Psylenz0511

You somehow didn't include storm in the AoE damage secondaries. 😄 Lightining storm, tornado, freezing rain all do damage and with slow procs you can make more abilities damaging ones too.

"no use for snowstorm" First, I agree it takes a lot of commitment to try to use all the storm powers, but I usually do. Snowstorm does more than slows movement. It is -recharge. Between freezing rain and snowstorm you can reduce incoming damage significantly just with the slow aspect. It grounds fliers. It interrupts kamikaze vahz and CoT, interrupts skyraider engineers, interrupts Rikti communication officers, and other mobs not coming to mind. So it isn't as usable as tornado is 100% of the time, but it does do something. You can put a FF -recharge in gale. It's an aoe. You almost always get the -recharge proc from knocking a spawn group off their feet. To me, knockback functions the same as a short term hold and so many storm kb abilities are AoE. Your foes cannot attack you while they pick themselves back up.

Yes, I find insulating to be a life-saver in frequent situations. In battles where the 5% hole in defense allows a one-shot of damage through which can take out a squishie with less resistance than a brute or tank. For example, when taking out dark crystals in an ITF or battling something like minotaurs, that added absorb is the difference between a death and hanging on for a heal at minimal health. To be fair, there is a heal, too, to help with the other team heals as well as the absorb factor. And in groups, sometimes you are left stranded by teammates who redirect before you notice you are alone. Also, the Galvanic debuffs endurance along with other teammates drains in boss fights. And if you solo any at all, you need galvanic.

TA/fire Dark/fire (works better with corruptors and the scourge ticks on the rains) Traps/dark (for extra immobilize) Rad/water Time/* Depends on the player tactics too, but all should be quite solid

I would like to add, this analysis was done before the buffs to Trick Arrow. Poison gas arrow and disruption arrow are no slouches in the debuffing aspects of defenders. I just have a hard time soloing Trick Arrow, but I would think Trick Arrow/Fire might be godly damage. For the synergy with buffing sets, don't overlook the beam rifle secondary. Disintegration is no joke either.

I remember a post in the live forums that compared the raw -regen of defenders and that traps came out on top of dark and rad although dark, and rad have very good burst -regen.

I love my Traps/water defender. I agree caltrops and seeker drones are very useful. Even if there was no debuff, the mechanic of big spawns wasting their first salvo on the droes and NOT you is a big plus. This gives you time to setup poison trap. I use trip mines in big groups. I monitor my melee defense and if it's over 50% I lay a trip mine for big dmg

I like howling twilight: the autohit stun + slow + debuff regen that also happens to rezz allies if there are any bodies lying around.

I want to do a classic Positron - ouroboros style. I used to have an Ice/FF troller on live that was my 'Posi-buster'. I think my new Ice/electric affinity would provide ideal support to damage dealers to burn through this task force. Ice slick + mezz protection for the win!

Is this your level 50 build or the build you are leveling with?

I think Demons thermal is very powerful not just thematic Nobody likes to be a pez dispenser but the mezz breaking of longer stuns and holds is extra nice Melt armor is more than welcome to groups. Hasten is useful when implementing melt armor and heat exhaustion. If you opt out of scorpion shield I strongly recommend heat mastery for Bonfire with the obligatory KB to KD proc, all bunched up for debuff and damage. I had a level 50 dmons thermal and would gladly provide more coaching.

I think that is debatable

I have a NA/Fire defender, I max out my aoe dmg as best I can.

I would vote for electric affinity. There are a lot of buffs to this set, but the biggest tanky power is the Faraday Cage. Mezz resist, damage resist, kb protection, and next I would go Traps/Dark. Traps is pretty beefy, too, especially if you use Super Speed and stealth to get in place to drop your traps up close.

Bots/FF has beefy defense but the damage isnt buffed by the mastermind so it may be slow going. I would suggest an odd pair if you are up to it, Zombies/Thermal, the lich at level 32 will give you some heft -tohit to go with the nice resistances.

