"I Need Healing" - A Beginner's Guide to Defenders

[NEW DAWN]

All defenders are at their best when a team can work to their strengths, it helps even if a forcefielder has all of their primary, because there was a design concept.  Team mates and their powers, strengths and flexibilities either determine how they can stack, with the defender or determine how they position around the defender, the idea isn't to give the enemies everything and take from them nothing. A scrapper, 6 blasters and insert defender here should be able to do an STF with everyone on a SO build. No one is ripped off by the developers.

 

[Frostweaver]

Meh, his order is kind of messed up.

Traps is never tier 3. You could argue it is tier 2 early game, but by end game all those tricks are almost unnecessary.

It helps YOU cap your defense.

brutal -regen and -resist that is FAST end game.
some -to-hit and -damage to keep your fragile butt upright.

a CRAPTON of added DPS. proc-trops, proc-cannon, and toe bombing.

 

It does not add aoe buffs that high level players refuse to hang around for or decent healing that no one post-incarnates needs.

And again, Proc-trops! come on! and poison trap is literally the bomb... The entire set is a Proc-tologists DREAM set. Pair it with something that has a little slotting flexibility, such as Rad, dark, or psi, and it is staggering... The problem is that most people pair it with the 'natural' secondaries, which tend to be slot-starved (DP/AR) or have minimal slotting options (BR/archery).

You slot it badly, and yes, it's tier 3... you slot it right, and it's a hard tier 1.
 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Frostweaver

[Golden Azrael]

On 4/13/2020 at 3:40 PM, NEW DAWN said:

All defenders are at their best when a team can work to their strengths, it helps even if a forcefielder has all of their primary, because there was a design concept.  Team mates and their powers, strengths and flexibilities either determine how they can stack, with the defender or determine how they position around the defender, the idea isn't to give the enemies everything and take from them nothing. A scrapper, 6 blasters and insert defender here should be able to do an STF with everyone on a SO build. No one is ripped off by the developers.

 

Aye.  Playing to the Defender's strengths.

 

You're right about each power set having a concept.

 

And in FF's case, I always took 'most' of the powers.  (On my recent FF/EN Def' build the only power I left out where Force Bolt and 'Bomb.'  I maybe have left PFF out as well.  But I kept the buffs.  I kept the melee debuff of rep' field...  And I like Detention field for isolating bosses.)

 

Being able to def/insul bubble team mates goes a long way. 

 

Force Bubble is fun to herd and push around mobs. 

 

If you get another Bubbler...these things can over lap and stack. 

 

Azrael.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Golden Azrael

[killigraphy]

Few things;

 

Healing is still needed. If you're IO'ed out, you're pretty much done with the  game, as even Blaster can solo high level content. If you run TF's, healing is always needed, even if you're just  running DA/PI missions. Don't be fooled by the farmed out toons,  healing matters.

 

Debuff/buff is also important. Any Rad/Rad will tell you, if they can't hit you, and take more dmg from you, then you've already won....that being said. Never scoff at healing, as tanker main, I always appreciate it. Bubblers are great too, learn to take any kind of defender...except TA, they're definitely trolling.

 

Attacks - You can grab a few or not, Defenders aren't like White Mages or any other healer class that DPS's in MMO's like WoW or Final Fantasy, in those  games, their dmg is high, and even needed at times. Strong DoT's and even DPS is given to said classes. Defenders don't get those. They get very weak attacks. Sure  you can add more -Def to your Rad debuff, but it will only make somewhat of a difference with Raid bosses/AV's. That doesn't mean ignore all the powers and get aid self and other, have fun, just know, you're not a Blaster, Corr, and or Sentinel. That's not your job.

