drbuzzard

Bah, it's Personal Assitants.

Dug out my time defender this morning before I wrote up the post. Actually I do have better than perma on the recharge with a 1:19 recharge. I did spiritual core alpha which of course helped. However I didn't want to wade into all the detail in the guide, so I didn't bother to mention it.

Trick Arrow Entangling Arrow: You shoot an arrow which does both a strong immobilize and a pile of movement debuffs if they do resist that. It also tosses in a fair damage resistance debuff. It’s a good power. Flash Arrow: You blind enemies and debuff their to hit ability (with a portion being unresistible). It’s a good power to lead with. Glue Arrow: The arrow lays down a field of glue on the ground debuffing movement and recharge. It’s a pretty good power. With 60 second recharge and duration, you can spam it all over with a bit of recharge. Ice Arrow: You hold the target up to lieutenant, and on top of that there’s a whole bunch of debuff going on (movement, damage, recharge- and other stuff). While I usually don’t like mez, this one brings a lot to the table, so get it. Poison Gas Arrow: This one creates a 25’ radius area of gas which can sleep the target, but also debuffs damage. This is an OK power. Acid Arrow: As with the rest of the set, we have a strong debuff. This one hits defense, and a bunch of the resistances to debuffing which of course benefits your other powers. It also does minor DoT. It’s worth your while. Disruption Arrow: This lays down a large field of strong damage resistance debuff and also hits the endurance cap on the target pretty hard. Radius is 25’, recharge is 30, uptime is 45. This one works fine out of the box. Oil Slick Arrow: Here’s your payoff from the set. Well it used to be the big payoff when the set wasn’t as good before the buffs, but now it’s more like some whipped cream on your pumpkin pie. You lay down a field of slippery oil which makes enemies fall down. If someone would happen to light that on fire, those same enemies could well burn a lot. This is a great power that you will take. It functions much like a nuke you can drop every 48 seconds with perma-hasten (180 base recharge). EMP Arrow: Before the buffs to Trick Arrow, this was basically just EMP burst from Radiation Emission. Now it’s a strange offspring of that plus Faraday Cage with a bunch of extra debuffs thrown in. The downside is the 300 second timer. The arrow basically created a Faraday Cage (from Electrical Affinity) for 240 seconds, and does an initial burst which has lots of different debuffs notably including a strong regeneration debuff. The recharge is a bit long to rely on it for your main regeneration debuff (which only lasts 45 seconds), but the status protection it provides your team is top notch and you don’t need much recharge in the power to make that permanent (though location based). Trick Arrow excited a lot of people when it first came out. Then people played it and realized it was rather on the gimpy side. Some people were still champions of the set, but it really was a bit sub par. The set was revised later on, and the revisions really powered up the debuffs in the set. Depending on what you look at, Trick Arrow is the most powerful debuffing set of all, though I suppose that is fair since it is all the set does (with the exception of the EMP Arrow’s shield area). There’s really no bad powers left in the set. The most important bit of advice I can offer is don’t pair this with archery. While it does seem to be the no-brainer pairing, you need to be able to ignite your oil slick, and archery only has one power which can do it, and not on the shortest recharge. I have two trick arrow alts, and I can assure you the pairing with fire blast works a heck of a lot better. Trick Arrow is currently one of the top tier sets. One difficulty during play is how many powers are location based. This makes it a bit slow to deploy them without some help. Best option I’ve founds is micros. For example /macro OSA "powexeclocation target Oil Slick Arrow" will make a button that says OSA in your tray and clicking it will lay down the power at the target you have selected (so an enemy).

