[quote]After a long, drawn out period of denial, I think I have finally decided to give up playing as a Defender Titan in the Crucible. As I see it, the Defender is simply outclassed in PvP. For a few reasons: 1. The Defender Titan has one fewer grenade options than any other class. The void Spike Grenade is beyond useless. I honestly can't remember ever seeing it kill anything. Not in PvE and certainly not in the Crucible. Being down a grenade isn't the end of the world for the Defender. The Magnetic grenade is pretty good and the Suppression grenade is powerful on the rare occasion that you have one ready and place it just right. But, being down a grenade is just the tip of the iceberg. The Spike Grenade either needs some serious upgrades to make is useable or it needs to be replaced by something more novel (and powerful) to get the Defender three good options like every other class has. 2. The Defender Titan's charged melee is inferior to that of every other subclass. Of the six subclasses, the Defender is the only one who's charged melee does absolutely nothing until they get a kill. - The Voidwalker gets a bonus to grenade cooldown, and can through the use of exotic armor can get what is effectively a better version the Defender's War Machine + Force Barrier perks by simply doing damage. - The Sunsinger sets enemies on fire and can also get an overshield simply by doing melee damage. - The Gunslinger gets a powerful ranged knife throw. - The Bladedancer can have a huge damage boost when attacking from behind or can have their charged melee recharge very quickly or can cloak on doing damage... or can do a combination of those with the right armor. - The Striker gets a burst of extra damage that can even be set to an area of affect mode. In PvE the Defender's Force Barrier can be really useful, but it bewilders me at how ineffective it is (because of how rarely you get to activate it) in the Crucible. No other subclass' melee is geared so heavily to PvE. I'm not really sure how I would fix this. Perhaps something like granting the Defender a very brief use of Force Barrier when they do damage (like just a second of so) and give them the full duration Force Barrier upon a kill? I'm not sure that's good enough or distinct enough from the other classes' barrier generating melees... I'll need to think about this one more... 3. Ward of Dawn, while occasionally game changing, does not hold up well compared to the other Supers. Don't get me wrong, I like Ward of Dawn. It can save the day in a number of ways. But... it doesn't feel super to me. When I fire up any of the other Supers I feel like a god for a brief time. When I activate Ward of Dawn in a lot of ways I feel more vulnerable, not less! I have to watch every angle to make sure I do get rushed. I can't rely on my bubble for protection for long because standing within it is an invitation to be Fist of Havoc-ed, or Nova Bombed, or Golden Gunned. And heaven help me if a Blade Dancer shows up since Ward of Dawn does very little to help me survive against them. (No, not even Armor of Light does enough in my opinion.) To me, Ward of Dawn actually rarely ends up being worth casting which is such a strange thing for a Super... and with the new classes coming I can't help but wonder how well my bubble will protect me from a Solar Titan hitting me with his hammer, or a Arc Warlock charging me holding down his lightening blasts. Will my bubble even stand up to those supers or will it pop and leave me dead just like it does vs Nova Bomb and Golden gun? Frankly, I think Ward of Dawn needs some serious tweaking. Here are my suggestions: (Note, all of the below are flexible opinions. Cited durations or abilities are meant as points of discussion, not set in stone demands.) - Ward of Dawn should no longer simply vanish when either hit with too much damage or when its parent Titan is killed. Instead, I would like to see it enter a short dying state (perhaps two seconds long?) that lets those without and within know it is about to go away. Perhaps it could take on a red-ish damaged look similar to what a Defender's force barrier does when it is badly damaged but not yet destroyed. I imagine it making a more urgent version of the "about to go away" sound that it currently makes as well. What this would mean for Crucible play is a Nova Bomb would never directly kill those within a bubble. Even a tri-Nova Bomb would impact too quickly to wait out the Ward's short death period. For Golden Gun, I'd like to see it take three shots instead of two to kill the bubble. This would allow a Hunter with the four shot helmet to kill the bubble and then get the final shot in on someone inside after the bubble actually dies a couple of seconds later. The overcharged single Golden Gun shot from the HoW helmet should actually penetrate the bubble and kill whoever it hits inside, but the bubble would still have its delayed death and any bonuses the bubble is granting (like Armor of Light) should remain in effect potentially saving those within the bubble from Golden Gun's Combustion ability. The bubble's death delay also means that if your Defender gets killed the rest of your team isn't instantly screwed. You'd have a second or two to scramble for new cover as the bubble died. - Ward of Dawn should suppress the abilities of an enemy who enters it after a brief delay. What I'm looking for here is to make Ward of Dawn a stronger counter to close range Supers like Arc Blade or the new abilities of the upcoming Solar Titan and Arc Warlock. Instead of instantly canceling the enemy abilities though I'd like there to be a brief delay. This would let a Blade Dancer enter the bubble and get a kill or two then lose Arc Blade as well as grenades and double jump. It would be like getting hit with a Suppression Grenade except the suppression effect would wear off much faster, perhaps even almost instantly. In gameplay, Fist of Havoc would essentially be unaffected while players using other Supers like Arc Blade, Golden Gun, or even Nova Bomb would have more than enough time to enter the bubble and kill you. But that would be it. Entering the bubble with an active Super would be a choice you make knowing that you'll (hopefully) kill those inside at those cost of not Supering anyone else. The point isn't to pin the enemy down after they entered the Ward but to make enemies give passing into it a bit more respect as well as making it a buffer against Supers approaching from one direction. A bubble in the open could be avoided by jumping over it while a bubble placed in a good chokepoint might provide a team with some assurance that they will not be flanked by someone running at them with an active Super. To be clear, you could run through the Ward, be suppressed for a very short time, and then activate your Super on the other side. You'd still be able to wipe an enemy team if they weren't defending and paying attention to the bubble, you'd just have to be a bit smarter about it. - Ward of Dawn should no longer generate Orbs of Light upon being cast. Instead, kills within the bubble (with or without Armor of Light) and any kills made while under one of the bubble's lingering effects (Blessing or Weapons of Light) should generate Orbs. I want this for a few reasons. First, to get rid of Bubble Bros building Bubble Forts like we've seen in the past. Now you'd actually need kills to generate orbs like any other Super. Second, to allow Ward of Dawn to count towards the various Super related bounties. Right now, I'm pretty sure playing as a defender means you have no way to do the "Kill three or more enemies with a Super twenty times" PvE bounty or the "Kill enemy Guardians with a Super" Crucible bounty. This change would fix that oversight. Hopefully, with these changes, a Defender would be more equally competitive in general Crucible play, and would even be a viable choice in the upcoming Mayhem mode. Right now, all I imagine a Defender will do in Mayhem is make a bubble and watch it be destroyed a second later to little effect. :( Anyway, what do you think? Have I missed some key detail that would make the revised Defender too overpowered? Have I not gone far enough? Am I maybe onto something but you have an even better way of achieving what I'm after? Let me know! :)[/quote] Love the train of thought... I read that skill changes are coming in TTK...

If anything here the Ward of Dawn should actually be an IMPENETRABLE WALL OF VOID LIGHT. That's right, no amount of damage can destroy it, Fist of Havoc, Nova Bomb, and Golden Gun can't destroy it or even GO THROUGH IT. And maybe have an ability for you and your allies to shoot enemies who are outside the bubble while you are inside the bubble.