BurnTheWitch

So i'll also toss in my 2 inf although my experience is with my wife's ff/ice defender. I don't play it, but I play with it all the time. It becomes more and more powerful as more people join the party. People notice how little damage they are taking. Sometimes this makes people ask agressive and other times it makes people foolishly agressive, but the fields mixed with her added dps are very strong. Solo, yeah, no. Deflection and insulation don't help you, so two of your core powers don't help you there. In a pair, it affects half of the group. In a group of 8, it affects 87% of the party. Your not getting great utility out of your signature powers. This is a great summation of your problem as I see it. TL;DR If you are interested in leveling and running TFs like it's a hobby, the FF is great. Some tanks become next to impenatrable (I'm guessing SR tankers care less about it than resist tanks). If you want to level solo or as a pair, there are likely better options.

Figured I'd raise this necro thread as it's more useful for people in the future to find one thread on the topic that has tons of information as opposed to a bunch of threads saying, "help me with this build that is virtually identical to that build in the other thread!" If I've learned anything about the way I build, it's that I spend too much effort on defense at the cost of offence. I also tend to ignore the reality that I tend to play with other people who will have buffs. Such is the nature of Mids, it cannot tell you who you are going to be playing with. This means that I end up with a nut that is really tough to crack, but doesn't always hit too hard. Any suggestions on what I should change from this build? It's quite tough with an expected Toxic and Neg hole, but I'm already over capped on many resists, meaning any more from buffs is wasted. What would the wise folk here change? Thunder Titan.mbd

Says the witch! 😄

We missed you. I think you'll find that not only is the game much, if not exactly like you remember it. You'll also find that the people here are pretty dsrn nice folks.

I bring you back from the grave in the form of undeath. For those who are searching for a Dark / Dark Build on the search engines and come across this thread (I did), here are some of the builds mentioned above in a mids format. Voltak's Haunt Build This one is a bit more difficult, as we're going to get rid of Midnight grasp as well (trying to have no reason to go into Melee). This means we rely a fair bit more on our patron powers for some damage and it's a little lacking at lower levels for exemplar purposes. Keep in mind the PbAOE still requires you to be near the action. Voltak's No Melee Build Voltak's haunt build - Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault).mbd Voltak's no Melee build - Dominator (Darkness Control - Dark Assault).mbd

Thanks so much for all of this insight. We often forget things like animation time unless when know a Powerset well. Do you think the ice elemental is worth it from a DPS perspective? I was never sold on the power but couldn't really figure out what else to place there.

This is a pretty good idea. I've posted some junk recipes on the AH for 1 inf and they don't move. My original theory wad someone might want them to make for badges, but it turns out they're likely overflowing with them too. Sounds like it's time to turn off common drops for a while for me too.

I told her to go corruptor, but it's her toon and she has decided it will be a defender (I'm certain she'll play a corruptor at some point, not like there is a real toon limit). She's currently just picking powers that look interesting and goofing off as she shoots things in Task Forces, but I suspect she will be level 50 reasonably quickly, she is level 19 as of this morning and made the character 2 days ago. Whatever we build here will most certainly be her second spec and used for high level content exclusively, mostly level 50 but maybe a Manticore Taskforce or the like, If she exemplars down, there will be a different spec for that as those have a different set of demands. That's an interesting thought, I've never actually tried to run about long term with mystic flight but no hover. Does this work for you as I would think movement would be. . spongy? Is that the word? I'd be keen to have her try it, guess we're doing a test tonight and see if she likes it. Thanks for the Idea!

I think the title pretty much sums up my situation. My wife has decided that she wants to be a FF / Ice defender. She is of interested in being a "Sentinel with buffs", (thanks to @MonteCarla for delivering that concept to us). The big asks on her part are. Hover and Fly, she really likes those two skills and I'm not going to tell her she's wrong. This is going to be a character that spends 80%+ of it's time in a group, act like it. Keep the leadership trio unless there are major gains to be made elsewhere. An ST rotation that isn't super complicated, i don't think this will be difficult, but I don't know Ice well enough to judge. The Epic power pool is still open but I went with Ice for Frozen Armor and Hoarfrost (and look at all that AOE DEF we squeezed out of it). All That being said, I've never built a defender before. I'm not actually good at build as well. What changes would the experts recommend? My concerns in no particular order Am sacrificing too much for DEF? RES is pretty low and I'm concerned that when she does get hit, it will gack her in one shot. I might be overly concerned, she's a perfectly competent player who has too much experience in MMOs, she can avoid fire. This build won't work well exemplared below 30, so we'll have to use a second build for that, not a big deal. Build up and Ice elemental are only there to fill out powers, what else would be useful instead of those, they aren't doing much with that pathetic slotting. holy guts the end issues she is going to have, she'll kill me! That should be first on the list. Are the attack powers I've picked the "right" ones. 3 ST and 3 AOE attacks seems sufficient, but I'm far from an expert, more of an aspiring apprentice) Thanks for your time and consideration. Force Blizzard.mbd