Traps Caltrops: You throw pointy things on the ground. They do damage over time, prevent jumping and slow targets. Enemies in the patch realizing the owie in their feet run away. Is this great? Nah. Can it be useful? Yeah. Not mandatory by any means, but handy. Web Grenade: This is a single target immobilize which also debuffs recharge. It’s not a bad power. You need either this or caltrops, and honestly neither one has a huge edge. Triage Beacon: Here’s all the healing you're going to do in the set. You set down a little pyramid and it makes those around it regenerate for 90 seconds. Will it save your team? Probably not. Will it help? Yes. Base recharge is 200 seconds, so you can always have one out. Acid Mortar: Finally, an actual good power arrives in the set. This time you set up a device which sprays acid on your enemies debuffing defense and damage resistance. Base recharge of 90 seconds and a 60 second uptime means you can get recharge down to where you can place multiple mortars and they will stack debuffs. This is one of the better powers, so take it. Force Field Generator: I’m a big fan of powers that give status protection on squishies, so I do love this power. It grants more defense than Dispersion Bubble from Force Field (~20% when slotted up), but lower status protection. Of course you want to take this power. The only downside is that it is on a pet which follows you around, but rather poorly at times. It can get caught in terrain features or fail to keep up. It can also get destroyed via AOE damage, and it does expire eventually. Poison Trap: You set down a trap which emits a cloud of poison when triggered by an enemy. It debuffs recharge and debuffs the hell out of regeneration. It also holds enemies. I love it for the strong debuffs myself. This is a key power in the set. It is not interruptible, so you can toe bomb enemies with it. Seeker Drone: Two drones are summoned which crash into the closest enemy they can find. Upon impact the target can be stunned, and will be debuffed for damage and to hit. This is a pretty solid power. Trip Mine: You put down mines which explode when tread upon. The damage is pretty good, and you can stack up a pile of them to make an ambush. Unlike Trip Mine from blaster devices, this has an interrupt time, so toe bombing isn’t really an option. However you can still put these to good use, so take the power. Time Bomb: The name is pretty self explanatory. You set down a bomb that goes off in 15 seconds for a big boom. It has interrupt time so no toe bombing here either. Base recharge is six minutes, which seems a bit extreme to me. As you can’t toe bomb, and the timer is fixed, the flexibility just isn’t there. I skipped this one. Trip mines do the same job, but better (even if less damage). Traps is definitely not one of the top sets. The first three powers are all pretty ‘meh’ (perhaps they can be saved with procs, I dunno). The next four powers are all good to very good, but then you get a situational power, and a clear skip. All the powers require you to set down a pet of some sort. This can be a slower or faster process depending, and some follow or are set in place. The pacing of traps is a bit on the slow and deliberate side, which makes it a bit incompatible with today’s steamroller teams. It has some pretty powerful debuffs in it, but team buffs beyond the forcefield are minimal. It is a good solo set though. It could be there's proc magic to be had, but I haven't looked into it. This does benefit from perma-hasten so you should chase recharge.

Time Manipulation Temporal Mending: The set starts with the radius heal, but a bit different. It does an initial burst heal, and then an equal amount over time. It also protects against slows and regeneration debuffs. This power, like most buffs, has an interaction with temporal selection, which enhances the heal. Fair warning up front, you are likely to want everything in this powerset. Time Crawl: It's a single target debuff which slows the target’s movement, recharge and debuffs regeneration. It also adds an effect which enhances other debuffs in this set. You want this. Time’s Juncture: Rather like Hurricane this is a toggle which creates a 25’ radius area around you that debuffs movement, damage, and to hit. Unlike hurricane it doesn’t toss things around, so all you ham handed people (like me) are fine using it. The to hit debuff isn’t nearly as strong as hurricane, but coupled with defensive powers in the set it is plenty good. If the target has time crawl on them, the debuffs are enhanced. Temporal Selection: Like Time Crawl, this single target team buff will affect other team affecting powers. It buffs recharge, regeneration, and damage. Recharge is 2 minutes, with the same in uptime. With perma-hasten (and slotted for recharge) recharge is down at 32 seconds A bit more recharge and you can keep it up on 4 allies, though it will be a bit tricky to maintain. You certainly want to put it on someone every time it is up. Again, you want this power. Distortion Field: You lay down an area at a location which debuffs movement speed and recharge speed. It also has a chance to hold enemies. Recharge is 60 seconds for a duration of 45, so it can be kept up all the time without any difficulty. If you had to skip a power in the set, I’d say it would be this one, but even it is fairly helpful. I use it. Time Stop: Normally I don’t much care to take mez powers on my defenders because if I wanted to be a crowd controller, there’s ATs for that. However this one tucks in a substantial regeneration debuff, so I take it and use it. Like other offensive powers in the set it benefits from Tim Crawl being on the target allowing you to hold a boss. Yeah, take it. Farsight: This is a click based radius team buff which enhances perception, defense, and to hit. It’s well worth your time, and you should endeavor it keep it up on your team. Recharge is 240 seconds, with 120 duration, so it is easy to keep up all the time. Of course you should take this. With this up and Time’s Juncture affecting an enemy, you keep everyone quite safe. Power Boost and Power Build Up both work on this, which is nice. Slowed Response: Here’s a nice click based AOE debuff to damage resistance and defense. 90 second base recharge for 30 seconds of uptime can easily be made permanent. Time Crawl on a target will benefit this a bit. It’s a solid power. Chrono Shift: This power can be simply described as speed boost with a healing burst and healing over time all rolled together. It’s a bit more complicated than that since the different effects last different amounts of time. For 30 seconds you get the healing ticks, and endurance recovery, while the recharge boost lasts for 90 seconds. On a 360 seconds recharge base, and perma hasten, it is up always (because the 50% recharge boost pulls it over the line). It’s a good power especially if things are going tits up. As with other buffs, recipients of Temporal Selection get more benefit. Time Manipulation is a very strong set, perhaps as good as kinetics. It is all over the map in what it does, strongly buffing the team and debuffing the enemies. A well built time defender can even tank pretty well if they have clarion up or the defensive P2W buff up for status protection. The interaction of powers means you want almost everything just because of how they work together. It is also rather flashy, and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of who needs a buff since the powers all have similar graphic effects. I fixed this issue by using different colors for Time Crawl and Temporal Selection so I know which allies or enemies already have those effects on them.

