Thinking of Starting a Less Popular Defender

[Seigmoraig]

8 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

how are you coming up with the 250,000 inf per merit?

250,000 inf per merit is lowballing it.
Enhancement Boosters go for 1,500,000 inf each and they cost 5 merits to buy, comes out to 300,000 per merit.
ATOs cost around 10mill, which comes out to about 33 merits. Much better to buy Enhancement Boosters and sell them, then buy the ATO you want. Sure you lose a bit on market fees but you still come out way way way ahead than buying them for 100 merits

Edited April 23, 2020 by Seigmoraig

[Uun]

28 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

how are you coming up with the 250,000 inf per merit?

For example, enhancement boosters cost 5 merits each. They can be sold on the AH for 1,300,000 to 1,500,000 inf each or 260,000 to 300,000 inf per merit. After the 10% fee, that's 234,000 to 270,000 inf per merit. There's also a pretty solid market for enhancement unslotters and enhancement converters at similar prices per merit.

[Peacemoon]

Thanks guys, I came into this thread to help out and learned something myself. Yay 😃

[Bastille Boy]

Empathy isn't the strongest set in the endgame, but that shouldn't stop you from building an emp if you want one for PVP or for the theme. You will want a good secondary, especially in the late game. Sonic is a popular choice. Beam is also very good. Both give you -Res, which is valuable at high levels. Ice and Water are popular choices for PVP emps.

 

If you want a defender set with healing and you're not attached to a particular theme, Thermal might be better in the endgame. The +Res boosts to your teammates are useful; many players have soft-capped defenses but don't have hard-capped resistances. The -regen debuff power is useful in AV fights. I quite like my Ice/Thermal corruptor. The default animations are pretty weird looking (setting teammates on fire? really?), but the "dark fire" option is okay.

 

 

[Pzn]

1 hour ago, ejworthing said:

Empathy isn't the strongest set in the endgame, but that shouldn't stop you from building an emp if you want one for PVP or for the theme. You will want a good secondary, especially in the late game. Sonic is a popular choice. Beam is also very good. Both give you -Res, which is valuable at high levels. Ice and Water are popular choices for PVP emps.

 

If you want a defender set with healing and you're not attached to a particular theme, Thermal might be better in the endgame. The +Res boosts to your teammates are useful; many players have soft-capped defenses but don't have hard-capped resistances. The -regen debuff power is useful in AV fights. I quite like my Ice/Thermal corruptor. The default animations are pretty weird looking (setting teammates on fire? really?), but the "dark fire" option is okay.

 

 

Nature and pain are other good options for support sets with healing.  Pain is basically an empathy rework anyway.  Not to say that it's better but it's powers are very similar.

[00Troy00]

1 hour ago, ejworthing said:

Empathy isn't the strongest set in the endgame, but that shouldn't stop you from building an emp if you want one for PVP or for the theme. You will want a good secondary, especially in the late game. Sonic is a popular choice. Beam is also very good. Both give you -Res, which is valuable at high levels. Ice and Water are popular choices for PVP emps.

 

If you want a defender set with healing and you're not attached to a particular theme, Thermal might be better in the endgame. The +Res boosts to your teammates are useful; many players have soft-capped defenses but don't have hard-capped resistances. The -regen debuff power is useful in AV fights. I quite like my Ice/Thermal corruptor. The default animations are pretty weird looking (setting teammates on fire? really?), but the "dark fire" option is okay.

 

 

Thanks. I'll check it out

[00Troy00]

12 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

Nature and pain are other good options for support sets with healing.  Pain is basically an empathy rework anyway.  Not to say that it's better but it's powers are very similar.

Kind of like an offensive empathy I think?

[Psylenz0511]

Less Popular? Try a trick arrow defender. I always thought they were hell to solo, but on teams  they really set the table with their sturdy debuffs

[Without_Pause]

I think I had seen FF be #5 for defenders but had forgotten. Honestly surprised by it considering that's for ones which make it to 50 and not merely created. Traps suffers from having too much setup in a end game where steamrolling is the default. I'll agree that TA is a good example of a set which is less popular but still can be useful.

[Zherphi]

I will advocate for Dark Miasma, Trick Arrow, Cold Domination (sorta unplayed) and it's brother Thermal Radiation for underrated Defender sets.

