DEFCON II: AFTERMATH — Do Controllers Still Outscale Defenders?

[Dark Current]

Round 2: Empathy

"Your powers give you the ability to heal and aid allies as well as yourself. Empathy has no offensive powers, but its heals and buffs are unmatched."

Power	Level as Primary	Level as Secondary	Effect
Healing Aura	1	1	PBAoE, Team Heal
Heal Other	1	1	Ranged, Ally Heal
Absorb Pain	2	4	Ranged, Ally Strong Heal, Self Moderate DMG(Special)
Resurrect	6	10	Close, Ally Rez
Clear Mind	8	16	Ranged, Ally +Res(Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob, Fear, Confusion), +Perception
Fortitude	12	20	Ranged, Ally +DEF(All), +DMG, +To-Hit
Recovery Aura	18	24	PBAoE, Ally +Rec
Regeneration Aura	22	28	PBAoE, Ally +Regen
Adrenalin Boost	26	30	Ranged, Ally +End, +Regen, +Rech, +Res(Slow)

 

The Challengers...

 

Ankh

Empathy / Water / Soul DEFENDER

 

Concept: Lord of the Wrapped. Empowered by Ra, the sun god to reclaim incarnate power stolen by the insolent Greek deities.
Blasts of punishing sand and bursts of radiant vitality. Hunting down Mu mystics in service to Scirocco who have plundered the tombs of the ancients and stolen relics.

Playstyle: Light switch. Buff first. Then Blast away. Support on the fly.
 

VS
 

Frisson Sensate

Symphony / Empathy / Ice CONTROLLER

 

Concept: Famous soft rock superstar who gained power through abuse of designer neuro-pharmaceuticals synthesize using CSF from Praetorian Seer Network. His vocal talent has been enhanced to where his songs amplify the emotions of his listeners bringing them euphoria and elevating them to heights of passion.
Playstyle: Blanket enemies with 7 swaths of far-reaching cone attacks, layering multiple CCs and debuffs. Support as needed.

 

 

Matchup Video

 

Both are designed to bring the pain as much as ease the pain. Of special note, Frisson was designed by Cathy (Chat GPT) and I can't wait to show you what she came up with.

 

Edited July 30 by Dark Current

[Dark Current]

Ankh

MIDS Build: Ankh - Defender (Empathy)2.mbd

 

 

 

Frisson Sensate

MIDS Build: Frisson Sensate - Controller (Symphony Control - Empathy).mbd

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:53 PM by Dark Current

[Dark Current]

Frisson's 801 Trials

"The Slaughterhouse doesn’t let you save the team. It lets you trade it—one soul at a time." Chatty Cathy

 

 

The Challenge: AE 801 Trials

• A brutal custom mission arc designed by @Linea to push support builds to their limits
• Includes elite bosses, ambush chains, and heavy debuffs
• Played at +4/x8 difficulty with incarnate-level enemies
• 5-man teams, level 50 minimum
• Increasing mission difficulty from Tier 1 - Tier 5, randomly selected from mission list by die roll
• Trial ends when either Defeat Condition is met: 4 out of 5 defeated teammates at the same time; time-limited missions (30, 30, 45, 45, 60) or Success Condition is met: complete all 5 tiers of missions before the time limit expires.
• No extraneous help, no 'cheese' temp powers like AV summons or super-inspirations, no email access, no exiting the map, no hospital visits... just what your character has on them and would 'normally' do within the purview of their build

Edited Thursday at 01:25 AM by Dark Current

[Linea]

🍿🍺 I'm glad you're enjoying the missions.  I've been chuckling almost non-stop for the last 2 hours. Voltak and Lumi both frequently brought empaths to these.  If Either of them joined the team I'd automatically set it 1 tier higher. 😉

 

"801.0 I hope this isn't too easy peasy"

- 801.0 is the easiest.  It's intended for a very small team or solo

 

"801.5-C ..."

- You overlooked the team-size multipliers in the list.  That effects lots of things within the tier itself, including mission length and difficulty.

- 801.5 is intended as a full team test, as compared to the small team/solo test above.  Each tier is roughly double the difficulty of the previous tier and you went from the bottom of tier 1 to the top of tier 2.  I'd guess that means this mission is about 3-4x harder than the one you started with, as well as about twice as long.

 

"801.6-Static ..."

- Static tagged missions are "Very Short, Static, less comprehensive, lightweight tests" designed so you can quickly and easily test and compare tiers "Without the Randomness". 

 

"801.7-Tech-R"

- I hope you brought your grown up pants.

- This is just barely over the balance point where game mechanics start breaking. 

- Give me the smallest amount of team buffs and the mechanics balance back out.  However, this is why I made the 6s and inserted them into the list.  The 6s are just under the mechanics balance point.   It was fun and interesting to really find how all the various mechanics work and when and where and how they break.

- I ran a lot of 6's and 7's depending on the balance point of the team.

 

"It's hard to figure out a time limit"

- Teams vary too much, You'll never get one answer here.  I've had teams complete Difficulty 15 in less than 30 minutes, and teams fail difficulty 2 after 2 hours.  

 

"We've Got this."

"Wasn't too bad."

"Oh !@#$ ... Oh ^%!@#,  ... OH! @#$ %!@# &%@#!"

"Got Smoked. Bro!"

"They broke the Unbreakable Tank ... "

"It's getting to the point that I have to start buffing the tanks ..."

"We're dying like crazy ..."

"Come to the PO AE and have BAG of Wakies ..."

"Holy !@#$ this is !@#$%$# Insane ..."

"What the !@#$ was that! Holy %@#% ..."

"Does that Count? ... That was Brutal! ... The Doom of the Squad ..."

- *Evil Chuckle* 🤣

 

Edited Thursday at 08:30 PM by Linea