That's a neat trick. Didn't know that.

Thermal Radiation Thermal Shield: The set starts with a resistance shield for fire, lethal, smashing, and some cold. Slotted up you get around 31% resistance to the first three, and half that for cold. Reducing incoming damage to your team helps so take it. Warmth: This is the AOE with the same numbers of the AOE heals from other sets. You ought to take this. Cauterize: Every healing set gets a strong single target heal, and this is it. Take it. Plasma Shield: This resistance shield rounds out your protection providing energy, negative energy, and even more fire resistance for the same 31% or so value. You ought to take it. Power of the Phoenix: You make a dead ally rise up and blast everyone around them while coming back to life. Like much of the set, it’s kind of a duplication of the fire tanker set but from the buff PoV. It’s a neat looking power, and one of the better resurrection powers since it does damage. You can decide if you care enough about a rez power to take it, but I did. Thaw: Thermal being a mix of healing and debuff set, this is the mandatory mez protection power. It also throws in some slow resistance. It’s better than a break free, but how much better? You can decide. Forge: Here’s your offensive team buff. You give a strong to hit and damage boost to one target for 120 seconds. Recharge base is 60 seconds, so with a bit of recharge chasing you can buff a lot of your team. It’s worthwhile though it doesn’t offer anything but the offensive boost. You’ll want this. Heat Exhaustion: Thermal gets its debuffs rather late, but they are pretty good ones. Heat Exhaustion debuffs damage, regeneration (strongly), recovery, and saps endurance. Downside is that it is single target with a 120 second recharge and 40 second uptime, perma hasten will get it past full uptime.. For melting an AV it’s good. You'll take it. Melt Armor: This is a strong AOE (15’ radius) defense and resistance debuff. This has a 100 second recharge time and 40 seconds of uptime, so it's not very hard to have it up all the time (this is a recent adjustment). With perma hasten you'll have 27 seconds for recharge so you can pop it all the time. Thermal radiation is a bit of a mixed bag. It has most of the tools from the healing sets, but then finishes up with strong debuffs instead of team buffs. As I mentioned in various places above, you want to chase recharge on this set. This is a steady middle of the pack set. Teams consistently benefit from a thermal on the team, though you will not turn the team into a ravening juggernaut.

