Three questions on FF defender

[MizuUeumatsu]

Hello just a couple quick questions please:

 

1. What are the most non-skip and skipable powers?

 

2. What secondary goes well with FF?

 

3. Can I fit leadership pool?

 

Thank you and have fun out there...

[Linea]

1. Detention Field.   After that they all have uses, it's just a matter of preference.  At a minimum you want Deflection, Insulation, and Dispersion.  I'd add Damping to that list as well.  You could be selfish and only go with Dispersion and Damping and effectively be a Sentinel, but you may have issues with other players (expectations and attitudes) in teams.

 

2. Any.  Water is one I'd recommend.  FF/Water makes a powerful solo-able combo.

 

3. yes definitely, and you should.

 

The main questions you need to answers are:

4. MRA or SLEFC type defense.  MRA will block all but the non-vectors Psi attacks, but only at standard soft-cap.  SLEFC leaves more holes, but can reach Incarnate soft-cap Levels.

5. Dark (Full Offense), Soul (Offense/Buffs), or Power (All Buffs).  Many Hard Mode teams will want one of the latter two, where the first is best for soloing and standard teams.

 

Attached are some older builds, NOT UPDATED for Damping Bubble Changes, NOR the other -RES changes, NOR the Dark Soul Transfer Changes. 

But they can still give you some ideas to start with, then adjust for the more recent updates and changes.

 

FF Water - Budget Build 2 - [i26].mxd

FF Water Dark - Soul Drain - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxd

FF Water Soul - Heavy Support 57-74 - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxd

 

FF Water Soul Def - Heavy Support - ITF MRA 2c - [i27].mxd

 

FF Water Soul Def - Heavy Support - ITF SLE 2b - [i27].mxd

[MizuUeumatsu]

Oh wow I really love the idea of an ff/water! I had already made an underwater creature costume I just didn't have a character yet but this has definitely made me want to do it! Thanks!

[MonteCarla]

I wrote a guide on Force Fields after the recent changes.

I'd stand by most of what I said still, except I probably talk down Damping Bubble too much.

 

To answer your questions.

 

Essential Powers:

Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, Dispersion Bubble

 

Good Powers:

Force Bomb, Repulsion Bolt (these two do -res debuffs now), Damping Bubble

 

Don't Take

Repulsion Field (just not awesome, maybe...?)

Personal Force Field (its not hard to hit the Def cap and be able to attack)

Detention Field (very situational use, slows teams down)

 

I paired it with Sonic (for extra offensive debuffs) or Beam Rifle (because its sci-fi) or Psychic Blast (not a great choice) but really anything will work. FF is a passive buff set, giving you lots of time to blast.

 

And do take Manouvers. By level 13 you can have 3-slotted Dispersion Bubble, Manouvers, and the two ally shields, giving your team like +42% Defence?

[Force Redux]

One doesn't take Personal FF because you want to hit Def Cap. You take it to become virtually invincible, so you can take alpha strikes, survive wipes, and explore or badge with impunity. Or prevent cascading defense failure. It is also a great mule for LOTG and is a nice one-slot wonder. 🙂

[twozerofoxtrot]

To add to what Force Redux listed, PFF is also a serious hack for speeding escort missions.

 

1. Run to back, clear mob around escort.
2. Once followed by escort, turn on PFF.
3. Slowly head to the mission exit or escort objective location; nothing can kill you and PFF doesn't have a max time allowed like Phase Shift. 

As long as you don't lose the escort, this works perfectly every time. If you do lose the escort you'll need to clear anything that might have "recaptured" them.

[SeraphimKensai]

My FF toon uses dark blast. It's definitely not the most damaging, but with my power boosted bubbles and dark blasts, everyone on my team gets incarnate level defense and I floor a mobs chance to hit.

[tidge]

I skipped

 

Detention Field: Far too situational of a power for my taste

Repulsion Field: Requires too much of a slot investment to work, and even then it is quite "meh"

Force Bomb: I did not need the attack, and I could not dedicate slots to it to make it work "good enough"... I find the scattering enemies to be problematic for the -Res and the AoE radius doesn't impress me that much for the windup.

 

I took Personal Force Field only as a mule power at end-build. I have found that it is not possible to trust PFF to survive alpha-strikes or skate through missions untouched.

 

Making those choices allowed me to fit three powers from Sorcery and Maneuvers into the build by level 20, plus I doubled up on the first two secondary powers.

 

I added the Leadership powers of Maneuvers (6x Reactive Defenses), Assault (IO: Endurance Reduction), and Vengeance (LotG mule).

 

My secondary is Beam Rifle. I wanted more BR attacks early (for concept) so I delayed Repulsion Bolt until level 14. If I had skipped BR's Single Shot I suppose I could have put Force Bomb (6x Defender's Bastion ATO) into the build But I would have to rework the slotting of all my attacks to be able to leverage Force Bomb, which I would probably want to be a Knockdown/%damage power.

