A general guide to defender primaries.

[drbuzzard]

Pain Domination

 

Nullify Pain: This is your basic radius heal. It is simple, straightforward and useful. Since Pain Dom is primarily a healing set, you will take it and slot it up. 

 

Soothe: Again, it’s the basic single target heal. You’ll get it since you’re a healer. 

 

Share Pain: A couple of sets (this and Empathy) have powers which do huge single target heals at the expense of self hurt and a healing pause on yourself. This one boosts your damage while you can’t heal which is kinda neat. However with the defender damage scalar, that’s rather meh. I tried this out for a while, but honestly there’s plenty enough other healing methods in this set that it’s not necessary. I’d say skip it. 

 

Conduit of Pain: This is the resurrection power, but with a whole bunch of nice stuff tacked on. When you rez someone you get a big recharge, large to hit,  and fair damage boost for a minute. Since you’re taking a healing set, you will likely take the rez, and since it has features tacked on, that’s a nice bonus. 

 

Enforced Morale: Here’s a twist on your single target mez protection. It adds in a little bit of additional buffs (nothing great, you can look them up), and does a tiny bit of damage. Basically it’s just the mez protection though. It’s worth having, and doesn’t need slots. 

 

Soothing Aura: It never hurts to have a fairly cheap toggle which provides DoT healing. It will do a fair bit to keep you and your team standing. I’d say it’s well worth your while. It is a top power? No. If you have a tight build it could be skipped, but I use it and find it to be helpful. 

 

World of Pain: This is your team buff. It hands out resistance to all and a modest damage and to hit boost. 240 second recharge on 90 seconds of uptime means you can keep it up all the time when in perma hasten. Radius is a fairly large 35’, so keeping it on your team should be fairly easy. It also affects you which is another bonus. Get it. 

 

Anguishing Cry: The set has only one debuff, but it is a fairly good one. With this power you debuff damage and damage resistance. The downside is it gets only 30 seconds of debuff on 120 seconds of base recharge. With perma-hasten it’s 32 seconds of recharge so not a huge gap. It is a 25 radius debuff centered on your which means it’s a bit dangerous to use it, though as you are likely to be in the mix anyway to keep the melee teammates up with nullify pain and soothing aura. 

 

Painbringer: Pick the baddest killer on your team and keep this active on them. It gives a big damage, recovery and regeneration boost thus making them a non-stop killer.  Given the 300 second recharge and 90 second uptime, you can’t really keep it on more than one target. With perma-hasten it recharges in 82 seconds, so just one is possible. Is this the best tier 9 power? Nope. Is it a good power? Yes. 

 

Pain Domination is one of the 3 mostly heal focused sets (with Empathy and Nature Affinity). It’s rather like an offensive minded, dark mirror of empathy. Since it originated in City of Villains, that does make sense. I don’t consider it one of the best sets, but it is solid at what it does, and you won’t be lacking for teams since you will contribute. 

[arcane]

You referred to Wild Bastion as optional. *Dies*

[drbuzzard]

52 minutes ago, arcane said:

You referred to Wild Bastion as optional. *Dies*

You are welcome to 

A) write your own guide

B) make a compelling case for you opinion

 

I find Nature to do so much regeneration and healing that the absorption shield would be like whipped cream on top of icing. YMMV. I will grant I don't play my nature very much for taste reasons, so someone more expert may have a more worthwhile opinion. I have not taken it on * difficulty runs, but things like +4 TFs are very easy to keep up with not having it. 

 

I did go back and take a closer look and I realized why I didn't like it-240 second recharge, 60 seconds of uptime. This means you can keep it up most of the time at high expense, but with a 6o second duration you have to keep applying all the time. I'd consider that a lot of bother. It's good return for the bother, but I don't like bother. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by drbuzzard

[drbuzzard]

Poison

 

Alkaloid: You get a single target heal with some toxic damage resistance for flavor. It’s your only heal, so you might as well get it. 

 

Envenom: Poison is known for making AVs melt, and this is the start of that process. This power debuffs regeneration, defense and resistance, and makes it harder to heal the target. It also splashes in an 8’ radius with the safe effects in lower values. The debuffs last for 30 seconds, and the recharge is 12 seconds so you can keep it on a target constantly without any slotting. You would make a mistake skipping this. 

 

Weaken: This power basically nerfs the ability of the enemy to mess with your side. It debuffs damage, to hit, heals, and mezz effects. Like Envenom it also does a lesser effect in a splash radius. Uptime is 30 seconds with 16 seconds of recharge. Slotting isn’t necessary, but you can if you want (probably to hit debuff). 

