Time / Plant ?

[Riverdancer]

I am curious if anyone has played time or plant (I cant remember if it's called plant, and I am not in game at the moment so I cant check), and if you like it?

 

Are they as good as the other defender types?

 

If I've seen in game correctly, it seems plant has an aoe healing dot, which reminds me of Druids in WoW, and I am intrigued.

 

Interested to see if anyone has played and loves it. What are their strong suits? What are they bad at?

 

-R

[KinTrollR]

Defenders don't get Plant Powerset. Only Controllers and Dominators get Plant. Plant is an amazing powerset. Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders and Masterminds can use Time Manipulation. Plant/Time controller is a great build. Anything Time will be strong!

[Charistoph]

Ummm, there is a Plant Affinity Primary for Defenders that's also a Secondary for MM and Corruptors.  It looks interesting, and I'm just debating on which set to use with it.  It starts with a cone poison and a PBAoE heal, and runs through a few buffs, debuffs, and heals with a heal/rez.  It's probably part of the unreleased or released-at-the-last-moment sets.

[KinTrollR]

Can't have a plant/time as op was asking. You can have /time or /nature affinity but not both. Sorry if I was a little vague.

[Arashi]

I am assuming you are only asking about the Defender primaries of Time Manipulation and Nature Affinity and are asking about the two in comparison.

 

If so I can side in on Time/ as my Time/Rad was hell on wheels by 50. Granted I also was making a direct effort to gold plate her. Got pretty close too by Sunset. Perma-Hasted and kissing the soft cap for positional Defense all on her lonesome, which since she had a dedicated Elec/elec brute running partner wasn't a concern and allowed her to keep both toons running high.

 

As for Nature, there I'm more limited as my experience with that set is only on the MM side and didn't get into the 30s. While I can say it's a solid support set, I didn't have the chance to really see what I could do with it aside from theory-crafting/playing with Mid's.

[Burnt Toast]

I do not have much experience with Nature Affinity. To me it is a combo of Empathy/Radiation with their debuffs/buffs/heals.

Time on the other hand I have a lot of experience and love for the set. I find the heal/debuffs/buffs to all be impressive. If you wanted more damage I would say Time/Fire...if you are looking for a mixture of damage and debuff you could do Time/Dark, Time/Sonic, or Time/Radiation.

[Riverdancer]

Can't have a plant/time as op was asking. You can have /time or /nature affinity but not both. Sorry if I was a little vague.

 

I believe I asked if any one has played plant OR time.

I wanted info on both. Sorry if that was confusing.

 

-R

[Riverdancer]

I am assuming you are only asking about the Defender primaries of Time Manipulation and Nature Affinity and are asking about the two in comparison.

 

This is exactly what I was asking! Thanks for the great info on Time! Much appreciated!

 

-R

[Trickshooter]

It's been a long time since I played either set, but I believe the consensus was that Time was ridiculously good, well-rounded with varied and strong debuffs and buffs. Nature is a little less varied, but with several sources of healing, it's a very sturdy set. And for a set with so many heals, it's nice that Nature only features one power that can't be used on yourself (same with Time, but Time features a wide range of buffs and debuffs, so it's less surprising).

 

If you wanted to directly compare one to the other to know which was better, I'd say Time wins, just because of the larger range of what it can offer. If healing isn't helping enough (or worse, isn't even all that necessary), Nature is limited. Whereas in Time, nearly every power offers something different.

[Riverdancer]

It's been a long time since I played either set, but I believe the consensus was that Time was ridiculously good, well-rounded with varied and strong debuffs and buffs. Nature is a little less varied, but with several sources of healing, it's a very sturdy set. And for a set with so many heals, it's nice that Nature only features one power that can't be used on yourself (same with Time, but Time features a wide range of buffs and debuffs, so it's less surprising).

 

If you wanted to directly compare one to the other to know which was better, I'd say Time wins, just because of the larger range of what it can offer. If healing isn't helping enough (or worse, isn't even all that necessary), Nature is limited. Whereas in Time, nearly every power offers something different.

 

Sounds like Dark - ridiculously useful and varied!

Thanks Trick!

-R

[Erydanus]

I'm currently playing a mastermind with Nature Affinity and HOO BOY this is a good set. It is heal focused but it's interestingly done.

