Help me decide between Thermal or Pain.

[00Troy00]

Also interested in opinions re synergy with thse above named primaries.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Make both! lol

 

I'm going to assume that most folks seeing this are going to wonder what it is you want to do with either of these characters, as I imagine that makes some difference. They both provide a pretty decent mix of healing and buffs/debuffs, though I'd argue the debuffs from Thermal are better. Thermal also buffs resistance with its shields, which is nice since most people chase defense instead and are often capped on defense, but not resistance. Pain Dom is a tinch more healing oriented since it was the villain version of Empathy, but some of its ally powers also offer additional buffs to their targets. I'd argue that Thermal is probably a little more solo friendly/capable than Pain Dom as well, given Pain Dom's "evil empathy" nature (note: I know Empathy *can* solo, it's just not the same as soloing on a set with more powers you can use to help yourself). Thermal's debuffs are also those good against hard target debuffs.

 

I know a lot of people pair Thermal with Fire, but since it's called Thermal Radiation, I went Thermal/Rad Blast on my defender. And Rad Blast will slot the Achilles's Heel proc. Though I imagine Thermal works with whatever secondary you feel like pairing with it. Both my Thermal and Pain defenders are RP toons, so their powersets were picked with their character concept in mind.

 

My Pain Dom defender went Beam Rifle secondary; I dunno if there's any sort of particular synergy there, other than Beam provides some debuffs and like I said, it fit conceptually with my theme of a succubus who uses her rifle to channel her chi stealing powers

[Two Dollar Bill]

I think they're similar enough that you could chose based on theme/concept and be just fine. In terms of how they actually play, the main difference for me is range. Thermal can do everything except Power of the Phoenix from long range. You can hide in the back or fly overhead and still heal and buff. Pain has (de)buffs that are PBAoE and if you want to get your money's worth out of them you need to jump in to the combat for best coverage. If you're not willing to dive in to a big group of foes a second after the Tanker goes in, you'll never get maximum effect from Anguishing Cry.

[kelika2]

pain/sonic always sounded like it had potential.  assault leadership, world of pain, -resists

thermal/fire is thematic but none of the secondaries really stack with thermals thing.  maybe pistols with toxic ammo for -dmg and thermals shields?

 

consider demon/thermal mm if all other thoughts fail.  its cliche because of that pulp fiction girl in the rogue promos but stacking demons innate resists and frankenslotting pet IOs with resist auras can stack to healthy ammounts

[tjknight]

If you plan on soloing, I'd go pain.  As it has a few powers that will also benefit you as the caster.  World of Pain is a  PBAoE  +dmg, +tohit, +RES buff that will buff you as well as teammates. The Share Pain is a heal that also grants a hefty damage bonus when cast on a pet or ally (you can use on temp buff pets while solo).  Soothing Aura is a nice constant heal over time for you and ally's as well.  And Anguishing Cry is a great debuff...  Pain Domination + Sonic Blast actually looks pretty thematic and the two sets play nicely together.  Anguishing Cry followed by Dreadful Wail is damaging and fun. 

[Hjarki]

12 hours ago, tjknight said:

If you plan on soloing, I'd go pain.

While Thermal has no self-buff powers, Heat Exhaustion far exceeds the value of the minor +damage buffs from Pain when you're fighting AV/GM. Melt Armor is also a faster, lower recharge version of Anguishing Cry that is usable from range.

[Psylenz0511]

I play most defender sets. I am more comfortable playing Thermal. On a team the resist shields out-perform the aoe heals of pain dom, and thermal has an aoe heal. The debuffs in heat exhaustion and heat exhaustion together are better than anguishing cry.
 

The suggestion for a Demon/Thermal is a powerful combo. Another Mastermind combo that is hella powerful is Necro/thermal. The fire shields are huge to cover a big weak spot in zombie fire resistance. The graveknights become a true killing machine. But, that's a topic for a different forum. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

I'm definitely more of a fan of Pain Dom, but I think it just lends to my playstyle more.

 

I like that World of Pain affects you. Honestly buffing my teammates is secondary, most people show up with killer app builds anyway.  I want that sweet +Res for me. Also the fact that It buffs ToHit and Damage for everyone is a nice plus.