[Psylenz0511]

^ ^ I believe knockdown is an underrated source of foe deterrence.

[Force Redux]

I manage to make Repulsion Field work well with just one slot for end reduction. since the update it's pretty good on the blue bar, and it keeps things out of melee/near the Squishies.

Edited May 4 by Force Redux

[tidge]

10 hours ago, Psylenz0511 said:

^ ^ I believe knockdown is an underrated source of foe deterrence.

 

 I agree. Knockdown is quite handy on PBAoE, and wide (and long) cone attacks. I simply have never found Force Bomb to work all that well in an attack chain, even when slotted for KB->KD. There is something about the windup to cast, the mediocre damage (even with %damage), and the practical complication of trying to maximize targets hit that diminishes its value in my play experience.

[MizuUeumatsu]

So far I've got a fr/water and a ff/beam and I've been having a blast thanks to the guidance of this thread!

[Hedgefund]

Force Bomb does not need a kb%kd pr%c in it, from page 5 patch notes:

 

The Vectored Knockdown does not scatter, it knocks mobs up who then fall back down.  Make a character on test if you want to see it in action.

 

So, personally, I would never include this as an answer to "what to skip" for the OP.  AOE -res, kd mitigation, it's an important power for FF.

[tidge]

Hey that is useful, at least for freeing up a slot. There is still the whole "Resistance Resists Resistable Resistance Debuffs", so I don't get super excited about a resistance debuff, even one that lasts 30 seconds.

 

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

Hey that is useful, at least for freeing up a slot. There is still the whole "Resistance Resists Resistable Resistance Debuffs", so I don't get super excited about a resistance debuff, even one that lasts 30 seconds.

 

The net effect of that is that an -X% Resist Debuff provides +X% Damage increase outside of the Enhancement system.   So even if there's a couple of Kins on the team maxing Damage Enhancement, you get +X% more Damage.

 

The worst diminishing of this -Resist Debuff would be by the Purple Patch.  For the usual worse case, a +3L target, that would reduce the values of debuffs to 65%.  So 15% would go down to 9.75%.  But that would mean +9.75% Damage on the debuffs targets for everyone on the team for 30s.

Edited May 5 by Jacke

[tidge]

 

I have a FF Defender built as a force-multiplier for teams, and yet I still find Force Bomb to be unnecessary.

 

On 5/5/2024 at 5:21 PM, Jacke said:

 

The net effect of that is that an -X% Resist Debuff provides +X% Damage increase outside of the Enhancement system.   So even if there's a couple of Kins on the team maxing Damage Enhancement, you get +X% more Damage.

 

My thinking goes as follows, YMMV.

 

+20% damage could be 2 more damage per tick, it could be 40 more damage from a single ally. If I'm on a team with multiple damage dealers, some of whom are already near their cap (via personal slotting, or external buffs)... it is highly unlikely that the application of -Resistance from a Force Bomb (an AoE attack) is actually going to reduce the number of attacks those hypothetical teammates are going to have to make... even assuming that any of the critters caught in the FF Defender's Force Bomb are still around to suffer the -20% Resistance.

 

There is content where the 10 (or fewer) critters hit by a Force Bomb don't fold after a second attack (from the allies, after I have also hit with Force Bomb), but from my PoV application of -Resistance has to reduce the number of necessary attacks from each ally by at least 1 per critter, otherwise the -Resistance isn't actually improving defeat times.

 

My experience: For most team cases where -Resistance does improve defeat times, it is because there is one or two hard single targets. In those cases, I have found it more valuable for my my -Res debuffer to have faster-firing -Res options that I can direct at different targets... often because the targets aren't close enough to each other, not because I misunderstand certain elements of -Res stacking (or not). In those cases, Repulsion Bolt is "enough".

 

I won't argue against a second, different, source of -Resistance (or other debuff), and Force Bomb can fulfill a couple of different roles, but so can Weaken Resolve. There are obvious differences between the T8 FF power and the first power selection from the Force of Will pool... but if it is -Resistance for single hard targets, I think there is a strong case to be made to take that Force of Will power earlier than level 22. For one thing, the Force of Will ranged cone attack (Wall of Force) could be taken as early as level 14, also does Knockdown and can also be slotted with %-Resistance... and is IMO easier to target multiple enemies with. I may as well be a Force Multiplier as early as possible, if that is what I want to lean into.

 

 

 

[Jacke]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

My thinking goes as follows, YMMV.

 

I've had similar thought processes, but it's for the Chance for -Res Procs.  If they're slotted in a Power that already provides -Res (like Cold Domination's Sleet) and there's not a better use for the slot, I leave it there.  But many I've swapped out.  Used to have it on Defender's and Corruptor's Radiation Blast's Neutrino Bolt for use on any target but especially the hard ones.  But for both cases, I decided it was better to go for the 6-IO set bonus instead.