Electric affinity is heavy good on team play, but the faraday cage make soloing as safe as any attack primary.

I didn't quite understand the first sentence, but this is a good place to get help with builds. Some players don't like to play beast mastery, I am one, but I would gladly help with any issues you have with electrical affinity. What are your goals for this spec? MOAR damage? High recharge? solo build, group play, farmer?

Amp Up may be tier 9, but Faraday Cage is the defining power in Electric Affinity.

First of all, don't let anyone convince you that bots/FF is too boring to play. It's a greater 'starter' mastermind with a secondary that isn't too busy to learn how to properly learn to manipulate your pets. My first CoV character was a mastermind in the BAD OLD DAYS when pets were equipped, upgraded, and double bubbled ONE pet at a time, to get in the mission door, and the pets would despawn when you entered the mission, so you were summoning pets, praying no red-side door ambushes took you out before you got a protector bot summoned to bubble your MM. The KB/KD game is vital to a forcefield mastermind. It plays somewhat like a storm in that you position foes with kb to maximize the burn patches of an upgraded assault bot! ( Many savvy roboticists do NOT equip the assault bot, depriving him of his flame thrower ability and only upgrade for the missiles/burn patches). My rule of thumb on my robot mastermind was, if the target is knocked down even just once, the focused fire of the robots would take out the target before the target took out the mastermind, even on E.B.s and AVs. I didn't take pulse rifle abilities on my mastermind, but the photon grenades were useful to tankermind and grab some aggro for your robots to reply to. Forcebolt is a good opening ability on hard targets to stack the kb/kd and get that action going on a boss. Most AVs are immune to KB/KD. Repulsion bomb is also a good opening salvo on a tankerminding MM. You don't really need a high recharge build on a FF mastermind, but leadership is very suitable to a buffing mastermind. Assault is an ability that offers resistance to taunt and placate found more often on red-side foes. Torrent and Explosive Blast I would only recommend with the KB>KD procs to especially neutralize the undesired radial kb in explosive blast. I took repair on my mastermind, and used it sparingly (of course since the recharge is longish) on protector bots and the assault bot when they are low on health. I didn't have use for the medicine pool on my mastermind. Another feature to consider is deciding if you want an alternate build. You can have a mastermind build with separate abilities but not different power sets, one to run solo, one to run with teams. Pimp out the build you would play the most with purps, procs, and IO sets, and save influence on the other build for your less-played build by slotting the cheap IOs or what you can afford, but still be effective. See you in the city. Oh, and take group fly, it makes your robots look so cool.

Good evening fellow stormy. I like how you built your stormy. I agree with your goals for participation. There is a feature with the new proccing regime to maximize your +recharge which I see you utilized in gale. I also slotted some in Lightning storm, and Tornado, maybe I am ignorant on that point. I do know some procs work only on the pet and others work on the caster. Aside from that, Torrent is a good candidate for slotting the Force Feedback +recharge proc and the KB > KD proc to knock em down and add to your recharge - cone style (aoes, more targets more chance to proc). I would take super speed instead of fly to stack the stealth in super speed with the stealth in steamy mist, making you a candidate to stealth missions for objectives to speed up missions and taskforces. If you really need to fly I suggest the flight packs available at the pay-to-win vendors. I went scorpion on my stormy for the immobilize (for certain AVs that run, too much, I am looking at you Rommie,) and a hold for the LGTF or other content where you want a hold. I would not take more than maneuvers on a stormy since storms are end hogs. Also, your freezing rain works the other side of the +tohit aspect (-def)in tactics. I might go other than scorpion if I already had Tenebrous Tentacles, it plays well with hurricane and manipulating groups of foes. Plus, iirc, you can proc the immobilize and the targeted aoe features in TT. I would miss snowstorm far too much to skip it. It slows movement, it slows recharge, but what many folks forget or don't know is the interrupt factor that snowstorm has that minimizes the features of many foes encountered. Embalmed cadavers do not explode in a snowstorm. Energy Mages do not self-destruct in snowstorms. Sky raider engineers do NOT summon force field generators in a snowstorm. Rikti communication officers cannot summon additional rikti minions in a snowstorm. Flying foes are unable to fly in a snowstorm. I am sure I have omitted some other key interrupts. It;s also an ability you might have leveling up and respecify out of at 50 when you get incarnate abilities, but it would be hard to skip at low levels especially.

