Is there a "Lazy" primary?

[TheGentlemanGhostronaut]

I get a little overwhelmed with a lot to keep track of but I still want to be useful.  Is there a primary that is lazy/easy to use?

[Nyghtmaire]

Force fields: keep Dispersion Bubble running. When you team, cast the shields on your teammates. There’s other tricks, buts that’s really all you *need* to do. 

[Haijinx]

Definitely FF 

 

[ZorkNemesis]

Sonic is also pretty lazy.  Similar setup; keep Sonic Dispersion active, apply sonic shields as necessary, toggle Disruption Field on your tank and just sit back, though you do have to keep up with your tank as Disruption will detoggle if you go too far away.  Sonic is a little more involved than FF though, since you also have Sonic Siphon and Liquefy to occasionally drop on enemies, and Clarity if you have too many squishies without mez protection.

[Force Redux]

Tossing my vote in for FF. Bubble every two mins, shoot at things with primary.

 

Go even lazier: Robot FF Mastermind. Let the bots shoot for you. 😃😃😃

Edited September 30, 2019 by Force Redux

[Shoulung]

Empathy; nobody needs your heals and they won’t bother to gather for your buffs.

[Strawberry]

I know a lot of people have mentioned FF, and I agree that it is a rather “lazy” set if all you do is buff, but as someone who has played both sets to 50 and used to main a Sonic/Electric in the old-days, I would argue that Sonic is an even better choice.

 

My reasoning is that the active non-buffing abilities of FF primary generally revolve around Knockback, which can be a tricky mechanic to use correctly and it is also incredibly easy to annoy your teammates with it if someone unfamiliar uses it willy-nilly.

 

Sonic, on the other hand, has active non-buffing abilities that generally revolve around -res, which is a fire and forget ability. Typically speaking, you want to use it on important targets or strong lts/bosses. You also want to keep your Sonic Disruption anchor up on the tank or a strong scrapper who can get the most mileage from it, but overall, you won’t be hurting anything if you throw out a Sonic Siphon on a minion who is already easily killed or accidentally forgetting to have Sonic Disruption up on the right ally. Whereas, incorrect usage of the FF knockback powers could lead to some problems.
 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Strawberry

[Darkir]

Have you considered a Soldier of Arachnos instead? They can bring a ton of support without hitting a button (once they put the toggles on first of course). That's the laziest support I can think of in the game. 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Darkir

[Scientist]

If you want lazy but still be more desirable on end game teams than FF, consider Radiation.  While it has a lot of tools, you bring most of what is useful about Rad when you throw two debuff toggles (fire and forget for the most part, especially now that they linger on corpses) and Lingering Radiation.  If that is all you do people will still be pretty happy.  Against content the team is blowing through, skip Radiation Infection, the slow to cast toggle.  

 

One caution, there are a few mobs you don't want to use the toggle debuffs on; Tsoo Sorcs, Gunslingers, anyone who teleports around, causing your debuff to aggro more spawns.  

[Mercurias]

Going between every Defender Primary I can think of, I’d probably say that Radiation does the most benefit for your teams with the least effort.

 

Your two debuffing goggles are extremely powerful and last until either the enemy you put them on dies rom you turn them off. Your other big debuffs just activate in an area when you click the button and are a PBAoE-like Nuke power. Easy peasy.

 

You have a single really good AoE buff that you click when it recharges. Everyone around you gets boosted recharge, recovery, and movement speed. Your team already loves you, and solo it’s still darn nice.

 

You aren’t a healer, but you have a PBAoE Heal if you need it. Click and go. If you feel like it, you have an uncomplicated Rez you can take. 

 

Compared to the frantic placements and timing needed for sets like Time Manipulation And Dark Affinity, Radiation is an easy set to play with a lot of versatility in your buffs. It’s also one of the best sets in the game for killing big targets like AVs and Giant Monsters.

[Dark Current]

Not trying to pick a fight, but I don't really understand the rationale behind this question. 

 

If you're playing a defender, it's because you want to defend, which requires actively monitoring your team and enemy. If you want to be 'lazy' with your primary, that implies you don't want to worry about actively monitoring those two things. In which case, it would seem to me, you don't want to play a defender.

 

Why not just play something else? If you like to shoot from range, then go with blaster, sentinel, or possibly dominator. Those classes can 'lazily' blast away from range and not worry about anything but DPS. But if you want to protect your team, then you're going to need to be active with your primary.

 

Even FF requires awareness of who is shielded or not. Where to position yourself relative to your teammates to protect them with your big bubble. Whether you should cage a dangerous foe or not. Whether your force bolt will save a teammate's life or just annoy them because the target was knocked over the edge and you have to go down in get them. Whether you should activate PFF to save yourself or continue blasting to save your allies. Whether you should activate force / repulsion bubble to knock the whole mob away / down or not.

