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Ankhammon

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Everything posted by Ankhammon

  1. Quick Time/Ice story that might help some understand just how good a defender can be. I'm on a full team pug doing mid 20s missions and we pull an escort. everyone but me an the tank start to leave with the person we were saving when an ambush (+1s and +2s during the fight) comes out at me an the tank. Tank says I got this and i think to myself "maybe but i gotta stay to keep him active". Fight ensues for about 3 or 4 minutes and he runs to other side of the room cuz next wave hits outside of my protection and tank faw down. He starts screaming bloody murder cuz there comes a third wave. I'm tanking them at this point while the rest of the team runs back to me. They show up disjointed and all fall down. Now i'm the only one standing while everyone (except the tank) goes to hosp and runs back. By the time they get back I'm still standing and have half the baddies down (one more ambush showed while they were gone). Everyone jumps in as a group and we finish off the last of the mobs to complete the mish. Tank sends tell to me saying how he never knew a defender could do that. I never let on that his faceplanted self allowed me the end discount to keep going. This was all with SOs only and vitamins. All defenders rock and can solo. The only question is what kind of procs you will need to up your damage to a sufficient level so you can do more than just neuter the bad guys.
  2. Tex, As usual, your choices are good. I do mildly disagree with your view on TA/Ice as it can range tank very nicely (had one on live back in the day). Then again, i get the rain powers on Corrupters being awesome. One more to add for TA/ combo's: TA/Dark does a really fine job as well. lovely immob with no kb protection in it for your osa is extremely good. the extra -tohits fill in well with the massive up front -tohit of Flash arrow leaving you not needing a lot of defenses to get you hardly ever hit, and even a self heal (like water). Only issue is lighting the osa on fire and that is easily fixed through several different ways.
  3. a lot of this depends on what you mean by can solo. Are you talking about by todays fire farm standards or by more of the traditional view that you can deal with maybe +1/+3 or something like that? If you are talking the latter, you can easily do that with many different combo's defenders offer. I might suggest a nice Naff/DP or a Time/Elec that are out of the ordinary but very nice. More of a power player perspective can be had with TA/Dark, TA/Sonic, Time/Dp, Time/Ice, Dark/Anything, These are several who can do this without the cookie cutter build tendencies like tough/weave, maneuvers, etc. If you can get em, procs make up almost any issue you have with damage, the biggest trouble is knowing when to hit with what power on a defender and managing any vitamins you might need. Once you find your rhythm, we Defenders can do lots. but finding a fire farmer is gonna be tricky.
  4. For those who are just concerned with just things that are not as countered by purple patches and the like: You can go with something like a Sonic/Sonic/Any. the -Res values on that can easily be placed near 100% or over with a single target cage (if you wanna consider it a debuff like against LRSF), a mighty -def/-tohit patch (on a long rechage) that can be very nice against hard to hit targets and the rings to make you and your team very hard to kill. Granted the last part isn't a debuff, but a buff. Overall the package makes tank mages out of the whole team. Side note of awesome, since your team will be hit for little amounts of damage regularly, you get a huge debuff to your own end cost meaning you can keep applying the lovely -res without ever slowing down. This build is a breeze in teams from like level 12 on. Or you could go with Naff/DP/Psi. Huge amounts of -damage with your poison laced bullets and spore cloud and the tier 1 single target spore shooter (at work and no access to mids). The numbers can go near 100% on a single target or over 50% on groups. And yes, this set has lots of buffs (end discount, +Dam, lots of dots of healing) and some control too (half power pbaoe hold and some single target hold). This combo also grants a very large pbaoe damage potential with their bullets and proc'ing out the two pbaoe's you get (entangle and WoC). Side note of sadness, this build takes a very long time to get going since you will need incredible amounts of recharge to get your tier 9 near perma allowing all the rest. So this build, while very nice, is almost a done with end game build. I know the thread started out as end game debuffer but looking at just one aspect in this game can get your build out of whack. Here are two builds who can both do a lot of debuffing but ignoring what else they can do and the requirements of getting them there can lead to a frustrating character. Besides, most debuffers don't get the good effects so the team never notices them and they never get any accolades. 🙂
  5. Never forgot some of the debuff potential in blast sets like Psy. The 100% -rech that you can throw on full groups with just Psy Scream and Psi Tornado is really underappreciated. Throw in a Psy Wail and the baddies are gonna need some time to get their powers back.
  6. Damage is fine, but keeping sparky on a short leash may be your biggest problem. That guys loved to get you into trouble.
  7. so many possibilities, but a sneaky good combo is TA/Dark. Locked down, debuffed to the gills and rdy for proc lovin. and if anything ever actually gets through, a self heal to boot. The damage starts off meh, but ramps up and up as you get osa and procs worked in. You can even go about life without building up your defenses very much. Base is gonna be ~40% -tohit to even cons with just your flash arrow and your immob. Just remember to pack some way of lighting the osa on fire.
