to work it doesn't mean someone else can't either.".

But that would be slightly rude of me. :p

That's okay, at level 20 he's wrong even if you don't have a passive at all.

I could never imagine someone doing any level 40 quests without any passive or energy form, but I guess with enough active powers and heals you could get it to work.

Players kinda already have passive defenses that they get from the resistance bonuses that gear provides.

I've never tried it, but I know someone who got to upper 20s without a passive or super-stats ;). I wouldn't want to do an end-game lair without a passive, but there's plenty of undemanding level 40 quests.