Storm Summoning Gale: This is a knockback power with a tiny amount of damage. With skillful use, it can be handy, but is not even a good power. It is generally used in DFB to toss around villains so your team of lowbies can’t actually kill them. Skip it or drop it on respec. Yes, with a knockback to knockdown it can be a bit useful, but you have other, better tools in the set. 02 Boost: This is both a single target heal and partial mez protection. The heal amount is low for a single target one, but throwing in sleep and stun protection I guess justifies the lower number. You also get more perception and endurance drain resistance. It’s you only heal, so you might as well grab it Snow Storm: This toggle sets up a 25’ radius area in which enemies are slowed at a fairly high endurance cost. Perhaps it can be justified for keeping enemies in place for later powers to damage, but it’s not much by itself. I’d skip it. Steamy Mist: Like the stealth auras in Cold and Dark, you get damage resistance to some types (fire, cold, energy) and a bit of defense (good for holding that LotG global recharge). You also get confusion protection, which seems like a bit of an odd choice, but is handy when it comes up. Again, I wish to say be ready to shut this off when there’s NPC rescues in a mission or it will mess it all up. It is a worthy power, take it. Freezing Rain: I tend to think this is the best power in the set. It puts down an area in which things are resistance debuffed strongly, defense debuffed, movement slowed, and there’s some chance the baddies will be knocked down. On the downside, it will make everything in the area try to run like hell. Usually the slow and tripping mechanics offset this, but to make sure, keep your pocket tank in the middle of where you drop this. Recharge is 60 seconds with a debuff of 30 seconds, so it is easy to keep up all the time if you aren’t moving too fast to place it. Of course you take this power, to do otherwise would be foolish. Hurricane: This is both a very powerful power and a potentially really annoying one. It debuffs the living daylights out of to hit (~59% when slotted), but also has knockback and repel. If it were just knockback, you’d have another mobile ice slick and that would be nice. As it is you need someone with a very deft touch to use it well. Since AVs resist repel, it’s fine for use on them if you’re ham handed. It is basically a set defining power, and because so many users are ham handed, it’s why the set is not universally loved. You’ll take it, otherwise why did you make a storm defender? Thunderclap: This is an AOE stun which can only mez minions. It screams ‘skip me’. Tornado: Here you summon a tornado which runs around the battlefield causing chaos. They do knockback, knock up (no enemies do not get pregnant, they fly into the air), stuns and fear. With a knockback to knockdown IO, it’s not an awful power since it will put things on their rumps. Maybe there’s some proc trick to make this really good, but as is, I find it to be a bit meh. Lightning Storm: You summon a cloud bank which zaps nearby foes with lightning strikes for a minute. Since it is a zap every four seconds, that can be a goodly bit of damage, and unless you die, this will keep handing out that zap. It also has only a 90 second recharge, so minimal slotting keeps this up all the time. The downside is that it is immobile so it will be a limited use on normal targets if you have a strong team. It will be quite good on AVs though. Storm Summoning is a very controversial set. The adherents think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The detractors would rather have a mime in their room while playing the game. I’m closer to the mime camp myself. I’ve seen good players use Storm Summoning to good effect. I’ve also seen tons of unskilled users unleash chaos which effectively squandered team ability. There’s quite a few garbage powers in the set to offset the few gems (freezing rain, lightning storm are the gems, hurricane is good, but tricky to use well). On a positive note, you don’t really need to chase recharge too hard with the set, so a cheap build will be OK (a few KB->KD will be useful). However this set demands the most skilled play to not be more hindrance than help to a team. As I mentioned before, it’s about being deft and not ham handed. I have a storm, and even knowing what I ought to do, I still find myself ham handed so that alt sits. It’s definitely not the best set, though on a good player it’s a good one. In the hands of a bad player, it’s pretty close to if not the worst. Odd how it comes down mostly to how you use hurricane, but that's really it.

Yeah, mez builds are completely different of course.

Definitely a case could be made for that, but it does toss in more -regen and -damage, so I keep it.

Oddly enough I had not soloed enough to get around to trying that. Thanks.

