Ankhammon

Oh no, you gotta go for Daredevil. With him you get Electra or She Hulk to go along with him and eventually save his/our bacon. 🙂

Interesting that you don't see much end improvement with Perf Shifter proc. I was seeing it quite often but only use the Short Circuit power as a lead in and eventually as a proc powers + end drain so maybe it's more of a how I use it thing. You are right that Hurricane only procs occasionally, I just find the kb in it annoying since I want to herd with it. And I've tried to like Gale, but I just can't get into it. Same with Snow Storm for the reason you just stated. The set has lots of end management to do and it's just not worth it to me. As for Thunder Clap, I only use it after aim/Power Up so it hits stuff. Then again I never try anything fancy like doing missions on +4/+8 or that stuff. I usually just go about life doing +2 and listening to an Eagles album or something... "Take it easy, take it easy." For Tornado, I live in Kansas so I figured it was a part of life and had to be accepted. 😉 Plus it's got good damage if you can keep the targets in it. Finally, I've played around with placing Energy Manipulator: stun proc in a few places like Short Circuit and Volt Sentinel and have been surprised with the results. I was trying a layered stun proc approach on a Elec Affn./Elec char and it was noticeable. Might be a good thing for Storm/Elec to get some boss coverage with stuns.

Seconding that Storm/Elec is a fantastic combo for debuffing. Just remember that any of these debuffing combo's can be put into overdrive if you are able to see their strengths and weaknesses and take a few steps to improve/correct them. For example: Tip/Tricks for your Storm/Elec build. Toss in a Perfomance Shifter: chance for +End into your Short Circuit and it's end cost plummets. Seems to go off with every use for me. Consider it for LS and even VS to gets lots of proc chances. Throw in a kb to kdown into Hurricane along with Dark Watcher's Dispair: Chance for recharge slow and you will be pulling lots of aggro along with the 10 second -range debuff leaves you pretty well covered on regular mobs. Mobs come in but they don't come out. 🙂 Bad news is the range blasts for enemy is down to like 32 ft so you will have to move a bit to keep em covered. kb to kdown procs can be good or bad in other stuff depending on how you want to build. I use em in LS and the 'Nado to chew stuff up quicker. Tossing in a couple stun procs into your aoe powers will help make you a stun bot in addition to your drains and debuffs. Don't forget Thunder Clap. It's worth it even with the crappy acc.

Atomic Blast (tier 9) has a hold in it that should pair well with Poison Trap. That and all the -def should allow for most stuff to be hit by the poison debuffs. Not sure if that's enough of a selling point but could make for an interesting char. OOPS, someone above beat me to much of this point. 🙂

Once made a Poison/Psi char who only needed two powers to effectively provide huge amounts of mitigation for the team I was on. I'd use Psy Scream plus Neurotoxic Breath while following close on the tail of the tank to cause 143.75% -Rech to the baddies. Then, if needed, a quick heal on the tank and blast away or debuff the clumps or throw in the aoe hold or lots of other stuff.

TA/Ice - adds debuffs on top of debuffs. Very fast animations and a good amount of damage. Have to throw in heal self for the big fights maybe.

To me the biggest pain has always been for the Sonic Resonance player while going solo. In the mid 40s almost every minion throws out some sort of sleep with their powers which isn't covered by Sonic Dispersion. This makes like half of their damage come through without a resistance applied (was way worse on live when it dropped that toggle completely). You only feel like it's no big deal when Liquefy is up which is on a looong recharge. Every other defender (expect Thermal) has some way of dealing with that particular aspect in some way. Whether it's by debuff, regen, dot heals, shields or actual mez protection, they have someway of dealing with it in their sets. Yes yes, can take vitamins, pool powers and the like to get rid of that possibility. I still see it as, at least, an annoyance .

except in a few certain situations like the lord recluse strike force thingie where it can be very nice. Or possibly speed runs through certain caves to delay/halt squids and lobsters while you chill their pills. Maybe use in on an alt build or even level 49 choice... just a thought.

Although I'd think fire/poison would be a hoot to run, it would be tough in HM. That combo will love the melee life and would seem to lose a lot of itself if not in melee. Controller version of Poison trap can get tasty with procs running (500+ damage and a 1 second cast time) I say grab a self rez and do it for science!

Another thought for ya, Nat/Rad (maybe a fallout boy like theme?). With that you would have a tier 9 pbaoe hold to go with your vinelike hold power. Insta boss level holds but ya gotta wait till level 39 for it. I'd try it with the tp power for maneuvering about a battle field personally.