 

 

[gameboy1234]

On 6/13/2019 at 10:31 AM, Shadewe said:

If you want to follow the crowd, your Empath or Time defender awaits. If you want to be different, to have fun, and to bring justice/terror to the world,

I feel the same way about Force Field.  Yes it has some wonky powers, but the main stays -- the two personal shields and the PBAoE Dispersion Bubble -- are great powers and should not be underrated.  Your tank at level 50 might be capped to all positions and not need your buffs (unless they take some huge -Def debuff), but the squishies on the team will likely appreciate the added Defense and status protection.  A set with wonky powers just gives you more options to dip into other power sets too.  There are replacements for any powers you don't want to take.

 

I may be biased though.  I played a Robotics/Force Field mastermind on live and it's not really the same as playing a Defender.  My solution to problems on live was "point the bots at it and it goes away."  Force Field was just the icing on the cake.  And wonky powers just meant I picked up Leadership for basically free, as there wasn't anything more pressing.

 

[kiramon]

6 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

I feel the same way about Force Field.  Yes it has some wonky powers, but the main stays -- the two personal shields and the PBAoE Dispersion Bubble -- are great powers and should not be underrated.  Your tank at level 50 might be capped to all positions and not need your buffs (unless they take some huge -Def debuff), but the squishies on the team will likely appreciate the added Defense and status protection.  A set with wonky powers just gives you more options to dip into other power sets too.  There are replacements for any powers you don't want to take.

 

I may be biased though.  I played a Robotics/Force Field mastermind on live and it's not really the same as playing a Defender.  My solution to problems on live was "point the bots at it and it goes away."  Force Field was just the icing on the cake.  And wonky powers just meant I picked up Leadership for basically free, as there wasn't anything more pressing.

 

With FFs, its the big giant bubble of Hold/Stun immunity that gets overlooked and shouldn't. Lots of things can do defense. But only sonic and bubbles do the aoe-always-on status resistance. 

 

Except sleep. On sonic. Which makes no sense to me. Like, WTF. MY SOUND DOESNT KEEP ME AWAKE?... 

 

[bigfashizzel]

On 7/15/2020 at 5:59 PM, kiramon said:

With FFs, its the big giant bubble of Hold/Stun immunity that gets overlooked and shouldn't. Lots of things can do defense. But only sonic and bubbles do the aoe-always-on status resistance. 

 

Except sleep. On sonic. Which makes no sense to me. Like, WTF. MY SOUND DOESNT KEEP ME AWAKE?... 

 

I also feel that sonic should really have Psy resist; disappointed that ELA got full-range status immunity and +res while sonic languishes.

 

The PBAoE status protection is incredibly strong!  FFG from Traps also has it.

[Hew]

On 8/13/2020 at 10:09 AM, bigfashizzel said:

I also feel that sonic should really have Psy resist; disappointed that ELA got full-range status immunity and +res while sonic languishes.

 

The PBAoE status protection is incredibly strong!  FFG from Traps also has it.

So does TA in i27! EMP arrow got the hot sawse!

 

[Doomguide2005]

On 5/23/2019 at 5:04 PM, Overclock said:

That might be overselling the -Regen on Transfusion just a bit.

 

From Mids it's a -50% Regen debuff. AV's will resist this by 85% prior to any reduction from being higher level. So optimistically call it a -7.5% Regen debuff.

 

Radiation Emission's Lingering Radiation on the other hand is a -500%  Regen debuff. After AV resistances that's -75% Regen. Cold Domination's Benumb is also -500%, as is Dark Miasma's Howling Twilight, Thermal's Heat Exhaustion, and then there's Trap's Poison Trap at -1,000% Regen.

 

So, yeah, Kin's can debuff Regen but not even close to the sets that are usually called upon to provide -Regen when it's really needed.

Bit of an afterthought while rereading this thread but there was a bug (that I vaguely recall) on Live for a bit where AVs regen? was effected.  Straight up damage even from a full team often wasn't enough.  But add even the tiny amount present in either Transfusion or Twilights Grasp would be enough to allow them to be defeated.  7.5% off the relative huge regen value AV health allows is significant albeit much smaller than that of LR or PT.