Sonic Resonance Sonic Barrier: As sonic is a sort of mirror of the original Force Field, the powers mostly line up to those powers. Of course we don’t have that to compare to anymore, but there’s still correspondence. This is your lethal/smashing/toxic shield, providing ~32% resistance to those damage types when slotted up. Your job as a sonic is to buff or debuff resistance, so you take this. Sonic Siphon: This is a basic, single target resistance debuff (30%) for 30 seconds (16 recharge). Considering other sets have powers which do this sort of debuff, but with another tag along ability, sonic feels short changed here. Nonetheless you should take it. Sonic Haven: Here you get the shield protecting against most other damage types (energy, negative energy, cold, fire, but not psionic). Again you will be handing out about 32% resistance. Do take it. Sonic Cage: Yes, you can take this power, and pick an enemy to be in time out like a bad toddler. This will take them out of the fight for the duration, but it will prevent your allies from snuffing them as should be done. Skip it. Disruption Field: This is a 15’ radius resistance debuff anchored on an ally. That’s really a pretty nice ability since if you stay close to the anchor just stays up and makes all enemies take more damage (30%). Endurance cost is a bit steep, but it is well worth using. You slot for endurance reduction and leave it be. This is, of course, best used on a melee ally like a tank. Sonic Dispersion: Like Force Field’s big bubble, this is the nice power which provides you (and allies) some actual protection, both to most damage types (slotted up at ~24 to all but psi) and against stun, hold and immobilize. I cannot imagine why someone would skip this. Sonic Repulsion: You anchor this on an ally and they knock back enemies (with it costing you endurance for each one tossed away). Out of the box, it is fairly awful. If you drop in a knockback to knockdown IO, it’s a fine tool to put on the anchor you use for sonic disruption working rather like a mobile ice patch. However the sound effect is a really annoying loop. I play without game sound, so I don’t care, but I’ve had complaints. You do need to watch endurance on this one since the base consumption plus the toss cost can bleed your endurance dry. Sonic has few enough tools that I’d tend to say take it. Clarity: This grants status protection to all and a perception boost to a single ally. That seems like a long wait (tier 😎 for a power that other sets get much earlier, and is mostly made moot because of dispersion field. Skip it, if you have any need for another power of more use. If you take it, there’s no need for slotting, so at least there’s that. Liquefy: As ‘oh crap’ powers go, this one is a pretty good one. You pick a location and lay down a field which debuffs to hit quite hard (56% slotted up), acts like an ice sheet, knocking down enemies, does a bit of smashing+energy damage, and slows movement so it is hard to get away. There’s even a chance of a hold. The recharge on it was cut in half recently, which has a very positive effect on how valuable this power and the set in general is. Now you can drop liquefy to start almost every encounter (unless you've got a really fast steamroller team going). With perma hasten you have 30 seconds of uptime for 40 seconds of recharge, so only 10 seconds of downtime. Those debuffs are certainly a nice way to nerf an alpha as your team engages. Sonic Resonance is one of my favorite sets, but this is purely due to nostalgia. A strong case could be made that sonic is the basement dweller of defender primaries. It buffs resistance, and does it with stronger numbers than a bubbler. However resistance is basically half as effective (90 or 75% cap vs. 45% cap on defense) as that bubbler, and you are not getting anywhere near double the numbers. Defense also avoids any tag along effects that come with attacks (-def, -to hit, etc.) A sonic does do a fair job of debuffing resistance (30% group+30% more on a single target), but there are sets which do more (Poison, Trick Arrow). Outside of the tier 9 with a variety of effects, you’ve got a pretty limited tool kit, and one of the better tricks requires IOs to work. I see one power as a mandatory skip, and another is fairly useless given your large status protection field. The set needs some love, especially since Force Field got some love and is really good now. The recent improvement to liquefy recharge helps the set a lot, but I would still consider it lacking.