Nature/DP is a very nice option. Throwing chem rounds (-Dam) on top of everything that a Nat can do naturally makes for a mighty strong char.

Solo strategies I've used. I'd have the little sentinel running around tanking for me (taking alpha anyway). For lower levels just spawn him in the middle of the pack, this is easy as they can't bring him down in one round of blasts and then I swoop in and hit some drains and all is well. When you are getting to the point you want bigger game, I'd suggest getting stealth IO+SS on your self and then run past the mobs. This will allow GS to follow and still take the alpha. If you are having issues with him living there are alternatives to help out like the temp HP power from Sorcery set (forgot the name). And when you get into your 40s you can always get Soul mastery for the extra end drain options.

Now that just makes me wanna try. 🙂 Hrmmm... maybe a Nat/Stone/Psi using like whirlwind from SS line to throw stuff up in the air while you use Entangle Aura and World of Confusion all proc'd up to churn through the damage? Or Nat/Ice/Soul to throw out a bunch of -tohit from Blizzard and add to the healz while slowing recharge (not by much I know) while a proc'd out EA churns out damage along with your widow pet? I know it might not work, but someone should try it.

Couple things to note with TA: A lot of the powers are auto hit quality. FA, GA, OSA, DA, EMP are all that way. The debuffs can really get a lot out of Power Boost or Power Build Up. I'd very heavily consider these as options. Here's a TA/Dark I have fiddled with to show you what I mean. I've left Power Boost on so you can see what FA and Blackstar and some of the other values you can push out. It's really a thing of beauty. NOTE: this is not a finished build. I need to get some more acc in it. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1446;719;1438;HEX;| |78DA6593CB4F135114C6EF4CA73C4A5B1EA550DE0FC1F228A5054DD4C4447925046| |A8828D185690A4CEB84A66D8622B076ED427C1B970489BAD3449762E27FC0C6B544| |8D096AA2269068EAE9FDCED8264CD2FC7ACEFDEE39DFDCB927B236E68CC727CE09C| |53D9A8C2D2F47C7F4B89E5AD44D7B2496301644FE29A55F83958F8EACC4E3C14BA6| |B1B0143D6F9AE9D5C6FF2B1763A984BE181C8B994BD1112A96158E99743A199CCDE| |8FA62B5FC3B99BA612C1BF346D2C8AEBB6466C2485CCF1AA9845346D37A2C4341D3| |78C658088EA64D7325934D9BD1D9F44A321AA18ABAB9EE2337DDF4BBA30AEBC969E| |223452D9A28D903CB3E313F8375C3240B6B62B368932A429A4CAA2799C3E05D1229| |2CB2296EBB4C6A5B8AACA495232ED944BC45629B22E539BBED192A0C6C330336C9C| |15DB41FFC023B834F28F66B6283423B7752EC4E54F671C7FB2A8E5E7A2DBDA2CA64| |E02A383007DE2394B3C85E3E89A4631C6D1DBB68E7FCC07C0B5BEEF7E0034A57589| |B2B7628F268A24AB54971550958F312DE6BDE80B52AEC75923797C2DE5DFD587433| |B7A956259F8AADF2326CD596C1565D29E873820F69B9DA7AD1EA3FF01638601E822| |E6AE7E176AAC7ABC8A4FFAF901E7B0F4085445EAE24BC3721B251B29E776AF5F5F8| |6CEDBFD0BBFD37D87108760D818FC8538375340D6178681C629E009B5F41DCFC1A6| |CB5EE0A756CB23A36B1D78E5A6615D83B854DBD3FAD532163BC49B4F0A6C764A3CD| |BA8A6DEFD0B66F87790BE7DA771B7C4EE8B43C77FA50F69897E9618621EE0A3103E| |00B15632537779F45F2F869E629268F979FEFB1FF0CF26B54BBC7BA0B3DF923A5CB| |1DE623DE730AD16F2DF6F3050933574913C4B8E544F02BCA3E2584ACB1084DA3473| |8025EA097E7F1CCE59AB5C23CE7E35C4E4C1F4DCD688581168A4CED3B0A5558F5ED| |68EA7B514A1573F826AD1DFCB5F7C11F452245CE54FE5E6D80537D8557C13343F2B| |0E5FF5A71102B0EE68B837FF477DCD0| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Although there are lots of groovy combo's you can pick from here, I can tell you that TA/Dark is very strong outside of the HM content. I haven't done any of that so I don't wanna lead you astray. You'd get good hold options, serious amounts of -tohit, good -dam, and a groovy extra (large) bit of damage to top it off. Heck, you even get a self heal thrown in for good measure. Make it a TA/Dark/Soul and you can pump out tons of debuffs which should make you a valuable member of a HM squad.

