A general guide to defender primaries.

[drbuzzard]

Traps

 

 

Caltrops: You throw pointy things on the ground. They do damage over time, prevent jumping and slow targets. Enemies in the patch realizing the owie in their feet run away. Is this great? Nah. Can it be useful? Yeah. Not mandatory by any means, but handy. 

 

Web Grenade: This is a single target immobilize which also debuffs recharge. It’s not a bad power. You need either this or caltrops, and honestly neither one has a huge edge. 

 

Triage Beacon: Here’s all the healing you're going to do in the set. You set down a little pyramid and it makes those around it regenerate for 90 seconds. Will it save your team? Probably not. Will it help? Yes. Base recharge is 200 seconds, so you can always have one out. 

 

Acid Mortar: Finally, an actual good power arrives in the set. This time you set up a device which sprays acid on your enemies debuffing defense and damage resistance. Base recharge of 90 seconds and a 60 second uptime means you can get recharge down to where you can place multiple mortars and they will stack debuffs. This is one of the better powers, so take it.

 

Force Field Generator: I’m a big fan of powers that give status protection on squishies, so I do love this power. It grants more defense than Dispersion Bubble from Force Field (~20% when slotted up), but lower status protection. Of course you want to take this power. The only downside is that it is on a pet which follows you around, but rather poorly at times. It can get caught in terrain features or fail to keep up. It can also get destroyed via AOE damage, and it does expire eventually. 

 

Poison Trap: You set down a trap which emits a cloud of poison when triggered by an enemy. It debuffs recharge and debuffs the hell out of regeneration. It also holds enemies. I love it for the strong debuffs myself. This is a key power in the set. It is not interruptible, so you can toe bomb enemies with it. 

 

Seeker Drone: Two drones are summoned which crash into the closest enemy they can find. Upon impact the target can be stunned, and will be debuffed for damage and to hit. This is a pretty solid power. 

 

Trip Mine: You put down mines which explode when tread upon. The damage is pretty good, and you can stack up a pile of them to make an ambush. Unlike Trip Mine from blaster devices, this has an interrupt time, so toe bombing isn’t really an option. However you can still put these to good use, so take the power. 

 

Time Bomb: The name is pretty self explanatory. You set down a bomb that goes off in 15 seconds for a big boom. It has interrupt time so no toe bombing here either. Base recharge is six minutes, which seems a bit extreme to me. As you can’t toe bomb, and the timer is fixed, the flexibility just isn’t there. I skipped this one. Trip mines do the same job, but better (even if less damage). 

 

 Traps is definitely not one of the top sets. The first three powers are all pretty ‘meh’ (perhaps they can be saved with procs, I dunno). The next four powers are all good to very good, but then you get a situational power, and a clear skip. All the powers require you to set down a pet of some sort. This can be a slower or faster process depending, and some follow or are set in place. The pacing of traps is a bit on the slow and deliberate side, which makes it a bit incompatible with today’s steamroller teams. It has some pretty powerful debuffs in it, but team buffs beyond the forcefield are minimal. It is a good solo set though. It could be there's proc magic to be had, but I haven't looked into it. This does benefit from perma-hasten so you should chase recharge. 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by drbuzzard

[drbuzzard]

Trick Arrow

 

Entangling Arrow: You shoot an arrow which does both a strong immobilize and a pile of movement debuffs if they do resist that. It also tosses in a fair damage resistance debuff. It’s a good power. 

 

Flash Arrow: You blind enemies and debuff their to hit ability (with a portion being unresistible). It’s a good power to lead with. 

 

Glue Arrow: The arrow lays down a field of glue on the ground debuffing movement and recharge. It’s a pretty good power. With 60 second recharge and duration, you can spam it all over with a bit of recharge. 

 

Ice Arrow: You hold the target up to lieutenant, and on top of that there’s a whole bunch of debuff going on (movement, damage, recharge- and other stuff). While I usually don’t like mez, this one brings a lot to the table, so get it. 

 

Poison Gas Arrow: This one creates a 25’ radius area of gas which can sleep the target, but also debuffs damage. This is an OK power. 

 

Acid Arrow: As with the rest of the set, we have a strong debuff. This one hits defense, and a bunch of the resistances to debuffing which of course benefits your other powers. It also does minor DoT. It’s worth your while. 

 

Disruption Arrow: This lays down a large field of strong damage resistance debuff and also hits the endurance cap on the target pretty hard. Radius is 25’, recharge is 30, uptime is 45. This one works fine out of the box. 