 

I rolled a defender as well because I just can't wait to see these powers when used by a defender will do. It's just all about slapping regen buffs and hots on top of themselves, and even has a move that puts an absob shield on the party. There's also a mechanic where stacks of "Bloom" come from this set and each one raises healing received by 4%, you can stack up to 5 of them which means the set comes with a built in 20% bonus healing received buff.

 

Frankly, it plays a lot like White Mage from FFXIV. And apparently, according to my friend who plays ESO, it also looks and feels a lot like one of THEIR power sets with the forest-y healing theme.

 

Level 1 Corrosive Enzyme. Single target -damage - resist debuff.

or Regrowth. Cone-shaped heal AoE with a heal DOT as well as a direct heal; affects caster; spammable.

 

Level 2 Wild Growth. PBAOE shield buff that grants resist to all and regen rate buff.

 

Level 4 Spore Cloud. Your basic anchored debuff aoe; this one's -dmg, -to hit, -regen. Very similar to Darkest Night but trades about 10 points of the damage reduction debuf for 150% -regen. Bonus: hilarity will ensue when a giant mushroom grows on the head of the giant monster you use this on.

 

Level 8 Lifegiving Spores. It's a +HoT, +Regen, +Recovery beacon. It's GOOD.

 

Level 12 Wild Bastion. It's a pbaoe damage absorbption shield buff with a +Hot. Very strong.

 

Level 18 Rebirth. It's your rez power ... that can also be used proactively as a strong single target heal.

 

Level 26 Entangling Aura. Looks like a reskin of Radiation's Choking Cloud to me. Your mileage will vary.

 

Level 32 Overgrowth. It's your buff the team like whoa move. How does +82.5% damage, 12.5% tohit buff, and an endurance discount equal to a half strength Defender Conserve Power sound? It lasts for a minute and recharges in 4 1/2.

 

So there you have it. It's not a toolbox for every use (I'm disappointed there's no "Nature's Clarity" power to remove mez; having some of that in Lifegiving Spores or Wild Bastion would have been amazing) but it's solid as a heal/regen focused set with some atypical damage mitigation tools.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I had a Time/Electric Defender back in the days. Time was an incredibly good set. Like Traps it leaned towards the Tankfender end of the spectrum preferring to jump into the middle of groups of enemies to maximize debuffs and having the survivability to live while doing so. In general it only had two weaknesses, the first was that unlike Traps it doesn't have self mez-protection so you need to be careful around enemies with a lot of stuns (and carry breakfrees) and secondly while it has some -regen it doesn't have enough to stop the regen of AVs so it's not quite as good there.

 

Overall though it's an excellent set up there with Traps, Dark and Rad.

 

One thing to consider when picking a secondary is that Time likes to be in close so blast sets that rely on cones or knockback (such as Assault Rifle, Energy Blast or Sonic Blast) have poor synergy with it and will be harder to use. Conversely sets that have a strong PBAoE (such as Radiation Blast, Electrical Blast or Dual Pistols) will be more effective.

[Greenbone]

... my Time/Rad was hell on wheels by 50. Granted I also was making a direct effort to gold plate her. Got pretty close too by Sunset. Perma-Hasted and kissing the soft cap for positional Defense all on her lonesome...

 

Good to hear Arashi! Just created a Time /Rad named "Reaction" over lunch (on Excelsior) because it looks like it plays differently than the Defender combos I don't like.

 

Most notably, more PBAOE buffs, so I'm not constantly expected to provide individual buffs to every team member. Plus, Rad blast has always been a beast when I played it in the past (though I know a Defender's blasts are significantly weaker). I'd love to hear more about your experience and tips for playing this unique combo. If this post isn't the right venue, feel free to PM me.

 

Appreciate it.

[Ankhammon]

I had to raise this post from the grave because it looks like there wasn't a lot of  response from people who have Defendered both.

 

I see lots of good info on Time from everyone and I'll just add that it's very good and will leave you feeling very strong, almost Tankerish.

The only big downsides are you are looking for strong extra damage from outside sources (other than the -res bubble of deth). It also can present some end issue believe it or not. Time with a fast attack chain is a constant battle to keep the endurance flowing (how I felt with my Time/Ice)

Note: the procs you can add in to Time's Juncture will have mobs flocking to you. Let these be some of the last IOs you slot, but they do their job very nicely.

I Highly suggest Soul Mastery for the epic for Time, cuz of all the wonderful bonuses to almost all of your stuff. Makes good go to ridiculous.

