BR/FF corruptor v. FF/BR Defender

[Hardboiled Hero]

Hello Everyone!  I just found homecoming 2 days ago and I'm loving it.  I played live so many years ago and one of my characters was a Force Field/ Beam Rifle defender (but I only got to about level 25 w/ that character.  I recreated the concept, but as I was doing so I began to wonder, would I be better off making a Beam Rifle/ Force Field corruptor?  What are the actual differences between the two concepts?  How would the playstyles be different?  Do you think one would be better for solo play (which was my problem with the defender in live)? Is the other better for group? Anything else you can think of?

 

  Thanks all.

[Apparition]

Welcome back to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.  FF is one of the power sets that is better on Corruptors than Defenders.  Defense is easy to come by now.  What is not so easy to come by is AoE mez protection, and FF Corruptors actually have stronger AoE mez protection than FF Defenders. 

[Rathulfr]

Defenders are support primary, damage secondary; Corruptors are damage first, support second.  The Defender inherent is Vigilance, which offers a bonus to damage and endurance when solo.  The Corruptor inherent is Scourge, which boosts damage (up to double) when the target's base health is below 50%.

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Hardboiled Hero]

  I was really hoping to spark some more in depth answers, though I thank you both for your contribution.  @Rathulfr gave a very basic answer, but as you might be able to tell from comparing the two answers, it isn't that simple.  Let's say I want to play this character as a support..  If everyone is defense capped in the endgame (which most builds try to do), then being able to raise people's defense isn't very good support, but Mez protection might be, so if the corruptor has better Mez protection, then the corruptor may offer better support, even though it's support role is "secondary".  This makes it seem like a Beam Rifle/ Force Fields corruptor should just be hands down better than a Force Field/ Beam Rifle defender, as the corruptor would theoretically have better support and better offensive contribution..  but just because something should be better doesn't mean it always is..  while we could assume the corruptor would do more damage, only people who have tried can actually know..  That's why I was really hoping that someone has actually tried some Beam Rifle and Force Field builds and could give a more in depth perspective.

[Redlynne]

You basically asked a question that amounts to "somebody make up my mind for me" over an inherently subjective question where the answer varies depending on what you value most ... which only you can answer ...

[Apparition]

What is there to discuss, really?  You wanted to know if a Beam Rifle/Force Field Corruptor would be better than a Force Field/Beam Rifle Defender, or vice versa.  The answer is, unequivocally, Corruptor, and I explained why.  Defense brings very little of value to late game, (level 35+).  The only real value that Force Field provides is AoE mez protection, which Corruptor is simply better at.  As for Beam Rifle, procs notwithstanding (as I discount them as nothing but a hack and one that is going to get severely nerfed at some point), Corruptors do more damage than Defenders, and have a higher damage cap.  Corruptor Beam Rifle has the same amount of -regen as Defender, and only 2.7% less -resistance which isn't much in the grand scheme of things and that Scourge will easily take care of.

[Peacemoon]

I would go Defender for the higher defence numbers and also go full leadership for the amazing numbers they bring to a team too. I’d use power boost APP to amplify the shield numbers to the extreme, which is much more effective on a Defender.

 

And looking at the above answer herein lies the problem.. very subjective! 🤣

 

Generally defenders give better support numbers with buffs/debuffs and corrupters do better damage. Sometimes the lines get blurred when a Defender’s support numbers will amplify their damage so it matches a corrupter,  but that won’t be the case with FF.

[Hardboiled Hero]

On 4/24/2020 at 3:15 PM, Redlynne said:

You basically asked a question that amounts to "somebody make up my mind for me" over an inherently subjective question where the answer varies depending on what you value most ... which only you can answer …

    Actually I asked a few questions, of different types, and never implied that anyone else had the ability to make up my mind for me.

 

  "Would I be better off playing a Beam Rifle/ Force Field corruptor?" :  This was prefaced by "So I began to wonder,".. which shows that it's a question I was asking myself, and which I don't expect anyone else to answer for me.  It was meant as part of the exposition for why I'm asking the other questions, more than a topic of discussion in itself.  I mean, if someone really wanted to opine on this question, that's cool, but I make my own decisions.

 

"What are the actual Differences between the two concepts?":  This isn't actually subjective at all..   (Well.. I suppose a person saying "I like x better than y would be a subjective difference between the concepts) There are numbers and facts that people could be throwing around if they so chose.. and @Apparition actually had a pretty objective response, but Apparition is also making an assumption (That most characters have their defenses capped end game, how do we know this?).. not only that, but one person saying something is "Unequivocal" doesn't make it so.. and yet no one else wanted to support his claim.  Meanwhile, even the most "Unequivocal" of facts has it's skeptics.. and yet no one spoke up against the claim.  I will say that, as far as I can tell, the evidence supports the claim as being correct and I'm truly thankful for Apparition's response (based on looking at builds here on the forums).  Apparition only addressed one difference between the two concepts as well, nobody really seems to know or care how much damage either concept can do.. how survivable either concept is..  or any number of other differences that people could have mentioned.  Hence, even if what Apparition said is truly "Unequivocal", that still doesn't necessarily stop any discussion about the facts that he didn't touch on.  @Rathulfr also gave facts.. to be honest I'm a little insulted because these facts are something that anybody could read for themselves, and they're also not entirely true..  as we've mentioned a BR/FF corruptor may well be a better support than a FF/BR defender. I do at least appreciate that he responded.