Storm does well at low levels also. Hurricane and sleet storm are about all you need. Then blast to your hearts content.

Next thing you know someone will say...

Couple things to let you know that solo on a defender is easily do-able. First, they have worked on toggle anchor powers and now they will last up to like 60 seconds after you've downed the baddie it was placed on. You will be able to get a lot of mileage with those powers if you get pretty aggressive and use them to herd with. RI alone can get you very safe as long as it's on. You will want to be aware of it's 3 second cast time which sux on teams. Second, you can get any combo to work if you just take what it's good at and figure out how to leverage it. Basically look at what your effects are... even the blast sets secondary effects cuz they add up quite a bit. For instance, some say that Poison isn't very solo friendly. However, if you get a stealth proc (or stealth power) then you will be much more viable. You can use Neurotoxic B reath to cause the enemy to be able to hit you only once (suggest you throw that and duck behind a corner). the baddies will come to you and bunch together. once a volley has fired they have a large -recharge applied and you just wait till they bunch up and hit em with envenom and weaken. Then go to town. Third, Pool sets give a lot to Defenders in particular. Leverage those into your build also. For instance, you can get almost 8% Defense across the board with weave (other sets get less of a bump). Now that's ok, but add it to, say Flash Arrow from the TA set and you are now getting the equivalent of 37% defense for yourself (it will change depending on what you are fighting and at what level but that's the base). Tanks don't get 37% defense across the board that easily. Final analysis, Defenders are awesome and solo well, but don't get a lot of play simply because they don't usually get damage up there till as late as level 40. That and they usually have a setup time before they engage the enemy.

Great call! I been singing the praises of chem rounds since before live went bye bye. I was using it with a Naff at the time to great effect. My first thought for TA was to dbl down on -tohit with Dark Blast. Adding in a couple hundred -tohit percent would prolly help a bit against the purple patch. And to whomever said throw in acid arrow to boost flash arrow, bravo! I never even looked for that, but I see it now. Gonna need to slightly rearrange my fire order against big game.

I'm kind of surprised that TA/ is not being mentioned. I'd imagine bringing one with autohit FA maxed as much as possible (up to 66.9% according to mids half of which is non-resistable). Then pack spirit ward and aid other for the ride and adjust as needed. I've not been playing much recently so no 801 experience behind me but it seems to me that would do significantly to help team.

It was something pointed out to me years ago with a bud's Willpower scrapper. He put in both deflated ego and dark watcher's dispair procs into RttC and all of a sudden he would pull aggro off of tankers. Well, not if they had taunt. I tried it on a few different chars including a Time/Ice Defender and I was pulling aggro off of tanks. So my theory craft here was that if you pulled them up into your face, you can then use mud pots small immob and the slow to keep em there long enough to chop em down. I've only got baby stone armor scraps or I'd try it out to see.

Have a thought on this. What would Pacing of the turtle -recovery proc in mud pots do for your runner problem? anything? Should give you some initial taunt, then the immob will stop minions from running somewhat. I'd stick some slow enh in there too. I use a similar proc on my time defender to create a taunt of sorts. Please don't tell me that's useless now... oy.

Ha! Love the name. 😄

Please make no assumptions that I'm suggesting Defenders aren't attractive or that I'm ignorant of what they are capable of. I've been playing majority Defenders since I2. My first level 50 was a dark/dark fender when they were really challenging (remember the 3.5 second heal or the stationary version of fluffy?). What I wasn't as familiar with was Corrupters nor the fact that the damage listed for Corrupters (in game) threw in scourge damage.

advantages are very quick casting times for the first 3 powers and it's build up lasts longer than most others. That stated, it's better with both scrappers and stalkers, imo, since both get a chance to recharge the build up (Power Siphon) with criticals and such. Many many years ago I do remember having a discussion on it in the tanker forums. You could potentially throw out a very nice amount of -Dam if you use it with DN from Soul and like Bio, ice or shield for the secondary... if that's of any interest. FYI, for a brute that would be somewhere in the 35-50% range on the -Dam.