_Ail_

Didn't I point out that CE had -dmg in the plusses that you just quoted? And didn't I say: "With chilling embrace and ice patch, an ice/ice can actually do just fine against psi enemies or other ones you would think it would be defenseless against."

I am confused about your comments because I certainly did realize all of that and said as much...

This is just a guess and all speculation, but I am pretty sure it is just that when traps first came out the devs were too lazy to make a new pet so just included the old blaster trip mine verbatim.

Then when defenders got traps they realized that it does a whole lot of aoe damage and so reigned it in and gave defenders the archetype appropriate one. They probably also wanted to change the mm and cor versions at that point, but they had been out too many years for that to do anything but create a huge outcry (and traps had recently suffered the poison trap nerf as well so more would not have been viewed favorably.)

I just think it is funny that several times recently I have heard traps pointed to on this forum as one that is so much better for defenders than corruptors, and I think the exact opposite is true. I don't think the better debuff/buff numbers overcome the almost-as-good-(de)buff numbers and almost 50% higher base aoe damage output.

I change how I feel about acid arrow day by day. I always take it in my build, but sometimes I am more disillusioned than others.

I have little doubt that disruption is more effective in a team build. Yes, it has a low target cap but its aoe radius will insure it is always hitting people and with enough recharge you can get it double stacked all the time. If you are teaming and could only take one of acid or disruption (I know -- an artificial situation) you should definitely take disruption. Yes, acid has -def but who really cares about that (be honest now)?

But acid is very nice soloing and that extra -res is useful against AV/EB-types either soloing or teaming.

Please do! It is a fun guide.

People say this but I am not convinced. In fact, I am fairly thoroughly convinced that it is absolutely false. Defender trip mine does base 126 damage but Corruptor trip mine does base 194 damage. And any self-respecting traps toon has enough defense to trip mine mid-fight about the same time they get it fully slotted. So soloing I think an ice/traps corruptor would completely steamroll over a traps/ice defender in damage.

The advantage of -26.6 res for def in acid vs corruptor -20% isn't going to be (solo) enough of one to overcome the monumental aoe advantage the corruptor will have. Stealth up, trip mine, ice storm, trip mine is going to melt those x8 spawns.

Note that I *do* love defenders and play them all the time. I am just pointing out that your statement above is completely false. It is also probably true that some of the /sonic defs do solo better than the soc/ corruptors.

I think the thing about TA is you just have to realize that it is not 100% debuff but rather about an equal part each in debuff, control, and blasting. It is only if you view it as a debuff set that it comes up short since obviously rad or whatever can do a similar thing with fewer powers.

But it has a fair bit of control with glue, ice, and emp arrow (and entangling and poison I suppose.)

And it has bucketloads of damage in oil slick. The recharge builds you can get now where oil slick is up every 44 secs or whatever are just good beyond words I think. You can do this nuke-level damage to an entire spawn and it is up very often.

It had its bad moments in the past before it was buffed and even now underperforms if viewed purely as a buff/debuff set. But if you view it as what it is it is fine.

Yes, definitely do not get a second rez. Please don't take this too harshly, but taking empathy and the medicine pool basically gives the impression that you are from some other MMO with "pure healers" and want to be one and are not really familiar with the mechanics of CoX.

I second people saying that it sounds like you want to play a controller with empathy as a secondary. "I'm not interested in having DPS. Let the other ATs handle that. This character merely exists to keep his/her teammates on their feet and fighting. " It sounds like ultimately a controller might fit your desired role better. Rather than playing a defender and ignoring the secondary, you could play a controller and pay attention to both primary and secondary.

I second this advice. All of the non-outrageously expensive (i.e., not purple and not pvp) AOE IO sets pretty much suck IMO and I view AOEs as prime candidates for frankenslotting for this reason. Yes, Positron's is the best of the lot for the 6.5% recharge bonus but Positron's has pathetic recharge for the power it is in and you typically want lots of recharge in AOEs. If you want to stick with 5-slotted positron, I would add a lvl 50 recharge IO.