 

Neurotoxic Breath: You spew out a cone which slows recharge and movement. It also has a small chance to hold minions. Certainly this is not the best power in the set, but it can be helpful. 30 seconds of recharge with 20 seconds of uptime means it needs some recharge to be up always. If your build is tight, dropping this won’t cost you too much. 

 

Elixir of Life: For a single target revival power, this has to be the best (tied with mutation, as it is basically the same). It puts the target back on their feet and buffs the hell out of them, granting to hit, damage, recharge, and recovery buffs for 90 seconds. Then the recipient pukes.. Good things come with a price. It’s worth taking. 

 

Antidote: Lots of sets have single target mez protection powers, and they are usually differentiated by small flavor differences. In this case it is adding in cold and toxic resistance. If you want to be able to hand out mez protection, take it, the secondary effects are negligible. 

 

Paralytic Poison: Woo Hoo. A single target hold. If you have a stacking mez build in mind (say, Poison/Ice) get it, otherwise skip. 

 

Poison Trap: You can set up a trap which when triggered puts out a poisonous cloud that holds enemies and drains their endurance. Since this is the only thing you have which drains endurance, it holds little appeal for a sapping build. Since I prefer to leave mez for the controllers or dominators, I skip this. Do not confuse this with the poison trap from Traps which actually debuffs regeneration and is a must have. 

 

Venomous Gas: You end up surrounded by a cloud of poison (venom, fine) in a 15’ radius. Targets within that will be debuffed on defense, damage resistance, damage, and to hit. Endurance cost is a little high, but worth it. On the down side, you will pull aggro like crazy, so don’t go hugging enemies without a tanker around. Yes, between this and weaken maybe you’ll take down their to hit enough, but also maybe not. 

 

Poison is probably the second strongest debuffing set, second only to trick arrow. Because of the single target+ splash method of some of the debuffs, it’s only really strong on a hard target like an AV. However that AV will melt into a puddle when a poison defender shows his ire. Is this a top set? Not really, it’s got IMO 2 wasted power slots, a third iffy power, and basically no team buffs, and weaker AOE effects. It has a limited amount of crossover with healing sets in the heal, rez, and mes protection, but you miss what makes a strong healer (AOE). If you want to focus on debuff, make a trick arrow defender. Does this make poison bad? No, but there’s a better option. One nice aspect is you don’t need to chase recharge really hard, so a cheap and effective build is possible.

Edited November 10, 2023 by drbuzzard

[Sancerre]

very nice write-ups.  i would have advised to reserve a bunch of posts at the front of your topic such that replies wouldnt break up the flow of your powerset reviews, but appreciated content all the same!

[drbuzzard]

Should have thought of of that. Oh well, too late now. 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Poison trap is one of the more proccable powers in the poison set. I generally put a bit accuracy into the power and five procs, as listed below:

 

superior entomb - Acc / Hold / End
superior entomb - Rech / chance for absorb proc

ghost widow's embrace - chance for psi damage proc

fury of the gladiator - chance for -20% res proc

armageddon - chance for fire damage proc

unbreakable constraint - chance for smashing damage proc

 

... for a mini-nuke doing 324-ish damage that's available about every 22 - 25 seconds, depending on global recharge. It's a pretty good opener in combat because it has a quick animation, the absorb shield helps for absorbing the incoming alpha strike, and the hold effect slows down the incoming follow-up retaliation from mobs. 

Edit: To cite sources, IIRC the guide to poisons by Frosticus outlines how and why to proc up poison trap. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Doomguide2005]

Empathy

 

A buff and healing primary requiring no targetable foes to function.  I think it really shines on small teams (under 6) and or lower levels.  Most of my builds spend a lot of time exemplared to lower levels running TFs. 

 

Healing Aura:  The t1 healing PBAoE power and sole power capable of healing the Empath (plus the potential buff from Regeneration Aura).  I'll typically use either 5 or 6 slots focused on Healing sets with recharge set bonus.  Doctored Wounds or Panacea in 5 slots or Preventative Medicine in 6 slots is typical while building for a teaming Empath build.

 

Heal Other:  The t2 single target heal power it is unable to be used on the casting Empath.  It heals roughly twice the health of the t1.  Usually I'll slot this with the alternate number of slots I used on HA.  If HA got 6 this will get 5 or if it was 5 I'll give it 6, again slotting for Healing set for a recharge bonuses.

