A Stupid Question: Crupper vs Fender?

[Scarlet Shocker]

Or is it such a stupid question?

 

I've played both and regular readers might notice that I've experimented with a couple of different defenders recently - but I've also played a few corruptors but rarely to high level and rarely in real depth.

 

It seems to me that they share a lot of stuff in common - the same sets, just switched; the primary is dependent on the AT but not so much is different beyond that (so far as I can tell.)

 

Until you get to Vigilance and Scourge - both of which are mechanics I don't know well enough to say too much about but if I have to make a judgment, Defenders work better in teams and Corruptors work better solo. But I'm really not certain about the truth of that statement.

 

Is there a significant difference between the damage their powers do? If we take two characters, same power sets... Thermal/Dark or Dark/Thermal - same powers, same slots, same enhancements in said slots - what are the defining differences between the two? (Same pool and APP/PPP powers too.) For the purposes of this idea we'll assume both arrive in Atlas Park on the same day, and run the same missions on the same team. So maybe shoot to lvl 10 with a series of DFBs and then duo through the Hollows until... well let's presume we take them through to 50 running the same content ensuring there are no differences in the teams they run in.

 

Under those conditions is there any meaningful difference between the two ATs and if so what is it an why?

 

 

[MoonSheep]

i’m also interested in exploring this further and will pose the question:

 

why do people play corrupters when they could instead play defenders, given corrupters are an inferior AT with pretty much the same damage but much worse buff/debuff numbers?

 

with the new addition of power level accessibility changes, in my view there’s not really any reason to ever think about making a corrupter, unless you’re finding defenders too capable

[Astralock]

Corruptors do more damage on teams thanks to a combination of their superior damage modifiers and Scourge.  Sure, Defenders have superior buff and debuff values... but not enough to actually matter.  In CoH, damage is king, and Corruptors just plain do more damage.

 

There is only one support power set that I would play on Defender instead of Corruptor, which is Sonic Resonance to take advantage of Vigilance on teams.  Other than that, Corruptor all the way.  Playing a Defender bores me to tears.  About the only more boring AT in the game is Tanker, IMO.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Astralock

[MoonSheep]

4 minutes ago, Astralock said:

Corruptors do more damage on teams thanks to a combination of their superior damage modifiers and Scourge.  Sure, Defenders have superior buff and debuff values... but not enough to actually matter.  In CoH, damage is king, and Corruptors just plain do more damage.

 

There is only one support power set that I would play on Defender instead of Corruptor, which is Sonic Resonance to take advantage of Vigilance on teams.  Other than that, Corruptor all the way.  Playing a Defender bores me to tears.  About the only more boring AT in the game is Tanker, IMO.

 

Are there numbers to back this up, e.g. pylon data? Sourge just seems like a massive waste of time, extra damage when something is nearly dead anyway

 

I’m happy to have my view changed despite being a defender fan

[Scarlet Shocker]

I should probably have said that evidence/raw data is really helpful here. I am trying to avoid raw assertions because I'm genuinely interested in how to define the difference.

[Astralock]

2 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

Are there numbers to back this up, e.g. pylon data? Sourge just seems like a massive waste of time, extra damage when something is nearly dead anyway

 

I’m happy to have my view changed despite being a defender fan

 

Pylons won't work well for Corruptors vs. Defenders, because Defenders and Corruptors do pretty much the same exact amount of damage solo, with the exception of Scourge.  Corruptors outshine Defenders in damage on teams, because the extra damage from Vigilance turns off with four or more teammmates.  Granted, Corruptors will still do more damage on pylons thanks to Scourge.

 

Also, high-end extremely meta hard mode and Incarnate trial teams don't have any Defenders.  They have Corruptors.  'Cause yeah, Scourge doesn't matter much against minions.  But hard modes and Incarnate trials have a lot of EBs, AVs, and even GMs, where Scourge shines and makes them melt.  In comparison to Defenders, where I feel like I'm flinging pebbles.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Astralock

[MoonSheep]

10 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

Pylons won't work well for Corruptors vs. Defenders, because Defenders and Corruptors do pretty much the same exact amount of damage solo, with the exception of Scourge.  Corruptors outshine Defenders in damage on teams, because the extra damage from Vigilance turns off with four or more teammmates.  Granted, Corruptors will still do more damage on pylons thanks to Scourge.

