Being the ultimate team player!

[iBot]

15 hours ago, purplereign said:

Yea if it weren't for all those gosh darn anchors. I mean, I know they made it better with anchor debuffs persisting through death, but It annoys me to no end when the anchor target just decides to run in a completely different direction for no reason and I lose my debuffs hahaha.

Kill faster 🤪

[Ironblade]

Most of my characters are designed to be as helpful as possible to a team.  Aside from powerset choices, I would like to mention the Leadership pool and Teleport Target (formerly Recall Friend).

 

All but two of my characters have Teleport Target.  People get lost.  Slow zoners may be just entering the zone when most of the team is already in the mission.  Someone died in a spot they can't rez.  Etc, etc.

 

And most (more than half, probably more like two thirds) of my characters take the Leadership pool.  Everyone hits more often, does more damage, gets hit less or all of the above while you don't even have to click a power.

[purplereign]

11 hours ago, Guffnat said:

 

That's funny. Your "the wall" post made me create that toon. I also play an Earth/Storm Controller that is kinda too much control and not enough support that's why I started this Ice/Elec Controller.

 

I will give you an update once I've reached higher levels and tougher content.

That was my eventual main on live! I started out, learning the game, as a DM/Regen scrapper (back when we had busted toggles haha) but then when I knew what I liked made a swap to Earth/Storm and ran that toon for ages. It was super, suuuuper good. 

Curious to hear how Ice/Elec goes. My only concern is no direct synergy that I can tell.

[purplereign]

8 hours ago, Metatheory said:

How about something like a sonic/ice def? You get debuffs, potentially the most useful one, plenty of CC in your blast set, one anchor but it's an ally power and easy to use and potentially useful throughout the game buffs. Worth a thought? I quite like playing mine. Very team oriented IMO.

Appreciate the idea! I have thought about Sonic defender a number of times, but I've heard it's just... not very good? I'm not super worried about playing something top tier, but maybe I'm wrong?

/ice certainly isn't bad on a Defender for me, I was working on a Nature/Ice for a hot minute. I loooove their ST chain and their AoEs are pretty straightforward to use.

Not sure if it's something I want to play right now because it falls short in a number of places, but it's a cool idea. You could even play around with some cool themes there.

[purplereign]

58 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Most of my characters are designed to be as helpful as possible to a team.  Aside from powerset choices, I would like to mention the Leadership pool and Teleport Target (formerly Recall Friend).

 

All but two of my characters have Teleport Target.  People get lost.  Slow zoners may be just entering the zone when most of the team is already in the mission.  Someone died in a spot they can't rez.  Etc, etc.

 

And most (more than half, probably more like two thirds) of my characters take the Leadership pool.  Everyone hits more often, does more damage, gets hit less or all of the above while you don't even have to click a power.

Great recommendations, and I abso-freakin-lutely plan to take Leadership. Regardless of what I play, I will dip my toes into that pool 100%. Teleport Target is an interesting one! My only issue is limited pools: Speed, Leadership, Fighting are required for me... and I usually fill that last one with Jumping for CJ as it's a great, cheap toggle that serves as a solid LoTG mule among other things. Shucks.

[oedipus_tex]

Picking the "ultimate" support set is hard, because this game is in transition, so I'd have to base any recommendations off my predictions of where it is likely to go and what will come next. 

 

Based on that parameter, the set that stands out to me right now (and which may be a bit surprising) is Thermal Radiation. Thermal's suite of powers fall into a zone where it would be extremely hard to invalidate them without large changes to the core game. It's not a set for everyone, and not even the best option for hammering down easy content (the game is flexible enough that there are many variations of "best," which is a good thing). For the kinds of content we've seen previewed so far--in particular content where the team is shut off from using inspirations--it's a fantastic choice.

 

It would take a long post to explain why I rate it so highly, but the nutshell is Thermal has a big debuff for AVs, resistance shields for exotic damage types that are difficult for most players to IO against, reliable heals for situations that call for it (more important when players can't heal with IOs), and +ToHit/-Defense for the increasing number of situations where enemies have above average Defense. If it has any weaknesses, the only thing I can think of is in some ways it's not the best option for content the team would have dominated anyway. That's fine in my mind it's a great set for very hard encounters.

 

The set Thermal is paired with isn't as critical, but some strong support options are Dark, Sonic, or Beam Rilfe on the Blast side, or Plant or Dark Control on the Control side. Alternatively you can go for pure damage hybrid with a primary like Fire Blast. You can even trigger Gaussian procs by casting Forge on teammates and follow that with a blast if you want to contribute to bringing down big targets.

Edited June 2, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Nemu]

On 6/1/2022 at 4:36 PM, purplereign said:

I really appreciate your breakdowns and descriptions. You are actually very in-tune with what I'm looking at. 

Ice, Dark, and Earth are the control specs I've been looking at most

and /TA and /Poison are the secondaries I've been looking at most... Largely for the reasons you've outlined. I have a TA defender at the moment, mid-20s that feels extremely good to play so far. I met an Earth/TA troller yesterday that gushed about their love for the powerset combo. Frankly, and don't roast me for this, that combination feels a tad... overkill? I know that's somewhat antithetical to what I'm looking for, but I guess what I'm trying to say is... there are TOO many control powers, that in 95% of situations, I simply wouldn't be able to get all of them off. Ice/Poison seems more manageable and interesting and I like the idea of playing in melee with that combo. 

Given this, what other combos would you consider (though I'm seriously on board with Ice/Poison)?

Earth/Poison?
Dark/Poison?
Earth/TA?
Ice/TA?

 

Dark/TA is a to-hit debuff master that plays well at range

Fire/TA has 2 blind/to-hit debuff and hotfeet lights oil slick, this is a more damage oriented combo that still has enough control and debuffs, as is Plant/TA

Grav/either TA or Poison has wormhole synergy

Mind/TA has synergy in entangling arrow giving mind control an immob to stop runners and setting up containment, same with Illusion/TA

 

I typically look at positional synergy. If a set has cones then I'll try to pair it with a set that doesn't have too many melee range or PBAOE powers. Targetted AoEs compliment both melee and ranged play.

 

Plant, Dark, and Mind control all have cones, and if you don't want to hop around the battlefield all the time then avoid pairing them with secondaries with PbAoE powers like Poison (assuming you don't take or use neurotoxic breath, which a lot of people skip). That's pretty much it. 

 

[Pyriold]

Plant/time controller shuts down multiple spawns with ease while buffing the whole team to def softcap (powered up farsight). Add +50% recharge for all and a very decent -res debuff and you got the ultimate support. Oh, you can heal as well, but wont need to very often.

 

My plant/time controller turns *any* team into an A-team.

[catsi563]

Dark Dark Dark Defender hits all the buttons youre asking fior

 

heavy debuffs some of the best in the game and some of the best debuff combos as well

solid damage while also debuffing

strong team utility with heals and defense

 

D4s cant beat them