 

Absorb Pain:  The t3 heal.  Overall I consider this a trap choice and almost never take the power on any build particularly for a high end, high recharge endgame build.  This is largely owing to the intersection of playstyle and the powers drawbacks being a bit severe compared to what is necessary in the vast majority of game play.   My playstyle is typically that of an "offender", a defender who slots and more importantly uses their secondary blasts.  As such particularly with a blast set with PBAoE attacks can draw aggro which brings us to the second reason, the drawbacks to the power.  It pretty much prevents you from being healed not a good thing if you are drawing aggro.  Last the amount healed while large is rarely going to make or break the difference between life or death of your targeted ally when compared to rapidly spamming HO/HA back to back as needed a cycle time of right around 4 sec to fire back to back.  But that is the one advantage of AP it is a very large heal to hit someone with if a second very large damage spike is likely to follow typically by an endgame AV.  If I did grab the power I'd probably either slot a Heal set with recharge in mind or 2 slot it with 50+5 Heal IOs.

 

Resurrect:  The second power and t4 Resurrect I rarely take.  In this case there's nothing particularly wrong with the power there are just so many alternate ways to get someone back up and in play that the power choice is easily wasted.  There's crafting or carry Awakens (which as I understand, it can still be done during even 4* hard mode play when most inspires are disabled), various self rezzes and just about every other defender with a rez power the Rez offers more buffs to either the targeted dead ally and/or the caster than the very plain generic Rez of Empathy.  Instead I stand ready to remove any stun, use a Fort, Heal as needed or even use my blasts to drop or neutralize their attackers.  When taken Ill slot with a single endurance IO as the high end cost might be tough to come up with the end despite Vigilance if its been a tough long battle as Murphy always seems to pop up right about then.  Recharge is not really going to do much given the lengthy cooldown teams typically wont wait for you rez to recharge repeatedly and well range is a bit silly to enhance while working off a base 15ft range.

 

Clear Mind:  Almost always take and use this t5 wide coverage single target  mez protection as a one slot wonder.  Typically I slot with a Range IO to get that one guy who always seems to get in trouble waaay over there.  But it truly doesn't matter 99.99+% of the time what sits in the slot.  There is some debate if this power is worth taking/having available in the endgame as between Clarion, Hybrid, defense amplifiers, other Defender powers and a tendency for players to have high if not soft capped defense avoiding mez altogether in the process.  In turn this makes some consider it skippable (somewhat the way I consider Resurrect skippable I suppose).  I see it through the eyes of someone who exemplars frequently running into characters even armored melee characters who still lack their mez protection or like Practice Brawler can have gaps in uptime.  I also want everyone to enjoy teaming and as someone who plays a lot of support characters it can be frustrating to be standing around due to getting mezzed watching everyone else play ... even when or if most of us are individually not "necessary" to the overall teams survival and success on a lvl 50+ team.

 

Fortitude:  The t6 is a single target buff and one of the premiere buffs in Empathy.  I'd immediately suspect some weird off the wall build if a character didn't include this power fairly early on.  Almost without exception I'll take it at 12th and drop my lvl 13 slots in this power.  Heck my solo builds have included Fortitude.  Possible slotting is all over the place and largely dependent on the needs and desires of the character and the build.  There's a thread elsewhere in the Defender forums where I list a whole mess of options and they range from using 3 slots up to all 6.  Fortitude buffs defense, to hit and damage.  Base recharge is half the base duration making it possible to cover 2 allies with no slotting or global recharge,  It just gets better from there.

 

Recovery Aura:  The t7, and t8 which follows, are the two PBAoEs both of which effect the caster as well as allies in a 25ft radius.  They possess the same recharge (500 sec) and durations (90 sec).  It is not possible even at the recharge cap to make either perma but it can be reduced to under 60 seconds in a high recharge build fairly readily before Incarnate considerations and is typically one of my build goals and reason for going all out on recharge.  Recovery Aura boost endurance recovery and even at the base amount tends to be more than enough endurance recovery to keep.  I tend towards 3 slots which I usually slot with a single recharge IO and 2 Endmod/Recharge IO's.  The overall importance of Recovery Aura tends to get overshadowed by lvl 45+ and Incarnate up play with the advent of mature builds, 

 

Regeneration Aura:  The t8 which buffs the regeneration of those effected.  I tend to think regeneration is undervalued by many.  Its effects are fairly subtle.  I'll use a Healing set with a set bonus of recharge in mind in 5 slots.  The other thing I typically aim for is to keep both Auras on the same over all timers so both recharge in roughly the same time.  That's one less thing to worry about.  If one is recharged then both are or the other is about to recharge in a couple seconds.  Position then fire them off.  I find I tend to due this while the team is clumping up to finish off the last couple foes.

 

Adrenaline Boost:  Arguably this t9 is one of the best single target buffs in the game boosting regeneration 500+, recovery 800+, and recharge 100% plus special.  The special is a potent 80% resistance to all sorts of movement and recharge debuffs making the target nearly immune to those debuffs.  AB plus Regeneration Aura can boost regeneration to near the regeneration hard cap for most support characters.  This is 1600% when enhanced towards the 2000% of the cap and does not include the characters base regeneration.  