  8. What makes it a really good power is easily seen in damage per end usage. It's a tier 1 blast set on auto for a minute for a low end cost. That adds up quite a bit on the damage meter. It's not a great power for those only interested in how many things they can faceplant in under half a second. That being said, i wished i had played an elec blast set back in the day when you could get 3 out at once. Would have been lots of fun.
  9. The way I've done it is 27 is the optimal time to buy generic IOs. You can fill in with any procs or set IO's you happen to land and want to keep as you level up. This kind of lets you ignore the IO set question for me early on as I almost always have one or two respec's needed later. For instance I might take that level 2 blast power on a defender while leveling and get rid of it as I get more blast powers. level 1 - 23 is levels for SOs and DOs. and on those I usually only really slot for acc, rech and endurance.
  10. the question becomes can it be exploited. I think the answer will be a solid maybe. for those who have aoe aura's like Ice trollers or nat/ or rad/ defender primaries can use the defense boost to survive in melee until the holds/confuses/whathaveyou kick in and slow down the incoming damage. I actually think it will be a good pickup for my Nat/DP fender. tp in with those up and my heals going. wait a sec or two and unload my bullets once things start to become held. Did some minor testing of it and it should work.
  11. Something to pay attention to is when you can/should go into defensive vs offensive mode with the bullets. I prefer to make toxic my default position because they grant a rather large -damage debuff on them. The debuffs range from 10 to 25%. Adding just a couple of them to your weaken and venom gas and you end up with quite impressive amounts of -Dam. Should be able to keep like 65 to 70% -Dam on a single big baddie and ramp up to like 55% -Dam on groups for short periods of time.
  12. I may have to give that a try. I feel pretty good about my TA/Dark in that way. It's a really nice char.
  13. Now why does that make me think you are gonna ask for money on late night tv programming. Won't you help?
  14. Storm/Water will give a nice contrast on what Time/DP will offer. I would say that Storm actually carries a bit of a learning curve so be ready for that. The good news is that you can tell your enemies that "We all FLOAT!!!!". Pennywise the Storm/Water defender... I like it.
  15. Time Cops are fun. Just look at all the responses and realize your world will change forever. You are one of us now! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! oh wait, were the good guys.
  16. can be very active. you would do well to make a few macro's on elec affn if you try it.
  17. Time/DP is one of those sets that lots of peeps love and with good reason. TA/DP is a wonderful combo also. Remember you can cut the redraw out of the animation in the creator now so it becomes a non issue (looks a little funky though). remember with TA/ you will do a lot of all TA powers up front and then unload with blast sets. So either way is doable.
  18. Something I like to do with /elec builds is put in the stun proc in a few places as it helps with damage control and a well placed +end proc can help alleviate the costs of the high end powers.
  19. Welcome my friend to the show that never ends... putting together the perfect Defender. Couple things for you to know/consider before making your decision. 1. Most of the defender combos can do reasonable damage after things are setup. By this I mean applying buffs and debuffs, traps, what have you. This takes several seconds and all the while things are attacking you or your team. This means you may not have time to actually attack on normal team missions as everyone is doing damage from the start except you and the trollers. Most things are "arrested" before you start shooting. Looks like you are already doing this, but look at what your blast sets secondary abilities are. they are actually pretty powerful and can be used as debuffs. Example of this is my Poison/Psi defender who with two cones (both with high -recharge values) could protect a team pretty well as long as someone took the initial alpha. 2. You will want to decide if mez protection prior to end game is important to you. Defender sets often do not have any personal mez protection (3 primaries do) and that's one reason why they are often in the back of the team bus. That being said, you can still solo with many sets as you have other options available such as mez flavored vitamins and -tohit, slows and the like to stop incoming mezes. 3. If you do the math, you will start to see just how much you are adding to the team. Unfortunately, most everyone on the team will not as they only really seem to notice damage boosts and green healz numbers. 4. If you solo a lot when you are still low, keep in mind that it all does change. You will feel the pain of an old school tank build but with less damage. Think Super Strength if you skipped KB prior to getting Rage. Some days will feel like that. 5. Things get rough in AV fights sometimes as the purple triangle of fear discounts a lot of what you do. Note: all of this goes out the window when you get close to fully IO'd out as you become a very solo capable mini monster who wonders why they need other classes (and then you faceplant cuz you hit the wrong button). And because you were asking about specific combos, all combo's can be made from workable to very good. I would say Time/ is very close to (or may be) top of the list right now as it does so many different things. /TA is just a beast right now (I have several). Personal favorites right now include TA/Dark, Time/Elec, NA/Dark and Poison/Mind. You will find most of these are not consensus combos or builds but they are heckuvalota fun. Hope that helps.
  20. Ankhammon