 

As mentioned, power creep ate all the buffs. Also as mentioned the above sets are phenomenal debuffers with their own niche. Dark and Cold bring a bag of tricks to the table as well as their own thing. Dark is better when things get messy, able to flip an encounter from a wipe to a win with Howling Twilight alone. Cold is that one guy who dumps a tray of ice cubs down the back of your shirt but instead does that to AVs. Both are good at shoring up defenses if you have people below the cap. Trick Arrow takes the bag of tricks mentioned above and trades it in for a dump truck of tricks. There is very little on the debuff end Trick Arrow can't do, the set is merely unpopular due to the high skill floor but I have seen good TA players and they are scary people. Thermal is my personal favorite for flavor reasons. It's a bit of a mixed bag like Dark. A few heals, a few buffs, and the two big ones: resist shields and melt armor. The resist shields sound useless I'm sure, but they aren't. With everyone capping defense having resists keeps you from getting oneshot when they do actually manage to hit you. Melt Armor is exactly what it says on the tin, an AoE defense and resist shred. I had a friend who is waaay better at builds then me find out it can actually be near-perma'd in a full recharge build.

[tjknight]

If you exemplar down a lot (especially for task forces under 50) or frequently play on mixed-level teams (Peregrine Island  pick-up teams) Empathy is wonderful to have.  So I wouldn't completely dismiss empathy as being viable, it totally depends on how you play.  If you really want to play something rare a defender Traps/ or TA/ could be interesting for you. Poison/ is actually pretty good, but it's a completely different type of playstyle from other Defender sets. I like teaming with Poison users though, they are super helpful against really hard enemies. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by tjknight

[CaptTastic]

On 4/23/2020 at 11:43 PM, Psylenz0511 said:

Less Popular? Try a trick arrow defender. I always thought they were hell to solo, but on teams  they really set the table with their sturdy debuffs

Yes, I have to speak up for TA too. I think the perception of TA suffers from its lack of visual flamboyance. Watch a TA player and all you’ll see is the same animation over and over and an arrow heading into a mob. That’s it. Oil Slick aside, if you watch the mob you won’t see much visually remarkable happening from a TA player. It just doesn’t look exciting, so many find it hard to get excited about. 
 

Under the hood, though, TA is a very potent set and, contrary to your experience, I have actually found that soloing is when you discover the true strength of TA.

 

Agincourt, my Alpha T3 slotted TA/A Defender, easily solos 52/x8. Mez is the only real danger (and Destiny will sort that in time), as mobs are either glued down (Glue Arrow), held (EMP Arrow), falling over (Oil Slick arrow), or choking (Poison Gas Arrow) while they are burning (Oil Slick Arrow), getting an exploding arrow in their face, and getting Rain of Arrows drop on them. TA/A is just an ocean of orange numbers when played well. 
 

Some caveats though, if I may... Firstly, I think TA has a much steeper and tougher learning curve to the other sets. It’s not a set that’s just great out of the box and frustration reigned A LOT whilst I was figuring the set out. Secondly, I have spent a fair chunk of inf on him and without that I doubt he’d have the survivability to solo like he does. 
 

So yes, TA is certainly an unpopular set but it’s one I’d personally recommend. By the figures posted earlier in this thread, it seems Agincourt is something of a rarity as being an incarnate, regularly played and heavily invested in TA Defender. Part of me wishes there were more, but then the vanity kicks in and I like being rare. 
 

So In conclusion: TA is brilliant, but play something else please 😂

[Gulbasaur]

On 4/24/2020 at 5:15 AM, Zherphi said:

Dark Miasma,

It's an extremely good levelling set because it debuffs ToHit and damage and buffs resistance and defence - it's one of the tankier defender primaries.

 

Yes, everyone is drowning in defence at end-game, but the -DMG and +RES is never not useful and Dark Servant means most of your debuffs stack. 

[Android Nim]

On 4/23/2020 at 6:41 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

If you are insistent upon empathy (it's actually a great set in PvP, pve not so much), look at sonic or rad blast to have some debuffs.

 

That said some of the best defender powerset combos I've experimented with on HC....