 

Oil Slick Arrow: Here’s your payoff from the set. Well it used to be the big payoff when the set wasn’t as good before the buffs, but now it’s more like some whipped cream on your pumpkin pie. You lay down a field of slippery oil which makes enemies fall down. If someone would happen to light that on fire, those same enemies could well burn a lot. This is a great power that you will take. It functions much like a nuke you can drop every 48 seconds with perma-hasten (180 base recharge). 

 

EMP Arrow: Before the buffs to Trick Arrow, this was basically just EMP burst from Radiation Emission. Now it’s a strange offspring of that plus Faraday Cage with a bunch of extra debuffs thrown in. The downside is the 300 second timer. The arrow basically created a Faraday Cage (from Electrical Affinity) for 240 seconds, and does an initial burst which has lots of different debuffs notably including a strong regeneration debuff. The recharge is a bit long to rely on it for your main regeneration debuff (which only lasts 45 seconds), but the status protection it provides your team is top notch and you don’t need much recharge in the power to make that permanent (though location based). 

 

 Trick Arrow excited a lot of people when it first came out. Then people played it and realized it was rather on the gimpy side. Some people were still champions of the set, but it really was a bit sub par. The set was revised later on, and the revisions really powered up the debuffs in the set. Depending on what you look at, Trick Arrow is the most powerful debuffing set of all, though I suppose that is fair since it is all the set does (with the exception of the EMP Arrow’s shield area). There’s really no bad powers left in the set. The most important bit of advice I can offer is don’t pair this with archery. While it does seem to be the no-brainer pairing, you need to be able to ignite your oil slick, and archery only has one power which can do it, and not on the shortest recharge. I have two trick arrow alts, and I can assure you the pairing with fire blast works a heck of a lot better. Trick Arrow is currently one of the top tier sets. One difficulty during play is how many powers are location based. This makes it a bit slow to deploy them without some help. Best option I’ve founds is micros. For example /macro OSA "powexeclocation target Oil Slick Arrow" will make a button that says OSA in your tray and clicking it will lay down the power at the target you have selected (so an enemy).

Edited November 15, 2023 by drbuzzard

[Without_Pause]

Getting Chrono Shift to be perma isn't that difficult either. I have a Time/rad who can get it without Incarnates depending on how I'm slotting my build which still isn't set.  My Fire/time Controller uses Incarnates to make it perma. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Without_Pause

[drbuzzard]

25 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Getting Chrono Shift to be perma isn't that difficult either. I have a Time/rad who can get it without Incarnates depending on how I'm slotting my build which still isn't set.  My Fire/time Controller uses Incarnates to make it perma. 

 

Dug out my time defender this morning before I wrote up the post. Actually I do have better than perma on the recharge with a 1:19 recharge. I did spiritual core alpha which of course helped. However I didn't want to wade into all the detail in the guide, so I didn't bother to mention it. 

[StriderIV]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:17 AM, Without_Pause said:

Getting Chrono Shift to be perma isn't that difficult either. I have a Time/rad who can get it without Incarnates depending on how I'm slotting my build which still isn't set.  My Fire/time Controller uses Incarnates to make it perma. 

Time/Rad seems like a super synergistic playstyle!

[drbuzzard]

10 hours ago, StriderIV said:

Time/Rad seems like a super synergistic playstyle!

 

Funny, I'm now working up a rad/time corrupters as that occurred to me. 

[Without_Pause]

Rad has enough AoEs outside of the nuke for Time to enable to chain them together. Time isn't all that busy either. 

[drbuzzard]

3 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Rad has enough AoEs outside of the nuke for Time to enable to chain them together. Time isn't all that busy either. 

 

Yeah, but since you need to be in the mix, the cone one is a bit iffy. Time really benefits from being in close, perhaps even more than Kinetics. 

[StriderIV]

On 11/17/2023 at 9:58 AM, drbuzzard said:

 

Funny, I'm now working up a rad/time corrupters as that occurred to me. 

Let us know how it turns out!

[drbuzzard]

Got the corrupter to 50, and it works pretty well. The defender is a lot more sturdy, and honestly I think time works better on a defender. The defender is time/sonic which is a bit sub optimal because of all the cones though. 

[Without_Pause]

On 11/17/2023 at 7:09 PM, drbuzzard said:

 

Yeah, but since you need to be in the mix, the cone one is a bit iffy. Time really benefits from being in close, perhaps even more than Kinetics. 