 

 

Thoughts and comments as always welcomed.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[drbuzzard]

Radiation Emission

 

Radiant Aura: The basic radius heal is worth getting. 

 

Radiation Infection:  Here’s your first toggle debuff hitting to hit and defense, 31.25 % for each. Adding in enhancements gets those up to around 48% . That should be enough to floor to hit ability which looks very impressive. It should be understood that both level differences and AV built in resistances will cut this number a large amount, so while you can turn regular enemies into harmless targets, AVs will still be trouble. Of course this is worth taking.

 

Accelerate Metabolism: This is a great AOE buff for your side which hits you as well. It buffs damage, endurance recovery, and recharge. It also provides endurance drain resistance and some status resistance (not protection, so it just reduces duration of status effects). If you have perma-hasten, this will be permanently up as well. I can’t imagine why anyone would consider skipping this. 

 

Enervating Field: This is the other core debuffing toggle of the set. It debuffs damage and damage resistance at good values (25% and 30%). Of course you’ll take this because if you drop both toggles on a group, they melt. The downside is toggles seem to have odd interactions with aggro these days and sometimes your anchor will decide to run like a bard. This can do plenty of bad things, so do be careful and perhaps make sure you’ve got a tank (or brute) holding aggro before you engage with this. 

 

Mutation: Here’s the original ‘revive the corpse and buff it’ power that Poison copied. You bring back an ally and they are extra badass for a little while, then they puke. It’s worthy but not mandatory. 

 

Lingering Radiation: You would be making a big mistake skipping this as it is crucial for GM and AV fights. It is your regeneration debuff. Yes, it also debuffs recharge and movement, but at 500% regeneration debuff, it is huge (most regeneration debuffs are around 50%). Recharge is 90 seconds for 30 seconds of debuff, but perma-hasten easily makes it up all the time. It is one of the strongest regeneration debuffs out there. 

 

Choking Cloud: This is a radius based hold toggle. The endurance cost is pretty high, and it is no guarantee of safety. I skip this.

 

Fallout: OK, someone had a good sense of humor when they cooked up this power. You use the corpse of an ally as a bomb. That’s pretty amusing, and it’s a pretty big bomb at that, which also debuffs. The recharge, however, is fairly long at 300 seconds. If you didn’t need a dead ally to make this work, I’d say take it and love it. However, since you’re a defender and your job is to keep allies standing by debuffing the enemies into goo, it’s pretty damned situational. The power has the fun factor going for it, but not the practical factor. This can be skipped for not a huge loss. 

 

EM Pulse: It is rare on defenders that the tier 9 power is basically an obvious skip, but I’d say this one is that. Maybe the proc people have some reason to take this power, but as it is you get a power which debuffs regeneration hard, saps endurance, and holds lieutenants (plus possibly some bosses) for a short time (15 sec) on a 300 second timer. I can’t see a justification for this power. Skip it. 

 

Radiation Emission used to be the gold standard of debuffing defenders. You would lay out those toggles, scream “Don’t kill the anchor!’ and your team would sedately, and with little risk, mow things down. Now it seems like toggle debuffs make the anchors (AVs in particular) go crazy and act unpredictably. This can have some bad effects. They can run off, losing your debuffs, or even worse they can start aggroing up the map making a simple encounter into a tidal wave of enemies. These days I prefer my debuffs to be location or target based click powers which just lay down the effects and wait for the recharge. This seems to be more suitable for the quick steamrolling teams you see at high level. Does this mean Radiation is a lousy set? By no means is that the case. It is still powerful, but I’d say it really shines at low level, especially since the last 3 powers are very skippable. You get everything you need from the set at 12th level and then it is just slotting it all up. This used to be top tier, but I’d call it mid tier these days.

[drbuzzard]

Sonic Resonance

 

Sonic Barrier: As sonic is a sort of mirror of the original Force Field, the powers mostly line up to those powers. Of course we don’t have that to compare to anymore, but there’s still correspondence. This is your lethal/smashing/toxic shield, providing ~32% resistance to those damage types when slotted up. Your job as a sonic is to buff or debuff resistance, so you take this. 

 

Sonic Siphon: This is a basic, single target resistance debuff (30%) for 30 seconds (16 recharge). Considering other sets have powers which do this sort of debuff, but with another tag along ability, sonic feels short changed here. Nonetheless you should take it. 

 

Sonic Haven: Here you get the shield protecting against most other damage types (energy, negative energy, cold, fire, but not psionic). Again you will be handing out about 32% resistance. Do take it. 

 

Sonic Cage: Yes, you can take this power, and pick an enemy to be in time out like a bad toddler. This will take them out of the fight for the duration, but it will prevent your allies from snuffing them as should be done. Skip it. 

