Doomguide2005

Acid Mortar - having two out is easy. More against a static target is doable. 90 sec recharge, 60 sec duration. It fires at one target and debuffs up to 16 foes in an AoE (8ft rad.) around that target. The range to that initial target can be 100ft. The potential resist debuff, without a -resist proc, is 26.6 per mortar. The debuff lasts 20 sec, the mortar will fire every 6 sec. Get the spawn(s) to bunch up (corner pull, at the edge of caltrops, etc) and the relatively small AoE will likely get everyone. Seeker Drones - trivial energy damage, random mag 2 stun (25%), not at all insignificant damage debuff. If both hit it's an AoE debuff of over 50% to damage. They also carry a pretty healthy To Hit debuff of -6.65% and a perception debuff. All debuffs last 40 sec. Part of the problem is the multi-function and complex nature of several of Traps' traps makes how and what they do difficult to suss out (see the above two) unless you either spend a lot of time testing or digging thru sources like CoD. They are not just a pseudo pet patch you drop. Combine that with less Traps players than say Storm the knowledge of what and how those traps do their thing is not as widespread as how Freezing Rain works. And there's still plenty of threads with questions in them about FR.

And the Sleep. Good way to divide and conquer. But yeah fast not so much solo. Edit: Basically crank up the control powers. Screech, Sonic Cage, Shockwave, Repulsion, Siren's Song and try not to lose too much hair with the animation and rooting times.

No Blasters backed by Sonic/Sonic, Cold Sonic, and Kin/Sonic defenders get the best damage 😜

Well personally I'd go for recharge. You have PA which uses a mag 4 Taunt in every attack (in addition to the threat created by the damage of the attack itself) the aggro should be on the PA and various other pets not you. And for true nit picky you may want to try shave another second or so off for true perma effect of the taunt. It's been a long time but basically to keep your target focused on PA you ideally 'need' to account for the gap between the old PA expiring and the animation time and the newly cast PA's first aggro creating attack. The longer the gap the greater likelyhood the +4 AV turns to you. Fortunately that's old school pre IO Ill/-- (typically Illusion/Rad) where any gap in PA had no softcapped defense (or Traps) to fall back on for mitigation (except inspires). But if you're going to worry over 59 vs 61 this is another factor to consider.

because why?

Well if there isn't an ingame nod to The Princess Bride ...

Sounds like an ambush that needs some work. Personally I like a good old style ambush, but any lowbies need a chance to either be ignored or evaded by lowbies in the area until they attack or otherwise behave in a hostile manner. One of my absolute earliest memories from Live was being on my first in KR and looking up to see a couple of black clad high tech soldier types and wondering what Malta were ... oh my lvl 52!. Good lesson to be had there check your target window before engaging. I've also been in a duo with a friend. I was exemped on my 50 scrapper, the friend with much less playtime on his lvl 14ish tanker. We just finished a CoT mission of his in the Hollows and just after exiting several CoT came rushing into our area. You can probably guess what came next. He did Tanker things, I tab targetted, I started typing a warning ... too late Tanker go splat as he aggro'd a bunch of lvl 30 CoT who just happening to be moving through the area enroute to somewhere/someone else.

Shhhhh, shouldn't you be giving them Greek names?

There's a couple other factors related to knock effects. One is most of the armor sets with a knock protection power also have resistance to those effects. Second with the prevalence of high or softcapped defense builds you also need to be hit to have the knock effect checked against your protection and resistance.

@Mia Mindyes you can boost to +5 and for the most part my alt builds that existed on Live or planned here are primarily support characters usually defenders primarily for solo vs team play. My main, a Claws/SR scrapper, was not a support character and her alt build(s) focused on power choice differences and focus of the build. One, the primary, focused on survival via high health and passive regen while the 2nd build focused on global recharge. All my builds tend to be built with the intention of being able to exemplar well.

What Uber Guy said. It isn't that I don't know with certainty there isn't some listing of hard numbers to match the descriptions it's more that since I started in issue 3 I've never heard of such and everything I have heard indicates it's flavor text and any correlation that does exist is only relative to within the set itself. And as Greycat points out those descriptions originated from a time when there were no "real numbers" or knowledge among the player base of hard numbers. The forums themselves would point out the inconsistency of the terminology to those making inquiries.

Wait ... fuzzy Bunnies!

Yep as Snarky said. It's about 90% flavor and at best 10% relative to the other powers in the set as far as I know. Edit: From the same wonderful descriptive text that gave us Blasters are ranged damage while giving us the issue 0 Fire Manipulation secondary for said AT

For the challenge. Same reason I started soloing through Maria's arc with AVs back on Live well before i19. Or why my Emp/Rad took on Cimeroran repeatables on "Invincible" and later I started working on an Emp/Sonic ~i13 to complete the RWZ challenge. Like @Bastille Boysaid some days I want to chill and just level, earn merits, influence, etc.. Other days I want a challenge, something to make having that fine tuned build having earned all that 'stuff' worth the effort.