A cone is easy enough to work around. Even if you skip the cone, you still have two strong ST attacks.

[drbuzzard]

Ok, altitis struck and I leveled an Empathy defender to 50. Now there's a write up back on page 1 where there was an empathy placeholder. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by drbuzzard

[Doomguide2005]

9 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Ok, altitis struck and I leveled an Empathy defender to 50. Now there's a write up back on page 1 where there was an empathy placeholder. 

I'm at work currently.  Will have a longer look when home.  Thanks for your efforts.  Hopefully can get stickied and others comments added in over time.

[Doomguide2005]

4 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

Ok, altitis struck and I leveled an Empathy defender to 50. Now there's a write up back on page 1 where there was an empathy placeholder. 

     Fortitude 60 second recharge and 120 sec duration.  It's 2 teammates out of the box.  While I generally start with melee types and blasters in particular I'm also going to be eyeballing who I'm having to heal most frequently, who's always going into the red and they may become a favored target.  Sometimes that's the Tanker (particularly at sub 30 levels if the Tanker is still leveling).  Sometimes it's an aggressive support player or the one guy who's not exemplared and all IO'd out.  Two interesting notes.  The first I've been told is true but haven't looked carefully at my logs to check, but the Gaussian's proc will fire when used to buff someone and that buff does go to the Empath.  Handy if the next is one of your stronger attacks (nuke anyone).  Second is if you use Power Boost or PBU before casting Fortitude the buff will last the entire duration of Fortitude not that of PB or PBU.  

     And last even if you never plan on using your Blast attacks for God sake take several and slot for more IO set bonuses for recharge.  Probably near half my global recharge comes from those attacks which are extremely valuable at making all those Heals and buffs come back faster for you to work your magic.

 

[drbuzzard]

35 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     Fortitude 60 second recharge and 120 sec duration.  It's 2 teammates out of the box.  While I generally start with melee types and blasters in particular I'm also going to be eyeballing who I'm having to heal most frequently, who's always going into the red and they may become a favored target.  Sometimes that's the Tanker (particularly at sub 30 levels if the Tanker is still leveling).  Sometimes it's an aggressive support player or the one guy who's not exemplared and all IO'd out.  Two interesting notes.  The first I've been told is true but haven't looked carefully at my logs to check, but the Gaussian's proc will fire when used to buff someone and that buff does go to the Empath.  Handy if the next is one of your stronger attacks (nuke anyone).  Second is if you use Power Boost or PBU before casting Fortitude the buff will last the entire duration of Fortitude not that of PB or PBU.  

     And last even if you never plan on using your Blast attacks for God sake take several and slot for more IO set bonuses for recharge.  Probably near half my global recharge comes from those attacks which are extremely valuable at making all those Heals and buffs come back faster for you to work your magic.

 

 

Yes, I use the attacks for recharge bonuses of course. Thanks for catching me on the fort duration. 

 

As for my point on power boost, I mean that because it recharges more slowly you can apply it every time you have fortitude up. You can do about half of them. 

[MonteCarla]

Good write-up on Empathy, Doc.

 

Agreed, recharge is everything on this set. Slot for it however you can, eg Luck of the Gambler unique plus 5 x Red Fortune in Fortitude. Take Leadership to get Manouvers and Vengeance for two more LotG's, and so on. Use the P2W boost and the Supergroup base boost if you can for an extra 35% Recharge all up.

 

As to who to Adrenalin Boost - I usually look at it from a Recharge point of view. Blasters will get more nukes in, Controller will get more AoE mezzes. This often precludes AB-ing the Tank, unless they're a Shield Tanker. But like you say, it's also a case of watching people's health and energy bars and seeing who needs help.

One other option is if there's another Empath on the team, shoot them a tell and see if they're up for mutual AB-ing. This can lead to perma-double auras, and double Fortitude all round if you're both good.

(I've played dedicated Empathy duos with a couple of special friends, and that is a very fun project!)

 

One thing I'm keen to try on my next Empath is to use teleport binds.

 

bind q "powexeclocation target Teleport"

 

This means when your team split, you can keep supporting both groups. See someone's health dip? Shift+<Team Index>, Q, Heal, maybe Fortitude if they need it, and then select another teammate to return to your previous group. Maps have to get pretty big for this not to work.

It also allows you to keep Fortitude order. II try to keep the next teammate in my head for Fort-ing, and often target through them once Fort is recharging, so I can hit it as soon as its ready. It always annoys me a bit when teams split up and make this harder, 'porting may be the answer.