 

Also, high-end extremely meta hard mode and Incarnate trial teams don't have any Defenders.  They have Corruptors.  'Cause yeah, Scourge doesn't matter much against minions.  But hard modes and Incarnate trials have a lot of EBs, AVs, and even GMs, where Scourge shines and makes them melt.  In comparison to Defenders, where I feel like I'm flinging pebbles.

 

at the same time however, the stronger buffs/debuffs from a defender will benefit all 8 members of the team, whereas the corrupters slight damage advantage benefits just 1 player

[Parabola]

A point that I have come to appreciate more recently is that I prefer the corruptor ato's to the defender ones. An extra big damage proc and the bonus end proc are generally more valuable to me than the heal and absorb (particularly as I can't stand the sound effect attached to the absorb proc).

 

I don't have any doubt that corruptors could do with a bit of a boost though, likely through making scourge more meaningful in non av fights.

[Uun]

Defenders are damage scale 0.65, corruptors are 0.75. Out of the box, corrupters do 15% more damage. Vigilance provides no damage boost on teams larger than 3, while the extra damage from Scourge increases on teams (Scourge doesn't care who damaged the foe, just that they're under 50% health). 

 

While defender buffs/debuffs are stronger (usually 25%), in many cases the corruptor buffs/debuffs are strong enough. On a team where you're stacking buffs/debuffs from multiple sources, Is there a practical difference between 15% and 18.75% -tohit or 30% and 37.5% -dmg from one player?

[Meknomancer]

On 3/28/2023 at 8:07 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

Or is it such a stupid question?

 

I've played both and regular readers might notice that I've experimented with a couple of different defenders recently - but I've also played a few corruptors but rarely to high level and rarely in real depth.

 

It seems to me that they share a lot of stuff in common - the same sets, just switched; the primary is dependent on the AT but not so much is different beyond that (so far as I can tell.)

 

Until you get to Vigilance and Scourge - both of which are mechanics I don't know well enough to say too much about but if I have to make a judgment, Defenders work better in teams and Corruptors work better solo. But I'm really not certain about the truth of that statement.

 

Is there a significant difference between the damage their powers do? If we take two characters, same power sets... Thermal/Dark or Dark/Thermal - same powers, same slots, same enhancements in said slots - what are the defining differences between the two? (Same pool and APP/PPP powers too.) For the purposes of this idea we'll assume both arrive in Atlas Park on the same day, and run the same missions on the same team. So maybe shoot to lvl 10 with a series of DFBs and then duo through the Hollows until... well let's presume we take them through to 50 running the same content ensuring there are no differences in the teams they run in.

 

Under those conditions is there any meaningful difference between the two ATs and if so what is it an why?

 

 

 

 

No raw data or number crunching. I'll just say corr over fender for 99% of combo's. It all comes down to how they feel to play and with a fender you feel slow and a little clunky, it seems to take forever to put stuff down. With corr the dps feels much more front loaded and then scourge kicks in and they melt things. There's a good reason the most played combo's are things like fire/kin, elec/kin, ice/cold, fire/cold, fire/dark, ice/dark and so on, they just feel a thousand times better to play as a corruptor and are good for everything up to and including hard mode content. The few fenders i see on * tf's tend to be bubblers or the old classics like rad/sonic or cold/sonic. Its rough going with a fender on fast moving team's with a toggle debuff set like rad/ or dark/ the primary becomes almost useless til you get to the av's while the corr is just putting out damage and then relying on debuffing/buffing.