You want rough to level using power sets? Try Ice Control/Sonic Resonance solo let me know which year you finish the ride to 50 😜. Couple things might save you from when I was working on one. Fitness now inherent (Stamina still 20th when I was playing it) and the other I'm not sure about but Ice Controls proc potential to help with damage. You'd think Sonic Resonance would help with damage but no, a small number multiplied is still dang small. Still I do want to masochistically to try again and see if it's really as horrid as I remember. PS: This from a player with lots of solo time on Empaths

Howling Twilight is a potent regen debuff with lots of nice side effects. Potent as in the equal of Rads Lingering Radiation or Cold's Benumb two sets well known for turning hard targets like AVs into much squishier targets.

The short of it: Empathy and Pain are probably the top sets for healing support with Pain offering some debuffs. Time and Dark offer less healing options but provide strong buffs and debuffs. But all Defenders offer strong buffs and/or debuffs. Cold Domination, Sonic Resonance, Force Field, and Trick Arrow all have no heal, absorb or regeneration powers at all focusing on buffs and/or debuffs. While healing can be important at low levels buffs and debuffs are far more vital to success by endgame and Incarnate content.

^ This Though I've been unable to play (only internet this phone) for long enough that with nobody mentioning it I was starting to wonder if I was misremembering. And for what it's worth I believe @Rathulfris correct. Turn off xp right after you hit 50 and you won't have any Incarnate abilities (maybe a tiny bit of Incarnate xp going towards the Alpha slot). I believe it might even be possible to not level up/turn off xp an alt build and be able to have both worlds, a fully t4 Incarnate build and a level locked 50 pre Incarnate build for those like @MTeague I also would not discount the potential to find like minded players with minimal extra effort. See thread about issue 0 characters and teaming as one example. I see plenty of responses by folks who stop playing in the 30's in similar threads to this.

Since I have a sneaking suspicion @DreadShinobi runs more sets with lack of knockback protection I'd go with 4 and see how that works for you.

Off the top of my head: All the following are special IOs Karma Steadfast Protection Blessing of the Zephyr As set bonuses Gladiator's Armor Overwhelming Force If for general play I'd try to obtain 11+ points of protection on a melee character. hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Main_Page is a great source of information.

Like I said above I think any scrapper can be built to solo the ITF. That said Bio wouldn't be my first choice and on a solo Master run in particular. You will get defense debuffed hard and frequently by Cimerorans and when it happens you'll risk going into cascade defense failure with scary speed. One thing that will help would be to try and keep your defense above 45%, low 50's or so particularly as you aggro a new spawn and take their alpha. That way the first hit won't immediately drop you below the softcap and your chances will go from roughly 1 in 10 debuffing you (taking accuracy into account) off the cap to 1 in 100 since it'll take a pair of hits to start stripping defense off the cap. This in turn will give you time to use inspires, movement, powers, and/or the debuff to wear off hopefully heading off problems before they start. Claws has enough places to slot the various -resist procs and hopefully when teaming the team will bring the debuffs. And when solo you'll need a way to keep Rommy from turning into a track star, he loves to run. Good luck.

^ What the Snarky one said. And that pick and choose your battles is why I'd have Stealth on any character no matter the AT. It's also one of the reasons I might have and use a Taunt on a Brute. Get behind the mob(s) in that crowded intersection, pull them out, getting their interest and then you and the team tear them to shreds without drawing extra aggro/adds that sure I can survive but maybe others won't. So does a Brute require Stealthiness. No And do they require Taunt. Again no. Are they both useful. Potentially yes, depending on playstyle and preference.

Inherent powers do not require the player to pick them. The Fitness pool (Swift, Hurdle, Health, Stamina) are all powers that you receive automatically when you attain level 2. All characters also receive an Origin specific power at level 1. And each Archetype has a power they receive at level 1. For Brutes that's Fury. Brutes also have an unofficially named lesser form of Gauntlet often called Punch-voke which generates extra threat (aggro) but isn't considered a power per se. And there are various P2W powers for purchase.

My first reaction was no thanks I like the visual cue. But on thinking about it further I'd be fine with it, especially with toggles. I'm not recasting toggles, I turn them on and mostly forget about other than occasionally noting "Ooo, 6 Maneuvers showing in the team window". The effects I'm more concerned about are click buffs and again I'm usually watching icons in the team ui. I've gone chunks of whole fights barely seeing anything but the team ui while on my Empath. Especially in that situation seeing the graphic is often close to impossible anyway.

I think pretty much any/any defender can do it. Some will just require more effort to get them there. After all the AT has the strongest buffs and debuffs in the game. But after teaming with @Linea's Emp/Fire/Soul and watching it tank and destroy mobs at +4/×8 in the AE 801 series and knowing that character also solo'd the ITF I'm pretty convinced that saying any/any is utterly accurate considering neither Empathy or Fire is noted for their debuffing Regen or Resistance ability. So grab the oddest duck pairing you can find and have at it. Edit: As of one year ago (last reported) there were 4 defender pairings not yet to 50+. Cold/AR Sonic/AR Traps/Psy TA/Rad TA/Rad I'd bet can put up some damage between TA updates and Rad blasts proc potential. While Cold/AR is odd but could be awesome with AR's changes I'm thinking. Sleet+Heat Loss+/-Snow Storm then Ignite on the slowly fleeing mobs sounds fun.