Defender Recommendations

[DoctorDitko]

15 minutes ago, Psylenz0511 said:

Storm water is thematic, and it works well synergy wise

That seemed like sound reasoning to me, too, but I found Water kind of tepid compared to Ice. Whirlpool in particular is a wonderful power that seems to last half as long as it should. What do you advise I do if I drag my Storm/Water out of mothballs -- mainly trying to maximize fun?

 

[Psylenz0511]

1 minute ago, DoctorDitko said:

That seemed like sound reasoning to me, too, but I found Water kind of tepid compared to Ice. Whirlpool in particular is a wonderful power that seems to last half as long as it should. What do you advise I do if I drag my Storm/Water out of mothballs -- mainly trying to maximize fun?

 

I put forcefeedback -recharge procs in Water Burst ( and gale and lightning storm) and I put -resist procs in whirlpool and steam spray. I have everything on high recharge to bring back water burst and geyser asap along with lightning storms and tornadoes, It gets very active.

 

I was reading some misinformed folks thinks you can only cast water burst or geyser while on the ground; it's not true. I also have superspeed with steamy mist for speeding up boss or glowie missions in stealth. Steam spray is kind of disadvantageous to have to keep jumping from hurricane range to cone range but its worth the AoE dmg and debuff. Gale with the KB>KD proc can be used whenever to knock foes off their feets, its effectively as good as a short hold.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am aware that the freezing rain > ice storm > blizzard combo cleans up whole spawns nicely. Ice lacks the -recharge proc in the secondary.

 

[DoctorDitko]

Thanks, I'll give it a try!

[Sir Myshkin]

18 hours ago, StriderIV said:

I think I remember seeing this in the Tank God threads when it devolved into the ITF thread! 😂

 

This is pretty insane! Storm looks like a lot of fun. I was thinking of either Water or Dark Blast. Would you recommend one over the other?

I would recommend Water over Dark just because it functions similar to how Energy does with Knockdown. It is super crazy and a lot of fun!

[Ankhammon]

1 hour ago, StriderIV said:

The Defender I started was Time/DP, mostly for thematic reasons. This thread has been SUPER help though, so I'm looking forward to running a Storm/ and a TA/ Defender in the future!

Time Cops are fun.

 

Just look at all the responses and realize your world will change forever. You are one of us now!

 

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

 

oh wait, were the good guys.

[PeregrineFalcon]

59 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

I would recommend Water over Dark just because it functions similar to how Energy does with Knockdown. It is super crazy and a lot of fun!

I rerolled my Empathy/Energy Defender from live servers as Empathy/Water on Homecoming. I'm still glad I did. It works better for that character and it's a ton of fun.

[StriderIV]

2 hours ago, Ankhammon said:

Time Cops are fun.

 

Just look at all the responses and realize your world will change forever. You are one of us now!

 

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

 

oh wait, were the good guys.

Haha 😂 honestly so true, Time/DP seems to be a very popular combo!!! Rightfully so, it seems.

 

I’m hoping to level 2 Defenders up just so I can compare play styles. Torn between TA/Archery and Storm/Water for my second one. Probably leaning a little more towards Storm/Water.

[Ankhammon]

13 hours ago, StriderIV said:

Haha 😂 honestly so true, Time/DP seems to be a very popular combo!!! Rightfully so, it seems.

 

I’m hoping to level 2 Defenders up just so I can compare play styles. Torn between TA/Archery and Storm/Water for my second one. Probably leaning a little more towards Storm/Water.

Storm/Water will give a nice contrast on what Time/DP will offer. 

 

I would say that Storm actually carries a bit of a learning curve so be ready for that. 

The good news is that you can tell your enemies that "We all FLOAT!!!!". 

 

Pennywise the Storm/Water defender... I like it. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ankhammon

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Storm is a fun set to play. There is a key caveat, though, which is teammates will tend to appreciate if you put knockback-knockdown IOs into key powers (gale if you use it, tornado, and potentially even lightning storm). Both nado and lightning storm do noticeably more damage once they have a version of this IO in them (LS stops knocking things out of range, so it does more damage, and nado keeps right on grinding away at things more consistently). 

 

Sudden acceleration has a cheaper version of this IO, about 2 million each, and the overwhelming force (universal damage set) also has one (more expensive, about 10 million inf). 

 

There are multiple good storm builds on the forums that you can check out. Good luck!

[DoctorDitko]

Excellent advice! In my experience, you can skip (or hold off on) the KB->KD enh in Lightning Storm if you Combat Jump up in the air as you fire it off. Your targets get mostly knocked down vs. back, and it leaves a slot free for moar damage or recharge!

 

PS: I've experimented with adding a bit of Range in LS, but I suspect it only applies to how far away you can cast it.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by DoctorDitko
PS

[Doomguide2005]

On 5/27/2021 at 9:57 PM, DoctorDitko said:

Excellent advice! In my experience, you can skip (or hold off on) the KB->KD enh in Lightning Storm if you Combat Jump up in the air as you fire it off. Your targets get mostly knocked down vs. back, and it leaves a slot free for moar damage or recharge!

 

PS: I've experimented with adding a bit of Range in LS, but I suspect it only applies to how far away you can cast it.

 

 

    Not so sure.  CoD lists the summon range as 0.0 ft, while listing the lightning bolts it uses as 100 ft.  You would think adding range enhancement would make the CJ technique unnecessary (you could just cast it directly over the mob) if in fact it was enhancing the summoning range.  The trick would be to get the storm to aggro onto a target more than 100 ft away.

 

Edit:  to test it that is by getting LS to aggro and fire on something over 100 ft away

Edited June 3, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Clarity, lunch ending made for a quick but not so clear post

[Scientist]

On 5/17/2021 at 8:05 PM, StriderIV said:

This is extremely helpful Ank, thank you so much! Only issue now is, you've made me want to do a couple defenders 😂 I think Time/DP might be a cool combo. I've looked at Trick Arrow/DP, but I'm wondering if the redraw between the 2 sets would drive me nuts haha.

Just a warning, compared to tankers and scrappers, different defender primaries play VERY differently in practice.  Playing a Rad defender versus a Kin defender versus a Traps defender is more like changing from a tanker to a blaster, IMHO, very different play styles.  You may find you need to have a lot of alts to really check this out, I've got 2 tanks, 1 stalker, 0 scrappers, and 4 defenders, with another 9 chars which use the defender powers as secondaries.  I hope you have enough character slots left. . . 🙂