 

You'll see a lot of love for the fender, entire sg's dedicated to them and heavily procced out damage builds because fenders are easier to build decent def+res numbers into. For me i roll the fender and always without fail wish i'd made it as a corr but i'm still of the opinion that redside AT's are superior to blue ones except in a few rare cases or when obvious things like AT sets imbalance a specific AT in favour of another.

[MonteCarla]

Good question! I have 12 level 50 Defenders and 6 level 50 Corruptors, so that's how I lean.

Why did I make those 6 into Corruptors?

 

Corrupters have a higher damage cap (+400% vs +300%) which makes them preferable for any Kinetics character. I made a Kinetics/Energy Defender one time and re-rolled her as a Corrupter when I realised I was hitting the damage cap solo (and thus wasting that +30% bonus damage). This is probably the soundest mechanical reason for going Corruptor.

 

I wanted to have a 50 of each Archetype

 

I wanted to have my nuke before level 38 (which is now irrelevant. Everyone gets their nuke for Penny Yin now, and no-one gets it for Synapse)

 

I wanted to prioritise damage a bit more?

 

The character idea I had in mind was meant to be impatient and acerbic, and damage-first seemed like an in-character decision

 

 

Similarly, there are times when I've gone Defender out of more than habit, eg making a Force Fielder who wants to cap my teams and my own Defence as quickly as possible because her whole schtick is being invulnerable and being able to share it. The higher defence values mattered there.

 

But often, it's been a bit of a toss-up. 

I often run PUG Task Forces, and I count the support sets as people join. I don't differentiate between Defenders or Corruptors in my mental maths there.

[MechaMarshmallow]

On 3/29/2023 at 9:02 AM, MoonSheep said:

 

at the same time however, the stronger buffs/debuffs from a defender will benefit all 8 members of the team, whereas the corrupters slight damage advantage benefits just 1 player

 

This is why it's often powerset dependent. Because yes, defenders can leverage larger numbers to output bigger (de)buffs, bit sometimes a larger number is not actually very useful. For example, Kinetics is the classic Corruptor set not just because it enhances your own damage to a higher cap, but also because damage is capped in the first place. Once you hit that cap, you can't go higher. If a Corruptor can bring you to that cap, there is literally no benefit gained from going defender. A few other mechanics follow this pattern, either in a clear sense of it capping (more defense buffing/accuracy debuffing is useless once the enemy only has a 5% chance of hitting you) or for more difficult to clearly math out reasons (At a certain point, more endurance recovery is pointless because no one is running out).

[BazookaTwo]

Without needing maths, I ask myself two questions.

 

1. Will the Scourge mechanic rock on this build?
2. Will the secondary be the main focus of the build?

Rarely do both of those questions answer "yes" for the same character. When they are both yes, I'll play Corruptor. An example I'll throw out there is a Rad/Poison Corr. It's a rare case where the scourge rocks, even though the debuffs from both sets are kinda the point. 

 

Contrast that with my Dual Pistols/Poison, who barely has time to shoot at anything on a team, because applying the poisons is way more important. 

[MoonSheep]

On 3/29/2023 at 4:07 PM, Uun said:

Defenders are damage scale 0.65, corruptors are 0.75. Out of the box, corrupters do 15% more damage. Vigilance provides no damage boost on teams larger than 3, while the extra damage from Scourge increases on teams (Scourge doesn't care who damaged the foe, just that they're under 50% health). 

 

While defender buffs/debuffs are stronger (usually 25%), in many cases the corruptor buffs/debuffs are strong enough. On a team where you're stacking buffs/debuffs from multiple sources, Is there a practical difference between 15% and 18.75% -tohit or 30% and 37.5% -dmg from one player?

 

ooh these are helpful numbers - ty

 

might have to make a corr on HC sometime, haven’t played one since the CoV days

[Chi]

BazzokaTwo Right on .. 

a Corr playstyle you can be 2nd or third responder - lay out dem buffs or debuffs and Maybe u get a few shot off . 

Lots of players mi see Corr run past and drop fi tier 9 , and (( I think why, accept draw more attention to himself )) .. 