 

On to Nat. Aff. What Erydanus was saying is all correct and good info but I played a Naff/DP toward the end of the game and it was possibly my favorite of all time.

One of the ways I like it better than Time is due to the synergy with IOs (we can always build up defenses, but resist is hard). With that combo, I was able to solo AV level Manticore in the early 30s (for those who know that's prior to the best single target damage chain from DP.

The resist is about scrapper level (23ish%) and your Regen rates when adding life-giving spores. and surprisingly good amount of end popping off too.

Entangle Aura is a very useful power as it combines with a hold proc. (forgot name) to provide lots of damage mit in melee range.

Then there's the love of my life Overgrowth. Not only does it do lots of +damage and tohit, but the end discount is an unknown beauty. It allows you to do some stuff that Time can't do which is keep the damage coming. That battle lasted like half an hour and I never used anything other than BFs and two purples at the beginning of the fight.

 

Overall, Naff is a trickier set to make into a grade A Offender, but the end result should be very pretty... and Strong! Mine only made it to about 35ish, but I'm redoing it now.

[ParaBruce]

Thanks, Ankhammon, that's genuinely helpful.

 

[kelly Rocket]

I've run both sets fairly extensively. I don't have a Nature/ Defender, but I have a /Nature Controller, and a /Nature MM.

 

Time is better than Nature. Now wait, before the pitchforks and torches, I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just saying, Time is top tier, and Nature is not. But Nature is still a great set, mid-high tier, and the playstyle is different, so if it suits you better, go for it! You aren't going to regret picking either of these sets unless it turns out to just not be suited to your playstyle. Power-wise, neither will let you down.

 

Character optimization people get hung up on what's best and what's not best, but at the end of the day either of these will serve you well enough to be viable in end game (IMO).

 

That said, if you're looking to be the most minmax munchkin possible, Time is better.

 

Now, on to the comparison!

 

Time is a very strong buff/debuff set, that competes with Dark for the title of "Just plain best overall support set in the game", IMO. It gives up some -ToHit compared to Dark, but in return instead of a fiddly mob targeted anchor debuff, you get your -ToHit and -Damage on a PBAoE toggle, which is far easier to micromanage the position of, obviously. And then you get -recharge. You get SO MUCH -recharge. Time can easily reliably floor the recharge on nearly everything you will ever fight in the game. This equates to less damage incoming, but also any big buffs, debuffs, heals, and other inconvenient things the enemy may have, are used far less often. FOUR TIMES less often. And then you get a very substantial team +ToHit and +Defense buff, an AoE -Defense and -Resist debuff, and Chrono Shift, one of the VERY BEST team buffs in the whole game, which delivers a big heal and HoT, recovery boost, immediate 15% endurance recovery, and FIFTY PERCENT +recharge buffs to everyone in a 25 foot radius, and it includes you. It costs 20.8 endurance to cast, but when you get it enhanced that will drop down to around 11, which means this power is not only free, but gives you endurance when you cast it.

 

And on top of all that, you are also a mini-Controller with a single target Hold and an inherent chance to hold proc in your ludicrously good, stackable location-targeted Slow and -Recharge field.

 

I refer to Time toons as Nope Dealers. Because you create a Zone of Nope, within which enemies are neutered, helpless kittens. And on top of that you buff the team amazingly.

 

Oh and you also have the widest radius heal in the game, which happens to also be HoT, so it's not super timing sensitive.

 

It does everything short of making  snacks for you while you play.

 

 

 

Nature is a different beast. I like to describe it as being a healer set for people who hate Empathy and Pain. I don't mean to rag on Empathy too much, I had an Empath on live who was one of my most played characters, but... Well, it's...

 

OK, the appeal of being a healer is that it's active, and the things you're doing generally have immediate, visible impact on the team's survival. You get instant feedback from the health bars, and you have to be watching them constantly, applying heals where they're needed. Empathy and Pain have that, and so does Nature. But Empathy and Pain fall down on the job compared to other sets when it comes to actually reducing incoming damage. Yes, Fort is great, and Adrenaline Boost is an amazing buff. But they're individually targeted. You're going to be picking a few people and basically following a set rotation of applying them every time they come off recharge, and that's... not really super fun. In the same way Force Field used to be not so fun, just refreshing 16 individual buffs every minute or so.

 

And you're still only mitigating damage for a small minority of the group.