Man, I am too long winded. . . Incoming. . . Sure, I'm likely too positive about this game. Let's do some math. From the article If I had to pick one set of MMOs where this comes up a lot, it’s Kickstarter MMOs, and I think there’s an obvious reason for it: Once people have skin (money) in the game and have made it part of their identity, they feel obligated to defend it because they’re really defending their own choices. This is a sunk cost fallacy, I could write an article about cryptocurrency by taking this one and changing the names of MMOs to various meme coins and it would still be accurate. Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): There is most definitely an easy answer in Star Citizen, but I’ve also felt a bit of this toxic positivity – or at least something near enough – out of the folks who get behind City of Heroes: Homecoming quite a bit. Apparently a game that old and run by players absolves it of all sins to some people. Nope, It just absolves it of sins like dated graphics and things that the current Dev team had nothing to do with. I can still hate on the original Devs for the oddity that is the incarnate system. How much am I paying the Devs again? See point 1 and show some appreciation. I do habitat for humanity and you'd better believe that no one has ever complained about a house we built for them, even if they didn't like the flooring. In Conclusion Yep, clickbait article that isn't saying much, much less understanding what it is saying.

Sorry for the delay in response, but noobs need to think more to give quality responses. I happen to like your build quite a bit, I'd certainly give it a try as you favor the same powers i do. I really also respect @Uun and built this based on your build with their suggestions. The things I did different are. . I personally prefer Soul over Mu Mastery, this does keep you in the negative damage sphere. I can't see why you couldn't, or shouldn't swap out dark consumption, embrace and obliteration for Power Sink, Charged Armor, and Ball Lightning. I really love Hover and it's pretty tough to convince me to drop it, I would be inclined to drop Fly first. The things I am not happy with in my mock up Sure would like room for a kismet +6%, I am just unable to find it I'd like more knockback protection, a Steadfast Protection on fade could replace a Reactive Defense, but we lose some defense in the process. Thanks for your time, and good luck! Witchcraft Dark-Dark-Soul.mbd

So I'm the last person who should be giving advice on building a blaster, but I believe you would have much better luck in the blaster forums. Some tips to getting help on a great build that I've picked up is as follows. Post a build that you think might be good. It likely won't be, my first was god awful, and making buikds from scratch is still a big weakness of mine, but at least you have a starting point for others to work with. Explain what you are trying to do. Some people who have been a great help to me solo 90% of the time, and others tend to only group. They would give you different builds, so you telling them how you intend to play matter a lot. How much are you willing to spend on a build? We all want that super duper mega toon that costs thousands of merits not to mention the inf, but not everyone is interested in that grind. Ask "why". When someone posts a build that you are looking at and you don't understand why it is better, ask. People are pretty nice here and want you to be better, you understanding why something is good will help you help other in the future. Not everything is obvious if you don't understand finer points of the game (I sure don't). Have a great evening and good luck finding the perfect build to fit your needs!

I definitely intend to have my second spec be designed with exemplar in mind, as the ones we've been discussing have certainly been with late game content in mind. I'd love so hear peoples opinions on a build that is designed for the purpose. This is my noob showing hard here as I really don't have a grasp on the finer points of the game. I'm looking over each build side by side and I'm not certain why it makes for a better build in a team. It looks to have better AOE damage, but it really appears to drop a lot of single target single target DPS and survivability. Am I interpreting the data wrong or is the data not the whole story?

Watching this topic with great interest as I've wanted to build basically this toon concept but have been too concerned about the potential endurance issues to get it past Posi.

Wow! This is one of the reasons that I'm happy to be a part of this community! Big thanks to @Zect and @Stormwalker for what could only be described as in depth analysis. If modern sports commentary was this good, people would actually understand the games they watch. Is there a guide for "how to make a good build" (it would be a magnum opus of a document, eh?)? So many of my natural inclinations (like going for full set bonuses) are quite wrong. I never even thought about the reality that most end drain is energy sourced and therefor avoiding it also avoids end drain. Thanks! I'm indeed not married to energy (the concept of the character is sort of important, but the most important thing is that the toon doesn't have too many flashy looking powers, hence BS/WP), and I think I will respec with Soul based on your recommendations. The idea of Hasten is also becoming very alluring so it opens up a skill slot. Would it be preferable to have 2 enhancement slots in hasten or build up? My intuition says yes, and the math certainly seems to imply that it is, but I'm not certain how to take the hit buff from build up into account. Here is what I have come up with after taking Stormwalker's far better build and modifying it only slightly to accommodate soul and hasten. Anything things we would change if we had to play this toon? Soul Scrapper V.2 (Broad Sword - Willpower) Designed mostly by Stormwalker.mbd