    Dark Pit

    There are some uses for it legitimately but it will take quite a bit to make it really useful with the Acc it has. I could imagine making a nature/dark/psi char that leads off with Torrent, Tents, Dark Pit to get rid of half your alpha strike as you then run in to Blackstar with a fully proc'd out Entangling Aura, WoC auras to clean up the rest. With Overgrowth running and Wild Growth and Wild Bastion you could be pretty safe going in and very nicely clean out large groups. That actually sounds like fun.
  21. Ankhammon

    Dark Pit

    I wouldn't say horrifically bad. Just really really not great. You need a second stun source to hit Lt's and above, it's got high-ish endurance. It's default Accuracy is just awful. The duration needs a lot of help. But if you get past all that, then you can 6 slot the power with ... and combo this with Tents to... um No, no... Horrific is the right way of saying it.
  22. I've never used Heart of Darkness. is the range too low to allow hover kback attack (so as to kdown)?
  23. You can make a sonic/DP defender that is viable solo. It will look strange and won't be overly powerful, but can be done. You will want to make sure you have your pistols on poison most of the time due to the -damage values you can draw which will keep you up and running. I'd suggest macro buttons on damage types till you find what works best in this situation for you as DP can add lots of different effects. I would suggest med and fighting pools so you might not have room for the team rings. Med pool give a decent single target debuff and your self heal. We all know what fighting pool brings. I'd also add hasten as the best power in the set is Liquefy which has a really nasty recharge on it (300 seconds). Sleep is the worst annoyance for you though simply because you cannot add protection and will just stop until hit again. Another issue to overcome is your -res toggle will have to anchored to a pet which mostly do not want to melee for defender/corrupter types. My strategy would be to Liquefy (or sonic cage the biggest baddie) going in, unleash bullet rain, hail of bullets, bullet rain and then finish stuff of till the boss is open to attack. When boss is up, put -regen on him and kill kill kill. heal up and go to the next. Much of your actual damage would come from procs. You would also want a few kb procs in there too for recharge on Liquefy.
  24. Another advantage of TA is that it is front loaded with semi fast recharging powers (fast animations also compared to Rad) so these very nice debuffs can be applied very fast and then you can go about blasting. And OSA is just too good and will make you very happy.
  25. Getting directly to your question: It can take a different mindset to learn to play your support set well. All of the sets are legitimate, even the ones you see from players as bad have moments of glory. The test for you is learning in what way they stand out and how that can be leveraged for the team. For instance, your Rad/Kin corrupter has a lot going for it earlier than Fulcrum Shift (yes, FS's all that and a bag of chips when you get it). All of your Rad blast powers have a -Def affect which will stack making sure that all your teammates hit the target. This increases the damage per second of the whole team. What you will realize is that these powers may be low damage but they will allow the rest of the team to hit if you can attack first. So your job with your blast set is to hit em asap so everyone else on your team is only missing maybe 5% of the time instead of like 15% of the time. The trick is when to attack so you don't draw the aggro. Right behind the tank/brute is your default position. For the Kin, you are increasing team recharge speeds and general speed, damage for your team, providing mez resistance and heals and endurance. That increases the team kill time by at least another 15%. So you are might be adding 25% to the kill speed of the team and that is your what you do. NOTE: this is pre fulcrum shift. After, you can expect something closer to 100% increase in kill speeds... maybe more cuz I'm making up all those numbers based on experience but not number crunching. For every support type combo you run, you will need to go through this kind of thought process. Once you understand the things you bring to the table you will understand what you can get away with and where you should be in the attack order and when/how to buff the party. OH and glory? yeah, that's the blaster or tank or brutes job. you just make everything work better and provide the grease for all those squeaky wheels (Heal me, Buff me, Love me...). You are the Defender and no one can hear you gloat... but you should. 🙂
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