 

"How would the playstyles be different?":  As if to possibly hi-lite the more Objective overtones of the previous question, this question involves some creative thinking.  It requires both "subjective" and "Objective" thinking..  A person could subjectively say that there would be no difference in playstyle, but then the objective truth that Defenders and Corruptors have different "stats" would mean that one is simply better than the other at that playstyle.  So this is an example of a question where the "facts" have some interplay with people's opinions.

 

"Do you think one would be better for solo play?":  Do you see yet how this was designed to transition..  Here I'm specifically asking for the opinions of others.  You note also that I never said anything about how their opinions might impact my own decisions.. this is all about people giving free-form answers.

 

"Is the other better for a group?":  This just seemed like a natural follow up to the previous question, which should help keep the flow of thought going.

 

"Anything else you can think of?"  Again.. to encourage thought and conversation that could literally go anywhere..  and to me this was the real shocker about the lack of discussion so far..  I literally asked for any thoughts people had at all and still very few people wanted to say anything.  Are Beam Rifle and Force Field Defenders/Corruptors really in such a bad place that no one even wants to think about them?

[Peacemoon]

You’ve written a lot, and the problem you have is there has been plenty of corrupter vs defender analysis on these forums, you only have to look.  I have recent posts on the defender forum about a FF/BR build, I just didn’t want to report it all here.
 

Like I said, I would choose defender because I prefer higher support numbers, the leadership pool is great for defenders, and with power boost available at 35,  a defender can give out shields that are worth 38% defence, which are numbers a corrupter simply can’t reach.

The counter argument is that you simply don’t always need numbers that high, which is a fair point, but I still like it. 
With FF you only need to take 4 powers and you can focus on your blasting skills, that is its beauty.

 

As I said before, the lines between Defender and Corrupter damage only become blurred when you play a set that debuffs enemies, as the better debuffs for Defenders will make their damage higher. But this is quite rare and a bit of a grey area and not applicable to FF.

 

So in the end it does become a subjective decision, because it’s up to you as a player to decide whether you want more damage, and your blasts as a primary so unlocked earlier, or more support. 

 

If you want hard numbers and percentages differences between the two, check the Mids Reborn app. Not all posters are going to give you scientific numeric answers to these type of questions, myself included.

[Rathulfr]

11 hours ago, Hardboiled Hero said:

@Rathulfr also gave facts.. to be honest I'm a little insulted because these facts are something that anybody could read for themselves, and they're also not entirely true..  as we've mentioned a BR/FF corruptor may well be a better support than a FF/BR defender. I do at least appreciate that he responded.

My apologies: I did not intend to insult you; I was trying to be helpful.  I won't make that mistake with you again.

[Peacemoon]

2 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

My apologies: I did not intend to insult you; I was trying to be helpful.  I won't make that mistake with you again.

I felt the same!

[Hardboiled Hero]

13 hours ago, Peacemoon said:

You’ve written a lot, and the problem you have is there has been plenty of corrupter vs defender analysis on these forums, you only have to look.  I have recent posts on the defender forum about a FF/BR build, I just didn’t want to report it all here.

  I can understand how people might get frustrated about that.

 

  I've been spending the past few hours and "looked"

 

  So I think there might be a perception that "this has already been discussed too much already", while the truth may be that it really hasn't been discussed much at all.  People may have compared and contrasted defenders and Corruptors, but apparently force fields was never part of the discussion.. they may have talked about force fields, but differences between corruptors and defenders using force fields was never seriously discussed. (Apparition had a response in one thread that was similar to the response in this one.)

 

  Would it surprise you to know that no one in that FF/BR thread has mentioned corruptors at all, let alone discussed how a FF/BR defender and BR/FF corruptor might compare and contrast?

  There's not a single thread with "force field" in the topic in the corruptor forums. (There are only 16 threads with "force field" in the content.. none of those seem to mention defenders.)

  Same is true for the archetype forums (although I did a search for BR/FF and got 0 results, while BR/FF Corruptor returned this thread, so clearly something is wonky.)

  General forums have 3 threads about force field (none of which are also listed as mentioning both defenders and corruptors)

  There are only 17 posts in the Archetypes, General, and Guides forums combined which mention force fields, corruptors AND defenders.

  Meanwhile, there are 43 pages of returns if I just search for defender corruptor..  are you honestly expecting me to go through all 43 pages in order to try to find one post that might possibly be of value to this discussion? Knowing full well that the one post which discusses "Comparing and contrasting Br/FF Corruptors and FF/BR defenders", probably doesn't actually fully answer the questions?

 

  So, while some people may feel like they're beating a dead horse, the average person who wants to know about how forcefield/ beam rifle corruptors and defenders really compare and contrast, isn't going to find any thread but this one.  

 

  Anyway, I don't guess this thread is really going to go anywhere.  Maybe someday somebody else will try to start an actual useful and informative thread about Beam Rifle/Force Field compared and contrasted to Force Field/ Beam Rifle.