Defender or Corruptor?

[Gobbledygook]

Hey all! After coming back from a break, I finally decided to try some non melee toons, and I'm honestly having a blast. I've already gotten a Blaster, Controller, and a Dominator all to the low 30's in just a few days. Now, however, I want to try out a different AT.

Altitis can be a pain, sometimes.

 

I'm stuck. I know I want to do decent damage, but I also want to buff, de-buff, and heal. All from range. I want to hover, help my teammates, and feel like I'm helping to kill, as well.

Which AT and powersets would you choose, and why?

I am interested in Elec, Energy, and Ice as far as attack set goes.

[biostem]

12 minutes ago, Gobbledygook said:

Which AT and powersets would you choose, and why?

When I'm deciding between a defender or corruptor, my focus tends to be on just how much do I want to focus on my blasts over my buff/debuff/heals, and whether my attacks are more about the upfront damage or if it's more about DoT.  If it's the latter, then I feel that leverages "scourge" a bit more, so I'd go with the corruptor.  If my priority is on the buffing/debuffing/healing powers, (especially if I want to take and maximize any leadership power), then I'll opt for a defender...

[Glacier Peak]

Ice Blast is superb on either Corruptor or Defender and will meet the needs you've described for contributing to team damage.

 

As for support set (both buff and debuff), it's going to have better values (about +5%) across the board on Defenders. Corruptors aim to make up this loss by using the same support set, but applying Scourge to enemies who have reached a certain threshold for it to kick in at a scaling chance to do double damage on primary attacks.

Edited January 19 by Glacier Peak

[JJDrakken]

3 hours ago, Gobbledygook said:

Hey all! After coming back from a break, I finally decided to try some non melee toons, and I'm honestly having a blast. I've already gotten a Blaster, Controller, and a Dominator all to the low 30's in just a few days. Now, however, I want to try out a different AT.

Altitis can be a pain, sometimes.

 

I'm stuck. I know I want to do decent damage, but I also want to buff, de-buff, and heal. All from range. I want to hover, help my teammates, and feel like I'm helping to kill, as well.

Which AT and powersets would you choose, and why?

I am interested in Elec, Energy, and Ice as far as attack set goes.

 

Fire/Dark Corrupter.  Sounds like what your wanting.

[PyroNugget]

i,also,have rampant altitis

 

for corrupter/defender if i don't have a plan going in i look at how busy the sets are.

 

elec affinity is super busy--therefore not going to blast as much=defender  get as much out of it as i can

 

force field is usually the opposite-2 clicks every few minutes the rest of the time i'm blasting--bring on the scourge!

 

you also mentioned you played melee--what, as a melee ,did you enjoy teaming with the most?...play that! everyone loves a KIN on a team at every lvl.

 

of the power sets you mentioned i enjoy my elec/elec aff defender and my ice/kin corrupter the most..i avoid energy blast as a public service 😜

 

 

[JJDrakken]

On 1/18/2025 at 6:16 PM, Gobbledygook said:

Hey all! After coming back from a break, I finally decided to try some non melee toons, and I'm honestly having a blast. I've already gotten a Blaster, Controller, and a Dominator all to the low 30's in just a few days. Now, however, I want to try out a different AT.

Altitis can be a pain, sometimes.

 

I'm stuck. I know I want to do decent damage, but I also want to buff, de-buff, and heal. All from range. I want to hover, help my teammates, and feel like I'm helping to kill, as well.

Which AT and powersets would you choose, and why?

I am interested in Elec, Energy, and Ice as far as attack set goes.

 

Here is my personal build for a Fire/Dark Corrupter.  I also use Alpha: Cardiac left side if your curious about that Alpha.

 

Personal Corruptor (Fire Blast - Dark Miasma).mbd

[Octogoat]

Listen to mr.drakken fire/dark is fun and can easily fit a lot of concepts!

[Hjarki]

Generally, the balance tilts towards Corruptors.

 

Vigilance is perhaps the most useless inherent in the game. The damage bonus is largely a way to make Defenders suck less while solo and it isn't even very good at that job because give +damage to the AT with the lowest damage scale in the game isn't very good. I can see why the endurance reduction might seem a good idea - but only if you're thinking about games like WoW rather than CoH. In WoW, the highest resource expenditure for support specs comes when you're healing a lot. In CoH, the highest resource expenditure for support specs comes from their normal blasting rotation. So you're actually get endurance reduction when you need it least.

 

The ATOs are also terrible. The Defender versions get two worthlessly small AE heal/absorb effects on an AT that could already do much better if it chose to do so. In contrast, Corruptors get a purple damage proc and a proc that can help with endurance issues - both useful to have as a regular part of your rotation.

 

There's also the issue that the primary value of the support sets isn't really 'support' so much as a clunky form of armor set for the player themselves. Support affects applied to unknown allies tend to be very inefficient because they so often over-shoot the mark and apply buffs the target doesn't actually need. So having slightly better values so you can over-shoot even more isn't very good while having a lot more damage (50% more damage against an AV/GM) is.

[tidge]

This is a question with not much of a (general) "right answer", IMO.

 

For me, it mostly depends on the primary and secondary I want to play (for concept) and which powers I want to take from each. Folded into the answers to those questions, I'll think about which enhancement sets I intend to slot, and what levels the powers will be taken.