Poison/Rad (the secondary can be swapped to a few choices like fire, sonic, ice, dark)

Kin/Sonic (make you and your team hit for more damage than the damage caps)

Time/Dark - defense caps a team, has a couple heals, and more debuffs.

tell me about poison/rad....i have one in the low 20's and I"m not feeling it....but i want to 🙂

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, Android Nim said:

tell me about poison/rad....i have one in the low 20's and I"m not feeling it....but i want to 🙂

My incarnate poison/rad defender completely wrecks mobs, is basically a tank that debuffs everything, is only weak to Mez, so it requires Clarion.

 

I honestly use only Envenom/Weakness, a proc'd out Poison Trap and Venomous Gas from poison. Otherwise I've used the experimentation pool to add some attacks let me corrosive vial and get to adrenal booster.

 

Rad Blast wise the attacks are fairly thematic, neutron bomb is the weak link because the animation time is so slow, but between irradiate, neutron bomb you can seriously cripple some more defense and proc out to utilize up to 3 -resistance procs (as long as the -res is from a different source it stacks so annihilation and Achilles will stack, but 2 Achilles won't) and then clean up with atomic blast.

 

Mine is built to be softcapped to several defensive types, but with all the debuffs you'll be taking minimal amount of damage anyways.

 

Like most sets it really takes a life of it's own when incarnate/IO'd.

[Android Nim]

20 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

My incarnate poison/rad defender completely wrecks mobs, is basically a tank that debuffs everything, is only weak to Mez, so it requires Clarion.

 

I honestly use only Envenom/Weakness, a proc'd out Poison Trap and Venomous Gas from poison. Otherwise I've used the experimentation pool to add some attacks let me corrosive vial and get to adrenal booster.

 

Rad Blast wise the attacks are fairly thematic, neutron bomb is the weak link because the animation time is so slow, but between irradiate, neutron bomb you can seriously cripple some more defense and proc out to utilize up to 3 -resistance procs (as long as the -res is from a different source it stacks so annihilation and Achilles will stack, but 2 Achilles won't) and then clean up with atomic blast.

 

Mine is built to be softcapped to several defensive types, but with all the debuffs you'll be taking minimal amount of damage anyways.

 

Like most sets it really takes a life of it's own when incarnate/IO'd.

Cool....ty....Sounds like you don't have to take many powers from the set to get the good stuff....wondering if i'm missing opportunities as a troller secondary...fire/poison maybe

[SeraphimKensai]

3 hours ago, Android Nim said:

Cool....ty....Sounds like you don't have to take many powers from the set to get the good stuff....wondering if i'm missing opportunities as a troller secondary...fire/poison maybe

The scaling of the debuffs will significantly change going to a controller. You'll have a more difficult time achieving softcapped defenses, still require Clarion for Mez protection.

 

Venomous Gas and Hot Feet together will basically require you to go Ageless, and then you have the mez hole.

 

It's an interesting power combo, and honestly can probably be built to be decent, but would have some shortcomings like those that I've mentioned (then again not many characters don't have some shortcomings).

[Psyonico]

29 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

 

Venomous Gas and Hot Feet together will basically require you to go Ageless, and then you have the mez hole.

you can always go Rune of Protection/Melee total Core to fill in the gap (or at least most of it)

[Hjarki]

3 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

The scaling of the debuffs will significantly change going to a controller. You'll have a more difficult time achieving softcapped defenses, still require Clarion for Mez protection.

 

Venomous Gas and Hot Feet together will basically require you to go Ageless, and then you have the mez hole.

 

It's an interesting power combo, and honestly can probably be built to be decent, but would have some shortcomings like those that I've mentioned (then again not many characters don't have some shortcomings).

Indomitable Will from epic/patron has a recharge 4x the duration, so it can be made perma- or nearly so to close the mez hole.

[SeraphimKensai]

4 hours ago, Hjarki said:

Indomitable Will from epic/patron has a recharge 4x the duration, so it can be made perma- or nearly so to close the mez hole.

Yes, but then that precludes one from taking scorpion shield.

[Hjarki]

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Yes, but then that precludes one from taking scorpion shield.

I listed a build elsewhere on this forum for Fire/Poison where I went with the approach of using positionals rather than typed defenses. The justification for this was against standard enemies, Venomous Gas enables you to short-change Melee defense and Ranged defense is easy to pile up on a Controller since you can get +5% bonuses from both ATO and Coercive Persuasion.