 

Disruption Field: This is a 15’ radius resistance debuff anchored on an ally. That’s really a pretty nice ability since if you stay close to the anchor just stays up and makes all enemies take more damage (30%). Endurance cost is a bit steep, but it is well worth using. You slot for endurance reduction and leave it be. This is, of course, best used on a melee ally like a tank. 

 

Sonic Dispersion: Like Force Field’s big bubble, this is the nice power which provides you (and allies) some actual protection, both to most damage types (slotted up at ~24 to all but psi) and against stun, hold and immobilize. I cannot imagine why someone would skip this. 

 

Sonic Repulsion: You anchor this on an ally and they knock back enemies (with it costing you endurance for each one tossed away). Out of the box, it is fairly awful. If you drop in a knockback to knockdown IO, it’s a fine tool to put on the anchor you use for sonic disruption working rather like a mobile ice patch. However the sound effect is a really annoying loop. I play without game sound, so I don’t care, but I’ve had complaints. You do need to watch endurance on this one since the base consumption plus the toss cost can bleed your endurance dry. Sonic has few enough tools that I’d tend to say take it. 

 

Clarity: This grants status protection to all and a perception boost to a single ally. That seems like a long wait (tier 😎 for a power that other sets get much earlier, and is mostly made moot because of dispersion field. Skip it, if you have any need for another power of more use. If you take it, there’s no need for slotting, so at least there’s that. 

 

Liquefy: As ‘oh crap’ powers go, this one is a pretty good one. You pick a location and lay down a field which debuffs to hit quite hard (56% slotted up), acts like an ice sheet, knocking down enemies, does a bit of smashing+energy damage, and slows movement so it is hard to get away. There’s even a chance of a hold. The recharge on it was cut in half recently, which has a very positive effect on how valuable this power and the set in general is. Now you can drop liquefy to start almost every encounter (unless you've got a really fast steamroller team going). With perma hasten you have 30 seconds of uptime for 40 seconds of recharge, so only 10 seconds of downtime. Those debuffs are certainly a nice way to nerf an alpha as your team engages. 

 

Sonic Resonance is one of my favorite sets, but this is purely due to nostalgia. A strong case could be made that sonic is the basement dweller of defender primaries. It buffs resistance, and does it with stronger numbers than a bubbler. However resistance is basically half as effective (90 or 75% cap vs. 45% cap on defense) as that bubbler, and you are not getting anywhere near double the numbers. Defense also avoids any tag along effects that come with attacks (-def, -to hit,  etc.) A sonic does do a fair job of debuffing resistance (30% group+30% more on a single target), but there are sets which do more (Poison, Trick Arrow). Outside of the tier 9 with a variety of effects, you’ve got a pretty limited tool kit, and one of the better tricks requires IOs to work. I see one power as a mandatory skip, and another is fairly useless given your large status protection field. The set needs some love, especially since Force Field got some love and is really good now. The recent improvement to liquefy recharge helps the set a lot, but I would still consider it lacking. 

Edited March 12 by drbuzzard

[Metatheory]

On 11/8/2023 at 8:03 PM, drbuzzard said:

Electrical Affinity

 

Galvanic Sentinel: It’s rather interesting that they threw in a pet at this low level. Then again they didn’t make it terribly powerfu (modest damage and regeneration debuffs)l, so it’s no shock that it is available when it is. The pet is a click power which will need to be renewed regularly. Recharge is 60 seconds, and the pet lasts for 120 seconds, so you need to keep casting it. You don’t need to slot any for recharge. Given how weak the endurance debuff is, it’s not really worth slotting for anything other than IO set bonuses. Given how weak the regeneration debuff is from shock and this, you kind of need both, so you take this. You can simply not slot it at all. 

 

You might want to mention that the point of the pet is mainly to cast ally powers on, which can then chain to yourself when solo

[drbuzzard]

53 minutes ago, Metatheory said:

You might want to mention that the point of the pet is mainly to cast ally powers on, which can then chain to yourself when solo

 

Oddly enough I had not soloed enough to get around to trying that. Thanks. 

[arcane]

4 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

 

Oddly enough I had not soloed enough to get around to trying that. Thanks. 

I would even say if you aren’t soloing, the pet should be skipped.

[drbuzzard]

6 hours ago, arcane said:

I would even say if you aren’t soloing, the pet should be skipped.

Definitely a case could be made for that, but it does toss in more -regen and -damage, so I keep it. 

[Without_Pause]

On 11/11/2023 at 10:07 AM, drbuzzard said:

Choking Cloud: This is a radius based hold toggle. The endurance cost is pretty high, and it is no guarantee of safety. I skip this.

One of the cases where this is different if you are playing a Controller. 

