If you had to choose 1 Defender to run all the TFs, what defender would you choose ??

[Voltak]

23 hours ago, Jitsurei said:

I think you’re confusing “need” with “have”. Needing 4 colds and having 4 colds are different.

That was his statement , not mine. 

He stated that you only "need 4 or 5 colds " if the team is bad. 

I am not confusing anything. 

[Voltak]

23 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

What Astralock said is correct. You are so focused on the narrow end of content that *you* like to play in, that you leave people like me feeling like we're useless and no good at the game.

 

Not everyone plays at that level of play. Yes, Cold Dom is a great set, let's leave it at that and stop derailing the thread with your hard mode narrative.

 

What you do is great, and wanting to help players is great, but understand your/their perspective. And belittling people in this thread isn't going to win you any points. We got it, you think Cold Dom is the best there is for what you do; it's time to move on.

 

In regards to the OP: I think others have covered many of the sets in here well enough that I wouldn't know what to chime in with, lol. Sometimes I like sets like Poison simply because you're helping the team in an almost invisible way to melt hard targets (i.e., it's noticeable how much faster they're going down). TA is a blast because it has a tool for pretty much any situation and almost plays like a blastroller (though I'm rather fond of it on my corruptor as a Fire/TA; even in the lower level ranges it's just tearing through everything). I mean, if you're just looking for mostly casual play through all the TF's, I'm not sure you can go wrong with any of them. If you're aiming more for hardmode stuff, then yeah, Voltak's going to have a lot more experience in that area.

 

A lot of this is based on the player behind the character as well. I love the idea of Myshkin's crazy Storm/Energy Defender, but I'm not sure I have the skills required to play it effectively. 

Bad teams needing 4 or 5 colds ... yeah, that's not correct.

I am not wanting nor hinting that people not doing extremely hard content are useless. 

I am very much aware that people love playing easier content.  I am aware that there are a wide variety of tastes in the game and in any game. 

I am not derailing anything. 

I am saying what I prefer and the reasons why. 

I said I would not pick a Rad because if all the TFs is what the OP is looking for, then the harder and much more deadly TFs the Cold defender (and electric affinity ) would be the  power sets I would pick for defender given how much they bring to the team in order to help the team do those in the most efficient way possible, speed and safety. 

You are free to choose what you want and play however you want. 

 

[Frosticus]

On 10/22/2022 at 9:12 AM, Voltak said:

I am not derailing anything. 

I mean you are because you are acting like this 20yr old non-competitive pve game is an e-sports event. The number of players that care about your specific style of play are less than have replied in this thread. That doesn't make it invalid, it just makes it extremely niche. 

 

My high end teaming days are on hold with a newborn, but I have to ask. Why is your ultra honed 4* ITF team not running /cold corruptors rather than cold defenders?

If the answer is, you are - then why are you deliberately misleading the OP into thinking a cold defender is ideal for the best of the best speed running 4* ITF team? Like he could just show up with his cold defender and join as a walk-on by broadcasting in zone or something?

 

If the answer is you aren't running /cold corrs then ask the person that is in charge of your strategy why not? your lore choices show you are seeking additional damage, /cold corrs give up a very small amount of team mitigation in favor of a huge damage bump. Which is what years of previous high end teams have already figured out.

 

I have  50's of ill/cold, fire/cold corr, and cold/fire def. I'd never join challenging content with them unless there was other support to keep me alive. Huge hybrid forcemultiplier, but alone just joining random TF's they pull aggro and die. Even my poison defender has more personal mitigation and will do better in an unorganized, poorly supported TF. Without knowing the OP's specifics your advice ranges from terrible to good and back to terrible again - because you actually meant /cold corruptor. 

 

Finally, based on our recent discussion about TA there is no chance you are your group's leader, so also ask them if they are already seeing the next "meta" forming. This content is going to get chewed up just like every "difficult" thing in the past if the player base deems it worth their time.

[Kalean]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:23 PM, TygerDarkstorm said:

You are so awesome Myshkin. I utterly love the idea of the chaos a Storm/Energy would cause just knocking everything around lol. I may have to actually get over my nerves at my lack of skill and just try it and play it and learn it lol.