Radiation Emission Radiant Aura: The basic radius heal is worth getting. Radiation Infection: Here’s your first toggle debuff hitting to hit and defense, 31.25 % for each. Adding in enhancements gets those up to around 48% . That should be enough to floor to hit ability which looks very impressive. It should be understood that both level differences and AV built in resistances will cut this number a large amount, so while you can turn regular enemies into harmless targets, AVs will still be trouble. Of course this is worth taking. Accelerate Metabolism: This is a great AOE buff for your side which hits you as well. It buffs damage, endurance recovery, and recharge. It also provides endurance drain resistance and some status resistance (not protection, so it just reduces duration of status effects). If you have perma-hasten, this will be permanently up as well. I can’t imagine why anyone would consider skipping this. Enervating Field: This is the other core debuffing toggle of the set. It debuffs damage and damage resistance at good values (25% and 30%). Of course you’ll take this because if you drop both toggles on a group, they melt. The downside is toggles seem to have odd interactions with aggro these days and sometimes your anchor will decide to run like a bard. This can do plenty of bad things, so do be careful and perhaps make sure you’ve got a tank (or brute) holding aggro before you engage with this. Mutation: Here’s the original ‘revive the corpse and buff it’ power that Poison copied. You bring back an ally and they are extra badass for a little while, then they puke. It’s worthy but not mandatory. Lingering Radiation: You would be making a big mistake skipping this as it is crucial for GM and AV fights. It is your regeneration debuff. Yes, it also debuffs recharge and movement, but at 500% regeneration debuff, it is huge (most regeneration debuffs are around 50%). Recharge is 90 seconds for 30 seconds of debuff, but perma-hasten easily makes it up all the time. It is one of the strongest regeneration debuffs out there. Choking Cloud: This is a radius based hold toggle. The endurance cost is pretty high, and it is no guarantee of safety. I skip this. Fallout: OK, someone had a good sense of humor when they cooked up this power. You use the corpse of an ally as a bomb. That’s pretty amusing, and it’s a pretty big bomb at that, which also debuffs. The recharge, however, is fairly long at 300 seconds. If you didn’t need a dead ally to make this work, I’d say take it and love it. However, since you’re a defender and your job is to keep allies standing by debuffing the enemies into goo, it’s pretty damned situational. The power has the fun factor going for it, but not the practical factor. This can be skipped for not a huge loss. EM Pulse: It is rare on defenders that the tier 9 power is basically an obvious skip, but I’d say this one is that. Maybe the proc people have some reason to take this power, but as it is you get a power which debuffs regeneration hard, saps endurance, and holds lieutenants (plus possibly some bosses) for a short time (15 sec) on a 300 second timer. I can’t see a justification for this power. Skip it. Radiation Emission used to be the gold standard of debuffing defenders. You would lay out those toggles, scream “Don’t kill the anchor!’ and your team would sedately, and with little risk, mow things down. Now it seems like toggle debuffs make the anchors (AVs in particular) go crazy and act unpredictably. This can have some bad effects. They can run off, losing your debuffs, or even worse they can start aggroing up the map making a simple encounter into a tidal wave of enemies. These days I prefer my debuffs to be location or target based click powers which just lay down the effects and wait for the recharge. This seems to be more suitable for the quick steamrolling teams you see at high level. Does this mean Radiation is a lousy set? By no means is that the case. It is still powerful, but I’d say it really shines at low level, especially since the last 3 powers are very skippable. You get everything you need from the set at 12th level and then it is just slotting it all up. This used to be top tier, but I’d call it mid tier these days.

Should have thought of of that. Oh well, too late now.

Poison Alkaloid: You get a single target heal with some toxic damage resistance for flavor. It’s your only heal, so you might as well get it. Envenom: Poison is known for making AVs melt, and this is the start of that process. This power debuffs regeneration, defense and resistance, and makes it harder to heal the target. It also splashes in an 8’ radius with the safe effects in lower values. The debuffs last for 30 seconds, and the recharge is 12 seconds so you can keep it on a target constantly without any slotting. You would make a mistake skipping this. Weaken: This power basically nerfs the ability of the enemy to mess with your side. It debuffs damage, to hit, heals, and mezz effects. Like Envenom it also does a lesser effect in a splash radius. Uptime is 30 seconds with 16 seconds of recharge. Slotting isn’t necessary, but you can if you want (probably to hit debuff). Neurotoxic Breath: You spew out a cone which slows recharge and movement. It also has a small chance to hold minions. Certainly this is not the best power in the set, but it can be helpful. 30 seconds of recharge with 20 seconds of uptime means it needs some recharge to be up always. If your build is tight, dropping this won’t cost you too much. Elixir of Life: For a single target revival power, this has to be the best (tied with mutation, as it is basically the same). It puts the target back on their feet and buffs the hell out of them, granting to hit, damage, recharge, and recovery buffs for 90 seconds. Then the recipient pukes.. Good things come with a price. It’s worth taking. Antidote: Lots of sets have single target mez protection powers, and they are usually differentiated by small flavor differences. In this case it is adding in cold and toxic resistance. If you want to be able to hand out mez protection, take it, the secondary effects are negligible. Paralytic Poison: Woo Hoo. A single target hold. If you have a stacking mez build in mind (say, Poison/Ice) get it, otherwise skip. Poison Trap: You can set up a trap which when triggered puts out a poisonous cloud that holds enemies and drains their endurance. Since this is the only thing you have which drains endurance, it holds little appeal for a sapping build. Since I prefer to leave mez for the controllers or dominators, I skip this. Do not confuse this with the poison trap from Traps which actually debuffs regeneration and is a must have. Venomous Gas: You end up surrounded by a cloud of poison (venom, fine) in a 15’ radius. Targets within that will be debuffed on defense, damage resistance, damage, and to hit. Endurance cost is a little high, but worth it. On the down side, you will pull aggro like crazy, so don’t go hugging enemies without a tanker around. Yes, between this and weaken maybe you’ll take down their to hit enough, but also maybe not. Poison is probably the second strongest debuffing set, second only to trick arrow. Because of the single target+ splash method of some of the debuffs, it’s only really strong on a hard target like an AV. However that AV will melt into a puddle when a poison defender shows his ire. Is this a top set? Not really, it’s got IMO 2 wasted power slots, a third iffy power, and basically no team buffs, and weaker AOE effects. It has a limited amount of crossover with healing sets in the heal, rez, and mes protection, but you miss what makes a strong healer (AOE). If you want to focus on debuff, make a trick arrow defender. Does this make poison bad? No, but there’s a better option. One nice aspect is you don’t need to chase recharge really hard, so a cheap and effective build is possible.