 

Way late EDIT:  That regen debuff stacks as well.  Ditto on Dark Miasma's Twilight Grasp.  It does a self stacking regeneration debuff.  Either will slow any hit point recovery an AV is experiencing.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[Blackjoy]

Apologize for the thread necro, but as I love defenders, I had to read and respond.  Like many, I originally played this back in the day.   By way of background, I've played Kinetics, Trick, and Dark up to 50 (maybe dark was high 40's).  I recall playing Radiation and some Cold as a Corruptor.

 

First, I agree with much of what Overclock says, maybe 90%.   Let me offer some thoughts:

 

1.  A Defender's effectiveness and fun level is largely determined by the other players and their willingness/ability to play in a way that compliments your power set.  Any Defender is better than no defender.  But some sets work really well with certain groups dynamics and some do not.  A perfect example is a Rad or Dark Defender and an Energy Torrent using Blaster in a large group, are problematic.  Why?  Because the ET knockback will frequently create aggro in nearby groups.  If you play at +2 level difficulty as I do starting at lvl 8, this can cause party wipes.

 

2.  Choose a Defender based on the mechanics you like and enjoy managing.   By mechanics, I mean whether you like toggle, click, location, single  target, control, AoE, etc.  The biggest difference in the Defenders is the management.  Playing Kinetics in a large group can cause carpal tunnel syndrome if you having have to Speed Boost everyone.  If you don't like drawing aggrow, Dark and Rad defenders are going to be a headache.  Find a primary that works with how you like to play e.g. large groups, small groups, lots of tactical decisions, fire and forget, etc.

 

I can't tell you how many times I've seen teams wipe because the Toggle Debuff Defender forgot to turn of the toggle when the anchor ran into two or three other groups.  Overclock mentions this, but he undersells it.  It's a huge problem for toggle debuffs that never goes away.

 

3.  Kinetics is the "best" Defender to have on your team.  I've teamed with nearly all the Defenders at all levels and I've played Kin to 50.  No set earns XP faster than Kinetics, even with an occasional wipe or death.  Back in the day, no set was more welcomed or sought after as  a teammate than Kinetics.  Kinetic isn't the safest set or the most robust, but it gives the other players the most fun.  Even before Fulcrum Shift, you're giving +Recharge, +Recovery and that is like crack to most players.   But it is an exhausting set to play in large groups (where it shines) and I would quickly get burned out.  Kinetics requires that the player is CONSTANTLY working.

 

4.  Trick Arrow is the "best" Defender for any situation, but it is the MOST misunderstood and overlooked set.   Having played it to 50 (BEFORE THE BUFF), I frequently had to tell large teams that they didn't need another Defender and no, I did not have Aid Other or a way to heal.   After a couple of missions of the party rolling through +2's with no deaths and no heals, people would be amazed.   IME, TA was by far the best and most effective set I played.   However, TA requires you to be active and constantly monitoring the fight and picking targets. 

 

One of the reason TA gets bagged on is people are focused on the numbers and the numbers don't capture the synergies.  Flash Arrow is one of TA's best and most unique powers, and this was true before it was buffed.   Why is FA so good?  Because it's best feature is that it stops nearby groups from getting aggro'd when you hit them with it just as you start fighting the closest group.   FA does not aggro, so you can hit people with it before the fighting breaks out and while people are getting prep'd.

 

The other factor someone pointed out is that it also compliments other Defenders  really well.  TA got buffed and it didn't need it.  

 

5. The "best" Defender set is one that compliments your playstyle.  Overclock says this and it's the truth.  Play the set you enjoy playing, not the one that has the best numbers.

 

6.  Team.  The Defender was made to support and that means you won't leverage your power set if you don't get on a team or put one together.  Send out request, or send out invites.  By level 8, I can set the difficulty to +2 and in a party of 4 or more, I am leveling every mission.

 

7.  Communicate. Defenders requires team cohesion.  Mainly they require the team not to split up.  Make someone the point and everyone follows the same person.  The quickest way to wipe is to have the party attack two different groups at the same time.