The LR/tower encounter is also one of the very few places that sonic or forcefield detention can really shine detaining one or two towers while the team eliminates the undetained targets.

I have an EA/fire. He isn't level 50 yet, but I can tell you EA is a powerhouse on a defender. There are signature powers in every defender primary. I would point out one salient power in Electric Affinity that will define your build, imho. Faraday Cage is the game changer. I run in with the tank, or scrapper, or brute for that matter, drop the Faraday Cage first, proceed to buff, recharge, health, absorb, and tohit. The one feature, heal, is the one that comes up the fastest, but if you do it right, you don't need it as much as the energizing circuit which is +recharge, +end, Faraday Cage is a bundle of buffs, +resistance, mezz protection, endurance drain protection, knockback protection, and recharge debuffs (slows). You cast FC, you stay in FC, you invite squishies to FC. "Keep all arms and legs inside the Faraday Cage until the fighting comes to a complete stop." With that in mind, I suggest boosting your damage resistance attributes, slotting for recharge, and modest +defense as defenders go. I personally take all the EA abilities. Amp Up is lackluster to some. I get it. It's not Fulcrum shift, it's not Tactics, it's certainly not Fortitude, But, it does well with damage dealers, and the status effects and debuffs of your controller type characters are buffed as well.. Fire does synergize well with EA. The only one I find awkward to use is fire breath, and I might add, well worth using, but the other attacks are really good with staying in the FC. Proc it up, you have targetted AOE abilities and there are procs for those. Fire doesn't have -resistance or -defense to tack procs on, but fire itself seems to do more damage innately than other defender blasts. Plus, inferno, inferno, inferno to your hearts content in the FC. Do I sound over the top high on Faraday Cage? Perhaps, I am. But I have experienced on an ITF where Faraday Cage has resisted the 'rez stun' when Romulus is defeated and absorbs one of his nicti, and that resistance is higher than the resistance in Dispersion Bubble for Forcefield and Sonic Resonance. Plus it stacks with other mezz resistance powers especially of the incarnate variety. You won't have to hide when Romulus dies on your squishy defender. I have also experienced that the mezz resistance for the Romulus stun is not as potent on a corruptor or mastermind -- Rommie will stun you!

Hello again meltage members, I am looking for tactical advice for an all-defender Ms Liberty Task force. I haven't done one of these since Live. I remember the successful runs I did featured a tank with full taunt and taunt aura pulling Lord recluse up a pole whereupon LR would fall back to the ground because the top of the pole was occupied by said tank. Also, the tank had a dedicated healer on the tank or else as palpatine once said "and now young skywalker, you will die" Which defender on an 8 defender team would do the pole dance and do incarnate abilities make this method a moot point?

On my demon prince, I slotted a couple(?) pacing of the turtles in with some slow enhancement. It shaves a little damage off but I noticed the greatness of the slow effects more, especially when the prince gets around to wielding greater ice sword circle. Bonfire to me is nearly a no-brainer for my melee pet masterminds. On my demons, I would split my stance, I would put the two lieutenants on attack/aggressive with the demon prince and the little demonlings on follow defensive. I would poke and prod my hellfire demon to be on point taking out the high priority targets like super stunners and sappers. This way I only micromanage one pet, the others will follow the aggro drawn on my mastermind. If I need to get more aggro on my mastermind, that is what "Crack the Whip" is for. Your living hellfire is kind of controllerish in the way it absorbs aggro, and hence damage to you and your pets, like seeker drones do for robots and trappers.