Alternate Routes

[Mirage]

yeah it would. i'd rather just get an enhanced defender (phalanx effect sounds cool), or the defensive counterpart of retaliation. I would be fine by me if that last ability couldn't stack with retaliation, we should probably not go entirely overboards with our suggestions.

Actually, maybe the defender recast merit should be changed to add this phalanx effect. each merit could reduce damage taken per hit by 5-8 or so. Whatever SE thinks would be balanced- I think 7 would be a decent value. at max, we'd then have a -35 damage per hit, in addition to the increase in defence rating. That would probably be enough to reduce a 50 damage hit to around 5-10.

-edit-
Actually, considering you would have to sacrifice berserk recast merits (or DA, but who would be that crazy?) for this, I think even -10 damage per merit would be balanced.