 

The tier rating is largely nonsense.  It is not helpful because Defender effectiveness is based on how you play it and how your team plays  As Overclock suggests, any Defender is a multiplier on a good team.  No Defender can stop a bad team from being its own worst enemy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MistressOhm]

People always bitch at Storm Summoning "Hurricane" because it procs Repel and Knockback and keeps mobs away from the caster.   

 

Where it shines is the -Acc debuff.  SLOT IT FOR THIS, if you don't, you're Doing It Wrong.   Don't put extra knockback in, it throws things around just fine 'out of the box'.   Slot it for EndRed (so you don't burn all your endurance swirling the air and trash in circles), three ToHit Debuffs, and maybe a Recharge if you find that it drops too often for whatever reason.  The only Knockback enhancement I'd slot into Hurricane would be something that procs damage on a KB, and even that is a 'for fun/concept' thing that really is wasting a slot.  

 

A good Stormfender will always try to position themselves so that Hurricane keeps mobs penned up in a corner, or blocks a passage, so that everything gets soft-immobilized and repeatedly knocked off their feet (when you're knocked on your butt, you can't do anything until you get back up, see?)  Combine Hurricane with Freezing Rain a little ways away, and now there's a spot where things fall down repeatedly AND take cold damage AND get slowed AND have their -recharge lowered, if they manage to get into the Hurricane their -acc drops and they get tossed back into the freezer.  Snow Storm is basically a toggle to keep something (and their close friends) slowed and supercooled (and it keeps going until a downed mob despawns, less of a problem of "don't shoot the toggle!" than it used to be.)  Thunderclap is a PBAoE Stun - as Sheriff Buford T. Justice would say, "THAT'S an attention getter."  And oh yeah... Stormies have a direct single-target heal and 'wakey wakey' with O2 Boost, too. 

 

Tornado is kind of a weird power.  It's basically a big enthusiastic badly behaved St. Barnard - it chases strangers and knocks them down, and also applies the "Run Away!" version of Fear.  But it doesn't -hurt- them.  Lightning Storm, in contrast, is summoned over the caster (and then it stays put), and anything that gets close gets zapped for moderate damage and tossed headlong. It's basically a guard dog to Tornado's overly happy lapdog.  I usually treat Tornado as a "pull pin and throw" bit of random chaos for when there's too many mobs to really keep track of anymore and I need breathing room.  Lightning Storm is more of a specific area-denial tool and it gets more use. 

 

"But what about AV's and giant monsters?"  These things don't get knocked down or pushed around.  Everything else still works.  You can drive -Acc to the floor, you can apply Slow and -Recharge, and yeah, they might succumb to the soft Fear debuff, wherein 'get out of the cold wet slippery patch' is suddenly more important than 'kill heroes'.  Any mob that is trying to get away is a mob not attacking, and that means their Damage is also soft-debuffed while they're busy finding someplace else to stand.  

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

     The primary reason to not enhance KB in Hurricane is the power has a low chance of actually doing KB (5% per target per pulse I believe).  Because of the low chance it's also very random.  Hurricane primarily does Repel, plus a Range and To Hit debuff.

     Tornado is an auto-hitting DoT with KU and KB, stun and defdebuff effects.  It also has mag 10 Afraid.

[Chronicler J]

Kinetics is the most overrated set of all time. 

[MistressOhm]

18 hours ago, Chronicler J said:

Kinetics is the most overrated set of all time. 

 

You're going to need to show your work on that math problem.  😛  But hey, I'll help. 

 

As someone who main'd a Kin/Energy on Live, I fully understand that not everything in the Kinetics set is awesome.  Repel? Skipped.  A Kin shines brightest when in the scrap with the melee characters, and Repel just ... spoils the party.  It's EXTREMELY situational, as well as expensive to run.  Increase Density? Invaluable on teams as an anti-mez, but solo it's worthless.  It's the ONLY power in the set that the Kin cannot get any direct benefit from.   

