New to Defenders -- Debuffing beast suggestions?

[TBN8681]

9 hours ago, r0y said:

I have a few defenders:  Poison/Dark (very impressive), Cold/Ice (hold machine), Trick Arrow/Archery, and Storm/Sonic.  Of these, one set clearly stands out as the most helpful in team debuffing situations.

 

One set is what people really come to see:  T and A... that is:  Trick and Arrow.  (What were YOU thinking?)

 

Do not underestimate Trick Arrow.  On a defender it is MASSIVE debuffs ALL THE TIME:

Entangling Arrow:  I skip this, but often miss having it.  -Fly, -Movement, -Recharge in single-target form.

Flash Arrow:  A lot skip this, and they're probably not too bright (pun intended!).  ALWAYS take the -percep / -tohit / non-aggro power.  ALWAYS.  4 Cloud Senses.  Done.

Glue Arrow:  Simple tool to keep things huddled so they can't flee as easily.  It is also 20% -Recharge on mobs.  Great utility, always up (easy to perma).

Ice Arrow:  a hold, take it or leave it  proc it out or 4-basilisk for the recharge bonus

Poison Gas Arrow:  Don't be fooled because it says "sleep" this is a non-aggro (NO procs) -Damage power, easily perma.  5 Call of the Sandman. Done.

Acid Arrow:  Out of the box perma already, -Def / -Res (slightly less than Freezing Rain, but it's up ALL the time for that multi-mob goodness), does tiny ticks of toxic.

Disruption Arrow:  Why have ANOTHER -Res power that's easy to perma (2 rech. IO's is all I put in there).  Another -20%... hey, that's 40% -Res all the time in 2 powers.  Why Yes!  Yes it is.

Oil Slick Arrow:  Well, well, well.  What have we here?  Basically a NUKE.  Up every mob or so (I usually have it around 70s rech) and it does Knock DOWN and -Def and... HEY!  Would you look at THAT?  MORE -res!  Granted it's only 12.5% -Res, but didn't you just drop 2 arrows for 40% total?  Well, shoot, we're now at 52.5% -res.  Not too shabby... Oh, and you can SET THIS ON FIRE with an energy and/or fire power (those inherent magic or tech ranged things, or something from your blast set, e.g. blazing arrow).  My current build (TA/Archery) has 6-slotted Annihilation (ooo, is that a -res proc?  Sure is!) and it ticks for a TON of damage.  Between the KD and the glue arrow, mobs tend to stay in it for the duration or their death.  Great power.  Simply great.

EMP Arrow:  Finally, tier9 and you get -Regen.  1000% -regen!  And -Recovery 1000%, as well as draining 55% of their endurance (lol, end drain on mobs) AND an AoE hold.  OK, I can see why it's T9.  It's nuke-worthy (though it only damages robots, which on an ITF at the computer is fun!)  I actually often skip this one, too, as my builds are pretty tight and I either take this or ice arrow, never both.  Ice adds to survivability, it's up often and it's a decent hold, thus has more use.  For big AV fights, I'd lean towards EMP for the -regen/-recovery.

 

People ALWAYS forget about Trick Arrow.  People ALWAYS underestimate it.  Well, the experienced players know all about TA.

 

In short, TA brings the following debuffs:

-Fly

-Perception

-ToHit

-Recharge (x2)

-Movement  (x2)

-Damage

-Defense (x2)

-Resistance (x3)

+KD AoE (-standing debuff?)

-Regen

-Recovery

+Damage patch (-living debuff?)

 

So it has a few.  But please.  It's also pretty fast cast/activation times.  Acid Arrow and EMP Arrow are the LONGEST activations with cast times of 1.83s each.  Most things are 1s-1.16s activation.  Not too shabby!  Will make sonic attacks seem like you're held a lot of the time.  TA/Fire will feel FAST.  Probably the fastest defender out there, as far as activation goes.

Wow, love your thorough description. Ty! This has made my altitis impulsive! Gonna roll one just because the only arrow sets I've tried are on a Blaster.

Edited March 14, 2020 by TBN8681

[ChetManly]

On 3/3/2020 at 12:52 PM, Frosticus said:

I have a poison/fire that will do great things once it is finished. It was a chore to play prior to getting 25%+ defense onto the build though.

I originally eyeballed pistols heavily for chem rounds because you can still -dam +level AVs into the ground with the combo. But losing out on aim and a good nuke turned me off. The synergy is good though for poison/pistols

 

 

That said I wouldnt recommend poison to a new player. You need to be in melee and you dont  have much to keep you alive there. plus mez ruins the set.  The issues can be overcome, but it is a lot of work to extract the potential. 

 

 

Frosticus- You are 1000% correct on that. NOT for a new player and I never should have suggested it. Someone from live returning perhaps, Vet player for sure.

 

I was intrigued by /Fire just reading your new guide the other day. Ill post a build share more experience with /Pistols there. And your builds were interesting as well, gave me many ideas.