Need Help Deciding Powerset Combination

[wheresmycow]

I’m thinking of porting over one of my CO characters for my second character in COX.  He was primarily support with shields and heals, but could pump up a hefty amount of damage.  Looking between Defender and Corruptor, I’ve decided that I wanted to emphasize the support aspect of my old character.  I’m largely aiming to be teaming with him a lot, but I anticipate some times when I’m going to just do solo stuff.

 

But boy is there a lot of good options and I’m having a hard time deciding between primaries and secondaries. 

 

I’ve narrowed things down to the following primaries:

 

Kinetics: It’s Kinetics, it doesn’t need explanation.  My only concern is how it works when going solo.

 

Radiation Emission: Accelerated Metabolism, Enervating Field, Radiation Infection and Lingering Radiation look amazing.  Not sure about solo potential.

 

Time: I heard it had some good stuff in it and had decent soloing potential.

 

As for secondaries:

 

Dark Blast: To-Hit debuffs and an immobilize sounds pretty handy for both soloing and teaming.  Not sure about damage.

 

Dual Pistols: Damage looks good, debuffs look good.  Not entirely in theme with how my old character operated but I can adapt the concept a little.

 

Fire Blast: My character originally used fire to murder mobs and Fire looks pretty damage heavy.

 

So yea, I’m looking to figure out which of these primaries and secondaries make for a good combination.  I’m not looking to the best of the best, I’m looking for something that synergizes well together and is an asset to teaming while still maintaining some ability to solo.

 

[Harrow]

All three of those primaries are excellent.

 

If you're concerned about solo potential, I'd say Time and Kinetics are a better choice than Radiation Emission, but Radiation is incredibly good, too, so you can't really go wrong. Time is just such a good all-rounder, as is Kinetics, and both of them only have one buff you can't use on yourself. Time is especially good at keeping you safe by buffing your defense and debuffing enemy To Hit.

 

For damage, Fire Blast is by far going to do the most of the three you listed. That said, I love Dual Pistols--it's really fun and has fantastic AoE, especially if you're comfortable being in the thick of things.

 

I think I'd go either Kinetics/Fire, Time/Fire, or Time/Dual Pistols from these choices, but those are just the things I personally find the most fun.

[Without_Pause]

If you're concerned about solo potential, I'd say Time and Kinetics are a better choice than Radiation Emission

 

I'll take Rad over Kin for solo. Why? Rad has mitigation in terms of debuffs in toggles covering a number of things. Kin has mostly debuffs which need to hit and those debuffs are -dmg and -speed. If you aren't hitting on a Kin, you are going to have issues. /fire also offers no form of mitigation outside of things being dead faster. Played a Fire/kin corr on live, and while it was a beast in terms of damage, it was mostly kill or be killed. Never played DP, but Dark pairs nicely with all of them. Dark and an AoE immob. to keep mobs bunched up. Damage isn't great due to being a defensive set. Fire is, well, fire. I see little reason for it to not succeed with Time or Rad. Melee versus range matters less in a solo situation, but Rad does work better at range as does my guess all of the blasts sets. Easiest defender to solo was my Rad/sonic. I had 2 Kins at 50(my main was one), and a Rad and /rad at 50 plus a number of others at lower levels.

[Hjarki]

I'd make an argument for Kinetics/Dual Pistols.

 

Both Time and Radiation are 'generalist' sets that are primarily used to buff the user rather than the group. This tends to make them poor choices for a Defender, who doesn't really have anything to buff. If you're going to play these sets, you're almost always better off as a Corruptor/Controller.

 

Fire also isn't a particularly good 'Defender' set. While it's the highest damage Blast set, doing high damage in the hands of a Defender is generally less useful than using your Blast set as a form of debuffing/control. The slight hit in personal damage you take is generally made up by taking a more useful set for supporting the team.

 

Dark Blast is just a weak set overall. It's not particularly high damage and the secondary effect isn't all that useful. It's heavy emphasis on Cones (which, other than in unusual circumstances, are terrible) also limits its value.

 

Which leaves aforementioned Kin/DP. Kinetics is a very active set, so you need a Blast set that can accommodate this. Dual Pistols can do so, since most of its best attacks are relatively long recharge. Dual Pistols also has a host of selectable control/debuff options (some of which aren't all that inspiring).

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Both Time and Radiation are 'generalist' sets that are primarily used to buff the user rather than the group. This tends to make them poor choices for a Defender, who doesn't really have anything to buff. If you're going to play these sets, you're almost always better off as a Corruptor/Controller.

I would really disagree with your assessment of Time. While people often talk about Time buffing their personal Defense and Recharge the actual fact is it's a set that buffs everyone's Defense, Recharge and To Hit while simultaneously debuffing enemies. With Power Boost you can give everyone on the team 32% to everything (compared to 22% for Corruptors/Controllers).

 

Time is great on a Defender, you buff everyone up, then jump into the middle of the mob to debuff them while your teammates clean up. Honestly any secondary works well with that, I like /Electric for full on Tankfender but /Fire would also be a good choice since Time doesn't really need extra mitigation.

[wheresmycow]

Thanks for the advice everyone.  After reading everything, I think I'll go for Time/Fire.

 

Now I just need to figure out how to go perma-hasten, or at least close to it, since that looks to be the popular thing to do, unless I'm mistaken.

[Harrow]

Thanks for the advice everyone.  After reading everything, I think I'll go for Time/Fire.