 

But, nearly everything else is awesome if you know how it works.  Speed Siphon/Boost and Inertial Reduction are basically on-demand travel powers, as well as combat powers (altho most probably don't use IR as a combat buff).  Speed Boost really shines with buffing Recovery and Recharge, the added run speed is a 'bonus'.  Siphon Speed is not just a target Slow but a self +Speed, which makes repositioning that much easier in a fight.  And a Kinetic is ALWAYS repositioning, to take advantage of the target-AOE heal and Recovery OR to include ranged characters on a Siphon Power or Fulcrum Shift.  If you play a Kin as a ranged Defender, you're missing out on so much of what makes the set awesome... including the heal, which to Kinetics newbies might seem to be broken.  No, it's supposed to work like that, don't be a shrinking violet, get in close!

 

Most of the problems I've had running a Kinetic have been because teammates didn't understand how the set worked best.  Ranged characters have this ... fear... of being in melee range, so as the Defender, I had to shuttle back and forth to keep everyone buffed and happy.  I finally took Team Teleport so as to dump EVERYBODY into the middle of the spawn, then pop Fulcrum Shift so that everyone got a nice big damage buff.  Transference to top everyone's End off, Transfusion to heal any alpha damage... ah hell with it, Team Teleport everyone, pop FS, and then pop my PBAoE nuke and let the team pick up what's left!  "WTF did you just do?? Ahh!"  At that point, 7 other people are just along to make me look awesome. 🙂

[Blackjoy]

On 8/27/2022 at 11:12 PM, MistressOhm said:

People always bitch at Storm Summoning "Hurricane" because it procs Repel and Knockback and keeps mobs away from the caster. 

The problem I've had with Hurricane is that Storm Defenders/Controllers run it without any concern as to whether it's actually needed.   One thing I've learned playing Trick Arrow is that you don't need every debuff/buff every encounter.  IME, Hurricane's repel makes the party a lot less efficient and killing things.    Yes, it can be awesome at pushing mobs into a corner, but that isn't always helpful as it limits access and takes time or pushed mobs off of debuff patches that have been laid down by other defenders.

 

Yes, against AV's or using it as a protecter for back row squishies is great.  But I get aggravated when the Storm comes right into the cluster and starts pushing people away from me.

 

On 10/25/2022 at 12:58 AM, Chronicler J said:

Kinetics is the most overrated set of all time.

In terms of total damage mitigation, it's probably the worst.  But from the perspective a player, who generally notices killing speed more than they notice survival time,  it's the best.   Kinetic gets rated highest by players who team with with it.  As a player, you don't notice how much more damage your doing because of the -res from Tar Patch.  But when you get hit by Fulcrum Shift and your Damage Boost hits 400%....you notice.   

 

Kinetics was a much bigger deal back on Live before all the Set bonuses made Endurance a non-issue for melee and before Incarnates made you 53.   Transference was like manna from the Gods.   Now, I don't know anyone who has endurance issues in the 50's.  Go run one of those TFs where your don't get Set bonuses and you'll realize how big a deal Fulcrum shift and Transference make.   Back on Live, I would post  "Kin...lft" and I would get instantly invited.  Now, I think most players have no clue what Kin does.

 

 

On 10/25/2022 at 7:23 PM, MistressOhm said:

Ranged characters have this ... fear... of being in melee range, so as the Defender, I had to shuttle back and forth to keep everyone buffed and happy. 

IME, the problem is Kineticist who won't or tell anyone that they are firing Fulcrum shift....or they don't go stand next to the blasters when they fire Siphon Power.  Because of Incarnates and the rampant AoE's, everyone wants to fire off their AoE as soon as possible to get the kills.   Long gone are days of blasters waiting for tanks to group up the mobs. Now, Blasters and even Controllers just walk in and nuke.   They don't need the damage boost.

