Defender or corruptor?

[bigmarty]

Greetings, I have a concept for a mad doctor/scientist using radiation/beam rifle. I can’t make up my mind on whether to make it a defender or corruptor. Would scourge work well with beam rifle or should I just stick with defender for the better debuff/buff values?

[lightpunch]

This happens to be my current project as well. I don't have hard numbers for you atm on scourge for beam rifle, but I'll say I haven't found the buffs/debuffs to be lacking as I'm leveling her, and I appreciate the damage she can do. At high levels/end-game, maybe I'd appreciate the advantages of a defender more, but I'm enjoying the experience of leveling a beam/rad corr more than I did my poison/beam defender.

[TygerDarkstorm]

2 hours ago, bigmarty said:

Greetings, I have a concept for a mad doctor/scientist using radiation/beam rifle. I can’t make up my mind on whether to make it a defender or corruptor. Would scourge work well with beam rifle or should I just stick with defender for the better debuff/buff values?

It really depends on what you want to do with the toon. Both AT's are good for this combo (Scourge + Disentegrate can be fun). If you want to be something of a hard-target debuff specialist, then I would lean towards a defender (Beam brings some decent single target -res). For soloing/casual play, I'd personally probably roll it as a corruptor (I'd want my attacks first and that Scourge/Disentegrate combo), but you could make it work with a defender too.

 

Just gotta figure out which powers you want first; your beam powers or your rad powers. And if you plan to team, take your debuff toggles because they're awesome, but don't expect to use them much in regular play. They're most handy for if your team encounters a hard target that can't be nuked down quickly.

 

Edit: Also, you may want to think about whether or not you want to take Choking Cloud; Beam can play in melee, but it tends to be more comfortable ranged. If you choose to take it I would learn to get comfortable jousting or skip both of the cone attacks in Beam (imo, the second one is skippable anyway since it's an extremely small cone and takes forever to get it to line up proper so it'll hit more than one target).

Edited August 29, 2022 by TygerDarkstorm

[Psyonico]

Defender... Alway defender 😛

[bigmarty]

1 hour ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

It really depends on what you want to do with the toon. Both AT's are good for this combo (Scourge + Disentegrate can be fun). If you want to be something of a hard-target debuff specialist, then I would lean towards a defender (Beam brings some decent single target -res). For soloing/casual play, I'd personally probably roll it as a corruptor (I'd want my attacks first and that Scourge/Disentegrate combo), but you could make it work with a defender too.

 

Just gotta figure out which powers you want first; your beam powers or your rad powers. And if you plan to team, take your debuff toggles because they're awesome, but don't expect to use them much in regular play. They're most handy for if your team encounters a hard target that can't be nuked down quickly.

 

Edit: Also, you may want to think about whether or not you want to take Choking Cloud; Beam can play in melee, but it tends to be more comfortable ranged. If you choose to take it I would learn to get comfortable jousting or skip both of the cone attacks in Beam (imo, the second one is skippable anyway since it's an extremely small cone and takes forever to get it to line up proper so it'll hit more than one target).

Which do you think exempts better? I do plan on running a lot of TF’s with this character.

[TygerDarkstorm]

3 hours ago, bigmarty said:

Which do you think exempts better? I do plan on running a lot of TF’s with this character.

Eek, I'm not sure I have a good opinion for that. I still think the same questions in my initial post might apply--do you want to keep more of your attacks, or more of your support?

[paco6381]

I would say that Corruptor would exemplar better because the best Rad powers come in the first 4 picks with Lingering Radiation at 20.

[Meknomancer]

Beam/rad corr has been my goto gm killer when any alt on the other account can't put out sufficient dps or -regen. Ended up with 2 of them. I'll always say corr over fender regardless of buff/debuffs simply because of corrs ability to scourge. 

[Frozen Burn]

It depends on what you want to do....  If you want to solo or kill AVs/EBs quickly.... then Corr.  If you want to team mostly, then Defender.  If you exemp a lot for TFs, then Defender - you'll get more of your Rad abilities early on for the AVs. 

[Pyriold]

defender gives +30% damage while solo, so a solo defender usually does damage on par with a corruptor (+- a bit, but the difference isnt huge). In a team a corruptor will do a lot more damage than the defender... and a blaster would do much much more even. But solo, damage is surprisingly similar.

[Voltak]

15 hours ago, Pyriold said:

defender gives +30% damage while solo, so a solo defender usually does damage on par with a corruptor (+- a bit, but the difference isnt huge). In a team a corruptor will do a lot more damage than the defender... and a blaster would do much much more even. But solo, damage is surprisingly similar.

Not true, in fact far far from the truth when we talk about a kinetics soloing. 
A kinetic corruptor will smoke the Defender. 

This is also not true when it comes to comparing damage with rains or with any other blast power that checks scourge at every tick. 
A corruptor short circuit will scourge at every tick if it checks right. 
The rains, if check, will dramatically increase the dmg as well. 

 

[Voltak]

On 8/29/2022 at 6:23 PM, bigmarty said:

Which do you think exempts better? I do plan on running a lot of TF’s with this character.

Defenders exempt better if we talk about important primaries or important powers in those primaries. 
Defenders are also tankier, they are defensively better, the number modifiers for armors, leadership and so on, better. 
 

[Troo]

On 8/29/2022 at 1:31 PM, Psyonico said:

Defender... Alway defender 😛

 

I am the opposite. 100%

[MoonSheep]

defender 100%. when the best is on offer, why choose anything else? don’t settle for mediocre halfway house ATs 😄

[Doomguide2005]

On 8/31/2022 at 11:11 PM, Troo said:

 

I am the opposite. 100%

I'm in the I've got 1000 slots and altitis so I'd make both and have fun either way.  Probably the only time I'd worry is exemping low I'd favor a Defender, while teaming with either a Kinetics or on a Kin I'd favor a Corruptor cause damage cap and who doesn't love big orange numbers.  And probably only 'worry' on something other than a PuG.

[kelika2]

Corr, more damage will always win in the end for either grouping or soloing

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

Corr, more damage will always win in the end for either grouping or soloing

So ... Fire/Kin always 🙄

[roleki]

Maybe it's different with Beam/Rad, but I've a Beam/TA Corruptor and it usually kills things too fast for there to be much Scourging going on.  On the one hand, great, but on the other hand, I feel like I'm getting cheated out of something.

[kelika2]

17 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

So ... Fire/Kin always 🙄

sure, but just in general.  the 25% difference in support powers isnt enough to justify going defender for me these days.  i wont stop the world when siphon power is supplying 20% dmg and not 25%

[MistressOhm]

With a Defender, you benefit the team.  You're their force-multiplier.   Yes you get some benefit from the team, besides more firepower - some powersets turn Godlike when you've a big spawn and a big team.  But the primary may have a lot of powers that you can't directly use, so a soloist Defender is a bit ... gimped. 

 

With a Corruptor, the team benefits you.  They are your force multiplier.  Everything in your secondary toolkit can be used solo (except for Speed Boost), but having teammates makes those tools work better.  Also, getting things to half health (where Scourge kicks in) is a lot easier with a bunch of helpers.