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Force Fields for Defenders (and others) I started putting this together after the September 2022 changes to Force Field, and played a couple of FF Defenders to 50 to test out the two main approaches. Force Fields was always one of my favourite powersets, and is even more so now with the improvements. My approach to Defending I always take a good number of attacks from my secondary and slot them. This does not compromise your ability to use your Primary. I believe every team member should contribute direct damage, as that is what leads to mission completion. Even "half a Blaster" is better than none. Defenders have a great potential to be "Sentinels who buff" and build up their own defences, since they get the best bonuses from pool powers, equalled only by Tankers! (Any powerset can soft-cap their defences, FF makes it super easy though) Leadership powers are highly recommended as extra team buffs. Nukes and Aim are great to have, and to get them recharging as quickly as possible. For me, the best thing in CoH is the widely varied support sets. Whenever I get on a team or task force, I count the support sets (Defender, Corrupter, Controller, Mastermind, Arachnos) and feel joy over some broad categories. The big things you can bring to a team are - Team safety (+Def, +Res, -To Hit, Heals, Mez protection) - Yay! Our green bars won't be moving much - Team killing speed (-Res debuffs, +Recharge, +Damage, Mez Protection) - Yay! The enemies are going to melt in front of us - End management (+End, +Recovery, end drain resistance) - Yay! Our blue bars won't be moving much Where does Force Fields fit into that? Force Fields overview Safety 5/5 - its a top-tier defensive set Killing Speed 3/5 - has decent -Res debuffs End Management 2/5 - Insulation Shield adds big End Drain Resistance, which makes Penny Yin and Synapse much nicer for teammates Ease of Use 5/5 (very easy to use well, leaving you lots of time to devote to your other powerset) Defence buffs Force Fields do one thing really well - add Defence to your allies so they don't get hit. Enemies have a base 50% chance to hit you. You subtract your Defence from this and cap at 5%, and then multiply that by accuracy bonuses/level difference mulitpliers. So 45% Defence lowers your chance of getting hit by an even con enemy from 50% to 5%!! It pretty much reduces all incoming damage (and other effects like debuffs and mez) by a factor of ten The following four powers, 3 slotted for Defence, will give your teammates close to the 45% soft-cap on a Defender (number shown are base values and fully slotted values for ally Defence buffs): - Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield 15%/21% - Dispersion Bubble 10%/16% - Leadership: Manouvers 3.5%/5.5% That's +42.5% total defence once all are 3-slotted! As long as someone else is running Manouvers, or each teammate had Hover or Combat Jumping or something, you've put everyone at the defence soft cap. You can do this by Level 13 now. In order to maintain this, you need to use two powers every four minutes! Controllers, Corrupters and MMs get 75% of these values, so they add around 32% Defence to all teammates, which will still take many allies to the Defence cap. If you really want to nudge everyone over the edge yourself as a Defender, grab Concealment: Grant Invisibility, an ally only buff that makes the target invisible and adds 2.5% Defence for 2 minutes. (This is also thematically on point if you want to be married to a silver fox scientist with a stretchy body, and have a kid brother who can set himself on fire! 