Are you really so busy healing that you can't spend the time to drop an AOE that really does do significant damage? All of the other archery attacks kind of pale to insignificance compared to RoA in team play and I think it is well worth your while. If so you really doing such constant buffing that you can't take the time to do RoA whenever it comes up, that is your decision I suppose. I personally find that teams that need hand-holding so constant that you can't take the time to throw a few AOEs are teams not worth my bother anyway, but opinions differ on this.

Best of luck!

The thing is that oil slick is really *that* good. You could drop flash, glue, disruption, oil slick, light, and then do DP AOEs. It would actually melt spawns and you would only have to look at redraw once.

I know people say TA is gimped, but I have a TA/A that can kill whole spawns (just even level) almost as fast as a fully IOd fire/fire tank. It is really hard to argue with that... I think it is gimped in some ways, but balancing that is that it can kill whole spawns easily and you don't even have to bother herding them into a tight group.

Grats! Please keep us updated and it sounds like you have a good combination that is working for you.

Ha! This is one of the more funny forum comments I have read in a long time. I just had to say that it made me laugh.

Oh, and <3 singy.

This is Champions Online by the way if that is what you wanted, since you can basically choose any power anywhere to make your character and you can easily get the essential ones by level 20-ish, making everyone round themselves out to tank mages. I think it kind of sucks but you might like it. The problem is that if everyone is a tank mage, then they do play the same, and this is particularly true in CO.

You are wrong here. Most of the ATs could solo +4x8 without incarnates if by that you mean cherry picking a mission to farm. (And if you didn't mean this, most still have problems against psi-heavy damage types who sling around mezzes like dominate and mesmerize.) Lets go through the ATs; Brutes, tankers, and scrappers can obviously do it with many variations. Traps and similar buff/debuff sets helps things like cors and defenders manage it. Permadoms with softcapped defense can certainly do it. I've seen plenty of warshades that were IOd up the wazoo do it. The SoA types with their stacked leadership buffs can do it. Etc. Etc.

Many other people in this thread have also said things like they think it is the incarnate content putting people ahead and not just the IO system. I would have to differ here. I think the IO system is what really puts people ahead and the incarnate stuff not so much. I would much rather (not on an incarnate trial obviously because there the +3 lvl shift is overpowering but on a normal mission) in general have a fully IOd out character than one with normal SOs but all incarnate abilities. The +1 level shift of the incarnate system is nice, and there are definitely nice abilities (nukes, various PBAOE buffs, etc) but IOs can give you ridiculous +recharge, +damage, +acc, +defense, etc etc.

For example, my permadom is powerful because she is a permadom with softcapped defense--none of which used incarnate abilities. And my TA/A is good because she has enough recharge to keep oil slick and rain of arrows up often and has softcapped defense--again, all done without incarnates. Sure the incarnate abilities (both of the previously mentioned characters are 50+3) add some things, but they are overpowered for other reasons.

In general, I would say that characters I perceive to be overpowered are ones with lots of recharge and very high defense. These are both easily achieved with IOs.

I like the power but dislike the homogenization. Definitely playing a brute/tanker/scrapper tends to make me feel like my eyes are bleeding as I type in 1,2,3 like a braindead monkey. Luckily there are still some powersets that at least feel a little bit different and require different methods to play--mainly the (de-)buff sets and the control ones, to be honest.

Thanks. I can see someone asking the particular question about lightning field in that thread at

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ng#post2334888

and there are more lightning effects listed at

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ing#post303874

and at

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spre...UMUdFX0E&gid=0

but no one seems to have listed in the thread the exact way to do it with lightning field.

The proc is not too bad if you have slots to spare.

Yes, you can grant invis the ffg. Although I do not think it will look stealthed, it will be. It is kind of largely irrelevant though unless you are trying to stealth a mission, in which case you can just desummon it from the pet window. I have grant invis for a LoTG mule but don't bother invising the ffg. Hey, if it is getting hit that is aggro it is soaking up and it is easy to resummon.

I have had builds both with and without seeker drones and triage beacon. Seeker drones depend a lot upon your build. If you have capped defense without ffg and more than capped with it and have stealth, they are largely pointless unless you are getting them to protect other team members. Triage beacon is useful for long AV/EB/etc fights, and I keep it and slot it for that purpose even though most of the time I don't use it. Basically, I think seekers starts out useful but gets less so as you level and triage is the opposite.