Having taken Myshkin's 3.0 build to 50,  I agree with his following advice: 

 

Quote

Okay, but seriously, one of the biggest things is leveling with the build will help through missions and don't power level it so you can accumulate gradual play experience with each component as you go along and feel how they lock together and change as they stack on top of each other. Also buy all of the enhancements up front for anything that can be attuned. I know I personally tucked in a few boosted pieces, but most can just be attuned and level with the build which will help it grow and be easier to play as it goes along. Yes this is a lot of expense up front, but it makes it a much more comfortable curve.

 

I took it to 50 on an accelerated path, it took me... mmm... ten hours post 50? And some more advice from Myshkin before I started getting the hang of it.   Let me re-share that advice with you in case you missed it. 

 

Quote

There are some critters in the game that have an inherent AI that wigs out when confronted with certain metrics, wether it be a fear trigger, a weird issue with DoT, confuse, what have you. The worst cases seem to exist in ITF with the EBs and Rommy for sure having some odd experiences that drive them into track star runners. I notice that sometimes it is just a matter of not using a specific power once you get down to that last enemy and it’s just a matter of experimenting on which one is causing the mob AI to wig out. A lot of time Tornado seems to be the culprit to me because it can chase its target, but isn’t always the case.

 

Explosive Blast is a great tool for keeping groups down, and Freezing Rain will slow their ability to run. It’s easy to keep this going no matter where you’re at. For me my typical entrance into a spawn would be LS > EB > FR > Tornado or LS > Nuke

 

After a while the flow of the powers will come naturally and you’ll become less fearful about jumping erratically into spawns. Remember that the faster this thing plays the longer it spends at 300+% recharge. Fill in hand with snipes. Between Victory Rush and Conserve Power and all that recharge, the Snipe in this set gets used like a pud T1 just fired from the hip left and right.

 

Also, use your inspirations! Convert things to reds and burn them up. You’re there to bring damage, not “support” at that point. This build keeps the team alive by being ahead of the curve and causing so much controlled chaos that the enemies don’t have time to react, and by the time they can, they’re dead.

Basically, live on Lightning Storm and Freezing rain - and when you get Explosive Blast slotted, start living on that even moreso.

 

Sometimes you will die - I died twice during the Dark Astoria storylines, but for the most part, I ran through +3/+8 (+4 when I got the Alpha Incarnate to level shift) like a bunker buster.   The only slowdown was enemies running, which they ... ... they did a lot.   Flying enemies.  Ugh.  Flying Cowardly Bosses? The worst.

 

I basically started ignoring them when they ran and making sure that whenever they came back, they'd fly into two lightning storms and two tornadoes and a hail of snipes.

 

Myshkin is right, this is probably the most fun I've had on a defender.

[BurtHutt]

On 10/1/2022 at 12:45 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

Muwahaha … haha … ha

 

Storm/Energy Mad King v4.0 (Unreleased) Specialist build.

Myshmeister, I was looking at doing something like this but was thinking Storm/Psi. Thoughts? Ever try this combo?

[Sir Myshkin]

59 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

Myshmeister, I was looking at doing something like this but was thinking Storm/Psi. Thoughts? Ever try this combo?

 

There's absolutely no reason you can't play a Storm/Psi, but it wouldn't be a Mad King build. The key aspect of what drives those builds is leveraging the Force Feedback +Rech proc in as many avenues as possible, and Psychic Blast just doesn't have a reliable source for that like Energy and Water do. It can sort of be hacked with Dark Blast because of Torrent being a very fast cycling cone and just spamming that one attack a lot, but it's definitely not ideal.

 

The other secret about Energy Blast being a good trickster for this is that its KB components have relatively low chance percentages, and somewhat low KB values comparatively so if they go off they're not dramatically tossing that single critter, and the AoE is easy to neuter with an Overwhelming Force for +Dam and KD conversion. 

 

For Psychic, Telekinetic Force is a very high chance (60%), high KB 8 mag hit which means whatever it hits is going to FLY, making follow up hits harder.

[MistressOhm]

Storm/Elec can be built into an End Drain/To-Hit Debuff/Def Debuff/Slow/Knockdown tankfender machine.  The problem with it (aside from the weird chaos that is Storm Summoning) is that you need a bit of time for all the debuffs to take hold, so the build is susceptible to alpha strikes. 