🙂 ) In Incarnate content, NPC's base hit values are higher, so 59% is the soft cap for defence. Other Force Multipliers for teams As of September 2022, FF has been given some offensive debuffs. Force Bolt is a low damage attack that does hefty knockback. It now also does a Resistance debuff, so anyone hit by it takes 20% more damage for the next 30 seconds. Force Bolt is low recharge, low damage, high accuracy and really needs very little slotting. Maybe KB -> KD, or a single end redux or acc? Repulsion Bomb is a low damage knockdown AoE, which also does -Resistance now. It's a great power to proc out. It does knock up (so KB->KD not required) and can take: - Force Feedback +Recharge - Annihilation -Res proc - Positron's Blast, Bombardment and Explosive Strike damage procs - 1 accuracy is probably a good idea These two are must-haves because of the -Res debuff they provide! Other Force Field Powers Personal Force Field (2/5) - It adds a lot to your defence, but, means you cant attack, and your ally buffs from Dispersion and Manouvers go down. You're better building for defence that works while you attack. Detention Field (1/5) - very situational. It traps an enemy but makes them unhittable. This is very bad for almost all gameplay. (Great for Consiglieres with Singularity pets - Detention the Singularity and then kill the boss to make it disappear. But that's about it.) Repulsion Field (3/5) - combines knockback on close enemies with a large scale Repel. Protects you from melee attacks really well and can be fun and useful for herding and positioning enemy groups. A KB->KD IO will turn off the repel, meaning anyone who comes into melee range gets repeatedly knocked up and down. If you're going for a tanky build, this power can remove the need to get your Melee Defence up to the soft cap. Also vewry useful for a few situations like stopping 30 Fir Bolg getting through the gate, or planting a bomb in a Mothership Raid. Damping Bubble (2/5) - static bubble that debuffs enemies and buffs allies inside it. Provides some Defence Debuff Resistance, which is nice (see below). The fact its static placement and longer recharge makes it better for AV fights than steamrollering missions. I've heard some people sing its praises, but I never felt it make a difference. FF Defender Type 1: The Sentinel Who Buffs You don't get all these bonuses yourself, because Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield are ally-only. But it's not hard at all to get to 45% Defence yourself, since Defenders get the best Defence bonuses from pool powers, equal to Tanks! - Fighting: Tough, slotted with two unique +Def IOs (+6%) - needs Kick or Boxing to unlock - Fighting: Weave, fully slotted for defence (5%/8%) - Combat Jumping and/or Hover (2.5%/3% with one LotG unique or SO) This (and Dispersion Field and Manouvers) gives you personally 38.5% Defence. Its not hard to get to 45% from there with a few set bonuses. Gaussian's Synchronised Fire Control in Aim adds 2.5% to all positions. Two Thunderstrikes, or the Defender ATIO sets will then cap your Ranged Defence Unbreakable Guard (4 pieces) in Tough, Obliteration in PBAoEs help with Melee Defence FF Defender 2: The Consummate Supporter The solid defences you provide are much better than reactive healing, but aren't much use if a teammate is low on health and damage is still trickling through. Medicine: Aid Other - can be very handy for spot-healing. Also unlocks Aid Self. Also breaks sleep, which your Dispersion Bubble does not protect against! Sorcery: Spirit Ward - provides an extra layer of defence on an ally in the form of an Absorption Shield. I haven't experimented with this too much. Teleport: Teleport Target - always a useful support power, could have some good applications with a Stealth power or "Tank Stealthing" with Personal Force Field. Always handy for rescuing dead teammates, or dealing with an enemy you've Force Bolted into a cave wall! Healing IOs: Defender's Bastion - Chance for Healing Aura. Put this set in a long recharge blast or snipe to provide regular healing pulses for yourself and allies nearby. This complements Force Fields really well. Power Transfer - Chance to Heal. This can be slotted in an extra slot in Stamina to give you small frequent healing pulses to recover from the unlikely hit. Endurance management: Doing your job requires running two toggles (Dispersion Bubble and Manouvers) and attacking, which can drain your endurance. The usual tools for End management available to you are: - extra slots in Stamina - the Performance Shifter: Chance for +End Proc in Stamina (average