 

Now I just need to figure out how to go perma-hasten, or at least close to it, since that looks to be the popular thing to do, unless I'm mistaken.

 

It's not too tough, especially with Time Manipulation as one of your power sets. Once you hit level 50, you'll be looking for enhancement sets that offer bonuses to recharge speed (which then apply to all of your powers), as well as certain specific enhancements that also increase your recharge speed for all of your powers (specifically a Luck of the Gambler Global Recharge Speed enhancement). With those and Time Manipulation, it's not too tough to get perma-Hasten or close to it. But don't worry about that until you're level 50 and have a decent amount of influence to work with.

[wheresmycow]

Looking at Time Manipulation, I kind of want to take all of the powers as they look like they work well together.  Are there any dud powers I should be wary of?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Looking at Time Manipulation, I kind of want to take all of the powers as they look like they work well together.  Are there any dud powers I should be wary of?

You're correct, there are no dud powers in Time. The most skippable powers are Time Crawl, Time Stop and Temporal Selection. All of them are worth having but none of them are absolutely necessary so if you need to cut powers or push them off to later levels those are the ones you'll want to do it with. My Time/Elec did end up taking all three in the end (although Time Crawl was a near thing) but I pushed them off until the later levels.

[EvilGreg]

Time is an excellent all around set that will keep you alive and greatly benefit any team you are on. For your secondary I’d recommend Dual Pistols. It’s damage is mid range but Swap Ammo allows you to choose between 3 damage types that each have a unique debuff. The versatility of this combined with debuffs inherent in the Time set give one heck of a tool kit for manipulating any given battle. 

[Force Redux]

Time is an excellent all around set that will keep you alive and greatly benefit any team you are on. For your secondary I’d recommend Dual Pistols. It’s damage is mid range but Swap Ammo allows you to choose between 3 damage types that each have a unique debuff. The versatility of this combined with debuffs inherent in the Time set give one heck of a tool kit for manipulating any given battle.

 

I can second TIme/DP, having taken one to 50 back in the day. It works very well together.

[Hjarki]

You're correct, there are no dud powers in Time. The most skippable powers are Time Crawl, Time Stop and Temporal Selection. All of them are worth having but none of them are absolutely necessary so if you need to cut powers or push them off to later levels those are the ones you'll want to do it with. My Time/Elec did end up taking all three in the end (although Time Crawl was a near thing) but I pushed them off until the later levels.

 

I find Time's Juncture to be mostly worthless. The hit debuff is both resistible and meaningless on a character that tends to soft-cap defenses. The slow is replicated by the far more generally useful Distortion Field.

[Redlynne]

Time: I heard it had some good stuff in it and had decent soloing potential.

Dual Pistols: Damage looks good, debuffs look good.  Not entirely in theme with how my old character operated but I can adapt the concept a little.

 

I love Dual Pistols--it's really fun and has fantastic AoE, especially if you're comfortable being in the thick of things.

 

I think I'd go either Kinetics/Fire, Time/Fire, or Time/Dual Pistols from these choices, but those are just the things I personally find the most fun.

 

Time is an excellent all around set that will keep you alive and greatly benefit any team you are on. For your secondary I’d recommend Dual Pistols. It’s damage is mid range but Swap Ammo allows you to choose between 3 damage types that each have a unique debuff. The versatility of this combined with debuffs inherent in the Time set give one heck of a tool kit for manipulating any given battle.

 

I can second TIme/DP, having taken one to 50 back in the day. It works very well together.

 

 

 

 

Time/Dual Pistols/Dark "No Escape" Build

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I find Time's Juncture to be mostly worthless. The hit debuff is both resistible and meaningless on a character that tends to soft-cap defenses. The slow is replicated by the far more generally useful Distortion Field.

It's also got a pretty good damage debuff component. Personally I prefer Time's Juncture to Distortion Field, if I were going to drop one of them I'd keep Time's Juncture but I like both of them.

[Auroxis]

Time's Juncture is fantastic even if you softcap since it acts like a DDR buffer against stuff like Cimerorans.

[Tooth]

I would go Rad/Fire.  Everyone likes a good FRad!  Rad turns your enemies into kittens while Fire Blast melts faces.

[wheresmycow]

I might do an alt version of this character as Rad/Fire, once I get the Time/Fire thing going and seeing how it plays out.

[wheresmycow]

Oh, quick question: does Chrono Shift's recharge bonus affect the caster as well?  Pine's says it does but I was hoping to get that confirmed.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Oh, quick question: does Chrono Shift's recharge bonus affect the caster as well?  Pine's says it does but I was hoping to get that confirmed.

It does.

[oedipus_tex]

Are you going to IO this character? A combo I consider significantly underrated would be Time/Energy Blast, IF you are willing to invest several million in KB to KD procs. You can buy them for around 2 million each.

 

I'm not wild about Fire Blast on a Defender, altho technically there's nothing better for Defenders in Energy Blast either. But Energy Blast will do a much better job of keeping you and teammates alive. Altho again, for team play, I would highly recommend buying some KB to KDs (I did it with a farmer character and passed them to the Energy Blaster). You'll probably want 3 total, one for each AoE. Note you can earn up to 1 version of this proc for free from the Summer Blockbuster event.

 

If you insist on staying Fire Blast I'd look at playing this character as a Corruptor instead of a Defender. The higher damage is significant and what you lose in buff strength isn't severe enough to hurt the tradeoff too much.