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

One of the cases where this is different if you are playing a Controller. 

Yeah, mez builds are completely different of course. 

[Wimbochismo]

On 11/8/2023 at 2:03 PM, drbuzzard said:

This is the only buff/debuff set introduced in the homecoming era. It does some interesting things, and is fairly good for keeping a team on their feet and fighting. However the downside is how busy you are using it. The variable nature of the chain mechanic (you must build a static effect which determines how many get chained) tied to most of the buffs which have a short duration means you are throwing out buffs almost constantly as well as heals. I find that you feel like a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Unlike some builds which are busy just to make the tricks you want function (dominators for example), this is busy as hell actually doing your job. You often don’t have time to add in your feeble attacks from the secondary (as if anyone would notice). In some ways the set feels like dollar store kinetics. Faraday Cage and insulating circuit do offset this some since they are really good, but it is not what I would consider a top set.

 

Just wanted to add a note on Faraday and recharge. Electric isn't really desperate for high recharge, if you go lower recharge it becomes less busy. Faraday Cage is also integral for the Static mechanic. Using powers alone, you will struggle to build up Static and make the chains hit the whole group. Just standing in Faraday will quickly let you hit the Static cap.

 

Faraday is very much a CAST THIS POWER FIRST deal.

[Wimbochismo]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

One of the cases where this is different if you are playing a Controller. 

 

I agree Choking Cloud is much better on a Controller. It is still functional for Defender's. The only difference for the Controller version is that the hold lasts 1.5s longer - further exacerbated by the global cc sets. With a 6s hold duration and 2s activation it will still reliably hold minions/lts and start stacking up on bosses, providing some value.

[drbuzzard]

Storm Summoning

 

Gale: This is a knockback power with a tiny amount of damage. With skillful use, it can be handy, but is not even a good power. It is generally used in DFB to toss around villains so your team of lowbies can’t actually kill them. Skip it or drop it on respec. Yes, with a knockback to knockdown it can be a bit useful, but you have other, better tools in the set. 

 

02 Boost: This is both a single target heal and partial mez protection. The heal amount is low for a single target one, but throwing in sleep and stun protection I guess justifies the lower number. You also get more perception and endurance drain resistance. It’s you only heal, so you might as well grab it 

 

Snow Storm: This toggle sets up a 25’ radius area in which enemies are slowed at a fairly high endurance cost. Perhaps it can be justified for keeping enemies in place for later powers to damage, but it’s not much by itself. I’d skip it.  

 

Steamy Mist: Like the stealth auras in Cold and Dark, you get damage resistance to some types (fire, cold, energy) and a bit of defense (good for holding that LotG global recharge). You also get confusion protection, which seems like a bit of an odd choice, but is handy when it comes up. Again, I wish to say be ready to shut this off when there’s NPC rescues in a mission or it will mess it all up. It is a worthy power, take it. 

 

Freezing Rain: I tend to think this is the best power in the set. It puts down an area in which things are resistance debuffed strongly, defense debuffed, movement slowed, and there’s some chance the baddies will be knocked down. On the downside, it will make everything in the area try to run like hell. Usually the slow and tripping mechanics offset this, but to make sure, keep your pocket tank in the middle of where you drop this. Recharge is 60 seconds with a debuff of 30 seconds, so it is easy to keep up all the time if you aren’t moving too fast to place it. Of course you take this power, to do otherwise would be foolish. 

 

Hurricane: This is both a very powerful power and a potentially really annoying one. It debuffs the living daylights out of to hit (~59% when slotted), but also has knockback and repel. If it were just knockback, you’d have another mobile ice slick and that would be nice. As it is you need someone with a very deft touch to use it well. Since AVs resist repel, it’s fine for use on them if you’re ham handed. It is basically a set defining power, and because so many users are ham handed, it’s why the set is not universally loved. You’ll take it, otherwise why did you make a storm defender?

 

Thunderclap: This is an AOE stun which can only mez minions. It screams ‘skip me’. 

 

Tornado: Here you summon a tornado which runs around the battlefield causing chaos. They do knockback, knock up (no enemies do not get pregnant, they fly into the air), stuns and fear. With a knockback to knockdown IO, it’s not an awful power since it will put things on their rumps. Maybe there’s some proc trick to make this really good, but as is, I find it to be a bit meh. 

 

Lightning Storm: You summon a cloud bank which zaps nearby foes with lightning strikes for a minute. Since it is a zap every four seconds, that can be a goodly bit of damage, and unless you die, this will keep handing out that zap. It also has only a 90 second recharge, so minimal slotting keeps this up all the time. The downside is that it is immobile so it will be a limited use on normal targets if you have a strong team. It will be quite good on AVs though. 