return is better than an End Mod SO) - Recovery Serum from the P2W Vendor - Epic powers like Conserve Power, Power Sink, Consume - The Atlas Medallion accolade for more Endurance (and Portal Jockey later) - Leadership: Victory Rush (not fantastic in my experience) When Defence breaks down... You don't get to turn your team into completely indestructible gods ALL the time. The following enemy factions will cause problems: 1) Defence Debuffs - Circle of Thorns Earth Thorn Caster. They drop Quicksand, which has a big -Def debuff and doesn't need to hit. Only appear at levels 35-39 - Arachnos Spider Mistress Lieutenants do a psychic cone attack that drops Defence quite harshly - Clamor in Penny Yin (and Dreck) use Radiation Blast attacks with -Def - Gamma Tanks in Crey use Radiation Melee attacks with -Def Damping Bubble will mitigate some of this by providing Defence Debuff Resistance to you and your team 2) To Hit Buffs - Nemesis Lieutenants (except Snipers/Tirralieurs) do Vengeance when they die, giving all nearby allies +30% To Hit! One application is bad, but this stacks!! Defeat them last, and try not to pull multiple groups - Devouring Earth Quartz Lieutenants drop little Quartz emanators that give every ally +100% To Hit!! (You read that right) One little emanator will completely neutralise your powerset, so try to mez the Guardians immediately*, and target and destroy any emanators quickly (or just rely on AoE to do that). *Note that Fungi Lieutenants drop mushrooms that make nearby DE immune to mez, so this tactic has its limits in large groups. Damping Bubble does not help here Blast Powers You can now skip your Tier 1 power as a Defender, which is usually a good thing. I usually aim to have Tier 2, Tier 3 and Snipe blasts, two AoE's, the nuke and Aim. Attacks with IO's: 3 Damage, one acc, one end redux, on recharge roughly in that order Blasts: Thunderstrikes help you cap ranged Defence with some other nice bonuses Snipe: Thunderstrike or Sting of the Manticore. AoE attacks: Good place for the Defender special IOs. Aim: Slot a Gaussian's Synchronised Fire Control: Chance to Build Up. This takes Aim from +50% damage to +130% most of the time (since it has around 90% chance to proc), giving your Nuke much more power! Slotting the full set gives you +2.5% Defence to Melee, Ranged and Area, which is great of you're chasing the defence softcap Nuke: Obliteration is a great set here. With IOs 3 slot damage, then recharge. Has very high base accuracy. Use Bombardment for ranged Nukes? Power Boost/Build Up and Epics Defenders and Corrupters get Power Build Up in Power Mastery (+98%/+78% to Defence Buffs) Controllers get Power boost in Primal Forces Mastery (+122% to Defence Buffs) These are short lived buffs like Aim/Build Up that increase buff strengths and heals. If you activate these before Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield, those bubbles will stay buffed for their entire lifetime! So this increases ally buffs by: Defenders: 98% * 15% = 14.5% = 57% Total Corrupters: 78% * 11.25% = 8.8% = 41% Total Controllers: 122% * 11.25% = 13.7% = 46% Total This pushes a FF Defender into capping against Incarnate content, and a Controller into capping against normal content! If you go this route, be aware that re-applying Insulation Shield or Deflection Shield after Power Build Up/Power Boost has worn off will result in the boosted shields being replaced with un-boosted shields. My preferred method is to hit Power Build Up when it recharges, and only ever apply shields immediately after. FF/Energy Defender example build 1 Deflection Shield (3 slot Def) 1 Power Blast (5 or 6 slot) 2 Repulsion Bolt ( 1 slot Accuracy) 4 Energy Torrent ( 5 or 6 slot) 6 Insulation Shield ( 3 slot Def) 8 Manouvers ( 4 slot, 3 Def + End redux) 10 Power Burst ( 5 or 6 slot) 12 Dispersion Bubble ( 4 slot, 3 Def + end redux) 14 Kick ( ignore) 16 Sniper Blast (5 or 6 slot) 18 Tough ( 2 slot for +Def IOs) 20 Aim ( GSFC: Build Up ) 22 Force Bomb 24 Weave ( 4 slot, 3 Def + end redux) 26 Hover/Combat Jumping 28 Explosive Blast 30 Nova (5 or 6 slot) 32 Fly/Superjump/Hasten