 

Hitting things with the T9 (Thunderous Blast) as an opener would seem to be unwise, as it hits VERY HARD and can lay out an entire spawns worth of minions, but leave the lieuts and bosses still alive (and very pissed off).  But, it drains End almost to nil on all but EB's, so any return fire will likely be rather weak.   

 

So far the only real challenges I've seen have been other Stormies (the Halloween "Matriarch" EB, Cabal bosses, and the occasional Tsoo sorc that gets lucky with positioning).  BUT, there are a lot of mobs that have innate resistance to Repel, so Hurricane won't keep you completely melee-free.  For that, Lightning Storm works well as a deterrent because it has a Fear component, things tend to not wander too close to it.  Tornado is also good to keep things 'occupied' either with the knockup, the fear, or the Def debuff.  It really comes into play when you're up against primarily Ranged opponents, as anything that stays out of reach of Hurricane WILL still be able to hit you with a fair degree of accuracy.  For them, Tornado is a very effective means of distraction.  

[BurtHutt]

On 11/6/2022 at 10:40 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

 

There's absolutely no reason you can't play a Storm/Psi, but it wouldn't be a Mad King build. The key aspect of what drives those builds is leveraging the Force Feedback +Rech proc in as many avenues as possible, and Psychic Blast just doesn't have a reliable source for that like Energy and Water do. It can sort of be hacked with Dark Blast because of Torrent being a very fast cycling cone and just spamming that one attack a lot, but it's definitely not ideal.

 

The other secret about Energy Blast being a good trickster for this is that its KB components have relatively low chance percentages, and somewhat low KB values comparatively so if they go off they're not dramatically tossing that single critter, and the AoE is easy to neuter with an Overwhelming Force for +Dam and KD conversion. 

 

For Psychic, Telekinetic Force is a very high chance (60%), high KB 8 mag hit which means whatever it hits is going to FLY, making follow up hits harder.

Hey so do you have the Mad King v 4.0 build to post? I've been messing around with your earlier poster 3.0 and have really liked it (yes, I made some changes lol).

[ExeErdna]

Tactical Arrow / Archery

Especially if you're in a team you can keep up with a faster paced group and lockdown zones if needed.

[MoonSheep]

just giving a shout out for the all time greatest defender set - kinetics

 

i’ve ran only two alts for the last three years, one of them being a kin/sonic defender.

 

love it on any TF. SB in the low levels is a great meaningful buff, FS in  higher TFs always goes down well

 

kin pairs with anything. nobody cares what you’re doing with your secondary as long as you hand out the SB and FS

[MistressOhm]

16 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

just giving a shout out for the all time greatest TEAM defender set - kinetics

 

If you solo, Kinetics can be a bit of a slog.  If you're a team player, you're the one bringing the beer and pizza to EVERY party, even more so than Empathy or Force Fields.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Gonna toss this in here since I've not seen it mentioned yet: Pain/Dark.

 

This Def had a buttery smooth leveling arc that mostly did TFs in particular.  I shelved her at 50 with completed slotting.

 

Even without Incarnates she feels great to play.  Procd out Anguishing Cry into Blackstar is really something, and leaves anyone left standing a debuffed mess.

 

EDIT: Not a gamebreaking revelation or anything but I think the fact that you can slot Panacea into Soothing Aura and it has a chance to proc +HP and +End on affected allies is so freaking cool. Helps bring the utility of the power up a notch since you're providing passive End. I six-slotted and +5'd the whole set, and now it heals ~105hp every 4 seconds to allies in range, before procs. 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by twozerofoxtrot
Nerding out

[MoonSheep]

5 hours ago, MistressOhm said:

 

If you solo, Kinetics can be a bit of a slog.  If you're a team player, you're the one bringing the beer and pizza to EVERY party, even more so than Empathy or Force Fields.

 

good point on the solo front, not sure what i’d pick for a mighty all rounder then. maybe my kin/sonic in a moustache and tall hat?

[Darkir]

On 11/18/2022 at 11:48 AM, MoonSheep said:

good point on the solo front, not sure what i’d pick for a mighty all rounder then. maybe my kin/sonic in a moustache and tall hat?