 

Storm Summoning is a very controversial set. The adherents think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The detractors would rather have a mime in their room while playing the game. I’m closer to the mime camp myself. I’ve seen good players use Storm Summoning to good effect. I’ve also seen tons of unskilled users unleash chaos which effectively squandered team ability. There’s quite a few garbage powers in the set to offset the few gems (freezing rain, lightning storm are the gems, hurricane is good, but tricky to use well). On a positive note, you don’t really need to chase recharge too hard with the set, so a cheap build will be OK (a few KB->KD will be useful). However this set demands the most skilled play to not be more hindrance than help to a team. As I mentioned before, it’s about being deft and not ham handed. I have a storm, and even knowing what I ought to do, I still find myself ham handed so that alt sits. It’s definitely not the best set, though on a good player it’s a good one. In the hands of a bad player, it’s pretty close to if not the worst. Odd how it comes down mostly to how you use hurricane, but that's really it. 

[drbuzzard]

Thermal Radiation

 

Thermal Shield: The set starts with a resistance shield for fire, lethal, smashing, and some cold. Slotted up you get around 31% resistance to the first three, and half that for cold. Reducing incoming damage to your team helps so take it. 

 

Warmth: This is the AOE with the same numbers of the AOE heals from other sets. You ought to take this. 

 

Cauterize: Every healing set gets a strong single target heal, and this is it. Take it. 

 

Plasma Shield: This resistance shield rounds out your protection providing energy, negative energy, and even more fire resistance for the same 31% or so value. You ought to take it. 

 

Power of the Phoenix: You make a dead ally rise up and blast everyone around them while coming back to life. Like much of the set, it’s kind of a duplication of the fire tanker set but from the buff PoV. It’s a neat looking power, and one of the better resurrection powers since it does damage. You can decide if you care enough about a rez power to take it, but I did. 

 

Thaw: Thermal being a mix of healing and debuff set, this is the mandatory mez protection power. It also throws in some slow resistance. It’s better than a break free, but how much better? You can decide. 

 

Forge: Here’s your offensive team buff. You give a strong to hit and damage boost to one target for 120 seconds. Recharge base is 60 seconds, so with a bit of recharge chasing you can buff a lot of your team. It’s worthwhile though it doesn’t offer anything but the offensive boost. You’ll want this. 

 

Heat Exhaustion: Thermal gets its debuffs rather late, but they are pretty good ones. Heat Exhaustion debuffs damage, regeneration (strongly), recovery, and saps endurance. Downside is that it is single target with a 120 second recharge and 40 second uptime, perma hasten will get it past full uptime.. For melting an AV it’s good. You'll take it.

 

Melt Armor: This is a strong AOE (15’ radius) defense and resistance debuff.  This has a 100 second recharge time and 40 seconds of uptime, so it's not very hard to have it up all the time (this is a recent adjustment). With perma hasten you'll have 27 seconds for recharge so you can pop it all the time. 

 

Thermal radiation is a bit of a mixed bag. It has most of the tools from the healing sets, but then finishes up with strong debuffs instead of team buffs.  As I mentioned in various places above, you want to chase recharge on this set. This is a steady middle of the pack set. Teams consistently benefit from a thermal on the team, though you will not turn the team into a ravening juggernaut.

Edited March 12 by drbuzzard

[Xandyr]

On 11/10/2023 at 9:38 AM, drbuzzard said:

Pain Domination

 

 

 

Soothing Aura: It never hurts to have a fairly cheap toggle which provides DoT healing. It will do a fair bit to keep you and your team standing. I’d say it’s well worth your while. It is a top power? No. If you have a tight build it could be skipped, but I use it and find it to be helpful. 

 

 

I know/understand that you weren't going to mention builds/slotting. But I'd like to throw out something here. If you slot the Panacea proc or Numina's proc in Soothing Aura/Suppress Pain ( the villain's equivalent) then these procs have a chance to proc on EVERYONE within the radius. It makes this power that much better. The villain equivalent, Suppress Pain, increases the Regeneration Rate of everyone while the hero's power, Soothing Aura, ticks a heal every few seconds. 

[drbuzzard]

18 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

I know/understand that you weren't going to mention builds/slotting. But I'd like to throw out something here. If you slot the Panacea proc or Numina's proc in Soothing Aura/Suppress Pain ( the villain's equivalent) then these procs have a chance to proc on EVERYONE within the radius. It makes this power that much better. The villain equivalent, Suppress Pain, increases the Regeneration Rate of everyone while the hero's power, Soothing Aura, ticks a heal every few seconds. 

 

That's a neat trick. Didn't know that. 

[Doomguide2005]

On 11/13/2023 at 12:45 PM, drbuzzard said:

 

That's a neat trick. Didn't know that. 