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Doomguide2005]

     A quick note about something rarely noted about the regen debuff in both Transfusion and Twilight's Grasp I was reminded of while rereading the thread.  That debuff stacks with itself.  Given duration of the debuff and recharge times they can produce some not insignificant total debuffs.  The drawback is solo you don't get mileage out of this as you're not attacking while using them.  On a large or full team though spamming Transfusion (same numbers on TG) ... --> duration 20 sec, base recharge 8 sec you do the math.  It's not LR but it's not -50% typically either if you need it if the team somehow lacks regen debuffs or is between recharges on the big guns

[Zect]

Kin is still great; FS is still great. Its effectiveness is perhaps less obvious in this age of oppressive power creep that has turned all enemies to paper, but you try running a 4* without one; everything takes twice as long when you do not have 8 damage capped toons killing things.

 

Personally, I do not get many of the FS-related gripes. FS is not something you need perfectly grouped up mobs for. Firstly, it is a low recharge (60s base rech, 45s duration) power; if you get a bad FS, just use it again and double stack the buffs. If the blasters nuke before you can get it off, run ahead of the tank and pull the next group over.

 

Secondly, you do not need that many mobs to cap damage. The damage buff from FS is like every other +dmg in the game, including enhancements. With enhancements and miscellaneous buffs, most toons are between halfway to two-thirds of the way to their damage cap. You are capped long before you see blue numbers in the combat monitor.

 

We will use blasters as an example. Here is what a typical, well built endgame blaster's damage buffs look like:

- Base 100%

- Enhancements ~125% (IO's + musculature core)

- Set bonuses 12% (low estimate; both ATIO sets + apoc)

- T4 Assault hybrid passive 10%

= 247%
 

The blaster damage limit is 500%. That means this blaster only needs 253% more to cap. That is an 8-mob FS. If you double stack it, you only need a 4-mob FS. FS + siphon power on a single target give 125%. If you double stack them, that becomes 250%.

 

The moral of the story is, there is really no need to fiddle about getting the perfect FS that catches everyone and every mob. The more important thing for kinetics players is to use it whenever you can, even if the positioning is not 100% ideal. Maximizing the uses of FS will smooth out your buff output and result in higher overall damage output.

 

[Chronicler J]

On 10/25/2022 at 3:58 AM, Chronicler J said:

Kinetics is the most overrated set of all time. 

Kinetics is (still) the most overrated set of all time. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Chronicler J

[Brawlin]

Kin is useful in radios and farms but near useless everywhere else.

[Without_Pause]

On 5/1/2023 at 1:45 AM, Brawlin said:

Kin is useful in radios and farms but near useless everywhere else.

I just came here since this was marked as having unread responses. Congrats on the most ignorant comment I will read in a really long time. Saying Kin is useless in a TF is outright comedic. 

[killigraphy]

Rez on this thread;

 

Kins is not overrated at all, feel like people really don't know the definitions of the words they use. It has the second strongest group heal in the game, a speed boost which adds recov and cooldown to all powers, a group SB and travel power...along with one of the strongest buffs in the game. Fulcrum Shift....just say you can't do match or haven't made one to 50, because for me, its harder not to pick it as a secondary if its available for the archetype.

 

Rad/Anything Defender is going to be the strongest in debuff. As rad is just easy street when it comes to dropping enemy accuracy and defense. It looks great and does the best job...objectively.

 

TA is still garbo, don't bother ever picking this power if you want to heel and or debuff.

[Ringo]

Trick Arrow is a strong debuffing set and it's been buffed on Homecoming.

 

Definitely not garbo

[seebs]

I actually slotted Hurricane for knockback once. I wanted to find out how far I could punt lowbie clockwork. Answer: I needed other people on a team to keep the clockwork from despawning from being too far away, but basically we were punting them most of the way across a map.

[Chronicler J]

On 1/4/2024 at 9:54 PM, killigraphy said:

Rez on this thread;

 

Kins is not overrated at all,

 

On 5/1/2023 at 1:36 AM, Chronicler J said:

Kinetics is (still) the most overrated set of all time. 

 

[JayboH]

The OP could use a refresh.  Some of the sets discussed have been revamped and the descriptions don't really track correctly anymore.