You are welcome to A) write your own guide B) make a compelling case for you opinion I find Nature to do so much regeneration and healing that the absorption shield would be like whipped cream on top of icing. YMMV. I will grant I don't play my nature very much for taste reasons, so someone more expert may have a more worthwhile opinion. I have not taken it on * difficulty runs, but things like +4 TFs are very easy to keep up with not having it. I did go back and take a closer look and I realized why I didn't like it-240 second recharge, 60 seconds of uptime. This means you can keep it up most of the time at high expense, but with a 6o second duration you have to keep applying all the time. I'd consider that a lot of bother. It's good return for the bother, but I don't like bother.

Pain Domination Nullify Pain: This is your basic radius heal. It is simple, straightforward and useful. Since Pain Dom is primarily a healing set, you will take it and slot it up. Soothe: Again, it’s the basic single target heal. You’ll get it since you’re a healer. Share Pain: A couple of sets (this and Empathy) have powers which do huge single target heals at the expense of self hurt and a healing pause on yourself. This one boosts your damage while you can’t heal which is kinda neat. However with the defender damage scalar, that’s rather meh. I tried this out for a while, but honestly there’s plenty enough other healing methods in this set that it’s not necessary. I’d say skip it. Conduit of Pain: This is the resurrection power, but with a whole bunch of nice stuff tacked on. When you rez someone you get a big recharge, large to hit, and fair damage boost for a minute. Since you’re taking a healing set, you will likely take the rez, and since it has features tacked on, that’s a nice bonus. Enforced Morale: Here’s a twist on your single target mez protection. It adds in a little bit of additional buffs (nothing great, you can look them up), and does a tiny bit of damage. Basically it’s just the mez protection though. It’s worth having, and doesn’t need slots. Soothing Aura: It never hurts to have a fairly cheap toggle which provides DoT healing. It will do a fair bit to keep you and your team standing. I’d say it’s well worth your while. It is a top power? No. If you have a tight build it could be skipped, but I use it and find it to be helpful. World of Pain: This is your team buff. It hands out resistance to all and a modest damage and to hit boost. 240 second recharge on 90 seconds of uptime means you can keep it up all the time when in perma hasten. Radius is a fairly large 35’, so keeping it on your team should be fairly easy. It also affects you which is another bonus. Get it. Anguishing Cry: The set has only one debuff, but it is a fairly good one. With this power you debuff damage and damage resistance. The downside is it gets only 30 seconds of debuff on 120 seconds of base recharge. With perma-hasten it’s 32 seconds of recharge so not a huge gap. It is a 25 radius debuff centered on your which means it’s a bit dangerous to use it, though as you are likely to be in the mix anyway to keep the melee teammates up with nullify pain and soothing aura. Painbringer: Pick the baddest killer on your team and keep this active on them. It gives a big damage, recovery and regeneration boost thus making them a non-stop killer. Given the 300 second recharge and 90 second uptime, you can’t really keep it on more than one target. With perma-hasten it recharges in 82 seconds, so just one is possible. Is this the best tier 9 power? Nope. Is it a good power? Yes. Pain Domination is one of the 3 mostly heal focused sets (with Empathy and Nature Affinity). It’s rather like an offensive minded, dark mirror of empathy. Since it originated in City of Villains, that does make sense. I don’t consider it one of the best sets, but it is solid at what it does, and you won’t be lacking for teams since you will contribute.