 

My recommendation for an all around solo and TFs defender would be:

 

Cold/water - better on a corruptor, but so much easier soloing and exemplaring on a defender

 

Time/pistols - with time you can power boost+radial clarion incarnate+farsight your and your team's defense and +tohit into the stratosphere. You also get a good -resist power. A pistols build will give a lot of recharge/proc damage/mixture of both and is thematically fun.

 

Dark/fire - this is a tried and true powerhouse. With the dark miasma Tar Patch change the defender version is better and Tar patch+rain of fire is a thing of beauty. 

 

X/Sonic - sonic is very good on a defender, but I can't recommend it for this because it just doesn't solo well compared to the others. If I had to, I'd go nature/sonic I think for this.

 

Kin/X - no, be a corruptor and become a death god.

Edited November 19, 2022 by Darkir

[StriderIV]

12 hours ago, Darkir said:

 

My recommendation for an all around solo and TFs defender would be:

 

Cold/water - better on a corruptor, but so much easier soloing and exemplaring on a defender

 

Time/pistols - with time you can power boost+radial clarion incarnate+farsight your and your team's defense and +tohit into the stratosphere. You also get a good -resist power. A pistols build will give a lot of recharge/proc damage/mixture of both and is thematically fun.

 

Dark/fire - this is a tried and true powerhouse. With the dark miasma Tar Patch change the defender version is better and Tar patch+rain of fire is a thing of beauty. 

 

X/Sonic - sonic is very good on a defender, but I can't recommend it for this because it just doesn't solo well compared to the others. If I had to, I'd go nature/sonic I think for this.

 

Kin/X - no, be a corruptor and become a death god.

Thanks for sharing this Darkir. I modeled my Water/Cold Corruptor after your build!

 

Some questions on these:

 

For the Dark/Fire combo, why would you suggest that on a Defender over a Corruptor?

 

I’ve also looked at Kinetics, but on a Corruptor. What blast sets would you pair with it?

 

Time seems SO good on Defenders… and is just overall a cool set. Do you know how it holds up in the new HM content?

Edited November 20, 2022 by StriderIV

[Darkir]

59 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

For the Dark/Fire combo, why would you suggest that on a Defender over a Corruptor?

 

With the changes to tar patch on a corruptor vs a defender the combo works a bit better on the defender because you get more slots after reaching softcapped def that you can use to focus on procs and recharge. Scourging rain of fire is always fun though.

 

59 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

I’ve also looked at Kinetics, but on a Corruptor. What blast sets would you pair with it?

 

On a corruptor, I really don't think there is a better pairing than fire/kin. My Fire/Kin corruptor is hands down my favorite character. Walk up to a mob fulcrum shift--->inferno is death god level destruction. Almost all of fire blasts damage is frontloaded and that is very important on a kin. Electrical and water blasts pairings are tied for second I would say and then either radiation blast or pistols coming next. 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Darkir

[Darkir]

59 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

Time seems SO good on Defenders… and is just overall a cool set. Do you know how it holds up in the new HM content?

 

I just started playing again a few days ago, I have not tried the new HM content. I am working on my ice/savage/psionic dominator first to get a really tight build for him first and that is the first character I will try the HM content with I think (or I'll get impatient beforehand and just use my kintank ^_^). I'd imagine time works very well on the HM content for the reasons I mentioned in the post here.

[StriderIV]

34 minutes ago, Darkir said:

 

With the changes to tar patch on a corruptor vs a defender the combo works a bit better on the defender because you get more slots after reaching softcapped def that you can use to focus on procs and recharge. Scourging rain of fire is always fun though.

 

 

On a corruptor, I really don't think there is a better pairing than fire/kin. My Fire/Kin corruptor is hands down my favorite character. Walk up to a mob fulcrum shift--->inferno is death god level destruction. Almost all of fire blasts damage is frontloaded and that is very important on a kin. Electrical and water blasts pairings are tied for second I would say and then either radiation blast or pistols coming next. 

 

 

Thanks for this! I’m thinking of trying to run a Fire/Kin or Elec/Kin. I hear Kin is super clicky. What are your thoughts on it?