[00Troy00]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:56 PM, Peacemoon said:

I have a FF build that works pretty well at all levels. Basically it involved only taking 3/4 of the powers (the 3 shields and repulsion bomb or PFF) and using the space that creates to go full leadership, full secondary, fighting and medicine. 
The great thing about FF, in a paradoxical way, is it can perform its core role with so few power choices and so leaves you free to pick up so much from pools and secondary. It was difficult to recreate the build with Cold Dom as there was too much I couldn’t skip.

Also FF is very passive, so in addition to letting you pick up all these other cool powers, it gives you the space, in terms of time, to play as if your secondary was your primary.

Grab Power Build Up (at 35!), and your shields can give people almost 40% defence, and with dispersion bubble or maneuvers you’ve pretty

much soft capped the teams defence, by yourself, and with no need to debuff anything. (This is nowhere near as effective if FF is a secondary, so a defender speciality). And of course, mess protection for squishes as default. 
Then you’re free to go round blasting things. So pick a good blasting set and let rip. You have the space to pick up every blast and slot them all to max. Play like a blaster (well, a clever blaster, we are defenders after all!), comforted by the knowledge that everyone is safe.

 

Yes it lacks in debuffs, but FF is great at picking one specific role and doing it to the max. People might say everyone has good defence at incarnate trials, but first of all that’s not my experience, and second of all, you can bring all your shields to a Positron 1 TF. It can do its core job very effectively, and at all level ranges. 

I haven’t figured out what blast works best For this role. But I’m drawn to Beam Rifle; it brings some debuffs that might compliment FF nicely, and repulsion bomb can be used to fill the AoE gap.

 

Go shield and blast!

 

2 questions:

 

1. What about pairing the to hit debuff of dark blast with the defense of shields?

 

2. If the goal is to use the secondary as a primary, would it work better to play a corruptor instead?

[Peacemoon]

4 hours ago, 00Troy00 said:

2 questions:

 

1. What about pairing the to hit debuff of dark blast with the defense of shields?

 

2. If the goal is to use the secondary as a primary, would it work better to play a corruptor instead?

Dark Blast - that might be pretty neat, more for increasing personal survivability since allies will be pretty close to soft cap with shields.

 

FF as a primary does give very good shield numbers. But true that you might get ‘good enough’ with it as a secondary. In which case both Corruptor or Controller would be good (or MM if you like that AT).

FFs main weakness is lack of debuffs to increase killing speed, so the more you can mitigate that with the other set you choose, the better. 

[gameboy1234]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:56 PM, Peacemoon said:

The great thing about FF, in a paradoxical way, is it can perform its core role with so few power choices and so leaves you free to pick up so much from pools and secondary. It was difficult to recreate the build with Cold Dom as there was too much I couldn’t skip.

Also FF is very passive, so in addition to letting you pick up all these other cool powers, it gives you the space, in terms of time, to play as if your secondary was your primary.

This is the way Robotics/Force Field played for me.  Lots of "space" to command and micro manage the minions, lots of good pool powers to take.  Besides Leadership and Medicine (useful on robots and teammates, i.e., both kinds of minions), Recall Friend is a good utility power, which can also unstick a lost or stuck robot.

 

I can't say personally how well this works for a Defender, but everything you've said makes perfect sense to me and mirrors my own experience on a MM.  If the OP isn't dead set on playing a Defender and just wants FF, I'd at least consider playing an MM instead.

 

One word of warning though.  Bots/FF is great for leveling and most content up through 50.  After 50 though the game starts to move very vast.  Travel powers get used constantly, and folks are powerful enough to not constantly stay together for support.  Your primary meanwhile is connected to the AI of some rather slow minions.  It's hard for them to keep up physically with the group.  It's doable and I did it live, I think completing all incarnate level content at least once.  However be prepared for it not to be a cake walk, and in some cases the bots can't be controlled enough and have to be dismissed or risk failure.

 

[MTeague]

It's also working keeping your own personal playstyle / preferences in mind.

 

"FF isn't needed at endgame"

 

Well, maybe. But if you personally DO NOT PLAY a bunch of lvl 50 content, if you have lots more fun in the 20-44 range, and very often exemplar down to that range, you may still find an FF defender very valued and welcome on teams... particularly if you like to hang out in First Ward / Night Ward, etc.  Your own personal "endgame" need not be lvl 50 incarnate content, even if that is how the term is normally bandied about.

Edited July 17, 2020 by MTeague