If you mean the set which hands out the most defense, that will be Force Field. Faraday Cage hands out resistance and status protection (comprehensive at that). If you mean a buff which increases an ally's casting of Def powers, you are right in Electrical Affinity with Amp Up.

On my nature I used some Frankenslotting with 3 from doctored wounds and 3 from efficiency adapter. To be honest you can probably just use 2 50+3 heal IOs and 2 50+3 endurance IOs and save a couple slots. As long as you're in the patch, it more than covers your endurance usage. As I don't play the defender much, I haven't done a pass to tighten up the build since reaching 50. The set is too flashy for my taste, and I actually greatly dislike the particular costume. It's easy enough to fix the costume, but with the set being annoying visually to me, I have no motivation to fix anything.

Nature Affinity Corrosive Enzymes: Here’s your basic tier 1 debuff. It does -25% damage resistance and -25% damage. It’s nothing special, but certainly worth taking. Regrowth: This is a novel healing power. It’s not single target or radius like most of the rest. It’s a cone power, with a good reach (45’) and a 90 degree arc. It also acts like a radius in that it heals the caster, which is rather nice. There’s a radius class initial heal then four more pulses which take it up closer to the single target heal value. No reason to skip this one, it’s rather good. Wild Growth: This is a simple area buff of +regeneration and +resist damage (all ~24%). With even a little bit of global recharge you can have it up all the time since it’s 225 recharge on a 90 second buff. Is it a great power? Nah. I suspect people skip it a lot. However if you’re going to use a resistance shield it’s a good idea so you can cap l/s resistance. If you’re going defense, you might as well pass. Spore Cloud: Do you like mushrooms? Well you better like mushrooms since one of your core debuffs as a nature affinity defender is going to go wild with mushrooms. This power is an enemy based toggle which debuffs damage, to hit, and regeneration. It is well worth your time, and a definitive power of the set. Lifegiving spores: OK, now for another odd power- here’s a location based toggle. You lay down a patch of pulsed healing and endurance gain in an area. It’s pretty damned good for keeping people functional, so it’s also a worthwhile power pick. The graphics are a touch showy, but that’s rather endemic to the set. Wild Bastion: This provides a large absorption shield and more healing over time. It’s a solid power. Do you need it with so many other healing abilities? Not necessarily, though absorption shields are pretty nice. It’s worth a pick, but not mandatory. Rebirth: This is a dual use power, either being a strong rez (lots of health and endurance) with some DoT healing, or a strong single target DoT heal. It’s always nice to have a rez available, and the fact that this can do something when people aren’t dying is pretty nice. I took it, and I liked it. You will too. Entangling Aura: This is a toggle you switch on which has a chance of holding things within 15’. It has a high endurance cost and is no guarantee of safety as it won’t stop bosses. For a controller, it might be worth it, but it is skip bait on a defender IMO. Overgrowth: Finally we get to a strong team buff. You hand out a big damage boost (82.5%) a good to hit boost, and an endurance discount. This is pretty good as powers go. Recharge is 255 seconds for 60 duration, so even with perma-hasten you can’t have it up all the time, but you’ll be close at 68 seconds of recharge. This is a very solid power, and a worthy tier 9. Nature Affinity is a rather showy set with lots of screen filling visuals for the powers. Personally I find that a bit annoying, but some quite like that. YMMV. It is a very powerful healing set, with good resistance and regeneration debuffs which are key for dropping AVs. The buffs are mostly tied into the T9, but are quite good, so no complaints there. A nice aspect is that most of the powers affect the caster as well, so it is a strong solo set. It’s definitely one of the better sets.

Yes, I know this, but I was wondering about how much. The wiki gives numbers for debuff resistance to other debuffs, but fails to mention damage debuff. I'd like to get a feel for how good the -damage powers actually are in practice.

So do AVs resist damage debuffs? I've looked at the AV resistance page in the wiki and it lists resistance to all manner of debuffs, but damage is not listed. Is that an error or it is relatively easy to floor an AV to 10% damage?

Hmm, not sure where I got 60. Will fix.

One thing to note, if people want to add their own guides in this thread, feel free. I just have time to burn and the appropriate alts, so I'm doing it.

I'm not really a proccing expert, and I was clear about not offering builds. I don't consider myself wrong based on that.