 

Painbringer's +End component can make a struggling player on the team into a powersaw. But even with aggressive slotting the best you can do is perma on 1 player. That's objectively not as useful as dropping multiple Forges, but again personally I don't want to fuss with that upkeep. So I'm happy to pick one person to buff every 1.5 minutes.

 

I play my Pain Def with Dark Blast, so diving into a mob, popping off with (proc'd) Anguishing Cry into Blackstar leaves anything standing a debuffed, helpless mess. YMMV with other blast sets.

 

Finally, Soothing Aura has a neat trick it plays with Panacea. You see, unlike most helpful procs, Panacea's effects are not Self-only. This means if it's slotted in an ability that effects others, it can proc +Hp and +End on them. Soothing Aura is the only power in the game that I'm aware of that lets you proc the extra +End on your team mates while also letting you benefit from it.

[Bionic_Flea]

https://flipsimu.com/

Edited September 26 by Bionic_Flea

[Wimbochismo]

To add to what @twozerofoxtrot said. In Thermal, from a building perspective, you're also losing precious slots that aren't giving you much benefit.

 

More than likely you'll want to dedicate slots to the res shields because res is typically pretty valuable. Probably 2-4 slots each. That means you're getting minimal set bonus benefit's while "losing" 4-8 slots. I wouldn't even toss the Steadfast Protection unique in one because the +res enhancement portion is better in your own Tough or an epic res shield.

 

World of Pain is also cool to toss a Gaussian's if you lack an Aim like Dark Blast.

 

I'm also partial to Pain cause I have a Pain/Sonic. It's my catgirl yowling in the night.

[Without_Pause]

Got on a Posi II last night. Two support characters. One player asks who is the healer. The Storm player speaks up. The one player asks if they need to switch to their healer. I say no. I eventually mentioned that we had a character with Pain. They still chatter on. We go through the TF well enough. No team wipes. Only 5 deaths*. Pretty typical Posi type of play. I just find it interesting just how undervalued Pain was.

 

* I was two of the deaths. One happened since for some reason my Inspir window wasn't open at the time. Another was do to me being a Blaster, and I'll never not play aggressive. Blasters can take alpha, right? 😆

 

I don't have an answer to the OP, I do think both are worth looking into. I have a Level 22 Thermal/fire I rerolled to Thermal/sonic. While I have a build for it, I'm currently going with version 3 while ignoring the other versions I have thought about using after I figured out the third one. At this point, it is more about getting it to 50 and then deciding on the tweaks. I really should look into Pain at some point and roll one. 

[Renatos1023]

Having most Defender primaries to Lv.50+ I have to say both Thermal and Pain feel lackluster. Now I will say that both my Thermal/Fire and Pain/Psi are both in their mid-40s, and not kitted out. But by that point you can feel that they slightly lack, compared to other sets -- but that is not to say that they aren't fun, and also not to say that they can't keep a team upright...both sets definitely can.

 

I usually play characters for concept and not for "strongest ever UBER" and my Thermal and Pain have both been very fun. I just know what my limits are with them. Thermal does feel busier since you have the two shields and Forge to keep re-applying, plus the heals as needed, so I feel like I blast less with him. Whereas my Pain pops the PBAoE +Res shield when it is up and then blasts and heals as needed. I do have to say Painbringer is one of my favorite buffs. Especially when on me. Pop that on anyone and they're likely not going down.

 

Thermal is probably better on the debuff side as you don't have to jump in the middle of the mob to debuff your enemies. If you go Pain Dom I would suggest a secondary with a PBAoE nuke so you can pop your debuff and then your nuke right after one another (which is why I chose Psi blast). With Thermal, you can pretty much choose any secondary that fits your concept. Although I will say, if I re-rolled mine, I wouldn't go /Fire because of the PBAoE nuke, since both my debuffs can be fired from range.

 

But as a Defender you're going to rock either way. Defenders have been my primary AT since I came back to Homecoming (I loved Controllers on live but at high levels they just don't bring what a Def does these days). And you have 1000 slots, play both (hell, play ALL the Defender primaries 🙂)  - I can say you'll likely enjoy them.