[StriderIV]

21 minutes ago, Darkir said:

 

I just started playing again a few days ago, I have not tried the new HM content. I am working on my ice/savage/psionic dominator first to get a really tight build for him first and that is the first character I will try the HM content with I think (or I'll get impatient beforehand and just use my kintank ^_^). I'd imagine time works very well on the HM content for the reasons I mentioned in the post here.

Nice! That sounds like a sweet combo on a Dom. Time just seems like it does a lot, but I wasn’t sure if it’d handle the best on the top content since it is kind of a Jack of all trades, master of none. Power boosted defense seems awesome though.

 

I have a Time/DP and a Time/Rad Blast I’ve been messing with. Not sure which to IO out.

[BitCook]

I have a Time/Rad that's very good.  They can do just about anything.  High Defenses?  Check.  High Damage?  Check.  Can solo AVs before incarnates?  Check.  Make teams really durable?  Check.

It's one of my favorite characters.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 11/20/2022 at 2:15 AM, Darkir said:

X/Sonic - sonic is very good on a defender, but I can't recommend it for this because it just doesn't solo well compared to the others.

 

This hits a lot harder since the Sonic rework, and still stacks -Res debuffs (albeit differently). Cold/Sonic feels great to solo with. I'd say it's competitive with Cold/Water now, though it's not a 1-1 comparison. 

 

21 hours ago, StriderIV said:

Not sure which to IO out.

 

Check out Linea's Time/DP which they either posted in the front of this thread or um

 

Well somewhere else in this forum. Shouldn't be hard to find.

[StriderIV]

2 hours ago, BitCook said:

I have a Time/Rad that's very good.  They can do just about anything.  High Defenses?  Check.  High Damage?  Check.  Can solo AVs before incarnates?  Check.  Make teams really durable?  Check.

It's one of my favorite characters.

I’m a Scrapper/Tanker player at heart. Time/Rad seems like a real “in your face” Defender haha. Might suit me well.

[Darkir]

1 hour ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

This hits a lot harder since the Sonic rework, and still stacks -Res debuffs (albeit differently). Cold/Sonic feels great to solo with. I'd say it's competitive with Cold/Water now, though it's not a 1-1 comparison. 

 

The problem with cold/sonic for solo is that it lacks a way to heal yourself. So when you are running solo missions at +4x8 with bosses and you take damage (and YOU WILL take damage) you have no good way to recover. 

 

Compare this to water and you get a decent way to heal yourself that is part of your attack rotation anyway with dehydrate. You can also slot it for better heals or damage via procs as you wish, including a -res proc.

 

Water also has some very light mitigation with two knockdowns that you can also use for FF recharge procs. Shockwave doesn't work as well in sonic.

 

Yes, sonic is better soloing after the change, but it's not as good at soloing as water. 

 

If I had to have only one defender to bring to every TF, I would definitely choose cold/water over cold/sonic. There will be times that I find myself alone in a pack of mobs and when that happens I want to be able to live and heal myself.

 

I know that soloing at +4x8 with bosses+elite bosses is a ridiculous standard for a build that 95% of the player base dont care about, but being able to solo cimorrea missions like this is what I want out of any of my toons. Even at +2 or +3 x8 you are still going to have situations where you want to heal in order to comfortably continue and I appreciate having a heal at those times.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Darkir

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, Darkir said:

The problem with cold/sonic for solo is that it lacks a way to heal yourself.

 

Like I said, it's not a 1-1 comparison. 

 

But I find that Call of the Sandman in Sirens fits the bill pretty well. 

[BitCook]

2 hours ago, StriderIV said:

I’m a Scrapper/Tanker player at heart. Time/Rad seems like a real “in your face” Defender haha. Might suit me well.

It is.  We just ran a +4 Lady Grey and I had to laugh as one of the teammates said, "this is the first time I've ever seen a Defender Tank before"

 

You can drive into a pile of 54s with fairly little issue.  Release a bunch of AOE hell for the mobs and move on to the next.  The AT set is pretty flexible in that you can customize for very good ST or AOE (with decent ST).  The AOE build has a nearly seemless AOE rotation.

 

It works for me, I get the appeal of cold, but Time is just so good since it does a lot of things well.