81mph!? It's not a race, but... wow, well done! 😄

Good question! I have 12 level 50 Defenders and 6 level 50 Corruptors, so that's how I lean. Why did I make those 6 into Corruptors? Corrupters have a higher damage cap (+400% vs +300%) which makes them preferable for any Kinetics character. I made a Kinetics/Energy Defender one time and re-rolled her as a Corrupter when I realised I was hitting the damage cap solo (and thus wasting that +30% bonus damage). This is probably the soundest mechanical reason for going Corruptor. I wanted to have a 50 of each Archetype I wanted to have my nuke before level 38 (which is now irrelevant. Everyone gets their nuke for Penny Yin now, and no-one gets it for Synapse) I wanted to prioritise damage a bit more? The character idea I had in mind was meant to be impatient and acerbic, and damage-first seemed like an in-character decision Similarly, there are times when I've gone Defender out of more than habit, eg making a Force Fielder who wants to cap my teams and my own Defence as quickly as possible because her whole schtick is being invulnerable and being able to share it. The higher defence values mattered there. But often, it's been a bit of a toss-up. I often run PUG Task Forces, and I count the support sets as people join. I don't differentiate between Defenders or Corruptors in my mental maths there.

I've found Radiation Emission a good stand in for Probability Manipulation (and some other odd bits of magic) (I've just made a pixie Rad/Dark Blast Defender this week and having fun with her) Ass in Jump Kick and you're off to a good start. 🙂

I really like being able to mez a whole group of Carnies with one click, including the Master Illusionists, before they pop their pets out. That's what perma-Dom does for you. And with perma-Dom levels of recharge you can do that for every single group as you roll through missions. I slot my Doms purely for recharge eg 4 slots of Basilisks Gaze in each Hold power, 5 of Stupefy/Malaise etc in other mezzes, 5 Manticore in a sniper, LotG uniques in Weave, Hover/CJ and Manouevers. I slot these with attuned IOs as I level, and usually start chaining Dominations by level 30, with reliable perma-Dom kicking in by the mid 30s. I have Domination on autofire and bound to Q, and Hasten bound to E so I can set it off easily. I can't imagine playing a Dominator without perma-Dom. It's that good.

I made a speedster like this once using Energy Melee on a Scrapper (but any punchy set works). I went with Electric Armor, but Super Reflexes works just as well. My goal was to increase my run speed as much as possible without superspeed for combat. - SR has Quickness to give you a boost, so 2 or 3 Run Speed IO's in that. - 2 or 3 Run Speed IO's in Swift and Sprint - Gift of the Ancients +Run Speed in each Defence power, 5 of them! - Winter's Gift in Superspeed for +9% run speed and some slow resistance. - Synapse Shock unique IO that gives +15% run speed (and maybe two more of that set for some extra speed and slow resistance) - Base all other slotting on +Run Speed bonuses Use this page to guide your slotting: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_that_improve_Run_Speed There's a new RunSpeed I/O that gives you some unsupressed speed bonus: Thrust: Running Speed, and Hypersonic in the Flight set gives a +9% bonus now too. I achieved 73mph without superspeed turned on (which puts me at 120mph cap), and had a lot of fun jousting enemies. And Combat Teleport with the right binds could be fun on top of this.

Yeah, good point, Sir Myshkin, about the passive regeneration that's already there in every Blaster these days. Base Regen is from 1 to full health in 4 minutes. A typical slotted sustain power gives +300% or so to that, so you're recovering... 5% of your health every 3 seconds anyway!! That's more than my estimates above for letting off Short Circuit and Ball Lightning in combat. I have a level 40+ Elec/Elec Blaster gathering dust, and billions of spare inf. I think the sensible (?) thing to do at this point is fit her out with as many heal procs as I can (including Entropic Chaos in the blasts and Call of the Sandman in the punches) and see what happens! 😄 I still doubt it will be amazing, but it's nice to try something different from all my other Blasters who've gone the high Def and Recharge route.

I've been theorycrafting a build where I slot nearly all the Electric Blast powers with the Power Transfer: Chance to Heal proc. It only does a 5% Heal when it triggers, but could go off multiple times in Short Circuit and Ball Lightning, both of which get a proc rate of around 20% or so if my calculations are right (with 40% Recharge from a full Power Transfer set) A whole set of Power Transfer gives you +83% Damage/+60% End Mod at level 40 and a sweet +7.5% Recharge global bonus, so I might even try that - layering mitigation between some Defence, enhanced End Drain and a steady feed of healing. Firing the two AoEs off and hitting just 5 targets would yield 10% of your health back, say every 8 seconds. Has anyone tried this? I don't think it's going to be amazing, but an interesting alternative to just building up Defence for mitigation.