 

Personally? I lean slightly more towards Defenders, but I don't have an allergy to Corruptors. The reasons for the slight preference are subtle:

• I don't like when all the damage (from attacks, what not) is of the same type, so I lean into %damage from procs... and the final yield is a bigger deal for Defenders (relatively)
• I feel like I can stretch the buffs/debuffs from Defenders more than I can with Corruptors.

I agree that for some content, with well-tuned (and smart) allies, the final effect of buffs may not matter that much... but the same is often true about damage dealing! One key consideration for me is to make sure that if my build has a strong debuff to make sure that it is as available and reliable as possible.

[Maelwys]

Agree with @tidge here.

Defender larger buff/debuff values  are not always overkill (especially +Res/-Res) and a lot of their damage leeway can be made up for by Procs.
Some of the Blast sets also have useful secondary effects that are better on Defenders (Sonic, Elec, etc)
There are definitely specific powerset combos which shine more on Defenders; just as there are certain powerset combos which shine more on Corruptors.

Corrupters certainly have a hugely higher potential damage ceiling due to Scourge (particularly so on sets with "Rain" powers)... but whilst teaming that typically only has a major effect if you're fighting big bags of HP (e.g. AV-level foes). And without Scourge; once you factor in Procs there isn't a huge amount of difference between a Defender's damage output and a Corr's... and in some cases things can even begin to slant in favour of the Defender if the powersets contain significant levels of -res debuffery.

That said; I'll fully admit that Vigilance is pants and the Defender ATOs are rather situational since they apply absorb/healing rather than damage output (but they can still be pretty handy for certain support powersets - FF, Sonic Resonance, Cold Domination, etc)

[Without_Pause]

Energy is lacking and it doesn't really gain an advantage with either AT. Ice and Elec are solid sets. I still prefer Ice. I will say if I ever did another Def or Corr using Time and Ice is at the top of the list. 

[Uun]

For me, it's largely a question of whether I think the corruptor buffs/debuffs are good enough or if I want the extra oomph of the defender values. To date, I've done Dark, Time, TA, Kin and Storm as corruptors and Cold, Nature and Poison as defenders. Quite a few of the corruptors were sets I played as defenders on the live servers.

[SeraphimKensai]

On 1/18/2025 at 7:16 PM, Gobbledygook said:

I'm stuck. I know I want to do decent damage, but I also want to buff, de-buff, and heal. All from range.

 

On 1/18/2025 at 7:16 PM, Gobbledygook said:

I am interested in Elec, Energy, and Ice as far as attack set goes.

Sounds like you want maybe Dark, Thermal, or Time paired with Ice.

 

Between them all I would go Dark Miasma. I usually play it up in their face but it would work well from range too. It allows for ample debuffs, heals, some buffing with Shadow Fall.

 

Ice is very punchy and has great damage, it's really good on Corruptor given Ice Storm and Blizzard work really well with Scourge. Otherwise the set is very proc friendly.

 

Since you want to fly/hover above, tar patch is great as it has a -fly component as it debuffs a significant resistance amount for your ice storm/blizzard rains.

[UltraAlt]

On 1/18/2025 at 7:16 PM, Gobbledygook said:

I'm stuck. I know I want to do decent damage, but I also want to buff, de-buff, and heal. All from range. I want to hover, help my teammates, and feel like I'm helping to kill, as well.

Which AT and powersets would you choose, and why?

I am interested in Elec, Energy, and Ice as far as attack set goes.

 

It looks like you are really looking to choose between defender or a corruptor.

Corruptors deal more damage. Defenders do more of the heals, buffs,and debuffs.

 

I like to play cold/ice but those powers tend to slow more than anything else. If you are on teams that are fast moving, that might not be the route you want to go.

Some people are going to have issues with energy because of the knockback, so keep that in mind. 

... and it looks like you are more focused on the damage than the heals, buffs, and debuffs if you bring up Elec, Energy, and Ice.

There is no Energy or Ice defender primary/corruptor secondary.

 

I do think electrical affinity is a very well rounded defender primary/corruptor secondary but it relies more than buffing, healing, and protecting versus debuffing.

Time Manipulation is going to give you some of those slow FX that you would be looking for from an Ice set. It has a basic heal and a good bit of debuffing. The buffs come at the later levels.

The closest defender primary/corruptor secondary that could be considered energy would be radiation emission and you could change the colors to match energy blast (or vice versa or some other color all together). Decent basic heal and more debuff focused than buff focused.

 

All this set aside, if you are looking for a different experience in gameplay, I wouldn't bypass the bubbling/shielding defender primary/corruptor secondary sets. These can be very powerful for protecting a team, especially when there are 2 on a team (as you can't bubble/shield yourself - forcefield can bubble, but then you can't attack while it is up.)

You have to maintain a defensive stance when bubbling and let the team do the damage.

 

Targeting through the main melee character when playing both defenders and corruptors can help reduce the agro and help the take down their target faster - through buffs, damage, and debuffs. 

This is especially true of corruptors that have access to scourge once an enemy is below half health.

Edited Tuesday at 02:19 PM by UltraAlt