Corr is standing on a line before you can or can't attack . 

 

It's Zen 

[Scarlet Shocker]

Scourge - isn't that what the Blaster inherent Defiance really wanted to be? Especially in original concept before it got bolloxed up with 2.x?

 

 

Thanks for all your input. I am thinking a Rad/Cold corr is in my very near future!

Edited March 31, 2023 by Scarlet Shocker
addendum

[Uun]

4 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Scourge - isn't that what the Blaster inherent Defiance really wanted to be? Especially in original concept before it got bolloxed up with 2.x?

The original Defiance wasn't tied to the target's health. It buffed damage the lower the blaster's hp got. It was actually pretty short lived - it was introduced in August 2005 and replaced in December 2007. From the patch notes: "Makes the Blaster into a more comic-booky Archetype to play. As they begin to lose a battle, their power increases dramatically, giving them the edge they need to defeat powerful foes." Scourge doesn't really fit that concept.

[Scarlet Shocker]

So it's kind of the opposite - Defiance does connect to health but your own rather than the opponents.

 

I can definitely see why Scourge would be more effective. A blaster was so squishy that once below 50% their health could evaporate in seconds. Scourge's effectiveness seems to be highly effective on EBs and AVs at face value

 

 

[tidge]

With no numbers to back up my feelings:

 

I have a preference for Defenders, for a mix of historical reasons (They came first! They were Blue-siders!) and personal reasons (look what I can make this character do! Woo-hoo, Imma gonna RAD that AV!)

 

Yet... when I sit down to plan a character, knowing that I will mostly play solo, and that I will be unlikely to "rush to 50"... I almost always start with the Corruptor concept because I typically want the powers in the Corruptor primary sooner than I would get the same powers if they were the Defender secondary... and I can tolerate getting the Corruptor secondary powers later in the build (than if they were the Defender's primary). Occasionally there is a power that I simply enjoy too much and so that flips the math.

 

The choice often comes down to "which powers do I want to define the character for mid-level content?"

[Scarlet Shocker]

I think a lot of this is gonna be about feelings @tidge - it doesn't seem there's a significant enough difference to say "I should play X when I want to Y" - more a seat of pants emotional response to character concept: "He's slightly iffy, doesn't mind bending the rules, fundamentally a good guy but will do some bad stuff to achieve the greater goal" vs "she wants to restore Paragon to its former glory and intends to be a beacon for all that's good in the city" kind of vibe.

 

Thanks for your inputs peoples!

[Hjarki]

This really boils down to the question of: for what?

 

If you're talking about group content - more than one player - the Defender will normally be almost strictly better than the Corruptor. While you might get a minor boost in personal damage, this will almost inevitably be dwarfed by the boost in group damage the Defender variant would provide.

 

Moreover, you might not even be getting that boost in personal damage even solo. Not only are your support set powers more potent, but the ease of hitting defensive benchmarks means you can often use procs more extensively on our Defender as opposed to our Corruptor. Couple that with the +30% damage Defenders receive while solo and there are relatively few builds that are worthwhile to play as a Corruptor.

 

The other sliding scale is difficulty. What's useful in +0 content is not necessarily the same as four-star content. In +0 content, you see a lot of emphasis on sets like Kinetics because most players can easily make themselves nigh-invulnerable to anything they're likely to face. As you move towards four-star content, you see far more emphasis on defensively-focused sets to deal with the reality that even dedicated Tankers can struggle.

 

You also have to consider whether you're planning to play with fully developed characters or not. If your expectation is that you'll be running a level 25 TF with level 25 characters using IOs, your support needs will be very different than if your expectation is to be running it with level 50 fully slotted characters who are merely downgraded to level 25.

 

So when we talk about 'best builds' in CoH, we have to recognize that the standard way we talk about such things doesn't necessarily apply to CoH. There is no 'endgame' in CoH that we can all agree on like in most games. So while I can say that Defenders are almost always better than Corruptors in 'endgame', that's not nearly as useful as it would be in another game.