 

The old Port-and-Fort! 😄

[drbuzzard]

Does that let you port to a place you don't have line of sight to? That's impressive. 

 

As for the double auras perma, it's gonna be close at the cap but not quite (10 seconds of downtime at +400% recharge). I remember Repeat Offenders had an all empath team called green machine, and they were a thing to behold. Everyone always at the damage cap, recharge cap, defense cap, and regen cap. It was fairly silly since it took a really odd chance for someone to ever die. 

[MonteCarla]

Oh yes! You'll sometimes get a message saying TARGET BLOCKED but most of the time if you're in range, you can port to your target in another room.

 

I heard of Green Machine - they're what inspired me to try Empathy duos. And to be honest, in both cases we stopped playing somewhere in the 40s because it was too easy. Double Manouvers and Power-Boosted Fortitude put us near the defence cap, we had insane regen and recovery, full mez protection and capped S/L Resistance from Tough and Temp Invuln. The game just became too easy really. 🙂 

 

[Doomguide2005]

     Yes I tend to lean heavily towards buffing another Empath if there's one in the team list and definitely will if they reciprocate.  At that point I'm going to nuke every 40 seconds or less.  And those Auras will be close to the recharge cap, downtime in the 10 to 20 range and while most endgame teams won't likely care much about the recovery (they build to be self sustained) the regeneration can make it very difficult for a couple closely spaced lucky hits (presuming defense caps) to take you out.  If you want to ever see what your recharge looks like under AB look at them with Geas of the Kind Ones running as it's also +100% recharge.

     And I'll say a full Green Machine team is in fact a wrecking ball in motion on SOs alone.  Adding incarnates, IOs and all the rest just means you get closer to achieving critical mass with fewer and fewer Empaths.  Doesn't surprise me @MonteCarlathat your worst foe was getting too potent.  That said I think unless you've (not you but folks in general) been a part of a full GM team (or some other 'super teams' like the FRADs) it's really hard to truly and fully understand what it's like running on a team of 8 Empaths unless you've been there done that.  The one and only weakness I've ever noted in a GM team is in fact the total lack of access to any resist or regeneration debuffs in Empathy.  Get a smaller team with no /Sonics, Envenomed Daggers (or pets without those debuffs) and a +4 AV becomes a looooong battle.  Throw a /Sonic or two in there and/or Envenomed Daggers and/or pets like a Shivan or Lore and goodbye AV.  In either case the AV has pretty much zero chance of winning.

 

Reyna Morningdew Empathy/Radiation/Dark of Green Machine

Edited December 17, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[kelika2]

A lot of words for "go corrupter"

[Doomguide2005]

10 hours ago, kelika2 said:

A lot of words for "go corrupter"

In a lot of ways I totally agree if you're talking about something like Green Machine.  A full team it's more about nostalgia and history at this point for going defender.  Green Machine was one of the very first in the RO Network.  There were no Corruptors or redside at that point.  That and you'll seldom see a large or full team of Empaths these days in which case it's like a lot of the arguments of mods vs other factors.  RO did run a redside group called Greed Machine that were all corruptors before redside ATs could be started on any side.   The worst thing we ever faced were missions that forced us against clones of ourselves.  There's also basically no difference between a full team of defenders and corruptor empaths at the high end ... stuff just gets obliterated.  Only AVs really slow them down much.

[Lock-Down]

Time?

I would love to hear your review on Time.

I have found it to be really good since a time Def has many PBAoE buffs that can apply to themself as well as the entire team.

[Uun]

56 minutes ago, Lock-Down said:

Time?

I would love to hear your review on Time.

I have found it to be really good since a time Def has many PBAoE buffs that can apply to themself as well as the entire team.

Go back one page

[Lock-Down]

my bad

 

[MoonSheep]

On 11/8/2023 at 7:21 PM, drbuzzard said:

It doesn’t take much effort to be able to put this on a number of teammates.

 

quoted from your empathy section, this is a foundation behaviour that anyone playing a buffing defender set needs to keep in mind

 

applying buffs to the team is the baseline for a defender - everything else comes after this.

 

- if you have shields, SB and similar, this needs to be maintained on the team

- individual buffs and less frequent buffs come second

- blasts come third

 

when playing my kin, my primary focus is applying SB and FS as it has the most impact on the team. my low damage blasts are an afterthought should they be needed