 

Nature on the other hand has quite good mitigation in Spore Cloud (Though we could wish it had a wider radius). -ToHit, -Dmg, and -Regen. Not bad, decent numbers in each of those effects. Nothing that's going to challenge Dark or Rad, but it's noticeable mitigation. And you have your single target -res, -dmg as well, which helps further reduce damage from individual scary targets, while also making them die faster, so there's that.

 

Regrowth is a HUGE cone, a strong heal with HoT. There's little to dislike here. It also targets yourself. And of course applies Bloom so your heals get stronger the more you spam them.

 

Wild Growth is another component of your mitigation. It grants 11.25% Resist(All), and a minor regen boost, and two stacks of Bloom, so it's really quite good, when combined with the -ToHit and -Dmg of Spore Cloud. You can (And probably should) enhance the resist on it.

 

Spore Cloud is your anchor debuff as noted previously.

 

Lifegiving Spores. How much can I praise a power? It's a toggle Heal Over Time, you pick a spot and it creates a mushroom ring on the ground and any ally inside it is healed for a small but entirely noticeable amount (Almost 80hp, fully enhanced at level 50) every 4 seconds. This takes a lot of pressure off you, and is really way more incredible than it sounds. Also, what a lot of people don't realize, is that this power is literally free, as long as you're standing in it. It gives 1% endurance to anyone in it, every time it ticks, which is every 4 seconds, and the endurance cost is about 0.25 end per second. Unenhanced. Enhanced with even the smallest amount of EndRdx or EndMod (Or both!) it gives you endurance to run this toggle, as long as you stand in the area of effect. Fully enhanced with both EndRdx and EndMod, it gives you about 1.6 endurance net profit, every 4 seconds (And every teammate standing in it is getting a free 1.99 end every 4 seconds), which translates to a net profit of 0.4 end/second for you, and 0.497 end/second for any teammates in the effect area. You are literally providing a second copy of Stamina to everyone standing in the mushroom ring. On top of healing them. And gaining endurance yourself in the process.

 

There is so much win in this power.

 

Anyway, then you have Wild Bastion, which is a PBAoE emergency heal that also applies a nice 25% absorb shield which can be easily enhanced up to 50%. This power can and will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It won't full heal the entire team, but it'll heal close to 700hp and then give them an absorb shield equal to half their HP bar on top of that, to give you breathing room to heal the rest with Regrowth, and do whatever else you need to.

 

Rebirth is a no-downside Absorb Pain masquerading as a Resurrect. It's a massive Heal Over Time, if you land it before the target drops, and if you're a little slow it rezzes them with most of their health, all of their endurance, and still applies the huge HoT. Granted it doesn't have the "instantly back to full health" effect of Absorb Pain, but it also doesn't wreck you, or leave you unable to heal yourself, and there's no chance of casting it a split second too late and blowing the cooldown on it for no effect but to screw yourself. It's one of my favorite rez powers in the game, up there with Phoenix.

 

Entangling Aura is a PBAoE toggle hold. I mean, that speaks for itself. Yes, it's only going to hold minions and LTs without help. But you have a TOGGLE that holds every minion and lt. near you. This is amazing.

 

And finally Overgrowth. Overgrowth. My god. It's an awesome buff. It's maybe not as incredible as Time's Chrono Shift and it's +50% recharge. But it's still amazing. The endurance discount alone is huge. Throw in the damage buff and ToHit buff and 5 stacks of Bloom (20% Heal bonus to everyone affected by Overgrowth when you cast it, for 20 seconds), and it's just sexy. Did I mention it can be perma'd?

 

 

 

Ultimately, for me, the TL;DR is that Time is a little stronger overall, because it's Buff/Debuff centric and Nature is Heal centric, but both are great sets, and the choice comes down to what you want to play:

 

You play Time if you want to be a godlike Defender who can wade through melee like a Tanker and laugh as you nerf the foes into oblivion and turn your team into unstoppable buzzsaws of death, and also heal a little when necessary, all without having to expend much time and attention on the set (It's mostly long duration buffs and debuffs that only have to be recast at fairly long intervals), freeing you to use your blast set more.

 

You play Nature if you really want to be a healer, but you can't get past Empathy and Pain being so sub-par compared to Buff/Debuff sets, and you want a Support set that demands most of your time and attention, as opposed to Time's set-and-forget play.