I play lots of different Defenders. I tend to chase all round Defence (but focussed on Ranged) and Recharge (around +100%). Every Defender benefits from staying alive and having Aim/Nuke up as often as possible. My generic recipe would be: 6 or 7 primary powers 7 secondary (skip Tier 1 blast and something else not Aim or Nuke) - Hasten - Manouvers - Kick/Tough/Weave - Combat Jumping or Hover Defence starts at: Weave (+8), Tough (+6 for two unique IOs), Manouvers (+5.5), CH/Hover (+3 with one LotG) = + 22.5 - In the 40s I'll slot Tough with Unbreakable Guard and get an epic Resistance armor, which usually caps my S/L Resistance Everything else I slot for Recharge: - Full set of Defender's Bastion somewhere (+8.75) - Split Vigilant Assault between two AoE attacks (+12.5) - Sting of the Manticore (+7.5) - Basilisks Gaze in any Hold (+7.5) - LotG in every Defence power, plus 5 Red Fortune in Weave/Manouvers eventually (+22.5 + 10) - Decimation in one of the blasts (6.25) - Obliteration in my Nuke (or Bombardment) (+5) - Prev Medicine full set in a Heal if we have one (+8.75) Thats about +90% there, which makes Hasten close to perma (we need +110% for that?) bringing you into he realm of 30 second nukes And Gaussian's proc in Aim, so it nearly always gives you an extra +100% damage on your nuke! I slot as I go with Attuned enhancements, from around level 22 onwards. By 40 everything's coming together very nicely. And because I'm rich I boost this with P2W buffs all the way to 50, meaning I'm starting at 27.5% Defence to all without ANY contribution from my primary taken into account. This recipe varies, of course, with powersets.

I slot a Miracle +Recovery in Health, and usually get by one 1 (maybe 2) end mod slots in Stamina I buy Recovery Serums from the P2W vendor in the early levels and shoot up regularly. (And stock up on the 3 Buffs from her at level 1, when they're only 1,000 each per shot) I find once I start slotting IO sets in the 20s my end troubles diminish because my attacks are getting slotted for end reduction. I tried Victory Rush a couple of times and didn't find it that useful. And turn off Sprint in combat.

Good point, kelika2 I'm currently part of a Fire Blast/Empath duo and its working wonders. Empathy doesn't lose much on a Corruptor. Fortitude's defence buff is 75% less powerful, and the really good powers unlock later. But as you say, it's not much later with the latest patch, now that we can have our Secondary Tier 9's even on the Penny Yin Task Force.

I made a Empath/Energy offender a while back, just to see that I could solo effectively, and I did. Any Defender can get a decent Def from the Fighting pool, Manouvers and Hover/CJ, and that plus the self heal and Regen Aura for tougher fights kept me alive easily. (And Energy's KB helped too) Set Bonuses were focussed on recharge mainly, with a bit of Ranged def thrown in where I could. For other blast sets, swap powers out as appropriate, but the aim id to have a Tier 2/Tier3/Snipe attack chain with a couple of AoEs. These days with the new power unlock levels and not needing to take the Tier 1 Blast, my build might look a bit like this: 1 Healing Aura (Prev Med * 6) 1 Power Bolt (Deci or Thunderstrike) 2 Heal Other (5 x Doctored Wounds) 4 E Torrent (Vig Assault x3 + 2 Dam/*) 6 Hover (LotG unique) +3 Def 8 Kick 10 Power Burst (Defender's Bastion) 12 Fortitude (LotG Unique + 5 x Red Fortune) 14 Tough (Steadfast & Glad Armor unique IOs) +6 Def 16 Sniper Blast (Manticore) 18 Recovery Aura (3 x Rech IO) 20 Weave (LotG) +8 Def 22 Regen Aura (3 * Rech I/O) 24 Hasten (2 * Rech I/O) 26 AB (2 * Rech I/O) 28 Explosive Blast (Vig Assault x3 + 2 Dam/*) 30 Nova (Obliteration) 32 Manouvers (LotG) +5.5 Def 35... Def: 22.5% + 6-10% ranged Rech: 66 - 72% ish I still contributed to teams really well with Fortitude and AB having good recharges, and the auras uptimes being around 2/3 of the time.

I've had a lot of fun recently running "One Good Spider" and taking a group of PUG heroes to invade Grandville. It's got a solid story flow without getting gimmicky, and is mainly just a good big fight against one of the harder groups in the game.