I believe Trap's Triage Beacon does similar things.

 

And as an example of the rule to always take into account the sets and play style of the build and player you can turn Thunder Clap into a useful power.  First paired with Dark Blast you have a second mag 2 stun.  That's enough to stun a boss.  Second there's a temp power called Stun Grenade you can buy thru p2w up to 200 charges as I recall which is mag 3 and any Defender or even AT can use.  Duration is relatively short but more than enough to help break up an alpha by your foe.

[drbuzzard]

Time Manipulation

 

Temporal Mending: The set starts with the radius heal, but a bit different. It does an initial burst heal, and then an equal amount over time. It also protects against slows and regeneration debuffs. This power, like most buffs, has an interaction with temporal selection, which enhances the heal. Fair warning up front, you are likely to want everything in this powerset. 

 

Time Crawl:  It's a single target debuff which slows the target’s movement, recharge and debuffs regeneration. It also adds an effect which enhances other debuffs in this set. You want this. 

 

Time’s Juncture: Rather like Hurricane this is a toggle which creates a 25’ radius area around you that debuffs movement, damage, and to hit. Unlike hurricane it doesn’t toss things around, so all you ham handed people (like me) are fine using it. The to hit debuff isn’t nearly as strong as hurricane, but coupled with defensive powers in the set it is plenty good. If the target has time crawl on them, the debuffs are enhanced. 

 

Temporal Selection: Like Time Crawl, this single target team buff will affect other team affecting powers. It buffs recharge, regeneration, and damage. Recharge is 2 minutes, with the same in uptime. With perma-hasten (and slotted for recharge) recharge is down at 32 seconds A bit more recharge and you can keep it up on 4 allies, though it will be a bit tricky to maintain. You certainly want to put it on someone every time it is up.  Again, you want this power. 

 

Distortion Field: You lay down an area at a location which debuffs movement speed and recharge speed. It also has a chance to hold enemies. Recharge is 60 seconds for a duration of 45, so it can be kept up all the time without any difficulty. If you had to skip a power in the set, I’d say it would be this one, but even it is fairly helpful. I use it. 

 

Time Stop: Normally I don’t much care to take mez powers on my defenders because if I wanted to be a crowd controller, there’s ATs for that. However this one tucks in a substantial regeneration debuff, so I take it and use it. Like other offensive powers in the set it benefits from Tim Crawl being on the target allowing you to hold a boss. Yeah, take it. 

 

Farsight: This is a click based radius team buff which enhances perception, defense, and to hit. It’s well worth your time, and you should endeavor it keep it up on your team. Recharge is 240 seconds, with 120 duration, so it is easy to keep up all the time. Of course you should take this. With this up and Time’s Juncture affecting an enemy, you keep everyone quite safe. Power Boost and Power Build Up both work on this, which is nice. 

 

Slowed Response: Here’s a nice click based AOE debuff to damage resistance and defense. 90 second base recharge for 30 seconds of uptime can easily be made permanent. Time Crawl on a target will benefit this a bit. It’s a solid power. 

 

Chrono Shift: This power can be simply described as speed boost with a healing burst and healing over time all rolled together. It’s a bit more complicated than that since the different effects last different amounts of time. For 30 seconds you get the healing ticks, and endurance recovery, while the recharge boost lasts for 90 seconds. On a 360 seconds recharge base, and perma hasten, it is up always (because the 50% recharge boost pulls it over the line).  It’s a good power especially if things are going tits up. As with other buffs, recipients of Temporal Selection get more benefit. 

 

Time Manipulation is a very strong set, perhaps as good as kinetics. It is all over the map in what it does, strongly buffing the team and debuffing the enemies. A well built time defender can even tank pretty well if they have clarion up or the defensive P2W buff up for status protection. The interaction of powers means you want almost everything just because of how they work together. It is also rather flashy, and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of who needs a buff since the powers all have similar graphic effects. I fixed this issue by using different colors for Time Crawl and Temporal Selection so I know which allies or enemies already have those effects on them.

Edited November 18, 2023 by drbuzzard

[Uun]

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

Farsight: This is a click based radius team buff which enhances perception, defense, and to hit. It’s well worth your time, and you should endeavor it keep it up on your team. Recharge is 240 seconds, with 120 duration, so it is easy to keep up all the time. Of course you should take this. With this up and Time’s Juncture affecting an enemy, you keep everyone quite safe. 

It's worth noting that Farsight can be buffed by Power Boost and Power Build Up. Using PB/PBU before casting Farsight will increase the defense and tohit buffs by 98% (defender #s) for the full 2 minute duration of Farsight. What this means in practical terms is that the fully enhanced 19.5% defense buff is increased to 31.8%.