 

A lazy defender, FFer included, is going to get someone killed who shouldn't have if you were actively doing your 'job'.

 

Now maybe the question is 'which primary requires the least focus on teammates / allies because I love to blast away, but still want to save the day'?

Edited October 5, 2019 by Dark Current

[Demon Shell]

I'm going to second just going with a Soldier. Bane or Crab doesn't even matter, all you have to do is keep your Leadership toggles up.

 

Otherwise I'll suggest to you what I always suggest when someone wants the easy way, Dark Miasma. Not that it's especially easy to use compared to FF, it's just so powerful it doesn't matter.

 

When a fight starts, Fearsome Stare. If there's time you can also Darkest Night but usually it doesn't matter.

 

Someone take damage. Fearsome Stare. Then see if you can locate the person and stand near them before using Twilight Grasp. Or just stand there and spam Twilight Grasp between Fearsome Stares. Usually they can just come to you at their leisure.

 

Did someone die? Firstly, Fearsome Stare. Then calmly find, walk over to, and rez them (or teleport and rez them).

 

AV? Darkest Night. Then Fearsome Stare, followed by Twilight Grasp. And if you don't think anyone is going to die (which is usually), feel free to throw a Howling Twilight in there too just for the -Regen.

 

Don't want to mess with a ground target power? /macro T powexec_location target "Tar Patch" Now you'll just drop it on whatever you're targetting. Feel free to do the same thing with Dark Servant and just drop it on whatever you're targetting. Chill of the Night is just an aura version of Darkest Night that centers on the pet; its best when they're near the enemy anyway.

 

Whoops! Did you just forget to resummon Dark Servant for the last 3 missions? Who cares! Go ahead and resummon it now but if you forget again no one will notice!

 

Most difficult part of Dark Miasma is remembering to turn off Shadow Fall when there's an escort.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Demon Shell

[Gulbasaur]

On 9/30/2019 at 6:21 AM, Darkir said:

Have you considered a Soldier of Arachnos instead? They can bring a ton of support without hitting a button (once they put the toggles on first of course). That's the laziest support I can think of in the game. 

Before I was properly kitted out and couldn't hit anything in +4x8 missions led by incarnates, my strategy was to float near the group so that my buffs landed on people spamming confuse on any mobs with heals or force fields. I eventually apologised, saying I felt useless, but the response was "no, your buffs are great". 

 

I'm properly IO'd out now and heading for incarnate stuff, so I feel useful again. 

[Darkir]

15 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

Before I was properly kitted out and couldn't hit anything in +4x8 missions led by incarnates, my strategy was to float near the group so that my buffs landed on people spamming confuse on any mobs with heals or force fields. I eventually apologised, saying I felt useless, but the response was "no, your buffs are great". 

 

I'm properly IO'd out now and heading for incarnate stuff, so I feel useful again. 

Soldiers of Arachnos with their toggles and the leadership toggles can give about 29% def to all. It's insane, that is very very useful when leveling up, less so when you are with a bunch of fully IO'd out toons, but meh.

[Gulbasaur]

59 minutes ago, Darkir said:

Soldiers of Arachnos with their toggles and the leadership toggles can give about 29% def to all. It's insane, that is very very useful when leveling up, less so when you are with a bunch of fully IO'd out toons, but meh.

Yeah. It is much easier to add significant defence than significant resistance through IOs. I definitely don't use them all unless I need to or someone can boost my endurance regen significantly.

 

They are, however, great for giving lowbies a boost, which is handy for level 50 Atlas Park tip missions (which I run in protest to people doing DBF ad nausium and also tip missions are fun). I've had level 1s go up against +3s under my fortunado's supervision and live to tell the tale. They're like any other armoured AT, except you share your armour with anyone nearby.

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Gulbasaur

[Ankhammon]

On a team you can get a lot of mileage out of TA with very little effort. Flash Arrow and PGA will keep many a team running without anything else added. but you have sooo many different tools to apply as needed or just blast away. And you will have plenty of time to do that.

You just need to keep in mind that PGA is a patch so it plays differently than all those toggle versions you are used to (and it gets a fast pulsing sleep in it too).

 

Funny part is you keep the team moving because you want to apply FA before anything else and the others on your team think you are engaging the mobs and run in to "save" you.

 

Only problem is most of the time your team won't notice what your debuffing does. You can easily see the difference when some split off and start faceplanting. With you there, they take only small to moderate damage.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Ankhammon